StormLord

Tim looked up from his work and glanced in Ena and ORION's direction. "Sure, I've always had luck in the past when r- exploring ancient ruins. Occasionally you find something interesting and more often than not something that want's to kill you as well." Tim finished what he was working on then moved towards the northern store room.

Round 4: The Strider summons a great spear of ice and hurls it in Jun’s direction dealing an amazingly inconvenient 7 damage(I shit you not) Jun waits and Toshiro thaws. Lucille’s burning rage pierced the weakened creature’s mind, quickly breaking through what little resistance it gave against her raw fury. Suddenly everything stopped. Everyone holding their breath waiting to see what would happen next, not even the lesser spiders dared move an inch. Slowly the Strider started moving, with creaks and groans the great lumbering beast started to raise on burnt and bleeding limbs. Eventually it stood, wobbling slightly in the breeze, before lowering its front pair of legs and leaning down in what could only be taken as some sort of bow. The creature tapped the ground softly with its lowered legs several times, hardly enough for anyone to feel if they hadn’t actually seen it. Almost as if a bell had been rung all of the smaller spiders turned on the spot and started walking back towards their mother “climbing aboard” and hiding in the shredded remains of the egg sack. Lucille expends 4 bonds and gains control over the Borean Strider. Final Status: Rewards:

Morgan: 82/82 Stats: Con:9, Res:11(6+5), Dex:0, Int:4, Str:10, Syn:14, Active Cooldowns: None! Effects: Dodge: 43%, Deal [Syn]/2 pure damage to attacker, Takes 4 extra (pure)damage from all attacks, Negative effects/statuses have -1 duration(minimum 1), 20% magic damage reduction. Morgan makes a basic attack against Officer A for 5d4+9 damage. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Friedhold: 34/54 Stats: Con:2, Res:8, Dex:3, Int:10, Str:3, Syn:7, Eve: 24/28, Adam:16. Effects: Gains [LVL] Eve every turn, +[Syn] Res against cold attacks, Fire damage stuns. Friedhold uses Undertow, inflicting Lancer with the stun and Knocked Prone, and the two groups of Soldiers with Knocked Prone(removes defensive effects), this costs three Eve, and yes this is getting boring on my end too.

Round 3: The Strider rears up again and stomps Jun, Toshiro, Rose, and Calvera. (41)Jun takes 13 damage, Toshiro takes 3 damage, Rose 4 damage, and Calvera takes 12 damage. After being struck and nearly killed Calvera shrinks to a tiny glowing speck. Toshiro slashes at the Strider for 17 damage, he gains 4 HP from his lifesteal. The Strider summons a blast of ice and sends it at Toshiro. (16 vs 17) Toshiro becomes frozen in a rather large amount of ice. Rose dives for cover. The Strider slams its legs down again, (14)Jun swiftly pulls herself out of the way, Lucille takes 13 damage, Leo takes 4 damage, and Rose is already out of the way. Calvera expands and fires a massive blast of radiation at the Strider dealing 72 damage to it. Jun frees herself from the webs before dealing 44, 39, and 36 damage to the Strider. With a spectacular display of force Lucille frees herself. Leo follows suit and cuts his own bonds as well. The Borean Strider collapsed to the ground from the shear onslaught of fire and radiation, still quite alive it twitched and squirmed, trying with every ounce of its being to stand and fight. Right at this point in time splits and cracks became visible in its abdomen mere seconds before it tore open revealing its true nature. Hundreds if not thousands of “normal” sized spiders similar in coloration poured from the eggsack on their mother’s back, with them several larger spiders(about three or four feet tall) also crawled out. Most of the Strider’s children simply ran, covering the white snow in a tide of grey and black specks. Inevitably some of the smaller spiders moved in the party’s direction, just as well the larger children stayed to directly confront them. Theme: Init: Status:

As Frigus rounded the corner into the room with Lazarus and Nader he instantly summoned his armor and weapon. He raised his Keyblade and pointed it at the space between the two roaring creatures and shouted "Gravity!" creating a field of black and purple energy originating on that point. The two Mutons would find themselves suddenly wrenched and pull to the center of the field. Frigus uses Gravity(Draw) on the two Mutons not in combat with Aquila, for two rounds any attacks that would hit one instead hit both. Loadout:

Round 2: Jun attacks the Strider’s armor, slashing away at the snow and icy quickly turning large amounts into steam. Con saves: 17 vs 8, 20 vs 5, Jun survives the cold. Toshiro’s rending strike deals 10 damage to the Strider and knocks off some loose snow. Con save: 10 vs 20, the cold starts to sap Toshiro’s strength, he takes 2 damage. Jun swings again. Con save: 3 vs 14, the cold starts to sap Jun’s strength, she takes 3 damage. The Strider stands, it doesn’t look happy. Toshiro attacks again for 7 damage. Con save: 12 vs 5, Toshiro survives the cold. Lucille summons her blast of sound dealing 13 damage. (13 vs 5) The Strider staggers back a half step from the force. Jun strikes again, by this point there isn’t much icy left on the beast, revealing the ugly, boring, grey monster underneath. Con save: 13 vs 10, Jun survives the cold. The Strider lifts up four of its legs and tries to stomp down on Toshrio, Lucille, Rose, and Calvera. It flat out misses Toshiro, it deals 7 damage to Lucille, 12 damage to Rose, and 15 to Calvera. Rose tries to pull herself out of the way before the Strider attacks again. The Strider reaches back and throws out two more globs of web, hitting Jun(55) and Lucille. (Webbed targets are sent to the bottom of the Init ladder and must spend an move to free themselves if they wish to return to their previous place on the Init ladder) Calvera boils away the last of the Borean Strider’s icy armor and deals another 9 damage. She catches a glimpse of a darting shadow that looked like it was inside the Strider’s pale bulging abdomen, it was probably nothing. Leo unsticks his arms and hands from the web and pulls out the ruby ring, with it he starts casting a firestorm that deals 1 fire damage to the Strider. Theme: Init: Status:

Round 1 The Borean Strider tears its legs out of the ice and prepares to strike, icy wind already swirling around it. Jun buffs herself, she now has 16 Dex for two rounds! Toshiro dashes in to strike at the Strider, he manages to slide his blade under the icy armor of the beast to deliver a deep wound for 30 damage! Con save: 17 vs 4, Toshiro ignores the freezing aura of the beast. Lucille fires her first two blasts of sonic energy, slicing off large swaths of ice and snow dealing 13 and 14 damage. The Strider picks up one of its massive legs and shakes loose several icicles over Lucille, most of the ice bounces off her heavy armor though. Leo raises his hands to cast his spell, focuses, and watches a cloud start to develop over the Strider. His expectations are quickly dashed though, as instead of creating arcs of plasma to lance the beast the cloud starts dripping icy rain onto it. The water runs down its body and freezes over several of the cracks created in the ice by previous attacks. (The Strider doesn’t take 3 cold damage) Rose keeps her distance from the Borean Strider, trying not to look like an easy target. The Strider does something with two of its rear legs before flinging two large globs of slick, rope-like web at Rose(who jumps out of the way) and Leo. (Webbed targets are sent to the bottom of the Init ladder and must spend an move to free themselves if they wish to return to their previous place on the Init ladder) Calvera blasts the Strider with flames, creating a crater in its icy armor. Lucille follows up with her third strike, the blast knocks away a large puff of snow and deals 13 damage. (15 vs 12) Lucille’s spell forces three of the Strider’s legs out from underneath it, hopefully it’ll take a second for it to stand up. Theme: Init: Status:

Rose led the group through a side passage, over some rubble, and down a stairway that had been cut into the hill and that let them out near the shore of the lake. Luck: 47, From there the party manages to start following the edge of the lake around without incident. Random Event: 76, About half way around the group comes across several large rock-like formations on the banks of the lake. Closer inspection reveals they're not only large blocks of ice, but a group of wolves frozen solid while running from something. Luck: 6, After making it about three quarters of the way along the lake shore the party starts to hear a distant pounding, the heavy footfalls of the Borean Strider. A truly massive spider almost as tall as the trees, grey-ish, and somewhat furry. It was covered in a layer of windswept snow and ice that gave it the appearance of being covering spiked armor plates. Its abdomen was a large pale globe with a lighter dusting of snow and ice. Without warning the monster bent down and then sprung upward, hurling itself forward and into the air. Dex check: 7 vs 17, The Strider crashed into the ices a few hundred feet from the party with enough force to shake the snow loose from some nearby trees and send a couple of its legs through the ice. "Well it's never done that before." The Borean Strider starts to pull its legs out of the rapidly refreezing ice, giving the party precious seconds to prepare. Init: Status:

"Generally the more valuable and hard to come by something is the higher the EMC cost will be, other things such and complexity, uniqueness, and effort need to make something have weight on it's value. Common staples are gold, tungsten, and other heavy metals as well as most gemstones. Sadly I cannot alter the shape of something I create, however if you want to take the time to create a high quality joint I can copy that." Tim walked over to get a closer look at the piles of materials. "I would like to also take copies of some of these materials, some of them(especially the Oxidizer and Thrusters) look like they could be useful in the future. Never know when you're going to need to make a batch of explosives on short notice."

"Well as requirements go nothing beyond that of a normal human I guess, sudden stops, starts, or turns don't do good things to our insides. I don't believe I've explained my primary power to you yet though, you see I can transmute things. It's far more simple than it may sound." He took out a small reddish sphere that shimmered with pink and white flames. "This is a philosopher's stone. On it I can imprint a copy of almost any item, then I can convert items into something called 'EMC', and with that EMC I can manifest copies of any imprinted items. The easiest way to think of it is that I can imprint something to get a 'price', sell it for EMC, then use the EMC to buy anything I know the 'price' of." He paused as he put the stone away. "So for me producing raw materials is little more than a trivial task assuming I've got the needed EMC on hand."

"I'll drop it off when we get back to the ship then." Frigus slid the datapad into his pocket and walked over to one of the pods looking inside. After a second he shook his head and took a step back. If ever there was a reason to meddle in the affairs of a world this seemed like a pretty good reason. "If there isn't anything left to look at in here and you're done with the charge I think we should go help the other guy."

Tim nodded in response to the A.I. before following the others in to look around. As he walked he grabbed a piece of this and a piece of that until he had an armload of materials with him, then he found a workbench or something of the like to sit down at and imprint all of these new items. Some of them looked more interesting than others, but over all it was a good haul. After imprinting what he wanted he walked around returning most of the items, save the steel, he grabbed eleven more pieces of that and converted it all into a total of 307.2 EMC. On his way to the Medbay Tim stopped as he pasted the dark knight from before, after a brief inquiry about the strange metal they seemed to be working with and taking an imprint he continued. After exiting the Medbay he noticed the robot that had accompanied them here(Ena, he thought he heard someone call her) disassembling the pods they had landed in. While he was far from opposed to seeing them torn apart at the seams he also took not at some rather intricate looking machinery that had been separated from them. He walked over to her makeshift work site. "Find anything particularly interesting?"

Frigus glanced around the room before finding the light. "Wow. Just wow. I'm not sure what to say. Are they still alive?" He walked over and picked up the datapad after getting a response. "Hey, anything useful you could get off this?"

Rose looked at Jun for a second. "No I don't know where it nests, but it's never far from the lake or forest, and do you seriously think I've survived out here for this long without any way to take a hit or defend myself? Because you're wrong if you do, and I'm not going to just sit tight in the castle."

Rose turned to look at Toshiro. "Hey, what do think I am? Made of glass? That I'll crack into a million pieces at the slightest tap? If so you've got another thing coming." She took a second to calm down a little bit. "You could try to set a trap and bait the strider into it, but don't let your guard down and be prepared to deal with it if things go bad."

Ruined Castle(Jun, Lucille, Toshiro, Leo, Calvera): The women gives Lucille a glance, then her beasts, then looks back at Lucille. "Yes, I'm Rose, and trust me you don't want to meet this thing if we can avoid it." She gives Toshiro an odd sort of confused look. "I-I'm just going to go get my things then." After a couple minutes she comes back with a single small bag and three vials of opaque yellow liquid. "I've only got three of these left, but if we get in a fight you should take them, they'll make you a little harder to kill." Loot get: "So we're on the east end of the lake, and we need to get to the south end to get back to the village. The way I see it we've got two options, I know a shortcut down to the lake where we can cross the ice to the south banks, that'll be the fastest rout, or we can follow the path through the forest, but that'll take longer. If any of you have an idea for a path I haven't tried yet though, I'm happy to listen." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dye Trader's House(Alyssa): After wandering around the village for a little while Alyssa eventually locates one of the houses by the river that has several clothes lines full of brightly colored garments and a feint chemical scent wafting from behind it. Making her way around to the back of the house Alyssa would see a man of some undetermined middle eastern origin wearing a stained apron over a quite nice looking blue robe and leaning over a large vat in which he was processing plant matter of some sort. As soon as she came into view he stopped what he was doing and looked up. "Oh, you must be one of those dashing adventurers I heard came in last night. Let me get a closer look at you." He stood up and removed the apron before walking closer. "Yes, yes. You my dear have to be from somewhere far far away, because unlike any of those other....'people' that live here you've got an eye for fashion."

As they entered the dark room Frigus tried to remember the spell to create a glowing sphere of light, he thought he'd almost had it right around the time he tripped on a the stray corpse of an ADVENT soldier. While he managed to catch himself and not fall on his face horribly, but the spell he was originally casting was ruined, instead he was left with a small glassy orb that glowed softly. He bent over and picked it up. After quickly deciding it wouldn't produce enough light to be helpful here he put it away and walked over to where Database was collecting the Elerium. "Mind if I take a few of these?" Assuming yes he would grab about a half dozen and assuming no he would just shrug and continue with the rest of the group.

Ruined Castle(Jun):

Round 6: Laver smacks Solomon restoring 16 HP. Liliya plants her knife into Lahmu A dealing 25 damage. This consumes a Bond and restores 2 HP. The two DT Beasts split up, one attacks Liliya for 12 damage and the other Laver for 10 damage. Sachi adjusts her Tower Stance to protect Laver better. Sachi regens 10 HP. Halley blasts the DT Soldiers for 16 damage. Lexiel’s freshly summoned dragon flies over and starts attacking the now thoroughly confused DT Archers, it deals 11 damage. Her aura heals Solomon, Jade, and Laver 5 HP each. Lahmu A and C decide that a certain artist needs to die and move in for the kill, luckily they only manage to deal 7 and 12 damage/ DT Archers B aim and fire at Hiroki once, Lexiel once, and Jade twice. Hiroki takes 0 damage, Lexiel’s soldier takes the arrow(like a true redshirt) and counters for 2 damage, while Jade takes 3 and 1 damage(54, 68, failed to dodge). DT Archers B lose one BoF and gain two in the exchange. Venus takes a moment to reload and do whatever it is “artists” do. Jade on the other hand fires another round at one of the monsters, judging by the screams he hit something painful and probably vital, dealing 59 damage with a Critical attack! This consumes a Bond and heals Jade for 6 HP. Two of DT Archers C attack Liliya, two attack Hiroki, and one attacks Solomon, Liliya takes 8 and 8 damage, Hiroki hardly notices something shot at her, and Solomon takes 9 damage. The last two DT Soldiers swing at Jade(who dodges) and Lexiel who takes 17 damage. Solomon uses "Ahead by a Single Page" to give himself what are hopefully not infohazards. Hiroki floods the battlefield with fire dealing 24 damage to Lahmu A turning it into a charred corpse, 15 damage to Lahmu C, 20 damage to the DT Soldiers causing one to crumble, 11 to the DT Achers B & C, and 23 to the DT Beasts causing one to crumble. Then as the enemy looks up, but before they can recover, the Leyline under the fortress surges and brilliant white and blue sparks arc off the Asterlux wall. Chain lightning flies through the enemy ranks, sending chips of scorched bone flying here and there. As the light fades and the stench in the air is replaced with the overwhelming smell of ozone the party sees that the last DT Soldier had been turned directly to ash along with three of the DT Archers and four more of the DT Archers have been reduced to sparking and smoldering piles of bones. With the Hypersonic dragon in tow the party manages to either kill or route the few remaining enemies, effectively ending the battle….for now. Battle End. Final status: Merit Reward: Sorry, wrong game.

Ruined Castle(Jun, Toshiro, Lucille, Leo, Calvera): Continuing through past the gatehouse the group finds themselves in the outer courtyard, small bits of rubble strewn about from Lucille's blast of sound and force. Luck: 74, Several human skeletons lay resting in one of the corners, judging by their appearance they've been here a while. The group faces a large pair of doors(somehow not falling apart) that lead into main keep of the castle, off to the left there is a small set of steps leading down to a secondary door that is only slightly worse for wear, and to the right they see a collapsed archway that would've led into other side chambers. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tavern(Alyssa): Diplomacy: 2 vs 11, Luck: 98, Alyssa could see the anger building behind the man's eyes, clearly sarcasm and flowery words wouldn't get through to him. "Look. I don't know what you think you were doing, but I didn't ask you to help, and I didn't ask you to 'make this place better'." He stopped and sighed. "Did you at least do what I did ask you to do?"

Frigus gets up, gets ready, and grabs something to read before heading to the Firebrand. He read through a significant portion of the book on the trip and only stopped when the Firebrand started to approach their destination. When he got the chance Frigus turned to one of the XCOM agents and asked: "What exactly are we looking for here? Computers? Weapons? A power source? Some kind of artifact?" After he got a response(or not) and the Firebrand lowered itself down Frigus summoned his armor and took a few steps out, keeping general pace with the majority of the group and keeping his eyes peeled for anything that looked...suspicious.

Snow Biome(Jun, Toshiro, Lucille, Leo, Calvera): Luck: 80, After collecting up their spoils the party heads out around the bank of the lake towards the castle. The walk is boring and slow, though not long after starting they find a number of pale blue flowers that look almost like they're made of ice poking up through the snow at the base of a tree. Whether or not the flowers are a distraction the party eventually continues. Luck: 5, Upon nearing the castle the party is stopped by what they find, two "rows" of generally circular impressions in the snow, they're about a foot across, and lead from the lake into the forest or vice versa. Luck: 59, The party has now reached the gated entrance of the castle town, or whats left of it. One of the doors is completely missing, and the other is rotting off it's hinges, the walls around the town are crumbling in places, and the skeletons of buildings litter the inside. The path to the castle proper is relatively clear, though it looks like it might take some maneuvering to get past the guardhouse, most of which is collapsed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Mines(Kusuke and Satomi): Kusuke and Satomi make their way to the bottom of the mine and on their way down..... Luck: 94, ....One of them kills a bat, nothing exciting normally, but this bat seems to have some sort of chain wrapped around it. They eventually reach the same cliff that Kusuke had before, and unsurprisingly there were still a bunch of slimes bobbing around in the water below.

Corruption Border: As the group makes their hasty retreat Lucille and the others(though mostly Lucille) can hear the creature approach, whatever it was. As they come to the top of the hill which they first saw the Corruption from they heard a crash as the vibrations suddenly stopped, looking can they could see a large brown worm-like monster with a maw of long pointed teeth. It seemed to be blind as it scanned the ground and inspected things by shifting it's "head" along the surface. As soon as Lucille sent her empathic message the worm turned to the direction of the group and paused for a second before whipping it's head around and diving back into the earth, the vibrations slow became more and more distant. Due to the Corruption not panning out quite like the group expected they started moving towards snowy mountain region in search of a castle the Guide told Lucille about. Luck: 73, With some luck(and an hour of walking) they managed to find a bit of a narrow pass from this forest into colder mountainous region. Luck: 92, A lack of underbrush and little snow makes this easy walking, after following the trail a ways the group comes to a huge flat plane covered in snow. On the other side of the frozen lake they can see the ruins of some once great keep, on their side close to the banks they see a small hunting or fishing cabin. It appears to be abandoned judging by the large hole in the roof and sagging porch. Severe Cold Saves(Con): Jun: 5 vs 7, Toshiro: 11 vs 13, Lucille 20 vs 13, Leo: 10 vs 14, Calvera: 14 vs 9, Jun, Toshiro, and Leo are feeling a little cold, if they fail another save before getting warm they might be in trouble. Sleep Deprivation Save(Con): Leo: 10 vs 15, Leo is feeling the lack of sleep, he now suffers -2 on checks the require significant focus(such as crafting).

Outside the Smithy(Satomi/Kusuke): The Mason listens to Satomi's question and after a moment of thought he replied. "The uniform bricks I've got are about this size--" He gestured a block roughly the size of a modern cinder block, "--There aren't enough to entirely replace the walls, but there are also piles of slightly smaller loose and irregular stones stored just inside the mine. If you're planning on doing large scale wall construction or reinforcing with concrete someone will need to go get more Limestone, this barrel by the smelter is our last one." Kusuke stuck his head into the conversation right as the Mason finished up, only for the Blacksmith to butt in when he mentioned ore. "Ya drop the ore in that barrel over there an' I'll sort it out ta' smelt it when I'm done here." With that said he proceeded to pour more of what looked like purple sand into a hole near the top of the smelter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tavern(Alyssa): For the first couple hours the Barkeep hung around working on various things and occasionally giving her a disapproving glare, but eventually when he went out to something somewhere else in the village was when Alyssa could finally and truly get to work. Once Alyssa had finished up with everything except the daubing he had originally asked her to do, she heard a strange noise coming from downstairs. Upon investigation she would discover the Barkeep standing in the middle of the Tavern's lower floor greatroom with a mixed look of confusion, panic, and terror on his face. "What-what have you done? what have you done to my bar?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Corruption Border(Basically everyone else): Of the first two creatures one attempts to slam itself bodily(spikes first) into Leo and the other into Toshiro, they deal 14 and 9 damage respectively. The third creature swoops down at Leo and bites at him, smearing acidic saliva on him in the process, Leo takes 7 damage and loses 6 Res for two turns. Jun fires two arrows at one of the creatures, dealing 13 and 15 damage to it. Toshiro’s rending strike tears the first creature to ribbons and deals 19 damage to the second. Likewise Lucille’s sonic blades turn the third creature into mincemeat and Do tears apart the last wounded creature as if it was some sort of morbid cat-toy. Leo and Calvera don't even get a chance to react because everything is already dead. The creature Jun shot convulses for several seconds before vomiting up a small(and partially digested) sack. Loot:

Combat in the Corruption begins! Init: Status: