@sabs: Nice stealthing. Next time I need a bigger ward! Just so that you know, unless you had active spells or foci you didn't need to sleaze. Mind you with that roll you can just take them through.

The one bad guy who is moving's initiative is a mighty 7

So you go before him. Even applying -4 die because of the invisibility modifier (I am assuming you have damper ears), your mana bolt slams into him horribly: we have the "see the skeleton illuminating through the body" moment and he crumples to the floor, can you post something about this IC?

@Pbangarth: "Seth, now that you have had us roll Initiative, do you want us to wait to declare our actions in Initiative order, or just go ahead as before?" I suspect that the best thing is for everyone to post for rounds 3 & 4. If we wait for initiative order I suspect that we will take forever. The only important think about initiative is "is it before or after the only enemy thats moving", and I think sabs just dealt with that question

@Sephiroth: Just a thought that while your shape earth spell is not ideal (its designed for earth not concrete) but it would probably remove a lot of the concrete debris. Each success over a threshold of 4 would remove 1 point of visibility modifier. You need to get through the ward first of course.

@everyone: we are now moving to rounds 3 and 4, so you can all do stuff. One good thing about Bjorn's smashing is that all the cameras will be seeing at the moment is smoke. There are numerous alarms that you can just about hear over the sound of the turbines. The sound of the turbines is only -2 in here (zero with damper ears). The concrete dust is the equivalent of smoke (visibility -4), which causes problems on the astral plane as well.

Oh if I didn't need to do that, and I could have just walked through, can I have done that and kept my point of edge I only have 2 of those bad boys.. and losing the first 1 in the first 3 minutes hurts.

No problem go ahead and walk through: Alyena did and was ok

OK, in Round 4, Mandala will go astral in his first IP and rematerialize in the second IP, looking like the still awake and babbling technician.

Disguise roll: INT 8 + Disguise 2 + Force 8 (Mutable Form allows adding Force, and it is reduced by 1 by the Aztech background count) -2 for the noise = 16 dice ==> 6 HITS

Very cool move Pbangarth...confusion to the enemies! I'll post on friday for rounds 5&6.

Anyone want to make knowledge rolls on what the alarms are saying? Security procedures / aztech corp / physics / mechanical engineering ... etc are all interesting.

I've got Chemistry? Would that work :)

Chemistry Knowledge roll:
Chemistry(4)+Logic(8)+PuSHeD(1)+College Education(1)=14d6 2 6 1 1 2 5 3 5 1 6 2 5 6 (6) hits.

Hey, having looked at it, Seth would you mind if I replaced Encephalon with something else? The 2 only adds to matrix tests, and the 1 only works for logic based active skills.. (or at least dropped it to a 1, and used he other essence for somethign else?)

No problem about minor changes to characters especially this early in the game. Remember every one has a free respec to be used by the end of this month (you don't need a respec to change the encephalon).

Chemistry isn't bad: chemical engineering would be better, so knocking off 2 successes for similarity:

There are 7 alarms active.

• Two of them are high radiation in the observation room
• Three of them are seismic alerts..registering 4.3 on the Richter scale
• One of them is an air quality monitor
• The seventh was triggered by the biomonitor on the dying technician: its basically the same as a doc wagon contract except local

I guess Ryl needs to try and create an account and login and turn off the alarms (at least we'll be able to hear better...)

Not sure if my earlier probe will help but I'll roll again in any case

Exploit+Hacking+Bonuses=5 hits

Someone who knows something about hacking (Sabs?!?) please point me in the direction of what to do next...I'll learn on the job, honest...

well first, you need to search for the node, electronic warfare+scan should do it.
then you need to analyze it (because hacking into something without making sure that there's a bomb on the front door is silly)
Then you're going to have to fast hack, we have no time for slow hacking(interval 1 hour)
Fast hack is going to look like this:
First decide what type of account you're going for:
Regular(0), Security(3), Admin(6)
Make a Hacking on the Fly extended test: Exploint+hacking+bonuses(system+type) interval 1 IP.
The system is doing a system+firewall(Your Stealth Rating) extended test.

This should get you in
If you get a regular account, to do anything you'll have to do hacking+right program, if yuo have an admin account, you can use simple actions to shut down alarms, shut down ICE, basically do most anything.

Dont forget to turn off the cameras.

Looks like that's what I'll have to do then

Will make some rolls tomorrow...need to eat!

@Sabs, thanks for your post helping aria. Its a nice check list and will work on most systems.

@Aria
Just an observation that the encephalon II adds 2 die to the most critical die rolls you have to do: the hacking on the fly initial roll, the stealth rolls to escape observation and if you want to spoof things, those two. I think you are a much better hacker with it. YMMV

I only have SR4 not SR4a with me today. Page numbers reference that book. the following is the full and complete list of actions that you need to do. Most of them you don't need to do, because default die (4:1) are good enough, and its only worth rolling die when its interesting.

• p225/detecting wireless nodes: A free action lets you find the only open near node.
• p217/Matrix Perception Tests: Computer + Analyse will tell you something about it. In this case your default die tell you that this is an ad hoc network that connects bit of local equipment together, Firewall 3 System 3. Its certainly not the security system, and while it's showing two alarms (atmospheric quality) you don't think is the correct system to be hacking
• A simple action Observe in detail (even with the minus's) shows you that the cameras are fairly obvious, high quality cameras and are connected by wires. You suspect when you see this that its because the reinforced concrete makes an excellant damper for wireless signals, and it would actually be hard to connect this room to any room with anything less than signal 8 equipment which would be expensive and unhealthy
• An extended action "hardware + Logic" (4 successes, 1 combat turn) will allow you to plug your commlink into the camera (think USB cable on the camera, and a bit of strength / tooling to break the cable ties). Don't bother rolling: default die let you do it in a couple of seconds, as you are good at this sort of stuff

Now you need to roll for the following:

• Simple action Matrix Perception test: Computer + Analyse. Default die says "Firewall 5 System 5 its running analyse and has some Black IC". The visual effects are of a primitive Aztech warrior guarding the entrance. On the pyramid is a priest raising a fresh human heart to the skies (black IC). At the top of the pyramid is an avatar of the flayed god Xipe Topec (the analyse program). In one hand the god holds a container of seeds (more black IC, currently quiescent). The god is wearing a flayed human skin, which is bubbling under the surface (more quiescient black IC ready to break out). If you roll really well on this I might tell you more!
• p221 / Hacking on the fly, Extended Hacking + Exploit (Firewall, 1 IP). If you want security add 3. If you want admin add 6. Each time you hack I get to make system+firewall (10) extended test with a threshold of your stealth. Its really really good if you can hack on the fly on the first go (i.e. this is a good time to spend edge), as if the system spots you bad things happen (alerts happen...and other generally bad stuff)
• Your program presumably has the mute option, so even if you would raise an alert, you have one combat round before the alert is cancelled. Thus if (and only if) you have the admin priviledges, you can use default die, and prevent an alert being raised. (this sounds like a get out of jail card, and it is, but any spider in the node will be aware that an alert was cancelled...)
• Once in you presumably want to stay hidden. The bad guys will be making matrix perception tests, so if you could give me 10 hacking + stealth rolls, that will cover quite a while (probably 3 combat rounds)
• You need to roll your reality filter (either you or the system will have a bonus to response)
• The node you enter is the camera node. You climbed to the top of the pyramid and see a large Aztech guard staring into an array of 50 obsidian black scrying mirrors. You can see the mirror that you have come out of. The guard is just standing up, and tapping the mirror you came out of (running diagnostics). At the guards feet are 2 of the Aztec dogs called Xolo's that you remember are sacred to the aztec's as they were given to man by the gods to guard their master's souls through the underworld. These dogs are crouched (nearly asleep) but they are starting to growl, indicating that their master has kicked them into alertness.
• At the moment the obsidian mirror that you came out of is just showing a white blur
• You have multitasking. This allows you to Observe in detail as a free action, and gives you 2 extra free actions. I suggest you roll 4 computer + analyse rolls (3 of them free actions, 1 a standard action) on the node, the guard, and the two dogs. You will discover that the guard is a spider, the dogs are black IC, but you will probably find a lot more.
• There is stairway leading down to the rest of the pyramid.

I think that moving into the room, hacking into the cameras, and looking around will take you to the end of round 4. Options for you to think about for your next set of 2 rounds (assuming that you do ok on the stealth rolls):

• You can reboot/crash the node
• Give yourself a permanent account so you don't need to hack in if you want to come back
• You can try and spoof the dogs persuading them that the guard is an intruder p224/Hacking + Spoof vs Pilot + Firewall
• you can edit the camera image (although remember that the guard is running diagnostics right now) Cpmputer or Hacking + edit (depends if you have admin account) my rules (RAW is unclear) say an extended test ( System+Firewall , 1 complex action) will set the camera to looping
• You could try and spoof the camera's diagnostics (Hacking + spoof) vs the guards (computer + analyse)
• You could try and hack into the guards commlink
• You could could try and disarm the dogs (this is an option from Unwired which I don't have with me). Edit: I was wrong cannot do this on IC
• You could look at the mirrors and see what is going on
• Or something else...

I hope that this lot helped. If you can try and put that lot into an IC post that would be great

Ryl’s Actions (I can see why face to face players complain about the hacking rules, this is a sh*t load of dice to roll ):

Hot VR Computer+Analyse (no adept power due to current background count) 13D = 6 successes

Hot VR Extended Hacking+Exploit (going for admin) 20D (-1D per subsequent) = 10 then 5 then 5 then 7 then 2 (ie lots!)
(Note: saving edge for hacking the security node later on!)

Reality Filter+Response-1 for progs running (I assume encephalon etc counts otherwise knock 3D off) 14D = 9!!!

4x Computer+Analyse 13D = 2, 4, 5 & 5

10x Stealth+Hacking 20D (Stealth 7!) = 8, 8, 6, 10, 10, 9, 5, 9, 4 & 5 (let's hope my luck doesn't run out towards the end there...)

Ryl, can you edit your post to include a Commlink message from Marduk.
-----------
<<Ril, my old friend. It looks like the biomonitor on this technician triggered an alarm. If you think you could figure out how to deal with that. That would be great.>>

---------

Seth:
Analyze Device again: Force 8
Also, can I get an updated Background count. (We need a good way to keep track of that)

Spellcasting(4)+Magic(6)+Foci(3)=13d6: 1 2 6 5 5 3 5 6 2 5 4 1 6 (7) hits
DV=Force/2=4
Drain Roll: 15d6 1 5 6 2 1 6 3 6 1 5 4 3 4 6 4 (6) hits
No Drain

I assume that the machine is OCR5 (that's about as complex as a drone)
This would give me 2 net hits for figuring out how to use the machine.

This would give me:
Logic(8)+PuSHeD(1)+College Education(1)+Analyze Device(2)=12d6 2 1 5 1 1 2 6 1 5 5 6 1 (5) hits (1 shy of a glitch.. that was close)
For understanding and working the system. I want to go about doing about tasks to 'resolve' the alarms and get everything back to all levels nominal without needing to hack the system.

Going to ask Mandala if he can pick up and fake the bio monitor system on the dead Nuclear Technician?

Two of them are high radiation in the observation room - Does anyone have the ability to put the wall back together? if Not, can Mandala put that Radiationshield right at that Wall?

Three of them are seismic alerts..registering 4.3 on the Richter scale - Can I clear these as false alerts.
One of them is an air quality monitor - Can Ambrose's digging ring deal with the dust in the air?
The seventh was triggered by the biomonitor on the dying technician: its basically the same as a doc wagon contract except local - Is there anything I can do to clear that up?

Mandala's actions are set up to the end of round 4. After that, he is available for new actions. He can't fake a biomonitor signal for the dead guy. I'm not sure his emulation of the live guy goes so far as to copy biological functions that can be measured by monitors... though it does say 'heartbeat' in particular, so maybe.

He can put up a radiation shield again, though is it worth it if we are getting out of here in the next couple of actions? A dead technician whose monitor says he is dead, warning alarms about radiation, and a fake live technician running out first warning anyone of a 'core breach' (Oh man, Star Trekky or what?) make a convincing show for security personnel not to enter the reactor control room.

Should Mandala go on out ahead of the rest of us, then? He could build a Mindnet first, so that all could see and hear what he does outside the control room without him having to be obvious about relaying information.

Discussing 3 second actions over the course of a day or two online may seem a little unfair, but we are a team that has worked together for millennia, so presumably we have a good idea of each others' abilities, and we have some cooperative tricks. In the case of Mandala, these might be adding his Force in dice to a spell being cast, or to a counterspell to bring something down. Or someone on the team hitting Mandala with some spell which he can Absorb, to use the Force points of the spell to reduce Drain on a spell like Mindnet.

I'm just figuring Free Spirits out, so I'm going to be regurgitating ideas as they occur to me. If it gets too annoying, just tell me to shut up.

We've got a serious time constraint. It's true.
I think setting up the mindnet is a good idea. Maybe instead of trying to 'undo' the alarms, we should be cranking them up? Set the 'evacuate' imminent meltdown buttons? Especially if Ril can set herself up an admin account to run through the system and open/close doors willynilly?

I just realized that Ambrose and I are very similar in our capabilities. What I'm doing with Analyze Device, he can probably do with Enlightenment. Man, if I had known about that trick, I probably would have picked it up

I think our Local Nethermancer should be able to dump a low force spell into Mandala for extra drain dice. Being the Nethermancer she's probably how we hooked up with Mandala in the first place.

Well its similar to the amount of dice you roll in 2 rounds of combat...


There is good news and bad news. The good news is that you are in, and have an admin account. The bad news is that the system is rolling 10 die each time, and only has to accumulate 7 successes to raise an alert. They got 5 successes, then 4 successes, so they an alert will be raised (in one rounds time) when you log in. As I suggested above, as an admin you can cancel the alert.

Observing the node before you log in:
The Computer+analyse says "There is a spider stealthing in the node". The spider has the icon of a woman spiders are scurrying over her arms and body weaving a web that makes it hard for other people to see. You see a spider bite her cheek as you log in (you think that will probably wake her up) and she raises a number of shields that float in the air, with spider motifs over them. Small spiders start scuttling everywhere clearly looking for an intruder, but lucky for you she hasn't found one. She is a representation of Teotihuacan the great spider goddess

My early description assumed that you ran past her into the camera control node, where you saw a guard and two dogs.
Your computer + analyse in here indicates: a spider who is not bothering to stealth, and 2 trace ICs that you think will try and track you back to your node, then hack your node.

Your stealth is truely awesome, and even though the second guard is looking for trouble and diagnosing the camera, and has instructed the doggies to look for you, they haven't found you.

So we finish round 4 with the following situation:
A spider has realised that an alert was raised and cancelled, but cannot find you in the access node, despite looking very hard.
You have moved into the camera node, and there is a spider + 2 trace and burn doggies that are looking for an intruder, but not finding it.

Although if we get the whole facility to evacuate, we may screw up one or both of our objectives. We need to get to room 27A and hold whatever is in there, in there, so our 'benefactors' know where it is. And the guy in room 5 must die. (Good thing this is Peter, and not Mandala speaking!) There will be an assault from the outside momentarily, and if we get the entire security force up and out on the perimeter, that could go badly. Don't know... just sayin'.

Any spell will do for Mandala to Absorb, so the one with the least Drain for the caster is probably the best. Every hit on Mandala's Counterspell + Centering will give him one 'charge' to use against his own Drain. It's kinda cheesy, but near as I can tell, even a Heal spell can be absorbed, and there is nothing that says you can't cast a Heal on a fully healthy target. So you could cast a Force 9 Heal spell for a DV of 1, and Mandala could Absorb up to his Magic 9 'charges'! (Ouch... ouch! Stop, Seth! Quit hitting me!)

@sabs


I'm trying to include the background count in my posts, I hope thats enough (Its immediately after the time / location). I don't think any one has started cleansing in the reactor observation room, so its still Aztech 2 & Toxic 1,


Welcome to the world of nuclear reactor control rooms. As you are working through the alarms you discover that since records began at anyone time there are between 3 and 10 alarms going off. At the moment there are only 7. (I have been into many of these and never been in one without multiple alarms sounding: its very annoying but you get used to it)


I don't think so. You would have to find the bio monitor which would take many seconds...and I suspect you are in the world in which seconds count.


Your high skills in physics tells you that radiation travels in straight lines. If you cannot see the reactor itself from where you are you will be fine.


Yes


Ambrose or Fearghas can deal with it, but its not a high priority alarm


Nope that would up to Ryl, and he would have to head further into the computer system (he "entered" then found himself in the "camera viewing" node. There is a stairway into the rest of the pyramid and one of the nodes of their is probably the one that would clear it up.

@Mandala:
Its up to the other players but I thought your plan was very funny (or star trecky) and thus has a high chance of working.

I think if you could get the biomonitor and spend some time you could do something, but I suspect its not worth it (you cannot see the biomonitor at the moment, so you would have to hunt for it)

Your mind net idea is good.

Your comment on 3 second actions over the course of days is true, but so is your answer, and anyway I enjoy the chat about them as much as doing them.

Alyena is reading these posts daily, so I suspect she will zap Mandala with a low powered spell do that tomorrow. A low force slaughter spirit perhaps

@sabs: Responding to your second post (sorry you posted while I was thinking about your first)

There isn't an evacuate immediately option: these things are pretty safe and the "maximum credible accident" of this particular design doesn't leave the observation room. Mind you the "maximum credible accident" didn't include a shifter bear adept smashing his way through the concrete. You could however simulate a leak. That would trigger a response team to come and look, but they would have to get dressed in suitable gear first (probably take at least a minute to do that).

Ambrose and you are very similar, but actually I think it won't be bad to have two similar people. He got enlightenment because he cannot cast spells. I thought it was a fair trade as enlightenment is a little bit less good than being possessed by a task spirit. There is also the fact the Ambrose is sadly away for a few days/weeks, so he's currently "resting from the drain of the tunnelling"

I'm waiting to give Fearghas and Halinn a chance to post. Fearghas is doing a load of exams at the moment, but might post. Halinn I haven't heard of since we started, I hope he joins us soon. I'll post a summary of the end of round 4 tomorrow evening, and move to rounds 5 & 6. It looks to me as though there will probably be some cyber fighting, but as yet you haven't seen any sign of organised resistance (mind you its only been 12 seconds since you entered the reactor chamber and there are many meters of concrete between you and any such troops).

Hey, he's been a ham actor for a couple of thousand years. William Shatner has nothing on Mandala!


Cute. cute.

I'm patient I swear. I just have a lot of fun, and I like discussing stuff.
From a 'we've known each other a long freaking time' point of view:

Marduk has made the announcement that they're using the reactor as a Ritual Death Chamber.
We're on a serious time constraint.

I think that Bjorn should probably just kill the babbling technician. We just don't have the time to be messing around with prisoners. He seems to be the most likely to just drop someone.

Mandala's plan to run out and be all 'babbly' is awesome. He needs to buy Ryl enough time to win or lose in VR. I think that given the time constraint, Team 2 should go ahead and head for Room 27A. Marduk, Aren and Fearghas can stay behind while Ryl does the hacking and keep an eye on him. Once he's done in the next few seconds, then we can get going to go kill Warder.

I'd like to request that if we lose people to inactivity, that we don't 'kill' off their charactesr, but instead NPC them until such time as we can find someone to take up their slot? Then we can just do a world-retcon and have the old PC magically become the New PC. I'd rather have weird continuity like that, than try and add/remove people from a 8000 year old group pattern

No! NO! Please just knock him out, and drag his unconscious self out of the radiation area. Poor Mandala is twitching already at the thought of Warder being murdered.

This works for me. Team 2, how about Mandala goes out first to distract anyone there?

Hi All,

During rounds 3 & 4 Alyena is returning to her body, climbing out of the tunnel and crossing the reactor room to join everyone else in the control room.

When I get there I'll find a 'safe' corner to settle into and go astral again.

@Mandala, at the beginning of round 5 I'll zap you with a Force 3 Slaughter Spirit spell. Before you have heart failure, or Free Spirit equivalent, you should be able to absorb this with the 4:1 rule. Our nasty GM says he's happy for you to do this but it needs to be an offensive spell so don't blame me !

I'll then start to cleanse this area so we can get rid of all the minus' on dice rolls.



I'm happy to go with majority. However, Alyena's take is that 'crazed cultists' that stand by while people are ritually sacrificed so Snakehead can fuel his blood magic are on her 'Better Dead' list.

Go for Force 4 if the Drain isn't risky for you. I will roll, rather than use the 4:1 rule, but Mandala can handle Counterspelling 4 or 5 hits on your Spellcasting Test (Don't use Edge!), and can use the extra charge for the Mindnet, which will be DV 8S to cover all 7 of you. By the way, at Force 7 (needed to allow 7 hits to cover 7 other people), the range of the extended Mindnet will be about half a kilometer, so we should be OK wherever we go in the building.

Him's a her but not to worry

Seth, I think I need to be further into the system so Ryl will go hunting for a security node...presumably I will need to make a new admin account or can I carry it over (and avoid more die rolling )?!?

The good news for you is that this is an admin account that certainly covers the cameras, and you think it will cover the rest of the network.

There will still be some die rolling: I'm going to need another stack of stealth rolls as the initial guard at the doorway is nearly convinced that there is a hacker in the system and is actively looking, and the guard in the camera room has set his two little doggies to sniffing out intruders, as something wierd is going on: the guard at the doorway is at red alert, while the guard in the camera room is at amber.

I'll post the summary of rounds 3&4 this evening so that we can move into rounds 5&6 over the weekend

Seems like it’s damn hard to stay hidden if the opposition only have to reach your stealth program rating to detect you...is this avoided by continuously jumping from node to node within a system? I guess I’m looking for the node that takes all the camera feeds, alarms and possibly drone controls (I am assuming there’s a central node or was the camera one the one I wanted?!?). If an alarm has already been sounded and they know someone is here (as opposed to a computer glitch) then I might as well rewrite the security logs to allow only myself access and then fight off anyone who hacks in (hopefully with the aid of the node’s IC). Unless I’ve grabbed the wrong end of this stick...?!?

Anyway, 10 more stealth rolls at 20D = 6, 8, 6, 8, 6, 9, 8, 9, 7, 9

Following a thread on the DS forums I should probably have brought a blackout program for dealing with spiders...will make some tweaks before our Apr deadline. You mentioned a mute program option, wasn’t one I saw when looking (not that hard admittedly)...how much does it cost and is it on the exploit program?

I’m assuming my 9 success on the reality filter roll were enough to override the sichos...will amend my IC post if not...?!?

Once the groups start moving I think I can remain in VR but use my focused concentration (coupled with multi-tasking?) to ignore the -6 penalty and run along behind...? Another question on background count...can I swap what powers I lose access to? Might be worth forgoing the drake powers and getting a +2 to computer...

Thanks

Lol. Aria looks like you and I posted at the same time. I will modify my post to take into account your movements.


The way it works is that when you originally logged in the system had a go to see it could detect you. The threshold was your stealth program rating.

Now that you are in, and you have active observers they are trying hard to spot you. They are rolling computer+analyse (with -1 each repeat try) against your hacking + stealth. So actually you are effectively getting more stealthy. The main reason I am getting you to roll is to give a sense of urgency, and you might roll rubbish or glitch.

The mute option: its around 1K, and I am assuming you have it on your exploit and spoof programs. The 9 successes were easily enough to get the reality filter going, so that means that you have +1 response, and I think they have -1 response. Blackout sounds very sensible for the spiders, although it will only work if they are in VR.

Heightened concentration is the business for being in VR and running along behind: its one of the big plus's for being an adept hacker. You have to use a simple action to activate it, then you ignore the penalty.

IIRC with the background count you get to pick which powers you loose.


Back to the story: As well as deciding what to do with the leaf in your hand, this is what you see:

The next node is a clearing in the forest. To the left you see a SAM middle emplacement, straight on you see a barracks house with 5..6..7 troops starting to teleport in and a number of technicians checking their armour. The SAM emplacement with loads of technicians in it also has a big red switch in the middle of it, and you see a warrior wearing steampunk armour press and hold down the switch. The forest floor shakes as he does so, and the sky goes red as a huge dome starts to descend. The dome is not continuous, it looks like the scene in Blade in which blood is running though gouges in the walls and floor. Computer + Analyse on this shows that this is the information display from liquid sensors, and you think that there is a real world equivalent trickling of blood through pipes and gouges that this is monitoring.

The troops have a health bar, and when you look at their faces you can see a HUD display showing what the troops can see, their vital statistics. The troops are standing on a floor plan of the pyramid. The first troops you saw were standing in the security area. The ones teleporting in are in the barracks: their HUD display shows that they are putting their armour on. You can see marks that scream "ward" to you Each of the floors has its own ward. The troops are guarded by 3 black wolves.

In the floor plan where the reactor room is, you can see a flashing blue light that is where the reactor control room is. You see a technician move towards it.

If you can add this to your IC post, or make a new one, that would be cool.

I think round 5 is occupied with you moving node, doing a load of reading / observing. In round 6, you can do anything you want. To cancel the alarm as an administrator, you can just press the off button. If you wanted to do a bit more than that you could try and spoof the alarm to give a fake medical reading if you want (hacking + spoof).

I started a thread HERE a while back about the Guard Power of spirits and how far into the Matrix it protects teammates from a glitch. The key issue, one that had not been resolved completely in the discussion as I recall, is determining where the person affected by Guard ends. AR seemed to be relatively easy to cover, the person is still moving at meat speed and relating to the outer world. VR is more problematic... magic and Matirx mixing and all. The tendency of the posts was toward allowing the Guard power to affect people even in VR because it affects the person rather than the Matrix, as does Improved Ability, for example, which can be used for all kinds of Matrix Skills.

We probably need a GM ruling here, as the team will be covered by Guard every chance Mandala gets.

If you can see their body (line of effect rather than line of sight) they get a guard: does that sound fair? I'll use the same rule for countermagic, as I found the existing rules difficult to interpret (I raised a thread on this in the main section and came away more confused than enlightened).

That works fine for me, but brings up another issue talked about elsewhere. If Mandala turns his head to look at a noise off in that direction, does his protection of teammates instantaneously drop, requiring a reactivation?

Couple of points:

We need to move Ryls body. Unfortunately she's linked in with a wire. So we can't do anything about that. I'd leave Ryl behind, but we're going to need her help to open the doors to get to Warder.

Seth, did you want all ic interaction in ic thread, or can we do small ic/ooc combo stuff here to later put together in 'recounting' posts?

Thats why I said "line of effect" i.e. if you turned you head you can see them. If you put an opaque wall between you don't have line of effect

I'd do small ic/ooc combo stuff here, that way the IC thread reads much better

By the way, I hope you liked the diversion the council arranged for you.

Seth, your last IC post has Mandala going out into the hallway, but we haven't cast/Absorbed/cast yet to get the Mindnet going. I can Flashback that for Mandala, I guess, but I need Alyena to do her thing first (also a Flashback?)

My bad I will correct it...no need for flashback

Alyena is away on a training course this weekend so I will put a blank post in the IC post that she can modify on sunday, that way she's not holding us up.

That explains that, thanks I can see why edge is a useful first move in that case...!



I just need to detach from this camera then lol! Can I write myself a 'free pass' to this node so that I can log straight in once we're out of the reactor control room?



Just before I do, I'm guessing the techs are diagnostic programs...are the soldiers representations of real world soldiers or are they programs too?


Seems moot as all hell is breaking loose outside...I don't think one techie bio alarm is going to get a look in...I'll leave the alarm for now I think and concentrate on the security log for this node

OK here is the summary of the end of rounds 3&4.

• The general quarters klaxon has just sounded
• Ryl is penetrating further into the system (see previous post)
• Mandala is ready to move into the hallway in the guise of a reactor technician. The hallway is as per map, target room 27a in sight, the door opposite is opening
• Everyone else is still in the reactor control room, most of the alarms have been damped down
• The time at the start of round 5 is 00:00:25, you have been in the building for only about 10 seconds!
• I think its time to decide who is heading to deal with Warder, and who is going to the door.

Pretty soon now, I'll do a flashback to the first astral quest into the past. If you remember Marduk had a psychometric trance here, so I am going to do the flashback of you group astrally questing to chase down the memory. To keep it simple the memory quest just requires you to hold hands for 1 full round (you are 'helpless' for that time) and you relive the past. Even those that don't take part in the hand holding can post (as they were there), but the character don't remember unless they went along.

In this case the flashback is to middle of summer 1944. During the war Queen Alachia was heavily involved with the Nazi's. You are free to decide how you were involved. In any event though you are going to an important meeting that Hitler himself will be at. You are either there as a civilian advisor, army, spy, coerced expert or any other reason you want. Ideas: a report from the Nazi bomb project, a report on the capturing on some occult artifact, working in the den as a spy...any of these. It would be cool if one of you could be a senior army officer, but that would just be a bonus. Some time over the next week you can respend your skill points. I'll start the flashback middle of next week if everything goes well.

Will we respend adept power points too...a lot of mine are useless pre matrix or stuck in human form (I know background count will probably strip them away anyway but I thought I'd ask...)

I've thought that Ryl was probably a spy as most of her roots are in England - information gathering was what lead her to specialise in the matrix in the first place

Sab's suggestion for team makeup HERE works for me. Ambrose, Alyena, Mandala and Bjorn go to 27A and hold out there, protecting/keeping whatever is in there for our employers. Aren, Fearghas, Ryl and Marduk go upstairs to room 5 and commit justifiable homicide. Then, I guess they come back down to join us in 27A.

OK that sounds like an ok split.

Here's my rolls for the Mindnet, assuming Mandala gets hit with a Force 4 Slaughter Spirit... from his good friend and millennia-long partner, Alyena. ...and no, Mandala is not going to Aid her Spellcasting!

Resist the Slaughter Spirit: WIL 7 + Counterspelling (combat) 5 + Initiate Grade 4 - 2 for noise = 14 dice ==> 5 HITS

So the full 4 Force points are absorbed. Hopefully he takes no damage, otherwise the rest has to be modified. As long as Alyena gets no more than 5 hits, Mandala is OK.

Now he needs the Mindnet (extended) with a Threshold of 7.

Cast Mindnet (extended) at Force 7: Magic 8 (currently) + Spellcasting (detection) 5 + Edge 8 = 21 dice (exploding 6s)
==> 16 HITS!!

OK... that should be good for the "Critical Success" embellishment option!

Ooops! Forgot the -2 for the noise, so cutting off the last two dice removes 3 hits ==> 13 hits, still a good roll.

DV of the Mindnet (extended) is INT(7/2) + 5 = 8S. Ohhhh.... and add 1DV for the background count (Thank Buddha for that Resist Background Power!) = 9S. Shit. Ahh! But reduce that by 4 because of the Absorption = 5S.

Resist Drain: WIL 7 + INT 8 + Centering 4 = 19 dice ==> 6 HITS

Drain resisted.

I'll post IC later.

Le gasp, I'm still alive!

Casting F6 Increase Body before going through the ward: Spellcasting Magic 6 + Spellcasting 6 + Power Focus 4 = 16d6 = 3 hits

Resisting drain: Will 6 + Cha 12 + Centering 4 = 22d6 = 8 hits, drain resisted

Getting past the ward, after deactivating the spear focus so the sustained spell can be Masked: Magic 9 + Intuition 9 + Initiation grade 4 = 22d6 = 7 hits

Lovely. Using Edge to reroll failures, but oh look, I got a 1 on my Bad Luck roll. Which I'm guessing means I get to reroll all successes. Fantastic!
7d6 = 2 hits

So the ward gets 7 net hits. Resisting 23 Stun damage:
Body 2 [5] = 5d6 = 0 hits

That puts Fearghas at 1 box into Physical Damage Overflow, and he is currently unconscious and dying. With his Increase Body now gone due to being unconscious, Fearghas will be dead in 12 seconds (at 00:00:33) unless treated.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot about the platelet factories. So he isn't in damage overflow, but he's still unconscious. I guess that's a little better.
...

After a week as incredibly stressful and exhausting as this one was, these aren't exactly the kind of 'welcome back' rolls I was hoping for. [/gross understatement]

I'll go add in my changed mysad version now.

Can Ambrose do something about that?
Lets say:
Logic(7)+FirstAid(3)+PuSHeD(1)=11d6 to treat the stun damage.
Follow that up with:
Summoning a Spirit of Man to Heal Fearghas? Unless Mandala is good at healing
Also He has Guard up on all of us? How does that Interact with Bad Luck?

Guard means you don't get glitches. It also prevents accidents, both natural and unnatural from happening. I don't know how that interacts with "The character is cursed...". This one is up to Seth.

Mandala can Heal, he can also add his Force dice (8 in the current environment) to someone else's Heal spell, which may be the better route at this time.

Sephiroth, Mandala could have added his Force dice to your Increase BOD spell, as that happened in the reactor during a round when Mandala was waiting for others to get out. That could have made your BOD higher, and hence physical damage boxes more numerous.

Mandala is really good at helping others. Anytime you do something, particularly magical, think about him. He won't be the heaviest hitter in combat, so make use of him when you can.

I will try not to forget that again in the future.

@sabs

Sadly he gets smacked

Guard stops glitches.

@Sephiroth
Glad you are back Sephiroth. Hope the exams went ok. I had done the stats and thought people with be ok (especially if they spent edge). I didn't recon on "bad luck" You can always have another go...you can have one go per complex action. If you mask your aura your extended masking covers your foci and spells as well, so you can have another 4 die on your reroll.


@Mandala
Can I get a "force" roll from you?

@Everyone
By the way there is a rating 6 medikit hanging on the wall near the door.