DEPLOYMENT 17: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Boomstick

[walking_nuke]

[Balin's been a really rare sight at the house ever since the Friday before last. He's spending almost all of his waking hours in town, even on Mother's Day. Outside of work, he's become a lot more focused on accomplishing something with his demolitions projects.]

[Though today, he gets a belated birthday present. As he heads out the door to work, he spies a package lying on the porch. Rather than taking it inside, Balin's curiosity gets the best of him and he opens it on the spot ...]

[... To reveal a shotgun. One big enough to have its own zip code and mean enough to come with its own postal worker. It looks suited to being a turret on a scale model battleship rather than in the hands of a human. Its ammo belt already has a few canisters pre-loaded into it. The sight of it makes Balin's eyes gleam.]

... Now we're talkin'.

[ACTION - A (Anywhere in Mayfield, Morning to Evening, OPEN TO ALL)]

[You might catch Balin on the streets while he's out running his personal errands. In place of the Remington 870 shotgun he'd been carrying around with him for months, he's going to be carrying the Series 3 Triple Incendiary Shotgun. It comes with its own back-mounted holster, so he doesn't have the shotgun sling on him either.]

[ACTION - B (John Doe Park, Morning, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Balin's taken a detour on his way to work in order to test out his latest piece of regained hardware. He's standing in a spot of open ground with a pail full of water from the nearby pond—just in case things get out of hand. Taking aim at the open sky, he pulls the trigger, and a flesh-searing armor-melting inferno that's twenty meters high at its most potent spews forth. Enjoy your wakeup call!]

[ACTION - C (Neutron Diner, Morning, Afternoon, or Evening, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Balin's also been frequenting the Diner for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, since it gives him a place to sit down, eat, and work on brainstorming and planning—and the drones don't seem to bother him at all, provided he sits down at a booth. You'll likely see him jotting down notes or making rough sketches in a journal while taking bites out of a hamburger or a pathetic imitation of a Philly cheesesteak.]

[ACTION - D (Jonathon's Tools, Early Afternoon, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Balin's taking a look around the hardware store, though he doesn't seem to be buying anything today. He's making note of construction materials and any items the store has pertaining to electronics or electric wiring, as well as checking up on the different kinds of paint for sale.]

[ACTION - E (339 Brady Lane, Afternoon, HOUSE RESIDENTS)]

[While Balin was able to rig up simple detonators from what he found at the construction yard, doing something on the level of what he had planned would require some help to get right. To that end, he's stopping by Quinn's house to see if the guy's home. If the garage is open he'll be taking a peek to see if the technomancer's hanging around. If not, he'll head over to the front porch and ring the doorbell.]

Yo, Quinn! You there?

[He really should have phoned ahead ...]

[ACTION - F (Mayfield Outskirts, Evening, OPEN TO ALL)]

[Like he's been doing for the past week, Balin continues to test and experiment with the C-4 he had created in the past week or two. By now, all the test detonations in that field have created some ready-made earthworks for future testing—a short trench five feet deep, beyond which are other shallow craters where more bricks of C-4 have gone off.]

[Balin can be found out here doing a final battery of experiments with what remains of his first few batches of C-4. Which means there'll be the occasional explosion coming from the outskirts of town—just mind the sign by the side of the road if you head out that way to investigate.]

Comments

[photonicfighter]

I think the terminology may be a bit muddled, between here and Gurhal... Or maybe things do operate differently from universe to universe. We don't have anything quite like your Logos, after all.

[She nods to confirm Balin's question.]

That's right. It draws a certain portion of its power from me.

[walking_nuke]

Got'a point'ere ... How's it doin'at if all that Photon stuff's an ambient energy?

[photonicfighter]

The reactor in the saber generates a base amount of energy that's enough to produce the blade and keep it stable... but using Photon Arts with it will drain the reactor much more quickly. And that's where the real damage-dealing is. It'll recharge slowly if left alone, collecting that ambient energy bit by bit, thank goodness... Mayfield doesn't have recharging stations, and the town hasn't sent me back any Photon Charges.

[walking_nuke]

Huh.

Sounds pretty damn efficient, though. Our own energy-based weapons, like'a ones that shoot lasers or sonic pulses or EMP—we gotta use power cells for ammunition. An'ey eat'at shit like it was candy.

[photonicfighter]

Oh I know what that's like... photonic firearms blaze through a reactor's stores like nobody's business. [She rolls her eyes in recollection of many a time running short of ammo...] Ambient recharge does you no good when you're in the middle of a fight.

[walking_nuke]

Oh. You guys make firearms out of'is stuff? How's'at work?

[At most he can guess that it involves weaponizing the energy itself, but ...]

[photonicfighter]

It's a similar principle. Most photonic guns condense the energy into a sort of "bullet". What's nice is that a skilled marksman can learn Photon Arts that will give those bullets different properties. Fire-based ones will often set targets on fire, for example.

[walking_nuke]

[After Dakki's response, Balin nods.]

So in a way, its universal ammo. Don't gotta fuck with guns havin' all kindsa different ammunition types an' sizes, yeah?

[May be looking a little envious.]

[photonicfighter]

That's right! It's very convenient. And reloading's usually just a matter of triggering a Photon Charge from your nano-storage, if you were smart enough to bring some alone.

[Is that envy that she's seeing? Oh, now she feels a little bit bad... she releases her grip on her saber, and lets it vanish back into storage.]

Wow, rarely do I mix up "its/it's" ... XD;

[walking_nuke]

[Balin watches the saber disappear, then looks back up to Dakki curiously.]

Nano-storage? What, you're shrinkin'at thing down to'a size of a nanobot or somethin'?

So it goes, so it goes...

[photonicfighter]

Ah, no... I'm not shrinking it. There's a bit of warped space involved. I suppose if you viewed it from the outside, it would be shrinking it... but it's more that I can put items away in a pocket dimension that's linked to me. And also conveniently indexed, capable of stacking similar items, and able to link with my clothes, too!

This got buried by other tag notifs D:

[walking_nuke]

So—you got'a device'at puts sometin' in some kinda dimensional pocket? Is'at it?

[If he were any more green with envy he'd be a Forean hybrid!]

It's a busy taggy time, these days.

[photonicfighter]

That's exactly it!

[Oh, and he looks... kind of jealous. Now she feels bad.]

..I take it there's no technology quite like that where you come from?

[walking_nuke]

Not like'at, no. Lotta of'a tech we got's patchwork—new stuff from reverse engineerin'a tech from other races or from applyin' what we can do with Logos, an' whatever we salvaged from Earth.

I'm from 2014, an' Earth fell in 2007, so ... most of'a stuff we had back then was like what Quinn's got if you ever met 'em.