Bay 12 Games Forum

"Hard to imagine with you showing such skill at it, but fairly comical if I try. I'm not sure why you are having such trouble, but I'm sure it'll start coming back soon; look forward to it as a surprise, maybe; stories of heroism are always enjoyable tales, and I imagine that being the hero of that story will make it moreso."

---

Catherine didn't say anything yet, but internally winced when he said there should be no threats. She might not remember much yet, but she knew enough to know that it was rarely the case, especially if someone said there wouldn't be any threats.

Will accept Catherine/Ciera

Neon Aletheia vs. Ethereal Hunter

It was getting to be a rough fight. So far, she had been the only one to do significant damage to the opponent... probably, hopefully... but she was down a drone, and the enemy hadn't seemed to really notice those hits. And moreover, the bursts chasing down shots were getting more and more accurate as it went on; she was figuring out how to find her, since she wasn't completely invisible with all the bursts around. So she had to start getting a bit bold, force her to use up some armor eating another hit before trying for a finish. And to do that, as she started to figure out where shots would be coming from, Maddie had to get kinda bold.

So where wouldn't she expect a sniper? Up close. She was pretty sure she could retreat afterwards still, her own resources weren't out; she felt she had some glitches left in her, she had her smoke, she had her boots and reactive armor; she wasn't going to get out unscathed by any means, but she figured she might be able to get closer. So when her bow was at around two thirds charge she started moving; when she had to make a particularly complex dodge she had some drones fire to divert Neon's attention to the dodge, even if only a bit, getting closer...

Wyvern Handlers

Wyverns have the potential to be truly effective combatants, with their size and strength and capabilities; however, their crucial flaw is the fact that they are effectively wild animals, if easy to direct ones; when not given specific directions they default to their natural behaviors, which while adequate for fighting the enemy's birds, means that wyverns deployed before combat won't much help in the actual encounter.

Wyverns need to have orders to function effectively, so the logical conclusion is to create a way to get them orders while in the air. We've used our cherubs to accomplish this; each wyvern is assigned an acolyte as the Wyvern Handler; both individuals are given a linked pair of minor cherubs, through which the acolyte can see and hear what the wyvern does, as well as speak to it and give it orders. This allows direction of wyverns from the ground level, to make them a more organized and effective fighting force.

Wyvern Riders
Wyverns have the potential to be truly effective combatants, with their size and strength and capabilities; however, their crucial flaw is the fact that they are effectively wild animals, if easy to direct ones; when not given specific directions they default to their natural behaviors, which while adequate for fighting the enemy's birds, means that wyverns deployed before combat won't much help in the actual encounter. Thus, we need to give them orders in the air.

The Wyvern Riders are picked from among our cultists that have some experience with riding. They train with individual wyverns to help learn the sorts of orders they respond to and get the beasts used to being ridden, as well as get used to the specialized harness and saddle that keeps them from falling from their mount midair. By having their handlers directly present, the wyverns can be kept organized and on task even when away from the main force, allowing them to harry the enemy before contact as well as be more effective in flanking them during the proper battle.

Shadowed Inquisitors

Unfortunately, at times it is not enough to push men and women towards good. The agents of Evil infest the cities and towns of the world, sinking their talons deeper and deeper into the people. It would be a grand world where the light alone was enough to bring them back to the fold. But instead it's the real world. To fight corruption, it's not enough to excise the symptoms, for they will always return; instead, sometimes one must go to the source.

The Shadowed Inquisitors are those of the Shadow Walkers who have decided to specialize in this task. They hunt down the demon's cult wherever they may be, attempting to interrupt and intercept their influence actions before they can truly take hold, especially by finding and taking down the cult members leading the influence operations. Compared to the usual Shadow Walkers, the Inquisitors are trained to discover demonic corruption and discern it from the normal human debauchery in order to find Demonic operations; as well as special training in assassination skills in order to end them.

Neon Aletheia vs. Ethereal Hunter

EtHun wasn't so sure of herself that she'd think two shots would always end it; the distribution of armor mattered, the overall amount mattered, where she hit mattered; a lot of factors could usually go into explaining how she hadn't managed a take down by this point. Those ideas... didn't much apply here. There were a few possibilities; one was that she had some kind of super-armor with a really vulnerable weak spot. Another was that she was somehow getting all her shielding on the point of impact. There were others, but those seemed the most likely. Two options; keep hitting different spots until you find it, or try and bait to see what she's aiming to protect... and to be honest, the place was so dark that second one didn't seem likely. "You're eating these real well, I've gotta say. Would've figured you'd have taken a noticeable hit by now."

She was down to three drones, but as long as she had one left, Neon would have to treat all her shots as the real thing. As the bow charged again, the bullet hell started again. This wasn't going to be sustainable if she had to sacrifice a drone for a hit; if she was confident that she could take her down within two shots, which she usually would be by this point, that'd be one thing; but with an uncertain factor keeping her up she had to be more cautious... or bolder, perhaps. Instead of hanging at the edge, she started to get closer.

Spend a Fortune Token to purchase the Gallic Hunter: (5) Powder Miner, Piratejoe, Madman, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf
--Name him Lacus: (4) Powder Miner, Piratejoe, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf
--No absurd convoluted references that aren't even funny [I want a different name and can't think up one right now.]: (1) Madman
Spend a Fame Token to purchase the Gallic Mystic: (0)
Spend a Fame token to purchase the Rome Thief: (5) Piratejoe, Powder Miner, Madman, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf
-Name him Ferreus Secundius Alternis: (5) Powder Miner, Madman, Piratejoe, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf
Spend a Favor Token to contract the services of a better Doctore (ideally with specialty in agility -- perhaps a former professional thief who came out of it, uh, not dead): (5) Powder Miner, Piratejoe, Madman, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf
Attend the public exhibition: (4) Powder Miner, Madman, NUKE9.13, Twinwolf

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Neon Aletheia vs. Ethereal Hunter

Ethereal Hunter tried to be a bit more careful after the hit, staying on the edge of the arena and doing her level best not to need to dodge between the shots and Neon - she didn't need to go at top speed to dodge them at that distance, so she could mostly avoid the shimmering on herself. At least when she managed to disengage like this could keep stealthy, but it would start being difficult after she fired again and had to move fast to dodge. Still, at this point, it was one shot at a time; if she didn't land a hit she wouldn't win, and if Neon knew where she was when she fired she wouldn't hit; the situation might be slanted towards Neon at the moment, but each hit on her would change that balance heavily...

Neon had a really good vantage point in the air, and while she was spinning around to keep an eye on the arena and fire at the whole thing. It must have been hard to keep track of the occasional shimmer and all the drones at once, but she was managing as well as dodging the drone's blasts. Less MT, but seemed to be fairly heavily countering - nope, not going down that train of thought in the middle of a fight. If Maddie wanted a hit, her options were doing something wild or diverting her attention. She kept option 'last ditch stupidity' in her back pocket,  and went for option 'diversion'.

Maddie gave her bow time to reach full charge. Then gave it a few more seconds, as if giving herself the time to aim - and then one of the drone, about two thirds of the arena away, launched a fake railbow spike towards Neon while Maddie herself slowed down to just above where she could keep dodging the shots that were already in the air, and aimed. A second later, she swapped the decoy to another drone - usually a disadvantage in a well lit fight that tells the enemy where she isn't, but in this fight hard to tell otherwise - and fired that one at her. Then she waited for Neon to pick...

Neon Aletheia vs. Ethereal Hunter

Unfortunately for EtHun, Neon had guessed correctly; the bullet hell stopped being so widespread, but her opponent had focused fire for a dense curtain of bullets around her position. Maddie was rather fast, but so was energy shots and the bullets were so dense she couldn't completely dodge them. As she ducked under a particular set, she knew she'd made a mistake, and was about to take a left arm hit; at this point inertia wouldn't let anything else happen. But she was a quick thinker. There was a loud THUMP of the small explosion of a plate of reactive armor detonating, eating the hit; but the flash was muffled by a dense smoke cloud that had appeared around Ethereal Hunter just as she took it. Maddie let the blast launch her backwards down the path she'd initially taken, getting out of the dense bullet rain. She'd taken a hit, but she'd managed to stop that from revealing her position. "Good hit!" Maddie called through the comms, forcing herself to take an easy and jovial tone, "If I wasn't ready for it you might have seen me!" She was already moving again, strafing the arena in the direction of the bullet curtain.