Event #002: Training in High Rise Village, Pt II

[magisteriamods]

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Event Two: Wreckage Intensifies

Note: This event will double as a TDM! Characters are now up to 30-35% of canon powers. That's going by a metric of fairly OP characters. If one is unsure about whether a particular power would transfer to the game, feel free to ask a mod!

For new players/characters: the tech and magic from the first event can be acquired by working with fellow PCs! New players are encouraged to look at the previous event (tho this one will be a bit simpler), the coffee shop mingle, and, possibly, the High Risk Quest. It can now be assumed that techies have the tech from the High Risk Quest.

For in-game powers, techies and magic users who have been in the game for a while can fast-track some power transfer to the newbies. For the magic users, this is particularly true of those who helped take the runes of water/fire respectively. Tech users can handwave various abilities related to their implant or enhanced tech state. Both sides can use their Synthesis power creation hack. If new players have any questions about how to get involved, or if anyone has any questions about the event or world lore (it's a lot!), feel free to ask mod below.

*Characters who pursued the animal speech blessing on the TDM can go ahead and utilize that for this event!

I. Outside the Symbiotic Skyscraper

Rosalind: “Vile android woman,” huh? ... tho it does sound kinda bad-ass.

Well, we got a pretty big clue. They’re after technology that melds the biological and the artificial. Even the Otherworlders with their powers have to acknowledge that our city’s abilities in this domain are superlative.

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Avenaticus: Presently, High Rise Village is being scoured. Disruption-centric technology is to be removed and disposed of.

The problem has been the pre-emptive location of such technology. Even after analyzing the scripts and building countermeasures, the digital signatures have changed. It is virus-like behavior – a modification from our friends, no doubt.

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Rosalind: So put simply, we’re still vulnerable to sudden activations of disruptive technology. You guys should have the resources to put down this sort of thing by now, but we need to get focused on preventing such incidents in the first place. That’s what we’re going to be working on, going forwards.

II. The Symbiotic Skyscraper

This facility is run by another android, Avenaticus [above]. Its exact purpose is opaque to outsiders, except that research seems to occur here. The research involves the tech fauna. The level of weaponry attached to this particular group of tech fauna also stirs rumors of involvement/cooperation with the military.

Once again, another disruptive incident is in progress. Fortunately, Otherworlders now have the means to disable the disruption tech.

Today, Otherworlders are tasked with making their way through the skyscraper and finding the control nodes with the hostile technology so as to then disable them. The main obstacle is the tech fauna themselves

Tech Fauna: Chonkers Edition

Scanning the tech chonkers with the aXess Link will give names, usually combinations of animal names with letters and numbers. For example, one might be 12-XA Bear.

Boss-Tier Tech Chonkers

Bonus: WTF-its!

Objective: Get past the tech fauna and find the nodes causing the feral/disruptive behavior to disable them. It's fine to get rough with the tech fauna; assume they have pretty high mechanical regen.

[ Feel free to propose names for the fauna. Some might even become game canon names. Tbh, I just don't feel up to assigning them all names, but you guys can go wild. ]

III. Magic Training: Whisperwind Alley and Glimmergrove

Obstacles: Wind Colossi and Glimmergrove Creatures

Pictured: Tree spirits, wildlife spirits, great amphibians, Earth elementals, and Rose Whips.

All these creatures can be challenged directly. Some may be appeased in other ways than through combat, but all are applicable for PVE. As this is a training event, it's expected Otherworlders won't engage in fatal combat, but then, these are all pretty sturdy entities in any case.

Objective: Acquire the two runes!

Comments

[lightduties]

[Rhea'li's happy to help Lucy; she had helped him before and while he doesn't know much about Lucy yet, but its quite apparent to him that she's much more at home with technology than he is. That's fine. Fighting is what he's good at so he's more than happy to keep watch while she gets to work.

Since the last time they met, his control over his Bursterfly is much more natural; with the cyberseed it's just like controlling one of his magical constructs. But while he can feel that more of his magic is usable compared to when he first arrived, he's largely kept to using the weapons of this unknown land, such as the energy rifle in his hands.

His ear twitches at the sound.]

Understood.

[As the scrape of metal draws closer, Rhea'li silently commands his Bursterfly to take flight. He's making an educated guess as to where exactly the creature is based on sound, but he'd much rather draw it out into the open than to wait for an attack. Hells, scaring it off is a perfectly viable option, too. And with a flutter of its wings, his Bursterfly suddenly lets out a sudden beam of blinding light, intent on flooding the visual sensors of the unknown creature.]

NOT PIKA BOT, BUT EVEN BETTER

[lunardreaming]

[ Lucy's own Bursterfly is sitting on her shoulder, slowly cycling through various purple hues. When Rhea'li's takes off, her own follows -- she really needs to give this thing a name, actually, she'll have to think of one -- flying in circles above.

It'd be hard to miss the flood of light, but she doesn't let that distract her. Taking down the node isn't overly complicated, just time consuming. There's a ton of firewalls she has to break through. But she risks a glance over her shoulder, only to see--

A dog-sized robot scampering out into the light. Lucy's work come to a pause as she stares at the tech fauna, baffled. That's not weird and scary at all? Or at least, it doesn't seem weird and scary, but as it yips and starts barreling toward Rhea'li with an intent look, it does suddenly seem capable of taking out some legs. ]

AWWW I love Eevee-bot ♥

[lightduties]

[Rhea'li's own Bursterfly lacks a name, too; he sees no reason to give a name to something that is simply a tool.

Rhea'li's brow furrows as he sees the mechanical creature that scampers into view. On the one hand, it looks rather small and cute. On the other hand, he knows better than to underestimate something just because it is small and cute. And he sure isn't about to stand there and let a fast-moving creature made of metal take out his legs like a warrior's axe to the back of the knees.

He waits until the last moment before darting out of the way, reaching for his spellbook; shooting a fast moving metal mutt with his energy rifle in this enclosed space seems like a bad idea. So instead, if the creature makes another go at him (or Lucy), a small magical construct of roughly the same size will put itself in the robot's way, using its stubby rock arms to try and hold it in place.]

[lunardreaming]

[ Glancing back over her shoulder, Lucy's eyebrows raise at the sight of the little stone creature. She hadn't seen it accompanying Rhea'li on the way here, so he must have... built it? Summoned it? She doesn't know what the terminology is. The weirdly cute dog-fox-thing bot is struggling, but seems to be held in place for now, so Lucy goes back to work. ]

Whatever you're doing it, keep it up. If we don't want to kill it, I can knock it out after I'm done with the node.

[ Or maybe Rhea'li can, if he's got any access to electricity magic. ]

[lightduties]

[Unfortunately, electricity is one of elements he doesn't know any spells for. It certainly would come in handy whenever he encounters mechanical beings with weaknesses to electricity (i.e. all of them). It's an unfortunate oversight, really. And he's going to do absolutely nothing to correct that weakness.

His rocky construct, Titan-egi, holds the struggling mechanical creature without any kind of emotion.]

Knocking it out seems for the best, cute as it is.

[A pause as he peers at it, scanning it with the aXess device and reading over the description.]

The scanner indicates this creature is an Eev-33. Supposedly it can change shape when exposed to different stimuli...

[lunardreaming]

Really.

[ It comes out flat, but Lucy actually is kind of interested. A robot that can change shape when exposed to different stimuli? She's never heard of anything like that; it sounds pretty cool.

But she's trying not to get distracted from her work, so she refocuses. Doubles down, engaged her cyberdeck a little harder. Eyes lighting up orange with the hack-work, Lucy's world narrows down to code and numbers. She's close enough to shutting down the node, and once they get enough of them, the disruption will end, and the tech-fauna here won't be coming after their asses anymore.

A minute more, and it's done. The screens go dark. ]

Node's down. Any changes to the robot?

[lightduties]

[Rhea'li can't help but watch Lucy at work with some interest; though his homeland has a decidedly magical bent and the technology that exists is almost indistinguishable from magic in many ways, it's nothing like the way people can interface with the systems here.

He glances down at the Eev-33 held in his Titan-egi's stubby little arms. Unfortunately, it still appears to be struggling to escape, still caught in under the disruption's thrall.]

Nay. If we are to proceed without hassle, it would be best if you knocked it out.

[If these creatures are effectively mechanical versions of the biological creatures he's much more familiar with, then he's loath to kill it unnecessarily. But they've a job to do and they can't have this little robot dogging their steps, as cute as it is.]

[lunardreaming]

[ Lucy nods, and with a thought, she dives into the robot's coding. Just a surface level scan, not deep enough to render her immobile, but just enough that she can grab the thing's programming, give it a quick yank, and overload its electrical circuits.

It yelps, flickers with electricity-- and then ripples, its metal plating turning a bright yellow, a ruff flaring up around its neck, ears elongating. And then it topples over, unconscious.

Lucy blinks. ]

Now I kinda feel bad.

[ She steps closer, crouching down to examine the bot. She gives Rhea'li little elemental a curious glance, and restrains the urge to poke it. ]

I guess that's one of the different stimuli you mentioned. Huh.

[lightduties]

[Fascinating. Rhea'li watches the mechanical creature's shape change from the electricity in rapt attention. Would it be able to revert back to its original form later? Something to research later, mayhaps.

He doesn't approach it, instead keeping attention outwards in case other mechanical creatures find them and are looking for a fight.]

Let us press on before it wakes.

[A pause as he considers Lucy's understated interest in it.]

Once our work here is done we can come back and check on it, if you'd like.

[lunardreaming]

[ Abruptly, Lucy realizes she's been caught caring about something. She's not a fan of that. So she stands, makes an expression like she's rolling her eyes without actually doing it, and says: ]

No point. It's just a bot.

[ She doesn't give it a second glance as she moves away, looking upward at the ceiling as she studies the blueprint file she'd snagged. The rest of the nodes are easy enough to see in the overlay on her vision. ]

Come on. Next node's two stories up and on the other side of the building.