The Story Thus Far...
Several Weeks Before C-Day, Location Undisclosed
Dr. Martin Diaz sat at the head of the steel table, messaging his temple in irritation. The other four chairs were occupied by his colleaques, peers, and- perhaps most important of all- his employer. Roughly a year and a half ago, the five had signed an agreement. It had all been President Shen Fei's idea. The 24-year-old mechanical genius had announced a game in which the five robotics experts would compete with each other to design the next line of combat machines for his company, Cat's Cradle Robotics, Inc.
Dr. Diaz's own concept was a clever one. He had long ago learnt that the average Gaian warrior could easily match the strength of any given battle droid, so instead of optimizing his design through experimentation, he would simply create an android based on one of these warriors. He chose a subject that was supposed to be long deceased. When his subject turned out to be very much alive and kicking, Diaz took his chances and employed a powerful Shaman to entrap the warriors soul and place it in the machine.
This was his first mistake.
The warrior had regained control while still in the android, and had broken free with ease. His only hope was to call in some reinforcements. And so, he found himself sitting with his closest competitors.
"Interesting." Shen Fei leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles. "You screwed up, and suddenly you want to call the game off?" Dr. Diaz opened his mouth to speak up, but Fei silenced him with a wave of his hand. "No matter, we'll help you out."
"Really?" Things were finally going Martin's way.
"Of course," Shen Fei replied with a grin. He turned to face the other three at the table. "Listen, I hear you're all in the testing stages. Why don't we just cut to the chase- you send your robots out, I'll send mine out, and whoever captures poor Dr. Diaz's failed experiment first wins, 'kay?"
The room exploded in a flurry of activity. As scientists and military men alike phoned in the 'search and destroy' order to each of their projects, Dr. Diaz could do nothing but watch in horror. A few minutes later, they were done. In a matter of days, Diaz's warrior android would no doubt be scrapmetal and one of his competitors would be calling to gloat.
"Now that that's settled, why don't we-" Shen Fei was suddenly cut off by the entrance of a pale man covered in shadows. "May I help you?" Two bodyguards approached the intruder.
It was the shaman whom Dr. Diaz had hired- and promptly forgotten to pay. This was his second mistake.
Five Days before C-Day, Office of Cat's Cradle CEO Mark Weissmann
Newly-promoted President Weissmann had a problem. As of two weeks ago, things were looking up. The sudden, brutal death of Shen Fei and the four scientists in line to take Fei's place had propelled him to the top faster than he had ever dreamed. He had no idea that he would so quickly be facing matters of the company's life and death.
Two days ago, four robots had converged on Carter City. They were soon identified as war machines set to combat mode, and their attacks on the city led to an immediate evacuation. The makes and models of the four robots were unidentifiable, but Weissmann had seen the models before- on paper. He knew about the secret project Shen Fei had led, and he had some basic information on the robots in question. What he did not know was why they were doing what they were doing, or how to deactivate him.
And so, it fell on the hapless president to somehow prevent the world from discovering that it was, in fact, his company which was responsible for the slaughter at Carter City. He couldn't commit any private forces owned by the company itself, for that would immediately tip off the authorities as to the origin of the robots. No, he had to be very sly about the whole thing.
It was then that he came upon the solution.
Two Days before C-Day
Fliers have started sprouting up all around Barton, Gambino, Durem and Aekea. Fliers advertising adventure and riches...
Fliers
To the discreet adventurer:
You have, no doubt, heard of the recent troubles that have fallen upon Carter City. We are an organization who is outraged at the government's lack of progress in rectifying this threat, and wish to take matters into our own hands. We are offering a sizeable reward to anyone who can incapacitate one of these machines.
We will require the central 'brain' computer of each machine to varify its destruction. You can contact us at...
Rumor has it that the government is preparing to nuke Carter City and be done with it. Anyone who wishes to cash in on this opportunity will have to act quickly...
C-Day
Soon adventurers across the land were forming together in teams with which to besiege Carter City. They knew of the robots' strength, but they risked their own lives to take the machines down. They all had their own reasons, some mutually exclusive while others all-encompassing. In the end, it came down to a blood-bath.
Artillery was the first to go down. A tank-like robot, it was designed for long-range combat, equipped with an absurd amount of RPGs but entirely lacking in hand-to-hand finesse. This robot sealed its own fate when it targetted Team RAIF.
The battle began when a single RPG struck RAIF's van, sending the whole bunch flying. They recovered quickly, however, and soon made their way to meet the robot face-to-face. While the cleric Sey kept her allies from harm with her shield of light, the team worked in tandem to take the robot out of comission. As Sey and James Black worked to keep it from bringing its missiles to bare, Stryphe, Anna Fontaine, and Allen pounded away at it with their mellee attacks.
Finally, in a fit of rage, Sey fired a blast of holy energy at the monstrosity, obliterating its leg. Seeing an opening, Stryphe drove his halberd into an opening in Artillery's armor, and Mr. Black used some C4 to crack it open like a crab.
And so, the first and weakest of the four robots was destroyed. As the team, victorious but in shambles, tended to their exhausted cleric, a certain telepathic shapeshifter named Owle Isohos approached the clearing...
Meanwhile, CR32-B was on the move. Shen Fei's own brainchild, this bot took a humanoid form, and was designed for brawls of the up-close-and-personal kind. On its way to the Manabu Seido Building, it happened to get tagged and followed by one team who called themselves Weinberg & Associates.
CR32-B stopped to fight the Burning Gravy Experience, a team that had stopped to examine the wreckage at Carter City's largest building. Even as swordsman Rage and shapeshifter Tsuyoshi Munou were engaging the robot, Weinberg & Associates came charging in from behind on their humvee. BGE members who weren't already fighting CR32-B ran interference against Weinberg, and the two forces found themselves at a standstill against each other. However, when BGE's Ryoko Seido fired a flaming bullet at CR32-B from one side, and Matthias Weinberg fired a lazer beam from the other side, CR32-B decided to cut its loses and make for the underground.
The MS Building Subway Station would never be the same.
Soon Weinberg's humvee was blocking the main exit from the station, with some help from Martian Cortez's magic moss. What nobody counted on was that Team Newface's Julian Bunthoff was scouting the area, and one quick radio conversation later, the bulk of Team Newface was on the scene.
The resulting four-way-mellee was nothing short of utter chaos. Newface got the confusion off right with a smokescreen from Kit, and after a short round of mellee Espyn ended up using his most powerful attack, turning the entire station into an icy deathtrap.
While many warriors lay incapacitated or dead afterwards, CR32-B took the opportunity to burst through a wall and go running across town, dragging Rage with him. Tsuyoshi, being a good ally, followed behind to help his friend, and leave the less familiar members of Burning Gravy Experience behind.
After a bit of a chase, CR32-B found itself facing off against three of BGE's members- Rage, Tsuyoshi, and the mysterious old woman known only as "The Cat Lady." Though the android fought with all its might, it couldn't fend off all three in its injured state, and soon lost an arm. Then a leg. And finally, its head. Though the trio were worse for the wear and tear, Rage found comfort in the act of claiming the head for his team, and the three hurredly made their way out of town to meet up with their other teammates.
As CR32-B was getting its literal head handed to it, Macro 3, a shapeshifting robot the likes of which haven't been seen since
Terminator 2, found itself walking right into a trap set by a group calling themselves the Knights of Fortune. Taking the guise of a fellow soldier of fortune, the machine followed the men up a series of stairs and soon found itself face-to-face with a flamethrower burst, a barrage of bullets, and a grenade. That would have been enough to kill a normal human several times over, but all Macro lost was a bit of mass. Still, it did give the Knights the advantage of seeing one of Macro's biggest weaknesses: intense heat.
Macro recovered quickly, and found itself locked in hand-to-hand combat with the paladin Baraqueil Fischig, owner of the dreaded flamethrower and a very shiny sword. Even as Alan Campbell was tossing a generous amount of grenades, Fischig found himself getting pushed back, and soon he was forced to use his flamethrower at a disadvantagous range. Macro 3 would have none of that, and a well-aimed arm-blade sent both combatants up in flames.
Around this time, the duo known as Never Saw It Coming reached the scene, and decided to lend a hand to the Knights' fight. With Fischig too injured to pose a serious threat, a greatly-diminished Macro charged Knights' sniper Psyche Sauda. Unprepared to meet Macro's deadly force face to face, she ran downstairs, and it gave pursuit. For the second time that day, Macro fell into a trap, as Alan sprang a spare flamethrower on the machine. To finish the job, NSIC mech-rider Nevin Bedou used a well-placed missile to incinerate the building Macro found itself in.
The alliance decided to stay together, and so together they took the Macro's sole remains, its core, back with them out of the city.
Back at the MS Building underground, the smoke was clearing on a scene of confusion and carnage. The remaining Burning Gravy Experience members, Ryoko and Daniel, were incapacitated and apparently dead, respectively. Weinburg and Newface had both taken quite a beating, and decided to break off from each other since the CR32-B had taken its leave.
The two teams were not long without each other's company, however, as they looped around through the subway system to meet up somewhere near Industrial Row Station, approaching each other form opposite directions. Fortunately for them, this led to them converging on the one remaining robot: Squadron.
Newface was greatly diminished, and the only thing they were able to do in the ensuing fight was have their ally Julian Bunthoff use his ability to absorb (and thereby nullify) enemy magic. Luckily, the pressure was taken off of them as Weinberg concentrated on trapping Squadron and combating a fourth new element to the battle, Sakura Elite's vampire Kane Lisko.
Squadron had itself holed up in a defunct subway car, and so didn't see it coming when Matthias Weinberg levelled an anti-tank missile and remotely targeted its power core. What nobody expected was to find three robot bodies instead of one. Around this time, bomb sirens began to go off throughout the city, and so Weinberg and Associates made a quick ariel escape and left their opponents to fend for themselves.
Shortly before the bombs fell, a certain shaman arrived at Carter City, accompanied by a certain group of resistant spirits. Wasting no time, he chanted his magic words, before going on his way.
Moments later, those who carried the cores of Artillery, CR32-B, and Macro 3 found themselves in rather strange circumstances. Sey Kaikou of Team RAIF could no longer sense anything further than 20 feet, be it visually, aurally, or sixth-sensually. The Burning Gravy Experience's Rage found his own strength rapidly waning, as if it were being syphoned off by some unknown force. And Knight of Fortune Baraqueil Fischig found his beaten body become even weaker, if such a thing were possible.
The face of this adventure was quickly changing.
