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>>2598339
>”Yes.”
>Tie her hands, gag and blindfold her.

You look at the blonde woman before you, your recently acquired runeblade still held to her throat. She holds herself perfectly still and poised. If the sword bothers her at all, she doesn’t show it. The censer dangles loosely from one hand, wisps of orange smoke still billowing up all around you. Her question hangs in the air but you see no harm in acknowledging it.
“God set the star in motion. I simply brought it down.”
You reach for her and spin her around in order to tie her up. It wouldn’t do to have her escape. The cord is still bloodstained from its last occupant but you have neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about that.

“I thought it was you,” Dr Erunt says, not resisting as you tie her hands behind her back. “Didn’t make sense for anyone else.”
And with that said, she twists in your grasp! She doesn’t break your grip but instead every joint in her body seems to dislocate all at once! Her hands twist out of yours, leaving flayed skin behind in your gauntleted hands. And all of this just so that she could turn and face you.

The stolen runesword pierces her neck, claiming its second life by your hand. Blood spills ceaselessly onto the floorboards and as the doctor staggers away, she purses her ruined lips and spits. You don’t have time to dodge but you don’t need to. A single broken tooth shoots through the air beside you, missing you by more than a foot.

The dying Dr Erunt lunges for you, her arms spread wide as if to catch you in an embrace. You don’t know her purpose but you know enough to not want {i]any of it. You kick her in the stomach and send her to the ground before she can get close.
She gurgles incoherently on the ground in a pool of frothing blood. Wait, frothing? You take a step back as it begins to foam with a loud fizzing sound. The doctor’s entire body seems to dissolve from the inside out, foaming blood eating through her skin and clothes in at least a dozen places. The floor beneath her gives way a moment later, the gooey remnants of Dr Erunt’s body eating straight through the floorboards and raining down the inside of the tower below.

If that’s what it can do to wood, you have no desire to learn what would have happened to you had she succeeded in grabbing hold of you in her final moments.

Your companions are still gaping. The entire desperate combat took place in just a few seconds. And for a drawn out awful moment, the workshop is silent save for the bubbling of the doctor’s blood from where it had splattered further across the floor, upon the wall and across the smoking censer that she had dropped as she had died.
It happens before you even realise the import of it all. The holed metal sphere collapses on itself, the blood decaying the steel. The smoke goes out.

1/2

>>2598342
And with a shriek, the verminous beast still squatting above the opened roof descends upon you all! Its barbed tail slams down onto the workshop’s floor where the doctor had been standing just a few seconds ago, rocking the entire room and sending you staggering back. Claws scrabble along the edge of the opened roof as the creature barges into it, trying to squeeze its bulk through the hole!


>Unveil the lamp-post once more! You must do it, no matter how much it may hurt!

>Charge its tail while its still down here and slice it off!

>Rally the redcloaks. You need them all to open fire and push the beast back!

>Try to close the roof off once more.

>You cannot defend this sacred place. When this creature falls, another will just descend from the sky and take its place. There are at least several dozen more! You need to retreat back down the stairwell of the tower.

>Climb up through the opened roof and take on this monstrosity yourself!

>Other (Specify)

>>2598346
>You cannot defend this sacred place. When this creature falls, another will just descend from the sky and take its place. There are at least several dozen more! You need to retreat back down the stairwell of the tower.

>>2598346
>You cannot defend this sacred place. When this creature falls, another will just descend from the sky and take its place. There are at least several dozen more! You need to retreat back down the stairwell of the tower.

I still don't even know why we came here. Really bad decision.

Vote called, writing.

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>You cannot defend this sacred place. When this creature falls, another will just descend from the sky and take its place. There are at least several dozen more! You need to retreat back down the stairwell of the tower.

“Everyone back! Get down the stairs! Out! Out!”
As much as it pains you to admit, you cannot defend this place. The woman who you were depending on to use as a hostage has just more or less dissolved in your arms. The Workshop forces still mass on the bridge outside and their creatures still fill the sky. And though this may very well be the holiest place left in all the world, you must abandon it.

Your shout spurs the shocked redcloaks into action, one of them throwing the door open as you all start to flee. You’re the last one out, dodging the fumus’ scything tail all the while. You cast one look back at the sacred machines before slamming the door shut once more. You’ll be back. You know not when or how, just that you will. Until then you’ll just have to trust the workshop’s runes to keep it unsullied.

Abe joins you as you run down the stairs behind everyone else. He’s holding his left arm, from which you can see a trickle of blood.

“What happened to you?”

“It’s nothing,” he says, grimacing. “That doctor’s tooth hit me in the arm. It just split the skin, I’ve already pulled it out.”

“I’ll look at it later when I have time,” you say as you gallop down the stairs three at a time. Fortunately they at least seem designed for Third Men. The others are ahead of you, racing down towards the bottom floor of the hollow tower.

“I’m not the one who’s hurting, am I?”
Abe lands a hand on your shoulder as he keeps up with you on your descent. He’s still shouting.
“You used the lamp!”

“Yes! And I saved everyone’s lives because of it!”

“How are your hands under those gauntlets? How far do the burns go now?”

That’s not a question you can answer. In truth, you’ve been avoiding it yourself. You’re not sure if you want to know.
“That’s unimportant. I can still hold a sword.”

“Yes...and your hands were shaking before. Look Orion, this isn’t over. We’re going to have to fight our way out of here.”

“What’s new?”

“Just promise me you’ll be alright. Don’t go charging in at the front like you always do.”

“I have to, Abe. If I don’t then someone else will and their blood will be on my hands. Someone has to do it.”

“But it doesn’t have to always be you!”

1/2

>>2598524
The two of you reach the bottom, the large doors to the outside looming before you. The redcloaks are scattered around the empty room, most of them readying their rifles. Beatrice is off to the side away from all of them, her bloodstained mouth set in a grim line as she trains her pistol on the doors. Savina’s corpse is still lying spread-eagled in the middle of it all, the stone floor around her etched by drops of the doctor’s fallen blood.

Alex quickly joins the two of you, her rifle held at the ready.
“Here we are,” she says. “What the fuck happened to the doctor?”

“I don’t know. She must have been ready to die.”
But even that doesn’t seem right to you. Surely she could have died for more than a pool of acid and a spat out tooth? Wasn’t she supposed to be someone important? Why was she up on the roof in the first place?

Alex still has more questions however. She takes a look back at the workshop and though she hides it well, you can see her fear.
“What are we going to do now? They’re everywhere.”

The city is your enemy.

Before you can answer, the doors shake as something crashes into them! The next impact is just a moment after that and it nearly rattles them off their hinges. The redcloaks stumble back in a widening semi-circle but keep their rifles high.
You’ve only got seconds, if even that, before those doors fall and the Workshop men on the bridge outside swarm in.

>Wick: 6/10
>Spark: 3/ 8


>Just keep the firing line ready. They don’t have guns, you do. You can defend a single doorway for as long as you have bullets!

>Be ready to ambush the first ones and then charge out! Defending is useless here, you just need to fight your way out.

>Unveil the lamp-post once more. Thus charged, an Immolate should clear the entire bridge.

>Surrender.

>Other (Specify)

>>2598529
>Be ready to ambush the first ones and then charge out! Defending is useless here, you just need to fight your way out.

No time left, better gtfo while it's still possible to.

Guessing Erunt wasn't the real one and that we can expect more exploding acid assassins. Acid Assassins is a great band name, also.

>>2598529
>Be ready to ambush the first ones and then charge out! Defending is useless here, you just need to fight your way out.

>>2598529
>Be ready to ambush the first ones and then charge out! Defending is useless here, you just need to fight your way out.

>>2598529
>Just keep the firing line ready. They don’t have guns, you do. You can defend a single doorway for as long as you have bullets!

Don't give up our advantage until we have to.

Vote called, writing.

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>Be ready to ambush the first ones and then charge out! Defending is useless here, you just need to fight your way out.

You motion for everyone to split up into three groups. A few redcloaks will stay before the door with their rifles but the rest of you all will split into two groups at either side of the shuddering doors. Just defending isn’t going to be enough, there’s too damn many of them. Your only option is to fight your way out once more!
What forces had you seen on the bridge again? The things that the doctor had called ‘Fumus’ were in the sky but the bridge had just been guards and a collection of strange creatures you couldn’t recognise from the top of the tower. You’ll wait for them to barge in, catch them in a pincer and then push a counter-attack!

You sheath the bloody sword and, ignoring the scorching pain still running up your arms, raise the trophy you took from the corpse of the Iron Duke. The first men to step past the threshold, you’ll just swing it out and-

The doors burst off their hinges and explode into a cloud of splinters as something far larger than a man leaps through the doorway! It hits the ground skidding and sending the redcloaks diving for cover as it drifts to a halt in the very center of the room. You swing your staff as it passes you but your strike bounces off the monster’s tough underbelly.
You turn to face the thing that is now behind you all and recoil instinctively. It may be the strangest beast you’ve seen yet!

The four-legged thing is large and squat like a toad, taller than a man and wider and longer than five. You see no eyes or mouth or indeed any features beyond a set of enormous nostrils set into its thick and warty skin. But what truly draws the eye is its back. It’s leathery skin has split open all along its back, revealing an expanse of softer gray flesh from which sprout hundreds and hundreds of flailing human arms. Their hands constantly reach for the sky, fingers dancing across each other in nonsensical incoherence.
It’s nostrils flare and it screams through them with the voice of a man, billowing clouds of vapour issuing forth from whatever inconceivable biology lies within such a blasphemy.

“The Engine’s breached! Charge!”

A squad of wood-armoured men charge in through the doorway behind you, swords and thorny whips raised high. No gunshots meet them, the monster having scattered the firing line with its clumsy charge.

All at once, you are pressed on two sides at once. What shall you do?


>Hold back the guards! Beatrice and Abe can handle the creature, Alex and the redcloaks shall be with you.

>Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.

>>2598732
>Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.
I don't want to risk bitchfit Bea and low self esteem Abe fighting that thing.

>Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.

Did we have a cauterize stored on our stick? Considering this thing is definitely evil we probably want to melt it from the inside.

>>2598741
I believe you had a Benediction stored in it but you used it in your fight with Savina.

>>2598732
>Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.

>>2598732
> >Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.


So you finally decided to kill Abe off with that tooth huh?

Vote called, writing.

>>2598342
>All those anons just answering "Yes" like nothing could go wrong
Heh.

>Slay the beast behind you, don’t let it charge a second time! The others can keep holding the door.

“You handle them!,” you bellow, sprinting back across the room and pulling one of the redcloaks away from the monster. “I’ll deal with this!”

The creature takes a single step back, its multitude of human hands waving back and forth in a neverending unrhythm. It huffs as it squares itself up with you and though you hear gunshots behind you, you don’t dare take your eyes off it for a second.
One misshapen stump of a foot, clawless and with graspers that more resemble the roots of a tree than anything of an animal, paws at the ground as it readies to charge you.


>Ignite your staff and meet its charge with your own, lancing straight through its nostrils into whatever organ lies behind them. It’s high risk but it might lay this creature out in a single blow. (Difficult roll)

>Though you don’t know the heritage of this thing, you doubt it likes the flame. Set it ablaze with an Immolate before it can even charge. (Normal roll, wick expenditure)

>Just dodge its charge and keep leading it around, waiting for a safe opening. (Easy roll)

>Other (Specify)

>>2598804
>Try to make it charge into the Thorn forces. Or into a wall.

>>2598804
>Other (Specify)

Could we bait it into the other attackers now that it's not controlled?

It's a dumb beast why fight it if we don't have to.

>>2598804
>Ignite your staff and meet its charge with your own, lancing straight through its nostrils into whatever organ lies behind them. It’s high risk but it might lay this creature out in a single blow. (Difficult roll)
Time is our enemy

>>2598808
>>2598810
This is an acceptable option and will be counted as a subset of the third. It will result in an easy roll.

>>2598524
>That doctor’s tooth hit me in the arm
RIP Abe

>>2598804
>Ignite your staff and meet its charge with your own, lancing straight through its nostrils into whatever organ lies behind them. It’s high risk but it might lay this creature out in a single blow. (Difficult roll)
Ignite AND store an immolate inside, to get some fire in even if we miss.

>>2598810
I'll second this idea

Vote called, writing.

>Try to make it charge into the Thorn forces. Or into a wall.

You slowly pace around the beast, ready to dodge at a moment’s notice. If you can just bait its charge, you might be able to get it to run right down into the doorway and into the guardsmen! As monstrous as it looks, this is just a dumb beast after all. Why should you fight it on its own terms?

You see the monster tense up, the arms sprouting from its back suddenly going still.

“Get out of the way! Incoming!”
You can only hope the redcloaks behind you figure out what you’re trying to do in time!

And as you shout, the creature lunges!


>Roll 1d6. The first 3 results shall be used. This is an easy roll, so all results that aren’t 1 will be adjusted up by 1.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2598893
I always roll poorly desu.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2598893

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2598928
RIP in Piss

>5, 1, 6

Writing.

>5, 1, 6

You run to the side as the monster pursues you, watching redcloaks jump out of the way as you point it successfully at the Tangle soldiers in the doorway! Unfortunately you aren’t quite quick enough to get out of the way at the same time.

It barrels into you, slamming you up and along its squat body. Your body aching with a sudden and incredible pain, you almost manage to grab hold of one of its nostrils but your traitorous fingers, still freshly burned, give way!
The beast knocks you up and you roll over the top of it right into the forest of arms sprouting from its back. You’re in the midst of them all, your vision blurred with blood and scrabbling limbs!

Their incoherent and witless motions still when you touch them, the arms clustered around you grabbing hold of you instead with every possible grip and hold that they can muster. Your cries are instantly muffled as hands close over your mouth, your eyes, your nose…

You can’t breathe. The blind movements of the arms are suffocating you.

At least you can still hear the muffled screams of the Tangle guards. The beast hit them just as you planned. That is little comfort to you, buried beneath a morass of hands. You reach inward for your Flame Internal. You don’t have time for subtlety!

>Wick: 3/10
>Spark: 3/ 8

The Self-Ignition covers you in flame, setting the creature to screaming and the burning arms recoiling from your immolation!

>Roll 1d3 for Dead King’s Crown.

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>2598989
does it count as snake eyes if I roll 1 here?

>>2598994
No. Writing.

>>2598644
>>2598787
>>2598811
>>2598899
>>2598989
Checking digits

>3

You fall from the back of the beast, burning your way through the clutches of the arms and hit the ground rolling. You look up just in time to see the monster rearing up in front of you! You get to your feet and leap out of the way just in time for a stumpy leg to crash down upon where your head had just been.

The thing just keeps screaming, cold vapor continually spraying out from its oversized nostrils. What had the Tangle men called this thing? An ‘Engine’?. Whatever it is, it’s currently blocking the doorway quite effectively.
Your companions open fire, their bullets stinging the creature’s thick hide and forcing it back. And as for you, you can feel the fire surrounding you feeding back into your Flame Internal and filling you with holy strength.

>You have 2 Wick from the Dead King’s Crown to invest into storing a Flame Rite or Benediction within your body. Choose.

>>2599044
>2 Wick

Store a Cauterize in case we have to kill this thing. I think a Benediction of Relief would be good too, but I'm going for Cauterize.

>>2599044
>Benediction of Relief

>>2599044
>Benediction of Relief
chance to gain back some Wick, and the more regen we have on Orion, the better.

>>2599044
>>Benediction of Relief

Vote called, writing.

>Benediction of Relief

The flames around you are lit with white for just a moment as you store a Benediction of Relief and after a moment’s thought, immediately use it. The power you call upon mends your body a small amount and more importantly, blesses you going forward.

Your companions are still firing on the creature in the doorway, stinging it and forcing it to cringe back. You’re still not sure what it is but it still seems to fear the gun, even if isn’t slain by it. Several wood-armoured corpses lie at its feet, crushed by its mad rampage.
You can hear a panicked hubbub coming from behind it as the remaining Tangle guardsmen readjust themselves but then, a voice that rises higher than the rest.

“Witch Engine primed! Get down!”

A what engine?
The monster stills itself, even as bullets poke holes into its flesh and spill foul-smelling ichor in puddles around it. The flailing arms on its back continue their perpetual dance and…

You see something familiar amidst the chaos of limbs. Witch-sign.

A pair of hands clasp together semi-randomly into a witch-sign you’ve seen before. A grotesque symbol of putrefaction, one that sloughs flesh from bone like oil off water. But such a curse requires a lot of repetition to properly master to any great degree-
And to your horror, you see hand after hand lock together into identical positions. You had thought the mouthless beast without a voice but you had been wrong. The names of the Old Powers require no tongue to speak.

You have but seconds before the witch-sign is complete!

>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

>Charge the beast and try to kill it!

>Just tell everyone to get as far away as possible.

>”Beatrice! Give it your all!”

>Other (Specify)

>>2599215
>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

Yeah not fucking around with a disintegrate spell.

>>2599215
>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

>>2599215
>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

>>2599215
Assuming that witch-signs don't work when the hands aren't connected to a body
>Cut through the hands/arms with the runesword+ignite/immolate
if not
>unveil the lampost to distract the beast and its controllers long enough to kill it yourself

>>2599215
>>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

Vote called, writing.

>Sear the hands from its back with an Immolate!

As you stare at the blasphemy in horrified fascination, you notice that the arms you’d burned with your fiery escape are hanging limply amidst the crowd. They alone do not join in the unsung chorus. And through that, you see a way to escape this monstrosity.

Running forward you let the flame within you build higher and higher, borrowing from the fire swirling around your body as you let the fire build higher and higher before, just as the last few hands are slapping into position, you thrust out your palm and let the fire spray out in a wide torrent that engulfs the Witch Engine!

>Wick: 1/10
>Spark: 3/ 8

>Roll 1d6. The first three shall be counted towards the Immolate. One success is required to interrupt the witch-sign, two is required to render the Witch Engine unable to cast and all 3 shall instantly kill it.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599262

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2599262

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599262
boyooo

Rolled 1 (1d6)

kill!

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599262

wow, exactly no power word

>>2599271
kek

Good thing this was after 3.

Wow, you managed to avoid hitting three separate Power Numbers (Immolate, Self-Ignition and Benediction of Relief) but other than that, noice roll.
Writing.

>>2599279
I mean, it could have counted for a power word under self-ignition

Sorry for the delay on this one folks, just feeling really under the weather.

>>2599396
dude go to a hospital, nobody should feel as consistently bad as you do

>>2599399
I've already been quite some time ago. I know what's wrong with me.

>5, 3, 5

The fire scorches the Witch Engine’s back clean, leaving only a spasming mess where the garden of hands had once been. The Engine itself squeals and charges once more!

But this time, you’re all ready for it. It’s a shuddering mess of a thing now, all previous pretences towards power and grace gone for the sake of a desperate charge. One of Beatrice’s shots goes right up to its nostrils, the muffled detonation within sending the Witch Engine to the ground before it even reaches you. By the time it’s slid to a halt at your feet, you’ve thrown the staff aside and drawn forth the runesword once more.

The thin blade makes short work of the monster’s thick skin and you slice the Engine’s underbelly open from front to back. Blood and black ichor spill out in waves along with a hodgepodge of organs uncomfortably similar to those you’d find in a human, only all the wrong sizes and in all the wrong places. And then finally, after it had been bled of its innards, the last yard or so of your continued slice unveils only tons of moist earth spilling forth from some concealed bladder within the beast.
The soil mixes with the offal in a most unpleasant manner.

“Oh fuck,” you hear Beatrice whisper, the gravel in her voice making it louder than it should have been.

You don’t have time to ask her about it however for though the Engine has fallen, this battle is far from over! Out beyond the broken doorway is the bridge back towards the Senate Hall and across the bridge are Tangle guardsmen and mixed in with them...three more Witch Engines.

“Guns!,” you hear Abe bellow behind you, “Rifles up and ready! Don’t fire until they get close! Don’t fire when anyone else is out in front! Get ready!”

This isn’t going to be easy. But when has anything? You chose the wrong path for that.

>This battle is an opposed Collective Effort Challenge between your forces and the Tangle Workshop Collection Squadron. The characters involved on one side are Orion, Beatrice, Abraham and Alexandria. The characters involved on the other are the Thorn Captain, Second Witch Engine, Third Witch Engine and Fourth Witch Engine. The two sides will alternate characters, the Collection Squadron’s score subtracting from yours. If, at the end, your result is above 0 you will escape.

>The first character to roll for is Orion, commander of the redcloaks and last lamplighter. Roll 1d6 and the first shall be totalled together as the contribution his actions make towards the overall battle.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2599419
big money no whammies

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2599419

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2599419
Still need three rolls? You might have made a typo

>>2599479
Oh yes, I did. I forgot to mention the 'first 3' and accidentally just left as 'the first'. My bad.

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>4, 2, 4
>10

>Benediction of Relief’s Power Number activates twice. In combination with Ducal Firecrafting, you gain 4 Wick.

>Wick: 5/10
>Spark: 3/8

The bridge is an excellent spot for a firing line and one that the redcloaks make good use of. The guardsmen can’t cross without running into a rifle bullet. There are no windows elsewhere in the tower save at the very top, no extra entrances, no ways to get around and flank. If they want to come in, they’re going to have to get in through the door. And if they want to walk through that door, they better be able to eat shot. Even the three Witch Engines look loathe to approach, though to ascribe any sort of emotion or intent to those blasphemies may be a mistake.

They don’t even have any of those rolling barricades that the Magisterial forces had. Without the intervention of witch-sign, it seems impossible for them to halt your slow advance to freedom.

But at least one of the Thorn’s men apparently thought otherwise. Emerging from behind the defensive flank of one of the wildly gesticulating Witch Engines, you see a figure with a long green plume on his helmet throw something down the bridge. The little wooden ball bounces across the bridge before rolling straight through the door.
Acting on instinct you lunge for it as quickly as you can and kick it back outside!

Your suspicion was well-founded as just a moment later, the ball erupts into a spray of lashing vines tipped with inch-long thorns. And even though you had kicked it out of range of hurting any redcloaks, the resulting entanglement is blocking all your views of the bridge beyond!
“Clear it off!,” you shout, stepping forward to attack the sudden growth. But even as you do so, you see another vine lash forward from around the entanglement, one that came from further back!

It misses you but strikes the edge of the doorframe and wraps itself around part of the door still left hanging on its hinges. And before you know it, the green-plumed man is swinging around the side of the bridge, dangling above the teeming cityscape by only his living whip whose other end was the vine you just saw.
He lands on the bridge behind you with his sword drawn, right next to the redcloaks!

He doesn’t get a single strike in however, not before you barrel straight into him and push him against the side of the bridge! It’s sword against staff as the two of you briefly struggle, the man narrowly avoiding taking your head off with well-aimed strike as you pummel him in the gut. Your role in this battle is to keep the rifleman safe! And that means stopping him and anyone else that might try such nonsense. For this sake, you cannot go far enough.

1/2

>>2599529

>Before we move on to the next characters, the following modifiers can be made to Orion's result.

>Extra Effort; Orion gives his all to protect the redcloaks as they shoot their way across the bridge. This will grant an extra dice roll but Orion will be exhausted afterwards.

>Thrashing: At the cost of a moderate chance of an injury to himself, Orion will add a -1 penalty to all rolls for the Thorn Captain in this conflict.

>Immolate: Orion burns the blockage away to clear the way for the rifles. Will give a +2 for every point of Wick burned.

>Nothing. He has done enough.

>>2599540
>Immolate: Orion burns the blockage away to clear the way for the rifles. Will give a +2 for every point of Wick burned.

Immolate takes 3, so is that the minimum, or can we use less?

In any case, big O can take on captain ass hat fine imo, best to keep the backup from eating as much shit as possible.

Sorry about that weird five minute gap between part 1 and 2 of that post by the way. I had a weird memory lapse and forgot I hadn't posted the second part.

>>2599540
>Immolate: Orion burns the blockage away to clear the way for the rifles. Will give a +2 for every point of Wick burned.

>>2599540
>>Grapple: Triggering self-ignition, Orion holds the Thorn Captain down in a fiery choke to prevent him from acting.
>>Immolate: Orion burns the blockage away to clear the way for the rifles. Will give a +2 for every point of Wick burned.

>Immolate: Orion burns the blockage away to clear the way for the rifles. Will give a +2 for every point of Wick burned.

You give the plumed officer a hit around the head and while his helmet absorbs most of it, it sends him staggering back far enough that you can raise a hand at the thrashing blockage. A moment later, it is wreathed in holy flame!

You burn it away, leaving the field clear for the rifleman once more but how thoroughly do you do it? The flame you are spraying can become an obstacle to them in itself, after all.

>How much Wick to spend on the Immolate?

>3
>4
>5
>6
>7
>8

>>2599582
>3
It's +6 as it is, and we don't have that much Wick.

>>2599582
>>3

>>2599582
>3

>>2599582
>3

>>2599587
I'm counting the Spark reserves.

>>2599599
Which are not much.

>>2599582
>4, +dead king's crown

>>2599625
Isn't Dead King's Crown automatic?

>>2599630
I mean that whatever we roll for Dead King's Crown, I want to use 4 wick from our own reserves.

Just making sure.

Rolled 3 (1d3)

Alright vote called and rolling Dead Man's Crown.

>12
>22

You burn the artificial vines to ash, incinerating the growth and cowing the men advancing behind it. And with it’s destruction, all your companions are free to open fire once more. You see the man with the plume stumble back to behind cover, bleeding from one arm.

That doesn’t seem to dissuade him however because he’s back up a moment later, raising an arm and pointing back at your forces. You don’t hear what he’s shouting but it seems to have been effective in rallying the flagging troops.
The guardsmen rush forward once more into the firing line!

>The next character to roll is the Thorn Captain. Roll 1d6 and the first three shall be totalled together. In addition, the Captain has already selected a modifier to employ in the bargaining step. He is choosing to sacrifice a third of his squad in order to establish a melee with the redcloaks. This gives all these rolls you’re about to make for him +1.

Rolled 1 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2599651

Rolled 5 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2599655
Hahahaha

>>2599657
Fuck.

That's what I get for being smug.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2599651
1 pls

>>2599662
Thx RNG!

>>2599662
now you've done it

Alright, writing.

File: beeeee.png (352 KB, 535x663)

352 KB PNG

I have finished dinner.

>-10
>12

The renewed Thorn offensive initially results in little more than a few more wood-armoured corpses littering the bridge but eventually, at significant cost to their own numbers, they have broken the firing line and forced the redcloaks into a melee!
It’s not much of one since behind the desperately defending redcloaks, the most effective part of the firing line is still very much unmolested.

Beatrice fires another shot, blowing a hole straight through a woman’s neck as she was about to impale a downed redcloak. Another gunman might find this situation a dangerous one to be shooting so quickly into but Beatrice knows that her bullets are guided by a divine hand.
And failing that, they were guided by her hand and it was a damn fucking good one.

The gunpowder was her communion with God, in a way, or it would be if she believed God would ever have her or if God hadn’t been murdered decades ago. It’s not something that would have ever been freely given to her. So she had taken it instead. She was filled with holy flame and it didn’t matter what the flame thought about it.

She did care what people thought about it however, no matter how often she told herself that she didn’t. Why was she fighting to protect these idiots? Not ten minutes ago, they had all scorned her! Even Orion couldn’t have let her pass without it and she had really thought that that had been past him. And yet they’re all too happy to accept her help now, aren’t they? They’re happy to let her fight for them, die for them but they won’t give her even the single barest shred of respect as a person in return.
But maybe that is just everything she deserves.

That last thought just makes her angrier and she takes it out on the soldiers of the Workshop. The anger joins the chaotic mixture of everything else currently mixing within her breast, from her horrified revelation of just what the Witch Engines were to leftover bitterness for Dr Erunt and everything else she and the Workshop stood for.

Sure, they had saved her life! Probably nobody else could have done what they did, nobody else could have brought her back from the gunpowder brink. But for everything else they did to her while she was in their care...well, if they wanted gratitude they could find it in the barrel of her gun. That Erunt bitch was lucky that it had been Orion to get their hands on her. It could have been so much worse than mere death.

Beatrice frowned, or more accurately, deepened her already existing frown and fired off another shot at one of the Witch Engines looming in the distance at the other end of the bridge. She didn’t trust what they were doing over there. And while she might feel sorrow for those they used to be and horror at the idea of how close she may have come to being one of them, they deserved only the mercy of death now.
1/2

>>2599706
>The next character to roll 1d6 for is Beatrice, gunpowder witch and explosive personality. She is currently at a modifier of +1 to all rolls. The first three rolls for her shall be added to the total.

Rolled 3 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2599708

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599708

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2599708

>>2599728
Thx RNG!

File: bea.png (135 KB, 229x305)

135 KB PNG

>4, 6, 6
>14
>26

The other rifles may have been silenced for now, with Abe and Alex and the others all focussed on not being killed by the surviving guardsmen but Beatrice could damn well near fulfill that role all by herself. She never had to reload and each shot was unerring and explosive. And it all it had cost her was her entire life.

She wished she could have found it in her to care about any of the human lives meeting their end at the end of her pistol today. Between all the fighting and the chaos, so many had died already and that’s not even taking the starfall into account. That could be called her fault too. But that was the thing about human lives really, they were human. And Beatrice had to work to care for humans, she had to put effort in. She had to invest and she had done so for Orion and Abe and even fucking Alex, even if she had just hit her not that long ago.
But without that conscious effort, there was nothing. She could look into the eyes of a stranger and see absolutely nothing of herself in them. That was just how it was to be a witch. And every uncaring death at her hands was just another painful reminder of what she really is. Every time she felt bad for the plight of a ghoul or even for those godawful Witch Engines while thinking nothing of the men and women before her.

She had felt more natural empathy for that magistrate brat than she had for any of the townsfolk back in Sacrament whom she had fought so often to protect. That didn’t make her feel very good but that was nothing unusual. Beatrice very rarely felt good about anything.

You didn’t have to be a witch to kill, though. Orion, safeguard of the light and protector of humanity, kills humans just as easily and naturally as she does. Oh it pains him, she can tell, but when the moment is there he doesn’t think. He only acts. And he can do that because of his purpose. His holiness. He must know that all else is insignificant in the face of his quest.
Beatrice can kill because she is so unholy. Orion can kill because he is so much holier than everyone else.


>Before we move on, the following modifiers can be added to Beatrice’s result.

>Swallow Gunpowder: Add an additional +2 modifier to the roll Beatrice just made.

>Snort Gunpowder: Add an additional +4 modifier to the roll Beatrice just made.

>Witch on Witch Violence: Beatrice takes a few shots at one of the Witch Engines, reducing her own result by -2 to give the next Engine a -2 to their upcoming roll.

>>2599752
>Swallow Gunpowder: Add an additional +2 modifier to the roll Beatrice just made.
Time to amp it up

>>2599752
>>Swallow Gunpowder: Add an additional +2 modifier to the roll Beatrice just made.

>>Witch on Witch Violence: Beatrice takes a few shots at one of the Witch Engines, reducing her own result by -2 to give the next Engine a -2 to their upcoming roll.

Whoops forgot to add it but obviously >Nothing is also a valid choice.

>>2599763
Can only pick one, I'm afraid.

>>2599752
>Witch on Witch Violence: Beatrice takes a few shots at one of the Witch Engines, reducing her own result by -2 to give the next Engine a -2 to their upcoming roll.

>>2599763
Put those Witch Engines out of their misery, unable to value killing humans over that.

Also they're way more dangerous.

>>2599765
oooh, got it.

-2 modifier is very, very slightly worse than +2 modifier, but this comes at less cost to Beatrice later down the line.

>Witch on Witch Violence: Beatrice takes a few shots at one of the Witch Engines, reducing her own result by -2 to give the next Engine a -2 to their upcoming roll.

>>2599767
>>2599769
+1

Vote called, writing.

>Witch on Witch Violence: Beatrice takes a few shots at one of the Witch Engines, reducing her own result by -2 to give the next Engine a -2 to their upcoming roll.

>20

Beatrice’ next few shots peppered small holes into the foremost Witch Engine’s skin, despite the fact that the skin of an Engine’s underbelly and side was specifically grown thick and fire-resistant to make up for the inherently vulnerable growth in its back and core. It reared up and squealed, the hundreds of arms covering its back gesticulating faster and faster as the Engine attempted to, through the brute force approach of constantly writhing hands, defend itself through witch-sign.

It didn’t take long for one to click, a single point of order in its garden of chaos. A single unsounded voicing of a name that can only be seen, never heard. And around the single witch-sign, order spread as the other witless arms focussed on it and replicated it.

The link between a former human and the Old Powers of the Earth was, in a perverse sense, a sacred thing. It can only be made through the knowing permission of that human and with the consent of the dead gods that grasped for them so greedily. It is the willing suborning of the light to the dark. It’s not something you can brew in a bottle or breed into a beast.
There is, and always will be, just one source of witchcraft and that is witches. Even things that must have used to have been them.

The curse is signed into the world and then empowered by a hundred of other hands. What the Engine lacked in intent or knowledge it made up for in power.

To the redcloaks upon the bridge, it felt as if a cold wind was blowing even as the air was still. A chill rose up upon the bridge and settled deep upon them, a darkening shade that threatens to chill flesh and to cause gunpowder to fail to ignite.

Beatrice, of course, never stops firing and the Engine slumps over a moment later as a bullet finally strikes true through the nostril and into whatever hideous organ powers it.

>Roll 1d6 for the Witch Engine with a modifier of -2. The first 3 shall be totalled as a negative score and contribute to measure the effect of the Engine’s power on the combat.
>In addition, the Engine has already selected a modifier to use in the bargaining step. By exhausting itself, it is laying a curse upon Orion and the redcloaks. Whenever a set of unaltered doubles (before any modifiers) comes up in a roll from either side, reduce the score by 5.

Rolled 3 - 2 (1d6 - 2)

>>2599796

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599796

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2599796

>>2599799
Wtf RNG

>>2599803
That's the random"component about RNG, anon.

>>2599796
>>In addition, the Engine has already selected a modifier to use in the bargaining step. By exhausting itself, it is laying a curse upon Orion and the redcloaks. Whenever a set of unaltered doubles (before any modifiers) comes up in a roll from either side, reduce the score by 5.
Reduces Orion's side's score whenever this happens?

>>2599813
There is only one score so yes.

File: barkeep.png (104 KB, 210x330)

104 KB PNG

>1, 3, 1
>5
>15

Abe shakes the chill off of himself as best as he is able, his rifle lying uselessly spit in half on the ground beside him. He had had to use it to defend himself against one of the Tangle men and it hadn’t gone well. He has his long club in hand now and is laying about as best as he can, trying to clear a space for some of other redcloaks to resume shooting.

Alex falls to the ground beside him, forced to the ground by a guard. His weapon gone, he’s trying to strangle her instead. She scrabbles and kicks but against his living armour, it is to no avail!

Abe grabs hold of his helmet and, unable to find a a way to pull him off, settles for jamming his truncheon straight into the wide eye-slit. He curses and lashes out but with his grip broken, Abe lifts him bodily off the redcloak and throws him over the side of the bridge!

“Shit,” Alex pants as she climbs to her feet. “Where’s my rifle gone? Oh, and thanks!”

“Nothing to worry about,” Abe grunts. “And it’s by your feet! I’ll keep you clear, you keep shooting!”

“It’s so cold and-wait, are you doing alright? You’re still bleeding from that thing in your arm.”

The wound is small, almost that of a pinprick but she is right. It is still stained fresh with a small amount of blood.
“Must have torn it open just then,” he tells her. It’s almost not a lie. In truth, it hasn’t stopped hurting. But Abe is good with pain. It is, ultimately, what he deserves.

And he couldn’t possibly ask anyone to help him with it in the middle of such an important battle! He isn’t worth that much.

>Roll 1d6 for Abraham as he fights to keep the firing line clear. The first three results shall be totalled and added to the score.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2599816
Waking up and seeing a new thread is a good feeling

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2599816

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599816

>>2599816
Yeah that ain't gonna stop bleeding is it.

He's still all gargoyled up too.

Wow, is this the first time Abe hasn't eaten complete ass?

>>2599830
he'll learn just in time to die.

>5, 3, 4
>12
>27

“We really need to stop picking fights on bridges,” Abe pants, bringing his truncheon down hard upon the helm of a woman who had been knocked to her knees.

Alex shoots another in the leg as she motions the other redcloaks forward. Abe hadn’t been able to see much in the chaos of it all but it at least seemed like they were gaining ground. At what cost, he wasn’t yet sure.
“It’s good for the guns!”
She’s shouting and wild-eyed, riding high off adrenaline and probably little else.

With enough space cleared out by Abe, Orion and Beatrice, the rifles are clearing the bridge once more. The air hangs thick with gunsmoke as members of the Thorn squadron fall like puppets with their strings cut. It had been brave of them, Abe supposed, to rush them like they had. But it had also been exceptionally foolish. But as he fought, he kept spotting some of them looking to the skies in confusion at the screeching horde of fumus.
Had they been expecting Dr Erunt to summon the creatures down to cut them off? After all, they hardly knew about her death. Is that what their plan had been this whole time?

Be as it might, he couldn’t quite find it in himself to feel bad for them. Nor should he be feeling so over-confident! What had he done to deserve that? No, there’s a long way to go yet and he should just keep his mind on the job in front of him. Everything else is meaningless.


>Before we move on, the following modifiers can be added to Abraham’s result.

>All-Out: There’s no need to hold anything back. Just give your all and hope that it is enough. Add another dice roll at the cost of exhausting Abe.

>Bodyguard: Abe can stick close to Alex and lend her support. Alex gets a +1 modifier to her rolls at the slight cost of Abe taking a wound.

>Self-Help: Abe retires from the battlefield for now to try and seek some aid for his disconcerting wound. Remove all of Abe’s results from the score.

>Nothing. All is well as it is.

>>2599835
>Nothing. All is well as it is.

>>2599835
>Bodyguard: Abe can stick close to Alex and lend her support. Alex gets a +1 modifier to her rolls at the slight cost of Abe taking a wound.
wait fuck, getting a double could actually DECREASE abe's total if we roll another die.

>>2599815
Oh. I thought there were points from both sides competing each other. The minus points make sense now.
How long does the curse last for, until the collective effort between the two ends or until the Witch Engine dies?

>>2599835
>>Self-Help: Abe retires from the battlefield for now to try and seek some aid for his disconcerting wound. Remove all of Abe’s results from the score.
How serious is Abe's wound? How significant is attrition like exhaustion and injuries to the collective effort?

>>2599839
>How long does the curse last for, until the collective effort between the two ends or until the Witch Engine dies?

Until the Collective Effort ends. The Witch Engine in question has already died, Beatrice shot it to death.

>How serious is Abe's wound?
Unknown. It's very small and shallow but it doesn't stop bleeding as quickly as it should. Abe's a Third Man, a scratch that small should have scabbed by now. If this isn't selected, he will seek help for it after everything has calmed down.

>How significant is attrition like exhaustion and injuries to the collective effort?
Not at all. It just means that they won't really be able to contribute to anything after until they rest or receive the appropriate Benediction.

>>2599841
>Not at all. It just means that they won't really be able to contribute to anything after until they rest or receive the appropriate Benediction.
For this turn or the battle? Will there be another battle involving the same people from both sides later, assuming they aren't wiped by exhaustion or injury?

>>2599847
After the battle.

>>2599837
>Nothing. All is well as it is.

Do we really want to risk fucking up Abe in his moment of not sucking?

>>2599857
Why are you thinking that not taking additional options is fucking him up?

>>2599835
>Bodyguard: Abe can stick close to Alex and lend her support. Alex gets a +1 modifier to her rolls at the slight cost of Abe taking a wound.

>>2599857
you know this looks like a vote, right?

Ah whoops, I dozed off and fell asleep. I'd like to get through this battle before I drop off for the day though. Vote called and writing.

>Bodyguard: Abe can stick close to Alex and lend her support. Alex gets a +1 modifier to her rolls at the slight cost of Abe taking a wound.

Abe throws himself into his self-given task of keeping Alex safe. If he can just keep those still with rifles on their feet and firing, they’ll win. And if they win, Beatrice will keep on living. Orion will be one step closer to finishing his quest. The sun will return to the world. The stopped clock will start. Humanity will survive.

Against all of that, how much could Abraham, former barkeep, coward, liar and murderer of Adelaide and Anne, possibly matter? Abe had never considered himself an educated man but even he knew how to solve an equation that simple.

>Roll 1d100. Only the first one will matter. A result of 20 or lower will cause Abraham to take a wound during his defence of Alexandria.

Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>2599945

>61

As the fight continued, Abe found himself wishing they’d just give up. Surely they can see that it’s useless. Better for them to just surrender than to keep up this pointless slau-

“It’s primed, it’s primed! Get back! Get out of the way!”

One of the Witch Engines suddenly pounces forward, bowling guardsmen out of the way as it rushes down the bridge towards the redcloaks! And as it runs, its arms are locking into position one after the other, completing witch-sign after witch-sign.

“Run!”
That was Orion shouting and he sounded afraid. But it wasn’t for himself. Mere danger to Orion’s own body would never make him sound so terrified.
“All of you! Get away from that thing! Back to the tower! Now! Please!”

The Engine completed the witch-sign and all around it, the guardsmen fell over. They just collapsed and went limp, wooden suits of armour now containing nothing more than person shaped piles of dissociated meat and bone. The human body undone at the seams.
And it continues out from the Engine, a ripple in the fabric of the world. And wherever it touches, people die.
The Thorn Captain clutches helplessly at the Engine’s side as he topples over. His helmet falls off as he does and what sprays across the stone tiles is nothing more than mince.

The redcloaks had retreated of course. But had they done so enough?

>Roll 1d6 for the Third Witch Engine. The first 3 rolls shall be totalled and subtracted from the overall score to measure the effect it has had on the battle and how much damage it has done.
>In addition, the Third Witch Engine has already chosen its modifier from the bargaining stage. By sacrificing the remaining members of the Tangle Workshop Collection Squadron, it is giving the Fourth Witch Engine +3 to its next roll.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2599992

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2599992
wow, they just sacrificed their captain after losing their vice pres AND pres.

Really going through those ranks there.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2599992

>5, 4, 2
>-11
Writing.

File: Alex_cegremo.jpg (11 KB, 400x269)

11 KB JPG

>5, 4, 2
>-11
>16

The bridge is engulfed in death and standing in the midst of it all, the two remaining Witch Engines. They are as witless as ever but their almost-motionless forms lend them a sudden air of deliberate malice that they couldn’t possibly possess. Hands wave in the air without meaning.

The redcloaks cower back near the start of the bridge, clustered around the tower. Thanks to Orion’s warning, they outran the witch-sign that was intended to have killed each and every one of them. But did they all make it out?
Alex is too shocked to even try a headcount. In truth, she fears what she may find.

How many of the corpses littering the bridge bear the red tokens of faith? Who is yet alive and who is...otherwise?

Alex is broken out of her stupefaction by the sight of one of the corpses left on the bridge standing up. It’s Beatrice, the diminutive witch standing alone amidst the errant flesh. She hadn’t been able to get to safety. She hadn’t been quick enough. But the witch-sign, that most efficient slayer of humanity, had passed over her to no effect. It had come to kill the children of light and when it had found her there had been nothing to take.

The closest Witch Engine padded slowly towards the tame witch. She just raised her gun in response and screamed.
“Motherfucker!”
She shot it in the face and made it rear back, arms writhing in indescribable sigils.

That warcry, despite its crudity, was enough to snap Alex out of her small fugue. She raised her rifle and, very carefully not looking back to see just how many redcloaks were behind her, yelled wordlessly and charged forward to help the witch drive the Engines from the bridge!

>Roll 1d6 for Alex. The first three shall be counted. Due to Abe protecting her through the previous combat, she gets +1 to all her rolls here.

Rolled 4 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2600107

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2600107
I gotta say, those witch engines are very creepy. You really got a way of making sinister creatures, Ouro.

Rolled 1 + 1 (1d6 + 1)

>>2600107

>>2600126
fair's fair, at least it's not a double.

>5, 3, 2
>10
>26

Alex’s rifle might not have quite the same impact as Beatrice’s flaming shots but with the redcloaks behind her, their volley makes the foremost Engine scream. Little pockmarks are dug through its flesh all across its body even as it desperately attempts another random witch-sign.

Having not yet found another old name to defile the world with, it settles for simply trying to trample Beatrice to death while the arms on its back continue randomly twisting into new shapes with one another. Beatrice dodges the first stomp but then trips over a fallen soldier, falling to the ground as the Engine attempts to simply walk straight over her!

Alex shoots it, pumping bullet after bullet into the closest thing it has for a face as she walks forward. Much of the days events are already forgotten in her mind, replaced with the image before her. With the idea that had she just been a little unluckier, if she had not had Abe to pull her away, if she had been in Beatrice’s position on the bridge, this thing could have undone her flesh from itself without even meaning it. Murder without intent. Dumb animal occult, achieved through chance and stupidity.
For some reason that hits Alex harder than a hundred men trying to kill her would have done. Men kill men. Witches kill men. Men kill witches. At least they all mean it when they do it!

>Before we move to the final action of this Collective Effort, the Fourth Witch Engine with the +3 to its rolls, a modifier may be applied to Alexandra’s score here.

>A redcloak failed to escape the witch-sign and died. Add an additional dice roll to the score. This may be chosen multiple times, with no limit save that of the redcloaks themselves. This is the only option Alex has at this point in her life.

>Nothing further is needed.

>>2600163
>Nothing further is needed.
If we're at 26 it would take the witch engine 3 rolls of 6 to bring us below zero.

>>2600163
you, you, you glorious motherfucker.

>Nothing further is needed.
not gonna say anything that could jinx this.

>>2600163
>>Nothing further is needed.

>>2600163
shouldn't it be +11?

4+1
3+1
1+1
Also
>nothing

>>2600201
You are correct. My bad.

>>2600163
>A redcloak failed to escape the witch-sign and died
F

>Nothing further is needed.

The Witch Engine looming over Beatrice shook and shuddered in the face of the redcloak’s gunfire and then quietly and unceremoniously, slumped down in front of her. The transition from life to death had been almost unnoticeable. The only surefire way to notice was that the waving hands went limp and lay down in neat rows across its back.

The beast was dead!

You watch from the back, still holding one of the redcloaks over your back. When you had recognise just what sign the walking blasphemy had been performing, you’d been gripped with horror. You had thrown some of the redcloaks ahead of you, desperate to avoid a martyr for your cause.
But you had done it. Somehow nobody had died for your sake.’

Not yet.

One day it will happen. It has happened before and it will happen again. You knew that when you set the star in motion. But maybe it won’t be today.

You stride forward, just in time to see the final Witch Engine lumber forward from where it had been sitting in the back. And as it walks, bullets gouging holes in its flesh, it makes witch-sign. You know this one too. You had last seen it in Augustine, where an imp had attempted to perform it upon you and Beatrice. You had it stopped then. You don’t stop it now.

The hands slam into place and all around the Engine, the abandoned flesh that were once people begin to curl and bubble. Blood rises into the air all around it and swirls into frozen shapes. It drains every corpse dry. The other Witch Engine’s massacre of its own squadron had only strengthened this final witch-sign. And for just a moment, the Witch Engine is surrounded by an orbiting constellation of gore that used to be its minders.

And then the moment passes and the air is filled with red as the creature flings it at all you, a volley of bloody spears that turn into a flaying wind as it roars down the bridge towards you!

>Roll 1d6. The first three results shall be totalled into a negative number to reflect the results of the Fourth Witch Engine’s attack.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2600313

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>2600313

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>2600313
Oh boy

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2600313

>4, 8, 6
>-18

Writing.

>>2600323
8? It doesn't cap out at 6? Damn.

Congratulations by the way, the doubles curse never even triggered once.

>>2600313
I'm wondering about a quirk of this resolution system. Is sacrificing people of its side to give itself bonuses really a cost to the "enemy AI", if those are taken from the limitless supply of Dis's population?

Another question I have is, who the hell is commanding those Engines and whether we can gut them like a fish.

>>2600335
I'm sure these folks are employees and not just regular citizens.

>>2600338
The Workshop's workforce is very large too.

>>2600335
I'll be perfectly honest. Enemies in Collective Effort rolls have never actually worked by the same rules as you guys do when it came to the Bargaining Step. I can make them do whatever they want, all bargains they make are either flavourful or are intended to give you an advantage later (for example, the Consortium Tower one that moved security from floor to floor).

>4, 8, 6
>-18
>Final Result: 9

“Get back inside! Take cover!”

Witched blood can crack stone, it can most certainly tear flesh. It’s only defense is the weakness of curses and witchcraft everywhere. Fire and light, the direct essence of the Wheel God and the Wayward Flame. Throwing both your staff and sword aside, you grab hold of your wick and raise it high.
If God can still answer prayer, you beseech him now!

Wick: 0/10
Spark: 0/8

Your brow bursts into flame as you pour every single spark you have left within you to power a mighty Immolate. You aim the stream of fire upwards into the sky , the fire billowing out and widening to form a makeshift shield that turns all cursed blood it touches into ordinary droplets of gore.
It doesn’t stop all of them but the few spears that still make it through just strike the tiles of the bridge harmlessly, hitting nobody. And above you, burning up in the skies of Dis, the fire rages.

And then it winks out and you nearly collapse, catching yourself at the last moment. You drive the handle of the wick into the ground to steady yourself before turning back to assess the redcloaks.

They are gazing at you in naked awe, their smouldering prophet standing alone upon the blood-splattered bridge before them. But perhaps the most awe at this very moment belongs to...you. You hadn’t expected that to work nearly as well as it had.

Perhaps, even when God is dead and the light has faded, a miracle can still be found when you truly need it.

You sit down heavily, sparks flying before your eyes. Only a few of them are imaginary. The rest are just you. You can hear gunfire behind you as your companions shoot the remaining Witch Engine to death. You should be helping them. You try to get up but you can’t.
It feels as if all energy has been sapped from your bones and with it gone, there is no longer any barrier between you and the awful pain still lingering in your arms. You still haven’t rolled up your sleeves or taken off your gauntlets to check on how far the burns have climbed. You don’t want to.

You do it anyway. They’re now past your elbow. Your hands are withered claws, the kind you would see on a burned corpse before you’d see them on a man. Perhaps the pain will fade again in time. But, god damn it, you can’t be sure. You don’t know.

It is at this moment that your followers return to see you contemplating your blackened arms, a feature that you are sure only makes you look more divine to some. The redcloaks cluster around you, eagerly awaiting a triumphant speech no doubt.
You give it your best shot.

“Let’s get out of here.”


>It’s time to head back to base.

>Head for the Paper Bridesmaid.

>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

>Pass out and leave the choice to someone else.

>Other (Specify)

>>2600396
>Other (Specify)
Everyone head to base and await futher instructions.

Alex, Abe, Beatrice, and me will head somewhere else in case the doctor speaks the truth regarding a tracking device. Next day we will go to the Paper Bridesmaid to see what can be done.

>>2600396
Dammit, we have no Wick to put a Benediction on Abe! We have to restore some as soon as possible.

>Other: to any hiding place anyone knows about that isn't our base.
They know where our base it thanks to the tracker inside Bea, and the Workshop still has at least one leader.

>>2600396
>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.
Now is the time for them to join us. The city's retaliation for the comet strike will fall on them too simply because of their faith.

File: sleep.jpg (114 KB, 577x515)

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And goodnight everyone. As you may have noticed, I stayed up quite a bit later than usual 'cause I didn't want to pause it in the middle of the fight but now it is time for me to desiccate into a cloud of dust and blow away.
I finally got to try out the directly contested Collective Effort system and the results are in: It takes way too long! I might do it maybe one more time in the entire quest, jesus christ. I did try to make it a bit more bearable by working character stuff into it but man oh man did that take way too long.

I hope you all had fun and this quest will resume when I wake up. Vote will remain open until then.

>>2600432
Thanks for running! I'm always impressed by the dice mechanics you think up.

>>2600432
Thanks for running!

>>2600432
Thanks for running Ouro!

>>2600396
>>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

>>2600396
>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

>>2600396
>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

I have a feeling the old Sun Temple will look at us like at homicidal maniacs.

>>2600550
>>2600616
>>2600630
Bea has a fucking tracking device. What r u doing niggas?

>>2600396
>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

>>2600396
>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

>>2600803
Our base is compromised and the bridesmaid is a creepy monster that we hate.

>>2600803
I'm thinking long term.

Workshop follows our footsteps via Bea, finds the sun temple people who don't follow us, takes them out. Good PR for us, bad PR for workshop.

Similarly, we're tracked anywhere where Beatrice is: thus our best bet is in fact luring the workshop into conflict with others or making it stupidly difficult to follow us, unless we can get the device out.

I have awoken. Thread will resume in a bit.

File: Dis.jpg (531 KB, 1333x833)

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>Back to the old Sun Temple. Let them see your work upon the star and reconsider their position.

Driven by your words, you all make your way down the corpse-ridden bridge, through the broken Senate Hall once more and down to the old train station that you had arrived in. The train was gone but the tracks were not and having grown up in Dis, the redcloaks are excellent trackhoppers. They walk along the sky-rail as if they weren’t hundreds of feet up in the air. There is a raw edge to their sudden joy and you know what it is. They are alive and they don’t quite believe it.
From the rail they’re able to open a window in one of the lower towers supporting the Hall and you all pile into it.

You can’t take the trains. As far as you know, many of them won’t even be working because of the starfall. You’ll have to walk back. You all do your best to disguise what has happened to you, adopting civilian clothes once more.

You wish you could have walked proudly and with your head held high, dignified and safe in the knowledge that so many shards of the Wheel God have already fallen into your hands. But it is not so. You feel drained and with your Flame Internal temporarily snuffed out...you feel cold.

They take turns supporting you, someone always walking by your side and letting you lean on their shoulder or holding you with an arm around your shoulder. You’d refuse it if you were strong enough but you aren’t so you don’t.

The first to volunteer himself for the task is Abe, the tall man supporting you as you all did your best to blend into the panicked crowds.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I told you that I’d treat that wound of yours but I don’t have the Wick right now.”

Abe doesn’t look worried. Someone’s bandaged it up.
“It’s no concern, Orion. Worry about yourself first. Get some sleep, some meditation. Recharge yourself. I’ll still be here when you wake up and you can fix me up then.”

“I was a fool to use it all on that last Immolate. It probably didn’t need to be that large.”

“It saved my life! Is that foolish?”

You grow blearier as you all continue your journey, the cityscape of Dis slowly changing around you from the tower to the cramped confines of the Mazes. Abe is replaced with Alex, who has thrown an arm around your shoulder and is leaning up against you.
The proximity makes you incredibly uncomfortable but as you were in no shape to walk quickly on your own, you close your eyes and bear it.

“We’re going back to the Sun Temple,” Alex tells you.

“What?”

“Beatrice didn’t want us going back to base since the Workshop can still follow her. So we figured, let’s visit the Temple and show that old bastard what we’ve done. He can’t be neutral anymore.”

“It’s as good as any I suppose. And how are you? All well?”

1/2

>>2601739
“Yes,” she says and you can tell she’s lying. You don’t really have the energy to push her on the matter however. Something to handle later.

Sometime later, still walking, Alex leaves and is replaced, by all people, Beatrice. With her head barely coming up to your chest, she’s entirely the wrong height to do anything like this. That doesn’t seem to stop her from trying however.
“Now this is a bit of a reversal, isn’t it? Should I sweep you of your feet and carry you?”

“You couldn’t.”

“Don’t tempt me. I reckon I could get two or three steps before my spine fuses together.”

“You’re in awfully high spirits, Beatrice.”

“Shouldn’t I be? We fucking won!”

“Yes. But you’re never happy.”

“You’re right,” she says, her tone suddenly changing. “I’m damn pissed off at all you fuckers! Read my lips Orion, we are going to have words. I’m renegotiating just what the fuck our deal is! Buuuut, that can wait for when you aren’t half-asleep.”

“Beatrice.”

“Yes?”

“Now that we’re this close, there’s something I’ve noticed that I’ve never told you.”

“...Yes?”

“You smell awful. Terrible.”

“Yeah, I sweat sulfur byproduct sometimes. Like the world’s biggest rotten egg.”

By the time you all reach the Sun Temple, a crowd of onlookers have already gathered in front of it. The door leading into the little room is ajar, almost knocked off its hinges and vandalised on top of it all with black paint.

TRAITORS

A handful of bodies litter the room inside and in some cases, spill out onto the street. Not many but a few. Those that couldn’t or wouldn’t renounce, those that couldn’t run. It’s mostly older people and in at least one case, children.
The lanterns have been shattered, the candles stomped into smears of wax. And in the midst of it all is what is left of the temple Elder. He’s been beaten to death. And as some final sign of disrespect, omeone has stuffed a clod of soil into the corpse’s mouth.

And then you look back to the crowd and while you see horror on some faces, you don’t see any disapproval.

“Orion,” Beatrice whispers urgently. “Orion let’s leave now. Now. Tell the redcloaks to follow you. Do it before they start a fight!”

“Too long have we permitted this,” you hear a man’s voice boom in the distance. There are cheers and shouts accompanying him so though you can’t see him, you know that he must have quite the following.
2/3

>>2601742
“We’ve let these nests of vipers sit in the heart of our own city! Most of them descend from barbarians from outside! They’ve never been a part of us, of our culture! In our tolerance, we invited our worst enemies to be part of our great city, even when they got violent, even when red-cloaked thugs threatened honest men and women! But now we see the price! Now we see their true face! After what has happened today, anyone who refuses to assimilate to the city they live in and renounce their dead god is an enemy! And it won’t stop here! Even now, true sons and daughters of Dis are rising up against these death cults! And we will not stop!”

You can see the wisdom in withdrawing, in telling the redcloaks to follow you before any of them reveal themselves or, worse yet, open fire on the crowd. But you cannot see the justice of it. This was their home.


>You’ll all back. You can’t afford another fight right now.

>You and your companions will fall back and find another spot to stay. But you won’t stop any redcloak who wants to take action right now. How could you.

>”Beatrice, kill whoever is down the street speaking. Shoot him. Then we can leave.”

>Recover the corpses. They need better treatment than this.

>Other (Specify)

>Recover the corpses. They need better treatment than this.

No time to try and get on the front foot again; not unless we can find time to stroke our wick. Best we can do is make this less of an utter defeat.

>>2601745
>>You’ll all back. You can’t afford another fight right now.
Retribution is coming for this city but not now

>>2601745
>You’ll all back. You can’t afford another fight right now.

>>2601745
>>Recover the corpses. They need better treatment than this.
And if anyone tries to start shit
>>Reveal the lamp

>>2601745
>You’ll all back. You can’t afford another fight right now.
I'd like to say something supportive, but it'd likely be ruined by Orion's condition. Something simple would probably be best.

"This is Dis." Or something. I don't know. Fuck.

>>2601745
>>You’ll all back. You can’t afford another fight right now.

>>2601745
We cant light lamposts as we are, can we? Damn, it would make for a good distraction that a mob would be hard pressed to snuff out.

>we rest. Here and now. If any of that mob enters, we kill them silently.
They already killed everyone in here, it won't be the first place they check. Once we have 1 batch of Wick, we can get back to lighting lamposts damn near everywhere.

Interlude

“So,” the Bridesmaid said to the cloaked figure kneeling before her. “What was your reason for coming here again? I know it wasn’t to kill me because I know you’re not that stupid. Something like you cannot kill me.”
With a small amount of deliberation, the veiled woman moved through the massive black-and-white serpent coiled around her and propped her feet up on the back of the witch kneeling before her. Oh, excellent. She could hear Maria gritting her teeth.

“I was just venting.”
Maria was indeed gritting her teeth.
“There’s something I need from you. I am here to take it and maybe if I do, I’ll forgive you.”

“Forgive me? For what? What has little old me ever done? Don’t you quite literally owe me your life?”

“I know you had something to do with the star. You always do.”

“You know,” the Bridesmaid said, human and snake mouth moving as one. “You should be a little more polite to your elders.”

“I’m older than you!”

“It doesn’t count when you’ve spent most of your ‘life’ dead, darling. Now tell your dear old friend what you need. I never refuse a friend, even when they’re kind that never know when to fold.”

“I am here for your name.”

The woman in the bridal outfit raised an uncontrollably shaking hand to her veil in feigned shock. It was extremely obvious it was fake, that was the whole point.
“What? How indecent!”
The serpent leans over the treasure hoard as it speaks, the scars on both sides of its neck plainly visible.
“You’re generally supposed to woo a maiden, classically speaking. Not pin her to wall with a spear made of her bodyguards.”

“I know you’re going to give it to me. I know you’ve always wanted to.”

“Well, it’s right in front of you. Drink it in. See me and see my name. You have my consent to speak my name with your imperfect hands. Summon my shadow wherever you will and I will darken the world on command. It is all yours.”

“I won’t thank you.”

“That’s fine. I’m such a good friend, you see. Now now now, this is interesting isn’t it? Now you have mine, I do believe you’ve collected them all, haven’t you! Every name, every sign, every evocation of-oh wait!”
The Bridesmaid slapped herself in exaggerated shock.
“You don’t, do you. You almost did.but then you got it pulled out beneath you. I do believe I’ve forgotten her name.”
She hadn’t.

“Bridget.”

“Ah yes. You really took that badly didn’t you? You too something as ugly and lowly as a Third Man to your side, to your lab, to your bed even? Hey, don’t look at me like that. I’m just speculating. And she stole it from you. That final secret you had spent so long coaxing Dinu’s old bones into giving up. The skull opened and whispered the name of its father and you didn’t hear it. She did. She did and she ran. Oh poor you. It was all very tragic.”
1/2

>>2602272
“Why are you telling me all this? If it is rub salt into the wound, I assu-”

“Sssh. I’m talking, dearie. None can speak over me, not even myself, The reason I’m telling you this is because I know something you don’t. And that’s rare so I want to go over it. You see, I know where Bridget is. I only just learned it very recently!”

“You do! Where is she?”

“Dead. She escaped the city as you suspected but she went further west than you ever searched. Eventually she came to a town and in her effort to make it her own, died.”

“And the name died with her.”

“No. For you see, out of all those there that witnessed her witchcraft, there were two who were capable of memorizing witch-sign without going into hysterics. They know it. It is in their heads even still. And now, I will tell you who and where you are. I think you will find that this objective and your current one will dovetail quite nicely. Two sets of cards that might look different but still come together to make a full house.”

“Why? Why would you tell me?”

“Because I’m such a good and dear friend.”

>>2602277
>Bridget

So The Bridesmaid is outing us to the golemist because Orion and bea know the sign she wants.

Vote called, writing.

It's ironic instead of stopping the threats we made them exponentially worse with the star fall.

>>2602277
Oh wow holy shit I'm really god damn impressed with this.

What a fucking snake.

>>2602343
The only living Earth God, she'd have to be sneaky and conniving to survive this long.

>>2602359
She's younger than Golden Girl though.

>>2602359
True. But I didn't imagine being betrayed this hard. Like I knew they would do it, right? Because who didn't? But THIS hard?

The best part is Orion won't learn any of this, and no matter who wins between Golemist and Orion Snake-Eye's here will still have fun either way. If she spills something to Orion out of death spite or whatever Snake will probably just say something about her paying her life debt should we survive to confront it. It's all so disgustingly perfect.

>>2602363
She still has a Earth sign. She's a new Earth God, yeah, still given she's alive and every other earth god besides MAYBE the moon is dead, she's not something to underestimate. The Golemist cannot kill her because you need fire to do so.


Also Golemist wants the name of the dead god who smothered the wayward flame. his skull is likely Dinu's bones.

>>2602394
Shes probablt a third age earth god. One who brought golemist back to life before they met Agatha.

>You’ll all back off. You can’t afford another fight right now.

“Stop,” you say and then repeat it louder. “Stop! Stay your hands!”
That draws some attention but it is not to the crowd you are speaking. It is to Alex, whose hands cover her face even as she stares at the ruined Temple with a frantic despair. It is to the redcloaks who even now draw tight hands around rifles and cudgels. You can see the cries die in their throats as you raise your hand.
“Now is not the time,” you say quietly.

Damn it all but Beatrice is right. You cannot afford another fight. And while this may not be just, you can only swallow your pride and bear it for now. Add it to the burden. That is all any of you can do.

With Beatrice’s help propping you up, you turn your back to the Temple and slowly begin to hobble off. The other will follow you. And they do so, leaving a questioning crowd behind.

And as the redcloaks cluster around you, the darkness at the edges of your vision rises and swallows you up.

…….

Wick: 0/10
Spark: 0/8

You wake with a start, not feeling much better or any less tired than you were before. You are lying on a blanket, a softly burning lantern sitting next to you. You are careful not to touch it. With no Wick, it could actually burn you.

You recognise this room. You’re in the lowest room back in your old base, the armoury. Your makeshift bed is right in the middle of the practice ring. And you’re not alone. Something moves in the darkness. You tense, rising up and-

It’s just Alex.

She’s sitting on the chair by the wall, still dressed in her tattered and bloodstained coat. The red scarf, normally sitting around her neck, is crumpled on the table beside her.
“You’re awake.”

“Yes,” you say awkwardly, unsure of how else to respond. “What happened?”

“You passed out. We brought you back here. It’s only been an hour or so.”

“Wait! Why here? The Workshop can find Beatrice, remember! We shouldn-”

Alex raises a hand placatingly.
“It’s all good. We threw her out.”

“You what?”

“It was mostly diplomatic.”
She winces.
“Maybe some of the words weren’t too polite. But I could tell she knew we were right. She’s up in the floor above us, in the courtyard. That way we can still help if she gets attacked but she won’t lead them here.”

“I can’t imagine she’s too happy about that.”

“Well I’m not happy either boss,” Alex blurts out in a much harsher tone of voice than she had obviously intended.
“I mean...sorry.”

“It’s fine. Talk to me.”
You slowly rise out of bed.

1/3

>>2602555
“Well...it’s...I guess...they’re all dead aren’t they? The congregation wasn’t that bad you know, they just didn’t want trouble. But then we brought trouble to them anyway. I shouldn’t have called them cowards.”
She holds her head in her hands.
“People are spreading lies about us. Only, they’re not lies are they? We really did it. But instead of punishing us, people are just ripping apart anyone who believes in the same shit. They can’t reach us and if they would we would be ready. But the children weren’t, Orion. What could they have done?”

You put a hand gingerly on her shoulder.
“This was not our fault.”

“Isn’t it?”

“It isn’t. We destroyed the star. It’s death and the deaths of all those beneath are on our hands. But the deaths of any Temples aren’t. That is not your fault.”

“I shot some more people today.”

“I know. You did well.”

“I don’t think I can do it as easily as you and and the witch. I don’t think I’m ready.”

“Are the other redcloaks feeling this way?”

“No. No and that’s terrifying to me. But it doesn’t matter I guess. Because when I close my eyes its not their faces I see. I don’t see the Temple or the star.”
She looks up at you hollowly.
“When I close my eyes, do you know what I see?”

“...What?”

She pressed her hands together and then, in a faltering and awkward fashion, made the sign that the Witch-Engine had used when it pronounced death upon humanity. She stares at it and through it, no doubt gazing upon the ineffable real symbol that defies description in all but thought.
“I saw it, Orion. I saw the shape behind the hands. There were so many of them, how could I not? And now it’s all I can see.”

You sit down beside her.
“Knowing a name is not a sin Alex.”

“But I’ve become tainted! And now I can’t get it out of my head! And now...and now, it’s possible isn’t it? I could become a witch!”

“Only if you choose to. There is always a choice. Just choose rightly.”

“We always seem to be choosing wrongly sometimes. And I can’t stop seeing it. And the more I see it, the more I want to recreate it! It’s so big! It’s bigger than you or me or Dis! What if one day I give in and-”

You silence her, not with voice but with witch-sign. Placing your hands on the table between you, you make a clumsy sign of ghoul-stitching. Following that you flow into the sign of a curse, a chill on the bones that never ends.
“Alex,” you say softly. “How many times do you think I’ve seen the true shape of the earth? I’ve spent thirty years fighting witches. And it has not tainted me. Yes, they will never leave. Every single one in my head is as fresh as the day I first saw it and just as horrible. They won’t fade. But you don’t have to fade either. Despite all of this, I am not a witch.”

“I’m not as strong as you.”

“You are right. You’re stronger.”

“What?”

2/3

>>2602558
“When I first killed a man, I vomited. When I first had a witch-sign burned into my brain, I woke up crying for weeks afterwards. And when I first killed a witch...well, there was nothing good involved in that. It was the worst day of my life. When I was your age, I was a damn fool. But where I was constantly making mistakes, you’ve already gotten on the right track. When you get to my age, Alex, you’ll no doubt be more fearsome than I could imagine. You’ll have a hundred witch-signs in your head and thrice that many witch scalps on your belt. I know I can rely on you not to falter.”

Alex rises to her feet, taking a slow step back. She’s smiling but only desperately.
“You really think so?”

“I know so. Now leave me and tend to the morale of your troops. I still need to meditate so that I may heal Abe.”

She forces out a laugh.
“He does like to get himself to hurt, doesn’t he?”

“You don’t even know the half of it.”

>Roll 1d6 for meditation Wick Recovery. The highest of the first 3 is the amount of Wick restored. Ducal Firecrafting will double it.

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2602560

Rolled 3 (1d6)

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2602560

Six to both Wick and Spark it is. Writing.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2602560
Here’s hoping you only take linked

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>2602560
>doubled
Jesus, what do we need to do to increase max Wick? We really need more lanterns.

Apologies for the delay. I really haven’t been very fast today, have I?

>Recharge

>Wick: 6/10
>Spark: 6/8

An hour later, you open eyes and awaken refreshed. Your fatigue has melted away and where once you had burned down to embers, the flames within you were stoked once more. And yes, while you might not have expected the atrocity at the Temple, this has still been a worthy day. Another shard has fallen into your hands, enemies have been vanquished and you are so close to finally fulfilling your goal that you can almost taste it.

It had been just a dream for so long but in just a few more days, it might be reality. The sun will shine once more. Humanity will once again know the presence of God.

And it is then that you hear something crash up above you. Someone screams and with that, you’ve grabbed onto your wick and staff and are running up the stairs! Your body moves before your mind even properly reacts, taking the stairs two at a time.

In the middle room, where the redcloaks had set up their communal quarters, there is a ...thing. Youre not sure how to describe it at first. It’s as much insect as it is reptile, a scraping crawling thing several times larger and longer than a man. Bulging black eyes stare blankly out of a malformed raven skull sitting atop a centipedal body with a long ridge of stone running down its back. And behind, a lashing cacophony of at least a dozen whiplike tails!
It reminds of you of the fumus, the aerial predators of Dis and Tangle Workshop runoff. They don’t resemble imps or trolls, just a chimeric beast unrelated to either.

It shrieks, the sorrowful sound enough to nearly deafen you.

“What is this? What’s going on?”

A scattered amount of redcloaks are spread out around the beast, weapons half drawn. Most of them have fled to the top floor however and you can’t blame them. Trying to fight something like this in such a small space? How did it even get in here?

“I don’t know!,” Alex shouts. “It didn’t come through the door. Maybe it burrowed through the city!”

“It’s the Workshop again!,” another redcloak screams. “We should have sent the witch further away!”

You barely have time to process all this before the monster lunges, driving straight at you with its jagged bone beak! You dodge to the side, redcloaks diving for cover as bullets bounce off its chitin to little effect. You get a good look at the thing’s eyes as you narrowly avoid the strike and in them you see only darkness. There is no intellect guiding this thing, all there is is beast.
So then how did it come here?

It musn’t be alone.

‘Get out of here! Run! Rifles aren’t worth anything this close!”

Alex almost runs but stops.
“But what about you.”

“I’ll be fine. Just go.”

1/2

>>2602785
>You need to lure it up out into the courtyard above your base. It’ll ruin your cover but that’s evidently already gone. You need a wide open space to effectively leverage your guns.

>You’ll fight it right here and right now. It goes now.

>Tell the redcloaks to go find Beatrice and have her come back, for God’s sake! It didn’t work and you need her gun!

>Other (Specify)

>>2602786
>>Tell the redcloaks to go find Beatrice and have her come back, for God’s sake! It didn’t work and you need her gun!

>>2602786
>>Tell the redcloaks to go find Beatrice and have her come back, for God’s sake! It didn’t work and you need her gun!

Seriously.

>>2602277
What a sudden but inevitable betrayal.

>>2602323
>It's ironic instead of stopping the threats we made them exponentially worse with the star fall.
Ironic? People were calling it from the start. But anons were too drunk on imagined power.

>>2602786
The Workshop has already known where our base is. Beatrice has already been to here after the tracker was implanted.

>You need to lure it up out into the courtyard above your base. It’ll ruin your cover but that’s evidently already gone. You need a wide open space to effectively leverage your guns.
Bea is up there as well.

Vote called, writing.

>Tell the redcloaks to go find Beatrice and have her come back, for God’s sake! It didn’t work and you need her gun!

“And get Beatrice!,” you yell up after your retreating followers. “I could use her gun!”
Damn it! Now that you’re fully awake and thinking straight, you can see straight through the flaw in the redcloak’s plan. Beatrice had already stayed at the base after her escape from the Thorn! They know it! So even if you’re still not sure how this beast got in here, you know exactly why.

The creature lunges for you with its beak again and you step to the side, thwacking it on its almost skeletal head as you do. It seems to barely feel it.

The thing has no legs but it worms forward, trampling bedrolls as it thrashes around the room. And as it moves and you move it, you can see the wall where it used to be. There’s no hole there. It didn’t burrow. It didn’t come through the doors. It certainly couldn’t even fit through them! So how did it even invade your home in the first place?

It squirms around and lashes at you with its tails, stinging whips going right past your staff and slicing you painfully around the chest and shoulders. Not hard enough to draw blood, thank god, you don’t want to risk their little stingers being poisonous.

By the third time it tries to bite you, you are ready. You shove former tail of the Iron Duke straight down its open beak and into its throat! It tries to close its mouth but instead you draw it closer and reach for its bulging eyes with your free hand!
It’s not pleasant work but you’ll dig its eyes out with your hands if you have to.

But as soon as you grab hold of the curiously glass-like orbs, they suddenly shine with a coating of dew! Smoke rises from your gauntlets as you touch the tears now leaking from its eyes and you hastily pull back. And then the beast spits out your staff and knocks you into the wall.

You sink to the ground in a bundle of pain, gripping your staff and using it to lever yourself up as you crawl out of the way of the monster’s squirming bulk. The creature is still crying, long thick tears dripping down and etching metal.
How are you going to handle this beast in such an enclosed space?


>Lure it up into the upper floor. It’s so big that you should be able to trap it on the staircase. (Hard roll).

>Raise your Wick and burn it out. You might take some of the redcloak’s belongings with it but that’s a fair price to pay. (Medium roll)

>Let it try and eat you again and let it taste a Self-Ignition. You’ll almost certainly take a hit but it’s probably the easiest way to land a strike on the thing (Easy roll)

>>2602891
>Let it try and eat you again and let it taste a Self-Ignition. You’ll almost certainly take a hit but it’s probably the easiest way to land a strike on the thing (Easy roll)
I like it when we set ourself on fire

>>2602891
>Let it try and eat you again and let it taste a Self-Ignition. You’ll almost certainly take a hit but it’s probably the easiest way to land a strike on the thing (Easy roll)

File: fleksnek.png (13 KB, 400x400)

13 KB PNG

Alright I know I didn't update much today but I've been sleepy and shitposty in general. I'm going to rest for two or three hours and then I'll come back and finish the session. Vote will remain open until then.

>>2602891
>Raise your Wick and burn it out. You might take some of the redcloak’s belongings with it but that’s a fair price to pay

Letting a poisonous beast bite us doesn't seem prudent.

>>2602891
>>Raise your Wick and burn it out. You might take some of the redcloak’s belongings with it but that’s a fair price to pay. (Medium roll)

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Rolled 5 (1d6)

Alright I'm back and I'm breaking this tie with a roll. It's been a while since the dice gods needed anything anyhow.
Evens: Self-Ignition.
Odds: Burn it out.

>Raise your Wick and burn it out. You might take some of the redcloak’s belongings with it but that’s a fair price to pay. (Medium roll)

You duck and wave as the creature lashes at you with its tails once more. It’s all but circled the entire room now, forcing you to try and look out in every possible direction at once. Perhaps it’s a little smarter than you gave it credit for.

“Orion!”
A wretched voice calls out down from the first floor. You can’t see her but you’d recognise it anywhere.
“I’m here, I’m coming. What the hell is that fucking thing?”

“I don’t know. Help me kill it!”

You hear Beatrice stomping heavily down the stairwell behind you.
“Just keep it still and I’ll take it out! I can’t figure out what end is the face and which is the arse while it’s thrashing around!”

Keep it still? That might be easier said than done. But in your experience, the most reliable way to get any monster to cower is simple. Burn it. Make it fear the fire. As a Lamplighter, your primary objective is to carry light into the darkness. Sometimes you have to stick it right into the darkness’ face.

You point your long-handled wick at the creature and summon forth the Flame Internal. And from the tip bursts forth a spray of liquid flame right into the creature’s face! It screams and cries even more but you take a step forward while keeping the flame steady. And another, and another. You won’t stop until you’ve got this abomination forced into a corner.

Wick: 3/10
Spark: 6/8

But after the initial surprise is over, the creature isn’t cowering over as much as you expected. Instead it curls around itself, the stone plates along the back interlocking with one another to form a fireproof shell. And then, as the fire falters just a little, it bursts forth and rolls towards you!

>Roll 1d6. The first 3 shall be used for Orion. The 3 stages of the roll are dodging the roll, counter-attacking and then dodging what happens when it unfurls.

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>2603079

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>2603079

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>2603079

>>2598741
Hey no. I think the monsters have Wicks. Are there natural animals on this world, Ouro?

>>2603126
Natural animals do exist but they are wickless. Possessing a Wick is the key identifier for humanity, something that spans the large physical differences between the three types of Men that would normally result in them being considered three different species.

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>4, 6, 2

You jump to the side as the rolling creature smashes into the wall of the tank and as it does so, you spot a gap in its petrified armour! You drop the wick and, with your staff held with both hands, you wedge it firmly into a gap between the the plates and heave.
Using the springy metal tail as a lever, you pull one of the stone plates off entirely! It comes off with a grotesque sucking sound, flipping into the wall and leaving a trail of blood behind. Human blood.

The monster wails and then uncoils with surprising power, springing back open with enough force that part of its squirming body strikes you square in the chest and sends you smacking into the far wall. Your head bangs against the metal and you sink to the floor in a heap. That...that doesn’t make sense to you. It’s hard to think in a straight line right now but is it actually bigger than before?

The monster settles on its elongated haunches, supported by at least a dozen legs. Legs! It didn’t have legs before either! It had been as a snake or a worm but now clusters of spindly legs ending in spear-tipped points let it scrabble across the ground. Whatever this thing is, it’s still growing, still changing. It’s actively transforming and maturing before your very eyes.
Is that how it got into here? Was it some sort of larvae, something too small to notice? What had it been before this? Could you have stopped it then?

“Beatrice! What are you doing? Shoot it! Shoot it!”
You stare up the dented stairwell to where Beatrice is still standing, her pistol held loosely in one hand. She’s staring at the back of the monster, at the cluster of tendrils. But she isn’t firing. Why isn’t she shooting? You stilled the monster!

“I can’t,” she says helplessly. “I can’t.”
And with that, she retreats back up the stairs to the upper floor.

It is just you and the monster now but, despite all appearances, the monster is no longer the most shocking thing in the room. You’ve never seen Beatrice refuse a shot.

The abomination staggers forward on newborn legs and opens its skeletal beak wide. Clusters of flat teeth are growing all along the inside the jaw and blooming like enamel flowers.


>Get around the monster and escape to the upper floor. You need to know what is so damn important!

>Continue the fight and see if you can get around to the tail end. If you can brave the tendrils, you might be able to see what disgusted Beatrice.

>It’s possible that hidden within the stingers at the back of the monster is some form of spiritual attack. Beatrice would be vulnerable to such things. If so, you should slay this creature quickly and without looking at it.

>Other (Specify)

>>2599215
>A pair of hands clasp together semi-randomly into a witch-sign you’ve seen before. A grotesque symbol of putrefaction, one that sloughs flesh from bone like oil off water. But such a curse requires a lot of repetition to properly master to any great degree-
>And to your horror, you see hand after hand lock together into identical positions.
Hahaha that's amazing.

>>2603137
It's Abe.

>>2603137
>Close to CQC, hit it with the strongest Benediction of Relief we can.

>>2603126
>Doing witch-sign magic
>Having a wick

Pick one.

>>2603137
>It’s possible that hidden within the stingers at the back of the monster is some form of spiritual attack. Beatrice would be vulnerable to such things. If so, you should slay this creature quickly and without looking at it.

Doesn't matter what it is, it's hostile, and deadly. It has to die, and better if we don't see anything that brings about hesitation.

>>2603137
>It’s possible that hidden within the stingers at the back of the monster is some form of spiritual attack. Beatrice would be vulnerable to such things. If so, you should slay this creature quickly and without looking at it.
If it blocks fire with armored plates, an ignited runesword will make it think it should block while we cut clean through.

>>2603144
It's Abe. That's how it got in, and why Bea refuses to kill it.

And when I posted, I hadn't read the part where it had Signed.

>>2603140
Oh. Makes sense.

>>2603137
Change >>2603145
To support >>2603143
I have doubts of it working, but it might reveal some things to understand.

>>2603137
>>2603143
Supporting
Hopefully it's just the vice-pres having something growing around Abe, if the monster is him, that is.

Vote called. Writing.

>>2603147
>I have doubts of it working,

Because it absolutely will not work. Why on earth would it do anything at all that would work out better than trying to straight up kill it? You're using the wrong benediction for doing anything helpful with, it would be the right one if >>2603149 was true, but it's not. No monster so far has "grown around" its subject, but we've had plenty of things transform, mutate, and do things that would doom the victim anyways. Relying on this being the solution is a false hope based on absolutely nothing. I may as well suggest that we start dancing in a circle to make everything all just get better.

But fine, we'll presume that we can, somehow, magically cure this hideous transformation using our basic bitch tier benedictions. Fine. In that case you want a Benediction of Cleansing, to remove a curse, if it's even a curse and not an outright transformation. This isn't something you heal from; what's been wounded? Are you going to heal him into a person again?

Again, so many presumptions, altogether too many, based off of whim. No. This will end badly, and not do anything you actually want to happen.

>wake up
>catch up on my comfy lamplighter
>abe's been turned into a monstrosity
>we're hitting it with a benediction of relief for some reason
oh no

>>2603154
Im on my phone so i cant be assed to check which benediction to use

>-Purging Benediction-
>Cost: 1 Wick (Light Required)
>This blessing requires Orion to touch the target and to remain in contact for a temporary duration as the Benediction slowly pulls it out all poisons from their bodies and burns them away. This works on magical poisons as well but not against magical poisons that explicitly protected against such means. When used on a creature of the Dark this Benediction can disorient them.
This is probably our best shot, I don't think this is a curse.

>>2603165
Yeah. The wood stuff the Tangle uses doesn't seem like a Dark creature, but at the same time still burns properly. If anything will work, it'll be Purging treating the whole thing as a poison, or plain Cauterize amputating Abe out of the giant mass.

Also this only makes it seem more like the Shard is at the Tonic workshop.

The Workshop has to burn.