Nettle moves to O11 and performs a full action Root Domain active on Brute1, then Rampant Growth on Lancer1. In the off chance she misses Brute1, she'll Rampant Growth it too.

She also uses another charge of Yggdrasil's Vessel.

Auth blinks, blankly, to Marron's utterly baffling comment. Mega... Chesstron? Mega... chesstron.

More orifices start spontaneously bleeding. Auth suddenly collapses on the floor, a pool of blood around his head... and then he gets up. He shakes his head to each side, and blood that had pooled in his ears is removed. After clearing his mouth and nose, and wiping away the blood around his eyes, he takes a deep breath.

uA: Alright. I have some advice, Marron to counter this... heresy. Please follow them to the letter, it's of utmost importance.
uA: First: You look at "Mega Chesstron".
uA: Second: You look at Chaos.
uA: Third, and this is very important: Maintain eye contact with Chaos, as you smack the "mega chesstron" off the board because it's cheating.
uA: Optionally, but encouraged: Punch Chaos thereafter.
uA: Got it?

Auth groans. He had better sort out this lunacy immediately.

uA: Alright, Marron. This is important. Tell me all the rules of Chess that you know.
uA: I need to fix this.
uA: I'll tell you if they're inaccurate. If you want, I can give them an inaccuracy rating.
uA: Merging pieces gets 5 brain haemorrhages out of five, if you were wondering.

----

In battle, Auth finds himself mostly uninjured. He sighs again, looking at the Eviscerator. He flies away, to S5, and then downs a Stardew Potion. And then, he takes a deep breath...

And the Eviscerator probably explodes, as Auth casts Liberation again.

Crya runs up to Q7 and uses Ice Stalagmites on FigLegion 1.
Soulja Nia runs to T11 and fires at Floofknight 2.

Nidra moves to L5, Power Naps Boshi, and basic attacks the BlizRobe twice.

The Southern Caravan

Daskter throws a creation singularity at FKnight2 (by throwing it at S7

The HEavy Mortar also attacks FKnight2 by hitting tile S7 too.

Conscript 2 and 3 moves to T11 and U11.
All Conscripts focus fire on the Floofknight2

Brutishace holds his ground. There's not really a good way to advance forward, especially since he's afflicted with Slow.

Brutishace carefully aims Drain Life at N15, catching Liar1.2, Liar 1.3 and the first Salt Wyvern in the blast. The Liars probably will be able to hold up due to their Dark resistance, but thankfully, the Salt Wyvern has a Darkness weakness. If it's not dead already, it'll be dead by the end of the turn as long as someone gets in some chip damage.

He just needs to free himself from this awful slowing for another turn so that he can heal up Wyvern with Soul Siphon! There's a body within reach, but he can't heal Wyvern from the distance between the two.

Action - Thina - North Caravan

Now... who needs some heals?

Thina staggers backwards away from the slashing blades, falling over and rolling across the ground.

"Ack! D- Don't! I'm- I'm just the healer!"

She runs away to Q15. From there, she calls out to Ranger2.

"I-... I'd run. Leave this, please. Today is not a good day to die."

Then, to make good on the 'promise' that she's a healer, she uses transfusion to burn 11 HP and get a pool of 29 HP. She targets Chloe, Echoss, and the Spider and heals them for 12, 8, and 9.

Adrian moves to Q14 and drops a Purge on the NaClestial.

The Wooly Mollusk pings the NaClestial with a Water Gun if it's still there.

Boshi walks up to (L6) and gives the Firefighter a good smack. He retreats to (M7). If, for whatever reason, the Firefighter becomes downed before his turn, Boshi instead sprints to (P9).

---

Meanwhile, Bow Kid looks out onto the battlefield from the top of one of the towers. She needed to rest for a moment from running from the house to her current location. While this wouldn't normally be a problem, she did it in a roundabout way; over mountains, through densely forested areas, and such.

She knows where Maria was; safely inside the gate area. Which means she can rest for a bit before hopping down to greet her.

---

MU rests for a little while longer, healing up and waiting for the flames down below to dissipate.

"Alright, time to finish this!"

Summa raises her sword, and slashes it down towards the SSpider2 right next to her.

Battle:

Verdana narrows his eyes at the Husk. In the background, he can overhear Maria clearly wanting him to hit the Husk again, and going by the look in his eyes, he seems quite tempted to go with that. Then he notices what the Husk is about to do... He turns his attention away for now, over to Maria.

"I've hit him with a Newton Hammer. If he moves anywhere, the aftershock from that will crush him. And if I've read his movement correctly..."

He turns back to the Husk, getting a rather dangerous look in his eyes.

"That leap across the battlefield is going to leave quite the dent! Go on, Husk. Follow through with that leap. It's not as if you have a choice, even though you know what will happen!"

Verdana smirks, then turns his attention to the medic, nodding in silent appreciation of the earlier heal. In a form of reciprocative appreciation, he uses Cure to top off the medic's health. After that, he turns his attention back to the Husk.

"Of course, lockdown might be hitting you, but I'm hardly going to just ignore you completely. Behold!"

He promptly chucks a Lumipod at the Husk's face. Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, Verdana's Chibi Nia walks up to E6 to clamber onto Cushion, riding it in the exact same way Maria was earlier, then Cushion floats over to I3. If there's anyone in range, the Chibi Nia is free to put her +4 HP and MP onto whoever she wants to put it onto. As for Cushion, probably best to cottonguard... anyone, really.

Dialogue format dump zone

Laranei does a thing! With her gun! Namely, shoot stuff! Specifically, Scarlet5 twice, after Tazz and Mari do stuff! If she has to move before she can shoot then she does so, moving to H13 before firing twice

Now acting after Echoss, Irongutta moves through the hopefully clear path to Q11, gaining the usual benefits of Unstoppable Force at its base level. With all of his might, he slams Mechonis2!

Wyvern evolve strains (wow, how unpredictable), and uses the Helix Totem. If the Naclestial has transformed, Wyvern moves to Q15 to slash at it. If it hasn't, he moves to P14 to attack SaltWyvern before retreating to R15. Both of these will be heavily cancelled out by resistance and stupid amounts of regen, and I'm certain, with my luck, I will end up dead by the end of the enemy phase, if I don't get countered, which is probably equally as likely.

"I know we're supposed to be enermies... But that disgusting creature is gone, and you helped me defeat it. You have my gratitude." Packo is trying to SPARE the Legions who helped him fight the Iti! Or at least, who didn't gang up on him.

Regardless, this turn is a calm one. Packo moves to G7, closer to his allies.

==RP==
/working

==BATTLE==
Arthur moves up to H5, casts Noxious Plume on L3, molds an endothermic, light-emitting compound around a Searing Bomb (tuning its element to Light) and throws it at Splinter Spitter 1, then retreats to G4.

<ROUND ONE-HUNDRED SEVENTY-ONE>

Universal Understanding completes for Mari, granting the party an extra skillpoint! Neat!

---

Echoss does a few things. First, he sends a butterfly off to chat with Nana. It seems that she's moved herself back to the House, so the butterfly meets here there to drop off its message. She's still down on the couch, still seemingly a bit shaken.

NANA: H-Hm? Yeah, I'm feeling a bit better...
NANA: If you need me for something, I-I'll come along!
NANA: T-That place was really d-disgusting, t-though...
NANA: Hopefully, we don't need to deal with those people in the future...

NANA: A-Also, for future reference, i-it's Markhamia! Nana Markhamia.

Nana sinks into the couch, with what appears to be a cup of tea. It's color is quite interesting, but other than that, it seems to be rather normal.

Back in the Observation Station, Echoss loots the remaining 40 Spider Bones, and looks around for other things to break. There's really not much of interest, unless he feels like breaking the semi-sentient tools apart. Or the Projection Box. Both might be interesting to break, though.

He also spends the time to piece together another Searing Bomb. This uses a bit of Searing Powder, an Iron Ingot, and an Incendiary Scrap.

---

Hex... continues fishing. Was he fishing before? I forget, but he uses a piece of the... "Abomination" as bait. I don't think there's anything labelled as such within the inventory, so I'm going to assume you mean the Atrocity. The cake rolls a 7, fully regenerating itself and destroying the fish he's trying to catch. 25 Shredded Fish Chunks float to the surface. De...licious?

---

Venia's Maid continues to work the Everground. She drills violently into the ground, easily piercing two tiles of the ground and ripping 3 Rosetainted Metal from the vein. The two tiles of ground yield 64 Cobblestone total.

---

Auth nearly dies of chess. Marron lights up wtih a bit of shock as he collapses, a pool of blood pooling around his head. Ette takes notice too, but her reaction is... notably more subdued.

MARRON: J-Jeez!
MARRON: W-What the hell? W-What even happened?
MARRON: Am I really THAT bad at playing chess?
ETTE: (Author, please stop bleeding all over the kitchen. I don't want the batter to get contaminated!)
ETTE: (I've lost a strangely high amount of food to Marron bleeding on things after a scuffle. It's terrible.)

ETTE: (...Oh, right.)
ETTE: (U-Um, here!)

Ette quickly pops a heal on Auth, allowing him to recover a little sooner. Once he's recovered, she temporarily abandons her cooking duties to mop up Auth's blood pool. This leaves Marron to chat with Auth.

MARRON: You alright?
MARRON: Sorry if my chess skills are literally killing you somehow.
MARRON: Feels like a bit of an overreaction, don't you think?
MARRON: Maybe it's some weird vampiric medical condition, or something.

The Author then proceeds to give Marron a bit of friendly advice. Marron's shock upon learning that Mega Chesstron is cheating seems to be a little stronger than the shock she received upon watching the Author collapse.

MARRON: ...
MARRON: Wait, you CAN'T make Mega Chesstron?
MARRON: How about Duopawns? Or Siege Rooks? Spiderqueens?

MARRON: ...Anyway, I'll go and beat the gorilla out of Chaos!
MARRON: After this game! And you can join me!
MARRON: We'll bring baseball bats! Or better yet, KNIVES!

He then asks for Marron to tell him all the rules of chess she knows. She lists out most of the basics properly, but there's a few notable things...
-If a piece makes it to the end of the board, it promotes, obtaining a Class. Classes have various effects. For example, Assassins can teleport and assassinate pieces. Wizards can use Magic Missile. Warriors can perform AoE slam attacks, stunning pieces.
-Knights are fast, and have a 25% Dodge Chance. If they dodge successfully, the attacking piece dies instead. Bishops have Magical attacks though, and can always hit a Knight.
-Kings can grab pawns within a tile of them to fire off as missiles in a straight or diagonal line. This kills the pawn, but also the target piece.
-If the player in Black loses their king, they can re-summon their King onto the board, as well as all non-pawn pieces. This is apparently to offset first-turn advantage. It is also noted that Marron has historically always gone first in her games against Chaos.

The following list of rules will probably kill Auth again. Such is the dangers of being a chess professional.

---

Mustache Girl rests for a little longer, twiddling her thumbs. This restores the remaining bit of her HP. As she waits, she feels that the flames in the nest are finally starting to burn out. I mean, it might take another round, but it'll be soon!

---

<THE CARAVAN, ROUND SIX>
North: A few losses on this front- a Splinter Spider burned to death, and Chloe got shot. She's currently on the ground, and could probably use a medic and a reassuring headpat. Anyway, the Mechonis are both almost down- maybe the first one has a lot of HP left, but if you hit it with something it's weak to, you can drain the last of its MP!

Center: Not much to note here. Some injured people down south, and you've lost an allied Rebel, but you should be good to smack some Floofknights around now.

South: Adrian got chop'd by the Salt Wyvern. That's unideal, and you might want to fix him. Also, quick note; if you kill the Naclestial, I'll probably end the battle. Go and bop him for the good of all of us!

"No, no. It's fine Miss Markhamia I was simply making sure you were alright. We're still a bit preoccupied with finishing up the ambush in the pass, but I'm not sure you'd make it up in time to participate at this point if you were so inclined.
...Unfortunately we'll have to deal with them again, and likely soon. I understand your distaste however. Personal experience... ah... well... I have memories of my own that make me inclined to be less charitable towards the Cult even than I would be otherwise."
The hologram notices the strange color of the tea and walks over. The fact that Echoss makes the motion of walking despite clearly not standing on anything might seem a bit odd. Especially since he's just hovered in the past.
"If you don't mind my inquiry, what is that? It looks like tea, but if so it's not a brew I'm familiar with."


Battle Action
Echoss turns to face Scarlet 1.
"Heroic? Are you insinuating that getting focus fired for several seconds while barely able to stand is some kind of 'shameful' way to go down?
At the very least it's better than YOU. If I recall correctly you went down in roughly one or two hits and had to be rescued by your team's medic almost immediately.
If you think heroism is about flashy cutscenes and dramatic deaths put down your sword and go buy a microphone. You want to be a pop star, not a heroine. There's not room for drama queens on a battlefield, that gets people killed."

Echoss's Chibi Nia moves to N14 and then picks up Gaiawall 2 and places him carefully on O13. She then shoots Mechonis 1.

Echoss moves to P12 and turns around to face the Scarlet.
"Now, I know you and your friends are quite interested in the heroing bit, so I have a test for you that I get to administer because I'm not a hero."
He slings his launcher in front of his chest and pulls out two items. A holy dew and one of the paratoxin shurikens.
"In my hand, I have the ability to either cure you of the... heating problem you currently suffer from." he gestures at the flames flickering across the Scarlet's atire. "Or to make sure you go down properly here and now. My previous experience tells me that it won't be enough to kill you all the way, but being removed from consciousness by fire and poison together sounds like a rather unpleasant time no?"
He lowers the shuriken and raises the dew. "Of course, unlike a few other of your rebel cohorts, I'm not inclined to do this just to taunt you. Alternatively, you can swallow your pride for a little bit, and I'll toss you this holy dew in exchange for throwing down your weapons until the end of the battle. That shouldn't be too far off now, you haven't even touched our healer yet and half of your number went down all at once."

"So your test is this: which is more important as a heroine? Your pride? Or being able to still be standing to help your comrades in five minutes?" He gestures with the shuriken and holy dew in turn.

If the Scarlet throws down her weapon(s) and surrenders, Echoss tosses her the holy dew and turns around to shoot a shot with his regular weapon at Lurejet 2.
If the Scarlet stands defiantly to the end he loads the paratoxin shuriken into his gun and shoots her in the face with it.

No Flavor Text:
Echoss moves to P12 and offers Scarlet 1 an ultimatum. If she accepts and surrenders he uses a holy dew on the Scarlet then basic attacks Lurejet 2. If she rejects his offer he weapon skills her in the face with a paratoxin shuriken.
Chibi Nia moves to N14, moves the Gaiawall's body to O13, and then shoots Mechonis 1.


Overworld Action:
The Echoss golem in the observatory decides that smashing the tools probably isn't a worthwhile pursuit right at the moment, and instead opts to yoink the crate before scattering into butterflies and disappearing down the projection box to emerge in the gardens.

A minigolem arrives in front of the church of Helix and walks over to the rose cult totems.
"Alright you horrid things. Let's see you off." A bunch more butterflies come down, flickering and combusting into light that swirls together into a glimmering golden lumber axe. The golem hefts it and chops into one of the totems until it's almost all the way severed through. Then the golem walks around to the other side of it and hurls the axe at it. The axe impacts with so much for that the totem snaps off its base and then smashes the other two totems in its way before they all crumble to the ground.
"Good riddance."

Something flutters its way to the everground. A lot of somethings.
An Echoss Mini-golem arrives at the first floor of the Everground. It promptly gets its curse level to smack it over the head with whatever the magic construct equivalent of queasiness is by bringing up the Chairian corpse to the surface and burying them in the Crossroads, with a singular sapling planted over it with a plaque forged from a singular iron ingot.
"May your mistakes be forgiven, and your name remembered."
...shortly following that comes Pionobot. He seems oblivious to the small collection of butterflies following him at a wary distance. He hops his way down into the everground, not even bothering with the rope down. He's a super advanced sci-fi robot, he can handle a drop.

Finally, recalling the recipe which was used to make them, I assemble a 'standard crafting recipe' for the Crystal Bomb Cores out of 2 Iron, 1 Incendiary Scrap, and 3 Wire.


Actually finally because apparently we forgot that this was a thing: Mari's research station is tasked with researching Zoop. (Will be changed if I get any complaints from the discord)



(Note for later rounds. On Round 174 when the currently listed as blank space becomes actually available, get Sp33d/Auth Bronzewood, a Tier 4/5 materials. A wood that is strong enough to be used as armor plating for space trains, choo choo!)

Boshi looks to his side, and notices the Rebel medic from earlier. He seems... confused. And conflicted.

"(...Why are you here...? And, more importantly, why are you fighting alongside us, when just a little while ago we were fighting each other...?)"

"(...No really, I'm genuinely confused. I get those Scarlet girls, wanting to kill the Husk and help that Maria kid out; they seem like the 'heroic' type... but why you?)"

"(...maybe the rebels aren't all bad eggs, now that i think about it...)"

"(...you should probably help your ally out, though. I'm gonna make sure that mage up there doesn't do much more damage.)"

Boshi walks over to (Q3), and baps the Blizzard Robe. He then sorta just stands there.

---

Bow Kid, now rested, hops down from the tower (on the side where it is peaceful), and heads toward the Gate area to meet up with Maria. Though when she gets there, she instinctively just keeps her distance, opting to sit on the Crank. She shoots a quick "...Hi" over to Maria, before watching the battle unfold.

---

There is quite literally a small pile of paper near the couch now. Sophia went through several exterior designs, and none of them really took her fancy. But it seems she wasn't about to give up so easily. She keeps at it.

---

MU, now fully rested up, climbs down the chain and heads over to the fire, waiting for it to go out so that she can pillage the resources safely.

RP: Northern Caravan

Venia holds firm against the deadly onslaught of the Mechonis again, but can only watch in horror as Chloe hits the ground. "CHLOE!" Venia screams.

Her eyes hastily surveil the area-though the situation was worrisome, the enemies were on the ropes. Even a few more foes less and they'd be surrendering. She closes her eyes and focuses on the newest grouping of enemies, rather than trying to take quick revenge on the Mechonis.

"You should've surrendered earlier, saved us the time!" Venia shouts. "We won't falter! Not for you, not for anything!"

---

Maria

Maria continues cheering on everyone from the safety of the gate. "Go beat him up! Say mean words at him!"

And then she jumps a little when Bow Kid surprises her. "Oh! Oh oh oh. You are, uh, the Bow Kid person. That is a silly name. What're you doin' here? How'd you get here? I'm here because Cushion flew me here. I love Cushion."

---

Everground

The Maid's left arm points towards the Fluxtainted metal beneath her feat. It opens up like a case, revealing more inside it than should be possible-a massive array of mechanically compressed items and tools, each seemingly perfect for the job of removing a pesky vein of metal from the vicinity. The tools and tendrils extend towards the Fluxtainted metal and meticulously extract it until it is no further but +3 to the Inventory.

---

Battle: Northern Caravan

"Mari! Follow my lead! Fire a Nanostorm where I fire it, and let's take down these freaks.!"

Venia's Whimsey uses another sprintfly to H14 and sprintfire a shot at Lurejet1. Cute wink. She also tosses Venia a much-needed Eterna Tea. Venia just swallows the whole thing cup and all right then and there.

Venia first tosses a Lumipod directly into the Chairian Ranger. This applies Unify, dramatically reducing the chance of any untowed evasion. Then, Venia burns most of her mana to charge her magitech nanites and have them swarm the hell out of N16, hitting all three summoned Iti plus the Chairian Ranger. Mari, as asked, should hopefully perform Nanostorm now on the same tile (on top of any other actions she sees fit to do).

"They're at the breaking point everyone, keep fighting!"

---

More?

Later! If at all.