You are L2S Trollslayer Fiona Jarnafeldt, and you have so many better things to do with your time. At least, such you thought as you rode down the elevator to the most secretive corner of the Helsinki Stormwatch, a deep underground coven of researchers and inventors known as the Undercroft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2nLBExFcPU

You have so many better things you could be spending your time with right now. For example, you were injured in a fight earlier today against a giant living breathing tree that was a rogue member of a seclusive cabal of researchers and exmilitary brandishing a shotgun with an axe bit strapped to it, and you still powered through and chopped its head off. Your mother has just returned from a wild and outrageous journey around the north pole for the last twenty years, and has finally returned. Tomorrow you'll have a mission to rescue some people from cannibals in the stormdrains under Helsinki and you need some sleep. There's a great number of reasons you should be in bed.

But now, that very same day as all of these things occurred, Katriina Jousten, the Stormwatch Director and woman who was shot and savagely mauled by the tree from earlier, has decided it was time to orchestrate some bullshit tests based on whatever tech she has cooked up.

And you can't even complain about it, because with you is your fellow Stormwatch agent L2 Manhunter Saemus Fahy. an Irish guy who has zero concept that you, Katriina, and several others were fighting a rogue government agent that's coincidentally a fucking tree. You can't spill the beans, and neither can she. Talking around the cause of both of your injuries is going to be annoying.

But Katriina should be resting too. She was injured, grievously injured, and she has decided to run some tests late into the evening? What's gotten into her?

Perhaps she is hurt more than just physically.

Previous threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Solarpunk%20Cleanup%20Agent%20Quest
Google doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jhZljN9y7A8w6qFcD8wX_xYaKZP65ZH8EGrmgKQ-nIU/edit?usp=sharing
Come join Fiona Jarnafeldt into the world of an ecofascist dictatorship, where the irradiated world blurs the lines between fantastical fancy and horrific reality, where she serves as an agent of that grim latter half, but not without regret.

>>6249825 (OP)
L5 Jousten isn't in her office, so you have an Undercroft clerk direct you and Fahy to where she is. She leads you to an infirmary, and as the door opens you hear the fast discussion between the multitude of doctors in the room immediately drop dead as you step in.

The woman you're looking for in a chair beside a man wrapped in bandages and rigged with tubes and machines. Simo took the brunt of the beating, and it's no surprise that he is in absolutely critical condition.

Having only noticed you from the shadow cast over her face, Katriina looks at you, crutch in hand and dressings of her own visible underneath her coat, with a dead-inside look of heavy eye bags and drooping lids. The eyes and mouth rest in a depressed frown, but the brows have doubled down on enduring. Struggling to her feet with a crutch, Katriina plainly addresses the two of you before sauntering slowly back to her office with you behind her.

"I apologize for the short-notice of this mission, but it is of importance. To me, at least."

You rub a shoulder that you hurt during a hard landing from being sent flying into a concrete pillar and crashing into foliage. Katriina ignores that gesture.

"It's nothing severe, or intensive," she assured as she limped over to her desk and opened a folder. "Not tonight. Tonight, I simply need your observations."

The director flips through pages, dozens of pages, all of which contain information that is almost certainly highly classified. You don't try making heads or tails of any of the lines, but you see schematics of a machine by happenstance.

"I believe I previously told you there were no humans stored for cryogenic slumber in this facility as it was reclaimed?" Katriina noted. "And it was true. No humans were stored, nor organs or any part of the physical being you'd call a human. Which makes what we found more odd. And, I believe now, worthy of study."

>>6249831
She pushes forward a full page photograph toward the two of you. Fahy holds it up, squinting.

It's shockingly similar to the newest versions of the Undercroft suits they've been developing.

"I believe you're familiar with what the Old Oaks call Anima? You might have even seen it today, on Blythe's gun for example. It's an old tech that functions as a swarm of tiny machines, communicating and computing almost entirely through waves - we don't fully understand yet, but we have the capacity to program them. If what we found when we uncovered this facility is truthful, we held one such swarm programmed to simulate a brain scan of an old world banking family ogligarch. One Omer Rothschild."

A second sheet comes up for you to grab and examine, and Frejya's tits he is ugly. You heard stories of the fat pigs that used to exist back then, but not only was this pig fat, but he is also the crustiest thing human being you've ever seen. Bound to a wheel chair, hooked up to as much life support as Simo (who just today took several life-threatening injuries in the span of twenty seconds), and with half his face seemingly paralyzed, this picture depicts a man that should have died decades earlier and was kept alive by fell magic alone. You have half a mind to ask if this was the world's most cruel caricature painting of the man, because you cannot believe anything short of a troll could even look like that.

Katriina begins to speak as you absorb the image. "Omer Rothschild was a patriarch of the Rothschilds family toward the end of the Old World. Over the many years prior, the banking families of the world began acquiring the fleeting oil reserves by means of war or simply buying them out, transforming from the richest people on the planet to hyperbolically wealthy. And, at the age of 124, Omer had tried everything to extend his life to its fullest. Child blood and organ transfusions and medicines from poaching endangered animals are included in the crimes he committed to keep himself alive. The economic, political, and demographic devastation he, his forebears, and many ogligarchs like him in the many industries across the unified world at that time have wrought are beyond record, requiring Mother Nature's Providence centuries to begin undoing. When his body began irredeemably failing, he came to this 'clinic' in an attempt to... digitize his consciousness."

Both you and Fahy look up confused.

"It's been a thousand years since this happened. Ordinarily, it's of no consequence. We could just keep it sealed, unable to escape. Format the swarm, or bury it in a tube. But I would like to see how fruitful that procedure was."

>>6249845
Shutting the folder, Katriina draws a picture from her desk and presents it to you in full color. It seems like a nice lush forest that breaks into a grassy field, but the sky looks... off. It's like a greenhouse, but those are trees, and streams, and the scale of it all would imply that it's massive.

"Your mission is nothing difficult. I want to test if he truly maintained his humanity. So I ask you to test if this machine fears death, if it wants to live, if, in your opinion, this thing still has a soul. There was an old mechanical body designed to house his anima that we've had refurbished - and have been using to make improvements to the Red Dogs' autonomous combat drone for some time. We have thrown the swarm into that and set him loose in a large-scale terrarium we maintain in the Undercroft. The thing in the shape of a man has just today relearned how to walk, drink water, find its tongue. I don't ask you to be merciful to it, be it man or machine. Feel free to punish this Omer for the crimes he committed in the old world, or for his tone to you in this one."

A large scale terrarium...? You feel like you've seen that before. Maybe you just imagined it.

Fahy actually offers a question. "And what if we break this body? Sounds like an important thing to just turn loose in the playground with everything else we let run down there."

"The body's construction is not a lost science," Katriina answers. "We can produce more. The Anima swarm itself on the other hand is, despite how we can still manipulate them. Be as rough as you like with the body, but if the seal on the Anima breaks, it may able to fly around freely. I will have to consult Leshy on containment proceedures. I'd like to not do that, so please, don't break the glass face."

Nodding, Saemus passes the file back to Katriina. "And is our old friend still running around there?"

"Yes. The Nalkainen should be satisfied, taking the easy food around him to even care about struggling against you. Further, he should not be interested in the non-biological form of the machine Omer is encased in."
Katriina looks at you.

"Any questions, Fiona?"
>How deadly is the machine? You redesigned ACDD off of it.
>This machine is also able to consume biological matter? Like the Nalkainen?
>Do you think we could speak to him? Omer, you mean?
>This terrary am looks very big... do people live down here?
>It's surprising you can keep a place like this running on what power you can give it.
>If you need to talk about what happened, I'm here.

>>6249847
>This terrary am looks very big... do people live down here?
Need the funny ishe-cuhreem Donqui meme real
>This machine is also able to consume biological matter? Like the Nalkainen?
Pursue the previous thread
>If you need to talk about what happened, I'm here.
I want Jousten to not feel so bad, she needs serious hugs

>>6249847
>How deadly is the machine? You redesigned ACDD off of it.
>This machine is also able to consume biological matter? Like the Nalkainen?
Then send Fahy ahead and
>If you need to talk about what happened, I'm here.

>>6249847
>How deadly is the machine? You redesigned ACDD off of it.
>This machine is also able to consume biological matter? Like the Nalkainen?
>This terrary am looks very big... do people live down here?

>>6249847
>This machine is also able to consume biological matter? Like the Nalkainen?
>It's surprising you can keep a place like this running on what power you can give it.
>If you need to talk about what happened, I'm here.

>>6250025
>>6250045
>>6250160
Okay, first thing's first. "How dangerous is this thing, if you decided that a killing machine made by Americans needed to be more like this?"

"Well, no. It is not more dangerous. Despite the clientele, this is actually a civilian model. It is both unarmed and unadorned with modern advancements such as solid-state pneumatic fuel." After a pause of consideration, she continued. "Be it as it may, the automaton is stronger than a human in many ways, being metal and pistons, but at the same time I am certain the anima swarm controlling the machine is not yet aware of the limits of its own strength." She leaned forward onto her crutch with a sly grin. "I took after this design because it is simply more human. The flaws I noticed in the Red Dogs ACD were that it was borne from an incestuous design that forgot what it was meant to emulate. In a way, the Undercroft's modifications have been adapting this robot shell for anima swarms to be used by standard AI or remote control use."

You step in to segue into the next topic. "And it also feeds on biomass, like the Nalkainen." This was not so much a question as much as it was an observation. It occurs to you that most people would not consider talking to the "Black Swan" in such a way.

Ms. Jousten laughed, as if you referred to a cat that was acting silly in a corner. "Yes. The Nalkainen's properties, found in a thousand year old machine locked away and abandoned by man. A classic mystery of the chicken and the egg. This is why I had even acquired the Nalkainen to begin with. I heard rumors of a creature, and this derelict machine struck the right chord. To get an idea of if they were both made with the exact same mechanics. I will spare you the details."

"And there were many o' these things made but none o' them had owners," Saemus adds.

"Those do not matter. We could make superior machines, we would only need a reason to try."

So the machine, Omer, is a consumer grade robotic body for the richest fat cats of the old world who thought they could escape death by being scanned onto machines. Given the reality that it is operating off the brainscan of a geriatric lardass businessman with a thousand years of downtime, Omer wouldn't know how to control his actual flesh and blood body if it was given back to him, let alone this one. Good to know.

>>6250710
Now, about the fact there's open space, clean water, and sunlight underground for some reason while Stormwatch agents die fighting squatters that tame aberrations in the stormdrains.

Except you're not dumb enough to say that out loud.

"And this terryaru- terrery- " TER-RAR-I-UM. "This place is an Undercroft facility?"

"Yes."

"What's it for? It looks like lots of people could live down here."

Aligning the files and putting them neatly onto her desk, Katriina did not look at you.

"They could. But this is a clandestine facility for testing and production, not a place for living. Growing certain things that the Old Oaks wouldn't want mixing with other environments. Rewarding the Nalkainen, when it doesn't slip its shock collar leash. Testing the power generated by bioconversion engines. But it doesn't have fruits or livestock to truly upkeep any population."

Then suddenly, she looks at you, with a pair of amber eyes.

There is a light in those eyes, but it's not a light of hope.

It's is full of a swirling storm of emotions, that can't be well hidden from the likes of you. Considering how neutral Saemus is to this, one that isn't unfamiliar to him either.

Like a shattered vase, seeking to be repaired with gold.

"So no. Strictly speaking, as it falls within Helsinki's borders, it also falls underneath its limits on the city's population. By the rulings on population count and definition of populant by Mother Nature's Providence, no human being can live here."

A brief silence fills the room as Ms. Jousten pours herself a drink.

"I would not recommend bringing a weapon with you. The Nalkainen will be tame as long as it wishes to not be hauled from the garden of plenty, and we do not need Omer running away from the first sign of danger. You have observations to make. You need to see if Omer Rothschild died a thousand years ago, or if he yet lives."

"Understood," Saemus replies before you can in uncharacteristically professional tone. "An' I'd also recommend against armor. Civvies don't find our practical kit welcoming, so it's better for a first impression we dress light. And nicely, given this thing thinks it's a high class man."

>>6250714
Dismissing and telling Fahy you will be right out as he leaves the office, you look at Katriina, who has sunk into her chair, exhausted, beaten, tired, drained, and miserable. She hasn't taken her eyes from you, and feel that there's something in her that wants you out of her sight.

But still, you can't let her beat herself up over what happened. Simo did that to protect her, and though she's right to feel sad-

No, no. You're assuming too much.

"If there's anything we could talk about, I'm here," you speak to her, sincerely offering help.

Her brows dig down. Venom seeps into her words. Her heart coils, licking its wounds, and barking at any who come close.

"You would not understand. You've never been in love."

"... Wha-"

"Get out of my office, Jarnafeldt. Gear up or don't, but grab an earpiece. No camera. Fahy will direct you to the terrarium, Alamaailma."

"A-ah! Yes ma'am!"

As you went to leave, your steps were uneven. You wanted to turn around and say something to help console her, to show support, but kept deciding against as she ordered. You open the door to get on with your mission.

"Enjoy spending time with your mother, Jarnafeldt. In this life, and one day, in your next one."

The door shuts.

>>6250758
You ended up getting just a clean set of Stormwatch Fatigues. If it's any close to a real forest, you're going to want to breathe and see clearly, regardless of the scale of the whole place.

It can't be that big, right?

Right?

"Fahy, have you been to this place before?" You ask as you follow him along the facility down some almost familiar halls.

The Irishman nods. "Ah, yea. I did some jogging around there in some of the suits they make. Taking in the fake sun, shoving grass down my collar. Nearly passing out from a complete lack of nutrients in my blood. I never went into the forest, just a trail along the outer rim. Omer mighta stayed there, but I'm not sure. Hard to get in the head of a thousand year old man made of fireflies."

The two of you approach a large metal blast door, sealed tight. There's some scientist at the door, checking some clipboard for verification before punching numbers in onto a keypad.

Muffled machinery whines and whirrs. The heavy metal plates shuttered down over the threshold prepare to raise themselves.

Alamaailma. Underworld. But not Tuonella, the actual realm of the dead of Finnish folklore.

The Black Swan imagined something better.

Katriina imagined a lot of things better than they ended up being.

A bright flood of light spills across the floor of this hall you once thought was well-lit as the door begins to slide up. The intensity could only be compared to daylight breaching the windows of a musty schoolhouse from home.

As the vault opens wide, so do your eyes, and you see.

This is not the simple fake you thought it was. Rolling for Attunement; Two anons, roll 5d6.

Rolled 6, 1, 4, 4, 5 = 20 (5d6)

>>6250759
Eyes wide shut.

Rolled 3, 3, 6, 4, 4 = 20 (5d6)

>>6250759
Rolling. also I speculated about the mystery entity being a somehow immrotal Christian, and it turns out I was almost right, lol

Rolled 4, 3, 2, 1, 4, 3, 1, 4 = 22 (8d6)

And rolling for Fahy's check. Though it is not a human being, nor is this the textbook definition of an artificial environment, he's got a clue or two.

Oh, and glad to have you all back. Sorry about yesterday. Sometimes days are blurs.

>>6250764
>>6250771
>>6250775
You hadn't dreamed.

But you did.

You think you just might have seen this place, once before.

Stepping through the threshold, the sight takes your breath away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVQ-LTlVAL0

A rolling field of green, laden with blossoming flowers.

Before the doorway is a concrete platform which leads into a beaten path, but beside it was this field of green unlike any in Helsinki's outskirts could dare offer.

You've seen something like this once, in Germany. A clearing in a forest. There, the massive trees of the Black Forest would part to give way to a resplendent field, grown wild in the sun's intense rays. When you were finally tall enough, you ran through that grass once. It wasn't as pleasant as you had thought it was going to be.

But still, you can see someone running up that hill.

Maybe it's yourself. Maybe someone else.

Without thinking, and ignoring the senseless suggestions of Fahy, you run up the hill, chasing an imaginary little one. From here, you make like you've grabbed her arm to hold her still and find a great vantage point of this place Katriina dared call the Underworld.

This place is a large, and you mean a large underground biome that imitates some fantastical ideal of the surface. The walls, which you stood close beside, were large panels of screens which emulated blue sky and distant clouds, structural seams between them to hold the vault of the heavens upright creating this effect of viewing the world from behind a chainlink fence. This whole enclosure certainly covers several city blocks, and at the ceiling is this massive torch. How it works is beyond you; it's just about as hard to look at as the actual sun.

The facility is layered; from here, there's no trees obscuring your sight over a distant cliff edge which lets you see the far side across a great chasm. The underground environment is built as rings, layering over one another. You can't see the bottom from here as you're right up against the wall, but you can see at least two. Much of it is a stark cliffside, but there are natural paths down between the rings.

This upper layer has dirt paths cutting through rolling hills and over artificial streams which cascade into the lower layers. It's very open to the sky. It's very open, it has a natural air, and it feels liberating unlike anything within the walls of Helsinki - a high praise, for an enclosure. You sit down, let that little one hop into your lap, hold her close, and breathe in. This place is nice.

>>6252241
For you, it's a nice feeling.

But prey animals typically stray from these pastures. Animals like elk and deer, they're shy creatures. If a creature is feeling vulnerable and confused, they hide in the maze of trees and brush, rarely walking into plain sight for anything besides food and drink.

While not an animal by any stretch of the imagination, if there really was a soul trapped in darkness for a thousand years, you think the only thing that would be easily found at such a short notice is instinct.

And so, while you don't know where Omer is, you know where you can start.

"He was left o'er here," the Irish boy started with a clearly closed mind. "We got some great sightlines up here, so if we walk aroun-"

You cut him off. "No. He's ran deeper in. He wants to get his bearings and lick his wounds."

Fahy found your choice of words odd. "Licking his wounds? Ah! The whole memory thing. I was hoping we could just spot him from that yellow stuff." After a moment's pause, he asks a question. "Are you... holding something? You're sitting weird."

"W-what!? No." Illusions of comfort scatter at his words like a startled flock of birds, and you shake yourself from the haze. "I just sit like that, sometimes." Yes, you certainly do. If there was a camera in your room you weren't aware of, they could go and check the replays.

Pulled from a pleasant delusion, you begrudgingly get up and find a way down to the second layer, where a dense forest casts a cool shadow over the tame underbrush. Besides the rough roots jutting up from a shallow layer of soil over bedrock, it's easy to move around here, which might complicate things if Omer were to find his legs and attempt to flee.

As you step through this second layer in a ring of the underworld, you realize that your intuition is split. What on earth could Omer be thinking about? When he left looking for something, what was it? Would he even be able to find it? Did he even stop running, or is he the kind of man to not even try?

Where would Omer's instincts take him?
>A stream. Even if you don't need to drink, the water's sound and smell can be relaxing. It would also serve as a hotspot for viable biofuel.
>A vantage point. If he has somewhere he wants to go, he'll need a path. He may replenish himself in the "sun," too.
>A dark crevice. He wasn't ready to leave oblivion after so long. He wants to go back.
>Deeper still. A deer is able to run for its life the moment it leaves the womb. So is this machine.
>Ask Fahy and Katriina for their thoughts, because frankly you're stumped.

>>6252242
>A vantage point. If he has somewhere he wants to go, he'll need a path. He may replenish himself in the "sun," too.
A captain of industry is like any apex predator. He'll want to survey his domain.

>>6252242
>>A stream. Even if you don't need to drink, the water's sound and smell can be relaxing. It would also serve as a hotspot for viable biofuel.
water, this being would wish to greedly devour it whole if it could.

>>6252242
>>A stream. Even if you don't need to drink, the water's sound and smell can be relaxing. It would also serve as a hotspot for viable biofuel.

Votes tallied but in the interest of not destroying sleep schedule again I'll be updating tomorrow

>>6252708
Fair 'nuff. Sleep well, QM!

i lied i've been somehow completely unproductive during normal hours

Water is the font of life. Just about every living thing needs some of it. If there's a human instinct that remains in that machine, it will be the impulse for water.

"Was Omer given a charge before being dropped here?" You asked aloud, as you stepped over branches.

Fahy skips behind you. "Nah, just left to sit in the torch a bit. Part of it was to see how efficient it was in artificial light, rather than actual sunlight. If this was enough to get it moving if it had nothin' else." They call the sun down here a torch - accurate.

"Then he's going to be eating. Consuming something." It would be proper until you figure out if it has a soul in it or not, but if a boat is a woman you can call this thing a man. "I'm not sure he's realized what he can eat. If he has a clue on the charge the... what do you call this? A suit?"

"Vessel," Katriina notes from your earpiece. "The machine body is a vessel for a machine soul. And yes, Omer should have an idea that the vessel is hungry, and the idea that sunlight and other biomatter provide sustenance."

She can't see you nodding. Either way, you demand Fahy lower his tone. Though Saemus has no skill in tracking in this regard, he's very good at keeping quiet as you begin slipping through the artificial grove, a heavy shadow of the boughs painting the forest a dim almost-blue color.

>>6253175
Though it takes quiet a bit of walking, you see a waterfall from one of the upper layers breaching down. Slinking down behind a tree, you peer ahead in search of the golden glow of those little will o' the wisps that make up the interior of your target. There's no sign of it, but you don't let that keep you down. You press on.

As the search continues, you have time to consider. What would you do, when you finally get to him? Your mission is to diagnose whether or not this thing could be classified as alive. No, if it has a soul? What kind of question is that, anyway? Anima is just a programmable machine swarm, right? That's why Blythe has a gun that's able to shoot it without spending any ammunition, it's just comes back. It can't be possessed.

As you reach the stream, it bends down over a hill, into a small sunlit opening.

And there is the most hideous face you wish you never had to see again.

The fucking bug is there.

Unshackled from a suit of mechanical trappings and left with only basic life support systems and the stun collar, the Nalkainen gorges on berries by the vine, its mouth opening in four different directions to ensnare it. Having heard your coming, it sits where it lies, slurping up the very vines themselves like it were noodles. It eyes you with a passive-aggressive expression. The very idea that you are able to identify an expression on that monstrosity's face has caught you off guard, and you wonder if this is the very same creature that you battled that day.

Locking eyes with you, it rips another vine of berries from the bush it sits beside, and tosses it to another thing that has taken refuge by the stream.

The being in white pooled water in their hands and splashed their face with it. Yelping in confusion as it was pelted with berries, it snags them before they gets carried away by the water. It presses the fruit to his face in futility, before it takes a handful of them and drops it onto its collar, where gears mulch and churn it and give it the apparent release it was looking for.

The thing seems lost, confused. Its every action is stumbling, fumbling, a slave to muscle memory that doesn't suit its current state of being. It does not need to breathe, but it is vocalizing heavy gasps and dejected mumblings.

Suddenly, it whips around, looking at you.

>Greet Omer, and engage in conversation.
>Stay silent where you are. Give him the chance to speak.
>Approach without speaking. Test how he responds to a potential danger.
>Pelt him with rocks. Everything that's really alive wants to protect itself somehow.

>>6253177
>>Approach without speaking. Test how he responds to a potential danger.

>>6253177
>Approach without speaking. Test how he responds to a potential danger.
Zero violence, no fighting

>>6253177
>Approach without speaking. Test how he responds to a potential danger.
pelting him with rocks would be funny, but he already yelped and reacted to the berries. We know it has self-preservation. But then, so does Claude Opus 4

>>6253177
>>Stay silent where you are. Give him the chance to speak.
Observe without action, to see his most natural state. Observe after with action, to observe his natural response.

>>6253222
>>6253246
>>6253379
Now you haven't seen a lot of AI before, but what you know about them is that they just do things. There is no fight or flight response. It might measure risk, but it always has some priority.

You're going to see what that priority is.

Looking at Fahy, you hold a finger in front of your lips. Silence. He nods.

The modulator slurs its words, of many incoherent thoughts rising at the same time. It rises in some mumbling neutral tone, almost a moan. The voice sounds nothing like anything a human would say, even if traumatized or frightened. This automated almost drunk babble might even be impossible for a person to recreate.

Omer stumbles out of the fresh water, and tries to stand. He's making odd motions as he attempts basic human locomotion; his feet seem braced to lift an incredibly heavy weight, but the following action is too quick to be balanced. He catches himself twice, facing you the whole time.

You step down from one of the roots, and begin walking along the stream into the sunny clearing.

And suddenly, he springs to his feet, and words rise above the sea of errant vocalizations.

"Who are you?" The voice calls out. It is a voice that is almost boisterous, save for a slight nasal flare. Was this his voice from all that time ago, or did the modulator fabricate one for him? "And... by whose permission do you... sta... stand before me? Who sent you?"

The first question, you'll ignore. He asks this from a distance. Like an animal's warning call.

What you want to know comes from a distance too close for comfort.

You approach within twenty feet. His posture comes together much better, arched forward, hands wide open and readied. He didn't seem like the kind of man to have been in a fight in life; a thousand years of darkness could not have taught him anything.

>>6253631
"English? Do you speak? English, or... Chinese, or... where am I? Wasn't I... one of those... Swedish?"

Nope, that's Sigrun.

Fahy taps you on the arm, before moving ahead and to the right. Understanding this, you step across the stream to flank him. It's not fair game to trap an animal; you leave some space for him to escape if he wants to.

Omer buys himself time, stepping back as the two of you move to encircle him. Between glancing at both of you, he looks up at the artificial sky and begins barking mad. "The sky! What is with the sky? Where are we!? Is the- did the world- Tell me what happened!" His patience is clearly wearing thin. His body language has improved by a great degree, but it still seems like he is accommodating for a weight he doesn't have. "Give me answers! Don't you dare you hold your silence on me! Do you know who I am!? I am... I..."

The Esoteric machine bears no expression on its hazy golden cloud of a face. But you could read those clenched fists from a mile away. He seems so entitled to the act of you bending the knee that flight is his last option. However strong the machine might be, Omer was a wheel chair bound desk jockey strapped to machines in the later years of his life. If push comes to shove, you and Fahy could use actual technique on him and send him to the ropes, metaphorically.

But at the same time, you're not here to give him a thrashing. Just take the measure of whatever the hell is going on in that cloud of micromachines. You have also have fresh injuries. It wouldn't be helpful to exacerbate the injuries with any intense work.

Maybe now he deserves some words?
>Answer Omer's questions truthfully. The truth can't hurt-not you at least.
>Press Omer, control the conversation. See how he responds.
>Step closer. Let's see if the pig fights or flies.

>>6253632
>Press Omer, control the conversation. See how he responds.

>>6253632
>>Step closer. Let's see if the pig fights or flies.

>>6253632
>Press Omer, control the conversation. See how he responds.
Keep him talking

>>6253873
>>6253902
If you're going to take the reins of the conversation from a mogul, you gotta have something you want to put him on the backfoot with. Maybe Fahy would have a better idea and catch on, but you gotta start.
>Ask him what the hell HE is doing here; interrogate him on his final days and the state of the world he left behind. People remember the strangest things.
>Accuse him of being a soulless machine, tell him to look in the water and see his face. Go for emotional damage.
>Blame the old world's destruction on him. To your knowledge he had nothing to do with it, but let's see how he reacts to that indictment.
>Insult him for his taste in friends and how he's breaking bread with the fucking Nalkainen. Compare the two, for good measure.
>Gaslight him into thinking it's only been two weeks since he was digitized.
>Write-ins encouraged!

>>6253983
Oh, pick as many as you like.
See you nerds monday.

>>6253983
>Ask him what the hell HE is doing here; interrogate him on his final days and the state of the world he left behind. People remember the strangest things.
See what he remembers before pivoting to
>Blame the old world's destruction on him. To your knowledge he had nothing to do with it, but let's see how he reacts to that indictment.

>>6253993
+1
We do a bit of trolling

>>6253983
>Ask him what the hell HE is doing here; interrogate him on his final days and the state of the world he left behind. People remember the strangest things.
>Accuse him of being a soulless machine, tell him to look in the water and see his face. Go for emotional damage.

>>6253983
>Gaslight him into thinking it's only been two weeks since he was digitized.
>Tell him there was an error and he needs to go back to college the big test is today.

>>6253983
>>Accuse him of being a soulless machine, tell him to look in the water and see his face. Go for emotional damage.
>>Blame the old world's destruction on him. To your knowledge he had nothing to do with it, but let's see how he reacts to that indictment.

Update tomorrow, writing and drawing stuffs

>>6256030
Eagerly awaiting it!

holy shit that took too long
"What the hell are you doing here, Rothschild?" Fahy spits out, all too eager to talk down to the thing. "We found you locked up here. What for? Were all those organ transplants not enough?"

The machine sputtered, flustered, annoyed, but as he speaks his tone lightens up, however plagued by confusion and uncertainty his words are. "What... what do you mean!? Those weren't my ideas, I was born into that! I, those were... donated, consensually, off a health insurance patients... I never had any involvement where my replacement heart, liver, lungs, came from, only that they would get me a new one in... hours. I never thought to say no. These things... ran themselves, at some point. I stopped asking questions, only..."

Some strange accent was starting to break through, resurfacing.

He gestures to his arm and body. "But this? THIS? This was my bright idea- no, no, it was... it was referred to me. Was getting tired of all these surgeries, so I thought I'd... try something. It was already tested, something... 'news sphere'? Something like that, some new wacko science thing. I thought the quack fucked it up. I thought I died. Thought the visions were just the out of body experience." He shakes his head, and puts his foot down. "But I'm askin' the questions now! Whadda hell happened? Why'd it take so fuckin' long?"

Saemus threw his hand out. "No, we're asking the ques-"

"No no no, fuck you," the old baron interrupted instantly. You had this assumption that people of noble birth spoke with dignity; even considering his situation, his accent is very particular. "You will answer me."

The two of them start barking over each other, Fahy desperately trying to get a leg up over the Rothschild who is stretching his communication skills by fighting tooth and nail to control the conversation.

You slip in between the two verbally. "We're trying to figure that out, so you have to tell me if there's anything in particular you remembered from the day you went under." They were too busy yelling over each other to hear you clearly the first time, and you have to repeat yourself for him.

Omer stops his speech to... compute? Think? "I had... connections. I went into this -what-doomsday bunker for it? Wasn't the first time I had been to a place like that. The procedure was sponsored by this... what was it... 'something Grove'? Some Californian shmuck- y'know what, you got a boss? I'll talk to him about the details. It's all probably a bit above your paygrade. Get me the fuck outta here. I wanna see the sun. The real one. Do we still got that?"

After what you've seen you wouldn't be surprised if this grove were somehow tied to the Old Oaks.

>>6257080
"You ain't talking to anybody," spat back Fahy. "You're the freak who ruined everything."

Now this insults him. Omer starts talking with his hands, pointing to himself and to others, as his voice begins cracking. "Me? Me, whaddya mean, me?! I haven't been back here in, how long-WHATEVER the hell happened, I had nothin' to do with it! My hands were off. Fack you. Trying to pin some shit on me. Do you have a bone to pick wit' me? How are you worse company than this guy?"

"If it weren't for this collar I would have torn this competition you have brought into my domain to pieces," calmly spoke the Nalkainen in archaic Finnish.

Omer guffaws in plain exasperation. "I don't even speak Swedish."

"No, we just know the things you did led to everything falling apart," you reply.

Omer stares at you, silencing Fahy with a raised finger. Curious, he steps closer. "Say that again. What did I do? I did what? I was a patron of the arts, I cut a few deals. I had my political opinions, but whatever happened was other people screwin' up! I was outta there! Hold on, are you-" The machine is right up against you, pointing at you with exaggerated body language. "Do you not like me because of my family?"

You are no scholar on worldly politics, you're just trying to get a rise out of him. "Weren't you one of those globalist pigs that made people on one side of the world upset over things happening on the other?"

Instantly he spins around and throws his hands up. "Oh BROTHER, I'm surrounded by Nazis! Is that what this screen face is for, you didn't wanna look at my big fat nose, huh!?"

"W-what's a Nazi?" You ask in total sincerity.

Omer pivots right back to you. "WHADDYA MEAN WHAT'S A NAZI?! Huh!? You're pulling my leg. They don't teach you about Hitler these days?"

Maybe you've heard that name once in school? "Was he a, uh... old warlord?"

"'Old warlor-' He killed like, six, ten-he caused a war that killed eighty million people!"

"Freyja's tits," you comment.

"Freyja, the fuckin- Paganism, really?" This exchange has completely caught him by surprise. Any energy he had to try and assert control over the conversation was clearly fading. "How long was I out, I... What year is it?"

"It's 3203 AD," Saemus answers him at last.

The machine falls silent, the only sound the rushing of of the babbling brook, the voracious bug continuing to eat, and a sound like a gentle sandy gust coming from behind the glass pane.

"We figured it would be best to let you regain your mental faculties and motor functions in a controlled environment," the Irish man assured, hiding the true purpose of Omer's resurrection.

>>6257081
For thirty seconds, Omer turns his head aside, eyeless visage gazing into some unknown distance.

Then he turns, and just walks down the stream, and finds a rock perched some few meters from the cliff's precipice.

Your radio crackles to life as the robot has his back turned. "Well? Have you two come to a conclusion?"

"Do either of you have a smoke?" The machine calls out, followed by a dejected chuckle. "I'm not sure if I could, but... Haha."

What's your diagnosis?
>It is just a convincing AI, nothing more.
>No, that is the real Omer Rothschild. There is a human soul in there.

>>6257086
>No, that is the real Omer Rothschild. There is a human soul in there.
I'm convinced. Are you?

>>6257086
>>No, that is the real Omer Rothschild. There is a human soul in there.

>>6257086
>It is just a convincing AI, nothing more.

>>6257086
>No, that is the real Omer Rothschild. There is a human soul in there.
That last reaction was very human. An AI wouldn't need a full thirty seconds to emotionally process that. Asking for a smoke even as he knows he probably can't smoke it in any way he'll enjoy, but still HOPING... Well, an AI could do that, but I believe that pause and abrupt abandonment of all prior conversational points.

Also, lol, was Omer Rothschild literally not even an important mover and shaker? Just literally a trust fund baby who did no actual work between when eh was born and died, taken care of passively by investments? What a charmed yet sad life, if he isn't just bullshitting to wash his hands of guilt.

Votes tallied. I'll be updating on Friday and throughout the weekend.

>>6257190
>>6257344
>>6257455
That's him. That's really him.

The forlorn dejection of him realizing every single thing he ever held has an advantage over others has long since faded into obscurity, and all the power he had is gone. He needs time to think.

"He isn't an AI. There's something conscious in there," you answer your radio.

"My thoughts exactly," Fahy agrees. "As soon as he regained his capacity for speech, his imperfections returned. If he was a machine, it wouldn't feel the need to change over time like that. It seems to me he had to relearn who he was by speaking to others."

There's a laugh on the other side of the radio. It wasn't a cruel laugh, or a comedic one. It was... relief? "Interesting. That will be all. Come back."

Fahy turns away from the scene. "We came to glean some things from you about your procedure, Mr. Rothschild. I think we got what we were after. We'll give you some time to think and calm down. Take care."

As your friend walks away, you approach the confused man in the machine and reach into your pocket.

"Here you go, sir."

Rolling his head over to you after observing the strange tiered landscape of this terrarium, he sees a cigar. Mildly soggy from rolling into stormwater after your mama slapped it from your hand, it won't light, but he doesn't have lungs to enjoy it, so you don't think it needs to be lit. He doesn't smile at you for the gesture. He might think he can, but he isn't able to. He takes it without a word, and just holds it between his fingers for the time being. He must like the physical element of it. It's comfortable there.

Whatever he did or didn't do, a simple request for comfort shouldn't be ignored. Its denial is a punishment unbefitting his crime.

The Nalkainen passes you a look full of envy and rage, boiling and broiling behind its beady, black, soulless eyes. You wonder if it could provide any threat to Omer. You eventually settle on the reality that his machine body is not just tough, but replaceable, and that he is the gold mist that could just float away from the broken, mangled machine. Whatever happens, Omer isn't in any real danger.

With your mission complete, and the day nearing its end, the lights dimming with a simulation of twilight, you hurry to find Fahy before he gets lost in the woods trying to return.

>>6258088
Katriina dismisses the both of you quickly. You believed there was going to be at least a report you had to write, but she is quite clear that all she needed were "unbiased opinions." Observations from people who had no hypothesis they wanted to prove. Odd, but understandable. Not sure why it had to be you. Maybe it was all just to draw Fahy's attention away from the injuries you and her shared.

It would do nobody good if he asked too many questions about that.

Eventually you find your apartment, a shower, and your bed. The bed is warm, comforting, and painfully empty. But the thoughts of your mama help numb that pain. There are so many things you want to ask, like how she got so lucky with papa, or what kind of things she saw on her strange journey.

Though the coming days are dark, you think you see something on the horizon. A coming dawn. A brighter tomorrow.

Bringing a bundle of blanket to your chest, you eagerly await that tomorrow.


...
...

>>6258089
YOU ARE NOW NO LONGER FIONA JARNAFELDT.

YOU ARE NOW
>ERIKA JARNAFELDT, THE TRAVELER OF AGARTHA
>"SHE," THE HASSHAKU OF HELSINKI
>KATRIINA JOUSTEN, THE BLACK SWAN

>>6258091
>>ERIKA JARNAFELDT, THE TRAVELER OF AGARTHA
The other two are interesting, however, mom lore.

>>6258091
>"SHE," THE HASSHAKU OF HELSINKI
>KATRIINA JOUSTEN, THE BLACK SWAN

Curious :)

>>6258091
>>ERIKA JARNAFELDT, THE TRAVELER OF AGARTHA

>>6258091
>KATRIINA JOUSTEN, THE BLACK SWAN

>>6258091
>KATRIINA JOUSTEN, THE BLACK SWAN

>>6258091
>KATRIINA JOUSTEN, THE BLACK SWAN
I want this Binah to be happy

Votes tallied, writing as soon as I can

YOU ARE NOW THE BLACK SWAN, and fate has fallen precisely into where you had not dared dream it could land.

Those poor, poor looters from the days after the apocalypse! Those lamentable fools!

A thousand years ago, hundreds of residents of a Helsinki in civil upheaval found this place and tore it to pieces, but none of them could recognize the dragon's hoard that lied within these pods. Just a bunch of glowing dust, best left alone as the panels were filled with obtuse jargon.

And indeed, what miracle it was that they had not tampered with it! What would they have done with this power, in their crumbling world, subject to a torn ozone, nuclear winter, and the controlled demolition of Yellowstone; what of value could they have achieved with it?

If your bones were not shattered earlier today, you would be dancing.

It is by sheer determination and grit that you are standing.

For the gods have availed you nothing else.

You have been rotting your entire life.

>>6259835
There is a message on your computer. It tells you that shipments of ""biomat"" from Finland are behind, and intolerably so. The dreaded Lorppo slaughtered much of your force several months ago, so your superiors have been given a temporary relief of this duty while you gathered a new body of strength. For a few months you did not need to produce the appropriate number of bodies to be harvested, packaged, and shipped to your relevant overlords. You don't believe you would be given this grace a second time, even if such tragedy would visit you again.

But there is an ace in the hole.

The person who sent you this email is a close friend of yours.

And so you compose this email in a special dialect of Finnish, a language ill understood by any within the upper echelons of Mother Nature's Providence. No, this backwards drawl of Northern Lappland spiel could only ever be understood by the likes of her, with language only understood as sincere by her.

>>6259838
With all the good manners one normally has when speaking to a friend, you compose the following;

Salutations, bitch-faced mongoloid,

Due to complications involving hijacked shipments of equipment and sabotage by certain errant ex-benefactors, I am unable to deliver the full amount of the agreed upon stockpile of biomat.

However, I believe I have made a breakthrough in regards to civil enforcement with the assistance of the Chicago Red Dogs Research and Development squad you have seen fit to send my way so I may torture them and their crude metal puppet and come out with something that might actually kill a troll. With what little good grace a backwater slut is able to bestow, this might be accepted as an appropriate tribute, as with it we will be able to produce more in the future.

This is relevant not because it is a mere engine optimization or targeting computer improvement. This is something totally groundbreaking, the subject of which I have deemed too sensitive and confidential to convey via writing, be it by digital communications or by physical letter. It should live and die by the word of mouth until it is prepared to be launched in multiple places at the same time.

I'm sure an old wrench-monkey like yourself would appreciate the developments we've made to the CRD ACD series. While it is not the biomat that has been requested of me and my force in Helsinki, even a snow-dwelling-ape like you has to realize the potential of these developments. It's not some novel but practical development, like our car protection system we used to saw the balls off aberrant moose as we drove under their legs, the upscale of that for shredding through jotunn that attacked trains, or the relation engine system for extended driving. It's something a step beyond.

As soon as you find time in your schedule loaded with cock-sucking, vehicular manslaughter, and man-faced pretty princess fashion time, I request you come here and see what we have accomplished.

As fondly as ever to my favorite overworked prostitute,
Katriina Jousten

It has been years since you've talked to her in such a manner. You're certain she will take the email with the gravity it deserves.

It was not terribly important that she is made aware of this. With her new life as a MNP party member, she has converted to the Roman faith. She has family. She is already saved, unlike you and Simo and all Finns.

But this is a step you will have to take eventually. Even you cannot hide something like this forever. You have to be a little forthcoming with what it is, and you believe that by confiding in her, you may have more time to roll this out.

Surely, as a Finn herself, she must understand.

>>6259840
You stand over the bed upon which rests the mangled pile of sinew that holds Simo with lungs that struggle to breathe and a heart that toils to beat. Machines are on standby to do these things for him should they tire of their work.

The senators of Rome would have no qualms ending someone's life for a fresh batch of organs to supplant their own. In their long years reaching up to one hundred and fifty, they've long since abandoned morality. They think they can slip free for Orcus or Tartarus or whatever they call it. As sisyphean an effort that might be, unlike you, they would have the freedom of movement to even try. Killing one of Suomi faith is leveling an inescapable damnation, an eternity paralyzed in ice.

So easily they would have replaced all of Simo's innards with some overpopulant and have moved on.

But you are not them.

And you hate this puppet that you are.

You bend your fingers. Sticks of calcium and collagen rotate upon cartilage hinges, bound by knots and strings of fibrous muscle, wired with veins and shoved into a sack of skin. Made to dance by electric pulses down the nerves, the strings your soul pulls to make this puppet jitter about the stage.

This crumbling temple you misfortunately call your self has been a malfunctioning prison of flesh since the day you were born. One of lesser moral fiber would have replaced all the flawed parts like some car by now. You don't have to be sterile. You could have replaced everything during any of your years with the mountains of biomat you have provided for others; five bodies more, skim some off the top. This could have been fixed.

But that would turn a blind eye to the true problem. That you must steal life to live yours as Zephyraut had the gall to say aloud is merely a symptom.

Blame the gods for this flawed flesh of yours all you like, but blame is a hollow insult spat into the wind. A wasted breath of precious, precious life.

>>6259842
You hold his hand. His grip is icy, but the warmth that Simo has given you never came from any place that could be touched by blades or bullets.

the warmth in his hand comes from no place upon this accursed earth nor any other

the warmth comes from that space between those gold specks

the specks that are too small to hold any data

only relay a signal between each other

a signal that's unassailable

a signal relayed beyond the reach of all things material

it cannot be measured or perceived or created or destroyed

only felt and fostered and grown by a human soul

when you first felt love, you felt his and he felt yours in perfect attunement

this warmth in his cold and weak grip does not come from a place of the things that are real like your vessel of flesh or the pangs of hunger or the inevitability of death

it comes from the only place warmth could ever really come from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyx8DMlUAQ4

>>6259844
He tells you he is fine with dying.

You tell him you have important business to attend to.

Stepping to the door of the infirmary, you compose yourself, and leave his side for the time being.

As you approach your office, you decide you are in a great mood.

You stop and tell her that you are ordering
>The exile of any Stormwatch members who slay children, and a bottle of champagne to be delivered to the Orphanage director
>A request for aid from the Helsinki Armed Forces to assist the Stormwatch on missions
>A great communal feast for all Stormwatch members
>The poisoning of the biomats you are sending to Rome
>Write-in

>>6259848
>>A great communal feast for all Stormwatch members

>>6259848
>A request for aid from the Helsinki Armed Forces to assist the Stormwatch on missions

>>6259848
>The poisoning of the biomats you are sending to Rome
Watch the world burn

>>6259848
>A great communal feast for all Stormwatch members
>The poisoning of the biomats you are sending to Rome
Both. Roomalaisia emme ole, peikkoja emme tahdo olla, siksi suomalaisia meidän tulee olla.

>>6259840
>this entire letter
Impossibly based

>>6259842
>>6259844
I hope bugbro lives to score with Binah

>>6259848
I will break this tie. I am backing >>6260396

1000 years after the planet got fucked and with an ecofascist regime gripping the world in its green tendrils, the elites are STILL doing the EXACT SAME SHIT they have always ALWAYS done in the past before the planet's ecosystem was ruined. The undesirables and the excess population below Helsinki, in the stormdrains, are all fodder for organ harvesting for the MNP elites in Rome. They're all deliberately kept alive and active beneath, even though MNP could easily wipe them all out and enforce their will... because those people living and breeding down there IS their will. The Stormwatch are the farmers, the harvestmen, the reapers. They sever the heads from the bodies while the rest are collected and shipped to the overlords.

I agree with >>6260105.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n--qRtxkouc
If the communal feast is a mass poisoning to kill the entire Stormwatch for some reason, then I hope Katriina tells Fiona some shit like "You're just like me, Jarnafeldt. Don't go to the feast tomorrow."

Votes tallied! Writing but will probably update tomorrow evening.
>>6260398
I hope you noticed that Katriina said that the likes of Omer have lived to 125, while the modern MNP is living to 150, making them not only do the same shit but objectively better at it

>>6260422
Yup. Kill em all. Out by the roots. It's the only way, proven time and time again.

>>6260398
I'd hope its not. Regardless of what happens in rome, the stormwatch is about to get culled from the incoming storm that's been on its way. we'll need as many as we can get for the reckoning on its way.

>>6260422
Joke's on then, now that Omer is 1125!

You are back to being L2S Trollslayer Fiona Jarnafeldt, and your head is aching, and your shoulder's in pain, and yet you still have a job to do. It's a job that needs doing from every perspective; underdwellers are committing cannibalism, and those people they're about to be eating need saving. So it's something you're glad to muscle through the pain to do.

All that said, the dark room briefings are hard to make not boring when they're talking about procedure and routes and whatnot. Trollslayer Arsi Hotakainen is serving as your operator for today, and he is better during the mission than before to say the least. His slow speech make it hard to focus on some of the special details of the brief.

But you get the gist of it. The location where most of the stormdrain overpopulation reside is known as Undercity 19, and is a collection of old buildings that could not be demolished due to being load-bearing architecture. Buildings holding up the Stormdrain and the city above it are frequently occupied by squatters. Undercity 19 is located in the northeast of Helsinki, in a four-section area including Sections 19, 20, 30, and parts of 29. Section 29 is a dedicated "farm plot," using stolen generators and refracted sunlight to grow light.

The above-ground access tunnels have been flooded with concrete and riddled with traps besides, and the doors between Stormwatch sections have been disconnected from the network entirely and had their functionality replaced with a manual switch. This makes Section 29 inaccessible aside from within Undercity 19 sections and special guarded entrypoints which make it difficult for Stormwatch to ingress in small batches. There are other ways in, however; the drain system from the street.

To insert, you will crawl into a drain on Lemuntie Street, and rappel down from the top of the drain itself and attack a gate outpost to secure an exit and throw the mechanical section door switch to open your escape route. You will be in a "farm" sectioned off from various others. These subsections have some manner of aberrant watchman; yours is a letiva, which they have been intentionally growing into the wall with massive garden trellis. He doesn't have a photo for you, but the mental image is revolting. Killing it isn't your objective, but maiming it would be ideal for your exfiltration. You then have to make your way through a field to a "barn," where they would rear aberrations for food if their supplies weren't crucially low. In or immediately adjacent to there will be where they are storing their victims. Set them loose, and lead them out of there.

You have detailed and current maps of all these regions, due to the Wireless Fidelity scout drones that have been scanning the architecture for the past few days. You feel a mote of pride about that.

>>6261837
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpa72h9Wf5s

Just as the briefing seems to be over, Arsi brings up a slide featuring a photograph of someone in a huge suit of armor. No, "huge" is inaccurate. It's long, disproportionately tall.

Hotakainen introduces this target as "She," the Undercity Orphanage Mistress. She is believed by Arsi to be a Nakki, some manner of Finnish shapeshifting water spirit. Ever since She had stolen a set of solid-state hydrogen fueled power armor designed for L4 Nonoka Sumika, She has refused to take it off, wearing everywhere in public. The firing pneumatics leave hydrogen mixing with air in the form of a cold mist that surrounds her, and according to reports, She looks and sounds "wet." Specifically, muttering the sounds of dripping water, repeating it over and over again in solitude.

Your mind goes back to the little schoolhouse you found during your scouting mission in the forests north of the city. To your memory, the handmade drawers in the inner reaches reached unreasonably high. Though you don't know how a mutant would be able to properly shapeshift, that would explain it.

Either way, it is clear to reports by spies that she is starting to patrol the extant areas of the Stormdrain. She is one of the most well-equipped fighters the Undercity has at their employ, so meeting her is a very solid possibility. Arsi slows his speech down and repeats, with emphasis, that She is not to be engaged. Though she is unarmed, Sumika's armor was rated to mitigate both stolen Stormwatch glass weaponry, small arms fire, and strikes from Jotunn. In addition, this aberration has demonstrated competency with operating the pneumatics of the suit, which you may have seen other underdwellers are struggling to replicate and control. She is also pushing nine feet tall, meaning two things; traditional hand to hand combat technique is out the window despite her humanoid shape, and there are places where She cannot easily go.

Running into or out of buildings by normal-sized doorways and windows will slow her down. Arsi advises you not to crawl under anything or climb ladders near her, because her long proportions help with catching you in both these situations. There is a reason She still has that suit, and that's because She has made it very hard for Stormwatch agents and even Helsinki military to get it off her.

The slide flips off the image of the Orphanage Mistress.

"Any questions?" asks your Operator for the mission. "If not, go gear up."
>None. All clear.

The secretary's brows furrow in uncertainty. You know she is carefully picking her words. She has never said anything you've had an issue with, so those words will be certainly good ones.

"All of it?" She inquires.

She raises a great point; you don't know how the biomat is inspected. Fluid biomat is almost certainly analyzed in a similar manner to water in the stormdrain system was.

(Oh, speaking of filtration systems, you should probably bring up how Zephyr slaughtered most of the higher ups and broke out of his facility to haunt the Stormdrains. You had to clean up after a few stragglers who saw them. In other news, the lottery has many slots this month.)

As for solid biomat such as organs, you know for certain that the effectiveness of replacement organs on people as old as the inner circle of MNP's human cabinet relies on the organs being untampered with. It's possible that the only inspection is done on your side of the table, which is ideal. But at the same time, how suspicious do you want to be?

"Get a foreigner. A Nord, Swede, or Dane. Get him to poison one in ten organs but not any of the last thirty," you clarify. "If they come at us later, we can suggest our plant is actually a defector. Get him a gun, too. He'll go down fighting."

Someone who didn't know her might assume she'd might ask if we needed to make any preparations for consequences. Your personal secretary isn't one to pry. She got here because she knows that there is a vision. This wheel has been in motion for a long time. The world will be blindsided by this.

But in a few years, this will all be remembered as an obvious inevitability.

>>6261849
You are now Fiona Jarnafeldt, and your head is aching, and your shoulder's in pain, and yet you still have a job to do. It's a job that needs doing from every perspective; underdwellers are committing cannibalism, and those people they're about to be eating need saving. So it's something you're glad to muscle through the pain to do.

All that said, the dark room briefings are hard to make not boring when they're talking about procedure and routes and whatnot. Trollslayer Arsi Hotakainen is serving as your operator for today, and he is better during the mission than before to say the least. His slow speech make it hard to focus on some of the special details of the brief.

But you get the gist of it. The location where most of the stormdrain overpopulation reside is known as Undercity 19, and is a collection of old buildings that could not be demolished due to being load-bearing architecture. Buildings holding up the Stormdrain and the city above it are frequently occupied by squatters. Undercity 19 is located in the northeast of Helsinki, in a four-section area including Sections 19, 20, 30, and parts of 29. Section 29 is a dedicated "farm plot," using stolen generators and refracted sunlight to grow light.

The above-ground access tunnels have been flooded with concrete and riddled with traps besides, and the doors between Stormwatch sections have been disconnected from the network entirely and had their functionality replaced with a manual switch. This makes Section 29 inaccessible aside from within Undercity 19 sections and special guarded entrypoints which make it difficult for Stormwatch to ingress in small batches. There are other ways in, however; the drain system from the street.

To insert, you will crawl into a drain on Lemuntie Street, and rappel down from the top of the drain itself and attack a gate outpost to secure an exit and throw the mechanical section door switch to open your escape route. You will be in a "farm" sectioned off from various others. These subsections have some manner of aberrant watchman; yours is a letiva, which they have been intentionally growing into the wall with massive garden trellis. He doesn't have a photo for you, but the mental image is revolting. Killing it isn't your objective, but maiming it would be ideal for your exfiltration. You then have to make your way through a field to a "barn," where they would rear aberrations for food if their supplies weren't crucially low. In or immediately adjacent to there will be where they are storing their victims. Set them loose, and lead them out of there.

You have detailed and current maps of all these regions, due to the Wireless Fidelity scout drones that have been scanning the architecture for the past few days. You feel a mote of pride about that! That accomplishment, and how easy things will go because of that, will be yours.

>>6261850
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpa72h9Wf5s

Just as the briefing seems to be over, Arsi brings up a slide featuring a photograph of someone in a huge suit of armor. No, "huge" is inaccurate. It's long, disproportionately tall.

Hotakainen introduces this target as "She," the Undercity Orphanage Mistress. She is believed by Arsi to be a Nakki, some manner of Finnish shapeshifting water spirit. Ever since She had stolen a set of solid-state hydrogen fueled power armor designed for L4 Nonoka Sumika, She has refused to take it off, wearing everywhere in public. The firing pneumatics leave hydrogen mixing with air in the form of a cold mist that surrounds her, and according to reports, She looks and sounds "wet." Specifically, muttering the sounds of dripping water, repeating it over and over again in solitude.

Your mind goes back to the little schoolhouse you found during your scouting mission in the forests north of the city. To your memory, the handmade drawers in the inner reaches reached unreasonably high. Though you don't know how a mutant would be able to properly shapeshift, that would explain it.

Either way, it is clear to reports by spies that she is starting to patrol the extant areas of the Stormdrain. She is one of the most well-equipped fighters the Undercity has at their employ, so meeting her is a very solid possibility. Arsi slows his speech down and repeats, with emphasis, that She is not to be engaged. Though she is unarmed, Sumika's armor was rated to mitigate stolen Stormwatch glass weaponry and this aberration has demonstrated competency with operating the pneumatics. She is also pushing nine feet tall, meaning two things; traditional hand to hand combat technique is out the window despite her humanoid shape, and She will struggle to follow you into small spaces. Running into or out of buildings by normal-sized doorways and windows will slow her down. Arsi advises you not to crawl under anything or climb ladders near her, because her long proportions help with catching you in both these situations.

The slide flips off the image of the Orphanage Mistress.

"Any questions?" asks your Operator for the mission. "If not, go gear up."
>Write ins!
>No, everything was made clear. Avoid the wall monster, liberate the people, run from the monster lady.

>>6261851
>>No, everything was made clear. Avoid the wall monster, liberate the people, run from the monster lady.

Guess not.

>>6262475
It is what it is

>>6262363
+1
LET'S ROCK!!!

>>6261851
>>No, everything was made clear. Avoid the wall monster, liberate the people, run from the monster lady.

Fahy raises his hand with a smirk. "What if we do kill her, though?"

Hotakainen's already lidded eyes squint harder. Nevertheless, he humors the topic. "If She dies in any event, we will have to recover her power armor before the underdwellers do. And if She died, they might send Lorppo to recover the body." He slaps some papers he was holding onto a desk. "There are plans to recover the armor. This is not one of them. Stick to your mission, and don't die for some phyrric victory we can't capitalize on."

The name of the jotunn was enough to shut him up and send him leaning back.

With no other questions, you are dismissed to gear up. As you gather your things and return them to your desk, you begin considering what kind of weaponry would be viable for something like this. The vertical element might make a crossbow handy, and the full armor would be great against butcher cleavers and hooks and whatever utensils cannibals use to cut people up, though you worry about visibility. Having a sense of where creatures might be might not cut it all the time, and cramped interiors of buried buildings might be the worst case scenario...

>>6264337
But as your thoughts measuring the viability of equipment choices spun on, you spy a mass of messy glowing yellow hair standing in the hall with L4 Noita, Percival Blythe. This familiar woman is handling a greatsword that is ivory white with a clear non-hostile intention, loitering around as she peers at people passing by. When her face turns to you, your mama's bursts into a sunny and infectious disposition.

"Fiona!" She calls, stepping right up to you. Kiikoinen nearly jumps down a flight of stairs to clear the way. "I understood you had a mission zis morning! I did not vant to miss you before you vent." She gestures to Blythe. "Zis man is from your office, ja? Arkaen studies? Vhat an odd title, for such a... Normal, a place."

Her giggles are hard to not echo with your own. "You call that place normal?"

She swings her hand around to express a larger area. "No, I mean zis building, zis city, is... Nevermind that. Anyhoo, zere is something I von't have much a need for it for ze time being, and vanted to see if you had any interest. It vould save my Noita friend here assets, at least. Here!"

Into your hands she shoves the white greatsword she is holding. It's made of a light metal, ultralight - featherweight, for its thickness and length. After a moment of handling it, you recognize that this blade and parts of the crossguard are somewhat hollow. Shaking it, you can hear an almost sand-like material shuffling inside. It's stainless, but shows recognizable age in other ways, from scuff marks at the corner of a fuller which seems to have vents for something inside. You immediately recognize it as something similar in make to Blythe's firearm. This sword has an air of nobility, if that makes sense.

Erika leans in and gives a theatrical whisper. "Zey had informed me of some trouble yesterday, and then called it right off! I daresay even it is dizappointed... zo I figured it'd be happier in your hands, fer ze time being."

You're twisting your head around it, before remembering you can just turn the blade. "Does it do anything special, mama? I know Blythe's pistol can blind people."

Your mama taps her temple in thought, glancing at your companions before giving a vague answer. "It reactively augments devensive maneuvers."

New weapon available in the armory.
Auringonvalo
A warm-hearted companion, if treated well.
A greatsword fashioned from ultra-modern alloys. Its light weight and thick profile makes it a hard sell as a conventionally lethal weapon, but this anima-infused weapon was never intended for base slaying.
+ Intercede Engagements use full dice pool
+ Engagements made in defense of yourself or others are highly augmented, greatly enhancing its reach and damage
- You do not decide what is and what isn't "in defense of yourself orthers" and have no means of manually augmenting your attacks
- Unaugmented attacks are comparable in damage to a dagger
- Two handed

>>6264363
As much as you want to accept this gift out of hand, you need to consider things. People have been kidnapped. You have a job. Yes by being part of the expedition she holds a similar rank or above to any L4 Operator in the Stormwatch, but you have responsibilities. For example, "Are you sure you don't need this yourself? We have weapons here, and, I don't know who might not like you, but-"

"Bah, it is fine, fine! I have a pistol for such man-sized occasions." She leans in and with a devilish grin, whispers to you in your native tongue, "Actually two. But those are mine!"

For this equipment vote, you have three polls, where you must place two votes in the worn equipment poll, three votes on the weapons poll, and two votes on the consumables poll, for separate items each. The first vote you cast for each poll will be listed as your primary vote, and the subsequent votes will be tallied as a regular vote. In case of a tie, whichever option had more primary votes wins. "No Sidearm" is an option included to allow voters to leave a single weapon slot empty for the sake of speed. Notably, not having a sidearm increases movement speed and helps with positioning, especially through heavy water.
Please refer to the equipment list in the Google Doc to see the properties of each weapon and rules involving equipment:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jhZljN9y7A8w6qFcD8wX_xYaKZP65ZH8EGrmgKQ-nIU/edit#bookmark=id.46hbiickh1ed

Pick up to two Worn Equipment:
>Stormwatch Fatigues
>Trollhunter Garb
>Lignum Vitae Breastplate
>Lignum Vitae Kit
>Turnout Gear
>HAZMAT Gear
>Undercroft E1 Bodysuit
>Green Knight Gear

You have two weapon slots. The top two will be taken.
Pick three Weapons:
>Auringonvalo
>No Sidearm
>Pneumatic Handaxe
>Volt Machete
>Searing Knife
>Kimmo Blade
>Undercroft Pilebunker
>Pneumatic Battleaxe
>Volt Bardiche
>Stormwatch Flamberge
>Pneumatic Maul
>Stormwatch Crossbow
>Stormwatch Longbow
>Jarngreipr
>Riot Shield

As a student of Attunement you may take two consumables from the hold. Mama is watching.
Pick three consumables:
>None
>Cigar (you gave your last one to a fucking robot)
>Pervitin
>Henbane
>Shaman Mushrooms
>Liquid IV

>>6264390

Armor:

>Trollhunter Garb
I really want to avoid the armored bitch if possible. This gives us extra perception in detecting her. It's not great at normal defense, but we are supposed to strike from ambush here. Not to take many hits.

>Lignum Vitae Breastplate
A balance of weight and protection. Leaning on speed. Doesn't offer us detection, but it is more protective in case we need to trade some blows. It's important to keep things light in case we need to carry someone on our back.


Weapons:

>Kimmo Blade
Decent one handed weapon. In case of emergency we can feed it to the trapped people to give them enough energy for the escape. (Same as Liquid IV, see bellow.) Due to this, this is a superior version of "No Sidearm" in this case.

>Pneumatic Handaxe
Old faithful.

>Stormwatch Crossbow
In case of ranged fire being a necessity. It is uncertain if it will be, but backup is good.

Consumables:

>Liquid IV
Not sure how useful it would be for us. But I know that if Fiona frees the humans and there is a near death kid, she will go mental if she could have done anything to save it, and just didn't plan for it well enough.

>Henbane
Somewhat risky on a duo mission with a guy, but saving humans, including, assumedly kids, will hopefully override the priority in Fiona's brain.

>Pervitin
Emergency use, ideally we pop nothing, but if things go really really bad, better safe than sorry. Do not combine the high dose with henbane unless the situation is extremely bad.


As an additional note, I thought about shaman mushrooms, but I feel that we may not want to attune to a place of such suffering.

>>6264390
>Lignum Vitae Breastplate
>Green Knight Gear

>Pneumatic Battleaxe
>Kimmo Blade
>Stormwatch Crossbow

>Pervitin
>Henbane
>Liquid IV

>>6264390
is the doc up to date, I remember we took training to reduce the negatives of heavy armor with the green knight gear.

>Turnout Gear
we are going into the drains and potentially encountering a water creature. Keeping ourselves clean of the gutter is needed.

weapons
>Jarngreipr (Napalm) ! Special !
to burn their farm plot.
>Pneumatic Handaxe
to kill their men and fend their beasts
>Auringonvalo
For when they try to stop us.

>Liquid IV
>Henbane
mama is watching
and no cigar is good! bad for baby.

>>6264866
Yes, mobility isn't an issue in it. While it's heavier and louder than just a breastplate, it's not bulkier in the sense it gets in the way of any actions you take and you have been getting stronger as well. I changed it from that downside after feedback. Now its drawbacks are that it can be damaged and have its fire-proof laminate shorn off by certain overwhelming attacks as well as (certain parts of) it being unable to be removed in the field without assistance. I can't find where in the last few threads we had this discussion but it was held, and I updated the doc to reflect that.
Speaking of, I should update the character profiles, too. Add more side cast like Leshy and Aamu. Cast that might be forgotten given it's literally been some months.

I'll give another few hours of voting for this. 5am is not a great time to publish updates...

>>6264390
>Turnout Gear
We got that heavy armor training, after all. We should at least have decent coverage. >>6264866 raises a good point about the potential filth, too.

>Auringonvalo
Rude to refuse a gift.
>Stormwatch Crossbow
>Kimmo Blade (>>6264475 had a clever idea about suing it to feed the "livestock" we save)

>Pervitin
Just in case
>Liquid IV
>Liquid IV
And for detox.

>>6264390
>Turnout Gear
What they said about filth potentially down there and the training we had.
>Auringonvalo
Gift is gift, just take it. We need to protect the ones who matter
>Kimmo Blade
Feeding and burning if need either
>Pneumatic Handaxe
An actual weapon to kill things with that isn't the gold shield-sword and the choco-cutter
>Pervitin
Could this also help a kid come back from near-death or at least endure it until treatment?
>Liquid IV
Always good to have one of it in case we need it

>>6264363
By the way, relevant item
https://noita.wiki.gg/wiki/Auringonsiemen

>>6265072
>>6264390
I vote for this set up

Closing votes!
>Turnout Gear
>Auringonvalo and Kimmo Blade
>Pervitin and Liquid IV

Writing.

Sorry it took this long
>>6265163
It's... beautiful. This sword is a piece of art. Though it is well maintained and cleaned, the marring of its blade proves its worth. It has seen battle and won. You grin. "I-I would gladly take this, mama! I promise I'll return it safely!"

She flicks her hand with a sly grin. "I'm a little too old to keep swinging that around for long. After what you have been through, I'd say you've earned it! Keep it in your room. Sharpen it, polish it, tuck it into bed and sing it lullabies-"

"M-mama, I won't do something like that," you say in earnest because you already do that to a hallucination.

That sly grin settles into a gentle smile. "Well, you should be treating it well. It's not a common weapon. It was mine. It's now yours."

"... Thank you."

With that, Erika takes the stairs down, and the Noita wishes you luck.

>>6266572
Gearing time.

The purified water coursing through all points of the stormdrain will clean up the smell outside, you are walking into a human slaughterhouse. The smell is going to be an unhealthy resolve-destroying miasma that would make you retch if you caught it straight and as is. That gas mask promises some safety from it.

And you've done some reading up on water spirits. Where you lived you never heard much about Nixies, but since then you've been picking up on some reading. A Nakki - if you wanted to grossly oversimplify the type of creature to, say, a disinterested gaelic man you're working with - would be to call it a river mermaid. They lure people, particularly women and children, with their songs to the waters. Often times it's not even out of malicious intent to kill, they enjoy playing music.

While not immediately native to Finland, German Nixies are capable of shapeshifting. Records state this was predominantly a masculine trait, but scholars welcome the idea that all of the records of aberrations are open to interpretation. "Common knowledge is all we have, but it is the consensus reality of the biased and blind," you believe he said.

You bring up the possibility of the smell to the others, who don't seem bothered. The L3s say they're experienced to the subject matter already, and Fahy thinks he can handle it. That's his grave.

Besides your mama's sword, you decide to take a kimmo blade. You don't know what the situation is like down there. They might be starving and weak. The mental boon of something solid to eat might be good enough to help the worst of them. And on that note, you should bring some Pervitin and Liquid IV. Not just for yourself, some people might need it to find the strength to escape. You manage to get a second package of Pervitin from the armorer, and after Kiikoinen declined handling the substance, Sigrun took it from you with her usual silent and expressionless look. For how intense and vengeful she can seem at times, it's relieving to see L3 Eugen is not totally misanthropic.

As for the others, Lalli and Sigrun are, for the most part, running their standard loadouts. They argue smaller weapons are good for the close quarters they expect to fight in, and that the best defense is avoiding a bad situation altogether. All that said, Sigrun is bringing a Jarngriepr. "It's a good name," she comments.

Saemus, however, is being ambitious. He departed to the Undercroft and returned with that accursed vampiric E1 Bodysuit, a Kimmo Blade and a Bow. You tell him it's a horrible idea, and he assures you he's considered how bad it could be, but between the soilent drinks, the kimmo blade, and the food in the troughs he expects to find, it won't be so bad. The mission isn't a terribly long one, just a logistically large one given the number of potential evacuees. You remind Fahy he has to have the time to eat to recover, but he insists. The best you can do is look out for him at this point.

>>6266573
Before long, you're in a car on the surface riding to your insertion point. You're going over the plan again.

As a precautionary measure of the squatters, all of the entryways anywhere near the undercity are completely barricaded or horrifically boobytrapped. So for this operation, the most cost-efficient and most viable way of inserting into the limits of the Undercity is straight from the streets and through the drains themselves. You will climb down a rope and insert into what is believed to be a rice field, which uses soil gathered from outside Helsinki and water from the Stormdrains to nurture it, as well as UV lamps to simulate sunlight.

This drain was chosen as it is next to a sealed door which, if intelligence is to be believed, is still operational, but manned by watchmen - usually two. You'll want to deal with them and throw the switch. The people you save will not be climbing out by the rope you came in from, and you're not expected to either. Then, break into the barn and liberate as many of the kidnapped people as possible.

If you are feeling ambitious, there other sub-objective points. There may be people still in the slaughterhouse, locked in cattle cages in the process of execution. "It would be beneficial to destroy this infrastructure," Sigrun noted. Past that is the butchering room, where there are likely workers carving human remains into cuts of meat. After the meat locker, there seems to be some manner of old eatery where this would be served, if you wanted to deliver justice to the people behind this operation...

The majority of the farm's plot goes to a storage facility immediately adjacent to the slaughterhouse. Large fences divide the plots into threatening chokeholds in the possibility of a large-scale attack occurring from this door in particular, but that should not be too much of a threat for you right now. To the south, there's something of a granary where most of the crops get sent to.

All of this is to say one thing; this is a district of the undercity, albeit small, that they actually use. Leaving this projected area by any means other than the sealed door will put you in the thick of a crowded and cramped population that fear you. Having evacuees enter this area does not guarantee their safety in the coming days. While you can theoretically leave the mission area flank and enter places such as the butchering room or the office spaces from a different angle, it is highly, highly inadvisable.

The van stops. Sigrun kicks the back door open and leads the way out. It's time.

Any last minute preparations?
>Consume Pervitin (insert amount)
>Perform an Arcane rite (Counter/Clockwise Metamorphisis, increasing/decreasing dice by 1 step)
>Banter with allies (Ask whatever)
>Nope, get going

>>6266575
>>Perform an Arcane rite (Counter/Clockwise Metamorphisis, increasing/decreasing dice by 1 step)
Godspeed.

>>6266757
+1

>>6266757
+1
Go FAST

>>6266757
>>6266785
>>6266798
Clockwise, to increase your dice by a step, I assume? Rather than critfishing with 1d4s? You should specify that.

>>6266799
Time does not reverse, we live in the present, the chains of the past loosen and melt as we forge the future.

>>6266886
so yes, clockwise.

>>6266887
Radical.
You are leaving a controlled and sterile open-air environment into a wildly anarchic closed setting positively teeming with life. Comprehending the massive amount of information coming your way will be a hell of a task. Roll for Attunement; two anons, roll 4d8

Rolled 5, 6, 4, 3 = 18 (4d8)

>>6267281

Rolled 5, 2, 6, 6 = 19 (4d8)

>>6267281

Rolled 6, 1, 6, 4, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 1, 6, 4, 5, 4, 1, 3, 3, 4 = 63 (18d6)

>>6267334
The others are not interested in any of that noita trickery, be they uninformed hunters of men or outright rejecting the spiritualist nature, so your gentle ritual only affects yourself.

Sigrun, Fahy, and Lalli will be performing similar checks. As hunters of men, they will be well aware of how dangerously close danger can lurk in the undercity itself. Sigrun and Fahy will together be rolling for their savvy check.

Rolling 18d6; the first ten as Sigrun's, the subsequent eight as Fahy's.

Rolled 4, 3, 1, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 2, 4, 2 = 50 (12d6)

>>6267891
As a Trollslayer, Lalli's official training does not specialize in the dense environments of the Undercities proper. He is in his element splitting Hiisi in two with an axe in mostly empty artificial environments. At least, he should be.
Rolling for Lalli's Attunement.
Writing after the result.

A civil servant was helping your superiors unscrew a drain latch on the street, leaving you some time on your own. You found another drain nearby, and decided to peer within. The overcast sky cast little light below, and you hadn't cared to flash a light.

Water from last night's rain dripping in from the wall above, acting as a catalyst for air flow in the storm drains. Water comes in through the drains, air rises out from these gaps, water filters out, and air gets pulled in. So the Stormdrain breathes.

And this breath was warm. Warmer than you expected, from a dark place where no sun shines. This tepid breath of the earth did not bear the scent of the sterile city or the untamed forests. It was a stench not unlike sweat and unwashed clothes, like wet fur hides and spoiled food.

You grab your mama's sword, and hold it close. She was going to try and save your life with this, until you proved you didn't need saving. Not at that moment, at least.

With a deep breath, you hold that blade close. In a moment of peace, you raise the blade toward the air, and slowly sweep it downward over the grate. Mimicking the life rushing in from above.

You've heard descriptions of the undercities before as hives of filth and debauchery. The heart of the world is felt everywhere, even in a place like that pit. Perhaps especially.

What is that feeling, anyway? This heartbeat of the world?

Is it nature itself, or your perception of it?

The sword in your hand.

It beats too.

Not distant, like that feeling on the wind. It's right here.

A silent clamor raises its volume as it draws near. Rainfall begins. The downpour flows across the ground and into the earth, and more air comes flowing up. The city's blood pumps.

Dice have increased one step.

"Fiona," called Lalli. You head on other and join the others, about to offer to lead the way.

Kiikoinen instead demands he take point. The manhuntress didn't contest his request, only asked if he was sure, which he nodded. And so you all began to crawl in.

>>6268320
The typical stormdrain grate siphons water from above and splits it into two or three directions through wide but short tunnels, depositing them into separate sections. Spilling from above like waterfalls. As you and your squad crawled through this tight tunnel, your bodies would obscure this flow, and before long someone might notice the staggered and broken stream from the drain above if you took too long. Kiikoinen wanted to hurry for that purpose.

Being the one in the back, it was your job to tug the rope from the truck as you crawled in. Once enough had been unspooled, Lalli piled it all right in front of him and looked over his shoulder.

"Man in the tower, far left corner, asleep," Kiikoinen observed, scarcely having peered out from the lip of the drain. "Shoot him while on the rope. It's our best shot."

"On the rope? I brought a bow, not a crossbow. I need my hands."

The large Finn glared at the girl directly behind him. "You didn't teach him inverted rappelling?"

Sigrun sighed. "Not a leg wrap that lets him use his hands. We've other things to train for than being good on a rope." An agitated flub of the lips was the only reply to that comment.

"Can't we just climb up and stab 'im?" Fahy asks. "We gotta throw the switch anyways."

"That ladder will cause commotion," Kiikoinen replies, now hesitant.

"The door will be too," the boy bickers back. "And I can just rush straight up. I got the suit for it."

Exhausted with this conversation, Lalli goes silent and scans the outside of the drain once again. After an awkward moment where he refused to be addressed, Kiikoinen reaches his ear. "Change of sequence. The door will be opened later."

Your operator chimes in, staying quiet to save what sanity he has. "Got a bad feeling?"

Kiikoinen grunts affirmatively. "I'll go on ahead. Fahy, deal with the watchman. Eugen, Jarnafeldt, with me."

Finally, Kiikoinen tosses the rope and starts sliding down.

>>6268323
Your first view of the undercity is jarring. It's like a little humble city in a concrete cave. Full sized buildings of stone architecture, decayed but reinforced with proper clean metallic alloys and slapdash scraps alike, stretch to the ceiling, while smaller buildings provide a glimpse over into crowded streets. To the right, you see lights of LEDs and neon signs running off stolen or siphoned power flickering off the side of collapsing walls and casting silhouettes of crowds shambling in the street. Some are long, some are wide, but all seem horrifically gaunt, even from this distance.

The fact you can see them of course implies they can see you.

And frankly, you're worried that they don't even need to see you to know you've come.

It's not just Stormwatch that knows the natural environment of this artifical cave.

As you slam into the filthy concrete, you're bothered by this bright pink light blaring across the ground. You're at the edge of some paddy of a farm plot. It's almost completely submerged in water, with green shoots rising up, tapering to an extreme degree directly under the distant UV lamps. A fence cordons this section off from the others of this field and are covered with vines for some crop that seems to have already been harvested.

The sealed door to your left is massive and covered with grime and with several tools propped up against it. Wires spew from a control panel beside it, trailing up the watchtower Kiikoinen was talking about. It's a fragile little thing that, if it weren't for the switch at the top being the best way to open the door, you bet you could knock over with Kiikoinen's help. It's tall enough to peer over the whole of the field and the storage house for this rice to your right, making it potentially visible from the street.

In front of you, past all the crops, is an old apartment building that looks like its insides have been gutted completely. The windows are covered in planks with only slivers to see the darkness within. It must be completely unlit in there. Above and behind the building, you can see pink lights marking up the walls in the distance, implying more and more of these plots.

Somewhere on the street past the buildings, you hear children laughing.

A certain dread fills the air. You take of your harness, and put on your mask.

>>6268324
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mlBeuHGqlc
"Commence mission," L4 Arsi blandly calls, like from a script. "Find the captives and exfiltrate. Be warned, the hostages might be overjoyed when you find them. This can attract the wrong attention. We need one to move past the barn and deal with any butchers and cattlehands before they have a chance to respond. I highly recommend against pressing past the freezer into the public eatery, or permitting the stable doors to the street opposite of your entry point to open."

L3 Eugen turns to face everyone. "I will handle the barn. The cages have to be unlocked, and this fascinating glove has enough acid to dissolve anything I can't pick."

"I'll handle the butchers," L3 Kiikoinen quickly clarifies. "Fahy, go deal with the tower." The moment L2 Fahy's harness is off, the rope zips back up as the truck spools it back into place, and the irishman grins as he rushes off like a rabid dog.

The man on the radio gives a thoughtful humm. "Kiikoinen, do you need backup with the butchers?"

L3 Kiikoinen begins making his way over, peering through foliage on the fence. "I shouldn't need assistance," he answers with a considerable amount of difficulty behind his voice.

"But we also do not know how many captives there are to rescue," Sigrun comments comments. "Disappearances range above sixty, but they might have been consolidated into easily accessible pens. It might be better to disrupt their operations by killing their skilled workers."

Any call of your own, Jarnafeldt? Time is limited, so straying from an executing plan would be bothersome to everyone involved.
>Wiping out the butchers quickly will buy us more time to be thorough and save all the hostages.
>Having more hands on deck evacuating hostages is priority, not fighting slaughterhouse butchers.
>Whatever you decide is best, Operator.

>>6268325
>Wiping out the butchers quickly will buy us more time to be thorough and save all the hostages.

>>6268389
+1
Kill hostiles stealthily FIRST

>>6268325
>Having more hands on deck evacuating hostages is priority, not fighting slaughterhouse butchers.

Its the safer play. They may be captives but numbers are numbers. Butcher morale will break if we free enough of them, I think.

>>6268325
>>Wiping out the butchers quickly will buy us more time to be thorough and save all the hostages.
If we kill the butchers we can evactuate all the hostages anyway
there is no breaking butcher morale, we aren't winning a battle or freeing people, we are taking way their FOOD, they either stop us and have a meal, or they starve.
I would like to see just how bad the conditions are for the captives, but making sure their captors are no longer an issue in freeing them takes precedence.

>>6268389
>>6268411
>>6268509
Going forward with these, writing.

Sorry about delays, I haven't been feeling much well and focused as of late. IRL issues, social obligations, so on.

>>6269025
It happens. Feel better soon, QM.

>>6269025
Take care.

Sorry, it's been so long. Family being over demanding my full attention as well as my body being a crumbling temple have not made this a fun time.
_________


Sigrun sighs. "You need to stay there. If the situation is worse than we imagined, come over. If there's danger, you need to stay there so we can exfiltrate without running through the undercity." Silence comes from the radio for a few seconds before a frustrated "understood" croaks out.

As he leads the way, you look at the fences. The brief was right; there's aberrations woven into the fences. A mishmash of meat, threaded through chainlinks and wooden and metal scrap beams. Arms grew out like reaching ivy, grasping at the rice plants, but many of the dozen joints it had were folded on themselves and pinned with rope and nails to itself, preventing it from reaching out and grasping as much as it wanted.

Staying near the concrete wall to avoid the creatures as long as he could, Kiikoinen eventually had to make his way toward the fence, glancing along the wall and pointing at a spot with his axe. Just as you noticed the head in the mass of meat, he threw the axe and the blade silently sank into the creature, the incredibly fine glass blade making short work of the loose meat. The attack was trivial.

The beast's head lolled to the side like a door ajar, bones exposed. The grasping arms went limp. The lativa around began to make noises, but not loud enough to draw any attention. He retrieved the axe, and kept moving.

The gate to the pen just outside the barn was locked with a standard lock procured from a common store on the surface. They lock the doors from the outside of the pens, making it harder for whatever creatures in there to escape.

For them to lock the door from the outside, there must be a subsequent door not picked up by the Wifi scanning that allows people to come out to his field outside of the barn. Through a crack in a fence, you think you see it snug in the corner of the plot.

And you should be more clear; this "barn" is not a wooden building from an actual farm you'd ethically raise real animals in. This is the remains of some old mechanic workshop building, boarded up and jerry-rigged to hold people like cattle. The barn doors are not wooden sliding ones, but a metallic garage door that is raised.

Picking the pen lock was trivial for Sigrun, as will the next one be. Slipping forward, you see the boarded up windows with fingers resting on the sill, and the gleam of eyes, many eyes, in the darkness. They haven't spoken yet.

Nearby, you sense the presence of some beast in the shape of a man. Though your mask and jacket drown out most of the moisture and sense of smell in the air, there's just this... foreboding presence nearby. A mist unnaturally wet. Too wet to have been mere water.

Having undone the gate, you all nod together and take a breath.

Showtime.

The doors are thrown wide open.

>>6272329
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5taN_PQiG78
The sight is worse than you could have imagined.

In the center of the room there's an aproned farmhand, holding a cleaver in one hand and the leg of a teenage boy in the other. The boy is bare, naked as the day he was born, clad only in the muck and grime of barn and the palpable fear and stubborn rage on his face. Chained to a pillar in the middle of the room, he stands in a puddle of fresh and dried blood alike.

A light as sterile as the Stormwatch illuminates this atrium, caked in dust, barely covered cracks, and stark shadows from rusty crossbeams. It shines on the stables fashioned just as haphazardly as the fences, and the people within. Men, women, and children, all naked, all covered in filth, and all bleeding from the calf with a serious injury. Everyone from the middle of the room to the right. Everyone of these people will have to limp to their freedom.

The worker, a man no more than six years the teen's elder, gritted his teeth and shirked from the light as he focused on the three of you. "V-vittu!" The rat cursed. The boy could not find words beyond gasps.

Sigrun rushes forth, reading to excise brutal justice. The attack is trivial, but whether or not he will die screaming is to be decided. As much as she would prefer he did, circumstances would prefer he die quietly.

Lalli sprints around the corner, making a Fast check.

You need to keep up with Lalli. These monsters need to keep their hands off these people. Make a Fast check; two anons, roll 3d8.

>>6272329
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5taN_PQiG78
The sight is worse than you could have imagined.

In the center of the room there's an aproned farmhand, holding a cleaver in one hand and the leg of a teenage boy in the other. The boy is bare, naked as the day he was born, clad only in the muck and grime of barn and the palpable fear and stubborn rage on his face. Chained to a pillar in the middle of the room, he stands in a puddle of fresh and dried blood alike.

A light as sterile as the Stormwatch illuminates this atrium, caked in dust, barely covered cracks, and stark shadows from rusty crossbeams. It shines on the stables fashioned just as haphazardly as the fences, and the people within. Men, women, and children, all naked, all covered in filth, and all bleeding from the calf with a serious injury. Everyone from the middle of the room to the right. Everyone of these people will have to limp to their freedom.

The worker, a man no more than six years the teen's elder, gritted his teeth and shirked from the light as he focused on the three of you. "V-vittu!" The rat cursed. The boy could not find words beyond gasps.

Sigrun rushes forth, reading to excise brutal justice. The attack is trivial, but whether or not he will die screaming is to be decided. As much as she would prefer he did, circumstances would prefer he die quietly.

Lalli bolts around the corner, making a Fast check.

You need to keep up with Lalli. These monsters need to keep their hands off these people. Make a Fast check; two anons, roll 3d8.

Rolled 5, 5, 6 = 16 (3d6)

>>6272345
Reminds me a lot of the start of The Evil Within 1

Rolled 2, 6, 8 = 16 (3d8)

>>6272345

>>6272441
d8, anon.

>>6272441
Yeah anon, you're using D8s.

Rolled 6, 3, 5 = 14 (3d8)

>>6272643
Add +2 to my rolls?

Rolled 8, 1, 4 = 13 (3d8)

>>6272345
Retribution

Rolled 3, 2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 6, 5 = 32 (8d6)

>>6272614
>>6272656
+ to rolls is not 3d8 but 3d6+2
But there we go

Sigrun is making a Certain engagement, subtracting two dice for one success. Rolling 8d6+1, Target 3. The engagement itself is trivial, so speed is the metric of success.

Rolled 5, 2, 3, 5, 2, 4, 6, 2 = 29 (8d6)

>>6272755
Kiikoinen rushes into the slaughter room, on a mission. He pays no mind to the people in the stables. Rolling 8d6.

>>6272763
Kiikoinen sidesteps just ahead of you, and you trail close behind, but even this tight pace could match the absolute breakneck speed that L3 Eugen slipped forward with. Glancing over at the fight, you catch the entire thing; the Swede lunging toward the underdweller, blade overhead. The young man went to step forward and block the overhead swing, but her feint was faster than her feet. The blade sliced through his neck as casually as could be, and whatever noise he could made was suppressed by the air flapping out through bubbling blood in the seam across his neck.

She's got this situation covered.

Trailing close behind Kiikoinen, you follow him into the Slaughterhouse room and head left. Cattle are corralled to the right-hand side to be put in pens where they are summarily executed, while the left-hand side was for employee traffic. The straining metal creaked as some contraptions were operated.

Slipping into the killing floor, you see a number of captives pressed into cattle harnesses, cuffed and chained to the exit door and clamped by the neck. Two are not moving. A farmhand in front of the mass of cages turns around, taken aback by the sudden footsteps echoing through the room.

The butcher wields a strange pistol or power-drill shaped object, with a mushroom-shaped metal mass at the end of its "barrel." You think you've heard it brought up back home before, is that a cattle gun? You don't want to be hit with that. One hit directly on your forehead is all it needs to give you a knock-out concussion. Which gives you a small relief; this means the two knocked out civilians aren't dead, they just... have mild traumatic brain injuries.

Clearly he's a threat to these people and yourselves, and Lalli-

L3 Kiikoinen is rushing straight into the Butchering room, ignoring this farmhand.
>Ignore the farmhand as well. He is between the two of you and Sigrun, who will make short work of him if he tries escaping.
>Put him down right now. Lalli knows there's more workers ahead and a possible escape route for them, and is cutting them off while you start your work here.

>>6273000
>Put him down right now. Lalli knows there's more workers ahead and a possible escape route for them, and is cutting them off while you start your work here.

>>6273000
>>Ignore the farmhand as well. He is between the two of you and Sigrun, who will make short work of him if he tries escaping.

>>6273000
>Put him down right now. Lalli knows there's more workers ahead and a possible escape route for them, and is cutting them off while you start your work here.
Slay the evildoer!

>>6273000
>Put him down right now. Lalli knows there's more workers ahead and a possible escape route for them, and is cutting them off while you start your work here.
we can't both go right past him.

>>6273064
>>6273087
>>6273146
Alrighty then! Writing.

Kiikoinen knows what he's doing. He's nothing if not rational, so you trust him with his tactical choice.

And besides, it's not like this one should give you much trouble.

The slaughterer, who might have been emboldened to launch a sneak attack had you joined Kiikoinen, now clambers over the railing, hoping to retreat over the cattle pens and out the other side. He could attack Sigrun, bide his time, or just go into the cages one by one and start slicing their necks. The blood on the floor and the knife on his belt tells you it wouldn't be his first kill today.

Not on your watch. You raise the-

An aurum glow hums from the ivory greatsword's fuller vents.

Something inside whisks around like dried autumn leaves crashing against the walls in a gale.

You didn't press any buttons? This thing didn't have any buttons to press, even?

How do these things work, anyway?

The sword itself seethes.

Time to give it a swing, you guess.

Two anons, roll 3d8. Auringonvalo has decided this is a manner of defense.

Rolled 2, 1, 4 = 7 (3d8)

>>6273361
rolling!

Rolled 2, 6, 7 = 15 (3d8)

>>6273361

>>6273363
>>6273491
Eesh. C'mon, Auringonvalo, get your head in the game!

>>6273363
>>6273491
>Two successes

With a step forward, you swing the blade, which by your measure should neatly cleave into the bastard's lower leg and send him plummeting into the cage below to bleed out like-

The blade jerks outside of your control. A force seems to grab your blade by the tip.

Like a fish pulling a line pulling a rod pulling you, it seems that Auringonvalo itself has something on its mind.

A stream of gold dust slides out from the sword's pockets. Just like the gold dust that was in the sword. Just like the gold dust that was within Omer's frame. This anima reveals itself as a wispy flow, a serpentine congregation that flies out and assume the formations of needles.

The blade makes contact with the underdweller, and yes it does cut him, but the spikes of gold light linger in the air before flying forth and impaling him several times over. Some sank deep into his torso, others were able to tear straight through joints. His yelp is quick and pained, as he crumbles down and smacks his head against the haphazard cage.

You gasp at the sight, and have to admit you are somewhat mortified as stray anima pries itself from the underdweller's flesh to return to the gestalt, nestled back within the blade.

Das krass.

Glancing down at the injured farmhand, he is unable to do any more than weakly writhe on the ground, though he is not yet totally dead. He's not going anywhere.

"Help, help us," breathes the man that would have been next in line. You're not sure if he has the strength to shout.

And right when you're about to address the prisoner-

Rolled 4, 2, 2, 6, 5, 2, 3, 5, 1, 2, 1, 1 = 34 (12d6)

>>6273606
Po

A burst of pneumatics erupted from the other room.

Rolling for Kiikoinen's engagements. Rolling 12d6.

>>6273612
Two voices call out in surprise and pain. Neither seem to be Kiikoinen, but they aren't death knells either. Injuries, most likely.

Stepping into the room, the sterile light dimly illuminates the room that was anything but. The air is so damp that you feel it resist you as you try to walk in. Poorly cleaned tables are covered in skinned and partly partitioned bodies, blood spilling from them and from bodies hanging from hooks dangling from the ceiling. The smell is penetrating the mask's filter, and the smell is as terrible as the sight. Offal, iron, and excrement puddle near the drains.

L3 Kiikoinen has pushed all the way to the corner by the door, and has just swung at two butchers that had pressed him at once. One of the butchers was nearly a full head taller than the other, around Kiikoinen's height, his face leathery, sagging, and disgusting. Obviously the "head chef," if you had to guess. You can tell there's something wrong with him down to your very bones. The other looks oddly normal. He might be a surfacedweller. Both of the chefs are recoiling from a maiming attack against the two of them, and Kiikoinen has blood dripping down his upper arm. A nasty exchange just took place.

The way the room is set up has two long tables covered in meat across the horizontal length of the room. Kiikoinen's attack has placed him at the door, fending off the head chef in the far back corner of the room and the assistant square in the middle.

"Oh, got a girlfriend?" laughed the head chef, in a voice so light and free for that ugly bastard face that if it weren't for him raising a hand to his floppy mouth, you would have checked for a third butcher lying around. He holds a long carving knife in an arm that's been maimed, but it doesn't seem to bother him anywhere as much as it should. There is something clearly wrong with him. "Kulla, deal with her."

The assistant butcher turns to you, with a broad head and a scraggly beard. His gaze is locked into fierce grit. Kulla cannot see your face.

Kiikoinen looks at you, and offers no command. Only a darting of his eyes at the head chef.

Reaching into his jacket, the head chef draws a handful of boning knives with his unmaimed hand.

Kiikoinen has maimed both of these enemies, reducing success thresholds by 1!
>Bravely Interject and repel both attackers! (Brave, Interject, 9d8t3)
>Leave the head chef to Kiikoinen, bravely cut down this... Kulla? (Brave, 9d8t1, Trivial)
>Ignore the fodder, rush around and flank the head chef (Engage, 6d8t2)
>Write-in

>>6273635
>Ignore the fodder, rush around and flank the head chef (Engage, 6d8t2)
Follow his lead. He's got a plan in mind

>>6273635
>Bravely Interject and repel both attackers! (Brave, Interject, 9d8t3)

>>6273635
>>Ignore the fodder, rush around and flank the head chef (Engage, 6d8t2)

>>6273635
>Ignore the fodder, rush around and flank the head chef (Engage, 6d8t2)

>>6273650
>>6273651
>>6273663
>>6273676
Very quick vote. Update monday.

Kulla is a name you have heard that name before, haven't you? Not a Stormwatch member. No, someone in the public-

That's not important right now! Kiikoinen needs your help. Even through your visor and hood, the head chef isn't normal at all. Kulla is normal. He can wait.

You gallop across the thin clearance between the cutting tables, brushing past dangling intestines and inedible organs as you move to flank the butcher. Kulla was prepared for you to come at him, but as you skip past the lane, he goes to follow you.

Cornered between yourself and Kiikoinen, the chef chuckles and reaches up to his collar.

And rips off his face.

The butcher throws his human hide mask at you.

You and Kiikoinen are flanking this target. Ordinarily, this would reward you with a lowered DC. However, this monster has uncanny tenacity.
Rolling to engage; two anons, roll 3d8. Target successes: 2.

Rolled 4, 3, 5 = 12 (3d8)

>>6274865
>the chef chuckles and reaches up to his collar.
>And rips off his face.
>The butcher throws his human hide mask at you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qOvAIZN4uo

Rolled 8, 6, 4 = 18 (3d8)

>>6274865
Aaaalrighty then.

>>6274865
>And rips off his face.
>The butcher throws his human hide mask at you.

Oh yeah. Boss battle confirmed.

Rolled 6, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4, 1, 2 = 25 (8d6)

>>6274868
>>6274892
Kiikoinen is focused on killing the head butcher, but is careful not to make a mistake. From this angle, you can see no small level of animosity on his face.
L3 Kiikoinen is making a Cautious engagement, rolling 8d6.

The unmasked carver of men slings a knife in Kiikoinen's direction. Jumping up against the freezer room door, your mentor tried to keep moving forward, but a second knife forced him to back up into the meat locker. Kulla is ignoring the head chef's orders and pursuing Kiikoinen into the cold storage.

A sweaty hide of skin hits your visor, not bothering you in the slightest. With a wild swing over your shoulder your bring your blade at him. It's lightly slowed down by bodies dangling from hooks, enough for him to block it with his long knife. The sword glows, but only dimly. The flickering wispy machines illuminate the butcher's face.

He is a man of a complexion so pallid he is nearly a faint hue of blue. Wet black hair was cast over eyes so blue they outshone the gold rays upon them and so big they were bulging out like a fish. He's tall, almost as tall as Kiikoinen, and his pained expression melts into a unreasonably gentle smile.

"Kiki's friend?"

The man speaks in an otherworldly serene voice as your blades meet. It pierces through the layers of dense rubber to reach your ears like a hot knife through butter.
"You best beware. That snake sheds his skin more than I do."
Why is his voice like that? It's... not alluring, that's not the word. Persuasive.
"And he's clearly able to stab a friend in the back."

The light of your sword beams back at you off a piece of metal.
A third blade in his other hand is coming at you from below.

You gasp, and suddenly the sword bursts into light, blasting away the long knife and finally cutting across his apron. He lets out a grunt and is thrown back onto a counter. Recovering from your recoiling shock, you go to grab the sword halfway down the blade to drive it in to him.

>>6275454
As you step forward and line up a solid posture, the butcher slinks to the ground and steps legs first under the cutting table that was blocking him into the corner. His body seems to be compressed in ways bones shouldn't allow so he could move through the gap. Your mouth hangs agape.

The eater of men rises to its feet, basking in the sterile light of the cutting room. From his appearance to his voice, the word that seems to best describe him is fascinating. And it is indeed this fascination that leads prey to him and his ilk. In a more civilized age, men and women would fall hazard to watery tragedy to hear his songs, but this is the modern world. He must bring to them that fate by his own hand.

Your radio clips to life. Arsi offers a warning. "Fiona, be advised, that is a humanoid troll. Designation;"

NÄKKI
ABERRANT MAN

"This is the same kind of troll as the orphanage mistress," your operator comments. "Learn."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdU6i6RamPU

The Nakki locks the meat locker door. The aberration turns to gaze at you.

With the metallic ring of blades gliding against each other, he smiles and his entire head changes shape.

The Nakki's cartilage skeleton is capable of shapeshifting between humanoid and aberrant, changing its enemy type. It is currently Aberrant, giving you your +2d bonus against aberrations. The Nakki is still maimed, but that affect will wear off after this roll.
>Take a fairly disgusted crack at it (Engage, 8d8t2)
>Holy shcisse kill it immediately (Brave, 12d8t2)
>Open that door by any means necessary, dividing is NOT conquering (Fast, 6d8t2)
>Write-in

>>6275455
>Take a fairly disgusted crack at it (Engage, 8d8t2)
>Also demand thay it tell you without all this mystery what it means about Kiikoinen
What did you do, Kiki?

>>6275455
>Holy shcisse kill it immediately (Brave, 12d8t2)

>>6275778
+1
>And it is indeed this fascination that leads prey to him and his ilk. In a more civilized age, men and women would fall hazard to watery tragedy to hear his songs
This is a siren man clearly

>>6275455
>Take a fairly disgusted crack at it (Engage, 8d8t2)

Don't talk to it.

>>6275778
>>6275809
>>6275893
Votes tallied, writing.

I just realized I needed rolls
Two anons, roll 4d8. Target 2, as he is maimed.

Rolled 4, 4, 6, 3 = 17 (4d8)

>>6276395
Shred this scumbag

Rolled 5, 5, 2, 1 = 13 (4d8)

>>6276395

>>6276403
>>6276497
A part of you wants to ask about what he meant by calling Kiikoinen a backstabbing snake, but... you're starting to piece things together.

Kiikoinen goes to clubs often. There was one place, the Void, where he went but you could never catch him. You weren't the right grade of citizen to follow him there the first night outing you did.

Kulla was someone you knew. You met him at the Void, with Aamu and... someone. Someone with red glasses, you think. So Kulla is a butcher, and... you swore you've seen red glasses before - was it him? Or wasn't it multiple underground assailants that had them? Frejya's tits, that place was teeming with underdwellers!

So if Kiikoinen frequented that place, then he'd...

Suddenly, wresting you from your thoughts, the Nakki scrambled over the table, body warping and flexing to fit his nature of hunting you down. The knife stretched forward, looking to find its way beneath your hood and across your jugular.

With textbook defense you raised the blade to parry it, and the blade exploded with a flash of golden light, sending the Nakki recoiling from the blast. It was a perfect opportunity to deliver a solid thrust right at him. However squarely your blade was, the floor was slick with blood, the apron was thick, and the tip just wasn't sharp enough. Realizing the futility of the thrust, the anima began to build up into a strong glow, and right as the Nakki twisted off the point of the blade, the sword's tip was extended with a blinding lance of light. As he skittered away, he swung at your arm, chopping a small cut through the thick rubber. Fortune would have it only left a gash as it clashed against your bone, but the injury stopped you from a more aggressive pursuit.

Adrenaline redoubled the Nakki's strength. Scrambling away, his form squirming and contracting to a dense human shape, he unclipped a hook from the ceiling and begins swing it around. Having seen what your sword does has scared him away from senseless aggression for the time being. He seeks a succinct end to your life, not a battle of attrition.

>>6276579
With this moment to breathe, you have a second moment to think.

Hah! For all the manhunting Sigrun does, Kiikoinen has espionage down pat. So, the people at the Void. Were they all overpopulation?

No, Aamu wasn't, she worked with Leshy. Leshy would have made sure his workers weren't bothered by the Stormwatch, given how the Old Oaks hold no small influence in the MNP. So how did a couple of underdwellers get access to surface-level amenities, higher citizen ranks than you, avoiding being hunted by cameras? Why was Aamu friends with a couple underdwellers to begin with?

How would this freak have known about Kiikoinen, even? Maybe the skinned face would help him slip past surveillance, but...

Are you interested what this cannibal has to say?
>Beat the answers out of the Nakki (Hold back from committing a lethal blow)
>Do not listen to his lies, you have a job to do (Keep killing him)

The Nakki has shapeshifted back to a typical humanoid form. He seems to realize overwhelming you with eldritch anatomy isn't working as well as he hoped. He is no longer maimed.
>Put him down like the troll he is (Engage, 6d8t3)
>Try and get the anima to attack him from range (Ranged, reduced damage, 6d8t3)
>Make it so he can never carve up a child again (Brave, 9d8t3)
>Open a dialogue, demand answers (Savvy, 6d8t3)
>Get the door open, rejoin with Kiikoinen, you need his help! (Speed, 6d8t3)
>Write-in

>>6276581

>Do not listen to his lies, you have a job to do (Keep killing him)
>Get the door open, rejoin with Kiikoinen, you need his help! (Speed, 6d8t3)

>>6276581
>Do not listen to his lies, you have a job to do (Keep killing him)

>Make it so he can never carve up a child again (Brave, 9d8t3)

>>6276581
>Do not listen to his lies, you have a job to do (Keep killing him)
The back of the photo reads a single sentence in black marker. "Don't believe his lies."
>Make it so he can never carve up a child again (Brave, 9d8t3)
Think of the children and gut this fishman

>>6276683
>>6276688
>>6276692
Brave engagement it is.
One anon, roll 9d8. Target 3.

Rolled 1, 3, 8, 8, 8, 6, 2, 5, 8 = 49 (9d8)

>>6276799
Strike true.

>>6276810
>4/9 rolls are max
Does this mean he's turboslain? I hope it does

>>6276810
Six successes is pretty fucking huge.
Update Sunday, and hopefully quicker this time.

>>6276835
Here in the depths of the human slaughterhouse, we're carving up a Deep One

>>6276581
>Beat the answers out of the Nakki (Hold back from committing a lethal blow)

>>6276799
That would have been my vote, if it's not too late...

>>6276836
But kek, yeah, he probably super dead.

Sunday didn't happen, ack
>>6276581
>>6276810
>>6276835
The Nakki slings the hook wide to your right. The huge arc of the swing as it almost coming at you from behind, but you knew it was coming. Throwing the sword in the way, the chain snares itself around your blade and catches into its own chainlinks. With a strong pivot of the sword, you pull the chain taught. A perfect counter.

But that is not what you're looking to do today. You are looking to end this monster's predatory life.

You grab the chain, place a foot on the chopping table, and yank. The Nakki is almost completely destabilized by the force behind the tug, but barely manages to keep himself from giving. From the look in his eyes as they glance over toward other heavier knives on the rack, you can tell he knows how futile this tug of war is. How he needs to come up with a trick that will get you.

But before he can drop his end of the chain, you jump onto the table, one hand grasping your sword like a lance and the other pulling as much of the chain as you possibly can, and joust at him from above.. With the slack you pull, he's now tethered to you.

His knife is far away on the wrong side of his body to defend himself right. The best he can manage in the time between the seconds is to brace the carving knife in front of himself and hope you slice yourself on it.

The Nakki had his back to an escape route. He could have ran. Instead, he wanted you on a meathook. He has forsaken his safety to fight you. He had his chance.

Auringvalo has made its judgement.

Monster.

A blast of gold light shoots forth while you were midair, extending straight to the Nakki's chest. Despite the intensity of this gold light, he only had a shadow for a second; before you knew it, he was equally illuminated on both sides. The sword's tip plunges into the troll, but purchases against no flesh. The hole was already there.

The knife catches against your jacket, but the strength behind it has faded. A laceration of your clothes, and no more.

You come down upon the aberrant man, pushing him off his weakened legs. As he slams against the cutting room floor, gold wisps circling around like a cloud of sentient dust, and Auringvalo bounces off the concrete below. It is completely unstained.

The troll, exhaling almost every ounce of air in its lungs as you toss aside the knife, loses its will to resist.

That's funny. You think you heard someone talk out loud just a moment ago.

As you stood up to better prepare to end his life, he breathed a passing comment.

"That tree was right. You're a cannibal with more steps, you know?"

... Zephyr. He must have helped some of these people down here.

>>6278627
The fridge door opens, and you jump to the ready. Out of the room walks a man with long black hair over his face and blood on his knuckles, wielding a Stormwatch axe with a shattered blad-

-O-oh, that's Lalli.

Whatever encounter he had in there was obviously trivial, but by the look of him you get the idea he decided to be extremely thorough.

The large, disheveled Finn orients himself in the room behind a veil of hair, and finds the Nakki on the ground. Laughing.

"I guess you like this mask the most, don't y-"

Immediately the Nakki's entire skull is squished under Kiikoinen's boot. Cartilage bones from being part fish, or something. The sight of the soft skull giving way to Lalli's heel is as cartoonish as it is mortifying.

One stomp was not enough. Eyeballs came shooting out, but he kept going. The head was about three inches thick, but he kept going. He stopped at about the fifteenth, but made one last blow with the blunt pneumatic axe, which still managed to split some of the remains of the Nakki's head.

Heavy breathing between the two of you is all that fills the room. The gold light slowly retreats into the blade, lightly humming.

"A-are you alright?" You manage to ask. Physically, he was fine. Mentally...

L3 Kiikoinen gazes at you from between the splits in the hair that's covered his face, before standing up straight, holstering the axe on his belt, and running his hair back. Without a word in response, he chimes in on the radio. "Primary targets neutralized."

"Saemus, get back in position-very good, Lalli," Arsi speaks, his low and heavily accented tone hastening to micromanage some situation you had tuned yourself out of. "Take the body you left behind in there and put it in here. The kitchen staff might enter the fridge at any moment."

You've finished going over your injuries; you've gotten off pretty easily, given the number of human-maiming implements in this room. This tough jacket is something. But something about the operator's sentence bothers you. "I'm sorry, kitchen staff?"

"We are in the backend of an underground pub," Kiikoinen answers, swinging wide the door to cold storage. "Go handle the captives with Sigrun."

Being able to do some tangible good is a great way to burn off the adrenaline that you still have. "Y-yes sir!"

Before you go, you find a cup you can clean and fill it with water from a sink before heading out to the barn again. You brought a chocolate sword, and some poor kid is going to need it.

>>6278637
As you head out and start figuring out how to get the people who were clamped up in the stun cages, you hear odd tones on the comms followed by a new voice.

A familiar voice with a tense tone.

"Nonoka Sumika, prodding local comms. Is something happening here?"

You struggled to find words to reply to her with, but Arsi replied quicker, for how slow he usually speaks. "This is Arsi Hotakainen, operator. A group is performing a POI extract. What's the situation?"

There are long pauses between Sumika's responses. "I have eyes on She. She is at an eatery of some sort."

SCHEISSE

https://files.catbox.moe/2csur3.mp3

Her voice is low and muffled, with distant chatter picking up. It is tired, exhausted, but still stressed. "Please avoiding causing a scene. I am performing reconnaissance. And I would rather not reveal myself to create a diversion for you..."

The two L3s cause interference trying to assure her there will be no trouble, spiking volume in your ears.

There are dozens of captives down here. Everyone wants to get out of here, many are injured, and there are quite a few who are incredibly impatient. You and Sigrun have to talk to them and assure them that they will be safe only if they follow your instructions.
Two anons, roll 3d8 for Savvy.

Rolled 3, 4, 8 = 15 (3d8)

>>6278649

Rolled 8, 5, 1 = 14 (3d8)

>>6278649
Oh
Oh no

Rolled 2, 4, 3, 3, 1, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3 = 27 (10d6)

>>6278655
>>6278678
>>6278655
>>6278678
L3 Eugen has been diligently explaining the situation to the kidnapped civilians as well as she can since you arrived. She has been able to open the cages, but had wanted to make sure people were Certain about the route outside of the Undercity as soon as they were able.
Rolling 10d6 for Sigrun's Savvy check. She starts with one success.

>>6278691
Dumbass bitch JOBBING, come on!
Meanwhile we got 3 successes

Rolled 3, 5, 4, 2, 4, 3, 4, 1, 4, 4 = 34 (10d6)

>>6278693
I've ruled that raising the dice step to D8 raises the value of success on the die to 6, making the odds 3/8 over D6's 1/3. Not doing this would have turned made it a 50/50. A slight improvement, but an improvement. D10, D12, and theoretically D20 also have success at 6 or above.
But you don't have to worry about that.

Because a certain Irishman has found it as a crucial oversight of his skills and equipment that he be stationed sitting atop a watch tower with a finger on a button while everyone else flounders about. After a trivial Fast check, he arrives, rather parched.
Rolling 10d6 for L2 Saemus Fahy's Savvy check.

>>6278699
Welp.

>>6278699
All those 4 and only a single 5

>>6278700
We are all jobbing today folks

>>6278699
>I've ruled that raising the dice step to D8 raises the value of success on the die to 6, making the odds 3/8 over D6's 1/3. Not doing this would have turned made it a 50/50. A slight improvement, but an improvement. D10, D12, and theoretically D20 also have success at 6 or above.
bruh, you changed a flat +16% into a flat +4%, dividing it by 4, it "an improvement", but more of a MMO gear/League runepage one than a notable upgrade
though I suppose that if we ever get promoted, we are just annihilating the system (likely prompting another, larger tweak), so not making the rolls too easy is reasonable to fill the "struggling" vibe, still annoying to get a toy taken away though

>>6278759
You are right that .333 to .375 is a tiny percent increase, but it's a die in a dice pool. This compounds to a much larger chance of success the larger the die pool becomes.
Let's say for an 8 die roll, you got three successes or more instead. On a d6, the odds of this are 53.1%. On D8s with these rules, the odds become 63%. Without the rule that the number required for success rises, i.e. half the numbers on the d8 are now the range of success, the odds for rolling three or more successes would increase to 85.5% - nearly trivial rates. The odds of rolling 5 successes on 9 rolls, like your Brave engagement, have risen from 14.4% to 21.6% because of your step up to d8, whereas your suggestion that 5 is included as success would put the odds of that at a neat 50% chance. 5/9 successes would happen literally half the time. Given this is something you can just apply before a mission, you can be awarded circumstantial advantage dice bonuses via flanking or whathaveyou, and with a larger number of noita you can apply this to the every person rolling dice in the vicinity, this precaution was warranted. In Solarpunk #6 I specified that d8s use 6-7-8 for success the moment it was introduced into play. I'm sorry if I hadn't said that out loud this thread.
If you have further questions, punch funny numbers into here. Divide the fraction of a die's faces you want to consider as a success, punch in the number of dice in the pool, and how many succeed to get the chances of that roll or better happening.
https://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial

Beats being unemployed in Greenland.

>>6278860
initially, I thought that the dice increase was balanced by having it affect everyone, even the enemies, making the combat more deadlier on both sides (even if there aren't many rolls, it is still represented by the fluff)
it being one sided did break that

>>6278993
Noita enemies have changed your dice without your consent because it also affects themselves. It also happened right then and there.
Anyway, writing.

>>6278994
>Noita enemies have changed your dice without your consent
YOU HAVE ANGERED THE GODS

>>6278655
>>6278678
>>6278691
>>6278699
"A Stormwatch vehicle and a shuttlebus are pulling into the drain and are en route," Arsi comments, pulling away from the focus on the danger just behind these walls. "Stick to the plan. Calm them down, and prepare them to rush across the field and through the door."

As you began letting loose and carrying the unconscious to the main barn room, you begin to describe the route of escape to them. The ones that were moments away from their execution are the most catatonic. They don't even cover their naked selves, they simple stumble over dirt, dust, and blood, with eyes wide and jaws clenched. Expressions still as if they were in the stock of a guillotine.

As you unshackled the last one, and began to carry a stunned woman from the room, you begin to hear something that should be relief, but right now is one of the worst things that you could be hearing.

The citizens are celebrating.

A cheer from a rowdy man, the pleas of a frightened woman, the aggressive demands of an older geezer. All of these greet you as you walk in and set the unconscious person on the floor.

Sigrun rushing between the pens, trying to hush them down. Miss Eugen refuses to yell to demand them all to be silent, as that would be even louder. But as she runs between them all, the ones she leave grow disheartened and confused.

Breaking the Kimmo blade into pieces helped expedite the softening process as you began to help Sigrun out, as best you can. You assured people that they were going to be fine and that their rides out of here will be arriving at any moment - but until then, they had to wait and be quiet. They had to stay here until the path was open. They had to leave in a quick but orderly fashion; some pens will have to stay locked longer than others so they don't trample some of the more injured and weaker civilians.

For a couple pens, explaining things in a kind tone and with a piece of wet and flabby chocolate was effective. For many others, you had mixed success; they were impatient, screaming to be at least united with their family, not believing that they would trample and hurt others in a unified mad dash escape.

And then a man screamed the worst string of words you could never have imagined.

"THEY'RE GOING TO BUS US TO THE SOILENT FACTORY!"

>>6279215
You could not help but turn your head. It was a statement so deranged, unhinged, sensationalist and fear-mongering that you couldn't help but be shocked by how completely pressed this man is. The others weren't paying him too much attention, either unable to hear it over their own cacophony or not believing his delusional ravings.

"That's preposterous, sir, we are trying to get you out of here," you make an attempt at calming him down.

"OH, NO, NO YOU AREN'T! THE MOMENT WE WERE PLUCKED OFF THE STREETS, WE WERE AS GOOD AS DEAD, AND NOW THAT YOU FOUND US, NOW WE'RE YOUR CATTLE!"

The screaming has grabbed Eugen's attention. You need to manage this before she tries to help. "Sir, please shut up, you are endangering everyone here to be caught by hostile-"

"I'LL TAKE MY FUCKING ODDS WITH THE FIENDS DOWN HERE THAN BE SHUTTLED OFF TO THE SAME PLACE BUT WORSE!"

You haven't a clue on how this conspiracy theorist could possibly be dissuaded from his loud ranting. It's demoralizing you, nevermind everyone else. Just as you were about to come up with some retort about how they're too valuable to just discard like this, L3 Eugen marches up to the pen's gate right beside you.

This is a lucky break; you were stumped, but now you get to see how a professional resolves situations like these.

The blue gleam of the machete catches your eye.

Sigrun reaches through the pen and stabs the man with just the tip of her machete.

With a pull on the trigger, an electric shock ripples through his body.

He falls to the ground before the unblinking audience of the others and yourself.

A few scream. A few turn their heads and say nothing.

Sigrun looks you in the eyes. "Some people refuse to accept what's good for them," she tells you before walking away to explain the exfiltration plan to others and to assure them the sound was someone hurting themself on a piece of their cage falling apart because they rattled it too much.

You could not help but turn your head. It was a statement so deranged, unhinged, sensationalist and fear-mongering that you couldn't help but be shocked by how completely pressed this man is. The others weren't paying him too much attention, either unable to hear it over their own cacophony or not believing his delusional ravings.

"That's preposterous, sir, we are trying to get you out of here," you make an attempt at calming him down.

"OH, NO, NO YOU AREN'T! THE MOMENT WE WERE PLUCKED OFF THE STREETS, WE WERE AS GOOD AS DEAD, AND NOW THAT YOU FOUND US, NOW WE'RE YOUR CATTLE!"

The screaming has grabbed Eugen's attention. You need to manage this before she tries to help. "Sir, please shut up, you are endangering everyone here to be caught by hostile-"

"I'LL TAKE MY FUCKING ODDS WITH THE FIENDS DOWN HERE THAN BE SHUTTLED OFF TO THE SAME PLACE BUT WORSE!"

You haven't a clue on how this conspiracy theorist could possibly be dissuaded from his loud ranting. It's demoralizing you, nevermind everyone else. Just as you were about to come up with some retort about how they're too valuable to just discard like this, L3 Eugen marches up to the pen's gate right beside you.

This is a lucky break; you were stumped, but now you get to see how a professional resolves situations like these.

The blue gleam of the machete catches your eye.

Sigrun reaches through the pen and stabs the man with just the tip of her machete.

With a pull on the trigger, an electric shock ripples through his body.

He falls to the ground before the unblinking audience of the others and yourself.

A few scream. A few turn their heads and say nothing.

Sigrun looks you in the eyes. "Some people refuse to accept what's good for them," she tells you before walking away to explain the exfiltration plan to others and to assure them the sound was someone hurting themself on a piece of their cage falling apart because they rattled it too much.

>>6279225
After a moment of digestion, L4 Hotakainen makes an order. "They are getting worse in there... Change of plans. We are fast-tracking the evacuation. Fahy, flip the switch and go help the girls out."

The Irish boy chimes in. "Gladly!"

The door begins to open. You can't see the door, but you're able to hear it from here. Not terribly clearly, you might not be able to identify the sound for what it is, but still, everyone in the area can hear the floodgate door opening.

Fahy slides into the room before the sound of the door ceases. With that kind of speed, he must have vaulted clear over the exterior pen fence.

"Top of the mornin', ladies and ge-" his bombastic opening was cut off by a coughing fit and a smell that seemed to burn his throat. It can't be that bad, given Sigrun and Lalli were fine... but you are grateful for your gas mask.

>>6279253
After a lot of agonizing effort, most have finally caught on, but many are still hysterical. They don't trust you. They think they have a better plan. They are just too damn emotional. While the situation is much better than before, but you can't help but feel the damage was done.

"She is moving." Sumika calls out on the radio.

... And there it is.

Lalli comes out of the back room, sprinting. Sigrun starts throwing open cages to let people out.

"Wasn't the butcher a Nakki? We can handle her." Saemus replied, having uttered the most high-flying overly ambitious things this lucky Irish boy has ever said.

"She is a highly dangerous target. And no, She is not a Nakki! She is from-" Sumika cuts herself off. "... Shit." She stops talking.

Hotakainen is speaking rapidly. "Start sending people out, NOW. If people aren't coming, they aren't coming. Fahy, return to the tower immediately. You need to shut that door as soon as possible once the others have extracted."

Cage doors fly open. Bodies and people shuffle in a blur. It's a mess, but you can strong-arm your way out and about.

In the not-too-far distance, you hear the pneumatic thrusts.

po, po, po

Final update tomorrow, need to draw and sleep

>>6279255
A sea of people spew out of the barn and trample across the makeshift rice paddy. A few trip. A few get grabbed by aberrations on the walls. There's simply too much traffic for you to run over and help them all right now. You can help them once you get the last few people out of here.

The noises get louder.
po, po, po

Sigrun has went with the tail-end of the pack, Lalli is at the gates of the pen with an eye on the doors and windows. You have managed to find a more able-bodied man willing to carry one of the unconscious with him, and with one look around you think that's everyone that's left to save. You curse one last time, regretting the few that were helpless, and-

"There's something flying over the building!?"

You gasp and take a step back into the doorway for safety.

A massive black mass smashes into the dirt in front of you, shooting wet silt into a broad cone around the landing site. Sloppy mud splashes across you and your visor, which you hurry to wipe and get a clear look at the thing that landed in front of you.

The ball in the darkness is smoking - no, it's radiating steam. The same steam that trails from your Stormwatch axe every time you punch the pneumatic booster. Under folds of cloth, you see pure moisture rushing down plates of armor.

You aren't seeing it right. You take off your mask to catch your breath and see with your eyes.

And you see the insignias of Ms. Jousten's Undercroft and Chicago Red Dogs Research and Development, stitched over with some strange runes.

A hand appears and grasps the rim of what you now recognize as a hat, and the mass rises to its feet.

It matches the photographs. This is her. This is Sumika's armor, and this is She who took it. The armor's massive clearance provides an illusion that its intended wearer was someone of normal proportions despite its huge scale. What is underneath must be a gaunt, lanky figure in order to fit inside.

She doesn't have the presence of a Nakki. Not like the one you've seen. Sumika also said that She was not a Nakki. So you have to ask yourself something, given what you've seen.

What else can fit into a set of armor made for an eight foot tall woman?

>>6279586
Po

The pop of gaseous hydrogen mixing with oxygen and becoming water, drenching the pneumatics in bubbles.

She turns to you.

Po

She is drenched. Did she come from the ocean? Is she a seafaring troll?

She leans back, cracking the entirety of her spine.

Po

That didn't sound like the others.

Po, po
po

po
po popopo

po, po, po

>>6279589
PO, PO, PO
PO PO PO PO PO PO
POPOPO PO PO, PO

PO PO PO POPO, POPO, PO, PO, PO

PO

PO

.

PO

End of Thread #10.

>>6279597
Eek...

Looking forward to Thread 11. What a cliffhanger. Good work as ever, QM!

>>6279610
Thanks! New thread after a week or two. I'll throw a heads up in the /qtg/.
I have a week of something late September, so I might have to end the thread early then or have a dead week right before the end, given threads survive 60 days on this board.
Hope the rest of you enjoyed it! I've been sitting on this po bit for a while.

>>6279597
would

thanks for the thread

>>6279597
Imagine the blowjobs...

>>6279789
would have to get a ladder for that, m8

>>6279854
That can be easily arranged, right?