Wednesday, April 21st 2015, Week 0, Day 1
Sebas, Kyriol, Kala, and Jack:
The trip to the magical market starts out pretty slow. The party leaves HQ, fairly early, and few of the stalls and stores have opened for the day yet upon their arrival. Kalalaleh decides to get the morning started, and kill some time before the shops open, by taking her new friends out to a coffee shop for drinks and discussion. It is a small and sorta-trashy dive, but Kala swears by the product.
Kala insists on ordering for all of you, so that she can show off drinks that you might not have access to in the mundane world, and the owner, a kindly old man at the counter with a thick eastern European accent, notes her requests before retreating into the back to whip up the drinks. Service turns out to be slow. Very slow. Slow enough that Jack's paranoia begins to kick in, and he begins to expect some sort of setup. Just as the gunsmith opens his mouth to voice his concerns, they are proven true!
The door to the restraunt is thrown open, and a flash-bang grenade flies in, detonating and stunning the lot of you before four masked figures charge in. One of the taller assailants spreads his trenchcoat and begins to sing in a strange language. thick animated ropes abruptly spring from the inside of garment and restrain each of you before anybody can shake off the effects of the flashbang and fight back.
Another assailent, a short fellow with body proportions that are clearly not human, approaches Kala. A sick grin can be seen beneath his mask. "These are Laura's new guys alright. The old man was right, this has to be one of Scizorhand's pups. I know one when I see one." Without warning he lashes out at the restrained Kobold with a kick to the torso, and the sound of ribs breaking is briefly heard, and then replaced by Kala's high pitched screams.
A third attacker, who can be told apart from the others by the fact that he is dressed more for a day at the office than combat, looks the group over. "The homunculus isn't here," he declares before turning to the brutal short one, "I'll give you and your boys 15k for the trouble, and perhaps some more if this guy knows anything useful." He then approaches Jack and reaches into his pocket and produces a small metallic object about the size and shape of a pencil. The well dressed assailant then kneels down and taps the device to Jack's forhead, and it glows briefly.
"Bah." The short one complains, "might as well take these chumps' money then. No way Poindexter's boss is paying us in full without the damn target." The three attackers not busy with Jack begin to pat each of you down, helping themselves to money and Jack's weaponry. One of them even has the gaul to swipe Ky's debit card through a reader on his phone, transfering all her funds elsewhere.
When the other's finish looting, the guy messing with Jack's head speak's again. "Boss has received the transmitted data report. If he find's anything he wants in Jack's memories, he will pay you lot accordingly. On that note, he says he has reason to believe that Jack here might be easily spooked. He says he'll throw in another 5k if you have Vern throw a nasty hex on him."
"Moron!" The short one yells, "You don't talk about the mission in front of the victims, and you sure as hell don't FUCKING DROP MY GUY'S NAME!" He takes a deep breath and shakes his head before speaking again. "Do as he says Vern. If these twats come after you, I'll have turdbiscits's boss compensate you for the trouble."
One of the masked goons nods, and approaches Jack. His hand glows a sickly purple, and he touches each of Jack's ankles with his index finger. Immediately the Gunsmith's legs are thrown into agony!
Critical Fail for Jack!
-All of Ky, Sebas, and Jack's Money
-Jack's Sterling L2A3
-All the Bullet's in Jack's Inventory
+New Negative Feature for Jack
The assailant's leave, throwing another flashbang to stun you while the one who had you bound calls back his ropes before running. Ky and Sebas have to help Kala and Jack back to base. Scizorhands knows enough about healing magic to fix his daughter up, but whatever was done to jack is beyond the old Kobold's abilities. Nothing he does seems to have any effect on the pain. He promises to put in a request to Winston to have a proper healer over to deal with the situation.
Kala promises to look into the attacks. Assuming at least one of you had your eyes on, she should be able to look over the footage and peel back the layers of their masks to see who they were...
Ryoko:
You spend a few hours at the start of your morning contemplating the mystery of your new eye. From your prospective, it seems perfectly normal and organic. Luckily, you are able to isolate the signal it uses to link with Kala's devices, and connect to it with the internal hardware that you use to communicate with Yggdrasil. Most of the features are password protected, but it does store a copy of its own hardware specs, which you are able to open and contemplate. The devices and processes installed in your new eye are fascinating, but are sadly far to complex to be replicated by human hands; You would need access to nano-constructors or powerful materialization magic if you wanted to replicate the principles involved.
Still... you feel more practiced in the art of reverse engineering for your efforts.
+1 Rank Science Education
Back in your bedroom, you attempt to work out your magical reserves and set up a simple ward against sound at the same time. Unfortunately you overdo it, and blow your entire day's reserve of power within the first 15 minutes of practice...
Skill Advancement Failed!
With extra time on your hands, you take to wandering J Street. Once you reach the marketplace, you find several 'you are here' maps, which you send to Yggdrasil at once, freeing up the rest of the afternoon to shop and explore as you see fit. The shops are interesting, most of them selling things that you neither understand nor need, but you take your time exploring them and diligently sending back data nonetheless.
While traveling between stores, you suddenly feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn to find a Hispanic man in his early 20's, wearing some sort of scanning device over his right eye and grinning wildly. "'Scuse me miss. I couldn't help but notice your brainwave patterns are consistent with those of an intelligence created by a primitive quantum computer. You new around here?"
"Your brainwaves say yes." He answers before you can even get your mouth open, "Let me show you to Fraggies, it is the hangout spot for people like us around here."
The man steers you down a sidestreet and into what appears to be a warehouse on the outside. Inside however, you find a tavern and a store. The store seems to be selling non-mundane cybernetics, and many of the patrons at the bar are androids or cyborgs, and you suspect that many of the human looking ones may be AI's installed inside of homunculi like yourself.
You Have Discovered Fraggies!
Shopping will likely occur during our next RP session, or I can just write up a list of what they have in stock for you...
Robert:
You tell Scizorhands that you want to train with him, and he happily obliges you. The Kobold invites you to go all out with your crowbar on him, so you do so. At first, Scizorhands proves far too swift for you, and easily dodges each of your swings, but as time passes your technique improves. Just when you think you are close to hitting him, however, Ky and Sebas arrive with an injured Jack and an injured Kala. Mr. Scizorhands abruptly dismisses the lesson so that he may tend to the wounded and report the incident to the administrative team.
You have obtained partial success on your skill advancement!
Stepping out onto J Street, you begin to look for a place where a metalworker might find supplies, blueprints, and the like. Eventually you spot a guy carrying a bunch of sheet metal and tools, and follow him to what appears to be a garage/workshop of sorts. You enter, and inquire about the nature of the establishment. One of the men informs you that this is the garage of the Chesapeake Vindicator, one of the competitors in a local battle car league, and that sadly they have nothing for sale. The two of you get to talking, however, and once the man hears your story, it becomes clear that he feels sorry for you. "Tell you what kid, lets see if you are as good with metal as you claim. I need to get a few standard replacement parts made before the event Saturday Night, and it is the sort of grunt work nobody wants to do. Show up before Saturday, make those parts for me, and I'll introduce you to the boss. She'd get a kick out of a story like yours, and might have some work or some supplies for you."
New Opprotunity for Robert
Satisfied with the opportunity presented, you leave J Street and decide to explore the sights of the nation's capital! The monuments at the mall are nice, and you find the Smithsonian Museums to be absolutely fascinating. It is in the bathroom of one of the Museums that things go to hell however; As you are doing your business at the urinal, a voice calls out to you. "Mr. Ganzen?"
You glance over your shoulder to find two men in suits pointing silenced pistols at the back of your head from six inches away. One of them pulls the trigger. There is a loud 'thud' and everything goes dark.
...
Sometime later you wake up to find a redheaded woman looking over you. "I don't have much time for explanations, so I'll make this quick. There are people trying to kill you, and they just succeeded. The magic I used to bring you back is a bit rough around the edges, you may be less than 100% right now, but I know you are a tough bastard, and you can bounce back. As long as you stick to the magical parts of town, or travel with a group, you should be safe. Our enemies are not terribly powerful in this year or in this city, but they are persistent, so be aware. When I have more time, I'll come back and tell you the whole story, so just be careful until then."
With that, the stranger simply fades from sight with a strange whirring sound.
You feel a bit exhausted and a bit frail as you make your way back home...
Critical Fail!
-1 Rank of Cardio
-1 Rank of Constitution
Albert:
After finishing breakfast, you ask Mr. Scizorhands where you might find a libarary, and the old kobold points you in the right direction. You head on over following his instructions, and find the local magical library housed in a large building designed like something you might find in ancient Athens or Rome. The librarian refuses to give you a card to checkout books without proof of local residence, but happily invites you to stay for as long as you want and read whatever strikes your fancy.
Charles is thrilled by the invitation, and quickly directs you to the card catalouge to look up the things he thinks you should learn. You dig in, looking books up and pulling them off the shelf. Eventually you begin to see books unrelated to manipulation that seem intresting, and you start to pull them as well to spite the annoying bird.
You end up losing track of time completely, and spend the whole day pulling books, reading a paragraph or two, and then repeating the process. By the time the library closes you have learned little except for how to navigate a card catalouge.
+1 Rank in Research
All other rolls have failed!
Jack:
Your legs burn in agony, so you decide to call it quits on the physical activity for the day, and curl up on your bed with your tablet, which you use to randomly select a mundane programming language that you do not yet know, and begin practicing in it. After several hours, you are pretty sure you have code written for a few sorting algorithms, but without a proper compiler you are not positive. Still, the effort has you feeling more confident in your coding ability.
+1 Rank in Craft: Coding!
Deciding, that even though you now lack a gun, you want to learn more about magical gunplay, you decide to head out for the Magical Library. Rocrand catches you limping out the door in pain, and is kind enough to agree to drive down to the library and pick up some books for you while he is out running some errands. You thank the Orc, and return to your room once more, this time trying to meditate and reach a network Bazaar, however you find that the pain in your legs is more than enough to break your concentration today...
Bazaar Visit Failed!
Rocrand returns sometime later with a few library books full of information about various legendary magical gunslingers. A quick scan of all the indexes reveals that none of the books contain many merchants within their pages, so looking up the figures who are of interest to you is not difficult. Most merchant gun users, it turns out, prefer to simply purchase awesome magical guns rather than cast actual spells with their firearms. You are, however, able to find information on a mage who invented a killshot spell that worked by embeading all the blood in a victim's body. The killshot is noted to be a bit unwieldy, but you are pretty you could write an algorithm that given the information you already have on the spell could reverse engineer it for you.
During your reading, you also come across multiple references to a magical gun dealer in Pittsburgh PA. Seeing as you presently lack a gun, you copy down as much information on this dealer as possible before putting the books aside for the time being.
+1 Copy of East Coast Gunners (Due Back in 2 Weeks)
+1 Copy of Earth's Most Well Armed Outlaws, 2013 Edition (Due Back in 2 Weeks)
+1 Copy of Hell Well Raised: The Autobiography of an Ornery Goblin Gunslinger (Due Back in 2 Weeks)
+2 Opportunities
Kyriol:
After the events of the morning, you find yourself lacking the required funds to visit Hot Topic, so you decide to hit up a library instead. It takes a bit for Kala to get healed up and calmed down enough to give you information, but eventually she points you in the right direction. She is tempted to tag along, but is much more interested in heading to her computer and using the footage from the eye cams to figure out who was responsible for hurting her.
The Magical Library is housed in an impressive looking building designed to look like something out of ancient Greece. The librarian refuses to give you a card without proof of local residence, but does allow you to browse and read as much as you want within the building. Hitting up the card catalog, you find there is really no such thing as equivalent exchange alchemy, but your searches do lead to some interesting reading.
The keywords 'equivalent exchange' bring up alot of books on conjuration, a school of magic that involves moving matter, energy, emotion, souls, and concepts between realms. Conjuration seems to be a fairly math heavy endeavor, and as such something you might be able to find some success in, but it seems far too complex to learn from scratch from a book; You would likely need a tutor, or lots of time and space to experiment.
'Alchemy', on the other hand, is one of several catch-all terms for chemistry with non-mundane reagents. Gazing through alchemy tomes, you find little that is both understandable and interesting until you stumble upon a formula for a living paper-like material that can respond to the needs and wishes of its creator by changing color or pattern. You will likely need either some training in chemistry or some help before you can simply make a deck of magical changing cards however...
+1 Rank of Education: Magical Frameworks
New Opprotunity for Ky!
Sebas:
Following the insanity at the coffee shop, you take a few minutes to unwind before launching into a workout designed to increase the size of the muscles that you will be using to take hits. You do crunches, squats, and the like for as long as you can, and feel as if you have made some progress by the time you are all worn out.
You have obtained partial success on your skill advancement!
After a quick nap to refresh yourself, you hop on the internet and search for local bars, liquor stores, voice coaches, and dance instructors. You find what you are looking for without any trouble whatsoever.
You know where the mundane booze is in DC! I have no clue how much dance or singing lessons cost, so that is on you to look up.
As the day winds down, you fetch your sledgehammer and ask Mr. Scizorhands if he is up to pratice with you. The Kobold agrees, and permits you to take swings at him. Scizorhands proves to be an illusive target; Not only is he swift on his feet, but he also seems to know a handful of spells with which to shield himself. Just as you begin to tire, however, you make a breakthrough, and manage to catch your mentor off guard with a feint before shattering his left arm with a mighty swing!
The Kobold calls time and quickly patches himself up with some healing magic, before shooting you a grin. "Not bad ya great oaf! You have potential with blunt weapons for sure. Let me show you how to properly kill a fool with a hammer!"
Mr. Scizorhands then produces a Kobold sized hammer of his own and a small training dummy, and spends several minutes showing you the proper technique for scoring headshots with a hammer. You pick up on the lesson quickly, and once you demonstrate what you have learn't on a larger dummy, Mr. Scizorhands smiles again. "Wait right there boy, I got something for ya," he mutters before retreating to his den. When he returns, he is dragging a large blue sledgehammer, which he offers to you. It is cool to the touch.
"I picked this baby off a dwarf who was guarding a vault I was tryin ta get into a few months back. It is cool... literally... but a bit too big for me kiddo. It will be a better fit for you."
Critical Success!
+1 Rank Mundane Combat
+2 Maneuvers
+Sledgehammer of Frost (+7 Damage Bonus, Inflicts Entropy Damage)