EliteCommander

The Cradle

Rareth naturally wanted to take the lead as the team moved ahead. She kept as far from the river as she could, though the path was not too wide. At the very least, there did not seem to be too many angles they needed to check for threats, but as they had learned, threats in this place would not always come from the most obvious of places. They just had to be ready to react, swiftly and efficiently.

Since she was now less well-protected, Rareth insisted that Carthage stick closer to the center of their group, along with Nirann and the scientists. Even without her suit, she was still a supersoldier, and still capable of easily outpacing the civilians, so their overall pace forward did not diminish. As they could all see, though, there was still along walk to the beacon, and there was not necessarily a direct route.

“So, for the Cradle experts here…” Nirann began, still keeping all of his sensors alert to their surroundings. “…is this what you would call…normal? I mean, I’ve read the report that some Cradle creature talked to Vreta and some others, and now we have some kind of intelligence that clearly does not know the meaning of the word ‘overcompensating’, with the size of that worm it sent after us. I know you and your people want to keep your secrets, and that’s fine, but are you sure there isn’t anything else you might know about Cradle intelligences? Just so we know what we might be getting into.” He asked, looking more specifically at the agent.

The Cradle

Nirann too gave a quick look over Carthage. “Emotion-based patterns? I like that touch. I used something like that for a while. Marae just loves how creative I can get with my avatars. I can go a lot more crazy than just colors and patterns like most Rothians. I just decided to go the more ‘natural’ route for my avatar in this expedition, so I wouldn’t be too distracting.”

When 595 questioned Nirann, he chuckled as he gestured forward to her. “What? Do I not look like enough of a pack mule already? No, I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I’ll probably be carrying some of you by the time this all is over. But it’s up to you to fight over who gets to ride on my shoulders.”

Rareth, as expected, ignored much of the banter behind her and pressed forward as soon as they had gathered up all of their cargo. She agreed with Thebes’ strategy, though she still did not stray too far from the group until they were beyond the trees that had been surrounding them. There was now no doubt that this place was dangerous, so she wanted to be in position to provide assistance at all times, should something unexpected happen. Once they neared the far side of the basin, however, Rareth ran ahead to scale the cliff near the waterfall and see what she could scout at the top. The climb itself had the potential to be more difficult than before, given the proximity to the waterfall, but the rocks were not too wet to climb as long as they kept as much distance as they could. Rareth herself had no issue rapidly scaling it without a load to carry, but the others would need to be more cautious. In any case, she used her vantage point at the top to observe as much of the area as she could, especially what was ahead. They had been on their hike for almost an hour by this point, but there was still many kilometers of walking to go to reach the beacon in the distance.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Lorag had taken quite a literal shock from Arinette, but it was not enough to knock him out of the fight. After Fendros dragged him back among the rest of the pack, he struggled back up to his feet. Unfortunately, ensuring his safety did not leave them with the time they needed to retreat back into their lines. Their allies behind them fought off the Daedra as long as they could, but the enemy’s numbers were simply too great. With their reinforcements from the valley below, a force of Dremora were able to cut through some of their allies behind them, isolating Meesei’s pack from the rest of their army. On their left and right flanks, Skaafin mixed with more bestial Daedra closed in on them as well, and of course, Arinette herself was to their front.

No matter which way they looked, the situation was seeming more and more grim. They were surrounded on all sides, and even Meesei did not have the power to simply push through any one of them. Perhaps with the Staff of Magnus it would be possible, but with the power Arinette currently wielded, the staff was needed to face her. All around them, the Daedra were dedicating an overwhelming force purely to finish off the Champion’s pack. Perhaps that was an over-commitment that would give them ground elsewhere, perhaps their allies would be able to take advantage to rescue them, but they would need to survive long enough for that to happen.

Meesei was the nearest to the right flank. Skaafin spearmen pushed forward, archers loosed a volley from behind them, and a pack of clannfear were sent charging forward at the same time, all focused on taking Meesei’s head as a prize. Meesei wanted to take down Arinette as quickly as possible, but the other threats simply could not be ignored. Before the clannfear could reach her, Meesei unleashed a wave of telekinetic force in a wide arc in front of her, stopping the clannfear in their tracks, staggering back the spearmen, and knocking arrows out of the air. With an enraged roar, she followed through with a powerful bolt of chain lightning that electrocuted most of the clannfear, and a few of the spearmen. One of the reptilian Daedra did escape the lightning and was close enough to leap for Meesei, but alone, she had no problem catching the beast in her claws. It tried in vain to scratch at her armor, while she brought her hands to its neck and snapped it in one simple motion.

Unfortunately, there was no easy way to deal with the numbers bearing down upon her. The spearmen resumed their charge as soon as they could, archers nocked their next volley, and more Skaafin filled in the gap her chain lightning had opened. Still, Meesei would do whatever she could. It was as if lightning coursed through her veins when she unleashed her next storm from both hands, though it was not targeted at the Daedra directly, but rather the ground in front of them. It was a flood of lightning that charged the ground itself, creating a wall of magical lightning between them.

“I will hold this flank myself! Just…look for any options you can find!” Meesei shouted back to the others. She did not see any means of escape, but her power was still considerable. If she could hold this flank by herself and demand disproportionate resources from the enemy, maybe the rest of her pack could find some kind of opportunities? She just had to put her faith in her pack.

The Daedra on the other flanks were no less aggressive than the ones Meesei was dealing with. As they were closing in, Ahnasha stood just behind Fendros, bound bow in hand, with an increasingly frustrated expression. “I can’t feel it. The titan…I can’t feel its mind.” She said, looking to Fendros. “We need a plan, here.”

At their front, Arinette shouted in frustration when Sabine’s ward proved just as formidable as her own spell. Regardless, she was undeterred. In pain and anger, she screamed as she started to sprint forward, straight at Sabine. It was hard to say what exactly her strategy would be, if she even had one in mind at all. She might have been a mage, but they really had no idea what she might be capable of, even in melee.

The Cradle

Although the team’s relief was understandable, Rareth was, as always, focused on the mission. She deactivated her sword and returned her arm to normal, then went straight to drawing her fusion cannon once more and turning her gaze to the path ahead of them as soon as she could. She acknowledged Carthage’s gratitude, but Rareth was not a woman easily distracted from the tasks in front of her. The trees had stopped their attacks, which suggested the path ahead of them was clear. It seemed likely that the creature had perished, but there could be no guarantees in this place. It would be best for them to move on in a hurry. She scanned ahead to try and see if the trees ahead were still active, but with only limited points of reference to work with, it was hard to say.

“You can watch while we are moving.” Rareth commented to the agent. “We should not linger here. The creature may be dead, or it may not. We cannot know its true size, and this is a strange place. Besides, we still have a long walk ahead of us, and only limited time to make it. We need to get through this forest, and out of this basin.”

Nirann had picked up on Rareth’s determined attitude before she even spoke, so he had already returned his weapon to its compartment and picked back up the cargo he had been carrying. He grunted and groaned as he hoisted up the heavy load, despite lacking any form of strain on his mechanical frame. “Getting on in a hurry are we? I’d suggest we at least raise a toast to our victory, but I didn’t bring my wine glasses…or any drinks…or a digestive system.”

The Cradle

Rareth had already cut through enough tentacles by this point that she wondered how many the creature could have remaining. Though, given that it was such a massive organism that was integrated into the land itself, she supposed she should not hold out on it running out of them. In any case, Thebes was weighed down by carrying Carthage and would need her assistance during their escape.

While the pair of Humans were surface-bound, Rareth went after the tentacles threatening them with even more speed and fury than she had shown on the way down. The creature had no answer to the sword’s cutting power, no way to keep her from severing limb after limb except to move them out of her reach. Whether she cut its tentacles or forced it to hold them back, either case would still give the soldiers their opening to escape.

To observers above the water, the detonation of Carthage’s suit came suddenly, and violently. The sound of the explosion echoed throughout the sunken basin, along with its pressure wave. A plume of water shot up from the center of the lake, reaching even above the height of the cliffs at its highest point. Based on where she was and how fast she had been moving, it would have seemed that Rareth would have been caught in the blast radius before she could escape. Yet, after a few moments of silence and stillness after the water settled, she could be seen walking out of the lake from beneath the surface on the nearby shore, her armor undamaged.

“Report. Are any hostiles still active?” Rareth asked right away.

The Cradle

As powerful as the beast was, and as impressively quick as it could move its limbs, it still could not simply club its way through a plasma sword. When the two met, it was the energy blade that incinerated any flesh it touched. She split the club in half down the middle for some distance down the length of the tentacle. Part of the tentacle did strike her stomach, though without near the full force. It only served to slow her down somewhat before she resumed her charge forward.

When Rareth came in close, it was to slash at the remaining tentacles close to their source. Thebes requested cover to extract Carthage, which was precisely what Rareth gave. She was quick, and there was no sneaking up on her. If any part of the creature so much as came close to her, her blade could cleave it in two. Two of the tentacles closest to Carthage she severed near the base, while others farther away started to keep just out of reach, though her particle cannon could still injure them.

Once Carthage started to fall further into the beak, Rareth turned to assist. The tentacle that jabbed at Thebes was met with the burning edge of Rareth’s sword, and would certainly be severed like the rest if it was too stubborn to give up. At the same time, she collapsed her other arm back into its normal configuration, then grabbed a hold of Carthage as well under her arm. She added her considerable strength to pulling the Human from the beast’s clutches, then decided to further discourage the creature by using her blade to start indiscriminately carving through any piece of its mouthparts that she could reach. “Just…get her out, and I can finish the beast.”

The Cradle

On her approach, Rareth focused every sensor available to her on the creature at the bottom of the lake. Any slight weakness she could identify could be important. Although, if Thebes was correct, the creature’s central mass could be a weakness for the whole organism. “If it is controlling the trees, then we need only kill it to protect the others. If we get Carthage to safety, I will destroy it.”

Rareth did not truly swim, though she was still relatively swift through the water. She used her powerful legs to push across the bottom of the lake, moving straight towards the creature’s maw without hesitation. The smaller tentacles along the lake bed lashed and grabbed at her, but Rareth did not miss a swing of her blade to cleave through anything that might slow her down. With her sonar, she did not need to look to know which were the closest to her, and which she needed to swing at next. For the smaller tentacles, they did not so much as even slow down her progress.

Regardless, Carthage needed their help immediately, so Rareth attempted to assist from distance as well. Much like her other arm, Rareth’s right arm opened up in four parts to reveal a new weapon. Rather than a sword, the energy projectors on the inside of the mechanical limb used electromagnetic fields to contain and direct particle beams at near the speed of light. It was similar in principle to a railgun, but instead fired streams of much smaller particles at much higher speeds. She fired a few bright violet beams from her particle cannon at the larger tentacles that were trying to pull Carthage in, hopefully to at least weaken them.

One of the larger tentacles started to cut through the water towards Rareth, though she made no effort to dodge or try to get around it. Rather, she leaped forward off of the lake bed straight towards it to meet it head-on with her sword, rather than to give it any chance to potentially catch her by surprise.

The Cradle

Dr. Wetherall, at least, was secure, but the fight was far from over. Most of the soldiers were holding their positions, but Carthage was being pulled into the lake after being thrown from the first tree. For them to reach their destination at all, it was vital that none of them be killed in the process. Rareth could not guarantee that the others back in the real world would not judge it less risky to pull them out if one or more of them were to die.

Rareth leaped into action just as quickly as before, jumping into the lake alongside Thebes. Her suit was fully sealed, so she had little worry for her oxygen supply. Even if the advanced alloy of her helmet were somehow breached, she would not be in danger of drowning. There was certainly some risk to plunging into the depths of the unknown, but ultimately, Rareth knew she would always have one way out, as long as she was willing to reveal one particular secret to the Humans. For the moment, though, she carved her way through the tentacles that tried to stop her on her way into the water. As she plunged underneath the surface, steam bubbled up from her sword as it boiled on contact any water it touched, though the emitters were waterproof and continued to function perfectly well. Her senses had to adapt to work optimally underwater, but her neural implant could handle the adjustment. Some senses were not quite as efficient, though her echolocation essentially became an even more effective sonar. The picture it painted was crisp and clear to her.

Back on the surface, Nirann decided to make an attempt at a different approach. In addition to the rifle, his frame was equipped with a non-lethal compliance tool for policing duty. The emitter was in his left hand and could launch an energy burst designed to paralyze certain types of muscle. Specifically those involved in locomotion. These trees weren’t animals, but with the way they were moving, they must have had something that worked on the same principle as muscle: something that could be paralyzed. Nirann extended forth his hand and took aim at source of the branches attacking the Agent. His hand released a brief, but intensely bright white beam of energy that struck the branches, and would impart its energy throughout the organism.

The Cradle

In one, swift motion, Rareth moved her fusion cannon to her back while drawing a more appropriate weapon for the situation. Unfortunately, it seemed the trees themselves were the threat they had to face. The weapon Rareth decided to use was not one that she had carried with her, but rather, was one that was integrated into her own body. From the outside, one would see her armor on her left arm opening up, separating long-ways into three parts…along with her arm itself. It revealed that there was no bone, muscle, nor any other organic parts within the limb, as it was entirely mechanical. Inside her arm, along the length from her elbow to her hand, there were three energy projectors that pulsed with a bright orange glow. In an instant, a glowing, red-orange plasma blade extended forth from her arm. It was a long weapon that could reach the ground from a standing position, and was intense enough to burn through nearly anything it encountered.

Especially for a being of her size, Rareth moved at a lightning pace. The trees too had reached their limbs for her, but her blade covered wide arcs around herself to cleave through the branches. Certainly, it was quicker to clear foliage with a blade than a rifle, so she had the chance to help some of the others quickly. Her priority was to help those that were not equipped to defend themselves, which to start was Dr. Wetherall. While Carthage was trying to pull him back, she came in at a sprint towards the scientist’s feet and slashed at the branches to try and free him quickly.

For Nirann, he had been at the most central point in the group, farthest from the trees, so he had been spared from the initial grasping branches of their floral attackers. Or, perhaps it was the fact that he was entirely mechanical that led the trees to favor his organic allies? In any case, he was able to carefully put down some of what he was carrying: at least the things he could pick up again quickly. His cargo was important, and he had to protect it, but being in a military security bot, he did have some means to help. He reached behind himself and drew from his back a compact energy carbine, which automatically unfolded once he removed it from its compartment. Agent 595 had been grabbed from nearby to himself and was being dragged towards the water, so Nirann engaged his frame’s targeting software and started to take shots at the source of the branches grabbing her.

The Cradle

While Rareth could have fired sooner, she had taken those few extra moments to try and assess how much of a threat the creature really was. Still, she could not entirely fault the agent for firing. Everything about its body language and movement did suggest aggressive intent. It was strange that it would try to attack such a large group, but then again, as a flying creature, perhaps it just hoped to pick one of them off.

In any case, it was not the flyer that was revealed to be the greatest source of worry. The trees around them, it seemed, were more than just stationary plants. In retrospect, Rareth perhaps should have been suspicious of them. Bioluminescence could be used to lure or dazzle prey. Though, she was not sure if the trees were predatory, exactly. The tree had not consumed the flyer, but rather attacked and tossed it away. It may have been more of a defense mechanism, in which case the lights were probably warnings.

“Move carefully and keep away from the trees.” Rareth said calmly. She was glad they had taken the less dense pathway. “We do not know what will set them off, so just try not to agitate them.”