oops, i'll fix and we don't know who's controlling the drones yet

OK I'm going to have the good major arrive in 2 combat rounds. I would appreciate it if you could confirm where you are and what you are doing

Only sabs has posted in response to the last brief so I'll wait a couple of days for the rest of you to catch up

Sticking our heads between our legs and...I'll let you complete the sentence

I presume I can track the good Major on the camera feeds...apart from the drones and our meat is there anything else around that we can throw his way before he miniguns us to shreds?

Seth, any chance you can link the map again? I'm feeling lazy and haven't looked past pg 1 of this thread

chemistry test:
logic(8)+chemistry(4)+college education(1)+PuSHeD(1)=14d6: 4 5 3 4 2 5 4 5 2 3 6 4 2 3 (4) hits

Having popped in and out of astral, Mandala is not in radio contact with the others, as he is not wearing his commlink. I should probably get in the habit of specifically saying Mandala puts his commlink back on. Till I do that, it could be a point of humour/irritation among the party that he still fails to do so despite decades now of this technology's ubiquitous presence.

So, he doesn't know the drones are controlled by an ally, and he doesn't know anything about Angel.

Mandala casting Psychokinesis 16 dice => 4 HITS

He does now, sorta...I am guessing that dragon speech will work with spirits given that it's a magical affect?!?

Dragon speech works on any sapient.

GREMLIN has only been mentioned by ZERO. You could always ask him...

@Pbangarth
I know you will have thought of this...but probably you need someone to carry your voice link...or do you have it in a tough unobtrusive box? Skin link/trodes won't work for you, but you can easily have a microphone and can read electronic ink.

Chemistry is good. You want to mix household cleaners together. If you mix the (wrong??) cleaners together you get phosgene (we had an incident at work where some cleaners did this and ended up in hospital for weeks). The cleaners themselves will not be very good for the blood, probably causing it to denature. If you were to put cleaner A in pump A and cleaner B in pump B, then the chemical reaction would occur in the pipes...that might be very bad for the pipes and rupture phosgene.

Mandala casts detect Enemies Extended Force 5: Range 450 metres.

Magic 9 + Spellcasting(detection) 5 = 14 dice ==> 6 HITS

Drain is 5S

resist Drain WIL 7 + INT 8 = 15 dice ==> 7 HITS

no Drain

Very wise move that detect enemies. I am assuming you are manifest while casting it, as you want to detect enemies on the physical plane.

There is an enemy behind the third shelf at the back of the store. The enemy shows very weakly, they are quite well masked from it (5 hits in avoiding you...curses...). That shelf has lots of different flavours of grenades on it in boxes. The magic is not penetrating the concrete very well yet, so you are not yet detecting the incoming horde.

Can you roll me a composure test not to immediately turn and look in the direction of the enemy 1 success's stops you spinning on the spot and starting, two mean that you casually glance that way and three allow you to do whatever you want.

Ok, lots happening!

Think we're going to be too busy one way or another for Alyena to spend the 4 or 5 combat rounds necessary to get to grips with the magical tacnet will just have to rely on relayed info.

Johnathan doesn't seem to think we can survive contact with the Major and I think I agree. As their tacnet is down and he seems unaware of the cadavers can we spread some chaos there? Maybe with illusions or confusion spell to get them attacking each other? Other than that can I suggest we use Bjorn's newly created back door and leave the Major to the drones?

We can leave some people as a rear guard inside 27a with the door closed, hopefully looking like we've all headed up the hole in the roof.

The lurker in the store room may well scupper these plans, how best to negate him?


I think we need to consider stopping the priest from getting to Angel as (yet another!) priority. To my mind no good can come of these people
performing any sort of sacrifice let alone a 'special' one.

Yes, manifest as the reactor tech.

Mandala Composure Test:

WIL 7 + CHA 8 - sustaining spell 2 = 13 dice ==> 5 HITS

James Bond would seem frazzled compared to Mandala!

Having just armoured himself, Mandala will now appear to be arming himself as well. He needs the room to be empty of his friends for his still-forming plan to work.

I don't know whether I have gotten ahead of the rest of the team in actions. Mandala will speak once more and then I will wait till you give me the go-ahead to act again, Seth. I don't want to muck up the order of actions.

Is the shelf free standing? How much space behind it if it is? Hmmm... if it isn't, how is the enemy hiding there? Is it open at the back or does it have a back panel?

@Mandala / James Bond
I'll post the end of the current two rounds tonight: Most people have acted

You casually study the area (one value of astral perception is its 360 degrees) can you give me an assensing roll. If you are using sight can you make a perception roll? With your casual inspection you cannot see anyone hiding there.

The shelves are all free standing, but they have many tons of material on them, and a large base (they are large shelve - 16' high 30' wide 6' wide...bring a ladder). None of the shelves have backs, and they can be accessed from both sides. There is a fork lift in the corner, and its clear that that is used occasionally.

Toppling them might be possible, but it would be a heroic feat, and probably require magic.

If you are thinking of using the grenades can you give me a suitable knowledge skill roll? If not logic

Seth, for the terminally dense (it's been a long day already and it's only 3pm) can you sum up what is going on in words of 1 sylable? I have to confess Ryl is at a bit of a loss as to what to do next...anyone want to throw an order suggestion my way that would be great!

I considered trying to hack the Major but if he's better than Jonathan I'll probably get my arse handed to me on a plate!

Is there any other matrix jiggery pokery that anyone can think of? If not I'll go through the hole to help rescue Angel

Thanks for the dimensions. The storeroom is bigger than I thought. The fork lift is cool! And Mandala has Pilot Groundcraft Skill!

Mandala is dual natured, so the astral perception is on all the time. Unless he is specifically studying the aura of the individual, his assensing pool is the same as his physical perception pool (10 dice). I believe the Detect Enemies spell locates the enemy exactly, even if Mandala can't see the enemy directly.

If Mandala can't see the enemy directly, it is reasonable to assume the enemy likely can't see him directly.

*****
Just stream-of-consciousness ideas at the moment:
So, if he were to, say, drop a grenade over the other side of a shelf he could drop it quite close to the enemy even if he can't see him. Within the confines of two heavy shelves. Or in a box of grenades. Or, push a box of grenades over the other side, one of which has a pin pulled. Mandala has two actions in a round, so the first of which could be drop a grenade or two (one on each side of the shelf), the second of which would be to dematerialize to avoid chunky salsa effect from an explosion that would come at the end of the combat turn.
*****

Mandala has no Thrown weapon Skill, so dropping a grenade at ground zero (at his feet, over the edge of the shelf, in the box of grenades) is the best he can do. He has various construction-related Knowledge Skills that might help him figure out wall/shelf/materials strength. All of those are at rank 2.

Astral Perception Test : (might as well go for the full around view)

INT 8 + Astral Perception 2 - sustaining a spell 2 +/- unknown for knowing where the enemy is due to the spell = 8 dice
==> 4 HITS
Whoa!

Knowledge Skill Test from Mandala's construction/acoustics experience to judge the acoustic/blast characteristics of the room:

LOG 4 + plethora of Skills all at 2 = 6 dice ==> 3 HITS
Holy cow! I've discovered the power of positive thinking!

Aria:

What's your electronic warfare skill, and the signal rating of your commlink.
If you remember Sticks doing this:
Jamming on the Fly.
EW+Signal Rating vs EW+signal rating+ECCM. So this might be a good time to spend some edge.

If you manage to jam them, then your connection would work, but theirs would not. They would lose access to the TacNet. (and that's 4 dice less) And they would be cut off from calling reinforcements, etc.
If you're feeling meaner and freakier, you can try and hack the commlinks of the guys WITH the Major (but not the Major). If you screw up their TacNet info, and change their Friend or Foe Recognition software, they might accidentally shoot their friends. If they have grenades on their persons, grenades come with Airlink technology, allowing people to detonate them in mid flight. You might be able to hack your way into the guy's PAN and explode all the grenades on his person.

You can also engage the Major in Matrix Combat. (in Cold Sim I recommend, unless you have a really good Biofeedback program) He'll have to choose, deal with you in the matrix, or not. If he decides to deal with you in AR, then he'll be seriously dissadvantaged, if he goes VR to face you, then he's at -6 to everything he does in the world, and his body is 'slack'.

Please correct me if you think there are any errors, Please ask me to add extra stuff if I have missed anything significant

Mission goals

• Warder has been slain...unfortunately while this brought down all the internal wards, it did not affect the external blood ward
• The door to 27a has been opened, and you just have to hold it against attackers until the external forces arrive...which might not happen now the blood ward has not been removed

Current situation:

• It is the start of rounds 17&18
• The time is 00:01:10
• Everyone has thrown on a flak jacket from the storeroom
• 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
• Aren is being NPCed. His condition has stabilized, although he is still unconscious
• Ryl, Fearghas, Bjeorn, Alyena, Mandala are in the storeroom in the basement
• Marduk has identified that the codex in Warder's room is a magical tacnet, and worked out how to use it, he has recovered a knife and skull from Warder's room as well
• Ol'Scratch is being NPCed, and has finished performing the ritual to open door 27a.
• Marduk, Ol'Scratch and Aren are about to enter room 27a
• Bjeorn has spent the last two rounds tunneling a hole through to the priests quarters above. The smoke and debris are impressive
• Red lights are flashing, but there are no audible alarms
• ZERO has announced that GREMLIN is in charge of some drones: 5 hoverdrones have shot off at maximum 60mph velocity, 3 dobermans are facing the door of the storeroom, and 2 dobermans are at the end of the basement corridor facing stairs

Dealing with the blood ward

• Mandala has had a chat with Sanguine a recently freed blood spirit (ex bound to Warder) who is currently munching the blood in the second floor blood pump
• Marduk has identified and found chemicals in the store room that when added to the blood stream will be bad for the blood stream
• There are three blood pumps, you have half immobilised one of them. You think that it is likely that you have to immobilise two of them for the ward to be significantly weakened

Immediate threats

• Jonathan is relaying images from the pyramid.
• Some cadaver men are approaching, they will be here in three rounds
• Major Nopaltzin has finished his motivational speeches and is on the count down 5,4... you think 1 will be reached at the start of round 18.
• The forces Major Nopaltzin have with him are 20 clamshell troops with assault rifles and grenades. The major has a mini gun.
• Camaxtli Cenyaotl aka Spirit bane has 2 guards with him, and is moving to collect Angel and some other "special prisoners"
• Mandala has found an enemy lurking in the storeroom

Matrix

• Ryl has revoked all the accounts in the internal matrix
• There are no Aztechs visible in the matrix (having been kicked out) apart from maybe Jonathan
• Jonathan has provided access to the other networks: the air defence, the secondary security network (that the incoming forces are using as a tacnet), the external matrix and the temple system
• There is no reason why you lot cannot communicate via commlink (except Mandala)

External

• Jonathan's wife is being rescued as we speak by a shadowrunning team hired by ZERO

Click here for map

@Mandala
Fork lift fully covered by pilot groundcraft.

You are correct about detect enemies...you know where he is (I treat this a bit like the minimap in most MMORPGs). So on your minimap you have a red dot, and you know where that is. With 4 hits you cannot see him. However you have been around the block a few times and you know that thief adepts, or way of invisibility adepts could easily be standing in the middle of the room, and you might not see them. A mage being invisible would not do it, as you would see them astrally.

There will be no signficant chunky salsa effects in this room: its open, and the shelves are open. However thats not true in the corridor...it would be bad if grenades went off then.

You can Psychokinesis grenades quite nicely, taking one combat round to put it exactly where you want it.

Your knowledge skill (3 hits) reminded you that the military store grenades with the fuseremoved to avoid sympathetic detonations (otherwise they would be in a magazine not a store room). You suspect that those grenades will not be fully armed, but the fuse will be stored with the grenades, so a couple of combat rounds would be enough to arm one. (See here ).

Its two new rounds, so feel free to act

@Aria
I hope I summarized what is happening enough.

Ideas for you:

• Get in touch with the external forces...Jonathan has a link to the outside matrix.
• Hack the tacnet of the Major's troops.
• Hack the air defences, and allow the incoming troops to bomb the pyramid...scary but brave.
• Attack the Major with cybercombat, or try hacking him, just as he arrives: the major may be talented...but is he hacking or shooting?? its hard to do both.
• Ask ZERO for help with some of the above, or for details about what else he(?) has planned.

However going through the hole isn't a bad idea either...its going to get very messy down here in one round

@Sabs

You are opening the door to 27a. The background here is weird. It reads Christian 6, there are other effects (Aztech 4, Tainted 4, Chaos 4) but they are swamped by the overwhelming peace and serenity. As you walk in you feel accepted, perhaps even welcomed. A faint sound of birdsong goes through your head and you gain the effects of a +2 background for you. Your astral senses are blinded (-6 die) by the auras from the magic items: you have never seen so many before. Almost everything in here is intensely magical or a foci.

The floor is carpeted. There is a table with four chairs in the middle of the room. There are yellowing documents open on the table using a gold bird cage (sans bird) as a paperweight.

There are shelves on the wall.On the left shelves are interesting pieces of art work (vases, small paintings), and many beautiful intricate boxes on the shelves: some lacquered, some woodcarved, some inlaid with precious metals. At the back of the room are two large chests, both wooden, bound with iron and multiple padlocks. On the right shelves are books. Lots of books, of different sizes and great antiquity. You note that one of them is written in lizard speech.

Next to the door are weapon racks: old weapons. You see some blood crystal swords, a crystal shield that you haven't seen for thousands of years. Some roman gear: A pilum, some plubata and spatha's. Some more recent late medieval gear: arming swords, large bastard swords (not the D&D ones). Renaissance: small swords, rapiers. Every one is a foci.

If you were players of the game that gives you cancer you would regard this as a treasure chamber. You have no idea of how many zero's you have to stick after the initial 1 to estimate the value of the items in the room. Having a fight in here would be...exciting ... financially speaking.

Can you post your arrival in the IC thread?

We need some spirit support from Alyena and Ambrose, please.

Combat Tactics: Log 3[4] + Combat Tactics 6 (Magic +2) = 12d6 = 4 hits

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3043210/ (url insert boxes aren't working for me right now)

Ambrose is being NPCed which means he is far more useless than usual. However he can summon a force 6 guardian spirit that will try and possess one of the incoming troops. The guardian spirit will have automatics and natural weapon.

Summon: 2 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3043256/
Resist: 1 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3043257/
4:1 rule removes drain

Ambrose gives it the orders to "do whatever Fearghas says" (you have 1 service) and wanders into room 27a with a glazed look in his eye, lots of oo..and ahh..and more oo. He is out of the fight for a couple of rounds at least

In your response to the tactics roll...

The major has spirit support and will be moving here at around 60 mph...effectively he will teleport in. The spirit support will almost certainly blunt any spells you cast at his troops. He has a forward scout (Mandala's detected enemy) that is probably giving him a live feed about where everyone is. ZERO and GREMLIN are laying a simple ambush that would work without the forward observer. He would arrive, see two targets, attack them, and while he is attacking them, the dobermans would flank him...that almost certainly won't work now...the major will be coming through that door, and will know where everyone is. He has a mini-gun that will kill everything he aims it at...His troops will be laying down suppressing fire, and focusing on named individuals one at a time (you know this because of Jonathan's feed). His troops are in hard armour with decent weapons and a working tacnet. This situation is not good.

You have a few second to work. The biggest problem is that he has intelligence of what you are doing and where you are.

One option:

• deal with the forward observer, leave through the hole, and drop grenades....tricky in 3 seconds with so many people
• flee...not a bad plan...the drones will hold him up for at least a combat round
• get some really good cover (move behind the shelves) and blast with spellls
• prepare an ambush (again the forward observer and time are not good...and that mini gun kills things dead very quickly
• You are not sure what would happen if the Major tried to get into the door to 27a, but unless he knows the secret it will probably go bad for him
• Something else

I'll remind you that all the NPCs that you have spoken to (Jonathan and Zero) have told you that you cannot survive an encounter with the Major. They may be wrong as they don't actually know how hard you are. At the moment he has overwhelming advantages over you: firepower, armour, magical supression, speed, and most important information of where you are.

If Alyena doesn't have time to figure out the Codex, I'd take it with me. Hopefully I can use it from inside the room, and possibly do some force projecting from in here.

What should I roll to figure out what those documents are?

The documents are the ritual that hitler was trying to teach you: you recognise them.

The books in the room are a library and would require about a year at least of reading time

1) Put the Skull, and Codex down on the table.
2) Pick up a Crystal Sword
3) with Crystal sword in main hand, and Dagger of Nasty in the other, connect with the Codex, and check how the wards are doing, where people are, etc, also.. try and use the Codex to mark the Major as 'hostile'.

So, I just had this whole big post written up, and it had this squicky brain metaphor thing and everything, and then IE decided to not display the webpage and now the whole thing is gone. >=( I do NOT have the time to rewrite the whole thing right now.

Does Nopaltzin seem like the type of guy who'd be willing to talk to an enemy general, even if only briefly?

I believe our mission briefing said that Warder needed to be dead by 12:15 (implying the wards had to be down by then). That would suggest we still have over 13 minutes to meet this requirement. Am I reading this incorrectly?

THE PUNS, I HAZ THEM.

Also Seth, how many troops are with Major Nopaltzin? They shouldn't have enough spirits to Movement-ify all of them, unless those two mentioned mages have a crapload of Charisma or have Invoked their spirits (oh jeez I hope not), since Movement is a single-target power (I just had to check recently for Jovan, that's why I'm bringing this up).

This may be a fatal error on my part...

... but Mandala I believe is the one among us who is likely to be able to deal with the horrendous damage of the minigun. The damage is largely from the burst effect, which in the case of the Vindicator in Arsenal is +14 DV. But burst effect modifiers don't apply to the comparison between DV and hardened armor, such as in his ItNW (See Burst fire in SR4A).

So even if this is a heavy machine gun, the DV would be about 7P plus net hits, compared to Mandala's hardened armor of 18 - the weapon's AP. It should bounce off of him. Please straighten me out if this is not the way it works!

Anyway, I have to think about how to deal with the observer. I'll post in the morning.

@Fearghas
Does Nopaltzin seem the type of guy to talk to enemy general? Well if you read his motivational speeches he is not a people person. He is a killing things sort of person. he is spinning up his mini gun as we speak and hes counting down the last three seconds to charge. I doubt if he is receptive to verbal communications

According to RAW (I am AFB so I may be wrong) a spirit can maintain movement on a number of creatures up to its power. The service to the spirit is probably "get us in their quickly". You know that the major has told 2 of his troops to "activate their spirits" whatever that means.

These guys are magically powerful, and this is the sort of time you use bound spirits (they are repulsing a special forces attack inside their defence, that has already crippled part of their defensive infrastructure, and they are under attack from the outside). They could easily have tens of bound spirits. Bound spirits are usually lower level than normally summoned ones though. See the response to Sabs

@Pbangarth
Warder had to be dead by 12:15. 13 more minutes of fun and games . However its not quite that simple.

Whoever is attacking is also attacking Aztlan air space. They need to be in and out before the authorities can respond, and serious reinforcements arrive. The 15 minutes is probably the maximum time that you have, and they would be delighted if they could do it quicker.

As far as machine guns are going, I am using RAW. Thus the burst modifiers do not apply to the damage before hardened armour. However they do trash your defensive pool with wide bursts, and you can safely assume that these troops are experienced in fighting spirits. With 18 points of hardened armour the suppressive fire is extremely unlikely to affect you. Your "threat-o-meter" is off the scale with the major, so please don't assume that you can take his mini-gun (I'll probably use your 7P with AP-2), I am just giving you fair warning that you might not have considered something . I have hinted quite a lot about the major's nature: he's not ... normal).

@Sabs
OK the magical tacnet tells you:

• There is a horror in the temple. Its not bothering with masking any more (last time you looked you didn't see it).
• There are around 20 guards in the temple
• There is a priest with 2 guards and 2 spirits (of level a bit less than your magic rating) walking down the corridor on the second level
• There is a bit of haze over the room where Angel is (the room that the priest is heading for), but you cannot see anything magically significant
• Serious mojo is under way in the temple...your default assense die tells you they are summoning huge spirits, using the sacrifice of individuals to power them. Those spirits are being martialled in the temple (there are 5 with a level higher than your magic rating so far).
• The pyramid's wards are under serious attack. Every round they are loosing 10..40 percent of their rating, then regenerating it
• The demon in the door is...unpleasant.
• There is a bit of a haze over the security area, so its hard to see precisely, but there are about a dozen tiny bound spirits there
• The cadaver men are two rounds away
• You know about the machine gun nests guarding access through the pyramid. They are all guarded by a spirit with less magic than your magic rating
• There are some seriously powerful people in the basement...oh wait a minute that's you lot

If you want any more detail about anything just ask

Can you do me an assensing roll? With 6 success you see the way of invisibility adept in the store room (who you will discover is currently dual natured). You can use the power of the book to project there and wreck havoc if you want.

I may need to modify my IC post as a general scan of hidden nodes (i assume they are hidden) will take me 5 combat rounds (see Invis Castle for rolls)!?! I suspect that even had I been scanning when the drones first activated that I don't have that kind of time? How do you want me to play this Seth?

If I had realised how important EW skill was I'd have got more than 1

Assenssing roll:
intuition(3)+assenssing(6)=9d6: 6 3 2 5 5 6 3 3 1 (4 hits) Which is a very nice roll, but not enough. Do I get any bonuses from the magical tacnet, the sword I'm holding, the Knife, or the Aura?

DId you not see how Sticks put it to good use against your Nasty little Technomancers?

@Sabs
The aura is a good question. I think I will let you have it (normally the aura subtracts from assensing, but this aura is actively helping you). I note you didn't include +3 for actively looking , and I will give you another +1 as you have been told "look there...the guys there...the third shelf". So you can roll 7 more die and add them to your 4 hits. This is a standard action, not a complex action. If you fail you can try again with -1 die as a second standard action.

@Aria
I am a little confused as to what specifically you are looking for. Jonathan has given you the details of all the networks in the pyramid. You very quickly pick up the wifi in this room. I'll say it took you a free action (as you have multitasking) to link to the wifi.

@Everyone
I will post the Major's arrival Monday evening. Spirit Bane gets to angel at the end of these two rounds

7d6: 3 4 3 6 6 5 4 (so that will be 6 hits total)

My second standard action will be to mark him on the tacnet, and prepare to cast mana bolt through the tacnet.

If I cannot target him through the tacnet, I will astrally project into the room.

You have to project into the room. At that point you can make an intuition + infiltration roll if you want to do it subtly.

You recognise Master Sergeant Huicton from the briefing: "Physical adept, specialised in melee combat and stealth".
He is masking (therefore an adept) He is healthy, an orc, not diseased, his magic is less than yours
He has a knife foci weapon, He appears to have no spells on him, although there is are spirit effects active on him (concealment, movement and magical guard you think)

A surprise roll is called for: you have +6 as he doesn't know about you, while you know about him.
He gets 7 successes.. Just call him Mr Speedy"

His initiative is 19, and it will be IP of 2 when this happens

If you don't beat his surprise roll of 7:
He will be physically attacking you with his knife on 19 if you don't surprise him, then running away. He has a funky martial arts power "cut and run" which lets him cut you and run away in the same action, so he will use wall running to run up the shelf, then up through Bjeorns hole (where Ryl is )
Melee attack: 5 successes
Damage: 5P modified by nett successes.

If you do beat his surprise he will stand like a muppet for IP 2, then if he's still around he will cut and run

Movement is one of those powers that only works on one target at a time, since it has no clause stating otherwise and thus defaults to the Range clause's "unless otherwise noted, a power can only be used on one target at a time." Thus the only way for their spirits to be using Movement on all of the troops is if they have a bloody ton of them or the spirits have been Invoked (eep).

Somehow I feel like WE should have been given the chance to prepare bound spirits and viruses and trojans before coming here. =/ BUT THAT'S OK, BECAUSE THE CADAVERMEN WILL SAVE US!

That's Fearghas's plan for the moment. Delay the Major's arrival by sending Ambrose's spirit to inflict a little pain on the Cadavermen. Then sit back and let the carnage unfold.

Intuition+infiltration: 5d6: 4 6 3 5 5 (3) What can I say, i'm not a combat piece.
I have 3 IP this round, because I am astral.
surprise:
Reaction(3)+intuition(3)+6=12d6: 1 6 6 6 6 1 4 6 6 2 3 5 (7) well, I rolled well, but I suspect a tie isn't good enough. Because his initiative is 19, and mine is 13.
Spellcasting attack: Magic(6)+Spellcasting(4)+Aspect(2)+Spellcasting foci(3)+Dagger of Death(?)=15d6 3 4 5 6 3 5 3 4 5 1 5 4 6 3 4 (5) hits.
Force 9 ManaBolt.
Drain: 5, 15d6 3 6 1 5 2 6 2 5 6 3 5 1 5 6 2 (8) no damage (although depending on his willpower test, up to 2 stun)
DV: 9+hits


remember that he has to use weaponskill+willpower+weapon foci to hit me, and not Agility :)

Melee Defense: Intuition(3)+closecombat(2)+=crystalsword?=5d6=5 6 3 6 4 (3) hits.
He'll get to hit me:
Damage is going to be 7P.
Soak: 6 4 5 5 1 3 5 (4) hits, 3P

Couple of questions:
I'm holding the Crystal Sword, and the Anti-Aztech knife, does either of those alter anything here. I have the Magical Tacnet.. do I get any 'tacnet' bonus of anykind in any of these rolls.

I interpret this differently. The section you have quoted is under range, and its saying (as I interprete it) each invocation of the power can only affect one target. The section under duration clearly indicated that the spirit can maintain a number of powers equal to its force. I thus am playing that each invocation of the power is like a spell, and the spirit can maintain a number of spells equal to its force. e.g. I activate the power "movement" on target 1. Then I active the power "movement" on target 2.

Any way even if I am wrong, for the last N years I have been playing that spirits can affect multiple targets (although they are capped to maintaining a number of powers equal to their force), and as GM I intend to continue. This is mostly of benefit to the players, as the bad guys have an unlimited number of magicians / spirits to accomplish the goals that I want them to undertake. The invocation of movement and concealment has saved the player's asses more times than I can count, and if I move to one target only per spirit there will be revolt and probably more deaths (in my pnp games anyway).

In this specific case it doesn't make much difference as the incoming troops are supported by a swarm of tiny (rank 1 and 2) bound spirits, rather than a couple of large ones. I am happy to make them all rank 1 spirits, and say each spirit is supporting one troop.

Well Sabs you are a lucky, lucky person:

Master Sergeant Huicton may be a follower of the invisible way, but he is not a follower of the perceptive way:
Perception check: 1 success

Thus you get to go first as he actually hasn't seen you. Thus he doesn't go until just after you in IP 2. (I had to re-read the section on surprise: you tied and he didn't see you)

Resist the mana bolt: 4 sucesses So you have 1 nett success.

The really good news is that he is extremely groggy from the bolt, and is -3 die on most things. This reduces his melee attack on you to 3 successes....which is a draw ... and guess who wins the draw

Somewhat more groggily than I had intended he then executes the "cut and run" and vanishes up Bjeorn's hole. (You can of course follow as you have astral speed).

Oh, I am following. I afterall have 3 ips this round.. MUAHAHAHAHH..

Marduk might come to like this book

I think Alyena might be best going astral and summoning a spirit of her own. Will then cast a Slaughter Spirit on the bad guy's friends.

Summon Spirit: 5 successes
Spirit's resistance: 1 success (yeah!)
Alyena resisting drain: 3 successes (phew!)

I now have a Force 7 Spirit of Man with 4 services....mu ha ha

Will give him the power to cast 3 of my spells... Mob mind, Heal and Stunball

Can I remain Astral and allow the spirit to possess my body? Haven't played much with spirits so not sure how it works

Also, am I right in thinking that our friend the Major is a Cyber Zombie, given he has so little essence?

I was looking for any wifi signals from grenades etc...air burst grenades have to be wifi enabled and i suspect explosives these day s are too

Bah humbug. Grenades have signal 0 wifi max, timers and go bang. Air burst grenades work like this: with an accelerometer to do inertial tracking (they probably have signal 0 wifi for extra safety).

Anyway your scanning is not picking up any hidden stuff, although its picking up RFID chips from the wardrobe. The RFID's are declaring the clothes to be the propery of Ezhuahuacatl Opochtli.

In the room is a lot of dust and debris (-4 to visual perception: treat as smoke). There was a four poster with silk bed clothes...but thats mostly a pile of rubble with a hole through the middle of it.

There is a single door out, which to your magical perceptions has the traces of "once there was a very powerful ward, and it collapsed a few seconds ago when its creator died".

You are either holding your breath, using a respirator or coughing.

Can you make me a perception roll for IP 2 at -8? The background is Aztech 4 for assensing, and remember the smoke modifiers for visual (for what I want you don't get any thermal vision as Master Sergeant Huicton is wearing clothes that dampen thermal signatures). You only need 1 success to see him as he is not particularly stealthy right now. I wouldn't ask for the roll without the debris.

I have updated the map

I hope it doesn't contradict anything that I have said up to date. (I forgot where I put the second two blood pumps, and its hard to read through all the posts)

Man, I go away and pick up my daughter at the airport, have a nice dinner, and come back to find a fight broke out right in front of Mandala!

The map does not show Mandala, who is in the storeroom with the scout and others.

OK, here's his Initiative:

INT 8 + REA 4 = 12 dice ==> 2 HITS

==> Initiative 14

So, Mandala goes after the first flurry of spelling and resisting, which is just fine with me. But, what is the scout's Initiative? After it is reduced by 3. Does he beat Mandala? If so, that sucks, because I have been aching to try out an interesting idea for a while*, and Marduk's spell has set me up to do so.

Does the scout get out of the room before Initiative 14? Mandala's actions depend on whether he does or not.

*A spell leaves an astral signature. The target of the spell carries the astral signature. So whether the scout is masked/concealed, stealthy or whatever, there is a human-shaped astral mark of Marduk's spell heading along the wall for the hole. That could be dual-natured Mandala's target.

EDIT: Yes, yes, I know this can be used both for and against, but it seems legit as far as I can tell.

Sorted out the map.

Sadly Master Sergeant Huicton has a higher initiative (he had effectively a held action under the surprise rules...I had to read them a load of times, but I think I am correct)

Your idea of astral signatures I think is mostly invalid for attack spells. Attack spells damage you then fade. The signature stays around the place where the spell took place. I am not certain I am correct and I would put it on the main forum as a question if I were you. In any case he isn't actively hiding, and he has enhanced masking (its pretty obvious that if you can hide a spell you can hide the astral signature of a spell on you, otherwise enhanced masking would be pointless), so the answer wouldn't affect how we deal with this situation.

To see him upstairs you only need one success as he is not actively hiding, but the background is confusing (smoke and debris physical + aztech 4 background astrally). Don't forget the +3 for actively looking, but there is background and a -8 from concealment on him.

Ummm...aren't Aleyna and Bjeorn ahead of me on the ground floor...with the scout coming up behind me?!? I thought I was following them through the hole not blazing a trail Ryl is pretty crap in the meat form when not a drake!

Assuming -3D for the dust and other mods (?!? Even a few more would still be a success) I got the measly one success to see the scout...not bad considering I'm looking through VR Gotta love multitasking and heightened concentration! Isn't -6 full invisibility anyway, can you be more concealed than that?!?

Time to call for help!

Mu ha ha. The confusion of battle.

The situation as I understand it is on the map. I'll have a chat with Alyena and Bjeorn.

Concealment isn't invisibility. Invisibility only stops them seeing you. They can still see your footprints in the mud, the dust in the air that you move...etc. Thats why invis is only -6 as opposed to saying "you cannot see them at all".

So can I see him or should I remain in blissful ignorance?!? I am currently running my ruthenium cloak and, with the dust, I hope I'm difficult to spot too!

Why would Bjeorn make a hole and then not go through?!?

Confusion indeed

Final quick question, is the good Major's comm in hidden mode or can I see it?