Dramatis Personae:
Robert – The Gamemaster
Randy – Emily, 18th level Guardian
Trey – Val, 17th level AI Adjunct
Shane – William of Orange, 17th level AI Codemancer (Also a bit of an ass.)
“OK, sit down and pass me the Doritos,” Robert says as he sits down at a kitchen table.
“Cool Ranch or Nacho?” Trey asks, to which Robert shrugs.
Never one to pass up Cool Ranch Doritos Randy says overly loud, “I’ll take the Cool Ranch if he doesn’t want them.”
Trey passes him the bag, then tosses the Nacho Cheese bag over to the long-haired Robert.
Shane looks up from his copy of Dean Koontz’ Dragon Tears from his propped back chair long enough to comment, “Get started already, since it takes you guys forever to get me into the action.”
Robert takes that as his cue and says, “Your latest mission within the Dyson Sphere complete, Emily and Val load into the blank greyness of a construct. Val, you notice another mission posting has already been sent to your inbox.”
Trey replies, “OK. I open it up and take a look.”
“A new mission, a simple incursion intervention in an old simulation. High level of technology. There is also a ‘no refusal’ rider on the mission. You must take this one,” Robert tells him.
“Ugh, well Emily needs to resupply badly, but I guess one more mission cannot hurt,” Trey says giving an annoyed look at Randy who is more focused on his Doritos than the conversation going on about his character.
Trey looks back at Robert, “Are you sure I cannot just take over Emily’s body and force him to play the AI?”
Without looking up from his book Shane takes that moment to say, “Being an AI rocks man, I get to read while you nerds role play. Then I get to come out, kick some ass, and then when I’m out of bubblegum I retreat into the depts of real storytelling.”
Robert and Trey share a look, then both shake their heads mumbling, “E’fn Shane.”
***
“Emily stands up on the tree limb and stretches. Is there anything different about her body in this simulation?” Randy asks.
“Not really, other than skin color and hair. You have close-cropped reddish-blond hair and pale skin,” Robert replies.
“So physical stats are the same?” the rotund redhead asks.
“Your bone and muscle density are better in this sim due to the strong gravity, but I wouldn’t push that fact too much as it plays both ways,” Robert says, then passes a piece of paper to Trey.
Trey, reading the paper looks up and says, “Emily something is off here, that pink sphere is not a normal invader, we should probably be careful with it.”
“Bah, Emily is eighteenth level now, and Val is only half a level behind, we can handle a simple incursion. We are badasses after all, plus if things go south, we just wake up ol’William of Orange and let him clean up the mess,” Randy says clearly not taking Robert’s scenario seriously.
Shane hearing his character name mentioned looks up from his book, “We fightin yet?”
The three other young men look at him and snap, “NO!” Shane shrugs at the admonishment and goes back to his book.
After a moment to calm back down Trey looks at Randy concerned, “Randy, Robert is a good GM you know he won’t throw a milk run at us. Plus, it’s the last campaign for these characters, spring semester, senior year. We only have a few more months to do this.”
“Oh I have no doubt he’s got something up his sleeve, but I am willing to bet he was unprepared for tonight and this is just a filler before he segues us into the real adventure,” Randy answers with no small level of snark.
Robert moves his hand from his face and rolls his eyes, “Gentlemen, I am sitting right here, and I promise you I am fully prepared to smack you both down if you test me.”
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“Oh really?” Randy says, “Well, in that case, Val give me the low down on this place while I charge over towards that big pink sphere.”
***
“What do you mean I’m unconscious?” Randy cries out.
“You failed your saving throw, but I’m willing to let you activate William before you go under,” Robert replies.
“Ugh! Well… OK. Shane, you are up,” Randy says to the still inattentive book reader before getting up and heading toward the restroom.
Shane carefully places a dog-eared Magic: The Gathering card into his book as a marker before slamming it shut and placing it on the table, “OK boys, I guess it is time to bail you idiots out, again. Tell me what I’ve missed.”
Both player and GM look at the smirking Shane, unsurprised but annoyed before mumbling, “E’fn Shane…”
Trey sighs before saying, “Incursion mission, blow up the pink sphere, don’t let any corrupted natives get away, and figure out what happened to us.”
“Gotcha! OK, first I send a counter intrusion shock down whatever crap cold-cocked Val.”
“Make a skill check against your Runic Framework skill,” Robert tells him.
“Nope, I autosucceed since I’m a level seventeen Codemancer. Screw variance.”
“Whatever,” Robert replies, “You blow up the code trying to invade Emily’s biocomp.”
“Hah! All too easy. Now I fix the loophole that thing used and backup Val, but I wanna make sure her restoration node is in Emily’s liver. I RESTORE YOU WITH BILE, WITCH!”
“Can it Shane,” Trey tells him, “You don’t get to pick on my character when you haven’t been paying attention for the last hour.”
Ignoring him Shane grabs Emily’s unattended character sheet and scans over it a moment before saying, “I’m gonna leap towards the pink sphere and unload Emily’s blaster into it. Normalizers, yeah those are expensive.”
“What the… dammit! Shane, do you have any idea how much it is going to take to replace those?” Trey yells.
“Don’t care. What happens, Robert?”
“Well you leap off the tree-branch you were standing on and unload six normalizer rounds into the pink sphere. I’m not going to make you roll to hit because the thing is gigantic and right in front of you. Unfortunately, you are now falling as you were about a hundred meters in the air,” Robert tells him.
“Shit, I’m going to fire the jump jets in Emily’s armor. Yeah, that should do it,” Shane replies.
Trey sighs again, “You only have a few seconds of propellent in those, probably not enough to arrest your fall.”
Robert thinks for a moment, “I’ll say you have enough to not go splat on the ground, but your antics will pretty much drain all the fuel from the jets.”
“Sweet! After I land, I look around for stuff to kill,” Shane says almost salivating.
“You note dozens of ape-like natives in the area. Most of the ones near you appear to be women and children, but there are more in the distance and they are glowing,” the gamemaster tells barely contained Shane.
“I pull out Emily’s lightsaber…”
“Plasma cutter,” Trey interrupts.
“And shove it up Val’s ass!” Shane finishes his statement before whining to Trey, “Come ‘on man, it isn’t like George Lucas gives a rat ass what we do in our own game.”
“Last warning Shane, stay focused,” Robert tells him.
“Whatever, I kill everything around her. No mercy, as bloody as possible, leave no survivors,” Shane says with a bit of a manic giggle.
“Don’t you care about the glowing ones?” Robert asks.
“Nope. Kill all innocents first, then deal with whatever plot you have cooked up,” he replies.
“OK, I guess. Start making attack rolls.”
***
“The plasma cutter your target is holding explodes and you are thrown back. Make a Dex save,” Robert says to Shane who still has a sinister gleam in his eye.
“Nat twenty baby!” he says with a whoop as the die lands on the table.
“So, you only take half damage and don’t die. Emily takes seventy-seven points of damage. Plus, you have dropped her weapons and are now impaled on a tree trunk,” the GM says back to him, unhappy with the current turn of events.
“Dude, no fair, it was a nat twenty and I’m not done with these guys yet.”
“You are impaled, deal with it,” Robert says starting to get angry.
“Bah, this sucks. Where is Randy? Is he still taking a dump?”
Trey looks up from the rule book he had been perusing and glances about, “Probably, he’s only been gone twenty minutes. Give him another ten and he’ll probably be out.”
“Sure, OK, but he had better hurry as being impaled is boring.”
“It won’t take you long to get loose. You just need to make a medicine check and a Con save, and you can get yourself unimpaled,” Robert tells his player.
“Naw, I’m gonna use the lightsaber…”
Trey coughs.
“…plasma cutter to cut a chunk out of the tree and get loose.”
Robert rolls a few dice and checks a chart before saying, “You have to use the AG drones in the armor to retrieve the weapon, but it takes a minute or so before they can retrieve it for you. Once you have the weapon in hand you can blindly use it to cut yourself loose.
Shane glares at the gamemaster, “Yeah, yeah, I cut myself off the damn tree.”
Robert grins, “You manage to free yourself, but as you do you manage to deal yourself another two points of damage from an accidental burn.” Before Shane can complain Robert continues, “As you fall free of the tree you see a tall thin humanoid fade into view in front of you.”
“Ooh, male or female?” he asks excitedly.
“Impossible to tell, it has alabaster skin and is naked, but does not appear to have any defining gender traits.”
“Eww,” Shane recoils, then yells, “Randy wipe your ass and get out here! Something wants to ‘role play’ with you!” He emphasizes his statement by putting air quotes around words role play.
Trey and Robert again share a look before mumbling, “E’fn Shane.”
To be continued?