Drhoz

Ian is now so notorious that people that have never played DayZ can use him as a point of reference. "Have you heard about that server with the forest no-one goes into?" "Yes."

He has invited one of our mutual friends to join him on the server. The plan is to dress identically, and have a common soundboard. So when one party of idiots flees from the Pigman, they'll run around the corner of a building and find him waiting for them. Using the same "Reeeeeeee, gonna get you, little fishies" soundbites.

DNA DOA Pt 2 : The Run : Break into a high-security Aztechnology research park, steal all the data on a particular project, and deliver it to our client who is presumably from a rival biotech company. Complications - somebody is blackmailing Greenlight into handing the info to them, or they'll kill his brother. And Felix used to work for Aztech, and half his family still do, and he still has some loyalty to the brand. But at we know that some of the third party's claims about bugs on his person are bogus, which is a relief to Greenlight, and Felix can always email his grandfather after they have the data.

Felix: 'Dear Grandfather - if you know anybody involved in Project X, tell them to abandon ship now.'
Inkubus: 'A little bird tells me it's just been torpedoed'

Plus, Felix doesn't believe the rumours about Aztech anyway.

Inkubus: Half of Aztechnology feeds the world, the other half is ... Demon-spawn Incorporated.
Felix: That's just propaganda by other megacorps.
Inkubus: .... This is why you need to stick with me.

The client provided us with a map of the Tacoma sewers, and a catalyst to soften the plascrete walls of the Aztech lab. Aztech's formidable security is still a worry.

Titus: It's Aztechnology, they'll have some sort of poison gas to pump in after us.
Felix: It's the sewers, they don't have to ADD gas.

Inkubus: The sewers are the one place in Seattle you don't behave to worry about devil-rats!
Labrat: The demon-rats eat them.

Demon-rats notwithstanding, the sewers do have inhabitants. Three sleeping orcs that Warhammer stuns, just in case, and a team of apparent Shadowrunners, who are lost, and that we avoid.

GM: They're hiding from the cops.
Greenlight: They're hiding from a group of trees?
Inkubus OoC: .... I want to rearrange the table. Drhoz up here, punsters down there.

Breaking in through the wall proves relatively simple, although at Felix's suggestion Labrat sets explosives to collapse the sewer after we leave. The ventilation shaft on the other side is cramped - especially for Titus - but a bigger concern is the torn out gratings, flashing emergency lights, and blood trails. The cells next to the lab, and mutilated bodies, don't bode well.

Felix: I think I've seen this movie
Greenlight: Well, none of us are black, so we can't be killed.

Apparently some airborne agent has been released.

Felix: So, who's glad I insisted on portable air supply?
Greenlight: Um.
Titus: I brought mine.

But that doesn't explain the state of the bodies, or the THINGS scurrying around the premises.

Labrat: There are lots of things that have claws. Rats, cats, dogs....
Felix: Deinocheirus
Labrat: Exactly

Felix: Was there provision for extra danger money in this contract?

Felix photographs everything - he is rather upset.

Felix: I think I'll be sending a strongly worded email to my grandfather. It doesn't do the company's reputation any good when they actually ARE doing stuff like this!

Felix: Somebody remind me why we're doing this job?
Inkubus: We're being paid.

Something is eating, noisily, in one of the side rooms. We unhook assorted incendiary, concussion, and frag grenades, toss them through the door, and slam it.

Felix: There's no kill like overkill.

Unfortunately, whatever was in there is annoyed, not dead, and comes out to complain.

GM: It's a flaming troll
Labrat: Its dress is FABulous
Felix: Well, it DOES look like the dress from Hunger Games.

Labrat: I know what it is and I'm panicking
Felix: YOU'RE panicking?! We threw four grenades at it and it's mildly pissed off!!!

Happily massed firepower does take it down, although it was just as well we added a few more white phosphorus grenades and Titus introduced its skull to his sledgehammer, since it was getting up again. That probably explains the Aztech security team we find barricaded into one if the offices. We claim to be Aztech security sent to back them up, and warn them to stay put until the decontamination teams arrive.

Felix: What I want to know is why the rest of Aztech security hasn't turned up to reinforce these poor fuckers
Labrat: They're currently chasing something worse.
Inkubus: This is a good thing and a bad thing.... I mean, I'm sure they'll catch it.

The dead thing appears to be a mutated, knobbly troll, with grotesquely long and muscular arms.

Greenlight: Evidently it skipped Leg Day

Labrat sucks the data from the computers, and carefully sets thermite and high-ex in the vault to destroy the rest of their research and bio-weapons. Apparently Aztech have been making sentient lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my. And whatever did THAT to the troll, cockroaches, and nematodes, is not something we want to exist, anyway.

We blow our way back out through the re-hardened wall with a shaped charge - that way we can save the other dose of the softening catalyst for another time. We're sure it will prove useful. And then off to the frieghter for the hand-off, wondering when whoever blackmailed Greenlight will show up, and musing about the cover of Shadowrun 2050, where a dwarf is breaking a cyber deck over the head of a security operative - very stupid, given the ridiculous expense of 2050 cyber decks.

Labrat: That's because we don't see what happens next - the dwarf screaming "what did I just do?!?!?"
Titus: There is the chance that it's not the Dwarf's cyber deck.
Greenlight: It's the elf that's jacked into something.
Inkubus: *wince* in that case, once he gets over the dump shock, the elf will kill the dwarf

We arrive at the docks - being paranoid, Felix checks the astral landscape before we proceed, and discovers there are at least 12 people waiting, instead of one. Also, they've apparently chosen the locale because of its proximity to the warehouses where thousands of orcs and trolls were burned alive during the Night of Rage some years ago. Felix and Warhammer climb to a roof where they can snipe from, just in case, although the storm and rain aren't helping visibility. Labrat tells everybody to head to Dock 90 if shit goes down, for some reason. We soon discover that the client's operative has been replaced with the asshole holding Greenlight's brother. We play it cool, even after ten armed men come out of hiding, and even after we notice most of them are wearing Alamos 20K armbands. These are the genocidal terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Night of Rage atrocity, and many other murderous attacks.

Greenlight demands they bring his brother out, which they do, keeping a gun to his head. Greenlight hands over a corrupt data chip, and the terrorist - apparently rather startled it's all going so smoothly - says he's going to go check. Labrat warns them to not try anything, and holds up the insurance he had in his pocket - a bundle of extremely hi-ex and a detonator.

Labrat: I have a C12 grenade.
Warhammer: I want one.

This is when the entire deck is lit with spotlights, a dozen Aztech security choppers descend from the sheets of rain, Aztech combat vehicles roar down from the gates, and a loudspeaker bellows at to all remain where we are. We had, unfortunately, neglected the possibility of magical pursuit. At least we'd all been wearing generic environment gear, and didn't use any magic, while we were inside Aztech - with any luck Aztech will assume it was all Alamos 20k.

The Alamos 20K gawp, Greenlight yells "Go!", Felix drops the one holding Greenlight's brother with a stunbolt, Titus drops the leader with a sledgehammer to the jaw, the leader and the hostage are grabbed, and the team jump overboard as more terrorists pour out of the warehouse and Aztech and Alamos 20k open fire on each other.

Warhammer and Felix linger on the roof, since nobody has spotted them yet, assisting the chaos by sniping anybody about to throw a grenade, then cover the team's motorbikes with a tarp and scampering off to Dock 90. The others have already been there for some time - luckily they still had those self-contained air supplies. It turns out Labrat had bought an Aztechnology cruiser after our last run, and by a happy co-incidence he'd had it berthed at these very docks the whole time. We head out into Puget Sound to enjoy the fireworks as Aztech and Alamos start using RPGs and the like on each other.

Greenlight's brother wakes up, and surprises us with something Inkubus and Titus had already figured out, but was news to the rest of us.

Greenlight's brother: SIS!?
Inkubus: Yeah, Greenlight is actually a girl.

Then there's the terrorist we brought with us, who proves completely unable to resist Inkubus's mind proves, spilling every secret he knows, including Alamos 20k banking details, the identity of his superiors in the organisation, the fact that our client's superior at Biodyne is a Alamos 20k sympathiser ( which explains how they managed to hijack the plan ), what they wanted the research for ( a virus to wipe out all meta humans ), and why he joined Alamos 20k in the first place.

Greenlight: He hates metahumans because an elf girl dumped him.
Labrat: He hates them because an Orc boy dumped him XD

We hand the terrorist and the info on Alamos 20k over to Warhammer's CIA contact, and drain their banking account. Labrat bundles the data on Homo felis, Homo ursus, and the other less horrible research, and sends it off to one of the independent broadcasters. Greenlight gets to work teaching her little brother what he'll need to survive, while they try to find their parents.

Felix: The Shadowrun equivalent of 'Operation' - 'Bomb Disposal'
Greenlight's player: I love the fact that whenever the PCs in any of my games have children, they immediately start raising them as the next generation of PCs.

One oddity is that her brother doesn't seem to have aged at all, since the day Renraku corps security bundled him and his parents into the back of a truck. He doesn't remember anything concrete about the intervening years, either.

Ah well, back to the main plot, which we've derailed again.

GM: What is it with you lot derailing my plots by getting on a boat?
Greenlight: We're just awesome that way.

Nonetheless, Labrat still gets a phone call from Mr B, who rumour holds is a big name in the Orc Underground. We've been invited to a meet.

Inkubus: I bring a six-pack of Hurlg. And manage to resist drinking any.
Greenlight: Good - I don't want to have to carry you.
Inkubus: If you have to carry Inkubus, there isn't any beer.
Labrat: If you drank so much Hurlg there won't be any Inkubus

The big mystery here is how did they figure out we were involved in the business at the wharves, and why would they trust us after that anyway?

Felix: If they noticed whose boat left the dock, and whose bikes were left behind, they may well figure that somebody embarrassed Aztechnology and got dozens of Alamos 20K assholes killed, and think 'these are our kinds of people!'

That appears to be the case. We're even given the incredible honour of a visit to the top-secret underground complex the Orcs have under Seattle's lava and ash flows. One of the things we discuss with Mr B is the fate of our original client. Apparently his boss had him 'delayed' and he's probably going to need rescuing. True, we failed on the run, as far as he knows, but rescue and the chance to climb the corporate ladder after his boss gets arrested for terrorist ties should go a long way. Besides, we got more money out of the terrorist accounts than we were going to be paid, anyway.

He's not the only one who needs rescuing. The scientist - a long time friend of Mr B - who made the virus possible is very upset with the way her work was perverted. But there's not they can do about it, since they're still effectively a slave to Aztechnology. And she wants out. And they're being kept secure in the same complex we raided earlier. Just as well we kept a dose of the wall-softening catalyst.

Felix: We should extract them soon. While they still think nobody would be stupid enough to try this twice

feel free

The continuing stoooooory of a band of traitors, renegades and cultists who are masquerading as acolytes of the Imperial Inquisition in order to corrupt a loyal order of battle-nuns, and instead found, as Aladar puts it "A nut-house built on an Indian burial ground".

As we players arrive for the game -

Me: They're just bees. They have no interest in you unless you actually molest them.
Cassius's player: And that must be Drhoz. It's not just the volume, it's the content - bees and molesting.

Speculation as to what the Emperor would actually think about the sorry state of the Imperium, if he ever woke up.

The Emperor: I close my eyes for 10 millennia! You've trashed the front room! I told you, no parties!

On the gaming rooms' collection of malfunctioning and naked Furbys.

Cog's player: This is like one of Jrska's dreams.
Cassius's player: I don't want Jrska to find out about Furbys. Especially the one with the realistic tongue.
Cog's player: I want to find a planet with cute furry harmless animals.
Me: No such thing in 40K.

Cassius's player: Now we have two pun swords
Me: Pun swords?
Cassius's player: You make a pun, I hit you with this. It is your punishment.
GM: Should you hit yourself then?
Cassius's player: *does so*
GM: It's a bit pun-y.
Cassius's player: Puny? A Pune, a play on words?
GM: I'm not good with words, ok?
Cog's player: Zombie Shakespeare is rising from the grave...
Me: So he can hit him with the pun sword?
Cog's player: So he can die again.

Aladar's plan to appropriate a trophy from the convent's reliquary room presents major difficulties, including the fact the Sisters of Battle will probably notice if one of their most treasured relics suddenly goes missing. And, of course, how do you smuggle out a giant 40K pauldron anyway? Perhaps by replacing Aladar's codpiece with it?

The Sister assigned to guard our chambers goes off to see if she can find our missing servoskull, but comes back claiming there's no sign of it. Has it been appropriated by the Sisters, and the contents of its memory currently studied? This paranoia may explain our jumpiness that night, although it's possible the raised hackles and little noises in the corridors have a more supernatural cause.

Jrska: I would have quite liked to hear battle-nuns sneaking to each other's cells. It would give me hope for the future.

We insist on speaking to the Celestan after her morning prayers, claiming that the disappearance of the servoskull may be evidence of traitorous activity in the convent, and that we sent the skull searching because the ongoing security outage (that we instigated) would be the moment for any cultists to make their move. Cassius also reveals that he is a telepath, and given the Imperium's distrust of psykers, it's understandable that the Celestan doesn't react well. In fact, she draws her sword. Jrska instantly moves to reinforce the idea that Cassius is some kind of bound, conditioned psychic servitor, and not a traitorous space marine librarian that could make the Celestan's head explode with mind bullets.

Jrska: Take heed. Protocols x345, Zeta 9, Zeiton 11. The Celestan is designated ally - you are not to attack her. Defensive programs only. Acknowledge.
Cassius: *long pause, and bows, and telepathically glowers at Jrska* Don't enjoy this too much.

We insist on letting our 'bound psyker' do a full psychic sweep of the convent. Cog and our pet idiot Aladar will review the psychic defences of the convent. Jrska has her own priorities.

Jrska: Have Sister Bilitis brought to the interrogation room ( may as well achieve my personal goal in case we have to leave in a hurry > )

We have until noon to achieve whatever we want to do, before the security systems come back online.

Jrska: Pity I won't have a camera record of what I'm going to do with Sister Bilitis
Cog: You'll have your memories.
Jrska: Such happy memories.
Cog: Don't salivate too much
Jrska: They can't tell through the mask anyway >
GM: Do you have some sort of sponge in there?

Cog and Aladar manage to convince the Battle-nuns that the hexagrammic wards inscribed around the tower are faulty. And 'helpfully' demonstrate how to inscribe the 'correct' ones.

Cog: What they don't realise is the arrange of hexagrams forms an eight-pointed star in the middle.
Jrska: The Hidden Octed

That they can get away with this is a inditement of the Imperium's record keeping. Sure, they'll record everything. But most of those records are hand-copied, and archives will be indiscriminately purged if even one line ends up sounding heretical.

Cog: In 40K Grammar Nazis have fusion bombs.

GM: You'll be finished about the same time Jrska does.
Jrska: Stamina. Advantage of being female - no refractory period XD


Cassius is taken outside the convent walls to charge up his mind-fu.

Cassius: I don't want to make them any more nervous than I need to.

Jrska: Just nervous enough XD

The sisters assigned to escort him stand well back, and cheerfully offer to blow his head off if it looks like he's losing control. Actually, given some of the side effects of psychic powers, if Cassius really was an Imperial asset, euthanasia really is the merciful option. As it is, he merely corrupts everything for 20 meters around.

Jrska: All the caterpillars nearby go insane.

It's fortunate he didn't induce any of the more spectacular perils, such as rains of blood, or gravity inversion.

Cog: 'Wadd'ya know - a flying nun.'

A brief digression into why humanity is hopelessly devoted to Slaanesh, using banana-derived alcohol as evidence.

Cassius OoC: We're humans. If we can ferment it, we'll drink it.
Cog: Although possibly only the once.
Jrska: Ferment it and they will come.

Jrska continues her efforts to corrupt the cuter nuns.

Cassius: The convent's confessor - that's who you want to corrupt.
Cog: That'd be quite the confession.
Cassius: 'Forgive me sister, I have sinned. In fact I'm sinning right now.'
Jrska: You might want to compose yourself - we'll be here some time.
Cog: 'I brought a whiteboard '
Jrska: And a PowerPoint presentation.
Cassius: Although Jrska thinks PowerPoint presentations involve a strap-on.
Cog: And actual power points

Jrska: I suspect the main reason daemons have a problem with faith is that daemons exist by altering reality on a whim, and faith involves denying it.

Cassius is discovering interesting things - little trickles of psychic energy flowing up through the convent towards the reliquary. And other interesting things about the convent.

Escort: That area is sealed. We had a unfortunate faith incident.
Cassius: I tug on the handle.
Jrska : Testing that it is actually sealed

Aladar: When are you meeting with us?
Jrska: After I've given Sister Bilitis so many orgasms she passes out.
GM: Actually you haven't done that quite yet.
Jrska: Bringing her around. Expanding her horizons - and other things.

Eventually they end up in the reliquary chapel - where the missing servoskull is hovering in front of the dead saint's armour, and Cassius can detect the presence of something probing and altering the minds of the sisters as they enter and leave. He can also read the inscription around the armour's neck.

GM: Here Lies St. Recluse, May Her Faith Forgive Her Psychic Curse
Jrska: Called it.

Cassius plans to have a servoskull purposed to burrow through the psychic-active plateau beneath the convent, carving out Chaotic runes in the rock around the convent, to encourage and corrupt whatever entity he has discovered.

Cassius: This way if I get killed my dying words can still be "And I will still have my revenge." And the hero will dismiss it as the blustering of Chaos, and the Inquisition will go "oh, fuck".

That the skull was here, but our escort never found it, is odd, since according to the thing's log, it's been hovering here the whole time, while something rifled through its memory. It appears the escort was made to forget she saw it here.

Aladar: What happens in the reliquary stays in the reliquary.

GM: Your communicator buzzes
Jrska: I got a use for that

Aladar: Why does your servo-skull have so much porn on it?
Jrska: It's called life-blogging.
Cog: ... dear lord.

Jrska interrogates the escort, to confirm that her memory was altered, and to ask what her recurring nightmares are about. Hers are about a power failure trapping her in her power armour.

Jrska: Gee, I wonder where she's getting THAT idea from XD
Cassius: Faith can bind more securely than any witchery
Jrska: It's looking more and more like it's the psyker's spirit bound to the armour that's the problem. Well, their problem. Our opportunity.

Cassius and Cog team up to investigate the limits of the dead saint's power. And to talk it around to their point of view - perhaps easier than it sounds, since it's been feeding on the resentment and madness of the inmates for decades, and is almost ready to lash out anyway.

Cassius: There's something mechanical going on with me, and something mechanical going on with you.
Jrska: And sometimes something mechanical going on with me, but it generally involved Sybians.
Cassius: And lots of lube.
Cog: *facepalm*

Cassius: I'm making the Sign of the Aquila but I'm focusing on these two fingers.

Cassius decides the best way to test the spirit's telepathic editing abilities is to 'discover' Aladar's desecration of a minor relic, and see if the Celestan promptly forgets about it.

Jrska: Time to call in the expert - and I know all about how to deal with sin and corruption. Usually it involves lots of lube and pauses for refreshment.
Cassius: Sports drinks. Lots of sports drinks.

Jrska follows the mortified nun up the stairs to the the chapel, while Cassius amuses himself by plodding along ahead, filling the corridor with his hulking size.

The Celestan: How can this be? How could such evil have been hidden right beneath our gaze?
Jrska: The enemy is perfidious - it could be right behind you the whole time, ready to stab you in the back.

The Celestan is also desperate that word of the discovery doesn't reach the outside world.

The Celestan: We have many enemies
Jrska: *pats her sympathetically on the shoulder* I know, I know.

The Celestan wants to talk to us privately, after she takes the desecrated sword off to be re consecrated, and we go over the chapel with a fine tooth comb, to give it a 'clean bill of health'. She promises us interesting details of the convent's history.

This will give Cassius and Cog a chance to replace the sacred pauldron with one of Aladar's own, suitably altered. And by doing this themselves, they'll steal a little bit of Aladar's Infamy.

Jrska OoC: Like that neural whip you got me - 'I've got something for you, Jrska' and my ears pricked up and I said 'How do you want me, lord?'

Happily, Aladar's player is OK with being the party's butt-monkey.

Jrska: Although I am a bit irritated with how jaded Aladar has become. He's not even any fun in bed any more. He's the human equivalent of a yeast infection.

Ian continues to make himself the most hated and beloved character on DayZ.

For one thing the other players now think the Haunted Forest has a wookie as well as a Pigman. That's because he donned a Ghillie suit, leapt out on three PCs, and beat them to death with a fishing rod.

The suit also proved useful in another stunt, which cost 36 lives before he got bored. He parked an armoured car in the middle of a empty  field surrounded by trees, then lay down three feet in front of the vehicle with a sniper rifle trained on the driver's seat. He then announced over the server that there was a prize just waiting to be claimed.

And despite knowing it was Ian, and knowing there was no possible way this could end well, 36 players still showed up.

True, some of them did turn up in teams, trying to figure out where the sniper fire was coming from, but they were all watching the tree-line. One player figured out that he had to be hiding somewhere in the field, and drove a tank over every suspicious bush, but managed to miss the one that was actually the Pigman. Ian then waited until the other PC got out of the tank to hook a tow rope to the armoured car, and shot him in the head.

The GMs love him, of course - and they've worked together to punish people that actually hack the game. When the Pigman got bored with the slanty shanty, and discovered an island well away from the mainland, they encouraged his efforts to become  Governor Pigman, as he built a large high-security prison. At the moment the only inmate is one of the aforementioned hackers, whose character got taken down by the Pigman and dragged off to a cell on the island, where the Pigman gloats at him from the roof. The player is livid, of course, and has even tried to starve his character to death so he re-spawn back on the mainland, but the Pigman just beats him unconscious and force-feeds him.

None of the other players have figured out about the island yet - they've seen him driving armoured cars out to sea, but apparently they think it's just the Pigman taking loot out of circulation again.
 

DNA DOA Pt 2 : The Run : Break into a high-security Aztechnology research park, steal all the data on a particular project, and deliver it to our client who is presumably from a rival biotech company. Complications - somebody is blackmailing Greenlight into handing the info to them, or they'll kill his brother. And Felix used to work for Aztech, and half his family still do, and he still has some loyalty to the brand. But at we know that some of the third party's claims about bugs on his person are bogus, which is a relief to Greenlight, and Felix can always email his grandfather after they have the data.

Felix: 'Dear Grandfather - if you know anybody involved in Project X, tell them to abandon ship now.'
Inkubus: 'A little bird tells me it's just been torpedoed'

Plus, Felix doesn't believe the rumours about Aztech anyway.

Inkubus: Half of Aztechnology feeds the world, the other half is ... Demon-spawn Incorporated.
Felix: That's just propaganda by other megacorps.
Inkubus: .... This is why you need to stick with me.

The client provided us with a map of the Tacoma sewers, and a catalyst to soften the plascrete walls of the Aztech lab. Aztech's formidable security is still a worry.

Titus: It's Aztechnology, they'll have some sort of poison gas to pump in after us.
Felix: It's the sewers, they don't have to ADD gas.

Inkubus: The sewers are the one place in Seattle you don't behave to worry about devil-rats!
Labrat: The demon-rats eat them.

Demon-rats notwithstanding, the sewers do have inhabitants. Three sleeping orcs that Warhammer stuns, just in case, and a team of apparent Shadowrunners, who are lost, and that we avoid.

GM: They're hiding from the cops.
Greenlight: They're hiding from a group of trees?
Inkubus OoC: .... I want to rearrange the table. Drhoz up here, punsters down there.

Breaking in through the wall proves relatively simple, although at Felix's suggestion Labrat sets explosives to collapse the sewer after we leave. The ventilation shaft on the other side is cramped - especially for Titus - but a bigger concern is the torn out gratings, flashing emergency lights, and blood trails. The cells next to the lab, and mutilated bodies, don't bode well.

Felix: I think I've seen this movie
Greenlight: Well, none of us are black, so we can't be killed.

Apparently some airborne agent has been released.

Felix: So, who's glad I insisted on portable air supply?
Greenlight: Um.
Titus: I brought mine.

But that doesn't explain the state of the bodies, or the THINGS scurrying around the premises.

Labrat: There are lots of things that have claws. Rats, cats, dogs....
Felix: Deinocheirus
Labrat: Exactly

Felix: Was there provision for extra danger money in this contract?

Felix photographs everything - he is rather upset.

Felix: I think I'll be sending a strongly worded email to my grandfather. It doesn't do the company's reputation any good when they actually ARE doing stuff like this!

Felix: Somebody remind me why we're doing this job?
Inkubus: We're being paid.

Something is eating, noisily, in one of the side rooms. We unhook assorted incendiary, concussion, and frag grenades, toss them through the door, and slam it.

Felix: There's no kill like overkill.

Unfortunately, whatever was in there is annoyed, not dead, and comes out to complain.

GM: It's a flaming troll
Labrat: Its dress is FABulous
Felix: Well, it DOES look like the dress from Hunger Games.

Labrat: I know what it is and I'm panicking
Felix: YOU'RE panicking?! We threw four grenades at it and it's mildly pissed off!!!

Happily massed firepower does take it down, although it was just as well we added a few more white phosphorus grenades and Titus introduced its skull to his sledgehammer, since it was getting up again. That probably explains the Aztech security team we find barricaded into one if the offices. We claim to be Aztech security sent to back them up, and warn them to stay put until the decontamination teams arrive.

Felix: What I want to know is why the rest of Aztech security hasn't turned up to reinforce these poor fuckers
Labrat: They're currently chasing something worse.
Inkubus: This is a good thing and a bad thing.... I mean, I'm sure they'll catch it.

The dead thing appears to be a mutated, knobbly troll, with grotesquely long and muscular arms.

Greenlight: Evidently it skipped Leg Day

Labrat sucks the data from the computers, and carefully sets thermite and high-ex in the vault to destroy the rest of their research and bio-weapons. Apparently Aztech have been making sentient lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my. And whatever did THAT to the troll, cockroaches, and nematodes, is not something we want to exist, anyway.

We blow our way back out through the re-hardened wall with a shaped charge - that way we can save the other dose of the softening catalyst for another time. We're sure it will prove useful. And then off to the frieghter for the hand-off, wondering when whoever blackmailed Greenlight will show up, and musing about the cover of Shadowrun 2050, where a dwarf is breaking a cyber deck over the head of a security operative - very stupid, given the ridiculous expense of 2050 cyber decks.

Labrat: That's because we don't see what happens next - the dwarf screaming "what did I just do?!?!?"
Titus: There is the chance that it's not the Dwarf's cyber deck.
Greenlight: It's the elf that's jacked into something.
Inkubus: *wince* in that case, once he gets over the dump shock, the elf will kill the dwarf

We arrive at the docks - being paranoid, Felix checks the astral landscape before we proceed, and discovers there are at least 12 people waiting, instead of one. Also, they've apparently chosen the locale because of its proximity to the warehouses where thousands of orcs and trolls were burned alive during the Night of Rage some years ago. Felix and Warhammer climb to a roof where they can snipe from, just in case, although the storm and rain aren't helping visibility. Labrat tells everybody to head to Dock 90 if shit goes down, for some reason. We soon discover that the client's operative has been replaced with the asshole holding Greenlight's brother. We play it cool, even after ten armed men come out of hiding, and even after we notice most of them are wearing Alamos 20K armbands. These are the genocidal terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Night of Rage atrocity, and many other murderous attacks.

Greenlight demands they bring his brother out, which they do, keeping a gun to his head. Greenlight hands over a corrupt data chip, and the terrorist - apparently rather startled it's all going so smoothly - says he's going to go check. Labrat warns them to not try anything, and holds up the insurance he had in his pocket - a bundle of extremely hi-ex and a detonator.

Labrat: I have a C12 grenade.
Warhammer: I want one.

This is when the entire deck is lit with spotlights, a dozen Aztech security choppers descend from the sheets of rain, Aztech combat vehicles roar down from the gates, and a loudspeaker bellows at to all remain where we are. We had, unfortunately, neglected the possibility of magical pursuit. At least we'd all been wearing generic environment gear, and didn't use any magic, while we were inside Aztech - with any luck Aztech will assume it was all Alamos 20k.

The Alamos 20K gawp, Greenlight yells "Go!", Felix drops the one holding Greenlight's brother with a stunbolt, Titus drops the leader with a sledgehammer to the jaw, the leader and the hostage are grabbed, and the team jump overboard as more terrorists pour out of the warehouse and Aztech and Alamos 20k open fire on each other.

Warhammer and Felix linger on the roof, since nobody has spotted them yet, assisting the chaos by sniping anybody about to throw a grenade, then cover the team's motorbikes with a tarp and scampering off to Dock 90. The others have already been there for some time - luckily they still had those self-contained air supplies. It turns out Labrat had bought an Aztechnology cruiser after our last run, and by a happy co-incidence he'd had it berthed at these very docks the whole time. We head out into Puget Sound to enjoy the fireworks as Aztech and Alamos start using RPGs and the like on each other.

Greenlight's brother wakes up, and surprises us with something Inkubus and Titus had already figured out, but was news to the rest of us.

Greenlight's brother: SIS!?
Inkubus: Yeah, Greenlight is actually a girl.

Then there's the terrorist we brought with us, who proves completely unable to resist Inkubus's mind proves, spilling every secret he knows, including Alamos 20k banking details, the identity of his superiors in the organisation, the fact that our client's superior at Biodyne is a Alamos 20k sympathiser ( which explains how they managed to hijack the plan ), what they wanted the research for ( a virus to wipe out all meta humans ), and why he joined Alamos 20k in the first place.

Greenlight: He hates metahumans because an elf girl dumped him.
Labrat: He hates them because an Orc boy dumped him XD

We hand the terrorist and the info on Alamos 20k over to Warhammer's CIA contact, and drain their banking account. Labrat bundles the data on Homo felis, Homo ursus, and the other less horrible research, and sends it off to one of the independent broadcasters. Greenlight gets to work teaching her little brother what he'll need to survive, while they try to find their parents.

Felix: The Shadowrun equivalent of 'Operation' - 'Bomb Disposal'
Greenlight's player: I love the fact that whenever the PCs in any of my games have children, they immediately start raising them as the next generation of PCs.

One oddity is that her brother doesn't seem to have aged at all, since the day Renraku corps security bundled him and his parents into the back of a truck. He doesn't remember anything concrete about the intervening years, either.

Ah well, back to the main plot, which we've derailed again.

GM: What is it with you lot derailing my plots by getting on a boat?
Greenlight: We're just awesome that way.

Nonetheless, Labrat still gets a phone call from Mr B, who rumour holds is a big name in the Orc Underground. We've been invited to a meet.

Inkubus: I bring a six-pack of Hurlg. And manage to resist drinking any.
Greenlight: Good - I don't want to have to carry you.
Inkubus: If you have to carry Inkubus, there isn't any beer.
Labrat: If you drank so much Hurlg there won't be any Inkubus

The big mystery here is how did they figure out we were involved in the business at the wharves, and why would they trust us after that anyway?

Felix: If they noticed whose boat left the dock, and whose bikes were left behind, they may well figure that somebody embarrassed Aztechnology and got dozens of Alamos 20K assholes killed, and think 'these are our kinds of people!'

That appears to be the case. We're even given the incredible honour of a visit to the top-secret underground complex the Orcs have under Seattle's lava and ash flows. One of the things we discuss with Mr B is the fate of our original client. Apparently his boss had him 'delayed' and he's probably going to need rescuing. True, we failed on the run, as far as he knows, but rescue and the chance to climb the corporate ladder after his boss gets arrested for terrorist ties should go a long way. Besides, we got more money out of the terrorist accounts than we were going to be paid, anyway.

He's not the only one who needs rescuing. The scientist - a long time friend of Mr B - who made the virus possible is very upset with the way her work was perverted. But there's not they can do about it, since they're still effectively a slave to Aztechnology. And she wants out. And they're being kept secure in the same complex we raided earlier. Just as well we kept a dose of the wall-softening catalyst.

Felix: We should extract them soon. While they still think nobody would be stupid enough to try this twice

In Saturday's MHI game (session 3 of a 3-session adventure based on "Live and Let Die") The hunters are zip tied in front of Kananga, who after soliloquizing for a bit, sends his Zombie Guards to attack them. While two of the hunters try to cut their bonds, Doc starts kicking the nearest Zombie. He misses, but the zombie returns the favor and, rolling well on the hit location, kicks Doc in the "vitals". As he slumps to the ground, Doc says "I hate Crotch Zombies."
 
And we had to suspend the game for about ½ hour for everyone to stop laughing.

May I quote you on that?
 
Lucius Alexander
 
I reject your reality and substitute a palindromdary

The continuing stoooooory of a band of traitors, renegades and cultists who are masquerading as acolytes of the Imperial Inquisition in order to corrupt a loyal order of battle-nuns, and instead found, as Aladar puts it "A nut-house built on an Indian burial ground".

As we players arrive for the game -

Me: They're just bees. They have no interest in you unless you actually molest them.
Cassius's player: And that must be Drhoz. It's not just the volume, it's the content - bees and molesting.

Speculation as to what the Emperor would actually think about the sorry state of the Imperium, if he ever woke up.

The Emperor: I close my eyes for 10 millennia! You've trashed the front room! I told you, no parties!

On the gaming rooms' collection of malfunctioning and naked Furbys.

Cog's player: This is like one of Jrska's dreams.
Cassius's player: I don't want Jrska to find out about Furbys. Especially the one with the realistic tongue.
Cog's player: I want to find a planet with cute furry harmless animals.
Me: No such thing in 40K.

Cassius's player: Now we have two pun swords
Me: Pun swords?
Cassius's player: You make a pun, I hit you with this. It is your punishment.
GM: Should you hit yourself then?
Cassius's player: *does so*
GM: It's a bit pun-y.
Cassius's player: Puny? A Pune, a play on words?
GM: I'm not good with words, ok?
Cog's player: Zombie Shakespeare is rising from the grave...
Me: So he can hit him with the pun sword?
Cog's player: So he can die again.

Aladar's plan to appropriate a trophy from the convent's reliquary room presents major difficulties, including the fact the Sisters of Battle will probably notice if one of their most treasured relics suddenly goes missing. And, of course, how do you smuggle out a giant 40K pauldron anyway? Perhaps by replacing Aladar's codpiece with it?

The Sister assigned to guard our chambers goes off to see if she can find our missing servoskull, but comes back claiming there's no sign of it. Has it been appropriated by the Sisters, and the contents of its memory currently studied? This paranoia may explain our jumpiness that night, although it's possible the raised hackles and little noises in the corridors have a more supernatural cause.

Jrska: I would have quite liked to hear battle-nuns sneaking to each other's cells. It would give me hope for the future.

We insist on speaking to the Celestan after her morning prayers, claiming that the disappearance of the servoskull may be evidence of traitorous activity in the convent, and that we sent the skull searching because the ongoing security outage (that we instigated) would be the moment for any cultists to make their move. Cassius also reveals that he is a telepath, and given the Imperium's distrust of psykers, it's understandable that the Celestan doesn't react well. In fact, she draws her sword. Jrska instantly moves to reinforce the idea that Cassius is some kind of bound, conditioned psychic servitor, and not a traitorous space marine librarian that could make the Celestan's head explode with mind bullets.

Jrska: Take heed. Protocols x345, Zeta 9, Zeiton 11. The Celestan is designated ally - you are not to attack her. Defensive programs only. Acknowledge.
Cassius: *long pause, and bows, and telepathically glowers at Jrska* Don't enjoy this too much.

We insist on letting our 'bound psyker' do a full psychic sweep of the convent. Cog and our pet idiot Aladar will review the psychic defences of the convent. Jrska has her own priorities.

Jrska: Have Sister Bilitis brought to the interrogation room ( may as well achieve my personal goal in case we have to leave in a hurry > )

We have until noon to achieve whatever we want to do, before the security systems come back online.

Jrska: Pity I won't have a camera record of what I'm going to do with Sister Bilitis
Cog: You'll have your memories.
Jrska: Such happy memories.
Cog: Don't salivate too much
Jrska: They can't tell through the mask anyway >
GM: Do you have some sort of sponge in there?

Cog and Aladar manage to convince the Battle-nuns that the hexagrammic wards inscribed around the tower are faulty. And 'helpfully' demonstrate how to inscribe the 'correct' ones.

Cog: What they don't realise is the arrange of hexagrams forms an eight-pointed star in the middle.
Jrska: The Hidden Octed

That they can get away with this is a inditement of the Imperium's record keeping. Sure, they'll record everything. But most of those records are hand-copied, and archives will be indiscriminately purged if even one line ends up sounding heretical.

Cog: In 40K Grammar Nazis have fusion bombs.

GM: You'll be finished about the same time Jrska does.
Jrska: Stamina. Advantage of being female - no refractory period XD


Cassius is taken outside the convent walls to charge up his mind-fu.

Cassius: I don't want to make them any more nervous than I need to.

Jrska: Just nervous enough XD

The sisters assigned to escort him stand well back, and cheerfully offer to blow his head off if it looks like he's losing control. Actually, given some of the side effects of psychic powers, if Cassius really was an Imperial asset, euthanasia really is the merciful option. As it is, he merely corrupts everything for 20 meters around.

Jrska: All the caterpillars nearby go insane.

It's fortunate he didn't induce any of the more spectacular perils, such as rains of blood, or gravity inversion.

Cog: 'Wadd'ya know - a flying nun.'

A brief digression into why humanity is hopelessly devoted to Slaanesh, using banana-derived alcohol as evidence.

Cassius OoC: We're humans. If we can ferment it, we'll drink it.
Cog: Although possibly only the once.
Jrska: Ferment it and they will come.

Jrska continues her efforts to corrupt the cuter nuns.

Cassius: The convent's confessor - that's who you want to corrupt.
Cog: That'd be quite the confession.
Cassius: 'Forgive me sister, I have sinned. In fact I'm sinning right now.'
Jrska: You might want to compose yourself - we'll be here some time.
Cog: 'I brought a whiteboard '
Jrska: And a PowerPoint presentation.
Cassius: Although Jrska thinks PowerPoint presentations involve a strap-on.
Cog: And actual power points

Jrska: I suspect the main reason daemons have a problem with faith is that daemons exist by altering reality on a whim, and faith involves denying it.

Cassius is discovering interesting things - little trickles of psychic energy flowing up through the convent towards the reliquary. And other interesting things about the convent.

Escort: That area is sealed. We had a unfortunate faith incident.
Cassius: I tug on the handle.
Jrska : Testing that it is actually sealed

Aladar: When are you meeting with us?
Jrska: After I've given Sister Bilitis so many orgasms she passes out.
GM: Actually you haven't done that quite yet.
Jrska: Bringing her around. Expanding her horizons - and other things.

Eventually they end up in the reliquary chapel - where the missing servoskull is hovering in front of the dead saint's armour, and Cassius can detect the presence of something probing and altering the minds of the sisters as they enter and leave. He can also read the inscription around the armour's neck.

GM: Here Lies St. Recluse, May Her Faith Forgive Her Psychic Curse
Jrska: Called it.

Cassius plans to have a servoskull purposed to burrow through the psychic-active plateau beneath the convent, carving out Chaotic runes in the rock around the convent, to encourage and corrupt whatever entity he has discovered.

Cassius: This way if I get killed my dying words can still be "And I will still have my revenge." And the hero will dismiss it as the blustering of Chaos, and the Inquisition will go "oh, fuck".

That the skull was here, but our escort never found it, is odd, since according to the thing's log, it's been hovering here the whole time, while something rifled through its memory. It appears the escort was made to forget she saw it here.

Aladar: What happens in the reliquary stays in the reliquary.

GM: Your communicator buzzes
Jrska: I got a use for that

Aladar: Why does your servo-skull have so much porn on it?
Jrska: It's called life-blogging.
Cog: ... dear lord.

Jrska interrogates the escort, to confirm that her memory was altered, and to ask what her recurring nightmares are about. Hers are about a power failure trapping her in her power armour.

Jrska: Gee, I wonder where she's getting THAT idea from XD
Cassius: Faith can bind more securely than any witchery
Jrska: It's looking more and more like it's the psyker's spirit bound to the armour that's the problem. Well, their problem. Our opportunity.

Cassius and Cog team up to investigate the limits of the dead saint's power. And to talk it around to their point of view - perhaps easier than it sounds, since it's been feeding on the resentment and madness of the inmates for decades, and is almost ready to lash out anyway.

Cassius: There's something mechanical going on with me, and something mechanical going on with you.
Jrska: And sometimes something mechanical going on with me, but it generally involved Sybians.
Cassius: And lots of lube.
Cog: *facepalm*

Cassius: I'm making the Sign of the Aquila but I'm focusing on these two fingers.

Cassius decides the best way to test the spirit's telepathic editing abilities is to 'discover' Aladar's desecration of a minor relic, and see if the Celestan promptly forgets about it.

Jrska: Time to call in the expert - and I know all about how to deal with sin and corruption. Usually it involves lots of lube and pauses for refreshment.
Cassius: Sports drinks. Lots of sports drinks.

Jrska follows the mortified nun up the stairs to the the chapel, while Cassius amuses himself by plodding along ahead, filling the corridor with his hulking size.

The Celestan: How can this be? How could such evil have been hidden right beneath our gaze?
Jrska: The enemy is perfidious - it could be right behind you the whole time, ready to stab you in the back.

The Celestan is also desperate that word of the discovery doesn't reach the outside world.

The Celestan: We have many enemies
Jrska: *pats her sympathetically on the shoulder* I know, I know.

The Celestan wants to talk to us privately, after she takes the desecrated sword off to be re consecrated, and we go over the chapel with a fine tooth comb, to give it a 'clean bill of health'. She promises us interesting details of the convent's history.

This will give Cassius and Cog a chance to replace the sacred pauldron with one of Aladar's own, suitably altered. And by doing this themselves, they'll steal a little bit of Aladar's Infamy.

Jrska OoC: Like that neural whip you got me - 'I've got something for you, Jrska' and my ears pricked up and I said 'How do you want me, lord?'

Happily, Aladar's player is OK with being the party's butt-monkey.

Jrska: Although I am a bit irritated with how jaded Aladar has become. He's not even any fun in bed any more. He's the human equivalent of a yeast infection.

One of his victim's put some of Ian's shennanigans on DayZ up on YouTube!

The continuing stoooooory of a band of traitors, renegades and cultists who are masquerading as acolytes of the Imperial Inquisition in order to corrupt a loyal order of battle-nuns, and instead found, as Aladar puts it "A nut-house built on an Indian burial ground".

As we players arrive for the game -

Me: They're just bees. They have no interest in you unless you actually molest them.
Cassius's player: And that must be Drhoz. It's not just the volume, it's the content - bees and molesting.

Speculation as to what the Emperor would actually think about the sorry state of the Imperium, if he ever woke up.

The Emperor: I close my eyes for 10 millennia! You've trashed the front room! I told you, no parties!

On the gaming rooms' collection of malfunctioning and naked Furbys.

Cog's player: This is like one of Jrska's dreams.
Cassius's player: I don't want Jrska to find out about Furbys. Especially the one with the realistic tongue.
Cog's player: I want to find a planet with cute furry harmless animals.
Me: No such thing in 40K.

Cassius's player: Now we have two pun swords
Me: Pun swords?
Cassius's player: You make a pun, I hit you with this. It is your punishment.
GM: Should you hit yourself then?
Cassius's player: *does so*
GM: It's a bit pun-y.
Cassius's player: Puny? A Pune, a play on words?
GM: I'm not good with words, ok?
Cog's player: Zombie Shakespeare is rising from the grave...
Me: So he can hit him with the pun sword?
Cog's player: So he can die again.

Aladar's plan to appropriate a trophy from the convent's reliquary room presents major difficulties, including the fact the Sisters of Battle will probably notice if one of their most treasured relics suddenly goes missing. And, of course, how do you smuggle out a giant 40K pauldron anyway? Perhaps by replacing Aladar's codpiece with it?

The Sister assigned to guard our chambers goes off to see if she can find our missing servoskull, but comes back claiming there's no sign of it. Has it been appropriated by the Sisters, and the contents of its memory currently studied? This paranoia may explain our jumpiness that night, although it's possible the raised hackles and little noises in the corridors have a more supernatural cause.

Jrska: I would have quite liked to hear battle-nuns sneaking to each other's cells. It would give me hope for the future.

We insist on speaking to the Celestan after her morning prayers, claiming that the disappearance of the servoskull may be evidence of traitorous activity in the convent, and that we sent the skull searching because the ongoing security outage (that we instigated) would be the moment for any cultists to make their move. Cassius also reveals that he is a telepath, and given the Imperium's distrust of psykers, it's understandable that the Celestan doesn't react well. In fact, she draws her sword. Jrska instantly moves to reinforce the idea that Cassius is some kind of bound, conditioned psychic servitor, and not a traitorous space marine librarian that could make the Celestan's head explode with mind bullets.

Jrska: Take heed. Protocols x345, Zeta 9, Zeiton 11. The Celestan is designated ally - you are not to attack her. Defensive programs only. Acknowledge.
Cassius: *long pause, and bows, and telepathically glowers at Jrska* Don't enjoy this too much.

We insist on letting our 'bound psyker' do a full psychic sweep of the convent. Cog and our pet idiot Aladar will review the psychic defences of the convent. Jrska has her own priorities.

Jrska: Have Sister Bilitis brought to the interrogation room ( may as well achieve my personal goal in case we have to leave in a hurry > )

We have until noon to achieve whatever we want to do, before the security systems come back online.

Jrska: Pity I won't have a camera record of what I'm going to do with Sister Bilitis
Cog: You'll have your memories.
Jrska: Such happy memories.
Cog: Don't salivate too much
Jrska: They can't tell through the mask anyway >
GM: Do you have some sort of sponge in there?

Cog and Aladar manage to convince the Battle-nuns that the hexagrammic wards inscribed around the tower are faulty. And 'helpfully' demonstrate how to inscribe the 'correct' ones.

Cog: What they don't realise is the arrange of hexagrams forms an eight-pointed star in the middle.
Jrska: The Hidden Octed

That they can get away with this is a inditement of the Imperium's record keeping. Sure, they'll record everything. But most of those records are hand-copied, and archives will be indiscriminately purged if even one line ends up sounding heretical.

Cog: In 40K Grammar Nazis have fusion bombs.

GM: You'll be finished about the same time Jrska does.
Jrska: Stamina. Advantage of being female - no refractory period XD


Cassius is taken outside the convent walls to charge up his mind-fu.

Cassius: I don't want to make them any more nervous than I need to.

Jrska: Just nervous enough XD

The sisters assigned to escort him stand well back, and cheerfully offer to blow his head off if it looks like he's losing control. Actually, given some of the side effects of psychic powers, if Cassius really was an Imperial asset, euthanasia really is the merciful option. As it is, he merely corrupts everything for 20 meters around.

Jrska: All the caterpillars nearby go insane.

It's fortunate he didn't induce any of the more spectacular perils, such as rains of blood, or gravity inversion.

Cog: 'Wadd'ya know - a flying nun.'

A brief digression into why humanity is hopelessly devoted to Slaanesh, using banana-derived alcohol as evidence.

Cassius OoC: We're humans. If we can ferment it, we'll drink it.
Cog: Although possibly only the once.
Jrska: Ferment it and they will come.

Jrska continues her efforts to corrupt the cuter nuns.

Cassius: The convent's confessor - that's who you want to corrupt.
Cog: That'd be quite the confession.
Cassius: 'Forgive me sister, I have sinned. In fact I'm sinning right now.'
Jrska: You might want to compose yourself - we'll be here some time.
Cog: 'I brought a whiteboard '
Jrska: And a PowerPoint presentation.
Cassius: Although Jrska thinks PowerPoint presentations involve a strap-on.
Cog: And actual power points

Jrska: I suspect the main reason daemons have a problem with faith is that daemons exist by altering reality on a whim, and faith involves denying it.

Cassius is discovering interesting things - little trickles of psychic energy flowing up through the convent towards the reliquary. And other interesting things about the convent.

Escort: That area is sealed. We had a unfortunate faith incident.
Cassius: I tug on the handle.
Jrska : Testing that it is actually sealed

Aladar: When are you meeting with us?
Jrska: After I've given Sister Bilitis so many orgasms she passes out.
GM: Actually you haven't done that quite yet.
Jrska: Bringing her around. Expanding her horizons - and other things.

Eventually they end up in the reliquary chapel - where the missing servoskull is hovering in front of the dead saint's armour, and Cassius can detect the presence of something probing and altering the minds of the sisters as they enter and leave. He can also read the inscription around the armour's neck.

GM: Here Lies St. Recluse, May Her Faith Forgive Her Psychic Curse
Jrska: Called it.

Cassius plans to have a servoskull purposed to burrow through the psychic-active plateau beneath the convent, carving out Chaotic runes in the rock around the convent, to encourage and corrupt whatever entity he has discovered.

Cassius: This way if I get killed my dying words can still be "And I will still have my revenge." And the hero will dismiss it as the blustering of Chaos, and the Inquisition will go "oh, fuck".

That the skull was here, but our escort never found it, is odd, since according to the thing's log, it's been hovering here the whole time, while something rifled through its memory. It appears the escort was made to forget she saw it here.

Aladar: What happens in the reliquary stays in the reliquary.

GM: Your communicator buzzes
Jrska: I got a use for that

Aladar: Why does your servo-skull have so much porn on it?
Jrska: It's called life-blogging.
Cog: ... dear lord.

Jrska interrogates the escort, to confirm that her memory was altered, and to ask what her recurring nightmares are about. Hers are about a power failure trapping her in her power armour.

Jrska: Gee, I wonder where she's getting THAT idea from XD
Cassius: Faith can bind more securely than any witchery
Jrska: It's looking more and more like it's the psyker's spirit bound to the armour that's the problem. Well, their problem. Our opportunity.

Cassius and Cog team up to investigate the limits of the dead saint's power. And to talk it around to their point of view - perhaps easier than it sounds, since it's been feeding on the resentment and madness of the inmates for decades, and is almost ready to lash out anyway.

Cassius: There's something mechanical going on with me, and something mechanical going on with you.
Jrska: And sometimes something mechanical going on with me, but it generally involved Sybians.
Cassius: And lots of lube.
Cog: *facepalm*

Cassius: I'm making the Sign of the Aquila but I'm focusing on these two fingers.

Cassius decides the best way to test the spirit's telepathic editing abilities is to 'discover' Aladar's desecration of a minor relic, and see if the Celestan promptly forgets about it.

Jrska: Time to call in the expert - and I know all about how to deal with sin and corruption. Usually it involves lots of lube and pauses for refreshment.
Cassius: Sports drinks. Lots of sports drinks.

Jrska follows the mortified nun up the stairs to the the chapel, while Cassius amuses himself by plodding along ahead, filling the corridor with his hulking size.

The Celestan: How can this be? How could such evil have been hidden right beneath our gaze?
Jrska: The enemy is perfidious - it could be right behind you the whole time, ready to stab you in the back.

The Celestan is also desperate that word of the discovery doesn't reach the outside world.

The Celestan: We have many enemies
Jrska: *pats her sympathetically on the shoulder* I know, I know.

The Celestan wants to talk to us privately, after she takes the desecrated sword off to be re consecrated, and we go over the chapel with a fine tooth comb, to give it a 'clean bill of health'. She promises us interesting details of the convent's history.

This will give Cassius and Cog a chance to replace the sacred pauldron with one of Aladar's own, suitably altered. And by doing this themselves, they'll steal a little bit of Aladar's Infamy.

Jrska OoC: Like that neural whip you got me - 'I've got something for you, Jrska' and my ears pricked up and I said 'How do you want me, lord?'

Happily, Aladar's player is OK with being the party's butt-monkey.

Jrska: Although I am a bit irritated with how jaded Aladar has become. He's not even any fun in bed any more. He's the human equivalent of a yeast infection.

Ian continues to make himself the most hated and beloved character on DayZ.

For one thing the other players now think the Haunted Forest has a wookie as well as a Pigman. That's because he donned a Ghillie suit, leapt out on three PCs, and beat them to death with a fishing rod.

The suit also proved useful in another stunt, which cost 36 lives before he got bored. He parked an armoured car in the middle of a empty  field surrounded by trees, then lay down three feet in front of the vehicle with a sniper rifle trained on the driver's seat. He then announced over the server that there was a prize just waiting to be claimed.

And despite knowing it was Ian, and knowing there was no possible way this could end well, 36 players still showed up.

True, some of them did turn up in teams, trying to figure out where the sniper fire was coming from, but they were all watching the tree-line. One player figured out that he had to be hiding somewhere in the field, and drove a tank over every suspicious bush, but managed to miss the one that was actually the Pigman. Ian then waited until the other PC got out of the tank to hook a tow rope to the armoured car, and shot him in the head.

The GMs love him, of course - and they've worked together to punish people that actually hack the game. When the Pigman got bored with the slanty shanty, and discovered an island well away from the mainland, they encouraged his efforts to become  Governor Pigman, as he built a large high-security prison. At the moment the only inmate is one of the aforementioned hackers, whose character got taken down by the Pigman and dragged off to a cell on the island, where the Pigman gloats at him from the roof. The player is livid, of course, and has even tried to starve his character to death so he re-spawn back on the mainland, but the Pigman just beats him unconscious and force-feeds him.

None of the other players have figured out about the island yet - they've seen him driving armoured cars out to sea, but apparently they think it's just the Pigman taking loot out of circulation again.
 

DNA DOA Pt 2 : The Run : Break into a high-security Aztechnology research park, steal all the data on a particular project, and deliver it to our client who is presumably from a rival biotech company. Complications - somebody is blackmailing Greenlight into handing the info to them, or they'll kill his brother. And Felix used to work for Aztech, and half his family still do, and he still has some loyalty to the brand. But at we know that some of the third party's claims about bugs on his person are bogus, which is a relief to Greenlight, and Felix can always email his grandfather after they have the data.

Felix: 'Dear Grandfather - if you know anybody involved in Project X, tell them to abandon ship now.'
Inkubus: 'A little bird tells me it's just been torpedoed'

Plus, Felix doesn't believe the rumours about Aztech anyway.

Inkubus: Half of Aztechnology feeds the world, the other half is ... Demon-spawn Incorporated.
Felix: That's just propaganda by other megacorps.
Inkubus: .... This is why you need to stick with me.

The client provided us with a map of the Tacoma sewers, and a catalyst to soften the plascrete walls of the Aztech lab. Aztech's formidable security is still a worry.

Titus: It's Aztechnology, they'll have some sort of poison gas to pump in after us.
Felix: It's the sewers, they don't have to ADD gas.

Inkubus: The sewers are the one place in Seattle you don't behave to worry about devil-rats!
Labrat: The demon-rats eat them.

Demon-rats notwithstanding, the sewers do have inhabitants. Three sleeping orcs that Warhammer stuns, just in case, and a team of apparent Shadowrunners, who are lost, and that we avoid.

GM: They're hiding from the cops.
Greenlight: They're hiding from a group of trees?
Inkubus OoC: .... I want to rearrange the table. Drhoz up here, punsters down there.

Breaking in through the wall proves relatively simple, although at Felix's suggestion Labrat sets explosives to collapse the sewer after we leave. The ventilation shaft on the other side is cramped - especially for Titus - but a bigger concern is the torn out gratings, flashing emergency lights, and blood trails. The cells next to the lab, and mutilated bodies, don't bode well.

Felix: I think I've seen this movie
Greenlight: Well, none of us are black, so we can't be killed.

Apparently some airborne agent has been released.

Felix: So, who's glad I insisted on portable air supply?
Greenlight: Um.
Titus: I brought mine.

But that doesn't explain the state of the bodies, or the THINGS scurrying around the premises.

Labrat: There are lots of things that have claws. Rats, cats, dogs....
Felix: Deinocheirus
Labrat: Exactly

Felix: Was there provision for extra danger money in this contract?

Felix photographs everything - he is rather upset.

Felix: I think I'll be sending a strongly worded email to my grandfather. It doesn't do the company's reputation any good when they actually ARE doing stuff like this!

Felix: Somebody remind me why we're doing this job?
Inkubus: We're being paid.

Something is eating, noisily, in one of the side rooms. We unhook assorted incendiary, concussion, and frag grenades, toss them through the door, and slam it.

Felix: There's no kill like overkill.

Unfortunately, whatever was in there is annoyed, not dead, and comes out to complain.

GM: It's a flaming troll
Labrat: Its dress is FABulous
Felix: Well, it DOES look like the dress from Hunger Games.

Labrat: I know what it is and I'm panicking
Felix: YOU'RE panicking?! We threw four grenades at it and it's mildly pissed off!!!

Happily massed firepower does take it down, although it was just as well we added a few more white phosphorus grenades and Titus introduced its skull to his sledgehammer, since it was getting up again. That probably explains the Aztech security team we find barricaded into one if the offices. We claim to be Aztech security sent to back them up, and warn them to stay put until the decontamination teams arrive.

Felix: What I want to know is why the rest of Aztech security hasn't turned up to reinforce these poor fuckers
Labrat: They're currently chasing something worse.
Inkubus: This is a good thing and a bad thing.... I mean, I'm sure they'll catch it.

The dead thing appears to be a mutated, knobbly troll, with grotesquely long and muscular arms.

Greenlight: Evidently it skipped Leg Day

Labrat sucks the data from the computers, and carefully sets thermite and high-ex in the vault to destroy the rest of their research and bio-weapons. Apparently Aztech have been making sentient lions, tigers, and bears. Oh my. And whatever did THAT to the troll, cockroaches, and nematodes, is not something we want to exist, anyway.

We blow our way back out through the re-hardened wall with a shaped charge - that way we can save the other dose of the softening catalyst for another time. We're sure it will prove useful. And then off to the frieghter for the hand-off, wondering when whoever blackmailed Greenlight will show up, and musing about the cover of Shadowrun 2050, where a dwarf is breaking a cyber deck over the head of a security operative - very stupid, given the ridiculous expense of 2050 cyber decks.

Labrat: That's because we don't see what happens next - the dwarf screaming "what did I just do?!?!?"
Titus: There is the chance that it's not the Dwarf's cyber deck.
Greenlight: It's the elf that's jacked into something.
Inkubus: *wince* in that case, once he gets over the dump shock, the elf will kill the dwarf

We arrive at the docks - being paranoid, Felix checks the astral landscape before we proceed, and discovers there are at least 12 people waiting, instead of one. Also, they've apparently chosen the locale because of its proximity to the warehouses where thousands of orcs and trolls were burned alive during the Night of Rage some years ago. Felix and Warhammer climb to a roof where they can snipe from, just in case, although the storm and rain aren't helping visibility. Labrat tells everybody to head to Dock 90 if shit goes down, for some reason. We soon discover that the client's operative has been replaced with the asshole holding Greenlight's brother. We play it cool, even after ten armed men come out of hiding, and even after we notice most of them are wearing Alamos 20K armbands. These are the genocidal terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Night of Rage atrocity, and many other murderous attacks.

Greenlight demands they bring his brother out, which they do, keeping a gun to his head. Greenlight hands over a corrupt data chip, and the terrorist - apparently rather startled it's all going so smoothly - says he's going to go check. Labrat warns them to not try anything, and holds up the insurance he had in his pocket - a bundle of extremely hi-ex and a detonator.

Labrat: I have a C12 grenade.
Warhammer: I want one.

This is when the entire deck is lit with spotlights, a dozen Aztech security choppers descend from the sheets of rain, Aztech combat vehicles roar down from the gates, and a loudspeaker bellows at to all remain where we are. We had, unfortunately, neglected the possibility of magical pursuit. At least we'd all been wearing generic environment gear, and didn't use any magic, while we were inside Aztech - with any luck Aztech will assume it was all Alamos 20k.

The Alamos 20K gawp, Greenlight yells "Go!", Felix drops the one holding Greenlight's brother with a stunbolt, Titus drops the leader with a sledgehammer to the jaw, the leader and the hostage are grabbed, and the team jump overboard as more terrorists pour out of the warehouse and Aztech and Alamos 20k open fire on each other.

Warhammer and Felix linger on the roof, since nobody has spotted them yet, assisting the chaos by sniping anybody about to throw a grenade, then cover the team's motorbikes with a tarp and scampering off to Dock 90. The others have already been there for some time - luckily they still had those self-contained air supplies. It turns out Labrat had bought an Aztechnology cruiser after our last run, and by a happy co-incidence he'd had it berthed at these very docks the whole time. We head out into Puget Sound to enjoy the fireworks as Aztech and Alamos start using RPGs and the like on each other.

Greenlight's brother wakes up, and surprises us with something Inkubus and Titus had already figured out, but was news to the rest of us.

Greenlight's brother: SIS!?
Inkubus: Yeah, Greenlight is actually a girl.

Then there's the terrorist we brought with us, who proves completely unable to resist Inkubus's mind proves, spilling every secret he knows, including Alamos 20k banking details, the identity of his superiors in the organisation, the fact that our client's superior at Biodyne is a Alamos 20k sympathiser ( which explains how they managed to hijack the plan ), what they wanted the research for ( a virus to wipe out all meta humans ), and why he joined Alamos 20k in the first place.

Greenlight: He hates metahumans because an elf girl dumped him.
Labrat: He hates them because an Orc boy dumped him XD

We hand the terrorist and the info on Alamos 20k over to Warhammer's CIA contact, and drain their banking account. Labrat bundles the data on Homo felis, Homo ursus, and the other less horrible research, and sends it off to one of the independent broadcasters. Greenlight gets to work teaching her little brother what he'll need to survive, while they try to find their parents.

Felix: The Shadowrun equivalent of 'Operation' - 'Bomb Disposal'
Greenlight's player: I love the fact that whenever the PCs in any of my games have children, they immediately start raising them as the next generation of PCs.

One oddity is that her brother doesn't seem to have aged at all, since the day Renraku corps security bundled him and his parents into the back of a truck. He doesn't remember anything concrete about the intervening years, either.

Ah well, back to the main plot, which we've derailed again.

GM: What is it with you lot derailing my plots by getting on a boat?
Greenlight: We're just awesome that way.

Nonetheless, Labrat still gets a phone call from Mr B, who rumour holds is a big name in the Orc Underground. We've been invited to a meet.

Inkubus: I bring a six-pack of Hurlg. And manage to resist drinking any.
Greenlight: Good - I don't want to have to carry you.
Inkubus: If you have to carry Inkubus, there isn't any beer.
Labrat: If you drank so much Hurlg there won't be any Inkubus

The big mystery here is how did they figure out we were involved in the business at the wharves, and why would they trust us after that anyway?

Felix: If they noticed whose boat left the dock, and whose bikes were left behind, they may well figure that somebody embarrassed Aztechnology and got dozens of Alamos 20K assholes killed, and think 'these are our kinds of people!'

That appears to be the case. We're even given the incredible honour of a visit to the top-secret underground complex the Orcs have under Seattle's lava and ash flows. One of the things we discuss with Mr B is the fate of our original client. Apparently his boss had him 'delayed' and he's probably going to need rescuing. True, we failed on the run, as far as he knows, but rescue and the chance to climb the corporate ladder after his boss gets arrested for terrorist ties should go a long way. Besides, we got more money out of the terrorist accounts than we were going to be paid, anyway.

He's not the only one who needs rescuing. The scientist - a long time friend of Mr B - who made the virus possible is very upset with the way her work was perverted. But there's not they can do about it, since they're still effectively a slave to Aztechnology. And she wants out. And they're being kept secure in the same complex we raided earlier. Just as well we kept a dose of the wall-softening catalyst.

Felix: We should extract them soon. While they still think nobody would be stupid enough to try this twice

Bizarrely enough, Ian had nothing to do with this



But he did  update me on his campaign of terror in DayZ. He's decided to build a base for himself. He didn't used to have a base - just an outhouse on the middle of the Haunted Forest. Teams would go into the forest hunting for his non-existent base, and walk right past the outhouse. He eavesdropped on one assassin that had gone in hunting him - the other PC radioed back "I've got to the outhouse - what do I do now?", dithered for a bit, then lost his nerve and fled back to town.

Anyway, his new base isn't as elaborate as most - it's just a barn. It's the accessories that make it the target of rage across the server. As one of Ian's friends asked him -

"Why have you spent four cases of gold on grenades?"

The grenades became the thirty-meter deep minefield around the barn. So far, nobody has even got to the door, despite him 'helpfully' arranging (booby-trapped) oil drums to jump between. One player even tried to drive a tank up to his door, and it got blown up too. Ian cheerfully looted the bodies and parked the tank beside his barn, and invited the player to come retrieve it. One team did try to land a helicopter on the roof, but Ian had deliberately chosen a building with a sloped roof. They slid right off into the minefield. Naturally, the carnage has greatly improved Ian's pile of loot. To the fury of the other players, he just stores it all in the barn.

Player: I got him! I finally got him! Wait, he's not carrying any loot.
Player 2: what? He took my best rifle last week!
Player: he says he stashed it in the barn.
Player 2: fuuuuuuuu-

Of course, they could just fly a plane into his barn, just like he did to those other players, but while he was bored one day he discovered something interesting. He was building a tower from scaffolding, just to see how tall it would go, and was well above anything in the game when a plane flew into it. The plane blew up - and the tower stayed standing.

Ian thinks "I've just invented a giant flyswat". He's intending to build them at the end of each airport runway.

He recently spotted one of the other players heading to the traders camp, and wondered what he was buying. So he took off his burlap sack and followed him in. It turned out he was buying a car, and then medical supplies. So Ian got into the back of the car while the other player was off buying stuff, laid down on the back seat, put the burlap sack back on, and waited. And once they were driving down the road, sat up and started squealing and gibbering in the driver's ear.

After the car crash, the other player admitted it was pretty funny, but was slightly peeved that the car was a write-off and he'd been killed in the impact. The Pigman, predictably, survived.

In which Slaanesh's Lonely Hearts Club Warband attempts to infiltrate and corrupt a convent full of battle-nuns, that turned out to be an asylum for insane battle-nuns built on psycho-reactive rock.

GM: In a Dark Heresy or Deathwatch game this would be where the shit hits the fan. But since we're playing Black Crusade I'll leave that up to you.
Jrska: How bad can we make this situation - wheeeee!

Jrska OoC: Apparently Jrska autocorrects to Krakatoa.
Cassius OoC: .... OK....
Jrska OoC: 'the biggest Bang in history'
Cog OoC: *sigh*

This session is pretty much all of us carrying out our private plans. Cog, for example, distracts the tech-priestess long enough to insert his own cogitator code into the convent's security systems.

Jrska: And then you can get back to re-calibrating her Etheric Beam Locators.

Aladar isn't sure what to do, since the rest of us are quite busy.

Jrska: Why not question your guard? 'What sort of strange occurrences have you seen? Why do YOU think we've been called in? Do you like my Spanish Galleon?'
Aladar: I'm resigned to being the dumb guy with a gun.
Jrska: That's ok, we trust you to ask dumb questions.
Cog: Do you have Logic to any level of competence?
Jrska: Do you have any competence?

Aladar: Where could I cause the most amount of trouble?
Jrska: Just be yourself.

Jrska and Cassius are now being questioned by the Sister who spotted us as a Space Marine psyker and a mutant. We manage to half-convince her that we really do work for the Inquisition, by giving her carefully selected truths and bypassing all points in between.

Sister Joanna: Are you of a broken breed?
Cassius: My Chapter is still loyal.
Sister Joanna: But you are not?
Cassius: I have left the Emperor's grace in the past.
Jrska: True XD

Aladar: My butt hurts.
Cassius: ....
Jrska: Nothing to do with me.

Cog: Meanwhile, the guy with the unusual codpiece...
Jrska: You could put out a midget's eye with that.

Aladar has spotted something interesting on the surveillance pict-casters, just before Cog has the entire security system shut down for 'maintenance' - a really nice set of power armour on display somewhere in the convent.

GM: Most of the Seraphim Sisters live on the upper levels, so they can fly down if they need to.
Jrska: Like giant pigeons - picture them up there, sleeping with their heads under their wings and going "CoOoOo, CoOoOo"

Aladar decides that the armour will make a nice trophy, despite the fact that walking off with it will completely ruin our infiltration. But then, personal goals are a notoriously easy way to ruin a Compact. Just look at Jrska's plan to seduce a nun. Either way, the nunnery's vow of silence at least stops him saying too stupid.

GM: You can talk to your escort, but you'll need to right up next to her whispering in her ear.
Jrska: 'Hail Hydra'

Aladar: I think I'll steal a pauldron. A really big one.
Jrska: One with a really shiny skull on it?

Jrska: We will locate the source of any corruption in this convent, and then root it..... out

Cog: What's the Imperial proverb about wagging tongues?
Jrska: *holds fingers to muzzle, in V-sign* blalalalalala.
Cog: Not YOUR proverb.

Cassius: We're not here to make friends.
Jrska: Well, you might not be.
Peanut Gallery: No, you're here to make out.

Aladar discovers that the armour he's drooling after is a relic in the convent's main chapel. He somehow convinces his escort to step outside so he can conduct some 'private prayer' - i.e. Casing the joint, then deciding to desecrate the chapel by putting the sigils of Chaos everywhere.

GM: You did consecrate this Compact to Slaanesh...
Cassius: ... *facepalm*
Jrska: Basically you're scribbling cocks on everything. 'For a good time call'.

Jrska is still deciding which of the nuns to seduce - one of the guards? The broken ones? Or the embittered ones? That half the inmates already figured out she's a mutant just adds go the spice. Speculation abounds as to where various nuns place on the Kinsey Scale. To place Jrska, of course, requires exploring the imaginary number plane and transfinite sets.

Aladar: Basically, sexuality is ...
Jrska: A wibbly-wobbly ball of sexy-wexy.
Cog's player: Well, there's a sentence I never expected to hear.
Cassius' player: Really? And how long have you known Drhoz?

That digression takes the players off into Doctor Who and Rule 34

GM: 'This sonic screwdriver DOES work on wood.'

GM: Taking our minds out of the gutter -
Jrska: Booooooo
GM: And resting them on the edge of the drain where they can fall back in.

Sister Joanna seems typical of the embittered ones - a deep resentment combined with survivor guilt. She certainly seems to take the resentment out on her fellow battle-nuns during training sessions, according to the security records Cog reviews.

Aladar: And goddamn can she spike a volleyball

There's an interesting inscription on the relic armour in the chapel - something about curses - but Aladar can't quite make it out from ground level. He also discovers that the previous occupant is still inside.

GM: She's mummified, and definitely female.
Jrska: Necrophilia, necrophilia, necrophila, rigor mortis makes me hard, hey! She'll be easier to seduce than the others too XD

Cassius is less than impressed that Aladar scribbled Slaaneshi graffiti all over the chapel. This is supposed to be a covert mission, after all.

Cassius: Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just crush your skull.
Jrska: Killing one of your minions may be difficult to explain. Perhaps wait until we're off the planet.
Cassius: True.
Jrska: And that gives you a chance to redeem yourself. Remember sweety, we obey Lord Cassius' orders, not make up our own as we go along. (Blatant lie! Blatant lie!)
Cassius OoC: At least you pretend to obey my orders.

On the other hand, Aladar did actually conceal the sigils - inside the venerable skulls of former Abbesses, scribbled among the stitching of the heraldic banners, etc.

Jrska: That could be useful - if we have to, we can always claim the convent really was corrupt. There's proof.

Jrska has chosen her own target too.

Jrska: It's not that hard - I just have to find the right lever. The human need for intimacy, for example - and then exploit it to the hilt.
Cog: 'I thought this was a silent order - I think I just heard someone squeal'
Jrska: Actually, trying to stay silent will just add to the pleasure XD
Aladar: *sings* Hold your breath, it gets better.

Jrska sends her servo-skull Discobot-2000 off to get a closer look at that inscription. Unfortunately, the little flying servitor manages to get himself lost. This may take some explaining to the sisters.

Cog: Have you seen a little bundle of fun anywhere? It seems our friend with the codpiece decided to fiddle.
GM: You're blaming Aladar?
Jrska: Why not? He's been responsible for every other fuck-up.

Ian continues to make himself the most hated and beloved character on DayZ.

For one thing the other players now think the Haunted Forest has a wookie as well as a Pigman. That's because he donned a Ghillie suit, leapt out on three PCs, and beat them to death with a fishing rod.

The suit also proved useful in another stunt, which cost 36 lives before he got bored. He parked an armoured car in the middle of a empty  field surrounded by trees, then lay down three feet in front of the vehicle with a sniper rifle trained on the driver's seat. He then announced over the server that there was a prize just waiting to be claimed.

And despite knowing it was Ian, and knowing there was no possible way this could end well, 36 players still showed up.

True, some of them did turn up in teams, trying to figure out where the sniper fire was coming from, but they were all watching the tree-line. One player figured out that he had to be hiding somewhere in the field, and drove a tank over every suspicious bush, but managed to miss the one that was actually the Pigman. Ian then waited until the other PC got out of the tank to hook a tow rope to the armoured car, and shot him in the head.

The GMs love him, of course - and they've worked together to punish people that actually hack the game. When the Pigman got bored with the slanty shanty, and discovered an island well away from the mainland, they encouraged his efforts to become  Governor Pigman, as he built a large high-security prison. At the moment the only inmate is one of the aforementioned hackers, whose character got taken down by the Pigman and dragged off to a cell on the island, where the Pigman gloats at him from the roof. The player is livid, of course, and has even tried to starve his character to death so he re-spawn back on the mainland, but the Pigman just beats him unconscious and force-feeds him.

None of the other players have figured out about the island yet - they've seen him driving armoured cars out to sea, but apparently they think it's just the Pigman taking loot out of circulation again.
 

Bizarrely enough, Ian had nothing to do with this



But he did  update me on his campaign of terror in DayZ. He's decided to build a base for himself. He didn't used to have a base - just an outhouse on the middle of the Haunted Forest. Teams would go into the forest hunting for his non-existent base, and walk right past the outhouse. He eavesdropped on one assassin that had gone in hunting him - the other PC radioed back "I've got to the outhouse - what do I do now?", dithered for a bit, then lost his nerve and fled back to town.

Anyway, his new base isn't as elaborate as most - it's just a barn. It's the accessories that make it the target of rage across the server. As one of Ian's friends asked him -

"Why have you spent four cases of gold on grenades?"

The grenades became the thirty-meter deep minefield around the barn. So far, nobody has even got to the door, despite him 'helpfully' arranging (booby-trapped) oil drums to jump between. One player even tried to drive a tank up to his door, and it got blown up too. Ian cheerfully looted the bodies and parked the tank beside his barn, and invited the player to come retrieve it. One team did try to land a helicopter on the roof, but Ian had deliberately chosen a building with a sloped roof. They slid right off into the minefield. Naturally, the carnage has greatly improved Ian's pile of loot. To the fury of the other players, he just stores it all in the barn.

Player: I got him! I finally got him! Wait, he's not carrying any loot.
Player 2: what? He took my best rifle last week!
Player: he says he stashed it in the barn.
Player 2: fuuuuuuuu-

Of course, they could just fly a plane into his barn, just like he did to those other players, but while he was bored one day he discovered something interesting. He was building a tower from scaffolding, just to see how tall it would go, and was well above anything in the game when a plane flew into it. The plane blew up - and the tower stayed standing.

Ian thinks "I've just invented a giant flyswat". He's intending to build them at the end of each airport runway.

He recently spotted one of the other players heading to the traders camp, and wondered what he was buying. So he took off his burlap sack and followed him in. It turned out he was buying a car, and then medical supplies. So Ian got into the back of the car while the other player was off buying stuff, laid down on the back seat, put the burlap sack back on, and waited. And once they were driving down the road, sat up and started squealing and gibbering in the driver's ear.

After the car crash, the other player admitted it was pretty funny, but was slightly peeved that the car was a write-off and he'd been killed in the impact. The Pigman, predictably, survived.

One of his victim's put some of Ian's shennanigans on DayZ up on YouTube!

Bizarrely enough, Ian had nothing to do with this



But he did  update me on his campaign of terror in DayZ. He's decided to build a base for himself. He didn't used to have a base - just an outhouse on the middle of the Haunted Forest. Teams would go into the forest hunting for his non-existent base, and walk right past the outhouse. He eavesdropped on one assassin that had gone in hunting him - the other PC radioed back "I've got to the outhouse - what do I do now?", dithered for a bit, then lost his nerve and fled back to town.

Anyway, his new base isn't as elaborate as most - it's just a barn. It's the accessories that make it the target of rage across the server. As one of Ian's friends asked him -

"Why have you spent four cases of gold on grenades?"

The grenades became the thirty-meter deep minefield around the barn. So far, nobody has even got to the door, despite him 'helpfully' arranging (booby-trapped) oil drums to jump between. One player even tried to drive a tank up to his door, and it got blown up too. Ian cheerfully looted the bodies and parked the tank beside his barn, and invited the player to come retrieve it. One team did try to land a helicopter on the roof, but Ian had deliberately chosen a building with a sloped roof. They slid right off into the minefield. Naturally, the carnage has greatly improved Ian's pile of loot. To the fury of the other players, he just stores it all in the barn.

Player: I got him! I finally got him! Wait, he's not carrying any loot.
Player 2: what? He took my best rifle last week!
Player: he says he stashed it in the barn.
Player 2: fuuuuuuuu-

Of course, they could just fly a plane into his barn, just like he did to those other players, but while he was bored one day he discovered something interesting. He was building a tower from scaffolding, just to see how tall it would go, and was well above anything in the game when a plane flew into it. The plane blew up - and the tower stayed standing.

Ian thinks "I've just invented a giant flyswat". He's intending to build them at the end of each airport runway.

He recently spotted one of the other players heading to the traders camp, and wondered what he was buying. So he took off his burlap sack and followed him in. It turned out he was buying a car, and then medical supplies. So Ian got into the back of the car while the other player was off buying stuff, laid down on the back seat, put the burlap sack back on, and waited. And once they were driving down the road, sat up and started squealing and gibbering in the driver's ear.

After the car crash, the other player admitted it was pretty funny, but was slightly peeved that the car was a write-off and he'd been killed in the impact. The Pigman, predictably, survived.

One of his victim's put some of Ian's shennanigans on DayZ up on YouTube!

My brother has found a new game to terrorise - the Day Z mod for ARMA 2, although he's been amusing himself on the standalone too. He's already got the point that the entire forest occupying the middle of the map is effectively his personal domain. Players will rather run the gauntlet of sniper-infested townships rather than take a shortcut through what is now known as the Haunted Forest.

He started his campaign of terror by wearing a hessian sack with one eye-hole over his head, a lantern under one arm, hefting a fireman's axe and playing creepy music over the game's audio stream. Then he stood behind a bush and just waited, while players armed with crowbars etc nervously investigated the light and creepy music. Which is when he set his head to deranged high-speed wobbling, changed the music to what he describes as creepy yodelling, and leaped out of the bushes screaming gibberish and laying about him with the axe.

Picture the scene.

Not surprisingly the other players completely freaked. The only one with a gun managed to accidentally shoot his own friend, and after they'd all run off blindly into the woods they agreed it was the scariest thing they'd ever fucking seen. And then Ian turned it up to eleven. He would interrupt the chat channels with distant pig squeals and giggling "looking for you, fishie...Gonna find you, fishie...." and carrying out these promises in a campaign of terror that made the Pigman a creature of nightmare. And this in a zombie apocalypse setting.

He does have a certain amount of social justice in his make-up. Such as when snipers would set up shop on the cliff tops to kill re spawning players. You see, Ian has discovered that, unlike walking, sneaking, or even standing still, rolling along the ground has no associated sound effect. So he would silently roll up behind a sniper, and start using another bug in the game to poison the other PC.

The Pigman: Feed person rotten fruit. Feed person disinfectant. Feed person blood pack.
Sniper's HUD: You have a bad taste in your mouth.
Sniper: Eh? I've been poisoned! How - *turns around to find the Pigman looming over him, head wobbling maniacally, and squealing like a stuck pig*

At this point more than one of the snipers has recoiled right off the cliff.

And then he got hold of a crossbow. PCs lurking around the woods would hear things the following.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee, fishy fishy.... I can see you....

And then everybody would hear a p-chunk, and get the message that another PC was dead. Ian had a grand ol time stalking one of them.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee, looking for me, ain't you, fishy? You're a cute one... Gonna make love to you.... reeeeeeeeeeeee

At this point Victim One runs for it, Ian shoots him the leg, and he screams for help. An ally comes running, right past Ian who has ducked down, his hessian sack the same colour as the tree bark. Ian then shoots the new guy in the leg as well.

The Pigman: Two little fishies! Two little fishies! Dunno what I'll do... Cut the head off one and the bottom off another.... reeeeeeeeeeeee.

The two victims are completely losing their shit, begging the Pigman to let them go, and frantically offloading everything they own as bribes - weapons, gear.... And clothing.

The Pigman: Getting me excited now, fishies!

The Pigman does go into town occasionally, when he needs gear his victims aren't carrying. Once, he spotted another PC going by the name of Kahleesi. She was talking to a trader, so Ian rolled up behind her and started a campfire. She was a bit upset when she burst into flame.

The Pigman: You're not the Khaleesi! The true Khaleesi is immune to fire!

The Khaleesi also fell victim up Ian's method of disposing of unwanted petrol drums. This involved piling them up near a random base, and attaching some C4. The resulting mushroom cloud was visible and audible across the entire map. The Khaleesi was not pleased to find her base reduced to concrete walls and her loot scattered across the landscape.

Occasionally, well-armed teams DO go into the woods. One such laid a line of flares out behind them, so they wouldn't get lost. The Pigman silently stalked them, extinguishing each flare as he went.

PC: What happened to our flares? I thought they were supposed to last for hours.
PC 2: .... Oh no.
The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
All PCs: *scream, panic, flee into the darkness in random directions*

One character managed to get the drop on the Pigman, back before everyone knew what he was capable of, and they still thought he was a special GM event. He demanded weapons and loot. Pigman started jiggling and swaying from side to side.

Other PC: You don't have any weapons?

Pigman spasms and jerks, and carefully places a book on the ground.

Other PC: You want me to read this? Well, OK.

And this is wear Ian abuses ANOTHER bug in the game - a book, when read, occupies the entire screen.

The Pigman: *reaches across and handcuffs the other PC*
Other PC WTF?!?! Dude! You can't leave me like this!!!!
The Pigman: *just stares for a long time, without moving, then flips the bird and fire off a few rounds into the air to attract wandering zombies, and runs off, squealing like a pig and babbling about little fishies.*

It's got to the point that the mere sound of pig squeals provokes panic, regardless of the situation.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee
Player: Oh god.... I just fired 400 rounds into the bushes. I'm out of ammo and I'm in the middle of nowhere.

Ian did manage to terrorise one team's base, by popping up at windows, silently jiggling and wobbling spasmodically. The player inside, of course, opened fire, but Ian had already ducked back down.

Player: ... Did I just see that?

Ian repeats this performance at another window, provoking the same response. At the third window, he starts squealing as well, and the people inside lose their shit completely.

Players: We're friendly!!! We're friendly!!!! Don't kill us, we're friendly!!!!
The Pigman: Fishies don't shoot when they're friendly. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

He's also taken to jelly-beaning the unwary, leaving a trail of almost empty ammo cartridges off to an obvious trap - a valuable firearm, just sitting on the ground. And all the terrain around it shot up with hundreds of bullet holes. The Pigman then hides in the bushes nearby and waits. He's watched players stand there for minutes at a time, thinking about whether to risk it.

One more unwise individual wanted to go back for the gun, with help. His more experienced friend wanted nothing to do with it.

Paranoid Player: I'm not going there with you. I'm not going there with an army. I know who's behind this - he's hilarious but completely fucking insane. I've watched him throw that hessian mask one way, and while you're shooting at it he's running up behind you with an axe. He'll put that mask on one of your wounded allies and while you're shooting at your friend he's running up behind you with an axe. He will be there, watching you
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: But it's a really good gun! One-shot kill!
Paranoid Player: And how long will it take you to load it?
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: ... 30 seconds?
Paranoid Player: Right. 30 seconds for him to run up behind you with an axe.

As it was, the insufficiently paranoid player found a noob to watch his back. The Pigman rolled up to the noob, tasered him, and after they figured out that this wasn't some sort of electrical trap and they were being hunted by the Pigman, he already had them covered with a shotgun.

The Pigman: Drop your pants. Drop your loot. Fishie fishie.

He has them both strip to their underwear, cuffs them, force feeds them rotten fruit, and drags them off to a cliff top. Their, he throws the antidote ( itself corrupt, but he doesn't tell them that ) off the cliff, and gives them an ultimatum - one jumps off the cliff, and ones goes free. The noob, having less to lose, jumps.

Noob: Hey, I survived! Wait, I'm still handcuffed. And I'm bleeding. And now I'm dead. Fuck.
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: You'll let me go now, right?
The Pigman: No fishie fishie .... You and me get to play a game....
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: *is dragged off screaming into the woods*
Other players on the audio channel, wondering at the noise: What are you screaming about?
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: He's got me! He's going to do something!
Paranoid Player: I warned you. You deserve everything you get.


What he gets is being dragged to an abandoned house, his leg broken, his hands cuffed behind his back, and informed that somewhere in the house are the keys to the cuffs, a medipack, and a gun with one bullet. Also, that he'd better hurry, because there are people coming over.

The Pigman: *fires multiple shots into the air to attract zombies, and leaves. * Fishie Fishie.

And that's just the Zombie mod of the game. Wait until you hear about everything else he's been up to...

My brother has found a new game to terrorise - the Day Z mod for ARMA 2, although he's been amusing himself on the standalone too. He's already got the point that the entire forest occupying the middle of the map is effectively his personal domain. Players will rather run the gauntlet of sniper-infested townships rather than take a shortcut through what is now known as the Haunted Forest.

He started his campaign of terror by wearing a hessian sack with one eye-hole over his head, a lantern under one arm, hefting a fireman's axe and playing creepy music over the game's audio stream. Then he stood behind a bush and just waited, while players armed with crowbars etc nervously investigated the light and creepy music. Which is when he set his head to deranged high-speed wobbling, changed the music to what he describes as creepy yodelling, and leaped out of the bushes screaming gibberish and laying about him with the axe.

Picture the scene.

Not surprisingly the other players completely freaked. The only one with a gun managed to accidentally shoot his own friend, and after they'd all run off blindly into the woods they agreed it was the scariest thing they'd ever fucking seen. And then Ian turned it up to eleven. He would interrupt the chat channels with distant pig squeals and giggling "looking for you, fishie...Gonna find you, fishie...." and carrying out these promises in a campaign of terror that made the Pigman a creature of nightmare. And this in a zombie apocalypse setting.

He does have a certain amount of social justice in his make-up. Such as when snipers would set up shop on the cliff tops to kill re spawning players. You see, Ian has discovered that, unlike walking, sneaking, or even standing still, rolling along the ground has no associated sound effect. So he would silently roll up behind a sniper, and start using another bug in the game to poison the other PC.

The Pigman: Feed person rotten fruit. Feed person disinfectant. Feed person blood pack.
Sniper's HUD: You have a bad taste in your mouth.
Sniper: Eh? I've been poisoned! How - *turns around to find the Pigman looming over him, head wobbling maniacally, and squealing like a stuck pig*

At this point more than one of the snipers has recoiled right off the cliff.

And then he got hold of a crossbow. PCs lurking around the woods would hear things the following.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee, fishy fishy.... I can see you....

And then everybody would hear a p-chunk, and get the message that another PC was dead. Ian had a grand ol time stalking one of them.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee, looking for me, ain't you, fishy? You're a cute one... Gonna make love to you.... reeeeeeeeeeeee

At this point Victim One runs for it, Ian shoots him the leg, and he screams for help. An ally comes running, right past Ian who has ducked down, his hessian sack the same colour as the tree bark. Ian then shoots the new guy in the leg as well.

The Pigman: Two little fishies! Two little fishies! Dunno what I'll do... Cut the head off one and the bottom off another.... reeeeeeeeeeeee.

The two victims are completely losing their shit, begging the Pigman to let them go, and frantically offloading everything they own as bribes - weapons, gear.... And clothing.

The Pigman: Getting me excited now, fishies!

The Pigman does go into town occasionally, when he needs gear his victims aren't carrying. Once, he spotted another PC going by the name of Kahleesi. She was talking to a trader, so Ian rolled up behind her and started a campfire. She was a bit upset when she burst into flame.

The Pigman: You're not the Khaleesi! The true Khaleesi is immune to fire!

The Khaleesi also fell victim up Ian's method of disposing of unwanted petrol drums. This involved piling them up near a random base, and attaching some C4. The resulting mushroom cloud was visible and audible across the entire map. The Khaleesi was not pleased to find her base reduced to concrete walls and her loot scattered across the landscape.

Occasionally, well-armed teams DO go into the woods. One such laid a line of flares out behind them, so they wouldn't get lost. The Pigman silently stalked them, extinguishing each flare as he went.

PC: What happened to our flares? I thought they were supposed to last for hours.
PC 2: .... Oh no.
The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
All PCs: *scream, panic, flee into the darkness in random directions*

One character managed to get the drop on the Pigman, back before everyone knew what he was capable of, and they still thought he was a special GM event. He demanded weapons and loot. Pigman started jiggling and swaying from side to side.

Other PC: You don't have any weapons?

Pigman spasms and jerks, and carefully places a book on the ground.

Other PC: You want me to read this? Well, OK.

And this is wear Ian abuses ANOTHER bug in the game - a book, when read, occupies the entire screen.

The Pigman: *reaches across and handcuffs the other PC*
Other PC WTF?!?! Dude! You can't leave me like this!!!!
The Pigman: *just stares for a long time, without moving, then flips the bird and fire off a few rounds into the air to attract wandering zombies, and runs off, squealing like a pig and babbling about little fishies.*

It's got to the point that the mere sound of pig squeals provokes panic, regardless of the situation.

The Pigman: reeeeeeeeeeeee
Player: Oh god.... I just fired 400 rounds into the bushes. I'm out of ammo and I'm in the middle of nowhere.

Ian did manage to terrorise one team's base, by popping up at windows, silently jiggling and wobbling spasmodically. The player inside, of course, opened fire, but Ian had already ducked back down.

Player: ... Did I just see that?

Ian repeats this performance at another window, provoking the same response. At the third window, he starts squealing as well, and the people inside lose their shit completely.

Players: We're friendly!!! We're friendly!!!! Don't kill us, we're friendly!!!!
The Pigman: Fishies don't shoot when they're friendly. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

He's also taken to jelly-beaning the unwary, leaving a trail of almost empty ammo cartridges off to an obvious trap - a valuable firearm, just sitting on the ground. And all the terrain around it shot up with hundreds of bullet holes. The Pigman then hides in the bushes nearby and waits. He's watched players stand there for minutes at a time, thinking about whether to risk it.

One more unwise individual wanted to go back for the gun, with help. His more experienced friend wanted nothing to do with it.

Paranoid Player: I'm not going there with you. I'm not going there with an army. I know who's behind this - he's hilarious but completely fucking insane. I've watched him throw that hessian mask one way, and while you're shooting at it he's running up behind you with an axe. He'll put that mask on one of your wounded allies and while you're shooting at your friend he's running up behind you with an axe. He will be there, watching you
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: But it's a really good gun! One-shot kill!
Paranoid Player: And how long will it take you to load it?
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: ... 30 seconds?
Paranoid Player: Right. 30 seconds for him to run up behind you with an axe.

As it was, the insufficiently paranoid player found a noob to watch his back. The Pigman rolled up to the noob, tasered him, and after they figured out that this wasn't some sort of electrical trap and they were being hunted by the Pigman, he already had them covered with a shotgun.

The Pigman: Drop your pants. Drop your loot. Fishie fishie.

He has them both strip to their underwear, cuffs them, force feeds them rotten fruit, and drags them off to a cliff top. Their, he throws the antidote ( itself corrupt, but he doesn't tell them that ) off the cliff, and gives them an ultimatum - one jumps off the cliff, and ones goes free. The noob, having less to lose, jumps.

Noob: Hey, I survived! Wait, I'm still handcuffed. And I'm bleeding. And now I'm dead. Fuck.
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: You'll let me go now, right?
The Pigman: No fishie fishie .... You and me get to play a game....
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: *is dragged off screaming into the woods*
Other players on the audio channel, wondering at the noise: What are you screaming about?
Insufficiently Paranoid Player: He's got me! He's going to do something!
Paranoid Player: I warned you. You deserve everything you get.


What he gets is being dragged to an abandoned house, his leg broken, his hands cuffed behind his back, and informed that somewhere in the house are the keys to the cuffs, a medipack, and a gun with one bullet. Also, that he'd better hurry, because there are people coming over.

The Pigman: *fires multiple shots into the air to attract zombies, and leaves. * Fishie Fishie.

And that's just the Zombie mod of the game. Wait until you hear about everything else he's been up to...

I was at Swancon the evening of the second session, but they recorded some quotes for me. Some, perhaps thankfully, without attribution or context.

-Thing about being a Troll, it's sort of like having the stretching powers. Don't Lord it over the rest of us!

Inkubus: Which is a better spell, Prophylaxis, which I have to sustain, or just Cure Disease?

Greenlight: he's shaking dice at me!

Greenlight: Do I see any traps?
GM: no.
Labrat: All the girls in here seem to be the real thing.
Titus: Hey! I was going to make that joke!

It appears that whoever tried to kidnap Euphoria had a back-up plan. At least, a second back-up plan, after their attempted mid-ocean kidnapping went so badly wrong. Her desperate publicity agent gets in contact with Inkubus, in the hope this is another stunt by his charge. He then offers Inkubus 20,000 NuYen to hire some shadowrunners than can track her down. Inkubus, not being an idiot when it comes to being paid twice, demands a finder's fee.

Inkubus: What's my cut?

He may well be hiring all his friends, and sharing the finder's fee as a bonus with us, but we don't need to tell the agent that XD Some time is spent running around gathering clues as to the kidnapping. A good deal of this is the GM's attempt to steer the plot back on track, after we so spectacularly derailed it by taking Euphoria on a sailing trip last session. Labrat experiences the sim-sense recording of the kidnapped actress.

GM: You feel the soft silk of her clothes against her skin -
Greenlight: "...the shuffling of a too tight G-string..."

Labrat: I give the team a full rundown, especially the guy with the T-Shirt that read "Garrity's Bar and Grill" I don't need to be hit over the head with a clue bat to spot one.

Labrat: Would the name of the Bar be E.O?
GM: No, why?
Labrat: That would make it the Barrio.

Greenlight: Who the heck is narrating this adventure, Max Payne?

The trail leads to a small shop, where somebody appears to have investigating the same case, and was turned into wallpaper for his pains. There is also an extremely skeevy individual hanging around - so skeevy that Greenlight shoots it. Despite shooting it with a mere pistol it splatters all over the alleyway.

Greenlight: *stares down at the pistol, then makes Final Fantasy victory theme*

This is rather disturbing. As is the clue that points towards the factory out in the Barrens where they're making Ambergel, the new food sensation that Euphoria is supposed in Seattle to promote. One look at the factory in the Astral is more than slightly disturbing, and the group decides that heading in there right away will be a spectacularly bad idea.
 
 
 
Inkubus is accused of being "overly excited"

Inkubus: I don't want to say anything...
Labrat: We don't want you to say anything!
Warhammer : Never, ever.

The team starts calling in favours, and draining the expense account. For one thing, we need to know all we can about the thing Greenlight shot. And we need more firepower. And as much insecticide as we can get from the every convenience store we can get to. And backup, in case this doesn't work and the factory needs to be wiped off the face of the map. Happily, Warhammer's buddies in the FBI, Lone Star law enforcement, the Knights Errant, and the United Canadian and United States Army actually listen, and one of his friends in the latter pulls up with a semi-trailer-slash-mobile-armoury. We start kitting up - or rather, Greenlight, Warhammer, Titus and Labrat do - Inkubus and Felix intend to offer astral support. Body-armour, combat drugs, portable air supply and Infra-red goggles are a must. Incendiary mines and white phosphorus grenades likewise. Some way to best utilise Titus' size and Warhammer's army experience seems a good idea..

Labrat: Can we get a shoulder-mounted minigun?
Armourer: *grins, and pulls out the rack of backpack seat/ammo bin +shoulder-mounted minigun* It's a standard configuration
Various: We now have a standard Troll/Dwarf Minigun assembly!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But we have to bring back any unexpended munitions - they do belong to the United Canadian and American States Army.

Titus: New! Tachikoma strength Raid!

Titus: Bomb everything that's on fire! Then keep bombing it until it's on fire again!

Greenlight sneaks up onto the roof of the factory, where sentries patrol. At ground level, Titus and the others make their own entrance. Actual architecture notwithstanding.

GM: The sentries run to the edge of the roof and look over.
Greenlight: Run over and kick! THIS IS SPAAAARRRRTAAAAA!

Greenlight: (on the effect of a rotary minigun) - It's damage is I @#$%^%& your mother and I'm coming for you next!

Titus: (on discovering the depths of the Insect Hive) - this is DEEP, man!

The plan - jam the elevators and flood the ground floor with roach bombs. We don't want any of the insect spirits or their victims getting out past us. The heart of the nest is many floors below ground.

Felix: We're lucky we're going in loaded for para-bear, aren't we?

Meanwhile, in the Astral, where everything appears in its Ideal Form

Inkubus: Skin-tight denim, waist-length hair flowing out behind me, surfing on a guitar, the whole deal.
Greenlight: So basically you look like an anime character
Inkubus: Yes

GM: They're probably alerted.
Titus: I just Kool-aided two walls, they know we're here.

Inkubus: Because of what I need to do in order to do what I need to do... Fuck that was terrible English.

Warhammer: I need some speakers on my minigun belting out Ride of the Valkyries.
Greenlight: Hall of the Mountain King might be better. Dun dun dun-dun dun.
Labrat and Inkubus: That's A Night on Bald Mountain
Greenlight: It is?
Labrat: How about the Fourth Movement of Beethoven's Seventh?
Greenlight: Ode to Joy?
Inkubus: Sure, why not?

As well as dozens of Gigeresque monstrosities, and a giant pulsing cocoon, there's a human mage.

GM: His name is Craft.
Felix: We don't care.
ALL : *Hose the room with WP grenades, gunfire, and magic. Warhammer somehow manages to miss everything, despite the minigun.*
Felix: ...How? Were you too busy head-banging to Ode to Joy or something?
Inkubus: That's the problem - he should have been playing Machine Gunn Eddie

Inkubus OoC: Will the conditions down here help my Metal Mage specialities?
Greenlight: We're underground and everything is on fire.
Felix: Can't get much more metal than this

Inkubus manages to banish the Insect Queen's spirit back to what Lovecraftian dimension they come from, but the deathscream is enough to send him bonkers. Warhammer is slightly miffed that the fight seems to over so quickly.

Inkubus: I've looked into the Abyss and realised it was looking back.
Felix: With big compound eyes.
Inkubus: My trousers are full.
Felix: Astral trousers?
Inkubus: Real trousers. The guy back at the truck is looking down at our bodies and thinking 'he just crapped himself - what the f**k is happening down there'.

Warhammer: I can't believe I didn't get to kill anything in this room.
Felix: Just use the rest of your incendiary grenades on the way out.
Warhammer: Someone else can do that - I'm upset now.

GM: Shadowrun is a week of planning, three days of set-up, and ten seconds of utter chaos.
Titus: Occasionally followed by running away very quickly.

The surviving Insect Spirits are berserk, but so is Inkubus. He summons a major fire spirit. In corporeal form.

Inkubus: What the hell, let's kill myself doing this.
Greenlight: I think you mean kiln yourself.

God of Hellfire: I am the God of Hellfire! And I bring you ... FIRE.
Felix: And in the Astral I'm looking at Inkubus with the Platonic Ideal of What The F**k Are You DOING?
 
 
 
 
 
 

Inkubus: Kill every f**king bug in this building!
GM: It looks at them ... Looks at you.... Looks at them and growls GLADLY

Now would be a good time to grab Euphoria and bug out. For one thing the oxygen in the room is rapidly running out, and there's a large number of crazed on-fire Insect Spirits running about. By the time we reach the surface large numbers of the military, Lone Star, and Knights Errant are converging on the inferno.

Labrat: We geared up and decided white phosphorus was our friend.
Felix: And there's not many circumstances you can say that in.

Greenlight: Could you please never summon the God of Hellfire again?
Inkubus: I make no promises.
Titus: Oh, I don't know, he seemed nice.
Felix: As the factory goes up in a pillar of flame behind us.

Inkubus: Yeah, we handled it, we're awesome-
Felix: A Balrog?! A f**king Balrog!? You summoned a f**king Balrog!?
Inkubus: .... *cowers* just the one....

Warhammer: This should do our street cred a lot of good
Felix: Well yes, hundreds of military, Lone Star and f**king Knights Errant turn up, with us walking out with a burning factory as a backdrop?!?!?
Warhammer: Ah, sorry guys, I didn't actually need your backup, it wasn't as hard as I thought.
Felix: *now looking at Warhammer the way I was previously looking at Inkubus* You think that was *easy*!?!?
Greenlight: Geez, calm down, how long have you been working the streets, anyway?
Inkubus: You met him on his first Run.

Inkubus: When we get home we're breaking out the special bottle of Taéngelé
Felix: Not until our hands stop shaking.

Felix: Ok, I'm only to say this once - form some kind or perimeter. If you see anything coming out of that building that isn't a twenty-foot winged demon of fire, fucking kill it. And if it is a twenty-foot winged demon of fire, get the f**k out of its way.

Warhammer is feeling fairly chipper, and when he gets home intends to strip to his underwear and dance.

Inkubus: *sings* Take that old record off the shelf
Warhammer: Serenade me - it's time to power slide. With a shotgun. It'll look like air guitar.

What to do with our very sizeable pay for this nights work (oddly enough nobody seems inclined to chastise us about the property destruction, although some interesting rumours about what we faced are circulating in the Runner bulletin boards.)

Inkubus: F*** charity, I'll spend it all on booze and Cheerios
Titus: I assume the Cheerios are a local cheer-leading squad?

It's a couple of months until our next job offer.

Felix: Summer in Seattle. It's raining. Big f**king surprise.
GM: Who wants to be called with a job offer?
Warhammer: The troll.
Titus: Sure.
Felix: 'I've got whitefly in my garden, I was told you're good with plants.'

Greenlight however, has been given an offer he can't refuse. Somebody claims they have his missing brother at their mercy - interesting news, given Greenlight's entire family were kidnapped by Renraku Corp years ago) and they'll kill him if he doesn't tell them everything we find out about a job we haven't even been offered yet. Apparently it's something biological Aztechnology are working on. They also fit Greenlight with a bug, and they kill his brother if Greenlight talks to anybody about it, or takes it off. Greenlight, of course, quickly finds a way around this. Magical contact telepathy courtesy of Inkubus helps, while we're en route (dressed in our very best suits) to find out about the job in hand.

Labrat: It's not a bug, it's a locator
Greenlight: Muthaf**ka!
Inkubus: Sorry Labrat but I don't feel comfortable touching you for any longer than necessary.
Labrat: Do you have a problem with me being an Ork?
Inkubus: No, I have a problem with you being damn ugly. Hey, Bubbles! That night three weeks ago, did I have a problem with Orks?
Felix: *sigh* No.

We're meeting the client at the classiest restaurant in Seattle. Inkubus, as usual, thinks 'Chippendale Dancer' is the height of fashion.

Felix: Sigh. I'm assuming they never thought they'd need a 'No Shirt No Service' sign.

GM: The elevator deposits you at the very tip of the Seattle Needle.
Greenlight: Oh shit. Balance checks!

Inkubus: I hope you don't mind us eating, but it conceals the fact we're having a business meeting.
Warhammer: Plus we're hungry.

The client wants us to break into Aztechnology's research park, via the sewers, steal all the data pertaining to a particular project, and rendezvous at the docks. He's slightly concerned that whoever was blackmailing Greenlight already knows about the run. Felix is concerned because half his family work for Aztech, but keeps schtuum until we're somewhere secure.

Felix: I used to work for Aztech. My grandfather still does.
Greenlight: We guessed.
Labrat: A third of the country works for Aztech, one way or the other.
Felix: But they're not all mid-level execs.
Greenlight: We know.
Felix: How did you know I was from Aztlan, with a surname like Bethke?
Inkubus: You don't have your Seattle tan yet, dude.

It's a risky run - not least because it involves one of the major megacorps. Someway to block the sewers during our retreat is probably a must.

Felix: Maybe some sort of canister that expands into quickset foam?
Inkubus: That stuff only works in the movies.

And so off to plan.

This AD&D campaign was set in an area where Greek and Egyptian cultures overlapped.
 
Usekhtep: paladin of Horus, the Egyptian god of righteous retribution; rode a giant hawk into battle
Hesykhia: priestess of Harpocrates, the Greek god of silence
Thestia: a rogue and a member of a Greek criminal organization; the team "scout"
The Toymaker: a wild mage; played by the team munchkin

Father Azerun: priest of Thoth, the Egyptian god of knowledge (the GM's NPC)
 
While Usekhtep and Thestia were scouting, Hesykhia, Father Azerun and The Toymaker came face-to-face with a group of 30 Settite priests ... who were individually slightly weaker than the PCs, and collectively far stronger. Usekhtep flew back to the group to discover them confronting each other.
Hesykhia and The Toymaker (ooc, to each other): "We are sooo going to die."
Usekhtep: (landing his giant hawk on a low cliff overlooking the Settites) "Is there a problem?"

Settite Priest: "You killed four members of our group. Surrender or we will kill you."
Usekhtep: (leveling his lance at the leader) "We haven't killed any members of your group. But if the rest of you want to die, you're welcome to attack."
Settite Priest: "You're bluffing."
Hesykhia: "He doesn't bluff."
Settite Priest: "But ... There are thirty of us against four of you. You don't stand a chance."
Usekhtep: (patting his hawk's head) "There are five of us, and I'm certainly willing to test your theory."
Settite Priest: (noticing that Thestia isn't present) "One of you isn't here. How do you know that she didn't kill our brethren?"
Usekhtep: "If she was hunting you, more than four of you would be dead."
 
The group went to consult with a young woman who had been cursed with super senses.
Super-sensitive woman: "My ability is a burden, not a gift. I can see everyone around me dying. I can can see you growing older. I can see your cells dying, one by one. If you want, I can tell you the year, the month, the day, the hour, the minute and even the second when you will finally die of natural causes."
Usekhtep: (shrugging) "If it's any consolation to you, that's a meaningless number. I don't expect to die of natural causes."
 
The group tracked down a vicious, treacherous, murderous pirate captain. After a tough battle, the group won when they paralyzed the captain. Usekhtep followed up by performing a coup de grat.
Father Azerun: "I can't believe you killed her while she was paralyzed!"
Usekhtep: "Her crimes required her death. Did you want me to wake her up before I executed her?"
 
The DM liked to create moral quandaries for the players. Unfortunately for him, Usekhtep's black-and-white view of morality was immune to shades of gray.
Father Azerun: (explaining the moral quandary to the group) "I discovered that the boy we found will become a greater demonic power at some point in the future. But for now, his true nature is concealed, even from him. He is, for all purposes, an innocent child at this time."
Usekhtep: "What is the problem? I can easily take care of that."
Hesykhia: "You aren't going to kill the child?!?"
Usekhtep: "Of course not. My giant hawk has the ability to fly us to the Happy Hunting Grounds, one of the heavenly planes. We will take the boy there."
Father Azerun: "But contact with a heavenly plane could utterly destroy him."
Usekhtep: "In which case we'll know that he's truly a creature of evil, merely masquerading as an innocent."
Father Azerun: "What if he survives?"
Usekhtep: "Then I'll leave him there. He can spend his remaining years of innocence living in paradise. And as soon as his evil nature comes forth, he'll be utterly destroyed."

Your brother is a sick, sick man.
 
You should be so proud.