Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 528009 times)

Fr0stByt3 · « **Reply #8010 on:** July 18, 2013, 01:56:41 am »

Okay. It's pretty much 3:00 in the morning, and I've been reading this for the last few days. Finally done, and I want in. First: Questions!
So, villians are still accepted, yes? Second, if I roleplay it well enough and there's a viable reason for it in the backstory, can I pull a Heel-Face Turn? That is all.

Draignean · « **Reply #8011 on:** July 18, 2013, 10:21:19 pm »

James Evan

Quote from: Powder Miner on July 16, 2013, 10:22:18 pm

James wasted no time in responding. "A bomb! There's a bomb over here! WHAT DO I DO?!"

"What the fuck is a bomb doing on the ship!?" Tarran shouts through the intercom after a second of stunned silence. "Do you happen to know anything about disarming bombs?"
"No, you?"
"No, I really didn't worry about it after I set them. Fuck! Let me think, just let me think..." There's a long pause where Tarran's near-hyperventilation is the only sound. "Okay, can you move the bomb, throw it off the ship? Does it have a timer or anything?"
The bomb is welded, albeit hastily, into the compartment. It has no external features. [Luck 3] There's a faint snick from one of the bomb's cylinders.
Your headache pulses insistently.

Spoiler: James Evan (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Silver Seraph Model V, "Virtue" (click to show/hide)

---

Dominique Wakeman

Quote from: SeriousConcentrate on July 17, 2013, 12:08:38 am

Dominique took a moment to examine the armor and figure out what kind of ammunition it needed. Then she loaded up the rest of the .50 cal ammunition, took the Cerico and the ammo for it, and finally the Artemis and the ammo for that. Then she went in the washroom to look for the promised medical supplies and took two or three ORS if they were available, and a medkit whether or not she found any ORS. "Hey, Emily. What happened to my Fuath chemical gun?" she asked as she went toward the elevator - and also attempted to get two or three Immortals to come with her as she went, under the assumption she passed any.

The armor's ammunition jack appears to be, with some fiddling, able to accommodate most forms of ammunition. A little experimentation reveals that a feeder cable can be extended and then fitted into the loading mechanism of most weapons. It would probably vary weapon to weapon, but you think it would roughly triple the amount of shots you could put out before reloading. Of course, then you'd need to reload the supply, which would take time.
After figuring out your armor, you grab two of the familiar guns in the cache; the Artemis and the Cerico. You take the ammunition for them, and a few extra clips for the Abassy, but you don't touch anything else. The only other gun you want is, unfortunately, not present. You ask Emily about it.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Wakeman, but all available chemical suppression systems are being used to recover the hotlabs," Emily says, making a fairly convincing effort to sound sad.
Huh. You briefly wonder what in the hotlabs needs to be 'recovered' with showers of burning chemicals. It isn't your problem right now, but it might be troublesome later. You shrug it off and raid the cabinets of your bathroom, looking for the promised medical supplies. They're there, and Taric hasn't been stingy. You take what looks immediately useful.
Rough and ready, you leave your rooms. [Luck 16] As luck would have it, you pass a pair of Immortals on your way to the elevators. [Diplomacy 17] You give them commands in short sentences and keep them extraordinarily simple, and they obey, following you. It's sort of like what you imagined having a dog would feel like. It's strange, you're better equipped than you've ever been, and you're working for perhaps the shadiest reasons yet. You have no doubt that the end you're working towards is a good one, but you don't think your life is going to end up as a morality story anytime soon.
The elevator ride with the immortals is a short one, and you exit out onto floor 15 without incident. The elevator hub area that seems characteristic of this type of facility is clean and brightly lit. It doesn't, however, go very far. The hub ends in a pair of thick metal doors painted with a dark brown horizontal stripe with the words "MAINTENANCE WORKERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT" emblazoned on it. A single, smaller, door is set into the wall immediately to the right of the double doors. Glowing holographic letters label it maintenance admin.
[Auto-succeed] If memory serves, which it damn well should considering how long you worked maintenance, admin will contain the surveillance feeds for the rest of the maintenance level. Other than cheap offices and the liquor used to drown the self pitying sorrows of minor Technocrats with wasted lives, you can't think of anything else useful that would be in administration. After the main maintenance door there should be a security checkpoint, then a worker's 'lounge' that will consist of crashbunks and equipment lockers. From there you'll have access to the actual maintenance and red-maintenance areas.

Spoiler: Dominique Wakeman (click to show/hide)

Draignean · « **Reply #8012 on:** July 18, 2013, 10:28:11 pm »

Quote from: Fr0stByt3 on July 18, 2013, 01:56:41 am

Okay. It's pretty much 3:00 in the morning, and I've been reading this for the last few days. Finally done, and I want in. First: Questions!
So, villians are still accepted, yes? Second, if I roleplay it well enough and there's a viable reason for it in the backstory, can I pull a Heel-Face Turn? That is all.

Yes, villains are allowed in. I need to scale them up a notch, but I cleared the villain waitlist the same time I cleared the regular waitlist. That said, I am very, very reluctant to let villains switch sides.

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #8013 on:** July 18, 2013, 10:52:08 pm »

Dom had used the time on the elevator to feed the shotgun shells into the internal loader and attach it to the Cerico. The Artemis was a last resort weapon; she'd sooner have the shotgun for close encounters and save the railgun for if she had to retreat and ambush them down a hallway or something. "You, watch the maintenance doors and fire if anyone other than myself or another Immortal passes through them. You, come with me," she said, delegating a task to each immortal. Hopefully the CCTV monitors will show me where they're at. Hell, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll find a map or something I can use. Might as well just loot the place.

With that in mind, she pushed open the admin door and looked around the room for any and everything helpful.

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8014 on:** July 19, 2013, 10:07:34 am »

"It's welded on! Also, I just heard it make a sound!"
It might not save him, but James suddenly found it very prudent to be retreating from the bomb, if not all the way out of the room.
Wait a minute, he thought. If the shadow was gone, could he use active kinetics? And with that, James tried to use active kinetics to either destroy the bomb without blowing it up, or to perhaps put a bubble around the bomb.

Zako · « **Reply #8015 on:** July 19, 2013, 10:39:19 pm »

Oh dear... I have a feeling that it might explode from your meddling Powder...

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8016 on:** July 19, 2013, 10:43:06 pm »

Hahaha, it probably will.

Draignean · « **Reply #8017 on:** July 20, 2013, 11:02:48 pm »

James Evan

Quote from: Powder Miner on July 19, 2013, 10:07:34 am

"It's welded on! Also, I just heard it make a sound!"
It might not save him, but James suddenly found it very prudent to be retreating from the bomb, if not all the way out of the room.
Wait a minute, he thought. If the shadow was gone, could he use active kinetics? And with that, James tried to use active kinetics to either destroy the bomb without blowing it up, or to perhaps put a bubble around the bomb.

"Goddammit," Tarran growls across the intercom. "I... I have to check something, then I'll talk to Hoke. Keep me apprised." You're surprised at how well he seems to be adapting to the situation. You try to tell yourself that it's because you've all been through worse situations, but you're having some difficulty thinking of any that fit the bill.
Tarran's silence leaves you alone with the bomb. With no better time, and precious few options, you try to consciously use the abilities Dominique gave you. [A. Kinetics 10+1] It's hard, you've never done it this way before. You feel a... potential, like static electricity on your skin, but you have no idea how to use it. Your headache seems to have vanished, but nothing else seems to be changing. The training that Dominique gave you was supposed to be subconscious, intuitive, but there just doesn't seem to be anything there. A thought strikes you, if your subconscious wasn't subconscious anymore...
"Dear God, do have any idea how long I've been waiting for you to do that?" Iscariot says from off to your right. He looks exasperated, but he seems as solid and real as anything else in the room. "Now, before you go and kill all of us, you aren't s-"
Your concentration slips, and the feel of potential on your skin dissipates. Iscariot vanishes mid-sentence, and your headache returns with a renewed vengeance.

Spoiler: James Evan (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Silver Seraph Model V, "Virtue" (click to show/hide)

---

Dominique Wakeman

Quote from: SeriousConcentrate on July 18, 2013, 10:52:08 pm

Dom had used the time on the elevator to feed the shotgun shells into the internal loader and attach it to the Cerico. The Artemis was a last resort weapon; she'd sooner have the shotgun for close encounters and save the railgun for if she had to retreat and ambush them down a hallway or something. "You, watch the maintenance doors and fire if anyone other than myself or another Immortal passes through them. You, come with me," she said, delegating a task to each immortal. Hopefully the CCTV monitors will show me where they're at. Hell, maybe if I'm lucky, I'll find a map or something I can use. Might as well just loot the place.

With that in mind, she pushed open the admin door and looked around the room for any and everything helpful.

You order one of the Immortals to watch the door, then enter the administration area with your remaining escort.
The inside of Administration looks like a battlefield, and not a terribly old one. Two, very dead, immortals are slumped to either side of the entrance, their bodies pierced by multiple cauterized holes wider than your thumb. The walls, ceiling, and floor are burned and gouged from lasers and gunplay, but, for the moment, all is quiet.
Slowly and carefully, you make your way further into administration. [Observation 5] Most of the stuff in here is useless to you, more so now that the place has been shot to hell. You find more corpses; another immortal, two deadheads, and one of the four-armed robots that tried to kill you in the restaurant. There is, however, a remarkable lack of weapons, ammunition, or useful supplies. Ashley Fey and her team must have taken whatever they thought was useful, or at least disposed of whatever they thought would help their enemy.
It's in the observation room that you find the only body you recognize personally. Jordan Grey is slumped against one of the four aging holographic projectors that should be rotating through images of various places within the maintenance level. His bloodied face wears a grim smile, and his Laelaps rifle, ruined by a massive hole through the core, rests in his lap. You can't tell what he did, but the displays that should have been cycling though a dozen different security feeds are now all stuck on a single frame of Ashley's face.
The control panel that would normally be used to manually take control of the system has been severely damaged by several massive impacts. It flickers fitfully, but you don't think it's alive enough for you to use.

Spoiler: Dominique Wakeman (click to show/hide)

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8018 on:** July 20, 2013, 11:11:18 pm »

Iscariot! It was Iscariot! Alright, sh*t! That was both bad and good- they weren't gone, after all- but Iscariot had rather steadily proved himself to be useful, but he'd been trying to tell him something, and it'd activated upon usage of active kinetics... an obvious trigger, that James could try to exploit.
James attempts to elicit the same... potential, to allow Iscariot to talk.

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #8019 on:** July 20, 2013, 11:49:12 pm »

"Fuck." That about summed it up. She didn't trust the immortals to be technically proficient enough to repair and monitor the streams, so she made a 'come on' motion to the one following her and headed back out to collect the other one. "Come on, let's move. You, watch the left. You, watch the right." I'm getting kind of tired of just calling them 'you' all the time... "All right. You, you're Alonso. And you're Basilio. So when I say Alonso, I want you" - she pointed at the one watching the left - "to listen, and when I say Basilio, that's your cue to take orders. If I want you both to do something I'll say so. Got it? Alonso, nod if you understand." She waited. "Basilio, nod if you understand."

Once she had their responses, she opened the doors. "Both of you, let's move. Keep a close eye out, and if you sense anything suspicious, touch my shoulder to get my attention and then point it out to me."

Draignean · « **Reply #8020 on:** July 22, 2013, 08:20:37 pm »

Dominique Wakeman

Quote from: SeriousConcentrate on July 20, 2013, 11:49:12 pm

"Fuck." That about summed it up. She didn't trust the immortals to be technically proficient enough to repair and monitor the streams, so she made a 'come on' motion to the one following her and headed back out to collect the other one. "Come on, let's move. You, watch the left. You, watch the right." I'm getting kind of tired of just calling them 'you' all the time... "All right. You, you're Alonso. And you're Basilio. So when I say Alonso, I want you" - she pointed at the one watching the left - "to listen, and when I say Basilio, that's your cue to take orders. If I want you both to do something I'll say so. Got it? Alonso, nod if you understand." She waited. "Basilio, nod if you understand."

Once she had their responses, she opened the doors. "Both of you, let's move. Keep a close eye out, and if you sense anything suspicious, touch my shoulder to get my attention and then point it out to me."

You head back the way you came and collect your other immortal. You attempt to name them in order to keep them straight. Surprisingly, they take to it easily, and both of them nod in understanding. It's sort of odd to think of them as having names.
You haul open the doors to the maintenance floor, and the immortals cover your flanks as you enter. [Luck 1] There are a few things you notice immediately. The first is the fully extended security turret that's hanging from the ceiling at the end of the checkpoint hall. The second is Ashley, standing beneath the turret. She appears to be packing up a set of tools. [Ashley reflex 4] She looks absolutely stunned to see you.
[Observation 18] The rest of the room is pretty much exactly as you expected it. The security checkpoint is essentially an eight foot wide, twenty foot long corridor with two thin strips of blue glass-like material running the length of each wall. Under normal circumstances, workers would walk through, be passively scanned, and detained by security in the event of theft, possession of contraband contraband, or system error. Failure to comply would result in the turret being lowered, although, before now, you've never actually seen that happen. You also notice a small panel hanging open on the ceiling immediately to the right of the security turret. It's filled electronics, and, though you're no mechanic, you'd guess they're important.
Alonso and Basilio tap you on opposite shoulders and point down the hallway. The turret whirs and focuses on Alonso. Ashley opens her mouth in surprise.
This is going to get hairy.

Spoiler: Dominique Wakeman (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

---

James Evan

Quote from: Powder Miner on July 20, 2013, 11:11:18 pm

James attempts to elicit the same... potential, to allow Iscariot to talk.

You breathe deeply and focus. It isn't that Dominique's training was completely ineffective, even this much is more than you could do before, but you feel that there's a wealth of information that you're simply missing. [A.Kinetics 19] The feeling of potential swells across your skin again, feeling stronger and more stable this time. Iscariot winks back into being beside you. He seems slightly more irritated than he did last time. [Gather information 14+1] Or, perhaps, simply more scared.
"Short version," he begins without preamble, obviously intending to get as much out before you lose your grip again. "We aren't strong enough to contain the force of the blast. If you hold on, I'd give us a one in twenty at surviving. If you charge a barrier and let it set, well, it'd be about as effective as covering the bomb in birthday wrap. That is a mark IV, low yield, demolition pack designed for sabotage."
You frown. Iscariot, formerly being your subconscious, shouldn't know anything that you don't.
Iscariot notices your confusion and shrugs. "We've got a dead Technocrat Acolyte in our head, I made a point of sorting through what he knew after you disposed of him. The point is that the bomb is designed to be low-enough yield to slip through the ITM sensors, which means that just one or two of these things can't destroy the ship."
[Luck 13] You glance involuntarily at the bomb. For now, it appears content to sit tight and not explode.
The intercom beeps again, and Tarran's voice comes through in rush. "James, I've got another bomb in engineering. Missed it because I wasn't looking for it. We have a serious problem. Hoke has us at a few minutes out from Hensfield, but... I have no idea if we can land before one of these turns us into burning gibs. James, do you think there is a chance, even a tiny one, that we can disarm these things?"
[Failed Roll not show]

Spoiler: James Evan (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Silver Seraph Model V, "Virtue" (click to show/hide)

---

Tyrin and Anna

The settlement of New Hensfield was on fire. A dozen different firefights blazed in different sections of the colony as Technocrat troops clashed with Unchained rebels. The colonists just tried to stay out of the way, but there wasn't a lot of out of the way to be had. The end was here. The Unchained were backed into a corner, and the Technocrats had been dropped off with their equipment by one of the cargo ships that ferried goods to Hensfield and carried its produce away. Neither one could leave, and neither could allow the other to survive.
Everything had been going well enough before the troops came. The colonists had been naturally suspicious of the "genetic diversity" project, but the Unchained had made themselves dutiful workers on their shifts, and it didn't hurt that they had women like Anna to be the face of the program. Then the Technocrat troops arrived. They'd arrived with the goal of rooting through the population of Hensfield for "unsavory elements". The leaders of the colony, faced with a senior Presbyter, had complied as gracefully as they could. They'd expected to lose a few token souls for detainment and public punishment- the usual drill with that kind of search.
Unfortunately, the Technocrat force had brought several psionics other than the Presbyter himself, and there was no way for the Unchained to hide everyone mentally or physically. The result was this tiny, but exceedingly concentrated, warzone in the middle of Hensfield.
Anna and Tyrin had their heads down, crouching behind the shattered remnants of a piece of farming equipment. Things were not going well. The Unchained had more psionics, but they were fragmented, and the Technocracy was better trained, better armed, and they'd brought a gunship with them. It circled under the canopy, harrying the unchained any time they tried to form into a cohesive group. There was at least one psionic on board, and his handiwork had been keeping the unchained psionics from pulling it out of the air. Your people are dying, but you will not go gentle into that good night. You may go, but never gently.
Bullets slam into the twisted metal of your cover, making both of you duck involuntarily. There's another unchained here with you, but a bullet shattered her leg on the gunship's last pass. She's got a shield over the bleeding, but you have no idea how much help she can actually give you. The Technocrats firing on you are pretty scattered. Their captain caught a Renfield barrage with his throat early in the fight, and his squad has been fairly undisciplined since then.
There's a building directly to your north, and rubble to your north-east. The Technocrats are holed up behind hastily made, but effective, barricades to your west. For the moment they seem content to pin you down and wait for reinforcements.

Spoiler: Tyrin Laveros (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Anna Witheld (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Zako · « **Reply #8021 on:** July 22, 2013, 11:34:59 pm »

Anna was not pleased with the situation. The damn technocrats had unexpectedly taken along a bunch of psionics with them on inspecting the nearby colonies, and it had caught them with their pants down. If she survived, she was going to have to bring this up with her superiors and have someone think up a bunch of emergency plans for this sort of thing. In the meantime, she was going to have to get her fellow unchained out of this situation while trying to avoid that damn gunship.

Not happy in the least.

"Listen! We're going to have to move before that gunship comes back! We can take these bastards, but we've got to do it before either they get reinforcements or the gunship circles back around! As I see it, we have two options: We can either press on these bastards and take them down at close range with a leapfrog manoeuvre using covering fire, or we can take our chances and head inside the nearby building, patch her up and have one of us circle around to flank them with the other stays with her and keeps them occupied!" Anna said to the others over a nearby explosion and gunshots.

"What do you think we should do?"

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #8022 on:** July 23, 2013, 03:21:52 am »

Shit. The first thing she had to do was close distance. Her shotgun wasn't effective at this range. Although.... maybe she didn't have to get closer. "Both of you, shoot the panel to the right of the turret!" As for herself, she focused on Ashley and attempted to fling her down the hallway toward herself, hopefully to land at her feet where she could finish her with a quick shot from the Cerico.

(20 stamina expended to lift 300 pounds, attempting to throw Ashley six spaces south. Sort of hoping to also get Ashley shot by the turret if it shoots at Basilio but I doubt I'm that lucky. Anyway, if allowed, if/after I draw Ashley south I'll attempt to shoot her as well.)

Dom expends 20 stamina to fling Ashley into the turret, then immediately moves three tiles south and one west into cover. Alonso spends his turn aiming at the electronic panel mentioned previously, while Basilio just quickshots it.

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8023 on:** July 25, 2013, 07:17:28 pm »

"I don't know if we can! Trying to psionically seal it won't work, I know that... but only one or two of these won't destroy the ship, they're low enough yield for that! Ask Hoke if he knows how to disarm bombs!"

Tiruin · « **Reply #8024 on:** July 25, 2013, 07:31:52 pm »

(I am so editing this post later on. Sorry Draig, busy here with exams

)

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Author Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 528009 times)

Fr0stByt3

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Zako

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Zako

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns

Tiruin

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 2: Guns, lots of guns