Bounty hunters of the apocalypse discussion

@Troy: That would probably be part of how I was thinking this could be rebooted, yes. I don't know if I would still re-use the same plot or at least the over-arcing parts of it, but even if I did I'm still gonna post all the spoilers here anyway. I'd rather go ahead and have a few people already know the plot than keep things here unfinished.

@Fantasy: If it was "Larry", (Which does sound about right when I try to remember the scene.) it definitely wasn't his real name. As an Elf he wouldn't have a Human name; just a fake name he'd take on while pretending to be Human. I don't think I came up with his real name yet, but I was thinking it'd be something that started with an L, so that the choice of "Larry" as a fake name at least made a little more sense than just being random.

And yes, I think I did forget to mention Coline specifically, Arthur too. But the thing about the two of them is that there's not much to say that wasn't already brought up in the RP.

Coline is from France, and was on vacation in the US with some of her friends; at least some of said friends spoke French and English, but Coline as you know only speaks French. When the apocalypse started her friends died, leaving her alone in the US without really being able to communicate with anyone; so by the time she finally could get a chance to tell someone, "hey, I'm from France and I'd kinda like to get back home" she was already in a decent enough setup with the trade caravan and didn't want to go back to square one by going home.

As for her occupation, I dunno, never decided. Probably not something that actually involved fighting though, given her stated style in the RP. Clearly her experience is more from the apocalypse itself than anything beforehand. As for her stuff, she got set up with it by the trade caravan sometime after she joined with them.

And Arthur, well, the only thing I can think to bring up even remotely related to Arthur is part of the reason why he cares about runners the way he does. It's not really a secret, but it was never really brought up specifically: Runners aren't dead. All the other former-Humans in the undead category: the walkers and their variations such as the ghouls, the vampires, the skeletons, the ghosts and the other formerly-Human spirits? They all have one thing in common; they died. If you check them for heartbeats or pulses, you won't find one.

But a runner? A runner never died, and is still very much so alive. Their metabolism is kinda wonky due to the chaos infused into them, (hence why Arthur never really bats an eye to uncooked and/or spoiled meat) but they still have a heartbeat and pulse, still need to eat at least occasionally or die, still poop, all that jazz. So because of that and because he is one, Arthur sees killing runners as akin to murder.

Anyway, next plot post is still pending. Honestly the main reason this one has taken this long is just plain writer's block; I had the time available to get a decent post in the same night as my last post, or just a night or two after, easily. But the writer's block for this in particular has just been really crippling lately. It's finally feeling better now though, so I should be able to at least work on the post tonight and/or tomorrow, and hopefully post it, too.

The trip itself, for a good portion of it, would be time skipped as it would be uneventful. I was originally planning on having a bit of excitement by having it turn out some of the ship's crew were actually merfolk in disguise, but around when the RP was ending I had decided it would probably be better to just forget that and keep things moving instead.

So the next thing would be subtle hints, the way I like to do them, (where they're mentioned but not specifically drawn attention to.) that the ship has altered course; instead of heading a combination of East and North to get to Britain, the ship ends up turning to go a combination of East and South. Unbeknownst to you guys, word has managed to spread around about you, and the captain of the ship has been contacted via the ship's radio by U.N.A.M. with an official request to bring you somewhere.

This would only be blatantly revealed to you guys once you're within sight of it, and the captain would inform you: You'd see ahead of the ship a small flotilla/fleet of sorts, including an American aircraft carrier, some British and Spanish cruisers and battleships, and some other support ships, plus one cruise liner; a familiar looking cruise liner, for any of you who've regularly read GPS articles. On board that ship is the top brass of U.N.A.M., doing their work to coordinate military efforts globally, and as the captain of the ship you're on informs you, they'd like to speak with your group.

I'd let you guys get a bit psyched up about meeting with the U.N.A.M. leaders, before letting it all go to hell, cut scene style.

As you guys got closer to the other ships, it seems like a storm is starting, and you'd notice something floating in the air above the cruise liner: Mephisto. Mephisto points his staff down and fires large beams of red light into the water, which dissipate after a few moments. The U.N.A.M. ships try to fire on him, but just as suddenly as he seemed to appear there, he's gone into the storm clouds. For about a whole minute, nothing else seems to happen...

Then enormous tentacles, each at least ten feet wide, start to emerge from the water around the U.N.A.M. ships and start assaulting the ships by whacking at them or wrapping around them. The ships start opening fire with what they can, but they can't seem to do enough damage to deter whatever is in the water. It's obvious that something absolutely huge is under the surface, bigger than even the aircraft carrier, and you guys would catch glimpses through the storm of its large mass coming up on the cruise liner, and snapping the ship in two like nothing. It is here you guys meet your first enemy that is not in the bestiary: A Cthulian kraken.

Between the storm and the huge kraken eating the military ships not far away from you, the captain of the ship you're on makes the sensible decision of turning away and getting the hell out of there as fast as possible. It's hard to tell which direction you're going in the storm, but he's certain it's still Eastward. Fortunately either the kraken has no interest in your ship, or you have enough of a head start to get away.

Unfortunately, you're off course, and things in the bigger picture are about to get very, very bad...

Fucking writer's block! You won't stop me, you're only slowing me down!

The ship eventually makes landfall, except instead of Britain, it's landed in Africa, likely to the groups' distraught. Specifically, somewhere along the West coast of Morocco, likely near Rabat.

Now one of the obvious options would just be to get back in the boat and head North around Spain to hook towards Britain, but unfortunately when you guys land a lot of the NPC ship crew bail, refusing and unwilling to go back to the seas now that they know the Cthulian kraken exists. This pretty much renders the boat unusable.

Fortunately, it wouldn't take too much for you guys to start getting some communication through GPS available. The good news is that somebody's ready to get a plane to you guys to fly you over to Britain quick; you guys just have to get to a useable airfield first. There's a securely held U.N.A.M. airbase over in Egypt if you guys are willing to catch a ride over there, or you could help secure a local, abandoned airbase long enough for the plane to come and land safely and pick you up. I had planned that if you guys went to Egypt, you would fight some mummy-themed walkers led by a likewise mummy-themed lich; I didn't have a fleshed out encounter for the alternative by the time we stopped though.

The bad news you guys get from GPS is an update on global events. When the U.N.A.M. top command got chomped by that kraken, the rest of U.N.A.M. started to scramble, trying to figure out who would be in charge and what they needed to change because of this new development. They probably would have had some ideas figured out by now, if it wasn't for the NCC. Also hearing of U.N.A.M. losing their top command, the church saw their opportunity, and pounced; across Europe and Northern Africa, the NCC has been coming down on U.N.A.M. bases, forcing them to either switch over to the NCC, or die. The NCC and U.N.A.M. are now effectively at war, and with U.N.A.M. scrambling to get their command structure back in order and the NCC seemingly ignorant of just how close Mephisto is to his goal, everything's turned into a damn fine mess.

... I apologize that this post took this long since the last post, and wasn't even that long to make up for it. Work has gotten a lot more busy lately for me than I'm used to, and it's ramped up that selective writer's block a ton. Combined with trying to stay on top of other RP stuff, this ended up taking a bit of a back-burner position.

What should help is that a couple of things have finally cleared up on my real life side of things, which won't really give me much more free time, but will give me some better peace of mind. Hopefully, that will make me get this damned writer's block less often.

Damn those NCC.

Oh yeah, and since you guys are in Africa after all, I'd probably have another fight against other Humans finally come up; bandits and/or cultists.

Anyway, after either going to the airfield in Egypt or securing a local one, those guys with the plane come over to pick you up. It's a large propeller cargocraft of some kind; I hadn't picked one exactly but something like the Airbus A400M. Their plan is to take you pretty much straight to Britain, so once you've packed on, you're off.

And that's where I need to detour a bit...

There's something Goldilocks knows that you guys don't know; something she's been keeping secret from you. Well, not really; the fact is she doesn't actually know that you guys don't know it. This could have come up on its own before now in the RP, depending on what you guys talked about with her or showed to her. In fact it's already been hinted at a couple of times.

If you check the bestiary, specifically on the rare demons, you may note that it says a dozen Warlords have been encountered on Earth so far; this includes the one that was somewhere in the Rocky Mountains at the beginning of the RP, as was mentioned a few times. Then there's been one other Deceiver, AKA Overlord, before Mephisto. Doing the math, that makes Mephisto the 14th true demon on Earth since this all started, right?

Well, as I subtly slipped into the sequence of Goldilocks initially yelling at Israfel, she implies that Mephisto is not the 14th, but in fact the 15th. Jacob brought this up more blatantly when you guys interrogated him after his revelation, but he didn't know what it was about and you guys didn't seem interested in pursuing this hint.

The other time it came closest to coming up in the RP proper was when one of the caravan merchants was selling a GPS booklet on rare monsters, as if you guys had acquired it and let Goldilocks read it, she would've pointed out the mistake. See, there's a third kind of true demon around; formerly they were Warlords, and thus originally Archangels, but they had used chaos to twist themselves so far that they lost their Humanoid shape, and donned a new moniker: Beastlords, as cheesy as that sounds, due to their non-uniform and beastly appearances. And it just so happens that not only is a Beastlord currently on Earth, but the reason that Goldilocks doesn't realize that you don't know, is that technically you do know; after all, there's even a videotape of it circulating around.

It's just that nobody knows the dragon is not a rare beast, but actually a rare demon. And why do I bring it up now? Well...

You guys don't make it to Britain on this flight. While passing over France, you guys encounter Vendral; or should I say, your plane encounters him. In what I planned to be more of a cutscene than a proper boss fight, Vendral the dragon Beastlord comes out of the clouds ahead of the plane swooping down, and lands on top of it, lined up with it. Being pretty much larger than the plane, there's really no chance of shaking him off, and he proceeds to simply twist his neck around and turn the cockpit into a slagged inferno of melted metal and vaporized pilots. He then jumps off the plane, forcing it downwards towards the ground, and goes on his way.

It's unlikely I'd kill anyone in the crash, especially if you guys did some good quick thinking, but there would be a pretty good chance of some injuries. Of course, now you're down somewhere in France's countryside, set back from your goal of getting to Britain to stop Mephisto, again.

... Hah! I knew I could get back to posting more often than once a week!

edited 24th Apr '15 2:53:22 AM by FirockFinion

Man, I brag in my last post about getting back into posting more than once a week, and then this happens. Anyway, my apologies; I took a few days off from just about everything for my birthday, then after that got hit with some fierce selective writer's block. I'm gonna be finally getting some work in on the next post tonight, but I don't think I'll be finishing it before bed; I should be able to post it tomorrow night, barring any huge distractions or bad writer's block.

Well, never mind, typing this up didn't take as long as I thought it would.

So, as you guys wander about the French countryside, looking for first a way to get to Britain and second a way to find a Fair Folk floating island, the major set encounter that I had planned was coming across a fairy tribe. Now, how this encounter would play out mostly depends on one thing: if Emerson is still in the party or not. If he is, he'd pretty much auto-solve the situation; if he died or you guys forced him out of the group though, you'd have to figure it out yourselves.

If Emerson is not with you:

The fairy tribe is set up in a tree in the middle of a large, round courtyard of sorts paved with large cobblestones. On all of these cobblestones, made to be blend in almost perfectly at a casual glance, is magic ritual circles. Each one is a trap that will be activated if anyone touches it, sending a simple burst of energy upwards which wouldn't hurt but does pack a lot of kinetic force; in other words, if you were to step on one with your foot, it would suddenly shove your foot upwards, probably making you lose balance and fall over.

Once you guys have set off one or two, it becomes painfully obvious that something is up with this courtyard. Now, nothing's saying you guys have to deal with it; you could just leave. Buuut, you are looking for a floating island, and having fairies to help you would make finding one and getting up to it a lot easier.

So, it probably wouldn't be too hard for someone in the group to guess that there's fairies in the tree in the center of the courtyard. You could hollar at them and try to look with binoculars and scopes, but as is fairies usual wont, they'll do their best to act as if they're not there, and hope that you guys just go away. Just yelling at them won't work. Of the obvious options I can think of, here's about how the situation would go down.

The best option would be to have one of the party members who can fly just go over the trap circles directly to the tree; once faced with one of you at point blank, the fairies would finally start talking.

The next best option would be to have Goldilocks or Israfel shoot a fire spell at the tree. This is what Goldilocks would recommend once the idea that the tree has fairies in it comes up, and, as she expected, the fairies would block the spell before it hit the tree, making it undeniably obvious that they're there. Then they'd start talking, though they would be a bit mad at the group for trying that.

The worst option you guys could do is start shooting at the tree with any guns. The fairies can't block bullets, and while this would certainly expose them it could also kill some of them, depending on how exactly you guys went about shooting at the tree. If you guys did kill some of them, the fairies would swarm out of the tree to attack you guys. In this scenario, only after many more of the fairies were dead and it was obvious you guys would win, then they would finally surrender and negotiate helping you.

If Emerson is with you:

The setup with the tree, courtyard, and magic traps is all the same of course, but this time, Emerson sees the traps and warns the group about them. (Or doesn't, depending on who's going to walk into them first, because he might want to laugh at one of you guys falling on your ass first.) He then declares that he will handle the situation, and starts yelling at the fairy tree that if they don't start talking, he'll come over and make them talk; like without Emerson, the fairies don't respond, though there would be a notable tension in the air this time.

Seeing that they won't talk, Emerson says something along the lines of, "fine then, have at ye!" and charges, weaving between the trap circles since he's small enough to do so, and screaming a battle cry the whole way. This of course happens in a near blur, and after reaching the tree he quickly goes up into the branches. Fairies practically explode from the tree in a panic as Emerson keeps yelling from somewhere in the mess. One of the fairies coming off the tree seems to start flying more erratically, like they're having trouble staying in the air; Emerson is latched onto the fairy and the fairy doesn't have the strength to support both of their weights. After crash landing, Emerson finishes apprehending the one fairy while the rest go hiding back into the tree.

And here's where things get even more comical. Emerson yells to the fairies that he's willing to kill the hostage if they don't open up to negotiations. The fairies seem to talk among themselves for a minute, then yell back, "no thanks, you can do whatever with her". The fairies decided to put the safety of the tribe over the well-being of the one fairy. Annoyed by this, Emerson returns to the group with the captured fairy, deciding to at least take the consolation prize.

Though annoyed, the little fairy woman (whom I had not come up with a name for yet) says that since she has no other choice, she will help the group. Or rather, she'll help Emerson, because according to the laws of her particular tribe, since Emerson successfully kidnapped her she's now his wife.

This comes as a surprise to Emerson, who insists he can't be married to a fairy. But the fairy woman explains via the way Fair Folk are bound to their word that it's the truth, and like it or not she is now Emerson's wife. (She's not exactly thrilled about it either.)

Next up is the floating island itself; I don't know when I'll be able to write it up, since I need to figure out how to explain and word what the overall plan with it was. So in other words, it'll almost certainly take me at least a few days.

Real life has not been kind to my desires to keep out of selective writer's block. Work getting busier and a lot of distractions including what was basically an anxiety attack a few days ago... Jheesh. Anyway, on to the post, finally.

Now, once again things would probably go pretty differently depending on one thing: Whether you guys had convinced the elf to join your party or got a fairy from the fairy tribe encounter. Either would help you locate the island a lot easier, as it will be hidden in a (relatively) low-hanging cloud, and will help you get up to it as only they would know how to prompt the island to drop a large vine for you guys to climb up.

So without either of them, you guys would have to find it on your own, and get up to it on your own, which would be complicated by the fact that Goldilocks will refuse to go up there with the initial party. The reason for this being that she knows the fair folk up there will probably have some means of detecting chaos, which she's imbued with; so she'd also insist that anyone or anything else imbued with chaos also stays on the ground: Arthur if he's still alive, Sergeant Ricollister if you recruited him, Molly if she somehow got back in the group, any weapons with chaos enchantments you guys had acquired, and any other half-monsters you guys had either turned into or recruited along the way. Which means that Israfel would have to ferry you guys back and forth on her own.

Either the elf or fairy being along would also be able to tell you guys something very important: To not touch any of the plants once you got into the floating island itself, as that would alert the dryad that will be living in the center of it... Oh yeah, and the fact that every fair folk floating island has a dryad living in it.

Inside the floating island

The inside of the floating island where you would enter is a lush forest that seems to be more plants than anything else. Vines and branches make the walls, ceiling, and floors, through which you can spot glimpses of open sky where the light can come in. Water seems to be dripping through from above between the vegetation, as if it was raining above.

Now thankfully, there's also large stones with flat tops dispersed throughout the "floor", providing places for you guys to stand without touching any of the plants; you just have to go through a jumping puzzle of sorts to get anywhere without triggering the boss fight early. If you guys did touch any of the plants, well the dryad would come running down from the center of the floating island and start off the boss fight, whereas otherwise the boss fight would start with the dryad distracted and thus not focused on you guys, but that's getting ahead of myself.

Assuming you guys don't touch any of the plants and follow along the stone path, you'd find that it's not only going somewhat upward, but also starting to spiral away from the edge of the island toward the center. Among the many various sights of this mysterious and magical forest you'd then see is a large fruit tree in the center of its own "chamber" being tended to by an elf woman, who then looks at you. Obviously, she's quite surprised to see you, and hits some of the foliage with a quick spell to alert the dryad as if one of you had touched a plant, but in this continuity it would be a bit late for that, as another threat is quickly approaching...

Rematch with Lord Vendral

Either in the midst of the fight against the dryad, (if you guys had screwed up and touched a plant) or right after the elf woman had set off her spell, (if you guys hadn't screwed up) the light from above goes dark then back to normal again as something large passes overhead. And then, fire erupts through the edges of the vegetation as Lord Vendral starts blasting the place. Lord Vendral had become aware through his own agents that you guys had survived the crash he put you through earlier and were going after the fair folk's MacGuffin that could help you counter Lord Mephisto's ritual; so he figured the first place to look would be a floating island where you could find said MacGuffin, and here we are.

Goldilocks, and anyone else who stayed down on the ground will of course see and hear this happening, which will be their cue to ditch the going undetected plan and get the hell up there to help out. The dryad is, understandably, made furious by Lord Vendral burning up the plants, and will henceforth put the majority of her attention to attacking and countering him with her magic unless one of you still attacked her directly. Hopefully you'll let her do that and weaken him up for you, because there wouldn't be any conveniently slipping away from him or him wrongly thinking you might be dead without personally checking this time; this time you're going to have to kill him, as the first true demon kill the party will be making in the whole campaign. You'll probably have to kill the dryad at some point too, because she won't let you leave with the MacGuffin even if you do help save the island from Vendral; alternatively you grab the MacGuffin and get off the island, in which case Vendral will still follow you but the dryad would have a bit more difficulty doing so as the island would then plummet out of the sky with her still on it.

... In fact, though it didn't occur to me until actually typing this post now, dropping said island on Lord Vendral would be a really good way to finish him off or at least weaken him significantly, as otherwise being a demon beastlord and a massive dragon, he'll be nigh invulnerable to most small arms and convenient spells save for weak points like his eyes.

Once you guys have defeated Lord Vendral and have the fair folk MacGuffin in hand, there's only one goal for you guys to focus on now: Stopping Lord Mephisto's ritual. And For that, you're going to have to get to Britain...

On a side note, no, I had not ever decided exactly what the fair folk MacGuffin was; that's why I've just been calling it a MacGuffin. (Though I guess in terms of tropes, it's actually not a MacGuffin, it's a Plot Device.)

edited 13th May '15 3:12:01 AM by FirockFinion

Could we offer Lord Vendral a sacrifice in return for his allegiance?

No, the demon lords don't work that way. They might squabble over who can do stuff better, but they are still 100% unified towards the same goal; Mephisto's working towards that goal, you're attempting to stop him, ergo Vendral is firmly aligned against you.

Why the demon lords are like that will almost certainly be a lot clearer in... About three plot posts, if I'm remembering everything I had planned correctly.

Damn it, the "I can do it tomorrow" mentality has a nasty habit of chain reacting with itself. No! I can do it tonight!

First of those three posts is on the way.

It is at this point in the campaign that there were a number of notable things I intended the group to encounter, but unlike the other stuff I've brought up, I hadn't fully fleshed them out before we stopped the game. These included:

• Meeting a leprechaun: What I did have planned is that the leprechaun would offer you guys some much faster method to get across the English Channel in exchange for any gold or gold items. (Anything just gold coated would also work, so long as it's real gold. You're not going to be fooling any leprechauns with fake gold.) What I hadn't worked out was exactly what said method would be like, and what sort of benefit there would actually be to you guys for taking the deal. (Probably avoiding some fight that you'd have to do otherwise to get passage? Like clearing a boat of undead or something, I dunno.)

• One thing that was more fleshed out, but wasn't really an encounter would be somewhere around here in the campaign: Another "cutaway to the villain" type post, this time showing that the charnal is a servant of Mephisto. Why's this important? Well, for Mephisto's ritual to get rid of the Stonehenge seal, he's gonna need a lot of dead bodies; dead bodies which the charnal has been helpfully getting via anyone it can snag and burying them around Stonehenge in secret. Now that Mephisto is finally ready to do the ritual, the charnal no longer needs to do that, so it gets new orders...

• You guys would meet and get the assistance of the special bounty hunter group that's been specifically going after the charnal. Other than there would be somewhere around 5-10 of them, and they're toting around a small artillery cannon, I hadn't really fleshed out anything about these guys.

• The fight against the charnal: Then you guys would have a sort of sub-boss fight against the charnal. The main problem is that I hadn't fully fleshed out what the charnal was capable of; so far I'd figured the fight would mostly be like the one against the Slenderman expy, except the charnal is slower and doesn't respawn, (which is the good news) but is way more durable. (which is the bad news) Also that it would become clear OOC that the only reason the charnal ran away from fights before was that its orders required it to have some self preservation; now that that is no longer an issue for it, the charnal will not hold back against you guys or run away.

... Fucking damn it me, that didn't even take long to type. Lazy motherfucker.

Can I make a suggestion? Again, props to your work ethic, but why not keep all these so, if you decide to do that post apocalyptic roadtrip rp we talked about a while ago, you can use them?

You mean keep them secret so I can still use them for a spoiler free RP? Ideally I would, but realistically I've got to keep in mind that a reboot of this RP could still stall out and die before it finishes either. Not getting to see this plot through to the finish is probably my biggest regret about this RP, so posting it all is at this point as much for myself as it is for you guys; besides, I promised I would and I don't intend to go back on a promise.

Or if you mean just keep it saved so I don't forget it, oh trust me, I won't be forgetting this RP's intended plot for a looong time.

Oh yeah, and I forgot something in the last post:

• The party also gets into radio contact with a U.N.A.M. base that has at least one jet fighter ready to go and willing to lend support. Problem is that Mephisto's been kicking up some nasty magical storms lately, so they can't see the ground worth crap. You'll have to paint targets for them with a laser, at close range, in order to get any ordinance called in.

Now, next plot post is likely to be big and a doozy, (Both of the next plot posts, actually.) so it may take me a few days or upwards of a week legitimately this time to work out how to write it all and get that done. I should have some time tomorrow night to work on it, but I doubt this will be a one night endeavor unless I have absolutely no distractions.

This is it, time for the boss battle of the second arc, the final match with Mephisto; with the charnal dead and Stonehenge coming up, it's time to put a stop to his plan, ready or not. (Also, a lot of his army would've been used up by this point against other humans, and against you guys in filler battles and such; the kind of things I skipped over because I don't typically plan them in advance very far.) But Mephisto knows you're coming, and besides what minions of his he still has left, he's got one more ace up his sleeve.

Remember that human cult helping him out? Yeah, they're still around. We'd have here a semi-cutaway post to him addressing them and telling them it's time for them to serve their purpose. They think he just means going out to fight you, but in a rather sudden, bloody, and gory display, he uses magic to reduce the cultists to blood, bones, and organs, which he uses to power a separate magical ritual; then he steps over to Stonehenge, and begins his primary ritual.

From the ritual circle powered by the dead cultists, a large, red portal appears, and out of it steps a demon Warlord. Thirty feet tall, the type without armor, having a bull like head with large horns and enormous wings, (so basically a WH40K Bloodthirster◊) the Warlord addresses Mephisto. He tells Mephisto there isn't much time, referring to Mephisto as 'brother'; Mephisto responds that he is aware of that, and only needs the Warlord to hold off you guys until he's finished, likewise referring to the Warlord as brother. Goldilocks can of course identify the Warlord as lord Diablo, a demon that Mephisto has a particular attachment with along with a third, hence why they refer to each other as siblings.

Diablo turns towards the party. He waves to his portal, which as Goldilocks will probably mention, is the signal for whatever forces he's bringing through as an army to come forth. Common type demons start pouring through the portal... Only to almost immediately stop, after maybe thirty or so come through; the portal closing suddenly afterward. This seems to surprise Diablo, who mentions to Mephisto, "it's already here." Mephisto does not respond, as he's too focused on the ritual.

With that, the battle begins in earnest. Using the airstrike you can call in, the artillery piece from the charnal hunting party, and whatever ordinance weapons you guys might've looted, traded for, or bought until now, you need to take out Diablo. Of course, he's not just gonna sit around and make it easy for you, plus there's still at least fifty or so demon minions to deal with as well. This exact part of the battle I had not fully figured out, but I was imagining something where you guys would be leading Diablo through an abandoned town, taking advantage of using the buildings to hide from him as he wrecks up the place; and that while trying to kill you guys, Diablo would keep implying that you guys are going to doom yourselves and the human race to damnation if you stop Mephisto's plan. But Goldilocks would assure any of you showing doubt that he's just trying to mess with your heads, obviously. (Besides, it's not like you have the time to stop and ask him to clarify without getting horrifically murdered.)

Now, this fight would be difficult, clearly; it's the final battle of the arc, so it's intended to be. I wouldn't force any of the party to die, but it'd take some damn good moves to keep that from happening entirely. Eventually though, with enough hard hitting explosives, you guys could take down Diablo; after that is just weakening Mephisto and taking care of enough of the minions if you haven't already, both of which will be significantly easier. (Mephisto because he's focused on his ritual instead of focusing on fighting you guys.)

Then, using the fair folk MacGuffin, you set up a powerful ritual of your own and dispel Mephisto's unfinished ritual, ignoring his protests. Without a few hundred people or so around to provide dead bodies, the ritual will now go unfinished. Besides, Mephisto is finished, down and bleeding out, just not fully dead yet; even if you don't do anything, he's likely to be going back to the demon realm soon enough. But I think I know you guys better than that, so all that's left is to taunt Mephisto and see if he has any last words before sending him there by way of bullet to the cranium. So, the party approaches the downed Mephisto...

Which is to be concluded in the third of those three posts I mentioned before.

Okay, once again I can't really give a good ETA on when the next post will be. I'm getting pretty excited to be finally getting to this part, so that's good; but there's going to be a lot for me to try and remember and try my best not to miss anything. Also my friends and I are finally starting to get back into Minecraft again and holy crap does that game have a nasty tendency to make an entire day disappear. But I'm determined still and have the day after tomorrow off, so I should be able to stay up super late tomorrow night and hopefully get some work done on the post sometime during then; even if that means waiting until after my friends go to bed so that I'm no longer inclined to play Minecraft with them.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and no, I hadn't decided what Diablo's weapon(s) was(were) going to be. I was probably going to go with dual swords, one in each hand, but I hadn't settled on that for sure.

edited 27th May '15 8:54:28 AM by FirockFinion

Now I feel guilty for leaving after seeing all the work you put into this.

Don't feel too bad. I tend to brainstorm a lot in my free time and with the pace the RP was going at I had a lot of time to brainstorm; I'd say a good 3/4ths of the plot, at least, got decided on after the game had started. Even a few things I figured on good solutions/ideas to after the game ended, though I've been trying to point those out as they come up. (Such as the idea of dropping the floating island on Lord Vendral to end that fight, which as I mentioned literally came to me as I was typing that very post.)

Anyway, I'm about to try and type some on the next post, but I'm actually specifically not going to post it tonight. I'm already feeling tired, and even if I did finish the post tonight I do not currently trust my semi sleep-deprived state to catch all the errors or remember all of the bits I want to include. I have tomorrow off, so I might just be able to get it up then.

edited 28th May '15 9:59:08 AM by FirockFinion

So, Mephisto is defeated; he's not dead, but he doesn't seem able to fight any further. It could be a trick, but one would think that if he were still capable of putting up a fight, he would've done so to try and stop you guys from ruining his ritual. No, he can tell when his cause is lost, and right now fighting wouldn't accomplish anything worthwhile. He might even mention that as he looks towards the party, but the important thing he mentions is how both he and you have caused your own undoing, though admittedly he did so more knowingly than you did.

See, I know I explained this to Atomic since he was playing one, and I'm pretty sure parts of it came up in game, but angel and demon minions are not born, they are created. Being created rather than born, they do not have childhoods and do not grow up; from the moment she was even a second old, Goldilocks was fully grown and appeared as old as she does now. In addition, they are also created with knowledge already in hand; but doing this requires more energy on the part of the demon or angel creating them for more knowledge that they put into the minion. So in order to save on energy to create more minions, they only imbue the minions with the knowledge they need. And what they need does not include historical lessons on why they're doing the things they are; nor do the angels or demons really have the time to explain it the old fashioned way to each and every one of their tens of thousands of minions, so they don't. But now, Mephisto admits that perhaps if he had taken the time to specifically contact Goldilocks and explain everything to her, maybe she wouldn't have kept on this quest to stop him; in his ignorance and overconfidence, he did not believe one succubus, one dominion, one cherub, and a handful of humans and human half-monsters could actually pose a threat to his plan.

Now though, his plan is ruined, and he's not long for this world anyway, so the least he can do now is finally explain to you guys, everything about what all this apocalypse and war between the angels and demons has been about. And warn you of what's ahead, but first he has to go back to the beginning...

As mentioned before, the demon lords all used to be angels; the massive Warlords used to be Archangels, and the magical Overlords (Deceivers as you know them) used to be Rulers, and the Beastlords used to be Warlords and thus in turn also used to be Archangels. But when, and why, did this stop being the case?

Well it starts thousands upon thousands of years ago, when the angels were all created. As Mephisto explains, they were, like their minions, created into existence by an almighty celestial being; the same that created Earth and humans and other worlds and their inhabitants, otherwise known, as God. But see, God was not the only one; his created realms were only some amidst a seemingly infinite expanse of realms created by an equally infinite number of celestial beings. Since these celestial beings were all different, the realms they created were all different, including such things as the laws of physics and the number of physical dimensions. Through various means, beings from some realms could travel to other realms, for any number of reasons. Because of this, God created the angels' realm and the angels for a specific purpose. Their divine task, their ultimate sacred mission as assigned to them by God before God went away and left them to their own devices: To protect the favorite of God's creations against anyone or anything from outside realms that would seek to destroy them; their task was to protect the human race. (I hope this reveal is at least a little bit shocking.)

After God went, it fell to the three most powerful angels, Archangels Michael and Lucifer, and Ruler Gabriel, to decide how they would go about their sacred mission. Lucifer proposed that the easiest way to ensure humanity's protection would be to move to the realm of Earth and rule over it, allowing them to both fortify it and ensure that their largest concentration of power would always be where it was most needed. Michael and Gabriel disagreed however, both believing that God wanted Humanity to grow free from any influence of outside realms, else why not have just created the angels on Earth to begin with? So they proposed fortifying the realms around Earth's realm, to hold off anything that would come towards it, before it could reach Earth. The three could not come to an agreement, and finally Lucifer gathered the angels that were like minded to his own plan, and went to Earth against Michael's and Gabriel's wishes. Being innately superior to humans in all forms of physical measurement, and magic, subjugating humanity was a certainty; they may not be free, but they did not need to be free to survive, so thought Lucifer.

But Michael and Gabriel were not going to accept this, and thus gathered the rest of the angels, and followed Lucifer to Earth. This became the setting for the first war in the Cycle that was explained by the other dominion earlier in the campaign. Though they were victorious, they knew that Lucifer and his angels could just go back to Earth at will, so Gabriel and Michael made the decision to teach humans the magic of the great seals, and set up the secretive organization that, over the course of a few historical transformations over the millennia, eventually became what you would now know as the Witches' Coven; this organization was to do their best to keep the conflict of the Cycle secret from humanity, so that humanity could grow with as little influence from outside realms as possible. With Lucifer and his angels defeated and Earth's realm now secure, Gabriel and Michael banished Lucifer and the angels who had assisted him from the angel realm; they left to find the realm of chaos, abundant in the essence of chaos that made its namesake, which they settled as their new home to become known as the demon realm after they renamed themselves. Though the angels have had their own opportunities to use the chaos essence, Michael declared it blasphemous due to the side effects chaos typically has on humans. (The whole making them evil thing.) Since then, in regards to facing down outside threats, the angels and demons have kept a somewhat shaky alliance, but when the Cycle comes around both send agents to Earth; the demons attempting to break the seals and the angels trying to stop them. There, they fight as enemies.

Now, to complicate matters further, the angels and demons became aware of an organized force of entities from realms outside of God's were marching through the relatively close area of the inter-dimensional cosmos, devouring literally everything in whole realms in their wake; and their current course was taking them straight towards Earth's realm. Trying to stop this force became the primary focus of the angels and demons besides what they could still send to Earth during the Cycle around the great seals; thus to the angels and demons, this force became simply The Enemy, and stopping them became so important that they started putting an overwhelming impulse to destroy The Enemy in all of their minions. This should sound familiar, as this force is what would become known to you guys as cthulians, thanks to them messing with the dreams of a certain HP Lovecraft across dimensions. The angels and demons are powerful, but they still have not been able to stop the cthulians, who have gotten steadily closer to Earth's realm until finally starting to reach it during the current iteration of the Cycle.

This iteration of the Cycle, the last five-six years you guys have known as the apocalypse, is where it's all coming to a head. The demons, becoming aware of humanity losing all but one of the great seals and pretty much entirely forgetting about magic, came up with their plan to finally take and fortify Earth before the cthulians could reach it en masse. The demons knew that humanity had become too widespread and prideful to simply submit to the demons; so they set aside a huge amount of forces ahead of time, preparing them for the invasion of Earth instead of focusing on holding back the cthulians. After all, as long as the human race as a whole survives, the demons are still fulfilling their mission, so slaughtering a few billion of us to get the rest in line seemed like a good idea. The angels might've sent armies to Earth to stop them, but the angels were too busy trying to hold back the cthulians. It was part of this invasion force that Goldilocks herself was in. But as you know, they underestimated humanity, not realizing the strength of the scientific and technological progress we had made, since from their perspective what could possibly beat magic? They thought they would defeat Earth quickly and easily with just Warlord Duriel, but of course that didn't happen, and even fifteen true demons coming to Earth later, they still hadn't won. Since they had been expecting to win though, their plan bit them in the ass when the forces they still had weren't enough to hold off the cthulian advance, even with the angels' help.

And now, the unthinkable has happened: A cthulian Old One, basically the cthulians' answer to the true angels and demons, arrived on Earth just a bit ago. Remember, the great seals prevent travel via magical methods, but it's important to also note that the cthulians don't use magic; the impossible things the cthulians do is via manipulation of extra-dimensional physics in a three dimensional environment. So basically, the great seals don't do diddly squat to stop cthulians from entering Earth. To make things worse, one of the things this Old One is capable of is acting as the cthulians own special version of a great seal. Recall how Diablo's army portal just suddenly stopped sending through any more forces? Yeah, that's because that's the moment the Old One got that to work. And now, between the great seal still being here and the Old One, it's currently impossible for any angels or demons to come to Earth, thus making them unable to prevent it from being consumed by the cthulians.

In a full circle of plans coming back to bite the planners in the ass, because the demons' initial plan to take earth failed, the cthulians are now reaching it and are starting to pour through, and their last bid to stop this was foiled, by you guys. You guys, who in your bid to save the world from Mephisto's plan, have now seemingly doomed it to being consumed entirely by eldritch abominations. Way to go.

And to top that off, after explaining all this, Mephisto's physical form on Earth dies, leaving him unable to help you any further. Also leaving Goldilocks in a Heroic BSoD, but that's not as important to the overall plot.

And thus, the second arc of the RP ends. Next up is of course the third and final arc, which as you can probably guess by now, was going to be about you guys now having to prevent the Earth from being consumed by the cthulians. Once again, I don't know when I'll next post, especially since I think I'll be giving myself a slight breather for at least the next day or two before starting to think about the next post.

edited 29th May '15 7:02:04 AM by FirockFinion

Holy shit! I think I need a breather after reading all that. Here I thought the Third Act would be entering Hell itself and killing Lucifer but this actually sounds a lot harder than that!

I'm still feeling a bit writer's blocked when it comes to the next plot post, so here's this for now.

These are things that aren't crucial to the overall plot, but might be interesting to know and/or were going to come up as part of some encounter which were never really fleshed out. Also, some of these may have become known during the second arc, particularly the first thing I'll be bringing up; the reason I waited until now is that the first thing I'll bring up also relates to the plot twist in the last post and explains something about some other elements in the RP that otherwise wouldn't have been as obviously related.

• Cthulians have an innate weakness to fire. Something about the nature of three dimensional combustion just really screws with cthulians; Israfel actually knew this, so this likely would have come up to the party as a whole very soon after we had ended the RP if we had instead kept going. This is why both the demons and angels have a preference towards fire magic, since both factions are at war with the cthulians.

• The fair folk are from another realm made by God. In their realm, magic never got forgotten but scientific progress never took off like it did in ours. This is why they use the same kind of magic as humans and angels and demons; we were all made by God, who made all of us function under the same rules of magic. The angels and demons were not expressly told to protect the fair folk realm, so they do not prioritize it like they do Earth, however they do see protecting it from threats like the cthulians as a secondary objective to protecting Earth. Fortunately for the fair folk, the cthulian advance is coming from the other side of Earth's realm, so they're in no danger until Earth gets eaten first. The reason this is not really known about is because of the way fair folk are bound to their word; the rulers of the fair folk realm have been using banishment to Earth as a punishment for centuries at least, and before sending anyone make them swear an oath to not reveal anything about their realm to humans. And the reason they do this? Simple, they don't trust or particularly like humans that much, and don't want any humans coming to their realm.

• The angel realm and the demon realm are not heaven and hell. They do however, fit the stereotypical images of such. The angel realm is an infinite expanse of open, blue sky filled with white clouds that are soft and a bit springy, yet solid enough to stand on; the demon realm is a brimstone filled realm with no sky that is mostly on fire. But neither of them are human afterlives. In fact, the demons and angels don't really know for sure what happens to human souls after they die; they know that humans have souls, and that sometimes the souls decide to stick around. After all, this is how the ghost and skarecrow monsters are made. But as for the rest of them, the angels and demons have no idea. This is one of the things I decided to never make an explanation of fully, as I just wanted to leave it to you guys/your characters to come to your own conclusions.

• Vampires are the result of a failed attempt by demons to turn humans into demons. Demons were never able to finish said attempts and gave up on the idea as it seemed too impractical, but they kept vampires as a useable idea because vampires were still powerful minions, if a bit impractical at times. The intensive amount of chaos energy involved in turning a human into a vampire makes vampires inherently a bit unstable and extremely susceptible to chaos' counter element, "holiness". That's why, while other chaos-infused creatures simply feel uncomfortable in sunlight, vampires die in sunlight. Also, you may recall how gameknight had a side story involved with his characters and a certain cult in Russia attempting to turn humans into demon and angel homunculi? And also the fact that the VHG exist because of a particularly nasty vampire outbreak, also in Russia? Yeah, those two facts were going to be related.

• The cthulian 2-D monster is a lot scarier than humans realize. Humans just see a weird flat square of static when they see a 2-D; celestials like Goldilocks, Israfel, and Shinespark see something entirely different, that they would not be able to fully describe. They still see it as some sort of two dimensional square, but they do not see static inside; what they see instead is a visual representation of the fabric of reality itself becoming undone. In other words, what they see inside that square is the end of the universe, which human minds just can't quite comprehend so instead just see as static. Understandably, the celestial characters thus find the 2-D very unnerving at best, and absolutely horrifying at worst.

• The final form of the cthulian Darwin monster, after the horrifying lizard monster, is a human. No, it's not some weird cthulian-human or a human that's preprogrammed to side with cthulians, it's just a human; a human that is physically an adult, (specifically around mid twenties-ish) but mentally a newborn baby. Yes, I was planning on you guys encountering that at some point, because of how unnerving, weird, and hilariously awkward that would be.

There might be other things I'm forgetting, so I may be coming back to this kind of post again later down the line. Still no ETA on the next plot post, sorry; though next week it's looking like I'll have a lot of time off, so that should be a good time for me to get work done on it.

edited 6th Jun '15 6:07:00 AM by FirockFinion

Man, even with a lot of the week off, I still can't seem to find the time and creative energy simultaneously to get a post in here. Well, tonight I've finally got both so I should be able to get the next post done. Could still be some hours though; not because it'll be a big post, (In fact I think it'll be pretty small compared to the last few plot posts.) but because I need to check on some other things before I work on it and that may be a while.

In character, the party wouldn't really have a chance to reflect on the information they'd just learned before new developments arise. Within minutes, at most, of Mephisto's physical form dying, the celestials in the party, that is all the angels and demons, AKA Goldilocks, Israfel, and Shinespark all get a very powerful magical message. Goldilocks is getting it from Lucifer, mass broadcasting to all the demon minions on Earth, while Israfel and Shinespark are getting likewise from Michael mass broadcasting to all the angel minions.

In light of Mephisto's failure and the Old One's arrival on Earth, they're calling a cease fire. This is the most dire emergency and risk to their divine mission, ever, so as of now they cannot afford to be fighting. In lucifer's message, the demons also get the explicit instructions to stop killing humans unless necessary to stop humans from killing other humans; their plan to defeat humanity and occupy Earth has failed, and now their most important priority, no their only priority, is the continued survival of mankind. Both messages outline again the facts the party just learned: Right now it is impossible for demons or angels to get any backup; even the weakest of minions are incapable of reaching Earth. Finding and killing the Old One is of the utmost importance, as only then will they be able to send reinforcements and stem the tide of cthulians that are about to crash upon Earth.

Of course, this message doesn't tell you guys much you didn't already know, but the point is to emphasize just how much of an "oh shit" situation is going on; even Michael and Lucifer see no choice but to set aside their differences, though sadly, other than send along their orders, there is nothing they can actually do.

From there, I was planning on the party quickly coming to an out-of-the-way GPS station, currently abandoned but still having power. Getting on the airwaves, you'd hear... Panic. Frequency after frequency, it's seemingly nothing but distress calls about sudden attacks of cthulians in large numbers; mixed with confusion on a few channels as people report the demons they'd just been fighting not minutes ago suddenly stopping their attacks and seemingly, desperately defending them from the cthulians. That slight bit of good news though would come as little solace, since despite that, the party would hear as one by one, the frequencies go silent; and as someone tech savvy in the party could note, it's not that the station you're at isn't receiving them anymore, it's that the others aren't transmitting anymore.

It's already begun.

... But, just as things seem their worst yet, you would find one frequency, one station still transmitting. It's still a distress call, but they're still transmitting: The Vatican. The NCC. Of course, being currently the most powerful human faction after the business with the U.N.A.M. leadership collapsing, it makes sense that the NCC would be among the last people still standing. You guys need help to stand a chance, and much as the party may rightly hate the NCC for what they pulled before, that's the only place you guys know of that still has people fighting.

Additionally, the celestials in the party again catch a mass broadcast, this time by Gabriel, to both the angels and demons: Other minions have spotted and reported the location of the Old One. It's in Ukraine, having just crawled out of the Black Sea. The message goes on to say that great numbers will likely be needed to defeat it, but at the same time, they cannot really afford to wait for other minions to arrive and build up those numbers. With each minute they delay, there's more and more cthulians, and every dead minion is one that cannot currently be replaced; the enemy's numbers are rising while their own are just getting lower and lower. The longer they put off trying to kill it, the more impossible it will be to do so. Gabriel does not mention much about the Old One specifically, except that it has its own host of cthulian minions, and that you can't miss it. "Just look for the moving mountain."

The path for the party is clear. Swing down to Italy and get what help you can from the remains of the NCC, then rush over to the Ukraine. How exactly is something I don't have an answer for, as I had virtually none of the stuff between the big set pieces planned for the third arc. One thing I do vaguely recall though, was that now that the very realm you guys are in is under threat of being consumed entirely, the fair folk who are around are much more willing to help, since you know, they'd kinda like to continue living, and existing. This includes leprechauns willing to waive the normal requirement of gold for their services, "to be repaid later" or something like that is what they'd excuse it with.

Anyway, once again I cannot guarantee in any fashion when my next post will be. Though I'm gonna try to make myself work on it tomorrow, so that hopefully it won't be yet another week long wait.

EDIT: Also, this post ended up bigger than I thought it would be.

edited 13th Jun '15 2:29:17 AM by FirockFinion

Had a lot of selective writer's block for this post, especially since I've been putting effort into my upcoming RP. Anyway, here we go.

This sequence isn't too important, but I was planning on it since it would be notable and hopefully enjoyable. So, however it happens, the party is intended to go down to Rome and see if you can't get any help from what remains of the NCC. When you get there, things are... Not good. The NCC, true to their zealotry, are still fighting, but things are clearly not going well. A lot of the city is in ruins and the smell of smoke is constant throughout; the sounds of gunfire are audible from the Vatican enclave, where the last of the NCC are.

The fight takes the party to the Vatican palace, where the fighting is brutal and seemingly room to room. You would eventually reach a large gathering room where there's about 20 or so NCC left with you to fight. The bad news is that they're not willing to leave the Vatican to the cthulians, while the good news is that multiple of them are no mere NCC grunts, but higher ranking priests and paladins; people who know how to kick some serious ass in a fight, as they've clearly been doing for days straight by now. The pews have been set up as makeshift barricades, and the NCC guys have prepared themselves to die fighting against one last cthulian onslaught.

If you guys help them fend the attack off, eventually the attack wanes, and in the lull a couple more NCC guys show up to report that the pope is dead. With their central command more or less smashed and the rest of their remnants scattered, the NCC is basically dead. At this point if you bring up the Old One and the plan to go defeat it, now they'll actually be putting thought into it. Probably not all of them would agree to come, but if you guys did a good job during the holdout, this would still be a significant boost to the number of people in the party.

Which you'd need, because next up, the Old One.

... Feeling a little ashamed that this post took that long and wasn't even very big. Oh well. It's hard for me to estimate but I think the next plot post will be a biggie, so it could be some time as usual.

edited 18th Jun '15 5:39:30 AM by FirockFinion

Holy crap it's been three weeks since my last post already? I really let time get away from me here. Well unfortunately I probably won't have time to really put into the next post for the next couple of days; I will see about getting it done over the weekend though.

The rest is still coming; a promise is a promise! Just, you know, eventually.

edited 9th Jul '15 6:06:23 AM by FirockFinion

So, after the fight in Rome and the Vatican, you guys hop over to Ukraine. When you get there, it's foggy, and there's something very strange. Earthquakes; yes, plural. They're not very strong, lasting only a few moments, but they are regular; in fact, you can almost set your watches to them, as they happen almost a minute apart exactly. They're also loud, accompanied with a very loud rumbling of stone grinding into stone, similar to the rumbling of a volcano. That sound comes from a particular direction.

After a while, the fog lifts enough for you guys to see across the landscape clearly, and you finally get a look at the Old One. To save typing time and space on this post, and because I was going to use it anyway, I'll just show you the image that was the inspiration for this thing.◊ When Gabriel said it was a moving mountain, he wasn't being metaphorical. The earthquakes and loud rumbling? That thing's footsteps.

So this thing is massive, and you have to take it down. You guys would around this time meet up with some other angels and demons preparing to assault this thing, and you'd learn some more info about it from them. First off, this thing is the big momma of the striders, so not only is there thousands of them on it, it's pumping out more at a ridiculous rate; and worst of all, it has the same primary ability they do: When you look at it, it knows you're there, and it can relay your position to the striders. The only way to kill it is to destroy its heart, which is located in a maze-like system of caves up near the peak; directly above the massive factory like area where it's making more striders and their weapons. (The large, glowing opening on its underside in the picture is into said "factory".)

So you guys are hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned, and launching any sort of stealthy attack is impossible due to the ability of the Old One. This is meant to be, by far, the most hopeless and seemingly unwinnable situation you guys have been presented with. (It could be the #1 of that in the whole RP, though it's a toss up between this and the actual finale.) And yet, what other choice is there but to proceed? It's die fighting to take this thing out, or give up to death anyway.

Now, I'd ultimately leave the plan of assault up to you guys, so there's tons of ways this battle could have played out, but the only constant is the win objective: Destroy the heart. If you don't destroy the heart, you don't win, period. The plan of action I was thinking of having an NPC suggest is to split into two teams; one which consists of those able to fly plus maybe a few they can carry, and the other team of everyone else. Both teams would work together to climb up one of the monster's legs and get above the factory area. Then ground team would hold position as flight team splits off and goes towards the peak at top speed; flight team is going after the heart, while the ground team tries to hold off the unending tide of striders coming from the factory area so that the flight team can focus on the heart.

But again, ultimately the plan of action would've been up to you guys, so there's not a lot I can say would happen for sure. There was something I was gonna throw in early that you guys couldn't have planned for though, because you didn't know about it: Probably during the climb up the leg, a duo of attack helicopters would arrive from a nearby U.N.A.M. base and provide firing support against the striders on the outside. They could tell that something was going down from the base and flew over to help, though other than telepathy you guys wouldn't really have any means of communication with them. Also, this battle in general is perhaps the most important part of the RP when it comes to ammo management, as you guys may have to go through hundreds of striders regardless of which plan you take; you probably are going to run out before reaching the heart. Of course, you can take the striders' spiker guns which can't run out of ammo, but using those comes with their own downside...

Now, as for the one constant no matter which plan you guys take: The heart. As mentioned, it's in a maze like system of caves up near the peak, and these caves are guarded by small teams of elite striders. (As if the normal striders weren't bad enough.) Eventually you'd find it, in a large cavern guarded by a higher number of elites, the heart itself is suspended in the air in the center of the room by large rock protrusions from the walls. The heart is seemingly made of rock, roughly spherical and about thirty feet in diameter, and constantly beating just like a heart should. Small arms don't really do anything, because it's rock. You guys could try explosives, but blowing up the whole thing would require a lot of explosives; probably more than you guys would have on hand at this point. But hopefully you guys would remember that very important thing to know when fighting cthulians.

They have an innate weakness to fire.

That's right, despite being seemingly made of rock, the heart itself is flammable, and setting it on fire will guarantee the Old One's death... As long as you don't let any of the striders put the fire out. And of course, with how big the heart is, it's going to take a few minutes at least, and once it's on fire the whole mountain of the Old One rumbles in pain, and the striders' counterattack becomes desperate. But this here, is where the mission would finally seem winnable. All you guys have to do at this point is hold off the striders long enough; just a few more minutes, and the Old One will be dead. Of course, this is also when literally every single strider in the mountain comes charging towards the heart chamber, so we're talking about the attack wave to end all attack waves, but you guys can handle a few more striders, right?

Anyway, when the heart is finally done for, the Old One's legs give out and it comes crashing down to the ground; the cave systems start to collapse under the sudden changes in momentum and the fact that the Old One is, you know, dying. But the good news for you guys is that every single strider just keels over dead, so you don't have to worry about fighting them as you get the hell out of there.

With the Old One finally dead, reinforcements can now arrive. All across the globe, angel and demon minions are appearing, taking the fight to the cthulians and protecting humans where they can. It seems, at least for a while, that maybe the war is as good as won now. But were it so easy. A while after it starts, there's another mass broadcast to the angels and demons by Gabriel. The cthulians, while the Old One was keeping reinforcements from arriving, were working on bringing in their game ender. The big man, the head Old One who's strong to the point that only Michael or Lucifer have been able to stand against him, and even they couldn't put him down for good, but only slow him down. The one and only Cthulhu himself.

The cthulians are working on bringing him in at a city in the Southern Pacific ocean, a place of impossible geometry harkening to the cthulians' own five-dimensional realms. The place you guys probably know as R'lyeh.

Obviously, this is a bit of a problem to the whole "not letting the cthulians eat Earth", so naturally Gabriel and all the other true angels and demons are flipping their collective shits about it. Bringing down Stonehenge still isn't an option in the time frame available, so they can't just come in and deal with it themselves. So once again, it's all hands on deck for the minions on Earth to pretty much throw everything they can at this problem. But hey, at least this time they can call on reinforcements and there's a lot more of them, so it should go easier, right?.. Right?

... Yeah about that, Gabriel mentions that if they have any humans capable of helping to bring along, they should probably bring them, because they'll need every bit they can get. So take a wild guess where your next destination is.

Whew, finally. That took way longer than it should have, and once again I'm terribly sorry about that. There's only two parts left really, though the final one I may split into more than one post. Next up is the trip across the Pacific to get to R'lyeh, and a rematch with that cthulian kraken. It's probably not going to be up until at least next weekend, possibly longer. Possibly much longer unfortunately, but I'll try not to be as long as this one was.

edited 12th Jul '15 11:22:01 PM by FirockFinion