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  • Locked thread
Grognan
Jan 23, 2007

by Fluffdaddy
AEJ(hack his poo poo) You have two J options. Don't go full tran, he's just bored.

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NastyToes
Oct 9, 2012

BFJ(hack him)

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011

Grognan posted:

AEJ(hack his poo poo) You have two J options.

Thanks, it's fixed. You guys can edit your votes if you want, but don't worry about it too much; I can figure it out.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

BGK Guy doesn't have lips, being a croc-beast. Send the swarm into his mouth, nostrils etc. and have them detonate, chew away, burrow etc. while Scuzzy Jr. Hacks his bits. Fight as dirty as we can, this guy is a major douchebag.

HBar
Sep 13, 2007

CGK

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011

A. Dog wrecked my tablet cable.
B. Said cable is obnoxious and harder to replace than is reasonable.
C. I am going out of town for the weekend, starting tomorrow.

The end result is there will be no update today or tomorrow, but I will do my best to have it out on Monday.

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011




Your steps and those of Ymirez trace a wide circle as you size one another up, angling for an opening. But even as you watch your opponent's eyes and feet for any sign of attack, you can feel the intrusion of Scuzzy's Jr.'s spidery virtual appendages into the Verdugar's cyberbrain. The insidious data packets crinkle and fizz somewhere behind your eyes, and luminous tendrils encroach into your vision; your organic mind's valiant attempt to make sense of the stimuli your control cortex are sending it. You feel a deep, limbic urge to simply let go; to shed the impediments of the old flesh and allow the new to work wonders...it is both tempting and terrifying, and you remind yourself to maybe see a cybertherapist after all this is done. This struggle plays out over the course of an instant, and you quickly return your attention to the matter at hand.
You are confident in the combined abilities of you and your drone top bring down this toothy qwag; you just need to buy Scuzzy Jr. a little time.

"You dropped your hat," you note, pointing with your pulser at your opponent's exposed neural architecture.

Ymirez hisses, a menacing noise from an ancient swamp that sends a fearful thrill up your spine.
"You're better than the scrapers I dragooned into this job," the Verdugar admits. "Killing you would be a waste of meat."

"Is...thanks the proper response to that," you reply, quirking a brow ridge, "because I really have no idea how to properly respond to that."





Data scrolls and crunches in Scuzzy's overlay; the Verdugar's cyberbrain is a tough hull to breach, but you are making progress, and he remains unaware of your intrusion.

"Mouthy, but skilled," Ymirez snarls. "Power down your toys, and you can work for me after I immolate that gas-bloated parasite."

"Hey now," you protest mildly. "Gas-bloated I'll give you. Parasitic, sure, but...Eh, what was the other part?"




Scuzzy's military infiltration protocols bore a tiny hole in a vital bulwark, and suddenly you are awash in a sea of very important-looking data nodes. The stylized baykit you've set as your drone's abstractum waggles its ear-tufts mischievously, and rocks back and forth.



"Tempting," Vare replies, emerging from the fading smoke, wounded arm held close to her body, but pulser ready in her off-hand. "Really tempting. But as much as I've always wanted to be beholden to a merciless slaving syndicate, I feel like I would be remiss if, on behalf of the team, I didn't address certain...qualms?"

"Sure," you agree, looking from Vare to the sneering Verdugar. "Qualm addressal is definitely job one in this case. You up for addressing qualms, there, Esteemed?"







You isolate a handful of vital nodes from the morass of digital connections. You could attack and disable your opponent's shield, while an insurgency protocol on the target assist mode would overwhelm his target/response system with junk data, disabling his augmented reactions. Then, there's--
The bomb. The remotely-detonated bomb on the shuttle Ramadi and Taliro are currently boarding. Your decision-making prudently defaults to disabling that hot little number right away.




Ymirez glares at the two of you like something he just scraped from the bottom of his foot.
"Enough female prattle," he growls with disgust. "Allow me to provide...enhanced incentives." He spins away from the shuttle with a flourish of his cape, and then...







Nothing happens. A long, pregnant moment passes.

"Was something supposed to happen there," Vare inquires innocently. "Because if we're honest, I'm feeling a little let down."

A sudden look of realization flashes in the Verdugar's eyes, and Ymirez roars in fury, flechette burster thundering as he raises his arm and unloads a lethal blast of metal shards...



...an arm's length to your left.

You wince audibly, sucking air through your teeth.
"When was the last time you calibrated that thing, boss?"

The Verdugar's eyes widen with disbelief, and he lashes out desperately with his thermablade, cleaving only air. His lethal tail comes crashing down in a limb-shattering blow, smashing onto empty deck plates. Ymirez howls in rage and deperation, lunging and snapping at nothing. You and Vare share a brief, but meaningful look, as you both raise your pulsers.
"Should have sprung for the extended service plan," you comment sadly as your weapons speak.






:siren: Congratulations on a successful completion of a potential very lethal mission! As a bonus for winning with all your spacemans alive, you the players have acquired a Hyper-Platinum ExoDucat; which you may cash in during a vote to drastically alter the narrative in your favor. :siren:

Short Answer Section
1. Are you still going to pay Yngado, even though you killed Ymirez?
2. Are you going to visit a professional about the level of synthesis you're developing with your cybernetics?
3. Are you going to see Baz Kemandi about her job (Data Assassinaton), or are you going to take time for your team to recover and relax?
4. Are you going to have a talk with Vare about the nature of your relationship, or are you going to leave that metaphorical Lar-gast lurking in the corner for another day?

Essay Section
5. What sort of plans and expectations do you have for Regal and her companions, either short or long term?

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
1: Keep your word
2: Might be a good idea before we go off the deep end
3: Downtime is good time. We should relax for a spell
4: Lets get to the shagging already
5: We're going to either own this hunk of scrap that everyone lives in, or find newer and wealthier turf to ply our trade.

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
Woop woop, good end for once. Let's get wriggity wriggity wrecked yo!

Short Answer Section
1. Are you still going to pay Yngado, even though you killed Ymirez? Did he try to doublecross us? If not, yeah pay him. we gotta keep our word on stuff. But then we might steal it back, or use the opportunity to hack into his stuff and plant some failsafes and/or steal some useful data.
2. Are you going to visit a professional about the level of synthesis you're developing with your cybernetics? Yes, lets go see the timetransendient wierdo and ask if he has any clues. Don't want the drone swarm gaining sentience.
3. Are you going to see Baz Kemandi about her job (Data Assassinaton), or are you going to take time for your team to recover and relax? Lets recover, don't want to push the team too hard. We did good. Also give people (especially our sub piolet) some extra pay. They earned it.
4. Are you going to have a talk with Vare about the nature of your relationship, or are you going to leave that metaphorical Lar-gast lurking in the corner for another day? Nope. Bury our head on that one.


Essay Section
5. What sort of plans and expectations do you have for Regal and her companions, either short or long term?

Uh, dunno I need to go to work.

Dog Kisser
Mar 30, 2005

But People have fears that beasts do not. Questions, too.
Not voting right this second but chiming in to say how awesome that last update was!

Lazaruise
Jan 25, 2009
Short Answer Section
1. Yes, no need to cause some bad blood where it isn't needed right now.
2. Yes, but to increase it, so long as we can stay sane while doing it.
3. I think we deserve some relaxation at the moment, we can get more jobs later.
4. We need to get to shagging as Deadmeat says/

Essay Section
5. I want to be the shadow head of the criminal enterprise on this rock, but only in secret so we can still go on adventures ourselves. Keep slavery off the planet too.

Wentley
Feb 7, 2012
That was super cool.

dont be mean to me
May 2, 2007

I'm interplanetary, bitch
Let's go to Mars


how the hell did things go that well.

also kitty! :3:

Xiphopagus posted:

Short Answer Section
1. Are you still going to pay Yngado, even though you killed Ymirez?
2. Are you going to visit a professional about the level of synthesis you're developing with your cybernetics?
3. Are you going to see Baz Kemandi about her job (Data Assassinaton), or are you going to take time for your team to recover and relax?
4. Are you going to have a talk with Vare about the nature of your relationship, or are you going to leave that metaphorical Lar-gast lurking in the corner for another day?

Essay Section
5. What sort of plans and expectations do you have for Regal and her companions, either short or long term?

1) Yes. Reputation is everything. We can figure out if he tried to throw his deal (read: us) later and settle that if called for. But for now, pay the man.
2) Yes. On the one hand, nothing says we HAVE to turn into a cyberlich or something like it's fuckin' Shadowrun, but we're not going to integrate properly on our own. Or maybe we might, but why chance it. Just do your research so you don't end up walking into some government trap again.
3) Downtime. This job was kind of a big deal and even if the crew didn't need some R&R time doing anything even modestly visible would attract possibly all the attention on the planet in our direction. If it isn't already.
4) Figure things out with her. This one's probably more complicated than I'm giving it credit but there's probably no way around this one. Working too close and too well together for the whole 'starting over' thing to hold up.
5) We don't really have any reason to leave and there's no incentive not to take this place over. We'll want to do it gracefully, if we can. And Lazaruise brings up a good point: we are going to burn slavery off the face of this world.

NastyToes
Oct 9, 2012

1. Assuming he's a good sport about us killing his boss, yes.
2. Yes.
3. Work. Got to earn those ducats.
4. No. Tension makes for a better story.
5. To become filthy rich. Rich enough to own this shithole.

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011

Sir Unimaginative posted:

how the hell did things go that well.

I am honestly a little amazed. The only thing more amazing than how many space-bullets were dodged is that the goonmind managed it. I considered offering a small peek behind the curtain to demonstrate just how close some party members came to death, but ultimately elected to preserve the mystique.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

Xiphopagus posted:


Y'see, I know that we're seeing the curvature of their faces over their necks in that last picture, but I like to think that they're being smug as gently caress.

Short Answer Section
1. Are you still going to pay Yngado, even though you killed Ymirez?
2. Are you going to visit a professional about the level of synthesis you're developing with your cybernetics?
3. Are you going to see Baz Kemandi about her job (Data Assassinaton), or are you going to take time for your team to recover and relax?
4. Are you going to have a talk with Vare about the nature of your relationship, or are you going to leave that metaphorical Lar-gast lurking in the corner for another day?

Essay Section
5. What sort of plans and expectations do you have for Regal and her companions, either short or long term?


1. No need. Deal's off.

Earlier in the Game posted:

“Do what you need to do,” the Verdugar growls, “and I won't stop you. But if Ymirez goes down, the deal's off. He owes me satisfaction, and I intend to collect. Anyway, not even a licker of your station is imbecilic enough to want killing an Esteemed on your record; the Syndicate doesn't forget something like that.”

2. gently caress YES. Get that poo poo worked on so it stay's in our favor while being drastically improved. Invest a boatload of our personal income if necessary. Purchase the ability synthesize more drones from random crap around us and/or the flesh of our enemies.

3. Contact Baz to inform her that poo poo is probably going to go south for us I.E. we mindfucked an Esteemed and now the Syndicate is going to be out for our for blood. Therefore, sorry but we gotta bail on the job.

4. Check if she's ok with dating a progressively cyborg-y wrecker of other people's poo poo.

5. See about getting some more anti-flesh stuff going on. If Ymirez didn't have a cyberbrain we probably would have been hosed. Get to work on finding a profitable or at least sustainable way to be murderously abolitionist.

HBar
Sep 13, 2007

It was a mistake to kill Ymirez when he was already disabled. We could have just left at that point. Now we have two powerful criminal enterprises that hate us.

1. No. He won't accept now. Or if he does, it's only as a way to track us down.
2. Yes
3. Recover. Lay low, maybe find a new hiding spot.
4. Don't force it. Keep working together and send out some feelers. Metaphorically speaking.
5. For now, the main goal is not getting slotted in our sleep. Long-term, maybe we can make this pit a slightly less terrible place to live.

Tran
Feb 17, 2011

It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Especially in such a fine settin' as this. Just need us some music an' a brawl an' we'll be set.
1. Yes, leave the money in a dead drop. Maybe add a small consolation bonus for killing the jerk.
2. Yes, if only to learn what it's actually doing.
3. Drop a line to ask what the timeline is. If it's not immediately urgent, we can spare a few days to relax.
4. Let it happen naturally.
5. The same thing any pro runner team dreams of: living long enough to retire in luxury. Other options include becoming administrative leadership for a mercenary outfit or syndicate branch.

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011




The diagnostic image displayed on Dr. Pnakoptis' screen fills you with a heady blend of loathing and terror.
“There are...wiggly things,” you state. “Wiggly things in my brain-meat.”
“The hyphae have been extruded into your organic neural architechture by your drone control cortex. It is a fascinating phenomenon, heuristically speaking. The superior cortex, having insufficient resources to complete its required function, has...annexed
neighboring infrastructure to reduce latency and increase efficiency.”

“You're telling me that my drone controller is stealing bandwidth from my brain,” you reply, numb.

Essentially correct,” Pnakoptis says. “I have found the biometric data most helpful in my studies to will have overcome the cybernetic edge
of The Erb.

“I'm all for increasing my level of synthesis with my augs,” you declare, “and I'll take whatever help you can give on that front. But I'm not going to turn into some shambling cybernetic aberration.” It is not a question.

“If you bear concerns for your volition and bodily integrity, I will install a...” Pnakoptis burbles and whorls to itself for a moment.
“You may call it a killswitch.”





“You've got that haunted stare you always have after you go to the Doc,” Ramadi comments, before slurping an unctuous concoction through both neck-tubes at once.

“Cyborg troubles,” you reply, waving a dismissive hand. Ramadi nods; your cybernetic woes and her unique excretory concerns have long been mutually agreed upon subjects to gloss over.

“Still, though,” she says, “you've been leaning on the tech pretty vigorously. Don't think I haven't noticed...I out-eye you by a significant margin.”

“Yeah,” you admit. “I'm being careful.”

“If you need to talk to someone about it,” she begins.

“You don't want to hear about chafing at my joins,” you protest.

“I was going to say talk to Kamula,” Ramadi corrects, wincing. “If anyone can relate to your unique techno-organic concerns, it'll probably be Big K.”

“Probably right,” you admit. “Sure, I'll do that.” Both of you are silent for a while, enjoying your beverages and watching assorted beings come and go via various locomotive means.

“Anyway,” the Raq says, changing the subject, “I noticed the payout was a little lighter than expected. Not complaining; it's the best payday we've had. But I take it that means you dropped a small honorarium to our toothy Syndie friend?”

“He hasn't tried to kill me yet,” you say in reply. “From what Vare says, the wager he made with Ymirez is binding, even if Ymirez died...so he still gets his status upgrade, he just doesn't get to rub it in Ymirez's snout. Hopefully that'll be enough.”

“I suppose we'll discover that presently,” Ramadi replies. “What are you going to do with your cut?”

“Aside from the usual,” you inquire. “Well, I'd actually been thinking about...don't laugh.”

“I am as the Mirthless Monks of Abarassine IX.”

“Thinking about making some changes around here. Big ones.”

Ramadi eyes you with renewed seriousness, leaning closer.
“I take it you don't mean hydro-taps for every child and a stack-dance every fifth cycle?”

“Slavery,” you state calmly.

“Slavery.”

“I've decided I don't care for it.”

“Just like that,” Ramadi asks.

“Seems like you can't swing your tail without running into slavers on this drokk-heap,” you reply. “And the thing with your people, and now the Syndicate...I think I only just realized that maybe I'm in a place now to actually do something about it. I never was before.”

Ramadi simply nods pensively, sipping her drink more conservatively.

“I'm...looking into some options,” you continue. “Got Vare discreetly tapping a few contacts. I'll let you know what shakes out.”


“So,” Ramadi begins, “Speaking of Vare...Did you?”

“Did I?”

“Did you...with Vare? Like you were saying?”

You are silent for a moment, and while to the casual observer you might seem to be staring off into the middle distance, you are actually gazing at the message that's been blinking in your notifications queue for almost a cycle:




If you want to talk about Stuff...meet me You Know Where.
-V






“Not yet,” you reply. “Soon.”

“The way you keep throwing soon around is starting to make me doubt you're entirely cogent on what the word means,” Ramadi scolds gently, before taking another double slurp and shuddering violently.

“Don't start,” you start.

“Just saying,” Ramadi interjects. “Pnakoptis might be rubbing off on you...you're starting to develop that Elder disdain for the time-based vocabulary of we mere mortals. And with the way you're talking about seizing agency and making changes, I just figured...”

Grabbing your glass, you gulp down the remainder in one go and stand (a little too) quickly.
“I'll be back,” you declare, after the dizzy spell passes, and stride away from the bar before Ramadi can respond.





"So," you say quietly, watching a luminescent plume skate glide by the viewport, "Praxis."

"Praxis," Vare repeats. "What you need to understand is that Gigas is the hottest frontier going in geochemistry. The Cartels are doing big things with helicite. So the job with Praxis was entirely legitimate."

"Your big professional break," you comment, "within spitting distance of the stomping grounds of your misspent youth."

"It's a funny old galaxy that way," she replies. "I figured it was behind me, though; and believe me, the Praxis Arcology might as well be on a different planet from Thoon."

"What happened?"

"Two words," she answers, "rhymes with Jury Maxis. I don't know what tipped her off, but she came to me with a few potential...addenda for my employee history."

"I imagine Praxis would take a dim view of having a Thoon gangster on payroll, ex- or no."

"Right," she confirms. "Praxis are a much finer breed of criminal. So I figured Fury was blackmailing me...no great shock; everyone knows she's the black ovid of the Praxis clan. Imagine my surprise when she recruits me, instead."

"Fury's running around behind the old man's back?"

"You have no idea. The Councilor would flush her without blinking if he knew half of what she was using his resources and name to get up to."

"Why not go to the cartel board, get her boot off both our necks? You're a far sight more credible than the likes of me..."

Vare gives you an odd, unreadable look.
"You overestimate me, Regal. You always did, to think of it."
She is silent for a few moments, paused in thought.
"No, Praxis flushed Meropus, and the best thing is for me to have died with the rest of that crew. Fury will know better, of course, but you know as well as me that we're not done with her."

A long pause settles in, a dangerous pause that gives the tiny germ of resentment buried in your mind time to sprout.
"Thanks for trusting me with your fake death this time," you say, regretting it instantly. Vare looks at you evenly, her poise betraying no hurt that your careless comment may have caused.

"I thought it would be best for everyone if I went away, " she says softly, looking back out at the ocean depths. "The thing with the Vrantic...I was just scared. I never meant for that to happen. You have to know that."

"I don't care about the slotting arms," you snap, whipping your head toward her. You chuckle ruefully, choking back the welling lump in your throat. "That should tell you how krumped my priorities are."

"Then--" she begins.

"You didn't trust me with the truth," you say with a growing numbness. The words tumble free, and you pass the point where you could stop, even if you wanted to. "You were the freshly-minted Maastrichtian fellow, slumming it with the poor benighted sleebs still stuck in the drokk you managed to escape. And when it came time to choose between your..."
Her what, Regal?
Your voice catches for a moment, but you power on, hoping Vare didn't notice. "...choose between your oldest friend and saving face, you decided to keep the gleam on the ducat, the rest of us be krumped." You sag, finally letting the tears come.

For a long time, the only sound is the low thrum of the station. Vare stares at the schools of fish in their immaculate swirls, idly rotating the ring around her tail.
"You're not wrong," she finally utters.





You clench your teeth around a reply you know you'll regret, hot tears streaming down your cheeks. You've come a long way from the scared juve you were, but in this situation, all the skill and tech can't stop you from whirling and bolting for the door.

You pause momentarily in the open hatch, waiting for Vare to call out, to stop you, but nothing comes. You flee into the down-level gloom.





Your eyes burn from the tears, but your metal palms do nothing but bring white starbursts to your vision and smear the dampness over your face.
The last time you lost it this badly, you think, you still had your factory-original arms. Vare Djata always did have a talent for krumping you up twelve ways without even trying.

You throw back your head and stare up at the cloudy, ill-maintained dome, blinking back the blurriness and choking on the hard lump lodged in your throat.
You lash out with a hasty footclaw, sending a length of discarded pipe bouncing clangorously into the tangled underworks of the subsector. The bones in your foot throb from the impact, and you let out an incoherent cry of frustration and pain.

You hear the gritty crunch of a footstep behind you, and grit your teeth. "I'm okay," you utter, not managing to keep the shudder from your voice. "Sorry about that just now. It's...I'm just--"



The stun-truncheon jabs fiercely into your ribs, and your body jerks helplessly as every nerve screams in lightning-struck agony and your bionics seize into immobile sculpture. You croak in futile protest as a bag is pulled roughly over your head, then collapse, limp, into your captor's arms as sea-dark blackness consumes you.







Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
gently caress it. Y. Hopefully the killswitch works. Hopefully we can talk to the wormthings when they achieve sentience and try to take over.

Deadmeat5150
Nov 21, 2005

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLAN
:stare:

Y

dont be mean to me
May 2, 2007

I'm interplanetary, bitch
Let's go to Mars


Y

Outrail posted:

gently caress it. Y. Hopefully the killswitch works. Hopefully we can talk to the wormthings when they achieve sentience and try to take over.

See, this is why you try to give your drone retinue and augs a proper upbringing. They may at some point need to be you, after all.

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:

Sir Unimaginative posted:

Y


See, this is why you try to give your drone retinue and augs a proper upbringing. They may at some point need to be you, after all.

The young eat the old if you let them, Jerry.

dont be mean to me
May 2, 2007

I'm interplanetary, bitch
Let's go to Mars


Outrail posted:

The young eat the old if you let them, Jerry.

Sometimes there isn't any 'the old' left to eat.

Oh yeah, before I forget:

Sir Unimaginative posted:

Just do your research so you don't end up walking into some government trap again.

Siiiiiiigh.

dont be mean to me fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jul 12, 2016

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

Y. Better Robo-crazy than dead.

Grognan
Jan 23, 2007

by Fluffdaddy
Yes

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Y

Xipho, that was a really excellent bit of writing. You're making me sad about space dinosaurs.

Not Alex
Oct 9, 2012

Cut loose before the god eaters show up.

Green Intern posted:

Y

Xipho, that was a really excellent bit of writing. You're making me sad about space dinosaurs.

Seconded.

Also Y

Wentley
Feb 7, 2012
I really hope they are symbiotes and not parasites.

Bee Bonk
Feb 19, 2011











Regal flees, tears in her eyes, and you let her go.

Several times, you almost stop her, but you resist; Regal's been carrying this for a long time, and maybe it's best to lance the boil. She just needs some time to deal with it, probably with ample pharmacological help from Ramadi Kinu.

She reacted...poorly, in a uniquely Regal way, but really, what were you supposed to say? Pretend it didn't happen? Pretend that you didn't let selfishness and fear cost so much to someone so dear? Regal has always been the sacrifice on the altar of your perfection, but until that last time, it was always voluntary. Better to have it out in the open and deal with the fallout.

A maudlin tinge settles over your thoughts. It's been good running with Regal again, and if it has to end, well, you've never been short on opportunities. Your endless capacity to land on your feet has always been a point of friction with Regal...She thinks you don't know, but you are entirely aware. You've both always been survivors, but while she always crawls up out of the gutter, you just sort of...bounce.

You spin your ring around your tail, the dim flickers on the engravings as always calming your frayed nerves. She was surprised you kept it; assumed you had shut the door on your past entirely, but some tokens you could never get rid of.

Your thoughts are interrupted by an eerie howl from outside, blood-curdling and alien. Probably spicers fighting over a narcotap, but something compels you to check it out regardless.







Leaving the utility room, you turn the corner to an alarming and grisly sight. A Verdugar, or the stripped remnants of one, lies in anatomical disarray upon the ground, a stun-truncheon scattered not far away. The ground beneath your feet is oddly sandy, and upon closer inspection, the grains are not silica, but the spent husks of Regals microdrones. A cold dread settles into the pit of your stomach, and you quickly survey the area, searching for any signs of your companion.
Your attention is tugged to a spattering of dark droplets: a blood trail; leading down the block and into the alley between two of the hulking condenser structures. Carefully, you approach the turn, mindful of ambush. At the corner, you steel yourself for what you might find, but another anguished howl ends your hesitation.
You quickly round the alley mouth expecting the worst, but what you see is somehow worse than you feared...













It is a back-cycle like so many others: Calibrating your augs in the dark by the light of your optics. Back in brighter cycles, you were something of the carouser; what would your old messmates say now?

Krump them, you think, as you set down your 3/8 probe and knock back the shot of Old Decompression laid out next to your other vital tools.

You glance over to the faded portrait hardcopy adhered to your armor stand. Two uniformed men and a female juve. You reach out and tap the picture, and shake your head.
“Old Killer K,” you rasp gently to the still image, “keeping people alive for a krumping living. You ever figure to see the likes of that, Nathel?”

Your reminiscence is interrupted by the faint but insistent tone of your door alarm. Growling impatiently, you key the video feed, scowling at the stunner-armed Verdugar prowling around outside your quarters.



Some qwags are just too krumping thick to live. You sigh, and take up your thermablade.










You awaken in the dark, and casually take inventory of your surroundings. You seem intact and operational, which is good. You're alone, which could be good or bad. You're bound and stuffed in a cargo compartment...Well, it wouldn't be the first time. You note with second-hand chagrin that while your captors bound your wrists with damper-cuffs, they left your feet entirely unfettered. It takes but a moment of boneless grace to bring your legs behind your back, one set of caterpillar toes grasping a piece of scrap roughly the right shape for your purposes.

“They just don't make kidnappers like they used to,” you cluck ruefully, and set to work on the restraints.


POV Choice: Who will you follow for the next segment?

A. Vare Djata
B. Kamula K
C. Ramadi Kinu

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
Oh no. The crocs want revenge.

C Let's leave Vare to deal with the brain worms and goon fighting won't be nearly as optimal as what our cyborg friend can accomplish.

Lazaruise
Jan 25, 2009
A so we can see what happened to us.

Fuckkkkkk

Grognan
Jan 23, 2007

by Fluffdaddy
B because he sighed as he drew his thermablade(katana)

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

C. We don't get much time in Ramadi's head.

Wentley
Feb 7, 2012
C

The best reaction to a kidnapping. Time to get out, loot and see how we can profit from this.

Tran
Feb 17, 2011

It's a pleasure to meet all of you. Especially in such a fine settin' as this. Just need us some music an' a brawl an' we'll be set.
C: Easily the best reaction to waking up cuffed in a crate.

Hexenritter
May 20, 2001


:stare:

C

NastyToes
Oct 9, 2012

A
See, this is what happens when you don't bottle up your emotions and focus solely on work to the detriment of your relationships. You get overemotional, let your guard down, get jumped by a crocodile with a taser, and turn into a cybernetic abomination. Happens every time.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

C. I wanna see her slug-wriggle her way outta this one. Pull an octopus and squeeze out of the airholes.

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Hexenritter
May 20, 2001


Blasphemaster posted:

C. I wanna see her slug-wriggle her way outta this one. Pull an octopus and squeeze out of the airholes.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Also I must again state my enjoyment of your avatar. Rave Hitler amuses me greatly.

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