Sycamore ParkTo the Southwest in search of grub!
Go in the direction the most people went, and try to figure out what any of these abilities mean.
Theodore, Timmy and Ed push out of the laboratory and head towards the southwest. As they travel through the towering empty city, through to an area thick with sycamore trees, Ed pushes his bicycle and tries to figure out the changes to his body. He has a slime that exudes from his skin. And when he looks at his hands, the veins seem to be glowing.[Ed rolls 1+2+2weird=5]
They travel through to what was once a public park. There are signs of a children's playpark here: the frame of a swingset sticking of the bushes; some poles of a climbing frame. Somewhere to the southeast, dozens of pigeons fly up into the sky. But here it is quiet. They find themselves in a clearing covered in mushrooms.
"I wonder what all that slime does," Timmy says, looking at Ed's moist forehead. "One of the others that went north was a Walt Lab scientist, but he wasn't telling anyone anything about what happened. When I was in the lab for all that time, I experimented a bit. Tried pricking my skin and nothing happened. I learned I can't even be cut. Maybe it'd be the same for you? Maybe the slime seals wounds?"
Timmy produces a makeshift knife. Carefully he helps prick Ed's finger. An intense burst of light shoots from the tiny cut. It strikes Theodore's shoulder, singing through his clothes and stinging him with a brief, sharp heat.Theodore and Ed: +1 tally for exploration.
Ed: +1 tally for critical failure.
Theodore has gained Slightly Singed Clothing.
Walt LabsNot inclined to try jabbing a random syringe into himself, Issac decides to try something else, to use his Faceshift ability to reduce the size of his hand in order to reduce the blood loss from the cut hand.
[Isaac rolls 3+3+1weird=7]
Isaac concentrates on his cut hand, and the appendage grows smaller and smaller before his eyes. The skin knits up around the wound, healing his hand. But the when he comes to changing the hand back, it just feels tired. For now, he's stuck with one small hand...Isaac no longer has the wound: Cut Hand.
Isaac has gained: One Tiny Hand.
Attempt to collect one of the empty syringes from the machine.
[Tim Tam rolls: 5+3+0body=8]
Tim Tam pulls out one of the empty syringes but manages to scratch herself on one of the other syringes.Tim Tam gains wound: Light Scratch
Tim Tam gains: Empty Syringe
(question, what do professions actually do? I'd assume they do something since you can spend Experience on them, but there's no description given as to their purpose)
(They shape how success looks like-- whether you could reasonable be able to an action. Also if an act falls squarely under the player's profession, they'll get a bonus to it. E.g. when you menace people, you'll get a +1.)
Investigate the ruined dogbots, looking for maybe some useful parts in them, or maybe a way to restart them as loyal to me?
[Amoretto rolls 3+3+1wits+1scientist=8]
Dr Amoretto investigates the dogs. He sees that their every muscle and tendon is interlaced with fine wires. Like Galvani's experiments, these dogs are move through an electric current jolting their limbs into crude action. There is no artificial brain or advanced computing hardware here. Rather, there is an antennae behind each of their ears which receives a signal from who-knows-where. A battery in their stomach powers the whole thing. They're not alive, but are rather biomechanical drones. One of the eye-cameras twitches towards Amoretto and a light blinks red. Some internal self-destruct is activated. Their stomachs explode and their circuitry melts. Soon the room is filled with the smell of burnt hairs, flesh, and wiring and the cyberdogs are two molten piles of slag and bone.Amoretto has learned a secret: the cyberdogs are drones, controlled remotely. +1 tally
Residential Sycamore"Damn birds giving away my hiding spot!"
Jump out a window and run into a different building and close the door behind me.[/b\]
[Burt rolled: 5+4+1body=10]
Dr Burt sprints over the pigeon-shit encrusted conservatory and leaps out of the empty frame. Pushing through the nettles that clog the garden beyond, he steps over a collapsed fence and runs into the back of the next house over. He comes to a pvc door, locked, but the window cracked. Not wasting any time, he smashes the window of the door with a nearby rock, reaches in and unlocks it. Safely in the house, he glimpses back and sees the huge mechanical insect climb into the conservatory across the way.
He runs through the new house. Dusty with empty floorboards, long abandoned but in good condition. He moves to the front door on the other side, and sees a tree-clogged street beyond that he half-recognises. From here he could escape in any northerly direction without passing by the robot.Burt has gained a small rock.
Clock TowerInvestigate the Clanging to the North.
Follow Keiko
Keiko and Kateryna walk the forlorn streets northwards. They are surrounded by a sprawling cityscape on all sides. The sound of clanging grows louder and then stops abruptly. In the shadow of a clock tower, jutting out from a sprawling old marble building, they at last see a figure leaning over a great hulking machine. The machine is the size and shape of a bear, formed of a huge metal carapace with four thick legs. A length of rebar lies next to the machine. The figure looks up as Keiko and Kateryna approach.
They see what looks like a young woman in a sailor suit with a pleated skirt. A shock of purple hair spreads down her back, but her head is that of a crocodile. Blood drips from her long face, brimming with teeth. She had been feasting on raw flesh within the machine. As they get closer the crocodile-faced girl shouts and picks up the rebar. Her voice is mangled by her form, but Keiko can make out the words.
"Go away!" she shouts, in Japanese. "You cannot see me like this!"Keiko and Kateryna: +1 tally for exploration