Bay 12 Games Forum

Faith shuddered visibly as the wave of killing intent rolled over her, clenching her teeth. It fucking sucked to feel, a wave of something that felt like pressure and not pressure at the same time, indescribably - something that built tension in the back of her head and behind her eyes, made her limbs want to twitch and run. This always felt godawful to feel - and that, at least, was probably her salvation. Her training in the Aethertide, merciless as it had often been, relied on instilling that feeling with her wherever she went, so she could at least mostly function, even if her heart and stomach clenched. "Man... hell..."

The mission had obviously gone to shit, at least in the way it was supposed to go. Whatever in the world Noriko and Minato had been fighting about and openly talking about their Godslayer careers about (and a thought in the back of her mind resolved to bitch them out for it later) had really lit things up. But... the bright side was that Hanzo hadn't been detonated. So she still... had a chance... to make it... happen. Taking a breath in, and a breath out, Faith stepped towards Hanzo. And another step, and another step. It felt like she was walking into a headwind. But... she knew why she was here, and she knew what she had to do, and she definitely knew that she wasn't going to just fall on the floor crying because something felt bad - not anymore - not again. And it did feel bad - it wasn't like she was freed from the feeling practically crushing her innards into a small, pulpy ball. But, god damn it, she was just going to have to act regardless.

So Faith let her magic senses guide her, moved her hands as if reeling a line in, and... began... to pull...

Faith gets a little closer and pulls any magical murder failsafes off of Hanzo! Spending a Resolve to make it happen!

Faith didn't have to try very hard to blend in, with the current context - all she had to do was stare awkwardly in complete silence.

Which she did.

A lot.

She really wasn't sure if this was some sort of distraction or not, so all she could really do was stare transfixed.

Perlita kind of wished she didn't have a tendency to get lost in negative thoughts between missions. But, unfortunately, as of right now she was two for two, there. She'd wandered her way into the throne hall after the conclusion of their time in that weird video game world, and with the area consistently of large and (with the absence of a certain crow who'd left before Perlita entered) empty, she was now just pacing furiously around one of them, deep in thought. That mission was... it was really, truly a mixed bag. Sometimes, Perlita had been successful - after Lyra had practically committed suicide, Perlita had managed to pull her out of it, and she did kind of feel good about that, and they'd plainly succeeded in their mission!

But one thing Lyra had brought up then still bothered her just... just... a lot. She'd reacted in time to save Lyra from any permanent damage, but she had very much let down somebody else - somebody else who she in fact owed quite a bit to. 6D... sure, she was a robot and everything, but in the context of that mission, Perlita found it very difficult to weigh that in the equation. If not for the quick, brave actions of said robot, Perlita would have been hit many more times, and more viciously, than she actually had been. And every time she had been hit, even if it was something she'd learned to take in stride, had sucked - 6D had done a lot for her. ...so, of course, the fact that she had failed 6D so tremendously was a bitter regret that settled into the pit of her stomach, something she hadn't managed to get rid of. "Aw, man... oh man." she mumbled to herself as she walked in circles, looking down at the floor.

Navin, Hibiki, Kraken

Navin passed a hand through his hair in some level of frustration - although he had expected a new arrival or two when he'd stepped into the barracks in the first place, the whole area was rapidly becoming far more crowded than he'd anticipated. And though he was a celebrity and a public figure, Navin had actually always been quite poor at dealing with crowds, outside of combat. He'd usually pawned the issue off on his comrades when he could, especially his friend Vasu, who had always been much better at dealing with the spotlight, and when he couldn't, it was usually in a village similar to his own - familiar. But this wasn't that comforting, and this time Vasu wasn't around to help him sort it out, and he had begun to flounder.

...still, he could not really afford to just stand around, he suspected. The newest arrival, the power-armored one, struck Navin as a potential Cicivexa situation, and that did merit action. Navin cleared his throat awkwardly, and turned to Kraken as he began to hurry to follow. "Do not worry - she has not physically or magically attacked yet, which does put her ahead of some of the other new arrivals. And we are currently in a scenario where we do not have to worry about her calling any attack in. Still..."

Navin's pace grew brisk as he followed after Hibiki - he was more used to full-on running, but the show of aggression probably wouldn't end well, and he was more than fit enough to manage a good speedwalk anyhow. He made sure to let the timbre of his voice project from his lungs as he called out towards Hibiki - "Hold on a moment!" He continued, a bit more quietly: "Instead of simply wandering around somewhere you did not expect to be and know something about, talking to someone who I would wager is not answering you, would you like to know what is actually going on?"

This revision is probably a bit ambitious, though I'm coming directly off of the success of the Strix for its powerplant, which could help manage that difficulty:

Coyote Reintegration

The massively more powerful, more efficient powerplant that we managed to develop for the Strix is genuinely an incredibly important advancement, and it's imperative that we apply it to another product of ours that has struggled. By replacing the traditional engine in the Coyote with a powerplant similar to that of the Strix, if smaller, we hope to provide it with a lot more juice. Without making the thing less bulky, we hope to allow it to function in spawning form without the sidecar (and therefore without the hindrance to mobility it provides) and we hope to be able to lightly armor it similar to how the hopefully-now-obsolete GenCar was armored, with the power of the generator hopefully allowing this to happen without reduction in mobility.

If possible, we also put together a simple set of dirtbike tires to help offset the increased ground pressure.

Trans-Allegheny Nanite Makeover

Although the unfortunate TrAMP suffers from several issues, probably the most pressing is that the nanite chamber we've adopted for the device is so close to the vanilla chamber of the standard medic device that it's basically god damn useless. A total rework and replacement of the nanite chamber is called for - to that end, we have both significantly expanded the nanite chamber, allowing it to take up a much larger portion of the back half of the "gun", through the handle and a larger portion of the rear chassis, and we have adjusted the way it produces nanites - instead of spending all its time to produce a large number of mediocre healing nanites, which are mostly wasted, the nanite chamber produces fewer nanites, which are larger and capable of more healing each. The end result should be that these are much better suited to being fired off in bursts like demanded by the TrAMP.

Navin hesitates a bit on hearing Utzi's description of the Trespassers, especially with the additional arrival of Mira and Mar. "They are worse than a cave bear, I suspect - as far as I know, they simply destroy everything. As for their intelligence... erh... hmm. To be honest, we still do not really know much about how they think. They are... intangible, in a way. We have only come up against beings that have been corrupted and controlled by the Trespassers, rather than in their direct physical form, whatever that may be." He scratches his head a little. "And, ah, yes. That is called "armor" and it is fairly common. I have some myself, although it is made out of materials created by beings I once fought that I suspect I would really have quite a difficult time explaining."

"Magic is... well, hmm, actually, I suppose that I ought not argue it too hard. there are indeed plenty of us here who use magic, although I attribute my power to something a bit different. Nonetheless - yes, what we are fighting..." Navin cleared his throat a little awkwardly, not necessarily the best at making smooth transitions. "We know them as Trespassers, though I think they are probably the sort of thing that does not really have a name. They... are beings who com from outside any worlds whatsoever, and seek ultimately to consume everything. I admit that the exact mechanisms of how the work are behind me, but I have personally seen them control and corrupt parts of a world until it turned into an apocalyptic hell of war. The fight we are fighting is an urgent one, and it is one done for good reason - I can at least say that."

Navin paused for a bit as he switched gears to the other thing Kraken brought up. "Er, as for leadership, I am definitely not part of it, but frankly there is not quite formal leadership so much as there is a rotation of people who act as leaders in any given moment - we are somewhat anarchic on the whole, because we will split up into different groups based on the worlds we are going into. We tend to just reach consensus within those groups."

Navin pauses for a moment, a little dumbfounded at Utzi's assertion. "Er, no, I'm not a spirit. What I mean is that I come from a world that you are totally unfamiliar with, because the worlds that you are familiar with are really not that large in the scheme of things. I am lucky when it comes to this, I suppose - I was already accustomed to this from my world, which is... varied. I am human."

Turning to show both of them his entire torso and both hands, Navin raised his hands, splayed and palms shown - his sleeves ended halfway up his wrists, and there was nothing visible on his hands or upper arms. He spoke to Kraken: "As you can see, no devices are on my wrist. This next thing is not a grenade or bullet, either, so do not worry about taking cover." He then shifted his right arm, his palm facing upwards, his arm extended away from him, then he took a breath... and light and force and sound erupted from his hand, a blast ripping upwards before it suddenly dissipated a couple of feet from his hand. "Where I come from, there are many people such as myself with superpowers like these - I can generate explosions from my hands."