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Jun 11, 2020 00:36
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:02 |
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I've got some WIP art up on the discord, and as I'm working on it, I'd like to do more art moving forward. So either way we're getting more art. That being said, assuming I did more art, would you rather have longer update times with a picture or two occasionally, (like every week or every other week for art, 1 post a week, or possibly every other week around 1200 - 2500 words with art) or more posts (1 - 3 posts a week, but less art, kind of like how we've been so far, 600 - 1200+ words with an art piece occasionally) I like doing the art, but I am more interested in giving the people what they want. That being said, sometimes the story just isn't in a place for certain amount of words, or a certain amount of art, so barring that. e: Either way update tonight or tomorrow. Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 08:39
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In my experience, games like these run on momentum. The more frequent the posts, the more old players you'll retain and new players you'll acquire. So I'd say post as frequently as you can manage. But the "as you can manage" part is important too. The vast majority of games like this that die do so because of OP burn-out. If reducing the pace and including more art helps keep you engaged with the project and prevents you from just giving it up? Then by all means, do that. Better a slow game than a dead one. That said, from a player perspective I'd be reluctant to go slower than once a week. One post every two weeks is likely to make it hard for the players to remember what exactly's going on and to stay engaged with the story.
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Jun 14, 2020 11:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZYxCuBE8Ic Acid’s mind was ringing, she couldn’t hear or think of anything, but what she did know was that DeadEye was reaching for her keys, she tooker her free hand and clocked DeadEye in the jaw her head whipping around like the S belt on an engine, her kneck making a cracking noise as her head tries to remove itself from her shoulders. Rite-Aid grabs Acid around the waist, and Serenity tugs hard on the one hand she does have. “We’re opening the box.” Acid announces angrily. “gently caress you want to keep things down back there?!” Barnum yelled. “Oh holy poo poo, restrain her, she’s gonna knock the whole van over,” Bailey exclaimed.  “Antonne, Counterspell you rear end in a top hat, I’ll hold her back.” Serenity yelled. Rite-Aid yelled back, “It’s Rite-Aid when we’re on a job, RITE-AID.” “OK WHAT THE gently caress EVER ANTONNE.” Serenity said, her tone loud as she as Acid tries to shake her off, shaking her arm back and forth repeatedly trying to wriggle out of her hands to no avail [1]. DeadEye leaped onto Acid and tried hard to get her hands around Acid’s closed fist with the key in it. DeadEye’s eyes were closed all 3 hands, Acid’s, and the two hands around Acid’s hand struck her again and again in the face. “Give me those loving keys Morgan,” DeadEye screamed. “Is this really how you want to die Lucy?! I will kill you.” Acid screamed right back “Antonne the loving counterspell please for the love of god.” Antonne’s eyes glowed for a moment and he put his hands out, the van smelled like ozone, and there was a slight crackling noise. There was a snapping and Acid stopped hitting DeadEye for a minute. “Ok… Whoa…” she felt woozy her head was swimming and she couldn’t see straight. She tried to stand up straight on hit her head on the roof of the van, she landed on her rear end and sat on the coffin, the thing was surprisingly sturdy under her massive frame. There was a dull scratching under where she was sitting, she could feel it vibrating the coffin underneath her. DeadEye clutched her swollen face broken blood vessels and ripped flesh already starting to inflate. Her eye looked like it was about to be swollen shut, and blood trickled down her face. “Oh god, it hurts…” She moaned and she laid down on the van floor letting the cold steel press against her injured parts. “Why did you hit me so hard Acid… Why…?” “I’m sorry DeadEye, it was this loving thing,” she said kicking the coffin hard, “You got some good hits in as well” She was lying, Acid looked totally fine, no-one was a match for her in hand-to-hand combat, DeadEye hadn’t managed to get a single blow in before the beating started, and was mostly helpless under Acid’s onslaught. Serenity was sitting in the corner panting heavy, and Antonne stood up straight, and looked over to her, “We’re gonna have to trade off I don’t think either of us can maintain the spell until we get to the lockup.” She was crying a little, and wiped her eyes. “You good?” Rite-Aid asked, looking down at her concerned. She blew her nose on a kleenex she had produced from one of the many pockets in her coat. “Yeah, sorry I’m fine, I just got a little freaked out. Acid’s a little scary when she’s hulking out.” “That’s why she has us,” Rite-Aid said sitting next to her putting his arm around her shoulder, “You and I are the only thing that stops all of the bad poo poo out there, the ghouls, goblins, demons, insect shamans, mind-gently caress mages away from them.” Acid looked at Serenity, “I’m sorry Serenity, you did good, you…” She turned a pale green, and made a gagging noise. “Nononono, not in the van.” Barnum yelled. Bailey ran into the back of the van and grabbed an bucket that was half full of paper and old fast food wrappers and jammed it under Acid’s face who hurled. Ozone and vomit started to compete with each other for what smell would ultimately take over and Serenity grimaced. DeadEye ripped the bucket out of Acid’s hands and hurled into it as well. Bailey made a face and ran her hand through her mohawk. “You guys are loving gross.” She said as she marked back to the front of the van. Acid gave her the finger. “I’m really sorry Serenity, I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she reached out for Serenity, who recoiled a bit. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to be scared, I’m not scared of you I just...” “No it’s ok,” she leaned back and breathed heavily, sighing, “Well now we know why they didn’t want us to open the chest, huh you loving sack of poo poo.” Acid muttered kicking the coffin hard, the hollow metal sound bouncing off the van’s walls. For the rest of the drive, the group sat in silence. Bailey looked out the window as Barnum drove them through the city streets. The van stunk of vomit, and after about 15 minutes, Serenity was no longer sitting in the corner, trying to counter spell the magic of the coffin. Rite-Aid was tired, he was covered in sweat, and when he finally sat down he looked like hell. “Do you have any water in here?” He asked Bailey. “Yeah we brought some, and some crackers, here you go.” she popped open a drawer and pulled out a sleeve of seaweed haw flakes. Rite-Aid inhaled the sleeve of tiny pressed discs of seaweed and drained the water bottle, drops of water spilling over the sides of his mouth as he greedily drained the bottle. “You guys keep working me to loving death, if not’s marathon magic making, I’m having to piece one of you together from bits. Is every job gonna be like this?” Acid shook her head, “No, I think not, we’re still learning the ropes, once we get a bit better at this it’ll be easier. We should have known to check for magic fuckery,” milk run my rear end she thought to herself. “We’re coming up on the coordinates now, drone says there’s 3 guys there and another van just like this one. Looks like it’s a wireless dead zone, no nodes, which means no cameras.” The other van had 3 guys in front of it, they wore bullet proof vest, gas masks, and had fingerless gloves on. On their shoulders they each had a slung sub machine gun. They stood at attention, and one with a red stripe on his gas mask waived at the van and had them pull up right next to themselves. They pulled up to the other Van, and Acid hopped out with the coffin on her shoulders, the guys looked at each other then at her. “Yeah over here, just load it into the van and get in.” They immediately walked over and helped her with the coffin loading it into the back of the van with her. Once it was put in place. Acid put up her hand. “I need to call my guy, my contact said we’re just handing over the package. I’m not comfortable splitting my group without further confirmation” They looked at each other, then at her, “Wait you’re not…” They quickly pulled out there weapons and leveled them at Acid, “I said get in the van, did you not hear me?” “I heard you, I just need to contact my Johnson first, this doesn’t feel right to me.” “Why isn’t she listening,” one said to the other in a hushed tone, “Did it not you know?” the second pointed at his head and made a circular motion. “Shut up.” The one with a red stripe on his mask said to the others. “We’ve got 3 options here, Acid. Things didn’t seem to quite go down like they were supposed too. So there’s been a small change of plans. Open the coffin.” Alarm bells were ringing in Acid’s head and she looked at them angrily, “I’m not so sure about that boys, I had very strict, very strict orders not to open that coffin under any circumstances, so you’re gonna have to let me call my Johnson or we’re just gonna split.” The group continued pointed their weapons at Acid, the chat room showed up on her Heads up display. >>Serenity: Don’t do it Acid >>Rite-Aid: And definitely don’t go with them >>Bailey: She’s not gonna go with them >>DeadEye: I snuck around the front, I’m behind them, on your signal I go in. >>Rite-Aid: I think I’ve got one more good spell in me, I could put up a wall between you and them. >>Serenity: We should just leave, just ask them if we can leave >>Morgan: DeadEye get back in the car, we’re either all leaving, or none of us all and that doesn’t happen with you on the other side of their car. “Look you have 2 options here lady,” The one with the red stripe on his mask said, “You open the coffin, you come with us, or you leave a nice ventilated corpse behind. So what’s it gonna be.” A.) gently caress it kill them A-2.) Knock them out B.) Take a ride with them C.) Open the coffin D.) Jump in the car and leave E.) Try to get them to let you go [1] Gymnastics Test 10d6 1 success no Glitch Continue... Bookmarked the thread, but want to know when there's updates vs. When there's a ton of votes? Want to ask questions to me directly? Want to suggest stuff behind the scenes and sometimes get art work early? Join us in the Discord, and ask for the "A Spoiled Milk Run" tag. You'll find us chatting away in the #ChunkyMilk channel https://discord.gg/uwUYXeE Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 11:43
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On further reflection, though, we are a Social Adept. E - Maximum Social Adept Magic. If that fails THEN A2 them. jng2058 fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 11:59
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Ask dead eye if there's anyone in the front of the van. A if possible capture red stripe instead of kill.
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Jun 14, 2020 12:11
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F: Call your Johnson already! Failing that, A-2.
Cloud Potato fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jun 17, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 18:18
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Here's what Red Stripe Leader looks like.
Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 02:20
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Boba Pearl posted:Here's what Red Stripe Leader looks like. Now in color! The belt looks fine to me.
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Jun 16, 2020 02:22
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E. Be ready to beat these guys to death with each other if reason fails. It'd be nice if we could knock them out or stun them and then get Mr. Johnson on the comm pronto.
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Jun 16, 2020 04:48
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If you wanna go non lethal, it's only you and Lucy vs 3 armed dudes with flak vests and sub machine guns. I will accept that as an alternative to A, we'll call that A-2
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Jun 16, 2020 05:02
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jng2058 posted:
+1
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Jun 17, 2020 02:21
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E
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Jun 17, 2020 02:21
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>>Acid: Call Mr. Johnson ASAP, I’ll try and stall for time or see if they can just let us go. >>DeadEye: I’m in position behind them >>Acid: I thought I told you to wait in the car. >>DeadEye: Yeah that sounds lame and boring, I’m going to go ahead and use my swords to solve this situation thank you very much. >>Acid: If they see you up there, they’re going to start shooting at you >>DeadEye: Maybe, but that’s only if they see me. Acid groaned inwardly and walked over to the Red Leader who was pointing his gun rather pointedly at her. “Look, let’s all just calm down and talk this over. We’ll start from the beginning, my name is Acid, and we were hired to pick up this coffin and bring it to you. Our contact who was supposed to deliver it was missing, and when we showed up here, you started pointing guns at us. Why don’t you explain yourselves, and we can move on from there. We’re not going to try and hurt you. You’re safe” [1] >>Acid: If you’re going to be up there, be ready to pounce on these guys at a moment’s notice they’re wired to the gills, and I don’t like this one bit. “Look” Red Leader, “Nothing bad is gonna happen to you, we just need someone to get in the van with us and the coffin for when we open it. No big deal, no worries. We were told one of your guys was going to get into the van with us, now we need to get paid, so I’m very sorry that you had to be the one to pull the short straw but…” He gestured again with his gun “you’re going to get your tusks in this van, so we can get paid. You scannin me Trog?” >>Bailey: Mr. Johnson said don’t kill them, just leave the coffin with them, apparently the job got hosed up at some point. He says it’s not our fault. >>Acid: Are they giving you the impression they’re just going to let us leave. “Call me Trog again,” Acid bristled, and slightly pushed her weight onto her back leg. >>Acid: gently caress it DeadEye, you’re up. “Do it, see what happens” the other two soldiers back up a little bit. DeadEye jumped down silently, and quickly put her blades up to their necks, the monofilament lining glowing brightly on their skin, sweat sizzling as it hits the white hot blade. They were dead silent as the red leader took a step forward and jammed the muzzle of his gun into Acid’s chest. Before he had a chance to pull the trigger, Acid spun around and sent her foot careening into Red Leader’s face, knocking him off of his feet, he dropped his gun to the ground and went airborne from the force nearly flipping entirely over himself backwards. His head is the first to connect with the concrete before the rest of his body falls behind him. DeadEye kept her sword on the other two, and instructed them to carry their leader into the van. Morgan grabbed the coffin and loaded it in the back with them. She smiled and waved as the band of humans drove off, with the coffin in tow.  Acid and DeadEye crawled back into their own vehicle and Barnum drove off. Acid pulled up the commlink and called Mr. Johnson, “Hey man the job’s done, what the gently caress was that about?” “Whatever do you mean?” Mr. Johnson was disappointed, but calm. His tone made him sound younger then he was, like a kid with their hand stuck in the proverbial cookie jar. “Why did they want me to get into the van with them?” Acid asked, she was frustrated, and curt. “Why didn’t you tell us about mind control magic with the coffin. I almost pasted a team member, you told me this was a milk run.” “It was a milk run, I know you’re new to this whole shadowrunning thing,” Mr. Johnson calmly explained, “But in our line of business, the easiest jobs take an hour or two, and there’s only a small chance of ending up dead. If this is going to be your new line of employment, then you’re going to have to really consider whether you’re comfortable with being close to death.” “You could have still warned us about the box!” Acid continued angrily. “I told you not to open it, any other abilities or powers surrounding the box were unbeknownst to me. I would have told you otherwise.”[5] Acid copped on immediately, her brow furrowed, and she was almost yelling in the bus. “You knew. Were you just trying to get us killed?! That’s why you wanted us to look for meat chunks, because you knew what was in the coffin. What the gently caress man.” Mr. Johnson’s tone went from disappointed to cool, it sent a shiver down Acid’s back, “You were paid for a job well done. If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. You are an employee to me, and a well paid one at that. I gave you all the information I could, and you made it out alive. Learn when to take a win. Payment is being dispersed now.” Mr. Johnson hung up. “gently caress, we need a better Johnson.” Acid said throwing her hands up in the air, and collapsing to the floor of the van. Bailey whistled, “Money is in the main account, sending everyone their cut now.” There was a pop up on Morgan’s HUD as the funds were deposited into her account, she pushed the notification away and started to rub her eyes, she looked down at her duffle bag, and the earlier part of the day started to creep back in her brain. “Where do I sleep now? gently caress” She kicked her belongings hard with her foot and it bounced off a server rack and feel back onto the floor. Lucy put her swords away and spoke up, “You can stay with me, no problem.” She rubbed Morgan’s back with her hand and patted it. Morgan hugged her for a second. “Thanks…” “Come here Lucy, I need to fix up your face.” Antonne said, crawling over to Lucy and placing his hands on her smooshing her cheeks slightly. “Yeah sure, thanks.” He face quickly reduced in swellin, and the cuts where it had been openned by Morgan’s fists quickly sewn themselves shut. She reached into her bag and pulled out a book. The Wyrm Talks, but I listen by Nadja Daviar. It was a collection of stories and anecdotes of the woman’s time as Dunkelzahn’s narrator Wyrm Talk, the first TV show hosted by a Dragon. Dunkelzahn was famous for many things, his open warmness to metahumanity, his empathy for their very hard existence, the world’s first president, and the world’s shortest presidential term, dying 10 hours into his first day in office. On the first blank page was a note, the book was signed, one message in black ink, and another in blue “January 7th, 2076 Happy Birthday! - Nadja Daviar.” The second read, “To my big sister, I love you <3 Happy Birthday - Lucy” Morgan flipped through the book and she cussed to herself. “Ugggh, my book mark fell out” she reached into her bag and rummaged through it looking for the little cheap piece of plastic that DeadEye had given her years ago. She kept digging around in the bag. Delarra and Antonne were in the back of the van closest to the back door. Delarra was curled up on the floor her legs held close to her chest. Antonne was sitting with his legs spread out and stared out the back window. Bailey looked over her corner, “Wait you have paper books? Why?! Aren’t they like, super expensive. You live in what is basically an upright shipping container.” Morgan was still rummaging through her bag, though she looked up for a second, “I don’t know, I’ve always preferred reading books. You know the smell of paper and all that jazz. Plus I think it’s better for your eyes? I might have read that somewhere” Near the bottom of the bag she looped her finger through a golden tassel that had faded to an off-yellow, it was tied around a small strip of plastic that had a heart burned into it. She flipped through the chapters trying to catch up to the spot she left off at. ...I remember when we first sat down together to write out his will… Nope, ...the sweetest men I had ever met, and had no lack of… That’s not right, she kept flipping through until finally she found a few pages around where she had left off. Lucy put her head in Morgan’s lap while she read. Waving her hands in the air as she played some game on her commlink, dancing lights flashing in her eyes, making them look like inhuman glowing orbs with swirls of colors and lights flashing over them. Gina was fiddling with the radio and talking to Remi who was jacked into the car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtIKr6uWqHs “Remi you’re always so quiet,” Gina said in mock concern, “Why didn’t you say anything when Morgan was Pasting Lucy earlier,” her tone was teasing. “Uh excuse me, I was busy loving with the suspension to stop the whole bus from rolling.” Gina laughed, “I don’t know why you call it a bus, it’s the size of a van.” “Oh god not this again” Antonne said “Please don’t” Morgan chimed in “Pew-pew” Lucy said pointing her finger guns at the ceiling shooting AR generated targets. Remi scoffed and said over all of them, “You know it’s because when these were first made, in the 1960’s I will remind you, it was called the VW bus have you seen any vehicle on the road this long? No, and it’s because of it’s unique design I was able to fit all of our gear and then some into it, but it is not a van. It i-” Gina cut her off, “Well I search’d up the term recently, and most definitions of the word ‘Bus’ and you know what a Bus has to have to be considered a bu-” It was Remi’s turn to interrupt, “It doesn’t matter what the definition of bus is, it was called the VW Bus, so it’s a bus. Not a van.” “-s has to have benches or seats for passengers, and no, a rolling chair so I can plug my cyberdeck into the van’s power supply does not count. You took all the chairs and benches out, and turned the back into those double doors, soooo...” “It’s not a van, it’s a bus.” Remi corrected. The two bickered back and forth for a while. While the argument went on, Antonne slid over to Delarra, “Hey how you holding up?” “She went berserk on us, I’ve never seen her like that. She could have killed Lucy, I don’t know how everyone can act normal.” They spoke in hushed tones, Morgan heard them but pretended not too. She tried to ignore them while she read her book. Antonne looked at her, “She couldn’t control herself Delarra.” “That’s supposed to make it less scary? If we keep doing this, are we always going to have to watch out to see if someone’s going to use her against us?” Delarra continued. Morgan kept her head down. “Look we’re the magic people, it’s our job to stop that kind of thing from happening, we have to be constantly alert. Mind control magic is no joke, and-” “And she does that to other people as well. She sidles up to them and lets loose her magic and people just bend over backward to do what she says.” She lifts her head and stares directly at Antonne, the first time since they started talking. “What no she doesn’t, she jus-” “Don’t lie to me Antonne, I’ve seen it myself, she can control how people respond to her voice. She could even do that to us.” “She’d never do that!” Antonne said in a hushed tone, dismay creeping into his voice. “How do you know what she’ll do, something gets in her mind and makes her try to kill her sister. And she loves her sister Antonne, she loves her sister more then all of us put together.” “Ok whatever Remi, it’s your van.” Gina said loudly “Bus, it’s a bus.” Remi yelled back. “Whatever bus ok, we’re here at Lucy’s place… Next stop? Delarra!” Morgan grabbed her book and her duffel bag, and walked with Lucy into her apartment. She waved by and everyone in the van smiled and waved back at her. Lucy’s apartment was smaller than Morgan’s and up three more flights of stairs. As they climbed upwards, every step felt more and more heavy. The apartment itself was clinically clean, every surface was bare, there was nothing on the floor and all that sat inside was a queen sized mattress on the carpeted part of the bachelors. The mattress nearly touched the kitchenette half of the apartment. Morgan laid down on the bed, her legs sticking out onto the cool linoleum, next to her Lucy laid down. “Hey loose… I’m sorry, like really sorry.” “It’s ok.” Lucy said immediately rolling over to look at Morgan, who was trying her best to stare a hole into the ceiling. “I didn’t mean too.” Morgan sniffled a little bit. “No, really it’s ok. Mind control magic is hosed up. I wanted to kill you too.” She placed a hand on her shoulder, “No-one blames you for what happened, Antonne and Delarra stopped it before it got too bad. And even if you did manage to do some real damage, Antonne can heal it up anyways, there’s no real problem. I promise.” Morgan rubbed her eyes, but they still kept tearing up. “You keep getting hurt, we’re doing this to take control of our lives, but…” Lucy tried to shush her. “You almost died a couple months ago and… We never really talked about it. Then tonight, I could have really hurt you, like really bad. I’m a monster.” “It’s fine, honestly it’s fine. You’re not a monster, we didn’t need to talk about it, I got sloppy, I hosed up, and I got ventilated for it. We learned to be more careful in the future, and we’ll always have Antonne and Delarra there to patch us up if things get real bad.” Lucy smiled warmly at Morgan. Morgan rubbed at her eyes some more. “We killed a really important person to save you, Delarra is right, things are getting out of hand really quickly. Maybe we should do something else?” “Maybe we should find a new contact for jobs. This one has put us in serious danger with like no information twice in a row. He also knows we’re brand new, but he’s using us to take care of Vampires, and Yakuza lieutenants and poo poo? I think he’s setting us up for failure for whatever reason.” Morgan gasped a little, “Do you really think it was a Vampire in that coffin?” “Either a vampire or a really powerful mage, don’t most magic dudes need to actually see what they’re casting at? Whatever was in that coffin was able to just ooze lovely magic into our brains like a gas or something. That’s crazy.” “I know real voodoo yokai poo poo.” Morgan was starting to cheer up a bit.“What if it was like, an evil spirit?” “What like a giant bug or something” Lucy teased. “Ugh I hate bugs, can you not!?” Morgan reached over and hit her with a pillow. “It could have been a dragon.” Lucy said. “Oh yeah, because you see those everyday, just hanging out in wooden boxes, like a big scaly termites.” “Oh it’s ok for you to bring up bugs but not me?” “Shut up.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “So what are you going to do with your free time? You’re free to stay with me as long as you want by the way! I have the… Well we have a place to lay our head, it’s just like the orphanage, but the bed is bigger!” Morgan sat down and discussed her options with Lucy. “Here are the options I’m looking at…”  Choose 4:A.) “I need to be faster, and stronger, I was thinking of looking up a guy who can get their hands on Cram and Jazz.” +combat stims, +dealer contact. Spend Karma for contact, Money for supplies “Oof I don’t know? Drugs? I’m not saying I haven’t done my share, but heavily using combat stims can really gently caress with your head Morgan. Did you see Delarra after that mission? I don’t know how she’d take knowing your heads not in it.” “I have to get strong, fast Lucy. I need to be able to protect everyone.” B.) “I heard that you can put cyberware into you, then train out your magic to account for the lost. I want to find a guy who knows more about that.” +street doc contact, +magic contact, +cyberware contact Spend Karma for contact, Money for supplies “I’ve heard that’s horrific to do to your magic. You can’t fast track your way to power, if you do this you’ll also be seriously weaker for awhile while you’re digging your magic back up, and isn’t cyberware expensive? How long would this even take?” “It’d be a lot faster than just training. Really, not to mention that power with cyberware? I’d be un-loving-stoppable… Eventually.” C.) “I want to do mindfulness training to see if I can get better keeping poo poo out of my head. I want to see if Antonne and Delarra have anything that’ll help with that.” Spend Karma on raising LOG and/or WILL Lucy smiled, “I like this plan a lot more than the other two, Antonne and Delarra would love to spend some more time on you, and showing Delarra a tiny bit of effort could go a long way. You heard what she said in the Van. Don’t pretend like you didn’t.” Morgan, “I don’t even know if I want to spend time with her if she thinks I’m some horrific monster that’ll go on a killing spree as soon as any mage gets close to me.” “That’s even more reason to go...:” D.) “I was thinking of buying some actual armor, as much as I enjoy wearing tiny shirts and sweat pants. I’m not bullet proof, and people keep pointing guns at me.” +Gear Contact, some armor, Spend Karma on Contact, Money for supplies “Yeah, I need some armor too to be honest, my battle outfit, while adorable and awesome, is a little impractical I’m starting to realize” “It’s a dress that covers almost literally nothing, it’s like being naked, but somehow worse. You should definitely get some better threads for jobs.” Morgan said. “But don’t throw it away, it’s adorable.” E.) “I also need to get better at you know, magic. I feel like if I was stronger, or more capable, I could have stopped that whole thing going sideways from the beginning. I don’t want to take classes from a learning anex or whatever, so we’re going to have to find a real guy” +Magic Contact, Spend Karma on Contact, Spend money and karma on improving magic. “I think Delarra might know a good person for that, I think, you could ask her.” “Oh yeah that’ll go well ‘Hello, I know you’ve been scared of me, but do you have any friends or family that can make me deadlier’ She’s probably not going to go for that.” Lucy cringed, “Ok well, maybe we kind find someone else, I’m sure there are plenty of people who can help, maybe we can find a real life street sammy.” F.) “I could hit the gym maybe work on my strength training, maybe get quicker, train my reaction time in some way? Just improving my body over all.” Spend Karma on increasing 2 Body (Health) and Strength (Damage) physical attributes by 1 “Yeah it’s always good to hit the gym, you’re pretty ripped already though to be honest, I don’t know how much more muscle definition you can get.” Lucy said “Yeah maybe it’s a waste of time, but I have got to do something. I think there’s still some room for improvement G.)”In that case,” Lucy said, why don’t you train with me? We could get you moving faster by sparring it out.” Spend Karma on increasing 2 Agility (Damage) and Reaction (Initiative, which decides how many turns you get but marginally) “That might be fun, I don’t think we’ve actually fought it out in ages” Morgan replied, “I will always save some time to hang out with you.” Morgan replied cheerily. “You better, or I’m going to stop buying you books for your birthday.” Lucy replied H.) “Or we could find a new Johnson, make some new street contacts? He can’t be the only Johnson who works in LA, and we’ve got a couple of jobs under our belt. May as well as expand our horizons at some point.” “I like our Johnson,” Lucy said, “He picks up when we call, he always has work, and he’s never gotten us killed. So what he’s a little loose with info, we adapt. I don’t think many people will work with us until we’ve done more to prove ourselves.” [1] Con +10 Authoritative Tone +2 6 Successes [2]Initiative 10+3d6 22 [3] Unarmed Strike 14 9 successes vs 2 successes 7 net hits [4]7 net hits + -6 AP enemy Glitches Body Roll 7+5 12 Unarmed Damage [5] Opposed Skill check vs Con+Charisma Dice pool 10, 6 successes Bookmarked the thread, but want to know when there's updates vs. When there's a ton of votes? Want to ask questions to me directly? Want to suggest stuff behind the scenes and sometimes get art work early? Join us in the Discord, and ask for the "A Spoiled Milk Run" tag. You'll find us chatting away in the #ChunkyMilk channel https://discord.gg/uwUYXeE Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 04:36
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C D E F
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Jun 18, 2020 05:07
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C D E G
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Jun 18, 2020 05:08
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Voting is still going on but I like drawing, so here you go!
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Jun 19, 2020 01:49
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Toughy posted:C
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Jun 19, 2020 07:27
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CDGH
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Jun 20, 2020 11:45
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Here is the current vote count, we're tied between G and F. If you edit your post to contain one of these two, quote this message so I don't count votes twice.
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Jun 20, 2020 20:16
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I'll answer any questions people have about Morgan and company that might come up, but other wise consider this over. I can't create content on a site owned by someone physically and emotionally abusive.
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Jun 24, 2020 22:11
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In the morning Morgan checked her comm link. Apparently, even though they had royally hosed up, Mr. Johnson still paid the full price for the mission, that was 30k a piece, that’d be enough to pay rent for a little while. Morgan transferred some money to lucy. Then she tried calling Delarra, who didn’t pick up, she wanted to talk to her, to make amends right away, to apologize for lashing out and show that she was trying to do something about it. It didn’t matter though, because she wasn’t picking up. It’s only been a few hours, maybe a day. I’ll just try to push through with Antonne. She rummaged through her comm link for the phone number, and pulled up Antonne’s number. She took a deep breath and pressed call. Her heart sank, 1 ring… 2 rings… 3… Was everyone going to treat her like a pariah? It wasn’t her fault, that loving mage had gotten his claws into her brain and re-wired her. Then Antonne picked up. “Hey!” “Hey Morgan, what’s up?” “I wanted to apologize to you and Delarra… I lost control and that wasn’t cool…” Wasn’t cool what the gently caress? Yeah it wasn’t cool, understatement of the year. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just something we have to be more careful about in the future.” Antonne’s voice was bright and cheery. “Yeah about that, I was wondering, you’re magic, I’m… Sort of magic. I was wondering if you could teach me some magic stuff that’ll stop those kind of things from happening.” “Sure, I actually have been learning some new magic myself, so we could both probably train together. Why don’t we meet up next week?” Morgan nodded happily. She hung up with Antonne, and flipped through her comm-link. Remi and Gina didn’t like to do voice calls, it took them out of the matrix, and they were quicker texting anyways. She pulled up their group chat. >>>Acid: Do you guys know someone I can get a hold of to buy some armor? I’d like something fashionable, but honestly, anything with some flak plates in it would work. >>>Bailey: Uh yeah, I know a girl who would be perfect for it. Let me see if I have her contact info somewhere around here. >>File Sent: Jesse.vcf >>>Bailey: Text only, mention my name up front and understand everything she gets you gets mailed to your doorstep. She doesn’t do pick ups. She’s nice though, I think you’ll like her. Make sure you have an AR set up, because she only does fittings in VR. >>>Acid: I should have asked you this on the phone Rite-Aid, but do you guys know a trainer I could talk too on the downlow about getting some magic training in. I would go to a dojo, but I don’t want to talk to anyone that isn’t cool with… What we do. >>>Rite-Aid: I would but he’s an Ork, and we’re on the Ork shitlist, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Orkish Mafia isn’t on our rear end after this. >>>Acid: Yeah, no poo poo, gently caress. >>>Barnum: I actually know someone for this, lucky you. A nice lady who works out of an old church doing food banks and other charity work. >>>Acid: Uh… I’m looking for combat work, not charity work. >>>Barnum: They’re a very very talented mage, you’ll learn a lot from them trust me. Lucy woke up, and grabbed a bite to eat, she started to boil water, and pulled a couple of Nissin brand Nutrisoy noodles, with “Real” beef flavoring. As the water warmed up she rubbed Morgan’s back gently, “How are you doing?” “Ah, I feel like poo poo, but I’m getting stuff done, which is important. I’ve got some errands to run this week, want to go clothes shopping with me on the matrix? You’ve got an AR rig around here somewhere right?” Lucy nodded happily, “Yeah Remi gave me one of her old ones when she upgraded. What are you buying?” Morgan groaned, “I’m trying to buy some fancy armor plated clothes, but I’ve only got like 3 grand?” Lucy coughed and spluttered, “3 Grand?! What did you do with your money?!” Morgan sighed, “Well, this place rent is 4,000 a month right? So I set aside 4 months of rent since we don’t know when the next job is. So there’s 16k right there. Then I’ll have to pay for classes with this new teacher, which’ll cost like 4 or 5k, plus it’s going to take at least a month to learn what they have to teach. That leaves me with 3 grand to buy some armor, then we’re tapped out. I don’t know how long it’ll be before Johnson hires us again, if he hires us again, we keep loving up these easy jobs.” Lucy grimaced, “He says we’re loving up, but he keeps paying us so we can’t be doing that bad.” Morgan shrugged, “I guess that’s true.” They sat in silence for a bit, and the tiny apartment was filled with the sound of bubbles rolling over instant noodles. Lucy got up and turned off the stove and portioned out the meals. The two sat in mostly silence as they ate. “Hey do you want to do some training today?” Morgan asked, looking at her. “Yeah sure!” Lucy said smiling. The two went to an old lot that had been abandoned forever. There used to be an old house, there before the crash. Maybe there for a hundred years, since the 1970’s. It burned down when the earthquakes hit. There was a gas line underneath, and the whole thing blew. No company owned the property, and everyone was too scared of the “ghosts” that haunted the place to go anywhere near it. Lucy and Morgan liked to fight there, it was quiet, and no-one was around. Lucy had grabbed some bokken years ago, and they held up quite well. The two went at it hard. Lucy struck first, swinging the bokken at Morgan’s side, who ducked them quickly. The game was simple, if Lucy hit her with the Bokken, then Morgan lost, if Morgan hit Lucy with her hand, then Lucy lost. Lucy went wide with a couple of slashes, and Morgan caught her wrist, pulling her in for a strike, but Lucy put up her other sword pointing at Morgan’s chest, causing her to quickly jump backwards, she was walking backwards while Lucy was pushing slicing the air in front of her. Morgan could feel wind past as each slice came within just inches of her face. She ended up backing so much she ended up bumping into the wooden fence. She decided to take on the attack, and jumped off of it, flying high through the sky with her fist in the air. The wind catching her blue hair. The shadow of her massive frame dwarfing Lucy who meeped and ran backwards before Morgan could land on top of her. They looked at each other panting, smiling. Morgan started to bounce on the balls of her feet and put her fists up. She rushed towards Lucy who had a manic glint in her eye, her teeth bared Lucy charged just as much, but she dropped one of her swords and reached to her side, pulling out a gun. It made a quiet popping noise as the airsoft mechanism shot out metal BBs that perforated the air where Morgan was standing just before. Morgan ran in a wide circle as the tiny pellets bounced off of burned wood and old pieces of furniture. She took cover as Lucy lit up the ground around her. She kicked the chair she was sitting behind at Lucy, and as she dodged she ran up to her. The two trained like this for an hour, maybe two. Occasionally Morgan would get a point, and so would Lucy, the two were evenly matched, and Lucy always had a few tricks to keep Morgan surprised. They trained like this every day, making sure to spend at least an hour doing it. It was a great workout, and kept both of them in great physical shape. After they had trained that day, Lucy pulled out her old AR gear, and Morgan called up the contact Remi had given her. >>>Acid: Hey Bailey gave me this number, I’m Acid and I’m in the market for some new gear >>>Jesse(〃＾▽＾〃): Hi Acid, I’m Jessie (〃＾▽＾〃) Pleasure to meet you. Are you looking for guns, armor, or something more specific? >>>Acid: I’m looking for Armor, nothing fancy, but if I can get a few pieces for day-to-day work that’d be awesome. >>>Jesse: Clothes shopping that’s awesome o(>ω<)o So excited, and Bailey told me this is your first time buying a Shadowrunner uniform, so we have to make it special (*≧ω≦*) So first thing’s first, get comfortable, get a mirror, and let me take your measurements. Morgan stripped down and stood in front of the mirror, she studied her body in it as a tiny anime pixie appeared. It looked like it was 2D and floated around her body. It wore a pink tuxedo, it had bright pink hair, and had a pink miniskirt. It’s wings were still, but drawn to look like a hummingbird's wings. Her face was completely blank, and instead showed emoticons to emote. They shimmered iridescently. It took measurements all over and it took her a few minutes to get them all. “You’re lucky I do all my tailoring in house. Troll customers are rare, and even fewer people tailor to them. But I tailor them all” The tiny pixie said, “Gets me the most customers that way fufufufu~” Morgan smiled and looked at the different outfits that were available. “How much were you looking to spend? (￢‿￢ )” The Pixie said “Not much to be honest, just something I can wear to formal things, but still do music gigs in. So casual, but not so casual I’d get thrown out of a fancy gig. I normally wear a halter top and sweats, but I’m getting shot at so.” “Say no more, here’s what we have in the Formal wear, we could get you in an Armante Dress, or Suit for no less than 3,000 Nuyen. It’s expensive I know, but people will look at you like a real high-roller if you have a tailored Armante getup. Plus the dress is a nice number with a slit down the side and a snap. You need to go full on combat mode, just undo the snap and you now have full range of motion and kevlar plates covering you head to toe.” “That’s… Wow… That’s a lot of money…” Morgan grimaced, she’d be broke much faster than she thought she would. “I know I know, a bit pricey, but honestly, you want your fashion to make a statement. You want to walk into a room and have a suit that scans ‘I’m the baddest bitch in this motherfucker, and I’m ready to gently caress some poo poo up.’ ヾ(☆▽☆) That’s what Armante says. Still, if that’s not your cup of tea, let’s go down the rack a bit.” She waved her hand, the sharp suits and dresses faded away into something that looked a bit more… Dated. It had a high collar, and flared shoulders. A full length coat that went over some layered pieces. “This one stills a fashion statement, but it costs about half the price as the other one, only 1,400 nuyen, and still a great look. This is the Vashion Island Ace of Cups line, and it is a beaut. You see some middle managers wearing dresses like this. It’s not the elite fashion and rock star punch of Armante, but it is still looking good for what you need to do. Plus you could even buy two outfits, a dress and a suit for wherever your shadowrunning takes you. “Errmmm… That’s still a lot.” “Really? (°ㅂ°╬)” The pixie said. “Well alright then, we’re not talking tailored suits anymore, just off-the rack stuff.” She flicked her hand again, and a row of T-shirts, sweatpants, halter tops, and Jeans appeared. “These are just… Off the rack things. We can send you a shipment of armor plated clothes for like 500 nuyen. I’ll still tailor them so they fit nicer, but everyone will know you’re a penniless shlub the minute you walk through the door. Though I have a silk screener around here, so I can at least make sure you’re brand is on it. ┐(︶▽︶)┌” The pixie said, though her voice sounded more bothered by it then she let on. Does Morgan buy the: 1A.) Armante Suit / Dress  1B.) Vashion Island Full coat and layered clothes  1C.) The Armored Clothing After Morgan made her shopping purchases, she grabbed her things and gave Lucy a gentle kiss on the head. She had been watching in silence as Morgan picked out her clothes. “Where you headed?” Lucy asked. “I’m going to go see a woman about some Magic Training.” Morgan said smiling, Gina had sent her a text where to go to find the magician in the Church, and it wasn’t too far a walk from Lucy’s house in the projects. Of course, that makes sense, as any food bank would have to be underground. No corp would allow the free distribution of food to Sinless, and most food was tightly regulated as it was. Morgan walked down the street and kept a sharp eye for any Ork gangers who might have an eye out for her head. The church didn’t look anything like a church Morgan had seen before, it was a small strout building with rows and rows of apartments on top. The sign read in red neon “House of Gods” and there was a line out the door of people who seemed to be walking in, and out with food. Morgan got in line, and after an hour or two she had managed to get to the front. “I’m not looking for nourishment.” She said to the soup kitchen woman who was ladling out food. Morgan held up her hand signalling she didn’t want a bowl of food, “I’m seeking knowledge.” The woman nodded and smiled slightly. She pointed at a trapdoor in the back, when Morgan opened it, she heard a woman’s voice coming out. “Universal Magic Theory suggests that no singular act of worship or ritual will help you get better at magic, but anything that you believe will work will. Why do you think that is? Anyone? Yes Marcus” The woman’s voice carried “Well, because there’s all sorts of rituals and initiations for magic, and they all work right? So if anything will work, then anything will work.” The man sounded unsure. “Correct, now if we know this, as practitioners of Chaos Magic, then what must we do to increase our own power, to learn our own magics.” The woman responded, happiness in her voice. “Well whatever we think works, but how do we know it will work Teacher?” The man said suddenly unsure of himself “That is precisely the question we’re going to go over today… Oh hello.” Morgan stared. She stopped what she was doing, it was the first time she had seen a naga, and this one was even weirder than the normal ones. It was 10 feet long, at least. It had green scales and a yellow stomach. It was covered head to toe in scales, and it had bright red eyes. It used metal prosthetics, two legs and two arms to walk around a large class room. In it’s hand it held chalk, and was writing on a chalkboard.  “I assume you’re here for the lessons, I must ask that you pay up front for the classes, and no cheating… I’ll know.” The naga said, looking at Morgan In front of Morgan was a box that read Basics of Chaos Magic and it had a donation counter. Morgan wrote down her shadowrunner name, and made the suggested donation. For the classes that she wanted it was going to cost her 5,000 nuyen. A hefty price, but worth it. Nagas were creatures of pure magic, and what this one taught was university level magic at a fraction of the price. Morgan was excited to say the least, and quickly picked up a pen and pad of paper that a woman at the back of the class was selling for 25 nuyen a piece. It took Morgan about 6 weeks to finish the introductory course to Chaos Magic, and she felt more powerful. They had touched only briefly on Physical Adepts and their magics, but she was already able to channel her magic more effectively into her reflexes, making her faster and more capable. Her Class met three times a week, and she didn’t miss a single one. That weekend, she went to see Antonne at his house. She was happy that Antonne was still speaking to her, and when she saw Delarra, she was thrilled. “Hey… I wanted to sa-” Delarra cut her off before she could apologize. “I’m sorry Morgan. I know it wasn’t your fault you got mind controlled. I just got scared and I reacted poorly. I… I’m not as good at compartmentalizing everything we’re doing as shadowrunners. I feel really guilty for killing that Ork guy, and the jobs are only getting scarier and harder. I shouldn’t take that frustration out on you.” Delarra slumped her shoulders and looked down at the ground. “No I’m sorry, I should be putting more work into not going off the wall like that. If I spent half as much time on my head as I did my muscles maybe we could have avoided this whole thing from happening. I don’t blame anyone else for my actions but myself.” Delarra hugged Lucy, and Lucy smiled and hugged her back. Antonne shifted back and forth uncomfortably waiting for the two to stop. When they finally released, Antonne spoke, “So the new spell I’ve been learning is actually the one the Mage used on you the other night. It didn’t take me that long to pick up actually, and it was something I was working on before hand, just in case…” Delarra shivered, “Well just in case I needed it, so what we’re going to do, is Delarra is going to run you through some meditations, while you’re meditating, I’m going to try and break into your mind and get you to stand up. If you do we start over and try again. Alright? How do you feel about that idea.” She looked at Delarra who was smiling, “Well we’ll try it out.” They sat cross legged on the floor. Delarra smiled at her from across the room, and began the guided meditation. “Begin by taking a deep breath and hold it for 5 seconds.” Delarra demonstrated with her own breaths, and paused for Morgan to do the same. “Exhale and Relax. Take another deep breath, as deep as you and hold it. Count for 5 seconds, and as you exhale just imagine blowing out all of your stress.” She waited, “Take a third deep breath and hold it.” Morgan felt like she should stand up, and so she did. Without even thinking, “Damnit.” She said out loud as Antonne released the spell. “It’s Ok Morgan. Just focus on breathing, sit back down.” They went like this, and it would take weeks before Morgan could even recognize that Antonne was trying to make an intrusion into her mind, but Delarra saw how hard Morgan was working to get better at it, and the three of them grew closer. After about 2 months, Morgan felt stronger, smarter, and more capable. She had armored gear and was ready to take on the world. >>>Acid: How’s everyone doing on money? I’m running kind of low… >>>Barnum: There’s a new cyberdeck I want, but it’s really expensive. >>>Bailey: And a new drone. >>>Rite-Aid: Rent’s due soon, and I’ve only got like a month or two left. >>>Acid: Same. >>>Serenity: I could do a job, I’ve been going to therapy since the last one, and it’s really been helping. >>>DeadEye: I am always down to start popping heads. >>>Acid: Alright, hop into a group call, I’m gonna call Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson picked up on the first ring, “Oh well, isn’t it my favorite bunch of gently caress-ups. I was wondering when you’d stop being scared and call me.” Morgan was tightlipped, “We’re really sorry about the last Job Mr. Johnson, there was some fuckery with the box, and the contacts broke the rules. They wanted us to get in the van with them and wouldn’t give us time to call you an-” Mr Johnson cut her off, “I don’t want to hear your excuses Acid. Just do better on the next job alright? Since you’re still greener than bird poo poo, and haven’t done a single job correctly, I hope you don’t mind that I’m keeping you to milk run kiddy jobs. Here’s what I’ve got for you…” 2A.) You remember that colony of Ghouls? Well they geeked the last team I sent. Since you guys are a bit better armed, and there’s more of you, I’d like you to take a crack at it. I’m offering 125,000 nuyen for your team. Twice my normal pay. 2B.) I got another package that needs delivering. You pick up the client and his suit case down here in El Inferno, and you take him to the Horizon’s Arcology in Hollywood. Normal pay 60k nuyen 2C.) A wage slave at the Horizon arcology is considering a change in employment. We need babysitters. Normally I wouldn’t ask you idiots to do a corp job, but I’m short staffed. Do not gently caress this up. It’ll make your crew 60k nuyen if you can pull it off. Don’t take the job if you don’t think you can handle it. 2D.) I need another package picked up, this time from a different part of town and delivered to East Lake Correctional Facility. I don’t even know if I want to offer you this job, after you so thoroughly hosed it up the last time. Still 60k nuyen is nothing to sneeze at. Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 13, 2020 00:05
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1B 2A
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Aug 13, 2020 02:56
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1B 2B
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Aug 13, 2020 04:11
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1c 2 b
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Aug 13, 2020 06:04
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Fashion is the true endgame, that said you don't want to be caught dead wearing the same thing twice so 1B it is for now until we get some more cashflow. Try to see if we can get some Pixie Branding on it, y'know, rep the tailor! As for the mission 2C seems to hold the most funtential. Do that one!
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Aug 13, 2020 10:14
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1B 2A
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Aug 13, 2020 11:34
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Swedish Thaumocracy posted:Fashion is the true endgame, that said you don't want to be caught dead wearing the same thing twice so 1B it is for now until we get some more cashflow. All of this also I'm sorry it took me this long to get reading the thread and I'm really glad you brought it back Boba.
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Aug 14, 2020 02:16
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Idk if this will change people's votes, but she looks so good in the dress, (These are just sketches, I wanted to bang something out quick.)
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Aug 14, 2020 03:17
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“Right, well we’re going to go ahead and take the ghoul job, since it’s the highest paying one.” Mr Johnson chuckled, “Alright, well let me give you the run down, can you make it to my office next week? I’d rather debrief you in person.” “Uh of course, How’s Sunday at 6?” Morgan said quickly, “That’d be perfect, see you then.” Johnson hung up quickly. Morgan sighed happily, “Does that mess up anyone’s rent payments or anything?” Gina chimed in quickly, “Doesn’t matter, I got us a gig! There’s a bar that’s not too fancy, but not in the slums either where wage slaves go to drink off their worries. It’s across the street from a Mitsuhama retail office.” “Mitsuhama? Aren’t we on the Yakuza poo poo list?” Antonne interjected. “Yeah and the Orks, I’m not really worried about it, we’ll be singing it’s not like they’ve got out face thrown up in every Yakuza bar. What we did wasn’t even that bad.” Gina said “We crippled a Yakuza heiress, and killed a Lieutenant, as far as crimes against the family go, that’s pretty high up there.” Morgan said, unsure. “It’ll be fine,” Remi jumped in, “Besides, I don’t think every Mitsuhama salary man is a yakuza ganger ready to slit throats. It’s going to be a bunch of salary man drunk trying to curry favor with their bosses. We’ll just go up be pretty, sing a few songs and leave.” “Well, let’s do a vote.” Gina said “Fine a vote.” Morgan concurred. >> A vote has been initiated 0/6 Go to the Mitsuhama bar? >> 1/6 >> 2/6 >> 3/6 >> 4/6 >> 5/6 >> 6/6 >> The vote passes 4:2 Go to the Mitsuhama Bar. “Well that’s that I guess.” Morgan sighed. “I voted for not going for the record,” Delarra said. “I know, I did too.” Morgan sighed a second time. “Hey, we’re not supposed to say who voted for what, it ruins the integrity of the vote.” Gina was smiling though. “Uggggh. You say that every time,” Remi groaned. Gina pouted, “Well it’s true.” Morgan shut her comm-link off as there was a knock at the door. She got up and ran to it, “It’s here, it’s here!” She said. Lucy giggled, “I ordered food, I don’t think it’s-” “Shut up no you didn’t,” Morgan said as she openned the door, a tiny drone with a box of chinese food floated happily, it’s LCD screen shining a smiling face. Morgan frowned and took the chinese food, “My package is supposed to come today, why would you do this to me lucy?” Lucy snorted, and took the food from Morgan and started parcelling it out, “I didn’t think you’d be so upset at free food.” Morgan raised an eyebrow, “Why are we celebrating? There’s real meat here? I didn’t think either of us could afford to be eating chicken.” “We’re celebrating successfully completing 2 jobs at our new gig, and you have been training really hard. You finished your class with the Naga, so I thought we could have a tiny graduation ceremony.” Morgan wanted to argue, the chicken probably cost nearly 500 nuyen, but her teacher came to mind. By celebrating her initiation, and making it a regular thing, it becomes part of the ritual, and that in itself will strengthen her magic. Morgan shrugged and gave Lucy a big hug, “Thanks loose, I don’t know what to say.” Lucy gave her a light peck on the cheek. “You don’t have to say anything, you’ve been working hard, you deserve a treat.” Their luncheon was interrupted by another knock on the door, this one was a bright pink drone, on it too had an LCD, on it was a dancing Pixie doing the peace sign. Morgan took the box and threw it on the couch. “It’s here!” She said. “Well go try it on!” Lucy said, pointing with her chopsticks. “Nah it can wait until after our meal.” As they ate the conversation meandered around, Lucy had been going to the same dojo for years. They had an underground tournament she had been training for, and she had apparently one, taking out a cybered up street sammy all on her own, with no injuries to speak of, “How’d you pull that off?!” Morgan said shocked. “Dude’s cyberware was faulty, I had hit him in the back of the neck, and the left side of his body just like… Turned off, after that it was pretty easy, still he put up a pretty good fight for only having one arm to swing with.” Morgan snorted. “Was there a prize or anything?” Lucy looked at the food, and then at Morgan, “No not really, nothing great. I got the title of ‘Iron Katana’ which is like mid-tier for my school. You have to be an actually good fighter at my Dojo to earn the rank of ‘Vibro-blade’” When they finished eating, Morgan got up and walked over to her box, and took out the armor plated clothes she had bought. Morgan had never had a need for such fancy clothing, she was naturally a bit stronger than most, and as a Troll her skin was tough as hell, and most small arms, blades, bats and things would just bounce off or create a tiny scrape. Still people on the streets were better armed, and she needed real protection. She put on the whole set up, it was a T-shirt with metal plates in it, covered up by a corset, with kevlar weaving, then she had nano-weaved pants, and over that another coat with metal plates in it. She clanked a little as she walked, but when she turned on her comm-link she smiled. Little price tags and advertising links showed up around her suit. She was marked as high fashion, and if the fairy had sold her a knock-off (Vashon didn’t specialize in Orc or Troll suits,) she had put the upmost work into it to make it fool most sensors, which is what she really wanted. People would know that Morgan was Somebody when she walked into the room. Lucy whistled as Morgan strutted around the room, letting the open coat flow behind her like an armored cape. “Looking good!” She said, “We should spar in it, to make sure you have the whole range of motion.” Morgan smiled, “Yeah absolutely, besides it’s supposed to have this nano-coating that reflects dirt, so we might as well see if it can get dirty.” They sparred for the next 2 hours. The coat did not get dirty, and Morgan looked as flawlessly fashionable as when they started. _____________________________________________ Remi pulled up to the house laying into her horn, she screamed at the apartment building, “GET IN BITCHES WE’VE GOT poo poo TO DO!” Morgan stook her head out of Lucy’s window, “Oh my god Remi this is NOT the neighborhood to be doing that poo poo,” Another window slammed open, and an old troll threw a hammer at the Van, “Yeah so shut the gently caress up.” “Hey motherfucker, this van’s got a turret in it, you wanna gently caress around and find out?” Remi yelled back, leaning out of the passenger side window. Morgan looked up, “Sorry Mr. Semkins, we’ll be going now, you have a nice day.” Giggling, Lucy and Morgan piled in the car, where Remi, Gina, Antonne, and Delarra were already waiting. They had their music gear out, and smiling. “Can you not piss off all of our neighbors, Remi” “Can you be ready when we come to pick your dumb rear end up?” Remi shot back laughing, and peeling out of the tiny projects. Towards Hollywood, where the gig was. She hopped on the freeway and cranked the radio. The thick bass in the van was thumping, and shaking the windows of near by cars, Morgan sat on the floor in the Bus, and smiled, feeling the thumping of the bass in her chest, shaking her bones, it’s thick bumps soothing her bones like a cat’s purr. “What did you guys do in your free time?” She yelled over to Antonne, “Well, I have been spending more time doing street doctor poo poo, I’ve started to take customers, it helps keep an ear to the ground, and honestly, I’m not too bad at it. I’ve been learning a lot about different people. It’s been fun getting to know the streets better.” “I’ve been mostly just living off the money we got, and hanging out in Antonne’s shop. Sometimes the problem isn’t a physical one, but astral. I’ve been dealing with people’s astral energy, and healing them on a spiritual level. Ontop of that, I’ve got this therapist I heard about on the net. She’s pretty good, and does appointments over AR.” Delarra smiled, “And of course training with you has been fun Morgan.” “Street racing.” Remi said as her face blankly stared at the ceiling, “I’ve been doing the tracks, and winning parts for The Bus. I won a turret off of some Go-ganger, and in exchange I showed them how to re-route some of the electronics in a car to fit more, kind of like how we can fit all this gear in the van, but have plenty of room to sit.” Gina let out a heavy cough, and the smell of Deepweed filled the van, “I don’t get how you guys get to do this all the time, it’s so cool.” She said as she stared around her on the astral plane, watching spirits running along with the cars on the freeway, the lost souls of the many who died there, the feelings that people have with their cars, their emotions, their road rage, or fear, or serenity leaking out into a swirling maelstrom of beauty and terror. “I’ve mostly been doing BTLs, Remi hacks them so I can re-use them. Right now there’s this one that was said to be done by Dunkelzhan to show humans what it’s like to be a dragon. Like it cost me nearly 100k nuyen for my copy, but it’s cool. I’m doing dragon poo poo, and there’s all this knowledge and understanding, it’s so much you feel like your heads gonna pop, then you go gently caress another dragon and it’s like ‘whoa.’ I think being a dragon might be one of the coolest things out there. I want to meet a dragon you know?” Delarra laughed, “I sure as hell don’t.” Gina looked at her, and her eyes were swirling with color as the lights of the astral plane reflected themselves in her irises, “But don’t you? Think what you could learn from one if you made friends with it. Their so oooooold. They’ve lived hundreds, maybe even thousands of life times, and they’ve got all this wisdom and knowledge they can impart.” Delarra shrugged, “You don’t know they’ll share it with you, and if you meet one they’re not going to see you as a metahuman, or like an equal. You’ll just be a tool to use.” Gina shook her head, “Dunkelzhan wasn’t like that, he wanted to lift us all up together. He wanted to show what metahumanity could be you know what I mean? Why can’t there be other dragons like that.” Remi piped in, “Because they killed him. Maybe that doesn’t scare you, but if I was an ancient thing that believed it was eternal and above death, and then one of my kind died. I’d think real hard about who I gently caress around with.” Gina shrugged, “I’d have liked to meet Dunkelzhan.” Morgan smiled, “That’d be rad as hell. The orphanage Lucy and I grew up in had recordings of his old interviews. Like a set of best of trids. It was super rad.” When they finally arrived at the bar, Morgan checked the mirror to make sure her hair was still perfectly coiffed, and turned on the old charm. She left the group to get set up while she walked in to talk to the bar owner. “We’re getting set up now, when do you want us to start?” The Bar tender was human, and came up to Morgan’s chest, she had to take a step back just to be able to see the man, who was maybe 5 foot 8 on a good day. He just stared for a moment taking in all of her. It took him a moment to compose himself, and Morgan smirked as she waited for him to compose himself. “Uh right, sorry I didn’t hear you… What was that?” He said, trying to brush off his momentary lapse. “When do you want us to start?” She said again, pointing at the stage. “Right, uh people normally get off work, shower than come over, so around 9 is when it’s going to be bumping, then people tend to mill around until about 1 or 2, when they all leave for home, we can’t stay open about 2, so we want you to stop playing at Midnight so it’s easier to kick people out.” He said. Morgan let her magic touch her words, and felt them fall out of her mouth, dripping like honey coated rain drops speckling the man’s mind. “Right and about the pay… Let’s say 5,000 nuyen.” “Ok… That seems fair,” The man said, as he reached into his wallet without thinking, “I’ll also put a tip jar out, you’ll make more than that from the salary man.” He looked her up and down, “I’m sure of it.” Morgan gave him a wink, “Thanks!” She grabbed the cred-stick and tossed it to Gina who dispersed it into everyone’s accounts, and then grabbed the huge speakers and placed them facing outwards on the tiny stage. Morgan was wearing her fancy shadowrunning clothes, and felt amazing. Her skin was electric, and her whole buddy was buzzing with good vibes. The instruments were mostly for show, the sound was pre-recorded on Gina’s synth, and played through the speakers, still it felt good. Antonne was handed a faux trumpet, while Remi had a Bass. Gina who had a synth was playing on a keyboard, while Lucy had a guitar. Morgan was singing, her voice the only real thing in the room. She started with a few songs, when the crowd was starting to get real rowdy, she looked at the room, and gave the signal to Remi. 1… 2… 1… AH!~ she let out a little yelp that grabbed the attention of everyone in the room. All eyes on her. Rising Falling from the sky Got a guilty hand? Just lie. Don’t let them get in your mind Outsmart them Lucy chimed in, and the sang in chorus. Survive Which direction do I choose? Heaven or Hell In this world, there is one rule, Blah, Blah they say, the winner is never wrong Being a girl makes you strong You gotta keep him following along. She winked at a salary man who had sent her a 500 nuyen tip. I’ll sacrifice you Anything I have too If it makes me, the Gambling Queen! I see your gaze you doubt me! I’ll change your mind so quickly. Deal with the Devil, I see right through, Flip the cards I wanna see your fate, When I see that you’re official My Little Puppet A million dollars, I say we raise, My little darling I’ll leave you trembling Can you hear the beating of my heart!? Deal with the devil, it’s such a thrill, there’s so much excitement, what to do? I just can’t get enough of the rush or the money A million dollars, I say we raise So C’mon tell me that you agree Risking it all beating my heart Wish it all, you’re what I need, My baby You say no, I decline I won’t lose to you! Love me honey. The music stopped, and the crowd cheered, and they continued playing jazzy numbers into the night, when it was time to wrap it up, they slowed down the music a bit, “This is our last song,” Morgan said, “We’ll be hanging around drinking though if you want to say hello afterwards.” She gave the crowd a slight wink. Weary mage Fire lost Broke your back At what cost? The world ain't kind But that's alright 'Cause I am here With you tonight So lay down your head Next to me, one big bed If you need some company I won't hog the sheets And I won't grind my teeth You can sleep as deep as you need When morning arrives I will be by your side With some breakfast and coffee The days may be long But if you can hang on The nights could be so sweet The roads are long The forests thick The bandits cruel And the necromancers sick The world don't care What you lack But I will protect You from attack So lay down your head Next to me, one big bed If you need some company I won't hog the sheets And I won't grind my teeth You can sleep as deep as you need When morning arrives I will be by your side With some breakfast and coffee The days may be long But if you can hang on The nights could be so sweet The crowd cheered once more, and Morgan gave them a wink, and blew them a kiss, and then got to work breaking down the stage and loading up The Bus with all of their gear and equipment. They went to the bar and grabbed a few drinks, Remi had found a salaryman with deep pockets, and just as much Deepweed, and started to smoke in a corner of the bar. Antonne and Delarra hung out in the van, the loud crowd wasn’t really Delarra’s thing, and Antonne always took an excuse to be close to Delarra. It was cute. Meanwhile, Remi, was outside of the bar drone racing a corp rigger who was wared to the gills. The two of them taking laps through the parking lot, their trid displays being projected on the wall of the bar. Men with money, raised corp scrip too the air and cheered as the drones made laps. Lucy had found a guy to make out with, and seemed to be content to figure out exactly how much tongue she could fit in his mouth. A young elf walked up to Morgan and smiled at her, she was pretty, her black hair was up in a bun, her eyes were almond shaped, and she had a pointed chin. She was slim, and looked like a strong wind would blow her over. She wore a leather jacket and a mini skirt, and was vaping when she pulled up to Morgan, she let out a huge puff of bubblegum scented clouds that sparked with tiny nanite neon lights filled the area between the two, almost blocking out the rest of the bar. “I liked your music, don’t lie, you were singing that last song to me weren’t you?” Morgan laughed, “That is not original,” she turned to face her, “But you can make up for that corny line by buying me a drink.” The elf put up her hand, and two bright cyan drinks were poured out in martini glasses, Morgan gently sipped hers, while the elf stuck out her hand, “I’m Ciarra.” She said, Morgan looked at her hand and raised an eyebrow, “I’m Morgan.” “So Morgan, what do you do when you’re not serenading wage slaves.” Morgan raised the other eyebrow, most of the people in the room would at least bristle at the term wage slave, if not get pretty pissed. “This and that,” Morgan said, “If you had to put a name to it, I’m a milk man,” she said with a smile “I go bother the neighbor’s wives and make deliveries all over the city.” Ciarra laughed, “A milk man riiight.” “What about you, if you’re not a corporate drone, what are you doing?” Ciarra smiled back at her, “I never said I wasn’t a corporate drone, I’m in sales. I make a commission,” Morgan giggled, “Let’s stop talking about work. So what kind of music do you listen too?” “Isn’t that work for you? Chiptunes mostly, occasionally I listen to some synthwave, or acid rock.” “Bad answer, you’re supposed to say the genre’s I play.” Morgan said. “And this isn’t work, I love doing this.” “Well I’m not going to lie to you and say I like music I don’t,” “Oh that’s nice, a sales woman who won’t lie to me. It must be my lucky day.” Morgan needled. “I never said I wouldn’t lie to you, you can kiss me whenever you want by the way” Ciarra said leaning close. Morgan decided to take her shot, she kissed Ciarra, who turned and kissed her back, the two were locked in with each other, the room ceased to be all there was this moment. They sat, talk and kissed, quickly they found their own secluded piece of the bar, and soon the hours melted away, before she knew it the bar tender was telling everyone to go home. Morgan and Lucy piled into the van, where Gina was already sleeping, Antonne and Lucy were playing some AR game together, and Remi had plugged herself in, but had fallen asleep in her chair. Morgan banged on the roof of the van, and woke both of them up, “Let’s get out of her Remi,” Remi rubbed her eyes, “Yeah sure thing Morgan.” She said and the engine turned on. The Bus peeled out of the quiet alley, and took them home. ______________________________________ The next day they were all nursing hangovers, and Morgan groaned, “Ah gently caress Lucy, I forgot to get that chicks number,” Lucy walked over to the other half of the apartment that was the kitchen, and started to fry up the soy-meat substitute, and openned a carton of faux egg whites. The food fried and filled the apartment with the smell of fried eggs and spam. She had some left over rice from their celebratory meal, and threw that in the pan as well, and tossed it all together. “It was just some chick in a bar, I don’t think you had exactly found your soulmate.” She said flicking her wrist, mixing everything together. “Yeah but she was fun, I think that counts for something,” Morgan said as she sat at the bar that separated the apartment. Lucy poured out two bowls of food and grabbed a bottle of soy sauce from the fridge. She prepared Morgan’s bowl just the way Morgan liked it and then her own. She grabbed some green onion from he windowsill garden and used that to garnish the meal, it looked amazing, and the apartment smelled glorious. They chowed down together. They spent the rest of the day watching trids together online, Morgan liked the ones where they tried to make 100 year old recipes with modern day ingredients. They were trying to make a beef wellington, a pastry filled with steak, with soy-pastry and krill-meat. Before they knew it, Barnum had messaged them they were coming over, and it was time for their meeting with Mr. Johnson. Acid didn’t want to have her hang out the window like a crazy person screaming again, and so her and DeadEye waited outside. The ride to Mr. Johnson’s was much more solemn, and they were all ready for business. Mr. Johnson liked to work out of an old Halloweeners hangout in the projects. It was out of the Ork territories, and the Yakuza didn’t head their either, so it was perfectly fine for the team. The hangout itself was built out of a bunch of shipping containers that had been dragged, gutted, and welded together in an empty lot between two large warehouses. A decrepit old man, whose skin looked like rubber against his rusted cyberware, stood alone with a large assault rifle. His eye clicked on with a high pitched whine and he pointed it at Acid as she approached, “We’re here to see Mr. Johnson.” She said, there was another high pitched whine, and some loud clicking as plates shifted behind the man’s dead eyes, and he openned the door for her. They walked past halloweeners who were smoking and gambling. They found their way to the back of the shipping container which had an elevator built into it, and took it to the third “floor” Where Mr. Johnson’s office sat. Mr. Johnson was a dwarf in his late sixties, he had a long beard, that was braided with multiple beads into it. His hair was long and pulled into a pony tail, he had a big cigar in his mouth, and his feet were kicked up on his desk, his black shoes were shiny, and at least looked like real leather, even if they didn't have an tags in AR. His hands were adorned with a multitude of jeweled rings, and his sunglasses, which he wore in the dimly lit room, had tiny diamonds embedded in the corners of them. He waved his wide hands opening them as though he were to give the group a big hug. “Hey look it’s my favorite bunch of gently caress-ups.” “Hi Mr. Johnson” Acid said, “We’re here for our debriefing.” “Right right of course,” he pushed some papers off of a table that was sitting in the middle of his room, the loose leafs falling to the floor. He plugged a data chip in, and the machine kicked on. It showed the lay out of a 3D building, “This warehouse belongs to a AAA corp that would like to remain anonymous, and right now there’s about 30 - 40 HMHVV III positive individuals, all weighing about 180 - 200 lbs, meaning their eating about 30 - 40 lbs of meta-human meat a week, if they’re going by the bare minimum to survive. So we’ve got two issues, 1 Their homeless squatting in a building owned by a AAA corp that wants to build a new office building, and 2 they’re killing 3 - 4 people a month to feed themselve. The community has put out a bounty, the corp has put out a bounty, and right now we’re the only people in the market who can deal with it. Now the job doesn’t necessarily have to be to kill them all, if you can get them to move somewhere else, everyone will be happy.” “Now the leader of these guys, is this happy chap,” A man with long black white hair, bright green eyes, and a leather cloak wielding a long sword appeared on the screen, “This man is HMHVV-I positive, he’s a vampire. You’ve had a run in with one of these before, when I have you run coffin’s for feeding at Hollywood Correctional. We don’t think anyone who is customer to our feeding service works is dealing with the warehouse, but you know, who knows. If they are, plug them we don’t want to be tied to this kind of stuff, it’s bad for our corp contracts.” “Now the building they’re staying in, is 3 floors, they’ve tapped into the city’s power grid, and people are too scared to try and run them off. Pueblo doesn’t want to deal with it, and it’s only one building so no need to send a professional team right? Now word is, these guys are heavily armed, we sent in a 3 man team, they tried to go loud and got ripped to shreds. We also think they may have some other infected working with them. We only see the ghouls, but the amount of meat their collecting doesn’t match what our numbers say should be there.” “You’re in charge of gearing yourself up, the contract is considered done when there’s not a single person, rat, or any living thing in that building. We’ve been told their going to tear down the warehouse, so collateral damage is not a problem. Here’s the data.” He pulled the data chit and handed it to Acid, “Now get the gently caress out of my office, call me when the job is done.” When they all piled into the car, it was time to work on a plan of attack, Serenity was first to speak, A.) I think we should just go talk to them, they may be having their own problems, or already be making plans to move, we could probably help them, with minimal bloodshed. Antonne nodded in agreement. Lucy shook her head, B.) gently caress that noise, we should just drive over there and get to blasting, I know a guy who could get his hands on X-4, we put that on these points on the blue print, and the whole building is coming down, besides, all 40 dudes aren’t going to respond at once, Morgan and I could be in and out before they know what hit them. Barnum groaned C.) Before we decided anything we should do some surveillance, just drive outside the place and float a drone over it, watch them see what’s going on? Bailey hated that idea D.) And what if they see it and decide to come out and shoot at us for spying on their fortress, lets leave that until we’re sure we want to piss them off, let’s see what the locals say about them. Maybe someone knows an in. Morgan shrugged, E.) We should start throwing cash around at the warehouse, see if anyone takes bribes, that sort of thing, find out how loyals these guys are. They argued a bit until a plan coalesced... Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Aug 18, 2020 |
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Aug 15, 2020 03:58
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Aug 15, 2020 10:32
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Aug 15, 2020 11:54
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If i know my vampire hives correctly, and as this is shadowrun I sure don't, then killing the Big Fang should make all the ghouls panic or go catatonic or something. Now we can't exactly run in there and stake him, but attaching some x4 and a flashbang to a drone should do the trick just as well. Maybe try to find a silver bullet for our sniper as well (if they managed to get a replacement rifle yet) should he survive. After that it should be a piece of cake clearing the rest out!
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Aug 15, 2020 13:34
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 Here's what our Johnson looks like
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Aug 18, 2020 05:36
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Dapper Dwarf
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Aug 18, 2020 12:58
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I don't leave things unfinished, and that means I'm going to kill this off, I'd rather it have a short ending, then no ending at all. Pick 3 characters, they make it to the end. Pick 1 Character, they get a happy ending Pick 2 characters, they get a bitter sweet ending Any questions you want answered, write them down now. The end will take about a month, though very possibly considerably less.
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Sep 17, 2020 06:38
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Survivors: Remi, Lucy, Gina Happy ending: Remi Bittersweet ending: Lucy, Gina
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Sep 17, 2020 10:38
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Happy end: Remi, Bittersweet: Morgan, Delarra
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Sep 17, 2020 21:45
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Survivors: Remi, Lucy, Gina Happy ending: Remi Bittersweet ending: Lucy, Gina
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Sep 17, 2020 21:53
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Acid felt uneasy, something didn’t sit right with her as they surveilled the ghoul’s den. It was a crisp autumn night, and the sky was a deep brownish purple as the smog was lit up by moonlight. She could taste the smoke on the air, and when she breathed she could almost feel the smoke scouring her insides. Her commlink rang, and Mr. Johnson’s face was on it. She groaned internally, and flicked the comm on. “Acid here, what can I do for you Mr. Johnson?” “Listen, a contract just came over my desk, and you’ve done so well I’ve decided to help you, for a small fee.” “You want me to pay you blind for information?” “Yeah, I do.” “How much?” Acid gritted her teeth, they had spent most of their creds getting ready for this mission.” “100,000 nuyen.” Acid balked, “100,000 we don’t have that kind of money.” Remi and Gina looked at Morgan with wide eyes, maybe if we pooled all our money together. She thought, “Can you hold for a minute.” Mr. Johnson seemed to have a smile in his voice when he said “No problem.” The group quickly discussed their finances, if they pooled every penny they had, they would just be able to pay Mr. Johnson’s exorbitant fee. Why would they though? Would the information be that important. Yes, they had decided. It was better to have the information, then to be stuck wondering what they were going to be warned about. Gina sent the money over to Mr. Johnson’s account. “Alrighty then,” Mr Johnson said, beaming, “about 15 minutes ago, I got a contract, a multi-family operation. The Yakuza, The Orcish Mafia, and Hollywood Corrections have pooled together a large pot of money for the head of One Morgan Zasz” Morgan felt the bottom fall out of her stomach, and nearly retched, they knew her real name. “They gathered enough money to hire real professionals, an Ex-Renraku hitsquad accepted the contract. I’m on the phone with them right now in fact.” Morgan gasped, and Remi cut the comms, “gently caress.” She said, and Morgan agreed with the sentiment. “Do you think he was tracking us through our comms?” Remi intoned. Morgan groaned and put her head in her hands. Lucy looked concerned, and Delarra curled up into the fetal position in the van. Remi plugged in her jack and the Van took off. They heard the soft thumping of chopper blades over their heads. Remi pulled onto the freeway, and tried her best to ignore it. There was loud thunk, and a hole was punched in the top of the van. A metal hook expanded and suddenly, there were bangs, as someone or something rappelled onto the roof. The van roof burned hot white, and Morgan readied herself for a fight. Through the molten metal a small canister was dropped, and the room filled with an acrid burning smoke. Their eyes teared, and they couldn’t breathe. Men wearing gas masks, and bright red armor plating came crashing through the top of the van, and all hell broke loose. Morgan rushed forward, grabbed one of them by the skull and used her magic to incinerate it, at the same time two men used shock gloves to incapacitate her. Lucy pulled out her monoblades. Only to met by a troll that was 8 feet tall. He whirled around and kicked her hard in the chest. She fell back smacking her head hard against the metal back doors of the van. Antonne rushed to Morgan and placed his hand on her back trying to heal her. One of the men pulled out an assault rifle, and started to spray inside the van. Sharp rips of metal appeared in the walls as they were torn apart by the explosive rounds, a huge fist sized hole opened in Antonne’s chest. Delarra ran to her side, and tried to put hands on him. He coughed up blood. She reached into her bag and pulled out a med kit. She filled the wound with bio foam, which clotted and fizzed. Antonne’s eyes rolled back in his head, meanwhile Lucy was fighting with the Security team 2 of them had to work together to lift Morgan’s massive frame into the helicopter. The flukes of the grappling hook retracted, and soon the team was gone. Remi worked fast, and the front panel of the van popped off, and Delarra started to try and heal Antonne. “No…” he said weakly, “Stop…” Delarra poured more and more magic into him, the wound slowly closing shut. She kept focussing, and her skin went pale, her lips turned slightly blue, and her eyes filled with blood vessels. “I won’t let them take you from me.” She said quietly pushing more and more of herself into the magic. Antonne’s eyes closed, and he stopped talking. His body was still warm, and still Delarra put more and more energy into the lifeless corpse. Blood vessels in her eyes broke, and slowly filled with the opaque red fluid, and still she pushed herself. She fainted. Her body jerked as the last of her magic drained, and white foam started to leave her lips. A hook fired out of the front of the car, and connected with the VTOL craft. The security team leaned out of the vehicle and fired into the van, the bullets crashing against the glass, tearing it apart. Gina kicked out the front panel, and fired her gun back at the flying craft. Lucy ran over to Delarra, and put her fingers on the woman’s neck. No pulse, they were both dead. Lucy jumped out of the broken window and climbed up the grappling hook, she started to climb towards the VTOL, the troll leaned out the window and started to fire at her. She swung hard on the grappling hook, pulling the VTOL down towards the Van. The troll fell out of the aircraft, and thudded hard onto the ground as the Van chewed the man up with it’s wheels, leaving a corpse that remarkably resembled a squished sausage casing. Gore littering the Freeway streets as traffic tried their best to avoid the gun battle. Gina grabbed her cyber deck and jacked in. She found an open node and tried to enter. Her avatar, a dragon with black teeth, and bright red claws slammed itself against the firewall, which took the form of an old school log fortress. She tried to load up her sleaze program, her dragon turning to mist looking for holes in the code to slip through. She felt her body be pushed back, and a lone samurai shined as it exited the fortress. It had a top knot, and bright white robes. It’s sword was black leather wrapped around a solid gold handle, the blade itself bright pink and glowing. It leapt towards the dragon, and Gina quickly switched herself to full VR. She loaded a program to smash the IC, and her dragon breathed fire on the man, her large avatar dwarfing the tiny samurai. The samurai leaped for Gina, and she pulled back instinctively, her flames cut short. She had a bad feeling and tried to jack out… Only to find that she couldn’t. There was a loud bang, and Morgan’s corpse was thrown off the vehicle, and it fell towards the bridge. Morgan’s body hit the ground and exploded ontop of some poor commuters car, the top of it caved in, and the car itself swerved into another, sending Morgan’s bits flying, spraying the rear window of the car hers had just hit. Gina tried to load her most powerful programs, her dragon blowing fire, and biting at the tiny samurai, who easily cut through her flames. It pulled back with it’s sword and struck deep into Gina’s chest. In meatspace Remi noticed that Gina’s scalp was nearly glowing hot white, and could smell burnt skin and brain. She reached over and quickly pulled the plug. Gina feinted, and Remi pulled the plug on the grappling hook, it retracted and Lucy, in her full fury still tried to climb it. It was no use, the VTOL quickly removed the grappling hook, and Lucy was quickly pulled back to the hood of the Van.The aircraft quickly flew away, and Lucy sobbed over Delara’s and Antonne’s corpses. Remi pulled over, and started to shake Gina’s body. Her brain pan was fried, they had no money, and their doctor was dead. She pulled open her commlink and made a call. She had friends on Amerindian lands, and she decided it was time to call in some favors. Lucy pushed the two corpses out of the back of the van, leaving them on the side of the road. They couldn’t be seen crossing borders with dead people, and it was going to be hard enough with the bullet holes, and exposed engine the van had now. They took Remi to a hospital, they grabbed a fake SIN off the matrix for her to use, and tried their best to get them medical care. The doctors were able to fix some of the brain damage, but the speech center of her brain was damaged, the doctors said with physical therapy, and some new cyberware, she’d be able to speak again with 90% functionality. Of course, both those things were out of Gina’s reach financially. The worst of it was that her cybernetic implant was fried. Without a replacement, she’d never be able to hack again. Her commlink still functioned though, and she was able to communicate via text. Lucy had no damage to her body, and didn’t need a hospital. She acted as muscle as the three of them travelled from Los Angeles to Seattle. The drive was long and arduous, but eventually arrived to their destination, the Salish Shidhe lands north of Seattle. It took them two days of driving to get there, only stopping for a moment’s rest, when Gina was too tired to drive. Their request for sanctuary was approved, as long as they turned in any weapons they had to the Salish Shidhe council, and Gina agreed to help repair vehicles and things around one of the smaller villages. Lucy never recovered from her grief over her lost comrades, and worked as a mercenary helping keep the Salish Shidhe tribes safe from the local creatures that preyed on the Amerindian population. She never found peace with what she had done, and had to do to keep her and her family alive. Lucy eventually died to a Hell Hound attack a few years later. Gina was eventually able to find a healer that could help her with her brain damage, but never was able to save enough money to fix her Neural Implant, her datajack was fused shut from the intense heat, and her DNI was non functional. Without BTLs her life for a short while felt empty and meaningless. She felt like she was nothing without her ability to hack, but lived a simple life helping Remi fix vehicles. Remi eventually found a nice Orc Woman to settle down with, and together they adopted 3 children, who Remi taught how to hack and program. Gina was revered for her abilities as a mechanic, and was able to earn enough money that all 3 of the girls were able to live their lives comfortably. They quickly became respected members of the community, and worked together in the cities of Salish Shidhe to create a better, more peaceful home. Gina fell in love with a council member on the Salish Shidhe, and lived a life of luxury. In the end, they were happy, while they never forgot those who had passed away, they did not mourn forever. Their lives were truly their own to live as they see fit.
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Oct 20, 2020 16:54
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