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Rolled 20 (1d100)

You stare at the list of debtor's recompense contracts you've been offered as a means of repaying what you owed. All of them shit, just in different flavors. You want to waste your life away as an assistant and experiment piece in a meat ship? Sail around in international waters helping the rippers out as they aug out the desperate with the sort of equipment no 'clave would ever allow into their territory, and (though not outright stated) serving as a walking organ bank for the ultrarcih that like to keep their flesh made of authentic meat.

Maybe a gig in the mines instead? 'Course they won't tell you what's being mined or why they'd need 'ganics to mine it rather than using machines, but there's a very short list of things that might fit the bill and all of them are intensely hazardous to your health.

Alternatively there're the offers to take up the world's oldest profession. There's even a new spin on that, implants that override your cortex so you don't even have to remember the things that get done to you. Once you get one of those installed though, you never really know who can activate it or when. Nor can you find out, if the person holding your leash has two brain cells to rub together anyway.
>>
Rolled 81 (1d100)

You scroll and scroll. You don't regret the choice that lead you to this position, even looking at the dismal prospects you have for the rest of your life you know you'd take on the loans again if you were transported into the past. That's what you do when your only family in the world is sick...but in the end the operation hadn't been successful, and you'd functionally mortgaged your life in order to spend a few more months with your mom.
At least you actually have a choice of where you end up, having made sure to stick to the legitimate lenders even though criminal syndicates often offered better rates...but harsh methods of recovering their investments if necessary. The differences between legal and illegal debt slavery are subtle but infinitely important.

As you continue scrolling grimly, sipping out of a cup of recaff that went cold sometime yesterday, you see a header that catches your eye and click on it to read more. Just posted a few minutes ago, a position as a...tester for a Full Dive VRMMO? Open to everyone. You'd known that tech had been been advancing by leaps and bounds lately but not that it'd gotten to the point where even the chromeless could engage in something of such luxury, which was the main thing holding back the metaverse from becoming the onlyverse. As you continue down the sales pitch your sense of suspicion only grows stronger. It's all positives, even including skill training, a generous compensation scheme, and full health coverage. Ohhh man, that is sooooooo fuckin sketch. Exactly the sort of thing an actual corpo marketeer would think debtors would go for in a heartbeat...which paradoxically, also gave the offer some degree of credibility.

Looking once more over your options, you shrug. Even if it's overwhelmingly likely to be some sort of horrific torment nexus they've invented and want to test out of unsuspecting debtors that don't have much opportunity for legal recourse, at least this way there's a chance you won't end up in a literal meatgrinder. You click on the accept button, and seal your f̷a̶t̶e̵.
>>
Rolled 52 (1d100)

>>5509148

Scant few hours later you're being led through clinical white hallways by one of the prettier girls you've ever seen in real life. Raven black hair cut immaculately to frame her face, and a gaze that seems to mesmerize your soul no matter what you thought your sexuality was, really the only thing that ruins the effect is the loose white labcoat she's wearing and the fact the words that are coming out of her mouth as she walks towards where ever your destination is in this damned featureless maze of hallways. Finally you stop in front of a double-door made of satin-finished grey steel, just the same as any number of other double-doors you've already passed in the past few minutes.

"So, to review, you will not be able to exit unless you find a special altar and make an appropriate offering. Upon logging out, all your equipment will be converted to schematics that we will happily purchase from you and apply the value of to your debts. Any value in excess of that will be applied to your personal account...though it appears you probably won't need to worry about that. In the meantime, I advise you to search for one of the player haven-cities and not to lose your Identifier. Any questions?"

"Seems kind of strange to restrict logging out in an MMO, and to pay me for schematics pulled out of your own game. What's the deal with that?"

The woman looks at you for a moment and you note that her eyes seem to have changed color from earlier...no wait, actually they're just reflecting the color of the steel doors now, as if the irises were made of mirrors. Strange, they don't bear any of the other hallmarks of being augs. Guess the high end shit is really better than you'd ever imagined. Oh right, you were so distracted you almost forgot she's answering your question.

"Just incentives we've given to the testers to make sure they stay in. Any other questions?"

Pffft, okay maybe 'answering your question' was a bit of a stretch to assume. Anyway, it doesn't hardly make a difference. You're going in one way or the other. You shake your head to indicate that whether you have questions or not you won't be asking them of her right now, and she gives you a nod before walking away. As she does, the double doors slide open and you're greeted by the sight of a reclining chair in the middle of an otherwise featureless blank room about of about 10' square, illuminated by some sort of recessed light above the chair. You sigh, resigned, and make yourself comfortable in the chair. After you get yourself situated and comfortable, wondering what comes next, you realize that what's above you is not in fact a recessed light but rather a mirror-finish silver teardrop that is somehow emitting the soft ambient glow that illuminates the room. For a moment the teardrop is perfectly smooth, unnaturally so, the curvature and reflectiveness both so pristine and painfully precise that you feel like it shouldn't exist in the real world.
>>
Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5509149

Then ripples form in the skin of the teardrop and a single droplet falls from the center. You see it in flight briefly, an immaculate fractal version of the larger drop it just emerged from, then the drop splashes onto your forehead. You feel a sensation that it kept falling or perhaps immediately burrowed through your skin and skull, before the drop reaches your brain and you are engulfed by an indescribable agony. The last thing you see before you pass out is the teardrop above smoothing out its wrinkles and growing dark. You can't tell if the darkness is from it ceasing to glow or from the pain causing you to lose your vision.

=====

Next thing you know you're lost in darkness, a formless and tenebrous nebula. The searing agony of your brain is gone...in fact, you can't feel any of your limbs. As you float in the middle of tenebrous nothing, white letters appear in your vision.

>Greetings, User.
>Please register your name for access to [[BROKEN VESSELS ONLINE]]
[[Name]]
>Please Select your Avatar
[[Male/Female]] Describe your appearance

Current Cerebral Commitment/Capacity: [0/100]

>Please select your Primary Archetype.
>Primary Archetypes (Please note that these upgrades in the game will be reflected on the User's physical self, Select [1])

[[Organitech]] - A biological specialist, astute in manipulation of organic organisms of all sorts and for all purposes. Second only to Edgerunners for raw
combat potential. Reqs: [25 Cerebral Commitment]

[[Techseer]] - Where the Organitech can bend flesh to their will and purposes, a Technician prefers to use mechanics and circuitry. The Technician is also the premier class
for crafting and utilitarian roles, as well as being a master of cybernetic augmentation. Reqs: [25 Cerebral Commitment]

[[Netrunner]] - Wizards of cyberspace, surgeons of software rather than circuitry. It's no exaggeration to say that advanced Netrunners are like gods when in
their element, but such specialization only applies when there's tech around to be manipulated. Reqs: [30 Cerebral Commitment]

[[Edgerunner]] - Edgerunners eschew the intangible benefits of the specialist classes in exchange for becoming death incarnate in combat. Though there's little they can do that
the other classes couldn't duplicate with effort, none of them have it as condensed and easily accessible. Reqs: [15 Cerebral Commitment]
>>
>>5509150
>Name
Corpse Warblade
>Avatar
Yes
>Primary Archetype
[[Edgerunner]]
>>
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>>5509150
Grievefang.
Male.
Organitech.
Appearance is pic related.
>>
>>5509149
Broken Sky copycat? I'm up for it.

>>5509150
Name...
>Sibylla

Avatar...
>Female, looks like the woman we just met.

Archetype...
>[[Organitech]]

Seems a good mix of combat potential and specialization for independent access to crafting features or the versatility required to act as a service provider aside from that of a beatstick.
>>
Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>5509166
Heavily inspired by broken sky, but hopefully quite distinct as well.

Some of still believe in you, Sylv
>>
Rolled 75 (1d100)

Goin with first to...3 or 5 depending on how lively it gets or dead it remains, or whatever's consensus if I go to bed and wake up to plenty of votes.
>>
>>5509150
Lestat

Male - pal, lean, and eyes sunk in. Hoping to get a away with looking weak and pull out the hard hits with out power. To mod apprience later for when that trick loses it's worth.

[[Organitech]]
Believe in the temple that is one's body. Plus being a flesh crafter could be fun and I can pull from the VTM or exalted for ideas.
>>
Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>5509210
To help with first to 3. I'm fine with other names and appearance. The primary is my main goal. That being said I do love my back up idea. crafting robots for the machine uprising.
>>
>>5509211
>>5509216
Didn't think my ip would change that fast. Can't remember how to name tag, but if done correctly. I'll do it to prove me.
>>
>>5509218
Class is the main choice, name and appearance will either be what's most agreed on or whichever one I like the best. Can't expect a horde of anons to agree on something so broad.
>>
>>5509150
>Paul

>Male

>Organitech
>>
Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>5509153
>>5509165
>>5509166
>>5509211
>>5509224

>Organitech - 4
>Edgerunner - 1

Good enough for me, writan'
>>
>>5509150

Name...
>Sibylla

Avatar...
>Morgan Kell

Archetype...
>[[Techseer]]
>>
Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>5509150

You analyze the options and their descriptions for a bit, pondering. It's an interesting mixture as none of the archetypes have the calling cards of the usual RPG trio of roles. Edgerunner catches your eye for a moment. Regardless of any twists on the formula you can always be guaranteed to find violence in a game like this, and so being a master of combat will inevitably be of benefit. As you focus on the archetype a short video begins to play next to the text. A figure dressed in clearly armored black garb with a vicious oni-mask sprints through a corridor filled with vicious looking pale humanoids. As he gets within reach of the creatures they reach out with clawed limbs to grasp at him, but instead of being caught he jumps up to the ceiling, and then proceeds to corkscrew and tumble through the crowd while avoiding every strike directed at him. Once on the other side of the group, he looks back and pulls on an infinitesimally small wire you hadn't been able to see up to this point, and a moment later the heads of every one of the creatures falls off with a fountain of blood.

Oh shit, that's way too edgelord for you. Even though it looked rad as fuck too. Another video starts to play, this time a heavily armored woman approaching what looks like a car sized salamander, but you shift your eyes up above the list of archetypes before the confrontation occurs.

>Please note that these upgrades in the game will be reflected on the User's physical self

You have no clue what the fuck is up with that. Gotta be a marketing gimmick or ploy to get military funding or something, direct brain download is still far out sci-fi shit even with all the advancements that've been made recently.

But what if it's not?
>>
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Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5509259

You remember the feeling of powerlessness as you sat by your mom in the hospital bed. All the technology and augmentations that a hefty, though not infinite, sum of money granted access to had still not been enough to do anything for her. Your eyes fall on the Organitech, and with no respect for your grief another video starts playing. This time it's a lithe woman in jumpsuit that leaves little to the imagination, though you have little time to wonder since you're more bewildered that the jumpsuit seems to be made of bone and oversized teeth. You are simultaneously disgusted and intrigued and as you watch she draws out a clump of fleshy grenades and throws them at a towering juggernaut of a creature, missing it horribly. Then the grenades grow legs and bite into the creature, proceeding to burrow through its body as the woman dodges its attacks with...less grace but greater tenacity than the ninja in the Edgerunner video had. Within a short timespan the colossus shivers and falls down, one of the grenade creatures burrows out of its skin and is noticeably larger now.

Damn, that's sick. Okay, you definitely don't want to fight against something like that so that's what you'll choose. Besides if the skill transfer thing is true maybe you'll be able to become a doctor if you ever work off your debt.

>[[ Primary Archetype Selected: Organitech. Are you sure? Y/N ]]
You confirm your selection, then remember that you still need to create your avatar. You have a few ideas.

>[Select from the following]
>Mimic the appearance of the woman who led you to the room. Svelte and mesmerizing with black hair and mirror reflective eyes.
>Create the image of a mad scientist. Pale and lean with sunken eyes, the sort of person you'd never expect to possess unnatural strength.
>Go for an unassuming but handsome light skinned man with an arresting and mischievous glint to their eyes.
>The image of a noble and distinguished gentlemen, old enough to exude the sort of confidence that only comes from surviving to that age.

You also input your name, Sibyllan.

>[[Avatar Finalized, Identifier acknowledged searching for a suitable husk-creator]]
>[[Suitable facility identified.]]
>[[Welcome to your own Broken Vessel, User Sibyllan. Will you seek to restore the dead gods, murder those still living, escape from the labyrinth that entombs them all, or attempt
to weave a f̷a̶t̶e̵ entirely of your own? Regardless, your answer is awaited.]]

You somehow feel like the ground is pulled out from under you despite the fact that you had neither ground nor body to begin with in the endless void. As you plummet your vision turns into static.
>>
Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5509261
Oh will the dice gods toy with me again even after such a long hiatus. Heh, no matter.
>>
>>5509261
On one hand I actually like the edgy cyber-ninja aesthetic more than the slutty bio-punk look, but on the other hand the wish-fulfillment aspect of having been able to save our mom with biology superpowers or whatever was half of what I was going for in terms of IC motivation, plus bio-punk abilities are cool.

>Mimic the appearance of the woman who led you to the room. Svelte and mesmerizing with black hair and mirror reflective eyes.

Though I'd be cool with mixing this and the mad scientist look, she was wearing a lab coat after all. Mix her figure with the mad scientist's pale look and sunken eyes.
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5509270
You know what, I'm cool with that mix.

Thinking if we get a secondary class later the edgerunner be the best pick. Assuming nothing worth being a different class shows up to change that.
>>
>>5509276
Agreed. I just didn't want to start off with a class that was purely a beatstick and of little utility or ability to offer a service other than hitting things in a social setting again in one of these VRMMO quests. Going forward though it'd probably be best to enhance our combat prowess with any class choices, and leaving any modifications of the cybernetic nature to our persons to be provided by some other vendor rather than speccing into it ourselves.
>>
>>5509261
Yes pick Organitech.
Go for an unassuming but handsome light skinned man with an arresting and mischievous glint to their eyes.
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5509261

The static fades, and you find yourself slumped but somewhat standing inside a pod of some sort with a lid of hazy glass. As you look down to assess yourself you see that your avatar is clothed in a form fitting grey jumpsuit for now. It shows off your avatar rather well, and you are pleased with the somewhat haggard and chaotic aspect you infused into the physique of your tactiturn guide. Just enough to throw off anyone who might know her too, though they'd be left wondering if they saw you at a distance or in a crowd. You also see that some sort of gel is still draining out of the bottom of the tank though you and its interior are entirely dry. On an utterly alien impulse that you don't understand the origins of you reach down and cup your hand in the goo and consume it. Immediately after you do so you're paralyzed by a strange sensation. It's as if something glanced your way and your perception was shrunk down to a tiny dot as its gaze passed over you, and then you re-expanded to be larger and more detailed than ever before a heartbeat later. You feel changed. It's not exactly painful but it is startling and you let out a brief yelp as it happens.

You immediately regret this as your expanded perception lets you see some sort of blob on the other side of the glass lid react to your noise. You regard its approachhing silhouette with more calmness than you expected but still a fair bit of panic then look around your pod, identifying a red button that looks like an emergency release as well as some thick wires that you pull out of their sockets and wrap around your hands to use as a garotte or to shield your knuckles as best you can. Whatever noticed you jumps onto the pod and shortly afterwards strikes the glass, punching a hole through the canopy of your shelter and prison near your head with a small and short spike. You shield your eyes to keep glass splinters from falling into them, and hold your breath. The thing, whatever it is, leans down and makes a clicking sound near the hole. Then it repeats the sound several more times as you stay as still and quiet as possible, hoping it can't hear the beating of your heart.
>>
Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>5509292
Probably only a minute or two later (though it felt much longer), the thing jumps down from the pod lid apparently satisfied that the pod lid is all there is to be seen. You carefully lean close to the hole it made and look out to catch a glance at your terrorizer. It's...not nearly as intimidating as what you'd thought up in your mind. A gaunt thing encased in either an exoskeleton or bone plates of some kind with a fleshy tail that has some flourishes on the end, but it's no larger than smallish dog.

Still, you're not sure if you want to take it on with your bare hands. Looking around though you see that you're in a small room that...bears some eerie semblances to the one that you climbed into in the real world not too long ago actually. This one is not nearly so pristine though. In addition to the grime, dust, and rust of long term disuse you spy a length of pipe that seems to fallen along with a portion of the ceiling. You contemplate your next moves.


>Just stay quiet. You feel something that you're sure must be your 'identifier' on your hip, pull it out and familiarize yourself with the UI while you wait for the thing to wander away.
>Hit the red button and rush for the pipe, then club that thing to death. No one gets to terrorize you and get away with it unless they're way bigger and scarier than that guy. [Roll 1d100 with vote]
>You feel somewhat stronger than you did in real life, and now that you look more closely the seal around the glass seems to have decayed. Try to punt the lid onto the creature and then stomp it to death. [Roll 1d100 with vote]
>Uhh...maybe you can talk to it?
>>
>>5509294
>You feel somewhat stronger than you did in real life, and now that you look more closely the seal around the glass seems to have decayed. Try to punt the lid onto the creature and then stomp it to death.
You mean roll now?
>>
Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5509297
Yep, roll for it along with your vote. Crits (for good or bad) auto-select by the way.

Though I may shift to separating the rolls from the prompts later.
>>
Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5509299
Just asking. Don't want to influence votes based on rolls.
>>
>>5509285
Yeah like you said it is a social game. It's not like we can't make some friends and have them specialize in that.
>>
Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>5509294
>Uhh...maybe you can talk to it?
On the off chances influences our skills. Speak with organic creatures of any kind could be pretty useful.
>>
Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>5509294
>Punt the lid onto the creature, go for the pipe, but delay the killing blow and try to talking to it...softly.

In the future I would separate the rolls from the votes to keep the votes from shifting in the case of a good roll. The incentive otherwise is too strong for many to ignore I find. I'll try and be more active next time you start a "session", I didn't think you'd be this active, QM.
>>
>>5509294
>Uhh...maybe you can talk to it?
The way the class intro is structured makes it seems we have the ability to control lower forms of organic life. Most likely we can implant some sort of brain virus or parasite that lets us command them, or use pheromones to control their behaviour. Best take the time now when we're in a relatively low-stress situation to figure out whether we can control creatures or not.
>>
Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>5509362
Well my hope is/was to kinda get into the meat of things ASAP to acquire and retain players. I'm also using this as an exercise to develop and brush the rust off of my writing and storytelling skills after a long hiatus so I've got a fair amount of energy to dedicate to it for the time being.

>>5509294
Waiting on a tie breaker.
>>
>>5509294
>Uhh...maybe you can talk to it?
>>
Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5509294
>Uhh...maybe you can talk to it?
>[LOCKED]
Writan'.
>>
Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5509294
>>5509726

Uhh...maybe you can talk to it? The class video showed the girl seeming to control some lesser creatures when she threw those grenades that bored into the big monster, so it seems like you should have some way of doing it too. You lightly clear your throat, seeing the thing look back over its shoulder at the sound. More articulation in its neck than you would've expected given all those armored plates, must not be bone.

"H-hey there monster, let's be fri-" before you can finish your sentence it leaps across the space between you and lands on the glass of the pod. It spears the spikes on all four of its legs into the glass of the pod using the momentum of its leap causing a spiderweb of cracks to form between them and the previous hole.

"Fuck, why did I think that'd work!" You manage to curse your planning in what is definitely not a terrified scream, the noise contrasting eerily against the creature's lack of a growl or roar. In the next second it's through the glass and upon you. You're in a horrible position to defend yourself getting mauled by an animal, jammed inside a cramped pod with the only means of escape being through the glass your attacker has just shattered with brute strength. It falls down on you, mouth stretching farther than should be possible to reveal jaws full of glassy needle teeth.

>[Roll 1d100, Bo2]
>>
Rolled 12 (1d100)

>>5509742
It's just overly friendly, I'm sure we'll be fine.
>>
Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5509742
I'll roll the second die too since we're 90 minutes in without another roller.
>>
Rolled 84 (1d100)

>>5509742
Bit late, but here's another roll from a different anon if you prefer it.
>>
>>5509167
>inspired by Broken Sky
> not being inspired by Quest for Arcadia
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5509742

With a smack of impact you feel in your whole body your wire-wrapped fist rises to meet the creature as it falls upon you, hitting it squarely in the lower jaw and forcing its mouth closed hard enough for several of its teeth to shatter. You seem to move much faster here than you could in real life.

But then it's on you, spiked limbs pierce your jumpsuit effortlessly and it opens its broken mouth and chomps down on the meat of your upper arm. You feel a sickening crack as it does so and scream instinctively.

>[[Sibyllan HP 11/15]]

You grip the creature's head with your broken arm to keep it from disengaging and getting your neck. You don't even feel the pain of the broken bone, and fumble around with your other hand looking for anything to use as a weapon. You seize a shard of glass at the same time that you feel a fleshy fold in the armor on the back of the thing's head, and a moment later you unite the two with the force of desperation. There's a satisfying thunk, and the creature goes stiff.

>[[Sibyllan has defeated Wreck Scavenger]]

[Continued in a few hours, gotta get some lunch and visit with the senpai for a while.
>>
Rolled 62 (1d100)

>>5509742
Not the best start. I wonder if it's level of hunger is to high or mentally unstable.

Maybe we can pull out some wolverine caws and boney armor plates. Assuming that we can use powers on that level.
>>
>>5509877
>>5509878
Maybe we can fiddle with our UI and see if we can do anything augment/crafting wise with the body. Maybe we can get some ingredients to heal with or something, or maybe we can revive the creature under our control.
>>
>>5509936
Hopefully flesh manipulation is something we can do as a low level scrub, so if we can't revive the Scavenger we should see about healing ourselves or making rudimentary armor out of it's corpse.
>>
Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>5509877
You gingerly unlatch the Scavenger's jaws from your arm, shove its limp body out of the pod, and then fairly collapse out of it and onto the floor yourself.

With the fight over the adrenaline slowly leaves you and you shiver as the pain from your mangled and broken arm is no longer suppressed. Well, that's how it would go in the real world. As it stands, there's just a dull throbbing numbness in the area. Instead you just have the jitters because of the intensity of the experience. You'd never had time for VR games nor the chrome for full dive ones, but you'd never expected them to feel so real. There are some very deep seated instinctive responses to having a monster trying to gnaw your face off no matter how real or unreal you think it is.

You take a minute to calm your breathing and glance around the room as you do so. Blank steel panels for walls, ceiling, and floor. They might've been painted white once but are now streaked with brown-red rust stains and splotches of luminescent fungi. A section of the ceiling has collapsed, revealing a crawlspace overhead with a wild assortment of wires and pipes and the other miscellany that run buildings. The door is actually behind you, mostly blocked by the pod you were in. It was clearly deliberately maneuvered there to restrict access judging by the scrapes leading to its current position from the center of the room. It isn't anything like a perfect seal though, and you suspect the scavenger made its way in through one of the gaps.

Which all begs the question of where the person that moved it into the doorway went. You think about it as you pick the length of pipe up off the floor, and check the body of the Scav for loot.

>[[Sibyllan acquired: Rusty Pipe]]
>[[Acquired Gene-Trace: Chitinous Exoskeleton]]

You start to wonder what to do next, when you hear scraping sounds from outside the door. You have a sinking feeling in your stomach as you climb back into the pod for a bit and stick your head out of one of the gaps to look around.

You're greeted by the sight of about half a dozen Scavengers all snuffling their way towards you through a steel hallway drowned in a thick layer of filth. Good news is that the other direction seems clear. The filth gradually lessens in that direction as well, though you can't see if it leads to anything from your current vantage point.

You extricate your head carefully but a shard of glass dislodges from pod lid and shatters on its floor, and you hear the clacking of the Scavengers claws change tempo and begin to approach you with clear purpose.

Time to make a decision, and better make it fast.
>>
Rolled 16 (1d100)

>>5509992

>Access your UI to see if you can grab anything to help as you prepare to defend the room. The door is blocked such that they'll bottleneck and you have a weapon now.
>Crawl up into the hole in the ceiling and try to hide from the scavs.
>Crawl up into the ceiling and try to make your way elsewhere, hopefully staying quiet enough to not draw attention to yourself.
>Wrench the pod aside and make a dash down the hallway.
>Wrench the pod aside and make a stand in the hallway.
>Write-In
>>
>>5509994
We can't fight all of them, just one bite took off four of our HP.

>Crawl up into the hole in the ceiling and try to hide from the scavs.

Crawling around in a metal crawlspace will make too much noise, we'd be in close quarters with a weapon that is best used for swinging against a foe that can bite us from the front even if we had the luxury of facing them one at a time. I also doubt we can outrun them or outfight them and it is better to look at our UI when we have space and time to breath. So that leaves hiding.
>>
>>5509994
>Access your UI to see if you can grab anything to help as you prepare to defend the room. The door is blocked such that they'll bottleneck and you have a weapon now.
>>
Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5510013
I agree and hope we can look at the ui while hidden. Also if there is mud or something to cover our body and mask our scent. That would be a bonus I would think.
>>
Rolled 65 (1d100)

Alright guys and gals, we're instituting a new voting system!

>First option to 3 is the preferred means of locking in an option, unless there's a shift in consensus between the point that First-To-3 is selected and I finish writing the post
>Barring 3 votes for a single option, we'll take whatever's most popular within ~1hr of the post requesting your choice. Unless consensus shifts before I'm finished writing and feel like rewriting the post.
>Also, henceforth roll 1d100 when you vote. In the event of a tie between options, the option with the highest roll will be selected. These rolls are only used in this case, they will not be used for combat resolution.

Now, I can't decide whether I'm going to go back to sleep or write up the next post. If I do then we'll be going with:
>Crawl up into the hole in the ceiling and try to hide from the scavs, dousing ourselves in mud to conceal our scent, and trying to access our UI once we're secreted up there.
>>
Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5509994

You elect to crawl up into the ceiling, discretion will be the better part of valor today. Before jumping up you quickly grab a handful of the muck from the corridor. It's wet and absolutely disgusting, like grabbing a handful of rotten algae and seaweed, but it'll certainly cover up your smell.

As you grip the edge of the hole you realize that grabbing that shard of glass tore a large gash in your hand, you're pretty sure you see a hint of bone. You hope there aren't mechanics for disease and infection in the game. Good thing you grabbed the algal muck with your other hand...

Despite the injury you grip the edge easily and hoist yourself up into the dark mess of cables above the ceiling. You're not sure if the gravity is actually less here or if you're way stronger, but either way it's nice...well they've gotta make up for this intro somehow, you suppose.

It's not too difficult to push the bundles of cabling aside and make a space for yourself, and in fact it seems like this above-the-ceiling space might expand over several rooms and the hallway you were just in. You could definitely attempt to escape from up here, but you'd be operating blind essentially tunneling through a huge mess of wires. Your feet disappear into darkness right as you hear the first of the scavengers scratching its way past the pod, making those clicking sounds that you assume are some sort of echolocation.
>>
Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>5510644

You arrange yourself amidst the cables so you can get a view back down into the room, observing as the first Scav squeezes its way in past the pod. It quickly locates the body of your attacker and starts ripping strips of flesh off, streaking brilliant indigo blood across the floor. Either the smell of the blood or the noise sends the creatures outside into a frenzy. You watch as the next scav that tries to enter is dragged backwards out of the hole several times by its fellows. After several attempts that mar its chitin with progressively more bite marks it succeeds, then turns around and harasses all those that try to follow after it.

You doubt its defense will last long but it's clear you'll be stuck up here for a while. Deciding to do something that will hopefully improve your odds of getting out of here alive you pull what you assume is your identifier off of your hip and fiddle with it a bit until it opens up a User Interface.

>[[ Sibyllan ]]
>[[ Primary Archetype: Organitech ]]
>[[ HP: 11 / 15 ]]
>[[ CC: 25/110 ]]
>[[ Level 1: 1 EXP Available ]]

>[[Inventory]]
-Rusty Pipe, wielded
-Podsuit, worn
>[[Gene-Traces]]
-Chitinous Exoskeleton, (1)
>[[Stored in Identifier: Sibyllan]]
- [0] Credits

Yep, as expected so far. You've got nothin', except whatever a Gene-Trace is. Looks like this is how you'd access messages and other system functions too, not that it matters right now. Oh well. Maybe there's something you can spend EXP on that'll help. You focus on the icon and are granted a list of skills to peruse.
>>
Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>5510652

>When Spending EXP you may perform any of the following actions
-Increase HP
-Upgrade a Weapon Skill
-Upgrade one of your Masteries.

> [[ Increasing the levels of your Masteries will allow you to learn the new abilities or upgrade previously learned ones associated with that heading. ]]
> [[ At some Mastery levels, you may be offered a chance to specialize based on ability selections to that point. ]]
> [[ You can't invest in a Secondary Archetype until a higher level. ]]
> [[ Increasing the level of a Weapon Skill will improve your damage and effectiveness with that weapon. ]]
> [[ Increasing the level of other skills will improve their effects, often adding entirely new functionality. ]]
> [[ Most skills are hidden until you've unlocked one of the prerequisites for them. ]]

>>[[ Sibyllan ]]

>>[[ General ]]
[ Curse: ????? ]
[ Mutative Assimilator ] - Able to acquire Gene-Traces for Augmentoids through physical contact, no harvesting required.

>> [[ Masteries ]]
>[[ Medicine (0) ]]
None
>[[ Fleshcrafting (0) ]]
None
>[[ Alchemy (0) ]]
None
>[[ Neuromancy (0) ]]
None

>>[[ Weapon Skills ]]
Bludgeons 0
Unarmed 0
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5510656

>Medicine - Each point invested increases HP by a small amount and improves all administered healing.
[Medicinal Compounding, Passive] - Grants the knowledge required to craft medicines and combat drugs, and the tools to extract their components.
[Contagion Reservoir, Passive] - You have adapted your vascular system to handle pathogens that would quickly incapacitate lesser beings.
[Vital Reservoir, Passive] - You have adapted your lymphatic system to be universally compatible and beneficial to those less fortunate than yourself. Also grants [ Lymph Transfer, Active 20CC ]

>Fleshcrafting - Each point invested increases HP by a small amount and improves all personal stats, but also increases CC cost of cybernetic augmentations.
[Corpus Manipulation, Passive] - The science of personal permanent enhancement and manipulating the physical form. Small bonus to all physical stats. Select one of the following to manifest immediately: [Retractable Bone Blades (Fingers)], [Amplified Nervous System], [Superdense Marrow], [Iron Body], [Regeneration]
[Forced Evolution, Passive] - Allows chance of huge improvements to the body, even moreso for a more experienced fleshcrafter. Be warned that you can only undergo so many dramatic changes before it backfires on you.
[Symbiosis, Passive] - Grants knowledge of augmentoid creation, the tools to harvest Gene-Traces to construct them, and allows greater interface and tolerance to them.

>Alchemy - Each point invested increases potency of all compounds you create and statuses you inflict.
[Alchemical Compounding, Passive] - Grants the knowledge required to craft medicines and poisons, and the tools to extract their components.
[Acidic Strike, Active 20CC] - Imbue your next attack with a potent corrosive effect, or produce a gout of acid from anywhere on your body. You're granted a degree of resistance to acid for a short time after activation.
[Paradoxical Reaction, Active 20CC] - You've discovered a compound capable of transmuting any effect to its alchemical opposite...mostly, anyway. Surely a step on the path to the Philosopher's Stone.

>Neuromancy - Each point invested expands Cerebral Capacity by a small amount, and increases resistance to mental assaults, but also increases CC cost of cybernetic augmentations.
[Keen Observation, Passive] - You gain insight into your mind's blindspots, as well as those of others.
[Unnatural Talent, Passive] - Who says you're only born talented? You gain points in weapons skills when you wield one for a significant amount of time.
[Neuroplastic Optimization, Passive] - Grants the knowledge required to modify or extend the mind and associated nervous systems, and the tools to do so. Increases Cerebral Capacity by 30 units.
>>
>>5510660

In case it wasn't clear, if you want to spend your EXP on a given skill then vote for the Mastery associated with it (Medicine, Fleshcrafting, etc.), then we'll run another vote to determine which skill under that heading gets selected next.

You peruse the list of your current skills, as well as those available to you. The possibilities race through your mind...and in your first bout of fortune it seems that you'll have ample time to ponder them. The Scav defending the entrance to your little room evidently holds quite a grudge against the ones that tried to keep it from getting in, and has actually killed the next one that tried to get in. Plugging the gap between pod and doorway with its corpse in the process. It's ripping away at the carcass just as the first entrant to the room is still doing to the one you killed.

The ones stuck outside are clearly displeased at this arrangement and are clambering over the other side of the pod trying to find another way to squeeze in, making frustrated hisses as they do so. From the looks of it they'd need to physically shift the device to do so though, and you doubt they'll be able to do it quickly if at all.

However you spend your EXP, you should probably decide on something to do.

>Just wait here, if they're cannibals then the problem will resolve or at least reduce itself given time.
>You know, who or what dragged the pod from the center of the room anyway? The creatures' feast is providing some noise, and you think you see a divot in the cables across the gap from where someone might've traveled previously.
>With the way effectively barred to the ones outside, your trusty (presumably) length of pipe, and the element of surprise against the two below you...you can probably take them.
>Write-In
>>
>>5510660
>Fleshcrafting - Each point invested increases HP by a small amount and improves all personal stats, but also increases CC cost of cybernetic augmentations.

I think we ought to either invest in bludgeons or Corpus Manipulation immediately. My reasoning is we need to be reliably skilled with a weapon or martial skill given our immediate environment and needs. Bludgeon because we have a pipe, or Corpus Manipulation to get the bone blades, in which case we'd then pick up a point in unarmed or whatever skill the bone blades count for.

The other stuff is cool but we can spec into it later once we have the luxury of actually being able to fight and survive in our immediate area.

>>5510661
>You know, who or what dragged the pod from the center of the room anyway? The creatures' feast is providing some noise, and you think you see a divot in the cables across the gap from where someone might've traveled previously.

Don't want to get into a fight with multiple opponents until we upgrade a mastery that lets us heal or until it is confirmed we invest in a Weapon Skill or mastery that gets us a good weapon.
>>
Rolled 8 (1d100)

>>5510660
Yo I look at the medicine and think how we could master biological warfare. Maybe later make ourselves immune and start passing around diseases. Hopefully to take out things before combat or at least slow them down in prolonged combat.

>Fleshcrafting
Main bread and butter skill. I'm assuming the upgrades be stat wise Damage, reaction, blood loss / immunity, damage reduction, passive or fast healing.

[Iron Body] or [Regeneration] is my thought for long term fighting. If iron stops most of their damage we can kill the two for exp and kick going. The reg will be good for hit and run.

>>5510661
>With the way effectively barred to the ones outside, your trusty (presumably) length of pipe, and the element of surprise against the two below you...you can probably take them.
>>
>>5510660
>Fleshcrafting

>>5510759
>I think we ought to either invest in bludgeons or Corpus Manipulation immediately. My reasoning is we need to be reliably skilled with a weapon or martial skill given our immediate environment and needs. Bludgeon because we have a pipe, or Corpus Manipulation to get the bone blades, in which case we'd then pick up a point in unarmed or whatever skill the bone blades count for.
If anything I'd say we start with Regen here, we're down some hitpoints and we've got broken bones and a decent wound on our hand, plus we currently don't know how or when we'll be able to heal. Having some regen that takes care of that is pretty good as a starting skill until we figure out the game systems.
Alternatively, if we just lay still up here the doggos will probably kill each other and then we can ambush whichever one is left. With them all dead, a point in Symbiosis would probably let us forge a flesh minion or two out of their remains.
---------------------------

[Symbiosis] is the minion skill tree, higher levels probably means we can craft bigger flesh monsters or control many more smaller ones. Since we have zero points invested in it that's probably why we couldn't attempt to control the Scavanger Doggo, though on it's own it seems unlikely to let us take control of existing creatures. Maybe combined with [Neuromancy - Keen Obersvation] we can figure out how to infect the minds of creatures/players to manipulate them.

Looks like [Fleshcrafting] is the main skill tree (duh) with two different build paths: Minions(Symbiosis) or Self-Improvement(Corpus Manipulation), with [Forced Evolution] being the middle tree that seems to have better pay-offs if we focus on [Corpus Manipulation], as it reads anyway. Whatever path we take, holding off on taking [Forced Evolution] until later levels is probably for the best since it seems to have a cap on how many times it can change us (and if we're more experienced we appear to get greater benefits from it), though it could also be possible that it would let us alter minion stats aswell.
[Neuromancy] I would pin as our secondary skill tree unless we want to multiclass. [Unnatural Talent] and [Keen Observation] are probably must takes, with the former removing the need to spend EXP points to level up Weapon Skills and letting us just train that shit in and the latter would hopefully let us infect minds and do subtle manipulations or outright dominate other creatures.
[Medicine] and [Alchemy] are support and DPS trees respectively and should be tertiary at best, personally I'm leaning towards [Medicine] which probably makes us immune to all forms of toxins and poison downt the line, and it increases our regenerative capabilities. Probably lets us heal our minions too.

>>5510661
>Just wait here, if they're cannibals then the problem will resolve or at least reduce itself given time.
Hang out in the duct until there's one scavanger left standing, then ambush the remaining one.
>>
Rolled 37, 95 = 132 (2d100)

>>5510816
>>5510811
>>5510759
Oh man, 3 whole anons are playing my game. That just tickles me pink, thanks for playing guys.

Rolling for DTtDuagC and LpXwBtxl respectively to determine which action gets taken. Highest roll goes through, so if they're both sub-8 then it'll be the surprise attack.


=====

>[[ Selection Confirmed, Fleshcrafting ]]
>[[ Select one of the following skills to acquire. ]]

[Corpus Manipulation, Passive] - The science of personal permanent enhancement and manipulating the physical form. Small bonus to all physical stats. Select one of the following to manifest immediately: [Retractable Bone Blades (Fingers)], [Amplified Nervous System], [Superdense Marrow], [Iron Body], [Regeneration]

[Forced Evolution, Passive] - Allows chance of huge improvements to the body, even moreso for a more experienced fleshcrafter. Be warned that you can only undergo so many dramatic changes before it backfires on you.

[Symbiosis, Passive] - Grants knowledge of augmentoid creation, the tools to harvest Gene-Traces to construct them, and allows greater interface and tolerance to them.
>>
Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>5510832

>Just wait here, if they're cannibals then the problem will resolve or at least reduce itself given time.
Writan'.
>>
>>5510816
>[Neuromancy] I would pin as our secondary skill tree ...
I was thinking similar solely for the 'increases resistance to mental assaults'.

Thinking dip into Medicine for out job and in town money maker.

----

If [Regeneration] is what gets agreed on. Then yeah waiting it out would be for the best. Not sure if we'll need to role off or not since we each had picked something different. That being said after I forgot about the hand wound. I would be down to change to things moving.
>>
>>5510832
>[Corpus Manipulation, Passive]
[Regeneration] Best to heal while we wait.
>>
>>5510816
I did think of going regen or scavenging what's left, but I still think it is better to get a good weapon or upgrade a weapon skill first to prevent further damage in the first place and be able to actually access further EXP and crafting materials at all. I think regen should come after. I know that one creature wasn't hard to kill, but there seem to be a lot of them and they did a decent chunk of damage to us, plus I'd want to be competent in a fight should we run into another player. Though I do understand preferring regen because they weren't that hard to kill and it'd be nice to recover our health.

Otherwise I more or less concur with the analysis of the skill tree.
>>
>>5510832
>[Corpus Manipulation, Passive] [Retractable Bone Blades (Fingers)]

Though, I won't be butt-mad if regen wins. I'm also cool with going symbiosis and trying to scavenge/revive a minion once we drop back down.
>>
Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>5510851
Rollin' since I forgot to earlier.
>>
Rolled 15 (1d100)

>>5510843
I plan to back the weapons next level up, but if they win. I would find it funny if they left holes in our hands till we got regen.
>>
>>5510832
>[Corpus Manipulation] > [Regeneration]
Since waiting won the roll I think playing it it safe here I is the gameplan, the dogs will tear each other to shreds and we'll finish of whoever is left. We have something called "Gene Trace -Chitinous Exoskeleton", I assume we would be able to form some sort of flesh armor out of the dead Scavangers then so we become a little tankier, even if we can't raise a minion from them.

>>5510844
>I did think of going regen or scavenging what's left, but I still think it is better to get a good weapon or upgrade a weapon skill first to prevent further damage
Fair enough, though I personally don't see much use of the bone blades right now since we already have a 'weapon' that should serve us through this tutorial section, though in the future we could probably do something similar to Wolverine Claws but made out of bone.

>>5510837
>Thinking dip into Medicine for out job and in town money maker.
>potion brewer day job
>we pick up all three skills in the Medicine tree
>use our own blood to make high-level Toxin-Resist healing potions
>when we begin to feel light headed we just manipulate a steak into more blood and continue brewing
I dig it.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5510661

Considering the chunk of HP that a single Scav bite took out of you, you opt to pick up Regeneration.

>[[ Sibyllan ]]
>[[ HP 11/17 ]]

>>[[ General ]]
[ Curse: ????? ]
[ Mutative Assimilator ] - Able to acquire Gene-Traces for Augmentoids through physical contact, no harvesting required.

>> [[ Masteries ]]
>[[ Medicine (0) ]]
None
>[[ Fleshcrafting (1) ]]
[Corpus Manipulation, Lvl 1]
[Regeneration]
>[[ Alchemy (0) ]]
None
>[[ Neuromancy (0) ]]
None

>>[[ Weapon Skills ]]
Bludgeons 0
Unarmed 0

You wonder what that [Curse: ????? ] tag is about, but dismiss it as a mystery to be resolved later. As you close the UI you feel an unnerving slithering feeling against your spine, as if one of the black cables surrounding you has come alive, making you tense up.

>[HP 12/17]

Oh, it's just the healing coming into effect. Oh thank the gods.

You tamp down your sudden tension and anxiety, and turn to look down at the Scavs again. The body that was blocking access into the room has been torn apart by the efforts of the defender and those outside, and the creature is currently attempting to score another kill and easy meal as two more of the monsters worm their way in through separate gaps around the pod. It's clearly worse the wear for it though, with one of its forelimbs dangling by a flap of muscle and several bloody trenches cut into the chitin covering its face from bites.

As you watch it jams the spike of its remaining forelimb into an eye of one of the intruders, and you swear you can see the moment when the thing dies. That gives the other scav time to scramble inside though, and without hesitation it falls onto the weakened defender.

>[HP 13/17]

A messy fight ensues, and surprisingly the defender comes out on top. What a scrappy little monster...it loses several eyes and a couple of armor plates in the process though. Scrappy, as you've decided to call him, drags the corpse of the critter it stabbed in the eye out of the gap to eat its fill. The final scav you noticed worms its way in and begins to feast on the other corpse.

>[HP 14/17]

Then you notice that the first Scav to enter the room has finished its meal and...uhh, it is looking significantly more bulky now. It leaps towards the newcomer and another scuffle ensues. Scrappy notices too and after making a few echo clicks towards the fight, decides to squirm out of the room with its life.

Oh, a monster after your own heart. How precious.

The fight takes longer than you would've expected, given the clear edge that BulkyScav has over the newcomer. Maybe Bulky isn't a good fighter, isn't used to its new abilities, or maybe starving and being backed into a corner lends Newcomer ferocity.

>[HP 15/17]

"Well, that was pretty gruesome."

You mumble to yourself, looking at the aftermath of the fight. Indigo blood now coats pretty everything inside the room now. Bulky stands as the victor, with the corpses of its enemies as spoils. It didn't escape uninjured though.
>>
Rolled 6 (1d100)

>>5510911

>[HP 16/17]

Several of the creature's armor plates are torn or gouged significantly enough as to be rendered flimsy, and blood pours from bite marks that very nearly caught its throat. Poor Bulky is looking like he's on his last legs, to be honest. It even lays down on the floor from apparent exhaustion as it drags one of the corpses over towards it to begin consuming the fallen.

>[HP 17/17]

It occurs to you that you don't know whether letting the Scav consume the corpses will continue to provide it with enhancements, and that even if you waited for it to finish and leave that would just mean that it's wandering around outside where you might run into it in a less favorable situation. You're back beyond your previous peak, too.

On the other hand, now would also be the perfect time to crawl through the cables, with all apparent threats occupied and unable to respond even if you do make noise.

>Gotta level up somehow. Drop down and attack the Scav.
>Follow the telltale signs of a tunnel in the cables to where ever it may lead.
>No really, just wait. Bulky's as likely to distract other threats outside as he is to attack you.
>Write-In
>>
Rolled 30 (1d100)

>>5510920
>Gotta level up somehow. Drop down and attack the Scav.

Perfect timing, and it is best we not allow it back into the ecosystem as that may come back to bite us in the ass. I think we can take it even without a weapon skill. After we hopefully win, maybe we should pick up Symbiosis or some other harvesting skill to take what we can from this strengthened creature.
>>
>>5510920
>Gotta level up somehow. Drop down and attack the Scav.
Yup, that's what I was hoping for. A damaged creature rip for being turned into EXP. Granted, it's a little bit bigger but it's way damaged so we should be able to take it.
>>
Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5510920

>Gotta level up somehow. Drop down and attack the Scav.
>Roll 1d100, Bo3
Go ahead and reroll if we haven't gotten to 3 from separate anons within 15 minutes or so
>>
Rolled 59 (1d100)

>>5510952
>>
Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5510952
>>
Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5510952
>>
Rolled 86 (1d100)

>>5510952
Kill this man.
>>
Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5510952

>Rolled 66, Success, Dubs

You gradually ease yourself out of the cocoon of cables you'd created and get situated to drop down out of the ceiling onto the Scav. It's right below you, awkwardly trying to pry away the chitin on one of the corpses to get at the meat beneath. You take a few breaths to steady yourself. Thankfully you didn't make any noise to alert it yet, grip your pipe firmly.

'Here goes nothing'

You think, and then hop down from the lip of the hole and fall towards the creature.

That's how it would've gone, if the ceiling panel you were sitting on didn't give way at the last second and fall along with you with a horrendous screech.

You almost feel like a helpless observer in your own body as the coup de grace with all your weight and momentum behind goes awry from the beginning. The next few seconds are a jumble of sensations. You feel a sharp pain in your ribs just as you land on the ground in a heap with the panel. Sparing a glance you realize that the Scavenger's tail moved faster than you could see and struck you in the torso as you fell, sinking several inches into your flesh with an edge that's much sharper than it was on your first attacker...and then it was promptly severed as the ceiling panel fell edgewise on it.

>[HP 14/17]
>Acquired Gene-Trace: [Semi-Autonomous Nervous System]

It's not too serious though, and you don't have time to worry about it anyway. Despite the reaction, and your fumbled landing, you've definitely caught the bulky scavenger by surprise. It hisses in pain from its severed tail and starts rising to face you.

But you're faster. You catch its hind limb in one hand and jerk the leg towards you and out from under it as it rises, bringing its head within striking distance of your improvised mace. Only the first strike is somewhat difficult to make, from your tangled position, but it lands true on the Scav's head. After that it's stunned and increasingly unable to resist (let alone turn the situation around) as you bash the monster's head repeatedly until it's nothing more than a pulp of chitin, brain matter, and indigo blood.

>[[Sibylllan has defeated Prime Wreck Scavenger]]
>>
Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5511000

>[HP 15/17]

"Aah, the sweet taste of success."

You say to no one in particular, wiping bits of brain and ichor from your face. You look around to make sure there are no other immediate threats to your life and as you do your gaze falls upon something precious that tumbled down along with you from the ceiling. It's a...well you're not sure what it is, physically. Like a chunk of pure light manifested physically, your mother's love lays amidst a wreath of cables framing it like tentacles. You must have it, and instinctively reach out to grab it.

>[[Sibyllan acquired: Shard of Tiamet]]

Your urgent need is instantly soothed as you absorb the Shard. The fleeting feeling of your mom laughing as she played with you when she was still healthy fades along with it, and you're left staring at the tangled mess of cables radiating outwards in twisting patterns from where the Shard had just been.

You also grab the severed tail the Scavenger dropped, it's too awkwardly shaped to make a good weapon but someone who's currently wielding a broken piece of pipe can't be choosy.

>[[Sibyllan acquired: Prime Scav Tail]]

You spend some time experimenting with the corpses, trying to activate [Mutative Assimilator] or see if you can manipulate the meat to your own ends but can't seem to make anything happen. Shrugging, you go and move the Pod out of the doorway instead. By the time you're done your health is back up to full. You step out into the hallway. It's still a blank-walled corridor but now that you can look around more leisurely you notice that there's a downward slant to it in the direction where the sludge has built up, and the general state of things in that direction gets progressively worse. There's also a moist but fresh breeze coming from that way.

In the direction where the slime decreases, on the other hand, are what you presume to be Scrappy Scav's tracks. They're not the only ones though. Impressions in the mud indicate that quite a few scavs and possibly other things as well have headed in that direction in the recent past.

"Man, whenever I get out I'm definitely telling them they need to make the new player experience more friendly..."

You sigh, and contemplate what to do next.

>Head in the direction of the filth. That's where the group of scavs came from and where things are leaving from which means they're not there right now.
>Head down the less filthy path. If things are going that direction then it probably means that it leads towards something.
>Now that you're not pressed for your life, go back up into the ceiling and see if there are perhaps other avenues of navigation. Besides, that's where you found your precious Shard...
>You notice a few other doorways in this section of hallway. You know, if they have pods too then you could set up a fairly robust barricade and then ambush creatures as they pass through...
>Write-In
>>
>>5511000
Nice, double doubles and trips.

>>5511039
Technically the name was Sibylla, not Sibyllan, but whatever

>Now that you're not pressed for your life, go back up into the ceiling and see if there are perhaps other avenues of navigation. Besides, that's where you found your precious Shard...

We should also probably follow the path where we suspect someone that moved our pod crawled off to, could lead us to someone.

It has begun. We need more Gems!
>>
Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5511051
I changed it to Sibyllan because gender hadn't been decided on at the time and that can almost work as a boy or girl's name.
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5511051
Yeah. I'll back it.

If we can check our exp as well. I don't mind grabbing the claws and [Symbiosis, Passive] in hopes of making use of the bodies.

Neuromancy [Keen Observation, Passive] or Medicine [Contagion Reservoir, Passive] would be my next thoughts. If this is an experimental lab it would be good to ether have better awareness or some protection.
>>
>>5511130
Yeah, agreed on the EXP choices.
>>
Rolled 34 (1d100)

>>5511039

>Roll 1d100, to see what sort of trouble you get up to
>>
Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>5511164
Trips again...
>>
>>5511171
Oh god...why!?
>>
>>5511172
Because the fastest way to level up is to go hard.
>>
Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5511171

Heh, well you can still roll to try and get a 100 if you like.

Or maybe things'll double down with 2 Nat 1s instead. Should be fun either way.
>>
>>5511179
Nameless speedrun when?!
>>
>>5511183
More fun this way with a 1, lets see what happens.
>>
Rolled 44 (1d100)

Alright, I didn't anticipate you guys finding what you're gonna find just yet so I'm gonna need some time to finalize some stuff that I had only sketched out so far. Next update should either be late this evening or some time tomorrow morning.
>>
Rolled 16 (1d100)

>>5511039
>>5511164

You decide to revisit your hiding place and investigate the trail of disturbed cables you noticed while you were there, presumably left by the last occupant of the room you spawned in. After all you found the Shard up in the ceiling, now realizing that it caressing your back was likely what caused the electric tingle rather than your regeneration kicking in.

You hop back up into the tangle with gusto, and begin following the telltale signs of the passage of someone else. It's difficult, whoever traversed this area last did so long ago. It's pitch black and various wires, piping, and ductwork occupy almost the entire space above the ceiling grid. You're forced to navigate by touch, gently prodding the cabling inch by inch to determine where the ancient inertia of the cables was disturbed by some other sentient hand before you. It takes immense concentration and a delicate hand but you manage, almost as if guided.

Eventually you follow the trail until you reach an open pipe about the size of a sewer cover and heading downwards. You realize, belatedly, that you've lost track of where you are relative to where you started from. You start to panic a bit when it fully hits you that you have no idea whether you've traveled a few dozen feet or a mile from where you started. You are surrounded by pitch blackness and pressed in on all sides by the tendrils of plastic-sheathed copper...backtracking is simply not an option.

Which actually makes your next choice rather simple: follow the path you started on, or die trying to find your way back. You opt for the former and perform some complicated maneuvers so that you'll at least slide down the pipe feet first rather than greeting whatever's to come with your face.

One last thought runs through your inner monologue before you slide down.

"What's the worst that could possibly happen?"
>>
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Rolled 81 (1d100)

>>5511352

After an extended period of sliding downwards you realize that you don't actually have any means of measuring time here. As such you can only generalize that it took approximately an eternity to get to the point where the pipe evened out to a horizontal rather than vertical orientation. Having to traverse the fairly narrow pipe horizontally in perfect darkness feet first is almost enough to make you wish you'd dived in head first, but the thought quickly vanishes when you consider how far you would've had to fall before getting to this section.

Eventually you emerge from the pipework into a forgotten corner of a massacre. You feel rather than hear or see the notification of your location.

> [[ Starship Wreckage Field: Infinite Slaughter Control Chamber ]]

A shudder passes through your body as your foot lands in a puddle of congealed blood outside the pipe. The consummate darkness lifts, but you wish it hadn't as it only serves to reveal a field of corpses around you. Some human-looking, most not. Husks of monsters beyond your worst imaginings litter the area around you, all built up into a mound upon which a single figure sits.
>>
Rolled 36 (1d100)

>>5511405

You instinctively freeze as soon as you see the figure upon the hill of death, but you hadn't anticipated a sight that would freeze your blood and lose your balance. Your hand falls upon half of a bisected human corpse.

> [[Loot all, Identifier 'Arturion']]

You don't have time to look at what you've accidentally stolen before a voice sounds out from over your shoulder, and you realize the figure is no longer on the hill of bodies in front of you.

"What's this? A servant of Tiamet stumbling into my domain? I thought your ilk had learned the consequences of such transgressions by now. "

Oh shit, oh fuck.You look up and see it. Him? To be honest you're not sure whether the thing is human or machine. Every nerve and instinct in your body screams that the difference is irrelevant. Whatever the figure's history it's 100% monster now.

"No...not a servant. Merely touched by the goddess' hand.

Oh my, and what bravery to confront me in my lair while so weak!"


You freeze and look up at the figure behind the voice. It really doesn't necessarily look like much. A humanoid frame. No bulging muscles. A large Japanese-style sword and another small one, both sheathed. Some obviously cybernetic hands and feet, and a Mempo-style porcelain mask on its head.

Despite that it positively radiates 'boss monster' energy, and you feel as if your mind is being pressed into a nonrespondent puddle by its proximity. The painted irises stare right back at you as you look at it, somehow transferring the sensation of barely restrained death despite being inanimate.

>How do you respond?
>Write-In
>>
>>5511405
Interesting, that certainly explains the quest title and OP pic, thought we might be somewhere like that, didn't expect to end up in the control chamber though.

>>5511421
>Open up with a half faux-joking, half-plaintive manner in an attempt to distract and amuse him while getting us a few seconds further into this conversation. "Ah, alas this swan maiden has gotten lost and had her wings clipped, sir. I am ever at your mercy. Would you be so kind as to show me the exit? I am not ready to face you." Play up the somewhat chaotic/mischievous aspect our altered face gives us even if we have to force it a bit and make it clear we are faking the calmness/bravery but hope to amuse him enough for him to let us live/give us info.

Alternatively just say something like "Ah, hi there! Sorry, I got lost! It's the honest truth. Can you show me the exit?" or maybe play up our bravery and say something bold and uncaring like "who the fuck are you and where am I?"
>>
Rolled 63 (1d100)

>>5511435
Forgot to roll.
>>
Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>5511435
Not a bad way and a good back up.

>>5511421
Another thought I have when I look at this is how we were touched by that goddess. Makes me think we say "Touched more like cursed!" Then pulling the truth of we kind of just woke up here and thing are crap from the beginning till now. Is it as more of an angle to get in closer and get information. Tho this comes with a risk of him just ending us. Poor bastard is curse and can't be help, RIP.
>>
>>5511456
Using it as more*

Moving to fast on the phone always getting me. Yet there's no time when you gotta go.

Etherway goal is to probe the person and with luck they will not be an enemy for now.
>>
I think if shit goes south we should attempt to fast equip some equipment looted from the Identifier we just looted and try and at least show some piss and vinegar before we go down. Assuming that is how Identifiers work in this quest at all and that I am even remembering BSO correctly.
>>
Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5511479
Never go down without a fight. Unless it's the run as hard as you can and get away with it.
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

Testing something real quick.
>>
>>5511764
Neat.
>>
Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>5511421

Your mind runs at a mile a minute, as you look into the painted eyes of the man-shaped monster standing over you. Strange, actually, that they're painted rather than being cameras. You wonder how it sees, if it does. Surely it does, or else the room wouldn't be lit.

"Your boldness is inspirational, even if your wisdom is arguable. I would have your name, before I send you to rest in oblivion along with your goddess."

His silent dismissal of his prospects, his overwhelming presence, you being covered in mud and laying on the ground at his feet...It all reminds you too much of the same powerlessness you felt as your mom was slipping away despite your best efforts.

The thought sets fire to your thoughts, and suddenly you feel angry. All the stress and frustration from months of helplessness, the shock of your loss that you still haven't properly had time to process, and the emotions you'd bottled up for the sake of survival all transmute into a storm of fury in a heartbeat. What the fuck is this? First you get dealt a shit hand in life, and now things are going to repeat themselves in this goddamn game? No. You refuse. You might be helpless in the real world but you refuse to let this be your f̷a̶t̶e̵ here.

The figure shifts a bit, and then calmly places its hand on the tanto hanging off its waist.

"I like that look in your eyes, girl. Those are the eyes of someone who fights...I can respect that, even if you are weak."

You grit your teeth and channel your anger into your words. You briefly consider responding with formal english, playing to the samurai aesthetic going on here. In the end you're too mad to do so.

"Who the fuck am I? I'm Sibyllan. More importantly, who the fuck are YOU? And where am I? And where's the exit? I've got no quarrel with you, so if you'll just let me out of here then I'll let you go unscathed this time!"
>>
Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>5511774

The samurai continues to stare you down for a moment, porcelain mask unchanging, and then throws back its head and lets out an uproarious laugh. Its hands go to its stomach rather than its sword, and you notice that the luminescent tattoos on its grey skin twist and become mimics of its mask but bearing a mirthful expression.

"Hohoho, oh what a treat. Such defiance."

The figure raises a hand to its porcelain face as though to wipe a tear off. Despite the laughter issuing forth from...you know actually where is this thing speaking from? Anyway despite the act none of the body language to indicate joy is present. That paired with all the corpses surrounding you lends it an incredibly menacing quality that threatens to smother your flash of anger.

You take the opportunity to finally stand up, and realize that this guy towers over you. Solidly eight feet tall at least...

The giant finally gets himself under control, and offers you a bow.

"My name is Teppelin, and I am the 7th Warmaster. Though present circumstances have left me largely excused from the responsibilities of management."

You're nailed in place by its gaze again, feeling that same pressure seeming to push your entire consciousness into a corner of your brain.

"And unfortunately I cannot simply let you leave. Though it seems you ended up here by accident, I have been given a sacred duty to act as a trial to those who would pass through here.

...That being said, you lack the usual qualifications, and you've also provided some amusement. I haven't had such a laugh in a long time, and fortunately for you my god, Kartikeya, allows his subjects initiative in the way they execute their duties. His domain is life and struggle as well as war, and I think it fitting that you be given the chance to grow rather than being reaped right now.

If you can provide me a suitable offering,"
the giant's immobile face manages to project a knowing demeanor somehow, "then I can offer you a choice between 3 trials."

"You can leave this room via the door over there. I will send a hunter after you, defeat it or evade it until you escape the Infinite Slaughter. There is actually a settlement just one cable crossing away, follow the signs for 'Ascheritte's Respite' and you'll find it.

You can leave via the teleporter. It will send you to a place where your goddess once made her home. Nothing will actively pursue you by default, but finding the nearest settlement should serve as sufficient trial nonetheless.

Or...You can stay here and face me. Your life is also an acceptable offering, as far as I am concerned."


Well...that's better than you expected. What a strangely talkative NPC, let alone being able to react to a situation like this with such nuance. It's disturbing, even. Anyway, time to make your choice.
>>
Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>5511793

>Sucker punch this fucker, and take the choice to fight him implicitly. You won't let him dictate your path or take your Shard.
>Take his offer to escape through the door. Whatever this hunter is, you'll know that it's coming for you and you know what it takes to get away.
>Take his offer to go through the teleporter. Being cast into the wilderness is honestly just maintaining the status quo from where you were at before you stumbled into the boss room, and that's a massive net positive from your current situation.
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5511795
If the suitable offering is our Shard I'm going with the fighting option. Feels in character at the moment. What with the feeling of mother when we got it and our anger.

Otherwise with our regeneration and hopefully newly acquired experience and/or abilities I think it is possible to do ether one. So I'll leave it to dice with 1 being hunt and 2 being teleport.
>>
Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5511821
Now for the normal roll. If it's a fight I hope we go down strong. Make momma proud.
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5511823
kek

I'll honor this somehow no matter which option you take, but if you engage in combat then rolling performance for that will still be done separately.
>>
>>5511795
> Teleporter

Could be lots of beasties to harvest from, and we've got regeneration to help survive the wilds with.

And a temple might have an exit altar even.
>>
>>5511795
>Take his offer to go through the teleporter. Being cast into the wilderness is honestly just maintaining the status quo from where you were at before you stumbled into the boss room, and that's a massive net positive from your current situation.
We get put in the wilderness we get some more time to level our skills and steal some new flesh materials. Fighting probably means death, our health is so low we could've only taken five hits from a Scavanger before dying and I doubt this man would give us time to use our regeneration.
>>
Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>5511826
Then to clarify well I shard be taken if we don't fight? If we are keeping the shard then me dice rolled hunter.

Unless you are going to be coy about it. Which I can understand hidding certain things on the players. in which case. f*** that s*** let's fight and protect what Mama Gave Us!
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Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5511875
A shard will be taken if you don't fight. Of course who knows, maybe it'll be taken even if you do fight too. You could understand that, you might consider fighting someone if you knew they had a Shard...

Consensus is going through the teleporter though. Writan' it up now.
>>
>>5511879
Yeah always the chance to lose something when defeated. Thanks for the answers and now a new side mission.
>>
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Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5511795

So far as you can tell it's: certain death, somewhat less certain death, and a delay on death. A delay in which you might accomplish any number of things. Time is on your side.

"I'll take the option that lets me live a little longer, please."

Tepellin continues to stare at you.

"That was a...I'll do the teleporter, I mean."

"Your tithe then, Sibyllan."

You grimace and pull out your Identifier.

>[[ Identifier: Sibyllan ]]
>[[ Storage ]]
-Shard of Tiamet
-Prime Scav Tail

You focus on the shard, and it manifests before you. Its pure light...is actually tinged somewhat green. Like the most achingly beautiful emerald that could possibly exist. It causes you physical pain as Tepellin reaches out and grabs it.

His posture becomes playful, and he tilts his head slightly. The masks in his luminescent tattoos smile again.

"And lend me your weapon for a moment. This offering should be made to the gods, but I have some small skill granted by my Lord. He enjoys amusement as much as I, I don't think he'll fault me for this."

You hand him your trusty pipe, and he takes it in one hand while holding the viridian jewel in the other. He shatters the jewel in his fist, causing you to gasp and then grit your teeth, but it seems it's not truly destroyed. Sparks flow over and into the pipe. Infusing it with a feeling of sturdiness and reality that you hadn't realized it lacked before. The rust is gone now too, instead the dull steel has acquired a faint golden sheen.

The process is over in a few seconds, and he hands the pipe back to you.

>[[ Sibyllan acquired: Tepellin's Teacher ]]

The notification appears and you pull up the detailed information.

>[[ Tepellin's Teacher ]]
[Relic] - Relic weapons are very difficult to break, and cannot be enhanced, repaired, or modified without Godly power.
[Master's Teaching] - This weapon guides you as you wield it, allowing you to accumulate weapon skill experience.

"Return to me when you are stronger, Traveler Sibyllan. I look forward to offering you a proper trial."

You're not sure whether to be pissed or grateful, so you just opt to give the...android? Cyborg? Man? a nod. He returns the nod, and leads you to a raised dais of some unidentifiable metal or stone material some way away. It is conspicuous for being the only area in the rather spacious room that is devoid of dead bodies.

Tepellin stops, and gives you a pat on the back. Argh!

>[HP 15/17]

The pat practically shoves you onto the dais, and immediately feel your entire being wrenched apart. It is the same sort of agony as when the drop of silver fell on you in the chair, but a million times worse. You feel as though your body is being disassembled atom by atom. The indescribable pain thankfully only lasts for a moment before you succumb to unconsciousness.
>>
Rolled 11 (1d100)

Gonna take a few hours to flesh out the new zone properly. Try not to stumble straight to the end of this one right away.
>>
>>5509167
,':^y
>>
Rolled 50 (1d100)

Should get the next update out this afternoon or evening. Thanks to all you guys that are playing!
>>
Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5511904

You awaken groggily, your mind sluggish and body faintly aching all over. It reminds you of the times you woke up after trying to obliterate your problems with the bottle. You're sprawled flat on some large metal surface, probably a duplicate of the pad Tepellin pushed you onto.

"Dammit, you should've gone with the Hunter or fighting that fuck. No way dying would've been as painful as that teleportation..." You murmur to no one in particular.

You crack open your bleary eyelids, and see a handful of system messages floating in front of you.

>[[ Worldship Charybdis: Water Reclamation and Natural Park ]]
>[[ Congratulations, Sibyllan! You are the first User to discover this region. Exploration EXP increased. ]]
>[[ You have 1 EXP to spend. ]]
>[[ Status: Dizzy ]]

You grimace, and force yourself to your feet. Your sense of balance is terribly off, as if your body is somewhat off center to where you remember it being. It's an incredibly unpleasant sensation but once you realize what's going on you're able to compensate for it. Once up, you take a look around.

Below you is exactly what you expected, a dais that perfectly mimics the one in the Infinite Slaughter's control room exactly. Everything else couldn't be more different.

Instead of a dim room inside a starship, you're enclosed on 3 sides by greyish wood covered in pale white vines bearing faintly luminescent leaves. There's an opening in one direction, cloaked by a combination of vines and roots as thick as building columns. You move that way, and peak your head out.

Turns out you're in a small alcove underneath a huge tree. It stands alone in the middle of a small clearing, through a light fog you see that you're surrounded by much smaller trees that resemble mangroves. Sunlight streams through the canopy of leaves above and around you, you note that they're all dripping wet. What you originally took to be fog outside of your pagoda turns out to be swarms of tiny insects. The ground around you is barren of undergrowth, composed instead of a tangled mass of roots growing through greyish mud. You smell the distinctive odors of rot, stagnant water, and humidity.

"Oh great, it's a swamp. I HATE swamps."

Sighing, you go back to the dais room. The luminescent leaves of the vines around you, not-too-tight confines, and lack of small biting insects actually make the space almost cozy. You're not fooled. You've hardly gone 60 seconds without having to struggle for your life in this game so far. You check every nook and cranny of the place, shifting vines and such aside to make sure there are no bore holes from some horrid termite monsters or something. Only afterwards do you finally sit down again, and open up your inventory to see what loot you got from poor Arturion.
>>
Rolled 20 (1d100)

>>5513126

It's a pretty decent haul, actually. You quickly equip the items, they're summoned directly onto you. First, a long and sturdy jacket of some sort of leather, that's had dark metal plates applied to critical areas on the outside and mail of the same woven into the inner lining. It's got a strange holster of some sort integrated onto the shoulder, you're not sure what for. Then, a pair of cargo pants with a silky finish that resist your movement ever so slightly whenever you move. They have a belt integrated into them that's actually a cable of some sort and has a universal interface jack on the end. Apparently it's magnetized, or can be, since you can stick your Trusty Pipe to it. Finally, a pair of simple boots. They're perfectly sized to you.

There's also a crossbow made out of polymer and carbon fiber, the design incorporates two bows arranged in an X pattern that are very compact, making it feel more like a rifle than crossbow. It fits into a holster on your back. Finally, there's a simple knife made made of black-finished metal. You situate it on your offhand hip, opposite Tepellin's Teacher.

You breathe a sigh of relief as you're no longer just in a skin-tight jumpsuit. You like the figure of your avatar as much as anyone, but there's just no replacing the feeling of having something substantial between you and the things trying to murder you. Then you take a glance at your revised status.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQLzwnol2kw8u_XSYUZ9lZ6U7IyF7z5VFgWSTO2Ch5R9Mr4jXgnS_bI2HJf2LbuYF_yowjmds-vYj3b/pub

You walk over to a puddle of water near the entrance to the room and look at yourself in the reflection.

"Lookin good!" You give yourself some finger guns. Then you frown.

"Should you be worried that you're talking to yourself, Syb?"

You shelve the thought to ponder later, and instead consider what you should do next. You're isolated in a swamp with no real notion of where you're at, where to go, or what's around you after all.

>Climb the tree that you're under to try and get an overview of this place.
>Observe the area outside your lair for a while. No way there aren't monsters here.
>The canopy around you is thick, but you think you can make out a tower or something far off in the distance. Head that way.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 91 (1d100)

>>5513175

Also

>Spend EXP Now (Choose a Mastery)
>Wait until you know more about this place
>>
>>5513175
>Climb the tree that you're under to try and get an overview of this place.
Specifically try to confirm if what we think is a tower actually is a tower or something else entirely. Also, try and see if we can find a path that leads in that direction.

>>5513177
>Spend EXP Now (Choose a Mastery)
[Fleshcrafting] > [Symbiosis]
With a Crossbow, Knife and a less rusty pipe we're set on weapons right now, so I think we can skip Wolverine claws for now. We only have so many hands to hold weapons with after all. If we're lucky there are some low level creatures around, or corpse piles we can use to begin building minions with.
>>
Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5513175
>Climb the tree that you're under to try and get an overview of this place.
Got know the new home ground and then hopefully not get lost when we leave.

>>5513177
Since we got the upgraded pipe. I can agree to Symbiosis. There will be living things to make use of here.
>>
>>5513177
>Climb Tree
>Spend EXP Now (Choose a Mastery)
Symbiosis is good yep
>>
>>5513177
> Spend EXP

> Alchemy - Compounding

The ability to make drugs and medicines sounds useful, and it's a pre req for making our own flesh beasties
>>
Rolled 10 (1d100)

>>5513358
Well, Augmentoids are actually the flesh beasties really. There's actually some (probably needless) complexity to the crafting that you guys haven't discovered yet.

I was planning on having someone experienced explain it to you once you hit a settlement but, uhhh, that didn't really work out...

>>5513175
>Climb the tree and have a look
>Spend EXP on [Symbiosis]

For no particular reason at all, give me 1d100 please
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5513375
Not long until we make some abominations and I have to deal with our berserking creations.
>>
>>5513375
Ahh, I was aiming at Biomass Reassembly. I guess that's the upgrade power for our little pets.
>>
Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>5513396
>>5513386
As a general rule, Augmentoids are the living critters you create. Fleshcrafting outside of your own body (whereas Corpus Manipulation is fleshcrafting inside yourself), but there are restrictions on it because otherwise it'd get ridiculous quick. Your peculiar situation obviates some of those restrictions, but in turn you don't know how it works so you can't capitalize on it.

Biomass Reassembly is a step towards combining augmentoid creation and corpus manipulation.

Anyway, writan'
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Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5513177
>>5513175

You elect to climb the tree and get a better sense of direction. No point walking around when you've got no idea where you're actually going.

The tree you landed under is truly massive. You hear there used to be groves of huge trees up in some mountains a long time ago, giants that would strike awe in all those that saw them and teach them lessons in what resilience really means. As you recall, those were in the low hundreds of feet tall. This one, meanwhile, has got to be getting close to a thousand. As you get above the level of the lesser trees (which were all still solidly huge by real world standards) you realize that what you had assumed to be sunlight coming through the canopy is actually being generated from several orbs hanging down from the branches of the megatree. They're like gigantic glowing berries, implausibly bright and impossibly huge. If there's true sunlight in this place, then it's above the level of that canopy up there...but this ceiling of vegetation populated by bright yellow dots seems to stretch on as far as the eye can see. It looks more like an eerie impenetrable wall of branches and leaves than something natural, from this distance anyway.

Still, you need to get up there. Fortunately aside from the staggering height it's not a difficult climb. The bark is fibrous, tough, and grows in huge furrows that resemble Xs or perhaps a helix carved into the trunk. It makes for perfect handholds and footholds. It's also fairly populated with branches even at this level, and they're large enough to be more like roads than limbs. There are also tunnels carved into the trunk that vary in size from rodent holes all the way to gaping caverns that are easily several times your height. You have to rest on or in these several times as you proceed further up, but you remain thankfully unharassed by anything more dangerous than mosquitoes and gnats.

You don't actually go to the top of the tree, partially because it's unnecessary and partially because you're finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that you'll have to make your way back down... Once you breach the berry-spotted canopy, you realize that it's situated about halfway up the total height of the massive tree. You're finally given a chance to really look out over the landscape.
>>
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Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5513458

Stretched out before you is largely a carpet of green, pierced in dozens of locations by the spires of trees every bit equal to the one you sit on now. Above it all sits a holographic sun tinged the orange of sunset. Although far above trees, it sits below what appears to be a blue sky that's dotted with clouds every here and there. You can't tell from this distance if they're real or also holograms. They slowly move across the sky, throwing shadows onto the blue ceiling above in a strange reversal of expectations. You stare for a while, soaking it in.

"You know, people'd kill for a view like this in the real world. Or they'd pay more money than it would've taken to save mom a hundred times over, just to visit."

Shit, you really need to knock this talking to yourself habit. You haven't even been alone in here for that long, even if it seems like an age from all the stress. You give yourself a couple of good smacks on the cheeks and then gather yourself to get to work. If the sun's fading, who knows if there's night here too.

You thoroughly explore and observe all around your particular megatree, gathering as much info as you can both of the area above the canopy and below. It takes several hours, but thankfully your luck with regards animals holds. You see things moving several times, but are always able to hide yourself before they can detect you. With the exception of some rather cute octopus looking things, that you stumble upon several times as you climb around. They squirt ink angrily, and promptly fall to lower branches whenever you do so. Fuckers shouldn't hide so well if they don't want to get stepped on.

>Acquired Gene-Traces: [Leafy Squidskin], [Ink Squirter]

Finally you assemble a cohesive picture of the area.

It's largely divided into 2 layers. The Megatree canopy, receiving the light of the false sun, and the undercanopy/swamp that receives its light from the glowberries growing off the megatrees.

The megatrees all seem to be the same species, and are common enough that the upper canopy forms almost a solid cover as far as you can see, barring a few patchy sections where the gaps between tree trunks is particularly large and branches are accordingly less dense. There are 4 megatrees that are distinct from the rest and each other, and they stand head and shoulders above the common variety in terms of size.
>>
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Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5513489

The first is in a direction you've arbitrarily decided to call 'south'. It has silvery bark and dark purple leaves, creating a beautiful contrast. Rather than glowberries, it bears delicate flowers that are each an iridescent riot of colors growing on its branches.
>>
Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5513490

The next lies to the east, it's the closest and the 'tower' you saw from your vantage point on the ground. Its bark is dark as pitch, but contrasts against spots of furious orange where the bark breaks. It looks just like the embers of a fire are held inside by a carbonized crust. You'd think it just a burning husk, but it bears regular leaves as well, indicating there's still some form of life going on.
>>
Rolled 20 (1d100)

>>5513493

The third is to the West, and it...you find it difficult to look at. Lights of various colors, many of which you don't have names for, slowly migrate across its bark. Well, you assume it's bark but there's something profoundly wrong about the entire forest in that direction. There are even what appear to be islands or trees floating above the canopy in the area around it.
>>
Rolled 24 (1d100)

>>5513495

The final one is in the South. It's skeletal, absolutely devoid of leaves. Slits that are shaped disturbingly like eyes bleed pale blue light, and the branches come up to cradle a gigantic metal cube.
>>
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Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>5513490
>>5513493
>>5513495
>>5513497

Aside from being even larger than the megatrees that compose most of the giant forest these four are exceptional for another reason. Each of them has what appears to be the framework for a lift ascending out of them and up into the ceiling.

In the time it's taken you to explore and get a grasp on the shape of your surroundings the sun has gradually waned from its original yellow, down to orange, and now finally turns black. All that remains is a dim and ghostly halo of white, providing barely enough light to see. The glowberries around you also dim their brightness, though they still put off plenty of light to leave your surroundings in a twilight state.

It...makes everything quite a bit more intimidating and creepy, to be honest. The four Supertrees are now the only major sources of light above the soft glow of the middle canopy. As you watch them you notice the tree of Eldritch Horror shake. Then the other 3 do as well. Within a few minutes, you hear a tremendous roar as well.

Acting on some instinct you descend below the canopy, into the twilight between the intertwined branches of the megatrees and the floor of mangroves. Except you can't see the mangroves any more, instead all you see is a swirling flood of black water. Black water that's steadily rising. A tremendous deluge of proportions you can't comprehend, in order to inundate a space this large. It continues to rise higher and higher, until it's only perhaps a hundred feet from the underside of the canopy.

You shiver, realizing that you only narrowly avoided getting caught in the deluge. Even now you can see that some of the lower hanging glowberries got caught and ripped off in the intense current. Damn, those mangroves must have incredibly strong roots to stay put through all that.

You look at the lights in the water as they swirl around almost as if they're alive, and get a bad feeling about them for some reason. It takes you a minute to put it together, but then you realize. The glowberries were orange, but those lights in the water are blue.

In a flash something enormous, angular, and clearly artificial is flung from the surface of the water and towards you. Your heart seizes up in your chest and time seems to slow down. The thing thrown at you is a huge harpoon, tethered to something in the water by a chain. You're powerless to dodge as it inches its way closer to you, and then bites into the sweet flesh of a glowberry scarcely a dozen feet away.

The chain grows taught and pulls the berry down into the water. You catch a brief glimpse as it's pulled down into the dark, and see the suggestion of...it looks like half mechanical whale, half submarine. Dotted with glowing blue lights almost like some deep sea creature. The silhouette is burned into your terrified eyes in the split-second of illumination before it gobbles up the glowberry.

Then another one, even larger, swims between the harpooner and the surface.
>>
Rolled 31 (1d100)

>>5513506

You nope right the fuck out of there, and climb into a hidey hole above the canopy you ID'd earlier. You try to sleep, but the sound of tremendous splashes from below, buzzing assault of insects, and thoughts of what could've become of you if you hadn't decided to climb the tree to scout things out all consume you...until they don't anymore, and you lose consciousness without even realizing it.

You wake up to the first rays of yellow from a synthetic sun, and the sound of water rushing away. It's strange to wake up from sleep and not feel any thirst, hunger, or other bodily needs.

"Is this really any less of a death sentence than facing a boss monster solo at level one?" You wonder aloud. Despair almost threatens to grip you, but you manage to shake it off.

After all, luck seems to be on your side almost as much as it damns you. Perhaps you'll make it out of this alive, yet. And if not...maybe the penalty for death won't be so bad?

Pfft, yeah right. Like you'd be that lucky.

No use giving up before you even try though.

>Descend the tree, and try to find some weak monsters to grind while exploring the swamp/forest floor. Maybe there'll be some easy pickings that drowned last night.
>Explore the nearby canopy, looking for suitable prey and secrets.
>Stay in your comfortable little hidey hole and cry while lamenting your lot in life and VR.
>Start exploring in the direction of one of the supertrees (Which one)
>You know, what was up with that one weird thing from Arturion's inventory...
>Other?
>>
Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5513511
Well, I was sadly busy and missed several votes, but it's fine since the votes turned out the way I would've wanted anyhow.

I wanna wander solo with this zone all to ourselves for a while, really make it our own. It'd be cool if by the time we reach a settlement we are so strong and so inundated with unique map knowledge that we can overawe the players and instantly get a slot among whatever passes for the 'elite' in the community.

What is the 'weird thing' being preferred to in the prompt? The familiar? The 300#? I thought that was his player number ID or something. His distraction spike?

Guessing Arturion was a Netrunner, possibly a Techseer.

>Grab one of the giant glowberries for its gene-trace before anything else, maybe take a taste as well. Can you taste food in this game?

then...

>Descend the tree, and try to find some weak monsters to grind while exploring the swamp/forest floor. Maybe there'll be some easy pickings that drowned last night.

also...

>Try and observe the lower ecosystem before going about disrupting it with a bunch of noise, try and find hidden predators and prey, see how they operate in their natural environment and what they are afraid of. Get a sense of the ecology.
>>
>>5513511
Also, I think the googledoc has a mistake. In the abbreviated mastery list closer to the top it correctly shows us with one level in both Corpus Manipulation and Symbiosis, but in the expanded list below with some of the bold text it shows us as having two levels in Corpus Manipulation and none in Symbiosis. Maybe you meant to put the 2 next to Fleshcrafting to show our total investment in that tree but instead you put it next to a branch of that tree?
>>
Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>5513519
300# is the credits

>>5513520
Actually the abbreviated list is the skills/masteries you currently have, whereas the longer list below is the list of what you have available. So [Symbiosis Lvl 2] is what should be down there. Whereas the upper list is correct as is.

Thanks for pointing that out!
>>
Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>5513526
Got the doc lookin' much more clean.
>https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQLzwnol2kw8u_XSYUZ9lZ6U7IyF7z5VFgWSTO2Ch5R9Mr4jXgnS_bI2HJf2LbuYF_yowjmds-vYj3b/pub
>>
Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5513511
>You know, what was up with that one weird thing from Arturion's inventory...
I'm assuming this is the familiar. Probably best to have something to talk to if we're already talking to ourselves. And it shouldn't take too long, we can begin moving to something else once we figure out how it works.
>>
Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5513511
I like the idea of testing food with the berry. See if we still gain anything from eating. Then check inventory just saw the [Rocksworth, Stone Familiar] and the Identifier.

Then next bit after it will be time to explore. If eating help us means now we can get more that just genes.
>>
The doc be full of new upgrades. I do like the idea of having Remote Viewing, but it's gonna be a while. [Ferrous Coagula, Active 20CC] would be fun to craft things from iron, cool something, and maybe use it to lock targets down as well.
>>
Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>5513519

Yeah, I'll support this.

Did we spend our exp point and get Symbiosis?
>>
>>5513519
>I wanna wander solo with this zone all to ourselves for a while, really make it our own
Reject civilization, become mysterious forest dweller with flesh minions. I wonder if we would be able to carve out homes in the trees with the same skills we would use to make flesh minions in the future.

So we have four regions, excluding the central one we're in right now. Four distinct biomes with a tree to guard each, and at the center is a mysterious tower. If that's not a loot tower with goodies in it I will eat my hat, probably has some sort of mechanic that requires an offering from each biome tree in order to unlock it. Could open just a loot chamber or a complete dungeon with a boss and all. Whatever we do, staying where we are and fucking around is our best bet right now so we can find out what we need to find out before we attempt moving to the other regions, so I'll back the choices made and adding on that we should try to sculpt a flesh minion as soon as so we can to be better protected.

>>5513726
[Intimate Knowledge] together with [Sympathetic Link] is how we power up minions, especially looking forward to that. Particularly implanting [Forced Evolution] in a minion when we've become a better Fleshcrafter could lead to some insane mid-late quest minions. We'll most likely also need [Biomass Reassembly] to craft near-perfect minions too.
Getting some more points in to Corpus Manipulation so we can build better minions is a thought, Wolverine Claws + Iron Body/Superdense Marrow + High Level Regeneration and Hormonal Doping would give us quite the melee monster. For a ranged alternative if we're lucky we could combine the Ink Squirter trace with Ferrous Coagula, maybe even just incorporate Ferrous Coagula directly into the spittle of a melee creature. Imagine you're fighting some girl and her pets, and you get bitten but your wound immediately combusts and turn to Iron while setting the flesh and clothing around it on fire instantly! That's a guaranteed moral break if I've ever seen one, much more original than the basic poison attacks you could expect from this class.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5513511
>You know, what was up with that one weird thing from Arturion's inventory...(check out Rocksworth)
>Do Glowberries taste like Glowberries?
[Locked], writan'.

Oh, throw me 1d100 Bo2 for no particular reason please.
>>
Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>5513746
Maybe I was a bit unclear (it was ~0300 at the time), but actually the towers are emerging from the tops of each of the 4 trees have elevators emerging from them and heading up to the ceiling. You're currently in a central dead zone without any special super trees influencing the local flora or fauna.

Actually Ferrous Coagula makes things super cold, so their limb'd freeze and then possibly break off.

Glad to see people theorycrafting though. Warms my heart!

You'll need every bit to survive, let alone be successful. You're incredibly lucky to have rolled a 96 on climbing and exploring the tree. It's going to be a delight seeing how you guys strategize to make it through all this.
>>
Rolled 35 (1d100)

>>5513886
Whichever way the reaction were to go, it's sure to cause serious shock and instantly take people out of the fight. And yes, you did mention the elevators but I was groogy from waking up so I must've separated the two somehow.

>>5513881
Dice time.
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5513881
Rollin' the other dice so we can get this through.
>>
Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5513511
>>5513881

First you'll check out that weird thing you picked up from poor dead Arturion. You summon Rocksworth, and a polished grey stone about the size of your hand and a few inches thick materializes in your palm. It has a small speaker glued on haphazardly, a cable spool ending in a universal jack, and a chunky low res black-and-grey LCD display on an actuator. The display has a cheap little black-and-white plastic tophat that's entirely too small glued to the top. It's currently displaying a pair of gleeful looking pair of eyes. You stare at the rock, trying to decipher its secrets.

"Aah! Finally free! You got yours in the end, cursed Arturion!" it says.

The sudden voice that isn't your own nearly makes you jump out of your own skin. The rock is thrown into the air and you juggle it between your hands a couple times, only barely grabbing ahold of it before it tumbles out of your little hiding place and into oblivion or worse at the bottom of the tree. The rock makes several "ach!" sounds throughout the whole process and by the time you have a solid grasp on it again the eyes have shifted to a look of terrified apprehension.

"Could you be more fuckin careful with me, please?! Gods above, this isn't how I imagined my freedom going..."

"Hahaha, oh god yeah I'm definitely going crazy...wow, that escalated from talking to myself way faster than I expected...I could've sworn you just talked..."

"Whoa now choom, you may be crazy but I'm actually talking too. Name's Rocksworth, but my friends call me 'Rocky'. It's a pleasure to meetcha...whoever you are, and thanks for rescuing me from my indentured servitude, but if you'd kindly deposit me at an access point in the nearest settlement I'll be getting on my way..."

>[Choose as many as you'd like]
>Uhh, well see I'd love to but you've kinda ended up in an unexplored region and you and I are the only ones around...
>How am I talking to a rock?
>Pleased to meet you, Rocky. I'm Sibyllan, and unfortunately I have some bad news...
>Toss the rock over the edge. You don't need your psychosis worsening like this.
>I can do that for you, but you're gonna have to help me too. See, here's the situation...
>Other?

=====

You quickly discover that the strange holster you had on your should is custom designed to hold Rocksworth, or Rocky, or your hallucination, whatever it is. You place him there or possibly throw him over the ledge and as you continue your conversation with him you also head downwards through the canopy. You've decided you'd like to try out one of the glowberries. If giant robot whales find them so delicious, maybe you will too.
>>
Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>5513933
Haha, oh man. These fuckin' dice gods. They're getting back at me for not running anything for a while.
>>
Rolled 95 (1d100)

>>5513933

Your good luck with regards to creatures continues to hold. In fact, it's almost suspiciously quiet around here. You wonder if the native creatures know something you don't. Setting your paranoia aside for now, you quickly find an ideal glowberry for your culinary adventure. Its stem is easily the thickness of your torso, and it's growing off the side of one of the wider road-like branches rather than from the bottom of it. Moreover it has a particularly pleasing orange-yellow color, looking like a horse-sized blackberry made of hammered gold.


"What are you doing, Sibyl?"

"I'm gonna harvest some of that berry and see how it tastes."

"Aah, yes. Taste-testing the giant glowing alien berry of the supertree in the alien death swamp. Roger that, carry on."

It's your first time approaching one of these, and as you get closer you realize...they're actually really fuckin bright. And really fuckin hot too. You have to shield your eyes awkwardly as you descend the stem, and as you get closer you begin to be buffeted by waves of heat. By the time you land the updraft from pure heat is strong enough to blow your coattails around. You're actually being cooked alive, and you almost feel like the bottom of your boots are melting. Too far in to turn back now though.

>[HP 18/20]
>[Status: Overheated]

Okay, no time for a leisurely picnic then. You quickly take Tepellin's Teacher in hand while still shielding your eyes and thrust it into the berry. The flesh is almost gelatinous, and the metal of the pipe immediately gets hot enough to scald your hands.

You reattach it to your belt in a frenzy of blistering palms, thankful that you had to foresight to plug one end with some vines you'd collected to use as cordage on the way over. You trigger your electroweave and jump straight up 8 feet or so, then scramble back up the stem and onto the wide road-branch with the sort of haste only someone that's being cooked alive can employ.

>[HP 16/20]
>[Status: Severe Burns, Overheated]
>[CC 40/110]
>[CC 39/110]
>[CC 38/110]...

You lay gasping atop the branch as you recover from the exertion, watching as your CC usage gradually ticks back to its baseline.

But you have your prize! And oh, it smells so sweet!
>>
>>5513933
>Pleased to meet you, Rocky. I'm Sibyllan, and unfortunately I have some bad news...
>Uhh, well see I'd love to but you've kinda ended up in an unexplored region and you and I are the only ones around...
>Though, be so kind as to fill me in on what you know about any settlements you've been to, I could use some help orientating myself.
>>
>>5513933
>Pleased to meet you, Rocky. I'm Sibyllan, and unfortunately I have some bad news...
>Uhh, well see I'd love to but you've kinda ended up in an unexplored region and you and I are the only ones around...
>If you would be so kind, please, fill me in on any of the settlements you've been to and how they function. I could use the help orientating myself. (Maybe get the infodump on crafting and various system functions while we are at it)

Uh, did you delete my post for formatting? I didn't even know QMs could do that. Or was it just a glitch or something. I posted thinking the post with the prompts was the only post but ended up after your next story post, then it disappeared after I refreshed.

Anyways, some thoughts on our situation. One thing to keep in mind is the flood emanating from the eldritch tree. (the pic looks more techy to me than eldritch, makes me think there is a tech versus organic thing going on or something corresponding to the aesthetics of the four starting classes) Depending on whether it occurs on a daily cycle or some longer period then that puts a limit on the range of our exploration.* It means we HAVE to reach a megatree by the end of each day/flood cycle or face basically guaranteed death. For now that probably means sticking near this tree and farming creatures and then climbing to safety each night. Once we feel strong enough to venture forth then we should probably head to the nearest megatree in search of further answers regarding this biome/bosses to fight. It also may eventually be worth investigating the "eldritch tree".

Regarding our development, while I prefer to take the more "active" archetype of going the "protagonist" build involving investing more in the trees other than Medicine, I do think for this zone it is worth investing at least few points into the tree since we are far from any settlement and it would be nice to have independent access to the ability to craft buffs/cures for ourselves given this environment is probably rife with status effects, immunological tuning is also probably useful here. That is not to say that it should be our next investment, just that we get around to it eventually.

*Footnote after I went back to reread. I misremembered a bit. There is our current central megatree which has the teleport altar, but the species of tree isn't anything special, there are dozens of megatrees, and four special ones in the various cardinal directions. So our exploration range is still limited but not in the way I thought. I thought there were five megatrees, four of them special and one central one which is where we currently were. Now that I reread I understand that while we still have to reach a megatree well before night or whenever the flood comes and started climbing since it takes time to get above the level where we will be safe, but we don't have to huddle around our current tree and try and force march our way to one of the special trees in a single day like I thought we did.
>>
>>5513953
>>5513965
wtf, now it showed up...well I guess I'll delete the first one.
>>
Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>5513953
>>5513952
>>5513933

"Pleased to meet you, Rocky. I'm Sibyllan. Aah, so about getting you to the nearest town..."

The rock uses its actuator to nod at you, expectantly.

"Well, you see, a thing or two happened...and now you and I are pioneers! Brave new explorers, going where no one has gone before!"

The rock nods again, but this time its eyes tilt somewhat to the side and have a skeptical look to them. You carry on with your explanation.

"That is to say, we're in the middle of a gigantic forest-swamp and when I arrived here the System told me that I was the first User to discover this region."

The stone nods its...eyes...a third time. This time they're closed serenely, and the gesture is accompanied by a sigh.

"Well...I can't say I didn't consider this outcome...Still, this is just my sort of luck. Ending up with a stranger in the middle of a death sentence.

I am physically and mentally incapable of giving up though, and compelled to be helpful. Two of the shackles that bastard put on me when I was created. So if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know. I do have some aptitude with hacking. Arturion dumped so much EXP and CC into being able to create me that he ended up weak in that area and used me to compensate. If you can find a network hub somewhere then I can likely get a proper map of this place.

Maybe even pull some historical data too, though the languages these guys used to use is still largely untranslatable. Never know when data'll come in handy though. For now, I'll dump a text file of what I know into your ID. "

>Ask Rocky some specific question

Will update the doc later with appropriate info. Also, argh lost most of my post. Rewriting now.
>>
>>5513972
Going over good habits when exploring the unknowns. Nothing wrong with brushing up on the basics.

So are able to help with tech support. How are you with crafting meds or in general?
>>
Rolled 59 (1d100)

>>5513952

You wait for the berry flesh to cool from flesh melting hot to piping-hot-pie temperature. It takes a surprisingly long time, you're back to full health, nominal CC, and your burns have been reduced to moderate by the time it's ready.

Your pour a bit out of the pipe and into your hands, for lack of any better options, then promptly slurp the jelly up.

Maybe it's because you haven't eaten anything since you logged in and have an empty stomach, but the taste is simply divine. You don't experience hunger, but there's still a psychological drive to eat and you haven't done so in more than a day. Combine that with this heavenly ambrosia you've discovered, and you swiftly lose control of yourself. Sooner than you can think, you're sitting on the road-branch with Tepellin's Teacher empty and a jelly-smeared content smile on your face.

Then there's a rumbling in your stomach.

You uhh, you don't feel so good all of a sudden. The rumble grows louder and is accompanied this time by a piercing pain in your abdomen. You double over from it and clutch your burnt, sugar(?) smeared arms over your slightly distended tummy. Oh man...oh maybe you ate that too fast.

>[Status: Moderate Burns, Severe Radiation Poisoning, Mutative Throes]

Or maybe it's fucking RADIATION POISONING. The pain intensifies, and you fall over. You think Rocky is saying something to you, some sort of warning, but it feels like all your senses are covered with gauze and your limbs are losing their strength. You fall off the edge...and miraculously onto the glowberry rather than out into nothingness.

You feel the berry shift under you, and then weightlessness again before a hard and wet slap. Then all you can feel is warm wetness all over your skin. You don't know if it's blood or berry juice, you can't spare the brainpower to think.

Instead all of your consciousness is focused on the writhing agony in your stomach. It's incredibly painful and your senses are all completely fuzzed over into uselessness now...but for some reason you feel as though your insight into your own body is heightened. As soon as you think so, you feel the radiation and compounds on an intuitive level, and you know that you can do something about it as well.

>The radiation is ripping through your DNA...but you realize that this can produce change rather than death if you can adapt. There's already a basis, you only need expand it.
>Your cells have already been enhanced to reproduce themselves after damage. All you need do to survive this is strengthen that capability.
>Although it will be a close run thing, you sense that you will survive this without the need for interference. Instead, you should develop a plan for how to tweak yourself when you recover.
>These gaps that are being created, don't they seem like they'd be perfect holes for something else to fill in?
>Forget this analysis of your flesh. It will survive, you're sure of it. Rather, delve deeper into your mind and this trance state.
>>
Rolled 41 (1d100)

>>5513995

>Rocksworth
"The only real rules when exploring the unknown are to be observant and be lucky. Honestly this game is so wild, untamed, and unpredictable that there aren't really any solid rules to recommend. Oftentimes the slow-and-cautious approach just allows something to sneak up on you, but the quick-and-aggressive style would equally run you into trouble.

As for crafting meds, I'm no help there. Arturion was a Netrunner, so he wasn't clued into any of the crafting circles except as a purchaser. I do know that Organitech crafting generally requires you to find some sort of terminal, and that Organitechs were always looking (and willing to pay for info on) such terminals outside of settlements. I think they were called GLECKs? Anyway, that's all I know."
>>
Rolled 91 (1d100)

I really need to tighten my writing up. Plenty of prose with nothing actually happening so far.
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5514014
From top to bottom the options seem most likely to result in the following skills getting a point placed in them, or causing a skill to take on a different form:
1: (Some form of?) Forced Evolution
2: Regeneration
3: (A free point in?) Corpus Manipulation
4: ???, it reads smiliarly to 1 in that it could lead to a different kind of Forced Evolution but other than that I am stumped for what it could be
5: (A free point in?) Any Neuromancy skill of our choice

I'm stuck between taking what I believe will give us the Neuromancy skill point and further developing Regeneration. Higher Regen means higher staying power in combat and would let us survive eating more strange things in this forest. It's also likely that it could mutate the skill in such a way that it lets us cleanse radiation poisoning much quicker than before.
Neuromancy however would be a good step on the path to minion making and the increase to CC would let us handle the material in this forest better, since we can assume after this bout of radiation overdose that most, if not all, types biomass carry some level of radiation in them, at least in the section we're currently in.

I'll simply roll a 1d2 to determine which one I'll vote for.
>1: Forget this analysis of your flesh. It will survive, you're sure of it. Rather, delve deeper into your mind and this trance state.
>2: Your cells have already been enhanced to reproduce themselves after damage. All you need do to survive this is strengthen that capability.
>>
Rolled 88 (1d100)

Well we did get lucky.

>>5514014
>>Forget this analysis of your flesh. It will survive, you're sure of it. Rather, delve deeper into your mind and this trance state.

Been working on the body. Time to upgrade our mind and/or system that supports it.
>>
Rolled 84 (1d100)

That being said and thinking more. I do want to see super regen. Coming back from a few cells would be nuts.
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5514089
>>5514040
>>5514128
I'll give this another hour or two before I start writing and/or do rolls to tie break.
>>
>>5513972
Oh cool, that is the one thing I'd want to dip into cybernetic augments/software stuff for even at the cost of inefficient CC allocation. With Rocky we now don't need to worry about that. I was just worried about a whole realm of info, tactical options, and mode of play being cut off if we never had the option to interact or manipulation the infosphere. Physical cybernetic stuff is meh though.

>>5514014
Uh...

I think 4 is a unique...I can't find the right word...compatibility for cybernetics with the CC inefficiency, or for the merging of something alien into ourselves?

If 1 is forced evolution then normally I'd be against that so soon since I want to control that, but I think we might get some radiation related, which could be unique.

Regen would be good if we could get it up to something like 5 hp regen per...tick. Below that it is just a slow heal over time good for out of combat healing, but around that 5 hp mark I reckon we could insta-heal through some wounds and be really hard to put down even for murder machines that would normally blitz us. Depends on if this is an inordinate upgrade or just like a single exp spend.

I think I'm fine with any choice, except for 4 if I'm right about it.

>The radiation is ripping through your DNA...but you realize that this can produce change rather than death if you can adapt. There's already a basis, you only need expand it.
>>
Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5514014
>>5514140
Roll that I forgot.
>>
Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5514040
>>5514089
>>5514140

I'll say this much: none of these are upgrades you could/would get through normal, sane means.

Out of curiousity, what did you guys expect to happen from eating the giant glowing alienberries?
>>
>>5514145
I assumed that we'd be set on fire due to their inordinate brightness and hence likely heat. I also thought we'd get some heat related or bio-luminescence type gene-trace. I also thought it would taste good, but I kept the possibility in mind that we'd taste nothing and thus suffer an existential crisis.
>>
>>5514145
If there to be some effect from food, not this. I was thinking the glow is like a fire fly or something not hot. The fruit is just trying to attract things to eat it to spread the seeds.
>>
Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5514040
Rolling for Option 5
Versus 88 for Option 2
And 4 for Option 1
>>
>>5514014
>Your cells have already been enhanced to reproduce themselves after damage. All you need do to survive this is strengthen that capability.
Wolverine style immortality is OP.
>>
Rolled 86 (1d100)

>>5514014

>Your cells have already been enhanced to reproduce themselves after damage. All you need do to survive this is strengthen that capability.

Nothing matters except surviving this. Your mind rallies around this core thought. Intrinsic to you. Even when you no longer felt like living, you still couldn't stand to die. You'll be damned before you let some funny fruit do you in, game or not.

Ignoring everything else and concentrating on your burning desire to live, you watch as your cells are torn apart. Half of it is the radiation, the other half is some foreign substance that seems to throw cellular automata into disarray with intent and design.

Whatever the latter is, it far outclasses your current ability to tinker with your body. You get a premonition that it's not operating randomly, but cannot possibly glimpse the design it's aiming for. That's fine, you think, mentally glancing at the chunk of yourself that you did touch. The regeneration that even now is fighting for all its worth to keep you going. The more complicated the tool, the easier it is to break. Observing your adversaries, thinking and unthinking both, you get to work playing them against each other and into a trap.

=====

>[[ Worldship Charybdis: Water Reclamation and Natural Park ]]
>[Sibyllan]
>[Level 3]
>[HP: 26/22]
>[CC: 50/110]
>[Status: Light Burns, Overheated, Radiation Poisoning]

You wake, and surprisingly little time has passed. You're sprawled on one of the wide branches, staring up at the one you were on before perhaps 50 feet above you. You lay amidst an impact crater positively doused in Glowberry remains, just like you are. The orange jelly burns you, but as soon as it does the damage is repaired.

>[HP 25/22]
>[HP 26/22]
>[HP 26/22]

You feel terribly weak, probably the radiation sickness. You wipe the jelly off of yourself and step out of the burnt crater where the fruit fell. It still smells heavenly, but you no longer have an appetite to eat it.

>[Status: Light Burns]
>[HP: 18/22]

You cough up a torrent of blood, but the feeling of weakness goes away. You notice your CC is greater than your normal baseline, and deactivate your new skill as well...You take a moment to study it, and the new gene-traces you obtained.

"I guess that'll be a boon...but why does this game keep subjecting me to actual agony..."

"Art asked the same thing actually." a voice on your left shoulder, you flinch and instinctively pull your angled piece of pipe off your belt as you drop into the best defensive stance you know (which is none). Still, you're quick.

Oh right, it's just Rocky. You forgot there, what with going through...what did you go through again? You remember two enemies, one thinking and one not...but the details are too hazy.

Anyway, what were you doing before you decided to eat the glowberry, go on a vision quest, and then lose your memories of the quest? The sun's still in its morning phase, time's wasting.
>>
Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5514286

>You were going to hunt weak monsters in the canopy area to grind some EXP and get some Gene-Traces.
>You were going to hunt weak monsters on the swamp floor and look for an access point for Rocky, there's certainly nothing he can access in the branches of the forest canopy.
>You're...done for today. Go back to your hidey-hole and rest until tomorrow morning, simply enjoy the view.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5514286
>You were going to hunt weak monsters in the canopy area to grind some EXP and get some Gene-Traces.

Might as well get some more levels if we're going to venture to one of those weird trees.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5514271
I just saw the google doc. " Cancerous Regeneration" And now we better at doing whatever it is Wolverine does! We've started the road of Deadpool.

>>5514292
>You were going to hunt weak monsters on the swamp floor and look for an access point for Rocky, there's certainly nothing he can access in the branches of the forest canopy
While we are down there lets find some materials for making vine rope and sticks. I'm hoping to make a fail net and latter for quicker movement. Just in case we gonna rush.

Thinking once we get some exp we'll need to boost reflexes for canopy. Tho our regen could help with any falls. Unless we already got the skills of a monkey.
>>
>>5514292
>Observe the ecosystem before disturbing it. Look for the hidden predators, the cunning prey, the distribution of the flora. Get a sense of the ecosystem.
>>
Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>5514292
>>5514344
Forgot my roll, again.
>>
Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>5514292

>You were going to hunt weak monsters in the canopy area to grind some EXP and get some Gene-Traces
Wins it.

I-I'm not going to ask for a roll. You might crit again.
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5514388
Lets see.
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5514393
You guys are surely blessed by the dice. for the time being, anyway.

Writan'.
>>
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Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>5514292

That's right, you were going to look for some weak monsters for EXP, materials, and Gene-Traces. Come to think of it, you're Level 3 now and you haven't killed anything except 2 Scavs and a berry. That's not a bad Kills/Level ratio, hopefully it stays so easy!

You have a creeping suspicion that something either living around or about the tree you've been staying in is keeping local creatures away, by and large.

Acting on that suspicion, you note down a few landmarks and start to wander off in no direction in particular. Fortunately Rocksworth has some rudimentary mapping capabilities, and though they don't hold up great they ought to be enough for you to make your way back provided you don't get into anything too wild.

Gonna call it a night here actually. I'm pretty tired. Should be back tomorrow, happy New Year everybody!
>>
>>5514435
Happy New Year! Sleep well.
>>
So reading the description of Cancerous Regeneration, we'll want to bottle up a bit of radiation jelly for emergencies, we can basically get temp hp from rads, which is handy.
>>
hello not broken sky, fancy meeting you here. my internet is real damn spotty at the moment, so I have significant doubts of being present for any voting.

I strongly recommend getting a flat piece of wood or light carapace we can strap to our back. itll serve as a raft if the flood comes again, and as a buffer shield until using that pipe results in an actual weapon skill
>>
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Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5514435

You simply wander for a while through the twisting maze of branches, vines, ferns, and other plants too exotic for you to know their names. It's beautiful beyond belief, lit from above by the sun and with glowberries casting secondary shadows and casting everything in an orange-yellow hue. You make a point to pick up a few vines as you go, never know when you'll need rope in a place like this.

You cover a fair amount of distance, heading vaguely northwest. The forest changes somewhat as you do, there are more signs of living things disturbing the vegetation here and less bugs. You hear a hollow pitter-patter of footsteps on wood, and quickly jump from the highway branch you were on, hoisting yourself up onto a more realistically sized tree branch off the main path and hiding behind a dense clump of ferns growing off it.

You look back to see what caused the noise, and determine if it would be suitable prey.

It's a...caravan of worms? Two bulky armor-plated worms with legs are carrying a glowberry, both large enough to make the task look easy. The berry is lightly covered in a shroud of silk, and attached to them with much thicker individual lines. They are apparently unbothered by the radioactivity and heat it puts off, as they pitter-patter down the highway branch towards the Northwest.
>>
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Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5514928

There's another, much smaller worm of a different species that was seemingly torn apart and has had its remains plastered onto the sticky silk shroud covering the berry. Three more of the same, but intact, crawl alongside the leggy worms. Two in front and one behind. They're much smaller than the armored worms carrying the berry, but they're covered in patchy growths of hair. They've also got several vestigial limbs emerging from their bodies at random points. It's quite disgusting looking, really...As they crawl along, the patchy growths leave small splotches of silky material on the wood every now and then.

It's not something you see every day, but it might present an opportunity for you. The smaller worms are gross for sure, but they don't seem like anything you can't handle...and the larger ones seem thoroughly leashes to their burden.

>Jump back onto the main branch and attack the convoy from behind using your pipe. You need more experience with your weapon.
>Stay in the lesser branches, and pick off the guards using your crossbow. Then see if you can do anything about the big ones up close.
>Follow the convoy from the side-branches and see where it's going.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5514933
While I would want follow for knowledge. I have no gauge of our power to the creatures here.

Set up a exit vine if needed. Otherwise >Jump back onto the main branch and attack the convoy from behind using your pipe. You need more experience with your weapon.
>>
New Gene-traces:
>Berry [Charybdis Mega–Glowberry]
>Bio-Phosphorescence [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry]
>Radiotrophic Metabolism [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry]
>Neutron Breeder Tissues [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry]
>Radiation Blocking Tissues [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry]
We can actually just make little Berry lamps if we combine the berry form and the Bio-Phosphorence/Rad Blocking Tissue. That's nice and comfy.

>>5514933
>Jump back onto the main branch and attack the convoy from behind using your pipe. You need more experience with your weapon.
Pipe to break the exo-skeleton, knife to cut the squishy bits.
>>
Rolled 6 (1d100)

>>5514959
>>5514945

>Attack them from behind!
Roll 1d100 Bo3 please.
>>
Rolled 19 (1d100)

>>5514967
>>
Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5514967
Oh boy.
>>
Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>5514933
>>5514967

You take your trusty pipe in one hand, and pull your combat knife out of its sheathe to hold it reverse-grip in the other then crouch down.

"Do you think you look cool? What a dork." Rocky's voice sounds from your shoulder.

Ignoring your companion, you activate the electroweave and leap over to the main branch behind the convoy.

>[HP 22/22]
>[CC 40/110]

As soon as you land the hairy worm to the rear turns towards you and you hear the two in front letting out breathy hisses. They don't have any eyes, must be sensing the vibrations.

You're glad you jumped a fair distance away rather than right on top of the rear guard, because it rushes you with surprising speed. Your reaction time has been bolstered significantly by your points in Corpus Manipulation and Fleshcrafting, but even with that you barely manage to get your knife up in time to intercept its leaping lunge.

But you do manage to catch its leap, the worm impaling itself on the blade of your combat knife. The momentum pushes you off balance and you fall onto your back, the worm seemingly doesn't even care about the knife in its gut and bites down on your arm with force enough to break bones.

>[HP 20/22]

Or it would be enough, if you weren't enhanced and wearing armor. Grinning, you drive your knife through the worm and into the wood below you as you push with your hips and roll on top of the creature. Pinned in place by your knife and your weight, the creature tries to let go of your arm and bite something more vital. You foil its attempts by jamming your fist that was holding the knife down its throat, and then proceed to beat the monster to death inelegantly with Tepellin's Teacher.

>[[ Sibyllan Defeated: Wooly Squelchwurm ]]

You're splattered with all manner of fluids. The wurm's blood is a dull orange color, and coats Tepellin's Teacher. The worm's was covered in a clear slime, and that's been smeared all over the wood around you and your legs. Evidently the silk came from these things too, and it's dripping in thick gooey white threads from the area where you stabbed your knife. Looks like you pierced whatever organ it uses to create the substance.

>[HP: 21/22]

You stand up just in time to see the other two woolworms hopping off the transporter ones, which have continued walking like they didn't even notice anything happening. You reach down to grab your knife and prepare for the new combatants to charge.

As you pick up your knife, the body of the worm comes up with it. Glued together by the white threads of silk.

>Goddammit! Shake the dead worm off your knife and then face the other two.
>That one wasn't that tough and could barely damage you anyway. Take the fight to them using the pipe.
>Forget it, you need to use Tepellin's Teacher to get weapons EXP anyway. Give ground as you fight defensively.
>Retreat to some of the other branches and pick one or both of these newcomers off with your crossbow. They probably can't follow you, right?
>Other?
>>
Rolled 40 (1d100)

>>5515011

Aah, your CC is at 35/110. Not that it's a major component in your fights as of yet.
>>
Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>5515011
I wonder if the glue is fully set maybe we can just throw the body and get the others stuck. Or even better find a solvent from the genes to remove it after.

Let's try jumping in the air and throwing the body. And during that quickly wrap a Vine around one of our arms to use as a shield if they try to glue us. If there's was time we could pry one the plates off the body and use the thread to glue some vines to make it impromptu Buckler.

Using this as a test to see if they see solely by vibration or not. Then we can continue fighting defensively while we get used to the enemy.
>>
Rolled 52 (1d100)

>>5515027
We'll be going with this unless something else comes up in the next 30 minutes or so.

Gimme 1d100 again. It's not easy to prolong a fight against enemies trying to murder you.
>>
Rolled 38 (1d100)

>>5515101
I'm good for it. Pretty sure we could beat a worm to death with another worm if we had to
>>
Rolled 59 (1d100)

>>5515104
I hope to get a hulk as a partner/ minion. So we can do a fastball special.
>>
Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5515011

You need to find out the specific mechanics of how these things can detect you, both for this fight and any in the future. Before either of the newcomers can rush you, you activate electroweave again and jump into the air. From the apex of your jump throw your knife and the body attached to it at one of the new foes.

You watch them both closely the whole time. They twitch as you begin your leap and charge on the spot you jumped from. Even as they charge, the head of one follows your trajectory through the air. When you throw the corpse, the other tracks the body. The hairs along their bodies tremble as they do so.

Both you and the body land at practically the same time, and you're both set upon immediately. Tepellin's Teacher still feels somewhat awkward in your hands, unsurprising given that it's a arm-length of pipe with no adaptations towards being an actual weapon, and the wurm's attack is ferocious.

>[HP 19/22]
>[CC 50/110]

You manage to fend off most of its attempts to bite you by batting its head pre-emptively. What you can't block stops on your armored greatcoat, which reduces the damage drastically, but it's still painful and un-fun to get bitten. They say pain is a great teacher, and you'd have to agree. You keep dueling with the worm (who'd've ever thought that sentence would describe your life) and it clearly begins to feel the repeated strikes to the head from your parries. It's getting noticeably slower when it tries to attack you, or maybe you're just getting better? Probably both, can't tell now.

>[HP 20/22]

The creature's bites have left sticky globs of silk on you though, threatening to bundle you up or force you to shrug off the jacket. Worse yet, the other worm realizes that it's attacking a body rather than an enemy and turn towards you. It doesn't seem to have gotten tangled up by the silk at all, they must have something that keeps their silk from sticking to themselves.

>Finish off the current worm, and continue fighting defensively once the other comes for you.
>Finish them both off quickly, then go for the leggy worms that are actually making fairly good distance
>Defend against both worms at once. You doubt this'll be the only time you're in this situation and it'd be best to get used to it against weak mobs.
>Other?

I've changed my plan on how CC will work. No default regeneration of it during combat, slow regeneration outside of it. Maybe able to be modified with a mutation or Neuromancy skill, but the usual way will be with recovery items.

We'll go for a 20 minute turnaround on this. Roll 1d100 with your vote.
>>
Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5515158
That is to say, we'll tally votes within 20 minutes, or take the first one outside that window. We'll try to keep that pace and I'll make posts faster at least til this fight is done.
>>
>>5515158
>Finish this one quickly, then fight the other defensively
2v1 is too much silk buildup. Does MC know how to whistle, preferably without hands? They should react differently to continuous vibration
>>
Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>5515168
Rolling to see if Sibyllan knows how to whistle
1 - Yes
2 - No
>>
Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5515158

You decide that 2v1 is too much for you at this point. Better finish this one off before the other gets over here.

You take the initiative in the fight and bat the worm's head from side to side in with a series of vicious swings. You don't think real worms have brains in their heads, and maybe these don't either, but it's definitely feeling the sustained beating you've been dishing out.

Damn does it feel good to finally have the thorough upper hand on something in this game. Oh right, you need to end this. A bit of sadistic inspiration takes you. The wurm lunges at you sluggishly once more and this time you catch it by the...throat? Body? Well anyway, you grip the thing near its mouth, and then pin it to the ground and rain a series of blows on it one-handed with Tepellin's Teacher.

Its head almost looks pathetic, getting gradually more battered and beaten with each swing of your pipe. It's letting out a dying hiss, and wrapping around you with the length you don't have control of.

Then an explosion of sticky silk come out of every patch of hair on its body and it's mouth. Its head is blown clean off by the force of it, which fortunately just causes the sticky goo to spread out all over the place and gives you the split second you need to place your hand over your eyes so you're not blinded.

>[[ Sibyllan Defeated: Wooly Squelchwurm ]]
>[Status: Slowed, Entangled]

You stand up and react quickly, managing to slough off most of the goop before it catches ahold of you properly. Seems like your legs were protected...probably that clear slime that rubbed off on them when you killed the first one.

For the same reason, the arm that you were using to strangle this one is mostly free of goop. Unfortunately it seems like your weapon is glued to your other hand, your jacket might get entangled in itself at any time, and now the other wurm is upon you. The leggy wurms are getting further away too. Take much longer and they'll get out of sight.

An idea occurs to you, and you attempt to whistle to distract the approaching squelchwurm. You try, but your lips have a light coating of silk and glue and you can't get the sound to come out. You're also panting from all the combat. Damn!

>Unequip your jacket so it can't get stuck together at a bad time, and continue fighting defensively.
>Fight defensively against the final squelchwurm. Especially if you keep your jacket on it can hardly damage you. You'll probably be able to unequip it if you get tangled up anyway, and this way if it spews too you won't get it all over something you can't take off.
>Keep your jacket on, finish this guy, and then go after the leggy wurms. They don't seem to have cared about this fight, but they're big so they have big guts and that probably means big EXP too.
>Unequip your jacket, finish this guy, and pursue the leggy wurms.
>>
Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>5515190
>[HP 21/22]
By the by
>>
Rolled 70 (1d100)

Fuck, I missed a bunch again. Guess that's what I get for sleeping in.

>>5515190
>Unequip your jacket, finish this guy, and pursue the leggy wurms.
>Try reequiping our jacket before pursuing the leggy worms to see if that removes the silk or if we'll have to remove it manually.
>Stop to pick up our knife before pursuing, we may need it to scrap off some silk.
>>
Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5515190
If I under stand the super regeneration. It will give us the radiation poisoning to work. If not, going hard with the jacket off and then rush the berry to heal is an option.

>Unequip your jacket, finish this guy, and pursue the leggy wurms.
I assume we can still use the jacket as cover for our other hand from the silk in a pinch.
>>
>>5515209
To clarify, when I say unequip and reequip, I'm assuming we are putting it in our identifier. Obviously just taking it off and putting it on again like a normal person wouldn't magically remove glue.
>>
>>5515209
I'm surprised at what I'm able to catch while working.

Also yeah if we can retrieve our knife that would be good. I'm assuming they might have some kind of oily skin that makes the silk slide off.
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5515212
It takes radiation poisoning, and activating the ability in order to engage the super-regen.

>>5515209
Locked, writan'.
>>
>>5515190
Let gravity do the work
>Get a solid grip on it, jump high in the air, then land on its squishy head
Keep the armor on
>>
Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>5515190

Alright, that's enough fooling around. You are covered in oil, sticky silk, and orange wurmblood and tired of fooling around.

You grab your UI and quickly set your greatcoat into the inventory there, then prepare to face the final wurm's charge. It performs a flying leap at you, just like the first did. It's just as fast as the first one too, but now you've settled into a flow.

Its mouth collides with the bent portion of Tepellin's Teacher midair, and it lets out a sort of "GAK" noise as all its momentum just makes it crumple against the enchanted steel. It falls on the ground in a bit of a heap. To its credit, it recovers quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid your series of strikes.

This time instead of the head you actually target its midsection around where you stabbed the first wurm. This gives it the opportunity to bite down on you, and it hurts MUCH more than it did when you had your greatcoat on...but there's still clearly a numbing effect applied and it frankly barely even registers compared to the pain of being teleported or consuming the glowberry.

>[HP 16/22]
>[HP 17/22]

You continue to beat its midsection until it's rendered flat and you see the glue seeping out through the holes your bludgeon has created in its hide from the repeated strikes. Don't want another silksplosion hindering your ability to pursue the larger prey. You give the creature's head a few quick, sharp smacks to get it to release its hold on your thigh...and then just step back out of it's range.

It attempts to pursue, but its midsection has leaked so much glue and been beaten into such a pulp that not even the clear slime can keep it from being cemented into place. It's not even a fight after that, just an unclean execution using something that's not even a weapon.

>[[ Sibyllan Defeated: Wooly Squelchwurm ]]
>[HP 19/22]

All in all, pretty good for your 3rd fight. Huge improvement from struggling for your life against a Scav while huddled in the back of a cryopod or whatever. You reach down towards the battered corpse to scrape some of the clear gel off its skin to use to free your knife. Unexpectedly as you do, a small mouth forms on your palm and then shoots out a short distance on fleshy extrusion and messily burrows into the corpse.

>Gene-Traces Acquired: [Hairy Overgrowth], [Silk Producing Organs 1/10], [Simple Form: Worm], [Air Sensing Whiskers 1/10]

Oh, shit! That must be the 'tools to acquire' part of the Symbiosis skill or whatever it said. You run over to the other two bodies and the process repeats, leaving the incremented traces at 3/10 each.

No time to dwell on it though, the Leggy Wurms are out of sight already, but you should be able to catch up if you're quick. You grab your knife and close the distance.
>>
Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>5515236

It doesn't take long, but they've definitely been making good distance. You look around you as you run, and notice that there are sporadic patches of silk on the limb you're now on. A few of the clusters of giant leaves are pulled together with the substance too, and the area is darker than the rest of the forest. It takes a second to pinpoint why, then you realize that this area only has a few tiny glowberries lighting it from inside the canopy layer, and that the sun must be getting into its afternoon phase.

You don't see any more wurms yet though. It's clear you're getting into their home territory, but you're only on the very outskirts so far. Just in time you catch up to the large wurms, trundling along still lashed together with the berry between them. Totally indifferent to not having their guards and you just a bit behind them. You re-summon your greatcoat, checking to see if putting it in your inventory removed the glue and silk covering it.

The coating all over it has certainly been reduced, but it's not totally gone. You can also see a few rough spots where you got bit and the silk has faded away. Might be worth having the extra protection. Or it might slow you down too much for risky moves. Those legs are awfully big...they'd probably hurt to get hit by. On the other hand, they might be so big your coat would hardly matter.

>[Sibyllan]
>[HP 20/22]
>[CC 45/110]

You look at the two pickup truck sized wurms carrying the berry between them, and consider your course of action.

>Equip your greatcoat again
>Keep your greatcoat off

>They're getting closer to their home territory (and presumably more wurms) every second. Their movement is already restricted by carrying the berry, let's make them totally immobile by breaking their legs.
>No time to break their legs, they've got literally dozens of the things. Hop on top and attempt to smash their heads in through the armor plating.
>Dash ahead of them, and then try to shoot electro-shock bolts into their mouths. Close in for the kill afterwards.
>Lay down your satchel charge in front of them. There'll probably be enough left for you to loot afterwards. If they survive they'll certainly be weakened.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>5515246
>Equip your greatcoat again

We haven't faced this variety of worm before from what I understand, as this is a different armoured variety. Though maybe I should go back and reread.

>Dash ahead of them, and then try to shoot electro-shock bolts into their mouths. Close in for the kill afterwards.

Take this fight more cautiously given we don't know what they can do and this is the creature actually in charge of carrying the glowberries at did moderate damage to us without any harm.

Don't waste the satchel charge on this fight unless we need to.

We'll have to climb a mega-tree soon after this, remember it took us a while to climb a tree enough for the flood to miss us.
>>
>>5515253
You're actually still in the mega-tree canopy that stretches across the entire environment save for a few patchy areas right now. From what you could tell, these branches ought to be high enough to avoid the flood. Probably.

Who knows what else there is to worry about at night, though.
>>
>>5515246
>Equip greatcoat
>Break a leg
>Take the leg back with you

The glowberry isn't the prize here, its monster bits. Also, if they aren't fighting back, itd be nice to test how the symbiosis mouths work on nonresisting targets.
>>
>>5515261
I know, the point I was getting at is that I'm assuming they are tougher given that they can carry the glowberries without burning. I don't want to steal their food, I want to steal their lives for the EXP.
>>
Rolled 26 (1d100)

>>5515253
I'll back it. We can get a drumstick after we are done.
>>
Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5515261
So you've got [Mutative Assimilation] that lets you acquire Gene-Traces by simple touch even against targets that are resisting. It doesn't catch always activate or catch all potential traces when it does from what you can gather though. Given that that's based on a whole skill, you doubt the mouths'll activate on partial samples.

If you guys had taken the 1st option in the glowberry trance it would've given you a forked version similar to how you have a fork off of regeneration now.

>>5515253
>>5515246
>Dash ahead, shoot'em, then mop up.

Writan'.

Gimme 1d100 Bo3 linked to this post please.
>>
Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>5515279
Man, I must be hogging all the crits on the board.

Anyway, doesn't effect anything for now. Dice rolls please!
>>
Rolled 46 (1d100)

>>5515279
Hmm.
>>5515281
Oh good, I was half expecting the two transport bugs to fuse together into one being an whoop our ass.
>>
Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5515279
>>
Rolled 76 (1d100)

>>5515279
Doin' the last roll so we can get on with it.
>>
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Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>5515295
>>5515288
>>5515285
>Rolled: 76
>>
Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5515246

>Double-Armored Overcoat equipped

You jump over to a branch that runs parallel to the path the worms are taking and gain some distance ahead of them, setting your pipe back on your belt and pulling the crossbow from your back while doing so. You access your Identifier and focus on the Shock Canister Bolts, which materialize all held in a magazine which clicks into place on the bottom of the crossbow.

Damn that's slick. A smirk crosses your face.

"Do you think you look cool? what a dork."

"Goddammit, just let me have it okay?!"

>[HP 21/22]
>[CC 55/110]

You jump back over to main branch in a single bound, aided by your electroweave, landing in a roll then coming up into a crouch about 50 feet in front of the armored leggy wurms.

You finally get a proper look at what the front of these things look like as you pull your crossbow up to your shoulder and sight in on their mouths. They've apparently already sensed you and are opening their mouths and letting out ferocious roars.

In other words, perfect targets.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK, THUNK

You manage to get 4 shots off, all targeted at the one on your left. Two of them strike true inside the creature's mouth, and the other two bounce off its mandibles as it closes its mouth in response. A heartbeat later, there's a bright blue flash visible through the gaps in the wurm's mandible.

The wurm's head slumps down, its mouth goes slack, and a gout of smoke pours out from the scorched meat of its gullet. Your smirk continues as you wait for it to fall. Score one, you! Once this one is inert it'll be trivial to take the other down, lashed to a dead companion.

Except wait, there's no system message that you defeated it.

Uhh and also it's still walking. And the other one just shook free of the bindings like they were nothing, spilling the berry onto the ground, and now it's charging at you.

Oh shit, worms live as individual segments don't they?

The fully functional leggy wurm crosses the distance between you in a flash, propelled by surprising strength in its squat body and skinny looking legs. After it closes the distance a bit it opens its mouth again. This time there's no roar just...it feels like a wall of sound. It strikes you like a hammer. You feel unpleasant sensations in your internal organs, then you cough up a gout of blood as you feel more gush from your shattered eardrums.

You barely manage to dodge out of the way of its charge by activating electroweave. It's not graceful, more like a super powered drunken lurch. You avoid the maw, but it aids your jump by jamming you in the stomach with one of its legs as you pass by, sending you tumbling uncontrollably towards the precipice of the branch. You barely manage to recover in time, jamming your knife into the wood below you for purchase.

>[HP 12/22]
>[CC 65/110]
>[Status: Dizzy, Deafened]
>>
Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5515321

You stand, stumble, and barely right yourself, using Tepellin's Teaching as a brace. The wurm runs into a clump of branches a ways behind where you were, then whirls to face you again. They're slow to stop once they're moving then, good to know.

Meanwhile, the leggy wurm who's head you killed is continuing to trot on at the pace it was when carrying the glowberry. Straight down the center of the highway branch, limp forward sections dragging along the wood and leaving a trail of orange blood. Surprisingly it still seems able to avoid obstacles and not fall off, but it's not a threat.

Your original idea was to close in with these things after your shock canister barrage. You originally thought that they'd be stuck together too though. No plan, contact with the enemy and all that.

>Meet the charge from the one that's still got its sense with your own (satchel) charge. Then take care of whatever's left of it.
>Maneuver to put the headless wurm between yourself and the hostile one, allowing it to catch the charge so you can get atop the other one and savage it.
>Now that you know what's coming you can avoid it. Pull out your crossbow and play a game of chicken so you can nail it with some shock-canister bolts too.
>Play a different game of chicken, burning at least 2 electroweave bursts to dodge its sonic attack and then get under it to use your knife.
>The wooly wurms might've been able to cross over to lesser limbs, but these guys are definitely too heavy for it. Fall back off the main branch and hope that your shock arrows can hurt it through its armor or that you pull off a lucky shot to its mouth.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>5515329
Huh...serves us right for underestimating it I guess. Still, not much point using the satchel now without the element of surprise.

>The wooly wurms might've been able to cross over to lesser limbs, but these guys are definitely too heavy for it. Fall back off the main branch and hope that your shock arrows can hurt it through its armor or that you pull off a lucky shot to its mouth.
>Activate our cancerous regen

All of these are clever, but I don't want to risk getting underneath it, we may get trampled by its legs or it may just lay down on us like the fatso it is. Plus, I can't imagine it is retarded enough to start charging at us when its partner is in the way, and it probably isn't maneuverable enough or stupid enough to be baited into charging into its buddy if we start out of the way of its friend and then try and run so its path intersects worm!friend.

We may have trouble retrieving the gene-trace if it falls, but there is still the other one to loot, and this situation is dangerous enough to think about abandoning maximum loot anyways.
>>
>>5515329
We'd have to dive into the berry the headless one is carrying to regen, which could be good. But more importantly I'd focus on killing the headless one and hoping for a level.

>Get up close to the headless one and try to finish it while using it as a shield for the other
Wonder if being behind it is enough to blunt the sonic attack. Sidenote, being deaf means that we might not notice the reinforcements converging on the very loud signal that was sent.
>>
>>5515329
>>5515336
Actually, I'm gonna change my vote. I misread the prompt. I thought we were baiting it onto a weaker branch so that it would fall, but upon a closer reading it seems like the prompt is for moving onto a weaker branch ourselves to prevent the worm from charging us because it knows that the branch won't support its weight. This is a dumb idea because we are dizzy and it could just sonic-wave us again, thus causing us to fall. Plus the prompt gives little room for actually offering an effective offence.

Write-in: Put ourselves parallel to the escaping worm such that if we were to dodge the hostile worm's charge it would T-bone the other worm. Then throw our satchel charge onto the pile of both of them and blow it.

The difference between this one and the other similar prompt is that rather than putting the escaping worm between us and hostileboi, we'd put ourselves between the two worms rather than being on other side of the non-hostile worm and hoping his buddy is mad/stupid enough to charging through him to get to us. This way he'll focus on us, but since they have trouble stopping he'll still run into his buddy. Get what I mean?
>>
Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>5515341
That write in should be in greentext, my bad.

>Write-in: Put ourselves parallel to the escaping worm such that if we were to dodge the hostile worm's charge it would T-bone the other worm. Activate cancerous regen, dodge it's sonic-waves, bait it into charging us and into it's buddy, dodge with our electroweave if we haven't already used it dodging the sonic-waves. Then throw our satchel charge onto the pile of both of them and blow it.

Made some additions for clarity on the ideal steps. This way we get two-for-one hopefully.
>>
Rolled 6 (1d100)

>>5515347
>>5515340
These are similar enough we'll just do both.

Gimme 1d100 Bo2 because you're dizzy. 20 minute window, feel free to reroll if no one else has rolled in time.
>>
Rolled 35 (1d100)

>>5515356
I just wanted some flesh to build a minion with, this battle is taking hours!
>>
Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>5515356
>>
Rolled 63 (1d100)

>>5515356
Let's go. Tho I really do want us to get our super region on by caressing the berry.
>>
>>5515362
Yeah I'm actually having quite a lot of fun writing everything in this quest.

Which is making it go suuuuper slow.

Sorry about that. But not that sorry. Still, I'll try to tighten it up in the future.

>>5515356
>Rolled 65
Writan'
>>
Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>5515329

>[HP 13/22]

You watch as you think the intact wurm roars at you again, you really be sure given the ringing in your ears. Now that it's opened its mouth again you see that there's a trickle of orange blood coming out, interesting.

You underestimated these things and paid the price, and you're too injured and disoriented to take cash in like that again. Time for drastic measures. Not waiting for the worm to finish its roar you pull the satchel charge and dash to put yourself between it and its semi-dead companion. It's sickening to run like this, but you push down the urge to vomit.

It wastes no time either, dashing after you. It collects speed frighteningly quickly, and you're forced to pump Electroweave again to stay far enough ahead of it to make sure it can't hit you with that sonic attack again.

>[HP 14/22]
>[CC 75/110]

It's focused on nothing but you, charging at full speed, mouth agape, closing the distance by leaps and bounds. In front of you, the headless worm saunters along, a completely oblivious wall of flesh that you'll be crushed against if the one behind you doesn't bite you in half first.

You swear you can feel your pursuer's hot breath on your neck, so you pump Electroweave again to accelerate even faster towards the headless worm. At the very last second before you'd be smashed to a pulp by your own momentum against the armored body you do two things. First, you drop down into a slide, shooting through the legs of the wurm and out the other side in practically the time it takes to blink. Second, you raise your hand carrying the satchel charge up and stick it to the flank of the headless worm exactly where you bet the other one's head is going to hit.

Unfortunately in your dizziness you time it wrong and smack into one of the headless wurms leg's on the opposite side. You feel rather than hear a sickening crack, and your leg bends in a way it was never supposed to.

>[HP 8/22]

The monster's leg is ripped clean off though, and the now empty socket spews orange blood over you. Your slide turns into a tumble, but your momentum carries you out from underneath the worm. You emerge in a cloud of splinters and a gout of orange blood, and pierce straight into the glowberry that the headless monster was still dragging along on a shroud of sticky silk. You immediately activate your newest skill.

>[HP 6/22]
>[HP 7/22]

>[CC 95/110]
>[Status: Dizzy, Deafened, Overheating, Radiation Poisoning, Burning]

As you slide into the gelatinous flesh of the glowberry you also see but do not hear the headless wurm practically crumple from the impact of its brother.

Right where you wanted it to it. You press down the detonator in your hand without hesitation, and you can't tell if the sudden flash of orange is from the explosion or glowberry goop getting in your eyes.
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5515389

>Gene-Trace Acquired: Heavy Chitin Armor

>[HP 7/22]
>[HP 8/22]
>[[ Sibyllan Defeated: Leggy Squelchwurm x2 ]]

Even without the system message letting you know your enemies were dead, you'd still be climbing out of the glowberry. Shit, it might be necessary for your new skill and keeping your ass alive right now...but it's no fun to be literally burning alive! You were bleary from the dizziness and disoriented from the deafness already but adding the radiation poisoning makes them both so much worse.

You flop out of the sugary, radioactive core of the glowberry on your hands, knees, and belly. In front of you are the two smoking corpses of the Leggy Squelchwurms, totally unmoving, but also surprisingly intact.

"Damn they're tough" you say, and them proceed to vomit your guts out and dry heave for several minutes. By the time you're done, your health has recovered almost back to full.

>[Sibyllan]
>[HP 20/22]
>[CC 95/110]
>[Status: Deafened, Light Burns]
>[[ You have 1 EXP to spend ]]

You cut off your skill before it can develop into backlash territory, and go over to the corpses. A gleam catches your eye amongst the ruined orange-tinted meat, and your walk becomes a run.

> [[Leggy Squelch x2: Shard of Tiamet x2, Radiothermal Armor Plate x8, Squelchwurm Meat x16, 400 Credits ]]

You quickly grab the Shards. TWO beautiful emerald gems. Seeing these reminds you of Tepellin, who took the one you had previously. It was a trade for your life, but you loathe him nonetheless. As they sink into your Identifier you sigh with a delicious feeling of comfort. This was a close thing, but you made it and it was all worth it.

Perhaps you should track down these things' nest, there are surely more Shards there...

As you glance through the rest of the list your train of thought is interrupted by another, why do wurms have credits on them? Weird.

You take everything, but you don't notice any physical change to the corpses as you do except for the Shards of Tiamet disappearing. Hmm, now that's interesting. You reach down, and the tendril-mouth of Symbiosis extends from your palm again to chow down on the remains.

>Gene-Traces Acquired: [Infrasonic Organ 2/10], [Radiation Resistance], [High Temp Resistance], [Size: Large 2/10], [Centipedal Locomotion 4/5]

The light of the sun is still in its lazy orange afternoon/evening color, shining through from above weakly. The glowberry behind you causes yourself and the monster corpses to cast intimidating shadows onto the limbs and leaves around you in the otherwise darkness inside the canopy. There's probably not too much time until night...

>Attempt to butcher the bodies and/or berry for something useful.
>[Specify what]

>Retreat to the nearby branches and observe what comes to investigate.
>Ambush whatever comes.
>You're deaf, you don't really know how long that fight lasted or how close to the squelchwurm nest you are. Retreat to the teleporter tree and your hidey-hole for today.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5515408

This is probably it for tonight, though I'll stick around to answer questions. Gotta travel tomorrow too, though I may update a bit in the late afternoon or early evening.

Thanks for playing, everyone! Happy New Year!
>>
Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>5515408
>>Attempt to take a body to two back home.
Unless there is time to use the bio mass here. Which I doubt from all the noise. I what to make a berry dispenser and storage device. Ether way augmentoid testing or see if worm is tasty. I want to take meat back home. Problem tho is if the blood can be tracked by them.

As for later exp use. I'm thinking something from Neuromancy to boost our defense to the sonic attacks. Thinking [Neuroplastic Optimization, Passive] for our minion tree or [Keen Observation, Passive] to boost our skills. Though if we want more attacks [Hyperpotentive Nervous System, Active 20CC] would work well with our regen.
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5515408
>You're deaf, you don't really know how long that fight lasted or how close to the squelchwurm nest you are. Retreat to the teleporter tree and your hidey-hole for today.

Good hunt, let's call it.

Medicine crafting is my vote for xp
>>
>>5515418
Neuroplastic might be good for defense, but the keen observation one seems MORE vulnerable to sonic attacks.

I'm thinking neuroplastic, marrow, or super respiration for immediate effectiveness. MC isnt ready for nervous system yet, and the greatcoat seems plenty durable instead of iron body.

Alternatively, start working towards biomass crafting or dive minions deep enough to parasitize living creatures. Or bet on compounding having the means to harvest silk organs into a portable form.
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5515408
To be clear, we looted the armour plates and meat, yes? Or do we have to stay to butcher them to obtain them?

>If we already looted that then try and butcher a leg to fiddle with, maybe the tongue and the infrasonic organ too if we can find it in time. From the other worms try and find an intact silk producing organ that isn't ruptured so we don't get the silk everywhere, also try and find the anti-stickiness oil producing organ from one too.

>You're deaf, you don't really know how long that fight lasted or how close to the squelchwurm nest you are. Retreat to the teleporter tree and your hidey-hole for today.

Being deaf is a major disadvantage in our environment, both for fighting and for avoiding being ambushed. Lets call it a night.

>Level up [Immunological Tuning, Active 20CC] - You gain a degree of control over the mechanics of your immune system. By maintaining concentration you can render yourself proof against the last status effect you experienced.

Note that it says status effect, presumably meaning ANY status effect with the possible exception of exotic ones. If we had it during this series of fights we could've avoided the worst of the silk entanglement and maybe the dizziness or deafness.

My other pick for leveling up would just be a weapon skill point in bludgeons, since while it levels up on it's own, I think we still ought to actively invest in it to actually git good at fighting rather than going for fancy stuff all the time. Our "kill stuff gud" ability is probably the one of the biggest gates to actually being able to advance to tougher foes/areas. We should be counting on Tepellin's Teacher as a boost to our weapon skill advancement, rather than using it as a crutch to slowly level up our skills with.

Though I do see the value in picking up our crafting skills now, just so we can begin actively harvesting materials for use later.

>>5515410
G'night, Happy New Year!
>>
Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>5515439
You looted all of it, yeah. Just haven't updated the doc yet.
>>
>>5515438
I doubt [Keen Observation, would make us overly sensitive. That being said if we have something to target our eardrums and give better control that that mechanism should do it. [Iron Body] may help deal with vibrations.

>>5515439
Oh yeah Immunological Tuning would be good for this. Yeah weapon focus would help with the kill.

--

I wonder what we can do with the Shards. If they just upgrade tools and we can get more. We may want to upgrade our armor or if it can boost skills. That would do us some good.
>>
>>5515454
Need to read up on god first. Flesh god might not take too kindly to a number of BSO style relics
>>
>>5515454
I dunno if they are like Celestial Gems from Broken Sky Online or if the fact that they are Shards OF TIAMAT implies that there are shards of other gods that have different effects or tie us more to another dead god or something. It'd be cool but I doubt it since Teppellin was able to use a Shard of Tiamat despite being a chief acolyte of Kartikeya. Though perhaps it is because he has some unique skill that allows him to do that, I can't recall BSO (the quest that this one takes HEAVY inspiration from) very well, but I think we actually had to go to an altar to be able to even use CGs and we couldn't just use them to upgrade stuff at will in the field.

Personally I want to save them for a big upgrade. In BSO, the more you used the bigger the upgrade, and you could do some really esoteric and creative things with them, since the QM had a policy of just allowing whatever if you had enough.

I don't wanna spread them too thin on mere conveniences, I wanna go for the big multi-effect upgrades or focused single effect upgrades or esoteric shit. The only "convenience" type upgrade I'd want is to have an item 'bound' to us such that said item will always be with us even if we lose our Identifier to store items in, plus maybe with the qualifer that we can hide it in some extradimensional space too just like as if we had an Identifier since we may not always want it out for use.

Plus, none of our current gear is stuff I really want to invest our shards in anyways, I wanna actually get good gear first. Stuff that matches us aesthetically in addition to be top-tier, or at least what counts as good or top quality shit for where the player base is at for the moment in the game.
>>
>>5515439
>>5515454

Let me point out that if you want weapon skills, Unnatural Talent is almost strictly a better choice than putting points into a single weapon skill until you cap it. As it lets you pick up weapon skill point equal to the level of the skill, for any weapon.

The only time it wouldn’t be better would be if you needed a noticeable increase right that second. Honestly you guys got close to reaching Lvl 1 in bludgeons this fight, and would’ve if you used the pipe on the Leggy Squelches. Rate of gain slows down considerably as you gain more levels, but just something to consider.

====
>>5515438
>>5515423


Separately, do the skill masteries seem fairly balanced to you guys? You’re focusing into fleshcrafting pretty hard, which isn’t unexpected, but I did expect more dissenting opinions. It seems those dissenting opinions are starting to crop up, but until there’s full blown arguments over builds because everything looks so useful and tempting I won’t be satisfied.
>>
Im kinda feeling the radknight/desolator kit we could do right now, stacking radiation DoTs and CC to cook everything that isn't native to this zone

But it's a bit early to commit and we could surely go for other builds. Having a sunlight maggot or saetos sword that irradiates at a touch of a button would be funny though.

>What blessing would you ask of the gods?
>A NUCLEAR REACTOR. ON MY FACE.
>>
>>5515481
The actives seem a bit expensive. Alchemy looks like it'll only work on one enemy at most, and given the frequent 1vmany encounters, alchemy getting the highest spell costs is painful. If the pants were a level I'd go for them.

Crafting is tough for quests because we simply don't visit a well rounded list of resources, and balancing credit economy is hard to do AND hard to make fun.
>>
>>5515483
to defeat the nuke you have to become the nuke.

>>5515481
So far I would say yes, but kind of depends on the environment. I do what the medical stuff for support items or to make money in towns.

My build thought at this point is to make bio-overlord. Pulling from the Overlord game make hives for the color minions to spawn from. Then shard the crap out of our control gauntlet. Use our minions to cover roles or skills we lack from genes we find.
>>
>>5515487
Well the actives ARE a bit expensive, but they’re also balanced around being that expensive so they’ll be worthwhile. Acidic strike, for instance, is the Organitech’s Concussive Strike analog and will usually act as somewhat an AoE unless restrained.

The general concept of the Alchemy mastery is direct attacks/combat utility with a side of supports. It contrasts against medicine, which is supportive with an occasional indirect combat useful gimmick in there.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5515499
Man, I gotta stop before I reveal the paths I imagined when making the skills. Anyway, suffice to say I price the Active Costs by how powerful the abilities can be and that anything you spend an EXP on is going to feel impactful in some way.

Along those lines, I need to differentiate between single-use Active skills like electroweave and toggled active skills like Cancerous Regen now that CC doesn’t regen by default in combat. I’ll be instituting a continuous cost in addition to an activation cost for toggles. So skills like that will be getting changed a bit whenever I get the time to go through them. I might tweak other costs as well to make’em more attractive. But most skills you’ll be able to dump more points into to reduce their CC costs in the future, so I’m hesitant to do that from square 1 before you even pick any of them up.
>>
>>5515481
I'm a bit mixed up actually, I think I wanted Alchemical Compounding actually, on the road for Biomass Assembly. Gotta get those best minions.
>>
>>5515481
Good to know. Though your wording actually makes me slightly more confused on how it works. Does it essentially work like Teppellin's Teacher except for every weapon, or is it only for a single weapon that we select, does our level in Unnatural Talent essentially serve as the cap for the level we can level up our weapon skills up to unless we spend another point in UT or the weapon skill or what?

As for skill masteries...I have little opinions except for what has already been expressed. My opinion on skill trees in RPGs or any videogame TTRPG system is that you never really know what is actually good until you've actually examined and understood the entire game and have knowledge of the entire tree and the contexts of when you'll realistically get access to what and what you'll be facing at that time. Is X good for what we will be facing. Will it be good in a finished build. What were the opportunity costs for choosing X at Y time instead of Z thing. Could I have done the same thing better with a different method of application or some other build or class choice, etc.

This is further complicated since I have no idea how much actual system is actually involved in this quest owing to the inherent vagueness of bo3 d100 systems where you don't really actually know how good or bad getting X roll is other than a vague sense of "well that roll was above average, or holy shit that roll was bad, or wajhalzgalCRIT!!!11".

It is also hard to judge things like a single level in a craft/pet-making skill versus an active ability. Hypothetically a single point in a crafting skill is the most valuable spend you can make assuming further points just make the skill better or unlock certain tiers but otherwise a single point nets you potential access to the broad gamut of available craftable goods. That skill point is obviously more valuable then a single weapon skill point, HP boost, or active skill. Since having access to something that wide-ranging versus not is big, as is the potential stacking a ton of buffs/debuffs versus a single other ability. But even that is hard to judge since we haven't used crafting yet and it is a statement that only really applies to the the first point spent on a crafting skill, to have access to crafting or not.

There's more I could say, I could go deeper on how the ambiguity of the dice system makes this more like narrative quest with dice as a vague guide than a game, like most quests I should add, I could talk about how regen's value is also ambiguous, since how much time or regen ticks happens per story post varies, there's plenty more to talk about. However, I'll stop here since I think I've touched on some of the points I wanted to and I don't feel like putting in the effort to type more.
>>
>>5515548

The nice thing about a skill tree in a quest is that there's a very real possibility that the world will warp around your choices. In a video game there's a real possibility that you might find the final boss is immune to the poison tree, or that he has an electromagnetic attack that punishes cybernetics hard or any number of bullshit possibilities. But in a quest the world can warp around the player, I'm reasonably confident that our choices will work out one way or another.
>>
>>5515558
It's not that I don't think whatever we choose won't work out. I'm not worried about that. I'm just point out that I personally think we can't really know exactly how strong anything is relative to each other beyond vague guesses or maybe point out that X is expensive for what it does how much CC it uses and opportunity cost stuff. Among other things.

And I'd like it if some things work out less good than others. I'm confident that since is this is a quest, even if we run into a foe that doesn't suit our strengths well, we can get creative to find some way to overcome it.

I also don't think we'll run into bosses being immune to X thing that often with maybe a couple of exceptions. I think all our skill trees are broadly useful and I think the other classes would be the same with the exception of the Netrunner. One of the two exceptions I mentioned were I think there is an element system and some bosses may be resistant or immune to some elements, but there doesn't render any one skill tree useless, even for stuff like the acid spit thing because I'm sure there is a branch of the tree or some gear or Shard upgrade you can get to bypass that or alter the element you spit and similar things for other classes. The other exception is I'm sure there are some areas/bosses where Netrunners are Gods and others where they are borderline useless, judging by some of the context from the class selection and certain areas being themed I think this is probably the biggest area where this exception applies. I doubt the other classes are so limited even in areas which have an opposite "theme" to their class.
>>
>>5515548
>Does it essentially work like Tepellin’s Teacher but for every weapon, and our level in Unnatural Talent serves as the cap to which Weapon Skills can get
Yes.
>>
>>5515499
Noted. I mean, compared to BSO, this already feels like a lot more freedom in where to spend MP for actives and passives, so this is already a step up on that front.

While I'm sitting here, hypothetical relic ideas to convert the pipe:
Shoveljaw: keep the general weapon profile, but the tip is now focused on harvesting and burrowing into large creatures.
Monkey Stick: Extend and retract, you can't go wrong with instant unbreakable leverage. Should line up with Teppelin's what I assume to be martial focus.
Hammerspace: metaphysical storage inside the stick, stuffing water or more exotic material to add weight or release on command.
>>
Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5515815
To be fair, Ascheritte sunk all his EXP into passives to be able to wield big fuckin swords more easily and sunk all the PP he'd use for actives into Strife Memoriam instead.

Also those enhancements would be effective, but they're rather tame. Shards are direct analogs to Celestial Gems, and offer equally gamebreaking possibilities here. Nearly anything you can imagine can be done for the right price.
>>
>>5515815
>>5516750
Finally, internet set and working.

Those were the simple concepts, yeah. Both because typing on a phone is ass and because there's not a huge amount I want to pump into the pipe.

For more major relics....
>Solstrike Spire or Starlight Regalia
A sword, lance, or tabard that can be activated to release high intensity radiation. This radiation can be repurposed to a variety of functions, like disrupting sensors, EMP pulses, directed radiation waves, recharging nearby devices Nikola Tesla style, or good old fashioned "cut really, really well". Depending on the form of the relic, of course.

>>5515489
>Ark of the Queens
A back/hip/arm mounted pack with large openings. Eggs released from this relic hatch into entire hives, continuously birthing minions until they are expended. It'll probably be difficult to get it to accept genetraces as well as augmentoids, but I expect the harder part is controlling such a large swarm. Wonder how expensive it would be to add zerg creep.

Also, maybe the hip mounted version can be used as a doublejump, launching eggs for vertical propulsion?
>>
Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>5515408

Should've been CC 105/110 at the end. Oops!

Writin' the next update.
>>
Rolled 11 (1d100)

>>5515408

>[Sibyllan]
>[HP 21/22]
>[CC 105/110]
>Status: Deafened, Light Burns]

You assess yourself as you consider your next move. You're still totally deaf, your armored greatcoat and boots have received some minor scuffs, but your electroweave pants are looking quite worse for wear. There are a few flaps of its silky material hanging loose on the leg that you practically shattered during your slide. A grimace crosses your face as you remember the sensation.

Your CC is almost maxed out too, and you're not sure what the forest is like after dark either. Yep, let's not stick around.

You take a moment to harvest some glowberry jelly, stuffing it into a length of intestine or something from one of the Leggy Squelchwurms then knotting both ends. An extremely messy and unpleasant affair, but fortunately you'd already lost the bunch of nothing in your simulated stomach from the radiation sickness earlier. Then you turn and begin to head back towards your erstwhile home.

You think to grab one of the Wooly Squelchwurm corpses on your way back, but as you return to the site of your fight with them. When you do, you're surprised to see that they're gone. A few patches of silk on the wood, and the chunk of meat that you'd pounded into the branch and got glued there are all that's left. That causes the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up, and you glance around with sudden nervousness...but whatever benefited from your fight seems to have moved on.

You reach the Teleporter Tree just as you hear the flooding begin. Even the mighty tree is shaken a little bit by the deluge, but the bark is rough and your grip strength has been enhanced just like the rest of your body by your investments in Fleshcrafting.

"You know, Rocky, it may not have a shower but at least this hole in the side of the tree is bigger than my apartment was out in the real."

"Holy shit you people all live such miserable lives over in this 'the real' place. I may be a mostly inanimate rock, but at least everything in here is honest about trying to kill me and doesn't usually do it by degrees."

You start to respond, but the retort dies in your mouth. You can't honestly tell him he's wrong, your mind begins to drift...

No, let's not do that. Not now. Keep the numbness. Beats the alternative.

"Yeah well...you don't have to be so up front about it. Didn't Arturion program any tact into you?"

"In fact, he didn't program me with shit. [Imbue Sentience] is apparently an entry level Netrunner skill. Despite that, infuriatingly, he still put shackles on me somehow. I'll curse that bastard til the day I die...if I even can die."

>Chat with Rocky some more [About what]
>Go to sleep, and explore the upper canopy again tomorrow
>Go to sleep, and try to locate the Squelchwurm nest tomorrow
>Go to sleep, and explore the floor-swamp tomorrow. Try to find somewhere to plug Rocky in and get a map.
>Those missing wurms have your paranoia piqued. Stay up tonight.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>5517054
Specify where you'd like to explore tomorrow, if you choose to stay up through the night.
>>
>>5517054
Well we've got a level, and we didn't get into more trouble, so we might want to pick any kind of crafting skill and try to keep our gear from falling apart. Unfortunately, the best candidate is an alchemical compound to fuse or glue material, which sounds very ineffective for thin cloth with fancy electronics. On the other hand, biomass reassembly might be able to do something with silk, and it still requires alchemy anyway. It's just a question of whether crafting is better first, or the ability to shoot blood and saliva without the toxic blood skill.

>Rocky, can you tell me anything about the gods? Tiamet and Teppelin's lord in particular
>I'm surprised you haven't complained about being exposed to repeated bouts of extreme radiation. You're a rock, but surely this is doing SOMETHING to you?

>If the glow stuff is visibly giving light and we can't store it, hang it away from where we personally are.
> explore the floor-swamp tomorrow. Try to find somewhere to plug Rocky in and get a map.
For sure. What comes out hunting after big natural threats are usually smallfry and opportunistic herbivores, which we can target safely.

>Alchemical Compounding
I'll throw my vote in there to get the crafting UI up early.
>>
Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5517078
I'll back the question and path to explore.

The level up I'm still debating on. Do to the cc we used up in the fight. I do not have the doc open at work. But the one that help use get immunity to a status effect. Seems like a good pick or i bet we can use more flesh crafting to make gear from the plates.
>>
>>5517165
>>5517065
oh yeah, about that. Does the immunity skill also cure the status effect you were just affected by?

For example, would it fix our ears at the same time as granting immunity to deafness?
>>
>>5517165
On thinking about it more, we might need medical for surgery experience. So we can piece the body part puzzle that would be crafting. Get an organic EXOsuit

But going into the swamp land. I could see Alchemy being more useful for the immediate. Not like dipping into both wouldn't give us some benefit. I'm sure to preserving enough such and knowing what herbs we need.
>>
Rolled 8 (1d100)

>>5517054
>Go to sleep, and try to locate the Squelchwurm nest tomorrow
Find the nest, observe the movements of the worms. Figure out if there's a pattern to these worm gathering parties and see if we can't ambush another one tomorrow for more biomass and maybe more EXP.

>Spend EXP
>[Neuromancy] - [Sympathetic Link, Active 5CC]
The fight with the worms shows we're not the greatest at this whole fighting thing, easiest way to up our combat ability (and make us take less damage in combat) is to begin crafting minions. Crafting Minions without Sympathetic Link could make the Augmentoids immediately hostile towards us, refuse to obey us or they could just leave once finished. Basically this is our Pokemon Gym Badge that ensures our minions actually listen to us, and I wouldn't craft any minions without it.
Being able to exercise control over our minions would also help us if we decide to storm the Nest to steal more Genetraces and acquire more biomass to craft better minions.

Current minion recipies I think could work:
>Quadrupedal - Medium Sized - Heavy Chitin Armor + Radiation Blocking Tissues
A Heavy Scavanger Doggo, tank-like and the heavy armor should make it resistant to most attacks, allow it to resist the radiation present in this zone and it's weight might let it resist the sonic attacks of the worms.
Downside is lowered mobility, which might make it impossible for it to navigate in the trees (which means it won't be able to escape the flooding that happens every night) and make it easy to flank, but the heavy armor should hold up against attacks.

>Cephalopod - Medium Sized - Leafy Squidskin + Ink Squirter
Support squirter, used to gunk up the eyesight of enemies. Less useful right now since the worms don't seem to rely on sight and only on vibrations to see. Wouldn't die from the flood since it can move in the trees just fine. If we can fit it with Air Sensing Whiskers it could act as a sort of scout, and if we have Infrasonic Organ unlocked right now (the 2/10 makes it seem like we need to gather a full 10 before we unlock it proper) it can be fitted with a ranged attack too.

>Berry- Small Sized - Radiotrophic Metabolism + Neutron Breeder Tissues + Radiation Blocking Tissues
Not a minion, but basically a Radioactive Pervitin pill. Make like 10 of these and carry them around, when we need to activate Cancerous Regeneration we eat one to get minor radiation poisoning, instead of having to dive face first into a big berry every time we need it.
>>
>>5517189
The hardest part about minions is making them. Rocky mentioned some sort of terminal, which is making me think that these augmentoids are not expendable at all and will be a long time coming.

Unless there was a terminal near the teleporter, I dunno.
>>
Rolled 81 (1d100)

>>5517187
Nah, building organic power armor/exosuits is under the purview of [Symbiosis]. You just craft an augmentoid that fulfills the criteria associated with be power armor.

Typically it would look something like this:
Form: Humanoid
Size: Large
Traits: Armor, Megamuscles, Lungs for environment protection, etc. etc.

>>5517189
>On Sympathetic Link
Augmentoids are subservient by default, on account of offloading a certain amount of essential-to-survival mental load to you (expressed by CC cost). Sympathetic Link lets you give them more detailed psychic orders, and receive feedback/status information from them. This is sorta spoiling and definitely OOC, but you'd figure it out as soon as you found a GLECK station to let you actually craft augmentoids anyway or if you had anyone to talk to soooo....

You'll have to wait to learn the real deets of crafting them til you find a GLECK in character though.

>>5517184
It is deliberately vague, you don't know.

>>5517165
>>5517078
>Ask Rocky about the gods, and his indifference to radiation

>Explore the floor swamp.
[LOCKED}
Writan'. I'll ask formally for EXP votes in the next post.

>==========

In other news some of the abilities have been updated again. A brief explanation:

>Active/Maintained abilities have an activation CC cost which covers some nonspecific period of operation, and then a description of how much CC they'll eat up per unit time after activation in order to maintain the effect.

>Abilities described as "Static" are like maintained abilities, but they reserve a chunk of CC which does not increase for as long as they're active. If a Static ability is such that multiple instances could be running at once, then each instance costs the listed amount of CC to maintain.

>Passive abilities do not use CC to produce their effects. However periodically when acquiring passive abilities the base CC reservation of your archetype will be increased.
>>
Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5517054

Gimme 1d100 Bo3 to see how well your exploration of the Swamp goes.
>>
Rolled 79 (1d100)

>>5517208
>>
Rolled 99 (1d100)

>>5517217
Feel free to roll the other two as well
>>
Rolled 10, 37 = 47 (2d100)

>>5517208
>>5517229
>>
Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>5515815
Those are good ideas, though I personally am not really looking to further enhance our pipe. I'd want a proper hammer, exquisitely crafted to invest shards in. That, and I prefer to invest in some crazier shit like >>5516836 or something other than our weapon if we are talking about this early on.

>>5517208
Rollin'
>>
Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>5517208
>>5517054

You opt to go to simply go to sleep, and your battered body complies without much protest. Once oblivion takes you however, things are less calm. You dream of the deep seated agony in your guts that you felt after consuming the Glowberry, but this time the pain overwhelms you and you die. You float out of your corpse, and observe it impassively as it explodes into uncountable shards. Each is a tiny pinprick of beautiful emerald, or a sliver of darkest night tinged with a hint of unearthly purple. The Shards fly through your formless pot of sentience and settle into a 3 dimensional network as far as the eye can see. You squint, detecting something strange in the pattern of stars before you, but before you can determine what it is an intense feeling of unease percolates up your non-existent spine. It's as though a predator has fastened its eyes upon you, and you know in the deepest depths of your soul that it will not relent until it has the two shards that have settled inside you or else it is dead.

You wake with a start, covered in sweat, and stifle a scream that had begun to come from your throat. You look around your hidey-hole desperately, but see nothing but blackened wood and the light of morning beginning to come into existence. You stop still and listen, but hear nothing aside from the buzzing of insects and chirping of birids.

The feeling of unease persists though, every hair on your body is standing on end and the adrenaline in your system is making you shaky. You rise, your movements so tense that it's more like an acrobatic leap to your feet. The chamber is cramped, but barely tall enough for you to stand with a stoop.

A few more minutes are spent listening and taking peaks outside the small circular hole in the megatree's bark that you use to access your hideout. Eventually you calm your nerves, and decide that today you'll explore the swamp floor instead of the canopy.
>>
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Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>5517253

As you make your descent, you briefly consider rigging a ladder made of vines...but you're not sure if there are any intelligent monsters around here, and would rather not advertise your presence if there are. You ask a few questions of Rocky instead, to keep you distracted.

"Say, Rocky, I'm surprised you haven't been complaining about the bouts of extreme radiation or getting thrown to and fro while attached to me. I know you're a rock, but surely this is doing SOMETHING to you?"

"I mean, I'm a rock. I feel nothing. I have no means of interacting with or perceiving the world except for the shitty camera in the top hat glued to my eyes, and the speaker/mic glued onto me.

When Arturion first created me, I didn't even have those. I don't know how long I drifted in an oblivion of senseless non-experience. A soul ripped from the void and inserted into a fucking rock, no eyes to see, no mouth with which to scream. I considered that this might be hell.

When that fucknut finally realized that imbuing sentience into a rock doesn't mean the rock can do anything, he evidently had to take some other skills to weld these eyes and this speaker to me. The first words out of my mouth as soon as I could speak were begging him to end my torment. That's why he applied the shackle that keeps me from pursuing my own demise, no matter how dire the situation."

"O-oh, that's nice..." You have no idea how to respond. You were never really a super social person, let alone one that knows how to deal with this sort of existential trauma.

"You're pretty fucked up, Sib."

"Uh, I'm sorry. Hey, uh on another note! What can you tell me about the Gods? Shards of Tiamet seem to be godly in origin, and Tepellin, the guy that killed Arturion, mentioned something about 'Kartikeya'?"

"Beats me, the background lore of the game isn't very well studied. I'm a follower of Kartikeya though!"

"What, really?"

"Well I guess more a follower of Tepellin, given what you just said."

Your conversation carries on for a while after that, but Rocky doesn't seem to know anything about the gods. Apparently Arturion was more interested in playing god than finding out about dead ones.

Eventually you reach the bottom of the tree again. On a whim you stop by the teleporter chamber.

Which has become covered in meat. The vines around the entrance are tinged reddish brown like blood dried on them. The pulsing mass of meat has created a lip that retains water from the night flood atop the metallic dais inside. As you stare at a lump that contracts rhythmically, almost like a heartbeat, the sinister feeling from the morning creeps back up your spine.
>>
Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>5517282

Yet nothing attacks you, and you don't see anything hiding amongst the meat either. In fact, on the far side of the room it appears that some sort of great fleshy pimple has been popped. Blood and gross colored fluids pool in its bottom, and clearly spilled into the stagnant water atop the teleport dais some time ago. As you watch the pulsing of the meat gradually lessens and eventually stills.

You shiver, but have nothing to do and leave. As you do so, your hand brushes against a frond of meat. A vicious mouth shoots from your palm on a tendirl of your own skin and flesh.

>Acquired Gene-Trace: ???? 1/100

Creepy! Too fucking creepy!

You practically sprint away from the opening of the teleporter-turned-womb, resisting the urge to trigger Electroweave.

>=====

Perhaps because of the unnerving experiences, you are particularly alert as you explore the swamp floor. The area is soggy, muddy, muggy, infested by insects, and positively crawling with enemies. The ground is mostly either grayish mud, which occasionally is radioactive enough to give you the status effect, or else tangled masses of mangroves growing atop even more tangled masses of megatree roots. Sometimes the megatree roots plunge through the floor in great chasms that descend further than you can see.

In a few of these you spot what looks like the entrances to bunkers. Sometimes the doors are sealed, sometimes they've been mangled. All of them are difficult to differentiate from the moss and algae draped surroundings. There's also a hive of insects nearby, if the quantity of monsters fitting that general pattern is anything to go by. You notice, though, that sometimes the insects attack their fellows for no apparent reason. Incidents like this are all clustered towards the eastern side of the tree.


>Investigate one of the ruined bunkers
>Trace the insects back to their hive
>Set an ambush for a group of insects wandering around that it looks like you could take
>Figure out what's causing the insects to attack some of their fellows
>Other?
>>
Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>5517293
>Set an ambush for a group of insects wandering around that it looks like you could take

Grab a few gene traces from corpses if we can find any. If they're fighting must be some bodies laying around.
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5517293
Also

>>Would you like to spend your EXP?
>Spend EXP on HP
>Spend EXP on Medicine Mastery
>Spend EXP on Fleshcrafting Mastery
>Spend EXP on Alchemy Mastery
>Spend EXP on Neuromancy Mastery
>>
>>5517300
>Spend EXP on Medicine Mastery
>>
>>5517300
>Spend EXP on Alchemy Mastery
>Investigate one of the ruined bunkers
finding out how they survive the flood seems kinda useful, if we need to hide in there.
>>
Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>5517293
East, huh. Wonder if it is just a local phenomena or if it has to do with the east or west megatrees.

>Investigate one of the ruined bunkers

Fuck fighting for now, focus on looking for a terminal to get a map. If there's anything we should be fighting it should be those damn worms. Shards take priority over collecting new gene-traces in my mind.
>>
Rolled 6 (1d100)

We'll probably get one, at most two more updates today bois and gals. I need some time to work on some background stuff. Since this is an exp spend vote I'll wait an hour or two for people to chime in.
>>
>>5517305
I still want Immunological Tuning. Though Medicinal Compounding could be good.
>>
>>5517300
> Alchemy Mastery
>>
>>5517300
>Spend EXP on Medicine Mastery
>>
Rolled 23, 87 = 110 (2d100)

>Medicine
>>5517349
>>5517305
>Alchemy
>>5517327
>>5517307

2 to 2. Decided by dice, then. First roll for Medicine, second for alchemy. I'll start writing the actual update now. We'll go by these dice if there's no tiebreaker by the time I'm done.
>>
Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>5517293

You're down here to try to find somewhere Rocky can download a map from, and a GLECK unit. So checking out the bunkers is a no brainer.

You trek back to the teleporter tree and then head southward along one of its humongous roots, darting among the trunks of mangroves the size of small buildings as you do so. The gnarled spires and twisting domes of the swamp trees' roots make for treacherous ground, but also superb hiding spaces, and you manage to get to the gaping hole that you only passed by briefly before.

The megatree's root plunges down over the edge of the hole here, a girthy tentacle of wood draped over the edge. Despite its vastness, only occupying maybe a quarter of the wound in ground of the swamp. Several waterfalls plunge down over the tangled mess of roots that render the edges of the bottomless abyss. They give the pit a sort of ragged and ill defined quality, like a scab trying to cover a wound that's only solidified around the edges.

What had caught your eye then, and does again now, is a distinct neon-blue glow about a hundred feet down and about a quarter of the way around the hole's distance. Hidden behind the roots near the glow you can just barely make out the texture of rusty steel. A trickle of water falls from that area too, and you swear there's a faint blue glow to it. It's a delicate climb to get over there, but between your vine rope and the thickly growing ropes you finally manage to traverse the distance. The trick is to not look down at the darkness of the abyss below you, yawning and insatiable.

You find yourself standing in front of a huge pair of steel doors, of the sliding variety. The tracks they were supposed to run along have long ago rusted and become overgrown, but there's a parting in the middle just wide enough for you to wiggle through. All around you is a mat of luminous blue spongy material. The mat occasional sprouts flowers, or circular fronds that seem to continually twist in on themselves as you watch them. More importantly, it also sprouts a handful of ancient podiums with dirty glass displays on them. None of them work, but you found a port for Rocky to interface to in one of them and he said he was able to trace a power draw to somewhere behind the steel doors.

The gap between them glows with more blue light, projecting form the underside of some feathery ferns that grow thickly out of the gap, and also block your view to the inside. They look sort of like gills, now that you think of it.

>Proceed through the gap.
>Nope. Do one of the other choices from: >>5517293
>Wait for a bit and see if anything goes in or comes out? Hopefully you don't get caught in the flood, there's no sunlight down here to guess at the time.
>Other?
>>
>>5517293
They probably are carrying some infection that is deemed harmful the hive. Guess what they bring back is worth the loss of workers.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>5517418

>Alchemy wins it!

>Select (1) skill to acquire/upgrade.

>[Alchemical Compounding, Passive] +5CC - Grants the knowledge required to craft medicines, poisons, and other useful compounds, as well as the tools to extract their components.

>[Acidic Strike, Active 20CC] - Imbue your next attack with a potent corrosive effect, or produce a gout of acid from anywhere on your body. You're granted a degree of resistance to acid for a short time after activation.

>[Paradoxical Reaction, Static 20CC] - You've discovered a compound capable of transmuting any status effect to its alchemical opposite...mostly, anyway. Surely a step on the path to the Philosopher's Stone.

>[Ferrous Coagula, Active 20CC] Reqs: Stable Stigmata - You spew forth a compound that rapidly agglomerates into iron on contact with another substance, this reaction is very endothermic.

>[Unequal Exchange, Active 15CC] Reqs: Symbiosis, Sympathetic Link or Neuroplastic Optimization -Upon activation, transfer (1) status effect to one of your linked augmentoids.
>>
Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5517418
>Proceed through the gap.
Probably grab a stick as well to poke with.

>>5517421
>[Alchemical Compounding, Passive]
>>
Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5517421
>[Alchemical Compounding, Passive] +5CC - Grants the knowledge required to craft medicines, poisons, and other useful compounds, as well as the tools to extract their components.

>>5517418
>Stab the gills just to make sure you aren't walking into the mouth of a giant fish or something.
>Ask Rocky if he can start a clock, we need to make sure we aren't trapped down here when the flood comes. Actually, check our UI for a clock as well, we need ample time before night to make the climb back home.
>>
>>5517421
>[Alchemical Compounding, Passive] +5CC - Grants the knowledge required to craft medicines, poisons, and other useful compounds, as well as the tools to extract their components.

Options are good to have.

>>5517418
> Proceed through the gap
> Wedge something in the gap to keep the doors open
> Poke the 'gills' with your pipe/try and snag some genes from it
>>
Rolled 70 (1d100)

>>5517440
>>5517433
>>5517428
Don't think I'll get another update out today, if I do then it'll be late in the evening.

Gimme 1d100 though.
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5517448
>>
Rolled 20 (1d100)

>>5517448
>>
Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>5517448
Doing the third roll.
>>
>>5517421
>Alchemical Compounding
Will let us analyze this stuff anyway, although maybe something under medicine is better for the virus we seem to already have.

>>5517418
>Harvest Gene Traces to get a feel for what these organisms do
Probably waterbreathing, but the other stuff will hint at the dangers. Also, we need to check if they resist radiation. Glowberry goop might be useful earlier than I thought.
>Proceed through the gap.

wonder if super respiration can forcefully develop our own gills
>>
Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5517421

You grab your Identifier and navigate to the level up interface, then select [Alchemical Compounding]. You watch your base level of CC go up by 5. Hopefully the reservation doesn't go up too often, 5 isn't much but it'll surely add up quickly.

Having done that, you walk up to the frond infested gap between the steel plates. They're much stouter than their feathery appearance made you expect. You're forced to worm your way through on all fours, reminding you of when you were tunneling through the cables before you encountered Tepellin.

At least you probably won't end up in a similarly hopeless situation this time, right? Haha...why do you tempt fate with putting thoughts into words?

You fall out the other side of the ferns, easily 10 feet thick. Fortunately the spongy, glowing blue of the floor is quite forgiving. Your impact creates a indentation mimicking your body, which pools in with milky blueish fluid once you get up. Having recovered you take a look around.

Great, it's a mushroom biome.

>[[ Dungeon: Degenerated Triptodrome ]]
>[[ Congratuations, Sibyllan! Your are the first User to discover this dungeon. Exploration EXP increased. ]]
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

>>5518815

You don't have much time to focus on the scenery though. In front of you are two nightmarish versions of ants, each easily the size of a man. They have greyish chitin that would blend in admirably with the dull wood of the mangroves and greyish mud in the swamp above you, but sticks out like a sore thumb amid your neon blue surroundings. Their blacker-than-black eyes dart between you and the exit behind you and they're letting out threatening sounding clicks and hisses.

Strangely, they're also bedecked in chunks of glowing fungus that seems to have been foraged from the local area. It's all been thoroughly impaled on the spikes of their chitinous carapaces.

>These fine insects are clearly just trying to get out and you've gotten between them and the exit. Kindly get yourself out of their way.
>Take up a defensive stance and fight them with Tepellin's Teacher. Gotta grind that weapons exp.
>When in doubt, be aggressive. Charge one of the ants and attempt to cripple its legs so you can lure the other one into single combat.
>Jump atop one of the nearby mushrooms using electroweave and start taking potshots using your crossbow.
>Climb right back outta here.
>Other?

>=====
>[Sibyllan]
>[HP 22/22]
>[CC 35/110]
>[Status: N̷o̷n̷e̶]

Did 4chan shit the bed for anyone else there for a few hours?
>>
>>5518853
>Climb right back outta here.
>Smash them one at a time as they chase you
>>
Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>5518853

>Take up a defensive stance and fight them with Tepellin's Teacher. Gotta grind that weapons exp.

Opening trash mobs of a dungeon, let's take it slow and learn their bullshit.

Aside...how safe do you suppose this location is from the floods? Dungeon could take some time. See if Rocky can give us a good warning for when it's time to run.

And yeah, I couldn't post either. Much grief.
>>
>>5518815
Oh gods, if we are gonna be capital D dungeon diving we better grind upgrades that help directly with combat.

>>5518853
>These fine insects are clearly just trying to get out and you've gotten between them and the exit. Kindly get yourself out of their way.

Try this. If they attack us anyways...

>Take up a defensive stance and fight them with Tepellin's Teacher. Gotta grind that weapons exp.

We we're close to levelling bludgeons, gotta keep grinding.

Also once again I am petitioning anons to support...

>Ask Rocky if he can start a clock, we need to make sure we aren't trapped down here when the flood comes. Actually, check our UI for a clock as well, we need ample time before night to make the climb back home.

...cause getting trapped down here during the flood would suck. Unless we just happen to get lucky and this works like a MMO instanced dungeon where the zone is separated from the rest of the main area both spatially and temporarily.

Depends on what you mean. If you mean the site seemed fine but nothing updated for a couple hours, leaving a eerie dead timezone in its wake, then yes. I happened to quit my game and check this within literally 30 seconds of you updating us with the part with us having entered the dungeon by chance. Thus, I expected a quick follow up post, but then you were silent for a long time. So, yeah...there was that. I just thought it was a coincidence.
>>
Rolled 28 (1d100)

>>5518853
Well I do kind of want to pick option one. Cuz you never know when being friendly can be a good move.

>These fine insects are clearly just trying to get out and you've gotten between them and the exit. Kindly get yourself out of their way.
I know we should take the exp when we can. Yet I want do what my social characters must do. Yeah I don't plan to be dumb about it always be ready till they're gone.
>>
Rolled 69 (1d100)

>>5518853
>>5518967
>>
>>5518967
Just in case it needs to be done yeah I'll back the clock. I would be we really don't need multiple votes for I activated smartwatch. Since it is also talking first.
>>
>>5518983
Yeah I consider stuff like the clock and nomming the surrounding foliage for gene analysis to be easy side actions to add in
>>
You'd think so, but they weren't added in in the previous post. So...

Probably not the wisest idea to talk and try and nom some wall-plants while fighting, but I just want it to be noted to be done afterwards or retroactively added in, since none of it was contradictory and I vaguely got the idea we were all on the same wavelength.
>>
Rolled 18 (1d100)

Update in a few hours. Sorry to have cut it down to one a day. Behind the scenes I've been revamping all the archetypes other than Organitech, so that they match up with the changes to skills and CC I've made.

I've also been trying to come up with a way to make alchemy and medicine crafting satisfying without making things more complicated than they already are. I haven't come up with a solution that I like yet, but I'll have something in place by the time you guys find a crafting station for it. I can always update it later if it doesn't work to my satisfaction.
>>
Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5518853

You know, last time you tried to make friends with a monster it ended with you fighting desperately for your life. That being said, these things are pretty intimidating and you'd rather avoid a confrontation if possible.

You carefully put your hands up and begin to step sideways to remove yourself from between them and the exit. The ants threatening clicks and hisses lessen a miniscule amount as you do so, but they continue to face you as you move away. It's only once you move into the edges of the mushroom forest that they grow silent and begin to move towards the exit. One stays watching you as the other crawls out, and then backs into the feathery fronds itself at some unknown signal from its partner.

Leaving you alone for now.

You take the opportunity presented by your newfound solitude to take a look around...unfortunately the air is thick with mist and spores. You're clearly in a very open space, but seeing more than a few dozen feet is impossible. From what you can tell though, this biome is consummately different from the swamp above or the megatree canopy above that. The feather ferns you passed through aren't limited to just clogging the entrance/exit...they actually appear to coat the entire inner surface of this chamber or bunker or whatever you find yourself in. It's an unbroken covering, it looks almost like neon fur has sprouted from the walls. Waves pulse through the mat of vegetation gently, even though there are no air currents in here. Uhh, actually it might be hard to find the exit again even with Rocky keeping tabs on his mapping systems.

Speaking of the feather-ferns, you forgot to try harvesting them for gene-traces. You will the little mouth on your hand to consume them, it seems less enthusiastic about it than consuming meat but it obeys your command.

>Acquired Gene-Trace: Hydrophobic Spores

Hmm, now that's interesting. If the fern blanket is truly uninterrupted, or at least mostly complete, then perhaps this place doesn't flood at all...

It clearly still gets plenty of water though. The everpresent mist and cloying humidity it brings aside, you can see a sizeable stream nearby flowing pooling into a lake. The water in it has the same glowing quality as the fluid that was squeezed from the spongy mat under your feet when you fell on it. The glow isn't homogeneous though, and the fractal cascade of patterns caused by the stream discharging into the lake are endlessly fascinating to watch.

The area around the lake and near the stream seems to be dominated by fan-like bursts of fungus. It looks more like a coral reef on land than anything else. However, the area that you wandered towards is dominated by huge tree-sized mushrooms. It's a proper forest of them, the ground furry with what looks like purplish grass at first...actually they're disgusting slimy hollow tube growths of some sort of fungus. They deflate and deform as you step on them but then bounce back afterwards.
>>
Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5520121

You can't decide whether to call this place verdant or redolent. Whichever it is, it's certainly lush. You were hopeful that maybe you'd sense some way to harvest alchemical ingredients now that you've got the compounding skill, especially given your environment...but nothing's popping out at you yet.

On a more essential-to-staying-alive-note, despite the hydrophobic ferns lining this place...you're still justifiably nervous about getting caught in the nightly floods. It's been bothering you for a while now, but...it seems like there's no proper way to keep time in this game. There's no clock on your UI, Rocky says the best he could do would be to count...but he's no better at keeping consistent time doing that than you are. Except for the cycles of the holographic sun, which you don't even really know how long a full day/night cycle is really, there's no consistent method of keeping time.

>Head deeper into the mushroom forest, this is the direction Rocky says he detected power drain from. If there's functional tech nearby it'll be in this direction.
>Follow the stream that feeds the lake and see where it goes.
>Follow the fern-covered walls and try to circumnavigate the area, or at least get a general sense for its size and shape.
>Can't risk staying here. You left in the early morning so you know you have time before nightfall, go back up to the swamp and scout somewhere else out.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5520133
>Head deeper into the mushroom forest, this is the direction Rocky says he detected power drain from. If there's functional tech nearby it'll be in this direction.

Even if it doesn't really make sense for some ferns and spores to somehow repel a flood, I'm gonna trust that it is just magic and that we'll be fine, plus these ants wouldn't be alive if the spores weren't able keep them alive.

Besides, we just arrived at the forest floor, we should have time to at least find a terminal for Rocky to hack.
>>
>>5520133
>Head deeper into the mushroom forest, this is the direction Rocky says he detected power drain from. If there's functional tech nearby it'll be in this direction.
worst case, we can carve up a carpet of hydrophobic shrooms and make a raft or air balloon.

I guess it's a little too early to chug any of this water and go on another spirit journey.
>>
Rolled 67 (1d100)

>>5520133
>Head deeper into the mushroom forest, this is the direction Rocky says he detected power drain from. If there's functional tech nearby it'll be in this direction.
For now b line it and also rap some cloth around our face to make a mask. Spores going into one's lungs is not a good thing.

Thinking worst case if we get the experience. we can try making a iron wall to keep water out.
>>
>>5520171

It's never to early in the day to drink glowing water!
>>
Rolled 98 (1d100)

Still alive! Had to deal with a family member's medical stuff yesterday, and was also just generally tired.

I've come up with a potential solution to crafting chems that I think balances impactfulness/cost without adding any additional complexity to what I already had planned. We'll see how you guys like it.

>>5520231
>>5520171
>>5520166
Into the mushroom forest it is!

>>5520266
What is it with you guys and consuming stuff that glows?
>>
Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5520133

You glance warily at the glowing stream and lake a few times, and opt decide to delve deeper into the mushroom for the time being. Not that things don't glow amidst the towering umbrellas, but it's more of a soft ambience rather than coming from a single source.

As you proceed deeper the mushrooms get stouter, often branching off into multiple heads at the top. Seemingly parasitic growths of other fungi in a myriad of hues sprout from their thicker trunks too, giving the whole forest a sort of partylike, mardi gras vibe. It's like looking at an especially vivid painter's palette except smeared across an alien forest.

It would almost be fun, except for the mist and drifting spores cutting down on your visibility. Instead, every step over the uneven terrain brings a new view of riotous colors that is difficult to sift for threats.

Fortunately nothing bothers you. You see movement near the ground out of the corner of your vision every now and then, but whatever causes it doesn't seem interested in you. As you approach the general area that Rocky identified, the forest changes. The rotund mushroom trees and bushes are still present but instead of a riotous array of vibrant growths...they're instead pierced and riddled by veiny growths that glow with the same blue light you saw in the stream and lake.

Even the ground isn't exempt from infestation from the veiny vines. Tendrils of glowing blue sprout up and wave around every so often. Occasionally on a mushroom or random spot on the ground the veins will converge, and when they do they form fist-sized or larger buboes that glow especially bright.

You get a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach as you approach the alleged tech-access point and the blue vines get more plentiful as well. You move carefully, trying to avoid touching the vines as you push waist-high fungal undergrowth aside (which gets increasing impossible), and finally come upon a clearing in the forest.
>>
Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>5522246

There's a pillar in the center of the clearing, clearly mechanical in nature...at least originally. It's been absolutely overwhelmed by vines though. Growing off the top, maybe 15 feet in the air, is an absolutely tremendous buboe. It's easily 10 feet in diameter and looks like it should've fallen off the much thinner pillar a long time ago. It's filled with the glowing blue fluid as well but you can see a dark spot on the inside darting around. The dark spot and the fact that it's clearly the source of the veiny growths make it look like some horrifying eye. Its 'gaze' passes over your hiding place on the edge of the clearing briefly, and you feel like your mind is compressed for an instant.

It's the same sort of feeling you had when Tepellin looked down on you...but you're stronger now and the sensation is not nearly so all-consuming or paralyzing as it was then.

Or maybe this thing is weaker. Or maybe both. Who cares!

More immediately important is what's wandering the clearing around the pillar. Two ants just like the ones you saw when you entered the Triptodrome, wander idly around and occasionally lean their heads down to munch on vines. They're accompanied by eight wooly squelchwurms, four accompanying each ant and sticking to them closely. The two groups wander listlessly, roughly on opposite sides of the clearing and going around the circular area slowly but methodically.

There's no doubt in your mind that the pillar is the access point you're after, but it looks like you're not going to get to it easily.

>>Do not engage in combat, instead
>Turn back and head topside.
>Turn back and follow the glowing stream instead.
>Go around the clearing and see how far you are from the walls of the Dungeon

>>Do engage in combat
>But there's definitely more going on here. Throw a few rocks into the clearing, and hope you can hide from the eye, while you observe the results.
>But there's too many enemies for you to take all at once. Try to hit one of the groups with a bunch of shock canister arrows before you engage in melee.
>But you don't care to take them all at once. Pick away at the wooly squelches using your crossbow, and use electroweave to avoid pursuit until they're injured and tired enough to be easy pickings.
>And you're confident in yourself. Charge the nearest group and engage them with knife and pipe. GottagetthatweaponsEXP.
>And you've seen this setup before. Go for the huge eye-buboe on the central pillar and try to knock it off of there! Obviously it's the boss controlling the minions and they'll die if it's dethroned.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>5522257
>But you don't care to take them all at once. Pick away at the wooly squelches using your crossbow, and use electroweave to avoid pursuit until they're injured and tired enough to be easy pickings.

Let's try and pick this group apart bit by bit. Seperate them in the undergrowth and then beat down with the pipe.
>>
>>5522257
>And you've seen this setup before. Go for the huge eye-buboe on the central pillar and try to knock it off of there! Obviously it's the boss controlling the minions and they'll die if it's dethroned.
Ants have to have a queen right?
>>
Rolled 35 (1d100)

>>5522257
>And you've seen this setup before. Go for the huge eye-buboe on the central pillar and try to knock it off of there! Obviously it's the boss controlling the minions and they'll die if it's dethroned.
If I knew how close till next exp. I would say kill the minions as we can regen and have the two hypo heals. For know I say boss rush till there's to many add and we need to pull back. If we get some exp we have a few AOE skills to pick up and help clear.
>>
Rolled 30 (1d100)

>>5522360
>>5522359
>>5522315

>Go for the boss!
Roll me 2 d100s, we're going for Bo3 in each column.
>>
Rolled 5, 65 = 70 (2d100)

>>5522393
>>
Rolled 48 (1d100)

>>5522410
Feel free to reroll
>>
Rolled 51, 55 = 106 (2d100)

>>5522393
Gonna give it 10 minutes or so then write up. If nobody's done the third rollerooni by then, so be it
>>
Rolled 36, 39 = 75 (2d100)

>>5522393
>>
>>5522494
But ants and worms? I'm wondering if, rather than a singular hive, one or both of these are being controlled with the blue veins.

Thinking of leaving a bit of glow goop somewhere as a distraction, but let's see how this goes.
>>
>>5522205
It turned out well last time!
>>
File: the eye.png (588 KB, 532x435)
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Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5522257

>[Rolled 51]

You never had much time for gaming, your mom was sickly from as long as you can remember, but it's impossible to grow up without seeing and hearing about it. You saw enough to recognize that this is obviously a boss controlling minions. Classic trope, and classically all the minions will die if the one holding their strings does! It's perched so precariously up there too, you're almost insulted by how telegraphed it all is.

You wait until the patrols are as far away from you as they can get, and then dash from your hiding place towards the pillar. You're halfway there before the patrols react. You catch the change in their movements out the corner of your eye, but they don't even have time to hiss as your enhanced body blitzes across the distance between you and the pillar.

Tepellin's Teacher is in both your hands, and you activate Electroweave as you jump to land a devastating hit on the buboe. Small craters are left where your feet were and you race towards the orb like a lightning bolt.

>[Rolled 65]

Then the dark spot turns towards you, mid-leap, and the buboe transforms and expands in front of your eyes. The dark spot becomes the iris of something all-seeing, the skin of the orb housing it seems to become bone and fractalize, and instead of neon blue obscured by mist there's a true beautiful blue sky behind it. It is simultaneously the most beautiful and most horrifying thing you have ever beheld. You feel weak beholding the infinity in that dark spot. The darkness hungers for you, to bring you comfort and provide succor.

A heartbeat later, your body physically impacts against the orb, and there's no longer anything special going on. Your blow whiffed but Tepellin's teacher ended up between your body and the beast, and your momentum drives the end of the pipe through the membrane.

Immediately a pressurized spray of glowing blue fluid spurts out and covers your face and upper body.

>[Sibyllan]
>[HP 21/22]
>[CC 45/110]
>[ Status: Nerveater Fungi Infection 15/65 ]

The buboe doesn't make any sound, but the dark spot flinches away from you. You don't know whether you hurt it or not. The flow of blue fluid has been reduced from a spray down to merely a cascade flowing from the jagged hole you punched into...whatever this thing is, but it doesn't seem any closer to falling off the pillar. Meanwhile the ants and worms have gone into an eerily silent frenzy and are charging their way towards you as you dangle off your pipe.

>You've hurt it, now keep on hurting it! Widen the wound using pipe and combat knife regardless of how much blue goo gets on you.
>You know, this actually isn't a terrible location to defend from. Climb atop the orb and beat on it from above while shoving off anything that tries to come up after you.
>You've drawn blood, but this status effect and that...hypnosis attempt? Worry you, retreat before you're entrapped by the reinforcements.
>Shock arrows into the eye, then run.
>Other?
>>
>>5522539
>Shock Arrows into the eye
>Smack that overgrown bubblewrap until you get a weapon level
>Slap some orange goo on the eye. See how radiation affects this sentient mind controlling thing.
>>
Rolled 5 (1d100)

>>5522539
This >>5522548 but change the order around.
>Smack it a bit to get a level up but keep below say...45 Nerveater Infection
>Slap some goo on it to see if the radiation or heat is a weakness for it.
>Pry our pipe loose and get some distance from the encirclement and shoot the eye so as to avoid getting more blue spray on us. Go evasive from the worms and ants.
>>
Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5522581
>>5522548
Gimme 2d100 Bo3 again
>>
Rolled 43, 24 = 67 (2d100)

>>5522683
Walalalalala!
>>
>>5522683
Here's another!
>>
Rolled 32, 64 = 96 (2d100)

>>5522683
>>5522694
Um...lets try that again. H-here's another...senpai.
>>
Rolled 25, 80 = 105 (2d100)

>>5522683
I'm not too fussed by the order, but I'm pretty leery of letting that ailment proc without immune system stuff
>>
>>5522718
I mean...we had our chance last level up to get it instead of picking up a crafting skill we can't use yet, but...
>>
>>5522733
I thought it would help analyze the mushrooms beyond hydrophobic, in my defense.
>>
Feels bad to miss out on the rolls, but been busy with food and beating Ixion. Upside y'all thinking it out. I would have voted get on top and play king of the hill.
>>
>>5522751
>Ixion
How is it?
>>
>>5522819
If you played Frostpunk it will feel like home, but in space. Where power, people, and building space management will be your main juggle. To bad the demo still isn't playable. It gave a good idea of the ui and building game play. It's cool to see the ideas they had when exploring planets and locations the systems you jump to. As crew members sometimes go off the deep end on odd events. While I enjoyed most of my time. There were times I built up to much when I could of left sooner. So the later half got to easy.

tdlr: Story felt a little short, but the music, city building, and space events keep me going. I would wait for a sell. Unless you need to scratch the itch.
>>
>>5522733

I was hoping we'd be able to Gilligan's island stuff in the wild. Unfortunately it sounds like we need one of the Glecks or at least a basic terminal.
>>
>>5523107
To be fair, I was hoping for the same to some extent even if I didn't vote for it. Sadly it became more clear we need some sort of terminal to craft as you said. Seems weird though, I get that the classes are as much engineers and scientists as fighters and as such need specialized synthetic external tools as much as anybody IRL, but it seems weird to have integrated harvesting tools built into our bodies but not the UI or tools needed to actually craft. Maybe it is something we can get over with some Shards, better use of our time than making a super-pipe in my opinion.
>>
Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>5522539

Dangling more than a dozen feet above the ground, desperately gripping the precarious handhold of Tepellin's Teacher, you do what's only logical. Fumble with your UI one handed and manage to pull out the Glowberry Jelly from your inventory. A tied off length of intestine you pulled out of one of the leggy wurms appears out of the holographic interface. You struggle to hold onto Tepellin's Teacher and reach up with the radioactive sack as you fight against the gout of blue goo pouring from the eyeball.

>[HP 22/22]
>[Status: Nerveater Fungi Infection 25/65]

You've just about managed it when you feel the pipe shift, and weightlessness engulfs you. A quick lunge as you begin to fall, pressing against nothing to reach the wound...fails, and worse now you're falling in a terrible orientation.

You land hard on your left shoulder, but not as hard as you expected. A moment later you feel an explosion beneath you, but instead of tossing you away it's glued you to the ground.

>[ Sibyllan defeated Wooly Squelchwurm ]
>[ Sibyllan defeated Nerveater Conduit ]
>[ Status: Nerveater Infection 25/65, Entangled ]

Shit!

You strain to get free to no avail, but you do manage to pull your crossbow out of its shoulder holster. As you begin to draw a bead on the globe from your position on the ground though, you hear the wet squelches of spiked feet on the soggy mycelial ground. Instead of taking a shot you drop the bow and whirl Tepellin's Teacher around to deflect the ant that's going for your throat.

It's only one assailant though, and as it occupies your attention you feel Wooly Squelches attempt to take bites out of your torso and legs. Damn, you hope they don't damage your pants so badly you can't use Electroweave.

>[HP 16/22]
>[CC 45/110]
>[ Status: Entangled, Nerveater Fungi Infection 26/65 ]

Fuck! You're on your ass on the ground with 3 wooly squelches biting the fuck out of you, an one alien ant trying to do the same, and another group just as big who knows how close to joining in.

The eye looks down at your struggle. The stream of luminous blue pouring down makes it look like it's crying. Why must you struggle so hard?

>Struggle out of the entanglement and fight your way out of this group, aiming to retreat from the clearing or at least gain some distance for now.
>Use your crossbow and nail the ant with shock bolts, you (and the pillar) will definitely be caught in the AoE but it'll end these fucks quick so you can run from the second group and recover.
>Ditch your armored jacket to escape the entanglement and assault the wurms, trying to use their on-death silk explosions to tie up the ant attacking you and the other approaching group
>Tank whatever damage you're going to take and unload all your shock arrows into the blue eye above you. Hopefully this'll be enough to kill it.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 2 (1d100)

>>5523172
>Use your crossbow and nail the ant with shock bolts, you (and the pillar) will definitely be caught in the AoE but it'll end these fucks quick so you can run from the second group and recover.
>Use the health hypo afterwards.

We have healing resources, we can get through this.

Also, the googledoc still lists us as having the satchel charge we used earlier. Just a heads up.
>>
Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>5523183
Thanks!
>>
>>5523191
Why is it always 97?!

also np
>>
Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5523183
I'll support this. Regen makes all problems go away, but the minions won't just respawn....right?
>>
Rolled 11 (1d100)

>>5523183
My only worry is the damage to our armor. Assuming that is a thing from the wording of past post and this one just now.
>>
>>5523273
We do have damage on our clothes, it says so in the googledoc. Tanking the mooks or fighting more will end up with us taking damage anyways though. I suppose we could attempt to struggle free and then run, we could shoot them afterwards, though they may not cluster up for a nice shock bolt then.
>>
Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>5523172
>Shock aoe
The intestines can't be bitten through or something? I thought they'd be easier to open.

These are some sucky rolls
>>
>>5523172
**Rolled 83 (1d100)**
>Struggle out of the entanglement and fight your way out of this group, aiming to retreat from the clearing or at least gain some distance for now.

I hope we're able to break free, kill the immediate threat and run. Specially the breaking free part lol
>>
Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5523430
Wooly Squelchwurms explode into a bunch of sticky glue and silk when they die and you landed on one when you fell off the Eye. You're glued to the corpse of the worm (and also the glue is just kinda all over you) and the worm is glued to the ground, inhibiting your movement.

>>5523172
>Fry yourself along with them, then heal and run.

2d100 Bo3 please. If we get these rolls out quick I might be able to update in the next few hours, otherwise it'll be late this evening.
>>
Rolled 83, 1 = 84 (2d100)

>>5523602
IT's time
>>
Rolled 3, 71 = 74 (2d100)

>>5523602
behold, the perils of 1d100
>>
The dice do be loving a low and a high today.
>>
Rolled 100, 81 = 181 (2d100)

>>5523602
might sleep soon
>>
>>5523615
...wtf

>>5523649
WTF!?
>>
Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>5523615
>>5523649

A crit fail and a crit success at the same damn time. That’s uhh…that’s gonna take a while to figure out.
>>
Rolled 25 (1d100)

>>5524020
Alright guys! I've got to travel today, and I need a few days to figure this out, develop the new skills you've unlocked, and do some general background work.

We'll resume on Wednesday or Thursday. Thanks to all you guys for playing!
>>
>>5524771
Thanks for writing!
>>
Rolled 43 (1d100)

I was wondering if there was a cooking skill. I didn't find one with the search function, but I'm gonna guess Alchemy would help with it. Soon we will have berry smoothies to power up.
>>
Rolled 41 (1d100)

>>5524771
Alright, good news is that I have the crits figured out.

Bad news is that I feel like death today, so I'm postponing til tomorrow. Sorry!
>>
Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>5523172

There's a moment of panic as the severity of your situation really hits you. Like they have a window into you, your foes redouble their attacks. The wurms release your legs, doused in gluey silk from their bites, to relatch onto your arms. The giant ant lunges for your throat with its cruel maw at the same time.

But in their haste to end you there's just a second where none of them are pinning you down.

A pulse of Electroweave, your foot catches the ant in the center of its monstrous thorax with enough force to throw it into the air. With the same motion, while your strength is still boosted by the fabric, you backflip out of your greatcoat. The armor remains glued to the ground and the squelchwurms bite down on its now empty sleeves. The monsters have no eyes, but you can sense their surprise and disappointment.

>[HP 17/22]
>[CC 55/110]
>[ Status: Entangled, Nerveater Fungi Infection 26/55 ]

They're quick to detach, lines of silk drooling out of their mouths down to the sleeves. Burbling hisses start to come out of their throats when the mutant ant lands awkwardly on them with a wet THUMP.

You only catch the action out of the corner of your eye, as you transform your backflip into a desperate dive for your crossbow. It's awkward, you were never a gymnast and frankly don't know how you managed the flip in the first place. Awkward but effective. As the ant lands you're standing up with the weapon aimed towards the mound of monsters. They're only a few feet away, far too close to use your AoE bolts without catching backlash. Especially since all the ground has become sodden with the blue goo leaking from the orb atop the tower.

You hear the hiss of the other group closing in behind you. No choice, no time. You pull the trigger.
>>
File: the gaze.png (1.41 MB, 680x903)
1.41 MB
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Rolled 34 (1d100)

>>5530847

As you do, you look up. On the edge of your vision the arrow begins accelerating down the track of the crossbow. Time slows to a crawl as your eyes meet the dark spot inside the neon blue orb.

You exist in a snapshot of time for a moment, for an eternity. Every aspect of your situation gets seared into place. The bolt is halfway off the crossbow, but frozen. Your pants and shoes are sticky with silk, and you'll probably be frozen in place as it drips down if you don't move quickly. Your lungs burn from short breaths, but you're frozen in time and unable to inhale. The landscape around you is filled with multitudinous fungi, wormy with the veins of neon blue that originate from the orb that has your gaze and attention locked onto it.

Everything you can perceive is frozen in stasis, except the orb and its dark spot. Before your eyes it shifts into the gaping dark hole to infinity that you saw before. This time there's more though. A great voluminous mist pours from the boney structures surrounding the abyss this time, obscuring figures that...you're unsure if they're human or not, or perhaps once were human.

As you look one of the figures in the mist seems to notice your g̸̱͑a̸̪͂z̷͖͠ë̸̥́. It moves towards you from amongst the multitude, leaving swirling eddies in its wake. As it grows closer the mist grows thinner and you begin to make out more details of its shape...it's strangely familiar.

It's difficult to describe the passage of time, frozen as you are. Within a moment, after an eternity of the figure walking towards you it emerges from the shroud of mist perhaps a few feet away, and you drop to your knees at the sight. You're no longer holding your crossbow, your equipment is no longer belted around your waist.

Your mother, healthy, thin, tall, stands in front of you looking down with infinite tenderness and love. Every detail as you remember, an amalgam from her best moments in your childhood...every detail except her eyes. Rather than hazel, they're instead twin orbs of blue with dark abysses in their center. Tears well up in your own at the sight of her.

"Come now child, do not cry. There's no need for tears now, nor ever."

Your mom takes steps towards you, and then kneels down next to you. You can feel the warmth and love radiating off of her, in the midst of the cold fog. She opens her arms, inviting you to hug. The abysses within her eyes bore into your soul, but rather than the agony of void they offer the comfort of sapping away that which troubles you.

"Embrace me, and you will never be alone to face the world again."

Something deep down within you tells you that her offer is genuine.

>Accept your mother's embrace. Let out the tears, frustration, and fear that have gripped you since her death.
>This is not your mother, but the comfort offered here is real. Shake the entity's hand, but no more.
>This is not your mother, how dare a monster puppet her visage. Slap the entity.
>Other?
>>
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Rolled 81 (1d100)

>>5530878
mfw the eldritch abomination invites us into a hivemind and is the only one who genuinely loves us in the world anymore.

Honestly, it'd be interesting to embrace the crazy, but the idea of this thing stealing our mother's image is too insulting.

>This is not your mother, but the comfort offered here is real. Shake the entity's hand, but no more.

Tempted to slap it away, but it means well...maybe.
>>
>>5530878
>Shake the hand, but warn it to never use your mother's form ever again
>>
>>5530878
Yeah, I'll switch to this >>5530928
>>
Rolled 95 (1d100)

Gonna wait for votes on this overnight. Been gone, wanna let people at least have a chance flutter back and chime in.
>>
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Rolled 41 (1d100)

I do not know how to feel about teaming up/giving into control with a hive mind. Most of all with no prior connections or deals. The path makes me wonder, but the gut feeling makes me think this is a bad move.

Fuck. I'm just gonna leave it up to dice and votes. Picking the path I feel is best to me. Yet I do love the idea and path others picked.

>This is not your mother, how dare a monster puppet her visage. Slap the entity.

----

Also I'm going though pics for ideas for our minions.
>>
>>5531051
It's specifically about throwing yourself into the unknown, which is an unusual choice to pick for the average player but also rather thematic of a downtrodden cyberpunk civvie who's never really been treated well by society.
>>
>>5531058
Yeah I can understand that line of thought, but I can't trust like that. Ether way I looks forward to where we end up.
>>
Rolled 41 (1d100)

>>5530928
>>5530935
>>5531051
>Shake its hand, never use my mother's form again - 2
>Slap it for this insolence - 1
Lockin it in. Will write the update after I get some caffeine into me.
>>
Rolled 12 (1d100)

>>5530878

A series of emotions runs through you as you look at your mother. Patiently kneeling next to you, the entity wearing her face could seemingly wait forever for your response.

You hear a twang and cracking sound from far away.

Part of you snarls with disgust and anger, how dare this thing puppet someone so dear to you. It's worse than when the doctors unceremoniously handed you a pad, informing you of her passing and asking you to sign the payment for treatment with the same breath. You stand, shrugging the offer of a hug away with venom, the snarl in your soul showing itself on your face.

She's folded her hands in her lap now, expression serene, her empty eyes stab you as you look at them.

"You, you stop using her right now." You had intended to shout, but it comes out as a pathetic whisper instead. Barely audible even to you.

Your heart yearns to embrace her, to pretend that she's really your mom and release these pent up emotions. The tension between this desire and your disgust rips at you.

"I know not how I appear to you, child. You see whatever fits closest to my intention, pulled from your memories and experiences. Accept me in, and I will modify my form as you wish."

"How accommodating. How trustworthy." the words come out dripping with the poison bubbling in you. Your body tingles, almost painfully, at the turbulence within. Your mother's eye twitches.

"Please, child, I give you this offer in confidence. Would you deny yourself an opportunity for choice? If you prefer, I can treat you as a slave. Bludgeon you to acceptance with the threat of violence. It's the treatment you are more familiar with." Without warning or movement she's standing in front of you, hand hovering a few millimeters above your shoulder. It's gentle like she's just caressed your cheek, but simultaneously threatening as though she might snap your neck. She twitches, her hand colliding with your cheek so slightly, and electric agony erupts from the point of contact. She grimaces.

"But I'd rather it not be like that."
>>
Rolled 56 (1d100)

>>5532097

Again with no transition her hand is gone from your shoulder, instead she stands in front of your with arm outstretched for a handshake. Her skin has begun to emit a faint blueish radiance, casting highlights against the fog that surrounds you in this non-space. Her expression is strained, perhaps somewhat pleading. The pain from in your cheek spreads across your face, and begins slowing creeping across your body.

"If you would accept me then do so quickly."

You're not sure what to feel. You're not sure what to do. You're not sure if this thing can be trusted. Your mind is roiling with your disgust, anger, hope that she might be sincere, fear of the same, and the low-level pain that's spreading across you.

"Goddammit! Fine then!"

With a shout you take your mother's hand. For an instant an evil smile crosses her face, then her face is no more. Her entire body has been replaced by a perfectly spherical abyss. You're already buried in it up to your shoulder, and you feel it sucking in the rest of you.

"How very fine, and just in time. Curse that goddess for her restrictions, but you did fall in the end."

It's not your body that's being consumed, but your mind, your essence. You brace your feet against the ground below in an effort to fight against the pull. It actually makes a difference, to your surprise, and you halt with half of your upper body buried inside the darkness of the sphere. You can still feel that part of you, the sphere is not annihilating it...it's changing it. Warping you, that you can fit inside with infinite comfort. The sensation is horrifying beyond belief, your stomach churns and you're sure you would've vomited if you weren't in this limbo.

In the midst of being consumed, converted, something changes. The ache that'd been spreading across you intensifies. It feels as though you're being electrocuted.

As the sensation shifts the black orb emits a piercing shriek. Its perfectly spherical surface distorts into an infinite array of tendrils writhing wildly, like a nightmarish sea urchin in agony. The shift in form causes it to loosen the grip. The change is minuscule, but it's enough. You let out a sickening groan and strain to rip yourself free.

Your body comes out with a sickeningly wet pop. You fall to the ground in slow motion, and see that the half of you that was inside the sphere has now been pierced by countless writhing worms of luminescent blue. Infestation, just like the whole area you've been traveling through.

You close your eyes at the sight, revulsion flashing into the deepest depths of your being. Then you hit the ground in a awkward clump.
>>
Rolled 15 (1d100)

>>5532201

You open them again a fraction of a second later, no longer than it takes to blink, and find yourself kneeling on the ground beneath the tower. Your crossbow is on the ground in front of you, evidently having dropped from slack hands.

>[HP 18/22]
>[CC 55/110]
>[ Status: Moderate Burns, Nerveater Fungi Infection [53/55, Electrocuted ]
>Acquired Trait: [ Nerveater Conjoined ]

You look past the status notifications and see electric blue sparks dancing across your skin, burning you in the process. Smoke rises from the clump of bodies that were the ant and wurms that had attacked you, clearly burnt to a crisp by the arrow your shot into them.

The real show, though, is the eye-like orb above you. Huge arcs of electricity are dancing through it, generated from the tower it sits atop of. All the blue vines descending from the orb have already been burnt and are falling down as ash around you. The dark spot inside the orb is desperately dodging around to avoid being struck as the loops of electricity sear vast swathes of goo inside into steam. Enough has been vaporized that it's not even really an orb anymore. More like a partially deflated balloon, or a leathery reptile egg that's become flaccid after its occupant departs. It makes no sound despite its clear agony, unless you count the scream of steam escaping from punctures in the membrane.

You can't help but feel like you're forgetting something about the situation though, and that's when it hits you.

It, in this instance, being the giant mutant ant from the other group on patrol bowling you over from behind, cracking something in your back. It rakes the sharp teeth from its eerily human mouth across your unprotected shoulder as it does so. The movements are awkward though, and rather than clamping down and pinning you to the ground as easy prey it sort of...tumbles over past you instead.

>[ HP 10/22 ]

You hear hissing, with a slurred quality, from the wurms. You awkwardly roll sideways and dodge their leaping lunges. They savage the ground where you just were, nipping chunks out of each other in the process.

You come to your feet unsteadily, muscles twitching from the electric discharge. You fumble with your UI, and manage to dose yourself with the healing hypo just as the wurms realize they're attacking nothing and the alien ant gets back to its feet.

>[HP 15/22]
>[HP 16/22]

The ant stands about 10 feet away, between you and the tower with the orb, which has stopped emitting electricity. The wurms are off to your side by a few feet, threatening to pincer you. But you're alive, able to move, and tremendously pissed off.

>First things first, don't let that EYE recover. Pump it full of the rest of your electroshock bolts then turn Tepellin's Teacher upon these other enemies.
>Beat these things down using your pipe, then leap up to the orb to finish the job.
>Fuck ALL of this, retreat while peppering the ant and wurms with crossbow bolts.
>Other?
>>
Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5532230
>First things first, don't let that EYE recover. Pump it full of the rest of your electroshock bolts then turn Tepellin's Teacher upon these other enemies.
Finish the job before it can recover to the point to stop us.
>>
Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5532230
>First things first, don't let that EYE recover. Pump it full of the rest of your electroshock bolts then turn Tepellin's Teacher upon these other enemies.

Yeah, I figured it'd be something like that. On one hand, the name of the infection gives me reason for concern. On the other hand...oooooh, unique skills! The googledoc was updated, I'm curious to see where this leads. I wonder what would've happened if we did the full embrace? More skills? Loss of agency? Death and loss of our identifier? Would've been interesting.

I'm guessing the reason why she was hurried and said 'just in time' was that the electricity was burning her and the hivemind was already dying, so she just barely managed to shove parts of her shattered soul into us so that she lives on.

Anyways, time to cough up the shards lady! We want them goddess shards! And EXP, and god damn it we better get bludgeon level up so we can finally stop being bad at hitting things with some degree of actual skill.
>>
>>5532230
>First things first, don't let that EYE recover. Pump it full of the rest of your electroshock bolts then turn Tepellin's Teacher upon these other enemies.

Things are going as expected, but now I'm curious how that Nerveater is going to feel about all the radiation and other hitchhikers in this body. Will it be happy just munching on cancerous nerves?

>>5532416
That, or getting fungi'd would lead to bodily damage that makes us unsuitable for a vessel.
>>
Rolled 54 (1d100)

>>5532431
>>5532416
>>5532290
Let's get 1d100 Bo3.

I'm considering labeling options that'll require rolls with difficulties, where the difficulty determines the dice pool for the action. Dice modifiers and DCs for each potential scenario would still be kept behind closed doors, but it'll let you guys take informed risks. What do you think?
>>
Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>5532608
I'm not too fussed either way. 3d100 will always be swingy no matter how we cut it, so I'm more focused on the plan than rolls.
>>
Rolled 12 (1d100)

>>5532608
>>
Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5532608
>>
Rolled 5 (1d100)

>>5532608
I'd prefer to know our dice modifiers but only the ones we'd understand, like those granted to us by our stats, equipment, skills and masteries, etc. I think maybe being able to see difficulties should require the Keen Observation mastery unless it is something easy to assess in real time or we take the time to choose/write-in a prompt where we specifically observe or assess an action before doing it. In that same vein I think approximate DCs should be able to be gleaned, because labelling a difficulty is fundamentally pointless unless we have an actual understanding of what the DC is, since more than just our dice pool affects how hard something is. Though, like I said, just approximate DCs, the estimated number can be of a broad range or vague based on how unclear it would be narratively.
>>
Rolled 61 (1d100)

>>5532947
I'd sooner die than reveal the DCs I use degrees of success anyway, but suffice to say harder rated actions have higher DCs to go along with their smaller dice pool but will also produce superior results.

I do like the idea of tying it into [Keen Observation], though I've been trying to keep wording that explicitly references game mechanics out of the skill descriptions.
>>
>>5533033
You do you, I'll read and vote either way. Nonetheless I'll reiterate; I don't mind not getting the EXACT DC. However, I am adamant that unless we learn the ballpark numbers that correspond to each difficulty label in addition to our dicepool, and what those labels translate to in some broad but concrete examples, and what our own modifiers from stats are - not including secret stuff like the nerve-eater infection infection or blowberry stuff or stuff that is external to us like terrain mods or enemy debuffs - then labels like "easy" or "hard" basically mean nothing.

I'll go through why that is so for each of those things, excluding our dicepool since you are already considering show how many dice we get for each label.

Without ballpark DC numbers we have no idea how hard "hard" is or how easy "easy" is. We don't know if you run your DCs through a sanity check using a dicepool calculator or if you just go with what feels right to you on a whim, or if you know the averages we'd usually get based on our stat modifiers and dicepool or if you just can't do math, and we don't know subjectively what you consider to be hard or easy. Not that I think you are dumb or anything, but as insane as it sounds to say "I don't know what you mean by moderately difficult", this is slightly more complex than it seems.

Without knowing our own stat's effects in terms of dice modifiers we are left without knowing what our weapon skills and some passive masteries mean other than "bigger number better, get bigger number". We don't know our competence floor and difficulty labels are further obscured by that lack of transparency regarding how powerful we are in terms of actual effects on the dice, and more importantly by the relative nature of those labels given our changing stats over time.

Without concrete examples we again, do not know what beating a "easy" or "hard" DC mean, or how good X degrees of success is, or the physical in-universe limits of our own body or even just random materials we run into for example. This is a problem both some mainstream and indie TTRPGs have, both recently and since forever ago, where the authors of a book or new edition write "X DC is trivial, easy, medium, hard, impossible, etc" but don't write in what beating those DCs mean you can do in-universe. Imagine playing a superhero TTRPG where you don't know if beating an easy DC means you can break down a wooden door but not a steel one, or if beating a hard DC means you can melt 100 kg of mild steel with your laser eyes or if you can actually just blow up the planet. This is why it is important to have these examples to know where you are both in relative terms like "comparable to a beginner, expert, world record holder, X degree of superhuman, etc" - though I understand why we shouldn't learn that in this case since the world and other players are supposed to be a mystery - and in at least-
>>
>>5533033
>>5533305
-ballpark absolute terms stuff like "you can climb a wall with handholds in it with some difficulty, you can climb a sheer ice wall, you can climb a sheer wall coated in a frictionless coating of some metamaterial if you beat 'X' DC".

Hopefully you understand what I mean.

At the very least I think we should know what our own stats and equipment mean in dice mod terms. If you don't want quest mechanics to be in skill descriptions for immersions sake then you could just separate the in-universe text and the quest related stuff in different paragraphs, one with brackets or something and one without. We are playing an MMORPG after all, it makes sense to be able to see your own stats and be given info on what they mean and how much DPS you can output or whatever, all you are doing is translating what that means from the narrative to what it means for us in the actual quest. Though I understand if it is a explicitly a plot point that the skill descriptions don't come with explicit numbers and the spooky MMO is actually real or another dimension or something, so it is meant to be vague and mysterious. Though if the googledoc is meant to be an in-universe document then you could just acknowledge that unlocking Keen Observation would clarify DCs a bit in the thread itself and keep it out of the doc, if you go that route that is.

If even that is off the table then I think I prefer going without the difficulty labels. Having a difficulty label may sway voting in an unnatural feeling way without any actual benefit of mechanical clarity. By swayed I mean stuff like "eh we are fighting mooks and have no time limit except the flooding and HP doesn't matter as long as we don't die since we have regen, so lets just pick the clear easy option instead of what's cool. You can imagine a scenario for always picking the harder option too if there is a reward or a time limit we have to beat, as long as death isn't likely like against mooks. I could be wrong, but it could encourage voting based off the difficulty label rather than an engagement with the writing and assessment of the tactical situation.

It is nice to just assess plans based off the writing, our assessment of the situation, and the prompts, or to do a write-in using the prompts as a jumping off point. This style of quest inspired by BSO and Totemist live off the write-ins encouraged by the easy 3d100 system and vague fuzzy narrativity.

Just so I don't freak you out, don't sweat this choice. I'm not writing this wall of text because I'm mad or gonna quit the quest if you make an adjustment I don't agree with or anything. Just wanted to give my feedback. I'm opinionated about this stuff.
>>
>>5533306
I kinda agree, but I wasn't going to push for anything actionable until MC reaches society. By then, MC would have a slightly better developed common sense for physical actions, and would know if punching a concrete wall is hard or not.

I'm not too fussed about specific DC numbers because everyone fucks it up, and I'm tired of taking 3d100 seriously
>>
My only comment on the side bar at the moment. Is agreeing about lack of info for beating dc in games. Ends up having to be up to the DM and that can shut down a lot creativity for problem solving. Which can also be a head ache for new or old Dms and players. Be it from breaking the rails in seconds because didn't think about that. To just slowing the game down do to rule checking and debates.

That being said I understand balancing is not easy ether for setting up rules. Favorite be using mundane to deal with magic.
>>
Rolled 37 (1d100)

>>5533434
>>5533326
>>5533306
>>5533305
>>5532947

Thanks for all the feedback anons! I'll take it into consideration. For the rest of this thread we'll stick with actions being incredibly nondescript and narrative, with you guys having to weigh the risks and rewards of a given action yourselves based on my description.

>>5533306
It may or may not be a plot point that there are no specific numbers and only vague descriptions in a lot of the game mechanics. Whether it is or not, my main motivation is that keeping it vague allows me to troubleshoot and modify things without anyone getting upset at missed opportunities.
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5532230

You draw the crossbow up to your shoulder and pull the trigger, you want that gods damned orb to hurt. Hurt the way your heart is hurting from seeing your mom as a monster and being stupid enough to fall for its trick.

All your spit and vinegar doesn't make your twitching muscles and burn-numbed fingers able to aim any better. You get two shots off before one of the wurms takes a flying leap and clamps down on your arm. Half a heartbeat later the other three worms are also on you. Only now, getting bit without your armor on, do you realize that although they lack teeth the worms glue sharp shards of rock and metal into their mouths with their silk. They also have absolutely horrendous bite strength.

>[HP 3/22]

The bolts you got off strike true and strike hard. Arcs of scalding white lightning manifest with consummate violence inside the orb. Untold liters of fluid get vaporized and spew violently from rents in its membrane. The force of the gases is apparently too much for the orb without its network of vines securing it to the tower. It begins to wobble and tip over seemingly in slow motion. The dark spot inside also has less and less room to dodge electricity as the fluid inside is burnt up. Just as the eye begins to topple, a lick of lightning barely brushes against the dark spot.

There's a shattering sensation in your head and you feel a sense of loss and fury. Like watching some fool throw a stone through an ancient and beautiful stained glass window because they were bored, not even understanding the perfection they've ruined.

>[ Sibyllan Defeated Nerveater Slime Lesser Node ]
>[ 2 Nodes Remain ]

The wurms attempting to crush your bones fall limp at the same time the notification flashes across your vision. Then promptly explode into sticky silk, gluing you into place.

>[ Sibyllan defeated Wooly Squelchwurm x3, Nerveater Conduit x3 ]
>[HP 4/22]
>[ Status: Moderate Burns, Nerveater Fungi Infection 3/55, Electrocuted, Entangled ]

There's no mitigating factors this time, and no greatcoat to shrug out of, you're thoroughly covered in the entangling goo. In the split second before it solidifies you drop your crossbow and grab Tepellin's Teacher from your belt to defend yourself from the alien ant. The crossbow doesn't even hit the ground, instead drooping lazily by a few strings from your hand and arm...

The ant, meanwhile, is charging at you. Trying to barrel you over like the other one did and glue you to the ground...but it seems to be having an even worse time than you are. Its charge is ridiculously slow, like it's having trouble understanding how to move its limbs. Slow enough that you crack the chitin of its forelimbs as they get in range, and the creature collapses to the ground in front of you. Almost like it's begging to be beaten to death.

You're more than happy to oblige, and proceed to beat its thick skull to a pulp of grey brain matter, neon blue Nerveater fluid, and small chunks of chitin.
>>
Rolled 51 (1d100)

>>5533953

You sit down, careful to first maneuver one of the wurm corpses under your butt to make sure you don't get glued to the ground, and just pant for a while. Your muscles continue to twitch, your hands and other patches around your body are achingly numb where the backblast of your own electric arrows burned you, and other places are semi-numb from the game's sensation suppression at injured areas.

Your regeneration slowly ticks your health back up...and you cry. Great heaving sobs come out of you, the ugly crying of the powerless who have no other recourse to vent their emotions.

"Fuck. I fucking knew better than to accept that offer, why didn't I just tell it to go to hell, god fucking dammit..." your complaints come out phlegmy and breathless between wordless groans of emotional turmoil.

As your health ticks back into the double digits, your black mood is interrupted by the sound of rustling from the fungi behind you. You whip your tear-stained face around to look at the source, and catch a glimpse of some neon-edged insectoid form scurrying off into the undergrowth.


>[HP 11/22]
>[CC 50/110]
>[ Status: Moderate Burns, Nerveater Fungi Infection [4/55 ]

It's not much, but it's enough to stir you out of your self pity. You gather yourself, scraping the goo off the squelchwurm bodies to unstick the silk from yourself, and retrieve quickly loot the bodies and retrieve your greatcoat...which is looking increasingly the worse for wear, though it's not nearly as torn up as your Electroweave Pants are. You loot the bodies, a mostly uneventful affair. Worryingly you notice that the Nerveater infection has seemingly gone up despite you being very careful to avoid touching any blue goo.

>Acquired Gene-Traces: Air Sensing Whiskers 10/10, Gluey Silk Organ 10/10, Chitin Natural Weapons, Fungi Cultivating Tissues 4/5
>Acquired Items: Squelch Wool x24, Silk Organs x3, Chitin Spikes x6, Chitin Plates x3, 242 Credits, Shock Canister Arrow

Having recovered your equipment, you look over at what remains of the orb. It's laying like a popped fish egg next to the tower, draining out a few dregs of blue goo which lacks the luminescence it had at first. The dark ball presses against the deflated membrane grotesquely, causing pleats in the rubbery material around it. You shudder, but approach to collect what you can from it.
>>
Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5534011

You nab your two arrows from it first, then take your combat knife to cut the core out from under the membrane. As you lift the vaguely circular chunk away you sense rather than see them embedded in the core. Your knife darts forward on instinct and cleaves the thing in two. Laying in either hemispherical chunk of dark grey spongy meat are a pair of glittering gems. Rather than shimmering emerald these are a hue of purple so deep they could almost be black, and they drink the light around them in rather than shining brilliantly. For all that they're no less beautiful than the Shards you already have. They're in your hands before you know it. Where the green shards you found beforehand offered a feeling of comfort and warmth these instead give you a sensation like...like being the smartest person in the room, or the satisfaction of solving a difficult puzzle. It's different, but no less desirable than what the viridian Shards of Tiamet offer. Gods, you need more Shards.

You secrete them into your identifier, where no one and nothing could possibly take them before taking your life. Only once your new precious treasures are safe do you worry about letting the flesh-tendril mouth emerge from your hand to harvest what it can from the core, and getting any other loot as well. The mouth dives into the stringy dark grey matter of the core with gusto.

>Acquired Gene-Traces: Slime-Leather Skin, Psychic Organ 3/50, Advanced Neural Networks 4/20
>Acquired Items: Slime-Leather x15, Shock Canister Arrow x2, Defunct Nerveater Core, 333 Credits

"Well I nearly died, but at least I get to keep all this loot to yourself...not that I have anywhere to spend it or know what to do with it..."

"Cheer up, sister, at least it could hardly get any worse." Rocky quips.

"Why would you fucking say something like that? WHY? That's just inviting disaster!"

"Oops! Maybe getting my sensory organs electrocuted shorted some circuits in my cold dead stone brain or something. Now maybe you can plug me into that pillar like we came here to do originally?"

Your response is a frustrated huff at the rock. He (it?) has a point though. Whatever you're going to do you should go ahead and do.

>That bug you saw earlier makes you nervous. Try to track it down, no good can come of letting it reach where ever it's going.
>Investigate the pillar and plug Rocky into it, that's what you came here for in the first place.
>Fuck it, you barely survived that encounter and you doubt that the other Nerveater nodes are going to take it lying down. Make for the entrance you came from as fast as you can.
>Take some time to look around this area, maybe there are some secrets?
>Other?
>>
>>5534011
Nerveater should be at 4/60 not 4/55
>>
>>5534032
>Plug rocky in

I suspect the insect is the last bit of nerveater trying channel the infection again. It could be playing the long game, or looking to plug into another slime for a much faster infection signal.

But the pants won't survive another race. We need new tools of some sort if we're going to take it down, I doubt we have enough weapon xp for crossbow aim
>>
>>5534032
>Investigate the pillar and plug Rocky into it, that's what you came here for in the first place.

I doubt reinforcements are anywhere nearby in large concentrations, the largest groups should be around the other nerveeater nodes, and we dealt with this group just fine. Our main trouble was concentrating on the node itself while we were getting glued up. If we sense enemy reinforcements arriving before we are fully healed then we can pop the health hypo's other half.

Plus, we may not get the chance to do this as easily in the future if reinforcements are coming, because they may lock the area down. I think it is worth it to get rocky to get us that map, and even stay to look for secrets. We can hold off a wave or two while exploring and fighting defensively.
>>
Rolled 94 (1d100)

>>5534044
Forgot roll.
>>
Rolled 88 (1d100)

>>5534032

> Plug rocky in
>>
Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>5534032

>Plug Rocky In
>[LOCKED]

Oh boy, time to finally introduce crafting. Can't wait to see how much of a headache this shit causes me. Should be grand fun.
>>
Rolled 80 (1d100)

>>5534032

You walk towards the tower and plug Rocky in to do his thing. Then you wander around and idly speak, halfway to your stony miened companion and halfway to yourself.

"You know...it looked small and thin with the buboe atop it, but it's actually about the size of fairly large tree isn't it? Well, according to the edu-sims I got anyway. Never got the chance to see a real tree in real life. Not sure Syntrees really have that much in common with the real ones..."

Comparing it to a tree feels weird though. With the pulsing blue vines burnt off its mechanical nature is first and foremost. There are faint circuit patterns seemingly embedded into the metal-like surface, and a few strangely organic looking grey bits poke out from between segmented panels in some places. The whole thing is just terribly incongruous against the background of the mushroom forest and the corpses of biological monstrosities littering the area around it.

You've just about completed a full circle around it by the time Rocky calls out that he's done.

"Alright, so good news and bad news."

"Why is my life the way it is, what deity did I piss off."

"Well either Namshub, Tiamet, or Kartikeya would be the proximal guesses...

Anyway, bad news is this isn't a data hub of any sort and it only has a local map...that I can already tell based on our exploration is horribly out of date to the current state of terrain. Good news is I know where to (probably) find a more complete map, elsewhere in this area.

Other good news is that even though this isn't a data hub I think you'll be interested in what it IS. Other bad news is...well you'll find out, just come look at this."

Your curiosity is effectively piqued by the rock's cryptic words. As you get close an arm branches off from the tower, descending from the top on a series of actuated joints. It reminds you of a single flower petal opening up. A strange helmet dangles from its end like a seed drooping on the end of a twig.

You cast a dubious glance at your companion.

"I can watch the immediate area, go ahead."

You take a moment to confirm that there's nothing in there that'll immediately sink teeth into you or pierce your skull. It has a strange fusion of biological and mechanical components...and is utterly impenetrable to your understanding. So you shrug, and put it on.
>>
Looking at [Nerveater Consumption, Passive]. I'm thinking it will be best for a super unit or base set up node of our own. Probably not worth the risk otherwise. It would be cool to have a base set and some portals can move as need to new areas for resources.
>>
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Rolled 66 (1d100)

Sorry guys, I fell asleep!

It's also way harder than I expected to present the rules I came up with in a clear and concise manner, so I'm working on that too!
>>
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Rolled 58 (1d100)

>>5534173

You find yourself standing atop a bland white floor of indeterminate composition, it stretches out forever in all directions. Everything except the floor is largely black with neon green grid patterns laid out in 3-dimensions against a black sky. The ghostly green poles emerge from the ground and carve the world into what seems to be cubes of 1 meter to every side. Thankfully you're not just some formless Observer, you're here as your avatar and there's a considerable distance around you clear of the grid pattern.

The only exception to the desolation and cheap computer graphics is a blob of undifferentiated meat sitting in front of you. About the size of a large watermelon, surface adorned by a pair of dull black eyes, and a mouth ringed with bony protusions that failed to fully seal together when closed.

Sort of like a starfish, you think, and as you do so the pill-shaped chunk of meat flattens itself and grows five pseudopods out from a circular center section. You flinch and blink, disgusted and wondering what sort of twisting went on to turn a flesh watermelon into a flesh starfish. Then you don’t see the flesh anymore…well, you do actually but it’s sort of transparent so you can see the meat-lump’s internals. Various organs seat themselves at various points around the creature, and you see an incredibly convoluted and (you’re pretty sure) terribly inefficient skeletal structure running through its core and out to the tips of the arms.

A holographic display pops up next to the creature as well.

>Augmentoid Creation Mode
>3/5 Cats of Biomass
>250 Cats of Biomass available in vicinity
>0/5 Gene-Traces
>10 Credits

Curiosity somewhat piqued you blink a few more times while thinking of physiological terms, and each time you’re rewarded with different perspectives on the creature in front of you. At one point both the lines of nervous tissue running through the creature and it’s skeletal system are in front of you and you notice that a nerve will definitely get pincered in a joint with the way it’s pathed. Without thinking you reach out and pluck the nerve out of the pinch point, routing it in a way that’s both more efficient and safer. You don’t know how you know that it’s a much better arrangement, you just intuit it as though you’ve studied biomechanics your whole life.

Neat! The holo-display updated too.

>20 Credits

But looking over the rest of the creature you realize how horrifically complicated it would be to revamp the entire thing’s physiology to get rid of all the issues that cropped up when it changed form.

You sigh, blink back to seeing the creature regularly. A few seconds later, an incredibly generic and rough rendering of a face appears and begins speaking.
>>
Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5535257

"Greetings, User [ Sibyllan ]

Welcome to the GLECK Interface! We detect that this is your first time operating a GLECK and are happy to provide you with a basic orientation!

Warning! This GLECK has recently experienced power surges and has been forced to reboot. Unfortunately BRM (Biological Rights Management) licenses were lost, and this GLECK now only has Class 1 functionality!

We apologize to the User for any inconvenience this may cause.

Detecting BRM Certifications…User [ Sibyllan ] possesses [ Symbiosis Lvl 1 ] and [Alchemical Compounding Lvl 1] Certs. Congratulations, User!

Accessing Orientation Files now...
"

=====

>Greetings, User! You are now accessing a GLECK unit for the first time. Please read this brief explanation and FAQ before attempting to utilize the GLECK. Feel free to ask the integrated SI any additional questions after you're done!
>GLECKs (Generalized Life Enhancement and/or Creation Kits) are the one-stop-shop for all your Organitech crafting needs. Medicine, Augmentoids, Stims, Poisons, and more all in one convenient integrated unit!
>GLECKS require 2 currencies to function. Credits and Biomass. Credits will be deducted from the User’s account, Biomass can be piled around a given GLECK unit and will be automatically harvested to a finalized augmentoid, medicine, toxin, etc.
>Please note that biomass must be pacified in order to be processed by the GLECK. Biomass which has largely ceased biological activity loses its effectiveness as construction material rapidly! Most more complex projects will require sacrifice of existing augmentoids or compounds as feedstock!
>In addition to these currencies, only Organitechs with proper BRM certifications in the applicable fields are allowed to access certain GLECK technologies!

>For General Reference!

>Please be aware that more complex augmentoids and more potent compounds require more biomass and credits to be properly synthesized!
>Also be aware that the GLECK is not responsible for delivery upon completion of an augmentoid or compound! Always be sure to arrive on time to claim your final products, GLECKs are not responsible for thefts and no refunds will be given!
>>
Rolled 27 (1d100)

>>5535264

=====

>Creating Augmentoids!
-GLECK units have maximum Augmentoid size restrictions according to their Class rating. Class 1s can handle augmentoids up to approximately 5 Cats, able to generate most medium sized creatures. Class 2s can handle 25 Cats of biomass (Large Sized Creatures), Class 3s 100Cts (Power Armor Sized Creatures), Class 4s 1000Cts (Mech Sized Creatures), and Class 5s are unrestricted!
-In addition to mass processing limitations, each Class of GLECK can only handle genetic coding of a certain complexity! Class 1s can handle up to 4 Gene-Traces in a single augmentoid, Class 2s can handle 10, Class 3s are capable of 15, and the pattern continues with the notable exception of Class 5s which are unrestricted!
-The maximum number of Gene-Traces in an augmentoid is also determined by a given User’s rank in the [ Symbiosis ] skill, and corresponds to the number each Class of GLECK can accommodate.
-Gene-Traces are derived or harvested from real-world entities, and can be applied to Augmentoids to modify them from the basic template using known good combinations of genes. Gene-Traces merely provide the blueprint, and their specific expression can be modified after application.
-You may attempt to custom-fleshcraft any adaptation that you might usually get from a Gene-Trace, but be aware results may vary! Biological systems are very complex!
-Be aware that GLECKs require a certain amount of processing time to create your finalized design, and that upon its completion the GLECK is not responsible for delivery.
-Gene-Traces may be consumed in the process of creating augmentoids.
-Multiple instances of the same Gene-Trace may be applied to the same augmentoid if desired.
-Augmentoids capable of true reproduction or complete self replication are strictly forbidden, and any attempts to create such creatures will be penalized harshly.
-Any Gene-Traces with the ‘simple’ suffix do not take up a Gene-Trace slot.

=====
>>
Rolled 70 (1d100)

>>5535267

=====

>Creating: Medicines, Stims, Concoctions!
-GLECK units also allow you to create various compounds, provided you have the proper [ Medicinal Compounding ] and [ Alchemical Compounding ] BRM Certs!
-In general the [ Medicinal Compounding ] Certification allows you to create compounds that heal or create compounds that provide buffs, referred to as Medicines and Stims respectively.
-In general the [ Alchemical Compounding ] Certification allows you to create compounds that cause deleterious effects, and can be designed to be either grenades that disperse the compound in an area, or an injector that applies the compound to weaponry!
-To create a [ Medicine, Stim, Concoction ] simply select a Gene-Trace to sacrifice, a form for the dispenser, and provide at least a minimum amount of biomass and credits depending on the Trace in question. You can exceed the minimum required amounts of biomass and credits to increase the potency of the produced compound!
-The GLECK employs a heuristic model to cultivate a series of specialized biological tissues from the contributed biomass in order to create your end product. Increased credit contributions unlock additional metanodes for the heuristic model, guaranteeing a floor of effectiveness!
-Keep in mind that due to the inherently unpredictable nature of interaction between the model, biomass, and selected gene-traces consistent results are not guaranteed! This means each and every alchemical or medicinal creation is utterly unique! (Note: Although unique in the technical sense, the GLECK does not guarantee unique effects on every unit produced)

=====
>>
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Rolled 74 (1d100)

>>5535269

You feel as though you've been slapped in the face with an ice cold bucket of pure information and exposition, and it's not a good feeling. You blink away the eyestrain from reading all the rules for using this GLECK thing and look back over at the starfish.

>Augmentoid Creation Mode
>3/5 Cats of Biomass Reqd
>0/5 Gene-Traces Applied
>3 Estimated CC Req'd

>250 Cats of Biomass available in vicinity
>20 Credits Reqd
>User [ Sibyllan ] has 1275 Credits in their account

The SI must've modified the interface a bit, clearly still recovering from those power surges. You wonder what Class it was before you short circuited it with your arrows...

Setting nonproductive thoughts aside for a moment you experiment, focusing on the Gene-Traces icon a list of your current ones appears. Experimentally you apply the Quadrupedal Form, the Whip-Tail Simple Form, and the Light Chitin Exoskeleton. After a few moments and some tweaking from your end, a near perfect replica of the scavenger that attacked you when you first woke up in your pod is standing before you.

>Augmentoid Creation Mode
>3/5 Cats of Biomass Reqd
>2/5 Gene-Traces Applied
>10 Estimated CC Req'd

>150 Credits Reqd

You fiddle around some more, applying the [Small] size. The scavenger shrinks down drastically in size, able to fit on the palm of your hand. It also splits off into multiple copies. You bump the Biomass up to 5/5 and a small swarm of about 15 of the things stands in front of you. You also feel a strange feeling in the back of your head...You scratch at the back of your scalp. The voice of the computer-rendered face startles you as she speaks up again.

"Augmentoids can respond to rudimentary mental commands by default, as their vital brain functions are linked to you. This is also why maintaining augmentoids even when they are not actively being used will cost a flat amount of CC. The detail of your control over them can be improved via acquiring the appropriate skills. Notably, worn augmentoids can be controlled much more finely even without additional skills. If you acquire the [ Neuroplastic Optimization ] Skill then worn augmentoids will act more as an extension of your own body than anything else."

"G-good to know, thanks."

"I am also happy to automate the design process for you, should you desire. Simply give me a description of what you want to produce, and I will produce the best design I can out of your available Gene-Traces...for a small fee, of course."

You stare at the little swarm of scavengers and order them to move. They do so as a single unit. No splitting a swarm up into individual little scouts too much where you're at now, then.

Well, you've got a lot to consider.

=====
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>5535294

>Propose a minion Augmentoid Design
>Propose a worn Augmentoid Design
>Requisition an Augmentoid Design from the VI (25 Credits, roll over 50 with your post or get two votes)
>Produce a grenade from a Gene-Trace
>Produce an ointment for weapons from a Gene-Trace
>Ask the SI a question [Write-In]
>Log out of the GLECK
>Other?

Producing grenades or ointments WILL consume the associated Gene-Trace. Producing Augmentoids MIGHT consume the associated Gene-Traces. Generally all approved designs are created simultaneously, so gene-traces will not be lost until the end of the GLECK session.

Hopefully I got all the important stuff across...
>>
>>5534708
I'm wondering if there's an option to dump the entirety of MC's soul into the augmentoid, and essentially have a new body.

>>5535267
Oh dear, Augmentoids are exactly what I was expecting.

>>5535269
Huh, consumables also use up gene traces. Hmm.

>>5535302
test templates:
>A you, but better. See what restrictions there are in making an Organitech body.

>Radiation Spreader. DONT maximize radiation distance, we need to be able to sit around outside radiation and still control it.
>>Quadruped, Tentacle simple, Whiptail simple
>>Radiotrophic Metabolism [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry], Neutron Breeder Tissues [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry], Radiation Blocking Tissues [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry], Ink Squirter, Hairy Overgrowth
Need to see if Hairy Overgrowth also includes the silk removing goop. Otherwise, more radiation res or plain silk organ would be good. Also grapple with CC and radiation.

>Mini Spreader
>>Small insect
>>All the radiation traces. Air Sensing, High temp res

>Worn Armor
>Whip Tail simple
>Leafy Squidskin, heavy chitin armor, Radiotrophic Metabolism [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry], Radiation Resistance [Leggy Squelchwurm], Chitin Natural weapons
Regenerating armor with tail. Need to test if hairy is better than squidskin for silk.

>Nerveater, Biophosphorescent, Semi-autonomous Nervous System Grenade
>Chitin Natural Weapons Grenade

>What about using our own crafting materials? Can we make ammo, etc. from chitin spikes, or use harvested organs instead of gene traces?
>>
>>5535302
Can we make 0 CC augmentoids that are just blocks of mindless flesh? We could form a fort of some sort with all this biomass.

Can we make antibiotics from viruses and parasites we bring?

More templates:
>Plain dumb shield. Hopefully 0CC
>Light Chitin exoskel, High Temp res, Slime leather

>Silkberry for a mass producible grenade
>>Berry
>>Silk Organ, Ink, Bio-phosphorescence

>Repairing the pants with squelch wool
>>
Rolled 1 (1d100)

>>5535346

>Gleck SI

At [ Alchemical Compounding Lvl 1 ] You can only put 1 Gene-Trace into a grenade or oiintment. Creating that grenade and seeing the details of its effects will also require dedicating to burning that Gene-Trace.

You can choose how much biomass to contribute towards making the grenade to increase its number of uses before requiring a recharge, given the current surfeit of biomass I will assume the maximum 5/5 for this unit.

You also much choose how many credits you'd like to pour into creating a grenade, to guarantee a certain floor of potency and increase the chance of developing beneficial knock-on effects. Single Gene-Trace grenades start at 100 Credits.


>Augmentoid Designs

-A You, but better
Error, no humanoid form gene-trace detected.

-Mini Spreader
Size (1 Trace): Small
Form (1 Trace): Insectoid
Traits (5 Traces): Rad Metabolism, Neutron Breeder Tissues, Rad Blocking Tissues, Air Sensing, High Temp Res
ERROR, 6/5 Gene Trace Slots occupied. Select one Trace to remove.
You opt to remove the High Temp Resistance. What you're left with is a palm-sized bug. Well it would look like a bug if it had chitin, instead it's made out of flesh and has skin, giving it an uncanny quality. They don't do much, but then you have the idea to pull out some of your Glowberry goo. Immediately the insects pick up on the chunk of intestine you're carrying it in. You pour some out on the ground and they attack it with gusto...not that they have any particular adaptations for doing so. Eww, they have teeth too. After they finish the meal they move considerably faster, and you sense their contentment.

-Radiation Spreader
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (1 Trace): Quadruped, Tentacle Simple, Whiptail Simple
Traits (5 Traces): Radiotrophic Metabolism, Neutron Breeder Tissues, Radiation Blocking Tissues, Ink Squirter, Hairy Overgrowth
ERROR, 6/5 Gene Trace Slots occupied. Select one Trace to remove.
You trim Ink Squirter out of the design, and let the augmentoid generate. What stands before you is a hairy sphere about the size of a medium dog, with a whipcord tail emerging from the rear(?) of the sphere and a tentacle from the front, and 4 digitigrade legs. The combination is rather eerie, as the legs are arranged for running despite the spherical body. The shaggy, intensely oily hair drapes over its radially arranged eyes. Dark things that you don't think can see very well, and the tentacle moves constantly to brush it out of their view. You feed this one some glowberry goo, none actually seems to be consumed in this virtual space, and it gladly chows down. It doesn't move any faster, but you sense it heating up inside. As it becomes unbearable the tentacle rips off a clump of hair, and you feel the pressure ease...you also feel very slightly sick, the same sick as when you had radiation poisoning.
>>
Rolled 35 (1d100)

>>5535346
>Augmentoid Design
-Worm Armor
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (1 Trace): Cephalopod, Whip Tail Simple
Traits (5 Traces): Leafy Squidskin, Heavy Chitin Armor, Radiotrophic Metabolism, Radiation Resistance, Chitin Natural Weapons
ERROR, 6/5 Gene Trace Slots occupied. Select one Trace to remove.
You trim Radiotrophic metabolism out of the design. You're not sure exactly what it does based on the other two augmentoids and mainly want to see how creating armor would work. Originally you didn't specify a form...but in a stroke of inspiration (or desperation) you select cephalopod instead so you don't have to custom-tune the entire augmentoid.

What's produced is a flat squidlike creature covered in heavy chitin. Its main body covers your back while its tentacles wrap around your shoulders and torso, somehow managing to not skewer you with the hooked blades on their ends in the process. Its main body covers your back, and its mouth...well rather disgustingly your hair goes down its throat and its mouth sort of hovers atop your shoulders and around your head like a grotesque blunt-toothed hood.

The entirety of the creature is covered in heavy chitin that has a beautifully intricate bark pattern, and matching brown color. You sense that, given enough time, it could reconsume the armor plates and produce various patterns that would blend nearly flawlessly into any number of natural woody environments. Without real-world constraints of time in the virtual world you quickly flash into an ensemble that has overlapping narrow green leaves, then fat maple-like leaves in auburn colors.

It's far from weightless though, and you can tell that having such heavy armor would also restrict the creature's natural cephalopod flexibility if it were to dismount from your torso. Still, it's strong and will blend in well once you leave the dungeon...

>>5535354

>Gleck SI
You are free to create augmentoids that fulfill the purpose of living ammo, but unfortunately your crafting materials are of no use to the GLECK except as sources of raw biomass.

Additionally, as a measure derived from the same rationale that prohibits self-replicating augmentoids, 0 CC augmentoids are not allowed. Mindbless blocks of flesh can be created at very low CC cost though. No matter how simple, augmentoids are still living creatures and your brain will still be responsible for maintaining their basic metabolic processes.

Perhaps if you acquired the [ Medicinal Compounding ] BRM Certification you could create antibiotics from such sources, but you would still need to acquire their gene-traces to do so. Raw biomass is all the same to the GLECK.
>>
Rolled 21 (1d100)

>>5535382
>>5535354

>Augmentoid Designs
-Plain Dumb Shield
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (0 Traces): Undefined, Simple Tentacle
Traits (3 Traces): Light Chitin Exoskel, High Temp Res, Slim Leather
You form a simple disk, coax a few tentacles from to act as handles, and switch its flesh to slime leather. The same mostly-transparent membrane replaces the default pink skin of the creature, and you can see its internal organs now...but it's wonderfully flexible and fairly tough. You're able to influence its shape to a certain extent, which should aid in blocking attacks a bit. The bones backing the leather should make it tough, but you don't know how well it'll hold up to really intense fighting.

-Silkberry
Size (1 Trace): Small
Form (1 Trace): Berry
Traits (3 Traces): Silk Organ, Ink Squirter, Bio-Phosphorescence
Oh my god it's so fucking adorable. A few dozen fist-sized berries, they glow the same soft orange as glowberries. When you throw them they explode in gouts of glowing ink and spread a small puddle of sticky silk around themselves, usually sticking to whatever they impacted. You can also just squeeze ink or silk out of them manually.

A devious mind could find many uses for such things, but it also makes you curious as to what grenades created from those Gene-Traces would end up doing.

>Augmentoid Costs

Mini Spreader - 2CC Per unit Biomass used, get 4 bugs per unit biomass. 40Creds per unit Biomass.

Rad Spreader - 8CC Reqd, 250Creds

Worm Armor - 6CC Reqd, 200Creds

Dumb Shield - 5CC Reqd, 100Creds

Silberries - 1CC/Biomass, 25Creds/Biomass

I'll definitely revamp this whole crafting system at some point, but it's alright for now I think.
>>
>>5535369
So I guess the mini-spreader isn't quite generating enough radiation, so that's out.

Primary radiation spreader....will it survive without the blocking tissues?

>>5535382
I might remove the chitin weapons instead, hmm. Looks pretty good tho.

So we're out of luck with biomass dumping options, unless we queue basically all our gene traces on grenades and be done with it. 5 shots of everything is pretty sweet, and we can re-obtain traces.
>>
>>5535388
Hmmmm.

Shield
>Can we add Hairy and semi-autonomous nerves? Thinking it could maybe auto-parry and hold plates we lay on top.

Silkberry looks perfect

Can we test what radiation does to silk? Make an augmentoid with both and just irradiate its own silk, for example.

I recommend listing Medium as simple, that was the main thing confusing me for Trace slots. Also it seems that class 1 can do 5 traces total, not 4?

I need to make better names for these things.
>>
Rolled 40 (1d100)

>>5535390
Yes it'll survive. I'll probably add a skill into the Neuromancy or Fleshcrafting tree that lets you have insight into the practical effects of gene traces, but since we're just starting this crafting system I'll give you that much for free. It'll leak the radiation at a low level constantly though, and may have other knock on effects that aren't apparent from the limited simulation abilities of the GLECK.

>>5535407
Aah, must've forgotten to change it up to 5 where I pasted it from. Yeah, Class 1s can handle 5 traces, and 5 Cats of biomass.

-Silkarm
Size: Medium, Simple
Form: Tentacle, Simple
Traits: Silk Organ, Rad Breeder Tissues
You create an augmentoid with neutron breeding tissues and the silk organ, designed to dispense silk on command. It wraps around your arm rather nicely, and you can release a spray of silk. You feed it a bit of glowberry jelly, and immediately feel a bit sick. You spray some silk on the ground, order the augmentoid off your arm, and then lay in the silk. Same feeling.

Irradiating silk...makes radioactive silk. Huh, go figure. Could probably keep it from making you sick while radioactive on your arm by including the blocker tissues too.

I need to find some way to shove off the requirements for creativity onto you anons rather than on me, or at least work dice rolls in here somehow. Normally I would be able to show you what other Organitechs had made to give you a sense of the things that can be made...but obviously the circumstances you guys ended up in prevent that.
>>
>>5535417
Hah. I was mostly checking if radiation could be used to weaken silk structural integrity, but this works.
>>
So overall, I'll stop at

Rad Hugger
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (1 Trace): Quadruped, Tentacle Simple, Whiptail Simple
Traits (5 Traces): Radiotrophic Metabolism, Neutron Breeder Tissues, Ink Squirter, Hairy Overgrowth

Treesect Armor
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (1 Trace): Cephalopod, Whip Tail Simple
Traits (5 Traces): Leafy Squidskin, Heavy Chitin Armor, Radiotrophic Metabolism, Radiation Resistance

Silkberry

and still need to test:
Auto-shield
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (0 Traces): Undefined, Simple Tentacle
Traits (3 Traces): Light Chitin Exoskel, High Temp Res, Slim Leather, Hairy, Semi-Autonomous Nervous System


and that was just me. Good luck with the other anons :^)
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

>>5535423

Auto-Shield
You refine your shield by a bit, combining the slime leather with your light chitin exoskeleton trace and the hairy overgrowth from the wooly squelchwurms. You also give it Temperature Resistance while you're at it, and include Semi-Autonomous Nervous System because you have something in mind to test.

The results are...interesting. Its appearance is completely different from before. The slime-leather is still transparent, but you can barely see its pseudo-skin through the rough hair covering the thing. It seems the chitin exoskeleton and hair overgrowth interacted, and each thick strand is covered with ringlets of chitin. Like beads woven onto wire.

Next you want to test out the semi-autonomous nervous system, so you command the shield to stay on the ground and take out Tepellin's Teacher. The first time, you strike near but not on it. At the last moment, it leaps towards the weapon...but it's rather unimpressive, given that its tentacles are utterly unsuited to locomotion on the ground. Still, when mounted to your arm it might be just enough to save your life.

Next you strike directly at the shield. This time your blow actually lands on the thing. Striking the hairy surface is an odd sensation, no harsh crack. Even more odd though is that the shield distorts after the impact, the supple leather of its form bending and hairs straining in their follicles like it's trying to entrap your weapon. It doesn't get much grip on the round surface of your pipe, but you do have to deliberately reverse your swing to ease it from between the fibrous hairs.
>>
>>5535440
Ah, more stick than parry, interesting. I guess that'll be a tossup between radiation resistance or semi-autonomous.

Hair chitin is rad
>>
Rolled 51 (1d100)

Once I'm off of work in 4ish hours. I'll see what clicks in my head for units. That being said if we lack the Genetic mat and biomass. I'll be down for the armor, shield, and skill shooter. Just need boots and gloves for climbing.
>>
Rolled 10 (1d100)

I'd like to toy with the grenade options as well. If we apply a movement gene trace and a silk gene trace to a grenade do we make grenades that run at enemies then explode and entangle them?
>>
I'm gonna need a bit to catch up with all this.
>>
Rolled 31 (1d100)

>>5535752
Ah, only one trace per grenade though. Well, if traces are only consumed when we finish crafting we should probably make both "Ink Squirter" and "Gluey Silk Organ" grenades while we're here.

I'm game for armor, shield and silk gun as well, although we should definitely add the radiation shielding to the silk gun so we're not constantly sick with radiation poisoning.

---

Let's make a scout/skirmisher swarm.

- Insectoid
- Small
- Air Sensing Whiskers
- Bio-Phosphorescence
- Chitin Natural Weapons

I'm thinking a flock of small flying bugs with nasty biting pinchers that can provide us with a small amount of light as well as react to incoming enemies that might sneak up on us. If we pick up 'Sympathetic Link' in the future we'll even be able to make use of the air sensing whiskers ourselves.
>>
Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>5535769

Belatedly you realize that even though you have the insectoid form...you can't make any of these things fly. What the fuck! Didn't you get the form from mosquitoes? Lame! The GLECK is cheating!

I'd be happy to help you attempt to develop flying mechanisms for a given augmentoid. I've noticed, as well, that your pants have been woven to enhance your movement speed. I may be able to develop a way to mimic those capabilities as well.

You would need to leave (1) Gene-Trace slot free for your augmentoid in either instance. You should also be aware that you will not be able to keep any Trait developed in such fashion in your library, though the organism in question will be licensed for its indefinite use.


Consulting services like this cost 75 Credits. You've been offered a special discount as a first-time GLECK User!


>You may pay 75 Credits and roll 1d100 Bo2 to attempt to discover new gene-traces for specific purposes

Aah, now this is the sort of spiel you're used to. Absolute classic Corpo speak, dangling something that seems to be good and upside in front of you...when actually it's just gambling your money away for just a chance you'll get something useful back.

-Scoutskitters (2CC/Biomass, 35Creds/Biomass)
Size: Small
Form: Insectoid
Traits: Air Sensing Whiskers
-Bio-Phospherscence
-Chitin Natural Weapons
Dismissing the AI's offer for now you focus on crafting your scouting 'bugs'. Squat, fist sized, oval-shaped things covered in skin. The phosphorescence is carried around the body by some sort of veins, glowing in a dappled pattern underneath pale white skin. They seem to have control of its intensity, but you're not sure to what degree. The thing's head is host to 4 primitive black eyes, the creature's mouth, and is covered in chitin. Its back sprouts two long and frilly antennae that constantly shiver back and forth. They track your movement easily for about a dozen feet around them too.

Each of their six limbs extends from the central body and looks eerily like a finger. The effect is only accentuated by the chitin growths on the end of the digits, looking like overgrown fingernails but far sharper and with an odd texture to their surface. You order one of them to climb onto your body and immediately regret it. The nails slide into your flesh by a significant fraction of an inch every time a finger-foot lands, and prove impossible to remove without the creature's permission...unless you're willing to lose a half-inch cone of meat every time. Apparently the grabbiness can be controlled too, as the meatcones pulled from your flesh are sloughed off at will by the bug. It's easy to imagine it burrowing into an unarmored victim like that. You note that the chitin on the thing's much larger head has the same texture, and shiver a bit at the implications.

They're kinda cute in a disgusting body-horror kind of way when they're not tearing chunks out of you though...

>>5535440
Auto-Shield - 8CC, 175Creds
>>
Rolled 94 (1d100)

>Mans Best Tank Friend:
Quadrupedal, Whip Tail, Simple / Medium Sized, Simple / Light Chitinous Exoskeleton or Semi-Autonomous Nervous System, High Temp Resistance, Radiation Resistance, Heavy Chitin Armor

I would of love space for Chitin Natural Weapons. I think the light will combo with the Heavy to make better plants for mobility or having the nervous system for auto whips for better defense.

>Grapple Scout
Whip Tail, Simple , Cephalopod, Tentacle, Simple / Medium Sized, Simple / Light Chitinous Exoskeleton or Chitin Natural Weapons, Semi-Autonomous Nervous System, Leafy Squidskin, Air Sensing Whiskers

Plan with this is using the light or chitin weapons to give hooks for the tips for better grip and weapons to whip with. Nervous System is for support to the body if stuns happen to let is hold or grab during falls.

>Don't Drink the Kool Aid
Insectoid [Charybdis Common Mosquito], Berry/ Medium Sized, Simple / Rad Breeding Tissues [Charybdis Mega-Glowberry], Rad Blocking Tissues, Ink Squirter

Pulling a little from the Tiberium Scrin units for a rad Super Soaker. If the Berry body isn't needed of ammo build up. Light Chitinous Exoskeleton would do nicely.

Current thoughts with what we have to work with.
>>
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>>5536004
>creativity
Almost forgot the show images for the unit info.

>1
For imagery there is a few that comes to mind, but I'll just link the post image from before. >>5531051

>2
To my surprise no very good images to quickly pull form for a boney squid.

>3
Corrupter info video or wiki. Otherwise got an image for it.
https://youtu.be/DdmpNUTkp6w?t=347

https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Corrupter
>>
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Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5536004

-Man's Best Tank Friend (12CC, 250Creds)
You know, you've taken a lot of damage in every single fight you've engaged in so far. It'd sure be nice if you had something else to do that for you.

So you shape a quadrupedal beast and stack every defensive trait you've got into it. It comes out like some twisted amalgamation of a predatory cat and domestic dog, covered in heavy armor plates and with a nodule of chitin at the end of its thin tail. The only disappointing thing is that it only comes up to about your knee, due to its density and the biomass limits of the GLECK.

You try two variants, once with a light chinitnous exoskeleton. It makes the overall armor a bit thicker and covers even the joints in tough but thin sleeves of material. Then with Semi-Autonomous Reactions, which causes its tail to twitch occasionally apparently of its own volition. You don't really know if it would act offensively or defensively in the real world.

-Grapple Scout (8CC, 175Creds)
You do up another cephalopod, slotting in Chitin Natural Weapons but no heavy chitin this time, and deliberately sculpting two long tentacles to make it resemble a squid. You take care to sculpt the chitinous blades this time, giving them wicked hooks at the end of the tentacles and putting teeth into the suckers.

The result is something that resembles the leafy squids that you encountered in the forest canopy, but is much more vicious looking. You summon up a few of your bug augmentoids and order them to attack the squid. It rips them to shreds nearly as soon as they're in range of its tentacles with jerky motions that reek of instinctual bloodlust.

Where the Leafy Treesquid had cute, floppy earlike protuberances your augmentoid has them edged with vibrating fronds from the Air Sensing Whiskers trace. You presume these organs would let your augmentoids read things around them even in darkness, but with your rudimentary mental contact with them you've got no real way of knowing.
>>
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Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>5536004
>>5536024
-Scrinberry (10CC 200Creds)
Size: Medium/Default
Form: Insectoid, Berry
Traits: Rad Breeding, Rad Blocking, Ink Squirter
You let the GLECK handle the basics of combining insectoids and berries together, and look upon the thing taking form before you with increasing horror as the generation proceeds. Absolutely hideous, not cute at all. It comes up to about your waist.

But if it's hideous and terrifying to you maybe it will be to your enemies as well. You run a few tests and discover that the ink it squirts is intensely radioactive, and it takes a lot for it to run out as well. The clusterberry-esque abdomen slowly deflates as it uses more ink. You can rip off little individual sacks from the berry and toss them by hand as well, which doesn't produce as satisfying, large, or long lasting an effect as the Silkberries you created earlier but might come in handy in some situations. On a whim you summon up the Mini-Spreaders you created earlier and squirt them with the radioactive ink. They go absolutely ballistic, skittering around so hard that they scrape wounds open in their own skin. One runs into your shin with force like getting full kicked by a soccer player.

Then one of them explodes. Then another, and another.

But not all of them do. The survivors eat the remains of their less fortunate fellows, and then several long minutes later the ones that engaged in cannibalism undergo mitosis until you're left with the same number you had before.

Augmentoid Swarms have a special exemption to the self-replication rule, so long as loss of swarm members is confirmed. the GLECK chirps in at your questioning look.
>>
>>5536084
That's terrifying. I'm also not sure we have enough CC for this
>>
>>5536084
>>5536105
Right then. This implies if we swap the bioluminescence of silkberry with insect, we can have a self-reloading ammo of CC bombs. Can they fit on the crossbow? Radiation might be better for our current location, though.
>>
>>5536105
Depends if we need to use our abilities a lot with them. We got 35/110 and there is an upgrade to quickly gain 30 more CC. A squad should do us and then we can gather genes to replace units.

------

I hate to lose gene for sure in crafting items, but there will be a few that to be life savers. Heavy Chitin Armor used as an emergency shield/armor. Rad Breeding Tissues for rad gum drops. Hairy Overgrowth to get out of the wurm and silk goo. Leafy Squidskin to quick stealth if we can make our scent on top even better. Air Sensing Whiskers should cover us if we go blind.
>>
Quick weapon idea. Muti ball Flail for when the pipe isn't enough. heavy chitin getting the weight, slime leather grip, Light Chitinous chain, and anti goo stick hair safety. Semi-Autonomous Reactions is adding movement to the chains for optimize attack.

Whip Tail, Simple, Tentacle, Simple / Semi-Autonomous Reactions, Heavy Chitin Armor, Slime-Leather Skin, Light Chitinous Exoskeleton, and Hairy Overgrowth
>>
Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>5536111
It would be difficult to fit the Minispreaders on the crossbow. There's nothing stopping you from creating augmentoids that are shaped like crossbow bolts and have those adaptations though. Obviously they'd be consumables. You guys don't have any traces that would let you make a self-replenishing quiver or something yet though you could try using the AI's guidance to come up with such a thing.

Tbh I'm surprised at the things anons are suggesting. You've gone beyond what I expected in some instances, and have totally missed other things I expected. Also it helps when you add fluff/descriptions of what you're after rather than just a list of traits.
>>
>>5536153
Not the minispreaders, but small skrinberry

Im not too pushy for physical damage since we already have the pipe, so its all about alternate damage options.
>>
Rolled 82 (1d100)

>>5536149
-Living Flail
You've never actually seen a flail in real life, but you get the gist of it. You want it to be more powerful than what Tepellin's Teacher is capable of, so you shape the haft to be about the length of your arm and covered slime-leather with textured braids of coarse hair crossing it to aid in grip. You ponder making a multi-ball design, but decide against it since you're inexperienced with this sort of weapon and the point is to be able to deal with foes too tough for your pipe anyway.

The 'chain' is actually a series of chitin-ringed hairs corded over a flexible but strong tentacle, and the flail head is a hard knot of heavy chitin. You cover it in just enough hair that it shouldn't get stuck in any glue, a prudent measure given the prevalence of wooly squelchwurms so far. Not so much that it will blunt the impact of a swing though. You duplicate the feature much smaller at the base end of the flail's haft.

In testing it out you discover that the flail seems to automatically lengthen and shorten itself a bit to hit targets more ideally. It's also tends towards wrapping around a target completely where possible, which might be useful if you ever encountered foes that lacked integrated weaponry.

>>5536169
Aah, I see. What do you hope to accomplish by shrinking it rather than keeping it medium sized though?
>>
>>5536185

-Living Flail (7CC, 150Creds)
>>
Rolled 45 (1d100)

I'll keep on speccing whatever through tomorrow, unless interest dies down, to give peeps a chance to propose a few more. We'll be getting back on track soon though.
>>
>>5536185
I want to fire them from the crossbow as catapult payloads. Certain crossbows can achieve this, and I want to know if this crossbow can.

The idea is that, for example, 10/12 skrinberrys are loaded in the crossbow. After they are used, the skrinberrys reproduce and we just load them back in.
>>
>>5536191

Are we going to gather everything together in a list with costs and then vote on the actual end results?
>>
Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5536199
Yes.

>>5536196
Aah. No, your crossbow is a rather nice magazine fed repeating number with a fully enclosed action. You need something that loads into the magazine in order to operate it properly
>>
>>5535302
1275 Creds CC 35/110

Gear:
Worm Armor - 6CC Reqd, 200Creds
Auto-Shield - 8CC, 175Creds
Living Flail (7CC, 150Creds)
Silkarm Missed finding the cost.

750 Creds CC 56

Squad
X3
Mini Spreader- 2CC Per unit Biomass used, get 4 bugs per unit biomass. 40Creds per unit Biomass.
Silberries - 1CC/Biomass, 25Creds/Biomass
Scoutskitters (2CC/Biomass, 35Creds/Biomass)

520 Creds CC 71

1 x Man's Best Tank Friend (12CC, 250Creds)

- Grapple Scout (8CC, 175Creds)

1 x Scrinberry (10CC 200Creds)

70 Creds CC 93

Thinking this be my thoughts for the buy, IF we rush to the CC upgrade to let us use skills more that once. If we reduce the swarm to X 2 should be able to get a grenade, could be worth. Otherwise drop the dog tank for us to be the tank for more items.

----

Later if we have the extra CC I would build a Mini Spreader launcher. Just send those rad hyped buggers off to wreck someone day. Although waiting till we find wings to make rad flies wouldn't be to bad.
>>
Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5536224
>>5535417
Silkarm should by 7CC, 75Creds

Gimme 1d100 dc70 to see if you can persuade the SI into giving you a discount.
>>
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Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>5536235
>>
Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>5536239

>GLECK SI
"I'm afraid I can't do that, User Sibyllan."
>>
>>5536245
A shame, but understandable. Not work using a shard to do the imposable just yet.

Gear:
Worm Armor - 6CC Reqd, 200Creds
Auto-Shield - 8CC, 175Creds
Living Flail (7CC, 150Creds)
Silkarm 7CC, 75Creds

Squad
X2
Mini Spreader- 2CC Per unit Biomass used, get 4 bugs per unit biomass. 40Creds per unit Biomass.
Silberries - 1CC/Biomass, 25Creds/Biomass
Scoutskitters (2CC/Biomass, 35Creds/Biomass)

1 x Man's Best Tank Friend (12CC, 250Creds)

1 x Scrinberry (10CC 200Creds)

95 Creds CC 95

Later I feel we can upgrade that silkarm into living ammo gun, like in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. Get tiny Scoutskitters to be a pain or Silberries to assuming greater range sticky. That could be worth a shard upgrade for.
>>
>>5536328

Yeah, this feels like fun. I'd just go ahead and gamble the 75 credits and see if we can get a flight gene trace while we're at it.
>>
What happens if our minions get utterly destroyed or seperated from us? Can we remake them from biomass, or do we need to refab them from a Gleck? Do we need the gene traces for restoring lost minions? Because the self repair of swarms is very attractive if we need to revisit a Gleck for replenishing lost minions.
>>
I'll come in later with my shopping list, but I'll probably tweak my armor and shield a tad bit more.

Looks like rad hugger isn't going to cut it, which is fair since it doesn't have much in the way of survivability
>>
Rolled 89 (1d100)

>>5536348
Your augmentoids have their own HP pools, and once they die they're gone. You'd need to duplicate them, assuming you didn't lose any requisite gene-traces, from another GLECK.
>>
With all the radiation we're dealing with. I have to ponder how long until we become ghouls from Fallout.

We got to get the Living Alembic skill to combo regen with Rad Feeding Metabolism. I'm hoping it will lead to then healing from the rads. Assuming [Intimate Knowledge, Passive] will allow for gene skills to combo.
>>
>>5536383
>>5536245
>>5535423
>>5535388
>Treesect Armor - around 200 creds
Size (0 Traces): Medium
Form (1 Trace): Cephalopod, Whip Tail Simple
Traits (4 Traces): Leafy Squidskin, Heavy Chitin Armor, Radiotrophic Metabolism, Radiation Resistance
Hoping for some kind of regenerative or power armor effect from radiation.

>Silkberry x 1 - 25 cred
I want to revisit this with hypersonic traces to make a flashbang, but this is an easy investment that'll free up CC after use.

>Silkshot
0 - Medium
0 - Tentacle
5 - Silk Organ, Rad Breeder, Rad Blocker, Ink Squirter, High Temp Res
Make it survive its own radiation, and focus all the organs to get distance on the sticky black fluid

>Exo-slime Shield
0 - Medium
0 - Tentacle
5 - Chitin exoskel, High Temp res, Rad res, Slime leather, Hairy
Lose the gimmick, it's already got interesting physical resistances by combining soft and hard armor

>Thermos x 10 if we can get it cheap
0 - Medium
0 - Tentacle
3 - Slime Leather, Exoskeleton, Leafy squidskin
Plain containers for liquid. Slime has the waterproofing, leaf has the wood-like grip, and the exoskeleton cap is attached with the tentacle. Make it a mechanical seal, then kill the creature to free up the CC. We don't need the seal to last forever, it's just a bottle we can use to hold lots of glowberry and water in inventory.

>Mini Spreader x 3 6CC 120 cred
>Scoutskitters x 3 6CC 105 cred
>Scrinberry x 1 10CC 200 cred
I think this'll be quite good in this zone, but not so sure out of it.

>Man's Best Tank Friend 12CC 250 cred
>>Lose High Temp, get both exo and semi-auto
Right now high temp isn't immediately useful, and semi-auto will be good for drawing aggro with clubbing tail strikes.

Around 56CC and nearly all our money
>>
>>5536504
With how those wurms have it. I get the feeling we'll want that temp protection. Also good to have in case of fires. That be said the change of the genes could have a Cascade effect.

Tho with your selection of Mini Spreader and low money remaining. I would go for the Scrinberry to help swarm tank and recover the unit lost. Which then we can save some on the Thermos item to be more for water. Since it's got the rad gen for us (granted probably a little too strong) and we can gather more Berry sausages.
>>
>>5536864
Those wurms were topside, where there are giant sunberries. Mushroom and mold biomes buried underwater should have less issues with high temperature. Granted, it might be different once WE can start fires, but I'm willing to take the credit cost to reshuffle things when we get there.

I'm not too eager about the sausages since we've already seen how they are less than ideal for quick deployment.
>>
>>5536919
Then why the thermos and not build an injector or skin patch to get us the radiation? Is it to feed the little bugs?
>>
>>5536938
The thermoses are more about setting a baseline container. Verifying that we can make 0CC items that store in inventory, and just having the equivalent of a minecraft bucket for whatever strange liquids we find.

An injector pack would be nice, but that sounds like it'll cost CC and I didn't want to complicate things further.
>>
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Rolled 28 (1d100)

Gonna take today to consolidate all the thus-far designs into a document, along with the general information around crafting augmentoids. So next update tomorrow at some point, where we'll finalize what you guys are actually constructing/buying.

As always, thanks for playing! And for engaging with the crafting system! I'm likely to streamline it later, but I had to get it out there for testing first.
>>
Rolled 96 (1d100)

Had some unexpected stuff come up today, so delaying the update to tomorrow!
>>
Rolled 5 (1d100)

>>5536504

>Thermos 1CC/2Creds Each
Size: Simple Medium
Form: Simple Tentacle
Traits: None
You sculpt up a simple lifeform exclusively to serve as a container for liquids. You don't even bother to use any gene traces, as a functioning physiology is irrelevant to your goal of simply having a container. You end up with something that looks somewhat like a fleshy gourd, with a sphincter sealed by a plug of tooth enamel that secures in place via a stretchy tendon.

>Treesect Armor V2 7CC/200Creds
Trading out the natural weapons trace for Rad-Feeding Metabolism instead...doesn't produce any immediately apparent results. You were hopeful it'd act as a sort of power armor, but the nature of the squid's connection to you isn't really conducive to such a thing. The heavy chitin remains sturdy though.

>Exo-Slime Shield 6CC/150Creds
You find yourself questioning the gimmick of applying autonomous reflexes to your hairy shield. Instead you just pile on all the defensive stuff you can get. It's just a piece of bone, chitin, and hair to put between you and your enemies. No need to overcomplicate it.

>Silkshot 8CC/115Creds
You decide to amp up the silkarm a bit, adding in the ink-squirter organ in the hopes that'll gain more distance and doubly-blind your foes if you manage to catch their eyes (hopefully they use eyes). While you're at it you line its skin with rad-blocking materials so it's not constantly irradiating you, and throw in high temperature resistance so no one can burn the silk off. You're not sure the squirter organ actually adds much more range, but it sure does make the silk more fluid. This allows the pitch-black silk to flow into every nook and cranny. The downside is that it takes longer to harden as well, but the gumminess and grip once it does represent a truly arduous obstacle to anything entangled in it.

Shopping post here in a bit.
>>
>>5539657
>>Thermos 1CC/2Creds Each
Killing it and zeroing out the CC is kinda important since I still want to check what can or can't be put into inventory.

If we can put living creatures into inventory, that opens the door for augmentoids that don't have a digestive system since we can freeze their life until needed.
>>
Rolled 60 (1d100)

>>5539683
It's a bit of a spoiler, but: Yes you can kill them to 0 out the CC, they'll die shortly after printing. No, you can't put them into your inventory though. It's one of the restrictions around augmentoids that contrasts them against most mechanical creations.
>>
>>5539701
Can't put them while alive, or can't put them ever?
>>
Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5539720
Well I wouldn't mention it with regards to the thermos if it didn't apply while dead too.
>>
>>5539730
Oh. That sucks. That means my total is....

>>5536504
>Treesect Armor V2 7CC/200Creds
>Exo-Slime Shield 6CC/150Creds
>Silkshot 8CC/115Creds
>Mini Spreader x 3 6CC 120 cred
>Scoutskitters x 3 6CC 105 cred
>Scrinberry x 1 10CC 200 cred
>Man's Best Tank Friend 12CC 250 cred
>>Lose High Temp, get both exo and semi-auto

55CC 1140 credits?

Too much CC cost to worry about replacing the pants, so if we spend any more it would be gambling for flight or a couple of the more obvious grenades like chitin, silk organ, or radiation.
>>
>>5539657
Those changes will be nice if the silkshot can dry in time. Maybe the we can upgrade the armor later with the genes still with it. Saving the time and risk of gene lost to the crafting.

>>5539739
While I do want to keep the temp protection, I can see the power of semi-auto.

If you agree to the adding of the flail and lost of one scout. I think this will do us find with the shield and new melee weapon.

Gear:
Treesect Armor V2 7CC/200Creds
Exo-Slime Shield 6CC/150Creds
Living Flail (7CC, 150Creds)
Silkshot 8CC/115Creds

Squad
3x Mini Spreader- 2CC Per unit Biomass used, get 4 bugs per unit biomass. 40Creds per unit Biomass.
2x Scoutskitters (2CC/Biomass, 35Creds/Biomass)

1 x Man's Best Tank Friend (12CC, 250Creds)
>Modify Lose High Temp for semi-auto

1 x Scrinberry (10CC 200Creds)

Cost 1,215 Creds CC60
Remaining: 90 Creds CC 95/110

I feel sad about the Grapple Scout, but it can be something to come back to later. It seems we can't try for gene grenade. I think the 90 does not cover it. RIP Silberries
>>
Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5535354

>Augmentoid List, General Organitech Crafting Guide Soon
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRUy12lI9cebrKT37cBjy7sSbHMM66wY5Fe9kDTDOmwZ5suRl1NI73K0HVqzW0XG0NzFn5XgIl1wAEM/pub
>Relinking the General Info Doc so I don't have to scroll way up for it
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQLzwnol2kw8u_XSYUZ9lZ6U7IyF7z5VFgWSTO2Ch5R9Mr4jXgnS_bI2HJf2LbuYF_yowjmds-vYj3b/pub

You take a look over the...frankly dizzying array of augmentoid designs you've come up with and ponder which ones you're actually interested in purchasing.

>[Sibyllan]
>[35/110 CC Default]
>[1275 Credits]

The following prompts are in descending order of priority, such that if anons overspend in one category then lower categories will be adjusted to accommodate less available CC/Credits. If you explicitly do not wish to spend in one category, vote accordingly. The most popular option in each category will be taken.

>>>Miscellany
>Purchase some Thermos and Silkberries [2CC, 70Creds]
>Purchase just some Thermos [0CC, 20Creds]
>Purchase just some Silkberries [2CC, 50Creds]
>Don't purchase any miscellaneous items

>>>Armor
>Purchase a set of defenses, and splurge to get the AI to design something to replace your poor electroweave pants. (Treesect Armor, Exo-Slime Shield, ?? Pants) [~20CC, ~500 Creds]
>Purchase a set of defenses, but nothing to replace your consummately abused pair of pants (Treesect Armor, Exo-Slime Shield) [13CC, 350 Creds]
>Just the armor [7CC, 200 Creds]
>Just the pants [~6CC, ~150 Creds]
>Just the shield [6CC, 150 Creds]
>Don't purchase any new defensive equipment

>>>Weapons
>Purchase a Silkshot and Living Flail, always good to increase your options and Tepellin's Teacher was always a deliberately shitty weapon...[15CC, 265 Creds]
>Purchase just a Silkshot [8CC, 115 Creds]
>Purchase just a Living Flail [7CC, 150 Creds]

>>>Minions
>Go all in on radioactivity. (Mix: Scrinberry, Mini-Spreaders, Rad Spreader) [~16-30CC, ~400-650Creds]
>Go all in on tiny guys. (Mix: Mini Spreaders, Scoutskitters) [~8CC-40CC, ~150-500Creds]
>Go all in on tanks. (Tankiboi, all Tankiboi. Reflex variant preferred) [~12CC-50CC, ~250-1000Creds]
>Go for a balanced set. (Mix: Tankiboi, Scrinberry, Mini-Spreaders, Scoutskitters) [~22CC-50CC, ~450-1000Creds]
>Go for some custom mix of minions [Write-In, same write-in must be supported by multiple anons]
>Just get a single minion of a given design.
>Don't buy any minions, you've made it this far without them!

I think that covers all of it.
>>
>>5539739
>>5539783
oh whoops, forgot the silkberry, I thought something was off.

I'm entirely sold on the living flail, but I guess we do need it for fighting silk creatures.

>>5539730
>Treesect Armor V2 7CC/200Creds
>Exo-Slime Shield 6CC/150Creds
>Living Flail 7CC/150creds
>Silkshot 8CC/115Creds
>Mini Spreader x 2 4CC 80 cred
>Scoutskitters x 6 6CC 105 cred
>Scrinberry x 1 10CC 200 cred
>Man's Best Tank Friend 12CC 250 cred
>>Lose High Temp, get both exo and semi-auto

>Silkberry x1 1 CC 25 cred

1275/1275 creds, whew
60+35/110 CC

I will admit, this list is influenced by the dopamine rush of completely emptying out the wallet.
>>
>>5539811
mini spreaders seem to be 6/5 traces, btw
>>
Rolled 80 (1d100)

>>5539814
Thanks for the catch!
>>
>>5539812
damnit, typo AGAIN.

Obviously I mean 3 scoutskitters
>>
Rolled 50 (1d100)

>>5539811
Wondering why the full set is one more CC. Unless it is 7 for the pants. If we can go kill something for 10 creds. I would go for the full set with losing 1 mini spreader.

Wait I bait we would save if we think of some pants.

>Quadrupedal / Medium Sized, Simple / Light Chitinous Exoskeleton, Heavy Chitin Armor, Slime-Leather Skin
Quadrupedal base as to mold the front set to cover our front and back legs to cover the back. Medium Sized, Simple should cover the size just fine. With what we learned from the tank Light and heavy for plates. The Slime leather is more for comfit and get the plates layered out better.

If that works then vote is

>>Armor - Full Set
Top / Bottom / Shield

>>Weapons
>Purchase a Silkshot and Living Flail, always good to increase your options and Tepellin's Teacher was always a deliberately shitty weapon...[15CC, 265 Creds]

>>Minions
>Go for a balanced set. (Mix: Tankiboi, Scrinberry, Mini-Spreaders, Scoutskitters) [~22CC-50CC, ~450-1000Creds]

It would put the CC a bit high, but if we need to super heal we would be likely losing minions anyways. Just rush to the CC upgrade next and we be good. Not like we need money till the time time anyways.

---

Off chance I need to roll to steal the AI pants by making our own.
>>
>>5539850
Shit just thought of Tentacle, Simple for the side skirt to give that cover and it should be in cost of genes. Best pants probably for the moment. Unless we want hair traded in for something else like losing the Light.
>>
>>5539811
>>Don't purchase any miscellaneous items
Forgot to vote on that piece.

Get a lot of self improvements and get some minion support.
>>
>>5539812
Support spending all the money! New toys whoo!
>>
>>5539850
I want more money(and CC......and traces) before seriously replacing the pants. High mobility is good, but our efficiency with it is bad until we have more substantial offense or renewable ammo.
>>
>>5539926
It's a set of armor pants to keep things from breaking our legs. I was on board with the no pants for a bit. Then realized we would be leaving that opening as a weakness. Since our current gear for pants is worn and Very Damaged.
>>
>>5539947
Does the armor not cover the legs? I wasn't quite clear on that part
>>
>>5539961
I guess we'll have to wait to for clarification. Otherwise I assume based on the size of the creature used and the statement of AI to make pants leads me to think not.
>>
Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>5539961
>>5539983
Treesect armor is strictly upper torso, not even full coverage on your arms really (which has pros and cons). Due mainly to the size/mass limitations of this GLECK.
>>
>>5540242
Damn. So I need to think about what I'd sacrifice for pants. Electroweave's durability is not going to survive moving with heavy armor
>>
>>5540263
I wouldn't overthink it too much. The DM saw what we've wanted and I'm sure they'll pick a good balance. Plus there is always next time when we got more CC and whatnot. I say just pick from the votes >>5539811 and let's a go.

I just hope we can save on the pants. Etherway it's a good start I want to say.
>>
>>5539811
>>Purchase just some Silkberries [1CC, 25Creds]
>Purchase a set of defenses, and splurge to get the AI to design something to replace your poor electroweave pants. (Treesect Armor, Exo-Slime Shield, ?? Pants) [~20CC, ~500 Creds]
Bead Pants
>Quadrupedal
>Medium Sized, Simple
>Hairy Overgrowth, Exoskeleton, Radiotrophic, Rad Res
I think heavy chitin+leather is better for flexibility, but I'm down bad for all the nuclear tricks.

>Purchase a Silkshot and Living Flail, always good to increase your options and Tepellin's Teacher was always a deliberately shitty weapon...[15CC, 265 Creds]

>Go for a balanced set. (Mix: Tankiboi, Scrinberry, Mini-Spreaders, Scoutskitters) [~22CC-50CC, ~450-1000Creds]
minions will probably where I remove the most stuff
>>
Alright, between all the anons theorycrafting votes and responses to >>5539811 I think we've got our shopping worked out. I'll take a closer look at the lists that anons created. I find it curious how willing you guys are to burn chunks of CC considering...well I guess you'll find out why I find that curious.

Think I'm going to conclude the thread here, and open a new one with you guys finishing having your minions printed, which does take time mind you.

Honestly though I need time for my creativity/writing batteries to recharge a bit so the new thread won't be til Friday at the earliest. It should certainly be this weekend at some point, so keep your eyes peeled and I'll post the link in this thread if it's still alive by then.

I'll still be around if you guys want to ask me, or Rocky or the GLECK SI any questions though! Thanks again for playing!

>>5540537
>>5539850
I'll get these statted out and write little description blurbs too.
>>
>>5541466
Hey GLECK SI, can we store Augmentoid here for later use? If yes, can they be picked up at other shops?

Next question for ya, can we collect genes for our dead Augmentoid? Thought it a possible work a round when they are used up in the shop and could at least attempt it.

---

Hey Rocky, anything we can gather or get ya to help repair your worn state? I feel kinda bad giving ya no chance to get bio legs or something from the Augmentoids. Also you think it's possible to fix the shop and get some of the lost updates back?

Thinking we can at least scavenge bio mass or something while we wait.
>>
>>5543104
worn means you're wearing it
>>
>>5543156
Rocky could still not want to be worn. So I'll leave it as is. Also don't remember how to delete a post to change the wording a little. Hinted at legs and what not so all fits in.
>>
Ended up having to help one of my relatives move out of their house this weekend, and I’ll be busy with some other things through this week. Sketching in the new thread for this upcoming weekend instead!
>>
>>5550213
Thanks for keeping us informed. It works out well for me anyways, I still haven't had the free time to really catch up.
>>
did i do it right
>>
Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5557301
Depends on what you were trying to do.

Alright guys, my life has suddenly become much more complicated. Additionally I've decided to rework some of the background lore so that the thematic elements I'm trying to present are more clear-cut, they got kind of muddled in my execution. No thread this weekend but #soon.



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