Welcome to the Apocalypse - Director's Cut IC

[Strider]

Ena grabbed one of the healing devices, the force shield, a grenade, a strange vial of purple goo, and a night vision scope she found. If the man with the gas complained, she might give something to him, but these seemed useful, and nothing else piqued her interest. Once she had gathered this, she headed inside the derelict, to stand at the back of the group interacting with the sniper.

 

Spoiler

Grabs:

Biotic Field Projectorx1 (Once per encounter, heal 3 targets 2d8 + int HP)

1 Drop Shield (1 use, defends 3 target allies, blocks all projectiles for 3 rounds, can self-target)

1 grenade (1 use, 3d6 + int damage.)

1 bottle of mysterious, purple goo

1 night vision scope (removes darkness penalties if a gun is also equipped)

 

Edited November 26, 2017 by Strider

[Chevaleresse]

Marisa

 

"I do, but I'm not sure I should share what they are. You did, you know, talk openly about stabbing me? Anyway." Her head quickly pulled back behind her demon at Nader's gesticulations; she wasn't from a world where firearms were common, but she knew enough about them to know that them being pointed at her was generally not a good thing. "I'm Marisa, and I swear to whatever god or gods you believe in that I'm not here to turn you into a newt or whatever you're aiming those damned things at me for! I don't even know how to cast polymorphs. Or curses. None of that. I just want to sell you my crap." 

 

Freya could see the woman definitely not cowering behind her demon. "Every single time. Did they do this to you?"

 

Lucine

 

The girl looked a little confused at the sniper's response. Evidently, Amelie had misinterpreted which hardware the girl had been eyeballing; Lucine was far more interested in the curves of the gun rather than the woman it was draped over. Not that she was unattractive, but Lucine wasn't exactly invested in ogling anything other than military hardware. She blinked, though, when Vitor spoke to her. "Huh? I guess I've never really worried about it. . . Opal does run off of my mana, though; she doesn't actually collect any energy herself." She pondered the question, but seemed to be having a difficult time with it. Vitor could probably deduce that it was, in fact, mana depletion.

[Endlessblaze]

"This isn't Dysto's work I assure you. Dysto uses Bio-machines. That's a demon. If it where Dysto's we would already be fighting."

Leo takes a look at the pipe. 

"Oh this will be easy. Frostbrute! Help me get the parts into place"

Leo and Frostbrute fight the part into the pipe against the Water flow. but even with Frostbrutes Strength, it fails to really hold up. Preventing Leo from melding them together as the parts get pushed away. Just as Leo is considering shaping the parts back to raw metal and then shaping that onto the edges of the broken pipe and building inward, blue offers help and uses his powers to manipulate the water! making it a trivial task to meld the metal.

 

Spoiler

11 v 20: Failure! Quality: 5! Random Bitz: 52! Nothing here! Leo attempts to shove the replacement pipe into place to seal it with his magic. However, Leo's muscle proves unable to fight the water pressure long enough to get the pipe into place, even when the frost brute helps him.

 

 

Do you even lift, bro?

 

 

Spoiler

Blue Assists, usingf hydrokinesis to help

 

With Blue's help, the repair becomes much easier, and the pipe is soon as good as new.

"Thanks blue. That would have been annoying to work around"

 

[DragonRage]

"Oh, right, the gun's a mystic code," Vitor recalls, "Maybe you run hot or something?  If you're having trouble recovering on your own, we can try to set up a leyline tap later, or draw some mana from whatever Roadhog was getting charged up with."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

At first, Freya had merely gasped at the sight of Marisa's demon... Though, not in the way most people would. If anything, it was a gasp of surprise, as Freya's eyes began to practically sparkle at the sight of the demon. Mainly, the fact of how cool and... Well, demonic it looked, with it's dark, tall armor with ash and fire covering it. It was unlike most demons she met, which where more just chaotic messes of colors with sharp claws, so it was extremely refreshing to see something that actually looked cool.

 

However, when Marisa spoke, Freya's attention was broken, causing the young Necromancer to blink in confusion, "Huh? Wha- Oh, no actually, kind of strange that they didn't, really, but probably because of different scenarios. Though I don't recall getting threatened less than a minute after meeting these guys, sooooo, I dunno" Freya said, before whistling loudly as a way to physically signal her bear back to her, even if it was still unneeded due to the fact that she could just will the bear back. Which she did, causing the bear to turn from it's task of pushing the cart to the pipes (which it had done already) and run back to Freya, moving around the group and then coming to a stop by Freya's side, "Don't worry though, I don't think they'll follow through with killing you, or whatever" she added optimistically, before leaning in a bit, "So. What do you have? Demon related stuff? I've always wanted something demon related"

[kj1225]

Aquila shakes his head at the brief hostility. He clears his throat before responding in French once again, seeming to not realize that it may be rude to those that don't share that capability.

"In that case, I assume you have gotten what you came here for... Assuming none of my other companions are interested in... stabbing you, you'll be on your way?"

[Chevaleresse]

Marisa

 

"Mostly just random crap I've come across that I thought might be interesting. Some of it might be demonic, though; stuff varies from plane to plane. Here, let me show you." She reached into a pocket and started to draw a few things out of it, including a couple items that seemed to be far larger than should ever properly fit inside a pocket. A dark pearl-like object, a set of massive, powerful jaws off of some reptilian monster, a book, a mask, some sort of tiny black sphere, and a metal-and-glass container with some variety of crystal suspended within.

Teleportation Pearl

 

A mysterious item from a blocky realm. It is a dark green sphere, and rather fragile. It seems to have some sort of connection to another universe. It can be thrown to teleport the user to the destination, but it will likely not survive this process.

 

Wyvern Maw

 

A set of jaws taken from some monstrous beast. The scales that remain are in stripes of blue and yellow, and the teeth are quite sharp. It looks like the creature this belonged to was quite powerful.

 

Stone Mask

 

An eerie mask, carved out of stone. It seems to be quite ancient. Marisa said that you could put it on and activate it with blood, but said it might not be the greatest idea ever. . . Especially with the tome around.

 

Tome of the Sun

 

A book of scribbled notes on a variety of breathing techniques that, when harnessed correctly, can allow a human to produce energy like that of the sun. Marisa said that this power might not play nicely with the Mask. 

 

Despair Seed

 

A strange spherical object with needle-like protrusions on the top and bottom. To those sensitive to such things, it radiates an aura of hopelessness and despair. It balances perfectly on the needle points, and will roll about unsteadily if not placed on them. Creepy. . .

 

Crystalline Core

 

An odd crystal suspended in some sort of vaccuum chamber. It can produce tremendous amounts of energy, in violation of the laws of physics. Marisa says it can also change mundane materials into ones that have odd, seemingly magical properties with simple contact - handle with care!

 

"If you haven't got anything on you, you could whip up a set of notes or something. Or teach me one of your tricks. I forgot to mention that my collection is knowledge, for the most part."

 

Lucine

 

The girl nodded. "Yeah, that might help, I think. I, um, don't actually know much about how to tap leylines or anything. I only ever practiced working with Opal or making Mystic Codes at home." She started to shuffle along toward the direction the sniper had indicated.

[Endlessblaze]

"Mmmmm. If its knowledge you want, I have some spells that could be pretty handy. Shaping solid matter to your whims, a set of spells for creating golems, spells to kick up a miniature blizzard, ect. I could also probably teach you to harness the energy in your body to create a wreath of ice energy around any weapon you pick up, to increase the damage it deals."

 

Leo looks over the offered wares.

"Mmmm... might you be willing to sell some knowledge as well?"

[Sutoratosu]

Stellio had.... precious little to say, as Freya went to trouble of actively stuffing a butchered corpse inside the innards of yet another, larger corpse. Nothing except "Not even the Necromancers of Galgastan ever went to such... lengths just to recover a single corpse. Then again, corpses were not exactly in short supply, back in the isles..."

     He let his gaze linger on the Girl for just a minute longer, before finally turning to look over the wares the strange woman had produced. One would think the knight would be a bit more perplexed at the sudden appearance of a stranger, but well... it was no stranger than anything he'd faced back home, nor since he'd been deposited into this group. By now most of the chaos and madness was rolling right off the chin like a couple of thrown pebbles pinging harmlessly off his armor.

 

"This Sun Tome, what precisely would you be willing to accept for it?" The Terror Knight asked "I've no idea how well it would work for another, but I can teach the basics of dark magic, and channeling mana in general. It seems to be as readily present here as it is in my own realm, at least."

[Yours Truly]

Alan would tip an invisible hat at the French speaking woman after she told the group about where their objective was presumably located, and he made damn sure to say something along the lines of "Much obliged ma'am". Before he continued to walk deeper inside of the derelict.

[Powder Miner]

Nader finally let his arms drop and made a little strangled noise in the back of his throat. "Ggggh, fuck, today's gonna fuckin' kill me, I will literally die, fucking hell. Gonna, fuckin, gonna work on the pipe... Second monster outta fuckin' nowhere in the space of maybe a half hour, maybe I actually cracked and am in an asylum, or some dumb shit like that. Pfft. If only. Fuckin..." He proceeded to mumble and rant to himself, turning back around and trailing off as he went back to the pipes and started properly arranging them in preparation of sealing, just to distract himself.

[Chevaleresse]

"Selling knowledge is something I can do, but I'm not going to trust just anybody with demon binding. How did that one guy put it. . .? Oh right. Shit's dangerous, yo. They'll chew you up and spit you out and then eat your family if you're not careful. And the rest of what I know is basic survival skills. And the beam. But I don't think the beam would work for anyone who's not a Planeswalker and I don't particularly feel like trying to see if you've got a spark. Since that would involve me trying really, really hard to kill you and seeing if you popped off into a different plane." She shrugged, and turned to Stellio with a questioning look.

 

"No offense, but I thought it was pretty obvious I know how to channel mana. And do dark magic," she said, gesturing at the demon, who at this point was looking somewhat upset about not being able to stab anything. "I can't let this stuff go for free; I'm not that nice," she said with a laugh.

[Hal Henderics]

"I can unlock the hidden magical potential of any otherwise unmagical objects you desire.  In return for that crystal core."

Blue holds up what is clearly a sewing needle, not as a threat, clearly, but as a demonstration.  It crackles with electricity, a sort of energy that seems more than capable of ruining any unlucky technology.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Hal Henderics

[Sutoratosu]

"Not in my world, it wouldn't be," the knight responded "Most who are knowledgeable and insane enough to intentionally draw forth an ogre- our equivalent of what you might deem a full-fledged demon -must do so either by using divine artifacts to break seals that were placed for good reason, or more.... direct methods. Dark Magic alone holds none of the same conotations in my home realm as it sounds like it does, in the places you've visited. It's merely another element, with it's own set of offenses, defenses, and utilities.

    But very well, if you are not interested in the primary magic I practice, I've witnessed and put an end to enough arcane crimes over the decades that I've pieced together how some of the less... well known schools in my world operate. I could give you notes on the sympathetic principles by which necromancy functions in my realm, the mental degradation it seems to have on most practitioners, the names, habits, and deeds- both good and ill, though mostly ill -of the greatest ones I've crossed paths and killed, etcetera.

    Or conversely, I could do the same for the principles of Draconic magic- whose name indeed stems from exactly what it sounds like: Dragons. One could say it's like an amalgamation of every primary element we have, with several unique capabilities to it's name, such as long range teleportation, Precognition, the power to negate both blades and spells alike like it's nothing, the power to sacrifice one's own life force to resurrect another, so on and so forth. Admittedly, I have less information on that subject than I do necromancy, given it's practitioners are even rarer, and it's roots even more ancient and harder to track with certainty.

    OR, if not even the most archaic schools of magic from my realm interests you, I have just as much knowledge on techniques which scholars struggle to classify, given they produce effects comparable to the arcane arts, yet do not consume mana in order to function. Techniques born of training one's body, mind, and spirit to a razor sharp point, turning one's will into a weapon of reality warping destruction upon the battlefield. Slashing holes into reality to let all manners of energies pour forth and annihilate your victims. Loosing an arrow with such utter accuracy and resolve, that it violates the very laws of nature to bring ruin upon your target. Thrusting a spear into one's target so viciously that it tears the fabric of dimensions and spawns countless other copies of itself to mirror your movements, so on and so forth... and there are yet more tame techniques which full under this category- striking a target with enough mal intent that it shakes even the most courageous of victims to their cores, inspiring fear into countless foes with nothing but the mere presence of one's spite, spontaneously generating obstacles such as barricades and living shadows, generating auras which halt enemy advancement like an invisible wall slamming into their ugly mugs, force feeding the ambient mana to flow through one's body at an accelerated rate... the possibilities of these "Special" Techniques and skills is seemingly boundless, and I have spent just as long studying them as I have magic.

    If however, still you are not interested in any of these offers, then the last bastion of my Knowledge I've to offer is everything I have researched and uncovered of the Ogres or "demons" of my world, over the decades. And everything I have witnessed first hand of their power from fighting two rulers corrupted and warped into Ogres, one by his sorrows and the other by his ambition. I could give you the complete history of the massive battle they once fought against the gods and humanity, in hopes of escaping the netherworld and ruling the surface as their own. Just as I can give you the names of each of the fell generals who help to rule over them, their powers, and their roles in the Ogre Battle. Infact, I could give you the same depth of information on the gods of the ogres themselves, and their chief Diablo, the mage wyrm. Gods know the fucker hasn't left me be since he latched on, his lips are rather loose when conversing with those who wishes to groom, and the powers he grants his thralls, while devastating in battle, tend to carry their own special brand of ruin... this is my strongest, and final offer. There are few others who yet draw breath in my world who can give such a thorough account of ancient events and the hierarchy by which our demons rule themselves.

    So, do we have a deal for any of these, or are Diablo's taunts in my skull right now correct, and I'm just wasting my time?"

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Stellio, foolish, foolish stellio. hmhmhmhmhmhhoooooooh it's almost adorable, thinking your dark soul- which owes it's very survival thus far to me, by the way -can be purified by some pidly light brought from another realm. HA! Stop this rampant denial, you are one of us stellio, an Ogre in human flesh regardless what you might postulate to the contrary... your mother saw to that...

 

As always, go peddle your lies somewhere else. I'm not buying, I'm never buying. There's a difference between persistence, and futility.

 

How ironic, coming from the knight who futilty denies his nature, when not even a ful hour ago, you were soaked in the blood and viscera of another who you'd torn limb from limb with no mercy in your heart to be found... just like an Ogre would...

[GodofGamingRWBY]

As expected, Freya quickly found something in Marisa's junk that she found interesting. Specifically, the large set of jaws that remained from some kind of large creature. Sure, it was only a set of jaws, but things of that size were rare, and in all likelyhood, she could find a way to make it useful. That was her specialty, making old bones and recently dead bodies useful, even when they were expired,

 

"Oooooo, what would you want for the jaws? I can give you some directions to make a spell that would let you come back from the dead by yourself, if you want. Spells are kiiiinda my only trade here" Freya asked.

[Chevaleresse]

"Oh, you're down there," Marisa says with a slight start, looking down at Blue. "Interesting offer. . . Let me think, I might have something worth messing with in my bag. That core is rare and valuable even where I grabbed it from, though, and pretty dangerous to handle. Speaking of, I can't really let you guys have both this mask and this tome. It's just begging for something bad to happen. So if you're interested in both, or you know someone who's interested, you might want to talk to them before you buy either."

 

Then, her response to Stellio. "So, various schools of magic, some martial magic techniques, and information on your world's demons and demon lords. . . I have to say I'm mostly interested in the latter. I am a demonologist. Not that I tell most people that. They get a little, you know. Touchy. And murder-y. I don't suppose you could put together some notes for me to go over?"

 

"Self-resurrection?" She looked quite interested in Freya's offer. "Yeah, that'd probably work. What's the catch, though? Bringing anything back to life tends to have a lot of costs attached, especially when that thing is yourself."

[Endlessblaze]

Leo nods at blue's choice and Stello's desire for the tome. They sounded very useful. But it was a good idea to get more info

"What more can you tell us about the core? Is it safe to remove it from the Caseing? Will normal gloves suffice for handling it?

"I'm getting a bad vibe off that seed. And that's not just me worrying, that's my scanner talking"

"Mmmm... It could be useful though. uhh Marissa was it? do you mind if I test its Mana type?"

 

"Oh and as for others who might be interested, the rest of the group went off to secure some thing filled with a ton of mana in it"

Edited November 26, 2017 by Endlessblaze

[Projeck]

Contagion organizes the various bits and bobs he gathered off of the Talon Operatives, then gather their bodies in a respective row. Even if they were terrorists on this world, they deserved some sort of burial. But that could wait, at least. Contagion headed to the derelict, and went inside. "This is... interesting, to say the least. How in the hell..."

[StormLord]

The little SkyFaller's explanation was....interesting.  A flying death machine, it sounded exactly like something that would come from SkyFallers.

So he took a step back and watched and listened as the others discussed and argued over the little SkyFaller's death machine.  Over this time some a new Skyfaller appeared, they created some sort of beast in response to one of the other's threats(He suddenly like them a little more), and seemed to be selling several small items.

He walked over and inspected the items, the others had already taken interest in most of them, but there were still a couple left to look at.  He pointed at the small greenish pearl.

"What is this?  What does it do?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment(not easy when you're a giant lizard), then reached up with a razor she claw and made a small cut on his upper arm.  After a couple seconds dozens of tiny green and white mushrooms popped out.  He scraped up a few with his claw.

"These are a powerful healing plant where I am from.  They can survive almost anywhere, even in skin where they grow and help to heal wounds."

[Hal Henderics]

"I'm sure we will be able to acquire housing for this core.  The skills of this group are varied."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

"No catch! Well, except the amount of time needed to actually get the spell to work. Here, I'll write it down for you" Freya replied, before reaching behind her, into the bag on her belt, pulling out a journal, an ink pot, and a quill. Then, she went to work, flipping to the last page of her journal and writing down the directions to make her spell work. Essentially, it required one to manipulate their soul into an object, preferably ink on a cloth like Freya does, at a slow pace so the soul doesn't become damaged as it fills in the missing parts again. If Marisa didn't know how to do that, there was a small note on the bottom that gave a quick guide on how to do that, though Freya felt Marisa would get the hand of it.

 

After about 5 minutes of nonstop writing, Freya finally stood up, tearing the page from her journal and holding it out to Marisa, "Ta-da! One anti-death spell directions! Don't go crazy with it" Freya said.

[Sutoratosu]

At the demonologist's request, stellio loosened his breast plate a bit, sliding in a gauntleted hand and quickly retrieving an old, leather bound journal. How many decades it had been since he last wrote in it, he did not know, nor did he know how long it had been since he last delved headlong into whatever libraries or other potential places housing information about them, desperate to find even a scrap of information to help him excise the damn fiends. Quite frankly, after a certain point, probably right around the time he'd enlisted, he'd simply given it up, resolving that if he could not find a way to excise them, at the very least he could hone his will enough to resist his constant temptations...

 

Shaking his head as the old memories faded back into the corners of his mind, he offered it to the witch "Already compiled, years and years ago. When I was younger and a bit more naive, I had thought to seek out each and every last drop of knowledge I could about them, just encase there was some way out of it... there wasn't."

 

Within the old journal would be contained a veritable wealth of names, titles, and various descriptions, each of them numbered as neat, scribbled little entries across the journal's pages, each entry detailing the name, role, and other tidbits of the countless denizens of the abyss.

 

As one would read it, it would become Obvious a teenage stellio had started off his notes by exploring the most common of the Ogres, the foot-soldiers and cannon fodder breeds; namely the Imp and it's more powerful relatives such as Devils, and stellio had included a sketch of every one of their types- all of them resembled tall, emaciated humanoids with broad wings, hunched posture, curled horns atop their heads, cloven feet not unlike those of a goat or horse, and a serpentine tail. They appeared to be pathetically weak individually, but the knight in his younger years had made a special note of how they tended to make up for it with otherwordly cunning easily capable of outdoing even the best mortal conman. 

 

After Imps and Devils, the entries focused on progressively stronger classes of Ogre, organizing them into strict orders of magnitude which escalate from lower, middle, high, and finally the Peak. Lower and Middle orders contained the names and descriptors of lower Ogres such as Imps, those who were meant as little more than common rank and file and middling level officers, while those of the high order represented the Generals of the Ogres, direct servants to the supreme god of darkness, the fabled and dreaded Diablo, and his cabal of lesser Ogre gods... and chief among these Generals, Stellio had placed a demon named "Galf", an imposing, gargoyle like-being who had become notorious for his ferocity and steady victories during the ogre battle, only to be defeated by three angelic knights sent by the gods themselves in order to help mankind retain control of the surface realm. Cheif among his strategies had been converting and corrupting the souls of fallen men into vampires and other ungodly undead as a means to bolster his own armies.

 

The Peak Order, or "Cabal" level as Stellio had put it, contained the most powerful individuals ever known among the Ogres- each one of them powerful enough to rival a full fledged god in their prime... names included a being named Ashmedai, who apparently had a more masterful command of elemental darkness than any of his peers. Danika, who in her own right had quite the story which stellio had made sure to include, who was honestly more a prisoner to the Cabal of Ogre Gods than a willing participant, but had eventually grown to sympathize with her captors and orchestrated to improve the lives of the Ogres... or tried to. 

 

Cheif among the fell gods, was unsurprisingly the very beast he had mentioned earlier- Diablo, the mage wyrm. A great, horror-inspiring figure who was said in times of old to have rivalled the creator god himself, whoever that might be (for, as Melisa would likely pick up from various footnotes stellio left, the people of his world had long since debated and warred over the question of just which "god" had actually created the world and was thus the one true deity to rule them all). He seemed to be able to take on a variable form at will, from a fully fledged, mountainous sized dragon, to a centaur form of an Imp-like humanoid fused to a twin headed dragon at the waist, to yet more appearances. Stellio went into greater detail about him than any others, going so far as to recount tales that he claimed no other scholar could know, in the text... tales of how Diablo, sealed away after his failed bid to take the surface world from humanity and elevate the Ogres from the misery of the underrealms, had found a disciple through a corrupted artifact, and through him had tried to return to the world merely a few decades ago, using a massive war as a cover... only to be vanquished and sealed again by a few rebels before he could regain his full might.

[Chevaleresse]

"I wouldn't handle the core directly. It transmutes things it comes into direct contact with, and re-isolating it after it's been exposed to air or other substances is difficult. At least, that's what the woman who gave it to me said. If you've got some sort of magic field to put around it, it might work. My name is Marisa, by the way. Not Marissa. Muh-REE-sa. Anyway, I have no idea what this seed thing is. I got it after blowing up this weird thing that pulled me into a pocket dimension and tried to. . . eat me, I think? It wasn't friendly, let's leave it there. You can test it if you want, as long as it's not destructive, but I take zero responsibility for the result."

 

She looked curiously at the lizardman. The mushrooms were interesting, to say the least, though more interesting was that the lizardman apparently cultivated them inside himself. Wasn't that dangerous? "The pearl will teleport you to it if you throw it at something. They usually break on impact, though, and the process isn't very gentle. The blocky guy I bought it from said it was connected to another world, and that if you gave it the right sorts of treatments - something about fiery powder? - it could guide you to dimensional portals and such. No idea if that's true, though, and I don't really need that kind of thing much." She shrugged. 

 

"Interesting," she said, glancing between both Stellio and Freya's offerings. "I don't want to sell you guys anything until I get to meet up with the rest of your group, though. Consider it part of the payment."

[GodofGamingRWBY]

"Alright, that's fair. I'll just keep a hold of this for now, if you don't mind" Freya said, stowing her journal and writing tools away, folding up the paper that had the instructions for the spell.

[Endlessblaze]

"If it breaks, ill make sure to pay for it..."
Leo directs some mana into the seed, causeing the mana to change. Though most of it seems to be absorbed, Leo does some basic testing with the leftover mana and seems to be pleased.

Spoiler

(Unimportant Rolls :^))

Leo obtains a form of mana which responds to emotions and desires, a sort of "Wish" element. Most of the mana was simply absorbed.

"Interesting. its definitely worth some study. I think ill buy it. We can talk payment when we meet up with the others." He brings up his computer and its hard light screens. Typing in a few lines, presumably about the mana he tested.

"With the pipeline repaired our mission should be complete, we should accomplish any business we have here and then move on."

"I would like to run a check of the town first. Then we can go. Does anyone have any objections?"