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 Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 1:51 pm
"Sir, picking up strong readings."
The team leader turned around and looked at what was coming through. "********... now we got undead dragons. The situation is sour, Gentlemen. We are leaving."
They stuck to the shadows, and for the most part, they were nearly invisible. As soon as they reached the wall to the city, the exfiltrated and got as far away from the cursed place as they could. Things were about to get very messy, very quickly.
"Black Hawk Seven, this is Recon Element One, requesting pickup at the following coordinates..."
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 2:07 pm
West Fall fell and came under Necropolita's occupation in a matter of hours, after the recon team left. Survivors of the attack were press-ganged into fighting, or were killed and their corpses reanimated. Resistance was non-existent. The dragons took flight and patrolled the skies. The recon team was lucky that they left when they did, but there wouldn't be any more chances. Anything not bearing the empire's crest would be swiftly taken down.
An alhoon - an undead mind flayer, or illithilich - walked among the cadre of robed mages that entered the ruins of one of the factories left behind by the previous government. Since the dead were not affected by psionics, they saw it in its natural form, with its dry skin and cracked tenctacles, its thin form wrapped in black robes. To everyone else, he would look like Dr. Iskugawa in a dirty, blood-stained white lab coat.
"The late doctor had memories of a secret underground lab here," the alhoon stated. "Make sure nothing comes to interfere. If they are not one of use, they are to be destroyed."
Holding the memories of Dr. Iskugawa, the alhoon knew exactly where to go, what codes opened which doors, et cetera. The only thing it didn't know was what was in this secret lab - the doctor died before it could extract that information. Whatever it was, it was big; the doctor was the only one working on it.
"Here we are."
The door code was punched in.
"Stand by for retinal scan," came a computerized voice.
The alhoon expected as much. Holding out its hand, one of the mages accompanying it opened a large bag and pulled out a glass container holding the doctor's eyeballs, preserved in fluid. It took out one of the eyes and held it up to the retinal scanner.
"Scan complete. Welcome, Dr. Iskugawa."
The doors opened and fluorescent lights flickered on, revealing a laboratory with glass specimen cases, each containing a black, gaunt, serpent-like creature with a long, smooth head, a humanoid-like body with two arms and legs, and a long tail.
"So, this was what you were hiding from us."
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 1:21 pm
"What in the Abyss...?"
In another laboratory, even bigger than the one containing the specimens, was what looked like some kind of hive. Egg-like things lined the floor in rows and columns, and the walls were covered in some kind of hard resin material.
"Ah, so this is..."
In the back of the room was a giant creature, similar to the ones kept in the stasis tubes in the other lab, but much bigger. It was chained securely to the walls, but for all intents and purposes, appeared to be dead.
"Not for long."
The alhoon stepped up to the dead creature, weaving the spell to reanimate the corpse. Initially, it wold be just another zombie, but the alhoon had brought its assistants with it and special materials to make these creatures more than simple zombies. It waved its dried up tentacles, touching the creature's body. It stirred back to unlife, letting out a hiss as it writhed in its chains.
"Inject the serum into these eggs, and then bring in our first batch of test subjects," the alhoon ordered, meaning the citizens of this city who were still alive.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:05 am
In the skies over West Fall, an airship suddenly appeared. Draconis III came out of its jaunt, hovering over the occupied city, damage from the battle in Lament still apparent, but under repair. "Jaunt complete." "Contact Xyyz and let it know we are here," Captain Starrow ordered. The alhoon, Xyyz, was still in the underground laboratory when it received word that Draconis III had arrived. Everything was going right on schedule. New specimens were binding to their hosts, crying out in pain as the creatures transformed their bodies. They were aggressive symbiotes, and with the recent changes introduced to their genetics, they were now undead symbiotes. Xyyz used the Super Zombie Formula that Dr. Iskugawa had created, making them stronger and faster than typical undead, and resistant to most undead weaknesses. It was eager to see these new pets in action. Spectre transports left Draconis III and landed in the city, where it began picking up the imprisoned citizens of West Fall, taking them back to the airship where they would no doubt be converted, killed, or fed to something. One of the transports would carry back cages filled with the new creatures, now dubbed Necromorphs, back to the airship as well.
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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:21 am
Repairs on the airship were completed a day later. Defensive runes were restored. All cargo was stowed on board, and the city was stripped of anything worth anything.
"Leave them nothing," Captain Starrow ordered.
The main cannon was charged. Draconis III lifted up into the air, hovering 10,000 feet over West Fall. The airship tilted so that the front of it was facing down at the city. The top section, where a head would if this were a real dragon, opened up and the black barrel of a huge cannon slid out, held inside the carved jaws of a steel dragon head. Particles gathered into the cannon and a huge beam of violet energy shot out, blasting the city.
The ship righted itself again, retracting the cannon back into its "mouth".
"Get ready to jaunt. Let's help the Vecna out, and then we'll take Aekea."
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:02 pm
After a brief stop to some faceless location the man would undoubtedly call 'The Safehouse.' A bed, a storing of his weapons and amazingly, his permits to wield and conceal them, along with the forged reciepts for the imaginary purchase of said weapons... Not that the man, if his appearance could call it that, would give the impression of 'let's stop and ask him if he has a permit for that.'
Indeed, 6'4" male was garbed in a sleek suit, complete with facemask, giving off an alien vibe. The basic layer was a second-skin, made out of polymers and a mesh of metals fit to make it resistant to most slashes and weaker punctures, but worn over this to cover the vital sections, though without limiting his mobility was a combination of kevlar and actual plated armors, further defending against puncture shots and bullet wounds.
The faceplate? Actually linked beneath the suit to a thin layer of hardware at the back of a closely worn flattened satchel acrossed his back, providing his own data, as well as the ability to record and upload. Surely a man who knew what he was doing.
Said backpack spanned the entirity of his back, though was slim rather than bulky... And yet it was meticulously packed, a stationary layer sewn between spine and the actual storage compartment. The storage compartment itself was a series of half-inch boards in which his supplies were kept, the first being technological based equipments, memory sticks, wires, cables, the tools he might need to strip a wire, hack a door, et cetera. The second was a mixture of explosives and medical gear, enough for several brief stops to patch himself up should he need it, and enough high explosives to blow through Fort Knoxx, if you knew what you were doing. The top, final layer? Various augments for the weapons brought, silencers, sights, dot sights, rails, et cetera, and again, the tools he might need to do so.
Both hips seemed to be covered in what at first might seem like a fauld, but upon closer inspection were various layers, containing ammo for the weapons brought. One had to assume he might not encounter any armed opposition, and he had come with a full combat load for the armaments brought.
Weapons in fact were kept on a harness over his chest, built into the second layer of armor. Armpits, the small of his back, jutting from the edge of the backpack, over one shoulder... And acrossed breast, the common sight of both a combat knife and a vertical bandolier of weighted throwing knives.
The male would actually stop his vehicle several miles from the point of entry into the ruins, and hike it inward... Though cautious enough to treat the area as a hot zone, maintaining silence and sticking to cover where he could, not walking down the road like a novice.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:27 pm
He was right to be cautious, with the sordid history of megalomania and necromancy that West Fall City had become infamous for there was no telling what sort of horrors might be lying in wait beneath the broken crust of this husk of a city.
Though nearly all of the city's original population had either died or fled there was always the case of the few who would not; the territorials, the looters, those brave enough to fight off the lingering remnants of Darshendros' undead incursion for what they still considered their property... let's face it, the crazies remained hiding in cracks and corners with the idea that they were kings and sheiks of these ruins.
If he strained his ears hard enough it was likely that he would be able to hear the faint sound of a banjo and a rocking chair from somewhere in the city. Instead he heard the sound of gunfire.
First one shot, then four more, then a dozen as more reports joined in the chorus and were answered by the spooked cawing of a murder of crows lifting off of a nearby rooftop and such an unholy din from further up the street that it sounded as if a riot were taking place.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:40 pm
The man was little more than a shadow in that dark suit, black and dull, blending perfectly if he tried... And so as he hit the outskirts of the husk, he began to move faster, everything packed perfectly, each footstep soundless. As he neared the location of the sound of the shots, he would pause, murmuring into the face mask.
"Zero, bring up wireframe of the original layout of the city. Limit it to two stories, Thirty meters LOS. Set hostiles red, one hundred and twenty meters. Amplify voices two fold."
And indeed, inside that mask would light up, lines illuminating corners and doorways of the buildings, and even ghosting the potential second-floors that might not exist anymore. Voices, likewise would be amplified in his ears, whispers becoming casual conversation.
Drawing the combat knife, though turning it and holding the blade against the inside of his wrist, between forearm and his side, he would creep forward.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:08 pm
His request was not to amplify the sound of gunfire and so as he grew closer to the intersection ahead of him he would begin to hear and see what he had suddenly found himself at the outskirts of. His technology would give him a better view of what was around him, but it was not voices that he would hear; rather the sound of inarticulate shouting that he had heard from afar now became a deafening outburst of 'voice' amplified in his ears and his view would be filled with red littered around the area as he had requested of his device.
From the second floor of a building up ahead gunfire was raining down onto a swarm of rotting bodies that were tearing at each other in an attempt to climb up, over, or through one another to the building's second floor. Another burst of gunfire rang out from the lower floor; the barrel of a gun sticking through the wooden slats of a boarded up window that the undead were clawing at with mangled hands. Though the bullets were tearing through their bodies the animated corpses were too resilient to be felled easily and it was clear that it would not take long for them to force their way through the fortifications on the lower floor and enter the building itself.
The gunfire felled many but more were still coming, drawn by the sound like the ringing of a dinner bell. They rushed out from nearby buildings that they had passed through in their frenzy, they ran straight down the streets, and they came up in a swarm from the stairwell leading down into a nearby subway station. They even came from where Jasper had come from, a few that he had unknowingly crept past knocking over trash cans and sending bottles aside as they rushed into the street drawn by the sound of gunfire.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:15 pm
Jasper would frown, maintaining his press to the wall and thankful for the masking presence of the suit that made him less of a dinner bell. Fingertips would fetch at the inside of his belt, producing what had at first appeared to be overly large batteries, or perhaps long shotgun shells...
But in truth, as the male pulled one apart, twisted it so that it clicked three times, shut it and immediately lobbed it amidst the swarming zombies, following closely with two more in the short time after the first, the ensuing explosions quickly realized their true purpose!
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:44 pm
Boomdiadda boomdiadda boomdiadda boomdi-... oh, there were only three.
The charges were cold and efficient, and did little to give away his position to the salivating horde compared to the gunfire inside the building. One moment a zombified corpse was forcing itself head-and-torso through the battered window fortifications on the first floor of the building and the second it was gone; through the window and clear across the room with only one leg to its zombified name. Several more were scattered about by the successive blasts, being sent flying in various directions by the first explosive charge and few remaining within the effective range of the second and third. Of the few dozen undead that had been swarming outside the building trying to get in now less than a dozen remained intact, scattered across the street and through the blown-out front windows of the building.
A few more gunshots cut through the momentary silence, along with an amplified string of unending curses coming from inside including but not limited to: 'cockswaggler', 'rumchaser', 'gingerlicker', and the ever popular but seldom used '******** about now the legless torsos that had landed on a nearby sidewalk began clawing their way towards the nearest living thing.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:55 pm
And then it was simply clean up. Drawing one of the rather sizeable, silenced handguns from the small of his back and advancing forward from the alleyway, he'd begin lining up and firing headshots with calm, cold accuracy. Other hand would move to draw the other weapon in a fluid motion to make the work quicker, zip-zips a casual breeze compared to the raucious ratta-tatta-tatta the man on the second floor had fired.
Within seconds the clean up would be complete, and the male would pause to eject the clip of the weapon, and manually feed fresh rounds into it since they weren't empty. Would be just wasteful to leave the rounds, but he needed to be prepared... And nothing said prepared like a full clip in your gun.
He would pause, not exactly looking up into the window, but rather surveying all of the potential spawn points for more of the ghouls, illuminated inside that mask.
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:13 pm
The man who had been in the second story window was still there now, placing bullets in clusters of two or three with a dirty-looking assault rifle into the torsos and heads of several of the undead that were loitering below the window. He certainly had a look about him, but whether or not it was the look of a deranged city-dweller was up to Jasper to decide. He wore a pair of goggles and a scarf covering his face and a hooded jacket with what looked like chain mail underneath.
Jasper would hear another voice amplified in his ears from downstairs, still cussing and still angry, followed by yet another loud gunshot and "********' cocksuckin' zombie ********" to which was added a mess of crude choking laughter.
"Oi!"
The man upstairs shouted, looking down the barrel of his rifle at Jasper who was standing in the middle of an intersection plugging single bullets one by one into his pistol.
"You Solid Snake looking ******** down there. Yeah, you. Put that s**t on the ground and you mite walk outa here without somethin' chewin' on ya."
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Posted: Thu Dec 17, 2009 11:23 pm
Jasper could tune out the volume, ignore the brashness of it in his ears... A talent for observational multitasking, his eyes moved exceptionally fast, he could hear in several levels, seperate smells, tastes... Could feel in an extrasensory way. Thus when the voice commanded him, he merely continued plopping shells casually into the clip. He had faith in that suit.
"Zero, seperate human hostiles and undead. Reds and Purples, respectively. All citizens are to be assumed hostile, unless you can formulate an assessment of input that dictates otherwise. Acknowledge." The suit merely responded in his ear with an affirmative sounding chime.
Folding down the faceplate of the mask, the male would speak upward, tilting his head upward.
"I'd rather not." A simple, concise response.
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Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:18 am
The visuals switched over to their new layout, showing him a mess of purple spread around him in the street; not pieces of the undead that had been blown apart but the few remnants here and there that were still squirming out from under others barely 'alive'. There were even some that were attempting to get back up after having been shot by Jasper only moments before.
It seemed that zombies created through necromatic processes like those that Darshendros employed did not share the same weakness as the kind that were created by science. With clotted blood slowly leaking out of wounds and fragments of bone stuck in the flesh of exit wounds, a few shambling creatures still attempted to return to their feet slowly.
"Suit yourself," was the answer of the man upstairs. They could hold off this many of those undead on their own, but a guy wandering along with such shiny equipment was just begging to get himself shot and looted in a city like this by scavengers like these. He pulled the rifle against his shoulder and took aim for center mass, no sense in ruining that fancy headgear that might fetch a nice price on the market. Two shots fired, then his clip ran dry. Apparently he'd forgotten to reload before making threats.
Someone downstairs laughed, causing a third 'general location' dot to show up on Jasper's HUD.
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