Welcome to the Apocalypse - Director's Cut IC

[Endlessblaze]

"Pft. you think this thing is bad? All it has going for it is strength and a few spinning razors. And there's just one of them! Try taking on a metal dragon with laser eyes, wingmouted missiles, a breath attack that makes things explode, and claws that destroy matter they strike by pulling It apart in no less then twenty otherspacial directions. And there's three of them."

Leo stands back up, dusting off his pants. "My best guess is that Dysto didn't want to drop in anything major until it could figure out what you guys are capable of. I'm sure things will get tougher. THATS why I want to get more golems built as soon as possible. When I said I like to be backed up by at least 50 golems, I MEANT IT. For obvious reasons. Even if I only bring 10 with me on a mission, I'm most comfortable when I have an army waiting in reserve for me to call."

Leo then looks to freya

"You misunderstand. Its not just me. dysto moves pretty fast. Going back and forth between me, and its other targets in the barren kingdom is not that big a deal between it. For all we know its already on route to begin a bombing run. As for who protected me, after my parents died, no one did. I just had to run and try to escape from big murder machines almost daily. sometimes I would lure them to camps of bandits or other survivors, who were more equip to deal with it.  And once I started figuring out golomancy I protected myself."

[Powder Miner]

Nader continued to breathe quickly for a few moments, his burst of adrenaline not exactly disappearing instantly, but as Freya freaked out around the bear, Nader slowly calmed down, lowering his gun centimeter by centimeter until once again the Horsekiller rested against the ground. Given that the thing wasn't tearing her to pieces, and that it had not gone and attacked him, Nader figured that, alright, perhaps it wasn't an overt threat. Nader still didn't intend to let down his guard around it, though, but perhaps that was a given. Upon listening to Freya's explanation, things did begin to make more sense; apparently she was some sort of undead-raising necromancer. Nader ended up literally waving that particular piece of information away, though -- they already had science fiction, so fantasy didn't seem that bizarre to him, and it would take something truly bizarre to ping as relatively weird by now.

 

"Alright, alright, alright... the undead. That's... okay, I suppose that works. But... yeah. You really shouldn't just go raising the horrible monster I just fought from the dead without warning." His hand went to his forehead, or at least the forehead of his armor. "Fuck, I'm crazy enough already without my paranoia getting set off every other minute." Nader heaved a sigh, and then he got to hear Leo's rambling response. Nader's hand traveled down from his forehead to his face once more, but then he brought his arm back down quickly and spoke in an angrier voice then before.

 

"Are you kidding me? Are you bragging about the danger you pose here? If your just being here causes multiple missile-armed dragons to attack, and if you expect that things will be so bad that we will have to raise an army just to fight against your personal threat, let alone everything else we have to deal with as a part of this whole 'multiverse' business, then why are we even traveling with you? This is ridiculous -- it sounds like your presence is far more dangerous than it is useful, and I would rather not get dragged into a whole campaign to battle against this apparently incredibly well-armed and absurdly dangerous menace. Fuck, it's not even every other minute I'm being set off here, it's every minute."

[Endlessblaze]

"Well excuse me for being born. Its not as bad as you think. Every time I kill one of Dysto's beast, I get more materials and weapons I can use. That means more golems, with stronger weapons, helping to save the multiverse. If I can deal with 3 metal death dragons, with just myself and 20 golems of....questionable intellect, I think a group as large as us with our skills and abilities can Handel things. Besides, do you have any OTHER mages who can make heat immune materials, turn random scrap into computers and weapons, freeze things just by willing the proper mana at it, and-"
He points at his red catlike eyes "see in the dark?"

Snow promptly chimes in "Don't you have trouble doing that consistently?"

"Snow your not helping! Look the point is, I can do things YOU apparently CAN'T that means I can cover weaknesses and provided strengths to the group."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

At Nader's comment, Freya shrugged again, "Yeah my bad. I'll make sure to let you guys all know next time I bring up something you killed. Don't want to lose anything myself" Freya stated, turning her attention back to Leo, now that her bear was all safe... Her face falling at his continued explanation. Some of the things he said kinda flew over her head, but she got the gist of it. Whatever this thing was, it was dangerous.

 

Aaand kind of stupid, all things considered. In Freya's honest opinion, it was kind of weird for something to have the ability to track every single living being that lived in this Barren Kingdom at some point and then FAIL at doing it's job, since if any of it's creations had the ability to track as well as Dysto did, then Leo really wouldn't be standing here and talking about it. Kind of didn't make sense to her, in all honesty, but she'd get to that matter latter.

 

... Main problem was the fact that Dysto had THREE Dragons, which, if they were anything like the ones living at home (specifically, mountain sized lizards that breathed a whole matter of different elements and were probably better at using magic than most mages were), then they kinda had a problem, especially with whatever else they had, since Freya had NO clue what they did.

 

Thankfully, for Leo, Freya didn't respond herself, letting Nader speak. Instead, she sort of just stood there and frowned, placing her hand on her hip for a bit before sighing, walking away and going for the three parts of the poor soldier that Stellio cut apart. They weren't that useful to her right now, but with a bit of reanimation and some magic she might be able to temporarily put the body back together. She'd have to figure out a way to use the three parts though, she doubted that she'd be able to consistently keep the entire body together, as it was now.

[Hal Henderics]

"This Dysto creature reminds me of Gearshift Dragon.  He would often operate through proxy, picking a corrupt aspect of Wire Warriors and latching onto it to form his twisted avatars from the corpses of my brethren and our tools.  His latest attempt to return to life was through the latest Artificial Wire Technology.  A synthetic type made in Yellow Labs for the purpose of creating effective machinery and robotics."

 

"Let's be thankful it is only Leo, and be hopeful that it does not become a trend, our old foes coming to haunt us, or we may all have to face our demons."  Blue says.

[Powder Miner]

Nader rolled his eyes at the "Sorry for being born" bit, not that Leo could see him do so, then sighed, and considered his next words for a little while. "Well, yes, we do have people who can work on weapons. But as for the rest of it... look, it's not that you can't be useful, it's that this Dysto you're talking about is so profoundly massive a problem that unless you were Allah himself come to Earth it would make I think most people seriously wonder about working with you.

 

But, here, tell me straight, since you've given indications both ways... do you or do you not need an army just to focus on fighting Dysto? If the problem here is the occasional monster like that bear, well... maybe it could make sense to give you a chance. But if you're talking about massive forces that make that look like a small problem, like you were bragging about earlier, then I'm not going to want to deal with that. Traveling around fantastic worlds, dealing with problems and then surviving is difficult enough without getting turned into meat and scrap metal by some invading half-mechanical horde."

 

Nader then turned towards Blue, or at least where he thought Blue probably was, with the noise of metal lightly shifting against metal. "Yeah, uh, can this Gearshift Dragon travel universes? ...and how big would it be by our standards, actually?"

Edited November 24, 2017 by Powder Miner

[Hal Henderics]

"Gearshift Dragon is dead.  Though he's tried to come back in the past.  There are no ways to other worlds from my own, as far as I am aware."

"His largest form, spoken of in legend as his original true form, stood up to your hip.  Don't let that size fool you, if you haven't guessed by now, at that size, he was able to scour continents of life, move faster than any other, and had the one singular goal of bringing all life in my world to heel, or to the grave."

"His latest form, however, was a twisted amalgam of wire and components that perhaps stood to your knee at it's highest.  I was not there to witness the battle, but it was a brutal one, requiring the strongest warriors to ever live."

[Endlessblaze]

Leo thinks for a moment.
"Well it depends. the threat of Dysto's bio machines is directly proportional to the effort and focus its exerting on one target. it prioritizes large groups, and people trying to get out of the kingdom first...I think. Remember, Dysto is a Warmachine, it wants to use its power as efficiently as possible with the least risk to itself it can get away with while still completing its mission. The best way I can put it, is that to me Dysto is usually a nusciane, that might smash a small building or beat me up a little bit, but can sometimes decide I'm worth putting more effort into and dropping more powerful beast. Considering the power level of the golems I had when fighting the mechanical dragons and the fact I WON, and what ive seen so far of you guys, I'm going to say that barring something extreme we should be ok. Now, if I was the last one left, this entire countryside could easily be wiped off the map if that's what dysto decided it took to kill me, but considering its been trying and FAILING to win with its tactics for a few hundred years, I don't see that happening. It simply spreads its power to thin by trying to keep the entire kingdom down at once, and It clearly lacks the intelligence to make a significant change in tactics. Nor does it have a wielder to change its tactics anymore. "

[Sutoratosu]

Stellio had stood away from the others, as conversations of insane murderous machines, horrid beasts, and golem armies were had, though in truth he'd heard every word even if his attention was not directly on it. 

 

What truly occupied him at the moment was the bursting, burning trail through the sky that the Rat Man streaked as he fled, and Stellio was almost certain he could hear the fool cackling like he'd lost every last marble he ever owned. He removed his helm, tracking the comet-like tail as it grew fainter and fainter over the horizon

       "What in the goddamn...?"  He shook his head, not entirely sure how the rat had managed to literally ride upon a wave of his detonations, but at the same time, not entirely in the mood to bother questioning it much. And quite the head is was, now that he'd shown his face for the first time since this had all began; a chiseled face, darkened by the countless hours it had spent under the sun, weathered and worn much like an old stature left out to the elements... except the scars and marks stellio bore where the results of past engagements and too many years of service to bother counting by his reckoning. His eyes were little more than twin pools of dark-- dreadfully dark --color that seemed to sap the very light from the air around him, so dark, there was practically no distinguishing between what was iris, and what was Iris. All of it was framed by unkempt, dark locks draping down to his shoulder blades. 

 

Helm in the crock of one arm, stained with the spatter of crimson shed with his foeman, and filthy blade resting in the opposite hand, he took a moment to observe what was left of the killing field...

 

And it was just then when he noticed the girl behind him, poking over the butchered corpse he'd left in his wake. A very peculiar bear he'd helped slash up (for even now, he could spot the wounds he'd inflicted marring it's hide) was pushing the cart in the distance, like the mindless thrall it was. Given the... methods she'd cleared out the explosives during the battle, and the evidence staring him right in the face, it didn't take even a full few seconds before the Knight put two and two together.

     "Hmph, yet another opportunistic necromancer, picking over the killing field in the hopes of using the recently deceased." Surprisingly however, his tone was not so much judgemental as it was... merely an astute observation, one so tired in delivery it sounded like it'd been made too many times to bother counting "Pray that you do not fall to the same insanity as the others I have encountered, girl. Mania seems to be a recurrent theme among those who toy with the dead, regardless what they claim their reasons to be."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

As Stellio spoke, Freya put her hand on the head of the soldier's body, letting her magic begin to seep through it's body, "I mean, I don't have access to all of my own stuff that I had earlier, so I kind of have to get to work. But dooon't worry, I'm probably not going to go insane just because of my work. After all it's not like I lock myself in an obsidian tower every day and just talk to eldritch artifacts, turning myself into an undead, all the while believing that everyone currently breathing is conspiring against me like EVERYONE does at home. At least the other Necromancers. All four of them" Freya stated casually, watching as small tendrils of black magic began to poke out of the slashed part of the soldier's body, inching out of it to try and connect to the other parts of the corpse.

[Sutoratosu]

"Locking oneself away, believing the outside world to either be foolish or doggedly determined to undermine them... and determined to become Liches... yes, yes, it sounds quite a bit like a madman of Nybeth's caliber..." He hefted his blade up, and with speed far quicker than might be expected of such a weighty weapon, flicked his wrist as he drew in a bit of mana from the air around them. The resultant shockwave of dark energy, which soared out over the desolate landscape for several dozen meters before it finally petered out, carried with it all the blood and gore that had once coated the knight's blade.

 

Blood and Gore belonging to the very man Freya was making her new minion. A brief, surging aura of black creeped up from his boots at the same time, crawling over his armor like an army of worms as it seemed to.... drink, lap up the blood spilled upon his armor...

 

and for just the briefest of moments, Freya likely would've heard a demented cackle echo faintly from Stellio's position... though the voice was obviously far deeper and... unnatural than any human could ever muster. Stellio didn't even acknowledge it, just sheathed his blade

 

"Only four however? How surprising, Necromancers in Valeria are...well, not common, but not nessacarily rare either. Or they used to be. Only Galgastan dared to actively support their research, but then again, that cannot be unexpected... Galgastan as a nation had much to answer for; everyone did, in that war...

      regardless, I don't suppose you have heard of these other four by name then, have you? Surely if you're world is as adverse to the practice as my homeland was, then learning what you're doing now couldn't have been as easy as simply waltzing into any library and requesting materials.... someone had to have taught you."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Freya, in all honesty, barely even reacted to Stellio's unnatural laugh, more interested in the fact that some of his own magic was slurping away at the blood that the soldier left behind. It was kind of interesting, and weird, and probably had something to do with feeding his own magic pool... But Freya didn't dwell on it for too long, "Used to be over a hundred of individual Necromancers, at least before they decided to band together, try to take over the world by reviving a Dragon skeleton, and caused the founding of the Purifiers of the Flame, crazy religious fanatics who's job was to, well, purge mages, and thanks to them, there was a Great Purge that caused the death of all of those Necromancers, aaand a few other mages that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was about 400 years ago, but those Purifiers are still around trying to get rid of Necromancy once and for all, which includes me, that's why there are only four Necromancers still 'alive', excluding me, of course" Freya explained, watching as her tendrils of magic finally grabbed hold of one of the other parts, beginning to physically drag it over to the main part,

 

"But yeah, I know each of their names, I even met two of them. Not on good terms, mind you, but met them nonetheless. There used to be five, and the fifth was the man that taught me, Siegfried, who was a friend of my father. Great guy too, taught me his own school of Necromancy instead of the boring stuff everyone else kept using. He's not around anymore, since an immortality spell doesn't really help you when you've got guys who outright counter magic trying to hunt you down, but that's in the pass. Now that I'm here, I shouldn't have to worry about getting killed and having my blood used as a sacrifice for their god... Or whatever they do aside from hunting mages."

Edited November 25, 2017 by GodofGamingRWBY

[Projeck]

Contagion takes a sigh of relief, shouldering his rifle swiftly upon flipping the safety on. He looked himself over, to find no wounds luckily. With another sigh, he went down to the various dead bodies, and pulling off weapons and the various armor pieces. Pieces of value, as well as the deployed devices that formed the shields.

 

((TL;DR, Contagion starts looting))

[Powder Miner]

Nader was silent for a long moment after Leo spoke again. "Ah... ...allah. That is... I guess that all I can say is that I hope that you're right about this Dysto being too stupid to do much more than send things we can handle. I... it definitely makes a part of me scream to do this, but given the circumstances I think that I can give you the benefit of the doubt. But... gh. I'm going to need some space. Maybe I can see if I can do anything about that pipe."

 

One hand held to the side of his head, Nader turned and clanked off, moving in the direction of the pipe, then heading over to the cart and seeing if he can't get some repair done on that pipeline.

[Endlessblaze]

“Might want to get that space somewhere other then the pipe. I’m going to get to work on it myself. Frostbrute, get back to pushing!”

Leo heads to inspect the pipeline And has frostbrute resume pushing. 

Edited November 25, 2017 by Endlessblaze

[Chevaleresse]

A faint smell of brimstone suffused the air for a few moments, before a burst of black smoke appeared a few feet away from the payload. When the smoke cleared, it revealed a woman competing with the one that the other team had found in terms of looks, dressed in a simple but functional black and white dress, and that style of hat known universally as the one witches wear. She looked around for a moment, noting the obvious signs of battle. "Um, I didn't pop in at a bad time, did I?" This place looks a little less hospitable than I was expecting. . . Did I land in the wrong spot? "And, uh, what's this particular region called again?"

[Hal Henderics]

"It is fine.  I believe we are in a place called Australia, Ma'm."  Blue says, a full voice coming out of a pip on the ground.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

Soon enough, Freya's magic had done it's work, the tendrils of magic managing to drag all the pieces together. Then, Freya removed her hand, sighing in annoyance. Stellio did a number on this guy, she coul barely even get her own magic to pull them together, never mind fusing the parts for a bit of time. She'd need to figure out a way to transport them for the time being so she could actually fix them, preferably in a safe place. The method of which seemed to be in her bear. After all, it DID have several holes in it...

 

However, her attention was quickly diverted by the sudden appearance of some form of which. Normally, the arrival of someone like that would make Freya a bit on edge, but considering they seemed more confused of where they were and surprisingly nonthreatening, it was practically impossible to really feel threatened by the woman, which was rather obvious by the fact that she merely stood up, dusted herself off, then approached the woman as Blue answered her question, "Yep, welcome to Australia, home of everything dangerous one could imagine, I guess. Name's Freya, Necromancer extraordinaire, pleasure to meet you" she said, straightening her hat with a slight bow.

[Chevaleresse]

"Australia? Wasn't that. . . shit. Anyway - wait, where did that come from. . .?" She peered around a bit, apparently not seeing Blue. "Um. As I was saying. . . Name's Marisa. I'm just here to look around, and see if anyone wants any of my junk. I would be a professional explorer if anyone actually paid me to do it, heh." Her eyebrows went up at the mention of necromancy, and she stole a quick glance at the reanimated biomechanical creature in the background. "So you're a necromancer? That means you won't freak out at the mention of demon binding, right? We've both got terrible PR, I'm sure you know."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

"Demon binding? Kind of hard to get those things to work for you. From my experience they tend to like to find any little loophole to break out of your spell and shove their little knife hands through your throat, but hey, not my place to be weirded out about that. If anything doing it successfully it pretty darn cool" Freya said, straightening from her bow as her face growing a bit more excited already. To her, it was always nice to meet someone who acknowledge and seemed to live with the fact that they have bad reputation just because of what they did. Well, this was the first time actually, but still, same point, "Oh, but what do you have? Guessing I'd have to trade something for it?" Freya asked.

[Endlessblaze]

"Oh. I would be happy to look over anything your selling, Thoghhhh I don't really have anything to pay you with at this particular moment. See I kindaaaa just got yanked out of my universe yesterday and most of my stuff is back there. and I haven't actually made anything for sale recently...Actually. I do have that toy golem, but I kind of like it."

Leo pauses to think.

"I do have some scrap back at the Safe house we are staying in. if your willing to wait till we return I could probably make some weapons or a computer or something for you."

"Sureeeee Leo, take her to the safe house. I'm sure that will go over well. its not like Safehouses are supposed to be, SECURE or anything."

"It will be fine. If she tries anything, we can just stab her." 

[Chevaleresse]

"Yeah, I gotta make a living somehow. Though if you had anything for my personal collection, that'd be good." She didn't respond to Leo's last line, save for a set of gestures she started making with her hands. "And yeah, demons are bastards. That'd be why I don't feel bad about binding them. Technically I can bind other things; works best on extraplanar beings and stuff like that, that need a connection to a material plane to manifest in one, but technically they work on people too. Just. You know. Not well. And I wouldn't use it that way anyway." Her hands stopped, and a figure about eight feet tall, seemingly made of ashes and fire, with dark platemail and a large, heavy sword, appeared between her and Leo; the demon did not look particularly fond of the golemancer. Or anything, as demons are wont to (not) be, but Leo in particular. After a moment, her head poked around the side of the thing. "What was that last part?" she asked innocently, eyes nearly closed with a wide smile. 

[Endlessblaze]

Leo dosent seem that scared, but he does seem...impressed? interested?
"Not bad. What's the armor made of? I'm assume he's not as fragile as a pile of ashes. Is the sword enchanted? It looks pretty normal."

Snow starts projecting her form, and sighs. pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Just...try to ignore him. I'm sure we wont have any problems."

"That was pretty fast to, you used your hands right? Do you have any backup summoning methods for when your hands are bound?

"yeah just....if your willing to wait a bit, we can pay in goods, Leo here is pretty good at making golems and weapons."

[DragonRage]

Contagion finds the following on the corpses!  Since there's too much for him to carry, he presumably sets it out so people can come have a look.
 

Spoiler

Skirmishers:  2 Assault Rifles (2d6 + dex damage), 2 Biotic Field Projectors (Once per encounter, heal 3 targets 2d8 + int HP), 1 Drop Shield (1 use, defends 3 target allies, blocks all projectiles for 3 rounds, can self-target), 2 Body Armor (+3 resistance).

 

Flame Troopers:  1 Flamethrower (inflicts a burn that deals 1d6 + syn damage for 3 rounds, 3 shots per encounter), 2 gas masks (grant immunity to all inhalants), 2 fireproof suits (doubles resistance against fire damage).

 

Shock Troopers:  2 shotguns (1d8 + dex damage, when making opposed checks involving shooting or striking somebody with the gun, +5 to the check), 3 grenades (1 use, 3d6 + int damage.), 2 bottles of mysterious, purple goo, 2 Body Armor (+3 resistance).

 

Sniper:  1 Talon DMR (2d8 + int damage, int% chance for crit that deals double damage, does not suffer ranged penalties), 1 night vision scope (removes darkness penalties if a gun is also equipped)

 

The Heavy:  1 heavy minigun (4d6 + strength damage, requires 1 round of spin up before use, occupies 2 slots.), 1 squad shield (blocks the first essence/2 projectiles fired at you or two target allies chosen at the start of your turn.  Can only be equipped if you have a gun that occupies at least 2 slots.)

3

 

Nader and Leo head to the pipeline to see what they can do about it.  The pipeline has very obviously had a big chunk of it exploded, with fresh water gushing out to soak into the ground.  Fortunately, it looks like there's enough pipe on the cart to patch this if you had a way to keep the seals between the new pipe and the old pipe from leaking.

________________________________________________________

"If you are seeking a power source, there is a car-sized glowing crystal a few rooms down the left-hand passage," the blue woman informs Aquila, her flat, yellow eyes sliding over Alan as he attempts to casually walk past her.  "Your friend might want to try that way first."  Then her cold gaze slides over to Lucine's blatant ogling, and she smirks slightly, cocking her hips in a provocative fashion.  "Like what you see, little girl?  Come back in a few years and maybe we'll talk."

 

That's when Vitor walks in, already talking at Lucine.  "You said you were feeling tired?  Maybe mana depletion?  But I saw you eat and sleep last night, and you didn't use a lot of magecraft this fight that I saw.  Were you doing anything to up your draw-  Santa Maria the Widowmaker!"  The Shield of Imhotep materializes on his forearm, and he interposes it between Lucine and the sniper, who snorts and rolls her eyes at the display.

 

"The Widowmaker died six months ago, agent.  Strike Commander Lexiel triggered her conditioning with a lucky turn of phrase, and Agent Hanzo filled her with enough arrows to kill six men," She flicks the safety and drops her gun, allowing it to hang freely from its shoulder strap.  "I am Amelie Lacroix.  Talon and I have taken different paths.  And unless Moira was lying to me, I truly have escaped the reach of their claws.  Killing you would be... enjoyable, oui.  But such pleasures do not endure enough to be worth the effort."

[Powder Miner]

Marisa's summoning a demon had a side effect that was probably unintended: hearing the sound of conversation, Nader turned his head to take a look to see who was speaking... and that caused him to catch sight of the eight foot tall ash-and-fire-and-very-large-sword creature. And that caused him to leap out of his hunched position into a standing position and to turn around in a flash, quick enough that he actually stumbled backwards and barely avoided falling over the pipe he had been working on. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" he exclaimed, raising his arms in the direction of the demon. "WHY ARE THERE MONSTERS COMING LEFT AND RIGHT OUT OF THE FUCKING WOODWORK?! I THOUGHT YOU SAID DYSTO WAS CONSERVING HIS RESOURCES!" Marisa's head popping out from around the thing caused Nader to lower his guns a little, but they still weren't hanging down in rest yet. "And who the fuck is this?!"