Dear Diary,

Scratch that.

Dear Log,

No.

Dear Personal Log,

Still not right.

Personal Log,

That’ll do.  Although I’m not sure about the comma.  I’ll have to think about that.

While I rested and tried to recover some brain power the others contacted Soto-sama.  As she had previously stated, her primary interest at this juncture is getting the families of her legionnaires and herself safely off Fierce.  She quickly accepted the offer of the safe haven we had arranged for them and the exodus was begun.  She led her people, and I went along to show her the way.

In my absence the cyber-naki had started gathering in quantity around the hospital.  Word was passed down the line, and, Soto-sama now knowing the way I quickly returned.  As I passed though Morholt’s Domain I paused only long enough to command the steam cannon automata to follow me.  Falmorath allowed me to make sure my order was not questioned.  By the time I got back to the hospital the Battle Royale was well under way.

Through the miracle of modern telecommunications I was quickly made aware of several facts.  We were facing the Numero Uno cyber-naki herself, the first created, with fully half of the Eidolon from the anno-naki, a powerful sorceress, Cyber Prime, the Cyber Lady.  Along with a half dozen (recently more) of her top lieutenants, the Red Faced Devils.  Oh, and about eight billion lesser cyber-naki converging on us from all over the planet.  They could sense the Door we had created to Morholt’s Domain and were hoping it would lead them to the Grand Stair.  They were also under orders not to harm the Jaeger.  It wasn’t until later that it really struck me the importance of Jane and myself not being taken alive by them to be turned into cyber-naki ourselves.

The front of the hospital when I emerged was rife with violence. Jane had the dragon running strafing attacks with it’s breath weapon.  What it lacked in finesse it made up for with enthusiasm. Sturm was engaged in some sort of mayhem commanding freed cyber-naki soldiers.  William’s Jaeger was trying to intercept the Cyber-Lady. Mena and Cyra were working on a method of freeing the cyber-naki from the Eidolon influence en-masse.  Just not en-masse enough to deal with the millions soon to converge on us, let alone the billions to follow.

The Cyber-Lady took the coming of the Jaeger as an invitation, opening the door in the foot and heading inside.  Hoping to distract her from the main action and slow down any attempt to take possession of the Jaeger, I ordered the automata to defend the front of the hospital, armored up, and followed her inside, making sure she had enough of a head start so she wouldn’t be present to stop me right away.  Once inside I linked the door to the flooded nightclub, stepped to the side so I wouldn’t be caught up in the blast of water, and opened the door.  My hope was that the Cyber-Lady, slowed by the bulkheads which William would have immediately sealed to slow her, would be caught by the flood and have to take time to deal with it.  Jane immediately got on the radio, expressing disapproval of my action and concern for her brother.  I figured William was competent enough to monitor the internal situation and eject if it really got bad.  Then again, Jane knows him a lot better than I do.  Maybe she knows something I don’t.

Once the pressure equalized I severed the connection with the door to the nightclub, erected a barrier to keep the water in when the door opened, The Jaeger was in motion; William had alerted everyone that the Kaiju was moving towards us, and I assumed he was taking the Jaeger to meet it, offering a further distraction to the Cyber-Lady.  I waited until the foot I was in was on the ground, then quickly stepped out before it lifted again.

I stepped out into the factory which had been the site of our previous big battle.  This was good, since it offered an abundance of cover.  The Jaeger, I noticed, was heading North, straight away from the hospital and in the general direction I expected the Kaiju would be coming from.  I headed south.  I needed to get back to the hospital so I could get back to Morholt’s Domain, unlink the hospital door, seal the door to the Grand Stair, and destroy remaining door so Morholt couldn’t use it to return through. Fortunately the cyber-naki seemed more focussed on securing the door than sniping at someone who wasn’t actively threatening them. Avoiding the dragon’s breath weapon attacks took more work but was ultimately accomplished.

Upon reaching the hospital I found the last refugee had passed through the door and Jane had severed the link.  The legionnaire rear guard had paid a terrible price while covering the exodus.  I found myself hoping at least a few had gotten through the door themselves, offering a slim protection for the refugee community from anything which might wander into them on the Grand Stair or follow them through the Door.  I considered the possibility highly unlikely however.

It says something about my fatigue level that my first thought upon finding Jane had severed the link with the hospital door was that I had to create that link again so I could go through and sever the link and destroy the door.  Then it occurred to me to ask Jane and Cyra if they had a plan.  They did, and I asked them to take me along.  Cyra teleported the three of us to the Treehouse Hotel. from whence the link was reestablished and we returned to Morholt’s Domain.

Once in Morholt’s Domain I immediately set about sealing the Door to the Grand Stair, while Jane severed the link to the Treehouse.  This was made all the more urgent by the almost immediate attention it had received by cyber-naki in the area.  There were a great number of them moving through the area, no doubt part of the general convergence of cyber-naki on the hospital, and the closest started homing in on us almost immediately.  In later retrospect this was probably a good thing, as it diverted attention away from the hospital where the rest of the group was still engaged in battle, but it felt most unwelcome at the time.

Jane collapsed almost immediately after severing the link.  Cyra destroyed the physical door with a device she calls her ‘sonic screwdriver’.  Somehow it seemed very wrong to me.  I’ve caught enough television during downtime while training with the legion that I know for a fact that you set phasors to disintegrate, not sonic screwdrivers.

With the Door now sealed and the other door destroyed we now had to effect our escape from this dungeon room.  More precisely, Cyra was ready to teleport us out, but we needed to decide where.  The hornet’s nest at the hospital seemed uninviting, especially as friendly forces were likely already bugging out now that the refugees had all been delivered.  The Treehouse held no particular appeal either.  I finally suggested the air car.  We had left it just inside the edge of Morholt’s Domain, which should make it fairly easy to move out to where it would function again, and with the great convergence on the hospital the cyber-meter-maid threat was eliminated.

We arrived on target, Cyra actually teleporting us into the air car, whereupon she succumbed to the strains of over exertion.  I finally had to go knock on the door of the mansion and ask the major-domo ape to give me a hand lifting the air car off the property. Fortunately he saw nothing improper about my request and I soon was able to lift the car into the air properly.

Despite Soto-sama’s concerns about radio communications being monitored by the cyber-naki, I quickly got in touch with the others to get an update.  As surmised they were retreating with Soto-sama to her lair.  The Jaeger and the dragon had both been badly damaged fighting the Kaiju, but had prevailed.  William had, in the end, ejected safely, but this leaves the Jaeger in the hands of the Cyber-Lady.  The fighting had quickly died down once the door link had been severed, but the cyber-naki seemed still to be converging on the area with active patrolling all around.  Our own little group had all survived, be it battered and bruised and exhausted.  I supposed that we could consider this a success.  Soto-sama’s forces had fared far worse than us, but given her stated primary goal of getting the dependents off Fierce, I had to hope she considered it a success as well.

With the large number of cyber-naki still in the area of the hospital, trying to join up with the others did not seem the wisest of plans, especially with only one of the three of us really functional and that barely.  I considered heading back into Morholt’s Domain, which was well warded and had friendly staff, but the dire consequences should Morholt find a way back with us in this condition overshadowed the advantages it offered.  Than I remembered there was another warded refuge we could shelter in, and it wasn’t even all that far away.  Flying low and slow, keeping a wary eye out for patrolling cyber-naki, I flew us back to the castle in Jason’s amusement park, where we had sheltered before.

On the way to the castle I started musing about the Cyber-Lady.  No doubt the large amount of Eidolon which infused her made her more potent, but I suspected she must have been a powerful sorceress before receiving the Eidolon.  Which made me wonder who she might have been and how Morholt had gotten to her.  Knowing more about her might give us some clue if she has (or had before she became cyberized) some weakness we might exploit.  Who knows, someone might even be able to give us a hint as to her True Name.  Unfortunately, our experts in such areas aren’t up to a good brainstorming session at the moment.  And I think this topic is sensitive enough that I REALLY don’t want to trust it to the radio, no matter how well our communications are shielded and encrypted.  The interest we have now drawn from the Cyber-Lady, along with her sorcerous skill and power scare me.  I just hope Jason’s warding is up to snuff.

Written by Dave Nebiker