Phoning it in from the Future
Oct. 19th, 2002 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was Lazar's cyberpunk game, and it was kind of a low-key session. Halfway through Sandy asked him if he'd remembered to take his medication, and of course he hadn't, plus (like me and everyone else) he'd been and still was sick, so it's not completely surprising that it didn't go too well.
It wasn't a disaster or anything, but not much really happened, and worse - what did happen happened without complications.
The game had ended last time with the party heading for Nathaniel's shop to see about getting a body made and a soulless computer entity transferred into it. Well, apparently, the GM and one of the players (Nazir's player, Snowwolf) had played out a scene after I'd left the week before (I play Martin), so the first order of business was for him to DASH ahead into the shop while an NPC distracted me.
NPC: "Hey, do you have any computers I could buy off you?"
Me: "Um, no..." I only had my laptop/PDA/goggles thing, that I used for everything and its brother.
GM: "Er... right. This seemed like a good idea at 2am. I need to distract you for a while, since Nazir had a long conversation before you came in."
So we agreed that Martin was distracted eyeing the guy suspiciously while he harassed him for hardware, since the last person who'd expressed interest in his equipment had stolen some of it (and tried to suck out his mind). Unfortunately, this exchange proved a harbinger of things to come.
At any rate, once everyone was inside, Nathaniel told the party that while he could cast the spells to transfer Aquilas into a body, he couldn't actually make the body himself, since he was a ghost, and they'd need to travel to the red moon where Chashimi lived, since he'd surely be able to perform that trivial preparatory step. They asked how much all this would cost, and he named a price - 50 rubies for his work, and probably another 5 for Chashimi's. Way more than they could afford. Martin was able to buy a ghost-touch glove for use with his mad kung-fu skillz, though.
So, to get some money, and get rid of the prisoner they'd been dragging around for days now, it was off to Zanebatos and then to Columbus to contact the Lexan corporation. NKN (not being able to switch between worlds, since one of her existed in each) was left behind, of course. This ended up being another unfortunate sign of things to come.
Luckily, the trip was cut short as a random portal, of the type that constantly plague the driver, Nazir, transported the van (with Nazir and Martin in it) directly to Columbus from the outskirts of Amaranth, through a plate glass window, and into the middle of a bank robbery. Thinking quickly, Martin popped his head out and zapped the bank robbers with a sleep ray, although not before discovering that his new armor no longer automatically extended itself to protect him. Luckily, the bullet he took was a flesh wound, and he smiled at the terrified customers, said something smarmy to sound superhero-wannabe-ish, and told Nazir to engage the cloaking device and get the hell out of there.
Yes, Nazir's van really has a cloaking device.
The prisoner was dropped off, and 'taken care of' (shot), and the expense item was approved, although the only place the corporation had such a large quantity of Ur currency on hand was in the Dragonspine mountains in the central isthmus region. So, it was back to Amaranth, where NKN modified Nazir's van to work as a hydrofoil, then across the ocean to Blaumanm, the port of the Isthmus, and then to Dragonspine. Nothing interesting happened in transit.
In Dragonspine, Martin decided to try some local cuisine, and ordered a Big Mac at the drakivolki McDonalds. Finding it odd they had different burgers listed for each species, he decided to try a 'feriphal big mac', since he sort of resembled a feriphal, although he apparently hadn't had the entire package applied (remember, last session he'd had his memory of what he actually was erased), and thought he might enjoy cuisine intended for feriphals. The rest of the party, who knew that drakivolki were cannibals and that a 'feriphal burger' was *made out of* feriphal, watched him eat it. As did the feriphal friend of NKN's that was along for the ride. Hilarity failed to ensue.
After that, it was off to the temple, where the priests wouldn't give the party all the money they asked for (Nazir, who was following the tried and tested 'never get out of the car' strategy, had told Martin to ask for double what they thought they'd need, to handle cost overruns), but gave them enough.
And so... it was off to the city in the north where they'd caught an airship, to visit the portal to the red moon. Nothing interesting happened on the journey.
There, NKN and her feriphal friend worked on evil killer drones for Nazir, and giant couatl wings for Nazir's van, while Martin an Nazir visited the moon. NKN couldn't go to the moon, because the moon occasionally travelled between worlds (it'd been showing up in Earth's sky occasionally) and she didn't want to be left by herself in orbit. By the portal waited the golem of Skypass who'd originally pointed them to Nathaniel, looking all sad because he was a schizoid (someone with a double on the other world) too, and couldn't risk going up to the moon any more than NKN could.
The golem asked them to get Chashimi to come talk to him about some techical problem that none of them could understand, and they agreed to pass along the request. It also (when asked) told them about 'the kid', who went around sucking out people's souls, and how 'the kid' had originally been a good guy, but had sucked out so many people's souls that he was now insane. When asked if there was any way to protect against 'the kid's soul-sucking, the golem replied that there were many ways, but none that would help much if 'the kid' was going to attack again any time soon.
So, without any further ado, it was through the portal. Finding Chashimi and getting his help was a walk in the park (literally), and Martin's cup of tea (literally, and everful to boot). The 'body' he'd need to 'construct' was a gem that could create the solid illusion of a body around itself, and he already had plenty on hand because he was using them to 'colonize' the moon, few actual living people having any interest in living there, despite the view.
But to make it suitable for storing the machine consciousness, Chashimi would need five minutes alone in the room where Aquilas 'lived' to solidify a thaumaturgical link. That seemed like a fairly straightforward run. He refused to leave the moon, though, unless some 'real, living creature' swore to stay on the moon no matter what -- he didn't trust the score or so of living colonists not to turn and run, ruining all his work (since apparently the moon colony would cease to exist the instant no living creatures remained inside it). Nazir took him off into a back room, and after several minutes reported that everything was taken care of, and so with Chashimi in tow they returned to Ur.
Chashimi spoke with the golem for a bit, and resolved whatever it was that they'd needed to get resolved, and then everyone piled into the now flying van for the trip back south, to the Zenebatos portal back to Earth. And that's where we stopped.
last week next week
It wasn't a disaster or anything, but not much really happened, and worse - what did happen happened without complications.
The game had ended last time with the party heading for Nathaniel's shop to see about getting a body made and a soulless computer entity transferred into it. Well, apparently, the GM and one of the players (Nazir's player, Snowwolf) had played out a scene after I'd left the week before (I play Martin), so the first order of business was for him to DASH ahead into the shop while an NPC distracted me.
NPC: "Hey, do you have any computers I could buy off you?"
Me: "Um, no..." I only had my laptop/PDA/goggles thing, that I used for everything and its brother.
GM: "Er... right. This seemed like a good idea at 2am. I need to distract you for a while, since Nazir had a long conversation before you came in."
So we agreed that Martin was distracted eyeing the guy suspiciously while he harassed him for hardware, since the last person who'd expressed interest in his equipment had stolen some of it (and tried to suck out his mind). Unfortunately, this exchange proved a harbinger of things to come.
At any rate, once everyone was inside, Nathaniel told the party that while he could cast the spells to transfer Aquilas into a body, he couldn't actually make the body himself, since he was a ghost, and they'd need to travel to the red moon where Chashimi lived, since he'd surely be able to perform that trivial preparatory step. They asked how much all this would cost, and he named a price - 50 rubies for his work, and probably another 5 for Chashimi's. Way more than they could afford. Martin was able to buy a ghost-touch glove for use with his mad kung-fu skillz, though.
So, to get some money, and get rid of the prisoner they'd been dragging around for days now, it was off to Zanebatos and then to Columbus to contact the Lexan corporation. NKN (not being able to switch between worlds, since one of her existed in each) was left behind, of course. This ended up being another unfortunate sign of things to come.
Luckily, the trip was cut short as a random portal, of the type that constantly plague the driver, Nazir, transported the van (with Nazir and Martin in it) directly to Columbus from the outskirts of Amaranth, through a plate glass window, and into the middle of a bank robbery. Thinking quickly, Martin popped his head out and zapped the bank robbers with a sleep ray, although not before discovering that his new armor no longer automatically extended itself to protect him. Luckily, the bullet he took was a flesh wound, and he smiled at the terrified customers, said something smarmy to sound superhero-wannabe-ish, and told Nazir to engage the cloaking device and get the hell out of there.
Yes, Nazir's van really has a cloaking device.
The prisoner was dropped off, and 'taken care of' (shot), and the expense item was approved, although the only place the corporation had such a large quantity of Ur currency on hand was in the Dragonspine mountains in the central isthmus region. So, it was back to Amaranth, where NKN modified Nazir's van to work as a hydrofoil, then across the ocean to Blaumanm, the port of the Isthmus, and then to Dragonspine. Nothing interesting happened in transit.
In Dragonspine, Martin decided to try some local cuisine, and ordered a Big Mac at the drakivolki McDonalds. Finding it odd they had different burgers listed for each species, he decided to try a 'feriphal big mac', since he sort of resembled a feriphal, although he apparently hadn't had the entire package applied (remember, last session he'd had his memory of what he actually was erased), and thought he might enjoy cuisine intended for feriphals. The rest of the party, who knew that drakivolki were cannibals and that a 'feriphal burger' was *made out of* feriphal, watched him eat it. As did the feriphal friend of NKN's that was along for the ride. Hilarity failed to ensue.
After that, it was off to the temple, where the priests wouldn't give the party all the money they asked for (Nazir, who was following the tried and tested 'never get out of the car' strategy, had told Martin to ask for double what they thought they'd need, to handle cost overruns), but gave them enough.
And so... it was off to the city in the north where they'd caught an airship, to visit the portal to the red moon. Nothing interesting happened on the journey.
There, NKN and her feriphal friend worked on evil killer drones for Nazir, and giant couatl wings for Nazir's van, while Martin an Nazir visited the moon. NKN couldn't go to the moon, because the moon occasionally travelled between worlds (it'd been showing up in Earth's sky occasionally) and she didn't want to be left by herself in orbit. By the portal waited the golem of Skypass who'd originally pointed them to Nathaniel, looking all sad because he was a schizoid (someone with a double on the other world) too, and couldn't risk going up to the moon any more than NKN could.
The golem asked them to get Chashimi to come talk to him about some techical problem that none of them could understand, and they agreed to pass along the request. It also (when asked) told them about 'the kid', who went around sucking out people's souls, and how 'the kid' had originally been a good guy, but had sucked out so many people's souls that he was now insane. When asked if there was any way to protect against 'the kid's soul-sucking, the golem replied that there were many ways, but none that would help much if 'the kid' was going to attack again any time soon.
So, without any further ado, it was through the portal. Finding Chashimi and getting his help was a walk in the park (literally), and Martin's cup of tea (literally, and everful to boot). The 'body' he'd need to 'construct' was a gem that could create the solid illusion of a body around itself, and he already had plenty on hand because he was using them to 'colonize' the moon, few actual living people having any interest in living there, despite the view.
But to make it suitable for storing the machine consciousness, Chashimi would need five minutes alone in the room where Aquilas 'lived' to solidify a thaumaturgical link. That seemed like a fairly straightforward run. He refused to leave the moon, though, unless some 'real, living creature' swore to stay on the moon no matter what -- he didn't trust the score or so of living colonists not to turn and run, ruining all his work (since apparently the moon colony would cease to exist the instant no living creatures remained inside it). Nazir took him off into a back room, and after several minutes reported that everything was taken care of, and so with Chashimi in tow they returned to Ur.
Chashimi spoke with the golem for a bit, and resolved whatever it was that they'd needed to get resolved, and then everyone piled into the now flying van for the trip back south, to the Zenebatos portal back to Earth. And that's where we stopped.
last week next week
