Slowing this patchwork creation with one strike would be too easy. I'll have to do so piece by piece. Xeno thinks to himself.
Sprinting to his left to get an angle past the slowed shield, Xeno sends a wave of entropic energy at the crossbow growths on it's shoulder.
--
I'll use the +1 from the slowed shield.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8-2 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time), and Area (-2 dmg) to try to slow/kill the crossboskels on the shoulder.
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: 'You feel drained, take -1 ongoing to INT until you have a few minutes to clear your head.’
Ajax, Xeno, your input has been accepted and is being processed by our crack team of resolution experts, but for purposes of syncing things up I'm waiting on Glory's decision before I give you feedback.
Full damage sounds pretty ominous, but Glory's not the type to heroically swing up somewhere dangerous, and then swing right back down again.
Into the breach (so to speak) it is. It'll be a hell of a story if he survives.
0
Options
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
The Conqueror clasps a lengthy piece of scaffold in one gauntlet while the other pops open, allowing Koba to scribe what must have been the logographic callicoding necessary. She adds an extra flourish to the script, roughly equating to 'pain-in-the-neck', before hucking it without ceremony.
--
That was only 5 damage, since I still have the 1 armour from the suit.
In case that wasn't clear I'm hoping to add junk that'll limit the head's movement, give it a blind spot.
(Bah. Sorry for the lack of responses, this week has been quite busy at work and I've been rather blasted of an evening. I'll see what I can do about getting a response in Friday night. This shouldn't become a usual thing.)
So, Glory. You've decided to dive headfirst into a gaping skeletal maw.
Well, the plus side is that in life and also undeath, the macer wasn't the sort of person to, like, file their teeth to act all tough.
The minus side is that there's only so much give when you're being pancaked between two large blunt surfaces.
Geth, roll 2d8k1-1 for giant skeleton bite.
You manage to scramble along the jawbone and balance yourself at a back corner, about where a human's wisdom teeth would be. Necromantic forces are keeping this jaw attached, but there's nothing giving it a bottom, and the patchwork armor covering the skeleton's chest spreads out beneath you like a storybook sky.
Crucially, however, there's also nothing giving it a top, so you could make it up into the nasal cavity with a big enough jump, and when you look up there for some relief from looking down, you can see those odd sparks that you also saw in the skeleton's eyesockets, shining like ice-blue stars.
In a... less storybook sky?
It would seem despite my best efforts you are still some sort of demented metaphorical bird and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
So what are you doing?
---
Koba, couple things. First, whatever marks you mark on a thing you've still got to get it inside the fusion circle, which was back in the tunnel you all ran out of. You really can't copy someone else's fusion circle on this kind of timescale.
Also there's a large lashing bone-tail kind of sweeping around on the floor between you and the fusion circle.
You can still Volley with the thing you just finished making. You'll lose it afterwards so you can't mark ammo on a 7-9, but if you wanted to risk it you could choose to... "deal less damage"? This isn't actually a damage roll on the skeleton, I'm just assessing your accuracy, and on no "damage dealt" you'll be too far off the mark. If you attract attention on a 7-9 you will hit your mark, no question.
Anyway, you've got to scramble for a clear shot, so here's your choice: you can have a good line on the tunnel, but you're also grouped up with Xeno and Ajax for purposes of the doom that's going to rain down upon you. Or you can have got clear of Xeno and Ajax, but your line on the tunnel is poor and you'll roll to Volley with disadvantage.
---
Ajax, you're pretty much stuck right in front of this thing, because right in front of this thing is where you've got to teach it an important less about shields.
Specifically, shields are shit if you can't hold onto them.
You grab the bottom point of the force-shield. Or, you know, two hands, both sides, just grab. Damn thing is as slick as a greased pig but right now you don't particularly care.
And then you lean in and twist.
About ten feet up there's a sound like an industrial can opener as the metal straps holding a vambrace around a muscly servitor arm twist and snap. Then a sound like eight pounds of scrap metal hitting the ground as eight pounds of scrap metal hits the ground.
The bottom point of the shield flickers and dies. Now the whole thing looks kind of like a giant masquerade mask, two diamonds to cover the eyes and a nose hole.
A nose-hole with a lashing bone tail somewhere behind it, let's not forget. But the opening's wide enough to run through.
---
Xeno, you can get the skelXbows just fine from where you are right now. The force-shield's top was crenellated to let them shoot crossbows down at you, and when you aim at adventurers the adventurers aim also at you. In fact if you tried to circle around you'd have to get completely clear of the shield to have a good shot.
You could stay where you are and land that hit, and let them prepare to return fire, but slowly, slowly, reaching out to cock the crossbow and slot the bolt. Once that thing flies it won't be part of a skelXbow anymore and be back in normal time, but you (possibly) and Ajax and also possibly Koba should be able to dodge all of that no sweat. ...well, on an otherwise-featureless white plain, anyway.
You could also choose to treat your roll as a Defy Danger to scatter clear of Ajax, if you'd rather. You'd make it around dodging crossbow fire just fine, and you'd be clear of this impending nastiness:
---
The giant skeleton drives its force-baton into the stone chamber floor, and you can feel the impact. Even Glory, though it's more a fourth-hand thing through a bunch of connected bones. The stone yields and crumbles around it like new spring soil.
With a massive underhanded sweep it sends the baton plowing in the rough direction of Ajax, and anyone who's chosen to stay in that general vicinity.
The overall arc is going to spray stone like shrapnel in the general direction of the 6:00 wall - the work surface itself will be largely undisturbed. Far be it from me to tell you your business, but I don't think you want to get in its way.
---
So, to sum up:
Glory: After pain and some frantic roof-running, you're ready to get up this thing's nose from the inside. Or, y'know, something else if you can think of it.
Ajax: You compromised the force-shield. You're right in front of the giant skeleton and it's decided you're worth paying attention to. What now?
Xeno: You can stay where you are and slow down the crossbows, or somehow find the strength to circle around the shield (bringing yourself near the edge of the work floor) and set up for your next move.
Koba: You can face the onrushing force with Ajax and have a clear shot with your screw-up shard, or get clear of him but have a much worse angle.
In a flash of insight Xeno saw two possible futures, and chose to dodge the sweep of the baton rather than slow the crossbowmen. The Wonderworker was too weakened to risk getting struck by it.
The group needed some kind of look into this monstrosity's weaknesses, God help them if there were none.
Xeno studied the creature, tracing the tangled threads of destiny that held it's patchwork existence together. He was looking for the master cord to cut, to unravel it at the seams.
***
I'll use my previous roll to Defy Danger instead.
Geth roll 2d6+1 to Investigate the Superskeleton.
Main Question: What here is useful or valuable to me?
Xeno, I'm going to hand this and the +1 over to Koba, who you communicate it to by less-than-obvious methods. Fill us in on how while I fill you in on this.
Well, I mean, I could give you the +1, but the thing is in order to make use of it you'd need to hack the logogram, and in order to do that you'd need to know about logograms, and regardless of how much or little you actually do (give us a dipstick reading on that, too, if you don't mind) you have messed about with time entirely too much and the +int you'd be rolling to do so is in the tank. At times like these you have trouble separating what is from what might be.
You can still, however, make an amazing intuitive jump and work out what can't be.
So here's what can't be. The lesser blue skels and servitors are inside the gigaskel in their entirety. The gigaskel, however, does not contain the original macer in its entirety. There was a bit of it that just could not fit. You... don't exactly know what that bit was, but you or an interested third party could certainly use that information to scare it up out of the darkness and rubble in the tunnel with a quickness.
So what happens when you take a bit that can't fit into a gestalt, mark it with the (in)appropriate runes and inscriptions, and try and force it into there anyway?
Rhetorical question, you've got no readily apparent clue, but surely if that part helped, it would be in there already.
Koba, you may, if you'd rather, interpret your decision to stand clear of the incoming force baton plow/face to judgement, to give you disadvantage/normal odds, respectively, to jet your ownself into the tunnel to root around for the missing piece.
It's always the big ones who forget something big. The shield it was so desperately clinging to was now only half as effective, and the opening it allowed was right in front of him. Given the large baton that was now swinging his direction, it was pretty obvious that onwards (and upwards?) was the best option. He hadn't gone right at the thing to turn tail and run away, now was the time to press his advantage.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Defy Danger (running right at it's face!)
The thought of the logogramic potential of the extra Macer bit would have been confusing to Xeno before, but now it causes a spike of pain in his temple. He must get it out, get it to Koba where it can do some good. Instinctively, the Wonderworker grabs the thought from his temple and pulls it from his head like a long white thread. With a deft movement he ties the thread to Koba’s future; she’ll receive the vision herself now in a moment. Hopefully the view from Xeno’s mind isn’t too jarring for her.
While Xeno is a student of the Arcane, it’s to better understand and control the power that he already wields, as opposed to studying the Arcane to gain power. So while Xeno wouldn’t really be capable of creating or deciphering a logogram without considerable time and effort, he would be able to modify a logogram in beneficial ways thanks to his perception of alternate timelines and causality.
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
About to know why, Koba joins Ajax in his forward momentum and through the shower of rubble, trusting to the Conqueror's tenacity. Soon she'll remember why and the search for the missing macer parts will begin.
--
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Defy Danger (Con)
I can do this all day because the Conqueror is a goddamn trans-styxian invasion suit.
I really don't want to because the longer this foe is standing the more damage it'll do to my fellows.
Glory pats himself, checking to make sure he's all there, while balancing on a giant's jawbone. The darkness inside the skeleton's head makes the glow from the sparks above quite alluring, and, the more he watches them, the more drawn he feels.
He surveys the skull's interior, hefting his trusty clockwork wire in one hand, looking for ways up. He starts to chuckle to himself, growing more confident.
And then he leaps.
--
This may be the end, depending on the roll... "last seen climbing into the mouth of a giant skeleton"...
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Daring Devil up a giant's nose
Post-Roll: Yep. Drama Dice. Choose:
End up exactly where I want to be.
Don't attract unwanted attention.
Show off and feel fantastic, +1 forward.
This is a complex and dynamic environment with a wide variety of available dangers. Permit me to detail some of them for your edification.
---
Ajax, you are:
- fleeing from an advancing wave of rubble and baton. This could potentially be quite lethal, but you're generally headed in the direction of the blow and it might only be grazing.
- trying to pull up short of a churning, shifting bone-ooze that is kind of this thing's legs-also-tail. It's probably not going to hurt too much but if it catches you you'll be caught by it and have to break free. Or, you know, fight your way free.
- trying to run through a gap in a moving shield. The edges of the shield aren't like razor-sharp or anything, but if it clips you, you'll get knocked about and your next action will be with disadvantage.
You get to dodge one.
---
Koba, you are:
- jump-packing over an advancing wave of rubble and baton. I don't know what things you've played chicken with in your no-doubt-misspent youth, but that certainly ranks up there with them.
- trying to pull up short of a churning, shifting bone-ooze that is kind of this thing's legs-also-tail. It's probably not going to hurt too much but if it catches you you'll be caught by it and have to break free. Or, you know, fight your way free.
- battling your old nemesis, Sir Isaac Newton, noted deadliest motherfucker in space, who will use the mysterious force of "momentum" to carry you uncontrollably into the tunnel, landing your inscribed rubble bit squarely inside the junction circle, which is going make it clear to the giant skelemalgam that you are not fleeing its wrath but trying to take it down from the inside.
But hey, good roll, you get to dodge two.
---
Speaking of taking things down from the inside, Glory, you jump, and when you hit the wall you push the jump button again to do a Ninja Triangle Jump.
And then you're... in the night sky? Maybe inside some kind of... nebula galaxy kind of thing? It pulsates like something vital, or at least communicative, chains of light forming and dissolving between its component stars/space-bits/whatever. It seems to be reflective of operations in some higher or parallel dimension, or at least the mere fact of your body existing in this space doesn't really disrupt anything. The light-chains form through you, harmlessly, and unless space smells like bone dust none of this light show is real.
How much do you know about skeleton brains, anyhow?
---
Xeno! ...well, the crossbowskels are reloading, as is their wont, but since you seem cowed by the big guy they're not aiming at you... yet. Though depending where Ajax and Koba wind up you may be the only valid target out here.
I feel I should mention that while the Aspirants are nearly done being freed, the process itself is not yet over and the array on the ceiling continues to collapse. Maybe you want to get on that, maybe Ajax can do something useful? I feel I should also mention that while it hasn't come up yet, rolling a dead servitor's number doesn't have no effect - in fact, it means the spire hits a different target than any of the active servitors.
The giant macer isn't really bothered too much by any of it, unfortunately - the spires just can't pick up enough speed before they bounce off of it. Now, if some clever soul could manage to time things perfectly and get this thing's baton-wielding hand struck by a collapsing spire, that might have some effect, but otherwise it treats it like a meddling kid brother dropping pebbles to try to get big brother to look up.
I must disarm it, but the apparatus is collapsing around us so quickly. Wait, that’s it! Xeno thought.
Seeing an opportunity, Xeno lashed out at the skeleton’s massive baton arm with destructive entropic energies. With his probabilistic perceptions, he timed the strike so that the falling spire would hit the giant skeleton in it’s slowed hand.
--
Since I’m unlikely to get a 12+, I’d rather not push the Aspirant doom clock further along.
Instead I’ll damage/slow/debilitate the baton arm so that a falling spire will hit it’s hand in addition to the strike itself damaging it.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8-1 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time), and Debilitating (-1 dmg) to slow and weaken the skelemaglm baton arm so the hand will get hit by a falling spire as well.
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: 'You feel drained, take -1 ongoing to INT until you have a few minutes to clear your head.’
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
Glancing back to see Xeno doing something no doubt inadvisable to the baton's temporal nature, Koba decides to make a tactical advance, momentum be damned.
--
I'll dodge the baton and the bone-ooze-tail, and take the hit from Isaac Newton. Koba's never heard of him anyway.
Ajax had too many things to avoid to be able to get off scot free. He figured avoiding the baton was his primary concern, and after that, he'd have to come up with a new plan.
--
Avoid the baton, take the tail hit and next turn disadvantage
Glory turns carefully, gazing in wonder at the sparkling lights, as one really ought to after working so hard to get a close look at them. Truly inspiring, totally worth it.
So... now what?
He racks his brain, trying to remember any stories that talked about the swirling lights that drive a skeleton. Pretty, sparkling lights that drive skeletons back from the dead, to kill. So, probably a scary story.
(Gad, what a week it was last week. I should be able to pay better attention to this from now on.)
---
Koba, understanding exactly where the spike would go was kind of beyond your understanding. You just made it match and hoped for the best. So as you launch into the depths of the tunnel, around the advancing baton and over the lashing tail, you have no idea where the spike will get incorporated as you sail through the junction circle.
The GM is reading tarot cards!
The GM draws the 7 of Swords, feat. some guy jacking five out of your seven swords!
The spike materializes underneath the baton servitor's vambrace. The baton kind of flexes and bows outward. It's now more of a... tennis racket shape? And the outer surfaces look a lot less definite than they did before. It's definitely going to do a lot less impact damage and it probably can't pull that rubble-wave trick any more either.
On the minus side, the giant skeleton knows exactly what happened. And it...
Well, an outside observer might say it was finishing off a big splashy musical number. Its tail shoots out to brace itself and it arches its back until its full complement of skelXbows are aiming, upside-down, down the mouth of the tunnel. They don't seem at all hindered by having to load and fire upside-down. Perhaps they've been practicing?
So, Koba, you're not an outside observer, and all you see are five fairly free-floating bows all suddenly pointed down the tunnel at you. You've got +1 forward to search for whatever bit of skeleton didn't fit, but unless you can do something to put up a wall, preferably without cutting yourself off from the junction circle, you're going to be under heavy fire the whole time. What are you doing?
---
Ajax, you're not an outside observer either. All you know is that after you get clipped by the shield and stumble into the churning bone ooze, the entire mass shifts and rams you directly into Xeno.
Xeno, you're not an outside observer either. All you know is that the sudden distortion in the skeleton's baton arm throws off your aim long enough that you can't get it back before a churning bone ooze carrying Ajax rams right into you.
So how this is going to work is, I'm going to roll three dice, someone's going to take the sum of two and someone's going to take the other one. Work it out amongst yourselves. Ajax, you only take your armor off once even if you take two dice, because the other die is the impact which ignores armor.
Geth, roll 3#1d6 for IMPACT CASCADE.
You've both got to get free of the ooze, and the ceiling's still going to rain down on the servitors and possibly other things, so what are you doing?
---
Glory, you are also not an outside observer. You are an inside observer!
And what you observe from the inside, doing a leisurely walk to keep upright as the giant skeleton arches over, is that the light inside the giant skeleton's braincase doesn't actually change orientation as the skeleton does.
Now, that's not such a big deal in and of itself. However, you remember something somebody said about the undead - that they've got to have, basically, a created brain. And unlike a normal brain, which is all sorts of colors, the brain of an undead is only one color.
And you notice that there are a bunch of bright blue stars around the center of this skeletal brain, but some pale blue ones outside the periphery in one direction, and some silvery white ones in another direction.
So basically if you swung yourself in the right direction hard enough to move two dudes (or maybe burned a heritage to make yourself stone enough to weigh at least two dudes' worth, I dunno what your status there is) you could clip some of a particular color of stars right out of this skeleton's braincase. And it wouldn't necessarily notice, unless you did something to draw attention to yourself.
Xeno does his best to dodge the Ajax-shaped battering ram heading for him, only barely managing to avoid drowning in the wave of bones.
--
So @AustinP0027, at the risk of sounding self-serving, do you mind taking the bigger two die? It would leave us both at 5HP if my math is right. I can't take any 2 die combo's without dying.
Ajax gets clipped by the shield, and stumbles into the bone ooze, getting knocked into Xeno in the process, and generally feeling a lot of pain in the process. The tide wasn't turning in their favor, and he knew that he needed an escape route, and needed this fight to end.
--
Yep, I was going to look at hp to see what would make sense, so I'll go ahead and take them. We probably need to try and wrap this fight up quickly. The dice haven't been favoring us surviving
You know, I figured "hey, you're rolling 3d6, MAYBE ONE OF THEM WILL BE LESS THAN 4?!"
Welp, that sure shows me.
Anyway, Ajax, Xeno, take your pick - eat another d6 of damage from bone churn before your get free, or lose something important to the ooze. Your call what it is that goes away, but sell me on why it's important.
Sadly, I don't have much in the way of gear that I would call important, except my cosmic focus and my rations... so I guess if we don't die of trauma we get to die of starvation. Hope y'all got a hankering for cemetery tubers!
Glory surveys the inside of the skeleton's head, and starts to develop a daring plan to change the skeleton's mind. It goes a little something like this:
One: throw the sword somewhere at the skeleton's head so it sticks, at a good spot to swing from.
Before One: tie wire to sword.
After One: get good hold on wire (maybe wrapping with cloth for safe grip?), and swing to one side of skeleton's head
After That: keep swinging from one side to the other, until the color changes
Seems simple enough. Except that he has to get it done before the giant smershes his friends. And he can't go tumbling down its skeletal gullet.
--
No heritage hold left, I spent the last one on the hand dagger.
True Love and High Adventure: enacting a daring plan to change the color of the giant skeleton's mind.
Geth roll 2d6+2+1 for Defy Danger
Two adventure hold left
Defy Danger:
2d6+2+110 [2d6=6, 1]
+1
Options
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
"Fire at your fellow crossbowmen!" Koba roars, her smile of triumph twisted by that snarl her father always made after a particularly vicious move. Shaking off that thought, she leaves the chaos to unfold and begins casting around for the bit that didn't fit.
--
I'll spend 1 heritage hold to have the skelebows fire on eachother (not the giant skelly).
Geth, roll 2d6+3 for Find That Bit
First, what you lose isn't gone. That bone ooze would be doing way more damage if it could grind things that finely. (so there's some reassurance if you're deciding what to drop, Ajax.)
It is, however, separated from you by an arbitrary number of bones, so you're just probably not going to get access to it until this thing is in pieces.
I mean, I'm assuming you're going to get this thing in pieces, you might surprise me.
Ceiling's still coming down on the servitors who are trying to free the Aspirants, by the way. You can probably lose another tick on the countdown clock at this point if you just want to cast a spell and not go through the whole "spot the relevant falling thing and then shoot it" process again.
---
Koba, the crossbow squad receives your commands and carries them out to the letter, aiming at vital points with well-trained precision.
...so the net effect is mostly that a bunch of crossbow bolts get stuck in ribcages, which seems to have rattled the thing a little and they're going to spend some time pulling them out or snapping them in half before they get the full range of motion that lets them fire again.
You've got time to work, and you find...
Well, I had an idea what the missing piece was going to be, but with a roll like that, you can tell me if you like. Either way you get +1 on the roll to scribe it into usability before the crossbows are operational.
---
Glory, lemme be explicit here - that was a Daring Devil roll. You'll have to effectively move with enough force to shift two people, so that option is preselected. If you end up right where you want, you pick the color - light blue or white - that gets bumped out of the brain for the moment, otherwise I'll decide. The remaining two options should be obvious in what their effects correspond to.
Xeno was bruised and battered, his senses a tangle of possible futures. Far too many of them ended at the Black Gates.
With one hand the Wonderworker wiped the green blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. With the other raised toward the ceiling, Xeno tried to slow the unraveling strands of time there.
--
I’ll cast cosmic channel to slow/stop the ceiling from coming down on the servitors.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Channel
For 10+ I’ll choose: You feel drained. You take -1 ongoing to Int until you have a few moments to clear your head.
If I get a 7-9 I’ll add: The effect won’t last long - you’ll need to hurry to take advantage of it.
Choose to bump out the white lights.
Other choices: Don't attract unwanted attention, and Show off and feel fantastic about it (+1 forward)
Sorry again, should have been clearer - a 10+ still gives you three choices, and "you bring someone along with you" is something you'll have to choose to have any effect. That leaves you with two choices to spend on other things.
Choose to bump out the white lights.
Other choices: Don't attract unwanted attention, and Show off and feel fantastic about it (+1 forward)
Sorry again, should have been clearer - a 10+ still gives you three choices, and "you bring someone along with you" is something you'll have to choose to have any effect. That leaves you with two choices to spend on other things.
I choose life!
Bring someone with me (I like to think of it as my audience)
End up where I want to be (Bump out the white lights)
Ajax twisted and turned, struggling to pull himself free. Little by little he slowly drug himself out, feeling the resistance lighten as he was able to maneuver himself slowly and surely out of the pile that was attempting to pull him back in. However, as a Weaponmaster had been trained in life to always note small shifts in stance or balance, he noted almost immediately that the weight on his belt was off. Checking himself quickly, he noted with dismay that one of the healing potions that he direly needed was missing, likely buried deep within the pile of bone he had just escaped.
Not hesitating further, and driven both by the physical abuse he had taken along with the recent loss, he downed the other healing potion in full, tossing the bottle into the same bone that had taken it's brethren away from him.
--
Guess who hasn't been paying attention to their inventory very well....
Let me know if you don't consider 1 potion adequate and I'll chop off the second part to drop them both.
Right. Xeno. The roof's timetable advances. The countdown until the array is unusable advances to 9 o'clock. (it's still got 10 and 11 to go before it hits 12-doomed).
But you do manage to slow the fall of the current wave of spires, and it would be a fairly simple matter for a nearby weaponmaster to see where one was targeted and either defend its target from harm or take a swing at a falling spire and knock it off course - though the mass and odd construction of the spire would mean you're basically Hacking and Slashing at it, and on a 7-9 it'll connect at worst-of-2d8-damage.
Ajax, one healing potion is important enough, especially as by-and-large beat up as you all are. Or, well, everybody but you was, anyway. To your health!
Also you're the only nearby weaponmaster. Do with that information what you will.
---
Glory, you swing into a cavity in the skull and brace yourself inside the bone after you impact. What happens on the outside is that the shield servitors and the baton servitor kind of... relax, and the skeleton's force-weaponry gutters out. It hasn't noticed, though if and when it rights itself it'll probably bring the lights back in (and there isn't enough "give" in the constellation to knock more than one color out at a time, at any rate).
I'll ask you to hold on and wait to see what Koba's whipped up, since you're both making gross changes to the functionality of this giant skeleton.
GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
edited November 2016
Brushing rubble aside, Koba gingerly lifts out a skeletal foot and begins scribbling furiously. No amount of necroautonomic logography can account for balancing this.
--
(Sorry for the delay, kept getting stuck on humerus puns.)
So the idea is by adding a foot into the mix it'll be a wibbly-wobbly bone mass standing on one foot, easy to topple over.
edit: welp, that's what I get for dragging things out.
Since you're cut off from your mates by an entire giant skeleton at the moment, Koba, or at least a giant skull, I'm going to leave that as it lies. Enjoy your XP!
Koba, you carve runes into the ossified foot-mass with a vengeance, bone fragments flying everywhere. The crossbows are starting to get themselves back together, so you rush over to the junction circle.
And your work is rewarded! White and crimson energies siphon into the runic pattern in preparation for merging.
You hear bone scraping, and cast around for another skeleton you might have missed, but it always seems to be right in front of-
The bone fragments that litter the surface of the Stygian Conqueror are shifting to trace out the pattern of the second rune harmonic. Crimson and white energies crawl over the front of your-BWOAHSHIT
Koba, you find yourself doing a handstand on a foot. A foot touching the stone floor. A foot touching the stone floor with the entire mass of bone ooze and skeleton frantically churning to support itself. Basically what I'm saying is
Geth, roll 2d6k1-1 for the ooze without.
Koba, you are currently a crucial part of the invasive runic element that is having your hoped-for deleterious effect on the giant skeleton. You can let go at any time - you'll have to run free of the reforming ooze as the skeleton regains its bearings. Or you can just grit your teeth and hang on, periodically taking this damage, and maybe try and orient yourself to do something else useful?
Ultimately it's your hand, your foot, and your call.
---
The giant skeleton suddenly finds itself without support -- "What?" -- and flails its arms trying to regain its balance. It plants the shield in the ground as anchor point -- and then the servitors all go slack and its shield and baton wink out. "WHAT?!" The skeleton collapses onto its side.
"DUST TAKE YOU ALL!"
It's currently got some limp masses of flesh and metal to defend itself with. That dials its ordinary advantage in reach, force, and resilience back to being basically on par with one random dude charging in to attack.
---
Glory, you may have noticed that many brains tend to be kind of... oblong? The skeleton's brain was not really designed to operate in this orientation and even its core stars are clipping through the edge on occasion. You see some dim as the entire braincase shakes with the impacts - if it got hurt enough, you might be able to time a swing to push the active stars out of the brain and... knock this thing out? Kill it?
You have no idea if your crew is still out there, but you haven't heard any death rattles and you can't think of anyone else who might have been responsible for this turn of events.
A wave of rejuvenation. That's the best way to describe the feeling of drinking a healing potion. Along with it, returns confidence. Confidence to say, think that perhaps the best way to help Xeno with the falling spires is to take a swing at them. Maybe stupid confidence, but Ajax still followed his gut, lined up a shot at the slowed spire, and swung with all his might.
--
Edit: Well...at least I hit it.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Hack and Slash
Geth, roll 2d6l1+1 for Damage
I was planning on using Cosmic Blade on the skelemalgm in an attempt to hurt it enough that Glory can knock out more brain stars. But I have enough question that asking them before rolling is probably smarter.
Did you mean the braincase had to be hurt in order to help Glory knock out stars, or just the skeleton in general?
If it needs to be the braincase, if I shoot at that and use Piercing will that threaten Glory?
If use Messy will that threaten the servitors trying to free Aspirants?
Could I use two targets to hit the giant skeleton in multiple places?
The good news is that I wasn't trying to feed you your damage or anything (seriously, where did that come from, that's not even your class damage) but expressing how much some servitor would get speared if you couldn't pull off a totally clean hit.
And, well, you don't. So it does.
Geth, roll 1d10 for some servitor.
Geth, roll 2d8l1 for spire spear (servitors still have 4 HP).
---
Xeno, here are some answers, in no particular order.
If you tried to multi-target the giant skeleton, that would be basically the same as rolling damage twice and taking the best value, but you'd still be taking the damage penalty from targeting multiple foes.
You actually have no idea what's going on inside the skeleton's head, for all that the camera is readily snapping inside there with a muted, echoey version of the battle theme playing in the background. Were... were you even free of your enforced timeout when Glory get eaten? I don't know if you actually think the statue's alive at this point - it's not like they leaned out an eye socket to wave hello, but then they don't die as easy as getting eaten by a skeleton, either.
If you wanted to try a called shot to the head you certainly could - it'd basically work at a step down from your normal cosmic blade such that you get the 7-9 effect on a 10+ and on a 7-9 I dream up some other complication. It's certainly much less armored up there.
A messy attack wouldn't particularly endanger any of the servitors, since the giant skeleton is lounging on the upper lip of the work surface (and for all I say "lip" this thing is like 15-20 feet wide).
A piercing attack just ignores armor, and even if you hit the head there's going to be some there. It has no special ability to blow through an armored target to hit something inside or behind it.
Seeing the skeleton in a newly vulnerable state, Xeno did the first thing that came to his addled mind.
Attacking with a ray of explosive entropic force, naturally.
--
Thanks to all the time shenanigans I think @Glazius might be right that I have no idea where Glory is, he got chomped just as we came out of the slow bubble.
No worries, Xeno fully expects him to come swinging in to deliver the knockout blow via a chandelier that only recently blinked into this timeframe.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8+1d4 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time) and Messy (+1d4).
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: The GM removes a nonrange tag of their choice, and you deal -1 damage.
Edit - I'll assume that since my INT modifier is now at -3 I can't use the "drained" options again until I get a chance to clear my head, since that's usually the modifier floor for Dungeon World.
I'm imagining this is the "just hold on and take half damage" interpretation, Koba? Tell me what you want and I'll keep it in mind next time it comes to pay the piper.
Anyhow, Xeno, I'm peeling off the time tag, so you can actually get some damage in. Little explosions rip out bits of its patchwork armor as it flexes its muscle-and-steel arm stumps trying to find some way to stop you.
It's about then, Xeno and Ajax, that the crossboskel assembly pulls itself out of the tunnel and gets ready to lay down some covering fire to protect its larger self.
Posts
Sprinting to his left to get an angle past the slowed shield, Xeno sends a wave of entropic energy at the crossbow growths on it's shoulder.
--
I'll use the +1 from the slowed shield.
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8-2 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time), and Area (-2 dmg) to try to slow/kill the crossboskels on the shoulder.
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: 'You feel drained, take -1 ongoing to INT until you have a few minutes to clear your head.’
PSN: Boozer_777
---
:
tags: @AustinP0027 @Boozer @wildwood
Full damage sounds pretty ominous, but Glory's not the type to heroically swing up somewhere dangerous, and then swing right back down again.
Into the breach (so to speak) it is. It'll be a hell of a story if he survives.
--
That was only 5 damage, since I still have the 1 armour from the suit.
In case that wasn't clear I'm hoping to add junk that'll limit the head's movement, give it a blind spot.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Logol Recall
Er, anyway.
---
So, Glory. You've decided to dive headfirst into a gaping skeletal maw.
Well, the plus side is that in life and also undeath, the macer wasn't the sort of person to, like, file their teeth to act all tough.
The minus side is that there's only so much give when you're being pancaked between two large blunt surfaces.
Geth, roll 2d8k1-1 for giant skeleton bite.
You manage to scramble along the jawbone and balance yourself at a back corner, about where a human's wisdom teeth would be. Necromantic forces are keeping this jaw attached, but there's nothing giving it a bottom, and the patchwork armor covering the skeleton's chest spreads out beneath you like a storybook sky.
Crucially, however, there's also nothing giving it a top, so you could make it up into the nasal cavity with a big enough jump, and when you look up there for some relief from looking down, you can see those odd sparks that you also saw in the skeleton's eyesockets, shining like ice-blue stars.
In a... less storybook sky?
It would seem despite my best efforts you are still some sort of demented metaphorical bird and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
So what are you doing?
---
Koba, couple things. First, whatever marks you mark on a thing you've still got to get it inside the fusion circle, which was back in the tunnel you all ran out of. You really can't copy someone else's fusion circle on this kind of timescale.
Also there's a large lashing bone-tail kind of sweeping around on the floor between you and the fusion circle.
You can still Volley with the thing you just finished making. You'll lose it afterwards so you can't mark ammo on a 7-9, but if you wanted to risk it you could choose to... "deal less damage"? This isn't actually a damage roll on the skeleton, I'm just assessing your accuracy, and on no "damage dealt" you'll be too far off the mark. If you attract attention on a 7-9 you will hit your mark, no question.
Anyway, you've got to scramble for a clear shot, so here's your choice: you can have a good line on the tunnel, but you're also grouped up with Xeno and Ajax for purposes of the doom that's going to rain down upon you. Or you can have got clear of Xeno and Ajax, but your line on the tunnel is poor and you'll roll to Volley with disadvantage.
---
Ajax, you're pretty much stuck right in front of this thing, because right in front of this thing is where you've got to teach it an important less about shields.
Specifically, shields are shit if you can't hold onto them.
You grab the bottom point of the force-shield. Or, you know, two hands, both sides, just grab. Damn thing is as slick as a greased pig but right now you don't particularly care.
And then you lean in and twist.
About ten feet up there's a sound like an industrial can opener as the metal straps holding a vambrace around a muscly servitor arm twist and snap. Then a sound like eight pounds of scrap metal hitting the ground as eight pounds of scrap metal hits the ground.
The bottom point of the shield flickers and dies. Now the whole thing looks kind of like a giant masquerade mask, two diamonds to cover the eyes and a nose hole.
A nose-hole with a lashing bone tail somewhere behind it, let's not forget. But the opening's wide enough to run through.
---
Xeno, you can get the skelXbows just fine from where you are right now. The force-shield's top was crenellated to let them shoot crossbows down at you, and when you aim at adventurers the adventurers aim also at you. In fact if you tried to circle around you'd have to get completely clear of the shield to have a good shot.
You could stay where you are and land that hit, and let them prepare to return fire, but slowly, slowly, reaching out to cock the crossbow and slot the bolt. Once that thing flies it won't be part of a skelXbow anymore and be back in normal time, but you (possibly) and Ajax and also possibly Koba should be able to dodge all of that no sweat. ...well, on an otherwise-featureless white plain, anyway.
You could also choose to treat your roll as a Defy Danger to scatter clear of Ajax, if you'd rather. You'd make it around dodging crossbow fire just fine, and you'd be clear of this impending nastiness:
---
The giant skeleton drives its force-baton into the stone chamber floor, and you can feel the impact. Even Glory, though it's more a fourth-hand thing through a bunch of connected bones. The stone yields and crumbles around it like new spring soil.
With a massive underhanded sweep it sends the baton plowing in the rough direction of Ajax, and anyone who's chosen to stay in that general vicinity.
The overall arc is going to spray stone like shrapnel in the general direction of the 6:00 wall - the work surface itself will be largely undisturbed. Far be it from me to tell you your business, but I don't think you want to get in its way.
---
So, to sum up:
Glory: After pain and some frantic roof-running, you're ready to get up this thing's nose from the inside. Or, y'know, something else if you can think of it.
Ajax: You compromised the force-shield. You're right in front of the giant skeleton and it's decided you're worth paying attention to. What now?
Xeno: You can stay where you are and slow down the crossbows, or somehow find the strength to circle around the shield (bringing yourself near the edge of the work floor) and set up for your next move.
Koba: You can face the onrushing force with Ajax and have a clear shot with your screw-up shard, or get clear of him but have a much worse angle.
tags: @wildwood @AustinP0027 @Boozer @Grog
The group needed some kind of look into this monstrosity's weaknesses, God help them if there were none.
Xeno studied the creature, tracing the tangled threads of destiny that held it's patchwork existence together. He was looking for the master cord to cut, to unravel it at the seams.
***
I'll use my previous roll to Defy Danger instead.
Geth roll 2d6+1 to Investigate the Superskeleton.
Main Question: What here is useful or valuable to me?
PSN: Boozer_777
Well, I mean, I could give you the +1, but the thing is in order to make use of it you'd need to hack the logogram, and in order to do that you'd need to know about logograms, and regardless of how much or little you actually do (give us a dipstick reading on that, too, if you don't mind) you have messed about with time entirely too much and the +int you'd be rolling to do so is in the tank. At times like these you have trouble separating what is from what might be.
You can still, however, make an amazing intuitive jump and work out what can't be.
So here's what can't be. The lesser blue skels and servitors are inside the gigaskel in their entirety. The gigaskel, however, does not contain the original macer in its entirety. There was a bit of it that just could not fit. You... don't exactly know what that bit was, but you or an interested third party could certainly use that information to scare it up out of the darkness and rubble in the tunnel with a quickness.
So what happens when you take a bit that can't fit into a gestalt, mark it with the (in)appropriate runes and inscriptions, and try and force it into there anyway?
Rhetorical question, you've got no readily apparent clue, but surely if that part helped, it would be in there already.
Koba, you may, if you'd rather, interpret your decision to stand clear of the incoming force baton plow/face to judgement, to give you disadvantage/normal odds, respectively, to jet your ownself into the tunnel to root around for the missing piece.
---
tags: @Boozer @Grog
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Defy Danger (running right at it's face!)
While Xeno is a student of the Arcane, it’s to better understand and control the power that he already wields, as opposed to studying the Arcane to gain power. So while Xeno wouldn’t really be capable of creating or deciphering a logogram without considerable time and effort, he would be able to modify a logogram in beneficial ways thanks to his perception of alternate timelines and causality.
PSN: Boozer_777
--
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Defy Danger (Con)
I can do this all day because the Conqueror is a goddamn trans-styxian invasion suit.
I really don't want to because the longer this foe is standing the more damage it'll do to my fellows.
He surveys the skull's interior, hefting his trusty clockwork wire in one hand, looking for ways up. He starts to chuckle to himself, growing more confident.
And then he leaps.
--
This may be the end, depending on the roll... "last seen climbing into the mouth of a giant skeleton"...
Geth roll 2d6+2 for Daring Devil up a giant's nose
Post-Roll: Yep. Drama Dice. Choose:
End up exactly where I want to be.
Don't attract unwanted attention.
Show off and feel fantastic, +1 forward.
---
Ajax, you are:
- fleeing from an advancing wave of rubble and baton. This could potentially be quite lethal, but you're generally headed in the direction of the blow and it might only be grazing.
- trying to pull up short of a churning, shifting bone-ooze that is kind of this thing's legs-also-tail. It's probably not going to hurt too much but if it catches you you'll be caught by it and have to break free. Or, you know, fight your way free.
- trying to run through a gap in a moving shield. The edges of the shield aren't like razor-sharp or anything, but if it clips you, you'll get knocked about and your next action will be with disadvantage.
You get to dodge one.
---
Koba, you are:
- jump-packing over an advancing wave of rubble and baton. I don't know what things you've played chicken with in your no-doubt-misspent youth, but that certainly ranks up there with them.
- trying to pull up short of a churning, shifting bone-ooze that is kind of this thing's legs-also-tail. It's probably not going to hurt too much but if it catches you you'll be caught by it and have to break free. Or, you know, fight your way free.
- battling your old nemesis, Sir Isaac Newton, noted deadliest motherfucker in space, who will use the mysterious force of "momentum" to carry you uncontrollably into the tunnel, landing your inscribed rubble bit squarely inside the junction circle, which is going make it clear to the giant skelemalgam that you are not fleeing its wrath but trying to take it down from the inside.
But hey, good roll, you get to dodge two.
---
Speaking of taking things down from the inside, Glory, you jump, and when you hit the wall you push the jump button again to do a Ninja Triangle Jump.
And then you're... in the night sky? Maybe inside some kind of... nebula galaxy kind of thing? It pulsates like something vital, or at least communicative, chains of light forming and dissolving between its component stars/space-bits/whatever. It seems to be reflective of operations in some higher or parallel dimension, or at least the mere fact of your body existing in this space doesn't really disrupt anything. The light-chains form through you, harmlessly, and unless space smells like bone dust none of this light show is real.
How much do you know about skeleton brains, anyhow?
---
Xeno! ...well, the crossbowskels are reloading, as is their wont, but since you seem cowed by the big guy they're not aiming at you... yet. Though depending where Ajax and Koba wind up you may be the only valid target out here.
I feel I should mention that while the Aspirants are nearly done being freed, the process itself is not yet over and the array on the ceiling continues to collapse. Maybe you want to get on that, maybe Ajax can do something useful? I feel I should also mention that while it hasn't come up yet, rolling a dead servitor's number doesn't have no effect - in fact, it means the spire hits a different target than any of the active servitors.
The giant macer isn't really bothered too much by any of it, unfortunately - the spires just can't pick up enough speed before they bounce off of it. Now, if some clever soul could manage to time things perfectly and get this thing's baton-wielding hand struck by a collapsing spire, that might have some effect, but otherwise it treats it like a meddling kid brother dropping pebbles to try to get big brother to look up.
---
tags: @AustinP0027 @Grog @wildwood @Boozer
Seeing an opportunity, Xeno lashed out at the skeleton’s massive baton arm with destructive entropic energies. With his probabilistic perceptions, he timed the strike so that the falling spire would hit the giant skeleton in it’s slowed hand.
--
Since I’m unlikely to get a 12+, I’d rather not push the Aspirant doom clock further along.
Instead I’ll damage/slow/debilitate the baton arm so that a falling spire will hit it’s hand in addition to the strike itself damaging it.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8-1 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time), and Debilitating (-1 dmg) to slow and weaken the skelemaglm baton arm so the hand will get hit by a falling spire as well.
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: 'You feel drained, take -1 ongoing to INT until you have a few minutes to clear your head.’
edit - Geth has other ideas apparently
PSN: Boozer_777
--
I'll dodge the baton and the bone-ooze-tail, and take the hit from Isaac Newton. Koba's never heard of him anyway.
--
Avoid the baton, take the tail hit and next turn disadvantage
So... now what?
He racks his brain, trying to remember any stories that talked about the swirling lights that drive a skeleton. Pretty, sparkling lights that drive skeletons back from the dead, to kill. So, probably a scary story.
--
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Starry Skeletal Exposition
---
Koba, understanding exactly where the spike would go was kind of beyond your understanding. You just made it match and hoped for the best. So as you launch into the depths of the tunnel, around the advancing baton and over the lashing tail, you have no idea where the spike will get incorporated as you sail through the junction circle.
The GM is reading tarot cards!
The GM draws the 7 of Swords, feat. some guy jacking five out of your seven swords!
The spike materializes underneath the baton servitor's vambrace. The baton kind of flexes and bows outward. It's now more of a... tennis racket shape? And the outer surfaces look a lot less definite than they did before. It's definitely going to do a lot less impact damage and it probably can't pull that rubble-wave trick any more either.
On the minus side, the giant skeleton knows exactly what happened. And it...
Well, an outside observer might say it was finishing off a big splashy musical number. Its tail shoots out to brace itself and it arches its back until its full complement of skelXbows are aiming, upside-down, down the mouth of the tunnel. They don't seem at all hindered by having to load and fire upside-down. Perhaps they've been practicing?
So, Koba, you're not an outside observer, and all you see are five fairly free-floating bows all suddenly pointed down the tunnel at you. You've got +1 forward to search for whatever bit of skeleton didn't fit, but unless you can do something to put up a wall, preferably without cutting yourself off from the junction circle, you're going to be under heavy fire the whole time. What are you doing?
---
Ajax, you're not an outside observer either. All you know is that after you get clipped by the shield and stumble into the churning bone ooze, the entire mass shifts and rams you directly into Xeno.
Xeno, you're not an outside observer either. All you know is that the sudden distortion in the skeleton's baton arm throws off your aim long enough that you can't get it back before a churning bone ooze carrying Ajax rams right into you.
So how this is going to work is, I'm going to roll three dice, someone's going to take the sum of two and someone's going to take the other one. Work it out amongst yourselves. Ajax, you only take your armor off once even if you take two dice, because the other die is the impact which ignores armor.
Geth, roll 3#1d6 for IMPACT CASCADE.
You've both got to get free of the ooze, and the ceiling's still going to rain down on the servitors and possibly other things, so what are you doing?
---
Glory, you are also not an outside observer. You are an inside observer!
And what you observe from the inside, doing a leisurely walk to keep upright as the giant skeleton arches over, is that the light inside the giant skeleton's braincase doesn't actually change orientation as the skeleton does.
Now, that's not such a big deal in and of itself. However, you remember something somebody said about the undead - that they've got to have, basically, a created brain. And unlike a normal brain, which is all sorts of colors, the brain of an undead is only one color.
And you notice that there are a bunch of bright blue stars around the center of this skeletal brain, but some pale blue ones outside the periphery in one direction, and some silvery white ones in another direction.
So basically if you swung yourself in the right direction hard enough to move two dudes (or maybe burned a heritage to make yourself stone enough to weigh at least two dudes' worth, I dunno what your status there is) you could clip some of a particular color of stars right out of this skeleton's braincase. And it wouldn't necessarily notice, unless you did something to draw attention to yourself.
---
tags: @Grog @AustinP0027 @Boozer @wildwood
--
So @AustinP0027, at the risk of sounding self-serving, do you mind taking the bigger two die? It would leave us both at 5HP if my math is right. I can't take any 2 die combo's without dying.
Ajax -> 13hp - (6+5-3armor) = 5hp
Xeno -> 8hp - (4-1armor) = 5hp
Geth roll 2d6+1 for defy danger (dex), to dodge the worst of the bone ooze.
PSN: Boozer_777
--
Yep, I was going to look at hp to see what would make sense, so I'll go ahead and take them. We probably need to try and wrap this fight up quickly. The dice haven't been favoring us surviving
Edit: See. Pretty sure Geth wants me dead.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Defy Danger
Welp, that sure shows me.
Anyway, Ajax, Xeno, take your pick - eat another d6 of damage from bone churn before your get free, or lose something important to the ooze. Your call what it is that goes away, but sell me on why it's important.
---
tags: @Boozer, @AustinP0027
Sadly, I don't have much in the way of gear that I would call important, except my cosmic focus and my rations... so I guess if we don't die of trauma we get to die of starvation. Hope y'all got a hankering for cemetery tubers!
PSN: Boozer_777
One: throw the sword somewhere at the skeleton's head so it sticks, at a good spot to swing from.
Before One: tie wire to sword.
After One: get good hold on wire (maybe wrapping with cloth for safe grip?), and swing to one side of skeleton's head
After That: keep swinging from one side to the other, until the color changes
Seems simple enough. Except that he has to get it done before the giant smershes his friends. And he can't go tumbling down its skeletal gullet.
--
No heritage hold left, I spent the last one on the hand dagger.
True Love and High Adventure: enacting a daring plan to change the color of the giant skeleton's mind.
Geth roll 2d6+2+1 for Defy Danger
Two adventure hold left
--
I'll spend 1 heritage hold to have the skelebows fire on eachother (not the giant skelly).
Geth, roll 2d6+3 for Find That Bit
First, what you lose isn't gone. That bone ooze would be doing way more damage if it could grind things that finely. (so there's some reassurance if you're deciding what to drop, Ajax.)
It is, however, separated from you by an arbitrary number of bones, so you're just probably not going to get access to it until this thing is in pieces.
I mean, I'm assuming you're going to get this thing in pieces, you might surprise me.
Ceiling's still coming down on the servitors who are trying to free the Aspirants, by the way. You can probably lose another tick on the countdown clock at this point if you just want to cast a spell and not go through the whole "spot the relevant falling thing and then shoot it" process again.
---
Koba, the crossbow squad receives your commands and carries them out to the letter, aiming at vital points with well-trained precision.
...so the net effect is mostly that a bunch of crossbow bolts get stuck in ribcages, which seems to have rattled the thing a little and they're going to spend some time pulling them out or snapping them in half before they get the full range of motion that lets them fire again.
You've got time to work, and you find...
Well, I had an idea what the missing piece was going to be, but with a roll like that, you can tell me if you like. Either way you get +1 on the roll to scribe it into usability before the crossbows are operational.
---
Glory, lemme be explicit here - that was a Daring Devil roll. You'll have to effectively move with enough force to shift two people, so that option is preselected. If you end up right where you want, you pick the color - light blue or white - that gets bumped out of the brain for the moment, otherwise I'll decide. The remaining two options should be obvious in what their effects correspond to.
So make your choice.
---
tags: @Boozer @AustinP0027 @Grog @wildwood
--
Choose to bump out the white lights.
Other choices: Don't attract unwanted attention, and Show off and feel fantastic about it (+1 forward)
With one hand the Wonderworker wiped the green blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. With the other raised toward the ceiling, Xeno tried to slow the unraveling strands of time there.
--
I’ll cast cosmic channel to slow/stop the ceiling from coming down on the servitors.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Channel
For 10+ I’ll choose: You feel drained. You take -1 ongoing to Int until you have a few moments to clear your head.
If I get a 7-9 I’ll add: The effect won’t last long - you’ll need to hurry to take advantage of it.
PSN: Boozer_777
Sorry again, should have been clearer - a 10+ still gives you three choices, and "you bring someone along with you" is something you'll have to choose to have any effect. That leaves you with two choices to spend on other things.
---
tags: @wildwood
I choose life!
And a pony. And... this lamp...
Not hesitating further, and driven both by the physical abuse he had taken along with the recent loss, he downed the other healing potion in full, tossing the bottle into the same bone that had taken it's brethren away from him.
--
Guess who hasn't been paying attention to their inventory very well....
Let me know if you don't consider 1 potion adequate and I'll chop off the second part to drop them both.
But you do manage to slow the fall of the current wave of spires, and it would be a fairly simple matter for a nearby weaponmaster to see where one was targeted and either defend its target from harm or take a swing at a falling spire and knock it off course - though the mass and odd construction of the spire would mean you're basically Hacking and Slashing at it, and on a 7-9 it'll connect at worst-of-2d8-damage.
Ajax, one healing potion is important enough, especially as by-and-large beat up as you all are. Or, well, everybody but you was, anyway. To your health!
Also you're the only nearby weaponmaster. Do with that information what you will.
---
Glory, you swing into a cavity in the skull and brace yourself inside the bone after you impact. What happens on the outside is that the shield servitors and the baton servitor kind of... relax, and the skeleton's force-weaponry gutters out. It hasn't noticed, though if and when it rights itself it'll probably bring the lights back in (and there isn't enough "give" in the constellation to knock more than one color out at a time, at any rate).
I'll ask you to hold on and wait to see what Koba's whipped up, since you're both making gross changes to the functionality of this giant skeleton.
---
tags: @Boozer @AustinP0027 @wildwood
--
(Sorry for the delay, kept getting stuck on humerus puns.)
So the idea is by adding a foot into the mix it'll be a wibbly-wobbly bone mass standing on one foot, easy to topple over.
edit: welp, that's what I get for dragging things out.
Geth, roll 2d6+3 for Scribble
Koba, you carve runes into the ossified foot-mass with a vengeance, bone fragments flying everywhere. The crossbows are starting to get themselves back together, so you rush over to the junction circle.
And your work is rewarded! White and crimson energies siphon into the runic pattern in preparation for merging.
You hear bone scraping, and cast around for another skeleton you might have missed, but it always seems to be right in front of-
The bone fragments that litter the surface of the Stygian Conqueror are shifting to trace out the pattern of the second rune harmonic. Crimson and white energies crawl over the front of your-BWOAHSHIT
Koba, you find yourself doing a handstand on a foot. A foot touching the stone floor. A foot touching the stone floor with the entire mass of bone ooze and skeleton frantically churning to support itself. Basically what I'm saying is
Geth, roll 2d6k1-1 for the ooze without.
Koba, you are currently a crucial part of the invasive runic element that is having your hoped-for deleterious effect on the giant skeleton. You can let go at any time - you'll have to run free of the reforming ooze as the skeleton regains its bearings. Or you can just grit your teeth and hang on, periodically taking this damage, and maybe try and orient yourself to do something else useful?
Ultimately it's your hand, your foot, and your call.
---
The giant skeleton suddenly finds itself without support -- "What?" -- and flails its arms trying to regain its balance. It plants the shield in the ground as anchor point -- and then the servitors all go slack and its shield and baton wink out. "WHAT?!" The skeleton collapses onto its side.
"DUST TAKE YOU ALL!"
It's currently got some limp masses of flesh and metal to defend itself with. That dials its ordinary advantage in reach, force, and resilience back to being basically on par with one random dude charging in to attack.
---
Glory, you may have noticed that many brains tend to be kind of... oblong? The skeleton's brain was not really designed to operate in this orientation and even its core stars are clipping through the edge on occasion. You see some dim as the entire braincase shakes with the impacts - if it got hurt enough, you might be able to time a swing to push the active stars out of the brain and... knock this thing out? Kill it?
You have no idea if your crew is still out there, but you haven't heard any death rattles and you can't think of anyone else who might have been responsible for this turn of events.
---
tags: @Grog @wildwood
--
Edit: Well...at least I hit it.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Hack and Slash
Geth, roll 2d6l1+1 for Damage
I was planning on using Cosmic Blade on the skelemalgm in an attempt to hurt it enough that Glory can knock out more brain stars. But I have enough question that asking them before rolling is probably smarter.
@Glazius
Did you mean the braincase had to be hurt in order to help Glory knock out stars, or just the skeleton in general?
If it needs to be the braincase, if I shoot at that and use Piercing will that threaten Glory?
If use Messy will that threaten the servitors trying to free Aspirants?
Could I use two targets to hit the giant skeleton in multiple places?
PSN: Boozer_777
The good news is that I wasn't trying to feed you your damage or anything (seriously, where did that come from, that's not even your class damage) but expressing how much some servitor would get speared if you couldn't pull off a totally clean hit.
And, well, you don't. So it does.
Geth, roll 1d10 for some servitor.
Geth, roll 2d8l1 for spire spear (servitors still have 4 HP).
---
Xeno, here are some answers, in no particular order.
If you tried to multi-target the giant skeleton, that would be basically the same as rolling damage twice and taking the best value, but you'd still be taking the damage penalty from targeting multiple foes.
You actually have no idea what's going on inside the skeleton's head, for all that the camera is readily snapping inside there with a muted, echoey version of the battle theme playing in the background. Were... were you even free of your enforced timeout when Glory get eaten? I don't know if you actually think the statue's alive at this point - it's not like they leaned out an eye socket to wave hello, but then they don't die as easy as getting eaten by a skeleton, either.
If you wanted to try a called shot to the head you certainly could - it'd basically work at a step down from your normal cosmic blade such that you get the 7-9 effect on a 10+ and on a 7-9 I dream up some other complication. It's certainly much less armored up there.
A messy attack wouldn't particularly endanger any of the servitors, since the giant skeleton is lounging on the upper lip of the work surface (and for all I say "lip" this thing is like 15-20 feet wide).
A piercing attack just ignores armor, and even if you hit the head there's going to be some there. It has no special ability to blow through an armored target to hit something inside or behind it.
---
tags: @AustinP0027 @Boozer
Geth, roll 2d3l1+1 for really it's academic at this point.
Servitor #4 reveals his top card! It was the Jack of Hearts! An Aspirant's soul has been released!
Servitor #3 reveals his top card! It was the King of Diamonds! An Aspirant's soul has been released!
6/6 Aspirant souls released! 11/20 total entrapped souls released!
Attacking with a ray of explosive entropic force, naturally.
--
Thanks to all the time shenanigans I think @Glazius might be right that I have no idea where Glory is, he got chomped just as we came out of the slow bubble.
No worries, Xeno fully expects him to come swinging in to deliver the knockout blow via a chandelier that only recently blinked into this timeframe.
Geth roll 2d6+1 for Cosmic Blade
Geth roll 1d8+1d4 for Cosmic Blade damage
Adding Tags for range, Elemental(time) and Messy (+1d4).
If I get a 7-9 I'll choose: The GM removes a nonrange tag of their choice, and you deal -1 damage.
Edit - I'll assume that since my INT modifier is now at -3 I can't use the "drained" options again until I get a chance to clear my head, since that's usually the modifier floor for Dungeon World.
PSN: Boozer_777
--
HP: 9/19
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Defend (Myself)
Anyhow, Xeno, I'm peeling off the time tag, so you can actually get some damage in. Little explosions rip out bits of its patchwork armor as it flexes its muscle-and-steel arm stumps trying to find some way to stop you.
It's about then, Xeno and Ajax, that the crossboskel assembly pulls itself out of the tunnel and gets ready to lay down some covering fire to protect its larger self.
---
tags: @Grog @Boozer @AustinP0027