[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
"Then let the games begin." Kirk tries to grab the demon's arm and ram his knife through it top down. A good twist and tear after that should properly distract the thing.
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[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
"Then let the games begin." Kirk tries to grab the demon's arm and ram his knife through it top down. A good twist and tear after that should properly distract the thing.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
"Yes, I never quite understood why such a high profile company would settle in the middle of nowhere like that. Perhaps for security reasons?" She idly wonders. "Indeed, did you know that plenty of their members live inside their base like some kind of cult? I know mercenary companies are supposed to be paranoid but that certainly takes the prize. Regardless, I believe I've found an interesting opportunity in their choice of location. There is a dungeon up there, rumored to have been ransacked by MERC long ago, yet I want you to investigate it and potentially establish a foothold up there."
Then she finally stops in front of a large ornate door. "But, this will be your room. Why don't you have a look around?" She stands aside, gesturing at the door.
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
Kirk and his knives.
It's effective however in that it does seem to cause the demon a lot of pain. If he wanted it pissed off, then he got it, it roars loudly though thankfully its likely drowned in the noises of the nearby machines, but you never know.
It's other talon suddenly reaches for Kirk, attempting to tear into his knife-arm as the other one twitches violently in pain, and might also tear into Kirk's arm if he isn't careful.
The other two demons are dropping their bricks and look up, their eyes narrowed in disappointment.
Kirk can hear Dena breathing deeply behind him. "****." Her whole body have quickly started to tremble and she seems stuck staring at her hands. Her snakes are going completely wild, all stretched to their full length in every direction and hissing loudly as they seem ready to bite anyone coming too close.
ATTACK!This isn't exactly what they were waiting for. The next big thing was supposed to be the mutant zombies hidden in delivery trucks.
"What have we got?"
Atorre Ranna already knows what they've got going on in Groundtown. He's already scrambled three of his silly flying machines to engage the problem. But he'd like to hear an answer all the same. Part of the game.
"Undead army with pre-M levels tanks. No sign of a necromancer or leader yet. Multiple uniforms; looks like everyone from an old battlefield got up and came out looking for death. We had an eye injured in the initial shelling and we've lost two more so far who were caught out on the streets."
"Have the Wanderer head for the artillery, send the Palmtrees down to harass the armor. Let's see. I spot houses burning, people fleeing, general panic. This could cause some serious disruption to the workforce in the coming weeks. Stay on Alert level 2, watch out for any attempt by the invaders to come topside."
It will take a little while for the pair of Palmtree Gyrocopters™ to launch and make it down below the city, but they'll attack as soon as they can. One is armed with what amounts to a giant-tank-melting-laser-cannon, the other with rapid-fire blasters of the sort that never seem to hit the heroes but shouldn't have trouble causing a few undead in the crowd to burn.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
If Maiel has any opinion on MERC, he keeps it to himself, merely placidly watching Tellysandra. Once they reach the room, Maiel clucks his tongue in disapproval. "What, you aren't going to show me around?" He smiles only barely. It does strange but not unwelcome things to his face. "Pity." He'll try to open the door so he can explore.
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
Kirk's quick and simply lets go of his knife and steps back. In a blur he has another knife in his hand. "Think fast you demonic pieces of-" Before he's even done speaking the first word he's already flung a knife at the face of the big demon. A third knife appears and he sneers at the bird demon.
Attack!
still open for more people to join
The copters are fairly effective at dealing with tanks at first, the heavy cannon is able to destroy a couple easily. The triplane circles around, firing its machine guns on the gyrocopters and attempting to draw them off. A skeleton wearing a leather pilot's hat and goggles leans out of the open cockpit.
Meanwhile something emerges from the area where the artillery guns are hidden. A horse comes out, fiery red and actually glowing. Its rider is dressed all in black, wearing a black helmet, black gas mask, and black trench coat. A submachine gun is strapped to his back, and he carries a huge cavalry sabre. A voice booms out from the rider. "Citizens of Skyside! Prepare yourselves, for War has come!"
Attack
In a few minutes some residents of Groundside have build up barrikades of Junk to delay the undead hord. It doesn't appear prepared its just whatever they can grab. The barricades are hold by a few man with storm rifles. There aim is bad but they should land a lucky hit once in a while.
Yet the undead hadn't appeared thought the trucks start moving
Attack!- Street of Slavers
The street has gone into lockdown, even though the flying city itself isn't yet threatened (I think). The slavers are a little paranoid, and the attack on Groundtown could be a good distraction for heroes, anarchists and mercenaries- anyone who might want to try freeing slaves whilst the rest of the city is distracted. As a result of the lockdown, heavy metal shutters have dropped down to block all the ground floor doors and windows to the shops, and the older, less valuable merchandise of MALE and GIRLS have been pressed into service stacking sandbags to block both ends of the street, whilst armed guards look on. Unusually for the Slaver's Guild, its guards are armed with lethal weaponry; there's about forty guards on the street, mostly orange hobgoblins, purple orcs, various colours of human and hyena-like gnolls, wearing a mix of kevlar and chainmail and carrying swords and bolt-action rifles. More guards are in the upper storeys of the shops, peeking from windows and balconies. At each end of the street, four guards are setting up a larger weapon- at one end, a crude Maxim machine gun; at the other, a small-ish bronze cannon. Leadership is currently being provided by two people- Alecto, the eldest daughter of GIRL's proprietor and a leading figure in the Guild in her own right, and Raodan the Reject, a hagspawn who serves as the head of Guild security on the street itself (as opposed to in the individual shops, where it's the owner's responsibility).
Attack!- Sky
Joining the gyrocopters deployed by Atorre, are the Guild of Slaver's own transports, usually used to transport slaves to the Guild's shops and slavers to the lower city to begin their missions to Outside. There's three tandem-rotor helicopters, a wooden sailing ship complete with rigging and sails, suspended magically in the air, and a pair of large transverse helicopters. All the vessels are marked with the letters SSG, the font designed to resemble chains.
The ship is faster than the helicopters, though not as quick as most aeroplanes, and flies towards the artillery emplacements; when it's in range, it shall fire ten cannon- half the cannon on its right side- into the artillery park. Its cannonballs have been inscribed with magical runes of heat, and if they hit an ammunition dump, it could cause immense damage. Any aeroplanes that get too close will find the cannon that make up the other half of the opening salvo (as well as every cannon on the other side of the ship) has been loaded with grapeshot, the anti-personnel shrapnel serving as improvised flak rounds. Against triplanes, biplanes or early monoplanes (made of wood and canvas), it should prove particularly effective.
The tandem helicopters, meanwhile, have people hanging out the side with miniguns, with which they will strafe any large bodies of infantry (or use to pour immense amounts of poorly-aimed firepower at any enemy aircraft). The transverse helicopters act as bombers, though they are pretty slow. And very inaccurate, too. All the helicopters are pretty vulnerable to ground fire; they don't move fast enough to avoid anti-aircraft guns.
The light-gun gyrocopter takes a hit or two to its wings, nothing that will stop it from flying - yet. But the triplane gets their attention. Since they aren't trying to protect any specific feature of Groundside, there's no reason the plane can't be next. And they should be rather more maneuverable than that relic. Blaster fire flies towards the triplane while the cannon-carrier swings around. The clone-soldier piloting it waves jauntily to the skeleton.
"Piloting an aircraft is a lot of coordination for a skeletal undead to show."
"Wanderer sees something."
"We've got that leader. Think he's real, or just wants the similar thing - pointless conflict for its side effects?"
"Don't know enough."
Some personnel stop their normal work and head for shelters or battle stations as they hear the masked figure's announcement and the network tells them that yes, this is a serious concern and not just someone with a megaphone.
Still a fair distance away, the Wanderer Monocopter aims its laser beam at the horse and it's rider. From this distance, it won't melt an armored machine, but it might do something to flammable cavalry.
Attack!
The tanks have few problems with the barriers on the ground, pushing through or over fortifications is what they're designed to do.
The triplane allows the two gyrocopters to chase it, then slows so that they pass it and it can shoot at them.
The ship approaching the artillery comes under fire from two anti-aircraft guns that were hidden behind a ridge. The projectiles should be effective at tearing apart wood planking.
The horseman neatly dodges the laser cannon. At his command, a number of undead start firing machine guns at the aircraft from the ground. He rides toward the city.
Finally, four more triplanes join the assault. Two target the slavers' carriers, harrying the slower craft with machine gun fire. The other two split off and fly over Groundtown, yellow mustard gas spraying from beneath them into the city.
Attack!- Sky
The wooden sailing ship is absolutely shredded by the anti-aircraft fire, heavy shells puncturing through the wooden hull and exploding in mid-decks. The magic keeping the vessel in the sky is hard to dispel with mere physical damage, so most of the ship stays there, slowly drifting apart, as the unenchanted objects fall from the sky- crew, cannon, cannonballs, and the occasional chunk of burning wood or sail. Three of the crew managed to pull parachutes on before falling from the vessel, and are drifting defenceless in the sky.
The tandem-helicopters reply to the approaching hostile aircraft is to fire at them, shooting back at the crude aircraft. They aren't military grade, but the Guild expects trouble as a matter of course. Their armour is improvised, but it is better than a civilian helicopter, with added plating to the engine block, self-sealing fuel tanks, and kevlar plates (from disassembled body armour) lining the crew compartment. The machine guns don't prove particularly effective, though a lucky shot does disable one of the miniguns- the bullet hit the gunner, whose chainmail didn't prove sufficient to stop the bullet. They're also considered too valuable to risk whilst the body of the city is not yet threatened, so they'll slowly retreat, firing at their attackers with miniguns.
The transverse helicopters also retreat, but far less successfully- they can't fire back, and so make easy targets; particularly because they don't have any additional armour. One has the windscreen shattered and the pilots killed, drifting off away from the city, completely out of control. Unless it attracts more fire, it'll keep going until it runs out of fuel or hits something. The other has an engine damaged, and starts to fall, headed towards Groundtown in wild, uncontrolled circles. The bombs it's carrying will explode with the crash, and whatever it collides with will suffer a lot of damage.
[Attack!]
Blip.
A white-haired man in a business-casual khakis and blue polo combo pops into existence in the middle of the street, the briefest flicker of a portal appearing and disappearing around him.
He immediately blinks and looks around, then straight up towards a descending cloud of yellow.
"Uh. Huh. I thought I specifically tried to avoid the city's deeper chaos."
Really. That bodes well.
A small white mouse pokes its head out of the pocket on the man's shirt, staring around more attentively to the world around them.
There are innocents.
The man blinks again and finally looks a bit alarmed.
Immediately breaking into a tirade of impolite cursing, he eyeballs the surrounding area.
City-ish. Slum-ish?
Tiered. Slope, defensible.
Hostile force of some sort. Lethal gas agent above.
As the mustard gas begins settling lower towards the buildings he claps his hands and blinks up to the roof of a nearby house.
"This is gonna be kinda rough..."
Pressure settles around him as he draws on as much magic as he can draw in the span of a couple moments, a bit of dirt billowing away from the building on a breeze that has nothing to do with the surrounding warfare.
"//\\//\/\///\\\//\"
Words more felt than heard boom out from his lips as he raises his arms up and jerks them downwards in a sloping pattern.
A fizzling screen of blue energy flickers overhead, between as many of the houses in the surrounding area as he can manage, sloping downwards with the area's natural shape.
It tapers upwards slightly, at the bottom, and a light wind billows over it.
The field really won't do jack diddly to stop any bullets or missile, or even vehicles, but it should do a fairly good job of funneling most of the mustard gas away from the houses and out a ways.
The original triplane lands a few more shots on the light gun gyrocopter, and it starts pulling away towards the edge of the city. However, it has no trouble firing on targets regardless of their relative position, and it finds the triplane very predictable as it's falling back.
The monocopter zips about quite nimbly, dodging most of the machine gun fire and taking no real damage yet. It lets the rider pass underneath and closes in on the artillery, firing another laser blast. They shouldn't be able to dodge nearly as well.
"Groundsiders are starting to fighting back."
"Ready some serious forces. In case."
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
"KRAAA!" The demon screeches as Kirk's knife digs into one of its eight eyes. It suddenly dashes in Kirk's direction and then blindly fails about, hoping to catch him with its many talons. Screeching like a whole murder of crows as it moves.
But even the demon is soon drowned out by Dena's sudden shriek.
Her sun-glasses are now gone, having either fallen off while she convulsed or simply vaporized under the wide-eyed gaze the gorgon is now displaying. Her long snake-like tongue is out in full display, a sight normally only reserved to Kirk and Dena's other close associates.
This is the part where Kirk needs to look away so he doesn't meet the same fate as the demons. Those who aren't turned to jade instantly, far quicker than what Kirk himself experienced, flee screaming. Demons weren't exactly know to experience fear but now they scattered like chickens, fleeing heedlessly into the dark without thought or direction.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
The warlock smiles. "Surely you can open the door yourself?" She remarks as she lets him enter the room, yet is quick to follow him once he stepped inside properly.
The room has a black and white theme with four couches, two black and one white that stands around four smaller tables put together as one. There are no traces of a bed or lamps, but there is a huge television set centered around a black and white tv-table with several drawers.
What's most noticeable however is the fact that three of the four walls are made out of glass and there don't appear to be any curtains connected to them. Indeed, even the fourth wall connecting the room to the rest of the manor as well as the ceiling and the floor seems to have a thin layer of some manner of glass covering them.
"I do need to show you how things work however, the white couch can turn into a bed and back with the press of a button." Tellysandra explains as she gestures at the coach while walking past it. "The walls are fully customizeable, you can add any background and of course dampen the light entering..." As she gets close to one of the glass walls, a holographic display suddenly appears. She touches one of the holographic buttons and suddenly the glass walls appears to be normal walls with one window each. This is a type of illusion, but only the windows are letting in any light. "They can also provide artificial light." The warlock adds as not only the walls but the ceiling and the floor change, make it appear that the furniture of the room are floating in a cloud-filled sky, bathing the entire room in seemingly natural light even though no "sun" is visible. Then it changes again, now one window displaying a setting sun over a endless ocean, an illusion the other walls and the ceiling help creating. The ceiling becoming a darkening sky with stars faintly visible.
Only the door and the furniture ruins the illusion. "You can download more backgrounds but be careful so you don't end up downloading a virus, the last person staying here nearly got our entire system infected." She walks up to the tables and grabs a remote and a press of a button on it returns the walls to glass once again, and the view outside is quite nice on its own.
The sunny Gothic gardens of the manor and the sea of clouds outside it are very relaxing.
Seaside Manor<===>KABAL office
Kelligan was enjoying a proper goblin-made snake omelet and watching his beach ball team warm up when the call came. He looked at the display, "Shazhan - KABAL". Oh great.
He promised me to never call during brunch again. Or maybe he had imagined that, Shazzie was hardly one to make promises. Indeed, he couldn't actually recall the ethereal calling him a single time since he had gone back to his seaside manor...
He pressed the button. "This better be important, I'm watching miss Tharawi Two do a backflip over here."
"-Groundside Under Attack since 23.28, CCT. For more information, see any skyside news channel-"
A freaking bot, was he letting robots call him now?! This was- Wait, what did it say again?
"Huh? Can you repeat that?"
"-Groundside Under Attack since 23.28, CCT. For more information, see any skyside news channel-"
And what was that supposed to mean? "Connect me to your owner, he better explain this." He paused, "Connect me to Shazzie, freaking Shazhan. You should know what I mean you stupid robot."
"-Transferring call, please stand by-"
The goblin tapped his finger against the ivory table, not even seeing miss Okato Major bent over could improve his mood right now. Groundside being attacked could mean a lot of things, a big gang war, VIGIL, MERC, demons... it had to be important somehow though, otherwise they better not have bothered him. It couldn't just be a gang, that happened all the time. He glanced at the widescreen television monitor he had let be constructed on the beach, he was tempted to put on the news but that would disrupt the ladies and there was no way those 'news stations' in skyside would be reporting on anything worthwhile yet.
"Mister Kelligan! You got my message. I assure you that you already had all the information needed however, and I'm preoccupied at the moment. There was never a need for a call."
Finally! One of the few times he was glad to hear that stupid voice, insisting to draw out every word like he was playing an accordion.
"Just tell me what's going on, Shazzie! What's so important about this attack?! I don't recall us owning anything in groundside."
"Ah, we do not. But the scale... let me show you. Put me on projector phone."
Kelligan grunted as he had to start to look for that button, why didn't they make these phones simpler to use?
Was it the one on the right side? No, that was the sound and he never touched the left one again, that was for sure...
There, the top button! Triumph!
"Okay, um... done, now show me!" He placed the phone on the table and awaited the fireworks. This better be more important than the hot pieces of ass playing nearby...
"As you desire."
The images came in quick succession, some still shots, other short clips, all of destruction and death at the hands of what appeared to be a genuine undead army with tanks and air planes. The final picture just showed yellow gas however.
"Uh..."
"Sulfur mustard, also known as mustard gas. Causes blisters upon contact with organics skin and lungs. A dated, yet still effective, method of dealing with flesh."
"And they're, um-"
"Unleashing it on groundside, yess. It looks like they are aiming for the extermination of the civilian population." Shazzie finished, making Kelligan blink as the footage started playing again.
"...why?"
"Unknown! But often your remains seem hostile towards the non-deceased, or are caught in old living habits such as killing. You sure like to cause lethal reactions to one another."
The goblin sighted, well at least it wasn't VIGIL or MERC knocking on his door. Some stupid bonies hell-bent on genocide of the living was something the city defenses would deal with. He wouldn't need to get involved at all. In fact, they might be able to use this somehow. Maybe.
"Well... look to the defenses of our properties I guess?" He waved his hand dismissively. "Just tell the news that our people were involved in a heroic defenses of the people of groundside, make some convincing footage of it, etc."
"Already done! KABAL member Kritzel Mentrik not only died saving three young girls, he also saved a puppy from a flamethrower strike before he died. Then the rest of his ruggedly handsome team were inspired by his example and drove the invaders away from the sector with the help of the orphanage which they had defended. Pretty sure we could make a movie about it in the future."
Kelligan smiled, perfect... Wait, hold on. "Mentrik... the mine-guy?" Even he had heard that story.
"Indeed! According to my algorithms he was the most attractive of our dead members, and he also had the cleanest record."
"He died his first day trying to open a land-mine by banging it against a wall."
"Yesss, perfect, isn't it? No remains to clean up."
"Yeah, sure, whatever. I'll leave you to it then. Looks like you already got everything-" -BEEP, BEEP, BEEP-. Kelligan stared at the phone. Shazzie had... hung up on him?
"I hired you, you good-for-nothing star ghost!" He shouted while slamming his fist into the table. Damnable lieutenants, thinking they could do everything without him! Telly was just the same with all her stupid magic. He had founded this company and they would be subjected to his orders! They couldn't just go around acting as if he wasn't needed!
Anton Kelligan stood up and closed his morning robe around him. It was clear he had been away from Skyside for far too long, his underlings apparently though they could do whatever they want these days. Well, he would go there and prove them wrong, VIGIL be damned. He wasn't afraid of some luddite pretty boy and his cronies, they were a joke. Those demons had already defeated them, they just hadn't realized it yet.
He raised his hand, waving at the players. "Girls! Pack your bags! We're going to skyside!"
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
Kirk keeps his head turned, shielding his eyes with his hand just to be safe. That's... well, he's not sure what he expected. "You alright?" He asks. It's the best he can do since he can't look at her now.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
Maiel's expression is quite boringly neutral at first. There is a stirring around his eyes and brows as Tellysandra reveals the true nature of the room. The vistas reflect in his watery eyes. "...How much did this all cost?" He asks, the first thought in his head. "It is..."
He watches the walls. "It's exquisite. It's perfect," he concludes, though quite calmly still. "...I'll confess, I do not much like being up in the sky. I want it... darker. Quieter." He winces a little at the view of the gardens and the outside, pretty as it is. "Less bright."
Maiel looks at her uncomprehendingly, at the last. Still perfectly still and hard to read. "...Virus?"
Attack!
The barrier goes up and blocks the mustard gas from the city. The first triplane is shot down quickly; it crashes not far from the town. An artillery piece is melted by the monocopter's laser.
The four remaining triplanes regroup and join formation, leaving the remaining slavers' guild ships to limp back to where they came. They fire on the gyrocopters, targeting engines, rotors, and wings.
Fed up with the aerial bombardment of his forces, the rider takes off, his horse galloping into the sky as it transforms into a fiery triplane (as in a triplane which glows as if on fire, not a plane which is actually on fire.) He flies directly for the monocopter, guns blazing.
The slaver helicopter whose pilots were killed is followed on the ground by a small group of skeletons, trying to catch it if it is intact when it lands.
Back Alley
"I do not know if I can find that place for you," says Geneviève, bowing her head. "But you are welcome to join me as my companion, for as long as you wish."
The drorc will indeed still be following, the unfortunate fellow having been stripped of all independent thought or desire but to follow Geneviève's every whim or desire.
Attack!
Finally, the attack by the undead forces seems to have drawn out a more grown up response, more substantial than the slapdash aerial forces of the slavers or a couple of plans.
A loud report sounds as a high-explosive anti-armor is fired at the tanks, its origin a mech that jumps with rocket thrusters out from amidst a cluster of buildings, ambling forwards on stubby legs. It's about 25 feet tall, with a squat, dome shaped body that seems to bear a strong resemblance to nothing else but an upturned trash can, as it shuffles forward with a bow-legged gait. Despite its unassuming appearance, it's got a very grown-up sized autocannon attached to a turret on the right side of the main torso. The mech swivels at the waist, gun aiming at another of the tanks as it fires a second round, spent casing ejecting from the side of the gun like a red-hot hailstone.
Meanwhile, a second mech bounds out ahead of its companion - this one smaller and sleeker than the other, with a vaguely avian profile and slender, chicken-like legs that carry it across the battlefield in long strides. This one skirts around the edge of the city, firing up at the planes with a pair of side-mounted machine-guns.
[Attack!]
The mouse gives an irritable ear twitch as the mechs stomp onto the scene with their noisy assault.
It's much more dignified than the surprised yelp and jump of the man it rides with.
"Uh, wow. Those seem out of place."
Focus. Help with the undead below.
A pointed little paw from the mouse draws his attention away from the big stompy mechanical death robots and towards more monstery elements.
Like those ones off in the distance, firing guns at planes in the sky.
"This is going to be a weird day, Yu."
He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a little u-shaped magnet, eyeballs it for a moment, rolls his shoulders a bit, then teleports away with a quiet crack.
Somewhere below, amongst the groups of weapon-toting undead, the mage reappears with that same crack.
Although that was probably plenty attention-grabbing on its own, he accompanies it with a sharp whistle before tossing that little magnet of his straight up into the air.
The already-damaged gyrocopter returns hastily aimed fire while climbing away from the fight, but one of the triplanes blasts the rotor about and it begins to fall. The other swings around and fires its giant laser into the clustered formation of planes.
A horse that turns into a plane. Now that's stylish. :smallcool:
The monocopter zips madly around over the artillery, keeping its fire on them. It'll be at a clear disadvantage trying to shoot down some undead ace glowing with fiery power. It'll have to trust to its mobility (and the hexagon-bubble energy shield that flares up to protect its core components as the burning triplane lands a few shots) to keep it safe long enough to inflict sufficient damage on the ground forces.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
The warlock chuckles. "Nothing I'm concerned about." She grins. "But I'm glad that you like it. If you do want less bright there is... midnight. That's not very descriptive so lets find out what it is." She touches the control again and the glass projects a new image.
Suddenly, the screens are all displaying a grassy field underneath a open star-filled sky. The room turning almost completely dark except for the artificial "starlight".
Tellysandra waves off his other question. "Don't worry about it too much, you know how people sometimes get diseases by touching or being close to one another? Well, it turns out technology is like that too. If a machine connects to a sick machine, then it too will become infected." She attempts to explains. "But is this good? You can change it yourself too, just use this interface here."
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
He can just hear the pounding of the machines initially until he suddenly feels Dena's hands upon his neck, it almost feels like she is giving him a massage first until she suddenly gives him a sharp shove. "Move." She hisses, her voice carrying a boom it didn't have before. She then brushes past him like if she was in a hurry.
Back Alley
"I think... I think I'm the only one who can find such a place. I'd know it when I find it. But till then, I'd be honoured to join you." She drops into a slight curtsy as she says the last sentence, following Genevieve where ever she leads, just ahead of Knaryllk the drorc.
Attack!
They'd be travelling a while; the transverse helicopter can stay in the air for several hundred miles, and it's got a pretty advanced autopilot that could feasibly keep it flying at a level heading until it runs out of fuel. Or hits something at the same height as it is, like a mountain; the autopilot's default is prior heading, and it isn't linked to the radar, as neither were original to the helicopter. If it does hit something, its hold still contains a lot of bombs.
The other helicopters continue their fighting retreat.
The three parachuting sky-sailors from the wooden vessel are directing their fall away from the fighting, and away from the city as a whole.
Attack! (now splitting into Sky and Land, for convenience)
Land
The mage appears amidst the skeletons as he planned, and is able to throw his magnet, but the undead soldiers immediately fire up their flamethrowers and begin closing in on him.
Two tanks explode under the mechanized onslaught, but there are more. One raises its own cannons at the lumbering trash can mech and attacks, aiming for high on the mech's body, hoping to tip it over. The skeletons also contribute, throwing hand grenades at both mechs.
The skeletons following the drifting helicopter will just keep following. They don't get tired or hungry, so they won't stop until their quarry does. However, they'll have help soon.
Sky
Now that the monocopter is over the artillery, it runs into the same problem the airship had before it was destroyed. The anti-aircraft guns near the artillery pieces open fire on it, spraying bullets all around. The undead leader continues his pursuit as well.
The attack from the gyrocopter destroys one triplane. The others break formation and head away, toward the out of control slaver helicopter.
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
Well, Kirk's taken off guard by the shove, but he recovers quickly. He's not sure what he was expecting from that, but this hasn't been the worst it could have gone. Not by far. When Dena brushes past him, he makes sure she's totally past before following. "Right behind you." He's wary in case she turns, but for now this is going just fine.
[Attack - Land]
They weren't really supposed to have flamethrowers.
And if it wasn't for the little mouse Yu's attentiveness, that would have been really bad. As it is, it's only moderately bad.
The mouse's eyes grow a vibrant blue and a transparent dome of red snaps around the mage, dispersing the greater part of the flamethrowers' heat.
This does take a moment, though, a moment enough for the front wave of searing heat to engulf them both and draw out a sharp yell from the mage.
We didn't come here to die, foolish man!
He swats out a patch of fire along the side of his pants and buries the feeling of what is likely to be numerous unpleasant burns in the very immediately near future.
"Just buy me a few seconds."
These few seconds are spent on a sharp incantation and gestures towards the magnet, which has remained floating above him in the air.
Immediately, the magnet warps in on itself and its field grows enormously. Some buttons are torn off the man's clothes. A few coins fly out of his pockets.
More relevantly, perhaps, is that the space covered by this field rapidly spreads beyond him, over and past the undead bearing down with their weapons and any that are nearby.
Got any metal in those flamethrowers? Those guns? Some metal braces on the bones, perhaps?
They're going to get yanked on pretty hard.
[Tellysandra's Manse]
"Ahh," Maiel seems to almost meld into the new dark that comes with the starlit vista. Yes, this would do. A waterfall of tempting jewels falling out of space... Jewels he could never touch. It stirred awe, lust and longing in his petrified old heart.
Maiel will move closer to Telly, if he can! "Yes. This is fine." He searches her silhouette. Maiel has a measure of darkvision. He probably can sense the shapes of Tellysandra as a bright white outline. "I rather like the dark, don't you?"
[Tellysandra's Manse - Night time]
Kirk will have to watch her run then, but unlike before she makes no attempt to be stealthy. She is just heading straight to the stair to the left which she indicated earlier. Her snakes are hissing and slithering about as she moves. Even going so far as biting one another occasionally, which Kirk has never seen them do before. He knows that they hiss and display their fangs when Dena was angered or upset but that was rare and it was never this much.
She's moving awfully fast too, Kirk will likely have a hard time keeping up and in the darkness he can soon hear a scream. That was not Dena's voice.
Moving ahead, he will find a jade "statue" of an imp and it's not soon after until he can hear someone else scream. It looks like they've reached the stairs they are supposed to go up to, but he can't actually see Dena now...
[Tellysandra's Manse]
Starfilled nights are not that dark!
"Darkness has its place." The warlock agrees. "But, I admit that I prefer the light now. I've lived far too long in darkness already, far more impenetrable than this, so I feel it should be enough for an entire lifetime." She turns to him. "But perhaps you had figured me otherwise? Being a fellow 'being of the dark' and all."
Truck incident aftermatch
The destructed truck landed in mid of groundtown. It caused a bit of damage but nothing related to the attack coming later. Two of the creatures survived the incedent and went wild. The people their tried to stop them but with only some sticks and other öoor weapon they couldn't harm them. So the people went old style. Digging a hole trap. The creatures where slow and dump so they easily fall for the trap. The people down where just happy to get them, but befor they are able to investigate they get attacked.
[Attack]
The barricades fall easily. The tanks are still to heavy for the people to deal with so they try to run. Lucky for them the gas is blown away so people can still hide. A few try to ambush the skeletons and shoot them down but they are only a hand full and not organized.
[Skyside ATTACK]
With the distraction in Groundside something in Skyside can start. The trucks without labe seem to appear on the streets more then the last days. It even looks like you find one in every second street especially in the higher parts. Then suddendly something happens inside the trucks. A moaning sound arise and in some a green-yellow gas flows out.
It only needs a minute until the first deformed creatures stumble out of the trucks. The creatures are the same as have alredy beens seen. Deformed people witv either blown up limbs or oversized torso and even missing heads from time to time. 4-6 of those stumble out of every truck. And around two dozen trucks have been spotted (( Number is variable if I took to many please note me))
And every 4th truck releases the gas as well containing another creature hiding in the gas.
They will start to attack peopme around the truck causing a panik to the citizen. The gas is deadly painfull. People breathing it might feel how their whole body is in pain like something attacks them from inside. What is happening?
[Arkants office]
((Will be added later))
[Skyside ATTACK - A Street Corner]
As the general crowd flees from the monsters a stocky female dwarf strides forward, bellowing: COME ON THEN YE COWARDS! YE'LL FIND ME MORE'N A MATCH FOR YOU!
She pulls a short strapped stick from the side of her leather armour, flicking it to the side as a whip of flame sparks into life from the end. Her other hand holds a similar looking stick from which bursts a flaming axe-head, which she flips around aimlessly as the gas begins rolling towards her. She flicks her whip out once or twice, lashing at the gas, trying to either ignite it or illuminate the monsters still hidden within to spot her enemies.
[Skies]
"Would it be unsporting to make the Palmtree bulletproof?"
"I think you know it would."
"Ugh, yeah, yeah. Order a new one. Let's at least make sure it crashes into the artillery bank and goes up in a huge explosion."
"Are you noticing oculus nine-j-"
"A truckful of zombies? They might be better than we thought. Se-"
"Already done."
The monocopter is both agile and well-protected, but there's only so much it can handle and this is too much. As it continues its mission to melt the artillery pieces, it starts to take more and more hits to the wing, and eventually drops out of the sky.
As advertised, the burning hole-filled husk spirals down towards the invading artillery. Maybe they can blow it up all the way while it's still in the air? The blast will be worse if it manages to hit the ground.
As for the gyrocopter, it follows in pursuit of the triplanes (turning away and chasing after something...moving in a straight line? It's like they want to be an easy target). If they wanted to put themselves in danger to lure it away, it's working.
[Skyside]
It actually takes a minute for one of Atorre's minions to emerge to investigate the threat of gas-shrouded truck monsters, since they aren't bothering to activate anyone outside their estate yet. A colorless woman in hover-skates and a gas-mask, wielding a large and very rectangular gun glides out, and is surprised to find the nearest truck only one block away. Ugh. A crowd of fleeing pedestrians is in the way? :smallsigh: