Tuesday 4 March 2014

Collect the personal notes of astronomer-Mathematician Ledore

The news of the dragons attack on the South of the Thundercliff Peaks weighed heavy on the constellation; much respect was afforded to professor Ledore Jiselle for his work with N-body orbital solutions, and many times in his career he was extended invitation to join the convergence. His refusal was unfortunate, but his death at the hands of those that sought to exploit the carnage wrought by the dragon for profit was entirely deplorable. The thought now was that at the very least, some of his work could be preserved; if of course some of his notes could be recovered. 

"You were an obvious choice" voxed one of her body guards for the fourth time at least "Ideally, the notes could be recovered and we could be off in hours; Your skills suit the task"

Truth of course, it still felt like punishment.The mission was glorified courier service, and any number of Optifex from the inner cult could have done the job just as well. Sending one of the few warcasters goaded confrontation almost as much as it protected against it. That much had been proven true in the earlier confrontation against the trolls

"Lets just get it done." replied Arurora, thrumming her displacement field to maximum power and making acceleration towards the mansion. Six angels fell in line behind her,



And of course, the Cyriss damned trolls had licked their wounds, and come back for a second pass. Reeking of fungal beer, and even setting a trap of some sort. Arrayed in the field just outside the mansion were three large piles of what looked like scrap metals collected from felled warjacks; Most of which was polished to a high shine in either an attempt to draw attention to the treasure, or some ritualistic trophy collecting habit.

"We can avoid them entirely by holding the vectors back and flying past them. Judging by the last confrontation an altitude of 183 and 1/9th feet will keep us out of a range of their most"

Too late, Aurora was incensed and had already reach out with her mind and called her heavy set pieces from their reserve. She took a dive just as her vectors broke the treeline and joined the battlefield. The gators let out a cheer, and her angel guards moved to flank, nonplussed that their ranking officers advice was not only ignored, but that the young warcaster acted without even letting her finish her sentence... Maybe this assignment was a punishment.... Worse still, maybe it would be a punishment before the end of the evening.



The Troll lines surged forward, hungry for revenge.
Some sought to make use of the nearby oasis to mask their advance, the troll warcaster approached from this angle.

Aurora directed her lines forward in a rush, and then made a quick movement to try and engage the troll warcaster. She was careful to make some illusion of an attempt on the bait, but beyond that it seemed that her caution had expired.

Where the convergence warcaster seemed to have exhausted her better judgement, the clockwork vessels on the cult exhibited calculation and care that would have made the forgefather proud. Their advances carried them just far enough to bait the enemy lines into firing upon them, but not so far that there was any danger of fire from the enemy lines. Bullets slowed by air-friction and pulled out of arc by gravity ricochet harmlessly off the shells of their vessels, or else sailed clearly past them, buoyed away by the wind and distance
Meanwhile heavy set pieces of the armies prepared for confrontation.

Finally the lines engaged; gatormen crashed across the field heedless of the bulk before them, and tore into the delicate exposed clockworks of the Ciphers. One was nearly ruined before the lines were completely joined, but thankfully movement jarred lose a fragment of gator pole arm and its movement was restored.


Meanwhile, aurora, having chosen her flank, drove hard at the enemy warcaster, again choosing to ignore the half begun protests of her personal guard.





The field froze for everyone momentarily. Gatormen set in melee against the heavy convergence warmachines, Perforators calculating carefully optimal approach vectors against the troll gunners, Angels setting flanks against the trollblood forces, and the diffuser setting targets and calculating trajectories at the behest of aurora. Someone with more experience would have known immediately something was wrong, aurora had no such glut of experience. To her, the moment was right, and the troll caster had handed her another Epsilon equilibrium. He wanted revenge, she wanted to be done with her assignment, and the opportunity to vent flesh like frustration appealed to her subconsciously.




With a carefully timed apparition move, she disengaged her battlegroup, called out to them with her will, and smiled as the luchinem fluid poured out over the enemy caster and his minions. She called her second jack back and send him towards the enemy caster, hoping now to find her checkmate and move on from this all.

she overcharged her displacer drive and lunged at the enemy warcaster, only after she had commit to the manoeuvre did she realise that the troll bastard had been laying down suppressive fire, keeping her clockwork angels from closing the game themselves. What moments ago was a checkmate condition, suddenly unravelled into a clever trap. She was committed to a melee against a hostile caster and one of his larger underlings, with only a cipher behind her for support. The only way it could lend its utility to he fight would be by first trampling her under its many tons.


The troll caster smirked, his minion cast her prone with a violence redolent of revenge, and something guttural and vitriolic was said before he shot her twice in the stomach. The trolls were happy to leave her on the ground at that point, her battle group gone inert at her sudden trauma, and a promise of future engagements hung like a note on a door.








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Haha, Guillame fed me another assassination this game by misjudging my threat range, and then when I went for it, I forgot to flank with the angels! Fun game, lesson learned :P

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