Sack Boogies

Have your ANNOISY head away from the crawler while calling. If you think you can defeat it, probably best not to do that, losing your ANNOISY would be sad.

Well, it's drawn by your noisy Sack Boogie. If the small fry are showing up anyways, maybe you'd be better off putting it back in the sack and seeing if the big one loses interest.

Otherwise your best bet is probably to give the beast some kind of distraction and drive past it while it's occupied with that?

Have your ANNOISY head away from the crawler while calling. If you think you can defeat it, probably best not to do that, losing your ANNOISY would be sad.

You have an idea. For some reason, the smaller Sack Boogies don't seem to be frightened by your ANNOISY, so there's not much benefit keeping it on the crawler as a deterrent.

Instead, you can send ANNOISY out to distract the big Boogie and lead it away from the road.



While the crawler continues safely along the road, you can ride out into the murderforest on your cyclotron and attack the big Boogie from behind. Even if you aren't able to defeat it, you might be able to recover your ANNOISY before it gets hurt and make your escape once the crawler is safely out of range.

It's a little risky for a number of reasons. It'll be difficult to control the ANNOISY as it gets further out of range of your Boogie Sack, so you'll need to counter that by leaving more of your Sack Boogies in the Boogie Sack so that it has fewer subumbral connections to maintain. If you run into any opposition in the murderforest, instead of pulling out a Boogie and engaging you'll have to just outrun it until you get closer to your ANNOISY (unless you want to risk it running amok or escaping).

You climb back into the crawler and head to the roof so you can get a good look at the big Boogie through the macroscope.



You notice nothing out of the ordinary along the way.

SpoilerShow

Welcome to the PARALLEL SHADOW SUBPLOT! (All PARALLEL SHADOW SUBPLOT suggestions should henceforth be posted in spoilers.)

>Sneakerat: Get Run Over

You are now a wild BAARDVARK.



You umbrificate into the shadows of this weird machine, then disumbrificate into the darkest place you can find.



Wow, it's kinda crowded in here.

Up on the roof, you pull out the electron macroscope and examine the trail ahead.



Blast! That has to be a wild BOWLDOZER, a legendary dishware-type Sack Boogie.



It's likely to be surrounded by a flock of protective PLATELETS, which could complicate your battleplan. It's also too big for your Boogie Sack, so you won't be able to capture it even if you subdue it.

On the other hand, BOWLDOZERs are known for moving forward in straight lines (ignoring and obliterating most obstacles in their way) while being slow to turn around. So your plan to draw it off course might just work!

And hey, if you can snag a PLATELET for yourself, you could someday have a BOWLDOZER of your own!

Is there anything else you want to do before you send your ANNOISY out into the murderforest to distract the beast, or is it time to get this party started?

SpoilerShow

>Play a dirge about how being in a crowded box sucks.

Once you send out the annoisy, see if you can redirect the vehicle out of the BOWLDOZER's path, so that even if the ANNOISY doesn't distract it much you can hopefully avoid it.

>Check the creatures in the other sack, as they don't have any subumbral connections with your annoyse.

>Check the creatures in the other sack, as they don't have any subumbral connections with your annoyse.

You suddenly realize that you might not be so defenseless away from your ANNOISY after all; you have the extra Boogie Sack from the cargo hold.



You reach into the sack and feel around to see if you can grasp any partially disumbrificated Sack Boogies bound to the sack.



There's supposed to be an art to this, but it's always been pretty subconscious for you... you know what you want to grab, then you reach in and grab it. But without knowing what you're looking for it's not so easy.

Finally, you manage to grab hold of something cold and metallic.



You pull out a crimson Sack Boogie that your neural ensacklopedia identifies as a WASPRING.



Nice, this little flyer could come in useful. Looks like it'll be maneuverable and can keep pace with you while you're mounted on the cycle.

You put it back in the Boogie Sack feeling more confident about your odds against the BOWLDOZER. Nothing left now but to execute the plan.

You pull your ANNOISY back out of your Boogie Sack and send it out into the murderforest, braying and buzzing noisomely.

Once you send out the annoisy, see if you can redirect the vehicle out of the BOWLDOZER's path, so that even if the ANNOISY doesn't distract it much you can hopefully avoid it.

You head down to the control room to get the crawler moving again and to see if you can wrangle the controls from their autopilot settings.

You'd feel better if the crawler weren't constrained to stay on the road. Then you might have a chance to avoid the BOWLDOZER even if it doesn't take your noisy bait.



The autopilot is a bit finnicky and stubborn, but after a terse argument you finally convince it to grant you limited override it if need be. The autopilot does whine about the density of the murdertrees hereabouts, which you have to admit makes going off course more difficult.

In any case, it's good to know you can at least try to crash through the forest in an emergency.

SpoilerShow

PARALLEL SHADOW SUBPLOT

>Play a dirge about how being in a crowded box sucks.

You play a song of sorrow.



A fellow creature of the darkness joins its voice to yours in dismal harmony.

With the crawler in motion, you head down to the equipment locker and grab your cyclotron. You can hear Fartbuttsman moaning out a mournful tune, so at least you know he's still alive, onboard, and has enough air.



You hop down from the crawler and mount your cycle, throttling forward in advance of the larger vehicle.



In only a short while, you see the trail of broken trees left by the BOWLDOZER. Looks like it's off the trail and pursuing your ANNOISY.

Looks like if you had a BOWLDOZER you'd be able to make a pretty penny clearing out roads through the MURDERFOREST. Those PLATELETS sure do sound like a good catch.

>Follow the bowldozer for a bit and until he's distant enough, pick annoyse up
>take care of murder trees, theses one eyed beasts.

Looks like if you had a BOWLDOZER you'd be able to make a pretty penny clearing out roads through the MURDERFOREST. Those PLATELETS sure do sound like a good catch.

SpoilerShow

>Reverse heist yourself out of the box, making all others in the box a part of The Crew

Looks like if you had a BOWLDOZER you'd be able to make a pretty penny clearing out roads through the MURDERFOREST. Those PLATELETS sure do sound like a good catch.

>Follow the bowldozer for a bit and until he's distant enough, pick annoyse up

You head down the path left by the BOWLDOZER, with a determination to catch a PLATELET for yourself if you make it through this alive.



You're hopeful that if you lead it far enough off the path you might even be able to avoid a direct fight with the BOWLDOZER and just snag one of its attendant PLATELETS and retrieve your ANNOISY before it knows what's happened.

It's not long before you catch sight of one of the PLATELETS emerging from the dust cloud at the base of the BOWLDOZER and heading straight for you.

SpoilerShow

>Reverse heist yourself out of the box, making all others in the box a part of The Crew

Alright, enough messing around. It's time for The Big Reverse Heist. You're putting a crew together.

First things first, everybody needs codenames.



The little guys will obviously be Hard Boiled Yolkozuna and Little Sheldon.

But what's this big guy's codename going to be?

You're prepared for the attacking Sack Boogie and quickly pull out that red WASPRING from the borrowed Boogie Sack and hurl it toward the aerial dishware.



Combat is nigh! What should be WASPRING's first move?

SpoilerShow

The big guy is Ol' Singin' Pete. Your first plan of action is to send those HEGGHOGS to scout around the area while you and Pete form a home base

>WASPRING, use WINDUP STING!

>Discover soon that wasp-type stings are pretty much useless against platelet's hardened skin. Who could have foreseen this!?

>BOING YOURSELF, WASPRING!

SpoilerShow

Luticrous is his name

>Drill Run

>Drill Run

Your first thought is to take out your opponent quickly, so you command the WASPRING to attack at full speed.



WASPRING USES DRILL RUN!

>Discover soon that wasp-type stings are pretty much useless against platelet's hardened skin. Who could have foreseen this!?

It doesn't seem very effective! This hardened dishware boogie is less fragile than it appears.

Unfortunately, your move has given the PLATELET an opportunity to counterattack.



PLATELET USES CLAP SHLAP!!



Clapping its two halves together at fantastic speeds produces a shockwave that knocks your WASPRING back and seems to daze it. You can't afford to take another hit like that... you'd better make the next attack count!

SpoilerShow

PARALLEL SHADOW SUBPLOT

Luticrous is his name

The big guy is Ol' Singin' Pete.

Of course, the big guy is Luticrous Pete. And now the crew is ready for the heist!

Your first plan of action is to send those HEGGHOGS to scout around the area while you and Pete form a home base

You tell Sheldon and Yolkozuna to scout the perimeter, and make sure they use the buddy system! But you warn them that if they do get separated, don't try to make contact-- keep your head down, don't use public transport, and high tail it for the safehouse.

Godspeed.

>WASPRING, use WINDUP STING!

Taking advantage of the distance put between your boogie and its opponent by PLATELET's counterattack, you command the WASPRING to prepare for a slower but more powerful attack... one that will hopefully pierce its hardened hide better than the quick DRILL RUN attack.

WASPRING USES WINDUP STING!



WASPRING is winding up... and will execute the attack as soon as it's ready.

But the PLATELET is not sitting idly by... looks like it's changed its focus to you!

PLATELETs rely on sonic damage and high defences to deter foes, you can actually take a hit from them ok with your current armour.

>Just smack it down to the ground

...It's a PLATELET. It's a low-power, weakling of a sackboogie. You are in quality armor designed to protect from sackboogie attacks.
It's scarcely more threatening than a keuriglett, and at least those can scald their target if desperate enough.
One lone PLATLET really can't do much more than harmlessly smack into your visor, can it?
Well, it can obstruct your vision, for starters. Not to mention it probably has friends. And, uh. That would be considerably more troublesome.
Just grab it and hold it in place until it calms down or something.

>Just smack it down to the ground

Not for the first time, you find yourself wishing you could just smack a boogie. It doesn't look that big or that dangerous.



But you've seen what happens when a Sack Master forgets to keep their distance; your prosthetic leg is a constant reminder. The only thing that can harm a Sack Boogie is another Sack Boogie, but that doesn't mean they can't hurt you.

PLATELETs rely on sonic damage and high defences to deter foes, you can actually take a hit from them ok with your current armour.

That said, if this Boogie's opening move is any indication of its attack repertoire, instead of up close and personal fisticuffs it uses sonic attacks at range.

As long as it doesn't umbrificate through your armor before doing that, you reckon that you'll be able to take a hit without injury.

You decide to stand your ground to buy your WASPRING some time as the PLATELET unleashes another attack.



PLATELET USES CLAPP SCHLAPP!



The force knocks you off your cycle and sends you tumbling to the ground. Through blurry vision and the coppery taste of blood you can sense that you've managed to maintain your grip on the extra Boogie Sack.



You can feel your arms and legs and you decide that nothing's too broken. But you don't want to take another hit like that.

Fortunately, your WASPRING is ready to re-engage!



WASPRING USES WINDUP STING! It bursts forward through the air, uncoiling violently while spinning like a drill.



DIRECT HIT



Excellent! The PLATELET is incapacitated.

>In the sack it goes

Don't forget to re-bag the WASPRING!

Is that BOWLDOZER coming back? Shouldn't it be farther away?