Maribel Quest Abridging - A Z-Machine Adventure

[DracoOmega]

>"Naivety only lasts until the true odds are demonstrated the hard way. Determination looks at the odds... and keeps on going."
>Assuming the theoretical situation of no oncoming fire, how long would it take us to reach Alice from here at top speed?

[Hello Purvis]

>"Naivety only lasts until the true odds are demonstrated the hard way. Determination looks at the odds... and keeps on going."
>Assuming the theoretical situation of no oncoming fire, how long would it take us to reach Alice from here at top speed?

>"So you say," says Alice.
>Probably a couple seconds.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Have you gotten what you came for already, then?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"Have you gotten what you came for already, then?"

>"It'll take me a little time to empty the gallery," says Alice. "What did you expect?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"You're emptying the entire gallery?"
>"I take it Petite has already been taken care of, then?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"You're emptying the entire gallery?"
>"I take it Petite has already been taken care of, then?"

>"Is that surprising? And yes, Petite is resting peacefully. Why did you think I left you alone for so long?
>Renko looks toward you, questions in her eyes.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Well, you could have been busy doing whatever else it was in there you were doing. I suppose you plan to come out and knock me out now, too, so you can get back to your looting?"
>Lean back out of view of the hallway if we haven't already
>Float up along the wall without making noise or revealing ourselves
>Nod to Renko, gesture for her to follow suit

[Hello Purvis]

>"Well, you could have been busy doing whatever else it was in there you were doing. I suppose you plan to come out and knock me out now, too, so you can get back to your looting?"
>Lean back out of view of the hallway if we haven't already
>Float up along the wall without making noise or revealing ourselves
>Nod to Renko, gesture for her to follow suit

>"I'm just curious to see what plan you have in mind," says Alice.
>You've been leaning away for some time now, to avoid being shot at.
>You take to the air, and gesture for Renko to the same. She nods and follows suit.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> How resonant do the halls appear to be? Do we think Alice would be able to tell we took flight simply by listening to where our voice was coming from, or does noise bounce around the walls too much?

[Suwako Moriya]

Since I imagine things will pick up while I am here at work, I figure I should put an idea down, just to have extra options.

Since we seem to think max flight speed will get us to Alice in "a couple of seconds", I am wondering if we would be better off stopping time, getting behind her, locking her in a full nelson (our arms come up beneath hers from being and go back around behind her head, and our hands then lock together right behind her neck, at which point they push forward to exert pressure on her neck and head) and then having Renko shoot at her while she can't defend herself. Have Renko go at it until Alice is reasonably incapacitated, at which point we can dump the oil all over her.

This eliminates both the problem of having the time to uncork the bottle and being able to spread it on Alice without her struggling to get out of the way.

[DracoOmega]

The problem with that, as I see it, is that there are still a significant number of dolls BEHIND Alice, I believe, and we'd be pretty much making ourselves a sitting duck if we were holding her in that position.

What I was sort of thinking is fire a few more rounds at the dolls, using changes in our vertical position from around the wall to make where to target or dodge from less obvious, and attempt to take out a few more dolls. Then, have Renko acts as a brief distraction to draw fire and charge immediately afterwards, hopefully being able to use the second lag time on all their shots moving to a different target to close, and THEN time stop and apply the oil.

Perhaps, after that, we could even quickly drag Alice into the room she's next to, and lock the door, keep the dolls from coming in after us?

[Hello Purvis]

> How resonant do the halls appear to be? Do we think Alice would be able to tell we took flight simply by listening to where our voice was coming from, or does noise bounce around the walls too much?

>You don't know. You think, if you don't move around a whole lot, that she ought not to expect.

[DracoOmega]

>Get to approximately the same height as the dolls were at, when we saw them
>Point to Renko, then towards the corridor
>Hold up our other hand with three, two, then one fingers
>After the last finger, lean out just a tiny bit and launch barrages along the wall where the dolls were, last we saw. And hope Renko gets the message to do it at the same time
>As fire comes in, pull back
>"You'll just have to wait and see, I guess!"

[Hello Purvis]

>Get to approximately the same height as the dolls were at, when we saw them
>Point to Renko, then towards the corridor
>Hold up our other hand with three, two, then one fingers
>After the last finger, lean out just a tiny bit and launch barrages along the wall where the dolls were, last we saw. And hope Renko gets the message to do it at the same time
>As fire comes in, pull back
>"You'll just have to wait and see, I guess!"

>The dolls didn't have a single altitude they were at. But you try to approximate.
>You gesture at Renko. She nods.
>You lean out a just enough to target things in hall, and find things have changed. There's a force of dolls just a couple yards from the door, you have time to snap off a couple of unaimed shots before you have to pull back to avoid their attack.
>"Then lets remove the guesswork, shall we?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Had Alice appeared to have moved at all?
>Rough count on how many dolls were near us
>Are there no many left near Alice herself, now?

[Hello Purvis]

>Had Alice appeared to have moved at all?
>Rough count on how many dolls were near us
>Are there no many left near Alice herself, now?

>She doesn't seem to have.
>There were six of them near you.
>You didn't see for sure, but it didn't seem that way.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>If there were only six near the hall entrance, and didn't appear to be too many near Alice, do we have any idea where the others are? Or did we spot more in the corridor beyond those six next to us that were simply also not near Alice?

[Hello Purvis]

>If there were only six near the hall entrance, and didn't appear to be too many near Alice, do we have any idea where the others are? Or did we spot more in the corridor beyond those six next to us that were simply also not near Alice?

>You think you saw them along the edges of the hall. Being shot at isn't very conducive to noticing such details.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Slide aside from the entrance, along the wall just a little bit. Lower our height.
>Give the close group of dolls a few seconds to see if they peek around the corner
>Blast them the moment we see one

[E-Nazrin]

We didn't make nearly enough use of Patchouli.

If she's in good enough condition to fire off a swarm of danmaku like that, then even if she doesn't think she can take a hit or move much, she's still an effective artillery ambush. Only, it wouldn't be an ambush if she's still holed up in the library, since Alice already knows she's there. If we'd convinced her to move and stand guard somewhere unexpected to lure Alice to...

More likely, we really should have asked what she knew about how to deal with Alice, whether it's to get a legitimate excuse to guess at oiling her hands or otherwise. Maybe just to get a better idea of how to deal with her dolls in a more permanent fashion. (Physically crushing them, maybe?)

Alternatively, she could have snuck out to alert Marisa, if there's any reason to believe she would be willing to rush over and help.

What a waste...

Also, we really need to deal with Alice more than the dolls, unless we can get a very permanent way to trim their numbers significantly.

[DracoOmega]

Well, I got the distinct impression from Patchouli that she wasn't interested in doing anything but sit there and hoping things work out. If you have a good idea, you realize we're still very close to the library, though, and could easily get back there.

As for the dolls, I'm hoping Renko's suggestion about shooting the dolls more will be enough to work.

Really, what I'm hoping to do is just thin the dolls enough so that we can dash past them to Alice and time stop. As long as only small groups are coming at us, we have more of an advantage than they do, and don't appear to be risking much.

[Hello Purvis]

>Slide aside from the entrance, along the wall just a little bit. Lower our height.
>Give the close group of dolls a few seconds to see if they peek around the corner
>Blast them the moment we see one

>You slide away from the entrance and give the dolls a couple seconds.
>The dolls do not peek around, they suddenly surge around, splitting into two groups at varying heights and firing upon sprays of bullets but a couple yards from you.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Did we not have a moment to even shoot them at all even though we were waiting for them with that purpose in mind?
>Dash backwards, and swing to the side. Try not to swing so wide that most of the corridor can see us, though
>Return fire. Wide coverage cloud. Follow up with directed stream to anything we stagger

[Suwako Moriya]

If we want to stopdash and then use the oil rather than incapacitate, I think the best plan of action is just to uncork it and try to splatter it all over her face and chest. I very much worry about the time and meticulous care needed to get it on her hands first - they're smaller, nimbler targets than pretty much everything else we could aiming for. I do want to get some on her hands, but I think it will be far easier to do so if she's majorly distracted (or flat-out incapacitated) and thus less likely to be trying to get her hands away from us.
 
Of course, she could also do the deed for us by throwing her hands in front of her face in a faceguard reflex.

[E-Nazrin]

Proper faceguarding is done with (fore)arms, not hands.

... though that would probably still be enough.

[Hello Purvis]

>Did we not have a moment to even shoot them at all even though we were waiting for them with that purpose in mind?
>Dash backwards, and swing to the side. Try not to swing so wide that most of the corridor can see us, though
>Return fire. Wide coverage cloud. Follow up with directed stream to anything we stagger

>You can certainly shoot at them. Just they have come in a manner and formation that you did not anticipate, and also with danmaku blazing.
>You dash backward and swing to the side, avoiding much of the danmaku and sending out a wide cloud of shots. As you do, you notice these dolls seem to be connected to strings, leading into the hallway. You hit one of them, enough to make her stagger, but the others seem to weave through your shots without difficulty. You hear Renko yelp as you fire on the staggered doll. Alice steps into the doorway, the dolls' strings connected to her fingers.

>_

[E-Nazrin]

>Conjure giant hedge trimmers, cut all strings in the vicinity
>How close are we to Alice at this point, and how much dakka is in the way?
>Have these enstringed dolls been more effective or mobile than most of the others?

EDIT: Thought - Alice has given verbal orders. Whether this is her being schizophrenic or if the dolls actually respond to them is unclear, but vibrating her head/jaw might accomplish something. (I doubt it'll be very easy to think with your brainpan vibrating every which way, for that matter - hence the "Alice's face. Make it happen." suggestion.)

[DracoOmega]

Face is a good target, too, if only for the inability to see straight afterwards. But her dolls have been reacting to things without any orders or her even being in the same room, so I doubt she NEEDS to speak for them to move about and do things. And yes, it's hard to tell if she's not just speaking to them 'just because'

I'd originally thought of suggesting that trembling legs would make it very difficult for her to even stand or dodge, but I realized that she could probably just float, and they wouldn't really be a handicap at all.

I'm not certain if it's only the surface that has had contact with the oil that will vibrate, or if it transmits past the point of contact somewhat. No way to know until we see it in action.

[Suwako Moriya]

You know, splattering the stuff on the strings would probably incapacitate the dolls, and we wouldn't even need the time stop for it.

[DracoOmega]

You know, splattering the stuff on the strings would probably incapacitate the dolls, and we wouldn't even need the time stop for it.

You try splattering stuff on something as small as a string, while it's moving, and you're being fired upon. Sure, we might get a little on it, maybe, but waste a lot of the oil in the process. And Alice is probably still more than a match for us in a direct battle WITHOUT any dolls. I think it's wasted if not used on her directly.