Campaign
Campaign, Ike?
<Calling all stations, this is Lucky Ike Watkins, lucky as usual, fresh off some mental tiger wrestling, completely naked. Anybody out there, over?>
Check if there's any mental reply to me entirely mentally calling all stations via the interface. I still have that, right?
In any case, see if the wire's removable. Should be - Mr. Beetle doesn't seem like he has much manual dexterity.
If that works, commence sneaking toward nearest accessible exit. If Mr. Beetle (assuming that's not Darkstar or something, in case I'm supposing he'd hear my mental call) sees me and seems aggressive rather than entirely friendly like you'd normally expect, cheese it most verily with less concern for stealth.
"The rest of you have been granted a great honour. Darkstar has asked for assistance in a... let's call it hunting trip. The situation doesn't allow him to hunt this prey on his own, at least not without causing some major disruption in the process. So he has selected you to accompany him."
"The challenge itself is fairly simple. You'll be teleported somewhere near your prey. Make your way there, find it, kill it and then get teleported back. You'll be provided with a few supplies. Appropriate clothing, backpacks, food, camping gear, in case the trip takes longer than expected, but I don't think it would take more than a day or two."
"However, there are some complications. You'll be operating in a world that is not under our control. In fact, we don't even know that much about it. And the outsider in control of it seems to be fairly powerful, so we'd like to avoid any conflict with it, for now at lest. So we're going for a minimal influence, more stealthy approach."
"What that means is, no hosts, no interfaces, no interactions with us, no way to communicate with you even if we wanted to. We'll have to make minor modifications to you in order to fit in better, most notably knowledge of the most common local language, but it shouldn't be anything major."
He shows you a small pendant that appears in his hand in a small burst of shadowfire. It's a simple thing, just a silver metal ring hanging from a chain made out of a similar, if a bit less shiny and darker alloy.
"Since you'll lack Interfaces, these things will provide short range communication. They should also be able to provide low level translation, should you meet anyone not speaking the same language. Try not to loose them."
He's looking at Alan as he says that last sentence.
"They are not indestructible nor bound to you in any way. Just low level magical artefacts."
He flicks his hand and the pendant is hidden by a burst of shadowfire. When it clears, the pendant has disappeared, replaced in his hand by a knife. A wooden dummy appears besides him with a similar effect.
"And, final and most important thing: Death. Now, since we'll have no connection to you, that means that if you die, then... well, you'll die. No way for us to revive you. But, it was decided that that might be a tad too dangerous, considering your previous injury and mortality rate. So, instead of dying, you get this:"
He stabs the dummy near where the heart would be. The dummy moves as if it were alive, putting a wooden hand over its "wound" before collapsing to the ground. A few seconds later, it begins to glow. When the glow disappears, all that is left in its place is a brown orb, a bit bigger than a human hand.
"When it is detected that your body can no longer be revived, all relevant information will be transferred to a little thing like this one." he says and picks the orb up.
"As long as you can manage to retrieve it and nobody damages it, then Darkstar should be able to use it to revive you. Assuming he has enough time and energy, of course.
He won't have his full power, because that would make him stand out like a meteor in the night sky. So don't expect any instant revives.
And the orbs are not indestructible and can be lost. If they aren't recovered after a long time or if they run out of power or if they are damaged beyond repair, then they will self-destruct to prevent capture."
To demonstrate, he stabs the orb. It starts cracking like glass, fractures appearing across its surface as the knife gets embedded deeper and deeper. And then, something breaks and the orb disappears in a small flash of light.
"So try not to have that happen to them. Don't fall into any volcanoes, don't drown out at sea. The usual things any sane person would do."
He is looking at Alan again as he says those last things.
"So, I think that's everything. Any questions?"
You don't have an interface or other magical device on you, but you try to telepathically broadcast your status report anyway, just in case you suddenly gained that ability. You try to think it as hard as you can, trying different ways of thinking it, mental commands, even doing various gestures. You don't know if you broadcasted anything or if anybody received it (after all there wasn't any sort of
TMS delivery report last time you used it) but you sure as hell tried your best.
The effort has given you the time to calm down a bit. The adrenaline rush starts passing, the buzzing in your ears and the dizziness dying down a bit, your heart rate dropping. You try to listen for a response, but you can't hear anything. You can hear the sound of light wind coming from somewhere further away, probably the holes. For a moment, you think you get a signal, something like a whisper, but you can't be sure if it wasn't just the wind and your state playing tricks on you.
It appears that it has also given time to Mr. (or
Mrs., since it doesn't have any genitals that you can see) Bug to notice that you're up and moving. It stands up and looks at you (at least you think it's looking at you, it has two triads of small orbs on its "face" that could be eyes). It doesn't do anything more after that though, it just stands there, looking at you, unmoving.
Staging Area
"Well, there also seems to be a bug in my speech processor, I think I'll need to disable higher level functions in my CPU while I refactor my codebase. In other words, I'll take the beta cider."
"Great, great! I'm all for disabling higher level functions through drunkness protocols, especially in situations like theses. Now let's see here..." The man procures a wooden mug from under the counter and looks at the barrels behind him, before choosing one and approaching it.
"You're not going to disappear into thin air, right? Because that'd be kinda annoying." he says seriously as he starts pouring liquid into the mug.
"A waste of beta cider." he adds in a lighter tone.
OOCI am deeply sorry for any distress I caused. I'm just trying to make a good story and a good game with you, I do not want to hurt anyone.
That there was nothing she could do. that her fate... that all of our fates, were sealed the moment I stopped River from sacrificing himself.
That it's all my fault.
It's not your fault. It's not somebody's fault. Or it's everybody's fault, depending on your philosophy. Personally I don't believe there even was any fault. Your characters did their choices and acted how they would had acted, there's nothing wrong with that.
That being said, the entire group had plenty of points where they could had done things differently. Everyone could had moved out of the Portal room immediately or chosen a different escape route. Alan could had chosen not to use a heavy attack (in fact I expected Zechariah to use some sort of crystal attack to trigger the first blast) or do some sort of dark ritual to change his luck. You could had asked River for more information. Nikolai could had approached the rock block holding the slab and enlarged it to make the height it falls less or he could had enlarged something to support that block or just let it fall and then use his ability to try and repair it. Or he could ask Alan to summon a mattress or something for it to fall on and hope he doesn't overshoot. Or maybe our more physically capable characters (Theri and Ike) could had gone there to do something about it. Someone could had convinced River to do something else. Ike could had kept his previous action and attacked Irene. Alan could had let River kill Irene or find a way to stop rolling 6s all the time. Zechariah could had done something other than putting the slab in the worse position possible. Irene and Zechariah could had tried to somehow lessen or direct the effect of the blast by shrouding the slabs that were about to explode in crystal and pyrokinesis or Zechariah could had tried to support the floor and roof. You could had removed some slabs from the wall to stop the domino effect. I even gave you the benefit of focusing solely on that problem instead of that AND a giant enemy by interpreting Nikolai's and Zecharia's actions more loosely (because that enemy was bound to do something to cause that slab to fall or worse and then everything would had been worse).
So it wasn't a predetermined outcome and it wasn't caused by a single choice, action or inaction. It was circumstance, choices and luck that led to it.
I am hoping that that... that didn't really happen. that Irine will wake up sometime in the next couple turns, battered and burned, but alive.
I am angry, because I don't think that's going to happen. That everything was for naught. that even with her specilized defenses against exactly this type of death, in her most defensive possible posture and form, weren't enough. That there was nothing she could do. that her fate... that all of our fates, were sealed the moment I stopped River from sacrificing himself.
That it's all my fault.
I want to pm Paris, to beg and bargain for Irine's survival, or... or something... I don't even know really.
I know that anything I could say, could do, could ask for... I shouldn't do it. The GM is the GM, I shouldn't go about trying to fight against or undermine his authority. There is nothing productive I can say or do right now, all I can do is lash out... and I want to avoid doing that.
so...
yeah.
I can't afford to react right now.
To be honest, I'm about the same way. I mean, that was my character of all characters, the one that was my primary person. But I'm sure that the GM isn't going to be so harsh. I mean, come on, we weren't even out of the gate yet before we all "died." There has to be something else going on here.
Just trust that it'll turn out well, because I also have to put that trust into the game. Let's wait and see for now.
It's not about being harsh. I like your characters, I don't want to kill them. It's about actions and consequences.
If there is no danger, if everything ends up well no matter what you do, then there is little point in having choice in the first place. You wouldn't be controlling characters, you'd be controlling actors and instead of interacting with the world you'd be improvising lines and actions for the plot.
I may bend things to your favour sometimes, plus the game mechanics do favour PCs over NPCs in certain circumstances, but I have to do things a certain way, I want to do things a certain way. So if the dice say you die, you die. End of the line.
On the other hand, that also means there is little limit to what you can do. So if your first action after arriving was murdering River and then using the teleporter to go live free in this world, not caring one bit about your quest, then if you rolled well, you could do it and there would be nothing I could do about that.
I mean, that was my character of all characters, the one that was my primary person.
((I find this statement interesting, as this character of all my characters made here at Bay12, is played closest to the person behind the keyboard.
Anyway, we'll just have to see how this thread plays out. I rather saw that explosion as a nuclear-level blast that no one would survive, but there's always that one in a million chance.))
Oh, nice link. Thanks.
((In any case, really disappointed that anyone survived.))
Hmm.... Using reverse psychology or seeking the death of all things like one of those comic book villains? I guess we'll find out.
((Well, this was certainly a good update in that it got us all fired up.))
Pun intended or just happy coincidence?
((We were hunting an entity? Shit, I completely forgot that if I ever even knew it.))
((I knew we were chasing some guy or girl, but I didn't think it was an entity.))
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Topic: Special People: Mechanical Syndrome (Read 1141106 times)