Outside 51: It's just a weather balloon

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

There are a lot of things in the Nexus that are probably hard to believe.

Foes here can use illusion spells and effects. Isn't it kind of strange that none of the mages in Skyrim knew how to cast a spell as powerful as Calm? A spell that forces a person to sheath their weapons and wander around aimlessly until you crack them across the back of the head with a mace? Honestly, if Yuvan thinks about it a little, wouldn't he agree that's a bizarre aspect of his home reality?

But hey none the less!

An interesting discovery.

Now Yuvan will just have to find another reagent with the Resist Illusion effect to find out how effective the alchemical effect is.

But that's a quest for-

Create a potion of Resist Illusion

Oh.

Huh.

Apparently there's... an actual quest for this?

That's useful.

Regardless!

Door.

After quite a few broken lock-picks Yuvan finally gets lucky and the mechanism clicks open. On the other side are a pair of those auto-ballista necro-constructs which immediately open fire upon the Last Dragonborn. Hooray!

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"One sec... Nope. My sensors crashed trying to get a read on it." That's weird and annoying. Cynic will just have to restart that software. "I don't think we should touch it."
That's an understatement. "In fact, after the last place I visited, I think we should get the **** away from it." That's not.

[Purple Eagle]

[Broken Clock]

The young celestial's flight path takes him directly above the sinkhole, which he catches sight of. His senses picking up a presence is the only reason he doesn't fly past - for there are lots of sinkholes he's seen, no matter how pretty they might all be - but what he sees after zooming in changes the joyful expression on his face to one of concern in the span of a second.

There's someone laying there! A very pretty-looking mechanical angel with intricate features, it looks like... who appears to be gravely injured. He decides he has to help her, hoping she doesn't turn out to be in need of smiting.

Worry about that later, Zabb... right now, there's someone in need you can help!

The young celestial teleports, reappearing at the top of the sinkhole. He hesitates for a couple of seconds, then makes the decision to try and appear more familiar to her. A white light envelopes him for a split-second as he shifts into something very similar to her form, but with his face.

Just in case... she might be more open to being helped if someone that looked like her was offering.

Only after shifting does he jump down, taking care to land beside her (as opposed to, you know, on top of her). "Hey, are you okay?"

Ok, stupid question. She clearly is not okay. "I mean, can you walk?" He clarifies, getting on his knees and placing a hand on her shoulder... if she'll let him, that is.

But then, it's not like she's in any shape to refuse.

[Earl of Purple]

Apocalypse Junction

"Good question, I ain't had the wand long. Found it a few days ago, when I mistook a mirror for a door an' went down a passage what only exists when moonlight hits the mirror. It was in the hand of a corpse sticking out the wall of the passage next to a locked door." She's hoping it lasts long enough, but hasn't actually tested it very much since she figured out how it works. She thought it was basically useless since it takes a bit too long to make a wall to be useful in combat, and was going to sell it.

The passage does exist all the time; the door that accesses it only exists when the mirror is hit by moonlight. Which isn't much consolation if you get trapped in it because you thought it'd be a safe place to spend the night.

[Aurora Alchemi]

[Broken Clock]

The clockwork's hand softly twitches as they begin to stir, fingers making a soft grating noise as they slide over the moist, lichen covered limestone. W-what's... going on? There is a momentary pained expression, then she begins to push herself up. The slow rise is halted by the arrival of Zabb. Eyes like little blue and pink mechanical camera shutters, complete with a little gearworks, slowly flick upward, and there is a slight attempt to focus on the newcomer, though one of the irises seems to stop halfway into focusing, like a concussion might cause.

The little angel makes an attempt to speak. "W-who is... y-y-you are not a sister..." The voice is almost inaudible, a faint whisper of air, and after a few stutter the little archangel gives up on speaking. Instead they sit more upright, not resisting where the hand touches, and attempt to put some pressure on a leg. There is a moment of thought, and then she gives a soft nod that she can walk, although the shakiness of it seems to indicate only just.

There is another small wince, and the angel places a hand to where vibrant, multicolored blood leaks from a wound on her side, and then gives a slight sob. "h-hurt... no void h-here? W-where be w-we?" The language is a fair bit disjointed, and still far too quiet to easily listen to, but the angel makes no resistance to any help to her feet. Once there, she tries to spread her wings, but there is a grinding sound, and a gasp of pain, as a long black claw dripping with the strange mercurial substance falls from the wing. There is a wide eyed moment of fear, as the cogwork angel's eyes settle on the mercury substance, and then the wide eyes look back to Zabb. "h-help..." It looks almost as if the poor thing is going to faint or hurl, while the regular blood hadn't phased them at all.

Internally, all the angel can think is a blur of half existing memories, and fear. There is some dim awareness that the mercurial substance leaking from her is distilled essence of her spirit, and while blood from battle wounds might heal, Aetherblood being spilled is something not even the demons in the age of wars would stoop to doing. And then this being.... it was impersonating her kind, but it didn't share thoughts or memories... so it couldn't be a sister of the flight of cogs. Of course, it's not like the angel's in any condition to run anyways... a chance to beg for life was better than certain death to injuries.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Not touching the pyramid?

Good plan.

Not getting anywhere near it?

Also good plan.

"I think I've already exceeded my daily recommended dose of weird **** so I'm going to second the not getting near this pyramid idea," Phoenix replies. "Let's find somewhere to park so I can run a quick tune-up. Did you two get banged up at all with all that artillery flying everywhere?"

It seemed like she had eaten most of the damage in that little spat.

Which was probably a good thing.

She had basically built her mech to deal with goopy nanite blobs and she's pretty sure Cynic and Fishy's mechs absolutely were not.


[Apocalypse Junction]

"That passage sounds a mite inconvenient to use," Victor points out as they head back toward the door out of the large statuary chamber and back toward those pits full of gnashing cables. He can't imagine what the point of something like that would be. Just to make people less likely to notice it, maybe? What if you needed in there and it wasn't night? Or the moon wasn't up? Or it was cloudy and there wasn't any moonlight? Sounds like the sorts of things crazy wizards in dime novels would do. But then again, most everything Sian has talked about sounded like something crazy wizards in dime novels would do.

"Gettin' back up that drop'll be a pain. I... think I might be able to lift ya, but that leg is going to do a number on me," Victor says as he eyes the snapping cables down in the pit.

[Purple Eagle]

Spoiler: Aurora Quote

Show

[Broken Clock]

The clockwork's hand softly twitches as they begin to stir, fingers making a soft grating noise as they slide over the moist, lichen covered limestone. W-what's... going on? There is a momentary pained expression, then she begins to push herself up. The slow rise is halted by the arrival of Zabb. Eyes like little blue and pink mechanical camera shutters, complete with a little gearworks, slowly flick upward, and there is a slight attempt to focus on the newcomer, though one of the irises seems to stop halfway into focusing, like a concussion might cause.

The little angel makes an attempt to speak. "W-who is... y-y-you are not a sister..." The voice is almost inaudible, a faint whisper of air, and after a few stutter the little archangel gives up on speaking. Instead they sit more upright, not resisting where the hand touches, and attempt to put some pressure on a leg. There is a moment of thought, and then she gives a soft nod that she can walk, although the shakiness of it seems to indicate only just.

There is another small wince, and the angel places a hand to where vibrant, multicolored blood leaks from a wound on her side, and then gives a slight sob. "h-hurt... no void h-here? W-where be w-we?" The language is a fair bit disjointed, and still far too quiet to easily listen to, but the angel makes no resistance to any help to her feet. Once there, she tries to spread her wings, but there is a grinding sound, and a gasp of pain, as a long black claw dripping with the strange mercurial substance falls from the wing. There is a wide eyed moment of fear, as the cogwork angel's eyes settle on the mercury substance, and then the wide eyes look back to Zabb. "h-help..." It looks almost as if the poor thing is going to faint or hurl, while the regular blood hadn't phased them at all.

Internally, all the angel can think is a blur of half existing memories, and fear. There is some dim awareness that the mercurial substance leaking from her is distilled essence of her spirit, and while blood from battle wounds might heal, Aetherblood being spilled is something not even the demons in the age of wars would stoop to doing. And then this being.... it was impersonating her kind, but it didn't share thoughts or memories... so it couldn't be a sister of the flight of cogs. Of course, it's not like the angel's in any condition to run anyways... a chance to beg for life was better than certain death to injuries.

[Broken Clock]

Zabb looks back at the clockwork celestial with some hope in his eyes. Hope that she's as durable as his kind are, even if this appears to be a more physical type. One that can suffer from concussions.

When she correctly recognizes that he's not one of her choir, he sighs. Of course she'd know, all the types of celestials he's come to know can tell whether or not they're talking to their kind. "No, I'm not. I just thought I'd show you a more familiar form, sorrie!" He returns back to his prior form, but in a more adult configuration. Once she nods, his hand slides down her arm and grasps hers in an effort to pull her upright. "Easy..."

Once she's up, he quickly moves to support her with his physical form's weight. The sound of her sob hurts to hear, so full of compassion is he for her broken state. "No, no void. We're in the Nexus. It's a-"

He's interrupted by the grinding sound and the accompanying pained gasp, which causes him to glance at the fallen black claw. What could have happened? Was she in a sort of battle against a force she couldn't overcome? He looks back at her to see her terrified expression, and looks further beyond, to that meta realm known as 'the fourth wall'... where he learns of aetherblood and what it is.

((I promise I don't like to metagame, but it's part of his powers.))

Oh no.

Zabb quickly makes a decision. "You're in no state to walk... please forgive me for this." Immediately he's done talking, he places his other hand at the back of her knees and hoists her up in a bridal-carry, increasing his size if need be. "We're going to the Good League, it's safer there. I can help you even if they can't, pinky promise!"

A shimmering wormhole portal opens in front of him, and what can be seen through it reveals the destination to be a little ways from the actual campgrounds. "I'm going in now." He takes a step forward, and then another, and so on until they're at the other side.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

There are a lot of things in the Nexus that are probably hard to believe.

Foes here can use illusion spells and effects. Isn't it kind of strange that none of the mages in Skyrim knew how to cast a spell as powerful as Calm? A spell that forces a person to sheath their weapons and wander around aimlessly until you crack them across the back of the head with a mace? Honestly, if Yuvan thinks about it a little, wouldn't he agree that's a bizarre aspect of his home reality?

But hey none the less!

An interesting discovery.

Now Yuvan will just have to find another reagent with the Resist Illusion effect to find out how effective the alchemical effect is.

But that's a quest for-



Oh.

Huh.

Apparently there's... an actual quest for this?

That's useful.

Regardless!

Door.

After quite a few broken lock-picks Yuvan finally gets lucky and the mechanism clicks open. On the other side are a pair of those auto-ballista necro-constructs which immediately open fire upon the Last Dragonborn. Hooray!

[Dragonborn Hunting]

tnk

Wrong spot, broken pick.

tnk

Another broken pick.

tnk-click!

Finally! Yuvan pushes the door open... and is of course, is immediately greeted by more of those messed-up constructs.

Fortunately, Yuvan's wearing some high-quality, thick armor, which he and Fenris purposefully left unenchanted to reduce the effectiveness of that vampire's seeming favorite poison. Still, he's not about to risk excessive damage to his armor (or himself) if he can help it. After taking the initial salvo of bolts, Yuvan counters with a forceful Shout ("FUS RO DAH!") and steps back to assess the damage.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"If we head away from the object, there's a wider canyon we could make camp in. Marked it on the map." A ping is sent a moment later. "Meet you there."

And she's gone already, leaping from platform to platform. Herringbone shrugs and follows at ground level.

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

This is one of the problems with facing off against a competent foe.

If they know what they're doing, and have the resources to prepare ahead of time, they can create defenses against specific eventualities.

The vampire created this trap, apparently, with the intent of harvesting Dragonborn. Likely for nefarious ends. And as a result they've created traps and weapons that are meant to deal with what the Last Dragonborn can do.

Defenses against Shouts are, of course, the most obvious.

As the second syllable of the Shout leaves Yuvan's throat the constructs are already projecting wards as they scuttle forward, maintaining their barrage of withering fire. The bolts are having trouble penetrating the armor and Fenris did an exceptional job of protecting the weak points the armor has. Especially thanks to the cloth under-armor with plates and rings of dwarf brass sewn into it. But even then, the main threat of this weapon isn't the stabby nature of the bolts themselves, but rather the poison they carry.

How fortunate for Yuvan that he whipped up those potions of poison resistance.


[Crystal Crags]

Sounds like a good time to get walking then.

Once our heroes have set up camp Phoenix will be climbing out of her mech, powering the thing down, and climbing atop it to get the casing off her displacer so she can scoop all the melted nanites out of the intake while swearing about melted nanites in the intake the whole time. The machine is pretty badly banged up. Scouring from the nexus weapons and some nasty explosive scarring from the cannon rounds she got clobbered with. It isn't THAT bad, though. Definitely something she can handle in a pit-stop like this.

While she's working she does some conversing.

"You you guys have got fire suppression systems on your mechs, right?" she inquires, certain that they must. "With fire retardant foam? Something like that? Because it probably wouldn't be too hard to swap out the chems for a mix that snuffs fire AND goobers up nanites just in case we run into the angry sand cloud again."

[Aurora Alchemi]

Broken Clock

The lore-winged angel gives a soft gasp as she is hoisted into the air, a sound of equal parts surprise and pain at the rapid movement, but after her eyes- or rather, the good eye, searches his features and listens to what he has to say, the angel softly rests against Zabb's chest. There is an attempt to talk as the clockwork angel pulls the softly billowing wings in ever so slightly to make Zabb's job easier, but the weak and fragile voice finally fails completely. For a moment, there is a sad silence, but then a hand, as gentle as a kitten's paw, presses slightly onto Zabb's chest. Rainbow writing scrolls into the air itself, visible to none but Zabb, however it's clear that this isn't really psychic so much as illusionary. "Thank you... We are sorry we cannot help much..." There is a soft cough from the injured girl, and a few rivulets of blue, red, and violet trickle from the cuts in her sides onto her savior's hands.

The angel is light; not just light like a bird or avian formed humanoid might feel, but light to the point of feeling frail and invalid. Perhaps at some point there had been strength and fight in their limbs, but as it were, clearly whatever had done this to them had really... basically kicked the crud out of them. There are a few moments where the angel seems to be debating what to say, then there is a moment where their eyes close, completely putting themselves into Zabb's care. Then, more words. "What... Is name? This unit... called... unsure. Remember that unit is flyght of cogs. Created prior to pact, for warring. Remember something of... Aurora? Perhaps? Unit rank... archangel of mercy, air infantry class... unknown? We sorry, much data missing."

The writing seems respectful, unsure of it's place, but overall somewhat used to being regimented and ordered around. As if being injured was a failure of duty, and that they were ashamed of being too weak to carry on. But there was another side; errors in spelling, occasional moments where a single letter or word seems to hang, as if the girl was struggling to put them together or remember them. "Battalion was... attakd by void... I think. Cannot remember other survivors... feel as though we failed somehow?" There is a soft sob, and the letters dissolve, as if the mechanized being ran into something that was very personal, but couldn't even remember the full details of it.

Eventually they pull out of the spiral. "This place, Nexus? Good league? Unsure what meaning... but try help live? Would be thank." There are soft hints of the angel deteriorating, but there is a strong will to survive there at least. It seems at least that they are focusing on conserving energy other then the slight communication, not even moving as they lay in Zabb's arms and are pulled into new places. The trip through the portal was slightly strange on second thought, though; even with the clockwork angel this willing and weak, there seemed to be a large resistance to the movement, as if the girl were designed to resist leaving a post or place.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Sure, that could be replaced easy, but the sensors are another matter. That system's automated, but it detects fires, not nanobots." A fire sensor probably couldn't even be reprogrammed to detect nanobots. They're too different.

The selected campsite is a wide circular area with a low sandy floor. Cynic's Dragon is already powered down by the edge of the area.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

"Would probably need to install some manual triggers, too," Phoenix reasons as she finally digs the last of the nanites out of the gun and discards them into the matter shredder on her schedule zero printer. Then the gloves she was wearing come off and flop into there as well.

The last thing she wants is a stray blackwash particle surviving and causing problems.

Nobody likes stray blackwash particles.

Except Legion, probably.

Then it's just a matter of reassembling the displacer's casing and working on the dings in her mech.

"So Fishy said you guys are looking for the rest of your Lancemates. Have you got a plan for that or is the idea to just wander around until you trip over each other? Not that I'm knocking that idea since it seems to be working okay so far."

One out of...

However many.

Four, five? Something like that.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Wouldn't be too hard to rig up," Cynic chimes in. "You'd have to know those buggers are on your chassis, which would be tricky, but a manual fire suppression trigger would take me an hour per mech, tops?"

To the other question, Herringbone responds, "I don't really have a better idea. We'd need a much better scanning rig to track...

That guy! Cynic, you said he was tracking engine signatures? If we could get ahold of whatever he's using for that, we could locate the boss and Diablo." "Us and what army? He's got loads of those invincible nanite supermechs, probably. That's a suicide mission."

[Meowmai]

The Ossuary

"Could either of you make her stay awake with some mind trick? Since I know there's one for putting people to sleep so..." Dena looks between the two. "Since with enough rope and a gag we can probably count her as subdued in her current state."

Ossuary

Cantata glances back towards Pania. She seemed to be the one with greater long-distance control than her. "I'm a little wary of just... tying someone up and leaving them defenseless alone," the woman signs. "We don't know if there's any natural undead lurking around here... but -" She shrugs. "Might not be helped unless we want to put her in the car."

[The Ossuary]

Alright, do you know what? She'll just do it. They won't get anywhere discussing this back and forth constantly, after all.

Pania knelt before the captive, taking a deep breath and placing her hand upon the woman's forehead. Green energy swirled around her head and eyes as she spoke.

"STAY."

The word was not spoken loudly, but it felt loud to everyone around her. They might feel a momentary desire to listen and obey as well... but it would quickly fade. Pania's focus was sharp.

"STAY HERE. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP."

And with that, Pania fell backwards, gasping for breath- even though she had not visibly physically exerted herself in any way. Her head hurt, and swam, but she had dealt with worse before. She could keep going, keep fighting.

That command wasn't perfect. She didn't actually know how to force the necromancer to stay awake. But her words should trick her brain into doing its best to fight to keep her awake, with some luck, and hopefully that'd be enough. And they should linger for some time, with the necromancers weakened mental state- unless they had some last trick, or special psychic resistance up their sleeve somehow.

Pania turned to her companions. "Let's go."

[Shadowcaller]

[Pepo's Hollow]

It WAS a lot of running and fighting!

But they saved all the villagers and that's what mattered, right?

Lapis hops up on top of a mostly intact pumpkin since pumpkins are mostly what they've got to sit on at the moment. Thankfully none of the remaining pumpkins are trying to cause them grievous bodily harm. Lapis is a little scuffed up from getting smacked around but she seems mostly fine.

"If they don't I think the animals and things will eat it because animals like eating pumpkins," Lapis reasons. Or at least many animals like eating pumpkins. Birds and rodents and bears and raccoons? Probably other things, too. "Do you think eating these would be bad since they were magic possessed by bad spirit pumpkins?"

Lapis isn't an expert on spirit things.

BUT!

Anika is a druid!

That means she knows all about bad spirits from the Emerald Nightmare, right? She's an expert who definitely listened to those lectures at druid school.

"Oh yeah that was an Invocation! They're kind of like magic but not really since magic is a thing that uses the rules of how things in the world work but Invocations are just telling the world to change and it does. Empyreans have all got four different Spheres that are kind of like different elements I guess and mine are matter, shape, energy, and will so when I do Invocations I can make things happen that are the same sorts of things as those things like I used matter and energy to make the pumpkin stuff into different stuff with lots of energy all twisted up in it so that when you hit it then it went PCHSSSSHH!"

Lapis makes the best shattering noise she can and throws her hands up in the air.

It sounds like she used something sort of like sheeping someone? Except instead of turning all of them into a sheep she turned part of them into brittle glass.

[Pepo's Hollow]

Yes... druid school...

A place she totally went to.

"It's probably bad." She summarizes with just a glance at the fallen giant.
She clearly knows what she's talking about.

"But, huh. That sounds like mage-stuff. Are you a mage, Lapis?" Anika inquires with a raised eyebrow. Since that would explain a lot.

[The Ossuary]

Dena had been considering calling Kirk and leave her cellphone here so that Kirk could try to keep her awake with a random conversation. Since she at least trusted Kirk to not make a woman fall asleep on his watch.

But this worked too.

"...good job." She confirms with a nod at Pania before they head out towards the pyramid where the distress message came from. Violet the drone moves ahead to scout for traps and other dangers on the way.

Though more important if there were necromancers at the entrance.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

"If you're throwing down with nano-composite mechs there's a pretty good chance you're covered in angry sand," Phoenix points out as she finishes off her mech's tune-up. "You'll definitely know. You wanna help me get at those fire suppression systems? Dunno where they're installed in your machine. Going to need to get some scans on 'em before I can write up .fab file."

That sure is a thing, isn't it?

Writing a bunch of code for just assembling a thing.

Granted, the file for some new fire suppressant mechanisms is way less complex than, say, creating a .fab file for a whole mech. This stuff is relatively easy.

And then comes talk of suicide missions.

"Not invisible," Phoenix points out. "Most conventional weapons are just garbage against nanocomposite mechs. Bullets and lasers and whatever just don't cut it. If we want to tangle with this guy we need to find a print facility where we can get your mechs outfitted with weapons that'll actually be useful. Plasma throwers, EMP-weapons, napalm warheads, stuff like that. Weapons that can really spread the hurt around. Mechs like this are a pain against conventional loadouts but if you're prepared for them they go down hard since they've got **** for actual armor."


[The Ossuary]

The necromancer looks even more dazed after the command sinks into her head. She just kind of... sits there... staring blankly off into space.

Anyway!

Off our definitely not heroes probably go!

They don't encounter any traps along the way, though they DO bump into a few skeletons with no tactical gear milling around. Judging by their ancient weapons they probably didn't accompany the necromancers here. Just 'native' undead of this forlorn place. They patrol back and forth endlessly and if the MERCs get too close to them they'll be attacked. But otherwise it really isn't terribly difficult to just avoid them altogether. As they approach the pyramid they'll find a pitched battle under-way. Skeletons are pouring out of the pyramid doing their best to hack the necromancers to bits. Their own tactical skeletons are trying to hold the line, but they're badly out-numbered. The necromancers seem to be able to usurp control of the enemy skeletons, but the numbers seem overwhelming.

For the time being the necromancers are holding their ground, but any disruption would probably cause them to be over-run in a hurry.


[Pepo's Hollow]

Lapis is imagining there must at least be tutorials for how to be a druid, right? Like the schools the other normal kids that aren't Lapis go to? Like the Frescots! Schools are, near as Lapis can tell, just tutorials for regular folks right?

"Should we try to get rid of it so animals won't eat it then?" Lapis asks, unsure of what to do next. She could... maybe destroy it? It's really big though. REALLY big. At the very important question about classes Lapis shakes her head. "No 'Mage' isn't one of the classes I can be I'm a Seer. I asked Mother about other kinds of classes before and Mother said that all the different Games have different sorts of classes and sometimes they're kind of the same but sometimes they're really different. All the classes can use Invocations but Blasters are the best at it."

It sounds like Lapis' classes are all pretty similar and only really different in specialization.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

This is one of the problems with facing off against a competent foe.

If they know what they're doing, and have the resources to prepare ahead of time, they can create defenses against specific eventualities.

The vampire created this trap, apparently, with the intent of harvesting Dragonborn. Likely for nefarious ends. And as a result they've created traps and weapons that are meant to deal with what the Last Dragonborn can do.

Defenses against Shouts are, of course, the most obvious.

As the second syllable of the Shout leaves Yuvan's throat the constructs are already projecting wards as they scuttle forward, maintaining their barrage of withering fire. The bolts are having trouble penetrating the armor and Fenris did an exceptional job of protecting the weak points the armor has. Especially thanks to the cloth under-armor with plates and rings of dwarf brass sewn into it. But even then, the main threat of this weapon isn't the stabby nature of the bolts themselves, but rather the poison they carry.

How fortunate for Yuvan that he whipped up those potions of poison resistance.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Fortunate indeed... almost. The potions Yuvan whipped together would help cure poisons, not resist them. The academic distinction being that he'd be able to stop ongoing effects, not prevent them in the first place. And he'd still only have a limited supply; better to not use them all up immediately.

Still, with the constructs momentarily putting up their wards, Yuvan has an opening (of sorts) to step forward again and try to club the nearest one, bringing his mace down on its launcjing mechanism. A crude, but hopefully effective, method for disabling it.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Sure thing, just gimme a minute."
Cynic will demonstrate where the various suppressant canisters are within the mechs' chassis, and remove them. She seems to know her way around the machines, whereas Herringbone stays out of their innards for the most part. Cynic rambles on as she works, mostly about how fascinating Phoenix's tech is.

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Ah.

It would appear as though Cynic and Phoenix both have the mechanical inclination in common.

Gene is definitely the sort that gets a little testy with other people messing with her machines. Definitely less testy talking about them. She'll describe how most of the tech works that isn't paracausal nonsense. She's especially proud of the spike launcher, mostly because it's her own design. It's a gauss weapon, of course, launching the steel spikes at extremely high velocities. The real fun part, though, is what they do when they stick into something. Each is fed full of plasma straight from her mech's reactor that gets injected into the enemy mech after penetrating. The high energy ionized matter wrecks havoc on sensitive electronics and starts internal fires.

"Yeah I've customized most of the weapons I've got. Like that displacer. The thing is finicky as hell. Normally they have way more range for 'safety reasons' but that's bull****. I fiddled with the blink-projector a bit to dial the range back to make it a better QCB weapon. Makes the tear a little more ragged but the effect is harder to avoid and punches a bit better. Only reason it doesn't cook my mech is because the thing is, like, ninety percent heat sinks by volume."

Sol does have quite a few heat sinks.

"So what's your deal, anyway? You and your buddies are after your captain, yeah?"


[Dragonborn Hunting]

This is why having both spells and weapons handy is always nice.

Mage putting up a ward?

Just smash him in the face with a heavy lump of ebony!

That's sure to mess up concentration.

Yuvan's mace crashed into the feeding mechanism for the bolts, causing a shower of sparks as the metal groans and bends at the impact. The particular member of the pair probably won't be shooting at him anymore, but it doesn't seem to mind. Instead a pair of limbs mounted with those spinning dwarven sword blades unfold from its sides and begin trying to dice Yuvan to ribbons! The second construct, meanwhile, skitters back out of melee range and continues to fire. These things really aren't very entertaining to fight.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Of course they aren't. They're designed to kill Yuvan, not provide him with an interesting challenge.

Regardless, with the first one's crossbow disabled, Yuvan can afford to step back and refocus his efforts. Should he polish off the first one now, and worry about its friend playing support on its own, or should he cut off their ranged options entirely and take advantage of his spells and Shouts to cover a distance?

Then he realizes the obvious answer.

Yuvan circles part way around the first construct, so that he's standing between them, not seeming to mind the spinning dwarven swords. Then he turns, perpendicular to both spiders, and lets out three words that should end this encounter immediately:

"WULD... NAH KEST!"

Bye!

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"She told you about that? Yeah, him and his fancy Griffin. Here." Cynic holds out a tablet, and with a few taps, displays a pair of images. One is a grizzled, bald and bearded man in a green pilot's suit decorated with several medals. The other is a mech, clearly smaller than either of the two currently here, with a large battery of weapons in its right arm and missile racks on each of its shoulders. "Seen either of those?" Probably not, but it's worth asking right?

Spoiler: Image

Show

[Rebonack]

[Crystal Crags]

Phoenix shakes her head at that question.

"Nah. I got dumped into a lake maybe five minutes before I ran across Fishy getting her ass kicked by a lightning spitting dragon. Like the magic flying lizard kind, not the mech kind."

That is a deeply important distinction.

Gene pulls out a little hand scanner and runs it over the fire suppressant systems in the two mechs. When she builds these things she's going to need to make sure all the parts fit properly.

Then it'll be a simple matter of getting all the mechs put back together and move on!

And move on they do.

Before long they'll encounter several large very large holes in the canyon walls. Very deep holes. Very big holes.

Holes with the surrounding rock vitrified.

Like...

Melted and cooled.

"Okay I have no idea what would have made something like that but I'm going to bet it's trouble."


[Dragonborn Hunting]

ZOOOOOOOOOOM!

Why fight bad guys when you can just zipping away and then slow time so they can't chase you?

The constructs don't have much luck chasing after Yuvan and he manages to go zipping past them.

Those poor, sad constructs.

Yuvan has one more flight of stairs to run up, one more set of doors to throw open, and now he's standing at a balcony overlooking the square looking down on a pitched battle. Werewolf versus vampire! Fenris is still clad in that specially tooled armor of hers while the enemy dragonborn is in vampire lord form and-

Flying.

He can fly.

And he's tossing vampiric orbs down at Fenris. To which she's responding with explosive vampire bane bolts. But hitting a quick flying target with a slow moving projectile is quite a problem. Fenris is really wishing this foe would land and fight her tooth and claw but he doesn't seem interested in obliging her on that point.

[Earl of Purple]

Apocalypse Junction

"Sure, but it's right secure. And less inconvenient if you's got a namulet what glows with moonlight. Didn't find one there, but my da had one, so did the mayor of this town I visited once, built around an orb of water floatin' in the middle of town. Think they were a symbol of one o' the sides in the Mage War." But at this point, nobody really knows. All the mages died, so did most of the apprentices, and the ones that were left were usually killed by people who didn't have any magical training.

Sian smirks at the idea of being lifted. "Been doin' a number on me most of a decade. I'd have smashed the foot off if it helped, but it don't." She'd be lighter without the foot, but limping quite heavily as one leg would be shorter than the other, and also she'd not be able to balance on it which she does when she blasts things with the wand hidden in her crutch.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

ZOOOOOOOOOOM!

Why fight bad guys when you can just zipping away and then slow time so they can't chase you?

The constructs don't have much luck chasing after Yuvan and he manages to go zipping past them.

Those poor, sad constructs.

Yuvan has one more flight of stairs to run up, one more set of doors to throw open, and now he's standing at a balcony overlooking the square looking down on a pitched battle. Werewolf versus vampire! Fenris is still clad in that specially tooled armor of hers while the enemy dragonborn is in vampire lord form and-

Flying.

He can fly.

And he's tossing vampiric orbs down at Fenris. To which she's responding with explosive vampire bane bolts. But hitting a quick flying target with a slow moving projectile is quite a problem. Fenris is really wishing this foe would land and fight her tooth and claw but he doesn't seem interested in obliging her on that point.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Fortunately, Yuvan knows exactly how to handle this.

...Okay, about 40% how to deal with this.

The point is, the vampire is clearly attacking with amd flying under the power of magic. So he's likely also burning through a lot of magicka; a heavy disruption to his supply could force him to land to recharge.

Yuvan has just the thing.

The altmer cups his hands together and launches a series of thunderbolts at the vampire, banking on having gone unseen thus far to bypass any evasive response.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"We should go around. That looks volcanic, no matter how many heat sinks you've got, molten lava will mess you up," Herringbone cautions. "Quick scan should show how far the network reaches. Gimme a sec." Their mechs are equipped with highly accurate scanning systems. As long as nothing's jamming them, they should be able to get a good read on the terrain and any sizeable energy sources nearby.

[Shadowcaller]

[Pepo's Hollow]

Lapis is imagining there must at least be tutorials for how to be a druid, right? Like the schools the other normal kids that aren't Lapis go to? Like the Frescots! Schools are, near as Lapis can tell, just tutorials for regular folks right?

"Should we try to get rid of it so animals won't eat it then?" Lapis asks, unsure of what to do next. She could... maybe destroy it? It's really big though. REALLY big. At the very important question about classes Lapis shakes her head. "No 'Mage' isn't one of the classes I can be I'm a Seer. I asked Mother about other kinds of classes before and Mother said that all the different Games have different sorts of classes and sometimes they're kind of the same but sometimes they're really different. All the classes can use Invocations but Blasters are the best at it."

It sounds like Lapis' classes are all pretty similar and only really different in specialization.

[Pepo's Hollow]

Anika did go to 'druid school' briefly before it was decided a mentor would be better for her, her uncle.
"Ohhh, that's what we call a 'Shaman' where I'm from. Though some call them seers too." Anika then gets up and looks over the fallen monster. "Does that mean you can summon a fire elemental or something like that to burn all this away?" She gestures at the remains. "Otherwise we go back to my first suggestion which is to have the villagers burn it all away."

A beat.

"But I do have some fire-oil in my inventory." Oh no. "I've used it to start fires before, it's super-effective."

[Rebonack]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Nothing like a few lightning bolts to spice up a fight.

Suddenly blasted out of the blue with electricity, the vampire lord is briefly staggered. It seems to decide that makes Yuvan the more immediate threat and begins launching draining bolts at him instead! Which in turn gives Fenris enough time to begin winding up Bane of Undead, currents of blue and gold magic swirling around her as the spell begins building toward its crescendo.

Using it earlier was kind of hard.

What with the fact that she kept getting staggered out of the channeling.

But now that the vampire is pestering Yuvan she should have plenty of time to gather the power she needs.

Any moment now...

Probably.


[Crystal Crags]

As our heroes begin scanning they'll find that the tunnel network is in fact quite deep.

They will ALSO detect two powerful sources of thermal and electrical power moving toward them up through the tunnel network.

The ground begins rumbling under their mech's feet.

"Okay yeah I think it's time to get moving," Phoenix helpfully points out.

Move where, though? Maybe climb out of the canyon? Will that help?


[Pepo's Hollow]

Lapis isn't really sure what a shaman is, either.

Though given that Lapis can cast a lightning shield maybe that isn't too inaccurate?

"A fire elemental? Umm... don't know if elementals work that way, Anika," Lapis admits. This is mostly because elementals in an Eternal Game context are mostly just areas of terrain animated by an amalgam of spirits. So they don't really conform to the classical elements as such. The only way to really get a fire elemental is if one cropped up during the middle of a wildfire? Maybe? Fires are usually more ephemeral environmental phenomena. "I can try?"

Lapis knows that her sister Karaglen knows how to make materia constructs. That's sort of the same, right? Maybe she could make a sort of person shape out of glass and then use Matter and Energy to just make it on fire all the time? She tries conjuring some materia and successfully creates a two meter cube of silvered glass and solid sunlight. It looks really pretty?

"I don't really know how to make person shapes?" Lapis admits.

[bc56]

Crystal Crags
"Two heat signatures coming up from below. We need to move." The larger mechs jump up to the clifftop. "I'm going to try to collapse the tunnel entrances. Get clear!" The Catapult's missile batteries take aim at the ground below.

[Ironsmith]

[Dragonborn Hunting]

Nothing like a few lightning bolts to spice up a fight.

Suddenly blasted out of the blue with electricity, the vampire lord is briefly staggered. It seems to decide that makes Yuvan the more immediate threat and begins launching draining bolts at him instead! Which in turn gives Fenris enough time to begin winding up Bane of Undead, currents of blue and gold magic swirling around her as the spell begins building toward its crescendo.

Using it earlier was kind of hard.

What with the fact that she kept getting staggered out of the channeling.

But now that the vampire is pestering Yuvan she should have plenty of time to gather the power she needs.

Any moment now...

Probably.

[Dragonborn Hunting]

As soon as he has the vampire's attention, Yuvan raises a ward with one of his hands, frustrating any attempts at a counterspell directed at him. It might not protecr him for long if the vampire decides to batter him with the strongest spells he has, but it will waste time and energy to disable, and costs Yuvan himself neither. And he can keep throwing thunderbolts with his other hand.

"Come on, Fenris..." The altmer mumbles through his teeth.