The glow led Terra further down, until she almost had to slide the last ten feet into the centre of the massive asteroid. The sensation of data filtering inwards, being drawn from errant lost streams and wild fall-off energy of the net continues, flowing around her and inwards. The landscape down here was similar to the exterior of the rock; solid stone and earth, but riddled with broken pieces of technology, ranging from satellite parts or whole sections of metal panelling that came from who knew where. Further on still, Terra found it at last.
The heart of the glow, and the centre of the energy pulse shifted with heavy, sluggish steps as it came into view ahead of her. At first the details were hard to make out, between the dazzling brilliance of its light, but before long she could see its shape, and pick out its details. The first feature was its size: the beast, whatever it was, was large enough to almost entirely fill the tunnel ahead of Terra – a tunnel that easily reached thirty or forty feet across its rounded diameter.
A short, low snout faced her, peering out from a low-slung body that seemed made of metallic parts; clawed fore-feet gouged at the ground as it stomped forward. The rest of its body was covered completely in a dense forest of bristles and spines, each crackling with electricity and emitting a portion of the beasts blinding light show.
It next thundering step brought it to within thirty feet of Terra, and it paused to peer at her for a drawn out, stolen moment. Something wasn't right about this. It was hard to tell where the thought came from exactly, but it drifted up in amongst Terra's other thoughts. Further flashes of memories surfaced, unbidden and unasked for. Memories of other image she'd seen in her mind, in a different place, where a storm of lightning danced amongst city spires. Something was wrong.
Seeing the creature before her, Terra might be able to recognise it based just on looks alone – reports of a terrible and great cyber beast that had tormented and endangered the NAXA networks, responsible for the deletions of countless navigators. Reports also spoke of a daring group of navigators that had finally challenged the creature, and reportedly destroyed it, yet here it was, or something like it. The Riccio of the stories was grand and terrifying, and this creature certainly was as well, but its body looked... pieced together.
Its claws were long spines of twisted metal, clearly from some other prior purpose. Its limbs contained metal gantries, piping, twisted arcs of steel and whole sections of complicated-looking machinery, broken apart and put back tougher and forced to work as electricity bound it all together. The spines on its back were a mass of constructed parts – lighting rods, electrodes, bolt generators and spark plugs, all bristling with erratic charge that skittered in wild bolts between the creature and the metal plating scattered across the walls and floors of its home. In every gap between the mangled and reassembled parts of its body, traces of glitched, buggy mass made up the darkness between the lightning. When the beast breathed out, it sounded... tired.
She could feel the creature's presence like a pressure in the air around her; the sense of it might well be overwhelming for some navigators, just by proximity alone. Sparks jumped and streaked between different parks of the creature and its cave while its electric glow swelled and throbbed. The brief stillness of the stand-off broke as the electricity pulsed again, and the massive beast before her stamped both of its fore-claws on the ground, then bellowed a roar that shook the whole asteroid, sending bolts of electricity searing out in random directions, to bounce and reflect off the electrical equipment embedded in the walls and ceiling. One bolt blasted Terra's shield clear off her arm and drove her feet back hard against the ground. The beast didn't want any visitors, it seemed.
-=Deep-Space Terraformer=-
Terra.Exe: 170Hp [Normal]
-=Lightning-Spined Menace=-
Riccio: 5000Hp [Metal]
-=Lost Asteroid=-
30% Metal
- Cannot be Broken or Cracked except with Geddon/PanelShot, cannot be Burrowed into.
- Elec attacks: +100% Source Damage.
- 100 Damage Aqua attacks: Change terrain hit to Cracked.
- 100 Damage Fire attacks: Change terrain hit to Furnace.
- PanelShot: Imbue Elec + Break.
20% Magnet
- Non-Elec Elementals get -30% Evasion, and 50% (+/- 25% RP) chance to fail movement off the panel.
- Only Elec Elementals can burrow.
- Wood attacks: Change terrain hit to Normal.
- PanelShot: Imbue Elec + Seeking.
20% Cracked
- Changes to Broken when stepped on, chance to fall in when triggered.
- Burrow: Change terrain to Broken, Null 50 to burrower.
- Panel Crack attacks, >100 Damage Break/Impact/Drop attacks: Change terrain hit to Broken.
- PanelShot: Splash1.
30% Normal
- No effects.
Area is a pseudo-subterranean cave system within a massive asteroid. The tunnels are very wide and broad, but divert in different directions and odd angles, with the potential to become somewhat maze-like if chased blindly. Most of the rocky ground is solid, but it is riddled with metal paneling in random places, as well as scattered sections of broken technology.
-=Battle, Start!=-