StormLord

The Phantom throws another fireball at Deadlift, intent on finishing him off. It deals 15 damage. Deadlift's punch collides with the wide open caster for 16 damage, he's not looking so hot. The Phantom grabs its axe again. Init: Status:

The Phantom suddenly creates a large ball of fire in its free hand before hurling it at Deadlift for 17 damage. Deadlift boasts and tries to push the Phantom on, something that is repaid with a glare. Deadlift heals a small amount. The Phantom pulls out a tiny black sprite before crushing it into a burst of white light. It looks refreshed. Init: Status:

Friedhold: Stats: Con:4, Dex:2, Int:12, Str:4, Syn:8, Eve: 8/8, ADAM: 22. Active Cooldowns: What's a Cooldown? Effects: Gains 2 Eve every turn, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Friedhold uses Gravity Well on the remaining Bel Lahmu, Greater Lahmu, and as many more Lesser Lahmu as he can(Up to 6 targets total). Each effected target takes 5d6 damage and has a 50% chance to be Knocked Prone(lose active defenses and interrupt charging actions). This action costs 4 Eve.

The Phantom keeps up the attack, slashing again at Deadlift for another 8 damage and 7 fire damage. Deadlift's punch cleanly connects, dealing 16 damage, he can feel a couple bones crack under the force. The Phantom puts away its axe, a small fire lights in its hand. Init: Status:

The Phantom prepares another action. Deadlift swings only to find his target rolling out from underneath him, slippery bastard. Speaking of, the Phantom pops back up and slashes at Deadlift's side the wound promptly bursts into flame. Deadlift takes 8 damage from the first attack and then another 8 from the fire. Init: Status:

The Phantom readies for the incoming attack. Deadlift swings(37) and his attack slides right around the Phantom's parry dealing 14 damage. The Phantom staggers back before pulling out some black substance and smearing it on his axe. Init: Status:

Yweniwa finds that most of the group is standing around a large open room(Outdoor training area A on the map) with dead monsters laying around on the floor, Yoko and Chelchis are just waking up battered and bloodied, and there are smoking scrap shells plastered in the walls in several places. Vratislav finds that the next room is some kind of plant nursery. Saplings and seedlings all in expertly kept containers on growing tables, some with dirt others without. Though it looks like it's been a week or two since anyone has been in to tend the plants the automated systems have kept them watered and mostly healthy. One sapling jumps out at Vratislav, a short stout thing covered in long black/brown "hairy" bark. The boiler room is both disappointingly empty and disappointingly a dead end. So desperate for a fight of some kind Deadlift practically inhales the three cans of MEAT he got and then channels Spirit energy in an attempt to draw out worthy opponents. Music: [16] Deadlift feels the presence of a Dark Phantom invading this world. Turning and stepping out of the boiler room into the intersection Deadlift see a man shrouded in black and red energy, wielding a shield in one hand, an axe in the other, and wearing an assortment of slightly scorched and muddy rags. They pace back and forth a little, waiting for Deadlift to step into the intersection proper to fight. Init: Status:

Greg hesitates, he doesn't seem entirely sure with his answer but he gives it anyway. "Uh...I think I heard one of the scientists say that they're flesh-eating crickets or something. All I know is that they were struggling to maintain funding for the project." Evelyn finds herself in a room more cramped than any of the others, full of large box shaped machines that click and whir and have flashing lights. There are two areas in the room clear of any clutter and slightly raised above everything else, they're surrounded in glass with metal reinforcement. In an alcove in the back of the room behind an metal fence there are more box shaped machines, these have wires and coils coming out the top of them and signs reading "Danger: High Voltage". Deadlift takes the right door and finds himself in a failing hallway, bits of interior wall are falling in and he has to step over the odd piece of rubble, but it's far from impassable. The room beyond is more of an intersection. To the right the other end of the hall Deadlift was trying to clear earlier, as noted by the freshly shifted rubble, forward is another collapsed hallway, and left again is some kind of boiler room with more crates littering the floor. No more mutants anywhere in sight.

Music: Empi tries to teach Hiroki about lolis, but settles for the merits of large goth women. +6 Syn for three rounds, Emip gains +3 Syn as well in return. Gabriel attempts to get Gilgamesh to OD on a rad laser, it doesn’t work but Gilgamesh does take 36 damage and is set on fire. Greater Lahmu B finishes barbecuing and keels over at “well done”. Perlita smacks Gabriel with her healing stick, +39 HP. Magna revives a Lahmu, Jeanne D’arc does some weird shit to change her abilities, The Officers blast Gilgamesh with magic, one deals 15 damage and sets him on fire, the other deals 18 damage, Magna’s newly created and surely beloved pet rakes Gilgamesh for 9 damage, Oops, spoke too soon, Magna fucking kills her brand new pet and feeds its life energy to her Officers. (+11 HP each) Enma says BOO! Really loud in Gilgamesh’s face dealing 12 damage. Kino follows up by actually attacking him for 31 more damage. Mira braces for the inevitable. The only smart one. Hiroki shoots Gilgamesh for 25 damage. Gilgamesh stares up at the “escaping” Lahmu souls for several moments before pulling out a large wretched looking golden scythe and with it collecting up the souls before slamming them back down into their bodies. He then glances casually at the scythe before throwing it away. Some of the once Lahmu corpses start to twitch and warp, stitching themselves back together and returning and even more grotesque creations. At roughly the same time the battlefield shifts and changes, like reality itself was shuddering. Two points in space opened up on roughly opposite sides of this group, from one an object no larger than a human, made of a blue metallic substance, and covered in long winding barbed spikes. No sooner had it hit the ground before a thick blueish ooze started pouring out from it forming a viscous puddle around its base. The other portal opened wide, revealing a large dark room with several tables and a number of familiar and not-so-familiar faces. Aurora, Ghost, some girl made of fire, and Laver could be seen playing Poker with what looked like frazzled business-woman dealing. Sachi, a filthy looking fat-man in armor, and a few others you can’t see are all playing some kind of RPG in the background. When the portal opens a few of the people notice and Laver hops down from his seat to look through. “Up to the same-old-same-old I see. Why don’t you guys come join us in here? This place is great, we all just love it. You should come check it out.” A chorus of agreement spread across the room inside the portal. A final attack splashed against Caster's throne, and the ancient Sumerian hero-king finally stood up, expression gone from vague boredom to a twisted rictus of rage. "ENOUGH!" His voice rang out sharply though the battlefield, and a tremor accompanied it. "You mongrels have sullied my si̛g͞ht for f̶a̴r t̴o̡o ̷ļon͝g̸!̵" The tremors intensified, and something disturbing started to become clear. The earth beneath the heroes was quite still. It was a tremor in the air, perhaps even the very fabric of reality. "Įt ̴i̛s̷ tim̵e ̛f҉or͜ y͝ou̧ t̸̀o͏ ̶͝l̴e͢a̛rn ͢y̵͜͞ou̵͝r̸̡͡ ̢́͞pl͏͏a͠c̵̨͞ę̵́!̴̛" The man's voice was becoming more and more distorted, unnatural, but with a strange singsong note behind it. Something started to leak from the space beneath the golden throne, a sort of unholy mud that seemed to twist one's eyes from simply viewing it, something indescribably foul and alien. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv6Y0z8-m78 Gilgamesh shouted one last time, but what he said couldn't be heard over what sounded like a woman singing. The shaking of space intensified, and Gilgamesh seemed to fold in on himself before. . . something else took his place. His form twisted first into what seemed to be a woman's, with red eyes and pale blue hair, before twisting further and further into truly monstrous proportions. Arms lengthened turned an ugly mixture of red and black, not unlike the corrupted forms of the other Servants. The legs flowed outward, becoming less limbs and more one continuous structure as "Gilgamesh" bent to stand on all fours. The torso of the creature seemed almost human, if now scaled up to gigantic size, but the head looked more like something a dragon might see in its nightmares, with a maw running partway down the neck full of razor-sharp teeth and flesh replaced with armored plates and scales. Two massive horns sprouted from the head, curling backward over the beast. Tiamat had come. Init: Status:

Yweniwa finds that the fewest tracks lead left, but also that they seem to turn vack and eventually join everyone else on the right. Evelyn finds that all the nearby crates are either empty or filled copious amounts of nails.

Str check: 41 vs 40, Luck: 27, Deadlift finds that a properly reinforced section of the wall is several feet thick and a massive pain to punch through. He manages anyway though, eventually cramming the rolled up tube in before punching it through the last bit. He doesn't get a chance to properly look through though before a thick smoky gas starts pouring in from the outside, getting close to it burns and he can summarize that breathing too much in would probably kill him. Vratislav and co. enter the next room, they find it to be a fairly large room, almost a big as the last one but with much more going on. There are several trees similar to those in the dome, a few large bushy shrubs, some thorny flowers, a few creeping vines under one of the trees, and a sort of artificial stream flowing along the right side of the room. A worn path to the right leads to another door. The only notable sounds are the murmur of the water and the occasional chirp of a cricket.

Evelyn presses a key and the image immediately changes to display a note left by a researcher some time ago, it reads: "Teleglitch Spacetime Anomaly: These blobs of black and colorful anomaly seems to be the only result of today's experiment with unlimited-range teleportation. We have been investigating this phenomenon for the past two hours and think it might have profound implications for theoretical physics. The blackness seems to be literally an "inside-out" space-time curvature and opens a range of possibilities for research. My colleague has already suggested we could weaponize it by capturing the field into super-intense wave & pressure containers to be used for planetary bombardment. Oh, and if you touch it, your brain explodes." A minute or two after she finishes reading it the screen goes back to its previous display. Str check: Why bother? Luck: 40, Deadlift slams his fist cleanly through the....wall? As it turns out the part of the wall he punched collapsed, a false front covered in masking material that sort of crumbles away to reveal a small alcove. Inside he finds three more cans of MEAT and a strange unfamiliar module of shotgun. "Militech Automatic Shotgun: Fire up to three shells at 2d4+[Dex/2] damage each. May only be fired ten times before it must be reloaded with a box of 00 buck. Ammo 10/10"

Str: 35 vs 37, Deadlift succeeds in throwing himself backwards out of the cloud of poison as well as shifting a quite large amount of material forward. However shoving the material forward so violently only causes more to fall down into its place.

[9 vs 19] Greg finds neither trap nor secret as he walks down the hall tapping things. He makes it to the other door and back safely. Morp finds that the air up here is different. Almost like its heavier somehow, sour or acrid, and it generally makes him uncomfortable. Str: 47 vs 40 Luck: 34, Con: 19 vs 25, Deadlift bulldozes forward quickly creating a sort of caked stone from powdered concrete and assorted crushed rubble. Eventually however he starts feeling light headed, it gets difficult to breath, and he's coughing almost constantly. His muscles burn more than usual and even his skin is starting to turn red and blister in places. The noise only get's louder as Evelyn get's closer to the door. She passes through into what was once another "outdoor" chamber, dirt covering the ground and bushy plants in the corners. There are two doors leading out of the room, one to her right and the other to her left, but what catches her attention is directly in front of her. A makeshift barbwire fence blocking off a massive twisting..blob...thing. It covers nearly half the room and the sound is clearly emanating from it. It has a glossy black surface streaked with the occasional swirl of bright color the flickers in and out. Evelyn finds it difficult to process what exactly its boundaries are as it doesn't even seem to know. A small portable data terminal is sitting on a stack of crates nearby with flashing bold red text that says: Important Message. Press any key to read.

Vratislav and his crew head to the west with Deadlift shortly behind them and Shamhat not long after that. They find a quiet still hallway, a tad dusty with a door on the far side and an intersection roughly in the middle. Reaching the intersection you all find that the alternate direction has collapsed some time recently with no clear confirmation of why. None of you hear anything in the room beyond the clear hallway. Evelyn enters the door to the north and immediately starts hearing a loud otherworldly worbbling sound. Like boiling radio static mixed with a metallic whine. It starts getting louder the further she goes.

Music: The Villagers grab up any remaining supplies to improve their own chances of survival. The spike plants trigger in the West, Ogre W1 takes 11 damage and Ogre W2 takes 15. And again more spike plants in the Southeast, Ogre SE1 takes 15 damage and Horde SE3 takes 7. Plasma from the Southwest blasts each of the Hordes for 10, 14, 12, and 15 damage respectively. Golem squads in the East attack Goblin Hordes E1 and E2 for 11 and 11 damage. A rifle shot cracks out from the North and impacts with the wall of meat that is Ogre W1. [78 Crit!] Amelie deals 108 damage. Jun buffs herself. Toshiro creates a wall of force that pushes back the two Hordes in the West, the heat from it is absorbed by their shields. The Arms Dealer let’s loose with his .50 cal dealing a grand total of 40 damage to Horde E1. That Horde is significantly weakened losing it’s Warriors and Archers, leaving only Brutes. The Hordes move into action! The Hordes in the West fire arrows at the wall dealing 36 damage. Two Hordes in the Southwest charge, attacking with their melee weapons for 71 damage, the other two Hordes fire arrows at Leo and Az for 2 and 16 damage respectively. One Horde in the Southeast fires arrows at the Dryad for 14 damage while the other two hunker down for some reason…. All four Hordes in the East hunker down for some reason…. The Dryad drops some odd seed pods over the wall, shortly afterward they explode dealing 18 damage to Horde SW4. It seems all the Brutes in that Horde have been finished. Kusuke works some time magic and(with Tattletale’s assistance) fires that SHOT trebuchet at Horde SW1 but the shot spreads out dealing 7 damage to each enemy on the West-bank and 3 damage to two of the Hordes on the East bank. Lucille and Do descend upon Ogre W1 dealing 13, 15, and 5 damage to it. The Demo drops a grenade that deals 13 and 15 damage to Hordes SW1 and SW2. Horde SW2 is now short more than a few Warriors. Satomi prepares herself for the total destruction she’s about to unleash upon these poor bastards. The Guide gives Toshiro some helpful tips about movement around the wall boosting his Dex by 4 for two rounds. The Blacksmith buffs the East wall with 13 THP The Mason and Carpenter hold their turns. The Mages in the West start working their strange purple magic, one group to create a fiery barrier around Ogre W2 and the other to send bolts of energy at the Tavern Keep dealing 12 damage and setting him on Shadowfire. He immediately burns for 2 damage. The Mages in the Southwest form another fiery barrier around Ogre SW1. The Siege Ogres all march forward into melee range of the walls, not much else to say here. Two small goblins carrying crates move with Hordes SE1 and SE2 towards the walls, gaining the protection of their thick shields. The Tavern Keep throws a Molotov at the Mages who just set him on fire and the wounded Ogre. They’re all set on fire for 8 damage for two rounds. The Engineers in the East each produce a Siege ladder(can be targeted) which Hordes E2, E3, and E4 grab and set against the walls. Up to three troops in the East can move over the walls each round now. Rose blasts Horde E1 with her Frost Staff for 15 damage. Leo creates a maelstrom of icy wind in the South making everyone but the Mages extremely uncomfortable but unhindered beyond that. The Mages take 3 damage. Arminius continues his Scorpion shinanigens by poisoning the tank’s blades before one of his minions drives off with it. Piglet drives off with the tank. Az fires his gun(gaining an Anorky stack) at Horde SW1 dealing 20 damage and bullets spark and jolt into the goblins. All the Warriors in that group are dead now. The Mason and Carpenter move to the South. The Turrets: -West: [6] Medium Siege Crossbow is fired at Ogre W1 by the Labor Golems for 49 damage, the bolt sticks and starts smoking. The Clockwork Auto-Turret hits Horde W1 for 42 damage and Horde W2 for 17 damage. Horde W1 has lost its Archers. The Plasma Cannon fires three times at Horde W1 for 4 damage each. The Brutes in Horde W1 are dead now too. -South: The Plasma Cannons fire on Hordes SW1 and SE1 for 12 and 6 damage. -East: [1] Medium Siege Crossbow is fired at Engineers E1 by the Labor Golems only for the bolt to sail out into the great beyond, smoking and burning all the way. The Plasma Cannon deals 12 damage to Horde E1, putting the last of them into their fiery graves. Reinforcements: Init: Status:

Chelchis makes her way to the Mutant room without issue or interruption. [25] Aside from a few worthless personal affects Vratislav and Greg don't find anything useful. That is until they get to the bottom of the pile and Greg points out a mostly intact zombie. Some gross finagling and a bit of re-programming later and Greg has the zombie upright and working again, fully and complete loyal to Vratislav in every way with absolutely zero chance of backstabbing him later. Yvette awakens in a dark room, she's sitting in a large wooden chair and although she's clearly awake and alert her body feels exhausted to the point she can barely move much less stand. In front of her is a glossy projection surrounded by a think grey-green mist. Though the projection she's told of figures waking up in a strange room, discussing various things, then finally falling into darkness. When the projection finally finishes she falls through the chair into a infinite black void before abruptly landing in an old ransacked store room. Stepping outside the room she sees a fallen tree and catches a glimpse of a tall four-armed creature stepping through a set of pried open once automatic steel doors. [Yvette is show the "Forbidden Castle" segment through audio/visual projection]

Int check: 10, Luck: 78, Looking around the machine Chelchis actually finds a maintenance panel on the back. It seems the machine quickly detected the obstruction and turned itself off, it simply needed confirmation that the obstruction had been removed and to be turned back on. A light spray of red hit the ceiling of the room and a nearby machine as the generator came to life, eventually it read full power production for its portion of the sector. Chelchis doesn't feel like there's a whole lot left to do here. +2 Merit for solving a puzzle before actually knowing it's was a puzzle that needed solving. Vratislav finds the other room, dead mutants are strewn around where the battle had taken place. He sees two doors leading out of the place; one to the far right near a pile of half-eaten corpses and another straight ahead.

Evelyn finds the others easily. Chelchis finds a draw with keyboard and mouse right below the monitor. A short interaction shows that most of the computer's functions and files have been corrupted or deleted leaving only a few notes and journal entries to read. Emergency Evacuation Request...pending... Planet Medusa-1C -Natural conditions -Indigenous life Note to self by Chemistry sector scientist #84.

Hirata considers various scientific possibilities while trying not to look like food. Yoko strikes the Mutant for 10 damage, nearly bringing the beast down. The Mutant staggers and starts moving towards Deadlift again, intent on finishing the job. Shamhat considers the virtues of ranged combat over being in the melee while nursing a minor concussion. Deadlift slams into the Mutant knocking it face-down onto the ground before firmly driving his weapon through it effectively pinning the creature. It's not dead as evident by the occasional thrashing or pained moan, but it isn't going anywhere. Combat end! You win! Merit: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "It's probably hiding in one of the back generators for this sector, so y-yeah." Whether by chance or choice Greg doesn't seem to notice Vratislav's mention of creating necromantic zombies. [70] Chelchis reaches in a grabs what she can of the corpse and yanks it out. With a little effort and time any piece of corpse with a meaningful size have been extracted, the machine isn't by any means clean but it'll probably crank up without exploding.

Chelchis finds that yes the machine seems to be malfunctioning, something appears to be stuck in the gears. Closer inspection finds it to be a human corpse, its lower half sucked in by the gears and turned into a slightly chunky goop, much like salsa. Luckily the thing doesn't smell that bad everything considered, the turpentine really helps cover the smell of vile and rotting flesh. Chelchis also locates a computer terminal on one of the walls. A Militech logo screensaver shows on the monitor. [41] Morp finds a box off to the side, a crate smashed open and half looted already. It's full of assorted replacement parts and tools for this maintenance area. Morp gains: 1 Box of Heavy Machinery parts and 1 Repair Toolkit. Greg shudders at the scent of turpentine. "I'll never forget my first trip to that chopshop. They use Turpentine to help preserve the necrotic flesh of their glorified zombie slaves, the little fuckers like to crawl into tight spaces and hide in machines. At least you can smell them from a mile away."

Hirata just kind of stands there, looking over her weapon trying to assess the damage. Dex check: 9 Yoko attempts to grapple with the giant monster, but as it turns out having four arms really helps with that whole counter grappling thing. The large Mutant uses Overwhelming Speed to act twice this round! With its first action it hits Deadlift with the Lesser Mutant again dealing another 13 damage. With its second action it reaches over and grabs Yoko and Shamhat before slamming them together like children's toys. Str saves: 6, 13, Shamhat is stunned, Yoko is not. Deadlift swings at its torso creating a deep contusion and dealing 25 damage! The Mutant recoils and draws back from Deadlift's might. Init: Status:

Hirata fires a series of steel bolts that fly into the Mutants around Yoko dealing 8, 10, 7, 10, and 10 damage. She also melts the acceleration coils on her brand new toy in the process. Yoko finds her Mutant of choice already quite dead, what with the bolt sticking out of the side of its head. The large Mutant roars defiantly before picking up one of the dead lesser Mutants and using as a club on Deadlift to deal 18 damage! Shamhat hits Yoko with her healing stick for 21 HP exactly. Deadlift responds to this offence by practically exploding into a mass of muscle and anger, looming a full four feet over the "large" Mutant. Despite this the monster seems intent on killing you all. Init: Status:

Yoko crushes her target with another 13 damage, it may not have fully collapsed this time, but it's certainly not going to keep fighting. The remaining Mutants swarm around Yoko attacking relentlessly from all sides! [Fail x4] She takes 3, 3, 6, and 9 damage from the mauling. Deadlift catches one by surprise and chops off all its legs on one side with 10 damage. The door slides open again as Hirata and Shamhat come through, they both enter the fray! The rimbling of many legs grows from the other end of the room, two more small creatures and a single much larger bipedal version enter combat! Init: Status: "We-we aren't allowed to grow anything with-without military application. Ev-everything is poisonous" Evelyn finds the crate easy enough to pry open. Inside the only things of interest she finds are another metal box and a large can similar to those from the other room. The box is marked "00 Buck" and full of small red and brass cylinders that resemble bullets but far heavier than Evelyn is familiar with. The can actually has a label this time it reads: "Militech canned meat for reactivated units is packed with vitamins and other beneficial ingredients that help to preserve and feed the reactivated unit. Contained in a can made of high-grade Militech steel, the product is designed to be fresh forever, although guarantees are only given for the first 200 years. Live people eating Militech canned meat have received improved constitution and durability, possibly because of the chemical enhancers that make organic tissue more dense and thus harded to damage. Side effects include increased agression and sex drive."

Yoko charges forward before the beast can even react, slamming into its bulk to deal 22 damage. With an audible crack and splintering of bone the creature almost instantly falls to the ground, its chest cavity completely collapsed and a rib protruding out the side. Deadlift manages to stand there looking pretty as the only target is already dead. Yoko and Deadlift hear the sound of many feet moving across the ground beyond the door and sure enough upon passing through into a chamber far larger and more box-like than the previous dome they come face-to-face with five more mutated creatures just like the one Yoko obliterated four seconds ago. Even more creatures can be seen in the distance munching on corpses on the far side of the room, the commotion is only just now starting to distract them. Init: Status: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Greg nods slowly at Vratislav. "Mmhm...Don't t-touch any of the pla-plants and oh god don't use them to wipe." Chelchis finds that most of the machines seems to be related to habitat support, heating, cooling, air filtration, that kind of thing. Three of the machines are different though, they're labeled as backup generators with steam and electrical lines connected to them. The two marked "Poison Gardens" and "Training yards" are functioning fine, but the third one marked "Facility Teleportation Station" is the machine the smell of turpentine is emanating from.