Dramatis Personae
+Linlin Kins as Umquat the Specialist
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina the Magic User
+Spencer Kelty as Virgil the Jet Addicted Alistair
Loot:
- NADA
Character Modifications:
- Ronnina had Virgil mount the dead robot’s arm from the previous session onto her stump. It’s a little oversized for a teenaged girl, but works sufficiently well. Since that robot had mannequin hands, Ronnina has opted for a hook.
- Umquat cut her hair to look like Ronnina’s.
NPC Relationships
- The Hangman contacted Umquat directly to offer the group this job, which she clearly indicated was of a personal rather than a professional nature.
- All of the players followed Telcommo’s account on Croaker. Telcommo mostly tweets pictures of food, but they are notable for the food’s apparent quality. It’s really good looking food.
- The party briefly interacted with Robert the Barber. Robert the barber is a decent sort of fellow, keeps his ear to the ground, but tries to stay out of politics. Bad for the heart you know. Umquat paid him 2cred for a haircut, then 10 cred as a tip. Robert is very grateful for that.
Injuries
- Virgil is currently at 0 hit points, with 2 pain.
Player Requests / Referee To-Do List
- Virgil would like to recruit an Orphan army to scavenge busted technology for him.
- Virgil wants to repair the robot from the flight simulator complex to serve as security for the new Internet facility. Preferably in exchange for a gun he can repair, or just credits if necessary.
- Write a d100 table of interesting tech that could be found and fixed.
- Write a d10 table of terrible things the party could do to poor Ronnina
- Work up some sort of system for what should happen if virgil does a ton of drugs and locks himself in an engineering lab for a few hours. Most of the results should probably be pretty bad. Mixed at best.
Worldbuilding
- Several social networks exist. Most notably is Croaker, a sort of frog-themed variation of Twitter that emerged in the latter days of earth as a sort of retro throwback. Most of the site is filled with 400 year old tweets from people who are long dead. There are a few dozen active accounts, all members of The Internet.
- Facebook is was legally banned as part of the resolution of earth’s final war.
- The smart phones commonly used are a product of Sun Microsystems hardware, with software from Netscape.
Rulings
- When a character snipes (uses a ranged attack from a hidden position) they must immediately make a new stealth check at -2 to determine if their position is revealed. If they make another attack they make their check at -4. All further attacks require a stealth check at a -5 penalty to remain hidden.
Highlights Recap
April 2516 C.E.
The game opened with Umquat receiving a phone call from The Hangman. While normally The Hangman seems composed and disinterested, during this call she seemed notably unsettled. She asked Umquat to have the group recover an item of personal significance to her. She described it as a chunk of stone from a thoroughly broken statue; what appeared to be a sphere pressed against a bit of flesh.
It was being held in an old food dispensary on the edge of Outsider territory, near the No-Man’s-Land between them and the Rulers Beneath the Black. In preparation, Ronnina purchased a gallon of gasoline and a pesticide spraying pump.
The party made their way through Outsider territory, stopping a few blocks from their destination to ask a local shopkeep–a barber–what the news was. He mentioned a group of glowing eyed folks who had moved into a nearby food dispensary. He mentioned that folks around here were worried they were going to set up a new micro-tribe, like the Howlers. Most folks, he said, were making plans for where they’d go if they needed to flee. Umquat thanked him, and got herself a haircut.
When the party reached the food dispensary–a single story building–they discovered the entrance had been blocked off and the roof was patrolled by a woman with glowing eyes. They split up. Ronnina climbed a nearby decrepit building to get a better vantage on the patrol, Virgil snuck around the back of the building to see if he could find an entrance, and Umquat ran right up to the building and called out to the woman on the roof, crying about how she didn’t know how to get home, and trying to play on her age to elicit sympathy. The woman stopped and looked at her briefly, but then began scanning the area for ambush. Her movements were stiff, mechanical.
After watching the situation for a short time, and facetiming with Virgil (who had discovered an entrance), Ronnie opted to come down from the building and meet up with Umquat so they could join Virgil in the rear. Unfortunately, the building was decrepit, and as Ronnina moved to descend the floor collapsed under her. Fortunately the floor below held, but the cacophony echoed throughout the area, clearly catching the attention of the roof patrol. She opened her mouth, and a sound came out which resembled nothing so much as a zoo full of animals attempting to emulate television static.
Recovering, Ronnina and Umquat fled (though not without Ronnina putting her foot through a stair, and faceplanting on the floor before getting out of that decrepit building). The pair began to make their way around the food dispensary, taking a long route so as not to give away Virgil’s position.
Meanwhile, in the rear, Virgil had found a large dark hole in the wall, with four sets of legs barely visible in the shadows, and four sets of glowing eyes staring stoically out onto the street. Virgil managed to get off two shots with his crossbow, killing one of the mysterious figures, before his position was revealed. Beams of light erupted from their eyes, hitting Virgil in the hip and dealing him a grievous blow. Virgil fled, and one of the creatures fled after him.
Fortunately, Virgil managed to hide himself in the shadows of a doorway, and the creature ran past him. A quick crossbow shot buried a bolt in the back of the creatures head, and it fell over dead.
Upon examination, the creature appeared to be nothing more than a normal human. A fit young man in his late teens, wearing nothing but underwear. His eyes no longer glowed.
At this point Virgil texted The Hangman, insisting he needed answers. The Hangman replied she couldn’t tell him anything, and that he just needed to get the job done. Virgil assented, but said he expected to get those answers eventually. The Hangman replied that he’d have to be satisfied with credits instead.
The party met up, and decided to arrange an ambush. Ronnina used her gasoline to coat a narrow alleyway in flammable liquid. Then she and Umquat set themselves up in a room overlooking the alley from a nearby building on the second floor. Virgil then snuck back to attempt to draw off more of the creatures. When he arrived in his sniping position, he saw that there was once again four sets of eyes in the shadows. He fired off a few shots, then fled, but the creatures gave no pursuit.
Virgil waited 30 minutes, then returned to his sniping position–only to be ambushed from behind by a pair of the creatures lying in wait for him to do so. Virgil was badly wounded by their surprise barrage of eye beams. Virgil only barely managed to run, and this time was pursued by the two, who were successfully lured into the trap.
Ronnina’s fire portal, combined with the gasoline, immolated the two pursuers. A bolt from Umquat finished off the one that seemed as though it might stay standing.
Here the session ended In Media Res