Fighting Fire with Fire: Rogues and Demai attempt Infestationn Quest (17/08/2403)

Jais and Thales had recently become interested in the Infestation quest, contacting Roun ahead of time to see if they could team up with his squad to finish what they had started.  While they did this, Paco, Yasmin and Serai were also assembling their own small team in an attempt to take care of the quest themselves.

The team of Jais, Thales and Roun’s team would enter the restricted area first, having arrived some time before the other Rogues that were also interested in the quest.  The team would first go over the plans, while Nicola informed them of what that team had learned in their previous encounter, the most important thing of course being that taking on the creature’s directly was simply a bad idea.  With this in mind, the team would take a primarily scanning based approach, as the Titan Golem Thanatos bonded to Jais’ Tekera to lead the Demai’s scanning while Raena used her newly acquired stealth and scanning abilities to scout for the Rogue team.  With this decided on, the teams would ready themselves and make their way forward.  Roun and Jais would buff their accomplices to the best of their abilities before they made their way in, in search for the matriarch.

Sometime after Paco and his team would arrive in the area.  Much to Paco’s dismay, he had not been able to commandeer his factions scanning arrays to pinpoint the location of the matriarch prior to his entry into the facility, leaving him to find the source of the problem that old fashion way.  This was not too much of a problem for him as he and the rest of his team activated their Venom Suits now, going in fully stealthed as they looked to avoid encounters on the periphery while they made their way towards the place most likely to harbour the matriarch.

Unfortunately for Jais, Thales and Roun, they would lack the inherent level of stealth needed to make their way through the forest without incident, drawing this large team into a conflict with the Krickau rather early on, but this time Roun’s team would not fall into the same trap which they had fallen into before.  The team would quickly spread out and separate the fire of their opponents, while Thales flooded the battlefield with summons to further disperse their attacks.  Raena and Jais’ Tekera would sneak off in the conflict under their stealth to continue to search for the source of the problem while the others stayed back and acted as diversions for the extremely aggressive bunch of Krickau.

Paco, Yasmin and Serai’s team would make it much further in before they faced conflict, no doubt due to the stealth capabilities of the Venom Suits which they wore, but eventually the sheer density of the Krickau would be too much for them to pass through without drawing attention to themselves.  The massive Brad Fury would be the first to trigger the paranoid creatures into an offensive mode, but the storm of plasma would be enough to render the remaining venom suit users visible and force them to engage their opponents now.  Unfortunately for this team, they had not learned from Roun’s mistakes as they attempted to maintain a v-shaped formation, allowing the powerful creatures to concentrate their plasma attacks and pin them to a single location while they fought back and tried to push their way forward.

Meanwhile, Raena and Sarah, the Tekera, would make their way through the vast landscape, using their advanced scanning abilities to locate the most powerful energy signature as the searched for the matriarch.  This would take them some time, but with Raena’s abilities in particular, they would be able to achieve it without running into much resistance allowing them to return to their team without engaging her and relaying the location to the team.  Roun would opt to take care of the clean up duty with the assistance of Nicola and Thanatos, while the others made their way towards the Matriarch to complete the assignment.

Back on the other side of the restricted area, Paco’s team was learning the hard way that no matter how many of the plasma spewing rodents they could destroy, more just seemed to be popping out of the wood work.  Even with their combined dimensional abilities and other means of teleportation, they still found that they could only proceed forwards at a relatively slow rate, much to their own dismay.  Another annoying factor was the fact that regardless of how much energy they were outputting, they never seemed to be able to overwhelm their opponents either, as high energy concentrations seemed to simply attract more Krickau, which added to the opposing energy they faced, simply balancing the scales with every trick that they pulled out.

Roun, Nicola and Thanatos had their hands full with the creatures that they faced, as they all utilised their mobility to avoid being pinned and took out clusters of the Krickau strategically.  Much like Paco and the others however, they were making no real headway in terms of reducing the overall numbers of the pests, but they did provide enough of a “light-show” to keep a good set of the Krickau interested in annihilating them while the others made a break for it, and the remainder of the Krickau assault team gave chase.  Between Jais’ Frost Grenades, Raena’s energetic draining abilities and Thales summons, they would manage to slow the group somewhat, but as always, more would come, forcing them to focus now on pushing past the wave of Krickau that guard the Matriarch in an attempt to dispatch her.

Raena would take the remainder of Jais’ Frost Mines and make her way towards the area surrounding the Matriarch to set them up while the rest of the team delayed their arrival to deal with the hordes of Krickau that rushed them.  Once everything was set up, Haezar would move into a defensive position, shielding Jais while he gather ethereal and astral energy to himself, charging his energy to its maximum before they rushed towards the matriarch. 

By now, Paco’s team would also manage to push far enough through the hordes to be able to spot the location of the matriarch, even though the pinning prevented them from going forward at a particularly faster rate.  In the distance they would see a massive chunk of the landscape erupt into an icy tundra as the combined freezing abilities of the team actually managed to flash freeze the area and most of the Krickau in it.  The resulting streams of plasma would take Jais out of the picture quickly now, while Haezar and Thales’ ninetails stormed the cave which housed the Matriarch.

A stream of plasma would send both Haezar and the binding summon flying back out of the cave mouth in seconds before the team no combined their range abilities to blast blindly into the cave.  From a distance, Paco woud curse now as he realised that the prize which he sought was slowly slipping out of his reach, forcing his team now to protect him as they shifted to a circular formation.  Paco would push his energy charge to its maximum, before he used his massive Control to warp the entire crew into the icy area.

His plan would work, but like Jais, he would reappear without any energy in his reserve and find himself targeted by the Krickau that had now moved to take up defensive positions around the mother of their ‘nest’.

By now, Roun, Nicola and Thanatos would also make their way to the mouth of the cave that housed the matriarch, unfortunately brining with them not just more firepower but also more Krickau to ad to the already overwhelming numbers, something that brought a huge sigh to those present at the cave opening.  Nicola and Thanatos, being the heavy damage dealers would once again head for the mouth of the cave, while Haezar activated his Dynamic Guard and stormed the entrance once more.  Once again, within seconds he would be blasted back out, but luckily this time Nicola and Thanatos would not follow him.

While the others held the line on the outside, Nicola and Thanatos deal with the extremely powerful matriarch on the inside.  Though she was only about four times the size of the average Krickau, which made her about the side of an average dog, the sheer increase his power output was something that could not be missed.  Nicola and Thanatos would be forced to maximise their defensive abilities each time she let lose a plasma blast, as even when she missed the relatively small nest still filled up with flames.  Luckily, with Nicola’s Corona Morph, heat only served to boost her abilities, so once she could dissipate the actual offensive code and resist her opponent’s channeling force, she would be left with a well of energy to reuse against her opponent.  When this was combined with Nicola’s Genesis Break and Thanatos’ new Pyron enhancements, the two simply did not lack for power against the relatively frail matriarch.  Once they had wore her down enough, they would make their way out of the cave quickly, before Thales’ Seikfried bore into the cave to finish the job.

As the matriarch was dispatched, the remaining Krickaus lost their organisation, turning instantly to flee rather than continue their assault, allowing the two teams to breathe a sigh of relief.  On the inside of the cave a massive explosion would be building, causing the teams to turn now and use their respective shields as the unconcentrated blast washed over them.   As it did so, the energy bonded to a few of the channelers present, primarily though who had directly engaged the Matriarch herself, while the rest just swept over them and dissipated into the atmosphere.  The groups would then make their way out of the restricted area.

Outcome: With the Matriarch dispatched the Krickau have lost all coordinated effort, allowing them to be dispatched far more easily, a task that will be taken care of by the authorities.  Some of the members of the teams have received the Matriarch’s energies and with it have gained a new ability.  This ability manifests as a disproportionately dense plasma aura which can be used for melee attack or shot off as a plasma stream.  This ability seemed to concentrate the users total channelling force into a very small area to provide some guard breaking ability.

Jais: 390 Exp

Thales: 350 Exp

Roun: 280 Exp
  Nicola: 360 Exp
  Haezar: 320 Exp
  Daito: 300 Exp
  Raena: 390 Exp
  Aeriul: 290 Exp

Paco: 350 Exp
  Daniel: 300 Exp
  Jessica: 300 Exp
  Tyra: 350 Exp

Serai: 350 Exp
  Brad: 300 Exp
  Jada: 510 Exp
  Leon: 340 Exp

Yasmin: 380 Exp
  Aggy: 300 Exp