The Adbot's Revenge!

[Shrike7]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

((Gimme a cookie, it's a Starcraft Reference! ))

Shrike recovered from her roll right in front of the second man, deflecting his first shot and slicing the gun into two pieces before he could take a second, the double-sided blade continuing it's spin and stopping the other side an inch from the man's throat. "Don't move." She said warningly, seperating her weapon into two blades and making sure the first was dead.

I have a prisoner. She broadcasts telepathically to both Grave and Copper.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

((Hahaha! Oh man, I loved that scene with those two! It was really funny.))

When Grave got the mental message from Shrike, both Sarge and Lister had short, black swords buried in the middle of their chests. It seemed that they estimated their lifespans correctly. The warrior pulled his weapons out and smiled.

Good, it's killing time.

Grave could sense the presence of Shrike and her prisoner, as well as the position of the rest of the bandits. He knew that the commotion would draw their attention. And he decided to greet them properly. Grave stormed out of the room and ran down the corridor. He could notice Shrike and her prisoner, but he didn't pay much attention. When he got in front of the door to the room with the device and remaining enemies, Grave focused more power into his weapons. He slashed with his left sword, releasing an energy wave to break the door, then slashed again to release a wave that'd hit anyone that stood behind the door. Afterwards, he ran into the room himself, moving in for the kill.

 

[Copper]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

((Maps are good.))

Good. Any other's to worry about? With Grave taking out the two in the room they'd arrived in and one prisoner, that meant they were now at even odds. Well, as even odds as these poor schmucks could possibly get, given what they were up against.

Rather than kick up her senses, Copper opted to just follow after Grave, not having an extrasensory radar of her own. She rounded the corner just as Grave was sending the second wave into the room, flipping a knife of her own into her hand.

"Remind me never to take you trick-or-treating," she states, shaking her head and letting him go, just covering him from the doorway, since it's obviously been far too long since Grave's had a chance to mix things up by his lonesome.

 

[Pale]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

The fires of re-entry sizzle away into the ground around the Grey Mage, and she brushes imagined dust away from her robes, before fixing Sparky with a glare that told just how much she didn't like him.

A grey-sandalled foot shifts, stamping the last remnants of whatever-the-hell-she-landed-on into the ground.

"Should have known you'd be around here. I take it... well. From the looks of things, the main offensive has tapered off.. did we find a leader of any sort? Kill some Bot-King, or similar..? Tell me we killed them all, and I can go home..?"

A sigh.

"And what are Wraith hunters..?"

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

"I'm afraid it's not over yet. As for Wraith Hunters, they are similar in appearance to myself, only they are specifically trained to hunt live prey, scout enemy defenses and if need be, retrieve useful technology. Most likely the group I saw is heading this way to scout your own defenses, as well as bring back potential food for the queen."


He was cut off by the sound of something moving towards them, and a few moments later John came into view, stopping when he saw the two of them. "Ok, what the hell did you two blow up?"

 

[Pale]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

"......Ah. See, I may not know much about strategy, never been a great military mind.. but those would be the kind of guys we'd generally call "The enemy", right? Sorry, I get so confused when working with turncoats.."

Her hand quietly sparks, the spell she had prepared dying away into mana reserves once more as John comes into view..

"...Blow.. up? I landed on the ugliest thing I could see. Didn't blow anything up, as far as I'm aware.."

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

Sparky almost looked annoyed at Pale, but wisely kept his mouth shut.


John shook his head. "Leave it to you to have a sense of humor when I least expect it. I saw you come in and figured something was up. So what did I miss?"

 

[Host]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

Grave ran into the room, the two occupants still fumbling for weapons. He quickly put them out of their misery, noting as he did so that, even if they were caught completely unaware by the attack, these people were utterly pathetic. He wondered for a moment just how they’d managed to take four solders captive, but quickly put it out of his head – they probably had some large trap set up downstairs, and got them that way. Too bad he was wrong…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to Eddy and Snake, a few moments after Snake lost his bet…

“Ah, Eddy… Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“You know… I think I am. What the hell is going on?”
“Boss, are you doing that?” A third person responded quietly,
“It’s not me… but I think I know who it is.” The person spoke to himself under his breath.
“Host, what the hell are you doing…?”

“Heads down!” Snake suddenly spoke. “One of ‘em’s coming!”
Shrike burst in through the window, drew her blades and placed one at the neck of the person she saw. The person stood stock still, hands half raised in the air, sweating profusely. Shrike sticking his writhing companion with her sword didn’t really help his composure, either.
“And now she’s doing it, too! What the hell…” Snake muttered to himself. “Get ready… alright… UP!”
A well-concealed person in metal power armour lying beside the room’s bed stood up, training a gun on Shrike. Several other people began to rise as well.

“WAIT!” Snake shouted, being the first one up, and thusly the first to see that Shrike had been utterly unresponsive to his presence. Sort of like the way she was holding a blade up to the air. “I… don’t think she can see us. Or hear us.”
“It’s got to be Host.” Said the person who was previously identified as their boss, as he got out of his hiding place. “I have no clue what he’s doing, or how he’s doing it… but it can only be Host.” The group’s radios suddenly broadcast a signal.
“Look lively, lads! They’re going to be back to normal in a moment!”
“Host! Gods damnit, tell me when you’re going to do stuff like this!”

Grave turns from his two kills and moves towards the weapon, only to find that his body won’t respond. The sound of two girls laughing begins to emanate from behind him, the direction of the two people he’d just killed… although he thought at least one was male. Slowly, while being unable to move, he can hear footfalls getting closer, until there is one person on either side of him. With terrifying slowness, two sets of tangled hair creep into the edge of his vision. Two identical female faces enter Grave’s vision, and any doubt about these being different people then the ones he had just killed leaves his mind. For one, he’s sure he didn’t cut off their eyelids. The two corpses, bleeding from the torn off section above their eye and grinning constantly, reach out to Grave’s face, with the same slowness as all their other moves, all while Grave cannot move even the slightest muscle.

Shrike sees her quarry duck down, out of her vision, though only for a moment before her eyes follow him. He isn’t there. Shrike doesn’t have time to wonder about that, though, because she suddenly finds she can’t move. She watches as the glass peppering the far wall moves together, forming some strange sort of broken glass golem. It slowly moves toward her, stretching out a hand. It takes hers, moving it up into her vision, allowing her to see her hand falling apart from the sharp cuts of the glass-being, despite feeling no pain. Strangely, there was no blood as the creature held her hand, cutting it to ribbons, even the bones, yet applying almost no pressure. It slowly moved its hands to Shrike’s shoulders, causing them to tear apart in the same manner as her hands. Finally, it slowly moves to place its hands on her face, and Shrike can feel her skin start to split as her head is split into small chunks.

(Here’s one for all you Morowind players…)
Copper finds she cannot control her movements. She sees a sumptuous banquet spread out before her. She feasts on a particularly choice cut of roasted meat, and its aroma makes her mouth water. It is only as she cuts into the last portion that she sees the scrib larvae squirming inside. She coughs blood as the larvae begin eating their way out of her stomach.

You all return from the visions to find yourself in the same place you were standing before the visions started, reeling somewhat from the abrupt mental changes. Grave sees a humanoid metal being fairly close to his body, holding a hand out above itself. Grave barely has the opportunity to look up at the device in the being’s metal claw – a lumpy, somewhat spherical object, similar in appearance to a bunch of grapes covered in metal – before the device goes off.

Grave’s world explodes into pain as every one of his senses is filled with stimuli – he is blinded, deafened, his body stings with the pain of a hundred impacts, his senses of smell and taste both scream for him to vomit… and his mind retreats to unconsciousness, if not from the overload of stimuli, then from the knockout gas the grenade is also emitting. Copper is caught in the same grenade, and while she doesn’t feel as much pain, and isn’t susceptible to gas, her senses are pained to an extent that would turn any human suffering it into a writhing, crying lump.

Shrike, however, is outside the effective zone of the grenade, though she does feel some of the effects, loosing a short moment to the pain in her senses. The two people she thought were there were not, and the large number of armoured people she thought weren’t there, are. And, judging by something very gun like sticking into the middle of her back, the armoured people behind her also existed. There are at least five in front of you, god-knows-how-many in the room that just exploded, and an unknown number behind you. And those suits don’t look like they’re made of foil, either.
“Don’t try anything and we’ll knock you out painlessly.” Snake said, holding the barrel into the member’s back. As opposed to how we took them out, he thought, thinking about the sight that must be through the doorway - a writhing woman, whom he could hear screaming in pain, and thrashing on the ground just outside the entrance to the other room.
“If we wanted you dead, we would have just killed you.” He points out to Shrike, attempting to pre-empt and stop his new prisoner from trying anything.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

After killing the remaining enemies, Grave tried to inspect the weapon. However, he found himself unable to do so. As soon as he heard the laugh, he realized that something was very wrong. When he saw the girls, when he failed to sense any kind of spirit within them, he realized it was a horrible vision. However, even knowing that he couldn't make the impact it had on him smaller - like all illusions, it affected his brain. Once everything was back to normal, Grave found himself staring at a big... Thing standing in front of him - and at the device in it's hands. One that looked like a grenade.

'Oh f...'

The sudden attack made Grave scream for a while until the gas finally knocked him out. His weapons turned into dust as he dropped them. Grave fell onto the floor. Once he woke up, he'd be really mad.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

Shrike remained surprisingly calm during the beginning, having dismissed the glass golem as some sort of illusion and searching her mind for whoever had infiltrated it. Finding nothing, but still unable to move, Shrike starts to panic and can't help but pass out when the illusion moves onto her face.

The half-blast from the grenade wakes her back up, and she cringes from the sensation overload for a second before examining her surroundings and noting she was surrounded, with a gun to her back and several more pointed at her. "Whose illusion was that?" She asks calmly, not moving apart from moving her hands out from her sides, palms open to show she was unarmed. Mentally, she was building a wall around her mind, trying to shut out any outside force, before building a wall around her body, the same shimmering blue of her blades covering every inch of skin beneath her clothes, ready to jump out and cover the rest of her in an instant. This took nearly all of her concentration, she wouldn't be able to mount an effective attack if she tried, but she doubted she'd get very far with that many guns pointed at her anyways.

 

[Pale]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

The Mage cocks her head to one side for a moment, then shakes it in frustration.

"Strange.. I thought.. for a moment. Strange energy signature though. Still, so much weird shit around here, could be anything. You know any illusory types, John..?"

A harsh laugh, not really humorous at all.

"You missed me getting stuck in an exploding spaceship, and -jumping- back to Earth. Wings aren't much good in space, you know.. Seen the rest of our oh-so-noble defenders around?"

 

[Copper]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

((Yeah, never played Morrowind, so lost on me.))

Though she might not have had full control of her facilities, Copper still knew something wasn't right about this situation. Funny thing about illusions. You had to believe in them for them to work and something telling her that she wanted real food? Yeah, that was someone messing with her head. Of course, the pain of the larve felt real enough. Well, if they wanted out that badly...her hands, curled in pain, sprouted her claws...she'd just help them along.

Before she lashed into her own stomach, though, the feeling mercifully subsided. There was that split second of realization, that wonderful "ohshit" moment that life gave you when you just didn't have enough time to act but enough to realize you were fucked. Covering herself as best she could, she still felt the impact, the sensory overload dropping her to the floor. Bloody tears clouded her vision and her own shriek sounded muffled to her ears. What got her most, though, was the smell. It was enough to make her want to retch. She curled up, trying to keep her body from following through with that feeling, deep almost hacking coughs wracking her body as she fought with the nausea that came with it. Migraine to the extreme, her mind managed to focus on, that thought not helping her recover in the least. Unlike Grave, who was lucky enough to pass out, she wasn't unconscious, but would be out of it until her senses stopped going haywire.

 

[Host]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

(Me either, but I know about the dreams. Elder scrolls vampires come in clans, and at least one of these clans, if not all of them experience horrifically twisted dreams when sleeping. Thankfully sleeping isn’t necessary for vampires, but still… Also, Copper was, as far as she could tell, alive while that was going on. One thing, is she susceptible to staking like a VtM Vamp, or was that changed?)

Unlike the unfortunate, unsuited pair that had been caught in the grenade’s impact, the armoured people in the room were all completely insulated from every effect of the grenade. Small stinging impacts? Thick metal armour. Blinding light? Turn off the cameras. Deafening noise? Noise insulation, and turn off the outside mic. One of the suited people in the room with grave took up the prototype weapon, and walked over to Copper. He pressed some buttons, pulled a stock out, and aimed the device at the prone vampire.
“Wait. She should loose consciousness if we stick a stake in her heart. You lot, hold her down for me.”
Copper’s sense of touch, overloaded as it was, didn’t even register the feeling of being held down as one of the people staked her…

As Shrike builds a mental barrier, she rather unsurprisingly finds it unable to cover everything – one ‘section’, in so far as the term can be applied to a mindscape, simply refused to close completely. When Shrike attempted to force it closed, she got unusual responses from the direction of the adjacent room.
“Ow! Hey! Stop th- AGH! Help, guys!”
All of a sudden, Shrike’s mental shield dissipated as if torn apart by some stronger psychic force… only there was no trace of any psychic influence anywhere. The only other thing capable of doing something like that… would be a powerful magic spell. …Or, well, you suppose some strange technology could do it too, but you’re willing to bet on the spell idea - It certainly felt… spell-y.

Back in the physical world, the person pointing the gun at your back has a response.
“Uh, we’re not actually sure who did that. We think it was one of your own, but he seems to have hidden himself from even us.” One of the suits is distinctly different from the rest, having metal fox-like ‘ears’, a more pronounced point to the head, and small, whisker-like indentations on the helmet. Oh, and it’s painted a bright yellow on the head, hands, and feet, which doesn’t hurt it’s individuality. The person in the fox-like suit speaks.
“It was Host, I’m sure of it. Only he could pull off something like this.”
“Did someone say my name!?” The wall between the room Shrike was in and the room next to it burst open in a cloud of plaster… and whatever the hell else walls are made from. Standing in the middle of that was a large, black-scaled reptilian humanoid, which apparently could not stop itself from letting off an “OH YEAH!” as it entered.

“Host, you bastard,” fox-suit shouted, moving right up next to the demonic-looking being. “What the hell did you do - And where were you hiding?!” All Host gave in answer were two words – “Prancing Gremlin.” – and a tooth-filled grin. Fox-suit seemed to understand.
“Oh, gods, you were hiding in the wall. And using a tactic from a video-game.”
“Hey, I kicked your ass with it, if I remember correctly.”
“You pitted a Hakkai against my first level peasant! Of course I bloody lost!”
“Enough about who rigged who’s game - Shrike asked a question, it would be rude to keep delaying.” Host moves past fox-suit and looks at Shrike. Were she to try reading his mind, Shrike would find that it was completely invisible to her senses (or perhaps he simply didn’t have one?, heh), and even the most notable thoughts couldn’t be caught. Host gives a substantial bow before he begins speaking, always with a slight smile on his inhuman face. “I called in some favors to have some very powerful illusionists make this trap work. They’re a secretive bunch who don’t want to make themselves known to most of the forum, and they’re hiding in the wall over there.” Host’s smile fades to something more …worried. “You could just run past us and try to look into the wall, but then we’d just knock you out, and they’d have to tear large chunks of your memory away in order to make sure they get the parts about them… I’m told it’s not a particularly fun experience.” The small, sly smile comes back. “Now, will you kindly submit to being knockout-gassed? An annoying formality, I know, but we can hardly take you to a secret base while you’re conscious.”

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

John shook his head. "No I don't."


Sparky however seemed uneasy suddenly. "Describe what it felt like to me. Some Wraith, specifically QUEENS have very ... powerful mental abilities. We CAN make you see or feel things that aren't there, but it usually has to be within close proximity. I've never bothered using it myself, actually don't know how to. I'd say if you told any of the other Wraith that I'd have to hurt you, but since they all want me dead for helping you ..."

He trailed off, the implications clear on that one. Wasn't much point making a threat like that when your own kind wanted you dead too.



John's reaction was simple. "You've got to be joking me, right?" He could tell he wasn't though.

 

[Pale]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

A shake of silver tresses, but the mage's attention was already elsewhere, teeth sinking gently into her lip as she concentrates.

"No kidding here, but hang on.. lemme.. it's still rippling."

One arm lifts, as if by itself, and her finger trails silver, outlining a complex geometrical shape, inward-facing and shut-in, no open edges. When she finishes, grey eyes snap back to the object before her.

"Like I thought. Someone built a fairly complex GhostPrism.. With a nasty trigger, too."

To demonstrate, the mage pokes a particular spot in her own diagram, and the whole shape collapses inward onto several different points, which twinkle for a second before evaporating.

"....A trap. Somewhere in the forum, though.. If this IS a Queen, she's inside the forums. You!"

Without bothering with John's name, she whirls on him.

"Where are the rest of the members? Where's... Where... Where is Siphon? And... Swallow? Shrike! I mean Shrike! And the vamp? That moron of a commanding officer? Anyone?"

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

Shrike let out a sigh, moving her senses to Host's physical body in an attempt to mark him in her mind somehow. "Thanks for asking, but I'm pretty sure my answer doesn't matter anyways. I do have one more question though: Why? Why go through all this trouble, I don't see a point to any of this."

((Go ahead and knock her out in the same post you answer with, save some time ))

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

John shook his head. "Siphon left in a dart to go scout out the super-hive location, he's well out of here by now, and as for the others... Tsuki is resting, Burrito is M.I.A and the rest of them went to investigate a disturbance from a building a ways from here regarding looters taking military personnel hostage."


Sparky thought for a moment then turned to the mage. "IF there is a Queen near here, I can tell you if you give me a few moments. I can ... briefly brush her mind, tell if there is another Wraith here besides myself. Siphon will be out of range by now, so I won't pick him up. Of course ... if she detects me, I probably will end up very dead, but at least you'll know!"


He didn't bother waiting, he simply took a breath, then his eyes rolled into his head, a visible sign of his attempt to reach out.

 

[Copper]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

Sorry on the ooc stuff here, but it's the easiest way to answer, since I'm obviously being overridden on actions and don't have anything to post. With the regard to the mindfuck, taking this in game terms, since you brought it up, Copp's willpower rating is 10 of 10, so messing with her head is *very* difficult. At any rate, suffice to say, with the amount of Fortitude Copper has, even prone, they're going to have a very hard time staking her and she won't be out. She will be immobilized, but she'll still be conscious (something they might not know), albiet still out of it thanks to the grenade. And, for the record, God (or whatever they pay homage to) help them when it gets removed. Just sayin'.

 

[cross_grave]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

((Oh good, Grave's going to have a partner when he starts tearing shit up after waking up. He is going to remember that grenade and he won't forgive it easily.))

 

[Host]

Re: The Adbot's Revenge!

(Host approximation :

)

Shrike let out a sigh, moving her senses to Host's physical body in an attempt to mark him in her mind somehow.

(Hmm, not quite sure what you’re trying to do.)

I do have one more question though: Why? Why go through all this trouble, I don't see a point to any of this."

Host gives another bow. “You certainly know how to pick the right questions, Shrike – but that’s not unexpected, considering the degree of intelligence you’ve shown in the short time we’ve had to observe you.”
He closes his eyes while he begins speaking again, and actually looks a little sad. “Unfortunately, that is one question I can’t give an answer to… at least for the moment, anyway. Suffice to say, there were a reasonable number of subtle reasons for taking this course of action as opposed to any other.”
Host looks thoughtful. “You’ll probably be able to figure most of them out if you think hard enough.”
His eyes open a little further, as if hit by sudden recollection- “Ah, but I’ve been distracted from the goal at hand. There are important things in motion, and we can’t further them standing around here. It would seem it is time for you to sleep.”
I just hope this doesn’t set off that explosion-thing she did back at the other hive… Host thinks to himself. This is going far too well.
Snake grabs Shrike around the waist, pinning her arms to her sides. Another armoured person moves up with a smelly rag in hand, which is stuck in Shrike’s face. She breathes in chloroform, struggles for a moment at the loss of air, and barring anything unforseen, passes out.

The stake only goes a few centimetres.
“Jesus, what’s she made of, steel?” Copper’s throws the people holding her off before the one trying to stake her manages a second strike.
“I’ve got it,” said the one with the prototype gun, aiming it at Copper again.
“Don’t be daft, damnit. That’s not going to help things. She’s too strong, we’ve got to find a way to weaken her.”
“I know a way,” said the one who kept trying to use the prototype. "She's a vampite, so..." he put the gun down and pulled out a pistol. “We let out all her blood.” He fired three shots before the one who had tried to stake her knocked his gun out of the way.
“NO, YOU IDIOT! You’re going to make her –“

Copper felt the bullets, sort of. They were points of slightly greater pain than the rest of her body. More obvious than that, though, was something changing. Necessity was making her sense of smell get stronger… and under the repulsive stench from the grenade, other scents were making themselves known, each one taunting of warmth and the taste of copper…

The man who had shot Copper suddenly found that the thrashing vampire was no longer thrashing, and was looking straight at him.
“…Whoops.” He concluded, summing the situation up nicely.

(Five of the best illusionists of a species of natural illusionists were paid a considerable tithe to set up that trap. A god would have had trouble seeing through that illusion, so I didn’t bother giving the mortal players the chance. It’s not the kind of ‘illusion’ that goes away if you stop believing in it, either – they could very well have killed you even while you were tapping your feet together, shouting There’s no place like home!. (Clearly, they chose not to.)

I would have given a chance to respond to the grenade, but the entire idea of that last illusion was to stun you long enough that you wouldn’t have time to respond to the Lurkers’ next movements. After that, there is only one real option for someone who’s been completely deprived of their senses and is in total pain – thrashing around.

You actually could have won this, but you’d’ve needed Tsuki – (I was laughing so hard when I realised you’d gone without her) – and Shrike would’ve had to dig deeper into the minds of the illusionary people. Some very good tactics would’ve been in order, too, but it would’ve been possible.

Pale would have picked up the spell ending, because their anti-detection-from-everything would have been turned off at the same time as the rest of the spell. Also, the spell used on Shrike’s mental defences was completely un-hidden. The spellcasters themselves, however, are still hidden from anything a mortal could use to detect them.

Sparky finds no wraith. Unless, of course, there are wraith in the city I don’t know about. Those who scry over the building that everyone’s in will now find the twenty-three Lurkers that are in there, along with the five captives and three soon-to-be-captives.

Hopefully three bullet wounds and a stake wound is enough to trigger the beginnings of bloodlust. If it isn’t, just increase the number.)

((Oh good, Grave's going to have a partner when he starts tearing shit up after waking up. He is going to remember that grenade and he won't forgive it easily.))

Actually, he probably won’t remember it. Most minds will simply dump or lock away the memories of the experience caused by one of the grenades. Copper’s mind, having max willpower, might not do so, but Grave’s mind likely will. (Unless he has a stronger mind than I’m giving him credit for?)