And he's the best architect, Mr.
This is it chummers. Rescue is imminent for Cecile. There is a lot of ineffective shooting.
It does more damage to the casters than the targets. But there are other ways to accomplish the mission.
I have another idea. I see. Yeah, that didn't work. What was that supposed to be? That was going to be the use of an adept power.
Unfortunately, she rolled a zero and that's a complex action. So your leadership...
leadershipless charisma. Your leadership power would require some...
How... even though it failed, I mean, what were you... how were you attempting to apply your leadership?
That's an adept power. Fiber's max command. All right, she would pull closer to the car.
She thinks she's trying to be intimidating, but she ends up accidentally putting some magic into those words to no effects,
apparently, and she shouts with her weapon still directed at the window.
Stop the car now! Unfortunately, God said no.
Do you... so you've used your complex action on your previous past pull-up.
Indeed. So using the leadership powers that...
That is a complex action. Commanding voice.
She's really putting some oomph into her words. So she thinks...
Yeah, it doesn't seem to have any effect. The mages seems to be torn between either being angry at you or
whimpering in pain. Oh, wow. And you see the driver of the vehicle has drawn a weapon.
Buckdarn. Yeah, he's drawn a heavy pistol and is pointing it out past the mage towards you as well,
and he is going to fire. So it's a seal in the back of the...
He got four hits, and he is using stick and shock ammo. Public hot... public hot, I assume.
Yeah, so that's stun damage, so you're going to be resisting six stun.
Awesome. Does your armor have any electrical mitigating factor?
I do believe it does. Let's see here. God, I have so many things.
It has three electric. Armored vest, non-conductivity three.
Yep. So because I think the... I remember right, the stick and shock
actually reduces the armor protection. It has an AP of like three or something.
Yeah, stick and shock. AP of... So it has your armor. It has your... You use half your impact,
your armor rating for impact, but then I guess you add three for your non-conductivity.
So it comes out to six. The impact rating of the armored vest is four, so half of it would be two.
Five. I think you've got five dice. Five dice. All right. Boom. That's the jacket. What am I doing?
All right, so you take four stun as the stick and shock ammo impacts your vest,
and you feel the electrical discharge through you. Fortunately, your vest takes quite a bit of it
and dissipates it, but it's still quite painful. And Kirsten behind you, let's see what happens with her,
because she is holding on to you. Imagine she's having an unpleasant time.
Yeah, she's going to resist it as well, but I don't know how she's going to resist it.
Okay, so Kirsten takes four stun as well. All right, and then nobody else has another
pass except for you, Boxer. Oh, I have another one.
Didn't you have three? I thought you had three. Yeah, I have three. I thought that was the third.
So I mean, all right, time to try that again, except she's fucking pissed right now.
She's probably going to say something a little irrational. And that is resisted with leadership
plus willpower. Yeah. Resisted with willpower, just willpower. Leadership plus willpower.
And that's directed against the driver. But that's only if he has leadership, right?
Yeah, and that's unfortunate. Yeah, he is not having any of it.
Owl. Yeah, it might be time to take the gloves off.
The fucking car! Yeah, he's not intimidated or in any way inclined to follow through on that.
So I guess it's time for us all to roll initiative again.
Kid gloves come off, hopefully. Cecile down there. Why?
It's okay, she wouldn't do anything anyway. For girl, must be scared out of her wits.
She is scared out of her wits for that matter. So, since they tied with me, what is that? We have to...
Whoever has the higher was a reaction. Reaction.
Well, my reaction is to... they presumably beat me. He beat me. That's illegal. Oh, no. Who is that?
That's the driver. I'm scared of that fucking driver. Oh, my God.
All right. He's going to use his first pass to maintain control of the vehicle.
Also, I'm curious. How is the rest of the traffic responding to this developing situation?
Well, so far you've been sort of lucky. Okay.
In that, you know, you haven't had a lot of traffic and, realistically, we've really only gone through,
what, 18 seconds of time? My goodness. Yeah, I guess you're right. It's a lot to happen in 18 seconds.
Haas down. Because actually, it's probably only been half that because Chatter One turns are three.
Really? Three seconds, not six seconds? Correct. So, so in the handbook.
Actually, wait. Passes don't count as a... Nope. No, it's just the turns. Everything you're doing
in each pass happens in three seconds. Right? So, we have had three seconds elapsed.
We've had six seconds because we've done two. Oh, yeah. That's a big improvement.
All of three turns. Yeah. I was basing it on nine. So, it's been like nine seconds, right? My goodness.
Yeah. So, the external traffic has not been doing a whole lot at this point.
That's why I was giving Cecile some time to actually understand what the fuck is going on,
because it's only been six seconds. Yeah. It's been virtually no time at all.
Gunshots are ringing out. The door's open. This evil woman's trying to mindprobe her.
So, there's, yeah, there's all sorts of crap going on here.
For somebody that was fight was like nine seconds ago, drinking some water. Yeah.
She might have been in, you know, fewer for her life while she was drinking the water,
but at least, you know, she was just sitting there drinking water. So, now it's...
So, the driver keep control of the vehicle just barely at this point. There's some
swerving around and accelerating. And it's Boxer's turn. All right. Yeah. The kid gloves are coming
off. Let me check something. Okay. I need to Google something. See if I can use a mini grenade
without a grenade launcher. No, I cannot. Oof. It won't prime. It was worth a try.
So, what I get for getting all the grenades... Unless you want to throw it in there as an
intimidation tactic. Oh, that'd be something. Actually, stuff's giving me an idea. Throw Kirsten
in there. Oh my God. Yes, we're doing this. We're doing this. We need to do Boxer now.
Give some more people. I know. She's shooting the dude who's casting the magic.
Like, she's done. All right. Let's see. The magic changes things somewhat. Right. I get two...
Never mind. All right. So, she's aiming at the dude because she's not missing this man
and she's firing. Do you want to use Edge? Oh, I'm using Edge. This man's going to fucking die
or he's going to feel like he's about to or he'll wish he did. All right. It has pistols.
And is a burst still a simple action? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. A burst is a simple action.
No, she's firing a two-round burst. I don't think it has enough recoil control for that.
Oh, God. That's a glitch. That's a hard glitch. That's almost all ones.
Oh, that is a critical glitch, actually, because it's more than half and it's more than the hits.
Oh, that's true. It is more than the hits. That is more than the...
And it's more than the hits. So, it's a critical glitch. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you can use Edge
to undo a critical glitch. No, we can only do it for a glitch. What I even used the Edge for anyway,
what did it do? I just kind of heard Edge and went, yes. Yeah, so you could have... So, you can
use Edge in the beginning to create exploding sixes, right? Got confused because we used so many
every system, every addition. You can spend Edge to negate the effects of a glitch or critical glitch.
Oh, on that case, no glitch, please. Correct, no glitch. You still only get one hit. Yeah, well,
it's better than dropping my gun. How much Edge do you have? I have two. I spent one
just now. That's what I'm spending. Okay. It is not a critical glitch because she scored a hit.
Yeah, you have to have no hits. You have to have no hits. That's a lot of red. That's a scary amount of red.
So, is it just spending Edge? So, you're just using Edge to...
Not glitch, kindly. Kindly dandy. Okay. So, basically, you just got one hit. Yeah.
And he is going to roll... What's the damage value on the weapon?
Five bullet powers. The other thing is, technically, you should be... You're firing at minus two because
you're on a moving vehicle. But I haven't been taking that from them either. So, and did you take
your negatives for your stun damage? I'd say I should pre-roll it, but I don't think I can
roll worse than I did. No, it's okay. I've been forgetting too. So, he's going to roll, but what
did you say your damage value was? It's five. Five key. And his ballistic armor is six.
That's stun. So, it's going to... The stun overflows. So... Yeah. So, he's still got a resistant
re-so. Two stuns. So, he's at seven stun. You fired a two-round burst, though. Indeed. So,
doesn't burst increase the... Oh, shit. Did I apply the modifier for a smart gun? No. I wrote
the sound for a reason. The reason was not so that I would forget it, literally every time.
This is so sad. Oh, I'm going to cry about it, hon. All right. So, I guess the other thing is you've
got... They're saying in burst fire mode, you have your eye... You're firing a narrow burst,
which causes more damage to the target, increase the damage value by plus two,
or it's a wide burst, which decreases the defender's dice pool by two. So, what do you want to do? Do
you want to increase his dice pool or increase the damage value? Increase his dice ball.
Poppy. Shush. Yeah, we'll just do... We'll go with his first roll. Yeah, that's the problem with
re-rolling stuff. All right. So, you fire... You hit the mage again. He's definitely looking far worse
for the wearer than he has been. How is he still... Wait, has his stun filled up yet?
No, he's at seven stun. Oh my god, this man... Fucking... I want this kind of endurance.
These guys are professionals. All right, and we're re-rolling initiative.
Wait, I didn't even go yet. What? I have not gone yet. We had the third pass last time.
This is the first question mark pass. All right, good. Glad somebody's paying attention here.
Wow, okay.
But so... Okay, so boxer just went that means the mage gets to go next.
Oh god. Or no, who's react... I guess it's by reaction, right? Yes.
Nightingale, what's your reaction? Oh, but I'm also not wounded at all.
And so actually, you know what? It looks... I think Alice is first.
All right, so at this point, Alice curses because this whole situation is really pissing her off.
Thank you. This is... She's pissed off mainly because she's sort of surprised and she feels
like she's underestimated the situation and it's going to reflect badly on her. So she lets go of
Cecile and flings a lightning bolt out of the door at the van. Oh boy. And she's going to cast it at a
four six. Let's look up the special rules for electrical damage. Yeah, I did not write down any
notes in that spell for some reason. Note that that is an indirect spell. So she is...
The taster makes a spellcasting plus magic success test versus the target's reaction.
I suppose it's... It has a response of three, so it could react. It could attempt to react
the car. I don't know if it would know to act though. Well, you can... I think you're...
Since you're driving it or did you just let the dog brain take over?
Axie. So the dog brain is in control. If it would know to try and move whenever it detects
like a huge burst of electromagnetic energy, I don't know. So lightning bolt... This bell creates a
direct vicious strike of electricity that causes electrical damage. Lightning bolt is a single
target spell. The target also gets to resist damage with body plus half impact armor.
Each hit reduces the damage value. Yeah. So the van has a body rating, right?
Yeah. An armor. Is it rolling specifically body or body and armor?
Body and armor. Okay. So that means...
She's rolling. She's casting at 4-6 and she is using edge.
How much damage would it do?
Damage value, damage, damage physical. Is it just the... Is it the force?
Is it the force? Yeah. So if it's the force, I can buy hits for the car to resist it or,
well, you could. So it wouldn't actually do anything apparently.
So... Quotes. Electronic equipment vehicles and drones can also be affected by electricity damage.
They never suffer stun damage, but they do roll body plus armor, drones and vehicles,
or armor times two other objects to resist secondary effects. If they achieve equal or more hits,
equal or more hits than the attack they are unaffected, otherwise they cease to function for
a number of combat turns equal to two plus net hits scored on the attack test.
Do I have to roll the... That actually roll it?
It's an opposed test, right? So it's basically... It's the spellcaster's spell casting plus
magic and resisted by the van's body and armor. There's gonna be a lot of damage.
When she... If she's using... She's gonna use edge. Okay.
To... And she's gonna add... So she's gonna add her edge attribute to her roll. Of course...
Yeah. So she's got an edge of three, so she's gonna be rolling three plus her spell casting...
Plus magic. Yelzers. Yelzers.
I love that. It's great. And how are we...
You would just roll the die together. I don't think that was...
Well, you rolled sorcery, which is magic, plus her spell casting, so you just need to roll the
edge on top of that. So let's try it this way.
Oof. Oofy. So she got eight hits. That is quite a few hits. Indeed.
That is a huge pool. So it looks nice. Now, you know, funny part. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine. So it resists. Yes, barely. So yeah, this massive lightning bolt came flashing out of the
door of the limousine that you just opened and slams into the van and crackles across the surface of
it and just dissipates into the ground. And Cecile, you hear Alice curse again. Don't have to get the drain.
Oh yeah. So does that mean... Three. So she was... It was a four six, so she resisted three of it.
So she took three stun. You know, please remind me, because I keep forgetting to take the...
Because she's already got two stun from mine. Marked on her condition monitor.
Yeah, I am, but I keep forgetting to take the negatives off, giving her the penalties.
We'll all do that during the NPC's turns until we got it.
Just keep yelling at me. I will. Don't worry. I knew I could count on you.
All right, Nightingale, it's your turn. Anyway, Nightingale's a little freaked out whenever she
hears and probably smells the lightning doing its thing once it hits the car.
It smells like Ozo. Yeah, I imagine it's a very distinctive smell. A smell she might actually
be familiar with. You know, like a flame. Like much like a pre-modern person would be familiar with
like the smell of fire. She moves it when she gets static electricity in her main. Oh my god.
She's going to... Though at this point, she's going to go ahead and cast Levitate on Cecile.
What is Cecile wearing? She's wearing a Bolero sweater and a blouse and just a normal pleated skirt.
Her form is encompassed by the shimmering, sparkling aura of Nightingale's magic. She is
immediately aware that she's weightless if she moves her arms. Point of order. Cecile resists.
She resists. Okay. I knew that was going to happen.
Let me go look at this. In the back of my mind, I was saying, should I say, is this going to be
resisted? Cecile does not want to be picked up from something. I'm a person too. You resist
strength plus body. So she probably doesn't resist then. Let's look. I'll be rolling three dice.
Okay. Let me look at the spell. I got a one. So I'm going to cast it at, let's say, four
force, which means plus one. That's three. So I'll have to resist three drain. Okay. I take two. That's
fine. Oh, give me a second. The character sheet is wacky. But yeah, Cecile is encompassed in the
glowing, rippling, and this weird glowing, rippling energy. She can even feel like the
air suddenly excited around her, shifting and moving. She is turned to face away from the door.
I imagine because she's physically weightless for the moment.
Like her skirt twirls when she does so. And if she like raises her arm, even if she stops the
like flexing, it's going to just keep on going up because there's no longer gravity holding it down.
And suddenly, let me make my spell casting test to see exactly how fast she's going.
Is Cecile screaming very loud, by the way? It's understandable. So that would be
screaming very loud thing. Oh my goodness. She doesn't want to be my friend. Oh, it's okay.
She'll learn the air over waves. Oh, okay. So she is moving. Like, what did I declare I was casting
it at? Four. Okay. So she's moving four meters a second, which with how little space there is
between these cars, I imagine is kind of blindingly fast. What force did you cast it at? Four.
Then it would be 12 meters per second per turn. Oh, God, damn. Okay. Sure. She's on her back.
She's floating on her back for just a second. And then she zips off across the moving road,
the wind ruffling her hair and whatnot. And she's pulled into the back seat of the step van,
the bulldog step van. And she's just kind of dumped onto her back there. She is immediately aware
that there is someone else in the car with her. But instead of trying to comfort her or hold her
down or anything of the sort, they are small, like a gnome or dwarf, perhaps. And they're immediately
crawling into the front of the car saying aloud, close left back window, call Ollie. And
it was that voice from earlier, the one that shouted poopy head.
Such an elegance. That was awesome. Yeah. And then Gail is going to go to retake manual control.
But that's the end of my turn. All right. The mage uses simple action and this he is going to draw
a pistol since the spellcasting is not working out for him. I forget. Was drawing,
readying a weapon is a complex action. It's a simple action. Simple action. So he's drawing his weapon.
And he has a special holster. Nope. And he's firing off a single shot at Boxer. All right.
And he is injured. So he has seven boxes of stun and two boxes of physical. So what's his penalty?
How much physical is he taken? He's taken two boxes of physical.
Four man's not having a good day. I don't think any of them are having a good day actually.
So for me being a nightingale, the gills having a blast.
The seal is quite possibly traumatized. Oh yeah.
Certainly traumatized.
Actually, I guess I could look at it on. So he's got negative four.
All right. And he gets zero hits. Amazing. Boxer, the bullet whistles harmlessly past you.
Oh, she saw the woman. She saw the seal drifting out. So she's pulling back. She's done with this
shit. And Kirsten fires her taser at him. And so to injury or more injury to injury.
Kastas. And she got one hit. And he got four hits. Lucky.
So he got four hits. So she missed him. And the seal, you find yourself suddenly
whisked out of the Mitsubishi night sky across a very small gap between two
fast moving vehicles and into the van. And then as Elizabeth described, you hear the voice and
you see the figure moving around and you're lying in the bottom in the back of the van.
And Cecil orient herself such that she can see out of the van and into the night sky.
Oh, absolutely. Cecil would like to cast Levitate to levitate her comlink out of Alice's hand.
Yeah, it looks like Alice may have dropped it. So you should be able to snatch it out of there
quite easily. My God, that's great. As you do this, you lock eyes with Alice and you just get this
look of pure malevolent hate. I'll be casting it at four six. Because you really want that comlink back.
Yeah. That's three and to get it out of her hand. I'm going to roll 12 dice because it's force times
12. The verses hold their strength plus body five. She's going to be rolling negative two because she's
got a stun track and she gets zero hits. Nope. It just zips into Cecil's hand.
I had to call. Nice. How the worm turns. Imagine at that point the window comes up.
Yep. At that point the window closes and you don't see Alice anymore.
You can see her. You can see Alice. Was that our first pass? Yeah.
All right. So the driver used his first pass to shoot at Boxer. So now he's got to make a test
to maintain control of the vehicle. And he has no problem maintaining control of the vehicle.
And then it's Boxer's turn. All right. She's dipping. She's out. She's leaving. But she's
going to keep them on their toes with some suppressing fire. You also received a call from
Nightingale. Oh, wait. Hold on. I need to roll train. Two. So I take two stun. Okay.
Actually, no. That would be too physical. Here we go. Physical. Yep. Because Cecil's magic is only
25. Oh my goodness. She really wanted that call link. You fucking mad woman.
All right. So Boxer, what are you doing? She's a she can't suppress but she is putting bullets
like generally in their direction to keep them honest as she falls back. All right.
Just like vaguely at in their direction. So you're slowing down and and just firing at them.
For effect. And then you have one more pass. She's going to keep pulling back and keep firing.
I guess at that point, did you already make a vehicle control test?
Or use a complex action for your? No, this will be it. Okay. All right. Well, we're going to have
to roll initiative again. Oh, no. Six. Don't forget to take your negatives for your damage.
I have no negatives. I'm too cool. My arms too and got a 15 down. Oh, do you still have the edge
button on? Your rolls. I do. I do. I do. It seems like it's just good to keep the modifier button
clicked on. Just in case. Just in case. We players have a wounds button that we can just toggle.
Okay, Boxer, you're up again. All right. She's a speed is starting to take, you know,
pay dividends here. All right. She's a. All right. She has she has nightingale on the calm, right?
Yeah. All right. We're leaving. You already want.
She's here. She was screaming, but she stopped. Good. Good. Just leave. Okay. I'm going to keep
them for a little longer. Is Cecil still being levitated? No, she's been released at that point.
Okay. But nightingale, after saying that, she she promptly boops the little in call button on the
touchscreen with her nose. And yeah, that's the end of the call. All right. So you're starting to
slow down and turn around Boxer and you're still taking a couple of shots at them? She's not leaving
yet. She's keeping on them for a little longer at a distance, at a safe distance to give time
for for Cecil and nightingale to escape. All right. The the driver of the other vehicle
is making a control test with Edge. He is slamming on the brakes and swerving the car around.
And all that. Edge did not really help him out. He got a success, but it's not a very graceful
slam on the brakes. You know, he's basically trying to slew the car around so that if you guys turn
around start it's not saying he can chase you. And so basically what happens is he manages to
obstruct both lanes of the road. And then it's Kirsten's turn. He turned the car just in such a
way so that the passenger side vehicle is facing down the street towards you guys. So towards the
van and the motorcycle. So Kirsten takes the opportunity to take another shot at the mage
with the with the stun gun. And that I think is all the rounds that she's got in that thing.
And you know what? She's going to spend edge on this too. Why not at this point, right?
Buck him up girl. Buck him up. She's got to hit some. Yeah, she misses again. The dart hits the
car and sort of glances off. And the magician's mage in the car takes another shot at Boxer.
Wait, so I'm kind of confused. What exactly is the limo doing?
The limo has basically slammed on the brakes and swerved
broadside to block the two lanes of traffic. So you guys, you guys were head in the direction
that you guys were headed. The limo is now ahead of you. But sideways blocking both lanes of traffic
with the passenger side facing you guys. So let me see. So you know, if this is your road right here
in your two lanes, you guys were headed down this way and the limo is now swerved and blocked
across this way. And this is the passenger side door. And this is the door that Cecile came out of.
And so this is Boxer and Kirsten on the bike. And then this is Nightingale and Cecile in the van.
High definition drawing right there. What are the sides of the roads like right now?
There's a little, there's a parking lane and then there's a sidewalk. And then on both sides,
you've got sort of a, you've got the sidewalk and there's a wall or a hedge or something
blocking the view to the nicer neighborhood houses that are starting to appear.
Is the parking lane full? Let's see. Yeah, there are a couple of cars. So you've got,
you got a vehicle here. You pretty much got vehicles parked end to end in both areas
where you guys are right now. But this guy took a shot at Boxer.
What's his mod by now? Well, it's not great. But minus three, minus four, plus from a moving vehicle.
Should be like minus six by now. Yeah, he misses. Any fairer boxers not exactly doing hot either.
And Nightingale, it's your turn. I'm thinking. Highly groundcraft is agility, right? No, reaction.
Using edge before or after, if I only have one edge would be basically the same, no?
Before would be better because then if you got a six, you would be able to get another dice.
Used it after you just get the extra, the additional one dice.
Okay. I want to bring the car to a stop. Reticulant control.
Reticulant control. My van. I want to bring it to a stop. It can control back from the dog brain
computer. Shoving my hoof as hard as I can on the makeshift, like a stilt pedal that I have created
there, which that would be defaulting a skill reaction plus edge. Do I just take edge? Yeah.
Okay. And according to the book, I only need to get one hit on this. So wish me luck.
There we go. All right. And I want to pull around and go on to the other lane of traffic.
I don't know if I can do that within this turn.
You said you were rolling to bring the van to a stop.
That's what my roll was for. So let's just say you used it to bring, come to,
you know, basically slow down and turn. Let's get you halfway turned around. How about that?
Fair. My angel is very hurriedly turning the steering wheel after a sudden lurch.
Poor Cecil, who I imagine hadn't clicked her seatbelt.
No, is probably rocked forward by this pretty severely. She might smash her face into the
back of the seat. Well, Cecil's so slow that she's barely having time to do anything here.
Yeah. The seal is not very fast. She is slow, slow girl. No offense.
Yeah. So that was your turn. And then Alice is going to do something as well.
Well, what is Alice going to do? She needs to do something here. She used to save face big time.
Always thinking about that. I think it might also be of interest. Cecil can tell that the
driver is operating the wheel via psychokinesis or some kind of magic.
That's not on Cecil's mind. I'm just pointing it out there.
Finding it out. Cecil's like, oh, it's driving itself. Whatever.
Glowy. Glowy will. It's normal.
So one thing that Alice can really still do is cast another lightning bolt.
She's going to be a little bit more circumspect, though.
Oh, no. Since she doesn't really want to get damaged. So she's casting a lightning bolt at
Boxer this time. Oh, no. Yeah. Fuck. Here goes this. Let me see. She's casting a lightning bolt.
There we go. That's my lightning bolt. Very impressive lightning bolt.
And she's casting it. What did I say? Force 4. What is her magic? Force 4.
And she's injured. She's not casting. Oh, I actually got two hits there because exploding sixes.
She got two hits and then she resists. So she resisted drain, right? Okay. And Boxer,
you resist with body and armor and you have electric protection on that vest of...
That's three. Three. So I guess, does that mean you basically resisted at all since she only got
two hits? Yeah, too much. Stucks for her. Well, have you dodged first? No. First you have to
do indirect spells work exactly the same as like shooting someone. So you have to, you get to dodge
it first. So what's that reaction? Let me look. Reaction and agility? Indirect, blah, blah, blah.
Versus targets reaction. Plus counter spelling. Oh, in that case, it's reaction minus two,
which is three. Yeah, she dodges. She's just too fast. I wonder if Kirsten dodges. First,
we're going to have Kirsten roll a quick edge test to see. Well, it's a multi target spell.
No, but Kirsten's sitting right behind Boxer. Wow. Being loose with the fools. Wow. Wow. I'm offended.
Well, she's sitting on the same bike, Boxer dodged. So it stands to reason that potentially
Kirsten is in the line of fire. I'm pretty sure the rules are is that the GM is like always right.
That's generally what the, what systems down. I mean, I'm not complaining. If I had my way,
I wouldn't even allow Boxer to dodge because she's on a motorcycle.
Yeah, that's probably a good point too. All right, so he could move the motorcycle.
Beautiful handling test. Go. Yeah. All right. We'll say she didn't get hit. And that means
it's Cecil's turn. Okay. So I, so Paul, are, are the doors unlockable? Oh my god.
She's seriously going to jump out with a van. She doesn't know you.
The moving van. Can Cecil just like open the door? Boxer. I mean, not Boxer. I mean, Nightingale,
are the doors, are the vans doors locked? Well, Nightingale's driving. So yes,
I imagine the doors lock automatically. Yeah, I think, I think Nightingale has control of the doors.
Oh, okay. Hmm. Cecil's over here. Like, yes, I will now jump out onto the road.
At 40 miles an hour. No, actually, we're going much slower. Because, yeah, because you've turned,
it wouldn't be completely insane. There isn't. Well, you could do a role. You could do a judge
intentions role. Me? Might not be a bad thing to do. Yeah. Cecil. Cecil does not care.
She doesn't care what your intentions are. You just kidnapped her after she was kidnapped.
Come on. You just don't have to be smart enough to see what this is.
It's a little fun though. Cecil knew that, that, Cecil knew that Kirsten was trying to rescue her.
And didn't you see? No, she didn't. Kirsten, Kirsten was just like,
hey, I need to talk to you. And they got radio silence. No, she got her, she was
coordinating with her, the rescue, remember? Yeah, you got the, you, you dropped them the
pin of your location. You set up your console. Yeah.
You are aware that there's something going on. Is she trying the door right now?
Yes. She's, she hasn't, she at least tries the door once. No, Cecil's pretty freaked out. She's
not thinking. You know that, you know that Kirsten had was organizing some attempt to,
to rescue you. This is true. But also Cecil doesn't know if this is another group of people who are
also trying to kidnap her. It's the only one person in the car. Cecil feels very not in control right
now. And she's panicking. Can I talk to her? Yeah, of course you can talk to her. That's,
it's a, that's a. Nightingale's going to glance back and she's, and, and she's going to stay.
Mecking on the door. Is there a button at the front that would unlock the doors?
There probably is. You don't know where it is though, exactly.
Cecil jumps towards the, to the, to the front. She's trying to find that button.
Nightingale immediately, she is, is, is, is Cecil is like pushing her way up between the
two front seats. She's like reaching with her forehoops and trying to hold the woman back.
Stop, stop. Kirsten sent me. Please stop. I'm trying to drive.
Can I roll to see if I find the button? Well, you have to resist my, my attempt to keep you back
first. Who, what would that be? I think it would just be strength and body versus strength and
body. Question mark. Sure. Okay. So I'm rolling all of three dice. One. Yeah. And now make a
composure test just because the person holding you back is a small horse using their hooves to push
you back. Not to mention, you know, adding to the mix of craziness that's going on here.
Not just a small horse. As you like get a good look at it, the thing that's pushing you,
you were very immediately aware that it's magical in nature.
Also, I think you still have the edge on. I do.
Uh, okay. Steel stops what she's doing and screams and goes to the other side of the van.
Not only that, but they're talking to you too.
Yeah. No, Cecile's just screaming. I honestly cannot blame her at this point.
I think her ears clamp down on top of her head, like pressing awkwardly. Well, she,
yeah, she wouldn't be wearing her cap at this point, pressing against her head and she just
turns back to retake control of the stirring wheel and, you know, is she trying to do it?
She's just like that. Just screaming. I mean, only for three seconds.
Boxer is dipping. All right. So you're turning to leave too? Yeah, pretty much.
Oops. All right. So you're swinging the motorcycle around.
Yeah, you swing the motorcycle around. You come swinging it around.
And you see that the van has started to turn. And this guy, that's this guy who was in it.
This guy's the driver. The passenger. She's in here. Who is this? This was Cecile.
Did we lose Cecile's icon again? No, the one without a picture. Cecile?
Yeah. Okay. So you're in the van. The driver of the limousine is using his second pass here to get
out and ready a long, larger firearm. Box six. And then Boxer, it's your last pass.
You're not quite out of the woods yet. You've got Cecile, but these guys in the van, in the
limousine don't look like they're ready to quite give up here. Oh, she doesn't exactly have the kit
on her to deal with them right now. I don't need smoke grenades. I give her 15.
All right. She's going to lob a smoke grenade into the vehicle. All right. So through the back
door or through the front door? Whichever one's bigger. All right. The back door is definitely
bigger. So that would be here where Alice is. I don't know what I could roll for that.
Throw them? Do you have a grenade skill? There's no grenade skill. Maybe it's heavy weapons.
I mean, a grenade is a heavy weapon. It's not heavy weapons. I have demolitions.
It would be thrown weapons. So I do not have... You have throwing weapons. I do. So that would be...
You have a dice pool of three in it. I didn't know that. I must have forgotten to note it down.
That I was thorough with this. According to the Chummer printout I have. You don't have a skill.
Sorry. You would be using... Why does it say pool three, but you're rating... I have four
on the Chummer. Oh, wait. You might have an outdated sheet. I have a minus one for defaulting,
but I have five agility. So... And you have... Have you used all your edge?
I have one edge, actually. I'm going to use that. Where's the button? It's all my edge.
And... Yeah, default. Default agility. And yeah. Okay. That's a three. I think I got it in.
Nice. All right. Just as you're pitching it in there, you see the surprise look of
Alice DeVryle as she's trying to start to get towards that door.
The grenade goes in and it's the end of the turn. So I'll just say that
thick, acrid, white smoke starts billowing out of the vehicle. And...
You guys can describe to me how you make your escape and what happens next here.
All right. Boxer's literally just going to go over the damn sidewalk until she gets to a better
stretch of road at which point she's using that. You're joining the proper traffic, kind of.
She's still kind of going between all the grid guide cars,
you know, and that way that truck driver motorcycles do.
And... Sorry. Nightingale, what are you doing?
Nightingale is going to drive down the road on the proper lane and
take off, turn down another... Take her next right. And at that point, she's going to go
ahead and set the dog brain computer to navigate to a random kind of distant point in the city,
just so that it'll be making erratic movements down the streets. And I imagine it's at that point.
What is Cecile doing? So just before you guys all get going there, the motorcycle with Boxer and
Kirsten passes in front of the van. And Cecile, you see Kirsten on the back of a motorcycle holding
on to another woman. And Kirsten's looking at you and sort of waving, you know, in sort of a
chipper smile on her face like, hey. Cecile looks back clearly terrified.
I can't see her. She does not know the fear that Cecile is feeling now.
As the van gets into motion, your calm rings and it is actually,
you see that it is actually Kirsten calling now.
Hey, I'm looking at... I need a moment to think. Okay. Okay. How long has it been since
Cecile was dragged out of the night sky? It's probably only been, you know, less than half a
minute. 30 seconds. Okay. Cecile answers the calm link. It immediately opens with what the fuck.
Kirsten's all like, hey, we did it. We got you.
She's so precious. You should have answered my call.
What the fuck? I was trying to warn you they were coming for you. I have been shot at.
We weren't shooting at you.
God, you are so stubborn. Silly her. Who the fuck are you people?
Hello, we have two best friends.
Just follow us. It's all going to be fine. Just follow us. I'll tell you everything as soon as
you guys catch up. Okay. So Cecile's still trying to the door. Like she's all adrenaline right now.
Can you ask Kirsten where we're going to meet up, by the way?
It's a video call. So I imagine Kirsten heard that.
Yeah. So she drops you guys a pen. It's a club in downtown or actually it's in a
it's a club in it's a location in Touristville on the very edge of the the Redmond Barons.
All right. So that's where you guys are all headed. And that's where we'll pick it up next time.
I just want to be clear. When Cecile was trying to exit the vehicle, she was going to levitate
herself away. She wasn't just going to hurl herself out. No, disappointing.
Yeah, I wish you were braver. So you're just going to float out like a balloon that a child let go of.
Oh, wait, Cecile. Please. This is a good idea. No, yeah, Cecile is not happy at all.
They wanted to make you a permanent wage slave.
They just wanted to kill her. Why didn't they do that in the car?
Well, they were pretty busy. Yeah, it's a good point.
And you mean why didn't they just kill her out of hand like right away?
There's more to this. In sex spirits, the Illuminati, the dragon,
elf Illuminati specifically. Well, at the very least, they wanted to they would have wanted to
interrogate her and find out what was going on. No, yeah, the problem is that Cecile acted so
slowly that like she couldn't do anything when she got levitated by Nightingale. Like when the
door was open, I was like, great, now's my chance to just fucking fly away. And oh, no, never mind.
Tractor beam. Come to me. Come hither. You guys, once you guys got your bearings there,
you guys managed to pull that off pretty gracefully. I was quite surprised. Why my first name is Grace.
Well, I'm very, very pleased, very proud of you guys. Well, I had actually like last session,
I had made the decision that for the first like two rounds of combat Cecile was just going to do
nothing. Yeah, she definitely did nothing. But resisting the mind probe was that was the mind
probes scary. That's a scary spell. I was kind of disappointed that I resisted it.
Because because I actually like wanted to get on information there.
Yeah, that would have been would have been interesting. But it's it's such a creepy spell.
Oh, absolutely. When you use that spell, I was like, Oh, this is this is for real. This is serious.
Yeah. This isn't like, Oh, just a kid that like though this is a kidnapping.
This is horrifying. Like she's violating your mind.
No, yeah, it specifically says in the book that mind probe is only used by people who like are
like fucked up. If you use that spell, you get a reputation. But bad to kind.
Yeah, before that, it was just a couple of security goons and some, you know, whatever, but
potentially maybe an assassin. But as soon as you break out the mind spell and then start casting
all sorts of other spells around, it sort of elevates the situation significantly.
But yeah, I mean, it sounds like Cecile's got some issues out there in the real world.
Apparently. Is that what she's going to call it? The real world?
The real world? Knowing Cecile, I think she might.
She doesn't spend that much time online. Right. That much.
If I think if you guys hadn't managed to pop the smoke on them, they would have followed you too.
Yeah, so I did it. I'm just that was pretty good. That was that was fighting. That was a pop.
You see, we feel great now. I would just like to point out they're not going to stop just because
we drove away. This is true. Yeah, I'm playing on using extra territory. Extra territory.
You know what I'm trying to say. That extra territoriality against them.
Extra territory. Yes, that. What do you oh, you oh,
that up organization. They can stuff their pursuit because this is this is
that's probably not going to help as much as you think it helps.
Because I think what I think what Cecile's getting at is that not necessarily these three people,
whatever set this in motion isn't going to go away. If somebody sent somebody that's willing to use
mind probe on you after you, you're fucked. Yeah, it's not just Alice DeVry and these other two
security guard guards. I mean, there's there's something behind all of that that sent them
after Cecile. Like this isn't even like the the oh yeah, you've got the people in the black masks
who are going to stuff you into a van. This is like the people with the black masks, but also
that one person that has like some kind of untested fucking truth serum. Yeah, the one who like
after they've got you strapped down to the chair unrolls the you know, the canvas roll with all
the tools in it. This is a step above you you're getting spirited away. Yeah, you're not just
getting disappeared. Oh, why does it say that mind probe is like uniquely fogged? It's it's in
there somewhere. I think I don't think you can I don't think mind probe is something that you know
normal ethical people do. No, it might have been in fifth edition, but I remember at least one of
the source books specifically saying like, no, you do not use this spell if you were an upstanding
person using the spell is very bad do not do it. I think that would be obvious.
Yes. I have to look around for it. I didn't necessarily see it in the spell description
itself. But it was in somewhere. It's such a creepy spell that that's the only way that I can
really interpret it. No, yeah, it might have been street magic or in five years or something.
In fact, it probably wasn't five. But yeah, no, seal is.
So seals not happy. Yeah, five plus net hits the subject can probe the target subconscious,
gaining information that target may not even be consciously aware of like psychological quirks,
deep fears or hidden memories. Yeah, it's a pretty brutal spell.
I'm genuinely disappointed the mind probe didn't work. Well, you never know, there's always there
might be another opportunity. Oh, yay. I mean, what are the chances we've seen the last of Alice?
Zero. I mean, it's zero assuming she doesn't get slaughtered by whatever higher power
wanted her to get this job done, right? Higher power. Oh, my goodness, that sounds so ominous.
Yeah. I mean, if you run, Eva, you might as well be a God.
You know, the CEO is a free spirit, free spirit. Her name is Buttercup and she takes,
I think, I think there's something going on there because that sounds like a horse name.
I understand fiction. Oh, it would, it would be hilarious if she was a pony. Oh, my goodness.
See, I'm having to decide like, because you have to understand, Cecil doesn't really know
we're trust cursed that much. This she from your perspective, you have just saved her from her death,
but from her perspective, she's just been kidnapped for a second time. Yes, understandable.
Oh, it's just a little kidnapping. Get over this, Cecil. Oh, this little kidnapping.
And in fact, I would like to point out that you were rougher with her than they were.
Yeah. You don't really like or trust Kirsten. And is it possible that somehow by association,
Kirsten's done something and you've just by association gotten dragged into some shit?
He doesn't know. She's freaked it out. There's some kind of hideous monstrosity of the car with her.
Okay. Okay. Nightingale is not hideous. She looks weird, but she's like she's soft and big-eyed.
That's terrifying. I guess if you if you have like a strong uncanny valley response or if
like the whole like evil, evil little girls thing, particularly freaks you out.
I mean, I'm just saying it's it's one thing to just see that like, oh, yeah, under normal
circumstances, that would be fine. But when you just got levitated into a car, spirited away for
the second time after somebody has been casting lightning bolts in your direction, there was no
lightning bolts cast in your direction. I mean, the car she was in, I didn't even hit when you
were in the car. I mean, yeah, it still makes a loud sound. It's like something out of a bad
dread show. Oh, absolutely. Seal is like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, that's the.
Also, Paul, I'm going to be marking off all of the stuff that I had in Cecil's bag, including the bag
bag, my character sheet. Oh, so when is when when do when when when do we gain karma? I mean,
that's up to the GM. Yeah, not yet. Not yet. Okay. I just wanted to ask.
I just say that because I feel like we're still in the middle of something.
And you know, we haven't wrapped we haven't really wrapped up this this episode, so to speak.
Yeah, okay. That's fine. I mean, technically, you could count this as a run.
I wouldn't count it over until you can stop what you're doing and have a meal.
Yeah. Until you until you have time to do like a downtime, you know, have downtime.
It's probably you're still in action. Anyway, do you want to go live in my body with pieces?
Well, it's finally happened. Cecil has been rescued from the clutches of the scary corporate
operative Alice DeVry. Time to rejoice. Or is it more of a case of out of the frying pan and into
the fire? Stay tuned chummers to find out as the story continues. The Topps Company Inc. has sole
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