[x] Scan the machinery
-[x] If the machinery appears to be hazardous to your downward traverse, find a way to either destroy it or render it immobile with either the Ice Beam or Power Bombs
-[x] If the machinery does not appear to be hazardous to your downward traverse, leave it be
--[x] Descend in short bursts using the Repulser, and attempt to tease out the limits of the Gadora's cone of fire
---[x] If you can fire on the Gadora from safety, do so; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
---[x] If you cannot fire on the Gadora from safety, pepper its vision with harassing fire from your beam and Missiles until you can get in position to take it out; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
[x] Scan the machinery
-[x] If the machinery appears to be hazardous to your downward traverse, find a way to either destroy it or render it immobile with either the Ice Beam or Power Bombs
-[x] If the machinery does not appear to be hazardous to your downward traverse, leave it be
--[x] Descend in short bursts using the Repulser, and attempt to tease out the limits of the Gadora's cone of fire
---[x] If you can fire on the Gadora from safety, do so; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
---[x] If you cannot fire on the Gadora from safety, pepper its vision with harassing fire from your beam and Missiles until you can get in position to take it out; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
[x] Scan the machinery
-[x] If the machinery appears to be hazardous to your downward traverse, find a way to either destroy it or render it immobile with either the Ice Beam or Power Bombs
-[x] If the machinery does not appear to be hazardous to your downward traverse, leave it be
-[x] If we can gain missiles or energy from the machinery, do so - so long as it does not put us at risk from the Gadora.
--[x] Descend in short bursts using the Repulser, and attempt to tease out the limits of the Gadora's cone of fire
---[x] If you can fire on the Gadora from safety, do so; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
---[x] If you cannot fire on the Gadora from safety, pepper its vision with harassing fire from your beam and Missiles until you can get in position to take it out; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
[x] Scan the machinery
-[x] If the machinery appears to be hazardous to your downward traverse, find a way to either destroy it or render it immobile with either the Ice Beam or Power Bombs
-[x] If the machinery does not appear to be hazardous to your downward traverse, leave it be
--[x] Descend in short bursts using the Repulser, and attempt to tease out the limits of the Gadora's cone of fire
---[x] If you can fire on the Gadora from safety, do so; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
---[x] If you cannot fire on the Gadora from safety, pepper its vision with harassing fire from your beam and Missiles until you can get in position to take it out; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot.
[x] Scan the machinery
-[x] If the machinery appears to be hazardous to your downward traverse, find a way to either destroy it or render it immobile with either the Ice Beam or Power Bombs
-[x] If the machinery does not appear to be hazardous to your downward traverse, leave it be
--[x] Descend in short bursts using the Repulser, and attempt to tease out the limits of the Gadora's cone of fire
---[x] If you can fire on the Gadora from safety, do so; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot
---[x] If you cannot fire on the Gadora from safety, pepper its vision with harassing fire from your beam and Missiles until you can get in position to take it out; a Super Missile should be enough to take it out in a single clean shot.
...
You size up the moving machinery and shifting fields of interdimensional matter warily.
Superheavy Assembler said:
Apparatus is part of a complex system designed to assemble very large sized components into superstructures. The rest of the system extends further ahead.
Should be safe, as long as you don't touch it. You drop to the middle of the shaft, hugging the back wall, and fire some beam shots at the gadora. It remains closed. You slowly lower yourself in short bursts until you've teased out its cone of fire, and the eye opens.
(rolled 70, 61, 57)
Not the cleanest gadora kill of your career. Your cautious tactics enable you to evade its return fire, but you waste a super missile before managing to maneuver the second into its eye as it reopens. Fortunately, you do get a super missile's worth of materials from its remains. (SUPER MISSILES 29/30)
Breathing deeply, you float under the moving arms of the assembler and land on the floor before the exposed iris door. The maestrom of thoughts and feelings that have been rising in you since you began this final plunge recede, their storm becoming distant, lapping waves against your unbreakable shore. You shut your eyes; tremors ripple out through your entire body, flesh and machinery, third and fourth dimensional, alike, and you are completely in the moment.
A final diagnostic. Everything fully functional. Energy and ammunition stores in the green.
You fire on the door, and it opens. You stride through the corridor, and over the trench of fireblood. Of course, even before you've entered the room proper, the DEV has shown you the shape of what awaits. Mochtroids rise from the fireblood trenches in which they'd been spawning; half of their number floating into your path while the rest are called back, dissappearing into a pair of hatches in the sides of the thing before you. Rockleeches and thicker, annulated supports detach from that thing, coiling back into the assembler framework all along.
In the darkness, a single, yellow-green eye opens, and glares upon you with a familiar, hateful light.
"Heir Apparent," you broadcast silently as you stand before the not-quite-finished starship.
There is no answer. Just the squeal of mochtroids as they swarm toward you, forcing you to withdraw back toward the door and turn your armcannon on them. As you defend yourself, a brilliant, white-gold glow flames out beneath the vessel's thrusters, and it begins to rise into the air. At the center of the domed ceiling high above, a massive hatch opens, revealing the way up to the launch tube.
"Patrician!" You transmit frantically as the monster rises, payload of living, breeding death secure in its cargo bays, rises toward the surface, "Seal off the launch tube! SEAL OFF THE LAUNCH TUBE!"
Fortunately, as the ship rises and the swarm of mochtroids its left behind descend toward you, the psionic interference that Heir Apparent had been bathing this area with begins to recede, and the voice of the Patrician whispers through into your helmet. "We have already done so, Lady. We will do all in our power to delay the hostile's departure."
You leap to the side to avoid the first of the charging, chittering mochtroids, and begin opening fire.
(rolled 2, 35, 13, 99, 34, 14)
Your initial ice beam shots freeze half of them in their place. The second wave of them manage to surround you, landing a few charging, draining attacks, but your screw attack finishes them shortly thereafter, and a pair of missile prevent their fellows from ever unfreezing. (ENERGY 1,102/1,200, MISSILES 238/250)
Above your head, the ship rises through the launch tube, higher and higher, accelerating faster with every moment. You engage your repulsor, and rise behind it.
Heir Apparent said:
Tactical Summary: Spacecraft is protected by multiple, autonomous plates of highly shielded ablative armor; each section of this armor must be destroyed seperately to open more attack vectors at the primary hull. Vessel is armed with incendiary cluster bombs whose detonations can potentially drain 25 units of defensive energy per bomb (but can potentially be intercepted for supplies), a pair of twin starship-scaled plasma/wave/meta beam cannons that will drain 35 units of energy per hit, a point blank ramming shield projected from the ablative plates that will drain 100 units of energy per hit, and a high powered "polychrome" weapon similar to the one employed by Mother - albeit with a smaller power supply - that can negate up to 400 units of energy. Vessel also houses extensive metroid growth and breeding chambers, and may be capable of releasing metroids and mochtroids as needed to act as secondary combat assets.
Target rates at combat threat level AAA Platinum; recommending maximum force and extreme caution in engagement.
Lore: The Heir Apparent has created another brain unit, broadly similar to the Patrician's own satellite-selves, and integrated it into the control system of an FTL-capable starship slightly greater in size than your original Zebesian hunter class gunship, and with a higher performance due to its superior fireblood and metroid powered generators. In addition to its plethora of offensive and defensive systems, this spacecraft is equipped with a multispectral cloaking device, an onboard industrial suite capable of "seeding" much larger planet or asteroid based biomechanoid systems, a high-powered telepathic communications/SIGINT array, and a vast library of Zebesian and Tamatrosian technological data.
Structural analysis indicates that the central command, industrial, and generator modules were meant to be integrated into a much larger hull, and that the outer layers and propulsion systems were constructed much more hastily. The ablative armor sections in particular appear to have been excised from much larger plates and hastily attached to the hull within the past local day, and rely on relatively crude magnetization to remain adhered without mechanical stress.
The next hatch along the launch tube, just above the factory cooling chambers, has been sealed shut, but the Heir Apparent doesn't slow down as it rises toward it. Instead, a familiar, high-pitched, strobing sound begins as rainbow-colored light pulses across the eyelike projector at the ship's front. A moment later, a cone of scintillating, multi-colored light blasts forth, pulverizing the hatch and dropping a rain of molten slag on you as you rise after the ship. You try to get a missile lock on the enemy as it blows its way through the door, but simultaneous with its rainbow blast it drops half a dozen bombs from its underbelly, forcing you to devote all your attention to avoiding them as they fall passed you, changing direction in midair as they move by to close in on your position. Below you, the assembly floor is covered in clinging, violet flames.
There is another hatch just a few dozen meters above the last. Heir Apparent begins charging its polychrome beam again, angling its front upward.
[] CHASE
-[] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[] Prioritize defense: avoid whatever weapons it fires down at you and make your way after it cautiously.
-[] Prioritize offense: try to land as many hits on its underbelly as possible as you chase it up the shaft.
-[] Other (write in more specific tactics)
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
We should consider bringing our ship into the launch tube. If the Heir gets out, I'm not confident in our ship's ability to give chase. I'm also not confident in our ship's ability to win a straight fight against the Heir, but its shipboard weaponry could do some good damage anyway.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
-[X] Call our gunship into the launch tube to intercept.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
This is not going to be fun. So let's put on some appropriate music and pray that we come out of this in one piece.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
BONUS
--[X] be willing to sacrifice our own ship if necessary to stop the Heir Apparent. It might not do much, but if the HA manages to break through to the surface a kamikaze attack might be enough to slow it down just long enough for us to catch up to it, if we're lucky.
I have no idea how well, if at all, that last part will work.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
BONUS
--[X] be willing to sacrifice our own ship if necessary to stop the Heir Apparent. It might not do much, but if the HA manages to break through to the surface a kamikaze attack might be enough to slow it down just long enough for us to catch up to it, if we're lucky.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
BONUS
--[X] be willing to sacrifice our own ship if necessary to stop the Heir Apparent. It might not do much, but if the HA manages to break through to the surface a kamikaze attack might be enough to slow it down just long enough for us to catch up to it, if we're lucky.
[X] CHASE
-[X] Prioritize speed; don't let Heir Apparent out of your sight, concentrate on keeping on its tail and keeping your repulsor charged.
-[X] Aim for the thrusters.
BONUS
--[X] be willing to sacrifice our own ship if necessary to stop the Heir Apparent. It might not do much, but if the HA manages to break through to the surface a kamikaze attack might be enough to slow it down just long enough for us to catch up to it, if we're lucky.
...
Your suit can withstand a few hits of whatever it throws at you. If that thing gets off planet, though, with the metroids onboard and all the technology known to Mother and Patrician combined in its memory...
You fly upward as fast as the repulsor can carry you, the sound of the polychromatic hyperbeam charging for a second time getting louder and louder as you approach. You raise your armcannon toward its thrusters, but it senses your approach and drops another clutch of firebombs even as rainbow-colored light illuminates the shaft and the next hatch above it gives way in a shower of debris.
(rolled 32, 28)
Even in your haste, you expertly weave around the rain of seeker bombs, and plant a pair of super missiles in the Heir Apparent's underbelly. One of the thrusters flickers for a fraction of a second as it struggles to diffuse its energy into the surrounding ablative plate, upon which hairline cracks begin to appear.
It rockets upward again, dropping another clutch of bombs behind itself. You could try to hit it again as its accelerating, but then you'd be sacrificing speed of your own; need to keep it close, before anything else. As the two of you race up the next length of shaft, one of the hatches in its side opens, and a pair of mochtroids trail out behind it.
(rolled 47, 44, 22)
One of the bombs swerves into the wall just behind you, detonating against it, though you drop a second before two others can land close enough to harm you as well. You've taken some damage, but not much, and the mochtroids only slow you down for another second. (ENERGY 1,094/1,200, MISSILES 236/250, SUPER MISSILES 27/30)
Meanwhile, as the Heir Apparent rises, four violet comets streak down toward it from the other direction. Violae. It fires its stacked beams at them, destroying two in midair, but two others slam into the ship's dorsal plating in a pair of bright plasma bursts, melting and chipping off bits of armor. The Patrician is throwing everything he's got left at this as well.
(100, 47)
You dodge another clutch of bombs, and try to launch another super missile pair, but the Heir Apparent engages its golden, screw-attack-like ramming shield at just the right second to knock them aside before it can land. (SUPER MISSILES 25/30)
Your repulsor is starting to run out of juice as the Heir Apparent reaches the next hatch and starts charging its hyper beam again, once more casting rainbow-colored reflections across the walls of the launch tube.
[] Try to close as much distance as possible before it breaks through and hopefully get off some hits of your own as you're sinking down again.
[] Cling to the wall immediately and start recharging the repulsor, letting it get ahead a bit more for now.
[] Something else (write in)
[X] Cling to the wall immediately and start recharging the repulsor, letting it get ahead a bit more for now.
-[X] Try using Power Bombs while chasing it with the Spiderball. You have plenty.
[X] Cling to the wall immediately and start recharging the repulsor, letting it get ahead a bit more for now.
[X] If possible, when we hit the wall, try to wall-jump to gain height while the repulser regains its charge
[X] Cling to the wall immediately and start recharging the repulsor, letting it get ahead a bit more for now.
[X] If possible, when we hit the wall, try to wall-jump to gain height while the repulser regains its charge.
Hah. There may be a use for single-wall-jumping in this Quest after all.
[X] Cling to the wall immediately and start recharging the repulsor, letting it get ahead a bit more for now.
[X] If possible, when we hit the wall, try to wall-jump to gain height while the repulser regains its charge
