• Welcome to Skyrim Forums! Register now to participate using the 'Sign Up' button on the right. You may now register with your Facebook or Steam account!
  • Hey there, and welcome to our roleplaying section. Please take some time to read two of these useful resources below, if you're already a roleplaying expert, then there's no need to read the following beginner's guide, but be sure to read the rules.

    Free Form Role Playing Guide for Beginners
    JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.

    Seanu Reaves

    The Shogun of Gaming
    The air was heavy and the world seemed to slow Artemis did not hold her breath as many games or movies implied snipers did, she simply stopped breathing. Even as the airship lowered itself to allow her and Kain off, she was already aiming down sights. Taking the time to focus with something of almost a supernatural trance like the one she fell into at the terminal. She learned how to hack from the humans she was stationed with, as she was a Biotic Sniper not as much an infiltrator spy.

    Where Kain fell from the shuttle like a bomb, Artemis almost seemed to float down, her movements having something like an unnatural grace. In the tight quarters her rifle had limited use, but she made due. Each shot she took a slight breath. It was like when the Reaper’s were invading the galaxy, you just keep shooting until you were told that it was over. Truthfully, this was far more stressful than she was used to. It seemed she was not taking to the mission as well as the Councilor assumed she would. Here she was, after all but forcing her way onto the team losing her cool. While this inner turmoil was occurring, she looked deadly calm, even if her rifle’s heavy loads missed the heavy load created something almost as useful: fear.

    The loud rifle was like a cannon, even when faced with the large mechanized units it managed to stagger on a good direct hit. She took cover, making sure to watch for any other snipers, she adjusted her hat and started scanning for any position that might leave them exposed. That was when the cruiser crashed, and that is when all hell truly broke loose. Artemis made sure to stay with Shepard, she was silent as they had to evacuate into the base. Artemis listened silently as Shepard made contact with the rest of the crew. Artemis ejected her thermal clip and popped in a fresh one. Looking around the base Artemis went up to Alice. Artemis soon resumed breathing as normal and snapped out of her trance.

    “Well this escalated quickly,” Artemis chuckled to herself, and went to Alice. “Commander, it seems the trap has been sprung. What’s the next move until the rest of them get here?”
     

    Wolfbane

    Why change the past when you can own this day?
    An all out air war broke out above them, raining fire and shards of fighters pouring down around them. Cerberus has used only a few of their forces as a red herring to make the Alliance divide their forces and it also made them think they were done when in fact reinforcements were on their way. Both Kenzi and Vex looked around and noticed that all they had left were basic personnel with their sidearms, marines using whatever they could find, and one squad under heavy fire. To make things worse most of their tanks were destroyed. Vex turned to catch a glimpse of two Atlas mechs bringing the pain to their only tank. Within a few missiles the tank blew up, created a shockwave. Now all their tanks are gone. The squad he had just seen with the turret was now decimated and a group of troopers armed with harriers and mattocks were advancing on their position.

    "Everyone get ready! We've got company!" this drew the attention of not only the squad but now the mechs. They were getting littered with shots before one of the mechs turned to take a shot at the shuttle. Sweetwater dodged the first shot, releasing a round at the Atlas before getting rocked by the following shot.
    "Everyone! get inside! Now!" The commander ordered. "Sweetwater! Get the hell out of here! You're taking way too much heat to extract us safely!"
    "God damn it. Roger that." she took a sharp turn out of the line of fire to fall back to a safe area. From her view, they were in deep pl*ps. She pulled up the side camera of the shuttle and spotted the mechs and the squad inch closer every second. They had to move, but there was no way she could draw their fire without getting shot down. She needed to get in contact with Joe and come up with a plan,


    "Sweetwater to Liberator, come in Liberator"
    All that greeted her was indistinct words followed by overpowering static. The only reasoning she could think of would be that their long distance comms were jammed. Sweetwater let out a long sigh as she continued her ascent up to a safer altitude. On Alice, Kenzi, and vex retreated deeper as the enemies made their way.
    "Crixus! Hold off the marines! They'll never make it to us on foot! Vex, Kezni, Kain and Artemis are here with me! That should be enough to...!"

    "Commander...cer Joseph Newman. I am hea...dside. If...underground communications uplink...be strong enough to...nearest fleet."
    "Damn. The transmission is choppier than a Krogan warlord. We're SOL until that jammer is taken care of."

    Vex took to checking their new point while Kenzi took her role as a look out. For now, they have some time to breathe.
    "Joe, I didn't get all that! I need you to repeat your transmission!"
    At this point they might as well be using smoke signals. he doubted the ship could hear them at all at this point. There wasn't jack pl*ps coming through his comm.

    "SKOUT? How are you coming in clear then?"

    "I really wish somebody had told me that."

    "Not the time SKOUT. Can you patch me in with Joe?"

    "Um. Commander. Now's not the time to have a breakdown." he said with a look of confusion.

    "SKOUT must be communicating through a direct line to the commander's hardsuit. That's why we can't hear her"

    "Joe! Roki! Get suited up and get to us on foot! Jaeger and the marines will give you an escort! Then get my ship airborne and fire off a mayday! Go!"
    The Commanders face lit up with hope and urgency while she began to speak fast and to the point.

    "The area's clear. We have some time to think before they come any further. Hopefully we'll meet with Jaeger and his squad. Damn good soldier that one is. Let's just hope we make it out of her before we run out of ammo."
    Vex scratched the back of his neck as he idly glared at his gun. For now, they had enough ammo to get out, no more no less. Kenzi could also put some rounds down, but nothing fancy. The mechs kept Sweetwater out of the sky so they needed an alternate extraction zone. In this current moment, they need to focus on surviving the mission.

     

    Simus

    An Excellent Site Member
    The fighting was fierce. The ground team had to fight or die. Mostly, they fought. Cerberus quickly pushed them out of the atrium where Alice had made contact with Joe and had forced them into a fighting retreat. The five of them had killed dozens of Cerberus soldiers in the last few minutes but they were burning through thermal clips fast and there wasn't any time to loot more from their enemies. Every time the area looked clear and they stared policing it for clips more soldiers would arrive and they would have to fall back. It had been ten minutes since the atrium and they'd been through four different positions. Now they were in the last room before the command center elevator. A large two level common area that looked like a common area for base personnel. When they entered and Alice sealed the door behind them the elevator was right in front of them. To their left was a closed but unlocked door labeled FIRING RANGE and right across from that, to their right, was an identical door labeled PHARMACY AND MEDICAL. The far right hand corner of the room was dominated by a small snack and coffee store with tables, chairs and benches placed around the rest of the room. It looked like a nice place to relax if it weren't a scene of total devastation.

    Alliance bodies were everywhere. None of them were in armor or had weapons. Some weren't even in uniform. many were killed at the tables they were sitting at. Both store attendants at the coffee store were dead behind the counter. Looking around at it made Alice sick.

    "Look at this place." She said. "These folks were gunned down while having coffee and watching the news." She gestured to a now destroyed TV screen. She brushed aside a dead enlisted man and felt his beverage. "Some of these drinks are still warm. What kind of fluffed up organization just murders unarmed people in the middle of fluffing coffee?"

    "The same people who think it's a good idea to implant Reaper technology into their skulls." A tired but strong voice said from a corner. Alice was startled, having no idea that anyone was alive in here, much less able to talk. She saw the voice was Jaeger's. Somehow he had made it in here before they did and he had cleaned the place out. There were plenty of Cerberus bodies among the dead and that was good to see. But Jaeger was hurt bad. He was sitting against a wall and two large white blotches on his chest and shoulder showed that he'd been shot. A dead Cerberus soldier was laying over his lap as if he had moved him there to shield his body. He was breathing heavily and looked like he was about to pass out. That was not good.

    "Jaeger!" Alice exclaimed. She ran over to him and took her helmet off so he could see her better. "Jaeger? It's Captain Shepard. What happened? How did you get in here?"

    Jaeger looked up to her and focused as best he could. "Per your orders ma'am I escorted Newman and Roki to the command center. The marines and I tried to clear a path to you but we were swamped with enemy fire all the way. We had to start using thermite to blow holes in the walls to flank Cerberus and even then we were down to six men when we got in here. I sent three of them down with Newman and Roki as an escort. They should be down there by now trying to salvage the comm equipment down there but I don't know if Cerberus has reached them yet. I ordered the rest of the men to fall back and try and find you. I'm guessing they never found their way?"

    "No, we haven't see them. But it's a big base with a lot of combat. They might have just taken a wrong turn. We'll try and find them when we get comms back up." Jaeger was losing focus again so Alice tried to keep him engaged. "What happened to you? How did you get shot?"

    "I took a bullet in the shoulder during our initial assault. The second was a mattock round through my chest from a soldier we missed. Bastard was supposed to be dead after I stabbed him so when he shot me through the chest it pissed me off. I had to slice his head off after that." He pointed to a bloody and headless centurion soldier. "I had enough medi-gel to patch myself up but I've lost too much blood to stand up and until you got here I was alone. I'm sorry Captain. I tried to protect the men but I wasn't fast enough. Now I'm going to die knowing there are still more Cerberus drones to kill."

    "You're not gonna die Jaeger." Alice said reassuringly. She put a hand on his shoulder. "You're already patched up and there's a medical center right over there. We'll just get some fluids in you and then we'll..."

    "No." he said. "I'm afraid it's worse than that." With all his strength he pushed the dead soldier off of him and showed the team the most grizzly sight of the day. Jaeger's lower body had been blown open. Charred flesh, fused armor and bits of dull white pelvis embellished his exposed intestines. The armor, skin and muscles of his thighs were gone, exposing his femurs. His genitalia hung uselessly by a few remaining blood vessels. It was as if someone tried to punch him in the balls with a grenade. He would literally spill his guts if he tried to stand. Alice knew there was nothing they could do for him.

    "Oh my god..." She whispered. "Jaeger...Frank...Your first name's Frank right?"

    Frank nodded between breaths. Alice took his larger hands into hers and looked into his eyes with as much hope as she could muster.

    "Frank. Listen to me. You didn't fail. Your job was to get Joe and Roki to the command center and you did that. Every single marine that followed you knew what they were getting into and they all followed you because you showed them courage. If if weren't for you and them they would have been all over us and we might not have made it. You did a good job Frank and your sacrifice is gonna save a lot of lives. I'm proud to have a soldier like you and I promise you: Cerberus isn't gonna get away with this."

    "Th...thank you...Captain. You're...you're every bit as good as they say you are. You...really are a Shepard. It...it was...It was...thanks to you this is a...a good death. It was an honor to serve under you. Ma'am."

    "The honor's mine Frank." Alice was whispering now. "You just rest now. This is all gonna be over soon."

    "Captain...one last thing...don't let me die alone...Could you stay with me?"

    "Shhhh..." Alice soothed. She sat next to him and put her arms around him. "I'm not gonna leave you alone. I'm gonna stay right here with you Frank. Just close your eyes and get some rest."

    "Th...thank you." He whispered. That was the last thing he said before he closed his eyes. After a few minutes his breathing stopped. Frank Jaeger was dead.

    No matter how much action you've seen, watching another person die never got any easier. Alice wanted to cry. She wanted to mourn this man she was supposed to lead and protect. But they had a job to do. They had plenty of time to mourn the dead later and she would not by any means be alone. She stood up, closed her eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths. Blinking away a couple of tears she hoped none of her squadmates saw.

    "Come on." She said in as neutral a voice as she could muster. "We've got to get down there and make sure Joe and Roki are alright. Police the area for weapons and thermal clips and form up by the elevator. You've got five minutes."
     

    Wolfbane

    Why change the past when you can own this day?
    "Look at this place." She said. "These folks were gunned down while having coffee and watching the news." Shepard gestured to a now destroyed TV screen, blue and green lines flickered with different flecks of colors. She brushed aside a dead enlisted man and felt his cup. "Some of these drinks are still warm. What kind of fluffed up organization just murders unarmed people in the middle of fluffing coffee?"

    "The same people who think it's a good idea to implant Reaper technology into their skulls." A deep voice clawed its way out of a lonely corner, making Shepard turn and run towards where it came from. Both Vex and Kenzi stayed back and watched the doorway while their captain tended to the wounded man. The Captain became quiet as she tried to comfort the soldier. The scene they left behind was not pretty and was not getting any prettier by the second; Whatever soldiers that they left behind were gradually closing on their location. Not only that but they ammo was getting scarce. They were outnumbered and they knew it. The only thing going their way was the shape of the room; Up-heaved furniture made for good cover and the entrance would act like a funnel. This would allow Kenzi to send down fatal shot after fatal shot while opening up time for Vex and Shepard to fire back. The problem is that Vex has enough clips for a small fire back and Kenzi could maybe drop three mechs then both would be on their sidearms.

    Vex scanned around the room and spotted numerous bodies and he raised an eye and held in a laugh as he spotted a headless Cerberus before finally kicking over a body on by one and collecting what thermal clips they had and else remotely useful. By the time he was done he had scrounged up a few more thermal clips for each person, but just enough to get to the shuttle. He let out a sigh and put everything on the table and took a seat.The two quickly reloaded and his eyes veered over to Alice who was still talking to the soldier who was down. Jaegar, he think it was. Kenzi pulled out a cig from the pack from her boot.She lit the coffin nail, watching crossed eyed as it spark into a flame. On the outside one might assume that she did not take her job or position serious. After all, who would light a cig and be silent as a person died? A person who knows the only thing that can kill the bastards who killed their comrade was bullets, which she had. This was a thought that both Vex and Kenzi shared. Mourn the dead later and kill them all now.

    It was only a little while before the two sensed the passing; it was as if the room got colder for a just split second before returning to normal.

    "Come on." She said in a a try hard neutral tone while staring away from the squad. "We've got to get down there and make sure Joe and Roki are alright. Police the area for weapons and thermal clips and form up by the elevator. You've got five minutes."

    "Already policed and collected, ma'am. Kill them all, right Captain?"
     

    Simus

    An Excellent Site Member
    Tears rolled down Alice's face as she listened to Vex and she hated it. She'd lost an entire ship before but she'd never had to sit by a man and watch him die. To comfort him in his final moments of life and try to help death take him as gently as possible. She wasn't prepared for how hard that would hit her and embarrassed at her own tears. At least they were a little harder to see from behind her visor. One more reason to wear a helmet.

    But she didn't have long to cry. Someone was at the cafe door because the red line of a cutting torch was moving across the seal. It looked like Cerberus had finally found them. Alice took cover behind the bar and inspected her ammo. Two clips left, plus her omni-tool and biotics. Enough to take out a patrol but not a twenty man assault group. The elevator was right behind them but cerberus could just follow them down and if they blew it up to impede their progress they'd be trapping themselves down in the command center. Along with Joe and Roki, assuming they were even still alive. They had to hold off this assault somehow but honestly, Alice thought this might be their last stand.

    The line of molten metal reached the bottom of the door and it creaked open. What was on the other side however was not what Alice expected. A single soldier, the most recognizable one on the planet stepped through. One had found them.

    "Captain Shepard" One said as he stepped into the room. "I'm glad I found you. I'm ready to offer assistance."

    "One?" Alice asked, amazed at their luck. "How did you find us? And is there something going on with you? You sound different."

    "My connection the consensus was severed thanks to the Cerberus jamming signal. For the first few nanoseconds it was distressing because I didn't know what had happened. Geth wireless communication is very nearly 100% reliable, but once SKOUT told me about the signal it made sense. As for how I found you...well...it was really just a simple matter of following the gunfire."

    "I...see." Alice responded, a little suspicious of all this. "Were you followed?"

    "No ma'am. I was able to cloak past any Cerberus guards and eliminate those that were in my way. Kain and Artemis were able to draw off a large force away from you. Be advised however that they control most of the base. I was unable to find any additional Alliance personnel."

    "I figured as much. Will you be hindered in any way by not being part of the consensus?"

    "No ma'am. I'm a fully independent A.I all on my own. Any experiences I learn while by myself will be saved for later upload for the consensus once connection has be reestablished." He paused to take a closer look at her. "Are you all right ma'am? You've been crying."

    "It's just stress One. I'll be alright." Alice lied. "C'mon. Let's get downstairs while we still can."

    "Acknowledged." One said before looking to Vex and Kenzi. "I hope you two don't take this the wrong way, but I want to kill every Cerberus soldier on this planet. Slowly."
     

    Skyrimosity

    Well-Known Member
    The elevator seemed to descend at a glacial pace down to the level where the communications equipment was supposed to be. With the amount of power needed to send messages of all types across the vast spaces of the galaxy using comm buoys at nearly 0% data loss, planetary colonies typically housed large-scale equipment in the basement level where there was plenty of room and no one complaining about the ugly equipment ruining their living space. Honestly, who could ever complain about such a thing; in most cases it would be more efficient to store them at ground level in the middle of the facility but that was usually reserved for a lounge or something else equally useless.

    "Do you have a name Quarian? I can see you must have been sent to help with any tinkering." The man had a toolbox of some kind and there was a slight unease in the way he held a pistol though, from what he had observed so far, the Quarian was acceptable enough in making use of the weapon. At least, he could sling bullets in the general direction of the enemy; sometimes, that was enough. Although currently the guy was doing some sort of slight shuffle left to right but that could have been due to the elevator.

    "Be cautious when the doors open; there's a chance the enemy will be waiting for us. Stand against the walls."

    "Yeah yeah, I know how to handle myself in a firefight. Sheesh, in case you couldn't tell, I qualified for marksman training a few years back myself." Even though the marine was wearing a combat helmet, Joe could swear the man rolled his eyes. Honestly, soldiers always wanted to think they held some kind of monopoly on combat operations. Well, Communications Specialists such as himself were often a necessity in the field so they received proper enough combat training. Out of his academy class he was always near the top in terms of academic grade and field performance plus he'd already been on numerous missions wherein he had to fight. Granted none of those were even close to approaching the level of combat he'd already seen on this one, but still!

    "So, Quarian, name?" The man stayed silent a moment longer. "If I remember from Commander Shepard's message, it was Roki huh?"

    The man nodded but only a second after that a beep filled the elevator, signaling that they had come to a stop. A second later, the doors opened, and one of the marines gave the order for them to advance out and signaled for them to take cover behind some furniture momentarily. This elevator was on the south side of the room, with a set of doors to the left and a door marked stairway to its right. This arrangement was mirrored on the northern side while the east and west were home to a set of doors only. There was a sign accompanying the eastern set: Communications Control Room. Obviously, that was where they needed to be. He used his Omni-tool to pull up current local level communications signal statistics and was distressed to see that everything was frayed, indicating a strong jammer.

    "There's a jammer in the immediate vicinity; we need to find it."

    "Umm... is it that weird looking metal thing in the middle of the room?" He looked and, sure enough, there was a device set up in the middle that at a first glance was probably a local level signal jammer.

    "Yep... that would be it."

    "It's gotta go then!" At first, it seemed like a good enough idea to let the soldier destroy the signal jammer. After all, what reason could they ever have to let someone jam their signals and control their radio communication? Besides, Cerberus was definitely not using this one local-level jammer to affect their fleet communications so it should be harmless enough. Even as the soldier walked towards it, Joe turned toward the communications room and called for Roki and the other marines to follow him into the communications room. It didn't even occur to him until he heard the sound of metal breaking but, when it did occur, it hit him like a bag of bricks.

    "Oh no..."

    "What is it?"

    "That jammer was in the open; it was obviously strong and somewhat advanced."

    "Our mission does not involve capture of Cerberus technology; we need to ensure we can operate effectively."

    "It's not that! THINK! There's definitely a chip, a tracker, something, in a piece like that which would inform Cerberus when it was broken or disabled. If I had to guess, there's probably a squad nearby completing some other objective who have just been told about us being here." He felt like the biggest moron in the galaxy for not thinking of such an obvious thing moments before, when it could have actually still made a difference. Here they were, with just a skeleton crew of marines and one comms officer with a quarian who seemed a little awkward and gun shy with a group of cerberus forces undoubtedly heading toward them.

    "Aww damn... go go go! To the Comms Room!" The marine, apparently the current leader, said to all of them as they picked up the pace and jogged toward the room. "To any Alliance forces in the area," the man said over radio, "this is Alliance Marine James Thompson, on a mission to escort two essential personnel to communications. Requesting immediate backup, basement level. We are going to hold out in front of the comms room and let our guys work inside but we are expecting Cerberus forces any moment. Thompson out."

    The marines executed a breach and clear of the comms room when they got up to it but, in perhaps the sole turn of good fortune on this mission thus far. When Thompson signaled for him and Roki to enter, Joe immediately felt his stomach turn as he saw the room. The console was beat-up, everything had been shut-down, there were even bullet holes. Surely, the people of Cerberus had no bounds to their inhumanity, to be able to damage such beautiful communications equipment as was laid out before him. But, he didn't have any time to think about that. The marines had already left the room to establish a defensive line outside. Now, it was up to him and the Quarian to get things running.

    "Alright, Roki, you're an Engineering specialist so you're probably better with power supplies than me. Make sure all the essential components have access to the power supply; we only need to issue a distress signal. I'll make sure said components actually have the ability to function." Joe opened his Omni-Tool while Roki did the same, in addition to laying his tool-kit on the ground. Even if everything was easy to do, which he knew it wouldn't be, there was no way it would take less than five minutes to get everything functioning. So, assuming it was even possible, he would bet on at least fifteen.

    "Contact Elevator right!" And time was ticking way faster than that.
     
    Last edited:

    Recent chat visitors

    Latest posts

Top