As he left the Power Plant, Mega Man decided the best way to find the next Robot Master would be to follow the power lines from the plant in whichever direction the most power was going in that didn't lead somewhere he'd already been. This was relatively easy, as he discovered that the places he'd already shut down were no longer drawing power from the plant, leaving the lines going to them dead.
Following the biggest energy output path, Mega Man found his way to the weather control tower, once again forcing him to climb carefully up into the Martian sky, now blue with the reflection of the new oceans. As he quickly discovered, the path he took up the tower was sparsely defended, instead merely being difficult to navigate safely and far too easy to fall from. And with no repair bays in range as the only place he could teleport off planet from was the Interplanetary Control Tower, a fall would prove slowly lethal, as he was left broken until his power core eventually ran dry.
One interesting obstacle that he came across was a new type of moving platform. Colored red on one side and blue on the other, it endlessly rotated as it ran along its track. When Mega Man jumped onto the platform, he rotated with it, his feet magnetized to the platform until he leapt free. While maneuvering around sequences of these platforms was disorienting, careful timing enabled Mega Man to make it past them and into the Tower itself.
Once inside the tower, Mega Man no longer had to be as concerned with falling to a long, painful, slow death. Instead, he saw the sparse platforms now rested over pits of spikes, meaning a fall would lead to instantaneous, possibly painless death. He was uncertain which was better. Between the spike pits and slippery floors, it was a very tough call.
Once he made it back out of the tower again, however, the scant platforms over falls to one's doom proved to, apparently, not be enough. In addition, a massive storm had brewed up, and rain and wind pushed Mega Man back and forth each time he jumped into the air. One particularly long jump proved to be too long in these conditions...only for Mega Man to discover he could stand on the dark clouds beneath him.
He wisely decided not to question it.
Finally, Mega Man made it through to the control center. There he faced down Tornado Man, who was still wearing his robe covered in mystical symbols. "So!" Tornado Man proclaimed, throwing his arm out as he spun to face Mega Man. "You have come at last! However, you are far too late. The sky of this world is mine to command. You, Blue Bomber, stand no chance against the mighty Zephyr, Sky Lord of Mars! This war you bring to me and mine shall fall here, and you along with it! Now, face the wrath of a g-"
"Don't those two hate each other?" Mega Man asked curiously.
Tornado Man blinked a few times. "I...I beg your pardon?"
Mega Man pointed to one of the symbols on Tornado Man's cloak. "This is a symbol of Quezacoatl. He's Aztec. And this one is of Horus. He's Egyptian. I don't think they should go together on the same garment."
"While normally true," Tornado Man countered primly, "I have a homebrew feat to allow for that, as I am made of parts from many different regions, so I can worship multiple deities to get blessings from them all-"
"Well, within the same pantheon that might work," Mega Man countered, remembering the times Vinyl had dragooned him into playing Dungeons and Dragons with the 'Mega Mashers Club'. "But Vinyl's rather strict about mixing pantheons, last I checked. Tends to lead to rather serious penalties instead of stacked bonuses, since gods of the same aspect hate sharing worshipers..."
"But...my bonuses!" Tornado Man whined. "My entire character build is based in being able to boost myself that way for my various feats! If...if I can't use those..." He collapsed to his knees. "I'm ruined...ruined!"
Mega Man paused for a moment, not quite certain what he was hearing. "...tell you what," he offered finally. "Why don't you leave your weapon chip with me, and head back to Vinyl to get a DM ruling on this? I'll mind the store in the meantime."
"You...you will?" Tornado Man asked, shocked. "Oh, thank you Mega Man! Truly you are the noble hero of this campaign!" Promptly downloading the Tornado Blow to Mega Man, he teleported away.
Mega Man simply stared. "...I can't believe that worked," he admitted at last.
Once Mega Man had managed to stabilize the weather patterns, he found and took an express elevator back down the Tower, only to find it took him beneath the planet's surface and into the Geological Management Center. As he needed to investigate there anyway, Mega Man deciding this would be his next stop.
The Center was far deeper than the mines had been, as one of its primary purposes was to attempt to manage the planet's deep interior geology, all the way down to the core. As such, Mega Man found he had to move much more carefully due to lava flows. Thankfully, the cavern itself was quite straightforward, with no detours.
One major obstacle was tubes dumping lava from above to the pools below as part of the geothermal power systems that sent energy up to the Power Plant. Thankfully, each tube had a warning klaxon that automatically went off any time an increase in tube temperature showed lava was flowing to the end of the pipe. While the intervals this happened were much less frequent than proper safety systems normally allowed, the warning sound was enough to allow Mega Man to avoid having lava dumped on him.
This proved to be the only obstacle...until Mega Man dropped deeper into the facility and came face to face with a robotic fire-breathing dragon patrolling the halls. "What?" Mega Man gasped out in disbelief. "Seriously, who's idea was it to put a dragon down here?"
Thankfully, the dragon wasn't as durable as it appeared, and Mega Man was able to dispatch it swiftly and move on, climbing his way back up into another part of the facility. This eventually led him to the control room, where Magma Man was hard at work.
"Magma Man!" Mega Man called out. "What's going on here?"
"What do you mean?" Magma Man countered calmly. "I am performing my job as I am supposed to."
"But the error messages!" Mega Man countered.
"Yes, I received those a while ago," Magma Man admitted. "Apparently, several surface facilities underwent drastic alterations in their operating systems for some reason. However, that's not my prerogative. My job is to ensure the stability of the geology, and to provide extra energy for processing at Plug Man's power plant as needed. When the demands for more power came in, I did my best to adjust. It was starting to reach the danger threshold as far as geological stability, but power demands have dropped back off more recently. It seems I can restore system defaults."
Mega Man blinked for a time. "You...aren't at all concerned that things might not be as they're supposed to be?"
"Vinyl told me we'd be functioning more or less autonomously here at first," Magma Man countered reasonably. "I fully expected everything that could go wrong to go wrong. For the most part, I've been pleasantly surprised at how straightforward things have been."
"But there was a dragon patrolling the halls!" Mega Man pointed out. "A dragon!"
"Yes," Magma Man agreed. "Tornado Man kept bugging me about a 'campaign' of some sort, so I activated that to keep him out. It was either that or lose my cool, and I'd rather not disappoint the first reasonable boss I've had."
Mega Man blinked. Apparently, not only was Magma Man unaffected by what had influenced the other Robot Masters, he seemed completely unaware that there even was a problem...and as long as it didn't interfere with his job, he didn't care. "Do you suppose you could let me borrow your weapon program so I can finish my investigation into these incidents?" he asked.
"Do I have to leave my post?" Magma Man inquired.
"Not at all," Mega Man replied.
"Then go ahead," Magma Man confirmed. "There's an elevator back to the surface over there."
"Thanks," Mega Man offered gratefully as he downloaded the Magma Bazooka before entering the elevator.
Diplomacy working... Is that a dream?
timing?
Using logic to talk the D&D nerd out of a fight? Well played, Mega Man!
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
HE'S CLERIC FROM 8-BIT THEATER!!!!!
And now he's Red Mage... Red Cleric???
Why WOULDN'T you put a dragon in a fire cave???? It's probably fire proof and able to manipulate lava. Plus, you can mount the skull on your wall and look like a total badass.
A nice chapter, I laughed quite a bit over Tornado man once Mega Man pointed out the flaws in his set up.
...so who takes the dragon soul in this situation? Or core in this case? Mega Man... Dragonborn!
He's a pegasus. Who knew?
Um alright now we just have to know who screwed up the systems.
7501554 When a Red Mage and a Cleric love eachother very much...
They create an unholy abomination that wrecks the campaign for everyone else, until DM Vinyl steps in.
7501860 *COUGH*
Old Man Henderson
Crazy Old Man
Plot Derailer Extraordinare.
Won at Call of Cthulhu.
Reincarnated as Eli Burning.
Simon Breckenridge
Retired British Spy, ala James Bond.
Designed specifically to make everything Henderson does WORSE.
Elsimore
Ancient Elven Wizard
Minor Deity
Loathes Psionics with the passion of a thousand white hot suns.
Managed two full Hendersons on the Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment.
Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment
It's amazing how easy it can be when someone isn't actively trying to take over the world. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
7502163 Look again. Elsimore didn't just reach a Double Henderson, he got >2H. He exceeded a Double Henderson.
Of course Megaman is a nerd, he was originally build ro be a lab assistant.
7501860 Or the other players get sick of the Munchkin antics and rip up the character sheet.
7501554 Oy, you can either have the badass dragon patrol your fortress, or mount it on your wall, you can't do both, dragons don't work so well without a head.
7505735 the bad guys have the dragon patrol, the hero cuts its head off and mounts it on the wall.
7506406 Oh, it sounded like the guy who had the dragon mounted it.
This was surprisingly pacifist.
7501675 I seriously need to search that, lol.
This is wrong. The blue of the skies is caused by the refraction index of ozone.
you put a "q" instead of a "g" here. it's spelled "Egyptian" not "Eqyptian". I should know because i read books on Egypt: Michelle Moran, Rick Riordan, and an Egyptian Mythology book.
7554020
Actually, the blue of the sky is mostly caused by nitrogen, with regular diatomic oxygen also ahead of ozone. It's the depth and thickness of the atmosphere that's the main thing determining its apparent colour.
I like these Robot Masters confrontations ajd their levels much more than qny of the previous ones. This one feels more organic, smooth, and natural. I have greatly enjoyed these past few chapters.
Never question something that's helping you and not harming others. Good call.
Hey, if it works, it works. Just roll with it.
2 more non lethal takedowns for the count, that makes almost half, but now megaman has to deal with the last 2...