Mission Log #2

[modaccount]

How It Works

Welcome to the first mission log in Annexed!

How Mission Logs Work: There will generally be two main missions per month, with different focuses tailored to different skillsets (usually stealth vs. fighting, though other skillsets will be tapped on). Each mission will be posted in phases, with a prompt for the start of each phase. The plotting post will give you a rundown of what the missions are, how they might go, and what might be discovered. Characters may partake in whichever pat of the operation they choose, whether it's a large prominent part or a more supporting role. Characters may participate in both missions, and as many phases as they wish.

Mod Guidance: Players may request occasional scene-setting when they hit a point where they're unsure what might happen next in a log or what their characters might encounter. There will be a "Mod Guidance" comment that players can reply to in order to request this kind of scene-setting.

Completion of Missions: There will be a submissions comment for anyone who's threaded out a portion of the mission. Once a thread has been completed at least halfway, please submit your character's progress and plans for the thread to the submissions thread. These submissions are the main way that the mod will decide how the mission went in the next month's wrap-up post, so they are very important!

Plotting Post: Here!

The Magic of Sensors

After last month's failed attempt at setting up sensor networks in the jungle outside the city, the Sylphid are taking a new tack. Still intent on expanding their territory and disrupting the magical spell that keeps the Witches hidden from their sensors despite being chipped, the Sylphid are trying to use magic to create a new type of sensor network.

For many years, the Witches have relied on an area-of-effect magic spell that disrupts the chips and feeds false information back to the Sylphid sensor network about where Chipped rebels are and their biodata. Over the past week or two, the Sylphid have been sketching out the leylines in the jungle and through the communities outside the city limits to set up a new magical sensor network that will disrupt the spell protecting chipped Witches from detection.

This means that, if the network is successful, the new sensors will be able to pick up and identify chipped rebels, both old and new. This could be very, very bad for missions and a massive blow against the Witches, allowing the Sylphid to locate and capture chipped Witches.

The Witch will be calling a general meeting at the Command Center where she will explain the situation and the proposed missions to stop it.

Mission A: Disrupting the Leylines

Mission Appropriateness: Chipped or Stripped
Mission Focus: Recon, battle.

This mission will focus on recon and battle with the Sylphid. The leylines outside the city have been sketched out with a magic-focusing paint that amplifies their magical output. Operatives will be armed with cannisters of spray paint that have been treated with samples collected from the Troop, and taught disruptive and magic-dampening runes that they can then graffiti the leylines with to cause a disruption to their magic. They will also be outfitted with a sort of hoverboard for faster and more agile movement.

PHASE I: LOCATION
Last month, the Sylphid made some attempts at setting up sensor towers in the jungle outside the outskirts of Zephyr, and were thwarted by the rebels, with a lot of help from the new extrauniversal arrivals. While there has been some celebration of the new arrivals for their considerable help in stopping this particular mission, the job is not over. The Sylphid are determined to set up a sensor network outside the city to expand their territory and their hold over the people who don't live in Zephyr.

One of the major sticking points the Sylphid have with the rebels is their magical ability to disrupt the feed of the chips they've implanted into all non-Sylphid citizens of the Broken World, and the ability of this same magic spell to feed back false information on the biodata and location of chipped rebels. In order to combat this, the Sylphid have been experimenting with a magical solution - new magic-oriented sensor towers that will operate throughout the jungle and settled areas outside Zephyr and which will, more importantly, disrupt the magic spell that hides chipped rebels. This would result in the Sylphid knowing the exact location and identity of every chipped rebel, and the only response the rebels would have would be to remove the chips from every one of their number, seriously hampering their ability to operate inside Zephyr and other Sylphid-claimed areas...such as the new area claimed by this sensor network.

The Sylphid have been hard at work clearing the jungle around the leylines in the area outside of the city of Zephyr. In these cleared areas, they have been marking the leylines themselves with a type of glowing blue paint that enhances the power of the leylines, which they are using to power and maintain their new magical sensor system.

Phase one of the mission involves finding these leylines, avoiding Sylphid detection, and mapping them out on a leyline map to be provided by the rebels. They will also need to destroy or deactivate electric fences, especially in inhabited areas.

⇝ Uninhabited Areas: Many of the leylines are specifically chosen to be in less populated areas of jungle, to avoid disrupting the lives of civilians in the area too much. These areas will have been cleared of foliage all along the length of the leyline and the area will have been painted with wide swatches of glowing blue paint. Wherever this paint is applied, the leyline will glow along the ground, letting out quite a bit of light. In these areas, characters will encounter a variety of dangers, including wildlife that will not hesitate to attack them, and aggressive sometimes carnivorous plants, besides the Sylphid guards that are constantly patrolling the leylines with their golem automaton dogs, which are programmed only to hunt strange scents, including the scent of magic, and attack intruders. Occasionally, in high wildlife areas, the Sylphid have erected electric fences that must be disabled or destroyed for Phase II to succeed.

⇝ Inhabited Areas: In the more inhabited areas around the leylines, the disruption to everyday life in the area is severe. Roads have been closed down where they coincide with leylines, and the Sylphid have forcibly bought out several family homes, which have been demolished to accommodate the leyline painting. This is definitely an important mission as far as the Sylphid are concerned, and they are obviously willing to do whatever is necessary to complete it, including displace their own citizens. There are a large number of guards with canine automatons in these areas, patrolling along electric fences that have been erected to keep out passers-by and which must be deactivated or destroyed in order for Phase II to succeed.

PHASE II: DISRUPTION
Once the leylines have been scouted and mapped, and the electric fences have been taken care of, a somewhat chaotic and decentralized phase of the mission will begin. Characters will be given weapons, a hoverboard, as well as several cannisters of spray paint that has been treated with spore matter from the Troop, which was cloned in the Witches' labs from samples provided by kind volunteers from last month. These cannisters, when used to spray paint runes that will be taught to every rebel involved in this mission, will be able to disrupt the boost in power that the Sylphid have given to the leylines. This will decrease the energy that the leylines put out and degrade their magical power to the usual, which will be insufficient for the demands of the Sylphid sensor system.

There will be an opportunity, before heading out, to customize hoverboards with regular spray paint and stickers. This is really for no reason other than morale and hyping characters up for the fast-paced mission, but will give characters a chance to quickly interact, make last-minute plans, and get hyped. Coffee, energy drinks, and sugary treats will be available for a quick fuel-up! Characters will be told at this particular meet-up that there is a specific troupe of Witches who fight and do recon on hoverboards called the Skyclad, who have an almost roller-derby style culture, and trade badges based on cool tricks they pull off on hoverboards, or other hoverbattle maneuvers. Characters with an aptitude for hoverboarding and who pull off cool tricks or other maneuvers may be gifted with badges and may eventually ask to join the Skyclad.

Characters will be asked to use the hoverboards to fly along the mapped leylines as quickly as possible and graffiti runes every 20 feet or so, in order to fully disrupt their amped-up power. At first, they will be mostly undetected, and will be able to move quickly and easily.

Or, at least, in theory they should be able to move quickly and easily. There are still some serious dangers in both areas. In uninhabited areas, this will include the leftover rubble from the clearing of the areas such as giant brush piles, stumps, and still-living remnants of carnivorous plants, all of which will pose a serious obstacle course even for the most proficient hoverboarder. That's not even counting wildlife and encroaching living plants that are already trying to reclaim cleared areas, with predators hunting in the much easier terrain presented by cleared areas, and carnivorous plants putting out feelers for new soil that isn't shaded by the much taller trees of the jungle. In inhabited areas, there will be more guards with their canine automaton companions that could alert the Sylphid to the mission very quickly, as well as piles of rubble from demolished houses providing obstacles to their hoverboard paths, not even counting bystanders who might be trying to get items from their ruined houses.

Be quick and move light, fair rebels, because this mission is a rough one, still stealthy or not!

PHASE III: BATTLE
Unfortunately, some missions that start off as stealth missions are simply doomed to become battles. Such is the case with this one. About a third of the way through graffitiing the leylines, the Sylphid will catch on to what the Witches, led by the Skyclad, are doing, and send out reinforcements for the existing guards. These reinforcements will come bearing drones armed with magic-seeking missiles that will target the cannisters carried by rebels as they hoverboard along the leylines. These drones are extremely agile and well-armed, and will transform the previously stealth mission into something far more like an aerial dogfight with the hoverboarders.

The hoverboards are capable of reaching a maximum height equivalent to a 30-story building, and the drones have a similar height limit, so there's a lot of room for people to do in-air fighting. Taking these drones out is particularly crucial because this phase of the mission will be taking place around the same time as phase I of the second mission, and the drones will be capable of locating and attacking vulnerable Tians casting location spells in areas around the leylines, searching for sensor towers. At this point, while still working on graffitiing the leylines, the hoverboard fighters will also be providing a distraction for the drones and guards that are flooding the cleared areas of the leylines.

The drones aren't the only dangers of this battle, though. The hoverboarders will be pursued by Sylphid on fast-moving hover-ATVs armed heavily with guns that shoot both bullets and bursts of energy. They will also be armed with EMP-type weapons that can cause the hoverboards to completely malfunction. And along with the hover-ATVs will be the magic-sensing canine automatons that might just catch anyone who gets too close to the ground - as they might when trying to continue their graffiti attack on the leylines.

Mission B: Sensing the Sensors

Mission Appropriateness: Chipped or Stripped
Mission Focus: Stealth, recon, some battle.

This mission will focus on stealth, recon, and possible battle with the Sylphid if discovered. Tian characters will be taught a simplified location spell and a spell to shut down the magical sensors that have been set up and accompanied by one or two Heba companions for protection while they locate and shut down the magical sensor towers. They will be pursued by canine-like golem automatons that run on magitech and must be taken down with magic and weapons, along with their handlers. These automatons can be stalled out with magic, but with the appropriate tech knowledge can be reprogrammed into domesticated pets.

PHASE I: LOCATION
While there were advance lessons for any adventurous Tians who wish to participate in both missions, the bulk of the training in location and disruption spells for Tians participating in the second mission will be conducted while the first mission is being done, so it's fresh in everyone's minds. They will be trained in the use of a simplified location spell - generally, a location spell is beyond the level of most newly-arrived Tians, but the Witches have created a lower level version that will be well within the grasp of anyone willing to study it. This spell will only be able to locate the traces of magic done by Sylphid, which has a slightly different signature than regular Tian magic, and Tians will be told that the sensor towers will be giving off very powerful magical traces, which they can then follow to find the sensor towers.

Once the training is complete, Tians will be able to either choose a Heba protector or be randomly assigned a Heba protector and sent out into the jungle fully armed with their weapons of choice along with plastic explosive, and with camouflage gear and either hoverboards or hover-ATVs to cover more ground. Stealth will be an incredibly important part of this mission, as the spells that the Tians were taught require a great deal of concentration and quite a large amount of time - up to five minutes per cast - leaving Tians extremely vulnerable while casting unless they interrupt their spells. Interrupting spells can leave the Tians with a pounding headache and full-body shakiness.

Tians will be able to locate several large clusters of sensor towers, located on different leyline webs, placed approximately a 20 minute walk apart. Each cluster has a circular sensor range with a radius of about 50 miles, with each tower within the cluster channeling magical energy from its leyline and contributing to the cluster's combined power and range. It is a somewhat delicate balance and a truly impressive bit of magic, with each cluster consisting of about 10 towers arranged in the general shape of a pentagram, and the range of the cluster decreasing by 5 miles with every tower destroyed.

Once the clusters are located and identified, characters will be tasked with adding these locations to a shared digital map that will be accessible via every character's device. Adding these locations aids the hoverboard mission to continue to distract enemies away from the clusters, allowing Tians more opportunity to destroy the towers without interruption.

⇝ Cluster A: The first cluster is located the furthest away from the Witches Camp, along the northeastern border of the city of Zephyr. It is situated in deep jungle, dense enough that the cleared areas around the leylines are the only method of access to the towers, and require a hard, fast 2 hour long ride on the hover-ATVs or hoverboards provided. Dangers in this area are primarily from the jungle itself, with rough terrain, wildlife, and predatory plants abundant.

⇝ Cluster B: The second cluster is located about 50 miles south along the eastern border of Zephyr, situated in a jungle area, though less dense than the area around Cluster A. There are various directions of approach to this cluster, with the jungle being penetrable enough to approach from angles other than the cleared leylines. The dangers in this area are also primarily from the jungle itself, though there are guards with canine automatons in this area as well.

⇝ Cluster C: The third cluster is located about 50 miles away from Cluster B, at the south border of Zephyr, and is situated in an area that is partially settled. Most of the settlement in this area is farmland that's been cleared out of the jungle and is generally quite rural, so there aren't a lot of civilians to run into. However, there have been several farmhouses that were forcibly bought out and occupied in this area, which means that teams may run into angry civilians as well as guards with canine automatons.

⇝ Cluster D: The fourth cluster is located about 50 miles away from Cluster C, at the southwest border of Zephyr, and is situated in an almost suburban settled area. In this area, many houses have been forcibly bought out and demolished to make room for the towers. These towers are not difficult to locate, but are heavily guarded by well-armed Sylphid with canine automatons and in this area in particular, the guards have started to rebuild the electric fences, which will need to be deactivated and moved before teams can truly pinpoint the tower locations.

PHASE II - DISRUPTION
Once the towers are located, teams will be asked to, on a command, start to deactivate the towers, preferably with one Tian on each tower in every cluster casting a spell to deactivate it at the same time. The spell that the Tians must cast is very complicated, bordering on slightly too complicated for the level of magic that the new arrivals are capable of and will require at least 15 minutes of full concentration, and leaves them very vulnerable to attack from wildlife, Sylphid guards, drones, and other dangers in the area. They will be relying heavily on their Heba teammates to protect them during this vulnerable time.

As the Tians are casting their spells, they will be inundated with several types of dangers. Not only will there be wildlife and predatory plants in the areas around most of the clusters of towers, there will also be Sylphid guards with their canine automatons and their drones armed with magic-seeking missiles, or on hover-ATVs, heavily armed. Heba protectors will have to go into overtime protecting their vulnerable Tian counterparts as they cast spells to deactivate the towers.

Beyond this, Tians will be dealing with a mental onslaught - as the Sylphid built the towers, they built in a magical defense system that will flood the minds of Tians with visions of their worst fears and memories. These spellcasters will have to fight to keep their concentration as they are bombarded with terrifying and anxiety-inducing images, visions, sensations, scents, and sounds. Any interruption of the spell will result in a pounding headache, nosebleed, dizziness, and full-body shakes; completing the spell will leave the Tians quite exhausted.

PHASE III: DESTRUCTION & SABOTAGE
Relatively more straightforward than most of the other phases of this mission, the final phase will still be difficult. After the towers are deactivated, they will be tasked with destroying the structures, which are 50-foot-tall metal towers with a glowing ball situated at the top. The glowing ball will cease glowing after the tower is deactivated, but will still need to be destroyed, or else the Sylphid will be able to quite easily reactivate them.

This is where the plastic explosive comes in. Every team was well-stocked with a large amount of plastic explosive, enough to destroy two towers completely. This will need to be set up while the team is still being beset with all the dangers already described - jungle dangers, guards, canine automatons, and drones. The automatons and drones are both able to scent out magic, so exhausted Tians will still need to be on guard even as they try to recover from the difficulty of casting the deactivation spells.

Thankfully, the hoverboard team from the first mission should still be on duty, providing they aren't engaged elsewhere with distraction or have left the first mission to participate in the second mission. The Skyclad and anyone else still on hoverboards will gladly swoop in to help protect vulnerable teams from the remaining dangers in the area.

NAVIGATION

Comments

[newmemorywhodis]

Link wasn't sure what to make of that. Something in her head? Like what? Like a hallucination?

"You don't need to be scared." She still did it, after all. Even with the voice. And Link was here to protect her from everything else. But he doesn't press, and lets her move them onto more comfortable territory; blowing things up.

By habit, he first summons ones of the Sheikah Slate's Remote Bombs. He looks down at the glowing blue sphere. The towers are fifty feet tall - Remote Bombs won't be enough. He'll actually need to use the Rebel's bombs for once. He lets the bomb dissipate into blue light, before going through Clara's bag.

But before he starts to climb the tower and set them, he taps on the Sheikah Slate once more and presses an entire carrot cake into Clara's hands. Eating always makes him feel better, after all.

[makemeasong]

Clara does feel safe. She isn't injured in any way and she isn't worried that she will be. After the fear in her mind, Link's kindness triggers emotion she has to swallow back, and she nods at his words, watching him rummage.

When the cake is pressed into her hands, she looks up at Link and wants to laugh - not at him, but because it's an entire cake. Instead, all she can say is an exhausted thank you before taking a huge bite of the cake. She's pretty sure this cake could bring someone back from the brink of death. It's amazing and eventually, she feels steady enough to slowly stand.

She's watching him climb, and after licking her fingers she puts what's left of the cake down to shout encouragement up at him.

"You're almost there, Link! Just a little more."

[newmemorywhodis]

The encouragement isn't even needed, really - not with the way Link clambers up the tower like a mountain goat. But the cheerleading, oddly, reminds him of Sidon. (He has the feeling that if, somehow, he and Clara were to ever meet, they'd get along terrifyingly well.)

Link climbs with the kind of speed that can only come from a lot of experience, only pausing briefly to set the charges. They're a bit different, from what he's used to. Where's the blue glow? The soft, ringing hum? If he hadn't seen other people using these to make explosions, he'd doubt that they were bombs at all.

Once he's finished, he climbs back down - and then sets down at the base of the tower, right next to the other explosives, one of his Remote Bombs. If nothing else, they were very effective detonators.

He comes to stand before Clara. "Done," he says. Time to go?

[makemeasong]

"You're amazing," she has to say that first, in awe at his climbing abilities. Like a...she doesn't know, she's too exhausted, but he climbs like an animal that was born to do it. But she nods, trying to push herself to keep going with him. Her entire body feels like it's made of jelly, but she refuses to stop.

Once they're far enough away, she turns back to watch the tower come down. "Ready when you are. And then I'm gonna assume something or someone is going to show up to chase us down all the way back to camp." She's pretty sure they're probably incoming already as other towers have gone down.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link doesn't give her any additional warning, or heads up - he just taps at the Sheikah Slate.

Boom! In the distance the trees shake and birds squawk as they escape into the air. There's a deep, rumbling shudder, and then the screeching as metal as the tower collapses.

He looks back at Clara. "I'll kill them too," he says. It's meant to be reassuring. Or at least, Link thinks it should be.

[makemeasong]

It's something, and Clara just blinks a little after recovering from her reflexive wince at the explosion.

"Let's get out of here, and hopefully it doesn't come to that. C'mon."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link just nods, and follows. Not in front of, or beside - but a few steps behind. It's not really something he thinks consciously about; it just feels natural to do so, when he's protecting someone.