Chapter 200: The Elisburg Riot
- Location
- france
- Pronouns
- He
[X] all of the above.
[X] Creature
Creature Roll: (440 points)
Category Roll D50=13 Star Wars/Mass Effect; Entry Roll D185=182
100 Space Cow, 50 Spitbug, 100 Taurg
Category Roll D50=9 Super Mario/Zelda/Metroid; Entry Roll D410=79
100 Twirlip, 50 Twister, 100 Uproot
Sub-vote results: Reject everything and keep points.
Banked: 440
[X] Creature
Creature Roll: (440 points)
Category Roll D50=13 Star Wars/Mass Effect; Entry Roll D185=182
100 Space Cow, 50 Spitbug, 100 Taurg
Category Roll D50=9 Super Mario/Zelda/Metroid; Entry Roll D410=79
100 Twirlip, 50 Twister, 100 Uproot
Sub-vote results: Reject everything and keep points.
Banked: 440
Two hundred chapters? How did I ever manage to write two hundred chapters (plus a few interludes) each with a minimum of a thousand words and often far more? A mystery for the ages.
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Saturday, 05/14/2011 (10 AM)
And indeed Dragon's voice came out of my earbud. "Compendium you are to be on every front. We'll need some of your non-biological partners to go into Elisburg to search and destroy Nilbog, some to support the soldiers on the wall, and some on healing duty because we already have some casualties. I'm sorry to place such a burden on you, but you are the only one who can do it."
"Don't worry about it. Me and my partners can handle it."
With a mental cracking of my knuckles, my Minds got to work.
Around me, two groups of partners appeared simultaneously.
On my left were the healers, basically every partner with healing powers, Olky with the Clockwork variant, Chandelle for her natural healing powers, Star for their class, Baggage with its stock of healing items, and after a few hands seals I ended things up with Yuhe.
With no words from me, the panda quickly took command of the group and directed it toward the healing station adjacent to the command center.
On my right were the defenders, those needed to be chosen carefully, range attacks were key. Thorne would double as a supporter with Haste, Xaytorreth could smother Nilbog's monsters, Crysmal would be able to bypass any kind of physical defense, Malcolm's lightning could also be very effective, Sentry Turret wouldn't need to move so it would be viable, Master Hand could be a huge asset, Xi was given, and I decided to risk both the Rager and the Mysticblade hoping that they wouldn't scare the soldiers fighting.
For myself, I called on Kuja who appeared on my head and the Divine Bow in my hands. My faithful snake was quick to merge with the bow giving the wood the texture of scales.
And lastly, Bakugami manifested high in the sky even if he was partially hidden by the cloud cover. In case I need to explode things.
Thankfully the sudden appearance of my partners didn't cause an uproar from the soldiers present on the wall, Dragon's work no doubt.
Now that I wasn't summoning anymore I took a second to find my bearings. The wall encompassing Elisburg was three stories tall and almost medieval in look. With regular towers supporting weapon emplacements and linked by what I think was called a Chemin de ronde.
I jumped on top of the wall and my partners followed in their own way, the ones unable to do so being carried by the others and the big flyers remaining in the air. Finally, I contemplated from up close Elisburg's proper.
It was a disturbing sight, a pseudo-enchanting landscape made of junk. The houses were altered to look like fantasy buildings, with an excess of spiral and mushroom roofs, with wooden planks on the side hiding the concrete walls, and all that painted in bright colors.
Speaking of colors the containment walls were also painted to create an optical illusion of a horizon covered by a forest.
To complement all that the town was full of curated gardens with trees and bushes twisted into various shapes, arches, mazes, and topiary animals.
It could almost be called beautiful if one didn't know how it came to be. Of course, the numerous goblins and monsters swarming toward the wall in a murderous rampage detract a fair bit from it. Well, murderous rampage was an exaggeration. While yes they were attacking rather aggressively and with single-minded focus, they retained enough cognitive function to apply some strategies. They hid behind obstacles when possible, they used the break in firing when the soldiers reloaded to advance, and they targeted the soldiers with their bone spears instead of attacking randomly.
There was no man's land around twenty meters wide right in front of the wall. The entire zone was devastated by repeated mortar explosions and gunfire and was covered in gore. The smell was perhaps worse than the sight, nauseating in the extreme, only by turning my stomach to Plasma did I avoid throwing up.
My partners were starting to spread out along the walls. They had strict instructions to not step foot inside Elisburg. While I knew that they're is no risk of infections considering that I could just dismiss them, I could understand the caution from the higher-ups. It would restrict the options available to Rager and Master Hand but they were strong enough to compensate.
It would be the first time in my career that my partners would be spread out so much. Not even during the battle against Leviathan did my partners move so far away from me and each other.
Despite the fact that Elisburg was on the small side for a town, it was still much bigger than my summoning radius. I couldn't possibly cover the whole wall. Still, my partners would be able to cover a decent stretch of it.
While I drew the Divine Bow back my Minds focused on summoning the last team. This would be a little different. It starts by sending one unit of Harvest rushing through Elisburg as fast as possible. I loaded it up with as many speed-boosting effects as possible. The monsters didn't count as Stands so they couldn't see it. Once it reached the very edge of my range in the direction of the town center it stopped in what seemed to be a deserted hallway in between what appeared to be an old school inn and a general store.
At this distance from the wall, there were no visible goblins in sight, but some caution was still warranted.
That unit of Harvest would serve as a relay for a trio of robots that would hunt down the goblin king. I had options besides robots as non-biological entities but robots would prevent endless debate. I didn't want to argue with bureaucrats that Cujo wasn't a biological entity despite him looking like a green dog.
The first one was Clank, who disappeared from my back only to be summoned back next to the unit, he would be the leader of the team. And he had my permission to go Mega Clank if needed.
Rob was next, they considered their poor performance against Leviathan to be shameful and were eager to redeem themselves. I didn't share their opinion but they were adamant, so it was a good opportunity for them.
Lastly, I called on Doc. For once he may be able to indulge in his murderous urges. This time he was equipped with the Metal Blade. Non-lethal was not on the menu today.
To finish things off I gave the team every boost that I thought could be relevant. And then they were off. A few Minds would remain focused on them just in case but I trust them. They didn't need me hovering constantly.
Briefly, I looked into the situation with the healing team. The infirmary wasn't a pretty sight, the initial assault from the monsters caught everyone by surprise and dealt a lot of damage. For several soldiers it was already too late, white sheets covered multiple beds.
Yuhe was forced to use two Phoenix Downs to save the lives of two soldiers, a man and a woman, who expired just as the healing team entered the infirmary. I sent my approval mentally, I would deal with the questions that would inevitably arise. Saving lives took priority.
There was some confusion and minor panic when some wounded soldiers saw Olky, while he looked nothing like one of Nilbog's monsters and wore a butler suit, there was still enough commonality there that a traumatized man could confuse the two. To prevent further mixup, I decided to apply a Theme to Olky. Just as I was trying to decide which one to use, the Menagerie gave me a new one that was utterly perfect for the situation.
That brought to mind a lot of questions concerning the awareness of the Menagerie but I decided to not look a gifted horse in the mouth.
There was also an interesting prehistoric aquatic animal called a Liopleurodon, that I would look at later.
And so Olky found himself covered in thick fur. This made him look much cuter, with some teddy bear vibe, and divorced him completely from the Nilbog's monsters. And for some reason, it reminded me of a character in an old movie I saw once when I was little with Dad. But the name eludes me. Space Warrior? Sky Runner? Something like that. It didn't matter at the moment, I shouldn't let myself be distracted by random trivia.
The change in appearance surprised the persons present but also calmed them down significantly once Yuhe explained. The healing team hurried to go to work, solving most of the issues in short orders.
A few cases were not so easily solved or would leave permanent sequelae, from gruesome scars to missing limbs. Then it was time for me to return my full attention to the wall, something that I was dreading.
My body was already fighting, controlled by my other Minds, each one taking the pilot seat for a minute before switching. Hopefully, this would reduce the psychological impact that I would no doubt face later.
Our foes fall into five main categories that I could see, with scattered others that were more unique.
The first were tall and thin, almost emaciated figures that could throw with tremendous strength and precision spears made of bones. And when they ran out of spears they threw rocks instead. Those dealt less damage but were harder to dodge.
Then they were big ones like round rhinos with flat bone plates instead of horns, haphazard tufts of long hair adorning their hides. Despite moving relatively slowly their charge dealt surprising damage to the wall and they resisted bullets.
The most dangerous ones were maybe the lizard-like ones, able to spit out globules that were both acidic and venomous. Worse, they were excellent climbers, able to scale the wall at speed.
I was also disturbed by the goblins with big round bald heads, girlish in appearance, that could detonate themselves with force. They wedged themselves against the wall, ideally in locations already weakened by the Chargers, and exploded. It was a gruesome spectacle.
The worst ones were the ones that looked almost like human children. They were as aggressive as the others, throwing themselves into the fray with abandon, doing anything they could think of to contribute to the assault, like carrying ammunition for the others or taking a bullet to protect their allies.
Seeing them be mowed down by the soldiers or by my own partners would give me nightmares for the foreseeable future.
For my part I avoid targeting them, instead focusing on the more dangerous ones. The energy shots that I sent with the Divine Bow enhanced by Kuja proved to be devastating, easily passing straight through even the hide of the Chargers, in disgusting explosions of gore.
My partners were also doing a fantastic job, destroying the monsters with ease. Barrages of needles annihilate venom lizards, mass of shadows torn apart spears throwers, bolts of lighting denote big head monsters prematurely, lasers cut to pieces the chargers, and volley of spikes pinned to the ground the almost-human ones.
The whole area that we were protecting was now secure, allowing the soldiers to move in other zones if necessary or to take some rest.
Still, the wall was damaged so I took a brief break to call on Cressidus and Zhuan to strengthen and repair the wall with their respective version of Earth manipulation.
The slaughter continued in the same vein for a few minutes. While it would have been easy to annihilate whole swathes of the monsters with more indiscriminate powers. Like deploying Judgment or Rex's Nuclear Breath, it would have been unwise. It was a matter of public record that Nilbog prepared countermeasures against nuclear weapons. And we had no idea what could trigger them or even their exact nature. As I didn't feel like fighting a plague of flesh-eating mushroom spores or similar horrors, the slow and dirty way was preferred.
Through Rager's eyes, I could see Eidolon exercising similar caution. The man was currently facing some sort of giant gargoyle-dragon hybrid. Instead of obliterating it with disintegration rays, he was projecting spheres of corrosive light that ate away at the monster each time they touched it.
It was during an intense bout of fighting that the Menagerie hit me with the biggest power I've ever received. I was forced to rely once more on my Minds to shoulder this burden and not get too distracted. A minute later I was informed that this power would allow me, with some limitations and rules, to travel to other Dimensions. While this was fantastic, now wasn't the time to go galivating into the multiverse so I set the matter aside.
To avoid focusing too much on the overall slaughter that this was turning into I returned some of my attention to my intrepid team of robots. They've reached what passes for the central plaza of the town. On the way they were attacked by a few stragglers from Nilbog's army but nothing that they couldn't handle. Doc cackling as he cut in half the goblin was a bit disturbing to listen to so I asked him to cut that out.
What they found in the plaza was a parody of a king's court. With a U-shaped table in the center, dominated by a makeshift throne. And it was a scene of chaos, the chairs were broken into kindles or thrown all over the place, the table was broken in half, and goblin corpses lay everywhere. One in particular was more unique than the others with blue skin and wearing children's clothes of higher quality laid with her head pulped in front of the throne.
On the throne itself lay a grotesque blob of flesh that at first glance my three robots and I thought was Nilbog's corpse. But as Clank drew closer it became clear that this was just a flesh puppet for the man. The belly of the puppet was open, and inside there were no organs, just muscle and fat. Some gruesome inspection of the puppet led to the discovery of umbilical cords leading underground.
For the first time ever, I used Grant Movement to give the three robots the ability to burrow through the ground like moles. With Speed Boost it didn't take long for them to dig into a chamber beneath the throne. Inside they found a broken fleshy sack that looked like a parody of a womb link to the umbilical cord. And it was empty.
On the west side of the chamber, there was a tunnel leading into the darkness. Mentally I swore.
From my position on the wall I ordered Clank to pursue and I triggered my earbud with the right frequency to address the Triumvirate members only.
"Nilbog is gone."
Legend was the first to respond. "You got him! Excellent!" I heard sights of relief coming from Alexandria and Eidolon.
Even though they couldn't see it from their position I still shaked my head in reflex. "No, he's gone. As in, he's not there anymore."
This time it was Eidolon who spoke up. "He fled? Damnit! We must find him."
Again, I shook my head. "I think it's worse than that. I think he was kidnapped. My partners found clear traces of struggle."
More swearing followed from all three. I couldn't help but agree. This was at the top of the list of worst-case scenarios among all the bad ones we could have imagined.
Wordcount: 2606
Excess words: 734
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And there we have it, Elisburg. I'm sure you all have theories on what happened to Nilbog. I won't say anything on the matter even if the solution is relatively obvious.
For the roll, 440 (Banked) + 240 (Chapter) + 0 (Excess words) = 680 points.
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