Remain prone, remain hidden. For now. From cover, use the 01GPSG to take out one of the ones with Smart Cannons.
If they don't notice me, try a spell on the other one with a Smart Cannon. If not, still try the spell, but on whichever is closest. The spell in question is f72fffad-f
[UTAR vs. SDEF: 5 vs. 1] Firing on Autocannon Construct #1
[COMP: 13/8] Spell, f7 2f ffad -f
[TRAN: AUTOFAILURE] Synchronization
[UTAR vs. MDEF: AUTOSUCCESS] Spell attack on Autocannon Construct #2
You take aim and fire compensating for the lack of kick from the weapon by aiming at the head and letting your natural downward pull on the weapon sweep your fire down its body. Small pellucid bubbles of twisted space rush out the barrel of your gun, their perfectly straight trajectories terminating mere inches from your target's body. The only sound you hear is the construct's metallic death screech as it unseen forces tear its form apart, its complex internal mechanisms reduced to a neat pile of clockwork and circuitry in mere seconds.
The others go on alert, spreading out amidst noises for which there are no name, half-bestial half-robotic, unable to determine you position.
One begins stalking towards you flicking it's scythe from side to side with anticipation, you ready your spell, focusing on the words and moving your hand forward to try and direct whatever sorcery is about to occur.
You point at the construct and a swarm of small sulphurous (but not sulphur-laden) black insects stream from your index finger and towards the construct. They just sort of mill around it then begin spreading out as if searching for something. Something's wrong? Is it their composition? The mechanical violence, the bestial rage, and that buzzing that resembles the sound of static. It appears that what you have created are kin to the construct, forged of similar substances, and thus bound to ally with one another, said construct now however, having seen bees fly out from your hiding spot is keenly aware of something fucky going on and has decided to investigate.
James Heign:
"Well, that's a thing I can do."
If the hallway is big enough for a frame to fit in it, Deploy Frame: Lupus and dakka the flowers into oblivion. If it fits barely and wouldn't allow entry but would still work, summon it around myself. If it wouldn't fit... gravity gun the flowers. If that clears them out enough, head to the end of the hallway and drop down.
While relatively spacious a frame isn't going to fit down the hallway unfortunately. Not even a little bit. So you line up the gravity gun and fire.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: AUTOSUCCESS] Gravitational mass murder
The tendrils crush into the floor with the sudden increase of gravity and the flowers are soon torn away with them. leaving sparking holes in the otherwise pristine walls.
Well that worked well. You pull up a hatch on the floor and drop into a service area filled with strange arcane circuits and thankfully normal old fashioned high voltage cabling. The cabling leads along the walls in both directions, one heading further in to the facility which is obviously the more sane design choice. Unless at some point it became fashionable to put your power circuits in your lobby for some reason? Because that's the other path.
[This will get a mini update being a both minor and important choice]"You know what? That's a really good question. I was supposed to observe something on this floor, but forgot what, and I'm kinda supposed to do something about this magic bullshit happening around... But for starters let's treat your wound."
Provide first aid to the smart guy, and then to those who need it (assuming there's any and it would help in first place). Check out the frame they were building, estimate amount of work to complete it and viability for me to do so. Make a small talk with the guy to raise affection levels and figure out what they are here for exactly.
"My dear Queen, I know you can't tell what the magic words do, but can you at least tell if there's magic for healing?"
You walk over to your new friend and examine the extent of his injuries, his arm is going to be relatively useless for at least a few weeks possibly a month and he will probably need surgery to remove all the bullet fragments. But first aid ensures that his remaining blood stays inside him and should keep him from keeling over suddenly.
"Yeah thanks, at least I'm not going to bleed to death now. How'd you even find us? Nobody's supposed to be in this section."While continuing the small talk you examine the frame. It appears to be a custom model light frame designed to be easily dissassembled for transport. Its components are universally name-branded and very high performance, shaped and streamlined like a sports car but armored with some very high quality plating, and as you are sure to note, unlike the PHARAOH and FTL-enabled LATRANS frame, completely free of black magic and black box fuckery.
Most of the fiddly construction is complete but the legs still need to be assembled and then the armour has to be attached which while the engine hoist is useful for, is still a pain in the ass. Fesable to fix most definitely, especially for an engineer such as yourself. Back to this huh? Back to how it all began. Though you this time around it was your turn to do the interrupting.
"Yes, there are hundreds of ways just some of them result in horrific monstrosities, well actually some of them don't is more accurate, there are some kinks in the system... by which I mean unless you want to transmute people whole then you really shouldn't experiment. At least if you aren't aiming to create horrific abominations that pray for a death that never comes~ cos you'know that's cool too~" she nods at the frame and the soldier.
Ned allows his body to slump down to the ground, and thinks about even just an hour ago, it almost seems an eternity away.
Fortunately he's lost so much blood already the pain is little more than a dull throb, even though he knows with each throb he inches closer to death. Fortunately Ned has a gatekeeper at death's door.
"If you've got another mission for me, feel free to send me wherever you need. Otherwise I might just have another look at that strange individual's apartment, see if I can't bust that safe."
Ned looks down at the vast collection of items spilling out of his pockets.
"... I understand asking to keep the m60 might be a bit much, but I'll ask anyway... but at the very least... could I keep the hat?"
Ned smiles to himself, but as his eyes close he hears not the answer.
Don't really care about the M60, but the hat request is legit
Also, as far as the frames go,
Can we "Imprint" a frame if we customize one (either summoned or found), and will it keep the customizations?SKILLS:| SKILL | CURRENT | ALLOCATION | NEW LEVEL |
| SDEF | 2 | +1 | 3 |
| MDEF | 4 | +4 | 8 |
| LTAR | 3 | +4 | 7 |
| UTAR | 6 | +0 | 6 |
| COMP | 14 | +4 | 18 |
| TRAN | 7 | +4 | 11 |
I'm loving this chance to raise my sad LTAR, MDEF and TRAN, plus a little extra COMP always makes me happy
ALSO: Since the SCIENCE must go on, either before death or after, I might crank out
"2b"
I'll see what I can do.
You wake up again in the strange person's apartment and while the gun is no longer present you do feel the slight weight of
a stylin hat.
A gift from your sponsors at Flight of Fantasy, they're awfully stingy with the good stuff I'm afraid. Tell me when you're up for another job, I know some good venues.
[COMP: 3] Spell, 2b
Fizzle.
((Tradecraft Gained: Wild Wasteland))The Ladlemonger nods.
"Beer is good. Are there any more hostiles in the area? I'm supposed to help you in getting out of here."
+4 UTAR
+4 TRAN
If there's indeed stuff to be killed still or they think they'll need my support, summon my old buddy DIRUS and get in.
If not and they can manage alone, go check out that demonic core Jus mentioned previously.
"Not that we know of, the demons are more common and whatever that was killed a large number of them. There was someone else here, a frame pilot their frame was fighting the bigest of the demons then there was an explosion and the pilot ejected. I'm not sure what happened to them, but they went carreening off over thata way."The soldier points at a street leading off the square.
"They saved us from one of the other demons and led us to the core which is in the building where tentacleface was. Then everything went to shit, our PUPPET support arrived but then they just went haywire, just threw away their guys and started pointing at people and obliterating them. Shit's fucked man. I'll admit the assist is appreciated and thankfully we'll be out of here soon."The gargoyle silently stalks up to you waiting for further commands as the soldiers go about collecting the wounded, and the relatively intact bodies.
Don't mind the pilot, it's one of Red's agents. He's already left the floor anyway.
Your frame's waiting for you up ahead behind the building.
You head on over past a battle scarred building that looks like its entire front has partially melted off, and sure enough, camoflaged under a light dusting of dust and debris, crouching in the ruins of a collapsed balcony is your frame, the AF01-DIRUS. Needless to say quite a few bricks are shat when the soldiers see you walk back out now piloting it, gargoyle riding the top like some sort of
fucked up fucking awesome hood ornament.
You head out towards the core, entering the building that tentacle-face apparently left from. The foyer is large... too large its expanse now containing a marble floor that quickly becomes broken and rough like quarry blocks as the distance mounts. The ceiling is stretched around this strange place warping it and the skylight is now sun to this warped world. In the air fly bruised flesh creatures like manta rays their undersides slick and mucusy. Then perched amid the warped and bent architecture are spindly creatures clad in armour with blade like arms and legs and coated in clothing of moving chitinous scarabs. In the center of this room the size of a small farm is a lighthouse of brilliant gold and silver beacon shining with potassium red light. The sensors get a closer look and it seems dilapidated up close, made of fools gold and polished steel rather than anything precious.
"No dice on the scan. The Protector, that's what my handler called Unit-0 by the way, does have some reality bending ability that allows
it to function in that form as opposed to the boxes on legs we have, but that's really all I could get. Oh, and the pilot is immortal as long as they're
inside. I'm gonna take these new toys out and find something to kill...I mean, test them on. I'll radio back if I run into trouble."
Beirus radios to his Oversight after hopping in the frame.
Time to patrol and secure the perimeter.
"Your insight is appreciated we'll add it to the file. Your operator will be comminications officer Yanis, transferring comm.""Well then I have to say that I owe you dinner, considering how I now earn enough for a car every month. Anyway systems are green you are go for launch."I ought to warn you, our adversary's presence has twisted this floor the most. You'll see what I mean shortly.
Very shortly.
The displays give a green indicator and you slam the launch button, magnetic coils spring to life and your frame shudders and jerks forward gaining speed as it moves along the electromagnetic mortar track. You launch into open space from the tunnel and you hear a dull hiss as the thrusters ignite.
The floor before you is one you can no longer recognize. A twisted psychedelic metropolis, a great forest sewn by a mad god, both are fitting descriptions. Countless
structures form its inpenetrable skyline,
structures too mixed and varied to be referred as anything more specific. You see ivory towers. You see floating fortresses of flesh. You see dazzling shopping strips. You see godforsaken blacksites, and you see far more: crystalline expanses, forests nestled within great trees, heavenly spears fortified into keeps by rusted wrought iron, other worlds peering through rifts in the world, and crucified monstrosities turned into make-shift factories by the parasites that course through its dead-yet-living veins in place of blood, to name a few. These
structures, they aren't strictly delineated from one another either, some are melded together, disparate conjoined twins; some have been stitched together like architectural Frankenstein's monsters; some contain others, and some that are contained are growing like great cancerous tumors, growing and spreading their influence with blade and bullet alike. Oh yes, it is a violent place, it is most certainly a violent place. Gunfire and artillery streak through the skies, flying beasts and jetpacking figures duke it out in the skies, twisted knights and armored vehicles lying blasted, burning, and frozen in the patchwork streets. Around you, the sound of countless weapons being fired, swung, detonated, thrust, brought to bear, reverberates through what was once under undisputed NEE control.
Yanis calls in and the display changes showing a sensor readout of the colony, holographically enhanced to be 3D.
"We have activity all over the place, preliminary intel is that most of the anomalous units here are stuck in an endless fifty-way war, don't get cocky though - a decent number of them also pose threats to frames. Apparently there's also a dragon over at the gate between floor 0 and 1, demons scattered through floor 4 and biomechanical monsters on the surface. So what do you feel like?"Judging by the fact that all of the options involve going towards the Floor 0/1 gate, and that the path there, and basically most of this entire floor is reading as a hotbed of enemy activity, no matter what you pick, you'll have to blast a path just to reach them.
Iliana reels back a bit in shock before returning to her attempts to impress the other frame pilot,"Ahem. As I was saying, soldier, my magic is quite powerful. I'm, uh, sorry about the damage to your frame, so if there's any way I can make it up to you...?" Quickly, while I'm still good at magic, try a bigger bigger spell out a9 9a 19 -a(comp 16).
[COMP: 4] Spell, a9 9a 19 -a
A fully grown elephant formed of clockwork and brass with leather for skin explodes into existence. Out of your chest. This proves to be fairly bad for your health.
that, didn't go as planned. let's try that again shall we?
You open your eyes finding yourself lying alone on a pile of uniforms in the remains of a tent. The canvas has been torn open, empty supply boxes and bullet shells littering the ground around you. It's, quiet. Well, by some measure of that word at least. The gunfire chatters away further in the distance, and no one seems to be around. No one save for three clockwork automatons, one of them wields an autocannon, the other standing near it missing an arm. The last one lies motionless across from you, its turnkey destroyed and its weapon looted, it's intact, but it doesn't really seem alive anymore. The two live ones haven't noticed you yet and are picking through the area which is currently devoid of life as far as you can tell.
Must be a cleared area, meaning, you're a ways off from the frontline and where you perished.
Author
Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 166915 times)