Welcome to the Apocalypse - Director's Cut IC

[Chevaleresse]

"I think he got it from channeling his magic into silicon. Or was it into something and then silicon? I don't remember the details. Different synthesis methods than the ones I've seen before, though. Not that I'm exactly an expert, I can't even conjure water without it tasting like soot." She slowed down as they approached the wreck, taking in the thing, and then sped up a bit. "This is. . . something. Something worth the trip, probably." She sped up again, quickly popping into the derelict. She stopped again, briefly, upon encountering the former Talon sniper. "You with them?"

[StormLord]

Sha'Tith poked around at the entry into the ship.

"I don't trust it" He grumbled, mostly to himself.

Eventually he decided to enter, cautiously and carefully while looking out for traps of any sort he could think of, and likely making it to the room with Aquila, Amelie, and the others shortly after Marisa.

[Endlessblaze]

Leo nods.

"He would have been channeling into something Then the silicon. That would make a magitrope."

Looking over the derelict he smiles

"Not bad, I wonder if there going to be able to get this thing up and running. Ill head on inside and see what I can do. I'm afraid my purchases will have to wait until were done here."

Leo then promptly heads inside, Looking around

"Soooo what did we miss?"

 

 

Spoiler

Leo's merit is spent in the following fashion.

 

Snowbound is upgraded with two merit, adding the following-

      (Merit level 1): Precious and protected: This item cannot be targeted by equipment targeting effects and is soul bound.

       (Merit level 2): Cautious crafting: when attempting to craft on this item, failure will not result in detrimental or destructive consequences, nor will success include negative side effects. however, the difficultly of all crafting checks on this item are greatly increased.

-----------------------------------------

Leo is upgraded. gaining the following-

 

+2 CON

+1 INT

Rush: the user spends EG to gain more moves this turn. these extra moves won't work with most spells, or channeling but do work with most skills, and weapons. The user gains 1 move per [Average encounter DEX] EG spent, and these moves sit back to back with each other, unless the moves are affected by an effect that changes their order in the initiative ladder. activating this ability is a free action

----------------------------

 

Frostbrute is upgraded with two merit, adding in two new actions/passives/abilities. This is accompanied by a minior rework to absorb heat, and ice fire stream. to better reflect frostrbutes actual function and design. See below.

 

Spoiler

The following is frostbrute's updated information.-

 

Frost brute (equip minion): A large bulky and stocky mechanical golem made primarily of iron and copper, with large rectangular hands and round claws. its large enough for a human to sit on its shoulders, or be crushed in a single hand, but small enough height wise to fit in most buildings without issue, if it can get past the doors. When its ice fire engine is running there is a constant rumbling in its chest, and the three exhaust pipes, on each side of its wedge-shaped head, spew snow and ice, and its body is perpetually cold. Although it can act without this engine it is incredibly slow and weak without it, barely able to move under its own weight. Because of the danger and collateral risk of ice fire, Leo is reluctant to field it without his own personal supervision, or the direct supervision of a trusted individual who can counter the ice fire. When using ice fire to attack, this minion uses magic heat manipulating systems to prevent it from going out of control, and choke the fire as necessary.
 

Current levels-
Equipment level 1 (CC)
Merit level 1 (merit upgrade)
merit level 2 (merit upgrade)

This equip item takes up TWO action slots. this minion may be given a command once per turn as a free action when equipped.
      
HP:20
(merit level 1) bound: this minion is bound as a result of merit investment.

(Merit level 1) : Ice fire engine: This unit consumes heat as fuel for its movements, ice fire attacks, and immense strength. Heat levels are roughly categorized into the levels. Ice cold, chill, cozy, cooking, and burning bright. the engine is at its weakest in areas that are ice cold, and at its strongest in areas that burn bright. Actions which run off heat are stronger based on the heat level, but can also lower it if they exert enough power or are used enough.  

Ice fire stream: Frost brute releases twin streams of ice fire at its target from its hands, while using heat manipulation to keep it under control. This Deals 1d3 ice damage to a target, and inflicts the ICE FIRE! Debuff on warm and hot targets. Continually dealing 1d3 damage until it is extinguished. But passing on the debuff to anything they touch which is warm or hot, or just not frozen.
 (Merit level 1) : The number of targets afflicted by ice fire or normal fire effects the local heat level
   

  Extinguish ice fire: Brute purges the ICE FIRE! debuff from a target.

     Absorb heat (passive): when struck by a fire or heat based attack the attack is negated and the next ice fire stream deals extra damage. However, if struck by an ice or cold attack, the damage taken is increased, and ice fire stream’s next use is negated, and all strength based actions are weakened considerably until ice fire streams next use.
     (Merit level 1) Absorb heat (passive): when struck by a fire or heat based attack, the attack is negated and the heat level is temporarily rasied by one for one round, however if struck by an ice or cold attack the damage taken is doubled and the heat level is temporarily reduced by one for one round

 

(Merit level 2) : Super strength: This unit may perform a fiatable strength based action, with its immense strength. this is dependent on the ice fire engine, and as such the maximum output depends on the heat level. if it pushes itself hard enough it is capable of immense feats, but may lower the heat level in its exertion. If this unit must check strength for any reason, this is the ability which is taken into account. If the use of this action lowers the heat level, the engine may stall

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Endlessblaze

[kj1225]

Aquila sends the skirmisher out the door of the ship. He walks over to the loot with the man's clothes and items.

1 Assault Rifle (2d6 + dex damage), 1 Biotic Field Projector (Once per encounter, heal 3 targets 2d8 + int HP), 1 Body Armor (+3 resistance) and one set of Talon Skirmisher clothes added to the loot pile.

 

He eventually runs back inside to find Nader, struck by an idea with all the armor.

[Projeck]

Contagion took a seat on the floor somewhere, taking the plasma battery he made earlier out. A few rearrangements of parts, and a few other bits and bobs and... suddenly, Contagion has a Plasma Torch. He nods approvingly, pocketing the device. He idly inspected parts of the derelict.

[Powder Miner]

Nader hadn't entered the ship until a few moments after the others had made contact with each other; he had no intention of being the first guy to find out if the other team was dead and it was an ambush, thank you very much. Now, when this turned out not to be the case, Nader did head inside, leaning on an inner wall with his Horsekiller's tip resting on the ground as he stood while others talked and did things, just taking the contents of the derelict in.

 

Then Aquila approached him, and the Forenian turned his head to look in his direction, pulling himself out of his lean against the wall. "Yeah? Need something?"

[kj1225]

Aquila points at Nader's armor. No point beating around the bush.

"I assume that you designed that armor yourself? I can tell it's not standard at least."

[Powder Miner]

Though Nader's expression is of course inscrutable on account of it being hidden behind his mask, his voice does take on a definite tone of pride at Aquila's query. "Well, the base of this armor was for the Moskurg military when I was a weapons engineer before the rebellion, so it isn't as if I was alone on it, but I did contribute to the design of the original Tiger Infantry Armor, particularly in terms of the shaping of and fitting together of plates to best deflect bullets. This right here is my Rabid Tiger Infantry Armor, though, and I've put seven years of work into it. The weapon mountings are my work, as are the joints everywhere but the shoulders. The fitted mask, and the armor on the legs as well as the undersides of the arms are my work as well. Why?"

[kj1225]

Aquila nods. In hindsight, the conversation is vaguely amusing given that both of them are masked. Aquila gestures with both hands as he speaks.

"Well, we have like, shit loads of armor from the guys we killed. So I was thinking that maybe we could upgrade my armor. You know, make me bigger and scarier so other people attack me first... also I think I have a hole somewhere in my torso and my chainmail obviously did nothing."

Aquila gestures vaguely, revealing that he does indeed have a hole in his armor.

[Powder Miner]

Nader bends at his hips slightly to peer down at the hole, letting out a "hmmmmm." "I think I could probably help, but I'll warn you not to expect miracles from me. A lot of your problem is probably just going to be metallurgy, and to be honest it seems to me that these guys have some pretty shitty armor materials. Still, I might be able to fit together armor upgrades that can deal with ballistics better, mess around with the involved angles... yeah, I could take a shot at it. Won't be doing anything like reshaping it as we are now, though."

[kj1225]

Aquila shrugs.

"Fine by me. Maybe we could get the guy with the mask to help as well. He looked handy... oh, and we have an extra pair of clothes without blood on them. If you need them."

[Powder Miner]

"There are a lot of us with masks, if you have not noticed. Are you referring to the other knight or to the guy who gasses people?" After letting Aquila reply to that question, he continues in order to say two more things. "You're lucky in some respects here; I'm already used to working with a large bureau of other engineers, so working with a group of other designers doesn't actually much bother me at all. I won't want the clothes, though; I don't really need a fabric backing for my armor work, and I doubt I'd need one just to upgrade your armor. Plus, that probably involves stripping a dead guy mostly naked, and that's a little creepy."

Edited December 1, 2017 by Powder Miner

[kj1225]

Aquila indicates that he does indeed mean Colonel Mustard without making a reference he shouldn't know. At that last comment he somehow looks awkward.

"... would it be less weird if I told you he's alive?"

[Powder Miner]

Nader is silent for a couple of moments, before he bursts into sudden laughter. "No shit, did you actually make one of these guys strip?! That's probably fucked up on some level, but it's honestly way funnier than anything I expected to hear. Ahah... still don't actually need it, though. All I need is the pieces of armor, maybe a little bit of extra metal depending on how things go, since we're just talking about upgrades here."

[kj1225]

Aquila smiles under the helmet.

"Man, he didn't even question it. Probably because Amelie, the woman you probably saw and was helping us out against the pig, scared the piss out of him for reasons I understand too well. But still, funny as all hell to watch."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

For a bit, Freya's work with the scattered corpses seemed to be going well. They seemed to be responding with her magic, beginning to jerk as they attempted to work themselves to a standing up position. Freya's current two zombies, the bear and other soldier, watched with non-existent interest as their mistress went to work, starting to get excited for her new wave of minions.

 

... At least, before each of them suddenly froze, and before Freya could figure out why, each began to quickly dissolve into black mist, being scattered by the light breeze.

 

For a second, Freya was completely baffled by the sight. That had never happened before, and Freya really didn't know how to react. In fact, she kind of felt a sudden dread, like she just fucked up, hard. At least, that feeling was there for less than 5 seconds before Freya shrugged, "Ah well, come on you two, lets go on in" Freya said, turning on her heel and marching towards the ship, her two zombies walking after her.

[DragonRage]

"Possibly," Amelie tells Marisa.  Somehow, despite her having apparently not moved, the huge knife is back in her hands, as she cleans the synthetic spidersilk off of the sharp blade.  "They are certainly far more interesting than anything else that has happened recently."

 

"Not much," Vitor tells Leo, "We kicked some Talon butt, and have been exploring this place.  If you can do anything to figure out what it is and how to work it or fix it, go right ahead but be careful!  I get the feeling it's ancient, and powerful, and might not take kindly to being messed with in a bad way.  It's taking me a really long time to get a reading, though, because of how old it is.  I think this thing might be from the Age of Gods!"

[Strider]

Only one person had arrived at the helm of this ship. The man with the doombot, and other control of electronics. Dangerous. Potentially valuable. Could he pilot this vehicle? And was there any purpose in trying to do that?

 

"You said you were Alan? You control drones and other electronics? I would like to know more about this. For understandable reasons, hopefully." She tilted her head, but was otherwise still as she asked the questions.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

As Freya stepped into the ship, admiring the size of it and feeling the resonating magic from the large vessel, she suddenly paused, something that would seem completely random for her, even if her zombies stopped with her. For Freya, she had suddenly heard a voice... Something that sounded angelic... Musical... And disembodiment. Like it was echoing across the walls. And then, her face began to pale as more voices joined in, their music stacking upon each other, and when Freya brought a hand to her head as more and more voices kept joining in, she realized something.

 

These weren't just voices singing happily with each other.

 

They were the screaming souls of thousands... Nay, MILLIONS of souls, each tormented for who knows how long. With that realization, Freya suddenly felt like this place was just... Wrong. The walls around her felt tainted, like they shouldn't exist... But they did, keeping their tainted selves as the screams of pain continued.

 

Then, wordlessly, Freya spun on her heel, marching off with a sudden look of anger on her face, looking to find where these souls were stuck. Whoever did this... This... Horrible tragedy was going to pay. Right after Freya made things right.

[DragonRage]

Freya stomps down the corridors of the derelict, and is easily able to reach the engine room near the stern, where the powerstone rests.  The huge crystal, easily the size of a large carriage, rests in a bed of complex machinery that seems to be drawing something from it.  The softly glowing gem would be beautiful to anyone else, but Freya can see a swirling mess of tormented souls beating desperately against the sides of the artifact.  They seem to have been compressed in there, millions upon millions of individual souls left somehow unharmed by being crammed into a space clearly far too small for them.  Even worse, the magical energy being siphoned from the crystal clearly doesn't contain any souls or soul bits.  (26 v 9) With careful examination, containing her rage for the moment, Freya is able to deduce that whoever created this crystal somehow packed it full of a substance with a high mana content, and compressed it to increase its density and power.  Like an entire leyline, or maybe something bigger.  And whoever was living on top of that magical energy source was trapped as well, the creator uncaring of the tragedy he'd caused.  Freya doesn't even think it would be that difficult to set some or all of the souls free, but the previous owners were either unaware of their presence, or just didn't care enough to try.

[Chevaleresse]

Lucine, breathing a sigh of relief and looking much more lively now that she was topped off on mana, took a few more moments to wonder at the strange magical device alongside Vitor. "It definitely seems powerful enough. . ." She looked at the thing in much the same manner as she'd looked at the rather large guns on display. "How would you even make something like this? It's like. . . a massive leyline confluence, by itself. It should have drained all of the leylines around for miles."

 

Marisa briefly considered a snarky response before taking the woman's answer at face value. "Interesting is good. I've seen this type before; if you like interesting and don't particularly mind 'safe' not being part of the equation, following them around will get you what you want." The woman was more distracted with her examination of her surroundings, though. Was that bulkhead. . . growing? Or, healing was the right term. She drifted in the general direction of the mana source she was picking up, waiting on a reaction (or lack thereof) from the blue individual before proceeding.

[kj1225]

Aquila stares at the results of Contagion and Nader's... attempt. He looks between them before picking up the "suit of armor". He's silent for a bit before speaking slowly, as if he's trying very hard to be polite.

"Thanks for the... help. I'm just gonna go find a place to put this."

With that he goes to shove it in some closet until he can find someone that can actually make it useful. And also find the booze. There's no way someone would make a ship without a place for alcohol.

[GodofGamingRWBY]

As Freya turned the corridor, storming through the ship with her two zombies following behind, Freya honestly wondered what exactly she would find.

 

And when she finally reached the room where she KNEW the souls were stuck in, she audibly gasped, dropping her staff and bringing her hands to her mouth in shock and terror. Her bear let out a small sound, a breathless wine of worry for Freya, while the burned zombie shifted uncomfortably.

 

Whatever she was seeing, it was horrifying. It was appealing. The slaughter of hundreds of mages by the hands of the Purifiers didn't even come close to what she was seeing. It was some kind of gem, pulsing with pure magic energy, with power a Dragon could only DREAM of possessing. But for Freya, she saw the truth to it... Millions of souls pounding desperately at the sides of the gem, clawing desperately to get away from it. That explained how it was so powerful... It had all of those souls trapped in it... Trying to escape.

 

...

 

.......

 

No.

 

That wasn't the source of the magic's power. The power emanating from the gem was more... Nature like, not soul like. It wasn't being powered by the souls... It was being powered by a magical place compressed into it. The souls were just an accessory.

 

Spoiler

Spirit Walk (level 1, trick):  Freya can exit her body and walk around without it, becoming invisible and intangible to non-soul objects and beings.  However, she cannot interact with the physical world in this state.  Should Freya spend more than 5 minutes per hour outside her body, her body might start to degrade.  Freya can also equip this action as a passive, granting her the ability to affect spirits as though they were physical beings with her actions.

 

Suddenly, Freya's body froze as her soul departed from it, floating closer to the gem. The world around her was now hazy, grey, indistinct... But the gem was bright, sharp, and the souls were screaming louder than before, now that she was able to clearly hear them,

 

"You poor things... What happened here? Who did this to you?" Frey asked as she floated towards the gem, face full of sadness as she stared at the gem, at the souls trying to escape.

[Endlessblaze]

Leo hops down into the crystal room, hearing vitor.
"well, my analyses spell is not quite complete, but I might still be able to figure something out."
Leo heads over to look at the hole in the hull having noticed it shifting slightly.

"Ok first off. This is growing. The wood is mending itself, and the metal is following suit. This implies the wood and perhaps the metal is alive, and there is the possibility I will be unable to use shape solid on this stuff normally. I'm going to try and get a sample"

 Leo cast shape solid and true to his predictions the spell fails to take hold.

"Alright not a surprise."

He Pulls snow from her sheath and gets to work on trying to cut a small sliver, but after a few moments, He finds that nothing is really happening.

"Wow this stuff is tough. I wonder if..."

The metal and wood shifts and a sliver of wood and metal grows before falling off and landing at his feet.

"Well now...that's interesting. If this thing is alive, does it have a mind? It seems to have recognized my intent..."

He picks the shard up and looks it over. 

"I'm going to need to study this. Self healing golems sound fun. This thing merits more study, if I can find the seat of its consciousness, or AI or whatever it has, I might be able to communicate with it."

He doesn't seem to notice fryea's shock at the gem. To engrossed in the material he was running his fingers over.

 

Then he starts doing some testing, channeling bits of mana into the sample.

Spoiler

The derelict's hull metal produces 'reflection' mana, which seems to send magic that touches it back as though it were rays of light. The derelict's wood produces 'symbiosis' mana, which makes organisms exposed to it more inclined to coexist.

Pleased by the resulting silver grey, and green manas he preforms another test. Attuning the mana of the wood, to the mana of the metal, and vise versa

Spoiler

wood > metal turns into 'Hard Disk' mana, which coats inorganic solids in layers of a reflective, metallic substance identical to what is found on the surface of computer storage disks.

 

metal > wood creates 'Eyeball' mana, which instantly turns into eyeballs the moment it is created.

The type and quality of the eyeballs is entirely randomized.

He seems pleased and interested by the results and types them into his computer, pocketing the samples. gears turning as he had some interesting ideas.

This session of testing consumes one point of mana. Leo now has 4 small bits of the different attuned manas...well...3 manas and an eyeball.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Endlessblaze

[Yours Truly]

2 hours ago, Strider said:

Only one person had arrived at the helm of this ship. The man with the doombot, and other control of electronics. Dangerous. Potentially valuable. Could he pilot this vehicle? And was there any purpose in trying to do that?

 

"You said you were Alan? You control drones and other electronics? I would like to know more about this. For understandable reasons, hopefully." She tilted her head, but was otherwise still as she asked the questions.

Alan quietly looked around the helm with a thoughtful expression on his face  after he heard Ena's question, because he honestly didn't know anything about how this magic ship was supposed to work, and a cursory glance of the controls didn't really help him at all. "I honestly don't know much about this ship other than the fact that it is both ancient enough to not have any computers for me to manipulate, and magical enough to technically not have any obvious electronics for me to mess with.". He then walked towards the nearby controls to try and find out how they were meant to be used, and after some time had passed he finally said. "Also Ena, can you think of anyone here who might be able to pilot a helicopter and an ancient sailing ship? Because this ship's controls seems to be a freakish crossbreed between the pair and I don't know how to sail a boat".