Nexus is a labyrinth of a city. It is loosely governed by a half-elected corrupt government. Policed by corporation security, and corporate sponsored police. Some districts have different laws than others, such as the Pirate District in which airships can be legally shot down. Once the Portal Creation boom occurred a few years ago, access to even more new and wonderful worlds opened all over the place.

There are taverns, magic emporiums, libraries, observatories, drug houses, airship yards, Portal yards and anything else the eager mind could seek.

Uziel walks openly through the Press of sapients Along the Rim of Nexus, the endless exchange of credits and goods, of no interest to him today. Today he's hunting rumors.

Rumors are best sought in the ports, and So he's been here for weeks. Acting the part of a vacationing officer, but truly listening for the hints of the "Twilight" a ghost ship with a particular story.

"Twilight" was a Blockade runner of small fame several hundred years ago.  The Ship was Just as Uziel was joining the High Elf fleet. The Picket ships that chased the Twilight down said she was lost after having apparently tried to Hide within a portal while the Fleet ships left the area. The Ship was lost with all hands. And yet Uziel has heard rumors of the Ship, appearing to those lost between the worlds. A sleek specter of danger.

Whatever happened to the Twilight might help explain what happened to Uziel.
taking a firm grip on his Blade and went to talk to the newest crop of traders. and smugglers. Ducking into A Tavern on the nicer side of disreputable, The Black Tree Inn caters to the more refined edge of the shadow economy.

Whatever his contact had to say, it had been important enough to send a messenger Bird, and none of His old friends would use such a clandestine measure for what is a fools quest.

Uziel's contact was sitting alone at a privacy booth. He gestured for Uziel to sit, and ordered drinks.

Uziel's contact was the Soldier named Soddit. Soldiers are a race of humans known for their skill in combat. At 8'6", Soddit was short for a Soldier. He had made a name for himself as a Carrier of Secrets. A special kind of courier.

"Gettin's Uziel. May your blade be ever true. I've been hired by the Anima 'orporation to 'ather a team for essploration. Estella mentioned you by name. She had heard about your military service as well as your time in the Void, and thought you'd be a valuable asset. Therefore you're the first one I've approached.

"I haven't been told much information - they're really holding' their ton'ues on this one - but I no it has somethin' to do with a planet that had been lost. They found it."
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:46, Fri 23 Sept 2016.

"May the stars guide you brightly. I'm interested in exploration, but details perhaps? Not that I have any problem with secrecy. But what are we discussing? off universe? off world? and duration?"

Uziel takes his drink and sips it casually.

Not too long after Uziel sat down, the Nurelian poked his head through the door before drifting in. He looked around for a moment, fore-tentacles crossed slightly until he noticed the man who had invited him here. To be honest, he didn't know much as to why he was contacted, but right now, opportunities were something he needed. He floated over to the seats, looking at them for a moment. Fitting in one would be a little award... So instead of making a pitiful display, he elected to float there.

"I showed up, like you said." his voice spoke up briefly, his lower throat flashing dimly with each syllable. He had a hint of an unsure look on his face; again, he wasn't too sure why he was brought here. He looked at the drinks when they came, and took one in a tentacle, sniffing it for a moment before drinking. He didn't really know what it was, but he didn't want to seem rude. He wasn't paying, after all.

"ah,. please feel welcome neighbor."

The elf nods respectfully. But his eyes stay focused on the courier.

Soddit nodded at Kuruno, "Greetin's 'uruno. May your fan's ((fangs)) never dull... If you have fan's. I just finished mentionin' to Uziel here the need for se'recy. The Anima Corporation has a job for you if you're willin'.

"It all started many hundreds of years past. In those days, Magem was virtually un-nown. There were mages of a different sort, much like Uziel here, and 'lo'wor' machines that didn't use 'lo'wor' at all. ((I place OOC info in these double parentheses. I'm sure you all get the idea that he can't pronounce "G"s, "K"s or "ng" sounds, so I'm going to write normally now. Too much autocorrect mischief.)) These clockworkless clockworks used something called "electricity". If you are familliar with the world known as Cenotaph, then you get the idea. One of these worlds, known as Gamma, had long ago been the center of a great interstellar Empire. After the Empire fell it was abandoned for 25,000 years, when it was rediscovered. The city-planet was renovated and restored even beyond its former glory. It remaimed a center of culture and glory for 53,000 years. Then, about 12,000 years ago it vanished without a trace.

"Although people searched for it, it was soon forgotten when all "electronics" suddenly and unexpectedly stopped working 1000 years later. Society had a difficult time recovering from that event.

"But it has been found. Outside of our Oner ((universe)).

"They haven't told me where it was found. Only that they want a group to explore the planet.

"If you agree to take up this mission, you will be given c60, which as you know is 2 Month's regular salary, and an expense account to purchase supplies. Some supplies will be provided at the launch point. The mission is expected to take 30 days. Your compensation will be 100kg of whatever you find and decide to keep. 1000kg if any combat occurs.

"What say you?"

" double guild rates for exploration only? with the freedom to claim what we find? i must assume we are not the first team so sent? that said I will take up the search. the lost mastery of lightnings would be a worthy riddle to untangle. "

Uziel looks at the hovering creature and back to the Soddit.

"Of course as this is a secret mission off the books as they say. I assume the compensation will be tendered in advance?"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:58, Fri 23 Sept 2016.

Kuruno sipped away at his drink while keeping all eyes on Soddit as he spoke. He heard about the use of electricity all those times ago, as well as various Nurelian scientists attempting to theorize why it suddenly failed to work. He seemed to roll his eyes a little when Soddit said it "vanished", but he held back his urge to explain the law of conservation of energy. Some Nurelians had a bad habit of pressing their "smarts" on others time to time. However, what got his attention was the chance to explore a lost world and anything on it; and the pay was intriguing too, even if it just made him wonder what he could do with that money to improve his own machine.

He blinked, having lost track of the conversation until now, when Soddit finished talking and Uziel began. He didn't care much for pressing the cash details, but when Uziel finished, he then started talking again, not taking his mouth off the cup. They didn't need oral movement to speak anyways.

"A chance to explore the unknown and uncover lost technology? This all has my attention already. I feel like i can help with the heavy lifting, too... Not to mention that every job that relates to this kind of stuff needs a brain. N-not to undermine the intelligence of you all, that's not what i mean. I mean... Y-you get it!"

He almost stumbled off topic in his attempt to avoid suggesting that the others might be dumb. He wasn't trying to imply that at all; but he knew by now that sometimes people took things wrong. What he didn't know was how to not let them know it could be taken wrong before they do.

" no trouble neighbor."

The elf makes a  low nod to Kuruno. His eyebrow and lip working up slightly. He turns his smile back to the Soffit

"But I've had some experience looking for lost secrets, and I'm sure your employer is not the only interested party "

Uziel leans across the space. Speaking low and keeping his face turned into the privacy field.

"you and i have both been to war. and you know thw costs of holding back intelligence from your field teams. we will take your coin, and seek your lost art. but we will not do so blinded by Corporate need to know. why freelancers? and who else is looking?"
This message was last edited by the player at 03:40, Sat 24 Sept 2016.

Soddit the Soldier laughed heartily at Kuruno's comment. "Indeed, no trouble. I am merely a humble messenger, and will not be accompanying you."

After Uziel posed his questions, Soddit responded, "I'm afraid I don't have the answers to those questions. But I can send you on to one who does. I am permitted to tell you how to approach her since you have - at least tentatively - accepted the mission."

Soddit then goes on to explain that the two of them should buy tickets to visit Stellaland - the private Oner ((Oner means universe)) owned and operated by the Anima Corporation as tourists. There is an amusement park in that place, so it will not seem too out of place. Once there, they will be brought to the proper meeting place where all of their questions will be answered. They are reminded that Stellaland is one of those Oners that doesn't quite exist. Food there is empty of nutrition - like eating a hologram. Anything built out of matter from that Oner can never leave that Oner. Star Lady - the tree-woman - was created there, and now operates the Oner in the absence of its original creator.

((As an aside, it is basically a holodeck. This particular one is programmed to be incapable of allowing harm to be inflicted on anyone. It is accessible via a Portal.))


"You know... I think I really should tell you all I can.

"As for the pay, that one is easy. You are being paid double wages because the CEO of Anima is a sucker for 'social progress'. She wants the 'standard of living' to be increased. She raves on about something like 'post-scarcity-economics' and other drivel. All I know, is I get paid better when I take a job with Anima than with most others.

"I know that the world you are to explore is no longer sought after because everyone assumes it was destroyed. No one else is looking, and no one else has access to the place. The planet was rediscovered when Anima's exploration division opened a Portal and - by chance - there it was. Apparently, someone on the crew was an ancient history nerd and recognized it from old holocube images.

"I'm afraid, that really is all I know though. Star Lady will answer any more questions."

Soddit hands them both c60 in cash, and charge vouchers for supplies with the Anima logo written on top.
This message was last updated by the GM at 05:27, Sat 24 Sept 2016.

(*wonders if she should be poking her head in or not?* I have a good idea of the way things are going to fill in hehe)

"Thank you. that sounds reasonable. I look forward meeting my.... our employer."

Uziel scoops up the voucher with a quick move while offering his hands to the Soddit.he leaves two contact cards in the space the voucher had been sitting.nodding to Kuruno s he exits the booth.

"this is my local information, so we may coordinate our transportation. I'd like to make for the briefing sooner than later if you don't mind."

He stared at the money and things provided to them off-the-bat for a moment, a little surprised that they were getting something out of this already. Taking it and pushing the things that can fit into his pocket, he put the now empty cup down, watching Uziel get up from the booth and preparing to follow. "Getting to the briefing soon would be nice. I'm curious and a little eager to start, really. Hey, i might be able to learn more about how electricity worked and what happened in one job than what it took my professor years to theorize!"

That being said he smiled widely. While knowledge like this was valuable, it might as well be platinum for a Nurelian; because they lack in physical strength, one's intelligence determines the worth of one amongst Nurelians. If that statement were true, then he was about to boost his value and status amongst his fellows.

OOC:
Pertinent background information

A little over 1 year ago, the Portal to Auraluna opened and Auraluna began to accrue citizenry. Auraluna is the gateway to Oner Comowe. The Comowe (a humanoid species) is an advanced space-faring civilization. Prior to the Auraluna Portal, there had never been any magic in that universe. The Comowe have an Internet, TVs, holographic projection, sentient AI, cybernetics - anything you'd expect of a Star Trek level civilization. But Magem disrupts their technology, so they've segregated their technology and civilization from anyone who has come in contact with Magem. No one is allowed to visit their technologically advanced worlds. However, they have begun colonizing worlds without using their technology. They have people who are studying Magem and working on becoming Magemsmiths etc in their own right.

All the math indicates that electricity should work... it just doesn't. Anywhere there is Magem, electricity is not.

Elfs are one of the most ancient and continuous civilizations of humans. Normal Elfs live over 1000, but High Elfs like Uziel live over 20000 years.

About 2 years ago "Communicators" began to hit the market. They are not cheap, but they allow voluntary telepathic communication between parties. Upgraded versions even include transmission of visual information. A Communicator has to be in contact with the user to work and cannot be "hacked". There is even now a Cable TV of sorts. You can pay a certain company to have access to news shows and such that use the Communicators. Anyone with a Communicator can talk with anyone else who has one. However, there are also special features which allow people to prevent and avoid spam.



IC:
Uziel knows that his best chance of finding more information about Gamma lies in the Great Library of Arbaelf. He also knows that there is a Portal in every Elf-built library that can take him there. Now... where would the nearest rich person's custom-built library be?



Well... there was always the Public Library. Just an hour's walk. Or a 10 minute c0.1 Beedle ride.

And so they left the Soldier named Soddit behind in the tavern.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:51, Sat 24 Sept 2016.

Uziel has only had practical experience within a magical society so he may go a bit overboard preparing for a trip to gamma. Mostly by picking up wholely mundane survival gear and (( whatever else he doesn't have but may need poking around a dead city))

But within a day or two at most he will be contacting the travel agency to make his transit to the briefing point.

OOC: I'm not certain if Uziel is going to the Great Library to research Gamma or not. Or if he will be taking Kuruno.

The other option is to skip right to the debriefing, so I'm going to go on the assumption everyone may be going to the library.

IC:

The Public Library of Nexus was a marvel in and of itself. It had been recently constructed by a group of Earth Mages and Fire Mages. The structure resembled a black glass castle that extended 5 floors up and 20 floors down with a tower in the center and a beacon / restaurant at the top. The beacon was constructed using secret Grolm technologies and was larger around than the castle itself. Uziel always felt a strange fascination and attraction to 3 monoliths which were placed on over-large plinths equidistant around the library.

Although the general public was permitted access to the library, they were not permitted beyond the public stacks. Most of the library consisted of private collections, housed in the library because the private donors had helped to pay for the facility in the first place.

Uziel chose the Elfen wing. The doorman on duty didn't recognize him, but a quick flash of his winning smile... and a Communicator call to identify him, and Uziel was permitted to pass. Kuruno would only be permitted if Uziel signified that he was to be permitted.

Inside the Elfen wing, the stacks were all constructed of living wood. Lifetree bark trained to grow into specific shapes. Approaching one stack, Uziel waved his hands in the arcane pattern which would cause the Portal to open. The books parted, and a spherical distortion of space appeared in the midst of the shelf - a Portal.

OCC: sorry, I don't know enough about the setting to comfortably ad-lib. Give me a few exchanges to get acclimated to hyper fantasy.

IC: there are perks to bring a distant relative of the most high. And access to the great library is not insignificant among those perks. Uziel however is not always happy to rely upon those bonds. In this case it is necessary.

Wearing his civilian finery, a long black coat, and boots highlighted with the deep purple and silver of his houseand bearing his blade with the crest displayed he has no trouble gaining access. But after several hours of research he has to admit, "technology" is far more complex than his teachers had explained. Clockwork, spell and honest iron he knows and knows well but this? May as well be dwarves love poems.

However Kuru, or whomever the sapient was from earlier, he knew the secrets of this other universal power. After that realization Uziel makes for a private corner and seeks for his new co-worker among the communication net. His message is simple.

"Neighbor, i have need of your insight. seek me at the great library, for our success may depend upon what you can tell me of that place. -Uziel."

Kuruno didn't follow Uziel to the library initially; he went back home to ensure he had the things necessary for the trip and to ensure his "best friend" of a machine was prepared for travel. When Uziel did end up contacting him, it didn't take long for him to respond.

"The place Soddit was talking about? I'll see what i can scrap together. I've been busy preparing some information to bring along the trip anyways. I'll see if i can find anything about that world around here."

Right after sending that, he stuffed a few blueprints, notes, and things of the such in a bag before hefting it along and leaving, trying to find a ride to the Library. When he got there, he floated through the door, looking for the High Elf.

Kuruno finds no mention of Gamma among the public. One person, a Comowe, says, "You mean gamma radiation? That stuff causes cancer, I think." But nothing useful is discovered.

When Uziel went through the Portal, he felt the same familiar mysterious draw he always felt for Portals, despite the mildly unpleasant feeling of being bent around a sharp curve on through every cell in his body. As always, the moment he was inside the Portal he was weightless and moving forward only by his momentum. Out around him to the sides and above and below he saw the typical distorted view of his own body. Thankfully just out of reach. Then the exit in front of him loomed upon him and he was quickly through to the other side, inside the Great Library of Arbaelf. Here, every shelf was Elfen in style, as was the entire living gigantic Tree of Life in which the library was but a small corner.

Kuruno experienced the same sensations as he used his Anima Charge card to pay his way through the Portal to Arbaelf. This was a sky-Portal, so he had to ride an airship ferry through. At c10 for the ticket, it was expensive, but he wasn't paying. The Airship ferry came out with a spectacular view of the Tree of Life. Over a kilometer tall and wide in its canopy, the Tree of Life was truly magnificent. Entire forests of trees grew far below its massive bows, leaving the optical illusion of the appearance of moss. Airships, gliders, Zeppelins, and more filled the sky like dandelion seeds and birds. Even the 50' wingspan birds of prey were dwarfed by the Tree.

The airship ferry landed, and Kuruno took a cab to the Great Library of Arbaelf. Even more impressive than the Public Library of Nexus.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:01, Sun 25 Sept 2016.

2nd post in a row

I assume you will both be looking for information on Gamma, so one of the History Librarians offers to help.

Trisha is a rather old High Elf, nearing the end of her life. She has 9' long white hair which appears to flow in the air as if it were under water, yet never gets inthe way of her face. When she speaks, it is in rhythmic rhyming melidious Elfish (automatically translated by a little Gnome who follows her around).

"How may I help you today?"

By the time Kuruno arrives Uziel is a bit at his wits end. Despite a long and involved education in magical force, and even in counter technology uses of magic. The idea of going to a place where they made star ships work without magic is really hard to wrap his head around. When Kuruno arrives Uziel will be waiting on the Library edge, looking out over the great tree, his void filled eyes difficult to read as he gazes upon the manifest power of his people. His dark garb and rigid bearing a stark contrast with the living flowing curves of the elven city-tree. However when the portal opens he turns at it's pull upon him and when his companion arrives, he will be ready.
"Greetings neighbor. And thank you for coming to my aid in this. I must admit I lack the knowledge of the very foundation of what we seek. Perhaps you would see fit to tutor me, before we reach Gamma. I have requested futher assistance within. Will you Join me?"

Before talking to the Librarian Uziel will introduce himself more Fully To Kuruno.

He wasn't all that interested in the tree and the more natural things around him; he was more interested in all the technology and flying ships in the skies, watching the airborn creations soar about. He wanted to build something like that sometime... When arriving at the library, Kuruno crossed his fore-tentacle in the fashion someone might fold their hands infront of them, looking to Uziel and moving to him. He made sure his bag was still there before perking up, hearing his request for aid and his urging the Nurelian to come along, he smiled and floated over eagerly.

"I couldn't gather too much about the world we're to go to, however, i have collected as much as i could in regards to clockwork technology, as well as multiple theories and studies on electricity, and how it can work with technology. It's rather obvious that i'm unable to get a solid source, though... But i'll try to make do with what i have. Hey, maybe i might get it right? We won't know till we get there... So! Where do we begin?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:59, Mon 26 Sept 2016.

(To narrator post #21, following post #23)

Uziel leads the way back into the Great library taking pains to maintain his silent bearing.

He greets the Steward in formal elvish, bowing to her and introducing Kuruno in the same manner.
"We thank you Librarian. We seek knowledge of the lost energy of electricity from the other-verse  holding the world known as Gamma.  I would also be specifically interested and truly thankful for any information about the actual period of the loss, the process of it and the progress. Would you be so kind as to assist us?". I

He will translate for Kuruno if necessary.

"Ah yes, I remember it well. I have been there myself numerous times! Gamma was always such a beautiful planet. And the Labori there were so polite! I think they still felt guilty after all those years. ... But I wax poetic, and you appear lost in my words.

"To your first question regarding electricity. I have a secret for you young Uziel. You have the power to bring electricity back. At least in your immediate vicinity.

"As for the when it was lost, I remember that it was a short time after we discovered the ability to create Portals with Balur - you young people often call it Magem. Many people theorized that there was an accident with a Portal, and that this was the cause of it having gone missing. Much like Uziel was lost for a quarter of a millennium.

"I'm afraid I know so much about Gamma and electricity, that I may not be of any help unless you ask more specific questions."

Kuruno knew a little bit of Elven, but he didn't complain about Uziel's translation. It was better to get it right and be sure of it, anyways. While the two conversed he looked around at the sorroundings library, turning some to take it all in and get a visual of the place memorized. He didn't care much for the whole tree thing, but at the same time he felt there was a certain uniqueness to being able to shape the growth of something to their will. Either that, or it's just synthetic and meant to look that way. Perhaps a dash of both, he thought. It was now that he realized how much he stood out around here; and not just because of the physical difference between his species and everyone else. Everyone here seemed to hold a fancy styling of sorts, meanwhile he was still wearing the brown, brass, and bronze colored outfit from earlier. He still had his goggles around his neck, too...

He almost got lost in thought again, but snapped back into attention about midway or late into the electrical conversation. He didn't say anything yet, and tried to maintain a neutral expression, trying to avoid signaling the fact that he wasn't paying full attention.

Uziel is having serious problems reading the posture of his non-humanoid companion. Without knowing the species and gender even forms of address are difficult to manage.and the creature has said so little beyond clarification of minutuea? Interesting. Perhaps it is temporally out of phase?

Regardless of his odd company, the library is as beautiful and welcoming as he remembers. The public sector bustling with elves of many lineages about a multitude of errands. Universes of knowledge being brought here to grow the scope and vision of the elven realms.
Perhaps it's time to be out amongst the ephemeral races. This bobbing tentacled being is at least new, and for the first time since his recovery, Uziel is ready for something new.

But how to make sure he lives through it?

"kuruno. perhaps you, being more um... aware of the uses of these non magical energies could clarify our needs when we must ourselves seek this now absent power? my own talents barely inform me of the difficulty my magics may face in such a place. please do not be shy, we are permitted to seek what knowledge we may. and we will be hard-pressed to find another opportunity for study once we leave this verse."

He looked to Uziel, a neutral expression on his face until he realized that Uziel was giving him the green-light to do his thing, whether he knew it or not. He perked up, smiling, raising his head a little while looking back and forth between them, and got to talking.

"Well, i think a good start is trying to figure out just HOW electricity failed so suddenly, or how Magem and electricity act in the presence of one another. Now, the laws of conservation of energy are always in effect; Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. It can, however, change composition and "shape" if you will. That means, in theory, electricity changes into something else in the presence of Magem; something that we cannot detect, pick up, or use. Or perhaps it turns into Magem itself? Perhaps electricity is a component of Magem; and Magem is like a sponge or magnet for other forms of energies. It draws it in and absorbs it. Assimilates it. Another theory is that Magem and electricity are like a magnet; except instead of being attracted to each other like a north and south pole, they're so magnetically similar that they push each other away, with Magem being the superior force. This would make plenty of sense as to why we cannot have Magem and electricity in one place. That being said, any electrical presence on Gamma means that there is no Magem. Bringing Magem there in proximity to electricity would result in it changing or experiencing a process i previously explained. Of course, this is all in theory; i've not seen any actual tests or studies done..."

His gaze drifted off to the side for a moment at that last part, but he returned attention to the two. He spoke quickly and giddily, eager to finally be useful; regardless if they understood that or not. He didn't know what would be considered basic according to the standards of other people, so he tried to put it all simple, and to see where they'd go from there. It was a little bit of a mouthful though... Even though he didn't exactly move his mouth to talk at all. His lower throat flashed with that dim biolumniscence with each sound and syllable, though; an indicator that it was indeed him talking.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:04, Tue 27 Sept 2016.

Trisha replied to Kuruno, "Ah, so you believe you have found Gamma! This is very interesting.

"I wouldn't worry too much about disrupting anything on Gamma. Magem was brought to Gamma before it disappeared. At the time, Magem and electricity both worked without interfering with one another. It wasn't until after Gamma disappeared that electricity stopped working. It was quite a disaster too.

"But people often used Magem with electricity in those days. It was used to enhance the speed of computing processes and calculations per second. It was used to create meta-materials that could operate as superconductors at high temperatures. It was used to provide a non-virtual reality environment for the internet. It... Oh, sorry. These must be foreign words and ideas to you.

"So either Magem will not disrupt the electricity on Gamma, or it has already been disrupted. But in either case, remember that Uziel can disrupt the power of Magem if he tries hard enough."

Trisha thinks for a moment. "Oh yes, Kuruno, you mentioned your curiosity about what happens to electricity in the presence of Magem. Perhaps you've never seen this:"

Trisha takes out a wand which is clearly made from Magem. Out of the tip, sparks fly.

"This is electricity. Lightning is electricity. The part of electricity that doesn't work is its application in technologies. Allow me to demonstrate." Trisha signals for an Elf to bring a box over to them. "This is called a 'radio'. It is an artifact that is made from simple electronic parts. We keep it as basic as possible to prevent accidents. It currently has a Magem suppression field being held around it to prevent any interference." She turns a nob, and music begins to emanate from the box. "We keep a transmitter similarly in a Magem dampening field. Watch what happens when I turn the suppression field off." She gives the box over to Kuruno, and allows him to examine it thoroughly. Then she closes her eyes. Uziel feels - something - but then little glass tubes inside the box explode and little cards with metal bits on them begin to burn where the metal is, and the music stops emanating from the box. Uziel feels that he could probably figure out how to suppress Magem or release a Magem suppression field if he had to.

OOC:
Once you are satisfied with your research, make your way to Stellaland.
You characters are currently both in Arbaelf. The quickest way to Stellaland will be to go through a Portal to the Tree of Wisdom (which is on Arbaelf), and from there through another Portal to Auraluna. Auraluna is a hollow moon with living wooden building structures throughout. The structures near the centre accommodate zero gee, while those on the inner surface of the moon's equator are at about Earth equivalent gravity due to centripetal force. This of course means that gravity is also minimal at the poles.

The Portal to Stellaland will be somewhere near the centre of Auraluna.

Living metal-shard-wood buildings and structures =p

Uziel will lead Kuruno through the landscape of elven need to shape life itself, He cannot help but admire the way the flow of magic wove tapestries of elegant light within the very bones of the elven creation. A beauty few could even apprecite. Uziel has to remember to explain this place to his companion. He tries to explain the architecture Offering any information he can to Kuruno. In his familiarity with the place he does not volunteer much about his own life. nor does he place himself in the anecdotes he does share. The first flicker of personality comes when he detours sharply into an eatery, Inhaling deeply he closes his eyes and for a moment the serious and cold demeanor thaws and a slight smile spreads across his features.

"Ah... how long? I'd forgotten...."

The place is wall to wall confections, from simple baked goods all the way to elaborately decorated  He approaches the counter at a brisk walk and begins a quick and light but elaborate conversation with the elf who seems to be the proprietor. after a significant back and forth and much laughter, Uziel is handed a small bag containing a half dozen of the simplest of baked rolls.

"Pardon, my rudeness friend Kuru, but i have not had fresh dawn bread in centuries. If it is something you are compatible to share please help yourself"

He suddenly looks startled.
"And please, before we begin our travels together, is there a mode of address or pronoun you prefer?"

He floated alongside Usiel, even if a little behind him because he was, after all, being lead by him. He didn't say much during the walk, or drift in the Nurelian's case, but he did listen carefully. Even if the subject was magic and nature, two fields he never focused his education on, he took mental notes. It was his belief that he'd need to do something with Magic in the future, especially if he wanted to conduct a few tests regarding the interaction between electricity and Magem. The detour caught him a little off guard, but seeing Uziel's mood improve when they got there, he didn't question it. It smelled nice, too. He let his eyes wander while Uziel conversed, but wasn't trying to point out anything notable. He was just looking around at people.

He redirected his attention once again back to Uziel when he got the bag and spoke to him. Kuruno nodded when Uziel gave his reasoning for the detour; he understood the predicament. It had been a while since hes had food made by his own kind. He was about to speak until the man showed a startled expression, and then questioned Kuruno's preference. He smiled and shrugged "Pronouns or titles? Well, I am a male, so I hope you weren't planning on calling me "she." He chuckled, shaking his head slightly "Don't worry about titles or anything like that. In speaking of which, do you have a form of adress that you go by? While we're on the topic i suppose I should figure it out as well."

"A a binary species. good good, I wasn't sure sir. would you care for a bit of dawn bread? Please feel free, I've made arrangements for a supply to be sent along as well. How i've missed it."

Uziel is clearly distracted by the treats and lost in memory, though his odd eyes would make his expression hard to read even to other humanoids, his grin says it all. he seems to be truly absent. a habit made instinct by his time in the void. If a passerby could read his mind they would find a stream of images, home, a garden in the sunlight, The slap of waves on stone. dawn bread was the his favorite childhood treat, made by hand in the old ways.

He walks on lost in thought. Heading for The Portal to Stellaland. Once the treats have disappeared he returns to himself turning once more to Kuruno

"So tell me Sir, exactly what is it you do with your technology? What would you call your trade?"

Seeing the bread offered, he realized that he hadn't eaten for a little while. Unsure of the food situation the trip would have, he nodded and said "Sure, thank you." before taking a roll and starting to eat it. It'd likely take him longer to eat through it than Uziel, or most other people in general; Nurelians had small heads due to the more eel-like part of their body. It was snake or eel-like, after all.

Opposite to Uziel, Kuruno's expressions were extremely easy to read. He seemed to be enjoying himself, though.

"My trade? Oh! I'm an engineer and to a lesser extent a scientist, although that title's a bit more unofficial. I work in clockwork engineering; to be specific, vehicular engineering, although that's not all i'm restricted to. In fact, you'll likely see a project of mine soon; the Personal Utility Mecha. It's a four legged strider with two hydraulic tube arms, made for heavy lifting and compensation for my lack of physical capability. I'm hoping to blueprint a weaponized version of it soon; have you seen the machine duels people have? It looks like so much fun! Also... On a less exciting note, the world seems to get more and more violent each day. While i can probably bash something with that thing's hands, it won't be effective when, say, pirates for example start raiding. Otherwise, i think it'd be perfect for this trip."

He seemed pretty excited to talk about his machine, that was apparent in his expression.

"actually friend Kuruno I feel competent to manage a band of pirates should it come to personal exchange of pleasantries. But Please can you explain to me this clockwork device? You pilot it? or wear it like armor? I note you could have meant either. And With no offence intended I am curious about a device you would find suitable for combat. I admit I'm not familiar overmuch with your race, but you seem, unsuited to battle. But Perhaps I am mistaken. I myself was an Officer in Our navy, and My last duty was as a boarding officer to interdict pirates, slavers and their ilk."

Uziel seems curious, and he is. If this creature is vital to his mission he must be in part, the security. best to see what Kuruno thinks of himself in this regard, before the time of knives, knowledge saves lives.

Uziel gets the feeling that the two of them may be tested sooner than expected. But the time to leave for Stellaland quickly approaches.

A little bird made of air magem flies in and lands on a bookshelf watching the pair. It's compleatly transparent save for a clear shard-metal orb the size of a marble in it's back. Well mostly transparent, think preditor ... near impossible to see when still hard to see but a little less so when moving.

(note it's made out of magem, but there moving parts inside... it is a machine, though even with it being less transparent you would need some form of enhanced vision to tell what kinda moving parts.... they are tinny!)

Posting because:

A - should know some details of his looks...

B - Unimagus might be able to detect movement of things and he can't hide the fact he's moving and/or displacing mater and what not.

"Oh, right. I pilot it! The main body has a cockpit and controls. While other people may attempt to pilot it, a Nurelian would have the most ease and comfort doing so. Don't worry about the racial unfamiliarity; yes, we are indeed unfit for combat. We're soft and squishy; quite literally! Also, if these gas sacs are popped, they have to heal and we'd be on the ground having to "walk" if you can call it, which trust me... Is a pitiful display. I'd rather float, not squirm, to point B from point A. I do have to retrieve it before we head off for the trip; with a portal and a vehicle it shouldnt take me long. Where do you want to meet up?"

The explenation was a little simpler than the average Nurelian might've liked, but Kuruno was just hoping he made what he wanted to say understandable. He did shiver when mentioning the results of gas sac damages, and was a little quick to move on. After finishing up, having his desire to get his machine spoken, he looked at Uziel and waited his response.

OOC:
In order to see Kuruno, a party member would have to roll 28 or higher in perception. Any cliche that might relate to perception could be used, but you'd have 0 chance at 4d6, very low chance at 5d6, and chances would only be good at 8d6.

Once a meeting place is chosen, we'll skip ahead to the meeting, with everyone kitted out. Feel free to RP out anything that happens before you meet up ((just no battles before you're back together)).

"Very well friend. I shall make my way to my own accommodations. Perhaps we can meet at the Alfheim gate tomorrow morning, referenced to this place? then we can depart together for stellaland. Unless it's more convenient to meet at the gate in Stellaland. I don't know where you have to go to get your, land conveyance."

Uziel is obviously in a better mood having had his treat. Unless Kuruno asks for more He will return to his current residence.

Uziel probably wouldn't be paying enough attention at present to notice Kantoku, unless any magical senses are directed at him, or the creature comes within a few meters. There's just too much in the great tree to draw his attention.

Once Uziel was done, he nodded "Tommorrow's fine. I'll see you at Alfheim Gate then!" He said with eagerness and made his leave, floating away a little swiftly. He never did manage to notice their onlooker; not that he even felt like someone was watching anyways. He'd go his own way and head on to his (temporary) residence and workshop. It wasn't anything impressive, albiet off to the side and out of sight and a little run down, but it got the job done. That's where he'd prepare the P.U.M., as well as a number of belongings and what not, for the trip.

Was extra careful due to some...unfortunate... past experiences, so was checking the two out with out having been told to.  Naughty bird. Well Uziel could maybe pick something up with Unmagus that the 28 don't apply to... that and he is made internally out of magem and he might be able to feel him with his magus due to the way magem and magus react to each other.

But as they talk of splitting up he decides to follow Kuruno, as he's seen rough magic elfs before and he didn't know what the hell Kuruno was.... he was built to analyze things it's hard not to be curious about new life forms.

He lived in an almost apartment like building in the less fancy part of town; although it wasn't anything as bad as the Pirate District. He opened the door and went inside; there was a door meant for larger cargo, sort of like a garage, that was open a crack; big enough for smaller things to fit through. When he was inside, he took ten minutes or so organizing various notes as well as personal belongings before heading towards a machine suspended by various cranks and chains. He was doing a quick inspection over it.

If you want to skip over the part in Kuruno's apartment,

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: I don't think I mentioned an Alfheim gate, but I'll run with it. They are headed to Auraluna which would have many possible Portal entry points. So I do declare that the Alfheim gate is located on the planet Alfheim.

IC:
Alfheim is a newly colonized planet with access Portals in Auraluna, Nexus, the Tree of Wisdom, Djunk and a few other smaller points of entry.

When the two (or three) arrived at the Alfheim gate to Auraluna, there was already a group of 3 Gnomes in mechanical armor. Each Gnome was no more than 3'10" tall, but their armored mechanical suits each stood about 9' tall. The Portal was shut down.

"Sorry, uh, boys, but this Portal's closed."

"Yeah," said the lady Gnome (1 of the 3 in the armored suits), "But we could open up up for you... For a price."

The third Gnome added, "I like that there mech of yours, eel creature."

The first Gnome said, "And that sword looks mighty nice, Elf."

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 21:04, Fri 30 Sept 2016.

Uziel smiles slightly taking a moment to examine the ORDER and operations of these clockwork machines. An ambush is only an ambush if they are smart enough to use the power of surprise. Extortion is so much harder your mark has a chance to think about his options. And so the initiative can be taken away.

There's no way he's give up the sword. And from the way he talked Kuru felt the same about his conveyance. No reason to let the opposition know that however. after all, what high elf would risk millennia of life in a simple robbery. Though how these fools hope to pawn this sword? Or use it?

Uziel steps in front of Kuru, cocks his head and clears his throat to buy a second.

Trying to use his sense of the flow of magic to find a way to spare the gnomes, dead bodies raise questions. (If possible he will magically seek vulnerable points in the armor. He's rather collect the souviner in any case.

"how much is the fee? the sword is of some perSonal value and I'd rather not part with it. though if you'd settle for the sword alone perhaps we could strike a deal."

Settling in to wait for the moment of flux, Uziel looks with genuine curiosity at the first speaker.
(If the gnomes don't launch into immediate violence. Uziel will try to use his time magic to hold a moment, and accelerate himself slightly whenever he decides to launch his strike. The magical equivalent of planting his feet and crouching to sprint.)

Scans the armors for where a few well placed blades would do the most damage while hovering about unseen.

23:49, Today: Kantoku rolled 25 using 8d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls of 1 & 1 ((1,5,2,3,1,6,3,4)).

forgot reroling the 1's so
23:51, Today: Kantoku rolled 7 using 2d6, rerolling ones ((4,3)).

so it's 27

Kuruno would of rode his machine along the way, and to the gate. He was seated in the cockpit, the seat consisting of a sort of stool; A rod for the Nurelian to wrap his tail around to anchor himself down, and a cushion on top for his body. He seemed to really enjoy driving the think as it walked along behind Uziel, and he stopped when the blockade of Gnomes was before them. He didn't say anything until after they spoke, and he smiled.

"Hey, thanks! I built it almost entirely from scratch. So, the portal being closed is an issue, because we're scheduled for some work, and we need to go through the portal. How much does it cost?"

While he may of sounded naive and carefree, friendly and all, he had a feeling he knew what was going on. He was a little paranoid that they'd want his mech, but he remained optimistic for now.

OOC:
At the end of the battle, the winner decides the fate of the losers. You can fight them all as a group, or individually. If you fight them individually, it will probably go faster. If you fight them as a group, you will designate a leader, and that person will decide the fate of the losers (assuming the heroes win). So don't worry about killing them. You won't kill them if you don't want to kill them.



Mechanized Gnome said, "Right! You know the drill, Engineer. I want that mech, and I'm tired of waiting!"

Mechanized Gnome [3/6] +3d6
Gnome Mech (4/5) +4d6
Lady Gnome [5/5] +5d6

Releases his knife missiles targeting vonerable spots found on the Lady Gnome's gear. But keeps them hovering ready to attack on command as he starts mapping out other targets.

(not sure if this works or not... but is essentially making an attack/damage roll before the first round, but holding it off.... and then doing so again, until the fight starts when he will attack with all of them)

GM here, that could work if it was a pumped roll, as a pumped roll sacrifices a cliche point to be achieved.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:44, Sat 01 Oct 2016.

Uziel is still wondering if combat can be avoided when the sounds of KantoKo's missed tear the air above him. His combat instincts kick in and he dives low to avoid fire while drawing his sword mid roll. He is trying to cross the T. In combat terms placing himself so that all three enemy combatants to one side. On the way past the towering Mecha Uziel drives the obsidian black blade towards the knees of the largest opponent seeking to limit the mobility and protect Kuruno and not incidentally himself from being swarmed by the giant metal monsters.

 Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 22 using 5d6+1, rerolling ones with rolls of 6,6,{1}4,3,2.

I think I got this correct

Kuruno's expression turned REALLY sour when the gnome demanded his mech... Kuruno's tentacles trembled for a moment, before he started pulling levers, and he put on his goggles. Some steam ventilated from the joints before he drove the machine forward in a fast paced march, raising one of it's arms and swinging it down at the Gnome who demanded his creation, in a bit of a diagonal strike.

"I will NOT have those years of work stolen from me by some DEGENERATE, HALF WITTED, WANNABE TRASH OF A SELF-PROCLAIMED ENGINEER!!" he screamed, at them. The attempt to mug them was already frustrating, but the attempt to take his work was what really pissed him off. He kept himself nestled in the cockpit, focused on the many levers and controls at his disposal, keeping an eye on pressure gauges. The last thing he needed to do was to overdo it. Burn outs were troublesome to repair.

11:33, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 14 using 5d6+2 with rolls of 6,2,2,1,1.  Battle Roll.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:44, Sat 01 Oct 2016.

OOC There is a bit of an understanding here!  lol

By releasing knife missiles, he means he un-docks them.  I did say to hover in place. A few of his feathers are knife missiles.... if your wondering what those are, here is an example of one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Gz7MeSbF4

Also if you watch that and don't think they are awesome you suck =p  lol

I am ok with saying he outright attacked though to speed things along if you like
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Sat 01 Oct 2016.

OCC: SORRY. Misunderstood.

Although Kuruno is undeniably the better mech pilot, this Gnome's mech is too powerful, and overcomes Kuruno's assault.



Uziel moves in too quick for the Gnome Mech to see, and the Mexh's knee is taken out before he has a chance to respond. Then Uziel follows up and the Mech is further damaged.


Although the Lady Gnome's Mech is light and quick, she is overwhelmed by the combined attack of Kantoku's knife missiles as well as his nearly invisible body.

Compacts the knife missiles and fires them in a cluster into the female gnome's mech, then expands them back to there full size inside.

On the side note.... can imagine how odd this must look to them if they where not so distracted, though I would guess he and his missiles arn't so invisible anymore. Likely covered in grease and hydrolic fluid now.

If the gnome facing Kuruno is still active Uziel will continue on and try and immobilise that one as well. The presence attacking the third gnome can wait. He turns and lunges trying to interrupt the fight as fast as he can. Seeing Kuruno in a vulnerable position he is less concerned about the survival of this gnome. Besides which one prisoner is enough to let what pases for the law here get thw whole story.

Uziel is a practical fighter, and putting the enemy down hard is reflex.

20:46, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 24 using 5d6+1, rerolling ones with rolls of 2,6,6,4,5.

If the fight is over Uziel will draw his side arm in case  the newcomer is dangerous, while keeping his blade on the downed gnome. "perhaps we should discuss your gift to me of your armour, in thanks for the lesson. consider it cheap as the cost of this type of lesson is death. Fair is fair I did give you the sword."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:02, Sun 02 Oct 2016.

OOC:

Can i have a bit more detail than "Kuruno loses"? Thanks. Can't post without any context as to what occurred.

OOC Usally means just go with it... lol..... also my discription is filled out

OOC:

I can't "go with it" if there's no "It" in the first place

OOC Just make up what ever you want.

Oh and Kantoku was built by a char with Engineering and Magemsmithing =p hehe ^.^

OOC:

Again, would rather have context. I don't like puppeteering.

ooc *nods* me to but *shrugs* it's just a fight

OOC:

Exactly. This is where Puppeteering's effects could hurt even worse.

OOC: Kuruno, it is perfectly legitimate that you want more information. What I posted was a bit scant in information.

This is a Round based battle, which means each participant rolls once per Round. There are currently 3 separate battles going on:
Kuruno VS Mechanized Gnome (MG)
Uziel VS Gnome Mech (GMe)
Kantoku VS Lady Gnome (LG)

The result of each Round is that someone loses 1 cliche point.
In Kuruno's case, he lost 1 cliche point from the Mech Pilot cliche. As this is a battle, that means he took a certain amount of damage. It would probably only take him about 1 hour to repair the damage so far. But Kuruno is still in the battle, and could even use a different cliche if you can imagine how that cliche might help. As a bonus, if you use an unusual cliche and win the round, you do triple damage.

Uziel managed to do one extra cliche point damage due to his special magic spell.

Kantoku managed to have a higher scoring round because of his special knife missiles.

So far, no one is down for the count. Only the rounds have been won.

If Uziel teams up with Kuruno, then only 1 cliche point is at risk between them if they lose. However, their two enemies also only risk 1 point.

I hope that clears it up, but I and Kantoku are familiar with this system. I do not expect it to be easy just yet. Ask questions and clarifications, and I believe it will become easier.

In any case, if any character is at risk of passing out I will warn everyone while there is still time to help. So far, everyone is in a decent position to win the battles.

To address puppeteering

OOC:

That's... Not at all what i meant. I was talking on a roleplay level... Like, what happened between Kuruno and the mech gnome, aside from "Kuruno lost"? I'm talking about roleplay. I mean, how did Kuruno's mech get damaged? What'd the gnome do to stop his attack?

Sorry posted before finished

Puppeteering
As long as you don't declare that the enemy is fallen when they still have cliche points, it's okay to declare that you have "blown off the mech's arm" or something similar. The only exception to this is with Named enemies.

No matter what, if you accidentally puppeteer more than I'd like, I'll just let you know that "it didn't quite happen like that".

But for the most part, feel free to take artistic license with how the enemy is damaged. But if you feel uncomfortable doing so, I can always fill in the gaps.

Kuruno's mech is still operational. Full effect of the bonus still applies.

OOC *Just don't care about skimping here and there on combat RP if it moves things along faster to story RP*

As for these questions, these are the things you have a lot of leeway with. I'll describe them if you prefer, but I like to give you the option of filling in the battle details that I leave out.

Well... again i'd rather not assume control of what the others do.

Okay.
When Kuruno tried to attack the MG, the MG couldn't move fast enough to avoid the blow, so instead the MG swung at Kuruno's mech and knocked him back, scattering a few nuts and bolts in the process. Kuruno was still in this, but he certainly faced a significant challenge.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:10, Sun 02 Oct 2016.

With a backwards jolt, the P.U.M. staggered back, some steam ventilating from it's joints while a break at one of the leg's body-connecting joints busted open. It was still operational, but the damage remained. Kuruno shouted furiously at the Gnome. "Alright pal! I'm gonna knock what few brain cells you have out of that rusted bolt you call a brain!" he shouted, trembling angrily for a moment.

The machine stomped forward, it's right "hand" spinning before balling up into a fist. It pulled back and, after the joint hissed with steam as Kuruno pressed it's pressure valve a little on it's limits, threw a punch at the Gnome, at the Cockpit of their machine.

OOC:
01:13, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 2 using 1d6 with rolls of 2.
01:12, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 1 using 1d6 with rolls of 1.  Rerolling 1.
01:12, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 24 using 5d6+2 with rolls of 6,4,6,5,1.  Battle Roll.

(Total Roll: 26)
(yea i know the reroll one function. Forgot to activate it.)

01:44, Today: Kantoku rolled 17 using 5d6+1, dropping the lowest dice only ((6,5,1,1,4)).

Kuruno Driftwit 26
Uziel De'A'rath 24

And Kantoku losses his transparency at this point, kinda pointless at this point. Instead he goes with the oposit approach and starts concentrating the light that's passing through him onto the gnome girl's face.

OOC: By joining the battle with Kuruno, Uziel was able to combine his roll total to Kuruno's. However, the Gnomes also combined their rolls.
Nevertheless, the Gnomes lost the round and therefore recieved 1 damage (randomly assigned)
But this time, Gnome Mech voluntarily took the damage. This means that he takes double damage, and in the next round Mechanized Gnome's roll will be doubled.

IC:
As Uziel lunges at the Mechanized Gnome, the Gnome Mech whom he had been fighting flips a switch and his leg suspension springs pop, propelling the top of the Mech over Uziel's head. It lands just right to receive both Uziel's sword thrust and Kuruno's punch, transforming it into a harmless pile of parts. The Mechanized Gnome cries out, "NOOO! I will avenge you, brother!"

The Gnome in the harmless pile of parts shouts back, "Don't be so dramatic."

The Mechanized Gnome slaps his wrist, and it begins to transform into a large blaster.



Kantoku's effort to shine a laser in the Lady Gnome's face is thwarted by a sudden burst of cloud cover. Finally able to clearly see her opponent, the Lady Gnome growls a cute little high pitched growl and charges up a lance which she swings at Kantoku. It should have been a graceful deadly swing, but her Mech slips on one of Kuruno's lost bolts and her swing goes wild. But in his effort to dodge her, Kantoku hinself flies right into the path of the flailing lance, causing his crystal body to crack a little at the wing. They're both a little worse for wear, but both still fighting.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:23, Tue 04 Oct 2016.

Cartographer (4/4)
21:35, Today: Kantoku rolled 12 using 4d6 ((3,5,2,2)).
Forgot bonuses x.x
21:36, Today: Kantoku rolled 11 using 4d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 3 & 3 (({1}{1}5,3,{1}3,4)).
well drops the 2 and 2 instead of 3 and 3 so...

25 total


He takes advantage of the cloud cover, the cluttered battlefield, and the focus the lady has on him... rather than just focusing the light on her he just lights up and darts about, taking account of his soundings as he leads her into hazards, sure it was a common trick for him by now but damn if it didn't work well.

Hopefully he could lead her into the other gnomes attack.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:46, Tue 04 Oct 2016.

OOC:

*EDIT*
Nevermind misread the other post, sorry

GM note:
So you missed MG but you hit GMe

IC:

Kuruno bit his lip a little, trembling in frustration as the pressure in the joint overloaded for a moment; causing a heavy ventilation of steam from the right joint as the punch missed... But it hit a different target, which was just fine to the Nurelian, excluding the part where he almost broke the arm's joint. He needed to concentrate. The arm went limp for a moment before pulling back in and returning to normal. Kuruno kept two of his eyes on the gauges and controls, and the other two on his opponents. He tried hard not to get distracted by one of the Gnome's attempted evasions, and he almost wanted to force laughter. He was really letting this get to his head... But before he corrected himself, he decided to hold that though, seeing the other gnome announce that he'd avenge the other. While they were busy shouting, he had the P.U.M. lunge in and attempt to grab the other mech with both hands.

OOC:

21:55, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 22 using 5d6+2, rerolling ones with rolls of 5,2,6,5,2.  Battle Roll.

IC: (If the roll succeeds)

Once he had the opposing machine grappled, he'd shout "In your dreams, thief!" before trying to throw it at any remaining opponent. If none remained... Any nearby walls.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:56, Tue 04 Oct 2016.

Uziel continues chargeing straight towards the blaster his mind alive with the song of magic. Using his free hand he shapes a shield of power Hoping to deflect the incoming fire away from himself and give Kuruno a chance to get back in the fight. The wreckage and the now unsuited gnome will prevent him bringing his sword into play, but he's used to rapidly changing combat environments, and simply plans to play decoy while setting up the leader of the gnomes for his companion.

Energy magic to deflect. No attempt at harm to the gnomes this round.
Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 10 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,4.

OOC:
 -Because the Gnome Mech voluntarily took damage last round, Mechanized Gnome's roll was be doubled. Also, Mechanized Gnome double pumped, costing one point, but increasing his roll by 2d6
 -Note: although the MG won the round, he is down by one point for double pumping, and the allies lost nothing due to Uziel's spell.
 -For comedic value I'd like to keep Kuruno's shout of "In your dreams, thief!"

IC:
As Kuruno grapples and shouts at the Gnome, the Gnome replies, "You mean your nightmares!"

The Mechanized Gnome's wrist blaster powers up, spewing steam and venting Magem dust as he takes aim at Kuruno and let's loose the blast. It should have torn a hole through Kuruno's PUM, but Uziel's magic shield causes the blast to fly off to the side, completely missing Kuruno and Uziel both. Uziel won't be able to repeat that spell until he has rested, but it certainly bought them some time. And the Mechanized Gnome's own attack took its toll on the machine, while the PUM was not damaged any further.


OOC: By using an inappropriate cliche like Cartographer for a battle with a mech, and winning, Kantoku causes triple damage to his opponent.

IC:
The Lady Gnome is frustrated by Kantoku darting about. She lunges fir him time and again. Kantoku sees what Uziel is doing just in time to
Lead the Lady Gnome into the line of fire. The blast hits her mech square in the engine, tearing it apart and completely immobilizing her mech as she shouts, "SKAN IT!" from her useless mech.

Mechanized Gnome, seeing that he is now outnumbered 3 to 1, the Gnome shouts, "Truce! I request a truce!"

Kantoku (and probably Uziel) knows that a Truce by the Mech Battle Traditions means that the battle ends, and the party granting the truce can take 1/2 of the value of the not-yet-defeated mech in parts they take from it. The winners can take anything from the defeated mechs.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:17, Tue 04 Oct 2016.

Seams willing to accept the truce, as it's knife missile feathers return to it, more so really he just ignores the gnomes after they admit defeat. He stops glowing and his crystals all take a natural blue tint for air crystals as they start to grow, his mechanical and clock work parts do as well as the shift and unfold taking on a humanoid sized and shaped form. "I am sorry for spying on the two of you, I can usure you that your employers nor my creator would particularly approve but it was the best way to see if you where trustworthy individuals." He moves over the to portal's anchor kneeling down to activate it, using some of his own charge to power it back up. "Seams it was lucky that I did however." Rather strange that, a clock work creation so articulate and not only doing things it's creator would not let it but admitting to doing so.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:46, Tue 04 Oct 2016.

Kuruno, seeing that the grapple didn't exactly manage to hold down the other mech's weapons, yelped in terror as he saw the other gnome point it's weapon right at him. he went slightly pale for a moment when it fired, but saw the blast deflected by Uziel's shield. Watching it miss entirely, he paused for a moment, before snapping back to attention hearing the gnome call for a truce. He knew how this worked, and he got a wicked grin.

"Get out of the mech, or i'm gutting it with you in it. Winner takes half of what's still functioning, right?" he chuckled, looking over the weapon that the Gnome just tried to use on him. He looked to the lady gnome. "You tried to mug us and you lost. I don't know what these guys want, but here are your options from me; Open the gate, or i can contact the... What do you guys call the authorities around here?" he said, asking Uziel that last part.

"As long as the anchor is still linked, the portal is there, it's just a matter of power it back up. I don't think they are good enough to have a portal creater with them so it shouldn't be hard to turn this thing back on.....  You know I probably could have done this while they where distracted talking to you and avoided a fight. " he sighs... u.u

Uziel Keeps his blade in hand. Looking over not only the defeated foes, and the unknown co belligerent. The bird looked highly magical and sounded intelligent. Something powerful and expensive to have been created, and maybe fully intelligent... Unlike the clockwork armor of the enemy. These He knew from lessons in the academy as well as debit items on his quarterly budget assisting the ground command in logistical work. Mech Armor is important to the navy and the boarding forces, and it is expensive. unfortunate as that experience as a clerk had been, At least he has an idea what to ask for. which were the parts we took the time to recover? the ones more valuable

for military bureaucracy, because junior officers always do the paperwork.
18:20, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 11 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,5.

"I'm comfortable with a cession of hostilities so long as an explanation is on offer as to why you chose robbery rather than a formal challenge, which you can see we would have accepted. why should we treat you like opponents and not simple pirates? "

looking to Kantoku he nods before turning to the gnomes again

"though an explanation of your help would be welcome, Squire Bird"

His tone is calm and direct as he begins picking through the wreckage with his sword menacing the self sacrificing gnome who blocked his initial lunge.

He looked to Uziel suddenly when he brought up the fact that no formal challenge was issued. They were mugged, therefor the "looting" rules weren't in effect... he looked at the gnome he was grabbing, smiling. "He's right. You didn't challenge us... You know, i'd be a huge jerk to take the entire mech, but because you made me almost piss myself AND have shown you're not trustworthy with dangerous machines like these, i'm taking it."

He swayed back and forth a little in the cockpit gleefully. He really wanted to try and assimilate a few things from the gnome's mechs onto his, like the hydraulics they use in the legs for jumping like that, and the weapons. He giggled like a child in a candy store just thinking about the improvements he could make! He then looked at Uziel again...

"Hey, is it alright if i take the whole thing? I mean, you're the one who reminded us of the lack of formality here... So it's your call."

"I'd prefer a compromise. We stick to the terms offered, and they come with us through the gate to register the duel officially as a challenge with a neutral party. No offense to our attackers, but I prefer the story be verified before they next meet their kin and must  explain their loss of wealth. I fear robbers may lack a basic honesty. Yet I am not so hungry for vengeance as to end lives over this foolish attack. Their loss of two full suits more than underlines the lesson, Do you not agree?"

He let go of the remaining mech, although he held onto it's weapon arm. He crossed his tentacles as if pouting, and his displeasure was evident on his face. he spun his body around some to face Uziel. "Can i at least take the weapon? Come on. What's stopping them from shooting us in the back anyways? I get something nice to put on my machine, and we're also safe. It's like two wins in one!"

Even if he couldn't scrap the entire mech, he wanted the weapon pretty badly. He was sure it would've looked great if it wasn't fired at him, and if he wasn't nearly losing control of his bladder. He almost piped up about the hydraulics that the gnome's suits were using, but he decided to shut his trap on that one.

"I think friend Kuru the weapon is within your rights to half the functioning machine is it not? I would think our vanquished foes will not argue the choice overmuch as we have a right to claim their lives. Yet for the mere admission of defeat we will be silent on the crime and spare their lives. What is a blaster when we offer such a great gift? We shall all be good friends when this is over, else they may not survive."

The Lady Gnome pipes up, "Please! The noble Elf is right of course! And we will be happy to sign papers claiming this was a formal challenge. We don't want to cause you gentlemen... folk... any further trouble. There is no need to involve anyone else in this matter. Most people wouldn't bother with formalizing it, but if that is your wish, we will comply." The other two Gnomes nod in agreement.

OOC INFO:
All three party members are aware that there would be shops in Auraluna where they could sell any parts they didn't want. As with all items, you get half of the value of the item when you sell it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:06, Wed 05 Oct 2016.

Kuruno quickly got out of the cockpit, fumbling around for a tool kit. He did a half-assed job getting the gun off; mainly so he could work on it later, before looking over at the Lady Gnome's mech. He got close and investigated a bit; now that his anger was calmed and controlled, he made a realization. She was packing a damn good mech... And they ruined it. That means they could take the whole thing. Kuruno giggled, looking between her and Uziel.

"Hey, I'm also taking this fine piece of machinery. Now that I've had a chance to look at it... It's seems we've broken quite an expensive piece of machinery. Can I take it? I feel like a hatchling in a candy store!" He giggled. This whole situation went from furiating, to terrifying, to energetic and gleeful pretty spontaneously.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 03:32, Wed 05 Oct 2016.

Don't seam interested in his winnings. (forfeiting them to the others.)

"My name is Kantoku, I was created as an analytical scout and my skills as such are requested in the Gamma mission. I took the initiative of scouting the two of you, I am pleased to see you are not of an unsavory sort."

He stands up as the anchor powers up and the portal re-opens.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:29, Wed 05 Oct 2016.

The Portal truly does open.

All told, Kuruno is able to salvage c998150 in parts from the mechs. That means c499075 each for Kuruno and Uziel if they share it with each other.

The Gnomes finish writing the account of the events to the satisfaction of Uziel, and sign their names to the document. They gather up the scrap metal that remains behind after Kuruno has salvaged the parts, and haul them off in the little that remains of MG back into town.

OOC: Honestly, I didn't mean to give that much away, but I forgot how much +5d6 was worth. And in the end, it won't hurt anything. It just gives you a financial boost in the beginning.

Kuruno took what he got and strapped it to the back of the P.U.M., except for the gun. He kept that in a storage compartment. He got back into the cockpit and started it up, wrapping his tail around the pole of the stool to anchor himself down again. He took a brief moment to clean his goggles, then dusting himself off before walking infront of the portal. "Uziel, bird, theres not another seat on this thing but if you can get on the body and hang on, I guess you're pretty much riding. It's not needed though."

He smiled a little akwardly, trying to make an offer. He was fully aware that his behavior during the fight was questionable, but he just sort of flipped out. Nobody's ever tried to rob him like that. In speaking of which, he looked back at the gnomes one more time. "Could you, Uh, never come at us again? Or at least me? That'd be good." As he told them, he never wanted to see the muggers again. He prepared to go through the portal.

Once the artificial bird creature explains itself he feels more comfortable sheathing his sword. He is a little curious about that. Since coming out of the void changed. The sword has seemed more alive than it had before. As a magus Uziel has always been able to feel the heat of his magecraft weapon. This is different. He wonders to himself if the void changed his blade as much as it changed him.

Watching Kuruno scavenge and salvagehe is at least comfortable with the picking up the valuable pieces after a fight. A good skill on an abandoned world.

To the gnomes however Uziel is less than concerned and polite.

"I'm certain our new traveling companions will assist us. and perhaps they may even have a desire to purchase the wreckage of their ill fated attempt at banditry. Why rebuild what you can repair? eh?" 

Uziel moves to assist so the group may continue through the gate.

The Gnomes took off quickly nodding at Kuruno and pretended not to hear Uziel's offer. Apparently, they just wanted to cut their losses and run.

When the party goes through the Portal to Auraluna, they exit onto the ground of what appears to be a vast complex filling the inside of a moon sized planetoid. The equatorial zone is lined with normal gravity structures, and closer to the center there are zero gravity structures. Every structure seems to have been grown from a singular large seed like object in the true center of Auraluna. Neon light of every hue emanates from photo-luminescent insects, molds, fungi, and the very bark of the superstructure itself. Shops of every sort and variety are apparent around the place. Aliens of every known and new race can probably be found. As much as Nexus is an old city of connections to everywhere, Auraluna is a new bazaar of new connections to new places. This entire place is leased by the Anima corporation from the Scil Phin. No one knows how much Anima pays the Scil Phin for use of the place - if at all.

The party is in the Portal section, where most of Auraluna's Portals are located. Off to one side are the shops to buy and sell various gear. There are bars, restaurants, hotels, inns, bazaars, markets, cafes, offices, manufactories, R&D labs, banks, hospitals, and more.

The Party is expected in Stellaland as soon as possible, arriving as tourists having purchased tickets to the Stellaland Amusement park. Such tickets are c5 each. There is still time to cash out any parts the players don't want to keep, but the parts can be kept.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:00, Wed 05 Oct 2016.

Turns back into a bird and 'dissapears' again before going through the portal.

Uziel laughs quietly as the gnomes depart. He is quick to ask Kuruno for help sorting out what of the scrap he wants and will probably take to the market to sell the remaining salvage with the intent of supplementing their equipment voucher with a bit more firepower than the average exploratory trio. Three is a little light if they run into anything more dangerous than a few pugnacious gnomish ruffians.

"Kuruno, would you help me convert this no doubt valuable mess into credits? though feel free to take any parts your conveyance requires. I'd like to look around for a bit more in the way of protection, and perhaps a bigger blaster of my own. i doubt things on Gamma will be less dangerous after all"

"There are shops that will take scrap as payment, particularly near the 'docks'."

He slipped out of the cockpit once through the portal to make sure everything was still there and in working order. He was completely focused, and handling the job somewhat swiftly. Most of his focus was on the damages to the vehicle, and he seemed to mutter a few things albeit unintellegibly. He then turned to Uziel once hearing his request. "Oh, sure. Can you lead me to a proper scrapyard? I need to repair the machine, and sort the parts. It might take a few hours, but i'll get done as fast as i can." he said cheerily, going back and easing himself into the cockpit once more.

"You can make repairs and upgrades while in transit to Gamma, you should just look into getting what you need for now."

OOC:
Kantoku is speaking from experience in this case, and he is correct.
Uziel indeed knows where to find a proper scrapyard in Auraluna - near the docks where most shops take scrap as payment. The docks are large caverns that burrow through the sphere into open space. They are spread throughout the surface of Auraluna, but most are halfway between the zero gee poles and the normal gee equator.

As for repairs and upgrades, perhaps now is a good time to also think about advancement rolls.

To give everyone multiple examples this time, I ask that everyone post their advancement rolls in the OOC thread this time. Kantoku, you have done this many times before and have a number of *s saved up. Please go first and explain what you are doing.



Now, regarding the blaster and the upgrades, there will be time on the journey to Gamma.

IC:

Just as Uziel wonders about purchasing a blaster, what appears to be black lightning shoots from the tip of his sword, through the scabbard and into the ground, gouging out a crater in the rock.

The Anima charge cards that both of them have, suddenly flash and beep at them. A message appears in text, "Please make haste. Supplies and upgrades will be provided."

Scenery and situation

The shops in the area are clearly labeled and highly varied. Anything someone may be looking for could probably be found. Auraluna has a special Scil Phin spell over it that prevents people from harming one another with energy weapons. This creates a slightly false sense of security for many. Knife fights can and do still occur, but Anima security keep most violence in check. Additionally, ((correct me if I'm wrong here Estella)) Anima has a fairly relaxed morality - basically as long as no one is getting hurt or exploited, anything is fine. Therefore there are plenty of exotic shops to browse along with everything else.

Although Anima and Kantoku have made their intentions to speed things along, occaisionally the way of the multiverse is to make you wait. Who knows how the next few days will unfold?

Kuruno concerned himself with locating the scrapyard. He didn't wait up for Uziel when he did eventually find it; heading there with haste. Should he arrive without incident, his objective would to be sort out the scrap, take what he needs to make repairs and to upgrade the P.U.M. and attach the weapon to it, and sell everything that wasn't needed; in that order.

Kuruno is greeted by a humanoid pit-bull. His name is Scruff. "Welcome, stranger. My scrapyard has a workshop with tools. You can use the tools to speed up your projects. I charge c1 per 10 hours of workshop use. Of course, you break it you buy it, so be careful. I've also got a crew of 20 who can stop their projects and work for you for c5 per 10 hours for each worker. You can pay me in scrap. Also, you can trade scrap for any scrap here."

OOC: In other words, let me know what you want your final project to have and I'll tell you how much and how long it will take to make. If you want to make it faster, I'll tell you how much faster it can be finished using tools and or workers.

OOC:

Kuruno's plans are this:

Repair the P.U.M.
Assimilate the weapon onto it's system (Inside the right or left hand)
Use the scrap for minor armor upgrades
Sell what's left of the scrap

Kuruno uses 1 scrap to repair the Mech, and the gun counts as 25 scrap, giving Drop lowest 1 dice and +1d6. This takes 2.6 hours on his own, or if he pays c1 to use the workshop it only takes 1.17 hours.

Upgrading the Mech to the max, maximizing armour and weapon power to what Kuruno can handle will cost 675 scrap and take 67.5 hours. If he pays c3 to use the shop, it will cost 305 scrap and take 30.5 hours. If he pays for 2 workers to help it will cost c21 and take 10.13 hours. In any case he will end up with:

PUM
 +2d6, Drop lowest 2 dice and +2d6, +2 to roll, reroll 1s
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:17, Sat 08 Oct 2016.

When Kuruno has completed his repairs, He will likely find Uziel  getting his Luggage prepared for the transit to Gamma. He seems if not impatient, than at least ready to go. His more ornate clothing has been replaced by informal field gear, with only the sword and belt having been retained.

"ah. I am glad to see you Kuruno, I must confess a certain felling of urgency. Let us embark."

Uziel's motives are not monetary, he is here hunting favor, and rumor, not credit and he is afraid that the ambush may have worked even in its failure. too many resources can tempt an officer to think they have gained the time to utilize all of them.  Admittedly the ambush was unlikely to be linked to the mission He had been hired for, but that chance remained. And time could be an issue. This may be simply a favor for someone with contacts, but reputation matters, and professionals don't take shopping trips in the middle of a job.

These are not Elves, they are often in a hurry, and in their culture I must live on their timescale.

OOC:

I'm giving up c25 for the Workshop and Shop, and the workers.

IC:
Kuruno doesn't like other people messing with the stuff inside his mech, but now wasn't the time to be stubborn. He got to work alongside the others as soon as possible, and tried to work swiftly. If they couldn't keep up with all six active tentacles, then he probably shooed them off to work on another part of the machine while he kept working on the bit he was working on.

Once he was done with that, he drove the P.U.M. around to find Uziel; popping his head out of the cockpit when he found him. "Yes, yes, we can't exactly linger. Sorry that took so long! Well, i'm not THAT sorry to be honest. The P.U.M.'s a little shinier again! Er... Right, i kept you all held up for ten hours... Uh... L-let's get going, yes?"

Once again he almost got lost in speaking what he was thinking, but he was quick to let Uziel take the lead

OOC:


21:53, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 7 using 2d6 with rolls of 1,6.

Dropping 1


21:54, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 10 using 2d6+2, rerolling ones with rolls of 3,{1}5.

Uziel and Kuruno each purchase the c5 tickets to Stellaland Amusement park, and make their way to the Stellaland Portal. The Portal is one of the largest in Auraluna, at about 50 feet across. This makes the transition and distortion much easier to handle, and less unpleasant. Additionally, different sides of the Portal are designated for specific purposes and the Portal Space inside of the Portal is cordoned off to match these purposes. Thus someone wanting to go to the R&D department must go through screening ahead of time, and is kept inside a solid tube through Portal Space. Those wanting to go to the Amusement Park have their own path. Leporidaens, who are sometimes known as bunny-people, have their own entrance. Others have their entrances as well.

People are in the Amusement Park entrance dressed in swimwear, army gear with weaponry, and any other imaginable fashion.

Once in Stellaland, Uziel and Kuruno see signs pointing to different sections of the amusement park. Some of the places listed are Armyland, Freefallers, Deepsea Diving, Adult Alcove, Kids Playground, Flight Simulator, Virtual Explorer, Museum of Everything (Hands On!), and more. There are a few signs also posted warning people not to eat or drink any of Stellaland matter, and in the small print, it says, "Warning, this place is not real! If you eat or drink too much of the stuff that comes from here, you will lose your realness, and be forever unable to leave! Outside food is provided at the vendors' food stands. PLEASE only eat outside food. If you fear you may have accidentally ingested too much Stellamatter, please see the nearest moderator for immediate assistance."

Uziel and Kuruno hear a voice in their heads, Do not react to this message. Both of you are hearing this. Thank you for coming. Please go to one of the amusement park areas. It doesn't matter which one you go to. You can both go to the same or to different areas. I will teleport you out from that location when the coast is clear.

Uziel takes a moment to Nod to Kuruno then proceeded to walk away at a quick pace, moving his bag to best hide the sword form view. He steps into the longest queue for the amusement areas.
Uziel makes a point of scanning the area by magic to see if he can spot the bird creature or any other tails. He is feeling very paranoid at the diversion and misdirection thus far employed and will be taking his personal security very seriously.


10:28, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,4.

While everyone is in the lineup, a magnificently gigantic plant-woman appears in the sky. She bends down so everyone can see her face clearly and she says, in the same voice that had spoken in Uziel and Kuruno's heads, "Welcome to the Stellaland Amusement Park! I am Star Lady - the matriarch of this world. My creator, Stella, discovered this private Oner and has tailored it to be a safe and fun environment for all! While you are within these grounds, you cannot be harmed. Go ahead! Jump off a cliff! Walk through a room filled with lava. Nothing will harm you here. If you need anything, just ask one of the Mods. They have the power to call nearly anything into existence. Please remember to eat only outside food. This place is not real, and anything you obtain from here will not exist when you leave. While you are here, I hope you are Amused! Have fun, everyone!" And she disappears in fireworks, amidst cheers from the crowds.

The longest line in the Amusement Park is, by far, the Adult Alcove. But everyone in that lineup is wearing some form of disguise. It is possible to ask a Mod for a disguise, and they will call one into existence... but the second longest line looks very promising. Armyland. And a sword would not be too out-of-place in Armyland.


Uziel feels... something... watching him. Not just Star Lady either.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:34, Mon 10 Oct 2016.

Uziel will in fact head to army land and summon for himself a mod mask appropriate for a high tech helmet.

Uziel senses that someone humanoid - a fellow Magus Mage - is following him. And has been for over a day.

When Uziel attempts to summon the high-tech helmet, a 5' tall paperclip with eyes and odd shoes appears before Uziel, saying, "It looks like you are trying to summon an item! Can I help? What is the item you are trying to summon?" He hands Uziel a pair of glasses. "These will project any image you can imagine."

Kuruno would giggle at the sight of the line for the Adult Alcove. He never understood why people waited in such massive lines, rather than dispersing and taking a different approach or just coming back later. Regardless he followed Uziel. Some of those masks looked cool, anyways; and he wanted something intimidating. Nurelians always did want to look not-pathetic, and others didn't fancy being called "cute" all the time. Kuruno himself didn't care for those types of problems though. He just wanted to look cooler.

OOC:
Sorry! I forgot about this! I'm following Uziel

Seeing he is being followed both by Kuruno and the unknown unimagus, Uziel is slightly concerned. Unsure if the magus is friend of foe, and unwilling to tip his hand Uziel slows to walk with Kuruno though without speaking of the tail, who is probably listening.

Uziel instead weaves a small spell of chaos. Simply seeking the a path for himself to a wherever this person will have to follow closely. (Ie where is the best chance to give the lurker an uninterrupted shot at his now warned back?)


11:12, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 6 using 1d6 with rolls of 6

He notes after this he and Kuruno need to work up some code words for events such as this.

Is following them but staying hidden, he could be recognized here.

Kuruno was easily able to keep up with Uziel. Until Uziel started weaving in and out of the crowd. The line was really more of a crowd of people all wandering in the same direction, so it presented ample opportunity to confuse a tail or force them into a specific pattern.

OOC: Chaos Element advances

IC:
Uziel manages to force the tail into a tight follow pattern, and Uziel narrows it down to one of three people, when all of a sudden, all three break off and wander away. One heads to an emergency exit and leaves Stellaland altogether.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:13, Wed 12 Oct 2016.

After losing their tail, the two find themselves in a war zone. People begin running to one side or the other. Icons appear over them as they run, identifying which team they are joining, and flash indicating their invulnerability. "Soldiers" on the field are shooting at each other, and laughing as they do so. One person gets hit in the head, he says, "Aw, dang it!" and he disappears. At each end of the field, people who have been "shot" are reappearing with a countdown timer indicating that they can neither shoot nor be shot for a few moments.

Suddenly a sniper takes out both Kuruno and Uziel in one shot. They both disappear, and find themselves in a completely different area. The room has been specifically designed to accommodate both Nurelian and Elf anatomy and taste. There are drinks and foods specifically brought from both homeworlds. And in their midst, sits Star Lady.

Uziel bows at the waist making the knee.
"Thank you Lady for accomodating this meeting. I must say I am intrigued even more by your offer knowing we were followed here, and perhaps interrupted just for agreeing to meet you."

His smile is wide and genuine. despite the words, and as he rises he steps back to make room for his companions.

Just appears there with them, sitting perched on a chair top.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:26, Wed 12 Oct 2016.

"Well Yes, I didn't quite know you were followed until the man bailed on us, but I considered that it might happen. There are many reasons that the details of this mission must remain secret. I am sorry for the hurry and I know you are concerned about equipment so I had some acquired for you, it's not much, but you can keep it."

She motions to two containers on one table, one contains a magus stone while the other contains a fairly over equipped tool box. (there are tools for manipulating microscopic gears even) And both contained a small case and a chest harness.






OOC: You don't need to research these items. The GM will let you know if they are needed. Essentially it is a super survival kit.

"Time is of the essence so if you agree, you will be boarding a crewed ship from here as soon as possible. The journey will take some time as you'll need to travel in real-space. You will travel to a remote location where a Portal has been established. Once through the Portal, the ship will stop and you will continue the journey on a smaller shuttle to Gamma. Overall it will be about 1 week to reach the Portal, and 3 days from there to Gamma. "

"If there is anything else you might need, simply ask the crew. They can probably accommodate you with any equipment you desire. Both ships are Anima proprietary prototypes and along with the full details of this mission are to be kept quite confidential so I'll have to ask you to sign confidentiality agreements."

"Whether you agree or not you are free to keep what you have been paid and these gifts. Think of them as an incentive."

A standard corporate confidentiality agreement is produced for each of them to sign, along with a pen.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:36, Thu 13 Oct 2016.

The Emergency Kit is basically void-magem hyper-storage marbles, containning food, water, air, heat and light with devices to release and store each of them.... the avalanch clearance kit is just a little gun that sucks up matter (and can in a pinch shoot it out... a gun that blasts a few gallons of sludge/water/air can be useful in some situations).

The heat marbles can be emptied with the clearance gun and then used in the heating device to store heat making it a cooling device too.

The sucking fact it can suck up light isn't fast enough to be useful though but maybe it could be tweaked to something like a dark out zone. *shrugs*

*likes the kits* >.>

Kuruno squeaked in surprise when he was suddenly transported into another room alongside Uziel. He took a moment to look around before realizing the place had been prepared for him. How did he know? Nurelians were quite the minority; barely leaving their well-protected towns and whatnot. Plus, he hadn't seen one Nurelian here... Until I looked in a mirror! He thought. He gave a slight chuckle at his own in-thought joke, but when he saw Uziel bow he stopped for a moment, before attempting something similar; crossing the tips of his foretentacles and dipping his head and forward body, before rising up again.

Kuruno was quick to sate his curiosity, drifting over to see what had been left in the box. His beady red eyes widened as a grin spread across his face, seeing his gift. He picked up the Toolbox, looking at the other two before using his last two tentacles to hold it tightly against his underside; it was uncomfortable as Nurelian undersides were one of the softest spots on their bodies, but he didn't mind anyways.

He then looked at the woman who offered the gifts; keeping his blue glowing trap shut until she was done. "I need a few things. One, proper transportation for my Mech... And two, Uh... Nevermind. That's all I can think of, really."

He floated over and picked up the agreement and read it over, eyes darting to Uziel every now and then to see what he would do.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:19, Wed 12 Oct 2016.

"Your mech can certainly come with you. If you like, an engine can be provided to give your Mech flight capability."

Star Lady looks to Uziel, "What say you, sir? Will you sign?"
This message was last edited by the player at 05:35, Thu 13 Oct 2016.

"Of course lady. I was just considering the possibilities, a weakness of my race. Pray forgive."

He moves up and signs the contract. Eyeing the stone appreciatively. He will pick it up when they depart.

"I am ready at your convenience."

She also produces a folder for Kuruno about the crystal-forging program. "We would also be happy if you consider a job with us when you return, you can read this over on the way... there are particularly good programs for skilled engineers, magemsmiths, and healers and while she has not started anything I am sure our CEO will have some interest in magus R&D." The folder goes over the details of the job. Crystal-forging is done for free and the job pays c5~c10 a day plus bonuses for any inventions developed for the company.

"Star Lady" looks like the ethereal version of a robot made out of a living tree/plant. lol She is literally a lifetree-clockwork-golem.

She waits for Kuruno to sign before continuing.

"Sorry about that but you will be seeing and using some very advanced prototypes. There is also the matter that you were not actually hired to explore Gamma. For reasons we could not go into we could not let many people know of Gamma's re-discovery, and no one could know of the real reason you are being hired. There is little interest in Gamma beyond historical, especially the hopes that there may be some data stores we can recover of the pre-magem Gamma technology. The post-magem Gamma doesn't interest us very much and we already know why electricity stopped working and how to fix it."

"The reason you are going is that another team was already sent and that team has disappeared without a trace, and we need you to find them. You will be given a kit to carry with you to deploy when you find them. This, as well as seeing to the needs of this lost crew are your primary missions. Investigating what happened is the second. In any case, if you happen to find anything interesting you will either be paid for it or you can keep it... or we will extract the data from it, pay you AND you can keep it."

"Kantoku here was created by our CEO as a scout and an analytical scanning array, he will be accompanying you to help find the crew and you will be leaving by a warp-ship as soon as your ready."
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:08, Thu 13 Oct 2016.

Kuruno looked absurdly dumbfounded when the woman offered to make his machine flight capable, giving her a jaw-dropped stare. "F-flight capable? Ahah! Wait, how are you going to do that? It's design is barely fit for aerodynamics- Ah screw it! I'm not passing this up!" He spoke quickly and with excitement, quickly signing and handing back the contract. Kuruno's handwriting wasn't the best, but it was still perfectly readable and tolerable for a signature. He floated back to Uziel, a wide grin on his face, but that turned into a confused look as the Star Lady told him of heir actual job and what was going on.

"Uh...? A rescue mission? So all that time I spent getting things together..." Kuruno sighed with annoyance. "N-nevermind. Rescue mission is just fine." I wasted how much time putting notes together? He thought to himself. Shaking his head slightly he looked back up to the Star Lady and Uziel, attempting to mask his qualm with a smile. It wasn't that effective due to how expressive of their true thoughts Nurelians could be, but he was on-board despite the job change.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:41, Thu 13 Oct 2016.

"And that friend Kuruno, is why i asked those questions back in the restaurant."

Turning to the Star Lady again Uziel has a slight smile on his face feeling somewhat vindicated by her revelations.

"A rescue mission makes time even more critical. And of course more likely to require my talents as well"

"Kuruno, I can see that you are upset. I am sorry if you feel you have wasted your time, but your research may prove very useful. But if it makes you feel better we don't know much more than you do. In fact, we learned things about Gamma through your research that we didn't know beforehand.

"As for the shift in technology from electronics to Magem, we know that Balur (commonly called Magem) is a living thing and something caused it to evolve in a way that when around electronics it releases energy which heats tiny parts in the electronics and causes them to melt... if you examine any old electronics you can see the burnt areas... there had been hair-thin strips of metal in those places which had conducted electricity, but the massive amount of energy that the Balur would send through them caused them to melt.


"There are at least three or four ways to fix this problem on a small scale, but without knowing what caused the evolutionary change, widespread use of electronics could just cause it to happen again.

"Therefore we have abandoned research on electrical technology. Nevertheless, some electrical devices that have not yet been re-invented could be re-invented with Magem and clockwork technologies. Once your primary missions are over you're free to stay on Gamma and explore or research lost tech. Or if you have some ideas you would rather look into while you are there on Gamma, let us know.

"Regardless you will have plenty of time to speak with the crew about Gamma and the mission. Certainly, more time than we have now.... in all honestly I was only told about it a few hours before the two of you where. Speed is of the essence and even with our fastest ship the portal you will need to use is in the neighboring galaxy and for reasons we don't quite understand, we can't let you take a portal to get there."

Star Lady showed them the way to the ship and the ships specs. The engine on the ship alone is worth c500 million. It travels at about 10k light-years per hour and can remain in flight without recharging for 11.4 years. The flight will be 10 days at maximum warp.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:00, Thu 13 Oct 2016.

Kuruno: Check out the Market thread for details on effectiveness of the various types of flight engines. In short:
Air: Blasts air
Earth: Artificial gravity
Fire: Blasts superheated gasses
Water: Uses a streamline of water which flows front to back around the outside and recycles through the inside to decrease friction and propel the machine forward
Void: basically a micro-warp drive
Omni: uses all types at once

The party (Kantoku, Kuruno and Uziel) may now proceed to the ship as per Star Lady's instructions. The journey is about 10 days.

Kuru I crossed his tentacles, giving the Star Lady another quizzical result, and perhaps slight offence. "I didn't spearhead the research of electrical technology. The information I gathered was research from different sources, mainly topped off with Nurelian research of electricity. I have the others of my species back at home to thank for it..."

He sighed, and then froze. "Wait... You said you abandoned electrical research entirely...?" He threw his tentacles up, clenching his teeth and then making a series of noises such as clicking, hoots, and something that could be compared to someone emptying a balloon's air into a kazoo, amongst other things. To those that know, the Nurelian's actual language doesn't feature any words or alphabet; rather, an over-complicated set of noises that have different meanings in series. If anyone knew how to decipher it on the spot, it was quite easy to tell he was ventilating frustration with excessive cursing and a two-sentence lecture stating his kind's self-declared intellectual superiority. It's unlikely that many understand the language, as it is quite frustrating to learn due to its complexity, and overall complication and difficulty it presents, to non-Nurelians, the latter also due to their unique way of speaking.

"Er... Nevermind. Let's just move on and get to the ship... Shall we?" He prepared to leave. "Also, can I get flame propulsion for my vehicle's aviation?"

"Now is not the time to talk about this, if your interested you can talk to R&D when you return or ask questions in flight. But I can tell you in short, no we are researching it but our focus has shifted to trying to reproduce electric technology with magem and clockwork, as well as finding out why Balur evolved the way it did. We are interested in technology and if you like some one can provide you with information on them. This Oner still has functioning electrical technology in it that is quite advance. We are in fact quite interested in computers, you should ask to see some documentation on them. You will find some of the tree-tech in our ship emulates electronics and computers."

She nods "They have enough materials to build them along the way, this way you can over see there production. I wish you luck, and I am sorry we don't have more time to talk."

Uziel Bows Low.

"then By your leave Lady."

He takes up the box and makes his way to the star-ship, assuming his Luggage has been taken care of.

Thinking about his own funding perhaps he needs to make plans to hunt down the Twilight himself, he will need more than a sword. It is a void ship after all.

Kantoku, Uziel and Kuruno made their way, following Star Lady's instructions. First they were teleported to the private tubed R&D section of the Stellaland entrance Portal. With only one Portal in or out of Stellaland, they had no choice but to leave by that bottleneck. Although Uziel felt the presence of the stalker yet again, the stalker was outside of the tube and so couldn't see them directly. Just outside of the Portal, there was an Anima Portal Hub.

They went through the designated gated Portal and came out in a large rectangular room with red velvet and brass accents. This was apparently the AAFT flagship's main Portal Room. Patrus Cosmodomini was the captain of this starship and CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Future Technologies. Unfortunately, no windows to the outside were visible from here.

Immediately they went through the next designated Portal which was labelled "Fynnland" and arrived on a floating island in the Grolms. Finally they made their way to one further Portal which had just been established specifically for this purpose. This Portal took them to a distant space station, built much like interior of Auraluna. As soon as they were through, an Anima employee shut off and dismantled the Portal Ring from the Portal they had just arrived through.

There were very few people milling about in this station, and all wore Anima insignia.

Uziel was probably the first to notice that this Oner was very different than the one they had come from. All of the stars were closer together than one would normally expect, and thousands of galaxies and nebulae were visible to the naked eye. This was a very young universe. Life probably hadn't yet evolved, and even rocky planets were likely to be few and far between.

The ship was docked a short walk from there, and so they boarded the ship. As soon as they were on board, the ship embarked into space, and began to warp away. Out of the window it was possible to watch as they moved past stars alarmingly fast. Almost 10,000 light years per hour, in fact.

The captain of the small Warp Ship greeted them. She was an oddly shaped woman of some uncertain species. She had six arms and hands, but no legs or feet. She walked on her four lower hands, and had four eyes, two slightly smaller eyes above a fairly normal set. "Greeting, I am Captain Malachite. You can call me Mal for short. You'll each have your own room for the 10 day journey. I'll answer any of your questions now."

OOC: what about the P.U.M.? Kuruno didn't drive it into the laser tag thing

The PUM is definitely on board the ship, with the flight engine already attached.

OOC: You'll only need to RP as much of the trip as you plan on actively asking questions or working on things. Once you're ready for Gamma, just say so.

OCC( unless anyone disturbs him Uziel will be spending the trip in his own space doing some communing with his blade and it's new configuration. He will joing the communal meals if available. )

OOC: (Kuruno will mind his own business, likely doing repeated checkups and things of the like on his machine and what not to keep himself occupied)

OOC: Sorry for my hiatus there, had a bit of life turmoil

IC:

The trip to Gamma was fairly uneventful. But our heroes managed to get to know the crew a little bit.

In the initial debriefing, it was revealed that this ship was missing half of its crew. The other 5 crew members had descended to Gamma when it was initially discovered. Contact was lost, and so these crewmembers returned for help.

Captain Malachite was quite a formidable woman. She possessed an inner strength that complimented her stature and the circumference of her lower four arms. At the communal meal, Kuruno, Uziel and Kantoku had been speaking to the others about the missing 5 person crew when Captain Malachite sat down. Conversation stopped without explanation.

Cap. Mal said, "It's alright. I'll tell them.

"Two of the crewmen lost on Gamma are my children. That is to say, my daughter and her spouse. When we lost contact, I felt as if my heart had been torn from my chest. I wanted to stay. I wanted to leave the ship and find them myself. But I knew I couldn't break protocol on this." She sighed heavily, "No. That's a lie. I almost did break protocol and leave the ship. Until we got the call from home base. Somehow they knew about the missing crew. Not the details, but they knew. Estella herself gave the order to return to that starbase immediately and wait for 3 people to board. I didn't know the name of the planet until that call. I still don't know how she knew.

"We were only docked for about a day before you showed up."

The gearhead spoke up, "Yah, good thing too! I found a wildgrowth Magem crystal in the engine. Coulda blown the whole ship to bits if we'd've left right off." The ship's Magem engineer was a head-to-toe tattooed man with over half of his head seemingly replaced by gears.

Banter returned to the table from then.

The lost crew consisted of:
Scott: Landing Team Leader
Jazz: Malachite's daughter - Woman at Arms
La Paz: Jazz's spouse - Magem Mage
Red: the grunt
Lugosi: the brain

The sequence of events:
-First that the Portal to this Oner was opened and the Oner began to be explored.
-An anomaly was detected millions of lightyears away - Magem in the Oner where Magem was all but absent.
-This ship with 10 crewmembers was sent to investigate
-5 crew landing party descended to the surface
-all went well for the first hour, then the Communicators started to malfunction
-communicators went silent
-1 hour later, the call was received to return to the base and await the 3 new people.

And so the ship began its final approach to Gamma. The warp engines slowed and stopped, placing the ship in orbit around Gamma.

Gamma was a city-planet, with greenery everywhere. There were some buldings that were visible from space. Some even looked like they might be space-elevators.

The skies above Gamma were not populated by satellites or moons, but there was a mysterious unmoving structure above the surface. Invisible to the naked eye, but the on the screen it was artificially highlighted.

Hundreds of tiny structures were stationary. They formed a regular geometric shape such that the entire planet was evenly covered.

Uziel felt that familiar pull to these objects. The same pull that he felt toward his blade and to Portals.

Kantoku began to experience a sort of head-static. He felt his connection to the others in his Hivemind diminish. He could rest in the knowledge that his mind-state was up to date - up to a few moments ago - but he suspected that if he were to die, anything he experienced after this moment would be lost. Unless he returned.

Kuruno noticed the orbs first.

3 orbs were brought out to Kuruno, Kantoku and Uziel. Malachite explained, "Kantoku, I imagine you know what this is. But I'm not certain everyone else is aware. These are AAFT mind-state saving orbs. In the unlikely event that you are killed, they will endeavor to keep your mind alive. They transfer the information in your brain into a Magem-microgear version which can then be placed inside a mech.

"Some people find them vile, and others consider them a god-send. They're yours for the taking."

"Now. Are we ready to descend?"

"My gear box has many of the capabilities of the orbs... it is smaller but it serves the same function. Could you go ahead and have the kit we prepared loaded onto Kantoku's mech, if that is ok with you." he looks to address Kantoku. "I figure it is easier if your mech caries it rather than Uziel... it is a bit heavy."

GM NOTE: It weighs 50lbs and looks like a large almond. This is an image of a display on top of the kit (image created by Kantoku's player) http://i1106.photobucket.com/a.../Warden%20casing.jpg
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:45, Tue 18 Oct 2016.

"I than you for the forethought, and the concern it implies. A reasonable precaution in such a place. before we disembark, coulf you tell us the state of the planet from the ground?"

Uziel is intrigued and focused on the orbital displays. He is willing to let the unknown be the unknown for now. Especially as there are missing children to be found.

Malachite explains, "I suppose the best thing would be to show you. We have images from the first hour of the landing from the POV of the landing crew." She nods to one of the others and an image plays on the main screen with sound coming through as well.

A small shuttle has landed and the front door descends to become a ramp. The 4 others and the POV explorer get off of the small shuttle. Everyone is an adult between 20 and 50. No one is wearing special breathing gear as the air is breathable.

The surface is devoid of life. There are a few Magem wildgrowth crystals here and there, but nothing larger than a meter long. They have landed on a street in a city environment, with buildings around them and strange wheel-less vehicles on the roads.

POV says, "Alright team, let's get to it. Jazz, Red, you two establish the perimeter."

A six-armed alien (just like Malachite, but a little taller) walks on her two lower arms and a middle arm, carrying a gun with her other middle arm and another gun with her left upper arm. She has a helmet with vision enhancers. Jazz walks off a few meters and disappears behind a wall.

A 10 foot tall red-head with a smallish head, carrying a cannon sized gun wanders in a different direction. His footfalls are almost too quiet.

POV says, "Right, La Paz and Lugosi, you two start analysis. Make sure there's nothing we can't see that'll kill us."

A blue woman with gel-like wings carrying a small blade walks to the center of the area, and draws on the ground with her thin 2-foot long blade. Magem crystals embedded in her skin begin to glow blue as she swirls her blade around and chants.

A tall dark thin man in his 30s smoking a pipe wipes his finger on the ground, licks it, and walks around with intensity.

Static plays across the screen. The tall thin man - Lugosi as Malachite explains - says, "Scott, did you get that static?"

"Yeah. Let's be careful, right?"

Malachite pauses the video. She says, "It goes on like that for awhile. Nothing out of the ordinary. No lifeforms met. Then the communicators just fail without warning."

OOC: Sorry guys, i've been a little busy today. I'm gonna make a short post just to help things move along, but hopefully i'll be able to do more tomorrow or Thursday. Past that, i'll try and keep up.

IC:

"O-oh, lovely. The risk of dying is always looming, i suppose." He chuckled nervously, rubbing his tentacles together a little. When the recording came on he leaned in a little and watched quietly, taking mental notes of everything relevant he sees.

Malachite says, "Right. Let's go." And she boards the small shuttle with Uziel, Kuruno and Kantoku. Everyone else stays on board.

As the shuttle passes the geostationary satellite objects, Uziel senses a strong presence of Void energy emanating from it.

The shuttle lands on the surface of Gamma right next to the first shuttle.

None of the four of them are wearing communicators - Kantoku's connection to the Hivemind fails. He is alone.

The door of the shuttle opens and Malachite exits. She immediately begins looking for signs of where the first crew may be. Their shuttle appears to be intact and abandoned.

No lifeforms are apparent.

Flies up and starts scanning for life signs or enervy readings from there batteries/kits as they would be quince to the planet.

"wrll that at least tells us the problem is not likely environmental. and i assume no scanning has yielded results.... perhaps a revisit of the site of their disappearance is the most efficient way out of the mystery?"


Looking from the distraught captain Mal to his nervous tech engineer Uziel is reminded that not everyone has faced death before. He is quietly anticipating the chance to solve this riddle and locate the lost children.

Kantoku discovers a group of about 5 or so lifeforms moving toward the group from about 5 miles away. No other signs of life appear. As for energy, no active Magem energy sources are apparent except for those in Kuruno's mech, the shuttle the 4 of them just arrived in and Kantoku himself. Inactive Magem crystals are visible here and there, but nothing beyond arm length.

Malachite turns to Uziel, "Right. Good idea. That would be this way. She points, and starts heading in that direction.

Kuruno pulled his goggles and let them snap on to his face, immediately regretting the trope-like action as they stung his squishy face. He held his head for a moment with a whine, before shaking his head and taking control of the P.U.M., and jumped out of the shuttle with it, landing with a thud. Kuruno seemed a little nervous, but at this point, being nervous may of seemed like a norm for him. He let the others take the lead.

"You know, I should invest in a glass casing to protect the cockpit. I'll keep that in mind when we come back. Am I the only one who's nervous?" Kuruno attempted casual conversation, but it quickly dissolved to his admittance of discomfort. This didn't stop his advance with the others, though.

"before you seal yourself in, be sure you can get out at need. Facing clean death in battle is better than being trapped in a burning wreck."

His voice is flat as his eyes scan the surroundings. Eyeing the surrounding buildings for a moment before deciding that the need for security out weighs the vulnerability he must expose himself to.

"Kuruno, please keep watch a moment."


Uziel drops his mind into the void, scanning the area around him, plotting the negative space. while it will tell him little and takes time, this allows him to get an immediate snap shot of the area.

Scan the space with Void magic

23:06, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 11 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,5.

Mal looks at Kuruno, "No worries. I'm scared. Very scared. You're not alone."

Uziel:
Mental Void Map spell added to the list. At this roll (11), you reach Mental Void Map 2 which has a 25' radius of effect. Your roll also caused you to level up in the Void element to Voi2.

---

Spoiler for Things Uziel Senses: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel senses the area around him for 25' in all directions. Every atom has void between the proton and electron, therefore there is void everywhere. The density of that void can tell an experience Unimagus mage even what materials are present.

The street here is made from some unknown metal alloy, and less than 2 cm below, there is an open space - likely a larger road for various subterranean vehicles.

Magem crystals and Magem crafted items have a very distinct Void feel to them. Different from all elements on the periodic table. There are a few Magem crystals around, but not nearly as many or as large as one would suspect in an environment which was left alone for longer than 100 years. Additionally, the Magem components of the first landing party's shuttle have been degraded.

There are odd lumps of an unknown material here and there of varying sizes from 1 inch long to 1 foot long.

Uziel can also sense where people have walked recently. There are footprints leading away from the first shuttle in the same direction they are currently going - presumably footprints from the original landing party as they explored the area. The same footprints also return to the area, as well as leave and return in different directions multiple times. There is only one set of footprints leaving the area which do not have footprints returning, and they go off at about 90 degrees from the direction the party is currently traveling.

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 05:15, Fri 21 Oct 2016.

"There is a group of 5 heading this way, however they have none of the gear the landing party had."

"careful everyone, there is a parallel space beneath us."

Uziel moves towards the closing lifeforms, instincts placing him between his companions and danger while he draws out his communication device to follow up with the ship.

"captain, did your landing party make more than one trip from this point? there are a significant number of tracks here."

Mal jerks her head in the direction Kantoku indicated and answers Uziel, "I don't know we lost track of them one hour after they landed, and they've been here for over 20 days now. Can you tell how many different people are represented by the tracks?"

Perhaps when he gains more skill, Uziel could identify the people by the tracks, but not yet. However, Kantoku's mapping ability might provide some insight. ((Target roll 14))

Mal glances around at their surroundings. "Kuruno, do you think you might be able to get one of those larger vehicles operational so we can meet... whoever it is coming at us - on our terms?"


Kuruno:

Roll results:
20= restore power to the vehicle - it's a hovercraft that doesn't use electronics and can carry 10 people
15= turn it into a mobile platform that can carry 6 people
10= turn it into a vehicle that can carry 3 people
5= turn it into a mobility mech that can carry 1 person

15:15, Today: Kantoku rolled 17 using 5d6 with rolls of 4,1,3,5,4.  *Cartographer (5/5).

Simply relays the information and information about the party of 5 heading this way before going invisible and flying to get a look at them.

15:16, Today: Kantoku rolled 23 using 5d6 with rolls of 6,4,3,6,4.  *****Analytic Spy [5/5].

Kuruno "parked" his mech and floated out of it, removing himself from it and floated over to the downed vehicle with a toolbox. He quickly got to work, pulling open pannels to access the inner works and working as quickly as he could; doing multiple things at once. The vehicle's power seemed to return for a moment, it all coming to life as the hovercraft lifted, and then something blew up in Kuruno's face and it hit the ground with a heavy thud. Kurno quickly retreated, flailing his tentacles about his now-blackened soot-covered face coughing and cursing up a hurricane. Some words he said others may of never even knew existed. He ended with a loud whine; "AW COME ON!!!" he shouted, putting distance between him and the machine and going back to his mech.

The vehicle seemed operational, even if not hovering though. Kuruno was put in a pretty bad mood having success blow up in his face quite literally though.

15:44, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 19 using 5d6 with rolls of 6,5,4,2,2.  Trust me, i'm an Engineer (Get the vehicle working).

Maj got up on the vehicle and invited Uziel to join her. There was enough space for Kuruno to ride the mech and still be on the vehicle, but he could also easily keep up on the ground.

Kantoku told them that there were only 5 sets of footprints, and that they left and returned to the site 10 different times, leaving for the last time about a week ago.



Kantoku reaches the group of 5 after 5 minutes of flying. He remains unseen as he spies on the group. He sees that they are the same 4 people that he had seen in the POV video plus one person who is possibly Scott. They all look worse for wear. La Paz has lost her wings and has tumorous crusty growths where her Magem crystals were, Jazz has only one gun now, Red looks mostly the same, Lugosi has a number of new items including a strange visor and a sword, and Scott looks like he's injured his arm.

Kantoku can return to the rescue group, taking an additional 4 minutes. The two groups will intersect 12 minutes later.

Switches into high speed mode to return, moving just shy of braking the sound berrier. Tries to get back as quickly as possable to let them know the others are in bad condition and they need to get them back to the ship.... there seams to be something wrong with magem here!

Uziel climbs aboard bit keeps his hand on his sword. He will continue to scan the way ahead as they travel.

19:13, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,6.

"no i cannot tell. but a group or groups revisited the landing site and recently...."

At the moment, I'm undecided what Kantoku's actual speed is, and how to determine it. This time I'll declare that he gets back in less than a minute.

INFORMATION
The PCs all now know that there are only 5 people who came and went from the shuttle.
They also know that the 5 people to be rescued are about 12-15 minutes out.

IC:
Maj reflects on Kantoku's report. "How are my kids? Jazz and La Paz?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:55, Fri 21 Oct 2016.

"In bad shape, we need to speed up and get them back to the ship and leave, I'm not sure how much a few imortality pills and a golem doctor can do. We need to get them off this planet away from what ever is causing the wyld growths and to a doctor. The wyld growths are causing tumors in the bodies of those with large amounts of Balur in there body. .... actualy... Uziel should be able to drive out the balur in there body if it is in imideatly life threatening places... it could damage there abilities but they would return over time. We should still hurry to get them out of here."

Didn't want to brake it to her how bad she was doing, but figured playing it down some would also help prepare her for how bad it actualy is with out making her freak out.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:05, Sat 22 Oct 2016.

The remaining trip passes uneventfully. They are rounding a slight curve in the road when the 5 come into view. They begin rejoicing immediately! La Paz seems too tired to do much. She stumbles and Scott catches her. Jazz jumps when she sees Mal and runs to meet her - Mal jumps off of the platform and runs to hold her daughter. Scott marches on with a large smile on his face, mixed with worry. Red remains stalwart and uncaring. Lugosi laughs with joy and puts a spring in his step.

Uziel, concerned it is too good to be truemoves withMal to join the survivors. On the way he prepares his quick lunge spell in case sudden reactions are necessary. Instead of his sword however he is prepared to do as Kuruno suggested and suppressing the effects of the planet from their influence upon the rescued people.

Kuruno didn't partake in the rejoicing, going back into his mech and wrapping his tail around the "anchor" stool, easing himself in it, fiddling with the control sticks, but not to the extent that the mech moves much at all.

"We have no time for this, there is no telling how long the ship will remain functional. That and for all we know the planet could dissapear again, the void spheres could have something to do with that, and they seam to still be active."

Hearing the probe indicate the Void spheres are active Uziel drops the temporal shift spell and begins delving into the flows of magic in the void. Hopefully he can prevent a local shift or at least wart the others.

"I'm on it"

Watching for Void flux with Void magic

16:25, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,4.

Mal nods at Kantoku's words, "He's right. We should hurry back."


Jazz notices that her spouse, La Paz has stumbled and runs to her side, thanking Scott. They all start moving toward the 6 person vehicle except Lugosi. He says that he has his own transportation and points to his feet without further explanation.

Scott glances at the Communicator in Uziel's hand and points a gun at it, "THROW THAT AWAY QUICK!"

Everyone turns to look, and Lugosi says, "Do it now! Every communicator, get rid of them before it's too late!"

Grunts. "You where told to leave them behind. I had mine removed, quite painfully too."

Sounds motivated if not entirely lucid. Uziel tosses the communicator aside and moves rapidly towards the ship.

Kuruno looked around for his, and realized that he... forgot it entirely. He didn't ponder whether that was good or bad, however, as everyone started running suddenly after Uziel discarded the communicator. He piloted the P.U.M. to follow them, and stepped on the communicator that was dropped as he did.

Kuruno crushes the communicator.

Scott, Jazz, Uziel ((if you want)), La Paz, Red and Mal all board the vehicle and head for the ship. The vehicle can only carry 6 people, but it can move faster than they can run. Lugosi does a funny step, and he's suddenly hovering a few feet off the ground, and easily keeping up with the others.

Once aboard, Scott appologizes to Uziel, "Sorry about that, friend. We had trouble with our communicators at first. Then that happened," he points to Red. "His mind is mush now. He'll follow us and eat food if we put it in his mouth, but that's about it so far. Doesn't even sleep. You don't want that. No one wants that."

Mal complains, "Can't this thing go any faster?"

Jazz pipes up, "Can anyone treat La Paz? These things are killing her."

Uziel will attempt to use his talent to suppress the effect on La Paz. He is simply trying to push the effect back rather than trying to cure her. pushing the Energy out into the air and minimizing the effect.


22:52, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 7 using 2d6 with rolls of 3,4.

"I'll try, but hurry"

"What happened with the communicators? Did what's making the balur grow affect them too?"

Tries to gage there reactions to talking about the comunicators and growing in particular.

La Paz seems a little better. ((She basically went from (1/5) to (2/5). ))

La Paz looks oddly at Kantoku's question. She replies, "Don't you know that Magem grows naturally all on its own? This place had Magem before we ever got here. If anything, we'd have expected it to have grown far larger than it has. And why do you call it balur? Only old people use that word."

Scott pipes in conciliatorily, "Balur is fine to say, La Paz. We all know what he means. But to answer your question, after the communicators went to nothing but static, they started to cause us headaches so we took them off. We thought the ship was still in orbit so we knew we had to find a way to communicate. I asked for volunteers to push through the pain of the attempt and Red stepped up. He was very brave and feared no pain. He..." Scott's eyes glaze over a bit. Except for Red, the others are all reflecting difficult emotions as well. Scott continues, "He tried to get in touch with the ship, but the headache just got worse and worse. Once he started crying out in pain, I ordered him to stop." Lugosi clenches his fist. Scott doesn't notice and continues, "But by then it was already too late. He couldn't stop no matter what he tried. We pried the communicator from his hand, but the effect lingered. La Paz tried to heal him, but it had no effect.

"Worse than that, instead of healing Red, her attempt seemed to cause these tumors to grow from her crystals. I had to order her to stop." La Paz nods. Jazz caringly strokes La Paz's shoulder.

As Uziel sings the song of the void, his mind feels the ebb and flow of life from victim to tumorous , magical parasite. Obviously part of what is retarding the growth of magem in the area. But Uziel is an adept of the art and he can draw energy from these mindless things.

takig a moment to attune his spell to the *Tone* of the largest tumor, Uziel -PULLS- that power into his open left hand, folding it's own life into the spell he hopes to use to siphon off the whole parasite. To break them at their point of strength.

Uziel burns some of his Own horde of crystal to begin his casting, creating a frame for his power, a space between the host and his own aura, and body. While the energy solidifies and settles He says as if to reassure himself...

The important thing is to drain them at their feeding frequency... Interrupt their ability to kill the host..."

And he begins Casting....

Instead of using the Magem based money that he has, Uziel decides to simply use the tumor's energy against it. Uziel realizes that if he used the Magem money, it would probably only serve to feed the parasite rather than harm it.

Unfortunately, he seems to have already done as much as he could to help La Paz and limit the parasite. She remains stable, but unhealed.

As they continue journeying, Mal asks Scott, "Why didn't you just leave?"

"We tried." Jazz offers.

Scott picks up the explanation, "The same parasites had already infected the ship by the time we returned. She wouldn't start. We could burn them off, chop them off or otherwise force them off, but they kept coming."

Finally, the group arrived at the landing site of the two ships.

Floating a few feet off the ground, heading for the ship that the rescue party just landed in was this creature:



OOC: To be clear, it isn't an actual Pokemon creature in the game. That is just the closest thing I could find to it on the internet.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:00, Tue 25 Oct 2016.

Uses it's knife missles to create a wall of blades between the ship and the creature.

Feeling he has done all he could for the victims... until they get back to orbit, Uziel turns his attention to the creature. Long and obviously powerful he takes the initial moments of the encounter to scan the creature for weakness.

<casting find weakness>

22:45, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 3,5.

Kuruno slammed his mech into a halt when they suddenly encountered the big worm creature, almost throwing himself out of the mech. After re-balancing and settling himself back in, looking at the monster, and then back to the others. He was very obviously worried. "Do we have to kill that thing?!" He yelped, looking back at it. It weirded him out, alongside making him nervous... Again.

Uziel sees that the yellow plates are armoured but the purple bits which also connect each spherical segment are fleshy.

Jazz exclaims, "Holy cack! That's one of the parasites, isn't it, Scott?"

"I think so."

The creature seems unperturbed by the new arrivals, the noise they make and the wall of knife missiles. In fact, it wavers around the knife missiles as if sniffing them, then attempts to fly above or around them.

OOC:Sorry for the long delay. I've been sick. Still am, but feeling a little better.

For the first time in days Uziel smiles. His blade seemingly alive in his hand, he waits only for the enemy to bring itself to him. The scout has bought time, and time in battle is better than gold at market.

Unable to pierce the wall of missiles, Uziel continues his preparation. Readying himself to make his first shot count.

Casting accelerate self.
, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,6.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:09, Thu 27 Oct 2016.

He tries to keep the blades between it and the ship. "Whats on the ships it's interested in? It's to interested in my magem."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 05:29, Thu 27 Oct 2016.

Kuruno raised his machines right hand, spinning it some before it opened, and the weapon embedded in its palm opened up. He wasn't firing with the knife wall in the way, rather waiting. "I'll just call this a weapons test! Let's see what this can do!" the Nurelian exclaimed cheerfully.

The crystal worm seems annoyed at the moving knife missiles and uses its crystal to touch a few of them. As soon as it touches them, they are absorbed into its crystal. It begins to push through the opening.

seeing the beast absorb the missiles Uziel worries for his blade, but as it carries an energy charge, he has a plan. Watching the mech pilot and the scout already engaged he allows himself a final moment of preparation while watching the drama develop. Knowledge is power, and against an unknown enemy, more so than speed.

Using his energy control Uziel sets the sword to release a pulse of power when it makes contact rather than relying on something this monster may eat.
(Time energy to hold the charge over the blade)

13:14, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 9 using 2d6 with rolls of 6,3.

The crystal worm manages to get past the knife missiles and heads straight for the ship. Scott yells, "Don't let it get to the ship!"

Jazz opens fire at the worm with a few bullets from her guns.

The worm stops in its tracks and turns on the group, preparing an attack.

"Try using the magus stone to use a spell on it...maybe we can drive it off."

"Test starts now!"Kuruno announced, raising the right hand of his mech. The hand rotated once, before an opening in the palm opened, revealing the weapon within. With a quick press of a button, the weapon glowed before firing a firey projectile similar to the one that the origional owner tried to immolate Kuruno with prior to the Nurelian obtaining the weapon, and the now charging worm-thing.


OOC

08:07, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 26 using 8d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 2 & 3 ((3,{1}4,{1}4,{1}2,5,4,4,{1}3)).

*****Rogue Ace [3/3]

09:56, Today: Kantoku rolled 4 using 3d6 ((1,2,1)).
09:57, Today: Kantoku rolled 4 using 2d6 ((2,2)).

Unable to directly attack the thing just uses his movements to fly around it and distract it from the others.

10:00, Today: Kantoku rolled 19 using 6d6+1, dropping the lowest dice only, rerolling ones ((4,2,3,5,2,4)).

While he's doing that he scans it trying to figure out what it is, and what kinda weaknesses it may have.

10:02, Today: Kantoku rolled 35 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 2 & 2 ((5,6,{1}{1}6,{1}6,2,2,4,3,3)).

Seeing the great beast finally turn to attack, Uziel unleashes his attack on the creature's upper ring. The gap closest to the gem he assumed controlled the giant body.

 His first movement seems suicidal, diving and rolling with elven quickness directly in front of and beneath the creature's rush. (Acrobatics)
10:43, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 6 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,1.

As he comes in line the black blade licks out like a strike of lightning the bright needle burning a path through the air to meet the worm's charge. {Swordsman}
50, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 20 using 5d6+1, dropping the lowest dice only, rerolling ones with rolls of 3,6,6,{1}2,4. (Edit, added 2 not 1 changed)

Lugosi draws his sword and lunges at the worm.

Red immediately and startlingly releases a huge energy blast at the worm from his large cannon.

Mal pulls out a club with clockwork gears which transforms into a large battleax, and attacks the worm.



Kantoku's scan reveals that the worm is susceptible to physical attacks especially at its joints, but mostly only at the current neck.

First the Worm absorbs Kuruno's blast, diverting the flow of energy from its intended target into the worm's crystal. It does the same with Red's blast. Two new orbs are added to its tail, and its overall size increases. Uziel's first strike (prepared earlier) decapitates the worm. But the crystal suddenly disappears from the decapitated orb and reappears on the next orb in line - as if it is an energy projection or hologram of some sort. Next the worm flies very fast at the P.U.M. And lodges its head inside the Wrist Cannon, disabling the weapon. ((new battle roll updated in your CS)).

Despite the damage done to Kuruno's PUM, he can still punch and kick with the PUM and put up a good fight.

All told, Uziel's attack combined with Kantoku's distraction, Scott's handgun shots, Mal's attack, Lugosi's attack and Jazz's bullets, the Worm loses it's next head too, establishing the one after that as the new head. It turns its attention to Red, now.

OOC:
I'm keeping the allyies' and the Worm's rolls secret for now. Your rolls are counting, and also contributing to *s.

---

Spoiler for no one saw that?: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Something's happening
Perception target 20 to notice what it is
17:26, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Kantoku, rolled 17 using 5d6 with rolls of 5,4,5,2,1.  Perception.
17:26, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Kuruno Driftwit, rolled 12 using 4d6 with rolls of 5,3,1,3.  Perception.
17:26, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Uziel De'A'rath, rolled 10 using 3d6 with rolls of 3,3,4.  Perception.

---

OOC: I' going to assume we need more info.

The worm is like a string of orbs. The leading orb always has a crystal mouth-like thing. The leading orb is always the most vulnerable to being severed from the remainder of the body. Cut off the head, and the next segment becomes the new head. It only has so many orbs, so its health is limited by the number of orbs in its body. This one started with about 13, lost 2 and grew two more onto the end of its tail. New orbs grow onto the end of the tail under specific circumstances.

IC:

Lugosi, Mal, Scott, and Jazz continue their assault.

Red continues to mindlessly fire his Magem Energy cannon at the worm, who continues to absorb the blasts. Finally, the worm dives into Red's cannon, disabling it.

Kantoku saw something.

"Um ... we can't fight this thing we have to go.... NOW."

He projects a holophic radar into the middle of the group showing the mass of worms comming there way.

GM note: The worms are about 25 minutes out.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:20, Mon 31 Oct 2016.

"we can defeat it if everyone would stop feeding it. the energy is what its after."

Taking a moment to pull the charge out of his blade Uziel instead attempts to reverse the charge of the energy, compared to the worm. To stop feeding the monster and perhaps give the lost crew a chance to get away.

"if you can't hurt it physically get to the ship now."

Suiting his actions to his words Uziel brings his black blade in again seeking to free Kuruno's exoskeleton from the draining.


10:02, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 24 using 5d6+1, rerolling ones with rolls of 6,4,6,5,2.

Kuruno shook the mech's hand, trying to get the orb out. Seeing as it was stuck in there, and now the hand won't even close all the way, Kuruno angrily snorted. "Alright guys! Watch this!" He announced. "Watch this" were two words one might never want to hear from an engineer, or anyone for that matter, as it normally beckoned something crazy about to happen. It's a trope.

Despite the avian's warnings, Kuruno suddenly fired up his newly acquired thrusters, and used the P.U.M.'s legs in unison to jump into the air, over the worm, in order to drop the full weight of his machine down on top of it, hands forward in an attempt to also grab and pin it on landing.

"I might be squishy but I've got a robot!"

OOC:
22:38, Today: Kuruno Driftwit rolled 31 using 6d6+2 with rolls of 5,4,6,2,6,6.  Battle Roll.

Lugosi looks up, nods to Kuruno but continues attacking the worm.


Uziel notices that the energy it is feeding off of is purely Magem energy. It isn't feeding on Magus energy at all, and all of Uziel's magical energy is Magus based.


Jazz helps La Paz move toward the ship as she continues firing at the worm. Scott and Mal circle around the worm toward the ship as well, also continuing to fire at the worm.


The worm is already attacking Red's cannon and has abandoned Kuruno, so Uziel attacks the worm, dislodging it from Red's cannon and injuring the worm. Unfortunately, Red's cannon is already disabled. Red starts whacking the worm with the blunt end of his now disabled cannon.


The moment Kuruno fires up his Magem powered thrusters, the worm turns its attention to Kuruno again, but this time focusing on his thrusters.


Fortunately enough, it doesn't try to move out of the way, and it loses its foremost orb. However, it has grown a new orb onto its tail from consuming the Magem in Red's cannon.

Although the heroes are unharmed by the worm, the worm has healed every injury it has sustained so far and is now focused on consuming the Magem energy from Kuruno's PUM thrusters.

OOC post:

The thrusters were disengaged after the jump. They were used for the sole purpose of getting Kuruno in the air so he's could drop on the thing and try to pin it:

Was presently backed and hoped he could catch back up with them later if need be.... he could go faster than this thing, and long as he got back to the ship before it took off at FTL speeds he should be fine.... so....

"Leave me, I'll catch up."

He took off flying away from the rest and actively warped his engenins to project a field... pushing them to make quite an intense magem energy field around his body as he flew away. The field wasn't desined to do anything and was quite unstable... so it just bleed energy out around him.... for these things it made him the perfect bait to draw there attention away.

Rogue Ace [4/4] ->  [3/4]  naked double push for energy field distraction

13:36, Today: Kantoku rolled 25 using 6d6 ((6,5,1,5,4,4)).

The moment Kantoku produces this excess of Magem energy, the worm loses interest in Kuruno completely and chases after Kantoku away from the remainder of the group. Kuruno's thrusters are left alone and intact.

Uziel, Jazz, Scott and Mall all leave the worm to Kantoku and enter the ship. Red blankly follows them.

Assuming everyone takes this opportunity to escape the fight and get to the ship, everyone makes it. Kantoku is able to lead the worm away from the ship and get back to the ship before the worm can react. The ship is sealed up and ready for takeoff.



Mal barks orders to Scott and the rescued crew, organizing the takeoff.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:11, Sat 05 Nov 2016.

"captain the satellites are charging. i think haste is in order"

Uziel drops into a seat and begins to sing the litany of the void to himself. Keeping his senses attuned to the energies in play. While he knows he cannot disrupt a working of that power he may be able to provide a warning. Bending time to his will he seeks a path to safety for the ship....

21:13, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 4 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,2.  Time magic for precognitive danger avoidance .

"Those things are likely what caused the planet to vanish, if we to not reach a higher altitude than them before they finish charging we likely will be taken with the planet if it vanishes again."

Kuruno rushed the P.U.M. back onto the ship, when something caught his earholes... Or rather, failed to catch it. The engine he thought. Kuruno rushed out of the P.U.M., accidentally pulling his own tail some as he unwrapped it from the seat. He yanked the key out of it and put it on the belt he had wrapped around him, on his underside; frantically looking around for the engine. "Guys! Guys! The engine's sounding weak! It's... it's not sounding normal! I need to check it now!" Kuruno shouted in a slight panic, still looking for it.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:37, Sun 06 Nov 2016.

Scans the engine... and well everyone looking for parasidic infections or wild growths.

If it's just the engine and the girl he has ideas how to handle it... if it's more than that..... um..... this could be bad... lol

OOC:
Been away, sorry everyone. I have a busy few weeks coming up, but I'll keep up as much as I can.

Also, I have been inserting private messages to tell players what they see or notice. I'm going to put them in titled spoiler boxes instead. If you want to let the player tell you what they saw, don't read it. I may still occasionally use the PM option.

IC:

---

Spoiler for what Uziel senses: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel can't tell much from this effort. ((I'll work out how that spell might practically function later. But it will be based on possibility prediction))

---

Kuruno finds the access to the engine and sets to work. However, some of it is designed to safely self-destruct if tampered. He avoids those sections and focuses his effort on what he can help with. His efforts help the ship a little.

---

Spoiler for what Kantoku finds: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kantoku forgets to use his extra scanning equipment ((roll for this if you want a better scan)) but he can still tell that the same growths which are on La Paz are present throughout the ship -- especially in the bark and the engine.

---

The ship flies higher and higher, vibrating violently at the engine's strain as minor stress fractures appear throughout the hull. Most of the worms are now flying toward the ship, though some have turned back toward the satellites.

Suddenly there is a flash of light as the stars vanish and a distorted image of the planet itself appears in the sky. The ship continues up and the image continues to distort all the way around until it becomes clear that they are falling fast on the far side of the planet. Space has warped around them to form a Portalspace bubble. All of the worms are now flying back to the satelites, and some have already made it back. Just as suddenly, the bubble womps away. The ship stabilizes and levels out. Above them is a black starless sky.

---

Spoiler for Kantoku's extra vision: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kantoku can see very sparse very distant very dim stars deeply red-shifted

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 18:43, Wed 09 Nov 2016.

15:48, Today: Kantoku rolled 33 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 2 & 2 ((5,{1}{1}5,2,{1}5,5,2,2,5,4)).

After a scan of the ship and the people on it maps out the land bellow.

15:48, Today: Kantoku rolled 40 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 3 & 3 ((6,{1}5,6,3,3,{1}4,5,6,6)).

Brings up a hologram and points out the best place to land near an area that can be deffended from these things long enough.

"We need to unload the package, we can activate it's communications array... but it will take some time, we can land here safely and move to this location to protect it. Clear the ship when we land, the parasites will consume it and cut the time if we don't cut the prime core free... some one on here has to know how to prime the ship's systems so there overloaded with energy enough when the ship tares itself apart with out it's core, it will tare them appart too."

A few details about the planet haven't been mentioned yet, and they have become important.
-The humidity was atrocious on the planet. Everything was hot and humid.
-Before the planet teleported to a new universe, ((yes, that's what just happened)) there was no sun, but the light from the very close stars was more than enough to keep the planet at a steady tropical heat.

---

Spoiler for what Kantoku finds in the scan: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Everyone has some microscopic bits of the growth. Upon examination, the growth looks like tiny versions of the spheres that make up the worms. Even the package. In fact, the package is infested with them even more than the hull of the ship.

La Paz has some of these spheres entering her blood stream from around the Magem Crystals embedded in her, but they slowly being filtered out by her liver and kidneys. Unfortunately, they are entering her system faster than she can get rid of them.

Kantoku himself is infested. He can tell that it won't be enough to kill him, but it will weaken him over time.

---

---

Spoiler for what Kantoku's mapping reveals: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
When mapping out the land below, Kantoku immediately notices a large crater on the horizon. It is so large that quick estimates indicate it must have expelled nearly 10% of the planet's mass in the explosion that created it. Oddly, there is almost no melting of the surface in the crater - buildings ((all the way down)) were cut open, but didn't burn or melt.

The city continues under the surface.

---

Check out the game map for what the surface directly below looks like. There is a crater off in the distance.

The sky had been clear. It begins to cloud over everywhere.

The ship lands, but the worms are uninterested and don't attack.

Scott indicates that he can set the self-destruct mechanism as Kantoku had mentioned.

Everyone leaves the ship just as large chunks of the hull begin to break off and fall to the ground.

Trapped.

There is a way out, though our heroes don't know it yet. In fact, one of the rescued crew is carrying a device which can be used to escape this planet.

---

Spoiler for for something Uziel notices: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel can sense void energies here and there all around, but especially in the direction of the crater.

---

---

Spoiler for what Kuruno notices: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kuruno notices that they are in a manufacturing section of the planet. There are abundant building resources. Kuruno could probably learn alot by exploring some of them.

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 04:18, Sat 12 Nov 2016.

"The situation is very bad. We need to fin what caused this best we fin what's at the lowest levels of this city bellow. But an update: La Paz will have to have as much of the magem in her burnt out, as much as she can take in her state of health.... if not she will likely developa brain tumor before we are rescued. (Correct this if wrong) Anyone who dose not have magic abilities and an already low magem count should be compleatly purged. To make matters worce the package is compromised... the ship-seed should be safe and valuable as long as it remains dormant. But activating the package will likely crate multiple large parasites." He turns to the one that shut down the ship.... "If you can shut down the mini-warden and drain off all its charge you think you can work with the mage and engineer to draw the micro parasites out of the device and the rest of us?"

He thinks for a moment "also i will try and keep the parasites that have infected me drawn to my drive... if i should start to malfunction cannibalize my sensor array"

Continues to try and analyze the damn things >.>

"Gah! I HATE humidity!" Kuruno groaned as he was doing yet another check up of the machine. He powered down it's thrusters entirely considering the dangers of infection they presented, but if it weren't for the humidity he may of been happy. He took a toolkit and when over to the machine's broken weapon, re-adjusting the gloves of a sort on his tentacles before getting to work to try and remove the piece of worm lodged in it. Occasionally, he'd look over to the others.

"So, the humidity's going to do me some real problems." he said. Back to the machine. After a moment, back to the others. "And the Mech might start having issues too, but i doubt oxidization will occur this soon." Once again, he returned his focus back to the mech. He seemed fine with multi-tasking his work with the conversation. "I'm going to avoid using the thrusters unless i have to, so the Mech doesn't get messed up by parasites. It should be clean though, for right now. Now, if only i can get this..." He stopped, and pulled on the orb thing lodged in the P.U.M.'s hand, growling for a moment until it popped free and he was sent drifting back. He re-balanced himself, returned to the mech, and got to fixing the right hand. "There we go! Uh... I think your time is limited. That also includes me, because without you all, i can't get out of here... Plus, i wouldn't feel too good if you guys died when there was something i could've done."

"Everything and everyone is infected. These things seam to be magem (correct me if im wrong...didn't realy say from the scan or i missed) like magem but also not like magem and I can think of no reason magem would develop this way. My guess is this is an anti magem weapon developed by people who did not understand how much magem had spread and became infected. They may have laied dorment in a lab... if we are lucky this impact set them free and there is some information down there we can use... if not lower levels may provide some access to power centers..maybe we can find some record of what we are looking for. If we know how they work we have a better chance of stopping them.... evenchaly those void satellites are going to stop working and there things will get out with the potintail of wiping all known life out."

EDIT: GM added info in italics
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:50, Tue 15 Nov 2016.

"in that case it may be best to seek a force capable of sterilizing this planet. We may do what we can, but our potential failure cannot be allowed to threaten an entire realm"

Uziel sweeps his memory for anyone who might respond to a request of this magnitude on short notice. His many years in uniformed service  leave a number of contacts, but the lifespan of an elf makes the long term usefulness of those contacts difficult to assess.
09:19, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 7 using 2d6 with rolls of 2,5.

Thinking further about the problem Uziel needs more data and can only ask.

"is there any way to scan and see if there is a clear cental point to this infection? My own senses are insufficient to scan an entire planet"

---

Spoiler for what Kuruno could observe regarding range and distribution of worms: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kuruno's keen mechanical mind and eye could tell that the worms were spread fairly randomly over the entire planet, gathering around sources of energy such as the weird satellites and of course the ships.

---

---

Spoiler for Kuruno's repairs to his wrist cannon: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kuruno is unable to repair the Magem portion of the gun, but could easily replace it with a flame thrower, an actual cannon, or something else which uses kinetic energy rather than magem energy. He could create a crossbow device on his own, but would need someone's help to make anything that requires explosives or chemicals. Of course, that person could train Kuruno how to use explosives and chemicals in the process so that he could do it without help later on.

---

---

Spoiler for Uziel's contact: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel remembers that one guy, what was his name? Ugh... anyway he had some sort of massive bomb or bomb store he bragged could be used to sterilize a planet. Hmm... where was he? Oh yes, he was in the Ildeerian kingdom. Allies to his nation. Let's see, that must have been on the Ildeerian outpost planet YX33.4. Locally known as Yxee. He would just need some way to contact the guy.

---

OOC: More to come later, but reply now if you like.

"It has been to long, they have spread out seeking magem sources. We would need a stronger mind/computer or virmagus to deduce the origin of such a spread out pattern. Unless some one here can talk to the dead."

Kuruno growled, smacking the arm with the wrench he had. A few veins were showing due to his frustration. "ALRIGHT! Remind me to never use this stupid, unreliable Magem again! I'm going to have to get a legitimate flamethrower or cannon. Goes to show that at the end of the day, science and engineering's the only thing you can trust; as opposed to Magem! Ugh!"

He took a moment to breath and gather his tools, putting them away before settling himself back into the cockpit and flexing the recently worked on hand. "Alright, so, those worms dot the place quite randomly. They seek out power sources; this much is obvious." the Nurelian said, speaking semi-quickly as he tried to comfort himself and cool down.

Malachite said, "Right! If no one has a better idea, we'll head for that crater. Get Red to tote that crate." Mal points to the octagonal object that Star Lady had Kantoku bring with them. Lugosi leads Red to the object and guides his hands to drag it along. He does so without comment or complaint.

Lugosi replies to Kantoku, "I think I should be able to see the dead. I don't know if I could talk to them yet." He pulls out a pair of cracked sunglasses and puts them on. "The only problem is I don't see any dead people. Only the living."

Jazz sidles up to Kuruno's mech and takes a look at his wrist cannon. "I could help you install either of those. I'm a demolitions slash munitions slash chemical expert. I might even be able to show you a few things. There're a few supplies I can use from the ship and I'm sure we could find more on the way."

Scott looks at the darkening clouds above, "I don't know if we could afford the time it would take."

Jazz replies, "I could do it on the move."

"Plus," Mal adds, "we could use another effective way to combat these things. If Kuruno let's you, once you finish his weapon make one for Red. ... And La Paz."

Jazz nods, but hands La Paz one of her guns. "I've still got another and I could probably make more." She gathers a box of supplies from the ship.

With that they set off away from the ships along the roads toward the crater. The crew is in the bottom right corner of the game map heading to the top left corner.

As the ship is plunging back to the likely lethal planet Uziel makes his choice. Wrapping power around a single message he aims his magic across space and time to the Padishah General Hoyt of the Ildeerian kingdom.

"Univers ending event on planet designated Gamma. reaction force to attempt correction. other realities potentially vulnerable. Ragnarok protocol Ragnarok protocol Ragnarok protocol."

17:41, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 8 using 2d6 with rolls of 5,3
Unimagus dimensional message sent for instant communication. (Will use magem stone if it will help)

Looking back to his companions Uziel readies himself to buy the universe time with his own blood.

"Any thing we need magem for we need to use now and use the rest of the charges in all our equipment to try and make something to draw the parasites out of our bodies and equipment. There should be at least 1k charge between the package, and my and the PLUM's drives... could probably get more if we canabalize.... wait, the void marbles." he turns to the guy who was able to reprogram the ship. "You think you can alter the MAD built into the survival units into a containment unit for these things?"

OOC: As players, it is really best if you don't let your *s build up too much. More than 3x your current level is certainly too much, so I might automatically roll for you if you get that high. I did this for Uziel. I spent 4 of his *s and it raised his level by 2. Which is actually better than average chance. In this case, if it was worse than average, I'd have disregarded my rolls and left things as they were. But it worked out in Uziel's favor so I left it. That doesn't mean I'd do the same in the future.


Congratulations Uziel, you went from Unimagus [2/2] to [4/4]. This will open up new possibilities and higher power spells.

Regarding the telepathy, there's no way of knowing whether it succeeded or not. But telepathy is a Verimagus skill, and since you have experience with telepathy through the communicators and also as an Elf, you now have Verimagus (1/1) with Min4. Normally your element can't get higher than your skill level, but this is an exception related to the reasons I mentioned.

However, it did cause severe agony.

IC:
As soon as the thought message was sent, Uziel felt the telepathic static and headache as mentioned earlier. When the message ended the static went away but the headache remained. Uziel will have a headache for some time now.

((I can't remember if I specified which of the crew can MagemSmith, so I'm saying it is Scott now.))
Scott says, I might could do it. But I'd need to know exactly what they look like, how big they are, and I'd need a sample. It might work and it might not, but I could try if you think I should."

locates the simplest form of one he can find, the least develop and least complex one, and dedicates a very intense scan to it.

22:18, Today: Kantoku rolled 27 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls of 1 & 1 ((1,2,6,4,2,3,6,1,2)).

He desplays the results for Scott. "I can try and give you more information but this is about all I have... they appear to be something similar to magem, perhaps they are a new species of magem created in a lab to feed on magem.... that would die out or go dormet when magem was wiped out." Being magem himself is oddly not as bothered by talking about something completely designed to eat him. He has some emotional response but it's light and he seams more worried about everyone else. "Perhaps some one was able to infuse magus into magem and create something else.... that would be very interesting indead, I hope we can neutralize them as a threat with out completely destroying them in any case..... hum.... anyway they seam to be at core simply this crystal sphere that grows and produces a kind of armor to encase all but a single facade.. then creates another one attached to it and armors it continuing to create the worm like structure... with weakness being the espoused facade and the joints between them. It may be possable to destroy the whole thing with a shot strait down the center through what ever joint in the back of the armor may be present but it is likely small and the fact it moves in cerves..... well this thing is desined to be near impossible to kill in one shot unless your attack could bend through it's body and still deliver a high impact over a small area." shakes his head. "I digress... what ever means it reproduices or grows it seams to ether grow longer or replicate these tinny microscopic spore/orbs that spread out seeking out magem dust. If this is intended then it's life cycle is desined to paralel magem's life cycle... again more indication this is a weapon. I am not involved in but there is a war between magus and magem but it seams possable this is part of that." he cants his head "Ether that or this planets goverment knew that magem caused the damage to electrical systems but only after people had started to use magem to recover, so they chose to keep quite about it while trying to find a way to get rid of magem in secret."

He sighs "Ether way there are a lot of things we need to work out and try and do. Uziel, you really have to try and use your magus to destroy as much of the magem in La Paz as her biology can stand to lose. I did not put to much on it before I did not want to worry anyone, but you really do need to do this soon or she will die. They have entered into her blood stream and if something is not done soon they will be in her brain."

He looks to Malachite and then to the others. "Also we need to know what really happened I don't know why your being dishonest but it don't matter, this is life or death and we need to know everything that has happened here... as it happened. If your wondering how I know, I know the same reason I have these scans, and the same reason I know the crater is our best bet... It's an unitended side affect of what I was built for."

OCC: sorry about the advancement, I was waiting until the story wrapped.

Reeling back to the present his mind oddly hollow in a head alive with fire Uziel can do no more than Nod. Moving to the stricken victims and turning his powers back from the great void of space to the local universe of the ship interior. None the less his mind seems to waver across dimensions. A feeling he recalls from his own time between realities. Unfortunately his focus suffers under the waves of pain and the lost focus.

13:02, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 9 using 4d6 with rolls of 2,5,1,1.  Unimagus to treat the survivors.

Kuruno simply sighed and nodded whilst starting up his Mech again, checking all the dials briefly. He stopped however and shot a look at Kantoku when the mechanized avian called his machine a "Plum". "It's the Pee You Em! PUM! Not a fruit!" He said impatiently. He also sound a little fed up or tired of the whole ordeal; like he wanted it to end already, but that's just him being grumpy. Without another word, he followed close to the group.

The clouds in the sky cover everything, plunging the world further into darkness. Lights flash between clouds from time to time.


OOC: No problem. It's just that the party will need you to have at least Unimagus 6 to get off the planet alive. You should be able to get that high, if not with what you have then by the time it matters.

Scott ignores most of what Kantoku says but uses the images to adjust the oddly shaped gun-like device. He finally turns the device on. At first, nothing appears to be happening macroscopically, but the infestation is mostly microscopic. However, it does seem to be having a visible effect on La Paz's growths.


Uziel's headache suddenly lessens. It is now just a dull pinch in the back of his head. It is enough to be annoying, but not enough to distract him.

In fact, at this point, everyone begins to notice a dull pinch of a headache forming. Not enough to mention or take note of yet.

Uziel copies the spell that he saw the Elf in Arabaelf use to suppress Magem. It works, though not as well as he had hoped. La Paz's embedded Magem crystals shrink. More importantly, their roots into her body suffer the greatest. Between the lessening of the infestation and the shrinking of her Magem crystals, life begins to return to her face. Jazz is overjoyed at this and thanks Uziel profusely.

As a side effect, Kantoku's body also suffers a little.

It begins to rain heavily.



Scott indignantly drops the MAD, nearly breaking it. "For your information, little interloper, we haven't been keeping anything from any of you. You want to know what happened as it happened? Fine! I'll tell you.

"We landed. We got out and started exploring. Static came over our comms. We kept exploring. Our comms quit on us just in time for us to realize that we had been abandoned. We tried one last ditch effort to contact the crew in orbit but that effort fried Red's brain. We returned to our ship to find it infested with the worms, and useless. The engines were completely destroyed. We salvaged what we could and realized we only had enough food left to last a few days. We started systematically searching out from the ship in every direction. We finally found shelter and food so we went as a group. We survived for WEEKS watching Red veg and La Paz's health deteriorate. Finally we noticed a shuttle descending. You showed up. Now you know everything that happened. Satisfied, jerk?!"

Malachite puts her hand on his shoulder, "He wasn't judging you, Scott, relax."

Scott harumphs.

The wind picks up.

Jazz finishes the weapon for Kuruno ((whatever weapon you would have wanted. It is just as valuable and powerful as what you had before, but it is not based on Magem anymore. Kuruno observed enough of the process to be able to repair it if need be))

Lugosi sidles up to Kuruno, "Listen, I've had enough listening to this crap. Wanna run on ahead with me and look for a sheltered approach to the crater?" Lugosi doesn't wait to hear a responce before starting off ahead of the group.

Once Lugosi is out of ear shot he goes on to the part about him but starts up right away. "I apologize for not being programmed for social graces but no one has explained why we had to destroy the comunicators yet rather than just remove and/or deactivate them. You could simply say you dont want to take any chances with them if such was the case but ignoring inquiries seams to imply there is something else......I am sorry to be overly blunt but its about all i know to be...... and there is obviously problems between Lugosi and the rest of you. Ignoring the fact he has new equipment and seams down right cheery, there is clear friction between him and all of you."
This message was last edited by the player at 08:09, Thu 17 Nov 2016.

Kuruno lounged lazily in the mech's cockpit, watching the others beginning to bicker. He seemed largely neutral to it, until Scott called Kantoku an interloper; an insult that would ripple to Kuruno and Uziel themselves as they were just as involved in his as Kantoku was. Not to mention, Scott's lack of care for the device he had, dropping it like that just to emphasize that the man was angry, seemed to further upset Kuruno. He pulled a collapsible hood over the cockpit of the P.U.M., and after securing it to the edges, crossed his tentacles, growling at Scott.

"So now we're interlopers, Huh? Unwanted? Well listen up pal! If we never showed up, you'd still be stranded, the others would still be dying, and.. Well, you'd be worm food! Sort of literally! So why don't you- You too Lugosi! Why don't you two SHUT UP and listen without throwing a hatchling's tantrum- And handle your equipment better! The LAST thing we need is you breaking things that we might need to SURVIVE just because your feelings are hurt that we don't trust you idiots immediately!"

After that brief rant, he picked up his tool bag from in the seat of the cockpit, put it to his face, and muffled a scream into it. It was rather obvious now that he was not used to this kind of stress, and he was recieving it negatively. After that, he dropped the bag back to the floor, grabbed a flask beneath the control panel, opened up and sniffed it, before taking a drink. It was just water. "If there's anything fragile we don't want to break..." He said, shooting a glare to Scott "Then I can just put it in the machine, where it'll be safe." He said in a tired but calmed tone.

The heavy rain turns to icy sleet. Thunder and lightning echo and flash between the buildings.

Scott, Jazz and La Paz all suddenly stopped in surprise and Scott said, "Wait, wait, what?! You had a communicator on you?!"

La Paz said, "I forgot about that."

Jazz added, "Me too."

Then Mal said, "Scott you practically yelled at Uziel to destroy his communicator when he brought it out.

Scott's face flushes and he says, "Oh. I forgot. Anyway, I'm sorry for being short, but Kantoku, you were rather accusative at me. At least it felt that way to me." Turning to Kuruno, "And I am sorry for endangering the equipment. That was careless. I never meant for you to feel unwanted.

"As for Lugosi, that lazy good-for-nothing keeps disappearing from the group for hours at a time. I've told him we all need to stay focused on surviving together, but he just shrugs me off and claims he is helping."

Everyone's hair starts to stand on end like they're holding a staticky balloon above their heads. La Paz laughs and points at Jazz's hair, "Ha! Look at your hair."

"My hair? Look at your silly hair."

As interesting as this all is to Uziel, he can not help but reflect upon the chaos mounting as the time slips away.


turining his senses back to the flow of magem-energy around him he tries to find out how much time exactly they have left...


Time roll
21:22, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 10 using 4d6 with rolls of 1,2,6,1.

"Still the reaction implies you know more about the comunicators..we have to get into one of the crevices quickly though." he urges them on while flying up over them preparing to protect a fire field to protect himself. "Transplacement of the planet seems to have destabilized the weather, and likely more, temporarily and this build up of ions is sign of some quite deadly lightning."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:42, Sat 26 Nov 2016.

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Spoiler for what Uziel senses: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
05:00, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Uziel De'A'rath, rolled 16 using 4d6 with rolls of 5,2,4,5.  Magem energy flow.

The wonderful thing about Magus is that it is largely instinctual. So even if someone intends to use one spell, occasionally they will switch at the last moment to a different spell which they feel compelled to enact. Such was the case for Uziel. ((Uziel, this spell is like a lesser Mental Chi Map spell. Not as detailed of a mental image, but including everything he can see in his field of vision))

During the battle with the first worm, the moment the swarm of worms left the satellites, Magem and Void energy began building up in the satellites. It reached its peak just before the planet teleported, at which point it dropped off sharply. It then began to climb again until the swarm of worms reached their satellites, at which point the energy levels began to decline. As the lightning began to flash, occasionally it would strike a building. Sometimes, there would be a sudden surge of Magem energy in that building, but it usually was soon transferred to the satellites by some unknown mechanism. Nevertheless, the levels of Magem energy in the satellites appear to be continuing on a downward trend despite repeated sudden rechargings from lighting energy being transferred to them.

TLDR: It appears the satellites will not reactivate and teleport the planet to a new destination at any time in the foreseeable future.

---

---

Spoiler for BTS who got hurt: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: A little bit of info in case you are curious as to why this happened.
Frankly, I grew tired of writing for 5 NPCs and wanted to kill at least one of them off. I knew there would be weather turmoil due to the planet now being in a cold universe, so I chose lightning as the cause. But I wanted there to be at least a modicum of randomness to the strike, so I rolled for how many people would be hurt (reduced due to Kantoku's shield), how badly hurt they'd be (reduced due to Kantoku's shield), and who else would get hit (besides La Paz who was the GM's primary target as the least developed and most useless NPC).

---

The moment Kantoku said "lightning" it struck. Fortunately, his fire shield absorbed a large portion of the energy. But the lightning didn't just strike from above, it also struck from below as the charge between the ground and the clouds above equalized. La Paz absorbed the majority of the destructive force. The energy from the lightning flowed into her Magem crystals, instantaneously overloading them. This caused them to rapidly and uncontrollably expand and explode while they were still inside her. She felt nothing, and then she existed no more. Jazz and Mal stared in sudden shocked disbelief as Scott let out a wail of mourning for his fallen comrade.

Uziel felt a bit of a jolt from the lightning, but he would recover within an hour.

Just then Lugosi reappeared on the scene pointing in the direction he had just appeared from with a smile on his face which was soon replaced by confusion and finally shock when he noticed the pieces of La Paz.

He stared accusingly at Scott and flatly he said, "I found a sheltered approach."


EDIT: Kuruno, that was an awesome bit of writing!
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:13, Fri 25 Nov 2016.

Keeps acting as a lighting rod as they fly over... this wasn't going to help his own problems, and he felt horrable he wasn't able to stop the archs from touching.... he had hoped to create his own but he underestimated the power of the strike.... had he actualy been able to he would have exploded but she was not quite as expendable has he was.

Needless to say he didn't seam to be in a good mood. "GO GO GO, that's going to happen every single time." it was blunt and short, they may hate him for it... but it was the clearest way to get the point across and he had enough with misunderstandings to be anything but.

---

Spoiler for more BTS: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
There is another reason the party was attacked with lightning, but you really don't want to know yet.

---

The group makes it safely to the tunnel system that Lugosi had discovered. Lugosi remains silent through the short trip, and quietly shows them the way in.

Just as they enter the tunnel, they notice nearly 50 funnel clouds touching down outside, and the icy sleet turns to a mix of hail and thick snow. By the time they turn a corner, the snow has already accumulated a foot deep.

The tunnel system is lit by a series of barely working self-contained floating light-spheres. The tunnel is mostly 20-50 feet wide and 20-50 feet tall with thick glass panes in the ceiling, now all covered by snow. There are various vehicles laying around, all abandoned and immobile. Shops line the tunnels, with occasionally self-lit advertisements in an ancient script of the common language.

---

Spoiler for who can read the signs: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel and Kantoku can read them fine, Kuruno can make them out, but only just.

---

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Spoiler for what Uziel senses: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel senses a steady buildup of hostile energy.

---

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Spoiler for what Kantoku realizes: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kantoku notices that no one is talking about the communicators again.

---

Lugosi is leading the group. Without turning to face them, he says, "I'm going to scout on ahead."

Scott shouts, "NO! I've had enough of your disappearances. We're in this together. STAY WITH THE GROUP!"

"You arrogant son-of-a-soith!" Lugosi turns and shouts back, "If it weren't for me disappearing, we'd all be dead by now. Who found the food when our supplies ran out? Who found the shelter while we waited for rescue? Who found this tunnel system? ME! I did!"

((OOC: Soith means female dog. You can use regular swearwords if you like, but there are equivalents for each if you prefer to use them))

Uziel begins weaving defensive magics to minimize the next strike's effect on himself, knowing he lacks the power to defend the ship. At the same time he speaks loudly and clearly without yelling.

"My apologies for interrupting your fight. but we will likely fall under attack shortly... perhaps we could determine how we are being targeted?"


09:41, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 9 using 4d6 with rolls of 1,1,5,2.  self  defense from the incoming attack.

The Facts:

Scott pulls his gun and Lugosi draws a wicked looking sword, they both point their weapons at one another. Lugosi says, "What is wrong with you?!"

Scott shouts back, "Lower your weapon, didn't you hear what Uziel said?"

Lugosi replies, "You've had it in for me from day one. I'm not putting this down. You lower your gun!"

Just then Scott's gun fires and the bullet hits Lugosi on his sword hand. The blood splatters on his face and streams down the blade. The sword exudes an energy which distorts light like a pocket of hot air meeting cold air. A dark red crystal begins forming on the hilt of the sword, and less than a tenth of  a second after he had been hit, Lugosi sends a wave of energy from his sword at Scott. The blast knocks Scott on his back. Just as Lugosi begins to form another attack, he disappears.

Mal remarks, "What the frak just happened? Scott, I'm relieving you of your command. You are apparently unfit to lead right now. I may be grieving, but I would never fire on my people. Now, let's get moving toward that crater!"

Once people begin to move, she says, "Can anyone sense what happened to Lugosi?"

---

Spoiler for what Lugosi and Scott were thinking. BIG SPOILER HERE: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

Hearing Uziel's warning about a potential threat, Scott draws his weapon. Lugosi sees this and assumes Scott is going to attack him, so he draws his sword. Scott sees Lugosi drawing his sword, so he points his gun at Lugosi in defense. During their standoff, something causes Scott's gun to misfire. He didn't pull the trigger.

Knowing all of these things would require a perception roll of at least 30. A lesser roll may reveal some of these details (I'll let you know which).

---

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel senses that Lugosi's force sword is based on Chi Magus (Energy - the opposite/complement of Void). He also senses a strong increase in Void, Dimension and Time energies when Lugosi disappears.

---

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Spoiler for what Kantoku notices: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kantoku recognizes that the dark red crystal was Magustone.

---

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Spoiler for what Kuruno notices: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Kuruno recognizes a plethora of technologies all around them. There are even indications of information access terminals.

---

16:32, Today: Kantoku rolled 35 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls of 1 & 1 ((6,2,6,5,1,6,1,6,2)).

"His gun misfired... are weapons are infected as well afteral."

Considering the interaction with the blood and how little he seamed infected compared to everyone else, gives a scan of the make up of his blood.

(was there a reaction from the satellites when he disappeared?)

"None the less we need to focus on finding something to refine and finish this device... if we can use it to draw the parasites out of us and capture them then we can save ourselves, and perhaps build a device that will do the same for all the parasites on the planet."

Uziel clamps down his own reflex to draw, realizing weapons will not help anyone survive a moment longer.

"I would surmise the buildup I felt is what took your team mate, I will return to trying to defend us if I am able. But I recommend everyone holster their weapons for the time being"

Focusing on his Void senses Uziel will attempt to disrupt the force the next time it grounds out on an energy source.


17:17, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 14 using 4d6 with rolls of 1,5,3,5.

"Kantoku, can you see anything they do or don't respond to? they looked instinctive. If we can lure them out we can find a disposal method."

---

Spoiler for what Kantoku's blood scan reveals: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

quote:

22:54, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Kantoku, rolled 35 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones with rolls of 4,{1}4,4,5,6,4,4,3,6. Blood scan.

He's human. Lugosi is a normal human. Not anything abnormal is discovered at all. He isn't a Wizard. He isn't an Elf. He isn't a Sanguin. He's a normal, boring, typical human. But the blood scan does reveal high levels of cholesterol and cortisol. His blood-sugar is a little low. White blood cell count indicates that he's fighting a mild infection. And he's type O neg. He'd probably make a good blood donor. He does have low levels of Magem dust in his blood.

---

Nope. Nadda. Nothing. Zilch.



Abashedly, Scott complies.


OOC: I didn't understand what you meant by this



Mal pipes up, "They seem to be attracted to Magem, don't they?"

The group continues walking through the tunnels toward the crater, having abandoned their useless ship behind them long before the weather began to change.

Cold air is seeping in from above. The group passes by a section where the tunnel apparently emerges into daylight. There are floor to ceiling windows. The snow has already piled up 15' high. In the clear area, distant icy tornadoes can be seen.

The crater is only a few miles away now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:05, Tue 13 Dec 2016.

Starts to scan for ways into ((GM's EDIT: deeper)) underground passages in the surrounding buildings, so they can get out of the weather before they get to there destination.... if he finds a place he will let them know about it.

"The device is using a high level of magem energy to draw them in and trap them in the void marbles... if we can get that working well enough this should work on a large scale we would just need an energy sorce large enough and have to build a large scale M.A.D. with enough magem crystals to create a void marble large enough to trap them all. But getting that kinda magem energy and crystals together ... I don't see many options.  The only way I can see pulling it off is finding a protected store, finding a way to protect our self and use the reactor in the warden we where given, or find a way to get into and use one of the satellites... but if we fail using one of the satellites it could set them free of this planet.... However it dose seam like the best bet, we might not even need a M.A.D. that way."
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:05, Tue 13 Dec 2016.

OCC: fair enough. What Uziel wants to do now that he was able to feel the energy that took the crewman, he is keeping his senses tuned and will try and use his own magic not to block the next attack, but to divert it away from people. Maybe redirecting it to the growths as Kantoku suggests. Depending on how the powers interact he may be sitting here a while wasting time. Or he could save one of thei extraction targets.

Uziel maintains awareness of Time, Dimension and Void energies. They are very lightly flowing in the satellites far above.

Jazz has recovered a little. She's still in shock, but manages to pull it together enough to help Kuruno boost the MAD's powr as Ksntoku suggests.

They all continue deeper into the infrastructure as per Kantoku's map scan. Hours later, they are nearing the center. A huge worn lies dormant. It is at least the size of a mansion.

Uziel senses a strong presence in the area. His headache returns. Everyone's heads begin aching a little bit.

"everyone, stay alert. i think we are closing in on.... something.."

Uziel has kept his eyes closed these past few minutes. His brow is creased in focus as he speaks. But his pose remains that of  relaxed meditation even inside the chaotic confines of the ship.

OOC Post:

Just to clarify, the ship was left behind where it landed. It basically crashed. The parasites weakened it to the point it was unable to survive the landing. The group has been on foot ever since then.

More later if no one posts

Reviewed my last post, and I realised that an important point was not communicated. Uziel feels a strong presence in the are and it isn't the giant worm. Everyone can see the worm.

The worm begins to stir.

Quitly "Uziel can you keep you project your magic over it... if it can't sense us maybe it won't wake up"

"I've been trying. I can add a minor tone to hide us as best I can. I recomend you act quickly."

Unimagus: stealth-shield
19:02, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 19 using 4d6 with rolls of 6,5,6,2.

---

Spoiler for Uziel's advancement: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Uziel gains a level in the Element of Void for rolling at least 2 even numbers while casting a spell which uses Void.

---

The giant worm settles down and stops moving.

This Worm is located inside a volcanic glass bubble at the bottom of the crater. The party had emerged into this cavity from the tunnels. The edges into the crater at the mouth of the tunnel displayed evidence that there had been intense heat here a long time ago.

The members of the party will be able to move without being noticed to wherever they'd like to go. However, if the Worm is attacked, the cloaking spell will be broken.

OOC Post

I need some feedback. Are we tired of this world, and ready to move quickly through it?

---

Spoiler for possible solution for the Worm: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
If you choose to battle the Worm, there is a way to defeat it. It is very dumb. Additionally, there is a prepared Deus Ex that can essentially save the group if it gets too hairy.

---

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Spoiler for end-game for this world: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
After the Worm, there are 2 more challenges for the players to face. The last challenge could ultimately be defeated by the Deus Ex that Uziel used telepathy to contact his friend and obtain (unless the players figure out a way to defeat it).

---

If you don't want to fight the Worm, you don't have to. Once the players reach the centre of the crater and examine the area around the Worm's head, they'll find something very interesting.

( I was waiting for the others to post ^.^;)

OCC And I figured Uziel would be busy holding the magic to keep the worm dormant. Sorry.
Seeing the mighty creature go Dormant Uziel turns to his companions.

"perhaps a sudden single strike would remove this creature? I am concerned to leave such a might beast in our wake. we may need to fall back, and this would prove... inconvenient."

Takes some scans of this large one, it may be usefull. "we may have to brake it down into smaller ones anyway, so if you can find a way we could try it, but i think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie as they say."

05:09, Today: Kantoku rolled 31 using 9d6+2, dropping the 2 lowest rolls, rerolling ones of 2 & 2 ((5,4,3,6,2,3,4,2,4)).

Mal speaks up, "I wonder if it acts the same as its smaller counterparts - where the neck of the current head is the only vulnerable part, and each time you decapitate it, the next segment becomes its head. If so, that could take awhile to defeat."

Kantoku's scans confirm that it is like its smaller counterparts.

Jazz pipes up, "If we need to fall back, it may be useful to have a giant worm who's behaviour we can manipulate with Magem bait. I imagine most enemies would find it difficult to open a door that this thing was slammed up against trying to get at some bait we could set."

Scott just stares for a moment, then, "I'm with Uziel. I want to kill it."

Uziel feels he will easily be able to hold the hiding spell for as long as necessary.

"If we can find a way to neutralize them all this won't be a problem, but attempting to kill it now could go very very bad if we do not do it nearly instantly and I can see little ways to do so."

OOC: I'm not conveying the feel this thing is giving. Ever play Shadow of the Collossus? It's giant, but slow. Avoid it's attacks and you'll be fine. It senses Magem, but it's even dumber than its smaller counterparts.

"I shall see if I can determine a method to aid us. i am hesitant to advance if we may br caught between two such beings. and i prefer to have an exit available."

Uziel changes his focus slightly, looking with his magic to sense the strength of this greater creature. Looking if the extinguishment may be accomplished by such a small group.

07:35, Today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 12 using 4d6 with rolls of 3,3,2,4.

OCC:roll for sense weakness.

Kuruno had been off to the side huddled in his mech for quite a bit of time now. He didn't have much to add to the discussion, but his sight was focused on the massive worm anyways. Hearing the idea of killing something this big, he gasped and poked his head out to them. "You want us to kill that thing? That'll take all the ammo in the world!" the squishy floating creature whined. He sighed, shaking his head. "I guess it's decided though" Kuruno said with a slight depression in his voice. He wasn't confident in this.

Uziel's spell reveals that the creature will be easier to hit and avoid its attacks in the beginning. It will progressively grow weaker and quicker as it shrinks. It will start off easy to hit, and easy to avoid being hit by - but if anyone does get hit near the beginning, the damage will be massive.

Also, Uziel gets +2 to his attacks for the duration of the battle if he attacks the worm.

Mal looks at Kuruno and responds to his statement, "Actually it isn't decided yet. Technically you three are in charge anyway."

Scott looks up in confusion, "What?! I thought they were under your command!"

Mal says, "Well I may not have communicated it, but I was contacted by Star Lady herself and informed that these three were in charge of this operation. Their decision is the final say."

Scott looks at Kuruno, "We can do this! You have to believe in us!" And to Uziel, "You're right, we can't afford to let this thing exist between us and an exit."

Jazz watches the exchange and contributes her own thoughts, "Kuruno, you were right! This would be a fool's errand!" And to Uziel, "We can probably divert its attention with a piece of Magem. We have plenty that could be used for that purpose. We'd be able to escape past it - I am certain!"

Of course, if anyone reaches the centre of the area without attacking; or attacks the worm, the decision will have been made one way or the other.

Holding his sword at Ready, and taking up the Magem jazz offered,  Uziel stalks calmly out into the central area underneath the worm.  While struggling to maintain the delicate balances of mana around himself he seeks to not only divert it but remain in place to allow the group to move past. He hopes they can intuit as much but holding this kind of deception is both tiring and delicate. speaking is a bit beyond his capacity. and he tries not to be distracted by the impulse to apologize as he nods his head towards the exit, hoping the others take the hint. Holding the magem ready Uziel will use it as a last second distraction should his illusion fail. If he can keep the thing ignorant, that is better than distracted. Besides it will at least give him an opening and the range for one good blow before running for the exit himself.

The lesson is wisdom, he can hear his Sword master's voice in his mind. "everyone wins the fight that doesn't happen. A blade is a tool of death, and war is the work we are called to perform. we study that work that we master the art of it. and that is death. That is war. The death you choose to deal out. But the most important lesson is to withhold death. Kill only when in combat, and then do so until you no longer must to ensure the success of your mission, or safety. remember death is not a light thing to bestow, though you must be ready to embrace it. death is a soldiers burden. he carries it with him, in service to his cause. It is yours to deal out, as it is yours to taste. remember others may hold your life in their hands one day"

he's here to get these people out and shut this down. They are the A-list crew, the first pick, and the mission.

<OCC: If this is god modding let me know, but i figure we need to move on..

"Fine if we are doing this lets do it right. Everyone take a segment of segments... Cleave them free at the weak spot one after the other down the line as they are cut lose. If we do this quickly enough we should be able to cut a grate many segments off before the creature is stirred to battle realness."

OOC: Sorry for my hiatus there.

Clarification:
-Uziel moved the group to the centre of the chamber which is also the most obvious exit.
-Kantoku made a move to fight the Worm, misinterpreting Uziel's actions.

IC:

As Kantoku finishes his speech, Mal addresses him, "Kantoku, perhaps we won't need to fight. Uziel might get us past it undetected."

And in fact the group is able to sneak past the worm to the centre of the chamber with the hole-in-the-ground exit.

Uziel gets visibly distracted as they near the centre. The exit is a hole in the centre of the chamber approximately 10 meters wide (far too small for the worm to fit) with a floor 50 meters down. There are enough cables and wires hanging loose for the group to safely drop to the floor below. Once the group is through the exit it becomes apparent why the worm is resting here. There is a very large chunk of Magem floating above the centre of the hole which the Worm is constantly feeding on as the Magem is constantly regenerating itself.

They find themselves in an obsidian bubble. All of them sense a strong presence of anger and malice radiating from the Magem above.

There is no exit from this bubble.

Suddenly they are each experiencing a massive headache, just below the level of debilitation. They can still act, but everything is painful. Then without warning, there is a flash of light and Lugosi appears. He smashes a glass ball on the ground which explodes in a cloud of dust and smoke. The room quickly fills with the orange sparkling dust as Lugosi shouts, "Show yourself!".

In the midst of the cloud of smoke, and directly beneath the floating ball of regenerating Magem, a ghostly figure appears. It is a giant face. Lugosi points both hands at the face and says, "I bind you in the name of Grandel!". At this, ghostly shackles suddenly appear around the face, chaining it tot he ground below. The face laughs.

Scott recovers from his shock and shouts, "Lugosi!" as he begins to draw his weapon.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:27, Tue 31 Jan 2017.

(mewmewmewmew?)

<still breathing>

I'll move the story forward soon. Post any reactions your character would have this far.

Uziel may not be as wise as many elves but he knows a bad thing when he sees it. Not wanting to kill Lugosi, but unwilling to let the potentially possessed man potentially destroy the plant he and his companions are all on.

Drawing his blade Uziel steps between Scott and Legosi and states loudly.

"Wait. Explain. now. Legosi."

Lugosi rips one of mamy new necklaces he's now wearing off, breaking the thin chain. He shouts, "Be it made known to those present!"

Uziel feels a surge in Magus energy as the necklace bursts in a flash of light.

Kantoku and Uziel might have recognized the item. Roll a 10 or more to identify it.

---

Spoiler for if you rolled high enough: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
It was a flash drive (thumb drive) style computer memory card.

---

Suddenly a grainy (pixelated) memory exists in everyone's mind.



The face continues laughing, "These chains can't hold me!"

He flies over to Scott. "If we can distract him and open up this area do you think you can get everything we talked about set up here? Our two problems could take care of each other....  We have a malevolent consciousness that hates life in an incredibly powerful sorce of magem... and magem eating parasites we need an incredibly powerful sorce of magem to overload and destroy them. If we can blow out the roof the parasites should come flooding in so that shouldn't be much a problem.... just you think this will work on a concious crystal if it's distracted enough?"

"There should be enough stuff around to make some electrically triggered chemical explosives we can place up here in advance."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:35, Sat 04 Mar 2017.

"well then that simplifies things immensely. we either procede and find the source of the attacks, or I try and use our patrons gift to portal out. which i have doubts about my own ability to accomplish."

(Had to edit my post missed the part it was a memory)

---

Spoiler for what Uziel knows: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

quote:

23:56, Today: Narrator, on behalf of Uziel De'A'rath, rolled 7 using 3d6 with rolls of 1,5,1.  Background Check.

Uziel can tell from the uniform of the Elf, and from his dialect and terms used, that Captain Xennel's story made sense and fit in with history.

---

Scott replies to Kantoku, "I could do that.

"I think I see what you're getting at! Are you suggesting that the ghostly figure is actually an intelligent Magem Crystal - specifically that large one above us which the giant parasite is constantly feeding off of?"

Lugosi keeps his eyes locked on the ghostly giant head which is spiritually shackled to the ground. He replies to Uziel, "I think I'm fairly certain just exactly what the source of the attacks is." He gestures to the giant ghostly head.

The giant ghostly head laughs again, and speaks, "YOU PUNY MORTALS. YOU CANNOT HOPE TO DEFEAT ME."

Uziel has no doubt the giant magem parasite is likely correct. Its power is a sea around him.

But power is fungible, and some things are neither victory nor defeat.

Thinking quickly Uziel considers using his own crystal to "prime a portal" and see if could ground out the creature or if he can lock the magic into tear the things power apart.

Unimagus roll today: Uziel De'A'rath rolled 15 using 4d6 with rolls of 4,2,5,4.

Would warn Uziel but don't know what he's doing >.<

Actualy thinks some one's soul is stuck in the magem stone but considering people generaly think knowlage of that posability is a bad thing... no one needs people exsperementing with magem necromancy! he lies...  "Yes, and it should have more than enough power to attract and trap all the parasites on the planet in a void sphere... we just have to draw them here and figure out how to over power the will of the crystal to start the reaction. The 'head' should be trapped as well."

OOC:
I wanted this to be understood, so I'll try to clarify it all a bit. The Magem parasites are all the same species. Their microscopic version replicate in the small areas and add themselves to the large versions. The large versions are vulnerable to destruction, but the microscopic ones are harder to destroy. Like tardigrades (water bears).

The entity in the center is feeding the creation of the giant Magem crystal, but isn't really trapped by it. It is primarily a spirit. However...

The ghostly giant head laughs, and tremours echo throughout the ground. The giant slumbering worm above them stirs.

The ghostly head says, "I AM NOT TRAPPED, FOOL." Suddenly the shackles Lugosi summoned dissipate, and the whole crew feints to the ground. They all feel themselves having an OBE (even Kantoku) and are instantaneously in a spiritual real in their spirit-forms.

These spirit forms are whatever each person sees themselves as.
-Lugosi is a majestic wizard wielding an arsenal of power and cunning.
-Scott is a 40ft tall one eyed cyclops with powerful limbs and laser vision, wielding a trident and wearing only a loin cloth.
-Mal is 90 feet tall with 6 powerful arms (no legs) and giant wings made of water.
-Jazz looks like Mal, but covered in spike Armour and weilding 70 foot long weapon arrays. The kind you'd expect to see on a battle spaceship.

They see the planet far below them as they float/stand in the vastness of space. The planet grows closer, and transforms into the giant floating head. The head then grows a body and appears to be simultaneously planet-sized and human-sized. As if by reaching out you could touch the human-sized image but that it still contains the power of an entire planet. He speaks: "I am Gamma. I was born a human but obtained Magem enhancements. Ultimately I replaced my whole body with Magem. I was a being of pure power. The planetary transdimensional defense shield didn't work as it was designed. Instead of creating an impenetrable shield, it teleported the entire planet to a new universe. The shield became known as the teleporter. We worked to shut it down, but we teleported into a young universe of extreme heat. Those who weren't invulnerable to radiation perished. Then to an ancient universe where we were nearly torn apart by dark energy. Then we teleported to a universe with Magem and the Magem-eaters in balance. Only those of us who were pure Magem beings had survived up to this point and now we were threatened. The Magem was non-sentient while the Magem eaters were sentient. They attacked and killed many. I found a way to redirect the spiritual energy of the planet into the creation of one giant Magem Crystal which I could use to blast the parasites to pieces. After tepeporting again we were trapped together, Eaters and Survivors. We battled for a century. I was the only survivor fighting the hordes by the end. Then in one last effort to win I transformed all of my mass and the mass of the crystal in my control into pure destructive energy. Most of the creatures were destroyed, and the crater was formed. I became a powerful spirit in my death. I still had to kill my killers, so I set about gaining the power I would need. I consumed spirit after spirit until I was powerful enough to consume Gamma herself. When I ate the spirit of the planet, I gained the power of the planet. Finally I could defeat my enemies. I entered their minds and tore them apart. But more minds continue to come to me and I must gain enough power to defeat my enemy in their new mindless form. You must sacrifice yourselves to my cause. It is bigger than all of you, but you can help. Join me! Give yourself to me so that I may gain your power and defeat our mutual enemy."

Mal stepped forward. It seems she is about to offer herself.

His form is just his core gear box... lol


"No, your more a monster than they are. They likely didnt know they where consuming sentient life forms, and with you devouring there minds they never will have the chance. Come on lets return to our bodies... this situation is worce than I thought, maybe we can turn the teleportation devices into void marble devices and atleast save other people from this monster.."