You have encountered a Disoriented Drone! Mini-Boss Rules:
Only trolls who's rolls contributed to 'summoning' this mini-boss may fight it. This is a mini-boss! Unlike regular boss battles, the mule will not be posting new rounds, and players can simply post as fast and often as they want, taking turns to attack one at a time. Players who have trinkets or abilities may also post to use one directly after posting their attack, giving them a maximum of two turns for that round. When each troll in the fight has had a turn to attack the mini-boss once and use one power/trinket, a new round begins. At each new round roll the standard 2d6 and use the table below to see what damage you've taken. As always, the first number is what you should check for your damage, and the second is the amount done to the mini-boss. Once the mini-boss or all players fighting it reach 0hp, this can be counted by all trolls participating as a battle rp for growth. If you have any questions, please PM the mule!
DRONE STARTING HP: 50
Grunts, buzzing and groans are commonplace in the Dark Swamp, but these noises aren't like what you've been hearing so far. You and your group immediately prepare for battle as a huge, horned form rears out from behind a swampy bluff. The figure staggers and groans. Electrical static emerges from his broken equipment, and soon it is clear that you have stumbled across a dazed drone lumbering through the swamp. A crumpled, bloodstained map seems to hang uselessly from his hand. He clutches his injured head and tries to focus his one good eye on the party.
"Ehh??! WHO GOES THERE! B-BY ORDER ... THE QUEEN!" He exclaims. The drone's gruff bellow turns into a raging roar and before an explanation can be given, he charges the party! "TAKE THIS, REBELS!" The drone barely remembers to retrieve his Bo staff from his backpack before swinging with wild, delusional abandon at his opponents.
If you rolled a 1, in the flurry of sweet Bo staff attacks, you are caught dead in the chin by a swift blow. The drone rolls right over you, beating you senseless over and over again as he screams something about "FORCIBLE MANEUVERS!" and doesn't appear to want to stop his "maneuvers" until you are a colorful pulp. Take 4 dmg.
If you rolled a 2, you are in the radius of the drone's attacks as he strikes out ferociously. He reaches into his bag while you're stunned and pulls out a broken radio, which he attempts to bite the antennae off of and toss right at your noggin. "GRENADE!" he hollers. At least it's not an actual grenade, but it is actual head trauma. Take 3 dmg.
If you rolled a 3, the drone whirls around, demanding an answer from you. "WHERE AM I?". He lifts you up with impressive force and begins slapping you senseless. "WHO ARE YOU?" Take 2 dmg.
If you rolled a 4, you skirt back and forth between the drone's quick blows but don't manage to make it out in time to receive a swift rapping up and down your back. Take 1 dmg.
If you rolled a 5, the drone's erratic maneuvers ends up creating some very difficult footwork in the swampy terrain. Before you know it, you trip up and fall over a log into one of Alternia's incredibly vibrant and painful species of flora. You manage to escape the drone's blows this time, but the Swamp had the last laugh. Take 1 dmg.
If you rolled a 6, you exploit the drone's damaged vision. With some quick misdirection to the already disoriented foe, you are easily able to slip around to his back where his large blind spot is. It's almost comical how he tries to look behind him as you make quick attacks from behind his bulky backpack, and you take advantage of the confusion to let off some serious steam. Take no damage and deal double damage this turn.
When the mini-boss or all trolls have reached 0hp, please look in the spoiler below.
Mini-Boss at 0
With a long, low, pained groan, the drone lowers his weapon and sits down on the soggy ground. After a few minutes of silence, he looks up and addresses the nearest troll, his voice and good eye unsteady and petulant, like a wiggler. "I'm tired. Muffin, I'm tired. I'm going to nappy-naps now." Without waiting for a reply from 'Muffin', he gently lies down on his side, and a few minutes later begins to snore. Neither shoving, nor hitting, nor screaming will wake the sleeping giant.
Do not continue to roll 2d4s in the ORP - you may only win against each boss once. Each player can now roll 1d100 in their next post. If you get a multiple of 5, your troll has noticed a 3 use novice trinket of your choice that has tumbled from the sleeping Drone's backpack during the fight.
Players at 0
The drone continues to thwack around wildly at the group, braining any troll who gets too near. You and your allies are vastly outmatched, and all your strength seems to be flaggin. It appears that despite his most likely severe head and eye injury, his strength and stamina have not been compromised one bit. Stepping forward to you, he raises his weapon and you close your eyes in anticipation of the connecting strike. "HALT! I SEE YOU! S - STOP RIGHT THERE REBEL!" The blow never comes. You open your eyes to see him turn and rush over to a patch of thick swamp grass. Raising his weapon, he begins to frantically attack the empty patch of swamp. You decide to take his lapse in vision as the opportunity to hurry away.
If you want to have another go at this fight, you can continue to roll 2d4s in the ORP. You may re-try this mini-boss a total of three times if you loose each time. However, you may only commence another fight against this boss once all posts in this thread have been filled in with rp.
Muerte didn't have a whole lot of time to answer let alone react. And here he felt himself growing a little more eased when the yellowblood's normal tone began to return. Went to show he couldn't let his guard down, not now nor ever and especially not in this god forsaken disgusting swamp.
No, instead he found himself bumping into Aprife's outstretched arm, hair standing on end when the culprit of the noise made itself known. Muerte almost felt insulted when he saw the creature, bumbling around with its bloodied head. He made a mental note to ask Aprife later if he had been acting this obscene, but now wasn't the time. He put that thought on the back burner. Actually he didn't think he wanted to know.
And honestly, he didn't have a whole lot of energy to spare. He'd gone a night or two without sleep (the hours dragged and dragged and it was fine you shouldn't sleep with a concussion anyway) and his body was weary for it. Not to mention he simply wasn't the fighting type. Could the two of them actually take this ******** thing on? Looks like they'd have to.
Or at least lead it away, yeah, that sounded like a good idea.
"After you!" he hissed back, saw already in his hand, leading the disoriented heathen away. Aprife was going to be far more capable in this conflict. While Muerte preferred to remain in control, fighting was one thing he had no issue in handing the reigns over to. He'd be the support.
There would be plenty of time to tell Muerte yes, that drone sure is the spitting image of the you from the brooding caverns, but only if they could manage to outwit it and take it down first. There was just enough time between dodging underbrush as he ran to assess their newfound enemy. It was already injured, score one: rebels. Even so, he was certainly glad it could see well enough to follow them away from the mother grub. The further away they were from her, the better.
Now was the time to set the stage for their victory. Snapping back his scourge as he drew closer to the enemy again, spurred on by Muerte's urging, he flicked it at the drone's front. It was nothing but a distraction, the strike didn't even make contact. When the hulking soldier lunged at the weapon's tails in useless retaliation, Aprife sidestepped behind, sending a foot straight at the back of its knee, buckling it.
It felt so satisfying, a jolt of adrenaline lit the usual smile, lips slid back over sharp teeth... Then the arm came swinging back around, the cry of grenade had him tensing, but instead of an explosive, an antennae found its way between his eyes. The smile didn't leave him as he stumbled back, but it did actually sting a little...
And set the ******** stage they did. Muerte turned on his heel when Aprife did, splitting off around to the other side. He'd just have to wait for an opportunity, make his move when he saw it. His reserves were on pretty much empty, so he'd have to make all his hits count while he lasted.
When Aprife sent the drone buckling over, he took it. Saw whirling in his hand, the greenblood managed to find his footing in the murky swampland, wheeling the weapon up over the drone's already-battered head. The spray of red gave a similarly satisfying expression blossoming onto his face, crooked and fanged and sharp. Muerte wasn't one to be overcome with bloodlust so easily, but god was the fluid absolutely gorgeous under the dimness of the moons.
He would have bit a retort at Aprife, watching him stumble like that, but it was probably that action that distracted the Drone enough in the first place. Whatever, he wasn't wasting any time. He fell back rather quickly, trying to gain some ground on their target.
"It's obviously confused! Use that to our advantage," he called out to his teammate, pausing for only a moment before spitting out that retort anyway, "But that just makes it unpredictable, don't go and get culled. I can't drag your ******** body back."
There was a small trickle of blood sliding down between his eyes, but he swiped it away with his thumb. Compared to what they'd suffered earlier, this was nothing. If they were cautious, it could stay nothing. The injuries and exhaustion they still sported meant they really did have to be on their toes.
Despite that, Muerte took full advantage of his setup and, in truly stylish form, went right for the already injured head. Just as Aprife would've done. He was impressed and it showed in the stretch of the grin on his face. "Keep pulling off s**t like that and you won't be dragging me anywhere."
Habit found him pulling his goggles down over his eyes to shield from the spray of blood, a move that sent a short pang of discomfort spreading coldly out from his chest, but he pushed it back as best he could. These ******** things always made him think of Zeffer, they'd been a gift from the blueblood, after all. He was trying, he really was, push it back, don't let it distract you... Yet, that's just what it did. So much for being cautious.
The arm swung at him again as their opponent tried to hobble back up, and this time the radio itself smashed roughly against his already injured shoulder.
Now the cold was beginning to bubble into an angry warmth as he hissed in pain and grit his teeth. No, he didn't want to lose himself, not when he needed to keep his head the most. Spiting a curse under his breath, he kicked at the drone's wrist, sending the radio flying off to disappear into the marsh.
Muerte probably should have taken his own advice, and honestly he was, but the second that compliment rang in his ears, he felt almost warm. Of course he wouldn't be dragging anyone back anywhere. They had this. Muerte never usually felt confident about his fighting skills; sure he was competent but there were many other trolls that took this as passionately as he took his science.
It was that momentary train of thought that sent him reeling, the drone's hard fist clocking him right in the chest. One second upright, next second not; he was sputtering in the water, trying to regain his composure, wheezing slightly as he forced himself blearily back to his feet. He didn't have time to try and recover, but his physical form was hardly conducive with the get back up and go part.
At least he managed to nick the b*****d on his arm as he swung (and thankfully missed) another fist, his feet tumbling backwards haphazardly. So much for the praise.
There was no guarantee that the constantly shifting tides would always turn in their favor, that much was true. He'd taken hits, so had Muerte, so why then did the sight of the greenblood struggling to return to his feet after that particularly harsh blow cause the angry warmth in him to start boiling? He was back up, but Aprife was still pissed. They weren't even really losing, but even the momentary possibility of having yet another anything at all ripped violently away from him this week made his heart pound with indignant rage.
"Muerte..." he hissed, eyes locked on the target as it took another sloppy, but undeniably strong swing. "Regroup, get the ******** over here." Part of him knew keeping a distance could give them an advantage in cornering the sluggish drone, but he'd called out before he could catch himself. A rarity, reacting without thought, but he wasn't quite himself... Right?
Still, Muerte had managed to avoid it, and there Aprife found his opportunity as the drone lurched forward awkwardly, propelled by the momentum of its own botched second attack. In a blink his scourge was holstered, replaced by the broken length of chain whip he kept clipped to his pocket as a trophy. It might not have been conventional, not in this state, but it worked more than well enough in a pinch when he was feeling creative. Its more rigid structure was just what he needed right now.
Their disoriented opponent was attempting to stumble itself back to a straighter stand when the yellowblood darted between it and Muerte. Not fast enough, a*****e. The chain swung true with its weight as it always did when he decided to use it, catching around the drone's neck. It took a decent tug with both hands, and s**t his bad shoulder shot pain into his neck with the effort, but there was still enough of a wobble in the enemy's step to bring him crashing to the ground all over again.
So vulnerable... Aprife was in just the right mood to truly take advantage of the drone's new position beneath them. Without hesitation, he roughly pocketed the chain whip and redrew his scourge. The head was the soldier's achilles heel, the butt of his whip, the arrow. The pain that continued to dully pulse under his skin only fueled his hatred as he flipped the weapon in his hand and rammed the handle against its skull over and over and over.
Red marred the grey, calloused skin of his hand, re-stained his already filthy sleeve, but over and over Aprife continued to ram the hard, curved end of the handle against the drone's head. All of his rage channeled into his fingers, tingly and white-knuckled. No one, especially not this garbage excuse for a soldier was going to take their potential victory away from them. Not from him, not from Muerte, and not from the Initiative. No one.
Water and blood were making it hard to see past the tinted lenses of his goggles now, and his breath was ragged as his throat grew sore. The drone shuddered back to life beneath him, somehow attempting to rise again despite its injuries. Let it. The yellowblood's arm dropped limply to his side as he took a step back, preparing for another go, smile undeniably manic.
It was an understatement to say that his blood pusher was absolutely racing.
Everything happened so fast, even though his blurry vision made it seem slow. It didn't matter the when or the how or the why. Aprife's words were long gone to him, swallowed up by the bog, replaced by the sickening wet thuds of blunt trauma. Every swing of his scourge brought out that distinctive sound, every swing brought another spray of blood. The water was thick around his ankles, stained with murder. The spray across his face was easily his trophy, eyes absorbing every detail of this memory.
He was so absolutely fascinated that he hardly realized when the drone started to stir, even more disorientated than before. It was covered in the bright red fluid, absolutely stunning as it struggled to rear up again, its painted body almost glittering under the bask of the moon. It would be gorgeous—picturesque—if not for the given nature of the situation. He was already far too bitter and angry and done to reserve any in depth appreciation.
Was that purely it? The greenblood chanced a glance to Aprife again, his usual grin so unhinged and well, batshit was a pretty good word for it. It wasn't as if they fought together often; he was sure they only really had once, back when they were sleuthing out Errade, and even then... they weren't really on the best of terms. Muerte didn't care. At least, he hadn't then.
And he really didn't now, but he still felt himself somewhat empty at the carnage. Surely it was exciting, but something about this all felt so inherently... wrong. There was something unnatural about his anger. It wasn't something so easily defined—Muerte couldn't place it, couldn't find the words...
It wasn't the time. The drone was rearing back into animation, and Muerte wasn't about to waste the opportunity Aprife laid out for him. First came the burning in his arm, then the weight of his saw leaving his hands. Muerte blinked—his saw was lodged in the drone's gored head—the wounds on his arm had split open again, green gently dappling the wrappings there.
The drone roared.
The greenblood gave a swift yank to pull his weapon free before it was lost to unattainable heights, ducking behind Aprife, "Regrouped, your call..."
The rush of euphoria hadn't quite worn off yet as Aprife splashed himself with murky swamp water, rinsing the blood from his goggles. It flooded through his veins, making him feel lightheaded as he took a short, hazy moment to consider his own red-stained hand. The unsettling, sharky grin hadn't faded, but somewhere in his head he felt unsettled. Violence he had no issue with, it was losing himself he hated, losing the ability to choose whether or not the overkill he instinctually sought was the most beneficial to the situation.
Unlike his companion, there was no second spared to appreciate the morbidly beautiful scene, that just wasn't his thing. But neither was this. Muerte was right in feeling his reactions were just a tad out of place.
The battlefield wasn't the proper venue for mourning personal shortcomings in full as he very, very slowly calmed, though. The drone was close to the end of its rope, the yellowblood was certain of that, but it still had fight left in it, no matter how automatic it was.
This time, Muerte was the one to push back his assault before it even began, taking advantage of the opening he'd created. Definitely, definitely not much fight left.
Aprife felt his pulse pick up again. "Let's end it," he stated levelly, swiping his tongue over his teeth. "It won't be long."
The drone's giant arm came swinging at them, and even with force still behind it, it was slow. Raising his arm to block, he shoved the attacker back. It still hurt, sending tendrils of dull discomfort up and down his good arm this time, but it was worth it. The move opened the drone up to a quick crack of his scourge.
Not much fight left, no. Muerte agreed with his yellowblooded companion. It was something Muerte was grateful for; he was starting to lose his steam again, not that he had much to begin with. Testing the weight of his saw in his hand, he hissed as it strained against his sore arm. Switching it over to his other hand, he flicked his wrist out as a test. It would do.
The drone was maddened by it's pain, rage and exhaustion. In one of the few moments where Muerte was thankful for his short stature, he managed to duck under one of the slowed, tired blows, swiping at the hulking beasts leg. His coordination with his other arm wasn't great, but the hit made contact and blood and that was all that mattered at this point.
Unfortunately, his own slowed movements meant his reaction time was off too, and he couldn't avoid the small knock back as the drone reeled it's arm back, almost sending Muerte over again. Not quite. Muerte had to keep himself from fuming.
"Distract it!" he called out hastily. If he could just get one more hit on it's head, the battle would be over for sure.
It was beginning to feel more and more like they had the upper hand for sure, like it wouldn't be long before they ended this and ensured the continued safe passage of the mother grub and its offspring. Aprife had worried for a short moment that one of them might have to double back and steer the caravan in a different direction, and splitting up was the last thing he wanted to do, but that concern felt like a distance memory now. They had this. It was obvious in the drone's ever-slowing retaliation.
Each strike felt easier and easier to read as he and Muerte dodged past each other and around the hulking arms. Their opponent managed to clip him, but it felt like almost nothing now... Whether that was the drone's weakness alone or in tandem with his heightened adrenaline would become apparent later, but for now he was focused, driven towards their goal. A little more-
"Distract it!"
The call caught his attention in an instant. So Muerte had a plan... Perfect. The yellowblood's grin grew wider as he reacted, quickly darting away from the doctor, whip flicking at the soldier's face. "This way, this way," he muttered under his breath, making a great show of snapping the tails of his scourge sometimes against it and other times against the air, keeping their enemy's one decent eye trained on him as he circled.
Had this been any other time, Muerte probably would have been surprised that Aprife was going along with him so well and easily. He'd have a time to be grateful later; for now he was waiting, waiting, waiting as the drone lumbered after the yellowblood, dragging its sorry a** body through the bloodied swamp.
There!
Without wasting a moment, the doctor made his way forward behind the drone, slashing his saw through ankle of the creature. It wasn't enough strength to lob off the foot by any means, but it was enough to tear into its achilles, and that was all he needed. This b*****d wasn't going to be going anywhere fast or soon. The guttural screech that cascaded into the humid bog made his lips twitch into a smile, his blood pusher flutter.
His focus distract—
The drone crashed down into the murky blood-mixed water, fist reeling around packed with last ditched effort. He wasn't fast enough; between the almost torrential wave that caught him and his own sluggishness, the last thing the greenblood saw was the enormous white fist as it connected into his own head. Had Muerte been one for irony, he might have found some humor in it.
Ah, but he wasn't a very funny ha-ha sort of guy, was he? Everything was blurry again, and for a second he wondered if he was going to be concussed again. Light seemed to bend in his vision, danced around his unfocused eyes... a lot of this felt like before—the —how he only remembered coming too, except this time he was sure he hadn't fallen unconscious. No, he wasn't asleep—
He just couldn't breathe.
His body jolted upward, breaking out from under the surface of the water, immediately gasping in a breath of air followed in succession by coughing and coughing and more coughing god how his lungs were burning. How long had he been under there, dazed? He reached up to push his glasses back on his face, only to have his hands touch the soft, damp skin there.
Oh.
His eyes opened again, watery from hacking, when he was met with a plethora of lights and colors and blobs that all blended the ******** together. Vaguely, he made out the large white outline of the drone (now felled), and when he looked up he could see the dimness of the moons. They had won, but...
He was battered, waterlogged and blind.
Quote:
HP: 8/20 DMG DEALT: 4
DRONE HP: 0/50
Melancholies
Springtime Teenager
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saedusk Crew
Dedicated Bunny
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Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2015 8:36 pm
The swamp rose up in a sudden deluge as not one, but two bodies hit the shallows with surprising weight. Through stray droplets and the tint of his goggles, Aprife quickly surveyed the situation, noting the hulking form of the drone face down, unmoving. The hammering in his chest only vaguely began to subside as he swallowed back a lump in his throat, dry but sticky all at once. Scourge still poised for a counter, his foot stomped roughly against it, daring it to rise. It didn't. It was no longer a threat, only a corpse.
"Hah, he actually did it..." he hissed to himself, silent praise for the greenblood (perhaps more of a fighter than he believed), who'd delivered the final blow. The one who, upon further inspection, hadn't resurfaced yet.
So concerned with assuring their victory was true, he hadn't even realized Muerte wasn't there. The water was enough to swallow him here, and in that brief moment it felt eerily like he hadn't even been there in the first place. What a strange, disorienting feeling...
Except, there wasn't ******** time to be caught in a nightdream. This was reality, and the reality of the situation was his companion might unconscious under the water, or worse, dead. From where he'd been standing on the other side of their opponent, the hit hadn't appeared so significant, but now he wasn't quite sure. Wading hastily around the drone, he dipped his hands beneath the surface, dredging for a solid among the swamp grass.
The adrenaline that had begun to fade only moments before spiked all over again despite himself. Surely the good doctor would be fine... He thought the rest of them cockroaches, but there was no denying he was a bit of one, himself. Right? Right. Everything would be undeniably fine.
The sharp burst of water as Muerte suddenly broke through the surface next to him nearly sent Aprife stumbling back onto his a**. The chest-heavy coughing that split through the air was almost a relief from the stark silence the swamp had fallen into only seconds ago. Stiffly, the yellowblood straightened himself as if he hadn't been digging his fingers through the mud trying to find him.
"Hey, Muerte, you gonna make it?" There was a bit of a demanding edge to his voice, even as he casually shifted his weight to downplay it.
Muerte blinked, trying to will the dizziness and blurriness from his vision, to no avail. It was perhaps a blessing for Aprife that his glasses were woefully absent; otherwise he would have probably noticed the yellowblood scrounging around like a dumbass. Instead Muerte was struggling back a wave of uneasy panic. He could see the splashes of yellow that constituted Aprife's vest as well as the bright orange of his horns, but other than that... he was merely an animated figure. It was hard to discern anything.
"Of course I am." he snapped, vehement and riled before he took a shaky breath. Muerte forced himself up to his feet, wobbling slightly before he reopened his eyes, trying to find some semblance of sense in the swath of shapes before him.
"Come in, it's dead. We're going."
Muerte picked an arbitrary direction and started walking, more focused with getting the ******** away from here rather than looking like a fool for going the wrong direction.
A lucky break for Aprife, he hadn't been found out, not that he imagined Muerte would care all that much in his current state. He had himself to worry about, and the yellowblood knew the same went for him, as well. That thought helped him shake a bit of the tenseness from his body in earnest this time. As long as Muerte wasn't dead, and the drone was—he glanced over again, yep, still toast—then everything was fine. No need to linger on things.
And linger he wouldn't, not even when he noticed Muerte quite obviously groping around for, oh, oh, his glasses. They must've been knocked off by the force of the blow, lost somewhere to the dreary waters. As much as he wanted to say something, he bit his tongue. If the greenblood needed his help, he'd say so, otherwise Aprife just didn't really want to get into it.
Especially not with the mood the whole thing had apparently put him in, if that bite was any indication. Aprife chewed his tongue to hold back a sigh. It was going to be a long night, wait no, an even longer night. Could he blame him, though? Not really. He felt just a bit like waterlogged s**t, himself.
"Alright, alright, let's go." The caravan would be catching up with them soon, but he felt urged to head back anyway, make sure everything was going smoothly. But... Okay, he really had no choice, he had to say something about this one. Couldn't just let Muerte lead them blindly into the swamp to get lost.
