John

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Happy birthday, Fox.

will be back when exams are over. Sorry for the absence.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

GiovaNNI ALLEVI

Interaction between Inadi and Lesley remains totally precious, ahah.

I'll see about getting a post up - doesn't seem like I'll have much time left to write, but maybe a short one to wrap things up?

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Good luck with life everyone.

I'm gonna disappear for a bit next week as well since exams and all, but I'll still follow skype and the thread.

(a little clarification about the last post: I don't think that robot would've been taken down that easily. I had Leila have a try at taking out one of the legs so that it wouldn't be mobile anymore, but the rest is probably still functional so...yeah. Please feel free to get her some help or whatnot.)

Meanwhile, music.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Post up! Sorry it took so long and now time to run to study

yes all the cliche in the strategies but why not

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

”Or run, we can all just run!” Harper.

“Run? Here?”

Her voice swayed and nearly broke when she said that. Leila looked over her shoulder to see the approaching - whatever that mechanical monstrosity is supposed to be called - and then at her feet, and then back at Harper. Soil, water, and organic material that was already decomposed beyond recognition formed a thick layer of a mixture that felt equivalent to having her boots submerged in a solution of cornstarch.

Then behind her she heard the explosion - and, after a few more seconds, the ruffling sounds branches and leaves made as they scraped through the nearby mass of vegetation as a tree fell to the ground.

Leila jerked her left foot out from the ground and ran.

As close as she could get to running when the ground felt like it was made of glue, at least. She found great difficulty in each step as she failed to anticipate how much the boot will sink, or in which direction more than the others - resulting a rather wobbly sequence of steps with splattering of dark coloured organic goo being splattered around her trail and onto her clothes.

To make things worse, it seemed certain that the gigantic robot was not about to give up pursuit just yet, as its heavy steps echoed through the nearby forest (is that thing on legs? On this terrain? How does that even-).

Soon it was clear that she simply wasn’t running fast enough. The robot was drawing closer, and luck wasn’t going to be relied on forever dodging what seemed to be more cannonballs than paintball rounds.

She turned around to check on the status of the robot, and staggered -

“-weeeh?”

Leila felt something grabbing hold of her by the ribs, and her feet being lifted off the ground. Lesley tossed the girl onto his back and darted forward once again. Leila wrapped her hands around his neck and clutched hard onto his shoulders to avoid falling off as Lesley switched directions with each step he took forward. "Shoot while I run Leila!" he commanded.

Scrambling, she drew her gun and, gripping it with both hands, aligned it with the direction of the robot. Lesley’s footsteps made it harder to maintain aim, but making decisions fast enough she managed to find a window and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The paintball shot hit the robot very much right in the face with no notable effect.

Meanwhile, Leila - and likely Lesley - realized that having one of them carry the other while firing a firearm probably wasn’t the best of ideas. The recoil that was easily managed when she was standing on the ground herself had a much larger effect when she was in such an unstable situation. Immediately after the round was released through the muzzle Leila had to grab back onto Lesley’s neck again so that she didn’t topple sideways. Her gun, in the mean time, was flung from her scurrying hands and landed with a plop nearby in the mud. The initial reaction Leila had towards the gun slipping out of her grip was to claw in the same direction in an attempt to retrieve it, which - incidentally - pulled Lesley even further away from the support his feet provided.

The two suffered a particularly miserable collapse onto the ground. For Leila, a few rolls followed and she found herself struggling to stand up, disoriented and covered in dirt and decayed fragments of leaves. The display, partially covered in mud and foggy everywhere, blinked a faint 68%.

She scurried to get off the ground, pressed by the imminent threat of the approaching robot. In the meantime she grabbed the paintball gun from the gun and pulling the triggers a few times with it pointed towards the mechanical giant, in vain hope to slow it down a little to earn herself some time to escape, even though she knew perfectly well that the shots would land but do nothing at all.

It turned out she was wrong. The shots weren’t even fired.

“Uh - ” she panicked, “- someone - does anyone know what I should do when -”

Letting out a disappointed whimper at the jammed weapon, she grabbed it and finally managed to stand up and take a few steps forward, only to then find the robot in immediate proximity and a laser dot pointing into her face.

Leila wasn’t even actually thinking strategically when she let out a yelp and darted forwards, towards the robot instead of away from it. It was just that it seemed like she every other potential route of escape ended apparently in immediate death (at least in-game - she wasn’t sure how well the force field thing was exactly supposed to work, and she didn’t really want to find out either). When she was grunting and lying face down, hands over head to protect herself from all the matter splattering outwards from where the point of impact of another of the robots pain-cannonballs, one that left a crater in the moist soil where Leila was just a moment ago; it only then occurred to her that she had placed herself in a position that was - quite paradoxically - one of the safest.

Loosing track of the signal of the human that it was just hunting after, the robot paused in its path - perhaps to re-calibrate itself to seek and follow new targets? And Leila lay still, suppressing her panting as hard as possible, hoping the robot won’t notice where she went, while staring at the bottom and back of the robot, where coils dangled and steam poured out of exposed pipelines…

…wait.

Was that actually a good idea? Leila didn’t know, but she decided to find out. Tossing aside the now malfunctioning paintball rifle she pulled out the pistol tucked in a holster strapped to her waist - thankfully she remembered to take this backup - and fired two shots into the opening in armour on the backside of the left knee joint.

The robot, irritated, lifted its leg and shifted a few steps around. Leila barely evaded being stepped on by one of the metal feet. Yet it seemed that, despite its best attempts, the way in which its aiming system and weapons were mounted, that the robot couldn’t take aim too close underneath it.

“...people? I think -”

She didn’t finish the sentence because she knew the others couldn’t hear her words clearly above all the noise the robot was making. Instead, she raised one arm to shield her eyes from the shrapnel and steam, and holding the weapon in the other hand - despite feeling a bit bad for such a sophisticated piece of technology - she emptied a magazine into the linkages that composed the machine’s hip joint.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

I'm here!

Have to file some reports tonight, and exams are next week, so please bear with the decreased activity a bit. I'll get something up tomorrow, though.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

threw up a post too heavy on reaction. Sorry about that ;-;

was aiming for something a bit more radical, but my brain kinda died this afternoon so...well.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

“Yepper?”

Leila wasn’t exactly sure what to make out of the response. She would’ve assumed that to be a ‘yes’ if not for the prominent signature of cheer in his voice, which would require some explanation if the appearance of the robots wasn’t a good thing. It might be that the people of Nowhere had different guidelines towards curt positive/negative responses than she was accustomed to on earth.

“Does that mean ‘yes’ or...”

She decided to ask and make sure because she didn’t want to accidentally fire at - and then she had to duck because because the robot Aiden nonchalantly fired at just happened to be nearly right behind her.

Okay, that was a yes alright.

She quickly stepped aside to place herself temporarily out of danger before bringing up her weapon, as well as taking some time to be confused about Aiden’s attitude towards the entire scenario.

[/b]"BUT LIZZIE, things are just about to get fun!"[/b]

“I - I fail to see how this is supposed to be fun?”

Leila said as she fired at one of the approaching robots. She wasn’t that familiar with guns except from seeing other people use them, and her own gestures were mostly somewhat clumsy attempts to map to firearms a very different kind of ranged weapon that was the bow that she used back in their days at Sol. The spherical paintball was much less aerodynamically ideal than the arrow and hastily made estimates resulted in her first shot being way off, joints hurting as the shock from the recoil propagated up her right arm.

The subsequent trajectories were adjusted and she managed to land two shots on one of the robots, dropping its healthbar significantly but not enough to put it down. That was all she managed to do before she was distracted by the robot approaching Aiden, who Leila tried to warn but not before he took a shot and fell back. Leila took aim too much slower than the robots did, and soon she had to find cover as well, tumbling back with her virtual health down for a fifth and two marks of paint across her armour.

Commands were shouted, but things were hard to keep track of when there’s also gunfire to worry about. The team soon started pulling back as the group of robots as well as the incoming teams seemed too much to deal with at once, the two soldiers firing in the opposite direction as they retreated.

Both hands, both hands...oh nevermind. Leila followed, noting to herself to adjust the way she used the weapon, only to find it a bit too hard. She shifted the gun to her left hand and made an effort to interrupt one of the robots advancing a bit too fast. Aiming at silhouettes through the fog of a smoke grenade was harder and tt resulted in two splatters on a robot’s body (which then dropped powerless) , another two less usefully on the trunks of nearby trees; and one of a non-red colour on her arm.

Leila skidded to a stop behind a larger tree that seemed like decent protection (at least for a while), and quickly looked around the reassess the situation. Above the distant treetops were colour-coded flares which, as much as she could infer, probably pointed out their location - which probably wasn’t a good thing no matter who fired them. The whole area was filled with activity and the noise was overwhelming - she remembered not so long ago imagining how finding opposing teams would be hard in a place as large as this. Leila unloaded the empty magazine and in the meantime checked on the places the paintball shots landed on her chest (admittedly, this should have been fatal to a reasonable degree). She also noted how it didn’t hurt - quite a curious fact, she didn’t even seem to feel the impulse from the shots. The seventy-five percent blinked stably on the display.

Looking to the side, she could find the other members of her team - it took her longer to identify Lesley, his hair now a shade of black and mostly tucked into the helmet made it harder to tell him apart.

The scene sudden fell considerably more quiet, triggered by the turning off of the early-game tracking devices - a reason unbeknownst to her at the moment. Leila swallowed some questions she was about to ask so her voice didn’t give them away. She looked at Lesley and he wriggled his eyebrows in an expression that was read as near mischievous before the man took aim across the swamp at a number of nearby players.

Leila herself would’ve preferred to stay silent and hopefully wait things out, and was unsure whether it was a good idea to go on offense under these circumstances - but before she could do anything Lesley let out something that she interpreted as some kind of absurd battle cry before firing at one of the members of an opposing team, hitting her square in the chest.

A sudden rise in frequency of gunshots and the scene was a storm of paintball pellets all over again. Leila grunted, tucking herself closer behind the tree as splinters flew from the bark that took the hits for her.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

Writing time interrupted by shenanigans again :<

I suppose I could get my hands on my lab computer tomorrow morning and do some writing then, though, so...a post tomorrow night, I suppose. Ugh.

The Midnight Train to Nowhere

So many NPCs to keep track of

so the paintball shots aren't colour coded? Well ok :<

Est and Aiden yes all the starting out a fight with firearms and fancy long-range tactics and eventually always resorting to hand-to-hand.

Status update: a bit occupied these couple of days...hope I don't fall to the end of the cycle again as I probably won't be able to do the next post until the end of this week or so - and then there are exams and stuff. Ugh.