BCTheEntity

Into The Dark: Mercenaries (Heroes of Fame and Fortune)

It seemed like the others were doing what they'd been told to, then. If there were any more bandits here, they were either dead, or vanished. Almost a blessing, considering what would likely come next: it surely sounded like there was a ritual going on in the next room, and he wasn't willing to bet that it'd just be a second group of guards. Indeed, if he wanted to avoid worse injuries than he'd just received, he'd probably need to have more of a plan than "bumrush the targets". Though with that said, he'd often found that that had worked quite well in prior engagements... which was probably why he wasn't the leader in this situation. That, and...

But speaking of leaders, who better to think of a plan than Kayden himself? Nuva quietly asked him 'So do you have a plan in mind for this room, captain? As well as it worked last time, I can only imagine I'll get more damaged if I charge in again.'

Capes of Denver: A Worm RP

Alessa Heather: Streets of Denver

'You'll be alright,' Messiah promised, trying to sound as positive as she could to help ease off any further discomfort, accompanied by a bit of backrubbing with the hand that was previously on Ira's shoulder before it was eventually removed. 'You're a good shot with that gun, I think. Hey, if it makes you feel better, we could try discussing possible ability enhancements after the mission, eh?' Anything else she'd planned to say was interrupted by Tulpa's announcement that she could scout, with her ability that is... and then, a brief flash of light very similar to what had come before, in the elevator. Was that Tulpa's ability, then? Some sort of long-distance projection? It seemed like it, since she eventually came up with the suggestion that the thugs were armed with mostly melee weapons... and had half a dozen hostages or so. Shortly upped to eight by Sonar. Not a great situation, then.

Still, it seemed like Sonar, ever the consummate leader, had everything figured out already. Tulpa would manifest her projection as a distraction to the thugs; Martyr, Epsilon and Sonar himself would lead the charge against the small army; and Messiah and Margrave, alongside Tulpa herself, would be set as, essentially, backup guards, just in case any slipped by the main group or Tulpa's projection in an effort to escape the sewer system. Messiah half-wondered whether this was to keep them both out of the way - Tulpa was likely capable enough to keep herself reasonably safe, but if her power was in her projection, she would be comparatively squishy; Messiah's own potential lethality was directly mentioned, with regards to Eyeblight specifically, though it seemed more directed at Elliot than herself; and though Margrave was charged with keeping Messiah safe, and seemed confident enough in his ability to defend her, she admitted to herself that she was hard-pressed to think of any reasonable scenarios in which he would protect her better than she'd protect herself.

Though that hardly pardoned Dean's next comment. She knew the two capes didn't exactly get along, but it wasn't like Elliot's power was utterly useless! And on a mission, at that. Tight-lipped and frowning (though it wasn't exactly visible behind the light from her eyes), Messiah shook her head disapprovingly in Martyr's direction, not necessarily wanting to put him down more than was necessary for the time being. Epsilon, at least, put him straight on the topic of what Margrave could and could not convert into toy form. Sadly, that did exclude wheat, and never mind the Manton Effect on top of that. Which was a pity, since turning the scarecrow into, say, an action figure might have been particularly useful, if he started attacking assault team B after all.

Alessa was a bit surprised when Tulpa announced that she was "ready". Whatever that encompassed. So quickly, and what had she done to become "ready", after all? Perhaps something to do with the projection... Alessa hoped she'd get to see the projection in action. It seemed like an interesting ability.

With that in mind, it seemed like the only person left to comment on Sonar's strategy was herself. 'Well, it sounds like a solid plan to me,' she said confidently. 'I don't see why it shouldn't work as intended.' Not to jinx it or anything, she added quietly, though honestly, that sort of superstition was pretty backward in her mind. Unless some precognitive Thinker had gotten involved, she was sure there was nothing to worry about.

---

Raymond Haywood: Icehouse Hideout

Literally freezing cold to the touch. Raymond could only imagine, as he nodded to the target's assertion about his powers and flexed his now-cold hand, that the man might be particularly dangerous if he wasn't taken out immediately. He did, however, have a plan for that... though he'd need one or both knives to pull it off without deafening everybody in the room. If those failed to get through the target's armour, well, they might all be in trouble.

That said, Chatterbox really was good at keeping the victim occupied. Alas, Headhunter saw no opportunity in which he could safely draw his weapons and strike whilst they talked- mostly the one talking at the other, really- and by the time he did, the Broker had been brought into the equation. The target's positive emotions immediately gave way to negative, and Headhunter decided he'd wait just a little while longer to make his move, remaining relatively unbothered as the target turned to look at each other cape in turn. Finally, his situation clicked, and he turned to attack the Broker at point blank range.

And missed completely. Almost inconceivable, but Raymond wasn't about to question it. As the Broker grasped the target's hand, he knew now was about the time to do his thing; silently, he drew both his knives, flipping them so both blades pointed up, and began to tread quietly toward the restrained man, noting the Broker's suddenly aggressive manner. Not one to get on the wrong side of. Almost before his final sentence was completed, Headhunter lunged, slamming both blades point-first into the man's neck. Be it miracle or shoddy armour design, both weapons slammed hilt-deep through the target's neck, and he yanked both weapons round and back to practically decapitate the target outright, just short of severing the spinal cord. No risks needed to be taken, even if the cape seemed powerless in the Broker's grasp. For good measure, Headhunter wrenched the right hand knife free, only to impale some other points in the target's neck five more times in sequence, before finally pulling both weapons away and allowing the man to fall limp to the ground. KA-BAR knives, then: thirty centimeters of good combat steel, and seemingly more than sufficient to pierce light body armour, at least at the joints.

That said, he considered as he knelt down to wipe his blades clean on the target's clothing, perhaps for next time I ought to acquire a more powerful weapon. If this happened again, and the target was more heavily armoured, or worse a damage-resistant Brute... the end result would be rather bad, he imagined. Now, what would make for a good gun under those circumstances... a handgun, of course, it'd need to be very strong at short range, ideally a pistol rather than a revolver for ease of reloading... ah, that was a thought.

'I think, Broker,' Headhunter stated, returning the KA-BARs to their sheaths and standing upright, 'that I would like to commission you to acquire a gun for me, if it's not too forward of me to ask. IMI Desert Eagle, Mark XIX, chambered for the .50 Action Express cartridge, plus an appropriate sheath and at least seven clips of ammunition. Time is not necessarily an issue in this matter. I imagine the cost of doing so could be removed from my payment for the recent hit.' Asking others to acquire guns for him was certainly a rare thing, but since he would likely be sent out on a mission sooner rather than later, he supposed it would be an efficient way for the requisite gun to be acquired as soon as possible. And as had already been established, money was no object in this particular job.

A Tolkien based RP: Out of the Past

@Jbcool And let's hope Saptheth isn't about to get himself violently murdered for being kind of a dickhead about the King's honour.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Kafka Komedy At the moment, no, but I could probably get the game thread up by the end of the week, considering how much interest there's already been.

Into The Dark: Tales of Maroleth

'Ah, well now,' the priest chortled, continuing to eye up the seemingly-unaware guardsman, 'the elves have many mysterious magicks to hand! Perhaps they are godblessed, if they can create cities this beautiful. And I certainly wouldn't doubt that they could make these bags-' he lifted his own as an example. '-all but impervious to harm! As for the Guarden juice, well, I'm sure those fruits are considered quite valuable in their culture, but then why wouldn't they be, when-'

'So Settionne was it? I am very glad we have a thief in our party-'

Settionne's reaction to being called out was to blink, an indication of surprise that few would recognise for what it was, and then turn to the questioner with a steadily-intensifying look halfway between shock and offense as the man continued to talk: '-what manner of thievery is your specialty? We all really should know each other’s strengths before we face our foes don’t you think?' Many other men would be at an impasse at this stage; fortunately, Sett the Inconsiderate had an alibi... or half of one, which he could build up to...

'Sssir!' Settionne exclaimed in a relatively soft yet notably outraged voice, sure to draw just enough attention to be interesting. 'How could you accuse me of such low standards? I'll have you know, since you've asked,' he continued, raising a finger as if to further make a point, 'that I am a priest of the gods!' A specific god, but he didn't need to know that. 'They command me, and I obey their will. That is all there is to it! Honestly, you'd think the world's faith was vanishing with how few people recognise a holy man when they see one... and you haven't even taken the time to introduce yourself to me, either. Goodness gracious.' If all went well, this individual would now be marked out in people's heads as somebody to watch out for, which in turn would draw attention away from Sett's proper calling. He hadn't planned on doing so to begin with, but perhaps he might bless the others in the group as well, to prove a point.

@POOHEAD189@The ZAX@The Fated Fallen@Fetzen@Lacks

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Ghost Queen Like I said, each race likely has multiple factions that may or may not be interested in co-operating with one another. It's not entirely infeasible that there could be a breakoff faction from any given race, possibly multiple races, who wants to work with one or more of the others; considering the conditions, however, any groups they made offers to would need to be pretty open-minded to accept as friends members of one of those other races.

@Dusksong Definitely. Welcome aboard.

Incidentally, I unintentionally lied earlier about how other races were liable to fight each other at first sight, as there are certainly groups within any given faction who, for instance, want to sell to other factions, or want to study the lifestyles of those other factions, and so on and so forth. Husks less so, in both directions, but even then...

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Ghost Queen
1. Aside from the obvious baseline of normal humans, some chimeras might be more inclined to avoid contact with others by their DNA, though possibly unlikely to leave their respective societies entirely on account of human needs and all, whilst others may be even less inclined to become hermits than normal humans through the same genetic inclinations, and let's not get started on what happens when those desires conflict. The "average" is probably similar to humans, though since it varies so wildly based on the DNA you're infused with, you'd probably end up with a situation like this if you tried to average it out across all chimeras. Draconids probably share hermitage rates with humans due to various factors balancing themselves out in their race, whilst Husks don't become hermits. Their expansion is too important for any member to not help expand Husk borders.

2. Humans breed at human speed. Chimeras breed at speeds appropriate for the midpoint between the animals that are part of their DNA, including humans... so, I dunno, an animal that goes into heat on particular schedules may become more fertile at certain points in the year without losing fertility entirely in the rest of it. Draconids breed pretty slowly, with part of the reason behind that being meta-balancing, and also because dragons were likely very slow breeders, which would be sped up but not negated by the human portion of their DNA. And Husks... well, the thing about Husks is that whatever genital structure they had prior to resurrection is long gone. Nowadays, they "breed" by basically injecting the necrotic goo inside them into an intact corpse, transforming its body massively and resurrecting it as a new Husk, complete with appropriate powers based on the host body, after a period of "incubation". So, they get new members basically as fast as they can find corpses, and since killing people is the quickest way of acquiring new corpses, they basically breed as fast as they can kill. Hence why they're so potentially threatening to the other three factions, as you can imagine a zombie pre-apocalypse would be.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@Ghost Queen For most mages, that's true, with probably 90% of mages having enough power or less than what you'd need to destroy a building through brute force. Sometimes, you'll get a lucky mage who can collapse multiple buildings, heading up to more than one street's worth of buildings per "full charge", though that's starting to get into "you're likely to inconvenience yourself to some extent to do this" territory. And that goes up the scale, until you get the prodigies who can at full power nuke cities, though they'll probably nuke themselves in doing so, never mind the efficiency limitations for more practical uses of that much power. And don't worry, your questions are fine. I encourage them.

Hybrid: Of Transhumans and Modern Magic

@LancerOfBlue Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this. That all looks good, I think.

@Hailfire Glad you like the setting. As far as PvP goes, it'll likely depend on how frequently players from opposing factions meet up with one another, given that every race is fighting with every other race, and there will certainly be battles against NPCs. As for powergaming, Solaris and I are good at catching that sort of person. We'll keep a handle on it.

@Ghost Queen First of all, chimeras and Draconids are both "mutants". In fact, Draconids are stronger still than most normal chimeras, as a result of dragons being exceptionally powerful compared to basically any modern creature (whilst they were alive), though as far as actual power goes, strength alone likely keeps both groups at about street tier. Spiderman's probably a bit strong as far as actual power goes - he's generally accepted as being at the highest echelons of street tier characters - but his powerset is roughly accurate to what some chimeras might end up with, with wallclimbing and webflinging in particular probably being biomods. Humans are just normal humans, similar to the real world, but have the cybernetics to keep up with chimeras and Draconids, and the Husks are probably on the level of chimeras as far as physical strength and ability goes, plus the advantages of being essentially zombified carapaces. Secondly, since the war started comparatively recently, all non-Husk sides probably have similar degrees of tech to one another regardless of how quickly they've been advancing in any given field, though all sides probably do have enough scientists to keep up with one another anyway.

Into The Dark: Mercenaries (Heroes of Fame and Fortune)

@POOHEAD189 I'm definitely still interested.