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B2 - Chapter 11 – Flame and the convoy
🕑 Added 2024-11-13 03:18:23 +0000 UTCJace sprinted at his top speed to the center of the still-standing region of Campinas. He felt the heat surging in his torso, up his neck – but it stopped there. His thoughts were clear, and his mind was made up. He would finish the job here, then move up to Rio de Janeiro and regroup with his allies. And, he had a plan to quickly wrap up in this city.
Ollie tapped the top of his head, “We’re here,” he said softly.
Jace came to a stop and nodded. “One more Archmage spell and we’re done here.”
“Are you…you sure you are okay with this?”
Yes and no, Jace wanted to reply. Yes because they chose to work for this corp and they’re not innocent. No because they don’t need to die for me to accomplish my objective. “I worded it poorly last time,” is what he said as he put his hands out in front of him. “We’re at the center, right?”
“Yes. What do you plan?”
Jace grimaced, “Being smarter than before.” Clearing his throat, he spoke slowly and methodically, having thought about the precise wording on his way here. After all, the spell-turned-Skill would function based upon his spoken words. “Burn all the machinery that produces products within the full area of the Skill, without harming the people or destroying the buildings. Pyromancy – activate.”
From his hands, a bead of red light ascended into the sky. Fifty feet up, and then expanded into an enormous, roiling inferno that surged down into the streets, buildings, and around the people he wanted to exclude.
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[Batch Quest Completed: Stop Pheracorp operations in Campinas.]
[Current Progress: 100%]
[Time Limit: 8 hours.]
[Reward: Artifact (Equipment) Boon.]
[Sender: Dark Between Stars]
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“Smart,” Ollie said as his voice became a bit more like his usual tone. “You worded it precisely to not injure people.”
“I was dumb with that geomancy thing earlier,” Jace muttered as he lowered his hands and willed his Skills – except for Dark Matter Cloak and his passive ones – to shut off. “I was angry and just wanted to destroy it all quickly.” It’s not an excuse for the people I killed…but I can be better going forward.
He looked down at his hand and flexed it, watching the Cosmic Power symbol dance along the outside of his limb. “I…Xera was right; it was a small number of people in the grand scheme of the System. But if I can do my job without killing bystanders – even if they sealed their fate by siding with these megacorporations – I’m going to try and prevent the collateral damage.”
Ollie patted Jace’s cheek reassuringly, “Good. Surviving for her, right?”
“Yeah,” Jace replied. “Surviving for Chroma. Always. And hey, who knows? Maybe if I hit Tier 10, I can bring everyone I ever killed back. No one has gotten that far, so not even you know.”
“Very true.”
Jace looked around at the buildings around him and saw workers walking out amongst smoke and the blare of alarms. Walking into one of the buildings, he saw slagged machinery that was a melted, useless mess. A few of the workers were sporting burns – possibly from being in contact with the machinery. Leaving the building, he used his grapnel line to ascend to the roof.
Out to the horizon, he saw naught but smoke. Well, I got the maxed-out Batch Quest reward. Might as well use it. Quick stock, then. He pulled up his information screen. “Ollie, run down the list of my Equipment and the Tier world it comes from. I want to replace my lowest ones, first.”
“At Tier 8 you have your Anathema Arm – not replacing that anytime soon. Tier 2 you have Nethaldrim, Aegisleather, Ghostlight Grapnel Arm, All-seeing Dragon’s Eyes, Mind’s Eye Amulet, Thellor’s Everguard, the Wildercloth tent, and the Devilsram wool bedroll. Tier 1 you have the Dragonclaw Devastation Legs, and the Venture Pack.”
“The hell does the bedroll do?”
“It is really comfortable.”
Jace rolled his eyes, “Well, I use my legs the most. Let’s use that Artifact (Equipment) Boon on some new legs.”
“Roger! I’d sit down, if I was you.”
Jace sat down on the roof and bit down on the inside of his mask, anticipating the surge of pain he knew would accompany the swap of prosthetics. He gave Ollie a nod.
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[Using Boon: Artifact (Equipment).]
[Manifesting.]
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Jace bit down harder and grunted in pain as the CIF fluid – visible to him due to his prosthetic eyes – traveled from the toe-claws of his feet all the way up to his hips and surged back into him. The rush of warmth and absence of feeling in the now-limp appendages made it feel as if he lost both of his legs again.
Less than a second later his body from the hips-down was covered in the light-blue stars of The Cosmic System at work, and after five more seconds the light vanished, and the CIF surged from his body into the new legs, enabling him to feel the sensations once more. He gasped for breath as he let the mask loose in his teeth and reached down to roll up one of his pant legs.
The new prosthetics were a deep, cool, steel-grey color with rigid golden inlay in a circuitry pattern. Inspecting the foot, he saw an omni-directional joint and flexing his toes saw sharp blades jut out of the toes and heel. “Thank God for that,” Jace said with relief. “I got used to feet-claws.”
“These are called (Overclocked / Lightfoot) Steelstalker Sabatons. Clawed and bladed feet for combat and climbing surfaces, omni-directional ankle and knee joints, and a once per day use of Steel Gale Stride: which enables the user to run on air for ten seconds, leaving behind a slicing, carving line of wind that cuts like a blade.”
Jace grinned, “I can run on the air?”
“Yup!”
He stood up and felt the ground under the prosthetic feet. The claws retracted and the almost boot-like appearance blended perfectly with his clothing. “Well, that wraps up Campinas. Let’s check in with Priam, Greg, and Quinn to see where they’re at.”
>>>---<<<
Priam was sitting in the APC. Quinn had pulled them into an old garage that was once in-use, but now abandoned with no equipment inside. An ancient building that was fully gutted. He had no clue why this Pheracorp didn’t use the building – but Greg theorized that they consolidated everything to the wind, tidal, and solar energy farms towards the oceans. They weren’t even all the way towards this coastal city. It was still a few hours’ drive away.
He sighed as he brushed the rim of the hat he held in his hands. His Dad’s hat, which was the only piece of the man he had left. I miss you, he thought. But Tier 10…and I can bring you back. He glanced sideways at Bloopa, the Wayfinder collection of shapes and symbols that rotated in the air. The Oslia, Priam’s species, could interpret such collections of shapes.
Jace has reached out. Campinas has been dealt with and all manufacturing has been disabled.
“That was…very quick,” Priam stated.
“What was that?” Greg asked as he looked into the back of the APC through the open roof slot.
“Oh, Bloopa said that Jace finished his part!”
Quinn poked her head into the same roof slot alongside Greg; her face smeared with grease as her new eyes – a deep, sea green color – gazed at Priam. “How?”
“Good question. Bloopa?”
Those Archmage spells.
“He used magic-based Skills,” Priam replied to his allies.
Quinn nodded, “Well, tell him to head our way. We’ll need all the help we can get.” She tapped the top of the APC, “I’m almost done fixing up the holographic camouflage array. Then we can head to either the wind farms, solar farms, or towards the tidal generators. But it’ll be a few hours up the road in any event.”
Priam nodded. He’d been reading up on his sliverscreen while they’d been driving up to this city, Rio de Janeiro. There used to be an enormous statue of a deity-like figure that welcomed people to the city – but it was destroyed during a war waged by Pheracorp against the government of a nation known as Brazil. In its place, on the hills and mountains above the city, solar panels had been set up.
Thousands of them. Priam had been given a homework assignment by Quinn – to figure out how best to use his Cosmic Power to disable them. Since he was a user of the Pulsar power source, he could make magnetic and electric fields by touch alone. If he was able to touch each panel, he could cause them to warp and bend – making them almost impossible to repair and functionally useless.
The other two options were riskier. Both were off the coast – with the enormous windmills on spurs of land called jetties that extended into the sea; and further out, the tidal generators floating upon the ocean’s surface. They were tethered to the ocean floor. Those would be much harder to get to and sabotage.
But we have to figure it out, Priam thought. We can’t let them corrupt a Godheart into this…weird AI. I need to put it to rest. Plus…a new divine-magic based Skill would be very handy given my soul energy coefficient. “How long will it take Jace to get here?”
“Depends,” Quinn replied as her head was drawn back through the roof of the APC. “We aren’t that far from Campinas, honestly. On foot? He could be here in about an hour. By vehicle? Thirty minutes.”
Greg nodded as he got off the top of the APC and came around to the back, getting in alongside Priam. He shut the roof entrance, and Quinn got into the driver’s seat. Priam took his seat and pulled the hat on his head with his Wayfinder inside of it. Greg sighed and kicked his legs up on the bench-style seat, “We should just send Jace our location and wait here for him. Head up to Rio together, and then deal with each power type one at a time.”
Quinn nodded, “A smart idea. I’ll send him our coordinates.”
Greg looked over at Priam and met the bunny-boy’s gaze. “You good?”
Priam nodded, “Yeah…just that Godheart. I have only heard about them from my Dad and read about them in some of his books taken from my home world.”
“Shit!” Quinn shouted as the car started up. “Buckle up you two!”
Priam did so, and Greg got to the front passenger seat, “What is going on?” Greg asked.
“We’ve got company coming in hot!”
Priam felt the pulse of energy surge over and through him. The sliverscreen he was holding went dead. Instantly, he knew exactly what happened thanks to his connection to electricity and magnetism. An electro-magnetic pulse. It shut down all the devices!
Quinn slammed the steering console, “Damnit! How’d they find us? I disabled everything they could use to track!”
“Even the bioware?” Greg asked.
“Yes! First thing I did when I got them.”
Greg cursed and got out of the APC, “You two get it back up and running. I’ll deal with it.” Priam heard the zip of the duffel bag and the clack of Greg racking a slide on that firearm. This was followed up by a loud, metal screech as the doors to this abandoned structure were pushed aside.
Priam unbuckled and crawled up front, “How can I help?”
>>>---<<<
Damnit, Greg thought as he looked out at an armored convoy that was traveling towards Campinas down the road. The abandoned structure that the group’s APC was in was close enough that the vehicle in the center of the column had included them in the radius. An EMP-secured transport crew.
Greg had dealt with them before. They were hard targets to hit. Each of the vehicles was insulated against EMP so they could travel just fine – but anything else coming within range would be shut down. If he had just stayed inside the shed, they would never have seen him.
But here he was, standing next to the road as they began to roll by. Even dropping down to his knees to get behind the slight concrete barrier was not enough. He had been spotted, and the convoy rolled to a stop. Damnit! Okay, sitrep.
Twelve corpo-mercs, each carrying a rifle of identical make and model. Pheracorp Holdings AR Model 19XR, with holographic sights and threat identification. Thermal scope capability. Armor piercing rounds with explosive tips and alternate ammunition types from the multi-magazine feed. It was an advanced rifle, for sure.
But no mechs. Those were notoriously difficult to protect against EMP. That, and he knew that these people would be mostly organic or bionic – they wouldn’t be cybernetically enhanced to an inhuman degree; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to function inside the EMP’s radius. I’ve got a chance. Just need to get eye shots. He checked his sights once more which were perfectly calibrated thanks to his disassembling and reassembling of the firearm.
Planetary Defenses (Rank 3), Planetary Retribution (Rank 3). The rocky coating grew over his armor as the helmet slipped up and covered his head. Okay. 3. 2. 1. Greg popped out of cover, immediately sighted in one of the corpo-soldier’s eyes, and let off a shot. The bullet was perfectly aimed, and the round tore through the man’s head as he collapsed.
The men all opened fire on Greg, and he took the hits, knowing that any harm he would have suffered would be quartered, and then apply to this extremely fancy armor. He could feel the slight ‘pings’ of the armor being ever so slightly dented, and he knew he would have a handful of bruises – but the armor piercing rounds could not pierce past his damage reduction and the Legendary Equipment that was his suit of armor.
“Get some!” he shouted as he let out a laugh, seeing the men thrash in pain as the full damage they would have inflicted upon him was duplicated to them. Wasn’t sure if it would affect their guns or them – good to know it’ll affect them. Greg used that distraction of them all in pain from the feedback damage to pop off single shots – not missing a single one. Each person took one round to an eye before dropping, and Greg walked up to the convoy, clearing each vehicle to ensure there were no other personnel. Efficient and deadly – just like he was taught.
After clearing the last vehicle, he went to the truck carrying the mobile EMP dish and disabled it. A few seconds later, the comms in his ear crackled to life, and he clicked his tongue to activate it on his end – a personal preference. “I’ve cleared this convoy. Localized EMP dish. They must be transporting something valuable. You both can come out – but we have to be fast about this.”
Greg set to grabbing the bodies and piling them up. He went to gather up the weapons and ammunition, but Darrin spoke in his ear. “That is useless to do. When we dust them, their gear goes with them.”
“Wait – even non-Aspirants?”
“Yes,” Darrin replied. “Only items that were not on their person before their death will not be turned to Stardust. Well, and Equipment from Aspirants or Ascendants – that will never be available. It’s tied to their profile in the System.”
Greg looked up as the APC rolled out of the building and down to the road to pull up near him, “Well then I guess I gotta disarm them first going forward. Dust them and split it with these two.”
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[Stardust Acquired: 1200]
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I’d imagine that lots of biotech inflates their Stardust amount, Greg thought as Priam and Quinn both got out of the APC. Quinn walked up to the central vehicle with the EMP device on it. Greg walked over and Darrin tapped both Priam and Quinn on the shoulder, transferring their cut of 400 Stardust to each. “We can use this,” Greg said as he looked up at the large dish. “Roll it through the solar panel farms and just fry them all.”
Quinn clicked her tongue and shook her head, “Too obvious. I can’t hide this. I can take the basic EMP charge generator, and we can use that – but not the whole amplification array.” She looked at the large, armored car behind it – sandwiched between the APC at the rear.
Greg walked over to it and felt along the exterior, tapping a few times with his knuckles. “It’s thick. Pheracorp operating procedure when transporting extremely valuable materials is a full complement of 36 plus a mech-squad proofed against EMP. So this can’t be too valuable. Getting in is going to be a bitch.”
Priam walked up, “Let me.” He put his hands on the metal door, and Greg saw a pulse of golden light that caused the metal to slowly crumple in. “Magnetism,” he said. “I can’t do a huge magnetic field all at once from the base Cosmic Power access…but I can apply it gradually. Ten minutes? Maybe?”
Quinn nodded, “I’m taking apart that EMP to take with us. Greg, keep an eye out.”
“Roger,” Greg replied as he reverted to his military mode. “I’ll secure the perimeter and scan for incoming.”
