"[censored]' heroes not lettin' me have any fun," Brutish Ghoul muttered as he followed Martin and several of the others. "I'm [censored] hungry is what's goin' on."
Scowling deeply, the brute paused when Martin hit the wall, waiting for the hero to free himself before speaking.
"Not all of us are idiots, cape," he said, hooking a thumb at Dusan, Dennis, and Dax.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"We sure seem like it, though," Martin replied gruffly, "And I haven't seen anybody in this pack of lemmings that has proven otherwise... Myself included. Well..."
He looked Ghoul over again.
"Maybe you. You've been fairly even-keeled (doesn't necessarily mean you're level headed), and you tend to act properly to the given situation. Heh, maybe I should be following your lead."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Ghoul snorted in amusement and rapped his head with his knuckles.
"This grey lump ain't leadership material at all," Ghoul said as he cracked a small grin. "I got Toy or Archie to do the heavy thinkin' for me. Best thing I do is smash the crap outta [censored]."
Giving the large dent in the wall a second look, Ghoul shot Martin another glance before talking again.
"But maybe that's your specialty too."
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Martin's eyes narrowed and he glanced around darkly.
"I've played that game already. Suffice it to say, I wasn't cut out for it, but there wasn't anybody else. Well, there was someone... But I haven't spoken to her in a while. A long while."
He turned and started scrabbling toward Bladewing again. There were maybe one or two piles left in the way. He didn't want to leap, he didn't want to wind up in the middle of another Clockwork swarm.
"We better get going... Lord knows what other surprises are waiting for us in this wasteland."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Dax sighed Always with the talky talky and dark pasts. They should fight and be happy they have the power that they can fight, I've seen enough people who can't get trampled and left behind.
"Come on guys, lets hurry up and get this over with, I'll treat everyone who gets outa this to drinks at the D. As for other surprises, it's been pretty boring so far. Surprises would be well welcomed." Dax said with exasperation bordering on depression.
He kicked a nearby stone across the cracked and damaged road into a pile of rubble and continued on his way.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Energon X listened to the grumbling with half an ear, then snorted. "If any of you have a better plan than 'follow the lizard', you probably should have spoken up back at the Vanguard dropsite." he snarked over the team channel.
"Bladewing, if you run into trouble, let us know... some of us are mobile enough to back you up in a matter of seconds. Of course, if you find out something we need to know, let us know as well."
The Blaster stopped talking and concentrated on keeping the fast-flying Soulhound in sight, noting with a certain amount of interest that it was headed in the direction that Bladewing had gone.
Odd... I wonder what made those clockwork parts form a circle around us, if not as a perimeter? This mission keeps sliding down the weirdness chute, no matter how boring the others might think it is. He froze for a second, techwings missing a beat as he performed the midair version of a startled stumble. A mortificator named Karl..? Could it be..? he thought agitatedly, thinking of the powerfully built figure with the coffin on his back. That coffin... the City Rep may be in more trouble than we originally thought. he considered grimly.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((O.O....why didnt I think of that, /em facepalm. Diov it looks like everything now rests with you, you and that big scary coffin.))
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
Dusan, having recently snatched back his communicator from Dennis, replied with a rather straightforward "Right." And sped off in the direction of the Soul Hound, nearly stumbling over a pot-hole in the process.
Wait a minute... aren't we going in the same direction as Bladewing?
-----
Dennis continued flying across the landscape, now only five or six feet away from Energon-X. Noticing blaster and recognizing him as one of the team members who had more of a level head, he decided to strike up a conversation, considering the trip would otherwise be boring.
"So..." He started, glancing in his direction. "What do you think about where we're going? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bladewing just recently went in this direction. In fact..." He said, pausing a moment and closing his eyes. "Yeah... I can even sense his soul over there."
Karl gawked at Bladewing.
"I'd feel a bit better about all of this if I had a few dozen or so Eidolons standing behind me...But I get the impression I don't have an actual choice here, no?"
"That would be correct sir, and by the look of things and the flying lizard that I see off to my left, my associates will be arriving shortly, and they are going to be Very interested in what you have to say regarding our target and hostage."
Bladewing glanced at the sewer access port and his eyes glowed black for a brief moment. When they faded back to their normal color, the bars of the grate glowed black, and gave a distinct feeling crushing blackness when looked at.
"I can't have you leaving before my team gets a chance to talk to you, now can I?"
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
The Watcher wasn't quite sure what to make of this. Still, he supposed he'd better keep trailing this thing, for better or worse.
Still, this was getting taxing, not the least reason being the sudden scatter of the group. Hadn't the idea been to let the tracker go ahead, then follow as a coordinated group to stave off assaults...?
--------------------
The Sword Operatives seemed to have given up on coordinating the pursuit before it had even started. That didn't necessarily mean they didn't care, however, just that people bounding off left and right with their superior travel abilities somewhat left them in the dust.
With a collective shrug, the duo entered their truck again, the vehicle giving a lurch forward as the Sorcerer released its brakes, engine roaring happily with the taking up of pursuit...
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
((Im gonna be semi-Incommunicado for about two days or so...roadtripping somewhere, will post if i get the chance, but otherwise have someone else interrogate...ah i mean talk with Karl.))
"You, dear sir, are a legend. "- nelly. "PIE DOESN'T HAVE TENTACLES!"
Bladewing Draconian lvl 30 KAT/SR scrapper
DarkNinjutsu lvl 50 DM/REG scrapper
Dajoji Hino lvl 50 elm/ela scrapper
Bloody Byakko lvl 20 claws/sr scrapper
((Uhm... as far as I've noticed, E-X suggested splitting into two groups, but that didn't actually happen- the group may have lost a bit of cohesion, but except for Bladewing, we all seem to be pretty much in the same area))
Energon X nodded to Dennis, being careful not to look at the phantasm. "Yes... Bladewing headed this way, so we should find Karl there as well. The Igor collective back there said that he had 'information' on the City Rep's whereabouts. I'm starting to wonder if he doesn't have a bit more than that."
He paused for a moment, then worked a shrug into his wingbeats. Politeness cost nothing, after all. "Apologies for my apparent rudeness. It is... somewhat painful... for me to look directly at you because of my specialized senses. You look like an animate Rorschach Test attempting to swallow a Jackson Pollock painting to me. Needless to say, it's rather disorienting."
The Soulhound began to bank downwards, and E-X accelerated to follow, black-white-and-gold armour glowing in the late afternoon sun, the lattices of the techwing antennae transformed into a blazing halo around him. He touched down lightly next to Bladewing, facing Karl, the drop into shadow transforming him from shining celestial apparition to high-tech hero. If he still had a mouth, he probably would have grinned... he suspected Karl would have preferred the celestial apparition.
"Karl." the Blaster purred neutrally, somehow managing to convey by that very neutrality that his temper was on a very short leash... in short, Karl was one wrong word away from a short, painful flying lesson. "You know what we want; we know what you want. Perhaps we can trade. Your information for a head start from us."
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((I know we're all in about the same area.
This is like that old comic's bit, where the players on the T-ball league team he coached would all just scramble as one mass for the ball.))
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
((considering that we as posters are wildly uncoordinated, coordination of our characters seems to be a bit unlikely- I've twice had Diov's posts turn my posts into gibberish now, because he posted at exactly the same time I did.))
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
((Hence me slowing down a bit.))
"Well I would think I could make everything much easier for myself if I just did this." Karl said.
He unstrapped his coffin, and flipped the lid, spilling its contents onto the ground.
Laying at Bladewing's feet was the mangled, dark, blood-stained, and quite obviously dead as a doornail body of Cohen the level 47 scrapper. The Soul Hound, however, tracked the City Representative to the body, where it halted. So either Cohen was really the City Rep, (HIGHLY unlikely) or something else was going on here.
Energon X stared at the dead body of Cohen for a long moment, his only movement a slightly worrying facial tic. Then he calmly held up a single finger as the hard blue glow that indicated either a massive nearby energy field or extreme emotions in the Blaster snapped into existence, scoring lines of destroyed matter into the ground as tendrils lapped out.
"Excuse me." he said, still with the same flat calm. "I'm feeling a decidedly strong need to rant right about now... would one of you mind keeping an eye on things while I do that?"
Then he put his fist through a foot-thick concrete wall. "[censored] brilliant irritating [censored] random plotting [censored] arrogant so-called [censored] supergenius [censored] freakjobs!" he yelled. "[censored] pathological need to prove themselves so [censored] much [censored] smarter than [censored] us!" He took a deep breath that had the voder/breathmask straining before uttering a few more (thankfully garbled) expletives about supersmart idiots who couldn't think in a straight line if their lives depended on it.
He hit the wall again (this time only making a four-foot across crater in it) then sagged for a moment, the blue glow fading slowly as he shook his head... at least, the hood moved- he was facing away from everyone. Turning back, he cleared his throat. "Please excuse me. Having to... deal... with the Vahzilok always leaves me somewhat tense, and dealing with yet another 'muwahaha, I'm going to blow up the world' nimrod who thinks he's clever only makes it worse." he commented blandly, with a sharp glance at Karl.
"Anyways... if his body is dead, why in the nine hells does he have any soul at all, much less that of Brighid Moreira?" He impatiently waved Dusan over. "You... cocky kid. You can do stuff with souls, right? Can you talk to this one, or otherwise access the information inside it? If you can, do it."
The blaster turned to the Sword Sorceror. "You! Zombie twin #1! Can you communicate with the lizard-thing on any fashion beyond "Go, hunt, kill Skuls"? And can you get it to follow back along the trail of a particular soul? If we can find out where this body's been, it'll be a start."
He shrugged and soared into the sky, antenna-wings spread wide and fixed, and began turning slowly, letting the sensor-crammed suit soak up the rich data of the environment while putting a call into his SERAPH science contact. "Hey Vern? Feeling up for some fieldwork? It looks like I may need to datadump sooner than I thought, and get some feedback. If you could wait for me at the Vanguard op site, I'd appreciate it- not sure how long this leg of the mission's gonna take." He listened for a moment, then nodded, closing the channel. Vern's good enough at what he does that if there's any scientific way to track this geek, he'll find it. He continued to rotate slowly, looking oddly like a huge radar antenna improbably stuck to the sky.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
Dax watched the boomer have an aparrent mental break for a few seconds Damnit! Every body's gotta steal my schtick. Well. . . .at least he didn't go nova and put us all through a wall.
"Two-to-One bet the guy pulled a bait and switch. Either his soul is in the city rep's body or we got someone a helluvalot more powerful on our hands than I was thinking," Dax held his chin in his right hand, "then again he coulda pulled the old 'Eat the magical text and become infinately more powerful than a mortal man' thing, or he coulda just decided to go for doughnuts. . . . actually I got nothin'."
Dax looked back at Karl, "So where'd you come across the body, had to clean out my closet awhile back and I'm looking for a few more skeletons to add to it."
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Martin Sanders crested the hill a moment later and stared in dismay at the body rolled out of the coffin. It was the broken remains of the man who kicked the tar out of Statesman.
"Damn, that sucks," he grunted as he started working his way down the rubble, "Well, better start asking the Vahz boss where he got the body from. Maybe get a feel of it when I get there..."
He stopped suddenly and blinked.
"Man, that doesn't sound right out of context."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Dax looked around at Martin as he heard the comment [ QUOTE ]
Maybe get a feel of it when I get there..."
[/ QUOTE ]
"Dude, thats just not right no matter how you say it."
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
E-X snorted, once, over the team channel, as he slowly regained his composure.
"Speaking of things that are 'wrong'... Dr. Frankenwannabe over here is obviously fairly good at telling when things are dead... how did ubergoon manage to kill Cohen? As far as I can tell at a glance, his mediport is still active. He should have 'poofed' out of here... it's not easy for magic to circumvent the mediporter; that's part of the reason I'm here, because superscience and magic play so badly together."
He glided down to rejoin the others. "I've got a friend of mine coming out this way- once he arrives in Boomtown, he'll be able to take a datadump of everything the sensors in this suit have recorded, and maybe do some analysis."
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"
The dark melee scrapper pushed past Karl and knelt next to the body. He nodded at Dax's comment.
"Well, here's the context," Martin said as he gripped the wrist of Cohen.
A shock went through him and he gritted his teeth as he felt what the body had been through. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, but it wasn't something he'd mastered, yet. Also, before, he could count on the "voice" in the back of his head to help sort it all out.
That wasn't going to happen here. He'd need to interpret the random images and events as they came to him.
He just hoped he'd be able to handle them.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Dax was wrong in his assumptions. Had he checked carefully, Cohen's soul was still anchored to his body, and it was clearly his and his alone. While it was obvious bringing the hero back to life at this point would be impossible, it would be more than easy to view the soul residue for memories. Communication would have been impossible, mainly because what was left of Cohen's soul was like a glass that had been thrown off the roof of a sky-scraper.
-----
Martin saw.
He didn't really like Cohen's memories very much. The scrapper was just way too STUPID. He rewound past the obviously non-related stuff.
Let's see...
Boomtown. It was easy to find this particular memory, mainly because Cohen had only ever been to Boomtown ONCE. He had not come back.
Mostly he had wandered around looking for Clockwork Princes. He had even seen Babbage. (but the monstrous machine had ignored him, and he had wisely chickened out from fighting it.)
Cohen had spent a few days in Boomtown when he met Karl in the Powderkeg.
Who had proceeded to stick a cleaver through his skull.
And that was the end of Cohen the level 47 scrapper's career, but not his memories. If Martin sifted through carefully enough, there was more.
Darkness. And the Cohen was free! Light!
Cohen shambled out of Karl's coffin and followed the Mortificator around for about a day, doing various menial tasks. Fetching him medical tools, beating up trolls and outcasts who got too close...It was obvious Karl had re-worked Cohen as an Eidolon or a particularly strong abomination.
About two weeks past that, the memories promptly ended again when Cohen was stuffed back into the coffin, which was opened exactly two hours later. But it hadn't been Karl who had opened it, because Karl was not a member of the Lost...
Then everything faded to darkness, and Martin found nothing more of interest within Cohen's double-dead body.
-----
Karl coughed politely.
"If I can have my hero corpse back, I would be very grateful. A new layer of skin, perhaps a few extra ribs, some Formaldehyde..."
"Were it not my job to help you, I should take severe offense at that." the Sword Sorcerer returned with an exasperated huff, "Besides, how should I know? I don't recall ever saying that we knew how the tracker did its job, did I...?"
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
"Well, don't help me or anything..." Martin grumbled as he picked himself out of the dent he just made, "I'm perfectly fine with bruised ribs and the like... Cripes... You nearly gave me a frickin' heart attack!"
He dropped to the ground and started making his way for Karl and Bladewing. However, he was not stupid. Just a little unlucky.
It was because of this lack of luck that he was scanning the nearby wreckage and the horizon for any signs of an ambush...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.