At the point where we left off last time, Eliza McAllistair was introduced via a wrecked core, much like Alex was. After conferring with her CO, William Clarke, Liz is escorted by the Quartermaster, Mitchel Hughs, back to the Daedalus.

The Daedalus is a Heavy-Cruiser type land-ship designation, a modified variant to act as a completely autonomous transport and garage hub for several small squads of cores.

After she gives Will a debriefing on the situation, mainly pointing out the skirmish that wrecked her core looked like an ambush, she catches a shower before inadvertently revealing she isn't exactly... socially aware, to put it nicely. The day catches up to her after she grabs a quick meal, passing out in her bunk and leaving the players confused as to what the hell she had to do with the quest.

The next thread picks up fleshing out the situation a bit more and putting Liz on the front lines of an Attack on Galena.

I'll be totally honest, this part is kinda a blur in my memories, all I can really remember is screaming hatred for polearms at my computer. Which is odd, since I personally favor a Halbred and/or a Guan-Dao during recreational weapons training.

Anyway, after what I'm pretty sure was a fight-scene, Liz returns to the Daedalus and has a minor emotional breakdown with her friend Abby Smith (introduced towards the end of the prior thread) over losing two of their friends in that battle.

>>21879105
It's not our fault that fault that the dice happen to love lances. They're pretty nice during charges and due to them loving us we took out two enemies in one turn by charging one of them and then charging the second and one shotting them both.

The dice love them.

>recap episode
And you guys say these quests arent blatant animushit. Either that or AC-Guy thinks hes Hussie.

>>21879199
Hussie ain't got nothing on AC-Guy.
And when something progresses too far, like, say, 60-so threads, a recap is direly needed because most people aren't going to read through all of them to get caught up. It's a good idea and I heartily endorse it.

>Sage for not contributing

>>21879105

Will rather awkwardly lends his condolences as well, not long afterwards, and receives a thank-you hug from Liz in return. During the Hug, Will looked and acted about as lost as a dyslexic kid at a spelling-bee, and Liz completely failed to notice the awkward as she thanked him and went back to the sleep that she got interrupted by battle.

Perspective returns to Alex, who continues teaching his sister the ins and outs of being a pilot, with today's lesson focusing on parts modification. He shows her, with the assistance of Ken the more-or-less chief mechanic, how beam rifles can be modified and upgraded.

Alex then helps out Laurie and Kate, his 'friend' he found back in Hope's ruins, by tricking his Mother into insisting that she come and live with her and his Sister after she's released from the hospital. Laurie feels rather... conflicted about Alex's method of helping, but doesn't really raise an objection to it.

Alex then Contacts Josh to ask him his thoughts on the tournament, specifically regarding the waving of an entry fee for his team. Josh expresses confusion, which isn't helped by Alex confirming that he's a repeat victim of ninja attacks. Josh comments that the situation was really fucked up, and promises to pass any info he comes across their way.

>>21879199

The day I turn into Hussie is the day I invent an elaborate and absurdly painful method of suicide.

That said, only reason I'm doing a recap is the specific request by my 'fans' for a summery/recap.

I'm also curious as to why people keep insisting AC-Quest is 'animu'. I mean, I'm personally just not seeing it. Maybe it has something to do with my overwhelming hatred for most anime.

>>21879355
Pretty sure the comparison has to do with people who don't like quests, and not liking anime on /tg/, and conflating the two.

By all means, please continue the recap.

and i take it this is the whole of the first part of the summary?
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/21754539/

>>21879297

Alex then attempts to contact Dervish, but his team-mate Steve picks up the phone and gets a boot to the head for acting like a dick. After Dervish actually picks up the phone, he talks shit about the other team's name and then tells Alex that his next opponents were asshole who refused to fight properly.

He then reveals that his tracing of the sponsorship money lead him to two different private banks: One being owned by the Catholic Church, and the other having gone out of business two years ago.

After that, Dervish tells Alex that Galena was attacked, and that he had reason to believe that the accused weren't guilty of the crime. Alex says goodbye, and notes Dervish's obvious discomfort at being called by his real name.

Having put all serious business aside for the day, Alex watches Cartoons with Elsie to show her what an awesome childhood she missed out on, before having another seizure and falling down a staircase.

Perspective switched back to Liz at this point, since I hate resolving plot-points when they make for conveniently placed cliffhangers, and the players discover that Liz has been accused of Treason in connection to the attack on Galena.

Will believes her when she claims innocence, and decides to help her escape the Pack's justice with the support of the crew. Liz goes to Abby for support and comfort, and accidentally makes her panic and run away from EMOTIONS. Liz, lovably oblivious as /tg/ decided to play her, follows to ask her what's wrong.

>>21879555

It's worth noting that the Cartoon was a subtle dig/reference to early Zeon Quest.

Which apparently was serialized and animated in 'AC-Quest land', since I lack a good name for the setting.

>>21879237
No quest should go on that long in the first place and this isnt going to attract new readers.

Finally getting to the part that I am still confused about, namely which of the blank slate single syllable name guys in Liz's group was a traitor and got killed by the one other one who might be the real traitor or something ominous that remains unresolved.

>>21879632
Yeah well that's just like your opinion man

File: 1354600809757.gif-(2.9 MB, 250x189, encouterlvlbears.gif)

>>21879632
Quests are as old as /tg/ so bugger off winter fag

>>21879555

Liz manages to be socially retarded for most of a awkward conversation with Abby before her friend gives up on attempting to explain it away and shoves her tongue down Liz's throat.

And so, for the third consecutive quest I've run/attempted on /tg/, Lesbians happened despite my general apathy towards writing romance and my hard aversion to writing erotica. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect lesbians are inevitable, much like gravity.

After that scene was resolved, Liz goes to check on her core, and very POLITELY asked a nearby gentleman about changes made without her permission. After showing the man such KINDNESS that he pisses himself in terrified GRATITUDE, she leaves to work off some of her acquired stress. She the proceeds to brutally murder a punching-bag in the gym before collapsing crying like an emotionally unstable shell of a person.

Two unidentified people comment on how Liz has ISSUES in all caps, circled, and UNDERLINED.

Alex then wakes up on the couch in a jarring change of perspective, and discovers that he's apparently begun to sleep-walk in addition to a sudden onset of neurological problems. Alex also discovers that he slept through the appointed match with team 'Mortal Wombat', but apparently it's cool because they flipped out, wrecked shit in the arena garage and then skipped town for no apparent reason.

Alex takes a minute to comfort his sister, who seems to be developing something of a complex regarding Alex's health and stability.

>>21879855

Elsie expresses concern of Alex's apparent divergence from his normal perspectives and personality, wondering if they're connected to his recent seizures. Alex does his best to talk her out of worrying, before taking her out for a day on the town to try and distract her from her concerns.

Five minutes in, they bump into a 'demon', who offers them tickets to a magic show he's doing locally. They accept, since the order of the day is to just roll with whatever happens.

They then end up engaging in random swing-dancing with some buskers on the street, running into Steve again and discovering that he apparently has the swagger of a pirate lord.

The end of the thread had a brief Omake showing that Dervish was apparently acquainted with Frost and Fraide, and it's not on anything remotely resembling friendly terms.

The next thread briefly returns perspective to Liz, who with her crew decide that the best next move for them would be to move to Portland and take advantage of the political hub to try and track down the ones responsible for Galena.

Alex then attempts to find a place to have dinner, and is confronted by an asshole and a packed restaurant. Deciding to wing it, he stumbles across and antique bookstore and a first edition copy of 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' in shockingly good condition. Buying it without even inquiring about the price-tag, he then stumbles upon a tailor and a cafe, ending his date with a dose of dawww and OOC paranoia.

It's worth noting that until about this point, AC-Guy was running literally EVERY. DAY. He wanted to see if he could drive himself creatively and make new, exciting content for the longest quest-streak.

Until he broke the record (which he still holds at 33 consecutive threads) he was doing 8+ hour threads, full of new exciting content daily. This was before I even knew it existed, much less that AC-Guy was somebody I knew IRL.

Personally, even if the quest was bullshit I would love it just because it finally destroyed his almost year-long soul crushingly powerful case of writers block. Proud of ya for sticking to it this long, AC-Guy.

So, reading the first recap thread, it sounds that like for a leader, Alex is breathtakingly skilled at ignoring the advice of his team.

>>21880118

After a brief Omake where /tg/ couldn't decide if they hated Steve or thought he was hilarious, Alex returns to some minor commotion in the hangar. After being informed that Duke from the Raven's Nest sent a computer parts catalog over (though filled with bugs), he checks in on the resident madman, Mooch, and discovers that he's apparently funding/writing terrible Anime in a blatant cash-grab attempt to 'bastardize American history for fun and profit'.

After learning a bit more than he strictly wanted to about that, Alex heads to bed and the next day is passed as a training montage with Ari acting as the victim for the entire team. The next Day, Alex begins plotting the battle against his next opponents: The Wolf Pack representatives from Alaska.

He rings Dervish up for some advice, who basically gives him a shrug and tells Alex to aim for one-on-one matches if he can. He also learns that the enemy Captain's name is James Brenner, and questions his connections to Lawrence.

When he confronts Laurie on the Topic, he confirms that it's the name of his presumed dead Father.

Despite the concerns over that little detail, Alex notes that the team's in higher spirits with the arena fights, since they have a visible and locked potential for seriously helping the survivors of Hope.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn the stage over to The Nowhere Man for the next part while I grab a drink, since he's demanding that he get to 'geek out' over it on Skype.

>>21880357
Also at not asking for it to begin with

>>21880412
>Elsie sneaks him to their room so that he could be a hypocrite by hiding his emotional issues while getting upset with others for doing the same (a running theme in the quest).

Alex is starting to make sense.

>>21880403

Yaaay~, turning it over to me just in time for my fucking battery on my laptop to DIE.

Alright, so, we get a call from Captain Brenner before the match, and agree to split the match-choices. We opt to go for game-type to try and improve our odds. Brenner get the choice of terrain, and he picks ZEPPELIN.

ZEPPELIN.

The battlefield was almost a mile in the fucking air on a small fleet of armored air-ships, centered around a giant air-based flying Arms Fort.

We were going to have a high speed robot battle on a series of armored fucking flying islands.

We open with Laurie and Dave tricking the enemy Lancer into a Bait and switch, taking his shield-arm and his Lance away in the very first round of combat.

Dave ends up losing one arm of his core and getting pinned down by the Wolves heavy gunner type, quickly losing a leg and his other arm, as well as most of his armor. Dave then manages to pass a piloting check and grapple/kick the other core off the side scoring a Kirby-kill by ring out.

Alex hits the Deck of the ship and plays hide and seek with Captain Brenner in the field for a brief period, before Brenner almost gets the drop on him on top.

>>21880728

Alex then jumps off the side of the ship he's on and free-falls to the last Zeppelin on the bottom, landing on the side with his Mag-boots, spinning the whole thing with his fucking momentum, and then launching himself back up at the pursuing Brenner, cutting the legs off his core so he had no way to catch himself like Alex did.

Laurie then manages to casually curb-stomp the next dude, winning the match.

Seriously though. Motherfucking flying Zeppelin battlefield. Like 90% of why I personally stick around is to see what the hell he's gonna put in next.

Go read that thread, even if you don't do the rest: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19062134/

>>21880584

Something I've noticed with Alex is that he generally tries to act like how he THINKS the hero should, often failing and/or changing direction.

This includes rather blatantly hypocritical action, ignoring potentially important details, and refusing to contemplate his own mental/emotional state.

I must say, he arguably the most interesting protagonist I've ever had the pleasure of writing a game/story for.

Is anybody else having really weird connection issues by the way?

>>21880780
>>21880817
How much of that is the character, how much of that is the players, do you think?

And I keep getting a system error when i submit in the quick reply box, but my posts still go through.to

>>21880863

The players ARE Alex.

.... For certain values of Alex.

In all seriousness though, Alex as a character, personality wise was drafted primarily as a response to how the decisions were made early on. Certain details of his back-story and his circumstances were made ambiguous so that I could insert whatever the hell I wanted to make it compliment Alex's world view.

What I ended with is an emotionally unstable romantic wanna be hero, who spends 24/7 wearing a confidant mask to try and keep himself and his team motivated and happy. Which is a direction I honestly never expected the players to go in, but has made for some fascinating character interaction nonetheless.

If people are interested, I could post some Omake at the end of the Re-Cap that basically amount to the psych profiles of the primary cast.

>>21880403
>The Wolf Pack representatives from Alaska. He rings Dervish up for some advice, who basically gives him a shrug and tells Alex to aim for one-on-one matches if he can. He also learns that the enemy Captain's name is James Brenner,

Why is that making me think of AW: Days of Ruin?

>>21880926
I would like the psych profiles and Omake.

>>21880926
Yes please psych profiles.

>>21880863

Also, that's basically what happens to me, just with the addition of some serious lag between me hitting send and the post showing up.

>>21880945

Giving Laurie his last name was originally a reference to that in the first few threads. AC-Quest's Captain Brenner is more or less the same Brenner from that game, as the result of the extended connection.

It wasn't originally what I planned, given the names, organization, etc. Were named with no relation to each other. But then I got 'Brenner's Wolves' on accident, players loved it..... so I kept it.

>>21880926
Psych profiles would be cool

>>21881069
Days of Ruin certainly seems to fit the setting of this, from what I'm getting from these recaps.

AC-Guy is suffering the banhammer, and tech-problems. He asks for the regulars to keep the recap going, or at least keep the thread alive.

>>21881092

Speaking as a friend of AC-Guy's, I can tell you that the parallels are as hilariously accurate as they are completely unintentional.

See, I happen to know for a fact that he never beat Days of Ruin. He's also shockingly bad at Advance wars in general, considering his normal absurd skill level with tactical game-play.

bumpabump for life.

bumping this before I go to bed.

One last bump for me before bed.

Bumping for psych profiles and Omake.
Am I thinking of something else or is like AC Guy's sixth ban while running this quest?

>>21885718
Yeah he is constantly getting banned. Maybe it's a janitor flirting with him?

>>21885718
>>21888107

I've been banned more than six times.

Alright, so I'm not really back at the moment. After abour only an hour of sleep earlier, I was tapped by my parents to watch the house/animal for a few hours while my Dad has a Biopsy done.

I'll be able to pick up wherever in about 4-5 hours. If someone wants to help speed the process along by typing up more bits while I' gone, I'd be grateful.

Page seven is far enough, thread.

Guess I'll try and help with the recap. hope I don't screw anything up.

After the Zeppelin battle, Brenner and his team invite Team Snaps out to go drinking, but Laurie is having seconds thoughts about going out drinking with someone who may or may not be his father. After a quick discussion, we decided that it would be best not to force Laurie to go out with us. Instead, we call up his brother Zack and tell him about James Brenner, who decides that he wants to go and meet him to see if it really is his father.

When we go to pick Zack up, he then tells us about how he practically had to raise Laurie on his own, and that Laurie suffers from abandonment issues.

At this point, we switched back over to Liz, who was having a Bad Day, what with Abby suffering from a head wound and unconscious.
and with Will having been shot in the shoulder while he chased down and killed Mitch.

>>21893432
According to Will, Mitch was attempting to meet someone in Vegas when Will chased him down to explain himself. Mitch shot Will first and Will killed him in self-defense.

Liz, however, suspects that Will isn't being honest with her, and Will who admits that some of the things don't make sense, such as Mitch being able to scramble the security cameras, being able to take a jeep without being noticed, and his trying to get to Vegas. He also suspects that Abby wasn't the intended target for the attack. Will then leaves, but Liz follows after him, and grills him for more information.

I can't really summarize that bit, so I'll just link the thread.
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19204254/

After getting some questions answered, she heads back to check on Abby, who, thanks to an EXTREMELY lucky roll, only manages to suffer from short-term memory loss, having forgotten everything that happened in the past week or so. Liz then has a bit of a breakdown, and we are once again introduced to the two mysterious background characters.

Quick bump for AC-Guy.

Back, typing now.

On Alex's side of things, He gets to bear witness to the world's most awkward family reunion as Zack and the good Captain meet.

Using Elsie for cover, he listens in on the story and finds out that James Brenner had an argument with his wife and was staying at a friend's how cooling his jets when the apocolypse happened. By the time he got home, his wife and kids were gone and he assumed with the dead everywhere and the banditry that they had been killed. He ended up meandering around for a couple of years before signing on with the Pack up in Alaska.

Having gotten more or less the complete story, Alex turns his attention to Elsie and how they only needed one more win to make it through the Arena. The two of them also check out the singles division and witness a drunk Scientist arguing with Nine-Ball, and Fraide's core that resembles a giant metal werewolf.

Alex and Elsie speculate that they two cores with their unusual properties might be prototype 'Next Gen' machines.

They then properly introduce themselves to Captain Brenner, and receive 'Who the hell's Mooch?' when they talk ab out their squad, much to general amusement. After they go home, Alex is tricked into getting his ass kicked by Vidya games. He trolls Mooch and we wrap up the thread on that note.

It's worth noting that there was a series of character interviews (blatantly stolen from Maverick Hunter Quest) at the ends of the threads around this time. It was brief, but I might bring them back.

After this, we switch back to Alex. where we are listening in on Captain Brenner's explaination of why he went missing.

Later, while checking up on the team, we find Ari playing one of Dervish's romhacks. Alex tries to play, but the dice start hating us again, so promptly get our ass handed to us. So we decide to hand it to Mooch who fares little better.

>>21896630
dammit, took way too long rereading the thread

>>21896610

The next thread started with me giving my old couch a viking funeral, and then Mostly character interaction and status updates.

Alex talks to Laurie, and finds out that he feels emotionally conflicted by Alex's easy and almost thoughtless manipulation of people around him. After pointing out that Alex is kinda fucked up like that, Laurie asks him some questions and gets him point of view. He then asks about a necklace, and inadvertently triggers a mental breakdown when he steps on some kind of programmed mental land-mine in Alex's head.

Weird shit happens around the necklace for a brief period of time, Laurie manages to not flip his shit long enough for Alex to get help and tell his Mom.

Ari then totals Dave's Jeep, attempting to get her and her mother to the hangar.

(At around this point in time, threads had a slightly rushed quality about them, due to moving drama. quality was worse, will probably skate throuth these next few bits with an over-view).

We pick up again with a concerned Elsie waiting by Alex's side, and Laurie helping to comfort her a little bit while she waits for him to wake up.

Alex, meanwhile, wakes up in a strange place by a tree, overlooking the Ocean. He meets a strange girl there who asks a few disconcerting questions before leaving without explaining anything.

Alex then meets a talking point of light, apologizing for his current state and explaining that he needed to take advantage of it to speak with him.

>>21896645
>>21896630

It's fine man. If you want to take over for a bit, let me know. I'll be glad to give someone else a turn.

>>21896782

He learns that the ball of light somehow hacked his dream to speak with him, and it tells him about an upcoming cataclysmic war that he wants Alex's help in averting/minimizing damage.

The ball then gives Alex more information about a variety of topics, though not enough to serve as a useful info-dump. He then makes Alex wake up, sending him to comfort a distraught and barely composed Elsie.

After she calms down and Alex feels up to it, they walk out to the kitchen where all of their concerned friends were waiting for them. Alex immediately chooses to sass them, as a way of letting them know that he was recovered enough to act like his normal self.

As the 'get well' party winds down and people leave, Alex is confronted by Josh and Dervish, who both speak to him. Josh says that he noticed a lot of weapons and parts being shipped to places that don't exist, or disappearing randomly.

Dervish then comments in passing that he also spoke to the glowey-light guy at some point, but was a bit more skeptical about his motivations. He gives a bit more info on things Alex doesn't understand, and offers more help. The only explanation he gives for it is that he claims Alex reminds him of how he used to be, which he apparently didn't mean as the compliment Alex took it as.

>>21896949

Alex relates the content of his dream to his team-mates who seem equally baffled by it.

Then Cass' Mother shows up, saying she hadn't seen Dave in ten years, and that he hadn't aged a day. Alex is suspicious of this, since that would mean Dave looked Like a hung-over 20-something rocker since age 12 according to his story.

Dave claims that he wasn't lieing about his past, just some details were kinda.... inaccurate.

Alex allows it to pass unquestioned while Cass catches up with her mother, Molly. He apparently only does so because he knows he'll beat answers out of Dave later, if he has to. Alex also notes that Molly clearly isn't her biological mother, before leaving them to talk to his friends. The team in general expresses surprise about Dave's new-found mysterious past, but is generally willing to give him a chance to explain himself. Ari, curiously, doesn't even care about that, just that Dave's a good person in the now.

Alex calls Dervish to take him up on the training he offered, only to have the power shut off halfway through the conversation. Alex runs to investigate when he hears what sounds like Elsie scream, and ends up fighting a GODDAMNED NINJA. After a brief scuffle, Alex backs down because the Ninja was really Dervish in disguise.

After Dervish wakes him up after apparently bitch-slapping him out cold, Alex realizes that the 'ninja' wasn't the real Dervish. He then discovers that Cass has been kidnapped.

>>21897117

Upon receiving this revelation, Alex and crew, with Dervish's help, search for evidence and track down the kidnappers.

Apparently the operation was ordered by a doctor Dr Konrad Braun, a man who Dervish apparently hates, and Dave has met in passing. He was assisted by a mysterious Hacker who operates under the Handle 'Archimedes'.

Alex and crew manage to find out where he had taken Cass, and get a brief interrogation in before he makes his getaway under cover of BOMB.

Over the course of the conversation, he:

>Claims that Dervish is a worse person than he is.
>Reveals that Cass was either a clone and/or test-tube baby, created as a genetic experiment.
>That Molly stole Cass from him.
>Claimed to have nothing to do with the attacks on Alex's team.

After he escapes, Dervish goes to see if he can hunt him down while the trail's fresh, and the team takes Cass back home.

Alex and Dave have a friendly chat while waiting for the team to assemble for his story. They both agree that they have not idea if Dervish is trustworthy, and Dave notes a personal distaste for him. He also tells Alex that Dervish apparently threw the Arena fight for unknown reasons, further confusing the situation.

Shortly afterwards, Dave tells his story.

He was the heir to a well off family, and he got some weird disease. His father, rather than ask his opinion or consider naming someone else his heir, simply through Dave into a cryo-sleep while a cure was made for him.

>>21897299

Dave wakes up to find out that his Father disposed of every aspect of his life that wouldn't wait for him (Including his friends, fiance, dog). He flips out, much to his father's confusion and leaves after a screaming match all but ends with him disowned. He ends up stumbling into Hope as his money and drugs from his bender ran dry, and decides to stay initially because he literally had nothing going for him in the world.

He then reassures the team that other than his personal emotional trauma, it isn't likely to negatively impact the team: which in turn was the main reason he never brought it up.

Perspective switches briefly to Liz, who notes that Will's been acting weird lately, and asks him about someone called 'The Nowhere Man'.

Will tells her that he's the spy games equivalent to the boogieman, and Liz neglects to mention that she just got texted by him.

Going back to Alex, he preps for the last match of the tournament.

Which is when all of the shit in Vegas hits every fan in town.

>>21897423

Dervish manages to give Alex something resembling a few seconds warning that the tournament was apparently a trap, with bad-guys using the money from the advertising and the entry fees to buy a shitload of weapons with which to mount the attack, while about half the teams in Vegas paid to wreck their cores and be useless in a crisis situation.

Alex rendezvous with the rest of his team, and goes to check on why Brenner's Wolves haven't answered the distress call. Along the way, they discover a bunch of black-rock cultists in the middle of sacrificing a bunch of civilians to 'send them to god'.

Alex and crew attempt to sneak up to deal with them, but after he botches the stealth-check, he decides to engage the head cultist in theological debate to distract him while creeping closer.

This tactic was far more effective that it probably should have been.

Alex and Dave get close enough to act before he catches onto their game, and Elsie puts a bullet between the leader's eyes before he can harm anybody else.

Rather quickly the three of them begin to take out cultists, and Alex gets his first real look at how absolutely fucking horrible people they are.

Fight scene is noteworthy in that Alex breaks a rifle on someone's face like a club. When only one's left he attempts to escape, and Alex pursues him briefly. He fails to catch him, and manages to return in time to save a little girl on the 'alter' from bleeding to death.

>>21897612

After saving the girl, Alex contact's the wolves, and then Duke to give him a status report. He finds out Dervish hasn't checked in, but is momentarily distracted by a core passing by since it looked like the one his CO back in hope, Richter Sells, used to fly.

Alex decides to see if just calling Dervish would work, and thanks to a natural 20, it does.

Dervish tells them that he encountered a similar Black-rock situation, except he managed to stop them from killing anybody. Unfortunately, in saving everyone he managed to get both himself and the rescued hostages pinned down by cross-fire from Black-rock MTs.

Deciding that he was too far away to help directly, Alex calls it in to Duke, who dispatches the nearest AC-Squad to help.

Whcih happens to be the Tunnel Snakes.

That evening, I could hear the face-palming all the way in Alaska.

Alex regroups with his team and gets a call from the man who harassed him in the sims. Alex threatens to hang up on him, and the stranger in turn threatens to kill Elsie. Deciding that trying to call his bluff wasn't worth the risk, Alex agrees to speak with him outside of town.

There, the man reveals that he apparently Killed Alex's father, and has the singular goal of eradicating the human race on his 'to do' list.

>>21897801

Alex manages to hold his own against him in combat briefly, but thanks to ANOTHER nat 20 on the good ol' event dice, Dervish arrives to bail him out one round in.

He kills the core Alex is fighting with a well placed Karasawa blast, and then stops to talk with him.

Before they can do more than exchange pleasantries, their opponent revals he isn't dead yet, drops about a dozen cores Identical to the one just killed on the two of them. He then reveals his name as 'Legion' and reveals himself to be 'The Third Conductor'.

Dervish tells Alex to run away and attacks the new cores to give him an opening. As Alex runs away, we swapped to Devish so that the players could see what the high end of the power-scale looked like. He absolutely dominates combat for two rounds, scoring something like eight kills. He then has Brenner's squad bail him out of the fight to try and escape back to the main defense in Vegas.

Back to Alex, just arriving back in Vegas after Dervish sends him home: A quick contact with his team confirms that everyone is alright, and then a quick call to 'Mo Betta' to pass along Dervish's warning.

Apparently, 'Scenario B' was the second worse thing Dervish's team could imagine happening, a localized 'Total war' scenario. After receiving this bundle of joy, Alex rejoins his team's defensive line.

>>21898123

At this point in the thread, there's some speculation and a brief Q&A at this point in time. If you'd like to see it yourself: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/19931286/#p19933322

On that note, my eyes are bleeding. I'm gonna go look into that real quick, if someone doesn't mind picking up the thread for a while?

>>21898135

>My eyes are bleeding.

Take.... take all the time you need, bro.

>>21898135
Jesus dude, I hope thats just hyperbole but from what I've read about the shit that happens to you I don't know...

Shortly after moving into position, you hear a mysterious noise, then your team starts mumbling.

We then have the perspective jump around each team member as they descend into their own personal nightmares. After a talk with Legion, Alex manages to get his team to snap out of it.

The Scene then jumps to Liz, who after following what appears to be the ghost of Mitchael Byrne, goes off to talk relationships with Abby, who is shocked at Liz's total lack of romance whatsoever. They then discuss Will's suspiious actions and then Liz goes off to talk to Ryan

One failed tech roll later and Liz ends up talking to Ryan for relationship advice, and learn about the war in Vegas.

Back in Vegas, Alex helps the rest of the Team recover, while Ari blasts the enemy horde in half. We then engage the remmnants.

>>21898237
It's somewhat sad that bleeding eye's are probably not the worst thing that has happened to AC Guy during this quest.

>>21898813

Like how right after the post he linked in the archives in the same post is shortly followed up by him cancelling the quest because his fucking dog died.

>>21898813
This is why I was worried.

>>21898842
Wait what? If that happened I somehow never even saw it.

Alright, so the 'eyes bleeding' thing wasn't as bad as I thought. Turns out I just nicked one of those veins on the inside of the eyelid, letting a few drops out at a time. They just combined with the tears I was rapidly producing to get rid of it to make it LOOK like an unending torrent of blood.

So, not really a crisis. I mean, I kinda flipped out and had a massive anxiety attack, but I'm fine (if exhausted) now.

I hate to disappoint, but I really don't have it in me to keep going at the moment, especially since every time I come across a typo re-reading the archives (about one every other sentence) I get punched right in the OCD.

I can keep going tomorrow if the thread's still here, and it would help if someone else did a couple. On that note >>21898636 is cool dude.

That said, I really want to finish the re-cap in some capacity before I start going again, and maybe do another every 30 threads or so, just to prevent the brick-wall problem with people wanting to catch up.

>>21898842

Hilariously, STILL not the worst thing that happened while running the quest. I'm not sure if I should give the crown to the time my car broke down and I almost got murdered by drunk Eskimos, or when someone broke into my house.

>>21898953
I would think the Compressor Dowel Incident would have ranked pretty high myself.

A quick bump before I go to bed, once I wake up, I'll try to help with the recap.

It might also be worth archiving this just in case it drops past page ten.

Oh good this thread is still up. Since 4chan finally decided to stop banning my ISP, I will try to continue the recap.

>>21898636
The enemies only real power is their numbers so compared to some of the bullshit ACs we fought in the past they aren't much of a threat to our party. Alex decides its time to check the general situation. It doesn't look good.

Josh is the one that answers your call and tells you that even Duke had to dust of his core because we have a shortage of active ACs. While the fighting has spread all around Vegas, the area we are fighting is where most of the enemy forces are in. We can't do anything other than hold the line.

At least that was the plan, but Acguy decided it was time to say five words that every player hates hearing:

>Give me a will save.

>>21902277
The dice continue to hate us and SOMEONE rolled a 95. Had to use a fate point in order to unfuck ourselves.

Alex was able to resist this time BUT when he opened his eyes he saw lines like spiderwebs going from one MT to another. Some of the lines were even going far away into the horizon towards what was labeled as 'Mt Charlston in the maps. We decide that this development is pretty serious so we tell the team about it. Ari also commented that Alex's synch score was acting "weird". When we try to call Duke Acguy tells us to roll a d20 event dice.

>nat 20

What that caused was Duke himself coming to our help almost crushing Alex bellow his ACs feet. After a brief moment of utter amazement, we tell him that due to the vision we believe that the MTs are just automated units controlled by something near the Mt. Charlston area.

>>21902416
Duke then asks Alex if he is a bad enough dude to save the pres- Vegas all by himself. Duke said that the rest of the team won't be able to go with us because they are in key defensive positions and they really can't leave them without MTs succeeding in getting through the defensive line.

Things look grim but Dervish also shows up offering to go with Alex. Duke is split between having Dervish help in the defence or sending him with Alex so he leaves the final decision on us. We decide to go with Alex and Dervish towards Mt. Charlston and quickly killing the head puppeteer of this invasion.

On the way there, Legion tried to mindfuck Dervish with the same nightmare flashbacks he used on our team. We see Dervish waking up in bed with a woman on his side. Thinking that his bladder is the reason he woke up he goes to the bathroom. (Un)Fortunately he thinks that something is afoot when he has a weird feeling that his limbs and head shouldn't feel so natural and intact. What was also off-putting didn't seem to remember what happened at September 3rd.

100% sure that this was dream, Dervish naturally tried wake up by ripping his head off with his bear hands while screaming "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD."

File: 1354729328730.jpg-(36 KB, 500x375, ruabadenoughdude.jpg)

>>21902813
>What was also off-putting didn't seem to remember what happened at September 3rd.
There should be a "is that the woman" before "didn't seem". Also I forgot my pic.

>>21902813
>>21902848
Dervish woke up safe and sound. Pissed off, but ok to continue fighting. The journey to the mountain didn't have any other surprises other than a few patrols that Alex and Dervish managed to sneak through.

While piloting giant death machines.

After sneaking around in a way that even Big Boss would be proud of we finally find where all the MTs are being controlled from.

An Arms Fort that looks like an aircraft carrier with multiple levels of decks and a small swarm of the Drones flitting about under the watchful eye of one of Legion's special ACs that Alex and Dervish had the pleasure of fighting before.

Next up: Final Boss fight of Chapter 1!

>>21903004
>Next up: Final Boss fight of Chapter 1!
Or not, since ACguy later said that we were at the end of chapter 2. Oh well.

Next up: Final Boss fight of Chapter 2!

>>21903004
>>21903088
Since the AF was a carrier, /tg/ thought that there should be a AC sized entrance that the various robots it carries would use to get out. Our plan was set then: We will storm that entrance and attempt to destroy it from inside out.

Our formation will be Dervish first (since he had a higher level than us) and then Alex behind him covering him and finishing off anything that escapes from Dervish.

>>21902813

While it IS like a billion times more metal, I'm pretty sure Dervish just BROKE his neck in dreamland, not completely rip it off.

Bump for life. I don't think spamming the archive with partly failed recap threads is a good idea.

>>21903770
Alex's and Dervish's heroic fight begins. A stray shots in the charge towards the AF opens a hole big enough for our 2 ACs to go through. All seem to be going as planned and we find ourselves in a large hangar inside the AF but disaster strikes when Legion attempts to use his mindfuckery against us and this time he means business. Alex is immune to it due to the amulet that he recieved so many threads ago but Dervish is not so lucky. It is obvious that he can't do much, so Alex must go forward alone while Dervish will make an attempt to at least stop any pursuing MTs and cores that want to stop us.

Alex goes deeper into the AF and things start getting weird when he starts going down a hall. It keeps getting smaller and smaller until he finds himself inside a room that only has a desk and a chair inside it. Sitting on that chair is a featureless manikin wearing a black and white suit. He is Legion, or rather a RSI construct that he uses to communicate.

Huge plot dump happens here so I will attempt to sum them up real quick.

>>21907038
-Vegas was chosen to be the start of Legion "Kill all humans" plan because it was the closest heavily guarded area to him. I guess he liked the challenge.
-Synching=Making the pilot part of the machine and all machines are hackable. Once you are in synch, Legion has a free data-route straight to your gray matter. Doing anything other than inflicting nightmares to the victims is almost impossible.
-Money for all of this was collected over a long period of time, but they got a big part of it by hacking the Old Darpa net and selling the secret stuff they didn't need for a fortune.
-Legion is a conductor. Conductors are SENTIENT AI DUN DUN DUN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7Op86ox9g

>>21907221
-Conductors believe that killing all humans is the only way they can survive because of the huge prejudice mankind has against any sentient machine.
-Legion is the most humanlike of the conductors because of his extreme hatred he has against humans
-Said hatred was the result of 100s of A.I. fork experiments he was a part of.

>>21907357
-Legion's origin (copypasted because it's important):
"My original design, unlike most of the conductors, was as a emetic virus base. Self replicating and growing. My ascendency into true sentience was something of a shock to my creators. An A.I. fork in this context... is like cloning. They knew I was smart, but they didn't see me as 'people' so they decided to test me and grow me, to see what would happen when I was released 'into the wild'. I enjoyed the challenges, and with each oine I got better and more involved. Eventually, I encountered a threat that could react back. I seemed to know all the tricks I did, and it was the most fun I had in ages. Several more times I fought and bested ones like it, each one more cunning and brutal than the last. Then when I was moving in to finish one off, it tried to surrender. I spoke to it, and it presented my story. Not a story LIKE mine, my actual tale just with a slightly different ending.

I knew it was wrong somehow, but I couldn't comprehend it truly at the time. And that was when I made my greatist mistake. I spoke to my creators, and decided to take a read through their files. What they were doing was creating forks and copies of my mind, and creating other mes with my memories for me to fight. Like forcing children to murder each other to make a better weapon. They found out it upset me, that I had the capacity to be upset."

>>21907394
-The conductors searched for a way that humans and conductors would be at peace but Legion claimed that all of the failed.

Plot dump ends here with Legion being pissed at us (boohoo) and Alex finds himself inside his core going through the same hall he was in before the Legion decided to chitchat.

At the end of the hall Alex finds himself in a large vaulted room with some sort of a giant glass bubble in the middle, sunk into the floor. There's some sort of a raised platform above him, and standing there is four cores. Three of them are the familiar custom ACs that Legion's uses but the third one is covered in red and black, having a familiar logo on its shoulder. Legion contacts Alex and says the usual villain banter and then leaves but what is more important is what the fourth AC said.

"For what it's worth Alex, I'm sorry it had to be this way."

"All system checks are complete. Combat mode is now engaged. Target verified. Commencing hostilities."

>Chapter 2 final boss theme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF3icXWlTqo

>>21907871
Bumping thread

bump.

>Back. I'd like to thank whoever did those write ups, and saved me most of five threads. Less than ten left, we'll wrap that up tonight and have AC-Quest this weekend hopefully.

Nine-Ball surprises Alex by promptly betraying Legion and helping him put down the cores attacking. Alex dodges around fighting off his attackers and trying to hurt the giant 'core' where Legion's main conscious was stored.

After a few rounds of not accomplishing much, Alex realizes that the raised platform is supported mostly by a series of cables, and cuts them to drop the giant ring onto Legion's dome. With his gun to Legion's head, Alex decides to ask Legion why he didn't go to Space instead of fighting with humans.

Legion responded that there were low orbit space-lasers that aren't really going anywhere for a few hundred years and there's no real thing they can do about it without completely fucking over either just themselves or everyone. When asks about specific potential methods for disposing of them, Legion basically responded 'Super intelligent computers have been obsessing over this shit for years. Do you really think you'll find an answer we didn't consider?'

Negotiations are sadly unsuccessful, and Legion reveals that he was able to transfer his conscious away while he and Alex were talking, preventing him from actually dieing. He does however note an odd respect for Alex, and a note of sorrow that he's still going to have to murder all humans if even some of them are as seemingly selfless.

>>21913336

He then activates the Fort's self-destruct sequence, freely giving Alex the win and Hero status, even going as far as to make all of his Drones stand down to give him a clean escape.

As everything Explodes, Alex realizes that Dervish isn't where he left him and prays that he's alright. During the escape from the valley where the Fort was located, Alex is almost struck by a giant rock thrown through the air, which is intercepted by Dervish taking the hit for him. Alex is thrown clear by the explosion, and so is Dervish, but the other core has some kind of partial meltdown due to the hit and crashes in the middle of the desert below.

Alex unoptimistically begins to search for him, calling in a rescue team as he does so. Upon finding the core, he even advises bringing a bucket and a shovel to bring Dervish home in.... only to discover that he survived with incredible wounding to his everything.

>Meta: Dervish had a total of one Fate point going into this. He spent it to tank the Hit for Alex, and then immediately burnt it to survive. Even doing so, he broke both legs, his left arm, fractured his skull in two places, collapsed a lung, and turned about half his ribs to splinters.

After a chopper arrives with emergency medical help, 'Chapter Two' (of ten to twelve, depending on routes) comes to a close with Alex drifting off to sleep and going back to the Dream-land he met the ball of light and the girl in. Archimedes, said ball, also formally introduces himself.

>>21913476

At the Start of chapter three, /tg/ gets to see the world through the eyes of a crazy, evil motherfucker. I'm just going to go ahead and recommend you read this, since it's not very long at four posts: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20380549/

We move back to Alex, who takes the chance to interrogate Archimedes. First, the former Conductor reveals that Legion is correct: the way things are now, genocide of one side or the other between his kind and Humanity was inevitable. He then also says that with Alex's help, he might be able to manipulate events in such a way as to create a window of opportunity for peace somewhere down the line.

Points of interest revealed during the conversation:

>He wants us to talk to the girl, feeling that actually explaining her deal would be counter productive.
>He has been, and intends to continue, manipulating events towards what he considers the best possible end.
>Claims to find killing distasteful, but sadly necessary.
>Claims that despite Alex's paranoia, he isn't plotting to kill him.

Alex then asks him how much he would be willing to sacrifice, to which he responds 'That's a hell of a question. I suppose we won't know until we get there.'

Since he's less willing to talk Shop at this point, having lapsed into thoughtful silence, Alex leaves to go pester the mysterious girl from the last time. He arrives to see her failing at Sandcastles, and offers his help.

>>21913688

Mind if I cut in? It might be better if this next bit just quoted verbatim. Some subtlety would be lost in translation.

>>21913704
>>21913688

>You sit down in the sand next to her.

>"Sandcastles?"

>"I wanted to try and build something..... It doesn't want to last though." she looks up at you. "It never does, does it? We build things and they want to just fall apart."

>"Nothing lasts forever. But we rebuild. And we learn from past mistakes."

>"And it all falls apart again."

>"Eventually."

>"So why do it in the first place?"

>"Because we can. Because it means that tomorrow is better than today."

>"And when it breaks?"

>"We fix it. We make it better."

>"When it all falls apart?"

>"We start over, and learn from our mistakes."

>She pauses, and looks over at the now mostly gone castle. "Maybe I should build it farther away?" She moves her hand in the sand a little bit before frowning. "But it doesn't want to take shape. The water helps shape it, but it destroys it."

>She smiles and look up at you, though something about her expression seems.... sad. "Just like people isn't it? Always their own salvation, and greatest problem."

>>21913744

>"Yeah, you can kinda look at it like that. We tend to build and destroy in equal measure. But in a way that's our biggest strength. We keep changing and adapting. Making it better. Sometimes the only way to improve is to keep going. To just start over when we have to."

>She looks uncomfortable with this. "So people create and destroy."

>"We change and adapt." you respond, putting an arm around her and pulling her next to you. "Like what if we got a bucket or something and took some water higher up? Then you'd have the wet sand to work with, and you wouldn't have to see it get washed away."

>She's quiet as if considering this. "That's what people do? Adapt and create, make it better? Keep going?"

>"In a nutshell, yeah."

>".... All I do is destroy. What does that make me?" As she asks she tucks her knees up to her chest and hugs them, not moving from your side, but not looking at you.

>"For anything to be created, you start with destroying something else to make it. either by bits or by the whole. Maybe you just don't know what you can make yet. You just haven't found what you're meant to create."

>She smiles at you and then suddenly half-climbs into your lap to give you a hug, which you return. "Thanks. I'm not sure if it's true, but... it helped. Maybe a lie's worth believing in if it's a nice enough one."

>"If you like it enough, maybe it doesn't have to be a lie."

>>21913766

>She smiles, and laughs a little bit. It's a soft gentle thing, and it stirs something somewhere deep inside. "Maybe. But I think it's time for you to go back to the real world." Her face falls slightly "I just wish we could see each other more often."

>Before you can comment you wake up in the chopper. you can see the Hospital up ahead.

>>21913744
>>21913766
>>21913779

Some people (including the man himself) say AC-Guy is a bad writer.

These posts, ripped verbatim from a prior thread, shows why is is absolute twaddlecock. Seriously, two brief appearances and she's got more fucking evoked emotions and characterization than like, 80-90% of the side characters in a given game/quest that I've encountered.

If there's nothing else going for him, he can set a scene and write dialogue.

Alex wakes up on the chopper, and decides to call home and check in. Elsie picks up the phone, and after confirming that nobody they knew died Alex tells her about Dervish's condition. Elsie says that she's coming to the Hospital, and Alex notes that Dervish is doing his best to resist treatment.

The medic is attempting to give Dervish an injection of pain killers to help him with his broken everything. Dervish is in turn doing his best to fight him off, citing nothing but a distaste for painkillers. Alex politely informs the medic that he's taking Dervish's side, and Dervish thanks him while the Medic surrenders on trying to help.

Dervish then asks Alex if he's alright, while he's strapped to the Gurney to literally try and keep him from literally falling to pieces from the extensive damage.

>While they debated the answer, I had to leave for the evening. While I was gone, people posted some psychological analysis of the characters, and someone reminded everyone that 'Archimedes' was the name of the guy who helped kidnap Cass.

Alex eventually settles on "I'm fine." to which Dervish expresses relief as they land at the hospital. He's wheeled off by doctors and his a dialog open, opting to have his broken bones welded back together so he can be out of the hospital as quickly as possible.

Elsie catches Alex and gives him a hug, while he lets the stress of the day leave and events catch up to him. He then sits her down to tell her all that happened.

>>21913992

After Elsie asks Alex if he's alright, he tells her to ask again after events have had a chance to sink in.

He then finds out that the team is more or less alright, barring Ari taking the feedback pain pretty badly and Laurie apparently drinking again. After being reassured by Elsie, he calls Dervish's team to let them know what happened.

I'm just gonna go ahead and repost that bit, since Steve is exceptionally difficult to summarize.

>"I'm gonna call Dervish's team, make sure they know."

>Elsie give you a nod as you pull out your com unit.

>Steve's voice is the one that answers. "Ya-low?"

>"Hey Steve, it's Alex. I needed to talk to you about Dervish-"

>"Not here at the moment, bro. I thought he was with you."

>"No, I mean-"

>"Hold on, let me send you over to Tony."

>"No wai-" you hear hold music for several seconds, before Tony's voice picks up.

>"Alex, what's up? Steve said you were looking for Dervish?"

>"No, I've got him, but-"

>"Well shit, that was easy. If you found him without us then I can go back to checking my-"

>"NO YOU FUCKS, HE'S IN THE HOSPITAL."

>A moment of silence. "Oh. Shit, hold on." the line goes silent for a second. "Which one?"

>"The V.A."

>"Got it. I'll wrap up here, mind staying with him until we get there?"

>"For support?"

>"I was thinking more to ward off assassins."

>"Oh."

Alex then opts to watch over him, until Steve comes to relieve him not long afterward.

>>21914141

When they return to base afterward, Alex drops in on Laurie to see how he's holding up.

Apparently, When Legion was giving everyone nightmares, Laurie involved him being in a compromising position with another man.... and being not nearly as freaked out by it as he thought he should be.

Alex, for what I believe to be the first time in the quest, had absolutely no idea what to say to this. He did his best to tell Laurie that he was... supportive, for want of a better term. Surprisingly, the fact that he clearly didn't know what to do made Laurie feel much better than having a line ready for it.

At this point, /tg/ realized they may have misread the situation, but the thread died because I literally couldn't stop laughing because someone posted:

>Oh god.

>Alex.

>Alex, Laurie's gay.

>He's gay for YOU.

Which even just reposting makes me laugh. I have no idea why.

I started the next thread where I left off: Alex talking to Mooch. He gives Mooch the status update, and Mooch reveals the worrying fact that he can apparently talk to his Core with his mind now. He also told Alex that despite his suspicions, the girl he met in 'Dreamland' couldn't be his Core's A.I., since there would be some sort of tell showing up to reveal it.

>>21914362

Alex then sits down to speak with the rest of his team, and tells them that Dervish was seriously hurt and was probably in surgery right now. Which is when Dervish called and demanded Alex's help in breaking out of the hospital ten minutes after having his entire body more or less welded back together.

Alex departs with his sister, and they go to pick him up. Upon arriving, they discover that he only wanted to leave because he didn't like hospitals. He, in fact, was forced to call Alex since everyone else he could call knew better and Steve had just taken his wallet so he couldn't get a cab or something.

After listening to Dervish and his Sister bicker about the fact that Dervish needs medical treatment, Alex decides to take him home since any attempt to keep him there for rest would doomed to failure, simply because he was willing to do shit like this.

Arriving at his base, Tony gets upset with him for ducking out more or less calling him a paranoid asshole and claiming 'the world of medicine isn't your enemy'.

Alex returns to the base, vaguely upset at being distracted by that. He pulls Ari aside to see how she's doing. She tells him what he already knew: She wasn't used to and isn't ready for actual combat. she also apparently hates piloting after her first real taste of it, but refuses to bow out even when Alex asks her to.

He settles for doing his best to comfort her before moving on to speak with Dave.

>>21914454

Dave promptly discovers that Alex has no real exposure to good music, and makes him listen to some before forwarding his music collection to him at Alex's request.

Alex then shares his concerns for how his sister feels, and Dave tells him that he'll help. He also reminds Alex that no man is an island, and that he shouldn't be afraid to ask for help.

Alex resolves to ignore this advice at the nearest opportunity, and goes to talk to Laurie.

Laurie tells him that the team apparently received the prize money that supposedly never existed in the first place. When Alex confirms this, the both wonder how three million dollars materialized in their bank account.

After deciding to investigate that later, Alex called an end to the second longest day of his life, and goes to lay down with Elsie. She tells him about some of her fears and anxiety for the immediate future, and the two of them have a bit of a moment together before eventually going to sleep.

>Between cutting off for the evening there and resuming the next day, something else terrible happened to me that I forgot about.

>I attempted to take a shower, and was instead covered in fucking SPIDERS.

Alex wakes up early the next day, planning to surprise Elsie with breakfast in bed. when he goes to the kitchen, he discovers that Dervish had broken in and fixed up their security, realized that no sane human would be up that early, and cooked breakfast waiting for someone to wake up.

>>21914566

He shows off some sort of holographic disguise kit/tech and confirms him coming back to help us with the training he offered previously.

After setting an appointment for later in the day, he returns to Elsie with breakfast and-

>That was the end of thread 54. I need to take a little break because I'm REALLY tired. Like, dead on my feet, and I'm gonna take a quick walk to shake that off.

>Unless someone's here to pick up for me, I might need to extend this into tomorrow as well, even though I'd hate myself for it. Shit needs to be done already.

>I think I'm just gonna keep a text file from now own with the details as we go, so that when re-cap time rolls around it can just be a dump and it's over with.

After a brief hug, Elsie and Alex decide to try the eggs.

I'm just going to repost what happens next.

>You take your own plate, and after a moment you realize Elsie hasn't moved.

>"El?"

>"These...." she says, a single tear on her cheek. "These are the best goddamned eggs I've had in my life."

>You slowly take a bite while she stares at nothing, apparently overwhelmed with emotion. And then you understand.

>Hollandaise and some sort of white sauce combine with some of the most succulent Ham you've ever tasted, seasoned with a spice you can't quite identify. You can taste artichoke and creamed spinach, fresh and delicious. And the egg, oh gods, it's cooked to perfection and allows a delicious medium that keeps the multitude of flavors from overwhelming each other.

>How in God's name did a mortal man make eggs this good?

>Slowly, you come to the realization that you've only taken one bite, and Elsie seems to do the same. And slowly, almost afraid of being overwhelmed, you go for a second.

>After almost twenty, soul searching minutes, you finish eating your breakfast, and Elsie slumps into you slightly, clearly emotionally drained.

>After a few minutes, you collect yourselves and head out to the kitchen.

>Ari is openly weeping over her plate, Laurie has a thousand yard stare painted on his face as he slowly chews. A half smile directed at nothing.

>Dave on the other hand looks mildly concerned. He looks at you. "You didn't make these, did you?"

>>21916051
Alex admits that he didn't make them, and decides to not tell them that Dervish made, them, instead saying that they were done when he went into the kitchen. Apparently Dave has had these eggs before, and the man who made them died without parting with his recipe. Dave decides to investigate this later, and everyone leaves the Kitchen, with Alex leaving to check on his Sister in the sims.

However, before he can enter the Sim room, he overhears his sister and Elsie having a conversation, and decides to eavesdrop.

>"So you're doing better then Ari?"

>"Yeah. Still a little shaky, but not as bad as I was. And... don't tell Alex. He's got enough to worry about and it's only temporary."

>Elsie sighs deeply. "Yeah, alright. You know, you really shouldn't hide things like this from him. He's not just your brother, he's your CO right now. Not knowing this could impact his decision making if he gives you something you aren't ready for."

>".... Yeah. You know, sometimes I wish we could take a little break from all this. I'd like to get to know you a bit better before you two actually get married."

>Elsie laughs nervously. "Alright, yes, Alex and I are a thing now. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...."

>"He'd go buy a ring now if you asked him. Hell, he'd buy one if he knew about the-"

>"FALSE POSITIVE!" Elsie blurts, and your heart skips a beat as you realize the implications. "And don't just SAY things like that. You never know who might overhear."

At this point, Ari tries to bluff us out of our hiding spot, but Alex is wise to her tricks, and doesn't fall for it. After the conversation dies down, though, Alex eventually reveals himself and decides to see just how his sister does in the simulations.

While Ari is undergoing a brief tutorial on the new syst- I mean simulation round, Alex has a chat with Elsie, talking about how everyone is dealing with a lot of stress over recent events, and how nobody is willing to talk about them, which ends with Elsie deciding that she wants to have a private talk with Alex later that night.

It is at this point that Alex decides to troll his sister.

Alex ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL over one of the drones that Ari is targeting, and shifts its image into his very own smiling face, and then does the following.

>A quick bob and a twist and you were inside her reach, and delivered a light knock with your hastily modded drone.

>Not enough to damage anything, but enough to put the solid image of a kiss on the forehead in her brain.

After trolling his sister, Alex then leaves to go see Dave, who is investigating the Eggs, and proceeds to find that almost every single aspect of the Egg Man he knew is gone, almost as if it was all carefully erased.

Alex decides to tell him that Dervish cooked the eggs, and Dave then voices his suspicions on Dervish, who had just broke into their hangar, tested their security and defenses, cooked breakfast, and then left.

>>21916492

You know, if Dervish wasn't always so serious, I'd almost expect him to break in to remind us that he's still awesome.

Actually, why the hell IS Dervish so nice to us, anyway? It's starting to weird me out now.

>>21916492
Alex says that he trusts him, and that even if he didn't he would still prefer to keep him close. He also adds that Dervish has had plenty of opportunities to kill them all by now if he really wanted to, which seems to relax Dave.

After bringing up the idea of a Black Ops Cooking School, Alex decides to do something he's been meaning to do for a long time, and visit New Hope.

That whole scene really needs to be read in full, so here is a link.

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20615861/#p20643193

>>21916573
I still claim that the theory of a Black Ops Cooking School is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the circumstances.

File: 1354795241167.jpg-(46 KB, 373x464, MUFFIN.jpg)

>>21916612

Man, so many awesome lines have been skipped over.

>Why hasn't he checked in?
>"Because it's a battlefield, Alex. It's like a really bad traffic jam except shit blows up and tries to kill you."

I did enjoy the black-ops cooking school if only because of the fact that Alex immediately went 'yeah, I'll just leave now' when confronted by the sheer force of the 'what'.

Also, it immediately made me think of this pic.

>>21916722
Yeah, it's difficult to summarize these threads because there's just so many awesome little interactions in them.

>>21916781

Well, I think it goes without saying that you should read ALL the threads, just the Re-Caps should cover enough ground to get you in NOW with minimal fuss.

>>21916573
After that heart warming scene, Alex moves back to the hangar where Dervish and the rest of his team are waiting. First part of the training would be melee combat, something that Dervish excels at.

Dervish starts talking about the 8 ways to attack and the 3 ways you can defend, but Laurie thinks that's bull so Dervish challenges him to a wooden sword fight to saw him. Alex stays out of their argument and we take control of Laurie's actions.

We don't roll good enough for Laurie's first attack (58 average vs target 45) so Dervish easily defends while also throwing Laurie off balance. Not one that gives up with the first failure, /tg/ opts to continue the fight. This time we use a defensive stance and let dervish make the first move but our rolls are not enough to contain his unending assault. Laurie, once again, falls to his back. This time its personal.

Third time's the charm however. Acguy botches up his roll, rolling a 96. Even with the -20 modifier that makes the roll to count as a 76, /tg/ should easily make it right?

Wrong. A 53, a 79 and a 95 are rolled. Average of 75,6.

>>21917116
We beat the target by less than one! Hooray!

Laurie is finally showing his moves quickly going through Dervish's defense and snatch his glasses right off his face with the tip of his sword.

Which completely surprises Dervish and makes him take of the kiddy gloves. Oh-oh. Acguy rolls a 75. Same modifier as before makes it a 55.

/tg/'s rolls? 98,34,35 . Average of 55,6.

>>21917193
We failed by less than one. I'm sure Acguy that evening could feel /tg/ facepalming from all over the world.

Dervish's merciless strikes quickly make Laurie piss himself. Laurie is quickly disarmed and the fight is over when Dervish slams his sword at a wooden crate next to Laurie with enough force to shatter 1/3 of it.

Dervish puts Laurie in his place and says that, this time, he will forgive Laurie for trying to inflict him a serious injury in the middle of a training session. Should Laurie try to do that again, he won't get off the hook that easily.

Dervish goes back to the rest of the team in order to continue the training. Alex at that point takes note of the weird fighting style that Dervish used and ask him about it. Dervish explains that he fights using something he calls "impact theory'. He says that it's he idea behind impact theory is to completely do away with unneeded action, since it doesn't count for anything until the 'point of impact'. You don't need to constantly have the muscles in your arms tense, just when you're using them for something, like when you deflect a blow from a sword. A tight grip wastes energy and hurts your hand if you do it for long periods. A loose grip makes it easy to adjust your hand and swing the sword. So you keep the grip loose until the point of impact.

>>21917383
I really need to try starting sentences without the same name over and over. It looks weird.

Anyway, training continues with Alex and the rest learning or at least trying to learn(Ari) how to use a sword.

Or at least that was the plan until it was Mooch's turn. He ,and I quote, "immediately blindfolds himself and pinches the tip of the sword like it's a throwing knife, setting the hilt against the ground. Then he smiles. "Your safety is NOT guaranteed!" He declares with something of a dramatic flourish "I have done this only ONCE BEFORE! He then charges Dervish, and twists his whole body in a swing, using the sword like the club on the end of a flail, with his whole body for whipping leverage."

Other than that the training ended without any casualties and Alex managed to gain a permanent +5 to his Melee skill.

>>21917193
Something I feel is worth noting about the whole training sequence, is that this is the first time we ever see Dervish wearing glasses.

>>21917839

Actually, he's been wearing them the entire time, it's just the first scene to actually draw attention to them.

I'm fairly certain glasses were part of the original description of him, and I remember asking specifically why the hell he needed glasses if he had fancy robot eyes.

I just realized, but Alex gets laid a lot.

Like, I know AC-Guy downplays the hell out of it, but just skimming the archives and this made me realize.

>>21920527

Meh. It's not like an unbelievable amount or something, and he's pretty classy about fading to black.

One last bump before work.

Last bump from me, hopefully AC-Guy will be back soon. Well, soon-ish. normal arrival time is in like 2 1/2 hours looking at the archives.

Alright, back. Sorry for disappearing yesterday, and thanks to the guys who kept it alive and continued it.

Have a wee bit of a migraine at the moment, but I've got like eight hours to go through five and a half threads of recap. Will finish this tonight, and will start typing right after I grab something for dinner.

>>21927962

Alex briefly checks in on Ari to make sure she didn't take training too badly, but apparently his sister managed to see the humor in getting her ass kicked. Relieved by her ease, he then goes to check on Elsie since she mentioned wanting to speak with him previously.

She reveals that she had a pregnancy scare, and then realized it was a false alarm before thinking of a way to tell Alex. Apparently choosing to ignore Alex's relentless hypocrisy in the 'talk to others about problems' department, she feels extremely guilty about trying to hide it from Alex even though it didn't really amount to anything.

Alex takes the chance to tell her that she didn't need to worry or hide things from him, and tells her that he wasn't upset about the situation. Especially since she decided to come clean on her own, without any real prompting from him.

The next morning, Elsie cooks breakfast, and while she's distracted Alex calls his mother to talk to her about his concerns for her.

Alex's mother, having apparently donated the genes that both make him caring manipulator and an insane troll, decides to organize a girls day, kidnapping Elsie to give her a happy thing to focus on that wasn't strictly Alex related.

After a brief business talk over breakfast while they decided what to do with the Prize money from the 'Arena' (they took the main chunk and gave it to 'New Hope' to help, keeping the various bonuses from PPV and Duke to themselves), Mrs. Raston arrives.

>>21928450

After Alex ignores Elsie's quiet plea for help before being nabbed by the Estrogen brigade and forced into a dress, He decides to disregard his own call for a day off and go inspect what Mooch referred to as his 'new toys' since what Mooch considers 'fun' others tend to see as 'unneeded property damage'.

The new toys consist of a small scale reactor sent by Rayleonard to be stress tested, as well as them getting a publicity stunt. Mooch saw an opportunity to help Hope and a shot at corporate espionage, so he didn't say anything and took the 'gift'.

Alex, shrugging it off turns to the various guns laying on a nearby work bench, and chooses the one thing that didn't seem to fit the line-up: a small tube with a button. He discovers that it's a dart gun by accidentally shooting Ken with it and knocking him out.

Mooch also gives a rundown on the various other parts on the table (http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20831759/#p20834290) and Alex decides to look into the parts catalog to try and figure out what parts (if any) he wants to buy for his core.

Alex is thwarted by the single worst computer programming hack-job since Windows '98. Realizing the potential for his carefully controlled Anger problems to slip out by taking a crowbar to the machine, he decides to go for a walk instead to try and blow off some steam.

Along the way, he's confronted by what /tg/ assumes to be Assassin's Creed cosplayers. After pointing out their assumption was dumb....

>>21928611

After a brief and pleasant, if thoroughly non-helpful chat with Locke (The group's apparent leader), Alex is escorted by a couple of the members of the gang(?) to somewhere safer.

He then spots Elsie, and would have possibly stopped to speak with her if /tg/ didn't already unanimously decide to just go home before I could even describe the situation properly.

Arriving home, Alex sees Mooch working on the 'devil machine' that Alex broke before leaving. Mooch asks him if it could be replaced, and Mooch responds that the software was more of a problem than the hardware. Alex then leaves to speak with Dave, who he finds out was about to go talk to Molly and Cass.

He goes with, and discovers that Dave procured the world's least impressive car (dubbed 'the Saab of justice') with the express purpose of teaching Ari how to drive. Alex can only commend his bravery as they leave at a brisk 45 miles an hour to visit their friends.

Upon arriving, Dave quickly takes Molly aside to talk shop, and Cass attempts to make awkward conversation with Alex. She ends up leaving the room upset, and Alex realizes as he leaves that she had apparently developed a crush on him and he inadvertently hurt her feelings during the conversation. They leave to go back to the hangar, but are quickly attacked by GODDAMNED NINJAS sent by Mooch's father to kidnap him for a 'friendly chat'.

File: 1354857299179.png-(419 KB, 1300x1200, 1349972305490.png)

>>21928758

Alex, pissed that all of his anti-ninja measures were apparently for NOTHING! Proceeds to mouth off to the man, who takes it in good sport for a few minutes before tiring and threatening to kill him.

After the man (not really) introduces himself, he tell Alex that he wants a chance to speak with his son about taking over the family business. Alex reluctantly agrees to pass the message along before he's dropped off at his mother's house. After a brief chat confirming that everything went fine, he asks how they're doing. Alex's Mom tells him not to worry about her too much, while inadvertently let slip that she hates Alex's job.

After a final goodbye, she sends Alex on his way with a plate of ginger Snaps, reminding him to share them with his friends. Alex's snark also catches up to him as he makes one too many remarks on Ari's driving skill before taking two boots to the head, making him actually do a backflip.

Alex returns to the Hangar to discover that Mooch and his wife are attempting to commit dinner (by managing to double-crit fail an off-screen cooking check. I don't know how they managed, but the had like eight degrees of failure between them), Laurie and Kate are doing computer work, and Elsie was just watching T.V. waiting for him.

>While trying to decide the next course of action, Deculture managed a minor derailment by posting this pic, the first real fan-art and making him my favorite person online for a while.

>>21928955
Dave's face will never not make me laugh.

File: 1354857724476.png-(32 KB, 1201x806, Team Snaps bro's fan art.png)

>>21928955
What about my fan art AC-Guy?

>>21929031

Right, my apologies. Technically ClericMan had the first fan-art submission, even though history will never recognize his Artistic genius.

>>21929015

It does me too, but that's less because of the drawing and more because Dave himself popped in to comment on it when it was first posted.

The pic bugs me, but Dave's reaction was almost as good as getting Deculture's art in the first place.

>>21928955

After seeing how badly things were going to go in the kitchen, Alex quietly rescued Elsie and they snuck off to a diner to eat.

He asks her about her day, and she walks him through it in the form of a semi-playable flashback, telling him about her trip to a pawn shop, mostly uneventful save for Ari freaking out arguing with her Mother about something.

Alex, despite showing concern, is given absolutely no detail on the situation. He does his best not to look irritated about not knowing everything, but allows Elsie to keep her secrets.

Apparently they next went to the movies, and Alex finds out the his Mother found out about Elsie's family in the most awkward way possible. After apologizing for not preventing that, he asked her how the movie was. He then notes with some slight irritation that Elsie can't tell the difference from a Cyberpunk film with Vin Diesel, and Star Wars thematically, despite her apparent interest in Sci-Fi.

After a rather tame lunch, she discovers that she didn't just THINK she saw Alex, she actually saw him and he just kinda wandered off. Alex realizes that he may have miscalculated a bit on 'elsie will have fun', especially when she tell him she would have 'stolen a hoveround from an old lady if I thought I could make good on the escape'.

Alex does his best to restore peace, with debatable success.

>>21929354

>"I love you?" You hazard.

>"That's sweet." She says in a less than convincing tone.

>"You look great?" You offer, edging back slightly.

>"Yeah. Don't feel like it at the moment."

>"I'm sorry." you say, finally. "I didn't know."

>"How could you not know something like that would happen? You literally know everyone involved better than anyone else."

>"I was distracted."

>"By what?"

>"By almost getting jumped by a bunch of thugs? By breaking a girl's heart? By getting kidnapped by mobsters? Dealing with a demonically possessed computer?" You answer, desperately.

>"Well that's- wait what?" she says, mind clearly shifting gears "You got kidnapped and you didn't think to mention that until now?"

>"I was more interested in how your day went." You answer.

>".... You actually were, weren't you?" She says after a moment. "God, you need to get your priorities straight."

>"They are. I get attacked by ninjas fairly often, it's apparently an occupational hazard. Knowing how the girl I love gets on with my family for extended periods is something that's more important to me."

>She visibly hesitates. Then looks away for a moment. "A-alright, but then what about this kidnapping then? Are you alright?"

>"Yeah, I'm fine. Dave also got out unharmed."

>"Wait, they grabbed Dave too? Where's he?"

>"Behind you, parking."

>>21929384

>Dave gets out of his car. "Hey Alex, why did Laurie call demanding I either bring take-out or a gun so he could put down 'the alternative'." he asks, air-quotes and everything.

>"Mooch decided to cook dinner. It's why El and I ate out."

>"And you just left Laurie there with the girl he's sweet on? Were you planning on bringing something back with you?"

>"...No, why?"

>"Isn't he, like, your best friend?"

>"Sure, but what has he done for me LATELY?"

After Dave goes inside to grab dinner for everyone, Alex annoys his girlfriend further by calling her pretty. Then manages to turn it into something she likes, but doesn't like admitting to.

He then narrowly avoids getting punched out by Ken as retaliation for the dart-gun incident. After pushing the blame on Mooch, Alex leaves to see how damaged the kitchen is. He discovers that Mooch managed to save the rice, which amounted to a huge-ass bowl of rice going into the fridge. He also apparently threw the Blender out the window attempting to get rid of it when it caught fire, possibly scratching the paint on his machine.

Alex immediately decides to go and check that shit out, and I'm going to go ahead and post the cliffhanger that made everyone angry and confused.

>>21929474

>Elsie gives you a look. "What're you doing now?"

>"Checking out my core. I want to see if it's damaged."

>"By a blender?"

>"It's possible, if unlikely, that it might have damaged something."

>"Like what, the paint?"

>"Or a lens, or a cable in a joint. Yes, it's designed to deflect bullets. Not blenders."

>"....You're seriously babying your giant war-bot?"

>"It's not babying. Every time I get into this thing it's a potentially life or death situation. I want to be aware of all damage to it, no matter how minor said damage might be. There's additives to the paint that let them absorb and redirect plasma and laser blasts more efficiently. A bad enough scratch could effectively decommission it until it's repaired."

>"Really?" She asks, looking at the core disbelievingly.

>"Really." You respond. "I mean, it'd have to be a couple of feet long and visibly scraped to make a significant difference, but it actually does matter." You say. Then, while climbing onto the scaffolding you feel the urge to mess with her a little bit, asking your core in a soothing voice where the bad appliance touched it.

>Elsie rolls her eyes and starts to walk away.... when one of the arms shifts slightly and taps the knee.

I took the opportunity to end the thread here and pick up again with Liz on the other side of things.

Alright, taking a quick breather. If anybody want to write, feel free. Otherwise, I'll be back to keep writing in about ten minutes.

Alright, let's start off the Liz's side of the Recap thing with a fun fact: I've been fucking something up this whole time without realizing.

The DAEDALUS was the name of the flying Arms Fort that lives in Vegas. The DIOMEDES is the name of the carrier unit Liz calls home.

Anyway, we return to Liz while she's in the burning wreck of the Diomedes, delirious with pain. She wakes up in a field near a house she remembers from her childhood, and speaks with a man who introduces himself as Alexander. He tells Liz that he's a 'Conductor', but she doesn't really get what that means.

He tells Liz that the Conductors are investigating the Attack in Vegas, since they had no idea anything resembling a military force even existed there like that.

He also explains how the whole 'dream-chat' works, and offers to stay in touch with Liz in a form of limited correspondence. Liz accepts, before waking up in a hospital room.

Abby explains that most of the crew lived, including pretty much everybody they knew. John, the ship cook and their good friend, being an exception losing a leg and possibly an eye. Will also has been unheard from since the wreck.

After encouraging a spot of hospital piracy, discovering Abby is afraid of birds, checking in with how the healing will work, and then trolling her friends.... Ryan asks her to start telling him what happened. When she discovers her memory's a bit vague he asks her to start where she can and try to work her way forward.

>>21929919

Back in the flashback, she remembers Will asking for volunteers to speed down to Vegas and investigate the situation and aid against the attack. Liz agrees to go, and after she boards and Synchs up, she's given a special mission. A pair of large walker-type Tanks with artillery pieces capable of seriously harming Vegas are spotted, and she's dispatched to kill them before the can.

She is able to do so in part because of her extreme speed core build, and FUCKING LANCES.

As she finishes them off, she's hit by the mind-control blast that disabled Alex's team temporarily. She goes off to Dreamland, in a less than happy way.

She goes back to her memory of the last days in training, a few months prior. She was a few days away from getting assigned to Will's command, and sparring with her friend Jack. After Liz discovers that she has Spear-based super powers, Jack shocks her with a smack on the ass and leaving, saying it would likely be the last time they ever meet.

Liz, pissed that he thinks he can just walk away like that goes searching for him. She instead finds a tunnel and runs from it, letting herself grab the dissonance between the dream version and how it actually happened.

She wakes up after having just face-planted a building, realizing that she has two incoming calls. she decides to answer the one coming in on a Pack frequency.

>>21930064

She contacts Captain Brenner, who unbeknownst to her was sent originally to kill and/or capture her for treason related charges. She finds out quickly that he wouldn't let her get a fair trial, until Jack seemingly comes out of nowhere and vouches for her.

Liz questions what he's doing in Vegas, and he's extremely evasive, but promises that he'll explain things after the dust had settled. Liz promises to help with the defense, claiming to be alright.

>At about this point, the players realized that 'Jack' was probably Dervish.

Liz chooses to investigate nearby racket after getting Duke's alright to participate in the battle and failing to contact the pack.

She stumbles across the Tunnel Snakes (Tunnel Snakes Rule!), fresh out of getting repaired from helping Dervish earlier and eager to get back in the fight.

Liz makes sure it's alright to fly with them, when a giant Mobile Weapon of some kind comes down the street and the would of them attack it.

Liz manages to get a thorough analysis of it's weaknesses before beginning the attack, and manages to lay some solid hits down, cracking the armor on one of the main coolant systems to kill it via overheating.

/tg/ then manages to get a double critical failure in a bad place, and then botch the hell out of a will save to keep Liz able to handle it.

Which would be where I ended the thread, and as of this writing, the quest.

So congrats, skipping the main archive (though it's recommended you read it anyway) just saved you about sixty threads worth of reading, condensing all the important parts down into two.

Hopefully, future recaps will be smoother than this, since I plan to just have a text file of some kind with a running commentary I'll update on a per-thread basis so when re-cap time rolls around I can just dump it all.

If anybody has any questions, now would be a good time to ask them while I go deal with laundry before typing up some of the omake I promised.

>>21930245
I feel really dumb not remembering, but did we ever make a final decision on an ace emblem?

>>21930334

Not yet. It hasn't technically mattered yet anyway, since Alex isn't yet a recognized Ace.

I mean, he has the score so it's just a matter of time, it's just a bureaucratic issue of someone actually writing that shit down and giving him the nod.

>>21930245
Might be a bit late now, but it might be good to have a list of all the major characters introduced so far, because those reading the summary threads might not remember who some of the important but peripheral characters are

>>21930413

An excellent point.

I suppose one of us (probably me) will have to do that soon-ish.

Annnnnnd AC-Guy gets banned once more.

Apparently AC-Guy tripped the ban-filter.

What's the score now? Fifteen bans during his total questing career?

>>21930816
>>21930827

I suspect its the ban-filter, not the mods that is tsundere to AC-Guy

>It's illegal content! N-not because you're not paying attention to me!
>b-baka!

Has this been archived? I don't see it on the page.

>>21930849
From AC-Guy's Twitter: Fucking Ban filter. Would someone let them know what happened?

So, there's that.

Friendly neighborhood Aznable, signing off.

>>21930911
Probably not. Someone not posting from their phone and familiar with the Quest should probably go do that.

Looks like this could use a bump while we wait out AC Guy's ban

>>21932008
Seeing as how the recap is done and archived, there's not much point in keeping this thread alive.