"Probably does, maybe your Swarmbane would be even stronger as an Acheron?" Ares agreed with Scorpio.

"The alchemy machine here is pretty easy to use, I kept tinkering with it till it was super-efficient," he continued, obviously proud of himself.

"Anyways, since Armerio got out, he expressed some desire to go to the surface. Dude is power-hungry, he wanted control of my body till he realized he could make his own and try controlling Cradle," Ares said, shaking his head with disgust. Then Ares realized Lyn probably didn't know about Armerio.

"By the way Lyn, how I was able to cure you from The Swarm is basically this. I was supposed to be possessed by The Swarm, but it manifested as a separate mind. I used it to absorb the corruption from you, and it got too powerful for me to control, so now it's out in the Clockworks, getting ready to try and take over," he explained.

"Do you really think the three of us can do it though?" Ares asked. Chomp could be seen asking the same with his expression.

***

*Is it really this easy?* Armerio had to wonder. Enslaving and corrupting the undead had been far easier than he expected.

For the Kats, he really just needed to talk to them. They had joined readily, but Armerio was careful not to take on too many. He was thinking of resurrecting Margrel to be a leader for the Kat portion. For zombies, all he needed to do was (on the advice on Sicarius) corrupt a Grim Totem. Armerio had recruited Deadnaughts of all types to be the zombies troop leaders. His combat elites were Almirian Crusaders, of course, and they now were equipped with long range weapons, Howlitzers. Rounding out his army were phantoms,which served as his Lieutenants.

*It was all too easy,* Armerio had thought. He designated this Graveyard, though there were signs of a Swarm creature inhabiting it before, as his army's base, and he would leave them here until they were needed, and travel with Sicarius.

"At this rate, Cradle will be mine all too soon. But first, I will deal with the meeting." he said to himself.

((So undead Swarm beefs. If you should happen across Armerio's army, then know the following. The Kats can corrupt you with their bites, so don't take too many. With Zombies, avoid the breath attacks (they will corrupt you if you are hit for two seconds). Phantoms? Avoid too many sword slashes. The rest will not corrupt you. And Deadnaughts will revive all their fallen comrades if you let them charge a Swarm pulse for 3 seconds. This Swarm pulse does not corrupt you.))

"Oracle," Creos announced."I need an elite strike team. I have a feeling that this is will not be a long lasting time of peace. I'm going to need a squad who can take orders well, all acolytes, as well as a leader who has had previous...affilation with this orginization of ours. Anyon who matches that description?"

"Yes your lordship. There is as a matter or fact. His name is Syber. Should I enlist him right now and call a squad to track him down?"

"Yes. Yes you should." Creos stated

"Hell yes" Says Scorpio.

Syber sat on the rooftop and stared with a bored expression at the chasms surrounding Haven. He was near the entrance. He thought about going back out to track down Coryn or Meteko and Drace. He didn't know what to do for once, and that infuriated him.

((Hell yes to can we can the three of us do it))

((@Ares-Hsg: Yes, being the spirit of the Core is different from being the Avatar. See, each person has two components - their spirit and the body they inhabit. The spirit is what gives the body consciousness. The Avatar is simply a glorified body. The spirit of the Core inhabits the Avatar and gives it the Core's consciousness.))

By the Awesome Powers Vested in Me, I Hereby Declare that One Day has Passed and all Player Characters are now Situated in Haven!

*WHOOSH*

Next Day, 0800hrs

Begin!

Scorpio rushes forward and impales the gremlin's skull.

"Your turn Ares" He says, grimacing.

"Wha?"

Luke opened his eyes and took in the building, more knights were around him, waking up like he was. He focused on the cloaked figure,

"Where am I?" He asked, more or less to anyone.

((I assume the antagonists have not been transported?))

Luke blinked, "Gwenivere?"

He rubbed his white swarm repelling band on his wrist and looked around. Haven? Isn't that infested with the swarm? Why would they be here again. He looked around again at all the other knights. He was just down at Stoneborough, how'd she do that?

"What- how did you.." Luke gestured around, at a loss for words.

"Ahh.. you" says Scorpio, disdain apparent in his voice "What's the plan?" He asks.

"Sounds good" Says Scorpio. He reloads his Grim Repeater and slings it over his shoulder on it's strap. He then unsheathes his Barbarous Thorn Blade

[[So I guess I can make a post regarding Strom's reaction to the now teleported knights he was chasing after. Wait a second... Oh. OH. Something's going to go down soon, because Strom's going to come back to his graveyard filled with Swarm thingies. Oh boy. TIME TO WRITE!]]

---------------

Strom:

As soon as Strom is defrosted, he walks forward a couple of steps. His joints were ice-cold, and partially brittle with the flash freeze. He then looks around, scanning the surrounding area for whatever laid the trap... But there was no one to be found.

The feeling was... Odd. As if something was missing, or disappeared. During combat, Strom would always get pins and needles, usually along his neck -- or where his neck used to be. He had even when he was living; it was a safety precaution to make sure he wouldn't be caught off guard often while pillaging unexplored tombs.

But he felt nothing.

It felt exactly like it usually did when he was in the graveyard, wasting time by wandering around, avoiding knights when they came past him -- not out of fear, but out of hopes they would simply leave quickly and without any further disturbance.

His Épée floated at his side, then plunged into the ground, as if settling itself to conserve energy. Despite floating being non-fatiguing in any way.

The temperature of the Stratum Strom was in quickly melted the rest of the frost, and he was moving without a hitch in minutes.

"Ⱥnđ ȿø ŧħɇɍɇ aɍɇ ønłɏ ŧwø ᵽøȿȿɨƀɨłɨŧɨɇȿ..."
"And so there are only two possibilities..." Strom spoke slowly to himself, gripping at where his chin would be -- a habit which he hadn't dropped, even in death.

"Ønɇ, ₥ɏ ȿɇnȿɇȿ ħavɇ ǥɍøwn đưłł wɨŧħ ŧħɇ ɨȼɇ."
"One, my senses have grown dull with the ice." His large swarm eye seemed to close as he spoke, as if going back into its own place within his mind.

"Øɍ ŧwø: Ŧħɇɏ ɇȿȼaᵽɇđ."
"Or two: They escaped." With his eye now fully closed, Strom paces back and forth for a moment, then walks the remaining distance to the camp.

Upon arrival, he notices it is desolate, even the pods are completely empty -- one of them had a couple of odd contraptions within it, but no knights were hiding within them; Strom personally disassembled the machine to make sure.

After an inspection of the camp, he heads to the center, where a fire lay. It was almost completely out -- meaning knights wouldn't have been there for quite a while.

Strom opened his own eyes and looked down at the dulling embers.

"Ŧħɇn Ɨ ȿưᵽᵽøȿɇ... Ɨ'łł ɍɇŧưɍn ħø₥ɇ."
"Then I suppose... I'll return home." Strom then stomped on the fire, putting it out for good, and then turned to the broken elevator he had come from originally.

---------------

Pippin:
Pippin opens her eyes once she realiszes something isn't right with the items she had been gathering. She jerks herself up, and looks to her side.

The friggen containers were spilling.

"AHHHHH!" Pippin shouts, instantly backing from the puddle, which was still boiling hot -- at least the containers conserved heat. She then moved back to them and propping up the bags while looking around for something to clean up any spillage which seeped through the imperfections in their bag. Upon looking around, however, reality kicks in.

Knights on the floor. No gremlins. Not a single one in sight.

'This isn't Emberlight, clearly... But how did I get here? When did I get here? Why was I laying down? Who are these other people laying down?WHY DID THE GREMLIN COOK GIVE ME FAULTY CONTAINERS?!'

"What the heck is..." Pippin then stops at Gwen, who is leaning against the wall.

"Oh. You."

Syber turned around, someone was coming up. Who could've found him already? He drew his Gran Faust and moved to ambush the intruder.

An Apocrean hood poked up, "Syber Krell?"

Syber paused, then put his Faust away hurriedly. "Need me already? What happened?"

"A Creos requested you to lead a team of Acolytes, enemies may be near."

"Huh, never heard of Creos before. I guess I'll accept."

"Good, meet your team here."

...

Gwen strolled over to the center of the room and assumed a formal stance. "Now that I have everyone's attention, I shall introduce you to my plan. We will be traveling to Apocrea itself to deal with the Apocrean Elders directly. I've only been down there once, so my experience is fairly limited, but it's the best we have at the moment. While I was there, I was able to reach the Temple of Hierarchs before being subdued by the Harvesters. With a team of knights, I think we can make through. Once there, I should be able to mind-control an Apocrean Hierarch and force their surrender. Any questions?"

Gwen took his hand in hers and replied softly, "My name is Gwenivere; you can call me Gwen. You seem to be partially corrupted by the Swarm; would you like me to heal you?"

((May I?))

((Perhaps this can explain how Gwen knows of his Swarm corruption.))

Gwen patted his hand and gave him a warm smile. "I understand, Ares. Thank you for telling me." She stood up and looked toward the exit hatch. "Shall we move out?"

Gwen shot him a wry smile and replied, "Apocreans, then the Core. You guys do want to go home someday, right?" She winked at him and made for the exit hatch.

"You guys all ready to do this thing?"

"You had better be." Creos said through the loudspeaker."Be this my final day or yours, I will most definitely go down fighting. And trust me, Scorpio, just because I was a friend of yours, doesn't mean I'll go easy. Now, followers! Attack!"

At that 50 Apocrean cultists charge foward.

Upon entering the battlefield of Haven, Gwen's visage changed. Her eyes narrowed and hardened against the light, and her lips stiffened into a fierce downturn. Even her voice changed. "Hold them off while I summon the portal," she barked in a low, grim tone. She lifted up her face, closed her eyes, and outstreched her arms to the side, palms turned skyward with her fingers bent into claws. Slowly she raised her arms, and with them, a hole in the universe began to rip open and widen.

Protect her at all costs.

You are (or were) in a bunker near the Garrison. It is assumed that you exited the hatch in the roof of the bunker behind the others and are now engaged in battle with the 50 Apocrean cultists attacking them.

((when you attack apocrea, You may meet an old friend.))

"So you are my force?"

The lead one stepped forward, an abnormally large obsidian blade, "Affirmative, some knights have been spotted by the garrison are we going to engage?"

"Not yet, 50 troops are already en route, we need not show out hand yet. However, I'd like to have some eyes there. Any of your crew here sharpshooters?"

"Yes, two, One other can keep a look out."

Syber nodded, "Good, send them in and I want intel in anything other than a regular knight, I've heard one of them can smell over a long distance, the smell is masked here though, so it won't be a problem. Move out!"

Three detached and disappeared into the alleyways.

Syber turned back to the former leader, "now we wait."

* * *

"Doesn't look like it. You ready?"

Luke unholstered his blaster and swung it around, some of the cultists were appearing from the far end of the garrison, more would likely appear from the other entrances. He leveled it and squeezed off three shots. They flew across the field and did absolutely nothing except scatter a few. Luke reloaded and fired again. Snagging one on the arm, the cultist kept running. Luke kept firing, shrugging his shoulder onto one arm for a defensive measure.

((How many posts till they get to the bunker? 3 or 4?))

Scorpio goes feral and Shadow lair mode at the same time, dual wielding his sword and gun. He stabs wildly and shoots practically everywhere with his repeater.

Scorpio's gun jams, and he begins to hacking and slashing his way through everything ((Note: He can't understand you)). Scorpio vaguely notices Gwen and cuts a path to her. ((@Thin search Thinslayer Anime and 6 pages of anime come up. Lucky you))

[[I'll assume that the cultists are just approaching very quickly right now -- as in the next post I'll make will be with slashing at them just to keep distance between them and Gwen.]]

-------------

Pippin:
Pippin watches as the Apocreans continue their fast approach on the group, it's like a hoard of hoods and obsidian. It was like a picture you'd see in some sort of art gallery -- just that it was moving, and parts of haven were black and pink.

Due to Pippin's decision not to carry a gun, she simply changed combat positions. She slides one foot forward, and holds her cleaver partially over her shoulder -- sort of like a half-longsword position and half-batter position.

"I hope whatever you're doing is worth it, lady!" Pippin shouts back at Gwen as her Grip-Mods spur to life, dust flowing out and around her boots as they generate a miniature gravitational force.

[[More will be written for Strom later, but I don't have time right now. Expect it later tonight/tomorrow.]]

It had, admittedly, taken him longer than he thought it would, but Armerio and his personal cohort of 40 undeads, as well as Sicarius, had finally made it to Haven. Inhaling deeply, he could smell Apocrea, and knights, and in the distance, the beginnings of a battle could be heard. He exhaled, and grinned.

"I see blood on the horizon Sicarius, the time is almost upon us," he said to his servant. ((@Snakey- I'm going to assume you're in a bunker of sorts, for the sense of practicality in war))

Armerio gestured to a particularly inconspicuous bunker, camouflaged almost completely by the mundanity of the area. Sicarius confirmed his thoughts.

"Yes, Master, Creos is awaiting you in that bunker."

Walking forward, and gesturing to his army to follow at a distance, Armerio walked up to the metal door and hit it once. A resounding bang echoed in the air.

"Creos, it is I, Armerio. You requested an audience with the most fearsome villain in the Clockworks, and it has been granted. I advise you to make use of it, as I am not a patient man," he declared, then folded his arms.

His head hurt for a moment, and he could see a stronger Ares, taking down an Apocrean and seemingly looking at Armerio himself, as if to say

"You next."

He shook himself out of his reverie, and awaited the mysterious knight known as Creos.