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Dave "Damnation, this is going to take awhile. Witness, any idea where an armored bunker might have an alternate entran-?" Dave grabs his head and foams at the mouth. Whatever part of the human brain was designed to cope with psionic bullshit his genes did not see fit to grant him it. "hurk-gght WHERE IS THAT FUCKIN' BUNKER DWELLING MOORLOCK TAKING MY DAUGHTE-*Ghglth*",He slumps down against the wall and bulls off the cloth mask and stares back in the general direction of town with a look of 'Dave is not here right now, please leave a message and we will get back to you shortly' Read a Sitch 2d6+1 <@ChrisAsmadi> (2d6+1) == 2 3 +1 == 6 Nope
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Jun 3, 2014 04:56
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Witness "Um, I don't- HNNNG!" Witness' back arches as part of their brain they don't quite know how to use turns on without a ground wire. They grit their teeth and their hands twitch at their sides. But they can see, and the twitching calms, becomes more methodical, like fine-tuning a radio receiver. They stand, head thrown back, eyes clamped shut, not against the visions, but against the rest of the world. Pull back. Show me. Give me the layout. Where. Where. Show me. Let me see. --- Opening my brain about paths, and secrets, laying it all bare for the world to see. Using Bonefeel's +1 forward. Opening brain, +weird+1: 2d6+3 13 XP: (X)(X)(X)()(>)
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Jun 3, 2014 06:52
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Ammar Now here's a funny thing. When that visions appaears, there's a sense of fear rising again, quickly squashed by the dampening in my brain. This feeling is of course caused partly by the very fact that my brain was dampened using alien technology, alien substances and alien bodyparts. It was done partly to counter attempts at mind control. But of course makes everyone, including me, wonder what fun the aliens can do to a human with bits of alien in his brain, especially since some suggest they have a hive mind of sorts. So in trying to making me immune to having aliens take over my mind, they made everyone worry if aliens could now take over my mind. Dr. Vahlen said that is impossible, but Dr. Vahlen also admitted that alien technology is way beyond us. So even as I try to keep my face carefully neutral, and focused on the camera, my mind races. Okay, this could be an actual mental assault. Or even a psionic attempt to assist us. In which case, I should alert Valkyrie. Or maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. Perhaps through alien influence. Perhaps simply because the Meld keeping it together is wearing off and I'm starting to get brain damaged. Perhaps all this is just a hallucination as I'm a drooling wreck somewhere. Again, the neural dampening beats back a rising attempt at fear rising. No, this isn't useful. This doesn't help. But I shouldn't tell Valkyrie. No telling what she'll do if she thinks me compromized. And really, how much could he trust her, a cynical part of me muses. Why haven't the aliens finished the job yet? Did X-Com strike a bargain with them perhaps? Would they sell out the world to get to keep their own country? Well, X-Com sold the rest of the world out for the US once. But would she? Perhpas, but even if she wouldn't, they had mind control, didn't they? For now, I hold silent. I'm supposed to be an alien overlord. Cannot break this role now. I look at the camera with a flash of irritation. "If you must. You should know that there is a blue haired girl. It is vital that she is kept alive and as unharmed as possible. Now, I am going to go in, and try to take care of this situation. Do not hinder me." And with that, I advance towards the entrance, trusting my bluff to keep working.
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Jun 3, 2014 21:43
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Jaime Jaime looks at the vision. The little girl, she's got a future... it's not bright. It's the opposite. It involves a lot of killin' and dyin'. As her eyes are cast across the eyefields of the future so many blue and black and brown SLAM SHUT, NEVER TO OPEN AGAIN THE WORLD ENDS IN CLOSED EYES AND A BLESSED SILENCE FOR ALL WHO SUFFER AND BEAR LOADS MAMA BRINGS THE WAY Jaime blinks, and it's gone. In its place, she watches a screen explode, a vestige of the past falling silent. "Good," she murmurs. Visions: 2d6+1 11 Anne is gonna live, one way or another. I'm not sure there's any NPCs about to declare dead other than a certain misfiring AI, so it's dead. Then, she faces the cannons turning towards the Witness, and begins methodically opening fire. Act Under Fire: 2d6+3 12 K Prime fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 3, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 22:07
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Valkyrie Valkyrie has seen many strange things over the years. The, for lack of a better term, vision disturbs her more for its banality than any other factor. She's dealt with hallucinations before, from psychic attacks to nerve agents to extreme sleep deprivation, but they're not usually so benign. She'll question the meaning of it later. She's in motion immediately after the vision, heading away from the entrance Dave just trashed at a right angle, looking for a small rise in the landscape, looking back over her shoulder now and then as she moves. There's a logic to these things, a twisted one if you can figure out the psychology of who you're dealing with. Scared civilians digging a fallout shelter will put the escape hatch too close, at the other end of their little hole, too close to make good an escape out the back while someone's knocking at the entrance. Scared civilians don't have laser turrets and custom security AI. A paranoid rich civilian will have the escape hatch a good way off, a few hundred yards at least, well hidden from the front entrance, something you can actually use to get clear while the front door is getting kicked in. But she's pegging these people as at least semi-professional, or advised by well paid professionals, and willing to listen, the apparent affection for flash and style notwithstanding. Which means... There. A bit of a berm alongside a slightly sunken bit of road, probably a private one for utility access. From this side it's just a landscape feature to keep the asphalt from spoiling the view, but it's got a clear line of sight - a clear line of fire - to the front entrance. On the other hand, someone crouching on the other side would be all but invisible to anyone at the main gate. She hops over the berm and onto the blacktop, and starts kicking debris aside until she finds it. A manhole, in what a moment's reflection suggests is very odd spot. Valkyrie kneels down next to it and gets out her freakish machete, using it to pry up the cover. A moment later she's looking down into a dark but suspiciously dry tunnel. She looks up and waves for Ammar to hurry up, then drops into the hole.
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Jun 4, 2014 01:15
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Jonathan Jackson Harm 3:00 (1/6), xp 1/5 Everything's going to be fine kid, everything's going to be--GAH! Argh...the autocannon must have decided they had a good shot and fired! Hit me right in the shoulder blades; I flew the last six feet or so into the bunker from that shot! My armor took most of it; it barely looks scratched, but still...gragh...it hurts. I'll take that harm. I pull her in a few more yards before setting her down on the concrete floor and dropping to my knees myself...I don't like getting shot at and shot and...oh god... There's so many people out there...so many...why are they all here?! What do they want from me?! I'm not my father, he didn't tell me a drat thing! What am I supposed to-- That alien again...I know what XCOM called him now..."Sectoid Commander"...that's the name...theft, theft, everything is theft... He was just a kid...my age, maybe even younger...we knew nothing about each other, we could barely understand each other, and yet we got together because otherwise we'd both be alone...and then some rear end in a top hat with a sawn-off double barrel came along and stole his...and I found myself standing over two...I didn't want to...why'd he even...?! It was all my fault I didn't see the shotgun and he shoved me out of the way when it-- GAH! I realize I've managed to curl myself up against the wall and almost pound my brains out against it. The girl is staring at me like I'm insane, and I probably am. And...wait...are the guns still firing? What are they shooting at now?! "I'm alright, I'm...Could you wait here? I'm going to see who else is out there, just...check on your radio, alright? I think there's some spare parts in there. Can you do that?" I point to a closet as I pull myself up, pat the girl on the back, and walk back to the bunker entrance. I don't trust those guns anymore, so I'm just going to try and see what I can from the doorway. I just wish it wasn't so loud... Great, the house is turning into a warzone. Let's get some intel...What's going on out there?! (Read a Sitch, +Sharp): 2d6+1 6 Or not! At least I mark xp. ...just make it stop...just...everyone stop shooting, please!
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Jun 4, 2014 01:52
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Dave, owls and lemons, my friend. Owls and lemons. When that either makes sense or quits sounding like it should make sense, and your brain's working again, let me know how that goes. -- Witness, everything opens up. You see the kid, you suddenly know his name's Jonathan, go flying through the doorway into the bunker. He's not trying to take her, he's trying to get her safe. You see it, even if you can't get it all into words right away. You see the path beyond, you see where he was going, and you feel the pain of his wounds. The scorching heat of a laser between the shoulder blades. The fear, and panic, and sheer intense guilt of past mistakes, both his and those forced upon him by those who came before. So I must ask you two questions. One, do the sins of the father reflect upon the son? And two, what do you do? -- Jaime, you've got clear and easy shots. The cannons are slow and ragged, barely even able to peek up over the ground before they meet Mama. Getting in, though, that's going to be trickier. Dave and Witness got enough digging done before their brains went per-klow(weaklings, not used to it) that you can go in through the front door, or you can chase after Valkyrie and take the back. Front door's a shorter path to a wounded boy and girl, but it means going into crossfire from cannons that haven't sat in the acid rain for like 20 years. Back door's probably clean, maybe, but it means a longer route. What do you do? -- Ammar, you get no response. Jaime's gunfire took out the camera when a cannon tried to rise up behind it, and now you're safe, but without answers. Are you going to follow Valkyrie, or take a different path? -- Valkyrie, it's down into the dark, dank hole. You can hear a thin hum of machinery, whirs of things moving around. The tunnel itself has a few security measures, but you're a trained soldier and you know they're coming, we don't even need to roll for those. Suffice it to say you get to the other side, alarms blaring as you slip out into the actual bunker proper. The problem is, you're not dropped into the same room as the kids. So now I've got to ask your goal. Are you going to try and find Anne first and foremost, or are you looking for something else, like the controls to this insane place? -- Jonathan, it loving hurts. It hurts like you can't even BELIEVE. You are absolutely bleeding, like, a lot. You are bleeding a lot. Can I just emphasize that? Anyways, the entrance has sealed behind you, alarms are going off, the place has gone into full-on LOCKDOWN mode. Really, about the only way in or out would be the hidden escape hatch, but there's no way any of them would know about that...Right? Meanwhile, Anne is just staring at you, and clutching her head with her good hand. The one at the end of her burnt-up arm, well, it's not doing a whole lot of anything, and it's gonna get worse if she doesn't get some proper attention soonish. But she can't even feel it right now, too shocked and possibly in shock. "Wha...What was....With the shotgun, and....What did you do?!"
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Jun 4, 2014 05:42
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Witness "Safe," Witness mumbles. It's loud enough for Dave to hear, but maybe he's off in his own little problem at the moment. "She's safe. She will be safe, she was safe, she's trying to be safe. The boy. The boy, he's... Sins," Where did that come from? "Sins handed down like old clothes. Wash the clothes." This isn't making any more sense than before. "Washed in the blood of the lamb. No lambs here, just wolves in sheep's clothing." What's that sound? Coming from inside the van? "You can still shave a wolf, though that doesn't make it a poodle."
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Jun 4, 2014 07:58
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Dave "...well you see, it is a metaphor, the lemon is spherical and food whereas the owl produces those balls of mice bones and poo poo-hey that's great Witness-It is an example of Yin-Yang dualism and-WAIT WHAT" Dave jumps to his feet, "That is loving fantastic, uh, I'm not sure how you know these things, but I'm going to remain cautiously hopeful. Lets see if the others have found anything." <Outrider Actual to all units, any progress on finding an entrance? STATUS REPORT. Over>
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Jun 4, 2014 08:31
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Ammar drat it. I hope the AI got that message before it went out. As Valkyrie finds the whole and beckons me to follow I shake my head. "No, this computer seems to assume I'm some kind of friendly alien. I intend to keep up that illusion. It might be the only way to save the blue-haired girl. You warn the others to let me pass." And then, moving on augmented legs, I'm gone. It's a dangerous plan. A foolish plan perhaps. As I move to walk towards the exit, I feel the neural dampeners working their magic, but despite that my twin hearts are beating rapidly. I see several people fighting. I don't recognize any of them, and I barely give them a glance. I'm really hoping Valkyrie sent that message, or otherwise I'm not sure how they'll see me. An armoured figure with shifting skin and inhuman looking eyes. Probably doesn't help like I'm striding up towards the heavily protected main entrance with my gun holstered and my rifle shouldered. As I approach, I call out clearly again. "I do not know if you understood me last time, computer, but I repeat: the blue-haired child is not to come to harm. She is important." Now, just walk in, pokerface up and hope really, really hard nobody takes a shot at me.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:58
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Valkyrie As Valkyrie moves carefully into the bunker proper, she keys her radio. "Valkyrie. In the bunker. Moving to control room." Then pauses, then adds, "Try not to shoot Ammar. He's the color changing one." Then she turns the radio down so it doesn't distract her. Pistol up, she moves into the room. If that vision was worth anything, then the boy had Anne. Hopefully he had enough brains to head for the medbay immediately. She, however, was going to try and find the operations center. She could get a layout of the place, and turn off the defenses. Make all their lives easier. Moving with purpose, she pushes deeper into the bunker, hoping the builders had put up some drat signage. Read a Sitch [20:14] <Krysmbot> Gorbash, 5+1 = 6 Not so much.
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Jun 5, 2014 01:17
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Jaime Like some paltry automated cannons are gonna stop a true chooser of the slain. Let the false and the weak take the easy path. The hard path holds no fear for one who has faced death in dreams a thousand thousand times. Mama clears a way. And Jaime kicks down the door, unbowed and unafraid. Act Under Fire: gently caress Cannons: 2d6+3 10
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Jun 5, 2014 01:53
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Jonathan Jackson Harm 3:00 (1/6), xp 2/5 It's so loud I don't even notice I'm staring at a blank metal door! And that that hit hurt me more than I thought--I've left a trail of blood down the hallway. At least it makes finding my way back to the girl easier...and...she's...shotgun...she saw it too, didn't she. "Listen, kid," I tell her with a slightly trembling voice. "I...think I know what you saw. And I have no idea why you saw it. And...I...god, how do I put this." I place both hands on my temples and pace a bit. "I promise I won't let that happen to you. If we see someone with a gun, I'll shoot, and you run, alright? Now...uhm..." I look at her wounded arm. Is it getting worse? "...let's try to find someplace where we can look at your arm, alright? Come on, up..." I motion towards the emergency exit. There's more rooms that way, and if whoever's shooting outside breaks down the door we can leave that way. "Let's hope we can find, I dunno, a sink or something? Some bandages, antiseptic..."
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Jun 5, 2014 04:30
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Jonathan, Anne staggers up to her feet, letting you take her with you. But when you start talking about trying to find a sink or something, she starts getting concerned. "What do you mean, find? Don't you know where everything is? Don't you live here?!" She's starting to eyeball your gun, like she's trying to figure out odds of who'd get to it first and if she'd be better off on her own. That'd about be when the front door busts in. What do you do? -- Jaime, Ammar, you two come right in through the front. Alarms are blaring, cannons are going haywire until Jaime shoots them, but you two get in without any trouble. And you find a blood trail leading away from the front door, and hear the sounds of Anne's shouting. What do you do? -- Dave, awesome, you're back in the land of the new-world-definition of sane. And you get the responses in from those who gave responses. So you've got the front door, or you can go through the back after Valkyrie, or stay back and hold the fort outside. All good options. Of course, before you answer, Witness's poo poo goes down. What do you do? -- Witness, there is absolutely a sound coming from your van, yes. A quick check shows it to be mere resonance, antennas and things going nuts from all the crazy signals and psychic whatsits going around. So, you know, what passes for normal these days. Then a few minutes after you close the door, there's another sound. A different sound. A rather alive sound. So my first question is, what the gently caress is that and how did it get, slash, why is it in your van? My second(well, third slash fourth) question is, what do you do? -- Valkyrie, the place is a little convoluted. Not, like, a labyrinth, but in that ridiculous overly-homey kind of way, where things only make sense if you pretend it's not a bunker that someone would need organization and logic in. It's like you let an architect build it who'd never even considered war and let them get all their artsy fartsy architecture out. That might, in fact, be what happened. So that's a broom closet, that's a restroom, that's the study, going through the doors trying to find where the control center would be in a sensible place...And then, whoa, what the gently caress did you just open the door to? Whatever it is, it's bad, real bad. Especially for you. And what do you do?
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Jun 5, 2014 06:46
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Dave Seeing the chameleon man-mountain and something that looks equal parts mean, surly, and skanky stride on through the front, Dave glances over at the sounds from the van, then over to the entrance. "Hey, ah, Witness, you got this? Cause I gotta check this out. Radio me or the boys if something turns up." Dave moves to catch up with the other two casually blasting their way through automated guns.
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Jun 5, 2014 07:06
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Witness <You get on after your daughter, Mr. President. And remember: The boy's a good kid, he's just had a lot of poo poo shoved on him.> Witness flips their headset mic up and hauls open the van doors. You wouldn't think it to look at things, but a lot survived the apocalypse. There was word of nuclear exchange with alien craft in China, but for most of the world, the alien invasion didn't harm the environment all that much. Plasma, just by its very nature, is sterile, as trillions of bacteria and a few X-COM operatives discovered first-hand (or occasionally no-hand). Thin Man venom aerosolized quickly, dispersing into negligible concentrations minutes after deployment, although for obvious reasons no studies were performed on its biomagnification potential. Elerium was radioactive, but didn't spread far beyond UFO crash sites and had a half-life of 15 days. The biggest contaminant was Meld. Stray plasma fire, overzealous use of explosives, even a few really dedicated Avalanche salvos would blow open a containment pod and scatter the nanotech willy-nilly. This had some unpredictable effects on terrestrial life. Dr. Vahlen had maintained a terrarium of rats who had melded with detritus in their vicinity (The sporkrat was her favorite, although the soldiers were generally more amused by the one that had managed to get a pair of shell casings melded to its hind feet like tap shoes). A farmer's chickens, their coop miraculously untouched by plasma and laser fire during a skirmish, developed a communal intelligence, although they never got smarter than a particularly stupid dog while study was underway. A number of small animals were affected by the gene modification properties, adjusting their own genes or taking on aspects of the surrounding population. Naturally, natural selection applied. The stray Megaphone Chihuahua with its strengthened vocal cords was no match, as far as living to pass on its genes was concerned, for the alley cat with adjustable fur pigmentation allowing for rudimentary camouflage. The upshot being that when Witness opens the van back up, they bear witness to a raccoon that would have had an Animal Control officer of 20-some years ago radioing for backup. Larger and generally more muscular, with an enlarged braincase and a thumb that has bred true and evolved to become semi-opposable. A nuisance when it's digging around a settlement's trash heap. An actual menace when it realizes where the good food is and goes after it. Case in point, this one happens to be elbow-deep in a battered plastic cooler that Witness tends to carry fish in, and looks unimpressed at being interrupted. --- And now that I've established that, I have no idea what to actually do with it.
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Jun 5, 2014 09:31
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Jonathan Jackson Harm 3:00 (1/6), xp 2/5 Aaah, stop screaming at me, I don't need this now! "Look, I didn't mean...okay, okay, bad choice of words. Not literally 'find', I know where the bathrooms are, I mean like...I'm not..." *CRASH* "Come with me if you want to live!" I shout instinctively, grabbing her arm and racing for the inner halls.
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Jun 6, 2014 05:49
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Jaime It is at this point Jaime realizes someone else has been brave enough to come in the front as well. A old man, by her standards, which says that he is good at surviving (which means that in this world, he is good at killing.) Brave, clearly. Smart? Well... maybe. Then she realizes why she is pondering him. She cannot see his eyes. Will they stay open? Will they snap shut? For once, she gets absolutely nothing, not even the uncertain shutting she has taken to calling "sleep," where a life hangs in the balance. Something about him resists the sight she has come to rely on as her own eyes grew watery and unclear in a tank. It is not the first time she has encountered such, but each one is frightening. This one seems vaguely familiar, like she has seen him before in a vulnerable moment, when she could look him in the eyes. But now, in the sharp end, she cannot. She turns to him, shotgun not quite pointed his way. "Who are you?" K Prime fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 21:30
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Dave "I'm the father of the little kid being held prisoner by some weirdo in this death trap. Seeing as we're all blasting the poo poo out its defenses, I'd like to think we're all on the same side." He looks at her. "So while I can appreciate the caution in this day and age, could you please point the scatter gun in a direction other than me?" Dave looks at the color changing mountain, thinking he's seen him taking bounties around the place, but this lady..., "Because I have someone to save right now." (Read A Person) 2d6+1 <@ChrisAsmadi> (2d6+1) == 4 4 +1 == 9 T: K Prime: how could I get Jamie to help me get my kid out of here alive and in one piece. And also not shoot us?) Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jun 7, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 21:59
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Jaime Jaime doesn't as much as face the newcomer. His eyes are clear and bright- it is not yet his time. "I wasn't talking to you, Fisher King." Get Amarr to answer the questions to her liking.
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Jun 7, 2014 22:09
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Valkyrie If she had time, she'd curse the name of whatever rear end in a top hat laid this place out, and then ignored proper signage for hazards. Even in this room, there's been a lot of attention paid to atmosphere and luxury. Much different than the extreme utilitarianism of XCOM's Meld labs. Tasteful lighting, polished metal, red carpeting. Wood paneling for fucks sake. That comes as a quick impression as her boots hit the spilled coolant at the top of the collapsed stairway, sending her tumbling down into the the sunken center of the room. It's a short fall, and she has enough warning to keep from landing on her face, but the landing is jarring. Pain shoots through her knees for a moment, and her jaws click shut, thankfully not on her tongue. Valkyrie stays in a crouch, taking things slow. It's not just concern over the stress on her joints. The Meld tanks must have corroded, or maybe there was a near hit on the bunker at some point. Puddles of the stuff cover at least half the floor, with more dropping down from above, orange mist curling up from it. That would be bad enough, but there are live wires everywhere. She can hear them, the soft harsh buzz of electrical discharge, a constant short. drat lucky the place hasn't caught fire. It's still worse. From what Valkyrie can remember, Meld reacts unpredictably when electrified. Some of the accidents from the old days... And that was in a controlled environment. She needs to get out of here. Now. Read a Sitch again... [19:40] <Krysmbot> Gorbash, 11+1 = 12 That's better! • where’s my best escape route? • what should I be on the lookout for? • who’s in control here?
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Jun 8, 2014 00:41
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Ammar Her eyes linger on mine for a bit. I'm used to that. They're off. Slightly too much black in them. But they're really good for me to pinpoint targets. The skin people will usually notice, and find strange, but it's the eyes that really put them off most of the time. They're supposed to be windows to the soul I guess. She battled her way in. I'm still not quite sure if the AI is still following my story, or simply doesn't have the time to make a move on me as she kills everything before I can. I consider staying in my role, but no. She's likely to shoot me for it. She already looks rather dismayed, and that shotgun is not too far from me. And then the other man enters, and that decides it. "I'm Ammar. I'm a bounty hunter. I'd just handed in a bounty here when I heard about the girl in trouble." I reach for my handgun. Close quarters, so my rifle is likely to be less helpful here. And I should be stingy with the charges on it. I point towards the blood on the ground. "We should hurry up. Seems like someone got injured here. Recently."
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Jun 8, 2014 02:53
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Jonathan, the path to the inner halls is easier to get through than you might have thought. The actual medical supplies are a bit more difficult to get to, but it's not such a big problem. No, the real problem is when you open the first aid kit in the medical room. Because you're looking at a fair few band-aids....And a bunch of things of meld. Syringes of meld. Soothing meld balms. Little bottles of drinkable meld. Meld, meld, meld. Everything more serious than a papercut was, apparently, supposed to be dealt with through meld. Anne winces, having been pretty much dragged the whole way to the med room, and she looks at you. "What's the problem? Don't you have bandages or...Something? I don't know, some old world stuff? This place looks all old-worldy." If she's even spotted the meld, she clearly doesn't recognize the gravity of it. So what do you do? -- Dave, looks like Jaime and the newcomer Amarr are about to tangle. You going to try and break it up, or push through and go after your little girl yourself? Jaime, Amarr, do what you're gonna do. I'm just a humble narrator watching the show. -- Witness, well....poo poo, mate. That's new. So this raccoon thing spots you, spotting it, and it reacts. It grabs for a fish in your cooler, one that was buried deep and is half-frozen in kind of an L shape with the tail curved down. It grips the fish by the tail, and points it at you with a loud hiss. That'd be kind of cute, except let's back up and look at the implications. The fish is kind of shaped like an L, or a handgun. This raccoon has parsed that things in this shape are dangerous and deadly and can be pointed at threats to make them go away. It has the thumbs to operate a gun. The only reason you aren't (really) being held up by a woodland critter right now is because it doesn't seem to know what features make a gun deadly versus a gun-shaped fish. And that seems less like the limits of its intelligence, and more like its lack of education. Point is, it's pointing the fish at you, is rather upset, and is in your goddamned van. And when the fish doesn't work, those little hands are still sharply clawed. This is absolutely a potential threat in a confined space, with little support. What do you do? -- Valkyrie, let's answer your questions in order. -Your best escape route? Depends on your definition of best. You could take the stairs, if you've got the upper body strength to haul yourself up from where they've come apart about six feet shy of the floor...Of course, that's across the room, and you'd be standing in mysterious meld to climb. But you know where they'll take you, assuming they hold. Or there's a door down here, and closer than the stairs. Still means going through meld, but no climbing and no risk of stairs falling apart. Easier, but who the hell knows where that door goes? You're trading known risks for unknown. -What should you be on the lookout for? Meld, for starters. Okay, weak answer, let me elaborate. You and I both know meld's loving weird. It gets weirder when electricity's applied to it, and it has really weird effects when applied to...Basically anything complex. Bodies, elaborate machines, anything with lots of moving parts. There are lots of elaborate machines in this room, still pumping away, and you're a body, so...Yeah. Plus, there are some suspiciously shaped lumps in the meld, covered by its near-opaque surface where it's become oddly viscous. -Who's in control here? Depends on your definition. The AI running this bunker, on the one hand. Kill the power, things could probably mellow. But that's a long ways away. Right here, right now...It's the meld. Meld isn't sapient, I know(well...probably), but it's the thing you're dealing with, and it's the real wild card in this deck. Now, all that said, you fell in. You are, thankfully, on a dry spot on the floor. But once you're well in the room, lights start clicking on. Not all of them, some are connected to the shorted wiring, but enough that it's obviously a motion-sensor light setup. Which means a whole bunch more power is now running through the entire room. And then the meld starts loving moving. What do you do?
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Jun 8, 2014 07:36
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Dave Dave stares at the two, knowing this is the part where things have gotten weird, rapidly heading for the part where they get violent. "Hey, HEY. There is a little kid in here, and we don't have time to snarl, hiss, and get pissy. We need to act together, otherwise its going to be a long awful slog through whatever is trying to kill us. We can sort this out later; right now we need three guns and three pairs of eyes working together on clearing this structure. Follow me." Dave cautiously stacks up on the next wall, gesturing for the others to follow, and peers around it. Clearing the place room by room he moves farther into the building. <Outrider Actual to all other units in the building, we're past the entrance, making a left and clearing something that looked like a guest room with a pink zebra rug on the wall,state your position, over> Manipulate 2d6+1 <+DiceMaid-9001> 2d6+1: 13 [2d6=6,6] If they follow my command, its +1exp for both of you, if they don't, its Acting Under Fire) Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 07:54
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Valkyrie No time to weigh the options, its time to move. Valkyrie springs into action, jumping up onto a console and then from there across to another dry patch. There's no way to avoid getting her feet wet, but as little contact as possible would be a good idea. Someone's probably going to owe her another pair of boots either way. She crashes through the puddles here, where at least there aren't any live wires that she can see, and slams into the door, hoping it opens out. Act Under Fire! [21:05] <Krysmbot> Gorbash, 7+1 = 8 Comrade Gorbash fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 01:45
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Ammar My hand is on my gun, my eyes are on hers. When people start to pay a lot of attention to my looks while brandishing guns, things sometimes turn bad. I wasn't even directly thinking of attacking the girl. Just... being ready for any possible attack. But then, I'm not looking around for an attacker, am I? The man's words, Well, he's Outrider Actual as far as I know, pull me out of the stand off. I look at him, and nod. "Right. The blood trail should give us something to follow." I move behind him, letting the girl with the shotgun take the other ends of the door, while I pick a spot with cover with decent field of fire on each of those doors.
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Jun 9, 2014 23:04
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Jonathan Jackson Harm 3:00 (1/6), xp 2/5 "You see," I exclaim to the girl as I shut the door inside one of the clinically clean first-aid stations--it's not the main medbay, that's still locked up for me, but it'll do--and examine the bright green box with white cross mounted on the wall, "I know where I am! Now let me just..." The cabinet is padlocked, but apparently twenty years haven't been kind to it, and all it needs is a short *tug* to come apart in my hands. And now I can... ...uhm... Okay, adhesive bandages, that's a good start, but I need...uh...oh god, where's all the NORMAL first aid kit stuff?! Can I just throw meld around like it's just another antiseptic? She is injured pretty bad, but would this help or make it worse...? "Hey, could you hold onto these?" I hand some adhesive bandages to her under my arm as I continue to search for something that isn't meld based. "So, uh, question. What do you know about, um, something called Meld?" If I'm lucky, she's already used this, and I can open one of these bottles and give it to her safely. I mean, she's maybe twelve and she's taking this pretty well, all things considered, right...?
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Jun 9, 2014 23:05
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Jaime "Hmph. I know your word is good, Fisher King. Any failure by the Eyeless will fall on you." Jaime falls into position on the other side of the door. Her gaze is unfocused, like she's seeing something else. Maybe she is.
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Jun 9, 2014 23:42
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Witness "Well, hell." Witness takes a step back and considers their options. The X-COM pistol is low-powered, but still designed to punch through body armor, and that little guy is quick and knows what guns are for. Chances are good that by the time Witness can get the gun clear and squeeze a shot off, he'll be up in the front seat... or in Witness' face. Either way, a miss could take out some expensive radio equipment. As could the arc thrower, since they had dispensed with the typical charge-carrying darts of the taser early in development (And with good reason, one of the video reports Witness had reviewed had shown a Brazilian police officer trying to taze a Muton. The darts had simply bounced off.) in favor of focused pulse-wave technology. Which had the side effect of putting about as much energy into the surrounding air as into the target. As a general rule, delicate electronics don't handle free charges very well. Charging in to grab the thing bodily would certainly wind up with a fish and/or claws to the face. With no good direct options, Witness drops back another couple paces and pulls both their pistol and the arc thrower. "All right, little guy, come on out of there. You can keep the fish, but I need you out and on your way." There's a lot of assumptions going on here: That the raccoon can count, that it thinks two guns are inherently better than one, that it can understand English or failing that, tone and intent, that it's willing to settle for one fish. That sounds like manipulate, +Hot: 2d6-1 4 --- Welp. 
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Jun 10, 2014 07:30
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Dave, Ammar, Jaime, you're in and well through the worst of the defenses. And hey, you've got that blood trail to follow. So it might just lead you all the way to what's happened. Of course, the question is if it will, or if you'll have to start looking around. Jonathan, quick question. Did you bleed all the way to the first aid station, or did you manage to stop the bleeding before you got there? Because man, if you bled the whole way, that's, like, a lot of blood. -- Jonathan, Anne just kind of stares at you. "....What the gently caress is meld?!" she finally asks, in the most eloquent and profound way a 12 year old girl in a post-apocalyptic wasteland possibly can. Which is to say, not very much of either of those things. So, just rubbing it onto her arm like old-world aloe vera is prrrobably out. And given some of the poo poo that it did to your friends when your folks forced it on all of you, might not be the best idea to begin with. Of course, real equipment's probably in the main medbay, which you just said you don't have access to. So you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, mate. Oh, and the wrong decision could mean a preteen girl has to have her burnt arm lopped off. What do you do? -- Valkyrie, so, you're on the door. That's the good part. The bad part is, it doesn't budge, at least not at first. It's rusted, or that might just be dried meld caked on. Either way it's stuck, and it takes some serious shoulder-slamming to finally force it open. But you get it open, and can see a blissfully meld-free hallway on the other side. There's just one more problem. When you go to run through, you...Stop. And if you would look to the other side, tour group, you will see Valkyrie's hand wrapped in what I can only describe as a shape of meld, perhaps a being made of the stuff. Whatever it is, it's gripping tightly onto you, but seems to be holding onto you more than the ground. And beyond it, more blobs and shapes are closing in, wanting to add you to the pile. You can take the time to force the meld-thing off, or yank it up and take it through with you NOW. What will you do? -- Witness, the raccoon seems to recognize the weapons you're holding onto. It growls from somewhere low in its throat, but stays where it is. It watches you...And it sees the way you avoid pointing those guns at certain things inside the van. I swear to god, Witness, it looks like the drat thing smirks. And then, too fast to stop, it snatches up a piece of equipment. It's all a blur of motion, and then it's holding something precious to you hostage, wielding it like a human shield. Something precious, and fragile, and bloody expensive. What do you do?
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Jun 10, 2014 21:08
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For Ronwayne's, Shogeton's, and KPrime's sake, I'm going to quickly answer "bleeding mostly stopped." There's still enough drops of blood here and there to form a coherent trail if they want to pursue, but it's not as blatantly obvious as it was earlier.
Davin Valkri fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 02:20
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Valkyrie "poo poo." Valkyrie's mind weighs the relative dangers of taking some of the Meld out of the room versus getting stuck in it, but her body is moving already. Stuff has probably breached containment already anyways. She yanks hard as she throws herself through the door, kicking at it as she tumbles to close it again. As soon as she's in the hallway, she tears at her jacket, pulling it off and tossing it aside, hoping none of the stuff has made skin contact. She pulls herself to her feat, then grits her teeth. Machete in hand, she goes to the jacket and recovers her unit patch if nothing else. Now where the hell is that control room?
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Jun 11, 2014 02:55
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Witness "Hey, don't e- put that-" Did it snicker? "GET YOUR PAWS OFF MY TABLET!" Witness takes two steps and hurls themselves into the van, bodily tackling the raccoon to the floor. The tablet, still in its X-COM protective case, gets jostled about, a stray finger or claw or elbow or nose tapping a play control as radio operator and procyonid scuffle about. "GET... OUT... OF MY... VAN!" Witness manages to whap the mutant upside the head with their pistol, more by accident than design. --- Seize by force, +Hard: 2d6+1 11 Take definite hold, suffer little harm, and impress, dismay, or frighten enemy.
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Jun 11, 2014 20:45
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Dave XX000 Slamming open yet another door, Dave curses, knowing his kid is somewhere just out of reach. Its an ugly sensation, his wife knows these gut feelings a hell of a lot better than him, and all he can do is scream in frustration. "ANNE, WHERE ARE YOU? WE'RE HERE. YELL IF YOU CAN HERE ME, WE'RE COMING FOR YOU." Openan mah brain. http://orokos.com/roll/200363 not quite.
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Jun 11, 2014 22:09
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Jaime Jaime watches Dave panic and flail. "Hmph. Your voice is weak, Fisher King." She seizes his face in her hands, staring at a spot just to the left and above his face. "Let me open your eyes." There is a terrible moment of cold, and void. Then the eyes flood in. Any father should recognize their child's eyes. A voice. It screams. FEAR NOT. MAMA'S COMING! PSY (Open Mind): 2d6+1 10
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Jun 12, 2014 23:51
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Jonathan Jackson Harm 3:00 (1/6), xp 2/5 Oh, crud. It couldn't have been that easy, could it. "Oh, meld's an...it's an old world thing," I tell her, smiling to hide my issues. "Nothing to worry about!" I roll one of the little meld containers on the shelf between my fingers, licking my lips. I don't want to be responsible for a little girl losing her arm...but I ALSO don't want her to suddenly grow a third eye or, or have to depend on it for the rest of her life or have a bad reaction or... "hehe" Did that girl just laugh? No, it's not her voice, it's older, tougher...and it's not coming from her... "You alright there, Johnny?" ...it can't be! I spin out of the first aid station and look up and down the hall. The only person who ever called me "Johnny" was--! "Need some help?" Tammy?! Is this the meld or-- This is how Jonathan voluntarily Opens his Mind--he hears his sister's voice! Probably from meld contamination or something. I'm so original  Anyway, let's Open Johnny's Mind; is giving meld to a 12 year old girl a good idea? Help me with the meld, Tammy! (Open Mind, +Weird): 2d6+1 10
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Jun 13, 2014 03:54
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Okay, Shogeton hasn't made any posts since the 9th. I'm actually getting kind of worried, but we have to move forward. I'll have a post up for the rest of you later today.
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Jun 14, 2014 19:55
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Ammar I look at the man's outbursts. I understand it. I remember my own grief and pain when I lost my family. Vaguely. I'm not emotionless. I can feel fear, sadness, happiness, anger.... love. But they're all forcibly restrained. The moment any of them, not just panic, threatens to become overwhelming, the dampeners activate and force them down. So no panic, no rage, no all encompassing passion that might make you ignore shame and guilt because of your chance to happiness. Even trying to recollect the memories of losing my family triggers the dampening. But I can still understand, so I do not speak when Dave calls out in frustration. But now the girl is starting to worry me. She seems... unstable. Plenty of those, aren't there? I let the deal with it, kneeling near the door, looking at the ground. The blood trail slowed down, but droplets are left here and there. Alien eyes keep an eye on it, trying to find the way there. "I think I know the way." Sharp to find trail: 2d6+1 7 1 Question, where's my best way in (to get to the girl) Shogeton fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 00:36
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Dave, first, you feel your daughter's pain. The searing agony in her arm, scarred and scoured. Her guilt at failing you. Her need to see you. Her fear that this will be the end, somehow. Her concerns over trusting the boy in the suit. It's all there, all the complex emotions and painful sensations she's dealing with. But it's a one-way road. Your words do not reach her, you have no way to make her know she's safe and her father's coming. All you have is the aching, horrible knowledge that your flesh and blood is hurting and needs you and you're powerless to make that pain go away. I'm sorry. Parenthood is hell. -- Witness, you clip the raccoon hard, making it shriek in pain. It wriggles out from under your grasp, only to escape the van. It's bleeding from a shallow wound, red streaks down the side of its face, and for just a moment the raccoon stares at you...Then it ducks down against the rocks, and flees, too low for any kind of easy shot. Your supplies are safe, if somewhat riffled through. You can go after that raccoon, you can check your things out, or there's folks needing help inside, whether you want to handle that with your own two hands or get on the gear here in your van and do something indirectly. Or of course, I'm sure there are other possibilities. So, what do you do? -- Jaime, you take up Dave's face, and assuming he doesn't stop you, here's what's going to happen: You reach into the maelstrom, and you see what you've made him see. The eyes, and yes, there amongst them, the eyes of Anne. She locks eyes with the both of you, staring into you both, and then that voice you summoned booms. It throws the eyes of others back, throws back the shadows, and for just a moment, you both see what young Anne sees. You see the first-aid station, you see the young man she's been forced to trust as he steps out. And Jaime, you specifically see what's in his hand. The glowing material they used in X-COM, the meld, the thing that changed lives and made us more, and less than, human. And there it is, in a first aid kit. The last place in the world such a strange, wonderful and terrible thing should be. What do you do? -- Jonathan, you see her, you see Tammy. She's right there in front of you, and young Anne is completely still in the station, time stopping all around you....Or maybe you're the one lost in a dream. It's just you and your sister, either way, her clad in a suit just like yours. She smiles, idly walking around you, and plucks the thing of meld from your hand. "Mm, this stuff again? Remember when Dad first made us take it? That really sucked, huh...." Tammy turns it over and over in her hands, looking at the glowing liquid behind the dark glass. "Well, what you do is up to you, Johnny. Just keep yourself together, okay? I want to see you again, soon." Tammy gives you a little smile, and for just a moment you have a flash of insight, of her looking different. The face is the same, but the clothes, the hair, and look in her eyes couldn't be any further from the Tammy you know-- Then before you can get a decent look, and see a different kind of Tammy, a shout snaps you out of it. You're back to yourself, the bottle of Meld's in your grasp, and Anne's looking around, eyes wide and confused. "D...Dad?" She stumbles out into the hall, wincing with every step jostling her burnt arm, and shouts as loudly as she can. "DAD! I'M HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE!" What do you do? -- Ammar, the best way opens up. You can follow the droplets like a river of red, you've tracked harder things and with grimmer intent. You could lead them to young Anne with ease. Then, in the distance, faint and echoed off twists and turns, you hear the faintest hint of a shout. The improved hearing wasn't part of the intentional alien-style-organ package, but sometimes it's a lovely side effect. "I'm right here!" So that'd be the girl, most likely. What do you do? -- Valkyrie, you're through, you've got your patch. It looks like you're in the administrative and engineering level, where all the actual decisions were made and poo poo kept running for the nice and pretty upper levels of this bunker. You've got signs that can start leading you to the control room. There's just one other detail. That blob of meld has taken your jacket, and is kind of....Well....The only way to describe what's happened is that it's wearing it. And I swear to you, if you look at that particular bulb near the top as kind of like a head, it's like it's looking right at you. Waiting. What do you do?
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Jun 15, 2014 08:27
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Ammar Xp 3/5 "She's close. I can hear her!" I say. I have the gun ready now. "Let's go." There's time for careful and meticulous advance. Now is not one of those times. I move forwards, keeping an ear out. Each door I open, the gun is aimed forward, ready to shoot if needed. Until finally the last door is opens, and I see the scene in front of me. Blue haired girl. Injured guy in way too clean suit standing over her. My pistol is not an ex-X-Com thing. It's a large magnum. To be used with both hands even for someone of my build. It's a pretty intimidating gun. And I aim it straight at his center of mass. "Get away from the girl, NOW!" My eyes go over what he's holding. And my neural dampeners are working overtime today. Meld. That gets questions. This place is pretty clearly from before the fall. And back then, there was only one organization that used Meld. X-Com. Why does this bunker of what very much seem to be alien sympathizers have Meld? Memories bubble up of missions I wasn't invited to, had no security clearance to even know what was going on. No, deal with this later. Focus on getting him away from the girl. If this place is his, and he's not just someone who managed to get in here somehow, maybe I'll get answers from him. Go Aggro: 2d6+2 10 On a 10+, they have to choose: force your hand and suck it up, or cave and do what you want Shogeton fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Jun 15, 2014 |
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Jun 15, 2014 10:29
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