Yankee Stadium is surrounded by a giant dome that's preventing entry to the rift in reality. We fuck around on the outside of it for a while, trying to determine what's causing it.
Andre's character knows that it's being created by a Crystal Skull. He previously interacted with it while he was tooling around on a STARS2 team with Mikhail.
We decide to see what AEGIS has for info on the skulls. Veracity crits on a Tradecraft!+Encyclopedist!+Mastermind!+Detective! check, succeeding by 21 before even figuring the crit. It's not a huge mental leap to realize Legend has one in his office.
Veracity is offered as tribute to grab the skull. It tolerates him, but seems perturbed that its been disturbed. Attempting to use Telepathic Learning on the skull causes Veracity to have a strange out of body experience where he seems to slip into the future for a few seconds. Veracity recognizes it as the knowledge Skull. It can explain how to do things.
Arclight's bitch wife appears on screen, addressing various agencies. Blah blah Martial Law, blah blah MAPS and Federal Authorities and AEGIS will be reporting to her. Veracity is not particularly concerned as he'd both dead and Zeroed.
The Skull takes a moment to learn from Veracity, an experience that's really unpleasant. The skull proclaims that since Veracity has the skull, he's now responsible for saving the world.
As if.
It tells us to get to Yankee Stadium.
We opt to use the portal gun. Mikhail opens a door from Fort Tilden to Yankee Stadium.
The Skull instructs Veracity to touch the wall, and a giant section of the barrier disappears.
People stream out from inside, no longer trapped with the remnants. AEGIS folk are getting civilians out. Veracity feels an explosion happening just before it does- a huge mental blast that causes everything to go grey.
We opt to drive to Yankee Stadium- reserving the Portal Gun for escaping the rift in reality when we secure the load bearing shmuck keeping the reality gash open. Mikhail finds us a big box truck that still runs.
We drive it into the stadium, over a massive pile of remnant corpses. Mikhail manages to get the truck right into Yankee Stadium.
The Cavalary is sucked into some kind of vortex type dealie. Only a woman in strange white clothing, with chalky white clothing and hair reminds.
Digs is tied up next to the rift.
Veracity succeeds by 14 on Tactics.
We opt to run over the chick in white on the assumption that she wouldn't be standing next to our extraction target if she were friendly. She gets thrown up and away from the truck, not clearing the hood in time.
Marsh, Mikhail and Ayumi all fire at the woman, who starts bleeding purple blood. She looks very much dead.
We contemplate wrapping Gunther in explosives to give him some extra oomph as he punches people and draws aggro.
The skull is concerned that Atlanteans have entered the situation.
Marsh stunts to use his illusion to make Gunther appear like the Lady in White, and to make Anya look invisible. Anya patches Terry up.
Gunther valiantly holds off the swarm of Remnants, triggering the explosives we strapped to him and blowing up a ton of Remnants.
We get out of the rift with Terry, and it snaps shut, trapping Gunther inside.
Marsh uses the portal gun and Science! to try and locate Gunther. We spend a great deal of Karma to counteract DOOM. Marsh fires the altered gun and disappears. The gun clatters to the ground and smokes, rendered useless.
Marsh finds himself in the jungle next to Gunther under an orange sky. Then a reptilian roars behind him and the screen fades to black.
The General calls us. He says that AEGIS is done, consumed by a Cancer within. He declares AEGIS exempt from being under the thumb of any world government, and throws in his lot with Sentry as part of the High Command.
So ends Aeon C-Team, for now.
Showing posts with label Aeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aeon. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Aeon C-Team S304: Void Rifts
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| We'll update the logo... eventually |
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence. PROHIBITION MOBSTER
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms. TOTALLY NIKO BELLIC
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. HE'S IN YOUR TRASH!
Louis (Andre): A metamorph who can control his appearance and do all kind of mimicry stuff.
Ayumi (Annia): Basically Katarra. Japanese.
Louis (Andre): A metamorph who can control his appearance and do all kind of mimicry stuff.
Ayumi (Annia): Basically Katarra. Japanese.
Events:
In the following two months, Blue Skies goes down HARD. Some of the Blue Skies upper ups actually get charged with Treason. We end up aiding mop up efforts against Blue Skies.
Mikhail's missing eye is replaced with a cybernetic implant- one that only has black and white vision however.
Blue Skies is broken up and bought out by other groups. Anything metahuman related is confiscated by the government before they're sold.
We're thrown into debriefing hell, followed up by paperwork hell, then followed by mole whacking hell, then followed by congressional hearing hell. This last numerous months.
B-Team's last confrontation with the guy in the black suit gets in our hands- it looks like he imploded inside a house. Confirmation that he's dead doesn't follow.
We find ourselves at the end of work hell investigating the overthrow of the Argentinian Government, an event that happened six months ago.
The entire populace has been put to work building infrastructure. The coup was bloodless, basically a huge uprising of citizens who decided all at once to reform the government right then and there.
It doesn't appear to be mind control- the populace seems perfectly happy with the change in government. The new head of the government is some guy named Constantino Alvarez.
We're in the area because the new government has shown that they have access to tech that they shouldn't have their hands on. The medical advancements they're showing off are way ahead of schedule- basically they're heading for generalized TL9 medical tech, possibly even as far as a generalized vaccine against all disease.
We've assumed World Health Organization credentials.
We know that Alvarez was rescued by the Cavalry on the same mission Arc Light died on.
We arrange a meeting with Alvarez. He'd asked the WHO to visit, but we smooth it over by claiming we weren't sent due to that request and that wires got crossed.
There's a lot of amazing stuff going on in their research labs- cybernetics, vaccines, new treatments, prosthetics. We debate trying to get Mikhail's cybernetic eye replaced with something better, but decide against it.
Marsh uses Science! to determine how Argentina's tech is advancing so quickly. He spends Karma to get a crit. His first guess would be that Alvarez is a ridiculously talented savant, but the advances are just too fast. There's something going on, something that Marsh can't quite put his finger on the source of. They're showcasing medical and transportation tech, but the advancements aren't limited to just those fields.
Some Blue Skies lab techs have been hired to help with the research endeavors. Veracity's gut doesn't rule out Argentina attempting to create metahumans as a possibility.
Alvarez has a huge cabinet full of crystal skulls. A few look real to Veracity and Marsh, but neither of us have ever handled one. Alvarez claims he inherited them from his predecessor. Both Marsh and Veracity attempt Detect Lies (via wildcards). Alvarez is definitely on the fringe of lying by omission.
We're recalled to the States by Legend shortly after our meeting with Alzarez concludes.
We're shown the press release for the Homeland Security/Department of Justice endeavor to register and control metahuman activity.
The Human Purity Association has been gaining media traction within US, spewing vitriol and bile all over the place about metahumans.
We're called in to talk with Legend. He looks like he's having a bad day. We all sit down on his oversized couch- even Mikhail looks small compared to it.
Legend asks us about Argentina, and Marsh explains the situation with accelerated tech improvements and the fact that Alvarez seems to be going off something else's script.
He asks if we noticed anything out of place. Marsh answers that he saw no dissent- definitely abnormal.
Legend doesn't look happy, and inquires about crystal skulls. Legend says "looks like he found the mind skull" and then tells us not to pay attention to that. Considering that two of us have Eidetic Memory (Photographic), that's not fucking happening.
Legend says we're getting a fourth person assigned to us since three of us just isn't enough muscle. Then he requests to talk to Veracity alone.
Outside, some analysts talk to Marsh and Mikhail. They're intimidated by Mikhail. The brothers go on to talk to the last time Mikhail kneecapped a guy. The analysts flee and then the brother talk about who inherited what from which parent.
Mikhail is concerned that Yelena is out hurting people while she's being influenced by the tattoo. (Sr. has ended up in the labyrinth, the most prisony prison available for the baddest of the bad.
Legend calls everyone back in and hands out folders on Arc Light's Widow. He explains the whole battlesuit leasing program, including 1,300 troops in Arc Light like armor. His widow's rampage against Metahumans is a little strange cause he was a meta at one point in time.
Legend will get back to us on the new team member. He's assuming a wait and see approach to the registration brouhaha. Legend sees the situation as a slippery slope where law-abiding metahumans are put under additional suspicion just for having powers.
Blackwell is terrible, a fact admitted by Legend. Despite being a career politician, Blackwell's been a bit of a dark horse candidate, despite talking about being president for almost half a decade.
"You know things have really gone downhill when you turn to Niklos for moral advice."
Monday, February 6, 2017
Aeon C-Team S304: We Leverage Nation Security to get Free McDonalds
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| We'll update the logo... eventually |
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence. PROHIBITION MOBSTER
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms. TOTALLY NIKO BELLIC
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. HE'S IN YOUR TRASH!
Events:
We learn that the Cavalry made some serious wins based off the plans and information we gave them.
Of course the chairman of the board was the last one to not get nabbed by AEGIS.
We start setup outside the Chairman's location. Zephyr has been helping us with scouting. A man in a black suit stepped inside and then there was a bunch of screaming.
Veracity's gut doesn't think the chairman would use PURPLE DRANK on himself without it being perfected given the risk of it killing him. The guy in the suit is definitely NOT the chairman.
Using a hyperspectral camera, we see what we assume to be the man in the suit inside killing more people.
Mikhail asks for permission to shoot.
We have Marsh try to spoof an alert to all Blue Skies operatives in the area, trying to mimic a message that Artillery, badass motherfucker asshole supreme, is on his way. The goal is to cause chaos, maybe give the guy in the suit pause when he learns that a bigger fish might be on the way.
Veracity's gut feeling is that the man in the suit is aware that the Subway team is in position.
We then try to place a call to the man in the suit. The man's voice has a slight German accent.
Veracity tries to convince him to delay a bit so we can get information from the Chairman, or better yet, allow Gabriella to scan his mind.
The man says that he can't do that.
Some kind of teleportation attack hits the group- only Veracity is affected. He's pulled into the 19th century house where the man in the suit is going about his business. He's unaffected by the blood and gore.
Veracity does his best to defuse the situation without outright requesting that Mikhail open fire. The Man in the Suit is pouring shadow from every patch of exposed skin.
Mikhail takes a shot with the Barrett .50, hitting the man in the suit in the head- without being able to see him, through the intervening house. Alex spends 2 Karma to make it a critical, and another to reroll the critical headblow table twice to get us a better result.
The man's head develops a huge hole in it, but he's still standing and regenerating.
Veracity doesn't wait around as the man in the suit is knocked off balance, pulling out a stun grenade and dropping it behind him as he runs. Veracity runs upstairs- onto the second floor. He almost trips over a sprawled out Blue Skies bodyguard at the top with a severely busted shoulder. Veracity helps the man up and stops to spray slip spray- D&D's grease spell's TL 9 cousin in a can- over the stairs.
Outside, Mikhail is continuing to take shots at the Man in the Suit, going for the knees. Both knees are obliterated by anti-material rifle fire.
Mikhail and Marsh both suddenly find themselves falling. Mikhail crits his Move! roll. Both somehow keep their feet, but are inside a stone cell. It's a round stone hole, with a window looking into where they were, and then it closes.
Inside the house it's loud- among explosions, the flashbang going off, and then radio silence.
The Blue Skies goon has busted out the window and Veracity grabs him, using Mr. Gunn (his grapple gun) to latch onto a tree nearby.
Veracity helps the Blue Skies guy run away once they get outside the house.
In the cell, Mikhail's entered the astral realm. He explores a bit, eventually hitting a barrier with strange symbols on it. Mikhail SOMEHOW manages to recognize them as Norse Runes. It looks like a sphere that surrounds the prison.
Horizontally out from the cell, there's nearby tunnels and what looks like super old tracks. There's a lab, including a guy who is chained in place, working. The man is looking through a microscope.
Veracity and the Blue Skies operative are picked up by Zeus in another VTOL unit.
Mikhail concentrates, willing himself visible and able to talk while still in Astral Form. Mikhail talks with the chained man, who indicated that the man in the suit is the Devil, and that talking about him might make him aware of it.
Mikhail asks what the man is doing. The man asks how Mikhail got past the barrier. Upon hearing the answer the man says that Mikhail will be dead soon, likely subjected to unholy experiments. The man holds up a vial of purple liquid.
A teleportation shimmer happens near Mikhail, and he's shooed away by the man working in the lab. A butler-looking individual teleports in. The butler asks the lab tech if the formula is ready- if not, the butler will be back real soon. Evidently the Americans have done most of the work for them, and Blue Skies is mostly dismantled. The Butler is pleased as this means his organization gets to keep all the rewards.
Legend gets a sitrep from Veracity. Veracity attempts to Stunt his power to wipe machines of information to implant his memory of the man into a nearby computer. (3 Karma spent to make a power roll at -4 a crit success.)
Marsh burns through some gizmos to get access to chemicals commonly used by airliners in the oxygen bag masks that drop during an emergency. He succeeds on Science!, buying Mikhail and Marsh another 30minutes of breathing time.
Arguments are made that Mikhail can use Shooter! to cover Breath Control since he can just meditate by looking down the scope of the rifle that he had. Marsh burns some karma to gain access to the skill, and another to make it a success.
Marsh also tries to modify their radios to function on ultra-low frequencies, allowing them to phone home from the cell. He manages to establish a line out, and establishes that he and Mikhail are both deep underground in NYC.
Marsh manages to get a text out to Veracity's phone.
Buried under old NY subway, not ours. Suit's Lab working on purple drank. 2 hours of oxygen. Magic rune bullshit blocking Mike.
Back in the hole, a teleportation door opens, and the Butler is pointing a gun at Mikhail. Mikhail draws his pistols and wins the opposed fast-draw contest that results. The dude pointing a gun at Mikhail is wielding a strange blocky black gun of some kind.
Mikhail goes to shoot the gun in the Butler's hand, rolling a crit to hit. The gun falls to the ground, and the Butler vanishes.
Mikhail and the Butler contend for the black gun. Mikhail rolls poorly, spending Karma to keep possession of it. Mikhail tests it on a wall to see if it causes teleportation effects.
There's a McDonalds on the other side of the wall after Mikhail shoots it. The brothers dive through as fast as possible. They appear in the middle of the street, briskly walking to the other side before traffic gets disturbed by their presence. While Mikhail goes inside to get a superfluous amount of food (about 15 happy meals), Marsh establishes that he and Mikhail are in downtown Manhattan. Mikhail fails to convince the cashier that he should be given free food, and then has to enlist Marsh's aid to pay. Shit goes sideways and Mikhail breaks his phone.
Zeus flies the VTOL with Veracity and the Blue Skies operative (whose shoulder is both broken and dislocated until Veracity pops it back into place) on it to go pickup Mikhail and Marsh.
Veracity gets sick of the delay with payment, shouting into the VTOL loudspeaker that Mikhail's transaction is endangering national security. The McDonald's clerk showers Mikhail with food and the team regroups on the VTOL.
Veracity does his best to find a location suitable for a PURPLE DRANK lab near old subways located in NYC, and thinks he knows of one. He sends a request up the AEGIS flagpole for more info.
The Teleportation Gun does direct neural interfacing, and it has actual bullets (.50 AE) in it as well, but Marsh can figure out much more than that.
We work out a plan to try and take on the lab:
- Mikhail calls up a friend who used to work for the Subway System who provides old maps
- Marsh gets Gunther
- Veracity puts in calls to see what support he can rope in
- The group grabs a man-portable LRAD unit and extra beefy hearing protection
- Dirt Bikes
The Lab is located in a spur that was abandoned after it was decided it didn't need to be used.
We take the dirt bikes down into the subway tunnels and have Gunther peel back the metal that they welded over the entrance.
The lab looks abandoned. Lots of stuff is missing, paperwork and books are on fire, and we don't run into anybody.
It's obvious that they deployed teleportation to evacuate the entire premises. Marsh goes to check their stuff and almost breaks an extremely thin vial of glass holding some blue liquid from lot 26.
Marsh comes to the conclusion that it's some kind of bioweapon. Veracity is able to pull four different partials from it.
Searching around we find a journal. It contains scientific and occult notes, personal notes, and actual magical formulas. It's written in old Norse.
Veracity spends some time experimenting with the portal gun. Veracity's gut feeling is that the gun is low, but Mikhail can't grok the actual number of shots.
While Mikhail and Marsh pack up the lab Veracity stalks some Columbia professors that know Old Norse, using Telepathic Learning, Speed Reading, and another Stunt to migrate it all into digital data Marsh can use.
We end there. Mikhail is voted MVP.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Aeon C-Team S302: Blue Skies Tattoos for Everyone!
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| We'll update the logo... eventually |
Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medic/doctor, and general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything and enjoys asking Marsh to hold organs during autopsies. TIME LORD
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence. PROHIBITION MOBSTER
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms. TOTALLY NIKO BELLIC
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. HE'S IN YOUR TRASH!
Miguel Drasil (Andre): The ultimate personal assistant. A sarcastic wiseass.
Miguel Drasil (Andre): The ultimate personal assistant. A sarcastic wiseass.
Events:
We're asked what the hell we want to do with Sr., the new info we've been given, and stuff the Cavalry has secured during their escapades.
We decide to follow up on Moya's address we received from Sr. We drive by the place with a Hyperspectral camera to see who is inside from the street before knocking on doors or otherwise kicking down doors. The place is over a coffee shop on the east side.
The place is full of dead lukewarm bodies- 16 dead bodies.
Just outside the doorway there's a bouncing betty- the trigger of which Veracity ends up stepping on.
Marsh attempts to disarm it, with Mikhail and Veracity making complimentary skill checks to help out. He rolls a 17 and spends Karma to prevent blowing up the entire team.
Marsh manages to disarm the mine entirely, giving it to Mikhail.
The scene is pretty terrible, bodies, blood, gore, and the works everywhere. All of us succeed on fright checks.
Veracity looks over the room to get a sense of what happened. Someone was let in without a struggle, they knew the people inside, they talked for a few minutes, then there was a fight. There are bent guns in spots, showing either super strength, TK, or something else. It looks like most people were put down with intent to maim.
Moya's sitting in a corner, dead. The rest of the bodies look like mostly hired thugs, with a few Blue Skies looking folk among the dead as well.
Mikhail uses his new astral projection powers to enter the spirit realm (or whatever the fuck the AEON equivalent is). Mikhail sees utter chaos and violence, ten replaying death scenes that loop over and over again.
Mikhail does his best to ask questions of the people stuck in death echoes. His best social influence being Intimidation, he rolls against that, succeeding by 11. Somehow he snaps a shade out of their echo. He tells the guy some ludicrous story about LSD and drugs that have influenced his mind.
It takes a while to talk the hired goon into describing what actually happened. He was working for "This guy", "for a lot of money so I can get my son into college...", "JUST ONE LAST JOB", "I answer the door and this guy came in. His eyes were red. Mikhail fails to get a physical description of the man. The dude spoke with the Boss of the hired thug for a moment before getting angry and starting to rip people apart.
The shade lifts up its dead arm from the floor to show Mikhail that he's not hallucinating. Marsh and Veracity both see the arm rise off the ground.
Mikhail and the goon get into an astral fistfight. At some point he yells that the Devil was Russian. The Mass Murderer and the Bossman were talking about a Doctor of some kind.
The dead guy goes about trying to reassemble his body. Mikhail slaps him out of it.
The dead body starts trying to talk and starts trying to walk out of the apartment. A shot from the electrolaser doesn't stop it for more than a few seconds. Mikhail resorts to emptying a clip into it. It's completely ineffective until he hits the head.
It appears Moya didn't give an answer 'The Devil' wanted when asked about Lesko, the Chief Information Officer for Blue Skies.
It's inconclusive whether the murderer is a meta or occult in nature.
Mikhail's electrolaser goes off into Mikhail's leg, triggered by the spirit he pissed off during his jaunt through the Astral Space. Mikhail makes his HT check by 12 and more or less ignores it. Mikhail then jumps back into Astral Space to subdue the spirit (now poltergeist). A brief astral fistfight results in Mikhail pummeling the spirit into ectoplasmic goop.
Marsh and James are more than willing to cover up Mikhail's creation of a poltergheist- especially since they can feasibly deny knowing how exactly it happened.
Marsh collects phones and other computer devices for going through later, including one that needs hardware level authentication fobs to work without turning into slag.
We move onto the safehouses we've been given info on. We have info on eight of them. One's been scouted by the Cavalry, and the other we just checked out has obviously been burned. Five are within the city, two are outside of it.
We head for Port Tilden to talk with the captured Chief of Information. We've cleared the safehouse where a board of director member was. When we arrive they're unhappy that Moya is dead. We hand off the hard copies of files we found off to a tech working the Blue Skies Task force, informing him what limited info we knew about them. The tech is Riley Porter, and he believes that the files are utter gibberish.
Veracity promises Riley a coffee for going through it.
Lesko is in a metallic straightjacket. It's clear they took keeping him from escaping very seriously.
Marsh starts to talk with him. Lesko questions if we're AEGIS or SENTRY. We bring up the slaughter at the safehouse and that Moya is dead.
Evidently there's some sort of curse that prevents Moya from talking about things. Marsh notices that Lesko is sporting a similar mind-tendril tattoo as he once had. We ask Mikhail to get Sr. for us.
Lesko claims that we've fucked up the plans of Blue Skies- plans to avert Black Swan. Lesko also claims to have seen our files- especially Marsh and Mikhail's due to Sr's involvement in Blue Skies.
Evidently killing off Marlowe threw a huge wrench in their plans. He's a little confused he can talk about Marlowe to us.
Mikhail gets a sense that something is wrong as he goes to fetch his father. Yolena is concerned that Sr. hasn't been getting fed since he arrived. Mikhail fetches some snacks and a drink for his father.
Mikhail is suddenly karate-chopped to the back of the neck for 16 damage. He fails his knockdown roll (-5 due to major wound), and then takes an axe kick to the face for 8 points. His mothers eyes are glassy, like she's not really in control. (Christopher confirms she has one of those neural tattoos that whammied Marsh a while back.)
Yolena tosses Sr. some keys, then stomping Mikhail in the family jewels with a crit for 22 damage. Mikhail spends Karma to keep in the fight.
Mikhail decides to 'stay down' after his mother tells him to stop resisting. Waits until his father and Yolena run for it, taking a shot at Sr's knee. Marshall Sr. takes a "Flesh Wound" (costing a point of DOOM).
I spend 3 Karma to add some details to the scene:
- BIG RED BUTTON
- BIG SECURITY DOORS
- Halon fire suppression system right where Yolena and Sr. are when Veracity hits the BIG RED BUTTON
Mikhail takes a moment to reflect on his treatment by his mother. He then goes to make sure that Sr. hasn't died.
Sr. is in rough shape and looks horrified at things. He grabs a pair of scissors and starts stabbing himself with them in the abdomen. (Guess who else has a lovely neural tattoo?)
Marsh busts ass to hack through the security alert, taking a -8 and still succeeding by 3 to open the door. Sr. is dying, rapidly, and Marsh crit-fails first aid (DOOOM) while trying to save him.
Marsh and Mikhail both dump Karma to counteract the DOOM to save their dirtbag father. Mikhail and Marsh both see something written on each's other foreheads in blood. Marsh has JON on his face and Mikhail has WAY written on his face. This name matches up to a name on the list the Cavalry got for us- someone by the Codename John Wayne.
The safehouse Wayne is at is a powerplant.
We decide to go for an aerial insertion through either parachuting or fast-roping. We opt for parachuting as hovering within fast-rope range would probably alert people to our presence.
We end there with an additional game session tomorrow.
Monday, December 5, 2016
Aeon C-Team S301: Mikhail Chugs a Fifth of Vodka and Lives
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| We'll update the logo... eventually |
Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medic/doctor, and general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything and enjoys asking Marsh to hold organs during autopsies. TIME LORD
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence. PROHIBITION MOBSTER
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms. TOTALLY NIKO BELLIC
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. HE'S IN YOUR TRASH!
Miguel Drasil (Andre): The ultimate personal assistant. A sarcastic wiseass.
We'll be operating without operational support, and since all of us are dead and don't exist, our existence will be disavowed.
Marsh brings up a point that alcohol purchases in a majority Muslim country is unusual. We decide to go to the store where the sale was made. Mikhail secures us a vehicle and drives like usual- completely insane. We arrive without any accidents however.
We pressure someone at the shop about Scarface. He tries lying to us, but the four of us are considerably intimidating. Evidently Scarface shows up at 3PM on the sharp daily to pick up vodka- Mikhail is immediately intrigued by this and orders a fifth-which he downs in one go. Christopher has him make an HT-based Carousing roll at -10. Mikhail somehow succeeds.
Meanwhile, Mikhail has gunned it in the car he's in and slams it into the back of the car Marsh is driving. (Cue discussion of airbags being non-existent Morocco, and Andre spending Karma to make Marsh's vehicle airbag equipped.)
Senior gives us one choice piece of info- the name and address of James K. Moya, a man who's on the board of directors of Blue Skies.
Miguel Drasil (Andre): The ultimate personal assistant. A sarcastic wiseass.
Events:
We get to sleep for the first time after six months of intense training. We're given a physical and psych eval, and then we're caught up on recent events. Niklos earns extra telepathic scanning because he can't resist messing with other psychologists.
Blue Skies in Syria just got raided by the Cavalry. B-Team uncovered a ton of new information that Markus is currently going through.
We're being sicced on the Board of Directors of Blue Skies. Decapitation strike, as it were. Problem being, all of them have gone to ground and disappeared. They've been using seriously advanced video conferencing to communicate and have meetings.
We're introduced to our new team member, Miguel. Miguel is a generalist. Who is extremely capable of improvisation in the field.
Marsh brings up securing Gunther's release to Legend, arguing that he should be able to work off his sentence. Legend resorts to downing a massive bottle of antacids, but allows us a side trip to Rikers to get Gunther.
We're given the keys to a VTOL unit. We're given a comprehensive list of things we are NOT allowed to do with the VTOL, including spilling kool-aid on the seats. It's outfitted for very long missions given that it can usually hold two humvees or sixty individuals, but is going to be supporting far less.
We promptly begin searching the entire unit for kill switches, take-over controls, and bugs. We don't find any.
The VTOL has a fission reactor and doesn't need refueling. There's a Science! lab inside, as well as a persistent internet connection.
Rikers has a VTOL sized helipad.
Gunther is in deep solitary confinement. The Warden of Rikers is a normal who thinks that we're crazy for deciding to spring Gunther on work release. Gunther is chained to what is effectively a giant metal cube, and it takes some time for them to pump out whatever gas they used to sedate him.
Marsh has no difficulties getting Gunther to agree that leaving Rikers is exactly what he wants.
We head to the briefing. We're headed to Marrakesh, Morocco. Our target is Scarface, who has gone up against the B-Team multiple times. We're tasked with extracting him alive to gain access to what he knows.
 |
| Definitely not the lake in Morocco |
Mikhail knows a guy who knows a guy who will let us crash at a party mansion. Evidently the place is owned by like the tenth son of some Saudi Prince. It's right outside the city and overlooks a lake.
Veracity makes a Tradecraft! + Mastermind! check with assistance from Miguel to try and predict how Blue Skies might have moved Scarface into the area given their past operational actions. Intel places him South of the city at Douar Lahna. He was buying something from a store and was spotted on camera.
Blue Skies likes to hire locals, they like to utilize student visas, and they really like to utilize subsidiary companies. We decide a good first step is to have Marsh hack the Moroccan government to get their passport info. Marsh, with assistance from Miguel via a Teamwork! crit, succeeds by 17.
Marsh identifies a few visas that are most definitely suspect.
Veracity does some Digital Oracle work, getting another copy of the store footage. Scarface has a star tattoo on his right wrist, and appears to be buying alcohol of some variety.
The footage isn't good enough to use with facial recognition software. Not even after enhancing.
 |
| NOPE |
The footage isn't good enough to use with facial recognition software. Not even after enhancing.
Mikhail's friend warns us that the local police are super corrupt and that use of metahuman abilities will cause problems with the locals. Mikhail's friend knows nothing about scarface.
 |
| Mikhail secured us a stylish ride |
 |
| Seen here, a temple to Mikhail's god |
We decide to have Veracity and Mikhail stakeout the shop. Mikhail will be parked with a vehicle, using his astral projection to eavesdrop in case the shopkeep says anything to Scarface. Marsh and Miguel will be nearby with vehicles, and Veracity will be cloaked nearby.
Scarface approaches on foot, overdressed for the climate. Mikhail enters the astral plain, and notices that Scarface has a very nondescript astral appearance- murky and hazy. Marsh uses Gizmo to borrow Veracity's camera, but even if shows very hazy and blurry images.
We roll vs. Shadowing. Andre rolls a 17 and has to spend karma.
Marsh is watching Scarface from a vehicle when Scarface is suddenly in the seat next to him, pointing a gun at him.
 |
| Scarface doesn't look like Travolta OR Al Pacino, but fuck it, equating Marsh to Marvin was too good to pass up |
Scarface mentions that one of Legend's shapeshifters has tracked him down and threatens to shoot Marsh.
Marsh tries to affect him with illusion, but Scarface seems to be unphased. Marsh realizes that Scarface is Marshall Langston Sr. (Side note: Christopher shoots down Mind Link as being a benefit of Teamwork! to prevent Marsh from using Illusions as super covert messaging tools.)
Scarface seems very disturbed to be talking to someone like his son. Marsh manages to key open his radio mic and goes "Hey Dad, don't you remember that time we spent in Kosovo?"
It takes Marsh mentioning Marlowe to snap Scarface back to reality.
 |
While Mikhail is apprehending Sr, someone draws a gun on him. He thinks he smells his mother's perfume. Mikhail says "Mom?" leading her to state that Mikhail is dead. Mikhail goes on to talk about how nobody else would go through all of that effort for shitty vodka.
Mikhail's mother (Yelena) recognizes him. Veracity pushes everyone to get back to base so that Sr. can have his powers chemically suppressed. Everyone except Veracity piles into Mikhail's vehicle. Mikhail's mother drives- even more terrifyingly than her son.
Nobody shows up at the crime scene for at least twenty minutes. Evidently the cops don't care and Blue Skies doesn't have anybody watching Scarface.
Scarface has a strange piece of tech on him. Miguel uses one of his metahuman capabilities to analyze what it is. It's a device keyed to Scarface's biosignature, and acts as a device that scrambles metahuman detecting powers as well as technological recordings.
Mikhail's mother tells us Marshall Sr. doesn't actually have powers. We settle on just restraining him and then waking him up.
Upon being awake, Sr. hugs Marsh. Marsh asks him if he's okay.
We question Sr. about how he escaped Marlowe's explosion, and why Blue Skies seems to want him dead. It turns out Blue Skies has been working with a nazi- which seems to be a line for the old man.
Mikhail has very nice things to say to his father and threatens to punch him.
Sr. wants pay to talk. We offer him protection from Blue Skies' reprisals. Yelena drops that Sr. was planning on attempting to bring down Blue Skies on his own. Yelena won't cause us problems- but Veracity gets the sense that she could incapacitate (people named Gunther) or kill (people not named Gunther) everyone in the room.
Veracity alerts Legend that the team is en route with Senior.
Commentary:
What could have been a serious and arduous search in a foreign city for a reclusive badass operative turned into a pleasant stroll to the liquor store. In my opinion, the only significant reason the C-Team had to do it as opposed to a group of mooks is that the C-Team had the necessary plot armor to not get immediately attacked by Yelena and Marshall Sr.
Since we blew up Marlowe we've moved through things that were necessary to happen to get the C-Team in place for whatever Christopher has planned- but it's three sessions now. I'm itching for some freedom and agency.
The game could've started with Sr. coming into AEGIS and demanding to speak with his sons because he learned that they were still alive. It would've lit a huge fire under everyone's asses when a bigtime Blue Skies operative just shows up uninvited, and worse, has figured out that Legend's pet terrorists were not only not dead, but recently back from time travel.
That would've been a much more exciting start to the season.
Plus it has the added bonus that we'd already be covering ground we'll be getting into next session.
 |
| ALL ABOARD |
Friday, November 4, 2016
AEON C-Team S2E6: IT'S TIME TO SPLIT!
The Team:
Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medic/doctor, and general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything and enjoys asking Marsh to hold organs during autopsies. TIME LORD
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence. PROHIBITION MOBSTER
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms. TOTALLY NIKO BELLIC
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. FUCKING SERIOUSLY HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY VAST CONSPIRACY BEFORE THE OTHERS REALIZE HE'S WORKING FOR VAST?
It's stated that our time travel was called "The Time Warp." Marsh isn't impressed with this name, and keeps prodding Niklos to explore his duplication capabilities post time travel.
Niklos starts hearing his own voice in his head. He reasons it might be the voice of his dead self from that explosion, but it is adamant that it can't be ignored. The voice plays up how crazy the rest of the team is- Mikhail doing endless pushups, Marsh trying to beat Zeke's computer system, Veracity digging through his own trash.
Markus tells us that an event will soon take place that will potentially end the world, likely within 4 years, maybe up to 9. He talks about a machine that can predict potential events that might kick off the Black Swan event- but it didn't foresee us hurtling through time.
Markus goes into how we need to destroy Blue Skies before 2017. Then a dude in black spikey armor appears out of nowhere. He introduces himself as Nemesis and lists how long we've been disappeared. He says he's part of an alliance between three parties to stop the Apocalypse.
Markus is surprised, since he definitely left that part about Black Swan out.
Mikhail and Veracity are both presenting with enhanced Kyberic power fields. Niklos tells Legend.
Evidently the Time Loop imbued at least two of us with powers- one of us may have been a latent.
Events:
After two days chilling in FEMA tents, we're shown to hospital beds and transported in a converted semi truck somewhere else, while hooked up to weird devices. They almost seem to be hyperbaric chambers, except with rings, not glass.
Our nurse seems afraid to touch whatever is around us.
The truck is tricked out with TVs and other amenities, we're still prisoners, but at least it's not punitive imprisonment.
Marsh and Niklos both attempt Science! and Medicine! checks to determine what we're currently in. Marsh knows it's emitting some kind of field, but not much else. Niklos believes they're some kind of temporal stabilizer.
Mikhail recognizes the bumps in the road (utilizing Wheelman!)- we're heading for upstate New York, the Adirondacks specifically.
A short redhaired woman (Mishka Rosenkrantz) from the front of the trailer walks up and asks Niklos what he wants to know. Niklos wants to know what they think happened to us, and what they're doing about it.
The two converse back and forth about how to fix the fact that we're temporally out of phase. Niklos is convinced he can fix it himself. They hand Niklos a set of blueprints for the chambers we're all in to keep him from attempting to disassemble the pods himself.
 |
| Blame Christopher |
Veracity asks for internet access and then remains busy reading up on four years of news.
We're allowed water, but no food. Mikhail would like the woman to know that it's been four years since he last had vodka, and the woman threatens to sedate him.
Mikhail proceeds to throw wads of paper around, hitting Niklos in the head. One ball of paper bounces onto the rings of Mikhail's chamber. The resulting temporal effects cause Mikhail quite a lot of pain.
They pump Mikhail with enough Morphazine to knock out an elephant, putting him under.
After about six hours we arrive somewhere.
Marsh learns that Gunther went on a cross-country rampage across the country, ending up in San Francisco and weathering the effects of an RPG on film.
We're shuffled out into the dark. There's a single light that we follow down somewhere, wheeled into a large cabin. It's a glorified hunting shack, suitable for being a base camp for maybe 20-30 people.
Legend and Breaker are both there. They talk briefly and then Breaker leaves.
Legend informs us that we're basically temporal bombs. He claims that Marlowe is dead or no longer on this plane of existence.
 |
| ALL YOUR TRASH ARE BELONG TO VERACITY |
It appears that we're probably going to explode sometime within the next two weeks, with a force equal to a hundredth of a tactical nuke. We'll be sleeping in basically a glorified bomb containment chamber. We're still disallowed from eating and drinking to better allow them to monitor vitals.
We're all in separate rooms, but the quarters are nice. There's TV's and computers. Niklos adamantly refuses to try his duplication powers in the off chance it will kick off an explosion, and resists his innate curiosity.
We're not allowed to communicate out. The facility looks custom built just to handle us- and must have been built in an amazingly short time.
The computers resist Marsh's attempts to crack into the internal network AEGIS is using. It resists his attempts with a pre-recorded message about not using the correct password, with Zeke's voice. Veracity tries to use some knowledge he has personally of Zeke to access any possible backdoors Zeke might have installed, but only succeeds in locking his terminal.
Mikhail protests the lack of vodka of any quality.
We all do our best to keep entertained. Mikhail does a bunch of physical exercise, while Marsh, Veracity and Niklos do heavy reading.
Two weeks of enforced isolation for field agents leads to some severe idle hands- such as Marsh scrounging makeshift lockpicks, requests for copious amounts of Mountain Dew, and utilizing ASL to badmouth being kept in lockdown.
We're all given very nice food after five days. Niklos spawns a duplicate on day 10, causing a big fuss as he starts screaming is agony during the process. This causes a big explosion of some sort.
|
| BOOOOOM |
All of us are suddenly back on the truck again. Niklos is the only one that remembers anything about our ten days in isolation. We go through everything again, except this time Legend doesn't cut the conversation short because Veracity doesn't question who this 'highest authority' figure is.
Our minder launches into how the Subway was known for disregarding rules and orders, and mentions that the guy Niklos did a psychological whammy on two sessions ago was found streaking down the street cover in Jello and was released from his post.
Niklos starts hearing his own voice in his head. He reasons it might be the voice of his dead self from that explosion, but it is adamant that it can't be ignored. The voice plays up how crazy the rest of the team is- Mikhail doing endless pushups, Marsh trying to beat Zeke's computer system, Veracity digging through his own trash.
Evidently we're going to continue exploding in a continual loop. The voice is definitely playing the part of devil on the shoulder, encouraging Niklos to try and score with Mishka Rosenkratz. The voice claims that in six months Niklos will enter a weeklong coma and wind back up at the facility we're currently in. Sadly Niklos does not tell the other that he's banging Rosenkratz in another timeline/universe, preventing us from becoming the best wingmen of all time.
 |
| The rest of C-Team encouraging Niklos |
Niklos decides that he wants to create anti-time travel to stop the loop. Niklos starts an insane rant with the voice he's hearing.
Mishka eventually shares with us that Zephyr has previously experienced this, while we start trying to plan how to solve the catastrophe. On the 13th day, explosion happens and we all reset.
|
| This again? Really? |
Back in the semi, Niklos again catches Mikhail's thrown paper ball before it hits him.
Niklos immediately info dumps on Rosenkratz. Niklos makes a bunch of rolls to recall info correctly.
This time the facility is less closed off, and we're kept in basically a communal barracks, and immediately given food. We're joined by a small team of scientists.
Veracity starts experiencing an annoying level of deja vu.
Niklos determines that we are currently harboring GRATUITOUS AMOUNTS OF (Kyberian) ENERGY, which is the root of our problems.
It appears Blue Skies has created some kind of Kyberic energy accumulator that might help out, uncovered in South America after the great Kaboom. Marsh gets to work with Inventor!, and with help from the team and some Karma expenditure from Marsh and Niklos, he ultimately gets a success by 5.
The accumulator starts correctly gathering energy from its resulting environment. It alone won't be enough to stop us from exploding- possibly just slowing it down.
We hustle to try and create a device that will drain Kyberian energy, and Marsh manages to get a working concept going.
During piling on more assistance rolls, Kevin rolls a natural 18 and spends 5 Karma to turn it into a crit success since it's the final hurrah. The rest of the team pitches in with Teamwork! (I accidentally attempt to roll 3d5 at one point) and Marsh rolls a crit success on getting the Kyberian drain unit to work.
We use the prototype device on Mikhail first, since he's judged to be the least likely to die. Mikhail crits the resulting HT roll with a 4. Niklos and Marsh zap Mikhail with the device, which starts smoking. Mikhail seems unaffected.
Another attempt and Mikhail is successfully zapped, followed by Marsh and Veracity.
Niklos starts feeling UNCOMFORTABLY ENERGETIC, so we scramble to zap him with the device. Niklos explodes, but this time it's just into his six copies who are all sprawled out on the floor.
Niklos takes a huge FP loss (like, -50ish) and collapses. Marsh who actually has first aid, grabs whatever crash/first aid kit might be available. He succeeds by 10 on the roll, unassisted. He gets Niklos resuscitated very quickly. Niklos is still at a cool -27hp.
|
| Not this again, thankfully |
We're granted limited freedom- no leaving the cottage.
Niklos is glad to not be waking up in the back of semi truck.
We're kept for a week.
 |
| Us after realizing this bomb shit cost us $15 Million Dollars |
The funds we extracted from Marlowe paid for the shiny medical/research facility we've been kept in. Our names are on a plaque for our 'Charitable Donation'.
Legend explains that we're all legally dead and asks us if we'd like to keep it that way.
Veracity is totally up for this- pulling off False Flag operations with one's own identity is hilarious.
Legend explains that we were branded as terrorists to cover up the fact that AEGIS was involved with the explosion in South America. Niklos is very pissed about this.
Veracity discerns that the coverup was really good.
Legend wants to offer us a job. Our reactions vary. Niklos is pretty pissed about the being dead part. Marsh is intrigued. Veracity is definitely interested in the idea of doing something momentous. Mikhail just wants some Vodka since he hasn't had any in four years.
Legend learns that Niklos' grandfather was someone he knew, and slides over a pocket watch containing a picture of the Marauders with both Legend and Niklos' grandfather in it.
A guy named Markus is called into the room by Legend. He has dark hair and is dressed in Black Clothing. Claims to be a specialist. He asks us if we know about the Black Swan theory.
 |
| Our return must've been on the irrelevant list... |
The Wall that has been preventing precogs from viewing farther into the future has moved back from 2018 to 2025. Markus suggests that we remain dead to help apply our talents to stopping events that might contribute to Black Swan kicking off.
We're told that we have six months before the real work begins.
 |
| Nemesis (Conceptual) |
We're being provided access to Sentry's network by Nemesis thanks to Markus.
Nemesis compliments Niklos' work on something.
Mikhail is confused. Veracity explains to him that the avatar of a super computer and a spirit of vengeance want us to help Legend out. He goes on to say that Black Swan is likely a metahuman apocalypse.
Markus is surprised, since he definitely left that part about Black Swan out.
It appears Blue Skies is perfecting Purple Drank, and AEGIS has been stymied by massive budget cuts.
Nemesis observes to Legend that some of us have more Kyberic energy than we should. On some scale we're supposed to be 2 or 3s, and we're currently ranking as 5s.
Nemesis shakes our hands, says that he trusts us, and departs.
Markus mentions that we have 187 days before we'll be needed- and to use our time wisely. Then he draws a sigil on the door and walks through a badass portal that appeared out of nowhere and is gone.
Legend asks us who's in. Once all of us agree to being in, he turns us over to 'Billy' for field training.
We're woken up at 5am unceremoniously and then injected with a drug that gives us Doesn't Sleep for about a week.
Breaker proceeds to give us more physical training from hell- Mikhail gets to lug Breaker the entire time as a handicap to account for his increased physical capabilities.
Niklos manages to substitute a clone to spread the grueling exercise around for a while before Breaker catches on and injects him with power blockers to prevent him from continuing to do so.
We're trained along with a group of 5 others. Breaker doesn't appreciate Veracity's Survivor jokes.
We're all asked to roll 3d6 after something strange happens in bootcamp. Kevin mistakenly rolls 3d67 the first time. One morning we'd been tossed outside to survive in the mountains when a mountain lion should've had Marsh dead to rights, and then it decides to fuck off after making eye contact with Marsh.
Marsh starts getting strange reactions from people, and is quickly sent to the med lab. Niklos is tasked with looking at him, and Marsh is diagnosed as being some kind of metahuman. It doesn't appear to be mind reading since thinking really hard in his direction doesn't allow Marsh to hear Niklos' thoughts.
Niklos recognizes that Marsh is affecting his mind somehow, hijacking the sensory input of a single person. Niklos asks Marsh to make a grilled cheese sandwich appear on a tray in the room. It doesn't smell, it has no tactile feedback, and Niklii Six is asked to guinea pig for Marsh's new ability.
|
| Time Loop! |
Evidently the Time Loop imbued at least two of us with powers- one of us may have been a latent.
The two of us are subjected to prolonged testing to figure out what our capabilities are. An old man named Leland shows up. Evidently Leland has spent 30 years helping people learn about and control their powers. He starts with Mikhail.
Leland thinks that Mikhail is weird. He slaps Mikhail who begins to have an out of body experience. Leland yanks him back into his body via a silver cord linking Mikhail's projection to his body. The projection can move through walls, is invisible to the rest of us, and can move about ten feet from his body. While projecting Mikhail can see the ghost of Niklos' grandfather. Mikhail greets him amicably.
Niklos is a 'level five chronokinetic'. Leland explains that our recent time travel was Niklos' powers mucking things up. Leland explains that Niklos' duplicates have been pulled from other timelines. He also identifies that Niklos has been hearing his own voice in his head. (Terrible pun happened here)
Veracity is up. Leland was saved by ROOK on a few occasions and mentions it. It appears Veracity has powers very similar to his father's clairsentience- having to do with information itself instead.
We're subjected to various training, including stealth training from Nemesis. Niklos pulls a dirty trick on Nemesis during the 'seek' phase by absorbing six after sending six out to hide.
The combat training that follows includes sparring with Urich Rosenkrantz, one of the most skilled non-meta individuals in existence.
We spend six months without sleep undergoing a hugely regimented and very varied training regime.
We wrap up there.
We wrap up there.
Commentary:
The Time Loop was a helluva lot of exposition. It's fun to play our characters going off the rails from being confined in a small space without much to do. Marsh and Niklos got the bulk of the day to themselves, since Mikhail and Veracity have didly squat for science capabilities.
Our recent acquisition of Teamwork! via SERE training means that everybody will ALWAYS be able to make a complimentary skill check. Sure, Teamwork! is boring, but it's practical. Mikhail and Veracity both ended up making use of it to assist with the final Kyberian Energy sucker unit thingy.
So with all of us either gaining powers (Marsh, Mikhail), or realizing latent powers (Niklos, Veracity), C-Team is likely going to be a hugely different game moving forward. The loss of PK as a player due to his SJG duties definitely played a part, and it will be interesting to see how our roles as cops/agents changes- especially since we're moving into territory where we might be operating outside of AEGIS' wheelhouse.
After all, we're being directed by the trio of Nemesis, Legend, and Markus now. We're believed dead by just about everyone- we're ghosts. Nonpeople. Blue Skies can't think to attack our loved ones (their favorite tactic) until they realize we're alive. It's a perfect opportunity to strike back.
Powers were more or less assigned randomly for Marsh and Mikhail (although they got to veto the first two choices if they didn't like them- the third power option didn't get a veto option at all), while Niklos' powers were more or less dictated by the plot.
For Veracity, the biggest factor was the fact that it's immensely unusual for a meta to have powers unrelated to the powerset their parents had- you don't get people coming from a family with the power of Country music only to develop Death Metal powers. Since ROOK is a clairsentient (let's say Swing), Veracity's powers are constrained to something similar, but it's okay to leap to a related genre (because fuck you dad, I want Electro Swing powers). But no going from Gospel to NWA.
Ultimately it looks like Veracity will be getting a powerset revolving around manipulating information itself. I've already been tasked with coming up with possible powers for the set. (Spoiler: A "I know that you know" capability might be in the works.)
All of us PCs lucked out and have power focuses- meaning we can expand our powers with new capabilities over time. Marsh probably benefits the least from this since Illusion by itself is ridiculously strong and versatile- he could easily rely solely on that single advantage and get by just fine. Veracity and Mikhail will likely benefit the most.
MUSIC:
Christopher's asked me to start including music selections.
Time Warp- Rocky Horror Picture Show- All the time loops
Here it Goes Again- OK GO- Also time loops
Thursday, October 20, 2016
AEON C-Team S2E5: Daddy Issues for Everyone!
The Team:
Lucas Nielson (PK Levine): A former vicar who lost his faith and made an enemy of the Vatican. Now leads the AEGIS Subway team in their attempts to answer questions nobody else in AEGIS has time to investigate.
Niklos Xanthopoulos (Kevin): Multidisciplinary genius, medic/doctor, and general curmudgeon. Believes Morphazine is the answer for everything and enjoys asking Marsh to hold organs during autopsies.
Marsh Langston (Maverick): A blond, smiling hacker that will rip the most secure files out of your mainframe while convincing you that he's just downloading more RAM. Marsh is a technical wunderkind and social engineer with a shadowy background in intelligence.
Mikhail Kovalenko (Alex): Measuring 6'4" and weighing about 230lbs, Ukrainian-born Mikhail Kovalenko was a former special agent in Eastern Europe and is extremely competent at drinking vodka, making friends with random people, piloting, field action, reminding others that he's from Ukraine (not Russia), field operations, and handling firearms.
Agent Veracity (Me): The Subway's resident spook and dumpster diver, Agent Veracity is a highly skilled investigator, tradecraft expert and conspiracy nut. IT'S ALL A VAST CONSPIRACY, DON'T TRUST WHAT YOU READ FNORD
Niklos and Lucas have been busy getting grilled by AEGIS administration because of Niklos' psychological programming of various personnel. AEGIS also hopes that Niklos knows the formula of the PURPLE DRANK that got used. Mikhail had a sample which he gave to Lucas. Lucas hands it
over to the bigwigs without complaints.
Events:
 |
| Sadly Niklos is not delicious when grilled |
over to the bigwigs without complaints.
AEGIS stress tests Niklos' duplication ability, and the scientists are stumped as to how it works. They also have no clue how Niklos' use of the PURPLE DRANK resulted in permanent powers. The information we stole from the MORNING TIDE lab indicates that Niklos' powers should have disappeared a day ago.
Lucas does his best to spin the story so that Niklos doesn't look like a mad scientist.
Mikhail hopes that Lucas can regain Mikhail's firearms privileges. A success by 11 on Mastermind! indicates that Mikhail legitimately thought the bloke he shot was trying to draw a firearm, in a huge misunderstanding. Lucas attempts to turn the situation around, getting in touch with Katori. Lucas does great execu-speak and gets Mikhail some additional firearms, but not his wildcat hand cannons.
Lucas knows that the ritual Marlowe is attempting has had very few successes over the last couple of millennia- the last time spawned an extremely successful cult involving mountain top sermons and flipping over tables of usurers in the temple.
Choosing the Aztec temple at Nataapwpa as opposed to the Bastille helps negate planning he might have done to utilize the Bastille.
We discuss the plan a bit, and start seeing about implementing various parts. Lucas crits to see about organizing making Marlowe a household name- we get a speech on the President's desk decrying the horrible terrorist Marlowe. Mikhail attempts to help by tapping his
Niklos spends some time making a psych profile on Marlowe to assist the overall plan. Veracity, when he's not undergoing therapy to deal with his daddy issues, scouts out the Aztec temple in person.
Lucas, our Mastermind!, takes almost 3 months to hammer out the plan, eventually rolling vs. skill 33. He rolls a 10 (perfectly average), succeeding by 23. After some discussion he opts to make the plan a critically successful plan by spending 4 karma, with a margin of success 30.
We talk for a bit about how official we want the operation to be. Keeping it limited in scope and personnel involved seems like a very good idea. Lucas contacts Legend and informs him about our plan. There's no response until Lucas is teleported to a dark location with a single light overhead.
Lucas is not restrained, and is standing. Legend, Gabriella, a guy in dated clothing from the 40s, and a fourth presence that Lucas can't see are in the room with him. Lucas says hi to those he knows and asks the guy from the 40s his name- the guy says Lucas can call him Faust. OBVIOUSLY this guy is totally harmless and not some horribly powerful prick.
Lucas can't confirm if this guy is the Faust or not. PK launches into the commonality of the name 'Raven' in goth clubs.
Back in the Subway, everyone who's seeing Lucas suddenly slump over at his desk calls for Niklos. All six show up, before being dismissed by Niklos Prime. Lucas' vitals are normal, he seems to be asleep. Niklos assumes he's in a telepathic communion, and is having a conversation.
Lucas starts talking about the Subway plan to take out Marlowe. Legend is okay with us doing it, but he's convinced our chances of survival are 2-3%. Lucas requests that Legend keep the risks from the rest of the team so we're not so worried about dying.
Legend sets us up with a Marlowe specialist, Breaker, and a guy who can make a Kyberian nuke. The nuke is basically a soccer ball that needs to be attuned to the ley line of the temple. It will have to be setup with Marlowe present, a process that usually takes two minutes.
The Prime Asshole ritual takes 6-12 hours for a normal practitioner, Marlowe will likely do it in significantly less time. Still longer than it will take to arm the nuke.
Breaker's powers involve finding weaknesses- physical, emotional, magic, whatever- and then putting pressure on them until things turn out bad for whoever's on the receiving end.
Faust is acting as the anti-Marlowe guy, as well as our bomb maker.
We arrange to have Mikhail and Marsh 'defect' to Marlowe, after killing Niklos clones disguised as Veracity, Lucas, and Niklos. Faust will be providing magical disguises to the Niklii.
Veracity brings up using Marcelle's Hand of Glory, which could be dangerous because it might cause vengeful spirits to become tangible and attack us.
Katori returns Mikhail's guns. Mikhail flubs the social interaction and Katori shoots him in the hand. She then heals him, which is torturous.
Gabriella overwrites the Niklii clones' minds to be a copy of Veracity and Lucas.
After Veracity suggests using Breaker's capabilities to break him down mentally in preparation for what Marlowe, the entire team gets subjected to SERE on steroids, with Breaker, Legend, and Garbiella subjecting EVERYONE to a week of hellish resistance training.
Reprogrammed to be following Marshall Sr, Marsh and Mikhail stage a huge robbery of the Subway, landing us on the AEGIS shitlist for a few weeks.
Marshall Sr. 'acquires' (kidnaps) both Marsh and Mikhail. Marsh wakes up to a man on a throne surrounded by beautiful women. The man, Marlowe, asks Mashall Sr. if Marsh is his son.
Sr. is demure, which is hugely unusual. Marlowe questions Sr. about Mikhail and Marsh, needling him about Mikhail's mother, who Sr. is obviously still emotionally attached to.
Marsh and Mikhail explain that their Subway cover was blown, so they decided to break with AEGIS. Marsh 'recruited' his brother who was unhappy after getting kicked out of STARRS, and wants payment.
Marsh bargains hard for the collection of objects he stole from AEGIS, asking for 15 million. Marlowe is immediately attracted to the dagger. Mikhail gets grumpy about this, and Marlowe is blase about potentially killing him.
Marsh bullshits about how he was able to acquire the dagger, chalking it up to his skills. Marlowe agrees to pay 15 million, asking if Marsh would like cash or a wire. The two agents are given a very heavy briefcase with a large chunk of cash.
Marlowe is tickled pink, absolutely happy that he'll be able to access both the Bastille and the temple's energies. He hires Marsh and Mikhail to act as muscle during the ritual.
Marsh offers to entice the rest of us into a trap, as well as getting the kibosh put on the propaganda campaign spreading Marlowe's name everywhere.
They return to the Subway to entice out the Niklii disguised as the Subway team. Maverick spends karma to make his attempt to lure the Subway team out into a trap look particularly convincing to Marlowe.
The Niklii are killed and the Subway even holds fake funerals for the entire team. Bruce Campbell fans everywhere are disappointed when Veracity's picture appears in the paper, causing some to show up at the funerals.
Veracity attempts to have Niklos use medium to get in touch with Veracity's parents- the attempt fails, unfortunately. Niklos does however get in touch with his dead grandfather, who was part of the Marauders. Grampy Niklos definitely ran into Marlowe during WW2 at some point. His insights help Lucas' planning quite a lot.
Betty, Veracity's girlfriend, has valuable input on the plan. She's also been keeping Veracity a little less crazy than he otherwise would be given the SERE training and the stress of facing down Marlowe.
Marsh learns that Marlowe is pretty much the sole person holding up Green Sun Holdings, which he uses to prop up lots of other groups, such as Blue Skies. Marsh starts trying to work up an org chart. He's got a few trusted lieutenants, but most workers are in the dark, or worship him outright as a living god.
Veracity and Breaker are put into place early within the temple, while the others will be teleported in once Marlowe begins the ritual.
Marlowe arrives with his lieutenants and begins the ritual. He starts sacrificing locals to speed the
process.
Veracity starts to try and attune the Kyberian Nuke to the ley line as Marlowe goes. He manages it without being spotted, squirreling the nuke away.
Marsh and Mikhail step outside for a smoke break. The rest of the Subway team except Veracity breaks their mental programming, returning them to the Light Side of the Force.
The nuke starts gathering energy way faster than intended. Veracity manages to wrangle the nuke so that it will fill at the correct time and explode when Marlowe should be the most distracted.
All the energy in the air is causing vibrations that everyone can feel. Marlowe screams and there's scrambling and panicked yelling from inside the temple before everything goes white. It would seem the Kyberian Nuke Faust whipped up worked.
We wake up, staring up at the sky. We're in a different area. Mikhail, Niklos, Marsh, and Veracity are together. Lucas, some of the extra Niklii, Breaker, and Faust are not present.
Marsh and Veracity both start having seizures. Mikhail and Niklos both have terribad headaches.
Niklos recognizes us as being in Yankee Stadium. There's medical FEMA tents all over the place. One person there answers Niklos that it's 2016.
Legend exits from a tent, looking amazed.
We're all administered some kind of medicine. Marsh and Veracity stop having their seizures. Veracity recognizes the damage to the stadium- he's intimately familiar with the damage a fusion-powered chainsaw can cause.
We're all immediately quarantined. It appears the world hasn't ended... yet.
The head med tech looking us over tells us that Lucas is assumed dead. Breaker and Faust both escaped the blast alive. We've all been assumed dead by AEGIS.
Niklos sets about hypnotizing the head medtech, beating the man's Will+5 roll to resist. It's believed that Marlowe was incinerated, and it's the first confirmed killing of a Prime Metahuman.
They decommissioned the Subway. There was an event that coincided with us cooking Marlowe, kicking a pulse of energy around the globe. The man doesn't know who Gunther is, or where Mikhail's mother is.
Blue Skies still exists, although it's beginning to get systematically torn down.
Two weeks ago a bomb of some kind kicked up a bunch of shit around Yankee Stadium. Green Sun Holdings was dismantled in 2013, and the Coordination also hasn't been up to anything since the op on the West Coast.
Gabriella then breaks into Niklos' mind and asks him to stop rewiring people's brains. Niklos releases him from the hypnotism.
We end there.
Christopher is actively looking for a permanent PC to replace Lucas. Definitely bring your A-Game to the table, Christopher will want players who can keep up with the team that's already in place.
My suggestion about SERE training resulted in us getting over 50 points of extra advantages, attributes and skills.
Said SERE Training included:
Maverick wass named MVP.
We discuss the plan a bit, and start seeing about implementing various parts. Lucas crits to see about organizing making Marlowe a household name- we get a speech on the President's desk decrying the horrible terrorist Marlowe. Mikhail attempts to help by tapping his
Niklos spends some time making a psych profile on Marlowe to assist the overall plan. Veracity, when he's not undergoing therapy to deal with his daddy issues, scouts out the Aztec temple in person.
Lucas, our Mastermind!, takes almost 3 months to hammer out the plan, eventually rolling vs. skill 33. He rolls a 10 (perfectly average), succeeding by 23. After some discussion he opts to make the plan a critically successful plan by spending 4 karma, with a margin of success 30.
We talk for a bit about how official we want the operation to be. Keeping it limited in scope and personnel involved seems like a very good idea. Lucas contacts Legend and informs him about our plan. There's no response until Lucas is teleported to a dark location with a single light overhead.
Lucas is not restrained, and is standing. Legend, Gabriella, a guy in dated clothing from the 40s, and a fourth presence that Lucas can't see are in the room with him. Lucas says hi to those he knows and asks the guy from the 40s his name- the guy says Lucas can call him Faust. OBVIOUSLY this guy is totally harmless and not some horribly powerful prick.
Lucas can't confirm if this guy is the Faust or not. PK launches into the commonality of the name 'Raven' in goth clubs.
 |
| MEDIC! |
Back in the Subway, everyone who's seeing Lucas suddenly slump over at his desk calls for Niklos. All six show up, before being dismissed by Niklos Prime. Lucas' vitals are normal, he seems to be asleep. Niklos assumes he's in a telepathic communion, and is having a conversation.
Lucas starts talking about the Subway plan to take out Marlowe. Legend is okay with us doing it, but he's convinced our chances of survival are 2-3%. Lucas requests that Legend keep the risks from the rest of the team so we're not so worried about dying.
Legend sets us up with a Marlowe specialist, Breaker, and a guy who can make a Kyberian nuke. The nuke is basically a soccer ball that needs to be attuned to the ley line of the temple. It will have to be setup with Marlowe present, a process that usually takes two minutes.
The Prime Asshole ritual takes 6-12 hours for a normal practitioner, Marlowe will likely do it in significantly less time. Still longer than it will take to arm the nuke.
Breaker's powers involve finding weaknesses- physical, emotional, magic, whatever- and then putting pressure on them until things turn out bad for whoever's on the receiving end.
Faust is acting as the anti-Marlowe guy, as well as our bomb maker.
We arrange to have Mikhail and Marsh 'defect' to Marlowe, after killing Niklos clones disguised as Veracity, Lucas, and Niklos. Faust will be providing magical disguises to the Niklii.
 |
| Simple |
Katori returns Mikhail's guns. Mikhail flubs the social interaction and Katori shoots him in the hand. She then heals him, which is torturous.
Gabriella overwrites the Niklii clones' minds to be a copy of Veracity and Lucas.
After Veracity suggests using Breaker's capabilities to break him down mentally in preparation for what Marlowe, the entire team gets subjected to SERE on steroids, with Breaker, Legend, and Garbiella subjecting EVERYONE to a week of hellish resistance training.
Reprogrammed to be following Marshall Sr, Marsh and Mikhail stage a huge robbery of the Subway, landing us on the AEGIS shitlist for a few weeks.
Marshall Sr. 'acquires' (kidnaps) both Marsh and Mikhail. Marsh wakes up to a man on a throne surrounded by beautiful women. The man, Marlowe, asks Mashall Sr. if Marsh is his son.
Sr. is demure, which is hugely unusual. Marlowe questions Sr. about Mikhail and Marsh, needling him about Mikhail's mother, who Sr. is obviously still emotionally attached to.
Marsh and Mikhail explain that their Subway cover was blown, so they decided to break with AEGIS. Marsh 'recruited' his brother who was unhappy after getting kicked out of STARRS, and wants payment.
 |
| If only Marlowe were so cute |
Marsh bullshits about how he was able to acquire the dagger, chalking it up to his skills. Marlowe agrees to pay 15 million, asking if Marsh would like cash or a wire. The two agents are given a very heavy briefcase with a large chunk of cash.
Marlowe is tickled pink, absolutely happy that he'll be able to access both the Bastille and the temple's energies. He hires Marsh and Mikhail to act as muscle during the ritual.
Marsh offers to entice the rest of us into a trap, as well as getting the kibosh put on the propaganda campaign spreading Marlowe's name everywhere.
They return to the Subway to entice out the Niklii disguised as the Subway team. Maverick spends karma to make his attempt to lure the Subway team out into a trap look particularly convincing to Marlowe.
The Niklii are killed and the Subway even holds fake funerals for the entire team. Bruce Campbell fans everywhere are disappointed when Veracity's picture appears in the paper, causing some to show up at the funerals.
Veracity attempts to have Niklos use medium to get in touch with Veracity's parents- the attempt fails, unfortunately. Niklos does however get in touch with his dead grandfather, who was part of the Marauders. Grampy Niklos definitely ran into Marlowe during WW2 at some point. His insights help Lucas' planning quite a lot.
Betty, Veracity's girlfriend, has valuable input on the plan. She's also been keeping Veracity a little less crazy than he otherwise would be given the SERE training and the stress of facing down Marlowe.
Marsh learns that Marlowe is pretty much the sole person holding up Green Sun Holdings, which he uses to prop up lots of other groups, such as Blue Skies. Marsh starts trying to work up an org chart. He's got a few trusted lieutenants, but most workers are in the dark, or worship him outright as a living god.
Veracity and Breaker are put into place early within the temple, while the others will be teleported in once Marlowe begins the ritual.
 |
| Add caption |
process.
Veracity starts to try and attune the Kyberian Nuke to the ley line as Marlowe goes. He manages it without being spotted, squirreling the nuke away.
Marsh and Mikhail step outside for a smoke break. The rest of the Subway team except Veracity breaks their mental programming, returning them to the Light Side of the Force.
The nuke starts gathering energy way faster than intended. Veracity manages to wrangle the nuke so that it will fill at the correct time and explode when Marlowe should be the most distracted.
All the energy in the air is causing vibrations that everyone can feel. Marlowe screams and there's scrambling and panicked yelling from inside the temple before everything goes white. It would seem the Kyberian Nuke Faust whipped up worked.
We wake up, staring up at the sky. We're in a different area. Mikhail, Niklos, Marsh, and Veracity are together. Lucas, some of the extra Niklii, Breaker, and Faust are not present.
Marsh and Veracity both start having seizures. Mikhail and Niklos both have terribad headaches.
Niklos recognizes us as being in Yankee Stadium. There's medical FEMA tents all over the place. One person there answers Niklos that it's 2016.
Legend exits from a tent, looking amazed.
We're all administered some kind of medicine. Marsh and Veracity stop having their seizures. Veracity recognizes the damage to the stadium- he's intimately familiar with the damage a fusion-powered chainsaw can cause.
We're all immediately quarantined. It appears the world hasn't ended... yet.
Niklos sets about hypnotizing the head medtech, beating the man's Will+5 roll to resist. It's believed that Marlowe was incinerated, and it's the first confirmed killing of a Prime Metahuman.
They decommissioned the Subway. There was an event that coincided with us cooking Marlowe, kicking a pulse of energy around the globe. The man doesn't know who Gunther is, or where Mikhail's mother is.
Blue Skies still exists, although it's beginning to get systematically torn down.
Two weeks ago a bomb of some kind kicked up a bunch of shit around Yankee Stadium. Green Sun Holdings was dismantled in 2013, and the Coordination also hasn't been up to anything since the op on the West Coast.
Gabriella then breaks into Niklos' mind and asks him to stop rewiring people's brains. Niklos releases him from the hypnotism.
We end there.
Commentary:
Sadly, this will be PK's last session with us as Lucas for a while, since his duties for SJG are starting to kick up into high gear. The Kickstarter giveth, the Kickstarter taketh, it seems. (Note: I am assuming that it's Kickstarter related, I don't know the actual nature of the workload he's been handed.)Christopher is actively looking for a permanent PC to replace Lucas. Definitely bring your A-Game to the table, Christopher will want players who can keep up with the team that's already in place.
My suggestion about SERE training resulted in us getting over 50 points of extra advantages, attributes and skills.
Said SERE Training included:
- HT and Will +1
- High Pain Threshold
- Fit
- Teamwork! at Attribute -1
- And more I won't go into
Maverick wass named MVP.
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