notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
P-value?
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
- Location
- in the trash
Also, damnit, MJ, you have to know that we'll get screwed over by Roseluck.
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Is she? Even mechanically she's not exactly one - she acts more as if Serafina had a super Parlour Trick merit where her Parlour Trick is "creating a Mind 6 Awakened fork". The clone-jumping Alicia who interacts with external things is subjectively a fork, and has no idea what the "real" Alicia in Serafina's head is experiencing.
And of course, in a Consensus Reality, shouldn't Alicia's insistence that she's not a soul or a higher self or anything like that because she's a hard materialist who rejects this metaphysical crap count for something?
Is she? The Technocracy would say that the fact that Rose has her memories which can intrude is a logical consequence of the fact that Rose was designed to have those memories, and the Rose personality is basically a glitch. There's no need to bring souls in, when they literally made the Reina personality using Time effects to ensure veracity.
Even all Traditionalists might not say that Reina is an avatar imprint of a past life. Maybe she's a mask her Avatar wears, using the implanted memories as the base, just as Jamelia's Genius represents itself as Illiyeen because the younger, less morally compromised, more fiery version of herself is a good way to challenge her and ask her the questions she doesn't like answering.
If Reina and Father Orisino can't get a loving and perfect god from consensus reality, than Alicia can't not be an Avatar. So there.
If Reina and Father Orisino can't get a loving and perfect god from consensus reality, than Alicia can't not be an Avatar. So there.
Father Orisino has one. It's just that the world is too weak and fallible for the Father, which is why he set the world in motion and cannot touch his creation without marring it because he is too perfect for its imperfections. Which is why those who partake of the perfect nature of God thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (who are imperfectly called 'mages' by non-believers) mar the world and themselves when they act indiscreetly with his holy power.
And Reina could have one if she wanted. She just can't have one who isn't fundamentally made by and dependent on flawed mankind, and that's what she couldn't stand.
But wouldn't it be nice if it were true? Iteration X asks. Imagine a world, where because of friendly artificial intelligence, far more efficient and compassionate than any human can be, no-one goes hungry. No one wants. Education is given to all, as a right. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Iteration X always had that utopian Communistic streak-and its elite, its own inner circle, knew it was possible. You just have to alter reality enough so that people believe human nature can be overcome. And if you make humans believe enough in the power of machines, and machine-men, you can overcome so much of their indoctrination that human weakness and frailty is inevitable. There's something beautiful and noble and doomed in all the Conventions and all the Traditions. They're killers and saviors, sinners and saints, murderers and martyrs one and all.
"Wouldn't it be nice if reality was exactly what you dreamed of it and nothing more?" The Akashic asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if there was really all-seeing, all-loving God(s) who cared for everyone?" The Chorister asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if man and nature and spirit was one and you could walk the paths of wisdom guided by the souls of your ancestors?" The Dreamspeaker asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if you could see past the illusions of time and space and understand the beauty of the world that is hidden from us all? The Ecstatic asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if the world worked like it did in space opera and pulp, where heroes were heroes and villains were villains and things were simple?" The Etherite asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if there was a world that rewarded you for your goodness and punished you for your sins?" The Euthanatos asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if your place in the world was determined by your brilliance and strength and will?" The Hermetic asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if mankind lived in harmony with, and closer with, its true nature and the beauty of life?" The Verbena chant.
"Wouldn't it be nice if you could know anything, and the only limit to your world was your skill and your imagination?" The Virtual Adept asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if there as a world where you never wanted for anything, never suffered, never had to toil?" The Technocracy asks.
"Wouldn't it be nice if you could see the wonder of the cosmos and realize you've discovered everything that can ever be discovered, that you finally understand everything in this beautiful terrible reality?" The Void Engineers whisper quietly.
"Wouldn't it be nice if this twisted, broken, wicked world where villains pose as heroes and heroes act like villains was cast aside forever?" The Nephandus hisses.
"Wouldn't it be nice if you could make the world conform to your dreams?" The Marauder asks. Well okay, it sounds more like "blub blub blub blub" because it's hard to communicate since the Marauder thinks he's a fish, but you know. It's the thought that counts.
Presumably he is being wielded as a melee weapon by a Malkavian.
Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Oh I understand that, I was thinking more in general terms. The clone jumping Alicia is a fork, which is something I haven't seen manifest avatars do, but I generally operate by translating game mechanics to fluff, rather than the other way around, so it comes out in the terminology I use. Since Alicia's been popping up since Serafina was a kid, it stands to reason that mechanically she's derived from a manifest avatar. Creating an alpha-fork and stuffing it into an existing meat body just seems to be the more technocratic compliant way of handling avatar manifestation, and speaks to how the avatar is affected by its connections in that Alicia denies her nature as it applies to the mechanical side of things.
Now, what she believes, sure, any Mage chronicle can't be purely laid down to the specific mechanics in the books in their totality, but it's something I generally use to base my assumptions on and is usually fairly reliable. She could be something completely different, but it seems likely that she's a manifest avatar. It could all be a shell game- she lies a lot- she might actually be a spirit or a Psychopomp or even a cross-time sending. But spending time trying to come up with all these other explanations doesn't really seem very efficient to me when I can look at the relevant mechanics and build something to fit what I've observed.
Oh, sure, as I said above, it could all be a shell game by the avatar, aimed at breaking Rose down so she can build herself up. It could be any number of things, but based on what we've seen I believe that Reina fits into the mechanics as an avatar imprint, which then suggests and informs certain possibilities as it applies to the process of stuffing her into a hyper high-end cyborg body, based both on mechanics and personal experience with similar stuff happening in game and the limits of the magick. Obviously all of that is much more fluid due to the nature of the game and the specific universe we're based in, but I continue to find the mechanics a good base by which to make informed assumptions with.
I can always be wrong, but I don't believe that this is likely to be the case, and even if it is as it applies here, being wrong about their precise nature as it applies to the story does not significantly change the assumptions about their actions and the result of the proposed actions.
tl;dr, it's semantics. Except when it isn't.
Not true! If you're inside his reality bubble then you would be a fish too, and if disney has taught us anything it's that fish can understand eachother so his message would come in clearly.
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- Location
- Southern Virginia
But is that really desireable? Even the Marxists valued labor for the sake of dignifying the human spirit. People who are given everything at the hands of benevolent AI gods need exert no effort, or make any struggle, or even choose. The alterations to human nature, if even possible, needed to accept such a utopia would so change humanity I'd wonder if such lotus-eaters were even really human any more.
Surrender your agency to the Computer, and suffer no more! One might as well reject the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil and remain in unthinking and unconscious bliss. From a utilitarian perspective it might even be a good trade.
Though the parallel to the Posthuman hive-mind of the Progenitors and the Brave New World fail-state of the NWO is interesting and suggestive. Maybe we can't concieve a utopia that reconciles the desire for autonomy and meaning with material comfort, and that's why mass Ascension fails.
I'd actually say that the Transhumans aren't actually suggestive of the standard fail-state of the Progenitors. The whole hivemind was caused by the Administration assuming direct control in the aftermath of the Anomaly, and then Void Adaptation happening while they were still holding everything together - it doesn't actually match so well towards the bad tendencies of the earthbound Progenitors.
By contrast, we can even see elements of the more normative, Brave New World failstate in the modern Progenitors. Task-focussed specialist bioroids carry out the menial jobs and they are perfectly content in doing so and optimised for it. The few exceptional ones who break their standard limits are promoted to the upper caste, but most of the ruling elite are the baseline-human-level+ freeborns and the genetic elite. After all, from a certain point of view Serafina is a construct made to be a high end leading researcher and social leader - smarter than any normal human could hope to be (Int 7), better at persuading people to work together (Manipulation 6), and with a much expanded monkeysphere so she can make decisions where she doesn't just value people she knows (... unfortunately that gives her the Caregiver Vice, possibly as a Genetic Flaw). It's just that she was made to be a person who did those things because that's what her parents wanted for their daughter, rather than simply as a cog in the machine.
If the Progenitors didn't have the constant influx of fresh blood of Enlightened Scientists and Extraordinary Citizens from the Masses, they'd probably spiral much more rapidly into a full on Brave New World. Which is a hive, but a hive in the sense of real ant hives, where there's no hivemind and specialists just do what is needed, whether it's being a soldier ant, a worker ant, or laying eggs as the queen.
The NWO failstate is more 1984. It's a place where the boundaries of acceptable thought are set, and you're allowed as much freedom as is optimal for social harmony within those bounds. It's a place where you can potentially be monitored any time and so you curtail your behaviour because they could be watching. It's a place where the past gets rewritten to suit modern sensibilities, reinterpreted by academics who "point out the flaws" in the past conceptualisations of the world.
NWO Time 5 - literally rewriting the past by getting everyone to believe that something was the case, so other people's uses of Time 2 reveal the rewritten past.
(Also probably quite psychologically stressful for the mage in question and leaves them prone to Permadox from thinking in a way unlike the human normal because most humans expect at least an attempt of consistency in people's viewpoints and behaviours, and the doublethink required to cast through that paradigm is probably going to require Mind to maintain because you're going to have to literally believe two contradictory things to be true hard enough to warp reality.)
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What's coming next is that people need to vote and discuss what Kessler, Elsa, and William are doing, because it is a nice straightforward Cyborgs (and Men in Black) versus Space Marines vote.
Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
hmmm Jamelia should just jam the smart pistol onto her shoulder before she runs out the room, that assuming the vampires didnt steal it or anything.
More seriously as I voted earlier I think RUNNING GUNBATTLE TO THE VEHICLES is best plan since it covers our bases and means less backtracking
More seriously as I voted earlier I think RUNNING GUNBATTLE TO THE VEHICLES is best plan since it covers our bases and means less backtracking
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well. We're fighting an unknown, but certainly high-end armored enemy combatant. That they attack us one-on-three means that they have both great confidence in their abilities and extreme fanaticism.
So, first:
Run and Gun, distract and pepper with attacks. Determine potential weaknesses (SINCE NONE OF THOSE USELESS STREET SAMS HAVE ENTROPY). The goal here should be to buy the one dude with actual Entropy (William) some time to use his low, low dicepool of Enlightenment 3 + Entropy 2 to get through Cedano's shielding, or failing that, just shoot the fucker.
Use all available immediate buffs to avoid horribly dying to the Space Marine.
We're in a Techno construct, which means a lot of stuff is going to be viable focuses for us - especially since both Elsa and John are into Matter and Forces. If we can drag him into the hallways past any vending machines, coffee makers, water coolers standing fans, minifridges or other things that can violently explode by triggering the embedded explosives therein, it'l make it at least a nuisance for Cedano. William can continue to hide behind sturdier objects (titanium plates, main structural walls, John Kessler) and use his Entropy to bend the situation in the team's favour (if fucking with Cedano directly doesn't do it, then help John and Elsa)
But that's all just "how to not get immediately violently krumped".
As for actually killing him... Elsa has probably the best shot at this with guns, using a Corr/DSci cutie (Quantum Tunneling) bullet. John has, of course, big guns and big swords, and William's varigun was good enough to at least make the shield flicker, but I'm not sure if he can actually get through the inevitable primium in his armor.
So, in light of that...
>[ ] Making a stand in the server room. Not like it's going to matter if you damage it right?
"We're not trapped in here with him, he's trapped in here with us". The danger of this are incapacitating wounds - a dead Mage is less of a problem because then we wouldn't have to drag them out.
Upsides: Fast and furious. Time is of the essence.
Downsides: Furious and fast. Zero error tolerance.
>[ ] Doing a running gun battle.
This generally speaking suits our advantages (numbers, Technoconstruct full of explody things), but runs into the time issue.
Upsides: Allows non-Kesslers more survivability, lets us use mind/entropy coordinated ambushes.
Downsides: TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME. Also, all of Henriette's psychic space ghosts that will interfere will have three of us and only one of him to shoot at. And getting stuck in one of the DADDY's nanogoo fields will be bad for the "run" of "run and gun".
>[ ] Dragging the guy back towards the armored vehicles on automated sentry mode, so he gets vaporized.
Sounds great, but is extremely high risk because he might turn the things on us.
Upsides: 'Crats love cannons.
Downsides: Cedano is a Technocrat too.
>[ ] Retreating to Jamelia/Harlan, and the armory with heavier weapons in it.
Falling back and armoring up sounds good, doesn't it? Don't we all like heavy plasma anti-tank cannons? Yeah, sure. But it means falling back and spending time.
Upsides: 'Crats really love plasma cannons.
Downsides: TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
>[ ] Trying to trick him into some other room in the subbasement with less space, so you can take him out in hand-to-hand.
This is actually pretty great. Kessler is Kessler, Elsa has a Void Engineer phase blade (aka cutie magic), William can cheer them on, I suppose. The only tricky thing is how to get him there - but between the dude who trapped cyber-dragons for survival, the gal who is the second-most successful terrorist in the amalgam (Jamelia, of course, takes top spot) and William, whose speciality is fucking with people's minds...
I honestly think this is one of those times when we have to resort to the old standby of "enrage our foe into blind(er) stupidity", especially since Cedano is already a frothing ball of hate and fanaticism.
Upsides: Potentially very quick (knife fights are nasty, brutish and short, even if one of the knives is a klaive)
Downsides: Extreme danger.
>[ ] Write-In.
There's always the option of not killing him and just disabling him from mission effecive performance. Sealing him in techno-bakelite in an elevator shaft, maybe?
So, first:
Run and Gun, distract and pepper with attacks. Determine potential weaknesses (SINCE NONE OF THOSE USELESS STREET SAMS HAVE ENTROPY). The goal here should be to buy the one dude with actual Entropy (William) some time to use his low, low dicepool of Enlightenment 3 + Entropy 2 to get through Cedano's shielding, or failing that, just shoot the fucker.
Use all available immediate buffs to avoid horribly dying to the Space Marine.
We're in a Techno construct, which means a lot of stuff is going to be viable focuses for us - especially since both Elsa and John are into Matter and Forces. If we can drag him into the hallways past any vending machines, coffee makers, water coolers standing fans, minifridges or other things that can violently explode by triggering the embedded explosives therein, it'l make it at least a nuisance for Cedano. William can continue to hide behind sturdier objects (titanium plates, main structural walls, John Kessler) and use his Entropy to bend the situation in the team's favour (if fucking with Cedano directly doesn't do it, then help John and Elsa)
But that's all just "how to not get immediately violently krumped".
As for actually killing him... Elsa has probably the best shot at this with guns, using a Corr/DSci cutie (Quantum Tunneling) bullet. John has, of course, big guns and big swords, and William's varigun was good enough to at least make the shield flicker, but I'm not sure if he can actually get through the inevitable primium in his armor.
So, in light of that...
>[ ] Making a stand in the server room. Not like it's going to matter if you damage it right?
"We're not trapped in here with him, he's trapped in here with us". The danger of this are incapacitating wounds - a dead Mage is less of a problem because then we wouldn't have to drag them out.
Upsides: Fast and furious. Time is of the essence.
Downsides: Furious and fast. Zero error tolerance.
>[ ] Doing a running gun battle.
This generally speaking suits our advantages (numbers, Technoconstruct full of explody things), but runs into the time issue.
Upsides: Allows non-Kesslers more survivability, lets us use mind/entropy coordinated ambushes.
Downsides: TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME. Also, all of Henriette's psychic space ghosts that will interfere will have three of us and only one of him to shoot at. And getting stuck in one of the DADDY's nanogoo fields will be bad for the "run" of "run and gun".
>[ ] Dragging the guy back towards the armored vehicles on automated sentry mode, so he gets vaporized.
Sounds great, but is extremely high risk because he might turn the things on us.
Upsides: 'Crats love cannons.
Downsides: Cedano is a Technocrat too.
>[ ] Retreating to Jamelia/Harlan, and the armory with heavier weapons in it.
Falling back and armoring up sounds good, doesn't it? Don't we all like heavy plasma anti-tank cannons? Yeah, sure. But it means falling back and spending time.
Upsides: 'Crats really love plasma cannons.
Downsides: TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
>[ ] Trying to trick him into some other room in the subbasement with less space, so you can take him out in hand-to-hand.
This is actually pretty great. Kessler is Kessler, Elsa has a Void Engineer phase blade (aka cutie magic), William can cheer them on, I suppose. The only tricky thing is how to get him there - but between the dude who trapped cyber-dragons for survival, the gal who is the second-most successful terrorist in the amalgam (Jamelia, of course, takes top spot) and William, whose speciality is fucking with people's minds...
I honestly think this is one of those times when we have to resort to the old standby of "enrage our foe into blind(er) stupidity", especially since Cedano is already a frothing ball of hate and fanaticism.
Upsides: Potentially very quick (knife fights are nasty, brutish and short, even if one of the knives is a klaive)
Downsides: Extreme danger.
>[ ] Write-In.
There's always the option of not killing him and just disabling him from mission effecive performance. Sealing him in techno-bakelite in an elevator shaft, maybe?
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Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
Elsa also has that CAD/CAM rote that might be advantageous here if we can get Cedano's shield down. I like the idea of trapping him in the elevator or in a service corridor or something, although we'd need to disable his phase shifter. Hmm. We're in revised right? With forces 3 you can negate or reverse gravity. We might be able to set up a stunt where we sabotage his phase shifter so it actives and inverts gravity for him, so he goes flying off into the sky.
Well, I already voted for the H2H option (with a brief plan, even), but if some other plan wins, Guo and Kessler could use Dsci and Spirit counter-counter-magic to knock down Cedano's defenses while Elsa shoots him in the head (using her fun quantum skip rounds to avoid all that pesky armor and stuff.)
Considering Elsas Cor, can we uses that to bend and fold reality slightly so that the aim of the cyborg is thrown off because his gun is getting wrong targeting data? Respective be more overt and change the direction of the bullets? I can't quite remember how much equipment was getting the counter spell dices from the primum of the user.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
I remember suggesting a rote for Henriette that did that during the assault on the Moscow construct. IIR the focus was a chemical reaction caused by having the various sodas in the machine getting mixed together. Good times, good times. Nice callback
Okay. Well, looking at the current state of affairs and the fact that Henriette is making shit go FEAR yo, it looks pretty obvious that Cedano is based off a Phase Commander. Hulking power armour, a railgun, a shield and a point-to-point portal generator, making him effectively a boss.
(Neither Harlan nor Alice are present, so we have to kill him the hard Pointman way, not the cheap stun-locking Fettel way)
So, let's think of convenient combat tricks the party can pull which don't involve going up against his primium.
Corr 2-3 - Elsa is fitted for being a flicker-porting space-ninja. That means she can shoot him after he's just gone through one of his portals, using the portal conduit as a wormhole she can force open for a split second to shoot him through a "scrying window". She can also re-open his portals and jump through and Time 3 get with the stabbing. The first time she does it, she might be able to wrangle it as a surprise attack because no one will expect her to do it.
Mind 3, Corr 2, Entropy 1 - They're all space marines who've served with the Void Engineers here (yes, Kessler spent some time with the VEs in space before he joined the party). Wufan can call on that training and experience so they're operating as a well-drilled squad who instinctively react together (almost as if by "combat telepathy") and enjoy the benefit of the Void Engineer "Coordinated Fire" rote. Because nothing says "fuck you" like the coordinated fire rote getting them lots and lots of threshold successes and adding all their damage pools together, when it comes to punching through shielding.
Spirit - Technocratic bases are filled with low-level AIs and dumb systems - not smart enough to be aware, but entirely focussed on doing their jobs and doing what they're meant to do. John Kessler is a legitimate member of Iteration X and this is formally his Construct and Director Belltower formally put him in a position where he is responsible for base security. He is also one of the elect who has seen behind the lie of reality and happens to know for a fact that there's no meaningful difference between spirits and AIs - an AI is a spirit who is accepted by the Consensus. Which means that anything he can do to a spirit, he can do to an AI. Via totally legitimate Iteration X methods.
Did he mention that he's in the server hub? He's in the server hub. He's fucking surrounded by AIs. So he'll start by bringing the hardlight holoprojectors online and allowing the AI hardlight defence projections to engage the hostile so he's swarmed. He's not summoning spirits. Oh no, that would be unacceptable in this local paradigm. He's just allowing defence AIs he can legitimately command to use the holoprojector to attack the enemy as hardlight manifestations. This is a server room. Of course it has hardlight projectors - it's what's used for tactile command interfaces. They are, of course, glowing in neon colours.
Tron will never go out of style, bitches.
Now, of course, they're not very powerfulspirits AIs - they're dumb and expendable programmes. But that doesn't matter. Because every time Cedano ignores them and gets attacked by one, he's draining DV. And every time he wastes a shot on killing a mook, it's a shot he's not using on someone who matters.
(Neither Harlan nor Alice are present, so we have to kill him the hard Pointman way, not the cheap stun-locking Fettel way)
So, let's think of convenient combat tricks the party can pull which don't involve going up against his primium.
Corr 2-3 - Elsa is fitted for being a flicker-porting space-ninja. That means she can shoot him after he's just gone through one of his portals, using the portal conduit as a wormhole she can force open for a split second to shoot him through a "scrying window". She can also re-open his portals and jump through and Time 3 get with the stabbing. The first time she does it, she might be able to wrangle it as a surprise attack because no one will expect her to do it.
Mind 3, Corr 2, Entropy 1 - They're all space marines who've served with the Void Engineers here (yes, Kessler spent some time with the VEs in space before he joined the party). Wufan can call on that training and experience so they're operating as a well-drilled squad who instinctively react together (almost as if by "combat telepathy") and enjoy the benefit of the Void Engineer "Coordinated Fire" rote. Because nothing says "fuck you" like the coordinated fire rote getting them lots and lots of threshold successes and adding all their damage pools together, when it comes to punching through shielding.
Spirit - Technocratic bases are filled with low-level AIs and dumb systems - not smart enough to be aware, but entirely focussed on doing their jobs and doing what they're meant to do. John Kessler is a legitimate member of Iteration X and this is formally his Construct and Director Belltower formally put him in a position where he is responsible for base security. He is also one of the elect who has seen behind the lie of reality and happens to know for a fact that there's no meaningful difference between spirits and AIs - an AI is a spirit who is accepted by the Consensus. Which means that anything he can do to a spirit, he can do to an AI. Via totally legitimate Iteration X methods.
Did he mention that he's in the server hub? He's in the server hub. He's fucking surrounded by AIs. So he'll start by bringing the hardlight holoprojectors online and allowing the AI hardlight defence projections to engage the hostile so he's swarmed. He's not summoning spirits. Oh no, that would be unacceptable in this local paradigm. He's just allowing defence AIs he can legitimately command to use the holoprojector to attack the enemy as hardlight manifestations. This is a server room. Of course it has hardlight projectors - it's what's used for tactile command interfaces. They are, of course, glowing in neon colours.
Tron will never go out of style, bitches.
Now, of course, they're not very powerful
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
SR XIX: La Iglesia
SR XIX: La Iglesia
The sky is a weeping sore. Alice can feel it. Her sensitivity to dimensional phenomena is screaming at her. It's like hearing someone scrape their nails along a blackboard, only in the back of her skull. The terrifying beauty of the light doesn't account for much when you can hear that.
The way they're heading, they're entering a temporary lull in the storm's intensity. It's like the eye of a hurricane. Even the snow is letting up.
She looks sideways at Serafina who's squatting over the prone figure of the dead X-410. It's definitely dead. Alice knows dead things. She's quite an expert on the subject, and the X-410 is dead.
For now. Because she can feel the stirrings of cellular activity within it again and knows that Serafina is doing things to it. Things that most Traditionalists would call magic, but which Serafina would say is perfectly hyperbiology.
Alice can hear plasma fire in the distance. It's a characteristic noise. Once you hear it, you never forget the crack of a high density ionised beam.
There's a little bit of her which had been trying to think of Serafina as purely a civilian lab scientist who happens to work for the Technocracy and spends all her days pottering around making cures for cancer and vaccines and the like. The kind of Technocrat she had certain… long-distance contacts with in Miami under a false name, because sometimes a doctor might find it easier to misplace some money and take a day off ill on the day an exorcist shows up and - oh, look, the kid wasn't possessed by a ghost, it was just epilepsy.
Some asshole Traditionalists felt she was a sell-out for doing such things.. Alice strongly disagrees. She damn well knows ghosts exists, but believing in them just encourages them and then they get self-entitled.
But she's getting off topic. She kind of hoped Serafina was that kind of scientist. A vain hope, given she's an official Hero of the Technocratic Union. But it had been a nice hope. She can't tell herself that any more when she showed far too much familiar with bioroid combat programmes and reconfigured the living hulking super-Victor - some kind of X-series experimental unit - into body armour for herself. What's worse is that she can still feel the muted, weapon-like mind of the super-Victor, wrapped around Serafina's psychic waveform. She's using it.
Serafina turns her faceless face towards her. Alice isn't sure where the optical sensors are, but she feels Serafina's attention focussed on her.
"You don't like this," Serafina says, breaking her concentration. "I'm sorry if… look, I'm not a soldier. I just let it handle the combat while I provide guidance."
And there she is, turning on her easy charm. "Don't play mind games," Alice says tensely.
She's pretty sure Serafina is giving her a dirty look, although it's hard to tell because she does not have eyes at the moment. "I'm… oh, for goodness sake. I'm not playing mind games. I just fused with a freaky blind killing machine. X-410s are weird even by bioroid standards. Please don't think I'm stupid, 'Liss."
"I didn't say anything," she says.
"You were thinking it loudly enough that I don't need to be psychic to know," Serafina says tartly. "I am entirely aware that you are not comfortable with the fact that I configured this thing so it was hollow inside and then climbed in and I currently have programmable cells threaded throughout my body as part of my nervous system override. If something goes wrong, I'll need new eyes Believe me. I know it's weird. I haven't done this before today."
There is a pause.
"Now, pass me some of that plastic explosive," Serafina adds, looking up from her surgery on the currently dead corpse. "I need to make some improvements. And fill up some holes. No, more than that. I'll need the whole pile."
"Is this an Alicia idea?" Alice says warily, passing the blocks of explosive.
"Is what?"
"... you're filling a reanimated bioroid with explosives."
"Oh, that? No, I haven't heard from Alicia in a while. She's been avoiding my attempts to contact her," Serafina says, working away as she packs plastic explosive into the opened up chest cavity. "There. Isn't that adorable? It'll be all the rage in Paris this coming fashion season. Ah! And pass me that backpack, too. It can wear it."
"Are you sure this wasn't 'Licia's idea?"
"Why would it be?" Serafina asks in honest confusion.
"Never mind."
"Oh! See if we can stop by a jewellry store. I feel a sudden urge for silver shrapnel."
The ragtag group of one proper enlightened scientist and four Reality Deviants has a substantial advantage thanks to Serafina, she thinks smugly. With Seelicia and Beelicio in a sniper position overlooking the church, Serafina can use the sensors built into their biosuits to monitor and map the grounds. She can see enemy concentrations and their positions.
They seem to resemble second-rate Construct defence teams in how they're deployed. Nothing particularly fancy tactically - solid placement watching over the major lines of approach within the building and without. She quickly sketches out a map marking enemy placements for the others, huddling together in the back of the van.
"If they have any HITMark knock-offs, my biosensors will have problems picking them up. No heartbeats or vital signs. I know they have some out front, so there'll probably be more inside. Apart from that, that's the best of my knowledge," she warns. "But I can't see any biosigns below ground."
Father Orisino sits on the edge of his seat, perched with an old AK-74 on his lap. "Of course you can't see the sanctum. No, quite amazingly I thought to conceal an underground chamber from Technocratic sensors. I wonder why?" he says dryly.
Serafina would usually flush at that. "I'm just making the point," she says. "I'm using the sensors in low power mode, passives only. I might be missing some things, but even assuming that these troops are the sum total of their forces, a direct assault through the main doors will involve facing their enfilading fire. And they may have hidden enlightened or RD assets which I can't distinguish from their usual troopers."
"There are many malevolent spirits in that building," Najwa says softly. "Some of them possessing humans."
EDEs, Serafina mentally corrects. Wonderful. "I'm not trained in the dimensional sciences so I can't ID those individuals," she says simply. "So can you-"
"Pass me that red pen," Najwa says. She marks off some of the clusters. "The spirithosts are mostly in the main chamber. Some of them are more powerful - there are two especially potent ones. In addition, there are two spirithost vehicles - disguised as police cars and parked out the front."
Serafina blinks. "Uh…" she says, her mind whirring as she tries to account for this. And she's somewhat curious about how the other woman knows this - but on the other hand she really doesn't want to know."
"They look to be Technocratic Legate C-models," Christos says seriously. "Or some closely related variant. The SPD does love their toys."
Alice scowls. "This is a problem," she says darkly. "How many anti-tank missiles do you have in here, old man?"
"A few."
Serafina taps the floor idly, the hulking fingers of the X-410 unfamiliar and yet fitting. She'll need to propose that the X-410 project is formally adapted for the assisted biosuit functionality she's been using it for, she thinks. Except that's just a dream. She's burned so many bridges.
Enough regrets.
"I can have my sniper team target them," she says. "They have anti-materiel weapons."
"No," Christos disagrees. "Najwa and I will deal with them. We may need intact Legates later, and the SPD often runs its HITMark knock-offs off a single coordinated server. They won't be able to place it in the church, so it'll need to be nearby and they'll want it to be mobile. But that can't be done with the hostiles watching."
Alice sighs. "Just say it outright, old man," she grumbles. "You want a distraction."
"Well, if you would be so kind…"
"Anta mudjir," Najwa says wearily. "No. A frontal assault is too risky and we have no time for stealth. Once they're panicking we have certain… techniques for crippling their command structure and disabling the HITMark knock-offs. They don't have primium. We can sweep them up."
Alice nods respectfully to the woman who appears to be her natural ally in the face of Christos' him-ness. "Fine. Then we flank them. We go in through the side of the building, through the apartments. I can make sure we silently breach the wall. Serafina has two high end bioroids with explosive weaponry," she points out clusters, "and that allows us to clear their weapons nests. Once we're on Orisino's home territory, he can cut loose, yes?"
"Yes," the priest says. He's quiet, seemingly meditating.
"There will be a problem with that," Serafina admits. "The reanimated X-410 has taken extensive damage and has suffered neural degradation. I had to initialise some functionality in factory default mode, and that means it'll attack Reality Deviancy on sight. It's still useful as a distraction, but it can't fight alongside you."
"A distraction is all I need," Alice says, eyes narrowed. "We move in five."
Father Orisino shifts. "Then," he says solemnly, "first we pray. And I will bless you, for what it is worth. Today we do the work of the Father. And," a light gleams in his eye. "even if you do not believe in Him, He believes in you. My sanctum is a place of faith, and it would do you well to keep that in mind. Fight to cast out these unbelievers and the demons and all will be well. Let us join hands."
The apartments built up against the church are nearly pitch black. The power has failed and only the light from the sky outside creeping in through the windows light them. Occasional lightning bursts illuminate the tatty corridors in sharp relief.
The latest brightness reveals two bodies, neatly executed with two bulletholes in their heads. Their blood is a dark pool on the worn carpet.
"Targets down," Alice Aristide says impassively, lowering her smoking gun and stepping over the SPD watchers who'd been left here. She squats by one and steals his radio and silenced submachine gun. She can feel it's clean of spiritual taint - it's just a high tech silenced weapon. Something she can use on these goons, without resorting to her precious silver ammo in the revolver Christos gave her. "Ess, get that door open."
Serafina's hulking form advances and stabs those nasty primium blades on her forearms into the lock, carving it open. Alice flows through the door. "Police!" she shouts in Spanish at the people in here, huddled around a candle. "This is a police raid." All she needs is the right words, the right tone, and just a small psychic nudge and they're obeying her. "There are dangerous criminals on the loose! Everyone, head into the bedroom and barricade the door! Don't come out, no matter what!"
The elderly couple scramble to obey, and Alice keeps up her attitude just long enough for them to vanish into the bedroom with the candle. Then she drags a chest of drawers into the way of the door, blocking off the bedroom. "Father!" she radios back. "Move up!"
Father Orisino is no longer suppressing the angel which dwells within him. He burns with an inner flame, casting a light over the entire room like a small bonfire. His shadow isn't human and out of the corner of her eye, Alice can see the six wings of light extending from his back. The expression on his face is one of calm benevolence, and all doubt has left him.
"Explosives!" she orders as Serafina covers the entrance. Tilting her head, Alice takes in the structure and places the charges as to breach the walls of the church.
"Ready on your orders," Serafina says.
"No. Wait," Alice says. She can feel the lightning when it comes, and there's a second or two before the thunder arrives. They just need to time it right and the noise of the breach will be concealed by the thunder. "On my 'go', do it."
She waits, breathing steadily. There. She feels there's a flash.
"Go!" she orders. The charges blow and the blast and the collapse of the wall are muffled entirely by the thunder. Alice smiles humorlessly for a moment. She can psychically suppress sound - she's always had a talent for it - but why bother to do that when you can just conceal the noise in ambient sound. And then she's moving.
She can feel minds in the area. Tainted minds, some of them. Fusions of flesh and spirit. Other are just human. There are three humans down the other end of the corridor and she can feel their curiosity burn into suspicion.
Alice doesn't give it time to develop further. In a single liquid motion she flows around the corner and levels her pistol.
Miguel Hermandez isn't a bad man. Not really. He does work for a company run by the Special Projects Division, but as far as he's concerned it's just a private security company. He'd left the Mexican army with an honourable discharge and they'd been recruiting. So he took the job and got four times the salary he used to have, as well as some nice gear. Sure, he was sort of a glorified mall cop, but they ran things professionally paid well, and there was talk of promotions and special training. And maybe some of the other people on the team are a bit weird, but he doesn't hang around with them. They're from different, 'elite' squads.
They'd been hired to aid the police in securing a church linked to criminal drug smuggling. He doesn't want to be working Christmas Eve, but the bonus is more than worth it. Then things had started getting weird. He's just ignoring the light in the sky. He can't think of it. Literally can't. But that leaves him with a hollow feeling in his head, and butterflies in his stomach. The power's failed and his NVGs are playing up, so he's using a torch instead. And the noise outside is… just thunder. Yes. Just thunder. Nothing else.
His ears are ringing and his head is spinning after the latest thunderclap. It's the sound of plaster falling from the ceiling which clue him in to the fact that it wasn't just a thunderclap. Plaster and the soft sound of footsteps. Three things pass through his head as he whirls, mouth opening in shock. The first is a sudden sense of terrified shock.
The next two things are standard-issue Technocratic 10mm pistol rounds.
His killer then double-taps the other two men in the room, and moves on.
Serafina knows she isn't a natural at this. She's a scientist and a researcher who makes weapons sometimes and who's trained in command. She's not a soldier. As she trails behind Alice, letting the X-410 act as it sees fit and only nudging it when necessary, she can see Alice is a natural. It's like...
… well, her old friend reminds her of Rose. And not in a good way. She's like Rose when she lets go of all her careful restraint and cultivated attempts at normalcy. Except when Rose does that, she's a savage, sadistic, haemophage-like monster. Alice just doesn't feel anything at all. Serafina has seen HITMarks less mechanical and more emotional than her. Alice times her shots with noises outside perfectly, hiding the sound of silenced gunshots in the thunder and the screaming of the sky. She doesn't miss. She's a black-clad killer who turns what should be gunfights into systematic executions. She uses the low lighting and the noise and her uncanny speed to kill without being caught. She's empty inside.
Serafina knows that the people here are working for the Special Projects Division, and several of them are already possessed by EDEs. She can't help them. But she can't help but feel sorry for them. It's a weakness and she's not fool enough to alert them, but she feels a little bit bad about it.
And she changes her mind rather quickly once they're out of the close confines where Alice can shape the fight. Her bioscanner tells her just how many enemies are in the main body of the church.
"Four ahead by the door. Spirit clone hivemind," Alice says tersely. "Noise will alert the main hall."
"I will deal with these demons," Father Orisino says, his now-snow-white hair flickering above his head like flames. "Duma, I invoke you. Heed my strictures." The light of his wings solidifies. He suddenly holds a flaming sword and in one motion he steps around the corner and hurls it at the nearest clone, pinning it to the wall.
It doesn't try to scream. It seems incapable of doing so, unable to gather the volition. And then the priest is moving and he's fast, almost as fast as Alice and he's far, far stronger. He has another flaming sword in hand and quickly the clones are so much charred meat.
"We're at the door," Serafina transmits to the Euthanatoi. She sends the order to the overclocked, critically damaged Xiaolian she's reactivated, and then makes sure she has a solid wall between it and its targets. "Keep out of sight," she tells Father Orisino. "We don't want it getting distracted. I'm sending it in now."
Black armoured feet hammer on the floorboards.
It's damaged. Damaged even by the standards of mindless combat clones. It's been given a short extra period of life. It isn't grateful for this gift. It isn't grateful for anything. It lacks the cognitive capacity.
It has its orders and it will obey them. Not for the Union. Not because it believes in them. Not because it trusts its commander. It obeys its orders because they're its orders.
It has an assault rifle in each hand. Its nerves are shot to pieces by the resurrection, but it doesn't need to really aim. Its life expectancy once it sees a threat is barely more than the time it'll take to empty the magazines.
The door is ahead of it. It lowers its shoulder and charges, somehow squeezing out even more energy from its dead body.
And it's surrounded by light.
The interior of the church is beautiful. The structure itself is a classic example of 1700s Mexican experimentation in the baroque. The combination of native and Moorish influences worked together to produce a style quite unlike those in Europe at the time. The great fluted columns and domes, worn even as they are, catch the prismatic light that shines through the vast stained glass windows. Ever dancing, ever wonderful, the aesthetics are something the designer never thought to account for. What long-dead man ever thought the sky over Mexico City would catch fire on Christmas Eve
The many-coloured light plays across its eyeless face like a flight of butterflies.
It appreciates none of the beauty. Because it can see the foe. Three machine gun positions have been set up to cover the main entrance. There are lifeless men - robots - positioned at the doors and concealed behind the pews. More clones have hiveminded positions set up to enfilade attackers. There are elite soldiers, in armour which leaves them looking reptilian. And by the altar there are two two-and-a-half metre tall power armours, their autocannons ready and present. Their master demands their obedience and they obey. That is what they are paid for.
The X-410 knows no fear. Knows no regrets. Knows nothing but the mission. It charges in, weapons blazing, throwing itself madly into the densest concentration of foes. It fights - and in the surprise it cuts down man after man. It's dead already. Morale wavers…
… and then one of the power armours slams into it, running it through with a wickedly sharp blade extending from the back of its fist.
Then the charges go off and the backpacks full of C4 and the explosives stuffed into its body end its existence for the second time today.
Perhaps, even, in its last moments as fire and light consumes it, it finds some measure of God.
… probably not, though.
Seelicia flinches at the blast. She can feel it in her gut. And just as relevantly, it breaks every single window in streets. She's just glad that she's wearing her helmet, because she feels glass patter off her face. Even as she watches some of the church's roof falls in, rubble smashing down and the dome collapsing.
The effects on the SPD forces are instantly visible. They're thrown into disarray, and the ones on the exterior turn to rush towards the bomb site.
Entirely predictable. Also somewhat of a mistake.
Seelicia watches the two black-clad figures strike. Gunfire starts from within the church. Gunfire and the pounding thumps of a grenade launcher. She smiles quietly at the sound that Serafina is still alive and fighting.
And then there's a brilliant light from within the church.
He and Duma have an agreement. The demons must die. The master of the demons must be destroyed. The church must be made whole, repaired of the damage done to it. The power of the archangel is put towards the destruction of the demons, and they are in full cooperation. The angelic power fills him to the brim and overflows.
He speaks a word, and the demons turn on each other. They are treacherous beings. They cannot fight well, and within this sacred place they are weak and he is strong.
He turns towards the… the two women. Whatever their names are. The angel in his head makes it hard to remember. They're behind cover and the… the larger one is blowing up clusters of troops, while the other one simply impassively and mutely kills. The soulless machines powered by demons are falling like flies, their minds vanishing. Someone else is interfering.
Ah yes. He remembers their names.
"Seraph," he says. "Grigori. Stay away."
And then he spreads his wings and launches himself straight at the hulking demon-host bound within the metal armour, lashing at it with his flaming sword. It does not belong here. He feels it. This is not its world - yet it is here. At first its armour resists his blows, but then the tainted unholy hull starts to peel off. Men who see him whose eyes are not open to the beauty of God run screaming, and demons flee to see him slay the mightiest of them.
With his other hand, he raises the AK74 and fires bullets of celestial fire into the holes in its hull. They burn its unnatural flesh and demonic spirit, unmaking it into motes of pure light which drift away on the breeze.
It fights back, of course. The demons within come out to play, and from its mechanical mouth it exhales fire in his face. The holy raiments he wears take most of the heat, but his flesh chars and burns. He ignores it. It is just pain.
He has felt worse.
The angel can feel the nature of the spirit hiding within this man. It is the progeny of the tainter, of the serpent down below. A child of that monster, from a certain point of view. A slave, from another. Its egg of greed hatched within a man.
A firefly born of a devil.
He runs it through with his holy blade, opens its armour up like a can, and casts it down for the grigori to execute.
Which she does.
Dust hangs heavy in the air. The beauty of the church is destroyed. The ceiling has collapsed and the stained glass windows are broken. Shrapnel and bullet holes scar the baroque architecture. The holes in the roof are letting the snow in, and it whirls and twirls with the dust.
Father Orisino is bleeding heavily. His face is burnt and charred, almost more like a skull than a face. It's a minor miracle his eyes are still intact. Perhaps they aren't. They're glowing, after all. Perhaps his eyes have burned out and he now sees only with the aid of the spirit.
"Are you okay?" Serafina asks, somewhat shocked that he's still moving around rather than rolling around on the floor in pain.
"The angel will see to my wellness. See to your own," the man says, his voice a chorus. He stalks towards the rear of the church. He doesn't even walk like he used to.
Seelicia's voice crackles on the radio. "Ess," she says. "The other two are headed in. They… um. Yeah. All the HITMark rip-offs just… just stopped working."
"Passable," is all Christos says once he arrives. "Prepare yourself. Their master is next." He turns to Najwa, and says something in Arabic. She nods, and turns and heads back towards the exit.
"There are a few things which must be done for it to fall," Christos says cryptically. "And I think that there will be at least one more obstacle. Rule of three. Shall we?" He gestures to Orisino. "Lead the way."
The way down to the sanctum is hidden under the ruined altar. It was exposed by the blast. And together they head down into darkness.
The last guardian
Who is the final watcher at the serpent's gate?
[ ] Nothing that Serafina can see.
[ ] Nothing. The entire place reeks of spiritual corruption to Father Orisino. It's thoroughly desecrated his sanctum and perhaps considers that defence enough.
[ ] Nothing. There is no final guardian. The creature perhaps doesn't feel it needs one.
[ ] Nothing. It's here waiting for you in public. With open arms and a smile.
The Dimensional Anomaly Incursion is:
[ ] Staying the same (Weak)
[ ] Strengthening somewhat
The sky is a weeping sore. Alice can feel it. Her sensitivity to dimensional phenomena is screaming at her. It's like hearing someone scrape their nails along a blackboard, only in the back of her skull. The terrifying beauty of the light doesn't account for much when you can hear that.
The way they're heading, they're entering a temporary lull in the storm's intensity. It's like the eye of a hurricane. Even the snow is letting up.
She looks sideways at Serafina who's squatting over the prone figure of the dead X-410. It's definitely dead. Alice knows dead things. She's quite an expert on the subject, and the X-410 is dead.
For now. Because she can feel the stirrings of cellular activity within it again and knows that Serafina is doing things to it. Things that most Traditionalists would call magic, but which Serafina would say is perfectly hyperbiology.
Alice can hear plasma fire in the distance. It's a characteristic noise. Once you hear it, you never forget the crack of a high density ionised beam.
There's a little bit of her which had been trying to think of Serafina as purely a civilian lab scientist who happens to work for the Technocracy and spends all her days pottering around making cures for cancer and vaccines and the like. The kind of Technocrat she had certain… long-distance contacts with in Miami under a false name, because sometimes a doctor might find it easier to misplace some money and take a day off ill on the day an exorcist shows up and - oh, look, the kid wasn't possessed by a ghost, it was just epilepsy.
Some asshole Traditionalists felt she was a sell-out for doing such things.. Alice strongly disagrees. She damn well knows ghosts exists, but believing in them just encourages them and then they get self-entitled.
But she's getting off topic. She kind of hoped Serafina was that kind of scientist. A vain hope, given she's an official Hero of the Technocratic Union. But it had been a nice hope. She can't tell herself that any more when she showed far too much familiar with bioroid combat programmes and reconfigured the living hulking super-Victor - some kind of X-series experimental unit - into body armour for herself. What's worse is that she can still feel the muted, weapon-like mind of the super-Victor, wrapped around Serafina's psychic waveform. She's using it.
Serafina turns her faceless face towards her. Alice isn't sure where the optical sensors are, but she feels Serafina's attention focussed on her.
"You don't like this," Serafina says, breaking her concentration. "I'm sorry if… look, I'm not a soldier. I just let it handle the combat while I provide guidance."
And there she is, turning on her easy charm. "Don't play mind games," Alice says tensely.
She's pretty sure Serafina is giving her a dirty look, although it's hard to tell because she does not have eyes at the moment. "I'm… oh, for goodness sake. I'm not playing mind games. I just fused with a freaky blind killing machine. X-410s are weird even by bioroid standards. Please don't think I'm stupid, 'Liss."
"I didn't say anything," she says.
"You were thinking it loudly enough that I don't need to be psychic to know," Serafina says tartly. "I am entirely aware that you are not comfortable with the fact that I configured this thing so it was hollow inside and then climbed in and I currently have programmable cells threaded throughout my body as part of my nervous system override. If something goes wrong, I'll need new eyes Believe me. I know it's weird. I haven't done this before today."
There is a pause.
"Now, pass me some of that plastic explosive," Serafina adds, looking up from her surgery on the currently dead corpse. "I need to make some improvements. And fill up some holes. No, more than that. I'll need the whole pile."
"Is this an Alicia idea?" Alice says warily, passing the blocks of explosive.
"Is what?"
"... you're filling a reanimated bioroid with explosives."
"Oh, that? No, I haven't heard from Alicia in a while. She's been avoiding my attempts to contact her," Serafina says, working away as she packs plastic explosive into the opened up chest cavity. "There. Isn't that adorable? It'll be all the rage in Paris this coming fashion season. Ah! And pass me that backpack, too. It can wear it."
"Are you sure this wasn't 'Licia's idea?"
"Why would it be?" Serafina asks in honest confusion.
"Never mind."
"Oh! See if we can stop by a jewellry store. I feel a sudden urge for silver shrapnel."
***
The ragtag group of one proper enlightened scientist and four Reality Deviants has a substantial advantage thanks to Serafina, she thinks smugly. With Seelicia and Beelicio in a sniper position overlooking the church, Serafina can use the sensors built into their biosuits to monitor and map the grounds. She can see enemy concentrations and their positions.
They seem to resemble second-rate Construct defence teams in how they're deployed. Nothing particularly fancy tactically - solid placement watching over the major lines of approach within the building and without. She quickly sketches out a map marking enemy placements for the others, huddling together in the back of the van.
"If they have any HITMark knock-offs, my biosensors will have problems picking them up. No heartbeats or vital signs. I know they have some out front, so there'll probably be more inside. Apart from that, that's the best of my knowledge," she warns. "But I can't see any biosigns below ground."
Father Orisino sits on the edge of his seat, perched with an old AK-74 on his lap. "Of course you can't see the sanctum. No, quite amazingly I thought to conceal an underground chamber from Technocratic sensors. I wonder why?" he says dryly.
Serafina would usually flush at that. "I'm just making the point," she says. "I'm using the sensors in low power mode, passives only. I might be missing some things, but even assuming that these troops are the sum total of their forces, a direct assault through the main doors will involve facing their enfilading fire. And they may have hidden enlightened or RD assets which I can't distinguish from their usual troopers."
"There are many malevolent spirits in that building," Najwa says softly. "Some of them possessing humans."
EDEs, Serafina mentally corrects. Wonderful. "I'm not trained in the dimensional sciences so I can't ID those individuals," she says simply. "So can you-"
"Pass me that red pen," Najwa says. She marks off some of the clusters. "The spirithosts are mostly in the main chamber. Some of them are more powerful - there are two especially potent ones. In addition, there are two spirithost vehicles - disguised as police cars and parked out the front."
Serafina blinks. "Uh…" she says, her mind whirring as she tries to account for this. And she's somewhat curious about how the other woman knows this - but on the other hand she really doesn't want to know."
"They look to be Technocratic Legate C-models," Christos says seriously. "Or some closely related variant. The SPD does love their toys."
Alice scowls. "This is a problem," she says darkly. "How many anti-tank missiles do you have in here, old man?"
"A few."
Serafina taps the floor idly, the hulking fingers of the X-410 unfamiliar and yet fitting. She'll need to propose that the X-410 project is formally adapted for the assisted biosuit functionality she's been using it for, she thinks. Except that's just a dream. She's burned so many bridges.
Enough regrets.
"I can have my sniper team target them," she says. "They have anti-materiel weapons."
"No," Christos disagrees. "Najwa and I will deal with them. We may need intact Legates later, and the SPD often runs its HITMark knock-offs off a single coordinated server. They won't be able to place it in the church, so it'll need to be nearby and they'll want it to be mobile. But that can't be done with the hostiles watching."
Alice sighs. "Just say it outright, old man," she grumbles. "You want a distraction."
"Well, if you would be so kind…"
"Anta mudjir," Najwa says wearily. "No. A frontal assault is too risky and we have no time for stealth. Once they're panicking we have certain… techniques for crippling their command structure and disabling the HITMark knock-offs. They don't have primium. We can sweep them up."
Alice nods respectfully to the woman who appears to be her natural ally in the face of Christos' him-ness. "Fine. Then we flank them. We go in through the side of the building, through the apartments. I can make sure we silently breach the wall. Serafina has two high end bioroids with explosive weaponry," she points out clusters, "and that allows us to clear their weapons nests. Once we're on Orisino's home territory, he can cut loose, yes?"
"Yes," the priest says. He's quiet, seemingly meditating.
"There will be a problem with that," Serafina admits. "The reanimated X-410 has taken extensive damage and has suffered neural degradation. I had to initialise some functionality in factory default mode, and that means it'll attack Reality Deviancy on sight. It's still useful as a distraction, but it can't fight alongside you."
"A distraction is all I need," Alice says, eyes narrowed. "We move in five."
Father Orisino shifts. "Then," he says solemnly, "first we pray. And I will bless you, for what it is worth. Today we do the work of the Father. And," a light gleams in his eye. "even if you do not believe in Him, He believes in you. My sanctum is a place of faith, and it would do you well to keep that in mind. Fight to cast out these unbelievers and the demons and all will be well. Let us join hands."
***
The apartments built up against the church are nearly pitch black. The power has failed and only the light from the sky outside creeping in through the windows light them. Occasional lightning bursts illuminate the tatty corridors in sharp relief.
The latest brightness reveals two bodies, neatly executed with two bulletholes in their heads. Their blood is a dark pool on the worn carpet.
"Targets down," Alice Aristide says impassively, lowering her smoking gun and stepping over the SPD watchers who'd been left here. She squats by one and steals his radio and silenced submachine gun. She can feel it's clean of spiritual taint - it's just a high tech silenced weapon. Something she can use on these goons, without resorting to her precious silver ammo in the revolver Christos gave her. "Ess, get that door open."
Serafina's hulking form advances and stabs those nasty primium blades on her forearms into the lock, carving it open. Alice flows through the door. "Police!" she shouts in Spanish at the people in here, huddled around a candle. "This is a police raid." All she needs is the right words, the right tone, and just a small psychic nudge and they're obeying her. "There are dangerous criminals on the loose! Everyone, head into the bedroom and barricade the door! Don't come out, no matter what!"
The elderly couple scramble to obey, and Alice keeps up her attitude just long enough for them to vanish into the bedroom with the candle. Then she drags a chest of drawers into the way of the door, blocking off the bedroom. "Father!" she radios back. "Move up!"
Father Orisino is no longer suppressing the angel which dwells within him. He burns with an inner flame, casting a light over the entire room like a small bonfire. His shadow isn't human and out of the corner of her eye, Alice can see the six wings of light extending from his back. The expression on his face is one of calm benevolence, and all doubt has left him.
"Explosives!" she orders as Serafina covers the entrance. Tilting her head, Alice takes in the structure and places the charges as to breach the walls of the church.
"Ready on your orders," Serafina says.
"No. Wait," Alice says. She can feel the lightning when it comes, and there's a second or two before the thunder arrives. They just need to time it right and the noise of the breach will be concealed by the thunder. "On my 'go', do it."
She waits, breathing steadily. There. She feels there's a flash.
"Go!" she orders. The charges blow and the blast and the collapse of the wall are muffled entirely by the thunder. Alice smiles humorlessly for a moment. She can psychically suppress sound - she's always had a talent for it - but why bother to do that when you can just conceal the noise in ambient sound. And then she's moving.
She can feel minds in the area. Tainted minds, some of them. Fusions of flesh and spirit. Other are just human. There are three humans down the other end of the corridor and she can feel their curiosity burn into suspicion.
Alice doesn't give it time to develop further. In a single liquid motion she flows around the corner and levels her pistol.
***
Miguel Hermandez isn't a bad man. Not really. He does work for a company run by the Special Projects Division, but as far as he's concerned it's just a private security company. He'd left the Mexican army with an honourable discharge and they'd been recruiting. So he took the job and got four times the salary he used to have, as well as some nice gear. Sure, he was sort of a glorified mall cop, but they ran things professionally paid well, and there was talk of promotions and special training. And maybe some of the other people on the team are a bit weird, but he doesn't hang around with them. They're from different, 'elite' squads.
They'd been hired to aid the police in securing a church linked to criminal drug smuggling. He doesn't want to be working Christmas Eve, but the bonus is more than worth it. Then things had started getting weird. He's just ignoring the light in the sky. He can't think of it. Literally can't. But that leaves him with a hollow feeling in his head, and butterflies in his stomach. The power's failed and his NVGs are playing up, so he's using a torch instead. And the noise outside is… just thunder. Yes. Just thunder. Nothing else.
His ears are ringing and his head is spinning after the latest thunderclap. It's the sound of plaster falling from the ceiling which clue him in to the fact that it wasn't just a thunderclap. Plaster and the soft sound of footsteps. Three things pass through his head as he whirls, mouth opening in shock. The first is a sudden sense of terrified shock.
The next two things are standard-issue Technocratic 10mm pistol rounds.
His killer then double-taps the other two men in the room, and moves on.
***
Serafina knows she isn't a natural at this. She's a scientist and a researcher who makes weapons sometimes and who's trained in command. She's not a soldier. As she trails behind Alice, letting the X-410 act as it sees fit and only nudging it when necessary, she can see Alice is a natural. It's like...
… well, her old friend reminds her of Rose. And not in a good way. She's like Rose when she lets go of all her careful restraint and cultivated attempts at normalcy. Except when Rose does that, she's a savage, sadistic, haemophage-like monster. Alice just doesn't feel anything at all. Serafina has seen HITMarks less mechanical and more emotional than her. Alice times her shots with noises outside perfectly, hiding the sound of silenced gunshots in the thunder and the screaming of the sky. She doesn't miss. She's a black-clad killer who turns what should be gunfights into systematic executions. She uses the low lighting and the noise and her uncanny speed to kill without being caught. She's empty inside.
Serafina knows that the people here are working for the Special Projects Division, and several of them are already possessed by EDEs. She can't help them. But she can't help but feel sorry for them. It's a weakness and she's not fool enough to alert them, but she feels a little bit bad about it.
And she changes her mind rather quickly once they're out of the close confines where Alice can shape the fight. Her bioscanner tells her just how many enemies are in the main body of the church.
"Four ahead by the door. Spirit clone hivemind," Alice says tersely. "Noise will alert the main hall."
"I will deal with these demons," Father Orisino says, his now-snow-white hair flickering above his head like flames. "Duma, I invoke you. Heed my strictures." The light of his wings solidifies. He suddenly holds a flaming sword and in one motion he steps around the corner and hurls it at the nearest clone, pinning it to the wall.
It doesn't try to scream. It seems incapable of doing so, unable to gather the volition. And then the priest is moving and he's fast, almost as fast as Alice and he's far, far stronger. He has another flaming sword in hand and quickly the clones are so much charred meat.
"We're at the door," Serafina transmits to the Euthanatoi. She sends the order to the overclocked, critically damaged Xiaolian she's reactivated, and then makes sure she has a solid wall between it and its targets. "Keep out of sight," she tells Father Orisino. "We don't want it getting distracted. I'm sending it in now."
***
The X-410's failing heart is hammering. Its torn muscles are dynamically knitting together on the fly, and that's the only thing that's keeping it going. The toxins from the alien spaceship are pumping through its hyperoxygenated blood, tearing its body apart as it goes.
Black armoured feet hammer on the floorboards.
It's damaged. Damaged even by the standards of mindless combat clones. It's been given a short extra period of life. It isn't grateful for this gift. It isn't grateful for anything. It lacks the cognitive capacity.
It has its orders and it will obey them. Not for the Union. Not because it believes in them. Not because it trusts its commander. It obeys its orders because they're its orders.
It has an assault rifle in each hand. Its nerves are shot to pieces by the resurrection, but it doesn't need to really aim. Its life expectancy once it sees a threat is barely more than the time it'll take to empty the magazines.
The door is ahead of it. It lowers its shoulder and charges, somehow squeezing out even more energy from its dead body.
And it's surrounded by light.
The interior of the church is beautiful. The structure itself is a classic example of 1700s Mexican experimentation in the baroque. The combination of native and Moorish influences worked together to produce a style quite unlike those in Europe at the time. The great fluted columns and domes, worn even as they are, catch the prismatic light that shines through the vast stained glass windows. Ever dancing, ever wonderful, the aesthetics are something the designer never thought to account for. What long-dead man ever thought the sky over Mexico City would catch fire on Christmas Eve
The many-coloured light plays across its eyeless face like a flight of butterflies.
It appreciates none of the beauty. Because it can see the foe. Three machine gun positions have been set up to cover the main entrance. There are lifeless men - robots - positioned at the doors and concealed behind the pews. More clones have hiveminded positions set up to enfilade attackers. There are elite soldiers, in armour which leaves them looking reptilian. And by the altar there are two two-and-a-half metre tall power armours, their autocannons ready and present. Their master demands their obedience and they obey. That is what they are paid for.
The X-410 knows no fear. Knows no regrets. Knows nothing but the mission. It charges in, weapons blazing, throwing itself madly into the densest concentration of foes. It fights - and in the surprise it cuts down man after man. It's dead already. Morale wavers…
… and then one of the power armours slams into it, running it through with a wickedly sharp blade extending from the back of its fist.
Then the charges go off and the backpacks full of C4 and the explosives stuffed into its body end its existence for the second time today.
Perhaps, even, in its last moments as fire and light consumes it, it finds some measure of God.
… probably not, though.
***
Seelicia flinches at the blast. She can feel it in her gut. And just as relevantly, it breaks every single window in streets. She's just glad that she's wearing her helmet, because she feels glass patter off her face. Even as she watches some of the church's roof falls in, rubble smashing down and the dome collapsing.
The effects on the SPD forces are instantly visible. They're thrown into disarray, and the ones on the exterior turn to rush towards the bomb site.
Entirely predictable. Also somewhat of a mistake.
Seelicia watches the two black-clad figures strike. Gunfire starts from within the church. Gunfire and the pounding thumps of a grenade launcher. She smiles quietly at the sound that Serafina is still alive and fighting.
And then there's a brilliant light from within the church.
***
Where does the rising ape meet the falling angel? In the mind of a man who's sharing his flesh with an archangel, perhaps.
He and Duma have an agreement. The demons must die. The master of the demons must be destroyed. The church must be made whole, repaired of the damage done to it. The power of the archangel is put towards the destruction of the demons, and they are in full cooperation. The angelic power fills him to the brim and overflows.
He speaks a word, and the demons turn on each other. They are treacherous beings. They cannot fight well, and within this sacred place they are weak and he is strong.
He turns towards the… the two women. Whatever their names are. The angel in his head makes it hard to remember. They're behind cover and the… the larger one is blowing up clusters of troops, while the other one simply impassively and mutely kills. The soulless machines powered by demons are falling like flies, their minds vanishing. Someone else is interfering.
Ah yes. He remembers their names.
"Seraph," he says. "Grigori. Stay away."
And then he spreads his wings and launches himself straight at the hulking demon-host bound within the metal armour, lashing at it with his flaming sword. It does not belong here. He feels it. This is not its world - yet it is here. At first its armour resists his blows, but then the tainted unholy hull starts to peel off. Men who see him whose eyes are not open to the beauty of God run screaming, and demons flee to see him slay the mightiest of them.
With his other hand, he raises the AK74 and fires bullets of celestial fire into the holes in its hull. They burn its unnatural flesh and demonic spirit, unmaking it into motes of pure light which drift away on the breeze.
It fights back, of course. The demons within come out to play, and from its mechanical mouth it exhales fire in his face. The holy raiments he wears take most of the heat, but his flesh chars and burns. He ignores it. It is just pain.
He has felt worse.
The angel can feel the nature of the spirit hiding within this man. It is the progeny of the tainter, of the serpent down below. A child of that monster, from a certain point of view. A slave, from another. Its egg of greed hatched within a man.
A firefly born of a devil.
He runs it through with his holy blade, opens its armour up like a can, and casts it down for the grigori to execute.
Which she does.
***
Dust hangs heavy in the air. The beauty of the church is destroyed. The ceiling has collapsed and the stained glass windows are broken. Shrapnel and bullet holes scar the baroque architecture. The holes in the roof are letting the snow in, and it whirls and twirls with the dust.
Father Orisino is bleeding heavily. His face is burnt and charred, almost more like a skull than a face. It's a minor miracle his eyes are still intact. Perhaps they aren't. They're glowing, after all. Perhaps his eyes have burned out and he now sees only with the aid of the spirit.
"Are you okay?" Serafina asks, somewhat shocked that he's still moving around rather than rolling around on the floor in pain.
"The angel will see to my wellness. See to your own," the man says, his voice a chorus. He stalks towards the rear of the church. He doesn't even walk like he used to.
Seelicia's voice crackles on the radio. "Ess," she says. "The other two are headed in. They… um. Yeah. All the HITMark rip-offs just… just stopped working."
"Passable," is all Christos says once he arrives. "Prepare yourself. Their master is next." He turns to Najwa, and says something in Arabic. She nods, and turns and heads back towards the exit.
"There are a few things which must be done for it to fall," Christos says cryptically. "And I think that there will be at least one more obstacle. Rule of three. Shall we?" He gestures to Orisino. "Lead the way."
The way down to the sanctum is hidden under the ruined altar. It was exposed by the blast. And together they head down into darkness.
The last guardian
Who is the final watcher at the serpent's gate?
[ ] Nothing that Serafina can see.
[ ] Nothing. The entire place reeks of spiritual corruption to Father Orisino. It's thoroughly desecrated his sanctum and perhaps considers that defence enough.
[ ] Nothing. There is no final guardian. The creature perhaps doesn't feel it needs one.
[ ] Nothing. It's here waiting for you in public. With open arms and a smile.
The Dimensional Anomaly Incursion is:
[ ] Staying the same (Weak)
[ ] Strengthening somewhat
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's bound something spirit-based to face us... or perhaps a ghost.
It's mucked around with the sanctum - what's vulgar and what isn't. This one will hit Father Orsino *hard*, and also free the hand of the spirit.
This means that the creature itself is stronger.
This means that it's going to be throwing some sort of mind-whammy at us, and possibly stacking it with some sort of devil's offer. Additionally, it may have some sort of additional trap set up, that it's delaying us for, or attempting to guide our actions into.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Nothing that Serafina can see.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
[X] Nothing that Serafina can see.
I think that the Father and Christos can probably handle all but the greatest of EDEs together, and this implies that the Resident itself is likely going to go down quickly.
I think that the Father and Christos can probably handle all but the greatest of EDEs together, and this implies that the Resident itself is likely going to go down quickly.
NonSequtur
a body
[x] Nothing that Serafina can see.
[x] Strengthening somewhat
Flensing winds of shattered souls? Flensing winds of shattered souls. Let's make Serafina run head first into how little she really knows as we near the final dramatic confrontation.
[x] Strengthening somewhat
Flensing winds of shattered souls? Flensing winds of shattered souls. Let's make Serafina run head first into how little she really knows as we near the final dramatic confrontation.
[X] Nothing. It's here waiting for you in public. With open arms and a smile.
Come on. Let's have a nice friendly chat. <3
Other things Serafina might not be able to see: A stealthed Anathema unit. Or maybe it's the Anathema's little brother, the Devourer. Maybe it's a Special Agent, using his Agent nature to be invisible until he needs to show himself. After all-there can always be collusion between corporations and government. Maybe it's I-50-B33 and she just wants to give you so many hugs! All the hugs!
Assuming it's the kind of spirit that easily gets fucked up is not a good idea.
Come on. Let's have a nice friendly chat. <3
Other things Serafina might not be able to see: A stealthed Anathema unit. Or maybe it's the Anathema's little brother, the Devourer. Maybe it's a Special Agent, using his Agent nature to be invisible until he needs to show himself. After all-there can always be collusion between corporations and government. Maybe it's I-50-B33 and she just wants to give you so many hugs! All the hugs!
Assuming it's the kind of spirit that easily gets fucked up is not a good idea.