Well, we are down one ourselves, so it hasn't been all our way.

So, the internal wards are all down, huh?

#####

We really need to get the Hitler thing going. Maybe in the morning I will suggest a plan.

I am unexpectedly travelling quite a bit in the next few weeks (hopefully to California for 3 weeks work), so I will be a bit intermittent. I will try and post each day, but if I fail its just because I have crappy Internet.

Yes the wards are down, and you have a newly recruited spy watching the good Major: who is currently lining up all his soldiers, ordering them by size (height first, with shoe size as a decider). <Video footage supplied by Jonathan: The major is 7' tall, cyber arms, cyberlegs, cyber skull, cybertorso, cyberweapons built into the cyberarms, dermal armour... He is carrying a Panther Assault Canon casually over his shoulder. His soldiers are looking very very nervous in his presence.

OK:

Ryl is busy working the Matrix to our advantage.

Ambrose is doing the ritual on the door. (Which we still need to learn back in time! And it would be nice to have Ambrose back doing stuff to the bad guys.) Arren is keeping him company.

Marduk, Bjeorn, Alyena and Fearghas are about to get a whole lotta lovin' from cadavermen and security personnel.

Mandala is out of radio contact because he keeps dematerializing and scooting off somewhere. So here's some more scooting. These are plans, and if major changes happen, the plans will change, too.

Plan for Round 15:

IP #1: drop spatial sense spell and dematerialize (well, the spell disappears anyway because it is a Physical spell)
IP #2: with no internal wards to worry about, he will zip up to Room 11, and experience the wonderful background count I am sure is there.

Plan for Round 16:

Initiative 16 dice ==> 7 HITS
==> Initiative Score 23 -2 for damage = 21.

IP #1: if there is still a guard presence in the room, materialize behind him/her/them; else materialize close to the pump.

IP #2: if guard(s) present, stunbolt/ball (hopefully with surprise) depending on number; else do what he can to neutralize the pump based on what he finds.

If guards are neutralized, then perhaps do the old, 'stick the barrel into some hole in the machine and pull trigger till machine stops', trick.

How about this for a plan for the Hitler meeting:

We will all be shuffled into the meeting room ahead of time to wait for Der Fuhrer. No way would he wait for us. While in there waiting, we suss out anything that might be magical or untoward... Horror constructs here too? (Such developments could scupper this plan.) We have our briefcase with us, which has already been cleared before it came to us. This briefcase will be set in an unobtrusive, central location. Mandala qua Norbert Schantz will study the filming equipment looking for things with which he can find fault.

When the Great One enters, there will be lots of saluting and kaffuffling, with cameras flashing etc. Likely an aide will have His briefcase and will set it down, probably guarding it. It will be at this point that the flamboyant Norbert will notably fuss about the 'improper setup' of cameras to do Der Fuhrer justice. He will noisily draw attention to himself and the 'corrections'. While attention is diverted in this manner (the adept power Enthralling Performance would be really good in this instance), another of our team will do the actual switch, either with Magic Fingers or sleight-of-hand.

We do the award ceremony, obsequiously fawn over the Evil One, and get out.

If shit hits the fan, Norbert will take the fall, be arrested with the likelihood of torture and execution to follow, but will mysteriously escape a secure facility later.

Simple, huh?

Sounds like a plan to me

Phone bases internet sucks.

Room11 is a fluffy aztech 5 background as well as twisted 2 (only largest counts ) . Large blood (force 8+) spirit guarding the room.

Twisted means a horror is nearby, and raw magics will likely result in you being horrormarked. All your current magics are raw.

Can you roll surprise vs the spirit. I'll give you +6 because the spirit is distracted by the death of it's friend and summoned warder

You can talk fight or run with the spirit.


Thanks for advancing the WWII plot

Ok, have been thinking of other things to do but with Warder defeated and the nasty major on his way I am returning to Plan A.

Alyena is going to dive back into her body, follow Bjearn out of the room, then run like a bunny back down to the basement! The idea of kitting up in some body armour is suddenly very appealing

I think heading up into the security room is a good idea. The store room has guns and other goodies, can we set something up to keep the major distracted while we make our own back door?

Well... not quite what I expected, but I suppose I should have. A blood pump all out on it's own. "Too easy!", he said.

Ulp. Does that include spirit powers?

Hmmm... can't use magic, the thing is bigger and tougher than I am... hmmmm.... what should I do?

Surprise roll: 16 + 6 = 22 dice ==> 7 HITS

I'll wait for the spirit's surprise roll and then post IC.

No probs. Itching to get it going and get Ambrose back in the pyramid.

I am struggling with only having phone access to the internet, so no invisible castle for me! I'll just use the 4:1 rule, until I get to a real machine

@Pbangarth
The spirits surprise roll is 4 successes

You don't know about spirit magics, you suspect that they are less likely to go wrong (as are metamagics), but you would need to try and see. The way it works with magics (summoning / casting) is that there is a chance you get horror marked. With a twisted 2, you need a edge roll of 2 to avoid being tainted, so actually with the 4:1 rule I think that you are safe here.

@Aria
@sabs
Bjeorn has the codex (6' x 3' x 1', with 1" thick wooden covers: it weights about 1/4 of a ton). You could carry the book and dagger. Those are the main goodies.

@Alyena
There are racks of body armour in the store room. The first row is "quick to don" kevlar vests.
Can you make me a perception roll when you get to the store room?

@Aria
Can you make me a perception roll for your meat body. I don't know if you have -6 because VR or not, but if you do ... it's at -6.

@everyone
I'll wait until I have something better than a phone before I move the WWII thread to the meeting with Hitler.

Edited to get the names correct

I think istead of Aria, you ment Marduk/Sabs :0

And I really want the pyramid, what would it take to move the pyramid?

Grr...I blame the phone, but actually its just me.

The pyramid is a drawing in the codex. (At least I think it is, again its hard to check what I said with the phone. But what I meant was that the pyramid is a drawing on the codex)

Ah excellent
then I'm taking the skull, like my post says, and the dagger, and following everyone down.

Excellent!

@Pbangarth
lol. I didn't see that one coming. You are right of course the blood spirit is being frustrated. Now of course it would prefer to rip the blood from the bleeding bodies of anyone it finds, but given it cannot rip it out of you, it's making do with the stuff in the pump. I'll do an IC reply tonight when I have a proper computer and not a phone

Visual perception: 14D = 5 Hits! I have focussed concentration to ignore the VR penalties on the real world...and multitasking to enable me to concentrate on looking around there and in the matrix...

So I think Alyena, and Bjeorn and I are all back in the supply room where Ryl is.

What kind of armor is available for a dwarf?

Oh and:
Assensing/Psychometry on the skull: 19d6: 5 6 5 4 5 4 6 3 4 4 2 5 5 4 6 1 2 5 4 (9) hits HOLY CRAP

I'm still on my phone, so I won't be posting properly until saturday. I am flying to LA tomorrow, so will be out of touch for a while.

All those in the storeroom:
Armour: I am away from books, but: Armoured Jackets are everywhere. Full armour is here for all meta types, but will take a minute to put on.

Perception rolls: Those who got 2 or more successes on their perceptions will note that at the back, there is a rack of powered down drones, and a small repair shop. Some of the powered down drones have just powered up. There are 3 dobermans with Ingram White knights and 3 Nissan hoverdrones with tasers that have started to move. They are coming your way!

I think we are approaching the end of these two rounds, so I will post a summary when I arrive in LA.

Enjoy your trip!

Hmmm...someone is controlling these things then...I'm guessing I've not seen them in the security node?!?

Can I scan for their nodes to determine who is controlling them?
Then I can either spoof them or...?!? (Sabs, help me out here? )

We could do with the additional fire power if the Major is coming our way...!

If it is true that the Blood Spirit does not need help tearing into the pump, then Mandala will play it safe and perform a supporting role, such as interfering with any security personnel who might come in to see what the noise is about. If it is having trouble figuring out how to get into the pump (not likely... rip pieces off till it bleeds will likely work) Mandala will materialize and help.

Mandala knows there is trouble coming down the stairs to the first floor and the basement, so he won't stay long here. If by the end of Round 16 the Blood Spirit has succeeded in stopping the pump, Mandala will go back down to the basement. I considered Cleansing this area, but that might piss off the Blood Spirit, and right now, it's doing our job for us.

Current situation:

• It is the start of rounds 17&18
• The time is 00:01:03
• The background count is zero in the reactor corridor, up the stairs and on the ground floor it is Aztech 4. In Warder's room it is Aztech 2. In the blood pump room it is Aztech 5, Twisted 2
• Aren is being NPCed, and has been recovered by Mandala. His condition has stabilized, although he is still unconscious
• Bjeorn, Alyena , Marduk, Fearghas and Ryl have moved to the store room
• In the store room 6 drones have just started moving.
• Mandala is chatting with his new friend Sanguine in room 11, a high force newly freed blood spirit.
• Sanguine is currently merging with the blood pump, to absorb
• The codex, dagger and skull have been moved to the store room
• Ol'Scratch is being NPCed, and is performing the ritual to open door 27a. The ritual will be concluded when the flashback discovers the secret.
• Red lights are flashing, but there are no audible alarms
• Jonathan has joined your side, and is replaying a video feed of the security room, in which Major Nopaltzin is forming the troops into nice ordered lines
• The internal wards are down. (The temple will be a magical lodge...so it will still be up)

Matrix

• Ryl has revoked all the accounts in the internal security network
• There are no Aztechs visible in the matrix
• You have connections to 3 other networks: The outside, the external defence system and the network covering the top two floors.

Issues

• You have identified that the blood ward is not maintained by Warder (although you think he has still done many of the internal wards), and there are three blood pump rooms.
• Zero has said "THEY ARE COMING FOR ANGEL"
• Major Nopaltzin is coming soon...when he's finished lining up his troops
• A number of zombies have been dispatched to deal with you, although given their rate of progress you have a few more rounds to prepare for them
• Its actually a "lull" in the fight, no one is shooting at you right now

WWII

• Its up to you what happens: go get Hitler if you want

@Aria
You can scan the drones: Elec War + Scan to spot the drones.
They you could hack the drones if you want: Each is Hack + exploit. Firewall 5 System 5
Its a lot of drones...
Alternatively you could start looking at some of the other networks (you actually have username/passwords)

@Pbangarth
Your assessment is that Sanguine is not going to significantly inpede the blood flow: he is feeding from the blood. Are you astral or mundane? If mundane can you make perception roll?

@Sabs
It will take you an arcana 10, 1CT test to set up the magical tachnet again. I'm just reminding you that you don't know much about the dagger or skull.

@Everyone
Can you all let me know if you are putting armour on (1 combat round). What are you doing about the moving drones (thats a lot of firepower coming your way) The drones are currently on the other side of same shelves of canned beans, but at the end of 1 combat round they will have line of sight with yourselves.

Fearghas is putting on some armor. How many hits on Trid Phantasm versus their object resistance would be required to disguise us against them and give Aria time to put us on the drone network's "friendly, do not shoot" list?

I think 4 hits will do it vs their sensors.

so 10 hits total? 6 for the OR, +4 net hits?


Seth:

I did a psychometry test up earlier on the skull.

We need to deal with the drones before i have Bjeorn settup a pedestal so I can open the codex and figure it all out.

I guess the way the illusions work is:
Subtract OP from successes
Then its a perception roll vs your nett successes.

When I responded earlier, I forgot about the second roll. So I guess the answer to the question "how many do I need" is "as many as possible"

@Sabs
Yes you did a psychometry...there is more there if look (its effectively an extended test and the more successes the more you learn)

Well, the merging with the pump would not be what Mandala wanted, so in Round 16 he would have materialized to see what he could do to physically disable the pump. Maybe stop the output out of the room, so the Blood Spirit would still have lunch.

Perception roll: INT 8 + Perception 2 = 10 dice ==> 1 HIT ...d'uhhhh ... the room is rectangular, right?

I'm not sure what needs to still be done to move the WWII sub-thread forward. Is there something I can do?

Is it a problem that we have two incarnations of the same PCs going on at the same time? Would it make it easier for the players to suspend the thread in the 'present' whenever we go off into another time-frame?

Any ideas, gang?

Sorry for the slow posting. I am currently in my sickbed (came to LA for three weeks work, and ended up with an unpleasant sickness).

It's up to me to move the WWII thread to Hitlers meeting, and I will do it as soon as I am well enough to be thinking clearly.

I don't think I will be responding to posts for a couple of days (doctors orders: go to bed and don't do anything)

See you all in a few days

Toxic, radioactive sludge flooding LA will do that, Seth. Oh... wait... that's in the alternate reality... right.

OK, so we the players have a couple of days to catch our collective breath and plan so as to take full advantage of the surprise we still sort of have.

Whilst I would like to request that we "take off and nuke the site from orbit" that would be cheesy so I won't, and we can't anyway so the point is moot. We've got a poor defenceless (possibly mutant) girl to rescue, a small army of drones coming our way and a larger army of pissed off Azzie grunts, oh and a horror to defeat...so plan?!?

And Gilder to frame for it.
Frankly, we're swamped.

Well that feels a lot better! I am human once again.

@Pbangarth
You can roll any mechanical skill or chemistry or anything that seems sensible to see if you can work out how to disable the pumps. If not we can always default to strength -1 as that seems a sensible default for smashing randomly. (You could also zip back / mind link / zip here and send the images to others with more technical skills)

@WWII
This video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1wKO3rID9g is very funny if you are into software development. Even if not though, it shows the sort of meeting that you are in.

Since Fearghas is posing as von Tresckow in WWII, who was one of the leading members of the resistance against Hitler and who helped plan several assassination attempts, I will try to put up a post tomorrow giving y'all some things to work with. I haven't been sure what to do to start off in it thus far, since Fearghas is more or less just chillin' in the Wolf's Den at the moment.

Hi all,

Sorry haven't been posting last few days, have had a busy weekend with Scouting things.

As we have a lull in the main thread at the moment and seem to be standing in the lion's den in WW2 should we finalise a plan for Hitler?

I can confuse any guard etc who may want to check the briefcase. The room being small with so many people in it could be either good or bad for us. Should we go with the spirit possession idea or just plain old distraction/slight of hand? I'm willing to give the summoning a try but with the magic so low and background so icky it will be a very tiny (force 1) spirit at best!

Glad to have you back!


Hey! Electrical Engineering 2!

OK, LOG 4 + Electrical Engineering 2 = 6 dice ==> 3 HITS!

Right then. That should let him figure out how to muck with the power. I'll post IC soon.

@Pbangarth
These pipes are complex. Not as nice as wiring on a nice circuit diagram. However as every electrical engineer knows, plumbing is just like electricity. Replace volts with pressure, amps with flow and you are laughing.

So using the "if only it was an electrical circuit" you realise that this pump is in parallel with the other blood pumps. Some quick calculations based on Bernouli's equation, mapping it onto Kirchoff's law makes you think that basically this is a pump set in parallel with the other pumps. You think that it is running at roughly 1/4 its maximum power, making you think that any of the other pumps could take over the load of all three.

However if you quick calculations are correct you need to do three things:

• Reverse the polarity (I've always wanted to say that in a game!) These are simple DC motors running with a lead acid uninterruptable power supply. If you reverse the polarity across the motor, it will spin the other way. That will be bad for this motor, and the other motors.
• Increase the gain on the control system (i.e. tweak this dial here), this will make the pump "oscillate"...i.e. pump harder, them softer, then harder... This is almost always bad for the pump, but it will also be very bad for the other motors on the same circuit...they may start to oscillate too, and instead of the blood pumping in the desired direction, it will be moving at random speeds and in random directions
• Remove the safety trip: there is a governor designed to switch this motor off should it start to act chaotically...if you are correct, after a while, the safety circuit on the other pumps will trip...

Moments like this is when I wish Mandala was a possession spirit
I do have levitate as well. Although with the background count. I'm not sure I can swing even a force 1 spell.

Don't forget edge, and the 4:1 rule. A force 1 levitate is easily enough for a briefcase

Yeah but I would need to get 6 hits on 5 dice (or 7 if I use edge) that's HIGHLY unlikely.

Well here lets check my math:

Magic(6)+Spellcasting(4)-Background(5)=5d6
Cast force 6 Levitate, -5 = force 1 levitate.

My question is, how many hits do I need on my spellcasting test?

I may have been doing this wrong, but I though that the force of the spell was not diminished by the background count, just foci and your magic. I am AFB until this evening, but I will check it then.

Sustained spells are.

EDIT:

I have been of similar mind lately. I think that would indeed make things easier.

The two threads were an experiment. I think the WWII did not work very well, so I will try and make the next one better. One of the key results I think is this suggestion. So I propose that we stop posting in 2070, finish the WWII stuff, and then go back to 2070.

I knew I should have waited for Seth to respond to my roll. OK, I will edit my IC post to reflect the GM's suggestions.

Sounds like a plan... Not that I have any clue what Fraulien Klien is up to in WWII (or even if that was her name!?!)

OK I am just heading off to work. I'll try and sort out a summary of who is who, what is what for the WWII thread, similar to the ones I do in 2070. I should have that ready tonight

@Seth: Is the briefcase already here? sitting underneath Hitler?

I assume I was carrying the suitcase/bomb Marduk would have been motivated to do that.
I want to assense the area, see how many awakened losers/spirits/nasties are about.

I believe that in WW2 My assensing is going to be: 9d6 - effects of Force.
3 6 4 5 6 3 4 5 3 (4) hits

OK first a who's who:

• Sabs / XXX I cannot find my reference to your name: can you post it and I will edit this
• Sephiroth / GeneralMajor von Trescow. Already standing around the table in a conversation with 2 others as the main bulk of you arrive
• Aria / Fraulein Petra Klein (Archaeologist).
• Big Fella / Han Bar. SS Officer who is part of your team, providing security and stormtrooping as you explore archaeological stuff
• Pbangarth / Nobert Schantz. Film maker. Busy fusing around setting up the lights, has a camera man with him. Mostly being ignored by everyone
• Alyena/XXX I cannot find my reference to your name: can you post it and I will edit this

@sabs
Hitlers briefcase is at his feet.
There is a force 4 spirit watching the proceedings in the corner of the room, sitting behind Hitler. There is a 50/50 chance you think that it can see the briefcase at all.

Uh, it can't be force 4, unless you're saying it's force 9?
A force 4 spirit cannot manifest in a -5 background count.
Spirits, being creatures of living mana, are perhaps even more vulnerable to background count. A spirit’s Force is reduced in the same manner as a character’s Magic, thus affecting the spirit’s attribute
and spirit powers as well. A spirit is disrupted (Disruption, p. 94) if it’s Force is reduced to 0 or less.

Marduk is going by 2 names: Yuri Resnik is the name he's going by. Hans Schultz is the name on his forged German Papers.