Please do not spam like that.

Smoky XT Chronicles: Exploration _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ These last few days and nights toward the mountain have been rather peaceful and relaxing, despite the constant sightings of movement in the terrain far above us; they know that we are coming, and we know that they are waiting for us. I bring this realization to my golden companion's attention, and he decides that, for the remainder of the day, we shall maintain our current heading. Shortly after nightfall, he tells me, we should backtrack a few kilometers down the mountain, the veer off to our present left-tread side of the mountain. I agree, and we continue on up, driving around boulders and over piles of debris left by presumably natural events. Milan has been quiet for quite some time now. I mean, he has never been the kind to talk for the sake of talking, but he is being unnaturally silent. Perhaps he is forming a new battle technique, thinking about events of long past, or simply just choosing to be quiet, for lack of something to discuss. Every time I see his optics pick up another black silhouette peering over a precipice in the far distant backdrop, his silence grows louder, in a manner of speaking. Night has now fallen upon us, with our last glimpse of the sun fading over the right side of the mountain. Without bothering to rotate our bodies, Milan and I simply turn our turrets in opposite the opposite direction, and quickly descend down the path we had just came from. As we navigate around an outcropping of boulders averaging 3 meters in height, we veer off to our present right, shortly before each of us activate our exterior color panels, and change to a sleek, black coat. This is the first time I have seen my companion without his majestic coating. While still bearing the same dents as before, I cannot hlep but notice how...different, he appears. He seems now to be another simple tank from the battlefield. Hurriedly, both he and I observe our surroundings, to garuantee ourselves that not a camera is watching us. As far as I can tell, there is not a circuitboard in sight. The remainder of the night is filled with the low, rumbling murmur of our nitro-powered engines moving treads across a rocky terrain. This is the first time he and I have used our stored supplies for some reason other than battle. It feels nice to cover so much ground in such a short amount of time, as compared to my regular speed. Even with our additional speed, we are still careful in staying out of view from the upper cliffs and ridges of the mountain, stying on the opposite sides of ditches, trees, and shrubs. As dawn slowly makes itself known by gradually lighting the night sky's hue of dark, ominous blue, Milan and I halt abruptly. Just emerging from a dense overgrowth of a colurful species of ferns, we find ourselves on the rim of a shallow crater on the slope of the mountain. Sure, we have gone in and out of deeper ditches before, but this one is different. Much different. The two of us are met with the sight of tens of broken, battered, sheared, burned, and mutilated tank components carelessly literred among the dip in the ground. That is not the extraordinary part, however. It is obvious to tell the paintings of these tanks; the three colors of battlefield legend. Demolsihed Mammoth tanks with remnants of the Acid paint, the coat given to the best individual players of all time, freeze turrets with Alligator paintings show the final resting place of the battlefield supervisors, coordinators, and law enforcement officers. And finally, tanks and wepaons of all kinds, horribly bent out of shape and ripped to shreds, are visibly encased in the golden paint I had grown accustommed to seeing upon my living friend. Our party of two does not move for quite some time. "What," I think to myself "could do this to these guys?" They were known as the elites of my world, my home. None would dare oppose their authority, and leave without respawning a hundredfold more than they ever had before. And here they are, my heroes and leaders alike, all tossed around and crushed like recruits. Dead recruits. I notice that this crater seems to be the bottom of a long trail of similarly literred by shrapnel and corpses, steadily running up the course of the mountainside. Silence ensues for a while longer, until it is broken by the clicking of Milan's plating reverting to their preferred state of majestic, beaming gold. "We are finding who did this to my friends, and wea re going to make them pay." Are my friend's only words. Never before had I heard such anger embedded in such a matter-of-fact; Though no emotion was directly alluded to, one could tell how every syllable was painstakingly held back from exploding with an omnipotent rage, which no being living (or dead, for that matter) would want to witness firsthand. We quickly take the perpendicualr and parallel path directly up the mountain, nitro and double armor supplies activated at every sixty second interval. Though I cannot begin to comprehend what I am letting myself get in to, a foreign voice ensures me that all will be fine. Without physically stopping, I do a full three-hundred-sixty degree turn of my turret. Not a living being is in sight. However, the voice persists for a few minutes longer, until I realize that this strange, unknown voice is coming from within my own being. My thought processor's circuitry seems to have a subliminal message fading in and out of my mind. "Come to me, my little tank. All will be fine when you are with us, and your friend is among the dead." _____________________________________________________________________ Next Issue: Confrontation _____________________________________________________________________

Attention: The contest is now closed. Tankmen! For those of you who claim to know every map: Here is a challenge for your memory! Here are three pictures gathered from three different maps in the game. Name each one in a PM to me (Tommy60). The prize for this edition is 700 crystals for all three maps! (Only the first 3 correct applicants will receive prizes. Colloboration among players is not encouraged.) NOTE: The contest judge is not obligated to respond to every entry. He will only give the winners their reward by the time the following issue is published.

It looks awesome, Chris!

I wouldn't mind an English Staff contest like this! =)

1160 It WOULD have a 60...

What do you mean?

March of 2010.

The new forum layout has caused a lot of technical problems to occur, along with a few staffing conundrums.

We will be publishing soon-- just wait! =)

From 1.0 to 1.100, either the slope of the walls have increased, or the physics of the tank and weapon have been changed. Either way, I find it unnecessary.

We are having a bit of a staffing crisis right now, but we should have Issue 6 out within the next week or so.

Have you read the first edition of this section? I showed a 'trick' on Silence II. B)

Thanks for this update! :)

James

homework

Banned for using a contraction in the English forum.

You guys are funny-- if I was called a 'nerd,' I'd take it as the highest compliment. :D

Banned for thinking an emoticon is a punctuation.

Smoky XT Chronicles:Attack I can see that the enemy’s attention is solely based on my glossier, brighter companion and hero, Milan. He does not move. I do not move. The enemy does not advance; it stays in a fixed point in the air. Its weapon continues to grow more luminous, proportional to the whir of the firing mechanism. In an instant, I find the noise stopping and my turret firing at the front right portion of the enemy’s chassis, knocking his shot awry. What in Dev’s named did I just do?! Did I just involuntarily save my friend’s life? Releasing the thought immediately, I return to the current moment. Preceded by a deafening explosion, I turn around, and am greeted by the sight of at least fifty flattened trees, all in a straight row. “Run!” whispered Milan. “Get to that cave that we saw on the edge of river yesterday. I’ll be following, at a distance.” I have learned better than to question him, and I follow his orders. The enemy instantaneously responds to my retreat, sending two of its number to pursue, and presumably, terminate me. I have seen the path ahead, and commit it to memory. My current task is to fend off the attackers, while subconsciously making my way back to a temporary place of refuge. One of my offenders seems to be equipped with a weapon similar to the <freeze gun> of my world. The other sports an elongated, sinister looking weapon. Before I fire my first shot, he disappears into the foliage of the forest around me, leaving only the Freezer to finish me. Assuming that his weapon is most effective at close ranges, like his simpler counterparts, I decide it best to attack him form afar. I begin to fire dead-center into his body. The shots strike the target dead on, but seem to have little effect. He gains on me as a roll over a large, grey boulder. Again, I seem to lose control of my motions, and quickly drive backwards, hugging the base of the boulder. The enemy, who has lost sight of me, glides over the rock, and continues onward, aiming to go through a gap between two trees. I find my turret taking aim at my ex-pursuer, and firing. It makes contact with the extreme left part of his rear chassis, knocking him off course, and crashing into the tree. His death is boded by a magnificent explosion of orange and red, and a shrill screech of metal twisting and turning against other metals. Astonished with my recent actions, I find myself in complete control of all bodily movements again. What just happened to me, again? I seriously doubt that it was instinct; not twice. Turning around to consult Milan, I now realize that he is most probably still in battle. The sound of of his weapon firing in the distance gives me hope that he will live to fight another day. I hustle through the floral residents of the forest, rolling over and break logs like twigs and through bushes like they do not exist. I crash headlong into trees, downing them with a deafening 'THUD'. I emerge from a cluster of large leaves, to find myself in a newly made clearing in the forest. Bullets, nanobots, and war in general can do that to any place. Milan is to my left, at the edge of the clearing. It looks like he is using the trees and shrubbery for cover from his many flying foes. I guess I should help even the odds. I repeatedly fire over and over again at whichever alien comes closest to my companion's position. After a time that seems like an eternity, a chunk of flying metal goes whizzing through the air, off of its owner. I take aim for the newly exposed weakness, and fire. Milan apparently took note of the opening as well; he fires at the same spot and time that I do. The attacker explodes into a fiery, airborne inferno, which engulfs two of its comrades. They too catch fire, hit the ground at awkward positions, and explode. Their companions do not seem to care, as they continue their attack. Milan uses his veteran knowledge of battle to anticipate the foreigners' plan of attack, and counters it with one of his own. He weaves in and out between trees, taking cover and firing at every opportunity. I decide that it would be in my best interest to find some cover of my own, and attack from afar, rather than being close to the assailants, where my small hull's vulnerability could be taken advantage of. I position myself between two trees on the edge of the clearing, and continue firing my shells. Despite their seemingly advanced weapons technologies, these flying tanks are horrible strategists. Their sole battle tactic is to take quick lunges at their target individually, with no cover fire from the collective behind them. Also, they seem to take no notice of me, their secondary opponent. They are, more or less, concentrating their attack on Milan alone. I ponder that as Milan and I turn our enemies into flaming heaps of metal. As the last one fragments into multiple flying pieces of shrapnel, I quickly drive over to my comrade. "Why," I began. "Why were they such terrible fighters?" he finished my sentence. "Because that's all they were--fighter drones. We were lucky that we only ran into a patrol of them; there were no strategists with them." "How d-," I begin to inquire. "Can I tell the difference between fighters and strategists, and their multiple ranks?" This is getting annoying. "Simple: drones are black, strategists are grey, mechanical workers are orange, and other classes have different colors. Oh, and leaders are rainbow." "Rainbow?" I can't believe what I just heard. "Seriously?" "Yes, rainbow. To them, it is symbolic of every being every class and rank, and having all the experience necessary to lead a large unit. Luckily for us, we haven't seen any rainbows yet." We turn to the mountain again, and continue on our way. I turn back to the recently abandoned battlefield, observe a final time, and keep rolling over the terrain between us and the mountain, knowing that we are expected ________________________________________________________________________ Next issue: Exploration ________________________________________________________________________

How does this topic contribute to the forums, like it should be?

To some religions, it does not seem that way. Please refrain form stating 'facts' like that here-- it only leads to flaming, trolling, and banning.

Agnostics have doubts/ skepticism about the existence of a higher power.

a short summary of what you said- your Atheist Agnostic, you mean. :wink:

You can use real money to purchase crystals for your friend, though.