Warning: Massive Retconning up ahead!
The Problem: Gravity!
In Space Wizards, there is no artificial gravity generation except that which is caused by wizards. Thus, gravity must be fully artificial, created by inertial forces.
Thus, since ships usually cruise with an acceleration of 1G (using hyperspace phasing--to be explained--to increase their effective speed artificially), the inertial forces would create artificial gravity such that the ship's crew segments must be angled so that the y-axis is aligned with the ship's movement vector. Basically, the ceiling faces the front of the ship and the floor faces the back.
This means that the elevators back on the
Aurora are now hallways, and the hallways on the
Aurora are now elevators.
Roll 60Amatin waited within the dragon's claws as he thought of a plan. Dragons--Vulcanus Draconis, as they were called, bore an eerie resemblance to the ancient mythical dragons of yore. They were sentient--albeit barely, as they exhibited mostly stereotyped behavior except when communicated to. They had a language consisting of vocalizations that they used to challenge each other. Dragons had no gender--they would fight each other for roosts and proceed to lay their eggs alone. They defended their young with such a ferocity that it was unquestionable: Amatin could not defeat this beast in a battle of wills. Instead, he was forced to use a different method to take control of the situation.
Thus, Amatin, hanging in the air, set about splicing a small chunk of his own energy--[6] a little too much, perhaps--with the silver longsword that he took from Ivan. He then took the sword, and held it against the dragon's belly, long enough so that the dragon tilted its head to get a look at the sword. Amatin then linked the dragon's soul to his own through the sword, giving himself control.
He attempted to convince the dragon that he was its hatchling and that the dig site would make a great nest.
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[6]
Zakroff decided that a blitzkrieg strike with his drones would be ideal should the emplacement be manned. He set his drone to fire at will after registering the party's IFF's with it. He then ordered the other two to sneak around both sides as he set up his hybrid gatling turret and picking flowers.
Milia silently took off, masking her figure behind rocks and staying close to the edge of the cavern and thus in the shadows. She kept her Xbow out, fixed toward the machine gun post in the case of hostilities. However, nobody came, and she realized why.
"Camera..." she whispered into the comms. Milia then [5] shot the camera and proceeded forward.
"Hey, wouldn't they notice--""Like they didn't notice the drone? Anyway, I have a gut feeling that their hands are busy elsewhere."Varron took off to the other side of the cavern. He felt that something was off about the way his steps reverberated through the cavern. He couldn't pin down what he thought he heard until his smart cloak suspended him over an acrid pool of stagnant water. He set himself down at the edge and observed the emplacement, realizing that there was nobody there.
"It's totally safe." he stated, his clairvoyance assuring him that there were no traps.
"I think the platform might be an elevator. There's a gap in the ceiling over there..."He pointed to a dim hole in the ceiling shaped like the platform inside the cavern.
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After about a minute of flight at breathtaking speed,
Amatin noticed that the dragon was approaching over the dig site. The site itself consisted of a large circular platform on top of the dirt, with a gap in the middle-thirty meters across, and a large drill inside the gap. Tanks of coolant as well as equipment used for hauling and accumulating the excess stone at the side of the installation were present around the edges. There was no gate--there were rather high walls, and the only actual way to enter was from above.
For good measure, he convinced the dragon that landing right now would be a good idea. It followed suit and set him down upon the ground, releasing its clawed grip on his torso. His armor was scratched but not pierced, luckily.
It was at that moment when two men in bulky lifting gear approached him, wielding submachine guns. His dragon roared, and exhumed some kind of gas. Amatin had no idea what it was doing, though.
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"What were these called again, exactly?" asked Kayle, recollecting her thoughts.
"C. Ravageris, or something. I didn't name them.""They had... ranged attacks of some sort?""Yes, though only the females usually use the attack. It can't penetrate metal, though, so you should be fine in that armor.""Right, I'll--"Kayle felt a sharp blow to the back of her helmet. She held her hand to the spot she had been hit, and pulled it back. It was dripping with a clear ooze.
"How does slime...""Symbiotic relationship with bacteria, too. The ravager attacks, bacteria infect. By the time the ravager stops fighting and eats, the bacteria will have partially digested the prey and are ingested back into the ravager.""No but, how does slime hit that hard?"The admiral gave her a quizzical look. She turned around and looked at her assailant, a female ravager perched atop a mumbling Klathidon, entering its sleep. The ravager had a large chitinous blade hanging from its tail by a thread. Pores in the blade allowed the slime Kayle noticed to ooze onto the surface.
"They have a whiplash attack. They don't shoot slime.""Ah..."Without a word, Kayle ignored the female--it was harmless as long as her armor was mostly intact--even a gorv hadn't punched a hole straight through. She sighted a male weaving through the rooted animals and fixed her aim on it. Being, essentially, a large insect, it could not understand that a gun was dangerous. Ravagers couldn't perceive pain, fear, or anything remotely emotional. This made them dangerous foes because they did not retreat--they were not only not afraid to die, but they were unaware of what death even was.
The wretched thing approached Kayle up to about ten meters, before she fired the underarm plasma bolter and roasted the ravager alive, each individual blast crackling as it left the barrel and vaporizing portions of the insect's flesh. Kayle released the trigger, and the gun's rate of fire slowed to a halt.
Meanwhile,
Jaffar reached for his clockwork rifle. However, he noticed the klathidon calf moving closer to him, sniffing the air. As it neared, it began to sniff toward the rifle. As it stuck out its tongue and palpated the rifle--causing Jaffar to pull the rifle away, the rifle itself let out an audible moan.
"Uh, good rifle, don't moan like that..."The rifle refused to cooperate. It began to gurgle and grumble, frightening the calf and scaring it away.
Jaffar sighed and brought the rifle to bear on the ravager that attacked Kayle. It was perched atop its klathidon, noticing Jaffar and pulling back its tail to lash again. [5] Before it could attack, Jaffar pulled the trigger on the rifle. The rifle immediately responded, firing a large, grooved canine tooth, taking out the ravager with a solid neck-shot. Jaffar
didn't actually aim for the neck. He pondered the rifle's sentience as the ravager, doubling over from 43 damage, began to twitch uncontrollably.
The rifle made a gurgling sound followed by a mechanical clanking noise as the next tooth was readied for firing.
Aduin made his way sideward, avoiding klathidons, and singling out individual ravagers. Ravagers themselves were easily visible to him (+1), because unlike the sessile klathidons, the ravagers had a raging metabolism that allowed them to fight with a great ferocity. He approached a straggler that was poking at a klathidon's head near the edge of the herd, [3+1] and proceeded to blind it. He approached it and, avoiding its thrashing and random attacks, slit its throat for
35 damage. Now, ichor gushed from its wound as it continued to thrash about, hitting klathidons at random, with a more intense anger than before.
Caplus [1] pulled out his rifle and attempted to load it, having forgotten where the three safeties were located after not having used it for a while.
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Topic: Space Wizard RTD: Rolls. (Read 86005 times)