(I figured it was time to start a new in-character thread here.

Let's start by putting any reaction posts to starting out...

Heck, I'll start.)

Kalsk watched the barren landscape roll by beneath them. Could his new allies really find a way to cure him? He was used to the parasite, and it'd saved his life sometimes, but he wanted to be under his own control. He knew it affected his mind and his personality, in ways he was both aware of and not fully aware of. But the parasite couldn't keep him alive forever, protect from old age... and he wanted to live as much of his life as he could as himself--

--Wait, could the parasite keep him young? Who said it couldn't?

...Or was that thought put in his head by the parasite?

That was the problem. Kalsk never knew for certain.

Maybe he could sell the parasite (minus the price of safely removing it) to someone who'd want to be the host of it, in Gnost...?

---

Vult watched the barren landscape roll by beneath them. He was excited about showing off his humans to everyone in Gnost. Wouldn't the old-timers be shocked and horrified to learn that the ancient lifeforms whose culture young shifters admired so still existed today! And that he, Vult, had found them! Well, discovered? Yeah, that's it, he'd discovered them! And they'd help Kalsk, too, maybe, if it was possible!

---

Dulcinea sensed the barren landscape roll by beneath them. Nice not to have to flow on her own anymore. Been a while since she'd been a passenger on a mechanical conveyance. She kept a watchful awareness over Sweetie at all times, of course, but he seemed sufficiently fed and happy...

The Duke had little interest in traveling in that big nasty robot of Alyn. He prefered the hover car that had that nice plug in spot for his cooler and the soft leather backseat he could doze off in so nicely after checking on the coolers contents and taking some samples to make sure the taste was kept. He told the AI to follow the big ugly robot as he dreamed of licking and slurping on giant jello's The Lady really had blessed him by putting a living jello on his path that wanted to hug and ooze all over him. The Duke was dreaming of being smothered by the sweet lemmony taste of Dulcinea.

Alyn was like a little kid driving a bumper car at a carnival for the first time, up there in the main control room of the Alynwalker. He loved how high up he was, since it gave him a good physical view of the surroundings while he continued to get used to more of the Alynwalker's controls and functions, both psychic and physical.

The mind moths were quite enjoying the Alynwalker, albeit in a different way then Alyn was. Since they were white-listed, they were exempt from the electrical field trap and force barriers that were near the partially-broken head window area. So the moths figured out that they could roost there when they wanted to rest, as it gave them a spot that was conveniently protected against predators after they saw a few wayward birds jet zapped and sent flying away from the head area. but since it was outside and high up they could depart to take flight and feed or scout or otherwise do whatever it was mind moths liked to so when they weren't resting.

The psiwalker diligently followed after the Alynwalker. Once Alyn had a chance to get some more repairs done, he was going to see about adding a small docking bay for the psiwalker somewhere on the Doombot (like in one of its feet, or a groin thing, etc), for easier storage and transport. when he got to areas like a town or something where he couldn't taker the Alynwalker, or if they needed to scout a bit etc, he'd have the psiwalker as a backup.

He occasionally mentally "scanned" the area as well, keeping track of his party members as well as trying to detect any threats in the area that could try and sneak up on them. But otherwise, he enjoyed the opportunity to relax.

All seemed well to Ajakstu, more or less. It sounded like Gnost had traders, which meant money and opportunity.

He determined the crush radius for when Bossy inevitably crashed the Bossywalker and maneuvered the walker outside of that. Probably meant they were outside the collateral damage radius if anyone saw them coming and decided to shoot the largest target first.

Then he busied himself with thoughts of using his climbing gear to harpoon some sort of lumbering object and then circling around it, causing it to fall over in the snow.

After about half an hour, something notable comes into view up ahead... A large, round sort of stone tower, about five stories high, but three times the width of the AlynWalker. The tower has battlements around the top, and windows here and there spiraling occasionally up the side, as if

"What th'...? The Roboid tower? Here? But... it's not here! It should be farther south-- near the half-mountain? How did they move it?" says Dulcinea, confused.

Stranger than that, it appears that a battle is taking place-- strange, half-finished-looking robots are attacking... bird-hyena creatures, who're defending a large crashed aircraft. ("Large" as in, half as tall as the tower, but twice as wide and long.)

"Shriekmaws," reports Dulcinea. "Animalfolk. They're vicious in battle, but not always actually hostile if you don't start anything with them. Do we take sides in this, watch, or just keep going? I feel sort of sorry for the shriekmaws... On the other hand, I don't want Sweetie to get hurt..."

The Duke sees the bad evil robots attacking the poor animal creatures and puts his cooler down and yells at the hovercar to get him there  faster. He opens the top and activates the demolisher gloves and then is in the thicks of it while the others up in their big bad alynbot might still be wondering what to do bellowing at the robots as he swings his hands around.

"Get lost you bloody scrap heaps!!"

ooc: I decided the Duke hates robots after Vomol blew up in his face ;-)

7 to 9: Weak Atrocity: Charge any weak opponent and destroy them. You don't even need to use any weapons (though you may).

If your next move is a basic attack or an Atrocity, take +1 forward.

21:00, Today: The Duke rolled 7 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 4,1.  Atrocity time!! – 7

There might be more roboids inside the tower, but The Duke, ah, deactivates almost half of the ones visible outside of it.

"Sweetie's still outnumbered! Help him!" Dulcinea urges the rest of you.

Ajakstu swears under his breath and then heads the walker towards the tower with the intent of using it to block whatever door the robots are using to to exit and enter battle with the not yet and probably not friends.

Pesky tops the hill and sees the commotion.  It seems The Duke is already mid-fray, with others moving to join.  Once again, he feels late to the party.

He presses the gas, closing the distance between himself and the others quickly.  He comes to a hard stop and grabs his rifle as he gets out, trying to understand what the hell was happening, and where he might be of most use.

Vult notes that Pesky seems a bit in need of information. "Those things on the right are shriekmaws. Bird-jackal animal-people. They're super wild, but not horrible. More like the wildest, most dangerous gal you ever met, but with claws, and a whole tribe of... that. The other ones are roboids. They're boring. They don't think like humans at all-- they can only think of things in binaries: good/bad, dangerous/weak, valuable/worthless, us/not-us. So most of 'em are... I dunno... like, y'know... trouble."

"Good gravey, I am soooooo fucking over these god damned robots!" Alyn shouted as he absolutely agreed with the Duke to side with the shriekmaws.

He stood up in the cockpit, his eyes glowing as he looked outward onto the battlefield. Hw considered going for individual robots, but what if that tower started attacking them or something. Well fuck that!

"You guys go for the rabbits. I'm hunting bear." Alyn muttered. "Dulcinea? It's time for me to get religious on them!" he added.

16:15, Today: Alyn Reed rolled 11 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 4,4.  Charming.

Okay, so I bet you didn't see this coming. But Alyn is not going to go for an individual or group of robots, but instead he's goign to try and mentally hack the freaking robot-tower itself with his telepathy.

16:15, Today: Alyn Reed rolled 11 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 4,4.  Charming.

My goal is to initially take control of its weapon and sensory systems, and open fire on the robots baby!

The stone tower is barely sentient at all. It has no weapons of its own, and limited sensors.

Alyn does pick up thinking from the roboids, though, though their thinking is very alien to him. LURGI, they think, LURGI. They were thinking it already, but then when they notice his mind, they start thinking it AT him. Like, the sense is LURGI, dude! LURGI! If it had a little more of an emotional component, it would be OMG, dude, LURGI! and/or maybe Oh no, LURGI!. Maybe just a little sense of Can you effing believe it: LURGI? Well it's true: LURGI!


Moreover, this word is being communicated with Alyn with a strong sense of
--LURGI: USEFUL/IMPORTANT INFORMATION, YES/NO? = YES!

Alyn considered a moment.

The Stone Tower seemed...far less weaponized and sentient than he was expecting from something that was held by a bunch of Robots. However, it seemed very important to them none the less.

Even more curious was that the other robots minds were sensing his a bit as he reached out to the tower. Except it wasn't hostility. what was it then?

LURGI. Alyn thought back to the "networked" robots and tower, seeing if anything happened.

And then he remembered what Vult said, about how these robots thought in an entirely binary manner.

"Guys? I'm going to try something. It either will have no effect, or may stop the fighting. We'll see," Alyn said, as his eyes glowed a moment again...

Alyn then wondered if he could cause the Roboids to fall back somehow.

I am LURGI! Heed me = YES! he thought to them

Attack Shriekmaws = NO!

Fall back = YES!

The Duke was going all out but he was in a frenzy in his desire to show off to his jelly woman maybe? Or was he actively trying to avoid the other team? Whatever it was he was swinging wildly.

ooc: Pesky what about giving poor dukie a hand? Seems i messed up good so any help not a 1  will make it a success ;-) Snipe that poor robot that the Duke is stumbling over maybe. you cant make him look this bad in front of his teenage crush now can you?

6 or lower:
--Failure against Weak target: The same as 7 to 9, but you might get hurt too (or drop or break something you had on you that you
  wouldn't want to lose nor break, or something else bad), and don't take +1 forward.

--Failure against Strong target (or group of Weak targets): the same as Weak Failure, but also you won't fully destroy them, or
  not all of them.

--Failure against Powerful target (or group of Strong targets): the same as Strong Failure, but also you won't fully destroy them,
  or not all of them. Also, this is gonna really hurt (you).

10:25, Today: The Duke rolled 6 using 2d6+3 with rolls of 2,1.  More atrocities. – 6

Pesky focuses in on a seemingly overwhelmed Duke and raises his rifle, his scope isolating the bot that seems to be the most trouble.  From this vantage point it's hard to tell, but either way, one less robot would be a good thing.  He pulls the trigger.

OOC: 09:29, Today: Pesky rolled 6 using 2d6+1 with rolls of 4,1.  To take out Duke's troublesome robot.

Alyn tells the roboids that he is Lurgi, and that they should stop attacking the shriekmaws, and to fall back...

Then The Duke started having trouble fighting, and Pesky shot a well-positioned roboid... Pesky hit it... but not in a way that disabled it-- just enough to really get its attention.

The roboids fall back from attacking the shriekmaws...

...So they can attack the humans.

Gah, they're everywhere! Climbing and punching and...

(Pesky loses 1 health level from a roboid climbing up and punching him.

The Duke loses 1 health level.)

They're working on climbing up the AlynWalker...

Maybe Alyn should have tried harder to understand more about exactly what Lurgi-- the thing that's got the roboids so upset-- is, before he claimed to be it...

Alyn sighs. Of course his good intentions would come back to bite him.

He tried to first use psychokinesis to push the roboids off of the Alunwalker.

11:06, Today: Alyn Reed rolled 6 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 1,3.  Weird/Scary.

Tried being the key word.

OOC: Either someone aids-other to help Alyn Focus i.e. re-roll his 1, or we get more communal xp!

The duke hisses at t he robots attacking him andactivates the anihilator gloves as he picks one up and tossed it into its tower angrily stomping over to the Robot stronghold.

"I sooooo gonna turn you bloody tin cans into a heap of scrap!!! I am fully done with you bloody lot!!"

ooc: Duke is going on a robo kill rampage in their tower.

10-12: Strong Atrocity: Charge any one strong opponent, or group of weak opponents, and destroy them. You don't even need to use any weapons (though you may). If your next move is an assault or atrocity, take +2 forward.

20:18, Today: The Duke rolled 11 using 2d6+2 with rolls of 4,5.  Atrocity!! – 11

One roboid makes it up to the missing windscreen of the AlynWalker, and, instead of climbing all the way in (which would set off an automatic defense, but the roboid seems to sense the danger) instead throws something at Alyn-- some sort of small gas grenade.

The grenade, chucked at Alyn's head, bounces off Alyn's personal force field-- but the gas starts making him cough badly.

(Alyn loses 1 health level, and gets a -1 toward his next roll.)

But then--



Wow, that did it. All the roboids drop off of the Alyn walker, fast, and leave Pesky and everyone else alone, too. They swarm in front of The Duke, blocking his way to the--

--well, trying to block his way, but he just smashes them, crushes them, tears them apart... They only slow him down.

Any roboids who can't make their way to The Duke work on re-entering their tower...

--And then it vanishes, teleported away somewhere.

The roboid threat is gone...