Eclipse Phase: Terminal Velocity

[Joose]

Nicely done! Well, you get godmode on, so you are now all indestructible. As it was such a good roll, I'll let you pick any one other thing from the list that you have managed to do at the same time. If its something that could apply to individuals, I'll again have it apply to everyone if you want.

[deject]

Oooo, oooo, can we all get Dr. Who sonic screwdrivers?

[The Shutting Downs]

*cough*abort sim*cough*

[Dog Pants]

*cough*abort sim*cough*

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF14OZKOI68[/media]

[deject]

bah fine. ruin my Dr. Who fantasies. >:(

Abort, Abort!

[Joose]

Ok, you hit the abort code, and are suddenly dumped out of the Sim into cold hard reality. You are all standing within a few feet of each other at the side of a road in Washington. Edgar and Tiny are just stood there, Kurt is half in, half out of a taxi, and Barry has half a bagel in one hand and an extremely cold coffee in the other. You all feel quite stiff, like you have been standing completely still for some time.

Around you are lots of other people. It was a pretty regular lunchtime before everything went sim shaped, so the street was busy with office workers and the like. They are now all stood still, staring blankly into space. Some of them are dribbling slightly.

Your Mesh inserts, which would normally be teaming with news feeds, updates from friends, local weather reports and all the other essential information for living in the modern world are almost entirely silent. The only feed still working is a video recording of someone in a dishevelled military uniform. Its on a loop, and is corrupted in places.

.... they will, so .... ay well back ... you need them, weapons can be found at the ... cations attached to this feed. Local Law enforcement officers will be there to .... co-operatio .... et through this. <Message repeats> This is .... tack .... TANS ... sick. If you ........ they will, so ... ay well back ...

A series of coordinates are attached to the video, the closest of which is just around the corner.

Deej, when you hit the shut-down for your sim, you noticed an automatic message get sent to a number of near by individuals.

Tiny dear, I'm afraid I have some rather troubling news. There have been reports of nuclear launches from America against targets around the world, one of which I have calculated, based off its initial trajectory, is aimed at the Pentagon. I'm sure I needn't tell you that we are well within the area that would be affected by such a device.

The other muses confirm Franks data. Based on that information, it'll hit within the hour.

[The Shutting Downs]

Is the cab driver still out of it? If so Kurt will shove him out of the taxi.

All aboard.

Shelly,sweets, can you unscramble the message about hidey holes?

[deject]

Why would we launch against the Pentagon? None of this makes sense. We should get the fuck out of here.

Barry gets in the cab with Kurt.

[Dog Pants]

I'll jump in beside Kurt.

Show me to the shooters buddy. If there's one thing Ma taught me, it's the benefit of a good firearm.

[munchkin]

Tiny jumps in the back seat

Just leave something for me, I'm up for a scrap

[The Shutting Downs]

Onward to potential salvation from nukey death!

[Joose]

That pretty much works. There is no taxi driver as such, the taxi would have driven itself. The link to its controlling system that would have allowed that is down, but the manual controls are still working, so you can drive it like a normal car.

Shelly shows you a map of the immediate area, with the closest of the coordinates from the message highlighted and a suggested route drawn in GPS style. The audio of the message is not so much scrambled as missing bits, no amount of data analysis is going to get any more out of it. The route will take about 5 mins, taking into account the fact that the roads are strewn with people and stationary cars. A little weaving will be needed.

In front of you (the opposite direction of the suggested route. You will need to do a U turn) a figure can be seen coming around the corner. He looks like a normal splicer or flat morph (regular human looking, in other words) except for some kind of shiny black insectile growths coming out of the sides of his head. He's doing a sort of high speed shamble, like he is not quite used to using legs. He's managing to go at a normal running speed, but it looks a bit like when someone is running down hill, and they are on the verge of falling over.

[Dog Pants]

What the fuck? Get us out of here man, I don't like that guy.

[deject]

Yeah get this cab moving! I don't really want to sit here long enough to find out what that thing is.

[The Shutting Downs]

Onward to potential salvation from nukey death!

Just to make it clear then - this meant we are driving away at best speed manageable.

[Joose]

OKey doke, you drive away from the weird looking dude. You only have to dodge people for a block or two, as it turns out. After that, the place look deserted. There are abandoned vehicles at the side of the road, and signs of fighting all over. Broken windows, places that look burnt, places that are still burning, occasional blood splatter. You don't see any bodies though.

The roads are still a little cluttered though, just enough to stop you going flat out, and the occasional blocked road mean you cant go direct there. Its a fairly uneventful drive though, and you make it in about the expected 10 mins.

On arriving at the coordinates, you find some blockades in front of a building. You recognise them as the temporary emergency "barrier in a can" things that you have seen on the news when there are riots: a container slightly larger than a drinks can filled with a material that, when released, rapidly form a two meter by one meter barrier from a quick hardening foam. The building itself looks from the outside like a normal office block, but you can see through the now wide open doors that the inside is military. At the back of the large room you can see a couple of large nanofabricators, both look badly damaged to the point of no longer working. Strewn around the place are various weapons and bits of armoured clothing. You can see half a gun sticking out of one of the nanofabs. There's no one to be seen.

There's enough armoured clothing for a suit each (rating energy 3, kinetic 4. I'll go though exactly what that means when we get to combat). You can also pick weapons from the weapon list, either 2 things listed as Low cost, or 1 Medium cost. You can also make a Scrounging roll (don't forget a -10 for each extra minute, up to -30) to see if you can find anything else.

[deject]

OKey doke, you drive away from the weird looking dude. You only have to dodge people for a block or two, as it turns out. After that, the place look deserted. There are abandoned vehicles at the side of the road, and signs of fighting all over. Broken windows, places that look burnt, places that are still burning, occasional blood splatter. You don't see any bodies though.

The roads are still a little cluttered though, just enough to stop you going flat out, and the occasional blocked road mean you cant go direct there. Its a fairly uneventful drive though, and you make it in about the expected 10 mins.

On arriving at the coordinates, you find some blockades in front of a building. You recognise them as the temporary emergency "barrier in a can" things that you have seen on the news when there are riots: a container slightly larger than a drinks can filled with a material that, when released, rapidly form a two meter by one meter barrier from a quick hardening foam. The building itself looks from the outside like a normal office block, but you can see through the now wide open doors that the inside is military. At the back of the large room you can see a couple of large nanofabricators, both look badly damaged to the point of no longer working. Strewn around the place are various weapons and bits of armoured clothing. You can see half a gun sticking out of one of the nanofabs. There's no one to be seen.

There's enough armoured clothing for a suit each (rating energy 3, kinetic 4. I'll go though exactly what that means when we get to combat). You can also pick weapons from the weapon list, either 2 things listed as Low cost, or 1 Medium cost. You can also make a Scrounging roll (don't forget a -10 for each extra minute, up to -30) to see if you can find anything else.

I'll pick up armor and a laser pulser, and I'll spend an extra minute scrounging for an extra 10.

Scrounging (15) + 10: 25

3, 2: 32 Failure!

[The Shutting Downs]

I'll spend the full 3 mins scrounging:

20+30 = 50

Roll(2d10)+0:
3,4

So a 34... Win.

As for Weapons, I'll take a Diamond axe (low cost - stated to be found in buildings for fire and emergency use) and a Shard Pistol Spray Weapons (also listed as low cost) please.

Main thing on the scrounge will be some sort of rope, kit bags, first aid kits and extra ammunition for the Shard Pistol.

[Dog Pants]

I'll armour up and grab an automatic railgun with as many mags as I can stash. Hopefully the armour has some sort of carrying equipment with ammo pouches. I'll scrounge also, and since we'll be waiting for TSD anyway I'll spend three minutes of nuke-fleeing time;

Scrounging: 25+30: 2, 2: 22 Critical! Excellent Success!

Critical excellent dude! Do I find an aircraft carrier?

[deject]

If everyone else is taking the extra couple minutes can I re-do mine? I don't think it'd matter too much, since I'm apparently a Beam weapon user so I can't really scrounge ammo anyways.