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sicprowl · 5 years ago

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The Fell-Star

Next AO3

Sigh.

He was so bored. So, so bored.

The red head leaned back in his seat, wiggling the pen between his lip and nose while he dazed lazily up at the ceiling.

Siiiiiiiigh.

“Sylvain,” Ingrid tensed beside him, but her fingers continued to glide across the screen of her navigation system as various symbols lit up on the screen in an array of colors. “Can you please stop that?”

The communications expert paused a moment, giving his childhood companion a side eye before looking back up at the ceiling.

Groooooan.

“What?” He laughed and took the pen off his lip to wave it at her, “It’s not the same thing~.”

She wanted to pull her hair out, long braid and all, then strangle him with it. “Why don’t you go do something productive?!”

“Like what?” Sylvain gestured around the empty command deck, “There’s nothing to do.”

Ingrid went back to piloting, tick mark pulsing on her forehead. “You’re supposed to be doing your job.”

“Right, my job…”

Sylvain frowned and put the pen back between his nose and lip. One glance at his terminal showed nothing but a blank map; black, lifeless, boring.

He’d gone to the Officers Academy for *this?* To sit at some desk and listening out into the void, waiting for someone to say hello. The red head had thought he’d hear some juicy gossip, get paid to chat people up, and maybe even answer distress calls to isolated colonies of beautiful women.

Instead all he got was the latter. Minus the isolated colony of beautiful women.

Sylvain gave Ingrid a pout, “My job sucks.”

Ingrid wished his seat was closer just so she could smack him. “Then why didn’t you study something else?!”

“Meh,” he shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “This seemed the easiest.”

She was getting a migraine, “Can you just….Just go bother someone else? I can watch everything here.”

Like always.

“They’re all busy.”

Ingrid huffed while focusing on her console again. “That never stopped you before. Felix isn’t on duty - I’m sure he could use some company.”

Sylvain deflated and the pen dropped to his lap. “He’s in the armory having a mood.”

Ingrid looked at him questioningly, but he didn’t elaborate. He merely waved his hand and spun slowly in his chair. She squinted at him as he stared at his lap.

“What did you do this time?”

He jerked, “It wasn’t me!!”

The doors to the command deck opened and they both looked to see three members of the crew walk in.

Ingrid stood immediately in a salute, gazing at their Captain with stern obedience that was beat into them throughout their Academy days. “My Lord!”

Sylvain was slower to stand, not really liking the formalities of it all. They were all former classmates, most even childhood friends and confidents. Heck, they’ve spent FIVE YEARS running and gunning Empire ships! Surely that meant they could relax in their off time?

He glanced at his friend’s Captain’s face, avoiding the eye patch that covered the ghastly scar from a battle long since forgotten. The heavy bags laid under his eyes as a constant reminder that the man never seemed to sleep and always seemed to be ready to strike. His blonde hair looked unkempt and long as it curled slightly at his collar. His black armor was worn from desperate battle after desperate battle while a long blue cloak with snow lion pelt at the collar. It all made him look like a towering giant; broad, powerful, deadly.

Then there was that lance.

Sylvain gulped, noting the emblem in the middle of the blade cackled like blue lightning. Thankfully it was merely flickers and not the thunderous storm that seemed to erupt from his old friend during battle. But Sylvain didn’t need the lance to tell him that the blonde was aching for battle. The bloodlust in his icy-blue eye was enough of a giveaway.

The red head looked away, unable to handle to see the once calm, and friendly boy of his youth turn into this. Sylvain focused on Annette instead, the cute and cheerful scientist of the group.

“What’s up?”

The small girl jerked in surprise, feeling as if she were back in school and the teacher had called on her.

“Oh! Ashe and I were calibrating the engine when we caught a strange signal on our computers!”

Panic settled on Sylvain’s face as he looked at his screen to see one, lone blinking red light right in the middle of his screen.

Oops.

“Oh!” Sylvain laughed nervously as all turned to him, “Sorry about that.”

Ingrid groaned while Dedue gave him a look of disapproval.

Dimitri ignored them all as he walked over to his chair, his heavily armored boots making the floor vibrate beneath all their feet. He plopped down in his chair, his whole body taking over the spot like a predator staking it’s claim.

“Show it to me.”

The red head didn’t need to be told twice. He sat back down and zeroed in on the signal, fingers dashing across the keys with ease as he turned on the flight screens for everyone.

Annette gasped in awe as the black, white, and blue panels covering the front half of the command deck’s ceiling changed into a vast expanse of stars. They twinkled like fire flies in streams as a lone nebula laid light years away. It shined bright in an aurora of periwinkle greens and cobalt blues, reaching out like in large wings that could easily dwarf a Faerghus warship.

It was breathtaking.

Dimitri gripped his lance as the screen zoomed in on a flying ship that zipped across the stars like a comet. His gaze narrowed as he raked it over the hull of the spaceship, then gave a sharp tooth grin when he found the symbol he so desperately hated.

The emblem in his lance began to spark and Dedue was immediately at his side, ready for orders. He was Dimitri’s second in command on this ship and closest confidant. The large man was ever loyal to the lost Prince of Faerghus and has been after he saved him from the Purge of Duscar.

He was his everything the moment Dimitri pulled him from the rubble.

“Sire?”

The blonde chuckled, making Sylvain’s hair practically stand on end. “It’s time to hunt some rats.”

>>>>>

Felix’s upper lip snarled in distaste at the litter of corpses that laid in the narrow hallway, blood splattered over the floor and ceiling like it was a morbid painting. Most of the bodies had been gouged out with a blade while a few were headless or worse… He always looked away from the worst.

“What a disgusting brute.”

Sylvain didn’t respond as he checked one of the bodies for ammo, putting the ethics of it all in the back of his mind. He’d unpack this all later. Right now, he needed to make sure they were prepared. Felix may have his family shield with him, but that thing couldn’t protect the both of them. Not unless they wanted to straddle each other.

The red head felt the corner of his lip turn up at the idea, knowing it’d annoy the hell out of his prickly friend.

He stood and touched the comm in his ear, “All clear on the lower deck.”

”I don’t see anyone in the barracks.” Ashe responded, having gone with Annette as a third wave in case the first two groups missed anyone.

Dedue and Dimitri had charged in headfirst….Well, Dimitri had, Dedue followed after him with his heavy weapons and armor to keep the enemies off the Lord. Felix and Sylvain had followed after the first few minutes in case anyone came out of hiding to flank them, but lost them when a group of soldiers stormed from another hall. Speaking of…

”We found something in the engine room.”

Sylvain raised a brow, itching to ask what the Duscar man had found, but could only get out a ‘on our way’ as Felix stroke forward.

“Whoa, wait up!”

Felix glared at the path ahead, “Someone should take that thing away from him.”

Sylvain scratched the back of his head, knowing what his friend was talking about. “Yeah…probably.”

Except who’d be stupid enough to try?

“Look at this-this MESS!” Felix gestured around them as they turned the corner to find more blood and lifeless bodies. “It’s changing him! He’s sick!”

The red head bit his lip, not wanting to think about Dimitri being sick. Really, truly sick.

Dimitri had all the signs, all the madness that came with carrying one of the old relics. The irrationality, the paranoia, the hatred. He had to be forced to sleep and eat. They’d find him staring out into space, whispering and pledging to the dead that his goals would be met.

It made getting a drink at night…unsettling.

Sylvain kept his own lance in his room, not really caring for the alien object. The old weapons had always creeped him out. They looked too wrong to be normal and he could only wonder in amazement as to why their ancestors decided to play with them after discovering a tomb on some far off planet. Sure, they could cut through any armor and barrier like butter, and others could stop bullets and blasts. But holding them too long came with a price. A terrible price their Prince was paying for the longer he dwelled on his anger.

Heh. Thousands and thousands of years later and humans still fight with swords and daggers if angry enough.

Ashe and Annette had made it to the engine before them, both unharmed and standing side by side with the Captain and his Second as they stared at the back wall and talked. Sylvain raised a brow, wondering what could be so interesting about some machinery.

“It looks like a pod,” Annette said while bending her torso slightly to get a closer look without having to step forward.

Ashe looked excited, but uncertain. “Maybe it’s some kind of cryo-chamber?”

Annette turned her head when he heard their steps and gestured them over, making room for the two to stop and stare at the strange contraption before them.

Sylvain’s jaw dropped. “What the hell is that?”

Sitting on a pedestal was a marble. A giant, green marble that could roll over them all over with the right push. It was like some big, dull colored crystal ball just…sitting in some corner!

“Is this supposed to be important?” Felix asked with a wave of his hand.

Ashe was looking behind them, hand on his chin. “How did they get it through the door?”

“They had heavy guards protecting it and were quite determined to keep us away,” Dedue said thoughtfully.

“It’s kind of pretty.” Annette finally stepped closer, wanting to poke it.

Dimitri raised his lance and pierced it before the girl could even touch it. She screamed in shock while every hurried to stop him.

“You’re highness!”

“Whoa, dude!”

“BOAR!!”

But it was already too late, the blade of the deadly lance pierced the object with ease while it’s blue emblem roared to life. Sparks flew and a bright blue electric current rushed over the marble in a wave as a drip of lime green water started to drip out.

Everyone stood still, frozen mid grab for their Captain as he tore through the membrane like material (not glass like Sylvain had thought). They all gasped as a dribble of liquid spilled out.

Felix hissed, “You idiot! Are you trying to get us kill-!?!“

The object suddenly bursted open as swamp like water pooled at their feet and a cloud of gas sprayed out. It hit Dimitri first as he raised his arm to cover his mouth while the others quickly followed. The only sound that filled the room was their coughing and the hissing of gas that seemed louder then the ship’s own engines.

“D-Don’t breathe in!” Annette cried out, squinting her eyes through the slowing fog to try and see what was happening.

Ashe was already pulling out a small device to scan the air, his arms shaking with fear that they’d all suddenly drop dead. He blinked and slowly pulled his hand away, only to sneeze.

“O-Oh,” he rubbed his nose. “It’s safe. Nothing you wouldn’t find in a rainforest on Almyra.”

Everyone sighed in relief, opening their eyes and looking around at the strange conditions. The engine room felt less dark and dank and more…bright, nature-y.

Felix jerked away when something touched his cheek and quickly raised his gun, “What is this!?”

Sylvain couldn’t help but laugh. His friend was waving his weapon around at what looked like giant, glowing dandelion seeds.

Annette’s eyes sparkled as one floated past her face. “So pretty~!”

“Step back, my Lord!”

They all looked to see Dedue suddenly in front of Dimitri, his arm out to shield him while his other held his large gun, pointed and ready to fire at the broken marble. No one knew what was happening until the gas began to thin and the spores lit the room up like little lamps. Sylvain held his breath as a dainty figure stepped out of the object.

“Oh!” Annette covered her mouth while Felix aimed his gun, all of them wide eyed as a woman with glowing green hair stepped out. Wait, even her eyes!

Everything about her seemed to be bright, yet soft. Like a warm night light that lulled children to a peaceful sleep.

Her skin looked porcelain, fragile and mark free of any kind of battle or accident. Her features beautiful, sharp and blank, almost…inhuman. Then they noticed her ears and Ashe jolted with amazement.

“I-Is she…?!” He daren’t say it.

Space had been in their grasp for a good while now. Their race had traveled many light years and colonized many planets, moons, and even asteroids. But they’d always be alone with no sign of others living in this vast universe. But now…?

The woman(?) swept her gaze over them, stopping to stare at each of their faces as they all stood still in shock. It took her to fully step out for Dedue to aim his gun again.

“Halt, or I will be forced to shoot!”

She continued to stare at them all blankly, her eyes blinking at Dedue’s weapon. The girl tilted her head, her hand on her cheek as if in deep thought as she studied the heavy gun. Then her lips parted slightly, a small puff of air coming out in surprise(???) when she saw Dimitri’s lance.

Her hand reached for it and Dedue shot at her feet.

Annette paled when the strange woman didn’t react to the shot, her eyes now glowing as bright as the orb on Dimitri’s weapon. The lance practically shook as their Captain snarled, unwilling to let this stranger take what was his. He raised his lance as he had with the marble and shot forward, aiming straight for her head-!!

There was a scream and a scrambling of feet as half of the team backed away and the other stepped forward, ready to fight - but the scuffle never came. Nor did the blood or mangled body falling to the floor like all their enemies.

Instead they could only stare in awe as the blade froze in mid air, the shaft shaking in Dimitri’s hands as he seemed to be fighting to spear her.

“W-What is this!?”

She didn’t react to his snarl, her focus solely on the orb as it continued on with it’s thunderous rage. A small hand reached out again, ghosting over the emblem with a soft caress. It did not quell under touch, but also seemed to grow brighter the moment her skin made contact.

Dimitri snarled and the woman looked at his face, her own void of any emotion as she moved both her hands to his chest. The blonde recoiled, but didn’t move again when the mist in the room finally faded away.

Sylvain blinked, once, twice. Three times he had to make sure he knew what he was seeing.

“She’s naked!” Annette gasped while Ashe covered his eyes - all of them more or less agreeing this *was* a woman.

Dimitri’s gaze flickered down then shot right back up, cheeks turning a ruddy red as his arms began to twist.

“Idiot!” Felix hissed as she moved closer to lay her head on his chest. “Grab her!!”

Sylvain had to hold in a guffaw when their Captain looked over his shoulder with panic, one hand now holding his weapon while the other tried to find a place to grab.

“W-Where?!”

“Anywhere!”

He didn’t seem to like that answer. It meant he had to look at her again, take in her form and try to…restrain her. Sylvain could only look on fondly as Dimitri began to fluster as the woman seemed to be resting against where his heart was. It reminded the red head how painfully bad Dimitri was with women.

Who would have thought this raging beast would fall apart before some girl?

Dimitri swallowed hard when she looked up, eye wild with uncertainty as she reached up to cup his cheeks. He held his breath, thankful for the armor that separated his body from hers. All he had to do was not look too far down at her…ample….c-c-c-chest.

But he didn’t have to worry about that, not when she was tugging his head down into a kiss that made him drop his lance.

Annette gasped, Ashe asked what was happening from behind his arm while Felix and Dedue seemed at a loss. Sylvain was the only one doing something about the situation, and that was taking a few sneaky pictures to laugh at later.

The Prince was no better, his body tense in shock as the woman’s soft lips pressed his cracked ones. She held fast to his face while turning her head slightly, her eyes closed as if this was her long lost lover. Dimitri almost, almost closed his eye too, not wanting to admit that it was…nice. Yes, very nice.

But she had stopped before he could, letting his face go and staring up at him expectantly.

Dimitri blinked, body trembling like a teenage girl as he stared back.

Ashe finally took the time to look, having missed the strange kiss during his nervousness. But now he was interested and he couldn’t help but finally say it. “D-Did we just make first contact?!”

Sylvain snickered, glancing at their lost Captain. “Someone here sure did~”

#fire emblem #fe3h #dimitri x byleth #au #scifi #aliens #shenanighans #dimitri #byleth #dimileth #sylvain jose gautier #thefellstar

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Ringworld – Won!

Written by Reiko

Quinn’s Journal #4: “Telepath helmets are apparently a bad idea. Good thing I had that neural wave blocker we found. All’s well that ends well, except we still haven’t found Louis Wu and Chmeee. But the Patriarch is neutralized and that’s a good day’s work. I just had to nearly die to do it.”

I guess the Kzin are a big deal around here.

We’re on the trail of the last stasis box, which is hidden in a palace in a city on the Ringworld copy of Earth. Using the flycycles, we land in a secluded area where a ragged alien (not Kzinti or human) slave is washing clothes. The slave won’t talk to us and seems completely terrified, especially of Seeker. We move on and almost immediately encounter a proud Kzinti riding in a hand-cart pulled by a slave who looks human. Seeker wants to talk to the Kzinti himself, but Quinn requests to handle the situation.

Seeker hopes this guy is only talking to Quinn.

Quinn manages to emulate a human slave and get quite a lot of information from the Kzinti by pretending to speak for his “master,” meaning Seeker, claiming that Seeker has lost his voice and cannot speak. The Kzinti noble reveals the news that a telepath wearing a silver crown is demanding abasement from the local Kzinti nobility and also dishonorably winning any “duel of honor” challenges by causing irrational fear in his opponents. The Kzinti noble calls him a Patriarch – is this the same Patriarch from earlier that started the whole plot? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, but I’m really not sure why he’s here.

Quinn and Seeker return to the flycycles, where Seeker decides to return to the lander and let Quinn do his thing again. Without Seeker around, I can talk to the slave, who knows very little. He’ll also be able to continue emulating a slave in order to infiltrate the palace. I take a clean but ragged outfit from the slave’s pile, although it doesn’t appear in my inventory. Quinn automatically changes into it before moving back onto the road toward the city.

The castle looms ominously in the distance.

As I move along the road, I encounter stakes, one of which still has bones hanging from it, complete with a vulture to peck at them. Well, that’s gruesome. The castle itself looks ominous in only the sort of way that a medieval-style castle can. I press forward and present myself at the front doors as a slave.

I haven’t seen you before either. What kind of alien are you?

The guards send me off to the slave overseer, who tells me to serve the Patriarch at his dining table. He also mentions that they’ve been running short on slaves because the Patriarch has little patience and keeps killing them. I also collect a bit of clean straw from the floor before I go, although I don’t know what that might be for yet.

I suppose if Kzin are like tigers, humans are like monkeys. Sort of.

I don’t know where I’m going, so I wander around a bit before I find the dining hall, also discovering the Patriarch’s personal quarters in the process. Once I find him, I watch the Patriarch eat for a minute before he demands more wine. Another slave appears immediately to pour the wine but manages to spill it, stammering apologies. The Patriarch kills him, saying the wine was only an annoyance, but the fear is intolerable. In the process, he stains his tunic with blood. He angrily tears it off and shouts again for more wine. I don’t have wine, but I go ahead and click on the tunic, which causes Quinn to smoothly offer to fetch him a fresh tunic. The Patriarch is pleased by this and agrees. With the tunic in inventory, I head back to his quarters.

The guard at the door will stop me if I just try to walk in, but I show him the tunic and then he allows me through. The bedroom holds little other than a huge purple bed. The room beyond is a large closet with clothes, towels, and other supplies. I collect an appropriate tunic and also poke around to see if the box is in here somewhere. I find that there’s definitely a hidden compartment beyond one wall panel, but I have no idea how to open it.

What could the bed’s top layer be made of that it burns briefly and then goes out?

I can also take a lit candle from a heavy candelabra in the bedroom. Oddly enough, I can use it to set a temporary fire in the bed, but trying it on any other random place gives me a message about indiscriminate fires attracting too much attention.

Wall art in every hallway.

The furnishings in the palace are all generally described as big and overdone, typical of Kzinti styles. Carvings and statues and wall art all over the place. It makes it hard to know what’s important, but I noticed that the bedroom contains sword carvings on its pillars that are described as especially sharp and detailed. There has to be some sword connection somewhere else in the palace, but so far I haven’t seen anything.

So I continue to play along and take the fresh tunic back to the Patriarch. But when I show it to him, he doesn’t take it; instead, he wants to see another one. Well, okay, I find that I can now pick up two more tunics from his closet when I go back there. But this running around and fetching doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.

Since stunning has often been Quinn’s fallback strategy so far, I try stunning the guard at the private quarters, but this time nothing happens. Amusingly, the guard only asks, “Why are you showing me that?” You’d think a Kzinti guard would be a little more alarmed at the idea of an armed slave. More likely he has no idea what it is. That does sort of beg the question of where I’m concealing all the things I’m carrying, especially the suspiciously high-tech ones like the stunner and the stasis negator. I’m also now managing to carry four tunics and a lit candle. Oh well, this is typical for adventure games.

The Patriarch continues not to choose a tunic no matter what I offer him, so I give up on that and go back to his bedroom. I realize that I’d overlooked a hint when I’d set fire to the bed: the flame went out because it wasn’t hot enough. I try putting the straw on the bed and setting fire to that. That did the trick…but oops, I ran into a fatal error. Trying the same thing again worked the second time, though. I’m not quite sure what I managed to accomplish, but I still haven’t found a way into the secret compartment.

The compartment wasn’t even locked, just hidden.

I poke around the closet some more and finally manage to notice a detailed warrior carved into a pillar on one side, with one arrow from his quiver pointing at an odd angle. I pull on it, and there, finally, is the trigger for that compartment. Inside I find a scimitar and a straight sword. All the pillars in the bedroom were decorated with straight swords, so I try using that one on the nearest pillar. It’s a perfect fit: part of the pillar slides open to reveal another hidden compartment, this one holding the silver helmet. I snag it and go.

Now you smell it?

Now I see what the fire is for. When I leave, Quinn moves automatically out of the way and watches while the guard sniffs the air, realizes he smells smoke, and dashes into the bedroom to deal with the fire, leaving the area unguarded for me to just walk out with the goods. (The guard really should have noticed sooner though, given that I started the fire first, wandered around some more, finally discovered the hidden catch, and swiped the goods. Adventure game timing FTW!)

Even the balconies are decorated with carvings.

I go directly over to the balcony at the far end of the room and call Seeker with the scanner, which is also a comm unit. Seeker says he’ll bring the flycycles to the courtyard. Quinn doesn’t want to go through the palace again, so he just climbs down from the balcony and they escape.

Back in the lander, the team discusses how useless the helmet seems to be, and they decide to go back to the canyon area to release the stasis on the crashed ship there. We receive our obligatory check-in from Hindmost. This time they tell him about the stasis control device and the plans to go back to the ship, and this satisfies the Puppeteer for now.

This pattern doesn’t quite work…

…but this one does.

When we get back to the canyon, I use the stasis control device on the ship, and it becomes accessible. There’s some discussion of just how ancient the ship is and what civilization could have made it, possibly the Tnuctipun. At any rate, I open the access panel, which gives me a rather unique sort of puzzle: six tiles with designs that have to fit together in a particular sequence. I poke at it for a few minutes, but it doesn’t take me too long to determine where the tiles have to go to make a consistent pattern: arrows in the corners have to fit together, for instance.

The ancient alien is badly injured.

When the ship opens, immediately we find an alien inside that’s still alive, but badly injured. He babbles for a minute before the translator kicks in and we understand that we need to secure an antimatter device that’s malfunctioning. I can see it in the doorway, some kind of device with loose wiring spitting sparks. I can’t do anything with it directly, so on a whim I try putting the helmet on his head, which I guess helps with his head wound? At any rate, we can now help him out of the ship, and he gives me some kind of magnetic key to open the access panel for the device.

I fight with the interface for a minute, trying to get back into the zoomed-in view of the ship interior. When we helped the alien out of the ship, it zoomed back out to the main view, but then everyone was still standing right around the hatch, so I had a hard time clicking in the right place to look inside again. Then I still wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I clicked around for a little while before I figured out where the panel was that I had to use the magnetic key on.

The antimatter is contained. Really.

Eventually I found it and opened it to reveal a very hot sphere. I still couldn’t do anything with it directly, but I’d already figured out that I needed to put just the device in stasis, so I used the stasis box on it, which solved the sparking.

I try to talk to the alien at this point, but he still says I need to contain the antimatter. I thought I’d done that, but I go back into the ship view and find that I can now take the stasis box with the antimatter inside, and also a pair of some kind of devices from slots near the wires that had been sparking, although I have no idea what those are.

The alien calls himself Tnuctipun, so apparently that’s what he is. And he wants our ship.

Now the alien is satisfied, and starts talking about installing technology into our ship to make its hyperdrive timeless. Seeker and Miranda seem completely willing to do whatever the alien wants, even when he says they must remain here to guard his ship while he takes ours, which is of course the last thing we want.

Clearly that helmet is a bad influence on not just the alien. I’m not sure why Quinn seems to be resisting the influence, but he’s also still got some kind of neural wave nullifier. I use that on the alien so I can take the helmet off him. He slumps down, again in mortal danger. Seeker and Miranda suggest we’d better just put the alien back and put the ship back under stasis for now. The ancient alien may have valuable information, so we can’t let him die, but Miranda can’t stabilize him either. I seem to have pulled everything useful out of the ship for now, so I push the alien back in and Quinn automatically turns the stasis field back on.

Quinn volunteers for what ought to be a suicide mission.

Back on the lander, the team discusses the plan. We still need to stop the Destroyer from attacking the Puppeteer Fleet of Worlds, so Quinn comes up with an idea. We can use the unstable antimatter device we put in stasis to destroy the Destroyer if we send it over on the lander. The Destroyer will use its weapons on the lander, which will destroy it, and then the stasis field can be deactivated. When the antimatter destabilizes, it should take out the ship too. Only one problem: someone has to pilot the lander over to the Destroyer, and the rest of the team will wait in the Lance at a safe distance.

I don’t understand why the lander can’t be piloted remotely, but the plot apparently requires that Quinn do this. He volunteers, in fact, and everyone else wonders if he has any way to escape. He just smiles and says he has a hunch about the mysterious devices we just took from the alien ship.

This surely can’t end well…

…since Quinn fails to survive a lander that’s vaporized by lasers, of course.

We get a short cut-scene where the Kzinti give orders to destroy the lander with main lasers, as expected. I regain control again as the lander slowly approaches the Destroyer. If I do nothing, the lander is destroyed, but Quinn is lost and the plan fails. Again, I don’t know why someone else couldn’t deactivate the stasis field on the antimatter device even if Quinn doesn’t make it, but apparently Quinn has to do it.

To win, all I have to do is open inventory and use the alien devices before the lander is blown up. It doesn’t seem to matter where on the screen I use them. This time, Quinn materializes back on the main ship just after the lander is destroyed. Somehow the alien devices teleported him back, so then he can trigger the stasis field. We watch as the antimatter makes a huge explosion, larger than Miranda had expected.

I can’t imagine the explosion being so bright or large that it would be visible to both sides of multiple planets.

Then Hindmost appears on-screen to chew us out again. He’s unhappy because the explosion was so huge that it scared a lot of the Puppeteer population, and he says they were never in danger anyway, which may or may not be true. And he wants his stuff, the stasis items. But this time, Quinn flat-out refuses to give him anything. The team agrees that they’re done with threats and refuse to even talk to the Puppeteer any further.

Once they cut the connection, everyone agrees that they’d better go back to the Ringworld. They still haven’t found Louis Wu and Chmeee, and they have an intriguing alien ship to investigate, if they can keep the remaining crewmember alive.

“Consider the end.”

The final cut-scene is just a conversation between Hindmost and his aide, revealing that they know the team is going back to Ringworld, but they can find them whenever they want. Seems like they still think they’re pulling the strings.

And that’s the end of the game. Obviously we’ll need a sequel to wrap up all the loose ends, but we won’t see that until 1994’s Return to Ringworld. But we still have the final rating of this installment to go. And for those who like reading carefully, there will be CAPs for the first person to report what word is misspelled in one of my screenshots in this post. I guess the game needed a little more proofreading.

Number of people stunned by Quinn: 0 (not for lack of trying); 5 total Number of actions taken by Quinn other than stunning: 23 (including getting 8 items: the slave clothing, the straw, the tunic, the sword, the helmet, the magnetic key, the antimatter, and the alien device); 61 total [Note that several actions in the last section are optional, like taking extra tunics and showing them to the Patriarch; I didn’t count these.] Number of conversational choices: 0; 9 total Number of deaths: 1 (failing to trigger the alien device at the end); 3 total Number of alien species encountered: 3 (the slave, the slave overseer, and the ancient alien in the stasis ship); 9 total

Session Time: 2 hrs 10 min Total Time: 6 hrs 50 min

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ringworld-won/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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