Re: The Adbot's Revenge!
(Oh, Pale, nice. Got me almost completely be surprise. Thankfully, my character is smarter then me… unfortunately, not enough so to actually be helpful. Sorry for taking so long... got a copy of the Starcraft Anthology and read through the whole thing. And four Warcraft graphic novels. And I, Mengsk.)
Host was, as usual, worried. Pale’s initial entrance had planted a speck of doubt in his mind. What little he knew of Pale showed that the mage could have and would have scanned the building beforehand. He’d only paid the illusionists for the initial trap, and now that that had ended, they were completely open, giving her knowledge of everyone inside – if not their specifics, than at least their number. There was no reason for Pale to have come here unless she knew that some of the rest of her team were here also. Thusly, she knew she was up against something that took out multiple people of a similar power to herself. Pale was smart enough to know that that meant trouble. And yet, she had settled on a bluff that would be automatically seen through if they actually went through with it – after the first few fell, the remainder would get her. Strange.
As believable as Host’s shouts of alarm sounded, he knew Pale wouldn’t fall for them. She already knew her team had been taken out, which people that incompetent were simply not capable of doing. Pale had to know that they would try something, and Host could only assume she had something prepared for them as they tried to spring their own trap on her. It was a case of gambit against gambit, and Host could only hope that Pale had not anticipated their grenades and would still be vulnerable to them. They were well-kept secrets, after all.
Any doubt Host had about the situation being a trap was lost when Pale gave away her initial gambit through the radios, which she had to know were in the building with Host. Clearly, she wanted them to attack, to fall into her trap. And attack was exactly what they’d do – just, hopefully, in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
Meanwhile, five beings conversed with each other.
“You know, we could tell him it’s an illusion.” piped one.
“His fight is not ours. And we haven’t been paid for illusion detection.” said the largest, and apparent leader.
“She could be a problem, though. And the Lurkers do follow a cause close to our own…” said another.
“Not all Lurkers follow the same cause - Enough. We do not interfere unless paid to do so. It’s bad enough that we’ve been consorting on mortal planes for this long.” the leader responded, giving a feline growl as it spoke, conveying its annoyance.
“What if she attacks us?” a third asked. For a few moments, their leader was silent.
“…We’ll deal with that if it occurs - until then, be silent!" the leader gave a sly smile. "The following events are bound to be amusing, and I don’t want to miss them.” it said, with a purr...
(I’m not sure how the illusion will respond to the grenade – realistically, or not? Also, even though there is now a chance of this not happening, I’ll continue on with the after capture stuff, just in case.)
-----------------------------------------Future----------------------------------------
As Shrike expands her mind’s influence and meets no resistance, she almost begins to hope that the Lurkers had neglected to block her powers. These hopes were dashed as her consciousness tried to search outside the room, meeting only a magical barrier. It was clearly made by someone less powerful than the illusionists that had cast the original trap, but was powerful nonetheless. Shrike believes she can feel the presence of several different minds whenever she brushes the shield, making it likely to have been cast by a group. Pushing through would take much out of her, and alert the casters to her attempts. Host’s mind, while ‘visible’ in the mental sense, is also blocked by one of these barriers, probably maintained by the same casters that were guarding the room.
Along with Host, Shrike can sense the minds of the rest of the captured squad, resting in the other alcoves on the side of the room... All except for Copper, who was there but seemed to not have any brain activity at all, unlike someone who was merely unconscious. Even the undead had more mental activity than what Copper currently was showing. Err, then again, if Copper had slightly less mental activity than normal, that would technically be less activity than the undead… Technicalities aside, she was somewhere above ‘dead’ and below ‘zombie’.
Host seems fairly shocked when you mention the Lurkers.
“Wait, you know about us? Wow, well, that makes things easier… I suppose. …Your inflexion shows you do mean this group, too, as opposed to the catchall term for those who lurk on forums… I… really didn’t think we were that well known outside the forum, to be honest. I suppose this really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, our, annoyingly short, file on you does indicate that you’re well traveled…” he trails off.
“Well, I suppose that will make explaining the why much simpler.” Host’s expression changes to what you think is surprise, though his reptilian face is alien enough to make determining the emotion behind his movements very difficult. “Ah, hold here a moment,” he says, walking over to the far side of the room. He continues talking as he reaches a table you hadn’t noticed was there. “This is going to be a long answer, and likely without too much room for your input… so…” he puts his hand into a jar as well camouflaged as the table it stood on, took something out, and tossed it to Shrike. “Figured you might want some food with your entertainment.” He says, as he walks back. The cookie in your hands does not have For correctly guessing a reference written on it, nor Sorry it took so long. Host. It is an entirely plain, chocolate-chip cookie.
Host changes his posture, and begins speaking with a more authoritative tone of voice, seemingly intent on giving a speech.
“As you are well aware, we currently face a great threat, capable of destroying both of our respective factions.” He looses the speech-like manner for the first of a couple of times during his talk, and says “Well, not your faction, per say, but the forum. Although yours is probably at risk too. Whoever they are.” Before picking up where he left off.
“As we did on the second forum, the Lurkers have come out of hiding and put their vendettas aside – well, alright, maybe not entirely aside, but we won’t attack the members, – and are willing to work together with the forum, towards the salvation of our peoples. We’ve written up a peace treaty for president Aika and everything.”
Host pauses for a moment. “Of course, that doesn’t actually answer your question. The… ’diplomatic retrieval mission’, was not undertaken for one significant reason, but for many smaller ones. As I mentioned, the Lurkers hate the forum. Since we’ve not been attacking the forum for years, keeping everyone from going batshit has been becoming more and more difficult. Just declaring peace with the forum, regardless of reason, would have riled them to no end, beyond what we could feasibly control. Basically, we needed to give one last, big, ‘Fuck You!’ to the forum, or the lay-Lurkers would have overthrown the command structure, and it would have been out and out war.”
“Point two,” Host continues, holding up two fingers, “We need to be taken seriously. The last time anyone saw us, we were small, beaten and insignificant. Now? We can take out the best teams the forum can throw at us. And now the forum knows that, too. Point three; there really weren’t many better ways to initiate contact. We might know that we were bringing a message of peace, but the Members don’t. If we go unarmed, the forum would take us captive and interrogate us. If we go with weapons, a battle would almost immediately start. There may well be some members who wouldn’t just shoot Lurkers on sight, but the chance of meeting less understanding people is too great to risk. The members don’t trust us, either, so even going in with a white flag would be risky. Only one panicky member needs to start shooting to turn the meeting into a battle.”
He shakes his head. “No, just like with the second forum, we need to eliminate all elements of chance while delivering the message. If we disarmed and cut off any avenues of help for the members we were dealing with, there’d be no way for them to cause problems. Aika’s security is a bit better than it used to be, so we can’t just ‘secure’ him, directly, like last time. Giving the message to other members and having them deliver it, though – that was entirely possible, and was the least risky method we had available to us. Hence, everything that happened regarding the house and your mission.”
“As for why we chose that building, in particular… it certainly wasn’t to steal a prototype weapon before officially entering peace, stopping us from having the chance.” Grinning, Host gives a childish, exaggerated wink. Apart from making you want to facepalm, this has the effect of causing a small realization. If Host uses overblown gestures to convey things, it is simple to understand his intentions. Otherwise, his strange features make it very difficult to determine just what his emotions are supposed to be. His exaggerated gestures may actually be for the benefit of the humans around him.
For a moment, Host stops talking, as if finished his points – but then he suddenly gives an exclamation, hand shooting up with pointer finger raised. “Ah! I almost forgot. The reason we didn’t just take the recruits. Part of it is point two, we wanted to beat strong combatants, but we were also trying to get the prototype weapon working. It was unstable as all get out; the forum needed a containment field just to stop it blowing up in their faces. The field was fixed to the house, and we didn’t have a mobile one to transport the weapon in, so we just fixed the gun where it was.”
“As for where the rest of the people we captured are, you have only to turn around to find the answer. Though I suspect that, by now, you’ve already learnt that.” Host’s tone turns a bit more serious. “Now, Shrike, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for your help. Failing this task will prove very painful… for me. The rest of your group consists of a warrior of darkness, a mage who could turn people inside out, and a vampire that’s lost blood and doesn’t know any time has passed since the battle. She was put in stasis,” Host explains. “There wasn’t anything else we could do to trap her in such short notice."
"Anyway, as you can imagine, their first actions upon finding me as their company are not going to be pleasant - especially since we can’t really disarm people who use their minds and bodies as weapons. And so, I need you to convince them not to kill me. Preferably, while they’re still unconscious…" Host draws a deep breath, causing a rather long pause. "…forcibly, if it comes to that - though I won’t press you to change their minds, if you don’t want to. It will, of course, help matters if the forum’s, ‘selected diplomats’, don’t start killing the people they’re trying to ally with - but, as I said, your choice. Hopefully that won’t be necessary, anyway - I’m sure you’re all reasonable people, and we do have other things we can use to try and calm them down, should you not wish to do this.” He grins. More than ever, the demonic nature of his features is apparent – and yet, from his words you cannot help but think that he is sincerely against forcibly changing the minds of the other members.
Or a really good liar.
.)