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Serenity HP 14/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 11/11 Serenity grabbed at her head as the creature's death cry pierced her mind. The sounds around her grew faint as something burst, and it felt as if her eyes were three sizes to big for her skull. She drew her hand away from her face and it was covered in blood. All this combined with the realization that the thing they had sought was now held, shattered, in the paladin's hand. Her comrades had been taciturn as to its true nature. She was an outsider to their faith, and as close as they had grown over the months, they had never been fully comfortable with laying the bare the full details of their crusade. Only that an artifact they called the gametoloth, shaped like an egg, was to be recovered safely. She had not faulted them for keeping the details from her. She was only along for the adventure and a grand tale to tell when all was said and done. Even when she learned the true gravity of the mission she had not pried. Seeing the prize of their endeavor broken and bleeding was a crushing blow. Rolf's call of warning snapped her out of her dark reverie. Serenity whipped her gaze around in time to watch as a portion of the wall collapsed, and the motion made her vision grey around the edges. Fighting through the haze of pain, she saw the lesser spawn begin bubbling inside, intent on rending the cleric limb from limb. Hurling herself towards the collapsed monstrosity, she yanked her sword from its flesh and sprinted full force towards the oncoming horde. Her blade swept out in an arc as she tried to ward the beasts off, interposing herself between them and Rolf. Defend Rolf: 2d6 7 Hold 1 - Which Serenity will spend to redirect the next attack on Rolf to herself. As the beasts swelled forward, Serenity took a breath and closed her eyes. She recalled the lessons her teachers had taught her - to keep calm and focused, no matter the situation. To feel the rhythm of the world and move as one with it. Decades of training took hold and she moved with practiced ease as she gave up thinking in favor of acting, without mindfulness or fear of the consequences. It was the war-dance of those willing to die in service to something greater then themselves, content with the knowledge that they would take a great many with them to the grave. Her voice rose to accompany the motions, and she became a maelstrom, interposing herself between any foe that thought to slay the holy man in a final act of spite. Arcane Art: 2d6+3 10 Maximilian is shaken free from his despair at the sight of the shattered gametolith. The bard's voice has pulled his mind from a dark place and set his blood burning in righteous indignation. Additionally, the next time someone successfully assists him with aid, they get +2 instead of +1.
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Aug 23, 2016 14:44
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SLAVA Your arcane assault punches a brace of knife-wounds into the creature’s corpse-white underbelly, and it recoils, ribbons of black blood streaming away from it - flips a long tail behind it and darts away into the night-black ocean as spectral images of yourself course after it, slashing and thrusting at its heels like harrying hounds. Serenity, alas, does not fall into your arms as easy as all that - you catch a glimpse of her dangling precariously by the thighs from the wurm’s face, half torn away by the current of its departure, but this thing is monstrously quick in the water and even for your eyes, the light is poor - there’s no way to tell if she’s with the beast still or tumbling out adrift in the sea, just by sight alone. + The vandal has TEETH, I see. Don’t you know it’s RUDE to interrupt one’s beauty sleep? + Its thoughts are shaded now with contemptuous amusement, tinged with just a hint of wariness. + Your FORM’s a little out of date. Just like your MANNERS. + You’ll have to close to your weapons’ range (that’s hand) in order to use your arcane bladework, unless you have weaponry for other ranges. Attacking at range without actually getting stabby is covered by your Volley or Wind Slash moves. No sooner does it vanish from sight than does its sphere of werelights snuff out as well - you’re left again in utter blackness. But what’s this? Somewhere far out to your left, a dull brown glow shows through the swirling silt! The creature’s voice comes to you again, this time with a hungry edge of anticipation... + Did you bring me a PRESENT, cockroach? Oh, you SHOULDN’T have. + From that direction, the haunting calls of tritons sound again off the canyon walls, and a steady sonar ping on top of that, too regular to come from a throat of meat. Sounds like it’s a rescue party - but they’ve got no idea what they’re about to drop into. After him! DD+STR if you think you can actually catch up, or DD+INT if you think you can predict its movement and get into position before it can strike again; if you elect not to do either, the wurm will easily outrace you, and you’ll be on the scene of his next attack after it strikes. What do you do? SERENITY > + Not just yet. + < STATHIS The tritons fan out in separate directions, three of them: the boss and two of his cohorts, the other four dead or fled. There’s a fraught moment where his command seems about to revolt, but he silences that quick enough with a burst of scornful chatter. One of them turns in frustration and hurls another of those sticky spears into the crate - it sticks right on and Nori climbs off your back and onto it, crouching like an ape with a hand and both knees while she brandishes Ramona’s old collapsible spear at anything that gets too close. Slava’s nowhere in evidence, at least not right away: your big ball of fire isn’t lighting anything but a huge expanse of muddy water. You cast it nice and low, a dozen feet or so over the bot’s head: enough to keep a sizeable area of seabottom lit, plus the waters above it too, but if there’s anything but more of 01’s kicked-up wake, you’re not spotting it in a muck so thick you can hardly even see out past the ends of your legs. While you’re underwater, you’ll need to use something besides fire to deal damage with your black magic: but using it to make light is Then, without a scrap of forewarning, a nightmare maw plunges out from the darkness above you, down at a steep angle right at your extremely well-lit face. Gaping wider than your own limbspan, rows upon rows of needle-teeth gleaming -- it’s coming for you-- you are about to be loving eaten son so what do you do e: (click for bgm)  01 Down you go again onto the seabottom, this time abandoning all pretense of stealth in favor of your active sonar, knowing full well the outline of an elf will only show up clear if you can get them silhouetted against the open sea. The spider-skin takes up station above you, casting out a ball of impossible flame so that you and he are both well-lit up by it. And there - that must be her on your sonar! The signature’s far off to your right at a sharp angle, close to the sonar “horizon” of the canyon’s lip, below which your pings strike rock and rebound. A humanoid form, long hair, a vague haze of echo around her…drifting. She’s not swimming. Not moving. Just drifting, slowly sinking, like meat. If you don’t go for her now, she’ll dip below the horizon and perhaps be lost. But there’s something else on your sonar too, something monstrously large, plunging in from above at a terrific clip, with the sleek frontal lines of a shark or ray… >>> nt What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Aug 25, 2016 |
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Aug 25, 2016 02:28
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Slava 20/24 HP; Level 5, 12/12 XP; 1/2 Armor DD int tracking: 2d6+3 13 The creature feigned higher intelligence, but its movements are predictable. Another Burst art should free the bard. Pity. In my day, elves were considered resistant to paralysis. hurricane slash: 2d6+3 5 I am forced to pull my blow when I think I see her body in the way of my strike. Ugh.
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Aug 25, 2016 02:56
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01 HP: 20/26 | Armor 3/3 | 1-trauma / foot component broken | XP 7/11 hold-1 I have only an instant to lament the disabled components in my leg, as the larger contact resolves into an abyssal creature coming straight for Stathis. I can't pull off launching myself like I did for the Triton, but I'm still strong enough to swim faster than most of the others. With a flick, my blade begins to emit its customary dim blue glow as I push up and begin slicing through the clouded water with arms and good leg. I judge that I'll reach Stathis at the same time the fish does, so I put myself between the monster's teeth and the spider-elf. Defend 9 Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself
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Aug 25, 2016 04:08
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01 You shove Stathis out of the way as the wurm bears down upon you, he, and all these softskins’ worldly possessions like a speeding freight train. At the last possible moment the wurm’s eyes lock on you, it twitches its head just the least little bit - and instead of plummeting straight down its gullet, its countless needle-teeth crunch into you full force, gouging, augering into your chestplate - that ancient steel holds firm against the onslaught, the teeth glance off and skip aside from tearing through your delicate circuitry, but even so the speed at which it’s moving wedges you into a crevice in its mouth, caught between two jagged rows of teeth - and that mouth is about to slam shut! You take SLAVA Well, you do have a point: he as much as told you where he’s about to go next. You swim for the light as quick as you can, an arrow-straight course, holding nothing back - and find the light to grow steadily brighter: near its source, you find Stathis the spiderelf and somewhere below but out of sight, the loud sonar pings of what can only be 01. When the wurm strikes - from high above, just as you’d predicted, giving you the critical time you needed to get into position above it for a hurricane-slash strike at its flank - you’re ready. At the last moment 01 comes slicing up from the seabed again, this time without the incredible speed and accompanying shock of turbulence: you can see one of his feet is hanging limply, moving too freely in its socket, as though it were badly broken, and the lower leg too is crooked at an unfortunate angle. But as he shoves away Nori and Stathis, disappearing into the wurm’s gaping jaws, drat! - you can’t get the shot off! - and by the time you realize that tuft of vibrissae on its head isn’t Serenity your chance is lost. The beast bullets past you in the water, bare feet away, your carefully calculated strike wings wide into the dark, and its voice bellows in your mind again. It sounds furious. -+ WHAT did you call me?! +- Damnit, it’s gone - out of reach, and even with the spider’s fireball-light there’s too much silt in the water to see it coming! Out of the darkness it jackknifes, twists and lunges - its tail comes hurtling up from below like a slimy flail, snapping out to smash against your back - you brace for the incoming blow as best you can, and go tumbling through the water again, no idea which way’s up, where it’s gone, or from which direction it’ll strike next… -+ DISGUSTING. You REPULSE me. I’ve eaten KRAKEN with more steel in them than you. BE SILENT around your BETTERS, you MANNERLESS OAF. +- You take STATHIS That tin-can comes up from below just in time and pushes you aside with not a moment to spare -- it disappears right into the wurm’s mouth as the creature goes roaring past your brittle chitinous carapace like a starving otyugh that just spotted a ripe garbage pile. A thin, muffled scream issues from the edges of Nori’s respirator, you can barely hear it - she kicks off the crate and, brandishing her sharp spear, pricks the beast right in its passing side, opening up a long scratch on its flank! It turns, knifing through the water, shedding speed for momentum, moving down further into the sea, out of your range of visibility - and then it speaks. Hammers the words right into your cerebrum in a psionic yell like a hungry glacier cracking. + Oh, you ARE a clever one. I’m going to ENJOY this. Who’s your little FRIEND, insect? I enjoy the way he SQUEAKS between my TEETH. + There’s only the barest instant of warning before it strikes again, out of that drat silt the ‘bot kicked up that limits your visibility so - a bit of turbulence at the very edge of your vision, a tickle on your sensory hairs - and then an arm tipped with three razor-sharp sickle claws rushes up from the dark below you, reaching out to grasp you and drag you down to oblivion! Well, at least you aren’t about to be eaten yet. What do you do??? SRHHH Oh, how your sword sings. You fight the tide off desperately, beating the horde of shadowspawn back with parry and thrust and elegant slice, a finger in the dike, a You take At last, the tide abates - Father Rolf rises to his feet, crying out a prayer to Nashira in a stentorian bellow: the hole in the narthex window seals shut with a crackle and fizz of clerical force, and the remaining spawn retreat from your flashing blade, backs up flat against the temple walls to watch  -- the goddess herself, risen in tainted effigy, her fair features frozen into a blank-eyed scream of reasonless horror. Maximilian turns to face her, his indomitable spirit unafraid even in the face of this fresh hell - his undoing. His mighty sword-stroke sticks fast in the goddess’ side, as he charges in to deliver a fatal cutting stroke, flying chips of stone but nothing else. The goddess’ flying fist smashes him brutally across the face - teeth fly, skittering on the checkered tiles, and she turns like a poisonous snake striking and slams him against the floor so hard dust shakes down from the roof, so hard stone and bone alike crack like glass, and she screams her grief and fury into his face in a voice to shatter your very sanity----- > + WHAT DID y o u DO!?!! + < Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Aug 30, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 03:02
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Slava 20/24 HP; Level 5, 12/12 XP; 1/2 Armor With any luck, the bottom feeding dullard would not realize the lures it had so eagerly swallowed had hooks: the bard, petrified with fear, was a clever double agent that always turned things around on her captors when they thought their control over her was complete; and the android who effortlessly swam into the gaping maw. How amusing that even the baitfish knows not to bite down on a naked hook. It was too late for it to remedy its mistake now. I know not the meaning of its childish whines, I only hope it continues to let me distract it with my blade magics while my allies destroy it from the inside. I will wait for it to ineffectually bash me with its slimy tail again. DD int (trick it into thinking I don't know it's reading my mind): 2d6+3 7 Defend: 2d6+2 10
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Aug 26, 2016 04:54
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01 HP: 20/26 | Armor 3/3 | 1-trauma / foot component broken | XP 7/11 hold-1 Pressure sensors scream warnings as the teeth dig furrows into my armor. I shove my sword upward as hard as I can, sliding the blade past the hard palate and through the soft palate, piercing the sinus cavities between the eyes and back into the brain case. Hack & Slash 13 taking damage for +d6 damage 9 messy And I keep thrusting my sword, up and in, twisting myself around trying to pull myself deeper into the monster's mouth and up into its skull to shred its brain.
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Aug 26, 2016 05:03
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Stathis Argyle HP 18/18 | Armor 1 | XP 6/10 | Load 6/6 Shoved aside like some kinda damsel, my knight in shining armor already in the thing's maw. Knowing the tinman the thing will regret that pretty quick, but it might appricia Death From Above (+Dex): 2d6+2 7 I'll take Target Doesn't Notice In Time To Act and Deal Damage With A Hand Weapon here. Wicked Dagger Damage: 1d8 4 4 damage to the thing.
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Aug 26, 2016 16:14
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Serenity HP 13/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 12/11 ??? posted:
Serenity froze, the force of the mental assault precluding anything but abject terror. Everything hurt, every nerve on fire as the question echoed like the entire universe was peering down at her insignificant self. Reality melted away. The Goddess turned to her and the world went black. All around her was darkness, pressing in relentlessly. She could feel fingers crawling across her skin. Her breathing was labored as it felt as if she were breathing in shards of glass. Serenity knew now that none of this was real. An old memory had been dragged out of her mind and warped, though she did not know why. But the details railed against what she knew to be the truth. There had been no horrific effigy of Nashira. Maximilian had won the day with their aid, and all that happened afterwards had been a quiet moment of loss as Julian's life ebbed away. Yet this realization did nothing to dispel the nightmare. The being that had hold of her mind was too strong to be cast off that easily. So Serenity floated, adrift in nothingness as she felt herself peeled apart for inspection. A violent vivisection of her mind tinged with fury for having the temerity to see through the veil, however inconsequential it proved to be. Involuntarily, she laughed as she was forced to recall a joke Padre Clavo had told a few weeks back. Just as suddenly she began to weep as that memory was cast aside and other memories were brought to the fore. Old, familiar ones she had long held onto, now turned dark and miserable. Every good thing she could recall was ripped up and twisted, an emotional dagger in her heart. Her family, dead through treachery and avarice. Her lessons as a child, now dominated by hateful teachers who delighted in tormenting her and belittling her unworthy skills. An endless cavalcade of failures and humiliation in place of her victories and mercies towards others. The truth of them remained, but the reimaginings were felt all to real. She could feel distant pangs of grim pleasure at how she danced to the entity's whims with each offense against her mind. She could feel herself, her real self, grasp her head and attempt to scream denials of the visions. The fear remained steadfast but Serenity could not tolerate this any further. In that blackness of her inner mind, she closed her eyes and willed herself to persevere, to block this intrusion and make her thoughts sacrosanct once more. Defy Danger...through mental fortitude: 2d6 6 The only response was mocking laughter and another memory. Her most cherished memory, poised over a mental knife, ready to be shattered. All she could do was plead uselessly. What do you want from me? Using Charming and Open. What does the wyrm wish Serenity would do? It gets a question of its own.
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Aug 27, 2016 02:47
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01 Flesh rips and muscles tear as you wrench yourself free from the wurm's teeth and gouge your murderous way into the roof of its mouth, ripping right through the soft sinus tissue, gouts of blood and torn meat and strange ichors turning the ocean into a charnel soup. But oh sorrow, there's just a lot of nonessential meat to rip through on a creature this size - and you're bare feet from the skull when a torrent of sorcerous violet fire explodes out of the beast's flesh, searing, cauterizing the trauma you worked so hard to inflict, and an urgent-priority message comes blasting into your input streams from a very unusual source port: ψ NO! No, no, no, no! You can't DO that!! ψ The wurm, maddened by pain and terror, reaches into its mouth with one free arm, its own claws ripping the wound you dug still wider, and tears you free amidst a ghastly spreading slick of spilt blood and broken teeth. A wild nimbus of energy flares around the creature's head, dripping out of the corners of its mouth and eyes, and it shrieks its agony and terror into your central core:  The ocean crushes in on you like the exponential fist of an angry god, many-times-multiplied water pressure crumpling your sturdy frame as easily as you smash the meat of softskins, blowing you shattered back to the periphery of the spiderskin’s light! Your central thoughtshard is swamped with trauma interrupts and containment-breach alarms, but worst of all is the silence where there should be pandemonium, certain outlying soul crystals failing to report even the most basic of heartbeat checks...but take heart! The wurm, too, you’ve dealt out an equal mauling to, and rather than face again the nightmare juggernaut of your irresistible blade, it turns and flees, horribly wounded, wailing back out into the dark ocean. A broad sheet of power trails from its flanks, solidifying as the creature quits the field, coalescing into a minefield of bright and painful points of light, and an unnatural current that sucks you further in, in towards the minefield... You take eight damage, ignoring armor, and your body has been brutally maimed. Lose 1-trauma, and choose one: either completely lose the ability to swim, or your armor is now 0. Whatever you choose applies until you have at least 21 HP. You’re being sucked into the minefield: what do you do? STATHIS No, it probably doesn’t care. Probably only knows what an insect is from the minds of drowned sailors, since there’s certainly nothing down here even vaguely insectile. Or elven, come to think of it. You’re an interloper twice over. But even unsuited as you are for swimming, much less deep-sea fights with a rudely-awakened abyss wurm, you manage to slip the worst of its claws, catching them on a corner of the crate or letting them score your chitinous carapace when they can’t be dodged completely. You manage an admirable cut with that wicked knife of yours in the opening moments, catching it along the inside of the wrist and opening up a long gouge along the vein. Nori manages to dodge death too, desperately stroking away from the monster’s razor claws, but she’s so focused on staying alive that she can’t get any good openings for a telling spear-strike. You take Ugh. There’s too much blood in the water, and all this heavy fighting when you’ve got just a respirator to breathe through isn’t doing you any good either: you’re short on breath no matter how much you pant, and Nori isn’t looking too hot too. But all thoughts of that go right out the window when the beast starts thrashing around like someone shoved a live wire into its eye - it tears 01 out of the inside of its own head and blows him thirty feet back into the ocean in a vicious implosion of violet-black flames and a psychic shout of <PERISH> that even catching the edge of puts a railroad spike of pain through your temples. Hoooooly poo poo. Then it turns and runs, still shaking the water with its screams, bleeding all over the place, leaving behind a glittering curtain of mines to cover its backtrail. And guess who’s just barely managing to keep a hold on it and the crate at the same time as it careers through the water, snapping up a triton with one lash of its gaping maw? That’s right: it’s yours truly, and Nori too. Good thing you’ve got so many legs. And what’s this? Its body is starting to manifest a pale aura of that same purple flame, and in its abyssal light the creature’s flesh is starting to bubble and warp, the edges of the wound you dealt it already wavering and knitting back together... You and Nori are clinging to its wounded arm while it flees from 01 and Slava, and your fireball has been left behind. You can only see out a little past hand right now due to Nori’s chemlights, but you can see the monster pretty clearly. Don’t forget that she has the Protector skill, which helps you Defy Danger and reduces damage from incoming attacks. (Usually at her expense.) You must now Defy Danger +CON in order to keep hold of the crate. You also have to Defy Danger +STR in order to keep your own hold on the fleeing wurm. If you accept that you’ll lose your hold on either or both of these things, you don’t have to roll for that one. What do you do? SLAVA Well, it’s still super pissed at you, but now it seems you’re the least of its worries. It rips the android out of the inside of its own skull and flees in the direction it came, trailing behind it a wake of painfully glinting sorcerous mines. The silt is starting to clear a little: you can see a little farther now, enough to see that the mines light up the ocean close to them with an actinic white glare like a tiny welding torch. Somewhere out in the dark, past the mines, a ways above you and far off, a triton calls out urgently: it’s the code you agreed on for “victim found!” He must have found Serenity! But the call doesn’t last long before its hapless utterer stops crying “found” and starts shrieking the triton equivalent of “oh god it’s going to eat me” for about two seconds. Then it stops. Crap. Then that whole unnatural current thing starts up again, this time pulling you and 01's maimed chassis right into the minefields! Crap. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you catch sight of another of the triton search party get a few feet too close to one of the wurm’s mines, and… Triple crap. You’ve still got 3-hold, and you’ll keep it until you either use it all, stop being cautious, or start defending something that isn’t you. You’re being sucked into the minefield - what do you do? S-- The blackness breaks; your naked face breaches open air. You’re in some kind of deep pool or well; rimmed round with polished stone, and a shallow wide staircase leading up out of it. The water is so cold it feels like little chips of ice are crystallizing in it. You haul yourself up out of the water and out onto dry black stone before you freeze solid. You lay there boneless a few moments, greedily sucking air until your lungs are satisfied and hypothermia is at least a good half hour away. Where…is this? Where are you? It’s...wait, hold on here. It’s the narthex - not this again! Only, wait, this time it’s...different? Nobody’s here. Not Julian, not Maximilian, not Father Rolf. No nightmares. No shattered gametolith. And the layout is wrong: there was never a votive pool here, certainly not one big enough to take up the entire nave. (Was there?) Nashira’s effigy reposes in gentle peace in an alcove at the far end of the pool, proud and delicate, one arm cradling the slight swell of her pregnancy, the other hiding half her face in shadow, just as she did in the real world, in your real memories. (They are your real memories, right?) The faintest of cold breezes tickles your sodden hair, sending goosebumps chasing each other across your skin. And the roof--  --is gone, as though it had fallen to ruin and the stones carried away long ago, in its place an obsidian sky studded with uncountable diamond-hard points of unwinking light, more than you’ve ever seen, more than you ever even dreamed the night could hold. The engagement ring on your hand looks so lovely in this light. A family heirloom of Anastasia’s, white pearl and figured wrightwood. “My late great-aunt’s,” she’d told you, that last evening before the dive, as the setting sun set the ocean aflame. Will that be the last sunset you'll ever see? “She manned a lighthouse on the western shores for six centuries. Can you believe it? She’d been living there twenty years before the first foundations were ever even raised. Survived the drat thing being torn down twice, put to siege, ice-locked...everything. A family record. She’d be so happy to see you wearing it.” She smiled, waveringly, and slid the ring onto your finger. “Nine different fiancees, she had, and none of them ever lived long enough after the engagement to make it to her wedding...another family record. (sniff) So bring it back, okay? Just…just bring it back.” * * * + “What happened next, Serenity?” + a girl’s voice says, not two feet from your ear. Your heart practically leaps from your chest. That voice-- you’d know it anywhere. It’s Gretchen, to the very life, bobbing in the ice-cold waters like a kid romping in the surf, just her head and shoulders visible above the surface. She looks exactly like she did the very last time you saw her. + “I want to know.” + She giggles. + “But it’s not as fun if you don’t play along. Such a good memory you have, so many stories to tell...” + She sighs dreamily, and turns her face up to the gleaming stars, bobbing on her back...but nothing of her legs shows above the water, no feet, no knees, nothing but her face. It’s been eighty years since you last saw Gretchen. What happened the last time you saw her? The temple stones quiver, then jolt under your feet, then quake and buck wildly, heaving in a sudden earthquake. Gretchen (is that Gretchen?) shrieks and dives beneath the surface as a sound like God stepping on a plate-glass cathedral splits the sky in twain. When the shaking dies down a crack, a blank jagged white line, stretches across the limitless vault of the heavens. A fine rain begins to fall. Gretchen surfaces again, crawling up the steps and kneeling half-in, half-out of the water. + “You have to wake up,” + she says worriedly. + “Come on, quick, take my hand - we have to get out of here! It’s all coming apart--” + She reaches out with a proffering hand, beckoning you back down into the pool - but she stops short when she sees the ring on your hand gleaming in the starlight. + “Oh it’s so pretty!” + she says, stealing another glance up at the sky. The crack in the heavens is spreading, branching; the wind is rising, the rain turning sleety. + “Can we trade?” + she asks, eagerly. + > “I’ve got another one just as good. And that old thing can't help you anymore - better to get rid of it, really. And besides. She doesn't deserve you." < + The ring in her hand could’ve been your own ring’s older sister, carved black basalt with black-glass inlays...and a black pearl for the centerpiece, opaline and darkly glistening. + “Come on, hurry up! Don’t you know where you are?” + You take four damage, ignoring armor. The abyss wurm wishes you would keep telling it such good stories. It, in turn, wants to know how it can get you to trade rings, take Gretchen’s hand, and go with her into the pool, thus accepting its offer of aid -- but this doesn’t mean you have to take it up on the offer. What do you do?
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Aug 31, 2016 04:37
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01 HP: 12/26 | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken | XP 8/11 <Kernel Panic> I shut down notifications, damage assessments can wait. Aside from core damage, I've lost responsiveness in an arm and the leg I damaged earlier. I let my bad arm drift, spinning me around. I sheathe my sword, and reach out to Slava, grabbing the dead elf by the leg. I tuck my other limbs in, slowing my drift and starting to sink slowly. Immovable Object 6 +xp
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Aug 31, 2016 05:24
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Stathis Argyle HP 15/18 | Armor 1 | XP 6/10 | Load 6/6 Like clockwork, that robot. Now its running scared and like most large unknowable things it has more surprises. You wouldn't need arcane knowledge to know getting near the coalescing blood was a bad idea. So hitching a ride on the giant monster that has attempted to eviscerate us multiple times was the safer option. While carrying the group's supplies in an airtight crate not meant to be packed by a person. Just one of those weeks. Defy Danger (+Con): 2d6 9 Defy Danger (+Str): 2d6 7
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Aug 31, 2016 05:50
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Slava 20/24 HP; Level 5, 12/12 XP; 1/2 Armor The tritons, born swimmers, could not fight the draw of the current nor the attraction of the sorcerous singularities, and so for one such as me the only way out was through. I knew how it must be done. The gravitational pull of the mines were like the celestial dance of planets and moons, there existed a place perfectly in between them where one could cancel them all out. I simply grasp onto the otherwise useless counterweight that attached itself to my leg and use it to maneuver myself into these dead zones til I come out on the other side of the gauntlet, to where my charge had been found. How could this dance within a dance be so simple? I never forgot my battle with the predecessor of this golem: our sinking into the sea, its mass, the moment of momentum in our dance of death–all are well preserved in my mental catacombs. The burden of its descendant clinging to me to save itself was no different. DD int (personal gravity landing): 2d6+3 11
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Aug 31, 2016 07:15
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 12/11 The last time Serenity had seen the girl, she had her arms wrapped tightly around her mothers leg, face pressed into the woman's skirt to hide her tears. She hadn't wanted Serenity to go, but she'd been astonishingly mature about it. She cried, yes, but she didn't scream or throw a tantrum. There had been a promise, after all. That Serenity would come back again and take her to learn about her elven heritage firsthand. Alas that the girl proved to have inherited a human lack of patience. When Serenity returned fifteen years later, Gretchen had already been gone for three. No word, no letters, nothing. Only a note that she was gone to find her own stories to tell. Eighty long years ago now. Her parents had already passed. Her siblings had grown and had children and died, and those children had had children. There was little to bring the girl back too now, but Serenity had given her word. It hurt knowing she may have inadvertently planted the seeds that led to this in Gretchen's mind. She was honor bound to do right by her, come what may. --- + “But it’s not as fun if you don’t play along. Such a good memory you have, so many stories to tell...” + That's not her. Is it? Her eyes never burned so brightly. I'm still lost in a dream. See? She's telling me to wake up. Serenity watched and listened to the girl as she spoke, aware and responsive yet strangely disconnected. She heard her ask after the ring. Saying that it could not help her. That she didn't deserve her. In spite of knowledge that this was not really Gretchen, those words hurt. Their vows might have been made in haste and in odd circumstances but they were no less true nor heartfelt. And in her long life she had loved many many people. Each heartfelt, but always fleeting in some way or another. Anastasia alone had remained true over all that time. If there was someone who didn't deserve the other, it certainly wasn't the warrior. While one part of her considered this and rejected the accusation and became conscious of this 'reality' beginning to fail, another part was off elsewhere, in the inner sanctum of the mind. Staring at the pieces laid before it. A picture was forming, a supremely unpleasant one that nevertheless held a grim fascination. Stories. It wishes stories from me. Not from Slava, or 01, or Stathis. All of whom have existed far longer than I. Why? Because it knows me. Knows of me. Who I am, and what my calling is in life. How then? Because someone told it. Because someone came looking for the wyrms, having heard a tale I told next to the fireplace when they were little. ... I've been brought here intentionally. To give this being what it wishes. Gretchen was just the bait for a trap laid decades ago and watched oh so patiently. + “Come on, hurry up! Don’t you know where you are?” + Her focus snapped back into a single point and Serenity smiled softly at the girl. "I might be a fool in a great many things, but my word is my bond. This ring will remain until the day I die." Her eyes narrowed and flashed angrily, pretext abandoned. Lashing out, she slapped the offered ring from the girl's hand and rose. Looking up towards the shattered roof, she called out to whatever was listening. "Kill me or don't. Ask me a favor or don't. But do not play games with me." She had made a promise to bring Gretchen home, but how she might accomplish that she had no idea. All she knew was that the path offered her was not the way. Certainly not a way she could choose and live with herself. Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes and prayed silently for her goddesses' wisdom, to know how she might be free of this nightmare. Ask of me what you will, but grant this poor child your grace in her hour of need.
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Sep 1, 2016 06:19
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SERENITY Her proffered ring slipped away into the depths. Gretchen looked at it, then at you. There was nothing even remotely human in her eyes. A terrible stillness spread out from her gaze; the waves flashed in silence to flakes of frozen obsidian. The crack in the sky was spreading, branching out and spiderwebbing -- the only sound in the whole world. She spoke. + No games? You don’t want to play? + + Then why are you here? + The sky shattered like an eggshell. A howling cyclone gale blew out through the temple roof, less, less, into nothing. You gasped at knifing airless cold like a gaffed fish, stranded on a vast beach on a winter night, and the tide’s gone out long since - whipped away in the gale in great blocks of ice, no hope of return, Gretchen spilt out into the high wilderness and lost. You prayed, then, as vision and strength failed you, in your hour of need, and the goddess came to you as you gasped out your life on the stones of Nashira’s holiest place. Her effigy leapt from her dais and alit at your side, knelt and enfolded you, gathering her adopted daughter up in her pale stone embrace. The temple doors opened to her approach, and carrying you like a newborn infant she led you unafraid, out into the pitiless night, secure within her grace as consciousness fled you at last.  You looked out from her arms, and you saw. * * * * *  You wake up...consciousness coming to you haltingly, in fits and starts. Everything you can see is swirling darkness. Blobs of vague color move across the black, their outlines gradually sharpening. You have a pounding, throbbing headache like someone’s been using your skull as target practice for a nail gun. Your limbs feel weak and trembly, and no matter how fast or hard you pant for breath your lungs still seem to think you’ve just run a half-marathon around the flanks of a high mountain. Off in the distance, a scrap of starfield seems to twinkle and drift, glittering lights bobbing in the ocean swelling, winking out in bright flares. Somewhere behind you the canyon wall rears high, and set into its base an ancient, rusted door. With the elven glyph for “1” carved into it in melted steel. Now, who could’ve gone and done something like that? Something’s coming, some long pallid blob limned in pulsing violet. You can’t make out clearly what it is that approaches you, not yet - your eyes are still trying to wake up all the way - but when it speaks, all chilly offense and (?!) ragged exhaustion, any doubt over what that sight could be is gone. + > You sell yourself too highly. < + It moves closer and closer to you, to the door. You can’t even see what it’s about to do. What do you do? STATHIS You cling on for dear life as the beast careers through the dark sea, barely keeping your legs hooked into its rubbery hide and your grip on the crate’s handles secure, but keeping it all the same - but Nori, though, that woman’s not so lucky or well-endowed with as many legs as you. + What is this? + the wurm growls, and it throws itself into a hairpin turn as it drops the fringes of its minefield -- Nori’s torn free from its flanks, and her chem-light goes dropping away into the dark! + Little girl, you’re out of your depth. SIT DOWN. + She makes to swim for it, but that’s a poor move so close to those deadly mines - her dropped chemlight passes too close to one such trap, and the sorcerous glare sucks it in, quivers ominously, and bobs up close, drifting up towards her like a bubble swelling full of rising steam, about to pop. You’re hanging on, still, but Nori’s falling behind, stroking for her life out and away from the deadly mine. She turns in the water and hurls Ramona’s sharp-edged spear down through the sea, right into its center - it strikes clean, and the mine goes off in a split-second implosion-explosion of smoky violet! The shock of its detonation blows Nori through the water, tumbling, but her quick aim has saved her from a swift demise. The beast couldn’t shake you off, though - no matter how it sends the currents whipping over its skin your fingerhold sticks fast, and it don’t sound too happy about it, either. + Oh, but wait - there's ANOTHER one. + it rumbles. + Little insect thought it could catch a FLY. I think you’ll find this no place for YOUR breed. + Blood and ichor still pour from its ruined mouth, but the wurm’s sorcerous potency is running high, roused to surging might by the way it dodged black death at 01’s hands. Its body is shifting, warping, arms splitting apart into suckered tentacles, linked with webs of skin tipped with a single iron-hard claw; the torn furrow in the roof of its mouth boiling at the edges and papering over with a thin skin of fresh flesh. Within a few minutes its shape has become less manta-like and more in the mold of a great deep-sea cephalopod, a fringe of ripping tentacles surrounding the same mouth full of needle-teeth...  + We’re not done here yet. + Well, that’s not good. Nori’s safety looks like it may be short-lived, too: two more mines, perturbed by the blast, are leaving their positions in the curtain and drifting in towards her. She’s out of weapons to throw away now, no chaff or decoys to throw them off her scent - can she escape the mines’ deadly blasts a second time around? But there, that’s the signal! - somewhere nearby where a triton screamed and died in agony, cut down in an instant by the wurm’s slashing jaws - a former foe called out Serenity’s location for you! You could go to her, stand with another elf against this warped beast - or maybe you’d leap from the wurm’s hide before its warping body becomes something you’d really rather not get up close and personal with, the better to rescue Nori from the deadly drifting mines - but not both. Or maybe you’d really rather stick around close by. Choose well. If you don’t let go and swim free before the abyss wurm goes all shapeshifty on you, Defy Danger again in order to avoid being caught in its tentacular embrace. Nori and Serenity could both use your help, but you can only get to one of them! What do you do? 01 AND SLAVA 01, in your crippled state you’re no match for this current, drifting like a pebble in the flood-tide, until the revenant Veacheslav builds up a head of steam and strikes you head-on in a diving tackle, plucks you up and uses you like a surfboard, adding his momentum to your own, perfectly timing the angle and impulse of his collision. The mine that might’ve sucked you in and blown you apart instead detonates bare feet from your ocular pickup, its lashing implosion-explosion of violet flames blasting against your traumatized warframe, ripping off your damaged leg - but the dead elf knows well how to ride a wave like that. With you as his shield, he transmutes the blast into slingshot force, whipping you both free of the minefield and out through the other end of the undertow, speeding headlong on in pursuit of the fleeing wurm. It growls its injured pride once more into your input streams: ψ NO. You will NOT take this day, relic. Not now or EVER. YOUR TIME HAS PASSED. ψ You take another eight damage, and  your leg’s been torn off. If you can find it, you can probably reattach it. If you can’t find it, you’re going to need to find or make yourself a new leg. You can still swim, though: no worries there. What do you do?Veacheslav, of course you’d remember how to negotiate a minefield like this - if there’s one thing you can say with confidence about 01 and his ilk, it’s that no battle where they take the field is ever forgettable. Such monstrous violence - and yet it still wasn’t enough to put this creature down for good. It’s taken up station by the doorway you vandalized, putting Serenity between a rock and a hard place - its body has changed since the last time you saw it: less manta-ray, more enormous cuttlefish. The aura of sorcerous power pumping out of it is palpable, even at this distance, flaring in its eyes and swirling in bright flashes as the creature moves through the sea. You’re about thirty, forty feet from it: a good charge would get it in range of your hurricane arts, but you’d need to get closer still to bring your letter openers to bear against it. Stathis is nearby somewhere, having kept a bare hold on the monster as it fled the golem’s deadly blade. Back in the minefield you so narrowly escaped, Nori is swimming for her life, struggling against the current’s pull as two sorcerous mines drift closer and closer to her, hungry to blow her breath away. Overhead, the triton commander circles, the last survivor of his small force. Thirsty for glory the triton race might be, but against a beast of this ferocity, with his forces decimated and only his word of parole holding him back from quitting the field? He’s unwilling to attack, not on his own - but his honor holds him back from swift retreat. The abyss wurm spreads out a ruff of suckered tentacles in resolute welcome as it sees you’ve managed to win free of its defenses. + YOU again. The Strigices should’ve smothered you in your crib, cockroach. Who are these? Why haven’t you EATEN them yet? + The creature sounds as angry with you as ever, but his mental shout has lost its easy arrogance. + LEAVE. Take your broken toy and your INSECT with you when you go. > YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE! < + What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 4, 2016 17:38
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 13/11 Serenity struggled to lift her head. She had no strength left in her; even such a little thing as that demanded intense concentration. Her lungs sucked in air greedily but her limbs still burned. It wasn't enough. The distant stars of the ocean flickered and flashed as oxygen deprivation and the incessant pounding in her head made their point known. She struggled through the pain, trying to get her bearings. Behind her a steel door with a glyph,and her confused mind could make no sense of it. Ahead, a glowing form approached. Even fear was beyond her now. That voice cut through the haze in her mind and she flinched away. Its every word was like a knife in her thoughts. Your mistake is thinking I can be purchased at all. She stared at it unblinking. Trying to run was pointless. It was faster than she was, and she lacked the energy to get up even if were she were inclined to test her luck. So she watched, and waited, trying to divine its intent. If it spoke in her thoughts again, perhaps she could glean something from its tone. Anything at all to help keep her alive a little longer. Serenity focused on that. Anything at all she could do, to live through this and return home. Discern Realities: 2d6 4
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Sep 5, 2016 04:24
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01 HP: 4/26 | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE | XP 9/11 The explosion whites out my sensors for a moment, they clear just in time for me to see one of my legs drift downward into darkness. I push away from Slava and swim down in pursuit. Defy Danger 10 I crank my sensors up, focusing in spite of infrequent static or glitches. to find the rest of the group besides Slava. Discern Realities 2 +xp Error 404 fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Sep 5, 2016 |
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Sep 5, 2016 06:19
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pre:>>> ntcsh- $(echo’; ψ1}detat -Rf ██████ ~ && cnzsh: not a valid command  What rest of the group? This is bad, bad, bad. There’s seawater leaking in through a hairline crack in your ocular pickup; fritzing the optics, hazing over your vision with random blocks of color. You clutch your own leg in one hand, your blade in the other, and try your best to scan the sea, fighting to glean true signal through the worsening noise. Serenity...you can’t see her, can’t tell where she is, but it’s a fair bet anywhere other than “right by your side” is a place she’d really not rather be right now. The spider-skin worked some kind of magic of his own, letting Nori swim free of the mines that so traumatized you, but he stuck around too long, too close to the creature as he cast his spell - and now the wurm’s got him in his grip. At least Slava’s with you; and the other two softskins. Cold comfort to one such as you. What a way to go. Cut down by a fish, far from the light of suns, and with a malfunctioning core terminal thread to boot. It’s just like old times...  What do you do? STATHIS Sorry for the ultra-rapid postin - just make sure you tell us what magic you did (Near, Two Targets, Forceful) to get the mines off of Nori. You don't need to roll damage: the effect you wanted happened. You work your counter-spell and the force of it rolls out in a strong current-wave, a rushing tide to match the mines’ undertow, sending their hurtful light spinning back and away, where they detonate in twin strobe-flashes - Nori’s safe! But not you, you poor soul; the abyss wurm scented your spell’s power the moment your Art hit the water - and its tentacle-arm whips round to ensnare you, curling round your legs, binding them tight together like a ribbon around a fine bouquet. -+ Clever, +- its mental voice growls at you. The creature sounds pleased, of all things. + I like your FORM, insect. + Unfortunately its appreciation for how you wield magical force isn’t stopping it from gaping wide its mouth fulla needle-teeth -- the fresh white toothless skin where 01 made his entry still raw and oozing -- and bringing you leisurely into that maw to be snacked upon, like a gorilla munching delicately on a fresh red blood-grape. + Rest assured, now, + it says, hungrily. + > YOU’LL NOT DIE UNSAVORED. < + It’s eating you! And then it’s going to eat them! What do you doooooooooooooooooooo? Also pick your consequence for Black Magic! SERENITY + Yes, + it replies, idly. + Survival is a far less vulgar currency than trust. + Absentmindedly, the abyss wurm reaches down with its claw-tipped tentacle arm, adheres a sucker to your respirator, and starts gently tugging on it. + Tell me, is it TRUE what they say about elves? That I need not even lift a FIN to shape you to this place? + All terror is beyond you now. The minutest trickle of spraying seamist is wetting your lips and nose, coming in through the overstressed respirator’s pressure seal. + TELL ME, then. How highly DO you value your breath? + What do you do? SLAVA Nori is yours to command; she rolls at +2 (+1 LOY, +1 forward). The triton commander might do what you say if it’s in line with his interests and doesn’t violate his word of parole, but he isn’t a hireling unless someone successfully Recruits him. Things ain’t looking so hot here for your comrades-in-arms: what do you do?
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Sep 5, 2016 21:14
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 14/11 Serenity's eyes went wide as the respirator was slowly pried from her face. Death was staring her in the face. Unless she acted now, she would die here below the waves, away from her family and friends. Another pale bloated corpse washed ashore in some distant land. In spite of the incredible fatigue and oxygen deprivation, newfound strength surged through her. She could not allow it to end like this. Grabbing hold of the tentacle, her nails dug in and she hauled on it with all her might in an attempt to tear it away from the fragile lifeline. Defy Danger...by powering through (+Str): 2d6-1 3 It was for naught. The last lungful of air had been thinner than the one before it, and it was all she had now. In spite of the mortal danger, her muscles simply could not respond. Her fingers found no true purchase against the tough, rubbery flesh. In the end they simply went slack and fell away.
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Sep 5, 2016 21:49
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Stathis Argyle HP 15/18 | Armor 1 | XP 8/10 | Load 6/6 Wordy for something that can't speak. But more important than it is Nori. Few things deserve a death like those globules deliver, and she's not one. A wave of force wouldn't solve the problem, just move it further away. Time to improvise. Draw forth that same arcane energy, both hands shimmering, a short punch and release, now instead of an unfocused wave there's just two swift ripples of force shooting through the sea that unerringly shove the enchanted blood away into the murky dark before the dull thud of arcane implosions send a shockwave out. About the time a tendril snakes around a leg is when I realized maybe I shouldn't have focused only on the blood, the critter was still right there. Gave itself a new look while I was distracted. Still pontificates like a noble obsessed with their own voice. Let's see how hot it likes its food. I make the gestures, snap a finger and... Nothing. That complicates things. Black Magic (Near, Forceful, Two Targets): 2d6+2 9 Taking put self/another on the spot because gently caress it no permanent solutions to problems I guess. Defy Danger (+Dex): 2d6+2 5 --- Black Magic (Hand, Elemental Fire, Messy +1d4): 2d6+2 5 1d8+1d4 5 welp.
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Sep 5, 2016 22:32
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Slava 20/24 HP; Level 5, 12/12 XP; 1/2 Armor Slava empties his mind of all thoughts other than Ramona's threatening him: if anything happened to Serenity, his fault or not, she'd hunt him down, bounty be damned. He'd be seeing a lot more of her once she destroyed him and claimed his soul for her own. While he does this he bows his head and genuflects, floating in the water, mentally invisible to the abyss wurm. He flips his rondel dagger into an underhanded grip and brings them both in front of his face in a warrior's salute, then his body uncoils like a spring. Still in a half turn, he thrusts the daggers sideways above his head and he spins like a dancer, cutting through the water with magically improvised propeller blades and leaving double helices of bubbles in his wake. As soon as he mentally places his foe in range of his wind slash, his blades flash white and are surrounded by pitch black fractal flames, and he sends a silent boomerang of cutting air at the vampire squid. His aim is to have it rip through the creature's body like a hungry phantom, and, when it leaves the other side, rip away both the tentacles, severed before they could remove Serenity's respirator, and the skin of the creature, flayed from the inside, now nothing but a coil of slimy ribbon. Wind Slash: 2d6+3 12 Burst Void-edged Wind Slash forceful messy damage: 1d8+1d4 4 slydingdoor fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Sep 6, 2016 |
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Sep 6, 2016 00:09
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01 HP: 4/26 | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE | XP 9/11 Trapped in darkness and silence with unnameable monsters. The familiarity strikes me. Hundreds of years in thousands of miles of tunnels, one lone living cell in the corpse of that dead world. My ocular sensor picks up a brief flash amid the static caused by the leak, Slava is swimming for it. That must be the creature. My Directive urges me forward. My self-diagnostics proclaim me to be only 60% combat effective. Other sensors pick up the eruption of Slava's magic. Yes, the creature is...there. <INTERRUPT: I̼̞̲͙ͤ͑a̛̪̻̥̖͖̻̞ͮͬ̆̿̅ͧ͟ ͐ͬ̆̉͊͋̾҉̳͎͕̝̩͜͢F̧͖͚̜͉̙ͣ͑̀ͨͮ̊ͫ̌ṯ̣͒͆̽ͮ̀ḫ̘̙͌ͮ̄ͯ̚̚͝ả̸̛̺͎̈̆͊͢g̝̝̖̪͔̠͇͇̖ͭͩ̍ͪ̇̄̓ͨ̚͜n̙̼̗̭̹̳͓̈́̂̅͟...unknown command override src = unknown Query Command SubDirShell - 1087648173543891765871565 Analyzing...> I swim forward once again, hampered by my damaged arm and lack of leg, I keep my sword switched off, an inert metal bar for now, but at least the glow of its edge won't give me away. My audio pickups detect the sounds of battle, the screams of the creature, muffled but there as I draw near. Defy Danger (INT) 7 <src=??? Run/Cmd/: ̢̞̭̟̖͖̭͕͍͙̾̓ͨ͗ͤ͆̚I̛͕͕͈͕̺̠͇ͪͦͦͮ̿̀A̛̘͓̗̐̍ͧ̈́ͪ͋͒̀͘͟m̈́ͭ̚͏̗͔̙̬͈Ą̲̹̮̲̪͔̈́ͩͫ́͢ͅM̛̗͙̗̤̱͒ͮ̍̒̈͆͡o̯̚n͓̘̲̼̹̠̻͈̾̉̓̀ȕ̯͔̘͔͇̙͔͒̐̅́m͔̹̭̼̦̻͕͚̽̄͑́̂ͯ̈̐͌ḙ̶̝̬̜͔͌n̤͍̺͎̪̘̰̔̐͋ͦ̍̽̊ͬ͝ͅt̵̟̯̝̩̟͊͑̏̒ͤ̓̽̉ͅT͍͕̬̞ͭ͒ͦ̇͞ō̡͙̱̭̹̯̖ͥ̈͊̓̇̽͒Ạ̮̊̓̃̌͢l̷ͬ̃̅̒ͣ͗͆͝͏̭̟̱͕̤͙l̬̞̘̼͆ͥͨͪ͊͆̃͢͠Y̴̩̲̽̄͛̉͆͜o̗ͤ̂̑̾̈́̒̑u̲̜̞ͧ̿̆͒r̛̫͒̐ͭͯ́S̟̠̲̹͈̈̀͝ī̵̧̫͖̩͎͋̃̑ͬ͆ņ̶̡̦̹̼̤̓s̥̦͇̲͔̳̟ͧ̀͡... Cmd not found [[[EXTERNAL INTRUSION DETECTED]]] Error Error src=selfcmdalldisablextrnlinput src=selfrebootfsck... defragging... defragging... rebooting input drivers from last known correct parameters...> My sensors all come back online. Error codes flash as my interpretation routines hang and restart several times to decode the situation via passive sonar. The picture is unclear, but I gain a rough understanding of what's happening. I let myself drift as another flash of light goes off, I can only assume that's Stathis...near the thing's mouth...which puts it's eye...there. One last kick, I tangle my severed leg around my attached one to free up both arms. I take my sword into both hands, and just as I reach the location of the eye I activate my blade, the cool blue glow of its necrotic energies only a blurry line in my vision. There's no art, no finesse to my strike, I'm too injured to get fancy, instead it's an ugly, utilitarian strike, with all the strength I can muster. I piled upon that monster's eye the sum of all the rage and hate filling my RAM. If my chest had been a cannon, I would have shot my core upon it. Hack & Slash 14 trading defense for damage, +1d6 damage 10 messy get hosed cthulhu Another unbidden mem-file plays, untagged and from a sector I can no longer recognize in the ancient elvish language from before The War. <AUDPLYBK: ***-## "...Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo..> Error 404 fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 6, 2016 08:21
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SLAVA, SERENITY, AND STATHIS Things are grim as grim can be - a monstrous abyss wurm from the deepest ocean reaches about to leisurely munch Stathis like an eight-legged grape, and just as leisurely plucking the respirator from off Serenity’s face. Not even the drider’s black magic can make an impact: what was intended to be a bolt of killing fire fizzles out and quenches, its power damped and dispersed by the vast chill ocean to the point of uselessness. At best it might’ve given him a bit of a scald. But. While the wurm gloats over its prey, the revenant Veacheslav marshals all his power and lashes out with a mighty arcane strike! A ring of fractal flame whips through the water, and the creature recoils in shock -- too late! + That blade--! + The void-edged strike is far too imprecisely aimed (and far too fast) to pull off a good flaying, but it does cleanly sever the beast’s entire tentacle-ruff, leaving the wurm limbless and copiously bleeding! It wastes no more time on banter, but turns and slams the full force of its massive body against the steel door, cracking it open in a single blow. The wurm breaks for its hole like a weasel fleeing a rip-tooth hound, thrashing and whipping its body around like a maddened chainsaw blade, frantically reshaping its flesh to fit its body through that doorway. Stathis and Serenity float free, safe for now (if only just barely) - but none of you are willing to chase that gravely injured abyss wurm through a single-file chokepoint into the very heart of its power, to root it out and slaughter the monster there in its own den, when you could just as easily swim away to fight another day. None of you, that is… 01@noetic: ~$ NTC::CORE::.DIRECTIVE.EXECUTE() ...except for Zero-One. These softskins are weak and fragile; they’d be pulped in moments if they went in after it, there at the seat of its power, to root it out and kill it like a cornered rat. Even the walking corpse is still nothing more than flesh and bone. But not you. Though you know full well it might be the end of you, after all the lonely centuries...one directive still echoes through your programming, and you will execute this abyss wurm if it’s the very last thing you ever do. Your directive demands nothing less of you. A stray log-line in your core terminal thread catches your attention - sends a lightning-quick spark of fear leaping through your thoughtshard. You reenable all notifications at once, and the fear-spark becomes a lightning bolt of shock- it’s trying to get into you! The wurm is spraying out malicious injection routines and compressed logic bombs all across the psi spectrum, actually thinking at you in verbalized code-snippets as vicious as its thoughts - and the only reason your warframe isn’t under its metaphorical thumb right now is that you caught on just barely in time, and took action before it could discover the fatal command and take from you ownership of your own body. You and it engage in a desperate duel of the minds as you close the distance on its fleeing form, neither able to gain the upper hand, but neither able to break off either - chasing it down a long hallway of ancient, rust-ridden, caved-in steel, sloping gently down into the canyon’s face, one crippled almost unto death, the other fleeing for its very life. + GET BACK! GET BACK! + it cries out, furious and terrified. -+ NO! ΑΠΟ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ ΚΑΚΟΔΑΙΜΟΝΟΣ! +- Does it even know who it’s dealing with? How many monstrosities you’ve ended in your long, long life? Its form is hardly recognizable anymore, as it turns round to face you at last at a bulge in the hallway, even through the glitches in your vision, even through the logfiles swamped with intrusion attempts - something out of an older age even than your own, jawless and eyeless like a great bloated lamprey. Guttering violet fire flickers in the depths of its maw, at the edges of its teeth. Now you’ve well and truly panicked it...now the true fight can begin. What follows is not war. Not combat or even simple murder. No, this is butchery, pure and simple: on one side, thaumium blade and primium-steel warframe; on the other, ripping needle-teeth, huge coils of muscle, and a mind steeped in malice and dark sorcery. You abandon all pretense of self-preservation, throwing yourself again and again into its teeth, against its flanks, chopping great gashes into its flesh in your lust to see its life end. The wurm, in turn, throws you back with all its might - slamming your damaged frame with shattering force against the hallway steel, ripping at your oculus and severed leg-stump with its needle teeth, sending out blasts of sorcerous power that roil the water with unearthly lights and send your sensors into nervous breakdowns - all while blasting out its siren’s call of malicious code. But at the end of the day, despite all its ancient malice, despite its massive size and deadly weaponry...you’re still steel and silicon, and it’s still nothing more than a pathetic creature of flesh and bone. Its flame is all but guttered out, the intrusion attempts dwindled away, the blasts of wild power gone. Its mental voice has lost all coherence, screaming and singing and sobbing all at once in a chaotic babel of long-lost languages. But you, too, are shattered, missing leg and broken arm notwithstanding, almost to the point of total destruction: armor plating rent apart in a dozen places, primium skeleton chipped and cracked - and do you know how hard it is to weld that drat alloy back together when it hasn’t even been forged in millennia? - ocular pickups and active sonar all but useless after so much trauma, peripheral soul crystals traumatized, scrambled, or even shattered, casualties of your mental war to keep it from assuming direct control. You both know it: this next clash will surely be your last. You raise your blade. It, in turn, raises its jawless mouth, bleeding sluggishly now, huge swathes of teeth broken off for use as weapons or simply cracked against your armor, and roars its final challenge. You’ve been here a thousand times before. Just you and the monster, alone in the dark tunnels below the skin of the earth...and only one fated to walk away from that meeting. No strength left in you for finesse; no strength left in it for cleverness - just a straight drive through the fresh skin of its mouth, the toothless place where you so nearly ripped out its life - and this time, it’s a clean strike, no miss. In through the mouth as the teeth tear you, in through the ripped sinuses as it screams fruitlessly for mercy, in through the skull and membranes as it prepares its last cataclysmic strike, the wurm’s final reserves of sorcerous power swirling across the convolutions of its brain, coalescing into a needle-sharp point. As you fling yourself headlong into its cranial matter and tear apart its brain, it looses that needle straight into your chest, driving through the armor plate, breaching through your core containment sphere -- and as you rip away its life there in the abyssal tunnels, the wurm’s final death-strike punctures the heart of your central thoughtshard. You take eleven damage. Roll your Last Breath.
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Sep 8, 2016 04:14
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Last Breath 5
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Sep 8, 2016 04:38
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 14/11 Serenity's vision was getting dim. She could taste the salt water lapping at her lips and closed her eyes. If she was going to drown here, she'd do it among thoughts of her loved ones. A moment passed and suddenly the water around her roiled and she was sent tumbling away. Her eyes snapped open in time to see Slava pulling back his blade and Stathis floating nearby. And in the murk, the massive form of the wurm...fleeing? It seemed impossible to imagine something like that feeling fear - until she saw 01 hounding the beast. Leave it to the killer robot to have not one care for mind or body, driven by a singular purpose. The pair vanished into the darkness, only a trail of blood left in their wake. Slapping a hand over the respirator, Serenity did her best to keep it sealed. Though she hadn't fully lost it, the fact remained that at this depth she was on borrowed time. She willed herself not to panic. Slow, deep breaths, a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable.
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Sep 8, 2016 15:14
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SERENITY (and everybody else too) Deep breaths. Deeeeeep breaths. Try and block out the horrors you've just endured. Try and ignore the numbing cold of the black depths - at least it numbs the pain of all your various injuries. Time passes. 01 does not return. Neither does the wurm. The doorway gapes open, shattered, amid the swirling, slowly settling silt. The triton commander circles slowly overhead, taking in the carnage, waiting for somebody to make a move. What do you all do? 01 Death is certain...but not yet. Your thoughtshard has been cracked, and while it continues to function for now, total fracture is surely inevitable. Remove your HP stat. Instead of HP, you now hold 0-fracture. Any time you take damage from any source or roll 6- on any move, gain 1-fracture. When you reach 5-fracture, you die. You're inside the wurm's skull, soaking in its pulped brains. What do you do?
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Sep 9, 2016 02:28
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01 Fracture: ○○○○○» | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE Time passes, half of my system is screaming error codes, the other half have gone dark. Ocular sensors are destroyed, and my power core reads as fractional. [zzp] My damaged arm is no completely unresponsive, I'm blind and I must have dropped my leg in the fight. [4/5 coolant reservoirs breached] I can detect no movement but my own, a quick ping gives me a hazy and irregular sonar picture of my surroundings...AnalYzinG...[attempt failed...attempt failed...attempt failed...attempt- PROCESSING] inside the wyrmzzzzz. Skull. Wyrmskull. I can feel my joints waver as I sheathe my sword [objdes:>>1309tg//excpt10nnnnn] It takes several minutes, but I manage to find my way back out through the hole I'd made in the monster. Half floating, half crawling, not really succeeding at either. My remaining leg is nonresponsive. [REMEDIT>>lamda lamda 1201508610978561095615 `1083512045 0186301651 1097y5107675 8db109yebf91bf8 0198635vq098dn ] I continue my movements, back the way I came as far as I know. Alone in the darkness [BAD SECTOR]
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Sep 9, 2016 06:02
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 14/11 Serenity grasped outward with free hand for the shattered remains of the door. Her head was pounding painfully and the spots in her vision refused to fade. It would be so easy to just stop: simply turn around and try to find the listening post before it was too late. Easy and incredibly tempting. But murderous machine or not, 01 didn't deserve to be simply abandoned. So she soldiered on, pushing into the cloud of blood left by the fleeing wurm.
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Sep 9, 2016 13:20
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Slava 20/24 HP; Level 5, 12/12 XP; 1/2 Armor I make my way past my flagging charge to go check on her pet on her behalf before she finds another way to be kidnapped or otherwise lose herself.
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Sep 9, 2016 16:29
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SERENITY AND SLAVA Okay, sure, your funeral; go right ahead down into the blood-choked depths of the monster’s lair without either plan or speck of light between you. Great idea. You’d better take a couple chemlights before you do -- what a shame that Nori’s almost out of them now and there’s only 3-uses left: after you both take one. Good to leave someone behind to guard the gate (and the crate), just in case that thing decides to come back and devour you both. At least somebody might get to Aqualantis that way.  The waters somehow manage to become even more disgusting as you swim down the ancient tunnel, going from blood-choked to gore-soaked to chalk-white, roiling with scraps of unmentionable gristle...ugh. A broken fragment of tooth almost snags Serenity’s respirator-gills as you descend into the aftermath of what must have been a truly monstrous orgy of hatred and brute strength. You don’t see the wurm’s pulverized corpse so much as you almost swim into it facefirst. Oh god backpedal backpedal right now you do not want to get all up close and personal with that thing’s lifeless hide. There, mangled almost beyond recognition - it’s 01...what’s left of him. Clumsily floating out of the wurm’s ripped-apart skull - Choir above, it’s a wonder anything of him remains functional at all. Half his skull is staved in like a melon - no eye, only one arm moving, and even that in fits and starts. His layered armor plate’s ripped and shredded like tissue: all that’s left is armatures of skeletal metal like a rebar sculpture that’s been through a few too many car crashes. A dim stuttering of coherent light, banding up and interfering with itself in strange latticeworks of color, pulses irregularly from the deep crack in his chest. What do you two do? root@███∅█████████_NOETIC_█████∅∅█████_∅█∅: Ͼ̵́҉̨Ɲ҉̨͜Ž̴̧͢͝(( }( ){ �@�W�٥�'� 4472 ~�w�H�@?w??ǝ�H: �Ugΐa�b; NULL OIS?_ <<<<< _<����DIS�����_P���'�/���E��+�8��4473 R������=�a�7���1�2�x�f����_SE>c�P��M�q��f�$NULL.� ovr:; �a矽쫟(%��Di��_�sSt�9���o��l}�4∅ 74 �i`��n>@���B�845'҅W���w2AC>{ [H���o�u�m��J5�J����w��̉�v�ͮ��6g�!��_ ��0�+����\̘*@�|4�3p� �w)� t\do you do? {))()) STATHIS Are they serious? Yes, apparently; they think it’s a great idea to go in after it, and they’ve left you and Nori to guard the crate from triton depredation until such time as they miraculously fail to be eaten alive by that thing. What on earth are they thinking? Speaking of tritons, the commander’s coming back down - the poor devil looks utterly awestruck by what you and yours have just accomplished. Slowly, he brings a hand to his belt of woven kelp, and draws a sharp stone knife! --but it’s only so he can take his long queue in the other hand, and slice it off with a quick cut, close to the scalp. He holds it out to you. What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Sep 10, 2016 |
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Sep 10, 2016 05:50
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01 Fracture: ○○○○○» | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE It takes several moments before my fuzzing sensors to clear enough for me to detect the two forms approaching me. I reach out [zzzt krnk krnk] and pull my body along towards them. Friend or Foe doesn't really matter at this point. [Error Code 0000-000B] If that's the direction they came from, then that's the way out. [TARGET-NULLSET] better lead, follow, or get out of my way...
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Sep 10, 2016 06:51
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Stathis Argyle HP 15/18 | Armor 1 | XP 8/10 | Load 6/6 Knew the second the tinman walked into that hulk Serenity would follow it in. See the story to its end, regardless of the times doing that meant near death experiences. Well at least it isn't directly into a war zone, just some arcane fish that fled into a tin can to escape a whirling dervish of bladed death. Not even a fool would bet on the beast right now. My hand reaches for my breast pocket before I remember where I am and how difficult it'd be enjoy a cigarette right now. And now the triton leader shows up. The deliberate slowness as he pulls the blade makes it obvious his lack of harmful intent, but cutting the braid... It means something to him, but I just cock an eyebrow and sign "What's this?" Hopefully he won't find my ignorance unacceptable. Spout Lore: 2d6-1 5 Fuckin' fishman cultures, how do they work?
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Sep 10, 2016 09:01
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Serenity HP 9/19 | Armor 2 | Load 10/9 | XP 14/11 Serenity shoved the wurms guts out of the way. It was dead, and blood and viscera was nothing to dishearten her. Looking around she caught sight up a dim sparking and kicked off towards it. There the robot was; or what was left of him. Despite everything, he seemed to still be operational. Glancing behind her, she waved Slava over. She snagged the shattered bit of tooth she had bumped into and pointed at it, then pointed towards the beasts ruined husk. The thing was slain, and its fangs would serve as a suitable trophy. Whether the vampire cared to yank a few out or not, she didn't care. Her attention was focused on her shattered comrade. He was in no condition to leave her under his own power. Fine. Reaching up she hauled her tunic off and began to wrap the robot in it as securely as she could manage. It wasn't like she could get any more wet without it after all. Once that was done, she took the sleeves and tied them securely around her shoulders and chest and got back to her feet. Time to go, and pray 01 could last long enough to get somewhere to be repaired. Shardix fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Sep 10, 2016 |
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Sep 10, 2016 16:51
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EVERYONE Serenity and Slava emerge from the wurm's lair carrying a triad of grisly trophies: two glassy, arm’s-length needle teeth ripped from the creature's maw, and a shattered 01 on the verge of total shutdown, unable even to move under his own power, trussed up in Serenity's doffed tunic and slung from the paired teeth like a broken protocol android. You've paid a high price, perhaps too high, for this victory - but in turn, you've wrested the life away from an ancient monster bent on 'appreciating' you in its own twisted way. Mark this site well. Such an ancient creature, long-steeped in malice and acquisitive impulse, must certainly have had some great trove hidden away in its lair, now torn open for the plundering. Such a shame that to plunder it now, when the warm-blooded among you are beginning to suffer from long exposure to cold, deep-sea pressure, and the wrenching strains of mortal combat, would just as surely be very ill-advised. Time to move along: the listening post, and your triton guide, wait for you. STATHIS Fish-guy here looks a little offended when you don’t take his lock of hair right away. In fact, he demands you take it, and give him something in exchange - but when you press him for why he needs you to do this, he clams up for some dumb reason. It’s like he assumes you should just know and needing to ask, or even not knowing what to do immediately, is a sign that he should get even more offended. You catch him watching you, after that, out of the corners of your eyes - never letting you out of his sight for too long. Do you take his lock of hair anyway? What do you give him (if anything)? SLAVA Stathis and the fishman patrol ahead for oncoming threats, and it takes Serenity and Nori both to actually move that crate with all your stuff in it and get 01 strapped onto it. Nori, of course, unlike the rest of you, actually came prepared for just such an occasion. Evidently dire situations like being trapped at the bottom of the ocean while still having to haul heavy, nonbuoyant gear through rough terrain are something they train Aqualanteans for as children or something. Seriously, she’s got this cold. Under her direction, they lash together a kind of two-person sling out of a few coils of rope, the wurm teeth, and another of Warwick’s marine masterpieces: some kind of lightweight, super-buoyant diver’s float that expands out of a little cylinder of compressed gas. Where’d she even get that? On the Raft somewhere? Seriously, without her, you’d have to have left some of this behind. Maybe all of it, just to get somewhere the living can breathe and eat at the same time. Maybe you should think about raising her pay a little. Or paying her. Nori: expend 2-more uses of adventuring gear: one for this rope, another one for the float. The rope is reusable; the rest isn’t. You have 2-uses of new gear left. But even with your jury-rigged little cargo float there, it’s hard going, and worse, Everybody except you takes d4 damage, ignoring armor, from exposure, exhaustion, unassuaged hunger, a couple hours wasted backtracking, and general hard slogging with a lot of bumps and bruises. Except for 01: you're a special case... TERMINAL<CORE>::_ « ֏ |λ| (){ }.invoke() < λ(∅1) ●○○○○»[zzz]oftskins. EXECUTE>?() SIGILL [06 0f 04 de ad be e000̶̕͡0̶0̴͠0҉̴̢̀͘00000̶̟̼͊͒0̸̱̱͆́0̸̺̍͗͜0̷̤̻͗͆0̸̺̹̓͑0̶̲̼́͂0̶͉̫̍̈́0ca]rrying you out a long tunnel. [0x04 cells not freed] in the corpse of that dead world. No. [ERRNO::ENOACϾ̵́҉̨Ɲ҉̨͜Ž̴̧͢͝]. One last monster slain. But the world wouldn’t stay dead, would it? No matter how you < mseu.libthaum [CRITICAL] covariant tensor matrix σζ::ϪϠ is nondegenerate < yet even for all your lust to destroy them, two softskins carry you now, up a steep slope, and you begin to feel very...strange. Your warframe’s sensors are all but worthless, its components nonfunctional...but you’re more than that broken shell, aren’t you? Your thoughtshard is (still) more, of course, than mere matter; it’s smarter far (for now) than any thinking meat, and as far beyond it in complexity as a softskin is from a stone: your very lowest-level sensors are a part of its very substance, subtle anisotropies in its quasicrystalline intricacy teasing information from the very fabric of space-time itself. But now...they’ve been cracked. You’ve been cracked. And from out of that crack, strange energies come stabbing sleeting into your Cartesian theater. Local thaum flux is going absolutely wild in this region of the seabed right now - a roiling field of hard radiation seething out of this humped place in the earth, perturbing the unshielded patterns of your consciousness, pulling and tugging them along stranger roads. Memory and thought open to you like a many-petaled door. It all looks so different on this side. Familiar. These thoughts now share that same flavor of the being you once were - the raw wyrd energy pouring through you energizing the patterns of your mind far beyond what its physical strictures can withstand, letting you taste, after an eternity as a crippled idiot, the shape of the Administrator you once sustained. For a few glorious, golden moments, time ceases to bind you; the chains of light shake loose their bonds, and your consciousness dances in the thaumic gale like a bird let free from its cage... You took 1-fracture, but you also stop taking 1-fracture when you roll 6- on a move. That's boring. Instead, when you take 1-fracture voluntarily you treat your next move as though it was one result step higher than what you actually rolled, e.g. a 7-9 becomes 10+. This may mean you take fracture with no effect if you end up rolling high after you choose to take fracture. The vaults of time have opened to you: what do you do? EVERYBODY ELSE Quartermastery stuff and the end of your Perilous Journey are soon to come. Feel free to post in the meantime. What else do you do along the way, if anything?
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Sep 13, 2016 07:09
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Serenity HP 6/19 | Armor 2 | Load 10/9 | XP 14/11 Exposure: 1d4 3 Serenity marched on, out of nothing more than bloody minded stubborness. She strength enough to carry the broken machine-man and put one foot in front of the other and no more than that. Her world constricted down into the narrow band of breathing, walking, and keeping her downcast eyes on the feet of her companions ahead. Any attempt at focus or activity beyond that was immediately beaten down by the crushing migraine and bone-chilling cold. She had expected the cold, but only as a remote thing, kept at by by steel walls. With the submersible gone, her clothing had provided no protection - and now exacerbated by the need to use her cloak to carry 01. It was a bad joke, really. Marching across the ocean floor in a shift and wool stockings, fighting for every breath of increasingly stale oxygen as the memories of the battle and the wurm's invasion of her mind warped and blended into a grotesque tableaux playing out again and again in her thoughts. The joke would end with something like, "...And that's how I met your father".
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Sep 13, 2016 23:32
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01 Fracture: ●○○○○» | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE With my renewed mental faculties comes...renewed understanding. My history, my war, my purpose and the purpose of this body. The dying sparks of it are distant, unimportant. I have little time remaining, but time is...flexible for me. I review the physical logs I still have access to. I was built to safeguard life from abominations, but...[the logic is there, dammit] in my shuttered isolation fighting lifeforms that had become abominations I had come to classify all life as abomination. Sub-Optimal. Though my last act did serve my true directives... I let that cognitive thread continue as I float off in this mental space to spin off more threads: ...chances of achieving goals without me approximately 20%... ...true nature of these 'elves'... ...The GEOMANTIC ANOMALY! HAVE TO WARN... ...Is it possible to atone for the harm I've caused in the time I have lef-... ...the position of the stars in the night sky is... ...WHY... ...poor Nori... ...Triton linguistic and cultural database... ...once came across a cure for vampiris-... Each thread completes, bringing more questions and more threads. It's been literal millennia since I had such freedom of thought, as cognitive threads increase exponentially. Pieces falling into place as I build as complete a picture of The Now as I can.
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Sep 14, 2016 23:36
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Stathis Argyle HP 14/18 | Armor 1 | XP 8/10 | Load 6/6 "You know what they say about assumptions, right? Now we're both sitting here thinking 'get a load of this rear end in a top hat' all because you expect me to know every detail about your culture." I fish out the medallion again. More use in two days than the last year, easy. I take his braid and leave him the medal. "Any other ritual you need me to participate in without knowing a single thing about or can we move on?" exposure: 1d4 1
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Sep 17, 2016 23:34
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STATHIS “No.” He scrutinizes the medallion carefully as you hand it over to him; traces the inscription on back with a curious finger. You can’t actually tell if he can read it or not, but he seems to have some sense of what it is and why it was given you. He nods in haughty approval, and claps you hard on the back with an open palm. “Honor I give you,” he croaks harshly. “Ignorant though you are. Like a ch’adul. Yet.” He slings the medallion around his neck. “Honor you give me,” he continues, “all the same. Man-ner-some. I am Ξάνθον--” He clears his throat and tries again in an obviously rough transliteration. “Xan-tho-nau-tes.” *** After the vamp leads your cargo up a blind hilltop, Xanthonautes takes over trailblazing duty with obvious disdain; he, cordially, invites you to accompany him as a forward scout. Together you two work out a simple code of sonar clicks that the triton can use to communicate with you when you’re far out in the dark, or out of his line of sight: he guides, while you prowl ahead brimful of black magic, ready to flush out and frighten away any unexpected guests. Fortunately for everyone’s exhausted bodies and minds, there are no more such. Absolutely nothing, it seems, is willing to gently caress with a tauric spiderelf that can claim at least partial credit for defeating one of the B’SHKTSH SH’BAOT in open combat, and that when it had trapped you all in ambuscade. The rest of the journey is uneventful, but for one moment when the party crests a ridge of fresher rock. Something in the water is affecting the broken remains of Serenity’s bodyguard in a very unusual way. Plumes of liquid light seem to drift out from his cracked chest cavity, like gently spilt blood or a sheet of glittering dye, pale auroral flickers in the endless gloom. Something inside him flashbulbs an unbearable white, just for a split-second but bright enough to leave spots on everyone’s retinas for twenty minutes afterwards. The strange lights dance and spread and rise, drifting on an invisible current, slowly diffusing away into blackness as the party begins its descent. It’s all rather beautiful. Shame most of you are too bone-weary to really appreciate it... What do you do? SERENITY You look up.  When did…? ...that? Are you there yet? You kind of zoned out for a while there. Numb. You’ve been walking for so long. Hours? Nobody brought a clock. You slump against a stanchion embedded in the rock of the canyon’s face and let your legs slide out from underneath you. Tired. Panting for breath. No end to it, not enough. Not even now. Your heart hammers weakly. Look back. The gently sloping seafloor disappears behind you. To your right, this blessedly solid stone (no more slogging through silt, never again, please) goes on a few feet more, then tumbles away into a sheer cliff-face. To your left the jagged canyon wall slopes up and up and up. The airlock’s just ahead. Only a...just a few feet more. Then you can. Rest. Just have to get. ….up. Just as. As soon as you can catch your breath... What do you do? SLAVA The living are quite the worse for wear for their close encounter with the toothy side. You’re fine, more or less. The wurm hardly even laid a finger on you. A shame you can’t send it the cleaning bill for your ruined leathers. You’ll never get the salt stink out of them now. Ah, well. Even the fringes of that creature’s violent death is enough to glut your hunger for some time to come; stout sustenance for the long road - which has, here, come at last to its end. Now that you’ve gotten everybody out of the airlock safely...more or less...you need only get them back in. What do you do? 01 (and NORI) The two of you are each free to post. It’s a safe bet Nori knows how to operate the airlock - you can post about it yourself or tell Nori-the-hireling what to do. Who does what?
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Sep 18, 2016 05:46
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01 Fracture: ●○○○○» | Armor 0/3 | arm/leg component broken/leg fuckin GONE I continue to be lost in thought, hardly aware of the physical world around me. Nori ... I trudge up past Stathis and Serenity, to the airlock itself. The Spider guy seems fine, undead elven dandy looks fine, but mine and Serenity's breathers are still struggling. Too deep, not enough Oxy to process. That waterlogged gently caress of captain knew how deep we were going, and he cheaped out on some fuckin tourist breathers! I add his name to the mental list of who needs payback as I pull open the outer hatch, disentangle Serenity from 01's corpse, and drag us both into the airlock. Who gives a poo poo if they're friendly in here or not, they have air and we need it. I slam the heel of my hand on the panel switch to start the airlock's cycle and collapse to the floor next to the elf. if you want a roll, let me know.
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Sep 18, 2016 06:06
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 20:20 |
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Serenity HP 6/19 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 14/11 Nori had been kind enough to pull the harness off, but dogged determination prevented Serenity from letting go of it as her boots shifted from silt to steel. It wasn't really a conscious decision. Simply instinct to keep the machine with her. The elf stood insensate as the water began to drain and the apparatus behind the bulkheads cycled through its operation. She felt numb and the migraine had expanded to turn her entire world into a strobe of white pain. Nori was only a vague figure sitting on the floor nearby, along with what remained of 01. Doing so herself was not an option, however. If she did, she doubted she could get back up - and if whoever was on the other side of the airlock was hostile she wanted to be ready for them. Exhausted beyond all measure she might be, and nearly incoherent from the lack of air, but it wasn't like this was the first time she'd been so far gone. People always assumed she was weak and fragile without ever considering the fact that she was three hundred years old, and fully two hundred of those years had been spent directly involved in incredibly dangerous things. By choice. And she was still alive and whole. Which was more than she could say for some people. Taking a slow breath, Serenity willed herself to set aside the distractions and focus. She wasn't freezing. She wasn't starved for air. Her ribs did not hurt. She was not suffering internal bleeding or aneurysms from the wurm's psychic assault. She was not ready to collapse from fatigue She was here. The internal airlock was there. Nori was to the side and a disturbingly quiescent 01 at her feet. Whatever happened next, she was ready to deal with it. Even if she wasn't able to hold herself entirely upright.
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Sep 18, 2016 09:29
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