Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)

[Maharg67]

Post Redone
Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 24.1[32]{39}

The arbitrary summons, from the newly renamed Golden Leadership High Council, was ignored by the Fireblood Triplets who refused to respond to its arrogant tone or its supposed authority. The triplets had claimed the actual first area of Homebase, with the artefacts, as their area; the Fireblood Followers had come there including all of the elementals. Yet fair, and open, access to most resources was kept by all of the Players. So the summons, claiming that the Fireblood Triplets had acceded their 'authority', on dubious grounds, made no sense to the three.

The Ruby Players were not part of the Player Rank Pyramid, were not expected to follow the orders of the Golden Player Leadership and their followers were to be led by them and not the Golden Leadership.

It was a power play, of some kind, by a small faction of Golden Players. A name that kept coming up, in the investigations by the Firebloods (Triplets and Followers) was that of one Arrastar. She was brilliant, canny and ruthless in her desire for more authority and resources for her own particular faction.

Even as they were forming their own faction, the triplets were not pleased by the rise of such factions amongst the Players. Most Players remained Factionless. Yet they found themselves needing to form a faction, being pressured to do so, for practical and survival reasons.

The first Quest Challenge was issued. The quest was divided into the Main Quest along with various Lesser and Side Quests. There were also Lasting Quests.

The first Main Quest was to help deal with the major threats to DeppenSouth of the Haven Caves. The only major threat that the triplets knew of clearly were the bizarre parasitic creatures that turned lifeforms into a kind of 'living-dead'. The Dragonia Empire was hinted at as another possible threat. So one of the first Lesser Quests was to gain data, store data, analyse data and to put data into report form. Then there came attempts, by the Golden Leadership High Council, to limit the Firebloods' access to such data.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Post Redone
Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 25.1[33]{40}

Joanna confronted Arrastar in a smallish cave chamber set up as an office. It was well set up with extra resources. Clearly Arrastar knew well how to get extras for herself. She had traded with local folks to have a nice looking wooden desk made, complete with drawers, but had done so fairly. She had ordered other desks to be made but only for her faction.

Joanna did not bother to smile. “No more summons! No more focusing resources on your faction! No more power games! We Fireblood Triplets are older than we appear to be. We took part in many faction struggles. Such do damage that we do not want to see done here. Those desks that you have ordered, using Playerteam resources to gain, are going to all factions now on a fairer basis. Yes, we know about your sneaky wheeling and dealing.”

To Joanna's surprise, Arrastar smiled. “Very good! You passed a test that I was told to carry out with you and that I saw as pointless. I am here to assist you, and your siblings, and not to fight you. I will be seen, by most, to quietly give into your pressure. I am not the real threat to you, amongst the Players. There is one named Epilewa. He quietly, carefully, manipulates others while remaining as hidden as possible. He is linked, somehow, to others amongst us but I have yet to identify them. I do know of Gamevoy for she has contacted me. That is the first, and last time, I will speak her name openly.”

Yes, it was that important that the existence of Gamevoy remain a secret except amongst the few that she made contact with.

Instead of a confrontation, the pair ended up having a quiet meeting together as they made new arrangements between their factions, as they made plans to learn more about Epilewa along with those he was linked with secretly. Joanna wondered if there would be action again, soon.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Have replaced Posts #41, #42 and this one! Those were the last posts to be replaced.

Post Redone
Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 26.1[34]{41}

Jake, Jessica, Jane and Jack came as the Fireblood Quads, along with 219 other Players (thus being 223 Players in all). With them came gengchimps, other gengs, equipment-supplies of a wide range of kinds but being mostly supplies.

They arrived just in time to help wage a big defensive fight against an attacking horde of living-dead from crumbling shamblers to leathery zombies and ghouls, to bizarrely attractive vampires, to loathsome lichs, to ghostly wraiths and seemingly unchanged doppelgangers.

The worst thing about the attack was that the enemy seemed to have been provided with valuable information about defence-security arrangements. Except it was only about that which the Fireblood Triplets had not concealed, with the help of Arrastar. So as they came racing towards, what were supposed to be the most vulnerable parts of the defence-security boundaries, they were suddenly confronted by a whole lot of weapon turrets, Players, local warriors and other threats coming out of hiding.

Energy ripped through the air, often merged with fired bullets, along with magic arrows, elemental energy arrows, rockets, missiles, glistening spinedarts and other projectiles. Some were bizarre, and terrible, such as small living-dead insertetrators that would penetrate a life-form and try to 'turn' it.

The Players, there, fought with fearsome efficiency as they wiped out attacker after antinatural attacker. They were fearful but program-conditioned, and trained, to quietly deal with such feelings. Some Players were using new power armour along with large battlerifles designed to be used with power armour.

Psychic-psionic attacks were taking place, as were more subtle psychic-spiritual ones. Physical-psionic assaults were far more obvious than either. Yet all such, like elemental attacks, were outnumbered by more physical onslaughts.

Exposed, by surprise, in the relative open in a non fertile glowcavern, the living-dead were butchered. They were falling very quickly, even the more powerful vampires and lichs, and even the ghostly wraiths who were hit by weapons that did effect them more powerfully.

What surprised the Players was the large variety of life-forms that had been turned into living-dead entities: that was because they were new to the idea of such as wozzle zombies and gnome vampires. Most of the living-dead seemed to come from saffron humans. A majority of the saffron humans seemed to make up the more powerful living-dead such as vampires, lichs and wraiths.

The attack failed with out the need, by the Players, to use their androids, robots, vehicles or much else that they had gained.

The attack abruptly ended! Those that could escape, did so, while most were destroyed as they tried to clumsily retreat. Those that escaped were mostly the lichs, vampires and wraiths who apparently cared nothing for those that they left behind.

The defenders swept the butcher ground and made sure all of the living-dead were destroyed.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Go from Post #41 to #43. From now on all new posts will not be redone old posts.

Edited December 16, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 27.1[35]{42}

 

Pale glimmering gas jetted from the great capsule as it was opened, and raised to horizontal by ancient humming solid-state motors. The lifting mechanisms had not been properly maintained for many centuries and juddered twice, almost coming to a halt. The lesser lichs hissed at each other, in the dimly lit chamber edged with areas of black shadow, as if blaming each other for the lack of maintenance. The shrunken, almost desiccated appearing humanoids, wore dark stinking hooded robes often heavily stained with long dried blood.

 

The Grand Lich, took a different point of view, as he stepped out of the capsule and abruptly killed five of the lichs before him. They burned, from the inside out, screaming and writhing but then were totally gone. His voice was a croaking, evil, echo of what ever it had been once but it held a strong presence of terrible power and menace. "Fools, you have failed to carry out your duties. If proper repairs are not carried out within 24 hours, all of you will die. Now, go!"

 

Most scurried away, terrified, and vanished into the darkness. Some would return with minions, and equipment-supplies, and do what they could.

 

One lich remained and she dared to speak. "My lord, of true life, about 15 years ago caravans ceased to come from Ogrossvilne and we ceased to gain fresh equipment, supplies and hatched minions. Three expeditions we sent to try to discover what had happened and to get the caravans coming once more. None of the expeditions returned and we could not afford to spend any more resources to mount any more expeditions."

 

KezaraZoto cursed in some ancient, rare, ugly sounding language. Then he spoke. "You speak truth. I will go to my inner chambers and try to contact our True Life LordLadies. Then I will unlock the last of the emergency vaults. I take it that this is why you woke me early."

 

The lich bowed briefly and then nodded.

 

KezaraZoto nodded in return. "Five have burned and so you will not die. You did well in risking the moment while others risked bringing me up from deepest restoration. As it is I was almost totally restored. Why else did you risk wakening me?"

 

Only then did ZazaraZoto, his great great granddaughter, risk telling him of the appearance of the strangers being superhuman fighters, with terrible technologies, who had wiped out many of the living-dead. The usually taciturn KezaraZoto was visibly disturbed and reluctant to report what was going on to their living-dead LordLadies. Yet he would do so for many reasons, fear being a very important one of them.

[Maharg67]

Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 28.1[36]{43}

 

"We have devastated most of the living-dead forces in the area, perhaps in the whole of DeppenSouth." The elf war-chief spoke from where she was studying a holographic map projected into the air. She pretended not to be impressed by the technologies of the supersoldiers, in her typical elfish aloof style, but it was clear she was so. The slightly pointy eared humanoid indicated a large glowcrystal cavernland (glowcavern), unknown to the clones, with a laser pointer. "Except that we have unclear repeated stories, and fewer clear reports, coming from there speaking of large numbers of the living-dead. There are reports of activity in long abandoned settlements, including ancient cities. There are excellent reasons for the abandonment for the glowcavernland for it suffered some kind of supernatural catastrophe some centuries ago. Perhaps the Guardian Elders will tell us more of what took place."

 

A Guardian Elder frowned softly. "We would do so but we know nothing of it. Our area of responsibility lies with the ancient artefacts only. Or at least that is the theory. If there are such artefacts there, we do not know of them. That is, unfortunately, more common the case than many assume. Perhaps the Elderhood knows more since they have sent secret expeditions to this area to investigate something."

 

A Elderhood Elder frowned at the soft gibe at the Elderhood doing something, in secret, that in theory they should have shared with the Guardianhood. "None of our expeditions went in that direction, at least none that I knew of, except that one of our expeditions came here and then vanished. You found the remains of what must have been one of their camping areas and a scene of violence where they were attacked by living-dead entities." The Elderhood Elder was a gnome man, less stocky than a dwarn but a little taller. "Your forensic science has found there many clues of value, as has our own means of gaining truth from old ground."

 

There were some tensions apparent in the meeting but they were not great and seemed to be lessening as talks continued between the Elderhood, the Guardianhood, various clan leaders and the Players. Even the kjiins had representatives there, which they normally would not bother to do, showing how important those meetings were held to be.

 

Arrastar was there, amongst other Golden Players, to represent the Players.

 

Epilewa was there, at some meetings, some of the time but always staid in the back. Except he was spotted slipping notes to others or having notes slipped to him from others. Epilewa was handsome, charming, brilliant but there was something about him that the Firebloods did not like, a deep coldness that he could not quite hide from all others there.

[Maharg67]

Epic Survival (From Lesser to Greater)
One 29.1[37]{44}

 

The next threat, to emerge, was a surprise to all there. Even the locals had not previously known of their existence except for dark stories coming from beyond the Deppenlands. The place it happened was a newly discovered, charted, glowcavern partly rich with bizarre silicon based quasilifeforms of crystal-flowers. The falsely fragile looking, elegantly beautiful, forms were related to the glowcrystal or so it looked to be; the crystal-flowers even glowed softly from within.

 

They came hard, and fast, in surprising speedy steamcraft of steamtrucks, steamcars and steamwalkers. The smoke, from the stacks, was surprisingly light in colour and much less, in quantity, that one might have expected from the size of the steam engines being used.

 

What came with the newcomers was unprovoked aggression. The boneskinned humanoids attacked with mechanical machineguns driven by muscles pushing, then pulling, levers in rapid succession. They used big, powerful, bolt-action rifles with long bayonets attached. They also had basic rocket launchers that fired with much power but little real accuracy. Brute force seemed to be their way, rushing headlong at the enemy even with their vehicles.

 

They attacked a new outpost, of the new Free Alliance, and got a nasty surprise as they met a fusillade of enhanced Player fire power and traditional weapon fire of the locals including magic. Steamcraft exploded dramatically as they raced along what looked like a metallic stone highway, a road it seemed that had been built an extremely long time ago. Stoneskinned soldiers, in odd metallic body-armour and uniforms, fell before they could reach more secure, sheltered, areas to fire from.

 

As fast as they had attacked, the dull dark red boneskinned survivors retreated. Boneskin was known to be natural to such as goblins, orcs and gremlins of the Horda but not of that colour. These were like boneskinned humans. Survivors fled to machines still able to move and then they were leaving, also abandoning their dead and wounded behind in the process.

 

The defenders came forth, when it was safe to do so, to examine the dead enemies. Dying enemies committed suicide if they could do so but some were not capable of this and were captured as were damaged enemy machines. They found strange helmets with short, stubby, horns and short, ceremonial looking swords with curved, or double curved, blades decorated with odd symbols marked into the steel blades. Each damaged vehicle was also dotted with symbols but of a different set of designs. Yet one symbol was more commonly found, being on the helmets and vehicles, the latter being bigger than the other symbols on the vehicle, and the Firebloods knew it.