I was just trying to save the poor guy from being smashed through a wall by Mister Joshua

Mostly if I get access to his memories I will ask the good Captain what he wants to know.

It was a good roll...but he's not too bright, built like a brick sh*t house, and has a home turf advantage...

What do you want to know from the mind reading stuff? You have access (of sorts) to his memories...will try and IC soon

Just a word of warning, I'm going to be away from the 21st, probably to the end of the month and I'm unlikely to be able to post (being on a boat...) so sorry, and for not being able to post in your thread Seth...

Just bumping this back on to the front page

Thanks. Will pick this up again after my holiday...enjoy the break from my paranoid ravings

I'm back! Will catch up on the IC post at the beginning of the week!

Welcome back Aria.

BigFella and I are still here, we are just being quiet as there is little we can contribute to the Powers That Be deciding whether to run or fight

My two-pennies worth are that we should pull out now. This is likely to be a war not a battle. If we fight this battle now I think we will loose, but I think we will win the war.

Putting that another way, in a number of games I have been in the position that this community is in, and its not pretty. Their only hope was to stay hidden until they got strong enough to survive, or finished whatever they are trying to do. If they want a full on war I am sure that the megacorporations and Seattle will be happy to give them one.

So if we do walk away, what happens to this gaming group?

I have enjoyed playing and would like the story to continue... I had a few thoughts for you:

• We accompany a diplomatic mission that is visiting the tower.
• We have a second raid.
• We get mind wibbled by the inhabitants and help defend the tower against the next raid

Thanks, will try and get an IC post today...don't worry I have still have some nasty tricks up my sleeve to keep you all involved for a little bit longer

That being said I do have two sequel games and a spin off all revolving around technomancer emergence and persecution...would be great if you were all interested in continuing the themes, possibly with the same characters or with new...

Sabs, Blackhat, Mr J, you still with us?

Still here!

That's what I like to hear

I'm here
I'll admit, he's worried about Kitt, but Sticks is ready to get the frak out of this building.

Wow what a plot twist. OK well if psycho crazy bitch turns up in the middle of peace negotiations I guess that's going to put a dent in the negotiations.

So before Joshua or I kick off the last gun fight of Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid, you know the one...the one where they are hopeless outnumbered and surrounded, I had better do some information gathering.

I am guessing we are into combat round. I cannot remember whether I am in or out of body, so I will assume I am in body. I'll take a free action to assense Mrs Shrike and Aria. I'll then blast Shrike with a spell.

My thinking on Aria is as follows: she teleported in. Probably she is a spirit (maybe even a free spirit). Maybe some hacker emulates her form. Maybe she is a technomantic spirit, maybe she was invisible. In any case I have to get some intelligence on her.

Initiative: I'll take the 4:1 rule and go 7. Almost certainly last
Assensing: A miserable 2 successes
Casting stun bolt Force 8 A much better 5 successes
Soak using 4:1 rule

By the way I am hoping that Aria will recognise I am trying to defuse the situation and will do the cool free spirit thing of buffing the spell, or at the very least not counter magic it.

I'm here. Couldn't remember when you were back and was checking every few days, but seems i missed you by 3!



As I read it, Aria didn't teleport in. Rather, her icon appeared and that's what we're seeing.......?

No I think she teleported in:

Maybe. I was looking at this bit



Maybe that's me not understanding it correctly though. Either way, I doubt she's a spirit. Just doesn't feel right. Also, spirits can't VR and that'd seem weird for a hacker.

I guess we'll see....

I'm moving on Matrix time, Sticks will drop /into/ his machine gun drone, and then he should be just as fast as crazy fast bitch. (4IP for the win) he's going to spend 1 simple action taking aim.

Sorry for not posting more this week, whole family has been horribly ill Will try and get an IC post done tomorrow...

To clarify: she looks like the icon of Aria but is too real for that...whether or not she's a spirit will remain to be seen...

Combat time is ensuing (I'm GM ruling auto surprise for an entire round for them turning up...more because I don't want to go back an rewrite my IC post )

So, brand new round, I'll stick with the initiative in post 358 (link from Pg 1, post 1 of this thread) unless someone desperately wants me to go and modify that (?!?)...Sticks is aiming and Gash will fire off his stun spell in phase 1. No one else really has a clear shot as she's in the middle of platoon 1...Cpt Roberts is fairly close though...

Joshua, don't forget you've seen movement on the stairs above you and Aria is standing near you

You've all had reports of the enemy closing in on your position...this could all be one big (bloody) distraction...?!?

Unless anyone wants to change your positioning I'm assuming from top to bottom we have

• Hostiles
• Aria
• Joshua then Sticks & group
• Platoon 2 and Lt Bryn, drone overhead
• Shrike
• Platoon 1 and Cpt Roberts
• Potentially more hostiles

Will post something tonight. My computer got a virus (damn technomancers), so I've been getting it reformatted for the last couple of days, but I should have time to post some reaction tonight.

I am assensing her...

I will edit if the sleep spell works and defuses the situation. Otherwise, however, Robert will give the order to his men to snap into action.

We are onto phase 2...assume the 3 grenades will arrive at the end of the round...

Sabs, I know I didn't give you a chance to blast Shrike but don't worry, there are plenty more hostiles incoming

Ah what to think?!?

Mr J was right, she certainly isn't a spirit!

OK this looks grim.

As Gash I am rubbish against grenades (I do magical threats). I think the best think for me to do is:
1: Emergency first aid anyone alive
2: Get the dead and wounded out

If you want me to anything else just yell an order.



Services requested: countermagic and first aid (so far).
Next round if I can I will triage: i.e. use first aid to see who will benefit from stabilisation. Since I am not using the first aid kit, thats just: 3 successes (5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1), looking at the two wounded by blades, and the one thrown in the air.

Well for the more combat knowledgeable the three grenades are flashbangs...

I'm in a done, and I move stupidly fast. I want to try and shoot the incoming grenades.

I'm looking over my options.

is their a door or anything to close?
Is there anything I can grab as a shield to put in the way?

If not can I position myself to take most of the blast, and act as a bit of shield for the weaker of us?

Feel free to summarise either the drone gunnery or sensor gunnery rules and take some serious mods to your roll...they are very small and moving fast but at least the tacnet can predict their path...

I'd guess a shot flashbang would simply go off early?!?

Joshua doesn't really need to shield anyone...all they will do is make a loud noise and a flash!

You are on the lvl 2 landing in the core...stairs go up and down...there is the auditorium near you too

I'm going to try and knock one of the grenades with an arrow.

Archery 12 + tacnet (not sure so guessing 3)
I cannot get invisible castle so I guess I have to roll real die: 6 successes (6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1). Base damage 10 I think.

My guess is that modern explosives just don't go off easily. I doubt if a shot would do it. If you damage the electronics in it, that would stop it all together.

If you don't do enough damage to destroy it, I think you would just change where it lands.

Given there are stairs nearby, I guess you could drop it down the stairs rather than with us.

As Seth pointed out damage isn't really an issue...not sure what mods should have been on this roll so we'll just say it was a threshold and you've managed to divert one of the grenades over the side...

How many arrows do you have left by the way? Just curious as I haven't been keeping track

I'd not thought about the problem: too much Wow maybe where it isn't a problem

Human foot archers typically carried between 10 and 15. As I am a troll how above a quiver of 20?

I guess I have shot about 8 (haven't really been counting), but I could easily have picked up a few...so how about 12 left?

Ah the joys of a WoW addiction thankfully my wife managed to cure me of that particular obsession

12 left sounds fine to me...

Sabs, will use the same threshold (3) for you shooting the grenades from your drone...only allowing this because you all have the tacnet running and it can predict the flight path of the grenade bouncing down the stairs...for bonus dice you can use active sensor targetting to lock on to the grenades but at the same -3 as for drones...

Response(5)+Gunnery(4)+Vr(2)+TacNet(3)+ControlRig(2)+PuSHeD(1)=17d6: 17d6.hits(5)=6, 17d6.hits(5)=8, 17d6.hits(5)=7 Hits.
3 IPs 3 grenades, 3 shots.

Using ex-ex loaded light machine gun.

Robert's doesn't have multiple IPs like the rest of you mercs, so he'll be doing his best to follow everything that is going on via tacnet. As a free action he will probably direct a matrix message to the hacker-gram who still seems to be trying to make a deal. IC for that up shortly.

Hope you all enjoy the latest IC post

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

It's on!

*curls up in a corner and cries*

Oh but I did

...what's on?

Don't cry, I won't take all your toys away

she says to the paraplegic rigger

Your wheels are only a matter of a few meters away, you were even sensible enough to put your nexus in there...

So I want to look around, see if I spot.. oh I dunno.. a weapon or anything

I assume I've been stripped of my commlink so I can't remote control my horseman. The problem of course, is that my only way out of this valkyrie module is to FALL out of it.

Well, Swift has a machine pistol holstered in the small of her back and another in a shoulder rig...other than that you would guess they weren't careless enough to leave them in the same room...

The beds are semi recessed (think Dollhouse but not quite so deep)...so you can crawl if you don't mind your dignity. Of course you could wait for her to wake Cpt Roberts?

Yes, but I don't know what she's doing to captain roberts
She could be giving him his next dose of fry your brain drugs.

My situational awareness is never very good at the best of times...so the following are pretty dumb questions:

• Where is/was sticks roughly (i.e. we left his body behind while he came out and played with his drones)
• Were Joshua / Hartikainen and I caught in the flash
• What time is it for me?

Seth, as far as you are currently concerned all is as 23:23/24 post, combat is going on, the drones are all functioning normally and you can't see inside the Horseman anyway

Mr J and Blackhat, don't forget our little conversation about timestamps...it will become relevant very shortly!

Sabs, I've no problem with you retroactively having a smuggling compartment in the Horseman with a side arm in it...I know runners always feel more comfortable with lethal lumps of iron in their sweaty little grasps

My body was IN the Horseman.. right next to you

OK thanks Aria.

A few more questions:

• as I am currently dual natured is Feral astrally aware at the moment?
• are any of the anthroform (as far as I can tell with assensing) alive?
• are any of these troopers saveable

Not my greatest archery: 3 3 and 2

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3019057/

Feral is astrally aware, and some sort of adept...he gives you an evil grin when you look in his direction (I'm assuming some sort of LOS for you to see him and vice versa)

The antroforms seem to all be drones

The troopers are more or less toast!

Will try and get another IC post up tomorrow to move things along merrily

Let me know when we roll over to the next combat round, because Robert's is out of actions (slow meatspeed man).

If I am understanding the last post correctly, from our perspective, Stick's got hit with something and went down, but the rest of us are all still fighting.

No, I don't think you can tell what if anything happened to me.

I'm in a Horseman, inside a Rigger Cocoon.

Rigger cocoons are Armor 20 Barriers of doom, on top of the Horseman armor. All my Drones are behaving properly, so really nothing is wrong with me, in the last 3 seconds.

Sure, I guess my point was that whatever is happening, is only happening to you, and the rest of us are still in this fight (Despite you seeing Roberts wherever you ended up).