Voidbound Voyagers Roleplaying Thread

Dark quickly turned and pointed his gun at the shout behind him, before raising his gun. "Could you give us more of a warning next time, before you get mistaken for one of those things?" Dark asked as he tried to aim at the mutant behind the new Floran. He didn't have a clear shot so he manoeuvred himself to try and get a better aim, and felt his arm scratch against the rough metal surface. That wasn't right, the walls were smooth and there seemed to be a scratching noise coming from the other side. The wall was rusted, which would only happen if there was water, and that scratching sounded awfully like something was trying to come through the wall. Dammnit, they had walked straight into an ambush without even realising it.

"Look out!" Dark shouted, holstering his pistol and drawing his broadsword. "Ambush through the..." He managed as what appeared to be a pickaxe broke through the wall and a hand grabbed him and pulled him through the gap, as the ceiling collapsed in the newly unsupported hole in the wall sealing it off. Dark felt his sword pierce through whatever had grabbed him, and then he felt his grip on his sword disappear as he fell through the gaping darkness beyond. The mutant must have climbed a rock face in a cavern in order to find the metal wall of the corridor and began digging, though what he hit when he reached the bottom worried Dark a little more than how the creature had climbed up. Considering it was a moon it was more than likely that he'd hit solid rock and that would be that.

So it came as a surprise when he hit water. Scrambling and floundering underwater, Dark somehow managed to break the surface and escape the threat of drowning. Taking out his torch and shining it around, as best he could while floating, he found a rock tunnel that offered somewhere dry where he could stand. Swimming over, he realised that he had lost his sword. Climbing onto the shore of the tunnel he gazed around while panting. So much for proving his worth so far, all he'd really managed to do was to get injured and now he'd fallen victim to an ambush. Speaking of which, he realised that the others would have no idea what had happened to him. He reached up to his communicator and prayed that he had remembered to connect it to at least one of the other crew's communicators and that there was some sort of signal. "Come in Cloudhopper, this is Dark Ruin, do you hear me?" He said through, torch light shining down the tunnel, checking for any danger.

 

"Fucking mutants!" Pixelstomp said "DIE DIE DIE DIE, YOU ARE NOT EDIBLE!" Loker said

"Get ya a mushroom later buddy!" Paillan said also staring to kill mutants

"We'll talk about this later! shoot! shoot!" Cloud said

"Hey, Dark got graved by one of this mutants!" Scar said while shooting

"No time for that!" Cloud says shooting "we will get him later, depatch this creatures!"

"Sure why not!" They all said

 

Pixelstomp grabs his whip hilt and it whirs to life, sending a distinct crackling noise through the air. A mutant leaps at him, and Pixelstomp whips him across the face, leaving a sizzling burn. He finishes the mutant off with a lash to the neck. Another mutant pins him to a wall and tries to bite his shoulder. Pixelstomp smacks him away with his staff, and delivers a quick jab to each eye, rendering the hissing monstrosity blind. The sightless thing growls, and tackles Pixelstomp through the wall Dark was pulled into. He lands with a thud on an underwater rock, and his body lets out a final flicker of light, visible to Dark, before going unconscious.

 

Armedes awoke suddenly as Amii flashed to life. "Hey, there's a breach in the hallway a floor above! You might wanna check it out!" She lectured, before lowering her light down to the point where it wasn't different than Armedes'.
"Alright...give me a second, gon' grab a bit more ammo n'case." Armedes replied, before filling his belt and bandoleer with extra sets of ammo for his pistols. He hopped off of the crevasse-like hideout and walked out into the quarantine. He climbed the steps upwards, quietly following the mutants whom payed no mind to him, but were more invested in the noise from the next floor. By the time he had arrived upstairs, Dark and Pixelstomp had disappeared, while the final few were still facing off against the pink beasts.
Quickly, Armedes grabbed his pistols from his belt and began to unleash a storm of bullets from down the hall.

 

Dark froze. There was Pixelstomp, caught in the same problem as him, flying through the wall. He moved forward to try and help, and then noticed the three mutants that had followed Pixelstomp through the hole. "Oh hell." He muttered before raising his pistol and hearing a click as he pulled the trigger. Jammed. "Hope I can remember how to fight unarmed." Dark muttered, putting his pistol away. He could unjam it later on, but for now he had bigger problems. "This is Dark, me and Pixelstomp can handle ourselves, but not if many more of them follow. Try and lure them away and then get yourselves to safety. I'll make contact again once we're somewhere safe as well." Dark said through his communicator before moving towards the lake.

Dark quickly stripped off his clothes. It had been difficult enough dragging himself with heavy water saturated jeans and heavy metal armour, so if he wanted to drag Pixelstomp out he was going to need to lighten the load somehow, modesty be damned. As he dove into the lake again, he heard the three splashes of the mutants and realised what a mistake he had made. He was now armoured, unarmed, underwater and about to face three things that could probably kick his ass all while trying to find and drag an unconscious glitch to the shore before his brain suffocated or his body rusted. Oh yeah, and it was pitch black, he'd left his torch in the tunnel. At least he'd left it on so as he could see his way back. He made it to Pixelstomp as his body flickered and went out and somehow managed to drag him to shore without any problems from the mutants. He looked back and watched them floundering, trying to find them. Seemed that they needed light to see too... And he was standing in light.

"Ah nuts, they can see us now." He highly doubted that his underwear that he had kept on was going to do much to help defend him. He looked up at the hole in the wall and prayed to whatever deity existed that the group had heard him. If any more came towards them then it really didn't matter what they did, he and Pixelstomp would be overrun before they could reach them.

 

Caught up in the thrill of combat, Lief did not notice the creature behind him until it was too late. He whirled around to face a mutant wielding a warhammer. In a moment of panic, he blinked to the far side of the hallway, hoping to distance himself from the armed variant. His left leg was obviously broken at the stem.
Next to him was the gaping hole in the metal wall through which Pixelstomp and Dark Ruin fell. No more mutants were in the vicinity, the rest of the group was doing a good job of distracting them.
"Damn. Why do I never bring my grappling hook to these things?" Lief cursed at himself, then proceeded to shout down the hole. "Dark! Pixel! Are you okay down there?"
"Pixelstomp is unconscious. We have three mutants with us, I'm unarmed, and unarmored." Dark replied.
Lief aimed his flashlight down the hole. There was a pool of purple water, he could see the mutants closing in.
"Dark Ruin! Listen to me! I'm going to throw down my shield, I want you two to hide behind it!" Lief says before tossing his shield, decorated with tribal paintings, down to the unlucky duo."
"What for?" Dark asked, confused by what Lief was planning to do.
"I'm going to blast them with my psi-staff" Lief said nervously.

 

While watching the battle unfold in front of him, it finally clicked. Those creatures are after beings that can be consumed--not a plasmatic being. With a flash of rare intelligence, he smashed the door panel to the staircases, preventing any more creatures to pour in from the lower and upper floors. All that was left were the beasts on the current floor. The mutants would lose interest after awhile, so they just had to hold out until all on the floor were dead. Until then, though, the creatures would remain a threat. He reloaded his pistols before firing off into the crowd of beasts again.
After a few magazines, it hit him. the Aoi Nehan was on this floor. His colors changed to a more red as he fled in the direction of a now-abandoned armory. Behind him, he closed the door to said room, then continued on to the Loading Bay.
Still locked... He thought. He clicked open the large hydraulic doors, filling the floor with a noise loud enough to deter any creature that wasn't quite at the fight. The doors closed, then he saw it. The ship, still in full form, not a single scratch---that wasn't already there.--- He ran inside of the ship, only to find Amii's solid hologram form re-organizing the storage room. Still unnoticed by his humanized SAIL system, he walked into the cockpit, then sat down in the captain's chair. "Amii, open the loading bay door and key the engine for me, if yah' will." The hydraulics opened, and the ships engines powered on, creating enough noise to pull a decent amount of those mutants to the bay. The ship had been lifted on a platform for construction, almost to the height of the catwalks.

 

Dark ran for the shield, reaching out to grab it, and got tackled to the ground on his back by one of the things attacking him instead while the shield clattered to the ground beside him. As much as he would have thought that that was a good throw, he was a bit preoccupied with the snarling beast on top of him trying to claw him while drooling on him. He wished he was still wearing clothes. With his arms busy protecting himself from attack, he resorted to the age old method of fending off attackers. He raised his knee at speed into where the reproductive organs should be. He had no idea if these mutants had reproductive organs, or if it did what gender it was, but his reasoning was, it was a humanoid, humanoids reproductive organs were sensitive to encourage humanoids to keep them away from danger, the sensitivity should still be there.

He was right. The mutant fell off stunned by the sharp blow, allowing Dark enough time to pick up the shield and dive towards Pixelstomp, raising the shield. "Fire away!" He shouted, bracing himself for impact.

 

Lief watched from above as one of the mutants tackled Dark Ruin as he reached for the shield. Feeling helpless, Lief prepared himself for what he thought would be Dark's transformation into one of the monstrosities. For some unknown reason, the monster fell off Dark, then toppled over in agony. Dark grabbed the shield and dove towards Pixelstomp, burying himself behind the thick metal plate.
Lief didn't even need a moment's notice as to what he should do next. In a moment of desperation, Lief managed to ignore the overwhelming pain from his crushed leg, and blinked over to a ledge in the rock wall from which he had a better shot at the mutant.
"Fire away!", Dark shouted.
Lief charged up his psi-staff and released the energy directly over where the trio of mutants stood. Using that much energy drained Lief's combat-stricken body. He lost awareness, and fell off the ledge he was perched on, into the pool below.

 

Dark felt the blow to the shield and dug in, before falling flat on his face as the push of the attack finally stopped. He looked up and grinned. "Nice shot, thanks for the..." Dark began before noticing the Floran falling from the rock wall towards the pool, unconscious. "Is anyone NOT going to fall into that pool unconscious other than me?" He hissed in annoyance, realising that he now had two unconscious people to help. Well, at least he was useful for more than canon fodder now, and maybe helping them would let him fit into the group better. So long as they didn't uncover his origins, people usually avoided him once they learned that.

He dived into the pool again and managed to reach the Floran and his staff before they hit the bottom, dragging him to the shore and putting him down before giving himself a shake. It was getting cold without clothes on. He moved to where the Floran was and listened to his breathing. It sounded fine without any watery breath. Dark breathed a sigh of relief. He had never got the hang of CPR, and he really wasn't sure how it would work with a Floran, them being plant based.

He moved over to his clothes and picked up his armour first. placing it back on, thankfully protected by the shield. His clothes on he other hand were torched, being just outside the range of the shield. He sighed, now wearing just a scouter breastplate, a scouter pair of pants and his scanner. Still cold thanks to the lack of arms to his armour. He looked back up at the hole in the wall, noticing the combat continuing up above and quickly thought through his options. With two unconscious bodies he was going to need to be slowed down an awful lot if he tried to move, making him a target. Then again, sitting around waiting would leave them exposed to any more that tried to follow, and that would lead to disaster. He quickly searched the others for weapons, picking one of the Floran's short-swords. Pixelstomps weapons looked complex and he really didn't need to have to learn how to use one in the middle of a fight while carrying two unconscious bodies. He then noticed one of the mutants twitch and began wondering if they could regenerate. He wasn't willing to hang about to find out, he had to get these two to shelter.

Dark also took the wire tool from the Floran and quickly bound Pixelstomp's hands around his chest and Pixelstomp's legs around his waist, allowing him to be carried without any support, so long as the wire held. He then tied the short sword he took to his right wrist and then his torch to his scanner in such a way that it would shine directly forward before replacing the wiring tool with a good bit less wire with the Floran. He then picked the Floran up and carried him in his arms, before moving off into the tunnel ahead, focusing only on moving and watching for danger, using too much effort to focus on anything else.

((Sorry about calling Lief 'the Floran' but as he and Dark haven't been properly introduced yet that's all he knows him as))

 

Pixelstomp's eyes slowly flicker to life. He looks around in a shock, and see's Dark's face. He awkwardly unties himself and drops down, standing up.
"Dark?! What happened back there?"
Dark gives a detailed explanation as they walk down the dark halls, and Pixelstomp thanks him for saving his life. He flicks a small switch on his wristpad and holds his arm up. The wristpad gives off a bright, beaming light that illuminates the hall. The first thing they see is one of the strong, leader mutants crawling towards them. The mutant screams, and drops something, then sprints away at disturbing speeds. Pixelstomp and Dark cautiously move over to the dropped object, which is a cocoon. A freshly-spawned mutant crawls out of the cocoon, gurgling. Pixelstomp turns the light whip on and throws it around the mutant's neck, before setting the intensity to 4 on the handle. The mutant grasps the beam that is strangling and burning him, and slowly falls back into the cocoon, trying to hide.
Another mutant runs down the hallway after hearing the sounds of pain, and prepares to leap at Dark. He stops as he sees the captured mutant submitting, and begins communicating with his comrade using a strange pattern of snarls, gurgles, and yelps. Eventually, the other mutant ignores Dark and Pixelstomp and scuttles away.
"Does having this... thing... allow us to pass by?" Pixelstomp lowers the intensity to 2, and the mutant slowly stands up, and cautiously moves closer to the group. They begin walking and the mutant reluctantly follows. They encounter a few other mutants who also ignore the group after communicating with the submissive.

 

Dark had thanked the gods, if there were any, when Pielstomp had awoken. He wasn't sure how much longer he could have gone carrying two bodies but with just the one he should be able to continue going. When Pixelstomp had flashed the light, where he had focused on the cocoon, Dark had focused on something else. Dark had noticed a mark on the mutants skin, something that he had burned into his memory.

The mark of the leaders of the cult he was born into.

He tried not to jump to conclusions, it could have been a survivor from the USCM attack that had tried to blend in and got caught up in this mess. Except, something told him that it was something far more sinister. He had felt a familiarity when he'd arrived here, and seeing that mark was a bit much to be a coincedence. Had the cult had something to do with this? Had they created this mutant menace? He looked up as Pixelstomp spoke again and tried to act like he had been paying attention. Realising that Pixelstomp had asked a question he shrugged, hoping that it was a valid response. Then he noticed the mutant that Pixelstomp had captured. It kept sneaking glances at him, and every time they came across another mutant and it communicated with it, they would always look in his direction before leaving. Dark was getting ready to blow the thing's head off with his gun before he remembered it was jammed. Then he remembered the sword and wondered if he could chop it's head off. Either way, he found himself hating it more and more. He just hoped that Pixelstomp wouldn't notice, or at least wouldn't ask any questions..

They came across a door which seemed to have been sealed. "Think you can open it Pixelstomp? My hands are a bit full here." Dark asked, hoping that some measure of safety lay beyond the door.

 

"Hey cloud!" Paillan said tearing apart from mutants "how's the support doing behind there?!"

"As best as I can go without 2 persons already. We are starting to get short on ammo, do you have some?" Cloud says shooting

"As If! No wait I remembered I took a few rounds back... here!" Paillan threw a box with ammo to his back

"Those are explosive, men this is a cave, this is not a good idea!" Scar says

"Them aim to the roof and seal us, I really need to rest..." Paillan said

Cloud and Scar aimed their weapons to the roof and shoot. With a huge noise the roof fell and separated them from the two groups of mutants

"Now. Our group got separated. Scar and I are going to search for dark, leif and pixel. You stay here and get your breath back, them follow us" Cloud says

"Ohhhh HELL no!!" Paillan says with a half eated shroom in his hand "I am comming with you!"

Cloud facepalms.

 

Lief woke up in someone's arms. He opened his eyes and saw Dark Ruin's face.
"Wha... Where am I...?" He managed, before screaming and writhing in agony.
"What the..." Dark suddenly dropped him, and stepped back in confusion. He then looked at Lief's leg. Half of the area below his knee was completely missing.
"Where the hell did the rest of my leg go?" Lief cried.
"It probably fell off in the pool." Pixelstomp said.
That's right. The pool of erchius liquid which had broken their fall. He better get back to somewhere safe, and quick.
"Listen." Lief started. "Half of my lower leg is missing, so it's not a stretch to say that some of the liquid erchius we fell into is in my body."
"That was erchius fuel? I thought it was just weird water." Dark said.
"Of course it was erchius, its impossible for liquid water to exist at these temperatures." Pixelstomp rolled his eyes at Dark.
"Well how was I supposed to know that?" said a defensive Dark Ruin.
"Okay, just shut up and hand me my staff." Lief grabbed his staff and stood up, using it as a crutch. He then parted the leaves covering his flower. "My bulb is already wilting, see?" The tips of Lief's blood-red petals had faded, leaving grayish-brown hues in their place.
"I'll see if I can get this door open." Pixelstomp said.

 

The pink beasts had been advancing, and the ship wasn't going to be able to hold off against a full-on attack. With the click of a panel, the doors above opened to reveal a tunnel the size of the hangars up to the surface. The engines lit up, and the Aoi Nehan shot up out of the loading bay, and soon had reached the outermost part of the thin atmosphere. It'd be a quick cruise past the Voidbound flagship and straight to the Apex Imperia. One he he gets there, he'd be able to start anew...maybe just send down a shuttle for those crashed folk. Then again, they did give him a good excuse to snatch an FTL and spend a few days working on his ship. Hell, he'd have to, considering how they treated him. Then again, if the Apex cannot help him...well, if that were to happen then they'd be on their own.
Thirty minutes later...
Finally, he had reached the Apex cruiser! Soon, a new life would start for this Novakid, and he was destined to make it a damn good one. He landed inside of a hangar. First thing he did was stop by the on-ship bar.
"Welcome to my bar--what's your poison?" The ape-like tender questioned.
"Ah'll have whatever you can give for 200 Erchius crystals and 30 Apex credits." Armedes responded, slouching over the counter slightly. The tender came back and had a mixed drink of shifting colors. After the drink was set down, a pouch and a credit chit were set on the counter. Glug glug glug...gulp. Damn...whatever was in that drink was well worth his backup fuel supply. "Say, pal, y'know where ah' can speak to an official?" Armedes asked, before the tender pointed in the direction of the bridge.
Armedes stood up, then walked over to the Apex guard. "Ah' have somethin' y'all should know. Down on the Erchius mine, there's a bug goin' round. Miners are dying, and a group of people from a wreck are tryin' to fend off against the mutants." Armedes spoke, to which the guard walked up the bridge, then returned a couple minutes later. "A team of specialists are gonna be sent down by next sunrise. Congrats, you're now part of that team. The bunks are down the hall, to the left. Enjoy, you unlucky bastard." The guard spoke.

 

Cloud, Scar and Paillan continue to where the three fell, and enter. They look down, finding the three considerably fine. "Holy shit.." Scar says, shocked. "Leif, your leg..." Scar continues. "Cloud, I think we should rest up for a bit. Even if we're late, that is a fresh wound, he'll have to heal up." He offers them a hand up. "We gotta go."

A few moments later...

The group continue down to where the ceiling of the cave had caved in, and decide to stop there to rest. "We'll continue when everyone's ready." Says Cloud. "So tend to your wounds then we'll continue." Everything seems calm, and they enjoy themselves. "So.." Says Scar. "Anyone here a mechanic?" He waves his lopped off mechanical arm.

((Terribly sorry for never being on, my schedule is always busy guys. Sorry. ))

 

(( Same here. On the bright side, the server'll be up tomorrow, which is good! ))

As the others rest near the cave-in, Cloud leans back against a wall, the smooth second skin of his armor holding tight around him, miniature plates adjusting for optimal deflection angles in anticipation of yet another firefight.
The charge on the wouldn't last forever, and the last time the Suit didn't have any sunlight, it tried aggressive breakdown of of host tissues. And THAT had hurt. He recovered in a month, but that's not- --

The familiar red glow of the Suit's compound low-light vision system faded away, as the suit redirected power to more vital systems. It'd been months since he'd actually seen darkness with his own eyes.
And now, the only thing illuminating the cavern was the compact Nanostove in the center, the blue flame casting a pale glow on the assorted Voyagers sleeping nearby. He could almost feel the heat from the Nanostove,
which meant that the Temperature Regulation was judged as being nonessential for this occasion by the onboard AI. It was particularly quiet, ever since Cloud had hired Pixelstomp. Maybe it was intimidated?...

...

Cloud awoke some time later. Was it the morning? Still night? Heads-up Display was disabled, all of the information that would normally be available at a single glance was no longer at his fingertips, and he had no idea what time it is. He went around the Nanostove, noting how tired he suddenly was, and woke the others up. "If we're going to put an end to these beasts, we should find that Alpha Creature that we saw back when we crashed. Maybe it's like an insect, and killing it would have a ripple effect on the others."

(( I'll be on more often, and probably posting from Tapatalk quite a bit too. ))

 

The morning had set upon this Erchius facility--and with first light came the two Apex Dropships. Heading the squad was none other than the oh-so-suspicious Novakid. They begin their descent into the facility, avoiding dens and removing decent threats as a squad until they set upon the large rustic hole in the wall.
"Oh shit, so this is where they fell?" A quipping Apex troop gestured, only to no response.
After awhile, the group had secured the floor, set up a watch for the resting area. "So, y'all ready to see some serious shit 'ere, boys?" Armedes asked, slouching in his makeshift seat. He continued. "In this 'ere cave, we'll be seeing numerous awful things. Mutants...dead beings...the cave beasts..." Armedes teased, making up the last part. Luckily they didn't know the normal culture and rumors on this facility. Damn lucky, if they caught him...
"So, when are we gonna set out?" One asked, before continuing. "I'm getting bored just switching shifts, shooting down panels."
"Soon. Ah' reckon we'll leave in the midday slump, tryna' avoid the feedin' times fer these beasts." Armedes informed, before he stood up and stared down the large hole. "Sergeant, we got a bucket an' some rope? Ah'm sure you'll be hungry soon." He continued.
He got the bucket and pulled up a bucket full of erchius fuel. Using the panels, he created a makeshift furnace. They cooked whatever they had in their rations. Someone had porkchops, another had a thing of full corn. They cooked all of it up and enjoyed a semi-quiet meal, planning for the now-rescue mission in the mines.

 

Dark hadn't slept. He'd waited until the others had fallen asleep and headed back down to the door they had discovered earlier. He quickly opened it up and entered, unwilling to let the others know what he was doing. The hall beyond was exactly how he remembered. The reason he felt this place being so familiar was simple, he was born here. Until the battle, when it was pretty much destroyed. He had never realised that his cult had an atmosphere destroyer. Or that it would poison the water with erchius fuel.

He sealed the door behind him, locking it from all access from the outside. He'd left a note with the group, telling them that he was fine, he just had to find something that could help them but he had to do it alone. At the end he'd written "Please trust me, there's a personal side to this for me as well which is why I'm going alone." hoping that they would respect that. He really wanted his past buried, once and for all.

He moved to the archives door, the only door he hadn't been through. He was there to destroy things, not learn their history. As he entered, he wondered just how long this place had been here. It seemed to have survived pretty well, and he had no idea how the miners hadn't found it. Maybe they had and the USCM had kept it off limits. Letting people know that there was a weapon in enemy hands that could turn planets into moons wasn't necessarily a good plan unless you wanted to incite panic, so the USCM may have attempted to cover it up. Either way, what he needed was in here somewhere. He walked up to a terminal and began searching for anything related to the creatures, what they were, wheree they came from, what their goals were, anything. Just something to prove that he wasn't connected to them, or that his family's cult hadn't made them.

 

As everyone slept, Lief lied awake.
Sweating and gasping, he was having strange thoughts. Strange sensations. Unable to tell. Unable to know. The others do not know.
"Poison... Need antidote..." He said. Why did he say that? He did not know. He knew one thing, he was told by...
"It's over" He heard, he screamed.

((He's hallucinating from the poison))