Player Plot: A (skele)ton of Work

[einspine]

Who: [AU] Papyrus and everyone else attending the expedition
When: January 7th
Where: The I.B. Magitek Tower
What: The I.B. Magitek Tower may rest on top of the ruins of Asura's temple. Thus, it's up to our heroes to investigate the tower in hopes of finding the great Eidolon within.
Warnings/Notes: Let's just say it's gonna get... topsy turvy. ;)

Everything is pre-arranged. The flight to the tower. The appropriate waivers. Naturally, everyone who accompanies Papyrus will have to sign to gain access- the Triumvirate was rather adamant about preserving the more confidential secrets within the tower, after all.

But once the appropriate paperwork gets signed away, the tower staff escorts the group toward the elevator. Though with the sheer turnout, it may take a few trips to get everyone down below.

[ooc: Info and sign ups are here!

As a quick clarifying note, here's the gist of how the temple and tower relate.

- Characters can access terminals on specific floors, which will open up stairways to an upside down and photo negative version of the I.B. tower without any people in it. Characters enter on the ceiling, which is now the floor, but must proceed to doorways that are on the floor (now the ceiling).

- The elevator does not function on these flipped floors, but it does function on the regular floors, which is what will allow them to skip around to key areas.

- For the trials, there are only terminals within three floors of the destination (as outlined in the comments).]

Comments

[chatwithdeath]

"I can do that. Frisk, do you mind guiding the hooks until I get back?"

Whatever happened in the previous room happened in the inverted room so it would make more sense to go back and place the crate in there. Even if it didn't, the crate would still be above the door, leaving it able to be opened.

So, she'll return to the other floor with Kanji and Sephiroth, but then walk back into the room to start moving one crate over to the door.

[neverbeamemory]

Before following the main host up into the next room, Sephiroth spent some time investigating the crates in case any of them might be of some insight or use. You never knew where you might find answers in this Temple, after all.

The fight is already well underway when he finally ascended into the fray; deftly dodging out of the obvious line of sight of that Golem, right away. Negative Aura was cast again as it seemed to have assisted in the last battle, followed with Fulminating Oblivion when he got a chance. Afterward, it was time to see exactly what his physical attack power might do here; Sephiroth charged in for a quick flurry of strikes against a flank of the Golem.

[neverbeamemory]

"Let's just hope the reward is worth so much effort." Sephiroth very nearly scoffed as well but he managed to reign that response in; he's all for putting maximum effort into achieving objectives, but there was a limit after which it would become irritating if not downright infuriating.

"We've got a lot of ground to cover, for sure. At least there's an elevator."

[whirluendo_of_puns]

"Why don't we start with those four floors, then? I doubt it'll be as easy as just finding some keys lying around, but I'd rather not have to comb through the entire tower if I can help it."

Because really, who's going to climb a tower that's 100 floors tall? That was just unreasonable.

[mech_and_mutt]

Just give Red a second to catch up-- he'd spent the aftermath of their last battle quickly patching himself up with a little •Magitek Force. Even if he did intentionally make himself a target, those hits would add up if he let them linger.

By the time he's caught up, though, it's already a fray-- a spectacle of fire and darkness. So much for tactics and coordination.

Oh well. Why stop playing it by ear? So long as he could still keep covering Megatron with •Sentinel, it wasn't like they could botch this one too badly. And the arms of his beloved DAHAK were still nice and sharpened, to boot. In conjunction with the other blows, charging in for a mech-mounted •Magitek Sword would hopefully be enough to turn that golem to gravel.

[whirluendo_of_puns]

Uendo has to take a moment as well -- while not as tiring as the real thing, even a partial summoning has a bit of a cooldown. The others are quickly moving on though, and he follows suit as soon as he's able, getting ready for another casting...

...Though his gaze lingers on Sephiroth for a moment. That's funny... He feels like he's seen that dark attack before, but where...?

Nevermind, not important. They have a battle to win. Uendo calls upon Ifrit this time, unleashing Meteor Strike on the second Ice Elemental. It's just too bad he has no earth magic to deal with the rest...

[saint_sami]

"That might help us, but who knows how long it'll last!" Sasami said. Okay, everyone's getting hurt. Protect was nice, but now they'll need something else. She's going to use Medica on everyone right now, hoping that'll give them some breathing room to act better.

[einspine]

The Magitek Armor shudders at Finn's magical assault, but retaliates with its own Magitek Wall. Better think fast! Those robotic swords are mighty pointy. On the positive side, the sudden flash of lightning does briefly draw the turrets' focus away from the party as they try to seek out the source. The other Magitek Armor, in the mean time, sets its sights on Serge as it fires off a laser.

Of course, Frisk's assassinate deals another hefty blow to one of the turrets, even if it's at the cost of drawing the turrets' attention yet again.

Papyrus winces. This seems like another good opportunity to use Blue Attack, though this time around, he aims for the other Magitek armor. It seems the bigger threat- plus, it's kind of interfering with whatever it is Serge is planning.

"FRISK, WHATEVER YOU DO, BE CAREFUL!!! I KNOW YOU'RE VERY SKILLED, BUT WE DO NEED TO TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY. AND I'M INCLINED TO THINK FINN HAS A POINT..."

As it stands, they're fighting on rather awkward terrain.

[einspine]

The fire magic deals devastating damage to the Ice Elementals, though in desperation, they retaliate with their own ice magic. But with the way they're bobbing and twitching, they've certainly seen better days. One more strike ought to finish the job.

The Lightning Elementals launch their own Thundaga spells, aiming for Sephiroth and Red. As for the Golem? It staggers at the physical attacks, but retaliates by swinging its arms outward in a counterattack and then striking the ground to create a rumbling shock wave.

Best to fan out, team! You have an AOE attack on your hands! On the positive side, this golem's at critical health.

On the negative side, it seems a two more tubes are starting to drain, containing two more golems.

tyzias is a crit build don't judge me

[tiredcharmer]

Making like an action game protagonist, Tyzias leaps out of the way of the golem's AoE attack, avoiding the crushing tremor. Moonsetter activates from her swift reflexes, and Tyzias slices into the golem with another Deduction Cutter, scoring three critical hits.

Sunslammer gives Tyzias enough of a speed boost from the crit for her to springboard off the crumbling golem and towards its fresh cohorts. She dives down towards the newly-emerged monster, blades spinning in another Deduction Cutter. Her swords cut deep, getting three more critical hits as she studies the monster.

Now that it's finally her turn, Tyzias lands, then dashes seemingly straight through the monster, weapons outstretched in another Judgment Piercer.

[sassafrisk]

"Don't worry, Paps! I got this." Frisk kicks the corpse of the turret they gutted into the air to intercept one stream of bullets, flashsteps out of the way of another, and backflip away from the final attack. "Jeez! One at a time, turrets! I know I'm attractive, but there's only so much of Frisk to go around!" they joke as they fling two more kunai at each of the turrets in a weak physical combo, aiming specifically for their supports.

They disappear once again, flashstepping to the exact point between two of the turrets, giving each a wave and a bow. As they rev up to shoot at they, they flashstep up to the ceiling, spin, and toss the severed barrel of the first turret they took out at the remaining third turret in a Throw.

[hatejakku]

Ramuh attempted to back away from the attack while Finn fired a Ruin spell at the armor, hoping to deflect and block the blow somehow.

Serge turning to Time Mage didn't escape his notice, nor did the turret pinpointing the other's position. "If you're going to run, you need to go!" There was no cover where they were, but Finn could try to guard the position as best he and Ramuh could. This didn't seem to be going well, even with Frisk's abilities.

[pidgeypidge]

This whole time, Pidge has been mostly quiet, if only because she's been taking it all in. There's just so much to see here, and tech has always been her thing as it is.

Madhuri, Papyrus and Adrien didn't seem to be in any particular need of her assistance, so she's content to hang back at first, taking copious amounts of photos of everything she can see - for future reference. Maybe it's not strictly allowed, but nobody's come to yell at her for it yet, so until that time...

Mostly, though, she's paying close attention to what the Magitek Armors are doing. So much so that she finds herself on Floor 42 before she knows it.

It takes her all of five seconds to discover the prototype situated in the center of the room, and she immediately makes her way over to investigate. The sign is warning enough to keep her from poking around at it, but that doesn't mean she's not leaning in close to examine this or that. For now, she's resisting the siren call of the control panels, but there's no telling how long that's going to last.

[saint_sami]

"I kinda wish I had focused a bit more on Magitek Knight." Sasami said. She figured the Protect spell would wear off soon, so she had room to attack. She used her Wind Mastery to help attack the Magitek Armor. And being a maxed out White Mage, that would hurt.

"If anything, maybe I could have controlled it..."

[peace_through_empathy]

With the golem seemingly handled for the time being by Tyzias, and the ice elementals clearly on the way out the door, they need to clear the field as quickly as possible before the other two finish being deposited. The lightning elementals are currently the most pressing threat, so let's do something about those. As Megatron repositions himself to stay out of the AoE attack he sees that Red has still to act and so casts another [Tabula Rasa] enchanting his Gunblade with the [Earth] element to give him more of an edge against the remaining two strongest enemies.

[mech_and_mutt]

At the rate it was being carved, that Golem was due to crumble to dust any minute now; unfortunately, that meant that Red was staring down two elementals that required the proper magical response-- something that his •Magitek Wall counterattack wouldn't be able to provide, and of an element that he had no way of loading up into his weaponr--

Wait. Did the awesome battle robot just load up his Gunblade with earth magic? Never mind! They were back in business. It just took Red a few clanks of his gunblade against the DAHAK's arm to transfer over some of that magic, and soon enough they had a noticeable coppery sheen running across their seams.

It was far less glamorous than unloading with magical beams and bullets, but •Magitek Sword backed by the power of earth would hopefully suffice for that lonely Lightning element whom the group had yet to engage.

[fixed_destiny]

There's still picture taking going on. For posterity and later review. At least it's not ALL Xehanort is doing, who is very dubious about relying on a flying skateboard thing; he's looking for anything ELSE that might be useful to reach the .. ceiling? Floor? A ladder would be nice but he'll make do with a stack of boxes if he can find them.

"Elevators aren't particularly sneaky. Besides, if you make a lot of noise and get attention right now, nothing might jump out at us later." Because it'll be too busy trying to murder them right here and now instead of later on.

There are, as ever, flaws in his logic.

[acapriciousreaper]

The remaining ice elementals are, at least, not likely to cause much of a problem. With his cloak on he barely even notices the chill of their attacks, and he retaliates with an [Area Firaga], aiming to kill the remaining ice elementals and perhaps distract the others into the bargain.

[timecrash]

Serge takes a deep breath, ducking the turret's attack with the aid of [Prescience]- and makes a break for it. He's probably attracting all sorts of unwanted attention as he barges towards the switch, but that's okay, probably.

Even if he takes a massive amount of hurt from this stunt, that's alright, because he can mitigate that. He's charging for the control panel as fast as he can, zigzagging across the floor and slapping his fist on the big button! There's a big button, right? There's always a big button. If there isn't a big button, that would mean Serge has just done something extremely stupid for no reason.

[whirluendo_of_puns]

Ah, damn. More Golems? Uendo won't be able to do much about those at all. Maybe he should switch to a support Job soon...

For now he's going to try to help Red get rid of the lightning elementals -- though with his summoning on cooldown, all he can do is fire off a Ruin spell at one of them. Still, it's better than nothing.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

Richard heaves out a sigh, then looks at his spear. He didn't have any idea what the hell to really do. He could feel the magic melt off of his body and exhaustion start to sink in. There were golems ready to take him on. He didn't think he could muscle them over.

... Unless.

Richard did the unthinkable. He took off his coat.

Dragoon schools tended to let the student decide just how their teachings are implemented. Some people had a talent for magic. Richard did not. Richard did, however, have a talent for devices. And he was an amateur electrician, after all. So he decided to stick batteries on his person connected to some muscle convulsants. Whenever he needed a little extra strength, he used the convulsion harness to essentially bypass the part of his brain that regulates his ability to protect his own fibers from heavy movement to temporarily disable.

Which is how his Spirit Charge worked. He essentially made himself go into a state of hysterical strength and dealt with the consequences later. Only now, he had to punch out golems two times his size and made of rock.

So he charged his batteries with the magic from the one spell he actually managed to work out. Sparks sputtered off the glowing features on his body.

And then he dove. One, huge, [Chaos Thrust]

[einspine]

The combined power of the party was enough to send the new golems crumbling and demolish the remaining elementals. Now only a pile of runes and pebbles remained of their foes. A clear path lay wide open to the party...

But it wouldn't last long, for they'd soon find the next floor absolutely crawling with Skeletons and Zombies. On their own? Not a problem. But they approached in a mob of rattling bones and putrid flesh. A miniature army of the undead, poised to strike. And potentially devour their brains, if not hit the party with the ever unpleasant zombie status.

On the positive side, only one floor remained after this.

[neverbeamemory]

"So if it's not the elevator-"

There is no point trying to get to it if it doesn't work- Sephiroth turns to the nearest rack of server-like machinery to inspect it. He's no tech-genius for sure, but he knew enough to know that these types of machines -at least from what he remembered- were used mainly to store data.

Interfacing with said data, whatever it might be in this mirrored room, could be a problem though- unless there was something more obvious uncovered in his inspecting.

[neverbeamemory]

All the powers through the Jobs here and still no one can climb a rope?

He'll keep that immediate thought to himself, though certainly didn't help his overall opinion of those other offworlders who'd been brought here. Still, it's not like this puzzle was going to solve itself, or only with his own effort.

"Sure," He answered Kanji, but then quickly followed with another question. "We need to think a little farther ahead though; how we're to coordinate the next floor if the control for all three is all from here?"

For all he knew, it might not be, but it's worth putting it out there. In the meantime, whichever hook Kenji moves first, Sephiroth will drag a crate out to meet it and try to attach the hook in such a way that it will lift and stay flat on top. The plan being platforms to easily lead to the door.

[neverbeamemory]

Even with the boost that Illusionist gave in terms of magical defense, Thundaga being a higher-tier magic spell still damaged more than Sephiroth would like. It paralyzed him in place at the same time, so that he barely had a second before the ground slam from the first Golem had smashed into the ground. Fortunately, he'd managed to leap back in time but did stumble from the tremor all the same.

It stung deeply that everyone else involved was still clearly more powerful than him despite having picked up a Job that felt so powerful, but there's no point brooding on that now.

Next floor; light AOE's would be the medicine for sure.

Not his forte again, but quickly Sephiroth made sure to position himself as far back, but more to the side of the group, throwing out Negative Aura once more. Then started to charge up Hell Judgment; taking a steadying breath as all that dark energy was summoned. His aim was to focus that powerful beam of dark energy right across the front line of the mob of undead as they approached.