Lancer: The Beautiful Machine IC

[n0ble]

The Printer

"What about Magedon Creek? I hear the Cypher Trees are...beautiful this time of year." The little frame that passes for SLATE's body picks at the ground with one of its foot comps as the last of your mechs are printed. Supporting itself on three of the four legs, the last of the limbs waves you along to the great cavern ahead. "Transplanting signal-chaser." There's a brief moment of static across your comms before a waypoint pings, complete with a path illuminated in white holograph-light lodged across each of your mech's viewscreens. An audio tune pings out as light illuminates the path, synchronizing in time with a bit of brightness that goes out the tone. It is, of course, entirely optional to listen to.

The little frame picks at the ground as the last of your mechs print off and are assembled. On the final time, they raise the limb of their frame up, a tiny stablight glowing at the end. SLATE walks beyond, the sleek namesake-grey of their chassis becoming more and more subsumed as they get closer and closer still to the yawn of the cavern network beyond. Blue and red minerals catch the light and pain the way forward purple for how the former two colors mingle. The odd stablight jammed haphazard into the rock-natural for how untouched it is by human tools-sustains the curious luminance from the crystals. The stablight waves you forward, to the very edge of where the cavern begins its downward slant. A few little taps on the rock cue you into the NHP turning to face you. "Signal should hold out until it doesnt. I've marked the printer-". A green waypoint styled the same way as the holograph-path superimposes itself onto the digital views afforded by your frames. "-here. Good luck, Lancers." The lightsource at the end of SLATE's arm winks off as you begin your descent towards the jamming beacon.

Anyone who hazards a glance back sees the grey outline of the small frame, waving to you from on high. A bit further down, the NHP resumes their tune.

To the Jammer

The trek to the jammer is marked by a few constants. The heat steadily begins to increase over the few hours your journey takes, increasing in time with the amount-and scale-of the underground fauna you encounter. Pallid rockslugs are found much as they are in the ghetto: a keystone to any healthy diet. Salamanders much on them, some of them the size of human forearms for how time alone has let them grow larger than you've seen before. A few enterprising ones leave the carcasses of old mining gear-mirrors to the ones you saw on the path to the printer-to hazard the odd bite on your mechs before easily being shaken loose. The smaller of the amphibians are carried off by the Depth Below's most famous occupant: small chiropterans eating to grow massive. Those of you who study under the Lasdy Kareftis know that their current station below ground is largely a consequence of the sounds brought along with all of the Baronies minining gear. Rock lights the patches of darkness where artifice is insufficient, lending a warm glow to your passage for how the various minerals kaleidoscope their phosphorescence upon one another.

Eventually, the path laid out by SLATE take you to a series of buildings situated in a wide, expansive cavern tall as a Barbarossa, and it is here that things begin to go wrong. The place may have been capable of sustaining a large amount of life. Once. Now all that remains are the guttered remains of out of date infrastructure, assaulted by the buildup of product from a rogue mushroom farm long since scavenged clean. The signal becomes frenetic, the tone changing from regular steady pulse to dysrhythmic as it tries and fails to lock down onto a viable pathway for you to take. Something in the remains, maybe. Or something worse.

A singular shot rings out across the dimly lit cavern, resounding loud and clear for how the bark of the shot bounces from the walls. The chirp of the munition cutting through the air is lost as the ammo cuts through the air, misses Dust but what sensors read is a handspan, then ends the terminus of its journey with collapsing one of the structures surrounding you. Its as though this is a cue for the hostiles: to the west, a thin, spindly frame rises from the walking mountain it was hiding behind. A scout and bastion. To the east there is a shrieking sound that continues beyond as echoes after the berserker is done raking its chainaxe across stone. And finally, to the North of your position: the mechanical wine of a hive's swarm deployment matrix undercut by the ejection of a large caliber shell casing from the hive's nearby compatriot: The Beastmaster.

The Depth Below's resident Boogeyman cuts an odd silhouette, jagged and unevenly broken for the various armaments strapped to the back and hip of their person. The large bore sniper in their hands-a mech killer-still smokes from the gunbarrel even as its quickly removed from the end of the Beastmaster's gun and replaced with something more akin to a shotgun add-on. Fetishes and trophys adorn the exile's frame-Some Dangerous Game:the skull of a bull salamander acts as one of the frame's shoulder pauldrons while a pair of young chiropteran wings flare out as a makeshift breastplate. Theres the sound of a shotgun being racked for more ammunition before a harsh, metallic voice booms out across the hovel you've discovered. Whatever's gumming up your signal will have to wait.

You just go busy.

Spoiler: OOC

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Alright everyone, a thousand thank-yous for your patience, welcome to our first combat of the game! This sit-rep will be a Signal Chase combat-I'll get the scenario up in the discord for everyone to view. Enemies are deployed where they are per the scenario-I'll get everyones minis up and synched to their respective players. On that note:
- Terrain that is tagged pink on the map is Size 1 (1x1)
- Terrain that is tagged blue on the map is Size 2 (2x2)
- Terrain that is tagged orange on the map is Size 3 (3x3)
I would be happy to draw borders around the terrain if people are unsure of the dimensions-left it out initially so things didnt seem so cluttered.

Enemy comp consists of the enemy type and the templates they have:
- The Beastmaster (Tier 1 Elite Strider)
- 1 Veteran Scout
- 1 Bastion
- 1 Hive
- 1 Berserker

The Combat follows these rules for the sit-rep:
Sit Rep: Signal Chase
PC Victory: A the end of round 6, the PCs have accumulated 4 Victory Points (VP)
NPC Victory: At the end of round 6, the PCs have not accumulated (VP)
The Control Zone (blue on the map): At the start of each round, including the first, the Control Zone that PCs start in moves 3d6 in a random direction and in a straight line (will roll a d8 for direction, north side is 1, right top corner two, continuing clockwise in that fashion). If this causes the zone to leave the battlefield it instead stops at the edge. Movement is then re-rolled until the zone can complete one entire movement without leaving the map. At the end of each round, PCs score **1 Victory Point** if there are more PCs in the zone than NPCs.
Deployment: NPCs deploy, then PCs

Spoiler: Map

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https://images-ext-1.discordapp.net/...563&height=406