Re: Crashed Hive- Mountains east of TP forums.
(Siphon, I'm going to leave the creatures' responses to you, my creativeness is currently flagging behind a bit. Extra info for Siphon (but not a big enough spoiler that I would be bothered PMing it):
The armoured guy ought to hang in by a bit. Severe damage to the suit, but not completely disabling. I've no idea how many Thembrihkal would chase down Krell's group, but I suspect that the group will either get away safely, or will get away from all but 1-3, which then turns into an epic battle. Also in your response, could you put them hearing the alarm going off? That way I don't have to edit the current post (Not enough creativity left for me to touch it).)
(It's been a page or two, so I'm including a short recap for the sections.)
Mean person's group:
Recap:
The discontent group continued scouting the hive, until poor luck found them running into one of the leech people. Before anyone had a chance to react, the leech man pounced the group's only female TP member. The other TP members panicked and tried to line up the creature, causing the armoured man to shout
"Wait! STOP!". Unfortunately this was to no avail, and the panicked TP members opened fire on their comrade, killing her in moments. The leeches, meanwhile, simply reformed, and found itself without any remaining female prey...
The leech man flung a tentacle out, impaling one of the three still living Toon Pimp members, making him not-quite-so-living. The man in the armour decided something that could withstand bullets and still reform was not something he had a chance of beating, and fled. The cries of the two TP members left behind did not last anywhere near as long as he had hoped, and the sounds of a slimy mass following him along the hive kept getting louder. The man became ever more frantic, realising his only weapon, the nerve lance, would likely have little effect on the conglomerate creature.
In desperation, he turned to the only remaining tactic he could think of. With the sound of tortured metal, the man tore off the left hand of the suit, exposing live wiring. He turned to face his pursuer with the determination of a creature backed into a corner. If this didn’t work… He waited as the leech man arrived, and flung a tentacle at him. Unable to dodge, the tentacle impacted the armour, which actually managed to stop the tentacle from penetrating, even if it did make a huge dent. Reeling from the blow but knowing he would die if he didn’t act, the man grabbed the tentacle in his right hand before it could retract, and shoved the left arm’s open wiring into it.
Krell's group:
Recap:
He put the TP member down as one of the armoured men gave a report.
"Krell. Hostility, fear, despair and sorrow. Right-forwards and up a level."
Fucking psychics. Krell thought, Can't give good directions for shit...
"Sorry, sir."
Oh. Right. Fucking psychics...
"And have you got any idea what that would be coming from?" Krell asked, with more than a hint of sarcasm and rhetorical-ness to the question.
"I only do intentions. You know that."
"Yep." Fucking psychics-
"But if I had to guess, I'd say prisoners, and torturers in the act of applying their trade."
For a moment, Krell tries and fails to find any fault with his psychic’s logic. Annoyed at being shown up, he angrily proclaims,
Well, then, we've got some prisoners to save, don't we!?" Come on, slackers! Time's wasting!"
Meanwhile, the other group had found their way unmolested to the place where the Thembrihkal were storing some of their breeding stock. They were currently conversing about their tactics, having realised their chances of surviving taking on more than one of the beasts at a time.
“…Alright, so we want to have Rambo and William using maximised truce, then send Aya, Ike and this guy,” He motions to the TP member, “to go get the people. I and Ethan will stay here to guard Rambo and Will, and give covering fire if Truce wears off too fast.”
Aya:“I still think you and Ethan ought to be coming too. We need all the extra hands we can get, and we still won’t get all of them.”
“Don’t be an idiot. We can’t carry that many without them catching us, screw what Ike and Ram can do to slow them down. Now, are we agreed?” All the armoured figures nod.
Rambo and William, the psychic who had guided them safely to the den, began to chant and concentrate, respectively. A little while after it began, Krell ran out into the open, hefted his HK21, and fired off a stream of lead at the nearest of the tentacle monsters. The two suited people identified as Aya and Ike followed suit, with Aya throwing explosive grenade-esque bouncing disks at her targets, and Ike spraying them with a… water pistol? The strange weapon’s use became clearer when the explosion of one of the disks caused the fluid that had been sprayed over the Thembrihkal to ignite violently.
The Thembrihkal were not that far from the group when Rambo and William finished casting truce; when they did reach the armoured group, they could not bring themselves to attack with full force. The monsters swung their tentacles as if through treacle, and the strong armour the group was wearing was enough to block any damage from the weakened monsters – even the Kevlar worn by the TP member proved too tough to get through. This did seem to affect the casting group as well, however. Krell’s bullets stopped being able to hurt the enemy and just became annoying *ding*s on its hide. The explosions lacked kinetic energy – hell, even the flames didn’t seem to hurt as much. Knowing this, the defenders stoped and the retrieval team went in, with the Thembrihkal chasing after them. For all that the spell seemed to slow things down, it did not seem to impact non-hostile movement.
The three reached the victims, each person prying one from where it lay and moving back to the group, unperturbed despite the monsters fanning them with tentacles.
“Rambo, how’s the spell doing?” Ike asked as he returned, wondering if they had time for a second trip.
“You’re good.” Rambo replies simply. The three take another trip in and back, and Aya asks quickly,
“Got time for a third?”
“Just barely,” Rambo replies. “Make it quick.”
Not bothering to waste time on a response, and knowing that they can only carry one more, Aya dashes back to the nearest victim, unceremoniously hoisting them over the suit’s shoulder and sprinting back. Unfortunately for her, the spell wears out all too fast. While she had put some distance between her and the steadily pursuing tentacle beasts, when they realised the spell had ended they rushed full-speed. Krell opened fire to pin the enemy down, but his bullets simply couldn’t hurt them enough. Being freed from the need to keep up the spell, however, allowed Rambo access to others. A paralysing glyph appeared under Aya’s pursuers, slowing their movement for a few seconds – not much, but enough to get Aya to safety. As she approached with Thembrihkal’s not too far behind, each armoured person took up one of the unconscious victims, and Krell took the left over one for good measure. They turned and ran, with Aya throwing disks behind her, Ike spraying the ground with flammable fluids, and Rambo laying down more paralysing glyphs whenever he could muster the mana. Whether that would actually be enough to outdistance the Thembrihkal was yet to be seen…
Burrito's group:
Recap:
“Get… me up. Show me… your face…”, marking the first time Burrito has heard her speak without shouting, though strangely the restrained malice in her voice seems to be greater than the unrestrained malice she had displayed before.
"So. You wish to see my face?" Burrito says, grasping the downed woman and picking her up by the collar "Why?" he asks, his right eye red with a small yellow dot in the middle and smirking "You seem familiar. Like I've seen your kind before. I feel an attachment to you and your kind."
As the woman’s suit’s cameras spied Burrito, it became apparent that he was not the only one who felt a connection between him and these suited people. Unfortunately, this connection did not seem to be a positive one. With a volume and ferocity that made her previous outbursts look like the complaints of a schoolgirl to a tentacle, she screamed,
“
BURRITO!! KILL THE MEMBER!! KILL HIM!!!”, banging on the inside of her immobilised suit as she did. While this was completely ineffectual in harming Burrito, it did knock some of the stuff that coated the hive floor off of the suit. The reason for the woman’s malice became all too clear as the dislodged grit revealed a symbol on the chest of the suit…
The symbol of the Lurkers. Burrito did not have much time to contemplate his new discovery, as even through the din of the woman’s rage, he made out the sound of both a gun and a sword being pointed at his back, and the voice of the gun-toting Lurker.
“
Move slowly.”
