Too late, Rooster, turn done. It's better this way.
I'll use those for the next turn.
Now, hm. Meh, I'll do without spoilers. Rejoice, the turn cometh! Look for errors, I suspect I missed a few. Make sure your status matches the result of your action.
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Turn 41 ------------
i run to the keep, lightning speed. i totally ignore elves.
| The sudden explosion of the keep has rattled your nerves a bit. In excitement or confusion, you cannot focus enough to perform the lightning run feat, and spend some time calming down.
I check the area around, to make sure there are not any glowing pits.
| As the dust settles, you start running around, looking into every corner, searching for anomalous occurences of, well, anything. Having checked everything, you decide to give the hole blasted in the floor a proper study, and start climbing down into it. It's hot in there. You can feel it, even though you're iron.
| Thankfully, your innate reflexes work better than your common sense. Feeling
some kind of danger, you instictively hug the wall of the shaft, and are almost hit by a flaming fireball! It explodes several meters above you, showering you with molten rock. Glancing downward, you see a winged creature covered in flame-red scales. The creature is holding another fireball, and gets ready to throw it at you!
| Suddenly realising your danger, you slam your arm-mounted rollerblades into the walls of the shaft, and use TK to propel you upwards! The walls are rough, however, and you only barely outrun the fireball. It explodes under your feet, but only heats them up a little. You climb out of the hole
| and tell everyone nearby to clear the hell out of here, because
something is coming up.
I try to patch up my leg with TK. Very, VERY cautiously.
| Careful not to do more damage that you repair, you hold your broken leg together with your hands, at the same time using TK to mend the broken bone. It sure hurts, but in the end you manage to do it right, and are now the happy owner of two working legs.
I open the keep doors and go to the tavern, hacking a path clear for the others if necessary.
| You walk to the doors and try to push them. No luck. Striking at them with the Ashcraver has little effect, the doors hold together even with large cuts cleft through them. Sealing the doors seemed like such a good idea at the time…
I try and teleport boski out of the keep!
| You try to concentrate on Boksi, trying to teleport him out of the keep, when suddenly your efforts open a rift in space-time directly below you! The rift drains your energies as you try to keep yourself together and search for an exit! Suddenly the void releases you, and you land onto broken stone. You stand up, shaking from cold and weakness, and realise you are now on the broken third floor of the keep.
I zip around the battlefield, looking for the elven leader and his heavies, so I can get those runes, magic cloth armor, and that shortbow.
| As if some guiding force showed you the way, you are able to very quickly find the remains of the elven leader, and nearby is the body of his last "heavy", with his head clearly broken apart by a ballista bolt. You land, collect the objects you were seeking, and take to the skies again. A brief examination shows that the elf leader's armor is actually a finely woven tunic, with a quiver for arrows embedded into it. The shortbow shows nothing of interest save the material it is made of, and the runes are made of strands of the same material that the leader's tunic is. The runes don't emit any specific aura, and the strands can probably be just plucked out of the wood without much effort.
My body is tired, but my mind is not. I'll not try to wake up, but rather go into a trance. While in this trance, I am going to subtly interface with what is the ultimate realization of the universe: probability. I attempt to infer from the myriad possibilities in flux just what happened and what is happening. Interferometry, if you will.
| "Taking advantage of being unconscious, you try to subconsciously contact the underlying surface of the material plane, calling on the strange powers the band gives you, to see in detail what had happened in the several minutes prior. Unfortunately, the vision you see is blurry, unfocused. You see yourself, standing on a rough surface. Then an outline of some great entity, engulfed with flame, merges with you, and you yourself are covered in flame. A very blurry moment follows, where you see the surface you were standing on disappearing block by block, then the walls under that, all the time you feel you are taking, ""collecting"" something, but then something happened, you could feel it was something you have touched, and the something let off a powerful outburst of flame and debris. Your flaming form absorbed the flames and got stronger, but the flames devoured and destroyed everything else around them. You see yourself flying through the chaos to a certain place, you presume it is the one you are in now, and drop everything you have so far taken, then plunge straight down. You faintly see a great river of fire, and some objects of great importance near it and along your way, you see yourself take those objects and return. Then you see your flaming self pause, you feel an odd mix of feelings overtake you, from anger and hate to happiness, and see yourself fly off at incredible speed to a distant location, like a high mountain peak. You see yourself plunge down through the rock, seeking a source of great energy, and you finally see yourself find and overtake it. You cannot see what it is, but it bears darkness and flame, emits an aura of hate and anger, and you can almost hear the terrible sound it makes when you take it to your (workshop?) and rend it apart to fuel and improve
something, an object of great importance to you and your cause, but also of great power. You see and feel yourself working, with incredible speed, everything around you is covered in searing flames. The object itself you can see now as a brilliant star, too white and radiant to look at it. After some time of this incredible toil, you see yourself, still flaming, stand over your work and admire it. Then the flames die, and your body collapses to the ground.
The vision fades..."
I try to find the weapon and take it. If I find Boksi I'll pick him up as well, then I get out of the keep.
| Finding Boksi didn't prove to be any difficult. Upon finally climbing to the third floor, you instantly see his unconscious body in a very charred, and very bloody workshop, but he himself seems unharmed. As you pick him up
| you notice a ring,
| a somewhat thick ring of steel, finely engraved and with a large many-edged purple gemstone set into it, laying quietly on the battered workbench. You pick the ring up, and it seems rather plain to you. Just a pretty ring. You cannot take your hand out of your armor, or undoubtedly you would've tried it on. You keep it nevertheless, pick up Boksi, marvel for a moment at the steel anvil that is bent and covered in
dents craters, and carry Boksi out of the keep the same way you came in, then put him on the ground.
I'll persuade the dwarves to consider trading the key for whatever Boksi made. I'll remind them that what just happened was the most powerful strange mood anyone has ever witnessed, so the result really should be something equivalent for Nogzulban (or more). Also I hint towards the glowing hole and ask if the key means so much to them that they will stand next to it waiting what will come out of the hole and possibly get themselves killed while doing it. Also I apologize for us destroying the keep, although reminding that Boksi's artifact must be worth a hundred keeps, and then end my persuasive argument with a happy note of us making all the elves retreat.
| The dwarves are not only very angry at you people (you destroyed the keep and almost killed them), but are now also very busy with allocating the damage done, and trying to save whoever they can, catering primarily to the civilians. They don't listen to your argument.
I rock so hard that I turn some elves into dark elves!!!
Autofail, technically, since the elves are gone now. I'm not sure about Elica though. I'll let you rock to cheer up the people though.
| LET'S ROCK THE WORLD! You start playing something
really heavy, so heavy you could kill someone if you dropped it on him, and the sheer vibration and resonanse from the music has loosened the doors of the keep and they fell outward. Nice job. Several people, not used to any finer music, came out to listen to you playing.
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NPC Actions:
Elica is a swordself. Recently hired by Frelock. He's armed with a wooden longsword, and dressed in (somewhat pierced) green-grey close-fitting clothing with scarce leaf-shaped decoration. Is badly burned, but otherwise alright, standing in the completely destroyed tavern.
While it would be nice to have Sat-Cam's and see everything, you don't know what Elica is doing.
This is the ballista operator dwarf who was resurrected by Frelock. He practically LOVES Frelock. Has brown hair and wears clothes of indiscernable blackish leather.
Amidst all the turmoil, everyone lost sight of him.
Everyone is trying to do whatever is possible to do to help in this situation. Some guards procured torches and start lighting them around the keep to make light.
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Status after turn:
Boksi: Down on the ground beside the keep.
Wearing a rather singed reddish-black jacket of Karl Moebius leather, underwear, and slightly torn jean shorts.
Minor scars and numerous cuts all over the body. Unconscious. All body is in pain from recent hyperactivity. (further -1 to any physical action)
Abilities:
Basic TK Manipulation.
Basic TK Healing.
Big Bully. Special status:
Carbon Flesh Interweave.
Can only speak goblin.
Activated Visual Omnisensor.
andrea: Standing upright some distance outside of town.
Wearing underwear and
fairly comfortable greyish trousers. Also wearing a
armor set: -Iron splint-mail-, a shirt of leather, Bronze plated greaves,
<<Iron high boots>>. Wields a +Steel maul+.
Unharmed.
Abilities:
Shrapnel Self.
Basic TK Healing.
Empowered by Lightning (currently Lightly Drained, -1 spd, 1 turn to next level).
korora: Standing upright on the first floor of the keep.
Wearing underwear, and makeshift bra-scarf clothing. Also wearing the
armor set:
<<+Iron breastplate+>>, a soft leather shirt, an Iron helmet, some hard leather greaves and -Aluminum high boots-. Owns an Iron handaxe and a -Black bronze warhammer-, both (probably) on the third floor of the keep for now. Wields
The Ashcraver. Holding two large nuggets of gold (2kg), and one particularly large sapphire (0.5kg).
Unharmed.
Abilities:
Mighty.
Extremely Agile.
Extended TK Healing.
"A massive, massive, MASSIVE sword. It is three meters long, 1'3'' (~40cm) wide, and dazzingly bright. Its fine steel has been polished to reflect light like a mirror. Its one edge is curved, jagged at the hilt, the other is straight and so sharp it could probably slice adamantine blocks like salami. Down the center of the sword, which is at least 2'' thick, runs a hollow slit 3'' wide, in which yeat another, smaller and straighter sword is concealed. The entire surface of both swords, except of course the sharp cutting edges, is finely engraved with uncountable images, among which the launching of the Challenger, world war II, a nuclear explosion, a trainwreck, and a rotary excavator. The hilt itself (being at the same time the hilt of the smaller sword) is decorated with gold and emeralds you can only assume you've taken from someone, arranged in beautiful patterns, and the handle is woven with three lines - one is a scaly snake with two small rubies in the eyes, and two seem awfully like DNA strands. You get a feeling you could decipher the human genome if you looked closely enough. The guard of the hilt is exquisitely detailed as well, but right down the senter of it, spanning the breadth of the sword, is a solid rectangular golden plate, with the single word: ""ASHCRAVER"" deeply embossed onto it. The entire thing is so immeasurably brilliant, you almost don't want to touch it fearing it'll stick to your hand and corrupt you like some magic ring. Overcoming this fear, you pick it up. Despite its size, it is relatively lightweight, relatively, of course, to anything else so large and made of steel.
The second form is a smaller (comparatively) blade, that together with the folding hilt guard looks like an overgrown sai. It's also exquisitely detailed, but lighter. (+1 to damage, -1 to agility).
The Ashcraver seems to accumulate the energy released by the deaths it causes. The process is admittedly rather slow, but has good uses."
chaoticag: Standing upright on the third floor of the keep.
Wearing the
armor set: +Steel Chestplate+, -Copper chainmail-, Aluminum cap, hard leather leggings and
<<Copper plated boots>>. Wielding a wooden broadsword with sharp edges of a shimmering material.
Lower body badly gashedLight Bleeding. Very cold. Weak. (-1 str, con)
Abilities:
Basic TK Healing.
Extended TK Bolt.
TK Ripper Slash.
Gantolandon: Standing upright near the keep.
Wearing underwear, a thin silky sweater, and
a set of armor: A <<*Bone full plate armor*>>, +Bone gauntlets+, +Bone high boots+, and +Bone full helm+. Holding a paperclip and a nice pair of white socks. Wielding a +Bone Axe+.
Much of the skin is burned and causes pain. Right hand seriously burned. Hands pierced by numerous splinters. Nasty scratch along the head.
Abilities:
Basic TK Healing(!). Special status:
Activated Selective Translator.
Frelock: ~50m above the ground, in a force bubble.
Wearing underwear, a
somewhat dirty and badly slashed up <<*Giant cave spider silk robe*>>, and +hippo leather sandals+. Wielding a Steel Quarterstaff and a -Small Iron throwing knife- as a backup weapon. Holding a *cloth tunic* of shimmering material (with 12 arrows), pieces of wood plate armor with runes of that material, and a shimmering shortbow.
Some nasty cuts on the body. Minor bleeding.
Abilities:
Slightly improved strength.
Meagerly improved agility.
Can be cautious while calm.
Improved TK Healing III.
Stone Frank's Revivification.
Basic TK Field. Special status:
Activated Selective Translator.
Kashyyk: Standing upright on the first floor of the keep.
Naked. Wielding an Iron Battleaxe.
Flesh turned into iron, three arrows sticking out of abdomen, right leg, and left shoulder, numerous small dints and cuts.
Abilities:
Enrage Other. Enrage Self.
Basic TK Healing(!). Special status:
Activated Selective Translator (2).
Steel scales. Extra:
Rollerblades in the forearms. Rooster: Standing upright near the keep.
Wearing underwear (probably), a
set of armor consisting of (somewhat torn and burned) hard black studded leather armor and greaves, iron plated high boots, and (also burned) fur-quilted iron shoulderpads with horns. Wields a +Steel Guitar-Battleaxe+.
Both hands burned. Well-shaved with fire, face singed slightly. Minor to light burns all over the body.
Can perform heavy metal.
LASD: Standing amidst some rubble on the third floor of the keep.
Wearing underwear, and a
white/pink/yellow suit and top hat made of underwear. Also wearing the
armor set:
<<+Iron chain Cuirass+>>, -Iron chain gloves-, Iron chain greaves, and Iron low boots. Wielding a
*Evil Aluminum tower shield* Several scars along the torso. Lightly bruised.
Abilities:
Power of Peace.
Power of Persuasion (suit bonus does not apply).Special status:
Peacekeeper.
Jay Kayell: Standing upright near the keep.
Wearing purple stretchy shorts. Useless shreds of underwear on right arm. Holding a ring. Wielding a +Iron flanged mace+. The armor is armed with a collection of axes and swords (including one shimmering elven blade and one wooden with shimmering edges), and its steel clawed fists as well. The armor has 5 unspent arrows.
Unharmed.
Abilities:
Novice Wrestler.
Basic TK Healing.
Blood of the Blood God.
Blood Rage. Special status: Wearing
Composite Reinforced Corpse-steel power armor.
A somewhat thick ring of steel, intricately engraved, with a large many-edged purple gem set into it.
---------
Environment:
Tavern: Was a two-floor building. Now it's a mangled ruin, thoroughly blasted apart. The building used to contain your enter/exit point, but how to use it is completely up to you now.
Human/Dwarven Capital: Large city on the outskirts of hell knows where. Holds a modest amount of homes, from hovels to two-floor apartment buildings, a set of shops, a temple, and a keep. Currently being surrounded by a verily horde of elves. The dwarves are mounting a large defence using siege engines atop the keep.
Food store: Square one-floor building with long tables laden with salted and fried meats of all kinds. There's a single wide table at the far end, with a chest on top of it. There's a mighty fine hole broken through the ceiling.
Cloth store: Rolls of cloth and various cloth, silk, and leather articles of clothing are on the many shelves inside this building. There's a single wide table at the far end, with a chest on top of it. The entire building is barely standing, most of its roof is collapsed. There's a pile of elf-paste near the building, and some elven corpses.
Armor store: Everywhere in the shop various pieces of armor are thrown about, shields of different sizes litter the floor, and arrayed under the now-broken shelves and tables are enough various boots to outfit a battalion. At the far end of the building, there is a single wide table. The heavy chest is on the floor, broken, a large supplement of coins from it now covers the floor.
The Keep: Large
fourthree-floor building. The first floor is almost devoid of furniture. The doors are missing yet again. A lot of civilians are huddled together in groups all over the floor. At least a dozen and a half guards are also there. The second floor was a massive stockpile of wood, metal, and stone. The third floor is a massive workplace, with many workshops, now burning and filled with rubble. The fourth floor was just recently destroyed along with the roof and all of the siege engines. A a total of two holes are broken through all remaining floors of the keep, and there is one pit on the first floor, with something glowing below.
The Temple: Tall and proud, beautiful building of white marble, a solid first floor surrounded by columns is supporting several ring-shaped floors held up by beautiful marble supports. A deep pool of shiny, clear water can be seen inside the building. Well, it probably was like that. The entire thing has recently tried to rise up in mighty wrath as a gigantic statue of a carp, but failed miserably and broke to pieces. Afterwards, the overpowered Rooster single-handedly sent the whole place into oblivion along with the elves, who now cannot be seen, heard, or even smelled by anyone other than themselves.
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Background: [5] Those outside notice that the light in the west does not dim, it is getting brighter. The red light at the bottom of the pit in the keep also steadily brightens, very hot air rises out of it. The vibrations of the ground can now be easily felt, but they're still rather slight.