Bright_Ops

Age of Darkness: Despair of the Golden Goddess (LoZ RP)

@Dark Cloud

The message to be delivered had been offered. Grindan himself offered his king a small bow before he turned to leave. He had to get some things organized; The recruitment of forces, the gathering of bows and arrows, shovels, ect. Logistics were always an important of any campaign and the benefits of using the undead made the process a lot easier in some ways; Didn't need to play for sanitation or sleeping quarters. But blockading a town required careful planning. It wasn't the kind of thing that could simply be half arsed after all.

Kakariko would submit. He doubted that they would drag it out to the point that everyone died, but pride might make them hold out until the third missed meal.

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

Pentious

Orks were not stupid.

It was a lesson that all races that encountered the Greenskins had to learn at some point... often repeatedly. It was an easy lesson to forget after all, considering the average ork.

They were brutish, disgusting, often childish in their thought process at times; After all, who but a child would believe that painting something red and putting flashing lights on it inherently made it go faster? 'Art' for the greenskins was little more then monuments crafted from piles of their own dung. By all rights, this was a xeno species that should never have gotten off the planet that spawned them, content with the discovery that if they picked up a rock, beating another ork to death got easier.

However, despite all of this... or possibly because of it to a degree, Orkish kind had managed to spread to the stars in pursuit of the one thing that seemed to give them purpose; Violence. Despite all their own lackings, the Greenskins knew how to fight and wage wars ranging from one on one battles to galactic campaigns. The crucible of their infighting was designed to promote the rise of a warboss who could unite their people and lead larger efforts against the galaxy at large. While the individual greenskin could be idiotic, there was something very intelligent buried in their genetics that influenced their culture behind the scenes.

Which is why when the Kneekapperz that dominated Forge Beta launched their campaign of subjugation against the lesser Toothbreakerz tribe, they had sent groups of gretchen and orks ahead as both scouts and outriders; While an ork was always up for a fight, traps and ambushes were as much apart of warfare smashing in someone's skull with a rock. When the Kneekapperz' marched on the canyon that would be the only real path to run their tanks and trucks through in order to get where they were going, they found both.

While the majority of the Toothbreakerz were tied up fighting on other fronts, enough of them had been free to plant crude mines throughout the canyon, while up on the canyon walls they started building nests to fire down on invaders from; While a few waves of gretchen were thrown at the mine problem (in some cases, literally), the orkish side of the scouting force scaled the cliffs in order to directly fight the greenskins on the heights. Even as the main bulk of the invasion force showed up, that fight was still raging as the screams of gretchen dying or in pain and the explosions that caused both grew lesser before finally stopping. A successful start to what would be a bountiful, if short war.

At least, that was what all the calculations and data had suggested was going to happen.

When the mobilization of the Kneekapperz' had been noticed and the likely destination of their aggression had been agreed upon at 92.4 percent certainty, the humans of Forge Alpha knew that action needed to be taken in order to prevent a new warboss from raising. While still a young tech priest, Myrmidon Uixien offered a suggestion for a plan of action and after a review by those higher ranked then him it was agreed upon; Days before the Kneekapperz' began their march and the Toothbreakerz started rushing around to make their last minute preparations a force made up of Myrmidons (including Myrmidon Uixien himself), Skitarii and servitors made their way to the canyon that was the only real path that the Kneekapperz' could take and dug in... literally.

Along the canyon, they scaled the cliffsides on both sides about seven or so meters off the ground and dug into the walls in order to create areas they could take shelter in and wait for their targets to arrive. Each 'cave' would have a stockpile of explosives, heavy weapons (both anti-ork and anti-tank, because despite what some people believed there was a difference), sharpshooters and a myrmidon or two... and all of them would have their entrances covered up with cloth that had been painted and decorated with dirt and dust from the very walls they had dug into. It wasn't the most high-tech method of stealth that had ever been devised, but effective all the same at making it appear like there wasn't a murder hole in the cliff face. After all, it only had to look real from a distance because most organics would focus either at the top of the cliffs of the canyon or what was in front or behind them.

So they dug in and sat quietly for days, waiting for the time to arrive. For a normal force this would have been challenging. For them... not so much.

The plan that Rik had offered was in two parts, with the ambush of the Kneekapperz' simply being the first part of it. It was, however, the simple part; Wait until the Kneekapperz' column was fully inside of the canyon before letting of a signal to drop the cloths and unleash a tide of grenades (Photon Flash, Napalm, Blasting Charges and Radiation where to be mixed together for maximum impact and carnage) throughout the column while the heavy weapons ripped into either orkish flesh or their armor. Anything that survived the alpha strike by luck or durability would be focused down by sharpshooters and heavy weapons... or flushed out and dealt with by the myrmidons.

The signal was given...

1 minute and 37 seconds later, Rik leapt down from his ambush point, axe in his hands as an irad-cleanser swept his left while phased plasma-fusil swept the right. Most of the orks near him were already dead and the smaller orkiod sub-species had simply been mulched by the explosives, but if there was one thing that an ork could be trusted to do, it was refuse to die when it was sane to do so.

Four of the nearby brutes roared their battle cries as they charged at him. One had its cries cut off and dropped as one of the skitarii rangers ended its existence, leaving three to try and close the distance. As the irad-cleanser unleashed its payload, the burst of cross-spectrum radiations caused two of the greenskins to suddenly stumble and fall forwards, their furious warcries turned to gurgled screams of pain as their skin and insides started to melt while their eyes started to slide down their hideous faces while the third, somewhat bigger and clearly tougher then the lesser orks, seemed to endure the blast to continue on.

As it leapt for Rik, his reaction was so quick as to be inhuman; The ork didn't even get to blink as a metal hand shot out to stop the axe swing of the greenskin by grabbing the hand holding the shaft of the weapon, nor for the other hand to bring the axe Rik was wielding around to press the edge against its throat and jerk it forward, taking the head off quickly and cleanly. Throwing the corpse aside via its weapon arm, Rik looked around for more targets as he made his way forward. One of the two orks that had been dealing with their bodies melting internally had stopped moving, but the other was still clinging to life... right up until an axe gave them a mercifully quick end.

With those hostiles dealt with, the Myrmdon turned to look for fresh hostiles to bring to an end. Survivors couldn't be allowed for the second part of this plan to begin after all.

Jack-In! Megaman Battle Network - NetWarriors

You have my attention. Will submit a character idea when I get home.

Edit: Yeah, I can't think of anything and it seems like you want to start this up so... I'll withdraw.

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

Pentious
Forge-Alpha
Two Years Later

The child that represented the love and wraith of the Omnissiah proved the effectiveness and mastery of gene theory and manipulation that had gone in their creation as time flew by. While a normal child would have been a mewling toddler that was only beginning to find their voice and feet, the child from the pod that had been adopted by Metasurgeon Uixien had instead grown into that of a large teenager with no signs of stopping anytime soon.

This in and of itself wasn't unheard of, since advanced aging was a common practice when it came to the development of humans produced via the vats in bulk; It was generally a very rare situation that a servitor required that the human component be based on a baby, toddler or child after all. But the young Uixien possessed an intellect and curiosity to expand said intellect that the standard vat born simply would never possess, combined with physical enhancements that would normally only be attempted by the highest and most veteran of Genetors. It was a matter of much vexation that the forge simply didn't have the equipment required to peer deeper into the mysteries of Uixien's genetic make up... and the fact that so much of it had been replaced with machinery had been a matter of debate among the various tech priests of the planet for some time.

It had taken some time before Rik was able to understand the depths of the discussion, but at its core it all boiled down to the people of Forge-Alpha wanting something out of the ordinary to discuss and the what if scenarios of if the pod he had arrived in hadn't been damaged had simply one of them. It arose every now and then, but ever since Rik himself had publicly spoken on the matter during the third anniversary of his arrival and the death of the Warboss, the matter was largely considered settled.

It had been a passionate speech, masterfully crafted and condensed into binary in such a manner that all in attendance who heard it couldn't believe that even holy binary could condense and retain such inspiration and beauty. In the future the speech would become famous for the fact that it was simply impossible to translate into any tongue outside of binary in full; Attempts would be made to translate it so that those unable to understand the language of the machine could hear or read the words of Rik Uixien, but anyone who could understand the binary version (either recounted or a direct recording) agreed that these abridged, translated versions simply didn't do the original justice.

It wasn't that the translations were bad. Some would go on to be masterpieces in their own right, finding audiences outside of the Machine Cult to appreciate them. It was simply a matter of the fundamental difference in languages and just how one interacts with it. Binary was a language designed to condense a lot of information into short, sharp bursts that gave the receiver everything the speaker was trying to say at once while more organic tongues were simply forced to waffle on, trying to convey meaning.

How does one translate into mere words the sensation of data flowing through translation software, revealing in an instant to both man and machine the sensation of losing a piece of yourself outside of your will, replacing what was lost with something new out of necessity and then becoming so used to this new state of being that you accept it as your true natural state, since the piece that was lost before was only apart of you for such a short amount of your life that it might not have even better there at all to begin with.

The experience of a moment of pure agony, followed by the torment of lingering wounds and recovery... but worth enduring for the home, family and community that was preserved by that experience. The utter feeling of conviction and certainty that despite the hardships and sacrifices that had been endured, not just by the listener but by their ancestors and all those who didn't get to have descendants of their own, it would all be rewarded with a future in which you and your descendants would thrive.

This speech would go down in history... because it was the very same day that Rik walked up to the highest ranking member of the Myrmidon sub-cult on Pentious and asked to begin his training in earnest.

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

Pentious

Time passed, as it was want to do.

The war for Pentious continued, but after the smiting of Warboss Kracker'Laker and the force he had brought with him to make the final push to claim the world for the greenskins the nature of the war changed somewhat. With the Warboss that had united them dead and no clear contender to step up and replace him, the orks splintered into tribal warbands under local bosses that had been left behind to overseer production in the captured forges or lesser camps that had been set up for one reason or another over the course of the war.

While orks would assault Forge-Alpha over the course of the period, they would do so without the strength in numbers or tactical leadership (such as it was) that Kracker'Laker had brought to bare that made him such a dangerous threat. They died against the outer defenses easily enough (or as easily as an ork can die). But by and large, Forge-Alpha was largely ignored by the more successful would be Warbosses as they focused on each other.

There was an understandable logic to this from a human perspective; None of the more successful Warbosses had enough military power to credibly try and take the human held Forge-Alpha individually. If they were to be united under common cause they would have been able to, but without a clear Warboss in charge, none of the contenders for the position could afford to trust any of the others to work together due to one of the primary virtues of the greenskin was 'Brutal Kunning'. Therefore, the only real way for the orks to unite again was for one of the contenders to defeat and cast down his rivals and subjugate their tribes.

While the reprieve was greatly welcomed by the holdouts at Forge-Alpha and it gave them much needed time to recover and rearm for the conflict ahead, they did not simply lick their wounds and rest. As the various forces of the Mechanicum rebuilt themselves, a close eye was kept on the various splintered greenskinned tribes and their leaders. Calculations and stratagems of some of the best and brightest tactical minds that humanity had to offer were fed, forged and if faults were found, reforged again and again in dedication to a singular task; Preventing the greenskinned horde from reuniting under a new leader.

When action was required, regardless of whatever form that action needed to be in, squads of Myrmdons would go out into the world to see it done. While the tech-priests of the Myrmdon sub-cult were known for their destructive dedications and abilities, they could prove surprisingly subtle when the situation called for it. It was important that actions against current threats be taken to prevent the stalemate of the greenskins from being broken, but restraint had to be shown as well; Sabotage one tribe too much and the other tribes would simply pounce on and consume it, growing stronger while removing one of the fronts of their civil war.

Even as the orks continued to spin their wheels in the mud pointlessly, the humans of Pentious were recovering their strength. The vats were pumping out fresh humans to be converted into combat servitors, tech thralls or even skitarii almost daily, while machines of war were repaired or freshly built for the battles to come. Weapons and armor were being produced around the clock.

...And in a recovery vat, the strange child that had delivered them from Warboss Kracker'Laker continued to grow larger by the day as his body recovered at an incredible rate. Until one day, their vitals and brainwaves started to show the signs of waking up.

Age of Darkness: Despair of the Golden Goddess (LoZ RP)

@Dark Cloud

With the change in order, Grindan once again fell silent for a time. Unlike with the situation with the woods, this silence was one of contemplation and thought; While a massive, haunted wood was beyond his abilities, forcing a well protected village to change its allegiance without directly assaulting it was merely a challenge, rather then outright suicide.

If the Village had just been on its own, brute force could work, but it would be a costly endeavour. A narrow river crossing combined with the natural chokepoint that was the entrance stairway offered the defenders great advantages to prepare defences… if they were competent. Considering the primary defenders would be militia or solders of the old king, that wasn’t too likely… but desperation made for dangerous foes.

However, the village wasn’t on its own. The mountain pass that went via the village offered them reinforcements from the Goron, who were a hell of a lot more dangerous and competent then any solders in hiding would be. The river also provided easy access to the Zora, who could intervene and assault an attack from behind. Direct force was to be avoided then, as Ganondorf had rightly figured out.

As far as alternative options went, one clearly stood out in the executioner’s mind; siege.

Truthfully, it was the best option. Because of the wild monster attacks, farms had been abandoned or destroyed while those left had a more dangerous time transporting their goods. Refugees from Castle Town and the abandoned farmsteads had fled to Kakariko for safety, but this almost certainly put the village above its ability to feed itself. It was almost certainly dependant on outside supplies coming in to make up for the reserves it likely had to start using…

Not to mention, depending on numbers the village well might not be enough to cover their water needs alone anymore.

So after the moment of silence, Grindan at last offered his liege a small bow. “I will be taking some forces with me, but the village will change their tune soon enough. Any decrees you desire me to deliver once they do, your majesty?” there was the confidence that the executioner used for his tasks.

High School for Monsters? (think monster Prom game)

So what kind of monsters were people thinking of?

High School for Monsters? (think monster Prom game)

Also interested.

Tales of Azeroth: Flames of Chaos

Duskwood

In the end, with the assistance and guidance of the Master and the Lich King briefly glancing towards the Duskwood, two candidates (outside of Bautic himself) stood out as deeply connected enough to the powers of necromancy to attempt ascension to lichdom.

One was actively hiding their position, but they were somewhere in the western part of the wood…

Finding that one was going to prove tricky, because alongside the measures they had taken to hide themselves from the dead, the shadow of the second prospect helped cover them like a blanket.

Morbent Fel. Necromancer lord of the Ravenhill Cemetery and ally of some of the last guardian’s undead pets. His ties to the latter group was concerning; Fel hadn’t come to necromancy via the Lich King, but due to his own ambitions and agents of the burning legion.

And yet, despite this, he was still a power of the region and getting him onside would provide a strong, his untrustworthy ally. It would also allow access to the cemetery and its resources, alongside the ability to have living agents openly walk around without being attacked by the dead and making locating prospect number 2 a great deal easier.

And so it was that Bautic would send an opening message of greeting to Morbent Fel, using an undead bird as a carrier. They had some things to discuss.

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

Pentious

Forge-Alpha

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

In the intimidate aftermath of what could only be the direct, divine intervention of the Omnissiah itself, it was as if a great weight had lifted from the atmosphere of Forge-Alpha. In part this was metaphorical in the sense that death was no longer hanging over the forge and everyone inside of it, but there was a literal element to it was well: Orks generally weigh a lot individually and a great deal of the greenskinned xenos bastards had ceased to exist in a very short amount of time.

While Forge-Alpha currently wasn't celebrating the surprise victory and the death of its long hated enemy, this was due to the fact that there was a lot to do and suddenly time to do it in, what with not being dead and everything. The impact explosion had largely missed the Forge complex, but some of the outer defenses had been damaged, alongside some servitors and tech-thralls that had been positioned in the area that now needed to either be patched up or recycled for parts if they were too badly damaged. Jobs and maintenance for the Forge in general that had been put on hold now needed to be attended to.

Outside, squads of skitarii were stalking the areas around the impact zone on a seek and destroy mission for any ork or greenskinned related that was still alive. Logically, this operation should have been a waste of time but experience had shown time and again that Orks didn't really understand logic and were generally too stupid to realize that something should have killed them. The Skitarii were calulated and professional of course, but their handlers could tell in their communications that there was a vindictive joy in their solders at being able to give any greenskin they came across a remedial lesson on 'dying'. So far two shell shocked orks had been properly educated and the tracks of a third were being followed.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

One of the first tasks to be taken was to send out a salvage crew in order to locate and see what could be recovered of the object that had offered them deliverance from the greenskin. The footage that had been sent back by the tragically destroyed servoskull was evidence enough that it was a man made object in nature and if any of it survived the crash then it was their intention to enshrine it as a holy relic.

The salvage team had not been expecting to find the pod mostly intact... or the badly hurt, screaming child within.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

So it was that the Metasurgeon stood in their medical bay, gazing with utter fascination at the child that had been pulled from the pod. The tests she had run on the infant had revealed a masterwork of genetic engineering with base materials of such fine value that her machines were simply not up to the task of identifying them properly. As a genetor it was truly humbling to bare witness to what was clearly the best and brightest of humanity and its knowledge dedicated to the act of creating a physically perfect human being...

...And to see that work marred and damaged so badly broke her heart, almost as much as the fact that her patient was barely a toddler.

Early reports on the pod that had contained the child, which she was keeping tabs on as they were updated, revealed that while the majority of the pod had survived the crash landing, it had been damaged in the process. It was unclear if it was caused by the angle of decent combined with the speed of entry, if it was some flaw in the other masterfully craft pod that had only been revealed due to the extreme conditions of entering atmosphere and smashing into a planet... or the third and horrifying theory that the damage was some final laugh from the dead Warboss Kracker'Laker, who's dense skull might not have been enough to make him an unmovable object but might have still damaged the unstoppable force that hit him.

Regardless of the cause of the critical damage, the machine spirits of the Pod had acted to safe guard their charge swiftly and effectively. Without the measures it took, even such a genetically enhanced child like this wouldn't have survived. Unfortunately, it hadn't been enough to stop a considerable amount of harm to be inflicted on the child to the point where her calculations on the matter clearly stated that if the child hadn't been as amazingly genetically crafted as they were, they would be dead.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The damage they had endured was intense. The left leg had been gone with just a tiny, burned stub near the hip remaining, while the right leg had suffered such terrible sixth degree burns throughout that it had just been dead weight that was draining both his patient and her resources and threatening the child's life. She had been forced to amputate it at the knee in order to stabilize the situation. The left hand was gone, having been cut off as the pod's internal shielding had kicked in to try and shield its charge from harm and their hand was considered an acceptable loss considering the damage that would have occurred if it hadn't.

There were also a degree of other burns covering the child's body; A result of a terrible moment of exposure to the forces outside of the pod as it failed before the internal systems snapped into action. The worst was a fourth degree burn running along his belly, but it and the lesser burns that covered a great deal of his remaining flesh were manageable.

Recovery was going to take a great deal of time and she didn't know how the damage of the child's arrival would effect his growth and development but... he would recover from this, she had no doubt. He would also need mechanical replacements and enhancements; Considering the degree his genetic engineering, it seemed like a crime to even think such things but... they simply didn't have the resources or know-how to recreate the pieces of his body that were lost.

But she watched as the boy hung suspended in a fluid designed to keep his burns clean and speed the recovery of the lesser burns as the skin grafts were being grown from his dna, she couldn't help but listen to the study, strong heartbeat of the sedated child on the monitors. There was something... reassuring about it.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.