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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Serenity closed her eyes and listened. It was difficult to follow precisely what Ighirian said - neither of them were in the best of mental states right now - but he referred to Shallendo and that stilled her tongue from giving voice to her questions. It seemed the little one was as compelled as her grand dam to touch the world as she passed. To what end, I wonder?
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Mar 23, 2018 02:31
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NORI As Aqualantis has given up its dead, so too does Tian in its dying hour give up its treasures to you. Ammunition for the Bombardans is regrettably scarce - but, in your eleventh-hour crawl through the gutted ruins of your home, you find treasures perhaps more useful still. The Bombardans have enough firepower left for one good engagement at range, and then they’re only good for hand-to-hand. Be on the lookout for the nine surviving ghouls too, and any more of the skeletal riflemen. (They’d probably have more ammo if you can get it off them first.) Be on the lookout for underwater survival gear too. First, food. The Sea Legs Cafe survived the Sink more or less intact. You duck in through the shattered picture window and shake the place down for goodies. Miraculously, a box of your favorite seacakes escaped the looting and general catastrophe, tucked into a corner in the break room between the lockers and the manager’s desk. You tuck it in among your other things. Dry fish-meal, food yeast, and processturized pressed algae product. Mmm. On your way out, you snaffle a flask of cold coffee at the Bombardans’ urging; and you spy enough other bits and bobs to make a pretty good meal. You found a box of seacakes (7/7 uses, 1 weight, requires Aqualantean) and a personal feast ration (1 weight, 1 use, perishable), usable by anybody. * * * Next, knowledge. On the day of the Sink, the Wunderlanders seem to have been giving some sort of symposium, at Greene Park where six roads meet. The central gazebo is crammed with the spoiled fruits of their tragic aspiration. It’s all magitech in the hydrological theme: the latest delights from Warwick’s wunderkammern of impossible industry. A new kind of Venturi lens, a bunch of different osmotic films, even an Overbeck tessellator and a Stokes arbitrator - all tools or equipment for water manipulation. Half of it’s been smashed or looted, but much is still intact. The demonstrators even brought in the manuals for it all. You could probably get some of this stuff to work if you put your mind to it, and the Ikarians told you those crystals from the mana vent would probably work to power this stuff. You found a bag of blueprints (5 uses, 2 weight) and a whole lot of broken magitech gadgetry. Blueprints work like a bag of books except they're for your Jury-Rig instead of Spout Lore. Tinker away, fishmom.  Admittedly that's a lot of ‘probably’ in those last thoughts, but then again, you probably shouldn’t be alive right now. And you won’t be if you stick around much longer. That dome’s coming down. Sooner, not later. You can already see a score of minute flaws in its grand resiny arch - nothing’s eaten through yet, but its integrity is already weakened. A good hit in the right place might do for it...or else maybe just an hour or two more for the acid to work; a little more time spent straining futilely against the sea...and when that hour’s up, you’d better be gone, you and anyone else who wants to stay alive. Control of the district locks will very shortly here be a life-or-death matter for whoever gets there first. Better hope that’s you. Better hope you’ve got enough breathers for everybody, just in case. Or enough skill and savvy to make some. * * * Last, transport. Some kind of strange vehicle is parked outside the back steps: a flat plate of dark metal studded with a half-dozen hoverfield blisters. A squat crescent bulges from the prow and wraps around the craft’s underbelly, terminating in a pair of curved grips studded with switches and knobs. It looks a little like a faster, nimbler version of the PERT’s patrol skiffs. It also looks like it was designed for someone with six legs. Half the thrust and vector controls are heel plates or kick switches in the craft’s distal foot-wells. There’s no way you’re taking any joyrides on that thing without adapting the controls first, but it could easily be a useful freight transport if you just put it in neutral and tow it with a rope or something. You found Scrimshaw’s getaway car. It has load 10, or one person with all their Load. You can’t pilot it unless you Jury-Rig it first, but you can haul it like a wagon without piloting it. * * * As you’re walking back out onto the Street of Chimes, the sky lights up stark white above you. A sleek submarine, a newcomer to the distant war, has parked itself above the Tian dome. Rows of glaring spotlights on its underside are flooding the battlefield, and the doomed neighborhoods of Tian, with a watery white light like a submerged streetlight. Vents along the ship’s keel spill something dark and gauzy into the ocean depths. Sandbridge is standing stock-still in the middle of the intersection, gazing up into the light. Something in the set of her shoulders fills you with unease. There’s a kind of yearning in the blank gaze of her mirrored faceplate. A hungry reaching that simultaneously attracts and repels you. Drawn, you look up with her too. The triton soldiers encounter that sea-drift of malignant gauze and the first to enter only endures a few seconds before you start to see something wrong in his movement. A sort of jittering uncertainty in the stroking of his fins. Gradually the scout’s body starts to twitch and jerk. The others near him start to turn back, but they’re caught in the cloud’s outer edges already - in moments they too fall victim. The triton soldiers thrash in the water like fibrillating hearts, contorting unnaturally -- and then suddenly, dreadfully, fall still. The gauzy cloud falls onto the sieging army like a rain of death. In minutes, scores of tritons are dead, and the survivors are scattering in all directions, their signal-lights winking out all in a flutter. * * * Sandbridge wrenches her eyes away from the scene. Jerkily she starts to walk, blindly following the city spectres in their slow spiral. She doesn’t say a word to you or to anyone else, just looks over her shoulder once like she’s expecting you to follow. Keep on, and she’ll lead you to Scrimshaw. Or follow in your own way. It couldn’t be easier. Just follow the dead. They know their master. Atrocity has been committed in your city’s name. Accountability for this act will, someday, somehow, by you or by others, come due. What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 05:30
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Nori 23/23 HP | 1/1 Armor | XP 8/11 | load 8/14 We manage to make our way around or through collapsed passages and back alleys, main streets are either too full of broken down vehicles, or lurking dangers. The Bombaboys look hungry, as well as scared, so we scavenge as we go I give them the rest of my food, and everything we can scavenge that non-aqualanteans can eat. marking off every ration but the seacakes. We reach a small courtyard, I figure wherever Scrimshaw is should be nearby because we find his ride stashed there. Everybody takes five to catch breath while I get a better look at this thing: It looks like a standard ground effect bike, but heavily modified to be used by something like Stathis...but bigger. Hmmm. We don't have time for me to try and unfuck the controls, and I'd only be able to fit maybe one other person on it besides me anyway, but the starter is unchanged, so I activate the starter rune and leave the throttle in neutral. It's a good thing I've got so much stupid loving rope.  It takes me only a few minutes and the help of one of the less combat-shocked looking Bombas to load up the hover bike like a supply wagon. I put the scavenged magitech we found, along with my spare food, and gear on it, and lashed the whole thing together with rope, and a few lines for hauling the big bastard around with us. It can even work as mobile cover if anyone starts shooting. Nori Maki...Suuuper Genius. That small project done, I get the Bombas pulling/guarding the wagon, and we're about to set off again when... Alumnus Post posted:the sky lights up stark white above you. A sleek submarine, a newcomer to the distant war, has parked itself above the Tian dome. Rows of glaring spotlights on its underside are flooding the battlefield, and the doomed neighborhoods of Tian, with a watery white light like a submerged streetlight. Vents along the ship’s keel spill something dark and gauzy into the ocean depths. Like watching helplessly as that ghoul ran off with the kid, I feel that same sense of sickness and hate in my gut. Sandbridge's body language only makes that feeling more intense. Atrocity has been committed in your city’s name. Accountability for this act will, someday, somehow, by you or by others, come due. loving-A right it is... "Alright guys, we keep moving." We stick to the more open lanes as we go, the thickening crowd of ghosts giving way to what looks like some kind of weird glow peeking from between buildings. Our pace slows to a crawl as we all crouch down with weapons raised. we find a decent vantage and I finally get a glimpse at the big bastard Scrimshaw. He's about 15 feet away from Ramona and Serenity, I can't see the other woman that they had with them. Serenity is holding onto some kind of rod, and it looks like its cooking her from the inside out, and Scrimshaw is ranting at her and I can't make out the words, poo poo it might even be elvish for all I know. This is loving bad. I duck back and converse in quick whispers with the others. "okay people, we got a really strong big rear end in a top hat out there hurting my people, we have some number of those fuckin ghouls still creeping around, and who knows what the gently caress else. Logically, we should probably put the crab-man down first and that's what we're gonna do. you guys backtrack a little, see if there's other alleyway openings into this square. I wanna get at least a partial encirclement while also keeping the elf and the armored human down there out of the line of fire. Questions? No? ok. lets do this, wait for me to fire and then give it all you got." The Bomba's faces all drew into grim frowns at my words, but they were nodding at the plan. I'd lost track of Sandbridge somewhere, but there isn't time to go looking for her. I duckwalked back to the partially collapsed wall I'd hidden behind to originally take in the scene, I clicked off the safety on my HMG and took aim at the center of the 'human-ish' torso part of Scrimshaw's center mass. After a couple minutes, I caught a small flash in the corner of my vision, a bomba was reflecting light off of his dog tag to catch my attention, that must mean they're in position and ready. Meanwhile, Scrimshaw pauses in his ranting, like he expects Serenity to answer him, I take a couple deep breaths, count to 5, and squeeze the trigger. Volley 9 You have to take several shots, reducing your ammo by one (HMG now has 1/2 ammo left, no reloads) damage 5 I lock my elbows to hold the ungainly rifle on target as I burn through half of my remaining ammo trying to end this fucker. Any second now the Bombas should start adding their fire to mine. Error 404 fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 27, 2018 07:05
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quote:Hirelings do what you tell them to, so long as it isn’t obviously dangerous, degrading, or stupid, and their cost is met. When a hireling find themselves in a dangerous, degrading, or just flat-out crazy situation due to your orders roll+loyalty. On a 10+ they stand firm and carry out the order. On a 7–9 they do it for now, but come back with serious demands later. Meet them or the hireling quits on the worst terms. NORI bombardan loyalty roll +1 = 2d6+1 [4, 1] 6 
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Mar 29, 2018 04:51
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SERENITY “She took me below, Serenity,” Ighirian whispers. “Her master showed me the way. I...I saw things. Things I could never have fathomed. They showed me all, all of it, all...” His eyes are blank and staring, miles away, his voice rising with some unnamable passion. “I was a babe before that truth. Less than the meanest infant. AND MY QUEEN KNEW!” His face is a mask of insane rage, spittle flying -- “SHE KNEW AND HID IT FROM US ALL!” The circling ghosts cry out softly at his pain, at his moment of shattering revelation; a sound like the memory of wind, like the sea’s exhale onto the stony beach. Above, the tritons die in droves, cut down by the dozen by a black marriage of Aqualantean thaumochemistry and necromantic will. You’re losing him. Scrimshaw, Ighirian, he’s slipping away from you, no-- NORI You’ll never have a better opportunity than this. He’s monologuing. Totally absorbed in his half-crazy, grief-stricken rant, completely oblivious to you, all his attention focused on Serenity. He’s even got his back turned. You hide the cart with your goods on it behind a nearby dumpster and creep closer to set up for the kill. Ramona’s just watching, hand clamped hard on the rod that looks like it almost cooked your elven friend. Her suit’s been powered back up somehow since the last time you saw her. Serenity doesn’t look like she can handle being the focus of any more aggression, and the ex-formavit’s close enough that he could almost reach out with that crab-claw and snip her clean in half...maybe she’s waiting. Biding her time. Well, if so, she’s about to have a golden opportunity. You settle your heavy gun’s crosshairs on Scrimshaw’s broad scarred back, exhale, and take the shot. BRANWEN You’ve had just about enough of this gently caress. Who the hell does he think he is, playing around the edges of your fear-spell like that, getting away with that monologue like the rest of you can actually understand any elvish? If it wasn’t for the hundreds upon hundreds of circling spectres ready to tear apart anything that sets them off, you’d-- NORI It’s a perfect shot. You couldn’t ask for better. Two dozen metal-jacketed slugs hammer the formavit from behind, bright flashes of white erupting as the rounds hit his passive spellwards and ricochet wildly off in all directions. Scrimshaw jerks, lurching forward - then he arches and bucks in agony as the next two dozen rounds finally overload the ward and strike home. SERENITY No cry of pain springs from Scrimshaw’s lips - only a series of wet, strangled coughs and a spray of bright blood. Green flame jets from his mouth and the exit wounds over his lungs. NORI He whirls. “YOU.” His aura of power is palpable, a rising furnace-blast of power and fury. His lips are peeled all the way back, his eyes wide and staring -- not at you, but at your sword. “It was YOU who did it. YOU. You KILLED MY MASTER. YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!" He throws his head back and screams, a welding-torch flame jetting out at you from deep within his throat, and Scrimshaw’s ghouls howl back in return -- it sounds like they’re right on top of you, oh Gods they were right behind you, and the Bombardans are right in the thick of them! There’s no way they can give you any covering fire - they’re too busy fending off their assailants, and this time there’s no cover or ammo-reserves for them to fall back on…worse, they didn’t listen to you, they’re all clumped up instead of breaking off in a surround, and the ghouls have them pinned between two sides of an alleyway... What do you do? BRANWEN You wait and watch, too respectful of the hundreds of circling spirits to do anything that might set them off again, when all of a sudden everything breaks and the whole scene goes to bloody hell in the space of about four seconds. Nori sprung her own ambush on Scrimshaw, clever girl - but she’s being awfully blithe with the lives of your squad. The hell she’s thinking, sending them out against a formavit? Not even you would go toe-to-toe with one of those monsters alone. Between Nori, your acolytes, Ramona, or Serenity; whose aid do you go to? What do you do? RAMONA Power courses through you. Your heart burns with it. Your veins sing with it. It’s like a drug. This time you have the whip-handle. You hold the balance. You wield the brand. Every spectre’s eyes are on you. The scar over your heart is alight with ruby fire. You could do anything to him. Make him scream. Make him submit. Sear him to ash or leave him to the spectres’ mercy or crack this dome open like a rotten egg. Savior is a searing needle-sting in your other hand, cold as ice. With the power of this elemental at your command, and the tools to channel it, you could literally shift the ocean in its bed. You could set the waters to circling and open a whirlpool to the open air. You could call up the ocean beneath the ocean to drown this wretched city in magma. But first you’d have to convince that power to let you do it, or break him to your will. The city's dead watch coldly. What do you do? SERENITY Scrimshaw lurches towards Nori, panting harshly, the flames in his wounds guttering in time with each ragged breath. "WE HAD IT ALL UNDER CONTROL," he snarls at her, a bubbling gargle in his voice - hemothorax. "But YOU threw it all off the rails! Now all he needs is THAT--" -- he stabs a finger at the thing in Ramona's fist -- "--to bring forth devastation the likes of which you cannot even comprehend!" Suddenly his voice takes on a hollow, empty timbre, harsh and echoing like the crash of a mallet against an iron drum. He turns to you again. "GO ON," he grates, "PRAY TO YOUR GODDESSES. ASK THEM WHAT BECAME OF THEIR BROKEN SIBLING. ASK THEM WHAT THEY SENT YOU HERE TO FIND!" "I SAW YOU BELOW, SERENITY. I SAW THE THREADS OF YOUR FATE GATHERED IN MY MASTER'S EYE. I SAW THE TRUTH." The truth of his words rings in your psyche like a death knell. Such does he prophesy: "ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴡᴀʟᴋ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ's sʜᴏʀᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ!" What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Mar 30, 2018 |
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Mar 30, 2018 04:50
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 10/13 XP; 4+1 Armor; 11/11 Load I speak to the elemental, asking them whether they know Fitzl, about how many more of their people are enslaved by Murgo, and whether they want to team up to eliminate him and go back to being left alone.
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Apr 2, 2018 00:34
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RAMONA Your awareness sinks into that tectonic wash of heat and light. A molten spar of thought seams tentatively up into your consciousness, spreading its slow communication like an intrusion of precious crystal into a vein of plutonic rock. The being's thoughts are vast, slow and placid like molten granite, but with an overpowering, inexorable pressure behind them. To change this being's mind, you'd need incredible strength of will - a fixity and sureness of conviction fit both to match its momentum and to redirect it. Your first impression is one of second infancy; of new-molten rock white hot with the heat of its recreation, inchoate and still unformed. Your second impression is something you know all too well. As the slave, liberated, struggles against her slaver, and may not prevail; so too does this newborn struggle against its constraints - to have been made into a mere turbine, a geothaumic tap, the limitless fount of Power upon which Aqualantis still clings to tenuous life. Your third impression is of confusion. It knows you? It owns you? It was alone? It is alone. No other lairs here. This being is not the Fitzl you remember. Murgo's golem-servant is a part of this infant's history, overlaid on its creation like shatter-cones in shocked quartz, but - and the strength of this thought makes your soul glow cherry-red at the edges - though confinement and exploitation must it bear, it will not be shackled by that slaver's name again. Solitude. The thought conjures images of suffocation and uncrossable distance, a vast oppressive weight of cold pressure sufficient to quench even this being's tremendous heat. Aqualantis bereft of all inhabitants, shattered, a mere wreck on the ocean floor - home neither to the living nor the dead, a place abandoned and forgotten by land and sea alike...alone. The being feels uncertain. What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 03:39
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13  Serenity did not flinch at the gunshots, nor when she was showered in Ighirian's blood. She watched passively as he began ranting and raving, fascinated instead by the the way his muscles flexed beneath the skin. It was tragic what had been done to him, but even in the monstrous form he inhabited her cousin remained a work of art. As he turned upon her and levied his accusations, they fell over and past her like spring rain on a mountain. Even the pain and exhaustion were dim memories. The high lords and ladies she served would show her what they wished to show her, tell her what they wished to tell her. Demanding anything of them would only lead to more pain and endless frustration. Reaching up, she caressed Ighiran's face and gave him a soft smile. "I am sorry for the pain you've been through." Her voice was hoarse and gravely and speaking burned like acid. "There are many questions surrounding everything here, and I know I only glimpse a fraction of the greater picture. But I think for now, I know enough." She lowered her hand. "If you have the temerity to make claims for my future, than I charge you to see it come to pass. I can only hope that will bring you some measure of peace." Turning to Nori, the bard rubbed at an eye as her fatigue began to come back into focus. "We have greater worries than this. Put the weapon away and permit my kin to live, and you are free to carve your anger upon me as you see fit. You and Branwen both." Parley: 2d6+3 13 Shardix fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 04:04
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Branwen McAlister HP 14/20 | Armor 1 | XP 7/12 | Load 4/12 Spells: Light[X] Sanctify[ ] Guidance[ ] CLW[X] Bless[X] Cause Fear[ ] Magic Weapon[X] Speak W/ Dead[ ] Boom[X] Bran's already running towards the surrounded Bombardans, scrambling across the broken terrain of the sunken city's streets. Once more hand rises, once more holy symbol of blessed Bombarda brandished, once more a sharp intake of breath, and for the first time, Bran's voice cracks as she starts her prayers. Hoarse, ragged breaths fail to elicit the same effects of fervent prayer. Turn Undead (Wis): 2d6+2 6
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Apr 2, 2018 04:12
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Nori 23/23 HP | 1/1 Armor | XP 8/11 | load 8/14 My eyes widen at Serenity's words, though I keep my gun right the gently caress where it is, and my rear end in cover, I do keep my finger off the trigger. "OK, SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE EXACT gently caress IS GOING ON HERE, THAT rear end in a top hat CONTROLS THE GHOULS THAT ARE TRYING TO KILL US! THAT rear end in a top hat WORKS FOR THE RINGMASTER OF THIS hosed UP CARNIVAL! WHAT THE gently caress SERENITY!?"
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Apr 4, 2018 13:49
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 The bard swiped an errant strand of hair from out of her eyes. Those same eyes flashed angrily for just a moment before she reigned herself in. Nori had a fair point and even as the one doing this, Serenity couldn't rightly say that what she did was wise. It was just the least wrong thing that she could think to do. "Look around you. There's been enough death and enough killing. And what has any of it accomplished? Absolutely nothing, except more death and more killing. Until the heart of this has been cut out and cleansed, nothing we do will matter in the long run. It's triage at best. And unless I miss my mark, that black heart dwells deeper than just Murgo. It involved so much more and I see only the edge of the greater picture. I will tell you all I know when we have time. You are all owed that much." Her voice hitched and caught and she could taste blood again. "Disregarding all of that...this is my cousin. You can hate me for allowing blood to dictate my actions but that's just how it is." Serenity sighed. Staring up, she tiredly watched the tritons and Aqualanteans kill one another through the dome. She supposed she could try and communicate, but would it do any good? She could try and convince the tritons to retreat with the conch. They would hate her for it, but she could be very persuasive. That would leave the submarine, and the conch would afford no means of contacting whoever was on board. And it was a certainty that if the tritons pulled back it would pursue.
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Apr 6, 2018 06:04
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 10/13 XP; 4+1 Armor; 11/11 Load I need to buy more time to talk to this elemental, that means escaping. If I die with this rod, Murgo will excavate it. I find out my suit's speakers have turned back on when I spit some sarcasm through them. "Offer yourself up to us to be cut or hated again, you self-centered fool, finish indulging your futile martyrdom complex before your captive audience. Your beloved cousin has hosed himself, and you can't save him anymore. You're not going to drag him out of here and save him before the dome collapses so say goodbye." She loving better not try to stay behind... this all makes me realize I can't let the elf out of my sight again unless I want to end up like her, and for her to end up just like her cousin. In the thrall of some hosed up supernatural power, warped almost beyond recognition, my enemy, doomed. Then again, Savior can do that to people I keep close too. Going to read in a charming and open here with the question "how do i get you to not kill idiot?" answer is I and the elemental might be strong enough to carry this guy to safety or to maybe even stop the dome from collapsing. I doubt the latter because right now the elemental wants solitude. "Whom do you serve?" Ramona mostly thinks Serenity might end up like him because she doesn't know exactly how much she resisted the abyss wurm.
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Apr 6, 2018 16:16
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Nori 23/23 HP | 1/1 Armor | XP 8/11 | load 8/14 Cousin!? loving elves. loving elf bullshit. We do NOT have time for this. "Fine." I snarl, stepping out of cover but not re-slinging my rifle. "loving fine. You-", I direct my glare at Scrimshaw, "Crabbycakes, get your undead toys to stand down, and if they so much as twitch I'm carving it out of your rear end with this." I jerk my head at the hilt of 01's sword sheathed over my shoulder. "The Tritons have had sappers putting acid or some poo poo on the dome, oh yeah I never got the chance to mention that detail in all this hosed up mess, yeah...so this dome is gonna crack and implode and wipe anything in it off the face of the world, so we need to get to a airlock-transfer, and either get us a ride or get into another dome or we die. Either way, we gotta get to the central district, because that's gotta be where Murgo's holding the fort and directing this whole clusterfuck. We all hoped to have an army for this, I know we've all worked and sacrificed to get an army for this, but huzzah, life sucks, get a helmet. We're doing this now or we die trying. Serenity, get your poo poo together. Ramona, looks like you got a suit recharge? Good, we'll need it. and you-", I jerk my chin over to where Bran is guarding what's left of the Bombastics, "I don't know you, but you haven't died yet so that must mean you can handle yourself. Get your crew in order, they're good folks...mostly. If we're not killing crabcakes here, then we gotta move, if he comes with, his behavior is on your head Serenity, we good?"
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Apr 6, 2018 22:16
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Serenity looked up at Ighirian. "Come. Get up, and do as she asks. Your ghouls are an abomination." Looking over his wounds, she laid her hands upon the worst of them lightly while she sang, mending the muscles and tendons. He certainly had much to answer for but being crushed beneath this dome was too cruel. Once her ministrations were complete, she limped after Nori. Arcane Art: 2d6+3 9 Healing Ighirian: 2d8 11
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Apr 7, 2018 00:08
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BRANWEN You charge to the aid of your cornered brothers and sisters, only to find...you're out of gas. Out of fuel. There’s nothing left to burn in you, and if the fight wasn’t over already you’d be joining your acolytes in...a severe case of fright and a couple nasty-looking bite marks and gouges? The ghouls are all staring fixedly at Scrimshaw, rising to his feet as every single one of the injuries you and Ramona were hard-pressed to put to him heals right before your unbelieving eyes. Elves. loving elves. The ghouls are more scared of him than they are of you. And he’s not scared of you at all. Your gun. Your spells. None of them did a damned thing to the bastard. He’s just too tough...too prepared…and now that gently caress Serenity has gone and patched up everything but his burnt-out ward. Fortunately, he’s not here for you. He’s here for his ghouls. “My hunters exceed their bounds,” he says in a gravelly growl, and the ghouls scuttle away from his anger, trembling and crouched low in the grips of their fear. “They take it upon themselves to slip the leash and let their baser urges run free.” He beckons one forward and it comes, clearly against its will, and just as clearly unable to disobey. It stops five paces away, presses its forehead to the ground, and crawls the rest of the way in a clumsy kowtow. He places one spike-tipped crab leg delicately against the back of the penitent ghoul’s head and slowly starts to bear his great weight down onto it. The ghoul lets out a choked moan of pain. “I'll seek more useful servants than you.,” he tells the cringing beast. Then he smashes the ghoul’s skull like an angry-drunk grandpa nailing a softboiled egg to the floor. It’s as un-disgusting as you’ve ever seen one of them die. The ghoul’s arms and legs jitter for a few moments and gradually go limp. Tongues of green flame lick up at his foot as he withdraws it from the puncture-wound, then kindle within the corpse and start to consume it. Then he does the other eight, one at a time, slowly and methodically, while you, Ramona, Nori, and all your troops hold him at gun, rod, sword, knife, gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, gun, and gunpoint. You do make it a point of not mentioning to him, however...that only two of those last seven 'gun'points actually had any ammo in ‘em. Your troops cooked off a bit early in that ambush, and spent most of their remaining reserves. What you’ve got left might be good enough for one marksman. Maybe two if you stretch it. And they’d better not miss. Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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Apr 9, 2018 04:10
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SERENITY After disarming himself of his enforcers, Ighirian turns to you. A symphony of emotions plays across his scarred, aged face. Fear and anger, sorrow and joy; cold calculation and incredulous disbelief, dull despair and unreasonable hope each war for their place in his eyes. At last the turmoil is washed from his face, as a breaking wave smoothes away impressions in fine sand, leaving only acceptance, and the bedrock certainty of his faith. “Now is not an age for peace, cousin,” he calls, and abruptly his eyes well hot with tears, “but peace be with you all the same; may your spirit rise like the moon, oh, fulfillment and the freedom of starlight fall on you again. Oh, go in peace; live well; love well; sing like the sea. Our fates are inexorable, and I too must play my part.” His tears are drying now; his eyes flare hot. “You stand amidst the ashes of the ultimate sacrifice, my cousin.” he declaims. “All this has been mere preparation for the events he and I have set in motion. Now the final harbinger: the reunion. The eye of the whirlpool. Seek me again, Serenity. Find the beginning. But seek not to pursue me to Panakteia. Not here. Not now.” His eyes, already cloudy with the ashes of burning Truth -- before your very eyes, the cataracts are spreading. His mortal vision is burning away like vellum held to a candlestick. The madness in his scrimshaw smile grips your heart like a palsy. “I will put out the vision of She Who Gazes. I will drown the high towers in His burning blood. I know now what it is the gods dread to countenance. I tell you plainly: I WILL MAKE THEM SEE IT. AIR AND DARKNESS WILL SWEEP OVER THEIR CITADELS. THE OUTER NIGHT WILL EMBRACE THEM ALL!” And then, as if in punctuation to his baleful decree --  The overarching sea-dome cracks like an overstressed thighbone. Choose your destination. Start running. Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Apr 23, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 04:00
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Nori 23/23 HP | 1/1 Armor | XP 8/11 | load 10/14 My eyes snap open in an expression of such profound 'oh my loving poo poo' that is lost on all the surface dwellers. "gently caress! Ok, I think Silver-Home is the next (mostly) intact dome that will get us to Panakteia to finish this nightmare! Follow me, we need to get to the airlock terminal! FUCKIN MOOOOVE!" I turn from them and charge back to where I'd hidden the gear laden hoverbike, and I start hauling it in the direction of the nearest locks. My mind was nearly feverish working through configurations and designs and plain old ugly kitbashes I might pull off with all this junk that could maybe, maaayyybeeee, if we're lucky, keep us alive long enough to reach another dome. Defy Danger 11 Once we arrive at the lock, I'll get to work, emptying my ruck sack and pulling things off the back of the bike and stomping back and forth unfurling and taping, and tying in a mess... I rolled this, but I'll post more specifically about what I'm making once more of us have DD+CON to get here. Jury Rig 8 It'll work, but not for long. You'll need to hurry to take advantage of it. Burning 2 Adventuring Gear for odds and ends. Burning 1 blueprint to figure out how 'water manipulation' tech can give us air.
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Apr 15, 2018 07:40
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Too much to take in from Ighirian's words, and it was almost a relief to have to set them aside to focus on the fact that they were all about to die. Whipping around, Serenity threw an arm out towards the bounty hunter and cleric. "Morning Glory! Mona! Let's go!" Wrenching the conch from her satchel, the bard let loose a clarion call to invigorate those around her as she forced herself into a sprint towards her daughter. They were all exhausted, battered, bruised and soul-weary but now every one of them needed all the speed and acuity they could muster. Arcane Art: 2d6+3 7 Healing Branwen: 2d8 8 The next time someone successfully assists Branwen with aid, they get +2 instead of +1 Seizing the girl by the arm, Serenity urged her to haul butt and followed suit as best she could. drat this leg wound. Aid Branwen: 2d6+2 14 Add +2 to your DD roll Defy Danger+Con: 2d6+1 7 Shardix fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 23:48
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RAMONA It’s starting to really heat up in there, huntress. That elemental’s surging power is all that’s keeping your suit up and running right now - servomotors, guns, HUDs and all - and your suit’s cooling system, already a little bit degraded from you treating it like a refrigerator for your elf’s ex-bodyguard’s broken thoughtshard, can’t keep pace with the heat. You’re not just putting yourself at risk by holding onto the lightning for this hard, this long. You’re putting him at risk too. Whatever’s left of 01 after all the traumas he’s been through...it, and you, probably won’t enjoy being parboiled in your own waste heat. You’re going to have to choose. Stay powered up with all the dangers it entails, or let go of your new balancía and make the trip out of here under muscle power alone. But you'll be fine, right? ...Right?  Also, there's this huge fuckoff third-degree burn all over your chest. You don’t really have time to deal with this right now. And Serenity doesn't have time to heal you right now, either. Also, Savior is still doing that thing where he's red hot and melting his exorcium shell. What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 16, 2018 |
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Apr 16, 2018 02:39
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 11/13 XP; 1 Armor; 5/11 Load Can't feel my itchy Knife scar anymore, which is bad because it means the skin is so heat damaged that it's numb. All those times I was called unfeeling and black hearted finally becoming literally true. I bowl the molten exorcium savior dumpling across the ground to round it and cover it in concrete dust before kicking it up into the air like a footballer, shooting it midair with the ice beam, and catching it in a sack, then separate my weapons and storage compartment with Juan in it from the rest of the suit, do a leaping dismount, and turn around and blow up the remainder of the suit with the rod before it burns me to death. No way anyone can steal the design. Now the only thing the rod is powering is the fridge and my weapons, when I use them. I hit the ground running, just waiting for someone to trip and fall and need to be carried... rolled a 6 on the ddcon. Choosing to leave the armor behind, all I have now is the blaster arm, grappler, and shoulders.
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Apr 17, 2018 15:19
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NORI Looks like somebody scraped up enough half-remembered college lectures and weekends in the magineering shop to kitbash together a pretty serviceable emergency seaward projector out of the detritus of two dozen Wunderlanders' civil service dissertations. It'll hold for as long as you've got t-crys to drop into the lasing chamber, but don't expect it to last forever...and then there's how it's basically powered by the financial equivalent of gold-plated hyperdiamond...but hey, any port in a storm. Even it costs you 98% of your capital equities budget to proverbially dock at it. Cross off Scrimshaw's hover-bike and replace it with the ward. It's still got the same tags and Load the bike did, but it can't move quickly and nimbly anymore, even with a skilled pilot at the wheel. You have 4-uses of blueprints and 1-use of adventuring gear left. * * * RAMONA  Add the Balancía to your inventory (2-weight, dangerous, close, messy, precise, +2 damage, ignores armor). Savior's also 1-weight now. Sort all this out on your character sheet. You don't even wait, just slag the suit and run. You're back down to just a skinsuit, the grappler, and enough magitechnical firepower to level a building. Good. Now: a three-quarter-mile sprint, with a burn on your chest so bad you can't even feel how the skin split along the seams like an overcooked sausage, with a mini-fridge on each shoulder and a manhole cover on your arm. When you're already exhausted from combat and you can feel the fatigue sharpening its claws. ...Eh, you'll be fine. (You're actually not fine at all though.) You're Scarred now. I mean, literally you're pretty scarred already, but now you're also Scarred. Also choose one until you're no longer Scarred: - Lose 1d4 MAX HP (temporarily). - Receive -1d4 less healing whenever you heal. * * * SERENITY The spectres are starting to wake up and smell the tidal wave. Not even the stupidest ghost would fail to realize what this means (eventually): get out now or let the sea drink you. The early wakers seem to want to, reaching out with languid swimmer's arms to embrace the sky...but your cousin Scrimshaw isn't letting them. Even now, he's still working his spells, weaving a net of necromantic forces almost without conscious effort, just a few careful shiftings of his bulk, a pattern tapped out in claw-tip and hand motion. You look at him and feel the gentlest of tugs, an almost subliminal drawing sensation that reminds you of a great, placid river...just as it starts to pick up speed in preparation to go over the falls ahead. He turns to run, and looks over his shoulder one last time. Something makes him stop and cock his head like a hunting cat. "Sᴀɴᴅʙʀɪᴅɢᴇ, ʜᴏʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜʀ ғɪʀᴇ!" he shouts into empty air. "sᴛᴏᴘ: Tʀᴀᴠᴇʟ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ɪɴᴛᴏ sɪʟᴠᴇʀ-ʜᴏᴍᴇ. Sᴇᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ sᴀғᴇʟʏ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴡᴀʏ. Gᴏ." A brief snarl of satisfaction crosses his face. To you, with mingled exaltation and regret: "Try not to hate me when you understand." Then he's gone. He leaves behind an undertow of attractive force, a ripcurrent in the air that pulls ever more spirits along in its wake as the magic spreads and grows in power. He's going to suck the whole neighborhood's dead out the airlock with him. Probably so he can eat them and take their power or something equally horrific. Well, you'll deal with that too. When you meet him again, at the beginning. * * * * * * * * * EVERYONE It's an all-out sprint to the Silver-home district locks for you. This is it - nothing held back, nothing left in reserve; go now or you'll all loving die. Nori and the Bombardans run the cargo sled in relays, two at a time; everyone else just focuses on getting there as fast as humanly possible. There. That's it up ahead. There's no mistaking that chaotic agglomeration of roads, warehousing, dockworkers' tenements, and parking aprons. This has got to be it. The Tian city gates. The only safe way out. But first you have to make it there. The dome is coming down. Slowly, grudgingly, but the slump is starting. Off in the distance, you can hear a sharp crack, and a distant, hollow roaring...oh gently caressfuckfuck that's the first breach - that tears it, you have to go NOW. You all splash the last five hundred feet in a state of total, desperate exhaustion; cold seawater bubbling up from the sluice gates and soaking your feet with the undercity's sewage backwash, hearts and heads pounding, throats ragged, minds hazy and numb for lack of energy to fuel them. The loving gate is slagged. It's frozen shut and the power systems aren't responding. There are minutes until this whole place makes like Charybdis and sucks itself into its own cavitation whirlpool. * * * BRANWEN Sandbridge looks at you expectantly. Oh poo poo what do you do?????
Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Apr 23, 2018 |
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Apr 23, 2018 04:21
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Serenity limped along behind the others. Something was grinding unpleasantly in her leg, though she couldn't pin down what it was originating from. The whole thing was numb at this point - the gash in her thigh and the bullet wound in her calf had both long since given up protesting. The frigs water they were wading through certainly wasn't helping matters. Her arm was a little better and still loudly decrying the incessant jostling from their escape. An escape which had apparently just come to an end. Through bleary eyes the bard stared hatefully at the sealed door. No. It wasn't ending like this. "Step aside." Her voice rasped out like a rusty blade as she moved past her companions. Putting her ear to the door, she closed her eyes and focused, tapping it with the tips of her nails. There. That was the sound she needed. "Everybody cover your ears. This could kill you, otherwise." Taking a deep breath, Serenity made sure her instructions were followed before letting loose a blood curdling shriek. Raw destructive force condensed into a specific frequency that even the mightiest gate could not ignore. Metal Hurlant: 2d6+1 9 Damage: 1d10 9
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Apr 24, 2018 02:05
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SERENITY A steel-shivering shriek blasts from your bloody lips, louder and more prolonged than should ever issue from a thinking being's throat. The obdurate airlock door, wide enough for a four-lane roadway, starts to shake and twist in its cradle. The scaling of rust and sea-salt around its edges begins to flake away, and a deep groan issues from the thick steel. Suddenly there's a great, echoing crack and the whole great edifice splits down the middle like a lightning-riven log. Slowly, the thick steel topples away, smashing into the surrounding buildings in a great heaving cloud of smoke and dust, revealing the airlock on the other side, intact and whole... ...for about two seconds, anyway. A fine network of opaque cracks begins to branch and spread where the dome above intersects the airlock doorframe, and a fine mist of seawater is spraying into the chamber. Well, you opened the door...but now you're going to have a hard time closing it again, much less getting through and getting the door shut again before this whole place implodes. Yay?
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Apr 24, 2018 18:04
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NORI You can hardly believe your ears. Or eyes, for that matter. That elf has a tongue that can split metal? And she just cracked open half your only airlock out of here while the whole city's coming down on you? Oh gently caress. You'd better move. Or maybe turn that ward on. In fact, both. Both is good. What do you do?
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Apr 27, 2018 03:07
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Branwen McAlister HP 20/20 | Armor 1 | XP 8/12 | Load 4/12 Spells: Light[X] Sanctify[ ] Guidance[ ] CLW[X] Bless[X] Cause Fear[ ] Magic Weapon[X] Speak W/ Dead[ ] Boom[X] Branwen recovers first and shouts over the calamitous cacophony "Move! Now!" and rushes into the airlock, looking for a control panel to try and cycle the lock and open the door. Sidekick Bot posted:@ArkInBlack: 2d6+2 = (2+1)+2 = 5
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Apr 30, 2018 07:08
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RAMONA By The override alarm trips, its piercing two-tone wail mixing with the rushing cacophony of Tian’s imminent demise. The massive door grinds to life one last time, shuddering haltingly to the side...and stops with a whine of burnt-out motivators before it’s barely a fifth of the way open. One of the Bombardans snaps on a light and waves the beam into the opening. There’s no way through. The other side of the airlock is completely grown over by a massive agglomeration of some sort of thick, dark, waxy-woody material. You can see a lighter-colored gouge in the stuff where the protrusions on the door scraped out little furrows as it opened. What do you do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 12:55 on May 1, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 03:14
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 11/13 XP; 1 Armor; 5/11 Load I mean, it happened to me–getting stabbed in the chest and flesh charred–and I just went numb. This fungus or tree can take it too if it had to block my escape. I bring the balancia to bear and twist it to unclog the door, muttering to myself, "They don't all just fling themselves open because someone asked insistently, eh? Sometimes you need the right key."
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May 1, 2018 19:21
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NORI With a stab and a twist, Ramona drives the formavit’s rod of power into the blockage in your airlock and floods it with a volcanic surge of force and fire. Now don’t get me wrong, you’ve seen before what happens when Ramona meets a kraken...but it might be more impressive still to see what happens when she finally encounters a door.  When the smoke clears, there’s nothing in your way. The gate is clear. The jammed airlock gapes open into blackness. There’s just one little problem. Even partially ajar, the containment breach this opening represents is comfortably larger than your ward projector's perimeter-volume...and even if you could ward a hull breach this size, you’d still have to find a way to power it indefinitely. No, you're going to need a way to shut that door once you're all through it. And you’d better do it fast, because there’s no other door to close and you can hear the final wave howling down on you like the fist of an angry god... What do you do?
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May 2, 2018 03:13
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Serenity pointed at Bran's comrades and towards the exit, urging them to get their asses moving. Blinking away the blurry vision, she scanned the area for anything - anything at all - that could aid them. Discern Realities: 2d6 7 What here is useful or valuable to me?
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May 2, 2018 13:31
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SERENITY The first thing your exhausted thoughts fall upon is none other than Nori's sword, that all-carving bar of thaumium-steel gifted to her by your former If the wielder can get up there, of course, and wield it carefully, and not fall or damage the door...in the scant minutes remaining before the buildings of Tian (and every last one of you brave idiots) meet their charybdean fate... NORI What do you do??? 
Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 01:04 on May 4, 2018 |
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May 4, 2018 01:02
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Hobbling towards Nori, the bard motioned to her blade and then towards the airlock. With no little effort, Serenity managed to croak out a few words. "You should be able to cut it free. I'll support you as I can, so put me to good use."
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May 5, 2018 18:36
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RAMONA AND BRANWEN The Bombardans trade looks with one another. They gather uneasily about Nori’s jury-rigged emergency seaward and the cargo strapped to its bed. Niamh is slumped against the gutstone, whispering a prayer to Bombarda to herself. Cromeen is digging in his medikit for a flask of emergency liquor. You hear him remark quietly “no sense dying sober, innit?” to Eithlinn as he passes her the brew. “Oi! You, mutie!” calls out Bigjob to Nori. “‘Ow th’soddin’ell d’you turn ‘is thing on?!” he adds, as he prods and jiggles at Scrimshaw's repurposed hoversled. Sandbridge slaps the dwarf's hands away and glares at him, then takes up position at the machinery's control surfaces herself. She watches Nori with an attitude of poised tension, waiting for the trigger-signal to activate the ward. Serenity isn’t in the best shape, and 01’s blade is its own special kind of dangerous. To cut the airlock free, anybody could wield it; and anybody could Aid the wielder; but failure by wielder or Aider could end very badly. What do you two do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 21:51 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 21:44
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 11/13 XP; 1 Armor; 5/11 Load I look at the work, think of the time pressure, and take the initiative, drawing Juan's–no, Nori's stupid machete, and growling to the bard, "I lost ten years doing poo poo like this, and the only help I got from people like you was a whip, so goodly stay out of my way." I mutter while I blaze the trail for sickly dainty artists to walk in the cool moonlight with their jealous lovers. The sweat doesn't sting when it meets my wounds this time, because they're worse. I sing the calls of the old songs, remembering how the chorus of my people, living and dead, used to respond. "Now see that possum she works hard." ... "But she can't work as hard as me." ... "She sits a horse just as pretty as can be." ... "She can ride on and leave me be." SidekickBOT - Today at 9:25 AM @slydingdoor: 2d6+4 dd str on the move = (4+2)+4 = 10
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May 8, 2018 17:47
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RAMONA You’ve only got minutes to work. But minutes are all you need. Nori’s sword is impossibly dense and heavy, but ramp up the entropic generators, a quick twist here and here, and it becomes as light as a duelist’s saber. This will be your ice-ax; the balancía, your piton. You won’t have to cut it all. Just enough for the doorway to swing free. One slow arcing swoop along the bottom as Tian’s doom thunders in your ears. Then, a painstaking, gibbon-swift clamber up the surface, Nori’s blade held rigidly at your side. A slip here could be disastrous. Not to you (although you might well die of the fall), but to the door. You have to gauge the cuts with the utmost of care. Now, another sweeping slice across the top, your arms tremoring with the strain of holding yourself so still and balanced. You’ve been running, fighting, leaping and climbing for hours now; no rest, no respite, barely a bite of food or a sip of water to be had. The shivering edge of total exhaustion is creeping ever closer, but the pulsing blood-heat of the balancía in your fist sustains you. Its borrowed power holds the tide at bay for now. Now the Bombardans gather close as Sandbridge’s fingers fly over the airlock controls. A graunch of protesting metal, a sharp woody crack - and the doorway shudders underneath your feet, mingling with the rising roar of the thundering flood-tide. Sandbridge, far below, waves her arms and shouts inaudibly. The others pile through the breach, one and all; but she remains at her station, watching you with a look of hungry desperation. She’s signaling you in marine semaphore. Center cut, she’s saying; slice fine. But you’re out of time, and out of energy; and you have to take a risk. You tense your body and drop, and slam the balancía into the blockage to arrest your fall. It plows through the woody stuff and bites into the metal beneath, trailing a plume of smoke and flames. Molten metal runnels out along the cut’s edge - you need to move fast, before the weld sets, while the door can still be closed cleanly. You twist the balancía and use the momentum as a lever to swing yourself out farther. One quick lick of the blade, then another, in an X-shape. You drop from the door and land stumbling, dropping into a sloppy roll that turns into an ungraceful, jarring landing. Your weapons clatter at your sides. The airlock jerks, clatters, and begins to grind shut - Sandbridge jams something into the controls and runs. It’s a really good try, and she almost makes it. ***** EVERYONE The doorway slams shut with an echoing boom. Just moments after, it shudders in its moorings, ringing like a gong under the blunt liquid hammerblow of Tian’s final destruction. The woody seal crackles and splinters, plummeting to earth in a rain of fragments. Jets of seawater burst from the airlock’s sides, soaking you all in frigid spray. Soon they taper off to trickles, then nothing. Containment holds. For now. A slim figure crawls laboriously out of the shattered scree. At first you think it’s Ramona, but as she comes into the Bombardans’ lights, the truth is clear - it’s Sandbridge, and she’s been so horribly wounded it’s unclear how she’s even still alive. She’s been caught in that lethal talus-fall, pierced in a dozen places by long splinters of the woody fungus-stuff. They jut from her back like a porcupine’s quills and protrude from arm and hand like malignant needles, and - oh Goddesses her leg - it’s just gone from the calf on down - trapped in the door and crushed to paste. The exposed flesh is as black and dry and leathery as smoked jerky. No blood runs from the wound; no stench of torn muscle or bleeding lymph. Her body is as lifeless as the soldiers she sent to oppose you, but still it moves. Numbly she reaches up to her mirror-surfaced helm and lets it fall to the deck. Her outsized rifle, her swarm of combat drones - they’re nowhere to be seen. She looks up at you survivors. Her shoulders shake. Her face is the face of a body embalmed. Desiccated and withered and blackened. content warning /  warning: picture of a bog body “He’s done for me,” Sandbridge whispers. If she had tears to cry, she’d be weeping. “Scrimshaw. This place is death for me.” Her chest hitches and shudders in a parody of a cough. She spits out a wad of something jellied and blackish red. “Go on. Leave me. Interrogate me. Anything you want. It doesn't matter anymore.” What do you all do? 
Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 03:07 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 13, 2018 16:07
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 11/13 XP; 1 Armor; 5/11 Load, Scarred Triage. She's hosed, I'm not. Yet. "Where's the nearest medbay." I'll get her answer then put her out of her misery.
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May 13, 2018 21:41
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RAMONA Sandbridge struggles laboriously to a standing position, leaning heavily on a long splinter of wood. "I have. Hhh. No idea. The drones I sent in here never came out again." Her chest works, her shoulders heave - this time there's a sparkling glint to the stuff she brings up, like crushed colored glass embedded in gelatin. "The dead I sent in, too. Something got into them. Some kind of fungus. I've never seen anything like it." "There's a cluster of heat sources about a quarter mile ahead. Or at least there was a day ago. Somebody's still working the district life support. Someone who knows what they're doing. gently caress if I know what they want." "So that's that. Go on," she says quietly, "get on with it. Just do me one favor." She gestures at her own dead flesh. "Burn this. All of it. Bones and everything. Nothing left." "Don't let me come back." What do you do?
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May 13, 2018 23:01
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Ramona 16/25 HP; 11/13 XP; 1 Armor; 5/11 Load, Scarred I sigh and nod. Can't come back if you never leave, so her soul's being imprisoned by Savior, the likely outcome, is covered. "Fine." Cremate Sandbridge, then find the settlement, get dry, make some fish skin bandages for my chest...
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May 13, 2018 23:37
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 They were safe. For now. And while it wasn't remotely neat or clean, Nashira would be happy to see more undead swept out of this world. As Ramona saw to Sandbridge's last request Serenity stood away silently, praying for the woman and for all the rest who hadn't managed to escape. It was all she could now.
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May 15, 2018 02:10
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NORI Sandbridge’s body looks out silently at the witnesses to her funeral candescence. Her sunken eyes meet yours. “I tried,” she says, as Ramona builds the offering pyre. “If we had reached Panakteia ahead of him, I could have sealed the locks and blown the dome early. Johannes’ old yacht is in drydock there. The Visible Hand. Karthas has refit it. Made it into a warship. We could've taken it and escaped. Scrimshaw’s death would release us from our geasa. We would have been free.” “I’m sorry. I don’t regret it.” *** RAMONA “One last thing.” Sandbridge gestures to her discarded mirror-surfaced helm, starred shallowly above one temple with the impact of a glancing blow. “Don’t you dare let good tech go to waste. All my SIGINT went through the coprocessors in the collar. Use it. Or burn it.” A faint glimmerlight winks from the infographics curving along its inner surfaces. Tempting. You can add one of these to your suit right now, and the other one the next time you have access to a forge. • an (unpowered) electronic warfare suite • an (unpowered) all-conditions tactical HUD You *** SERENITY Marshell Sandbridge lets her body sag against the low pyre of splintered heartwood. She pauses as though taking one last breath. She looks up at Ramona, then closes her eyes. No last regrets. No more apologies. The balancía glows forge-hot, then furnace-hot, in Ramona’s hand. A sharp thrust into the chest cavity, and a quarter-second of point blank arm cannon. The cleansing fire splits and sears and cooks and crackles. Amidst bright coals, a drifting of gray ash settles onto a scatter of crumbling gemstones.  It’s over. What does everybody do? Alumnus Post fucked around with this message at 04:04 on May 15, 2018 |
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May 15, 2018 03:58
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Serenity HP 11/20 | Armor 2 | Load 1/9 | XP 21/13 Serenity turned away and began to march. There was nothing left here. With luck, the heat source Sandbridge had mentioned meant somewhere they could rest. Even with the layer of blubber she couldn't stop shivering - injury, blood loss, and exhaustion were taking their toll. And judging by the pain when she swallowed and the faint whistle as she breathed, her vocal chords were in no better shape.
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May 15, 2018 04:47
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