Sunset Commander 2013/08/09(Fri)18:26 No. 533045 ID: 4693fa
File 137609797021.jpg - (81.32KB , 354x522 , Mr_ Lynch.jpg )

Mr. Lynch himself is currently dressed in his usual fine suit of Axius make, his eyes hidden behind his glasses. You've yet to properly see his eyes, as he tends to hide them behind the opaque glasses he wears, but his fair skin is highlighted by the bridge's lighting. It's before dawn, the bridge clock informing you that it's Kraethary 15th, 4:39 A.M. You sip at your coffee in the ceramic cup, Mr. Lynch simply smiling at you, the bright pink welts around his eyes looking as vivid as ever.

You look back at the various displays. You have three Sunset Squads active, in addition to the crew's standing array of shuttlecraft, fighters, and the soldiers drawn from Steel Sunset's front organization, a mercenary group known as the Lost Isle Merchant Marines. So named for their stated intent of eventually conquering the previously-unclaimed Kopru Expanse.

Something that may yet happen, if you can finally liberate Axius from the clutches of tyranny.

For now, however, your day is just starting. You settle into your seat after a brief chorus of greetings. You check up your financial data, as well as a status check from your Sunset Squad team leaders. Finances are freshly filled, your current budget sitting at $30,000,000 (Thirty million silver) thanks to a dead drop by your benefactor. The dead drop, consisting of row upon row of unmarked platinum bars (a favorite of the underworld and wealthy not wishing to be traced through simple national coinage), is safely stored in the ship's belly, having been ferried back via Shadowskimmer shuttle.

You also have a number of reports available pending potential threats and news of national importance. Outside of the standard hogwash that the media so loves to promote (heroes and their dramas, notably, and their various feuds and fights), there's a few articles of interest. A Vertaxian baron in Greyhelm seems to be amassing a bit more power than is healthy, his undead forces consuming the smaller, Primals-aligned nobility in the surrounding area.

There's also reports that a Terangothian attempting to institute himself as the new King of Terangoth has begun a daring series of raids upon Axius shipping routes, utilizing a reported artifact cutlass to harass trade routes, as well as to capture the rare Axius frigate sent to protect them. He seems to be a particularly violent sort, treating captured crews to decimation, the survivors being left crucified to the masts of their ships as a message of his "mercy" to those that resist.

There's also a number of political or technological assets you could pursue. The Ithrion Isle's inhabitants, a race of rogue constructs known as Dalonites (named after their inventor, who utilized the souls of Damocles convicts in their creation, resulting in their eventual insanity and violent tendencies), have begun increasing their own piracy activity, assimilating entire ships full of people, converting them into additional members of their race. For what reasons are unknown, but their technological edge is vast.

There is also the Kingdom of the Silver Mother, run by an Infernal (a being of great power, as well as great anguish and sin) known as Draestasha, a seductress of great power. Though they promise peace and have isolated themselves from their neighbors, a number of nations see their very existence as offensive, especially considering their formation was on the back of the nation before it, a taming of a great nation of "Cultured" barbarians that has formed this new culture. Yet another thing to keep an eye on, it seems.

Regardless, you are now left to your own devices. What shall you check upon, or investigate, first, Commander?

investigate this King of Terangoth. someone should give thanks if the routes are cleaned up

we could try Kingdom of the Silver Mother and see if we can strike a deal, such as, they become a safe port for our ship, and we help smooth things over with the neighbors.

if makeing a deal with the devil somehow seems unplesent then i second the sorting out of this new terangoth.


also, can we get a run down of what our power supply is and how much we need to get this thing up to full power? do we need to break open boats and steal their generators?

Sunset Commander 2013/08/09(Fri)21:39 No. 533105 ID: 4693fa
File 137610954072.jpg - (36.56KB , 960x720 , The Bridge.jpg )

>>533095
>Kingdom of the Silver Mother
You shift in your chair. You could investigate this new "Pirate King of Terangoth", but that invokes some interesting points. You draw up your file on him as you sip your coffee, data crystals humming as the projections shift and swirl.

Contacting the Kingdom of the Silver Mother might be tricky, however, considering their strict isolationism, plus the fact that their next-door neighbors all have a very powerful hatred of KSM. KSM, for its part, has undertaken a vast campaign of fortification. The close scrutiny of it will, however, all-but-certainly result in your discovery should you attempt to use it as a safe haven.

Covert contact may be entirely possible, though you're not aware of any KSM agents at the moment (since they have a habit of turning up dead once discovered, thanks to heroes having had a habit of falling into them with their dicks. Repeatedly. And, of course, losing their souls in the process.)

The main issue with alliance with the Kingdom of the Silver Mother is the fact that their leader has been outed as an Infernal: A being shunned so entirely and totally by the Primals that their clerics and angels are entirely unable to affect them via divine means.

Something that has been used to great effect by the agents of Infernals, and the Infernals themselves, thus resulting in this current little nation. You could likely set your forces to trying to snoop out leads to cults of Draestasha, however (Or the "Silver Mother" as she refers to herself.)

She does not, however, have much of a personally "bad" reputation, per se, once you get past the outside factors of her very nature as an abomination in the eyes of the gods. Her agents, according to the reports you've been given, seem to have downright supernatural abilities. The creations of Infernals (or at least those that have creations to call their own) commonly possess such abilities, but her talent is the sculpting of flesh and bone, usually into the most sensually pleasing of forms. In defense, however, those forms are just as deadly. There's a reason that the only murmurings of attempting to usurp her are with the power of a multi-nation coalition.

Sunset Commander 2013/08/09(Fri)21:53 No. 533115 ID: 4693fa
File 137611038573.jpg - (122.17KB , 816x979 , Draestasha.jpg )

>>533095
Draestasha, for her beauty, can be... Problematic. Notably, she is an entity far older than your entire organization, with plans that she sees as likely far grander, and with her own interests. Likely ones that would benefit greatly from seducing (or killing) you and everyone on your side and putting it all to her own use. She's notorious as one of the only Infernals to reproduce, and her daughters are of a caliber that-- reportedly-- is greater than most heroes.

You could attempt to find Silver Mother cults in Axius, attempt to locate one of her agents, or something else.

The main problem with these actions is that you currently have no spies. An issue you may want to tackle in the future.

then let's back burner this. keep eyes an ears open but not go it yet.

let's do a shakedown, some simple pirate hunting. loot the looters. and cannibalize their ship.

Sunset Commander 2013/08/09(Fri)22:25 No. 533137 ID: 4693fa
File 137611232311.jpg - (494.64KB , 724x800 , Ratham.jpg )

>>533115
>>533105
>Power generation:

Power needs for current systems are being met, but the system is extremely inefficient, and likely to fall to ruin over the next few months. You currently have seven top-of-the-line airship cores in the Thaumvincible, hooked together via an engine sync that is also keeping the airship's arcane engines-- directly responsible for lift and thrust-- working in tandem.

This inefficient assembly is the best you can do at the moment, however, although it results in 5% power degradation--minimum-- each month. In only a couple months, you'll need to strip the entire engine assembly out and replace it, if you can't find a better power source. You could raid other ships for their cores, but this might prove exceptionally tricky in preventing damage to the core in question, as well as clearing an entire ship of its crew without getting caught. Plus finding reactors suitable to your specifications!

>Current power sources:
7 D-CC-C10 Cores [459 Power Generated each] [3,213 Power Generated Total] [$875,000] [5% Decay/Month]
Location: Aft section
Mana Flow System: +60 Power/Round transfer [$120,000]

Emergency Power: [$90,000]

2 Type H Emergency Generators
120 Power Generated per Round

Mana Generators:

2 D-MG3 Generators [$1,200,000]
690 Power/Day
300 Power Storage capacity

In addition, the current mana flow systems are too slow. You'll need to find a better mana transfer system before this ship sees combat. If you don't, after the first unexpected hiccup, you'll be sitting there for minutes waiting for power to be restored. Minutes may as well be years in combat.

Further, thanks to the engine sync, this reactor degradation is under minimum stress. You may have a risk of an engine blowout if you go into combat under current parameters.

The Mana Generators don't suffer from degradation, but their size and scale really make them only effective as a means of ensuring continuous power flow to vital systems (like air filtration and internal security) while doing maintenance on the engines.

You've heard word that there may be some sort of high-energy power source available in an old, abandoned fort in the woodlands of Axius. From report regarding the matter, an adventurer experienced a number of hallucinations before breaking some sort of 'evil stone' containing 'dark power'. A power source that was apparently potent enough to affect reality around the fort while the adventurer was there. It has since been left abandoned, and the fragments of the stone may still contain a fraction of that immense power.

However, such forts-- and power sources-- tend to be home to bandits, monsters, necromancers, or worse, all drawn by its influence. You may want to talk to Mr. Lync, who has extensive magical knowledge, if you want to pursue it, or pursue other power options.

>>533080
You look over to the files on this new Pirate King of Terangoth, which have been percolating as you thought. You don't have much beyond what the media articles you have tell you, thanks to your unfortunate lack of a proper spy corps or any extensive scrying capabilities.

The new Pirate King of Terangoth arose during the fall of the old. Though Terangoth has always been a nation of pirates and brigands, essentially a lawless island dotted with pirate harbors that are the prize of any bar trawler. Peace is kept mostly by the constant flow of slaves, drugs, and ships, as well as the strength of arms of local businessmen profiting off wealthy pirates returning from sea (or desperate souls about to depart for sea).

Ratham, as this new aspiring Pirate King is known, is the one who most directly opposed the previous king, McAyo. The McAyo pirate lords had begun to actually refurbish Terangoth into an actual nation, including a sizable air fleet, complete with some rather modern weaponry designed by a prominent wild magic user and magitech genius. A genius that was slain by a Dalonite mercenary named Slayer, and his captured soul and mind bartered away.

Regardless, this new Pirate King has proven exceptionally ruthless, slaughtering the McAyo children first, driving the King himself into apparent exile. Afterwards, he looted what infrastructure had been built in the nation, reverting the entire country back to its lawless roots.

Armed with an artifact that apparently is a sign of favor from Tiordras, a cutlass that apparently allows him to wield the full fury of the oceans, this brown-bearded madman is an admiral of his own fleet, binding the other pirate lords under his flag with abundant loot and a total disregard for the law. His current whereabouts are unknown, but Ratham's flagship is a massive, forty-cannon ship-of-the-line, the Black Razor. Considering that blackpowder weaponry is able to penetrate magical barriers easily, it is a terror of the seas by any respect.

Who were we to merit being made a pawn and entrusted with experimental technology and the largest warship ever known?

exactly WHAT does mana transfer use? gold? diamond encrusted nano-fiber? unobtainium?

right now it seems we have a flying BRICK for how much use it is.

please do talk to an expert and get a real recommendation

Hmmm what do airship cores use to make power? Coz it may be better to make the hop to fusion power if the cores use some sort of nonmagic pwer gen then fusion is the way to go if not we need the core/s that the blueprint shows.

anyway, since the ship can't do much right now, what do we have in the way of crew? are we any good in a fight? like, are we hero rank? and do we have any special skills?

We haven't even done a shakedown cruise, first order of business is a drive around the block and then a low-stress cargo run, because we want to discover what about this ship needs urgent rebuilding OUTSIDE of combat.
Ideally trading would also help us recruit heroes, representatives and spies while we're at it but one thing at a time.

YARR THIS BE THE SKYPIRATE, HIJACKING THIS HERE QUEST. WE BE SLITTING ALL THROATS AND UNLOADING GRAPESHOT INTO THEM BROADSIDES!

AVAST! THIS HERE VESSEL BE OURS, AND WE BE GIVIN' NO QUARTER TO THE OFFICERS! THE CREW BE A DIFFERENT STORY.

BE THERE MEN AMONG YOU WHO ARE TOO LILLY-LIVERED TO THROW IN WITH US, WE BE DROPPING YOU OFF. THE REST OF YOU WITH SOME SALT TO YA WILL BE EACH GETTING A SHARE OF THE BOOTY.

WE BE SETTING COURSE FOR AXIUS, TO BE LOOTING AND PLUNDERING APLENTY!

AYE AYE CAPTAIN!

*blinks* wut the hells. I may just have to set off that tac nuke ive been saving for a will

(But other then that what well you have me do cap?)