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

[whirluendo_of_puns]

Oh, lovely. And here Uendo was hoping he'd get to do all the safe, non-violent puzzle parts. Okay. He can't help but flinch at the fire spells being thrown around, but at least the enemy's weakness is easy to guess and he's more than adequately equipped to exploit it.

"Hey, how about you all chill?" A flourish of his staff, and a portal opens to allow an Eidolon's partial form through. "Let's go, Shiva!"

Shiva unleashes Heavenly Strike on one of the elementals attacking Red, landing three ice strikes for moderate damage. Between the elemental weakness and Uendo's high magical power, this should do nicely.

Physical Power: E -> D
Magical Power: S -> SS
Attack Potency: S
Healing Potency: C
Physical Defense: C
Magical Defense: A
Speed: D -> C

Kalki's Gift: Buffs on self are 50% more effective
Glacier Cloak equipped: Magical Power Rank +1, ice resistance

[neverbeamemory]

Fire Elementals in what seemed to be specimen tubes?

Sephiroth was deeply frowning even before they proceeded onto the inverse-Floor 74, playing with the idea of just unleashing Hell Judgement to nuke the lot and completely avoid what he guessed might happen. But no, he'd signed the waiver too even if he hadn't agreed much with the contents.

At least he was ready by the time the Elementals started breaking out of their containment. Negative Aura went out almost immediately as soon as Sephiroth found himself a useful position in the room, hopefully catching as many targets as it could reach. Drawing his standard-katana, Sephiroth spread himself into a defensive stance; sure he didn't have Swordmaster available on this mission, but he knew well enough that Calamity Knight more than made up for the potency where he might need it if he was pressed into an attack.

physical power: A
magical power: A
attack potency: A
healing potency: C
physical defense: B
magical defense: B -> A (Illusionist passive)
speed: D

[peace_through_empathy]

Tyzias and Red have taken some hits (Red on Megatron's behalf, even) but neither of them look bad enough to worry about. Which means he can focus on bolstering their offense.

His Scholar's tome flips itself to a different page as Megatron focuses his energies on Richard with a [Tabula Rasa] to give his spear [ice damage] The fire elementals surely won't like that.

[mech_and_mutt]

So they decided to dogpile their attacks on him after all. Red found himself breaking into a grin in spite of the singes and heat-marks that quickly built up against his armor-- and which left the seams of the mech aglow with magic when they struck.

Perfect.

The overcharge in the DAHAK's frame soon shunted itself out from the wrists, the narrow metal of its arms taking on a particularly keen shimmer; he dashed ahead, a whirling •Magitek Wall of blades set upon the three that sent their fire his way. His riposte concluded, he was primed for his retaliation--

--and he was more than happy to follow suit with the others and bombard all four of their foes with an ice-element •Magitek Beam for good measure, finally skidding back to a stop in his prior position before Megatron. Magitek solutions to Magitek problems, right?

[defenestraighttomyheart]

As soon as the chill of winter hit the tip of his spear, Richard was off. His heels exploded in a bright blue flash of light. The only sound that came from him from then on was the snap of his heels bounding off into the room and the clatter of his trench coat belt knocking against concrete as he shot across the room in an arc, bounding off of wall furthest away from the group and firing through the elementals tip-first.

The [Crescent Moon] was visible between three of them, a brief flash of arcing light, before the severity of the blow became evident.

He might have also burnt his elbow a little taking an extra little swing at the one that hurt Tyzias.

Dragon Heart applied! x2 Damage!
Ice Element applied!

[einspine]

With the addition of Uendo's summon skills, the elemental affiliation to Richard's spear, Red's Magitek attacks, and the overall fury of the party, the elementals soon collapsed into piles of lifeless, icy runes. As a reward for their efforts, the hooks unraveled from their spools, rising from the perspective of the fighters to allow the group a chance to reach the next floor more readily.

They could take some time to heal before moving on and even investigate the crates if they so desired. Otherwise, the next floor awaited.

Upon arriving, they would find more tubes of draining fluids, but where before the encounters consisted solely of elementals, a Golem now joined the fray. What's more, the elementals are now split between Ice and Lightning. Two of each kind.

Be careful, heroes!

[peace_through_empathy]

Megatron surveys the enemies before them. This seems like more of a challenge, and a greater degree of tactical planning and coordination will be called for. The elementals don't present too much of an issue, but the golem is a wrinkle they can ill afford. They need more information.

Megatron's tome opens and the pages flip to the one he's looking for; he casts [Great Libra] on the construct to learn all relevant information while dropping it's defense by 3%.

"Let's see what we're up against..."

[acapriciousreaper]

Kuja is mildly late to the party- but he maintains that it's better to be late than not to arrive at all. He announces his presence by casting [Firaga] at one of the Ice Elementals. "So sorry I'm late and- oh look, I've missed the first course. Pity. I don't suppose we have anyone capable of beating a golem to death? I could manage of course, but it'd be terribly boring to sit around chipping away at a magic-resistant construct for the next hour."




Class: Black Mage
physical power: D
magical power: SS
attack potency: A
healing potency: E
physical defense: C
magical defense: A
speed: C

Support Ability: Glide
Equipment worn: Luxuriously-Lined Parka: +1 physical defense, Resistance (Ice)

[tiredcharmer]

"Oh c- ass globes damn rock," Tyzias mutters darkly under her breath as the monsters charge. "You know, all she I wanted to do today was stay home, study a little bit, maybe do some training. But noooooo. I'm a Hero of Light and have to save the world or some hornbeastshit. Ugh." There's a faint hint of mirth to her tone, although it's almost entirely concealed by genuine irritation.

It was unfair, really. She wasn't cut out to be a hero. She was a law nerd, not a protagonist from all that Eastern Alternian Media Tegiri apparently subsisted off of. Continuing to grumble, Tyzias draws her blades and leaps at the golem.

Despite professing to be a terrible fit for a hero, Tyzias is surprisingly competent with her swords. She studies the monster, and begins to dart around it, blades slicing through the air with brutal, precise efficiency in a four-hit Deduction Cutter combo. One of her swords cuts particularly deep with a critical hit, and Sunslammer activates, giving Tyzias enough momentum to jump onto the golem's back and continue to hack into it with another Deduction Cutter. Tyzias scores two more critical hits before she backflips away.

[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.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[peace_through_empathy]

Normally, Megatron tries to avoid direct violence whenever possible. Healing and support, yes. Directing the flow of a battle, yes. These are things he feels comfortable doing. But he survived-thrived-on violence, on anger, and hatred for so long that even though he's more relaxed now in his vow of pacifism, it's still not something he likes to engage in. His indulging in violence led to far too much death and destruction, and now, as a medic, an Autobot and the leader of the Anti-Vocationist League, it's not something he wishes to continue to do if at all possible.

But these creatures are already dead. Putting them down is a kindness, a grim necessity in the face of this perversion of life. So Megatron feels no shame in charging up a [Shadow Flare] and aiming it at the approaching horde of undead. He doesn't aim for any specific abomination; but the group is large enough that he's guaranteed a hit regardless.

[tiredcharmer]

Tyzias tilts her head back and unleashing a gut-deep frustrated moan as she sees the undead horde assembled before her. "This is gonna be such a fuckin' chooooooore," she groans. Even if the monsters wouldn't take much effort to take down individually, it's still going to be a massive pain to clear out the entire room. Sighing dramatically, Tyzias leaps into the fray, slicing and dicing into one of the skeletons with a Deduction Cutter, scoring one critical hit, and using the burst of energy provided by Sunslammer she quickly moves on to another skeleton, attacking it with Deduction Cutter once more and scoring two more critical hits.

[acapriciousreaper]

Kuja almost smiles. Here, here is what a soldier might call a 'target-rich environment'. As Sephiroth and Megatron add their attempts to control the crowd, admirable though they might be- he wonders- Is there really going to be an opportunity to use it better than this one?

Time to show the fruits of all that labor. He rises into the air, azure fire gathering, swirling, forming into orbs of raw magic that rise into the air- and then explode, bathing the rabble in a thousand bolts of light.

He's left breathless, at the end of it, touching back to the floor and having to adjust his hair. It'd always been a rush like nothing else, casting [Ultima]. "Minor time-saving measure. Goodness, it's been too long since I've used that spell."

[einspine]

Wow, okay. There was no way those undead would have a chance, especially once Kuja unleashed his Ultima. With so much power, those foes crumble to ashes, leaving a clear path to the final room. Well played. Very well played.

Best enjoy the victory while it lasts, though, for as they make their way to the final floor, they'll definitely see a chest. Unfortunately, said chest rests behind a snarling Chimera. It sniffs the air as its challengers arrive...

That's the last warning before it charges forth. Better prepare for a brutal battle, folks! Unlike the previous fights, this is a foe with strong magic and physical defenses and a nasty bite to match.