Supercape

GM "My name is Cornelius Armitage. Professor Cornelius Armitage" he said, a smile on his lips but not, it should be said, in his eyes. "I am a historian. An archeologist. A mythologist, theologist, and anthropologist. I have spent my life investigating ancient pre history items and scripts from around the world. I recently procured a small treasure trove of Egyptian antiquities and am selling them off to an interested part for a not small fortune" he explained. "And it would be very important to know who, and what you are, sir. I have done you the politeness of my name and occupation. And even my business. I am a man of somewhat advanced years yet in rude health, and have possessed what could be called an Eldritch Eye for most of my adult life. There, sir, you have a fair and honest, if succinct appraisal of myself. I would therefore ask you kindly to procure me with your nature and business in kind, or are you ignorant in these matters? I might be able to help?"

Flux "It better be really significant majority" interjected Quill, frowning at the risk. "And aside from that, if one does not understand their true nature, then one cannot understand their true risk" he explained, concerned at words like majority and general pattern. Bending space time like this...you need better confidence... He frowned, looking with more than his eyes at the wormhole. "I would like to see one up close" he conceded. "If it is reasonably safe to do so..." he added with a generous smile.

Flintlock Hasan Sharmake It was the middle of summer, hot, even at sea. I’m a pirate. That’s what they call me. They are not wrong. I grew up in the fields, breaking my back like my father and my father before me. I had not a dollar to me my name. Sometimes, I didn’t even have shoes. Not me, I said. I will not live like this. I will life as it should be lived, or I would die trying. I joined a ship. Not a normal ship. We didn’t explore, or transport goods. We didn’t fish. We didn’t fish for fish, we fished for other ships. Its simple. We get information on cargo vessels. Easy enough. We pay bribes, and we get information. Plenty of people in the docks want easy money – they get paid nothing, and people always want more than nothing if that’s all they have. And we make sure that if they feel like talking to the police, they regret it. You have to have a reputation in this profession. Its nothing personal. Its just business. It’s the only way it works. If people do not fear you, they will talk. Once we have the info rmation, it is a simple matter. We catch up with the cargo vessel, we board it, shout, scream, fire are weapons. AK-47, nothing better. If somebody tries to act the hero, we hit them. If they get up again, we shoot them. Nobody gets up after that. Simple. Even with the bribes, and all the people we know, we get trouble from the army, the united nation. Even UNISON sometimes, when we happened to find some very special cargo. We had to dump that cargo and run. Maybe it would have made us millionaires, maybe billionaires. But I think I am happier with that cargo back at the bottom of the sea. I never did like squid, anyway. And I never will, now. It’s a life of danger. We all know it, even if we try to forget it. Sooner or later we are going to get burned. It gives us a fever, a sweating. We all just trying to get enough money to cash out, and we in a frenzy to get there. Its like a trance, like a dream. Like we are dead somehow. Dead men on a ship. Then I saw some real dead men on a ship. You don’t believe me? You don’t have to believe me. I believe me, and that’s enough. It was a hot summer, like I said. We had been having slim pickings, and we had worked up a hunger for a score. People getting restless, pacing, looking at the horizon with bloodshot eyes, not sleeping, sometimes not eating. A hunger so bad it was eating us up from insides. We had been told about this prize ship, full of juice, and not a patrol ship around. Not one we knew about anyway. So we were chasing after it, on good seas, full of keen. Then we saw it. The Black Flag, they call it, a pirate ship. Sails, cannons, just like in the movies. We had heard rumours, but we had all laughed them off as sea stories to frighten the children. Now we saw it. At first, we tried to say it was something else. A yacht, we said. Then it got closer. No, must be filming a movie. Maybe Privateers of the Bahamas 5, we said. Maybe Gunbusters 7. Then there comes a time when you have to start believing you eyes, no matter how much you don’t want to be believing. It was the Black Flag, a pirate ship. And it was faster than us. It cut through the waves like it was being pulled along by some sea God. Never seen a ship move so fast, just glide through the waves without a thought. We tried to outrun it, we did. But some things can’t be outrun. No tricks we could use. The Black Flag was faster than us, no matter what we did. And we couldn’t pretend it wasn’t so. When you can’t run, you have to fight. We didn’t know what was coming after us, but took up our guns anyway. Better to fight with a gun than without one. AK 47s, Shotguns, Uzi’s. We had the weapons. Part of the trade. I couldn’t say we were confident. That would be a lie, and I don’t think anyone would feel confident when a pirate ship is after you. But we were not cowards. The Black Flag pulled up, and there it was, the ship full of dead men. Dressed as pirates, but their meat falling off their bones. Skulls and rotten flesh. With swords and flintlocks, like they had come out of two hundred years ago. Grinning at us, singing songs about gullets and gizzards and stringing parts of us up on the masts, and making sails out of our skins. One of our crew jumped overboard. I don’t know what happened to him, but he must have thought that was a better fate than the song. The rest of us did the only thing we could think of. We opened fire. And they laughed at us, just laughed at us, as we fired until our clips ran dry. Some of them fell, I think, just chipped away by the rain of bullets, but they did not bleed. And they did not die. All they did was sing, louder and louder, even over the sound of gunfire. Laughing all the time. Our clips ran dry and we didn’t know what else to do. I took up an axe, cursing my luck and getting ready to meet my ancestors in shame. At least I would die trying, I told myself. Except I didn’t die. Instead, the captain had something else in mind. The captain. Captain Flintlock. Sunburned skin and red hair, and smiles and laughter and a stink of rum. With skirts and hats that belonged from two hundred years ago, just like her undead crew. She told us she wasn’t going to kill us. Not much, anyway. And then she raised her hands and… …you won’t believe this, even if you believed everything else. Something horrible came from below the ship. Like fog, or snakes, or something I can’t describe. It was like a nightmare. Whenever I try to think about what it was, something in my head tells me to look away, and every time I listen. I know its in my head, but I can’t look at it to remember it. Only in my dreams. And I don’t like my dreams. Never have, and I know I never will. I don’t remember it. Maybe I passed out. I think we got towed. Moved. By whatever thing the red-haired Flintlock summoned. She was drunk and laughing and quite mad. I think she had mercy, of a sorts, for she did not kill us although I am sure she could have done so it she wanted. Instead, she gave us all a memory that made us never want to set foot in a boat again. And here I am, in a Somali Prison, rotting away. I will be out in twenty, I think. If I survive. I will not be a young man anymore, but I will not be old either. And I will not die here, not if I have any say in it. I will cling to this life. Because now I have filled my heart with something that burns and keeps it beating no matter what is around me. My hate is my friend and my lover, and all I need to live. And when I get out, I will extract my revenge on Captain Flintlock, and it will be a bloody revenge. I will choke that smile and that laugh out of her with her last breath…

Starshot "That useless...." muttered Starshot under his breath. At least they had half a plan. Maybe 55% of a plan. It was true the odds were never going to fall kindly, but they had to make the most of the situation. With guts and blood if need be. But Phalen.... "If you have anything to say, now's the time to say it" he said grimly to the mad alien. "Because if you don't, then we all might die, and not in a good way. If you ever want to get off this planet. Or even just live on it, you should start talking!"

GM The bow clocked him on the side of the head. "Its not about foolishness...or cowardice....it just about guts...." he muttered, before losing his footing. The sniper's knife fell out of his limp hand, and he fell back, out cold. It was almost in slow motion, his fall. But there was still a very nasty crack and thud as he landed, first on a trash dumpster, then on the street. There was blood, and there was bones. Possibly there was more, one couldn't tell from this height in this light. And it was a mercy he was out cold when he landed.

Intimidate vs Demoralise: 1d20+8 11 Demoralised. Tough Save vs Bow: 1d20+5 13 and he fails by 15, meaning knocked out. And knocked off the building too.

GM "Uhhh...ok..." gasped Mack, his hands sweaty. He pulled them back, out of some strange self preservation. But his resistance had crumbled. "Look, missy. Hector was always a mean guy. Something off about him, ya know? I mean there are rumours. Like he is into witchcraft, or satanism, or something. He's got some creepy books he reads. Like what was that one I saw yesterday. The Sundered Veil and The Burning Eye..." "Read it. Rubbish" sighed Vic. "Yeah, well, I'm not sure it is all rubbish" said a put out Mack. "He casts spells, you see. Nothing came of it, until a few weeks ago, when he cast some spell on the dogs. And he looks pretty pleased with himself since. They...they got a taste for flesh...." he mumbled, awkward. "Human flesh...." "And tuna" he added. "Don't ask me why, but they seem to love tuna...."

GM "Mack" replied Mack, biting his lip. "Vic" said Vic, keen to interject and be more than a lemon. "Errr, right" said Mack, nodding at Vic and wondering what kind of day this would be. Not the best, one would imagine! "I don't think they are real dogs. Not any more" said Mack, muttering to himself. "Not for the past few days. I mean, they were always mean and nasty. I got some scars on my leg from a couple of months back. But now, hell. Well, hell. Literally hell. I swear i can smell brimstone on their breath..." He bit his lip harder. "I shouldn't be talking like this. Boss man gonna kill me!" he gulped.

GM "Oh...yeah, sure...." said the young man. He put his hand through his hair and tried to look professional, or cool, or handsome. Or something. "I mean, Hector's the boss. But, look lady, I better take you there. I mean, the dogs..." he looked worried. "Well, I think they are dogs, anyway" he muttered, unsure of himself. "I mean, you don't want to be around if the dogs aren't chained up. To be honest, you don't want to be around here when they are chained up, either. But if you have business with Hector..." He looked concerned. "Are you sure you want to see him, missy? I mean, Hector is one mean son of a gun. Dangerous guy..."

He cant match that!

GM "What? Who Err...." said the young man, dropping his magazine. It had a bit picture of Mo Nah, a Vietnamese celebrity of no talent bar her looks, dressed up in a chainmail bikini and swining an axe. Very good hair and make up, one could appreciate that at least. He half recovered and stood up. He wasn't quite as tall as Jessica, so it didn't have quite the effect he was hoping for. "What delivery? I don't think we ordered anything" he asked, a little confused. Maybe even a little suspicious. "We deal in scrap, and you don't get delivered scrap. We buy it, we sell it" he explained, scratching his head. "You don't look like no scrap..."

GM Arrowhawk missed the chin but hit the shoulder. The man might have been fifty but he wasn't slow, even if Arrowhawk was faster. He grunted and moved to the left a little. "That all you got?" he said, bluntly. He was, however, in a difficult situation. Up against the side of the rooftop with no escape route, and a sniper rifle in his hands that wasn't much use this close. He dropped it and pulled out a knife instead. "Been a long while since I had to gut someone up close" he explained. But he wasn't quite so confident now. Even if he wasn't confident, he had pride. Steely, diamond hard pride. This wasn't some punk Arrowhawk could intimidate or expect to walk away. His previous gesture had been one of respect for Arrowhawk, not his own fear. He slashed at her. He was able, and strong, but whilst he was clearly a crack shot, he was not so skilled up close. "The interesting thing about these implants" he said, coldly "is that they record everything. So even if you tie me up, arrest me, knock me out..." He grinned coldly. "I still have footage of you shooting at me first...."

Reactior Shot against AH: 1d20+10 12 A miss! And the bow shaft attack hits. Tough Save: 1d20+7 24 This is turning into a no-back down type of situation! However, he is now backed into a corner and as its equipment he is using, giving it the usual penalties of blah blah - in other words, you cant really effectively use a sniper rifle this close. So out comes his knife, as a move action, and its stab time. Stab Time: 1d20+5 13 a miss! So Arrowhawk is up ROund 4 (ish) 28 Arrowhawk - Injured x2, Bruised x2, 3 HP 15 Sniper - Unharmed

GM "Don't push your luck. You are bleeding. I can see it. I can practically smell it" he said, apparently confidently. The gun didn't move, and neither did he. "You don't let me do anything. I do what I want, and I will blow your brains away if you get in my way. We aren't doing a deal" he continued, confidently. "I am going to walk away from here, and you can either try and stop me, or you can walk away too. It doesn't bother me either way. My bullets come out of expenses" he said with a cruel smile. "The people I work for. They like hunting humans. Takes money to do that, and some spite. I killed before, and no doubt Ill kill again. But I do it for money, not sport" explained the Sniper. "Now, go and bleed somewhere else. I'm going to get back to protecting those rich kids and making them feel tough. The idiots..."

GM The Sniper kept his rifle up but didn't fire again. Yet. "You got guts. Most people stay down when shot. I put at least two slugs in you" he said, voice soft low and raspy. "I don't mind killing, but I got respect for someone like you" he explained. "My job is just to clear the path. Protect the hunters. That's what I get paid for. Dirty business, but I don't mind gettin' dirty" he snarled. "Better than me moping around when I lost my eyes. But I got up and dragged myself out of the mess I was in. Bit like you..." He glanced over at the pick up truck that was scraping away down the street. "I done my job. So I ain't gonna kill you. Just stay out of my way. If you can do that, I wont be putting a third round in you..."

Pausing from combat briefly. However, the Sniper will take a Ready Action: Fire at Arrowhawk if she approaches / attacks

GM "Shot? No don't! I mean, don't get shot! Or leave...! It's dangerous!" blubbered the Prince. "Those things are shooting at you! they might hit you! Which means you would get shot!" he explained, most helpfully. He fell to his knees, hands pressed together in a prayer to the universe. "I don't want you to die! I mean, your music! It would be a terrible loss! You are so talented...a singer...a musician...a songwriter....a perfomer....a....a....oh I LOVE YOU!" he screamed, falling to the floor in a wail. He looked up, teary. "And I can help! I'll save you! Nobody knows the top of this tower like me!"

GM The flash seemed not to worry the man at all. He just grinned. "Those little tricks wont help" he said, voice deep and ridden with gravel. "I got my eyes burned out five years ago, and got something else welded in place. Don't try blinding a man without eyes..." He backed off himself...slowly and carefully, until his boots hit the edge of the building. He was perhaps only ten or twenty feet away. He took a look down. Thirty feet to the street. "I'm still paying off the debt for them. So I gotta do what I gotta do..." he explained, grimly, before firing off another round into Arrowhawk...

Reflex Saves vs Dazzles: 2#1d20+5 18 14 so made them! Sniper Men Move Action: Back off to the edge of the building (we are thirty feet up) Standard Action: Fire Sniper Rifle Fires Sniper Rifle: 1d20+10 26 Pow! Sorry, another DC 21 Tough Save!

Lament "Oh ho..." muttered Luther, backing off. "You don't want to be going there..." Maybe he might have tried to delay, or talk to the figure. Whatever it was. It certainly didn't look human. But maybe it was? Maybe...maybe....but the Void was getting hungry, and that meant Luther was getting nervous. It needed to be fed. He reached out, trying to suck all joy and hope from the thing. His back hit the door to the room. Whatever happens, he told himself, that thing was not getting in...

No problems! Standard Action: Lash out with Perception Ranged Emotion Control (Despair) - keep the Void fed! DC 20 Will Save Move Action: Back off to cover the door.

Rev "I could certainly do with some rest. Got to spray on Zhu's gel skin" sighed Rev looking at her chrome arms and legs. Need to? Well, it would be advisable. Attracted less attention. "A pair of sneakers if you have any. And some lollipops to get my sugar back up. But even better would be some fuel. I'm running a bit low after charging around" she said, giving a lopsided awkward grin. "Any petrochemical will do. Military space fuel, even!" she added keenly.

GM Now, up close (ish), she could see the sniper. He was a large man, over six foot, and broad shouldered. He looked strong and grizzled, dressed in a long overcoat and wearing body armour. He would probably be around fifty, at a guess. An experienced man, without any apparent loss of vitality. Most interesting was his eyes - although they could not be seen. He appeared to have a pair of thick high tech sunglasses on - which was pretty odd given the dim light here. Around the sunglasses a network of nasty scars could be seen. He pointed his gun casually in the direction of Arrowhawk, not quite on target, but not quite. He seemed not to see Arrowhawk. Seemed. But Arrowhawk could see the way his rifle seemed to track her.... He could see her!

Rolly Wolly Doop de doo: 1d20 13 you notice stuff as per IC!

GM For a moment, the alligator stayed still. Like a stone. The only sign was the faint sloshing off the filthy water. Then, with a gurgle, the alligator sank below the surface. Whatever primal force, whatever animal instinct, that had charged the teeth and fangs of Lobisomem, it had worked. The Alligator was a natural predator, and its great size had not diminished that mind set. But something instinctive had hit in. It was facing another predator of equal ferocity and strength. No easy prey. No easy meat. Even if it won the tussle, it would be scarred. Its primitive reptilian mind made up, the Alligator swam away...