Causing Trouble

I've been playing with HeroForge lately, and made some reference images of some of the major characters; it's an awesome tool, and you should totally use it!

The first order of business was to take a look around the station. The station itself seemed to be built out of a number of ships, bolted together; rather than spinning, the station seemed to be using the gravity generators of the various ships. Upon entering the station (through a manual, insecure door), they encountered the station master, a gruff guy with a New Jersey accent. After they traded some of their (considerable!) goods for access to the ship, they started looking around. Air is actually fairly cheap to produce, but every penny counts... or in this case, every trade, because it seems the station simply doesn't use money. They convinced the station master that they were out-of-system miners, of some sort. He didn't really care.

Sil Jallah (made with HeroForge)

As they started to explore, a young woman latched on to the group, insisting that they would need a guide. She introduced herself as Sil Jallah; unlike most of the station folk, she seemed to prefer bright colors, including bright blue hair. Being a guide must make good money, as her clothes were a lot closer to "casual" than "rags". She walked them through the station, blithely ignoring the stares from everyone. It seems not a lot of people had seen power armor like that before...

As she lead them through the twisting corridors, welded scrap and loose junk blocking the way and filling the corridors, she explained the various groups. There were the humans, who made up most of the people on the station, keeping things running as engineers, doctors, and a lot of scrappers and miners, who collected asteroids or investigated wrecked ships for useful stuff. Then, there were the Modders - technically human, but often more machine than flesh, the Modders experimented with cyberware, piling mod after mod onto their bodies. Next were the Deaders - dead humans, animated by some new consciousness. Humans mostly avoided them, though the group ran into a few handing out holo-cards that invited anyone who wanted to come and live in the simple paradise of New Life Point. Sil seemed quite disturbed by the beings, who wore full body-covering suits. Last but not least, there were the Sylvan; quiet people that rarely interacted with the rest of the station, but as Sil put it, not the kind of people you want to hang around with much!

Linns

Eventually, she was called away, and Rodney ran into one of the Sylvan - literally. Her groceries went flying, and Rodney helped her clean up. She was quite different from Sil - quiet, shy, and preferring to keep her head covered with a simple hood. Her skin was so white, it was nearly transparent, and her gray eyes gave her an almost ghostly look. She wore simple clothes that matched the rest of the station a lot more closely. She introduced herself - at Rodney's prompting - as Linns. Rodney, bored of just looking around, and offered to escort her to her home. On the way, the group met a handful of Modders, who started harassing the woman. Rodney knocked one of them out as a warning, and when that didn't calm them down, started bashing heads for real; after killing the entire group, he woke the unconscious man up, broke his leg, then told him to report back to his leaders to leave people alone.

Finally, they reached the far side of the station; while the other two stayed outside the Sylvan area to investigate some of the equipment they tore off the dead Modders, Rodney headed inside. He experienced a rather painful headache, which turned out to be an attempt to read his mind. One of the Sylvan, a tall, painfully thin man, spoke with Rodney for a bit, finally asking if he would open his mind to them. Turns out, mind-reading makes you really, really distrustful of other people. Rodney allowed it, and the Sylvans got a front-row seat to Rodney's hammer-time extravaganza.

Outside, Elise managed to clean up the headgear she found at least well enough to determine the overarching purpose of it - some sort of frequency-damping that interacted directly with the brain. What it actually did was entirely unknown to her; it seemed to be part communication gear and part hardwired VR, though not the useful pieces of either.

Finally, the group headed back to the docks, and managed to hire a room at the only hotel in the station - a tiny, spartan room with 6 ounces of free water. Not exactly a lot to go on, but at least it has enough space to comfortably sleep, and store their armor.

The next day, Rodney left to visit Linns again, though sadly she was busy. She offered to meet him that evening for a meal, though.

As they were heading back, Sil caught up with them, looking worried. It seems the Modders were not exactly happy about the deaths, and since the Modders were essentially the station's military, that could cause some serious problems. She suggested maybe spending a little time off the station.

Gesh Darksider (made with HeroForge)

Down at the docks, they met a miner named Gesh Darksider, captain of Darksider's Folly, a mining and cargo ship. It seems that he'd made a scrapping run, and come back with another ship, one that he was having trouble paying for - the station master needed paid up front, not on a promise of later funds from the sale of said ship. The only part of the ship Gesh wanted was the jumpdrive; he was willing to sell the rest off for a good price, and would even let someone test drive it for 24 hours if they would just pay the berthing costs.

After some considerable haggling, the group paid the fee, and took a look at the ship. It was in fairly good repair, and apart from a damaged energy converter, seemed space-worthy. They haggled some more, and eventually ended up with a new-to-them corvette-class ship, stripped of weapons and devoid of power, but otherwise in excellent shape. The suit, meanwhile, went into storage at the hotel, with an agreement that the group would have three days before the suit went anywhere.

Small, powerful, and bald as Rodney!
(made with HeroForge)

Rodney, meanwhile, went on his date with Linns (sans power armor, as the Modders were looking for someone in power armor); the food was good, and she really seemed to enjoy his company. After they ate, he was walking her back to her place, when they heard another group of Modders! The two quickly ran back the way they came, only to come face to face with yet another Modder, this one wearing some sort of weird metal mohawk. After the first round of combat, Rodney laid down some serious hurt, but the Modder juiced up with whatever weird fluids were in his mohawk, and came back stronger than ever! Rodney managed to batter him into oblivion, sending him to the Scrubbing Bubbles of Hades, just as the rest of the Modders caught up to them. He had called his own friends, however, and they were nearly there. However, before Rodney could react, Linns conjured some sort of lightning between her hands! She stalked towards the Modders, and as she reached each one, they died, screaming. Finally, she cut the lighting off, and pointed a single quivering finger at the last surviving Modder, a fellow with a metal cap similar to the one Elise dissected. As the Modder started to take a step forward, she growled out a single word: "No!"

The Modder turned and fled, just as Nix and Elise arrived. Linns turned, took Rodney's hand, and said, "Let's go."

She made it another two steps before her legs gave out, and she fell. Rodney tried to carry her back to her place, but she (feebly) refused, asking that he take her back to his place, instead (oy, get your mind out of the gutter, she has a good reason!). Rodney considered asking for assistance from any mercenaries in the market, but realized he had nothing to pay them with but his hammers, which were a sight too dear to part with. He returned to his hotel room, and donned his power armor, staying vigilant while Linns slept.

Meanwhile, Nix and Elise got to work, removing and replacing parts from their new ship. Their old ship was barely more than cryo pods, an energy converter, and a jump drive, bolted to a frame; the jumpdrive was installed in the new ship to replace the one they took out as part of the deal; the energy converter slotted into the space that the damaged one had occupied. The cryo pods actually fit in one of the spare crew rooms, so if they needed to make a long jump, they had the means. They jumped the ship with almost all of their power reserves - spare batteries and suit power - and got it close enough to the tiny red sun to begin refueling. It took a full 24 hours to refuel, during which time they made a few scans of the system and rested up. They returned to pick up Rodney, and ended up taking Linns as well - she was still woozy, but agreed that it would be a lot safer for her and the other Sylvans if she would come with them. It seems she had some business on some other stations, as well.

12 hours of repair work (one long day instead of the three it would take most people!) and 24 hours of refueling put the group 36 hours into the 72 agreed-upon hours before the suit was the full property of Gesh; hopefully, the team will be able to salvage some other equipment worth enough to buy it back - and soon!

Into the Maze

The knife, as it turned out, is a small, inconspicuous cyberdeck; it can't be upgraded, but it does allow hacking computer systems at a +2.

Nix managed to get into the air duct unseen, thanks to the Red Queen's distraction - a huge gasoline-fueled fireball, followed by some - if you'll pardon the pun - guerrilla warfare, as the red apes kept up small arms fire on the guards.

The trip through the air ducts was fairly simple; once Nix reached the AC system, he lobbed a grenade into the system, and climbed out the hole. He made his way out to the hallways, and managed to avoid the guards until the last corridor. There, using the spy drone he got from Rodney, he distracted the guards, and was able to get past and open the outside door.

Outside, Rodney engaged the two guards at the door, and quickly, er, subdued them. Back in the hallway, the two took on the other guards, and cleared a path: Nix, laying down some non-violent sonic shotgun blasts, and Rodney, killing even the guards Nix knocked out. Up a set of stairs, the pair ran into a little trouble - a beefy War Bot and two human fighters. The War Bot managed to land a couple wounds to Rodney before he caved in its chest.

On the second floor, they found an office, not too far from a armored room marked "Security Office". After some careful discussion, the two decided to try a bit of a con. They waltzed into the security office, and Rodney attempted to convince the deck sergeant that he and Nix were black ops agents, sent to reinforce those there. The desk sergeant wasn't exactly someone who "convinced"; he listened, followed orders, and didn't make decisions. The security commander was summoned, and lead the two into a room "for discussing". The two happily followed her into the interrogation room, not even stopping when she slammed the door shut behind them...

She had a few questions, such as what happened to the war bot and the guards, or the AC vent, or indeed why they were there. Nix left the talking to Rodney; Rodney, meanwhile, attempted to intimidate the commander by... licking the interrogation room's doorknob.

After a bit of waiting around, the commander returned with two guard-bots - war-bots equipped with crowd control and non-lethal weapons. Rodney launched into them; Nix knocked out the commander, then headed for the vehicle laser. As the desk sergeant tried to engage it, Nix dove for the laser, hacking into it with the knife they found earlier. As Rodney went toe to toe with the two bots and the commander, Nix battled the hardened laser, never quite managing to take it over, but very effectively managing to keep it out of the fight. And knocked out the two guards, as well.

Rodney, meanwhile, held his own with the bots. After getting zapped several times, he was really, really hurting. He was missing hits as the two bots tag-teamed him, but finally, he managed to take them down, bashing the chest in on one, and crushing the skull of the other. Beaten to within an inch of his life, he staggered over to the desk sergeant and added a new hole to his torso.

The laser no longer fighting the hack, Nix zipped over to the computers, and restarted his hacking from there, finally successful in taking it over. Rodney, noting Nix was busy, decapitated the commander, and stuck her head on his vibro-spear. Then, he had Nix download the security tapes, for his own personal library.

After trying to add some smart targeting, which failed, they hid behind the desk and turned the laser to shoot anything that moves. The first few guards didn't make it; they opened the door just as the guards rushed in, and the two bounced into the room and were immediately turned to Swiss cheese - though a little melty. Behind them, two war bots tried to rush the room, and were incinerated by the laser. More guards tried to rush the room, tossing in grenades, but the explosions didn't do much to damage anything or anyone. Finally, two heavily armed guards rushed the room; one ricocheted a grenade into the room, while the other stayed out of the line of fire of the laser, and lobbed a fireball into the room. That did some damage!

Realizing there wasn't much for it, Rodney bull-rushed the door. He raised his hammer, hit the flamethrower guy, and... it bounced off.

Rodney took a deep breath, raised his hammer... and slammed the flamethrower out of the man's hand! Nix followed up by launching a quick sonic-shotgun attack, taking out the marine next to him. Between the two of them, they took out the flamethrower fellow, as well as the two lighter-armed men behind them.

Finally, they returned to their main task: rescuing the Mayor.

In the Mayor's office - you know, the room next to the security office - they frightened the living daylights out of a junior lieutenant. They freed the Mayor, and got him to the first floor, where he was able to escape - but not before handing off a holo-map. Next they headed to the main event: the maze under the city.

The maze is a hive of passages, gleaming and white, light shining through the translucent walls, floor, and ceiling. The holographic map pointed the way ahead, seeming to double back, twist around, and generally not follow the rules of linear travel.

The destination ended in a room with metal walls, solid stone floor, and a dark ceiling. In the center they found a diesel-punk fractal computer. After a bit of fiddling around, Rodney went exploring, and found a skeletonized corpse; he had a small holo-map, as well.

Using it to explore, Rodney realized that there was some... weird glitch. Following the map back to the room, it found... nothing but more hallways. Heading down a hallway, the map flipped, pointing back the way he'd come. As they later discovered, only the holo-map from the Mayor could locate the room - because without it, the room simply didn't exist! That explained the three skeletons they found, anyway...

Finally, they decided to give the computer a try. It started up, and on screens wrapping around the device (getting smaller and smaller as they went around), a single question blinked in green text on a black background:

Begin the Procedure? _

After much hemming and hawing, they finally pushed the green button, and the machine began its work... The walls melted away, as they were borne up into the city; they witnessed the denizens of the world screaming and running, melding into each other, morphing into new shapes, as the machine did its work. The machine - a fractal regenerator - converted the mass of the people, places, and things in the world into what they had once been: the Littlefinger!

Aboard the ship - though sadly lightened of many of their collected weapons, including the commanders head, but (much to Rodney's relief) not the tape of his massacre - they watched the ship's android take a blast meant for the Captain. As had happened once before, the ship's AI had done all it could to save the Captain and his pregnant daughter - but this time, 25 years had elapsed. The AI burned every last circuit to save its Captain, leaving nothing but a smoldering wreck.

However, just as the Littlefinger was reborn, and the revolt aboard put down, the Dark Horizons received a message from the mysterious Eliza:

All the pieces are in place. With the help of the Littlefinger, I should be able to delay the Entity long enough for you to complete your task. The Entity has yet to learn of your presence, though it has begun to suspect mine. Time is of the essence. I hope you and your crew are prepared; you will need all the help you can get. Bring the sample of Biothanata to the prison planet — and hurry. Spies are everywhere.

I will see you soon.

Eliza out.

The jump pod that delivered the message also had some physical cargo for the Littlefinger; a new AI, this one a military AI rather than a civilian one, one that wouldn't burn its circuits to save the ship.

Fear and Loathing in Lost Vegas

This writeup covers three sessions, which I've separated.

After the harrowing experience of the day before, the party once again turned to their mission at hand: finding a way inside. And, in fact, the way was just ahead - behind a crowd of nearly a thousand grey apes, who had built a village around the rocky entrance. Three stones jutted into the air, leaning together and leaving a wide entrance.

Rodney wasn't quite comfortable with fighting a thousand apes, so instead, he decided to step out and attempt to challenge them. In a booming voice, he called out various nonsense, ending with a threatening glare. The apes, meanwhile, has just been discussing the missing scouts, when a tall, terrifying creature stepped out and shouted at them, seemingly entirely unafraid. Most of the village immediately took off; the stronger guards held firm for a moment, but seeing the rush of a stampeding crowd pass them by, their will to stay and likely die quickly dried up, and they took to their heels.

The tribe would come back after only a few minutes, but by then, the party had already descended into the passage between the stones.

Down below, they noted various carvings and painting on the walls, of monsters and terrible disasters. However, many of the paintings were scratched out, and crude stick-men were added, usually attacking the monsters.

Eventually, they came to the end of the passage, which was guarded by two bandits in a jeep. Catching the bandits by surprise, the party rushed forward; in seconds, the gunner was dead (shot by Tevye), and the driver was bleeding out, his attempt at chucking grenades having failed miserably. Rodney jumped into the driver's seat and drove them out, somehow managing to keep the jeep fully intact.

Before long, they left the caverns through some kind of building, driving into the inside-out world. The descriptions of the area didn't seem to include quite so much rubble - whatever had happened here left the run down buildings outside the wall in even worse shape. Dark smoke rose from a fire to the left; the party wisely decided to avoid that area. Hoping to find a direction to travel, the crew set Ensign Soler on building a signal tracker from the jeep's radio. The result was crude, but useable; it pointed to the strongest signal, likely the direction of the city they were headed for.

On the way, they stepped into the middle of a brewing street fight - on the one side were a group of mostly humans, some in power armor, and on the other, a motley crew of droids and very strange creatures - some were short, some tall, some had three or four arms, or any number of legs. Memory of the logs told Nix that these were Symbiontoids - each creature wasn't a single being, but a collection of parts: their "skin" is a tough creature that wraps around the "digestive system", which supports the "splanch modules", little more than bones and muscle, and all controlled by the brain, the "person" behind the collection.

The party decided to carefully make their way past the Symbiontoid group. Once the crowd had thinned, Rodney approached one of the creatures wearing slightly better armor, and in the spirit of friendliness and peace, handed it a grenade. The creature freaked out, and hurled the grenade away - directly into the crowd, as it turned out - then yelled in panic for everyone to get out of the way. After much shouting and diving for cover, everyone realized the grenade was a dud. Rodney, ever helpful, was quick to point out that the creature was the one who dangerously threw the grenade... then, once the crowd turned against him, calmed them down and told them he'd take care of things. Then intimidated the already panicked creature, who was all too willing to help now that he wasn't going to be lynched. 2nd Lt. Bbbbbubbbbles, who has three spawnlings, gave them directions and a pass they could show any other members of the Symbiontoid Hivemind.

Following the directions, they made better time getting to the city; when they were drawing near, a human waved them into an alley, and offered to smuggle them into the city. He, as well as two grays (tall, gray-skinned fellows who show no emotion in voice or action), a droid, and a very large Symbiontoid carrying two large weapons, ushered them towards the city. Once they were away from prying eyes, the guides turned on their guests. During the battle, Ensign Soler chucked an EMP on the droid, and shut it down; Rodney went toe to toe with the Symbiontoid, and barely won out. The two blue apes went for the greys and the human; one of the apes was killed, but they managed to pin down the enemies long enough that Nix was able to blast them from the sky. They collected a few items from the corpses:

• An energy spear; STR + d8, AP4; consumes the charge of one normal battery per battle
• A vibrosword, essentially a sword-shaped chainsaw, very loud; STR+2d6, AP 1
• An expensive-looking knife with hollow handle containing electronics and a dataport

As they finished clearing the bodies, a red ape slipped up, and palmed a map into Rodney's hand.

The map was a slight deviation from their current path; following it, they reached a locked door, which Rodney was unable to bash open, but Nix managed to pick quite handily. Inside was a fairly normal looking home - a living room/bedroom with a fold-out couch, a table with two chairs, a rug, and a wall-mounted terminal; a kitchen with a fridge and a stove, and a partially collapsed roof; and a cramped bathroom, with some basic first aid supplies.

After going over the area with a fine tooth comb, they discovered the terminal was hiding a secret - Rodney punched a hole through the front, and quickly realized that it was a fake screen, hiding a communication device inside... a communication device that was sporting an energy-spear-sized hole in it. Oops.

Irritated at their careful search not finding anything, Rodney and Nix next decided to trash the place, pulling open the couch and moving any furniture... and the rug, which hid a secret passage in the floor. Heading down, they found the space well lit. Most of the tunnel lead through earth and stone, but about halfway through, a wide area was obviously tunneled through the wall surrounding the city - it was much smoother, and obviously permacrete with steel rebar instead of natural stone. At the other end of the tunnel, they met up with the Resistance - mostly red apes carrying guns. Nix showed them the map, and the group escorted them through the city to a low, heavy-duty warehouse.

Inside, they met the Red Ape Queen, and a number of her group, including a doctor that healed up Rodney's wounds. She was overjoyed to see them, and briefly mentioned a prophecy that a group such as theirs would come and save their world. They spent the rest of the evening planning out how they would assault the Mayor's office, to rescue the mayor who was being held hostage by his second in command, known only as the Advisor - and to access the maze beneath the city, and activate the device that the Red Queen could not.

The plan was to have the Queen and her apes cause a distraction, leading some of the guards away from the office, and leaving an opening for Nix to slip inside an air duct, and hopefully find a way for everyone else to get inside the building.

HoloEarth and Unmasking Spies

HoloEarth

Venturing out into the dark emptiness of space, the crew reduces to skeleton shifts - everyone into cryo, apart from a scant few officers and only enough crew to keep the ship running.

Halfway to their destination, NOA picks up a solar system; diverting only takes a little time, enough to wake a few more from cryosleep. It's a blue-green planet, third from the sun, with a single moon. Confused and cautious, the crew hailed the planet; they had to try a few frequencies first, but they finally reached a compatible video frequency. A nervous-looking lieutenant (human!) answered the call; after a bit of back and forth, he realized that their call was from space; this seemed to come as a great shock, even more so when Julian claimed that they had traveled from a far-off system. Eventually, the party was invited down to the planet. Initially suspicious, the party decided to bring several Du'ul Tlak guards with them, as well as two fighters to escort the personnel shuttle. Julian was surprised and pleased to learn that there are a quite a few more ships than before.

The party (Julian, Kiri, Gus, and the guards) landed at a military base, and were greeted by a Gen. Jon Johann; after some initial shock - as it turns out, the humans of this earth had never met an alien before, or even left the solar system - the two groups put their heads together to figure out what was going on. It seems the "real" earth and this earth shared a similar history, right up to the arrival of two astronauts. The two had left earth in 1982 in a primitive form of cryosleep; they arrived back on earth (or so they thought) in 2077. Gus wondered if perhaps the whole world was fake, controlled by an AI. Julian had a history of the earth loaded onto a tablet, and a scientist looked through, verifying details; he noted that their histories diverged in 2077, at the arrival of the astronauts.

Meanwhile, the ship had been scanning the planet carefully, and had discovered some strange anomalies. They asked Gus to hit something, and measure the results; he did, and his results matched the finding of the ship: the planet was, indeed, controlled by a computer! Vast parts of it was made up of some sort of hologram. Julian asked if there was somewhere to do some testing - namely, firing some big weapons. The general agreed to the test, and fired a few large rounds. The results seemed to be completely normal... and then Julian ordered an orbital strike. Boom! The results from that was certainly conclusive! The party returned to the ship, with the copy-earth scientist on board. One well-aimed shot later, and the computer system was fried - no more holograms. In fact, no more a lot of things! The scientist, as it turns out, was real, but only a few thousand more humans actually were. Julian, in a rare moment of clarity, wondered if perhaps shooting things wasn't the best idea. He quickly came to his senses, however.

A careful dig through the fake planet resulted in only a little more information - AlSec had created the planet, and had been stocking it with people; however, they had tried to move the planet through jumpspace, and has lost it. The planet somehow found its way out through the crack, drifting through space for hundreds of years. However, it seems a creature or organization known as the Entity has been directing AlSec...

Unmasking the Spies

Back aboard the Oncoming Storm, the party had barely made it into jumpspace before more trouble started. Jenny Ovensen, the ex-Norsup engineer, got into a fistfight with Zayd Nejem, a security guard. Though the other guards were originally on Nejem's side, the tables quickly turned when he blurted out his true allegiance - the Jihadist Crusaders! He quickly regretted his decision when the security chief, Lr. Alexy Bogomolov. He interrogated the prisoner, happy to be allowed to use any means at his disposal. Zayd didn't know of any other JiC on board (they aren't known for communicating with each other well), but he did know there must be other groups.

Kiri attempted to calm the growing crowd, and only made things worse; it wasn't long before the whole ship knew there was a spy on board, and others that hadn't been discovered. And what do you do when there are spies on board? A witch hunt! And a lynching! Or lots of lynchings!

One spy stepped forward - Lucia Belo, who had been with the ship from the beginning as a civilian, outed herself as a corporate spy for L20, and offered her assistance. She was allowed to go free - L20 was unlikely to hurt anyone, and she was actually a fairly useful part of the crew.

Julian, realizing that Zayd would say anything, and knowing that a lynching would be bad for morale, decided to throw a party - dancing, food, and above all, drinks. The party then wandered through the various cliques that formed, and ratted out a few other gang members. Two privates, Fred and Georgia Zellen, ratted on each other; it turns out they were low level AlSec plants, picked up before the freeing of Earth. Chad Tocher, a fighter pilot, was discovered by Julian - also AlSec. Dr. Sanjit Joshi, meanwhile, was hunted down by Kiri her her invisibility suit; she heard him muttering about working for Empire. He was given a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to, but otherwise he seems to have been left in peace. Well, after Kiri stopped tormenting him, anyway.

Another Empire spy was found, as well: Nikita Mercik, a shuttle pilot. She, too, was released.

Finally, Kiri kidnapped one final spy: Judas Pinkley, who had been getting into some fights recently. Kiri tied him down, and dunked him in freezing cold water... though neglected to actually ask him any questions. For her part, Kiri was given a slap on the wrist, and told to stop harassing people; Pinkley, however, was sent to cryo as the JiC spy he was.

That done, the last of the spies had been outed; however, that is not the end of this writeup. Oh no...

Before rounding up the last of the spies, Gus decided to give dancing a whirl. And whirl he did, with 4 raises on a skill he had no points invested in! His amazing display captivated the audience, and earned him a free d4 in dancing. Fancy!

These missions may not have had much fighting in them, but trust me... next session should make up for that. Oh yes it shall... you can't see it, but I'm gleefully rubbing my hands together, while laughing malevolently!

Murder, Mayhem, and... MmmExplosions?

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!

Book 2, Part B

Welcome once again to the Shifting Horizon blog, or as I like to call it, "Let's kill everything the GM throws at us before it has a chance to shoot back." Your time is coming, guys... your time is coming.

First, introductions; unbeknownst to the others, two more crew members were sent by acting Captain Grainer to help out; the followed behind the others, arriving at the mayor's office just behind them: an android engineer named Gadget, and a female Kchk'Trrs - a medic, finally. And also a pacifist. How she got on this ship, I'll never know. Anyway, they joined Gus the android and Kiri and Julian the humans to talk with the mayor, a pleasant man who didn't seem upset when the Kchk'Trrs drank half his liquor cabinet...

The mayor had a problem, and had been watching the crew long enough to see that they were quite capable. A gang had been forming, starting fights and getting people hurt; people were worried. They were mostly outside the city proper, so he couldn't get to them. And speaking of which... he handed out maps:

If you click the image, you can zoom in - it's pretty big. They began in the purple building in the very center, the mayor's office. The mayor offered them $1000 each to stop the criminals. Of course, rather than jump into action, the crew decided to actually hang out and shop first. Kiri, still wounded, went to the hospital (in red, #14 - the trapazoid); in a thoughtful act, the medic purchased a card, some chocolate, and some flowers, and had them sent to Kiri's room. Meanwhile, the two androids went exploring, hoping to buy some gear; they had little luck. They did, however, get rejected from touring Science I (#20), the grey's laboratory, though they were able to get a quick tour of the Ralva Tech Center (#22). Poor Gus was shown an AI science lab, and the trauma of seeing (and hearing!) the injured AIs gave him a major phobia - he won't be able to see disassembled robots without reliving that traumatic experience. He's going to need some major repair work, I think... However, the medic received a quest from some symbiontoid scientists, as well as a biology lesson: Symbionts are actually a symbiotic collection, made up of:

• The brain, the only sentient part of the body, which controls the rest through electronic nerve pulses;
• The skin, a form-fitting lump of a creature;
• The circulatory system, a toxin-filtering plant;
• The digestive system, a nutrient-expelling omnivore;
• And the splanch nodes, something akin to a slug that can grow coral, used as bones and muscles.

The scientist wanted the group to fetch a number of each (non-sentient) creatures for further study, hoping to grow them in a laboratory setting; it was much easier than shuffling off to the forest every time someone had a baby.

The next morning, all four trooped over to visit the Queen of the Apes. Kiri attempted to communicate with some outside, perhaps trying to become the next Jane Goodall. No such luck.
Inside the court was cool and beautiful, and filled with red apes scurrying around on one task or another. They were lead into the queen's chambers, where she was seated on a huge puff-ball of flowers, nearly immersed. Her face was much more human than the other apes; as the crew would soon learn, the queen controlled the other apes through a psychic link. Only queens and short-lived males were intelligent; the drones were part of an animal-like hive mind. Unlike the other red apes, the queen was quite human, and spoke clearly. She greeted them warmly, and stood to welcome them. As it turns out, the ape queen did enjoy the customs of the other apes, in that she wore no clothing. To make it worse, she had the kind of radiant beauty that transcends the boundaries of race... Gus and the medic managed to keep their eyes front, and most likely will receive medals; Gadget, entranced by the, uh, symmetry, prolonged his gaze somewhat longer than strictly polite, while Kiri... sigh. Kiri barely managed to keep from tripping over her own tongue, lolled out on the floor. When the Queen touched her shoulder, she felt a psychic touch as well, and obsessed over it for the next hour. Meanwhile, the queen asked if the group (she too had seen their work on the surface) could assist her.
When a red ape dies, the queen gathers its consciousness to herself, then implants it in a dormant egg, which births a new red ape; however, her children had been vanishing - not only did she not know where they were, physically, but she could not feel them through her psychic connection. Each time a red ape went missing, she felt a piece of herself vanish. She pointed them to the north-east corner of the city; the medic almost immediately decided it must be the grey's lab they were kicked out of earlier. Kiri managed to come to her senses in time to begin asking more and more intrusive questions, culminating in asking the queen to place a red ape personality into herself; the queen firmly denied the request. Even if it did work, the act would destroy Kiri's mind. Kiri was crushed, but vowed to find a way to renew that psychic bond she felt. However, she did ask for more resources, using the queen's connection to the mayor to beg some more money. Sigh. Murder hobos, indeed.
For those of you keeping score at home, this is three quests, zero action thus far.
As soon as they left, Kiri and Gus went to get outfitted, purchasing ungodly amounts of explosives, knives, and so on. Gadget and the medic investigated Science I; as the android annoyed the secretary, the medic crawled into an air vent and crept about, eventually managing to get a picture of a cage, with some red fur just visible. However, before she could return the way she came, she saw two guards heading towards the entrance; she turned around, but made enough noise to alert another guard. Scrambling to get out of the way of the guard's laser rifle, she called over comms for Gadget to create a distraction. Gadget took off running at top speed, leaving the guards in his dust, and laid out 10 feet of blast wire behind him. As soon as the guards were in range - boom! Both were reduced to a pair of smoldering boots in a stunning double-homicide. He also trapped four guards in a room, which he hosed down with flames; two sustained burns. The medic managed to escape her pursuer, as the androids and Kiri met up outside. Bolstered by the medic's picture of something vaguely red, the three decided to murder basically everyone. As they approached the door where the four guards were still struggling to get out, one guard finally managed to bend the doorknob enough to wrench it open, and fired uselessly at Gus. Kiri, taking affront to this, nuked them all with a sonic-tipped arrow, knowing it wouldn't injure the android.
As it turns out, the red fur was not a red ape, but a red ape skin - though they didn't know it, it was donated to science by the red queen, and had nothing to do with the abductions. No matter! The four found an elevator and rode it down to the lower floor, where they were met by six guards. Six slow guards... somehow unable to surprise the group, the guards were so slow on the trigger than Kiri blew up three of them, Gus hit two more with a sonic grenade, and Gadget incinerated another with his handheld flame-thrower, leaving... oh wait, that's six.
As Gadget freed the caged red apes they discovered, Kiri menaced one of the scientists cowering in the back corner until he spilled the beans; they were hoping to clone the apes into mindless servants to run the city, operating from funds provided by an anonymous grant. The cages that cut off the psychic link were incidentally using the same power supplies that Gus and Gadget found at the tech center... Coincidence?
The red apes freed, the heroic crew talked among themselves, trying to decide if they should murder all the surviving grays. As it turns out, the red queen had her own ideas, and asked them to leave; more red apes were waiting above, having rounded up the other grays on the surface.

For saving all the apes, but mercilessly killing all the guards, the group was awarded 4 XP; tune in next week, as the group slaughters indiscriminately, and still managed not to be locked away! Probably!

Book 1, Chapter 5: Whodunnit?

To begin, I offer two quotes, taken out of context:
Julian, about Dr. Lundquist: "Now I really wish I knew what she keeps up her dress."
Also Julian, also about Dr. Lundquist: "I tell the android to interface with her data port."

This was an amazing session. We had three people join as we were playing, so things were a little disjointed at first as everyone tried to get up to speed. Still, it all came together in the end. And how!

At 3:36, Frosty went to visit Dr. Becly, the jumpspace scientist from the burning planet. Frosty visits frequently, as he mentioned, discussing jumpspace. The guard at the door knocked for him, but there was no answer. The guard explained that they had brought the wrong food yesterday morning, and the grumpy doctor had gotten upset, refusing his lunch as well; "So, he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't get to eat."
Frosty entered the room; Dr. Becly was dead! He alerted the captain, who decided there would be a heading that night at 8 pm, where the most guilty party would be locked up. He instructed the available crew, at the time Julian and the android, to search for the killer. They began in the room; the med techs placed the time of death at 3:18 am, and the cause of death as a single surgical strike to the kidneys with a mono-filament blade. The guard, meanwhile, were devastated; somehow, the killer slipped in and out under their noses without them seeing a thing.
Julian and the android searched the room, and found a top, a notebook missing some pages, and the lack of another book, as well as the data pad with all the jumpspace research on it.

Next, they combed the security footage, and found an anomaly - a shadow. They followed it down the halls, and eventually to the civilian dining hall around 3:30 am, where they eventually lost it in the morning diners, just before 6 am.

The next step they choose was to interview the diners; the engineer, Lucia Belo, was there all night, working on some math, but didn't notice much. Jiahao Wong, physicist, arrived around 5, but was preoccupied and didn't see anything. The cybernetics doctor, Dr. Theresa Lundquist, was the next in, at 5:30 am. She did see the invisible shape, but thought it was just her eyes playing tricks. Finally, Mark Grenson, pioneer, aided, not long before 6. He didn't see anything, but he was acting suspiciously; enough that Julian took him to the crime scene. He didn't know the crime had even occurred. Tina Fey, having finished some more boring jumpspace calculations, arrived, and pulled Mr. Grenson aside. Her good cop might have been a little more flirty than she intended...

The end result was a few tantalizing clues, but nothing solid. Back to the drawing board... luckily, word came from the med techs about something suspicious: a crew member, Jenny Ovesen, was found unconscious by the garbage area near engineering. She refused to answer any questions.

As it turned out, she and Julian knew each other; they grew up in the same area. Last Julian had heard, she was mixed up with the wrong crowd. After a bit of prying, Julian managed to get her to confess - she was part of NorSup, the drugs and human trafficking gang. She knew of another NorSup member, as well: Mark Grenson.

Exposed, Mark caved, but still knew nothing new about the murder.

After still more questioning, Jenny admitted that she had retrieved a package - a backpack - and ran it through a scrubber. She was supposed to leave it, but stayed, and got tazed from behind.

Another dead end, it looked like. Worse, the guards were running their own investigation, and Frosty, the android, and K'Aps were at the top of the list.

Things looked grim, at least until the group had Jenny look for matching gear; nothing on the ship, but a network search located a match: it was a ghost suit. Another guard, Rein Stroble, remembered an assassin and thief who used such a suit: code name Breathe.

At this point, it was just after 5 pm; with only the hours left, the crew split up and started searching rooms for any clues. Julian found something in room 5, right next door to the murder victim: a holographicly disguised box, with a notebook and data pad! And in the shower, a fragment of changeling skin, a ready made disguise. Now sure that Botty, the poor botanist, was the killer in disguise, the group converged on the man; Tina tried to talk with him, but Julian went straight to the point, trying to shove him in the water. He failed, but K'Aps managed; Botty came out of the water mad as a, well, wet hornet.
The android saw a flash of movement, and he turned to see a man hiding in the bushes; he did not recognize him. Breathe! The crew quickly engaged; the speedy Breathe pulled a sonic pistol and a laser SMG and opened fire, but missed (thanks to a discarded token). Breathe shook off a shaken status, then discarded a token to shake off another. K'Aps moved in to stab him, but ran into a quick counter attack - luckily, it missed. The personal forcefield on Breathe kept him alive; the next round, he managed to wound K'Aps, but took a shaken that he just couldn't get rid of. The others leaped at the chance, and with a really lucky roll, the android added two wounds. Julian finished him off.

The medics managed to stabilize him, bringing him into custody. Behind them came a guard - Jenny had been attacked in her cell, and is in critical condition. Breathe had tried to tie up that loose end only minutes before the battle.

Breathe down for the count, and a gang member behind bars, and still two hours from the deadline. Not bad for a days work.

But what was Breathe doing during the investigation? Where did his ghost suit end up? And why was he going after that data, especially now?

Governments and Gangs

United Earth Alliance

The UEA is the governing body of humanity. It has more power than the United Nations or the European Union, but it does not interfere in individual countries unless requested, or if it sees a dangerous problem. At least, that's how it works in theory.

In truth, while the UEA may not hold much power in Earth's solar system, it is far more powerful on other systems. A few larger systems like the Nahundi System, the Seginus Cluster, or the Kchk'Trrs homeworld of the Omega Parada System rule themselves, but most planets, even the Pentacus System, fall under the thumb of the UEA. And the smaller the system, the harsher the rule. Powerful and corrupt, the UEA still manages to put up a clean, cheerful demeanor, at least to the more powerful systems. Travel between planets is as rare in 2750 as it is now on Earth; only a tiny fraction of the population travel from world to world, and even then mostly on business, or to a resort, where the true mark of the UEA is rarely present.