A Moment to Breathe and Reflect

I'm exhausted... the past 2 days have been a whirlwind of activity and emotion..
 
Yesterday, Captain V and I decided to go ahead with the plan to assassinate one of the commanders.. We still hadn't decided who our target should be. And to be honest I am not sure we should pull that trigger.. Bigger things than us are afoot.. Danger and Enemies everywhere.. I think I came up with a good alternative to find out who the players are in this web of intrigue, I think we should find a trustworthy commander (so far we are 0 for 2). Download him what all is going on. And recruit his help. I suggested we poison him, but with a poison that makes it LOOK like he is dead.. See what cogs that starts in motion.. Then bring him back to life to help stomp it out. I don't think that this should be the time for drastic changes or fracturing the hierarchy in the city. Captain V seemed to be at least considering it, so we decided to go together to check out the Hume Commander..
 
As protective and over-reactive the hell-scarred were.. the Hume's were completely opposite.. Hardly any guards.. the dipshit at the front desk pretty much waived us on it to see the commander. the fort itself was full of holes and open windows.. I mean.. if we were looking for a easy target this would be it.. Upon meeting with him, he actually seemed pleasant ! Although hurried and annoyed with us taking up his valuable time, He listened to my concerns and I appeared to be getting through to him.. Ending my time with him, he was agreeing that there was some serious shit afoot in this town.. Feeling pretty pleased with myself I stepped back and asked Captain V if he had anything to add.. to my UTTER SHOCK... he stepped forward. and before I could even blink.. pulled out his poison box and sprayed the commander.. The Commander of course was hit full force and dropped dead (I'm pretty damn proud of my workmanship if I do say so myself!).. I'm standing there with my mouth hanging open.. like WTF!!!.. When V says "Go get the other soldier"... so I am like "Aye Aye captain!!" Thinking maybe Captain V had a new plan that I was not privy to, you know. "Need to know information" So I followed my orders and WENT AND GOT the other soldier and told them something is wrong with the Commander.. of course he walks in and freaks out that the commander was dead... I'm still waiting for Captain V to reveal his plan.. and he pretty much says " I didn't do it" and surrenders... I'm thinking... ok.. this must be part of the plan.. Plausible deniability.. ok I can work with that.. so I am on board... trying to shit SOME KIND OF EXPLANATION to this rando guard on how the Commander died in front of us and we didn't happen to see anything..
 
The Soldier of course was having none of that. He calls more guards in, and decides to arrest Captain V on the spot. They stripped him of his items.. including the poison box (EVIDENCE)... and proceeds to march us outside... we run into the rest of the group there. and we are all walking together towards the jail when suddenly some of my smoke bombs go off all around.. I see a red flash and see Mr. Golkir dash through the fog.. grab Captain V and bail over the sea-wall into the ocean.. Panic was everywhere.. Being the ONLY one who can see in fog due to my trusty Goggles, i go to to try and grab the Captains items.. Unfortunately, the solder that had them held on for dear life.. Three attempts and I was unable to wrest them away from him... as the fog was clearing I returned to my party and pretended nothing happened.. Once the fog cleared. The guards fanned out looking for V and the soldier with his items proceeded to take them to the Jail evidence room for examination. We were told to NOT leave town as we would be questioned later. As the last guard left us standing there I took off, knowing they had evidence that could bury Captain V, I couldn't have that... so I found a rooftop to hide out of sight, and began crafting a identical Puzzle box with a harmless Clockwork inside, then settled back and waited until nightfall..
 
Upon returning to the Jail.. everything was on high alert.. Guards everywhere.. Birds of prey scouted above.. I managed to sneak under the eaves and avoided detection.. I went to the far side of the Jail and deployed smoke to draw their attention from my real target.. Worked like a charm.. the guards.. fearing a jailbreak converged on the first smoke bomb.. I quickly flitted over to the evidence room and looked inside.. I see my boss Duram inside examining Captain V's weapons.. and i see the puzzle box in a glass case waiting examination.. Knowing there was little time i deployed more smoke in the evidence room.. Duram began wildly swinging the dagger in his hand.. fortunately he was blinded and i could see and easily avoid him.. I opened up the glass case and swapped out the evidence and got the #$^*& out of there.. on the way back to our hotel room I completely dismantled and destroyed any evidence of the poison box.. flitted into the window to our room. I was confronted by our group when I arrived.. i stuck with out original story.. which wasn't too far from the truth.. I STILL really have no idea WTF happened.. And I don't want my family implicated or even knowing.. Deep down i am still hoping Captain V took my advice and made a Paralytic near-death poison and didn't even tell me in order to sell it.. if that's the case WELL PLAYED!!!....
 
Captain V still hasn't returned to us.. I hope he is ok.. I miss my friend...
 
The next day I am woke up by my gauntlet screen.. I flip it on and see Sarsoon peering into my Owls eyes.. they must be close!!!! My excitement in having my owl back was quickly shattered as he explained that there was a horde of Chimera coming towards the city. and we had only a few hours to prepare.. Being as my owl is so small. and apparently was damaged at some point in his journey I asked Sarsoon to hold him up so I could see what he was seeing.. My heart sank.. a literal HORDE coming towards the city.. I returned to by body and quickly explained to the group what was coming.. We decided we needed to go see the lead Commander and attempt to warn her what was coming in hopes that defenses and evacuations could begin. About this time, Toby kitty informs us that he spoke to Captain V in his dreams and the Captain confessed as to what happened with the Commander.. the group was upset.. rightly so.. that we didn't clue them in.. Honestly, I wasn't even clued in.. and what I DID know.. i didn't want THEM to know.. as they would be incriminated.. While that was going on we hear a knock at the window.. CAPTAIN V! was there... he came into the room and confirmed what Toby kitty said.. The group was pretty unhappy with us.. but fortunately/Unfortunately we had bigger problems at the moment.
 
Hearing some heavy footsteps coming up stairs and a knock at the door... Guards announced that the council wanted to see us.. Toby -Kitty quickly pushed Captain V out the window and we stalled as much as we could to give him a opportunity to make himself scarce before letting him in.
 
The guards entered.. checked the room for V.. of course they didn't find him.. and we were escorted to the Council tower... while going up the steps we feel a earthquake.. and see all of the Dimmin shops and command post for the Engineer Corpse being lifted off by drones and taken to the waiting boats.. I just assume for the moment that they had long range sensors that detected the incoming horde.. but why are they leaving? Why aren't they attempting to help defend the city? I am so dissappointed in them. Hopefully Duram is still here coordinating defenses.. as he IS one of the commanders...I'll see what his plan is once inside..
 
We go inside.. and there is a throne, I am assuming for the High Commander, 3 council chairs and 6 chairs set up, I am assuming for us. But all are empty? We sit and wait, eventually the Hell-scarred Commander comes in. NO Duram.. No high Commander. She says the High Commander went out on patrol.. and hasn't returned.. Knowing what was out there Luna began telling the Hell-scarred what was coming and that if the High Commander was out there.. she probably wasn't coming back.. Mid sentence we hear the doors slam open.. and a wounded bloodied BADASS looking High commander comes in dragging a Chimera corpse.. She was already well aware of what was coming as her and her troops had already been in a few skirmishes.. her troops sacrificed themselves to make sure she was able to return to the city. Luna and Toby-kitty helped her out with some healing magic which seemed to take the edge off her wounds..
 
I asked if the humes had a New commander.. she said they did not (apparently they don't have a designated survivor chain of command.. seems on par with their shitty-lapse security). She asked where Duram was.. and if we had warned them about the incoming invasion as they were evacuating already, we assured her we did not, but I volunteered to go get him.. She looked at me puzzled and asked how I was going to get into the facility as its locked down.. I said "Because I'm a DIMMIN!" and showed her my badge... She gave me a look and chuckled.. then said for me to go get his ass.. So i bolted out..
 
I went to what was left of the facility.. the underground workshop and entered.. It was abandoned.. most of the big projects had been hastily removed, and the only person left was Duram.. I flew up to him.. and said "The High Commander needs to see you!" He brushed me off.. told me to go away.. he just wanted to finish his project so he could leave... LEAVE?? the town needs him! How could he abandon his post? I told him he needed to help the town.. He said " You need to go.. you are useless.. you are a failure.. I should have never hired you.. you are pathetic.. just like your father... that's why we kicked him out of COG.".. I felt so much rage at that moment.. I could almost feel my body glowing.. "NO ONE TALKS ABOUT PAPA LIKE THAT!, You are a coward... and a traitor, and if the Dimmin are anything like you I can see why he kept me away." My papa was a good man.. he cared about all people he dealt with.. he used his tech to help people and spread joy... he was the best man I have ever known... Looking at Duram.. I felt a deathly calm come over me.... watching him work on his project... looking at the back of his stupid head.. I began powering up my gauntlet cross-bow.. Waiting for that moment when he finished what he was so feverishly working on.. as soon as his raised it up and said "It's finally done!" I unleashed my rage in the form of a force-bolt in the back of his neck catching him by surprise... he whipped around with his shock baton and grazed me.. making my tech spaz a little, but it was nowhere near enough to disrupt it.. I floated there in front of him.. looked him in his cowardly crazy beady little eyes and proceeded to ventilate his head with my next shot.. dropping him dead. Once my fathers name had been avenged.. and the rage left me.. my emotions overwhelmed me.. I miss him and Mama SO MUCH!!!!. I have to get my shit together... the city needs me.. I grab the Power source.. and search his body.. I find a bunch of rolled up schematics.. upon opening them.. they are MY work!!! with his Copywrite on the schematics.. He stole them from me.. he said they were rudimentary and not worth anything.. yet.. here they are.. And a paper.. saying to KILL PROJECT DREX... why.. what project am I.. why do they want me dead?? These were my people.. I thought.... One last thing I found on him.. the master controller for the city drones and defenses.. MINE NOW... along with everything else these #@$&^#$ Dimmin left behind.. I quickly scoured for what loose parts I could find in case I couldn't make it back and left the facility.
 
I return to the Command tower. and walk in.. the group and Commanders are still there. I fly over to Durams seat.. sit down.. slam the master controller on the table and exclaim "Commander Duram will not be joining us.. and as the Ranking and only Engineering Corpse member left I am assuming the Commanders position. The High Commander looked at me.. and looked at the Master Controlled and said "Well.. ok." a bit more discussion commenced and we had a basic plan. the commander sent troops to begin evacuating the children and elderly/frail. and gather up all able bodied citizens to prepare for battle. I asked her to please send some troops to gather Mathias up.. I felt he was a danger INSIDE the city... and we didnt need to be fighting a battle on 2 fronts.. She dispatched some troops to take care of that.. and we left the tower for now for our own preparations..
 
Digging further into the Command module,, I locked out ALL other possible access.. and being pissed at the Dimmin.. dispatched drones to reclaim all the evacuated modules.. If there were dimmin on board.. they were going to help defend the city.. I dropped 7 in the bay, but managed to recover 2 domiciles and 1 PuddyHole Manufacturing facility.. the Puddyhole and 2 bedroom units were placed on our ship and the 3rd was salvaged for parts on the dock ( 1 collapsible mechanism earmarked for Tobias's wagon) and placed the box itself in the front gate courtyard up against the gate to provide for more security.
 
Luna was able to acquire 10 casks of Alchemy fire.. I was able to gain control of 2 automatic ballistas, 6 Farmbots. and 7 Flight Drones. which we rigged up to drop the alchemy fire in a trench we had the town-folk and farmbots building.. I was also able to tap into the greenhouse towers.. knowing they had the capacity to blow up due to my close call during maintenance.. I decided to prepare them for detonation when the horde got close enough. The group spent our time doing a bit more prep.. Lune and Bogbean using their alchemy skills to make potions and poisons to assist with the battle.
 
We were assigned the front gate to defend. I cast Arcane weapon on both of the Automatic Ballista. All of us were on top of the walls looking out.. our farmbots valiantly stood at the front gate ready to defend their home.. We could see the calm swaying of the crops underneath the glowing green light.. As night fell we could suddenly hear a dull roar coming as the horde began pouring through the fields.. some of the towers were attacked outright.. and were being disabled.. not wanting to lose them I was forced to detonate them earlier than anticipated.. the green glow quickly turned to red.. glowing brighter and brighter until a massive explosion happened.. brighter than the sun as each exploded taking out a 100' radius around them and incinerating anything in its radius.. Toby-Cat cast his AOE Twilight spell that appears to give us a bit of sparkling twilight armor that reforms if damaged, such an amazing spell!!
 
A short bit later we could see the chimera begin attempting to cross our fire ditch.. we released the first volley of alchemy fire into the trench.. the ones inside were instantly incinerated.. and the fire kept burning.. as the chimera horde kept piling on top of each other attempting to get across.. each subsequent layer catching fire as they attempted to cross.. eventually a few made it to the other side.. where they are greeted with an amazing wall of light Luna had strategically placed.. what few made it past that were blasted by our Ballista.. the ones on our side of the wall released a Volley of Arrows at us.. Unfortunately, Luna was struck, causing her to lose concentration on her Wall of Light. Her next turn She re-cast it.. having seen them climb the walls when we first arrived here, she placed it up against the city walls in hopes of making it more difficult for chimera to scale the walls.
 
we continued raining down death on the ones below.. Ballista fire.. Bogbean and Captain V Throwing their weapons trying to hit who they could reach,, Luna and Bricky and Toby-kat casting spells as they could.. trying to maintain some kind of cover from the arrows. I directed the drones to get the remaining 3 barrels of Alchemy-Fire in preps of dropping them. In the meantime 6 Kenku Chimera appeared on the east wall and began to work their way up. Captain V being the only one that heard them engaged.. He managed to hit a couple with a well-placed poison vial and threw his returning dagger at one.. I directed one of the Drones to drop a Hogshead of Alchemy Fire outside the East wall to Protect that side.. and one out front of the gate.. 3 of the kenku-chimera managed to gain the top of the walls.. and a hole opened up in our courtyard.. 3 insectoid creatures and 2 Kenku came out of it.. the insectoid creatures made it to the top of the wall. and the 2 other Kenku headed inside the city, I dropped the last hogshead on top of them, killing them and stopping them from breaching the city.. I looked out to the fields and saw another group of the horde coming through.. Knowing we had our hands full on the walls and we couldn't handle being shot at at the same time I decided to blow the last 3 towers. .These were MUCH closer than the last.. and OH MY GOD it was amazing... EVERYTHING In a 100' radius was just... gone.. everything was on fire.. I was so grateful knowing we could then focus on our immediate threat we all turned our attention onto them.
 
Bogbean was in a bad sort, prone and grappled/webbed-- being attacked by a green web-slinging spider creature and some kind of Lightning bug... Bricky was grappled by a flying insect creature that tried to take off with him and managed to get him up 30'.. .a demon dog-looking chupacabra was chomping on Toby-Kat.. .. V and I attempted to help Bricky, as a drop from any higher would probably kill him.. god forbid this thing managed to drop him in the fire below.. A well placed shot from V caused the flying bug to drop bricky.. I managed to grapple the dog and pull him off Toby-kitty and tie him to the downed Ballista.. Toby -Kitty throwing out what healing spells he could and stabbing at the dog... Luna casting crackle all around her as small lightning bolts struck all around these creatures.. another well placed shot from Captain V froze and killed the flying bug.. Bricky ran over to assist Bogbean.. the dog broke free of my grapple cable.. and rushed Toby-Kitty.. between the Toby-Kitty, Captain V and me. we managed to kill it off.. and we all rushed towards Bogbean. The spider ran down into the courtyard and attempted to drag bogbean down with it.. With her amazing strength she managed to resist.. stopping both her and its movement. The spider looked up at me and shot webbing at me.. I dodged, but with that dodge the webbing went past me and got Luna.. who was then drug down to the creature.. she slammed into the ground and was pulled to it.. it immediately hit her with its stinger poisoning and paralyzing her.. Scared that it was going to leave with her I grappled IT.. and attempted to drag it into the Alchemy Fire.. I unfortunately was not strong enough, but with it being grappled.. it could not move on its own.. the group finished off the Lightning bug and focused out efforts on taking out the spider before it did any more damage to Luna.. . Toby-kat leaped off the walls.. driving his Twilight Spear through the spider.. pinning it to the ground. Captain V then delivered the Coup-de-gras, jumping down to the courtyard... began methodically removing parts off this creature.. until with a final thrust.. popped the creatures head off...
 
At this point we could hear cheering.. the remaining Chimera were retreating.. all the survivors of the battle began cheering.. knowing we won.. We immediately sought out the High Commander and I beseeched her to take some troops.. and go out and hunt down any survivors.. Otherwise there will be a repeat of tonight.. She already had plans in motion and Toby-Kat cast a spell that allowed her to see in the dark for a bit, and for the rest of the night we could see the calvary torches going across the landscape wiping out any survivors.
 
The battle was won.. let the rebuilding begin.. Of course.. I claim all that the Dimmin left.. if they wanted it, they would have taken it with them.. I have plans for this bounty.. and I need to get a plaque made.. {Honoring the 6 Farm-bots Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, and Dopy, who bravely fought alongside "The Travellers" and gave their lives along with the other residents in defense of this city."}