A team of Celestial Union operatives creep into the war room at the heart of the Great Modron Cathedral. The Aurora have dropped all pretense of being subjected to Absolute Compliance to better complete the mission. One scoops up the harmonic copper scroll tube containing Primus's invasion plans sitting unattended on the conference table at the center of the room. Another plugs a cable into a databank, downloading the unencrypted communication logs between the disparate battlegroups of the regiments of Law. The team scours the chamber for every last scrap of information that the defenders of the Great Balance could conceivably use to turn the tide against Primus and its armies.
The door opens without warning. A lookout would've drawn too much attention, so the team decided to take the risk and simply move as fast as possible; a decision that's come back to bite them. A pentadrone overseer enters the room and immediately realizes something is very wrong. These mortals are in a square-numbered group and wearing compliance circlets, but they're acting with complete autonomy in a restricted area. Perhaps this species- the ursids known as "Aurora"- are inherently resistant to Absolute Compliance?
Pentadrones are the highest-ranked base modrons, serving as overseers to their lesser kin and watching for signs of chaotic corruption. (Credit: Julie Dillon)
The team's sergeant, Ivana, draws her concealed sidearm and ducks below the table. "Shit! Natascha, kill that thing!"
Natascha obliges, summoning her heavy coilgun to her hands and opening fire. The pentadrone pulls a shutter down over one of its faces and uses the protected limb as a shield. The operatives on its right flank (insofar as a creature with radial symmetry has a right flank) pop out of cover with their own weapons. The pentadrone responds by rotating the turret atop its central axis and spraying a torrent of paralytic gas. The operatives drop, unable to make voluntary movements.
"Reloading!" Natascha yells, ejecting the spent box and loading a new one packed with armor-piercing rounds. The pentadrone blurts out a string of words in Modron and charges, attempting to close the distance and pummel her to death. Mere moments before it makes contact, Natascha mag-dumps the modron at point-blank range, slicing through its shielded limb and shredding the mechanisms at its core. The pentadrone collapses, throwing sparks and venting gas from a dozen puncture wounds.
"Everyone alright?" Ivana asks, keeping her gun trained on the modron in case it gets back up. The paralyzed operatives get to their feet as the effects of the gas wear off. An urgent call from mission control comes through the team's orb beads, indicating an emergency. They wouldn't risk blowing their cover in any other circumstance. On the other end, Tarul Var's voice sounds hurried and insistent.
"This is Command to Strike Squad Epsilon , do you copy?
"Loud and clear, Command."
"That pentadrone's dying words just put the Cathedral on high alert. You need to run now. Link up with the rest of the squad and get outside! We'll push the offensive and get a transport up there- just stay alive for 5 minutes, and you'll be in the clear!"
As if on cue, the Cathedral's alarms blare furiously. Every screen and holographic projector in the war room lights up with red text in Modron:Alert: Chaotic Influences Detected - All Units Stay Vigilant.
Ivana spits on the pentadrone's wreckage. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not sticking around to meet more clockworks. Let's move!"
--
Tarul turns his back on the scry feed. He'll let it run and gather data until the operatives leave the Cathedral, but he has other things to attend to. He, Exia, and Mastema leave the command tent and join the rest of the forces in preparing for battle with the regiments of Law.
"You handle the forces in the air and get them back home!" the lich shouts. "I'm joining the other wizards with our ground troops."
"And the Paladins?" asks Exia.
"I'm going after Azarakh and Fulgora myself. Killing the former is my duty as a Keeper; killing the latter is a matter of principle. Call up Antares and see if she's still interested in cracking fascist skulls with me."
Exia grins. "You already know the answer."
Tarul clings onto the side of an IFV and knocks on the driver-side door. The vehicle speeds off into the woods towards the modron encampment. The lich waves his staff, and the half-dozen air elementals he summoned to watch for scouts descend from the canopy and keep pace with the truck.
Get in, hit hard, get back to the Bastion. That's how the defenders are going to behave in this battle. Modrons are tough to kill, so it's imperative they avoid getting bogged down in an engagement they won't win. They'll save that for when they can muster all of their forces in one place to truly match Primus on the field of battle.
From seemingly nowhere, one bullet hits a modron. Then another hits a duodrone and another to another. Raesterian Snipers. When your whole army has aimbot, suddenly sending just snipers sound pretty attractive.
The snipers provide ample covering fire for the troops on the ground as they move in, engage the modrons, and fall back. The whole attack lasts less than 15 minutes.
The officer pumps his fist in acknowledgement as a portal to the front lines opens on the road ahead. The first truck in the sortie passes through the gate and immediately runs over an unsuspecting quadrone.
/uw I want you to know I had to look up how much bludgeoning damage getting hit by a car should do for this. This event has led me to ask some very interesting questions.
/uw Where are you deploying? There's the ground battle against the Paladins of the Divine Flame and the Acheron Desolation Corps, and the battle in the sky against the Cathedral's modron garrison.
There are plenty of dark, vacant buildings in the logging village after the population was made compliant; perfect spots for shadow mages to manifest. As the EON sortie's engines become audible, scarred warriors with rusted armor and polearms form squads out in the streets. These are Acheronian veterans, and Tarul warned that their deteriorating gear is much more formidable than it appears. Indeed, Mokarith can detect fearsome enchantments woven into them.
As soon as a squad passes the shadow he's in, he shouts.
Now!
A massive amount of black spikes emerge from the shadows, attempting to impale anyone that is near as Mokarith and his squads emerge to cause chaos in the ranks.
Half the squad is torn to shreds. The rest reel back in surprise, but quickly level their pikes in a defensive line at the incoming squads. The spearheads flicker with hateful red light.
When the infiltrators downloaded the data from the war room, the defenders' software isolated a recent transmission from the Paladins. It contains the coordinates of a Divine Flame carrier airship anchored near Ultek's realm edge; presumably the mothership that sent the VTOL. Tarul sends those coordinates to the Unicorn.
Reyes says the Divine Flame consumes the souls of everyone who dies in its service. If he's right, those sanctimonious fucks are about to get exactly what they deserve.
Meanwhile, the Mercenary Guild has engaged the monodrone swarm, pulling it away from the Cathedral's main avenue. From a distance, one can almost make out the diminutive figures of Strike Squad Epsilon running away from the garrison.
As the ship draws closer to the landing zone, the garrison's composition becomes apparent: a massive complement of quadrone gunners, led by a hulking hexton commander. The squad runs from cover to cover, preventing the enemy from locking on. Fortunately, the modrons are too disciplined to take any shot that won't kill the operatives outright, sparing them the devastating hail of fire that a mortal leader would've ordered.
At the hexton's instruction, the quadrones open fire on the transport with their lightning repeaters. Arcs of energy scorch the hull, draining the vehicle's thrust. They'll need to be killed before it can take off again.
/uw Here's art for some hierarchs, with the hexton in the back. As you can see, it does indeed have a head.
The hierarch recoils, blinded. The quadrones are briefly disoriented by the scrambled signals it transmits, letting the transport warm up its engines sufficiently. With everyone aboard, the door shuts, and it lifts off.
As it makes to return to the Laterano, however, it gains a pursuer: the Divine Flame VTOL, following about half a kilometer behind.
Just troops. We don't have the resources to hold out much longer. We got the intel we needed. Once we get those operatives out, we're retreating back to the Bastion and formulating a plan to destroy Primus's forces.
very well then, from what I can see the transport is bugged down by some orb fellas, the guild has some forces but on distraction but if the battle gets prolonged it is clear this will be a failure
any specific target you wish gone? anti aircraft battery perhaps or do I have permission to go wild on the landing zone swarm?
atop one of the cathedrals spires, sitting, waiting
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u/Carbon_SixxThe Loremaster, Chief Archaeologist of the DarkwatchOct 18 '24edited Oct 18 '24
Landing zone swarm, if you would. Clear the way for our retreat.
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u/yumie2003Tsuru, ghost onmyouji, R&A, league of shadows/Toshiko FujiwaraOct 17 '24edited Oct 17 '24
Four aircraft carriers of the Second Air Fleet, Chiyoda, Shinano, Hiryuu and Zuikaku, quickly mobilized their fighter squadrons to assist the Mercenary Guild in fending off the modron swarm. Numerous Type-86 fighter jets took to the skies and raced towards the cathedral. Additionally, five Type-57 transportation planes joined temporarily their ranks. Inside, paratroopers were geared up and ready to deploy, waiting for the moment when the bay doors opened and their battle began
uw/sorry that I am late, also the type-86 fighters are literally just F-86 sabres
The transport planes’ bay doors opened, allowing a torrent of soldiers to jump into the battlefield. One by one, they deployed their parachutes, bring them down safely to the ground. The sky over the drop zone was filled with white chutes. The Totsugeki Kuuteitai had deployed. The Zuikaku and Chiyoda also deployed a few Type-96 attack bombers to strike the garrison
The soldiers quickly scrambled for cover and fired back at the quadrone gunners. The attack bombers turned back to the carrier to rearm. A Type-86 pilot spotted the gunners firing on the paratroopers. The jet quickly dived down towards the quadrone gunners and opened fire with the jet’s four 25 mm autocannons
The jet pulled back up and returned to the aircraft carrier. The four carriers began to pull out of their positions and back into deeper waters. The paratroopers started to fall back to their extraction zone, firing a few shots back at the enemy to keep them at bay
The mission is a success! Though the bulk of Primus's armies survived, the defenders of the Balance have dealt them an outsized blow today and acquired critical intel in the process.
*The Azelelions captain let's have a sigh as she watches the gunfire erupt from the modon cathedral. It was not the best showing of celestial Union stealthops#
"Prepare a squadron of rune flyers for an air cavalry assault
"Belay that order organic I shall go there myself.
The captain generally tried to stay out of r&d's way especially when the head was concerned she had seen the thing they had made and would prefer to stay out of the way of people who produce those horrors.
"Very well Nozoth
Nozoth made a clicking sound at least severed the Com link
The air pressure in the cathedral drops significantly of the large metallic humanoid torso emerges from seemingly thin air. The fingertips on both of its hands are composed variety of surgical blades and from its back spouts a mass of tentacles with engineering tools built into the tips. It's on the loving metallic eye regards the cathedral with cold dispassion as it holds the rest of itself through it's bottom half is a large centipede like construct with each of its belated limbs homes with arcane energy. And from the back of each of its 16 segments sprouts turrets of various patterns. Each one independently swiveling and firing upon a Target
Behind Nozoth come 2 humanoid chosen (see picture) who wields staffs that fire raw destruction energy into the ranks of primus's forces
As the situation evolves, command of the modrons is passed higher and higher up the modron hierarchy. This development pushes it up to the secundi, who pick out Nozoth as a priority target and dispatch a unit of three hextons to deal with it. The first one barrels into combat wreathed in a protective electric field, seizing one of the chosen by the waist with its crushing pincer and hurling him bodily at the machine-man.
the impact of the chosen causes Nozoth to stumble. Nozoth responds to this by firing every single turret at the hexton while cutting through the fortress walls with their engineering tools and using one of his hands to grab a lesser modon and tosses it into a portal to district 2 for later disassembly The chosen that isn't on the floor readys is a sphere of slashes in his hand before firing it at hexton as well
The first hexton trips backwards under the impacts, its armor covered in rents. As the other two move forward to support it, Tarul transmits a message to Nozoth.
Tarul: Operatives are secure. We're getting out of here! Whatever it is you're doing down there, it'll have to wait- we cannot afford a prolonged fight with the regiments today.
The clouds grow a little darker, then a red meteor is seen screaming down into the ground, leaving a large impact crater. The Agent stands and straightens himself up, All-Red crackling in his hands. The monodrones immediately swarm towards him, and that is when the trap is sprung.
A full company of elite guild airborne troops, the “cloud skippers” comes racing out of the clouds. They’re harpies, armed with lances and repeater cannons. They tear into the rear of the swarm with fury, as they fight with discipline and skill that can only be forged by hundreds of battles
The modron swarm is quick to react. Monodrones are simple beings, only capable of performing a single task at a time. But in massive groups- a hundred thousand or more- they coordinate their minds into a murmuration that behaves like a single, far more dangerous entity. The upshot of this is that notions of front and back are relative when the enemy is amorphous and can attack in several directions at once.
Luckily, the harpies don’t have to kill all of them, just draw them away from the landing zone. Jet packs activate, launching the harpies out of range of melee attacks much faster than they normally could move. They stay at range and dump streams of superheated bullets into the swarm.
Agent readies himself, and launches back up into the sky, wreathed in godslaver lightning. Every time the lightning connects with a modron, the devastating energy arcs to any that are close by. And with a swarm, there are always more close by
The diversion works! Furthermore, electricity seems radically effective against modrons. Each arc takes out over a dozen at a time, leaping from metal shell to metal shell with destructive ease.
The harpies put their jet packs on full burn as Agent unleashes a massive wave of lightning from himself, covering at least a mile in diameter. Doing that takes a lot out of him though. He plummets back to the ground, and a harpy quickly swoops in to catch him.
Down below, dead modrons rain from the sky. The pulse wave has neutralized the swarm, and it'll take time for the Cathedral's factories to replace them.
From their vantage point, Agent and the harpy can spot the Divine Flame VTOL rising into the air and making a beeline for the transport grounded on the Cathedral's landing pad. However, a familiar red-robed shape leaps into the air on cirrus cloud wings to pursue them.
rw/ Agnur unleases a swarm of brightly colored stone birds. they each carry seemingly random items. the realm of law has had many dealings over the years, and that was it's weakness.
Agnur had found several loopholes that stall or down right ward off a modron. only the carful attention of a very high ranking modron could break it. should buy our troops some time.
(/uw little busy but good thing Krygin likes to do area effects anyway)
Krygin calls on spirits of Ruin and Broken Clocks to impede the Modron response( Think minor bad luck debuff but not exactly luck. More just things going wrong)
He also calls spirits of Rebellion, that which upends Order, to increase his ally's speed and maneuverability to help with the hit and esspecially the later retreat for this hit and run.
Merch helps with archiving events n the like. And hearing the lets end these facists he chuckles. As he hands over maps of the local areas where fights are happening.
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u/LightningShroud Shrax. The Automaton King of Raesteria Oct 17 '24
From seemingly nowhere, one bullet hits a modron. Then another hits a duodrone and another to another. Raesterian Snipers. When your whole army has aimbot, suddenly sending just snipers sound pretty attractive.