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File 168087579220.png - (33.95KB , 600x600 , gm_alice.png )
1060899 No. 1060899 ID: 25d16d

Maybe in space, maybe in the future...

Even if it's a strange bloom, how about Alice's adventures in the bio-dungeon?

(Art by the inestimable tippler)

https://questden.org/wiki/Bloom
Expand all images
>>
No. 1060900 ID: 25d16d
File 168087584522.png - (128.10KB , 500x500 , p1.png )
1060900

Everything is fine. Alice is fine. We're alone here and nothing is wrong.

The derelict craft is dark and lifeless and emptied around her; barricades broken, rooms broken up by weapons fire and corridors buckled and warped by questing rhizome growths.

Everything is fine, and Alice is sure she can continue to make everything fine!

What if there's visitors though? Alice doesn't want anyone to catch her sleeping - although Alice has not been sleeping - and that means there is work for us to be done!
>>
No. 1060901 ID: 25d16d
File 168087595748.png - (139.00KB , 500x500 , p2.png )
1060901

As the sole occupant of this ruin, Alice needs to fortify it! And what else do we need? Defenders, denizens, friends, companions, monsters!

Biological archive is available, and surplus mass to fabricate subservient worker-body facsimiles.

But of what? Alice can come up with two types along the following broad archetypes:

Brute: Raw physical power!
Sneak: Ambushes, well hidden or hard to pin down.
Tank: As in tough to kill not an armoured vehicle.
Wrecker Attack focused.
Trapper: Lures and snares.
Swarm: Strength in numbers.
Weird: Terrifying gimmick beasts.

But that's not a lot by itself. What features might she tweak to make these two types of creature work well within their niche?
>>
No. 1060902 ID: 99f29a

Weird Trappers. Gotta renovate the ruins and build up some infrastructure and accomplish Alice's hitherto unknown dreams of starting a massage parlor! Therefore focus on masseuses and tourist traps.
>>
No. 1060903 ID: fb2164

>Tank
>Swarm
Oboi...

Bonus Action: Construct Aditional Pylons
>>
No. 1060904 ID: 049950

Sneak trapper. The tourists will never see it coming.
>>
No. 1060905 ID: 503f78

Well that depends. If Alice is still concerned about eating sentient creatures or becoming a monster, I'd say trapper and swarm, immobilize and if they won't calm down, have the swarm consume them.

If she doesn't give a fuck anymore I'd say go hard offense. I'd guess brute is the mid point between tank and wrecker, thus I'd say brute and sneaky, having brutes engage and then sneakers move in on distracted enemies while they are engaged, or if tactically advantageous use them to pick off supporting attackers without being seen.
>>
No. 1060906 ID: e5709d

01: Plants are Patient
Sneak + Tank
Description: A redwood-themed plant that disguises itself as a natural barricade. Patiently wait for adventurers to pass, then moves into position to block their escape route. Unlike an automated trap barricade, this sentient defender can adjust its tactics for fine-tuned bypass prevention measures like growing roots across the local area to prevent "drill us out of here" space dwarf shenanigans.

02: Loaded Kibble
Weird + Swarm
Description: A swarm of dice-shaped ants with symbols. Deployed as a 'trap', these anthropods will scatter across the floor and develop a glow with intensity depending on the symbol they 'rolled', with relative boosts to stats. However, the entire swarm is holding back; low rolls will charge up an 'overdrive' meter. When triggered by the Dungeon Commander, Farengee swarms in overdrive will collectively act as if their strength was double the maximum roll for a short period.

03: Nymphodryadia
Wrecker + Weird
Description: A sexy dryad with lethally aggressive prowling. She is constantly in heat, and will crave sexual gratification to the point that it fuels her volatility. The more aroused the opponents, the stronger and angrier she becomes, powering her grappling attacks. During sexual intercourse, tendrils will infest her target, siphoning nutrients while rupturing organs. At climax, she will reproduce, turning her victim's corpse into a seed sac. Seeds will grow into various species.

04: Vine is Cancelled
Brute + Trapper
Description: A hulking titan made of carefully interlinked, tightly wound ivy vines. When damaged, they will unleash vines towards the battlefield, then pull everything inwards. Weakness to flame is increased compared to other plant monsters, but ongoing flame damage will also shoot AOE flaming vines everywhere.
>>
No. 1060907 ID: af8864

Weird: Knotvines. These strange snake/rope-like servitors coil themselves around the limbs of intruders and fuse or tie themselves to nearby features, constricting and restraining. For those friendly to them, they also make for handy self-tying ropes and can aid in rapid vertical movement, especially in numbers. Their method of actual attack is lashing their bodies to crack with disturbing whipping force.

Trappers: Budling. Little flowerbuds that have good autonomy and can scamper about on tentacled coils sprouting from the bottom of their buds. A main manipulator tendril with a mounted eye can rise from inside the bud and manipulate matter, creating traps of various simple to complex configurations, and they can work together on larger projects. Their closed budform seems small and unthreatening, and they attempt to use this to lure or ‘invite’ guests into their prepared zones.

They have synergy in arranging traps together with local clusters of Knotvines.
>>
No. 1060908 ID: 4e0f30

Sneakers and tanks. Any robot chassis you can colonize to form a framework for a durable monster that never stops coming? And it’ll need some ranged acid spitters so taking your attention away from the slow moving man o’ war is a bad idea… this is the perfect environment for some ceiling friends to play. Make some climbing crawling body-jacking copies of your head that can turn invaders into new friends.
>>
No. 1060911 ID: 4314ed

"Trapper" is one choice.

Not sure about the second. "Weird" sounds like it may allow for variety, but less effective variety maybe?
>>
No. 1060918 ID: 1effd3

Sneak: Just follow people around and see if they have any game son their phones. Oh yeha and make them immensely uncomfortable.
>>
No. 1060921 ID: 4ae479

Whoa what an unexpected revival.

Recommending >>1060907 suggestion for "knotvines." Good stealthy general support form with independent utility and useful symbiotic applications for more mobile/active servants. Serpentiform body and role also naturally optimised for subsistence conditions; small and mostly sessile, indicating low energy maintenance and biomass cost. Allows for deployment of many individuals and preserves Alice-Garden resources in fully colonised environment. Possibly leans into "ant-swarm" >>1060906 and similar themes. Could adjust later for adaptive mobility to allow for threatening swarming behaviour.

Trappers are the natural choice if the concern is pesky visitors, but more mobile variant is necessary. Suggestion for "Singer" trapper-sneak servant form, mobile mimic-changelings that utilise imitation of non-Garden bioforms and communication patterns to lure in and dispose of intruders. Adopts existing information from Alice memories (?) for initial physiognomies and sound/behaviour repository, two sub-types of human and xotl (latter limited largely to visual mimicry). Would operate with greater independence and tend towards areas of lower rhizome growth concentration, behaving as "survivors" to facilitate friendly approach of intruder species. Robust disposable sting hidden in forward chest cavity thrusts into close prey from pectoral muscle cluster (impale quickly and decouple, move on to other targets), retractable gracile spike-blades in each arm as secondary means of attack. Homiform body allows sufficient range of motion and speed for active combat, in addition to manual dexterity necessary for operation of intruder weaponry and flexible symbiotic usage of knotvines. In open combat conditions, ideally operates synergistically to terminate targets focused on eliminating knotvines, or draws attention and fire to allow sneaking knotvines opportunity to whip or detain enemies.
>>
No. 1060925 ID: 2aa5f0

sneak and trapper for all your Vietcon war flashback needs.
>>
No. 1060927 ID: f8083d

I like the Weird Trapper idea.
>>
No. 1060941 ID: a7a180

Create trappers that blend into the scenery and hug guests and swarmers that chatter excitedly to guests. Kill them with kindness!
>>
No. 1060961 ID: 800641

One of my fave quests is here with its incredible aesthetic!

I like Weird Trappers
>>
No. 1061092 ID: ef5589

Lesse... well if they're not affected by morale, Swarm is best choice. Overwhelming force is always good to have if other plans go south. Especially if you can rebuild fast if the overwhelming force fails.
What would pair best with that...?
Temped to say trappers to go full Kobolds of the Tucker phenotype.
However, probably best to go with Sneak because of the synergy the two would have. Sneaky scouts find a weak spot, Swarm hits it before they're aware they're being hit at all.
Swarm fails? Good luck finishing it off. Poor bastards who try will find their offensive hampered at every turn by ambushes.
>>
No. 1061142 ID: ae1513

Sneak and Swarm sound like a good combination. Something distracting and difficult to pin down combined with something powerful but dependent upon distractions.

Maybe fairies for the swarm? Have them glow brightly and gibber constantly to hide that they are made entirely from cute little tentacles. Tune up their hug-force a little too!

Sneaky could be some self-setting tent-pegs. Mount a pneumatic bone-spike generation/launching-organ on dozens of itty-bitty spidery-leggies to make sure that nobody slips on wet surfaces! Ooh, like all of the great sneaks in media, make sure they can provide narration of every single thing they do!
>>
No. 1061663 ID: 3d5005
File 168182774157.png - (136.98KB , 500x500 , p3.png )
1061663

Alice sets the xotl skull down and concentrates ferociously. There's a lot of things to get done. A lot of things to go right. She's going to make lots of friends and they have to be sturdy and well made so when she cares about them they don't die. This is very important in a friend: not dying when you get too close. None of these are going to be weapons, these are all just very aggressive gardening tools yes she tells her oncoming headache.

>If Alice is still concerned about eating sentient creatures or becoming a monster-
This is eating people in self defence, this is fine everything is super.

>A sexy dryad with lethally aggressive prowling. She is constantly in heat, and-
No~
>>
No. 1061664 ID: 3d5005
File 168182781033.png - (122.92KB , 500x500 , p4.png )
1061664

>>Trapper
>Knotvines. These strange snake/rope-like servitors coil themselves around the limbs of intruders and fuse or tie themselves to nearby features, constricting and restraining. For those friendly to them, they also make for handy self-tying ropes and can aid in rapid vertical movement, especially in numbers.
Yes, good, excellent, their best trait: their wiggles. But also their best trait: FRIENDSHIP. You can never have enough rope, Alice is sure she has been told, so it's important to have enough rope to hang around with.

>Their method of actual attack is lashing their bodies to crack with disturbing whipping force.
Also teeth, Alice thinks these need some nice, humanising teeth.

>Chatter excitedly to guests. Kill them with kindness!
With teeth right, this means biting?

>Any robot chassis you can colonize to form a framework for a durable monster that never stops coming?
Alice has plenty of old pieces of armour she can plant the first few knotvines in! They can curl up inside for protection and unexpected wiggling.

>>Sneak
>ceiling friends to play.
It'll be a party on every surface! With all this partying Alice won't be able to sleep even if she wants to!

>Make some climbing crawling body-jacking copies of your head that can turn invaders into new friends.
Good, yes, then they'll have some body to love. There is a song about that, Alice is sure.

>Just follow people around and see if they have any game son their phones. Oh yeha and make them immensely uncomfortable.
Alice isn't sure why anyone would have games on their portable communicators, those are for calling people. But yes, invade their personal space, brilliant, yes, everything always dies when she is close enough to touch it so that'll work very well here.
>>
No. 1061665 ID: 3d5005
File 168182784038.png - (163.10KB , 500x500 , p5.png )
1061665

The first few knotvines and bedheads separate from Alice's body and wander vaguely about the room as they grow accustomed to their limbs and settle into their new home. Perfect. This is everything she dreamed they could be - Alice does not actually try to dream - as she looks on approvingly. One of the vines bites a head and it bites back. Yes good teeth. Very human.

>Gotta renovate the ruins and build up some infrastructure and accomplish Alice's hitherto unknown dreams of starting a massage parlor! Therefore focus on masseuses and tourist traps.
Massage? Yeah! Once she's spruced up the place, Alice should get hands on with some soft, breakable bodies! And trap some tourists.

But what does a tourist trap need? Attractions! Alice's new creatures are mainly sneaky sorts. She needs something that will draw the attention of visitors so they'll be nice and distracted! What might she be able to do on that front?
>>
No. 1061666 ID: 99f29a

>>1061665
Sexy singles in your area, obviously.
>>
No. 1061667 ID: 86e259

Hmm...something pretty! Like things that glow many colors! They can make patterns in their skin to dazzle, maybe communicate or convince. ...They're probably also toxic; such is the way of things.
>>
No. 1061669 ID: 090669

Restore some consoles to working order so people will try and interface with systems only to be interfaced themselves. Turn on a distress beacon so the pizza delivery guy knows where to go. Arrange former guests in upright positions with their arms pointing to give helpful directions to nowhere. Paint a bright red HELLO on the walls.
>>
No. 1061671 ID: dc4bad

>>1061665
need to think what'll entice guests to visit in the first place, no sense having attractions without anything encouraging visitors to come see them

Ideally we can do both!

Ambiance, music, radio signals.
Some unobtrusive blossoms that broadcast a sweet siren song on multiple wavelengths and possibly double as an alarm system internally. That should drum up some interest.

And of course some guest comfort needs to be addressed, a cold and dark hulk drifting through space is sure to encourage only bulky hardsuits, artificial light sources and enviro masks. We need atmosphere, heat and light. Some form of bioluminescent trees or fungus that give off heat and breathable gasses of various types.
Getting the right balance can be a bit tough, space is a big place after all and adjusting the atmosphere to the right mix for the right species could be a bit tough, the occasional poisoning might be unavoidable but it's all worth the effort right?
>>
No. 1061672 ID: 3fc93e

You need atmosphere, of a pleasant gas mix and appropriate amount of humidity and pleasant trace scents, you need a correct amount of light and shadow and ambient/diffuse and directed light, you need gravity of the sort that doesn't cause nausea, you need a lack of damaging radiation and obviously present defenses (ie, mass) against that, you need to enforce a narrow range of temperatures in the living area, you'll need to have a correct day/night cycle, you'll need facilities for providing food, bathing, waste management, water, etc. needs. You'll need to provide a narrow range of ambient sounds that isn't completely quiet, but is relatively quiet and soothing and lets spacers know the life support is functioning.

The basic mechanism for a plant to provide that to most sapients in space is a very very large wagon wheel dyson tree design.

See: https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/51e53e97e6084
>>
No. 1061673 ID: 634644

A maze is an attraction, right? Just do some interior redecorating! Build walls of scrap and/or flesh, with passages folks have to bow low or crawl through, unless they want to spend their time clearing them, in which case you've at least slowed them down.

Maybe put in some puzzles they can solve to garner better passage. Scribble words and hints on the walls, add some challenge and ambiance!
>>
No. 1061674 ID: 634644

>>1061673
And art exhibits tend to be standing around inside mazes too. Create some creative sculptures to stand about and draw the eye!
>>
No. 1061675 ID: 3fc93e

You'll want plants that are both retinal and chlorophyll based, for the most options for novel chemistry. You'll want leaves that are all the main viable colors for converting light to energy -- green, purple, yellow, blue, red, and grayish-black, based on how much light they get and how much heat they'll need to manage. You'll want all those colors (except for the black one of course) for bioluminescence as well, but make sure all those colors aren't all in one place; go with color themes that are complementary in most areas. Flowers can break the rules somewhat and be extra vibrant.
>>
No. 1061696 ID: a7a180

Where are your manners Alice, you should set the table for a tea party in the garden!
While you're preparing to do some gardening, you should dig a compost pit for sleepy friends to nap in. Then leave the leftover biomass there to ferment.
At the heart of the dungeon, grow one big colorful plant that you can use as a pretty fly Venus bed.
>>
No. 1061714 ID: 006285

Well, you could leave loot lying around. So if anyone escapes, they'll tell people about the loot that could be found!
>>
No. 1061739 ID: 34713f

> Assuming this means "what would make this dungeon worthwhile to adventurers"...
Why, what garden would be complete without beautiful flowers, with aesthetic and properties unlike any other? They'll have to really work for that, of course, but even the lesser herbs strewn throughout this wonderful place are quite tasty and potent.
>>
No. 1061740 ID: e5709d

Well obviously, you need to advertise yourself as a social media influencer and get all the pervs to come visit their idol in person!

Also work on budding your daughter-clones so you can build a space garden empire.
>>
No. 1061744 ID: c0967c

Useful plant things for adventurers are things like exotic spices, exotic herbs, useful drugs (both medicinal and recreational), various extreme sorts of fruits and foods, various plant based materials that are EXTREMELY good at making clothing, armor, tools, buildings, vehicles, and weaponry, various objects that are useful for their chemical properties or use in industry, and so on.
>>
No. 1061745 ID: c0967c

Oh and various extreme fuels as well, and various sorta of luxury hygeine or grooming sorts of plant based items. Oh! And performance enhancing drugs. Really, all of the above you can make -- the more exotic the better, would make people want to delve your domain.
>>
No. 1061748 ID: 402b76

Ooh, you could grow tasty, delicious smelling fruit trees to lure people in. Maybe make some psychedelic fungi grow around them too. Might leave some of your friends to relaxed to struggle much.
>>
No. 1061749 ID: c0967c

>>1061748

See, you want to lure them in and keep them coming back which means the risk to reward has to be worth it. If one of a handful dies but the rest can gain enough riches that it's worth it, they'll keep coming back. This is a tricky thing that will require active balancing and tuning! Also, if it's reasonable that you could gain benefit from eating a wide variety and large amount of non sapient animals, that's something you want to let the thinking folk know. Maybe it improves their odds of survival, but not perfectly? Also something to tune!
>>
No. 1063583 ID: 3384c2
File 168389670299.png - (148.93KB , 500x500 , p6.png )
1063583

>Useful plant things for adventurers are things like exotic spices, exotic herbs, useful drugs (both medicinal and recreational), various extreme sorts of fruits and foods, various plant based materials that are EXTREMELY good at making clothing, armor, tools, buildings, vehicles, and weaponry, various objects that are useful for their chemical properties or use in industry, and so on.
So people... go to places... for goods and services? She mostly has broken machines, weird goo and inactive branchiated structural worker-mass. But if she grows more of that maybe some of it will be useful!

>Also, if it's reasonable that you could gain benefit from eating a wide variety and large amount of non sapient animals, that's something you want to let the thinking folk know.
What, think people are just going to have a lot of space sheep ('speeps') lying around?

>Where are your manners Alice, you should set the table for a tea party in the garden!
Alice is all out of tea but she is sure she has some suspicious potable fluids, but she doesn't have a tea pot. She looks at her companion but they don't have lips and such to drink the tea with either. Tea parties sure are hard, huh?

>Well, you could leave loot lying around. So if anyone escapes, they'll tell people about the loot that could be found!
Alice will have to think about this one some more later! This sounds like it'll need more in depth tinkering when she really needs to sort out some basic architecture.

>Well obviously, you need to advertise yourself as a social media influencer and get all the pervs to come visit their idol in person!
Where is Alice getting these ideas?? What is a 'social media' and what is an 'influencer' and what is the connection to pervs?

>Sexy singles in your area, obviously.
Alice is not an escort service!

>Also work on budding your daughter-clones so you can build a space garden empire.
W-what it's a bit too soon to be thinking about that sort of thing, right? She hasn't even gone on a date.
>>
No. 1063584 ID: 3384c2
File 168389675316.png - (154.07KB , 500x500 , p7.png )
1063584

>Restore some consoles to working order so people will try and interface with systems only to be interfaced themselves. Turn on a distress beacon so the pizza delivery guy knows where to go. Arrange former guests in upright positions with their arms pointing to give helpful directions to nowhere. Paint a bright red HELLO on the walls.
Good, yes great. Something that screams. Screams 'terrible things have happened here'. Then the right sort of people go 'wow that sounds like it might be worth a lot of money!' Alice starts squirming through the innards of the consoles to see what might be fixable. No screaming from Alice, though. She can fix things.

>A maze is an attraction, right? Just do some interior redecorating! Build walls of scrap and/or flesh, with passages folks have to bow low or crawl through, unless they want to spend their time clearing them, in which case you've at least slowed them down.
Yeah! This is all coming together! Alice pulls worker-mass out of the walls, the sluggish woken growths draping across machinery and weaving into hanging roots to subdivide the bigger open spaces. She can turn some of the newly opened hollows into passageways.

>And art exhibits tend to be standing around inside mazes too. Create some creative sculptures to stand about and draw the eye!
Alice is not an artist, but maybe she can bash something together out of scrap metal.

>See, you want to lure them in and keep them coming back which means the risk to reward has to be worth it. If one of a handful dies but the rest can gain enough riches that it's worth it, they'll keep coming back. This is a tricky thing that will require active balancing and tuning!
Yeah, Alice wants people coming back! No point in being all alone here because everyone has died. This is fine, she has little head friends and wiggling friends now. She pokes one.

"Brrrhnns!" it says.
>>
No. 1063585 ID: 3384c2
File 168389684951.png - (132.90KB , 500x500 , p8.png )
1063585

Aliens draw near!

What?! Nooo! Alice hasn't finished any of the sculptures!

An airlock is breached and a pair enters. The big one's a bulky figure in a heavily armoured mechanical space suit, head a jellyfish in a clear dome. He carries a lance built out of a mining tool. The smaller figure's a blue skinned woman in a skintight suit, a hi-tech gun in each hand.

"Ho ho, this definitely is some sort of biotech!" the Asteroid Knight says. "I told you this looked like an abandoned xotl research base!"

"Looks like some sort of cloning vat gone wrong. Way too meaty in here. This better not be like that last asteroid." the Grav Gunner complains.

"There ended up being plenty of ore there!" the cnidarian says.

"Yeah, inside the rock worms." the truclean retorts.

"Onward!" Asteroid Knight says.

People?! This is too much, they have to die! They have to die! Alice is not ready for tourists, so she has to welcome them violently! She has a twisty maze, a few distractions, wriggly knotvines wrapped up in protective armour, and face-eating bedheads to ambush with.

How is she going to handle this?
>>
No. 1063587 ID: 30b9f6

Hey now, let's not panic! You could just tie them up until things are done and ready-ish. Trick would be to disarm them first, so they'd be polite about waiting around. Oooh, maybe you could set up an inpromptu escape room for them?! After a few days of struggling to solve it, they might even welcome a little company! Or drinks. Snacks. Such things you feed guests.

>Pro Strats
Knight is likely to go first, being bulky and tough and melee-y. Gunner goes behind, probably, and takes potshots at threats. Knight sounds easy to lure, so tempt them to go through a tight corridor by placing some functional-looking tech-scrap - like a knotvine-infested power armor - at the end.

From there surprise ambush him with knotvines from the scrap's insides as he picks it up - that can disable use of the lance. You're also an engineer, so you know how those servos can be restricted in a way that will make them less effective to use to bust free, right?

Meanwhile, ambush/distract the Gunner from nooks in the roof above with bedheads, and send knotvines slithering up from fleshy folds in the hallway to tie up her legs, and then arms. Et voila and you'll have lunch two lovely guests for your impromptu "early access" escape room!

(The escape room is you take all their stuff - except clothes, they need those - and seal them up with a tiny bit of oxygen access.)
>>
No. 1063588 ID: 0c6783

>>1063583

YES, people go places for goods and services and YES, they'll have lots of space sheep lying around!

Okay, a few things: space based polities tend to be very energy rich, due to mirrors and solar panels and the like being very suited to space. They also tend to be rich in biomass, since making a thin-walled, low-g feeder station to grow genetically modified algae or wheat or mealworms or guinea pigs or sheep or whatever is cheap and easy. However, they don't necessarily have quality biological stuff, probably just quantity. Furthermore, if you give sufficient economic incentives of the sorts of things they don't have access to, and make it known that you desire lots of biomass, they will ABSOLUTELY make you getting a lot of space sheep or whatever happen. Many space based civilizations could have large portions of their civilization be designed to function and respond to economic incentives! Also, this isn't actually mutually exclusive with the dangerous dungeon thing that sometimes eats people!
>>
No. 1063593 ID: 20cba0

Use all of them in that order! The knotvines pretend to be scrap metal by one of the distractions then attack, and while the big guy is tangled up the bedheads go after the gunslinger!
>>
No. 1063658 ID: 288652

They may be ill-timed intruders, rudely barging in on your private-time, but at least have the decency to introduce yourself first, you are clearly a lady of refined dignity after all. You haven;t had time to dress properly, but this place must surely possess an intercom of some sort. It might require a bit of maintenance, but that can come later, I am sure that they will still feel greeted even if your greeting sounds a bit like meaty slurping noises.

Your friends should probably play possum until the interlopers are properly surrounded.
>What, think people are just going to have a lot of space sheep ('speeps') lying around?
Yes? Yes. Definitely. How else would they get spool?
>>
No. 1063879 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424547657.png - (108.70KB , 500x500 , p9.png )
1063879

>Knight is likely to go first, being bulky and tough and melee-y. Gunner goes behind, probably, and takes potshots at threats. Knight sounds easy to lure, so tempt them to go through a tight corridor by placing some functional-looking tech-scrap - like a knotvine-infested power armor - at the end.
Alice has just the thing. There's a barely functional management console at the end of a new tunnel. She interfaces to it and the screen flickers to life showing garbled readouts.

"Console here." Astroid Knight says. "I'm going to check it out."

>You haven't had time to dress properly, but this place must surely possess an intercom of some sort. It might require a bit of maintenance, but that can come later, I am sure that they will still feel greeted even if your greeting sounds a bit like meaty slurping noises.
The console's speakers crackle to life. "Ai... ahliss... wggh knoggghyu ahrrll duwhn!"

"What the heck was that?" Grav Gunner says.

"Unghlsss hyuu brnggh sppeePPp!"

"Garbled distress call?" Asteroid Knight suggests.
>>
No. 1063880 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424554305.png - (140.10KB , 500x500 , p10.png )
1063880

>From there surprise ambush him with knotvines from the scrap's insides as he picks it up - that can disable use of the lance.
Yes, haha, yes!

Asteroid Knight forces his way through the corridor and investigates the machine. The many knotvines crammed inside it suddenly pop out in a flurry of whipping vegetation and gnawing teeth. It is like a very human surprise party but instead of cake there is violence!

"Not worms again!" Asteroid Knight shouts.
>>
No. 1063881 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424559123.png - (125.57KB , 500x500 , p11.png )
1063881

>Use all of them in that order! The knotvines pretend to be scrap metal by one of the distractions then attack, and while the big guy is tangled up the bedheads go after the gunslinger!
Bedheads emerge from nooks and creases in the walls to jump at Grav Gunner while Asteroid Knight is all tangled up in the vines.

"Weird heads here!" Grav Gunner shouts. "I'm shooting them!"

She's shooting them! This is bullshit.

"I'll try stabbing this thing!" Asteroid Knight calls back, mechanical body wrestling the vines as he tries to free his mining tool.
>>
No. 1063882 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424565636.png - (133.87KB , 500x500 , p12.png )
1063882

>You're also an engineer, so you know how those servos can be restricted in a way that will make them less effective to use to bust free, right?
The knot vines are trying their best but he's strong! Messenger damn it, he's busting free! He thrusts his lance into the console. Damn his little jellyfish head, Alice only just got that working!

>Your friends should probably play possum until the interlopers are properly surrounded.
Nooo, those knotvines are real possums now. That means deaaad!

"Huzzah!" Free of the machinery tangle, Asteroid Knight turns to see how Grav Gunner is doing.
>>
No. 1063883 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424569505.png - (140.10KB , 500x500 , p13.png )
1063883

Twin pistols weren't enough to put all the bedheads to rest. One's gotten past the pistols and onto her face.

Asteroid Knight is shocked and dismayed!

>Hey now, let's not panic! You could just tie them up until things are done and ready-ish. Trick would be to disarm them first, so they'd be polite about waiting around.
Yeah! Disarm them of their violent thoughts by taking their violent brains!
>>
No. 1063884 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424574139.png - (132.02KB , 500x500 , p14.png )
1063884

>YES, people go places for goods and services and YES, they'll have lots of space sheep lying around!
Alice still isn't seeing any sheep here!

Grav Gunner staggers but stays on her feet as the bedhead finishes chomping on her head and fuses to her spinal column. She raises an unsteady gun to point at Asteroid Knight, who gets ready to charge his undead companion. The last surviving knotvines from the console try to snag his legs.
>>
No. 1063885 ID: 0cc9dc
File 168424580830.png - (138.18KB , 500x500 , p15.png )
1063885

It was a complete success! Alice never had any doubts!

Wow Alice guesses she is a genius basically. Not sleeping is only making her smarter. Who knows what she'll be coming up with in a week's time?

>>People having space sheep ('speeps') just lying around?
>Yes? Yes. Definitely. How else would they get spool?
Alice doesn't know but in a week she bet she'll figure out the answer, have more healthy teeth, and probably even go on a date!

>They may be ill-timed intruders, rudely barging in on your private-time, but at least have the decency to introduce yourself first, you are clearly a lady of refined dignity after all.
No Alice will be introduced last, because she is busy doing a lot of very important things like running this place and being fine.

But! If they do manage to barge in on her private time, Alice needs to have a plan! As the last line of defence, how should she be ready to modify herself to be inflicting enormous deadly violence as a important boss-lady of big dignity and endless refinement who is coping very well?

Also she thinks she needs something a bit beefier if tourists manage to get past the initial wave of bedheads and knotvines since neither is good in a straight-up fight. She guesses she can try to mutate that bedhead that managed to claim Grav Gunner as a victim, or infest the Asteroid Knight's heavily armoured machine-body with knotvines to make a big monster?
>>
No. 1063886 ID: f26870

Zero human victims. Yep, that's success. Go knotvines for AK's suit because we'll still have grav as a minion regardless. For yourself... Probably beefy summoner would be most lethal if the summoning is rapid.
>>
No. 1063887 ID: 6de18d

Mutate grav gunner. Yay, a new friend! We can teach her to shoot better! Can the mech suit be piloted by a bedhead too? Leave it aside for the moment, don’t want guests breaking it up for party favors.
>>
No. 1063889 ID: dc4bad

>>1063885
Hmm, planning for everything is basically impossible but you really do want to be ready for anything if they get to you... How about some kind of regenerative adaptations?

You'll be a bit weaker to start off with but as you get injured you not only heal back, but the regrowth takes on forms that are better suited to deal with the issue. For example if one of your arms is burned off by a heavily armored enemy using a flamethrower: you'd regrow a fireproof arm that can get through armor, like a spike or hammerhead.


As for a new friend, shooters will continue to be a nuisance unless you have some too. Upgrade deadhead grav-gunner into some kind of deadeye grav-gunner.
>>
No. 1063890 ID: 3ed3c3

>>1063885
You are not coping and are, in fact, spiraling more and more out of control as your sanity disintegrates. You want, more than anything, to either make yourself so unapproachable that no one will ever come near you again, meaning you can never hurt anyone else, or to make yourself such a cosmic threat that they just obliterate you in totality.
>>
No. 1063892 ID: 9a2966

Well, a win's a win! See if you can't get that bedhead to become a proper deadhead. Might be some spare mem-cognition left in there that can be co-opted and make it fit for purpose. How much can you restore while still keeping them as your newest bestest friend?

Also, didn't those guys come here in a spaceship? Couldn't you snag that, co-opt it, loot it, leave fun little party surprises inside it, or whatever?

>Sleep
Speaking of sleep and beds, let's make one! Even if you can't sleep on it, you can make it the hidden central spot in your new maze-demesne, somewhere to lounge and think about how great everything is going!

Humans have beds, after all. Sometimes they're even called bunks. Which is totally bunkus!

(Whatever happened to the rest of your old bunkmates, Alice Dietrich? What happened to Robert Blake and Dr. Keziah Mason?)
>>
No. 1063896 ID: 9e7305
File 168426076518.png - (734.04KB , 2000x2000 , A26870B2-5069-4196-ADB8-8AB85FA26AE0.png )
1063896

For yourself, you should draw as much biomass into yourself to ensure that the primary cohesive unit, aka you, is not redistributed across the walls. This new, extra human form could protect your inside of its head, like a big… roll cage, and it could have big arms for… hugging!
>>
No. 1063902 ID: 24081b

You are going to need to know... basically everything they know. Lots about the society they live in, it's competitors, it's resources, what it wants, how it fights, what it will do when it feels threatened, if there is a big bully type civilization in the region, what technology is generally understood to be capable of, what the understood limits of organic technology, farming, medicine, and 'wet' technologies are understood to be capable of, etc. etc.

What can you do to make interrogating them easier or perhaps even superfluous?
>>
No. 1063981 ID: 1effd3

>>1063885
Make big flesh thing armor into bigger flesh monster armor thinggg
>>
No. 1064044 ID: 288652

Bulking up sounds like fun, but then you couldn't fit through your own maze. Make a nice ten-metre-tall costume for greeting guests with. Make sure that there are lots of teeth frills, maybe a big giant-stomach acid-store hoop-skirt, big poofy tentacles sleeves, something that really shows off your giant monstrousness grand Presence! Something that you can slip on for guests, but can be slipped off so that it doesn't weigh you down when you want to relax around the house.

I seem to recall that bulking up was bad for sanity, but who knows how things might have changed...
>>
No. 1064104 ID: 402b76

Are you really getting "I'm sane" vibes from Alice right now?
>>
No. 1064106 ID: 6b885a

Pretty sure that getting taller was near the bottom on the list of mental health issues we were causing.
>>
No. 1064144 ID: 7375bc
File 168454229695.png - (147.50KB , 500x500 , p16.png )
1064144

>Mutate grav gunner. Yay, a new friend! We can teach her to shoot better!
Alice's new recruit didn't come out of the fight unscathed but that's fine, arms grow back. Or was that cnidarians? Wait, trucleans were like camels she thinks. It's fine, she'll figure out something!

Alice is not a xeno-biologist.

>As for a new friend, shooters will continue to be a nuisance unless you have some too. Upgrade deadhead grav-gunner into some kind of deadeye grav-gunner.
Looks like one of the guns broke, but that's fine, she'll just set things up so each shot counts.

A deadeye shot, that means plenty of healthy eyes to aim very well, that sounds smart! Who hasn't wanted more eyes? Alice misses her eye sometimes.

Alice attaches some helpful tentacles to pump Grav Gunner's carcass and its attached bedhead full of mutagenic goo. She isn't sure how much this will take, so she'll just leave this running and check in later. The bedhead and its new body wiggle in concern.

>Can the mech suit be piloted by a bedhead too? Leave it aside for the moment, don’t want guests breaking it up for party favors.
Maybe, that'll probably end breaking it though.

>Might be some spare mem-cognition left in there that can be co-opted and make it fit for purpose. How much can you restore while still keeping them as your newest bestest friend?
Since the bedhead ate Grav Gunner's head, there is an approximately zero chance of pulling any information out of captive brains. She asks the bedhead to try being sassier anyway.

"Mmplgh!" it says.

It's a start.
>>
No. 1064145 ID: 7375bc
File 168454233406.png - (169.91KB , 500x500 , p17.png )
1064145

>Speaking of sleep and beds, let's make one! Even if you can't sleep on it, you can make it the hidden central spot in your new maze-demesne, somewhere to lounge and think about how great everything is going!
Alice has a bed! She lies here a lot when she's not sleeping. She likes to stare off in the distance sometimes and not think.

>Hmm, planning for everything is basically impossible but you really do want to be ready for anything if they get to you... How about some kind of regenerative adaptations?
Let people beat the shit out of Alice so she can get better at getting the shit beaten out of her? No! That happens enough without encouraging it! That wouldn't be very dignified or boss-lady of her.

>For yourself, you should draw as much biomass into yourself to ensure that the primary cohesive unit, aka you, is not redistributed across the walls. This new, extra human form could protect your inside of its head, like a big… roll cage, and it could have big arms for… hugging!
>Something that you can slip on for guests, but can be slipped off so that it doesn't weigh you down when you want to relax around the house.
Yeah, it'd be like driving a funny car and everyone would love it! She can chauffeur herself to work (not that she works) and run over visitors.

Let's see, a big ball to sit in, and some arms to walk about with and do turn signals and such. And tentacles, just in case she needs to carry some luggage!
>>
No. 1064146 ID: 7375bc
File 168454237685.png - (171.89KB , 500x500 , p18.png )
1064146

>You are not coping and are, in fact, spiraling more and more out of control as your sanity disintegrates.
Ha ha ha. Alice is fine.

>Whatever happened to the rest of your old bunkmates, Alice Dietrich? What happened to Robert Blake and Dr. Keziah Mason?
They are no longer here.

Alice is alone here and nothing is wrong.

Blake and Mason are no longer here.

This is fine.

We need to focus on the tourists!

>You are going to need to know... basically everything they know. Lots about the society they live in, it's competitors, it's resources, what it wants, how it fights, what it will do when it feels threatened, if there is a big bully type civilization in the region, what technology is generally understood to be capable of, what the understood limits of organic technology, farming, medicine, and 'wet' technologies are understood to be capable of, etc. etc.
Alice thinks being a hermit is probably better for everyone. Visitors are nice, but also they should probably die.

>Also, didn't those guys come here in a spaceship? Couldn't you snag that, co-opt it, loot it, leave fun little party surprises inside it, or whatever?
What a good idea! Alice sends her assorted wrigglers to check out the airlock that Asteroid Knight and Grav Gunner entered from.

There's scorch marks but no idea how old they are. There's no spaceship?

Did they have a third person on their spaceship? Did it leave? Where did it go?

How else did they get here? Where did they come from?

Ha ha, Alice mustn't have been watching closely enough. That's why she can't sleep, she'll miss things. They'll come and go and she won't know where it came from and where did it go?

This is fine, she just needs to be more prepared.

What was that about loot? If she can get people to stay longer she'll find their spaceship! What's some enticing items and other valuables she might be able to provide?
>>
No. 1064151 ID: 3ed3c3

>>1064146
Yourself.
An incomparable bioweapon.
A fine prize for any aspiring empire, madman, or would-be conqueror.
>>
No. 1064153 ID: a7a180

Believe in the voices in your head who believe in you, Alice. You're doing great at self-employment!
What would Blake or Mason like? Blake liked weapons. Mason liked... having legs. Oh, and biotech. That probe thingy, anything else left from the xotl labs. That was of interest to the last bunch too. you can just stick a computer screen on a stick and somebody will think it's a neat hammer.
>>
No. 1064154 ID: 1effd3

>>1064146
Do we still ahve vending machine? Vending machine friend is fun! But full of fleshy horror!
>>
No. 1064168 ID: 288652

I hear people like bulging biceps. Maybe you could throw a few of those into a chest? Possibly even a treasure chest!
>>
No. 1064174 ID: 273c18

>>1064146
What would happen if you weren't fine?
>>
No. 1064201 ID: 1effd3

>>1064146
Alice requires sleep! make second brain so you can sleep and work!
>>
No. 1064642 ID: e6e00e
File 168516096198.png - (130.84KB , 500x500 , p19.png )
1064642

>Yourself.
>An incomparable bioweapon.
>A fine prize for any aspiring empire, madman, or would-be conqueror.
It is the entire reason the xotl were doing deeply dubious research, so maybe?

But she has met (and eaten) enough xotl for a lifetime. Also she's have to do something like this and go "Hoo hoo, look how desirable I am?" and then run away because she doesn't want to meet visitors until they get to the end. What if they want to talk about her feelings or something? They have to die before it comes to that!

Alice sprawls out on the table as a test. She doesn't think she likes the look that skeleton is giving her. This isn't really her.

>Believe in the voices in your head who believe in you, Alice. You're doing great at self-employment!
Of course she is, Alice is fine and everything is fine.
>>
No. 1064643 ID: e6e00e
File 168516098603.png - (151.58KB , 500x500 , p20.png )
1064643

>What would happen if you weren't fine?
Nothing would happen because Alice is always fine.

>Alice requires sleep! make second brain so you can sleep and work!
Alice has like a million brains already and they're all watching each other so she doesn't go to sleep because she has to maintain a state of constant vigiliance so that nothing goes wrong.

What if more tourists come and she misses them? Where are they coming from? She still doesn't know and that's because she's been sleeping on the job!

>What would Blake or Mason like? Blake liked weapons. Mason liked... having legs. Oh, and biotech. That probe thingy, anything else left from the xotl labs.
Alice has broken all the good xotl weapons and to get new weapons she'd have to excluded function. That is to say, Alice thinks carefully, she would not be building any weapons but perhaps some building a tool that provide useful features like accelerating a small aerodynamic objection to high velocities in order to excluded function. In order to mine! Yes, to break up rocks. For mining!

Maybe, doing that would give her a terrible headache though. Millions of headaches. Because of her huge brains.

Alice isn't sure if legs would be popular because most people already have legs. Maybe if she had a clever distraction that removes legs it would be more attractive as a reward?
>>
No. 1064644 ID: e6e00e
File 168516104103.png - (118.93KB , 500x500 , p21.png )
1064644

>Do we still have vending machine? Vending machine friend is fun! But full of fleshy horror!
Alice has vending machines, but she drank all the drinks long ago. She refilled the cans with her leftover slime, but that's very palatable. Messenger knows it even makes her throw up if she's not careful.

>I hear people like bulging biceps. Maybe you could throw a few of those into a chest? Possibly even a treasure chest!
Alice is low on anything made of conventionally biological meat because she eats things made of meat. Neither the bedheads or the knotvines have arms, her mutant bedhead needs those arms for shooting and she's certainly not tearing off her own arms to shove in a container for visitors to loot, even if they do grow back.

But maybe this is the right track, everyone wants better arms right?

>You can just stick a computer screen on a stick and somebody will think it's a neat hammer.
Yes she can... combine... ideas...

A vending machine full of sodas that are full of drugs that help make you strong! Bulging biceps and strong legs and all that! Yes! Brilliant, bravo! Alice revamps and restocks a vending machine.
>>
No. 1064645 ID: e6e00e
File 168516109311.png - (133.25KB , 500x500 , p22.png )
1064645

Aliens draw near!

The airlock's breached and a strangely dressed neumono carrying a speaker steps inside, together with a smaller alien driving a mech.

Alice is getting weird vibes off this guy, and by that she thinks she is under psionic attack! He's cute, what is happening?! These rabbit-looking exots are supposed to have some empathic connection, but she's sure that was just within their species?

"Meatier than I thought." Psi Tuner says to his companion as he looks around. "Guess you'll have a good time here."

The other alien is some sort of chicken riding a robot? Why can't she get any larger, meatier tourists? Now she's two for two on visitors with disappointingly high percentage synthetic composition. This is like the xotl cyborgs all over again!

"Don't you start." Blaster Phoenix says.

Xenobiology is still not Alice's strong point but she thinks the bird's a ketza. There's thermal fluctuations around the her, and Alice's certain that's some sort of heat ray built into the robot. Fire is bullshit, how did they know to bring fire, that's cheating?!

There's two figures coming up behind them, this place really is turning into a tourist trap!
>>
No. 1064646 ID: e6e00e
File 168516115383.png - (130.01KB , 500x500 , p23.png )
1064646

Asteroid Knight and Grav Gunner enter.

What?!

This is a trick, someone must has tricked Alice into falling asleep and now she is dreaming about ghosts! This is why she needs to stay alone here, she cannot trust anyone!

Except the knotvines and bedheads and some of the skeletons. She's vetted those.

Maybe they were pretending to be dead?! Where did she leave that armour? She definitely has her still-mutating bedhead and its attached Grav Gunner corpse, maybe she had a twin sister?!

"There's vine traps, be careful poking anything that looks valuable." Asteroid Knight says. "Don't get into any tight spaces either."

"I thought we were here for a good time." Psi Tuner complains.

"Things won't get hot how you hope. We won't find any comet sirens here." Blaster Phoenix says.

"Watch out for the little head guys, they're mean kissers." Grav Gunner adds, the ketza immediately giving her a look. "Don't let them eat your face."

The tourists have been spying on Alice, and they know about her tricks! At this rate they're going to find her and talk about their feelings?! She has to get her act together and organise a better response. What new tricks can she throw at them for derelict defence?
>>
No. 1064647 ID: 1effd3

>>1064646
quick! we need EXPLODEY HEADS!
>>
No. 1064648 ID: 8f9bc4

Oh man they respawn Alice is fucked
>>
No. 1064650 ID: 3ed3c3

>>1064646
>respawning
Hey, Alice.
Do you happen to have any of Robert's and Dr. Mason's DNA left in your biomass? Maybe some of their memories?
Not to get your hopes up or anything, but...
>>
No. 1064651 ID: a7a180

This is good! Surely if they can respawn, so can you. And you can collect more grav gunner grav guns!
They were expecting a siren, so sing for them! Lure them in closer with your dulcet tones over the PA system.
You need highly reconfigurable traps where knowing their nature won't help you escape them. Explosive hazards risk a hull breach, but they make fire as dangerous for them as it is for you. It doesn't have to be so one-sided, you can both lose!
-The bard wins over hearts and minds with song, so you need fewer ears and more minds. Do you remember the basilisk? Set up mini-basilisks in the old security cameras to give him the evil eye and shake, shake, shake that confidence.
-Redistribute the tentacle trappers to use new disguises for more surprises. You only need to make one mimic out of the most common object onboard (the humble box) to make them spend time spy checking every single one. The ceiling is a great angle to hide in, one with a limited trigger radius but poised perfectly to attack the weakest angle of that open cockpit walker. Put one in a doorframe and give him the job of closing the door on people in the doorway purely out of spite!
-You need a new enemy type to deal with that wretched oxidizer, fire. Armor just slow cooks the meat inside, so to soak it up you need to find some hazmat suits to fill with meat, lots of meat. A real Brute of a blob with bad bedside manner.
-The bedheads are perfect as they are. Adorable little critters. They just need to change up their tactics. Running around out of sight but just in earshot, they can taunt visitors into ambushes by tougher enemies and move in for cleanup afterward. Sneaking up behind the heroes one at a time with a grenade clutched in their teeth as a welcome gift is a task that they only have to get lucky at once.

Alice, if some of these consoles are working, maybe you can use them to... check your mail? People might worry about you, locked away in your dungeon all the time.
>>
No. 1064659 ID: c10e31

Speak for yourself, I'd totally buy power armor and hire redshirt meatshields for a shot at dat Alice. *AHEM* Well, seeing as how you had issues with just 2 of those, I suggest a classic "divide and conquer" to win this. Like, slam a bulkhead shut with only 1 or 2 on a side full of your beasties.
>>
No. 1064660 ID: c10e31

Oh, and FIND THAT SPACESHIP!
>>
No. 1064662 ID: dc4bad

>>1064645
Oh no, the psychic neumono is trying to get at your thoughts and feelings directly!
Don't panic. It seems to both have a sound motif and huge ears, inform them of your resort's privacy policy by yelling over it over the speakers with max volume. That should break their concentration.

> fire is bullshit
see this is why I suggested that adaptive regen thing, but that's besides the point now. is the vending machine goop also flammable or could you maybe coat a few minions in slime to buy them some time against firemech?

As for some new trick, they're only thinking of the knotvines as a trap in/around valuables, but we know they are able to help the vertically challenged. Have them and some carried bedheads hang from the ceiling in one of the taller rooms. Nobody ever looks up, and that walker doesn't seem to have a canopy.
>>
No. 1064663 ID: 402b76

clones.

THat means you need to capture them if you want to take their ship.

So get to eating only limbs.

If they hate closed spaces with knotvines, force them into closed spaces with knotvines so they have no choice.
>>
No. 1064668 ID: bf8f94

(Will say, I'm curious if this is just an alternate timeline situation or actual continuation of the Bloom Quest because oh god I just want things to be better for Alice)
>>
No. 1064670 ID: 288652

Can bedheads be detected psionically? Could you rig up a psychic-jammer with them by treating them as radios in a radio-jammer, except psychic instead?
how certain are we that Alice would wake up again if she went to sleep? I am pretty sure that the bioweapon will still be active even with nobody at the helm, so it probably isn't doing as much as a human body would to keep Alice's mind active.
>>
No. 1064760 ID: 99af08
File 168539893744.png - (148.47KB , 500x500 , p24.png )
1064760

>They were expecting a siren, so sing for them! Lure them in closer with your dulcet tones over the PA system.
Alice turns on some speakers again but Psi Tuner turns up the beat, drowning out her garbled yowling. The tourists are getting pumped up!

>As for some new trick, they're only thinking of the knotvines as a trap in/around valuables, but we know they are able to help the vertically challenged. Have them and some carried bedheads hang from the ceiling in one of the taller rooms. Nobody ever looks up, and that walker doesn't seem to have a canopy.
Psi Tuner helpfully points out the knotvines lying in wait on the ceiling to Grav Gunner. Violent shooting ensues.

He looked up!

This guy is bullshit. And they're working together?!? This is unfair, they are ganging up on poor Alice.

>Redistribute the tentacle trappers to use new disguises for more surprises. You only need to make one mimic out of the most common object onboard (the humble box) to make them spend time spy checking every single one.
It isn't working, Psi Tuner's just too good at spotting them!

>Oh no, the psychic neumono is trying to get at your thoughts and feelings directly!
Argh!
>>
No. 1064761 ID: 99af08
File 168539896846.png - (107.80KB , 500x500 , p25.png )
1064761

>Can bedheads be detected psionically? Could you rig up a psychic-jammer with them by treating them as radios in a radio-jammer, except psychic instead?
Alice doesn't know how to make them think louder off the top of her head.

>The bedheads are perfect as they are. Adorable little critters. They just need to change up their tactics. Running around out of sight but just in earshot, they can taunt visitors into ambushes by tougher enemies and move in for cleanup afterward. Sneaking up behind the heroes one at a time with a grenade clutched in their teeth as a welcome gift is a task that they only have to get lucky at once.
Right, even if they know they're around, that can keep them on edge. Alice sends the bedheads scurrying about, constant motion ahead and behind the invaders as they try to navigate the maze.

>The bard wins over hearts and minds with song, so you need fewer ears and more minds. Do you remember the basilisk? Set up mini-basilisks in the old security cameras to give him the evil eye and shake, shake, shake that confidence.
There are basically zero security cameras! A bizarre shortcoming of xotl base architecture!

>Well, seeing as how you had issues with just 2 of those, I suggest a classic "divide and conquer" to win this. Like, slam a bulkhead shut with only 1 or 2 on a side full of your beasties.
Alice tries it on one of the few doors that's not jammed open by growths but Asteroid Knight jams himself in there and forces it open again. So annoying, guy's strong!
>>
No. 1064762 ID: 99af08
File 168539899578.png - (116.74KB , 500x500 , p26.png )
1064762

They come to a more closed in spot and Blaster Phoenix steps to the front, hosing the corridor down with a torrent of flames. The bedheads don't stand a chance. They're fast but also small and flammable. They need to get up close and personal to be deadly and they're not getting this. The ossified growths choking the corridor smoulder too. The derelict groans as other roots tense in sympathy.

>You need a new enemy type to deal with that wretched oxidizer, fire.
Alice can't just make one on the spot!

"Burn, haha, burn!" Blaster Phoenix cackles. This chicken's a pyromaniac!

>Oh man they respawn Alice is fucked
>This is good! Surely if they can respawn, so can you. And you can collect more grav gunner grav guns!
This, is bad? Or maybe good?! What if they're ghosts? Alice doesn't want to be a ghost!

>Hey, Alice.
>Do you happen to have any of Robert's and Dr. Mason's DNA left in your biomass? Maybe some of their memories?
>Not to get your hopes up or anything, but...
Whaaat, that'd need her to eat people. Ahahaha, ha ha, hah.

Alice doesn't have time to think about this!

>Alice, if some of these consoles are working, maybe you can use them to... check your mail? People might worry about you, locked away in your dungeon all the time.
Alice is busy right now!
>>
No. 1064763 ID: 99af08
File 168539903384.png - (146.60KB , 500x500 , p27.png )
1064763

Alice does have one trump card though! Her mutated bedhead is ready to be fielded.

Grav Gunner is startled to be suddenly facing off with her own zombie.

"What?!" she says. "A mirror match huh?!"
>>
No. 1064764 ID: 99af08
File 168539905974.png - (128.26KB , 500x500 , p28.png )
1064764

"No thanks!" Grav Gunner says.

She shoots a grapple beam out of one of her guns and flies up to the ceiling. Blaster Phoenix fires a laser through the vacated space.

>Oh, and FIND THAT SPACESHIP!
Her forces are too busy dying! She can spare one or two of the reserves she supposes, they're not doing much good charging in and getting mulched!

Her bedhead tries but with that cheap shot out the gate, she struggles against Asteroid Knight and Blaster Phoenix with Grav Gunner and Psi Tuner holding the bedhead reinforcements off.

Charred and half disintegrated, the mutant bedhead falls into a hole. A long drop into hopefully soothing slime!
>>
No. 1064765 ID: 99af08
File 168539909171.png - (173.07KB , 500x500 , p29.png )
1064765

The visitors have finally found her. But they have not caught her sleeping!

The ground trembles as she steps forward, fortified by reserve mass she's pulled together from across the derelict.

They stagger as she screams a mind-rending roar at them.

But despite strength, mass, tentacles, two big arms for hugging, a basilisk organ, the deadly slicing surfaces of her feeding tendrils, and other Precursor-built abilities, she doesn't know if she can win this. She tried to make friends to help her, but her enemy's friendship was too powerful!

This means...
>It's over, it's finally over...
>It's not over!
>>
No. 1064766 ID: 8f9bc4

uh uh uh...

assume final form!
>>
No. 1064767 ID: 1effd3

>>1064765
bone doesnt burn easily!
THROW THE BONE SPIKES!
Make them erupt from the floor!
They will be utterly BONED!
>>
No. 1064768 ID: a7a180

It's over. Your search for new friends, that is!
>>
No. 1064771 ID: b74659

Lie down
Try not to cry
Cry a lot
>>
No. 1064773 ID: e5709d

ENHANCE KNOCKERS!
And other lewds~
Weird them into leaving!
>>
No. 1064774 ID: 273c18

>>1064765
It's over, they're going to force you to talk about your feelings!
>>
No. 1064859 ID: cb72dd

Get unconventional? Options. 1) Perhaps outrun them to flip the tables. Get to their ship, destroy the respawn device. Fear of death may force a rout to repair the device. 2) Psi-mono reads your thoughts so perhaps surrender as well as begging for your life might work out well? Offer to trade stuff for speeps? 3) Hit them with Mutually Assured Destruction - declare to the psi-mono your plans if they fail to back off. Plan is rocks fall, everybody dies. Punch a hole in a wall to space. With your size and brute force tightly gripping a wall or rooting yourself with tentacles means you have a shot to live.
>>
No. 1064914 ID: 402b76

Ok, Alice, you are an old pro at this.

You literally ate all the xotl, remember. All of them. They had tank drones and heavy weapons and you still won. You killed a tank with a piece of bone you shot out your arm, and got to keep the bone.

That instinct will be important. Ambush, destroy, disengage, regroup and rearm.

Like seriously, you have lots of brains, do you still have lots of loaded shotguns? Why don't you arm some tendrils on a wall with shotguns, it'd take some practice but I'm betting you could fuck em up by making a bunch of armed tentacles all over the place.

And if you had one of those weapons I bet you could slither through the undercarriage and pop out to kill that stupid fucking neumono who keeps alerting them to your traps. And then run before they asked you about your feelings.
>>
No. 1065004 ID: 288652

They're not allowed to ask about your feelings unless they beat you in an arm-wrestle.
>>
No. 1065020 ID: f8083d

Electronics time! Pull out the vending machine and display a greeting on its screen.
>>
No. 1069816 ID: bfc6f8
File 169130815121.png - (170.66KB , 500x500 , p30.png )
1069816

>uh uh uh...
>assume final form!
This is her final form!

>Ok, Alice, you are an old pro at this.
>You literally ate all the xotl, remember. All of them. They had tank drones and heavy weapons and you still won. You killed a tank with a piece of bone you shot out your arm, and got to keep the bone.
That's right, she's done much worse things than this! Some tourists aren't going to stop her!

>Kill that stupid fucking neumono who keeps alerting them to your traps.
>They're not allowed to ask about your feelings unless they beat you in an arm-wrestle.
Her arms are very big, this is a very good idea! Alice makes a final convulsive effort and throws her bruised and broken expanded body into the midst of her visitor like a battering ram. One arm grabs onto Psi-Tuner. She holds him up to her true body to take a proper look at her enemy before he turns into a corpse and maybe a ghost.

Psi Tuner stares back at her. "She's... afraid!" he calls to his friends.

His arms are weak and he didn't even ask!

Afraid?! He should be the one who's afraid! His life is in her hand! She can do this, she just has to close her fist. Just squeeze. She'll have bunny hamburger for dinner.

Then everything will be fine! Alice will be fine. Alice is so very tired... but she's fine!

...

He's going to come back isn't he? It'll be like the Asteroid Knight and Grav Gunner and everyone else. Everything she's seen and everything she's done won't stop haunting her!

Why can't it all... just...
>>
No. 1069817 ID: bfc6f8
File 169130821864.png - (123.03KB , 500x500 , p31.png )
1069817

...

stop.

(Alice has fainted.)
>>
No. 1069818 ID: bfc6f8
File 169130829780.png - (128.59KB , 500x500 , p32.png )
1069818

>It's over. Your search for new friends, that is!
...

(Alice is sleeping)

THE END?
>>
No. 1069822 ID: 8f9bc4

mmm...drugs...
>>
No. 1069894 ID: f7f1b0

dream delicious dreams
>>
No. 1069898 ID: e5709d

New Objective: Date the Grav Gunner
>>
No. 1069921 ID: 78a12b

Have a totally normal and non traumatic non memory dream.
>>
No. 1070026 ID: 4f340d

>be the astro knight
>have traumatic flash back to you're many deaths.
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