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Dr Subterfuge posted:What's the difference between E and F? The Machine doesn't make stuff appear. Someone designed and built that sculture, someone applied for it to be in a future public park. Do some research (or have someone else do it) and follow the paperwork.
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Feb 17, 2018 08:11
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 01:27 |
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Chapter Two: The Devil’s Work Dayquote:It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. You wake up and get to work. Mabin has a routine, luckily there is enough variation within her day that her movements are fairly unimpeded throughout the day. It’s Thursday, so she doesn’t need to make an appearance downstairs for Family Services doing paperwork (which would turn into a whole-day affair if Mary Running Hawk thought she could monopolize Mabin’s time) or at the Cherish Daycare center, since field trips only happened on Mondays or Fridays). Mabin wouldn’t be required anywhere until 3:30 when she helped with the after-school youth defense class. She should probably make an appearance around the neighborhood, but you can squeeze that in easily. First though, you probably need to make an appearance online. You have left the battery out of Mabin’s phone all night, after a moment of hesitation you leave it out and boot up Mabin’s “laptop” instead. 1. What do we do about the phone? A. Put the battery back in, the Machine likely wasn’t tracking us. B. No need to risk it, junk the phone, get a new one. C. We’ll ask another Demon for a suggestion. D. Something else. After some fiddling with your webcam, you are ready to record. You spend a moment composing yourself, and press the red start button. “Boozhoo everyone! Well, today I want to talk about Bde Maka Ska and why names matter....”  *** The vid is not your best, but you are fairly distracted with what you think of as more important issues. You want to try to contact Ruin and Tone, investigate the statue itself, and figure out what “In The Heart of the Fire” means exactly. You can do some of that with just an internet connection, but you have no interest in doing that research from your apartment. You get dressed, dressing warmly and making sure that you bring your satchel with you as if has larger pockets. After grabbing a few other things, including your drone, you grab your cash and your Metro pass and head out the door. 2. Any special specific items we are bringing with us? As you walk pass Ms. Gilchrist’s door, Makwa starts barking. Right on cue her door cracks open and she wedges her head through the crack. Below her, Makwa sticks his Norwegian Elkhound snout through the door, you let him lick your hand as you and Gilchrist exchange the ritual greeting. “Out late again Mabin.” “It was game night with a few of my friends.” “Oh, ‘game night’? Aren’t you a little old for games?” “I’m young at heart Ms. Gilchrist.” She sniffs, supposedly in derision, but you suspect she is trying to smell pot or meth or whatever she thinks you are selling. “I’m heading out Ms. Gilchrist. Should I get you or Makkie anything?” “We’re fine,” she says. “We don’t want your..money..being spent on us.” After a moment she shuts the door, Makwa chuffing in disappointment. Mabin understands the need to respect and love elders, but Ms. Gilchrist makes the entire concept really loving hard. You head to the Franklin library, taking a detour to check your spike dead drop. As you approach it, you see a rock has been placed on top of the snow where your drop is buried, the signal that your message was picked up. You had left a brief note describing your run-in with the Not-Cop and the runes on the Infrastructure. As quickly as you can you approach the drop, uncover it, and pull the whole spike out before continuing to walk away. After a few blocks, you unscrew the cap and see there is a piece of paper inside. You unroll it and see a note waiting for you, written in Polish. “Promising lead on Fallen. Both will work on runes (Thracian?). Nothing on Not-Cop. Contact.” At least their night wasn’t useless. Even with both of them working on the translation of the runes it’d take time. Since you couldn’t instinctually read them that implied they were in some dead language, which took time to track down and neither of them had a lot of free time. Though Ruin had said he wasn’t teaching today. Still, looks like they would only be able to provide minimal support for now.  When you get to the library you check out a laptop and set yourself up in a corner. You start with trying to get some background information on the Sculpture. This type of research is not in your wheelhouse, but you don’t know who else you could ask to help. And so, you spent a hour and a half trying to figure out who built that sculpture. After a series of dead-ends, you find something about The Art of the River Project. A cooperative effort between the city councils of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The goal of the project is to allow local artists a venue and commission for large-scale outside installations. A secondary goal is encourage foot traffic along the scenic foot trails and outlooks over the river. You have discovered that all the sculptures and installations are by local artists or artist co-ops, but no listing or artist pages. You drum your fingers on the table for a minute, thinking. If there were a series of large installations being put up, St. Paul city planning would be part of that. There would be paperwork, with someone’s name on it. And if Mr. Tone’s Cover actually worked there, he might be able to pull up that name. 3. Do you email Tone, asking for this favor? A Yes B Yes, we’ll even stop by his work. C No, we’ll get the information another way (how?) D No, the artist isn’t important. It is about 10:30 when you open up your anonymous Maildrop account and start to write to Ruin, setting up a time to meet with him and discuss the Fallen. 4. When and where do you want to meet with Ruin? A For lunch, at a Neutral Place safe from prying eyes. B As soon as possible, wherever he wants. C Later in the day, at a meeting spot of my choosing (where?) D Sometime/place else. As you are writing this message, and waiting for a reply, you start to think about the two issues that are bothering you. The Tick-Tock Man Not-Cop, and the phrase the sculpture said. You debate contacting Alex. As a former cop Alex might have heard of some weirdness going on across the River. Though you have not revealed your true nature to Alex, there is a closeness and openness there. Besides, the two of you are currently on the outs, and this might be a good excuse to get in touch. 5. Do you ask Alex if they have heard anything about weird patrol men in St. Paul? A Yes B No. 6. Also what gender is Alex? A Male B Female The phrase, “In the Heart of the Fire” is also troubling. You do not have all day to sit and try to find an answer to it online, with your ‘skill’ at researching. So, you need to ask a question of someone who might know everything, or near enough. So, naturally your mind drifts towards Onyx John. Onyx John is an angel. A Guardian who has been around nearly as long as yourself. He sits , protecting something within Ramsey County Courthouse. Unchained in the area do not know what, and Onyx John has no interest in telling, protecting the Courthouse is all he cares about. But the thing is, some time about 80 years ago, some clever demon realized that it really is all he cares about. He's got no loyalty to any other angel, and doesn't care one single bit about any piece of Infrastructure that isn't the one he's personally tasked with guarding. And as an angel who's known to have been on the same job for at least eighty years without being recalled or recycled, he knows quite a bit of what's going on in this town. So, he's always willing to make a deal. If you have a way to protect the Courthouse, or can sell out anyone who means harm to it or Onyx John, he's your man. You have talked and gotten information from John several times, though each time he has asked a favor of you. Sometimes it was being at a specific place at a specific time, sometimes it was just standing guard with him for a day. 7. Should we go and talk to John? A.Yes B. No. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Mabin sucks at Researching! It took her an hour and a half to get one success Your agenda for the day, in order of importance. Maintain Mabin’s Cover Try to contact Tone and Ruin Investigate the Infrastructure as an art installation. Find someone who can help with the runes on the Infrastructure Investigate In the Heart of the Fire Check dead drops and other messages (any suggestions?) Spend some time crafting a Gadget Go back to Highland Park and get closer to the sculpture We have 8/10 Aether In My Pocket has been reset. We have 1 exp and 1 Beat We can make a gadget later in the day, it will cost us a dot of Willpower, we'll discuss that more as needed. NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Feb 18, 2018 |
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Feb 18, 2018 04:16
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vorebane posted:You've spelled Onyx as Oynx a couple times. It did not impede my fervour to hex the godmachine. Fixed. Maybe.
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Feb 18, 2018 04:37
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24 hour notice
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Feb 18, 2018 21:57
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 Onyx John can wait. He may have information, but dealing with him is tricky and you don’t have time for that right now. Instead you spend a few more minutes on the laptop, replying to Ruin with a time for a meet, and carefully wording a request for Tone. When you have put it off as long as you think is reasonable, you get up and go to the front desk to ask for the phone. Hopefully Alex has not changed her cell number. As it rings you glance around the library, it is the middle of the day and though ther are some old timers here, it’s pretty much just you and the librarian. Still, you decide to watch what you’re saying over the phone. Eventually she picks up. “Hurli.” she says warily. “Hey, it’s Maybe.” There is a slight pause as she registers that. “Christ Mabin, what number is this?” “Library, I lost my phone--” “..again. How am I not surprised,” you cannot see her, but you hear a slight smile in her voice. “What do you need?” “What makes you think I need something.” “We haven’t talked in weeks, today isn’t any special anniversary and you’re about a week early for Valentine’s Day. You’re not one for spontaneous chats.” “Alright, I need a favor,” you pause to allow Alex her victory “Ah Ha!”. “But it’s just information.” “It never is just information with you. What do you need Pillager?” “I’m wondering if you can talk to any of your old counterparts across the River.” There is a longer pause at this. “About what?” “Rumors. Complaints about squaddies acting strange or weirdos impersonating cops.” “How strange is strange?” “Oh, you know me Alex.” 1. How much does Alex know? A. You are a normal Millennial who likes to investigate weird things in her off time. For fun. B. There are some strange supernatural things in this world. You know about them, so does Alex. But hey, you’re both completely normal humans right? C. You are not a completely normal human. You have strange powers, Alex thinks of you as basically a wizard out of some Urban Fantasy novel. She knows you walk in a shadow world that she cannot be part of D. You told her you are the renegade biomechanical spawn of an uncaring machine demiurge that controls the universe as she knows it. She..did not take it well. But she stayed sane. “I’ll ask around. I might have heard something like that, but it’ll take time to dig up any actual information. I burned a lot a bridges, even in St. Paul when I left you know.” “I know. Thank you.” “We haven’t talked about my payment.” “Payment?” “Yeah, you don’t get girlfriend freebies anymore.” “Yeah, yeah no I get that. Listen, I’m a little short on cash--” “Don’t worry about that. You free tonight?” “...Yes?” “Good, Chatterbox at 7 work?” “Uh...yes?” “I’ll bring any info I can get then.” she hangs up. You listen to the buzzing tone for a moment before awkwardly setting down the handset. Then you go to look up a bus schedule for your lunch date. *** “I thought you would love this place,” Ruin says after seeing your expression. “Neutral ground, good food, it’s a historic landmark.” You were in Mickey’s Diner. A small cramped dining car, a genuine throwback to the 1930s, set in the middle of downtown St Paul. Mickey’s is well known for several reasons. It is on the registry of historic places and often makes an appearance in movies set in St. Paul. It’s 50 feet long, a chunk of that contains booths, one of which you are currently crammed into. You are not at Mickey’s for nostalgia, but because of its unique properties. Mickey’s was, at one time, Infrastructure. No one alive knows exactly what happened but somehow a group of Demons suborned the entire diner out of the God Machine’s grasp. As such there is some sort of angelic cover over the diner, a magic curtain that allows Unchained to talk a bit more freely, and meet with company that might otherwise cause a crack in a cover. The curtain wasn’t enough to allow anyone to wander around in their Demonic Form or anything, but it was nice to let your guard down. Rumor has it Mickey’s is protected by other means, some sort of Destroying Angel that still thinks it’s mission is to kill any trouble makers. As a result, folks are very pleasant in Mickey’s.  “Hey,” Ruin says, waving his hand in front of you. “Ink, you there?” “Sorry,” you say. “Thinking about how my investigation seems to be very meal-centric right now.” You turn to the burger in front of you. “This place is fine. Mabin got peppersprayed outside of here in 2008. At least part of her did. Creates some odd reactions.” “I believe it,” Ruin responds as he digs into a cheap backpack he brought with him. “Shall we get down to business?” Ruin takes out another yellow legal pad. Again, you find his habit of keeping physical notes humorous if not a bit silly. “The runes first? They are some form of Greek, different enough from modern Greek that we can’t understand it. It took me most of last night, but I was able to get, I think, some reasonable translation. It helped that the phrases were short, and seemed based on some ancient--I’ve lost you haven’t I?” “Yes.” “Sorry, spend a night with Tone and I turn scholar. Anyway, the runes are on the two ‘arms’, one of which is labeled, more or less, Input, and the other, Output.” “That’s it?” “Yes. I’d guess this is some sort of circuit or exchange. But, for what I don’t know without examining the Infrastructure itself.” “Which might be tricky, it seems to be monitored.” “Right,” Ruin nods. “But, if I can get close enough, even for a few minutes, to analyze it, I might find the Linchpin, or at least it’s function.” “We’ll give it a shot. I want to figure out these Not-Cops first. What else do you got? How did last night go?” “Well, Tone’s cover doesn't handle his liquor well. We spent a good chunk of the night trawling the bars and hitting up any contacts I had.” “And?” “Nothing. Everyone owned up to seeing the after effects of the Fall, but no one had any intel on the Angel itself, or any sightings of Loyalists beyond the initial recapture crew.” “So, they must have scooped up the Fallen.” “That’s what we were assuming, but then we got clued in on an informant. Little weasel of a Sigmatic that works for the Home Office. He said the rumor around the Office is that they grabbed the Fallen and have them stashed in a safehouse along Lake Calhoun.” “Bde Maka Ska.” “What?” “Nothing. Did you get an address?” “Yeah. We didn’t get a chance to scope it out because it was getting too late by then.” He writes something down on a piece of paper and rips it off his pad. “Now, before I give it to you, I need you to promise me you won’t do any sort of...solo rescue mission.” “Yeah, sure.” “I’m serious Ink. You’re strong and a quick study, but you’re new to the game, really. At least take Kind with you if you feel the need to go get shot.” he hands over the paper. You glance at it, memorizing the address, and tear up the paper. “The Bakken?” you ask. “That’s the safehouse?” “Semi-infinite funds and Pacts sounds pretty fun.” “What did this cost you? Was the informant lying?” “He wanted what mortals always want, money and power.” 2. Should we keep on this Fallen? A. Yes, we should investigate the safehouse, maybe stage a prison break. B. No, it’s a distraction. C. Something else. “What about the message?” “‘In the Heart of the Fire Holds the Key.” “Yeah. I couldn’t find anything on it.” “I found a few things. The Heart of the Fire is the name of a 1990 book about Celtic paganism. I’ve ordered a copy just to be safe, but I don’t know if we’ll find anything there. More interesting is this, “in the heart of the fire” translates to a word in Comorian. Moroni.” “That sounds familiar.” “It’s the capital island of the country, but more importantly, Moroni is the name of the Angel that Joseph Smith claimed gifted him some magic plates.” “Wait, Joseph Smith...I get my dead white guys confused all the time. He’s the..Mormon guy?” “Yep. Claimed an angel gifted him golden plates that detailed the Book of Mormon. Moroni was that angel. Supposedly after Smith was done with the plates he gave them back to Moroni who still guards them.” “Wait, wait. Moroni that doesn’t sound like a real angelic designation.” Ruin shrugs. “I am but the messenger. Anyway, there’s nothing saying Smith was really talking to a Trumpet. He might have just been normal crazy.” “Still, it is an odd connection.”  Ruin checks his phone. “It is at that. Okay, need to get back to my cover’s routine.” he stands and counts out cash for the both of you. “Just, let me know what you’re planning. Infrastructure that close to the River is bad news, I know that much at least.” He rips of another piece of paper. “This is an address where you can find a contact of mine, he’s pretty cautious, but he’s spent at least one life on the River, so he can be a reference if we need it.” You wait until fifteen minutes after Ruin has left, playing with your milkshake. Finally you reach down and pick up the blue backpack he left. You go into the cramped restroom of the diner and open the bag up. Inside you find a smartphone, a manilla envelope with detailed notes about Ruin’s rune translation, and a gun. You stck the evelope in your satchel along with your working gear, and power on the phone, setting it up and signing in. As you do so, you consider the gun. Ruin likes to make sure everyone is protected, even though you have never used a firearm before. 3. Do you take the gun? A. Yes B. No C. Other option? You dig through the trashcan and shove the backpack deep into it, covering it as best you can. After you do so, you get an alert on your new phone. It’s from Tone. quote:
It was 1:00 pm. 4. What are our next moves? Vote for as many as you want. Mabin has an appointment at 3:30. We can miss it obviously, but it will be suspicious. A. Investigate the Bakken B. Investigate Moroni C. Check out other sculptures D. Go Back to Highland Park E. Hunt down some Aether (Infrastructure or otherwise?) F. Back Home G. Something else. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Gear
NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Feb 19, 2018 |
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Feb 19, 2018 19:47
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Slaan posted:track down this Moroni guy in Cali I should specify, and will edit the post to be more clear, it's not California, it's the stupidly named California Building
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Feb 19, 2018 20:09
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Crazycryodude posted:Wait did we really manage to live in the United States of America for almost a century, especially back in the mid-20th, and never touch a gun? Or is it just that Mabin has never had one?
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Feb 19, 2018 20:10
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malbogio posted:Does Like I Built It allow Mabin to be effective with firearms? If so at what cost? I'd say so. The Embed is free, we make a Wits+Crafts roll and we get a bonus equal to our Primum for the rest of the scene.
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Feb 19, 2018 21:59
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Dr Subterfuge posted:How complicated does a machine need to be in order to stockpile Aether? How hard is it to get it back? Simple electric machines. Think like a steam engine or punch card reader as the base. The more complex machine the more we can stick in it. But right now we're slow in retrieving it, as that is set by our Primum. Stockpiles are visible when a Demon "pings" via Aetheric Resonance. Also if they have Aether in it, they never run down.
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Feb 19, 2018 22:47
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Dr Subterfuge posted:Can Stockpiled Aether be retrieved by any demon? Yes.
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Feb 19, 2018 22:58
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Dr Subterfuge posted:Well there goes my brilliant plan. Would have been cool to hide Aether in plain sight in like street clocks or some other thing that people would expect to always be running, but it rather defeats the purpose if it can be sniffed out and sniped. Alas. Still might be possible, Aetheric Resonance has limited radiuses dependant on your Primum. You'd need a Primum of over 4 to be able to sense anything further than 50 yards away. So, as long as it's in an off the beaten path place, might be doable.
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Feb 19, 2018 23:13
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24ish hour notice. The only thing that is kinda up in the air is how much we've told Alex. Right now, we're telling her we are Special, but not..you know...not human.
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Feb 20, 2018 18:05
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 You take the 74 to back to Highland Park. The gun is burning a hole in your bag the whole way. It is not the first time you’ve handled a gun, Wilhelm had used a rifle for hunting, and even a handgun for less savory work when he was younger. But Mabin never had picked up a weapon like this, in fact she had a distinct aversion to guns. When you were building her as a Cover you had come across a few young people who had relatives die in shootings. You Pacted away their trauma to try to heal them and absorbed it to help build Mabin. Still, as a young woman living in a crime ridden part of town, having a handgun wouldn’t be cover-breaking. Still, probably best to keep it on the down low. 1. What type of gun are we packing anyway? Your bus passes the sculpture without you getting off. You look out the window as you pass and you can see it clearly for a moment as you are crossing Ford Bridge. It looms like a lone sentinel overlooking the river. Again, it’s proximity to the river is troubling, not only for what its intended function might be, but also for what might happen if the river causes a the Infrastructure to glitch out, as it often does. You get off on the Minneapolis side of the river and head south, to Wabun Park. You start by following the coordinates that Mr. Tone sent you, but after a few minutes walking, you don’t need them, you can see the Infrastructure from here. It looks exactly the same as the previous sculpture, both in the physical material world, and the hidden world, the realm of the God Machine. You look around and are unsurprised to not see any people at the park, being the middle of winter, and so far the coldest day of the year, no one is out. There is a building you remember as being the Veteran’s Home from your map in the distance, but you don’t see anyone peering out any windows at you. So, you get to work. You start my walking around the statue, noting any differences from the Highland one. It looks identical in construction. You see the same runes translating to “Input” and “Output” and the same keyhole. After examining the structure visually you walk up to it, take off a glove and, cautiously, touch it. In The Heart Of The Fire Holds The Key You pull your hand back, surprised. Same voice, same tone. Definitely connected to the previous one. You put your hand back on it and, ignoring the voice as much as possible, try to connect to the Infrastructure. Once you and this creation were two parts of the same Machine. And though you are now disconnected, there is still a link between you two. You focus on your body and your indescribable inorganic soul. You reach out, and feel the beating heart, the twisting cogs and turning gears hidden within this Infrastructure and attempt to synchronize yourself to it, to meet its metaphysical wavelength. It is hard, and would be easier if you were not wearing your Cover, but a Demon walking around the picnic area would be too much to handle. It happens suddenly and without warning, one moment you are two entities, and the next you are part of the sculpture.  Store power. Store Aether. Building. Building. Need to release, need to connect. Need to shatter. The key. Where is the Key? Storing Power. Almost Full. Almost Time. Who’s there? You pull your hand away. After a moment you turn and walk away quickly. The key? Shattering? The sculpture was some sort of storage for Aether. Once it was full it would...do something? Shatter itself? Shatter something else? You think this is Elimination Infrastructure for sure, meant to clean up another one of the Machine’s projects, or destroy something, or someone, it wants gone. You look at your watch and are alarmed to see almost 45 minutes passed when you were connected to the sculpture. As quick as you can without raising suspicion, you huike north, to Minnehaha Park, and the third installation done by Aldo Moroni. Again, before getting too close you see it is the same as the other two. Same runes, same keyhole too. You pop off your glove, ignore it’s ranting about Hearts and Fires, and again attempt to synchronize and analyze the Infrastructure. Store power. Shatter. Connect. Connect Complete the Circut. Cold. Colder. Hello There. You rip your hand away, panting. You take out your phone and pull up google maps. You drop pins at the approximate locations of all three sculptures, and connect them.  “Well, that can’t be good.” You check your phone, and it is 2:38. You need to get back home soon. You decide to send a quick message to your Ring via a disposable email. 2. What do you tell the Ring? A. Explain as much as possible, hand it off to Ruin and Tone to try to Destroy. B. Tell them you discovered some more intel, meet in a few days. C. Send out the code for “meet at our hidden HQ tonight” D. Something else. As you pocket your phone you look up to find a bus stop, and you stop dead in your tracks for a moment. On the far end of the park there is a small parking lot that is completely empty. Or at least it was empty when you first got here. Now there is a dark-colored Jeep idling in the snow. 3. What do we do? A. Keep walking, do nothing suspicious. B. Run, as far and as fast as we can. C. Approach the Jeep and be friendly. Or not friendly depending. D. Something else. _______________________________________________________________ So, according to our Rolls, Ms. Ink was able to Analyze Infrastructure, but it took an hour and a half. We also took a few Failures as we did so, so we have to roll Compromise, as standing still touching a statue for half an hour is weird. Right now we are have either gained a Condition or a Glitch. As players, you can decide on which of these two options. We either are Flagged -  Or we have manifested a Minor Glitch. Glitches are due to being slightly disconnected from the Machine and runs reality. Demons are not supposed to exist, and Glitches are what happens when we break down. A minor Glitch lasts until the end of the scene, or an hour, whichever is shorter. We must choose from a Brand or a Tell. Brands affect a demon’s physical form, causing a change in the demon’s appearance or body chemistry. Examples: Inability to consume unprocessed food. Smelling slightly of burnt copper. Hair changes to a different but still natural-looking color. Scar tissue on palm in the shape of a star or circuit-pattern. Tells are bad habits and involuntary mental behaviors that are visible and potentially disconcerting. Examples: Must touch top of doorways before entering. Must shake hands with left hand. Cannot cover head. 4. Are we Flagged, or Glitched? A. Flagged B. Glitched (What is the Glitch? I will pick the coolest sounding one) In addition, though we earned a beat in this scene, we failed our Cipher roll, so we learn nothing about our Cipher, bah. Below is our Sheet, world map, and our Agenda Condition, just because I haven’t posted those in a bit. Character Sheet World Map 
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Feb 21, 2018 15:23
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malbogio posted:Were we able to ascertain directionality of the input and output arms of the installations? From what we've been able to tell, it's essentially a closed loop. One "output arm" lines up with an "input arm" on another installation.
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Feb 21, 2018 20:26
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One annoying thing about Falling from Grace is that you feel emotions. What were once undercurrents and eddies of feeling now blossom fully into Love, Anger, Worry, and Fear. So when you notice the idling vehicle you feel the hot whips of panic, though you are able to not show them. Instead you continue walking to the street, as calmly as you can. You head out of the park and onto Godfrey Parkway proper. As you start to walk south on Godfrey, the Jeep pulls out and starts to track you. It keeps pace about a block and a half behind you, not a subtle tail. Whoever, or whatever, is following you doesn’t care too much that you know it. Or else is simply not capable of considering stealth. Still, it seems to want ot keep you in sight, that means visual tracking, and that is your opening. There should be a bus stop somewhere nearby. It wouldn’t take you directly back home, but that is all right as you don’t intend to stay on it for long. 1. How far do we go to lose our tail? (This will determine our dice pool for our rolls to see if they are really gone. A. We switch buses a few times, sneaking in and out of the back doors. When we get to our neighborhood, we cut across people’s yards and alleyways. B We do A, but we also call in some help from AIM, telling them we have a stalker. We use a friend as a body double to switch places with. We’ll owe a favor, and our friend may ask more questions about our ‘stalker’ C We do A, but we also use Mirrored Skin at one point. D Something else. As you walk you type a message to the Ring. You break down the installations being some sort of circuit, and your suspicion that the bridge is involved. Though you haven’t located a Linchpin, you suggest the Ring’s next course of action. AS you are typing you notice your hands feeling a bit stiff and unresponsive. You pull off one of your glove and are surprised by what is underneath. A delicate and complex series of scars cover your palms and wrists. They look like some sort of electrical writing, occult symbols, and the runes on the statue. Looking closely at them, you can see the scars seem to have something underneath them. Like copper wire has been slid in under the epidermis. It tugs at your hand when you clench it into a fist. A glitch then. The physical manifestation that your Cover has been strained, and your demonic self lies beneath this facade. You quickly put the gloves back on.  2. What instructions do you give? A. Destroy them as soon as possible, take Kind with you. B. Do some more recon and try to find a Linchpin, get back if anything changes. C. Something else. You get back to the Center and the girls are already there. The Center’s small gym, normally used for youth basketball when it is too cold to use the court outside, or a larger meeting space, has been cleared and ancient, cracked, wrestling mats rolled out in the center of it, on the sides a few free standing heavy bags and other equipment. Currently populating the mat are half a dozen adolescent girls in various forms of workout gear. They chat quietly to themselves, occasionally laughing and taking playful swipes at each other. They are, luckily for you, too busy with each other to notice you come in. Unluckily for you, Grace LaFave notices, and intercepts. Grace terrifies Mabin, the women is built like a brick shithouse and about as pleasant to be around. Mabin is acutely aware that Grave would pick her up and break her in half if she so decided. “I’m sorry!” you say as she throws a black dufflebag at you. “Where the hell were you?” “I’m sorry! “I had to set everything up myself, and corral these assholes without your help.” “Sorry. I just..I lost track of time.” Grace dismisses you with a sharp wave. “Get dressed.”  You go to the ancient gym locker rooms and quickly change into the clothes and equipment you pull from the bag. You strip off your glove and notice the glitch is still there, though faded. You take out a roll of cloth and quickly wrap your hands, covering them as best you can. You are hanging up your coat and street clothes when you feel the gun in your bag. You pause for a moment. The lockers don’t have actual locks on them, they are essentially just closets. The gun should be safe and secured here, but...there is always the chance something happens. You grab your clothes and stuff everything into your bag, then leave the room. Your bulging bag gathers a few questioning looks as you carry it in and toss it onto the stage built into the side of the gym, but thankfully Grace starts to bark instructions to the girls. The Center runs what is called Sacred Journey, a series of programming and initiatives directed towards supporting young women. One program within Sacred Journey is a weekly after-school open gym training session. Part assault defense class, part group workout, it was a way to make these young women feel like they had some measure of control over their bodies and their spirits. Mabin was involved for two reasons, one was simply she knew how to fight. Part of that knowledge was actually due to you spending year brawling in your previous Cover. Bar room brawls and fighting cops translate to self defense quite nicely. Mabin also knew how to fight due to careful Pacts that were the result of hanging around various martial arts studios in the Metro. It’s surprising how many “martial artists” are willing to give up their skill in exchange for the fame, respect, or money they thought they would be getting in some MMA fever dream. 3. What martial arts contribute to Mabin’s ‘style’? Choose as many as you want, just not all of them. I’ll choose from the top four. A Muay Thai B Brazilian jiu-jitsu C Aikido D Judo E Krav Maga F Musti-Yuddha G Wing Chun The second reason Mabin was here, every week, was because she was a Pillager. Anishinaabe bands divide themselves into clans of kinship. Each clan has a doodem, or totem. Mabin’s line of Pillagers were Bear Clan, the Makoshtigwaan. Responsible for defense and healing, the police and guards of the band. Granted, you are still navigating many of the Anishinaabe traditions, any many seem odd to you but to Mabin they are important. You oddly do not recall who you took this sense of tradition from, but it runs deep in Mabin, and so she spends as much time as she can helping her people and protecting them. Which is why Ruby’s eye is bothering you.  Ruby Brave Bird is 19, stocky, enrolled in journalism at UMN, and sporting a black eye. Her eye wasn’t like that when you saw her a few days ago. She isn’t known to be very clumsy. Her mother is a tired but genuine women too kind and too busy to raise a hand. Her father is dying on a Rez somewhere, in no position to raise a hand. So the eye bothers you. It bothers you through stretches and warm ups. It bothers you through throwing and break away drills. Finally, as the girls break up to do some individual exercises, it bothers you so much that you follow her to the heavy bag. She is slipping on some bag gloves when you walk up next to her and lean against the bag frame. You don’t say anything, and neither does she. Somewhere in the back of your mind Mabin makes a “Stoic Indians” joke, but you push it down. Ruby takes a few half-hearted jabs at the bag. Her stance is off, her feet too close together, you could shove her over easily, but you don’t correct her. Her jabs start to pick up speed, then morph from half-hearted jabs to half-hearted hooks. She does not adjust her feet but starts to put more weight into each punch. Because of her stance she can’t really put all of her weight behind each punch, and her timing is off so she meets the bag at a bad angle. With each hit she fights against the bag’s weight, crushing her hand and making her wrist absorb the shock. Her swings become faster, and wilder. Finally a low growl starts in her throat and quickly crescendos to a short, rasping scream which cuts off as quickly as it appears. She pants, far more than her punching should have her. She hunches over and puts her head down. Though her ‘boxing’ had long lasted a minute or two, she’s gone the distance already. “‘Y’know what fuckin’ sucks?” Ruby says, her eyes down. “When your a poor rear end Indian kid, that’s all you are y’know? Like..you can try..you can try so loving hard to be good, to make something of yourself. But...you can’t escape. They don’t let you.” “Who?” you ask, which is really two questions. “Everyone. Rich people, white people, skins. I mean, Maybe..” she finally meets your eyes. “We’d loving eat each other if we could. We are loving eating each other.” “Who?” She doesn’t want to tell you, she doesn’t want to get you involved even slightly. She doesn’t want to drag you down. But, Mabin is Bear Clan. “Some chucklefuck from come down from Leech Lake. He’s some..loving...captain? Boss? I dunno, some..guy...in Native Rose. He’s here to scoop up territory since the Brotherhood got ran out.” The terms are vaguely familiar. When making Mabin you didn’t gain the memories of all the people you Pacted, unless the memories were part of the deal, so you don’t know all the terminology Mabin should know. But you can figure out the context. Some gangster was trying to make a name for himself, set up shop for his superiors and try to get influence. This was a dance that you’d seen played since 1936. “What does this have to do with you?” “I’m a Rez girl with no money and decent tits, what do you think?” That gives you pause. “So, have you--” “No, loving of course not. But, loving Gary made it clear that my options are limited. Work for him, join up with him, or loving pray he can’t find me.” “What’s his name?” “Gary Peake.” “Where’s he hangout?” “I, really try to not know. He has someone watching the 88 bus stop on Franklin. He...bumps into me..when I’m waiting. Why?” 4. What do we do? A Kick some rear end, Mabin’s ready. B Talk to our contacts, try to deal with this socially. C Pact her initiation, literally make them our problem. D You know what’s scary? A roiling mass of shadow and knives lunging at you in the dark. E This is a problem, but we can’t risk our cover or ourselves here. Sorry Ruby, you're on your own. 5. When do we do it? A Right now, we have an hour before we need to get ready for dinner. B Later, maybe tonight. C Let’s resolve the sculpture stuff first. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Character Sheet World Map
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Feb 24, 2018 06:02
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Crazycryodude posted:Is it possible to change Agendas once the game has started, or maybe even subscribe partially to multiple? Yes to both. But we also get Cover Beats, basically exp that can be spent solely on Cover and things that belong to that Cover. Right now we're in an okay place. But we can have multiple agendas....once I refresh myself on the rules for that.
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Feb 24, 2018 06:22
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Dr Subterfuge posted:
Pacts can be informal affairs, a simple declaration of “You (the mortal) gain X if I (the demon) gain Y.” They can also be highly formal, full of legalese and fine print, employed by demons looking to bind unwary humans. Pacts are composed of aspects, each of which describes some of the parameters of the pact. Aspects apply to both demon and human and come in three different levels: lesser, medial and greater. Each of these levels has a corresponding value: +1 for lesser, +2 for medial and +3 for greater aspects. When the contract is signed, the demon must spend Willpower to finalize the deal. The amount varies depending on the terms of the deal. For a completely balanced pact, the cost is one point of Willpower. For each point weighted in the Demon's favor , the cost is an additional point of Willpower. Essentially, we must offer something and get something to make it even. So, our options in this case could be Offer: Eliminating Ruby's relationship with Peake. (or eliminating Peake) Get: Some aspect of Ruby's life. A Skill she has, or make her a member of a Cult (i.e. bind her to servitude) or Offer: Money, a Skill, some Relationship, or other Aspect Ruby would need. Get: Her history/relationship/past intereactions with Peake and the Native Rose mob. I hope this helps. We can get more into the nitty gritty if we take this as an option. But I figure, since we are currently a tempter, Pacting should always be on the table. We actually are probably a pretty fair dealer (in our mind at least). Crazycryodude posted:[ Is it possible to change Agendas once the game has started, or maybe even subscribe partially to multiple? Back to this, we can switch our Agenda at any time (though I would like to wait for a dramatic moment for narrative's sake) or we can buy the 2-dot Multiple Agenda Merit and get the benefits of two Agenda's at once.
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Feb 24, 2018 16:22
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JesterOfAmerica posted:
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Feb 24, 2018 16:25
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24 hour notice. Here are the current leaders, you may change your vote, just tell me what you are changing it from. 1. A, Switch buses- 7 C, A+ Mirrored Skin - 5 2. Pretty Solidly B, do more recon. 3. E , Krav Maga - 8 (pretty locked in, other three are up for grabs) B, Brazilian jiu-jitsu - 4 A,F,G (Muay Thai, Musti-Yuddha, Wing Chun) - 3 C, Aikido - 2 4. A, Punchy - 5 C, Pacty - 4 D , Demony- 3 B, Contacty - 1 5. Solidly B, later tonight after our date with Alex.
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Feb 25, 2018 20:11
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Dr Subterfuge posted:How would we do this the demony way without Going Loud? Demony is just wearing our full Demonic Form, which though certainly not subtle, doesn't mean we'll attract GM attention for sure. Think of it as going into Battle Mode. Going Loud is something totally different. It's burning our Cover away completely in exchange for a power boost that puts us in par with some of the strongest Angels. We...should not do this unless there is no other choice.
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Feb 25, 2018 21:41
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Edit: Double post
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Feb 25, 2018 21:52
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“I’ll take care of it,” you tell Ruby. “What does that mean?” “Don’t worry about it. Just tell me if you see him again. “O..okay. What are you planning to do, Maybe?” “Old Indian Trick,” you smile at her. “Let’s get back to beating the poo poo out of this bag.” You spend another half an hour working with Ruby and some of the other girls. Today you focus on groin kicks In particular. When people are done you help Grace clean up, though she pointedly makes you do more of the work, and then hop in the shower of the locker room and change into Mabin’s street clothes. Mabin is a pretty tightly put together Cover, but she does have some odd gaps. One is the clothes. No matter what you go and spend money on, it eventually warps into some sort of gray tank top or short sleeve shirt. It’s not as bad as when you were building Mabin and her closet had only the exact same pair of pants and a gray tank. The exact same, multiple jeans with the same wear marks on them and loose threads. Now there is at least some plausible differences, but Mabin certainly has a “style”. It narrows down your options for things such as going out to eat, but luckily Alex has chosen a pretty laid back place. You are repacking your bag when you again worry about the gun. 1 Do you take the gun with you? A. Yes B. No (where do you stash it?) You decide to stop at the Franklin bus stop and get there quite early. You lounge around for the bus for awhile and no one bothers you, though you do notice some young guys leaning against the wall of a nearby bodega staring you down. You pretend not to notice and make a production out of checking your phone and not paying attention to your surroundings. Eventually the bus comes and you head to dinner.  The Chatterbox is a nerd bar. In addition to a menu full of burgers and microbrewed beers, it also has a huge array of Atari, Nintendo, Sega, and board games. It’s in a corner of the pub, set up on a couch and playing Turtles in Time that you find Alex. She is a statuesque blonde women whose face is currently scrunched up in concentration. Alex was a unique woman. The only daughter of a “cop’s cop” she had been locked into law enforcement since she was a kid, even more so after her father hung himself rather than face bribery charges. She did her time and worked her way to Sergeant, no easy task for a women in the MPD. One year after getting her stripes, she promptly ripped them off, turned State’s Evidence for a corruption racket, and left the force. There is some speculation, mostly among big men with fragile egos, that she was forced out, but you know it was all her choice. Even being the smallest gear in a corrupt machine was too much for her once she realised how far the corruption went. That was partially why you have trusted her with as much of the truth as you dare. Alex readily believed that there was some hidden force influencing people against their will, she’d worked for a similar one for years. These days, Alex works as a private investigator. She mostly delivers summons and tracks down debtors, but every so often she takes on a criminal case, working with the defense. She has yet to investigate any cheating husbands or wives, a face that she is proud about. Mabin and Alex go back about five years. Mabin was in the crowd protesting the Redskins when they came to play the Vikings. Alex was an off-duty cop attending the game. A particularly loud and annoying Redskins fan was assaulted on his way out of the stadium, his custom jersey shredded and a large section of his hair shaved down to the skin. Alex questioned the man, who couldn’t remember what his attacker looked like, then she questioned Mabin. The attacker was never found sadly. After that Alex was Mabin’s on and off again girlfriend and roomate. When Alex decided to turn on her brothers in the law, Mabin was there to support her. Once Alex left the force though, she pushed Mabin away. You suspect she was trying for a clean break or concerned Mabin would be targeted. Humans act oddly sometimes. 2. How does Ms. Ink feel about Alex? A. She is a useful tool, nothing more. B. We admit, we are fond of her. But like a pet. C. We have emotions, even if they are sometimes alien. We care about Alex in our own way. D. Demons can love, it is a curse to some and a blessing to others. We don’t know if we love Alex. But we might. “Thank God you’re here. I’m stuck on the sewer level and I am going to kill everyone and myself,” Alex says by way of greeting. You collapse on the couch next to her, noting that her bag is between you and her, and pick up the second controller. She has wisely left you Raphael. The two of you play in silence for a few minutes, pausing the game only when a server comes and hands you menus. You order a chicken wrap and a beer, fighting the urge to order the Hellcat Burger and be cute about it. Once the game is paused and the server leaves you turn to Alex. “So?” “C’mon Maybe, can’t we have fun before we get to work?” “I’d love to Al, but this is important. Some friends of mine might be in danger.” She sighs at that and frowns. Alex is under the impression that there is a hidden world of supernatural powers that you are a part of, and you choose to protect her from. You told her that you are what she would think of as a wizard, and one who is working to undermine some of the established class systems in your hidden world. As you grow in your own power and ability you attract more dangerous foes, all the while trying to keep your city safe. You got the idea from a book series. As a result however, Alex has become a bit bristly over the idea that there is an entire world she knows nothing about that she must be protected from. So, she helps you, but it has caused a strain on your already tumultuous relationship as she feels like you don’t fully trust her. Oddly, that was the reaction that the book series’ hero’s girlfriend had.  “Alright,” she says, stretching and sinking back into the couch. “I did find some stuff. I don’t have many friends back over the river, but I have heard some things.” “Like what?” “Well, there are your standard stories about citizen’s reporting fake cops, weirdos trying to get a feel or get girls into their cars. Sometimes though, you hear about these fake cops with uniforms that seem legit, but something is off. Or they are talking to you and don’t seem like they are all there. You also get stories about patrol men sitting in their cars, or squad cars with tinted windows, that just sit there. Citizens come up asking for help and...nothing. No response. Dispatch gets calls, but no units are supposed to be in the area of the incident. Again, that ties back to impersonators, but then you get the really weird stories.” “Like?” “Listen Maybe, I’m happy to do this kind of digging for you, but it does open some more wounds.” “I know, I’m sorry,” you say. “And...I know that you needed some time away, I get that.” “No. no it’s not about that, not about us. At least not like that. I mean, we can have that whole talk later if you want, but I am talking about being shut out by you. It’s hard to navigate this world when I feel half-blind.” “I understand. I really do. But, Al there are things out there that would literally eat you if you got too close to them.” “Yeah yeah, but I’m a big girl Mabin. I was a cop for god sake, I think I can handle whatever little ghouls and goblins I might attract. I’m telling you, that if you want my help in the future, I need more transparency.” “I can’t promise you that.” “You can actually. It’s really easy, just say you’ll bring me in and mean it.” “Alex,” you say and you shift on the couch to look directly at her. “There are things in this world that would really, really mess with you. I’m talking just..beyond your wildest imagination. Things that, if I told you would bring hell down on you, and on me. I cannot, cannot do that.” “I don’t want a guided backstage tour. I just...I want something, a flashlight when I’m walking around in the dark.” Your food arrives and you eat and drink in silence for a bit as you think. Finally, inevitably, you say, “Fine. If I can share information with you in the future I will. But right now some friends of mine might need the information you have.” Alex nods towards her bag, “I remember you liked files printed out, I’ve pulled together some reports for you there, maybe you can make a pattern from it. But it’s weird, some of my buddies, the ones still talking to me, said the latest rumor they’ve heard on the pits of Facebook is about cop drones.” “Cop drones?” “Yeah, robot policemen, meant to be comforting and responsive to people, but without the habit of shooting unarmed black people.” “Is there anything like that?” “Of course not, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” The two of you eat your food and drink your beers, and then another round. Then you go back to killing robot ninjas and eventually you start talking and flirting with one another, more than either of you probably anticipated. You are well on your way to getting drunk, and seriously considering insisting on letting Alex take you home, when your phone alerts you that you’ve got a text message. That sobers you up quickly. Your phone is rarely used for actual texting. Your Ring communicates via anonymous email addresses that you log into and out of on your phone, but you rarely text each other. Especially when investigating Infrastructure. There is speculation as to how much the Machine can monitor cell phone signals, and thus any text would have to be carefully coded so as to no arouse suspicion. It would need to be a message that any of the Ring’s covers would send you, and yet still convey the message. You take out your phone and see that Ruin , or rather Tim, has messaged you. It is an image. And it makes your blood run cold.  3. What is the appropriate reaction to this. A. Drop whatever you are doing and meet at the safe house. B. Meet at the Broiler in 24 hours. C. Call, text, or email, just check in when you can. D. Maintain silence, use physical dead drops, they have be monitored. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm so, so sorry for Ackbar. According to our rolls we lost the Jeep even without needing any special tricks. Character Sheet World Map
NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Feb 27, 2018 |
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Feb 27, 2018 05:51
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Facebook Aunt posted:As for what to tell Alex, I think we should tell her there is a psychic danger. "Alex, do you know what a mindflayer is?"
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Feb 27, 2018 20:49
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Outrail posted:Is there anything stopping us from creating a pretend scenario where we walk down an alley with her and get 'attacked' by an terrifying and unstoppable illusion that scares the poo poo out of her until we casually 'kill' it with Harry Potter magic and explain that that's why we can't let her in. This poo poo is orders of magnitude worse than she knows. Her only defense is not getting tainted by it, too much exposure and you'll just disappear etc etc. We can lie perfectly, but we can't make illusions. Yet. There is an Terrifying Hallucinations exploit. Edit: we can also get a friend to spook her. NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Feb 28, 2018 |
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Feb 28, 2018 00:54
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“Who’s that?” Alex asks. “You got some new girlfriend I don’t know about?” “No,” you say absently, trying to parse the exact message. Trap? It didn’t mean Alex, Ruin used something called “The Lost in Space robot” for that type of danger. A trap involving Ruin and Tone then. You quickly find and send the appropriate response. Ms. Ink posted:“Everything okay?” the cheer is gone from her voice, she’s figured something was wrong. You debate how much to tell her, before desciding to delay that as much as possible. “Some..allies...of mine are working on a thing. They’ve run into some trouble.” “Everyone okay?” “Oh yeah,” you lie without hesitation. ”But I’m honestly to going to be a good companion until I get this figured out. I’m sorry Al, but I need to split.” “It’s okay,” she says in her “It’s Not Okay” tone. “Head out, I’ll pay the bill.” “I can pay, I’m not poor.” “Yeah but..you need your money. It’s fine. Go play Mabin the Mage or whatever.” 1. Do you make plans with Alex? “Okay,” you grab your things, including the file she’s assembled about strong cop encounters. You give her a kiss, on the cheek no reason to push it, and head out to grab a bus. Ruin gets back to you as you are riding home. Mr. Ruin posted:👻💣 “The hell does that mean?” Ink posted:Ruin posted:Ink posted:Ruin posted:🌉🔥 Ink posted:Ruin posted:That is as far as the conversation gets before you get to your stop. You get off and, instead of walking home, you get off and go into the open air bus shelter. You sit at the bus stop, thinking. It is freezing out, -20, inching towards -30. The bus shelter offers a little respite from this cold, it is a roof supported by three sides of artfully etched glass. You huddle next to the heater built into the bus stop and hit the activation button repeatedly when the timer shuts off. It is a reflex about about 10 minutes, you are trying to work out what happened. Ruin and Tone were investigating the sculpture, assumedly the Ford Parkway one. One of them must have done something to trigger a trap. A..ghost bomb. At least one of them was injured, probably Tone if Ruin was the one talking to you, and they retreated. They also seem to think the Infrastructure has something to do with a bridge and..fire? That one confuses you. So you have questions that need answering, in order of importance. 1. Did their Covers get blown? They don’t need an angel throwing fire down on them to be in trouble. It’s possible the Machine has discovered them but isn’t actively hunting them down yet, either because it needs time to summon another Hunter Angel or it simply doesn’t want to. If their Covers are blown, those are two people that are publicly connected to Mabin. Game Night is a convenient story and excuse for you all to get together, but it turns dangerous once one of you is a confirmed spy. Assuming their Covers are blown, and assuming the connection to Mabin is noticed by the Machine (both are assumptions you remind yourself. You have options. You can continue like nothing it wrong. This is dangerous, but what you need to do to avoid suspicion. Any odd movements might attract attention. Of course you need to actively move around to uncover what is happening as well, so that is a Catch-22. Your other options are more extreme. You could burn Mabin. Find another Unchained with a solid cover and exchange it, or try to buy it. This would, for all intents and purposes kill Mabin and force you to walk away. It is a drastic choice, but one that you could make if needed. Much like the last option you can think of. Kill Ruin and Tone before the enemy gets them. If they have been compromised they are a threat to you. The safest option would be to just eliminate that threat. However, their Covers may still be intact, just flagged. If that is the case, the Machine’s agents, angelic or mortal, need to be convinced they are human. That onus falls on Ruin and Tone, though you could attempt to help. Alternately you could try to find their status, either by tracking down some of Machine’s agents and shaking them down for information, or by attempting to raid and infiltrate some Command and Control Infrastructure, but you’d need to find it first. Both tasks are dangerous, and you wouldn’t be able to call on two of your Ring members to help. 2. What do we want to go into tomorrow planning? Vote for as many as you want. A. Act as your cover, don’t do anything weird B. Start building or finding a new Cover, Mabin’s time might be limited. C. Figure out where Tone and Ruin are holed up. We might need to take them out. D. Try to find an agent of the Machine, or some Command and Control Infrastructure there. E. Right now we need to be focused on the Ford Parkway Infrastructure. 2. Are Tone and Ruin alright? One is injured for sure, but perhaps both are. They may be unable or unwilling to seek medical assistance. You think Kind has some medical training, but she would need to find them and risk herself. Maybe you can dig into your contacts and send a sympathetic RN or unscrupulous doc to them with some fabricated story. You’d need to find someone, and of course figure out where the boys are holed up. 3. What happened to them? “Ghost Bomb” is a cute shorthand. And you know the Machine has use for whatever energies or powers that exist as a “ghost” or “soul”, but how does it work? Why didn’t you trigger it? Was it always there and Ruin interacting with it caused something to trigger? Or was this a defense added after you poked around last night? Were the other sculptures trapped like this as well? 4. Where the hell is the Linchpin? 5. What doe- “Hey baby,” someone says next to you. “You cold?” loving finally. Three men have joined you in the bus shelter. Two are big dudes, vary ratios of muscle and fat, and the third man is lean and hungry-looking. He is wearing a fur-lined parka and a Eagles baseball cap. He has a long braid that he tucked into the front of his coat and some facial tattoos you didn’t recognize. Overall their presentation is embarrassingly cliche. You stand up and discover that you come up to about the man’s chest. “You Gary Peake?” “Yeah,” he smiles and gold teeth wink at you. “I got some fan I don’t know about?” “Ты не прав демона?” you ask in Russian. “The gently caress you say?” “Just checking,” you say, then you punch him in the throat. The secret to a good throat punch is to thin your hand’s profile or use the edge if possible, and try to punch through the other person’s neck. Peak yawps and reels backwards, but you are already reaching out to grab him. You snatch his braid and use it as a lever, redirecting his backward momentum to cause him to stumble forward. He stumbles past you and you place your hand on the back of his head and shove as hard as possible when he is between lurching steps. He flies forward as he falls to his knees, and ends up bouncing his face off the shelter bench. Semi-Fat guy charges at you like a bull. You twist to face him but grab his outstretched hands and continue the movement. For a brief second it looks like the two of you are ballroom dancing, you leading obviously. Then his kinetic energy meets yours, and you roll him up and over your hip, tossing him into one of the glass panels of the shelter. It shatters, slowing his flight path only momentarily, and he lands heavily on the sidewalk and deflates. Super-Fat guy has managed to pull a gun, a small snub-nosed revolver. You duck low reach out, brushing the gun with your finger tips. The movement does not deflect his shot, nor move you out of his sights. But that doesn’t matter, all you needed was a touch. Inside the gun something breaks, you do not know what or care what. The man pulls the trigger and the hammer does not pull back, there is not even a satisfied “click”. He looks dumb founded as you rip the gun out of his hand and step into a full bodied groin kick. He drops to the ground, turning paler as he does so. You bash him in the back of the head with his gun to at least put him out of his misery. Then you drop the gun and walk over to Peake, who is struggling to his knees. You place a foot on his ribs and give him a shove, flipping him onto his back like a turtle. You plop down on his stomach, straddling him, and are happy to see you’ve broken his nose and it’s bleeding. “Okay,” you say grabbing his parka and pulling him close. “You hosed up here. See, I think you crawled out of whatever Rez fuckhole you were living in with plans on taking this territory for yourself. The Brotherhood has hosed off to South of Powerhorn, and this place seems so ripe right? Gary, please contribute to the conversation.” You slam the back of his head against the bench. “Grughh..” “Thanks,” you say. “Anyway, with the Superbowl in town you figure, ‘Might as well set myself up as Big Chief Pimp-em-Cheap’ for all the tourists. Because, as we know Indian girls tend to not be missed when poo poo like this happens. Girls from poor families that aren’t little blonde twelve year olds don’t make the news. That combined with the amount of guys who get their rocks off by poking a Pocahontas because they have some pretty loving repressed issues about race and the history of this country mean tha-- Gary, I haven’t lost you right?” Slam. “Grurk..” “Any way, here’s where you hosed up. I mean, at least most recently. You thought this territory was unclaimed. Well, guess what Gary, it’s loving mine understand? This neighborhood and all the people in it are mine. The Brotherhood left here for a reason Gary. They didn’t just move on to greener pastures. Ask them about how many of their enforcers just vanished in the night. Ask them how many of their stashes were loving lit on fire in front of them. Maybe you can ask them about it on your way out of town. Because I need you to understand that I want you and Native Rose out of the city, get back on the loving Rez or go class up some suburb. Nod if you understand.” He doesn’t so you tap his head against the ground this time. That makes his head sort of wobble back and forth in a nodding gesture. “I don’t feel guilty about this Gary, this is the way of the world. This is what happens to scavengers in this neighborhood. That is all you are, some coyote who comes across a dead deer and thinks he is the king of the world. But you’re just a scavenger,” you pull him up close to you. “And I am a predator. I am the Bear who will follow you to the ends of the earth. This is mine, and if you come nosing around here again, I will rip your guts out and feed on your entrails while you still scream.” “My god.” You turn to the sound. Mrs. Gilchist is standing there. She is recognizable bundled up against the cold, but even if she wasn’t the presence of Makwa would be a give away. She stares at the unconscious men and at yourself. 3. What do we do here? Vote for as many as you want. F. Turn and run. G. Walk by her like you do not see her. H. Pet Makwa. I. Tell her these assholes got the jump on you, hopefully she didn’t see the start. J. Make a veiled threat to her. K Make an explicit threat to her. L. Coerce her into a Pact of some sort (this would be expensive for us since) M. Kill her. N.Be nice to Her. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am so sorry for the memes. I'm changing voting a bit with the letters, this might help me with vote tabulation. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls
NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 06:19
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CourValant posted:
Thank you! Blasphemaster posted:Do silver bullets even DO anything in this setting? Depends. Werewolves (but not real World of Darkness Werewolves) might be a thing. Cryptids exist in theory.
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Mar 1, 2018 06:24
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 Mrs. Gilchrist stares at you, open mouthed. Makwa stands next to her, straining at his leash for pets, his doggie breath fogging in the air. Your mind whirls and clicks at a rate that is beyond human thinking. Options:eliminationintimidationcoherisionretreatretreatnotvalidshelivesnextdoorwillidentifyeliminationservessameissuethoughperhapsasoulpactandimmeditaterequstitionofher nothatisjustevilimnotamonstersoineedtodealwithherlongtermicouldintimidatehermaybeevenhurtthedognothatisnotanoptionfaultythinkingintimidationmightberesisted shesawusbutwhatdidsheseeagirldefendingherselforapychopathlayingwastetopeoplecoherisionistheleastdrasticmorebeneitslessrisksweneedtoplaythisofflikeitsnotabigdealokaystartcrying. You start crying, big heaping uglycrying as you stumble towards Mrs. Gilchrist. She back up but you ignore her and grab Makwa. The dog is surprised and delighted to be suddenly bear-hugged. You bury your face in his fur and breath deep, sobbing. Makwa shimmies out from your grasp and starts to lick your face. You rub his giant block of a head and look up at Gilchrist. “Th-they came out of nowhere. O-one had a gun. I didn’t know what to d-do. I..I fought them off. Please, help me.” She doesn’t move for a moment, then asks, quietly. “They attacked you first?” “They grabbed me, I spun around and..I don’t know exactly what happened. Ruby told me there were some guys harassing her but..” “They attacked you?” “Yeah” you say, lamely. “Stay away from me.” “Wh-what?” She pulls Makwa’s leash hard, and he reluctantly backs up away from you, she follows suit. “I saw it Mabin. I saw it all. I heard it all. Stay away.” she turns and runs off. Or at least speed walks off as fast as an old woman can on ice. You let her go, sitting on the snow until your face starts to numb, then you get up and go home. 1. Do you take the snub-nosed revolver? A Yes, never know if we can use it or sell it. We’d have to repair it first though. B Nope, leave it. C Nope, but we’re gonna toss it down a drain. You get home and breeze past Rocky to lock yourself in your apartment and try to calm yourself. You’ve hosed up. You didn’t check for witnesses. Mabin is a brawler, but even she shouldn’t be so ruthless like that. You’d promised to eat someone. This would be bad if Gilchrist talked. 2. Do you do anything else before bed? It’s something we’d have to do without leaving our apartment, so a digital dead drop, some research, finding a good way to stash incriminating stuff, whatever. When you wake up you are panicked immediately. What if Mrs. Gilchrist has said something? You need to deal with this ASAP. You throw on a grey tank top and go over to knock on her door. Makwa heralds your coming and the door cracks open, chain still on. “Hey,” you say. “Can we talk?” “I haven’t called the police yet.” she says softly, not looking at you. “I..okay. So...maybe I don’t need to come in. Right. Listen I..I know you think that I’m just to some bad stuff and I’m sure last night didn’t do anything to help with that. But, those were bad man Mrs. Gilchrist. They’re gangsters, they’re trying to force young girls to do..bad things. And..I know I maybe got carried away but, they needed to be scared off. They are evil people, preying on the weak.” “And what about you Mabin Pillager?” Mrs. Gilchrist says, finally looking into your eyes. “Are you an evil person?” That stops you. You could lie, and it would be convincing and it wouldn’t trouble you. Still, this seems like an important moment in your life, and certainly Mabin’s. You have hidden so much, kept yourself closed off from others, even those you care about. Maybe it is time for some truth, to shake off some of this guilt. “I’ve done some illegal things, maybe even some bad things. But I’ve never hurt someone I thought was innocent, or helpless. And I’ve never stood by when I could have helped. I said some evil things last night Mrs. Gilchrist. I meant every one of them. This is my home you people are my family. Any one that comes and wants to take either of those from me is a dead person walking. That might make me sound evil, but..I have to admit to what I am.” “Thank you for your honesty,” then she shuts the door. You stand there, unsure what to do. You could break down the door, threaten her, but you had time for that last night and didn’t. Maybe it would be best for your ideas to ferment with her for awhile. It'll give you time to get things done. 3. How are you prioritizing your goals for the day? D. Find some Cover, either by buying something of a Demon. E. Go back to a sculpture, check it for traps or more ghost bombs. F. Follow up on some other lead (what?) G. Keep in touch with Ruin and Tone.  *** You walk into the lobby of Ebenezer Loren Assisted Care center and immediately feel uncomfortable. The nurses in their white scrubs flitting about and the residents being slow and sedentary quite honestly freaks you out a but. It seems too perfect and orderly, like this would be the ideal world of the Machine. You feel slightly trapped whenever you come in here and have to force yourself to smile, sign in, and head upstairs to visit Mabin’s grandma. She is sitting in a common room, over the speakers some madman has decided that showtunes from some old musical are the appropriate music. Fleur Pillager was the first piece of cover you attained when you started to build Mabin. As Willhelm’s heath started to face you bumped into a young Native man who needed, amongst other things, some cash to start a new life. After some wheeling and dealing you Pacted his relationship with his grandmother, his only living relative. And suddenly like that, a young 20-something girl was partially born. It look months to develop the rest of the Cover, Pacting here and buying pieces of it there. But once Mabin had fully cooked you stepped into her life, just as Wilhelm was dying. The first person you saw as Mabin was “your” grandmother. Over the years Fleur has become hunched and curled over, like an oak tree fighting the winds. Her hands, gnarled as they are by arthritis, flow over the quilt laying on her lap. Her fingers skip and dance in ways that you don’t know if your true 360% articulated ones could. He has thick owl-eyed glasses on and her hair is piled high in bun that looms at you. “Boozhoo grandma.” you say. “Ah, my little waabooz, I thought you were coming tomorrow!” Fleur starts to get up and you quickly hunch over to hug her in her seat, saving you both the trouble of her trying to stand. She fights you for a bit, and then settles down. When she was younger Fleur was a hellcat. She has spent years regalling you with stories about running around with the Means and the Bellecourt brothers and founding the American Indian Movement. Of course, those men were far more interested with what was between her legs than what was on her mind. So Fleur was out of the spotlight. Still, she was at Wounded Knee and she had exchanged gunfire with “those fascist FBIs”. Fleur was granite given life, but she was tender too. You have memories of her singing for hours on end when Mabin was a baby. Of being swaddled and told the Old Stories about Nanabozho. Of course all of these are fake memories, but that doesn’t make them not real. “I had the day free and I don’t know if I will tomorrow so, I figured I better make sure I see you today.” “Surprising an old woman like that, what are you trying to do? Give me a heart attack?” “Sorry nookomis.” Fleur has the sing song Rez accent that makes everything she says sound doubly wise and important. No to say what Fleur says isn’t important, she just leans into the “Mystic Indian” bit a little. When was younger and it was hip to be Indian she traveled from White Earth to California hitching rides. She said that she never had to offer drivers sex or drugs for a ride, she’s promise to show them some “powerful medicine” that would connect them to their spirit animal. They often fell for it. Or maybe she actually did, you’ve always suspected Fleur was a bit of a legitimate Shaman. “Oh are you feeling?” “Oh, I’m bored Mabin. Did you know they’ve cancelled a lot of those cooking shows that used to be on TV? Like Julia Childs.” “Well, she’s dead. Like, she's been dead forever.” “Yeah, I know that. But that’s no good reason to stop showing her cook.” Fleur has cried exactly once that you have seen in person. It was when Mabin came out. Fleur was a big believer in Two-Spirits, and so it wasn’t Mabin being gay that was the issue, but it also kind of was. With Mabin being the last Pillager the family line would end. Fleur had, in her mind, already a failed by raising a good for nothing son who let himself and his wife OD while their daughter played in the next room. Fleur cried because she wanted to much for Mabin to be able to correct her mistakes, and that would never happen. There was a blow up fight, one that neither Fleur or Mabin really meant, but the tension in the air needed to be let out. Then the next week Fleur discovered in vitro fertilization. That has been an uncomfortable discussion “So what are you doing all day?” “I started watching Dr. Oz. you know Dr. Oz?” “Heard of him.” “He says some pretty crazy poo poo. We’re big fans of him here, ” she says gesturing to her roomates. “The things white people fall for.” You talk to her for another hour, she shows you the new quilt she is making as part of some sort of quilting club (“Let me tell you, you correct one little old white lady about stitching once and the claws come out’). You tell her about seeing Alex last night, though you leave out exactly what the two of you discussed. Fleur likes Alex and finds the idea of a cop that turned on other cops hilarious. Eventually though it is time to leave, you have things to do. You go make down to the lobby and head to the business desk. There you write an exorbitant check to the center, cleaning out most of your bank balance. You need to find a way to get Mabin to make more money so you aren’t struggling with cash all the time. It is expensive to pay for two residents here. The receptionist take your money and hands you a receipt. “Did you manage to see both of them today?” “No,” you say. “It was a quick visit. I’ll see Eliza soon.” “Well, just let us know when you’re coming next time, we’ll make sure Mrs. Sager is awake.” You give your thanks and leave the building. That is when Ruin messages you again.  That tends to be the shorthand for Mrs. Kind, though you cannot fathom what exactly it means. You head back to the Center to gather your kit and head out for the day when a bright red suburban pulls up next to you. You tense as the window is being rolled down, but you see Mrs. Kind leaning out of the car. “‘Get in bitch, we’re going shopping’,” she shouts at you. Then she smiles and winks. “That’s from a movie!” 4.Do you? H. Yes I. No ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ We're going to focus on watching our own actions, starting to build/get a new cover, and figure out that Infrastructure. The boys are on their own. We also have a coffee date with Alex next week. I rolled Compromise after the last update. Being a little hoodlum is one thing, but decimating three adult men and threatening one the way we did was..unusual. We were Guilty, but I decided to roll that off by confessing to what and why we were doing what we were doing. So, we got a semi-free beat. We also failed our lying to her about the dudes attacking us first, which I flipped to a Dramatic Failure for another beat. We’re playing a game here! Additionally, I have Made a Conspiracy board for us to reference. You may add your own notes and comments. Please don't gently caress it up. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls
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Mar 2, 2018 03:33
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Crazycryodude posted:What kind of car does Kind normally drive? Is Ruin trying to tell us that Kind is a robot/has a robot impersonating her? I do not trust her just showing up here and now like this after getting that meme from Ruin, is there any way we can subtly determine if the thing that looks like Kind trying to get us in a car is actually Kind? You spend an Aether and feel..nothing. There is no Aether coming off her. The two most likely scenarios are either this is a vanilla human who has been surgically altered to look exactly like Kind and is driving Kind's car. Or this is Kind herself. Kavak posted:EDIT: Is there something we can roll to decide if the music is a funny coincidence or not? I'll do this one for free. Songs like this just sorta of happen to Demons. Something about your supernatural nature just makes reality lean in on the joke a bit. Sometimes glitches make it more overt, like the same song following you around or trying to warn you about something. But this is just "normal" for you. Also, something I forgot to mention in the last update. Mabin's last name, and Fleur's first and last name, are taken from Louise Erdrich's Tracks. You can find the second chapter of it ("Fleur") easily online as it was a seperate short story for a long time. Reading it wont give you any hints to the game or anything, it's just a good story that I make my Native American Literature students read every year.
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Mar 2, 2018 15:48
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Semi 24 hour notice. Busy weekend but I'll get an update in.
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Mar 4, 2018 01:44
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“Can I get my stuff first?” you ask Ms. Kind, who dramatically rolls her eyes and allows you to do so. You grab your prep bag, and pry up the section of loose wood flooring you discovered last night, there is a small shoe-box sized cubby underneath, not enough to hold more than a few IDs or trinkets. Or one gun. You take out the pistol and shove it in your jacket. You spend a minute making yourself presentable. You’d already tried to look nice for Fleur, but Mrs. Kind ran in much more affluent circles. Once ready you leave the building and hop in her car. The vehicle is somehow immaculate and cluttered at the same time. Everything has its place, but there are a lot of places. A child’s car seat, various electronics, a absurdly well stocked car emergency kit. “I’m playing chaperone today.” Mrs. Kind says. “Ruin suggested we be mobile when they are “under the weather”. Since Mabin and Alison are social together it shouldn’t trigger anything.” “Yeah but we’ve never really hung out.” “Hence the shopping. I’m treating!” “Great," then, changing subjects, you ask, "What do you know?” “Well, I suspect the same as you. Ruin and Tone got your breakdown, which they forwarded to me, they went to investigate and gather some intel, and something nasty came for them. Might have damaged their cover” “One of them is hurt.” “It’s Tone,” she says. “I have a girl in his office, he didn’t come in today.” “He might just be too compromised to go in.” “Larson is never not at work, him calling in sick would raise more flags than it would keep down. The only way he’s not there is if he literally can’t be.” “Do you know if they’ve been blown?” Ms. Kind shakes her head at that. After a few moments of silence she says, “I don’t think they are though. I’m dropping off a few supplies for them, part of our chores, and I don’t think they would need these if their covers were totally gone. I think they are just shaken, maybe flagged, and need some shoring up.” You drive in silence for a few minutes, as you try to think through your options, you run your face in an uncharacteristic signal of exhaustion, Ms. Kind picks up on it. “Listen, Ink, I know that you like keep things close to the chest, I get that. All of us have these other lives we must keep separate from each other, but you need to start trusting us a little bit. I don’t know your story before you hooked up with us, though I suspect you’ve been around for a bit. You’ve probably been burned by one of us before so I don’t begrudge you for running off by yourself. But, since we last met you’ve almost gotten yourself tagged, twice, and we’ve lost half our Ring or an indeterminate time. It’s getting colder out there,you can’t do this yourself. The boys are spending the night with their grandparents, hubby’s out of town, and Alison is supposedly at a spa day trip. So, I’m free for whatever you need to do."  After thinking about it, you finally say, “I need a Cover, I need to track down Moroni, and I need to figure out this drat Infrastructure.” Kind nods. “We’ll talk about Cover in a bit. What do we know about Moroni? You recite the information you learned last night while researching, “Aldo Moroni is sculptor who specialized in installations.. He does a lot of arts education. He is known for his ceramic and mixed media cityscapes. Right now, he is working out the California Building collective.” “California Building?” “Artist loft in Northeast.” “That’s some free agency territory right?” “Yeah, but I have no idea which one.” “Neither do I, they change so fast,” Ms. Kind pulls off of 35W as she asks her next question. “His art tell you anything about why the God Machine wanted him?” “No. Even looking at his other stuff versus the ones on the river, nothing jumped out.” “So, you think we should hit him up?” “At least check him out. The Infrastructure is practically screaming something that translates to his name. It’s too much to totally ignore.” “We’ll pop by later. But first, Covers. What exactly are we looking for?” This is a tricky issue. Despite your age you have not divested yourself from being an Angel as much as others, thus your Primum is very low and you cannot readily maintain multiple Covers at once. You may hold Soul Pacts, or even strengthen Mabin, but you cannot be multiple people at once without raising your Primum, which you could do with intense focus and expenditure of resources. 1. What are we looking for? Vote for all that interest you at this time. A. We need a brand new Cover, we might need to abandon Mabin. B. We could do with a Facade. A paper thin cover that won’t hold up to scrutiny, but will allow some ease of movement. C. We might not need a totally realized Cover yet, but we should try to get some Soul Pacts, so if we are burned we can easily take a new life. D. We don’t need a new cover yet, we need to strengthen Mabin.  " Who are your suppliers?” “Oh, I..uh..I don’t really have any.” “Wait, you’ve never bought a Cover?” “Well, I built Mabin.” “Yourself? You didn’t just get a bunch of Pacts from others?” “...no?” “Oh Ink. Maybe you’re not as world weary as I thought. Okay. In today’s political climate, you have a few options. You can do your own Soul Pact, or make a Patchwork, which you are familiar with. Or you can buy Pacts from a few enterprising people. The Home Office is more upfront about selling Pacts than the Capitol. They have a whole Acquisitions department devoted to getting Pacts from Humans, or trading them for intel.” “What do they charge?” “An arm and a leg for an arm or a leg,” she laughs at her bad joke. “They are pricey, but they are custom made jobs, or close to. Say you want a good combat model, you can go bone cheap to buy some gangster or pay more for a good ol’ vet or merc. Same with socialite. You wanna be a Viking? I think half the team has papers. There’s also the possibility of using an Independent Dealer. I know a guy, well actually Tone knows him, he’s paranoid, but he has a few patch jobs and even soul pacts. They are cheap, but you’re getting something from River Folk soo....ah, here we are.” Kind has pulled into a large parking lot. With some surprise you see a strip mall dominating the landscape. Near to you are a Pottery Barn, a Crate & Barrel, and a Williams-Sonoma.  “Wait, we’re actually going shopping?” “Sort of,” Kind says. She looks pensive as she adjusts her makeup in the mirror. “Listen, Ink. I’ve kept this from a lot of Unchained, including the boys. And I would appreciate it if you kept it on the downlow please. It’ll paint a target on my back and I swear to loving god I cannot deal with baseball season and assassins right now. So, Mum’s the word right?” “Uh, sure.” She smiles and opens her door. You follow her, a little haltingly, into the Williams-Sonoma. The place is a high-end kitchen and cooking store, gleaming pots, walls of knives, all sorts of bamboo and slate plates, boards, and utensils that you have to guess at the function of. Kind slips away from you and heads to the checkout line, where she is greeted by a chorus of “Mrs. Baum!” by the girls working there. You wander for a bit, eying the knives, before a service person approaches you and asks if he can help you with anything, you say no and they drift off. A minute later, another service person comes and does a similar song and dance, and they too drift off, at least to the end of the aisle, where they make themselves busy rearranging pepper grinders. When the third person comes to greet you, you’ve figured out the deal. Shabby-looking young person of semi-swarthy hue? Potential shoplifter who will abscond with our precious avocado slicers. “Hello, are you finding everything alright?” a young girl says to you. “I’m with Ali, er..Mrs. Baum,” you say pointedly. The girl does not seem able to process this, but you wave to Kind and she waves back, extracting herself from the gaggle of workers and headed towards you. As she approaches, the girl seems rattled. “Oh, I’m sorry ma’am. I didn’t know..Mrs. Baum I am so sorry if we were bothering your friend. We just had that new loss prevention training you know, and--” “Becca,” Ms. Kind says. “Kindly shut the gently caress up now.”  The girl stops mid sentence. “Go, and if I see you talk to my friend again, you’ll be busted down to custodial so fast it’ll make your pretty little head spin.” “Ye..yes mistress.” she turns and practically flees. “Do you work here?” you ask Kind. “When I want to.” she says as she leads you to the staff area, and then through a second door to a small but very stylish office. She gestures for you to sit down as she unlocks a filing cabinet with a key from her purse and starts to rifle through it. “That’s your cult,” you say. “Like..a real deal cult.” Kind grins, and continues to go through the files. It wasn’t too surprising. Many Demons started cults as a way to spread their influence. You have never seen an actual demonic cult, but you have heard stories. Demons pretending to be a prophet for a higher power and performing miracles, demons sharing their true nature with humans and gifting them powers, an entire army worshiping a Demon as the second coming of christ. All sorts of weird stories. “They don’t seem like the satanic type though,” you say. “What are you telling them? What are they worshipping?” “Capitalism,” Kind says. “They believe that Alison Baum has fused Eastern inner strength with the Western competitive edge and endless drive to better one’s self. A guru for basic bitches. If they sign on with me, through our collective positive thinking, they will gain power, whatever that is in their heads. I am a guide, nothing more.” “But..it’s a loving kitchen supply store.” “Originally I set this up at a Lululemon, but that was just too blatant. The type of people who work here are young, driven, upper-middle class who are under the impression they are just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”. In their eyes they are made for something much more than working at a loving kitchen supply store. I provide a service for them, nudging them in the right direction, giving them money, power, great hair, bigger tits, a cock that works, whatever they want.” “What do they give you?” “Whatever I ask,” Kind holds up two pieces of paper. They look like some sort of tax form, but unlike any you have ever seen. “These are two minor pacts for two of my employees. One is an affair he had with his best friend’s sister in Barcelona, and the other is three summers as a counselor for Language Camp. These’ll fit Ruin and Tone right?” 2. What do you think of this cult business? Answer as many as you want. E This is utterly evil. F It seems cruel, we don’t want to deal with anything like this. G There seems to be benefits here. And, the cultists seem..happy? H. It is highly effective, at least in getting Pacts and servants. I. Welp, new goal. “Anyway,” Kind says tucking the Pacts into her purse. “We still need to help you. Now, I have some things here, even a few Soul Pacts. But, if you want to be something other than waifish girls with low self-esteem and daddy issues, I think we’ll need to look elsewhere.” 3. Where are we Pact Hunting? J. Let’s see what Ms. Kind has to offer. She has some WASPy Pacts. K. We can try the Home Office, they will be more expensive, but we have a lot of options to choose from. L. Let’s check out this demon that Ruin knows. He has some low-life “eclectic” options. M. You know, we should just work on making our own in our Neighborhood. N Something else. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Failed to Discover any weird things about Moroni’s art, switched it to a Dramatic Failure for a beat. This was a bit of a weird update to write, just because we are basically shopping but we don' know what for yet. Also, I was doing coaching and chaperoning for a good chunk of the weekend and I am distracted. So this might be more choppy and full of spelling errors than I like. So I apologize for that. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls Conspiracy/Plot Board
NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Mar 5, 2018 |
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Mar 5, 2018 04:44
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Dr Subterfuge posted:1. CD We get better at researching one of three ways. 1) we spend Xp to get better at it. In this case Ink gets better at researching. 2) We find a mortal who is good at researching and buy that skill from them, or buy such a Pact from a demon. We gain XP that can only be used on Cover. This doesn't grant us dots in Researching, but it helps with..... 3) Legend! Mabin is semi-college educated and smart in general, she should be able to do some researching. We can basically use that general assumption about her to temporarily trick reality into making the assumption a fact. We need to spend Aether and it's only temporary though. As for prices, favors, intel, Aether, that type of thing. It also costs willpower points to bind a Pact to us in this manner.
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Mar 5, 2018 16:41
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“I think when it comes to another Cover or some greater Pacts, I’ll deal with Mabin’s circle.” “making GBS threads where you eat is dangerous,” Kind remarks. “A little. But your cult here actually has given me some ideas. Besides, it’s easier to patch Mabin with something she knows. Still..” you pause. “I’m running into issues with researching. I can do legwork fine, but I need help delving into obscura.” Kind flips through her files, humming to herself. Finally she lays four forms (which you have decided to call W-666s) in front of you. “These might work. If you want to pass, pass. Otherwise we can draw up a Bill of Sale before we leave.”  1. Which Pacts should we take? Descriptions and prices are below. In addition to listened prices Ms. Kind’s price is “A favor that is not to be refused.” Vote for as many as you want, but we’ll take the one with the most votes. A. This one specifies a relationship with Chase Hanson. Chase is a trust fund kid currently pissing away his allowance running an occult bookstore in St. Paul. He is a smart buy, but a creeper. He’ll have an infatuation with whoever holds the Pact. In Exchange, the Mortal who entered into this Pact will gain money. (This will cost 2 Willpower points and give you one Cover Experience in the form of creeper Mcgee) B. This Pact gifts the holder enrollment as a Sociology major at UMN. Looking about 2 and a half years into your four year degree. This would require you to attend classes. But it would give you access to UMN resources and professors. (This costs 3 Willpower and would give you 2 cover Experience, and the added responsibility of being a non traditional college student). C. This pact is a bit different. Tara Andreason has sold herself for intelligence and the skill to be top of her class. This is not a Soul Pact but rather Tara would be a cultist for you. You can pitch her any story you’d like, but Tara is aware that she has given herself for a year of service in exchange for a year of academic excellence. (2 Willpower. You gain Tara, a Type A law student as a cult member for a year.) D. A more simple one. A mortal wished to quit her job at the Minneapolis Central library in exchange for not working again. A pretty cheap Pact, but requires you to have a part time job. And based on the terms of the Pact, your supervisor would be a dick. (1 point of Willpower for 1 cover experience and a job). E. Let’s pass on all of these. We can do our own in a few days. After saying her goodbyes Ms. Kind drive you to St. Paul. You both grab something to eat and then struggle to find parking downtown. After some near-fender benders and a litany of curses provided by Kind, you find a spot and park the suburban as you both duck into an alley. Ms. Kind walks up to a decorative tiling on the side of a building seemingly at random, and pushes it in, then twists the whole tile. She takes off the tile, revealing a small cubby hole. She takes out a piece of paper and replaces it with the two W-666s. “I figure their crashed somewhere close to here,” she says as she looks at the paper. “There’s no signal I was told about to alert them these drop was used. So, they can either see us now, or they’re close enough to check it regularly.” “Or they have a camera somewhere,” you say, looking around.” “Possibly. Tone it properly paranoid though, he might not trust video,” she hold up the paper. “Say’s Game night it on. They must not be too dinged up. You need to leave them any message?” 2. Is there anything we need to let them know about before we see them tonight? Kind replaces the tile and you hit the road again. Feb. 9th 2:37 pm. The California Building’s six stories and brutal concrete facade look out of place in the relatively residential area. The building is actually two structures joined together. The larger building is all studio and gallery space, while the smaller building acts as studio, administrative offices, and the occasional doomed restaurant. You look around the street, making sure you aren’t being observed. And side from a troubling billboard propped up next to the building you don’t see anything weird.  Yet, as you look at the larger of the two buildings, it changes. The six stories seem a lot less intrusive as they once were. The rows of windows blend in with the flat grey concrete. Looking at the building you find yourself bored, and wanting to do something - anything - else. You feel a small shock of realization as the building reveals itself. “Concealment,” Ms. Kind says in the driver’s seat next to you. “The whole building is hiding something. Can you please open the glove compartment?” You are still looking at the building as your hands nervelessly fumble open the glove box and it flops open. Inside are a registration form, a travel pack of tissues, and two semi-automatic handguns. “You keep these in the car?” “In the car, in the house, in my purse if I have a big enough one to match my outfit.” “How..how do your kids not find them?” “They are told they may not open the glove box, only Mommy can.” “And they listen?” “I am very persuasive,” She checks the two guns, cocking them in a way that you think it mostly for show. “Okay, Moroni is in there. He might be the key to this whole thing. What is the plan?” 3. What is the plan? Vote for what you want. F. ...Maybe I should just take the bus back home. We can’t do anything. G. Let’s just do some investigation today, check out the neighborhood, maybe look at the building itself. Do not go in, do not engage. H. Let’s sneak in. We’re both stealthy, as long as we don’t trigger anything we’ll be okay. I. We need a Cover story, but we should just walk in and talk to Moroni. Maybe Alison is a patron of the arts? J. Kick down the door and “extract” Moroni. We’ll ask questions later K. Something else.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pacts were close. We just want to build up Mabin, and the source of the Pacts were pretty split. Getting ones from Mabin’s area was the winner, but it was close enough that I figured I’d toss in some cheaper and simple ones from Mr. Kind. And since cults...intrigue us, I threw that in as well. On thing to consider with Question 3, Ms. Kind is pretty set on going in there, you can try to talk her out of it, but it’ll be a contested roll. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls Conspiracy/Plot Board
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Mar 6, 2018 21:16
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Dr Subterfuge posted:Actually, if we go with B, how the hell are we going to pay for college? 
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Mar 7, 2018 02:34
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“We go in.” “Guns blazing?” Kind asks, semi-hopefully. “No, we don’t know what’s in there yet. I doubt Moroni is the only God Machine asset in that building, do you?” “Right,” Kind says reluctantly. “So how do we get in without being suspicious?” “You’re a rich white woman, you can do whatever you want.” *** “Excuse me, do you know who I am?” Kind says to the poor bastard who wandered into range. Poor Bastard in question was a middle aged doughy-looking man. He was wearing scorched coveralls and grime. He surprisingly didn’t back down from Kind’s Mom Face. “Hey listen lady, I got all kinds of arteests comin’ in and outta here like it’s there goddamn lake cabin. All of them are convinced whatever three garbage cans they’re welding together is worth a coupla’ thousand bucks. I’m still technically the super here, and so I just need to make sure there aren’t any suspicious type.” “And I look suspicious? Do you k-” “Mrs. Baum is a local patron of the arts,” you say holding up a “Due Date” card you took from the library yesterday. As you do so you subtly shift reality around you, the super, and the card. He takes it. To him, it hopefully looks like a rather official business card “I’m her dealer,” wait, that sounds bad. “Her art dealer..not her dru-” “Ms. Pillager here works with Native Images,” Kind says smoothly, shooting you a death glare. “A non profit that helps native artists gain exposure.” “Aint no Indians here.” “I know. Trust me, I know. But we’re hoping to talk with Mr. Moroni as he has several outreach programs, hopefully, he can point us in the right direction.” “You wanna see Mr. Moroni? You got an appointment?” “Not quite, as you can tell, we’re a bit disorganized.” “It’ll only take a moment sir,” you say, recovering from your embarrassment. “And, afterwards, if we have time, I’d like to talk to you about a partnership with this building. Native Images is looking for new space, and this is a beautiful building.” He pauses for a moment, and then hands you back your fake card. “Mr. Moroni is on the 3rd floor, big studio. Don’t bother any of the other tenets.” he then turns and leaves. Once he is out of earshot, Kind turns to you. “Not my drug dealer. Good to know.” “Sorry.” “I suppose we should make sure to specify you’re not a card dealer as well?” “Sorry.” The two of you prowl through the halls. On either side of you are rows and rows of shut doors. Studio spaces, closed off to keep out intruders, Or maybe closed to keep inspiration in. At one point you look into a small window, glimpsing the studio inside. A man with dark curly hair, wearing jeans and a shirt covered with paint faces away from you. He is standing in front of an abstract painting, a series of jagged circles and slashes. He stands unmoving, in contemplation perhaps? “You know much about art?” Kind asks. You shake your head. “I can make picket signs and that’s about it. Mabin’s good on the computer, but not artistic. You?” “I pretend to. In Alison’s circles everyone needs to play art critic. To me it’s just...colors and shapes. I wonder...sometimes..if we are unable to understand art.”  You walk in silence for a few moments, long enough to get to the second floor. Here, a loud banging sounds on the ceiling above. It may have been the protesting of a neighbor, the sound of another artist at work, or the nonsensical rhythm of a madman. You glance into another window. A man with dark curly hair, wearing jeans and a shirt covered with paint faces away from you. He is standing in front of an abstract painting, a series of jagged circles and slashes. He stands unmoving, in contemplation perhaps? Wait. You look again. Same man, same pose. You dart to the studio next to it. Same man, same pose, same art. Not similar, the exact same. As if the first studio has been copied again and again. You point to the two studios. Kind looks in them both, then at you questionly. “Same downstairs too.” “Is this just misdirection?” “No,I heard banging. These guys aren’t moving. Someone is moving around upstairs. We should go.” “Why?” Kind asks. “We haven't done anything odd yet. If that super talks to Moroni he’ll know we bailed. We should at least try to talk to him.” “What if this is a trap though?” “I’ll just kill everyone.” 1. Good time to talk exit strategy! If things go FUBAR, what should we do? A. Try to get out as quickly and painlessly as possible. Forget everyone and everything, keeping our Cover is the important thing. B. Extract ourselves as quickly as possible, but if we have any secondary objectives make sure we take those or complete them. C. Kind wants to kill something, so let’s stand our ground. If we need to fight we’ll end it as quickly as possible. D. Kill everything sounds good. We need to complete the mission E. Something else. “We’ll deal with that when we need to,” you say. You continue through the building, examining the other studios as you go. The doors are not the same, different dents and scraped paints, even looking at the studios, the walls are different. It is only the art and the artist that are replicated. This is alarming, but not as much as it could be. The Machine is everywhere and it’s reach is vast. You and Ms. Kind will have to be cautious here, as you don’t see any defensive Infrastructure, which worries you. The third floor seems to be solely for Moroni. There is a “lobby” area with a mish-mash of worn furniture dotting it. There are also a number of Moroni’s pieces hanging from the wall, or squatly covering various horizontal surfaces. You recognize a few from Moroni’s website, but others are brand new. Each of them are delicate, colorful, and full of life. Very unlike the metal monstrosities along the river. That discrepancy has never bothered you before, why would artist known for working with clay on a small scale build three giant metal abstract sculptures? You are about to mention this to Kind but, as you are turning to speak to her, she is already knocking. 2. How do we deal with Moroni? F. Just turn and leave, we have a bad feeling here. G. Play it cool, get a reading on him using the story we came up with downstairs, and get out. H. Question him about the sculptures specifically. Try to figure out how involved he is. I. He must be a tool of the Machine, question him about it. Violently if needed. J. Let Kind take care of everything.  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Obviously, we went in. It won pretty easily. As to our Pacts, C won with one vote. It's a Pact for only a year of service and we can tear it up if we feel icky about it. But we have a cultist. Though..she doesn't know about us yet. So Authorized worked. We still needed a reason for being there so I tried to lie ot the super. Ink is.. Not good at lying so I tried a Legend roll because, really even if Ink is not good, Mabin should be. But I failed the roll and so we’re out an Aether. I got gunshy and used a Willpower on persuading the super to let us in. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls Conspiracy/Plot Board
NinjaPete fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Mar 7, 2018 |
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Mar 7, 2018 21:10
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malbogio posted:I'd prefer to at least make a grab at Moroni and/or the linchpin before considering retreat. Hope we get a chance to refill Aether soon. Given that we're in a Machine controlled building maybe they have some Aether laying around, dunno if we could reasonably tap it in the time available though. We currently have 5 Aether. We could hook up to the building and tap it (probably through an outlet or something) that's easy to do. It's unhooking that get's tricky. It's an extended Wits + Crafts roll requiring four successes (one roll per turn). Mabin would be rolling 4 dice so it's doable, it just might take a bit. Alternatively, we could ask Kind to give us some Aether.
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Mar 7, 2018 21:47
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Outrail posted:Are we immune to radiation? Like if we identify him as the lynchpin can we pull some stupidly radioactive poo poo out of our pocket, stick it under his desk and leave, then he dies of radiation poisoning in a day or two? We are not immune sadly. Ms. Kind maybe is.
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Mar 7, 2018 22:20
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24 hourish notice.
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Mar 8, 2018 15:28
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After an agonizing minute the door rattles and opens. In another life Aldo Moroni might have been a good-looking man, a healthy complexion, deep laugh-lines, maybe little on the stout side with a frame made possible from leisure and good eating. But, that was not this reality. The Aldo Moroni looking at Ms. Kind is gaunt and pale. He wears clothes too large for him, which are covered in artistic offal. His cheeks, hollow and covered with a film of grizzled hair, are framed by lank black curls crusted with dried clay and paint. The eyes that peer out at you are a touch on the wild side, but no manic. “Yes?” “Mr. Aldo Moroni?” Kind asks. “Yeah that’s--” he stops distracted and turns to yell over his shoulder. “Daisy, check the kiln would you?” He turns back to Lee. “What can I help you with?” “My name is Mrs. Alison Baum, this is my associate, Mabin Pillager. We’d like to talk to you about a possible business partnership that will benefit us both.” “...you seriously expect me to believe that?” Kind laughs. “Sorry, I suppose that was a bit formal. I’m just a rich bored housewife who would rather start some art nonprofits rather than bone the pool boy. I’ve seen your suff, my agent here has researched you, and we’d like to take a few minutes of your time to try to get you on board. Is that a bit more honest?” “Better” Moroni says, and steps back to open the door. The studio is at once spacious and cramped. The actual area is large and open, but Moroni has filled the space with artistic debris. Half-finished sculptures of buildings and people wilt along the walls and across the large table Moroni has set in the middle of a room. An entire cityscape oozes and drips across the surface. The walls are plastered with sketches, pictures, posters, and post-it note reminders. In the back of a studio a young woman fiddles with a large kiln, she shoots a curious glance at you and Ms. Kind from under her multi-colored hair. “Daisy is my assistant, sort of. I don’t know if I can call her that if I don’t pay her..” “I think the PC term is indentured servant.” Daisy grumbles “Well, it’s semantics anyway.” Moroni clears off a section of the table, haphazardly piling papers up. He pulls out a bottle of water from a minfrienge tucked under the table. He offers one to each of you, Ms. Kind politely declines. 1. Do you take the water? A Sure it’s just water. B Nah, not thirsty C Wait, why is this a question in this update?! Moroni settles himself onto a drafting stool and a small cloud of dried clay puffs up around him as he does so. “So, Mrs. Baum, what would you like to know?” “Well, I have to admit that I don’t know much about art, I mean really. But I do know a lot about giving disadvantaged urban youth opportunities.” “Uh-huh.” “I mean, children are our future after all. And I’d like to create a scholarship, or a grant or a whateveryoucallit, for young native artists. A population that, I think, has been underserved.” Alison looks at you for confirmation. Mabin dutifully nods her head once. “And since you have experience with youth collaboration, we’d like to pick your brain. Perhaps given give you a stiped to help set it up.” Moroni sips his water. “I mean, that sounds great. And I’d like to help, but I’m pretty tied up at the moment.” “Oh? Do you have more projects you’re working on? Big ones. Like those metal ones along the river?” “No, not like those. Just some personal projects. Who did you say you were with?” “Mabin is with Native Images, I’m just with myself. Personal projects, like this here?” Kind says, redirecting Moroni, getting him to explain one of his pieces. Interesting. When Kind mentioned the river sculptures, Moroni closed off, physically and emotionally. He had seemed pretty friendly until that moment. He wanted to avoid talking about them. You wonder.... "Those sculptures..." you start. Moroni, Kind, even Daisy, all turn to you. "They are the first pieces of yours I saw. They are really quite striking. What was the inspiration?" "Thanks." Moroni says. "I appreciate it, but they are still a work in progress, and I don't like talking about uncompleted peices." 2. Do we press him on the sculptures? D Yes, if he’s hiding something, all the more reason to press him. Let's try to persuade him. E Yes, but we should get Kind to try it first, she seems to be connecting with him. F No, we don’t want to press him too much. ________________________________________________________________________________________ Short update, but this scene could go a lot of different ways. Also, Mabin is bad at lying, but she is good at reading people! Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls Conspiracy/Plot Board
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Mar 9, 2018 15:53
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You shoot Kind a glance, nodding slightly in Moroni’s direction, Get him talking. “Oh I understand that,” she says. “Never want to brag about you’re hotdish before it’s finished. But, those pieces are really what attracted us to you, we have a metalworker artist, Jim Long Crow, maybe you’ve heard about him? No? Really talented kid, but he’s not really set up equipment-wise, and I have no idea how to help him..” As she rambles on, you amble over to the kiln, looking curious. In an artist studio where all the other artist are props, the appearance of an assistant is curious, and worrying. You think back to the super and wonder how much he knows. Certainly enough to be trouble. Daisy is bent over the kiln, digging around the inside. You glance at her, she seems human, young and trying too hard. Of course not every agent of the machine is as obvious as the Tick Tock cops. Some are far more subtle. When she sees you looking she pops up and gives you a flat stare. “What?” “You’re Mr. Moroni’s assistant?” “I’m more like Aldo’s hanger on.” “You like it?” “Daisy!” Moroni yells from across the room. A curse as Daisy, surprised, bumped into the hot kiln. “What?” “When did I...when did you start?” “October.” “Right, so..ok.” Moroni take a moment to collect himself. Then he resumes talking to Kind. “So, normally with me, the act of creation is the art. You look around at my pieces and they all look dynamic, fluid, changing. Art is life. it’s a representation of life. Normally things don’t just ‘come to me’ like some artists. But one day in like November, I wake up and I just see these things. They are like huge crouching antenna, or like sea mines. Something just big and unnatural, juxtaposed with the river and trees and greenery. I mean I can see everything, where they are placed how they are placed, everything.”  “Aldo!” Daisy yells at him. “You’re not going over this again are you?” “Daisy, this could help them.” Daisy rolls her eyes and takes out her phone. “He gets worked up you know. Aldo has a medical condition, stress is bad for him. You're going to get him all worked up and sick over those drat hunks of junk. They're art, crappy crappy art, that's it." She walks off, tapping away at her phone. You stand for a moment, looking at the kiln which seems to be a mundane peice of equipment. Worse, Daisy seems to be mundane herself. Perhaps your paranoia has gotten the better of you. “Well, I’m not the best with metalwork, not on that scale,” Moroni is saying, running his hands through his hair. “But Daisy was helpful in that regard. So we collaborate on the project and...that’s it. Aside from me burning up a lot of goodwill with the arts commissions getting those drat things placed right. Am I missing anything Daisy?” The assistant has gotten close to Moroni, still tapping on her phone, she pauses for a moment. “Nope, aside from the studio was like ten times as dirty.” “Yeah, right.” Moroni shrugged. “That’s it really. Metal isn’t really my thing.” the artist stood up. “But, I have some good pieces I am working on now, lemme show you...” “Daisy helped with the designs huh? They really are striking, our friend Long Crow was curious about etchings an--” “Yeah about that,” Daisy says, putting her phone down. “This guy you’re talking about Jim Long Crow, he done any exhibitions? The Loft? MIA? Anything?” Kind looks at you, “Um, I don’t remember. He’s new and, like I said not really expos-” “Yeah but you had to hear of him somewhere, see some of his stuff? You’re not going to dump a poo poo ton of cash on an unknown right?” “Well, no. But he worked with Ms. Pillager at--” “Native Images right? The arts non-profit for Native Youth? The one that doesn’t exist?” “Daisy!” Moroni exclaims. “Listen Aldo, they’re playing us. I don’t know who they are, but nothing about anything they’re said is anywhere online.” “We’re a new organization.” You say, stepping closer. “New, but no facebook group? No registering with Springboard? Bullshit.” “Why--” Moroni starts. “Why would they..” “It doesn’t matter Aldo, just tell them to leave.” Kind is nodding towards Moroni who is running his hands through his hair again. At this distance, and with Kind’s help, you see that what you assumed was silver hair at his temples is not silver hair. It’s silver wire. You breath catches in your throat. When humans are touched by the God Machine, when they see it’s workings on the world, they are changed mentally and physically. They are given Stigmata, brands or tells similar to Demon glitches but permanent, and often the physical representation of some mental and emotional scarring. Aldo Moroni is stigmatic, touched by the Machine. “Tell us about the sculptures Aldo.” “I..I why do you want to know about them? They’re just-” “Aldo, shut it.” Daisy says. “gently caress this,” Kind rolls her eyes and takes a handgun out of her bag, pointing it at Moroni. “Mr. Moroni. We are dangerous people, you should really answer our questions. What else do you know about those statues? Where is the goddamn Key?” “The..Key? Yeah...yeah...I got it here. It was a small thing. I just--" "Aldo.." Daisy said sharply. "--too small for me to really work with. I don't do metal, and definitely couldn't make something that actually would work--" "Aldo..stop." "-- Daisy insisted though, and...I saw it...saw everything...." Moroni inches towards a random pile of debris, and takes a manilla envelope from it. He turns towards Kind and steps towards her. "Aldo!" yelled Daisy. "Batiltu." Moroni suddenly drops, like a puppet with its strings cut, to the floor. His body make a heavy, meaty, noise. Daisy snatches a fettling knife from the large table and points it at Kind.  "Look at what you made me do." she rasps. "You never should have come here. You have threatened the plan." She starts to make her way around the table, getting closer to Kind. Gone was the appearance of a spunky hipster art student. Now she was fanatical madness. "What falls may rise." Below you, you hear the sounds of a dozen studio doors slamming open at once, and feet pounding down hallways. “Finally,” Kind says, and shoots Daisy. 1. What do we do next? Vote for all preferences. We chose to end any flight as quick as possible. And to let Kind kill some people, so she’ll murder until we stop her or join in. A Grab the package, jump out a window to escape, leave Kind to deal with everything. B Grab the package, head down the hall. These “artists” are’t angels, but they aren’t human either, we might be able to fight through them with a good ol’ hallway fight. C Grab Moroni and get out as stealthy as possible. D. Grab Moroni and fight your way out. E. Moroni is useless, we should kill him so he doesn’t fall into enemy hands. F. We need to examine this space, and Moroni. Hold up here with Kind, put down anything that comes in that door as quick as possible. G. Something else? 2. How Demonic are we willing to go? H As full Demon as we need. I We could activate 2 Forms at most. J Stay human no matter what. 3. We are running low on Willpower. We regain it by playing to our Virtue (Destruction) and our Vice (Precise). Which do we play to? K. Precise. We move with precision, despite wishing for action and thus gain 1 Willpower L. Destruction. We indulge in needless destruction, despite knowing it puts us and kind at Risk, and refill ALL Willpower. ____________________________________________________________________ Our game's Tone isn't pure Soft, so we get a chance to get Loud for fun. Burned a willpower to try to get Aldo to talk, it failed. Failed to pick up something about Daisy. Going to flip it to a Critical Failure, which means we get a Beat for something GM-related. So we check our Cipher..success. Our next question is What category is the next Key Embed? The Answer is Vocal. Character Sheet World Map Dice Rolls Conspiracy/Plot Board
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Mar 12, 2018 20:18
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malbogio posted:
Yes. Angels could have what is called a Mortal Mask, basically a Cover much like yours, but a lot better and taking more power. We could use Aetheric Resonance to ping and see if she (or anything else in the room) is putting out any Aether. I didn't because we're getting low. Not out yet, but we're definitely 50% empty. The GM and its Angels also use Cultists because humans are dumb and easily manipulated. Bonus: Should we spend an Aether to ping?
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Mar 13, 2018 02:26
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