From tbutler@birch.net Mon Nov 19 20:04:30 2001 Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 00:26:59 -0600 From: Travis Butler To: Chris Bremner , Philip J. Moyer Subject: [UnS] Takedown of Mobius (second-hand) [This was done live, so no log; this is Mike and I relating what happened. Mike was running Shinobu for this one.] Alan says, "So how exactly did Mobius get taken down? Last I saw, Beowulf was talking to a bunch of old people." Alan hates when stuff gets run face-to-face, as it means there are no logs. ^^;; Theresa says, "Beowulf recruited the help of the Mystery Men and a squadron of a hundred Lucasites." Theresa says, "Then armed them all with items that gave them 8-point conveyed warfare." Frito says, "Basically, after giving up fishing for construct-finding info at the Weird Science institute, Mike figured out how to use Pattern to locate it without doing an actual Patternwalk." Alan exclaims, "Power of CONJURATION TWINKING!" Theresa says, "Then they figured out where the Construct was, arranged diversions, and...well, I'll let Travis tell the story :)" Frito says, "Then we went back and talked with the Mystery Men and Lucasites, armed 'em and got 'em ready to make diversions." Theresa says, "If you'd taken the information those two gave you and built appropriate equipment to detect what they talked about, you could also have found it that way." Alan asks, "How did you end up finding the Construct?" Frito nods. Ahhh. Frito says, "Mike bought a fortune-telling mouse off the street. Then he set it on a map of the city and tweaked Pattern so it'd actually perform as advertised to locate the construct. :)" Theresa says, "As the Construct was setting off all sorts of energy patterns and distortions you could have tracked." Alan says, "Ohhhhh, smart. :)" Setsuna laughs. Akio says, "Clever." Frito nods. "Well, glad to know that it might not have been a total waste of time if Mike's idea hadn't worked out, then." Alan remembers that one for later. :) Theresa says, "They gave you the info you needed. You just needed to use said info. :)" Theresa says, "As building gadgets to detect things like that is well within Beowulf's skill set." Frito says, "Turned out to be moot because Mike had a Better Idea. Anyway... :)" Alan says, "I find it's very easy to forget just how potent powers like Pattern and Logrus can be if applied properly." Akio says, "Secondary effects are very useful." Akio says, "You couldn't home in on it directly, but the map-to-mouse thing worked, because you weren't actually looking for the Construct." Frito says, "We talked with the Mystery Men who had actually infiltrated the palace before, got plan worked out to crash zeps into the Palace to hopefully do major damage to teh Construct, while we went in with the Mystery Men through the sewers to take care of anything left." Alan says, "So you end up doing conventional RP'ing type stuff--research, questioning--to find things or get information that you can get faster and easier using Pattern." Theresa says, "Pattern and Logrus are indeed, worth the points they cost if you know how to use them :)" Frito nods to Alan. Alan says, "I tend to get much more use out of Motoko's Sorcery than I do from her Pattern, but it's a much more versatile power, if weaker." Frito says, "At that point... Mike's refinement of my zep idea was to have a 'rebel' zep being chased by a 'Mobius' zep, to allay suspicion about the thing going straight for the palace." Frito says, "The first zep dived at the Palace. And vanished. The second zep dived at the Palace. And also vanished." Frito says, "At that point, we heard Mobius' voice booming through loudspeakers in the sewer tunnels, "Thank you for entering my deathtrap."" Alan says, "Oooooh." Frito says, "Lily was able to pull us out of it and into the Palace proper -- as the Construct blocked Pattern and Trump, but not Logrus. Thank Ghu." Akio says, "Mobius probably didn't think you had a Logrus user." Frito says, "We fought our way up to the top floor where the construct was, and found a room with a robed figure and an obsidian statue." Frito nods to Merc. Frito says, "Everyone else fired at the figure, while I fired at the statue. Unfortunately, my bolts weren't enough to kill the statue, and the figure was a decoy. We *could* have been toast right then... fortunately, Mobius had Pulp Sensibility." Frito says, "And we got teleported out into the desert instead, to fight Robo-Sphinx." Alan says, "Who, so the story goes, fought Mecha-Buddha in ages past." Frito says, "I was able to do the AT-AT thing with the Sphinx, climb inside, and set off the self-destruct button. At which point Mike had the bright idea of tossing it into the Palace itself. :)" Tobias says, "Aided by the Legion of Drakes. ;)" Frito says, "This time it *did* get through, and do mass destruction, but unfortunately not enough to even dent the statue -- i.e. the Construct." Frito says, "Ah, yes, the Drakes. ^_^" Frito says, "Mike figured out that Shinobu's shapeshifting and aura shifting could be used involuntarily. So he started shapeshifting the Robo-Sphinx crewmen into Drakes. :)" Akio says, ".... okay, Damn. I'll have to remember that." Alan says, "Shapeshifting people's minds using Shapeshift Other? Damn, I wish I'd thought of doing that with Damask. :)" Tobias exclaims, "Power of Fauz Warfare God RAMPAGE!" Ivan the Mad says, "That was my original plan with Kosui in the throne war, before I became part of the Chia Collective." Frito says, "We felt the statue building up to some kind of massive magical detonation -- it had us all under mental attack at this point, by the by. So I dumped a magical sinkhole on it, one of the ones Wakaba racked in my ring." Frito says, "That kept it more-or-less out of action long enough for us to do some major mundane damage on the thing with our massive weapons." Akio says, "Even an ersatz drake is still pretty whipass." Frito says, "Of course, when Mike tried it on a mass of people inside the palace itself, it didn't work out as well, because they started fighting each other accusing the others of being imposters. :)" Tobias says, "Travis and I tend to be very effective as a team, as our strengths tend to make up for each others' weaknesses." Theresa nods. They make a great team. Frito nods, and has found out in UnS that he works *much better* as part of a team than as a solo operator. Alan says, "It's very good to work with other people when you complement each other." Frito says, "So... we had beat the thing almost to pieces, when the sinkhole wore off. And it started building up to a massive suicide-strike Akira to take us out." Akio says, "You should have gone for one of those self-perpetuating Sinkholes that only gets stronger the more magic is thrown at it." Frito asks, "I think even one that uses the power of magic thrown at it peters out eventually. John?" Tobias says, "We basically took what Onion-dome gave us." Frito says, "Anyway, it looked like it was one of those 'can't be canceled' spells, so we shoved it into another Shadow to explode. And then got a Very Bad Feeling." Akio says, "Hey, be nice. Wakaba is cool. And sort of sexy." Theresa says, "Do not taunt happy fun onion princess" Alan says, "Onion-dome makes me think of Wakaba having a hairstyle like one of those onion domes you see on Arabian architecture." Tobias says, "Luckily, we'd planned on this." Frito says, "She's my *Mother*, thank you very much. And a very good one to Bey." Frito says, "It felt like at Ebenscrux when Yog tried to come through. So we shoved the Logrus-nuke we'd had Lily prepare for just that eventuality." Akio says, "Explain Kentaro, then. ^_^" Tobias says, "I reserve the right, as a Real Live Boy, to taunt imaginary Zweibelkopfs, danke." Frito shrugs. "Obviously poisoned by the attitude of his Kashfan relatives. :)" Frito says, "So... Logrus nuke. Boom. No more Reality-fraying-at-the-edges." Alan asks, "Mike, do you mean the Blue Fairy granted your wish, and made you into a real boy?" Tobias says, "Sadly, I had forgotten to strap Keitaro to it before detonation." Frito says, "And then one more Bad Feeling. Fortunately, we were able to use one of Mother's racked teleports to get us out of the Palace before the cross-Shadow bridges fell on the Palace and crushed it." Alan says, "Yeah, if you'd done that, Shinobu Minor would have been crippled by grief once she returned to being an NPC, and her emotional turmoil could have been exploited sexually by Jacqueline." Tobias says, "I know. ;_;" Frito thwaps Mike. "Be nice." Travis Butler tbutler@birch.net ...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.