The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 4: The Huntsman's Garden)

The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 4: The Huntsman's Garden)
#85
Re: The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 2: Robo City!) (Replacements required)
Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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The flask shattered against the cold stone floor, exposing the contents to air and causing the temperature of the liquid to drop dramatically. The tonic quickly froze; an explosion of ice hanging momentarily in mid-air. Robots that had been in the splash zone suddenly found themselves constricted; immobilized and in some cases crushed to the point of non-functionality. The remaining machines took aim and fired towards the fleeing alchemist, who ducked into the first alleyway he could find.

Momentarily safe his first thought was for his apparatus, making sure it had not been struck as he fled. His hands automatically started prepping another potion as he let out a sigh of relief. Within moments his draughts were complete; the first one, a rapidly fizzing blue liquid, he downed in one. It tasted like sugar and for a moment he felt a little light-headed. It passed quickly, and he was left feeling limber, more agile. The second was a dull grey liquid; he held this one hand while fishing in his pouches with his other. He measured out a small amount of a black powder, dropped it into the flask and mixed it up, then without missing a beat he stepped out from the alleyway and flung it towards the advancing robots.

As soon as it left his hand, no longer stoppered by his palm thick black smoke started pouring out of it, as it landed amongst the robots it acted as a smokescreen. Kaja dashed towards the billowing smoke, thankful that he had happened to pass through the room containing the shells of these machines. It was the knowledge he had taken from that examination that allowed him to grip hold of their arms, twist them like so and effortlessly disarm them, in both senses of the word. He worked quickly, the tonic allowing him to deal with the vast bulk of the gathered machines before the smoke began to dissipate.

As the smoke cleared the couple of robots that still had a weapon to their names opened fire upon him. Thinking quickly he ducked down behind one of the disarmed machines, not aiming to hide as such but merely shield himself while he worked out if their arms were operable to anyone who wasn’t a machine. He was unfortunately forced to conclude ‘no’ and toss the arm away. He didn’t really want to waste any more ingredients on this confrontation, especially with quantities dwindling as they were. Pinned down behind an uncooperative robot, that he was having to hold down to prevent it from simply leaving him without cover, he didn’t really see a clear way out of this one, at least until a chime from above them sounded and the robots all turned their attention to the screen they had been facing before. Perhaps it was a programmed response to that specific noise, or maybe they were just really keen to hear the latest about their beloved saviour, either way Kaja was not going to waste this chance again. He strolled out of cover, over to the robots that were listening intently to the same spherical robot as before, and snapped off their limbs. He was not sure if they even noticed.

A quick glance to the building showed that they were now showing a picture of Luron and indicating that he was the Destroyer. Kaja presumed he was some kind of villainous counterpart to the Arbiter, who was, he reminded himself, apparently Scott. The broadcast continued, presumably telling the populace to watch out for Luron and to quickly contact them if he was located or something along those lines, but Kaja quickly moved on, rushing down the streets towards the building upon which the messages were being broadcast. It kind of reminded him of a church.

Happy that for once since he had arrived in this city he had maybe a couple of minutes to process things, he reflected upon leaving behind Luron, Simphonia and the Zachs. He felt guiltier now that it seemed Luron had been declared public enemy number one, but he overrode this guilt with logic; he had a task to do and he was never going to complete it if he was forced to look out for those who wouldn’t cooperate with him. It was harsh, but as much as he wished them well he couldn’t afford to care about them, not if he wanted to get out of here in one piece.

He arrived at the entrance of what he had mentally labelled as a church; he hung back, careful to stay out of sight. The front entrance was under guard by more of the armed robots that he had been fighting with; but around them was a crowd of unfamiliar robots. Maybe it was the slight difference in design, or the way they were behaving, but everything about the previous robots that had said ‘soldier’ said in these robots ‘civilian’. Either way there was far too many robots to get in through this door, and so he moved around the ‘church’ until he found himself in a back alley. As he brewed up another potion he ruminated further on the situation.

He was not sure why he had been selected for this battle, while he guessed he was holding his own against these dumb machines he did not consider himself a great fighter, he was not even an experienced fighter. In life the closest he had ever gotten to a real fight was a drunken bar-room brawl he barely remembered come the next morning. In death he had once defended his scrap of land from a couple of wandering undead, separated from their hive. They had barely been cogent enough to fight back against his barrage of potions. He had already burned through more ingredients than he would have used in a month before this conflict. As it was he would not have enough to fight back against Zaire. It was awful, but he almost wanted one of his colleagues to die so that they would be sent to the next arena where hopefully he would be able to gather some herbs in preparation for the coming battle.

He poured the noxious liquid onto a point on the wall, the acid quickly melting its way through the heavy steel wall and providing an alternate entrance. Kaja hoped his instinct was right on this one, and that somewhere in here would be where he would find Scott.


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Messages In This Thread
Re: The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 2: Robo City!) (Replacements required) - by Ixcaliber - 06-24-2011, 09:16 PM
[No subject] - by Dragon Fogel - 11-04-2012, 01:35 AM