Cool, so far we have the following groups of player interactions:

Group 1
Smiley, Coatl, Sonora, and Sam

Group 2
El Mono and Chaske

Group 3
Chaske and Stephen

Group 4
Dexter

Looks to be we're starting to slowly get drawn together, which is why I've been more hands off and just making posts to ease things along. I'm not wanting to throw tons of story at you guys while you're roleplaying the integration of the group.

Of course I could change that at any time for you guys. If I feel like people are getting bored I can find some ninjas.

Also: I fully admit that Doc Chase is a magnificent world builder. Sometimes I'm not even sure how to follow up, since there's nothing I could do to describe Sonora's current environment any better than he did.

Goddamnit, the last thing I need from you guys are Ego Puffs™. I'm bad enough filling in the mental landscape of the church and surrounding neighborhood as well as the cargo docks where Sergei does his business.

Yes; Dexter just parked INTO Smiley's car.

Everybody pays.

HAHAHHAHAHHA

Dexter is with Geiko, so I'm sure it'll be all good.

Hey, guys. Just wanted to give a quick report in.

I appreciate the fact you all have been driving the plot forward with your interactions. I have been taking a hands-off approach so you all could bond and roleplay your meetings.

Secretly I'm glad for this, because I've been swamped at work and at home. I've been working on papers that are due in a few days for classes I've been taking at college, and I have some final exams coming up. By Wednesday I should be done with everything, but it's been crunch time and I'm trying to balance a few things. So really the timing of this couldn't be better.

So I'll ahead and say you all have a few more days to roleplay out your interactions and meet and whatnot. When I get back into full GM mode next week I'll look and see where everyone is at, and if we're in a good position for it, I'll start nudging the plot along again. We've got alot to do.

Man, keep forgetting that it's not that Dex isn't an asshole. He's a guy with cyberpsychosis... And he's an asshole.

Also: You damn near ninja'd me, damn you Combat Mage! *shakes fist*

@Mister Juan
I was toying with the idea of telling you to make a Memory Test, but I said fuck it and I'll just give you the results.

You recognize the elf and the troll eating lunch from the list of targets in the Aztlaner infodump you got from Morris. The file has the female elf named as Kennedy Rojas, and the big troll as Esteban Moreno. They are both on the Azzie hitlist in those files. There's brief biographical sketches on both. The bulletpoints:

• Kennedy is an Aztechnology-trained social adept, and a very skilled one
• Sources say Kennedy is slowly dying from a degenerative heart defect
• Esteban is a fugitive who escaped from an Aztechnology-controlled penal colony
• Esteban is heavily cybered and to be considered extremely dangerous in close quarters combat
• Esteban is probably in town trying to find some of his old crew, who sold him out to Aztechnology in the first place

@Doc Chase and Martin
Sowwy.

And I am back! I got done with my final exams just a few hours ago. I will read back over where we are at currently and see about getting the plot balls rolling again. Maybe tonight or tomorrow I should be throwing some new stuff at you guys.

@Rystefn, Lamhslea, & DrZaius
I noticed that things are moving slowly over on that side of the game. Is everyone still with us? I don't want to move the action ahead to the point I leave people behind, but I'm missing you guys.

Still here. Chaske is just waiting for Mono to respond before he continues along with his meet plans.

Yeah, sorry... I wasn't aware we were waiting on me. I missed that Nono had a question put to him and was wondering why the conversation had trickled off to basically nothing.

Heh, I guess that sort of thing happens from time to time.

That's okay. I'm about to get the ball rolling again soon. More exciting developments to come, soon as the GM gets home and gets a few beers in him.

On another note: Managed to get another 4.0 semester for my summer classes.

Headed out to Gencon tomorrow night, so I'll be a bit restricted in posting until Sunday.

But restricted, not right out. =P

Stephen is going to cast Increase Reflexes and Physical Mask on himself before heading out to the meet.

Increase Reflexes, Force 3
Spellcasting 4 + Magic 5 = 9 dice
9d6.hits(5) → [6,6,1,3,1,5,2,3,5] = (4) hits. Stephen binds the Sustained spell to his focus, and has +2 Reaction, +2 Initiative Passes.
Drain for Force 3 Increase Reflexes, 3S
Willpower 5 + Logic 3 = 8 dice
8d6.hits(5) → [6,1,4,6,2,6,5,1] = (4) hits. Stephen takes no drain.

Physical Mask, Force 5
Spellcasting 4 + Magic 5 = 9 dice
9d6.hits(5) → [2,2,3,4,5,5,4,1,6] = (3) hits. Stephen takes on the appearance of an elf.
Drain for Force 5 Physical Mask, 3S
Willpower 5 + Logic 3 = 8 dice
8d6.hits(5) → [3,1,5,3,5,5,5,1] = (4) hits. Stephen takes no drain.

He is at a -2 modifier for sustaining a spell to all further actions until he drops Physical Mask.

Anyone else having trouble with Invisible Castle? It keeps crapping out on me.
-DrZ

@DrZaius
Your hits are noted.

I didn't post for you guys last night 'cause I'm waiting for both groups to get to a certain point. I think I know how I'm going to handle the next batch of plot.

@Lamhslea, Rystefn, and DrZaius
How far are you currently in Nueva Caracas from where the other group is? And how far away is your meeting point? Keep in mind that Nueva Caracas isn't terribly huge. It's just a neighborhood. It's not comparable in scope to, say, what Tacoma is to the Seattle Metroplex.

If you're thinking you're going to have them hit Smiley's car again, be warned that he's probably going to cap a runnah.

Nothing so hamfisted. But I'm turning Smiley's car into my own personal punching bag. I'm not done with it yet.

Dude.

Duuuude.

Are you going to kill it by having a trio of German nihilists set it on fire while playing fat beats on their boombox?

They want ze money, Lebowski. Ja!

Are you suggesting one of the other runners is a dipshit with a nine-toed girlfriend, Doc?

EDIT: And congrats on the 4-point, Abs.

No, one of the foils. And the Johnson is a white-haired, overweight crippled man with a towheaded toady.

Her life is in our hands, dude.

And yes! Four-point is tasty. Never, ever had one of those. Likely never will.

::tries, and fails, to eradicate the mental image of Coatl carrying around a large satchel of his dirty undies::

Once Chaske and Mono meet up with Stephen, then I think we'll be down for getting things rolling again. Also once that meet happens there will be two groups:

Group One
Chaske, Mono, and Stephen

Group Two
Dexter, Sonora, Smiley, Coatl, and Sam

I may refer to the groups this way in the headers before a scene, that way everyone knows who I'm spotlighting in the writing. At times I may need to focus in on an individual, and when I do this I will put their name first. Even though everyone is slowly getting together, I have no intentions of dumping the individual character stories.

@DrZaius, Rystefn, and Lamhslea
As a GM I'm going to ask that the meeting be fashionably late, around 12:25. That way it's easier for me to sync stuff up between the two groups. Since you guys are going to be staying somewhere in Nueva Caracas, I'm going to handwave distances and say that you all will be "close." Like I said before, the neighborhood isn't very big. If you look up Nueva Caracas in Google Maps you can see what I'm talking about.

I may make a couple of individual character posts later on, since I have some things I want to start introducing into the plot. It's time for me to start overcoming the inertia of my absense.

Do we have any questions/requests/comments/suggestions/etc?

More explosions, less abusing Smiley's poor car.

Also, Smiley's nickname for Dex has just been alluded too. If you can't get in three guesses, you are a sad sad person. Hint: It's neither old man or old bastard, those are too simple.

One of these I can do. The other, probably not.

Now that the subject has come up: Can Sangre (thanks again for the name Doc Chase, makes writing easier) determine if his own English is American or British?

Distinctly American, with a Spanish accent.

Edit: I wanted to clarify, his native tongue is actually English, but it seems learned in such a way that Spanish was a substrate. Think of how natives of India learn fluent British-style English over there, but it still has influences and accents of the native Hindi tongue. It's like that.

Alright, let's shake things up a bit.

@Group Two
(Doc Chase, Rastus, Martin, Combat Mage, and Mister Juan)
Perception rolls, all of you.
Add in your bonuses if you have them. There will be penalties but I need to hold cards to my chest, so post your rolls and I'll knock dice off at the end to see where you really stand. Consider it a visual test.

@Lamhslea
Gimme Electronic Warfare+Scan

@Group One
(Lamhslea, Rystefn, and DrZaius)
Go ahead and jump to the meeting.

5d6.hits(5)=0

Well,I see nothing. I would make an IC post for Coatl but I'm having these weird headaches, make it hard to concentrate... hopefully I can get one up fairly early tomorrow.

Take your time, homeboy. We'll be here.

Perception Test
10d6.hits(5) → [3,5,2,3,3,1,1,5,3,3] = (2)

And that's two hits. Darn, was hoping for another total of 6 hits so Smiley could see through time and space. Oh well.

7d6 → [3,3,6,1,2,2,2] 1 Hit Guess the bullet in the head doesn't help with seeing things.

If it's an enemy he picked a bad time. Sangre's kinda really pissed right now.

For some reason, I found that totally hilarious!

Smell: 3+2+3 (Olfactory Boost)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2640234/
8d6 → [5,5,2,2,1,3,2,3] = 2 hits

Vision: 3+2+2 (Vision Enhancement)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2640236/
7d6 → [5,1,3,2,6,4,2] = 2 hits

Hearing: 3+2+3 (Audio Enhancement)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2640237/
8d6 → [4,6,1,4,5,2,5,1] = 3 hits

I'M BACK
TOTALLY BACK
wait what did I nee-OHSHI

Visual Perception Test: 13d6.hits(5) → [1,2,5,4,3,2,6,5,4,6,6,5,6] = (7)

I BELIEVE I SEE THROUGH TIME SIR

7 hits, wtf?

Unfortunately most of those hits are at the end, and if I take off dice for penaties, they'll be the first to go.

Perception is pretty much my stacked skill.

All Perception rolls are in and the results noted. I can proceed to start killing you all now.

Initiative Roll
11d6.hits(5) → [5,5,5,6,1,6,2,1,6,4,1] = (6)

Ahh, if it isn't another total of six hits. Hello my old friend, how have you been doing?

By the way Doc, with Sonora's Perception dice she should really consider working part time as the team sniper in the future. Challanging work, out of doors, and I guarantee you'll not go hungry. 'Cause at the end of the day, so long as two people are left on the planet, somebody will want the other guy dead. Plus it keeps her well away from all the bullets and explosions.

Initiative:
12d6.hits(5) → [3,4,6,3,1,5,5,6,6,4,5,6] = (7) -> 19

He's fast when he's angry.



She can be Sangre's spotter after he loots that sniper rifle on the roof.

Lousy showoff, I hope you get hit by a bus! *shakes fist*

I think the only thing that's going to get hit by a bus (again) is Smiley's car.

For all your fast initiatives, you all are considered unaware until Sonora and/or Dexter say something to you.

This is the part where I think, "Sniper? Well, maybe!"

Initiative: 6d6.hits(5) → [4,5,1,5,3,1] = (2)

Going on a whopping eight.

Threading Scan CF: Software 4 + Resonance 5 + Paragon 2 (11d6.hits(5)=4)

4 hits for threading scan.

Resist 4S threading fading: 5 Intuition + 5 Resonance (11d6.hits(5)=1)
Resist 1S.

Scan + Electronic Warfare
Scan + Electronic Warfare: 4 Scan + 5 Electronic Warfare (9d6.hits(5)=4)

4 hits
Recieve 3S damage.

Hits noted. This will be somewhat important later on.

6d6.hits(5)=3

Coatl has a 9 for Init.

If I don't get an initiative roll from Mister Juan by later on today, I'll roll for him and get the order put down at least.

Well, Sonora just said something. Does it count or do we really have to waste a turn not doing anything relevant?

I'm also a little disapointed nobody caught what I was referencing.

Oh I knew that sounded familiar.
I love the music in that video.