Fetzen
Frettzo
teenangstlife
Lord Zee
Neziul
Ariamis
rush99999
Simply Not Real
ShadowheartShields up!
words: 3,604 (+4 exp)
Edward Portsmith: Level 7 (18 cells) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (58/70)
Ganondorf: Level 8 (22/80) -> (26/80)
Roxas: Level 10 (82/100) -> (86/100)
Location Frozen highlands - The Midnight Walk
Barring an unfortunate run-in with a very big sea creature and getting into some trouble as a result (an event which prompted the last of the jellyfish like Puyomon hangers on in the process) Edward got the carriage through the icewater swamp without further incident. He had learned however that it would be best to keep it back while they cleared the way, rather than trying to move through areas of danger, lest, like with the laviathen, people try to use it for cover.
Flesh could be healed, and summons replaced, but they didn’t have time and space to repair the carriage if they wanted to keep moving all day.
With that in mind, when they moved offroad and headed for the Naytiba infested dam, he proceeded to park them for a bit while people cleared the way to it. As he did that, he sent his Bronze Golems ahead towards the dam to trigger any ambushes, while his scout drones too poke around a few structures on the way to it.
In one of these, he found a little workshop of relatively sporting a half constructed bolt repeater on its workbench. It also, on a table next to said bench, sported a book oddly stuffed with tools. One that gave Edward paused when he saw the cover, and one which prompted Edward to set out on his own to investigate
A few minutes later, Edward glanced up from the book as the rattle of gunfire sounded from both outside and very close, making him flinch, only for him to process that it was close to the golems he’d sent ahead, not to him. Still, while not lethal news, it was bad news, as he witnessed through their eyes as a trio of sentryborgs filled them with lead, having caught the golem squads in a deadly crossfire due to his inattentiveness.
The magical machines endured the infested one’s fire for some time thanks to their reinforced structure, but when a small group of droids also moved in to finish the droids, it was game over for the constructs.
An unfortunate loss, but an entirely replaceable one fortunately. Thanks to this new discovery, it seemed like he’d be able to replace it with something more suited for the task as well.
Edward hustled out of the little grotto and rejoined the convoy to report the poor news, and try to rustle up a solution.
”As you’ve likely just seen, there seems to be some constructs armed with rapidfire cannons covering the approach to the dam”
“Sentryborgs, probably" Adam informed them
”Three of them, to be exact, plus a number of blade armed humanoid machines loitering around the area”
“Droids”
”Right” Edward replied, before saying ”I have just rediscovered a suitable golem for enduring the approach and getting close, but they’ll need support to actually take down the threats” and then cracking open the Tome of Artificing and beginning to cast.
”For ages past, have the people have raised walls with which to hold back the dark
Some have called this cowardice, those who lack an inventive spark
So let them be awed, and the horrors tremble
When they behold what we can assemble
see now as the walls of civilization stride forth
Expand its domain, east, south, west and north
With shields raised high, no sorcery shall smite
Nor shall they fear any beast’s ferocious bite
From behind this bulwark, our guns shall sing
While they witness the power that we shall bring”
Once he had finished chanting, two new golem squads had formed. Armed with mighty tower shields, and enchanted with further resistance against non elemental damage, they would be a bulwark against the incoming gunfire.
Edward snapped shut the new tome with a satisfaction clack of metal and spark of magic, before setting about seeking out forces to hide behind these bulwarks.
”Ganondorf? Could you lend some of your goblin-esque summons to this effort? We’ll need shooters to take down the threats from behind these tower walls”
”Simple enough.” The Gerudo replied with a gruff voice of confirmation. With a wave of his hand and snap of his fingers he summoned a squad of five Moblin Archers, their quivers loaded with Fire Arrows. ”Will these suffice?” If needed he could also summon Phantom Ganon, but would need to wait for the thick of combat so as not to waste the one minute duration of the summon.
But someone else had overheard the conversation and decided to offer his two cents as well. ”Anything I can do?” Roxas offered, looking between the warlord and the tactician. ”I have a spell that can halve enemy damage and another one that buffs speed, if you can make use of them.”
”That would be a perfect addition” Edward replied at once, mentally adding up all the bonuses. With both warriors onboard, he was quite certain they’d be able to achieve victory.
Once they set out, they quickly got into sight of the structure from which Edward’s golems had been ambushed, and in doing so, got a better look at it. It wasn’t entirely clear what the structure had been for from the outside. Some sort of administration office of the damn, perhaps, Edward thought. Regardless, what it was now was a rudimentary pillarbox, one that sprung into motion as soon as they got eyes on it.
The three sentryborgs (one atop the left side of the roof, right of the roof above the door, and on the balcony) all opened fire at once, filling the air with the roar of machine fire.
In response, the six iron golems raised their shields in defence posture, both to block shots, and to form a protective aura around themselves, orange gold, flecked with blue. By overlapping their auras, and combining them with their own defense mode boats, the iron films gained a whapping 50% resistance to physical damage, and that was before their shields, reinforced structure, and general durability was taken into account. And there was Roxas, who cast a few Aeroga spells around on each of the Golems, giving them a swirling shield of wind that would further reduce incoming damage by half for the next 18 seconds. Behind them marched Ganondorf’s Moblins, keeping behind the defensive bulwark for now and awaiting orders to begin firing their shots.
Thus bolstered, the animated wall of metal began to advance up the road.
Fifty meters to go.
”We’ve got this, right?” Roxas asked as he kept pace with Ganondorf. As he asked, he was already spreading around Tailwinds to the Moblins and Golems. The speed buff was small and sometimes short-lived, but it was a spell he could repeatedly cast without spending any of his MP, meaning he could continuously reapply it as many times as necessary.
”Hmph, of course we do.” The warlord quickly answered with confidence. This wasn’t his first time commanding a unit, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last.
At twenty five meters, there came the first true hurdle. The hatches along the can shaped upper bodies of the sentryborgs opened up, disgorging three volleys of three small amber glowing missiles in a spread pattern each, threatening to at the very least stagger the advance of the golems. The shots were relatively slow however, offering a brief moment for interception, but also a risk of becoming exposed to fire in the process.
For this, Roxas decided to intervene directly. With a wave of his hand, he generated a small wall of virtual cubes in the line of fire to tank the missile shots. Being the same consistency as solid glass, the cubes cracked and even broke in places. But they still did their job to prevent a direct blast on the frontline golems. In addition, the wall wasn’t large enough to catch all the missiles, only two out of the three volleys. The third still managed to get through. But that was still an improvement over taking the full volleys, and the golems were slowed by merely a single step before they resumed their advance.
And then the Moblins peaked out from behind the Iron Golems and loosed Fire Arrows aimed at the sentryborgs as a reprisal. Most of the arrows struck cold steel, but one found a borg’s softer flesh, causing it to flinch in pain and preventing it from joining in when the other two opened fire again, letting the golems pick up the pace just a bit more. It looked like the bulwark was going to make it to the structure with mere chip damage thanks to the pair’s support.
At ten meters to go, the Naytibas within the building moved to intercept. A half dozen basic droids vaulted through the already shattered front windows, while a heavy droid, perhaps once a squad leader, exited through the door on the right.
The basic droids charged the front of the formation while the rooftop sentryborgs continued to fire over their heads. The heavy droid meanwhile moved to flank their right, and was joined in doing so by the balcony sentry borg after it leapt off its perch.
”Focus fire on the rooftop.” Ganondorf commanded the Moblins, his voice calm and confident. His minions responded with a little less calm and confidence, but dared to peek around the shields of the iron golems to pop arrows up at the technologically superior monsters. One got clipped by a shot in the process right out the gate, but the aura of their defenders prevented it from being lethal. Then the arrows of the four others flew forth, and though the armor and elevation prevented them from dealing that much damage it threw off the bot’s aim, and also set one on fire due to a lucky proc.
Just as Roxas had directly intervened a few meters ago, Ganondorf then decided to step in himself at this particular juncture. He broke from the formation to charge at the heavy droid and its borg partner, his Acidic Crystal Spear in hand. ”Hit me with a flame spell!” Ganondorf called back toward Roxas.
”You want me to do what?” Roxas called forward with confusion.
”Just do it!” Ganondorf assured the Nobody as he was about to intercept the incoming droid duo on their flank. His spear’s acidic quality would allow it to damage the droids’ armored bodies over time like it would for any foe wearing armor. But that wasn’t the strongest source of damage the warlord could produce by any stretch. And after using some sweeps of his spear head and pommeled shaft to clump as many droids as possible in front of him, Ganondorf felt it.
”Fire!” Roxas’ voice. The Keyblade Wielder’s Firaga spell surged forward from the tip of his summoned weapon and collided harmlessly into Ganondorf’s back. Then the Gerudo’s body flared up with a fiery aura that signified his Flash Fire was now active.
”Burn!” Ganondorf barked, breathing forth a sweeping line of firebreath in front of him before plunging his spear into the ground and summoning an eruption of flames from below. Both of these attacks were 50% more powerful due to his Flash Fire aura.
The man took several rounds to the chest for his effort as the borg paused its move to open fire on him, but slamming his blade into that put a stop to that, smashing it and the heavy droid together. Then the fire washed over them, superheating steel, frying circuits, and roasting the infecting flesh clean off of the metal frames.
After the fires parted, all that was left was ash and falling spirits.
Behind him one of the borgs on the roof redirected its attention, hatches opening up in preparation to bombard the now exposed Ganondorf with explosive devastation. As it did, however, a blood red aura surrounded it, and then a slug fired from down range slammed into it and also set the ground on fire beneath it.
Its source was Edward, who’d used all the distracting combat right in front of the sentry borgs to step around a corner far behind the battle lines, crouch down, line up a shot, and then let it fly with perfect precision without fear of being thrown off by gunfire. The shot borg reacted by jumping off of the roof and crashing down into the street a few meters up from where Ganondorf was. It turned to try and shoot him again, but all this had given the man plenty of time to react
The warlord lunged with his Acidic Crystal Spear, plunging it forward and impaling the borg before opening his mouth to spew another stream of fire breath to wash over it. As his breath attack ended, Ganondorf yanked his spear free and plunged it another three times in succession.
The other reacted by shooting at Edward, only to find the man wrapped in flames, sprinting towards it, and its shots to be eaten by that fire and for it to be set on fire in turn.
All this took the supporting gunfire off of the iron golem squad right as the regular drones charge ended with them slamming superheaded blades into raised iron shields, and finding that the magically hardened against physical damage barriers resisted their redhot weapons far more poorly than they had the gunfire.
Still, they’d attacked them head on while in defence mode, and so the golems withstood this just fine, before retaliating, swinging out with their maces, clobbering drones with a volley of blows. Solid hits, but nothing to write home about. The droids promptly spread out, trying to find a hole in the iron golem’s own defences, but to no avail. Them getting around them and coming to attack the Moblins and Roxas was the real threat, because the bashing of golem maces wasn’t going to dissuade them from doing so. Arrows a little more so, and one of the droids didn’t make it past the front line due to a combo of being blunged and shot by minions.
Thankfully they had Roxas in their midst. But unlike Ganondorf, who broke formation, Roxas stayed with the Golems and Moblins. His Keyblades were summoned and the Nobody was deliberately giving the droids a chance to close in a bit more around the bulwark. He had an idea in mind, inspired by the fact that these were mechanical opponents. ”Thunder!” He chanted, thrusting a Keyblade straight upward and calling down a concentrated cluster of lightning bolts with the unit at the center of the area of effect.
The Thundaga spell caught a few of the closest droids, frying circuits and leaving them stunned enough to cut through them with the energy blade of his StepSword or even blast them with a charged shot from his RockGun. And as for the droids that were outside of the Thundaga zone? That was about when Ganondorf reconnected with the unit after having burned away the borg and heavy droid. He came in with his Acidic Crystal Spear, using sweeps and swings to clump a couple of droids together before skewering them with a fiery forward plunge of his spear.
Next to him, Edward practically slammed into the back of an Iron golem, having not wanted to slow for even a second and to open himself up to gunfire. It immediately got pretty cramped back there, between the three men and the 5 moblins, but as soon as he’d gotten his footing Edward stepped to the side , swung his gun around, designated the sentryborg above them as target and then hammered it with a slug that also ignited the ground, and forced it to jump off the roof.
That left 2 remaining borgs, both suffering from burning and electrified dots, on ground level. Without any sense of self preservation however, they rushed the seeker's formation from both sides, tail mounted stingers raised with which they tried to slip between shields and skewer living prey. Those were a simple enough matter for Ganondorf, who swept over them with a third breath of fire from his mouth, still benefitting the Flash Fire Boost.
At this point, Roxas was almost out of MP. But since the wave had essentially been beaten, he figured it was safe to use the rest of it, ”Heal!” The Curaga spell washed over everyone, providing a good source of healing for anyone that needed it. It didn’t affect Ganondorf, of course, but it would affect the Golems and Moblins - and Edward too if he had joined the unit by now.
Unaffected by the Curaga, Ganondorf had no choice but to scarf down one of the two slabs of meat he had taken from the food court in Krat Zoo. The Gravemind’s spirit did nothing to make the meat not taste rotten, but it still allowed him to safely consume it in order to help regenerate some of the biomass lost from the shots he took during the skirmish.
One of the sentryborg’s stinger tails skewered the shot up moblin as they did this, but thanks to Roxas’ heal it didn’t succumb to the strike. The other four then paid the borg back for its attack, arrows thinking into it much more deeply at this close, and level, range. Indeed, one of those arrows struck a missile the sentry had intended to fire at Gandorf earlier, setting off a chain detonation that rattled up and down its can shaped head.
The got its tail slammed between the edges of a pair of iron golem shields as Edward commanded them to act faster, leaving it open to a beatdown as the second squad dropped their defensive posture and moved in to deliver a beatdown. Cudgels rose and fell with mechanical tirelessness, beating the trapped borg relentlessly.
The combination of these minion maulings and the dots took their toll, and by the time any of the people of flesh were ready to step in once more, it was already over. The two borgs were ash, and the approach to the dam was secured.
”My appreciation for your efforts gentleman. I shall leave the spoils to you, and get us moving on the double” Edward said, nodding to the spirits and building, before setting off at a sprint to get the stage coach moving once more.
After gathering all 10 spirits via the moblins, Roxas and Ganondorf also made their way back toward the stagecoach. And Ganondorf wasted no time once he was back. He ensured the Crown of Avarice was available for use and then crushed each of the spirits one by one.
What the spirits produced was a variety of materials and gear. The materials weren’t something Ganondorf or Roxas were familiar with, but assumed the Seekers would find some use for them. The deployable healing machine was something Ganondorf would have kept for himself if not for the Gravemind spirit rendering him immune to its effects. Roxas could have carried it but in the end reasoned that he could get by well enough with his Curaga spell.
One of the spirits also produced a deployable turret. Not something Ganondorf or Roxas would be proficient with but someone like Edward or Blazermate would certainly find a use for it. One of the objects was a cybernetic heart called a WB Pump. Apparently it could only be used by a technological entity, which narrowed the potential users to Blazermate and not many others. A shame, since the one-time revival effect would be something Ganondorf would have loved to have for himself. One item produced was a protective face helmet, not needed currently but could potentially be put to use at a later time.
And then there were the weapons. One of them was a rifle of some kind that Sandalphon would almost certainly appreciate having access to. And the other one was a katana, a bit too small of a blade for Ganondorf’s size, but Roxas could consider using it if he wanted to. The only thing that gave the Nobody pause was whether or not he’d actually need it in lieu of his Keyblades or StepSword. If nothing else, Hesimay or maybe Geralt would certainly want it if they offered it to one of them. For the time being, the two Seekers decided to keep the loot stored on the stagecoach so neither would have to tote around a bunch of extra gear.
All in all a good haul, on top of the way forward being cleared for the Sagecoach to progress.
