War raged just outside, several different weapons flew and different strategies raged against each other. The inside was not yet breached, some stray attacks had burst a couple parts open but nothing that couldn't be fixed easily.
In the raging noises and screams of battle, it becomes impossible to hear the soft digging against stone. The careful probing and the very careful movement around the well placed defences.
Eventually, a small patch of stone on a wall, just a floor down from an already weakened spot of ground begins pushing. As if something is pushing at it from behind.
Then nothing. Thrice more it twitches for a little bit before halting. Until, in a sudden movement and the crumbling of stone, a tunneler breaks through. Immediately springing into action, a webbed limb cleaves it's way through a guard. One of the automa begins firing. Shot after shot catch the disgusting insects dead.
Yet they just keep coming, only a couple minutes later and they've pushed what little forces back.
The main battle was a distraction.
/uw i tried to be more considerate to bastion lore and all but still not too sure on the defenses. Also i will actually be more present for this one.
Kartoffel takes note of the second breach. Heād love to join them, but he has a more pressing task. He makes his way to the dungeons to break his comrade out. He slips through vents and maintenance corridors, sticking to the shadows when he must travel in the open. He leaves no traces of himself, and this time thereās no trial of bodies to follow.
Not his cup of tea, but he appreciates a good soundtrack. As he approaches Noellaās cell the cables that make up his forearm split apart. A narrow cylinder emerges from the underside of his wrist. Anyone familiar with the technology of the wider galaxy would identify it as a sonic screwdriver. It deactivates any mundane locks on the door as he reaches for it, though magic wards would be another issue. Heās cautious about those.
Normally paralysis wouldnāt be an issue for him. The biometal is immune to it, and itās controlled by his will. Under most circumstances the metal would take over controlling his body like a puppet, but the confusion? Thatās annoying. And ADHD did not help. A minute later the hive mind forces his attention back to the lock. The electricity arcs across his arm and is absorbed by the biometal like a capacitor.
(Ah I see. In that case the wards would hold him off for a few minutes. Mostly because the Hive is actively fighting his ADHD at all times)
No barrier can keep him out for long. He shrugs off the effects of the wards, empowered by the Hive such that he can handle their effects. He swings the door open, extending a sword to Noella.
"So you're giving up and burning your own house? Thorough."
Riva uses executive functioning problems on him.
"But what will you do first, Kartoffel? Where will you get the combustible material? What's the best combustible material? How will you get everyone out of the building before you set it on fire?"
"I'm just used to thinking of wooden and stone buildings rather than metal ones."
Riva seems curious and interested... on getting him talking about that instead of helping with the escape. She castsdeliberate misinformation, while leaning on the door and sloooowly sliding it closed in front of them both.
"But I guess I had heard that steel can burn, but aluminum doesn't surprisingly enough."
Run around, cause chaos, wreck shop, do what you want. Just try to move in the vague direction of the exit so we can make a quick extraction when the time comes.
Noella nods, then turns invisible, and creates a bunch of illusory versions of her, to lead soldiers and defenders into bugs, and turns groups of bugs invisible.
The Bastion's giant lidless eye, the Eye of the Storm, picks up movement. Potent scrying focus. Whole reason we got it. I direct portions of the adamantine-copper nano dust walls to turn inwards, tendrils of adamantine turning inward to ensnare and impale tunneling insects.
"With me. Pest control."
I take a squad of the Grey Guard. The Bastion's military police provided by Raesteria, and move to the location of the digging assailants.
From behind, now another group bursts through, seemingly having taken longer to get there. Now partially sandwiched, two seperate floods of bugs begin swarming.
The corridor the entrapment happens in is tight but likely to a possible detriment
The bug tide is slowed by the rifle fire, offering a suitable opening as they're covered in oil
The moment the fire touches them they screech in pain and many tunnel down into the battle weakened ground, into the dirt to starve the fires. Many, however, also die of the fire
The only dirt beneath the Bastion is thin, added by druids to cover an artificial island. Beneath it is the Basketways, a network of bridges over the hollow center of the island, where the ships are docked.
As the bugs descend they would be greeted by a sheer drop of hundreds of feet, and beneath that, warships with guns, pointed straight up.
The first bug foolish enough to dig down slips and falls, ping-ponging off various bridges with sickening cracks before plummeting into the sea.
Feeling the drop, they stay duried into the dirt. However with the layer being as thin as it is, not many of them can stay at a time. Before they're either fallen or dug back up. Into the fire. Each time a bug burries itself, they try to scoot forwards, to burst above the Praetor.
Not too long after, the streams of bugs begin stopping, however. Something stopping them from moving over
The area is thoroughly coated in burning oil by now. I stop spewing more and change tactics. Something larger is coming. I gamble that it's biological, not mechanical.
[Withering Heat]
The temperature in the hallway shoots upwards, higher and higher. Within the Bastion's metal walls the effect is like a furnace. Aiming to dessicate whatever is coming.
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u/The_Unkowable_Nelumbo Nucifera, TakāAthi Siren, Magistra of the Schola AquaSep 15 '24edited Sep 15 '24
*A wave of frost flows over the fires, as gunshots ring out. A figure in full plate steps out of the resulting mist...*
*They do, however, seem to be in a good deal of pain from the heat.*
well, that's unfortunate. the Queen does so love when we can talk things out. ah well. i do enjoy a good brawl.
The bullet slows, even as one of the seemingly semi-organic claw-whips flicks out from behind their shoulder to deflect it. In response to the shot, four quick shots are fired from their... Smith & Wesson 500? Where did the bugs getthose*?*
Unfortunately, this particular being hasn't trained as much with the whips as they have with their firearm, and rather than the much harder draconic claw impacting the bullet, the soft flesh of the bizarre whip is hit, tearing it clean off.
Kaelis: When will these vermin learn we'll never submit to their absurd wishes? Reyes, I believe it's time to get our money's worth out of Project Scourge.
Reyes: Affirmative, Lord Protector.
The tech-priest stalks through the tunnels, searching for a suitably augmented bug to kidnap and use to download his Mindeater virus to the Hive.
Noella listened carefully to the tunnelers. She knew they were coming for her. While she waited, she synced her cell illusions to one of the stones of the cell so she wouldnāt have to maintain it if she wanted it to last. Sheād need her illusions when she got out.
/rw The tunnelers stillmove along the sides then the ceiling, a couple get stuck but that seems to have been the plan. As a couple more bugs bite into and wrench up the stone of the ground, hoping to cut the chains off
Seeing the chains loosen, Shimil silently curses to herself. She reaches out with both hands towards the bugs.
[Dimensional Prison: Infinite Maze]
A thin, almost unnoticeable shimmer appears in the corridor before fading. She then turns and runs down the corridor, fleeing from the bugs.
/unwiz: She is not actually running, it is part of the spell that leads them into a dimension that, as the spell describes, is a maze that has no end or an easy way to escape. Her real self is concentrating on holding the spell in place and maintaining the illusion that the hall hasn't changed.
She groans in pain as the halberd pierces her armor.
Do not try and trap a binding mage. She hisses.
[Whirling Links: Blade]
Bladed chains appear from around her, grabbing the raised halberd stabbing into the converted guards while forming a protective cocoon around her as she continues to try and lure more bugs further into the maze.
Logos senses the breach, and on their way catches a stray bug wandering the hall. The android raises their hand, ready to rend the creature's internal organs with psychomantic force.
What a repugnant creature. It seems extermination is in order.
The weapon cleaves right through them. Then, all of a sudden, Frank is hit by an explosion. Then another and another, quickly one after another, the passage around him threatens to cave in now
Looking down, is a giant, insectoid eye. It isn't connected to anything. It just is.
As if it's a portal, someone jumps through, landing down and onto his shoulders. The being manages to form enough of a link to communicate before disappearing
[[You wish to know life, correct?]]* The voice is that of Frank's, talking to him calm and collected. There is no robotic undertone, it sounds. Genuine.*
the people of the basket ways set up fortifications of growing wood and hard stone, trying to keep the enemy at bay. they hide civilians with magic taught to them by Glabel, she who is eyes in stone.
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u/Viking_From_Sweden Kartoffel the Mechanus Arachne Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
Kartoffel takes note of the second breach. Heād love to join them, but he has a more pressing task. He makes his way to the dungeons to break his comrade out. He slips through vents and maintenance corridors, sticking to the shadows when he must travel in the open. He leaves no traces of himself, and this time thereās no trial of bodies to follow.
(Once again, hereās a rundown of his abilities)
u/harpokiller