Artistic Rendering of Andrakuz(Photographs of deities are banned by The Council)This is the story of Andrakuz, a neophyte from the Netherlands who, upon joining the Chaos Skirmish this past weekend, rescued his team in their time of need and led them to a crushing victory over their enemies. The entire story was chronicled by Lysanya in video form and is available for viewing at the below link. I've cued up the video to begin at the moment Andrakuz was anointed our pilot at 1 hour, 45 minutes and 20 seconds into the video. I've typed up a dramatic retelling of his experience below. I encourage you to read the text below
first and
then watch the video. Pay special attention to the match's text chat to get the full experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEn6fdblHpY&feature=youtu.be&t=1h45m20sIf you did not participate on Saturday night,
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
IntroductionEvery once in a while, a combination of circumstance, fate, and chance producer a
HERO FOR THE AGES... Our first hero was
Tachy (#PraiseTachy! Read his story
here) and he has served the Random Gods well as their champion on this earth, fighting against injustice with courage and valor. But battling the hordes of novices and stackers can fatigue even the strongest of warriors, and the Gods demand balance. On Saturday, October 29, 2016, at approximately 11:20 PM EDT... the Gods gave us our latest righteous warrior,
Andrakuz...
PrologueWar wasn't brewing. It was simmering. The heat was always on and the borders were always on high alert, with mistreated crews of opposing squadrons watching each other diligently across the vast deserts and tundras and other sorts of wastelands. A crew can get bored staring at all that sand and ice... life on an airship can be pretty rough. Corporal punishment. No entertainment beyond booze and brawling. Swabbing the poop deck. You know, if you take a moment to think about it, the swabbie of one faction seems to have more in common with his
enemy swabbie than with his own captain. And, hey, what exactly are we fighting over if everything is simply a waste?
You know what? We're going to start a
movement! Swabbies of the World, uni--
"BLAAAARE!"...What was I...? Oh.
Yes. High Command doesn't give you time to think; the pot has to be stirred until the sauce is ready. Sometimes a ship strays off course and into enemy territory, even though there are no discernible borders. Sometimes trade negotiations go sour and the diplomats challenge each other to a duel with Javelin Harpoons at 500 meters (with no Lesmok!). Sometimes we organize a blood sport in which teams of ships ferry a buoy back and forth between two sides of a territory
for hours until one side finally surrenders. But, more often than not, when the ingredients in the recipe for perpetual conflict need to be adjusted to make sure we all take our medicine, the Council just begs that crazy old oracle M'Kaw to interpret the will of the Gods. And
nearly every time she declares that the Gods
want Chaos, so she chooses a site for battle and both sides, desperate to keep order in their lands, agree to her absurd rules.
Chapter 1Through M'Kaw, Paritan was chosen as the site. Through M'Kaw, the orders of battle were determined. Through M'Kaw,
High Tide was chosen as our pilot, but he refused to follow the Gods' "mischievous wishes."
"A Squid equipped with all Mine Launchers!? I will not accept my station! This shan't be my lot! I will not bow to these demands! Either the Gods are unreasonable or M'Kaw is a charlatan! My lack of skill will surely damn my compatriots to defeat and embarrassment! Or, worse... death!"
"You must follow their rules!" I cried. "This is their vision, and it must be realized! High Command and the Council trust the oracle, as does our enemy. The impending battle must be fought with only mine launchers because that is what
Those Who Rule the Skies want! If we are to die, at least we will die with honor! We will receive our just reward. We all have our part to play in the skies... O! My Captain, won't you reconsider?"
High Tide paused. His face was stone, staring into a far-off abyss. "No," he finally said, firmly, defeated. Perhaps he saw in his mind's eye the charred corpses of his crew scattered among the shattered glass and concrete of the urban husk called Paritan. High Command knew a momentous battle was imminent and the scenarios had been playing through everyone's heads, from the lowliest swabbie to the Fleet Admiral himself. "I cannot do this. I
will not. It is suicide. I would rather lose my honor than lose my life and yours." Without turning, without saying goodbye, without apologizing, he walked calmly down the gangplank. We later learned he had immediately resigned his commission and was banished by the Council, which branded him an apostate for disobeying the will of the Gods.
"Heretic," Lexy muttered as High Tide took his final step off the plank. She wasn't exactly a zealot, but something about her...
That's when I saw him. No, not High Tide.
Him. His brown skin was tanned from both the sun and the heat of the barrels he unloaded upon hits targets as a gunner. His rakish tricorn sat neatly upon his tight curls. He strode with hesitation up the ramp onto the nimble vessel and spoke without emotion. "I have no mic," he muttered as his face turned into a frown. But he didn't need to say anything. We didn't
know it at the time, but we knew he was special. We knew he might be the--
"BLAAAARE!" screamed the klaxons. Our heads rotated rotated back and forth and our eyes darted rapidly. "Are they attacking?"
"Nope," our engineer said nonchalantly as he walked up the ramp. "It's go time. You must be our new captain. Hi." He looked at Andrakuz with a blank stare for a brief moment. His face was completely forgettable. "No time for introductions. The oracle has determined the battle is to begin at dusk and we have to get to the rendezvous point as soon as possible. The enemy is already on the way."
"I already did a pre-flight check, even though it isn't my job," Lexy said accusingly, narrowing her eyes at me and then deliberately glancing down at the decorations pinned to her chest. One of them was a tawdry oversized bullet, but it made the point that High Command both liked to recognize its best gunners and didn't like spending much doing so.
"Okay, yes, fine, sorry," I said with exasperation. I stared at her and then tapped the flask in my chest pocket. "It won't happen again," I said with a purposely crazed look in my eyes.
"Suuuurrrre," she replied, taking two seconds to say a one syllable word. And without another word, we all manned our stations and set sail for the broken city of Paritan.
Chapter 2As our newly christened ship took to the skies, Andrakuz, realizing he had only served
aboard crews during his service and had never really been
in command or directly responsible for the well-being of a crew, questioned himself. His crew realized their captain was uncomfortable at the helm of such a sensitive craft, but they casually reaffirmed their faith in his command and offered practical advice by chatting to one another and allowing Andrakuz to overhear their conversation.
"I think I'm getting chapped lips. Should have brought some balm," Lexy remarked. And Andrakuz gently lowered the throttle.
"I must have drank too much last night. If that's possible. I'm feeling queasy," I remarked. And Andrakuz loosened his grip on the wheel and let the winds carry us gently toward our destination.
"Doing okay, captain?" our engineer asked.
Andrakuz nodded solemnly and thought of telling his crew he'd do his best, but he knew those words were only a sign of weakness and wouldn't help. He knew he had to be
in command but he didn't know
how to give voice to his orders.
If only I had a microphone, he thought. He began to spiral mentally even though his ship moved with relative grace. But before his self-doubt could shake his emotions, that question mark turned into an exclamation point. The
Gun Runer appeared through the haze and darkness of the wrecked cityscape. "Captain, enemy vessel si--"
"BOOM!" His skin felt a rush of hot air blast through the hair on his arms and scalp. His ears rang. He opened and closed his eyes rapidly in an attempt to blink away the spots obstructing his vision. "Sir! We hit a mine!" Lexy shouted from the starboard emplacement, turning in a rush to repair the engines. "Reverse course and radio our flee--"
"BOOM!" The same intense sensations rocked Andrakuz's body again. The
Gun Runer's crew, being assigned to a Junker, clearly had trained with these weapons at their war colleges; "Munkers," after all, were the preferred craft for mining specialists, and these bastards had already demonstrated their consummate skill in a single moment. If our ship had a nervous system, by now it would be causing the craft to go into shock. Andrakuz thought he heard a voice far behind him, but it was only mere feet away. "
...our fleet for assistance! Radio our fleet for assistance, Captain!" Lexy cried to the captain over her shoulder as her pipe wrench crashed into the mangled engine.
I had already dove into the pit housing the armor repair hub and was toiling away to provide us with some immediate protection. I stabilized our systems quickly, but before our crew could effectively target the Junker, a Squid, the
Fifth Hokage, rose up from the littered alleyways and set itself on a crash course with our vessel as its destination. The ship's captain, a rogue called Wrathling, was famous for his suicidal charges into enemy defenses. While he was often beaten and broken by the end of the skirmish, just as often he took an enemy down with him. He was a wildcard in the skies who was just as likely to kill as be killed.
But luck was on our side, at least for a moment. As the
Fifth Hokage darted forward, Wrathling neglected to radio his co-captain on the
Gun Runer to request they halt fire as he sought personal glory with a ram kill... and the Munker's expert crew was still actively targeting our ship. As the
Fifth Hokage made contact with our hull, ordnance exploded in the vicinity of both craft and damaged every gas bag keeping the ships aloft, sending them both sinking towards the streets.
"Activate the emergency parachute, Captain!" I bellowed over the sound of metal-on-metal as I cobbled back together our armor plating and the rest of the crew worked on patching up the gas bags. The
Fifth Hokage sank below us and it seemed we were out of harm's way. "Alright, balloon's looking good. Deactivate the parachute. And, say, cap, did you know the Drogue Chute remains active for a few seconds
after you deactiv--"
"BOOM!"...I must have blacked out. The next thing I remember, we were out of harm's way on a ship in perfect condition, about to enter combat with fresh faces but, somehow, I felt as if I'd learned something in the past few minutes. I had gained something valuable, even if I wasn't sure
what it was or
how it happened. "Guys, do
you..." I trailed off. Their astounded stares back at me confirmed they had shared the same experience.
For a moment, we froze. Then, in a sudden panic, we ran to our stations. "Vessel in sight, Captain!" our engineer warned. "
Pyramidion-class! Designation is
Shake Rattle n' Roll!"
"Then let's make 'em live up to their namesake," I quipped. "Prime the launchers!"
Lexy and I mounted our weapons and squinted through the clouds. "Gentle on that wheel, captain! Treat it like a lady!" I advised with a wink.
Lexy rolled her eyes and smirked. "How about 'Keep 'er steady?'" she offered, eschewing the sexism. Our gallant gunnery officer was, under all the grease and oil, still a girl, but the word "still" was simply offensive to her and anybody who had served beside her. She had seen more combat than most "men" and acted with more courage under fire than the majority of high-ranking officers in the fleet would care to admit on official records, fearing it would make them look inferior. But those medals proved her prowess and her reputation preceded her. High Command had heard tales of her achievements many times over and knew she was invaluable to their success.
I chortled. "Guys, you heard it here first: Lexy wants you to kee--"
The ship shook as Lexy dropped the hammer and flames and thunder erupted from her gun. "Can it," she chimed in. I grinned and opened fire with her, but our charges landed short of the enemy.
"Distance too great. We've gotta close that gap, cap," I said, turning about to check on the captain. Andrakuz appeared steady, more comfortable at the helm. I guess he
had been with a woman or two before and my advice made sense to him.
Stupid Lexy, I thought.
Sexism is
funny! Locker room talk 'n' all. Anyway. "Either that or switch ammun--"
"Reverse course," Lexy interrupted.
I sniffed the air. It was... thick. Smokey, but... almost
sweet.
Barbecue sauce? I thought.
Oh. Oh!Lexy continued: "The Pyra just dropped a tar barrel. Let's hold here. No need to unnecessarily gunk up the engines. I'd hate to make more work for Jedi," she said with a sarcastic grin.
I tapped my flask. "Or yourself."
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... but still unfair for all practical reasons. Spawn 3 provides Blue with an amazing flanking opportunity which will be seized upon every match... they can dart forward, using the mountains as a screen, and approach the camping Red ships with relative impunity. Blue will constantly be flanking from this position, and who could blame them? Yet the same spawn in the area for Red team (spawn 7) doesn't provide any flanking opportunity because of topography: while Blue can easily run behind the mountains from Spawn 3, Red has to charge into open skies from Spawn 7. This isn't to say that these are bad spawns, it's just unfair to Red and gives Blue a big advantage, especially when you consider the Northwest spawns...
). So what is the deal I'm proposing?
) , while the front gun faces completely forward (in other words, that gun is fine). There is a high chance I will add a guide on how to tweak these angles in the future so you can dick around and be really, really creative 
