Looking forward to more.

>>41612411
Alright. Last time, I covered Tazzari's interrogation session with Provisional Enforcer Ivory Maddalen. Next one up is Claire.

It began much the same, with her spending the night and half a morning in a detention cell that's frankly about as nicely appointed as their dorms. Ivory arrived and led her, shackled, to the room, where she dismissed the shadow manacle construct and informed Claire she would not be charged with anything--this was simply to aid their investigation.

So they started from the top, and Claire recounted everything as best she could. In mentioning the exploding badge on Asalah's uniform, she called it an assassination attempt, which Ivory pounced on, asking if she had any proof. Claire said no proof, just suspicions.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this last thread, but Claire's parents are both public servants--her father is an EMT, and so she's used to the kind of mangling that can happen to a body; and her mother is a police detective for a precinct of Cranagan, the capital of Midchilda, heart of the TSAB, so she's also well familiar with legal processes and the like. Thus she acknowledged to Ivory that she had no proof, only suspicion and supposition.

Anyway, in the course of recounting her story, she asks about the condition and fate of Atalanta Epsilon--remember, she's the only new Hyperion face that Claire actually met personally. She is informed that Epsilon is barely even eating, and totally not talking.

Big surprise--her Bun got shot to pieces and the only person who cared about her existence was stabbed, in her eyes, to death.

The rest of the interview proceeds smoothly, with Ivory asking about Tazzari, but Claire informs her she wasn't there for Tazzari's first bout of going total robot--but she does know that Tazzari's nature tears her up inside, etc. etc.

Establishing herself as a credible character witness, basically.

>>41613082
That part of the exchange went a little like this, with Claire recounting Tazzari showing up to fight the possessed Indra.

>"And that's when she came in in full robot mode."

>"I see. Do you, honestly, think that Tazzari had any desire to harm anyone?"

>She stares flatly at Ivory. "That was a joke, right?"

>"No. I do not know your friend and I'm trying to get character assessments."

>She blows a sigh between her lips. "Tazzari would sooner die than inflict lasting harm on anybody--and I'm not exaggerating there. She *hates* that she has the potential to do what she did yesterday. I've run out of fingers and toes to count the number of times she's said it would be better if she didn't exist. She's not *suicidal* but she would rather take a hit than deal one out. She idolizes Captain Takamachi so hard, compares herself to the Ace so relentlessly, and finds herself coming up short so often, that it's honestly getting a little tiresome. In short: No, I don't think Tazzari would ever harbor desire to harm someone, not in a million years."

This concludes the real interview portion, at which point Claire finds out her training device has mysteriously locked up, which strikes her as odd because it had survived Mneme's attempt to scramble everything as well as the subsequent fight...though she hadn't thought to check it afterward, before those items were confiscated by the Enforcers during their arrest.

She asks Ivory, then, how she became an Enforcer, and a blushing Ivory responds her guardian sponsored her through the process.

As she's free to go, Claire then asks about visiting the other "prisoners," like Tazzari or Epsilon, and receives permission to do so, so long as she doesn't aid in escape attempts.

Off to Epsilon's room.

>>41613082

>Big surprise--her Bun got shot to pieces and the only person who cared about her existence was stabbed, in her eyes, to death.

Could have gone better.

>>41613236
On the way, Ivory informs Claire that they had gotten Epsilon something they normally use for traumatized kids.

Claire's...more than a little confused about that, but goes in anyway...finding Epsilon curled up on her bed around a big teddy bear that's dressed up in an Enforcer uniform.

She sits on the bed and gathers Epsilon into a hug...and tells her that the Strategos has actually survived--Alexa and Panakeia got to him quickly enough that he's recovering quickly physically, though he's locked in a coma.

This surprises the *hell* out of Epsilon...who quickly becomes morose again. Claire finds out this is because she'll never see the Strategos again, anyway. After ensuring her that the Bureau isn't THAT mean, she finds the real reason: Epsilon is forbidden from returning to Hyperion. Ever.

She has randomly developed an active Linker Core--just like Delta.

This...blows Claire's mind, even while she sits there and lets Epsilon cry on her. She recovers in time to be actually soothing, but the confusion remains. Why? How? Exactly when?

Epsilon has no answers...but she confirms it happened to ALL THREE of them--herself, Panakeia, and Eris. And if it happened to all three of THEM, then she's sure it happened to "the others."

Wait, what? Which others?

Epsilon confides there are two of her team unaccounted for--their scout, and their heavy weapons expert. Then she whispers a secret code into Claire's ear, and hands her a piece of paper with an address, telling her quietly that she's worried about Nike and Theia.

Not that Claire knows the names, but it's easy enough to figure out who they belong to.

She also explains that the TSAB techs have recovered some of Bun's hard drives, but the rest of him is so much scrap metal.

The visit concludes with Claire asking Epsilon to cooperate with Ivory's investigation. And what do you know--she said yes.

>>41613823
Alexa's interrogation is next up on the list.

Her ordeal was much the same as ours, where she was asked to recount the events in as much detail as possible. Of course, Alexa being who she is...when it came time to discuss Tazzari going full robot, not only did she "I take full responsibility for her actions, as her commander at the time," but shrugged off dismembering Eris as "It was the most efficient way to end the fight."

And then, a few minutes later, outlined an entire conspiracy to Ivory tying Mneme and Aynfean together as cohorts in an attempt to instigate total war between two sovereign nations--and name-dropping Section 31 more than once, which Ivory dryly slips in implies the existence of a clandestine government organization that not even the Enforcers are aware of.

In short, she came across as paranoid and a budding egomaniac...and given she "admitted" being Tazzari's "commanding officer," Ivory had little choice but to escort Alexa back to her cell, keeping her in custody.

>>41614979

Alexa's Player here: A few things I feel like noting at this point. In the fight against Eris, she raised boht pistols to point at her head. After Alexa cut one in half, she ordered Tazzari to handle the other one--in her mind, that made it her responsibility, not Tazzari's.

And the reason she ordered it was, as said in this post, that it was the most pragmatic decision, and Alexa cleaves to the Kalina family's ideals as closely as she possibly can in the modern era. If there's interest, I can go over a bit of the Kalina family's fluff and history that we have for them.

Somehow this doesn't seem anywhere near as interesting as an actual LotW thread.

>>41615293
Then don't read it. Bye.

>>41615376
I haven't, and you may politely go fuck yourself for the use of an imperative. Is the system used even relevant?

>>41615498
The system used is relevant in case anyone has questions about how we did X, or how we determined Y, speaking as a player in the game.

>>41615525
But ultimately, it's "Magical girls in the Nanoha universe" storytime, rather than LotW storytime.

>>41615641
I'm sorry you were confused by people using a system for anything other than its core setting.

>>41614979
Altea was the last one to be interviewed...and it was short and sweet.

The first impression for Ivory was needing a new table. Altea requested coffee, instead of tea, during the interview...and while Ivory was off checking the evidence locker to see if there was any, Altea drummed her fingers on the table, denting it.

Ivory came back with the coffee, and Altea shot half of it in one gulp. Then when she started her story, she sidetracked herself by asking Ivory to call her work, informing them Altea wouldn't be in.

Ivory came back from that trip...extremely unamused.

This is a sample of Altea's responses:

>"But then that guy attacked me and tried to shoot lightning at me, so we fought back a bit until he decided to listen to us."

>"And then the cool robot he had with him stabbed him and I heard the voice of that Achilles guy's girlfriend for some reason."

>"Anyway, the robot said Atalanta from Rhi's squad stabbed him, which was wrong, so I don't know why it said that, and we had to fight the robot and I punched its head off."

>"And then we came outside and you were there and here we are."

Ivory was obliged to ask if Altea was on unauthorized mind-affecting drugs or medication...or if there was any she had been recommended but wasn't taking.

Altea left the room complimenting Ivory on her skills, free to go, while Ivory went off to raid her guardian's secret whiskey stash.

>>41615943
Yes, I'm sure you are.

>>41616026
>Ivory was obliged to ask if Altea was on unauthorized mind-affecting drugs or medication...or if there was any she had been recommended but wasn't taking.
>Altea left the room complimenting Ivory on her skills, free to go, while Ivory went off to raid her guardian's secret whiskey stash.
God I love this girl. :)

>>41616224

Which one?

>>41613823

>finding Epsilon curled up on her bed around a big teddy bear that's dressed up in an Enforcer uniform.

Adorable

The OP has gone off to bed. I'll be up a bit longer, so I'm going to try to remember some more things that got glossed over from side events since they didn't have a big impact on the main story.

Bump

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>>41617096

GM here.

This is the Enforcer uniform (Though the bear would likely be wearing pants, not a skirt).

I get the vague feeling the designer was going for a slightly Hugo Boss look for the Enforcers.

>>41620310

Those skirts are far too long for the TSAB to be Starfleet!

>>41617096
That pretty much sums up Epsilon in a nutshell. I don't think my introduction of her really carried it across, but she's one of those people who carries a constant aura of "Hug me" all the time.

Even when she's got her sniper rifle pointed at your forehead.

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>>41621933

That and Bun is cute.

>>41612411
noice.

>>41616026
In the meantime, Claire used her freedom to visit Tazzari, who confided in her about meeting both Jail and Dieci; and Alexa, who, in spite of appearances, was an emotional wreck after her testimony, questioning whether she did the right thing or not since basically waking up that fateful morning.

It's during her visit with Tazzari that they get to talking about how Claire's device is broken, jammed up and unworking, the victim of a supposed hack...which doesn't make sense to her, as it survived Mneme's attack. Tazzari offers to interface with it, as Smart Link can help her in that regard, potentially giving her an avenue that normal technicians could not operate through. They ask Ivory, and she brings it up from Evidence, As Tazzari links in, her exploration leads her to send a comm message out to Ivory, including Claire in it, asking if Ivory knows if the Bureau has any computers capable of running a Synthetic Intelligence.

The same term used to describe Indra.

Claire made that connection after a few seconds...and basically went into shock.

Meanwhile, Tazzari offers to contact Yvenne and Sephia, as the latter is a total tech nerd and might possibly have something on the right scale to emulate the data in Claire's device.

She kinda catches them in flagrante delicto, Sephia having mussed hair and a smudge of blue lipstick on her neck, but as soon as Tazzari gets over her embarrassment and outlines the situation, Sephia gets right into Mad Scientist mode. The pair finally snap her out of it and ask Ivory to ship the device out to them, to which she agrees.

>>41623099
Meanwhile, Altea has a visit from her father, who is a high-ranking TSAB naval officer. Unfortunately, he is NOT giantblooded like she is, so the initial glomp has him raising barriers to keep his ribcage from shattering.

Her dad is...not amused to find out she has a job at Kitties. But he hides it well--and by "well" I mean "even if he threw a temper tantrum Altea probably wouldn't get why." They end up going for lunch at a "neutral" burger place instead, while he informs her that being "free to go" means "go home," not just "done with your interrogation."

Tazzari goes to visit Eris to apologize for basically turning her into a doorstop. All Eris' limbs are reattached now, though heavily bandaged...and with Tazzari basically grovelling and scraping herself along the floor, Eris relents, finding her too pathetic to stay mad at.

Which is when Tazzari informs her that Eris has a working Linker Core...shattering her once again.

Eris had signed up, she says, to be an explorer first and foremost, to be among the vanguard of people setting foot on alien worlds for the first time. That's why she volunteered to undergo augmentation...and now she's forbidden from returning home ever again.

>>41623607

>Eris had signed up, she says, to be an explorer first and foremost, to be among the vanguard of people setting foot on alien worlds for the first time. That's why she volunteered to undergo augmentation...and now she's forbidden from returning home ever again.

Fuck.

>>41623607
To clarify with Altea's dad: He was more concerned that his daughter had gotten conned into working there (she did) or was being cheated in some way, more than anything else.

OP here. I'm back to packing some more for a while, but I'll post some more later on tonight.

It's not all depression and darkness at this point...but it was a pretty low point.

Fellow player here, with offer of interim shenanigans/lighthearted side stuff that happened earlier in the game, but was not particularly relevant to the story.

>>41625484
Just do it.

>>41625484
Sure.

>>41625497
>>41626994

Sorry, real life is being a bitch and I can't find the fucking logs I was going to draw from. Using the apology as a bump while I try to find the damn story.

>>41624311

Sadly this player is moving house...so perhaps there were better times to chose to do this story stuff.

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>>41621246

You are right.

>>41628492

GM here:

Which story was it? I could search through my logs for it.

OP returneth. Now that my folks are going home I have time to knock some more of this out.

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>>41632813
We eagerly await!

Long Live Belka!

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>>41634051

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>>41634072
I'm betting that the Belkan Empire built one of these- it'll be right in line with the Saint's Cradle!

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>>41634338

I'm pretty sure that IS the Saint's Cradle.

Anyway, I made a thing.

>>41634051
Thanks. My PC decided to bluescreen at the onset of a big thunderstorm outside. When it rains, eh?

Dad jokes aside, the next major event was when Claire used her freedom to visit the address that Epsilon slipped her in the cell. On the way, she passed a girl leaving the building, long red hair, leather jacket...and getting onto a motorcycle. Making a decision, she played it silly, asking the girl if she knew on which floor someone named "Theia" lived so that Claire could "hand-deliver" her a letter.

Receiving a reply, she headed up to the top floor and knocked. The door slid open without a word...and no one was beyond it. She stepped inside, calling a hello and looking around...then she looks up...

...straight into the business end of a rocket launcher. Held in midair by a girl in armor similar to Epsilon's, but heavier, hovering with an almost-noiseless jetpack and a helmet concealing her face, she keeps Claire dead to rights while explaining that Nike saw her coming and let her know.

Claire gives her the secret phrase that Epsilon gave...and that draws a bit of a non-reaction from Theia, while Nike, the redhead on the motorcycle, appears in the doorway behind her, saying Claire just used the "The enemy has tortured the code out of me, kill them" phrase, a monofilament knife leaps into her hand, not unlike Atalanta Delta's.

Claire gets VERY nervous right then.

>"...Would it help if I said I came in peace?"

And then Nike burst out laughing.

>"Oh Hades, you should see your face. The code was fine."

>>41635138

>"Oh Hades, you should see your face. The code was fine."

This Nike is a bitch.

>>41635206
First impression was kinda that way, yes. But really she's just a competitive and energetic egomaniac.

>>41635138
After that, things settled down in their apartment. The three sat down and talked for a bit, though Theia held on to her rocket launcher like a combination life preserver/teddy bear. Claire brought them up to speed on everything...including Epsilon's fears that they both had active Linker Cores as well. Theia confirmed it was the truth, which only made her more upset. Nike...took it the best out of anyone. She was actually *excited* about it--and, to add "insult" to "injury," she turned out to have an elemental affinity with fire.

Things took a turn south when Claire brought up the fact that Bun was "dead," and that that was part of Epsilon's despondency. Nike in particular went from sarcastically cheerful to murderously serious in an instant.

It got worse still when she told them of Indra's fate--even with the caveat that her device might maybe possibly have a means to have saved her. But at least Nike was able to direct her anger away from Claire--though she did demand that if Claire found out whodunnit, that Nike would be the first she told. So that she could murder whomever it was.

But she calmed down, offering to get a box of spares for Bun so that Epsilon could at least attempt to save him...and conveniently leaving Claire alone with Theia for a minute.

>>41635528
After trying to express sympathy for their plight, Claire finds out that Theia is even more deathly afraid of magic than a normal Hyperionite...and in asking her why, she learns a bit about the history of Hyperion--namely, that a mage strode the battlefield and crushed the minds of their opponents, leaving people empty shells. He died fighting the original Circe, who also died in the doing, but the terror he inspired was in large part responsible for their planetary ban on magic, as our GM has said.

Claire...is utterly confused. Absolutely nowhere in any TSAB history text is this mentioned; nor is there anything in any magical theory or application that she's ever heard of, even remotely capable of even touching minds, let alone erasing them.

But Theia is insistent, so Claire yields the point, though she describes Mid-style magic as basically applied engineering, just using a different power source. Those runes in a Mid-style magic circle? Basically mathematics, to control that power and shape it to a desired end, much as machinery "shapes" electrical power for a desired end.

Theia...actually finds this description oddly comforting. Not that it improves her mood...but at least she's reassured that magic isn't some reality-bending mystical thing that waves jauntily at the laws of physics as it passes by. More than anything, Theia just wants her Linker Core to be gone...but Claire tells her she's never heard of a successful case of an LC-ectomy.

This is about when Nike returns with the Bun parts, and after some parting words, Claire agrees to take them in to Epsilon. After leaving them her contact info, and receiving pretty much an open invitation to drop by, she leaves...

...and runs straight into Ivory.

>>41635876
This is less "Oh, shit" than it sounds--as the exchange basically consists of:

> "How're they doing?"
>"Sucky, but they'll deal."
>"Think they'll do something stupid?"
>"Probably not."
>"You gonna vouch for both of them?"
>"Sure, I'll do it."

And then she got to bring the parts in to Epsilon, who did indeed use them to assemble a sort of proto-Bun...but without more parts, or his original data, he's not the same.

A couple of days pass...and then it's time for the actual trial.

>>41636381
The trial is a long, grueling affair, hours and hours of testimony for the prosecution and the defense.

First to the witness stand is Claire, who recounts her testimony in almost the exact same fashion she'd done for Ivory.

Next was Tazzari, a veritable bundle of nerves as she gave her responses, alternating between mechanical precision and constant refrains of "I'm sorry..."

Alexa's responses are more cold-blooded and analytical, as well. Belkan.

Atalanta's testimony is precise and efficient--all the facts, and nothing but.

Asalah went to bat for us, as though her accounting of events was incomplete, she at least gave character witness effort that she believed neither did Delta stab the Strategos, nor did Tazzari use any dreaded Mass-Based Weapons.

Rhiannon...is nearly thrown out of the courtroom for yelling and shouting and insisting that Delta didn't do it and that Tazzari is wonderful.

Epsilon took the stand, too...and had to be coaxed into responding as she was in tears virtually the entire time (and looking UTTERLY terrified the rest of it).

Finally, the sentences come down from the judge.

Tazzari and Alexa...are busted down to Provisional Cadet and fitted with tracking anklets, much like Delta has worn since day one. Tazzari was granted leniency by her circumstances (emotional distress, compromised mentally, etc.). Alexa...was of sound mind and body when she ordered Tazzari to finish dismembering Eris, but she got one more chance because Lt. Strommons went to bat for her behind the scenes and basically pulled strings to get Alexa one more chance instead of being drummed out completely.

And Delta...was found entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.

>>41636381

So what? She broke the law and chose not to arrest them?

>>41636693
The three captured girls from Hyperion are brought up to the judge and their sentences are outlined, giving them two options: jail time, or the same deal as Atalanta Delta. Epsilon and Eris quickly agree to the deal, having no interest in rotting in a (supposedly comfortable) TSAB prison. Panakeia hesitates...but eventually, after glancing at Eris, she takes the deal, too, as otherwise it would mean spending her days there alone.

>>41637105
For what? They hadn't participated on the assault. The worst they'd have been proved guilty of is travel without a passport--and even that would be iffy, as frankly that'd have been up to the GM (given he would have been the one inventing TSAB legal practice) as whether that would be a thing or not.

Instead, the Enforcers as a whole decided to treat Nike and Theia as "paroled" or, more likely, a sort of intelligence asset. Watch them, bring all the books down if they got into trouble, but otherwise leave them be, as there's no evidence to make a charge stick.

So when does this become upbeat again? This shit is depressing a fuck.

>>41638672

GM here: The first major happy beat comes soon and it becomes a lot more light hearted in the next arc.

Some arcs are darker than others and this one is really the Nadir of the game so far (ELEMENTS of the current one are pretty depressing too but it's less of a general miserable situation).

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Belka Bump.

Keep on with the story OP!

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>>41640047

GM here.

I give you a thing I made when bored. It's missing Altea for the moment as I've no clue what her planet's flag looks like and I don't think I could just draw 'BrickShithouseBall'

>>41615293
>>41615641
>>41616042
I keep making LotW threads but you nigs keep letting them die. At least OP actually delivers.

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>>41642065

GM Here:

Yeah, sorry about the slowness of OP with this thread. He's got a lot of IRL stuff that's jumped up unexpectedly. Still, he'll be back soon to keep going.

Anyway, now that she's actually turned up in the story, Ivory's art.

>>41642104
No offense, but whatever you paid for that commish was too much. Unless like a friend did it then disregard, I suck cocks etc.

>>41642125

Oh? It was technically a friend of a friend who did it.

What do you find is not great with the art?

>>41637852

Sort of feels like even if they were not there, they are accessories to it.

>>41643205
Well, again, there's little actually documented for the TSAB legal system. But if it assuages your confusion, consider the pair out on bond, as they would have been arrested on lesser charges anyway.

>>41637775
We spent a LONG time after this rebuilding friendships, trying to forge new ones with the poor Hyperion girls, and wrapping up some plot threads from the arc.

Among the larger developments: Tazzari beginning training with Dieci to better understand and use her Inherent Skill, Smart Link; introducing the entire squad to Nike and Theia; Altea and Reiko teaming up to get the former to actually pass a test (and incidentally fueling Reiko's crush on the only straight girl, a crush which spawned when Altea's strength was drained and she looked like a supermodel instead of a bodybuilder); and Alexa and Sephia conspiring on a project.

On that last one...remember how Claire's device was wrecked, but Tazzari raised hope that maybe it was Indra having copied herself to it in the hope of avoiding total death? Well, Sephia managed to extract the data and get her up and running, if only to start self-repair algorithms. The surprise, though, lay in a drawer in her office...a drawer that contained a tiny, platinum-skinned humanoid body, twelve inches head to foot, chock full of advanced technology.

In short: an empty Unison Device.

Thanks to shenanigans, and with some help from Alexa, Sephia managed to import the runtimes from Indra into the empty little device, giving her time to develop a personality again before she woke up.

But because parts of Claire's device's programming got raked in along with all of what of Indra there was...she ended up "bound" and unfortunately subservient to her. Kind of a split personality thing going on--where normal mode speaks with a Hyperion accent and is perfectly formal, whereas sometimes she blurts out a "Yes Mistress!" in completely noninflected language, speaking like a Midchildan native.

When they met, Claire gave her the name Tisiphone, as Tis had many, but not all, of Indra's memories, and only parts of her personality. So she was more like her little sister, than a direct save.

>>41644635
Tis wasn't quite a perfect rescue...but far, far better than nothing. And we even had the added hope of a rescue mission some time, once the other girls trusted us enough.

Epsilon, initially, had made mention of the ship they'd come in-system on, lying out there somewhere, stealthed and invisible. Bun had backup drives somewhere on the ship, so if we had any chance to get access to them, we could retrieve them for her and allow her to restore Bun to his full working order. Currently his chassis is complete but he is inert, not moving or thinking.

The other reason to find their ship? There was a netrod present on it, a large hunk of computer and networking equipment designed to upload/download/store Indra (among other purposes). That would be a location with HER backups.

Of course, the only person who's been on the ship since the girls and the Strategos made their assault on the Caledfwlch facility, was Mneme...so that was a bit of a terrifying shadow overhead.

But hope springs eternal, and in the back of our minds we resolved to get up there as soon as we possibly could.

>>41644725
At one point, Altea gets called in to Lt. Strommons' office. The reason: in a circumspect fashion, the LT suspects her of cheating on an important exam. Why? Dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks Altea scored an 81.

Through some vaguely suggestive conversation ("Yeah, Reiko would do this thing with me over and over and over until I got tired and then I fell asleep.") it comes to light that Altea was simply tutored...endlessly...and to prove it the LT hands her a mock exam that she fills out...and gets about 4/5 of the answers right.

She gets to walk free while our poor Lieutenant casts about for something to wake her up from this bizarro dream.

A few days pass...and it's time for some midterms. We all manage well on them, even Altea. Ainlinn rides high at the top of class with a 100% score. Not that she actually PERFORMED well...but the teacher for the class is simply terrible at information warfare.

Yes, Ainlinn altered her score in the database. We so love that cheating little sneak.

After the results pass by, our eyes are turned to an advertisement for another Big Thing coming up very soon:

The Pan-Midchilda Strike Arts Tournament!

>>41644897

A tournament arc?

>>41645408
A tournament arc.

>>41644897
Everybody gets excited about the tournament, even Claire, since while she can't throw a punch as well as she can a tennis ball, the tournament rules include ALL magic styles, including bombardment, which is her specialty. This, in spite of its name. Still, it'd let her cut loose with Tisiphone, especially as they've been practicing somewhat with her being a Unison Device and all.

I should take a break to mention that mechanically, Tisiphone is a Legendary Weapon. Claire has two paths to gaining Mastery: the first is to gain her trust by treating her like a normal person, and the second is just to tell her to shut up and here's my orders just do it. (I'll let you guess which path she's taking.) MUCH later in her list of abilities are a couple of features that will be absolutely sick when I can get to them: the first is being able to channel Chi to generate Area Attacks that affect multiple Zones (and cannot ever be made Selective. If I have to Nuke It From Orbit, I'd better make sure my allies are out of the way first). The last technique...lets me act a full Rank higher at the cost of accumulating cumulative Ripples each round I maintain it (so 1, then +2, then +3, then +4 more, etc.).

Tisiphone is *awesome.*

Anyway, the thought of a "relaxing" tournament run after these last few weeks is very enticing, so everybody sets their sights on it, even if only to see the fruits of their training (like in Tazzari's case).

To get herself prepped, Tazzari asks Altea to have a spar. The strongest vs. the weakest, sort of thing--she needs the pressure, the dire circumstance, to make sure she won't just revert to going total robot every time things get bad.

So they fight. And Altea wins, by virtue of exhausting Tazzari's magic completely, as the latter is forced to throw up countless barriers to stop a pair of haymakers after Altea lands a solid hit. Tazzari got in some good shots, herself, but Altea is, naturally, unstoppable.

>>41645408
>A tournament arc?
Yes, Strike Arts is the thing Vivio does in ViVid. Since that mango is really an endless tournament arc you can safely assume it's that.

>>41645577
They settle down after that, Altea pulling out a pair of 20-pound freeweights to cool down with, displaying her...creative thinking...once again.

>Tazzari lets out a little laugh. "...You're an, um... A total mystery to me, Altea."
>"Hm? In what way?"
>"The way you work... It doesn't make logical sense. But, um... You keep on working."
>"Yep. It's sort of like crocodiles. If they ever stop moving, they die, so I gotta just keep moving!"
>"...Um. I don't think that's crocodiles... They, um, bask in the sun, perfectly still, for long periods of time..."
>"Really? Are you sure? Anyway, the point is I gotta do what's right for my body, so it'll do right for me. And my blood takes care of the rest."

There's a little more in the way of visitation and seeing people, including Claire going to see Panakeia and ending up getting a bit of an infodump as to Hyperion's political situation, but slowly things grind forward to the tournament.

And then we have an offer come in from Yvenne, to come use her lands for a week of hardcore training before the tournament itself comes up.

>>41646118
>>41645577

This fight was really fun to play. Tazzari just kept plinking away at Altea, inflicting an ungodly number of ripples, but the few times Altea landed hits were utterly devastating, which eventually lead to Tazzari withdrawing.

>>41646118
Sorry, I misspoke. It's a weekend of training, not a full week's worth. It promises "luxurious rooms, hot springs, extensive practice areas, and fine cuisine."

Belkans.

Anyway, we passed the invitation around to everybody we knew, no matter their legal status or their affiliation or etc. Nasira got an invitation. Reiko did, too, and so did Nike and Theia and Ivory, and so on.

All but four or so people agreed to come along.

The day of the camp arrives, and everybody steps off the bus, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. After some teasing, we settle into small groups to actually start training. Alexa is the first to duel Nike, a spar to capitulation.

Claire has to stop them when both end up bloody and half-numb only a few minutes in. (More) Belkans. And Myrmidons.

Grumbling, they go their separate ways, until Nike runs into Altea. They share a short conversation, then go sneak off to spar. The two titans smash four trees to splinters while beating the everloving shit out of each other. It ends...when Altea totters and falls over, snoring before she hits the ground. Nike follows her down.

Altea's dad picks that moment to show up...absolutely stunned. As he explains to her, she hasn't fallen down from a fight in a long time--not even when the speeding hovertruck crashed into her when she was sixteen.

But Altea, being giantblooded, heals preternaturally fast. In fact, as she stands up again, the bruises from the fight are already fading. And while Nike doesn't HEAL that quickly, she also took less damage, thanks to pain suppressors and subdermal armor.

Claire and Nasira go at it next...and while Nasira isn't a mage, she has a protomech chassis dropped in place instead, climbing inside. Attached to its back is a large hump containing, doot do doot, Project Daedelus--a portable mana generator. Nasira affectionately calls it a mage-in-a-box. It's also armed with a laser and a flamethrower.

>>41647377
Nasira uses the flamethrower to good effect, straight away, grabbing Claire by the ankle before she can fly away and throwing her to the ground, then dousing her with plenty of napalm. They fight a bit more before Claire gets a lucky shot in that knocks the protomech over, and she ends the spar, asking Nasira if she broke another one.

After some more ribbing, the three of them--Nasira, Claire, and Nike--go off to a quiet corner and do a little info-sharing, including finding out that Caledfwlch has a new type of ammunition, officially for use in suppressing Lost Logia. The ammo type? K-1--which is exactly the type of ammo that all the Myrmidons have, and was used against Claire and Circe when they first found Epsilon.

Somehow, Caledfwlch is legitimately getting their hands on Hyperion tech.

>>41647450
The OTHER important thing to come out of that conversation, though, is the fact that Theia, apparently, actually knows where their ship is located in space. So all it would take is convincing her to tell us where it was so we could run up and get Buns' backups, and look for Indra's too, and sneak back home the unsung conquering heroes!

Claire tells the rest about what she learned later on, in the hot springs. I only bring this up because of Altea, again.

>"I don't get it, but it sounds smart."
>(Alexa) "Think of it like fighting a really big creature, Altea. A dragon or something that could swallow you whole. What Claire's done is basically the equivalent of punching its organs from the inside after it's eaten you alive."
>"Ohhhh, that's really cool! So what kind of monster ate Claire? I didn't think any big ones were around here."
>"It was a metaphor, Altea."
>"Ohh, I've never heard of a Metaphor. How big do they get?"
>"No, no, there's no creatures... that I know of... called metaphors. I mean the turn of phrase, the... the literary device."
>"The what?"
>Alex brings up an AR window with the definition of Metaphor on it for Altea.
>"Anyway, what do devices have to do with big monsters?"
>"Altea..."

>>41647377
>>41647450

This is part of why I love Legends of the Wulin, and it works great for Nanoha.

IMO? The combat system is honestly at its best for duels. One on one fights are so much fun to play, and it's also one of the only systems I know of that makes PvP work.

Sparring with a friend isn't just fun to do in and of itself, it's also mechanically supported. You can give your opponent any sort of condition at the end of a fight- Including positive ones. So pre-tournament sparring is actually a good idea, mechanically.

>>41647450

>Nasira uses the flamethrower to good effect, straight away, grabbing Claire by the ankle before she can fly away and throwing her to the ground, then dousing her with plenty of napalm.

Fucking Wobbies.

>>41648212

Sounds fun.

>>41650433

I enjoy the fighting system so much I'm actually trying to put together a fighting tournament, in the style of a wrestling promotion. The 'storylines' are an excuse for creating fun fights, etc.

I've been slow to set it up, but I hope once it starts that it'll have the momentum to keep itself going, as each fight will create plot threads to drive future conflict.

>>41647450

>Somehow, Caledfwlch is legitimately getting their hands on Hyperion tech.

Not ominous at all.

>>41648591
Nah, the Wobbies would probably be more excessively brutal and use bioweapons.

>>41654318

Give them time.

Bumping for more, if OP or teammates are here.

>>41659113

GM is here.

I'm not very good at telling the stories themselves but any NPCs or groups or setting details you'd like to know more about?

>>41659412
Anything you can tell us about Ivory that wouldn't be horrible spoilers, given that art?

File: Ivory Thumbnails.png (1.12 MB, 2324x2669)

1.12 MB PNG

>>41659778

She a Courtier uses (From the wiki) Dark Abyss (External)/Consuming Shadows(Internal).

As someone I know described it: Her fighting style is Silent Hill Fu as she mostly focuses on the 'Fear' aspect of emotions rather than the usual courtier 'Lets be best buddies!'. She'd rather scare opposition silly than have to actually get into a fight where someone gets hurt.

Fluff-wise her fighting style is a combination of shadow manipulation and a lot of illusions that makes people THINK she's a Necromancer, Demonologist or something like that.

Despite the art? She's actually pretty lacking on dark secrets. Her magic style just looks creepy as fuck. She's a devoted Provisional Enforcer who believes that law and order are important for keeping society functioning and would rather have a 'Works within the law' solution to a 'Works outside the law' solution. She's a bit more hardline than her guardian/boss but has a good heart, even if she's not very good at being warm.

She was (Briefly) used as a PC before an NPC. An Abyssal in an exalted game that went nowhere.

>>41660111
I love how her guardian is referenced but never outright said. Plot point?

>>41659113
OP here. RL punched me in the face for a good portion of tonight, but I'm getting a couple fights from the first real round of the tournament typed up to post before I go to bed.

Stupid impending move across the country.

>>41660182
It's cool guy. I know how that is.

>>41647691
>>41659113
>>41647691
Anyway, the tournament. Lots of excitement over the tournament's arrival. Over the weekend at Yvenne's, Nike taught a couple of us some basics of Myrmidon Close Quarters Combat (game terms: those of us that bought in to the "loresheet" can use unarmed/sword now!). Then the starting rounds came up, and we breezed through them fairly easily. The first round of the quarterfinals comes up, and the contestants are: Ainlinn, Alexa, Claire, Ivory, Altea, Iesuelt, Tazzari, Daniel, Nike, Valdis, Melody, Kate, Hugo Jaeger, Marylyn and Aseem. (Yes, it's an odd number, I don't remember why.)

The first actual fight is between Daniel and Ainlinn. Daniel is a large boy, big and tall with brown hair, looking like the star athlete of a sports team of some sort. Ainlinn, of course, is Ainlinn, petite and redheaded and a knockout. They get into the ring and Daniel pulls out what looks like a greatsword...though his grip is wobbly.

He loses it entirely when Ainlinn flashes across the distance and gutpunches him solidly. Trying to stand back up, he's rewarded with a steel-toed kick to the chin, and he crumples like a house of cards.

She gave us a smug victory pose, then blushed horribly from the attention, sneaking back to the stands with us...where she reveals she didn't poison him at all, actually. No, poor Daniel just has a nasty, nasty food allergy~

Next up: Ivory and Aseem. He's a blonde boy with a staff across his back. They square off, and he fires off a magic blue laser...that tears Ivory's arm clear off. She screams and flinches away, and before he can react his second shot catches her center of mass and lays her flat out, unmoving.

He starts to panic--that's not supposed to happen, *ever,* with standard Midchildan magic, but here she is, incontrovertibly DEAD.

>>41660164

Nah. Just shown up even less so than Ivory.

Though...sorta, ish. She's one of the powerhouse NPCs I try to keep away from places when the PCs are supposed to be doing awesome things as her and Ivory LOOK very similar in a fight...Ivory is all illusion, Enforcer Tia Maddalen is actual action. She's also a lot more experianced and more willing to bend the rules than her protege.

But then, while Ivory is based off an Abyssal I never got to play, Tia is based off her Deathlord(Except her actual personality is how the Deathlord was just pretending to be for that game as she's not the villain for this game). Considering how Ivory looks, no points for guessing which one.

She also beats the CRUD out of Aynfean. Look forward to that.

>>41660313

GM here:

Now I feel bad about telling people that Ivory is an illusionist before this turned up.

>>41660378
Haha, I'd have continued, but 2000 character limits~

>>41660313
And then suddenly her corpse just levers upright--it doesn't stand, but whoops right up like it's on a hinge at her feet. "Nice trick--now let me show you mine." The "corpse" manifests a claw of sharp-edged shadow--and then Ivory herself steps out of ASEEM'S shadow...and gives him a little push.

Victory by ring-out.

At that point, the two matches have concluded inside five minutes...so the judge calls for an early lunch while she looks for her whiskey and aspirin.

Alexa takes half the group to a fancy Belkan teahouse she ran into earlier with Hugo Jaeger. While there, she gets a mysterious, paranoid communique to come meet in an abandoned alley a little ways away but bring no one you can't trust anyone maaaaaan the first sign of other bodies and I ghost maaaaaaaan.

So she goes. Alone. And walks right into an assassination attempt. Naturally.

She acquits herself well, as single duels are her milieu (Gold King Rooster Laughs at situations where the practitioner is one on one). The attacker, who uses a magic pistol, blasts a hole into her stomach, but Alexa retaliates in kind, delivering a few nice slices across her chest and abdomen, apparently only angering the would-be assassin.

>>41660468
They keep at it for a few more seconds before the cavalry shows up--Claire and Ivory, the former up in the air with a shooting spell primed and lined up on the assassin, Ivory...hiding somewhere in the shadows.

And I got to Action Movie One-Liner!

>"This fight's over. The authorities are on their way. If you surrender now they may show leniency." Her eyes glint. "Please don't surrender."

Suddenly a sniper takes a shot at Claire...the bullet breaks into micromissiles that splatter her with the same gray formula that Epsilon tagged her with, weeks ago. K-1, the magic-nullifying agent.

Alexa runs for the sniper, while Claire tries to cover the closer-range gunner...and then Ivory gestures, and the assassination pair's shadows...reach up and grab then and hurl them to the ground near Alexa, leaving both barely conscious, if at all. The assassin tries to grenade Alexa...and Claire laser-bombards her into the pavement. The sniper tries to run...and Ivory shows up and throws her into a wall, where she basically introduces her to a world of living nightmares.

Once the situation relaxes, Alexa collapses, her wounds finally catching up. Ivory gives her first aid, and a quick trip through a hospital later she's healing up nicely for her real bout in the tournament in a day or two.

And with that, I have to hit the sack. Hope you're enjoying so far.

>>41660468

>Victory by ring-out.

Victory by recurring trauma, more like.

>>41660313

Ainlinn reminds me of the villian from wacky racers. The one that cheated for the sake of cheating.

>>41661392

GM Here:

Not terribly far off. Ainlinn generally considers herself weaker than the others in the team but wants to keep up with them so she cheats relentlessly at...everything.

I'll bet an internet that Altea wins.

>>41663529

I've done a lot of LOTW play and as dangerous as she is, most High Toughness, High Damage builds are better for team play than duels.

My money is on Tazzari.

>>41661392
Dick Dastardly?

>>41663863
OP.

That's who I was going to suggest, too. Too bad she doesn't have a familiar, because Muttley would seal the deal.

>>41663222
>>41663222
>>41663222
>>41663222
We got the vague beginnings of a mainstay LotW thread here. Everyone's invited while we wait.

Also, bump.

>>41663529
>>41663651

Here's a question- That might be who you think is going to win, but who are you cheering for? Which PC or NPC has your support?

bump

>>41664508

Altea.

>>41660715
Immediately after Alexa is carted off back to Cerberus to heal, Claire and Ainlinn (and Tisiphone) hatch a plan to snoop around Asalah's house. Ainlinn has already looked up her neighborhood, and they fly over, where Ainlinn tries to pick the lock on her front door...only to spawn a couple of small defense turrets.

They only don't open fire by the grace of Asalah herself opening to door to glare at them.

Inviting them inside, they have a very...stilted...chat. Claire clumsily tries to drop a hint about the K-1 ammo, and yet Asalah picks up on it, returning with the code word "source" herself. After leaving, Tisiphone murmurs to the pair that she saw the house was bugged...which certainly explained Asalah's reluctance to say ANYTHING, really. They split up afterward, with Ainlinn going off to be a snoop like she's good at while Claire goes home to prepare for her upcoming match.

Meanwhile, back at the stadium, Altea and Iseult have a chat before their matches while watching Jaeger's match with a girl wielding a staff...but something's wrong. Every time she raises her staff to shoot him, he gestures...and her arm twists to smash the staff into her own face.

Eventually he gets bored and holds up a glowing card from a deck he'd been playing with in his hands. Her eyes go blank and she crudely walks out of the area--victory by ring out.

The crowd, the judge--everyone is stupefied by what just happened. But a ring out is a ring out, so they move on.

Next up: Altea vs. Iseult.

File: WP_JacetheMindSculptor_12(...).jpg (1.18 MB, 1280x960)

1.18 MB JPG

>>41666945

>>41666945
If ever you wanted a Clash of the Titans match, this would be it. Altea, of the invincible giant blood, vs. Iseult, the Shield of the Round Table. Altea has her gauntlets, as well as a pair of extendo-maces she received from her father as a present for passing one of her exams with flying colors. Iseult has a pair of enormous gauntlets that would look more at home on Vii.

Their match was exactly what you'd expect...out of Dragonball or some other shounen series (Yes, I know Nanoha is practically a shounen series too): powerful swings, fist matching fist, shockwaves and crumbling concrete and feats of strength that shame mere mortals. But it ends when Altea takes her giant (no pun intended) uppercut and smashes Iseult into a flying arc that ends with her landing in the stands with a meteoric crash.

And then Iseult jumps up and starts clapping, grinning at Altea like an idiot.

Victory by ringout.

The next fight is Nike versus a smallish, green-haired man, smiling peacefully with a flower growing in his hair. Nike claps him on the shoulder--which tends to feel like Altea doing the same thing--and takes her position...but before she can even get her store-bought citizen-level "device" (a pair of gloves) on he's already attacking, vines bursting from the ground to entrap her.

>>41667661
Nike's opponent grins smugly as she's wrapped up in vines...but his grin falters and drops as she just *pulls* and tears the vines off one arm. She uses the extra movement to tear the rest of them off quickly while he summons more and more plants.

Her "device" gloves fall to the ground, forgotten, as she dashes up in his face. "My turn," she says, before giving him a quick kiss on the lips...and grabbing and throwing him, hard. He would have landed outside the ring but for catching himself on his vines...and as his body hasn't touched the ground, it's not a ring out. Technically.

And then it is as she drops on top of him, a booted foot between his shoulderblades smashing him facedown to the ground.

Next match: Claire vs. Valdis.

(Bonus fact: Valdis' last name is ALSO Strommons. As she describes, though, there's no known familial link between her and our LT, just that they might be from the same clan or station.)

This bout is the first time Claire demonstrates undergoing Unison with Tisiphone, and it changes her eye, hair, and jacket colors (while adding a breastplate to the jacket itself). Her staff remains the same.

Valdis' equipment is a shield and heavy crossbow with a pistol grip, her own jacket forming by means of runes appearing on her skin and flowing along it to join together. (She's ALSO very Viking-themed.)

Both of them prove very poor at not getting shot by the other. At one point Claire blasted her in the chest twice with a heavy shooting spell, and Valdis responded by throwing her shield along the ground and taking aim with the crossbow with both hands...and then shooting the shield so the bolt ricocheted upwards at her instead.

A couple more weak, ineffectual shots...and both literally throw up the surrender signal at the exact same time.

>>41667810

GM here: Station, yes.

Both of them were born on a space station with a high population.

>>41667873
Yes, I'm just parroting her own words with the "might be" :)

>>41667810
Alexa, during these last two, was laid up at Cerberus, recovering from the wounds and exhaustion sustained during the fight. Ivory comes in to check on her, and to let her know that her parents are alright (the assassin had taunted Alexa that her parents were going to be hurt/killed shortly).

Then Ivory starts swearing up a blue streak, as she receives a notice that there is a prisoner transfer happening. One Keira Williams, the assassin in question, is set to be released into the custody of [Classified].

Curiously, the sniper is not.

Alexa asks to have a chance to interrogate the assassin, but that raises all sorts of "conflict of interest" flags. Nevertheless, Ivory relents and calls her guardian/sponsor/boss, Enforcer Tia Maddalen, in the hope of blocking the extradition request.

Tia arrives shortly, a tall, unnaturally pale (we're talking SUPER pale, ghost-white skin) woman with long, straight dark hair. Unfortunately...the extradition order is beyond even her power to completely negate...though she can tie it up in red tape for a little while, giving Alexa the chance to see Keira.

Keira, the little bitch, is combative and foul-mouthed, putting sailors to shame. Alexa can get nothing out of her, not even surprise at knowing who equipped her. Not only that--she seems to know she's going to walk free any minute now.

The sniper, though...is an interesting case. No emotion. No history. No background, no records, no fingerprints or old linker core readings. Not even a photo. It's like she doesn't exist, in spite of knowing the language and so on.

The sniper has steel-gray hair, pale skin, and a wholly placid expression as Alexa enters. The customary greetings out of the way, Alexa asks her for a name.

She...seems completely and utterly confused by the very concept.

>>41668559
After some back and forth over the notion, Alexa finds out she has a "designation." Cynta Byped. The "name" means nothing to Alexa...until she runs it through an online translator. It's the same old language that Caledfwlch uses a lot (Yes, it's Welsh).

What questions Alexa gives her are answered honestly and straightforwardly. The problem is...they contain absolutely zero information.

>"What...is your purpose?"
>"Whatever I have been ordered."
>"And who gives you orders?"
>"Those designated my handler."
>"And...who is that currently?"
>"I am unsure of the identity. It was not relevant for my purpose."

A few more questions and frankly unsettling answers later, and Alexa gets up to leave. "Cynta" says goodbye and gestures...and the door to the room opens all by itself.

Not from any IR sensor. Not from someone on the outside. It just opens. The door is made with a physical lock, too, to prevent magical interface or interference.

Outside, with the door shut again, Alexa and Ivory both wonder exactly wtf is going on there. Both come to the conclusion that the sniper needs help desperately...though neither is sure how, beyond "We need professionals here."

Ivory informs Alexa that she herself was also a lab find--she was found as a young girl wandering an abandoned lab. Nobody knows where she came from, or who she came from, etc. But Tia Maddalen took her in.

Anyway, Ivory and Alexa bond somewhat over coffee as they try to figure out a way to help "Cynta" and maybe ignore the extradition order. While they talk, there's a sound in the hallway outside the break room. Looking up, they see a redhead walk by, who also notices them and gives them a smug, cheery little evil smile.

Aynfean.

>>41668825
There's a bit of a bitch-off between Aynfean and Alexa before the redhead leaves to take Keira away, but things end calmly. For now.

The next day, the tournament is delayed slightly, as SOMEONE had to go and basically ruin the entire fighting floor of the arena. Instead, we're most of us standing around and waiting for things to happen...when all of a sudden Claire is staggered by a blonde missile wrapping itself around her waist.

The Myrmidon girls are finally dirtside, Epsilon having attached herself to her new friend. Eris follows behind her, with a blank and vapid expression on her face, basically teasing Epsilon and carrying on a joke about having been successfully brainwashed. Until Alexa ruined it, naturally.

There's some chatter, including introducing Tisiphone to the girls, when Claire gets a message from Theia, asking to meet. She says yes, come get us here, etc.

Theia shows up, trying to be secretive, until Eris marches over and picks her up by the scruff of her neck. Theia doesn't have the exact location...but she knows how to track down and find their ship.

This means we can actually go out and get backups for both Bun and Indra! Yay!

>>41669379

>Aynfean.

Oh good, this signals things will go well.

>>41672961

One thing about Aynfean we learned from this one: While she is exceptionally terrifying... she is also exceptionally PETTY.

This is, in fact, a weakness.

Bumping off page 10

>>41673740

GM here:

Oh yes. Oh yes she is.

>>41669379
Roll call for piling into a shuttle that we asked Rhiannon to procure for us (well, Eris had asked originally, we just confirmed it): Claire, Alexa, Altea, Atalanta Epsilon, Panakeia, Tisiphone, and Eris. Panakeia piloted.

We pretty much piled in right then and there, after deciding who was going to go. No hesitation, we got the info so now it's time to blast off.

The ship is both hidden and cloaked, so Pana flies us over to where it ought to be and gets ready to beam out an omnidirectional signal. It flickers out of cloak for two seconds before going back in, but we spotted it in time, and she gets it to unhide completely. She docks the shuttle smoothly and the doors slide open, revealing a black-walled corridor lined with gold trim. Pretty fancy looking, really.

We get ready to move in, and Alexa stops us all. "I vote we send Altea in first."

Altea charges off without waiting for a reply.

Meanwhile, Claire raises a finger to protest, but then stops because there's really no way to find fault with that logic.

Laser turrets pop up here and there, but Altea trashes them by basically flicking them in the metaphorical forehead. We got her to stop running off and split into two teams: Altea, Epsilon, and Claire would go through the personnel quarters and Alexa, Pana, and Eris would head down one deck to Engineering and other main control sections.

We struck out for the quarters, and Altea made short work of another quartet of turrets--made all the more ominous because Panakeia was locked out of the security systems, so she couldn't disable them. Epsilon pouted--cutely--because the TSAB took away her rifle so she remained unarmed, but it mattered less once we got past the drones. Instead, we hacked our way into each of the girls' rooms--their biometrics were no longer valid for entry.

Gee, I wonder who did that.

>>41675830
Epsilon's room was first. And it was a *mess*--someone had ransacked it thoroughly, tearing her stuffed animals apart, throwing around furniture, pillows strewn everywhere... Poor Atalanta is heartbroken again, holding onto Claire for dear life and trying not to just break down in tears.

Altea, bless her heart, notices a panel under the flipped bed with a screw loose. She tears the panel out and pulls out a small hard drive--and Atalanta all but bowls her over in gratitude as well.

Bun's backups. That's one.

We went back to the hallway (while Altea secretly pocketed a couple of the gutted stuffed animals) and picked the other girls' rooms. All of them were in the same condition--wrecked, ransacked, destroyed. Altea picked up a few more stuffed animals and hid them away.

Then Claire cracked the password on Strategos Plouton's personal quarters.

>>41675908
Inside was...opulent, is probably the best word to describe it. Lots of space (a premium, onboard a warship), A large bed, made out of real wood, and a side table with a crystal decanter and liquor glasses, each one filled with liquids of varying, jewel-like colors.

And it was pristine--evidently, the tighter security on his room was enough to defeat even Mneme in her rush through the rooms. That, or she left it untouched on purpose. Who knows with that bitch.

Anyway, Claire pocketed a picture of him and, presumably, his wife (a smiling, green-haired woman in a lab coat standing under his arm), to set by him while he slept in a coma.

Meanwhile, a deck below, the other three (Alexa, Panakeia, and Eris) are blasting through a series of combat drones, not unlike the ones that Mneme used when she "dueled" Tazzari before exposing her Scaglietti cyborg nature. They hit hard, but the girls hit *harder,* and earned themselves some breathing room. Eris worked on the door to the supply room where Indra's netrod was stored, and then Alexa helped, and...nada.

It took them about a half-hour to finally brute-force their way through the encryption and open the door...

..and find a large, scattered pile of debris, mostly made up of computer parts and metal, and the base of what looks like it used to be some sort of stand. Panakeia drops to her knees in silence. Eris kicks the wall hard enough to dent it, swearing in Hyperionese. Alexa swears vengeance.

Right about now is when the other three arrive--and Epsilon bursts into tears when she sees the remains, latching onto Pana. Tisiphone is utterly silent, entirely shell-shocked.

This was flat-out murder--and of one of her own, too. Mneme now has something more concrete to answer for, in addition to everything else

>>41676489
GM, if you're here, I want to give you props on Mneme being someone I want to punch in the face. Repeatedly. With a full power Revolver Knuckle and Subaru's IS.

>>41676585

You a player or just a reader?

But yeah, I tend to run with the idea that the Nanoha setting is NOT all happy stuff. It's got some damn dark things (Insert Fate's entire backstory here) but heroism and courage can move mountains.

But then, I come into the Magical Girl genre via it's close cousin, the Mecha genre where that comes up a lot.

>>41676646
I'm >>41676585 , and I'm just a reader. I really wish I could be in your game though. Goddamn.

And yeah, it is pretty Nobledark, or Grimbright probably. Things aren't good, but if you can weather the blows, and strive towards the right thing, issues will change for the better.

>>41676718

Yeah.

Aynfean and Mneme are really two of the most hated characters in my game and for good reason. Though they overlap a lot I TRY not to have them be the same person.

Mneme isn't as clever or powerful as Aynfean but she's vastly more pragmatic and not as much of a sociopath. She'll kill someone because the plan needs them dead. She'll avoid contact or deaths if it helps the plan more. Aynfean loses points in that area because she's much, MUCH more petty and willing to put the plans at risk for personal vengeance or to win points against someone. She's also generally in favor of violence happy plans even if they are not needed. Which puts them roughly on par once you favor in the fact that Ayfean stomps Mneme in personal power and is a bit smarter.

>>41676921
Again, I would love to be in your game, but I know how awkward it can be introducing a new character, and I don't know if youall are a RL group or not.

>>41677025

IRC and, to be honest, this late I'm not thinking I'm really able to add new people. Not after a game has been running a year.

That and 4 players is really the sweet point imo for LOTW game size. Any more and combat really drags.

>>41677079
Again, I understand. Still glad to hear it's still going.

>>41677198

It's literally still going. I'm running it as I type right now.

>>41677241
Explains where OP and the rest are, heh.

>>41677378

Yep. Nearly over though. One player couldn't make it.

>>41677241
This thread is an inspiration. Gonna see if I can do it as well. Well, we'll find out a year or so from now.

>>41678384

GM here:

Best of luck. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or in the LOTW general.

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>>41677241

>Posting on 4chan while playing a game

>>41678477

An IRC game. I can't really NOT be on the internet while I run it.

>>41678524
Of course not! Just imagine all that bandwidth you're wasting on here!

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>>41678524

Thank you for so poignantly explaining why IRC games are bottom of the barrel tier gaming. The entire community of IRC gamers are made up of the sort of people who would think texting at the table is acceptable because "you can multitask."

Play by post is "viscous sludge gathering along the rim of your toilet" tier, by the way.

>>41679297

Thank you for your opinion. I don't agree but you are fine to have it.

>>41679395

>Respond
>Don't actually say anything

You can just not reply, you know. I'm aware that you disagree, because if you didn't, you wouldn't horse around on the internet while you're "running" a game.

Like, call me a stickler, but this is EXACTLY why I avoid IRC games like the plague. To a fault, every IRC game player acts like they're paying attention, but in reality they're flipping through their facebook, instant messaging friends, and apparently posting on 4chan. It's not acceptable in real life, and it's not acceptable online.

The trouble, of course, is that while in real life you can simply pocket the phone and set it to vibrate, you can't, as you put it, NOT be on the internet while you run an IRC game. The distractions are too numerous. This is why it is inferior.

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>>41679614

>>41679614

>You can just not reply, you know.

You could also just not comment, you know. You don't need to pipe up every single time IRC is mentioned with your hatred of it.

>>41676489
We returned home a somber lot, happy for Epsilon but saddened by Indra's official death. Alexa floated the idea of having Yvenne and Sephia impound the Hyperion ship to keep it safe and maybe check it over, but let it drop quickly enough when we reasoned that it'd been hidden well enough this whole time, so why change that now?

Tazzari's duel is up next...and I will detail it and the next ones tomorrow morning.

I'm glad some of you seem to be enjoying this. >>41676585 in particular makes me glad that I'm apparently able to communicate the amount of utter loathing we have for both Mneme and Aynfean. Personally I still harder a small thought that there's someone behind even them--an even more malevolent personality pulling their strings--but I'll be content if the rot goes no further.

>>41679689

The difference, however, is that rather than stating what's self evident ("I don't agree, also you're entitled to your opinion." Well no shit.), I extrapolate on my thoughts and justify them. If you're not interested in having the conversation, then surely ceasing the discussion by not responding is preferable to prompting me to reply, as I clearly am interested in having this discussion, hence my replies. Wouldn't you agree?

Like, I know suppressing the natural human urge to get the last word in is rough, but honestly, if you're not going to speak something worth saying, doesn't it make more sense to stay silent?

You can "muh irony" all you want, but the fact of the matter remains that I am the one who is interested in having this conversation, because drawing attention to unacceptable behavior helps curtail it, and you are the one who professes not to be interested in this talk. Therefore, the power is in your hands to cease communication.

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>>41679952

bump

>>41679952
>>41679614
>>41679297

I feel like you're missing a fundamental difference betweeen IRL voice based RP and online text based RP.

Voice is a transient medium of communication. After a word is spoken, it's gone unless you were paying attention. In an IRL or voice based game, it's incredibly important for people not to get distracted, as even missing a few words might mean they're unable to continue following events as they play out.

However, text is consistent medium. Rather than having to pay attention to the process, you're waiting until the entire post is completed before you have anything to read and respond to. This can take a little while, even in the best games, especially when someone is pondering a particular bit of description or phrasing.

Given that? There's nothing wrong with having another tab open in the background. You aren't missing anything. IRC clients can often alert you the second a message is received, so you're not even delaying your ability to respond when you finally do receive a post.

That isn't to say there aren't shitty IRC players who waste peoples time, but that's an issue with the people, not the medium.

>>41682091

GM here:

Agreed. That and having multiple tabs/channels I find is a great tool for RPGs online. Being able to seperate IC and OOC chatter is fantastic.

I often play/run games with an IC channel, and OOC channel and people chattering in Mumble(Or a common channel we all use outside games). You manage to keep rules, fluff and general chatter in their own separate areas. Which is a godsend with LOTW, as it's a rather complex system dicewise.

>>41680202

For this game I'm pretty sure it's 'I bet the Belkans did this'

>>41679668

Damn, I laughed.

>>41679750
The next duel is Tazzari vs. a girl named Melody.

Prior to participating, a couple of us had actually encountered Melody, as she was in the area for the tournament for a day or two before it actually began. She was another cyborg with magic, but not a Scaglietti work. She went to a different academy than any of us--in fact, she and Nasira attend the same one--and for that we remain grateful...as she was a total piece of work.

She has an ego bigger than Alexa's, is reliant on magic to float herself around instead of deigning to let her feet touch the ground, and has a gigantic ONEE-SAMA complex...on Iseult.

The two used to attend the same school before Iseult came to Cerberus. In fact that's why the twins, a pair of rather androgynous types who are also in that second squad, are so insanely protective of her--well, that, and both of them are crushing hard on Iseult.

Melody is so obsessed over Iseult that she used to spread rumors about her to alienate every single one of her other friends. Nasty, awful rumors, too, so there was not even a chance of salvaging those friendships. The twins were the only ones who disbelieved Melody and stuck by Iseult's side.

Melody also refers to Tazzari as "junk," claiming that her own cybernetics are superior in every way and that Jail's project, that produced the Numbers, was a failure.

So when Melody and Tazzari met just prior to their match and Tazzari offered a hand to shake and a "good luck, fight hard," Melody rebuffed her airily, complete with an upturned nose and aristocratic sniff.

Tazzari...got mad. She didn't give in and let Smart Link take over again...but hoo boy was she DETERMINED to take Melody down. Hard.

>>41685040
Dieci came to watch, giving Tazzari a hug...and helping her calm down. Not that she wasn't angry, still, but she wasn't blinded by it.

The poor judge sits down again with a cup of tea and a flask. Whatever's in it, she pours it into the tea and waves, telling them to start whenever. Or just fall down, she doesn't care.

The match is a long one, possibly the longest yet--longer, certainly, than even Altea vs. Iseult. At one point, Melody proves too adept at fooling Tazzari's precision targeting and prediction algorithms, so instead she falls back on the simplest of simple basics--staff drill, weapon drill, very early and direct movements without frill that don't care about prediction and stuff.

The fight turns into a slugfest then, each one battering the other with waves of pure force or Tazzari's stellar-themed spells. Melody is the first to fall, though, with Tazzari effectively dropping the sky on her head.

Tazzari's father--her real father, not Jail--swoops into the ring and folds her up in a massive hug. As the GM said:

>It's like an Altea hug, with less bone breaking.

And then she passes out herself from exhaustion, waking up a few minutes later in the stands, resting atop her father's coat while he gushes (rightfully) about how proud he is of her. Tazzari motions for Dieci to come by and she introduces them to each other...and then he pulls BOTH of them into a big bear hug.

>>41685315
A short bit later, Tazzari's dad had to leave to adjudicate some peacekeeping business, leaving her comfortably by herself in the stands for a moment...until Nasira plops down by her. They share a short chat--apparently Melody ALSO is a horrible bitch to Nasira, who has enough implanted technology to interface with the vehicles she pilots and barely counts as a cyborg.

Then they got onto the conversation about magnets, after suggesting that maybe applying one or twelve to Melody might get her to lighten up. Tazzari mentions that Nasira MIGHT be affected, but only slightly, given her less-extensive augmentations, but she only knows about this because of Anai doing it to her.

Which is precisely when Anai shows up and clacks one to the back of Tazzari's head.

The two get very clingy and prone to PDAs, which is when Nasira grins and makes her excuses to leave. And Anai reaches up and clacks one to the back of HER head...and then Nasira walks off, giggling and smiling like an idiot.

...

I should backtrack a few posts. Back in >>41676489 I detailed going through the rooms onboard the Hyperion ship. I left out one very, very important room: Mneme's.

Her room was sparkling clean, spartan in furnishings and looking practically unlived-in. So we ransacked it, looking for ANYTHING.

Epsilon, the lovely dear, spotted the single most important thing in that room: a lone, long red hair near the bed.

I bring this up now because we decided to send the hair to Sephia and Yvenne, to see if they could analyze it, find out who it came from (not that we had any doubts ourselves about anyone other than one name).

>>41685471
Moving along. The next day, the next round of matches in the tournament is set to begin. We're all gathered in the stands, waiting, with the day's pairings broadcast overhead: Alexa vs. Jaeger, Tazzari vs. Ivory, Altea vs. Ainlinn. Things are thrown off from Claire and Valdis double-surrendering, hence three matches instead of four.

A bell rings to signal the start, and someone else walks out to the judge's platform to take the seat. Someone...with red hair, and pointed ears like Ainlinn's.

Aynfean.

The bitch smiles to the crowd, explaining that the judge from the prior day is out sick, most probably thanks to something she ate...or drank. And that she'd been "called in" to officiate.

Naturally, every single one of us expects foul play, both in having the judge removed and in during the matches themselves.

Altea vs. Ainlinn is the first match of the day. An uneven matchup, to be sure, but Ainlinn gives a supremely good accounting of herself. She not only tags Altea, but her poisonous method of fighting actually manages to inflict damage--and not only that, but she survives THREE--count 'em THREE--direct, smashing hits from Altea's giant gauntlets. After the last hit, she tries to spring up for the rafters overhead, so she can hide and plot her next strike...but Altea grabs her ankle mid-leap and throws her.

At Aynfean.

Naturally, the bitch just sidesteps and redirects her flight...throwing poor Ainlinn in turn straight at Alexa. The two go down like bowling pins--aggravating Alexa's injuries from the assassination attempt, though not enough to keep her out of her own fight later on.

Altea, victory by ring out.

>>41685631

>Aynfean.

This seems like the start of bad things.

>>41685631
Instead of seeing birdies, both of them saw woofs circling around Alexa's head. Ainlinn giggled and said she could see them (around Alexa's head) too. With Altea's help, Claire brings them both to the tournament's infirmary, where Alexa is given painkillers and told she's got as clean a bill of health as she can. Ainlinn is concussed, though, so Claire sits with her while they watch Alexa and Jaeger's fight.

Alexa returns to find Aynfean counting down, and at "two" she sees Alexa and smiles.

>"The fight will go on!"

Note--never not once ever prior to this had there been a countdown to "disqualification."

Alexa and Jaeger snob it up a bit before their duel officially begins; it had been Jaeger who introduced Alexa to the teahouse that the assassination had been staged from, but we took it for now as coincidence. Instead, Jaeger was just a colossal shithead self-superior jerk, babbling about bloodlines and racial purity the entire fight.

Meanwhile Alexa babbled about how it was her pair of girlfriends that gave her strength and that the Jaeger family was weak and foolish (remember, as the GM said, Jaegers were fabulously wealthy and still a strong line, while the Kalinas...were bankers).

Alexa goads him into losing his temper, and he makes a critical mistake with his illusions, letting her inflict several slash wounds on the real him. He rushes in, screaming at Alexa about how she's low-born and a coward and basically practicing bestiality for laying with commoners--and then he staggers on his charge, a patch of gray on his skin spreading out.

Alexa recognizes the patch as K-1. Up in the stands, sitting next to Nike...Theia smirks relentlessly.

Fortunately, nobody else caught it.

(This, outside the game, was a huge fist-pump "fuck yeah" moment. Remember--Theia is TERRIFIED of magic...and she knows the name Jaeger from the history of her homeworld.)

>>41685732
Jaeger flips out and calls up basically Force Lightning...and unleashes it not just at Alexa, but also at the entire audience behind her.

Altea takes a hit, leaving her clothes smoking, though she is, naturally, none the worse for wear. Tazzari takes a nasty hit, some of her systems shorting briefly. As for the rest of the crowd...

They are saved by Circe, standing up in her seat with her arms outstretched, hands out, projecting a clear wall of force that blocks the lightning attacks over a huge area. Her AEGIS system is functioning perfectly as intended, saving the crowd.

It was pretty badass.

Alexa...is SUPER PISSED. His indiscriminate attack has roiled something deep inside...but instead of flipping out with a massive attack like he just did, she coldly stalks forward, giving him a lesson in humanity...and smashes his head with the hilt of her saber, whereupon he crumples to the floor, out cold.

(Yes, all the ice puns. It's Alexa.)

Aynfean frowns.

>"After that show of downright cheating, I am going to be forced to disqualify...Sir Jaeger. Congratulations, Miss Kalina."

Every one of us can see how badly she wanted to say otherwise, and how much the words taste like ash in her mouth, but instead of rubbing it in, Alexa nods and walks offstage.

Next up: Tazzari vs. Ivory.

>>41685823
Tazzari and Ivory meet in the ring and shake hands, where each apologizes to the other in advance. Neither of them are "nice" fighters, especially when they go all out.

Their match starts out fairly typically, with Tazzari trying to exploit her mid-range combat style. Meanwhile Ivory is...just creepy. Shadows with knives and teeth, absorbing Tazzari's attacks with her parasol, whispers and the feeling of being watched and...things...brushing against her legs when the lights are out...

Panic sets in...and while Ivory looks like she can't barely take another hit, she summons a set of will-o-the-wisps, each one actually the light in a lantern held by eviscerated corpses holding knives in their other hands...

Tazzari screams...and faints dead away, though Ivory is right there to catch her before she hits the gound.

Victory: Ivory.

>>41686098
My PC at home has apparently been turned off, and that's how I've been posting these. I have my tablet, though, so I'll redo the post that I lost shortly.

>>41686098

Well, I lose my bet.

>>41686098
The next fun part is a little bit later in the day, after Tazzari has had a chance to calm down and go back to hugging Anai constantly.

Altea, Claire, Delta, and Ainlinn head down to the first floor of the dorms, where the three new Hyperion "cadets" are stationed right across from the LT's office. Knocking on the door, we are greeted by a sleepy Epsilon, in her PJs and sporting the most adorable bedhead--she'd been napping on the couch.

She lets us in, and Altea tries to rouse Panakeia from her sealed-off room, but though Epsilon confirms she's in there, she makes no answer to Altea's knocking. After musing if she should just tear the door off, we call her back to the couch, where she gives a paper bag she'd been carrying to Epsilon.

Inside is one of her stuffed bunnies that Altea collected from the ship, filled again and sewed back up to almost pristine condition.

Epsilon tacklehugs Altea, who naturally all but ignores the impact, and after some coaxing she gets Panakeia to open her door. Altea hands her the other bag--inside is a stuffed bear, also newly fixed and cleaned, and clearly with some enormous sentimental value, as Pana actually manages to say "Thank you" to Altea without running away.

It was a small moment...but it was really cute.

>>41686098

This fight was really fun to play. Tazzari's offence mostly beat out Ivory's defence, but her Courtiers Arts attacks almost completely bypassed Tazzari's defences, especially since her Confidence is godawful. I was actually surprised it was that close, but I still had fun despite losing.

>>41687962

Yeah. If the lots had drawn differently it might have been, but Courtiers Arts is a hard counter to Tazzari at the moment.

Daily reminder that the TSAB is only modestly less incompetent than the Old Republic and three times as ethically questioable.

Also
>reading the book
>those FUCKING rules
I love crunch but come on this is sadistic.

>>41690802
The book is really badly edited and has a useless table of contents/no index. I basically had to force the GM/other players to walk me through chargen because i would just get pissed and close the PDF.

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>>41690802
>>reading the book
>>those FUCKING rules
>I love crunch but come on this is sadistic.
We're running chargen over here right now: ((>>41690603)), hop in if you want.

>>41690802

Bad editing is the worst thing about Legends of the Wulin, which is a damn shame. The General thread at >>41663222 might help, and #LotW on the Sup/tg/ IRC is good for chatting about the game.

>>41690839
>>41690834
>we have a general for this now
Whoa what.

>>41690435
Part of the reason Panakeia was shut away in her room is that she had been working on getting Bun's systems back up and running, too, with the hard drive recovered from their ship.

>>41692515
Daily reminder that summoners are a danger to our society and should, at best, be closely monitored.

>>41690860
They happen semi-regularly.
We don't have critical mass for a continuous running general, really.

>>41691496
The next bit is Tazzari, who contacts Circe via comm. They meet in a virtual space, with Circe at first just appearing as a formless white cloud of data, until she cycles through taking Anai's shape, and then settles on herself as currently dressed.

(A running gag is that, after our first shopping trip with her, Rhiannon has been using Circe as a clothes horse. She pretty much has yet to wear the same outfit twice.)

They have some conversation about Circe's "impartial observer" mission, wherein Tazzari convinces her to turn off her emotional suppression system. Circe disables the chemical suppressors...and vanishes from the virtual space.

Tazzari hurries down to the other squad's dorm and knocks on the door. Circe answers...in run-on sentences and under the effects of a total sugar rush. Through (probably) deliberate but (almost assuredly) innocent misunderstanding of things Tazzari says, Circe embarrasses her horribly, and instead of going out anywhere they stay in and watch a movie.

A short way in, the sugar rush crashes out hard, and Circe falls asleep on Tazzari's lap. A few minutes after THAT she wakes up, looking around, sounding disgusted with herself...and then she spots Tazzari.

>"Damnation."

Then she falls asleep again. But that...wasn't Circe's voice...

Three guesses as to whose.

>>41694701
Tazzari panicked when she heard Mneme's voice emanate from her gradually-becoming-a-friend. With Circe unconscious again, she murmurs an advance apology...and the cables hidden in her neck that comprise Smart Link's physical aspect snake out and "embed" into Circe.

(No, it's not tentacle rape. C'mon you guys.)

Perusing the computers driving Circe's systems, she comes across a terrifying sight: Mneme, loaded up into Circe's systems.

Luckily, with how easily Tazzari penetrated her defenses, it's not ACTUALLY Mneme. But it IS a pared-down copy of her, sliced and pruned, more resembling the intelligence built into an Armed Device than a true AI.

And it's hooked into several of Circe's ancillary systems--including AEGIS. And there are programs and failsafes in place to overload the AEGIS generator...and basically turn Circe into an oversized, walking suitcase nuke.

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>>41695600

>>41695600
Tazzari instantly calls Sergeant Dufort, our Academy's Logistics officer, general engineering egghead, and otherwise ace mechanical officer. Babbling about bombs in Circe and enemy superintelligences, Tazzari convinces her to come running, though she requests her to slow down and explain it again.

Tazzari calls Panakeia next--as Pana was basically a medical officer first and foremost, her nanoforge is best at treating and curing, and surgical applications.

Panakeia responds with suspicion until Tazzari desperately outlines the situation. Pana needs to crack the restriction on her nanoforge, which will set off all kinds of alarms, but in this case it's an emergency. Dufort, unfortunately, doesn't have the authority to disable the alarms, and there's quite literally no time to call anyone else--Tazzari is figuratively sitting there with her hand between the kill switch and the contact that will trigger the explosion.

Dufort (who has an artificial arm thanks to an industrial accident) piggybacks a connection via that arm through Smart Link, and they shift down to virtual space again, materializing inside Circe's systems.

>Inside Circe's Systems is...ordered. Almost unnaturally structured and spartan with everything carefully organized. Save for one part that, now that she's inside, is very clear. A black and green technological cancer sitting in the middle of her systems...and reaching out to many important parts. And standing in that cancer is Mneme.

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>>41695801

>>41695801
Battle is joined. Dufort takes the head-on approach, while Tazzari tries for virtua-flanking; the Mneme-construct enjoys throwing Black IC at both of them, both in the shape of lances and raining from the "sky." Dufort takes more than one nasty hit while Tazzari carves away at the construct; she's severing connections to the doomsday systems, attempting to cut the cancer away.

At one point, the Mneme-construct manages to send out a message...and Tazzari screams out a warning via comms to Panakeia that there's a Hyperion combat drone incoming on their location right the hell now. Panakeia tersely responds, saying she's requesting support from anyone who can, laying a series of monofilament mines outside Circe's room.

More fire and counterfire as the Mneme-construct wages digital warfare, punching an attack straight through Dufort's avatar. It reforms, but her speech is slurred, as though she's stroked out. Tazzari orders her out--Pana yells into the comm that the drone is a particular class of TAG--Tazzari takes a hit that causes her nose to bleed profusely in meatspace--the Mneme construct is playing for keeps, its attacks damaging bio bodies as much as programs--

And in a burst of effort and a scream of triumph, Tazzari severs the last tendrils, the Mneme-construct severed, disconnected, bound--and Dufort slides out basically the equivalent to a Ghostbusters muon trap, sucking the construct into basically a thumb drive as the pair jack out...

>>41697916
Tazzari "wakes" to the sound of crashing, explosions, thunder...is that a flamethrower?...

Using her staff as more of a walking stick, Tazzari levers herself to her feet, forcing herself outside, blood still dripping from her nose.

Outside...is a war zone. Craters in the ground, torn up concrete everywhere. In the center of it is a TAG 'mech. Both its arms are off, and Lt. Strommons' axe is buried in its chest plating (did I mention she was a badass?). Panakeia is there, too, one arm burned to a blackened crisp...but in true medic fashion, her first concern is now Tazzari.

(Pana's enhancements let her ignore virtually all pain and heal/reassemble at a vastly accelerated rate.)

It's then that Tazzari blacks out, waking up two hours later in a hospital bed, Circe and Dufort on either side of her in beds of their own. Panakeia is nowhere to be seen; she's been arrested for violating terms of her parole, but Strommons, who is right there, informs Tazzari it's merely a formality--she's submitted her own report, and Pana will be out of Enforcer custody again soon.

When Circe wakes up, we find she has attached nicknames to some of the group--chiefly Altea and Tazzari. They are, respectively, Collateral Damage and Unauthorized Access.

Unfortunately, Circe has bad news, too. Based on her evaluation so far--peace is not possible between Hyperion and the TSAB.

However...Mneme is an obstacle to the process. Should she be removed from the equation, it may have a chance.

Also, in her estimation, we "have all shown uncommon care for someone outside our Tribe." She states that if more of the Bureau acts as us, then there are perhaps good results to be had from attempts at peace.

I was up way too late last night, so I'm going to finish with this for now and turn in. More to come tomorrow.

>>41697916

This was actually one of the most dangerous battles in the game to date. If Tazzari failed to keep control of the kill switches, the explosion could have killed them all. And while doing that, the Mneme AI was trying to make her have a stroke, risking causing permanent neurological damage. And even if she survived that, the TAG that was dropped was fully equipped with lethal weaponry.

We won, but at times I was OOC pretty damn scared that the fight was going to end with a bloodstained crater.

bump

>>41699162
During the chat with Circe, we find out a couple more things about the situation "back home" on Hyperion--namely, had both Indra and Strategos Plouton actually, permanently died (Indra has...though part of her lives on in Tisiphone), the public relations effect on Hyperion would have been disastrous, and no way in hell would there be a chance for anything but a shooting war. Instead, Tisiphone survives with most of Indra's memories, if not her personality, and the Strategos is alive, though comatose, a fact the TSAB is making very publicly known.

We also find out that the Atalanta series of Myrmidons was designed as a replacement for the Ajax line, intended to be faster, more agile, more skilled, with a better ability to think for themselves and on their feet. Unfortunately, Delta's "defection" cast doubt on the line, and opinion on them soured, with people seeing them as defective and possibly sabotaged by their creator...one Dr. Desdedmona Plouton. The Strategos' wife. The very same one who has been missing for a while now, and who the Strategos came to Mid to find on a "tip" from Mneme (and Aynfean).

Her maiden name is Asclepius--which is the same classification name as Panakeia's medical nanites.

A little later on, Alexa sends a message to meet with Yvenne and Sephia. They accept, and she, Claire, and Ainlinn travel to the BSAZ. Alexa is uncharacteristically nervous.

When we arrive at their mansion, the pair are in their library, Yvenne reading, Sephia tinkering with some small bit of machinery or another. After the customary greetings, they get right into details. Alexa...has sent them an informational package, along with seeking their blessing, for doing some self-inflicted genetic augmentation--playing with her own genome to enhance aspects of her nature. Enhancing her strength and speed, boosting reaction times...the next best thing to mad science. Which, of course, is completely in keeping with Alexa as a proto-supervillain.

>>41704273
Yvenne does her best to dissuade Alexa from this course of action, both as devil's advocate and to see exactly how committed she is to seeing this cockamamie plan through. Alexa, naturally, completely wants to carry it out, believing it part and parcel of her quest to restore the Kalina family name to glory.

Finally, Yvenne relents. Alexa sends the data for her full plan over, and Sephia runs some simulated tests, voicing her concerns over the plan but finding there to be not enough "parts" to the data to accurately predict side effects.

The moment of truth arrives. Alexa strips down to a set of approximately medical underwear and steps into a pod down in the parts of the mansion that more resemble a laboratory. Bluish goo fills the pod and seals around her as the lid closes, and the process begins.

Magically, Alexa's player rolls Interesting Times on the Medicine skill roll. And no WAY is the GM going to let this chance go.

>>41704396
Ding! A few hours later, the pod announces it is finished, and it opens automagically with a pop and hiss. The goop inside starts to drain away, revealing Alexa from the top down. She already seems...leaner than she used to, a little more muscle tone on her, maybe an inch taller--

...uh oh. And her ears have vanished entirely. That's...weird.

...And then two lumps atop her head unfurl into black-furred wolf ears, moving with inhuman agility.

Her fingernails seem an inch longer than they were, and her hair seems to have grown out as well--no, wait, that's not hair. That's...a black-furred tail, pressed up against the side of the pod.

Alexa wakes up slowly..then announces that it worked!...and oh boy, she can hear *great* now.

Yvenne...is swallowing giggles, trying to keep a straight face. "...Well," she says. "...I thought those stories were exaggerations..."

Sephia is facepalming so hard it's a wonder she's not elbow deep into her own skull.

Ainlinn is giggling like a lunatic--and pulls a dog whistle out of her pocket.

Claire is staring in slack-jawed amazement.

Yvenne explains the "stories" comment briefly--she's aware of some Kalina family lore, and in the past the Kalina line saw no issue with members marrying their Guardian Beasts. After all, most of them preferred to spend all their time in human form anyway.

Cue PLENTY of innuendo and suggestive talk.

>>41704469
We head back to the dorms a bit later, after Alexa has time to rest and acclimatize. Claire and Ainlinn go inside first, finding Tazzari reading from an AR window while Altea is getting ready to change after having been in the gym (for who knows how long).

Alexa knocks, and Claire makes Tazzari open it up.

Now it's Tazzari's turn to not believe her eyes--she, in fact, runs a quick diagnostic on her eyes and her visual feed, certain that tricks are being played at her expense.

Altea is much more placid about it, informing Alexa she can just turn them off because Rhiannon was bragging about that feature just the other day.

Alexa says it's not something she can just turn off, and Altea is confused.

>"So why are you a dog now?"
>"She did some doctor stuff, Altea, and that happened by accident."
>"Uh-huh. So, like, she did plastic surgery or something?"
>"Genetic manipulation, actually."
>"Oh, so, like, your mom is a dog?"
>"Not her mom, Altea, but maybe a great-great-great-great-great-great grandma or grandpa."
>"No, my mother is not a dog, but, umm, the Kalina line was known for quite often marrying Guardian Beasts. I...wanted to bring forth that heritage to make me more dangerous in battle."
>"Ohh, so sort of like how one of Tazzari's ancestors married a toaster. Got it!"
>'...Yes, Altea, that's exactly it."

>>41704589
>"Ohh, so sort of like how one of Tazzari's ancestors married a toaster. Got it!"
>'...Yes, Altea, that's exactly it."
bwahahahahahah, oh man she's great, don't ever change Altea.

>>41704589
That last part just makes me think RVB.

"So that makes you...a gay robot." "Yes Caboose, That's exactly it."

>>41706058
Well, Tazzari IS a gay robot...

>>41704589
The next day rolls around and it's time for the next round of the Strike Arts Tournament. The first fight, again with Aynfean officiating, is Altea vs. Ivory. Now that we all know what the two can do, this fight promises to be...very interesting. Is Altea capable of being scared? Can Ivory's parasol-block technique deal with Altea's brute strength?

They step into the ring, and shake hands, and get into ready stances.

And Aynfean announces Ivory's disqualification.

Turning disbelieving eyes on the smug bitch in the judge's throne, she goes through her logic--Ivory was the officer who arrested one Keira Williams, who was supposed to be Alexa's combat partner in the previous round of the Tournament, outside the facility. Keira was later released, all charges dropped--and Aynfean determined it was proof of Ivory using her Enforcer authority to help a friend out and basically cheat.

Claire...is FURIOUS. After two seconds to get over the shock she's up and over the walls--or she would be, if Tazzari hadn't grabbed her ankle to keep her from going. Same with Alexa; she shouted that Keira tried to kill her, also while trying to move, until Tazzari got her shoulder.

(Remember, up to this point, Tazzari still believes there's an inherent nobility to Aynfean's motives, and that her ends justify her terrible, terrible means.)

Tazzari quietly insists that the judgment is valid by interpretation of the rules, though, and while other judges may let it slide, there's no one present to overrule Aynfean.

(Remember when the GM said Aynfean was super, super petty? This is it.)

Altea and Ivory shake hands again and part ways, promising maybe a spar outside the Tournament just to see what would happen.

Next up: Alexa vs. Nike.

>>41706205
Claire tries to keep Alexa from going up there, pleading that Aynfean just has some plan to spite her, demean her, maybe even outright injure her.

Meanwhile she opens a link to Enforcer Tia Maddalen, Ivory's guardian, and asks her to come to the Tournament--and also bring the security "tapes" from the holding facility please.

Aynfean calls for Alexa again, informing her that she has five minutes to appear or she'll be judged as a no-show and automatically forfeit. Alexa grits her teeth and forces her pride to the surface, storming out to the stage to stand by Nike--who, in turn, looks more than a little confused.

Especially when Aynfean smiles coldly and orders Ivory to arrest Nike on the spot.

>>41706257
Ivory just staaaaaaaaaaares at Aynfean in utter disbelief--and this time around there's no stopping Claire, who vaults the walls and storms up onto the field herself.

Alexa, meanwhile, takes the wind out of Aynfean's sails by informing Aynfean, equally coldly, that Nike is present in the city, and indeed in the Tournament, as a guest of Alexa's own house; that the Belkan Self-Administered Zone has a long tradition of same, with the TSAB honoring it; and that so long as Nike commits no acts that would compel her arrest, like any normal citizen, then she has as much right to be present as Aynfean herself.

That's when Tia Maddalen shows up.

Claire takes over, holding Nike's hand tightly, and with Tazzari's help, commandeers the arena's PA systems, along with a large AR window showing legal code. She announces that the only real conflict of interest here is Aynfean's herself--as there is direct video evidence of Aynfean being the one removing Keira Williams, the one to attempted an assassination on Alexa, from Enforcer custody.

>>41706339
I hope she flipped a table at being one upped again.

>>41706339
Poor Tazzari looks absolutely shattered, her trust in Aynfean ruined in an instant. She demands, via comm, that Claire verify the story be true--and Claire says it is. She was, after all, AT the assassination, and Tia should have the footage of Aynfean walking out with Keira; it's what Claire asked her to bring.

>Aynfean opens her mouth again. "Get off the stage." She hisses out.
>"Make us. Cheater."
>"Get off. Now." Her voice rises.

Then Tia walks up into the fighting stage itself, speaking in a conversational tone...and yet somehow her voice carries through the entire arena, carrying the weight and finality of death.

>"Attache Dymitryou? Could we talk in private?"
>"Piss off, Tia. Go back to playing cops and robbers!"
>Tia gestures...and ghostly hands grab Aynfean by the scruff of the neck. "That was NOT a request."

She announced the Tournament was being postponed until a full investigation could be completed, then walked out with Aynfean held up in the air like a scolded puppy.

>>41706492
I'm going to take a minute to enjoy having typed that out. Our GM is *amazing* at making NPCs, both friends to really enjoy (see: Epsilon, just as one quick example) and enemies to really, really *hate* (see: Aynfean, Mneme).

Even just rereading the log to consolidate it for this thread gave me a little thrill of visceral satisfaction.

>>41706492
YEEESSSSS
So goddamn satisfying to read. I can't believe how satisfying it was to be there when ti happened.

>>41706573

Another player here. It's a small victory, all things considered... But god Damn it felt good to finally get one over that evil bitch.

Mostly what this has shown is that despite being an evil genius, Aynfean is so petty that she will put her schemes in jeopardy to fuck with teenagers who have annoyed her.

>>41707329

Pretty much. It's her biggest weakness, and one of the things we're going to have to ruthlessly exploit if we want to stop her. It's also what makes Mneme scarier than her, in some ways. Mneme knows how to not make it personal.

>>41707329
>>41707582

GM here: Yeah, it's her biggest flaw as I said earlier up thread.

Aynfean is petty enough to want to see those who piss her off personally destroyed. Mneme is content to just hear that the bomb got you or even let you go if you are not going to interfere in her plans.

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>>41707329

I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their dumb dog girl!

>>41709767

This had multiple players in the game laughing themselves silly.

>>41710973

And the GM.

Waiting for more, OP

>>41713158

Likewise

>>41713158
>>41714669
Getting there. Only just now able to sit down for recreational time after the last 5 hours ish.

>>41715027

Looking forward to it.

>>41706492
After the dramatics on the field, after Tia left carrying Aynfean, we decided...to go get lunch. Altea took us all to Kitties, natch, where we sat around and chatted and decompressed.

Claire ordered a beer--she's the oldest of the PCs, and among the oldest of the entire set of students in our level at Cerberus, at 18 almost 19--while everyone else has their own thing. This is the first visit to Kitties for all except Claire and Altea; Ivory looks around in bemusement, blushing, while Alexa looks like she's about to start stalking prey, and Tazzari looks around in a dreamlike state, eventually mumbling that the place looks just like her shows.

(Tazzari's mother sends her a steady diet of animu and mangoes from Earth, which is why Tazzari is so enchanted by the genre known as "magical girl." What fourth wall?)

Tia walks in eventually, alone, with a brilliantly contrasting red line of a cut on one cheek, and a purpling bruise visible on one shoulder. While she's present, we explain to Nike our suspicions about Section 31, basically our local "copy" of her Special Situation Subsection, and how Aynfean is allegedly a member of it--and probably in cahoots with Mneme, though for what, nobody's entirely sure, because why war? Tia, unfortunately, confirms what we all kind of figured--she may have arrested Aynfean, but the latter is going to get out pretty easily with some string-pulling or technicality or another.

>>41717586

>Tazzari looks around in a dreamlike state, eventually mumbling that the place looks just like her shows.

GGGGAAAAAYYYYYYY

>>41717586

>(Tazzari's mother sends her a steady diet of animu and mangoes from Earth, which is why Tazzari is so enchanted by the genre known as "magical girl." What fourth wall?)

Wat?

bump

>>41720279
>>41718625

Tazzari is a total Nanoha fangirl. Her earliest memory, waking up in one of Scaglietti's clone tubes, is seeing Nanoha, surveying the 'materials' in the aftermath of the Saint Cradle Incident. Her second memory is that of her adoptive father, one of the rescue mages sent in afterwards.

Tazzari's mother is a TSAB Bridge officer on warships, and when a tour took her near Earth, she thought it'd be a nice present for her daughter to send her some media and entertainment products from Nanoha's homeworld, and even her origin nation.

And thus, Tazzari found Magical Girl anime. In my head, the first one she saw has always been Sailor Moon, but I've left it non-specific. Either way? She fell in love with the over the top heroism of it all, seeing Nanoha as the ultimate incarnation of a national ideal... Missing out on quite a lot of important concept.

Either way, Tazzari is now a massive weeb, constantly looking forward to the next data packet from one of her mothers friends when they pass by Earth.

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>>41722415

NNNNEEEEERRRRRDDDD

>>41717586
OP here. My PC at home is now offline until after we finish moving, so I will attempt to update some on my tablet here.

In other news, this and the previous storytime are archived now, so pls to upvote so it doesn't get scrubbed~

>>41725067
I should add--the next real arc is also the most recent one, so we shall be drawing to a close fairly soon. We quite literally JUST wrapped it up and will be embarking on the next plot in a session or three.

The tale must go on!

>>41725090
>>41727057
I'll attempt to start up again in a few minutes, just had a busy morning at work.

>>41727868

Still waiting OP.

>>41717586
Real quick, so that there's something here to keep us from dying a mournful death... (Also I'm on a conference call)

There's another period of minor things happening, finishing out the school term at Cerberus, having some conversations with some people...

And then classes close, leaving us with five whole weeks of vacation before the school terms starts up again. We kick off the vacation time in very lazy fashion, half of us just lounging around the dorm, for once not in the school uniform.

Then Altea brings up a suggestion--hey, why don't we all go with her when she visits her home planet in a couple of days?

As obviously none of us have been there, and also none of us have anything better to do, this sounds like a GREAT idea! Let's go find a planet full of Alteas and hang about for a few weeks!

But first...while discussing this, Alexa gets a message. Her parents have come to visit, a scenario actually suggested by her counselor what seems like ages ago.

So a few of us go with her to meet them as moral support--she's been avoiding them since she ran away from home, basically, to join the TSAB.

The meeting...goes about as well as you'd expect. While they may not be as fully embracing of the ham as Alexa, every inch of her parents' Belkanness shines through, as her dad almost immediately demands she cease this "foolishness" and come home.

Tensions rise quickly, and tempers flare even faster, and Alexa and her dad end up in a shouting match while the rest of us try to throw in points in her favor to convince him to shut up and go home--and then Altea steps in and grabs him by the collar of his shirt to yell in his face--except she whoopses and he crashes into the ceiling, falling back down, clearly concussed.

>>41730756
After medical removes him from the room, Alexa's mother breaks down in tears, insisting that their fear for her safety is behind her father's standoffish and jerkfaced attitude. Alexa tries to insist that she's in the safest place she could possibly be right now--among friends, at a place training her to use her abilities to their fullest, etc.

Her mom counters that she and Alexa's father were informed by an actual TSAB officer that we would be among the vanguard sent to the fighting if war DID happen to break out between the TSAB and Hyperion.

This...makes absolutely no sense to us. Not only does the TSAB have plenty of frontline troops, but we're cadets. Nanoha series or otherwise, using cadets in a scenario like that would be tantamount to throwing meat into the grinder.

Then a couple of us get an awful, sneaking suspicion. Who would tell Alexa's mother and father that we would be the first people sent to die in hostilities between the TSAB and a world of people using mass-based weaponry?

We asked her...did this officer happen to be female, with red hair, and perhaps pointed ears?

She, very confusedly, nods. And why wouldn't she be confused? What would red hair and pointed ears have to do with anything?

But of COURSE Aynfean would do something like that. Not only is she vicious enough to want us all gone...but she has a special hate for Alexa in particular.

>>41730857
After calming her down only the slightest amount, Alexa's mother seems to realize that for once, her daughter's intractible stubbornness is greater than her own, so she backs down, in tears, deathly afraid for her daughter's life. In an effort to give her the edge she might need to survive, she gives Alexa the code to unlock all the abilities of her orb--one of the two parts of her Armed Device that she's had since day 1 (crystal ball and saber). Then we all part ways, leaving her to contemplate her daughter's uncertain fate.

After that...it's off to Francisco!

bump

>>41730857

She's even going after their families now? Damn.

The thread in the archive is broken

>>41735421

Damnation.

>>41735421
We're aware, we're trying to get it fixed actually.

Thanks for keeping this bumped, guys, but we're almost entirely packed and ready to move so I'll likely be very sporadic with storytime updates for the next few days. Feel free to ask more questions or whatever though.

Ah well, if the story doesn't finish here you can always make a new thread.

>>41738460

No reason to let it fall off the board if we can get some cool story/fluff in beforehand.

This is still alive? Huh.

>>41741081

Yep. Though It's likely dead due to OP being busy for the next couple of days Moving.

>>41741835

Not gonna give up without a fight

>>41743620

Hah. GM here.

Any more questions from people about NPCs/Setting?

I spend WAY too long working out backstories for NPCs so I can try to get them with natural actions so if any intrigue you, I've likely written SOMETHING. Like how Dufort lost her arm or how Enforcer Tia, Aynfean and Lt Strommons know each other.

>>41743748
OP here.

Or why Dufort and Strommons had such a strong reaction to Altea and Kitties~

Bump for hope

>>41743748
From the last thread:
> they have a very controlled political and economic situation where the four most influential people are all synthetic people created for the purpose of running their area of expertise.
>Archon Athena
Hyperion sounds like it was at least partially inspired by Appleseed's Olympus.

>>41747626

I've watched it before but I didn't deliberately base it off that. Still, it might have rattled about in my head and resulted in some of it.

>>41747692

Are there any other major sources you've drawn from, apart from Infinity and Ace Combat?

>>41735421

Any idea how to fix this?

>>41752065
Thread can be viewed here until it's fixed: https://archive.moe/tg/thread/41612411/#41612411

>>41749703

Infinity, Ace Combat, Mythology and a smattering of Battletech are the big ones.

>>41752829

Battletech? Huh. Didn't expect that.

>>41753714
Where else would you get bitching cool giant robots?

>>41753714
>>41754790

Actually, add a little Super Robot Wars to that too.

Bumpin

Bump

>>41755262
>>41754790

Doesn't SRW kinda obsolete Battletech?

>>41763944

GM here: Not really?

I'm not really sure what you mean.

>>41765133

The weakest mechs in SRW seem way stronger than anything in Battletech.

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>>41766563

Yeah but they are inspiration, not direct copies.

As an aside: The Alt Eisen Riese is 100 tonnes, with it's prior version being 80 tonnes. They could fit very easily into Battletech. An atlas would likely kick the every loving crud out of the poor old Gespenst. (Or knowing the Atlas, punch it. Atlas' like punching things)

I used each of the major inspiration sources, mechwise, to give a unique feel to each group's robots.

Hyperion: Ghost in the Shell/Infinity - It's sleek, it's incredibly high tech and effective and it's clearly the result of a lot of skilled scientists working hard to created something very efficient.

Belka: Super Robot Wars (OG stuff, mostly) - At it's least crazy, it's still incredibly high tech though with less of a focus on efficiency compared to the Hyperion designs. At it's most crazy, it might as well be magic (In the 'How does this even WORK' sense).

Caledfwlch Techniques: Battletech (With a heavy Word of Blake lean) - Lacking the sleek multiple iterations of increased efficiency of Hyperion work or the complete ability to make the laws of physics cry of Belka they are making do with raw engineering grunt and a hint of mad genius to get it all working. They don't have the grace of Hyperion TAGs of the impossible tools of Belkan Golems but they have minds and massive factories and the lot of mechanical skill to make metal monsters with a lot of power.

If they were RTS factions Hyperion would be fast, agile and horribly offensive leaning, Belka would be Better Than You but pay out the ass for it and Caledfwlch would be slow, clunky, lacking special abilities...but packing the most armour and gun into a given production cost in the game.

bump for hope.

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>>41766708
>Battletech (With a heavy Word of Blake lean)
So the WoB Spikytech look?