World Tree MUSH

    "Red Alert. General Quarters. All crew attend your assigned stations. This is not a drill!" Merlin's voice echos through the Archamedes's corridors as a spherical vessel drops out of FTL at the edge of Nucleus.

    "Contact the ground teams, we're running out of time. They need to activate the teleportal nodes and evacuate the locals to Gilt as soon as possible... the Archamedes will engage the Sphere and try to hold them off as long as we can." The first officer announces, the willowy elf barking orders while the dwarf Captain is yet to arrive on the bridge.

    In orbit of the Garden World, codenamed 'Harvest' the Sanctuary sits, coordinating the ground-based efforts. "The three teams from the Archamedes are already in position, we need to get the fourth pedastal online. Captain?" Minerva's tone is tight, and slightly worried.

    "Contact Morrigan, get her to bring as many people as she can with her... this is going to be rough." replies Justina as she finalizes preparations on the gear being sent down.

    On the surface, the local people are being shepherded away from the wooden shack villages with only as much of their lives as they can carry on their own backs. The tortoise-like people are thankfully not as slow as their visual namesakes, but they're not exactly winning a sprinting competition either. The Vine that opens nearby to the village spits those arriving out into the middle of a 'base camp' of sorts. Various Dolls rumbling around, carrying boxes and material here and there, and a very harried looking Kobold directing things. "Nonononono, not there, stupid machine. This goes here. THAT. goes THERE. Got it? By the Great Scaled One." The voice is androgynous, and the lack of any dimorphism in the species means it's impossible to tell what this one is, even its gunmetal grey scales don't help.

    Morrigan Lor'osa had been puttering around in her Grey 2003 Ford Windstar when Mary Contrary tugs on her shoulder.
    "Boss, you're getting a phone call."
    "Oh neat, put it on speaker."
    One distress call later and Morrigan rubs her chin. "Huh. Who's around that we can tug for this?" She muses.
    Well, after stopping to pick a few people up, the battered old van starts moseying down the road only to-- SUDDENLY GET RIPPED INTO THE VOID BEYOND STARS AND TIME.
    It's a brief travel through a horrorterror void of the black space between stars before Morrigan's Plane Shift spell dumps her van and its occupants out on Harvest.
    "We're here, Minerva. We're ready to do the thing." Mary Contrary announces as she establishes contact with the AI.
    "Yep, totally here, ready to do that thing, yesirree." Morrigan says she kicks open the driver's seat door and steps out of the van.

    Belle doesn't know Morrigan well, but the woman's activities in her own world have left some lines of communication open, just in case. Morrigan's weird and all, but it's not like Belle hasn't used some... interesting allies in the past to fight others.

    The teenage huntress drops out of the van right after arrival, a little dizzy, and then shakes her head to clear it. "Hey, anything we can do to help?" This doesn't look like she needs to shoot arrows at anything right away, but she's a pretty fit young girl, and though she's not exactly a tech wizard, she knows her way around a cell phone and hip modern internet browsers like Netscape Communicator 4.

    Luke certainly was happy to accept the call to adventure, even if his knowledge of technology ended on some basic generator care, his pokedex/nav and taking care of flashlights. He climbs on the Van and greets everyone already there, "So, are we getting there using....." and the shift happens!.
    He stumbles out as well, certainly not too used to this crazyness, needing a moment to get his bearings, and joining Belle afterwards, "I am not much of a tech person, but I can provide emergency power, or hmm... well guess beat up anything that needs to get hit."

Holly was on her way to class when she finds getting transported on to a strange planet. "What's going on?" The witch is clearly confused and looks around before seeing Belle. "We're not getting shrunken down again are we?" Speaking of which she hasn't seen Popoi lately. "Hi Luke!" At least there's many familar faces present. Hopefully, she's not needed for tech support again because she isn't great at it.

    Syd emerges from the van, scratching his stubble and trying to figure out what exactly they're expected to do. He looks like a fairly ordinary human male, with an almost medival-looking breastplate over a simple jumpsuit. On his back is a hammer that is excessive in size compared to his normal frame. He nods to Luke and Holly, both of whom he recognizes from past adventures.
    "Well, that was a strange trip. Kind of like entering a Wyld nebula." He starts wandering off to see what needs doing.

    The Kobold looks over as a clunky old internal combustion driven ground vehicle arrives. "Oh you lot must be the 'reinforcements' I was promised... great." they fold arms, shaking their head with a sigh. "Right, first things first, we need to get this..." they gesture to a set of devices that look like power generators, "Over to that building." they point to a Long-Hut style building. "The pedastal is inside that. The locals used it as some kind of religeous icon."

    Speaking of the locals, the villagers are rubbernecking at the new arrivals, they might need protecting.

    In orbit, Minerva confirms the link from Mary, and communicates an update on the situation in space. The Sphere is outpacing the Archamedes and will be in orbit of the planet in about five minutes. "I suggest everyone split up to get as much done as possible... we don't have the forces available to support against a ground invasion.

    Well, Belle is pretty fit, so she quickly moves to help out with carrying. She doesn't beast out, since she needs her focus right now, but surely if these skinny things can carry them, she can team up with one and help out. "Right, on it!"

    In a flash, she's just moving over to help out! When not in combat she's basically a normal teenage girl with a bit of a boredom streak, always looking for something to do, so lugging these things around is just fine with her, no complaints.

    Luke smiles to Holly, of course it was a delight to see a familiar face!, and as the Kobold approaches to bring up the first task, he nods, grasping a pokeball from his, "Bewear, this sounds like an easy task for you." he calls. Cue the tall, soft looking pink, black and white beast that lets out a sharp growl and looks around in confusion. "Sorry, I know this is a weird place, but we are in a hurry, can you help carry those things into that building?" he asks.
    The pokemon wanders towards one, and reaches to carefully lift one of those bulky things, how does it 'grasp' without visible fingers is a mystery. Certainly seems to have an easy enough time, and basically sprints, carrying the engine sized thing like it was a box filled with styrofoam. "Just be careful!" he calls. Of course, he also helps as well, perhaps Belle needed assistance.

    That clunky old internal combustion driven ground vehicle is Morrigan's baby!
    Well not really, but she does love that car.
    Nevertheless, the Warlock rubs her chin as the kobold indicates the generators.
    "Right! Got it!" She says before she snaps her fingers, summoning a circular disk of force light energy. It's a sickly green glowing light, and might occasionally open an eye or two to peer at the world around it, but Morrigan indicates the disk.
    "Get the engines on the thing, we don't have all day~."
    Once it's loaded, it'll start moseying in the direction of the longhouse.

"A ground invasion? Who's trying to invade?" Holly takes one of the power generators, not struggling much with it but the shape is a bit awkward. She's not the most coordinated person after all. She loads it onto the floating disc as Morrigan orders. "Neat, I wonder if I can learn that spell!"

 "Try not to get too distracted, Holly." Servis knows she doesn't have the best attention as he floats besides her.

    Syd hrms and glances at the power generators. He thinks about how to grab the thing. Well. Not a lot of time.
    So he pushes the thing towards the indicated area. "Ground invasion? It looks like you don't have any bulwarks to be behind. Want me to get started on that instead?" He's mentally surveying what kind of materials he'd have available for such a task.

    The Kobold responds. "You didn't get the briefing? Scales the elf dropped the ball. There's some cybernetic hostile race coming to invade. Something about assimilation, biological whosis... I dunno." They move once all the generators are in motion, and points to the marshaling area where the locals are gathered. "If y'wanna set up some protection for the locals, we got crates of metal substrate in the camp. It's used to supplement Fabrication matrixes for larger projects."

    The crates are large, about four meters long, and are stacked with metallic 'rods' about two meters long each. They seem to be refined iron, a very basic resource.

    The rest, taking the gear to the longhouse have to pass by the marshaling area and the locals start shouting in their language. It's made up of gutteral huffs and clicks, and the meaning is vague at best, but they're terrified of the 'Sky Lords' coming down to them... and something about a prophecy of a Terrible Star and Demons of Metal.

    "Setting up a bulwark against the invaders could be a good idea." Morrigan asides to Syd as she moseys her floating disk past the locals. "Let's try and make this quick though." She says. "Before those 'Sky Lords' get here.

    The boy has no clue about legends of course, so all he can do is focusing on making sure the things are delivered to their proper place, placing the things on the pedestals as instructed, and waving to the locals as they return for more, and more of those devices. If requested, he will switch targets to the heavy metal crates instead, those are more of a challenge for the pokemon, but... ultimately still get brought around easily enough, certainly a surprising ammount of power on the leage beast. "That sounds... quite scary... coincidences like this won't help keeping the peace..."

"Metal demons?" I wonder if I could summon them. Then again they likely wouldn't listen to me." Holly doesn't sound scared of them at all. She's not sure what she would do against them anyway. She summons supernatural creatures not repel them. "Biological? So they turn people into metal? Like alchemy?" Of course anything magic-related interets her.

    Sky Lords huh? Belle places a LOT of weight in rumors like that, given what she does for a living. She looks upward, then heaves another of the crates in. Mostly carefully even. "Well, I'm going to try to get all these moved before they show up then! Just yell when you want some shot, I'll be here as fast as I can!" No reason for her to worry about this yet, she's kind of a simple girl.

    "Yep, going to get on that." Syd says to Morrigan.
    Syd starts striking and shaping a metal box, drawing it into a broad panel. The metal is heated without fire, shaped only through Syd's hands. Eventually he starts erecting panels around the base camp, with timber braces backing them. The iron seems subtly different too, with ordered cubical lattices barely visible inside the panels. Arrow slits are then cut into the panels, so that the defenders can fire at the invaders from behind. 
    Syd gestures. "As a last resort, I can always shape the earth out from under them." he tells the kobold. "... or shower them with obsidian butterflies." He scratches his chin. "I guess it'll depend on how bad things get."

    THE LONGHOUSE

    Stepping inside, the interior is like a temple. The longhouse itself seems to have been built around a smaller structure that contains a rectangular pedastal with a trio of cylindrical pillars that rise up as people approach. The Kobold gestures and starts working. "Right, we gotta hook these things up to the pillars to feed power into the system... once we get it running, the Monitor said she could bring some kind of defense system online... this entire planet is a control hub for some kind of defense satellite system." it explains. "Hit the blue panel on the box, that disengages the carry case. Then grab the GREEN Cable and slot the adaptor at the end into the circular opening on the pillar." it guides to those who don't know tech too well. It's plug'n'play.

    THE REFUGEES

    As the ramparts are erected, some of the refugees seem to gain some kind of confidence. They pick out some simple looking firearms, breech-loaded, single shot rifles, bow and arrows, a couple of crossbows, and more than a few knives and pitchforks. They take up positions on the defenses, heads sucked slightly into their shells in a defensive posture. The 'leader' says something to Syd, as he hefts a big 'portable cannon'... the meaning of the words is lost in translation, but he seems thankful.

    Minerva alerts, "They're here! Prepare yourselves. It'll take them a while to get to you, I'm projecting a Teleport Jamming field around the area, but they are coming." Flashes of sickly green flash on the far side of a hill on the far side from the Longhouse, on the far side of the village... and a couple of minutes later, the first cybernetic monster comes striding robotically out of the buildings... it's an organic creature with robotic parts affixed to it, almost like some kind of technological cancer growth. No two are the same, even the same base species look drastically different. They also speak in eerie unison. "WE ARE THE MEKAAN. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. YOUR BIOLOGICAL, TECHNOLOGICAL AND MAGICAL DISTINCTIVENESS WILL BE ADDED TO OUR OWN. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE."

    It's a good thing this helpful kobold... Person is here in the LONGHOUSE. Morrigan still has no clue how to address them properly.
    "Right! Okay... ... What should we call you again?" She does aside while lowering her floaty disk to the ground to start plugging things in.
    Blue panel on the box... Hit. Green cable... Into circular opening. Check.

    Luke likely was making sure the 'generators' were brought properly by his pokemon, and also assisting on the connecting and the rather simple process. As long as it is not particularly 'delicate' the bewear can at least follow t he motions, and the two begin to make good time plugging those things. He is very, VERY grateful about the instructions.

"Really? What kind of magic distinctiveness?" Holly serves as a distraction for the Mekaan, even though she hadn't intended to be. Maybe the others can make use of it. Of course trying to assemilate her might not be the best idea especially if they have to rely on magic.

    Out with the REFUGEES, Syd is peering over the ramparts. "Do you really want to find out, Holly?" He makes a disgusted face. "Look at them, they're badly assembled bits of people and machines. They've been butchered by... whatever's done this." He climbs back down and gathers up rocks, breaking them in ways to give them a sharp edge with a circular shape. 
    As he goes back to the rampart, Syd has an idea. "I wonder if I can get to their ship." He starts hurling the sharpened stones like one would skip rocks across a pond.

    "I know green," Belle rolls her eyes, but she moves fast. She has a task in front of her, so even if there's some loud stuff going on outside, she isn't going to run out on this. She still has to look over the cables though, making sure she has the right alignment and everything before hurriedly trying to hook stuff up.

    "Ugh, usually it's laying out circles or iron filings or something. This is the first time in a while I've had to wire anything up!" she complains, but she doesn't slow down, and if necessary she stops one of the other workers if she sees them having trouble to show them how it's done.

    THE LONGHOUSE

    Two pillars done, one to go. The Kobold looks to Morrigan. "S'slithin Cors'lath. Slith for short." it says... that doesn't help with the pronouns though. "Once we get the last pillar hooked up. Hit the ORANGE button on top of the generators. Then press and hold the RED button for three seconds to spool up the Primus Nexus inside and begin the power flow... then we have to hold this position until the teleportal activates." The Kobold moves to the door to peek out at the battle beginning outside.

    THE REFUGEES

    Holly and Syd get fire support from the locals, their ranged weapons raining a hail of primitive projectiles onto the oncoming Mekaan. The individual 'Drones' fall to a couple of solid impacts, Syd's rocks managing to cut loose some pipe work from one and melting it with the plasma that sprays out from the damaged segment... though after a few more steps, some of the drones return fire, sickly green/black lances of energy that cause a corrosive effect on impact... beginning to eat holes in the ramparts. "RESISTANCE IS FUTILE." they say, seeming to ignore Holly since she's not actively attacking them.

    Luke sends his bewar to join the Kobold at inspecting the entrance, and reaches to release Dynamo as well, the electric pokemon emerging with a blast of light, looking around, simply sensing things are awry, perhaps some energy/electrical sense pointing it to the opcoming battle. Still, it doesn't move, and Luke moves closer to the door. "Defend this position, got it.... Dynamo, Bewear, let's get ready."

    For a moment.
    For one, glorious, flabbergasted, moment in the LONGHOUSE... Morrigan stares owlishly at the kobold.
    "... Kay, Slith." She says, completely and utterly defeated before heaving a sigh.
    "Belle, Luke, I don't think it'll take all of us to push some buttons in here. Maybe one or both of you could reinforce Syd outside?" She does suggest. They don't have to, but Morrigan is already button pushin on her end.

"Seems like they're ignoring you, Holly. Maybe you try punching them or something?" Lavaux figures the magical approach isn't going to work here and more people are going to get hurt if they don't do something.

 "I just wanted to know if they were actual demons." They certainly don't look like any that she's seen before.
5r "The ramparts don't look like they're going to hold much longer, you might want to get off them." Servis figures she she should be more worried about that.

 "Okay, here, I go! Kijk uit beneden!" She leaps off the ramparts onto the drones below with all of her strength trying to knock them over.

    Syd sighs as the ramparts are being eaten away at. "I'm on it, I'm on it." He starts fixing the ramparts by picking up the larger pieces that fell away and refitting them back into place by hand. Handfuls of dirt are fitted into the gaps and heated into patches. He's kept pretty busy by patching up the ramparts. He really does need somebody to buy some time so he can repair the ramparts and enact some battlefield-altering magic. He keeps muttering how the repairs don't need to be perfect, just good enough.
    Holly provides the distraction he needs. He begins chanting strange words that tap into the fabric of reality as the colors of a sunset begin glowing around him and a half-filled circle blazes with searing light. Syd hopes that the others can keep the Mekkan busy while he finishes the spell.

    Belle JUMPS at the suggestion from Morrigan. "Oh yeah gotta go!" Probably for the best, because Belle, while she isn't dumb, is not very good at following directions when there's a fight to be had somewhere. Which is why she's suddenly NOT THERE and dashes out the door, to instead be just outside 'guarding' the longhouse by whipping out her bow.

    She didn't have the bow a second ago. Not that it matters now, as she looks about and spies something she's familiar with: Syd, because he's casting a spell and needs protection. THAT is something she's used to and can handle, the schoolgirl's bow summoning arrows as she pulls back the string, launching them first at any drones that may come near Syd.

    Luke doesn't need more invitation, and once he is given the go ahead by the lizard man, he and Dynamo charge outside, the large electrical tiger summoning the elements now, a storm brewing over the battlefield, not a massive one, but still, dark and filled with energy!. A loud roar as a lighting bolt crashes down on the nearest of the firing drones. The cloud follows the pokemon as it moves closer to the others, apparently directed by the pokemon as it roars and another bolt crashes on another machine. Good thing the targets are easy to spot.

    THE LONGHOUSE

    Between Slith and Morrigan the generators are brought online. "Go, go and keep those things away from here... once the teleportal comes online I'll ask the Monitor to help." remarks the Kobold to those still hanging around... Including Morrigan.

    THE REFUGEES

    The battle is heating up, the fields are becoming choked with the melting corpses of Mekaan drones. Their bodies seeming to break down after death into a corrosive ooze much like their energy weapons... Holly's melee attack is met by... uncoordinated and clunky response. Like the organic and mechanical parts aren't perfectly in alignment, leading to difficulty in motion.

    There are a lot of Drones, however.

    Syd's focussing of magical power gets more shots being directed at him instead of the barricade in general, though the continued fire from the locals, and the added hail of arrows from Belle do lessen the barrage.

    Then Dynamo comes charging out of the Longhouse and blats a drone with literal lightning... the charged bolt causes something inside the cyborg to overload, and it detonates in a shower of that green corrosive plasma, and takes out several other drones around it from the splash.

    The second bolt, however, is met with a hexagonal shield that lessens the impact of the electrical attack to only charring that one drone. These things can adapt to energy attacks?

Holly cringes a bit as she watch as the bodies melt, sure it's pretty unlikely they'll turn into ghosts but she still doesn't like watching people get killed. She doesn't really have any protection against their energy attacks though so all she can do is trying to keep them off of her and not get swarmed. Maybe they'll retreat if she takes enough of them down.

    "Heh. Kids, huh?" Morrigan chuckles as Belle leaps into the fray. But once she and Slith have everything up and running, Morrigan steps out of the longhouse, energy crackling at her fingers.
    "Okay now let's see here..." She muses, eldritch glowing green eyes scoping out the field. Pursing her lips, she picks the thickest pack of Mekaan she can find and points a one.
    Morrigan says some words.
    They are unpleasant words; harsh and guttural, barely translating into anything sensical.
    Her words lash out across the field, attempting to psychically sear into the Mekaan hivemind and drive mental spikes into the cluster she targets.

    Huh. Well, Belle's arrows are also kind of energy, though less so than what the others might be. She squints, then the bow vanishes, shrinking and wrapping around her wrist into a bracelet instead. "Well if it's that kinda fight..."

    Now Syd gets a different kind of support, as a much larger, growling form rushes past Holly and leaps at a Drone, Belle looking much larger and furrier than before as she lets some of her inner beast out.

    The tiger continues, this time targeting the ground troops, it has other attacks, but this seemed a simple one to use in an area. Of course, now Bewear is back outside, and seems to follow Belle's example, running towards the mechanical/organic hybrids, stopping to grab some of those leftover metal rods from the construction and throwing it at the nearest Drone, that certainly is not energy!

    Syd dodges as best as he can, though he takes a few glancing shots to his armor. He'll have to repair it later. Gusts of wind accompany his motions, the breastplate's magic assisting his evasive actions. As he finishes the spell, the phantasmal roar of a lion can be heard from Syd's direction. He gestures, arms raised with a flourish.
    The earth churns in front of the Mekkan drones, rising up across the line in a wall of boulders and dirt that teeters. Normally such constructs by the sorcery would be solid, but Syd has deliberately engineered a flaw in the earthen wall. It topples towards the Mekkan, dirt and huge rocks spilling across the battlefield in an avalanche.

>> GAME >> Syd Fortis spends an Edge for: Raising the Earth's Bones

    "The Sphere is breaking off... I think you've done it." comes Minerva's voice over comms.

    As Belle, Luke and Morrigan beat, blast and mindscrew the drones. Syd is allowed time to pull out his big spell... the rocks fall and everyone dies.. by everyone I mean the Drones.

    The Kobold then exits the Longhouse with the form of the Monitor in tow. "Ah very well done, everyone. I shall make sure the intruder does not escape unpunished." comes the lyrical feminine voice from the spheroid construct.

    In the duskening sky, the moveing form of the Sphere can be seen streaking away into the dark... before it flares like a nova for a brief moment... "Looks like those defences came online... something just wiped the Mekaan ship from the map." comes Minerva again.

    The Locals all start to converse rapidly in their native tongue, something about how the Sky Lords saved them from the Metal Demons, and the Terrible Star was a good omen.

    With the Mekaan routed and their sphere blown out of orbit, Morrigan dusts her hands off.
    "Well. That sounds like another job well done." She she makes her way to her van. She'll wait for anyone who wants a ride back.
    "We did the thing, boss." Mary Contrary says from her perch on Morrigan's shoulder as the Warlock buckles her seatbelt and turns the key in the ignition.
    "Yep, we sure did. OSHA... Away~!"

Holly will take the ride, because she has no idea how she's going to get back otherwise. Missing one class was bad enough after all and she didn't even get get to find out what kind of magic that the Mekkan use.