"Well, then I have to question the wisdom of mentioning it in the first place. No offense, ma'am, but if it isn't to be spoken of, why are you speaking of it?"
"But thank you for the warning. So, what is this place, not the ship, but this room in particular? Looks like a shop of some kind."
Dispense obvious observations.
The armory master lays her head in her hands and sighs.
"The armory. This is the armory."
Faith clicked her tongue in irritation. They wouldn't even let her shunt power to the damned thing?
She began typing a message to the AM. If anyone she was on speaking terms with would know and bother to tell her, it'd be her.
I notice both manipulators and their batteries are locked out. Is there any way to use a nonstandard power supply with them? I was hoping for rechargeable batteries, but if I can't figure out how either end works...
With that, she returned to the battlesuit. Not magnetic, eh... well, she knew it wasn't made of regular steel, she supposed. Plan B it was, then.
See how hard it is to move battlesuit around with a gravity field manipulator, then a vector field manipulator. Compare the results.
Message AM.
Don't mess with manipulators or their batteries or really anything having to do with them. I'm not sure if shunting power into them is possible but trying to do so will probably result in you being shot.
As per moving the battlesuit, vector proves easier to manage, gravity is a fair bit trickier, requiring very careful application of localized gravity fields in rapid succession. Vector is as simple as changing a number from zero to something higher and selecting a direction.
Jim decided to just address Steve directly.
"Steve? Jim here. What Feyri is trying to say is we want to sell this tournament as a Pay-Per-View. My idea is that people love to see other people fighting, so it wouldn't be too hard to market, and any money we raise goes to the HMRC as funding. In return, everybody involved gets paid a token. Assuming, of course, that it sells well. What do you think?"
I asked Steve, so let's see what he says.
>Sounds rather boring to pay everyone. How about a 15 token grand prize for whoever wins? That should be enough to get them fighting for real. Try asking the Armory Master for a honey sandwich.
"If you want to make a song more hummy, add a few tiddly poms." ~ the immortal words of Winnie the Pooh
She hands you a bottle of honey and some bread.
"Go for it."
(( Surely the idea of robot-men, albino-man/woman/neuters, half-alien mutants, people with penises drawn on their face and some vaguely normal people all fighting should be at least a bit of a seller? As long as there's heaps of blood, decent weapons and a very real and regular chance of death. Mainly due to the robots, freaks and mutants though. ))
Get up and go to VR machine. Load up tinker. Load up two laser rifles.
"Argh, this is boring. I'm going to make some shit to blow shit up with."
You do exactly that, loading up two rifles in tinker.
Exit VR, find the research wing and look for a scientist. Keep an eye out for exceptional weirdery on the way. Once a researcher is found:
"Hi, I'm Mesk Vraite? I was wondering, I have this pet project, it needs AI, I want to run it on modified gunner bot hardware? The problem is, the hardware seems to be partially, well, wetware, what with the dog brain bits, so could you help me out with that? I can't pay anything but I'll owe you a big favour."
"what do you need it to do exactly?" The man behind the kiosk asks, "And what kind of platform are you putting it in?"
Oh, sorry, could you repeat please? I guess the modifications have worked.
Try to hear the doctor and familiarize with the new way of hearing and seeing things.
The doctor's voice becomes audible again as the world returns to normal and seems to stay that way, for the most part.
"So the operation took. Good. You'll have to learn to control that speeding and slowing effect consciously of course, right now you're doing it on accident. And keep in mind your body isn't any faster, just your mind and your perception."
He back away.
"Stay here for a bit, practice on your own, learn to use it, maybe try it out on a few people, and then come to me when you're ready and we'll begin in earnest. Don't come before you're ready though." He smiles, "Or you will die."
Set the rifle aside, and make a metal framework that can be strapped to my back, and have a metal rod attached to the frame so it can move with my arm. Then take the rifle and modify it to be strapped under the arm, then attach a rod at the back of the rifle, and then attach it to the rod from the frame. Research materials that stiffen up when exposed to a hard shock.
Perhaps it might be easier just to tell me what you're trying to do because I don't really follow exactly how it's supposed to work from the description.
Look over the "Gungnir" explosive delivery system, "Heat Knife" Limb amputation system, Universal door opener, Brain box, and Cartographer systems, then switch to the weapons folder.
"Gungnir"explosive delivery system: Basically a rocket with many small maneuvering rockets studded over it's surface. Once fired it could maneuver to it's target almost anywhere, around corners, down holes, even moving backwards. More of a rocket propelled bomb drone then a true rocket.
"Heat knife" amputation system: Basically a machete sized blade, heated by electrical current, used to amputate and cauterize at the same time.
Universal door opener: A manhole cover sized machine with built in kinetic amps and a cutting laser. Secured on doors, it will automatically breech them. Option to kinetically "shoot" the cut out section into the room.
Brain box: A rather large machine designed to hold a severed head and keep it preserved and ready for reanimation. Requires head to be hooked up to feed of chemicals and submerged in biogel. Machine is very heavy and large, technically portable but also fairly fragile.
Cartographer: A suite of augmented reality mapping tools, allowing you to place virtual marks or notes in rooms or on walls, to leave a "Dotted line" path where ever you walk, to create maps of areas on the fly and other things.
You open the weapons file:
Grenade
rocket launcher
auto-garrote
injector blade
laser drone
battlesuit group shield
silenced gauss pistol
squawk box
lightning rifle
heavy blade monowire variant
multi-role weapon MKII
"Oh, uh yeah."
Thomas smiles weakly.
"Do you have any mods for the laser rifle I haven't bought yet?"
"Depends on what you want to do with it. I can make a wide variety of mods for a laser rifle."
"How about on-mission people being controlled by external influences?
Aslo, did something like what just happened with that statuette ever happen in the ship during the time you were still part of the convicts?" Milno asks, wondering if those are common place or rare.
Ask.
"Probably 30 or so in that case. And yeah, those sorts of things happen every so often, not commonly but it's an inevitable part of the job. It's why we have so many precautions in place. "
Gorat jots a few notes down about the bits of news and shows he just saw. Titans, vanishing colony, motorized seesaw, riots. Maybe that'll be useful for the game. The rest... not so much.
Light a normal cigarette and smoke for a bit.
You light up and smoke for a while relaxing. Glad not to be on a mission, glad not to have half of whatever limb lopped off and bleeding out, screaming at whoever is doing whatever poorly.
ahhh...hell is other people's incompetence and in-fighting.
((Sorry i was missing, but Piecewise you kept skipping my actions.)
Sober up
Did I? Huh, sorry about that, I guess I just didn't notice them.
[end:6]
You sober up faster then a man being told he's a father after drinking a gallon of coffee with a cup of cocaine thrown in for flavor.
"Armor Master-san, do you have any forms of non-lethal candy-related weaponry?
Ask.
"I could fire a jaw breaker straight through your skull, if thats what you'd like"