Welcome once again to another episode of "Screw it, let's just kill everything," with our host GM. As our adventure begins, Julian rejoins the group, which now consists of Julian, Nae, Kiri, Gadget, and Gus. The party finally together again, the first thing they decided to do was split up. Typical.
First, Kiri and Nae decided to venture off into the jungle to collect Symbiontoid parts, They made a quick detour to ask the Red Queen for a couple apes, and she was more than happy to oblige. A good notice roll found the skins right off; into the bag, and away they went. The circulatory plants were also easy to locate. They found a large group of adult splanch nodes guarding 15 babies, and made short work of them with a well-placed sonic grenade. Those things are really useful! One last creature managed to shrug it off, but a couple arrows from Kiri brought it down. Splanch nodes in the bag, the last thing to grab was a pair of digestive slugs. Unlike the others, the slugs proved to be rather nasty creatures; one went down fast, but the other managed to slither close enough to get a good bite on Kiri - bad news! Splashing acid over her armor and into her eye, the slug managed to drop Kiri in a matter of seconds! And worst of all - no chips! Kiri was saved by her friend, who sacrificed a chip to give another chip to Kiri. This roll did much better, resulting in a temporary blindness. Quick intervention of the red apes got the slug off of Kiri, who was healed quickly by Nae, blindness and all. The slugs taken care of, the duo returned to the scientists, who were overjoyed by the delivery.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group - hereafter known as the "murder hobos" - followed a clue from the mayor about a bar outside the city. After witnessing a rather horrific fight between four grays, they interviewed the bartender, who directed them to the gang's hideout - about a block from the black market. This being the crew of the Shifting Horizon, of course, their first course of action was to attempt to blow up the black market, assuming that was the hideout. Of course, it wasn't; spy-holes caught them laying their explosive cord, and proceeded to warm them off via a pair of heavy machine guns. When that didn't work, battle was joined; a hidden flamethrower shot out of the building, hitting Gadget and Julian. After a brief skirmish with the bouncer, rounding the corner, Gus waited until his buddies were away from the building, and threw a demolition pack at the building. Oh yeah. Because the first thing we always want to do is blow up EVERYTHING. Sigh. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention - there was also some 50 feet of det-cord laying around. Yeah.
So, not only was the building actually damaged, but the machine guns were destroyed, as was the flame thrower. Not content with blasting one side of the building, they then went around the other side and wrapped a bunch of explosives, including a vehicle mine and another demolition pack, around the door. Then sent the door through the building. Then looted said building, ending up with armloads of explosives, guns, melee weapons, and other such useful items. No power armor, though they did find a very fortuitous shield generator, worth half a million bucks. Ugh. Why do I roll so well for loot, but terribly in battles?
About this time, Kiri and Nae joined the rest of the group; Kiri packed up some of the new loot and headed back to the hotel, but the rest decided to attack the gang, which was now on high alert. With Gadget on overwatch, Gus the giant robot carrying the shield generator, Julian ready to lay out some serious pain, and Nae standing by to heal anyone, they launched their assault. The enemy consisted of a big boss in battle armor, two bodyguards, four wildcards, and eight mooks with negligible armor.
In the first round, one well-placed EMP grenade took out the shield; it did its job, though, keeping the other electronics safe. Two more EMPs were fumbled - yes, that's right, two ones - landing inside the enemy building. Luckily for the baddies, there wasn't anything near enough to be damaged...
After trading some ineffectual bullets back and forth, Julian rushed the building and managed to land a sonic grenade inside, taking out a couple mooks, while Gus managed to fire two heat-seeking rounds into the enemy building, wounding one of the wildcards inside. Nae, right behind Gus, managed to taser two of the wildcards who were trying to rush out, then one of the bodyguards; the other bodyguard got within striking distance of Julian... then didn't. Ones all the way. Ugh!
Mooks streamed out of the building, surrounding Nae, who had been laying them out with her taser; they swung, and missed, one after another, before Gadget nuked the lot of 'em with a portable missile. Boom, gone. Nae finished off the last one with a plasma round through the chest - pacifist, pah! Meanwhile, Julian was having no luck with his brand new disintegration rifle; it landed hits, but just couldn't get through armor.
Now the big boss was getting mad. He stepped out, keeping the building between himself and Julian, and let loose with a rapid-fire shotgun attack, firing slugs. Of course, Nae not only managed to soak all the damage, but managed to do it twice, one round after the other. Her luck ran out when a fumbled sonic grenade from Gus landed in front of her; she was knocked out. Finally catching a break, the boss stepped out and landed a portable EMP rocket in Gus's chest, knocking him out as well. The two wildcards left climbed out of the building to go after Julian; however, a lucky shot from Overwatch managed to nuke the power armor, slowing the boss down considerably. The boss dragged himself to the doorway, and flanked by his last remaining wildcards opened fire, nearly bringing Julian down; Gadget, having climbed down to join the fight at closer range, fixed the shield generator just in time, as Julian dragged himself inside. Between Gadget's flamethrower and Julian's grenades, they killed the two wildcards, and knocked out the leader. Whew!
Julian, desperate for his own power armor, ran over to open his prize... not realizing that a suicide mine was strapped inside. Now, a slight pause, here, to point out how my rolls happened. Sure, sometimes a slug nearly killed Kiri, or a mook nearly gutted Nae... but when it mattered? Nothing. BS rolls. This mine was a 6d6 mine; max damage 36, average damage somewhere around 21. And what did I roll, to hit the already-twice-wounded Julian? Four 2s and two 1s. Yeah. Enough to destroy the suit, but not a wound on Julian. Story of my life.
That said, the group did find a clue linking the gang to Du Gilkot, the mayor's adviser... as well as a second suit of power armor. Oh, and the randomly-rolled suit? Yeah. Awesome rolls. A heavy suit with flight and auto-targeting.
If I missed anything, let me know - but this was, as everyone agreed, certainly a battle to remember!
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