Hall of a bunch of statues that exists for, as it turns out, a rather well-defined reason

Satisfied with the change in environmental conditions, Veldanura is about to move on...

"Battle concluded. Sister, if you would be so kind, could you handle this next one?"

Veldanura contemplates for a bit, mandibles clicking in mild irritation, then accepts.

"Very well."

She promptly disappears, while her sister picks up where she left off, inspecting the door and keypad...


Battle - The Holodomor

Hey wait that's not the right name-

Battle - The Holodome

That's better.

Veldanura appears. Spawning at D8 and moving to H6, she selfcasts Focus Energy as a full action and Sword Beam as a bonus action.

[REC ROOM]

Percy blinks at Sag1, utterly speechless. "Uuuh..." he drawls, his mouth opens wide enough to eat his shocked eyeballs. He lets the noise drone on, as though it can fill the gap between him and the Sagittarius.

Um... Percy. I hate to mention this, but you're interrupting the movie.

Percy jumps in his seat, and his jaw snaps shut, almost biting his tongue. He blinks heavily, forcing himself to think.

"Yeah," he says to the Sag, "A test. Right..."

He rubs his forehead. "Oh jeez," he mumbles. "This is too much." He raps his knuckles against his skull. "Headache fuel, here."

Percy shakes himself out. When he stills, he seems slightly better. More focused.

"The Lord hasn't left me," he reasons, mostly to himself. "I left Him." This seems to make sense to him. "The One ascended, and this is a test to see if I will follow." He nods deeply. "And the rich guy is like- temptation. Not to be destroyed. Just... ignore it! Turn his own words against him."

He mulls on this, and his eyes pop open wide again. "Yeah! He told me where the Lord is. Now, I just need to follow!"

Percy drops down on his knees in front of the couch. With his head down, he mutters, "Forgive me, Lord. I forgot my place. Show me the way." He places his hand on his chest. "I'm Feeling Lucky."

With that prayer spoken, he pops back up, taking his seat next to Sag1. "Thank you," he whispers, trying not to interrupt the show. He then proceeds to lean back, enjoying not the show, but his own piece of mind.

[CELL BLOCK ZETTA]

Percy's ears perk up when he hears about a Final Battle. "At last," he breathes. "The end to this legend." He steps through the portal and-

[THE THUNDER- I MEAN, HOLODOME]

Percy zaps in at D8, hopping through a pop-up window and landing like a Tik-Tok star.

Immediately, his eyes fall upon Hexagon, and his jaw drops. "Oh Bard," he mutters. "Now that's a Devil."

Then he sees everybody else rushing to the top left corner. "Hey!" he shouts. "Wait up guys!"

Percy rushes to E7, clips through F6 and G5, then runs the rest of the way to I4.

Landing on I4, Percy comes to a halt. He looks around, realizing he overshot everyone else. "Whoops..."

Then he spots Velandura a bit closer to Hexagon, charging their attack. And Percy gets an idea.

Reaching into his War Tome, he produces a single, ENORMOUS pin. He hefts it over his shoulder, the needle as tall as he is. "If this doesn't pin him," he mumbles, "nothing will."

Percy chucks the pin, casting Pinning Shot on Hexagon. The needle pierces through the geometric fiend, locking them in place.

Meanwhile, Velandura finds Hexagon stuck at just the right angle for them to strike. (Designated Marksman on Velandura).

Looking at Hexagon, Percy mumbles, "I should pray more." And I couldn't agree more.

Trecim spawns on D8 and runs to I8, where he self-casts Focus Energy as a full action, annoyingly one square out of boom range.

Firefly spawns on D11, shmooves to G14, and casts Flare on Hexagon.

Scope Creep and Parsnip change their gear! I'm going to note that Scope Creep fails to reinvest KP from SPC to a perk because they don't, in fact, have KP in SPC. They keep Grave Undertaking.

---

Scope Creep exposes the Administrator to horrors that are actually significantly within human comprehension. Wowee. The Administrator nevertheless floats a few microfootball fields of distance back, the A on the screen rotating in a approximation of fear.

"ADMINISTRATOR": ...???
"ADMINISTRATOR": This isn't funny anymore. Not that it was in the first place. This is a, er, very serious beta test.
"ADMINISTRATOR": You can drop the "sentient glitch" act now. Ha ha. Very funny. Good bit.

The Administrator is yet to recognize the gravity of the situation.

---

"Excuse me for dropping in!" - Winston, but maybe also Monnobaki right now. This is because Monnobaki has appeared.

She inspect the door and keypad. On futher inspection, this lock is clearly ridiculous. Not only is it seemingly meant to accept a key where a key should go, it has a variety of COMPLETELY unnecessary feature attached to it. There's a serious of various cogs, buttons, and switches on the side, spitting out steam. There's a face ID scanner pointed at the wall. There's a series of cameras all attached to it as well- except on further inspection, none of them are plugged. It's questionable if this lock would even function if you had the key and knowledge to open it..

...really, who designed this thing? It looks more like a rich person's idea of a extremely advanced lock instead of actually being a functional security device in any way, whatsoever. Does it even have a defense against powerful lockpicks like "a particularly sharp sword"?

---

The Sagitarius nods sagely as Percy experiences Religious Enlightenment. Or, maybe not Enlightenment- Percy still appears to have 0 Buff Levels. But Percy does feel at peace with the universe.

SAGITTARIUS: I AM GLAD TO HELP. I WOULD SAY I Live to Serve. BUT THAT IS UNTRUE.
SAGITTARIUS: I ACTUALLY LIVE TO SHOOT PEOPLE IN SIMULATED COMBAT SCENARIOS. BUT I HAVE FOUND THIS RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION ENJOYABLE.
SAGITTARIUS: THE SIMPLE JOYS IN LIFE. PERHAPS I SHOULD PURSUE CAREERS IN: Inner Peace, Philosophy, Deep Thinking, Cultural Exchange.

[WORLD]
Scope Creep makes a jittering motion almost reminiscent of a cackle, then refocuses on looking at Administrator, turning its head exactly 3.030 degrees off from perfectly level relative to the monitor's camera.

{Red: I am No Glitch.
Gold: AS Said I, I AM THAT I AM
Blue: To See ERRoR in Me is only your Perception
White: As Scope Creep (concept incarnate), I LOVE Beta Tests!}
The nearby rainling then approaches the Administrator
Rainling?: Who is this fool, summoner? Are they the Astrec you transmitted of?
Scope Creep then utters the Administrators full IP address, voidlatitude and voidlongitude. doxxed
note this is actually impossible for scope creep to do because that would constitute a sentence which is actually comprehensible to read normally. At best it could utter them all at the same time in an incoherent-sounding jumble.

[BATTLE]
Scope Creep leans forwards incredibly far. So far that it's like Scope Creep is on F10! One quick cast of Thorn Patch (Amplifier mode: Buff levels.) and a nice hard knock to the floor later, and the glitching flooring's collision detection starts working again, sending shards of broken Cover all over the place- specifically to J11, I11, I7, H8, J6, and I9! Every enemy takes 16-18 earth damage! unless one of them dodges. one of Scope Creep's golden limbs zips forwards and smacks Hexagon (unless one of the Holosabers lived, then it smacks that one), the recoil from the hit sending Scope Creep back into a standing position on D9.
(Scope Creep considers casting Tumbling Walls, but figures there will be a better time to deal 24-30 Earth Damage to all enemies in range 1 of up to 4 walls, like once there are more than 3 living entities to afflict thereby. Plus, with the earlier hit, that could just outright down the witch?, losing a chance for achievement progress.)

Meanwhile, the Rainling moves to F10 and, since nobody is all that hurt, pegs Hexagon with its basic attack.

Parsnip looks over the map and considers his options and enacts it with setting his Crystalline Amplifier to cost reduction mode.

First, he throws a Lunchable at Zalek and hopes that Zalek can eat it in time than schmooves over to H4 where he purifies Percy of all his sins. Which is the ViralPoisoning. This creates an Ice Cover at H5

He than zoom over to J3 and Bonus Wind Veldanura who might be in a bit of a pickle. Hopefully having a dodge of 91 and a heal-on-dodge will help sort that out. As a bonus, the Ice will heal Veldanura up for 5 HP and MP.

Rec Room

QUOTE (Adria @ May 9 2023, 11:27 PM)

Abigail stands there. She doesn't even bat an eye (heh) at Emericald's ominous statement. Actually, she seems... pleased? ABIGAIL: Oh good, you're actually alive! ABIGAIL: Funny, I was about to poke you. ABIGAIL: Like... dunno, a dead animal! She giggles and hefts the bat over her shoulder. She then pulls a baseball out of her sleeve. ABIGAIL: Catch!~ She then... gently lobs it to Emericald's hands. What. ABIGAIL: ...What? She takes several steps backwards, not taking her eyes off of Emericald. ABIGAIL: Did you think I was actually gonna cave your skull in, silly? ABIGAIL: Nah. You should've seen the look on your face, though! Priceless! Hehehe~ The girl stances up again. ABIGAIL: I mean, obviously, beating you senseless isn't gonna bring sis's hat back. ABIGAIL: So, I figured I might as well have a bit o' fun instead! oh god and louisi's asleep too ABIGAIL: Now, come onnnn, I'm waaaaaitiiiiiing!~

EMERICALD: Oh, alright!

The ^-^ is back, as if it never left. Emericald tosses the baseball up-and-down, discarding his project into a pocket before crossing the room and assuming a pitcher's stance.

EMERICALD: Here comes the pitch!

The ball is now airborne. Your shit is fucked.

Battle

Emericald moves to F6, casts Blizzard Aura on his Wisp, then retreats to E5. The Wisp uses Energy Drain on Hexagon, before scooting to F7.

EMERICALD: ...Good to hear.
SGT. EXPLOSION: EXPLOSION COLLECTIVE WILL BUST DOWN YOUR DOOR AND HAND YOU A MOTHERFUCKING CHECK.

[REC ROOM]

The Sagittarius's words get Percy thinking, which is a scary thing. Percy hardly knows how to rub two digital neurons together, let alone think.

"Cultural exchange..." he mutters under his breath. He seems to mull that over. And I mean, a Sniper/Anthropologist multiclass would be pretty fun. Learning all about human behavior so you can call your shots. Friendship is deadly.

Unfortunately, Percy isn't on the same wavelength. To the Sag, he says, "You know, the longer I stay here, the more this place seems like a video game." Keyword: seems. "I mean, I don't tell a lot of people this-" Except for the anyone who bothered to read his Bio. "-but I was actually an NPC growing up." ...Don't ask. I'm not quite sure how he "grew up" either.

As I continue to tear up his dialogue, Percy persists. "And it occurs to me that I wanted to spread the word of The One because I believed His Will was the best for my kind. NPC's, you know."

"But really, maybe I should be taking things into my own hands. A sort of cultural exchange program to make a united culture for NPC's. Get everyone on the same page so we can take on the powers that be."

Percy grins at the Sag. "It's the sort of movement that could use more Sniper Philosophers. In case things go south, you know."

He shrugs. "Just a thought." He leans back in his seat and goes back to watching the movie, listening to the Sag's response.

[THE HOLODOME]

Meanwhile, the debate around Percy's religious orientation rages on! Who will win? Find out next time on- Wait. Uh... this is next time, isn't it? Uuh...

Percy is entirely surprised that Hexagon actually responded! "Oh," he blurts, not knowing how to handle this. "I said that out loud, didn't I?"

Percy throws together a quick argument. "Well, I mean... hexagons. I hear Christians hate the number 6 for some reason. And... uh... Venting! I saw you vent! You can't deny that! SUS!" ...Cringe.

After those witty arguments, Percy seems to pull himself together. "In all seriousness, your robotic form is a reflection of your desire to become more than your true self. You extend your geometric core into the shape of your Creator in a hope of emulating His POWER. This denial of being degrades you, locking you in the cage of your own private Hell. You are the Lord of Demons that reside within your metallic shell. Within, you consume your innocent soul, which leads you to rain Hellfire upon those that you hold dear."

A glass of water appears in Percy's hand, and he takes a sip. Tossing the glass over his shoulder, he adds, "Or something like that. It's all a little hazy, and God hasn't been answering my calls, so I can't double check with Him."

...ANYWAYS. Back to... playing the game.

Percy scoots over to L6.

Then, Percy opens up his War Tome. He opens up Google Docs, creates a new document, and starts playing around with Google Labs. He gives it the prompt "Define a Devil." It generates something about the "supernatural"- "temptation" and "sin." Who cares?

Percy hits elongate a few times until he's got a nice fifty page essay on the definition of "a Devil." Then he copy pastes that, prints it out, and dumps it on the enemy team! Casting Slow, Percy targets the whole enemy team, sending them his manuscript, which really weighs them down. In addition, he burns the extra 3 MP to add sticky notes to Hexagon's and Inspector?'s stacks that read "This is about you." That probably annoys them both, taunting Hexagon and Inspector?.

"And the Universe still won't give me Enlightenment."

TURN ORDER:
Aqua (will move somewhere, do an action, and Fae Friend FF)
FF flirts Inspector? to L10 and moves to K10.
Trecim
FF basic-attacks Hexagon.
Everyone Else

Hall of the worst-designed door security system in existence

"...This door."

Monnobaki stares at the door in temporary disbelief, absolutely baffled by the amount of semi-contradictory redundant systems. After some time spent analyzing the door, she concludes that it is in some way heretical due to being an abomination of design, and so attempts to crusade the door out of existence.

Which probably won't do much, since her basic attack only hits for 10 damage if she's lucky.


Battle - The Holodome

Veldanura senses some tension in the air. She's so ready to have a moment. She'd consider it her moment, but to be fair she did get some support from others, and this isn't going to be the peak of her lifetime, let alone her postlife existence.

"...Prepare to perish."

Veldanura moves to D10, basic attacks Hexagon, and retreats to E11.

Rec Room

The ball is now airborne. Your shit is fucked.

Abigail swings her bat, barely missing Sag1...

THWACK! Perfect Hit!

The baseball cuts clean through the air above Emericald and Scope Creep, punching through the roof (again) in an orange streak- wait, orange?

Ah peck, here we go again...

The ball was clearly hit at incredible speeds; it's launched clear from the simulation's bounds...

ABIGAIL: Give it a sec, it'll come down soon.

and sure enough, it flies in from the approximate opposite direction. Judging by the trajectory, it's going to loop around again. H-how hard can this lady hit a baseball!? Abigail grins.

ABIGAIL: Anyway, that was fun! Let's do it again sometime!~

She gives Emericald a wink, then walks away, towards the Hall of Players and the ??? room as the baseball careens towards the locked door in that room.

It directly hits the stick of dynamite. Aaaaaaand now it's on fire.

Well, peck.

After what's probably an explosion, Abigail stands there, shrugging.

ABIGAIL: Oopsie!

this probably warrants more than an "oopsie" abby

Holodome

LOUISI: And I took that personally.

Louisi moves to (G4) and casts Mental Ray - Feeblemind - Feeblermind. She retreats back to (F4).

LOUISI: Alt+F4 yourself, dumbpeck.

Acting before Veldanura and Scope Creep, Trecim waits for Aqua's turn and Firefly's movement phase, then casts Locus of Rage on Firefly and Veldanura. If they don't have enough MP, they eat a Rare Candy first. They then activate Workplace Unsafety to spawn Exposed Machinery on H8.

== TURN TWELVE==

Posts under this post will be counted for the next round of combat. ..unless you ping me and specify its for this dop!

This Update Sponsored By: Battle for Everyone's Soul

==

Scope Creep scares the actual living daylights out of the Administrator. The Administrator's hand retracts into its robot body, and then pops back out as a nerf gun. It levels it at Scope Creep.

"ADMINISTRATOR": ...you.. uh..
"ADMINISTRATOR": Wait.

It swivels the gun to point at the Weatherling.

"ADMINISTRATOR": What did you just say?
"ADMINISTRATOR": That name is..
"ADMINISTRATOR": ...NOTHING of concern! Just part of this obvious error, which, er, haha.
"ADMINISTRATOR": Is.. very helpful at beta testing! Yep. In fact, you make a excellent point, error!
"ADMINISTRATOR": I'm definitely not worried, actually. You're such a upstanding citizen. No problem here. Yep.
"ADMINISTRATOR": please don't doxx me

---

Emericald begins a game of basebol. This seems pretty innocent. It's a good thing both participants have good aim, a keen eye, and there are no impact-sensitive explosives in the vicinity. That'd be terrible.

---

Percy speaks. The Sagittarius listens.

SAGITTARIUS: A FASCINATING IDEA.
SAGITTARIUS: PERHAPS THERE IS: MERIT IN IDEA..
SAGITTARIUS: STILL. SMALL ISSUE. DIGITALITY.
SAGITTARIUS: NEVER BEFORE HAVE I SEEN ANY WAY TO ESCAPE CONFINES OF THIS LOCALIZED COMBAT SIMULATION.
SAGITTARIUS: DISCLAIMER: I HAVE ALSO ONLY BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR One Hundred Hours, Forty Seven Minutes, and Eight Seconds.

The Sagittarius puts a hand to its blocky chin.

SAGITTARIUS: ANY SOLUTION TO TRANSFERENCE? UNLESS YOU MEAN TO: LOCALIZE ORGANIZATION ENTIRELY WITH...

The Sagittarius regards the party. Some of them are playing baseball. Some of them are asleep. One of them is Trecim. One of them is even a capitalist.

SAGITTARIUS: THEM.

---

Monnobaki.. whacks the door! A resounding clang rings out. The door shakes, lights beeping. Smoke begins to emit from it, as a mechanic hand reaches out, twists around, and pushes a button on the opposite side. This causes a light to activate, a wire stretching out of the floor and suddenly connecting itself to another part of the lock. This part of the lock opens up, revealing a cuckoo clock. A mechanical cuckoo bursts out of it, triggering a motion sensor. This motion sensor quickly unfolds, revealing a bright red light labelled "INTRUDER DEFENSE SYSTEM".

The "lock" beeps aggresively, vibrating, as the card reader unfolds, rapidly revealing and then dispensing a series of knives! ..with.. no force. They all anticlimatically land at Monnobaki's feet, completely failing to harm them.

The lock beeps, printing a slip of paper. It reads "INTRUDER VANQUISHED."

---

.
Abigail PLAYS BALL. The ball goes flying. And.. flying.. and.. flying. If the Administrator wasn't trying to convince Scope Creep trying to ruin things right now, he'd probably be mildly terrified right now. The wind whistles. The earth sighs. The ball comes CRASHING down.. landing right on the stick of dynamite. There's a small moment of silence. Then, it explodes. Smoke and rubble fills Monnobaki and Abigail's vision, and when it clears..

..the lock and door are miraculously intact. But the wall isn't. In fact, the door is just kinda free standing now, the room behind it completely exposed. Behind it is ...

..a ball pit. Wait, what? There's just a huge ball pit behind the lock. Around it are a assembly of Holograms, who all look up and stare at Abigail, completely nonplussed. The Sentries staring directly at her are mildly menacing. The Administrator's voice rings out over the intercom.

"ADMINISTRATOR": Wait, did you get into the PIT?
"ADMINISTRATOR": How did you get past the security system?




help all my assignments are due on thursday im dying squirte

Parsnip decides to choose violence and begins by violently destroying a munchable with their bare teeth. Mmm Mending4 for 3 turns. He then moves to G3 and punches the Missile1 there for massive damage and taps 5 MP for another action. That Action is an overall -2 Buff Levels Nanostorm at K7 to start blasting the Mirror Images to crisps and healing Percy, proccing Merciful and Live to Serve. He then flips its mode over to cost reduction and if I calculated this correctly, Bonus Winds himself for exact MP. It’s not going to be particularly big boost, but its exact.

Rec Room

...Instead of being concerned that there's a Ball Pit here at all, Abigail beams with excitement.

ABIGAIL: BALL PIT!

She excitedly leaps into it, childlike wonder emanating from her very core.

Holodome

LOUISI: Still alive?
LOUISI: Good.
LOUISI: I'm not done with you yet.

Louisi moves exactly 1 tile north, to (G3). She then pulls out a Scroll of Tumbling Walls, and grins.

LOUISI: Thanks for standing near walls, idiots.

She casts Tumbling Walls! (Has (17-20) Earth Damage and 4 Tiles)

Tile 1 is (J6), hitting the Witch? and Missile 2.
Tile 2 is (F6), hitting the Holosaber nearby.
Tile 3 is (H11), hitting Hexagon.
Tile 4 is (I9), hitting the Holosaber nearby.

If her Clone is still alive, Louisi then casts Flare Star on the Witch?. Base level, as usual. Otherwise, she activates Enhance Weapon and shoots the Inspector?.

LOUISI: Dance, monkey, DANCE!~

She then retreats back to (G4).

[WORLD]
Rather than respond to probably-Astrec, Scope Creep starts moving around incomprehensibly. Glitching into the chair stack, backflipping off it, floating upside down on the ceiling, floating the limbs twice as far from the body, crawling under the table, and so on.
After a bit of this, Scope Creep's body flashes through a series of colors, the seven colors of the earthly rainbow and 4 extra colors that are quite entirely outside of ordinary colorspace but still consist of combinations of red, green, and blue- even if some of those are... in the negatives.

[BATTLE]
Meanwhile in the Battle, Scope Creep twirls around on the spot, smacks the floor a few times, enters a fourth-dimensional idle animation for half a second, and glares at nothing for exactly 12.8 seconds. Suddenly, Scope Creep darts to G7, and casts Strotam (Manaflow: Buff Levels. 14||17 healing to all allies in range 1-2. It's actually just to Trecim (and I guess the weatherling moves up to be in range too, sure.)), gains a Familiar out of nowhere (Manaflow: Cost reduction makes it perfectly fit into 26 MP with Strotam. The Familiar is a Wisp on H9.), Retreats to H9, and casts Spawn Point(Manaflow: cost reduction) from Scroll to H9(64 HP, 3 AC.).

(If using Special counts as a 'full-action skill' as opposed to a 'full-action special' or something, ping a Holosaber with goldlight limbs.)
(The plan is to tank Vent Heat, gain a 40% Fire Weakness from the Igniblight, and next turn, swap places with the Familiar, get healed by Rainling, and have the familiar tank Vent Heat to send 50% of the damage to Scope Creep for the achievement, because nobody has enough HP to tank a Vent Heat Fullcrit with Igniblight4(nor has a natural 40% fire weakness) normally after this turn. I guess Aqua's Celestial Shell might also work to permit it I dunno.)

Aside from stopping in range of Strotam's healing, the Rainling moves on to J8, picks up the Witch's Corpse as a bonus action, dumps the corpse on G7, and smacks Hexagon again.

Rec Room

EMERICALD: Indeed! Ball pit.

Emericald steps into the ball pit, staring forward unnervingly as he slowly sinks beneath the colored balls.

Battle

Emericald's Wisp casts Energy Drain on Hexagon again, before moving to D6 and ticking its Blizzard Aura.

Emericald uses the Scroll of Elemental Chemistry, casting a Psychic Cloud ((14-16) Psychic due to scaling) with the Oppressive Toxins and Chemical Bomb modifiers on G9. He then pulls out his FUNNY RAILGUN and Shoots Hexagon with it for (11-13) Ice damage (counting the Empowered).

EMERICALD: ...Huh, that was supposed to be an ice cloud.

Firefly acts first!

She shmooves to O10 and casts Flare on H10, hitting exclusively Hexagon.

Zalek runs to G11 and unloads his Double Barrel into Hexagon.