ZtP 2010/11/20(Sat)10:20 No. 258394 ID: fb7332
File 129027724955.png - (13.55KB , 600x450 , Frame 4.png )

I'm back, apologies for the unforeseen delays.

"One, run in at max speed, draw the buggers out, and we'll just use this narrow path as a kill corridor. Esther, Jimmy, you're in back. Jimmy, don't fuck up and die. Everyone else, front line melee action now."

"Yes, my lady." "Three acknowledges." "Alright."

>>250462
So far you've seen two aggressive steelhive units- the creepy spiders which seem to rely on melee and swarming, and the huge fuck-off ufo disk thing which led to your current situation.

You have no idea what you're going to be seeing- Lucasio admitted that the defenses of each node vary from time to time. But you expect a contingent of around 20-30 grunts and a medium-level leader-boss-unit thing. Lucasio reassured you that they'd be easily handled.

They don't use tactics, as far as you can tell- Lucasio told you a while back that only a few units are built with tactical cognition, such as the one that assassinated him. The metal spiders that chased you a while back are generally mindless seekers of combat- those won't be difficult to deal with.

And there goes One, faster than anyone else. The enemy drones emerge and-

Huh. A new breed, or something, fuckers that can fly. Shit.

Of course, things never go the way you want them to, do they?

ZtP 2010/11/20(Sat)10:38 No. 258398 ID: fb7332
File 129027830716.png - (13.87KB , 600x450 , Frame 5.png )

Lucasio yells at you- "I've never seen these things before! The game must have changed its arsenal!"

"I'm hit!" One. Some sort of flying drone with apparently more than one type of attack. Just great.

...Ranged attacks too. Great.

"One, get back here-"
"Working on it milady AAAAGH yup definitely working on it ohmygod AAAAAAAAaaaaaa"

You hate not being able to see the health of your allies as a quantitative statbar above their heads. Such is the fate of realism.

Three and Lucasio open fire with their rifles, taking down a unit. Esther makes a well-placed shot and destroys another.

One isn't doing so well, but he's moving. The ranged attack seems to be some sort of continuous drain until the target moves out of range.

No time for waste- the plan seems to be working, but the flying units could prove problematic. Luckily, there's only two, one of which is dealing with One.

Changes in the plan? Keep going?

>>258398
...man, that's hardly an optimal firing line setup. Too much of our firepower in front, even assuming that friendly fire isn't a problem. Worse, our bait went way too far in to top that off, virtually ensuring his own death. This has turned a solid plan into what is about to be a total clusterfuck.

If that flying thing is in range, order fire to be redirected to it in the hopes that we'll be able to get One out alive. If it's not in range, then have Esther move forward to provide you with covering fire while you charge forward to try and save him, with everyone else keeping up the pressure on the main charge. Can't afford to let anyone else die.

And for crying out loud, why is Jimmy not shooting? "Stay alive" does not mean "be utterly useless". That's a 20% cut in our firepower that we cannot afford!

yeah, shoot it or dash jump stab.

Do you have ranged attacks? If not, get in there and lay waste.

If yes, stay here and go for kill shots. FOCUS FIRE, SLAM THEM ONE AT A TIME.

>>258398
You and Esther rescue One while everybody else holds the line.

>>258440
And by that I mean kill the enemy that's attacking him.

Man, one does not know how to pull. Guess you gotta cover him.

ZtP 2010/11/20(Sat)17:41 No. 258502 ID: fb7332
File 129030371034.png - (16.41KB , 600x450 , Frame 6.png )

>>258411

"Jim, when I said stay safe I did not mean sit on your ass and watch! You have a gun, shoot over shoulders!"

"Gotcha boss."

Now...

>>258424
>>258429

One's going to die if you don't do something, and your allies are up to their legs in mecha shit.

So you charge-

shnnnnnn-k

Two down, and- zero to go? Huh. Lucasio was right, these things aren't worth crap unless they actually get in a hit on you, their defenses got traded for offense apparently.

Unfortunately, One took way more than just one hit.

"Move back, we'll cover you. Enemies are out in force so we can pull back to a choke-point." He did his job. Your turn to do yours.

Enemies, including lots of flying enemies. This could be problematic. The real issue is that they can circumvent all choke-points, and seeing from what happened to One you'd guess they have a combined stun/life drain ability along with a basic higher-ranged attack. These stupid bugs could surround your friends on the catwalk, and it wouldn't be an easy escape.

And you know they aren't powerful enough to take you down, one by one, but there's a bunch of the melee crawler things and you're sitting in the middle of the entire platform, they could converge on you, and that would be bad.

A retreat may or may not work, but attacking doesn't seem like an option either, except...

If you could take down the main node, the enemies in the area would shut down long enough for Jimmy to easily reprogram everything and fix the node.

Or you could do something with your ground-shattering move, though this might damage the entire platform into collapse.

You note that you still haven't seen the leader.

Shit, now what?

back up slightly so that in order to surround you they would need to put themselves in range of the other's fire.

>>258502
Have your men fall back. They're drawing the attention of the guys in front, you should be able to get right in and fuck them up.

>>258502
Have the others start a slow retreat while firing. One joins up with them. You hit the remnants of the first group, hard, and try to stamp them out before the second wave shows up.

Once the first group is wiped out, you get onto the catwalk with the others and fall back a bit. Have all of them move into a tight group, Jimmy in the middle in case they get flanked, you a VERY SHORT way in front of them. Esther needs to start sniping all the enemy flyers; you should be positioned such that she can snipe enemies before they're in range to shoot you. They'll still be able to get you if they all hit at once, but it'll be better than nothing. Enemy flying units take fire priority whenever they come into range, because a stun attack is something you can't afford to leave against you.

After that, just try to chew up all of them coming at you with combined fire, and if they manage to close anyway you get to tank for the five gunmen. It should work.

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)18:15 No. 259308 ID: ab04d4
File 129056490560.png - (15.13KB , 600x450 , Frame 7.png )

Regroup. That's what you have to do- and so you run, your metal boots pounding against the rough stony floor, as ahead of you, you can see your team moving forward with suppressive fire, preparing to receive and provide cover-

You spin around as you reach the beginning of the walkway.

You think you'll stay here. Yes, you'll do just that- you'll make a fine meatshield and draw the enemy fire.

One, for his part, moves as swiftly as he can back into relative safety.

Everything is going swimmingly, you daresay.

And you do find the violence and chaos cathartic. The quiet hiding and stealth has been... getting to you.

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)18:20 No. 259311 ID: ab04d4
File 129056525435.png - (24.04KB , 600x450 , Swarmed.png )

A bolt of energy shears a hole in your cloak and you don't even care. The flying drones aren't nearly strong enough to make much of a dent on your vitality. Their electric shocks tingle- a bit ticklish, a bit stingy, ad you can feel them trying to reach into the core of your life energy to suck out your soul and mind and all that drives your body-

Psh. Right. You're built of sturdier crap than that. Maybe your allies couldn't take the drain, but you seem to be able to resist the power quite well, pivoting around acrobatically by using a single foot as axis once in a while to dodge a searing plasma beam that seems to be the flying nuisances' secondary attack. And the spins are quite helpful too when it comes to smashing drones en masse.

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)18:38 No. 259323 ID: ab04d4
File 129056631079.png - (13.81KB , 600x450 , Frame 8.png )

...

"They're all dead, aren't they?" You didn't realize you spoke until you feel a distinct taste of metal on your tongue. The air, suffused with ozone from the disintegration of steel machinery by laser rifles. Tastes like blood.

A hand behind you-

You spin, to see Three reaching out and quickly stop the trajectory of your spear before it embeds itself into his head because thats his weak point and thats what you see first now just the weak points first before anything else comes to importance and you shake off the melancholy thought.

"Three reports that all aggressors are terminated."

"Jimmy, One, you guys alive back there?"

"Yeah boss we're fine! Think I got a few kills too, eh?" He grabs his hacking equipment and moves forward past Lucasio. "Shame I didn't get to hack a few of the aerial drones, really. Shoulda thought of that before I shot them down."

"..."

Uh. One doesn't look... Good... "One..?"

"...i'm fine my lady... need a bit of rest... we're safe for now, you can leave me to recuperate..."

"I could carry you for a while, again, like last time. Not like I don't do it a lot anyways."

".... ha ha. no."

"Fine, have it your way." Not like anything would get him on the catwalk... But just in case. "Three, watch him, make sure he doesn't roll off the side or something stupid like that."

"Three acknowledges."

Alright, that's everything dealt with. You feel great- and not just from the adrenaline. You have a base in control now, and with it you have hopes for clearing out the whole strata instead of cowering and subsisting on memory gems. And even better, you can rest in security and let your constructed units do the guarding instead of the nerve-wracking night shifts.

You move towards the huge conic tower as Jim trots up besides you, emanating an obvious aura of smugness and focus that to any hacker is bread and butter.

>>259323
Hey. Hey Alena.

You can't taste anything, fool.


Order everyone to keep on their toes until you're certain that the base is hacked and entirely yours.

>>259327
Aye. You say you feel great? From the adrenaline? IT'S NOT REAL. Tell yourself that. It. Isn't. Real.

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)18:50 No. 259331 ID: ab04d4
File 129056701074.png - (11.05KB , 600x450 , Cybercone.png )

"..."

"I know what you're thinking, Boss."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"I was thinking that it looked a lot bigger from up close."

"Replace bigger with more awesome."

"Yeah, that too, Jim. Now get to the actual hacking stage of it."

"Alright, boss, workin' on i-"

You hear a slam behind you as you realize you forgot something that would soon prove to be quite important.

It's quiet.... too quiet.

YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE BOSS YET!

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)19:12 No. 259337 ID: ab04d4
File 129056835358.png - (15.67KB , 600x450 , BOSS.png )

>>259335

>smart man

You spin around, in realization, just as Lucasio's yells reach you-

"The boss is still there!"

...Uh-oh.

It's huge. A four-legged walker, more complex than any of the melee units you've encountered so far.

You surprisingly feel relieved that it isn't as huge as the first boss you fought.

>cont. cutscene

ZtP 2010/11/23(Tue)19:20 No. 259340 ID: ab04d4
File 129056882190.png - (12.87KB , 600x450 , Frame 9.png )

>BOSS:
>SCYTHE REAPER
>Height: ~9 feet
>Attacks: Unknown
>Defenses: Unknown
>Movement: Four-legged terrestrial, Speed Unknown

Shit, shit shit shit.

Fuck. Fucking huge four-legged walker tank shit.

"Jim! Turn the box off, get out of there!"

"Can't, once the hacks are in place I can't deactivate them!"

Worse shit.

Okay, okay, calm down, tactical check-

Lucasio and Esther, following up from behind those strange cylinder things. Esther could get in a good shot from this range. One and Three are out of range but they're safe.

You could order Jimmy to drop the box and run, but chances are the hacking attempt would fail and the box would get destroyed by the guardian thing. Of course, that's not out of the question- there's always more attempts at seizing a base, after all.

You're the closest, followed by Jim- and you're relatively sure you can make your move first.

What do you do?

>>259340
Tell Jimmy to hack fast.

Shout out a call for supporting fire.

Take a defensive stance and engage, fighting a delaying battle while your militants deal some damage and, hopefully, Jimmy hacks the base. Your job is to buy time.

Your giant spear should be pretty excellent for blocking, at least.

>>259342
This. Also, do you have a big, awesome special move or something?

Because now would be the time.

>>259342
This. Also, do you have a big, awesome special move or something?

Because now would be the time.

BIG TEAL THING, FIVE ROUNDS RAPID.

Melchsee's lance Go!!!!


or you know, insta-dash lunge im then bounce back before it moves.

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:30 No. 259467 ID: ab04d4
File 129062342251.png - (6.48KB , 600x450 , Battle1.png )

>>259344

>There aren't any simple things like compact gaming-abstractions like skills anymore. You want move, you come up with move and type it out as much detail as you want.

>>259435
"Open fire!" Only Esther, at that range, would be able to hit it. Sure enough, Lucasio's attacks all go off-center.

Not like that single attack really did anything, though... Dammit, what's the weak point on this thing?

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:31 No. 259468 ID: ab04d4
File 129062346082.png - (6.29KB , 600x450 , Battle2.png )

>>259446

You charge forward, trying to make the best use of your ever-shrinking timeframe, and aim for the chest orb-things. Maybe those are vulnerable, just as the huge orb on the back of the first boss was its weak point.

The monstrous machine rotates, its insides gyrating as it slowly, painfully, reorients its balance, seemingly taking a combat stance, preparing for your impending assault.

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:33 No. 259469 ID: ab04d4
File 129062360268.png - (7.53KB , 600x450 , Battle3.png )

Holy crap but this thing is fast.

It deflected your attack at an angle, taking your spear up and changing its vector of motion completely- and sending you into a hasty leap as to not lose your spear-

Your attack was completely blocked. You distinctly feel two emotions; on one hand, you feel rather cheated and petulant.

On the other hand, you're rather terrified now. That was faster than anything else you've ever seen, faster than you could ever match-

There's no way that you could beat it in a one-on-one fight, not now.

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:34 No. 259472 ID: ab04d4
File 129062365311.png - (6.96KB , 600x450 , Battle4.png )

And as the residues of the crackling waves of power vanish, you are able to see through the light even as your trajectory leads you towards landing and-

What is it doing?

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:37 No. 259473 ID: ab04d4
File 129062382928.png - (7.43KB , 600x450 , SHOOP DA WHOOP.png )

FUCK

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:39 No. 259475 ID: ab04d4
File 129062399837.png - (14.28KB , 600x450 , Battle5.png )

...

Ow.

That really hurt. Looks like it has to recharge, though- the chest gems are dull now, though they seem to be brightening back up slowly but surely.

You hear a whoosh through the air just as you realize your spear left your hand in the blast-

Your spear lands just below you, crackling with a small bit of residual ionic charge as its point embeds into the hard metal covering of the upper cone.

What good fortune, you dryly think.

Well, at least you can see a lot of the battlefield from up here.

SHIIIIIIIIII-


(allow gravity to help out a little 'operation ground and pound')

ZtP 2010/11/24(Wed)10:52 No. 259478 ID: ab04d4
File 129062477337.png - (13.17KB , 600x450 , Frame 10.png )

You might as well use your new range of vision to take a look.

Esther and Lucasio are using the cylinder things as cover, firing out at the mecha advancing on them. Luckily, it seems to be ignoring Jim for now.

Three and One are moving, but One is still lagging behind a bit, and Three might take a while to get there.

And while you're up here, you don't think you can quite leap far enough to use gravity to your advantage. Pity- that would've made a nice idea, seeing if it had a weak spot on its back or something.

What do you do? What commands do you give?

>Port Conversion-Hacking: ~20% complete

Ok then, how about this, slide down the side of the node and jump off.

Hit the ground running and make to lunge it again, BUT, stab the tip in the ground instead and vault over it.

Try to see if you can hit it while you are in the air, even if its just a tap, hit it on the back of the head.

When you land, pivot on one foot to get behind it then stab.

Hows that for a plan.

oh yea, have the others do a fighting retreat to lead it away from Jimmy, maybe weaving around the cones to get maximum advantage and stop it from using that beam effectively.

No, it didn't really hurt. The pain is not real, remember?

You have to use the recharge delay. Call for suppressive fire, this thing can't deflect everything. The shots will be a distraction while you aim for the core/blaster.

>>259478
It's very important that you not let it engage anyone other than you in melee. If it was able to throw you back so easily, what chance will the others have? They'll be killed. You must engage it repeatedly and count on them only for supporting fire and the occasional distraction.

It might help if you attack from the opposite direction that they're in, so that it will end up getting shot in the back.

>>259480
Nooooooo. No acrobatical stuff. Acrobatics only work if they arn't fast enough to attack you while you're doing them. If you are, you're a sitting duck. And this thing is fast enough to do that. So, just get back on the ground, and try spamming some thrusts at the 'unarmored' area between the 'breastplate' and its legs, that might be a weakpoint.

Oh, and order Esper to try aiming at the 'visor' and the crystals on its 'chest'. Those might be weakpoints too.

Try to keep your distance, use your spear's longer reach to your advantage. If it tries to charge up another ranged attack stab it hard wherever the attack is coming from.

Also, the pain is only an illusion

The pain is an illusion, the force behind his blows is an illusion
Nothing can hurt you
You cannot die.
Your weapon is an illusion, created to force you to play the game 'their' way

Well screw that.
Walk up and break it.

I know you watched The Matrix, well guess what, you are in it and you are the chosen one. Go kick some ass.

>>259740
I'm going to have to support this.

Tell 1 to fall back over the bridge and let 3 start attacking it to hopefully draw the boss away from Jimmy and the hack.

Esther and Lucasio need to start running north, splitting up.

Defend Jimmy. If the boss does get drawn away then hit it in the back. Also be ready to strike if it does the laser attack again as it's probably vulnerable while it's doing it.

ZtP 2010/11/25(Thu)20:01 No. 259845 ID: ab04d4
File 12907440931.png - (31.24KB , 1200x900 , Frame 11.png )

You leap down, spear pointed down to use as a spinning fulcrum, aiming to reach the ground and convert your descent into the greatest speed possible-

>>259606

"Esther! Aim for the chest!"

Somehow, you doubt that Esther can miss at this range. Esther aims, reloads, fires-

And the bullet goes in, easily, quickly, so simply you have trouble comprehending it- you expected defenses to the obvious points of vulnerability-

And nothing much happens. No explosion, no final scream like in all those B-movies you watch so much, nothing- Apparently, it was just a wound...?

The sheer shock of the letdown prevents you from yelling out as Lucasio runs and slides under the beast, vaunting back out forwards over its back, landing squarely behind its head and opening fire ferociously into its back armor. The creature shrieks and charges forwards, plowing between the cylinders, causing Esther to roll out of the way and reload and fire once more, but this time missing the second chest gem-

Three opens fire, providing cover even as Lucasio wrangles the mech so that its front absorbs the damage-

>>259750

And before you can yell at One to fall back and hold the bridge (better for him to feel like he's doing something useful, you guess), he does it for you. Or he does something close enough.

After a few more feeble steps, One fumbles and falls, coming to an inert stop on the stony floor. That'll probably keep him out of the fight, you think.

Of course, through all this, you haven't been staying still, heavens no. You've been charging straight at the thing, as fast as you can while your allies distract it to provide you with a window of opportunity-

And all you have time left for is a single decision before your legs send you into the final leap to provide a surge of speed-

Where do you aim your spear?

>Port Conversion-Hacking: ~45% complete

>Two D10 rolls requested, one roll per post

rolled 7 = 7

---

Yell for him to sterr it near you, and then JUMPSLAM

>>259845
Well, that facial plate looks like another obvious potential weakpoint... stab it in!

yea, you probably can't just ignore it.

well you could, but it would likely be detrimental to your mental health.

Spear it in the back :V

rolled 9 = 9

---

FORGOT MA ROLL!

rolled 5 = 5

---

>>259845
Kill it until it dies.