After the Win Game Thread

"Dat's a fine job, boys," Billy says to the giant as he admires their handiwork. "I dink I'd better go down with our twisty friend and find de odders before you come storming in wid axes waving. But keep close behind, yeah?"

Billy follows Argus, although not nearly as fast, using his rope and a little arm grit. It takes a minute or two, so the first thing he does when he reaches the bottom is holler, "Hello der, you mates still in one piece?"

 

Down below I make my way to the others as quickly as possible and whisper to them that the Giants and Chinny are coming down. We should probably stay out of the way and see what they do before we decide what side we are on in this."

 

The Senator is mildly unnerved by the thought of dealing with giants. They are about the only creatures he has ever dealt with that he is unable to charm with his words. He assumes this is because giantkind has a different concept of charisma that he simply cannot mimic.

"Err... I'll just be around that corner. Keep me posted on what the giants tell you."

 

Having been prepared to get on the move again, it didn't take Oleandre much time to follow after Olaf as the shorter man decided to go ahead. In fact, if would've been easy to overtake him and arrive first, but such an outcome was undesirable for Oleandre for a few reasons.
First of all, being first means you were a walking danger detector - if there was anything out there capable of hurting them, and he was certain there were thins like that, then that alone was enough not to want to be the first one. Heck, even if it would've only decreased his chances of getting into a melee, it would've been good enough.
And secondly, he didn't want to give the man a reason to start talking to him unless it was important. It wasn't that he hated talking or listening, but rather the fact that people become attached to things they interact with. So, if he talked to them when it wasn't necessary for anything, it would only make it more likely for him to do something stupid to protect them later when it came down to a choice between them and him.

As he walked after Olaf, the tentacular one of them arrived from nowhere and whispered into his ear that the last one of them is getting down along with some giants, only to move closer to Olaf at high speed and do the same thing.

But there already were giants down there, weren't they. After all, whatever the "person" who opened that doors when he was triggering that trap was, it was pretty easy to see that it was giant. Thus, he continued walking forward.

 

(Oops, didn't realize we were on the move)

Zebedev follows Olaf and Oleandre with great haste (so as to avoid the giants)

 

[[Sorry, guys, I have no idea why I'm not getting alerts for this thread. ]]

Argus and Billy descend into the hole as the giants above go about ripping the tree a new one so that they can follow. They rapidly catch up with the others, and the group reaches the massive doorway.

Poking their collective heads in, what they see is extraordinary. The room is about 1000x1000x90' -- a vaulted ceiling even by Giant standards -- and is full of desks, crystal scrying-orbs (some of which are clearly spying on the giants up above), massive chalkboards covered in notes about the comings and goings of various deer, 'primitives', and something called a 'qoina' that looks like a kind of bird. There are also twenty-seven massive desks, seven of which has several stacks of pages of notes much like the one you discovered on the spying platform up above.

The room is empty, and there's a steel door on the opposite side of the room from the one you came in, but it's shut and, based on the sound you hear as you arrive, probably barred on the other side.

 

((I know that feeling, Essence. I don't get alerts for this thread anymore either.))

"Wow," Billy says, catching his breath after a hard run to catch up with the others. "I ain't never seen anyding like dis."

He glances at the party, still mostly a mystery to him, and says, "Dere's a lot of giants coming dis way, but dey say dey can't read. I dink if anyone's gonna make sense outta dis it's us. We'd better try and see what's on de odder side of de door, yeah? 'Cause de writing around here ain't like I seen before, so I don't dink we'll get much here."

 

I try to see the other side of the door. Checking for traps and what the door is made of and how we may get past it safely in case we need to leave that way.

(I think the forums have an issue when you have too many watched threads. I wish there was a way to unwatch those threads older than six months or so to reduce this issue.)

 

Right now, Oleandre was furious. Because obviously, after such a short time there, karma deemed it suitable to remind him of his inability to be helpful sometimes. But he kept it all in check; it wouldn't do to antagonize others by showing them his anger over not being able to read anything from close distances.

"Yeah, you guys do that. I'll be looking for any other crap we could get any use out of."

With these words, he started looking for anything far away from them that the other hadn't noticed, hoping to be able to find anything like that he could get some use out of.

 

Argus slips his extradimensional eyes onto the other side of the door, and what he sees is alarming: the scientists are retreating down a long hallway, but just as quickly, a trio of giants wearing camo and carrying what appear to be firearms is coming toward the door.

Olaf levitates himself up onto a desktop and starts peering around. Finding a binder labeled "Project Status Report: 1.45.145", he floats over to it and opens it. The first page shows a very fascinating diagram: a cut-away of a chunk of planet, with a vast underground complex -- literally millions of square miles -- beneath the surface, and the top of the planet with a big-ass drawing on it that pretty clearly means "this place will kill you if you go here".

Below it, written in Giantish, it says "Explorations Into the Nature and Being of the Survivors From The Surface World".


Oleandre peers about carefully, examining the far walls of the place for signs of anything useful. Indeed, he sees something that seems like it might help! There's a map on the far wall -- much too far away for anyone else to notice -- that shows that the room they're currently occupying is one of several dozen chambers at the end of a long, narrow vertical shaft connected to...something. The shaft goes right down off of the bottom of the map. Oleandre, unfortunately, can't read Giantish, so he has no idea what might be down there even though it's clearly labeled.

 

I hastily pull my eyes out of the doorway and scream "Three Incoming Ranged Attackers!" "Get behind some cover and prepare to fight!" Stay back from the door! I will mess them up something fierce as they come in. Avoid the Flames you see once I do my thing. They will mess you up too!" And then I hide behind something strong and stable and prepare to use Fires of Perversion on them once they open the door.

 

"Oh my..." The Senator runs behind one of the table legs somewhat close to the door, prepared to give the giants a little lecture if Tentacleman's flames don't work out.

 

"Grr, ranged attackers." Billy scowls in disgust and taps out his cigar. That wasn't good, especially if they were as big as the giants up top. He quickly finds cover and revs up his chainsword. "Give us a warning before dey come in!"

 

Having heard the warning just a moment after he decided to tell others about the map, Oleandre knew what he could do. He could hide with the others and wait for the incoming danger to pass. For some it would be a weird decision, coming from one like him, but for all his brunt and experience with forceful approach, he knew that this fight was unlikely to be one they could win. After all, there were three opponents incoming, all of them unlikely not to be giant, and they would be a coordinated group, unlike them.

Veering one last time in the direction of the map, Oleandre decided to remember as large a part of it as he could, in case they had to flee and the map proved to be important. He ignored any details that didn't look important and took the outlines into his mind, hoping that he will not forget them before they are useful to him. After all, information was power, and this time he needed all the power he could get.

But then again, there was also the weird man's warning about him trying to use some sort of attack on the incoming hostiles. That would undoubtedly draw their attention to the man, and to do something like it would be suicidal. But with the way he moved normally, he would be able to escape in time, right...? After all, even if he needed help, it wasn't like Oleandre had anything in his arsenal that would've worked on giants, not unless he used atrocious amounts of explosives or some of the rarer and more difficult to craft things that he most definitely didn't want to use for something like that. It was then that the realization dawned upon him in a rather violent manner.

"Damn it. Why do they have to make everything so frecking difficult."

He cursed in a low voice. The one thing he needed now, other than information, was their trust. And that meant he couldn't just let the guy fight whatever was coming by himself, not now that they knew he can do something. And with that, he also had to tell them about the map; it was certain that some of them would not fight, and that meant they were free to get closer to it.

"All of you! Before anything happens, try to get to that faraway wall. There's some kind of map or other crud there, and it wouldn't be damn here if it wasn't important."

Having delivered his message, he could only hope they would do something about it. He started preparing himself to use his heavy stuff to be sure that he did some sort of damage instead of being a mere distraction, when the weird guy's words rang in his head. "Avoid the flames", was it now? With that, there was something he could use that would undoubtedly deal some damage. He reached into his dimensional pouch and prepared as many brimstone flasks and simple bombs as he could.

Now he only had to wait, and the infernal dance would soon start.

 

The large steel door kachunks as it's unbarred from the other side, and immediately the three armed giants raise their rifles, aiming professionally back and forth across the space. Not seeing any 'primitives', they stay on their guard for a good minute, but don't do anything stupid.

Then one of them sees Olaf levitating in midair and reading the Manual. "What the fuck?"
The other two look at him in confusion. "What? Do you see something?"

At that moment, a strange, orange-black fire bursts from the first giant's forehead like a bullet wound, and trickles down his face like blood. He raises his rifle and nods. "Yeah,there's a tiny little dude just floating right there over that counter."

"Where?"

"Right..." the giant throws his rifle end-over-end at Olaf. The other two stare at him in confusion as the rifle passes well to the left of him and clatters loudly into the wall. As it hits the floor, it triggers, and a dart the size of a javelin pings off of the floor, the cabinet, one table leg, and right smack into Oleandre's thigh. He feels the familiar burn of a powerful tranquilizing poison burning into his veins.

Oleandre replies with an ingenious attack. Fuelled by pain, he throws an oversized flask of brimstone as high up toward one of the giants as he can...and then throws a soft rubber ball at fast-pitch speeds up into the flask -- and again, and again, until the flask arcs barely up over the giant's eyebrow and lands on his cheek...where the giant slaps it in annoyance.

The flask bursts on contact with the air, and the giant staggers backwards, clutching at his eyes and yowling bloody murder. The remaining giant, still not seeing anything that could be causing all of this havoc, starts to quake violently and swings his rifle back and forth across the scene. Finally, one of the 'primitives' lands at the far end of the long hall, where the remaining rifleman immediately pumps him full of tranq darts, nervously twitching his trigger enough times that his gun starts to click and he starts fumbling for more ammo.

The giant with the orange-black fire is starting to look like he's genuinely burning, and is softly whispering in a Fluttershy-like manner at the other two. "Maybe we should consider, umm, going back and, umm, fetching some assistance?"

Status:
Oleandre is injured and woozy, but not in real danger of dying.
Olaf is still reading and basically exposed.
Argus is monolocational, but otherwise fine.
Everyone else is hidden.

One giant is Perverted and largely ineffective.
One giant is blind, prone, and screaming.
One giant is scared shitless and just looking for any excuse to shoot something, but is momentarily unable to due to reloading.


Next!

 

Staying behind cover, I scream "We did not come here to fight you! Disarm and we can negotiate. Refuse and you are doomed!"

"What is your answer?"

 

Feeling something weird tugging at him from inside, Oleandre knew what to do. Those weird bolts were poisoned, and now that he knew it he could use them against the hostiles. Willing for his body to take care of the poison inside of him, he made his way to the giant bolt that hit him. After getting it, he raised it in a throwing position, took a deep breath, and started running.

Now the only question was, which one of them should he use it on. The shrieking one could be ignored for now, and the other one was in a rather bad shape as well, while the third was in perfect shape after having fired a burst of these weird bolts. But in the end the choice of target was obvious, and Oleandre threw the giant bolt at the giant with burning hair. One of them would still be in good shape, but that meant whatever reinforcements they get, they'll all think those idiots harmed themselves.

Not waiting to confirm if the bolt hit, Oleandre started looking for more of these to throw. His own arsenal might be somewhat inadequate against them, but if they use these bolts, then said bolts are guaranteed to do some damage against them.

 

An attempt at diplomacy was surprising to Billy, particularly as it came from the least diplomatic looking person in the group. But then, long years had taught Billy the folly of judging by appearances, because usually people who did it with him were very surprised.

Still, it didn't look like the giants had come here to talk, and he wasn't entirely sure they'd be able to understand him. Sure, the surface giants could, but these giants had a different written language than he was used to, so why not a different spoken one, too?

More than that, he saw that one of them, the scholar man, was still exposed to all the world, and that didn't bode well. So the most logical thing to do was make a break across the open floor while the last armed giant was reloading, and try and give him the old college trip. Gritting his teeth, because sprinting was definitely not his strong suit, Billy sprang from under his desk and took the eighty foot gap at a dead run.

((Running to the standing giant and using Earthshaker Boot on his ankle, in an attempt to trip him.))