[IC] Tengoku no Owari CT, Chapter 1.2

[Zetaark]

"Well this sounds like a lovely thing to deal with," Sasha remarks sarcastically. Hearing about what she's dealing with isn't too amusing, but with proper navigation, it should be fine. She half wondered how her requiem would affect the tendrils, but she decided that testing that out would be a bit dodgy. "So, if we grab the wards off of the mononoke, this Gashadokuro thing will go for them instead?" Sasha asks, parts of a plan coming together. "Also Chise, mind pointing out any tendrils so I don't run into one or warp through one. I'd rather not find out what that could do to this thing at this stage," Sasha asks, hoping for some navigation as she infiltrates the fortress.

[Ragnarok97071]

"Understood. You will likely want to cut speed some so I can keep up."

 

She'd begin to call out the positions of obstructions as they come near, guiding her through the network.

 

"The primary concern is that they would likely notice if we take one out without careful planning, but if we can do so we can get inside easier."

[Zetaark]

"Fair, though hopefully there are some gaps that we can slip through so that we don't have to deal with them at all," Sasha says, slowing down a bit as she navigates the field towards one of the walls of the fortress. With Chise's assistance, she'll search out a place that doesn't have any tendrils between the outside and inside and warp the wall through for a moment to see what she can find.

[DragonRage]

"Invisible, you say?  I might have something for that."  Tor casts the maneuver card Infrascan, which gives him and any allies he has (allied players, so it'll hit his IRL allies too) night vision goggles that can translate infrared radiation, aka heat, into a visible display.  The card's in-game effect is to reveal traps and other concealed stuff until it's destroyed by enemies, so hopefully it'll help us see what we're really up against.

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Immanuel: 5
Marina: 3
Tor: 1

 

Fort Jackass: 3

 

[Now Playing: Vendetta]

 

Tor pops Infrascan and well, you're fairly sure what you're seeing isn't exactly infrared, you're definitely seeing something. Namely the remainder and majority of Fort Jackass. True to what Chise saw, the whole thing vaguely ressembles a fractal spiderweb of fused bone, great tendrils anchored into the buildings around the interception, subfortifications and palisades built up upon it and a great skull looming in the very center, dormant for now. The details are, somewhat hazy, washed out, the cloaking good enough to resist the card's effect to an extent, though not enough to hide the general picture. So first thing everyone notices, is that there really aren't too many thick tendrils, like ones that are just plain infeasible to blast through, there's a couple more that can take more hits, but most of the ones that will stop attacks that don't come from right below are not going to take too much firepower to blast through. It's enough to maybe buy time for whatever you're firing at, but that's about it. Secondly, the gashadokuro really isn't that into whatever these mononoke are doing. It's kinda just chilling there, like, it's not really trying to protect them or anything, it's just, chilling there with palisades and shit built ontop of it. Only places where it seems to provide much additional protection to are the four subforts which have their walls wrapped with somewhat thicker tendrils. Going to be more work to blast through, but still can be blasted through if you focus fire.

Oh, one more thing. Fort jackass is lit up with heat signatures from the mononoke, but there's another signature further away, near the top of one of the nearby buildings. A solitory heat signature. An observer? A sniper? Hard to tell, but sketchy as all hell right now and if they're packing heat they'll have a shot on basically everyone other than Sasha and Chise.

So Marina immediately blasts her assailant, the general area around them, and really their general direction with paint. The kegare blast was something that came out of the blue, but it's become quite clear that it couldn't quite see past her concealment either and was just going off of when she poked it - the blast doesn't even adjust as she moves out of the way, crashing through and dissipating the air she once occupied. Splashed with hot pink paint, she can see what attacked her now, a collection of tendrils coiled up into the upper body of a skeletal figure, a few errant wisps of ruinous energy still dissipating from its hands. Most of the tendrils around it, and the walkway immediately below have been stained, so they probably won't be too much of an issue anymore. The now paint-splahed soldiers there, the ones looking kinda pissed about the whole thing? Yeah uh, they're probably gonna be more angry. Turns out the paint barrage didn't do wonders for her stealth, so Marina can just feel her cloaking dissipate as the soldiers begin firing up at her, tracers lighting up the night as the skeletal body tries to go for a left hook.

Unfortunately a four of them on a different walkway also see Immanuel now and talk cover behind some of the metal barriers, firing at him. Of those, two aim their underbarrel weapons and fire, missiles of arcane energy and swirling blood racing towards him.

With the whole fortress on alert and trying to shoot down the two aerial intruders, Chise and Sasha find their work a bit easier with everyone distracted. With the general structure revealed by Tor and local details revealed by Chise's supernatural senses, the pair soon navigate their way over to one of the subfortresses. Unfortunately, with bone tendrils covering the walls like ivy, cannons lining the top, and the bottom being built on one of the large "branches" of the fort, trying to find a good spot for a portal peek proves to be tricky. So they just peek in from one of the gaping entrances. Can't stare for too long - there are soldiers positioned inside, assault rifles at the ready, but the main centerpiece of this whole thing seems to be an enshrined pillar, restrained by, is that pasta? It appears to be caged in a structure of pasta covered in those paper shinto talismans. Well, the talismans are shinto, but some of the inscriptions look distinctively pastafarian.

 

Spoiler

Immanuel
Status: Fine, wishes for maneuverability and wall phasing, 3x railguns
World Line: 3 5 4 4 5 1 5 1 6 1
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
 
Marina
Status: Fine, wishes for drilling and a paint-based catalyst
World Line: 4 2 2 6 6 5 5 3 1 4
Alterations: 3+
Resolve: 3
 
Tor
Status: Fine, Infrascan
World Line: 5 3 5 5 1 3 6 6 3 4
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
 
Fort Jackass
Status: Fully operational, decloaked, some of the section near Marina has been painted

Deployed Units: 4 soldiers near Immanuel, 6 soldiers and a skeleton near Marina

 

Unknown Observer

Status: Unknown

Spoiler

1s can't screw up actions that a character can trivially perform, so Tor's decloaking went off fine even with a 1.

 

[IntSys]

Marina flew upwards to a subfort and threw starry fireballs - fused with oil paint - at the poor soldiers stationed there. With the opening barrage, she made sure to clear the subfort's surface before she landed somewhere on there that wasn't currently covered by burning oil paint, taking cover from the skeletal body's hook and the tracing fire from the other subforts.

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel quickly decided that he really didn't want to get stuck in a protracted fight against four different people at once as he practiced some rather evasive maneuvers to try and not get hit by even a single drop of blood before he fired an exothermic grenade enchanted both by the launcher's barrel, and a double portion of Überwältigen to hopefully spray every single one of them with red hot sticky love before he activated his jetpack o rocket towards a building close to the sniper's current position.

 

Arcane Infusion: Überwältigen [6] and 1 exothermic grenade used, alteration to shift the 3 to the adjacent 5.

[Zetaark]

"The heck is that thing? We stumble on some weird pastafarian nonsense or something?" Sasha mutters after seeing the pillar inside of the fortress. She had no idea what the thing was supposed to be, but it was probably a target. Considering her options, she mulled over either dropping Chise in to deal with the mononoke inside and examine the pillar more, or send a sneaky shot in and bail, allowing them to bust the thing while they were somewhere else. After some consideration, she looked over to Chise, since one of the plans did involve her more directly.

 

"So, we can either send in a shot to blow up the pillar when we're off, or I can drop you in there and...deal with the guys inside. Choice is yours," Sasha remarks, holding her rifle in one hand and preparing a quick warp through in case Chise wants to drop in.

[DragonRage]

Tor is going to set a trap, "Emergency Grav-Shield", which will negate one instance of ranged damage aimed at the user.  Then, he'll summon "Stealthy Skyraider", a sleek, black, stealth starfighter, to give him a lift up to where the mysterious maybe-sniper is lurking.  He'd like to make sure nobody friendly gets shot in the face.  That would be bad.

[Ragnarok97071]

She considers for a moment. They were as close as they were going to get. She focuses on trying to get as much information as possible. Was there anyone else nearby she could sense? Any other way to get in the building? If it was just the two, it's possible that she could get in and take them out before they can react, or at least silence them. If they had backup, though, it would likely be better to use the shot.

 

"CIRCLE AROUND THE BUILDING SO I CAN GET A GOOD IDEA OF THE INTERIOR. AS CLOSE AS IS SAFE, PLEASE."

[Zetaark]

"Alright, I'll do what I can," Sasha replies as she begins to circle around, using her powers to peek through when possible in order to give Chise a better view.

[Ragnarok97071]

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT BREACHING THE WALLS. I CAN SEE THROUGH THEM ANYWAY IF WE'RE CLOSE ENOUGH."

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Immanuel: 5, Hyper[6]

Marina: 4

Tor: 5

 

Fort Jackass: 4

Squad A: 2

Squad B: 1

 

[Now Playing: Vendetta]

 

Marina dances through Squad A's gunfire, tossing more bolts of paint down, she finds to her dismay that the skeleton isn't as dumb as it looks, and fairly fast on top of it, making it swing midway through her own dodge. She catches the blow with her arms, skidding backwards in the air, a bit hurt from the impact but not too bad. She darts over the subfort trailed by the skeleton who is now readying another kegare blast. Behind them, Squad A burns amidst the aftermath of her barrage. The ringing in her ears grows louder.

 

Immanuel meanwhile darts the fuck away from Squad B leaving them a little special surprise in the form of his own grenade. The projectile seems to sink into bone of the walkway itself before thin flailing filaments of white hot copper explode up in sprays of shrapnel all around the squad. As they attempt to dive for cover and shoot him, they manage to fail at both, diving right into the tendrils and slicing themselves apart. His ears begin to ring.

 

This, makes Tor's job a little harder. Whether or not the observer was already aiming is hard to tell, but dashing at him probably didn't help Immanuel. As Tor flanks from the side he sees a flash of light. A sniper round is tearing through the air towards Immanuel, aimed not for him, but rather his grenade launcher. There's movement coming from inside the building, they're about to crash down, through the floor, deeper into the structure.

 

While this is all happening, Ssasha circles Chise around the back of the subfort letting the gimp cocoon work her magic. There's at least six more units positioned near the back. Straw dolls steeped in curses. No organs. No internal structure just a myriad of curses, their interplay akin to nervous signals, though nervous signals generally don't extend past the body as they do here. These mononoke, they're all linked together, like ants or insects with curses instead of pheromones. Even without that troublesome formation it may be difficult to kill them, for their deaths will almost certainly release a signal, a warning. Unless of course you can mask it somehow. Their guns are unremarkable, just rifles with underbarrel weapons and vials of blood.

 

Spoiler

Immanuel
Status: Fine, wishes for maneuverability and wall phasing, 3x railguns
World Line: 3 4 4 5 1 5 1 1 6 2
Alterations: 4
Resolve: 3
 
Marina
Status: Slightly hurt, wishes for drilling and a paint-based catalyst
World Line: 2 2 6 6 5 5 3 1 4 4
Alterations: 4+
Resolve: 3
 
Tor
Status: Fine, Infrascan, Emergency Grav-Shield, Stealthy Skyraider
World Line: 3 5 5 1 3 6 6 3 4 6
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
 
Fort Jackass
Status: Fully operational, decloaked, some of the sectiosn near Marina has been painted, awakening

Deployed Units: One skeleton chasing Marina

 

Squad A

Composition: 6 Mononoke

Status: All burning, soon to be dead

 

Squad B

Composition: 4 Mononoke

Status: All dead

 

Garisson A

Composition: At least 8 Mononoke

Status: Alert, readied

 

The Sniper

Status: Unknown

Spoiler

I've split the squads off from the fortress status for easier handling.

 

[IntSys]

"This noise again! You're coming... from below!" Marina pushed herself directly upwards with a stream of paint rockets fired at the ground beneath her, before quickly drawing an Astra Shield before her to parry the oncoming kegare blast. As soon as the blast was blocked, she would fly to the nearest subfort aside from the one she just set on fire and proceed to blast paint rockets and fireballs at the guards there again.

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel decided to try and react as quickly and mundanely as possible by simply... attempting to drop his grenade launcher and push it down with a magical shield in time to prevent it and its explosive payload from becoming damaged, with the intent to retrieve it as soon as it is out of danger and track down the sniper by going through a nice window kool aid man style.
 

[Ragnarok97071]

"THEY ARE DANGEROUS. KILLING THEM WILL SEND A SIGNAL TO THE OTHERS STATING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED UNLESS THE SIGNAL CAN BE BLOCKED. THEY ARE NETWORKED TOGETHER. IF WE ARE TO KILL THEM, WE WILL EITHER NEED TO DAMPEN THE WARNING SIGNAL TO PREVENT IT FROM LEAKING OR NOT BE HERE WHEN IT GOES OFF.

 

SIX ADDITIONAL UNITS, FOR A TOTAL OF EIGHT. UNLIKELY THE STEALTH APPROACH WILL WORK IF WE NEED TO ELIMINATE THAT ALTAR."

[Zetaark]

"That right? Well, all that means is that stealth ko'ing the mononokes isn't a viable option to get to the alter. Doesn't mean there aren't other methods of handling it undetected. Well, us being undetected anyways" Sasha responds with a grin as she aims a shot close to the alter, but one that won't make any noticeable noise or impact.

 

"At any rate, this shot will be a little gift for later so to speak. And provided it goes in unnoticed, we can move on to the next part of this fortress, with nobody being the wiser. I'll just need you to let me know where any off spots are in the room so I can avoid them, alright?" Sasha asks as she sets up an explosive shot to be fired into the room, hopefully obscured by her current stealth. The nice convenience of this particular bullet means that it can be left in the room for however long they need, so even if its detonated, provided they're far enough away, nobody could pinpoint the exact attacker.

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Immanuel: 3

Marina: 2, Hyper[4]

Tor: -EJECTED-

 

Unidentified Epithet: 5

Fort Jackass: 1

 

[Now Playing: Vendetta]

 

Well, first off Marina fails her parry mainly because the attack never came out - in a flash of brilliance, the skeleton just forgets that it needs to actually fire the gathered energy instead of just letting it explode and cave in its torso. So with her pursuer having blown itself apart, she finds herself free to just fly over to the next subfort and start raining down paint. The next subfort over quicky finds its bone shell covered in paint and set aflame, unfortunately, due to it being an enclosed structure and all that, the guards aren't so much dead so much as pinned inside. Two squads rush into position on the walkways to your sides. With the battle now in full swing, they're a little more organized quickly getting into cover. In each squad, three soldiers open fire on you, not so much aiming as much as they're aiming to suppress buying time for the fourth soldier in each to pour vials of blood down onto the walkway.

 

With Chise tracking locations and forwarding lines of sight, all Sasha needed to do was fire the bullet. Easier said than done. Phasing through solids is a rather, difficult process, needs a fair bit of focus, prep time, or maybe just a degree of shiftiness and a mechanical arm exclusively used to beat women, the latter two departments something the lady finds herself quite lacking in. Warping shots around corners, that's a bit easier, still time consuming though, and threading that needle is awfully difficult without a spotter who can see through wall, y'know, like Chise. So that's how it goes down, an explosive shot fired just outside the entrance and warped along the ceiling into the altar. Seems to have worked, the guards seem more preoccupied by the explosion they hear in the distance anyway.

 

Speaking of said explosion...

 

Immanuel, you're down a grenade launcher. On account of it uh, rather violently detonating. Now, you're pretty sure, even with it being a rush job and all that simply getting hit by a bullet wouldn't be enough to set off the thing's payload. And you'd be right, trouble is, it wasn't just shot. It, wasn't a regular bullet. The Rafoss Mk 211 antimaterial round, on top of being armor-piercing, is also incendiary and explosive, two words you do not want right next to your live munitions. The fact that it did that in addition to violently expanding into a fractal tangle of ivory tendrils really doesn't help either. Times like these you're glad you got armor, if that thing gets inside you, you'd probably have to literally tear it out of your damn circulatory system. Not a fun prospect. The blast spins you out, slowing your approach to the window. Though you do at least catch a glimpse of your target as they crash a couple floors down, right before they vanish into the dust and debris.

 

They were probably a mononoke from the fortress, at least, at one point, now all but consumed by the Epithet. All that remains are the talismans, the robes are gone, replaced by a utility uniform and eight-point cover in MARPAT camo. Rifle's real distinctive, ivory white but concealed by black wrappings, minimalistic, barrel looks sharp, real sharp, like you could run through a man with it. Infascan is still tracking them, so that's something at least. If he's planning on escaping into the dust he's got another thing coming, doesn't look like his plan though. Still holding his rifle with one hand, he draws a pistol with the other and starts firing at you with both weapons on semi-auto.

 

Tor, it's hard to tell just what happened with him, but the last you guys see of him is diving off his ship and tackling a card-wielding sieg heiling forklift out of the Sanctuary.

 

Spoiler

Immanuel
Status: Somewhat hurt, wishes for maneuverability and wall phasing, 3x railguns
World Line: 4 4 5 1 5 1 1 6 2 1
Alterations: 4+
Resolve: 3
 
Marina
Status: Slightly hurt, wishes for drilling and a paint-based catalyst
World Line: 2 6 6 5 5 3 1 4 6 6
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
 
Tor
Status: Off fighting the Lost Battalion of Hitler's Magical Racist Forklift Army
 
Fort Jackass
Status: Fully operational, decloaked, some of the sections near Marina has been painted, awakening

Deployed Units: None

 

Squad C

Composition: 4 Mononoke

Status: Fine

 

Squad D

Composition: 4 Mononoke

Status: Fine

 

Garisson A

Composition: At least 8 Mononoke

Status: Alert, readied, Explosive Shot on Power Source (1 Turn)

 

Garisson B

Composition: Unknown

Status: Exterior is painted and ablaze, guards are pinned by Marina

 

Unidentified Epithet

Status: Fine

Spoiler

IntSys, remind me again, is Astral Shield a one-turn deal or a one-hit deal? Can't remember it and like the dumbass I am, I never noted it down.

 

Dragon has been ejected for inactivity.

 

[Yours Truly]

Immanuel will then proceed to do the most reasonable thing he has ever done in his life and attempts to phase through the wall before he attempts to supress their movements with a barrage of plasma bolts to try and get him to stay still behind cover for long enough to allow Immanuel to fire his shoulder mounted railgun at them. He then quickly lands and slams another shoulder mounted railgun down using his hammer to try and get it to quickly fire at the target if it pops out again.

 

4 roll, Arcane Infusion: Kanonenplatzierung [5].

[Empiricist]

Nearby

Your name is Owen Toirdhealbhach. You're a bouncer, and maybe a human lightning rod too.

 

Five minutes ago you were standing in downtown Sendo keeps drunks out a bar. Now, you're well, let's get to that a bit later. First thing's first, why Sendo? Well there's the obvious answer, the answer you accepted, the answer you believed, and well, then there's the other answer, the one forming in your gut, the retrospective one. Let's start with the obvious one, you're here on a whim basically, felt you wanted a change of scenery, felt like Japan's where to be, and well if you're a foreigner looking to start a life in Japan, Sendo's the place to be. Cute. Is it the right one though? A bit hard to tell, waters have been a bit muddied. This blade of yours, "Fragarach", it's certainly an oddity, you already filed some shit with SpecProv, tried to trace it, no records of it. Okay, maybe it wasn't something made on the government's dime then. Foundry? Tried that too, they said the construction was, anomalous, abnormal to an extent. Nothing major, but some of the quirks don't sit too right, some of them seem consistent with things fished out of Heaven's Gate.

 

Heaven's Gate, it's a big research facility here in Sendo. Its foundations were here from the very beginning, its fate tied to that of this city, and to Walpurgisnacht. Lotta foreign powers involved in it, lotta experimental work done in it too or so you here. Well, "experimental" might be a bit too flowery. "Drunken" is probably closer to the truth, "reckless" too. You heard they tried to summon God inside there. Sounds about right. Point is, it's not inconceivable Fragarach first appeared there, crystallizing out from the universe's memories, dredged out by some shady technician or just simply created as part of an experiment no one cared to file a report for. Of course, you couldn't have known that back then, back when you decided to head out for Sendo. Coincidence? Maybe. Don't really like the idea that your sword is magically guiding you towards godknowswhat.

 

Thing is, it might not be so innocent. You hear whispers of the guy on the street, well maybe not on the street, in the back alleys more likely, of this armsdealer, calls himself The Kingmaker. Guy's a recluse, but he's influential, and those quirks of your weapon? They match his handiwork too. Maybe he's got guys on the inside in Heaven's Gate, maybe he's using stolen tech, or reverse engineered shit, but well, "vague and enigmatic" seems to be his modus operandi. So when that group of people passed by, when your sword began to react with them. Well, there really only was one way this could've gone down right? This could be a chance to get some answers, maybe. Who knows when the next chance will come? Would it ever come?

 

You followed them, as they vanished into the crowd, as they vanished into the depths of the nightbound Sanctuary.

 

So that's where you find yourself now, watching a firefight from the shadows. They're assaulting some kind of fortress, looking kinda like one of those old japanese castles if it got dissembled, retrofitted with steel plating and naval cannons, and had its pieces scattered to the winds. There are four main subforts bristling with cannons (which don't seem to fire, maybe they don't target well against infantry?), those seem to be their targets. The lady with the bike and the gimp seemed to cloak, so you lost track of them, the magical girl cloaked too but she soon reappeared firing paint and fire all over the joint, started painting tendrils of bone, tendrils you didn't see (is the fortress partially invisible? Seems like it), one of them even coiling into the shape of a person. Crazy hair guy buggered off to, do something or other, and that leaves the more interesting thing in all this, the armored man.

 

The guy himself, okay not too interesting, got some cannons strapped to him, a grenade launcher, well had a grenade launcher anyway, was fighting a couple of Japanese priest looking fellows with assault rifles, the monoke this Sanctuary belongs to you presume, but that's not the interesting part, the interesting part is what happens next. The guy suddenly darts off towards this building and starts getting fired on by a sniper. That's happening right now even, and as a stray shot cracks past your head and into the asphalt, recognition hits.

 

The bullets are ivory white, and when they embed in something, they bloom with fractal tendrils, countless barbs racing out amidst a fiery blast. That tendril effect? Pretty fucking consistent with a certain other weapon of legends (gotta brush up on myth if you're getting handed with shit from it after all) - Gae Bulg, spear of Cu Culain, created from the bones of a sea monster, and which has the pretty distinctive and nasty effect of well, filling its victim's circulatory system with barbs. A fairly dangerous effect offset by the fact that it needs to actually stab into its victim first (something the weapon itself does not help with) and the fact that it well, y'know, needs to get cut out afterwards making it a one-shot kinda deal. Of course, these drawbacks only apply to a spear, if it was somehow taking the form of well, a semiautomatic antimaterial rifle like this one... yeah, things get a lot crazier.

 

Okay look, you admit it, you might just be grasping at straws here, this might just be a coincidence... but there's been a lot of fucking mights on your way here.

 

Spoiler

Owen
Status: Fine
World Line: 6 6 2 5 6 5 3 6 3 2
Alterations: 3
Resolve: 3

Spoiler

There is one new mechanic to remind you of: whenever you don't use a Hyper, you can choose to discard a result from your world line.

 

[IntSys]

"Oh! You're trying to wake the Gashawhatever with blood! Like that's going to happen on my watch!" Marina slugged paint-charged fireballs at the two soldiers pouring blood, before wishing for two huge sponges and sending them across the floor to absorb the blood. After all that, she would set the sponges and the other soldiers on fire with even more fireballs.

[StormLord]

Over the past couple week Owen had been slowly inching closer to just saying "Screw it" and leave this whole thing to sort itself out.  It just so happened though, that he caught this group here tonight.  The answers to at least some of his questions were standing in front of him, he just he to keep them from getting shot to death.

That train of thought abruptly ended as an ivory bullet exploded on the asphalt next to him and bloomed into a wicked flowering of bone tendrils.  While he recognized the effect he wasn't exactly sure what to do, he doubted that he'd get the chance to force-feed the sniper dog meat.

With a(perhaps foolish) snap decision Owen gestured upwards and called out.

"Lugh, ancient god of sun and storm, master of all trades, I call upon thee, I ask that you sling a stone from the heavens upon my enemies!"

With that Owen brought his hand down and pointed at roughly where the sniper was.  True to his request a tiny speck fall to that spot from the sky, quickly followed by a brilliant flash of lightning and deafening crack of thunder.

After what was hopefully a decent distraction Owen started running and took cover near the sniper's pillbox.

 

Call the Ancients: Spirit of Lugh [3]

Charge forward into cover.

[Zetaark]

"Success. Looks like the shot went through with no problems. Good job!" Sasha remarks, praising Chise for her assistance in navigating the shot. "Now then, time to move on to the next one. I'll be counting on you for navigation to avoid any obstacles all right?" Sasha asks as she pulls away from the fortress they were at, moving on to the next fortress that isn't immediately around the ensuing combat from the others. Though she wasn't about to break stealth yet, she would take passing glances to see if anything unusual was occurring.

[Ragnarok97071]

The belt-cocoon nods in affirmative, continuing to provide information as it becomes available, keeping an eye out for any strange enchantments or other things of note nearby that might affect their plan.

[Empiricist]

Spoiler

Immanuel : 4

Marina : 2

Owen : 6, Hyper[3]

 

Fort Jackass : 6

Squad C : 4

Squad D : 1

Hecatus (Cu Chulainn) : 5

 

[Now Playing: Vendetta]

 

Light tears through the dust as a bolt of lightning crashes down in the center of the room. Seeing his chance, Immanuel leaps into cover and then through said cover, unleashing a hellish spray of plasma. Unfortunately, it seems that cover is not something the Epithet cares much for, opting instead for the Hong Kong action movie approach of diving out the way firing with both guns. Guy reacts fast. Thinks fast too. Those bullets? It's not just return fire, it's aiming right for the joints in Immanuel's plating, the self-styled superhero having to take a couple Beretta rounds to avoid those rifle shots. Goddamn it, this guy's got some real monstrous force behind those attacks, even through his Regalia Immanuel's feeling those shots, worse the barrage has left him staggered and off-balance. Hmm, that seems to be their main asset: power and precision. They're agile, but that agility isn't quite suitable for machinegun fire, facing down against sustained fire it's likely only a matter of time before a plasma bolt finds its mark, the trick is in surviving long enough to do that.

 

This, is where shit gets a bit crazier. The Epithet steps to the side, discharges a single round aimed at between Immanuel's chestpiece and pauldron before leaping through the window. His visage flickers, fighting the effects of Tor's infrascan and seems to decay into a spreading heat signature. It's some kind of cloaking. Not enough to fully overpower infrascan, but enough to make his destination uncertain. Could be leaping out onto the ground below. Could be jumping up into the air. Or maybe, just maybe, he's running along that bone tendril, one two vials of blood are now falling towards.

 

Owen, you're just outside the room on Immanuel's side, having taken cover behind the wall in the commotion. This thing? Whatever the hell it is, it's matching up to the source material. Gae Bulg's a rifle, the sling's a hangun, outfit's a uniform. Appearance, it's hard to gauge, you don't have any way to see through that dust, so you only caught another glimpse of them as they literally vanished into thin air. Concealment. Chulainn was said to have used it before on himself and his chariot. That's bad news for you. The guy's fast, he's strong, he's precise. But if you can close in, well, all that won't matter as much when you can just arc electricity into him. Easier said than done, especially now that you got no idea where he is. There's two vials in the air too now, falling down towards the ground below. Some kind of diversion perhaps? Another thing does stand out to you here: Cu Chulainn uses a shield. Does this thing not have one too? Or is it because a shot from the armored man's cannons will blow through it?

 

Sasha as she glances around finds that yes, a lot of unusual things are indeed occurring. Firstly, the sniper seems to have reduced themselves into an expanding heat signature. Secondly, Immanuel's position was struck by lightning. Thirdly, Immanuel hasn't said a damn word to anyone about what the hell is going on. Oh and there's the simple fact of the matter that subforts are beginning to rotate their cannons around at the building the sniper was in. There's also the whole situation Marina seems to have found herself in, namely, that she's now staring down a squad of Mononoke whose commander is now posing rifle-in-hand with a rather large and imposing skeleton coiling around their body.

 

Chise for her part can feel curses coursing through the Monooke like pheromones, carried all across the fortress by the beatless pulse of the Gashadokuro. The fortress is going on alert now. As she approaches the next subfort, she finds that the garrisoned Mononoke are all far more active, and armored up with tendrils of bone. Impurity is flowing into their weapons. Looks like they're on high alert now. 'Course they're expecting an assault, not a pair of infiltrators. Still, this situation isn't exactly stable, the sleeping giant will soon awaken.

 

Marina, meanwhile now has to deal with Squad C and their new pet skeleton. Squad D fell easily, namely on account of the guy pouring the blood managing to somehow miss the tendril they were standing on, and the entire group just standing there like a bunch of lemons as she set them aflame. Squad C is a different matter. Try as she might, their covering fire ensured the blood found its mark before the sponge did, so when the fire balls started flying, a hulking skeleton had risen up and wrapped around the one pouring the blood (some kind of squad leader maybe?), it rushes forwards now, kegare-charged fists blasting apart the projectiles with a flurry of punches. Its body coils like a spring. It's about to launch itself and its master straight at the girl, assailing her with both kegare-laced bullets and flurry of blows. The ringing in her ears has returned.

 

Spoiler

Immanuel
Status: Fairly hurt, staggered, off-balance, wishes for maneuverability and wall phasing, 3x railguns
World Line: 4 5 1 5 1 1 6 2 1 5
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
 
Marina
Status: Slightly hurt, wishes for drilling and a paint-based catalyst
World Line: 6 6 5 5 3 1 4 6 6 4
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3

 

Owen
Status: Fine
World Line: 6 2 5 6 5 6 3 2 1 5
Alterations: 3+
Resolve: 3

Fort Jackass
Status: Fully operational, decloaked, some of the sections near Marina have been painted, awakening

Deployed Units: 32x? Combat Exoskeletons (probably at each subfortress), 1x Skeletal Guardian (around Squad C's Leader)

 

Squad C

Composition: 4 Mononoke - 3 Soldiers, 1 Squad Leader with Skeletal Guardian

Status: Fine

 

Squad D

Composition: 4 Idiots

Status: Brain-dead and burning

 

Garisson A

Composition: 8 Mononoke with Combat Exoskeletons

Status: High Alert, readied, Explosive Shot on Power Source (2 Turns)

 

Garisson B

Composition: Probably 8 Mononoke with Combat Exoskeletons

Status: Exterior is painted and ablaze, guards are pinned by Marina

 

Garisson C

Composition: 8 Mononoke with Combat Exoskeletons

Status: High Alert

 

Hecatus (Cu Chulainn)

Status: Fine, activating cloaking spell

Spoiler

Note that Owen's perception is slightly incorrect: those two vials are falling right onto one of Fort Jackass' tendrils. But since Owen was never buffed with Infrascan, he isn't able to see through the fortress and the Epithet's cloaking.

 

Immanuel's Hypers were never used since his action was to use it when his target got into cover which didn't actually happen.

 

Do remember that your turn results are also dependent on your World Line, so not using an alteration and taking a 2 when trying to neutralize two squads at once probably won't go too well unless they both roll shit.

 

That trick with the lightning strike was pretty smart. Even though Owen lacks the stats and descriptors to hope to hit, really anything, at range, it's still flashy and distracting, good as a diversion. It actually distracted the Epithet enough that they didn't immediately shoot Immanuel before he could even phase into the room.

 

Immanuel got screwed over by three main things here - he tried to engage a target with lots of precision and power alone, he didn't really make an attempt to dodge, he had his cannons out. That last one is yeah, not really an error in his judgement, more just, bad luck. If he hadn't prepared them and instead summoned them this turn, the Epithet could have made the fatal mistake of trying to block or take cover from his plasma bolts and eaten a railgun round.

 

Oh and just a reminder: You don't take wounds until your status reaches Critical. And even then wounds can be healed like any other injury (this isn't like Dark Heresy or anything). Basically no one's taken that much damage is what I'm trying to say. That being said, I wouldn't recommend trying to tank the Epithet's next shot - Immanuel's defenses are focused on his armor not his body, so if that attack goes deep enough to sink its barbs into his flesh, it's going to deal a lot more damage, and also make it real hard to fight.