Not with a Bang: Side Missions

[voidtreckermods]

On day nine of the month of Imagination voidtreckers may notice a new symbol on the SCA map. Lime green exclamation marks hover above several sections of Nion’s jungle. Tapping these exclamation marks will bring up additional tasks that need to be undertaken.

These appear at different times over the course of day nine and ten and do not seem to be linked to any specific team, anyone who wishes may follow their SCA to the marker and help solve the problems.

Task 1

Shield integrity is below expected levels in sector R-37. Potential for sabotage. Please investigate at the location indicated.

R-37 is a mile-wide area of jungle with a single solar station. and a cursory investigation will show that station to be the cause of the issue. Sirens wail and indicators flash red, both light and sound spilling out into the surrounding jungle.

The structure doesn’t seem to have taken any physical damage, but something is certainly wrong. The shielding in the air above this sector is flickering on and off, and no attempts to stabilise it work.
It will require a hard reset to fix; the map icon will pinpoint two towers on the corner of the station grounds from which this may be done. It will require a mix of people to physically climb the towers and access the controls whilst others reboot the system from inside the solar station building. The SCA will indicate locations and required interactions.

Task 2

Impacts upon the array have caused seismic activity in sector E-10, blocking a major river. Repair damage to the environment caused by the tremors.

It will be obvious when the Voidtreckers arrive in sector E-10, because the area is completely flooded. Trees are submerged and water is in places deep enough for Voidtreckers to have to swim, though for the most part they will be able to wade through the muddy water to find the source of the problem.

A sizable landslide has completely dammed the river running through E-10 at two points, causing the waters to swell and flood its surroundings. Whilst most of the wildlife is able to swim or climb and is therefore unaffected, one resident of the jungle is faring even better - the large plesiosaur-like reptiles that call the river home can now range much further afield in search of prey.

Voidtreckers should clear the river of debris, whilst avoiding dangers both environmental and reptilian.

Task 3

A violet panda pack has been detected in northern sector B-19, moving rapidly westwards. Given the lack of nearby solar stations, this movement is uncharacteristic. Please investigate.

Once Voidtreckers get into sector B-19 they will find the panda pack stampeding through the jungle. Some may wish to help them out and calm them down, but for those investigating the trail they have made through the undergrowth is clear.

Following backwards they will discover a blackened, smoking area of jungle, raggedly felled trees and a small crater where something has impacted heavily against the earth. The surrounding trees are partially ablaze, though the dampness of the foliage mean that none of the fires have grown large enough that they can’t be put out with concerted effort. A small river runs through B-19, within walking distance of the impact site. 

Task 4

Solar Station 29 in sector Y-5 is taking fire  from unknown assailants. None of its security drones are responding. Defend the station and identify the aggressors.

Their SCA will direct them to the entrance of Station 29. It is under attack by two large terraforming robots, identical to any of those already seen on Nion. There is also a complement of security drones with them, all painted with 29 across their chassis, and all attacking the station.

They are no tougher than any of the other automatons encountered thus far, but their attack is more coordinated compared to the simple self-defense of the stray robots. Even though they are focused on attacking the station, they will turn and fight anyone who tries to stop them.

Comments

[blue_ice]

Scapegoats...a clever plan. They're already at odds with this ministry, and they don't need another reason to be hunted down. That's enough of a motivation to fight this battle.

But it's also what she fought for, and to die, suspecting that your efforts might be in vain? The thought is sickening.

Kaiba grips her shoulder and nods grimly.

"All our faults aside, we have a strong crew. We'll fight them off with everything we have."

[so_dark_a_road]

Halo never answered the question as to what the whine from her SCA-like device meant, and that was not a good sign. She feared to speak of her own death, perhaps. Curufin watched as she began to glow and the golden sparks rose, and those phenomena were even more ominous. In his own world, long ago, when Curufin disembodied for the first time -- died, that is -- he sparkled with silver light. The same thing happened on later occasions. Halo wasn't an Elf, but maybe the bodies of her people had a similar feature.

And if this was oncoming death, then they couldn't carry her anywhere, not to the train, not even to the base camp. Nevertheless, he swiftly finished making the stretcher and brought it over and set it down near her. Just in case there was a point in trying. He looked meaningfully at Roland, Kaiba, and Koumyou, and then gazed down at Halo.

"Not long ago, we all had visions apparently caused by a Void storm. A few of the passengers saw a vision that might well have been of the destruction of your planet and the subsequent voyage away from that event with the crew the Voidtrecker had at the time. That was Enrara, your home planet?" His dark eyes spoke his sympathy. "Listen, Halo, we will not let the six criminals destroy this planet. We'll destroy them first. We won't let them make us their scapegoats with the Ministry. As Kaiba says, we'll fight with all our power to save this place. I wish. . ." He wished they could save her.

He looked up as he heard those robot beeps in the distance. It seemed they'd have to fight again, soon. Not at this moment, he hoped.

[theturksway]

Whatever emotion Reno felt in the face of this, he hid it behind a straight face and lifeless eyes. He looked away as she began to glow and instead focused on the sounds of new robots approaching, eyes scanning the trees for movement.

"Incoming," he said, voicing what everyone was probably already noticing but trying to ignore. But they didn't have time to sit around and wait for the inevitable.

He hated this--but he was used to it by the same token--and he was best equipped to give them the time they wanted. It was what he was best at.

"I'll buy time." He said and then began to run off towards the sound of the approaching robots.

[so_dark_a_road]

"I'm going with you!" said Curufin, to Reno. Curufin was better equipped to deal with the robots than he was with anything else. Plus, the bots were an immediate threat, and little as he wanted to leave Halo and his crewmates at the moment, this was important! He ran after Reno.

[adregem]

His eyes see the glint of gold, and his breath catches in his throat. He doesn't move or offer to give backup from incoming robots. There's nothing else he can see or hear but this; Halo's life, and the beeping, and the light slowly encroaching over the rest of her battered body. The truth is unspoken, but washes over all of them like a cold fog. The injuries were one thing, but she wasn't dying exactly from just that either.

Roland looks stricken with grief. Without the Voidflash, Halo was going to disappear.

Without the Voidtrecker Express, they were all going to disappear. But who was responsible for the dark cloud? The destruction? Was this the dark reality facing every void missionary...?

He's in a daze. But he forces it away, shoves it down. There are no more questions to be asked, no more suspicions to be had. As the robots come, and the barrier is held up by Koumyou Sanzo, Roland focuses on keeping Halo's gaze. Joins in as Kaiba offers a hand to her shoulder, with Roland making sure he isn't looking anywhere else. Says the only thing that needs to be said.

"It's okay. We're here. You did good. Just rest."

[voidtreckernpcs]

"Thank you." She feebily squeezed Roland's hand, looked up at Seto, at Koumyou and Curufin and across at Reno as if trying to communicate with her gaze feelings that she couldn't put into words.

"The minsistry... Avoid them." She is still speaking, gritting her teeth as she does so, aware she is running out of time and yet determined. "They won't like you, we are anomalies. They don't like what they don't understand."

She shook her head, "They want... They want to bring order to the madness of the multiverse. Organise all of the chaos. They don't like things that don't fit their data, don't work with how they believe the worlds should work. They want... They want everything to fit, in small boxes, chunks of information they can study."

Golden flecks are shining around her as she begins to fade, trembling as she grips Roland's hand, leans into Kaiba's hand on her shoulder, as if anchoring herself to them.

"They've lost touch, they want to organise the chaos but have you seen the multiverse." She smiled at them, "This chaos... it's fucking beautiful."

Her eyes close as the golden flecks fade into the air around them, her SCA falls, landing on the blood stained grass between them.

The robots reach Reno and Curufin, eight of them this time. As they begin to shoot everyone will find their own SCA's burst into life, the battle chatter of the comms returning in a burst of sound.

[theturksway]

"Shit!" That was loud and unexpected and annoying. Thankfully, Reno had lowered the headphones when they became unnecessary for the time--and also thankfully, it wasn't as if he was attempting anything stealthy at the moment.

He clicked his SCA comms off for now as he dashed into battle. No point in the distraction, and those back behind him could start the effort to warn others and figure out the rest. He had something more prominent to deal with first.

As he approached the robots with Curufin right behind him, Reno paused to charge up an EM Triple Shot and shoot it at the three closest machines. The electrical attack hopefully stunned at least one of them so he could dash in close and hit it with his baton in melee combat.

[its_dad_sanzo]

Watching death was always heavy, but it was karma that Koumyou knew from experience he could shoulder. He gazed down at Halo as she was subsumed by light, and then for a moment longer down at the foreign SCA, his expression still strangely serious.

...Then, he shook himself out of it.

"My barrier is going down in three seconds," he warned anyone sheltering in it, with his usual abundance of cheer. "And then I'm going to go punch robots!"

He hadn't attacked anything on this little side quest, so far, focused instead on finding and protecting their target. Now that she was gone, he was free to have fun.

And indeed, after those three seconds, the priest dropped his hands and took off at a full sprint toward the oncoming danger, as fearless about it as ever.

[adregem]

Roland doesn't seem to want to move. Even as the barrier goes down, and there is nothing left of Halo except the SCA taking the place of her bloody body. It isn't quite the scene by the platform he once saw with his own two eyes; but it might as well have been. Knowing what they do now, the bile in his throat rising higher and higher as if the tension was violently bursting through, demanding to be set free. Seeing through Halo's body, seeing her sparkle out of existence. A boy he has come to know well almost does the same once upon a time ago, a revelation that he is a dream, ready to do the same, to die. And now, what was he doing? Making plans behind their back? Trying to contact them? They could die, and it would be on him.

The deaths of millions, deaths of the train because Roland was a fool.

He takes the SCA from the ground with steady hands, rests it in his palms, before handing it to Kaiba. Roland is deathly silent, summoning his sword in his hand before standing up and facing the eight robots fighting the rest of the team. Finally back, awake, the sounds of lasers and clanging metal jolting him to action. No time. No time, and finally the SCA is back online.

"Keep that safe. I'll keep the robots away from you too so you can escape first, tell the train what happened to us. We'll regroup." Roland says, seeing some robots approach them now, his stance ready to cover Kaiba.

"Now."

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin is occupied with fighting the robots, his sword flashing with silver-white light as he charges it up with his Elvish power. He's too busy to pay attention to the racket from his SCA. He whirls, swings, and cuts, beheading the first of the robots to charge at him, which he then chops in half. He reduces it to metallic rubble and then turns to do the same thing to the next one that comes at him.

[blue_ice]

Kaiba's eyes glaze over as she disappears. Protect this universe...keep its natural beauty...

They're not his inclinations at all. But how could he deny her conviction, and upon further reflection, those little glimmers of something special? He has a lot to think about...

But not now. Now, their allies are potentially in danger. Kaiba's place isn't to fight, it's to fix...so it's his job to bridge this gap and make preparations. He takes the SCA gingerly, tucking it deep into his bag and zipping it tight.

And he's off, heart racing, to reconnect with the others and prepare.

[voidtreckernpcs]

Reno's attacks did indeed stun the closest robots allowing him and Curufin could start cutting them down, Reno's batton takes down one as Curufin chopped another in half.

There are still some left for Koumyou as he joins the fray, they fire at all three of them. Four of them, as one attempts to dart around the main fight and make a beeline for where Roland still stood.

Kaiba is not perused as he runs from the clearing.

(OOC: For anyone who hasn't seen plurk yet- SCA poking is here.)

[its_dad_sanzo]

Koumyou wasted no time in picking out 'his' robot to play with. A graceful flip up into the air had him landing on the metal shell, knees clamped onto some part or other, his braid whipping around him. Two quick strikes from his hands to a particular panel had the robot stumbling to the side, some important servo or limb processing unit or other damaged by the denting armor.

And then Koumyou placed both palms against the shell, and ripped the electricity straight out of it, up into his hands a crackling ball... and then shoved it back in again. Wrong.

Two seconds, unarmed, and his robot hit the ground with smoke pouring out from between its plates. Koumyou rode it to the ground, then dismounted, glancing around to check on the others.

It looked like Kaiba hadn't been chased, good.

Just gonna give the big terraforming robot a close squint, to see if it was a problem yet. Yes? No? He wasn't approaching it, but the priest didn't trust that immobilization to stay good indefinitely. Even one of his own might have been weakening, by now!

[theturksway]

Reno hadn't forgotten about the large robot caught in his trap. At the moment though he was focused on the new arrivals. His plan of action was to take care of the little ones first and then deal with the big one last. Now that they were in combat again and there was no one left to protect besides themselves, they could finish everything off and not leave anything behind.

The Pyramid Mine would probably hold till then. It had no reason not to short of running out of juice. It'd only been a few minutes though and it had a full charge. Short of a direct attack it was probably good. If not, well, he always had a spare~!

Reno glanced at Curufin and saw the elf moving for another enemy. Reno did the same, this time dashing towards one with electricity flowing out around him in another attack. This one, too, meant to stun so he could get the drop on his foe before moving into melee range.

[adregem]

Kaiba in the clear meant Roland could focus on the opponent coming after him, as everyone left behind to take care of the eight seemed they could handle their own without his aid. It's a particular call from the SCA that rings sharp in his ear which startles him so, a distraction strong enough that he forgets to dodge the incoming laser shot, piercing his shoulder clean through. It's not debilitating enough for him to stop, adrenaline filling in the blanks as he frustratingly rushes to the robot, attacking it in three clean slashes until it bursts wires and sparks out of life.

He's too wound up to care about wounds or such things, already scanning the battlefield for more robots he needs to cut down so they could get out of here and get to work.

(Or escape the pain that follows him, he needs to breathe, he needs to call back.)

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin glanced back and gave Reno a smile, and then he dashed at an attacking robot. He slashed it with his sword and reduced it to a disorderly heap of metal fragments and parts. And then he looked around for the next one. The next thing he saw was Roland with a shoulder wound but still actively decimating the robots.

"You okay, Roland?" he asked.

[voidtreckernpcs]

The big robot is indeed still trapped and no threat for now. The robots attacking them also prove to be no match for them, they fall before the weapons for the voidtreckers and soon the clearing is quiet once more.

There is just the terraforming robot trapped in Reno's pyramid and the continuing chatter on the SCA's coming through their headpieces.

[adregem]

He offers a nod at Curufin, impassively waving off the injury. Even crossing his arms without showing a sign of struggle about it. "Thank you. I'm all right." Roland looks over at the teraformer, walking about it in careful study up close.

"Do we leave it, or dismantle it?" He says, expertly dodging anything to do with him. "I guess we'll be doing the rest a favor if we get rid of it while it's suspended."

[its_dad_sanzo]

Wow the chatter over the SCA was noisy. Koumyou's headphones had slipped down to hang around his neck during his one little burst of robot-murder, but he could still faintly hear voices exclaiming at each other. Like listening to a radio through a wall.

So now he finally took his backpack off, shut the headphones off, and stuffed them back inside. He just didn't care.

"Phew! Well, I guess I'll leave figuring out what to do with the big guy to the rest of you."

They should be more than equipped to handle it without the priest. He stood back up and slung his bag back over his shoulders, and then started to wander off.

[theturksway]

"Tough guy," Reno said as he walked up to Curufin and Roland. He ignored the priest leaving. He eyed Roland's shoulder for a moment despite the act and--surprisingly, decided to toss a simple Cure spell at Roland. It probably wouldn't close the wound if it was a complete through-and-through but it would dull the pain and help keep it from getting worse as he moved around. If Reno had wanted to do more he would have cast a stronger spell. In other words, it was just business and not about caring. And he wanted to conserve his energy for what was to come.

"I'll grab the mine and release it. It won't hold forever and besides, I'm not leaving behind a toy that cost me to get back in my arsenal. We'll make short work of it now that it doesn't have any buddies." And they were all focused on it. They should definitely destroy it and get it off the playing field as far as Reno was concerned though.

He glanced at Curufin and Roland--the two still gathered here with him and the captured robot--and silently gauged when they were all ready to finish this. Then he sprinted into action, leaping up high to grab the Pyramid Mine from the air and disengaging it from its duty. The golden pyramid flickered from existence and set the robot free. Reno turned back around to face the large machine, his baton already charging up for another electrical attack to throw at it.

[so_dark_a_road]

Curufin gave Koumyou a wave as the priest was leaving, wishing him well, and then he ran after Roland and Reno, ready to provide any kind of help that he could. And then he met Reno's eyes and nodded to indicate that he was on board with the idea of taking care of the big robot.

He watched as Reno set the terraformer free from the pyramid. He drew his sword and charged it up with his own personal power yet another time, causing it to crackle with blue-white lightening. And then he moved towards the machine, ready to back up Reno and Roland.

[adregem]

Roland only nods in thanks for the heal, though it was far from the same kind Reno granted him on Terra. It doesn't matter. His SCA was bursting with life and he knows the two people he wants to call now, to make sure they're okay. At the ready, his sword is drawn and he musters just enough - one last burst of magical energy straight from the Arms Band, such that he glows in pure light.

He performs a wide sweep, an arc like a crescent, that supplemented whatever space Reno and Curufin managed to damage against the breadth of the machine. With the three of them making due work of the giant robot, Roland hopes there are no more surprises left so they can regroup safely, and get the word out with Kaiba quickly.

(He tries not to look back. The patch of grass, stained with blood.)

Thank you all! You were all great!

[voidtreckernpcs]

They make quick work of the machine, hacking it down, breaking it and reducing it to pieces. They are not disturbed, it seems that for now these robots were all that were coming here.

It should be easy for them to move out and find their fellow Voidtreckers.