2018-01-14: To Do What One Must
- Log: To Do What One Must
- Cast: Ambrosius, Riesenlied, Catenna, Ida Everstead-Rey, Fei Fong Wong, Elhaym van Houten, Shalune Amira, Kent Hauch
- Where: Great Krosian Plains - Outside the Mountain Palace
- Date: January 14th, 2018
- Summary: Ambrosius, backed by the Golem Nimue, digs into the side of the mountain, hoping to get at the Guardian Statue within. He is not alone, however. Friends, enemies, and acquaintances meant him, and together their resolve is tested...
==========================<* Great Krosian Plains *>========================== The bulk of the countryside around the capital city of Krosse consists of rolling, grassy fields, a stark contrast from the arid desert sands to the north. Every year, however, the desertification spreads, and more and more life is swallowed up by the sands. As travellers near the capital, the grasslands transition into cultivated fields. The yields from Krosse's farmlands have given the kingdom the nickname of the breadbasket of Ignas, and the majority of its trade centres around grains, fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs. While its might pales in comparison to its larger neighbours, Krosse maintains a significant standing army to help deal with monsters and green-eyed neighbours who might seek to seize that bounty for themselves. These soldiers are kept active by frequent patrols and maneuvers throughout the Plains and major roadways; as a result, travel in the kingdom is safer than nearly anywhere else on the continent. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYbFnoRSW6M
DC: Riesenlied switches forms to Ebon Dragons! DC: You switch forms to Veruni Golem Nimue! DC: Ambrosius switches forms to Veruni Golem Nimue! DC: Ida Everstead-Rey switches forms to Refurbished Gear Dust Dragoon! DC: Fei Fong Wong switches forms to Weltall! DC: Shalune Amira switches forms to Metal Gear -Big Shal-!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Indeed, there have been odd movings in the Krosse region of late. Undoubtedly, many have heard about the figures moving in the dark. This was something he could do little about. Ambrosius had done what he could to ward off suspicion, but there would always be prying eyes where they weren't wanted. It just meant that they would need to move quickly.
To those who choose to pursue these rumors, they will be directed to a certain section of the mountains. The cloaked figures spoken of the rumor will bar ones way and recite recorded warnings to turn back...but they can be easily dealt with, if you so choose. Underneath the cloaks, they are crude mechanical drones with no facial features, bearing bladed arms and basic ranged weaponry, that detonate to remove the evidence when their structural stability is compromised.
It was the best he could do on a budget, without access to the tools he would normally use.
And thus, one comes upon the mountain itself. More of the cloaked figures can be found gathered around the hole, and around the figure before it. A large machine. It does not look much like the average Gear. Those familiar will be able to recognize it as a Golem...and those rare few who know better will be able to recognize it further as one of Veruni make.
It is a tall, slender machine, with long flexible arms...each one bearing a set of thick, durable claws, which are currently being used to dig a tunnel into the mountain.
It is not alone in this endeavor - on the ground level, and deeper within the tunnel itself, organic, spider-like machines are digging into the mountain as well. These are different from the machines outside...they were not made by Veruni hands.
At the moment, the Golem continues to dig. It does not turn towards those who might approach. Not yet.
What will you do?
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied was rather used to juggling a thousand and one things -- but at the same time, she's been rather agitated about poor Noeline's state. Throwing herself into work was pretty much a bad habit, but it's the kind she's used to when she's at a hair's trigger of stress and anxiety...
And the report of odd movements within the region of Krosse had come to her ears. She can't help but think it may be related to other movements related to Wayside, so she'd come to investigate.
When they come across the cloaked figures, she was expecting thieves and thugs -- so it's all the more surprising that her empathy is of no effect against mechanical drones, and she's hurt herself lightly trying to fend them off... she--
She can't mistake the presence of the Veruni golem, with its long arms. They've ridden it into the Wayside waterway before. What was he doing here?
"Oi... isn't that...?" Odjn floats beside Riesenlied when they come up to an outcropping near the end of the tunnel.
A 12-foot yellow gumdrop might be ruining their attempt to stay stealthy, however, especially the squeak of 'Muni?' that follows.
"Ambrosius..." Riesenlied sounds anxious. She steps closer, hurrying towards the machine's side. It's reckless, to approach such a large and armed machine of Veruni make on foot.
"Is that you in there, Ambrosius?!" she asks, lightly pleading in her tone.
Odjn winces and goes, "Oi oi! You're gonna go and hurt yourself again..."
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Picking her way through the mountains, Catenna chases a rumor even into the hills of Krosse. The rest of the CaraKin has enough on their plate right now; she's pursued this thread alone, perhaps with a friend or two.
The cloaked droids dotting the site raised Catenna's suspicion immediately. A ways behind her, two of them have been dealt with by virtue of being compacted into irregularly-shaped cubes.
Peering out of the underbrush, the priestess from Elru swuints ahead towards the mountain, and towards the cloaked figures there - and more importantly, towards the Gear. Just the sight of it is enough to confirm her worst suspicions. Icy fingers seem to close around her heart as she sucks in her breath, her eyes wide and her face going a little pale. Her hand drops to her sword and draws it. "Amanevy," she breathes, her voice tight with anxious energy.
Until now, Catenna has seen no reason to tell the CaraKin the truth about Ambrosius. He is just one Stranger. One Stranger by himself is not something she wants to worry Jacqueline over. One Stranger by himself is a problem she can manage.
This situation changes the calculus significantly. If this is not Ambrosius, then he has brought some of his Veruni friends here with him. If it is him, he has a Gear, and he can create minions.
Now, the threat to Ignas is much more tangible.
A threat Riesenlied is presently walking straight into.
"RIESENLIED, DON'T, THEY ARE STRANGERS," Catenna shouts towards her in alarm, rising up from the undergrowth.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
As it so happens, a secured cave in Krosse is one of the few places that Ida can covertly store her Gear. There are, of course, facilities in November, but her machine participated in a terrorist action, and she's been taking care to keep it from becoming associated with her. It just received heavy repairs and a light retrofit, and she decided to take it on a brief tour of some of the more remote regions of the country. The odd rumors she picked up from some of the crew at the cave have only made her more concerned.
Still, it's oddly relaxing to take a leisurely stroll through rugged foothills in the belly of an invincible steel giant.
There is only so stealthy one can be in a Gear, though, and as the terrain gets more mountainous, Ida is forced to peer ahead using some of the alternative means she has at her disposal. Something small and metallic flits through the air above the hole, buzzing along swiftly and quietly on four precision-engineered rotor blades. The quadrotor drone's cameras peer down, taking stock of the strange Gear doing the lion's share of the work. The smaller machines are worrisome, but that thing is completely foreign to Ida's experience.
The drone camera moves a full forty-five degrees, tracking the arrival of Muni-Muni, before peering down at Catenna. It turns and flies back with all due haste. It speeds through the air, weaving this way and that, before settling down beside the massive shape of the Dust Dragoon. In the cockpit, Ida presses a panel to disengage manual steering, and allows the drone's autopilot to set it down into an open compartment in the Gear's back. Ida reaches down for her camouflage bandana, ties it around her nose and mouth, and puts a foot down to the floor.
A thunderous roar, in the distance--unmistakably Gear jumpjets. Someone has taken notice.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong hears rumors about something going on in the Mountain Palace. He knows that there's a three eyed guy there and it's hard to forget that, but more to the point--suspicious stuff going down in the mountains...well, there might very well be a Statue, right? Or loot? Or another attempt to destroy some poor village by infecting it with evil energy or an elder god or maybe, he hopes, just a good old fashioned dinosaur.
Fei is still sore from a couple nights back so he brings Weltall. He also brings a friend!!
"Ambrosius?" Fei asks to himself. "That guy?" Not exactly a guy he knows well. He notices the cloaked figures hanging around too.
Hiding aruond in cloaks tends to make a fellow suspicious.
"Whatcha figure we should do?" He asks his companion, not behaving aggressively as of yet. The term 'Stranger' doesn't mean anything to him.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly has been enjoying the luxury of sitting in the somewhat cramped but not-unfriendly 'shotgun seat' in Weltall. There's AIR CONDITIONING IN HERE. It smells like HOME.
(Etrenank is full of air conditioning.)
Elly blinks then as she snaps back to attention. Fei said something to her. She looks towards the screen, pursing her lips. "I don't recognize it," she answers Fei. "But... It's trying to excavate the ruins, isn't it? Even if somehow it's entirely innocent, that's still going to destroy more than it saves."
Elly also leans forwards and fiddles with the settings on Weltall's audiovisual system, which primarily means that she's going to be able to 'see' and 'hear' as well as Fei, even if Fei has 'the controls, barring hilarious mishap.' "-- I think that's Munimuni. Riesenlied? Gosh, and she claimed she was weak and frail..."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's not really sure why she's persisting in her path up the side of the mountain, except perhaps out of sheer stubborn-mindedness. She's already had to have Big Shal protect her from one explosion, and while technology does have a distinct habit of breaking down on Filgaia, she's smart enough to realize that this particular detonation was triggered, and no accident. To her, that's-- basically a waste, and part of her crusade is trying to find out who or what is triggering them so that she can teach them some manners about how to treat your machines properly.
Some idle talk in a bar is what sent her out here, having split off from the Carakin for a couple of days to deliver some parts and do some custom work that had been requested of her. Part of her had begun to wonder if she's gotten a little bit stuck doing nothing but Gear repair, and she'd been mulling over the problem by eating a bowl of stew about the size of her head when she overheard two men talking about travellers out at the Mountain Palace who hadn't responded to their calls.
She'd thought it would be a matter of lending some medical aid, maybe a lift back to town on Big Shal. Instead, she nearly got a nasty case of shrapnel poisoning, and that's enough to propel her onwards.
... it's not the only thing, though. If she's honest, she's been feeling a guilty streak start to grow within her. The Medium of Dinoginos, previously forgotten at the bottom of her overstuffed backpack, has been fished out and cleaned off and stuck in a pocket. It's still inert - she still has no idea how to actually call for the Guardian - but some impulse made her do it anyway, maybe in the hopes of making some kind of amends.
Besides, where are you gonna find a Mountain Guardian if not in a Mountain Palace? It's just plain common sense.
Perched on the scaffolding that's bolted to her golem's back, the climb isn't fast - but it is more or less unstoppable, Big Shal's pace the very definition of 'slow and steady'. Laid out in front of her, she's puzzling over the scraps of metal she could recover from the charred and camoflaged remains of the machines, doing her best to pick out any details like make or design. She's focusing enough that Big Shal has to tap lightly on its own head to get her attention, and the pink-haired girl blinks up to realize they've crested the edge of the shaft.
"--wah--" she blurts in astonishment, not least at the collection of people ringing it - and then at the thing digging its way resolutely downwards. "Wh-- hey! That's not responsible excavation at all! This is a heritage site! There's regulations and everything!" she huffs, planting her hands on her hips as if trying to dispel the fact she's currently a pink blob of a dot as far as this scene's camera is concerned.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Nimue pauses mid-dig as Riesenlied's voice reaches its pilot. The Golem turns, staring at the Hyadean on her mount. Its face is like that of a demon's, with golden eyes and mouth full of fangs sunken slightly into the face, overshadowed by the rest. Tusk-like implements extend from the jaws.
"...Riesenlied." The voice seems to emanate from the Golem itself, but it is clearly Ambrosius's voice. "...I am out of time, then."
He is about to speak further, when a voice, normally quiet, speaks up from the undergrowth. The Golem's head turns toward Catenna, golden eyes seeming to narrow.
"...You. What are you doing here? This is no place for you. Disappear." At this word, several of the cloaked machines will start to move toward Catenna's location. They don't aggress her yet, but being surrounded by them is probably not a good idea.
And what's more, a thunderous roar. Jumpjets. And data on the radar, as well...
And then, the Golem's attention turns to a small pink dot. Shalune's comment does cause him to hesitate, admittedly. This was one of the situations where his hobby as contradictory to his job, and his role as a Veruni soldier...and the latter was more important than the former.
"...I am aware. But this is a matter of great importance."
The Golem's attention returns to Riesenlied.
"Did you bring them all here? ...It doesn't matter. I must request that all of you depart." He asks. The Golem's arms extend, just slightly. It might be difficult to recognize this as a sign that the machine is moving into a more combat-oriented mode, but it is a sign nonetheless...
GS: Ambrosius has adjusted their boss level for 6 opponents!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is on foot, actually -- since Muni-Muni is hiding behind with Odjn. Somehow, the gumdrop dragon has more common sense than her master. She hears Catenna's shout towards her, and she insists, "Ambrosius is not a stranger! He is my friend! I--"
I must request that all of you depart.
The Nimue's arms rise from where they've been digging in the ground, and Riesenlied nearly falters and falls on her back. "No, I didn't..." she admits, though it doesn't really change that Ambrosius doesn't want any of them here. "A mission... is it?" she concludes, knowing that Ambrosius isn't the kind who does things by halves.
Riesenlied continues stepping away from the Golem... she listens to Shalune speak, nodding slowly. "Is there any way I can convince you out of this, Ambrosius...?"
"Listen to him, Riese! He's dangerous! He ain't gonna hesitate to hurt you for his mission!" Odjn balks as she hops atop Muni-Muni, who... rises into the air, slowly.
For those that aren't as familiar with our beloved Dragon, she's most affectionately described as a 12 foot yellow gumdrop with a cute face on one side, and delicate little purple wings stuck out one end. Tiny little claws and talons stick out of opposing ends, woefully undersized for how rotund she is.
But then... but then!
What? Muni-Muni is changing!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied cups her mouth as she says, "M-Muni? Are you all right--"
There's a confident squeal from the little Dragon! (TN: It's OK, Riese, I want to help you!)
The rumbling is increasing, such that it looks like Muni-Muni is vibrating excessively! Muni-Muni intensifies!
Pop! A massive leg emerges out of one end, then another! Her gumdrop shape starts to split, as the smooth rubber-like texture starts to separate into chitinous armor plates with synthetic muscle underneath. Muni's head lurches forward, jaw separating to form an underlay of armour, and her back pops open to reveal... a saddle-like seat? Her wings spread to one side, suddenly more properly sized -- and when all's said and done...
It is the hitherto unknown form of Muni-Muni! A 12-foot bipedal, winged Draconoid armor-creature that can only affectionately be called...
(Image: http://i.imgur.com/GAJIY3p.png )
Munitek Armour...??
"M-my goodness, I didn't know you could... ..." Riesenlied sounds genuinely stunned, a sproig of hair springing up in shock. She shakes the surprise off a moment later, though, climbing up onto the back and up towards the seat, where several harnesses secure her arms and legs. A panel appears in front of her, which is fortunately simplified for Riesenlied's... unique technological challenges.
She gazes towards the Veruni Golem ahead.
"Why's... why's the cockpit exposed? This seems like a really bad idea..." Odjn can't help but point out, but she buckles down as she sits on Riesenlied's lap within their spiderhole seat.
The air shimmers and distorts. A loud thrum heralds the roar of Muni's power, surrounding the Dragon in an ensconcing barrier of protective energies!
"Ambrosius..." Riesenlied whispers.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Riesenlied with Self-Regeneration! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Riesenlied! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Of course it had to be Ambrosius. Catenna clicks her teeth together and starts forward, but stops as the voice emits from within the Golem and those cloaked figures begin to encircle her.
Riesenlied insists that Ambrosius is her friend. Catenna presses her lips together, then throws a look towards the horned woman. "Riesenlied," she says, voice pinched. "Have you...."
She trails off, momentarily astounded that Riesenlied has somehow managed to befriend a Stranger.
Then she does a double-take. Of course she did. Riesenlied, you are one special woman.
As Riesenlied gains Munitek Armor, Catenna has no such luck. She merely presses her lips together and sizes up the situation, taking stock of the droids surrounding her and the body language of the vast Golem looming in front of her. Its arms are extending.
Catenna knows what that means.
With a snap of her wrist, Catenna flicks two fingers upwards and barks out a word in her own language. Her voice rings with a subtle echo.
The droids around Catenna will find themselves suddenly being pulled backwards, towards a powerful source of gravity that has just manifested itself at the feet of the Golem Nimue. Ambrosius's machine will suddenly feel that much more difficult to move, should he be caught in it. The power of gravity attempts to pull Nimue's body downward under its own weight, putting pressure on limbs and forcing metal supports to hold up parts that are suddenly four, five, six times heavier than they are intended to be.
Catenna's magic works adequately enough on man-sized beings. Against a large foe, it is even more effective. "I believed you were no threat to this part of Filgaia," she growls over the groan of gravity. "But if you come here with a Golem and minions, that is no longer true. You are the one who should return home!"
GS: Catenna has attacked Ambrosius with Grav! GS: Catenna has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Catenna's Grav for 95 hit points! GS: Poison! Statuses applied to Ambrosius!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Mm... And I know of at least one guy that lives here..." Fei admits to Elly. "...Though he wasn't, uh, exactly what I'd call friendly. Even so..."
He doesn't exactly really want to fight Ambrosius since, well, they've gone on digs together and, for that matter, he seems like he's able to talk when--uh--
--he starts threatening Catenna. Fei frowns at that, but still holds off on kung fu for the moment.
"Hold on here--" Fei says, looking over to Elly for a moment before looking back forward towards the viewscreens. "--Ambrosius, you're going to do more damage to the ruins than you're going to recover. If you have a good reason for doing this, maybe we can work this out rather than just starting a fight over it? What do you say?"
And then Catenna starts throwing magic at Ambrosius's stuff.
"It's uh--it's not too late but if this keeps up, we're gonna have to assume it's bad news, okay?"
He leans back, looking miserable for a moment before glancing to Elly, saying to her. "Do you want to say something? You're better at this than me."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The thunderous roar grows louder and louder. A humanoid shape, all shades of gold and tan, arcs gracefully around the face of a nearby mountain, and lands with a heavy boom as the jets carrying it die down. It rises from its crouch, and slides into something resembling a ready stance. The Dust Dragoon is a big machine, though average-sized for a Gear--it clearly started life as an Aveh Trooper, but the silhouette has been pared down, and it's a bit less bulky. There's some sort of heavy cannon half-retracted into its back, opposite a Gear Rifle.
In the cockpit, Ida flicks on the AWACS display, and it sputters, fitfully, eventually begrudging to turn on. The Gear's sensors flicker to life, and start attempting to analyze the enemy machine, taking in all the detail they can manage about its energy emissions and mechanical design. The cockpit recorder is doing its best to log the conversation. Ida pulls down her bandana long enough to take a sip from her canteen, reasonably she's anonymous to everyone except Fei and Shalune.
What did she just stumble across?
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Methodical Approach! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Methodical Approach for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
The Munimuni Rises, and Elly gawps for a moment. "Fei! Look at that! - I think Riesenlied's as surprised as I am. What a - a -"
I should be horrified, Elly thinks. It's unnatural. It's Hyadaen technology... Similar things probably killed... all kinds of people. But somehow, she muses, I'm - delighted.
"A wonderful... wait, it's not sealing over her... Oh, no, it's an anti-infantry model! Fei, she's going to get shot in the head!" Elly seems oddly and specifically convinced about this. The Weltall moves and Elly looks towards Fei.
"Alright," she tells him. Then Elly leans forwards, nearer to the mic.
"ahem," Elly says into it as her voice comes out of Weltall. She modulates herself, as if to not sound too much like an amplified preacher woman.
"If you care enough about all of us to give us the chance to depart, then you should at least explain to us why," Elly says. Her voice falters for a moment, perhaps as she gets an eyeful of that golem. The scale factor never quite loses her mind, and she's not in the pilot seat, which tends to give you a big psychological boost.
Her attention turns towards... "That Gear," Elly says, spotting the slim dusty profile of the Dust Dragoon. "I saw it in a summation briefing... it's a member of an anti-Shakhan force. Code name is Strahl. ... Which I suppose isn't very useful information to you, Fei."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune isn't entirely clear what's going on here - but she's not stupid either, and the chain of logic isn't a particularly taxing one for her to follow when she catches sight of the people around the rim of the tunnel shaft. Whoever's down in that pit is someone who used to be in Wayside - someone who probably left Wayside when Miss Riese made her declaration about wanting to help the Guardians. The pieces of metal scattered in front of her bear that much out; it's a composition and build style she hasn't really seen outside of Wayside, except-- except maybe at Granny's place.
That thought gets ever-so-gently set aside to be looked at later, even if it would explain a couple of things.
Instead, she thins her lips, kind of bracing herself for a moment. If it's probably a Metal Demon down there, a Metal Demon who didn't stay with Wayside, then there's only a few things that would count as urgent. Not to mention that that list gets real, real short when you consider Riesenlied trying to stop them. They might be a very polite enemy by demon standards - after meeting Berserk a couple of times you start to really appreciate being given a warning - but they still need to be stopped.
"--well-- so is making sure you don't do any more damage!" she responds, her eyes alight as she pumps her fists-- so it's kind of a shame that action is directed towards Ida's drone as it sweeps past her, automatically assuming that it's part of the small army their enemy's apparently brought to bear. Big Shal appears to be in agreement with the content of Shalune's speech, at least, if perhaps not the target of it; the golem raises one fist and waves it a little at the drone as if in apology, even that motion seemingly enough to shear away some of the plating that lines its arms from the stress of the movement.
Except that's when her pot, sat in its recess on the back of the Golem, starts to whine as Shalune supplies it with energy. The sheets of metal catch, hang in the air - then draw back upwards, forming an impromptu cockpit to shield Shalune from view. At least she has time to catch Muni-Muni's dramatic transformation, offering a cheer of 'Muniii~' and a thumbs up before she's forced to hunker down. Her staff, pulled out and extended, slots into two holes either side of the cockpit, bracing there. Amongst its other uses, it apparently now counts as a support bar - and, it seems, with good reason.
Big Shal is not possessed of ranged weaponry, the ability to fire chi bullets, or the means to move at super-speed. But it can absolutely choose to leap off the edge of the shaft, focus its weight downwards, and let gravity do the work.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Ambrosius with G...Grav?! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Shalune Amira's G...Grav? for 88 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
"...We both knew it would come to this. I am sorry, Riesenlied. But you know as well as I do that I cannot back down from this." Ambrosius replies. He observes impassively as Muni-Muni, spurred onward by her desire to help her ride, starts to transform, achieving a form more suitable for use during battle.
He sends an order to his drones. Those that hadn't moved toward Catenna move into the tunnel, to assist the unusual, spider-like machines in the excavation process.
Speaking of Catenna...before he can make a move toward Riesenlied, the Nimue suddenly finds itself yanked downward by the sudden force of gravity. This was a spell he remembered. It had been used on him before. It was difficult to shrug off when used against him directly, but against Nimue...the force seems to be greatly magnified. He has to struggle to get the machine moving...
...But as he does so, one of the drones moving towards Catenna lunges at her with a bladed arm.
"What I do...I do to improve Filgaia. However...our methods...our intentions...I am afraid they are incompatible. There is nothing to discuss." This is directed both toward Catenna, Fei, and Elly, the latter two in Weltall.
Nimue's eyes glance toward the gold and tan Gear approaching. As the Dust Dragoon's systems attempt to study it...it appeared to be studying the Gear, as well. With both its power source and its design alien, it is unlikely that the Dust Dragoon will recognize it...but there is detail to take in all the same.
With conversation concluded, the Nimue manages to free itself temporarily from Catenna's Grav, an arm flying straight toward Muni-Muni and Riesenlied. The claws extend outward, attempting to crush the protective barrier. While it was true that it did not have a covered cockpit...the Munitek Armor's defenses are still something to consider, indeed.
What Ambrosius doesn't expect is an attack from above. Aided by Catenna's Grav, Big Shal slams down ontop of Nimue, causing the Golem to stumble somewhat.
Ambrosius recognizes the Golem. He recognizes the pilot's voice, as well. However...she has become a nuisance. Nimue's free arm swings out, attempting to swat her away.
Those who have not yet decided to attack are spared, for the time being. But Nimue watches, and waits...
GS: Please provide a more specific attack name. [Crush] GS: Ambrosius has attacked Riesenlied with Crush Claw! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Catenna with Drone Blade! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Shalune Amira with Arm Sweep! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with A Momentary Reprieve! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Fei Fong Wong with A Momentary Reprieve! GS: Ambrosius takes 7 damage from Poison! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Catenna takes a glancing hit from Ambrosius's Drone Blade for 91 hit points! GS: Shalune Amira guards a hit from Ambrosius's Arm Sweep for 124 hit points! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Crush Claw for 180 hit points! GS: Break! Statuses applied to Riesenlied! GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Ambrosius's A Momentary Reprieve for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"... even if I know it -- even if we both know it... you know I disagree that there is 'nothing' to discuss!" Riesenlied finds herself speaking, glancing towards some of the other emerging Gears. She spots Weltall -- she's very familiar with that one... having gotten kicked in the head directly by it one time. It's kind of staggering to think what would happen to her now if that would happen.
And the Dust Dragoon... she doesn't know that one. But Big Shal's presence is always welcome, as Muni rotates in the air and twists, the Nimue's Arm crashing straight with a defiant 'SHWINGG' sound. A hexagonal barrier reinforces the shielding pattern as Muni-Muni pushes through--
--and the claw scrapes through, as Muni's arm comes up and deflects the Golem's in a deft swing. Riesenlied gasps and clings on for dear life.
"I would never have wanted to take you into combat, Muni..." Riesenlied urges, but her companion is much more assured of her desire to help. Muni doesn't want to be a nuisance! Muni wants to help!
Muni's mouth snaps wide open. The thrusters on her rearside shimmer into life, rays of blue-white flame jetting out of the exhausts; in a single bound, in a single leap--
The Munitek Armor's made a surprisingly deft manuever, swinging her left claw to try to rake at the Nimue's own and try to disarm it! Literally!
"The methods of your superiors, and what they believe is best for Filgaia... it should always open to discourse!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ambrosius with Dragon Claw! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Riesenlied's Dragon Claw for 268 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Everyone else is just talking, Catenna realizes bitterly. Odds are good she'll have to fight Ambrosius by herself.
Riesenlied, you should know better, she reflects internally, not without bitterness.
Then Big Shal dives in and helps. Catenna feels a little better all of a sudden, because no one can be bitter when Big Shal gets involved.
Holding her spell in place as long as she can, Catenna narrows her eyes, watching the Nimue as it struggles beneath the force of gravity. "There could be a place for you in Filgaia if you followed Riesenlied's example. Find a way to live beside humans instead of conquering us like chattel," she growls.
At which point the blade drone comes sweeping in. She barely even saw it, so caught up was she in talking to Ambrosius. It flickers in her peripheral vision; dropping her spell with a gasp, she begins to lean backwards, away from the attack. She whips her sword up to try and parry.
To no avail, of course. The drone's blade glances off Catenna's sword; the machine rips past her, and there is a shriek of metal as the machine slices through the side of Catenna's upper body armour and leaves a deep cut behind. The priestess clicks her teeth and suppresses a wet retching sound as pain riots through her like a bomb going off.
She snaps her arm to the side to try and bat the drone out of the way, breaking into an unsteady run and pressing her hand to her side to try and stem the bleeding. Diving forward, she hits the ground and rolls, coming up a little further away from the giant Golem. Glancing towards Weltall, she lets out a soft rush of breath.
"You plan to do to Ignas what your superiors did to Elru, then," she surmises with acid in her voice. "I will not allow that. If you mean otherwise, then stand down, but you do not even have the decency to understand why what you want to do is wrong--!"
When she flicks her hand again, Catenna's cranked up the power of gravity all the more. Another source of gravity begins to swell to life around where the Nimue is standing. The pressure of it is immense against something so large, and it's pulling inward, forceful enough to strain metal hulling or even buckle it.
Catenna is simply trying to compress Ambrosius and his Golem into a cube shape.
GS: Catenna has attacked Ambrosius with Heavy Crush! GS: Catenna has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Catenna's Heavy Crush for 294 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'What I do... I do to improve Filgaia. However... our methods...'
Images of the strange Gear pop up on the AWACS display, one after another. The profile is all wrong to be Metal Demon machinery, and it doesn't match the Gebler Gears, either. The more Ida sees of it, the stranger it gets.
'There is nothing to discuss.'
"She'll find something to discuss," Ida says, in the solitude of her cockpit, because the mic is off. She hunches forwards, eyes flicking from one display to another as Catenna and Big Shal engage the enemy machine. Riesenlied keeps talking. Ida's teeth jump on edge, mostly out of instinct, because the anger has died down to a dull roar. Ambrosius has done something inadvisable, though--he's presented her with a problem that demands urgent action.
The Dragoon's rifle rolls up over its shoulder as it sets its heels. Ida momentarily wishes she had the Three-Dragon Cannon, because she's sure she could do far better with it, but she still lines up the sights. The rifle roars, three times, sending Gear-sized slugs downrange at Nimue's chest.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's A Momentary Reprieve for 0 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ambrosius with Fusillade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Fusillade for 158 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's attention is drawn to the Munitek Armor. That's...that's new, he thinks. He's not sure he'll ever underestimate Muni Muni again or the Munitek Armor. He sometimes wonders if the world is truly just chaotic and random and full of problems and that the only solution for survival is to hyperfocus on a target, or an objective, like with Gryndille but all the same he lets Ambrosius say his peace. He's doing this to improve Filgaia, methods incompatable, that sort of thing. It's a song that Fei feels used to even though he hasn't heard it all that often.
"I guess we're fighting then." Fei says. "Not like I can let him hurt Shalune." OR CATENNA. "Or Riese. OR CATENNA!
Okay Fei doesn't know Catenna too well, but it's not like he wants her to be murdered by gears even if she's being kind of suici--
--even if it seems like sh'es holding her own.
Weltall darts forward, "...A lot of gears seems to have been stolen from the Kislev-Aveh front." He admits. "I guess it's the perfect time to salvage...in the middle of the fighting."
Weltall dives in at Ambrosius's mech with a jump kick.
"I always wondered if like Kung Fu is really the best methdo for a Gear to do damage but..." He admits to Elly, kind of embarrassed about it.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Ambrosius with Oh Shit It's Weltall! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Oh Shit It's Weltall for 128 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Big Shal moves. So does Catenna and her machine. Elly's brow furrows. "Be careful around her," Elly says, pointing towards 'Nimue'. "I don't think she's opposed to us, but I think that's... gravimetric? My goodness. It's a real show of rarities out here."
"I think that's true," Elly says to Fei, before she says -- "Whaa--!!"
Because of the leap!!
But she's securely fastened. "I think it works amazingly if you know how to fight - you're applying the same concepts on a much larger scale! It's just that learning martial arts is much more complex than learning how to shooo--!!!"
Is this what it's always like if you're not the pilot? Elly wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Big Shal's attack isn't exactly directed. Hell, it isn't even an attack, really - just the most expedient way for the golem to get itself down into the shaft and close distance with their opponent, heedless of any very pertinent questions like how it might get out again later. Most importantly, it probably does more damage to Big Shal than it does to the Nimue - the heavy landing shocks through the golem's ever-rickety frame, one of the short legs folding like paper and tearing apart as the machine pitches sideways off balance.
Inside the rudimentary cockpit, Shalune yelps as she hangs onto her staff for dear life, doing her best to brace against the corners of the enclosed box; she feels for her connection to her ARM, the odd pot letting out a low but rising thrum as the neon lines along its surface begin to glow and grow brighter. "Sorry, Miss Riese! But we're gonna--"
Whatever she's about to say is cut off by her next yelp as she's set off balance once again. Not from Big Shal's degradation - already, the golem appears to be regenerating itself, the shattered foot rebuilding piece by piece as the shards skitter back along the ground towards the machine - but by the way Big Shal reacts to the swing a little too late, the sweep of the Nimue's arm powerful enough to shear away a corner and side of her makeshift cockpit.
Big Shal stumbles backwards two steps, eventually managing to catch the Veruni Gear's limb in her arms - but at the same time something small and brightly coloured slips out from the hole in the golem's makeshift armor, a flash of red that plummets to the base of the shaft below.
For a lurching moment, it almost seems like Shalune might have been instantly plucked from the back of her golem - but a lance of light suddenly bolts from the back of the golem, tracing up towards the shoulder joint that's been exposed by the Nimue lifting its arm.
Two more follow it, and it becomes clear that the mechanic's actually just hiding in the remnants of her 'cockpit', knelt down with her shotstaff braced on her shoulder as she aims along it.
Her coat's missing one sleeve, and the back of it has a fierce gash, testament to how close that strike came - but she seems unbowed, her eyes lit up in determination as she leans away from her viewfinder and then back to it, to fire a fourth blast from the piecemeal invention.
They're clearly intended to disable rather than destroy, which would put her at a disadvantage - were Big Shal not apparently resistant to either option, the golem lumbering back up to its feet as they finish rebuilding.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Ambrosius with One-Two Step! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Shalune Amira's One-Two Step for 106 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius is quiet about that. He can't deny that Riesenlied is correct. Truthfully, he should try to discuss it with them. But what would he say? 'I must destroy the Statues'? As he's thinking about this, Muni-Muni flies in, her left claw swinging at one of Nimue's own. The Golem moves to defend, but the Metal Dragon still manages to put a fairly deep rent into it.
In Ambrosius's mind, Muni-Muni's threat rating has increased significantly.
"...I cannot abandon my people, Riesenlied. You are well aware of why I am doing this. This is the answer I have. Do you have another?" He replies. The Golem glows blue briefly for a moment. Energy swells, remarkably and perhaps worryingly similar to Ether, as water starts to swirl around it, protecting it and adding extra bite to its attacks.
Nimue's eyes fixate on Muni-Muni, and its mouth opens. Water in the atmosphere, along with some of the water swirling around Nimue, seems to be drawn into its mouth...before firing outward at her at high speeds.
Riesenlied has seen Ambrosius do this before. She knows that this Pressure Beam can pierce even the hull of a battleship...
On the ground, Catenna bats one of the drones away. It's easy, they're made of fairly light material. As she starts to run toward the scene of the fight, one of the drones takes aim with its weapon and fires, a green bullet of spiraling energy that soars straight toward her. The rest turn to pursue...but they are not quick enough to prevent her from invoking her spell. On all sides gravity surges to life...and hones in on his position. Crushing force threatens to buckle even Nimue's hull...it is difficult to resist.
"You are incorrect in one thing, Miss Catenna. Elru will not happen again. However...in your eyes...my very existance is wrong. Can you-"
His words are interrupted by a grunt as three slugs are launched toward him, each one impacting Nimue's chest. It would seem one of the Gears that had been standing by to that moment had taken this opportunity to jump into the fray. Still struggling against the force of Catenna's gravity, Nimue raises one arm toward Ida's Dust Dragoon. The center of the palm begins to glow bright green...before sending a bolt of energy at her.
It is around this time that Weltall is also spurred to action. Before Ambrosius can shift into a defensive position it comes flying at him in a jump kick, knocking him backwards. The Nimue collides into the side of the mountain, shaking the tunnel within.
It won't collapse the tunnel, but it might give a scare to anything sentient that might be inside that area of the mountain...
Ambrosius can feel it, as well - Big Shal clinging to his arm, her pilot firing at him from within. Within his own cockpit, Ambrosius's eyes narrow. The arm sweeps out again, but this time it's more like a shake attempting to dislodge Big Shal and send her flying...straight at Weltall.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ambrosius with System Tune-up! GS: You cannot act while you still have attacks in queue. GS: You do not have any attacks from that person in queue. GS: Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's System Tune-up for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Ambrosius! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Riesenlied with Pressure Lance! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Catenna with Drill Cannon! GS: That attack doesn't exist. [Paln] GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Palm Cannon! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Arm Sweep! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Shalune Amira with Arm Sweep! GS: Ambrosius takes 10 damage from Poison! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: Catenna takes a glancing hit from Ambrosius's Drill Cannon for 69 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Shalune Amira guards a hit from Ambrosius's Arm Sweep for 224 hit points! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Pressure Lance for 277 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Ambrosius's Palm Cannon for 177 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"... I can. I can tell you Mother is not the answer your people seek," Riesenlied expresses. "Even in a purely selfish mindset, this objective does not benefit you! You know how fragile this alliance truly is!"
But the Nimue charges--
Riesenlied immediately, instinctually, flashes back to when Ambrosius used such a weapon to tear a path through a fallen Kislevi battleship in their escape from the Guardian Temple...
...but she flashes back as well, to how she rode during that stint -- how freeing it feels to fly in the skies. Especially now in the wake of her wings being so shredded and incapable of flight...
... and Muni-Muni torques up, her legs furling up like they were landing gear -- and the remnants of the shield shatter underneath the pressure of Ambrosius' high concentration water, shedding apart like fragile glass and coalescing into ambient motes that evaporate in the air.
There's a deep and clean line across Muni's surface, where the gilded armour of her colour has been shorn off. Melted frills once show skin and armour, testament to just how powerful that Beam is.
Riesenlied looks similarly horrified as Big Shal takes quite the hit, and Shalune is now a coat sleeve less and wounded for it. "Shalune!" she gasps.
Muni isn't to be outdone yet, her mouth snapping open as she begins to rattle once more. "M-Muni?" she asks confusedly, before seeing a display come up with some words on it:
[ MUNI: Muni-muni, Nimu muni muni-ni! ]
(TL: I'm going to give him a taste of his own medicine!)
"J-just don't overdo it..." Riesenlied isn't really sure whether she's the rider or just along for the ride here, clinging tighter as Muni begins to intensify, further and further...
Her mouth snaps open, and a thin and concentrated beam of ice erupts from the Dragon's very own mouth. If the Three-Dragon Cannon is a simulation of what Dragonsbreath once was... perhaps this is an inkling of what true Metal Dragons are capable of.
Albeit, in a tinier sample size.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ambrosius with Ice Beam! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Riesenlied's attack becomes clear! GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Riesenlied's Triumph of the Dragon for 202 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Catenna is actually slightly surprised that Fei is shouting about her. She recognizes the man's voice but he's not one she can say she's met in more than a passing way.
Perhaps what she's doing is suicide, when you get right down to it; she's a human being on foot, going head to head with a full-sized Golem. This is far from the worst situation she's been through with Fei, however. They did, after all, meet Chaugnar Faugn.
Gravity does its work, but those drones continue to pester Catenna, one of them launching that green blast at her. She lunges out of the way and hits the ground hard, but she's just a little bit too slow - and certainly not faster than light. Pale blue fabric shreds into the air as the spiralling green bullet grazes across her leg, leaving an ugly burn behind and causing her to wince with pain.
Far too close for Catenna to be entirely happy. Again flicking her sword to try and clear her immediate vicinity of drones, Catenna looks up towards Nimue, watching the way it slams into the mountainside.
Ambrosius says something that hits her in the gut. She throws a guilty look towards Riesenlied, even as she begins to move.
"I held such a hatred in my heart towards even the Hyadeans, once," she admits, her voice a little quieter. "Until I came to know Riesenlied. You are not of the same tribe, but I do not begrudge you your existence, Ambrosius--"
She widens her eyes at the sight of Ambrosius trying to toss Big Shal like a baseball. Her jaw tightens. Shalune. Delicate fingers drop to her side, brushing over the face of the Medium stored there.
A shimmer of blue magic begins to dance around her, like beads of ocean water trapped in the air. "--but I must protect Filgaia from those who would do it harm!" she calls out, her voice taking on an echo as she sweeps her hand forward.
The magic she calls forth this time is not the grip of gravity. Bursting out from around her, twin gouts of water suddenly manifest. They swell forth and merge, building and building, forming into a massive tsunami wave that goes roaring across the landscape in a building surge. As it nears Nimue, the wave crests above the Gear's head - and then it plunges downward as Catenna aims to slam that wall of water into Ambrosius and his machine.
GS: Catenna has attacked Ambrosius with Cascade! GS: Catenna has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius critically Guards a hit from Catenna's Cascade for 26 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Ambrosius's Arm Sweep for 116 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida doesn't have much time to gauge the weapon's effectiveness. Something on the AWACS board starts chirping in alarm as energy swirls around the Nimue. Ida has three data points for this sort of Gear behavior: Hellerune, the strange Gebler Gears, and now Nimue. Worrying. The Dust Dragoon settles into a defensive stance, sinking down into a crouch and turning its torso sideways--ensuring that it's in defilade. The bolt slams ino the Gear's side, and the Dragoon's armor bends and buckles from the force. Lines of rimefrost crackle across the plate. Ida's eyes widen. This thing is really not meant to endure extremes of cold, and she never wondered how the armor might hold up.
Ida now looks down, and gets her first glimpse at Muni-Muni since the battle started. She blinks, once, her lips tightening. What in God's name, she thinks.
Distractions. The Dragoon sinks into a crouch, one knee bent, one palm settling down to the earth with enough weight behind it to leave a hand-shaped impression in the rock and soil. The mortar deploys from its back, telescoping outwards and snapping into place. Ida shifts a manual lever into position 'I', and a brief text transmission flickers over to Weltall's screen.
EXPLOSIVE MORTAR OUT
STAND CLEAR
The cannon roars. A high-explosive shell goes rocketing downrange, aimed more or less for Nimue's torso. There's enough force behind it to tear through conventional plating, and perhaps even core a Gear with a lucky shot.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ambrosius with Type-E Mortar! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Type-E Mortar for 183 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong says, "What does gravimetric mean? Is that... a scale of measuring gravity?" He knows what meter is and what gravity is so that's what pops up immediately in his head. He is more accustomed to 'rarities' than Elly because from his experience, everybody has their dark secrets, but it's surprising that she can pit this against gears.
"Oh--uh," He adds at Elly's shout. "--Sorry, I don't usually have a copilot. I'll try to avoid jumping."
But Fei, you might ask, don't like half your moves involve jumping on someone's head and kicking them a lot? Yes that's right, faithful viewer, but do not despair! Fei will jump if it becomes neccessary to jump!
His people, Fei wonders, what the heck is he talking about? There's talk of Elru too which Fei studiously ignores. "We don't really think your existence is wrong, I mean, what kind of person would think that huh?"
Big Shal is knocked towards Weltall! Fei braces himself and tries to catch Big Shal before it smashes into him, but it's only partially successful in steadying the mech. Hopefully!
"Hang in there," He tells Shalune before adding to Elly, "I'm moving in."
And then he darts foward with Weltall and throws a flurry of kicks for his mech, rather than jumping!--this should be more comfortable for Elly right??
"I guess that makes sense," Fei admits, frowning. It feels like it's true then. Somehow Grahf set up events so Weltall would land in his village. He smiles faintly. Despite how horrible that is, he can't help but be relieved that it was his doing rather than, say, someone else's.
Weltall slides back as mortars come in and the like. "I think there is a small disadvantage," He admits to Elly. "If someone's launching cannon fire at your target too."
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Ambrosius with Hazen! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hazen for 171 hit points!
DC: Free attacks can only have the flags Gatling, Reserve, Artillery, Pierce, Heal, Reload, and Cover.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
An alliance? Elly frowns to herself. An alliance between their people. Who could this mean that Ambrosius, the man with the digging plan, is affiliated with? If it's Shevat, she thinks, this was so well hidden that it's implausible. Her attention returns forwards, and she says to Fei quietly, even as Weltall shifts, "See -- the term's catching on."
Then: LEAP!! "Don't worry about meee--!!" Elly says before the twist into the kicking happens. She gives Fei's arm a brief squeeze up near the shoulder joint. "It's just surprising! The cockpit stabilizer's taking the worst off! It'll be fine!"
Then comes that text transmission.
"... Fei, have you met this person?" Elly asks, blinking. "I think they've met you. Or Weltall, at least."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Another yelp heralds the Nimue shaking Big Shal off - or perhaps a better description would be hurling it away, scattering pieces of the Golem's side and arm in the wake of the haphazard throw towards Weltall. The world lurches unpleasantly around Shalune, and she's suddenly very aware that half of her cockpit is open to the air, because there's a sudden yawning moment and the rush of air as the whiplast catches her and jettisons her out of the hole the Nimue's first strike made.
Or at least, comes very close. By now, the mechanic's well aware of what Big Shal can do and what she'll choose to do - an understanding that perhaps has been fostered by the connection to her ARM thrumming away inside the golem's power chamber. Instinctively, she reaches up, grasping at thin air - and is saved by the wrenching of her arm as a handle abruptly slots into place to save her. An foot bangs against a rung that wasn't there a second ago, and while both limbs ache a little at the sudden maneuver, she'll take it over following the rest of her jacket down to the ground. "I'm okay--" she has time to blurt back to the open air.
That was the plan, at least - and it almost worked perfectly. But it's the impact with Weltall's armor that really hurts Big Shal, the black machine's plates sharp and spiky and made of much stronger material than the golem's hide. Through no fault of Fei's own it tears through the golem's scrap armor like a knife through paper, leaving Big Shal crumpling to the ground. The impact is enough to toss Shalune clear for a dizzying moment, sending her hurtling downwards towards the spiderbots below as the pink blob that signifies her disappears out of sight behind Weltall.
And then-- comes back into view. Except this time she's accelerating and climbing, perched on the back of the Little Dipper, the backup craft wrenched from her backpack in the moment's reprieve before the second impact. She whoops a little in sheer exhilaration, a little amazed she's still alive, and rams her staff home into a set of braces along the scooter's side.
"Don't worry about me!" she calls out. She doesn't have fancy speakers or radio systems, but she does at least have a megaphone taped to the Little Dipper. In comparison to the fight around her, she's tiny - a single girl on a flying scooter no bigger than she is, holding on to the handlebars with both hands as she sweeps back around the Weltall and the Nimue like a gnat - but a squeeze of a trigger set into the Little Dipper's control column causes her staff to spit more of those bolts of light, aimed right at the tear caused by the Dragoon's explosive shot.
It's not a matter of doing damage - it's just a matter of diverting the Nimue's attention between two points, because the shape of Big Shal is suddenly looming in the Nimue's blind spot, growing taller as it rebuilds itself on the fly and surrounded by a swirling storm of scrap metal pieces. It doesn't have legs at the moment, only a simple stump - because the majority of the metal is forming an enormous fist around the golem's arm, a sheer wrecking ball that it drives into the sheared armor with a straight punch.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Ambrosius with We'll Still Continue!! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Ambrosius guards a hit from Shalune Amira's We'll Still Continue! for 198 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei gets a moment to look at the text transmission thanks to Elly pointing it out to him.
He looks to Elly. And then says, "I don't know. Um."
He transmits back. 'Sup?'.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'Fei it's Ida', comes the reply. That solves that!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"Ida was Strahl??" Elly says, astonished.
"Or did she get hold of Strahl's Gear," Elly muses further. In the back ground, Big Shal smashes.
"Hold on - may I?" Elly asks Fei, reaching for the keyboard.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Sure, go ahead." Fei says.
Weltall waves an arm at Ida's gear.
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
"...I do. But to go against it...would bring a great wrath down upon me. Mother is not the one I fear. For now, I can accept this." Ambrosius replies. Within the Veruni ranks, there was a greater, more personal threat awaiting. If not directed at him personally, then at others related to him.
Besides, and though he wouldn't voice this aloud...
He trusted Lord Volsung. He was sure that he had an answer to the problem that Mother presented, when the time came.
Right now, however, the more present threat was Muni-Muni. A beam of ice launches from the dragon's mouth. Nimue's arms raise to defend against the assault, more powerful and vigorous than he anticipated. Ambrosius finds one of them iced over. He would not be able to extend it properly...but he can use it as a bludgeon, and attempts to do so, swinging it roughly at Muni-Muni and Riesenlied.
On the ground, one of the drones finds its front cut into by Catenna's blade. It recoils backwards...and then detonates, becoming nothing but ruined scrap. The others retreat backward a few steps, giving her breathing room. Though it will not last long it is a precious commodity, in a situation like this.
"Your resolve...it is strong, Miss Catenna. I acknowledge that. But I reiterate my point - my actions are for Filgaia's benefit." He replies. Unfortunately, this is a conversation they had had before. They had different ideas of what was best for Filgaia. In the end, though it pained him, only one of them would be allowed to have their way.
She invokes gouts of water on him. They swell forth and merge into a wave that slams down onto Nimue's head...
...However, she will find most of her spell stalled, the rest crashing into Ambrosius's water barrier. And then, Ambrosius directs his Etheric talents at Catenna.
The water she had conjured comes flying back, attempting to batter her and inundate her. But not necessarily to drown her. He had no intention of resorting to that just yet.
Fei provides him a question, then.
"There are those who think differently than you do. Ask your Guardians, for instance. They...this planet...they have wracked my people with illness and disease. That is why I must fight against it.
Weltall charges in, unleashing a flurry of kicks. Still backed against the wall, there is little more he can do than accept them. Nimue's free arm raises to guard against them, each kick landing with great force, impacting it and bending it in ways the arm was not designed to bend. As Weltall retreats, Ambrosius raises his arm again. Another burst of green energy flies out toward the black Gear.
However...it is at this point that Ida's mortar comes in. It strikes Nimue with explosive force, knocking it off its feet. Once again, the Golem crashes into the mountain. The chest plate is heavily damaged at this point. This was...problematic. It struggles to stand, firing off a bolt of spiraling energy at Ida in retaliation.
As it struggles to stand, a pink blur flies out of the tunnel... Nimue's eyes track her carefully, but the Golem makes no move to attack her. It watches her, and waits...and unfortunately, her presence makes it difficult to guard against Big Shal's attack as the Golem reforms, a stump slamming into the damaged chest plate, caving it in even further.
There's a subtle 'ugh' from Ambrosius, and Nimue retaliates, and, almost instinctively, without his say-so a clawed arm shooting for Big Shal.
And then, Nimue gets to its feet. Both arms extend...and slam into the ground, rooting the Gear in place.
"..."I've had enough of this." Ambrosius states. Nimue's eyes glow gold, and energy starts to surge.
...Is Ambrosius planning something...?
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Riesenlied with Hammer Arm! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Catenna with Water Pulse! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Palm Cannon! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Drill Cannon! GS: Please provide a more specific attack name. [Crush] GS: Ambrosius has attacked Shalune Amira with Crush Claw! GS: Ambrosius takes 7 damage from Poison! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action.
DC: MISS! Catenna completely evades Water Pulse from Ambrosius!
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey guards a hit from Ambrosius's Drill Cannon for 172 hit points! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Hammer Arm for 190 hit points! GS: Shalune Amira guards a hit from Ambrosius's Crush Claw for 118 hit points! GS: Break! Statuses applied to Shalune Amira!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
A bitter taste fills Catenna's mouth as Ambrosius gives her the response he usually gives - even as he yields a little on the personal front. Until now it's always been a matter of a lovely chat between a lone Zortroa and a Veruni who thinks she's an inferior lifeform.
Water crashes against Nimue's barrier and comes coiling back towards her. Leveling her hand, Catenna takes a breath, then calls forth a spark of gravity - not a large one.
"The tides cannot exist without the Moon," she whispers as she struggles to force the water to bend to her whim. That tidal wave crests upwards, slowing, slowing....
The surge of summoned water finally collapses in on itself. It seeps into the earth with little trace save a few fading puddles, which osoon dissipate even as Catenna begins to walk forward through one of them. Droplets splash up around her boots, fading to nothingness in midair. Quiet grey eyes lift to the Golem. "I sympathize with your illness. But if you fight the planet this way, you know what my answer to your fight will be," she says in a steady voice, letting it carry just enough for the Stranger in the Gear to hear both the words and the corded steel tightening beneath them.
Planting her heels, the lone woman on foot looks towards Fei and Ida, then raises a hand to wave to them - before she levels both arms forward, towards the Nimue. Her tongue passes over her lips as she concentrates, pouring power through her hands and out.
And the air itself begins to warp.
To Ambrosius, it will appear that the shapes of the landscape and his enemies are distorting strangely; to everyone else, it is Nimue that appears warped, as if viewed through a twisted lens. There is a low, audible groan as gravity in a space around Nimue begins to twist and ripple with such force that it begins to bend light itself. Yet it is not a crushing pressure.
It is a binding one. The earth seems to pull both up and down at the same time - but a little more up than down. Sweat beads on Catenna's face as she concentrates - and she attempts to simply lift Nimue a few feet in the air and hold it there through sheer force of gravity.
To try and buy everyone else some time to do what they need to do.
GS: Catenna has attacked Ambrosius with Encumber! GS: Catenna has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"Aah!"
Riesenlied tucks her head low, instinctively -- fortunately, Muni-Muni angles herself such that her ride is not exposed to the incoming power-arm, frosted over from her own beam. Unfortunately, it does mean that the Dragon is leveraged such that the Nimue, with its great strength, can send it easily flying into the distance.
She clings onward and gasps, feeling her very limbs rattle as Odjn continues to exclaim, "I SAY WE GET A PROPER GEAR THIS FEELS LIKE THE WORST ATTRACTION EVER--"
Riesenlied ignores her sassy companion's protests for the moment, as Muni lands with a 'thud' some distance away and slumps to one side. A hist of smoke and fire comes out of one side of Muni, and she starts to bat away at her own damage with a whine.
"It is Lord Volsung's folly to think he can solve the problem, as much as Lord Siegfried's..." she murmurs quietly--
--and Ida's mortar explodes, prompting her to duck for cover once more. She's coughing violently, perhaps really not in a position to be riding a dragon at the moment. "Riese, you okay?"
"Y-yeah. Let's... let's finish this," Riesenlied resolves somberly. She closes her eyes.
A coalescing pattern all too familiar to Ambrosius shapes in front of Muni-Muni -- a bright and indefatigable missile of energy ramping into a solid form. It is not unlike that of the Fallen Sword or the Dragon's Tear, but it is channeled through her mount's very own power...
... with the Hyadean faltering a little as she struggles to contain the bullet that she manifests.
"... With Muni, I can do this ...!"
She fires -- it is less a projectile with physical weight than it is a powerful fundamental force, moving unabetted by such things as gravity or air resistance. The magical, munitekal missile seeks to puncture at the Nimue's arm once more to force it to retreat.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ambrosius with A Certain Magical, Munitekal Missile! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Catenna's Encumber for 0 hit points! GS: Break and Slow! Statuses applied to Ambrosius! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Riesenlied's attack becomes clear! GS: Ambrosius critically Guards a hit from Riesenlied's Majesty of the Dragon for 70 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
Elly taps out a response with quick efficiency.
'Hello Ida! This is Elly, where did you acquire that Gear? It seems late model and we appreciate the fire support. Also this is a complex situation, can you get a voice link up?'
Yes, she used correct punctuation and grammar. NERD.
After this, Fei speaks to them. Elly lets out a small breath at the talk about the Guardians, because she wonders, sometimes, about this; how could this worship have persisted so much if they were so problematic? Weltall moves, but then something else Ambrosius says reaches Elly.
"... He's not a Hyadean, but he's having the same problem they are?" Elly says aloud.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Keep talking, Ida thinks. The recorder's still going, and she's going to have a hell of a time figuring out what, exactly, Ambrosius is after all this is over. Catenna seems to know exactly what he is, and so does Riesenlied. Who the hell is Volsung? Are they--
Ida's brow furrows.
Nimue goes tumbling back into the mountain. Ida's lips pull back in a dangerous little smile, beneath her bandana. The Dragoon rises, settling into defilade stance as its mortar snaps back into standby position--but Nimue's still got those palm cannons, and Ambrosius reminds Ida of this fact. The spiralling burst of energy peels armor off the Dragoon's right thigh, and a hail of spall and shrapnel flies off of the refurbished machine. The cockpit shakes. Ida twists the Dragoon towards Weltall as a means of acknowledgment, and thumbs on the encrypted voice transmitter.
"Salvage," says the scrambled voice that might be Ida's. "I happened to be in the neighborhood and ran across this. Do you have any idea who this man is?"
The AWACS chirps helplessly as gravitic energy engulfs Nimue. The Dragoon's rifle finishes dropping into its hands, and Ida draws a bead on its beaten, battered torso.
"Terribly sorry, sir," says a garbled, female voice from the machine. "What did you say your name was?"
The Dragoon pulls the trigger. A thunderous bang splits the air, followed by another, and another, and another. Ida empties the entire clip into the enemy Gear while Catenna's got it immobilized. A second clip pops out of the Gear's forearm, and Ida slaps it into place. She keeps firing, studying Nimue all the while.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ambrosius with Hell's Coming With Me! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Hell's Coming With Me for 208 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Ambrosius's Palm Cannon for 58 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong listens to Ambrosius. Racked his people with illness and disease? But why? That's not really a Guardian thing to do now is it? He thinks about Kaguya, briefly, before considering further. "How do you know it's the Guardians? Maybe it's just a genetic disease of some kind?"
Fei briefly wonders what a genetic is but sets aside the thought as he guides Weltall back at Ambrosius's gear, punching THROUGH the energy as he does so which causes moderate damage to that fist but, really, is probably not what Ambrosius was hoping for with that because the punch keeps going andd threatens to slam right into Nimue.
And then a few more times after that.
"Um." He says. "It's eyes are glowing. Is that bad?" He asks of Elly before glancing to her. "If it's the Guardians, maybe they did something in the past, like the Metal Demons did?"
That's the only thing he can think of besides 'they are mistaken'. He opens up comms to add to Ida, "It's Ambrosius, I think. I don't know him too well but--uh--maybe Shalune knows better?" They didn't arrive together.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Ambrosius with Raigo! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Ambrosius critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Raigo for 52 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Hopping onto the Little Dipper is kind of a calculated gamble, or at least so Shalune would claim to try to save face for the fact that it was also basically a last ditch attempt to not end up bouncing off the floor of the shaft. This demon's been a lot more-- civil than the others, and she finds it hard to believe it would simply swat her out of the air. She's just also very, very thankful when it doesn't.
The crushing impact of the Nimue's strike causes Big Shal to fall away yet again - if such a word can be applied to the way its limbs tear away and immediately hang in place, knitting themselves back together almost immediately as the whirlwind of scrap components and plates around it set back into place. As if in response, the mechanic's shoulders feel heavier all of a sudden, the fatigue quickly catching up to her as the golem's self-repair systems work in overdrive. A hand goes to one pocket, reaching for a small bag of nuts and trail mix she keeps there for times like this--
--and bumps against something hard and slim and unexpected. It takes her a moment to realize it's Dinoginos' Medium, stashed in her jacket earlier, and she bites slightly at her lip as she pulls it out to glance uncertainly at it, and draw in a rather shaky breath as she glances at the mountain walls around them. The Nimue's not the only one that can plan.
She has no idea what she's going to plan or how she's going to actually do it, of course, but it's not like that's anything new. Sometimes, you just roll with it.
Speaking of which, the shape of Big Shal seems almost inexorable, already pulling itself back together. It's not that the Nimue's attack didn't damage the golem - certainly it did, that much is plain to see - but more that it seems determined to pull itself back together at any cost.
GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Shalune Amira with Aquarius! GS: Shalune Amira has completed her action. GS: Shalune Amira heals Shalune Amira! She gains 400 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
Ambrosius hesitates for a moment.
"...I would ask nothing else of you." Ambrosius replies to Catenna. She has shown her resolve to fight against him, even though she is as nothing but a bug compared to Nimue. She could very easily die here, even simply from the crossfire of the metallic titans before her...and yet, she continues to fight.
He has misjudged her, perhaps. In the future, he will not make the same mistake.
The Moon's power is brought to bear against him. Light bends, the space twists and ripples. Rooted into the ground as he is, he remains firmly on the ground. It does, however, put further strain on Nimue's already damaged arms, as the machine struggles to remain put against the gravity that seeks to push him upward despite that...and it will make defending more difficult than it already will be.
While he is struggling against this, Riesenlied generates something that is familiar to Ambrosius. He watches it carefully. To have this power directed at him...
It pains him. But this is the path he chose.
The magical, munitekal missile slams into his arm. It bends dangerously, and something important within breaks, threatening to topple the machine...but it manages to remain upright.
From the other side Fei comes in, pummeling the other arm with a series blows that threaten to break it, reiterating the damage it had kicked into it before. The arm buckles, and Nimue shifts slightly...
...opening the Golem to Ida's barrage. Shot after shot keeps flying out at it. Armor is rent and torn, mechanisms are sheared through, and with each bullet that impacts it it recoils back.
In the distance, Big Shal falls back. Nimue watches as she knits herself back together...but the other Golem makes no moves to attack it yet.
It is enough.
With a loud screech, from the Golem and not Ambrosius, Nimue tears its arms out of the ground. The damage is evident from the the way they move, and the way they smoke...but from the holes it made, twin geysers of water emerge, shooting upward. They rain down on Nimue, coating it in another barrier of water, before the liquid stops and crashes down suddenly, swirling dangerously. It comes for all of them, sweeping and battering and drenching.
If one's cockpits are not effectively sealed, water might even reach one there, as well, though not enough to do more than make things unpleasant.
And then, Nimue's arms fall limp, and the Golem's eyes dim slightly.
If this doesn't work, then...he was out of options. And out of time.
He could only hope the machines he had sent further in had been able to do their work...though he does not realize he is not the only one with eyes on what lies within the ruins.
GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ambrosius with System Tune-up! GS: Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's System Tune-up for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Ambrosius! GS: Ambrosius has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Full Clip! GS: Ambrosius has activated a Force Action! GS: You have activated the Force Action Lock On! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Riesenlied with Maelstrom! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Shalune Amira with Maelstrom! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Maelstrom! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Maelstrom! GS: Ambrosius has attacked Catenna with Maelstrom! GS: Ambrosius has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Maelstrom for 372 hit points! GS: Catenna takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Maelstrom for 185 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Ambrosius's Maelstrom for 225 hit points! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Maelstrom for 350 hit points! GS: Shalune Amira takes a solid hit from Ambrosius's Maelstrom for 380 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
By any standard, this is very stupid and Catenna's bound to get flattened before long.
But there are principles that need to be stood up for. Principles like defending Filgaia from its enemies - and Ambrosius has firmly fallen into the 'its enemies' category in her mind, no matter how much she wants to hope he'll pull a Riese on her and defy his superiors. It seems unlikely.
Those watery geysers erupt from the ground with a horrific screech of metal and ripped earth. The immense cascade fountains upwards as though the earth had taken on the guise of a volcano to pour out the Veruni's wrath. Taking a few steps backwards, Catenna tries to plot a course away from the destruction.
There's nothing she can do about this one, she realizes grimly as enough water to drown a Gear cascades down onto the battlefield, and onto her, a woman who is decidedly not in a Gear, nor riding a Muni-Muni, nor a Big Shal.
The immense wave swallows Catenna up completely. She vanishes beneath the water and is lost to view for a long moment.
Beneath the thundering waves, Catenna holds her breath as best she can. The immense force of the wave slammed her into the ground and then threw her through the water again, the swirling force of it battering her and straining her body as she struggles to keep from being swept away.
Casting a spell is out of the question at this point. It would be different if she had a Gear to anchor her against the riptide. But she doesn't. She is, ultimately, as a bug right now, even if she does have a pretty big sting.
Struggling towards the surface, she can feel herself in need of breath. Her lungs scream at her. Widening her eyes, she reaches down and mouths a spell urgently, bubbles spilling from her mouth.
Those with Gears above water will suddenly spot the surface of the maelstrom breaking not too far away, though it's for something person-sized. Catenna suddenly comes hurtling up out of the water, almost straight into the air. Her Jump is almost impossibly high. She breathes in as she sails into the air, flips head over heels, and begins to descent, trailing a stream of shimmering blue droplets behind her before coming to a landing on a large rock jutting up out of the water.
Catenna catches her breath, dropping to one knee. She looks up, dripping water, and tries to figure out where she is relative to the others.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied's breaths are more and more haphazard as she settles from her magical attack -- magical, not Magical, for she lacks the proper power sources. She was hoping that would be enough... but...
Her face falls with a sense of dread as she sees that it isn't.
Odjn hollers, "Here comes a wet one!!" and immediately abandons ship as she flies straight -up- into the skies. "Sorry Riese, every dragon for themselves!"
Riese whimpers, horns wiggling as she stares at the incoming crash of water--
--and the Munitekal Armor gets swept in a powerful spin as she shrieks, clinging onto Muni-Muni's harnesses and finding it... insufficient. Muni suddenly realises that her ride is gone, looking left and right as it struggles against the maelstrom in a form that can only be described as 'helpless dog-paddling'. She does not like water!
Just yesterday, against the Primarch, she'd been nearly drowned in a massive torrent of water. And it is with irony, perhaps, that here she was, being drawn into the vortex as she feels fluid filling her lungs...
...and then she's brought upwards on her mount once more, coughing as she collapses to one side. "Muniii....." comes the whine from the Armour.
Sopping wet and feeling no end to the ache in her body, Riesenlied gazes towards the Golem as its eyes dim. Is... is this the extent of the damage the Nimue can take? No, she can't... chance that...
She cups her mouth and lets out another violent cough, before holding onto the Tear. "Muni, focus your bits on my command--"
"Muni!"
And in tandem, dragon and rider work as one. Several blade-like objects slip away from Muni's backside, hovering in the air as Riesenlied concentrates, coalescing along their tips what some assembled know quite well:
Pinions.
The light-tipped blades fly in formation, surrounding the Nimue as they seek to slash away at what Riesenlied visualises must be sensitive wiring and cutting apart at joints necessary for even a Veruni Golem to operate. A flash of insight strikes the Hyadean as her eyes glimmer with perception.
"Go! Pinions!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ambrosius with This Muni Isn't Just For Show!! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Riesenlied's attack becomes clear! GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Riesenlied's Majesty of the Dragon for 362 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida snaps upright as the Golem lets out an ear-piercing, earth-shaking screech. It rattles loose objects in the cockpit, and it sounds like it did not come from a human throat, much less Ambrosius's. Did--did the machine make that noise? The Dragoon slides the rifle into its locking clamps, lets it roll up and over its shoulder. It sinks to a crouch again--
Ida hadn't gotten around to seeing just how waterproof the Dragoon was, either. Ambrosius helps her find out.
The wave slams into the battered Gear, all but knocking it off its feet in the sudden tidal surge. Ida shifts the Gear's weight forwards, and slams its right hand into the mountainside, hunkering down. When the flood abates, the Dust Dragoon is in one piece--mostly. Smoke rises from the holes in its armor as electrical shorts work their way through its wiring. Some of its outer plating has been torn off, entirely, sheared away by water pressure. In the cockpit, Ida takes a moment to catch her breath, then reaches the Gear's hand out. It stops about three feet in front of Catenna and stays there, a protective shield.
In the cockpit, Ida reboots the secondary and tertiary cameras. She doesn't trust just one, even if the Nimue appears mostly dealt with.
+Vote: Ida Everstead-Rey has voted for you.
<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.
"If they're also... from another world," Elly speculates, "then perhaps some trace element or its absence is bothering them, harmfully but not fatally - ah -- Probably, yes, on the eyes, and, um." Her lips purse.
"I don't know," Elly confesses.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Awful Attack Water, Fei wonders, why does it always have to be awful attack water.
The maelstrom hits HARD against Weltall and sends it flying back and crashing and tumbling along the ground. "Huh, yeah, maybe it's the enviroment, now that you mention it. I mean maybe the Guardians ARE kind of responsible for that." Fei says. "Though other worlds seem to manage without them so..." He is kind of chill about being manhandled in this thing though it may be because the DOOM alarms haven't yet started blaring at him. He rubs at his head.
"Oof. You okay there?"
He stands Weltall back up and looks towards the Nimue. He listens to him as best he can, though he now has a throbbing headache, so that's not so easy.
"Okay I'm gonna have to jump." He says as he dats for Ambrosius's machine, aiming to not jumpkick the mech but to land right on top of it and keep on tapdancing on it until Ambrosius says uncle.
Or he falls off.
Or explodes?
Lots of options here, really. He can tell Ambrosius is a soldier or, at least, under orders like one so he doesn't spend more time trying to Convince just now.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Ambrosius with Ryuten! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Ambrosius takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ryuten for 380 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Big Shal rocks back in on the assault - but the golem seems to understand that she's more or less a distraction towards the rest of Shalune's plan, and the golem's strikes are more defensive than offensive, attempting to herd the Nimue into place for the attacks of the others to land. Up on the Little Dipper, Shalune continues to circle in wide sweeps, the Medium held between her hands as she tries desperately to concentrate on it.
"A-ah-- ah-- look, okay, I know I was kinda upset at you guys for ages, but-- I mean, I've kinda got past that by now, and you couldn't really pick a better time to help us out, could you?! We're right in your Palace an' everything! It'd be really cool if you could pop up, is all I'm saying!"
A better chant... one could probably ask for. But maybe beggars can't be choosers.
She feels water start to drip on her face, smattering off her coat - the droplets become a torrent in short order, portending the flood to come, and she's forced to squint past her wet hair as she tries for purchase; she daren't look up from her prayer, even if she can hear the sudden rushing water of the incoming geysers that manage to climb even higher than she's riding. She at least has the presence of mind to rock forwards, encouraging the Little Dipper to angle downwards; if she's going to get battered by water, she'd rather not fall into it first and foremost. The alternative is crashing into the walls, but she's always maintained that she's able to bounce.
A sensation begins to build, a shimmering between her hands as she concentrates further; she grits her teeth, completely unused to channeling or sorceries or shamanism or basically anything that isn't the familiar workings of machinery and metal. Still, if she's got anything, she's got instinct, and that leads her to lift her head, a spark of power thrumming through her as she holds the stone plate up to the air.
"--Dinoginos!"
Absolutely nothing happens.
At first.
And then the wall of the mountain extends improbably outwards above Shalune's head, shielding her from the worst of the flood above as the Dinoginos begins to form itself from the very land itself. The rock shifts unnaturally, moulding itself into a gigantic sharply angled humanoid figure that nearly fills the shaft in; it darkens at the same time, turning a reflective black as the outer crust heats and hardens into shape. Perhaps it's the fact it's Shalune calling upon them, but the Mountain Guardian lifts its head as it solidifies into-- what is unmistakably the image of a Golem, a light suddenly glinting in newly-formed eyes, and a flame roaring to love atop its head.
The process is eerily silent, the stone not even creaking - but it's impossible to miss an enormous fist crashing down onto the Nimue.
GS: Shalune Amira enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Shalune Amira has attacked Ambrosius with Dinoginos! GS: Ambrosius guards a hit from Shalune Amira's Dinoginos for 58 hit points! GS: Ambrosius has Fallen! He is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Ambrosius has posed.
The Golem itself is soaked from its own attack, but it doesn't seem to have harmed itself due to it. Despite the damage, it's moving strangely... It's eyes turn on Riesenlied. The Golem fixates on her. Its mouth opens...but before it can launch an attack, Riesenlied unleashes the pinions.
They fire from all angles, an attack with pinpoint precision. The Golem tries to defend itself...but the pinions cut and shear all the same. Afterwards, Weltall flies at the Golem, knocking it to the ground and unleashing a flurry of tap-dancing kicks.
And that is when the area darkens. Looming up above, in the form of a mountainous golem...
"This is...!" Ambrosius murmurs. He sounds...afraid. He knows what this means. He can feel the Guardian's presence. They have been invoked on him before. That time was Celesdue. This time...it was Dinoginos. The Guardian whose Statue he sought to destroy.
One last time, water surges around him, this time trying to form a protective barrier against the Mountain Guardian's wrath.
But it cannot be stalled so easily. The massive fist comes crashing down atop of Nimue. The machine recoils. And, the Golem's eyes fade, and the machine falls silent and still.
For a moment, the machine lies quiet. But soon...one of the arms twitch.
The eyes light up again, a bright blue this time. There's a marked difference from the blazing gold of before. And yet again, the Golem lets out a screech. It's...almost sad, in a way, as opposed to the aggressive sound before. Even though it is beaten and broken, even though, by no right it should be able to stand with its systems trashed to their current extent, Nimue stands.
It looks at the machines present, eying them carefully...
But then it turns, and...attempts to flee? Whatever the situation, it does not seem to intend to press the attack any further. It likely cannot flee for long in its state, as well.
And Ambrosius is silent, throughout...
One could pursue it...but what of the tunnel that Ambrosius was trying so desperately to open up? Ambrosius had sent the rest of his machines into the tunnel...what was he searching for...?
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
"Thank you," Catenna murmurs as Ida moves her Gear's hand betwen the Priestess and the danger. It doesn't stop her from popping up on her tiptoes to peer over the hand, though.
This time, perhaps to Ambrosius' great favour, Catenna is merciful and doesn't call another Guardian down on him. She does, however, sink to a knee and fold her hands as Dinoginos manifests for just a moment. She murmurs a soft prayer in her own language, one Ida can just barely pick up but probably not understand; her Gear probably doesn't have a universal translator that covers Zortroan, anyway.
When Catenna looks up, she moves forward and rests a hand on the hand of Ida's Gear. "We can deal with him later," she says, her voice a little tired, but still focused. "Whatever he was after is still within that tunnel."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is in awe as she sees Shalune raise that Medium--
--a sensation within herself aching as she feels the call of those that sustain this world. The angular, sharp creature of rock appears and nigh smashes the Golem against its mountainous palms... yet it stands strong. After everything else they'd thrown at it. It is a true testament to the tenacity of Veruni engineering -- and Riesenlied can attest, Ambrosius' own mechanical expertise.
But Nimue turns to flee, as Riesenlied finds herself possessed (not literally, this time) to move forward, stumbling off Muni as the Armour whines its concern. She looks to Catenna, and says, "Let's investigate onward, Catenna, everyone. If I know him well, he would have other plans in mind, even if he is forced back."
Sparing no more time, she turns to the tunnel that Ambrosius was working upon... looking to Odjn and Muni-Muni.
"What the heck do you even want me to say at this point, there are lemmings with more survival instincts than you!" Odjn lectures.
She looks a bit cowed, but does beckon for Muni to come onto her side as she starts on down towards its side. "I'm sorry, but... it is important..."
Game> Kahm Yugh just +fingered you!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida stares, for a moment, as Filgaia's fury is made manifest. As often as she's seen the Mediums invoked, there's a part of her that never fails to be impressed. But there are other matters to attent do.
"Understood," says the garbled voice, from within the Dust Dragoon. As the Nimue retreats, the battered Gear does not give chase. Instead, the armor on its back slides apart like a puzzle box, revealing the cockpit hatch. After a moment's pause, it, too, slides open, a pneumatic hiss of steam heralding the appearance of a human figure in the hatchway. A ladder snakes down the Gear's side, and the woman climbs down, hand over hand, to the sodden, rocky ground. She's wearing a leather piloting jacket, canvas pants, and boots, and her face is hidden beneath a bandana and helmet.
She doesn't look at Riesenlied and Catenna, instead edging into the tunnel, a gloved fist clenched.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"Oh. I did it! Yaaay~," chimes Shalune, as the stone above her shifts and morphs back to the flat surface it started as. She sounds tired and spent, and that's surely the case - and it doesn't help that the torrent of water from the geysers above them is still going, buffeting her down with a surprised yelp as the Little Dipper pitches to one side and plummets down towards the water.
She splashes down, desperately trying to keep her craft upright; the shape of it does mean it could act as a yacht in a pinch, not that Shalune's ever thought to try (yet), but the rain pouring down and the churning currents of the water mean that can only last so long. She gasps a little as she tries to coax life back into the Little Dipper, but it wasn't really made for situations as rugged as this, and it looks about to consign itself to the waves--
--when she rises again, lifted up on a very familiar and rough piece of scaffolding. Big Shal rises from the water, the high-pitched whine of the pot now an urgent keening that cuts through the senses, and slowly trudges towards safety. "Yaaay..." Shalune chimes again, biting back an enormous yawn; sodden and soaked, she can't really bring herself to do anything but stay where she is as her golem carries her forwards after everyone else, small enough to pick its way slowly down the tunnel.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
He sounds afraid, Fei Fong Wong thinks. He can hear him. He sounds afraid. He can feel the fear!
Weltall stops attacking. Fei can feel the fear. He remembers it. He scarcely notices as Ambrosius starts fleeing. He does not give chase. He wouldn't give chase even if he wasn't suddenly shaking.
But he's alive, he thinks, it's okay. It's okay. He's alive.
Fei takes in a deep breath and adds, "Guess we gotta keep up the investigation." to Elly. "I'll be ready in a minute."
And then--onward.
<Pose Tracker> Catenna has posed.
Who's in that Gear, anyway? Catenna squints at the helmeted woman; she still hasn't figured out that the Dust Dragoon is flown by the insanely depressed scholar she's run into on more than a few occasions.
She hops down from her rock and begins to move towards Riesenlied, drawing her sword now that the threat of the Gear has passed. "We should expect more drones," she says, tossing a few locks of wet hair away from her face.
She curls her lips in reproof, more of herself than anything else. "I had thought he was only an advance scout," the priestess murmurs, her shoulders coming up stiffly, then falling again. "If his superiors are truly prepared to move on Ignas as they did in Elru...."
A cold feeling runs through her as her mind runs that statement through to its natural conclusion. If they are preparing to move on Ignas, then they must have finished their work in Elru.
Which means that I could very well be the only Zortroa left alive.
She is subdued as she begins to move along with Riesenlied and the others, her mind dwelling on grim thoughts and horrifying extrapolations of what all of this might mean.
<Pose Tracker> Kent Hauch has posed.
Most people clear dungeons through grit and determination, deepening the bonds of their friendships to unearth treasure and mystery alike.
Ambrosius is clearly less romantic. The enormous tunnel punching straight into the heart of the mountain is less exciting, but much, much faster.
You run. You run for a long time, the tunnel's slight downward tilt speeding you along. No sounds come from the far end, not even those of the drones that had been sent on ahead.
Eventually, the smell reaches you.
Oil. Gas. Gunpowder. Smoke. A violent, acrid chemical smell. The perfume gains another component as you approach the dull red light at the other end of the tunnel.
Blood.
Ambrosius's drones found more than anyone had bargained for.
The tunnel terminates above a wide platform ringed with glowing lava, the very blood of the earth. The drop onto the platform is not significant. At the center of the platform is a separated, raised dais, four small bridges in the rock further surrounded by flowing molten rock.
While the Drifters were fighting outside, another battle raged within.
Parts are scattered everywhere from the capture-proof self destruct systems of Ambrosius's drones, but there are far more scorch marks on the platform than there should be for their personal explosions. Those were clearly caused by the other former inhabitants of the chamber of Dinoginos - the Black Ties.
The corpses of well-dressed Shirts, Vests, and even a couple Jackets are scattered about, mostly clustered around one side of the platform, where those Ties that were too gravely injured in their own incursion to leave under their own power safely were being cared for by this small force. Chemical flames are everywhere. Several of the bodies are burning from leaking flamethrower tanks.
Only two forms are still moving when you arrive - a spiderlike excavator bot is attempting to balance on its remaining legs, sparking, attempting to face a Vest crawling toward it on useless legs. Wild-haired and wearing the multiple cloth bags common by those Ties that favor Samuelh the Molotov, he grabs onto the drone with a long match burning in his mouth.
Wordlessly, with his other hand, he swings the pouch down into the machine. There is a great shattering, chemicals splashing out onto both of them, catching onto the match held in his mouth.
The two of them vanish in a pillar of blue-green flame. The drone's self-destruct pops, but there isn't much left to destroy. The two groups have destroyed each other utterly.
All of this is certainly rather mortifying, but it also serves to bury the lede - the dais in the center of the room stands empty, a circle of stone colored differently than that around it, as though something huge had been... moved. One of the entrances into this chamber is severely damaged, as if something larger than intended had forced its way through.
The Black Ties have stolen a Guardian Statue.
This scene continues in 2018-01-16: The Mountain Quakes.