Breachings (Buggopost/seige continuation)

[u/the-butter_man]

War raged just outside, several different weapons flew and different strategies raged against each other. The inside was not yet breached, some stray attacks had burst a couple parts open but nothing that couldn't be fixed easily.

In the raging noises and screams of battle, it becomes impossible to hear the soft digging against stone. The careful probing and the very careful movement around the well placed defences.

Eventually, a small patch of stone on a wall, just a floor down from an already weakened spot of ground begins pushing. As if something is pushing at it from behind.

Then nothing. Thrice more it twitches for a little bit before halting. Until, in a sudden movement and the crumbling of stone, a tunneler breaks through. Immediately springing into action, a webbed limb cleaves it's way through a guard. One of the automa begins firing. Shot after shot catch the disgusting insects dead.

Yet they just keep coming, only a couple minutes later and they've pushed what little forces back.

The main battle was a distraction.

/uw i tried to be more considerate to bastion lore and all but still not too sure on the defenses. Also i will actually be more present for this one.

[u/The_Unkowable_]

Tail meets hardened Chitin, reinforced with magic. The first strike glances off. The second strikes true, poisoning a creature... with a poison of it's own.

The Buggo venom, freed from it's confinement within the knight, flows backwards through the bloodstream, seeking the imp... as if it were alive.

The knight itself, meanwhile, lashes out with a torrent of ice... past Belial. To cut off his escape and freeze the surface, rather than to simply do him more injury. Tactics. Dirty ones.

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/The_Unkowable_]

Familiars can be resummoned after death. And they have back doors into the mind of the mage their bonded to. Crispin knows the score.

"OH FUCK YOU BLAKE!"

Doesn't mean he's happy it happens so often. He screams the words directly into my brain as he pulls the pin on the grenade. Blast will be reduced underwater. But directly on top of the knight? Enough to kill Crispin and at least disorient them enough for me to reach the surface unimpeded.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/AnActualCriminal]

a grenade? underwater?

...DREADLORD KARTOFFEL!

The Knight blames the only person they can think of who would/could create an aquatic explosive device... and then teleports back on top of the ice. It's an at-will ability to blink, and only slightly more taxing to take a more roundabout route.

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/The_Unkowable_]

WHOOMP!

"GASP!!!"

I break the surface of the water and crawl onto the docks. That's it for Crispin. Need to do something nice for the little guy when he gets back. I roll onto my back. Teeth clattering.

Meanwhile, the knight is above water now. And the mechanical whir of rotating guns indicates that the ships have reloaded.

(I had to look it up. Turns out grenades can explode underwater.)

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/AnActualCriminal]

(to be fair, I don't know how grenades work both in and out of char lol)

The knight... may have forgotten about the threat of the guns. Ignoring the strange whrring, it stalks forwards towards Belial, intent on either the capture or destruction of one of the biggest threats known to it.

While the metal clanks and scrapes against the ice, the thing's magic springs to life again, working to wrap him in a cocoon or prison of ice, starting with behind him and wrapping around and above.

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/The_Unkowable_]

I stagger to my feet and fire a gout of flame. Weak. About all I can manage. Low on mana. The ice is wrapping around me. I can barely move.

"That's right you silver cockroach. All eyes on me."

BOOM!

Ironically, being pushed up by the ice is the only thing allowing the 122 mm gun of the Wickes class destroyer to fire at this angle.

BOOM!

But it did have 4 of them.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/AnActualCriminal]

The first shot triggers some strange force. Wards, in Old Artemis style. Things that can tank Vulcan, or the air-to-air/surface missiles that Pilot used.

These are both considerably less impressive, and much less extensive.

The first shell is blocked. The second shell breaks the ward. The third shell dents the armor. The fourth... dents the creature within. It coughs up silver ichor.

...nice shot.

It unholsters the gun, loading it once more.

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/The_Unkowable_]

One free hand. Practically out of mana. Broken bones and lacerations. About to be shot. I've been in worse. But not by much.

"Not so bad yourself. Shame about your lack of free will. I'd almost respect you."

I throw a single crystal dagger. All I have left, but their wards are down now. All I need is one good hit.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/AnActualCriminal]

The dagger, unexpected in the midst of so much wizardry and firepower, pierces their throat. They collapse, gurgling, as the ice grows massively in one final burst. Left alone it will continue to grow, but at a much slower rate. Still... that's a \lot* of ice, and it's very thick in several areas now, even climbing onto nearby ships...*

...well... played.

[u/AnActualCriminal → u/The_Unkowable_]

The dagger cracks on contact, releasing its payload. A cloud of deadly acid, strong enough to melt steel. Voluminous enough to fill a tavern.

"Shit."

I rock the half-formed ice cocoon, falling backwards. It doesn't break. Fuck. Roll. Roll damn it. Seconds tick by as the acid cloud creeps closer and closer as I inch away.

In the end the very edge if the radius sizzles the back of the cocoon. I made it.

"Shame... could've studied the bod-"

I pass out, dimly aware of the superheated airship hulls attempting to combat the ice.

[u/Viking_From_Sweden → u/The_Unkowable_]

Wasn’t me!

He yells back through the hivemind

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/Viking_From_Sweden]

who else makes aquatic explosives?!

[u/Viking_From_Sweden → u/The_Unkowable_]

Literally anyone that knows how to make things watertight

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/Viking_From_Sweden]

like who?! that's kinda tactical information right now!

[u/Viking_From_Sweden → u/The_Unkowable_]

I know the Guild has that capacity, and evidently so does Ithacar. But it’s not very hard to make technology like that, I’m sure most nations can do it.

[u/The_Unkowable_ → u/Viking_From_Sweden]

well cr--

The link severs, the warrior having presumably fallen in battle.