Aotrs Commander

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Unlucky made a snap decision and forced out a single word. A meaningless word and nonsense, but one in which the watching and listening High Command would understand.

The Aotrs did not fight super-powerful entities in fair fights. Never one-on-one. At the point this thing was putting out demi-god-level power, well beyond what Unlucky was capable of dealing with alone? And nevermind Unlucky himself, there was Alpha Team and even the Crippling Glare to consider.

He felt, rather than heard, the sound of the Lichemaster casting Gate True.

* * * * * * *

Both Stab and Feltain started as a voice snapped across the comms. "Alpha Team, Crippling Glare, we have Demigod-level threat on the field. Repeat, Demigod-level threat on the field. Alpha, GO!"

Stab's eyeglows expanded hugely. WHAT.

Stab was already scrambling to her feet, as Feltain lithely bounced up in a fluid motion, swearing quietly.

"Pretty sure that was Lord Scattershatter," he noted grimly as they sprinted towards the team. Shadowflight was already casting a Gate to get them right back to the Fallen Soul. "High Command must be active."

Stab made a wordless meep of unsettlement.

Belatedly, she realised that the Gate Unlucky had arrived by... That wasn't one that someone had popped through from Myst Base like she'd assumed, that must have been Gate True, Lord Death Despoil's highest level known spell, with a range functionally unlimited in at least as far as they'd ever measured. (Whether it was actually capable of inter-galactic distances was the subject of occasional debate.)

They sprinted towards the rest of the squad.

* * * * * * *

As Unlucky struggled to regain control, Yeller was first through the gate - manifested at humanid height but two abrest - which had opened barely five feet to Unlucky's right. Yeller arrived in his usual style, diving foward in an agile foward roll, his distinctive green falchion in one hand; in the left, with an expert flourish as he came to his feet, casually holding his personal coldbeam pistol. A half-step behind, Deather was next, also sword drawn, and he held his coldbeam rifle in one hand as is it was Unlucky's pistol, aimed with military precision at the furnace Knight the second he was in view. By happenstance being on Unlucky's side of the portal, Deather took a single long stride and smartly stepped up between Unlucky and the Furnace Knight.

Bowblast sprinted out next, bow in hand, but not drawn - instead he was taking his preferred role in post-industrial fights as spellcaster support, moving with swift grace to slide to a halt to Unlucky's left.

Only a pace behind, Shatterscatter followed; like Deather, he was wearing his Power Suit (as the pair of them found armour so trivial to wear, in was no more encumbering for them, be it plate or power armour, than clothes were for most mortals). Unlucky dimly heard him advising Alpha to go even as he came through the Gate. Foul Skream came with him, in his own heavy armour, shields already up. Both began to fan out.

And then, finally, Death Despoil exited the Gate. Wearing only his customary light body armour, his weapons sheathed. His helmet alone was not the modernised version, but his traditional one.

Not everyone, but enough.

And while Unlucky struggled against the presense, the liches were not so impaired, both due to the natural immunity coming with being Undead and their own experiences - they had faced off against actual dieties before in the past on rare occasions.

Lord Death Despoil tipped his head to one side momentarily, assessing the foe. Then he dropped his normally unassuming demeanour, asserting his own formidable aura. Aside from the sudden, sheer force of unsuppressed (and mundane) presence, a phenominally powerful supernatural fear (reinforced by the others following suit) swept the area. Only centuries of experience allowed Unlucky to weather the sudden panic - indeed the sensation was so familiar that he grabbed onto it like a drowning kobold, allowing him to steady himself ever so slightly.

The steadied aliens seemed to waver again, as the benefical effect of presence of the Furnace Knight fought with the lich's fear auras. (Indeed, without its effects, the most-weak willed among them might have actually died of fright.)

For a long moment, there was a pause.

Umnlucky took the moment to gather himself, forcing his mind into analyical mode, which helped shaped his thoughts more towards, though not reaching, normal. Unlucky knew that if the Furnace Knight attempted to speak, Deather, Shatterscatter and Foulskream would likely just shoot him (Deather likely in the mouth, because Unlucky knew how he thought; Yeller might like to banter, but Deather in particular took a perverse delight it cutting off monologues).

The Gate was still open; this, Unlucky knew - since he had called for it himself - was primarily an extraction, but also a test of the Furnace Knight's abilities. One thing was sure though - they'd at least uncovered a serious threat, and there was no way this level of power was going to be permitted action even at this distance from Aotrs borders. It has escalated rather more quickly than he had expected, but... Once again, Lord Death Despoil's forseeing (of both actual prescience and mundane forward-thinking) had ensured they could adapt.

Yeller, predicatably, was the first to break the suddenly silent tableau. Glancing between Deather's entirely normal sized falchion (the mirror in all but the electric blue colour of his own) and then the Furnace Knight's enormous sword, he nodded his helmet towards the Furnace Knight.

"You think he's compensating for something...?"

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"Milord?" Unlucky murmured in his helmet, knowing he would, at this point, have been listening.

"Permission for reconnaissence by force granted," Lord Death Despil's voice came back, and centuries of experience allowed Unlucky to pick up the faint hint of amusement. He caught a distant chuckle in the background that suggested Yeller was in the room (and this meant likely Deather and Bowblast too, at that point).

Unlucky mentally tapped up Holy Immunity True. While strictly most more benefit to the liches, who were suspectible ("suspectible," rather than "vulnerable") to holy attacks - that was attacks charged with divine energy specifically - he figured it might not hurt with the apparent presense of divine magic. While not a total immunity, it significantly reduced the chances of the attacks working, and mitigated the severity of anything that got through.

"Requirement for unions to exist indicates cultural failure on part of upper management!" He yelled, exploding forwards towards the nearest low cover. He grinned momentarily to himself as Yeller, at least appreciated the somewhat non sequitur battlecry.

Well, might as well break out one of the big guns and start with something flashy and personal... His free hand made quick motions, glowing with magical energies manipulating the mana into shape. Like most Aotrs-designed spells, the art and science of magic was advanced to the point the verbal component was almost vestigial and for a spell of compartively low level (at only level 35) compared to his caster level with it, entirely skippable, but, as he was so proud of this one...

"Vituperating Snot Cloud XXX!"

A vivid, sickly yellow-green bubbling dollop of what appeared to be gooey mucus exploded from his hand to fly over the largest concentration of enemies. It exploded a little above their heads. A fine gaseous and highly corrosive mist emanated instantly out from the central point, filling the area within a fifteen-metre radius (strictly speaking 14.48 meters, chosen exactly to screw with expecatations). At the same time, all the targeted aliens within the area of the spell were hit by a nauesatingly large splat of corrosive snot, which was not only highly potent, but Unlucky knew from the screams or previous victims, quite extraordinarily, even offensively, unpleasant. (Hense the first part of the name.)

The splashes were homing, too, utilising the same sort of magical targeting used by the likes of Chain Lightning (where he'd cribbed some of the underlying mechanics). He'd run out or targets in the radius before he'd hit his target limit anyway (the aliens weren't so densely packed as pre-industrial infantry after all), but every few seconds, the bubbling, roiling insubstantial mass of gunk at the centre-point would throw out more blasts at any targets in the radius. At his caster level, it would also be there for several minutes. (He'd left an exception to automatic targeting on this casting of himself and Boldness, though that of course wouldn't especially help against the underlying corrosive gas.) For good measure, the snot itself, though magically created, was not inherently magical itself (though it had only a short half-life as it also dissolved the air and ground) and thus was entirely effective on creatures that were immune or resistant to purely magical attacks.

__________________________

[In essense, in (3.5/PF1) D&D terms, it would map to something like, say, 8D6 Acid damage to anyone in the radius, plus umpteen D6 (probably Ref half) to 1 target/level per round for a round a level (but where a round is calculated on 10-second, not 6-second round) with SR: No. Spell level is a bit harder to parse in those terms (given Epic spells are hopeless), but, like, probably 16th? (RM would be something like "C" Acid crit every round and and a plus-something-quite-high Offensive Bonus Acid Ball attack on every target and also having the option of incrementing the amount of PP to increase the crit and damage multiplier...!) Epic-plus level wizards, man...! OP as frack.]

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Unlucky considered for half a second, given context of the conversation, not assuming the obvious...

"Granting desire or giving one?"

He paused, because he couldn't not ask the question.

"Also, if you get paid in amnesia, how you sure you remember if you got paid?"

He eyes the approaching aliens - enemy? - for a second.

"One second, protocol requires to ask question...

"HEY!" he bellowed in the direction of the aliens. "We making deal!" He waved flapped his hand between the pair of them. "Any you want to make better offer?"

While waiting for a response, he looked back at Boldness and continued conversationally. "Sorry, nothing personal, you seem like nice... Lady? (By our standards anyway.) Frankly, me on board with 'redemption' as good enough reason, personally. But got to ask - boss gonna be listening; and only fair to give others chance to be reasonable. We all very big on being reasonable - when it suits us purposes, of course."

While talking, his hands moved and - with a little practised effort to do it without the words, given it was a level 50 spell - he cast up Combat Mastery. One of the highest level spells in the packaged "list" Combat Law, it allowed him to autonomously cast any of the lower level ones while it lasted (the better part of ten minutes at his caster level for that spell). It would let him shunt up some of the better defensive spells over the next few moments without having to cast each one individually (and to replentish them if they got taken down); it also gave him the option of using some of the offensive ones too, Cold Beam I and II being obvious options given those walkers, both functionally replicating vehicular-level coldbeam weapon discharges. (Cold Beam II was not part of the generally taught portion of the list, but on the other hand, few casters got up as far as level 40 spells anyway...)

"Honestly, expecting response to be shooting, but at least honour satisfied," he added in an undertone. Considering the company, he clarified: "Should note that speaking metaphorically, us not really big on concept of 'honour,' it lead to stupid pride-thinking instead of getting job done right."

With a thought, he used Combat Mastery to bring up Shield XX, and a briefly-visible shield bubble popped into exsistance around him.

He mentally parsed up the distance between the aliens, assessing if they were going be in Fireball or Greater Fireball radius...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"Uh, oh..." Stab muttered outside. "Looks like Lord Unlucky got them riled up..."

Feltain grunted, shifting his grip on his rifle.

* * * * * * *

Well. There weren't wrong about the factionalism, then. Unlucky made a snap decision. Fighting was almost certainly going to end up happening at this point and, well, honestly, Boldness seemed to a being cut from the same job as he was, really. If nothing else, this could prove to be interesting.

With a shrug, Unlucky abandoned his pretense, straighening out into a more professional stance and demeanour. With a casual flick of his wrist, he flipped the coldbeam pistol right side up into his right hand, but held down to his side. A slight change of position that he was now sure the other would pick up on placed the natural line of the draw, so to speak, away from Boldness and towards the nearest checkpoint.

"So. You proposal. Might be workable. Obviously need ask couple of questions before agreeing. This Furnace Knight... What he do to make Saoshyant mark him? Commit atrocity? Break rules? Religious sacriledge, political inconvience or something more interesting? Exactly what sort of form Saoshyant's gratitude take? Purely diplomatic or informational or material?"

With a couple of flicks of his eyes, he started lining up potential targets in his HUD. It wasn't the first time he'd conducted diplomatic negotiations during a firefight, and it would not be the last...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Well, they apparently weren't a mageocracy, then (though at the moment "theocracy" would have seemed like a much better bet anyway). As it happened, of course, Unlucky literally did associate political power with great wizards for obvious reasons (himself, for example), so perhaps some measure of truth to the answers...

Unlucky pretended to consider, and then count on his fingers as he continued to traipse after the creature before replying "Yes, twenty-six, seven miles, yes," - the latter three of which were strictly not untruths, if somewhat open to deliberate mis-interpretation of the question - "but why, you not solve that one yet?"

Unlucky glanced around. He waited until the glance of one of the other aliens passed him and deliberately made a nervous wave, simply to see the reaction was.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Unlucky widened his eyes (for all the effect it had behind his visor) and asked with innocent incredulity: "this all for YOU?" he flapped his arm, as if to emcompass the entire facility. "All this, the floaty space-balls, it all for you? You must be great wizard! To make arch mangos give all stuff to stay on you good side." (Unlucky had spent far too many centuries around Yeller not to take a swing at the obvious low-ball. He resisted the urge to ask what the... fellow? had done to offend fruit, but only because the other would probably not get it.)

He trotted after the alien, with the aura of a lost puppy that had found a new master. After all, anything he could get out of this was useful, before things got messy. It implied, at least, that if this alien was the one in charge, it was maybe looking for the mentioned one. Though, the facility was preventing it locating the "archmagos?" It could of course be some sort of inter-deparmental spat or other politicing. At the very least, it seemed that there was at least some sort of factionalism at play, and anything Unlucky could wean out of the alien wuld be useful to know.

He spent a handful of seconds mentally casting up a minor telekinetic spell to drag the scanner back to him, and, once again under the pretense of stumbling, swiftly grabbed and stowed it. He kept a sharp eye on the alien, attempting to gauge if it was buying this or merely humouring him. Either way, it was worth holding the act for as long as he could.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

As he was yanked out, Unlucky's apparently random flailing hooked the scanner and slid it out of the room before the door slammed, skittering it a few feet away.

[73 on D100 plus estimated stat passes Hard maneouver check in RM]

It wasn't as though he couldn't grab the data via his helmet uplink, but he preferred to keep it to hand.

His translation spell kicked back in outside the null-lagic field, since with metaphorical oxygen back the proverbial "combustion engine" of the spell could restart. He dismissed his illusions before they turned back on too; no point keeping it up now. But...

Hmm. Perhaps some level if disembling would still be possible. "Child of Crimson Goddess" could mean anything, either a cultureal thing or, possibly, a reference to his blood. Of course, the child part might be because he was doing his usual act and even though he towered above other kobolds, he was still barely goblin-sized...

"No steal!" He said firmly, slipping naturally into his 'non-too-bright put-upon-minion' voice. And that at least was the truth. Steaing would involving TOUCHING and the whole KPS-Division vibe this place was giving made that an ABSOLUTE no-no, with his luck. (That sort of thing was best left to Yeller (and even he only pretending to be hilariously reckless most of the time) or better yet, an Animated undead.)

"No touch, neither! Was looking! Only looking! Have to look, always looking and searching! Good at looking!" He looked down towards his feet, scuffling the toe of his boot on the floor.and softly and almost defensively, "Good at looking..."

[01 (D100 RM open-ended low range) followed by (negative D100) 10 = -9 plus skill (probably still an absurdly high result absolutely, given his estimated level and specialisation, but not a particularly convincing performance relatively.]

Unlucky's attention was only 75% on the creature, as it did not seem an immediate hostile threat, with the rest of it scanning (with nis two Mark One Eyeballs) the area for any other creatures heading in. (His coldbeam pistol was still grasped by the barrel in his hand, and he let it drop to his side.) He half-attempted a sniffle, but realised, a fair bit of his acting was somewhat muted by the fact he was wearing a full helmet... And at this point, the trade off in having his HUD and comms internally was more important.

He cocked his head to one side, looking up to the alien, asking innocently. "What was that? All I see is big angry plant, but why it attack Unlucky?"

(He was not at all concerned about giving his name out, especially as a free truth might glean him some intelligence...)

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Unlucky scowled internally. Unfortunate, with the null magic zone - quite impressive, it was much easier to suppress via anti-magic, rather than drain an area to null-magic - there was little chance of even attempting innocent disembling, having shut down his illusions. It also removed - temporarily - many immediate options.

Still, he had his coldbeam pistol (and cold would probably not do the creature much good at all), and while in the null field the large amounts of enchantments on it wouldn't work, it was still a top-quality Mk 17 made by Foul Skream himself. And there were plenty of other options to hand too...

Unlucky dodged through the first attacks, letting his body flow naturally into habitual seeming incompetance and just barely dodging. He kep hold of his scanner in his left hand while he deceptively fumbled around, pretending to panic a little. Buy some time, let the scanner keep going, see what the watcher did and how he reacted. (If he was really good, whether he could spot how much was show.)

As he blundered around, artfully fumbling out his pistol into his hand as if he barely knew one end from the other (grabbing and holding it by the barrel), his eyes scanned around. To create a null-magic zone artifically was just like anything else - you needed some sort of system, magical or technological. Something that was, pretty much invaribly, breakable. The question was whether it was in reach - and how prepared their aliens had made their structures for dealing with privative energies that were entirely mundane in nature, since he had at least two options. They were likely in the walls (or floor or roof), of course, but there were still all the same principles, and with a bit of effort, he might be able to back-calculate the positioning required from the type of wards they'd have to use and gauge where they be placed, in his head, while a plant outsider tried to kill him, while acting like a dupe and also not getting killed.

So, a moderate challenge, then?

(And if not, there was always plan B.)

He tripped over his own feet, tumbling into a roll, leaving him upside down as the flailing tendril flashed over his head. It was not intentional, but his luck coming into play - but Unlucky knew from long experience how to lean into that, let the bad luck flow and when and where to override it. (That his luck seemingly ignored null-magic had been something of a surprise when they'd first found it out. But no, it merely made it so the most ludcriously improbable things tended not to happen, and merely mundanely statistically implausible things tended to inconveniantly happen.)

Unlucky rolled aside from the next strike at the last fraction of a second with an apparent paniced flap of his right arm and use of the coldbeam pistol (still grabbed by the barrel) as an improvised lever. His scanner pinged, having completed the scan. It, naturally, slipped out of his hands at that exact moment and clattered away to lie near the door. Unlucky fell over backwards, ending up at the opposite corner of the room, under the window, flat on his back, looking up as the next tendril swung down. In that frozen moment, his mind continued to process the ward problem and his eyes flicked over to the watching alien, so see what it was doing...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Unlucky nodded to himself. This confirmed it - this section, at least, was basically Alien KPS Division. He'd read many of the KPS reports himself, of course, and the apparently random containment features reminded him very much of the Divison's own - not a few found by trial-and-error, since among the dangerous paranatural things and phenomena stored there were things that Aotrs science and magic COULDN'T explain (not could safely destroy). As well as little, inconsequential things like sealed gods and the like that they understood perfectly well, but needed VERY solid security... (Whatstherefaces, the five the Aotrs had trapped on Temnis before Unlucky was even born and whose names escaped him - if he'd even known them - must be pretty pissed by this point.)

Though it begged the question of why bring it HERE, to a planet, rather than, as the Aotrs had, move it to a nice, safe facility in orbit like the KPS base in orbit of Kalanoth's sun. Again, it suggested some sort of retreat away from something - perhaps a major failure at their old primary facility? But even so, why not keep this stuff in one of the orbs and drop it off in orbit, either near the sun - or, as was an increasinly alarming possibility, if this star was itselg and unexplainable paranatural phenomenon, at the other end of the solar system.

Unlucky looked for a promising candiate to have a very close look. Again, there was NO WAY he was going to actually touch one, especially if this was KPS-Division stuff, but if he could slip into the containmnt chamber for a minute (long enough fo a good scan), that would do.

(And, assuming that didn't result in Problems... He figured, back to the computer.)

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"You totally knew, didn't you?" Stab grumbled quietly, and Unlucky moved off.

"You couldn't tell from the height?" Feltain replied with amusement.

"I was lying down! And I haven't met too many kobolds and... Wow, he's just gone!"

"Yep. What did you expect?"

* * * * * * *

Unlucky slunk quietly into the curtained-off area. At this point, there was not too much point in being invisible. Visual scatter was all well and good, but at the end of the day, there was a reason cloaking did not work in atmosphere; not even super high tech cloaks.

Invisibility was one thing. The Aotrs even had a stealth tank, the Wraith Hawk, with what was charitable called a "cloaking device." In practise, this was just stealth technology, with an improved visual scatter coating that also difracted further into the infrared. It was not, ultimately, a cloak, and for good reason. First of all, cloaking did nothing to hide your sound. You could muffle sound with technology, and magiclaly you could, of course, use silencing spells. Which, against low-tech or nonmagical opponents, worked. But neither of those things were effective against scanners or sensors, which you had to actively block away. (And in the case of magic, just the use of it meant you could DETECT the magic.) In space, the very emptyness of it meant that you could do that (so a given value of how effective your cloak was verses their scanners) and the distances so large that unless you somehow knew deliberately where to go, you were never going to have something accidently get inside the cloaking field.

But in atmosphere? No amount of cloaking fields could hide the fact that, ultimately, YOU WERE STILL THERE. If you had a high-tech cloak like the Shardan or the Lazerblasters, sure, you could certainly hide everything in the field...

Right up until the point you had to MOVE. Or it rained, or was windy or there was anything at all that moved outside the cloaking field, because cloaking only worked - ever - up to whatever was inside the field. So, with modern scanners, the heat left by your engines, the displacement of the very air (let alone water or plant material) as you moved gave you away the moment your field stopped covering it, just as certainly as an invisible rogue standing in a cloud of flour a foot deep in water.

(Unlucky had has this happen often enough to him personally, with his luck...)

Ground-side stealth packages and "cloaking" devices were, then, really just a way of making you hide better electronically - but they did not, as with proper, space-based cloaking device, obviate the need TO hide.

(Granted, you could SLIGHLTY more plausibly get away with using a cloak on a stationary facility if you set up appropriately, but it never a garentee.)

Which is why Unlucky didn't bother trying to become invisible via technological or magical means (the latter of which would, of course, potentially set of any magical sensors). He relied entirely on his own phenominal mundane stealth skills to reach the Yellow encampment.

After slinking around enough to get a general gist, he retreated to a small space for a momentary pause.

The vehicles were, perhaps the least surprising. Transforming vehicles were uncommon, but hardly unknown, especially when technology or magic was advanced enough (or circumstances mandated it enough) to require it for aetherics or some other purpose. Heck, the Lazerblasters and, from what they could gather, the Yrgynela both naturally had vehicular transformative abilities (the latter more sophisticated, though with the advancement of their technology vastly outstripping their natural resiliance, it was almost a forgotten aspect). Actually, come to that, it was not unlike his own shapeshifting talent, when you got down to it.

The computer was interesting, but did not look especially hackable, at least not with any degree of surreptitiousness. Unlucky did know, in his massive repatoire of spells, a few various translation spells (and a universal translato device squirreled awayd for good measure), so there was a passable chance that if he could snag a folder (or see one looked at), he could read it.

The artefacts suggested to him they contained some sort of highly active magic. His initial though was that they were perhaps containing something deleterious - he thought of the KPS Division. Though it could also be they had friendlies or civilains contained in a preservative fashion... Perhaps keeping their souls from going on, or survivors of some catastrophy.

Or, they could be some sort of highly volatile weapon or tool.

Those warrented his attentions, since he was pretty sure he wasn't going to get chance to do everything, as his luck would run out immediately. (Other people might have said "eventually" but Unlucky was nothing if not self-aware.)

Still, the place was quite busy, so getting all the way up to one to have a very close scan might be more difficult. (Unlucky was not going to touch one, since that ABSOLUTELY garenteed that the moment it did, something would break off it and at the EXACT same moment, he'd be spotted, because that was How Things Worker.)

So, hiding in plain sight was perhaps plausible option. The alien's desire to constantly shift might work in his advantage. Illusion spells - or in particular, DISGUISE spells, were in his repatoire too.

(Along with almost all of the High Command's, who occasionally wanted to move around in living socities. Though they'd never been able to break Yeller out of the idea that doing so somehow made everything into a cheesy spy movie, though and distressingly, the universe seemed to agree, to the inevitable delight of "Lance Thrashnikoff.")

He patiently observed the aliens for few more minutes, to get a better feel for a disguise phsyiology. Then he very carefully and quietly cast both a translation spell and Facade V, which would last for tens of hours and would cover sight/sound/feel/taste/smell - those were only the senses he KNEW to emulate with the spell of course - at at only level 14 had a very low signature by design. It would only make him apper to be something within a fifth of his own size (he went for larger, being quite small himself, despite his height advantage over other kobolds), but that was close enough for the job, he hoped.

Waiting for a moment where his appearance was unobserved, he stepped out and moved towards the artefacts - not to quickly, not to slowly, but as if he was going there because he had something to do.

Something would Go Horribly Wrong of course, he could feel (centuries of experience had given him a sixth sense of his own when his titular ill-fortune was going to interfere), but at least he was as prepared as he could be.