2020-01-17: Wolves on a Train
- Log: Wolves on a Train
- Cast: Leon Albus, Lunata Croze, Emeralda Kasim, Lily Keil, Fei Fong Wong, Shalune Amira, Cidney Laplace, Xantia, Josephine Lovelace
- Where: Freykragg Isle
- Date: January 17, 2020
- Summary: The Black Wolves, along with the Lunies and guided by Cidney, explore a recently discovered facility built into a Sielje mountain range. What they find is... unexpected, to say the least.
=============================<* Freykragg Isle *>============================= Perhaps a bit closer to the rest of civilization, the eastern major island of Sielje is just as cold as the rest, but feels less lifeless. A few settlements do dot its chilly terrain, along with roving herds of various kinds of deer and larger mammals, some of which are great and powerful enough to challenge even the monsters of the region. It is not, however, entirely idyllic; this is the region that houses the Sielje Magical Academy, and it was chosen for its isolation: there is little residue from that centre of study, but a few strange magical experiments or energies may well have seeped out into the snow, because some of the monsters in this region are very strange indeed, and some speak of odd mirages that belong more in a desert than a snowfield. Accordingly, the central region near the teleporter to the Academy is mostly clear of other settlement, whether these rumors are true or not. What people live here prefer to hug the coasts where they can. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_gmgvAz8Ks
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The Wolves have trekked -- in their Gears, in most cases -- to the mountains of the Sielje Region.
Snow and icy bluster, on winds that whip around the Gears at this altitude. Rock and ice have mixed together, on the slope of the mountain. This craggy terrain would be a nightmare to cross, especially in winter. Safe handholds and footholds are few and far in between. And yet, with Gears, that matters little.
The Gears have their way of making their own footholds. The slope upward, with wind and snow blasting down across the Gears, leads up the mountain that they are on. It is approaching evening, and the ground ahead is illuminated by a spotlight.
That spotlight is mounted on the Gear in the lead: the dark blue Weglaff Custom. Leon leans back in the cockpit, warm in a way that one would have trouble being outside. His hands grip the controls, and his head tilts to the side.
"Ah--there," he says, over the local network.
The light from the Weglaff's shoulder-mounted spotlight shines across doors of metal, recessed into the stone. The metal gleams, lightly, under the spotlight.
There is, of course, the question of who helped him find this place. He answers that question with one of his own: "Thank you for your assistance, Miss Laplace. You said you'd heard rumor of this place...?"
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata is back with the Wolves again.
It's awkward in a number of ways, but she's decided that doing something was better than doing nothing. And perhaps, something as deadly as a frigid-cold venture into Sielje territory would help her distract from some of the things she found with her downtime...
There's a tiny gear at the rear, keeping watch for would-be assailants.
She's kind of having trouble.
"... the engine coolant is icing..." Lunata grumbles as she keeps tweaking. "I guess this low-budget Gear isn't really meant for snow conditions."
Lunata's Gear isn't the Rephaim at the moment -- it's a squat, cute 12-foot tall green Gear with a glowing scope for an eye... and it has a cloak draped over it and a Lantern glowing on one of its hands.
It might remind one of a Spiran Fiend.
"I'm gonna keep watch while I fix it... you guys do what you need to," Lunata murmurs over the radio-- and the sound of ignition can be heard. "Just bypass this..."
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
Emeralda doesn't use Crescens much. Not because she doesn't like it - unlike Fei, she doesn't really have any negative emotions associated with it even if she did battle some of her friends with it - but because there just hasn't been the opportunity or need. So this may be the first time anyone has seen the Crescens show up in a while. Honestly, aside from being repaired, it looks pretty much the same. Which is still pretty weird by Gear standards.
Crescens is a lightweight Gear, primarily silver with accents in gold and a particular shade of teal. It has no arms, having only stubby thruster pods attached to its shoulders, but its head has a pair of gigantic wings attached to it, with five primary feathers, the highest shorter than the others. They are mechanical, but they move like something alive, flexing more than machinery ought to. And it has no face or camera-like eyes, just a featureless 'helmet'.
It is also being piloted by a young-old girl who said she was going to 'help'. This may be the scariest thing about it.
Despite that, Emeralda is behaving herself. Crescens has been near the back of the group of Gears, often walking but equally often gliding just above the snow; this tends to spray loose snow backwards, which is why she's at the back. Crescens' 'wings' spread wide and back when she pushes it quickly. Occasionally, when everybody else climbs, she doesn't; Crescens just accelerates up a cliff wall or a mountainside. Not that the Gear runs up it - it just sort of moves vertically while close enough to touch.
"Wow! Right in the mountain!" Emeralda is impressed by their ability to find it. "First try even!"
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Cold beyond the mountains of Kislev, craggy terrain in the winter at best. But in her Gear, it's simple. Wind and snow blasts down against Hellerune, painting it white with powder and if anything making it easier to rely on her stealth functions... If the Gear's systems don't freeze over, that is. Hellerune, black, follows at Weglaff Custom's flank. Likewise she has no issues with the temperature in her cockpit, still leaned slightly forward as she thoughtfully looks over the displays. She considers...
"All right, Lunata," Lily answers over the radio. "I'll keep an eye out for you."
Hellerune is a tall, thinnish Gear, built clearly for agility; even in the snow it steps lightly for a multi-ton machine, its gigantic spear useful even holstered for balance.
"...We appreciate the assistance."
Angular and lightly armored, Hellerune has pauldrons, slimmer arms, and then heavier armaments around the 'forearms', a similar design at its legs. Its 'head' has a rising spike diagonal back. It bears the hallmarks of Solarian design, because of course, that's who it was stolen from.
"I don't see any issue with proceeding if we continue to move carefully. The ground seems stable." She looks up from her sensor systems as she speaks, nodding into the camera.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Thump thump thump goes the Weltall. Snow and icy bluster! Fei is freezing but it could be worse, it could be Mt. Colshire. More like Mt. COLDshiiiii.
He doesn't know who Miss Laplace is. And indeed, he kind of quietly transmits directly to Leon. "Oh um. Who is Miss Laplace again?"
Fei is a protagonist which means sometimes he has to ask questions for the benefit of the player. Nevertheless, he seems to be happy going on adventure with Emeralda again. Even if it means riding Weltall whom he is still kind of ambivalent about. Sure, he no longer BLAMES Weltall exactly but, well, it's still hard to be particularly chipper about it either.
"Having fun so far, Em?" Fei asks. "I know it's pretty cold but...is Crescens keeping you warm?"
Thump thump thump.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune is back with the Wolves again!
It's kind of a nice change, the mechanic has to admit. As much as she loves tooling around the Thames - and often the term is meant quite literally - she's definitely been feeling a little cooped up and ready to shoot off elsewhere for a bit. The idea of heading off with the Wolves to go hunt down dangerous mechanisms in the frozen wastes isn't everyone's kind of fun, but she's drawn to the prospect.
It helps to think of it as being a way for Lunata to blow off steam. Shalune's terribly proud of her - and then some - for picking up the necessary skills to maintenance her Gear, but the mechanic does have the occasional niggling thought that she's not sure whether Lunie's doing what she wants to do, or just passing the time away.
If Big Shal is affected by the snow, the golem doesn't show it - instead, it stoically trudges through the snow on a pair of gigantic flat shoes, setting a pace that is at the same time comfortable and inexorably unstoppable.
Occasionally bits of its legs creak or snap, but there's a soft whine and glow from the scaffolding on its back, where the Veruni matter converter connected into its internals works to rebuild the rusted limbs quicker than they can fall apart. Powering it by way of a heated cup of noodles between her hand is one Shalune, currently serving as a Blanket Monster at the centre of a collection of windbreakers.
"Lemme know if you need a hand," she hums into her radio, then pauses and breaks into an audible smile. "But... you've got this." There's that note of pride again.
The rest of her attention is firmly tugged towards the Crescens, and she can't help but chip in when Fei gives its pilot some encouragement. "It's super cute," she burbles, and you can spot her rock from side to side a little. "I can't imagine how the components were even made, let alone put together. It's amazing."
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
Who is Miss Laplace again?
"That would be me."
The voice that crackles in on the other end of the local network is one smooth like velvet. Its origins comes from a Gear near the back of the assembled collection of machinery: Guild Galad by design, it's one of the more commonplace models in Aquvy meant for intensive labor in mine shafts and the like -- less so for anything approaching combat. Excellent for surviving the cold and sleet and slushed ice crystals that coat the treacherous terrain here...
... less so for fighting anything within it.
And yet, despite the obvious disadvantage of having such a noncombat model, the voice at the other end of the line does not sound particularly concerned. Casual, maybe -- friendly, even. And just a touch bit apologetic.
"That's right, Captain. Frankly, I'm just relieved to see the rumors worked out to be true. It's hard to reach this far out to confirm and come back in one piece in the doing," says the thusly named Miss Laplace - heiress, she has said, of one of the great merchant families of Guild Galad, House Laplace - a weary sigh brushing over the network.
Within the cockpit of her machine, Cid Laplace leans back in her seat. Her chartreuse eye tracks from the Weglaff, to the Weltall, to those other assembled gears. It ultimately stops at the Hellerune; her head tilts, curious.
"If it proves to be anything significant -- well... no point counting our chickens until they've hatched, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Even Xantia didn't claim this particular journey would be fine without Gears. She wasn't about to argue for it either way, these aren't exactly fun travel conditions. Moreover, it's been a long time since she's piloted her Gear: the quadruped, vaguely feline, skeletal machine known as Silvestris, 'liberated' from an Aveh landship what now seems like forever ago. It has a light source of its own, of a sort: its single eye glows with an orange-red light, but the intensity isn't high enough to be of too much use to anybody but its own pilot.
Xantia hasn't exactly practiced controlling a Gear in quite some time, but apparently it's like riding a bike. If riding a bike is something you actually get better at if you don't do it for a while. While things were a little bumpy still last time, right now everything seems to be going perfectly fine for her, not even a little incident to give the Wolves cause for worry.
Okay, maybe a little bit of worry, whenever Xantia feels it's a good idea to have Silvestris cross a tricky area with a series of leaps. Admittedly there's little choice sometimes - it's not practical for her Gear to use handholds - and she seems to be judging things well enough. It's just... not the level of piloting skill anybody would be used to from her.
This method of traversal has caused her to shift positions in the group a few times, her latest leaps landing her somewhere near the front. She's in a cheerful mood, as usual. "Good job, Silvy!" Aaaand she's been talking to her Gear, which she's given a cute nickname. Squinting at the monitors, she wonders aloud, "Oh hey, are those doors? Is this the thing?"
One dramatic pause later, she asks the question sure to be on everyone's mind after Cidney speaks. "...I didn't know we brought chickens. Or... did we bring eggs, if they haven't hatched yet?"
Some things never change.
DG: A party led by Leon Albus is now entering Shae Ving. DG: Party formation is now over. An Entry Challenge will now be drawn and displayed to the party.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
====================<* CHALLENGE - Azure Wolves Gear Team *>====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The path to Shae Ving is a hard one. A Gear is necessary to reach this high
in the mountains. The cold winds of Sielje blow snow and ice in great
swirls, and the slope is steep -- but Gears are powerful enough and have
flight, letting them rise to the occasion. The entrance to Shae Ving is
deceptively small, which explains why few have found it: a simple pair of
blast doors, built into a metal bunker in the mountainside.
When your Gears touch down and get close enough, you learn that this
facility is online. A light flickers on the side; it first flashes red and
then green. The huge double doors slide open, then, and reveal a dark
interior: steel walls and a platform, leading to a trench... where a pair of
railway tracks run. A huge flatbed train car, with railing around it, is
there. Sized for Gears, it also has a Gear-sized set of buttons -- to send
it hurtling into those depths.
Unfortunately, as you approach, there is a hiss of steel from behind you.
Eight Gears drop down from the heavens. Six of them descend on steel cables,
hooked into the rocks above; another two fly down, with massive thrusters on
their backs lowering them. They slam into the ground -- and then lift large
rifles and blades. Each is a Kislevi Gear, with a blue paint coat -- and a
darker blue wolf painted on the shoulders. Their camera eyes flash red.
"Looks like they've led us to it," one pilot remarks.
"Leave it to the Black Wolves, eh?"
"Enough chatter. Take them out!"
There is business to attend to, before you send the train car hurtling into
the depths of Shae Ving.
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Injure, Suffer===================================
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Be careful, Lunata," Leon answers the young waitress-turned-pilot-turned-zombie(?) over the radio. "I don't know if something will come along behind us."
The Weglaff is a Kislevi Gear, though it has changed considerably. Dark blue, with a single camera eye, and a slimmer frame than most; the Weglaff Custom was built in the wake of damage fighting the Ley Dragon, and sacrificed bulk and armor for increased speed. The Gear steps forward, light over it.
"I'm glad it wasn't too hard," he answers Emeralda. "But Lily's quite right. Let's move carefully." He is quiet a moment more; Leon's eyebrow quirks at Fei's question, and Cid's response.
He nods his head. "She's familiar with the area, I learned. Given that we're not from around here... I thought it best to get some help. Now... let's hope it is significant."
And, maybe, they won't have the misfortune to encounter Gryndille. After all, Gryndille is destroyed and--
His eyebrow twitches, a little, at Xantia's remark. "...we... did not bring chickens," he says. "It is a saying. I--hm--"
As they approach, they learn that Shae Ving is not a dead ruin. A light flashes; red, then green, and doors slide open. The wind blows outside, snow billowing. Snow that, in fact, could obscure tracks of Gears. Leon walks Weglaff forward, and then towards the cavernous entrance: where a flatbed train car sits, sized for Gears.
Which is when a flash can be heard from above.
Six Gears, painted blue, come descending down on cables. One clips a piece of rock; it falls down, bouncing off the shoulder of the Weglaff. Leon's Gear turns its head up, and then the Weglaff Custom's saber swings up. It slams into the blade of the Gear that lands, getting driven backward.
Gunshots pour down, as the other Gears fire shotcannons on their descent -- before slamming into the ground all around them.
One of the Azure Wolves' voices crackles over the radio: "TAKE THEM OUT!"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
"It's fine!" Emeralda gives Fei a thumbs-up; Crescens, not having any arms, does not echo it. Honestly, she's not cold at all in here, not with Crescens running. (It gets a little chilly in the cockpit when it's not online.)
Having no real answer to Shalune's implied question - Emeralda doesn't know much about Crescens' origins or how it operates - Emeralda doesn't even try to answer it. "It's a good Gear," she says instead, firmly. "I'd let you try it but I don't think you could and anyway I'm not really supposed to.
...
"I've got an egg sandwich," Emeralda volunteers, "but I don't think it's going to hatch."
Emeralda waits patiently for the door to open before she steps inside. She is thinking about dangerous like falling rocks, the door getting stuck, tripping (well, probably not on Crescens' part but on someone else's). She is not checking for ambushes, and is almost a sitting duck for when one occurs.
Almost. Emeralda fires the thrusters and kicks Crescens back; it glides about thirty feet, the shotcannon shell aimed at it hitting the rocky ground where she was standing and spraying shards and sparks. Emeralda lets out a startled sound, but that doesn't stop her.
And then it turns out that the strange Gear has another strange piece of machinery: it has an Ether Amplifier, either Solaris' or a good copy. Which goes a long way to explain how, when Crescens folds one of its wings almost like a hand and points with the second feather, like an outthrust finger, this causes a lightning bolt to erupt, the thunder deafening in the enclosed space. Emeralda may occasionally be a little iffy on politics but she understands 'they are shooting at her friends' very well indeed.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has used her Tool Power Magic Circuit toward her party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"Yeah... if nothing else, the self-detonation device still works," Lunata advises Shalune.
This is meant to be reassuring somehow. She listens in on Lily as she tells her she'll give her cover; there's a nod. "Roger that." She listens in on this Miss Laplace as well... Guild Galad, huh?
The Berry Custom starts to roar again, as she gets the engine running. "Yeah, I--"
A pause, as she speaks up:
"I see something. Signals! Incoming, we have bogeys."
Six gears, descending on cables; one of them assaults Leon already, and she grimaces as she torques the Berry Custom's treads and starts skimming on the snowy surface.
"Targets acquired..."
There is a part of Lunata that always fears that what she knows has only been imparted to her by the Rephaim, by the spirits of the past, imparting muscle memory into her.
That part of her doesn't have to fear right now.
Here, with this low-rent, cobbled-up Gear...
What launches first--
"Acquiring strategic target data... moving to tactical level 1."
--is a red-hot swarm of missiles from her missile pod, followed by a shower of assault rifle rounds; she's strafing and kicking up a curtain of snow as she does so, seeking to outflank her enemy and play incredibly aggressively without heed to her well-being.
"Servbot C!"
"Rooooooo~ger!"
...
The Azure Wolves can see a birthday package being floated down on a parachute near one of their hands. A tiny figure lays it down and gives them a salute, then hops off.
The birthday package is familiar to Callers that live in the Village of Mist:
BOMBS
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Servbot C for Combat! toward her party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"True," Lily says of Laplace's comment on their metaphorical chickens, and... Doesn't answer Xantia yet because someone else has it covered. She doesn't expect to face Gryndille in here again... But she has to expect the unexpected. She's maybe prepared for it, inclined to be careful regardless. But before she can comment on any of the things she's thinking, she sees the light. "Could be a hidden base," Lily remarks, "...But if it is, I doubt it's any conventional military, not up here in this region. But the flash comes from above, and Lily--monitoring her sensors--sees the warning pips before she sees the Gears. Lily's Gear snaps its head towards the others and Lily narrows her eyes, a shotcannon slamming past Hellerune's thin arm in motion.
"The Azure Wolves," Lily announces for the benefit of the group. "Don't let them surround you!"
Swinging out its spear, Hellerune advances aggressively on one of the others, moving with speed. There's a hum, though, and a crackling of power in the air as Lily interfaces with the Ether Booster within the Gear--
With a a sudden feeling of utter chill, ice erupts from the air before Hellerune, crashing down in a storm of jagged, gigantic blades. "Do you think you can?" Lily's voice crackles out.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei specifically sent that over a private line!
Okay maybe he accidentally hit the public line button. "Oh." He says. "Okay! Okay cool." This does not actually really answer his question even in the slightest but he isn'treally so determined to press the matter. Does he know that Laplace is a great merchant family of Guild Galad? Please, he only knows Guild Galad exists because he knows people from there. He has a few years of memory and honestly very little world experience despite being on two of them right now.
But Cindy does say something that Fei does understand.
"Oh! Yes. You never know how many chickens you have until they hatch because sometimes eggs don't hatch. Yep. I get that." He says. "Of course sometimes you just want to have a nice omelette..."
He pauses to explain to Xantia. "Oh it's an expression. It's a farming thing."
He exhales faintly and gets to marching along, looking over to Shalune. "Eheh, well don't ask me. But she's a much better pilot than I was starting out."
The background in Fei's mind briefly becomes fire as he continues to smile like a This Is Fine dog before snapping back to reality.
Fei gasps! "It's the Dark Blue Wolves!" He shifts into a guarded position. "Well they won't get past us!"
He actually probably knows the various 'wolves' divisions by now but is getting it wrong just to piss them off this time. He darts in for one of the gears and just start engaging in high level kung fu while relying on Weltall's armor to tank gunfire. Which it usually is pretty good at doing.
He is briefly stunned after getting a hit in when a flash of memory--and another Wolf entirely, dead at his hands--hits him and he stumbles back briefly but it ultimately might not matter too much compared to Fei's overengineered gear ccompensating even for moments like this.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Deathblower toward his party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"Nawww, that's okay," Shalune burbles back to Emeralda, though it's not entirely clear whether her burble is due to her being extremely charmed by the girl's Gear or just from the cold of the trip. Either way, her radio thankfully cuts off when she raises her bowl to her lips to drain the last of it. "I'm not really much of a pilot! I mean, I can test flight, but I can't do fancy stuff or anything. I definitely couldn't live up to it."
She says this even as Big Shal shifts. What was previously a lumbering pace starts to pick up speed, the golem's footsteps almost thundering despite the snow. Amidst the flurries kicked up by each impact are pieces of metal shorn from the machine's frame; they almost seem to drift in the wind, then latch onto each other and connect in a rapidly growing protective canopy for Shalune to hide under.
"If you self-destruct the Tonberrian I am gonna be super sad," Shalune advises back in the puffed-out yet blunt tone of someone who's had to face this exact argument before - then she sharpens her voice. "One more on the left, he only got clipped. We got 'em," she adds just as Big Shal does exactly that. The golem is significantly smaller than any given military Gear, but that hardly seems to matter to her - the straight punch she delivers is literally shattering, jagged scrap shearing away armor as it tears apart the Gear's leg.
There's a series of soft clicks over the radio, the sound of latches and ratchets - and then from under the canopy there's a series of sudden sharp beams of light that impact the exposed chassis. Still wrapped up in her blankets, now surrounded on all sides as if in a bunker, Shalune's taken her shotstaff and set herself in a sniper position.
"Okay, is there a hierarchy? Going from white to black? Was Mr. Leon secretly a supervillain before leaving?" she blurts, more to fill the air of the fight and cope with her nerves rather than mean it as a serious question, her fingers a little numb from the cold as she pulls a tab to detach the battery pack, kicks it away across the scaffold, then fumbles for another.
DG: Shalune Amira has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
Several people try to explain to Xantia that they do not have literal chickens with the familiarity of seasoned vets and/or offer eggs or egg sandwiches in turn. Cidney, as guest of this fine band of mercenaries, just politely listens. And then -- she laughs. It's an easy, friendly thing -- the 'laughing with you' kind of laugh, versus the 'laughing at you' kind.
There's a big difference.
"Haaa -- I take it this isn't exactly a new exchange," she remarks in the aftermath. "Your friends have the right of it, miss." That lone chartreuse eye slides up towards the light as it flashes. Red. Green. Within her cockpit, Cidney smiles a thin, thoughtful kind of smile.
"It means you should never make assumptions about things you don't yet have. Because when you do..."
That labor gear rolls up towards the flatbed train. Above, there is a flash. Cidney's smile slowly becomes a frown.
"... you're bound only for disappointment."
Six gears, painted blue. Cid's gear wheels backwards abruptly as the other mechs come crashing -down-, remarkable reaction times handicapped by the relatively slow reflexes of a mass production gear not meant for swift swearving. The joints of the machine sputter as the Laplace heiress spits out a "Damn!" into the air, bringing her Gear driving back as those gunshots ring out, putting distance between herself and their new pursuers.
"Friends of yours??"
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"...Oh," is Xantia's simple response to Leon and Fei, correcting her. She's constantly boggling at just how many sayings exist. How do people keep track of them all? Especially when they're about things you can eat so they're always going to remind you of food instead? Case in point: "Oh, lucky you, Emmy!" Better thing to focus on than her umpteenth misunderstanding. Whatever food Xantia brought would obviously be long gone by now.
When the door opens, Silvestris takes a few steps forward, then abruptly turns its head. Xantia managed to detect the signs of an ambush a second before it happened, but didn't parse it as being an ambush, thus failing to warn anybody. Even when the Gears do appear, she still doesn't immediately think 'ambush'. Her eyes are drawn immediately to the wolf emblem they bear, and she starts to say, "Is that--"
All hell breaks loose soon after. Xantia is quick to get clear, Silvestris leaping further into the facility and turning in one smooth motion. It emits a growling noise as it lands, and its long segmented tail rears up, pointing the spike at its tip in the direction of the assailants.
"I do know some sayings," Xantia says as energy gathers in Silvestris's tail spike, "The best sheath is the enemy's chest cavity!" ...Three guesses who she got that one from.
With that, a focused beam of lightning crackles forth towards one enemy's chest, perhaps soon to have a cavity in it. "Since when are there so many colors of Wolves?!" she shouts over the noise, and over the comm.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Hi-Voltage Cannon toward her party's challenge, Azure Wolves Gear Team.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Lily is far from alone in her Gear. With her is a somewhat (and increasingly so) displeased Josephine Lovelace, archaeologist and local menace.
If it hadn't turned out to be so damn cold--
(Josie did not do any research or prep beyond getting the cannon good to go)
--maybe she would have taken up an unusual sort of gunnery position outside one of the Gears. But it's colder than a witch's tit outside, so that's not happening.
Instead she's crammed into the back of the cockpit in the Hellerune and at an uncomfortable angle thanks to the Nostos cannon, which is also sharing (and taking up) most of the space that's not 'controls' in the sorcery Gear.
"Careful how you shoot that stuff, kiddo," she mutters, fumbling with a cigarette and only belatedly slipping it back into her pocket, perhaps realizing this isn't the best of plans. "Nearly got part of the cannon in my kidneys just then!"
There's a pause where she squints at the screen.
"...Your dad's?" she murmurs, her voice low.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
====================<* CHALLENGE - Azure Wolves Gear Team *>====================
|Type: Entry |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The path to Shae Ving is a hard one. A Gear is necessary to reach this high
in the mountains. The cold winds of Sielje blow snow and ice in great
swirls, and the slope is steep -- but Gears are powerful enough and have
flight, letting them rise to the occasion. The entrance to Shae Ving is
deceptively small, which explains why few have found it: a simple pair of
blast doors, built into a metal bunker in the mountainside.
When your Gears touch down and get close enough, you learn that this
facility is online. A light flickers on the side; it first flashes red and
then green. The huge double doors slide open, then, and reveal a dark
interior: steel walls and a platform, leading to a trench... where a pair of
railway tracks run. A huge flatbed train car, with railing around it, is
there. Sized for Gears, it also has a Gear-sized set of buttons -- to send
it hurtling into those depths.
Unfortunately, as you approach, there is a hiss of steel from behind you.
Eight Gears drop down from the heavens. Six of them descend on steel cables,
hooked into the rocks above; another two fly down, with massive thrusters on
their backs lowering them. They slam into the ground -- and then lift large
rifles and blades. Each is a Kislevi Gear, with a blue paint coat -- and a
darker blue wolf painted on the shoulders. Their camera eyes flash red.
"Looks like they've led us to it," one pilot remarks.
"Leave it to the Black Wolves, eh?"
"Enough chatter. Take them out!"
There is business to attend to, before you send the train car hurtling into
the depths of Shae Ving.
=Dungeon Conditions: Fright, Injure, Suffer===================================
===========================<* Shae Ving - Round 1 *>============================ ======================< Results - Azure Wolves Gear Team >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Hi-Voltage Cannon 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Servbot C for Combat! 4 Combat Effects: Efficient and Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emeralda Kasim 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Power Magic Circuit 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shalune Amira 0 --(20)--> 20 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 0 --(10)--> 10 Pass Deathblower 2 Combat Effects: Embolden -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 0 --(20)--> 20 Pass Conditions: Fright(2)|Injure(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Embolden(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"Just so," Leon answers Cidney. "It's fairly typical for us."
The Azure Wolves are trained commandos, familiar with Gebler technology -- which is to say that they know to expect the unexpected. The sudden movement of the Crescens is a shock. The pilot calls out a surprised note, before the bolt of lightning strikes the Gear. Electricity explodes off it, sparks flying out in a rain, and the electricity sends it tumbling backward.
The blue Gear hits the ground, skids, and tumbles down the mountainside.
The fall of Gears doesn't give the other Azure Wolves a moment's pause. Lunata's Gear finds a shotcannon blast firing -- before a missile slams into it. The explosion throws it back against the wall. It begins to turn, and then Hellerune crashes down. Ice explodes; jagged blades of ice slash up through that Gear, which shudders with electricity, and then it falls still and broken.
Another turns, anti-armor knife drawn -- and stabs it for Weltall's side, before a powerful kick rips the head of the Gear off. "Ggh--"
A Gear approaching from behind has a blast shorn through the back of it by Big Shal's staff. Leon tries to answer Shalune and Cidney at the same time, as Weglaff kicks a Gear back. "Not quite! All the teams are supposed to be equals, but the Black Wolves are, I'm afraid--"
He kicks the Gear. It goes flying, and a beam of light from the Silvestris's high-voltage cannon rips through the chest. The Gear explodes apart into so much fire and flame. The final Azure Wolf turns from where it had been advancing on Shalune -- and then leaps down the mountainside at the pilot's urging.
"Gh... I see that Colonel Keil hasn't forgotten us," Leon says, answering Josie without quite meaning to. "I suppose, we should be flattered."
He lets out a deep breath, and then makes the Gear step forward. Weglaff walks to the train car. A console is at the front, sized for a Gear -- and the railing is waist-high, too, and also sized for a Gear. Leon waits, the Weglaff's camera eye swiveling to look at all of them, until all of them step on.
Then, Weglaff presses a button -- and with a rattle, the train car speeds into the depths of Shae Ving's tunnels.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Aggressive Crane Removal *>===================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The periodic tunnel lights come to an end up above, and the train tunnel
opens up into a cavernous room. This room is dimly lit -- and your car
brakes automatically, thanks to whatever computer system keeps the trains
running on time with no one to ride them. Inside is an enormous scrap heap,
dimly lit and sparkling under the faint aquamarine glow of lights overhead.
The center of the room has an enormous crane. Moving on its robotic arm, it
rises up up -- pincers opening wide with a metallic screech -- and then
comes down for your car. A glance at the scrap heap suggests the intended
destination, unless the crane is put to a stop.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Wound=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
Emeralda is saving that egg sandwich for later. It has a purpose in life and that purpose is dinner.
But dinner is not what Emeralda is thinking about right now. Fighting is. She throws out another lightning bolt a moment after Xantia fires, trying to force the Azure Wolves away from the non-combat Gears - she really is a good pilot given her age and lack of experience. And, eventually, they are broken.
"We should go before they fix one," Emeralda says. If she was out of Crescens she'd be hopping from foot to foot; inside Crescens she can't do that, but she's still fidgety, and it shows; Crescens' wings shift position a couple times, bending and flexing before they get on the train car and Weglaff hits the button.
The car grinds, starts to accelerate, and then: "Whee!" Well, at least someone is enjoying it.
The lights in the tunnel flicker quickly, at first, as the car picks up speed, then change in intensity as the car turns down a side path; Emeralda amuses herself by trying to figure out how fast they're going (quite). "Wow, it goes a lot further than I thought," she says, but by the time she says it the car is already starting to brake, slowing to a stop in a room with a giant crane and a huge pile of scrap.
Emeralda looks at the crane as it starts to move, squealing from age or disuse as the pincers open. "Uh oh..." She fires again, but this time it is a chunk of rock fired like a dart, aimed to try to wedge in the pincer and hold it open. Unfortunately, it skips off, leaving it undamaged. "Uh oh!"
DG: Emeralda Kasim has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata's Gear is smoking by the time they're done with the Azure Wolves; there's a faint groan as she assesses the damage with a quiet frown on her face.
"Tactical level cleared, returning to strategic level..."
She thinks for a moment how much Maitreya is rubbing off on her. Spell out her combat workflow if it helps her feel more centered.
Before long, they're off.
"The armor's shot, but the integrity'll hold." She tilts her head and murmurs, "Wolf teams, huh..."
A pause, as she asks Leon and Lily, two people she figures might know the most: "What is this place, anyway? Not everyday you see a hangar... no, more than a hangar. This is like a whole underground base, and it's intact. It's way bigger than the one in Kattelox."
A pause, as Emeralda notices the crane moving, and where it's moving stuff to.
"Servbot B?"
...
Mysteriously, next to the crane, someone's planing a giant Bonne (tm)-branded Bomb, saluting to the group before it hops off into the great nowhere.
And when it blows up it'll blow up with a cutesy
~BA-KOOOMM!!~
animation.
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Servbot B for Brute! toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Fairly typical for them is about right. But Lily indeed is not alone in her Gear, and while the cockpit is sized well enough for two people... Two people and a gigantic cannon is rather larger a concern. Luckily, Lily herself deals fine with cramped spaces, but...
"That's about as careful as I can do," Lily says, and then after a pause, adds to Josie, "That's right. Definitely more of his loyalists."
The fight goes on, and Lily chimes in after Shalune for her and for Cidney, "Colonel Keil ultimately commanded all the Wolf squads. Special forces. ...We were the best." Are the best, maybe, depending on how you look at it. "I'm not flattered," she says flatly. But they move onto the car, and...
Eventually it stops. "Keep on the lookout--we didn't disable all of them. We..." Lily says nothing about the sayings, incidentally. Right now, though--
"Right idea, Lunata. Let me set up the charges..." Lily has Hellerune pull something from its side, a very boxy item that starts to beep red once she activates it. "Setting up--"
Hellerune extends it towards the crane, where it's pushed by a column of ice at Gear scale straight towards the crane.
This one is significantly less cute.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Demolition Charges toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Sorry for all the violence, Miss Laplace." Fei says. "We sort of get involved in fighting a lot." He thinks for a moment how he used to hate both gears and fighting and now he's just kind of ambivalent on gears and fighting and frowns thoughtfully. "Anyway, I don't know why they keep insisting on bugging us...considering we saved the Kaiser and all, is Keil really so charismatic enough to keep all these soldiers on his side? I don't know if his method of murdering squads for the purposes of lone individuals wihtin that squad is a long term pla for success."
He wrinkles his nose a bit as Xantia reveals a pretty dark saying of her own and doesn't comment further.
Instead the car is accelerating and--woops!--crane pain incoming! Fei promptly unleashes a wave of blue chi in an attempt to smash it to bits before they crash into it, holding off on showing the deeper recesses of his power while they have a guest here.
He blinks a few times at the cutesy bombs.
"I mean it's one thing before they knew about what happened, but they know now right? Don't they? Ugh. Dads, am I right, Laplace?"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Brute Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's breathing a little hard by the time Big Shal steps onto the platform, but it doesn't take too long for her to gather herself and break into a quiet grin. "Uh-huh. You're s'posed to say you were the crack special forces unit, or something. Like when the situation looked hopeless, that's when they brought you in," she continues, making her voice as gravelly as she can - which isn't much. "For the blackest of hopes...!"
She breaks character with a light yelp as the car jolts and then begins to move, and the canopy doesn't so much melt away as rust and collapse - just in an oddly fixed and controlled pattern that doesn't leave any of it falling over her. Her grin is obvious when she 'mm! mm!'s after Lily's story. "See! That's the sort of thing I'm talking about!"
"That is... a whole lot of scrap. Jeez. They'd better be reusing that for something," she adds in a softer whine as they come to a stop near the crane. "If you're just gonna let it sit in this sort of climate, it's gonna be useless real fast. They really ought to do something with it rather than let it rust, but... is this system even controlled by anyone?" she finishes with a thoughtful hum, that suspicion kind of verified by the way the crane swoops in without apparent control.
"Dads are terrible," she adds in an almost solemn tone of voice, echoing Fei before the sound of straining metal and machinery shocks her back to attention. "Uh! Big Shal, aim for the joints! And I'll--" she cuts herself off as she pauses and really looks at the crane. One furrow of her brow, and she snaps off an array of shots - too light to do anything but mark a spot. "--go for that strut!" she decides instead. "Pretty sure all the hydraulics is in there!"
"See how you like this," she adds under her breath, feeling for a slim plate of stone in her jacket as she concentrates. The first of Big Shal's punches on the structure of the crane are normal enough - but the third resonates with a roar of something otherworldly, as the entire building seems to rumble with the beginnings of an earthquake.
"Maybe that wasn't the best idea in here," she mumbles to herself, and then mentally pushes forwards. "And again!"
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Material - Dinowhatsit toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
Behind the mild shielding of her Gear, Cidney Laplace narrows her eye.
"Hm." The exhale comes thoughtful, and to herself, as she shuts her machine backwards with the protesting groans of joints and hissing pistons. Little tufts of kicked up snow and smoke blow back in its wake. Ultimately, it comes to a stop on the train platform the moment the last of the Azure Wolves takes their retreating leap, crouched on one knee while mild alarms of overexertion blare in flashes of red on Cid's console.
She ignores them amicably to tap a few things into an adjacent keyboard as she addresses Fei.
"It's a little bit harrowing, I'll admit, especially in a machine like this!" she manages with a huff of a laugh. "Surprisingly, though, I've been through worse. I'm just frustrated I can't help... but at least, you all seem to be very good at this." A second passes. The Gear rises, finally; it's a bit of an effort in the doing.
"A good leader doesn't hurt, either. You're a canny commander, Captain," she notes mildly - and yet praisingly - as the Black Wolves load up in turn around her. "It takes a certain kind of person to keep such a cool head. I'm impressed."
The mono-optic'd head of that chunky head turns with a mild hiss of hydraulics to look the Hellerune's way, however, as Lily explains. Within, Cidney frowns. But if she has something to add --
It's interrupted by the sound of that crane shrieking to life. And coming for them. Because apparently they are now viewed as garbage. It's a very cutting commentary that would truly wound deeply but frankly Cidney, at this point --
"Damn -- aim for the pistons!"
-- is more concerned with not being disposal'd.
Which doesn't stop her from staring blankly, for a long time, at the extremely cute and colorful explosion that billows out before her eyes moments later.
"... Unfortunately I wouldn't know," she asides to Fei, baffled. "My father and mother passed a long time ago."
That she still sounds dumbstruck saying something so grim just makes it that much more surreal.
"This dad, however, seems like one that falls very short. -- How did you get all the colors to do that--?"
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon does not say 'whee.' This is not, particularly, surprising. He does crack a smile. "Well, I assure you, I practice having a cool head every morning."
The Weglaff stays put as the car picks up speed, near the front of the vehicle. He answers Lunata during the trip: "It's... a facility, which some people had talked about. Supposedly from the Zeboim era. In the past -- decades ago -- Gryndille was spotted entering it. People haven't ever made it very far in."
He swallows, as he sees the crane appear. That is a cause for panic. He can't really get too close while there are explosives. Once those detonate, the Weglaff Custom lifts an arm -- and its own steel cabling fires off, a hooked end slamming into the armored side of the crane. It pulls up on a winch, and then the Weglaff reaches a hand over its back. A single-edged blade is drawn free.
It ignites, turning a brilliant red and the air shimmering around it. Then, Leon slams the heat blade into the crane arm -- trying to carve through -- before firing the Weglaff's jump jets, and slamming down onto the train car again.
"The Colonel handpicked these teams," Leon says. "It's... well. He seems more like a hero. The perfect soldier, if you will. It's hard to not think of him as such, when he's all you know. But... you're not wrong, Shalune."
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Heat Saber toward his party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie's response is to sigh in a manner that may place her as some sort of contender for best actress, somewhere. "Fine, but if I end up flattened back here, I swear by all the Guardians I'm going to haunt you and yours, Tiger," Josie remarks, before trying to wedge herself into a more comfortable position.
The best she can do just means that she has the cannon pressing into her upper back instead, forcing her into a somewhat squished crouch in the spare seating in back.
"Figured," she says to Lily, before smiling lopsidedly the younger woman's way. "I wonder if he remembers the time I pretended to be Leon," Josie muses aloud, perhaps audibly enough to be caught over the shared line.
The good news is that the new position at least means that she doesn't get flattened when they move again. But it does mean she's caught up propping the cannon with her one good arm.
"He's probably paying them a bundle, Junior," Josie says to Fei over the line.
She pauses.
"That or they're really into whatever he's selling."
Pause.
She would have shrugged, but there's no room to do that. "...You get the idea," she remarks, semi-irritatedly, instead.
"Aim low," she adds, to Lily. "And watch the speed."
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"Yeah! Nice shot, Silvy!", goes Xantia, forgetting or just not caring that everybody can still hear her little private victory celebration. For somebody who wouldn't ever choose Gear combat over on-foot combat, she's sure been enthusiastic about all this. Of course, it's not like Xantia ever needs an excuse to be in high spirits. Especially not when among friends. Why would she be concerned about an ambush happening the second they arrived at their destination?
She doesn't quite 'whee' as the train ride begins, but she does hum a tune to herself, taking the time to look over Silvestris's cockpit. It hasn't escaped her notice that everything feels more familiar than before. She understands the choice in layout of the controls. Well, this Gear was originally meant for Gebler, after all. Even if the frame isn't of Solarian design, the interior design makes sense for them.
Of course there's some concern caused by understanding the reason why operating Silvestris is so much easier for her now. But she's not showing any signs of that right this minute. Instead, she wonders regarding the soldiers that attacked them earlier, "You think they were here because it's, you know... personal? Or were they looking for something here?"
Hold that thought - it looks like a crane game is about to happen that Xantia wants no part of. "Wha-- hey! Don't do that!" Obviously when Xantia wants somebody not to do something, she's going to punch them. Which while piloting Silvestris translated to her rushing to one side of the platform and giving the part of the crane seeking to latch on there a solid whack with her Gear's metal-rending claws.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Hunter's Claws toward her party's challenge, Aggressive Crane Removal.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Aggressive Crane Removal *>===================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Brute |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The periodic tunnel lights come to an end up above, and the train tunnel
opens up into a cavernous room. This room is dimly lit -- and your car
brakes automatically, thanks to whatever computer system keeps the trains
running on time with no one to ride them. Inside is an enormous scrap heap,
dimly lit and sparkling under the faint aquamarine glow of lights overhead.
The center of the room has an enormous crane. Moving on its robotic arm, it
rises up up -- pincers opening wide with a metallic screech -- and then
comes down for your car. A glance at the scrap heap suggests the intended
destination, unless the crane is put to a stop.
=Dungeon Conditions: Overwhelm, Wound=========================================
===========================<* Shae Ving - Round 2 *>============================ =====================< Results - Aggressive Crane Removal >===================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 10 --(10)--> 20 Fail Hunter's Claws 1 Brute Effects: Rally and Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Heat Saber 2 Brute Effects: Strengthen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Demolition Charges 2 Brute Effects: Resilient -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Servbot B for Brute! 3 Brute Effects: Rally -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emeralda Kasim 10 --(10)--> 20 Fail Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shalune Amira 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Material - Dinowhatsit 2 Brute Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Force 0 Brute Effects: BASIC -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 20 --(20)--> 40 Pass Conditions: Fright(1)|Injure(1)|Overwhelm|Wound(2) Effects: Resilient(1)|Strengthen(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
"Do you think there's going to be more in here? What if they're controlling the crane! Then it'd be like... a crane grabbing game!" Emeralda doesn't know much about the Azure Wolves, honestly. But she's learning.
Emeralda's plan is to try to lock the joints, but shooting rocks at it isn't the best way to do that. Encasing it in stone might work better, but she's never really learned how to do that, and now doesn't seem like a good time to flail around and guess.
Fortunately, there are other people on the case! Often with explosives. Lunata's Servbot drops a big bomb right next to the crane, which causes it to shake and momentarily stop, and though it isn't enough to completely disable it it does give Fei a good opportunity to get in and smash at it and Leon to follow through with with a carving slash.
Ice courtesy Lily shoves another explosive against it, causing the whole array to tip dangerously, and the sway is amplified by Shalune's Big Shal smashing it with additional power; the strut where it was cut and battered starts to give way, slowly toppling the crane to the side. Xantia follows through, cutting one last time, though it doesn't do much but speed up an already-inevitable fall.
The crane doesn't stop when the first strut snaps but keeps collapsing, now too unbalanced and unstable to stay up; most of the length of it crashes into the scrapheap and scatters metal debris, as well as making a horrible racket. Emeralda briefly covers her ears, not that it really helps. But it makes her feel better. She takes them off when the echoes finally die down.
"Dads are great, what are you talking about!" Now that the crane is disabled, Emeralda knows what's really important. "You can't say something like that! And - oops, we're going." The car is starting to shift under Crescens' feet again. "Everybody on!"
DG: Fei Fong Wong has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
=================<* CHALLENGE - Low-Hanging Infrastructure *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
As the Gear-sized car speeds along, service lights in the tunnel whip by,
their aquamarine glows becoming like streaks. The headlamps of the train car
illuminate the area in front of the train only a little. The headlamps catch
something up ahead; shiny, reflective striped red and white paint across a
low-hanging steel lattice, containing pipes and cables.
The clearance is maybe half the height of a Gear, which means you need to
make your Gears hit the floor quickly -- because it's coming up fast.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Slow=============================================
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"R..really? You practice?" Fei asks Leon. "What do you do... I just sort of close my eyes and repeat to myself that things are going to be ok and I don't have to set everything on fire over and over. Do you do that too, Leon?"
Fei sounds so hopeful.
A facility from the Zeboim era, Fei thinks. Hoo boy. Probably going to be terrible, he thinks. Yep. He expects it to be terrible. Zeboim era digs and Elw digs are always the worst.
"Heh, really?" He adds to Cidney. "I guess I can't be too surprised. Sometimes feels like you can't throw a stone without hitting an ancient grudge, a conspiracy, or some horror beyond the pale." He pauses and his cheeks redden. "Ah... Sorry," He says. "I don't mean to badmouth 'all' dads, I'm sure your dad was a fine gentleman. I haven't seen as many bad moms, but--uh... I'm sure your mother... I'm...going to quit while I'm ahead."
He focuses on Leon's and Josie's words. Money. The power of being a hero. Maybe that desperation Fei feels weighing on his back from time to time is not so unique a sensation. Do anything to make change. ANYTHING. By that token he can understand Odessa a bit more--
--even so he adds, "I get the idea," to Josie, quietly.
Emeralda says dads are great and Fei smiles a little. The fact of the matter is, Fei rarely sets him apart from other 'bad dads' when he thinks of bad dads but... Well, he says, "I'm glad, Em, that you feel that way. Thank you. I won't say it again."
Fei squints ahead and shines his lamps forward, revealing a reflective striped red and white paint across the ceiling. Fei shouts, "Hit the deck!" as he throws his gear to the floor and thrusts to the side a bit to leave open some more space for the others.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Remembered Flight Engine toward his party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"If Gryndille was spotted visiting this place, then there'd be reason for Keil's soldiers to look into it almost as much as for us." She breaks off the radio and quips back to Josie, "You'll be fine. It'd take more than that to take you out anyway." But does he remember...? Lily happens to have the line up there, sure. And for that--
"They may not even believe that what happened is what happened," Lily says of the other Wolves. "...But it could be money. It could be that they believe in what he's after. I mean, I can't say I'm exactly thrilled with the state of Kislev myself."
So she could see it. She doesn't like it much, though. Josie can feel the faint crackle of Ether that Lily suppresses. ...She doesn't comment on practicing though. Definitely hnot.
"...There are good parents," she answers. And then--hit the deck! "Hang on," she tells Josie quickly, and slams a black button on the inside--shadow crackles around the Gear and it moves much, much more quickly, fading from view as it drops down into a crouch that practically folds it straight up. ....It's pretty bumpy in the cockpit, though. Sorry Josie!!
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"Dads are horrible," Lunata affirms regardless of all else, "And the only sin my dad was ever guilty of is being incredibly horny on main."
She lowers her head.
"Having a cool head helps sometimes. But sometimes, you bury something too deep inside of you and you can never find it again, no matter how hard you look."
She closes her eyes tightly.
"It's okay to be unsure. It's okay to tell yourself things are going to be okay and have faith. Even if there's doubt inside of you... nothing's worse than living not believing what you're doing inside."
Her eyes open as she stares towards the lamp's gaze.
"Even if I can't believe in that right now..."
The Tonberrian is already pretty short, but it kind of... hunkers on down... in a somewhat awkward pose.
DG: Lunata Croze has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"It's hard to say," Leon answers Emeralda. "I've a mind to track them down--we're like to find out they've been snooping about, now that we know to look. But, I think, it's at least a little personal, Xantia."
The car begins speeding up again, and Weglaff grips the car's railing. The metal bends a little around the fingers of the Gear. But Weglaff stands up straight, as if undaunted by all that has occurred--
'Hit the deck!'
"Damn!" Leon shouts. He dives the Weglaff down; the Gear crouches, ducking low, and then turns around, aiming one arm out behind them. The wire shooter looses, the steel cable slam into the ground. It digs into the concrete of the tunnel, and sparks fly from the wheels -- slowing the train car for a moment, to buy others time -- while staying low. Leon's face screws up at Lunata using the words 'horny on main.'
"Mm. I'm not one to give advice on telling people what to believe or why to do something," he says. "You have to find your own reasons. But... better to believe in them, I should think."
There is a tug, and a crack, and then the wire shooter dislodges from the concrete -- and the temporary braking of the rail car comes to an end.
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Wire Shooter toward his party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
"Well, if nothing else, trying to make do in Elru acclimates you to a wide variety of interesting sights."
If Cidney has more to regale beyond hints of magical adventures in the wondrous world of Elru, Notable Blasted Hellscape, it is most assuredly drowned out within the horrifying shriek of collapsing metal. In the aftermath, Cidney watches the crane's fall, lips pursed and head propped upon the knuckles of her right fist.
"... There's rumors of a few facilities mentioned to be similar to this in Aquvy," begins Laplace once the terrible sound of tearing metal has abated at last, "but until now, there hasn't been much to substantiate them. I doubt I was the only one looking. Or even the only one familiar with geography of Aquvy's archipelago. Your varying assortment of former Wolf friends could very well have some help, if they weren't just keeping tabs on you somehow." A second passes.
The reassuring smile is more in Cid's voice than anything else, when her voice crackles over the public line once more.
"And they were both very good people. Compassionate. It was terrible, what happened to them, but I prefer to remember the better memories, these days. You don't have to apologize."
The labor Gear steps backwards. Cid turns a chartreuse eye on the Hellerune, brow lifting. "'Gryndille'?" she echoes. "What is a Gryn--"
But before she can press, she hears the warnings. Sees the lattice.
Once again, that reaction time is impeccable in how Cidney slams on the controls. The Gear, however --
The sound of screeching metal on metal can be heard as Cid's gear drops to its knees just in time to be scalped of the top of its head in a spray of sparks and circuitry.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie makes no remark when it comes to dads.
Though she does snicker inappropriately at Lunata's remark, as if she were a girl of twelve and not a woman of thirty-two.
"Ah, so says the one with youth and healing magic on her side! You're not the one sitting around back here with half-smashed by a cannon," Josie remarks, though her grumpiness is just enough on the side of hamminess for it to sound a little less than completely genuine.
"You two'd know the old man better'n me. If he's the leaderly type, then that'd also settle it."
There is a long pause.
"Cash always works a treat regardless of loyalties, though, you know."
Lily may be holding back a little here, but the archaeologist still archs a pale eyebrow all the same.
"--Careful, car's picking up. Ugh, dammit, why did--"
Her gaze snaps back at the feed from the cameras.
Josie sees them coming approximately the same moment Fei -- and Lily -- do.
So Josie's response is to say something unprintable.
Before the Hellerune hits the deck.
There is -- regardless of what else happens -- a loud thump, then a grunt coupled with some further swearing from the back of the cockpit.
Josie is a little bit preoccupied after this point.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
Emeralda has Opinions about parents: specifically, that they're embarrassing (sometimes) but she loves them and she wouldn't give them up for anything. It hurts to hear when people don't like their families. She doesn't know how she'd get along if they didn't... well, get along.
Which means that she really doesn't agree with Lunata, but... is it normal to hate your parents? Everyone seems to not like them. Maybe she's the weird one again. She's so lost in thought that the weird phrases that she doesn't understand at all slip by.
FOR NOW.
"I - " Emeralda is interrupted by a demand to hit the deck. She doesn't even think about it - she drops, Crescens simply falling forward onto its front. It occurs to her, a moment later, to tuck down the wings, flattening them against the car floor too; hopefully nobody steps on them.
Because it's not actually her doing it, Emeralda doesn't sound muffled even though her Gear is mashing its 'face' (helmet) into the floor. "Why are there even fences in here?" Apparently she has really good sensors on that machine if she determined that to be a barricade while moving that fast in the dark.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward her party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
A cool head, huh? So Leon takes a cool shower every morning. That's weird, why would you do that, warm showers are much better. Such is Xantia's thought process. Does she even need to say anything for people to realize that much at this point?
Even so, she remains silent, because the matter of parents also came up, and well... it's interesting to hear everyone's views on things she knows little about. She has to postpone her own judgment because of no show.
In the wake of that, things feel a little bit too heavy for her liking, so she decides to try and lighten the mood, claiming, "I rarely know what I'm doing, and everything's always fine in the end! So don't worry about it!" Even she knows that's way too much of a generalization. But it just seemed like the sort of thing to say at a time like this.
Then Fei says 'hit the deck', which... well obviously Xantia has to do some quick mental gymnastics to figure out this is not about a ship, or cards, or anything like that. That might have been a problem, but thankfully this task is a bit easier for Silvestris than most, already going around on all fours as it does. It's not much effort to just... sink through its legs.
But that's not all it does. As it flattens itself, the quadruped Gear emits a wide pulse of energy, briefly bathing the entire train car in bright orange light. That's something it's never done before. Thankfully it doesn't interfere with normal Gear operations. On the contrary, if anything was interfering with normal Gear operations, this may mysteriously no longer be an issue. Certainly can't hurt when you need your machine to be optimally responsive.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Energy Dispersal Unit toward her party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"... to be honest, I'm not so sure I'm into heroes anymore, after everything. A lot of 'em seem to turn out being a bit less than heroic, y'know?" Shalune responds back to Leon. Her tone is somewhat noncommittal; she doesn't seem upset, so much as just thoughtful about it, as if she hadn't really considered it before. It feels odd to think of herself as jaded, when she'd much prefer down-to-earth.
She kind of watches as the other Gears start to hit the deck, as the lattice comes into view. Much like Lunata's Tonberrian, Big Shal is nowhere near the size of the other Gears, roughly twice the size of a person at best - though that does call into question just how it can generate so much force and energy when it wants to. If Shalune has anything to say about it... well, she's not saying it, instead popping half a pressed bar of seeds and nuts into her mouth.
"... sorry," she admits sheepishly, talking around it. "I shouldn't say somethin' so blanket, but-- well, my dad was just super irresponsible, that's all. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised he hasn't come back as some kinda ancient ghostly figure of wisdom to try to talk to me, or something. Kinda seems like that'd be his style, just roll up at the end of a Dig going 'hey kiddo' as if nothing happened."
She pauses thoughtfully. "I'd still kick the hell out of him, though."
All of a sudden she's hopped off of Big Shal's back, the odd pure-white flying scooter she uses - bits and pieces of Elw and Veruni technology married together with Shalune's oddball imagination - and swung across the platform as the lattice swoops overhead, apparently wanting a closer look for a moment in the wake of Cidney's comments. "... I get the feeling this place's probably been rolling along for ages, though. Not sure if they established it, or just sorta... made use of it."
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Little Dipper toward her party's challenge, Low-Hanging Infrastructure.
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
=================<* CHALLENGE - Low-Hanging Infrastructure *>=================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 2 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
As the Gear-sized car speeds along, service lights in the tunnel whip by,
their aquamarine glows becoming like streaks. The headlamps of the train car
illuminate the area in front of the train only a little. The headlamps catch
something up ahead; shiny, reflective striped red and white paint across a
low-hanging steel lattice, containing pipes and cables.
The clearance is maybe half the height of a Gear, which means you need to
make your Gears hit the floor quickly -- because it's coming up fast.
=Dungeon Conditions: Injure, Slow=============================================
==========================<* Shae Ving - Round 3 *>=========================== ===================< Results - Low-Hanging Infrastructure >=================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xantia 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Energy Dispersal Unit 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Wire Shooter 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 10 --(0)--> 10 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Emeralda Kasim 20 --(0)--> 20 Fail Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Little Dipper 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Remembered Flight Engine 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 40 --(20)--> 60 Pass Conditions: Injure(2)|Overwhelm|Slow(2)|Wound(1) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Sometimes," Fei adds to Emeralda. "Parents aren't great, but sometimes they are. Usually they just do their best and hope it's enough..." Parental woes aside, Fei figures he better give the honest answer to his daughter before it gets out of control. She already is hearing about 'horny on main' and, well, Fei is making a similar face as Leon at that point.
"Oh yeah?" Fei asks of Shalune. "Like who do you mean?" But he quiets down when it becomes apparent Shalune has more to say about the subject of dads but he's appreciative that she seems to be backing off a bit from 'every dad is awful' even if, okay, it is 100 percent Fei's fault the conversation turned to that.
Cidney mentions she prefers to remember the good memories. "Heh... got a point there. Still working on that." But it's tough when you have, at the same time, so few and so many of them.
Luckily most of the group is able to avoid getting clobbered, except for Crescens, whose wings get dinged by her delayed reaction in retracting them, and Lunata--
--who gets clobbered by the fence when it suddenly falls off and lands on her robot, perhaps dislodged by Crescens' wings. It could have landed on anybody but it hit Lunata instead.
DARK FATE.
"Hey um. Em...?" He says.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata is buried underneath the fence.
"I guess that's... what I get for always being on the fence."
The dark-eyed Servbot nods sagely.
DG: Xantia has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Hunter-Seeker Missile *>====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The tunnel ahead of you is lit by the train car's headlamp and the service
lights on the wall. Behind you is lit only by the receding service lights,
vanishing into darkness. When you see a glimmer of something else, you may
realize that it can't be good. The first hint is a little light flashing a
consistent red. It resolves, quickly, into a glimmer of a sleek cone-shaped
warhead -- and a missile, with powerful verniers that make it twist and juke
through the tunnel.
And, if you try to shoot it down, past the first shot fired. The missile
comes screaming in for your train car, and it appears more than capable of
dodging attacks -- but it needs to be shot down, lest it blow your train car
to smithereens.
=Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Suffer==========================================
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia also remains quiet on the matter of heroes and how non-heroic they sometimes seem, which is less like her. She was all about becoming a hero, going on and on about what heroes would do in any given situation. And under normal circumstances, Xantia would definitely argue something she strongly believes in. The fact that she doesn't now... probably means something.
Maybe it just means that she's distracted by what happened to Lunata just now. If Silvestris was capable of making an awkward expression, or indeed any expression, this is where it would happen. "A-are you okay...?" She isn't quite sure how to help with this. How do you lift a fence without hands? Claws aren't good at gripping things... would teeth work? Who knew that this type of Gear would be inconvenient at times.
She's interrupted by a sudden buzzing noise. "...Something's coming," she realizes before seeing it. Turning her attention to her instruments, she quickly deduces, "...from behind?" She scratches her head. "Hey... what's small, heat-emitting and fast enough to catch up to us?" No, that's not the setup for a riddle. But someone else will have to answer it nonetheless.
What's less visible to Xantia is that her machine is still sending out intermittant energy pulses, the other Gears effectively receiving a slow recharge in the process. This may help them do what will need to be done next: stop the incoming projectile, which seems to have a mind of its own, and proves to be exceptionally difficult to keep a solid lock on.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Energy Dispersal Unit toward her party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Belief... isn't something you have, or you don't," Lily says over the radio to Lunata, and there may or may not be the unprintable sounds of the preoccupied Josie behind. She sure didn't respond to Josie's raised eyebrow about what she was saying, though, and doesn't comment further on parents in a general sense yet. "It's something you choose. If you don't feel it yet, that doesn't mean it isn't there." Instead, she starts to de-compress the Hellerune, and switches off the mic for a moment as she glances over her shoulder, "Anything back there I need to patch up?"
Walls. Machinery. ...Bones. You know, just little things.
She doesn't say a thing about the fence being cosmic justice for certain comments. Instead, as Xantia mentions something from behind... "I guess we have an answer to whether or not there are others here!" Lily calls.
Hellerune finishes standing quickly, and Lily keeps the Hexcraft Shroud engaged, despite the warning on her screen that it's a little long. She doesn't explain Gryndille, because instead, she assumes a stable posture for the Gear and then extends both of her hands. A chill gathers in the air around them, frost coating Hellerune's hands, as a gigantic fireball pops into existence a bit away from the cart. If it's heat-seeking, then maybe she can help to detonate it early.
"Once," Lily says to Emeralda, "There were places people were supposed to stay out of, here. Now that safety check is moot."
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
Lunata's pushed the Tonberrian out of the fallen fence at this point; it's smoking even harder. There's a faint groan as she grumbles, "A hero, huh..."
She lowers her head even as the warning echoes blare on her screen. "You shouldn't listen to me, though... there's no good to be had from that."
A pause, as Lily mentions that belief is something you either have or don't.
"... I guess so. And when you lose that belief... everything else starts to crumble all around it too. Grasping onto the next little thing that sounds remotely 'good', only for reality to catch up to you sooner or later..."
Xantia mentions something's coming from behind.
"Uh, that's a missile, usually," she speaks up. "Hold up. Servbot A?"
...
MYSTERIOUSLY there is a Servbot with a personnel-sized rocket launcher with the crosshairs over one eye. It's targetting the incoming missile.
"YIPPIE-KA-YAY, MISS LUNIEEE~!" it hollers, before launching a counter-rocket its way.
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Servbot A for Agility! toward her party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
"That just means you need to find a better hero," Emeralda informs Shalune, still from the floor. "Or be one? I don't know! I only read the Drifter books because that's all I could find, but Drifters are cool and there's nothing that says they can't be heroes too - "
*clonk*
Fortunately, Crescens' wings flex and bend with the blow, so the one that got hammered isn't now bent and folded to unusability or completely ripped off the Gear. Unfortunately, it still does some serious damage to a couple of the feather-like 'fingers'; the bottom one skews downward at an angle and the one above it appears to stick when the wing flexes.
Emeralda is currently dealing with attempting to fix this, or at least as much as she can from within Crescens. This is more than might be expected but less than she'd like; a lot of it will simply take some time, as while Crescens does have self-repair systems that she's not entirely sure how they work, they aren't instant or even particularly fast. She sounds slightly distracted when she responds to Fei: "What is it?"
The wing that was undamaged flexes like a hand, the five long feathers bending along marks that could be joints and knuckles. The damaged one does too, except for the bottom two fingers, which still don't seem to be working very well. Emeralda would keep fussing with it except...
"Missile!!"
Crescens' intact wing/hand/whatever literally lifts off the machine, separating from the head with a series of metallic clicks. The giant AEROD-like 'hand' either can't go far or Emeralda is unwilling to let it while on the train, but it does mean that she has a second targeting point; when a gust of Ether-powered wind erupts from Crescens, it actually comes from the detached 'hand', giving her a much better shot than she otherwise would. The wind catches Lily's flame and feeds it, whether by design or accident.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has used her Tool Wing Bit toward her party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
"We found one more. Back in Ignas, though," Leon tells Cid. His eyebrows knit for a moment. "So... more people looking for them. I'm not surprised, somehow."
Leon stays quiet on the topic of father's. Lily's betrayed them; his father went missing, which likely meant that he had died. His expression darkens for a moment, before he explains: "Gryndille," he says. "An automaton. We destroyed it, but... it is connected to ruins like these."
"Behind," Leon confirms to Xantia, a moment later. The buzz makes him look concerned; the realization that it is a drone makes him look worried. Leon hisses, before he takes aim with the wire shooter mounted in Weglaff's left wrist. The targeting reticule flickers across his Gear's screen. He waits for Lily's fireball to erupt -- then the wire shoots, trying to hook onto the missile, and then yank it to the side.
"Good work, everyone!" Leon calls out. "Including the... er... Servbot?" He blinks. "Lunata, Shalune, is that new?"
DG: Leon Albus has used his Tool Wire Shooter toward his party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
'What is it?'
"Elly and I love you very much." Fei says with incredibly embarrassing sincerity. Luckily, a missile is launched at everybody.
Fei quickly mutters a 'shi!' under his breath as he pulls back Weltall and quickly fires chi blasts at the missile in an attempt to knock it off course!
"Please don't blow up the train I don't want to walk...!" Fei begs the world. They've been on this train car forever and he's from Xenogears! They don't get maps for their dungeons!!
He pauses. "You didn't know about the servbots, Leon?" He asks, frowning. It distresses him that Leon has missed out.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"If it's Gryndille about what you're talking," Josie says, piping up over the radio, "then--"
She's silent a moment. "...Huh, yeah, that's about the long and short of it. ...Got its arm back here. Call it a little bonus?" The grin may be audible.
Before a sudden landing sends her ass over teakettle in the back there. With said cannon.
At some point Josie manages to haul herself on out from under the cannon that is currently partially pinning her down in the back of the cockpit. She's not much the worse for wear.
She is, after all, still hale enough to let out one more cuss for good measure. Emeralda may be getting an education today.
"What's she on about? Belief?" she says to Lily, before cocking her head to one side as if to listen to what it is Lily has to say to the younger girl.
The smile she manifests is best called 'bittersweet'.
"Heh," she says. "Either she'll figure it out, or she won't."
She shakes her head -- perhaps over Lunata and her own injuries alike. "In the end, it's all down you'n what you want."
In the end, what happens to Lunata... depends on Lunata. It's none of her business.
Josie reaches, this time, for her flask, fumbling with the cap while attempting to jostle the cannon's bulk aside with her... leg?
Well, given her current position back there, it's entirely possible. Craning her head back, she tries to get a look at the screen. "Let me guess -- more junk in the way. ...Try and keep it steady, Tiger? Some of us are trying to soothe our wounds with a li'l of nature's finest."
Which is, apparently, rotgut.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
"Facilities spread across continents. Automatons as a... what, a defense system? Things like this are built for a purpose."
The sparking remains of the labor Gear's half-a-head tilts upward with a stuttering spasm in the aftermath of that rush of lattices. The screens within sputter static off and on, concealing the passage of the world around Cidney Laplace. She doesn't seem to mind.
She just listens, with quiet intent, as the others discuss.
"Belief is earned." The words come, crisp and concise, at the tail end of Lily's observations. "We make choices. We're responsible for them. But belief is inspired. A child doesn't necessarily know why they believe in Granas, they don't even necessarily choose it. They see a great god promising them wonders and happiness and love, and it inspires something in them that carries on and on even when they grow older and reason and logic should tell them to perhaps question otherwise. The same is true of the Guardians, distant things we can freely place so many hopes on and ascribe so many values to. I wonder what we'd think, if we ever actually could meet any of them in the proverbial flesh?"
If she's aware of the irony of that question, Cid doesn't voice it. Instead, she simply leans back.
"Belief can be chosen, but it's never a rational choice. Not wholly. That's why it hurts so much to see it abused. Because belief is like a -- missile?"
Cidney blinks. And this is about when her screens crackle back to life, just in time for her to see a missile screaming at them, and the other Gears trying to OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP. Her head tilts, very slowly.
"... Ah. Missile. Well."
...
"Shoot."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune is kind of brought up by Fei's question - she hesitates, even pausing in her flight on the Little Dipper as she stares briefly at the ceiling. "... ... I dunno!" she admits afterwards. "Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I can even think of any examples. It's just kinda-- just a feeling I get, y'know?" For a moment, she scratches awkwardly at her cheek, chewing on a chapped lip as she considers that before retreating to Big Shal now that the obstacle has passed.
When she turns around, she gets an eyeful of Lunata getting a fence dropped on the poor Tonberrian. "W-wah! Lunie!" she blurts, panicking a little; Big Shal is there to help pick the fence off of the poor Gear, as Shalune - now safely back on the gantry attached to the golem's back - stares in disbelief at the smoke rising from it. "How are you that beat up so quickly?!" she blurts in disbelief. "Don't tell me you did it to look cool!"
"Could still be automated!" she adds back to Lily, or tries - but Big Shal has swerved around to start tracking the missile for her, which leaves her off-balance for a few precious moments. It leaves her biting her tongue and unable to immediately answer Lunata's introspective follow-up, which... might be for the best right now, she considers afterwards as she decides it might be best to not take a stand right this instant.
Instead, she forces herself to suck in a breath, snapping her shotstaff into place as she starts to track the missile's course, doing her best to figure out how much to lead it. She's not exactly a sharpshooter, but she reckons she can be proud of how far she's come on that front. "Ahaha, they're not Shalune-made, actually," she admits towards Leon, using the chatter as a chance to calm her nerves. "They really look like they could be, right? Lunie made friends with them on a job a while back."
She can just about pick out a pattern in the rocket's movements, and lets out a slower sigh this time, doing her best to not think about what she's about to try doing and instead chiming back to Emeralda. "I dunno. I mean, I'm not sure I'm much cut out for heroing. But then, I did made an ancient golem laser the Metal Demon's Mom in the face, so maybe I qualify? You don't get a--"
She squints one eye, and pulls the trigger. And then does so several more times, because for all her bravado she absolutely sent the first shot wide. "--card or anything. Boo."
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Little Dipper toward her party's challenge, Hunter-Seeker Missile.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I met a Cat Guardian and he saved one of my closest friends so I think they're pretty cool." Fei says in a tiny word balloon in the background. "At least the ones that are cats..."
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - Hunter-Seeker Missile *>====================
|Type: Exploration |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
The tunnel ahead of you is lit by the train car's headlamp and the service
lights on the wall. Behind you is lit only by the receding service lights,
vanishing into darkness. When you see a glimmer of something else, you may
realize that it can't be good. The first hint is a little light flashing a
consistent red. It resolves, quickly, into a glimmer of a sleek cone-shaped
warhead -- and a missile, with powerful verniers that make it twist and juke
through the tunnel.
And, if you try to shoot it down, past the first shot fired. The missile
comes screaming in for your train car, and it appears more than capable of
dodging attacks -- but it needs to be shot down, lest it blow your train car
to smithereens.
=Dungeon Conditions: Cripple, Suffer==========================================
==========================<* Shae Ving - Round 4 *>=========================== =====================< Results - Hunter-Seeker Missile >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xantia 20 --(0)--> 20 Fail Energy Dispersal Unit 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Wire Shooter 3 Agility Effects: Rally ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Servbot A for Agility! 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Emeralda Kasim 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Wing Bit 2 Agility Effects: Quicken ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Little Dipper 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 60 --(20)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Cripple|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 20 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
"Oh, a missile, right! That's probably what that is. --wait, that's not good!" While Xantia's still on that part, others have already started taking action. In an attempt to assist, she brings Silvestris's tail up to use its lightning cannon, but all that happens is a sputter and a few sparks. Xantia frowns, frantically trying to figure out the problem. "What do you mean, there's an energy drain, what are you talking about, Silvy?"
In the mean while, Cidney says 'shoot', and most others follow that advice. Lily's fire magic appears to draw the projectile's attention briefly, but strangely, the missile soon corrects its course again, as if it's figured out the ruse. But it can't do much to avoid being engulfed in flames anyway when Emeralda's wind Ether strengthens the magic further, causing an eruption.
Blackened but still going, the missile can no longer react fast enough to avoid being hooked fast by Leon's wire, spinning through the air as it's yanked aside. Even then, it actively attempts to correct itself, managing to turn in the correct direction again... only to get peppered with Chi blasts, a series of staff blasts... and a tiny tiny rocket, which causes a much bigger explosion than it has any right to. Some things, even a strangely smart missile can't outsmart.
"Oh, got it!" Xantia finally exclaims as the orange glow from her machine subsides. "That was weird, must've hit the wrong button. Anyway, uh..." She pauses, awkwardly. "...Go team?" She saw absolutely nothing of what just happened.
DG: Lily Keil has drawn a new Challenge.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - HROTHMUND - First Stage *>====================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The flatbed train car comes out of a tunnel into a wide, open area. The
tracks run over a bridge, which runs over a reservoir. Water, pristine and
nearly still, glitters below. It seems this place stores enough water to
slake the Badlands' thirst for at least a month. At first, it is peaceful,
almost, save for the rattle of metal as the train runs along the
lattice-work bridge.
Then, there is a titanic crash around you. A dark shape descends, which
engulfs you and the train car. It is a complete enclosure, by some sort of
automaton that landed on the tracks and engulfed the car. It still moves,
too -- and the interior space begins to light up, as dozens of turrets
appear, and begin firing. Rounds shred through the train car that took you
so far. It is bisected in moments, and the shredded machinery torn apart
more and more.
The only way out is through.
Through criss-crossing streams of gunfire, and through the automaton. There
is a single gap on each side, sized for a Gear, and you will need to jump --
and climb onto it, then onto the exterior of the enormous automaton.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Hesitate=========================================
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
Belief, and it's loss; believe, and it's earning. Lily remains quiet for a few moments, as she considers that very set of questions. Josie can see, in fact, as she looks into space when she thinks back to a Guardian she indeed met. Belief...
"Few choices, in the end, are completely rational," Lily says, finishing the sentence despite the missile because it's important.
Could still be automated! "That's true, it could," Lily answers Shalune, but she has to admit she doesn't think so. She glances to Josie, after that bittersweet smile, and here too. "I'll do what I can. I'm almost temped to have a drink with you."
But not yet, because--What purpose necessitated this place? It's hard to say. They come out into the wide open area, over the reservoir, and the peace is deceptive. Lily can't quite bring herself to relax, certain--and that's when the dark shape comes. They are completely engulfed, and the space lights up with turrents. "DAMN!" Lily shouts, suddenly tapping commands into the console on the Gear, looking towards the readouts and hearing the alarms start to blare within the cockpit. Fuel lines, coolant leaking...
"I'll catch up with you!" Lily shouts. "For now, GO!"
The alarm over the Hexcraft system sounds; the crackling light around the Gear becomes more frenzied, as Lily pours Ether into it all of a sudden, dark magic surging out around her Gear and darkening what little light is here in the first place, save for those gaps.
Josie at least can see the markings on Lily's hands blazing violet--and pulsing, light travelling up and down them along the circuit tracks. At her hands, at her neck... Her hair starts to billow outward as she starts to float above the seat.
"Hang onto something!" she shouts within the cabin at Josie.
DG: Lily Keil has used her Tool Hexcraft Shroud toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
"... bad luck, I guess," Lunata answers of Shalune poorly when she asks how she's so beat-up already. Maybe she's just distracted. Maybe she didn't service the Gear all that well in the end. Maybe...
She glances to the Hellerune for a moment. Like she can sense Josie.
"Maybe I was hoping someone would finish the job...?"
She blinks as Leon asks if the Servbot's new.
The Weglaff gets a camera shot of the Servbot, who salutes. "How do you do, sir? I'm Servbot A. I specialise in Terrorism~!"
...
"Where... is Diablo, anyhow?" Lunata asks. "You don't know when you might next need it, you know--"
But a large shadow emerges as she interrupts herself. She furrows her brow. She can feel it. It's quite the difficult opponent.
"Shalune, I'm gonna--"
Before she even realises what she's doing, she just uses the Tonberrian and seizes up Big Shal and Shalune and rockets on through as gunfire peppers the small-plated Gear; hisses and hisses of steam and smoke emerge as she murmurs, "It's not over yet..."
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Servbot A for Agility! toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
Leon stares, unblinking, at the Servbot that promises to be a freedom fighter. "I almost think you could sue for copyright infringement, Shalune," he finally opines. "Still, good enough."
He nods to Cid's conclusion, as he watches the missile meet its violent end. "I'm inclined to agree," he says. "It must be connected somehow. Unfortunately, answers for what these facilities were meant to do seem... lacking, truth be told."
He gets quiet as the car rolls out over the reservoir. Leon's brow is furrowed. Thinking about a purpose is troubling. He found no easy answers to questions that he had been asking since Spira. The Captain of the Wolves glances down -- and then the Gear, the train car, and the bridge rattle. He looks up; eyes are drawn to the Hellerune instantly, at the damage.
"Lily!" he snaps. "Lieutenant, you better be right behind us!"
He turns, aiming the wire shooter -- even as several rounds clip into the Gear, punching holes into the armor. The wire fires, and shoots into one of the openings. The winch turns -- and Leon's Gear flies towards it. One foot dangles out, over the open water--
But both hands grab onto the outside, and he begins to ascend the outside. "Go! Hurry, all of you!"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Agility Basic Action toward his party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"You owe me a drink for this, kiddo," Josie grouses, though despite everything, not entirely foul-naturedly. Leaning against a nearby section of paneling, she does her best to right the cannon... and take a nip of her flask in the meanwhile. "But maybe I'll feel generous-like enough to give you a bit when we're done here. C'mon, there's gotta be an end to this eventually--"
Famous last words. It's the oath from Lily that has Josie hastily cap her flask and shove it back into her pocket; next she kicks off from the cannon and allows it to collapse fully against the spare seating in the back (there may or may not be a dent left on the seatback when they're all done here -- time alone will tell).
She scrambles to her feet after. "What the hell is--"
Klaxons sing inside the cockpit.
"--What in the Guardians' green hell is this?!"
No answer is immediately forthcoming; not all things are readily solved.
From her stooped stand above the pilot's seat -- above Lily -- Josie can see the circuitry lighting up along the woman's skin. The Gear continues to rattle like a tin can filled with bees. Lily's magic seems to nearly swallow everything.
Hang onto something?
Josie, in the middle of the chaos in the cockpit, grabs onto the back of Lily's seat with her good hand. "Good enough, I guess! Well, here's hopin'!"
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
Fei says something to Emeralda. Now, Emeralda loves her father. Kim is her only link to her past, and Fei is Kim, and she is very close to him. But... "You don't need to say that here!!" Great now the 10-year-old is embarrassed.
Crescens' wing descends back to its head and reattaches with another series of clicks it hooks on, clicks that Emeralda can feel through her cockpit. A solid attachment. Though that doesn't really explain what it was... she's never really detached them like that before.
"Go team!" she agrees with Xantia, loudly, as the group picks back up. She looks around as if expecting some of it to look familiar - maybe she heard a word before that sounded like she knew it, when they were talking. Just because she doesn't always act like she's listening doesn't mean she isn't. But... nothing's coming to her. Maybe she needs to see more.
"Aah!" Emeralda was, by now, expecting combat. She was prepared for an ambush. She was not prepared for a bigger machine to literally drop over the entire Gear-sized train car and block them off.
Her reactions are, at least, good. Crescens kicks off the increasingly-ruined train car and spreads both head-wings wide. The hover systems kick in; the short pods Crescens has for arms hum, pulsing a faint violet, and Crescens rockets toward a hole in the bigger automaton. Crescens is not terribly big or bulky by Gear standards (though some Gears here are much smaller); she can fit through a lot of gaps.
But she hesitates. She doesn't want to leave friends. "No! Everybody comes now!" Emeralda's Ether Drive strains again as Crescens discharges rocks and earth, blasting outward to try to make the gap a little bigger to give the heavier Gears an easier time with it. Crescens hangs on with its wings as it does this, gripping overhead like a kid on the gym bars, the wings shaping and flexing exactly like gigantic hands as Crescens pulls itself upward and, hopefully, through.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has used her Tool Wing Bit toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Xantia grows quiet again after the incident with the missile. As she didn't see it, she takes advantage of the brief lull following that threat to review Silvestris's recordings. Studying the missile's movements, it's easy to tell - it wasn't just targetted or heat-seeking. That was a really advanced projectile. Who, or what, could be trying to stop them from going further?
A massive crash that almost causes her to topple over might be the beginning of an answer. "What happened?!" It doesn't take long to find that out. It's hard to miss the machine that is suddenly all around wherever she looks.
In that moment, Xantia stops thinking - which may be the best thing to happen at a time like that, with little time to react. Stop thinking, just act on instinct.
In a reflex, Xantia reengages the systems she disengaged just a moment ago, redeploying the energy field Silvestris was projecting. It can't stop bullets, but it does slightly slow their approach, hopefully just enough to give her, and maybe others, the edge needed to escape without taking too much damage. Speed and leaping are strong suits of the quadruped Gear, so there's that at least.
In no time flat, it's made itself scarce for the nearest gap, digs in its metal-rending claws as soon as it hits the side of the giant machine... and then kind of flails with its back legs as it tries to gain enough traction to climb. Unfortunately, this is where Xantia has to start thinking again, and she doesn't have any ideas. "Ohh, not good, not good! What do we do now?!"
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Energy Dispersal Unit toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
"Oh, uh--" she answers the easier of Lunata's questions, smiling softly to herself. "Asgard took it away somewhere after the Photosphere. I think it was getting... fixed up? Between my patchwork repairs, the heat, and the fall, I think it was pretty beat up, so hopefully it's a slightly better job" she admits, scratching sheepishly at her hair. "The remote started responding again recently, so I guess he's back in business, but it's not... it's not like I should use somethin' like that lightly, right?"
Reflexively, Shalune ducks when the ceiling suddenly lifts away, ejecting the group and the traincar they're on into the open air. It's a breathtaking sort of moment, and she stares at the sheer scale of the complex and its bounty of clean water, absolutely speechless for a long beat.
"Woah... if they've got a full distillery out here, extracting and purifying water from all the snow, that's..." she bubbles softly to herself, her mind trying to catch up. She's sufficiently distracted that she yelps in sudden pain when the automaton slams down around them, biting her lip for real that time - and then shrieking as they're suddenly and unexpectedly under fire.
It all happens so quickly that Big Shal doesn't even have time to construct the bulletproof canopy it used on the surface to shield Shalune. Instead, the golem leans and pitches suddenly to one side as the railings eject away, one arm going up to try to shield the pilot from the laser fire. It's all the mechanic can do to yelp a stunned and frightened 'eh?' as she slides sideways off the gantry and into one of Big Shal's hands.
As an explosion rocks the golem and obliterates half of its torso into a twisting tornado of scrap hanging unnaturally in place, the rest of it twists on one foot, and flings the bundle of pink out of one of the gaps into the open air. Frozen in shock and deja vu, Shalune falls out of view below the automaton and down towards the reservoir below--
--and then moments later rockets upwards on the back of the Little Dipper, climbing for height as Big Shal swings out onto the exterior of the Hrothmund. Gunfire shreds its back into a cloud of rapidly regenerating metal, but the golem pays it no mind as it rebuilds just as quickly, and instead offers the pink-haired girl a thumbs up.
"Yeah, gee, thanks," responds Shalune on her radio with a remarkable amount of huff. "Y'know, I used to be scared of heights! Thanks for working on that!" Fortunately, Big Shal is a friend to everyone except sarcasm.
DG: Shalune Amira has used her Tool Little Dipper toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"S-sorry," Fei says and is now also embarrassed. "I couldn't stop myself..."
Well he didn't try either but it just...really hit him there, that's all.
"What's copyright infringement?" Fei asks, having completely forgotten that maybe he should've returned Diablo to Adlehyde now that the threat of the Metal Demons has passed because he is the one who stole it away and gave it to a pirate. Maybe he should ask said pirate about it. Ehh, maybe not. Diablo seems to not be causing any trouble where it is now so maybe that's where it should stay.
Fei grimaces as a new foe reveals itself and starts absolutely WRECKING the car. "Oh jeeze." Fei says. He hesitates just a moment when Lily says to GO but elects to just trust her to make it to them like she said rather than assuming it's some sort of dark instinct manifesting itself--she's really grown, and he should too. "What he said," Fei agrees with Leon all the same, because ok he trusts Lily sure but that doesn't mean he isn't going to concern himself with his friend's wellbeing all hte same. He remembers that Weltall can fly and gets to it--
--though he isn't going to outpace Emeralda's Crescens.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Remembered Flight Engine toward his party's challenge, HROTHMUND - First Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
Water.
It's the first thing she sees. As the missile explodes in that blinding flash, as her vision clears, her water-filled, blinking eye darting back and forth in a blurry, shrunken-pupiled smear, she sees it.
A practical ocean of water; an oasis in a land so very far from a desert.
For a time, Cidney Laplace just stares down at all that water like someone who has fallen into another world and finds themselves shellshocked over how -little- it -actually- shocks them. The woman of Guild Galad wipes her watery eye as she leans forward in her seat, staring past the bridge in a way that seems almost as if she is not seeing the waters, but something else entirely.
"..."
And then there is a crash.
"Look ou--"
And their world is engulfed in shadow.
Light is soon provided in the form of flaring plasma. Cid's eye widens. She jams the controls of her machine, and the lumbering beast lurches forward with a sputter of thrusters and locomotion. "Move, quickly! We need to get back outside!" She -wheels- it forward, through laser fire, towards the fringes of the thing encasing them. Turret fire lances across one shoulder of the Gear, sending it veering to the side; another scorches the top of its head, cauterizing the 'wound- still sparking at the top of it. She nonetheless valiantly makes her way through with that cheap labor Gear, towards the exit made through the other efforts. And then she sees - feels - a darkness not wholly natural.
In the dark, that sparking Gear stops. Its head slowly turns in an unsteady twitch, looking behind it at what it can see of the Hellerune in the midst of a storm of shadow. It does not move, even when the shot of a turret sheers its left arm clear off its shoulder.
Alarms blaring, Cidney just watches for a long, quiet moment.
"Hm."
The Gear's thruster ignites. And as it makes its unsteady leap to scale the outside of the great automaton, Cid pays for her delay as her uneven exit rips the Gear's left leg from its hip. Down two limbs, it still climbs. Practically useless now. But still climbing.
Cidney looks at the alarms announcing system failure after system failure, and she thinks for a moment, with a quiet smile.
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
===================<* CHALLENGE - HROTHMUND - First Stage *>====================
|Type: Climax |Dungeon Ability: Agility |Challenge Rating: 3 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The flatbed train car comes out of a tunnel into a wide, open area. The
tracks run over a bridge, which runs over a reservoir. Water, pristine and
nearly still, glitters below. It seems this place stores enough water to
slake the Badlands' thirst for at least a month. At first, it is peaceful,
almost, save for the rattle of metal as the train runs along the
lattice-work bridge.
Then, there is a titanic crash around you. A dark shape descends, which
engulfs you and the train car. It is a complete enclosure, by some sort of
automaton that landed on the tracks and engulfed the car. It still moves,
too -- and the interior space begins to light up, as dozens of turrets
appear, and begin firing. Rounds shred through the train car that took you
so far. It is bisected in moments, and the shredded machinery torn apart
more and more.
The only way out is through.
Through criss-crossing streams of gunfire, and through the automaton. There
is a single gap on each side, sized for a Gear, and you will need to jump --
and climb onto it, then onto the exterior of the enormous automaton.
=Dungeon Conditions: Suffer, Hesitate=========================================
===========================<* Shae Ving - Round 5 *>============================ =====================< Results - HROTHMUND - First Stage >====================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xantia 20 --(0)--> 20 Fail Energy Dispersal Unit 1 Agility Effects: Cleanse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leon Albus 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Rush 0 Agility Effects: BASIC -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lily Keil 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Hexcraft Shroud 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunata Croze 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Servbot A for Agility! 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emeralda Kasim 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Wing Bit 2 Agility Effects: Quicken -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shalune Amira 20 --(0)--> 20 Pass Little Dipper 2 Agility Effects: Stalwart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fei Fong Wong 10 --(0)--> 10 Pass Remembered Flight Engine 3 Agility Effects: Fanfare -----------------------------------< Party >------------------------------------ Leader: Leon Albus 80 --(0)--> 80 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(2)|Suffer(1) Effects: Cleanse|Quicken(1) ===============================< Dream Chasers >================================
DG: The party led by Leon Albus has passed this challenge! The party gained 0 exploration! If anyone needs to use party management commands, do so now. Otherwise, the next round's GM may begin the next round with +dungeon/draw.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"Count on it, Captain!" Lily calls back up to Leon and it'll do for Fei and the others, too. But, her voice sounds distant already, half picked up by the radio through static. Lily though can hear fine; she can hear Emeralda's insistence that they go now. But everything that happens next happens very quickly.
Weglaff Custom, despite the rounds punching holes in its armor, wires its way to the opening, and both hands grab on as it indeed ascends. In that time, there are a number of bulky Gears down here, Emeralda's Ether power batters through the barriers to widen the gap and indeed makes it much simpler for Gears that aren't the speedy Crescens to make it through after. Shalune, in the meantime, follows Big Shal upward, her fear of heights conquered(?) and the small target that she makes able to get past most of the weapons designed to hit much, much larger targets.
Weltall, too, can fly, and even as Fei's thoughts remain below, the Gear batters through the damage with its armoring and rises up to the place above. The shadow continues to envelop space below, and even the sound of bullets is dulled by the way it grows. But it is not the only power at work. Silvestris's field does in fact protect Xantia's Gear from damage, and deflects bullets that would've battered through the central mass of Hellerune--it's just that it takes a great deal of power to run, and doesn't help her get back up. She dangles there on the edge as more Gears make it up, and when inevitably they move to help, they can hear the sound of glass shattering from below--
An explosion that is followed by a Gear's hand gripping the edge and hurling itself up, though what extends past the forearm is not metal but crackling and shimmering magical energy until the shoulder. The pieces of Hellerune drag upward, accompanied by its central systems, limbs by turns visibly and invisibly connected by a strange force. ...A strange force that includes its other hand helping pull Silvestris up to stability.
-=-=-
Just a moment ago, in the cockpit, Josie is hanging onto the seat, and the darkness passes through her without harm--it feels cold, or rather feels like the opposite of warmth, but deals no injury. Lily floats further upward, however, and starts to speak in her strange tongue.
"<Limiters disengaged. Initiating direct interface.>"
And Hellerune's systems are rocked by explosions, but its central core is protected by a field that devours energy before it can reach inside.
-=-=-
"Damned... Killboxes," Lily's voice huffs over the radio, sounding vaguely like it's doubled or tripled all at once but still recognizeably hers.
The group has escaped into the outside. But what awaits?
DG: Lunata Croze has drawn a new Challenge.
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
==================<* CHALLENGE - HROTHMUND - Second Stage *>==================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
You manage to climb, with your Gears, onto the outside of the automaton. The
immense thing is a massive train engine. The car engulfed yours, and makes a
long platform that you can climb atop of. The end of it is a humanoid torso,
mounted on a swivel turret. It turns, spinning to look at you. It towers
over, with a faceplate with four glowing red camera-eyes. Four huge arms
unfold from its back; two end in sleek cannons, while another two end in
wicked, curved blades.
The cannon-arms lift, firing at once. Two huge rounds pierce through the
air, punching holes into the armor -- or your Gears. The blades slash out as
you get close. The huge Gear-like automaton must be fought, even as it
speeds along the tracks towards a docking station in the distance...
=Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Suffer============================================
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
The group emerges outside, towards the outer shell of the automaton. The car has engulfed the ride the Wolves were on, creating a platform to climb atop; at the end is their enemy, spinning to gaze towards them with red camera-eyes. Four huge arms, two ending in cannons and the other two blades.
Lunata hears something inaudible and distorted -- pondering for a moment about the Gimbals. But there is a grimace still as she winds up being the first to get grazed through one of those armor-piercing rounds and an arm off the Tonberrian just goes flying. "Gh--"
She returns fire with the rest of her missile pods, in time for that to get swiped by the cannons and explode in flame; she coasts left, right, and dumps her assault rifle rounds... and takes another direct hit.
Despite having by far the most fragile Gear, she's intent on taking point and drawing aggro at the moment.
"... don't be so confident just yet," Lunata murmurs as she puts her foot to the pedal, roaring verniers launching as she bodily tackles the humanoid HROTHMUND--
"This might just end up a draw."
SELF-DETONATION SEQUENCE ACTIVATED... ...
--there is a loud and awful crunching noise, as the automaton angles itself to try to pry her off, but the Tonberrian holds fast. Even as more armour plates crumple.
I should just stay in here. I wonder if there is... more than a zero percent chance...
"I've got its attention! We don't have a lot of time!"
DG: Lunata Croze has used her Tool Servbot C for Combat! toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Leon Albus has posed.
The Weglaff slams down onto the top of the automaton. One even larger than the train car that they were on, which supports the weight of all of their Gears. And, indeed, all of their Gears. He sees the Hellerune land in a rear-view monitor, limbs held by sorcerous energy. His breath catches for a moment. "Lily, you're holding that thing together?"
He asks it, before he looks up -- and his eyes widen, as Lunata goes blitzing forward. His breath catches, then, as he sees the Toberrian hugging onto it. He nods his head, and then Weglaff snaps its left arm out. The wire that had been attached to the winch flies free, spinning through the air, then falls down towards the reservoir below.
Weglaff Custom, instead, tears the other weapon off its back.
A large gatling cannon.
Weglaff's feet grind into the metal surface, before the Gear is pushed back by recoil, and the gatling cannon begins pouring cannon fire into the body of HROTHMUND -- while trying to dodge striking Lunata directly. Leon calls out over the radio: "Lunata, get clear of that thing before it blows! Everyone else, hit it with everything you've got!"
DG: Leon Albus has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward his party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Emeralda Kasim has posed.
Crescens remains sort of hovering, sort of standing at the edge of the entrance Emeralda just pulled it through, just in case someone else needs a hand out. Even when the automaton cracks and shifts under her feet, she stays there, the hovering systems picking up the slack when mere legs don't manage it.
She doesn't move until she's counted heads (figuratively speaking) and gets to a number she is happy with - that is, everybody, including the battered Hellerune. Then she turns her full attention to the humanoid machine on the far end of the automaton.
Crescens glides forward toward where the Tonberrian is hanging on. 'Glides' seems an inadequate word for how Crescens moves, but it's really the only one available; it only uses a foot occasionally to push off or change direction, like when she wants to dodge an incoming shell, but she's not up high enough that you can really call it flying, as Crescens' feet are usually a meter or less above the surface of the automaton.
She does it fast, though, so that when she gets there she has enough velocity to drive Crescens' knee into the big robot's torso. Rearing back, Emeralda swings Crescens' body forward, and the two wing-hands come together into a resounding smash, missing the Tonberrian and Lunata but striking at nearby plates. She hopes she's in too close to shoot.
"I'll help!" Exactly the same words she used to volunteer to come in the first place, and she means it. Crescens spins, Ether power building up along the edges of the feathers so that when she strikes like some sort of bizarro lariat, the 'hands' are white-hot along the edges and trailing wisps of flame. A chunk of burning metal flies off to land in the water far below, though it's too far to hear the sizzle.
"We can do it together!" Well, Emeralda is certainly learning something from these outings.
DG: Emeralda Kasim has used her Tool Power Magic Circuit toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Cidney Laplace has posed.
"... Well, that's something."
Cidney Laplace's Gear half-climbs, half-crawls its way up to that platform. Spitting sparks, its head turns towards the tremendous sight of Hrothmund. The sentry of Shae Ving towers over them, four eyes glowing with baleful red light.
For a long time, the woman from Guild Galad stares at that strange, alien thing, a relic from a bygone age. Lost to time, lost to its creators, yet still mindlessly defending. Still mindlessly destroying a thing that has been so long since abandoned.
Her lips curdle in distaste. Slowly, slowly, something seizes in her. Something like agitation. Something dreadfully close to anger.
Dreadfully close to disgust.
It hits a crescendo two seconds in and flatly ends when her head dips. She lifts her hands to her eyepatch, quietly adjusting it with a most mild tug. When she looks back up, it is once more with that calm smile.
"... I think I *KSSSHH*ave an idea."
Damaged as her machine is, her voice comes in through spurts of static over the public network. Her Gear struggles onto its hand and knee, even as the others. Lunata hurls herself forward in a act of self(?)-sacrifice. Cid's head cocks to the right.
"But I could use *KSSSSSH* pick me up."
And, single foot planted into the earth, Cid -launches- her Gear into the air towards the HROTHMUND. It's an awkward, ungainly thing.
It's even moreso when those thrusters ignite to their 'CAUTION RECOMMENDED' maximum, sending it bowling through the air towards HROTHMUND in a suicidal spiral not all that dissimilar to Lunata.
If there's a difference? It's that in the midst of that chaotic scream of spinning acceleration, the cockpit bay bursts open --
--And out jumps a one-eyed woman, wearing a serviceable white dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, brown vest and slacks, stark white hair whipping wildly behind her as she falls.
Whether she thinks someone will catch her or she's just ready for the end, she does it with a closed eye and a smile. Maybe she just believes.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei's player is getting tired. Can she get through this final challenge?!
Yes! Let's redouble our efforts! With the power... of kung fu!
Weltall hops across platforms, briefly looking pretty patient rather than action packed--Fei would rather not miss the jump and have to start over the whole sequence--but eventually he manages to drag himself up and looks towards the...what the fuck is that? Something he probably should hit, Fei thinks in a mildly depressed sort of way.
"Everything we got...?" Fei asks, eyes closing for a moment. "I... I am not sure I can do everything I got but..."
He channels Weltall's power and darts forward, "This might be close enough...!"
And with that he darts in with several quick palm thrusts, a spin kick, and...
Holy shit a punch that explodes out into a black hole. Yeesh!
Fei leaps back after to avoid getting hit by, you know, all his friends or worse but he adds, "I did pretty close to all I've got!" Fei promises. "Well maybe ... not exactly that but probably good enough! With your help, obviously HOLY SHIT CIDNEY IS KAMIKAZEING--
--NO WAIT SHE IS NOW JUMPING OUT OF HER ROBOT.
"Ahhh!!!" Fei says. "That was so cool and so reckless!!" Weltall runs from side to side rapidly to try and position itself properly. He notices that the woman has one eye and...wait... It can't be can it?
"Ahhhhhhh...!!! There!!" Fei shouts, swinging a hand forward and--
--letting Cidney drop down upon it unharmed. Or at least mostly unharmed.
"Cidney... that was crazy..." Fei says, swallowing. "You wouldn't happen to know a Bart or a Sigurd would you?"
Look normally Fei wouldn't think missing an eye is genetic or anything but that was before Cidney did this.
DG: Fei Fong Wong has used his Tool Deathblower toward his party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Despite enough rattling in here that Josie would have expected to have lost some teeth in the process -- and despite another ominous thump from the back of the cockpit (the cannon is up to something unfortunate) -- they manage to slip the worst of that thing. Whatever that was.
"We ain't dead yet, Leon! That's something!"
The alarms haven't stopped. Josie, straightening, notes that Lily is...
"Hey, you're floating," she notes.
Not that's a new situation here. "--Shit," she couples that with, attention snapping to the damaged wreck of Cidney's Gear. "And we ain't exactly in shape to do a pick-up, neither. Aw, shit, she's not gonna..."
Fei, at least, has it in hand. So to speak. Josie returns her attention to the more pressing problem: "--Kiddo. Tiger."
She steps around the seat, approaching the controls and the woman operating them.
"I'll handle the driving. Should be near enough -- just don't crash, yeah? ...You do your thing."
"Somehow I think we're gonna need your magic more than anything else this thing can do."
<Pose Tracker> Shalune Amira has posed.
Shalune's still trying to find her words and catch her breath; for all that she just grumped out loud at Big Shal's evasive maneuver, that doesn't mean they're out of hot water yet, and the mechanic is forced to concentrate on flying as she takes a bank at dizzying speed, spiralling upwards until both she and the golem reach the top of the automaton to join back up.
There is almost a moment of peace and quiet as she settles back on the gantry; she draws in a slow breath, feeling the adrenaline very slowly drain from her veins. Or at least, that's the plan - instead the end of the train unfolds in a way that gigantic robots probably shouldn't (but would, if Shalune had her say) and begins to threaten them anew, gigantic arms swiping towards them.
Gritting her teeth, Shalune ducks down to lie flat on the scaffold, her arms reaching out to the matter converter stashed safely away within a recess in Big Shal. It's not really a learned plan so much as something instinctive, but it lets the soft whine ramp upwards to a piercing note, and she grits her teeth against it as the golem puts on a burst of speed, one arm coming up to block the blade.
Given everything so far, it should be sliced in two like butter - instead, the golem manages to catch the swing against its arm, feet set and shifting only slightly, and then Big Shal grasps onto it with both hands, more of the scrap metal that comprises the machine's body tearing apart and reforming around both golem and weapon combined.
The metal strains as HROTHMUND attempts to pull back its arm, but the golem holds fast as Big Shal stares at the automaton with a pair of silent eyes, the weight of the golem and the rather unorthodox pin holding the blade down in place. "--there," Shalune mutters in quiet approval, and looks up just in time to recognize the Tonberrian clung resolutely to the rest of it.
Given what she knows of Lunata, it really only takes her an instant to figure the rest out. "--Lunie!" she blurts, her eyes wide. "Eject out of there already! --I'd rather you didn't even-- just get yourself safe!" she pleads - and has to bite back her next sound of surprise, realizing that Cidney's way ahead of her on that style of plan.
DG: Shalune Amira has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Xantia has posed.
Being in a bit of a precarious position, Xantia has zero problems with being helped along by a disembodied hand. Which isn't the sort of thing which Xantia would ever have a problem with, anyway. Especially when she knows who's controlling that hand. She waits until on solid ground again to breathe a sigh of relief. "Thanks Lily... that was... a bit much." If she knew she'd need sheer vertical movement today, she would have practiced that. Sudden increase in skill or not, there are limits to what she knows how to do well.
She turns back to see Lunata's Gear, in a state of which even she can tell what's happening. "W-wait, you don't have to go that far... right?" She's not even sure if, in a situation like this, that's not exactly what it takes. But well, obviously Lunata blowing up would not be okay. Unsure what to do, she defaults to looking to Leon. Which leads her to conclude that Lunata will be alright, and all she has to do is attack. That makes things simple, she can do that.
This time, she remembers to disengage the energy field before she attempts to charge up the lightning cannon in Silvestris's tail. She works the controls frantically, manually redirecting more energy to the weapon. Silvestris, meanwhile, digs its claws into the metal below to fix its position. Until...
"That's it! Hi-Voltage Cannon, max power! Gooooo!"
The energy blast that launches from the Gear's tail spike this time is... not too much bigger than the one fired earlier. But there's a lot more force behind it than before. That's because a more forceful enemy needs a more forceful beam to get through it, that's just science.
DG: Xantia has used her Tool Hi-Voltage Cannon toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
<Pose Tracker> Lily Keil has posed.
"You got it," Lily tells Xantia over the radio, and then, "For now!" Lily answers Leon, when he asks if she's holding it together. Her voice sounds strange, still, but strange in the familiar way that accompanies her transformation. She looks into the monitors, though, at the great form of Hrothmund ahead of them, a titanic thing... in a ruin like this. Another automaton.
Josie's remarks bring Lily's attention. Still floating above the seat, eyes blackened out with the same strange patterns in a ring that serves as something like an iris. She doesn't catch all the details Josie does, and instead when she offers, Lily nods quickly. "That would be great. Restoring power to nav systems... Done. I can hold us together for a while yet, I think."
Lily floats out of the way so Josie can control the Gear. "Just keep us stable--with the Booster, I can target at this range."
There's a small shape emerging from Cidney's Gear; Emeralda helping, Lunata...
"Thanks, Lunata. I've got a bead."
As Weglaff's gatling cannon pours cannon fire out, Lily lifts her hands, and focuses. Ether groans through the air as she focuses through the booster, and in front of the Tonberry, where it pins it down, the air is abrubtly fire; Gear-sized, a conflagration whose proximity cracks ice nearby from sheer pressure differential--and causes a bigger explosion as a result.
But Lily grits her teeth; she can't put full power there because... Her Gear is still standing without proper legs and arms.
DG: Lily Keil has contributed a Combat Basic Action toward her party's challenge, HROTHMUND - Second Stage.
===============================<* Shae Ving *>================================
==================<* CHALLENGE - HROTHMUND - Second Stage *>==================
|Type: Final |Dungeon Ability: Combat |Challenge Rating: 3 |
--------------------------< Challenge Information: >--------------------------
You manage to climb, with your Gears, onto the outside of the automaton. The
immense thing is a massive train engine. The car engulfed yours, and makes a
long platform that you can climb atop of. The end of it is a humanoid torso,
mounted on a swivel turret. It turns, spinning to look at you. It towers
over, with a faceplate with four glowing red camera-eyes. Four huge arms
unfold from its back; two end in sleek cannons, while another two end in
wicked, curved blades.
The cannon-arms lift, firing at once. Two huge rounds pierce through the
air, punching holes into the armor -- or your Gears. The blades slash out as
you get close. The huge Gear-like automaton must be fought, even as it
speeds along the tracks towards a docking station in the distance...
=Dungeon Conditions: Wound, Suffer============================================
==========================<* Shae Ving - Round 6 *>=========================== ====================< Results - HROTHMUND - Second Stage >==================== Player Exhaustion Pass/Fail ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xantia 20 --(10)--> 30 Pass Hi-Voltage Cannon 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Leon Albus 20 --(10)--> 30 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lily Keil 10 --(10)--> 20 Pass Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lunata Croze 10 --(10)--> 20 Pass Servbot C for Combat! 4 Combat Effects: Efficient and Fanfare ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Emeralda Kasim 20 --(10)--> 30 Pass Power Magic Circuit 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shalune Amira 20 --(15)--> 35 Fail Fight 0 Combat Effects: BASIC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fei Fong Wong 10 --(10)--> 20 Pass Deathblower 2 Combat Effects: Embolden ----------------------------------< Party >----------------------------------- Leader: Leon Albus 80 --(35)--> 115 Pass Conditions: Hesitate(1)|Suffer(1)|Wound(2) Effects: Embolden(1) ==============================< Dream Chasers >===============================
DG: You have overcome the dungeon's trials! This run is a success! DG: The party led by Leon Albus has successfully explored Shae Ving!
================================<* Shae Ving *>=================================
========================<* CHALLENGE - The Karlsefni *>=========================
|Type: Discovery |Dungeon Ability: Conclusion|Challenge Rating: 1 |
---------------------------< Challenge Information: >---------------------------
The train tracks end in a massive docking station. The remains of HROTHMUND
are blasted apart -- but not without cost, as a titanic fireball blows a
chunk out of the tracks and rains damaged steel onto the tracks below. You
have to leap away, and /crash/ into the dock, rolling along the huge
concrete docks. Large gashes are cut into it by the rough landing.
There are several doors to investigate, but one before you opens with a soft
hiss. It opens to reveal a different dock: one with an enormous steel pier,
reaching out into an underground dock. It extends out to a long sleek, metal
ship that has black armor along it. Letters on the side, in the Zeboim
language, mark it as the "Karlsefni."
There is also a large holographic screen visible through there. It comes
online, flashing little red dots that show locations across Filgaia. It begs
for further investigation.
=Dungeon Conditions: Secret===================================================
<Pose Tracker> Lunata Croze has posed.
The Weglaff's gatling cannon bears a sheer size that even the HROTHMUND can't ignore; there's a mechanical howl as it's shredded with lead.
Lunata, get lear of that thing before it blows!
"..."
Emeralda emphasises that they can do this together. The Crescens spins, building up Ether as it plows on in with what we appreciate is enough of a wrestling manuever even though it's not a suplex. Not everything in wrestling is about suplexes, you know.
And yet...
Someone else has exactly the same idea. Cidney's Gear descends next to her and slams into the humanoid torso, and she watches her leap out greacefully and expects someone to catch her.
To have such belief...
Weltall gathers power for a quick combination assault involving palm thrusts, spin kicks and a BLACK HOLE PUNCH.
Josephine helps manuever the Hellerune while Lily gathers her power; Xantia utilises the power of the Hi-Voltage Cannon as the Silvestris digs in for the long haul and SLAMS it with a powerful energy blast,
And Lily launches with the fulsome power of her Ether, and she can feel herself scorching.
Scorching...
Lunie!
Shalune's cry makes her blink.
Eject out of there already! --I'd rather you didn't even-- just get youreself safe!
She grimaces.
"... I'm still such a coward...!"
The cockpit hatch opens even as it melts-- and as the self-detonation timer hits: 00:00.
The full sum of the Black Wolves' payload goes. The mechanical automaton is stopped, thoroughly battered and blackened, where it is not punctured or burnt.
Lunata tumbles out of the wreckage, shredded and burnt, limping with a stern expression.
A Servbot is waiting for her, strangely. It gives her a whole, black-eyed stare.
"... ... You can't... run... away, Miss Lunie~... ..."