Agility 7 + Assault Rifle 7 + Smartlink 2 - Target partially covered 1 = 6 hits.

Gas vent, shock pad, and cyberarm gyromount negate the -5 recoil. Damage before net hits is 12P with -2 AP.

Nice job! Ok. It only gets 3 hits on its dodge. So it has to try soaking up 15P -2AP damage. The extra DV from burst mode don't count for comparing the damage to it's Hardened Armor, but you still managed to get high enough to get through. So the ghost gator rolls 14 dice to try soaking the damage, gets 4 hits, spends an Edge to reroll missed dice and gets 7 more hits. Still it takes 4 boxes of Physical damage.
It opens its mouth wide in silent scream of pain. The silence from even with such obvious pain is downright unnerving. It's eyes are firmly locked onto Tundra

----------

Gardner already posted his actions and the Gator was able to resist the Stunbolt.

-----------

Still waiting on actions for Legs, but everybody else can post up actions too. Doberman drone is next, thenQuixote, then Mr. White.

Hmm...I'm assuming that we were allowed to bring our heavy hardware down with us, in which case I would've kept the FN 5-7C loaded with SnS and the Alpha loaded with ExEx.
Free Action: Pee myself
Simple Action: Draw Alpha
Simple ACtion: Fire a long narrow burst

Agility (7) + Automatics (1) + Smartlink (2) - Crowded Area (1) - Wounds Modifier (-2) (7d6.hits(5)=2)
Very nearly glitched there, heh. Damage before net hits is 12P -2AP. Gas Vent, Shock Pad and Personalized Grip take care of the recoil.

Ghost Gator managed to get 2 hits on his dodge. So, he slips to the side as your bullets rain rock fragments down from the ceiling.

Hopefully, Forces in Motion can get his computer working again soon so he can post actions for Legs and his drone. While we wait for that [/b]Mr. White[/b] can post his actions for the round. And then the absolutely terrified Pip will be trying to run for his life.

I will try to hold on to Pip. Or at least put a reassuring hand on his shoulder before he gets too far, saying: "Stay together, I'll protect you"

Between ordering the Spirit and casting your spell at the Gator, Gardner doesn't have any actions this pass to try and grab the kid or even give him a reassuring hand.

But I guess I can let your words be an attempt at Leadership, but take a -2 penalty because Pip has seen a friend killed by the Ghost Gator before as well as have just seen a big chunk of Quixote's shoulder bitten off in an instant of surprise.

This doesn't seem much like a situation requiring guile or careful negotiation, so Mr. White will mostly be trying to stay out of the way- He'll attempt to be useful by keeping an eye out on the surrounds, it would stink to be attacked by a magic crocodile and then to be attacked by something else. So:

• Staying out of the way
• Keeping an eye out for other dangers
• Drawing his pistol

Hey guys, a heads up. My wife and kiddo are both sick and either throwing up or feeling like they're about to. I'm catching something my throat as well it feels like, hopefully not the precursor to what they're going through, so my checking in here for the near future (couple of days probably) is probably going to be spotty at best. Feel free to move things along without me/make rolls for me, pretty much just gonna try shooting that damn gator until it stops moving. And then maybe a couple more rounds, just in case.

Ok, I'd been hoping Forces in Motion could get his computer fixed by now, but guess it can't be helped. To keep from further delaying the game, I'm going to roll with his real world issues being in game commlink issues that will leave him and his drone out of action until he can post again.

So to close out the first IP, Mr. White can tell his bullets would likely just bounce off the gator's hide, but he keeps is cool and begins strategizing ways to get the team out of there quickly and safely in case that is needed.

Pip starts stumbling away and will soon start running away all out (next IP) unless Gardner is successful on that Leadership roll I asked for.


----------------------

Top of the new round, the Spirit and Tundra Wolf are up. Followed by the Ghost Gator.

If Pip seems likely to get away, Mr. White will likely take a shot at him.

I'll assume you mean a shot a calming him down rather than a shot of your gun at him. though a called shot to his leg would be sure to prevent him from getting away.

Or is it that Mr. White believes Pip set this up and is just planning to run with the money?

Well, I'm gonna shoot it again. And a third time to be certain.

Simple action: Long narrow burst at gator. Agility 7 + Assault Rifle 7 + Smartlink 2 - Target partially covered 1 = 2 hits.
Sigh. I imagine that'll get dodged. Gas vent, shock pad, and cyberarm gyromount negate the -5 recoil. Damage before net hits is 12P with -2 AP.
Simple action: Short narrow burst at gator. Agility 7 + Assault Rifle 7 + Smartlink 2 - Target partially covered 1 - Recoil 1 = 2 hits. Dammit. Gas vent, shock pad, and cyberarm gyromount negate 7 of the 8 recoil points. Damage before net hits is 9P with -2 AP.
Free action: Short stream of swearing in Russian.

Well, with it's injury I was going to say you give it too much credit.... but the dice are with the Ghost Gator. It rolled 3 hits on both rolls. It's definitely going to be coming right for you unless the Spirit is able to do something to it.

It's mouth opens wide and snaps in your direction, all without a sound.

Gardner doesn't inspire anything in the boy (yet), no hits on the improvised roll. (I wasn't sure I wanted to even roll it, with the penalties that leaves me at only 1 die...)

The Spirit will continue its attempt at restraining the creature, continuing with Engulf.

Agility 5 + Unarmed Combat 6 = dice pool of 11 -> 4 hits on the roll.

Damage is 6 + Net Hits, resisted by Body + half Impact armor.

Hopefully with the successive attacks since its last action phase and the wound penalties the Gator won't manage to shrug it off this time... we'll see >.<

I sure hope so, I'd like to continue shooting it rather than try gator-wrasslin'. (I heard that last bit in my head with an "in-Soviet-Russia" accent. It hurt. A lot.)

Well you were successful in forcing the Gator to use its final point of Edge. It only rolled 1 hit on its defense, but then 4 more hits when using Edge to reroll failed dice.

The beast surges forward along the ceiling towards the Tundra Wolf who injured it so severely. It leaps down on top of you as its claws try to dig into your skin and its teeth scrabble for purchase on your neck if it can. The Ghost Gator gets 4 hits on its 8P -2AP bite.

------------------

Gardner himself can take a turn now followed by Quixote.

------------------

Also, with Gardner's failed attempt at leadership, Pip will be scrambling away in earnest. So, if Mr. White wants to shoot him, he can.

Umm....i'm not even sure how "gator-wrasslin" would even sound in a Soviet-Russian accent. That does hurt my brain... It's also going to hurt Tundra Wolf because it is definitely happening.

Well, there is that, I suppose.

Reaction 6 + Cyberimplant blades 5 = 4 hits. Not sure how you parry a ghost gator, but there you go.

Good job, you were able to smack it's jaws to the side of your neck so it only bit off some of the rock wall behind you.

Is everybody still recovering from the holidays? Seems like we're stalling out a little bit.

Currently looking for actions from Gardner and Quixote.

Also, Pip is trying to run away. So if Mr. White wants to do something, shoot him, build up his confidence with words, intimidate him into standing still with a near miss, whatever; go ahead and post your actions. I was basically just delaying your and Pip's actions for the first pass until after we Gardner made his leadership roll.

Apologies gents, had a huge number of customers at work the last few weeks, and family is finally on the mend with the whole sick crap. Work is still stupid busy (fix macs for a living, and boy oh boy it seems like everyone's resolution for the year is to give me money) but I should be back to checking on this at least once or twice a day.

As for Quixote...

Simple: Long narrow burst at the gator.
Agility (7) + Automatics (1) + Smartlink (2) - Crowded Area (1) - Wounds Modifier (-2) (7d6.hits(5)=2) 12P -2AP. Gas Vent, Shock Pad and Personalized Grip take care of the recoil.
Simple: Short narrow burst at the gator.
Agility (7) + Automatics (1) + Smartlink (2) - Crowded Area (1) - Wounds Modifier (-2) (7d6.hits(5)=0)
Using edge to reroll
Agility (7) + Automatics (1) + Smartlink (2) - Crowded Area (1) - Wounds Modifier (-2) (7d6.hits(5)=4)
9P -2AP. Gas Vent, Shock Pad and Personalized Grip take care of the recoil.

Obviously, if the first one somehow manages to be enough to drop it, I won't use that point of edge nor the second burst.

The dice gods are not with the Ghost Gator today. It only got 1 hit on the first dodge of which is soaked up 9 with its resistance test. Still, it took another 4 boxes before your second attack.

On the second attack it again only got 1 hit and did far worse on the damage resistance test. You just killed yourself a Ghost Gator! It took 8 more boxes of damage and was torn into swiss cheese.

Tundra Wolf might be a bit upset with you as some of the bullets went right through the dead flesh and hit him too, but I'm not going to make him roll anything. His armor was able to stop any that came through.

------------------

Hopefully Mr. White or somebody else will post something soon saying how they stop Pip from running away. I'd hate to have to make you all try to hunt him down.

Mr. White is going to give the kid a warning shot, and order him to stop running.

Pistols test:

6D6E5 => 4


Slacker mentioned letting me use those successes on a Leadership test, so here goes. (I assume I add the 4 successes as dice in this test?)



Damn.

10D6E5 => 3

That's plenty good enough. You're able to scare Pip into stopping long enough to see Quixote kill the Ghost Gator.

-------------------------

It'll take some gentle words and reassuarences from Gardner to call him down and get him moving again. But no roll is necessary.

You all can go ahead with any IC posts you'd like to make regarding the Ghost Gator incident and i'll be posting something IC for the next scene soon.

Working on an IC post in between jobs at work, it'll be done before the weekend.

That goes along well with what I was going to have Gardner do. I contemplated having him attack the Gator, but it's more in his nature to make sure that Pip doesn't run off and get hurt. He takes a few steps to keep up with Pip and talks to him quickly to calm him down after he gets a hold of him (when he stops running).

So now we're back to post-battle recovery.

Quixote was the only one hit, right?

What is his Essence lost? He's awakened too right?

I'll patch him up as best I can.

Quixote is rocking something like 3.3X essence, so if you round it to the nearest whole number believe it's 3 essence lost, as well as being awakened. Aw yeah, hard as hellz to healz for the win. Think I need to sneak better

Also...how big is this thing? I'm somewhat tempted to try and take part/all of it and get it taxidermied. Surely someone in the Ork Underground can do that for me

TW wants a couple of it's teeth. No, seriously, he does. He'll cut them out of it's head with his boot knife.

It's bigger than Gardner. The body is 3 meters long, plus another meter for the tail. Good luck trying to drag that along with you in the tunnels. I'm sure it's blood wont' attract any other creatures along the way.....

The teeth are all bigger than your knife, but I'm sure if you take enough time you could mangle it's mouth enough to get a couple of them.

Damn. Note to self: Come back down here loaded up to take another one of these things down so I can mount the head.

Good luck with that.

Those are some big teef...errr, teeth.

So we're supposed to both talk to this smuggler about why Fiona wanted to talk to him and convince him to follow us to a place where KE can nab him, right? If so, how do we want to go about this? There's a lot of them and few of us, so the "come with us if you want to live" option is probably not the best.

Current Missions:
1. Locate Fiona and ensure that she is safe - You've found clues that she was supposed to meet Jack the night she disappeared
2. Locate Morel Stone - A rock Fiona was planning to show and possibly offer for sale to the Atlantis Foundaton (assumption is that she has it or knows where to find it)
3. Capture Jack Turner and escort him out of the Underground to the jurisdiction of KE by any means necessary (I'm not sure if they said so explicitly, but they do want him alive)

Pirates Cove seems to be the home to many different smugglers that are likely to have entrenched rivalries. As of right now, you don't know who or how many friends/guards Jack might have in the area. You have managed to spot his smuggling ship at the rickety docks, but further investigation will be necessary to know anything about it, other than it's a smallish ship docked in this hidden underground cove.

Hmmm, so the question is how much honor is amongst these thieves. Which we need to figure out with an increasingly small window of legwork time. Suppose we could pay the little shite some more nuyen and see if we can't get some idea of the political tides down here....any ideas from our more socially-adept teammates?

Gardner starts out trying to make sure Pip is alright, he'll try to bond a bit with the Ork kid by offering to show him how to perform first aid, or dissect the magical creature. (He'll gauge interest first, won't push it on him if he doesn't seem interested)

Of particular interest might be his Shamanic mask when he casts the healing spell. With the higher Force of the spell, he takes on the distinct appearance of the Green Man. His eyes glow green and his beard and hair start to look like vines and leaves.




After a few minutes applying some old-fashioned bandages followed by a flash of magical power Quixote heals 4P damage. Sadly my rolls were reversed of what I would have liked to successfully heal you up. Plus I didn't quite make my Drain Resistance, because of all your damage so I took a point myself.
First Aid -> 4 hits (capped at skill rating of 2); healing 2 damage
Spellcasting -> 2 hits; healing 2 damage
Drain Resistance -> 3 hits vs DV of 4; dealing 1 damage back to Gardner




Gardner will stop Tundra Wolf before he does significant damage to the body as he roughly attempts to extract a trophy. "Hold on, I actually have the right tools for that. This is a powerful paranormal creature, we might be able to extra some parts that could be used as magical reagents. Might be worth selling or even keeping..." He removes a talislegger kit from his bag and sets to removing some choice parts of the Ghost Gator.




Now might be another good time to use a spirit to Search again? or do we want to look ourselves first and save that if we don't find what we're looking for...

Even with the beast dead, Pip doesn't want to be anywhere close to it. He is also extremely anxious about staying by the gator even a moment longer. You have him well in hand so that there is no danger of him running away, but he is anxious in the extreme. Repeatedly talking about various creatures that of the Underground that will be attracted by the scent of the gators blood....

i.e. You have enough time for quick trophies, but if you are going to be trying to take the time to dissect and/or collect talismonger supplies from the corpse, we're going to be needing some more rolls before you guys make it to the Pirates Cove.

When you get to Pirates Cove, you can certainly have a spirit do Search for Fiona. I can't remember, but I believe you have one service left with your current Spirit.

Mr. White will suggest some tentative planning before reaching pirates cove.

Discovering the whereabouts/condition of Fiona might be the easiest. The potential complication there is if the answer is "Trussed like a pig and awaiting sale to slavers", or something. Then we need to determine whether we have an added moral imperative.

Gaining possession of the Morel Stone could be similarly complicated. I will be shocked if at any point someone says "Oh? Yeah, this stone? Here you go!"

Getting Jack into the jurisdiction of KE will certainly be tricky. Without a long complicated con its unlikely that he'll simply accompany us to his capture. Mr. White's stance will be that we take that one on the fly. If a situation presents itself that allows us to fool him or kidnap him, then so be it. Otherwise, the risk outweighs the reward.

Either way, his approach to the situation upon arrival at Pirates Cove is to be relatively truthful. They have been hired to locate a certain person, and he'll try to speak directly with Jack about Fiona.

Pip would certainly take any more nuyen you want to give him, and he will give you the absolute best run down on the socio-political climate of the Pirates Cove.

You could also give me a perception check to get a rough idea from what you can see of the town.

So, that's one vote for walking up to Jack turners boat and saying 'hello'. Any other takers on that option? And other suggestions?

Intuition 4 + Perception 3 + Visual Enhancers 3 + Actively Looking 3 - Subject not in immediate vicinity=2 hits. Not bad, but nothing earth-shattering either.

TW will transfer another ¥50 to Pip, and ask him about what's the scoop with the Cove (who's in charge if any, who's the loose cannon/most likely to shoot first and maybe ask questions later, etc).

When Mr. White suggests the Direct Approach, TW will simply raise an eyebrow, and say that if that's the plan he'll wait outside the ship to discourage "interruptions".

With 2 hits on perception, you don't see any signs of authority anywhere. You don't even seen any gang colors anywhere. You notice some people give the group of you surly glances, though nobody is bothering and they seem to be just as likely to give each those same dirty looks.

Pip will tell you that "ain't nobody in charge of the Cove." It's every smuggler for himself. He doesn't get out this way too often, so he doesn't know everybody in the place (and he hints that 50 nuyen isn't enough to jog his memory all that much). He mentions a couple of big time smugglers that supposedly operate out of here; Goram Redhorn, Bent Nose Lee, DP Roberts, Jack Turner.... But he doesn't remember much more than their names.

Or we could go for the con. Taking a page from Tarentino's book, we roll up on Jack and tell him that we're interested in some goods, BTLs, drugs, weapons, people, whatever. We discuss, and keep an eye out for Fiona. If we see any sign of her, we casually inquire, no biggie.

In what I assume is the last of my personal luck, Gardner is apparently paying attention with 4 hits on his Perception.

Gardner will give Pip another 100 nuyen (in addition to what I already gave him and what Tundra Wolf gave), see if he can "remember" anything else.

Just thought of it, but Gardner can also check out the boat Astrally before the team heads up.

As for getting Jack: One option could be to get onto his boat, knock him out/restrain him and use his own boat to get him into KE jurisdiction.


...Sorry, I'm suffering from allergies or something right now, having trouble concentrating, but I wanted to get a bit of that out while I remembered...

With 4 hits on perception, you get a more concrete feel that there isn't any authority in the Cove. From the attitudes the various people have towards each other, you'd guess they only grudgingly refrain from hurting one another. You don't get the sense that any of these people would come to somebody's aid if a fight broke out. A few might join in for some fun or if you happen to be in their way, but it definitely wouldn't be to help somebody.

Pip happily takes more money but doesn't really have much more to tell. He will tell you that the Skraacha and other gangs don't have any sway here. They stay out of the Cove all together because the smugglers can be rather violent with people trying to tell them what to do. He also gives you some more details about a couple of the other smugglers, but he doesn't know them by sight and can't point any of them out to you.

So, are you going to be doing astral projection to take a look at the boat? Where are you going to be when you leave your body to go into astral space? Are you just concerned with the boat?

---------------------------------------------

What is the rest of the team going to be doing while Gardner go astral?

I think he meant perception rather than projection, Slacker. If not, I guess TW will do his best to keep the troll's head from hitting the ground when he does his "puppet with strings cut" routine.

Astral Perception isn't going to be able to show much of anything. It appears a dull lifeless matter, with no wards on it and nobody (not magical or otherwise) is on deck. But you all could see that much with your regular eyes.

With projection he can look inside the boat, which is what I'd assumed he was planning.

Astral Perception initially to check for wards or roaming astral spirits. When I don't notice anything, I'll find a place to sit down before projecting, preferably out of direct sight of the smugglers. "I'm going to try scouting magically... watch my back..."

Still trying to be careful not to be noticed, though, even while Astral. Just in case I come across something that can see the Astral...

Ol' Mr. Quixote is gonna go a'looking for any matrix activity in the area, see if there's anything to lookit, analyze, hack into, or otherwise provide something in the way of electronic intelligence. That's a free action for active/passive nodes. Gonna do a general scan for hidden nodes in mutual signal range.

Scan (6) + Electronic Warfare (1) + PuSHeD (1) + Encephalon (1) - Wound Modifier (1) (8d6.hits(5)=3, 7d6.hits(5)=5, 6d6.hits(5)=3, 5d6.hits(5)=2, 4d6.hits(5)=1)

14 hits total (5 combat turns worth of time) so a bit shy of finding anything, and I don't feel...confident extending out further on the dice with the diminishing returns on extended tests. However, I figure there's probably gotta be some sort of device/signal on Mr. Jack's boat. I imagine/hope I can make a specific detect hidden node test. If not, feel free to throw the roll out.

Scan (6) + Electronic Warfare (1) + PuSHeD (1) + Encephalon (1) - Wound Modifier (1) (8d6.hits(5)=1)

Yeesh, one hit, never mind. Also, have we heard from Forces lately? If no, is it possible I could hack his drone and take it over? I'd give it back later, honest ork