Travis Gardin
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Chapter 10: Medieval Times
🕑 Added 2024-09-24 02:00:01 +0000 UTC6/21
Washington D.C.
4:30 PM
We're gathered in a circle talking fervently about the new rules we could introduce. Monsters can't kill people? People killed by the Dracosys are revived? Cancer is cured? Everyone forgets the fourth and fifth Indiana Jones movies exist? The possibilities are endless.
Unfortunately our closest thing to an expert on the Dracosys rules and regulations is Mercy, and she's only been scrubbing through the rules file for a couple of days.
“If it benefits just some people but screws over others, it'll get denied,” Madeline says.
Mercy is looking closely at the fine print at the bottom of the magical scroll. “The system can veto the rule if it conflicts with a higher priority rule, and these new rules will be bottom priority.”
“This sounds like a job for our legislative body,” Henry, future political leader, says.
Scarlett says, “sounds like we need some lawyers.”
I chide them both and say, “no, no, what we need are rules lawyers. RPG nerds. People like me who love breaking systems in interesting ways.” I add conviction to my voice. “And trust me, we are going to break the system.”
The group looks at me then, some not believing, others with measured skepticism, and Jose with a smirk. He watched my tabletop RPG characters break several tabletop game systems that Brian ran for us during our Get! lunches.
I take the scrolls and hand them to Madeline for safe keeping. I know her Toughness and Constitution are higher than mine, so she's not likely to keel over. Plus, it looks good to the troops for the leader to entrust important items to others, instead of hoarding them. Wait, is that my 45 Wisdom kicking in? Sweet!
We head over to the exit on the far side of the cavern. It's a narrow stone staircase spiraling down, with torches set into the wall for lighting.
“Dude, we heading into the past?” Parker asks from behind me.
I'm leading the way again. I just can't tell others to go in ahead of me when I know that defensively I'm probably the team's best. I respond back, “eh, either that or a Medieval Times.”
Quins pipes up, “oh that was a laugh, the Medieval Times thing.” I'd taken the whole company to the restaurant/jousting show last week. We had a great time. “You yanks got any other time travel show restaurants to visit? I'd be in for a viking show.”
We've climbed down a few dozen steps and I hear something ahead. Squawking? Like birds. I tell everyone to shush and I creep down to the 8th floor.
The stairs open up to a tall, narrow cavern, possibly a very deep ravine, depending on your perspective. The stairs land on a red stone walkway which curves around the left wall and heads down. There are dozens of walkways just like it built into the steep ravine walls. Pueblo style homes are carved into the walls all over, some with lit fires inside shedding orange light through small open windows and large round doorways.
Here and there I can see the lizard men we're inevitably going to fight. They're as tall as Jose but twice as wide. Each carries weapons. Spears, javelins, a bow and arrow. Most carry more than one weapon. They also are wearing US revolutionary army uniform coats. You know, those blue coats with red stripes down the front and big gold buttons. Their heads and eyes are twitchy, never looking in the same place for more than a second.
Lizard Minute Man. Tier 4. These guys are on guard for a red coat invasion. Or any invasion. Your invasion, to be specific. Don't let the old fashioned weapons fool you. They've got Ki techniques just like you do to amp their attacks up.
Possible loot: their equipment, lizard man heart, George Washington's Hat.
Some of them are squawking at each other in some harsh conversation. A bigger lizard man wearing a tri-corner hat pushes a smaller one down, then kicks the smaller one off the side of the walkway. He(?) falls. I lose sight of the poor sap and don't hear the sound of him hitting the ground until 5 seconds later. I do the math quickly and come to the fall being around 500 feet. Yeah, so we'll have to watch out for that.
I reconvene with the team. “So lots of lizardmen, some with ranged attacks, some melee, lots of close quarters fighting. Ideas?”
Scarlett is first to speak up. “Let me send Jeff to scout the area.” She looks at the white falcon perched on her narrow shoulder. The bird is taller than her head so it looks like the bird is in charge.
“He gonna be okay?” I ask. There’s a reason I don't have Biscuits here, because I’m afraid of losing the little cat. Mercy would kill me if that happened.
Scarlett looks at me like I’m stupid. “Yeah, of course, no big deal.” And with that we make room for her to come down the stairs and the bird takes off down the ravine. Scarlett’s eyes glow white as she takes on Jeff’s vision.
Within about ten seconds we hear squawking and angry lizard shouts. There’s a clatter of arrows and javelins being launched and hitting stone, followed by the high pitched PIIING of Jeff’s laser eyes, followed by the sounds of more lizard yells. Then a few more seconds of probable fighting, then a bird screech, then Scarlett’s eyes go back to normal. “Okay, Jeff died,” she says without a care.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” I put my hand on her shoulder to console her. As a fellow Caller, I know how attached you can get to your familiar.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “You know he’ll be back in ten minutes, right?” My enhanced Wisdom tells me that she thinks I’m an idiot.
Ah. So familiars respawn. That makes sense. Ahhhhh. So I’ve been worried about Biscuits J. Cannonball Jr. dying when really it’s just an inconvenience for the Caller. Okay. “Pft, yeah, of course I know that!” Apparently Wisdom does not make you better at lying.
Scarlett uses the Minimap technique and makes a 3D hologram of the entire ravine. Everyone gathers around her and she points out alcoves, enemy locations and routes. The path splits off in a couple of places and we form into 4 teams to sweep the floor. Since we’re doing breech and clears into lizardman homes and...Cafes? Yeah, that’s what she said that room was. Right, so we’re going SWAT not ninjas today.
Quins, Jose and Scarlett are hanging back up at our initial landing, which overlooks most of the ravine. They’ll provide fire support. Madeline is taking Kailani and Rutger, I’ve got Mercy and Henry Gallup has Cappy and Parker with him. We wait ten minutes so Jeff pops back in a cloud of white feathers, and Mercy has to change into her Oni Princess Kaguya costume since the White Hat Warlock outfit is pretty much “burned out” for the day.
Oni Princess Kaguya is an anime that takes the japanese fable of Kaguya, a beautiful woman who comes from the moon in a bamboo rocket, and turns it on its head. Instead of being a starcrossed romantic interest for the farmer who finds her, this Kaguya is an Oni, or japanese ogre. That means she’s got two sharp horns and is hella strong. In the anime she gets into fights with other genre-bent fairy tale characters, and she uses a naginata and bamboo powers. The bamboo powers let her basically shoot bamboo spears and walls up out of any surface, which makes the character, and thus Mercy’s costume, quite versatile. Also, it’s a green and white kimono with a super short skirt so I’m always happy to see her in it.
...High Wisdom does not make me less distracted by my girlfriend in a super short skirt. God I just want to-
“Jun Kyung Han? Hello?” Madeline waves a hand in front of my face to break me and both my sub-minds out of thinking very dirty thoughts.
“Right, right. Fighting and death. Atmos Mind!” I let the neon pink of Atmos storm energy whip around my arms and center in my fingertips, which then glow pink. I cast Squall Steps and then walk right off the ledge, where I then float. “Let's go,” I say, and fly alongside the pathway, leaving room for others on the eight foot wide ledge.
Jose and Quins open fire and take out a couple of lizard men before the call goes out to the others and they take cover from our snipers. Quins fires a few more shots that glow red and emit a high pitched whirring sound. From the reptile screeches below, I'm guessing those were homing shots. Jose just rolls his eyes at that.
Madeline is first up, running alongside me. I hear the twang of bows below and have enough Reflexes and Agility to swiftly slide out of the sky and onto the platform. Madeline just shakes her head at me.
We barrel down the path until it splits into a path going forward and another going down. We don't want to be flanked so we're each taking a path. Madeline sprints forward as the wall curves to the right and I lose sight of her. Kailani and Rutger trail behind her. The big woman and the scrawny they/them both having trouble keeping up with their team leader.
I hop down the stairs to another landing and am greeted by two lizard folk. One charges with a spear, the other winds back with a javelin. I snatch the spear right past the head, stopping the front guy's charge. I know Mercy is behind me, so I can't let that javelin past me either. I snap off the spear head and use the flat of the blade to swat the javelin out of the air as it sails by my head. Then Mercy's naginata comes in from my left and cuts across the lizard man's left arm and chest. Green blood trickles from the wound but he doesn't look too fazed by the slash. I charge neon pink storm energy into my fist and punch him in the jaw with Typhoon Blow.
Typhoon Blow
Exotic
The answer is punch. It doesn’t matter what the question was. Has a 33% chance to stun foes.
Cost: 2.5 Arcana Points
Proficiency: 333%
The lizard reels back and drops to a knee but that just opens up room for the javelin guy to rapid fire two of his tiny spears at us, this time charged with golden Ki energy. Mercy slams her foot down and a wall of bamboo shoots up and I hear the loud THOCK THOCK of javelins into wood. A split second later the golden energy of those projectiles explodes, creating two foot holes in the wall. Shit!
“Do NOT get hit with the javelins!” I cry out so that everyone can hear me. “They can explode!”
My stunned lizard friend recovers and then reaches through the hole in the wall to grab at me. That's when Mercy decides to retract the wall back into the floor. The wall falls and the lizard man goes with it, his arm first dragged down, then severed. He screeches in my face and I make a finger gun. I fire two Storm Shots right in his open mouth and the spiraling bullets blast out the back of his head. The javelin guy in the back has charged up another javelin but Mercy lunges past me and performs another stomp, this time sending sharpened bamboo spears diagonally forward at the liz man. The pointy tips don't bite in deep, but they push the target up off his feet and fling him back, off the ledge and into the abyss below. Five seconds later I hear a splat, but by then we've already moved on to the next encounter.
I turn down a short bridge across the gap, like we discussed, and now I'm on the left side of the ravine. I can see my team now, both above me and at my level on the right side of the ravine. The further in we go the wider the gap between the sides. Right now it's about 15 feet, but as we move forward and down, the gap widens to 45 feet.
A lizard man with a powdered wig to go with his revolutionary war uniform pops out of a cave wall dwelling and I slam him in the gut with a Typhoon Blow. He doesn't get stunned and instead reaches around me to rake his claws across my back. I've got a hell of a lot of Toughness to resist damage, but the claws of this beast dig in and I can feel blood drip from the wound. Mercy grabs one of the clawed hands, pulling it out of my back and punches with Oni strength. I hear bones crack and I'm pretty sure it's the lizard man because he lets me go and takes a step back. That's all the space I need and send two Typhoon jabs to his face and then try something. I use an axe kick, my foot flying up into his jaw, and try combining it with Typhoon Blow and sure enough, my kick gets coated in Atmos energy and slams into the lizard with enough force to crack his jaw in half, his mouth falling open in a broken, nightmarish smile. I step back as Mercy moves forward and slashes the guy three times with her naginata. He drops.
I hear shotgun fire, rifle shots, the twang of a bow, the PIII of a hawk's laser eyes. The sounds of our battle echo through the ravine, coming back to us and overlaying more combat noise in a confusing cacophony of war.
This isn't the cave. I'm past that. I need to keep moving forward.
Mercy takes the lead as the ravine curves. She pushes another lizard man off the ledge, then gets into a spear versus naginata pole arm battle with another reptile. I stand up straight so I can shoot over her head and fire five Storm Shots into the lizard. The small bullets aren't as effective when they're not hitting a weak spot, but they throw off the enemy long enough for Mercy to spin his spear away and land a heavy overhead chop to finish the job. We move on.
We become a whirlwind of melee death. The platforms above and below mostly block us from our sniper support, but occasionally we come up to a lizard man only for him to be hit by a lightning bolt round or explosive arrow. We also can see the other teams across the ravine, and I sometimes stop and take pot shots at enemies they're fighting, and vice versa.
I especially watch the team of Henry Gallup, Cappy Williams and Parker McCall. Henry has some support abilities from his classes, and I can see a ring of blue surrounding him, indicating that every ally within 15 feet of him gets bonuses. But other than that, he's just got his shotgun, and I can tell bullets aren't great against these enemies. Cappy is extremely agile, and she jumps from one side of the ravine to the other with alarming ease, using the distance to flank and get clean shots with her FN P90. With them is Parker, and she's got our standard issue MK 16 SCAR L rifle. She can usually move quickly with some sliding technique, but in these cramped quarters she's playing it safe and moving slow with Henry. What she does though, is occasionally fire some Ki enhanced three-round bursts. Usually Ki techniques are limited to single attacks, so either she's got a special technique that allows her to fire bursts or she's very good at controlling her attacks. I'll have to ask her later.
We move forward and down. We take down lizard man after lizard man, each one not sticking their head out until we're right up on their hiding spot. I take a spear to the gut and have to back off and heal. Mercy moves ahead and gets clipped by one of the bow and arrow lizards. That, of course, pisses me off and I fly around the side and lay into that one with six rapid blows that pulverize the creature's offending arm. It bites down into my shoulder as I pummel it and Mercy's naginata glows and then spears straight through the top of the monster's head, displaying power I haven't seen from her before.
I turn to look at her. She flicks the naginata to the side to get the blood off it. She's determined. She's in the zone. She's so fucking cool. I use Healing Palm and my shoulder recovers. We both take a deep breath and then continue down the stairs ahead, to more lizards and more fighting and more carnage.
