Christopher

you know what the ironic thing about being a super-hero is?
it's being treated like a CRIMINAL for wanting to
help the POLICE

That's the insta-teleport crystal.

New one up !
 
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1013.html

I just wish it didn't look so overtly phallic ...

Finishing up the A-Team:
 
While most of the hero and villain teams are trading blows, A-Bomb and Circe are basically standing off to the side, critiquing the battle and chit-chatting.
 
Pops:  (to Circe over Mind Link)  Last time, you spent the whole battle disguised as a bag lady and doing nothing.  Are you going to help us at all?
Circe:  Hey, I'm keeping A-Bomb busy.  You should be thanking me.
 
A-Bomb:  So, do you know if Honey Badger is available?
Circe:  (OOC)  Is he gay?
GM:  (OOC)  Are you going to ask him?
Circe:  (OOC)  Sure, why not?  (IC)  So, A-Bomb, are you gay?
A-Bomb:  Actually, I'm bisexual.  (grins)  Although I like to say I'm trisexual, because I'll try anything once.  (Looks Major Justice up and down while he's battling Augur)  Hmmmm... he looks interesting too.  (Circe)  Maybe you, me and the Major could have a little fun later on.
 
Malarky had researched Agrippa and found out that he is reportedly a direct descendant of famed 16th century German mystic Heinrich Agrippa and had supposedly found his great-great-etc-grandfather's secret journal listing many powerful magic spells.  Last time they fought, Agrippa had made Malarky's life miserable (flitting around the battlefield shrunk, locking Malarky in a mental entangle and then dispelling Malarky's spell giving defenses to his teammates).  So when Agrippa finally shows up, Malarky immediately moves up and attacks the mystic, blasting him from behind.
Malarky:  Well, now, lad, how d'ye like them apples?
Agrippa:  (CON-stunned and woozy)  Madre de dios!
Malarky:  Interesting German you're speaking there...
 
Circe sees a way of hurting the A-Team while also taking care of a little problem that Just Cause has -- namely, an earnest but destructive hero who is trying to join their team.
 
Circe (to A-Bomb):  You know, you're much more the heroic figure.
A-Bomb:  But every actor wants to play a villain.  It's a much better test of your acting chops.
Circe:  But think of the adulation of millions.  The fans, chanting your name and throwing themselves at you.  The endorsement deals...  I'll bet you could get a multi-movie deal out of it.
A-Bomb:  Hmmmm... you may be right.  Are you suggesting I join Just Cause?  Because I'd rather something closer to LA.
Circe:  No, you want a small team, where you could really shine.  Maybe a partnership... say, Major Justice is looking for a team.  You two could team up!
A-Bomb:  That is an idea...
Honey Badger:  (over Mind Link)  You've got to be kidding me.  Teaming up Captain Ultra-conservative with Super-Liberal.  That should be an... interesting partnership.  You are an evil, evil person. 
 
Of course, Just Cause won the day, capturing all the members of A-Team (though the New Gods got away without a problem). 
 
A few game sessions later, the following article appeared in the Hero.Net Herald:
 
 
 
New Heroes In Town
 
LA – A new two-man hero team announced their presence Friday afternoon in a major media event that included flashy demonstrations of their super-powers and in-depth interviews to all major networks. Flying brick Major Justice and energy projector Rad vowed to “bring sanity and safety to southern California.” 
     
Members of existing LA hero team Tech Knights could not be reached for comment.

Well, at the risk of repeating myself, I still see it like this:  these high-level (in game terms and political status) clerics did not stop at the local tavern en route to the meeting and call out "Any freebooter-adventurer-mercs in here want to earn a fiver by being a bodyguard for the afternoon?".  These bodyguards would, yes, be elite warriors, but more significantly, they would be devout followers of the god in question.  The clerics would let the warrior captain types choose their best.  From that pool the holy guys would review Sunday School attendance and other criteria ("Well young GruntBurp here is as devout as they come, but I think we should go with SparkleTeeth.  Have to put on a good presentation in front of the assembly)
 
So, I see these bodyguards as fanatically devout to their god and thus unswervingly loyal to his/her/its representative on the mortal plane.  The fact they each get a bodyguard at this convocation means, despite rules and regulations, there is a security risk.  SparkleTeeth's job #1 to protect the cleric of TinkleBells the Good.  If he charges off to help Roy, the cleric and bodyguard of TarSnot the Evil might work off a centuries-old feud on poor TinkleBells.  
 
Until SparkleTeeth is given the attack order, he'll do his job, no matter his personal feelings.

Looking back, I realized that I never posted about the A-Team at the PRIMUS base.  All of this takes place before the heroes ran into the Grief Tyrant and McGinty. 
 
The heroes arrived at the PRIMUS base to find the members of A-Team waiting either outside the building or just inside the open vehicle bay.  The heroes had brought Major Justice (NPC flying brick stick-in-the-mud who applied to join Just Cause) along just in case.
 
While the front-line fighters on both teams engage each other, A-Bomb (actor with radiation powers) zooms over to Circe and gestures at her costume.
 
A-Bomb:  Wait... is that a Versace influence I see?
Circe:  Yeah, you like it?  I designed it.
A-Bomb:  Tres chic.  Very nice.   I had to fly to Florence and kidnap Riccardo Tisci to do mine.  (Looks at the other heroes)  You had a hand in some of the other outfits too, didn't you?
Circe:  You have a good eye. 
A-Bomb:  I tried to talk some of my teammates into getting designer costumes, but they didn't want to be bothered.  I mean, look at Ankylosaur.  He thinks matte black makes him all badass.  Granted, it's better than that horrendous green-and-rust color scheme he used to have, but that all-black look is so 1990s.
Circe:  Um... are you planning to attack me?
A-Bomb:  Only if you attack me first.  Ankylosaur said to keep you tied up.  I told him, she seems much more the handcuff type.  But he so did not want to listen.
Circe:  But aren't you a villain?
A-Bomb:  (stage whispers)  Not really.  I just play one on TV.
 
One of the players reluctantly agrees to also run Major Justice.
 
Player:  But I don't know what he does.
Shadowboxer:  He's a FISS.  Flight, Invulnerability, Strength, Speed.  Your basic flying brick.
Honey Badger:  But he takes a lot of knockback.  I mean, a LOT.  If he takes a hit, he won't get hurt, but you'll take a while getting back to the fight.
Player:  How about personality-wise?
Honey Badger:  Self-righteous uber-hero.  Think Superman or Captain America with a major stick up his rectum.
 
Major Justice flies up to Auger.
Major Justice:  (loudly)  Halt, foul miscreant!  (strikes a heroic pose in midair)
Honey Badger:  (OOC) Nailed it!
 
(work is interrupting.  Hope to post more tonight)

I forgot to include the song Jrska was singing as she came in
 

Looking good for the EM Drive so far
 
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-latest-tests-show-physics-230112770.html

"Fantasy pest control.

GM: If it's fifty dollars to remove a dead animal from a trap, you could charge a hundred to remove undead creatures from a trap."
PC's doing pest control does have some level of tradition. Giant Rats are all the rage I heard.
Of course for this group you would propably need something like a nest of Were-Rats to be challenging.

Black Crusade : The Eighteenth Arcana
 
On the run from Scintilla, and the wrath of the Inquisition, space marines, Adeptus Mechanicus, imperial traffic control, and everybody that wants to carve off a chunk of the party's hide. Luckily for the party, the Obsidian Resolve's engines are raring to go, and the ship dives deep into Scintilla's gravity well as she makes her escape.

Skerrit: I'm probably not actually helping.
GM: No change there then.

Indeed, the engines are so efficient that soon they light up the nightside of Scintilla like daylight, and the ship is soon faster than anything else in the system - including the two cruisers moving to cut off their escape. Even so, it's a couple of days until they're far enough out to jump into Warp Space. They have have a little free time to discuss future plans. And ponder how the Inquisition can discover their interest in that remote star cluster, by checking the list of what was stolen. Eniek also ponders how those space marines actually managed to hurt him.

GM: Maybe you should reorganise your internal organs so they can't target vital organs. The standard recto-cranial inversion seems ideal.

He also intends to vivisect that captured space marine librarian into living wallpaper.

Eniek: His four lungs will be spread out and as he breaths you'll be able to watch the blood flow over to his brain.
Digna: Nice.
Daniels: I don't think I'll be going in the ritual room for a while.
GM: Lab.
Eniek: Bedroom.

Skerrit: I'm picturing Digna having a little Slaneesh and Tzeench on each shoulder.
GM: And one of them is humping her ear.

A lone escort ship at the edge of the Scintilla system managed to punch numerous holes in the heretic's vessel, before they heretic return the favour and coast on silent running out into deep space, and into the Warp. The Obsidian Resolves flees to the giant space Station of Port Wander, well ahead of the all-points bulletin demanding their destruction. After that, things don't run as smoothly. They don't have time to fix all the holes in their ship before they must move on, for one thing - ostensibly into the Koronus Expanse, actually the the Thirteenth Station, the only 'safe' way into the Screaming Vortex. And FTL travel in the 40K universe is never fun. Some Warp Phenomena are comparatively minor - the entire bridge catching fire while they're in it is less so.

GM: 'Is it just me or has the air con stopped working?'

Of course, not even nonspontaneous human combustion is going to hurt unstoppable cyborgs like Eniek and Digna. Both sit there and regard the flames with interest.



Daniels: This is the bridge speaking. Could you send a fire crew?

Digna: I like to think the fire only killed 2% of the crew - the rest bumped into Little Sister and triggered Mr Bubble's Red Mode.

Discussing the holy mysteries of special and general relativity.

GM: And you're in a warpstorm so that's all out the window anyway.

The Thirteenth Station, where somebody has taken tens of thousands of the usual freeze-dried corpses and bound them into a gigantic Glyph of the Black Angel, the personal sigil of the traitor Cassius from the previous campaign. Eniek gets to work inventing a ritual that will open passage into the Screaming Vortex, preferably without tearing the Obsidian Resolve in half. He succeeds in inventing one that doesn't even need hundreds of human sacrifices.

Eniek: I kick a rat out the airlock and say some nice words.
Skerrit: Please make it explicit that it's not me.
Eniek: It was a very propitious rat.
GM: Well, Khorne won't be pleased.
Eniek: Why?
GM: Not enough bloodshed.
Eniek: Sure there is - I injected the rat with nanogenics - its entire bodymass will be converted into blood.
Daniels: As will every floating body out there that the nanogenes run into.
Digna: Hopefully not the ones making up the sigil?
Eniek: .... probably not.

The gate opens, a ghastly fistula in space-time, and the ship moves forward to take refuge among the heretics and monsters of the Vortex.

Daniels: Well, what is there to see in the Screaming Vortex?
GM: There's that fleet of ships your previous PCs set to blockade the Gate. They're quite interested in this lone raider, with all the holes in its armour, that's just come into the Screaming Vortex.
Daniels: Oh dear.

Shadowrun 2070 : #OrcLivesMatter
 
Pregame chat, which covers many things, including the fact that Weldun has gaming cabinets only three hours younger than some of the players. Unrelated conversation.

Weldun: There's a reason I shaved my head back when I was doing security.
Poe's player: Yup. Don't put handlebars on your head.
Me: Unless you're a Khornate berserker.
Weldun: I'm glad I'm not playing Inkubus right now - he'd say something about seeing the advantages.

Oracle wants to start a company in Shadowrun, set up in the Ork Underground, making a cheap customisable car for Orcs and Trolls.

Ripper K: And since everybody will assume its a front, they'll be too busy to notice what's really going on.

Ripper K: I can picture myself doing the TV Ads.
Poe: No, somebody would recognise you. That would be bad for sales.
Ripper K: Not if I make a joke out of it. 'Plenty of room in the back'
Oracle: Nah, not for the runabout. Save it for the luxury models and RVs.

Me: Remind me, what's an anti-paladin?
Weldun: Not a nice person at all. In fact, they're probably the kind of people who would that that on their business card. 'Here's my card' 'what kind of person would have this on thei-' STAB '...oh.... I... See' *dies*

GM: Apparently Poe is 13, and ages at the same rate of an actual crow. MIDLIFE CRISIS BURD! MUST BUY BURD BOAT! MUST GO BURD SKYDYVINGOHWAITICANFLYF**K

The GM has doing some research on future adventures, and reading some jackpoint articles out loud to practice his RP skills.

Poe's player: *Comes in* You're talking to yourself again!
GM: I'm prepping for the adventure. And that was my Harlequin Voice.
Poe's player: F**k. F**k f**k f**k f**k F**K!

Weldun: I'm glad Bubbles never met Harlequin. If Harlequin explained who he was, Bubbles would never leave his apartment again.
Me: I think he'd be more annoyed that he'd lose more credibility with the conspiracy-sphere. He's already lost all credibility on the government conspiracies since he worked for the President.
Ocelot: If he started hunting down the rumours of immortal elves...
Me: And then one turns up at his door.

Ripper K: I've got a day job - Now I do high end porn.

Anyway - Shell has been missing for a month, since his odd reaction to meeting Greenlight. He's not the only one concerned - Shell's own contacts have been contacting us, too. One of them - a Japanese cyber-surgeon - fears Shell is sinking into the first stages of cyber-psychosis. And then we get a report of him in Japan.

Oracle: What the f**k? Did he walk???

Someone matching Shell's description attacked a Black Site. And then turns up at Oracle's hideout a week after that, wearing a ruthenium fibre cloak.

Oracle: Sunavabitch. You're one of the few people that pull that look off - your low thermal output plus that cloak can actually get past my security sensors.

Oracle: Were you in Japan a week ago?
Shell: Hello Oracle. I need your help. *displays his missing arm and half his face*
Oracle: So you were in Japan a week ago.

Oracle: I might need to hire the team. What's the rate for that?
Poe: Depends what you want us to do.
Oracle: Not sure yet. I might need you to raid a biotech company.

Oracle: Seattle really is the Emerald City. And look at the lovely green of Pungent Sound. I mean Puget Sound.

We get a videocall from the Orc fixer McAllister, who's hired us for a number of jobs lately.

GM: He looked pissed. Pissed off, I mean.
Oracle: Whatever it was, it wasn't us.

McAllister is so pissed off he doesn't sound remotely happy - no jokes, not even any runner slang.

Ripper K: Out-of-Character is Serious Business.

McAllister wants the teams help with a personal job. So, off to the Ork Underground again. There's lots we can discuss on the way - for example, Boots has considering getting Oracle a job with a legitimate company.

Boots: Let's consider a hypothetical - 'Why should we hire you?'
Oracle: Look at this way - do you want the mad scientist on the inside pissing out, or on the outside pissing in?

Shell is wearing a t-shirt he picked up in Japan. Its Engrish legend reads 'Never Be Game Over'.

Me: What ARE you doing over there?
Ocelot's Player: Trying to hit a moth.
Shell's Player: He can't hit it - it's size template is too small.

The Gold Mine bar explodes as we're going in.

Shell: Status Report!
Ocelot: I'm fine.
Shell: Ripper! Report! What's your status!
Ripper K: ....
Shell: Ripper! Report!
Ripper K: Just counting my legs... Still got two. Well, three, according to some.
Oracle: That's it, from now on everybody wears a biomonitor.

We hurry to locate, evacuate and triage the wounded - once again Oracle's medivac drone proves invaluable. As do our submillimeter radar equipment (for locating bodies in the rubble) and TacNet (for tagging the wounded with AR icons) and Ripper's backpack full of emergency medical supplies and tranq patches. And we get to use Shitkicker for his original purpose - exploring confined spaces. McAllister, incredibly, survived the explosion.

Ripper K: How?
Shell and Ocelot: Orc.

We hustle him into the medivac drone, which stabilises him and lets him regain consciousness long enough to text us over thought-mail.

McAllister: Dr What. Street Doc. The Narrows, east side. Then call Tosh. He knows details.

Our assistance at the scene, and all the TacNet info Oracle patches through to DocWagon and all the other emergency response services, will increase our public notice. But never mind, we're not the kind of shadowrunners who would just walk away. Ripper and Astronauta are soon fending off calls from those reporters, who have already recognised us from the footage at the Gold Mine.

Oracle: You're pretty recognisable. Especially to other Seattle luchadores. 'Astronauta Peligroso! Madre Dios! You are the reason I became a luchadore!'
Poe: 'Please Piledrive me!'
Astronauta Peligroso: 'I can't - the last person I did that too, his head exploded.'
Ripper K: 'Like a watermelon'

Oracle: It better not be the same Dr What that tortured Inkubus 20 years ago - he's dead.
Astronauta Peligroso: Extremely dead.

Dr What: What do you what? Who are you? *notices the medivac drone*
Oracle: Seriously? All those flashing lights and sirens and you didn't notice it straight away?
Poe: Well, in this part of town you learn to ignore sirens.

Dr What has neurological issues - he's forgotten pretty much everything but medicine. And will probably forget ever meeting us when we leave.

Poe: Can we keep his number? He seems useful.
Oracle: I've been needing a reliable doc - I want to get this datalock in my neck jailbroken.

Oracle: I'm not going to contact Shell's contact to tell him he's showed up. Shell can tell him himself.
Shell: Unless you called him a week ago, you won't be able to.
Oracle: I have a sneaking suspicion that Shell's medical friend is no longer among the living.

Oracle preps something useful for Dr What - a software agent with facial recognition, that will remind him who he's talking to. In return, he gets to find out of the datalock in his spine is reporting everything he does to the CIA. Oddly enough, it isn't. Which just leaves him more paranoid.

Astronauta Peligroso: We might want to inject that software agent directly into What's brain.
Oracle: Nah - let's not mess with his neural architecture any further.
Ocelot: He might have given himself his own memory problems for a good reason.

Tosh is Boot's boss, and the head of Special Crimes at Knights Errant Seattle. He's shocked at the news about the explosion and McAllister, which doesn't look good for a man with his job.

Ripper K: We must have woken him up.

Tosh Athack is a huge troll, and a high-ranking detective at KE. Shell and Ocelot meet him at a suitable location, with Shell playing sniper - just in case. Tosh seems relieved that McAllister survived, although in an induced coma. He does indeed know why McAllister called us, but says he'll need to call in his own team, who he calls the Black Knights.

GM: The Black Knights are all ex-military and shadowrunners, and highly trained and competent.
Ripper K: And they're invincible.

Tosh says the job is an Internal Affairs job, which explains his need for a trusted team, but not why McAllister was taking it personally. We get briefed on the job at the Arbitrary Bar & Grill.

Boots: I swear I had nothing to do with this.

Tosh exposits - 20 years ago Seattle was victim of a serial killer nicknamed the Mayan Cutter, who targeted Orcs and Trolls, and butchered them and stole their hearts. He was caught, but last year there was a copycat killing, and McAllister's daughter was the victim. McAllister hunted the copycat killer down and got his revenge, but discovered evidence that he was working for someone else - one Mathers, head of Public Relations at Knight Errant.

Ocelot: What happened to to the original Mayan Cutter?
GM: He was executed - so was the copycat. Just less officially.

Tosh wants us to investigate this quietly, since it's going to be a huge scandal for KE either way. He also wants Mathers alive. There's a number of possibilities, including possession by a murderous ghost, that Mathers is the original killer and set up the copycat as a protege, or that Mathers hired the copycat killer to drum up business for Knight Errant.

Ripper K: Or that Lonestar framed Mathers for the whole thing so Knight Errant will take a huge PR hit.

Mathers lives in Bellevue, the most luxurious and secure suburb in Seattle. We do NOT fit in. Nor does Mathers, since Knight Errant doesn't pay him nearly that much.

Poe: He's probably spending 100K a month on that lifestyle. Follow The Money.

Mathers is Old Money, and has contributed heavily to Governor Kenneth Brackhaven's recently announced run for President. At least he doesn't have much in the way of staff - two housekeepers and a gardener.

Shell's Player: I call bullshit - I work at a school with that many acres of ground and they have an entire team of gardeners.
Ocelot's Player: To be fair, Mathers probably doesn't have to deal with hordes of schoolkids running around.
Ripper K's player: And he can afford a small army of gardening drones.
Shell's Player: Ok, that I can accept.

Shell: I want to know all about his security precautions, before I turn up with Biggie McChucklef**ks here.
Ripper K: Excuse me? I'm Biggie McChucklewhat now?

We drive past the estate and drop off our infiltration drone.

GM: I really hope Shitkicker enjoys clinging to the underside of moving vehicles.
Oracle: No. Oh wait, yes he does - I programmed him with a virtual personality.
Poe: Why are we getting excited squealing over the TacNet?
Shitkicker: Wheeeeee! Bebo!

Ripper K: Can we get Boots to shut down Mather's security system? It's linked directly to Knight Errant after all.
Ocelot: Probably not.
Oracle: He's not high enough up in the company.
GM: And remember - the Black Knights are going to be running interference while you infiltrate.

Oracle: I'll have Shitkicker veeerrrry sloooooly move up to each motion detector and prop up a playing card in front of the lens.
All: *snicker*
Ocelot: Jokers?
Oracle: Nah - I'll dose them all with Flash, so they'll go up in a puff of smoke.
Poe: And set off every detector at once.
Oracle: An hour after we're gone

Of course, we can't use an Astral spirit to conceal us - even basic wards will notice THAT coming in.

Ocelot: We need to get into his study and his bedroom. And the basement, if he has one.
Ripper K: If he IS associated wth the Mayan Cutters, I don't want to imagine what he has in his basement.

GM: Three hours of planning. Ten seconds of screaming.
Ocelot's player: That's Shadowrun for you.
Shell's player: That's how you get the big karma.
Oracle's Player: By avoiding unnecessary combats.

Oracle is riding around Bellevue in a Hermes delivery van, dropping off Prop 23 pamphlets. Shell and Ocelot lurk in the back of a Ford Americar with coffee and donuts, being Really Obvious Undercover Cops. Ripper loiters a suburb away on his monocycle, waiting for when it all inevitably goes wrong. And Poe just lands on a tree branch his raven form.

GM: You literally pass as scenery. Alright, cue the Infiltration music.
Ripper and Oracle: *sing the Mission Impossible theme* Dun dun DUNDUN dun dun DUNDUN DAdada, DAdada, DAdada, DADA.

Shell heads in under his ruthenium cloak to disable all the multimillion dollar security systems the playing cards haven't already made useless. Mather's office is tastefully and expensively furnished, the only oddity being a bookshelf made from the faintly luminous wood of Sangre el Diablo trees.

Oracle: Aren't those the ones that fight back when you try and cut them down?
Ocelot: Yup. They're becoming a bit of a problem in Brazil.

Oracle gets to work analysing the mansion's datasystems. They're pretty pathetic.

Oracle: It's got the same vulnerabilities as our TacNet, but he hasn't taken any of the precautions that I have. He's like a basic user - relying entirely on his firewall.

But Oracle soon realises that the entire node is a fake - the REAL node, and the real financial records, must be elsewhere. Down to the basement it is then. Where there's a safe behind a painting in Mather's Mancave.

Shell: Hold the fucking phone - there's a safe. Behind a painting. BEHIND AN ACTUAL PAINTING.
Oracle: Kudos to him for being Old School, anyway.
Ocelot: The real twist is that the Ultrathin Safe was in the painting.

There's a much more secure node inside the safe.

Oracle: This will take a while.... seriously? He hasn't downloaded that patch that yet?
Ocelot: He probably updates it by hand. So only does it once a month.

We copy the entire file system, to decode at leisure.

Ocelot: He probably relied on the fact that the kind of people who could break in aren't the same people that would go after files like this. Unless you're expecting shadowrunners, in which case all bets are off.

Shells recovers our infiltration drone and makes his departure.

Shitkicker: Bebo! Bebo!
Shell: Get off my arse!
Shitkicker: Bebo!
Shell: NOT IN THERE!
Poe: He doesn't have an access port there XD

We head home, while Oracle plans a deployment method for Astronauta Peligroso.

Oracle: They'll see the drone coming in, and swoop past. 'What the hell did it just drop?' 'I AM ASTRONAUTA PELIGROSO! FIGHT ME!'
Ocelot: Take the freefall adept power and they can drop you from any height

The data is verrrrry interesting, detailing millions taken and spent in bribes, dummy accounts used to make illegal contributions to the presidential campaign, footage of Humanis Policlub meetings Mathers attended, and video calls with Edmund Jeffries, the Governor's press secretary, who drunkenly suggested the Copycat Cutter scheme, Mathers hiring the Copycat to target prominent Orcs activists, Mathers panicked call to somebody about McAllister and the runners, and proof that there's a mole in the Black Knights.

Oracle: We're talking ONLY to our employer. We'll tell him we have a lead.
Ocelot: And set up some snipers.

Shell and Astronauta amuse themselves during the decoding, by punching each other up. Then it's time to go.

Shell: Once again, the eternal question of which of us can bore the other with hand-to-hand combat remains unanswered.

Tosh isn't followed, in person or astrally. And he can guess who the mole is. And where Mathers is tonight.

Ripper K: There's a Humanis Policlub meeting tonight?
Tosh: Yup.
Astronauta Peligroso: I want an invite.

Oracle: I have just had the best idea.

Oracle wants Ripper and Astronauta, the most noticeable party members, to pick a fight with each other at the Humanis building. And when Mathers comes out to watch, we grab him. Astronauta's skill include Smack Talk.

Ripper K: So you want to play the Dozens? The Dozens is a game, but the way I did your mother, is a god-damn shame.
Astronauta Peligroso: What did you say about my mother? My mother was a SAINT.

The Humanis building is fortified. And the cyber-KKK guarding it heavily armed. Happily, the rest of the team have sniper rifles with gel rounds.

Ocelot: This will be great publicity - as long as none of them actually die.
Ocelot: So Flamboyant Bane and Porn Moby Lick rollerskate up to the Humanis base...
Oracle: I'm ordering six pairs of Goblinstompers, with Prop 23 as the brand in the heel. As in, actually brands the people we stomp with 'Prop 23'.

Our snipers take out their minigun nests before they know what hit them. The luchadore and the porn actor get to work.

Astronauta Peligroso: Just look at these arseholes.
Ripper K: I bet I could go up to those doors, hit them, and they wouldn't even have the balls to come out and fight. In fact, I think I will.
Astronauta Peligroso: Come on out, boys, lets see those fancy white hoods.
Ripper K : Those special pyjamas.
Astronauta Peligroso: Yeah, BRING OUT THE PYJAMAS!
Ripper K: Let's see the jim-jams!

A bunch of heavily armed Humanis come out, accompanied by mages, and guardian spirits.

Astronauta Peligroso: Oh look, it's heavily armed condoms coming out the door. At least I won't get pregnant.

They also have a tank.

Shell: Hi guys.
Astronauta Peligroso: Hey there. We need you to punch out this tank.

Actually, it's more of an APC.

Shell: Oh that's adorable! 'the trolls link pinkies, run forward, and flip it onto its back'
Astronauta Peligroso: Do you want to flip it, or me?
Ripper K: Together - let's get it airborne.
Ocelot: 'and funny things in the news today...'
Oracle: I was going to tell them to stop, but after 'I'MA GONNA FLIP IT' I'll let them go ahead. We're going to have some awesome footage for our reporter friend tonight.
Astronauta Peligroso: Ripper, we are totally hi-fiving after it leaves our hands.
Oracle: Followed by a fist bump.

The Humanis heavies flee.

Ripper K: YOU SHOULD HAVE WORN BROWN PYJAMAS.

The ones still in the compound open fire, and lob grenades, but by then Astronauta and Ripper are already charging forward and joyfully slapping the racists silly. All filmed in glorious 3D.

Ripper K: Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourse-
Racist Scum: Buh.. but you're hitting me!
Ripper K: Stop trying to confuse matters. Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop-
Shell: You brought this on yourselves.

DnD - Phandelving Finally Done
 
Still going through the lost mine of Phandelver, trying to find that missing dwarf. The number of undead down here has been troublesome.

Lamech: And we'll leave Agent Skully locked in the forge's firebox.

The gnome that ran off while our backs were turned stole some dwarven clothes, after he did the same thing to the people we left on guard at the cave mouth. That's evidence that he was another doppleganger. We update them on our progress, which is slow and methodical. After all, we don't want to be surprised by attacks from the rear.

Gundrun: Well, that's prudent anyway.
Lamech: I'm all about prudence. Don't eat any strange mushrooms unless I know exactly how strange they are.

Lamech: There's also an underground sea - if your brother isn't in the main cave, we're simply not equipped for underground sailing.
Gundrun: You're telling me my brother may have been sold into slavery to the Drow?
Lamech: Yup.
Gundrun: Well, that's just lovely. Nice way to break the good news, too.
Lamech: What, you'd rather we lie?

GM: Which NPC do you want to take back into the cave with you?
Lamech: I'd say our portable Healing Potion. Hey, Thorn.

We're all more interested in the piles of probable undead to practise proper military spelunking safety. Thorn looks up and yells.

Thorn: BATS!
Lamech: I didn't even think to check the ceilings - It seems I'm not cut out for dungeoneering. So, is everybody up to date on their rabies vaccinations?
GM: *singing* You're going to need theeeeemmm!

They're actually Stirges. Obviously we failed our Unnatural History classes as well.

GM: You're high enough level you could have stirges as pets.
Kavorog: Why???
Lamech: Well it might be a Giant Dire Riding Stirge. Or if it's a Aquatic Giant Dire Stirge it'd be a Sturgeon.
Urlon: ಠ_ಠ

Fantasy pest control.

GM: If it's fifty dollars to remove a dead animal from a trap, you could charge a hundred to remove undead creatures from a trap.

Striges dealt with, we press on to the next room, which is completely overgrown with strange fungi.

Lamech: I'm more interested in which ones I can sell to fellow aficionados of recreational mycoproteins.

And in a room after that there are crunching noises. It's the surviving ghouls, who demonstrate an impressive long-term memory from the day before, and run away.

There's also some collapsible boats.

Lamech: Huh. Looks like we ARE equipped for some underground sailing.

Lamech: Spelunking Regatta... would that be a Splatter?
Urlon: Are you TRYING to get yourself thrown overboard?

More sealed doors.

GM: It's not that bad - you've got a musclebound thug in the party who has Gauntlets of Ogre Strength.
Urlon: The idea was to surprise people.
GM: Tearing the door off its hinges would surprise them.
Lamech: Especially if you then hit them with it.

The room contains green fire and a giant floating eyeball with multiple additional eyestalks, which is already looking at us.

Urlon: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-
Lamech: Oh **** we're going to die
Kavorog: *sob*
Beholder: Hello.
All: ?????
GM: So, is anybody going to stop Elethandiel and Kavorog's charge?

Beholder: Visitors! How nice. Is there anything I can do for you? But I warn you this is a restricted area.
Lamech: Uh ah blah uh ah BSOD.
Urlon: Hey, it's a ball, I wonder how many times I can bounce it off the walls with Thunderwave?

Beholder: So you're mine security then?
Lamech: Uh... yeah? You could say? We were certainly sent down here to deal with a security issue.
Beholder: That's nice.
Lamech: We're just looking for a dwarf that got dragged down here.
Beholder: I haven't seen him.
Lamech: Well. Um. We'll just move on then. If you do see him, tell him he's got some friends up on the surface that are worried about him?
Beholder: OK.
Urlon: Do you want us to fix the door?
Beholder: If you want. I haven't seen the janitorial staff in a while.
All: ...
Urlon: How long have you been here, exactly?
Beholder: I forget. It's been a while. My master told me to guard the room, so I have.

We prop the door back into position and retreat well out of earshot - Lamech has figured out it's actually a Spectator, guardian entities summoned to protect an object until dismissed. This one has probably been here for centuries.

GM: Deranged spheroid in dungeon. Summoner died hundreds of years ago. Still does its job.

GM: You feel a grim foreboding.
Kavorog: I hate grim foreboding.
Lamech: Could be Grim Fandango.
Kavorog: That's worse - I'd look terrible as a skeleton.

We sneakily Mend the hinges to the next double doors, so we don't get any nasty surprises while trying to nastily surprise somebody else. We needn't have bothered - the room is empty, and appears to have been a luxurious bedroom fried in a magical battle.

Kavorog: *sigh* we go investigate the chest.
Lamech: Even though we know it's a trap.

Wraith: MY TREASURES ARE MINE ALOOOOOONE! NOT YOURS TO PLUNDER!!!!!!!
Kavorog: OK. *turns around and walks back out*
Wraith: ????

Apparently the wraith believes this is some kind of trick and attacks anyway.

Kavorog: Are wraiths the ones that steal experience levels?
GM: You're about to find out.

The spirit of the late mage materialises next to our cleric.

Wraith: *incoherent hissing* TALK TO SAVE YOUR LIVES, OR JOIN ME IN UNDEEEEEEAAAATH!!!!
Lamech: Pardon?
Wraith: What???
Lamech: No, seriously, I couldn't understand that first bit.
Wraith: GODSDAMMIT, I'M A VENGEFUL SPIRIT, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO COWER AND OBEY NOT ASK ME TO REPEAT MYSELLLLFFFFFFF!!!!
GM: You wouldn't have believed an incorporeal spirit...
Lamech: Could froth at the mouth?

Lamech: Are there any descendants we could inform about your final resting place? Anything we can do to calm your restless spirit? *proceeds to roll 4, 4 times in a row, on Persuasion checks* *sigh* I suppose it's still upset with me over the 'say it, don't spray it' thing.

Kavorog actually manages to get a straight answer out of it.

Lamech: Well, they both hiss all the time, that's hardly surprising.

It wants magical items - particularly the green firey thing next door. But the Spectator keeps attacking the wraith, and any undead it sends in.

Lamech: Wait.. you did actually TELL the Spectator you're the same wizard that summoned it?
Wraith: ...
GM: It gets agitated, because that never actually occurred to it.
Wraith: It does not recognise me after my change of state!
Lamech: Well, maybe if you had a few witnesses to testify on your behalf?

Wraith: DESTROY THE GUARDIAN OR JOIN ME IN DEAAAATTTHHHH!!!! *fails to intimidate*
Lamech: Probably all that ectoplasmic spittle.
Kavorog: Ew.

The wraith sags dejectedly, and opts to kill us all, but Thorn's aura of insufferable righteousness scares it off. We have less than 60 seconds to re-equip to finish the thing off - after all, we don't have time to run back for reinforcements, and it can attack through the floors and walls.

Kavorog: You ever play street fighter?
Wraith: ???
Kavorog: SHORYUKEN!

Kavorog's player leans back in his chair, which shatters, throwing fragments everywhere and nearly precipitating him through the gaming's store's internal wall.

Peanut Gallery: Did you at least do a roll?
Kavorog's Player: I rolled a Nat 20 and did a Crit.

Wraiths are resistant to practically everything, but not, it turns out, to Magic Missiles. Lamech blows the thing away with his first barrage.

All: *skid to a halt and look around and at each other, confused*
Lamech: ... did we get it or did it just disperse?

There's a pipe with platinum filigree in the late wizard's chest. Probably the 'precious' the wraith was going on about.

Thorn: We should break it.
Urlon: Or not touch it.
Lamech: *already stuffing it full with his best weed* What? I need a relaxing smoke after that.

We report back to the missing dwarf's brother outside the cave.

Lamech: But in lighter news we found some boats.

But we have somehow managed to miss the assayer's office in the old mine. Back in we go to find it. And a roomful of animated skeletons.

Lamech: Godsdammit. Hey, Gundrun! You remember how I said we'd killed most of the monsters down here?

Skeletons smashed, we find the mine's old pay locker. Lamech gets to work. After all, if a brilliant physicist like Richard Feynman can take up safe-cracking because he was bored, a gnome sorcerer can because he's an arsehole.

Lamech: They're not thieves tools, honest - the fact that they came with a balaclava and bag labelled 'SWAG' was just part of their novelty value.

GM: You can't go across the underground sea yet - your spellcasters need rest.
Lamech: We can rest in the boats - the NPCs can paddle. It's not like they've done anything else, apart from let that deep gnome get away.

We do indeed find a moaning, near dead dwarf on the far side.

Kavorog: You do realise this is a trap right?

Judicious work by Lamech Judocus reveals two extremely dead bugbears - the ones that kidnapped the dwarf in the first place.

Lamech: Um...
Urlon: Er....

Nonetheless we proceed cautiously.

Dwarf: Save me! Help me, before it comes back!

Lamech: Why is it, that despite the fact that this is an OBVIOUS trap, do we proceed anyway?

Thorn: He's afraid of something called a Wealth-eater.
Urlon: Rust monster?
Lamech: Rust Monsters wouldn't do THAT to the bugbears.
Urlon: Good point.

The thing that emerges from the wall has 3 legs, tentacles, and pairs of eyes. And a very large mouth on top of its presumed head. We retreat at speed - judging by the name, Lamech grabs fistfuls of silver coins from his beltpouch, and waves them over his head yelling.

Urlon: What are you DOING!
Lamech: Trying to distract it. *throws them to one side*
Thorn:Fall back, it only wants our treasure, not our lives.
Lamech: And if Kerak was here this is when he'd grip his axe and yell 'You're not getting either!'
Dwarf:Kill it! Kill it! Kill it, before it comes back with more of its kind! They'll breed and ruin the mine!
Thorn:You're not helping!

Fistfuls of gold appear to be enough to satisfy the monster, which appears intelligent enough to crude sign language. Gundrun is delighted at the recovery of his brother. He's infuriated that we didn't kill the creature.

Gundrun:They infest tunnels! They're worse than Horta! Only the deep gnomes can control them! And do you SEE any deep gnomes around here?
Kavorog: Actually...
Lamech: There WAS one, but you let him get away.

Or conversely, construction debris.
 
What would be worth building that close to a white dwarf star? If the star has a strong magnetic field, maybe... a power station. Back in my misspent youth, I wondered how much current you could generate by running a loop of wire around low Earth orbit, as the coil of a generator with the Earth as the magnet. Weak magnetic field, but very big coil, moving very fast. The results were, um, impressive.
 
Dunno how intense a magnetic field white dwarf stars have. (You'd prefer a pulsar for this, but maybe they're all taken.) But if it's still at Sun-comparable intensity, only squeezed in because the star is so small, it still might make the core for a pretty good generator.
 
So, what's known about the magnetic fields of white dwarf stars?
 
Dean Shomshak

Happy Hour Comet
 
Unknown man-made object headed our way

JPL's Close Approaches page for Near Earth Objects

Colorado Man Tells Cop, “Of Course I Have Cocaine Up My Nose, It’s Aspen!”
 

Whew. Clever thinking on our NPC's part but obviously Roy's still got bigger problems

Those are all the reasons why the upper atmosphere of venus would actually be the 2nd most habitable place to go to:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/22/nasa-havoc-venus-airships/
 
All that martian ground does not really mater if you can not use it for all that radiation and lack of feritility/water anyway.

Something like this is a common theory for why we have not encountered alien life:
Intelligent Life is likely. They just tend to kill themself somehow between Karda 0 and 1.
Runaway greenhouse effect, nuclear war, biological war, all the other stuff we can do already to wipe intelligent life out on our planet.
 
That could just as well happen during Karda 1 and 2 of course.
It could be that the agressive hunter tendencies you need to get to intelligent life are what makes creating a Kradesh 1 and 2 civilisation impossible.
Maybe we just are in the universe* where every species blows itself up before it get's too Kardesh 1 and 2?
 
*In an infinite number of paralell universes, there should be one in wich a Karda 2 civilsiation is possible. Nobody said it had to be our universe where that happens.

If there is some strange, in the gallery.
Who you gonna call?
Shadow Runners!

Weldun: I've decided that 'Acid Splash, Acid Splash, Acid Splash is wizard equivalent of tea-bagging.

Best without context -

Weldun: Why is it so hard to chase Derpy with the nipple?

Context - his laptop has a Derpy Hooves screensaver, and a dodgy rubber cursor control.

Weldun: You're talking to a person who figured how to run an aircraft carrier on the daily calorific requirements of a hamster. In RIFTS.
Poe's Player: I'm sorry, but the cleverness of the first part is negated by the stupidity of that last bit.
Weldun: With a first-level character.
Poe's Player: OK, I take that back, that IS impressive.

Two sessions of Shadowrun - trips to New York, and Salish-Sidhe

GM: Anyone want to recap?
Oracle: BANANA!
Ocelot: Everyone knew this would end badly, and then it went bad.

Ripper K: Because we're all very attractive people we got hired to add ambience to an art event at the Guggenheim.
Oracle: This is a hell of a way for him to tell us he's been cheating on us. Apparently he has a whole other team of attractive people.

The entire Guggenheim Collection has come to life and is terrorising the patrons.

Everybody: BANANA! BANANA!
Oracle: See? Aren't you glad I set up that safeword?

As far Poe can determine, a horrendously powerful spirit is casting magic right through the metaplane. But it probably has a physical link here somewhere.

Oracle: Except the Guggenheim is significant enough to have an actual astral presence.
Ripper K: Oh. That's not good, is it?
Poe: Not really. It's the same reason the Statue of Liberty could theoretically walk down the street.
Oracle: We agreed to never speak of that again.

Patron: THAT PAINTING IS WORTH 6 TRILLION NUYEN!!!!
Shell: *cuts it in half* Now you've got two of them! No need to thank me.

One of the art mages starts to cackle.

Mage: I have a plan so crazy it might just work!

Patron: Just get us out of here! Name your price!
Ripper K: THANK you.
Shell: Oh yes!
Patron: Oh no.

Shell tears the security shutters out of their track.

Shell: Door's open! Please trample me in an orderly fashion.

He also grabs a passing curator.

Shell: Hi there! I notice you're having a little paranormal problem. How much is the museum willing to pay us to solve it?

The Mage wants to drug us all up and send us into the metaplanes. He also confesses that he and his team thought they had the art spirit under control.

Poe: Oracle, did you get that confession on tape?
Oracle: I'm getting it ALL on tape.

Oracle: I notice that all the art is moving... but none of it is being destroyed. This is Mr Dada were talking about - could a spirit of art really bring itself to destroy art?
Shell: Wait...
Ripper K: There was that painting that Shell cut in half...
Shell: So.. the only damage to the art is being done by a jarhead running around waving a sword?
Ripper K: Mr. Dada is going to LOVE you.

Oracle: Everybody heard that mage say he'd pay us if we stop Mr. Dada, right?
Ripper K: Yup.
Oracle: Good. Because I'm going to tell Mr. Dada that if he stops it, we'll come back and put a bullet through that mage's head. You know, the mage that bound him and knows his True Name.

There's also the problem that Shell's cybernetic body and heavily chipped psychology does not react predictably with the metaplanes. His brain is six years old, for one thing. But as it turns out, his astral form is indistinguishable from his real one.

Shell: I'm disappointed - everybody else gets to see 'their ideal form' and I'm still stuck in this tin can.
Ocelot: I'm not sure if this a good thing or a bad one.

The Doorkeeper to the metaplanes appears in a form and voice personalised for each shadowrunner.

Oracle's player: I'm just glad he isn't appearing as a wizened anthropomorphic rabbit with a scythe and answering to Jack.
Ripper's player and GM: *scream and cringe*
Oracle's player: *smugly* Bullseye.

The threshold has a bunch of shepherds standing around a tomb engraved "Et in Arcadia, ego". Funnily enough, the scene is from a painting. Indeed, several paintings. Shell notices one of the shepherds is tracing his own shadow, instead of the words, and does the same.



Doorkeeper: Congratulations! You have passed the first test!
Shell: Yay! Do I get a prize?
Doorkeeper: You get to go on to the next test.
Shell: Booo.
Ripper K: Somehow I don't see this game show getting past the first episode.

We all find ourselves standing on a deserted beach, with melting clocks draped over the trees, and facing constructs comprised of time and our most exaggerated characteristics. Since we'll be facing our spirit trials alone, most of the ensuing commentary took place in the Astral waiting afterwards, why we waited for everybody to catch up.

Ripper K: *cackles*
Oracle: Hands up who's glad they can't see Ripper's opponent right now.
GM: I'll just assume Ripper's astral combat is completely censored, shall I?

Oracle is in real trouble - the reason he lurks behind the scenes, and doesn't connect to other people, is because he doesn't connect to himself. So his grossly male opponent has a huge advantage, and is as arrogant as Khan Noonian Singh. The spiritform trying to get under Shell's skin isn't doing as well.

Spirit-Shell: *incites Homicidal Rage* Wait... I'm the only one here. F**k.

Ocelot's spirit-opponent is unlucky. So unlucky it's dead. An empty-eyed doppleganger of Ocelot that hits her hard right in the uncanny valley.

Poe: Well, I'm glad we all have good therapists on speed-dial.
Oracle: Dude, I'm ALWAYS in therapy.

Ripper's opponent has none of the genuine self-confidence, or morals, of the original. That orca-form changeling is a complete monster of appetite, and completely amoral. The kind of shadowrunner that could happily cut somebody in half.

Shell: It's OK, not everybody is cut out for shadowrunning work.

Ripper rapidly finds himself in big trouble - when HE tries to subdue somebody he goes out of his way to not cripple or kill them. The alt-Ripper has no such compunctions. That they're in unarmed combat, and the spiritform has a touch attack Essence Drain, is worse.

Shell: Two killer whales are wrestling on the beach.
Ripper K: Oiled up, of course. Roll us back into the water!

Ripper K: Ok, since I'm fighting for my life here I'm going to have to put moral compunctions aside, and go straight for his 'most prominent characteristic'.
Oracle: OK, I was about to complain that the GM was implying docking...
Ripper K: *grab, grab, Twist*
Spirit-Ripper: *screams and poofs*
Shell: You DO have it in you to to rip somebody in half! I'm so proud.

Streetrat's alter ego is an ordinary, law-abiding citizen, understandably terrified by his shadowrunning version.

Streetrat: Hey man. No need to shoot me - let's make a deal.

This works, and the Spirit-Streetrat bargains away its own existence.

Shell: You know, I thought I was going to have the most trouble here, but just look at easy this was. Hi guys, how'd it go for you?
Oracle: Well, you are pretty confident in your own self-image.
Ripper K: You know, it can't be psychologically healthy when a solipsistic universe proves you're just awesome.

Shell: I thought my alter would be some innocent child, a sign of what I might have been, and easy to cut in half, but instead it was just a cybernetic monster. And I'm already a cybernetic monster.
Ripper K: You know, maybe that WAS the real you, and you're the spiritform?
Shell: That's a good question! So ask yourself this - which of us would you rather have around? And while we're talking philosophical issues, wanna tell me why you were busy jacking yourself off?

Poe is faced by a giant carrion-bird version of himself, and blasts it in the face with a wildly overpowered spell.

Poe: It inflates like a giant balloon..
Ocelot: And blows out its own arse.
GM: It's still alive.
Poe: That's surprising.
Ocelot: It regrets still being alive...

Spirit-Poe: If I'm going out, I'm taking you with me! *casts the same spell on Poe*

Spirit-Oracle: Look at you, you even work for the CIA - the Central Irrelevance Agency. I'll put you out of your misery - I'm taking over from here. *conjures a Great Big Gun and prepares to shoot Oracle in the head*
Oracle: Reality Check - what temperature does it take to melt watches and how long have you been here?
GM: You're rolling to disbelieve??? *headesk* The beach poofs and you find yourself in The Dentist's Waiting Room.
Shell: What took you so long.
Ocelot: Shell got here first.
Poe: This isn't a competition!
Shell: Sure it is, when you're first.
Doorkeeper: The Dweller will see you now.

The next realm is a 1930s Italian Futurist painting.

GM: Imagine William Gibson trying to describe the internet to an audience 50 years before the technology existed.
Doorkeeper: Go, find the words that lead to tomorrow.
Oracle: OK. I go buy a newspaper.

Oracle: I use my Reality Filter again.
Ripper K: 'I reject your reality -'
Oracle: '- and substitute my own.'
Ripper K: But is this kind of thing that Mr. Dada would appreciate? Shouldn't we at least try to play along?
Ocelot: Dada has absolutely no power here.
Ripper K: Good point - this is an Italian Futurist painting.
Oracle: F**k, I've just reinforced Shell's delusions again.
Doorkeeper: Well, that was new. I appreciate new ideas - you may pass.

The next level of the metaplane is a young woman in a field, gazing up at a farmhouse.

.

Shell: I know that arse.
Ripper K: She's paralysed with polio - that's as far as she ever GOT from the farmhouse.
Shell: Well, that's made this significantly more depressing.

Shell tries to pick Christina up and carry her, and goes right through her.

Ripper K: I'll try and pick her up - art is supposed to invoke an emotional response, and it's not like YOU have any empathy.
GM: ... the module doesn't cover this... OK, you pick her up.
Shell: BULLSHIT!
Ocelot: Maybe the spirit of Art is pleased to see somebody actually having an emotional reaction to art?
Shell: *muttering* Spirit quest bullshit gnashing, frashing.

Mr Dada is indeed waiting in the farmhouse.

Streetrat: So, what's been happening in the place with no meaning?
Mr Dada: How did YOU get here?
Poe: We walked.
Streetrat: Spirit quests aside, what is happening?
Mr Dada: A Happening. My Happening. Who do you think I am, exactly?
Streetrat: We were given a name for you - Mr. Dada.
Mr Dada: Ah, the 20s.
Ocelot: ...2020s?
Oracle: 1920s.

Mr Dada: I want to to be seen, to be recognised.
Poe: You do realise you were given an invitation to appear at the Guggenheim?
Mr Dada: Oh, is that what that was?
Ocelot: Yes, and now you've scared off your audience.
Mr Dada: I feel so embarrassed.
Poe: Well, we're inviting you again. But we'd appreciate if you fix any of the artworks first.
Mr Dada: And I'll have to accept.
Oracle: *looking completely horrified*
You just gave a major Spirit a free invite into reality.

Shell: Hey Christina, I bet you're sorry you came back to the house now.
GM: She's watching the television.
Ripper K: What television? Wrong period.
Oracle: There's a television here now - because when somebody said the 20s, he thought they meant the 2020s.

We poof back to reality, where a Force 15 Free Spirit is now showing off for the cameras. Shell is glad he can touch things again.

Shell: High five bro!
Oracle: .....
Shell: Don't leave me hanging, bro!
Oracle: *high five*
Shell: Yay, I'm not a shadow any more.

Oracle: You do this sort of this willingly???
Poe: It's usually worse than that. That was Happy Fun Candyland.
Ripper K: BULLSHIT

Oracle: I'm never taking a job like this again. Too much exposure - I'm going back in the shadows where we belong.

Oracle: And the leftover 30 grand goes to getting out out New York. 'Oh, hello officer, we'd like to make a donation to the Policeman's Ball'

Oracle: OK, I need to stage a public ritual where I dig up the bones of Mother Teresa. And shit on them.
Ripper K: What???
Ocelot: He's getting too much public awareness to be comfortable. So he needs some notoriety to burn it.

GM: Oh right, movie offers - Ripper's Public Awareness goes up by 2.
Ripper K: Hmm. My Notoriety is still higher than my Public Awareness. I wonder why? Oh, right - the OTHER movies.

Shell: OK, conversation time. That means this conversation does not leave this van. Switch off your phones.
Oracle: Um. OK. Give me a moment.
Shell: Right, this is imp-
Oracle: Hold on.
Shell: What?
Oracle: I'm still switching off phones. Actually, I better leave. I AM a recording device.

Oracle: Anyway, this is important. It's about Ocelot. Ocelot, we saw your real face in the Astral.
Ocelot: Oh. F**k.

Ocelot's day job is host of a popular daytime cooking show. She just slathers on the nanofoam disguise for the shadowrunning jobs.

Ripper K: Well, I have an advantage there. If people recognise me, it's not because they recognise my face.

Shell: Right, let's drive this thing back to Seattle. 'I brake for Orcs'.
Ripper K: I brake for paracritters.
Streetrat: I break paracritters.

On recent events in Australian politics, and the way recently ousted PM Tony Abbott actually managed to make previous conservative leaders look good.

Streetrat's player: Most of Howard's decisions were actually good ones.
Ocelot's Player: To be accurate, the caterpillars controlling his mind made good decisions.



The conversation also wandered across vampire mythology, such as the ones that arise from infants strangled by their own umbilical cord. You don't know they're undead. And they can only be killed by a picket from the fence around the home where they were born.

GM: Can we start the game now?
Ripper K's player: Hey, we're enjoying this conversation. And you should be using this for ideas. For example, does the HMHV Virus cross the placental barrier?
Oracle's Player: Yes.
Ripper K: There you go then - vampire fetuses.
GM: OK, fine, you'll be fighting vampire politicians.

The PCs have been busy since New York - Ripper has been launching a film career.

GM: You haven't even started filming yet!
Ripper K: Ah - read-throughs.
Poe: He has photographic memory!
Ripper K: And Enthralling Performance
Ripper K: Do I get to be the villain? With cool armour?
Ocelot: You'll probably be the lieutenant they fight a few times before the end, but ends up being stupidly popular with the fans.
Oracle: The boards are going insane 'Live Action Street Sharks confirmed! They've already got a Moby Lick'



Oracle gets a call - one of his contacts is out in the wild and needs a pick up. He runs a Wildlife Filter on the audio, and narrows down her location within minutes - the northern end of Salish-Sidhe.

Fiona Craig: How the hell did you know that? This is supposed to be an anonymised network!
Oracle: You forgot who you're talking to, didn't you? Oh, and it sounds like you have one of the Awakened Mountain Lion species in the area, you might want to be careful.

Fiona wants pick-up in 3 hours.

Ocelot: Are you sure you want to wait that long? That's a long time to spend in that wilderness.
Oracle: I can lend a friend one of my drones, he can nip over the border, and we can get to you inside the hour.
Ripper K: And Streetrat has dual citizenship.
Oracle: Every right to be there ... Sometimes my KCAW! drones scares me.
GM: *headdesk* Right. Moving on the next adventure.
Ripper K OoC: Nah. Now we get to see how the extraction goes wrong.

First up - a virtual meeting with the Johnson. The virtual band is playing a classic Flim concert from the 2020s.

Oracle: Dude, look, just put on some Pentatonics.

Everybody shows off their new Matrix Avatars.

Ripper K: Korosensei from Assassination Classroom.
Oracle: ....
Ripper K: Alien tentacle monster. But an excellent teacher.

The Johnson's original driver pulled out when he thought Salish-Sidhe law enforcement recognised him. She needs us to get her and artifact out of the country. The item needs to be accompanied at all times.

Oracle: That's fine - we have a service called KCAW! You might have seen it on the news a month ago.

Oracle: What the hell is a Celtic artefact doing in Salish-Sidhe?
Ocelot: Same thing as a polar bear in Australia. It's lost.

GM: She's only got 5000 nuyen on her.
Ripper K: She's good for it. Or the Draco Foundation are.
Poe: And the KCAW service is the cheapest we offer.
Ocelot: Risking a 14,000 drone is much preferable to risking any of us. Unless something goes wrong, and she isn't there when the drone arrives.
Ripper K: That IS the obvious way this will go wrong.

Ripper K: Two vans and my bike then?
Streetrat: That works.
Oracle: I'm working on a way to deploy bikes at speed - a drone deployment rack, vehicle mounted.
Ripper K: How big is your van?
Oracle: I'll be using a big rig for this. I want to go full anime on this.
Ocelot: That would be a awesome way to kidnap people.
Oracle: Yup - an even bigger rack that can lift other cars off the road XD

Most of the party actually have legitimate SIN records, and can get tourist visas.

Oracle: Who's coming in my van?
Shell: *hands up*
Oracle: Dammit. You're going to hear my real name. If you EVER reference it I will find a way to make you suffer.

Oracle: Shell, I hope you trust me enough one day to modify your systems. Although I can see why you don't yet - this is the party's resident Mad Scientist talking.
Ripper K: Says the person who wants to build automated motorbike deployment racks for an anime big rig.
Oracle: That's different, that's PRACTICAL.

Oracle and Streetrat spend most of the trip discussing ways to kill Shell. He seems fine with this. Streetrat also wants to know what Oracle is working on that requires the rest of us getting military-grade nano-defenses.

Streetrat: Your Avatar is looking a bit too DEUS-like for my liking.
Oracle: I'm just turning social engineering into a hardware issue.

Oracle: Wait, you're got that stupid-arse monocycle? I take it back, you're never getting deployed from my big rig.
Ripper K: Well, I like it.
Oracle: And it is the basis for my Death-sphere.
Streetrat: OK, that's it, you can't deny it anymore - you're a Evil Overlord.
Poe: The problem with this country is that you can't buy a volcano lair - they're all owned by evil nutters, dragons, or mage groups.

Poe: How much does it cost to make a manufacturing facility in Seattle?
Oracle: Hundred thousand nuyen, if you have the space. Which I have.
Poe: *facepalm* This after his says he's building Roboscorpions and Death-spheres.

Ripper K: I expect you'll have an expert system that knows the Evil Overlord list, and will remind you when you go astray.
Ocelot: And the personality of a five year old.
Oracle: I already do.
Ripper K: Of course you do.
Oracle: I'm not kidding, it's already one of my software agents.

Oracle: I'm not an Evil Genius, I'm just a moderately unpleasant one.

The safehouse is suspiciously quiet - and the satellite uplink is missing. We deploy tactically.

Oracle: *giggles* It's dangerous to go alone - take this *hands Shell a Remington Roomsweeper, with Shocklock Rounds*

There are indeed snipers. Invisible snipers. Although the terrain has forced them to deploy far too close to the safehouse to avoid our revenge. Not that we can tell if we're hitting them with grenades, etc, until Poe spots the magical aura of their Air Elementals, and the people they're Concealing.

Ocelot OoC: The way the rules work it's harder to spot a team of the enemy than it is to spot one.
Poe: They're not freaking zebras.

Despite the various kinds of concealment, the shadowrunners manages to take down three. And then Poe banishes one of the air elementals.

GM: That reveals two live people and a corpse.
Shell: I disagree *raising rifle* You revealed three corpses.

We do manage to take one of them alive, and while the medical evac drone is patching him up for interrogation, we search the safehouse. There's no sign of Fiona, but no evidence she was abducted either. Oracle DOES find an AR tag link for Oracle's commlink, and an attached video file saying the Fiona knew she was being followed, and moved on to another safehouse. THIS time we send KCAW (from Seattle) and Streetrat's fighter drone (from the rack on his van's roof) ahead to actually check what's there. We wonder what Salish-Sidhe
air traffic control is like.

Poe orders the Air Elemental to locate it's controlling mage, every ten seconds.

Ocelot: Your PREVIOUS controlling mage. Or it's just going to say 'You're Here. You're Here. You're Here.'

The next safehouse is in the nearest small town - Streetrat's drone screaming in a roof level probably would attract some attention.

Nut: It's wern of Obama's Sekrit Muslim Drones! It's looking at mah wife! Shoot that dang thing down!

The sheriff's SUV pulls us over when we come into town. He's a human built like an Orc. We bluff him with the prepared story that we're in Salish-Sidhe to track Canadian Geese.

Streetrat: He's probably suspicious because I'm a Cascade orc and we do a lot of smuggling.
Oracle: A lot? THE smuggling T-bird is made by the Cascade Orcs!
Streetrat: I'm driving a nondescript van.
Ripper K: That's even more suspicious.

The Sheriff launches his own drone to keep an eye on us. Streetrat wants to deploy a Steel Lynx drone.

Shell's Player: I'm not going to stop another player doing something stupid, but I reserve the right to facepalm afterwards.

Fortunately Oracle notices the military drone powering up and shouts Streetrat down - the locals will CERTAINLY notice a Steel Lynx on their quiet streets.

Fiona gets out to the van without being shot by anybody. Poe promptly disguises himself as her, and vice versa.

GM: She finds this a bit weird.
Shell: I find this a bit weird.
Ocelot: There WAS a six-man sniper team at the other safehouse.

The artifact is a falcata - a sickle-edged Iberian sword. If it's an elf artifact, we had better hope the Sidhe don't know it's here, or that we have it, or we'll never live to retire. Just as well we have KCAW to smuggle her back across the border.

Oracle: Just as well KCAW can sedate the people it carries.
Fiona: I should be nervous that we're crossing a heavily defended border. At zero feet. In heavy forest.

GM: You probably have a few people in mind you can sell it to.
Ripper K: Oh? Fiona was freelancing?

We attempt a deal with the Draco Foundation, where Ripper has to talk to two people from the previous campaign - Greenlight and Inkubus.

Greenlight: I'm not put off by the fact you're a changeling, I'm put off by the fact you're a deviant porn star.

Inkubus's player: I keep picturing myself wandering in and out of Nadja's office, helping myself to the booze, lounging about on the lounge, and flirting with Nadja while the Head of Security glares at me. Not that I'd ever actually sleep with the boss of the Foundation - it's just funny messing with the Head of Security.

Inkubus: Wait... Cetaceans Gone Wild?
Ripper K: 2 to 4, yes
Inkubus: It doesn't really go all... does it?
Ripper K: Yes, prehensile.
Oracle: No! NO! Data-search OFF! DO NOT LOOK THAT UP.

Ripper K leaves the Draco Foundation building to discover that Shell has disappeared. SOMETHING about meeting Greenlight severely wigged him out, although his chemically controlled emotions let him keep his composure until he could get out of the building.

Inkubus gets his first close look at the falcata at the handover, and discovers just in time that the sword is inhabited by a force 12 free spirit. He recoils, and politely asks it a few questions - after all, getting a spirit's true name by assensing is rude and probably lethal. The spirit is pleased with this courtesy, and manifests as an ancient Tir elf. It's happy to attune the sword to any elf that's completely sound in mind and body.

Inkubus: ... I think I qualify!

And that challenges a leader of Tir na nOg, or Tir Tangaire to a leadership duel and wins.

Inkubus: I hope she chooses grappling - have you seen pictures Brahne Dei? She's gorgeous!

Inkubus: But there is something that disqualifies me - I'm already taken. By Titania.
Spirit: Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, my lord - I had no idea you were the Consort.

Ocelot: Tir na nOg would be a good name for a gay bar.
Poe: It's where all the fairies are.
Greenlight OoC: To be sure, to be sure.
Ocelot's player: That's the McGinty Irish accent, which is terrifying.
Poe: They serve their Guinness with little paper umbrellas.

Inkubus: It's a pity Nadja doesn't qualify - her versus Brahne Dei would make a mint on Pay Per View.

Lamech: Well, at least we know why those undead ganged up on Elethandiel.
Urlon: ?
Lamech: Ghouls just want to have fun.

We decide to check one more room before retreating to the surface to recharge our spells and rest.

Lamech: I am sure that 'Let's take a look' have been the Famous Last Words of somebody

The room has at least three different groups in it. And what appears to be a ritual to desecrate a chapel to a Dwarven god.

Lamech: Remember what I said about 'Famous Last Words'?

On top of the bugbears and giant spiders, there's a drow male with a big-ass staff.

GM: Suddenly a figure appears!
Lamech: Sudden figures are never good.

The drow gets a horrible shock in the form of an arrow through the lungs, and uses a Vampiric Touch spell to suck out half of Urlon's innards. Lamech is doing really, really badly in this fight - not only is he out of spells but his crossbow attacks don't hit a damn thing, and the bolts whistle off into the far ends of the room.

Lamech: I guess I really am attacking the darkness.

But the Dwarf Kerak demonstrates a talent for medical diagnosis, determines that the drow is in urgent need of brain surgery, and performs an emergency hemispherectomy. With an axe. The drow really should have avoided coming into melee.

Lamech: If he'd been smart he'd have drained the hostage and got away while we were busy with the hobgoblins and spiders. That's what I'd do. If I wasn't Neutral Good, anyway.

Lamech gets nibbled on by a giant spider in passing.

Lamech: Given it tried to run away when it was outnumbered, that spider is probably the smartest thing - PC or NPC - that we've run into in this campaign so far.

The hostage being prepped for sacrifice is a Deep Gnome, not the dwarf we're looking for.

Lamech: I don't suppose you were adopted into a Dwarf family, were you?

Lamech: I'm guessing this Electrum ale mug will be your share of the treasure, Kerak.
Kerak: I kind of wanted the Spider Staff, but that would be more useful for you, wouldn't it?
Lamech: Dual-wielding staffs - Defence! Spiders! Defence! Spiders! AHahaHAhaHA!!!!!!

We try to figure out where the missing dwarf is by questioning the Deep Gnome. Unfortunately none of us know Undercommon.

Lamech: Time for Charades then. Dwarf... Beard! Short! Quaffing Beer!

GM: The next room is pretty impressive - you could make a nice little cottage here.
Lamech: As long as it's a defensible cottage. What's the Neighbourhood Watch like?
GM: Undead.

Kavorog: Dibs on the bed.
Lamech: Now Kav, that's not very fair - shouldn't we try and fit as many people on there as possible? We could only fit one lizardborn on it, whereas the dwarf and I-
GM: So everybody is in Room 20?
Kavorog: Yes. Arguing about sleeping arrangements.

The deep gnome has disappeared while our backs were turned.

Lamech: I'm betting the deep gnome was the real Black Spider.
Kerak: The drow had a black spider staff - it was probably him.
Lamech: The gnome lied about what was in the next room and legged it the moment we were busy elsewhere.
Kerak: Well, I would.

GM: You did take King Gurnt alive.
Kavorog: True. That's the kind of prisoner you keep the car batteries for.
Lamech: Eh. Why use car batteries when you have cheese graters?

GM: Let me describe the cavern.
Lamech: *singing* In a cavern, in a canyon, they were digging, for a miiiine.

Lamech: Well, lead the way Clementine.

That underground stream we found earlier careens down a chasm - the noise of crashing surf is louder than ever.

Urlon: How deep is the water?
Lamech: Waist deep for a human, I should think.
Urlon: And you're short.
Lamech: I'll just ride on the Dragonborn's shoulder then.

There's an ancient corpse buried at the bottom of the chasm - probably killed when the mine was originally overrun. It still has Gauntlets of Ogre Strength.

Kavorog: Gimme a d2.
Urlon: What?
Kavorog: We'll flip a coin for them.

Kavorog: I put Lamech on my shoulders.
GM: So you Equip the gnome.
Urlon: We can pile everything we have on him and it won't slow him down.
Kavorog: Oh god, I'm becoming Nodwick.

There is a strange underground bay down here, with surf bashing against the rocks. A bit worrisome, given the implication that there's an even larger underground sea, with its own weather and no doubt crawling with monsters, out there in the darkness. There's also a sluice running down from the other levels, probably from that forge room with the floating skull. Urlon and Elethandiel climb up to check, and it's just as well that the surf is so noisy, because he falls back down. And the skull was waiting for them anyway.

Kerak: At least it didn't attack us.
Lamech: Or consult the penguin puppet floating next to it. 'What's that Mr Flibble? Fry them with my Hex Vision?'
Kerak: Mr Flibble is very angry.

Urlon: Could be human skull, could be dwarf. Could be elf, too. Probably elf or human - how many dwarven mages do you know?
Lamech: Might still be dwarf - does it have a flaming green beard?

Skull: YOU SHALL NOT PASS! THIS FORGE IS SACRED! AHAHAHAHAHA!
Lamech: Sounds like it was set to protect the forge and went insane after centuries of solitude.
Kerak: Worn down its Sanity Chip.

Urlon: Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Duck!
GM: You'll be pleased to know there are no ducks down here.
Lamech: Might be Giant Albino Penguins - we've all heard about these underground oceans....

Lamech's Player: Here, use this token for me - it's the only one that actually looks like he's happy to be there.

Thorn scrambles up the sluice and Blesses the idiot PCs who triggered this mass attack by zombies and floating magic skull.

GM: Blessed are the stupid, for they are damage masters and haveth not the brains.

Lamech attempts to blow the yelling skully thing apart with a barrage of Magic Missiles. Unfortunately, the Yelley Skully has Shield. It also has Fireball.

GM: At least it manages to kill half its own zombies.
Kavorog: Wait - since we didn't kill them we don't get the XP.
Kerak: Fair breaks the heart.

Kavorog: I still have a free action - FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE, FOUL DEMON! Unlife. Undead. Whatever.
Kerak: F**k you, evil skull from beyond the grave!

Lamech is on fire. Thorn throws himself on the gnome to try and smother the flames.

Kerak: Hopefully just the flames, and not the gnome.
Lamech: He wouldn't be the first.

The flames are a Wild Magic effect - and they're actually doing Cold Damage.

Thorn: What in the nine hells have you done???
Lamech: *shrugs, still on fire* Buggered if I know.

Mobbed by angry PCs, the Yelley Skully retreats into the machinery of the forge, where we we can't get at it. We've still got a bunch of zombies to deal with, unfortunately. But after they're dealt with the skull is still hiding in the forge. Kavorog sticks his head in to see what it's doing, but gets pulled back out, and the grill shut.

GM: It can't get out - and it's quite happy with that.
Lamech: *sings* It's only a skull in a grill-ded cage...

There was a scene preceding the trial that I forgot to include:  an NPC hero flying brick (Major Justice) with nearly two decades of experience applied to join Just Cause.
 
Nexus: (looking over his resume) Flying Thunder, Longhorn, Lieutenant Freedom, Captain Incredible, Stalwart... he's certainly had a lot of superhero names.
Pops:  That's not a good sign.
 
They contact the last team he was an "associate" of:  S-Squad
 
Nexus:  We're checking references on Major Justice... ah, he went by Stalwart when he was working with S-Squad
S-Squad office manager:  Oh, yeah, how is ol' Crash Bandicoot doing?  Let me get one of the S-Squad heroes to talk to you.
 
Subliminal explains that Stalwart / Major Justice is a good guy, he just has a little problem with knockback.
 
Subliminal:  Synergy explained it once; his repulsion field makes him almost indestructible, but as it repulses damage, it pushes him away.  He'll take a huge hit, and then spend the next few minutes flying back to the fight.
 
Players from my prior campaign are discussing the NPC's personality with the newer players.
 
Malarky:  (OOC)  He's a real Dudley Doright type.  No shades of gray. 
Pops:  Well, he is not going to fit in with this bunch.
 
The heroes tell Major Justice that they'll get back to him.
 
Also, before continuing with last Sunday's quotes, I should summarize a scene from the week before that I forgot to include.
 
Nexus (in secret ID) was walking down the street when she saw a ghost of a woman, pleading in vain for passersby to help her.  (Nexus can see and communicate with dead people.)  The ghost told Nexus that she had just been killed by her ex, who was now going to either kill or take away their child.  Nexus followed the ghost up to the apartment (with the ghost passing through the wall beside the door before Nexus got up to the door).  When Nexus stepped through the door, she found herself in a spooky swamp, near an old bloodstained stone altar.  Scattered around were bones that weren't quite human.  And of course the door she just passed through is gone.  More troubling, the Mind Link she always has with Circe cut off as soon as she stepped through the door, since she actually traveled to another dimension.
 
There, she meets Charles Aching (those of you who read Drhoz's quotes of his Call of Cthulhu campaign may recognize him), who had previously given Road Kill some "music lyrics" that summoned various horrors including star vampires and a flying polyp.  He offers her a very binding mage pact:  she procures something for him, and he will bring her long-lost brother safely home.  Lots of conditions that should have made her rather nervous -- he won't tell her what the item actually is until she agrees to the pact, she can't reveal her interest in the item to anybody at any time, she can't work or aid in any way (including inaction, such as letting Circe read her mind) any attempts to take the item back from him after she gives it to him, etc.  To my complete surprise, she agreed.
 
(Being the evil little GM I am, I played this all out in front of all players, except revealing what Aching is after:  an ancient tome that McGinty and crew had acquired back in the 1920s.  Just sowing a little dissension in the ranks.)
 
Back to last Sunday's game.  Nexus, Malarky, and Pops go to the prosecutor's home to see what's up with Carson's wife.  When Nexus sees the woman, she also sees the spirit possessing her:  the same ghost that led her to her meeting with Charles Aching.
 
Nexus:  That b**ch!  She's going down!
Malarky:  Okay, what's the plan?  Because I don't think Pops or I have anything that will affect her.
Pops:  And if we take her down, how are we going to hold her?
Nexus:  [expletives deleted] 
Shadowboxer:  (OOC)  Anybody know the number for the Ghostbusters?
 
With Circe (whose mental powers might help capture the ghost) and Maker (who might be able to build a gadget to contain the ghost) both stuck at the trial, the heroes try to come up with ways to delay the trial's conclusion until the next day to buy them time.
 
Honey Badger:  Pops, can you teleport a big ol' cobra into the courtroom?  Then I can point and yell, "Aaaaah!  Cobra!"  That should do it.
Pops:  I am not teleporting a cobra into the courtroom.  They'll know it was me, and arrest me for contempt of court.  (Pause)  If you want, I can borrow a cobra from the zoo, and you can come out of the courtroom long enough to get it and bring it in with you.
HB:  How am I supposed to sneak it in?
Pops:  Stuff it down your pants.  You're immune to snake venom, aren't you?
HB:  I'm big and all, but a giant cobra might be a bit conspicuous.
GM:  Plus, there's getting it out once inside.  "Hold on, everyone, while I whip this out. (ziiiip)"
 
Eventually, they have little choice but to let the trial run its course, resulting in Wight being found not guilty and walking free.  As soon as the verdict is read, Carson's wife gets a phone call, after which the ghost leaves the body and flies away.  The heroes meet with Carson and his wife, vowing to capture the ghost and keep her from ever messing with their lives again.
 
That's two events down -- public appearance and a trial -- where the players fully expected a brawl, but nothing happened.  So they're almost relieved when TJ forwards a video file that was just emailed to him.  They see Ankylosaur, helmet off and smoking a cigar, sitting in the PRIMUS base's security monitoring room kicked back and relaxed.  In the background are noises of things getting demolished.
 
Ankylosaur:  Howdy do, Lost Cause.  Thought you'd like to know that there's a party at PRIMUS, and you're the guests of honor.  (puffs on cigar and smiles)  Don't you love it when a plan comes together?
 
(more to follow)

That A-Team adventure was actually two Sundays ago.  I was planning to have two weeks to prepare for my next game (our gaming group alternates between my Champions game and a D&D game), but on Friday evening the other GM texted, asking if I could run that Sunday instead.  Eep!
 
I decided to have a few non-combat events -- an NPC applying to join the hero team, a public appearance at a high school, and a trial of a supervillain captured a while back -- followed by a gratuitous combat.  Not wanting to map out a new location, I looked through my old paper maps and found one of a PRIMUS base.  Perfect.
 
Bit of background:  in my game, captured villains are typically taken to the PRIMUS base and put into holding cells until they can be transported to Stronghold.  In addition to capturing most of the A-Team, the heroes had previously captured a handful of the New Gods, a set of androids passing themselves off as various Greek gods and mythical heroes (Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, and Heracles).  The New Gods all have the Physical Complication that they can be turned off, so I figured PRIMUS had them deactivated and stored in their vault.
 
I told the players at the start of the evening that I had thrown that evening's adventure together on short notice and hadn't even had time to draw out a map, but that basically the bulk of the adventure would be a super-brawl.
 
Circe:  (reading from the weekly news)  "PRIMUS Detective Williams... said Just Cause was instrumental in helping PRIMUS stop the attacks and capture the villain team."
Pops:  Wait, he actually complimented us?  I think you may need to check if that's really him.  Or maybe he's been mind controlled.
 
Another news item is on the upcoming trial of Wight (who is Maker's Hunted and attacked Maker's mother a few adventures back), aka Russian cosmonaut Andrei Vyelov.
 
Circe:  (reading that article)  "Irving Probalino, Vyelov's lawyer, insists that his client is innocent.  'He is just as much the victim here, and I intend to prove that in court.'"
Malarky:  Probalino?  Isn't he that pain-in-the-a** lawyer with all the luck?
Pops:  You guys have run into him before?
Malarky:  Yeah, in a prior campaign. 
GM:  He's a high-priced lawyer who seems to win most of his cases, even against incredible odds.  (pause)  His six dice of Luck helps out a lot, though.
 
(Probalino appeared in a Digital Hero #16, courtesy of Dave Mattingly)
 
The team's PR face, T.J. O'Rourke, passes along a request for a public appearance by the team.
 
TJ:  They mainly want Maker because of her gadgets, but they'd like the other female heroes to attend.  It's part of a statewide program to get girls more interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).  You'll speak at the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts.
Nexus:  Aw, crap, that's the school my sister attends.
GM:  Gee, I wonder whose DNPC made the roll to appear...
 
The male heroes also plan to attend (expecting a supervillain attack based on my "super-brawl" comment).
 
Circe:  Maker, you can demonstrate various gadgets on Honey Badger.  'Cause Honey Badger don't care.
Honey Badger:  (leers)  What kind of gadgets are you going to use on me?
Maker:  "... and this little beauty can project flames up to fifty feet!"  Woosh!
Honey Badger:  (shrugs)  Eh, I regenerate.
 
Honey Badger:  (to Maker)  Just put on a fancy light show, maybe some holograms, fly your drone around...
Malarky:  Your stolen VIPER flyer bot?  Maybe not a good idea.
Honey Badger:  ...tell the girls that there's better things in life than shopping and fashion.
Circe:  (a rich girl with KS: Fashion)  Hey!!!
 
Contrary to the players' paranoia, the presentation goes without a hitch.  Afterwards, there are photo ops with the heroes doing a meet-and-greet with the students.
 
Teen girl:  (to Circe)  Ooo!  You're my favorite.  You always look great, so collected, and with-it.  Can I get a selfie with you?
Circe:  Sure!  (picture taken)  So, how are you doing?
Girl:  Okay, I guess.  Parents are always pushing me to do stuff.  Speaking of which...  (she pulls a paper out of her purse and hands it to Circe)  You've been served.  (smiles wide)  Thanks for the pic!  You're still my fave!  (flounces off to show her friends the picture)
Circe:  Why didn't the prosecutor just ask me?
GM:  This is from the office of Irving Probalino, Esquire.
Circe:  He wants me to testify?  For the defense?
GM:  Maybe about your visit to Wight at the PRIMUS base.
Circe:  Oh, when I asked him for info about that Carrier Pigeon?
GM:  Just Pigeon, but yeah.  Wight gave you the info that helped you locate Vermin and stop that mutated disease from spreading.
Circe:  Crap.
 
On to the trial.  Maker's mom (Dr. Hu Jenkins) is lined up testify, and wants her daughter to be there as moral support.
 
Maker:  Do I have to? 
Dr. Jenkins:  No, I suppose you don't.  I'll just be there, all alone, by myself.  Don't you worry about me...
Maker:  Since when did my Chinese tiger-mom become a Jewish grandmother?  She should be all, "Yes!  You be there!  I say so!"
 
Again, the heroes expect a fight there and make plans.  However, there won't be one.  Instead, Honey Badger notices that the prosecutor (Doug Carson, who went over HB's testimony the day before and seemed fairly confident and together) seems very out of sorts, stumbling over what he's saying, looking nervous, and making a lot of stupid mistakes.
 
GM:  A few times, while Probalino is cross-examining witnesses, he takes things a bit far, and the judge looks at Carson expecting an objection, but he doesn't.  In one case, even Probalino looks like he's expecting to get smacked down, but Carson doesn't say anything.
Honey Badger:  Maybe he's being mind controlled.  (to Circe)  Can you check his mind?
Circe:  There's psionic scanners in the courtroom, remember?  They'll lock me away.  No thanks.
 
Finally, during the lunch recess outside the courtroom, Circe uses some Telepathy and learns that Carson's wife told him that he'd better allow the defense to win the case or she'll kill their 2 year-old son.  And if he goes to PRIMUS or the heroes, she'll just wait until things cool down, and maybe their son will run into traffic one day.
 
Circe:  (to GM)  Is she being possessed, or Mind Controlled?
GM:  Strangely, Carson doesn't know.  Not being a mentalist and all.  You're reading his mind, not hers.
 
(more to follow)