Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Reminder of both this and to update today.
The Icon of Sin, Gundam Build Diver Re:Rise (and Fighter)/40k AU, Ft Nihilo
- Thread starter Hastar
- Start date
- Mature
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
I imagine not forcing your pilots to learn how to use a completely new machine every other week also helps a hell of a lot in getting high skill units.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Zeon's best pilot is the guy with the red Zaku that's been customized to be 3 times faster, yeah. Though he's even more of a terror when they put him in a Mobile Armor (around the time the kid with the Gundam manages to git gud).
Unfortunately for Zeon, he'll teamkill whenever it advances his revenge plot against the Zabi dynasty and he can get away with it.
Chapter 4: Lord of Cheese meet the Sea Witch
Hastar
procrastinator extraordinaire
- Location
- Fran*e
Chapter 4:
"I said I was sorry!"
"You didn't even warn her that you were gonna jump!" The SD The O tutted, voice filled with disappointment.
"I thought it was obvious what I was about to do! They do it all the time in the shows!"
"And if someone never watched one?"
Galatea was sprawled on the floor of the man's cockpit, eyes taken up by rainbow swirls and bioluminescence shot to hell. The less said about the splatter of rainbow resin on the mech's hand, the better.
"I have sea monstergirl vomit all over my cockpit. Isn't that enough?"
"Noooooot sorrrrrryyyyyy." She groaned. Apparently the system had decided it was prudent to wire her to barf up the dissolvent after resin, to keep her airways clear.
"We can see her in the background, Akitama," The weird MS's pilot sighed, "Most of it is on her. Your cockpit is fine."
"Says you! It smells like the downtown fish market in here."
"Totally deserved." "Yup." Absolutely."
"You guys all suck!"
"I have to redo my teeth." The cuttlefish lamented. The poor things were half-melted and bent.
"How in the world did you even get the game to simulate that sort of stuff? That seems way too in depth," The pilot sighed, "That's straight up alien biology or something."
"Where there's a will–" Galatea said as she sat up, spitting out her teeth into an inventory window, "'here's a way."
"Could you not?" The poor highschooler all but begged, "Someone spitting out their half melted teeth, while looking like some deep sea eldritch monster is not a mental image I needed…"
"Welcome 'oo de indernet, ah there we go." She sighed in relief as her teeth finished growing back in, running a long tongue over them. She'd gone with simple triangles this time, much faster to make.
"Or to grow them right back out!"
"Do you want my help cleaning up the mess on your hand or not?" She grumbled with a purple tint as she finally got to her feet, peering into a system window to check for any damaged coral or scales. There were a few, but it was quick enough to melt and regrow them. "Because you're going to be scraping for a while without the dissolvent."
The sound coming out of his mouth could be construed as something a human could make.
It was, however, much funnier to say he sounded like a half choked squirrel getting stomped on by a giraffe.
"Oh hey, the tower's in sight!"
"Oh thank god."
Ervoan was a patient man.
You had to be when having two daughters.
Of the same age.
That were identical twins.
However, as he walked around the lobby, a large white paper sign held above his head, reading: 'I am here, you loathsome gaseous greenery!'
He was thinking that maybe his friend was starting to strain his patience. Just a touch.
Today was the day he was supposed to show him around! They both agreed to it!
He was finally going to see this so-called 'magnum opus' that he always went on about, but never actually told him anything about!
But nooooo an hour in, and the guy still wasn't there! People were starting to look at him weird!
Seriously, for a delivery driver, he sure could use more punctuality!
…Wait, did he actually set a meeting ti–?
"O.M.G! You guys are like, not dead!" Just as he was rounding around the kiosk for another pass, one of the players nearby shouted excitedly and ran towards her Force.
He'd seen her spawn back here a while ago, before tearing into another player. He hadn't paid much attention, but it had ended with the other guy swearing something regarding petty vengeance or some such.
Honestly the only reason he remembered any of this was because of what she looked like…
Speaking of that, her Force sure was an eclectic bunch.
One of them chose an SD The O as their avatar. Another was a pretty boy with white hair that had a single red stripe, and the last three decided to go with furry characters.
The first was a bizarre mix of Dr. Eggman, Dr. Willy and a… moustached capybara?
The second was a fox woman that was wearing something in-between a miko outfit and a three piece suit.
And the last was some kind of overdesigned deep sea horror waifu. Very pretty, with a network of anemone tentacles in place of hair, amazing sets of bioluminescent patterns cascading down them.
Tentacles that then spilled onto her body proper, swirling and stretching across her visible body in ways that accented her other features, like scales and coloured scars of some kind?
All around gorgeous.
But at the same time, who the hell went with bioluminescence and a Hawaiian shirt on their avatar? That was just tacky all around!
"Huh. Now that I think about it. The idiot totally would use that feature…"
"And you totes found a friend! That's so prem'!" And then there was the girl that had gotten killed. Which– well, Gyaru Landschenk was certainly a choice, "And she looks so extra! That's soooo cool☆!"
The seaman wet dream's weird cuttlefish eyes passed over him, only to snap back to his sign. Her tentacles (and the grooves of her fucked up tail, now that it was swishing enough for him to see) flashed yellow as she grinned wide, her cheeks splitting like a lizard's to show a disturbing amount of perfectly interlocking teeth. Not a moment after, she was sprinting over, waving like the excited schoolgirl by his side, "Cheeseman! Looking good!"
It took a second or two for him to process the name calling. He'd heard a lot of that these last few weeks, 'Faker this', 'Pretender that', so even if that one was new. It didn't register.
But the moment it did, "YOU!" He jabbed a finger in her direction. Disinterested posture turning irritated and accusatory.
"ME!" She laughed, tackle hugging him without a care in the world. As it turned out, someone with a tail as long as she was tall and tentacles down to her knees? Could really latch onto a person.
Despite the power behind the tackle, the man absorbed the impact like only a father whose children loved to tag team could. Leg bent, stance wide, he took the charge head on.
And when Galatea made contact with his midsection, his arms caught her own, like a bear trap snapping shut.
The idea of using his position to try and suplex her crossed his mind, but he thought better of it, instead trying to push the insistent barnacle away, "I've been waiting in this lobby for you to log in for an hour! Why the heck were you on a mission!?"
"But you didn't say anything about meeting when I told you I'd start today?" The leggy sea monster said with an owlish blink and a quizzical tilt of her head, "I assumed you were busy today. Why didn't you accept my friend request if you were online?"
"I'm a stay-at-home dad on a school day. What could I have possibly been busy with?" He asked– before thinking better of it, "No. Nevermind, don't answer that. And I did! Right… when… Morganne brought a dead bird into the house… Shit. I must have forgotten to press enter– and you never sent me one!"
"Weird, lemme–" She muttered, a blue tentacle flipping through the menu and, "No, it's right there. Friend request to Erovan, pending answer."
"...Gas– Buddy. My dude. Read my status. Read the message I sent you with my GBNO name in it."
"In my defence." The cuttlefish said as hot pink washed out the blue, "I'm a Project Moon fan and therefore legally illiterate."
"Ero-Van," The man stressed. Sounding less than impressed, "Ero-van, do you really think I'd have named myself the 'Lewd Bus'!?"
"If it's from before you got married? Absolutely." The cuttlefish replied without missing a beat.
Meanwhile, while the two friends argued, Galatea's newest friends (and most of the other players in the lobby) looked on, whispering amongst themselves.
"Ohmigod~, that's adorable! I bet they're, like, together!"
"Uh, I seriously doubt it," The white haired EG pilot told his SD companion, "That seems more like a weird argument than anything."
"Really?" The O asked him as its monoeye blinked owlishly at him, "But that's exactly how you're being with onee-san whenever you two meet up?"
"I– wu– bu– No! We're nothing like this!"
"The udon stall?" She asked innocently as he sputtered helplessly.
"It was one time!"
"For once, I'm with Akitama here," "Thank you!" "From what The Ace said, she didn't know about his kids' schedule? So I doubt it's a romantic thing. Could be wrong though." The egg-capybara said with a sage nod, "They do be arguing like Aki and leader tho."
"Oh, screw you dude. What's this? Make fun of Akitama hour?"
"That's like, every hour honey~," The gyaru said as she hugged him tight, "But don't you worry, as your totes sweet and cute and stylish Gee-Ef I'll make you feel loved and appreciated with a lap pillow~."
He vaguely tried to resist, but accepted his fate as a living hug pillow soon enough, just as he always did when his girlfriend got like this.
But while all of the other four joked, pondered and chatted, the fifth member of the group stayed silent. Staring at Galatea's friend with a sour look that she hid under a mask of indifference.
"Oh, hah. Hah. Hah," The man grumbled, finally getting the cuttlefish off of him, "Very funny. Here," With a flick of his wrist, he sent a friend request to Galatea, "Also, you should cancel the one you sent."
"Yea, yea." The leggy seafood said as she rolled off to sit beside him, a tentacle accepting the request at the same time another cancelled the mistyped one. "Anyways, how'd you like my work?"
"Very… you that's for sure. Can't resist the fishussy, can you?" The gas masked man said.
"Glub glub." Galatea deadpanned, before breaking into giggles, eyes set to a warm yellow together with her hair.
"Right, well. As for me," Ervoan jabbed a thumb towards himself, before doing a little twirl, "I look like this."
It was certainly a look. The man had apparently mixed bits and pieces of various games together into something semi-coherent. He wore a heavy duty burnt orange coat that had some resemblance to the Sacaen's outfits in FE6. Over that, he wore brass coloured armour, with silvery accents and embellishments, some sort of deep blue stone set into it to further help break up the monotony.
His face was completely hidden under a sturdy looking helmet that covered his entire head. His 'emblem', or so he called the flame-ish looking symbol he liked to sneak on everything, adorned the forehead. Right under it a silver eye plate hid his eyes behind lenses that were of the same deep blue as the stones on his armour– though throughout their banter, she'd seen they were capable of limited movement, a bit like Spiderman's mask.
And to top it off, instead of a mouthpiece, a large gasmask was built into the helmet, two tubes leading off of it and into mini-air canisters that were hidden into the helmet's design.
"What do you think?"
"Helmet is tippity top. Brass is also always a winner, although I'd have suggested a different colour for the coat. It works but it is a bit too close in shade to that burnt orange. Silver and blue are good contrasts, though." Galatea rattled off without so much as a blink, thick strands of blue shooting through the yellow of her tentacles. "Pants look a bit weird because the chestplate disguises how you're supposed to be wearing a bodysuit under the coat, although the shin wraps are a nice touch."
"Yeah, that's fair," Her friend said with a nod, making a window appear. With a few touches, his pants cycled a few times. Each… worse than the last, "But I haven't unlocked any good pants yet. You'd think they'd drop more often, but nah. FashionFrame is the true end game here. As for the colour, I went with the same colours as on my gunpla, thought it looked decent enough, but yeah it's more for metal than cloth. I'll change it later."
"Still painting them like it's Nerf or nothing?" The cuttlefish chuckled.
"Oh, absolutely. I am committed to that colour scheme, no matter what," The garlean reject sighed, "I am 70% sure that there'd be a freaking riot if I so much as thought about changing the Krouzer's scheme. I'm getting enough shit as it is right now. Don't need to add that to the pile. Also I think it looks cool god damnit!"
"I heard that." Galatea said, pulling her tentacles away to show her (currently) pointed ears, wiggling them a bit just to show off. Once she'd cracked the setup for the tail it had been laughably easy to allow her ears to shapeshift a bit.
"Damn knife ears… So! Care to tell me about your adventures over a cup of coffee, and also who're the kids?"
"Sure. You said GBNO keeps battle footage, yeah?" The anemone head said as her tail pushed her to her feet. "But the short and sweet is that I got the first anime episode experience. Including making a gaggle of friends."
"It can yeah. Come on," Nodding towards the exit, he began moving away, "Let's go to the court with your friends."
"HAH!" Ervoan guffawed as he replayed the moment Galatea was sent ass over teakettle by the Death Army's strike, "You got Death Army'd! Oh man, it really is just an anime's first episode."
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." The cuttlefish grumbled, purple tentacles curling together into a rude gesture, "How do I get the Fishbone some regen like that, though?"
"You don't." He said simply. Catching the attention of the highschoolers too, "The regen is Death Army only. You'd need to have your entire gunpla be made from death army, or devil gundam, parts. And even then, it's not nearly as good as you think it is. It's good, yeah. But it also pigeonholes you into a single build that can be easily circumvented by enough firepower. Most it can heal are dents and impacts, a missing limb? Forget about it. DG-cell parts are still pretty useful for other things if you can get some. Since they morph and sort of 'flow' like organic things, it's pretty good for things like transforming Mobile Suits, since you can sort of 'cheat' the ability for everything to fit together exactly– think how Transformers do it."
"Oh, like those ones that turn into fighter jets?" Galatea asked, hair dyed blue as she struggled to recall. Wait, no, those were from Macross she was fairly sure.
"I meant more the hasbro Transformers, but yes," He said, making a so-so gesture and drinking his coffee through his mask– somehow. And Galatea knew the thing had collision. Maybe there was a hidden straw, like with Plo Koon's mask? "There's plenty of transforming MS too. Most become planes, but then you have these:"
A window appeared, showing off two gundams.
The first was a white SD one, with splashes of red, black and gold that made it either ninja or samurai themed. While the other one was quite similar, its main colours were black and red, with gold and white distant third and fourth. But it too had a japanese theme.
"That's the same unit, the RX-Zeromaru, piloted by one of the Build Divers. I have no idea what sort of unholy witchery she used to make this thing work…"
"She's using her Armed Armor Hattori support unit," The fox woman told him with a roll of her eyes, "Pretty much everyone knows that."
"That's what she uses to transform. Yes, but the underlying method isn't clear," Ervoan explained, "It's not something an average builder can make."
"I see, says the blind woman." The piece of seafood said, fiddling with the menu to start projecting the second mission.
"It's a roman concrete kind of deal," He explained as the replay went along, "We know how it's done. Sort of, but not really why it's so good at what it does."
"Fair nuff." Galatea said with a nod, more focused on the replay. She already knew how she'd fucked up in the tutorial, but the raid had been too much of a rollercoaster to reflect.
"Decent moves," Her friend said as he watched her move around, "From the looks of things, that machine was a good pick, and pretty well built to start, a good paint job can only do so much. I'd have to take a look to make sure, see what can be improved, but it seems to be doing you some good. It's also good that you went in to help. It's considered good manners to do that, also you get better loot in the long run."
"You can take the weeb out of warframe, but not the warframe out of the weeb." The cuttlefish chuckled, hair glowing a soft yellow. "And sure, we can swing by the hangar later."
"Oh, that reminds me that I'll have to show you a real good time later~," The french man said teasingly, his optics doing something that was kind of an eyebrow waggle, "Still. Props for killing that thing," Pressing the video, he zoomed in on the giant giant robot, "This thing is… at least a Rank D raid? Maybe C?"
"Totes a Rank C," The gyaru said as she sipped on her boba, "Didn't think we'd be able to take it. But this jerk of a Rank C said he could clear it by himself, but needed a team to start the mission!"
"...You– you can start raid missions solo though?" Ervoan said after a moment of silence, "He might have been a griefer? Get low Rank players into a fight they can't win. Get footage for his cringe video, and all that."
"Either that or a genuine idiot." Galatea grumbled, purple eyes lidded in annoyance.
"I mean griefers are idiots. Especially with people like Captain Zeon around, but I get the sentiment." Closing the video, he leaned back into his chair and grabbed the unholy abomination of a burger that he'd left for last. Maybe she could finally see just how he was without his mask on-! "So, before I forget. There's a sort of hidden point counter in the game, it affects how many rewards you get– basically the more S.O.Ss you answer, without sending out S.O.Ss or attacking people that are in your team – yes, you can do that. Yes, it's as dumb as you think. No, the administration doesn't want to get rid of it, because half the game crumbles to nothing if they touch that part of the code–."
"Wait, seriously?" The capybara asked, dubious.
"Check the 'Why is PvP always on, a response' thread on the forum. It's pinned in the Bug and Feature subforum, an employee showed off the code. Something like 99% of the thread is just other coders' descent into insanity as they try to understand the unholy spaghetti monster spread before them, general consensus is 'no fucking wonder EL-Divers are a thing if so many parameters are this messy and causing data leaks.'... PvP is no longer always on BTW, they fixed that bit."
"I assume they don't dare pull it out by the roots and redo it from scratch on account of the poor AIs?" The neoprene maki roll asked in between bites of her whiskey burger.
"Amongst other things that I'm reasonably sure my wife wasn't supposed to tell me." He said with a shrug his– oh god damnit, half of the damn burger was gone!
"Damn, you Europeans have one hell of an appetite," The SD The O said with an uncertain chuckle. Looking slightly distressed at just how much food they'd just put away between them, "And here I thought it was the Americans that had a thing for burgers."
Silently, Ervoan looked at Galatea, a quizzical look in his optics. Should he? Or should she?
The cuttlefish, of course, decided to be a little shit. "Hm? This is just the appetiser. I still have four fifths of the menu to get through."
Oh, hey. Robots could turn green!
"You ass," Her friend moaned with an exasperated, yet amused, sigh, "You're not wrong tho. Still plenty more to eat. I think I'll go for a triple fired triple decker… I have no idea what it actually is, but it sounds amazing."
"A-aren't you afraid?" The fox-girl asked in horror, "The calories–."
"Thick tails are in vogue, so bring them on." Galatea laughed, the appendage in question rising up for a cheerful wave as it flashed orange, "I'm going to see what pairs better with the fries here, vanilla milkshake or the nata ice cream."
"Not gonna lie. The milkshake is just as thick as the icecream, only more pourable… but just barely," The masked man told her as he ordered for both of them, "Taste like absolute diabetes. But man is it good!"
"But him!?" The poor priestess-looking furry screeched.
"What about me? I'll have you know I have no history of– urk!" In between 'bites', if you could call him making his burger vanish like this, he grabbed at his neck with one hand, while putting down his burger with the other so he could hit himself in the chest with it, "P-pickle– stuck in throat…"
"Wash it down with soda." The cuttlefish huffed as she settled back on her seat. She'd been halfway out the moment she heard him choke, but his voice hadn't gone faint and wheezy so he wasn't in danger.
After some coughing and drinking, the man sighed pleasantly, "Got it to pass. Thanks a lot for helping by the way," He grumbled at the walking seafood (who blew him a kiss without missing a beat), before getting back to his burger, "And as I was saying, I don't have a history of heart disease. Not like it'd matter much mind you."
"That's– uh. Like your fourth burger, sir," The capybara hazarded. Clearly not sure of what to do or say here, but still wanting to try and 'help' as best he could, "E–even if you don't have a history…"
"Kid…," With a slightly exasperated tone, Ervoan gave him a flat look. Through the mask. Somehow, "Where are we right now?"
"A burger joint?"
"We have to worry about our guts as much as paying for the repairs and fuel of our mechs." A blue-tinted Galatea sighed as she leaned back in her seat, tossing a rubbery glob of rainbow resin between her hands.
"Uh, what?" It wasn't clear which one of the five said that, but their host began to explain.
"We're in a video game."
Or at least just said something as if it contained the secrets of the universe.
"I mean, like. Duh?" The landschneckt said airily as she sipped on her boba, "We know that. How else would Ka-" "Kit-tsun" "er– Kit-tsun look like that?"
Ervoan looked at the foxgirl that had been pointed out, then back to his food, "And do tell. What are we doing?"
"Eating food?"
"Right, so what are we doing and where?"
"Could you be any more condescending towards us?" The fox grumbled, "We are eating food, in a video… game."
There was a pregnant pause as she said this. The gears in each of their brains grinding to a halt as they all looked at their plates and considered the situation in full.
"I didn't want to insult your intelligence by saying it outright, but even joking about putting pounds on my tail didn't make it click." Galatea coughed awkwardly, although the purple mingling with pink in her tentacles told a different story.
"I don't think they are listening right now," Her friend quipped as the kids began eating and drinking with vigour.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Manel smiled as he tucked away his latest haul from a flea market all the way down in Amposta. He couldn't use these in GBNO, but it'd be good sculpting and painting fodder.
Hulo, hulo.
I am absolutely wiped. Today we had more influx than we've had over the last 2 days at work.
I desire nothing more than to vibe and rest.
But first, I must post! And post I have.
Ervoan is basically 'my character', and his looks are that of a first try I made at designing a Vtuber avatar for myself. In the end, I didn't go for that (or any for that matter. Workshopping one completely fell off once work started to get really soul grinding...) but no sense in wasting a perfectly serviceable character design.
Gala and Ervoan are peas in a pod. Double idiots, the Jessie to the other's Jame's! Who exactly Mewoth is is the source of many arguments...
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
They seriously thought that was air they were breathing. XD
Oh god, I can't stop chuckling after getting to the point of them talking about eating alot in a video game, the 'putting pounds on my tail' bit was fucking great!
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Aaah, Paptimus Scirocco's signature mobile suit he used in the finale of Zeta Gundam and a very powerful bulky one with lots of thrusters due to Scirocco used to work at Jupiter Energy Fleet where they harvest Helium-3 and had to contend with the gas giant's heavy gravity.
And that it's also a Newtype-use for the Man From Jupiter too as well.
Plus it has a Monoeye Superiority.
Probably something awesome and ambitious.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
A 40k mini, because GW fucked up so bad Bandai ate them.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Got it in one. They're a popular design from 3E that in this timeline went back into production.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I don't know anything about what models go with what editions, but given Galatea's IC posts and the fic's name, I'm going to guess some kind of daemon-titan.
Should we be worried if that becomes real and Galatea might be in the pickle when being trapped in a galaxy far far away in an Eldora situation?
Either way, I'm looking forward for what comes next in this crossover story.
chapter 5:
Hastar
procrastinator extraordinaire
- Location
- Fran*e
Chapter 5:
"Soooooo…" Her friend asked as he slid in next to her, milkshake in hand, "How're you linking GBNO after a good week of playing it?"
"Fulldive is fulldive. Enjoying it is a foregone conclusion." Galatea chuckled as a chalk white hand scooped a spoonful of her parfait, blue and yellow swapping eyes with a blink with a ring of purple added for good measure, "Although I'm still miffed that direct control is locked behind kit quality."
"Show-off," Ervoan said with a roll of his optics, before resting his face on his hand and looking towards the outside. Stars glittered behind the thick, clear glass that served as the only barrier between them and the void of space, "It was either that, or locking it to very specific kits and gundam series. And I'd wager you'd hate that even more."
"It's as subconscious as facial expressions." The discount yukionna chuckled. The only reason she was even aware of the shifts in colour was a feeling like goosebumps but not quite as her chromatophores did their thing. In this case, swapping her eyes to full purple for a moment, "But yeah, you aren't wrong."
"'Subconscious' she says. As if she wasn't doing her best impression of a Christmas light," A bright flash in the distance indicated that one of the various Mobile Suits or ships that buzzed around the Space Colony that they were inside of had met a fiery end, "But, hey! At least now you've got some direct control! And I got to scream at you for eight hours like you were part of a Hell's Kitchen contestant. So win-win if you ask me!"
"You're lucky I'm good at parsing accents, it's like you got a whole wheel of gouda crammed in your teeth." She grumbled in between bites, giving him a glimpse of perfectly sculpted teeth. "And you did it on purpose, too, you've only have a faint oily sheen of frenchness when you talk here."
"It's camembert in my mouth, not gouda, thank you very much," the French stooge hautilly barbed, "But nah. That's part of the game. Noticed that everyone around speaks the same language yet? We're in the Japanese server and they all speak in english."
"...Okay, who's got a super-AI hidden in the basement and how likely is the poor thing to give us the SAO experience?" Because that level of on-the-fly translation was insane.
"Bandai, and yes, but actually no. You know what my wife does for a living, yeah?"
"No clue, it isn't like you gush about her harder than Col Hughes." The albino chuckled wryly, purple overtaking her left eye entirely while yellow filled the other.
"Laugh it up. But I'm happy as can be with her– anyhow. As a Woman of Research, she never tires to tell me this: Plavsky is bullshit, as has been long established. There's not really any AI doing anything, the explanation was stupidly complicated, but basically the particle responds to human thoughts and emotions yeah?" As he spoke, he drew little circles in the air. As if it'd help explaining– and somehow it did, Galatea getting what he meant thanks to them, "And with them more or less connected to our minds via the full dive, you're not actually talking with your mouth, you're sort of thinking at people, and these thoughts are translated into speech via the game's interface."
Poking the air one last time, a window opened. A newspaper.
In large, bold letters, "New EL-Diver discovered!" was spread across the front, showing off a confused looking, but smiling and waving teenager that looked halfway between a human and a block of obsidian.
"And that's how we ended up with actual AIs… Well, one of the reasons at least."
"What the fuck, does that mean you can just shout 'exposition!' and people will get the gist?" Gala startled with suddenly red eyes. Good lord, no wonder Arch had disappeared for an entire year to research these things. They validated so much in AAQ.
"It's not that good. You have to actually think the stuff you want to explain. Case in point, this entire discussion," Leaning back in his seat, he pointed at the outside, "But it's good enough that some people in Nils Labs are trying to see if it can be applied outside of the game. So far, it's kinda shit."
"How does it apply to writing in the game, anyways?" She said as the red bled away into blue.
"I… don't actually know?" He slowly admitted, before staring at the menu intently, "This is written in english. Right?"
"It is, yeah." The albino said with a bob of her head.
"...And it's a Japanese server still," Grabbing the edge of the menu, he closed it and slid it as far away as he could, "You know what? I'd just rather not today… SO! In the spirit of a totally smooth and not at all forced subject change– Nice threads! What prompted the new avatar?"
"What do you mean, new avatar?" Galatea blinked owlishly, before her eyes widened in realisation. Before Ervoan's eyes, her irises swallowed her sclera and her pupils distended into a cuttlefish's W. The scales and bits of coral pushed through her skin a moment later. "I made a shapeshifter, didn't I tell you?"
As she changed, Ervoan had been getting ready to work his vile sorcery to take a sip of his milkshake.
Instead, the delicious beverage hit the front of his mask and dribbled down, covering his entire front in a sticky, sweet, white mess as her transformation gobsmacked him, "Wuh?"
A few more seconds, and her hair was clumped up in rubbery anemone tentacles again, while her tail uncoiled from her midsection. A flat, featureless thing scarcely thicker than a thumb which contorted into a meaty rope as naturally as a tongue may, poking his mask's gem playfully.
"Huh? Wha-!" Batting the tail away, the masked man straightened up and put his shake away, "Stop that you menace! And, pardon my french. But what the fuck dude? How in the shit did you-!?"
"Three months of obsessive work, several years off of the life expectancy of whoever manages chargen and probably a lot of Plavsky particle nonsense." Galatea chuckled as she tucked away her tail again, eyes and tentacles glowing a warm yellow even as the latter started to hiss and smoke. A few seconds later, her hair was loose again, if smelling slightly of fish. The scales and coral followed suit a moment later, together with her eyes. "But yeah. At least this explains why I have a different palate here, body craves starch and cartilage to make the resin. Not quite sure why it also goes crazy for sushi, tho."
"That's not–" Burying his head in his hands, Ervoan groaned, "The game's not even supposed to simulate biology like this. How'd you even do this… 'Light of the Human Heart' my ass. More like 'bullshit in a can'."
"The Heart." The chimera deadpanned. Well, hearts, she had two for the sake of symmetry.
"I didn't coin the term. The people in Nils Labs are all brainwashed by classic Gundam stuff," With a few pokes of his menu, his outfit changed into a more militarily sound armour, eliminating the milkshake that had coated his front, "And this is how you're supposed to change your avatar."
He was grumbling. But his voice sounded… different, less gruff and manly than it had in his other clothes.
"I didn't even know you could do that. Half the reason I went so hard into chargen." Galatea shrugged, peeling a casino chip off the back of her hand and rolling it through her fingers.
"There's a ton of cosmetics you can use to alter your look– Clothes, hairstyles, skin tint. That sort of stuff. But things like changing your gender or going from human to furry, or vice versa, is one of the few proper cash shop items." The (metaphorical, probably) frog said.
"Ahh, sweet, sweet vindication." The albino smiled, eyes shining yellow. "Neat getup, by the by. Although the skull looks a bit out of place with that colour scheme."
"In this specific case, it's really not. It's part of an entire setting's aesthetic."
"Fair enough. Although it should at least be brass to match the rest of the armour." Galatea shrugged, before hurrying to scarf up the last of her parfait before it got lukewarm and disgusting.
"Point taken. Though, honestly this one is just the basic bitch version I worked into cooler variants. Wanted to get the shake off of me– still haven't told me where you got your new threads by the by."
"Lan-daki took me shopping after I mentioned how the whole point of my avatar was maximising fashionframe options." The chimera said, idly flicking her hair back, "Besides, I did want something to go with my base form."
"Oh Em Gee!" It should have been a regular day of poking at GBNO and learning the ropes. However this died a gruesome death when Galatea ran into her new gyaru friend, "You're into fashion? You're just like me FR!"
"What's the point of an MMO if you aren't dressing up to the nines?" The cuttlefish countered with a chuckle, yellow rippling down her tentacles.
"I know, right? I don't get the people that don't try to get cute outfits!" To illustrate her point, she twirled in place, before flashing a V sign. Unlike before, she looked… normal as could be, her armour replaced but a stereotypical JK outfit, "It's like they don't wanna have fun and show off!"
"I can understand some people wanting to focus more on their mech's looks, but come on, live a little!" The leggy seafood huffed good naturedly, waving a clawed hand animatedly. "Nice outfit, by the by. Monochrome is always solid, although I'd add some brass to the belt to go with the hairclips and your eyes. Maybe a bracelet too."
"Thanks~, I threw it together when I logged in! But it's not staying on for long~." Grabbing Galatea's hand, she started to drag her towards a nondescript building.
"Hah, fair nuff." The deep sea waifu said as she followed along, long legs not having any trouble at all keeping up with the excitable gyaru. "This'll be a first, don't really have the budget for store crawls in meatspace."
Which was a damn shame, because she'd love a tailored suit. Ah, well, she could get one here.
"Well, you'll have all the money for it here~. That Raid Boss gave us an unlimited budget~! Well, almost." She admitted after a bit, "But still enough to get you out of those hawaiian shirts."
"Maybe start with something to go with my default looks?" Galatea asked, body already hissing and smoking as she melted away the resin. Well, most of it, the bits on the tail were complex enough she just secreted a tiny bit of dissolvent and stashed the whole thing into her inventory. Soon enough, she looked like her namesake, marble come to life. If with an octet of tentacles falling around her shoulders together with her hair and a sinuous tail curling behind her.
The transformation caught her friend by surprise, looking on silently as Gala's various bits fell away.
Once the seafood was no longer quite as fishy, she suddenly found her shoulders grasped by a pair of strong hands, "You're mine." The gyaru whispered with none of her usual cheer, "You are mine and I am not letting you go. The things I can do with a shapeshifter~☆!"
Haha, she was in danger.
"Fair enough. You done with your food, right? Got something to show you that you'll like~."
Galatea arched a perfectly manicured eyebrow, but nonetheless closed the ordering menu and waved for him to get on with it.
Leaving the café, Ervoan brought her to a secluded part of the colony, "Here," Lobbing a small key at her, he pressed a similar one against an inconspicuous door, "It's the key to my personal home area– the first floor of it at least. You can use it on any of the private home access points to go to it. The neat thing's inside."
"This wasn't how I was expecting to sleep on your couch, but sure." The albino chuckled as she strolled in.
Past the door was… A lot of not much. A fairly large courtyard made of beaten earth greeted her, beside the dull brown of the floor, the only colours were the bits of greenery and a few flowerbeds stood at the foot of the stone walls enclosing the space.
There was only one thing of note, a table sitting in the middle of the courtyard. Next to, and on it was a true mountain of hobby supplies.
Glues, paints, brushes, both of the hand and air variety, knives, nippers, bits and even a 3D resin printer. And sitting in front of it all, a colourful box the size of a small dog, "Remember when you were complaining about not being able to 'train' your hobby skills?" Leaning against the table, Ervoan had changed his outfit yet again, "Well, here you go!"
He probably should've expected the ballistic albino headed straight for his chest.
"Don't you d–!" Which after her glomping him a few times over the last week (sue her, she was still drunk on being able to hug her friend), he actually did!
…Not that it saved him from being bowled over, the two of them tumbling to the ground in a heap.
To his credit though, he kicked her off of him mid-tumble and finished his in a crouched position while she was staring up at the sky.
"Huh, did you learn self-defence?" The tall glass of water said as she practically slithered back to her feet. This body was unnaturally flexible, came with making the bones slightly cartilaginous to be able to shift her height and build somewhat thanks to an extra set of muscles.
In response, he sprung towards her with a chuckle, throwing himself at her like she just had.
Galatea didn't exactly know why her friend had gotten a sudden urge to roughhouse, but she wasn't about to say no. A twirl and her tail was smashing into his side like a runaway truck. She may not have designed it primarily for strength and heft, but… well, a bearcat's tail was four times smaller than hers and could still snap a man's neck easy as you please.
He was in armour, he'd be fine.
More than fine apparently.
With a twist of his body, he redirected the slap's energy and wasn't sent off course completely.
Just enough that he couldn't grab Galatea with both arms.
Not letting that deter him, one of his arms still caught the shapeshifter in the chest, letting him bring her down to the floor with him.
Then, moving faster than her, he put her in a hold. One of his legs entwined with one of hers, pinning it, while one of his arms, secured by the other, wrapped around her neck. In this position there wasn't much she could do… meaning she was unable to resist when he used his greatest weapon–
"thbbbbbbbbbbt–" Blowing a raspberry in her neck.
Which… didn't do much on account of the full face helmet between him and her neck. It was just noise. On the upside (for him) that meant she wasn't covering her neck in slimy, pungent dissolvent to give him a mouthful.
Didn't stop her from extending an inhumanly long tongue and covering his lenses in hot pink resin with a long lick, though. She didn't exactly like having her head locked like this and could be a petty bitch about things.
"Haha!" Letting go of her, the father that was more of a child than his kids, rolled to his feet with a cheer, "Your licking means nothing! For I am victorious!"
Lifting his arms into the air, he walked away with a spring in his steps and a hum on his lips.
At least until he crashed into a wall.
"Gah! Fuck!" As it turned out, being completely unable to see anything due to a pink haze covering your eyes was not conducive towards avoiding obstacles, "Pyrrhic victories still count as victories!"
"Suuuure." Galatea drawled out as she pushed herself up with her tail, eyes glowing a brilliant yellow as she broke into giggles.
"I know that giggle," He warned as he felt around his face for the resin, "It's the same as the twins' when they decide to be their dad's worst nightmare…"
"Love you too~" She practically sang as the giggles finally died down, "Now, was there anything else you wanted to show me?"
"Sure, gimme– oh, wait." Facepalming like he was an idiot, which he was, no need for Galatea to kid herself, he quickly changed back into his usual outfit, now milkshake free, "You know about Master Asia, right?"
"The punchline to the 'do you wanna fight what's inside' meme, right?" The popsicle asked with a tilt of her head.
"Yep. Here," With a few taps, his menu caused a small turret to appear. With a whir and a beep, it locked onto him, a red light blinking next to its cannon, "Watch this."
Wait, did this idiot think he could catch–
With a bang, the turret fired a bullet. Faster than she could really react, Ervoan unsheathed his blade, and in the same movement parried the bullet, making it impact the side of the wall he'd just ran into.
As if this was the signal, the machine then began to rhythmically firing more and more projectiles at him, slowly ramping up its firing speed.
In response, the crazed Frenchman swung his sword faster and faster, blocking each shot– though not without being pushed back as the stream of bullets intensified–, "Stop!"
As soon as he spoke the command, the machine did as instructed. Retracting its barrel and various sensors into itself and making itself the size of a large briefcase, "So, what do you think about this~?" He teased, before immediately adding something else, "–And NO pouncing! I have a sword in my hands!"
The woman may as well have been dunked in green paint, glowing eyes boring into his own through his mask, "Teach me."
Chuckling, Ervoan cleared his throat a few times, before speaking, "New alert marked on navigation, Tenno."
"Shut up!" Galatea squeaked, a flare of red swallowing the green and leaving her marble skinned once more as Lotus' voice made her brain violently segfault.
"What's wrong, Tenno? Can't handle the mommy energy, Tenno?" Her friend most certainly did not stop, and did quite the opposite, "OR. WOULD YOU RATHER. I. SPEAK LIKE THIS. YOU MAGGOT!?"
"You're awful!" The albino managed as she broke down into giggles, "Pfft, for how long have you been sitting on that!?"
"NOT THAT- OH. WOOPS- Not that long," He said with his regular voice, "In case it's not sunk in completely yet. You can be– and to an extent, do whatever you want. I'm not Ser Bones, so I'm not gonna sing the praises of this aspect of the game nearly as well as he can. But people that can't walk can. People that can't see, speak, hear can. To say nothing of the trans community. As for the voices? One of the people I know in here is a VA IRL. Gave me a few tips while you were being you with that avatar, so… two? One and a half week?"
"And yes, it was everything I'd hoped~."
"Do you just have an insane talent or is it part of the whole intent reading thing?" Galatea asked after a few seconds, once she was sure she had a grip again.
"Intent mostly. I am getting pretty good at voices out of the game, but–" Patting the gunpla box, he grabbed one of the many pairs of nippers on the table, "In here, you're not constrained by your body, so I can do the Lotus perfectly. But IRL I don't have the vocal cords for it, I can get close but it's never gonna be as good. Essentially the skills you pick up aren't 1-to-1. Take working on this kit, chances are, you won't have any shakes, random twitches, or anything like it. But out of here, you just might, depending on how much coffee you drank."
"I've always had pretty steady hands, so it shouldn't be too much of an issue." The leggy popsicle shrugged.
"Huh-huh," The nerf-warrior shrugged noncommittally, "Just don't get angry that your human eyes aren't as amazing as your sexy monster girl eyes."
"Yeah, yeah." She grumbled, the eyes in question turning purple as she pouted.
Then, grabbing a knife and the box, he slashed the plastic film away, , "With that being said. Let's get to grinding that Naramon focus, eh?"
AFTER SURVING THE FIRST WEEK OF THE YEAR (not for lack of trying on the part of the shop's suppliers and the never ending flow of clients) I AM HERE!
And here's this week's chapter!
In it we've got some more exploration of the setting, straight from the mouth of an expert...'s husband.
Ervoan's wife is a Nilsen Lab employee and knows (and shares) quite a lot about GBNO's workings vis-a-vis of the Plavsky Particles. Really, it's just me handwaving the reason why everyone speaks X language in this game.
if this seems far stretched. Recall that those particles can teleport a teenager with no idea of what he's doing across light years worth of distance. They care not what your puny hooman mind thinks is realistic, only how to make cool shit happen.
Speaking of, players brawling against each others, or NPCs outside of the Gunpla will be semi-common in this fic... And by that I mean super common! It's still very much a gunpla/gundam oriented fanfic, but we'd be remiss to ignore the 40k scale of battle...
As for Bandai letting people own models in game, at this point, they are basically richer than Midas and keep getting richer due to being the sole supplier of Plavsky Particles, and spearheading the research into them, getting them a butt-ton of money off of patents and copyright loans.
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Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
These paragraphs clipped together
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
When has that ever stopped a corp from doing scummy shit in the name of further profit? Then again, this is fictional Bandai as written by real Bandai, so...
Also, some of those images are borkened.
Seconding this, Nix any thing past the .png or .jpg in a image link if your grabbing it from a wiki, otherwise the images don't properly load when linked.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Does this mean that monitoring Galatea (the avatar, not her creator) has some use for Plavsky particle research?
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
If I recall, it is outright canon that you can practice building kits inside GBNO. You just can't pilot them, which I assume is more than enough incentive for people to buy real kits.
Lmao. We'll see how Cheeseman's wife reacts to the news.
You know I just realised, leave it to a hecking Warframe player to poke the system in such a way to make it just out right spin up a biological simulation system because their fashionframechargen got a little out of hand.
Having refamilierized myself with the oncoming big events, I wonder how/if Galatea and friends will end up getting involved with things and how she/he will react to the revilations to come?
Hastar
procrastinator extraordinaire
- Location
- Fran*e
Should all be fixed now
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
The spirit of the world's longest tutorial shines through.
This was the pent up urge to fashionframe from having had to endure that clusterfuck of an avatar design system. Fuckin face blend.
At least they're fun people who wanted to make Gunpla Battle to be enjoyable and make things look authentic and awesome along with accuracy from the lore too as well.
Chapter 6: Welcome to the War of Hammers Galatea
Hastar
procrastinator extraordinaire
- Location
- Fran*e
Chapter 6:
"Thanks for the run!" TaHi-2 said with an excited wave, her The O avatar slowly dispersing as she logged off, "Now I've got the same rank as sis!"
"Hah, no worries! It's always nice to go for a light marathon." Galatea chuckled. Two hours straight had certainly scratched the endless mission itch. She wasn't one of those deranged grind cultists who would go for eight hours straight, but she could still appreciate a long mission.
"See-ya later Gala!" With one last wave, she disappeared, leaving the tall bottle of fish sauce alone in the lobby. Well, as good a time as any to prep up for the visit to the EU hub that Cheese had promised her. Sure, she hadn't been given any information other than 'megachurch', but she could work with that.
"Why heeeeello there, miss 'Completely Blind'," Speaking of the devil, he appeared right as she finished glueing on the last of her tentacle covers, "Enjoyed your shopping spree I see?"
"As much as the designer finally having someone appreciate his work. I know that most players don't think to use anything other than the presets of generic anime man and woman, but must they be so milquetoast in what they wear?" She grumbled, an oversized sleeve flopping around as she gesticulated.
"You expect too much of the local salaryman that just comes here to have a bit of fun on the one hour their black company affords them– I'm only mostly joking. People tend to think of their gunpla as their Avatar, and their avatar as just a little something that lets them eat cake." Ervoan chuckled.
"Bah. Bah I say!" She pouted, happily playing into how much younger the outfit made her look despite her height.
Patting the head of the nun-like woman like she was a child, Ervoan chuckled, "D'aw. Lookit you being all upset and stuff~!"
"Says the man standing on his tippy toes to reach my head." Galatea snickered.
"Says the woman pouting exactly like my kids," He immediately shot back, stance wobbling a bit, "That veil hides nothing if you're that tall, you know?"
"It's not really a veil, just an oversized version of that white band nun habits have." She said with a shrug which hid the rustle of her tail darting out to unbalance him.
"Fool!" With a backdash, he avoided the shove, "My dad-sense is too strong for your weak shenanigans! You'll never catch me off guard with such obvious tactics! –Anyhow, ready to go to Europe?"
"I'll send your daughters a dozen tubs of finger paint for christmas, see if I don't." The nun sniffed, only to drop her act just as quickly as her friend had once she had the last word. "But yeah. I want to see how this megachurch stacks up against the Sagrada Familia."
"The Church of Saint Amuro is pretty dope. Ignore the statues of Kira Yamato if you see any, they are the symbol of the devil. Anyhow to get there, we'll need to hop back into our Mobile Suits, don't need to get into a fight or anything," Jabbing a finger towards one of the giant circular gates that hovered above the city, he continued, "We need to use one of those to get to the server. Everything's interconnected, but it'd take like half a day to fly there from here– and we'd need to pass over Russia, AKA the land of the PvP junkies."
"Kurwa." Galatea deadpanned.
The 'loading tunnel' seemed to go on forever. The game stubbornly refused to let her access the stupid server, the featureless walls killing her with the tedium of it all, until at long last the exit finally came into view.
A boost of her thrusters and she was through, light blinding her cameras for a moment until–
Well, it was a very European sight, she guessed? At least how people usually imagined it: Rolling green hills, some forests and huge mountains in the distance, the sun setting beneath them.
"Aaaaand we're here! Come on, the hub's that a way," From inside of her cockpit, Ervoan poked at the largest mountain off in the distance, "Should take us a minute or two to reach it."
"Oh, is it a kingdom under the mountain sort of deal?" She asked. That could be neat.
"Noooot quite. But you're not entirely wrong?" Her passenger shrugged, before leaning against one of the walls, "You'll see soon enough~."
Sure enough, as they approached, the mountain started to look… weird. The massive shadow it cast made it really hard to tell, but it looked angular? Somehow. Like parts of it were carved.
More and more details started to pop out as they got closer. Pipes snaking through the scenery, massive gas vents bursting out of the healthy ground like a myriad of roots and mushrooms–
But the nature of the 'mountain' became all too clear when they crossed the border that separated light and darkness.
"Cago'n Deu." She swore lowly.
A gothic BEHEMOTH rose in front of her.
Gargantuan spires of steel and stone rose from the very lowest levels of the earth and into the sky.
It was no mountain, but the promised 'Megachurch'.
And it certainly lived to its name. Even from here, she could see magnificent glass stained windows, statues of Mobile Suits clad in holy vestments and armour. Some even having enough taste to ditch the Gundams' facemasks in favour of knightly helms, their V-fins repurposed into heraldries.
She numbly checked the HUD. Seventy kilometres away still.
"Yep, that's the face I was expecting."
"Please tell me the people around here put a tenth of this effort into their avatars." The fake nun pleaded, even as her eyes refused to budge from the monument to urbanisation.
"Each Hub tends to correspond to a group of players. Japan's the more 'normal' crowd, Persia, or the middle east, are for the builders, Russia is home to the PvP-ers, the americas is where the combat lunatics live, greater Asia's where the martial arts lunatics are based in," Holy shit that statue of a paladin Zaku was the size of a god damn skyscraper made for Mobile Suits. The Fishbone was smaller than the monoeye!, "Europe? Europe is where the roleplayers are based out of."
Twirling into her view, Ervoan gave her the most over the top bow she'd ever seen, "Allow me, my friend, to welcome you to the one true home you never knew you had~."
"Motherfucker, if you'd told me I'd have been able to prep a character." Galatea grumbled without heat, the pout fighting ferociously with her smile.
Lifting his head, he gave her a flat stare, before delivering an even flatter, "No."
Moving away from her main camera's screen, he shrugged, "Honestly, as much as it's a roleplayer's heaven, it's probably better that you get a decent taste of it before you commit to any character. Most people here go for the classic Zeon, Federation, or whatever other Gundam faction they think is coolest, but some people? They dive in deeeeeeep, making the weirdest of things. From what I heard? This place used to be normal looking before a group of players got to it, and well–"
"They did with the city what I did with my avatar, yeah." She chuckled. "But fair, I didn't stop to think that most would go for Gundam factions, which I have zero fucking clue on."
"I can probably introduce you to a few people if you want– oh, right. I think you mentioned another hobby project? Working on your second kit? Might be able to narrow down the sort of people to go poke." He asked from behind his gas mask.
"Oh, nah, I just found some small figurines at a flea market. Using them as painting and moulding fodder." Galatea shook her head. "You know my grumblings about the Fishbone's finish."
"Huh, really? What sort? Like action figures, or minis?" Ervoan tilted his head.
"Minis, I think. Those are the ones that have fixed joints and come in a little base, right?" The fake nun said, a finger on her lower lip.
"Yep. Usually used for things like DnD or wargames. Got pictures of them?"
"Yeah, I take a few before and after every project with them. One sec." She said as she flicked open the menu. Thankfully, she had all of them in a solo discord server, because while google drive was a good backup, it was slow and a pain in the ass when it came to searching for pics.
"Huh… I thought you said those were just for testing your skills?" Sliding up next to her, Ervoan gave her a bit of ribbing as he peered at the holographic screen, "But look at you, already getting into the underground parts of GBNO. You can't fool me here, good sir~."
"I guess Gundam has monstergirls hiding in some obscure spin off?" Galatea asked with a tilt of her head, completely confused. "It was an old lady selling her kids' old things, so I didn't get any context for them."
"...Do–," The man looked at her incredulously as they finally entered the cavernous city, the hangar bay being located between two noble-looking MS, a Zaku and a Gouf, crossing their weapons high above as a gesture of respect and camaraderie, "Do you not know about Warhammer 40k?"
"Isn't that a Total War setting?" The fake nun asked, very faintly remembering a thumbnail of some sort of generic fantasy TW game with that name on youtube.
Her friend snort-guffawed his disgusting French laugh, "Pfffffawhawhawhaw! No– No it's not!" Laughing still as they docked, he wiped an imaginary tear, "It's only the most popular miniature wargame in the world, 'Blood for the Blood God'? 'Show me what passes for fury amongst your misbegotten kind'? 'METAL BAWKES!'? 'Just as planned'? All of those memes came from it!"
"Huh, neat." She had encountered like half of them, although she had been pretty sure 'just as planned' was just a variant of 'all according to keikaku'. "But what does it have to do with Gundam that it's an underground thing here?"
"Bandai owns Games Workshop. It's actually kind of the funniest shit ever, want me to explain badly, or do you want me to link you a video that goes deep so you can really get why it's hilarious?" Ervoan asked.
"Explanation now, video later. Otherwise it's going to be bothering me for the entire trip." She said with a wave of her hand, idly stepping out of her cockpit into the platform.
"Fair enough," For his part, Ervoan simply leaped out of the cockpit, landing right next to her like a Tenno starting a mission, "I'll tell you while we walk. Just to be sure, you do think those girls of yours are real neat, right?"
"Yeah, great sculpt and really solid colour scheme. Chalk white skin with a light lilac tint works for whatever sort of succubi they are. The hot pink hair and inhuman bits were a bit much, but shifting them to a vivid purple fixed that." Galatea said, faintly feeling like she was peering down another fandom hole. Ah, well, Hololive hadn't gotten her, so this probably wouldn't either.
"What about these?" Opening a few windows, he first showed her an army of red-robed robot people, gigantic stomping machines behind them. Then switched to another, grim faced giants in heavy armour firing upon a collection of her own figurines as a large, heavily armed, power loader straight out of Alien unleashed a gout of flame. Before opening one last image, which had one of the gribbly-est alien swarm she'd seen, "See anything you like in here?"
"First one is pretty good but I don't like a few of their units. Second one's great. Third is neat but not really my thing." She rattled off. Galatea liked monsters as much as the next girl, but something about the design rubbed her wrong. Maybe it was that they looked like they were trying a bit too hard to seem scary? Although the organic guns were a really nice touch.
"Right then, in that case I know exactly where to take you. It's pretty damn deep in the city's bowels though, so it'll take a bit to walk there," Motioning at Galatea to follow, he began to explain, "So, first thing you need to understand. Games Workshop, or GW, was a pretty big deal back when this all happened. You know about Touhou right? How it's a Japanese game series that basically infected the western internet and kept spreading? Well, 40k's the same– except from the west. It's pretty massive over in Japan, even if you wouldn't think it with how no one really talks about it."
"So hundreds of unique characters but very little lore, making everyone cook up their own stuff? At least, that's how I understand Touhou got so popular. Well, that and the banger music." The fake nun tilted her head, before waving a hand as if to fan away an idea, "And a mountain of gay porn, of course, but everything popular has that."
"Not nearly as many hats, cool music and gay porn. But kinda yeah," Down and down they went. Passing by dozens of people, each more colourful than the last, the majority were wearing Gundam based outfits, but she could see blips of completely different looks here and there. Their numbers growing as they headed deeper, "With the caveat that it actually has like, a shitton of lore. But almost all of it is galactic scaled, the sort of major, faction shaping and history defining stuff of legends. Which leaves a lot of cracks and empty space to be filled by 'your dudes', who while they won't be changing the fate of the galaxy, can change that of entire worlds, solar systems and so on."
Galatea decided not to mention how a plurality of people would ferociously wank about their randoms saving everything forever across the entire galaxy. You had to ignore 90% of fan content or drown in sewage. "Neat. How well does it handle that scale, though? Sci-fi is infamous for it."
"Neither GW, nor Bandai, can scale for shit." He said simply, "But back on topic. GW was many things. But they weren't willing to, or able to– I'm fuzzy on the specifics, distribute 40K in Japan… which is where Bandai comes in."
"Dunno how it went, but everyone's favourite Giant Robot and Warcrime providers took care of 40k in Japan– GW and them got along pretty well from what I can tell. Letting Bandai make official, Japan exclusive, 40k minis called 'Warhammer Heroes'... it was a gasha," He added, like the foregone conclusion that it was.
"Of course. We should count ourselves lucky they didn't gate it behind pachinko as-is." Why Bandai had a boner for those machines, she'd never know.
"Heh. Yeah… but now? Now comes the funi, so you might recall that when the company that came up with plavsky particles unveiled them, Bandai jumped on them and got an exclusive deal." Pausing for a second or two, he opened a map to check their location. From the looks of it, they were in the middle levels, and getting close to some sort of lift.
Which she still thought stank a great deal, as with any exclusivity contract. Especially with something like a whole-ass magic particle. Even when the beneficiaries didn't get lazy in their monopoly, it meant everyone got cheated out of anything not made by the company.
"Plavsky plastic single handedly changed the gunpla marketing strategy. Before kits were relatively expensive, since after buying on, you, in theory, don't need to get a second of the same MS, but with Gunpla Battling entering the equation? Bam!" Snapping his fingers to illustrate his point, "You needed kits by the dozen! As you well know…"
"I've seen the pictures, too." She chuckled ruefully. So goddamn many spare parts piling up because if any one bit got broken you had to buy a whole new kit.
"And people wonder why I made having a weapon selection wider than their mom's backside my gimmick," He grumbled as he shuddered, the horrors creeping back into his mind, "Can you believe that the first time I did that, it was solely because the beam emitter in the Likorn's wrist got completely fucked by a beam and I didn't have a spare one? I had to scramble to shove a random bit in there, I didn't even know it was a grenade until I launched into the finals… somehow it got me the tournament win, and everyone was so convinced it had been on purpose that I decided 'Guess that's my life now.'"
"Stellar decisionmaking." The fake nun snickered behind her fingers, seeming to shrink three feet in an eyeblink as brat energy took over. It helped that she'd actually shrunk by a foot by contorting her semi-cartilaginous skeleton.
"Honestly, it kinda was?" Only for his 'Yeah, imo you're actually correct' shields to repel most of the surge, "I've never had more fun watching people over analyse what sort of loadout I'd be bringing whenever I bought a new kit and posted it on twitter. I basically went through half a tournament without fighting anyone, because they mindgame'd themselves into thinking that I had the exact weapons to completely counter them. It was hilarious."
"But yeah. With that sort of paradigm change, Bandai made kits much, much cheaper. More or less knocked half the price off– it hurt their margins, but it boosted revenue since GB was both super accessible cost-wise, and had an in-built attrition that made you constantly buy new kits… Aaaand therein lies the problem– we're taking the next left to get to the lift. Should be a pretty scenic descent," Pointing at a small opening on their left, he began shuffling through the people towards it, "GW used their Bandai connection to get access to the Plavsky particle too. The idea was to allow the epic and rich world of 40k into the real world. To turn games of it into true wars and skirmishes where grand armies clashed on the battlefield!"
"I mean, minis are probably a lot cheaper to replace, although I pity chaff heavy factions." Galatea hazarded, thumbing the rim of her visor. "Did they rip them off with the paints or something?"
"Nah. They just didn't change the pricing at all– oh, by the way a basic squad was like 30 bucks for unpainted, unglued, still on sprue, gray plastic dudes."
Galatea froze mid step, lifted her visor to get a second look, dug around in her ear and–
Nope, she had heard right and her friend wasn't joking.
"What."
"Oh– and one of the factions has a thing where if they die, they can come back at the end of a turn, they are Egyptian Robot Zombies–," He spun to look at her, a manic glow shining through his lenses, "Can ye guess what didn't work in the new format where your models get turned into fecking ash?"
"Amazing." She deadpanned, feeling the force of three million shitposts and bitching sessions come crashing down onto her head from the internet.
"Mhm," Ervoan sighed, feeling the exact same pain, "I was… lucky? Depending on your opinion, to see some of those battles. And yeah they were absolutely amazing. Everything you'd want them to be, but then the guys that fought realised that in a single game, they'd lost around 80% of their army. Gunpla back then rewarded you the more effort you put into them, painting and the likes boosted performance as it does now, damage was a pain to fix, but it wasn't lose over two years worth of love and effort amounts of pain."
"So yeah, people were ever so slightly miffed. As you can guess. They screamed at GW louder than they ever screamed at them and GW heard them…" Taking a dramatic pause, Galatea already knew what he was about to say, "So they hiked up the price of the models because 'the new plastic required higher quality molds' and because people stopped buying their shit entirely– oh, forgot to mention. GW basically decided that the 'real' combat was now the only official way to play the game. So people also kinda just stopped attending their official tournaments. I don't think you need a degree in economics to guess what happened next."
Finally, they reached the lift meant to take them lower still. It was a very utilitarian one. A box of metal, with peeling paint and walls made from chainlinks.
"Bandai drank their corpse like a capri sun." She said with a shake of her head, hand on her hip as she settled herself in the elevator. The franchise had clearly stuck around given Cheese's comments before this deranged trip through corporate incompetence.
"More or less, yeah. GW went through a massive death spiral, until Bandai bought them out entirely, which included all of their IPs," With a shudder, the lift began to go down. Its gaps only showing bare concrete walls at first, "They had a few rocking about. But basically, from that point on Bandai called the shots and sort of just rolled back all of GW's blunders. Kits got cheaper overall, the live combat became an alternate way to play it instead of the main, and so on."
Suddenly, their world opened up.
A cavern, oppressive in its yawning size and self assured grandeur as statues like those of the outside held the very roof upon the backs, welcomed them.
Even though he was obviously used to this, Gala's good friend couldn't help but take in a sharp breath at the sight of it.
"Well, it isn't an authentic dwarven hold, but I think that's still an item off my bucket list." The fake nun muttered under her breath.
"Oh, nah. Those are in the Iceland and Scandinavian region," He said, nonplussed, "Because now we get to the crux of your question. 'Why is 40k an 'underground' thing? Besides the fact that the lads we're gonna meet decided to run with the joke and made their den deep into the recesses of the earth? Bandai uses the same plastics for everything in the catalogue of products. The same sort of plastics used to make gunplas are used in GW models, from the 40k ones, to the fantasy, or Age of Sigmar ones too. See where I'm going with that?"
"Is GBNO such a temple to pasta that the same code that makes giant mechs work, by complete fuckin accident, can run infantry units just fine?" She slumped incredulously.
"Hehe, almost. But not quite. As I heard it being told, back when it came out the game could scan them just fine. But they come out as… well, basically a tiny Gunpla that you couldn't do anything with since there's no cockpit. But everything else was as it should be. Same pose, same texture, same colours," Opening a screen, he showed her a picture of a giant grim man with a Char looking dude gesturing excitedly at it. It looked like a statue, and a pretty dope one at that, "So this guy here, did the only sane thing. He started modding the game so you could play 40k in GBNO…"
"Bug that let you scan them got patched basically just before he could release it. He uh… He may have sent a very insulting letter to the Bandai HQ as a result, alongside the parts of the mod that were done," A much spiker grim man showed on his screen, fighting the less spiky grim men, "Specifically the Space Marines, and Chaos Space Marines– the posterboys of the setting. To everyone's surprise, they hired him right after, and now the mod is an unofficial official thing?"
"Nea–" She froze, gears visibly turning in her head even with the visor blocking half her face until her neck snapped to him hard enough to cripple a human. "Wait. Waitwaitwait. Does this mean that you can legitimately get the Warframe experience here?"
"My sister in Christ, I literally parried bullets in front of you?" He asked, unsure of what she meant, "Define the Warframe experience. Because if that's not it, then I dunno what is? Do you mean– like fighting people out of the mechs?"
"I mean actually having content for those physical feats. I thought all I'd get to do was pinball around hubs and once in a blue moon spar with a player." She gesticulated wildly as her voice grew more crazed, a manic laugh ripping out of her throat, "Now you just told me I can go mow through the Infestation's less mouldy cousins."
"–Gala, I can go out right now and fight a Zaku with my sword if I feel like it."
"That's a cool boss fight but not the point." He raised a finger to try and interrupt her, but lowered it, conceding the point, "The warframe experience is mowing through hordes of chaff with the occasional crunchy bit of elite."
"Yeah, okay. I didn't think of it that way. But yeah, you kiiiinda do? It's not quite the same, but– you know what? I'll just say yes. And let Gerg explain it. He's better at that than I could ever be," Walls once more enclosed them, before the lift came to a gentle stop, "But since that's gonna bother you all the way until we get there–"
Going low, he grabbed Gala and pulled her in a princess carry, struggling a bit with her size, but not her weight, "I'll leave you to explore the hub later. Hold on tight, because I'm giving you the 'Why Tennos don't carry rescue targets' experience right this second!"
It was hard to tell if the tall glass of fish sauce was screaming for her life or whooping in joy as her friend carried her. Jumping across, over, along walls and buildings, sliding under pipes and between moving containers.
He slid down a waterway, the edge rushing to meet them alongside a pit of utter darkness. Their only salvation from a painful fall, a ledge in the distance. Ervoan chose that moment to make his delight known. "WOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOO! PAAAAAARKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUR!"
His leg pushed off with utterly inhuman strength, water exploding all around them from the sheer force behind the jump. They hung in the air, weightless, frozen in space as time stood still, fate tossing the coin to decide if they would make it or not.
The fall wasn't the most pleasant, her friend obviously not knowing how to nail the landing with a passenger and arms glued to said bundle of sushi. Still, their tumble didn't end badly as they rolled off the ledge and into another steep incline…
"Phew~," Eventually, the cheese's mad run slowed down, first into a jog, then into a spirited walk, "We're almost there."
The vibe here was quite different from the upper levels. Like the entire mass of the hub above pressed down on them. The architecture was still quite nice, but felt… slum-y or at least fairly seedy. It was reflected by the people around them too. Most paid them no mind, but some stared at them with curiosity. And fewer still gave Ervoan a nod of respect or recognition.
"Mind unsticking yourself? The club's on the next right," he shook her a bit, but couldn't get her off to showcase his predicament, "And it's not the best entrance, for either of us."
A quiet hiss and the faint smell of the sea was her answer. It felt like he was covered in pop rocks as the resin melted away to harmless vapour.
"Ooooh, tingly." Crouching, he helped her to her feet, "You can walk alright, or?"
"I'm… fine." She said as shakily as her legs, however her tail did stabilise her just fine so she wasn't talking out of that perfectly sculpted ass. A few seconds later, the red faded from her body, leaving her white as a sheet again.
"Good to hear, come on. Greg should be waiting for us." Waving her forwards, he shoved his hands in his pockets and began whistling as he led her.
As they turned right, they came across… Well, it wasn't the most impressive building. If anything, it looked kind of not so great. A large door, some windows, all made from sheet metal and built into one of the pillars that supported this level of the mountain.
The only thing that gave a clue to what lay beyond was a small placard, set right above the door.
Avernus.
…Unfortunately, she didn't have the rest of the clues, so she couldn't figure out what that meant at all. She only had 'they may've named this after el averno'.
Pushing on the door, her friend kept it open as he invited her in, "Welcome Gala, to Club Avernus."
She strode right in, heels clicking on the steel flooring as she let her tail and tentacles unfurl, thick and heavy as they hung from her body. Lovingly sculpted marble with the subtlest veining to catch the eye like damascus, built in finger-thick overlapping plates. Gold inlays traced out winged, flaming figures raining death on copper monstrosities, their blood rendered as turquoise rust.
It probably didn't fit whatever lore these people were running one to one, but she rather thought she caught a similar spirit to those golden winged skulls she'd spied on the chestplates.
The interior was honestly a lot nicer than she'd expected from the facade.
It wasn't amazing, but it was a nice looking, fairly classy and well lit bar. Lots of wood panelling along the lower wall, each panel covered in a different symbol and a whole lot of embellishments framing them, presumably fitting with whatever the icons meant in the Warhammer. The walls proper weren't particularly worked on. Just solid, uniform stone, with a few paintings to break up the monotony.
The bar itself ran roughly the entire length of the left side of the large room, a towering wall of colourful bottles right behind the polished counter. Behind it, at the far end of the space, she could see a set of stairs trailing up.
The tables were wooden, if of a different type than what'd gone into the walls if the shade and grain were anything to go by. The seats were as one would expect, a gamut of wall couches, bar stools and table chairs. What mattered more were the occupants, ranging from the Space Marines and funny red robed robot people to what she tentatively placed down as space elves to Nvidia's take on egyptian robot skeletons.
What really caught her eye, though, was The Hulk. He sat at the bar, wearing some sort of mad-max armour while sipping something from a massive jug of beer… Which he held in his hands like it was a cup of tea, and he, an english gentleman, pinkie finger extended.
Some turned to look at the two new arrivals, plenty raising their drinks towards her friend, before going back to their discussion. But some lingered on her with a raised eyebrow.
Going with her gut instinct, she waved back. With her tentacles, hands remaining tucked away in her wide sleeves.
People waved back in response, some more hesitantly than others, "Come on, I see Greg over there, he'll be able to explain about the crunch," Weaving between the tables, her friend nodded towards the various patrons. "So, there's two types of people that come to the club," And now that she was weaving between them. Galatea could tell that their appearance varied wildly in quality too. Some looked really good, others… not so much, like someone using a bunch of premade assets to try and replicate a specific look by agencying them in ways that they weren't meant to, "There's the fluff enjoyers. They're just here because they like the setting. 40K's not exactly a cheap hobby, even with Bandai slashing the prices of the kits they average at around twenty to thirty bucks, more than your average HG Gunpla– and that doesn't factor in the paints or assembly."
"Then we have people like Greg, me and some of the other regulars, I think I can see Shi'va over there, talking with Caprius," He pointed out a small, but stocky blue skinned woman, and one of the red-robes, "But basically we're the actual players, with armies and models… Though, I say that, but I'm still working on mine. I only have a Killteam completely done and ready for play ATM."
"I assume that's a me and the boys playmode instead of full armies? Would the girls I got be enough for that?" The faux nun asked with a cutesy tilt of her head. Helped that she'd shrunk to six feet again.
"Not sure, but I think so– Hey Greg!" With a shout, he called out and–
"Hmmm?" The Hulk turned towards them.
And maybe calling him The Hulk wasn't charitable. Because he sure seemed bigger than said super hero. Mostly due to his naturally hunched posture. Rather than having his head on top of his shoulders like a human, Greg's seemed to come out from between the shoulders, making him look less like a giant green man and more like a green brick.
He was easily three times as wide as she was now, and probably twice as tall unfurled. As it stood, if she were to go back to her full height, Galatea figured she miiiiight be able to just barely edge out his sitting form.
"Well, if dat's not 'da newest boy on 'da blok," His accent was barely understandable, which meant that he'd be completely incomprehensible if not for the P-Particle BS that her friend had pointed out before… His teeth were also massive, pointed and the size of her hand.
How was she able to tell?
The giant, toothy grin he was giving her, his two, beady, black eyes staring down at her as she saw his pig-ish (if you could call a near complete lack of one that) nose huff in amusement.
"An' 'da wif' yu keep raggin' on 'aboot'."
"Just good friends." She chuckled with a giant grin of her own, the subtle seam stretching past her lips opening up to show pearly whites that'd send a great white running. She was a fake nun, after all.
"Oi, dat's one neat a'atar yu gots dere!" The people looking at the scene recoiled a little at the sudden slasher grin, clearly not expecting it, but Greg? His own nonplussed chuckle was a deeper one, sounding more like a particularly quiet grinder, "So, if youz' not 'da wif', wot'chu dooing 'ere?"
"Warframe refugee," Ervoan explained, "And she accidentally bought daemonettes at a flea market– the recast of the old 3E model I think? Told her about 40K, now she's interested."
"Wel, she got 'da Slaanesh look down 'dats fer sure." he chuckled.
"I see, says the blind woman." Galatea drawled as the seam closed back up. A touch of rubbery resin and it was all but invisible.
"Freaky seggs demons," Her friend told her, "And yeah. She does."
"Heh, right den. Me name' Gralkuk E'rippah Golgof– but ery'ne 'ere callz me Grerg," Pausing to sip from his jug, he wiped the forty beer off of his mouth with a massive hand, "Wotchu wanna kno' lil' 'umie?"
"Killteam and if six daemonettes are enough to run it, just for starters." The fake nun said as she fully settled in, idly gesturing for the bartender to get her something light. The wonders of P-Particles, making a little tentacle wiggle as readily comprehensible as a full sentence.
The bartender, a dwarf of some sort with a bejeweled, flowing and impeccable grey beard (she could see the individual hairs bristle) glared at her a little, before grumbling off to grab her something.
"Kilteam eh? Mmmh, six minis aint quite roight fer Chao' Demonz, yu'l want at leas' anotha' one,'' Tapping the counter, a screen popped out, looking ridiculously small next to his frame, "Eeziest' solve roight dere tho. Yu'l jus' 'ave to register yeself as yer kilteam comandah', an' considrin' yer from Waahframe, reckon yu'l luv it."
"She absolutely will, yeah," A hand fell on her head, patting it fondly, "She went ballistic when she heard about being able to do anime shit."
"Roight, roight…" Humming, he poked his screen with far too large fingers. And was still doing so when the bartender brought her her drink.
"Here's ye drink umgi," it was a tall, fancy glass. The liquid in there was a vivid pink covered in shimmering white froth, "One Thirster's Allure. Also, next time, use yer words. 's more polite."
If the last part was supposed to be a rebuke. It was hard to tell, since he grumbled it with no real heat before walking off to serve a table with eight rainbow-wizards that all looked off their rocker.
"Will do, elder." She replied on gut instinct before the man was out of earshot, happily swirling the drink to get the scent wafting up to her.
It smelled pink, somehow. Like someone had taken the concepts of the colour and turned it into a particularly pleasant smell. She could also tell that it was fairly boozy, though not to the point of being a hard cocktail. Most likely more in line with a lighter proofed tiki drink if she were to guess.
"Too wayz I tink dis can go," The giant ended up saying, turning back to her, "So forst– oo' Slaanesh' drin' not a bad choice! Anyhoo' forst, yu can be a foightah. Loike… uuuh… 'elp me dere dood."
"Hm?" Looking at Greg's screen, Ervoan took a second to see where the green man was going, "Ah. Right, so option A. You go for an ungah-bungah leader, think Valkyr. Lots of murder, most, if not all, at melee range with some actual shooting sprinkled in– but only because you're the leader. In case you're wondering, that's basically what I went with. Option B, which I get the feeling you'll do instead, congratulations Galatea."
Slapping a hand on her shoulder, he gave her a thumbs up and what would probably have been a 'winning' smile if not for the full face helmet, "Yer a wizerd!"
"You know I main Ember and Nidus." She snorted as she took a sip of her drink, her eyebrows lifting pleasantly as the taste hit. Sweet, velvety mouthfeel, just enough burn. "Gimme."
"Psykah, eh? Dat makes tings a bit more complicated…" "Eh, not really. Just send her the package with everything in it. She'll figure out what she wants from there."
Sure enough, the fake nun received a DM with an attachment. Opening it revealed a fairly large assortment of numbers, words and datasheets, "So basically, you get mind bullets, and you can fire them until you either explode or make the Man In The Wall knock at your door. It's your soul, the door is your soul and he kicks it down to get out of the Void."
"But wouldn't I be in league with the things trying to crawl up reality's asshole?" Galatea asked with a frown nobody could see, compensating with a quizzical tilt of her head. "No need to rip up my soul when I'm opening a portal and rolling out the red carpet."
"Eeeeeh," They both made a so-so wave of their hand, "Depends on how much they like you honestly. If you're valuable, they won't. If you're not? Then you're more valuable as something to get inside of, and then explosively leave."
"...Bit short-sighted, aren't they?" She muttered, sipping from her drink with just a touch of grouch. Ah, well, not everyone could be terrifyingly competent like the Steel Legion. "Unless a psyker turned inside out becomes a stable portal like DOOM gore nests."
"Chaos is more or less a self-sustaining engine of stupid. The gods are all inherently self destructive, Khorne is the god of war, murder, slaughter and martial might. To worship him is to doom yourself to unending slaughter, think doomguy, if doomguy wasn't a very lost Paladin. Tzeentch is the god of knowledge, change, fate, magic and secretive ploys. By worshipping him, you become privy to the currents of fate– but also doom yourself to become unable to see past it. 'All according to Keikaku' kind of guy, including nervous breakdown once these plans get ruined by an unseen variable," As the frenchie started to explain the ins and outs of the faction she'd nominally decided to join, she felt as if something encroached on her. A cold creeping dread that wormed its way into her heart, gripping it and squeezing, "Nurgle is the god of stagnation, decay, apathy and stability. He, his daemons and worshippers are vectors of the worst plagues imaginable, but just as their bodies decay, they are filled with unnatural life that ensures they'll never die from the afflictions they see as a gift from their kind and caring grandfather. And finally Slaanesh is– okay. Whoever is doing it, you know the rules and so do I. No psyker shenanigans in the bar."
Interrupting his description with a sigh, he turned to look at the assembled patrons, giving them a flat glare.
Three of them, their clothes coloured green, blue and red, immediately looked away like they hadn't been doing anything wrong as the sensation receded from Galatea, "Javis…"
"Wha– oh come on!" A completely different guy scoffed, his clothes were fairly drab, but covered in seals and double headed eagles, "i was just helping set the mood! You know we're missing a Slaanesh player!"
"Rules are rules lad," The stocky bartender grumbled with a withering glaze, "No psyker powers near the counter. It makes the spirits jumpy."
Suitably chastised, the boy mumbled out a "Sorry…"
"Well, happy to know I'm wanted." Galatea chuckled, taking a long chug of her drink to wash out the lingering unease. "Now, what about Slaneesh?"
"Oh, non-binary deity of sex, drugs and rock and roll," Chuckling he expanded on this, "More seriously, their entire thing is excess, pleasure and I think secrets for some reason? Their greater daemons are called 'Keepers of Secrets'. They also love to eat Eldar souls, the race that accidentally murder-fucked it into existance."
"So Iron Tyrants, pretty much?" The fake nun asked, not put off in the slightest. Sounded like a good time, not often games let you have that sort of fun without being built from the ground up for it ala Slavemaker.
"Lots more sex and depravity, but not far off the mark, yeah. Your gals are minor daemons of that god, so for now let's assume you'll go with that. Now," Looking over her shoulder, he began guiding her through the documents, "Since you're going psyker, you'll need to select some psyker powers…"
The seams of her mouth ripped open as she saw the very first category. "Biomancy, you say?"
And now we're at the start of the big 40k section!
Hopefully the fact that 40k was around as a game was decently set up, and to no one's surprise, Ni picked Slaneesh for his army. So expect some Horny on Main!
At this time, nothing explicit has been written and there's no plans for that either. At least beside passing mentions of it happening in the background.