Sundered Echo

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

The current deployments of the Siege Engineer Corps puts about 80% of them in the tunnel reinforcing it for permanent use.

There are about ten percent of them in the armies rearguard - they aren't really in demand for this assault, and are more likely to get deployed with their weapons on the walls once the city is taken. I don't fancy figuring an exact number of men, but I'd say there were about 200 well supplied siege engines with their crews backing the army right now, though these have not been deployed into combat.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

On the crossing the lake (now inland sea) thing, they could well just cross the edge of it, such that they still get across it in a reasonable time frame.

Also, new lore.

Kalesian Siege Engineer Corps

The Siege Engineer Corps in the Imperial military is a small and oft-overlooked section, whose importance to the Kalesian war-machine is smaller than most similar groups in respective militaries across the world. From the very beginning the engineer corps has had to deal with the overshadowing influence of the battle-evokers that are employed on the front lines of the Empire, as well as the brutal effectiveness of the Kal beast. These factors combined with the militaries policy of preserving enemy infrastructure as much as possible have forced the siege engineers into a very much supportive role.

The siege engineer corps is responsible for several things in the war effort, first and foremost being tunneling. The excavation techniques used by the engineer corps are far beyond any other country, and on the rare occasion that the Kalesians need to bring down an enemy wall they will turn not to the catapult and trebuchets that usually typify such a task, but rather the quick but careful digging of a tunnel under the wall, followed by its rapid collapse, bringing whole sections of wall down without any obvious attack being made. Perhaps the most ambitious application of this skill, however, has been the recent bypassing of a mountain range, allowing a surprise of attack of unprecedented effectiveness on the Othean capital Amaryth. The task combined the skills of the Engineers and several Evokers, the Evokers doing the majority of the actual digging while the Engineers directed them and reinforced the tunnel behind them. It is considered the crowning achievement of the engineer corps to this day, and even now a sizeable portion of the corps is engaged in efforts to turn the tunnel into a permanent passage between the Empire and Othea.

When the engineering corps is called to participate in direct battle, they employ expertly crafted ballistae that incorporate elevation control and the capacity to launch both long impaling spears and moderately sized rocks, all on a quickly set up platform. These weapons are not particularly effective against walls, but the engineers make use of range finding equipment to ensure they are at least fairly accurate.

As well as this, they have a variety of payloads to maximise the effect they can have on an enemy army. As well as the plentiful rocks and spears, they employ shot containing volatile oils to create firebombs, as well as thick flasks containing flesh searing acid extracted from a particularly deadly giant snake found only in the southern reaches of the Empire. Tests with more exotic compounds have always resulted in disaster however, and while the corps is always on the lookout for another edge to match evokers, they avoid anything even remotely unstable or dangerous to their skilled personnel. Better to use safe and reliable methods than have to spend years training more men. Any research into the field of explosives has been abandoned due to being too dangerous.

The members of the Siege Engineer Corps tend to be highly motivated over-achievers - a direct result of fulfilling such a marginalised position in the military. They force themselves to succeed as spectacularly as possible in an effort to match or exceed the results the battle evokers tend to attain with what they perceive to be ‘incredibly lazy methods.’

NPCs

Name: Lord Dorian Sorus-Vecusa
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Rank: Commander
Known: Personal friend of Alessia. Career military man, believes in the Empire. In charge of the rear-guard of the current army.

Name: Lord Valerian Kroseus
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Known: Intended Kalesian Governor of the new Imperial City Amaryth.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

So are you wanting to collab then Bing? Or just have some troops available to do with as you will in your next post?

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

I can have a Kalesian Commander send troops out there if you'd like.

Empress knows I need more chances to interact with actual players...

---

Peninsula-ception.

Mass Effect: Wanted

Surprise! I'm still here!

With explosives and everything.

Mass Effect: Wanted

The plan was going reasonably well so far. Jaerdi and Mark had entered the precinct with relative ease and accomplished their objective (of course, Jaerdi always accomplished the task he was being payed for). Jaerdi also accomplished his own objective - hacking into the C-Pat system and installing a worm that would systematically remove him from the systems before deleting itself. He hadn’t designed this program himself, he wasn’t really that kind of engineer, especially when he had the capital to get other people to do it for him. In fact it was all going rather too well for his liking.

No sooner had he finished that thought, than a far off blast could be heard from the direction of the administrators office. He quickly checked his omni tool for the status of his fellow team-members. Sleuth’s vitals were in a bad way. Normally Jaerdi’s instinct at this point would be to get away from the witless police force while that was still an easy task, but as much as it pained him to admit it, Sleuth was probably worth some daring heroics to at least attempt to save. Unlike the Quarians, Sleuth was a definite asset to the team and Jaerdi was not in the business of wasting good assets.

Of course he would also make sure to swing everything significantly in his favour before doing anything actually dangerous. His contract said ‘by any means necessary’ after all.

Tapping into the C-sec system once again, he located the squad that was attacking the office. Once he had typed a message into his omni-tools voice synthesiser, he thumbed through the list of voices he had on file. He initially thought of ‘soon-to-be-broke Volus,’ but went past that one when he realised the administrator was not really in a position to be giving orders. From there the next one down was conveniently ‘angry Batarian boss.’ While he didn’t know if the troops boss really was Batarian, it was likely enough that he went for it. The message was simply telling the troops to capture their targets alive rather than kill them, all delivered in a delightfully furious Batarian drawl. Whether it worked or not, it would at least confuse them for a short time.

With that, he took his Locust SMG in both hands, stood straight and in his best impression of a staunch Salarian infantrymans voice exclaimed “Time to hold the Line!”

It didn’t take him long to reach the scene of the battle. He was swift on his feet when he needed to be, one of the advantages of wearing nothing but a stylish suit. Leaping into cover before he was seen, he poked the tip of his omni tool out from behind the wall to observe the troops. The Quarians were giving a good accounting of themselves, all things considered. Not enough to win on their own of course, but they’d definitely slowed the killing momentum of the C-pat troops. His position behind the frontal assault focused group allowed him the perfect chance to deal some serious damage. He attached his gun to his belt for a moment, though didn’t shrink it, and pulled two fat, disc shaped objects out, one in each hand. Fusion grenades.

In one fluid motion, he swung around from his cover and flung first one grenade - frisby style, into the furthest cluster of troops, then the other, an underhanded throw into the closest pair of soldiers. Rather than bouncing, the Grenades stuck at the locations they first landed. Once back in cover, he yelled out “Depp fried cops coming right up!” and tapped the button to detonate the grenades. A throaty roar erupted from around the corner, a ruddy red glow visible from the corner of his eye. What fusion grenades lacked in radius, they made up in sheer capacity to erase things from existence. When Jaerdi poked his omni tool around the corner this time, he noticed three less C-pat men, with the survivors all in varying states of singed but alive and capable, all moving to adapt to his position. That was unfortunate, he had managed to encounter some actual effective C-pat troops. This is why he usually left well before cops arrived. Worse, Sleuths vitals had flatlined in the time it had all taken. Keying his coms to the Quarian pair, he spoke quickly “I think we’ve held the line enough today. Time to go, before they recover!”

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

Since Alessia will most likely be directing the Kalesian siege engines (when they arrive) I might do a short lore segment detailing that part of the army and figure out some numbers for how many we will have at Amaryth (arriving with the rearguard, since we're trying to take the city intact).

Mass Effect: Underworld

Rare said
Where is everyone?

Good question.

Some of you I talk to on a regular basis, but an update on where you guys are all at for this RP in particular would still be nice.

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

Well I'm definitely sticking around. Spent enough time on Alessia that disappearing would be highly wasteful...

The Relics (No Plot/Fantasy/Character Driven/Worthy of Skepticism)

There, posted the collab with Ellri and I.