Terminal

The Final Hazard

He wills one of the small rubber balls in his pouches to appear outside said pouch and shoot at the knight, that would be a nice nuisance for him.

@Cruallassar

...But nothing happened.

In a quick frenzy of movement, his fingers reach out and tap the keys as fast as he could, just in case the knight wasn't bluffing.
"Shield Entity VII from harm"

@Cruallassar

>Entity VII [4167067] Kael Arvindr marked invulnerable.

"Bluffing is boring anyway. How well does he play chicken?" The pavise knight quipped to the empty vacuum again as he swerved through the air to Kael's right a scant three meters from the machine, his pavise still raised in protection. With a metallic twang, his crossbow fired the cylinder-tipped bolt loaded in its till at Kael.

Kael had plenty of forewarning of the attack - from the predictable trajectory of the knight's gliding motion through the void to the verbal challenge immediately prior, and being able to see the crossbow fire. He could easily dodge out of the way.

...Which would take him out of reach of the keyboard. The pavise knight was close. What might happen if he reached the keyboard himself?

On the other hand, the computer screen's readout was telling Kael that he had been marked as invulnerable. Did he even really have to dodge the crossbow bolt...?

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael moves himself over to face the keys on the machine, typing out the word "reset" on them to see what happens. Then the explosion sounds and he twists around to view the last of his comrades...and the erstwhile murderer...expire. Lovely. So much for saving anyone else then. "You know, this situation might seem a hell of a lot more hopeless if you were doing less trying to kill everyone and convincing everyone of the fact. As it is, I'm inclined to disbelieve you." He notes the detachment of the knight's shield...interesting. So he was still vulnerable to the metal bolts. Kael wills the knight's crossbow to explode as an afterthought as he hastily returns his gaze to the machine's screen.

@Cruallassar

>Resetting all valid entities.

Just as the knight's bolt exploded in an iridescent flash of light, the command Kael had entered in the machine took grasp of what little was left of the world and reshaped it.

Kael found himself without the accouterments he had picked up since arriving in the limousine, and all that he had arrived with had been restored - and the Knight was suddenly standing tall in the dark pitch of the world, with a new pavise strapped to his left arm. His crossbow was raised, a new cylinder-tipped bolt placed neatly in its till as though nothing had happened.

Kael immediately noticed - he could no longer see the conduits that bound the machine and the knight together, nor the strange internal passage through space within the machine's interior. His sight had gone.

The pavise knight shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"If he touches the keyboard again I'll just shoot the Allineator." He called out again, floating off to the side of the machine in order to get a clear shot off again at Kael, his pavise raised in anticipation of another attack.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

I'm not sure why that final act of violence was necessary, but fine, Andy is dead.

Which does bring a question to mind. @Terminal, when a character dies in an iteration, can that character be used again in another iteration or not?

<Snipped quote by shylarah>
I thought that was the goal as well, but people are free to play how they want it. The RP would have been more fun and probably survivable for more if we all would have worked together to defeat the enemies and find a way out. Especially since the RP is not a 'the last man standing will win' kind of RP, at least that's not the impression the parameters of the final hazard gave me.

@WiseDragonGirl

You are free to reuse the character if you see fit.

I will also say your impressions are correct. Keep in mind that this ultimately boils down to all of you versus me, after a fashion. That said, you are also all free to roleplay however you like.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

Roster updated.

The Final Hazard

Kael hastily examines the machine in front of him, looking for controls or other devices that might suggest a reset command.

@Cruallassar

Set into the face of the sixth stone slab from the bottom of the cairn was a computer screen gilded in brass, with a pewter case seated within the monolith's body. A fine mechanical keyboard with extremely robust but ornate pewter keys with pearl-coated surfaces and emerald typeface extended from below it. The computer's readout currently was not displaying anything helpful - nearly all of the text, if it could even be called that, was completely illegible, save for a single repeating line that reappeared at the bottom of the screen every few moments only to rapidly scroll upwards and vanish at the top.

>Current Allineation Target Lost.

As he moved he took one of the field triage kits from the backpack and hurled it at the pavise knight. It probably was one of the worst distractions he could come up with, but maybe it would help.

@WiseDragonGirl

Anybody and anything within twenty meters was essentially fucked.

@Doc Doctor

The field triage kit was sent flying as a shard of Donny slashed across its surface, sending it flying through the bleak emptiness. The knight raised their pavise, several metal-coated fragments smacking into it and losing most of their momentum, drifting eerily in place. After several moments he lowered the pavise, and without even looking at the surface - now covered in rapidly spreading metal, releasing a keening, screeching sound akin to metal being compacted and sheared - pressed some control on its inner surface, causing the clasps to release from his arms and send it drifting as well. He then set his sights to look for Andreas in order to determine if the doctor had survived Donny's final act of violence.

"Does it look like there is any method of escape here anymore?" He said again, though as before the comment did not seem directed at either Kael or Andreas. "It is hopeless."

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@Terminal
Might I inquire as to the fate of the crossbow bolt that was redirected back at the Pavise Knight?

@Cruallassar

Check the post.

The Final Hazard

He willed a slug to form very closely around the Pavise Knight...the same as the slug that they had had such a dangerous ride in, which had claimed the lives of three people.

@Cruallassar

The dark air wavered very briefly as something began to form - just for long enough to send the deflected bolt spiraling away into the void at great force - but then settled as whatever effect had been about to manifest faltered and vanished.

"Why are you even fighting back?" The pavise knight called out to the endless pitch void as he calmly and methodically reloaded his crossbow with another cylinder-tipped arrow, having fully set his left arm into the straps of his pavise. "This world is far too broken for anything worthwhile to be learned now, especially after killing your main source of information. You should just let them die. I do not promise their deaths will be painless - but they will be quick."

Kael seemed to be in control and Andy decided he would go over to him and see if he could help him with the device, but not before he knew what Donny's fate was.

@WiseDragonGirl

@Doc Doctor
In that single moment of eternity as the bolts materialized from thin air, Donny was very briefly entertained by a curious, foreign thought.

'You seem out of sorts. A little stuck, unsure and therefore unwilling to proceed. I can sympathize - but this world cannot get anymore broken.

I will ask you one question - what do you want? I am not talking to you, Donny-boy. I am talking to you.

Deliver an interesting answer and there may be a way out for you - although, naturally, your own situation is still yours to escape from. I refuse to clean up your mess.'

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

@Terminal

I'm going to wait and see how you interpret the goings on before posting. Whatever you say happens, happens!

@Doc Doctor

The bolts were successfully moved, but it is not yet any of my business as to whether or not they make contact with Donny. That would seem to be an issue to be decided by you alone. Do let me know if any kind of contact with the business-ends of the bolts should occur though, and I will take it from there.

Roster updated.

The Final Hazard

With one final leap from a mount granted to him by the Goddesses themselves, Fortune De Vigny's final words as his divine lance made contact with daemonic flesh and both he and the foul creature itself were consumed by an explosion of pure, heavenly light were "FOR BRETONNIA!"

He would never be seen again.

@Bright_Ops

Neither would Leona.

Perhaps her form had simply not been as intimidating as it seemed. Perhaps whatever power it had afforded her had not yet been fully developed. Perhaps she had been specially vulnerable to whatever magic Fortune had sacrificed his life to employ.

Whatever the case had been however, naught remained once Fortune departed in his final blaze of glory - not so much as a scrap of golden hair from her hide.

Kael's next action would be to use his Ethereal Sight...it would work, because he willed it.

@Cruallassar

His first action to will the three bolts now surrounding Donny into place took but an instant, a simplicity too mundane to require more than an errant thought to arrange in this suggestion of a world. When he turned to his own ethereal sight however...

He saw nothing.

There was no magic, anywhere. Unlike before, it was not as if magic had once been but had died. Now it was simply that magic had never existed; as if what had been before had been a mere illusion. The only trace of it he could find was spilled like ink in water from his own eyes.

Of course, his sight did reveal something that had been hidden before - it did not seem magical, quite - as still could not even properly see it, per-se. Yet, Kael could somehow tell that now, there were connections of a kind, all surrounding the machine left in the darkness. Perhaps due to his willing his own sight to work, perhaps passively enhancing his own power without realization.

One of the conduits tied directly to the pavise knight, a winding, screw-like cord that twisted silently like a knife in the empty space. Its motion was excruciatingly slow - but certain, like the sun rising and setting.

The other conduit tied - somewhere else. It seemed to spiral inward, inside the machine itself, burrowing into the depths of the construct's own internal space without end until it reached - something, somewhere else. It was hard to discern more. Peering into that link was akin to feeling one had when standing upon the edge of a chasm.

"Shit." The pavise knight uttered from behind Kael. "Well, guess we have more time to reset the machine-"

Kael received no warning whatsoever. As he had been speaking, the pavise knight had slipped loose his crossbow, leveled it calmly to aim it at the small of the archer's back, and fired another one of the small, cylinder-tipped bolts at him mid-sentence without even breaking his tone or sentence.

-now." He said with a complete deadpan, the sound nearly obscured by the metallic twang of his weapon firing.

The Final Hazard

"Oh?" Andy said to Leona, silently hoping the others would hurry up with that device, "then why are you so worked up about it? You could have just laughed it off and call me adorably ignorant and keep your form." He gestured to whatever he had to call this new appearance of her. "You looked better just a moment ago, although I have to say you have beautiful eyes."

@WiseDragonGirl

@WiseDragonGirl
"The only place flattery and childishness will get you..." The woman purred as her form continued to bloat and contort, "...is the depths of my belly." though now its blossoming, roiling coils of flesh had begun to settle into a more definite form. The only feature that remained as it had been was her head, which retained its shape and features, though had now been enlarged several times. Her body was now hexapodal, with six appendages as thick around as tree-trunks sprouting from her long body, each ending in a claw-tipped feline paw. A long sinuous tail had begun to slither and extend from the small of her back, and two large struts of what looked like bone had begun to sprout from her back, just underneath her first set of shoulders. All across the twisted mass of flesh, a fine layer of golden fur began to grow in.

Therefore, the next task he wills to occur, is for the machine before him to reset.

@Cruallassar

@Cruallassar
The Allineator rejected him.

The only warning he had was a faint pulse of light from the cairn before it unleashed a shockwave that passed right through the pavise knight without effect, but upon striking Kael knocked him back and flipped him end-over-end in the vacuum.

"Woah! Come back! I didn't-" The Pavise Knight struggled with his words as he turned his outstretched arm to Kael as the shockwave passed through him. "Godsdamnit I have no idea what is going on anymore..." He grumbled as he began to drift through the darkness. "Are you alright kid? Hang on, I'll sort you out..."