@Edana
Just to summarise the end of the round. You dodged the Black IC's attack. His defence was not nearly as effective as the IC outside, and he is severely sparking at the end of IP 5

@Edana/Aria
Please roll initiatives for round 19. Edana, don't forget sustaining penalizes this.

When in round 19 note that this node is starting to show the signs of shutdown. You suspect you have 2 or 3 rounds before you get dumped from it.

I already rolled initiative for Round 19, link in previous post. I'm unclear on how the penalties actually interact with the final score. Do they just subtract dice, but not the base attribute? (In which case I'm at 20) Do they affect the final score only? (12) Do they affect the attribute itself, thus effectively counting twice? (10).

(I also rolled my next attack and defense in that post as well, since I'll be pretty surprised if I don't get attacked. If the IC ends up going before me, I'm probably going to be stuck in full defense until IP 4, since I'm not really willing to risk getting hit.)

@Edana

I think I have already responded to this (see my last post), although I may be totally out of sync. I missed the initiative

I am unclear too about initiative and damage. I have always played it that it comes off your total (hence you are doubly effected). On reading the example given in the book, it was little clearer. The example was about being in the middle of a combat when you were damaged. In this case it won't effect the initiative order, so I won't worry about the answer

I'd like to know the RAW answer, and will use it when explained. I've raised a question in the main forum on this topic.

I'd like to fast track the Matrix combat, so here are my combat rolls for round 19. You get to go first, and if you hit Obediah at all he will go down.
IP 1: Obediah defends actually quite well given how wounded he is: 6 successes
Assuming he is still around he attacks: He is quite vicous! 6 successes Base damage 6P
IP 2: I am not expecting him to last this long but... 3 successes, and I suspect that will be the end of it.

@Aria
You have admin privileges in the Command and Control center of a cyber zombie. His Icon is offline. I've just reread the rules on rebooting. I thought it was a"D6 rounds and it reboots", but actually its "get enough successes and it will reboot instantly". So as a minor reality change, one of the agents is busily pressing the 'reboot now' buttons on one of the consoles.

@PBangarth
IP 2 attack from the Mischief of spirits. Swarm rating now 3. Astral combat mobbing isn't as successful as it might be: 2 successes Base damage 4
They try and resist your sleep spell...very poorly 1 success

You mostly clear the room.
The room is room is becoming full of unconscious spirit bodies...assensing penalties are kicking in: -2.
The good news is that very few more are coming in: there is no more space: In IP 3 the Mischief size will be 2.

@General
I think everyone but ghost/Lean'drea is now in round 19 and most people are well through it. Sephiroth/Fearghas is waking up (being attended to by a corpse that is dribbling brains over him) and will be active at the start of round 20. Sabs/Marduk is off holidaying for a few days, but has planned his next couple of rounds anyway.

Alyena would like to get the blood ward down. She has all she needs in her pockets, unfortunately there is a horde of rage spirits between her body and the nearest pump. I would like to kill two birds with one stone, push some of these spirits up a level into the temple, to cause some havoc to the ritual, as well as clearing the way to the pump.

The temple has some form of warding, I think of the magical lodge type, could Mandala use Shatter Shield? I could then either mob mind or push them with a mana barrier. If they can possess I think it would be a good idea to keep them away from all the Major's (ex) minions down in the basement!

Any thoughts on this or other suggestions gratefully received

Ok, Seth, Rnd 18 IP4 arrive in C&C node and assess the situation...IP5 frag the agent trying to reboot (that can't be a good thing for us at this stage!)

Attack 20D - 4 for DoS = 7 hits Attack prog 6 -3 armour (does DoS come off attack power too?!?)

Initiative Rnd 19 = 13D (with that damn -4 and -1 response) = 18

Lemme know if that Agent is still around and I'll try and blast it some more. IC post to follow once I know what's going on

I think you missed the defense roll for the IP 3 attack on Round 18 (here, 6 Hits).

Sequence to this point should be:

R18

IP 3: Move to current node, get attacked, full defense 6 hits dodges
IP 4: Full Defense, Obediah is out of actions
IP 5: Drop Stealth CF, Attack 5 Hits, Obediah defends with 3 hits, takes 13 damage minus soak

R19

IP 1 (Angel): Attack with 3 Hits, Obediah defends with 6 hits, no damage
IP 1 (Obediah): Attack with 6 hits, Angel defends with 10 hits (full defense), no damage
IP 2 (Angel): Full Defense from IP 1
IP 2 (Obediah): ??? Guessing it will attack, Angel defends with 7 Hits (full defense), ??? damage (guessing none)
IP 3 (Angel): Declare full defense
Ip 3 (Obediah): ??? guessing it will attack, Angel defends with 8 Hits (full defense, ??? damage (probably none)
IP 4 (Angel): Drop shield CF, Attack with 4 Hits, Obediah defends with ?? hits, 11+net hits damage (minus soak)
IP 4 (Obediah): Out of actions
IP 5 (Angel): Thread shield CF (buy 3 successes, no fading), remainder depends on whether Obediah is still around or not.

(It gets dragged out because Angel isn't really willing to get hit, and as I mentioned before, having more IPs virtually guarantees victory barring ridiculous luck. Assuming you use the 3 hits you rolled for defense on my next attack in IP 4, that's when the IC would be destroyed. If it does get destroyed, then on IP 5 I'm going to shut down the DDoS, otherwise I'll attack again.)

Damage modifiers affect Initiative Score, which is what you get from rolling initiative attribute and adding the successes to that attribute. So, if you have REA 4 + INT 4, your initiative attribute is 8, typical roll is 3 successes, so initiative score is 11, if you have 3 boxes of stun, you still have an attribute of 8, and still roll 8 dice, you just subtract 1 from the final result.. That part in the book is fairly explicit. However, there is no mention whatsoever of other dice penalties and how they affect initiative, which is why I'm uncertain on it. My gut reaction is that they are dice penalties, and only affect the number of dice you roll, not the attribute itself or the final score.

I thought of the Shattershield. The forces outside seem to be trying something along that effect, and drop the barrier by around 40%, after which it raises to full again. Maybe if Mandala could coordinate his spell with the attack from outside, and then your stuff, we could get it down once and for all. Mandala is a bit stuck in room 12 with the flood of spirits and sorta hopes Angel will rise soon so he can go somewhere else.

He doesn't know exactly how to open her life support unit, though. Someone with some kind of biotech skill needs to do that.

@General
Had some fun GMing Earthdawn at this convention. Lots of fun ideas from the players about this game...mu ha ha. I'm at the convention until Monday. If I get a break (I hope not!) I'll prep up the summary for the start of round 20.

@Aria

It doesn't come off attack power! this was a little rank 3 agent. It crumples into bits and bytes and de-materialises.
You are the master of all you survey! (Until the Major gets into his panic room without any wifi)

@Edana thanks for the detailed post. We are now back in sync.
Not a bad idea playing it safe with Black IC. This one has a particularly unpleasant attack (if you it ever manages to hit you), even if its not very capable.
He fails to hit you
Fails to dodge
And you crush him like a bug (he had very little matrix condition monitor left).

As far as initiative goes: the dumpshock forums were widely disagreeing on how you should play it. I suspected that I would get a slap in the face with a quoted page reference, but actually it appears to be an area that is poorly ruled. Your interpretation was one of the options I put forward. I think I will let the thread continue a bit and see if it comes to a consensus. For now roll it the way you suggested.

Mandala qua voltmeter hops around some more:

REA 4 + Dodge 1 = 5 dice ==> 4 HITS

Holy Cow! He's a hopping demon! Look at the little guy go! No damage.

In physical form Mandala only has 2 IP, so his actions are done, though it appears he may need to defend once more.

Sorry Mandala I'm a little confused by this reply and think we're talking about 2 different things. I was meaning the magical lodge ward around the Temple floor, not the blood ward round the whole Pyramid. I think Alyena should fight her way to you, join up and lets try and force these rage spirits up into the temple to cause some havoc there. Perhaps letting them trash the pump room first though

Whatever we do will start with a mana barrier as I don't fancy being a midnight snack for these spirits!

4 successes

With edge another 4 successes

8 in total which will, hopefully, be enough to let me deal with any that come my way

Resist drain: 4 successes so 1 more stun.

Think I need my task spirit to work on me!

Status:

• It is the start of round 20
• The time is 00:01:24
• Everyone has thrown on a flak jacket from the storeroom
• Red lights are flashing, but there are no audible alarms
• Aren is unconscious (and trapped in a dream with a horror)
• Fearghas has just become conscious in the storeroom
• Bjeorn has followed the Major to a panic room, and is now standing outside the panic rooms door
• Ryl and Alyena's bodies are in Snake Head's room
• Mandala and Angel's body are in Angel's room
• Marduk's body, Ol' Scratch and Aren's body are in room 27a
• Lean'drea is in a room full of dragon eggs

Magical background

• The background count is zero in the reactor corridor, and most of the store room
• Up the stairs and on the ground floor it is Aztech 4.
• In Warder's room it is Aztech 2.
• In Snake Head's room (above the store room) it is zero
• In Angel's room it is Golden Beauty 4

Situation in room 27a

• Ol'scratch is admiring the loot
• Marduk has dropped the dagger and is considering what happened, and what to do about it
• The Codex / Magical Tacnet is showing a cloud of red spreading from outside Angel's room

Situation in the basement

• Fearghas wakes up to find one zombie who has been treating him with a medikit
• GREMLIN's 2 remaining dobermans are climbing the stairs into the ground floor

Situation in the security room

• Jonathan is still in his cocoon
• The Major has just entered the Panic room
• Bjeorn has just arrived

Situation outside Angel's room

• There are a very large number of large and very angry rage spirits, manifesting and possessing everything that they can see.
• The corridor is getting trashed
• The odds of the blood pump surviving the rage spirits is very low...
• The machine gunners, the cadarvermen, the drones, Spirit Bane's body, the conduiting in the wall...are all possessed.

Situation in Angel's room

• All the spirits are radically reduced in size by the aura of Golden Beauty
• Mandala has reduced the number of spirits in Angel's room, and very few more seem keen to come in
• Much equipment has been damaged, and Angel's life support equipment is flashing red
• Astrally speaking its crowded with the unconscious forms of small spirits.

Situation in the dragon egg room

• Lean'drea has just entered

Matrix situation

• The Major's icon has been crashed
• The Major's defences have been trashed
• Ryl is in the command and control center, the master of all she surveys
• Angel has just finished dealing with the last defences
• Ryl and Angel are under a denial of service attack, which has just increased to -6 as more nodes are now on line.
• Ryl has revoked all the accounts in the internal matrix
• Jonathan has provided access to the other networks: the air defence, the secondary security network, the external matrix and the temple system
• There is no reason why you lot cannot communicate via commlink (except Mandala)

Mission goals

• Goal: get to room 27a and stop anyone getting in it. Well you are in the treasure room, with more magical loot than you have seen before. No one is in here yet
• Goal: kill Warder, to bring down the magical wards and allow the external forces to move in. Well he is dead, but the blood ward surrounding the pyramid is still up and strong.
• New goal: Bring down the blood ward. Marduk has identified and found chemicals in the store room that when added to the blood stream will be bad for the blood stream. The blood pump on the second floor is now trashed
• New goal: Rescue Jonathan. There is a shadowrunning team extracting his wife, and his body is in the security room
• New goal: Rescue Angel. Angel is now alive and awake, and assisting you in the matrix. It will need someone with Biotech skills to extract her from the casing she is in.
• New goal: Rescue Lean'drea. Lean'drea has fled into a room full of dragon eggs

Seth, just before I write up an IC post...Angel and I seem to have lost round 19 (unless I'm confused which is invariably the case )

Anyway, I'm hoping Angel can go before me and sort out the DoS and then I'll dump some nasty chemicals into the Major's blood stream (or what remains of it) and hopefully take him down for good!

Dragon eggs...grrr damn these Azzie bastards!!!

@General
Hurrah we are all at the start of round 20. Can you all roll initiative again?

@Mandala
Your wish is granted: Angel's life support system opens with a whoosh as strange gases are released, and she wakes up.
Don't worry with the final dodge: the rage spirits, while angry, have a slight sense of self preservation, and are fleeing. There appear to be only a handful of spirits left, and they are not attacking you: there is a much more attractive target ... Angel

@Edana
On IP 1 can you roll dumpshock? You can have a +2 as your life support system cushions you a bit from it.
This is a 'little' confusing, as while you have peeked at the real world illicitly with the help of ZERO, you haven't ever 'been' here. Fortunately your body is in excellent condition, but you are -2 on all physical tasks as you wobble around. Getting into combat would be a bad idea ^TM.
There is wifi here, and you can access it.
Sadly you loose the resonance well, as that was artificially created by the experimental life support system.

@Fearghas
All systems are functional. You can move around again. There is a pile of unconscious or dead guards. No sign of any movement apart from the walking/talking corpse that was tending you. Your commlink seems to work. The magical mind-net isn't working at the moment. Your clock indicates that you were only unconscious for a few seconds, not the half hour it felt like in the dream. Your memory of the dream isn't fading: it felt real and you remember it as well as the details of the fight.

@Aria
You have full access to the Major's systems. Go play. Don't forget the Denial Of Service attack. In addition wireless signal to the Major is dropping. There is a very good chance that next round you will be dumped, as you feel there is little access to wifi in the panic room.

@Sabs
Magical Tacnet is showing an explosion of red. I think this is the round in which you are working out what you did. I'm happy for you to connect to the magical tacnet this round again (increasing your options next round)

@Alyena
The rage spirits have just reached your body. The room is beginning to be trashed. A few are attacking your mana barrier. Good timing on the casting.
Pounding on your mana barrier: 9, 4, 7, 4, 5 damage. Without the barrier they would have been pounding on you!
These spirits are big enough that I won't be running them as a mischief

@Bjeorn
You can pound on the panic room door, or turn and face the incoming horde of spirits. Jonathan's position maybe a little awkward real soon.

My initiatives:
You have deal with almost all of my treasured NPCs so I guess I am reduced to:
Rage spirits (rank 5 & 6 initiative): 12
Rage spirits (rank 1 & 2 initiative): 5

Round 20 initiative: 1 success

Only 8 in total

IP1
Rage spirits on my mana barrier....Ouch! Soak for mana barrier: make that 4 damage to the barrier.

Force 9 slaughter spirit spell on its way: 5 successes
resist drain: 3 successes gives me another stun.

Task spirit first aiding Alyena's body: 6 successes That's 4 stun back, so just down 2.

IP 2
Mana barrier soak 10 damage! my barrier is still, just, there.
Another slaughter spirit: 7 successes Take that pesky spirits!

Getting to Angel and her nice fluffy background suddenly seems even more attractive.

@Aria
I might have diddled you out of a round: just say what you want to do. Edana is up to date. I keep summarizing as I know I find it hard to keep track of who / where / what / why. There are about 6 places that people are in!

@Alyena

IP 1:
Their resist slaughter spirit is: 5,5,4,3,6 There are other spirits in the area of effect. They resisted with 4, 4, 5, 4, 6
Half of them resist, half are mangled hideously.
Their attacks on your mana barrier: 5, 1, 4, 1, 2
The mana barrier screeches a little, but is still showing green.

You have their full attention after that most unpleasant of spells and all the spirits in the room charge your mana barrier next IP

IP2:
Second resist slaughter spirit: 2, 4, 5, 7, 1 and the ones initially not fighting you3, 4, 4, 3, 2
Attacks from the healthy spirits: 7, 5, 6, 0, 7
Attacks from the wounded spirits: 7, 4, 4, 5, 6
Your mana barrier flashes into the red, before regenerating back to green
The couple of not dead spirits limp away back into the corridor. Another 3 come into the room

@Bjeorn
A swarm of spirits (like Alyena about 10 of them) are charging into the area. Unlike her you are not behind a barrier...muhaha. This round 3 of them come to get you.
Their attacks: 4, 5, 3 base damage 3P
Don't forget you are in an area with a background count of Aztech 4.

@General
This swarm was meant to kill a horror...pleased to see it isn't doing bad. Just as well they are too crazed to sensibly use spirit powers!

Spoof 14D (with -4) = 4 hits (or 3 hits if the -6 was there in rnd 19?!?)

I get some more attempts if required. If I succeed I want to flood his system with chemicals (if it kills him great, but he'd not make a good nemesis then ).

I'll log out before we loose wifi to avoid dumpshock

@Aria
Its a rank 3 agent... wussy and insignificant. You spoof it with ease.

You find a menu for the auto-injector: "Choice of chemicals: Kamikaze, Bliss, Nitro, Zen and a couple marked experimental 1, experimental 2." Its a free action to trigger the injection of any one, although you believe that its a maximum speed of 1/second (i.e. IP) as there is a physical mechanism involved. Alyena said "overdosing on Kamikaze might be 'interesting'".

You could also "dive into" the first aid, and instead of doing healing things do harming things. The first aid kit isn't really designed for this though.

@ Aria

What I actually said was "not good" (meaning for us)
A cocktail of Bliss and Nitro could be...erm... good. The first will tranq him, coming down of the second may well kill him

However as I'm a nice and fluffy person I couldn't possibly suggest such a thing

OK, sorry, I missed that. Somewhere along the way I got the impression only the outer ward remained.

Mandala has learned the usefulness of hiding in the Golden Beauty background! He may be gimped, but the swarm is even more so. So, yeah, come join him in Room 12 and we can work outwards from there. I believe it was you who suggested we talk about the Spirit Pact, no?

*****

Angel is freed but not yet up and about. This is good, as Mandala still cannot see her. So ...

Initiative for Round 20: 12 dice ==> 6 HITS

Initiative = 18. This should beat all the rage spirits present.

IP 1: Hmmm... Angel is now more vulnerable. The spirits must be neutralized. I'll try a new tactic: blast 'em! (Oh... )

Force 12 Stunball (Which will act like Force 9 but Drain like Force 15... this will hurt):

MAG 6 + Spellcasting 3 = 9 dice ==> 3 HITS

So, 9S DV + 3 hits

Drain is 9P!

Drain resistance: 19 dice ==> 5 HITS

Leaves 4P damage. Mandala now has a total of 5P damage.

Ouch. I mean really Ouch. Personally I have never had that high a drain code...ever

A force 15 stunball would normally be drain code F/2 + 1. The force rounds down so 15/2 +1 is 8 I think (happy for others to check my sums). So thats saves you one damage.
Given the huge self sacrifice, the spirits in the room get their 1 success using the 4:1 rule, and are utterly blasted.

Should I be mean and get Angel to resist? I tell you what how about if you cast that on the astral world only...

Have a free point of edge for such a heroic act

Oh yeah, I rounded the wrong way. Thanks! Only 4P total now! (3 + 1 from earlier)

Yes, I was trying to avoid hitting her, hoping not to see her because of the open lid, etc. If she is visible to Mandala, then yes, he would have taken the easy route and cast astrally, as Mandala is present on both planes simultaneously.

Wouldn't want to blow away the new technomancer friend, now would we?

Woohoo! It pays to be stupid brave! Thanks again.

I wonder what Mandala would look like in a pink mohawk?

Interesting discussion about background count and its effects on spells, including THIS statement by Demonseed Elite, who apparently wrote the rules on BGC. Follow the thread from the link onwards to see the discussion with him involved.

His take is that instantaneous spells (like direct combat spells) cast from outside a background count into it are not affected by it.

Nice fluff. As close to RAW as we are going to get.

I think I will go with it in most circumstances. Spells vs CyberZombies (should you ever meet another, or Major Nemesis return) will still be trashed, but that's because of their new CyberZombie anti-magic power. I may also invoke the CyberZombie antimagic power for other monsters / characters too, but I will try and make it obvious.

Cool cool. I think the first aid was supposed to take a few more combat turns than it did (not to mention how on earth did the spirit climb up all those shelves to pull the unconscious Fearghas down from where he was floating? ) but I'm not really complaining. Just saying that it's use of First Aid, not Second Wind.

I'm on board with that. Cyberzombies are fundamentally wrong, and even the universe itself thinks a cyberzombie is supposed to be dead, by RAW. It's fine by me if the act of violating an extremely fundamental universal law does more to the mana around the CZ than just impose emotionally torturous psychoactive aspects. I would point out that giving Cyberzombies be-all end-all magic armor wouldn't be strictly necessary, though. They can have shotguns and grenade launchers IN THEIR ARMS, for goodness sake. And if they suddenly find themselves under fire from spellcasters, they can fire a smoke grenade in front of them and use their Skimmer Disk Raptor Legs of Awesome to move like Mary Shelly's Frankenstein monster into melee range... which will cripple the spellcaster's magic like nobody's business. No combat spell magic armor needed. And good luck surviving melee combat with a cyberzombie.

I'm attempting to catch up after being out for the weekend. Still a bit behind.

Assuming I understood you correctly about the control of the DDoS though, it should have been shut down on my R19 IP 5, as I 'killed' the IC on IP 4.

Dumpshock: 3 Hits, so I take 2P, and have -2 to all actions for 5 minutes. (I'm not caught up on reading, so not sure what caused this, but it's mighty inconvenient .)

Notes

Seth, as I'm currently oblivious to all these spirits floating around can you confirm what is between Ryl and Angel's room? Where did the cadaver men go to?

I don't think I have to dodge a machine gun nest (an intact one anyway) to get there?!?

Think we're about done in the matrix now unless anyone can think of anything else specific that needs doing? I'll link the camera feeds into the tacnet and then take on drake form I think for some carnage (at least until I realise that the astral is lousy with spirits in a bad mood...)

@Fearghas
To be honest I don't know how long first aid takes. I tend to think of it being (in this case) sticking a trauma patch on you, or waving ammonia under your nose. I had a quick look in the rule book, and it takes a complex action per point of damage that it heals. I guess that means at the start of round 20 you are coming round, and by the third IP, the first aid is complete.
When I said all systems functional, I should have been clearer. You have the boxes of stun back that Alyena's spirit gave you. As I recall you are under the effect of loads of narcotics that mean you are not at a crippling penalty for all those stun points.
As far as climbing goes: the body had strength 11 and if it needed to it could have used psychokinesis
(Mostly I was trying to make it so that you didn't spend the next few weeks of real time not doing anything...)

@Edana
Hope you had a good weekend.
The DOS hasn't gone down...in fact its getting worse (the bots are doing what they were last instructed to do). You just needed to grab the whip, study it, and then use a command program to tell all the bots in the botnet to do whatever you want them to do. As it happens I think you are now dumpshocked, so I don't think the DOS will still be getting you.
I agree its inconvenient: the rage spirits smashed up your life support system, and when it stopped working properly it initiated an emergency wakeup.

@Aria
I suggest that you go and turn off the DOS attack before leaving the Matrix, in case you want to go back in. (you can be still subscribed in that node, so I suspect its a free action to work out what the whip did, and a complex action to issue a command program: computer or hacking (your choice) + command).
The rage spirits were flooding out of the dagger that Marduk used (there are no new ones leaving it at the moment). They have by now killed everything living (apart from you lot) on Angel's floor. They have reached your room and would be killing you , but Alyena was ready for them with a mana barrier and a slaughter spirit.

@General
Just a quick reminder where people are:

• Marduk room 27a
• Alyena and Ryl above the basement storeroom (actually these are Snake Head's quarters)
• Fearghas is in the basement storeroom on top of some shelves
• Bjeorn is in the security room
• Mandala and Angel are in Angel's room

Apart from the rage spirits (which are a serious threat) there are no living enemies below the temple area, although there are now plenty of undead threats as the rage spirits are possessing the bodies of the people that you and they have dealt with.

Well, You might as well be in Drake Form, Aria. You're dual natured all the time not just in drake form.

I'm trying to catch up and understand where we are at. I think.. I'm busy studying the dagger till round 21? And then I reconnect to the tacnet, and have 3 ip again. (I think)

Is that right Seth?

Yeah, it was pretty good. In any case though, depending on the actions necessary I still had my entire IP 5 free to grab the control and shut down the bots. (Threading isn't an action, I just listed it on IP 5 as something I was definitely doing.) Regardless though, being dumped means I don't have to worry about it any more since I can just respoof my accessid if I try to connect again.

Angel's awake, but is she still in the tank? How much equipment is still connected to her, etc? Sensory deprivation is a non-trivial thing, so I'm guessing she's going to be stuck until someone gets her out?

I'm pretty sure I'm only dual natured in drake form

Might as well turn off the botnet before I go...rolls soon...

Well, Mandala is right there, Edana, and the immediate spirit threat is neutralized, so he will head over to see what he can do.

You can be projecting in round 21 and have three actions.

I think I have told you about what happened, but here is a little more:

• You stab someone and spirits come out.
• If you make your willpower check then you can (roughly) control some/most of them (depends on how many successes you get).
• You suspect that you need a sympathetic link to your target to really get the spirits to do what you want them to do.
• You have used up about a third of the spirits in the dagger, so if you want more fun and games, you could try and let the rest out .
• Mostly you were unprepared for it, so you got blindsided: hence the dumpshock. You think if you did it again you would have much better control.

@Aria
Don't worry about rolls, you or Angel are easily good enough to do it.
You are correct Ryl is only dual natured in her draco form. (its very nice actually all the wins of dual natured with an off button)
The rage spirits are manfesting if they can, and possessing anything dead if they cannot. They don't seem to be possessing living things at the moment.

This is proper high tech stuff. 3 complex actions will remove all the bits of wires and stuff on her: most of them had allready retracted.

@Edana
I covered the rough guidelines above: you are at -2 on all actions (the equivalent of 6 wounds...so that's pretty tottery). You have seen the real world through cameras, and have controlled drones before. This is similar but different, but I'm not going to cripple you that much.
In practice this sensory deprivation was used to enable you to surf the networks and live in a virtual world, so the mental instability caused by sensory deprivation is not a problem for you.
Your body is in good working order, maintained by machines which exercise it, and even sorted out basic hand eye coordination

The really good news for you is that there is an Evo Orderly here complete with 2 robot arms and walking legs. Its taken a bit of damage, but thanks to Mandalas quick intervention is not that damaged (it wasn't alive or containing something alive, so it wasn't that attractive a target).

Gonna make my skull study roll :)

logic(8)+Magic theory(6)+PuShED(1)+analytics(3)+Itemhistory(4)=22d6 4 1 6 6 2 4 2 2 1 6 5 4 4 1 5 6 5 1 5 2 5 3 (9) hits

That's much nicer.
Oh and what does my happy TacNet say once I have reconnected to it.

Ah.. OK. I'll rewrite my post to use the orderly.

Mispost

Hi guys.

Bjeorn will duck dodge and weave those pesky spirits that are attacking him: The third one will land a single success
I'll soak the damage from that spirit: 7 successes

Then I'll attack one for 3 successes

This doesn't look like a good situation: I can fight for a while here but I will eventually go down. Jonathan's body is here as well. Does anyone know if I could pick up/push his Rigger Cocoon and try and get back to the basement where I can meet up with many of you others? If I leave Jonathan here he will probably get chewed to death.

You can, but you will shunt him into dumpshock.
Not sure how much damage that would do.
Get Ryl to tell him to disconnect first?

Just checking where people are in posts:

Bjeorn is now about to start IP 2 of round 20
Aria: not sure...you tell me
Edana: I think you need to post about dumpshock and the real world
Sabs: You might want to post about your musing on the dagger etc
Alyena: I think you are most of the way through 20.
Fearghas: as per last OOC post, I think you are happily posted until the start of round 21

I think you need to come up with a plan to deal with the rage spirits. There are very puny inside Angel's aura. Alyena's mana barrier (just) held and the rage spirits are going after easier pray. At the moment they are down to the ground floor, but it won't be long before they get to the basement.

I'm happy to move away from combat rounds very soon if you come up with a credible plan.

I suspect Lean'drea is lost in the dragon's egg room. I have a couple of people wanting to join in as reservists, so I will probably invite them when the situation has stabilised.

I think its reasonable that the rigger cocoon is on coasters. I have this image in mind. Its probably going to be very bumpy for Jonathan going down the stairs, if that's the way you go

Hmm..... I think I was getting a little ahead of myself. The task spirit will not be done with all the first aiding necessary 'til the end of round 22. I'll leave the IC post as it is, it's still correct just finishes later.

My suggestion is we regroup on Angel and her fluffy aura, perhaps more accurately she and Mandala regroup on us. She can move through the rage spirits (in the evo-orderly) more safely than we can, especially with Mandala riding shotgun!
Bjorn can bring Jonathan in his cocoon, my task spirit can use my body to carry Ryl. (Have this vision of her ending up draped over the cocoon with Bjorn pushing them both!)

@ Mandala
Does a spirit pact mean you can cast one of my spells? It would be really useful to have more Slaughter spells or Mana barriers atm!
How best can we bring down the Temple ward? I believe the 2nd and 3rd blood pumps are in the Temple and on the floor above. We still need to take them out with either the chemicals or physically to bring down the blood ward. The rage spirits have trashed the first one by now, I think, so we can't use that for the chemicals

Heh! I can walk/fly for myself thank you very much!

Let's regroup (somewhere) and go horror bashing

I'm not sure whether the background count in Room 12 will move with Angel. If it is the result of Astral Hazing, once she moves out of the area it will shrink to be only around her, slowly growing again only after she stops moving.

Yes, Mandala could take one of Alyena's spells. Slaughter [X] is not his bag... Pacifist and all that, and his Stunball seems to do fine. Mana Barrier would be OK. But wouldn't Shatter be useful to take out a pump? What Spirit Power would Alyena like to have? If I recall, Seth won't allow sharing Immunity to Normal Weapons, but I bet you could use Resist Background (1). I haven't figured out the mechanism for Spirit Pact, but I suspect over the millenia we have worked out the details and kinks.


Shatter spells? Two of us in concert, for 3 or 4 times per combat round? Something's gotta give. Or at least open a hole to put in the chemicals. Is there a Ward keeping us from getting to the floor above? I'm confused about that point.

can't Bjeorn just rip something open?

I suspect he can. I am a little worried about one of us actually touching the blood, though. No clear idea what it might do, but erring on the side of caution seems prudent in this hell-hole.

As I understand it, hazing has a range of essence metres in any case. A 10 metre diameter bubble of Golden Beauty should be adequate!

Spirits powers: The ITnW ban was just so that I didn't have to increase the threat level even higher. Interesting aside though for rules aficionado's like yourself: If you read the power materialisation you can see that it grants you the power ITnW. So you only have the power while materialised. Spirit Pact explicitly prohibits the sharing of materialisation or possession...so I suspect that the non sharing of ITnW is RAW.

Spirit Pact: Heavy form: an hour long ritual with candles, mantras, suitable stuff. Light form: 1 complex action for each edge attribute Mandala possesses, and I complex action for each essence that the recipient has. (Not RAW: but it feels about right).

Wards: The only ward inside the pyramid left is the natural ward around a Magical Lodge. All the other wards evaporated when Warder was defeated. The Magical Lodge though has its ward as a function of existing, and was not maintained by Warder. The middle area of the floor above you is the temple area (according to the map). Ask away if you want more data about it. You suspect that it will not take long for your shattershield to smash through almost any ward: and as far as you know the ward around any temple is a basic ward with no unpleasant retaliatory effects.


Did Mandala say that? Mr "I can deal with the Sword Witch on my own"???

I'm with Alyana behind her ward. Matrix stuff being now more or less useless as far as I can tell I'm going to shift to drake form and help clear these spirits before we head upwards...

IC post hopefully this afternoon...

Oh yeah. OK.

I've vacillated between both sides of this one for a while. I'm happy with whatever you say.

Works for me. So the Light Form would take something on the order of a minute, tops. Would the Light Form last a shorter period of time than the stated 24 hours? That would make sense, too.

I was more concerned about someone actually touching the blood than the ward itself. OK, so if I interpret the map correctly, that Magical Lodge seems to be around the second floor, where the Horror is based. I believe our task is to get rid of the outer ward that is keeping our 'employers' out. There is a pump on the third floor, but we can't get to that without either going through the second floor or outside the pyramid and back in. The latter is not going to work until we get the blood pumps nuked, so it looks like we have to go through the Horror's center of power.

Our employers are much better suited to deal with the Horror than we are, but they can't get at him till we bring down the outer ward. We can't bring down the outer ward till we, probably, deal with the Horror right where he is strongest. Do I have this about right?


Yeah.. ummm... well... that was sort of a spur of the moment thing. If he has a chance to think about things, Mandala may be a bit more cautious. See above.

I'm still waiting on finding out what my investigation on the skull is.

Hopefully nobody wanted any more matrix stuff doing

Power up time!

Agility Boost 2 hits = Agi 7
Reaction Boost 3 hits = Rea 6

Drain at 1:4 (only needs 1 success to cancel) = 0

Initiative 11D 3 hits = 14 [2IPs]