DragonRage

"Why does everything fly?" Iowa grumbles unhappily. Things should stay on the ground. It's just natural. And she doesn't have any anti-aircraft guns... The incarnate battleship prods at the rents in her rigging with trepidation, wincing at the touch. "That's a lot of superstructure damage. He didn't get through my belt, but... I think I could use some time in port for repairs. Or... Whatever humans use instead? That might work on me. Maybe. God, this is confusing. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss Lyra. I'm also new; I only joined this group hours before they arrived on this world. That woman... fox... punching... thing is as well; landed on poor Mira just like you did. I am USS Iowa. Or Iowa, if you prefer."

"It should not be a significant problem," Alexandria asserts, "Let us go hunting for... runners? Ah, colloquialisms can be so interesting."

"Daemon! Prepare yourself for the God-Emperor's mercy, for his servants have none for your ilk!" Sister Rachel declares. She levels her Inferno Pistols at the flower creature, charges forward just close enough to be in range (a distance of about 20 feet), and opens fire on what appears to be the main body. "You shall blight this place no more! Taste holy fire and be purged!" Beams of microwaves, visible only in the blazing corona of heat thrown off by actually dangerous part as it scorches through the air, lance out toward the flower from her weapons, the ancient machine-spirits seeming just as eager to deliver the God-Emperor's wrath as their wielder.

Seeing that Arminius seems determined to engage the flower creature up close, Sister Rachel reluctantly swaps to her Inferno Pistols. They'll likely not be as effective against a plant-like enemy, but they're also a whole lot less likely to set Arminius on fire if things go wrong. She's reluctant to let him go in like that, but thus far she's been pleasantly surprised by her allies' competence. Either he knows what he's doing, or... Well, this wouldn't be the first time someone did something stupid and got their head exploded by a daemon.

Sister Rachel pulls her Incinerator flamer around on its shoulder strap, cradling it in her hands. It's still pointed at the ground rather than anyone, but she flicks the safety off, the holy pilot light giving the barrel a menacing blue glow. "Your nonsense does not fill me with confidence, creature. Souls are not such fragile, ephemeral things. And love does not strengthen them, only will, dedication, and contempt for daemon creatures such as you. Arminius, Calvera, don't approach. It's clearly trying to lure you in so that it may attack."

Izumi rather conveniently rolls up after the offer of drugs has been given, thus not hearing any of it. "Hey over there! Izumi Nakamura here. You the rest of the bunch getting sent in to kick demon ass?" She vaults off her motorcycle, scooping her arsenal out of the various holsters and pouches installed in place of saddlebags. "Let's get this done. Sooner we send this lot back to Hell, the sooner I get to stop staying up nights."

"I'm the only one with armor. I should probably go first," Rachel states, moving to enter the room before either of them, "If something ahead is hostile, I'll be more likely to survive. If not, no harm done."

Like T1, Zoe's also stabilized by the magnets in her boots; starships where she's from don't commonly have artificial gravity, so the revelation that this one did is a bit of a surprise. Have to swipe some of that for later. "Alright, mission time. Let's roll." Sword out, she shoves off the rocket, pointed at the complex. "YEET!"

Danielle, not having any good ways to hurt a zombie, attempts to scramble back to a safe distance. And somehow, that song keeps going even when she's stopped humming to squeak in surprise.

"Something is very odd about this place," Rachel observes uneasily, "If it was chaos, it'd probably have tried to attack us by now, so unless either of you have any ideas we're stuck in an unknown, possibly hostile location with a kid. We need to find a safe place to set up a base of operations and secure a perimeter. We could be down here for a while, and we'll need a place to sleep."

"I-what? I said if I wanted somebody dead I'd attack them on sight instead of waiting to stab them in the back later. I haven't attacked any of you. So you shot me before I could betray you later and stab a kid in the back despite me specifically stating I wasn't going to do that?" Zoe snorts, "And they call me crazy. I am, but not like that. What kind of scum-suckers do you- Wait, no, don't answer that. I think it's possible I might already know the answer. Still, there's gotta be a better way- Wait, no there isn't. After the treatment we got, there's no way 'Handsome Jack's' HR department is anything other than terribly incompetent."

"This place doesn't feel right," Vitor agrees, "I can't place why. The closest comparison is something I read in a science fiction book once. The description of a place that exists outside the universe, drawn from the imaginations of three people who'd all, simultaneously, tried to use a time machine that gets its destinations by reading the user's thoughts to go somewhere completely different. Unless there's a big, white sphere the size of a large dog sitting around here somewhere, that's not what's going on here though."

"Oh that hurt a lot more than I was expecting it to," Zoe groans, rolling over and levering herself into a seated position, scooping her sword up with one hand as she prods at her abused skull with the other. "Seeing what's coming doesn't tell you how much it's going to suck. Thanks for the offer, Jack, but no thanks. I don't think anyone here wants to see me on hard liquor. Take notes, future me. Don't get shot by that agai- Oh no. Nonono. Please tell me those void-suckers aren't still shooting at each other. And is that a spellbomb? "Y'all are at least as stupid as I am!" She shouts in Scarlet and Stella's general direction, before wincing, "Frikkin ow! What the heck was that riot gun loaded with? Rock salt and hy-no-three?" She gropes around her belt and comes up with a flask, which she takes a small sip from. Vapor rises from her wounds, which transition from raw and painful-looking to days-old in seconds. "What kind of rational adult goes straight from bragging to riot rounds, grenades, and whatever the slag that boom spell was that shook the ship? How am I the sane one here? There are many things wrong with this situation! Hey, wait a sec, if you guys shot me for what I said, that must mean I was right, because you couldn't refute my words! I knew you'd come around!"

"Wait a sec! Thunderlord!" Moonstar calls out after the mechanical girl, "You've still gotta hide that thing!" ----------------------------------------------- Strength check 23 v 16 success! Intelligence check 14 v 2 success! Aquila is able to easily shoulder his way through the crowd and get a grip on Freya's shoulder, anchoring her against the tide of nerds.

(6 v 20. Quality 1. Random bitz: 78.) Gozer attempts to draw a bridge from the stone, but for some reason it doesn't respond to his powers. He has to reach deeper, into the soil beneath. He does draw a bridge forth, but it's made of soil, and almost immediately collapses under its own weight. Edmond's suit works just as well as it did before he came to this world, with no serious differences. A few minutes of practice are enough to leave him as comfortable in the air as he was before.

Zoe's hand flies to the hilt of her sword even as Scarlet's goes to her gun. Sword and gun go up at exactly the same time, and even as Scarlet fires the blade's tip snakes out and deflects the blast into the ceiling. This of course leaves Zoe with no defense from the second blast which nails her right in the side of the head, sending her staggering across the cabin. She doesn't lose her grip on her sword, until the other side of her head collides with the luggage rack, sending blade and wizard clattering to the ground. "No thanks, sir or madam," Zoe slurs miserably, face down on the deck, "I'll take my pint of concrete to go. I've got an appointment..."

"That might have been the fairest fight I've ever been in," Iowa groans, slumping against a nearby tree and sucking down a canteen of her moonshine, "I think I'd like to go back to bullying sailing ships now. Ow."

"Ehehehehehehehehe.... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Zoe giggles in Stella's face, before escalating to loud, mildly off-kilter maniacal cackling, "U mad bro? If not, I can fix that! I can make up cool sounding stuff I did once too! I ate a hummer in one sitting! I took the Saltines Challenge and survived! I slew a scorpion made of magma and bathed in its sulfurous ichor! I punched Gilgamesh in the face and l didn't die! Wait, I actually did that last one, that doesn't count. And I probably could bathe in a magma scorpion's magma blood if I ever found one to try it with... Off topic off topic! "Wait, betray my allies? Never!" The wizard's head whips around with manic, twitchy speed as her eyes fix on Akihiro, "I'd never betray my allies! First. Then they might betray me back! That's just counter-productive. If you're going to betray somebody, you should just attack them the moment you meet them. Otherwise you're wasting everybody's time and that's just poor manners. I'm sure nobody here is rude, right?"

Rachel jogs over to Arminius, readying her Medicae. 'No visible wounds' is not the same as 'no wounds', after all, and standard Imperium triage procedure combined with common sense dictates that in an unknown environment, medical attention should be given to those best able to fight first. "Arminius, are you injured?" She asks, "Be wary. We shall need to watch each other's backs in this place if we're to get the child out safely. The God-Emperor only knows what might be lurking here, and He hasn't seen fit to share his knowledge with me. Could be friendly, of course. But one cannot count on things always going right. If you are well enough to fight, I will check on the child."

Rachel dashes past Lucine and the bladed wings on her jump pack extend with a harsh rasp of ceramite on steel. The ancient technology humming with power, she leaps headlong into the hole after the kid, hoping to catch her before she can land unsafely.

"It'll be easier to set up a secure perimeter inside the cave," Sister Rachel observes, "Assuming that whatever is scaring the birds isn't inside the cave." She draws her Nemesis Force Sword and rests it on her shoulder, "Better prepare for close quarters combat, people." Rachel takes up a rear guard position, where she can keep an eye on the whole group for injuries, and nobody's in the line of fire if something behind the team needs to be torched with her flamer.

“Psssh. I could do that. If I wasn’t, ya know, saving my spells for when we might actually need them,” Zoe reluctantly backs down to the reminder that we’re about to walk into a combat zone, “Just you wait until I’ve got a day where your lives don’t depend on me having a full scroll. I’ll show you some real fireworks, Useless Goddess.”

"Well, that doesn't make any sense at all," Zoe protests, "You say you're a god, Stella. But you're not me, and I'm not a god, and that just doesn't jive with the ~Pecking Order~. See, the ~Pecking Order~ defines the importance of all things that exist, and most things that do not. You, for believing yourself a god when I am not a god, are at the bottom. Needless to say. Then comes people who talk in the theater, snow, peons, the organisms and plants that provide vital ecosystem services, then my possessions, my allies, me, and finally the people I actually care about. In that order. Therefore you cannot be a god, because you are at the bottom of the ~Pecking Order~, and any deity would by definition be above the peons at least."

"Did somebody say they're cursed? I can fix that," Zoe offers with slightly worrying enthusiasm, "I am a SPACE WIZARD! SPAAAAACE! So I'm qualified. I promise it will only hurt a lot."

Zoe Walker, feeling rather competitive, starts gearing up to show off her admittedly currently limtied arsenal. Then, remembering that she really should prepare for entering a combat zone, she instead pulls out her holo-tablet and stylus. Thus armed, she starts scribing arcane diagrams and cuneform text on the tool, grumbling to herself about the lack of good spell components available. Some crushed rubies or dried newt tails with chili powder would make these way easier to prepare.