towerofanimus | First Bolt Shell: Legion of One

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First Bolt Shell: Legion of One

Characters: Garviel and you
Setting: Multiple floors
Format: Prose
Summary: Garviel wanders the tower doing various things including kicking butt
Warnings: Anything is possible including a heck of a lot of violence. Definitely descriptions of blood and war.

Floor Fifty-Six:

A huge armored figure is wandering the strange hospital ward, as if seeking something he has forgotten. He calls a name every now and then.
"Ferrus? Samus? Aqua? Nikolai? Arturia?"

Nothing but silence greets him. Lights flicker as he moves from room to room, a grey ghost of a battle that was fought in this very tower, and on a thousand other worlds as well. And yet... there is something plaintive in the sounds of the names he calls out in this place.

Floor Sixty-Seven (NIGHT)
The strange twining staircase has become a veritable waterfall of gore, blood and ichor slicking the steps from iron to light in all hues as the sound of battle crashes higher up. It would appear Cerberus set upon a band of orcs at night, or the band set on him, and he decided to single-handedly re-enact the battle of Ullanor. He holds one aloft, just over the edge of the stairs, his armor scarred by their cleavers and bows, then casts it down, smashing it into a pulpy, broken mass onto the stairs itself. His armored chest heaves, and he turns, growling in an almost-feral manner as he continues his ascent. Dare you approach?

Floor Twenty-Five: The grey knight stands vigil in the meadow, his massive form suggesting a grim sentinel in an otherwise beautiful place. He appears to be... shocked by it. Completely at a loss of what to do in a place of undespoiled natural beauty which has not been touched by war.

Floor Fifteen: A pale-skinned man one size too large to be human appears to be working dents out of a breastplate using the tools available in the workshop, hammering away at them in a less then adept manner. It would seem he has only enough skill to effect the most basic repairs on his own armor. Care to offer him some advice?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A very tall man appears next to him, apparently patching up his own armor. He's quite massive himself, though his muscles are rather lean. He looked up at the hammering, quiet for a moment before speaking up in a rather even tone.

"You want to be less haphazard with your repairs," he said carefully, not wanting to be insulting. "Sometimes tempering works better than hammering. Hammering can make flaws in the metal harder to fix."

"Can you show me?" Asks the scarred giant, turning to the tall man with an expression of open curiosity in his eyes. Whatever Loken's flaws, and they are many, an unwillingness to learn isn't one of them.

"Of course," Alucard said, serious, but polite, as he pointed out areas that needed some heat to fix the various gashes in the armor. They needed some sort of heat, though. They would need to build a fire, and Alucard wasn't very willingly to venture out into one of the floors that appeared outdoors until night fell. At the very least, though, he could show a more elegant manner of hammering out imperfections and how to hammer away from the places that needed to be re-tempered.

"Brotherhood armor always relied much more on leather. Even the best of irons are too heavy on the field. What sort of battles were you fighting before you arrived here?"

"Every sort of battle. Better to ask me what sort I was not." He says, in a tone that doesn't suggest boasting, lookat the armor and nodding as he is shown a more elegant way of bashing the war-plate back into place. It is a machine almost as much as it is armor, and if Alucard moves the shoulder pauldrons or arms to work on them the sound of servos can be heard.

A strange answer, but it was rude to press. The vampire had his own secrets, after all. He continued to examine the armor, very curious about it. "This armor is not meant to defend oneself against a sword," he marveled, not having a clue about modern technology, let alone the technology that Garviel used every day.

He pauses at the noise, moving the pauldrons again, curious. "What would make such a noise," he asked, mostly to himself. Still, he was careful not to break the machinery. The armor was most certainly something beyond his experience, but he was still more than capable of fixing it up, even if it was made of something that wasn't mostly studded leather.

"Very observant. No, while it will stop blades or hammers, it is designed to be proof against energy and kinetic-kill weapons, like las and bolt-guns."

Loken gestures to his arm vambraces and says, "Servomotors. They allow the armor full range of movement when I wear it, and enhance my strength while connecting to my body." He gestures to several rubberized black circles on his chest and upper arms, jackpoints for the neural connectors of his power armor.

He glanced back at the other man. "What are these weapons?" he asked, curious. It was strange and rather awkward for him to still be thinking of this in terms of the way his own world worked, what with the numerous talking boxes that he often saw people talking to. "I... am not used to many weapons people speak of here. My own weapon is rather unique technology," he said, showing the corrupt replica combat cross off, stretching it out just enough to show the hidden chain component.

Alucard nodded. "Such armor would normally slow a man down. Yours seems to have fixed those problems."

"Ranged weapons of various descriptions. They're designed to kill men with a single hit, or destroy armored vehicles with several shots."

Loken looks at the combat cross quizzically, not exactly sure of the mechanism. "An odd weapon." He'll finally comment.

He touches the war-plate and says, "Yes. It is powered armor, and so it moves itself to assist me, rather than lying as a dead weight."

"I see," Alucard said with an even nod. Weapons of war, he wagered. There wasn't much of a need for such weapons if a man was going in alone, of course.

"It is a unique weapon. Mine is not the original, but serves its purpose," he said, still showing the weapon. The combat cross was heavy, but manageable. He couldn't imagine using another weapon with the exception of perhaps a sword.

"How is this armor made?" the idea of the technology being beyond him was something that Alucard was well aware of. But he didn't care at the moment.

"I can't say that I know, honestly. Such things are the realms of tech-priests or Techmarines, and I am neither. I do know it requires a significant amount of effort and materials to create one suit of Mark VI warplate, however."

He nodded. It wasn't as though Alucard had much experience making his own armor. Fixing it, yes. He could sew up cuts in the leather, probably patch it up if he had to and re-temper the parts that were metal, but making it wasn't an option.

"The people in charge here... I wonder if they would be able to replicate it. There are many things that they have created that one would think impossible."

"Given that they have disabled some of the functionality of it when bringing me here, I would imagine they can."

His voice has taken on a slight edge, though he's not angry at Alucard.

He's surprised to hear that. After all, his own vampiric powers were let in unrestrained. Maybe it was because of the fact that he wouldn't harm one of the other residents, but that did not explain why this man's suit had powers removed. "The administrators here enjoy games. No doubt they will use that armor against you." It wasn't meant to be mocking, far from it.

"There must be some way to return functionality."

"Probably. But I'm not a techpriest. I don't know the proper secrets to re-awaken what slumbers in my war-plate."

He rests his hand almost reverently on the breastplate.

So he wasn't aware of how it worked? At least Alucard couldn't look foolish not understanding. Clueless about what significance the armor might hold, he continued to work on it, careful to treat the armor with respect. "Perhaps one day it will be unlocked," he said carefully, pointing out the areas that needed to be tempered. "We need some sort of heat," he said carefully, looking around the workshop, a bit discouraged to see that there didn't appear to be a way to fix the imperfections that couldn't be hammered out.

"I didn't see a fusion lamp or anything around, did you?"

Loken asks in a voice indicating that while he'd like one, he doubts there is one readily available at present.

"No," Alucard agreed sadly. "Your armor is thick enough that it should hold up well regardless," he said encouragingly. He didn't think that it would be easy to break, even with the dings in it that required more than basic care. Maybe they could create a forge in here, or on one of the other floors.

"True. There is little that could break it asunder in my time." He looks sadly at his armor.

"Well, little enough that wasn't carried by men such as myself."

"There must be a floor that makes the ability easier. But until then I believe that your armor will be fine," Alucard repeated, mostly thinking out loud. What would happen if his own armor snagged? "Was your armor in this condition when you arrived, or were you attacked?"

"It was somewhat damaged, as my techpriest had recently gone missing, but it wasn't in this condition. THe orks saw to a lot of the more serious gouges."

He flexes his hand, and says, "If there is a floor that enables us to forge and smelt, I haven't seen it yet."

"Nor have I," Alucard admitted. But that didn't mean that it would be impossible to build. It simply meant that they needed to find a place. "But there must be a way."

"Indeed there must. Can we find a place with significant heat within this tower?"

"That I do not know," Alucard admitted. A mere fire wouldn't work, but it had to be possible. "I have not explored many of the floors. There must be something of use on one of them."

"This strikes me as a priority. Once the time is right perhaps we can meet again and repair this war plate to a more suitable state."

"Agreed," Alucard said with a sharp nod. "I will be on a look-out. How should I contact you?"

First Bolt Shell: Legion of One

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