Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 535812 times)

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #8895 on:** August 12, 2014, 11:44:58 am »

Some problems were more difficult to solve than others. Despite latent claustrophobia, this was one of the easier ones.

Shapeshift into cute mutable sausage man and squeeze into ventilation system through the appropriate opening like an octopus into a box.

wolfchild · « **Reply #8896 on:** August 12, 2014, 05:39:48 pm »

((sorry but this was taking so long))

"With the way the station is I want to get us as close as possible in the ship"

Attempt to maneuver the ship close the the communications array

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8897 on:** August 12, 2014, 07:03:35 pm »

((and thaaaaaat is a terrifying title.))

Draignean · « **Reply #8898 on:** August 12, 2014, 10:25:05 pm »

Quote from: Powder Miner on August 12, 2014, 07:03:35 pm

((and thaaaaaat is a terrifying title.))

((Question is, which character or character group is it applied to? Tyrin, Anna, and yourself? Toomas? Dominique? All of you?

Incidentally, Zako hasn't been on since his last action. Anyone have an idea when he might be back?
Otherwise, Tyrin can make his action.))

Toomas Amk

Quote from: Harry Baldman on August 12, 2014, 11:44:58 am

Some problems were more difficult to solve than others. Despite latent claustrophobia, this was one of the easier ones.

Shapeshift into cute mutable sausage man and squeeze into ventilation system through the appropriate opening like an octopus into a box.

You let your enhanced strength fade [Mechanics 15+2, 22+2, 1, 8+2. Luck 22. 73/60] and use a quick burning laser cutter from your kit to saw the security cover off the ventilation shaft. Then you strip your clothes off and toss your gear up into the fresh hole. Nude as the day you were born, you shift to a mental state of methodical self destruction. You grab the lip of the shaft and pull yourself up even as you force the joints and ligaments of your lower body to dissolve. Your body elongates as you force your front half into the shaft, your legs merging into a muscular mass of flesh and free roaming bones. [Restructuring 11+1] (HP -48) You push your skull forwards against the mound your gear makes in the vent, dissolving your arms as soon as they become a hindrance and propelling yourself through the shaft with muscle contractions reminiscent both of the motions of snakes and caterpillars.
It's a hard, dark push through the shaft. The Abomination's screaming is carried from various sources, and at one point you think you hear the crashing thuds of it breaking into the maintenance system. Eventually, the screaming begins to fade, leaving you to crawl wormlike through the airshaft. [Hidden Roll] The twists and turns you take have a pattern, and you think that you've done a fair job of making your way back to the control room, a notion which is supported when you finally find a few faint slits of light in front of your gear. You pulse your body towards the light, sliding rubbery arms around the bulk of your clothes and armor to push against the grating.
Nothing happens.
You lock your body up against the shaft and try again, trying to use the length of your entire to push against the metal.

Nothing continues to happen, which it shouldn't. Technocrat airshafts too small to harbor a human are equipped with two things: localized EMP emitters, and 50lb friction fit seals. Friction fitting can get stickier with time, but this thing feels as if it's been bolted together.

Spoiler: Toomas Amk (click to show/hide)

---

Dominique Wakeman

Quote from: SeriousConcentrate on August 12, 2014, 07:15:56 am

Dom looked at the scientists and engineers. "Squads 1 and 2, form up. Squad 3, work on the door. Alonso, Basilio, take aim at the hostiles but do not fire until I give the command. Taiya, I want you to tell me what you're capable of... unless you want to take the reins and form a plan, in which case I'll tell you my abilities. Either way, I'm going to buy us a little time." She was sure the cadet would know she meant psionic abilities by 'capable of'.

Make a 200 HP wall (counting the difficulty step) that blocks off the corridor so the freaks can't reach us.

[Active Kinetics 20+2-5, Bonus hardness][Control 20 Cost -35%] (-21 Stamina) You turn your attention briefly towards the corridor behind you, erecting a full-width barrier with only a thought. A lifetime ago, when the unchained first gave you this power, creating such a barrier would have been well beyond you. You've been forced to grow since then.
You order the squads to their work, the pair of engineers wheezing heavily as they unpack their gear and go to work on the door with the scientists. The soldiers form up with one group keeping half an eye on the support team, and the other kneeling in the corridor to watch for an assault from behind.
"I will defer to your rank and expertise, Harlequin," Taiya responds quickly. [Failed roll not shown] "I am a second order empath, capably trained in all basic abilities. In addition, I can detect surface thoughts without significant effort and read and manipulate detailed thoughts when given time. I am capable of remotely powering or overloading most electronics, and am particularly gifted at taking psychic control of machines. I have studied and am somewhat adept with the art of reviving corpses for use in combat and subterfuge, and can take control of multiple living hosts that have already been weakened. Defensively, I am adept at echoing psionic attacks and I have the ability to passively drain energy dense regions and control electric fields."

Spoiler: Dominique Wakeman (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Allies (click to show/hide)

---

Ashley Fey

Quote from: wolfchild on August 12, 2014, 05:39:48 pm

"With the way the station is I want to get us as close as possible in the ship"

Attempt to maneuver the ship close the the communications array

Harry nods. "Good plan. Direct, flexible, and capable of being expressed in a single sentence. I like it."
"We cannot leave Dominique Wakeman behind," Emily puts in, her synthetic voice full of concern. "I have been instructed to aid her, which means aiding you, but we must return for her."
Harry waves a hand dismissively. "Yeah, we will undoubtedly return to babysit the mutated chick that kicks down reinforced doors and happens to work for the man who killed Jordan. There's absolutely no way we'd strand her here and steal her ship, that'd be unthinkable!"
"Thank you, Harry Nakamuno," Emily says solemnly, the sarcasm in Harry's tone completely failing to register with her.

You shake your head and make your way to the cockpit, taking manual control and undocking the shuttle from the station. Emily is immediately there with you, recommending a path to a communication's array nested in the military section of the facility. Not only should a military lockdown have prevented the failed test subjects from damaging it, but it runs on its own dedicated system. Even if you have to power it up, it should be a relatively simple procedure to link it with the shuttle's reactor.
The shuttle cruises over to the adjacent quarter of the station quickly, and Emily highlights all of the docking regions. All but one have been sealed, probably as a result of the same lockdown that would protect the military array. The last, however, is a crater. It looks like a ship reactor went into an unconstrained overload while still in dock. The station's architectural shields prevented the crippling damage from a meltdown, but all of that explosive pressure had to go somewhere. In this case, "somewhere" was out the hull.
You could try and dock with one of the intact shuttle docks and override the doors. It's probably a bit more hospitable if you can succeed in the override, but it'll set off every siege alarm in the facility if you try and hack a shuttle dock and botch the work. The cratered dock will definitely provide you with easy access, but then there's the small problem of trying to navigate vacuum long enough to get inside an intact part of the facility- not to mention bypassing any additional blast doors that the meltdown locked.

Spoiler: Ashley Fey (click to show/hide)

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #8899 on:** August 13, 2014, 02:39:05 am »

Hm. Well, use the mechanical bypass kit once more to take off the bolted cover. No bolts can keep a truly determined operative out, you see. If there's space to do so, reassume human form. If not, continue as I am.

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #8900 on:** August 13, 2014, 07:06:37 am »

"Fennec has his reasons for keeping an eye on you," Dom said, an approving tone in her voice - it was actually genuine, since the girl's abilities sounded all sorts of useful to her right about now. "My abilities are more kinetic than empathic, but I do have a few such tricks up my sleeve. That wall should keep the hostiles off of us for a little while, but I want you to use your abilities to help the engineers any way you can, and let us know what's on the other side when it opens. The marines and I will keep an eye on the corridor." Dominique turned her attention toward the corridor and walked up the the wall, keeping her shotgun at the ready and a finger ready to use the needle launcher.

"I don't think they're going to break through soon, but when they do, I want Squad 1 to focus on the left side of the corridor and Squad 2 to focus on the right. My team and I will hold the center."

Wait for the door to open, keeping an eye on the enemies and ready to quickshot one with a needle should they break through. Also give the orders above, with Alonso and Basilio ordered to focus fire on whatever I manage to tag should combat start.

wolfchild · « **Reply #8901 on:** August 14, 2014, 06:02:02 pm »

Try the cratered dock, if the freefall is too difficult we can always try the riskier path afterwards

Draignean · « **Reply #8902 on:** August 14, 2014, 08:51:08 pm »

Ashley Fey

Quote from: wolfchild on August 14, 2014, 06:02:02 pm

Try the cratered dock, if the freefall is too difficult we can always try the riskier path afterwards

You bring the shuttle down, getting as close as you can to the crater in the Station's hull. [Hidden Roll] The damage appears relatively minor, constrained almost entirely to the region where the ship would have been kissing the station. The inside of the dock appears scorched but clean, vacuum stripped during decompression. If the shuttle held position outside, a jump would be fairly easy.
Except for the fact that you don't have an EVA suit.
Of course, you could essentially have Harry hug you while you jump. His Aegis implants won't work for long against vacuum, but they should perform long enough for you to get the door open. [Intelligence 21+1] Unfortunately, without a dock, Dom's shuttle is going to lose everything but the emergency atmosphere tanks as soon as you open the door and shut off the shields so you can jump.

Spoiler: Ashley Fey (click to show/hide)

---

Toomas Amk

Quote from: Harry Baldman on August 13, 2014, 02:39:05 am

Hm. Well, use the mechanical bypass kit once more to take off the bolted cover. No bolts can keep a truly determined operative out, you see. If there's space to do so, reassume human form. If not, continue as I am.

Though assuming a humanoid form would make your job considerably easier, the shaft is prohibitively narrow. Instead, you use a series of fleshy and mostly boneless half-limbs to disentangle your bypass kit from your belongings. [Mechanics 10+2-2, 19+2-2, 16+2-2, 3+2-2. Luck 18. 66/65] Manipulating tools with appendages that don't actually have true fingers is... difficult, to say the least. Still, through skill and a decent amount of luck, you're able to detach the vent cover in short order, shearing away the corner frames instead of trying to manipulate the screws on the inside.
You only take a moment to verify that this is in fact the correct room before pushing your gear out and slithering down behind it. (Health loss halved) You drop the self-annihilating state as soon as you land, letting the mutant ORS push your bones back into place with a brand new network of muscles, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. You straighten up from the process in time to stare straight down the Barrel of Rob's pistol.
"Are you that Abomination? You could be. You have to make me believe that you aren't or I'll destroy you," Rob half-shouts, half mumbles at you. The irregular breathing you noticed earlier is worse now, [observation 21+1] and you notice that his face is beginning to droop on one side. "Anything could have happened while Amk was gone. He could be back, he could be gone, he could be anywhere. You could be him..." For a moment, Rob relaxes, his features seeming to tighten back up. Then a look of confusion crosses his face, and he raises the flechette pistol to center over your right eye. His hands seem to tremble faintly. "But you also could not be the same. Hard to tell by looking. People can get replaced without the others noticing, but I can know sometimes. Prove that you are what you look like. PROVE IT!"
You mentally revise Rob's personality assessment for the second time.

Spoiler: Toomas Amk (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: On Ground (click to show/hide)

---

Dominique Wakeman

Quote from: SeriousConcentrate on August 13, 2014, 07:06:37 am

"Fennec has his reasons for keeping an eye on you," Dom said, an approving tone in her voice - it was actually genuine, since the girl's abilities sounded all sorts of useful to her right about now. "My abilities are more kinetic than empathic, but I do have a few such tricks up my sleeve. That wall should keep the hostiles off of us for a little while, but I want you to use your abilities to help the engineers any way you can, and let us know what's on the other side when it opens. The marines and I will keep an eye on the corridor." Dominique turned her attention toward the corridor and walked up the the wall, keeping her shotgun at the ready and a finger ready to use the needle launcher.

"I don't think they're going to break through soon, but when they do, I want Squad 1 to focus on the left side of the corridor and Squad 2 to focus on the right. My team and I will hold the center."

Wait for the door to open, keeping an eye on the enemies and ready to quickshot one with a needle should they break through. Also give the orders above, with Alonso and Basilio ordered to focus fire on whatever I manage to tag should combat start.

Taiya nods, taking the praise mutely but relaying your orders rapidly. She joins the engineers and scientists immediately, conferring with them as you watch the hallway along with the assembled Marines.
Everything is eerily quiet. Your helmet and the wax work to deaden external sound, but the rippling patterns of light footsteps on the coated ground remain omnipresent. Now that your party isn't running, the light from the wax has dimmed considerably, and you can occasionally see faint ripples from just outside where your shield should be. [P.Kinetics 15+1] It's difficult to sense anything too far past the barrier, but, if you focus, you can make out the kinetic outlines of at least seven large individuals that shuffle a few feet on the far side of the shield. Seven is a large number.
"We have a solution, Harlequin," Taiya radios back after a few seconds. "The motivators for the door can be taken well past their normal torque limit with a careful burst charge. The engineers believe it might be enough to crank the door down so we can slip inside. The scientists calculate we'll need approximately five energy cells for the burst charge. I can provide that level of power once to open the door, and once to close it, but it will be tiring." Taiya pauses, stopping to confer with one of the engineers. "It's also possible that the initial charge will burn out the door mechanism even if it succeeds, rendering us unable to provide a burst charge to close the door on the other side. I would like to make a note that if you choose to use energy cells to fuel the burst, we may not make it inside in time. By my estimate, we have between thirty and forty-five seconds."

(No stamina/health regen due to short time interval)

Spoiler: Dominique Wakeman (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Allies (click to show/hide)

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #8903 on:** August 14, 2014, 09:04:22 pm »

Dom thought about it. "...Do it to open the door, and we'll use the cells to close it if the option is available. We'll provide cover fire. If we can't close the door, we'll keep moving to Fennec's position and try to take out the hostiles as we fall back. Bast case scenario, we'll have the wall and the door to hold them off while we run."

wolfchild · « **Reply #8904 on:** August 14, 2014, 09:35:14 pm »

Well that's a good enough reason to risk hacking a functioning dock, harry may well need his power inside

Harry Baldman · « **Reply #8905 on:** August 15, 2014, 02:11:16 am »

"Abominations do not need subterfuge, and might not be capable of it. Freaks have little use for it as well, and are insane. I am currently naked and would wish to correct that. If a detail is needed, you expressed, possibly in jest, that you would have added inductors to the circuit diagram on the scientist's back. So, have you done your work on the surveillance system? Can we leave before the situation worsens still?"

Hope Rob isn't entirely insane yet. Ponder significance of drooping face. A sign of degeneration, maybe? Loss of identity? Freak-like indication?

Zako · « **Reply #8906 on:** August 15, 2014, 09:52:10 am »

((Sorry guys, I've been preoccupied for the last few days and kept forgetting about this forum.

...

Noooooo! Not the Marshal!!! He will be missed... But we will avenge him! And finally, FIRST BLOOD! YEAAAAH! Suck on that asshat!))

The joining of Anna and Tyrin let themselves feel a moment of sorrow for the loss of the Marshal, but it was quickly replaced with a steely determination.

"The technocracy is putting everyone at risk already! The people deserve the right to choose for themselves, without you overshadowing them!

Everyone, we've got him on the ropes! James! Get the gun off the Marshal! It's still charged! Shoot him with it! He's also weak to mind attacks!" The two voices of the link called out at the exact same time, Anna's leadership coming to the fore in the absence of the Marshal.

Move to a different position to try and mess up the presbyter's fix on our position. Then start with an Energy Drain on the Presbyter himself at -2 and use the energy in a Surge (no mod), supplying extra energy if needed to make it reach at least 45 energy and if exceeding this amount already, then adding an extra 30 energy on top from our own supplies. Try to have the surge focused in a way to make a small hole in his mindbar, so I can slip a Mindbend through when he's distracted, which makes him detect everyone's positions a bit more fuzzy/off position than they really are, so to throw off his aim.

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8907 on:** August 15, 2014, 10:24:06 am »

James grimaced as the Marshall fell, but he didn't have time to worry now. No, now it was time to strike and, hopefully, bring the presbyter down once and for all.

"I've got an attack of my own, thanks!" James shouted as he dashed at the Presbyter. Raising his arm, he let the psychic potential flow through him, and...

Throw all 8 shrikes, at -5 difficulty, at the presbyter.

Draignean · « **Reply #8908 on:** August 15, 2014, 05:20:49 pm »

Quote from: Zako on August 15, 2014, 09:52:10 am

((Sorry guys, I've been preoccupied for the last few days and kept forgetting about this forum.))

((No problem. I know all of my classes start Monday, so I expected something similar to be up with you. Will work on turns tonight, but I have to get some less fun stuff together as well.

EDIT: Got most of the way through the turn. Another person died. Will finish on saturday when I might be able to throw some maps up.))

Powder Miner · « **Reply #8909 on:** August 16, 2014, 09:16:13 am »

Quote from: Draignean on August 15, 2014, 05:20:49 pm

Another person died.

((Don't be wigs don't be wigs don't be wiiiigs))

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Author Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 535812 times)

Harry Baldman

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

wolfchild

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Harry Baldman

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

wolfchild

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

wolfchild

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Harry Baldman

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Zako

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Draignean

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.

Powder Miner

Re: Deviation-22, Ch. 3: Stop fighting the inevitable.