Moderated Freeform · Legacy archive
The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#81"Where's this coming from, Obutsu?", reflexively Jerome was also scanning the horizon for .. anything? "You were napping. Nightmare?"
Jerome could sympathize if it was, undrugged sleep was not always a serene experience for him.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#82Matos shook his head, dismissing the idea with a wave. "Não, I was meditating. I know dreams. This was..." He took a deep breath. "Merda. I don't know, it was something else."
He looked at Jerome. "You really didn't feel anything? I don't know how you could not." -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#83Jerome shrugged. There was enough weirdness in the world to assume he didn't know it all. "Not a thing. but then I'm as psi-sensitive as ole-skullface over there. Maybe less in fact."
"Blue! Did you see or feel anything off? Like, especially off?".
The fact that Blue had not already lit off the gun seemed to suggest otherwise, but best to check.
"Blue?"
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#84"It's beautiful..." Blue gasped. "I haven't seen anything like it ever before. Welcome to the Sea of Victoria, where the future blends with the days of yore. Where dream and reality struggle for a place at the fore...front. F!ck. Messed up the rhyme."
"Also, it may be coming to kill us, so we may prepare for days of gore. In the wreckage it lairs, but..."
Blue put on an ominous voice, the various controls blinking and illuminating the azure face from below. "It's coming..." -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#85"Okay, Captain Arjun, I'm gonna need you to answer that question on the sensors. You got _anything_?"
As he spoke, Jerome was opening one of the top hatches of the tank, bringing up his rocket rifle so he could use it's integral thermo-imager to scan around. And fire, if need be.
"Tom, Jerry, you got anything?"
This fuckin' contract was going even further south.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#86Obutsu took some small relief in that Blue had noticed something. Not that much relief, though. Whatever this... thing was still terrified him in a way he hadn't felt in ages.
Trying to shake the feeling from his head, he mechanically checked his weapons. VD 10-60 locked and loaded, mag pistol charged, Obaluaiê clean in its scabbard. -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#87The second hulk in the row of beached ships shuddered as it's occupant pushed a rusted panel over and stepped out. It, at one point, had been a battlemech. Long ape like arms hung from a torso that was riddled with craters and holes, and the cockpit was blown apart. It made a terrible creaking and grinding noise as the machine lurched towards the turbo tank. A fluid disturbingly like clotted blood was running down the armor, and from the joints. Fibrous cancerous flesh wrapped around joints and bulged through the larger holes in the machine. Frond like cilia tested the air around the machine's former head. It had no eyes, that they could see, but it was alive, biological.
Arjan saw the creature, lurching from the wreckage towards them, and she released a stream of obscenities in more than one language and turned the tank away from the monstrosity.
OOC 1: https://strolen.com/viewing/Hekatonkheire
OOC 2: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gladiator_(BattleMech)
notable design quirks - obsolete, bad reputation (easy to destroy), Poorly Made, Unbalanced
OOC 3: due to alarm being raised, the party gets to act first, before finding out what this particular horror is capable of. It is going to try to kill and eat all of you. -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#88"Sweet Mary and Joseph!" yelled Jerome, flicking his rifle back to manual and firing a full burst of explosive rockets at the 'thing's knees. No point in holding back.
Let God guide them, he thought. And let this damn tank go warp speed.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#89"Scratch that, it's not beautiful, sorry! Also, please don't yell, I'll try a little of my djinn-ery before I try gunnery."
Blue hummed in Elvish to focus the unbridled energy, but especially one prancing mind. Oh, that mind is mine, as sure as Eärendil has earned the right to set foot upon Valinor. The Lake of Victoria hummed back, reverberating with song.
I lúme utúlie,
A tirno Silmarillion,
Tienna narwa
No rocco néca,
Yan i esse ná Qualme
Hour has come,
O guard of Silmarils,
Onto road fiery-red
On a pale horse,
Whose name is Death
The tank sped from the battle-beast, as it sped forward, and Blue's mind reached out, pulling, to the precariously perched plates of fragmented hulks above. The crew inside felt the pull too, weakly, but still, a tugging at every square inch, a rattling of the beer bottles in the fridge. One hull fragment, akin to a long shard, a thirty-feet lance of serrated metal, listened to Blue's call, and descended, point first, into the blown-open cockpit of the Hekatonthiere. If it did not stop the thing, at least the cancerous 'Mech would have a hard time navigating between the wings and other protrusions of the hulks with *this* sticking up like a lightning rod.
"Begone, spawn of Morgoth!" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#90The decrepit infested Gladiator lumbered forward, Blue's psychic conduit glowing luminous in front of it. It's cilia waved excitedly. Rockets punched into the old armor around the machine's knees. The armor plate on the left knee buckled, exposing the rusted ruin of the knee actuator, and the fibrous tendrils of alien matter wrapped around them. A fluid somewhere between blood and motor oil erupted from the joint, and it obviously displeased the thing as it made a weird chittering grating noise inside the mech torso. It slowed its pursuit as it was seemingly capable of feeling pain. Blue's rusted iron lance struck true, smashing through what little remained of the cockpit before glancing down and penetrating into the torso. The cilia that weren't crushed or sheered off by the hunk of tetanus retracted into the armor shell and more of the weird blood oil ran down from the neck hole. Angered and injured, the monster struck into the side of the hulk that the spear came from, shaking it. Pieces of metal started raining down around it.
LV screamed inside the cargo bay, obviously distressed by the psychic noise that the monster was making, and possibly by the fact that she was being pelted with a stream of spent shell casings and exhaust from rocket rounds.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#91João felt a shudder of odd relief as metal and gore burst from the monster. "Sangra," he muttered. The explosion shook him from his shock and the warrior quickly settled into combat mode.
Hearing the thing's reaction to the assault, it occurred to Obutsu that it could feel pain. That was something he could exploit. He pulled an incendiary round from his pack and loaded it into the LV 10-60. He dashed down to the cargo bay, ignoring LV's screams, and scrambled atop the mech legs he had used earlier. From his perch he could see the infested mecha striking the rusted junk, and the exposed flesh of the knee joint. Powering on his weapon, it linked with his targeting eye and he focused his attention on the wounded joint. João drew his weapon, waited for the targeting sensor to signal, and pulled the trigger. -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#92Jerome approved of Obutsu's weapon choice as he pulled out another magazine for his rifle. Getting low, he thought. Hadn't really expected to need to use as many rounds as this was needing, but there was nothing for it. Going to need to pick his shots from here on in.
"Your Djinnery worked well Blue! Keep it up, apparently its pretty stupid." A contingency plan involving Tom and a demo charge was forming in Jerome's mind. "Tom, grab package #1 and get ready to move."
Jerome had been careful not to install a full AI in Tom and Jerry. The programs were good, but lacked agency. Even then, they had occasional odd outbursts that made him wonder.
"Blue, you want me on the gun so you can focus on Dijinnery?"
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#93"Fire away, dear Oromë, just leave me clear vision over this earth" Blue withdrew from the gun post, stumbling when the gun's handles were no longer available as support.
Legs. Long legs are long. This one's mine, the other one too. Shouldn't I have some sort of blue trailing mist instead?
Legs! With all the focus on the damaged knee, Blue focused the River's power upon one of the hulks that looked about ready to roll over. A little nudge here, and it might do just that, impacting the Hekatonthiere's knee joint from the side with its gravity-driven bulk.
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind,
long years numberless as the wings of trees!
As Blue's hair stood on end, so began all the spent shells in the tank rattling, dancing, bouncing, like live cuttlefish in searing oil.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#94Everyone felt the hulk shudder, and tip. The forward gantry on the rusted ruin of the ship lurched as the weight shifted, and buckled. Blue felt like blood was turning to molten silver in glass veins, hair became antenna, picking up on alien frequencies, playing a curious mix of sitar melodies and old pop songs. The hekatonkheire felt the thrum of power, and stopped it's flailing assault.
Joao's incendiary round struck true, burying itself in the cancerous flesh of the exposed knee. The round burst, spewing molten volatile chemicals into the flesh.
The thing screamed.
It did something like screaming, but it didn't have a mouth. It emitted a howl of psychic noise. Psychic noise that resembled strains of Vivaldi run through a wood chipper and then poured, covered in ten thousand cuts, into a vat of alcohol.
The wail rose in intensity, as the hulk continued to shift, and the gantry tipped and fell. More corroded iron spars smashed into the creature. The hulk of the ship groaned and fell over, sheering through the forward section, and hammered the creature to the ground.
The psychic scream stopped.
Tom stood, holding the satchel charge in it's small mechanical hands, seconds away from arming and detonating the device inside the bed of the turbo tank -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#95Blue plopped down bonelessly, cushiony behind smacking the deck. "How's that for a wish, Oromë? Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space."
"What's with those legs anyway? Shouldn't I trail from a lamp? Indeed, verily so. The best wishes, only from me. Rub the lamp, get a wish."
Behind sore, Blue rubbed it, went down, and grabbed an alcohol-free beer, drinking thirstily. "Oromë, Jerome, mellon mie, why is your little clockwork helper scuttling around with explosives? As something of a ... revolutionary... chuckle mysef, I can tell you, that's irresponsible." -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#96Matos spat. Watching the monster die felt more like a cold relief than a victory. The fact that it had existed at all was disconcerting.
Joao had heard stories and rumors of arcanotech rising up like monsters in bad kaiju programs. He’d never encountered much arcanotech nimself, not directly. His implants were of Japanese manufacture, mostly biomechanics and nanomachinery, quantum machines that were well understood (or so he’d been told). The company’s cutting edge arcanotech was tightly under wraps. Watching the smoking hulk of flesh that had overtaken that mecha, he understood why.
But no time to dwell on it now. The thing was dead, could be killed like any other thing. And he was still on the clock for more killing.
Matos climbed back into the cab of the turbotank. “We’re done here, yeah?” he nodded to Jerome. “Shut down your bot and let’s move on.”
He gave Blue a nudge as he passed by. “Forgot how good you are with that psych stuff, cara. You gotta teach me sometime.” -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#97Jerome sighed. That's what he got for trying to do too many things at once. A thought and Tom was shutdown, Jerome's drone implant sending the killcode. He'd have to flash the bot's firmware this time, which meant he had no idea what new quirks the bot would acquired when it rebooted. More work for later.
"Well, that was ... interesting. Thank you Blue. And good job with the incendiary. I'll have to add those to my shopping list next time ..."
Oh God let there not be a next time. Let this score be enough.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#98"Teach you, Joao? Sure, it's simple. First, become the pinnacle of human evolution, like me. Then *snip* stuff floats. There may or may not be the need for a little preparation first, like, to cut a hole in your forehead and find someone to make love to it with long, loving thrusts. A mixer may have the same effect."
Ah, there was Joao's no-nonsense face again. Blue started laughing, then regained composure half a minute later.
Far quieter, so that LV wouldn't hear, Blue added: "No, really, it's a hoot. We can have a session of spoon-bending when there's time. In other news, there's a needle with some fentanyl in my hip pouch, here. If I go ballistic, just jam it in my butt, and I'll snooze off safely for a while. Okay?"
Then, Blue sat down with the 'beer', and sipped. Molten silver in glass veins prickled and crunched as the neo-ethnic fidgeted with the can. Nodding to the sitar pop, Blue mused. Why was the dragon just a mass of walking cancer? So much for appearances. D'awww. Foul is fair and fair is foul and I want my drugs, the entire haul. Howl. Damn. If I put on a faux German accent, the rhyme works.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#99João leaned against the hull, crossing his arms in thought. Blue's jibe was right, he knew: parapsyhicic abilities weren't something taught, they were bred or forged by arcano tech.
And yet. There was that quiet, hidden sense he felt somewhere in the back of his mind. The extra sense that picked up the monster they'd fought before.
He started to open his mouth, then looked down at Blue and thought better of it. The neo-ethnic probably mock him. So? he heard Thiago Watanabe, his old master, whisper in his head. The warrior has fulfills the virtue of yū - heroic courage. To be mocked is nothing. To learn is to become stronger.
João shrugged, as if to respond to the voice in his head. "I think there is something going on there," he said finally. "Up here," tapping his temple. "I've noticed it before, when I meditate. A sense of... something larger, yeah?" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#100"Then you in fact may be an evolved human, who knows. Wouldn't be the first one. Where do you think they got the genes to make *this* beauty from?" Blue pointed to Blue.
"For example, I know for a fact there was a ... what do they call it ... wild-type, meaning not engineered ... woman in a Midwest arco. Sheltered as they come, report says she did some telekinetic stuff for fun. Minor, think cheating at cards and tickling people. The police came for her baby, poor thing had some super-bug. Woman went Akira, tore up a street, along with the coppers. Died of the super-bug though, too."
"When we're back in town, I'll fix you up with the standard parapsychic test battery. Hidden cards, spoons, arcanotech in unlabeled boxes, girls you see from the waist up and have to guess the colour of the panties, the standard fare." Blue smiled at the question written across Joao's face. "All the parapsychic stuff works better with motivation, so use treats instead of random objects , etc. What do you like anyways, except justice and being all grumpy?"
C'mon, Joao, there has to be *something*
"Also, we can order some peyote from across the lake and go on spirit voyages to unlock your potential. Worst case: we've had peyote. Best case: you're suddenly samurai ninja Merlin."
Blue briefly lost the train of thought, or rather, found it still on a different rail.
"With the girls, you get to see her panties only if you guess right, and otherwise have to wonder all day what colour they were, and whether she wore any at all." -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#101João shifted. "Don't have much time for hobbies. When I do go home, I run the capoeira dojo. Takes up most of my spare time."
He was quiet for a long moment, tapping his mechanical fingers against his arm. "I have done some shodo. Calligraphy. I decorate the dojo with it. Makes it less, ah, enfadonho. Less wearisome. Living in the shadow of the arco weighs on you. Calligraphy lifts you out some, yeah?" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#102'You are all gek,' LV says, the current hip way to say crazy.
The drive across the salt pan is thankfully uneventful. The large tires make quick time across the salt, and in less than an hour they come within sight of the downed cargo shuttle. Arjan has picked it up on her tank's forward scanner, the only remnant of the cab over gun it used to have.
'The bird is ahead, about three miles,' she says. 'Sweeper is picking up either some really large pieces of mycop, what you say, trash? or might be speeder bikes, but it is small'
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#103Jerome popped his head up, using the integrated optics in his helm. "Range and bearing on our junk, Captain?"
During the interval he had rebuilt his camera drone - he had enough parts to build a couple if needed. He had also made sure to keep his hyperpneumatic SMG nearby as well, and took off its velocity governor. No need to worry about punching accidental holes in a space station or ship.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#104Dead ahead Captain Clanker, Arjan shouted at him, and 15000 feet -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#105"Gek? Joao, why does it speak?" Blue waved the Glock in LV's general direction, admonishing her: "How dare you pass judgment? Don't you know passing judgment is reserved for the Lord and for those who don't stupidly get beaten up while charging a tank on horseback? F!ck!"
Having gotten that off the chest, Blue concluded, somewhat calmer: "Don't piss of the gek, or the gek geks you up."
With that, Blue focused on Joao again, whispering from ten inches away for added privacy. "Personal space invader here. I got it figured out. You're very centered, Joao - you're very humble and centered. See, me, I want things all the time, fiercely so. Delicacies. Fun. Nookie. And when someone pisses me of, I wish to see them f!cked to death with a chainsaw, and set on fire, and the discrepancy between Ist-Zustand and Soll-Zustand is like a discordant note, roaring as loudly as the Sun. This lends itself to projective psionics, like flipping tables. I am too full of myself to do well at receptive psi, like telepathy, it's too loud in here." Blue tapped a temple. "You have a very clear idea what the world should be, and have closed your mind against its corruption. But to perceive, you have to open your eyes, even if you risk getting a little sand in them from time to time. Or a flying wiener, can't dismiss the possibility of those. A wench threw her toy at me once, hit me right in the eye. This still doesn't keep me from opening my eyes, understood?"
Grinning at this excellent explanation of the nature of reality, Blue looked for understanding on Joao's face.
Just to be on the safe side, the neo-ethnic added: "But calligraphy is a pretty thing, too."
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#106"Okay, what do we have here?" said Jerome as he focused his optics ahead.
Jerome had a strong dislike for psi, but it was in the same bucket as poison gas and bioweapons. He would never use them, but that did not mean he had to be blind to them, nor underestimate them. Blue's recent demonstration showed the folly in that.
He quickly switched between visible, infrared and ultraviolet as he scanned. Sometimes the weird stuff would only show in ultraviolet.
"Any of you picking up anything weird? " - they had given a useful heads up before.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#107"I'm not picking up anything weird - Joao is too heavy, I'm not touching LV, and I can't lift myself, tried that." -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#108João shrugged. "Nada. Don't know how to, ah, really listen for it anyway. Still, if this is the spot, my target might be close. Maybe we should scout it out, yeah?" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#109Arjan drove the turbo tank towards the downed shuttle, approaching cautiously. As they closed on the craft there was sign of at least one obvious fight, maybe even two. The shuttle was mostly intact, but it had been peppered with small arms fire. Several hoverbikes were scattered around the shuttle, most of their riders were still there, also on the ground. Judging from the bloating and stench, they had been dead for a while, they must have shown up hellaciously early to be this decomposed. There were a number of 'bots too, but they were just as shot up. This looked like a last man standing that went sideways.
There was a second shuttle, a formerly sleek and sexy private owned job. Formerly because it was shattered into a stunning number of pieces.
There was a camp set up in the shadow side of the shuttle, made from tattered clothing and broken pieces of the ship. There were easily a dozen people under the makeshift awning. Women, most of them looked pregnant, and there were more children with them. Mx Adeaze stood out like a sore thumb, her skin a glossy dark brown, while the women around her were all blondes, redheads, and a few had muted pink or purple hair, they were all decided caucasian. The children were the same, pale complexion and light colored hair. -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#110Matos squinted out the cockpit window. “Puta merda,” he muttered. “That’s her. Dozen human shields, too.” He called back, “Hey LV, you know what this is about?” -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#111"Great, someone's fucking harem."
Jerome suspected that the rider's might have brought the shuttle down, owing to their age.
"Lets take a really good look before we get out there." Jerome activated his recently repaired camera drone and sent it out to scan.
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#112“Not too close,” Obutsu warned. “Been here long enough that they could have proximity alarms set up. Want this to go quietly if possible, yeah? One clean shot, then leave a distress beacon for the meninas. I didn’t sign up for a bloodbath.” -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#113Mx Adeaze has a sidearm and points it at the turbo tank as it rolls closer to the perimeter.
'Who are you, who sent you!' she shouts, holding the gun out in front of her, seemingly oblivious to the futility of a pistol versus an oversized APC -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#114Blue looked, mouth slightly ajar, at the assembly of motherly women, heavy with child, and muttered: "Drat. I guess this is my fetish now. d**n you, Adeaze, do you have any idea how much keeping such a family costs? I bet you do, you filthy moneybag."
Blue's head hurt; the neo-ethnic was painfully aware of the stress the discrepancy between desire and pragmatism caused. Blue wanted nothing more than to shoot Adeaze in the face (f!cking corp lamprey, take this, and that, you being two-faced means I have to shoot you in the face twice?) and to run off with a heap of drugs and women, laughing. A truckload of both. Pragmatism demanded to be more thoughtful about all of the above, lest Charlie-Foxtrot take over.
To catalyse the tension, Blue barked at LV "Wench, you were spoken to, by the distinguished gentleman that is Joao, so please be so kind and reply, yes?"
Recomposed, Blue added: "Jerome, you're all soldier-y and tactical. Do we just go for the shuttle and the goods inside, or do we get rid of Adeaze first? I could end her, but I guess Joao would not want to calculate the conversion rate between back rubs and murder, so... what next?" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#115Quickly, Jerome asked.
"Remind me again why she has to die? - Or, as the case may be, how much?"
He hadn't signed up quite for this, though if she shot first..
"Lets see if we can avoid any fireworks..."
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#116"Because that's the job," Matos said flatly. He checked his mag pistol. "Blue, can you keep her distracted? Maybe mess with her head?" He nodded to Jerome. "You still got those drones flying, yeah? I'm gonna get into a firing position from the cargo bay. Give me a minute to set up, then buzz by Adaeze's head. Then I'll take the shot."
He looked around quickly. "Good enough plan, yeah?" -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#117Blue shrugged: "Cool. Let's kill that b!tch."
At the first opportunity, Blue would mess with Adeaze's head. With telekinesis, for telepathy was not one of Blue's gifts. -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#118Jerome sighed. More ages in purgatory.
"I think you'll be fine without my Drone as target practice. It's worth more as eyes. I think there is still more we aren't seeing. Seems too easy.."
With that, Jerome directed the drone to sweep its cameras into the areas they couldn't see from the tank.
"Jerry, step out and wave." Jerome ordered. The Bots skeletal appearance would likely solve a couple problems. Scatter the kids and draw her fire. The pistol was unlikely to even damage the skelebot, even if she was lucky.
And, she would have fired first...
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Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#119At Jerome's command Jerry clanked out and gave a bizarre wave that was somewhere between a parade queen's rotating hand and a vaguely Nazi-like salute.
Rather than scattering, one of the children let out a cry of delight and started running towards Jerry like Jerry was his long lost father -
Re: The Silk Road Act 1: Old Cairo
#120Obutsu loaded the VD 10-60 as he rushed into the cargo bay, the sun beating down from the slate sky above. He quietly scaled the mecha legs, trying to keep out of sight while getting a vantage point on Mx Adaeze.