>>15383993
reporting in, also, archive:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Bodysnatcher%20Quest

Reporting in.

You are a strange creature, capable of taking over other lifeforms to serve as your vessel. Your current host, Jack Winters, was unbeknownst to you a drug addict, and overdosed on speedball. To survive, you bonded with him, but this damaged you, leaving you separated from the bodysnatcher command structure. An individual by accident, you are hunted by the cyborg aliens, the forces guided by the illuminati called the Wise, and your own kin.

Returning from the battle with the modified cyborg, you noticed Kellery acting strange. The cause of this was Daisy, mind controlling the Professor through her Overseer abilities, overloading her brain by accident. The issue cleared, you were thaught a trick by the girl, allowing you to hide from the mind-links of others. In return, she recieved guidance in the use of the bodysnatcher shapeshifting. Noticing that Catherine went missing, you tracked her down to the industrial district.

Your known abilities are:
- reinforcing your muscle and bone tissue, making you several times stronger,faster and tougher
- growing weapons from your arms, limited to one on each arm in any combination:a hooked, double edged blade on your forearm, claws or a spike that springs out from your wrist underneath your palm
- hardening your skin into thick,segmented bone plate armor, and growing a membrane under your skin, that contains fluid that hardens on impact
- absorbing ingested organic material, that you can use to increase muscle and bone density(animal tissue is the most effective)
- the ability to call forth your host's memories, skills and knowledge
- altering your appearance, includin skin\hair\eye colour, facial features, height, build, and gender, though the more elaborate the change is, the more time and effort it takes.
- producing almost any kind of drug,poison or acid in liquid form, including sedatives, that you can deliver either at high pressure from an opening that can be created anywhere on your body, or through the wristspike.
- emitting pheromones that influence humans
- sensing the mind-link of bodysnatchers
- enhanced senses, capable of switching to different spectrums (infravision, ultrasound, noise filterin, etc.)
- fiber-optic nervous system, allowing you to ignore pain to some extent, and speeding up your reflexes by orders of magnitude

The warehouse is littered with broken glass and junk, crunching under your feet as you make your way into the bowels of the decreipt building. The smell of Catherine is unmistakable, the synthetic virus melded with the bodysnatcher infection creating a unique scent. Her track leads to a large hall, filled with the rusty carcasses of the decomissioned machinery. She kneels in a small clearing in the middle, holding something in her hands. A dead man, a vagrant from his clothing, lays dead and half devoured beside her.

She turns at the sound of your steps, revealing a large plate of chewed-on metal in her hands. Her face is caked with blood, the eyes the black and glowing blue of a cyborg. She jumps to her feet, throwing the scrap metal aside. Her hands ripple and shift, the guise of flesh completely discarded in favour of smooth, black cybernetic limbs, her fingers turning into wicked six inch talons. She screams, charging you with an animalistic expression.

Wat do?

rolled 23 = 23

Shit. Just when I thought she's going to be okay. We must find out what went wrong.
Morph weapons - blade to block her attacks and spike to sedate her. Also, can we estabilish a mind link with her?

I'd like to thank everyone who voted, since the good people of sup/tg/ allegedly started to delete quest archives without 5 votes. You're all swell.

>>15384382
All you get is static, no communication of any sort coming from her.

Bump

Oh good, I didnt miss this. I was worried I'd forgotten to look for it again yesterday then remembered it was moved to Saturday.

>>15384314
>Wat do?
Use our massive speed advantage to full effect. Try to not lose contact with the floor/walls so that we can change direction more easily.
Let's try to sedate first and if that doesnt work disable. I dont doubt we'd be able to kill her but we've put a lot of effort into keeping her alive up until now. Keep talking to her. There's got to be a way to get through to her if she's still there.

>>15384606
Roll for sedation please.

rolled 89 = 89

>>15384621
Rollan!

>afford renvin
Well if we cant afford renvin let's just skip it.

rolled 59 = 59

>>15384621
Here you go.

I skimmed the archives, but couldn't find an answer: What is the source for the images?

Your body immedeately reacts, wreathing you in armour. The trusty spike and blade ready themselves, and you pirouette out of Cath's way, latching a hook in the crook of her elbow. You pull, nearly lifting her in the air, and strike at her back with the bone-weapon, sedative ready to calm her down.

To your surprise, her back shivers and changes, becoming steel, nearly braking the spike in half. You jump back, the sedative already delivered, and dance out of the way of her furious charge. She howls in frustration, her steps already slowing.

The next time she moves to attack, you step in, grabbing her arms, and slightly lift her up. She kicks out, the blow painful, but not strong enough to allow her to slip out of your grasp. The spike lashes out again, finding it's way through a small gap in the armour around her joints, injecting another dose of sedative, tailored to her inhuman metabolism.
(cont.)

>>15384782
Demonbane. Lovecraft inspired VN.

Awwwwwww yeah I was looking forward to this continuation.

Prepare sedative, but I'm not entirely opposed to killing her if it comes to that. Having a successfully tamed cyborg hybrid gives us so many new resources (and bargaining chips) to deal with.

While the sedative takes hold, let her down and don't make any sudden moves to attack. A sudden spike in adrenaline could counteract the dosage. Maybe try to calmly talk her down while it's working.

>>15384811
She struggles, growing weaker by the second, and eventually goes limp in your arms. You can feel that something has fundamentally changed in her body, the sounds of her organs strange and alien to you.

You look up, the light fading fast as the sun is descending below the horizon, painting the sky in purples and oranges. The noise of traffic is almost inaudible, reduced to faint echoes by the almost emtpy district.

>>15384869
Wat do?, of course.

(Oh yeah, one thing I always forget to ask, should I tone down combat, or make it less frequent? Just asking because it might be the least enjoyed part of the quest for many, and then there's really no need for me to push it.)

>>15384876

The conflicting signals from both strains might be making her act out like that. We needed a whole ton of food after our infection took hold as well, but as part cyborg, she also needs a measure of inorganic components. I don't think she's really strong-willed enough to take control of her abilities though.

If we can't figure out a way to make her more docile and easier to control we may have to put her down.

Aww damn, no sleep for me tonight.

>>15384897

I think you've got a good mix of character interaction and combat. Just don't rule out the possibility of us getting out of combat situations with diplomacy, for future advice.

rolled 17 = 17

>>15384869
>>15384876
Time to go inside and see what pritty lights her robot half decided to light up inside her.

My guess is that the two half are still fighting and trying to get some resources or her robot half was getting desperate and was trying to get Iron out of eating living stuff

Okay, so she's sedated. We must see what's going on inside her with our tendrils. But first, take her back to the house. Maybe Kellry will be able to make some sort of partially inorganic meal for her. Daisy may help us with contacting her by mind link (it was possible not a long time ago).

The problem is that, as a bodysnatcher ourselves, we can only really interact with the bodysnatcher half of her infection. The cyborg virus half is still somewhat of an unknown.

So, what's it going to be, tendril now, or carry her home and consult the Prof first?

Also, a roll for tendrils if you want to use them.
>We're starting off a bit roll heavy, but it'll pass soon.

rolled 75 = 75

>>15385018

Tendril-examine her now, the professor is probably still out of it, and we don't know if the sedative will last all the way home.

Rolling

>>15385018
Carry her home first. Kellery and Daisy may be able to help us, we must consult them before taking any actions. We're on a completly foreign territory, we must be very careful. Screwing up is not an option.

>>15385087

Well can we just run a cursory examination here? That can give us a starting place to ask Kellery about when we get back.

And I don't want that 75 to go to waste :(

>>15385053
If we're going to tendril-examine her, we should stop if we provoke any negative reaction. Remember, the bodysnatchers preferred to tear themselves apart rather than be absorbed. Cath may react similarly.

>>15385113
You have a point, the roll is quite good. Oh well. I'd roll too, but my luck with rolls is very bad.

Goddammit, gotta leave for the night guys. Don't do anything stupid without me.

>Tendrils it is.

You lightly place a hand on Cahterine's neck, noting the strange patterns in here skin that would be invisible to the naked eye if it weren't for your enhanced vision. They are clearly not anything a human being should posess, hinting at a layered mesh-like structure.

Your palm extends, the needle-headed tendril crawling their way under her skin like a thousand worms, each thinner than a hair. They spread around her body, mapping it out, cautiously probing the cells and nerve clusters.

The results of the search are shocking. Catherine no longer has even remotely human organs, the tissue restructured into more efficient, half-mechanized machinery. Her heart is gone, and something resembling an orb is situated in the middle of her chest.
(cont., the cyborgs are jamming me again, though I was fine all week)

Her ribs have almost fused, turning into a metallic plate armour, protecting the orb in her chest. The melding process seems ot be well underway, her neural pathways remodelled, not quite at the level your's are at, but close.

Any specific area you are interested in?

Oh my. Transformation goes fast.
First, search for bodysnatcher tissue. Is it still here?
Second, check out her brain. How modified is it?
Third, isn't that orb a cyborg power core, like those which serve as power source for Megan's suit and hybrid weapons?

>>15385309
>orb in her chest
Resurrection Orb!
No wait, that doesnt make sense if it's half organic.
Check to see if there's anything currently where her brain used to be.

rolled 100 = 100

>>15385393
seconding this, check in on how organic the infection is at this point, how well-bonded have the two strains become?

One thought - maybe Cath hostility is Doc's fault? Who knows what he did to her. On second hand, she was well a while ago, so maybe the problem has other source.
And when we're at it, why the Fools didn't kill us when we were sleeping? Why didn't they kidnap Cath and Daisy? Why did they left us alive and free? They must have some plan for us.

>>15385393
The bodysnatcher and cyborg strains are so intertwined already that seperating one from the other is almost impossible.

The brain is less easy to acces than the rest, the infections hard at work rewiring it. though you do manage to find out that some of it has been restructured.

The orb is rather strange, the whole body wired to it, a broad spectrum of energy signatures emanating from it. Your best guess is indeed that it is a power core.

>>15385488
This is me.

>>15385476
they probably anticipated their killer borg present to off us, figured they could slip in and spin a yarn for kellery, cath, and daisy once we were gone. Since we survived, they must assume that we're back with them and protecting them. And if we can walk away from their little killing machine, we might be tougher than they figured. I don't think Doc saw the extent of what we could do in the base, so he may be underestimating us.

i'd say we should kill her if we can't be sure she will be on our side, or at least, make sure she won't be able to move freely, she is getting stronger quite fast, we'd better not take any risks though.

>>15385488
Good. Good. Try to broadcast gentle, soothing thoughts into her via mindlink, see if any get through.

Once the sun sets, take her and some scrap metal home, break it up into small bits once we're there. if she wakes again we can feed her bit-by-bit.

>The bodysnatcher and cyborg strains are so intertwined already that seperating one from the other is almost impossible.
Well, that was the intent.
>The brain is less easy to acces than the rest, the infections hard at work rewiring it. though you do manage to find out that some of it has been restructured.
That may explain why we can't contact her mentally, even though we could before.

Search for something that could cause Cath to go rabid. It can't hurt to try. Anyway, if no one has any other ideas, let's pull out the tendrils and carry her back home.

>>15385451
100.
Wow.
Okay, to expand upon things. The bodysnatcher tissue you infected her with was not guided by a sentient creature, and was therefore supposed to be passive, almost inactive. The only reason it did anything besides what you told it to do was the presence of the Origin Virus trigerring an automated defense resposne of sorts.

The Origin Virus on the other hand was similarly not supposed to bring forth these sorts of changes. It's only function is to break matter down and build fully functional cyborg combat units from it, then rinse and repeat until it mostly exhausted resources in the vicinity.

What Cath posesses is something else, something new, an amalgamation of the two strains that mutated into something radically different than it's components.

Any questions?

Oh yeah, and should I bother with the whole soundtrack thingie? Did anyone listen to/enjoy what I posted? Asking since I have a couple more lined up if anyone is interested.

>>15385651
In other words, we have created a new strain of virus that functions like a bodysnatcher infection, but transforms it's host into a cyborg hybrid? I wonder what both alien species will think of her. I quess they will see her as some unholy abomination.

Questions? Okay, most important one: Can she infect others with this? And can she absorb bodysnatchers like we can? I quess not, looking at how she tried to eat metal. Different diet. Kellery will help us figure this out. Hopefully this will calm her down.

rolled 2 = 2

>>15385053
>tendril-examine her
bow chicka wow-wow

rolled 46 = 46

>>15385282
Does this orb in her chest bear any resemblance in form or aesthetic to the machinery-orb in the crashed VTOL, so many threads ago?

>>15385867
You can't really see it, but it feels similar.

>>15385787
Infect others? Probably not, since her condition was brought forth by a number of unusual circumstances.

Absorption she cannot do, since ,as it was explained in the last thread, it is more a furthering and healing of the already present bodysnatcher than taking in whole abilities.

I'm going to pop out for a cigarette, post any other question you may have, if there are no others, then we'll be moving along.

I would also like a response to >>15385713 if possible.

>>15385992
Let's get her back to the house. As for the music I dont really have any opinion on it. Some times it's cool.

Agreeing we need to find some way of restraining her.

>Where my players at? Everyone dissapeared.

You look around the warehouse, scavenging any semi-intact piece of metal you can find, stuffing your pockets full of plates, bolts and nuts. The sun has already wnt down, forcing you to shift your eyes into night vision. The world seems to shift in colour, everything becoming more muted, any shred of vibrance and life sucked out of the already gloomy building.

You scoop Catherine up, and head back to the house you are squatting in, walking through the empty street at a steady pace, nary a soul in sight. You excercise caution, switching routes, sometimes even downright hiding when your heightened sense warn you of an approaching person.

In half an hour you are standing in front of the house, a welcome sight after a day as tiring as this one. Daisy opens the door for you, sensing your arrival before you get to the front porch.

"Is she sick? She'll be okay, right?"

"I don't know. I thought she was getting better, but now she attacked. Maybe professor can help her. How is she?"
Keep an eye on Catherine. If she wakes up and starts acting aggresive, sedate her again. Restraining her is good idea, but I doubt we have anything that she couldn't simply tear to shreds.

>>15386230
True but it could buy us valuable miliseconds to put her under again.

>blasted connection flaking out on me
>>15386230
"She's still sleeping. I don't think she'll wake up until tomorrow." She looks curiously at Catherine. "Why'd she attack you? She likes you."

You carry the unconscious Cath back to the couch in the living room. There's not much you can restrain her with, unless you improvise, and take apart some furniture.

She seems calm at the moment, her eyelids flickering, clearly in REM stage.

Wat do?(any plans, or objectives you want to accomplish?)

>>15386381
Look around the house a bit to see if there's anything to better restrain Cath. Check how sturdy some of the bed frames are.
Other than that just make sure she stays under long enough that we can talk to Kellery, she might have an idea. If she doesnt, I dont know maybe pickup some packs of vitamins from a store with extra Iron in them.

>>15386381

Is Kellery still sleeping?

If so, we should probably get some shut-eye ourselves. We really need to do something about Cath though, if she keeps flipping out like this, she may prove to be too much of a liability to keep around. By talking to her, kind of reminding her of her old self by being around, we may get her to get ahold of her new body, but we can't do much while she's still out.

"Yeah, I was surprised too. Maybe she can't control herself yet? She even tried to eat metal (and a dog. And homeless guy. But don't tell her that, she's still a kid). I hoped that Kellery can figure out what's wrong with her, but it seems we have to wait."

Now we have two mentally damaged women sleeping in our (well, not really our) house. Great.

>>15386411
There's not really much around that could take the strength she exhibited. She'd break loose of anything you could restrain her with, the most you can hope for is a very short delay and a loud noise.

>we're going to stop for 20-30 minutes, I need a coffee break and will bitchslap my connection back to life

>>15386381
>Sedated cyborg princess wat do

Can we have Daisy monitor her brain waves and alert us when Cath is conscious? After all we've been through, we should consider large-scale vengeance on some Fools.

>>15386658
agreed on all points.

I'm assuming the "Doctor" was a member of the Fools (I wasn't present for the betrayal thread, and my recollection is hazy).

Brain, I summon all knowledge of the Fools's base and defensive capabilities, points of interest, and probable locations where we have seen the good Doctor maxin' and/or relaxin'.

"Daisy, could I ask you a favour? Could you keep an eye an Catherine, watch her brain, and tell me if she's about to wake up?"

She frowns, concentrating hard, then nods with a very serious expression. "Yes, I can do it. I'll shout at you through my head when she's waking up." You rustle her hair, giving her your best smile. "Thanks, kiddo." She smiles back and gives you a hug, then lays down beside Cath, curles up into a ball, nestling her head against hers.

You walk up to the stairs, and turn back, keeping your hand on the light switch. "Good night, Daisy." She mumbles back something, and by the time you reach the top of the stairs, you can hear her slightly snore.

You drop down on the bed besides Kellery, who is laying in the same position you left her in, and soon fall asleep.
(cont.)

>>15386891
The only places where you saw the good Doctor Smith chillin' all cool were the base where you were taken to after they kidnapped you, and the secondary one that had the cyborg combat unit he sicked on you.

>>15386901
You wake up, the sun already shining brightly, the air filled with the song of birds and the rustling of leaves. The smell of bacon and eggs make your mouth water, and you can hear Kellery chatting about something with Daisy downstairs.

The scene would be rather nice, if it weren't for the fact that you are dead tired, so tired in fact that you getting up to eat almost seems like a worse alternative then just staying hungry and going back to sleep.

>>15386658
>>15386891
Revenge? The doc was just doing the standard mad scientist thing. He can't help that he has no morals. I'm sure unleashing that death robot on us wasn't personal or anything - he just wanted to test it out. I'd rather just forget about him and worry about more import things like finding out what the hell is going on.

>>15387019
And trying to make it out of this whole mess alive. If our actions just happen to save humanity in the process that'd be cool too.

>>15386988
Oof. We must not be fully recovered yet, and we pushed ourselves last night subduing cath. Go downstairs, gorge on meat if available. We may need to go pick up a few more sides of beef. And pork. Do they sell full sides of pork at a butcher's? Ooh, see if we can get a side of venison, too.

>>15387067
It's actually more of an accumulated exhaustion, pushing yourself to your limits every day for the last few days, then dropping down and falling asleep, isn't quite good for your energy, and you were also tazed unconscious and partially blown to bits as well.

>>15387067
I'll have what he's having. Chickens are so gauche.

>>15386929
Well, we could get out to the trap warehouse (lol, traphouse) and check for clues. I know there was a giant steel coffin in there, those don't just drop out of the sky with no bellybutton. Has to be an insignia, maker's mark, cattle brand... Let's get sleuthy!

You stumble down the stairs, still half asleep, checking the living room to see if Catherine is still in place this time. Satisfied that she is, you head to the kitchen, where Kellery is currently making the eggs and bacon, large heaps of meat and fried eggs on the table. Daisy is excitedly showing her the new shifting ability she learned, showing off all kinds of patterns and animal features.

You mumble a greeting, sit down, and start gorging yourself, loosing track of any conversation that might have happened until you finished. Looking up, you can see the Professor sitting in front of you, patiently waiting and sipping her coffee. "Do I have your full attention? Yes? Magnificent. Now, Daisy has told me the abridged version of what happened yesterday evening, but I'd like to hear your version as well."

>>15387249
"Well Cath was gone... then there was this homeless guy... and then... zzz..."

>>15387249
Well as long as Daisy was taking tips from team four star the abridged version is probably better.
Cath apparently went a little nuts and started looking for stuff to eat. Animals, industrial steel... other things. Her new combined physiology is looking for raw materials to continue her transformation. She's forming metal armor plates into her body now, maybe harder than steel. I couldnt get through to her by talking but she might have been berserk at the time. Either way she's trying to injest more metal and soon she's going to have reflexes that match mine.
By the way how are you this morning?

Whee. On BB.
Should we practice making a segregated area in our head to keep Daisy from sensitive and most probably horrifying stuff?

Get info from Kell, try getting in contact with Cath through daisy-boosted mindlink. How far gone has her brain, and thus, her mind and memory been modified?
Might want to halt that particular process.

>>15387407
"I see. Sadly, without the proper equipment I cannot run any tests, but I believe I know what happened. The infection shut down most of her higher brain functions so it could safely alter the frontal lobe, but during the process she woke up, and was only guided by instinct. Hence the urge to feed an hunt. And she has gained a certain amount of shapeshifting capabilities, you say. I will keep pondering this, and keep you posted on what I can figure out."

She smiles, a very tired expression. "I am fine, thank you for asking. No headaches or any pain." She looks out the kitchen window, looking at Daisy playing in the back yard.

"You see, the connection she made was two-way, to an extent. I had experienced flashes, brief impressions of her life. And I cannot find it in myself to fault her for whatever happened. The things she has gone through..."

Her face distorts, taking on an aspect of pure hate, more intense than you would have imagined her capable of. "No child should go through that. If they weren't already dead, I would kill those fuckers myself."

>>15387519
”Some of them aren't- Ah, screw it. We junkies made those choices ourselves, circumstances or whatever.”

”Aren't- Changing the head changes who we are?"

>>15387673
"Substance abuse is not an excuse to leave a paralyzed child alone in an unheated apartment at winter, with only moldy leftovers scattered across the place to eat. She had to crawl to the shithole fo a bathroom they had to not die of thirst, because they didn't even bother to steal her a wheelchair." She grabs her temple, and looks down at the table, sighing, then raises her head, forcing a pained smile. "Let us drop this particular topic, shall we? Nothing to do about it now, the past is the past."

"She will likely experience a change in how she percieves, re-evaluate her relationship with others, her life philosophy, and so on. Best case scenario, of course. What's the worst case? Everything she is, rewritten by the Origin Virus' programming, ergo destroy everything that isn't the Origin Virus."

She lights a cigarette, then encouragingly pats your hand. "Don't worry Jack, I find it unlikely. The way the infections changed, I doubt much remains of the original Virus beyond a framework, so to speak."

>>15387553

Well Kellery sounds back to normal. Glad that worked out.

If Cath is still out of it, I vote we start working on tracking down some more bodysnatchers to upgrade ourselves. Have Daisy scan around and see if we can find any easy targets. If so, we go out and hunt alone, and have Daisy and Kellery stay here and keep an eye on Cath.

>>15387788

Bad news if she loses her emotional attachment to us. Affection and love make for powerful tools to keep someone obedient, and I don't want someone just as powerful as we are (if not more so) running around with no way for us to reel in the leash, so to speak.

Hoookay, anything you want to say, ask, or do? I am getting somewhat sleepy here, and I would like to wrap this up fairly soon.

>>15387936
wow, half an hour without anybody posting? No ideas man.
er wait. ask her to theorize on some sort of food for Cath. Other than that all there is to do is wait for her to wake up.

Haven't got words.
Fear for Cath's possible reaction when waking to her manslaughter act.
Also, Daisy got healed after infection? Coolios.
Also2 no leaving the premises until Cath is proven sane.
Ask Prof K to go buy stuff for now.

>>15388351

Yeah, we really don't have much to do until she wakes up again. We're not taking our eye off her until she gains consciousness after the last incident.

Did Brain fall asleep again?

Uh, yeah, I've been pretty tired lately, and I fell asleep in my armchair like a chump. Again. We'll continue on saturday, I'll archive the thread. I promise to properly rest before the next part so this doesn't happen again.

>>15390986
This is me, just to make it clear.