4248/Gunbreak Malvader Nest

Gunbreak Malvader Nest
Date of Scene:	24 June 2016
Location:	The System <TS>
Synopsis:	The Gunbreak Cavern has been overrun by Malvader-type viruses. Lexicon tasks adventurers with clearing it out.
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, Staren, 571, 675, 930, 992, Lexicon

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Lexicon has posed:
    Midday in Britannica, the Silver Drive of the System. Word has gone through the Cathoderal that some adventurous types were interested in contending with the Malvader problem that's infested the Gunbreak Cavern, and directions have been provided to this place: A yawning maw of blackness in the rocky face of the mountains along the northern edge of the Drive. The usual, picturesque snow is more sparse here, showing the bare stone and scrubby grasses native to foothills. Undefined gems glitter in the walls of the cavern that can be seen from the entrance, though they must not be valuable if such obvious crystals haven't been mined out already.

    Standing outside the entrance is a young woman with long blonde hair, dressed in a fashion much like a maid, her dress crimson and her apron the standard white. Arms folded inside a furry muffler, a capelet hanging around her shoulders, she waits patiently while casting looks into the cavern.

    A blue-tinted creature made out of blocks in the rough shape of an insect skitters off into the shadows.

    Stylono, chief priestess of Silver Soul, tenses when she spots it and returns her gaze back to the road, foot tapping impatiently.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    'Go here, kill X creature' It's a standard rote in Galandia. One Cirra knows well. But being a Judge doesn't put her above it, she's still in school at Alexander Academy to learn Dark Knight skill, technically.

    So finding the board posting, and applying it with her counsilour as redemption for class credit brings the Judge here. And she walks up the path, in her normal armor. Being Shivan gives her a resistance to cold that makes this seem like pleasent spring day.

    As she sees Stylono she comes to a stop. "This is where the bounty for the creature is?" she asks, glancing past the priestess. "I am Cirra Cosntantine, Judge of Ramuh and adventuring student grade B at Alexander Academy."

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
'Adventurer' is not a word Sigrun would use to describe herself, but without a doubt the masked woman fits the bill. Every inch of skin covered by fabric except for her fingertips, the sharpshooter is already running passive analysis spells to get a better read on this world, looking for ambient magical levels and signatures, running magic, and the full electromagnetic spectrum.

As a Monster Exterminator, she's likewise used to the old routine of 'go here, kill X creature.' It's how she makes her money, she files in next to Cirra and also introduces herself, "Sigrun Stem, Monster Exterminator. Here for the bounty." She keeps her voice level, "This is the Malvader Infestation, correct?" She glances over to Cirra, offering the other job hunter a nod.

Alden (930) has posed:
Alden wanted to be an adventurer!, helping others, solving quests, destroying clearly evil monsters!, and this job seemed to fit everything perfectly to him, so he decided to take a crack at it!. He decided to travel with Katze this time, since, he and the Shinki should get more experience in teh open, outside of end of the world scenarios.

     The digimon decided to travel in a faster form, and thus, a large, white and bluish wolf (with stripes!) is what approaches the cave in question, with a tiny 'girl' with cat ears and tail riding atop its head. He seems pleased to see two familiar faces, long tail wagging, "Hi!, seems I got the directions right?" he asks, not realizing that maybe, just maybe, it might be a bit startling to others not familiar with his current form.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Wandering Mercenary is a good synonym for Adventurer in Maaka's book, so here the cyborg is, her helmet folded up and revealing her dark red hair and golden eyes as she arrives. Nodding to others as they arrive, the redhead keeps a high-tech coil rifle slung across her back. "ALexis Maaka, heard you lot had a problem that needs specialist solving." She says, holding out a hand to Stylono as she approaches the priestess.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has not gone to this end of the multiverse very often it was an odd place for her, given she had one leg in the material and one leg in the digital now and could leap over the divide as she wished to. She wasn't sure what to expect here as she arrived into Britannica but she was curious to be sure as she moved along and was wearing a light sleek armout and she's falling in a bitbehind Alexis.

"Hi I'm Kotone Yamkawa! I saw the job posting and was curious!"

Staren has posed:
    Staren hasn't heard much about Britannica, but the presence of another Cyber Core world is always intriguing. And an excuse to visit and get on friendly terms with the inhabitants is also welcome. It's a little strange to fight viruses physically instead of from a computer console, but fighting monsters is certainly something he can do! So here he is. As usually, he wears environmentally sealed, high tech armor, as is common on his world.

    He greets the maid(?) with a smile and a wave. "Hi! I'm Staren, and I'm no stranger to eliminating bugs or fighting monsters. Is there anything we need to know about these particular creatures or their den?"

Lexicon has posed:
    "If you're curious," the girl addresses Kotone's interest first, "Malvaders are a class of virus that's been troublesome since the installation of the Cablerail in the System. This breed in particular is loud, obnoxious, and harmful to the Drive as they replicate and consume system resources." A slight nod, "The energy that runs our society." The girl steps aside to give a better view of the cavern.

    "Miss Yamakawa, mister Staren, miss Maaka, miss Stem, and miss Constantine, is it?" She warily eyes the talking wolf with the tiny rider, neither of which has introduced themselves. Given the lack of attacking and the interest in the nest, though, she presumes they're here for the job as well. Thus, she bows at the waist, "My name is Stylono, chief priestess at the Silver Cathoderal, in service to Lady Silver Soul. Our Lady has tasked me with ensuring you found the right place, and with providing payment for your success."

    Turning slightly, she glances into the cavern again, "This is Gunbreak Cavern. I fear the Malvaders inside have been growing more and more numerous. If their numbers increase much further, it will start affecting the lights in the city." Her eyes return to the group, travelling from one to the next, "Your task is to eliminate as many of these viruses as you can."

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra nods as she listen to the explination of the situation. Glancing back at the others, she takes quick count of what they're equipped...

    THree Gunners, in Alexander Academy this would be the begining of a joke.

    "Well. They're small, mobile and consume energy. Lets do our best not to unduely give them something else to feed on." she looks at Alden's wolf form, and purses her lips, making an educated guess. "We could use someone on point to soak attacks. I can do it, but if you could provide.... I think we could do better with a more even tactical mix." She looks at Kotonoe and Alexis, cyborgs both. "The two of you should do your best to cover out flanks." A glance at Staren and his armor. "If you could provide support as needed to then I can use barrier to block and funnel enemies."

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods. "I'll do what I can, I mean I mostly... shoot things... but I have to wonder: Is this cavern anything besides their den? Are there any other exits? If not, is there any reason not to just set a fire inside and seal up the entrance?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "Anything we need to avoid hitting?" Maaka asks, drawing her rifle as she glances down at the cavern, furrowing her brow as she switches to thermal vision and begins to scan deep into the opening.

    It's pretty obvious as Cirra gets a better look at the cyborg that Maaka's anything but a joke. She gives the Judge a nod, unslinging her rifle as her helmet folds into place within an eye blink. "Good idea. Might give you lot more room to maneuver around in melee too."

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
"This is a city, Staren." Sigrun objects to the idea of just setting the cavern on fire and smoke the beasts out, even thugh in theory she likes the idea. "Even if that is feasible, the risk to civilians is just not worth it." Her tone is clear and uncompromising.

A couple small glowing blue balls appear in the air, forming out of Sigrun's hand and taking up position in front of her. Matching those, little apparent tears in the fabric of reality open up, showing what the little balls see through them. The vision portals offer a look into what the floating balls see, "I can use these for recon, just to be certain."

Alden (930) has posed:
Alden smiles to Cirrus, "I am good at blasting groups but... tend to risk collateral damage... I can certainly handle distracting and attacking from close range to soak attacks." he says, smiling to the Judge. Katze stands up on Alden's head, "I can help with the shooting and punching0!" she chirps happily. Belatedly, the digimon realizes he had been rude, and bows, which... causes Katze to meow and fall on the ground, "Oh right, I'm Alden!, and she is Katze." he offers. "Katze, if you do the honors, I think I might need a stronger form for this." he says casually.

    The Shinkie dusts herself and slowly moves back, listening to the tactics, before she reaches for Alden's D-Arc. A swift card swipe, and the large wolf glows brightly for a second, before he explodes into voxels!. In his place, there is an anthropomorphic (bipedal) wolf wearing jeans, dogtags, and wielding what seem to be metal knuckles. "I think I might do better like this, the other form is a bit clumsy." he explains. Katze meanwhile, summons her 'battle' armor. It's... adorable, except perhaps for the oversized drill that ends up replacign one of her arms. She also has even smaller machines zooming aorund her, two ships (with dark colored cat heads as pilots) and what seems to be a tiny hover tank. It all seems more cute tha powerful really.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "I see so malware taken to a whole new level..."

She seems to get it as she checks her weapons for a moment nodding to woman.
% "Goo to meet you Priestess Stylono."

She bows slightly but turns her eyes to the cavern ahead.

"So a standard hunting mission? God it."

She also pauses to look at Cirra for a moment and nods in agreement. 5R
"I can provide stealth and fire support. Flanks? You got it."

She boots up a tatical link with Maaka, Staren and anyone else who'd be comptable.

<<I ain't Rory but having cyber comms up should help a bit>>

She also takes look to Sigrun and Alden for a moment.

"Well we got quite ... a cerw herethough I never seen either of you fight but remotes? You have the recon covered then?"

She gives Sigrun a grin at this and also gives Alden just a faint grin why were they so cute? She's not sure but they are. Well at least to Kotone anyway.

Lexicon has posed:
    "I am not a fighter," Stylono states pointedly, "And so I shall remain out here in case you require help or, hopefully, when you are successful." A glance towards Staren, and she hums, "This is the only entrance big enough for people... but if you want to smoke them out, there are small cracks and holes all over. I doubt it would work anyway." She steps back, out of the way of far better equipped individuals, and waits patiently.

    "...Vader!" a shrill voice hisses from within the cavern, and something skitters off into the shadows. All that's left is to enter the Cavern and get to work.

    For those that do, the Gunbreak Cavern actually manages to self-light through those colored gemstones embedded in the walls, giving off a fair amount of glimmer-glow. The layout appears to be a series of large caverns connected by narrower corridors, and someone had built a bridge over an underground river through the first of the big chambers.

    This bridge shows signs of wear, however. Glimmering white light shows through sections of damage, chewed off in a square-edged pattern. Similar damage is visible on the stoney walls, and the culprits can be found everywhere. Faintly blue in color, looking gray in the lighting, are insectile creatures made out of cubes, almost like pixels or voxels. They're only one later thick, but more detailed in the other two dimensions. Sizes vary, but they're all chewing on the walls, while a handful scuttle upright-sideways down the middle of the chamber in a group.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra nods to Sigrun, "That would be usefull." She motions for her to look ahead. Alden's transformation confirms he is the creature she's seen before. "Don't lose sight of one another. In places like this, lossing your bearing is your greatest enemy."

    Then the sound of 'Vader!' catches her ear and she turns towards the cave. "Hmn..."

    Cirra summons her crystalien sword and begins the march into the cave.

    There, they find ...bugs, viruses. Whatever they're called. "They'd be fascinating, if they weren't eating everything." she starts preparing for combat.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa says "I have no issue with that, if we run into anything...."

She trails off at the call of Vader? Wait what Darth Vader? No it can't be right She shakes her head a little bit but she's also looking about, she's going to be covering the flanks and she takes a moment to pause and seemingly melt into the scenery about her. If one looked very close they'd see ripple in the air which is the tell tale sign of where Kotone currently is and she's clearly making ready for a fight though and falls into right flank ready to move out.

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
Sigrun sends the little balls scouting ahead, ideally helping her form a picture of the layout and what else can be found ahead. Otherwise, she remains behind the group itself, sticking to the shadow, to cover, a natural instinct to remain unseen as best as possible coming intp play.

The moment their adversaries start becoming apparent, the monster exterminator draws her bow, and she chooses plain bodkin point for her first arrow, taking a good look at what's ahead and what she's about to encounter. She nocks, but doesn't loose, yet.

Alden (930) has posed:
Katze seems glad someone is looking at her and the small drones/remotes, her 'petit machines'. She flicks one ear at the question, "Kinda!, can tell if there is something moving and they target it." she says, "I am not sure how far I can spread the petit machines, they are mostly built for somewhat close range fights, perhaps the size of a room?" she begins, "I mean in theory they can, at least give a warning if something approaches.". She spins her drill arm, "As for me, I am a meelee kind of kitty." (picture to Katze in her current weapon gear ).

     Alden in the meanwhile stretches a bit, his tail giving a few flicks, "Katze, stay with the ranged people, you can be... extra support and protection, in case some of those things slip past us towards them." he says, "At least until we are sure what we are fighting against.". Katze huffs, knowing it was just an excuse to force her to the backline, but does not protest much. The small cat person follows the group easily, apparently used to moving quickly.

     The Were garurumon takes the front of the line, ears perked, sniffing the air curiously, and blinking as he sees the relatively flat bugs, "What are those things?" he asks softly, eyes narroying as they seem to move away and deeper into the cavern. Of course, the warning to stick together gets a nod from both, "Of course."

Staren has posed:
    Staren nods as the smoke them out plan is shot down. "I see. I just wanted to check." Staren walks with the others. "I wonder where that river goes? Hmm... So these things... eat rock?" He rubs the back of his helmet. "Geeze, this is gonna take /forever/ to get them all... I wonder if maybe there's a way to attract them all into one spot and blast them, or something?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Synched with Staren and Kotone, Maaka raises her coilgun and takes position at the mouth of the cave. "Alright, move in." She says, her optic software turning to night-vision when she follows the others through. "That depends what they eat. This place is digital isn't it? Maybe they're just sucking up lines of code."

Lexicon has posed:
    They're not eating the rock so much as they seem to be eating the raw code, or maybe chewing holes through it to get to the resource pathways underneath-- that glowing white light, the same as the lines that run through Britannica's streets and up the sides of its buildings. Malvaders gather around the larger openings, glowing slightly. It's only the party's arrival and girding for battle that starts getting more than the occasional shout from the viral infestation.

    It starts with one of the viruses wandering down the middle of the room. They shuffle sideways, shuffling the projections on their undersides like feet, and that single one stops. The holes that must be eyes close and open again with an electrical beeping noise, and it shouts, "Malvader!"

    "Malvader!" another responds, "Malvader!" comes a third. Soon, the entire cavern is alive with a cacophony of the world's most obnoxious rejected pokemon cry, as insectile pixel-like monsters start scuttling along the walls and floor-- and then each other, until they've formed a veritable wall of their own interlocking bodies.

    Thus lined up, the wall starts shuffling back and forth, amidst shouts from the viruses. One of them near the middle starts to glow red, then fires a square-ish bolt of light, clearly a laser. A few moments later, another repeats the trick, and another.

Staren has posed:
    Staren is thinking about exploding them while they're in a group.

    But then the group gets bigger, and bigger. "What are these, pokemon?" And then there are lasers. For now his forcefield can probably tank some shots, but he watches for any shields others are putting up that he can hide behind.

    He loaded his missile racks with HEAT rounds to avoid catching allies, not realizing the bugs would be this small. Now an area attack is what he /needs/.

    "Stay back for just a few seconds, I have a plan!" He pulls what looks like a large-bore rifle out of his bag, and loads it with a short squat magazine from same, then fires a single mini-missile -- a foot long and an inch or so thick -- which airbursts above the malvaders, superheating the air to try and cook them in a fireball without damaging the bridge or creating a deadly shockwave, which would be a bad idea in these caverns.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    he skitters and cries reveal that the preistess was not joking.

    The ARE loud and obnoxious.

    "Stay clear of it's shots!" Cirra shouts as she pulls a law card from her side, chanting as she slams it into the ground with the point of her sword. "The Rampart!" and two crystal barriers grow to either side of the cave to grant the team cover.

    Cirra shuts her eyes as Staren fires hsi rocket. "Name the attack first! The group needs some idea of what it is!" She points at Alden. "Forward left! Hit it hard!" She points at Sigrun next, "Snipe the glowing ones, they might be weak while preparing to fire, or it might just stop them for getting a shot off." Cirra herself runs out from behind cover, "I'm going right!" she dodges and slides around a laser blast as she raises her crystaline blade, swinging it down at the right side of the wall of Malvaders!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has hopefully got in the right spot to fally out the lose plan they had formed up. She. She keeos in place as they made ready to head out but only will move a moment after her visable allies have started in. She's taking in thes strange creatures she really wished Rory was around, she might have a better idea how to do this bette.r She can't however think about the what ifs she's got a job to do. She'll be moving in and waiting for a moment tp open fire on any of the Malvaders that are trying to get near or hit the party's flanks she'd be more noticable now she's moving and shooting but it might still be a bit harder to spot the ghostly seeming cyborg.

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
Sigrun hides behind Staren's forcefield, which appears to be much more reliable than her own. She's not putting any of her own up, at least not yet, instead she swaps out the bodkin point for one of her more common 'trick' arrows. "Fire in the hole." She warns.

She does follow Cirra's advice in aiming for one of the glowing ones, the glass-tipped arrow with a shaft covered in some oil-filled, spongy tissue is aimed true, it's not her aim that would complicate proper impact.

Upon impact, the glass shatters and the spongy tissue is simultaneously set aflame and scattered, an incendiary arrow meant to cause fires.

Alden (930) has posed:
Alden wastes no time listening to Cirra's orders, he figures she has some clue of what she is doing after all!. He rushes to one side, doign his best to ignore the bulk of the lasers, while the Shinkie runs a card on the D-Arc. Alden's body glows silver for a few moments, "Digi modify! Defense chip!" and a glancing laser or two hitting him do not seem to cause much damage beyond a scorch mark on his fur, clearly taking his role of 'soak damage' seriously.

     "Kaiser Claw." he barks, his hands (and claws) turning bright crimsom before he slashes the air in front of him. The claws leave a large energy trail shaped like na X, that then launches forward. It's not an explosive attack, but rather more of a ranged 'punch' sort of thing, which slams to one side of the 'wall' with surprising strength. Of course, the silver 'bonus' defense fades a few moments later, so he hopes the attacks might do some work.

     Finally, after using the card, Katze hisses softly, the tiny, floating machines near her firing at the wall, which likely has as much effect as a juiced up laser pointer, but they do aim at the glowing ones at least!.

Lexicon has posed:
    Staren's rocket explodes just above the topmost row of Malvaders, shattering those immediately close to it into what can only be described as stray pixels, motes of square-shaped light that scatter and dissolve. Those that aren't destroyed are tossed out of the wall formation by the burst, clattering around with noisy complaints. Only the middle and lower groups are mostly untouched, firing their lasers at seemingy random times.

    Sigrun's arrow never reaches the Malvader she shot at. Its laser fires, strikes the arrow mid-flight, and detonates its payload much to the surprise of not only the offending virus, but all the viruses around it. Shouting their names in complaint, an entire section of the Malvader wall collapses, flashing red and on fire as they take constant damage. After a few moments, these also break up and dissolve into pixels. Cirra's sword chops through another group, deleting a handful of the noisy virii in a straight line. Alden's Kaiser Claw further damages that side, carving a neat X shape into the formation of Malvaders.

    At this point there's only two in the lower middle still holding up the rest of the group on their shoulders. These malvaders turn red with effort, casting off little blue pixels like effort-sweatdrops for several seconds. It doesn't last, however, as one and then the other gives out-- the top remaining half of the Malvader wall collapses onto the bottom half with a calvacade of obnoxious shouting and flailing, pixelly limbs. The laser fire has pretty much stopped, but they're still blocking the way, more or less.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    As the wall goes tumbling over (comically at that) Cirra takes a half step back, bringing her sword up defensevily for a moment. "Good, now clean them up. Be sure not to wade into the groups."

    The Judge pulls out another Law Card and stabs it into the ground, producing crystal thorn vines that try to ensnare the Malvaders and holds them still for others. "The Brair!"

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
Digging through corpses is not in Sigrun's job description, so she stays back, only doing one thing to make an attempt at reaching beyond, a single one of her recon orbs trying to find a hole big enough for the tiny thing to fly through and look beyond.

Alden (930) has posed:
Alden blinks as he sees teh wall of things just... collapse in a rather adorable way, ears twitching, "That is almost sad." he says softly. Still, he makes sure to stomp and break any lingering virii. No point taking risks!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa is not going to complain with Cirra's aid in holding the viri at bay. She'll open up with her sub machine gun on the hopefully striken malvaders and she'll evne move to toss in a grenade.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE"

Hopefully that should help right?

Staren has posed:
    That they turn into pixels isn't that surprising. Staren mutters, 'Are they seriously flashing red?' as some of them take damage, though.

    "Sorry." Staren replies to Cirra as he takes cover behind the crystal wall. "Shoot... now this is just going to be tedious..." he comments as he sees that there is still a swarm and now it's low to the ground. He lays down on the ground behind the wall, poking out his right arm from behind cover to fire low-to-the-ground beam cannon shots -- trying to hit the bugs /without/ hitting the bridge.

Lexicon has posed:
    Disorganized as they are, cleaning up the Malvaders at this point is a simple process. They're just too busy trying to figure out how their impenetrable wall formation could have failed so suddenly, or recovering from the landing, or buried under other Malvaders and unable to move at all.

    Bramble-crystals writhe up around them, pinning tiny forms down, which makes the cleanup trivial as even the ones on top couldn't move even if they had their wits about them. Kotone's grenade, Staren's beam cannon, and Alden's Mighty Shoe make short work of them. Before long, the cavern's occupants are little more than dispersing white light wafting on the breeze.

    Scuttling further in, on the chamber opposite of the bridge, exposes the presence of more of the little nuisences. A shout of "Malvader!" confirms it, echoing off the walls in the distance.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    "Theres a second group." Cirra says as she walks towards the bridge. She frowns. THats the perfect place for a setup. She turns to Sigrun and points to the chamber opposite the bridge, "What can you tell us of the room beyond?"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa decloaks at this point and she calls out.

"Hold on we got another from the sounds of it, we took out the grunts and now we got the bigger one or ones attention."

She swaps weapons optic for some sort of rifle over the SMG and seems about aas ready as she's going to be.

"Watch the fire Staren seriously."

Or ir may be a big one, or others she's not sure but they need to make ready and Cirra asks a good question, for the moment? Kotone can only wait.

Staren has posed:
    "I'm on the tacnet, I'm watching out for you, sheesh." Staren replies to Kotone. He retrieves the missile launcher, puts it away, and draws forth a futuristic assault railrifle. Most of his weapons are overkill. This is probably... slightly /less/ overkill. He looks around for more of the bugs. Eventually he'll risk crossing the bridge if noone else does. It's not like he can't fly...

Lexicon has posed:
    There's no need to search for narrow passages, as Sigrun's scout drones zip down the cavern's larger corridors. It seems like there's a larger cavern further down with large gemstones hanging from the ceiling like stalactites. These, and the walls, also appear to be seriously damaged by the Malvaders. Being a larger chamber, there seem to be far more of them here than in the first chamber. They've also been warned, and Sigrun gets a good look at several similar 'wall' formations forming in different places amidst the chamber floor.

    These walls come together until they form what is essentially a giant Malvader made out of smaller Malvaders. Its arms lift up and it booms out, "POXVADER!" in a voice that rumbles the cavern walls.

    It knows the party is there, but doesn't know where they /are/ yet, because all of this is relayed via Sigrun's scout drones, which are too small for the monster to notice in the dim light of the cave.

Sigrun Stem (992) has posed:
Sigrun follows along, her recon orbs skill scouting ahead. "Still looking, miss Constantine, I'll let you know if I see anything of importance." It seems the Monster Exterminator much prefers to fight from the back rather than the front. This time, she goes for a regular bodkin point arrow.

"Wait." She warns, right as she sees the Malvaders form up into Poxvader. "They seem to have merged into one thing. More than there were before." She warns softly, and adds on, "I recommend we strike hard and fast, get them on the defensive right away and turn this attempted ambush agaist them."

She then goes quiet like a vacuum, and uses simple military gestures to communicate, doing little beyond ensuring everyone knows where to, occassionally emphasizing the need for a quiet. When they get close enough, she does a quick count-down with her fingers, three, two, one.

At zero, she looses. The arrow may be a simple bodkin point, the spell she puts into it makes it anything but. A fraction of a second before it can the Poxvader, all stealth goes out of the window, as the shockwave of the arrow going supersonic is loud and unpleasant. At this range, even Sigrun seems disconcerted by it.

Staren has posed:
    "Wait," Staren asks, "If I send some drones ahead, I can just missile them..." but it seems Sigrun's moving forward anyway. Staren switches back to the missile launcher and chases after her, taking up position and ready to fire the same time she does.

    He's not expecting the sonic boom. He fires simultaneously with her anyway, and his armor's internal speakers don't replicate such a loud noise, but he can still hear it /through/ the armor, as 'painfully loud' instead of 'deafeningly loud'. "AGH!" he shouts, "Warn us before you do that!"

    If possible, he'll keep firing. There were 6 plasma minimissiles in the magazine -- he used one on the earlier malvader wall, and he'll happily use the rest to scorch the Poxvader!

    He'll also take cover if Cirra provides it again.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa makes a face at Staren for a moment but doesn't say another thing before she makes ready to head out hopefully with Sigrun's informationthtye should be able to avoid any real issues.

"Merged? Great so we got a super malvader?"

She takes a deep breath and now moves in with the rest of the group and she's quite thankful for the warning they got.

"Well we can't really do anything save go forward, right?"

She'll move forward without anotehr word and given sheket her tone quite low when she did speak nothing should have gone wrong right? Once she gets into range she'll wait for Staren and Sigrum to fire befoer she opens up with her rife, she's also thankful she was able to make use of being able to control her sense of hearing or she'd be having a really bad /day/ there may be a faint ringing but it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully the Poxvader will have the worst day of all.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Fortunatly Judges are a pseudo-military sort, and Cirra nods to Sigrun's hand signals. She waits for the archer to begin the assault, and fortunatly, Galandian Archers aren't terribly different in their idea of subtly. She holds her hands over her ears even though they're under her helmet.

    Once the boom goes off, and dispite the momentary discomfort of the sound, Cirra turns the corner into the next chamber and runs as sher her sword turn into a crystal firing railgun. Lay firing into the Poxvader as she advances, and runs up the nearest wall on an angle, flipping over in mid air as she comes down, transforming the sword again as she attacks one of the Poxvader's legs.

Alden (930) has posed:
Alden briefly considers powering up further, but he does not want to risk causing damage to the cave with them inside!. Plus he has no clue how strong that combined creature is. He earsplays as he sees Staren firing, perhasp expecting an explosion but the sudden, powerful sonic boom makes him whimper and cover his ears for a moment. He snarls, his head ringing, as he glares in the direction of the creature. He just focuses on the target right now. He reconsiders just... doing something explosive, but he lost his chance, instead he decides to assist Cirra, charging at the thing, and rushing to attack at another leg. He goes for a little less flashier attack, one of his hands glowing brightly, as he simply punches the Poxvader's leg with the metal knuckle.

Lexicon has posed:
    An arrow is the first warning, bursting through the center of the Poxvader at sudden, boomingly loud high speed. The noise alone disconcerts the large Poxvader, though the arrow shooting through its center of mass does somewhat less damage than might have been expected. It disappears inside and even sails out the back with a spray of pixel light. It's just that there are so many now that the precise attack is less devastating than it would probably be against a single large creature.

    This does get the Poxvader's attention and it swivels around to face the arrow's origin point. Arms raise, crimson spots appearing all over it. The laser barrage is far more numerous this time, a rapid, still-kinda-random stream of squared crimson bolts that hiss out against the cavern walls.

    Explosions of plasma missiles burst against the Poxvader's shell as well. These carve large craters into the creature's surface, scattering wounded and destroyed Malvaders in all directions, dissolving as they sail. Kotone's rifle also draws trails of damaged Malvaders across its surface, with several disappearing.

    So distracted by Sigrun and Staren, the Poxvader isn't prepared to deal with Alden closing the distance. His blow lands true, smashing several Malvaders out of the creature's leg. Those that remain shout at him angrily, and several begin to glow with a prepared counterattack. However, this is when Cirra descends on the same leg, cleaving into the damaged leg. Malvaders cease their attack and start panicking, as the damage has carved through most of the leg's mass.

    The Malvaders that remain to support the Poxvader's left side start to strain, casting off blue sweatpixels and turning red while struggling to hold the monster up during the fight.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra hits the ground from her attack in a crouching slide, turning as she use her hand to steady and control her movement across the cavern floor. She lifts it to point at the leg. "Focus that side, attack the other legs!" Even if the ...animations aren't what she's used to, she can spot a boss weakness.

    Cirra transitions into a run as she lets her sword split open again into it's rifle mode. Firing the crystal shards at the legs as she runs counter-clockwise around the Poxvader.

Staren has posed:
    So far, so good! "Keep it up!" Staren shouts as encouragement as he sees some of the party go nuts in melee and start attacking its legs. He ejects the empty magazine and loads in a replacement. He'll be out of plasma minimissiles after this, but it's not like he doesn't have grenades... For now, though, he just keeps blasting the upper body!

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks at the huge thing she's not even sure what to think of the Poxvaderother than she doesn't really like it too much Her own attack do some bit to hurt it but it's not enough she keeps firing trying to empty what's left of the clip at the thing nad is forced into reloading which will leave her open to counter attack.

Lexicon has posed:
    The last of Staren's missiles explode against the Poxvader's upper body, shattering more of its component Malvaders and causing it to stagger backwards. It puts all its weight on its undamaged leg as it does so, much to the relief of the few Malvaders holding up the other side. When this leg crashes down and it puts all its weight there, though, the little viruses all start squeaking in alarm.

    Cirra is so close that by the time reactionary lasers have fired, she's already out of the line of fire, and going after the other leg now. Without the speed and gravity on her side, it's a bit harder to find purchase on this one.

    Bulletfire rattles across the Poxvader's main body as it wheels around to track Kotone, tracing her position with laser fire. It lifts the leg that's under attack to put it out of harm's way.

    And the other, vastly more damaged leg suddenly gives. The Poxvader's blocky arms raise and wheel around as it topples sideways, slamming into the cavern floor and shattering into its component Malvaders just as the wall had before, though it's a much larger and vastly more obnoxious heap of squawking viruses than before.

    As before, cleanup should be fairly simple now that they're down. They don't seem to be very good at getting up after this kind of thing happens.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra watches with some satisfaction as the Poxvader begins to tumble over, crashing on it's side and tossing the smaller Malvaders around in heaps. Their pathetic cries almost make her feel sorry for them.

    Almost.

    "Good work everyone. Now, lets begin cleaning them up." She switches her sword to rifle form, and begins walking through the piles, eliminating the Malvaders into tiny sparkles of voxel light.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
:is reloading but it's locate shere she is and she's caught with one of some of thelaser fire she goes reeling, there's the smell of burnt synethics as she reels back, with the lovely feeling of pain but it seems that it's over she lowers her weapon and holds the source of the wound.

"Could have been worse, give me a moment to try and patch this...and then I'll help. Also good getting to work with you Cirra."

Lexicon has posed:
    Once cleanup is trough and the final Malvader is exterminated, Stylono wanders into the cavern, toting a clipboard and a shoulder bag. She seems to be cataloguing the damage done to the Caverns by the viruses, for repairs later. With a nod, she tucks the clipboard under one arm and claps her hands together, "Well done, all of you! As promised, I have your payment for the work here."

    Each member of the party, even those who had to retreat early, recieves a Britannica Care Package. This contains a box of four Lex Manjuu restorative candies, a six-pack of Ammy Bull healing potions, and a single wrapped glittering product called an Energy Lump, which according to the instructions can recover someone from unconsciousness. There's also a chit containing a sum of credits.

Cirra Constantine (675) has posed:
    Cirra nods to Stylono as she enters, "The task is done." She accepts the payment - normally she'd give most of it to Alexander Academy, but multiversal jaunts make it less easy to classify the spoils. She'll hang on to them in case she ever returns to this world.

    "If you need anything else, Alexander Academy stands ready to assist in matters such as these."