All around the mulberry bush...
Jul. 10th, 2004 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrycloth...the lizard chased the eagle. The lizard thought it was all in fun. POP goes the eagle!
Despite Snowwy's absence on account of AC (==Anthrocon), we finished up the 'robot world' sequence and became fabulously wealthy. Well, for mexicans.
Near the autodoc, and also near where Theta Team had first seen the gray lizards, was a 'transportations' warehouse full of... things. Many of them looked like portals, similar to but not identical to the Mr. Gency's Disk the team had traveled to the robot world using, but others looked like little portable doodads. Nuki picked one up and started fiddling with it, and promptly disappeared.
"So... how long should we wait for him?"
The general consensus was to wait overnight at least, because they wanted to visit the 'crystal factory' he'd shown them on the map before disappearing, but didn't feel like travelling without any weapons or armor or equipment or spell points, and the spell points at least would be back in the morning.
Of course, they had some time before nightfall, which they spent examining the equipment they hadn't stolen initially (and subsequently lost due to radiation), only to find that it was about as useless as it had looked. The knives, at least, could be used to cut things, but they were just stupid knives.
Kyrae took the time he needed to 'fix' the return-device, cannibalizing the last remaining PDA (Carmine's) to act as a one-shot trigger. It would summon the portal to it, then trigger it right on top of itself, destroying itself in the process. Various options were discussed trying to figure out some way to not trash the laptop (since the custom portal-summoning hardware was EXPENSIVE) but the inability to access the tracking data combined with the very very VERY wide variance in portal speeds made that impractical -- if they wanted to time it so that the slowest portal wouldn't kill them, the fastest portal would be a quarter mile away, and that wasn't nearly precise enough for them to be able to load the large heavy 'transportation' devices and autodoc that they wanted to take with them.
JT experimented to see if they were allowed to remove things from the repair room, and after taking a random piece of junk and setting it down 200 feet away, was almost arrested by the rather prompt police response -- he was able to hide until they went away, though.
A little later, however, he was bitten by a little mechanical spider, which injected him with a transponder. Carmine surgically removed it, and they agreed to stand watch overnight to prevent a repeat. During Kyrae's watch, though, he became engrossed disassembling and reassembling the map (effectively destroying it in the process) and didn't notice the spiders that came and tagged all three of them.
In the morning, there was still no sign of Nuki, so JT made everyone invisible and they set off for the crystal factory. They expected it to take about a day, but the sidewalks aligned themselves with their journey and sped them along at about 30 miles per hour, past 'forests' of very tall, thin buildings and 'deserts' of solar collectors, and they arrived much faster than they expected at an automated open pit mine, apparently the factory they'd been seeking.
During the trip, they'd noticed another line of sidewalks speeding someone they couldn't see along with them. After wandering through a factory where, apparently, the box-robots were being built, they found the interloper, who couldn't see them while they were invisible, but seemed to be using an invisible device of some sort to track them.
They split up to see if he was tracking only one of them, but instead of following *any* of them he got distracted by the coveyor belt full of fist-sized gemstones, and started looting it. Strangely, he seemed to also be taking some smaller stones... and to their surprise, they realized they were syntax crystals! The ones they made their spells out of! And he was taking them! They couldn't stand for that!
So, the plan was for Carmine, as the only one of the team who still had equipment -- and in particular, the very effective C-4 arrows -- to snipe at him while the other two hid out of sight and cast defensive spells on her, if her first shot didn't take him out (as they expected it to). She agreed to this, and let off a shot... which missed, blowing up the conveyor belt behind him instead.
Since they'd entered combat, they were all visible (although Kyrae and JT were hiding) and the lizard fired back with his invisible device, doing no damage to Carmine, but paralyzing her. Then he put up his barrier magic that, in the previous fight, had made him impervious to the much much better weapons they'd looted from the tan lizards (and no longer had, thanks to the radiation). Oops.
So the second plan was to wait until combat ended, and with it his spell, then transform and attack him, hopefully taking him down by surprise, again. But the gray lizard didn't let combat end -- instead, he leapt up onto the catwalk (yikes!) and pointed the gun at Carmine as she struggled and shifted into her transformation... so JT and Kyrae transformed immediately, and attacked him.
He couldn't hurt JT, at least not after he was fully transformed, but he *could* badly injure Kyrae -- but after JT made Kyrae invisible again Kyrae could usually dodge, giving Carmine more than enough time to heal his wounds (she couldn't move, but she could still activate her syntax chains). When fully transformed, even without weapons, JT and Kyrae could give him minor scratches. So he figured that he'd lose *eventually*, and ran away, much to everyone's surprise and dismay.
And Carmine's paralysis didn't end after the battle -- he'd stunned her with a technological weapon, not a magic spell. Doh.
While JT gathered up the remaining syntax crystals from the ruins of the conveyor belt (which was being switfly repaired as they watched), Kyrae ventured down into the mine from which they were being taken, and discovered that the robots were mining a buried mall. In the mall were vats and vats of gemstones and crystals of all types, including nearly a thousand base crystals, scattered across the floor! It looked like the main stash had been boxed already, unfortuantely.
There was also a completely untouched bookstore specializing in university-level textbooks. Jackpot! The technology of the mall wasn't anywhere near that of the robots, but it was still different than their world's and therefore likely to be more advanced in some ways. In particular, this was a society that could apparently manufacture the syntax and base crystals.
So they decided to summon the portal in the mall. There were two levels, so they built a slide from the top level to the bottom level, loaded up a pair of gigantic geodes with gems and books, and slid them down into the portal, then followed up with cartloads of extra gems, and strange apparently-enchanted weapons from a knife store, and everything else they could shove through in the thirty minutes the portal could stay open, the followed themselves. They even brought along one of the box-robots, which didn't seem to resist or care that it was being lifted up and stolen.
But as they arrived back home, doubled over with agony from worse-than-usual portal side effects, who should appear out of the portal behind them but the stupid gray lizard they thought they'd chased off, who set off a huge explosion, knocking them all out.
They came to in the hospital -- not just them, but many of the guards were also injured, and the lizard had been captured and was tied down to a bed, looking indignant. Talking to the doctor, and later to the general and the financier, they discovered that the explosion the damn gray lizard had set off had wiped all the portal data from the computers, meaning that not only could they not go back for the autodoc and Nuki, but all the OTHER teams that needed to find the same world (mostly because they had ongoing diplomatic relationships) were stranded as well!
Still, the treasure and technology they'd brought back -- the books DID have information on how to create the syntax crystals from the base crystals, although not on how to create the base crystals in the first place, and the gems were enough to not only pay for all the damage, but give everyone on the base a $150,000 raise (!!!) (according to the contract, apparently, the financier got the right to all technology, while the base personnel got to split any treasure).
There was also now a policy in place regarding syntax and base crystals -- they belonged to whoever found them for their own use, since they didn't want to forbid their soldiers making themselves stronger in the field, but also didn't want to encourage them to greedily eat them all so as not to have to turn them over. There was a 10% tax for research purposes, but that left Carmine and JT and Kyrae at least with many new spells to play with and base crystals to 'eat', or use to improve the syntax crystals.
They spent two weeks travelling to related worlds looking for any sign of Nuki, but none of the 'nearby' worlds they hit had the machine infestation -- they were all the society that had made the malls, only as an active culture and not as ruins. And none of them had Nuki. After about fifty fruitless attempts, they were given a two week vacation off base, to relax and maybe spend some of the bonus money.
last session | next session
I was woken up this morning by a power outage. I don't know how -- it didn't make any noise, and it's not like there's a computer in my room that suddenly stopped humming, or anything. But I woke up for no apparent reason, looked over at the radio to see what time it was, and discovered that the power was out.
I called Puget Power to report it, and found out that, yes, it HAD just happened right then, and apparently woken me up. Huh.
It came back on just after I'd given up and taken a lukewarm shower in the dark. Not that I'm complaining.
Despite Snowwy's absence on account of AC (==Anthrocon), we finished up the 'robot world' sequence and became fabulously wealthy. Well, for mexicans.
Near the autodoc, and also near where Theta Team had first seen the gray lizards, was a 'transportations' warehouse full of... things. Many of them looked like portals, similar to but not identical to the Mr. Gency's Disk the team had traveled to the robot world using, but others looked like little portable doodads. Nuki picked one up and started fiddling with it, and promptly disappeared.
"So... how long should we wait for him?"
The general consensus was to wait overnight at least, because they wanted to visit the 'crystal factory' he'd shown them on the map before disappearing, but didn't feel like travelling without any weapons or armor or equipment or spell points, and the spell points at least would be back in the morning.
Of course, they had some time before nightfall, which they spent examining the equipment they hadn't stolen initially (and subsequently lost due to radiation), only to find that it was about as useless as it had looked. The knives, at least, could be used to cut things, but they were just stupid knives.
Kyrae took the time he needed to 'fix' the return-device, cannibalizing the last remaining PDA (Carmine's) to act as a one-shot trigger. It would summon the portal to it, then trigger it right on top of itself, destroying itself in the process. Various options were discussed trying to figure out some way to not trash the laptop (since the custom portal-summoning hardware was EXPENSIVE) but the inability to access the tracking data combined with the very very VERY wide variance in portal speeds made that impractical -- if they wanted to time it so that the slowest portal wouldn't kill them, the fastest portal would be a quarter mile away, and that wasn't nearly precise enough for them to be able to load the large heavy 'transportation' devices and autodoc that they wanted to take with them.
JT experimented to see if they were allowed to remove things from the repair room, and after taking a random piece of junk and setting it down 200 feet away, was almost arrested by the rather prompt police response -- he was able to hide until they went away, though.
A little later, however, he was bitten by a little mechanical spider, which injected him with a transponder. Carmine surgically removed it, and they agreed to stand watch overnight to prevent a repeat. During Kyrae's watch, though, he became engrossed disassembling and reassembling the map (effectively destroying it in the process) and didn't notice the spiders that came and tagged all three of them.
In the morning, there was still no sign of Nuki, so JT made everyone invisible and they set off for the crystal factory. They expected it to take about a day, but the sidewalks aligned themselves with their journey and sped them along at about 30 miles per hour, past 'forests' of very tall, thin buildings and 'deserts' of solar collectors, and they arrived much faster than they expected at an automated open pit mine, apparently the factory they'd been seeking.
During the trip, they'd noticed another line of sidewalks speeding someone they couldn't see along with them. After wandering through a factory where, apparently, the box-robots were being built, they found the interloper, who couldn't see them while they were invisible, but seemed to be using an invisible device of some sort to track them.
They split up to see if he was tracking only one of them, but instead of following *any* of them he got distracted by the coveyor belt full of fist-sized gemstones, and started looting it. Strangely, he seemed to also be taking some smaller stones... and to their surprise, they realized they were syntax crystals! The ones they made their spells out of! And he was taking them! They couldn't stand for that!
So, the plan was for Carmine, as the only one of the team who still had equipment -- and in particular, the very effective C-4 arrows -- to snipe at him while the other two hid out of sight and cast defensive spells on her, if her first shot didn't take him out (as they expected it to). She agreed to this, and let off a shot... which missed, blowing up the conveyor belt behind him instead.
Since they'd entered combat, they were all visible (although Kyrae and JT were hiding) and the lizard fired back with his invisible device, doing no damage to Carmine, but paralyzing her. Then he put up his barrier magic that, in the previous fight, had made him impervious to the much much better weapons they'd looted from the tan lizards (and no longer had, thanks to the radiation). Oops.
So the second plan was to wait until combat ended, and with it his spell, then transform and attack him, hopefully taking him down by surprise, again. But the gray lizard didn't let combat end -- instead, he leapt up onto the catwalk (yikes!) and pointed the gun at Carmine as she struggled and shifted into her transformation... so JT and Kyrae transformed immediately, and attacked him.
He couldn't hurt JT, at least not after he was fully transformed, but he *could* badly injure Kyrae -- but after JT made Kyrae invisible again Kyrae could usually dodge, giving Carmine more than enough time to heal his wounds (she couldn't move, but she could still activate her syntax chains). When fully transformed, even without weapons, JT and Kyrae could give him minor scratches. So he figured that he'd lose *eventually*, and ran away, much to everyone's surprise and dismay.
And Carmine's paralysis didn't end after the battle -- he'd stunned her with a technological weapon, not a magic spell. Doh.
While JT gathered up the remaining syntax crystals from the ruins of the conveyor belt (which was being switfly repaired as they watched), Kyrae ventured down into the mine from which they were being taken, and discovered that the robots were mining a buried mall. In the mall were vats and vats of gemstones and crystals of all types, including nearly a thousand base crystals, scattered across the floor! It looked like the main stash had been boxed already, unfortuantely.
There was also a completely untouched bookstore specializing in university-level textbooks. Jackpot! The technology of the mall wasn't anywhere near that of the robots, but it was still different than their world's and therefore likely to be more advanced in some ways. In particular, this was a society that could apparently manufacture the syntax and base crystals.
So they decided to summon the portal in the mall. There were two levels, so they built a slide from the top level to the bottom level, loaded up a pair of gigantic geodes with gems and books, and slid them down into the portal, then followed up with cartloads of extra gems, and strange apparently-enchanted weapons from a knife store, and everything else they could shove through in the thirty minutes the portal could stay open, the followed themselves. They even brought along one of the box-robots, which didn't seem to resist or care that it was being lifted up and stolen.
But as they arrived back home, doubled over with agony from worse-than-usual portal side effects, who should appear out of the portal behind them but the stupid gray lizard they thought they'd chased off, who set off a huge explosion, knocking them all out.
They came to in the hospital -- not just them, but many of the guards were also injured, and the lizard had been captured and was tied down to a bed, looking indignant. Talking to the doctor, and later to the general and the financier, they discovered that the explosion the damn gray lizard had set off had wiped all the portal data from the computers, meaning that not only could they not go back for the autodoc and Nuki, but all the OTHER teams that needed to find the same world (mostly because they had ongoing diplomatic relationships) were stranded as well!
Still, the treasure and technology they'd brought back -- the books DID have information on how to create the syntax crystals from the base crystals, although not on how to create the base crystals in the first place, and the gems were enough to not only pay for all the damage, but give everyone on the base a $150,000 raise (!!!) (according to the contract, apparently, the financier got the right to all technology, while the base personnel got to split any treasure).
There was also now a policy in place regarding syntax and base crystals -- they belonged to whoever found them for their own use, since they didn't want to forbid their soldiers making themselves stronger in the field, but also didn't want to encourage them to greedily eat them all so as not to have to turn them over. There was a 10% tax for research purposes, but that left Carmine and JT and Kyrae at least with many new spells to play with and base crystals to 'eat', or use to improve the syntax crystals.
They spent two weeks travelling to related worlds looking for any sign of Nuki, but none of the 'nearby' worlds they hit had the machine infestation -- they were all the society that had made the malls, only as an active culture and not as ruins. And none of them had Nuki. After about fifty fruitless attempts, they were given a two week vacation off base, to relax and maybe spend some of the bonus money.
last session | next session
I was woken up this morning by a power outage. I don't know how -- it didn't make any noise, and it's not like there's a computer in my room that suddenly stopped humming, or anything. But I woke up for no apparent reason, looked over at the radio to see what time it was, and discovered that the power was out.
I called Puget Power to report it, and found out that, yes, it HAD just happened right then, and apparently woken me up. Huh.
It came back on just after I'd given up and taken a lukewarm shower in the dark. Not that I'm complaining.
