Disclaimer: I do not own Worm, Worm is the property of wildbow
This fic will be co-written by Wanton Construction
I planted my face in my hands as the die came to a stop, the little '1' it landed on staring me straight in the face. Jon laughed. I turned to Brad. "I've apparently gouged my own eyes out or some shit; what do I see on a natural 1?"
"Crown's sight is fixed on a cardinal flying more or less directly above you all." He rolled a die behind his screen. "Dagger, roll your spot check."
Mary picked up the die and gave it a toss. "12. What do I win?"
Brad adjusted the music playing from his laptop. Rarely a good sign. "Congratulations, you manage to not miss the fucking enormous disc that looks like something straight out of Independence Day emerging from the thunderclouds overhead. Anyone else wanna roll a spot check?"
Nick went next. "What does a...17...19 total get me?" he asked. Brad made a small contemplative noise.
"Impulse; you're pretty sure it's the same diameter as the city, and you've got a bad angle, but you can almost make out what looks to be a human face in the center of the disc."
"Oh good god, we're fucked," Nick groaned in response.
"Excellent," Clark began. "Antares feels the deep need to get up there as quickly as possible; it could be some prime real estate."
"Yes, a giant floating thing just appears in the sky and has a face; why wouldn't the first thought be 'I need a summer home there'?" Mary deadpanned.
"Hey, I never said it had to be a summer home," Clark defended.
Brad laughed and rolled his eyes before playing the air raid clip from his laptop."Out of the pan and into the fire!" Brad said with no small amount of glee.
"Question; do we still have the communicator thingies that Dragon dropped off like 7 sessions ago?" I asked. Brad looked at me with a grin. "In fact, they're going off right now. Directors Piggot and Renick are issuing orders for all capes in the area to begin aiding civilian evacuation."
"I guess we head to the nearest useful location?" Mary asked. "And I'll make sure Crown Jr is fully charged. Or something."
"Sure. Oh, spot checks again everybody," Brad said.
I planted my face into the table as the traitorous icosahedron displayed another natural 1. Jon had another laugh at my expense, before handing me 3 other d20s. "Ian, I think that die in particular just doesn't like you."
"S'aright; I'm getting the shit rolls out of the way now," I responded.
Jon gave a quick fist pump as his roll came up a natural 20. "Cloak fucking sees it. I don't know what it is yet, but consider it observed!" he said pointing straight at the die.
"Indeed you do. Stuff begins falling from the giant thingamabob in the sky. As they get closer to the ground, you see that what looks like black rain is actually a bunch of giant spikes that are impacting the ground. A spike lands kind of close to you guys, about 80 yards away, straight through some poor bastard. After a couple of seconds, though, the corpse seems to rip itself away from the spike and reform into some strange panther-looking thing with scythe-like claws coming out of its shoulders."
Brad then proceeded to pull out the rolled up grid to his side, and got out his bag of minis, grabbing the tiger to represent the spawned thing. "Place yourselves, and roll initiative. Thank's to Cloak's sharp eyes you guys have one surprise round."
-ooo-
"I'm sorry, how much damage did the fucker do again?" Jon asked, mouth hanging a bit open. So was mine for that matter.
"27," Brad stated simply.
"Jesus fuck, and that was ONE attack that landed on Cloak. Holy shit I'm in trouble…..I'm at...4 HP," Jon moaned.
"Antares sincerely hopes that one of dem bois breaks into his house and slams his scythe hands straight through his skull, killing him instantly," Clark quipped. Nick sighed. "One, are you seriously going to keep calling those things 'dem bois' for the rest of the fight? Two, that's like the 7th 'killing me instantly' meme tonight."
"8th," countered Mary. "I've been counting." Everyone had a good chuckle at that.
"Well to be fair, 'dem bois'," I started with exaggerated air quotes, "are really really glass cannon-y; I mean, Dagger took out the other dude with a glancing hit that only did 9 damage. And the red shirts are putting in some work too," I finished, pointing at the minis that represented the national guard.
"Annnnnyway, it's Cloak's turn. Would you like to retaliate?"
"How is that even a question? Dude's getting a knife in the brain," Jon retorted as the die fell on the table. "19 total to hit." Brad gave the thumbs up, and Jon rolled his damage. "Woo, max damage at 13! Is he dead? Please tell me the dickface is dead."
"The dickface in question is indeed dead; Cloak's knife is buried to the hilt in the creature's skull and it collapses immediately."
"MMMF, Cloak immediately summons a couple of clone images purely for the purpose of flexing on the corpse." Mary groaned at her boyfriend.
About an hour of combat and many whiffed attacks from both sides later, the last of roughly 20 discount Tyranids was murdered, along with several dozen civilians and a handful of armed national guard in the immediate vicinity.
"Well now that there's a small lull in the action, I guess Crown will go and pick up the dog tags on the soldiers' corpses, Gears of War style?"
"Sure. You get some karma out of it even."
Fuck yes. "Stairway to heaven boys, stairway to heaven," I said, writing down the pool increase. Not that it mechanically mattered anymore due to the last arc, but fuck it, I still have my pride goddammit.
"Well, that's all the combat I had planned for today; same time next week work for everybody?" Brad asked.
"Should work for me and Jon," Mary said. Clark had yet to miss a session to my knowledge, and I was all set that day. Nick was probably not going to be able to show, but Alex was almost certainly going to be there. Brad was probably going to fill Alex in.
"Yo, we fucking need Alex next session for Guardian's passive heals. Like, fuck, that damage is nuts," Jon said. "Either that, or get Jackie back in the game."
I said my goodbyes and hopped on the train back home.
-ooo-
Alex couldn't make it to this session either, unfortunately, citing responsible adult things. Brad decided that we need Guardian to do Guardian things, and decided to DMPC him for the rest of the session.
"Alrighty, last we left off, you had just finished killing a few of the nearby endbringer spawn, and-"
"Wait, when did we find out the floating city was an endbringer?" Clark interrupted.
"It's a floating city with a face on the underside of it raining murdercats and genestealer looking motherfuckers. What else is it going to be? You hear at some point that the Protectorate has started calling this one 'Babylon.'"
"Aww, c'mon Brad, missed opportunity there. Should've called it 'Sodom,'" Jon announced. I failed to suppress a fit of puerile giggles. Brad rolled his eyes.
"How's the evac going?" Clark asked.
"Very good question. Dragon's just started sending out updates, and the next one is playing right now: '1,843 civilians evacuated, estimated 23,000 death toll.'"
Ballsack. "And how much time has passed?"
"About 6 minutes. To be entirely fair, this thing pretty much popped into existence over Boston. No scanners (tinkertech or otherwise) picked up anything until the murderspikes started falling. The Triumvirate is still about 3 minutes out." Double ballsack.
Mary grabbed her die. "I wanna ask the visor a question," she began.
"Fair enough, what is it?"
Mary thought for a second. "How do we aid the civilian evacuation more efficiently?...with a…..26 total on the roll?"
Brad looked at her and changed the ambient music again. Hello there, feeling of apprehension! I was wondering when you'd show up again. "The visor comes back: 'check HQ premises.'"
"Well, that doesn't sound foreboding at all!" Mary chuckled as Brad began to set up the board.
"On your way to the HQ, dodging spikes and the occasional spawn things along with way too many corpses, Dagger's visor offers up further information. The civilian escape routes being offered up by the HQ are statistically the worst possible routes to take for survival, and in addition, they're exiting from the other side of the city from where Boston's EB shelters are."
Oh, fuck you Brad don't fucking tell me you -
"When you finally reach the Boston HQ, most of the guards who aren't dead are slumped against the walls, muttering incoherently. You finally get to the command room, and-" He placed down four additional figurines next to the two that represented Piggot and Renick.
He fucking did it. Vunderbar.
"-you see 4 capes standing in the room. Piggot and Renick are sitting in their chairs, staring straight at one of the capes while continuing to issue commands."
"Capedex time! Do I recognize any of them? Also, I make the announcement that HQ is compromised at the first available opportunity."
"All of them. One second-" Brad began to shade in a good chunk of the floor around the furthest figurine. "There we go. That right there is Silver Mercy. The two guys in front of her are Eligos and Scarecrow, and the one currently staring at the directors is Valefor. All members of the Fallen. Now, for my favorite part! Will saves!"
"Oh boy, Antares' favorite kind!" Clark said with a toss. "Something tells me a 6 total doesn't bode well for me, does it?"
"Nope! Other saves?" We went round the table. Cloak got a 15, Dagger a 14, Guardian a 19, and Crown pulled a nat 20. Woo.
"Ian roll again; you're at disadvantage because you still have PTSD from last arc." I planted my face into the table again.
"C'mon RNGesus please help…" The roll came out to a 3. "Or you can just fuck me with a rusty lead pipe. That works too I guess."
"Crown and Antares are viewing a hellscape in their own minds and are unable to act for the next round. Don't you guys just love master/stranger powers? Now Silver Mercy's turn. She looks different than the last time you saw her, having opted for what looks like a nun's getup if you added a bunch of wing patterns everywhere, and she's wrapped herself in some sort of silvery crystal protective layer. The metallic crystal seems to have a network pulsing roots coming out of it eating into the floor and outwards for about 40 feet. She turns to look at you.
" 'Oh you faithless heathens. Why? Why must you impede in our noble work and worship? You see how futile it is to fight against the Great Ones do you not? Even as you heretics managed to fell the Master of the Seas, the Forgotten City is born! Sacred deliverance is promised, and sacred deliverance they shall yield! And you will NOT stop them!' You guys notice the silver veins continue their expansion. Cloak's turn."
Jon blinked a few times. "Ok, so crazy bitch needed to die yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm not sure any of Cloak's knives are penetrating diamond anytime soon no matter how ill he is with them, so….lets bap Scarecrow I guess?...19 to hit?"
"Unfortunately that's actually a miss. Your knife seems like it's heading true, but it veers off course at the last second."
"Eligos being a fuckwit?" Jon asked. Brad nodded. "Guardian's go and he will move right about...here," he pointed on the grid, "and basically try and pull the flying kick trick on Scarecrow that I let him get away with 4 sessions ago; jumping kick pulling on the rebar in the walls to accelerate, and then immediately pushing on it so he doesn't land in the silver veins because that doesn't look like a fun time. He….hits, and….huh...damn near takes her head off.
Scarecrow drops her concentration; Crown and Antares can act next turn with a -2 penalty. Dagger's turn."
"C'mon Crown Jr., make me proud! Pew-ing Sliver Mercy with a 17 to hit."
"Once again, Eligos says no. The projectile disperses before it hit's its mark." Mary frowned. "What an asshole."
"Alrighty, Antares go."
"O goodie. I'mma try and fuck the floor where Silver is standing. Sonic '06 was a bad game and she should feel bad…..and that's a 39 total on the power roll. How'd I do?"
"You actually managed to interrupt her concentration quite a bit, and she lost 10 feet of silver veins. Well done. Crown's up."
"Aiming at Valefor." I rolled the die. RNGesus smiled upon me with the natural 20. "I crit his fucking ass. Max damage is 26." Fuck that guy.
"Nice. Your plasma bolt goes straight through his chest and obliterates a good portion of his heart and spine. He is dead as a doornail. Piggot and Renick kind of fall over." That was worthy of a fist pump.
After a few more rounds we managed to finally kill Eligos and Scarecrow. Neither normal Crown nor Dagger could hit hard enough to get through Silver Mercy's absolutely fucking stupid levels of damage reduction.
"Ian, why don't you pop the beast mode, see if that can get through?" Jon asked.
"Saving it for the mobs back outside. Besides I don't wanna fuck up this building any more than necessary. Antares can just whittle her down until she runs away or something."
"Alrighty. While you guys were doing that, the big three showed up. Eidolon is basically doing his best impression of a net catching as many spikes as he can. Legend's made a few artillery runs, and Alexandria is off doing Alexandria things."
"So how many more people got fucking destroyed?" asked Clark.
"Death toll is sitting around 38 grand right now. Rate's dropping as Accord and Tattletale managed to set up a secondary HQ."
Mary quirked an eyebrow. "How long were we in there for? There's no way that could...wait, he's Accord, he can totally do that, nevermind carry on."
I laughed. Thinkers be broken, son.
"As you guys step outside, you hear some more announcements. The general rundown is that 'sufficiently powerful blasters' seem to be capable of damaging Babylon. Also, this is the first time in endbringer fight history that conventional arms have been effective. In addition to Legend, Purity, and other similar capes, the USAF have been peppering Babylon's topside with lots and lots of rockets. It seems to actually be mildly annoyed.
"Furthermore, you guys have a choice now; there are two evac points next to EB shelters. I-90 is easier to defend but DM-ex-machina states that more civvies will die. I-93 is the inverse naturally."
"So what I heard is Crown is raging and proceeding to take potshots at the floating shitnugget while we head to the I-93 point," I stated. "I'm down with that; more XP that way," Jon responded with a shrug.
"Hold up. Asking the visor another question: 'How do we maximize the civilian survival rate?' with a…..wooo nat 20!"
Brad grinned. Once again, not generally a good sign. "The visor heats up and starts whining as it throws itself into overdrive. After about 40 seconds, it comes back with the answer: 'Kill Eidolon.'" Jon, and I facepalm almost at exactly the same time, given that by this session both of us had read the entirety of canon. Jon finished literally days ago. I'd mown through it in about 2 and a half weeks after the 4th session of play. Unlike me, Jon took his time as he possesses this magical and elusive trait known as 'self-control'.
"Dagger's poking her visor, trying to get it to show a different answer because that sounds like an egregious fucking error right there," Mary said with a very concerned expression on her face. I struggled not to laugh. "One more time, trying a different query along the lines of: 'which point has a higher benefit-to-cost ratio?'"
"I'm just gonna give this one to you; I-93 is totes worth, especially now that Guardian is with you. Assume I'm also DMPC-ing Impulse to do useful things near the secondary HQ. Anyway, you made your choice?"
"It looks like we're going to I-93 to fuck some bitches up," Clark noted.
"Alright. I'm assuming Crown rages and takes potshots along the way. It's going to take me a bit to set up, so now is the optimal bathroom break."
-ooo-
Remember kids, Korean barbecue is exactly as spicy on the way out as it was on the way in.
"I want my karma tap back dammit!" I moaned to Jon as I exited the bathroom. "The pool's up to 78 and I can't spend any!"
"Imagine for a minute that you get it up to 100 and Brad lets you unload all of it at once, and you get to just do stupid amounts of damage and fucking delete someone from existence; just….*boop* gone."
I laughed. "Yep. Anyway back to our regularly scheduled Sisyphean struggle."
The newly set up battle grid was now complete, and Brad had started using pocket change as he'd run out of minis. Well fuck.
"Uhhh, Brad? What're the big dudes back here?" asked Jon.
"Oh those, give me all of two seconds. These squares are 10ft instead of 5. Everyone here? Alright. See those colored blocks? Those are EB shelters, and these dudes-" he pointed at several coins on top of the shelters "-are more soldiers. More capes will be showing up soon. The big things back there; they're roughly humanoid looking, except devoid of skin with asymmetrically placed chitinous armor, and about 12 to 15 feet tall. Think Attack on Titan-ish. Anywho, this one starts moving up, and pretty much gives a lazy backhand to an SUV in its way. It gets tossed right through the second floor of the building to its side."
"Goddammit, that is one rude dude. Fuck it that's what I'm calling them now," Clark said. I looked at the board with equal parts apprehension and glee. When your character is a hammer, and there are so very many nails clamoring towards you…
-ooo-
"So after Chevalier just went full man mode on that group of dudes, it is….Dagger's turn." When Brad was rolling for Chevy that turn, he seemed incapable of rolling less than an 18 on the die.
"Uhh, so far the tactic of just shooting Crown and having him blow shit up has been working, so let's keep doing that. Pew Pew. Also, what the fuck has Skitter actually done this whole fight besides dodge? Didn't you say that her bugs can't do shit against the not-zerg?" asked Mary.
"She's the reason you know who's who and where they are with buildings in the way. Skitter is a walking maphack," Brad responded. Which was awesome because fuck fog of war. "Crown, your go."
"More murder! Aiming right between the two rude dudes who broke through the barricade…...and that's a total of 57 damage. They drop?"
"Y- one second...yep they're dead." Of course, Brad had to immediately start rolling a ton behind his screen. The little 'ooo' sound he made on the last roll told me that once again I have fucked up. He played an explosion sound.
"In the resulting blast, one of the cars exploded instead of simply being tossed by the shockwave. THAT explosion then hit a damaged gas main for the block-" he proceeded to shade in the building behind said cars "-and pretty much this whole stretch has been reduced to rubble and flames."
My forehead and the table were good acquaintances by this point.
"Alright, who was the asshole still driving a Pinto?" Jon joked. "On the plus side, I'd assume that turning a city block into a fireball large enough to make a Sister of Battle wet means more dead spawnlings?"
"Oh yeah, a good chunk of the next wave got taken out, but so did a number of retreating soldiers."
Goddammit.
"Furthermore, in addition to this," Brad started as he proceeded to place no less than a dozen more rude dudes entering the visible battlefield, and another fresh wave of the not-zerg, "you also hear a horrible screeching noise overhead. Babylon is getting a little annoyed with Legend and Co.'s aerial runs, so it's upped the ante with a bombing run of its own. A flock of creatures that look like unholy fusions of giant worms with bat wings and bees flies overhead spewing greenish-yellow projectiles. Everybody dodge!"
I blew a hero point to ignore a crit fail, and Brad ruled that Guardian's forcefield did block the spittle. Dagger was already under some cover, so no problems there. Antares just made the check to not get gooped.
People who did get gooped: half of the participating soldiers, a couple dozen civilians, Crusader. Apparently, the murdergoop acted like an ultra corrosive substance to anything organic, while leaving buildings and concrete and metal and whatnot totally unscathed. Good to know.
"Also, everybody who isn't in a machine gun nest is out of ammo, and down to two frag grenades apiece."
"Fucking beautiful. What's the death toll at?" I'm not sure I really wanted to know the answer.
"Looking at an estimated 300K dead so far, with a confirmed 18,350 escaping the city, and an additional 8,600 made it to the EB hidey-holes."
"Oh good. It's a stomp apparently. Are we at least making headway on Babylon itself?" asked Mary.
"The face has adopted an expression that can best be described as a derisive sneer."
"Even better. He's kicking our asses AND shitposting irl. Clearly, we need to make him into free affordable housing when all of this is over."
Thanks for the insight Clark.
Another round of projectiles, stabbing, explosions, and general mayhem later, and Bitch managed to fall off of Judas, and subsequently off of the roof Judas was standing on. The rules for fall damage are decidedly unforgiving.
"Antares is going to attempt some first aid, and to help move Bitch into a not terrible location. Dem bois are not currently nearby, so can I take 10 on it?"
"Bitch is being less than cooperative. Roll it."
Clark grumbled. "What's a 13 do for her?"
"You stabilize her mostly. Anything else?"
"YES. Antares takes out and opens his umbrella to use as cover against the goopening." Everybody laughed.
"Won't that not work? The umbrella is made out of nylon right? Granted it's not what people normally think of when the word 'organic' is used, but it still meets the chemical definition of an organic compound," Jon pointed out.
Brad put a finger to his chin. "Huh. Alrighty, I'm amending the definition; the goop kills the shit out of substances with amino acids. The umbrella will actually work." Because of course it would. Antares is by default always the most flamboyantly dressed motherfucker in any situation, and now the guy was protecting himself against super acid spit with a fucking umbrella, while people are busy getting horribly mutilated and murdered all around him. There's a sight for the mind's eye.
"Welp, that just means you get advantage on the next dodge check as the flyers come by for another swing."
Most of the PCs passed. I took 48 damage to the face because apparently being made of plasma doesn't matter to EB spawn goop.
"Let's see here, Parian...passes-"
"GOOD," yelled Clark. "Antares was going to be horribly upset otherwise."
"Why? You don't know her," Brad pointed out. "Antares is a man of high fashion," countered Clark, "he would be devastated to see her talent be taken from the world."
I chuckled. Let it never be said that Clark can't get into a role.
"Anyway, Victor...passes, Krieg….passes, Dragon...doesn't, but that's not terribly concerning just yet, Regent is fine, Clock is fine, Othala….is fucking dead, Kid Win gets slurrified, Skitter...oof just barely makes it, and Bitch….ouch.
"Bitch crit fails. She tries to stand up too quickly, but her leg gives out, and she falls away from you Antares, and out of the cover of the umbrella. A goop ball hits your umbrella, and splashes off, right onto her head. She can scream for all of half a second."
Ouch indeed.
A few more rounds passed before the big beefy sons of bitches had made within striking distance of the EB shelters, and started pounding on the walls. The soldiers had used all their ammunition, and it was now looking even more fucked. Brad looked at the clock quickly.
"You guys notice the creatures stop mid-whatever they were doing. They return to a neutral stance and then begin to melt/vaporize into a mix between ashes and black mist. Babylon's face changes to a neutral expression, and then a smile as it begins to leave."
"What the fuck? It's just like 'Well that was fun, later guys!' and up and leaves?" asked Mary. Brad nodded in response as he began to put everything away.
"Fucking endbringers man," Mary said. I had to agree.
"I'm pretty sure we can chalk this one up as a big fat L," Jon stated. "Like, it's really letting us know exactly how hard it could've fucked us. What's the final numbers?" he asked, putting his sheet away. It was getting late and we all had to get home.
"Final numbers were going to be around 480 grand confirmed dead, with about 30K confirmed safe, and another 120K unaccounted for. I'll throw up a doc with the cape deaths at some point. Same time next week work for everybody?"
-ooo-
Getting home was a pain in the dick. On weekends I make a point of trying to catch the 12:27 am train. Experience has told me that the next three are almost always shitshows. Unfortunately, that train was cancelled tonight, as well as the one after it. Switch problems or some shit.
The train that I need finally leaves around 1:45, and it's packed full of people leaving from all sorts of venues. Hockey games, concerts, what have you. Doesn't help that most of these people are drunk, and we have 3 trains worth of passengers trying to be crammed into one.
Problem with drunk people is that there's different flavors, and this train happened to be filled with the white girl wasted and belligerent varieties. By the time I got home, it was 3:10 in the morning, I had someone else's partially digested fries on my shoes, pants soaked with beer, a bloody nose, and bruised knuckles. And on top of that, it had started raining.
While not the worst commuting experience I've ever had, definitely makes the top 10.
I tossed my shit on the couch, went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, and saw the bottle of rum was still about a third full. I was already in a shitty mood, and I have trouble going to sleep when angry, so polishing off the bottle seemed like a halfway decent idea at the time.
I didn't even bother taking off the rest of my clothes before flopping on the bed.
-ooo-
A flash outside interrupted my attempt to fall asleep.
My eyes shot open to lights overhead that was way too bright. And the floor was not very comfortable at all.
Wait. I shut the lights off. And I wasn't sleeping on the floor last I checked. The fuck?
I blinked a bunch until my eyes adjusted to the bright lights of…..I was in a public bathroom of some type.
In different clothes than what I fell asleep in, and….
Fucking diseased cunt waffle on a stick I have nothing in my pockets. No phone, no wallet, no money, no ID, nothing. I barely managed to peel myself off of the floor and reach the nearest toilet before emptying my stomach into it.
After a minute or two, I managed to stumble towards a sink and washed my face a bit.
"...gggrrrnngh….."
I froze.
"...what...who...Ian?"
I turned around. Sitting on the ground where I hadn't noticed him before is Nick. Except with one massive difference.
"Uhhh, Nick, you might want to look in the mirror."
He pulled himself to his feet, walked over. His mouth hung open for about 5 seconds. "I'm WHITE. HOW DID I GO TO BED ASIAN AND WAKE UP WHITE? Ian, what the fuck is going on holy shit why did I wake up in a public bathroom-"
He stopped mid panic looking at something behind me. Clark had just started getting up, staring at the both of us.
"Ian? Nick? What's going on? Was I drugged while not looking?" he asked getting to his feet. He blinked a couple of times. "Ian, why is Nick white?"
"Clark, I think you want to take a look in the mirror yourself," Nick said.
"Holy shit I just dropped like 90 pounds and became ginger. I was apparently magically roofied instead of the normal kind."
"And I'm guessing neither of you has anything in your pockets either?" A quick search and a shake of the head confirmed my suspicions. I let out a sigh. "Let's see if we can even figure out where the fuck we are first." I headed for the exit and hesitated a bit as I saw the Red Sox logo on the door. No fucking-
Clark pushed me out of the way to open the door.
Yep. Fenway Park.
It's the middle of the night. Neither my friends nor I have any money, ID, or phones, and now we're actively trespassing in a city that none of us have been to with no recollection whatsoever of how we got there. I don't even bother trying to go back in the bathroom before throwing up again.
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