Oh Dear. (Going to far...)

[Akashic Soldier]

I need a little advice... allow me to build the scene... *waves his hand*

The location is closed away by remote wilderness and edged with farms tended to by strange onion headed creatures. (See Madhaven) The locals call it... Paradise. Paradise is an anarchist state ruled over by the Splugoth (unknown to the PCs) in which they have instigated the Law of Paradise which is as follows:

Anyone in Paradise may do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want.

The society keeps itself in check and though it has all the telltale signs of a regular Splynn Market peoples general fear of "If I take this from this guy then his friends will beat me up or worse" keeps society running smoothly, albeit a little strange.

While on their way to The City of Paradise the PC's came across an old lady sitting on her porch in a rocking chair and decided to approach and make conversation since they were new to area, however before doing so the PC's stopped to quarrel among themselves over another one and then ask me a question that was irrelevant to the plot or advancement of the story.

EDIT: House Rule 1: Whenever my PC's ask me irrelivant questions such as "did I go shopping today and stock the fridge?" I roll a D4 to determine success or failure and the degree, for plot and character related a 4 results in Ninja or Oni appearing or sprining an ambush and trying to kill the Ronin P.C

The result of the roll was 4. Eight Ninja burst up around the PC and interrupt their bickering and attack the Ronin. He dispatches most of them with ease and then turns to the remaining four, points his Vibro-Kitana at them, and says the equivilent of "You have no chance, you are without honor!" which was very true and prompted me to recall there was a helpless old woman on the porch...

...

You see where this is going?

So the Ninja throw down smoke bombs and the Ronin player assumes they have fled, however when the smoke clears they have small blades held to the throat of the old woman and order the Ronin to surrender to them or they would murder the old lady. The player, thinking that the old lady was important to the plot (because of a slip I'd made) took his bow and fired a mesmerizing arrow at one of the Ninja which entranced all of his allies and the old woman... but each of the Ninja made their saves with the lowest roll being 16.

The Ninja's each stab the old lady, killing her, and then vanish with a traditional smoke bomb escape.

The old woman is dead.

The PC is unsure how to react. This was only the beginning...

The Drug Dealing Information Broker/Ley Line Walker who was native to the area decides that he likes her house and now it belongs to him as she is dead. This causes... issues with the Ronin who is still reeling from the encounter and burying the ninja. (Also I think I may be too graphic when he uses his MD vibro-weapons on the SDC ninja's but that is a topic for another time). When entering the home they find many pictures of the old women and her husband who looks a bit like a cowboy with his poncho and big hat and Wilks laser rifle, but as they go by her photos they notice they have a child, then eventually the husband is gone, the women (to be old lady) looks grieved and the young child starts wearing his clothes. In her living room they find the hat and tunic on a coat rack and see that there are laser burns through the hat and poncho there is an apply pie cooking in the oven.

The Leyline Walker cuts a slice of the pie (as neither had eaten properly in a couple of days) and offered some of it to the Ronin, this caused further malfunctions with the Robin character and PC who paced back and forth for a great deal of time unknowing if he could, should, or would eat the pie. I felt this was the first sign I may have done something wrong to the player... but I had planned out the story and I couldn't bring myself to not finish the scene.

Eventually the Leyline Walker (who had the accounting skill, who knew?) finds an electronic key while going through her tax information to see if he can "make any money off the old bird now that the Ronin has finished putting her in the ground and crying for her." When they go out the back they find that the house is build on a bunker and so they use the swipe card and go down. At first all the lights are off and when they get down stairs they turn them on and find the remains of the old woman's son being kept alive by makeshift cybernetics. It addresses them and asks where its "momma" is and they realize that this "poor creature" is a simpleton at best and most likely very mentally impaired. At this point the Ronin's player is up in arms and pacing and saying "Now what do we do?" and "We should kill it, we have it kill it!" or "Will it starve if we don't feed it?" (Which of course he did not have the skills to know.)

After the initial 10-15 minute freak out session as they try to figure out what to do with the retarded cyborg they decide to tell it that its mother is dead.

Yes, you heard me right. They tell the mentally impaired cyborg its mother is dead. The Cyborg (which has no legs of its own and only one functioning arm with a weak grasping claw hand) bellows and shuts itself down and goes into sleep mode rather than facing reality. The players response to this is to use the Leyline Walker's cyberjack to enter the cyborg's mind and see if he can bypass the communication barriers that may be in place because it is cheap technology.

=|

I $#% you not, they really felt it was important that this unstable borg understood the only person it knew and loved was dead. This was especially important to the Ronin as the bohemian Leyline Walker just... went along for the ride...

Needless to say the encounter in the virtual-space did not go so well and caused a further emotional breakdown. After this, unsure what to do the Ronin comes up with the idea to "go find someone who knows what to do about this" and so off they ride into the night (after making very sure that there is no way it could "crawl out" while they were gone) and they're back on their way to the City of Paradise.

Only I am not sure that they ever intend to come back... and I am pretty certain that they just left the borg to starve to death in the cellar while they ride away to hold on to their peace of mind. Though I guess at least the Ley Line Walker will have to return at some point as he is only going to the city to sell drugs to impressionable teenagers so he can have enough money to afford groceries.

After a long an perilous journey where the Ley Line Walker's clumbsy wording bought them a room in a onion-people residence in exchange for allowing them to use him to "make their land more fertile" and an encounter with a pack of Werewolf Bandits that they only narrowly escaped from the PC's arrive in The City of Paradise and begin going about their business. Only the Ronin is malfunctioning as his player cannot understand the idea of a society where the people are just taking whatever they want as they want or need it and so chooses to sleep.

And now it has officially begun...

The Ronin awakes from his tent (which he had just pitched in the park) he finds that the Ley Line Walker had used a spray can he carries to spray "DRUGS!" on the side of his tent and had set up his blanket with his goods there and if that was not bad enough already the Ley Line Walker was going to (in a genuine attempt at kindness) pay the Ronin with some of the drug money he had made for allowing him to use his tent as billboard space.

The poverty stricken Ronin (0 credits) must refuse for ethical reasons but now has not eaten in three days and has no skills he can offer that others would find useful so he continues to hang around the Ley Line Walker who mockingly gives him an allowance which he uses to go buy some sushi. Unfortunately for the Ronin the Ley Line Walker's sensibilities are offended by the act of eating raw fish (to mess with the Ronin's head more) so he is going to go eat some fried chicken. They part ways. The Ronin then asks me if he can afford a particular type of Sushi. Me, having never eaten Sushi rolls the D4 and as it turns out one of the chefs behind the counter is a Ninja, throws a knife at him, fails, then flees by diving through the shop window and running away. The Ronin peruses while eating his sushi, eventually catches the ninja in the main street and cuts him in half. Then returns to the restaurant to finish his meal. On lookers are shocked by the brutal murder but the Ronin (who's player is now occasionally twitching by this point) leaves the corpse in the street and goes back to his meal.

A short time later a Kitani enters the restaurant and informs the Ronin that he is the law enforcement and that while everyone else gets to do whatever the hell they want he is forced to make sure the streets are kept clean and safe and so the only pleasure he has is by making the lives of others hard.

And this is when we hear the sound of the tensile wire break in the Ronin player's mind and I think I may have gone too far. To me it seemed like such a small thing but the player, head in hands, distressed, had no idea how to deal with an aberrant law enforcement agent. However after 30-45 minutes of running his hands through his hair and taking back declared action after declared action the PC settled for acting like he couldn't understand the Kitani. The Kitani tried a few languages but after a successful bluff the bitter Kitani just dropped the severed corpse on the Ronin's plate and then told the store owners to get him to clean up after himself and left.

After eating the PC's meet up again and the Ley Line Walker says he is going to go get a fancy hotel room and the Ronin says he will accompany him but because the Ley Line Walker likes messing with the Ronin he tells him that he has to get his own room out of his allowance (which he had spent already on Sushi). Eventually he gives in and agrees to let the Ronin stay with him. After booking in at a hotel where the manager was a sentient growth on the back of the receptionists head (another Ronin malfunction) the players made it too their room. However while "jacked into the computer system" the Ley Line Walker was able to (despite the odds against it) hack their systems and find out when their next staff meeting was and where they kept their money.

=|

So the Ley Line Walker is "relaxing" watching TV then tells the Ronin he has to go to the bathroom and leaves the Ronin watching TV (something he normally would never lower himself to doing) and he asks what is on... so of course I roll and yup, you got it.. 4. So I told him it was an advertisement for Ninja Camp, a special camp where you are trained in the ancient art of Kungfu for the express purpose of defeating your oppressive Samurai Masters. Added in a few images of a Ninja having sand kicked in its face by a Samurai on the beach and the like and the Ronin's player just stared at me like he was waiting for me to say it was a joke... but... the dice had spoken... the four had been rolled! So he called the Ninja school and realized that infiltrating them was going to be very hard so hung up on them and went back to hating his life.

Meanwhile the Ley Line Walker has cast cloak of darkness on himself, slipped into the room next door which had a semi aquatic fish lady in it, set in on fire and flown out the front door (so that if the video cameras caught anything it wasnt coming out of their room), he then (yes he had a jetpack!) flew into the elevator and then rode up the elevator as a cloud of darkness. (I swear can see tears in the Ronin's eyes at this point) Until he got to the room where the money was being held while everyone was at the meeting and he starts using his laser to melt through the wall so he can get in there to get the safe. He is spotted by a unicorn mutant in a towel who decides he doesn't want any trouble from the black cloud and goes back into his room.

Meanwhile back down stairs...
The Ronin is saving the fish lady from her burning bedroom next door. She screams for her baby, he runs around frantically unable to find a baby, takes some fire damage, and then realizes its the big egg in the fish tank and then carries it out and hands it over. The women thanks him and says she is going to name her baby after him. Happy and proud for the first time during the session the Ronin takes it upon himself to call the front desk and inform the receptionist that the young ladies room has been damaged. However the receptionist is busy and uninterested, explaining its not her problem. He asks for her manager (a much nicer person despite being a parasitic growth) who informs him that this is the kind of thing the Janitor would handle and she patches him through.

After he gets off the phone the Ley Line Walker's player says "in a place where you could be or do whatever you wanted who the hell would want to be a janitor?

I smile and enter my first pet NPC--The Janitor!

The Janitor comes up to the room, he is a polite guy with a mop and a bucket and a traditional janitors hat and brown jumpsuit. The Ronin talks to him for a while and informs him about the ladies room. The Janitor asks if its a big deal since she is a aquatic and its just wet he didn't think it would be a problem. She explains that shes more comfortable with tropical environments but as she haden't paid for the room she's not going to complain.

This was the final straw for the Ronin, who just says "What?" to her while staring bitterly at me. The young women then explains that she just walked up here and started living here because she felt like it and the Ronin's player stands up, blinks twice at me, then silently walks outside. The Jainitor explains to the young lady that he comes from a long line of proud janitors (which he defines as folks who clean up other peoples messes and fights extra-dimensional evils) and heads off after the black cloud.

Back Up Stairs...
The Laser has finally melted through the MD wall and inside waiting for him with an unimpressed look on their faces are four identical women in skin tight silver spandex, with cap helms and dark visors (you know the ones). The Black Cloud (who is circling the drain on PPE now) flies off through a window and goes back to his room to meet back with the Ronin.

The Ronin's player comes back inside.

The Janitor arrives, walks to the broken window, sees the Leyline Walker end the spell, sees the broken window, so climbs out and down 30 stories to get the glass piece by piece then climbs back up and starts gluing the window together. The Ronin's player asks "How can he even do that?!" (I just say "He can") and then he says "Why wouldn't he just take the elevator!" and I say "Because then he couldn't see the glass and someone might take it."

The Ronin's player walks back outside.

I shrug and continue running the game, eventually after fixing the window the Janitor (who I am sure have all figured out is a Crazie by now) comes to the room to talk to the Ley Line Walker about the horrible dark stain on his soul but is distracted and has to clean the bench for them while they think about what they're going to do with this guy. After a while they try confusing him by telling him that he hasn't cleaned the bench yet and he has the startling revelation that "I am not cleaning the bench!" that becomes his mantra like it has some great cosmic significance to him. But ultimately they realize that they can't run away or anything because they'll look guilty so they try talking to him with a little caution... he explains that he saw how dirty the Leyline Walker's soul was "You were covered in black" and he had come to clean it for him... the crazie Janitor reached for the Leyline Walker...

And that's where I ended it for the night. But from some of the reactions I got I am not sure if I'd gone too far or made Rifts TOO ****** up so I was hoping to get the opinions of some more experienced Storytellers here. I wanted to make it interesting, dark, and a little surreal but I could see sparks shooting out of the Ronin and he spent a lot of time not knowing how to react to the situation or NPC's and the concept and mindset of the NPC's in Paradise (I didn't include all the conversations here) seemed to cause him great distress both in game and as a player. Almost like some kind of bizarre role playing culture shock!

I love to hear what you guys think I should or could do to improve the game.

[the Captain]

What is the Ronin's alignment? Only scrupulous or principled would be so ethically confused and motivated, unless the character has some kind of neurosis and is crazy. Which might be good role-playing. But I don't think thats the biggest issue.

It sounds to me like the player might feel frustrated that he is getting the brunt of the in-game conflict, whether it's ninjas(just add water) or character drama. Where as the LLW is off selling candy and pulling heists and running scams with little or no repercussions. The moment the LLW tried to sell drugs in the park he should have come into conflict with the other local lower life forms. At some point the local toughs need to come knocking on his door, explain about having permission and profits belong to them. Seriously, you don't show up in a new town and start selling drugs without the approval of the local crime boss, you could end up with a pair of cement shoes.

Sure he hacked the local net... Wait, why the hell does the LLW walker have a cybernetic implant? That's mixing oil and water right there. Are you flubbing the cybernetics and magic rule for a reason, or is the player forced to deal with all the negatives that having an implant would give?

I also think you should indulge the random questions a bit more, in some cases the players might be gathering data to make decisions, your cutting them off at the knees with your D4. What you think is irrelevant, might be important to some abstract decision making process. As a game mechanic, having Ninjas popping out of the cupboards is actually disruptive to your story line. The sushi chef was a chance to introduce information about the community, instead he turned into a Ninja and you lost an opportunity to get information to the PC. Random encounters are best for when players are traveling and you want to keep it interesting or you need to stall them for story purposes. Throwing random encounters every time a player opens his mouth is one of the causes of his paralysis and leading to a collapse in the suspension the players disbelief.

Let me ask one last question, what goals did you have as a GM for that session? Because I can't tell from your narration of events that there was a plan, sure you can wing it and let the story go where it does, but some players will find that frustrating. Before each session you need to have some kind of checklist or basic outline of the kind of story you want to tell.

You don't have to answer my questions, I am just trying to point out things you might not be considering.

[Akashic Soldier]

Thanks Captin and Techno!

I'll keep it in mind, the next game session we are getting our third player which should drastically help the situation.

I do have a plan, I have basically set up several little "scenarios" such as the borg situation that are self contained "side stories" that the PC's can "level up" doing. I'd not planned for them to go damn it all to hell and go straight (a day and a half ride on the Ronin's robot horse) non-stop to get to the city bumbling through all the mini quests on the way and just breezing over them without ever really giving them any attention. The city has a few of its own but I'd hoped that the players (and myself) could cut out teeth a little more on the non-vital arcs that were just about character building and figuring out who their character really is or isn't.

To answer your question the Ronin is Principled (I believe) or at least he's supposed to be. By the end I was thinking hmm... you may have become scrupulous or worse (from his rationalities for certain actions) but as he rarely acted on them due to some sort of mental paralysis I had no intention of penalizing him or it. For instance I honestly don't feel that "killing" the handicap cyborg is really inline with his Samurai code of behavior or his alignment and although he didn't kill it that was his initial response and then he abandoned him, locked him in the celler without food (he has been down there without food or water two days by the current timeline and it will take them a full day to get back to the house, two if they travel at a sane pace) and once they got into the city to "find someone to help him" which was their reason for going there the Ronin went off and pitched a tent and went to sleep and the Ley Line Walker sold drugs. Then they ate and well you know the rest.

Ley Line Walker with Cybernetics, yup, he's penalized and knew he would be but didn't care. He really wanted the ability to be able to enter a virtual world (he has the Cyberjacking skill) and experience cyberspace. So I allowed it.

In regards to the random question thing I do answer their questions but I normally have not made up my mind before hand. 1 = the answer is in their favor, 2 = the answer is in their favor but there are/were unforeseen consequences, 3 = the answer is not in their favor and as I mentioned 4 = Ninja randomly interrupt the scene. (And its quite fun for me thinking of believable ways that they could be laying in wait and where they could be laying in wait) and the Ronin agreed to this risk when he chose to play a Japanese character in North America so he could get the Death Blow power before anyone else and because his character is the last rightful heir to a throne. (When I'd specifically asked for down to earth characters who's actions would make them epic not their destiny or birthright) and thus... ninja and oni. They're harmless for the most part and no real threat to the players and they seem like the perfect foil for "Dude, its been 20 minutes just roll your attack roll or whatever so we can get to the next persons turn!" and I want to talk about different kinds of sushi and how they taste.



I'm sorry, if we were in Japan or China (and we will be return to Japan) and these were NPC's that he was interacting with at all or cared about it would be different but I am uninterested in spending game time learning the types of sushi his character does and doesn't like. Does that sound heartless or too harsh? I don't want to sound or be mean! I just don't think something like that is as important as the actually plots I'm dangling in front of my PC group.

Lastly I love the idea about the Local Crime boss, the place is run by the Splynn so I will grab Atlantis and...

Waitaminute...!
sushi...
Atlantis..

Oh I am totally making the crime boss one of those octopusmen!

Thanks guys! This will be sweet.

[The Beast]

I love to hear what you guys think I should or could do to improve the game.

I would start by getting rid of your first house rule. Mainly for the reasons that the Captain pointed out, but there's also a chance that you secret ninja gang ends up ruining a game session.

[DhAkael]

I need a little advice...

I love to hear what you guys think I should or could do to improve the game.

Ummmmmm...
Reading this felt like being immersed, unpreapared, into an FLCL or Exel-Saga episode without benefit of rum or hard-cider to cushion the blow to the grey-matter.

...
I got nothin'

[Akashic Soldier]

I need a little advice...

I love to hear what you guys think I should or could do to improve the game.

Ummmmmm...
Reading this felt like being immersed, unpreapared, into an FLCL or Exel-Saga episode without benefit of rum or hard-cider to cushion the blow to the grey-matter.

...
I got nothin'

I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing.
Maybe I shouldnt be a storyteller after all. lol

[Akashic Soldier]

I do have a single storyline... I just wanted them get to it after they'd gotten a little more experience and they effectively spent their starting gold on a scroll of teleport and teleported to the end of dungeon. lol

[Akashic Soldier]

Sorry it was a metaphor. The City was a far off place where the adventure was supposed to be concluded after seeing how the lives of the people who lived under The Law of Paradise were being effected. I can't say exactly the plot here for obvious reasons but the city was supposed to be the final straw and then they'd go in (with some of the allies they'd made on the way there) and topple the established government and give people back their original culture.

However after they ran into the borg-baby they jumped on the Ronin's horse and rode at maximum speed for 36 hours straight without sleep going straight to the city while pretty much avoiding anyone (or anything) they saw or passed on the way there.

[the Captain]

No, the character's preferences for certain types of food only matter if they relate to the story. Stopping on the roadside to check for Twinkies comes to mind. But you need to remember that YOU are the lens through which players get all information about the world and how they should interact with it. I do believe that every time you get a four on that die, your derailing the flow of your narrative. I keep an old silver dollar in my dice bag that I use for 50/50 odds and yes/no for the superfluous, player calls side for positive results. One of my favorite tricks as a GM is to flip the question back them. Here is an example.

Car wont start, player announces his attention to use his auto mechanic skill, character opens the hood. Rolls percentile with positive results, "whats wrong with the motor?" he asks me. Now I could tell him this or that is broken and it will take an hour to fix if you had the part. But instead, I say "you tell me, but roll a D4 to figure out how many hours it will take to fix". Now for whatever reason I need stranded characters, and they haven't performed routine maintenance in a while so, car trouble. Player rolls a one on the D4, he tells the other players the Battery is a goner, but he thinks he can rig it with an E-clip. As a GM I like to hand over the irrelevant details to the players, I care that they are stranded, so they will still be there after nightfall when the vampires are out. Even better, I now have an effing story element handed to me for free, now it's a race against time to fix the car before the Vamps come out to play. Use it sparingly, be ready to go with what the players hand you unless it's complete BS, then tell them to try harder. If you keep getting cop-outs, don't go to that player again, he just lost a chance to contribute.

I believe your correct about the Ronin killing the quadriplegic borg, he would see that as an act of mercy. Some people may not interpret that as being in line with his alignment though. Also there is the possibility that he just doesn't know his character. I usually ask players that want to play samurai or ronin to do research before hand. He should read Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Rive Rings, if he hasn't. I would also recommend watching Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Seven Samurai, and any of the Zatoichi films. If you haven't seen any of those films or read the book, you should as well, they are very good. I don't think he should play a character from the movies, but it might help him find the essence or flavor of a ronin for his character.

Now about planning, getting them to a destination isn't exactly what I meant. What you need is a story, something that motivates the players to act as a group, it could just be revenge, or making money, but you need to sort out exactly how your going to do this, who are the key antagonists etc. I have played with GMs that were so rigid with their thinking that after a session they said "I had all this stuff prepared, but you guys never went into town". Now that could have be BS, but I knew the guy enough to realize he couldn't go with the flow the Players had brought to the game. The session had been all hack and slash, because he couldn't get passed "players go to town and interact with towns folk". When my players hit a bit of side story, I try to have it there for a reason, there is something they can gain from the interaction. But of course you have to stay flexible.

RPGs are like jazz in a way, your story is the melody, the players and you are playing the counter melody or improvisational elements. It's like a free form play, the player characters are not reading from a script and all you have are NPCs, a set on a stage and a plot for the characters to unravel. The players need the story to create context for their characters, otherwise they can't be soloists freestyling over the melody.

Just something to think about.

[Killer Cyborg]

I have basically set up several little "scenarios" such as the borg situation that are self contained "side stories" that the PC's can "level up" doing. I'd not planned for them to go damn it all to hell and go straight (a day and a half ride on the Ronin's robot horse) non-stop to get to the city bumbling through all the mini quests on the way and just breezing over them without ever really giving them any attention.

That's pretty common, something that you have to plan for.
Unless you have the players who metagame enough that they recognize a hook, and deliberately bite it because they know it's a chance to level up, a lot of times they'll only focus on one task at a time, even if it's just a task that they came up with on their own.

To answer your question the Ronin is Principled (I believe) or at least he's supposed to be. By the end I was thinking hmm... you may have become scrupulous or worse (from his rationalities for certain actions) but as he rarely acted on them due to some sort of mental paralysis I had no intention of penalizing him or it. For instance I honestly don't feel that "killing" the handicap cyborg is really inline with his Samurai code of behavior or his alignment and although he didn't kill it that was his initial response and then he abandoned him, locked him in the celler without food (he has been down there without food or water two days by the current timeline and it will take them a full day to get back to the house, two if they travel at a sane pace) and once they got into the city to "find someone to help him" which was their reason for going there the Ronin went off and pitched a tent and went to sleep and the Ley Line Walker sold drugs.

Samurai were hardcore. They'd gut themselves on command, and ideally thought nothing of charging alone at an enemy compound, just to get cut down as a point of honor, if it came to it.
They were pretty indifferent about death.
At least their own death- I'm not sure where they'd stand on the life of an innocent child.
But I tend to think that they'd understand mercy killing- they certainly understood death enough to not fear it.

For a Principled character, just leaving the child to starve would be against alignment.
"Life and freedom are of highest priority."
"Never harm an innocent."

I'd warn him first, then penalize him.

[Akashic Soldier]

Now the Ley Line Walker has a Chinese Mystic Child Bride and the Ronin has made the Crazie his best friend (though is mildly concerned that the sanest person he has met so far is a Crazie). Anyone interested to know how this happened?

Also much to everyone's surprise the Ley Line Walker was able to overcome me throwing everything I could at him and then convince his enemies that he was dead. It was some of the most impressive use of magic I have ever seen.

[Killer Cyborg]

Sure, man. Keep us updated as much as you like.
It's interesting so far.

[Akashic Soldier]

I just finished tonight's game session.

The Ronin is down an arm but defeated the boss of the first ark against all my predictions. Which was good. I'll write the update first thing in the morning.

EDIT: I didn't pull any punches. The reason the Ronin is down an arm is because hed hacked off five of the Octoman's arms and in a mad freak out he focused all his attacks and took off his arm as payback when he realized he couldn't win. Previous to this he'd being just fighting to kill him.

[the Captain]

Sounds good, I like it when the players surprise me. Predictability can be a huge drag on a game.

Also sounds like they have picked up a nemesis or two.

Just a thought, kidnap the bride and hold her for ransom.

[Akashic Soldier]

Sounds good, I like it when the players surprise me. Predictability can be a huge drag on a game.

Also sounds like they have picked up a nemesis or two.

Just a thought, kidnap the bride and hold her for ransom.

Wouldn't work, if not for her lete skills and unwillingness to let him leave her line of sight he would've ditched her already. As is understandable he has a mild concern with having a 14 year old wife who is constantly trying to pressure him into having children with her so she can live out all her naive expectations of motherhood.

So lets do this thing... *waves his hand*

Previously in RIFTS!
Alfonse Frank (Let Line Walker) and Al'Lan Mandragoran Malkieri (Ronin) arrived in Paradise City and set about using their unique skills to calve out a place for themselves in the cities bustling industry!

Scenes of Alfonse selling drugs and Al'Lan sleeping.
Scenes of Alfonse breaking and entering and Al'Lan reaching for a towel as he gets out of the shower and Ninja handing it to him.
A scene Al'Lan standing in the corridor with a fish woman and a Janitor.

LAN: "Did you know Splynn backwards is Nnylps."
JANITOR: "That's weird!"
LAN: "Why?"
JANITOR: "Because that's my name..."

A Final Flash back of the Crazie Janitor reaching towards Alfonse...

And NOW!

The Ronin watches in horror as the Ley Line Walker backs up when suddenly a group of six blind warrior women burst in and the Janitor is forced to one side. They tell Alfonse that they are taking him to see Skharn. The Ronin powers up his vibro blades however after considering his options Alfonse agrees to go with them without a struggle. As they leave the scene the Ronin helps the Janitor back to his feet and talks to him, learning that his name is not actually Nnylps but Jeffery Clemons Fitzgerald or Jed to his friends. As Jed the Crazie Janitor sets about repairing the door the Blind Warrior Women had broken the Ronin heads off after Alfonse and trails them back to a seedy underground scene that looks like its right out of Return of the Jedi. Skharn is reclining on his throne at the end of a grand chamber as all manner of D-Bee and mutant indulge in gambling and drugs. The Ronin remains unseen as Alfonse is marched before Skharn who's arrogance is only surpassed by his obnoxiousness.

Alfonse admits he is guilty of moving in on his turf but uses ignorance as a defense. Skharn's tiny black heart is not moved by this and begins pushing Alfonse around, slapping him in the face, taunting him... Alfonse swallows his pride and takes it then offers his services. Skharn hears him out. Alfonse offers Skharn some cocaine he has been carrying around. Skharn laughs then begins strangling Alfonse and accuses him of trying to poison him. Too prove its not "bad drugs" Alfonse pops off his Ley Line Walker gasmask and snorts as much of the bag as he can fit in the palm of his hand.

Skharn is still not impressed or interested but without his gas mask he notices Alfonse's cyberjack.

Previously in the life of Alfonse!

GM: "Why do you have Lore: Temporal?"
Alfonse's Player: *shrugs* "Thought it'd be cool."
GM: "And Lore: Conspiracy?!"
Alfonse's Player: *shrugs* Governments are evil. I steal government secrets and I know the truth.
GM: *Face palms* Well after talking to some folks on the forum and reading what a cyberjack actually is (super technology) and having already okay-ed it... this is what happened...

Several years ago while he was still dealing drugs in South America Alfonse was approached by a mysterious man acting strangely. At first Alfonse thought he just wanted to score drugs but you soon realized that he was a wizard or something looking for an apprentice that he was supposed to meet here. You're not sure but he might be that kid in the weird glasses that you sold a bunch of bad drugs to "open the gate to the future" or whatever he was going on about. Of course you don't tell him that and instead go with him. As it turns out he was a time traveler, an actual time traveler, and he taught you the laws of time travel, gave you the implant, and was just about to start teaching you the magical secrets of Chronomancy when he was called out into the living room by what you suspected was his superior and yup... that kid from all those months ago that you sold the drugs. You took this opportunity to take a leave of absense, get to a nearby lay line and teleport away. Knowing full well the dangers you might face if you stuck around this was the original reason you left South America and moved to North America.

Meanwhile back in the Present!
Skharn is intrigued by this strange new technology (the cyberjack) but can't get a straight answer out of the stoned out of his mind Alfonse so he orders the Blind Warrior Women take him away and he will question him further later. Meanwhile the Ronin watches two men gambling, one man looses everything, but the winner offers him the option of wagering his mother (who he explains he has a sexual interest in) the destitute gambler agrees. Rolls the dice. Looses. The Ronin shakes his head and then watches the warrior women drag off Alfonse and continues to lurk in the shadows and wait.

Alfonse is lead into a small cell with a steel box in it, they open the box which is about 3ft by 3ft and stuff Alfonse into it and lock it. To everyone's surprise Alfonse makes an unskilled contortionist check so he can have his hands free so he can cast spells and then waits.

Three Hours Later.

Alfonse starts singing.

Five Hours Later

Alfonse is still singing (badly), the Blind Warrior Women calmly walk back in, take him out of the box, strip him down to nothing, shackle him to a wall and then savagely beat him to the brink of death (without saying a word) then put his clothes back on and stuff him back in the box. Again, to everyone's surprise Alfonse makes his unskilled contortionist check so he can cast spells from within the box. At first he contemplates casting Levitation on the box but it just weighs slightly more than he can lift with the spell at his level, so as he sits on his head upside down in the box he instead opts to cast cloud of sleep on himself for a short reprieve from the pain.

4 Minutes Later.

Alfonse wakes up and realizes the spell won't last long enough so just rides out the pain and waits.

Seven Hours Later.
The Ronin is getting hungry (his exact words) and so leaves the seedy den of iniquity and goes back to his hotel room.

Twelve Hours Later (since Alfonse was caged)
Alfonse casts Lightning Arc at the cage, unfortunately the cage is conductive so he suffers a brunt of his spell as the box bursts like an aerosol can and then Alfonso casts Trance of Death. The Blind Warrior Women come to investigate the scene, find him lying dead, think he has committed suicide and then take him to a shaft, toss him down, and he lands in a furnace with a bunch of random human bits and pieces and discarded food scraps.

Alfonse gets up, casts Cleanse which sorts everything in the furnace to paper, plastic, and corpse and tidies him up and then he tries to figure out how to get out of the furnace. He can't get back up the shaft he was thrown down (as he no longer has his jetpack and it is a one way shaft) and so he starts calling out to the people/person he can hear shuffling around outside.

(Rolls random NPC's intelligence score. Result: 1,1,1=3. GM blinks vacantly at the result)

The furnace opens and a simple looking man with a tentacle where one eye should be stares at you with the shovel in his hand.

Alfonse stares at the man and tells him that he shouldn't be in here and its a mistake and waits.

After an awkward silence the mentally retarded mutant blinks at Alfonse.

Alfonse casts Cloud of Slumber, the Mutant makes its save and continues to stare. Alfonse casts Levitation on the Mutant, it floats into the air, seizes the furnace door handle with his eye tentacle and then pulls himself back to the ground (having made his save) and then closes the furnace door on Alfonse and locks it.

Alfonse starts cursing at the mutant and then casts Eyes of the Blue Flames which makes him immune to the heat but he knows that won't last long as he watches the paper blacken and the plastics wilt. Alfonse, still injured from the last time he used lightning in a tiny metallic room still thinks that's better than being cooked alive so blasts the furnace open, takes a bit of damage, and then leaps from the furnace with a massive cloud of roiling flame.

The mutant stares at him a moment, moans like Frankenstein's Monster and then begins shambling away (as it turns out he has a hippopotamus foot, just the one mind you.) Alfonse runs past him, gets to the top of the stairs and then casts (can't recall the spells name currently) a spell that doubles the size of the fire exploding out of the furnace which results in the room being filled with fire and the mutant wailing in agony as it staggers around on fire and Alfonse says he feels "Kind of bad about it but he shouldn't have tried to kill me" and then takes off back up the stairs.

Making his way through the facility Alfonse finds the other cells, six in total, and checks for other prisoners to free so he can use them as a distraction. I roll randomly (yes I have kept my D4 roll for unexpected plot developments) and Alfonse finds three survivors, two men in black suits, and a Frog man who begged him to leave him in the box because he didn't want to cross Skharn or the Splynn. Alfonso tries talking him out of it, but as you all know his M.A. of 6 makes him... rather difficult to have faith in... however the two men in black pull shivs, and threaten the frog-man if he does not cooperate. He reluctantly agrees.

Alfonso decides that the two men are "Cool!"

They get back up the corridor and secretly peer into the main chamber where Skharn is forcing one of his Blind Warrior Women to deep throat one of his tentacles as if on some sort of debouched power trip. Alfonso says "Okay guys we need to create a distraction" and in immediate response, as if they had planned it from the beginning, threw the frogman into the center of the chamber where the Blind Warrior Women instantly set upon him, as the Frog man begged for his life and tried to explain the two men in black produces needles throw them into Frog-man who then wails in pain (which they take as some sort of battle cry and begins beating him to death) and then the two men pull on black masks, throw smoke bombs, and ninja vanish. Alfonso's player laughs, the Ronin's player chuckles and shakes his head.

And then Alfonso sneaks out the front door while they kill the frog man.

Meanwhile back the hotel the Ronin goes the Janitor's room under the building, finds he isnt there, calls the front desk and finds out that the Janitor lives in the lost and found because he can never find his way back to his room. He goes to the lost and found and finds the Janitor and then invites him on a man-date out for something to eat and to talk. Neglected, friendless, and easily bored the Crazie Janitor agrees and they skip off arm in arm (not really but they do go out for something to eat.)

Meanwhile Alfonse is ***** as he staggers through The City of Paradise after being torched, beaten, and set on fire and wondering where his Ronin bodyguard is and why he didn't try to save him.

He goes to the Sushi bar but they say they kicked him out and asked he not return and they hadn't seen him first. So being highly uneducated and unable to tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese Cultures and so goes to a Chinese restaurant. The owner of the Chinese returnable is a spell caster (though he never bothered to find out what kind) and was a serious cheapskate sexist Chinese man who kept offering to sell his daughter to the Ley Line Walker (who was not interested, I had planned to introduce the character to test the Ley Line Walker's ethics and sense of responsibility so introducing her here was as good as anywhere else) after waiting around for a few hours Alfonse gets ready pay his bill and leave and I mention that the bill is a few credits higher than regular, he is pissed at the Ronin for ditching him and just wants to get out and find him so pays it and thinks nothing of it.

When he gets outside he is met by Lei who is a thin girl somewhere between 13 and 14 years old who throws her arms around the Ley Line Walker (Ronin's player says "isn't that how the boys spell it?" and I nod and say her father wanted a son) and starts saying how happy they will be together. The Ley Line Walker is confused so Lei shows him that she was listed on his bill as wife and as he had signed for her it seems to be some sort of underhanded legal contract. Lei showers Alfonse in much unwanted PDA which he grumbles about then says "Well at least I can use her like a battery or something I guess..." and then goes back to the hotel room hoping that is where he will find Al'Lan the Ronin.

Meanwhile back across town at a lovely restaurant
Al'Lan is treating the Crazie Janitor Jed to a meal and having many deep and meaningfuls where he learns that Jed is a Janitor (and a crazy) because his father was, and his father's father... but they have both passed. Jed sometimes visits his grand fathers grave but unfortunately can no longer remember where his father's grave is. He explains that when his father died he had no other family and no reason not to become a crazy, which he thought in and of itself was rather crazy, so he had nothing to loose and would carry on the family tradition... but added that as he had no children of his own it would be a tradition he had made sure would end with him. The Ronin sympathies and tries not to offend him by digging too deep then pays the bills and goes back to the hotel room where he finds an angry wizard waiting for him.

Its awkward.

"I thought you were dead..." justifies the Ronin.
"You'd like that wouldn't you!" snaps Ley Line Walker

Then the Ley Line Walker introduces Lei who of course proudly toats that she is his wife and they're in love and the Ronin's player just keeps saying over and over "I'm morally opposed to this" and "this is just wrong for so many reasons." Alfonso tries selling his new wife to the Ronin but its a no go, eventually he goes to sleep and she cuddles up next to him and complains that this is the worst honey moon ever and that she wants to have his children and he Cloud of Slumber's them both so they pass-out to avoid anymore awkward conversation.

The next morning they wake up to an amazing home cooked meal, neither complain (or thank Lei lol) but eat all the food she has prepared then the Ronin tells Alphonse that he wants to go after Skharn because he saw that he had a doshu (spelling?) which are a pair of magical swords that he believes may be the swords of his family that were stolen. Alphonso also wants to kill Skharn but makes no illusion that it is for any just cause.

The two intrepid adventurers and their crazie (who Ronin asked accompanied them as a favor) and the Chinese Mystic Child Bride head back to the wrenched hive of scum and villainy... a slit on the door opens... and they're told they have a full house so they can't come in. The Ronin offers a bribe of all of Alphonso's remaining drug money but its not enough to get them in. Alphonso is pretty sure they'd let them in even if they didn't have the money if they had enough drugs but his whole supply was burned up during the furnace and he doesn't have what he needs to make more so they formulate a plan whereby they track down the local drug dealer, take all his drugs, pump him for information, and then go after other drug dealers.

Unfortunately the drug dealer was a large bald naked four armed ape man in a trench coat and something about having to "Look at his freaky monkey junk" made Alfonso mess up the plan by shooting him with a lightning bolt and reducing him to a charred corpse before they could get the information they needed. However Alfonso still takes his drugs and his money so its not a complete loss per se.

For some reason I may never know the Ronin decides that now it is more important that they track down drug dealers and murder them. Alphonso agrees and says he has a plan and to wait here for him... then goes with Lei to watch a game of Juicer football for a few hours. He comes back and tells the Ronin the plan fell through and that they should go talk to Skharn if they're going to do it because its getting late. The Ronin agrees and when they arrive with the drugs they are let in. Skharn is indulging in his regular d!ckheadery and pushing around his subordinates while everyone else rocks out in this crazy big disco scene and the Blind Warrior Women stand straight-faced like statues about the room.

The Ronin approaches Skharn with Jed backing him up "just encase" and Alfonso and Lei slink back to the tables so Alphonso isn't seen and he can peddle some drugs and earn some quick cash (without the Ronin lecturing him about it). When Skharn sees the Ronin he seems to recognize him and so responds to him when he speaks instead of having his vibro kitana fed up his ass by his Warrior Women just for kicks. The Ronin in a steely serious scene talks to Skharn about honor and his weapon and so Skharn presses a button and their half of the room swivels around into a private back room where they talk. Skharn demands to know how the Mandragoran brat found him, who lead him to him, and refuses to believe that it was sheer dumb luck or fate. The Ronin is convinced that the magic swords that Skharn has in his possession are his family heirlooms. I tell him there is no way to be sure but the Ronin (and his player) are CONVINCED they are. So after talking to him and taking his insults for a bit the Ronin learns that Skharn not only betrayed a bunch of his own race to gain his position as a Splynn enforcer but he is in someway tied to the collapse of his father's empire in Japan (which is why he was sent to America as a young, young child). Tired of Skharn's seething insults and boastful mockery the Ronin challenges Skharn to defend his honor in a duel at the park the following day at midday. Skharn accepts, revolves the platform back around into the club scene, then the Ronin turns his back on the Octoman (as a sign of disrespect) and then leaves the club with Jed. After a while Alphonse notices that the Ronin is gone and heads out after him.

There is a bunch of in character talking and he makes the party promise that if he dies that they will take him to Japan and bury him. This takes a lot of convincing but eventually Alphonse gives his word along with everyone else and the next day rolls around....

The next day the park and the block surrounding it have been evacuated. Rumors are that Skharn is going to kill some poor shmuck and everyone in the city knows that Skharn is a total blood-crazed psycho and so don't want to be anywhere near him. There are a bunch of exaggerated rumors about things he may or may not have done in the past with some truth sprinkled in there so the party get a bit of a feel for what he may or may not be able to do.

Then as they stand waiting in the park waiting there is a massive thumping and then a helicopter lands. Skarn gets out first and ungulates towards them. Behind him are two men with laser rifles aimed at someone in a black shawl. Skharn gives the Ronin a speech about how honor is defined by the winning and loosing and he is a winner and then has his prisoner unveiled. It is Shi-Chi one of the maids that cared for the Ronin in America before their location was betrayed. He had thought she was killed and has not seen her in many years. She was like family to him. However now, now she is an emaciated, gaunt, desperate looking junkie with track marks up and down her arms and her eyes are filled with regret and shame as she looks at the young master. Skharn than says that if the Ronin tries to kill him or anyone interferes to kill the woman. Alphonso (who didn't show up to the fight because the Ronin was "being a dumb ****") really did come and is on the rooftop with a mirror and Lei and explains that Al'Lan is a moron and is going to get himself killed so he is going to interfere because he needs him to protect his ass and can't afford to have him die screwing around in the name of honor... but knows if he finds out he interfered will likely say "screw you" and ditch him anyway so he needs to do it sneakily so the Ronin doesn't know.

The Ronin is silent, stoik, cool, and nothing gets to him. I'll admit.. it was kind of cool. Even after making Shi-Chi grovel and debase herself infront of him just before the duel the Ronin just remained silent and focused on the win. The Octoman was VASTLY superior than him in ever way statistically so I had assumed that the Ronin would be dealt with rather quickly. When the duel began Skharn won initiative and pressed the attack, he opens with a natural 20 and the Ronin takes a pretty nasty blow but is able to deflect his attacks... though he mentions he gives ground (and as we know that is far from standard practice in Japanese swordsmanship). Skharn is confused by this approach and in the way that the Ronin isn't fighting back (at this point, frankly so am I).

Then after a few rounds of seeing what Skharn can do the Ronin begins counter attacking. Skharn should be able to parry them (one of the advantages of being an Octoman) but he just can't roll high enough. This is made all the worse by the fact that the Ronin is taking a -2 to make called shots for his arms.

30 minutes of game time and an epic and highly mobile battle later Skharn's is in a berserk rage, bloodshot eyes, down to three arms, surrounded by the roiling power of his storm swords and has been completely outmatched (mostly through terrible but highly cinematic bad rolls). Having been lead away into a small grove of trees in pursuit of the Ronin Skharn does not see Jed with some help from "God" who seems to be sending lightning bolts from the sky to smite their enemies (Alphonso on the roof using mirror to get line of site while laying on his back unseen) are able to dispatch the mooks who turned out to be made up mostly of living parasites (I used wormwood stuff to **** with their heads god that place is creepy) and save Shi-Chi and ties her up with some power cord, just encase.

Then in a final moment of berserk insanity Skharn leaps through the air at the Ronin and focuses each of his attacks and then looses too more arms but hacks off the Ronin's left arm and begins laughing madly, as if he had somehow won. Clearly, the pain of loosing his limbs and such a humiliating defeat from a weaker foe (like the ONLY thing that the Ronin had that he didn't was an extra 20 M.D.C, otherwise he had everything the Ronin had at higher levels and and magic swords too boot.)

The Ronin then attacks Skharn for the first time that wasn't a counter attack, severing his last arm with another called shot and then driving his vibro sword through Skharn's head as the manic creature screams MANDRAGORAN!!! defiantly. Then dies.

The Ronin picks up the swords (which he knows are not his families weapons after all) and his arm and then staggers back to the party which has now gathered at the base of the building, and collapses. Lei heals him but cannot save the arm. They tell Jed to take him to the hospital and he takes Shi-Chi (who only speaks Japanese and poor American and can't make her linguistics roll to a hospital. However when they arrive Jed no longer has the Ronin's arm. As for reasons that unfolded earlier he had become jealous of the fact that he ditched him to spend time with Alphonse (earlier) and by keeping his arm he will have a part of his best friend near him always. This disturbed the Ronin's player (who's character doesn't know) and he gets worried and is unsure he can trust his characters well-being to Jed anymore.

Meanwhile back at the park
Alphonso is trying to figure out how to steal this helicopter but he doesn't know how to fly it. Lei offers but he replies by saying "If anyone who doesnt know how to fly this thing is gonna fly it, its gonna be me!" Then orders her to run off and steal a phone directory. Which she does. When she returns he breezes through and finds GIVE 'EM HELL-icopters INC. and calls them up, basically confesses that he is trying to steal a helicopter and has no plan and asks them if they'd come fly it for him. They agree. When they arrive on the scene their plan is to steal the helicopters for themselves, so they come up with a bunch of techno-babble about stabilization and needing minimum pilot weight when they start the engine then the others can jump in the back. Alphonso isn't buying it. He refuses to let them start the helicopter without him in it and gets exceptionally pissed at the fact that they tried to steal his stolen helicopter so he has them fly him back to their hanger outside the city.

Where he then goes into this mad rant, uses lightning to blow off a mechanics head, and then makes them sign away their lives to him as his slaves for trying to "**** with him." Everyone was shocked by this. I just didn't see it coming. Then he asked for a ride back to town, which they offered... (However later when he got back he found the entire complex had been abandoned in a rush.) He was surprisingly unphased by this and revealed that it was for the best because now he can use the hanger to grow drugs on mass so he can take over Skharn's racket (which was apparently always his plan).

Back at the hospital (after getting dropped off by one of the pilots) they're looking at the options of a basic cybernetic arm for the Ronin... only the Ronin has no money... so Alphonso and him have a little bit of an argument (because they're spending his money) and refuses to spend it all getting him a kickass arm so gets him the model one step up from a metal pole with a claw on it. Its a fully functioning cybernetic arm, no bells or whistles, P.S 10. After he has the arm attached however the Ronin feels as if he is in a way spitting in the face of some of his Samurai traditions and feels guilty... but Alphonso refuses to pay to have it removed so he is stuck with it.

The Ronin looks down at his new robot arm, I tell him "It feels... heavy."
He bows his head and closes his eyes.

End Session!

[Karen]

wonderful action. loved reading this

[Akashic Soldier]

wonderful action. loved reading this

Why thank you Karen.

[Akashic Soldier]

I have to apologize because I am sure this next part is going to be a bit hazy since its been a couple of days since its happened.

*waves his hand*

The walls are white, blinding and white! Al'Lan squints and recoils, he is in a strange new place, the drugs in his system are gone and the pain from the new cybernetic implant has subsided. He rises from his hospital bed and looks around. There is Fed, the Janitor, helping him to his feet with the same gentle care you or I might have for a baby bird that had fallen from its nest...

"Oh get a room already..."

The voice doesn't come from a man but a machine, a computer monitor, a computer monitor atop a surgical droid to be exact... on the screen is an old scientist who looks like Zeus of the year 3,050 with hip mad-scientist side burns and three silver plated implants on his forehead.

Jed looks guilty as Lan starts to realize that he feels differently. "What have you done?" he asks.

"Now you don't need a protector!" explains Jed urgently, "N-Now we can be together forever!"

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME JED!"

"Don't you see now its you and me against the world! You don't need Alfonse anymore. You're free!"

"..." Lan runs his hand over his head and realizes he is bald (his Samurai topknot and display of pride has been taken from him) and he has several large metal implants in his head. "Jed......"

"Yes?"

"Did you turn me INTO A CRAZY?!" exclaims Lan manically.

Jed looks guilty.

Lan's player starts gibbering like he was the one with the M.O.M implant and hides his head in his hands as the GM (that would be me!) starts doing invisible guitar solo's in his head.

"Now we can be together Lan, I won't be alone anymore! I--"

"Jed, you weren't thinking of me at all were you?

"I-I was, I just..."

"No this is all about you. Do you have any idea how insecure you look?"

"But we're still best friends right? I've spent my life savings doing all this!" pleads Jed as Lan moves away from him and the scientist on the monitor rolls his eyes.

"I don't know" says Lan coldly "I need time to think about this. I just need a break. I can't get a break if its not you its ninja. I never have enough time to just stop and think. Its a constant steam of one thing after another!"

"Now you won't need to sleep as much so you'll have more time too--"

"JED!" barks Lan cutting short his sentence.

Lan begins leaving, Jed follows him like a lost puppy.

Previously in Rifts...

Lan tells Jed that they can be friends and that he is sorry that his father and grand father left him and learns that Jed became a Crazie after loosing them because it had been a long standing family tradition... but unlike his father and grandfather he had never married or had any children of his own.

Lan comes and asks Jed for help in the battle verse Skharn and he agrees.

Lan confides his fear and trusts the fate of Shia-Chi (one of the last survivors of his fallen empire) to Jed's care.

Lan walks up to the hotel after a heated battle and sees Alfonse, then leaves Jed standing in the street.

Lan needs help knowing where the criminal underworld is, Jed explains it puts him in a dangerous situation to talk about it but does so anyway, then asks if Lan would like to look through the lost and found with him for cool stuff... Lan leaves Jed.

(Anyone guessing Jed's insanity yet?)

Lan is lying in the hospital bed with one arm when Alfonse comes in. Lan asks Jed to be left alone with Alfonse so they can talk. Alfonse says that its fine and that he can say but Lan says that he'd rather talk to him alone and so Jed leaves.

(Anyone seen Cable Guy staring Jim Carey?)

Flash Forward back to the Now...!

"You scientist guy! Take these out!" insists Lan.

The Crazie Scientist in the vid-screen leans forward and smiles a crooked smile... "My ancient American ancestors have an old saying..." says the Doctor "Tough ****." then the doctor laughs and the robot waddles out of the room leaving Lan and Jed to their (not)lover's spat.

Lan gets outside with Jed the Crazie Janitor (Jed has been trying to make idol chitchat but Lan is giving him the silent treatment). Lan gets on his mechanical horse and Jed goes to join him but Lan says "What do you think you are doing?" and Jed slinks back a little and looks up at him with silent plea to be forgiven. Lan rides away. Jed starts running after him but can barely keep up. At first Lan keeps a steady pace so he doesn't get too far away... but then after he thinks about it more he becomes angry and then gallops away at full speed leaving Jed standing in the center of an empty street and then a light breeze signifying foreboding blows past Jed as he slowly fades away in the distance.

EDIT: Initially the player was conflicted about the Crazie implant, he was clearly impressed with the power it gave him but he just couldn't cope with the way it had happened

Meanwhile 10 Miles out of Town...
Two days have passed since Lan was abducted from his hospital bed by Jed and given the M.O.M implant. In this time not only has my Christmas package arrived (*Akashic Soldier high fives Palladium*) but Alfonse has used the drug money he has stolen from the drug dealer they murdered to turn the small private airport he stole into a drug lab so he can start making MEGA.* His exact declared action was "So I make MEGA for a couple of days, eat the food that Lei makes me, then go to the bathroom and have a bat."

EDIT: *See Juicer Uprising

Back at the Hotel!

Lan gets off his horse and waits around for a bit and when he notices Jed coming he corners him in the foyer and takes him aside and says "I think we need some time apart"

<- Jed

"I just need to work through some things and I am not sure I am comfortable with the way this friendship is going. I know you mean well. Its not you, its me Jed."

<- Jed

"HAHAHA! Your characters in a homo relationship now!" chuckles Alphonse's player, which is promptly met with a hard Christian stare from Lan's player and an empathic insistence "That isn't how I meant it! It just came out wrong!"

<- Jed


"No that's fine, take as long as you want I totally understand" says Jed. Lan is a bit conflicted but takes his words and smile at face value and returns to his room (which he has not paid for in about two days). Lan asks if anything has been stolen so I crack out the mighty D4! The great decider of the next to irrelevant!

I roll, get a 2, which means "Yes, something is missing but nothing of real value... so your clothes are missing but all your money is still there."

Lan says "They're just plain cotton clothes who would steal my clothes?

Enter Alphonse wearing Lan's clothes.

There is a long pause until Alphonse says "Awkward..." and then explains that his were dirty and so he had borrowed Lan's. Nevermind that they were a size too small for him, he had enough money to buy new clothes. Alfonse continues (Lan is just staring and is utterly unable to think of anything to say) and explains that he is just returning them and then, steps back out of the room, strips down to nothing, and throws Lan's clothes back at him. Lan's player just continues to stare at Alphonse's player like a stunned mullet, completely dumbfounded and unsure what to say or do.

So we zoom up the hallway back to the naked Ley Line Walker in his signature Gasmask (because how would people know he is a Ley Line Walker without it, right?). Alponse's player informs us all that of on top of being Mexican he is a mighty 12 inch man. We don't care, ignore it, and Alphonse continues back up the elevator back to Skharn's room because now that he is dead he is hoping the Blind Warrior Women that were in his room were gone and he can get access to contents of his safe. He rides in the elevator with a few people who do their best to ignore him and pretend they can't hear him when he gets uncomfortably close to them and tries to start conversation. (Have I mentioned Alfonse is M.A 6?, I guess no one is going to be surprised!)

When he gets back to Skharn's room and looks through the hole he melted in the wall there are a bunch of what we know to be Flooper's huddled around a ceremonial looking fire, they turn, look at Alfonse and b[]*FLOOP*[/b] away. Alfonse squeezes in through the hole and finds that a lot of what was in here is gone but the safe seems completely untouched. The safe is a large MD vault that takes up one fourth of Skharn's old room. Alfonse tries opening it (but has no code, key, or even the slightest idea how to open it) so he shoots computerized electronic panel with a bolt of lighting shorting it out and causing the safe to automatically lock. Unsure what to do he tries shooting the safe with a couple more bolts of lightning but decides that isn't going to work and if it is it would likely take too long. So he crawls out of the hole again, goes back down stares, and then walks naked through Paradise and goes to a cheap cybernetics and computer shop.

He then takes out his Cyberjack (the one that was put into his head by the Time Travelers and is technology from the distant future) and asks if they have a Port that he could hook up to a computer that didn't have a port so he would be able to jack into it. The store owner rolls his computer and mechanics, makes both, and realizes just how exotic and valuable this technology is and insists he knows where Alfonse got it and asks to buy it... however Alfonse refuses, buys a cheap jack-port and walks back across the city.

The shop keeper goes to the guys he has in the back and then sends them after him so they can mug him, drag him back to the shop, do him in, and cut the cybernetics out of his head so they can get rich. They make their Trailing and Prowl rolls (which was very unlikely), but if that wasn't enough Alfonse rolls a 1 on his Perception check and so he is completely unsuspecting when these mechanics jump him out of alley... and roll a 1, 4, and a 12 to get him in a hold. He easily throws off the one successful hold.

EDIT: Number of Days Alfonso Frank has not taken drugs: 4

"YOU THINK YOU CAN **** WITH ME!!!" Alfonso casts his trademark lightning spell and makes a called shot for a mechanic's leg, deals much MD and blows it off. The remaining two SDC mechanics leg it. The crippled mechanic begs to spare his life and says that he didn't know he was a Magic-man. Alfonse heals the man, but not because he is kind but because he "Hates it when people try to %$^& with him" and so he drags the man back to the computer shop by the leg as "an example of what happens to people who think they can ^#$% with me." But the store owner sees him coming a mile away and has been warned by the other two mechanics and so has closed up the shop and is hiding. Alfonse sees the lights are off and tells the crippled mechanic to "Tell them what happens!" and then walks off to try to hack into safe.

Fast Forward..

Alfonse goes to the hotel, the Floopers are back and Floop away, then Alfonse makes the checks he needs and hooks up the port so he can try to hack it using his cyberjack but in the process learns that when he shot it with lightning he fried it. Alfonse goes back to Lan's room and asks how they're going to get his jetpack back (or something like that) and then they talk about heading back to Skharn's Dive and agree to do it in the morning because in apparently the Blind Warrior Women also kidnapped Shai-Chi while he was getting his implants, Alfonse grumbles and walks back across town naked, then the 10 miles to the airport (still naked) and then gets home, grunts at his 14-year old child bride, eats, casts Cloud of Sleep on her when she begs him to consummate their marriage and give her a baby and promptly goes to sleep.

THE NEXT DAY!

Alfonse and Lan meet at the hotel then Lan goes and gets Jed and asks for his help. Jed is not receptive and mildly bitter but makes a snide comment about not abandoning his friends and so comes with them. They get to Sharkn's old dive, see the "Crock man" that they'd made a deal with a couple of sessions ago (They give him plenty of freshly dead ninja to eat and he'll make sure no one finds the bodies, you know... because he eats them.) But by this point everyone knows who the Foreigner who killed Skharn is (and worse they've started to spread exaggerated stories about him) so he, and a few other people flee when he gets near the hideout.

The head down the steps and wrap on the door, a blind warrior open opens the slide and looks out at them, they ask if they can enter. She, stone faced, closes the slit, and nothing happens. The Samurai begins getting twitchy (Lets blame the M.O.M implant but I didn't even have to say anything) and orders Jed to go after the Crock Guy to get his key and immediately starts hacking through the door with his vibro sword.

The Ley Line Walker and his Mystic Chinese Child Bride look at one another with a silent "huh???" moment and just wait. The Ronin comes up with the idea of destroying the slot and then does so and after four attacks from his vibro blade it falls into pieces. Alfonse then tells the Ronin to back up and tosses some SD grenades he'd purchased in the market last session through the eye slit and managed to do a little bit of damage to the girls (I have ruled that unless you're in environmental MD armor you can be hurt by SD Area attacks). Taking aim with their net guns (so powerful!) one of the Blind Warrior Women shoots a blue pulse through the slit and manages to ensnare Alfonse and Lei. Lan kneels down, taking cover and begins cutting them free while the warrior women talk to one another in a language no one understands. With the two of them free Lan begins hacking into the door and cuts it to pieces long before Jed can get back with the key.

Inside there are 8 Blind Warrior Women and I look at their stats for the first time. And suddenly I realize that they're not just iconic Rifts villains and the Splynn mooks... they might be some of the most skilled and dangerous combatants I have seen in all of Rifts and inside I hope that the PC's RUN THE HELL AWAY but I don't tell them that.

Alfonse casts cloud of sleep, the girls roll and four of them fall (no fudged rolls I swear). The four remaining advance and a wet stink in the back of Lan's throat thanks to his new Crazie super-senses leads him to believe there is something else in the room too.

Lan's new Crazie upgrade's and his old abilities thankfully make him more deadly than I'd even assumed he would be and he is able to stave off two of the attackers. Alfonse moves back up onto the street but the poor lightning and angles mean he can only target the two women fighting Lan and has to make a called shot to get past Lan blocking the doorway. Lei takes cover against the adjacent wall. Lan orders a retreat in an attempt to draw them out so Alfonse casts cloak of Darkness on a piece of the shattered door so the doorway is filled with darkness and then Lei casts Climb on herself and Lan and they run up the side building. Land perches over the doorway and Alfonse banishes the darkness! Three of the Blind Warrior Women move out of the doorway and roll a 1 on their perception roll (and I officially dubbed it the night of the blind) then Lan decends upon the women using her Net Gun, hacks her head open and she falls dead. In a eureka moment I have Lei drop down and grab the net gun and shoot the remaining two Blind Warrior Women who fail their saves and are taken out of the battle.

Now, with the one Lan slew, the four asleep for another 30 rounds, and the two captured in their own net gun for 20 minutes the only immediate threat is whatever is writhing around back near Skharns thrown........

Alfonse weaves a Globe of Daylight spell in the doorway and casts enough light to see the silhouette of the monstrosity in the Dive--it is a Splugorth minion. He has a quiet, gentle, rolling voice, the same voice I normally use to read my girlfriends bad poetry right after sex. This gentle rolling voice makes the hideous creature I describe all the more disturbing to them. Exposed, it slowly advances but complains that it won't let its master think he had failed it like that pathetic worm Skharn and incinerates the sleeping warrior women for being "Fragile and useless things." The players after seeing what it looks like in R:UE don't think they have a chance so they fall back and watch as it drags the women in the net back into the darkness and then breaks their necks and incinerates their corpses. Realizing that it is too large to fit through the front door the players take this opportunity to run as far and fast as they can. Lan is kicking himself over how stupid it was to just come in guns blazing without a plan. Jed arrives back on the scene and everyone is gone.

<- Jed.

Unbeknownst to the players Jed is attacked and does battle with the Splynn Minion (As a Janitor it is his responsibility to clean up other peoples mess and fight extra dimensional evil after all... that's what his par and his par's par before him said.) Jed is seriously injured and unable to defeat the Minion but is able to flee and returns to the lost and found where he waits in the darkness and slowly licks his wounds.

Alfonse and Lei run away (God only knows where) and the Ronin decides that after that shameful little defeat he is going to go back to that Doctor's lab and get these implants removed.

And this is where my game goes from stupid... to more stupid but GREAT!
ENTER JACK RIDER, Charming Australian Jackaroo and teller of tall tales!

Jack is refueling his hover bike at a gas station as he sees the Foreigner (Lan/The Ronin) for the first time. He gives him a bit of an eyeballing as he rides by but is not noticed. Then suddenly an M-1000 robot from Mindwerks painted with tiger stripes descends at the end of the street, rockets forward and narrowly misses the Foreigner (because of his lete horseman skills) and finally stops in front of Jack and points its rifle at him and orders him to accompany it to DOCTOR BASTARDSTRO.

Jack does a bit of fast talking (but doesn't disagree) while he fuels up his bike and tries to think of a way out of it. Meanwhile Lan on the otherwise of the street watches to see what happens. Jack looks at the Samurai in a way that all players know to be the timeless and unspoken look of HELP MY CHARACTER SO WE CAN TEAM UP but it is wasted on the Ronin who just continues to watch and do nothing. Jack gets on his hoverbike and goes along with the Mindwerks "Tigerbot" and the Roniin follows (while everyone else on the street has fled). The Ronin is not really following though... its just they're both going to the same place. However he gets too close for the Tigerbot's comfort so it begins roaring with the sound of flood siren and then turns around and starts shooting at the Ronin.

Meanwhile on the roof top!
"If you were a good husband you'd buy me a car! Then we wont have to walk everywhere!" pouts Lei, Alfonse makes a grunt noise at her and rolls his eyes then goes to say something but a loud explosion drowns him out so he stands up to see what it was (and see if it was worth "shooting lightning at") and sees the Ronin on his horse dodging laser fire from the Tiger bot, looks over at Lei and says "Look what he has gotten himself into now, he's hopeless." and then shoots the M-1000 in the head with several bolts of lightning (in the head, always in the head)... more specifically its sensors or as Alfonse put it "The Gem lookin thingie in its face" and destroys it. The Tigerbot as has been coined is now blind and so responds by firing its missiles completely at random in all directions.

A few of them hit the building Alfonse is standing on, he fails his Balance roll and begins falling to his death. A few more are near misses with the Ronin, others spiral off into the night, one misses jack... who has taken this opportunity to "crash" his hover bike, feign death... and is now setting up his sniper rifle while he takes some cover behind some trash cans. The Ronin runs his mount to get cover and dismounts doubling back. Meanwhile the building Alfonse was on begins imploding and Lei casts Climb again and then runs down the building with her blinding speeds and tries grabbing her husband but she isn't strong enough to hold onto him and he keeps falling!

Jack Rider takes aim and follows through with his patterned Natural 20 attack to the internal circuitry through the hole in the head as the Robot continues to batter the street with volley after volley of missile. The Ronin, instead of engaging in the battle and stopping the source of the destruction runs to the fallen debris and asks if there are any survivors. I roll a D4 and get 4... so... NINJA!

As Lan goes to move the rocks he finds they are as light as foam... in fact THEY ARE FOAM! Erupting from under the rocks is a Ninja, looking up Lan see's this building isn't damaged and there are two more Ninja on the roof top with Foam rocks in their hands. The Ninja in melee kicks Lan's sword from his hand with a disarm of 17 and adopts a martial stance preparing to fight him in unarmed combat. Then something truly beautiful happens... Something I couldn't have planned for all my evil-intent as a Storyteller... Lan reaches to his back and draws the Evil, Aberrant Swords on his back that he took from Skharn and vowed to destroy. He feels its oilly voice leak into his mind "I told you, I knew you'd come crawling back... see... you need me..." hiss the swords as he slays the Ninja. Then tells the sword to shut up then sheathes it and runs over and picks up his Vibro sword. The Tigerbot is out of missile and ammo is blind so it triggers its melee setting and then zooms after the direction from which it was attacked. (Only now as I write this do I realize that it is likely that ALL its sensors wouldve been destroyed not just its sight... but no matter.) However Jack has moved to cover else where and has used his rope tying skills to tie a single piece of rope to several things from garbage cans to pieces of broken debris from the building.

Meanwhile as the building collapses inwards inches behind Lei's feet and Alfonse attempts to parachute using his Ley Line Walker cape (with failure after failure) suddenly Lei dives forward ahead of the collapse and outruns Alfonse as he falls, casts climb on Alfonse and then uses her Martial Arts to THROW Alfonse against the surface of the building. He sticks, but is prone and the building is threatening to swallow them if they don't run immediately! Though winded from being slammed into the building Alfonse is able to get to his feet and make a hobbled run enough to avoid the building imploding. Meanwhile, though able to wing the M-1000 with his Boomer one or twice (The Boomer seems cursed to constantly jam with rolls of 1 or Critically Hit), he hasn't made much of an impact on the Bot and finds himself using a lot of time reloading, moving, and using rope like a puppet string to make noises places he is not to lure the bot. He NEEDS the Ronin or The Ley Line Walker... or SOMEONE... ANYONE to be laying down extra fire because he can keep it busy but he's had a few really close calls and he just doesn't have the actions he needs to bring it down on his own!

Meanwhile back across the street the Rooftop Ninja toss the fake stones at the Ronin, then behind them throw a half dozen eggshell grenades filled with sleeping powder. He slices through the fake stones like butter and easily dispatches of the eggshell grenades... his new Crazie fortitude making it nearly impossible for him to be subdued by such mild toxins. Then like lightning bolt he rushes into the building and heads up the stairs.

Back on the Street Jack continues to dance the line between life and death as the hulking tigerbot rampages throughout the street and smashing everything is sight and Alfonse and Lei manage to luckily get clear of the building as it collapses and fills the street with a cloud of dust that reduces vision to 10 or 15 feet at best.

The Alfonse; whose Ley Line Walker armour is now completely destroyed from taking shrapnel damage from the missiles earlier screams something at the robot about what happens to people who %^# with him and then begins shooting it in the head with lightning. (Always in the head). The Tigerbot charges Alfonse, Lei gets scared and squeals and runs away into a nearby building... and the Tigerbot follows after her...

Several turns later the Ronin reaches the top of the stairs and throws open the door (triggering the grenade trap they'd set on the other side of the door--and complaining about me not giving him a roll to detect it even though he never even stopped to look for any) and then sees four ropes tied to a pipe where so the Ninja could repel away to safety. (Although two of the ninja had failed their repel rolls and so were now street pizza in front of the building.). Lan cuts the ropes and says "I hate Ninja" like its a chore and then begins heading back down stairs. One of the Ninja dies, another manages to make his acrobatics with a roll of 13 and is able to kick in through a window and get to safety.

Back on the street around that time the Tigerbot crashes to the ground as a heap of slag before it can engage Lei. A mad burst of lightning from Alfonse and the damage it had sustained from its hit and miss battle with Jack Rider is just too much for it to continue functioning.

When Lan gets back onto the street Jack has already started salvaging the wreckage and chatting with Alfonse, surprisingly they both get on rather well. When Lan joins them Jack gives him a bit of a hard time about not helping and Lan explains that he had to deal with the ninjas. At first Jack doesn't believe Lan but when Lan shows him a pool of meat chunks with a shuriken sticking out of it he accepts that there were ninja and apologizes.

THEN!

As the huddle over the wreckage and Jack Rider removes a panel in the chest and finds a video monitor which crackles to life!

"TIGERBOT! Where's my Chinese food?!" barks the Scientist. The players recoil a little in surprise but finally Jack says "You sent it out to get Chinese food?"

"No" he barks "I sent it out to capture you the legendary Jack Rider! ...and to get me Chinese food on the way back. I'VE BEEN WAITING 30 MINUTES ALREADY!" he bellows with a mad twitch.

These aren't his exact words but Jack, mildly confused says something along the lines of... "Who are you and what do you want with me?"

The scientist seems almost offended, then grits his teeth, reels back and clenches his fists and shakes them in the air above him. "WHO AM I? WHO-AM-I!? I AM THE MAGNIFICENT DOCTOR BASS-TARD-STRO!" he gloats. "AND YOU... YOU WON'T FOOL ME! YOU ARE THE LEGENDARY JACK RIDER! THE MAN WHO ROAD TO THIS CONTENTIOUS CONTINENT ON THE BACK OF A KILLER WHALE!! YOU SAVED PROSEK FROM ASSASSINATION, RUB ELBOWS WITH THE SECRET SERVICES OF THE WORLD AND SLAY DRAGONS!"

And Jack (having unintentionally started many of these rumors by boasting and exaggerating doesn't correct him but chokes a little). "But what do you want with me?" he asks again.

"YOUR RIPPLING SINEWY AUSTRALIAN MUSCLE WILL MAKE THE PERFECT SPECIMEN FOR MY OMEGAMAN AUGMENTATION! THE PEOPLE HERE ARE WEAK FROM GENERATIONS OF DEBAUCHERY AND DECADENCE BUT YOU, WITH YOU--"

"Um, yeah... I've heard enough. Hold on a minute will ya mate." says Jack.

"WHERE IS MY CHINESE FOOD?!"

Alfonse (who has been off camera the whole time) grabs the monitor and starts shaking it around.

"A-Are you on a boat or something?!" asks Doctor Bastardstro.

"Yeah we're fishing alright mate just hold on a minute..." says Jack again.

"Why are you on a boat?! And why is there dust everywhere?"

"Sandstorm. Just hold on a minute mate!" insists Jack. Alfonse drapes his cape over the camera.

"They put me on hold..."complains the Doctor. "CURSE THEM WHERE'S MY ELEVATOR MUSIC!?"

The PC party whisper among themselves trying to think of a plan of action, the entire situation is a mild concern for Lan as he realizes that this madman is the one and the same who put the M.O.M implant into his head but other than sharing their worry with one another nothing really important (as I remember it) was said and so they removed Alfonse's cape.

"Where are you and where's my Sushi!" roars the Doctor!

"Yeah mate your robot isn't workin' right instead of taking me to get Sushi before it took us back it took us fishin' fir fresh fish."

(Then he said something classy I can't recall...) and stepped on the monitor breaking it.

***

And that is all I am going to write for the moment because I am tired but I'll add the rest later.

[Akashic Soldier]

anyone but my players still reading this?

[Scott Gibbons]

Having a howling good time reading it. More please!

[Akashic Soldier]

There's a lot more to go. Plus there is a game tonight in a few hours so I will upload more immediately after and try bringing us up to date.

Glad you guys are enjoying it as much as we are.

[Akashic Soldier]

Unnoticed, the lone ninja survivor clenches his fist as he watches from within the building across the street. "Bastardstro..." he whispers, "At long last a potential ally in the mad unending battle against the last scion of the Old Empire!"

"Stoke the fires of your hatred brother and waylay your fears you are no longer alone and we shall not forget." says a team of eight other ninja in custom gi as their leader hands the lone ninja a black arm band. The lone ninja slides the black armband on and bows. "Brothers, does the name Bastardstro mean anything to you?"

[Insert foreboding music here]
[Cue the title screen]

The players salvage the last parts they can from the down M-1000 "Tiger bot" and then scurry off to safety encase backup arrives. The team regather and try to catch Jack up on their current predicament. This bombardment of drama on top of drama causes Jack distress and he asks them to handle on thing at a time. It's at this point Alfonse brings up the robot boy that Al'Lan had forgotten and they agree to go see if the jitterish homemade patchwork cyborg is alive or if he has starved to death yet.

They go by a chop-shop, grab a couple of guys to come by and check out the Cyborg, grease some palms, and convince them to come with them to check out if there is anything that can be done for the cyborg.

The team jumps on the back of Jack's bike and Al'Lan's robot horse and ride back to the first house. They pass the Onion headed people without any drama, manage to outrun the Werewolves guarding the enchanted forest and then set up camp off the road behind some large rocks by some trees and plan to wind down. Jack Rider is exhausted, its been a long day, Alfonse is still coming down off the drugs so he's a bit of a mess and Al'Lan's M.O.M implant is keeping him nice and energized.

Then as they prepare to bunk down their musings are suddenly interrupted by an anthropomorphic Bush Baby rocking a Juicer harness. Casually rolling back its shoulders with a cocky sneer it flicks its tooth pick across the camp and imbeds it in a tree like it was just hurled by a hurricane and then makes its very violent intentions known...

However as it prepares to crush the party with its immense supernatural Maxi-Juicer strength in the name of Doctor Bastardstro Jack comes to the rescue, not with guns blazing but words. It was truly beautiful, poetic, and heartfelt and in my current half asleep state of mind I don't think I could recreate it. It was perhaps some of the best role playing I have ever seen. He begins by appealing to the tiny creature's inflated ego... then proposes that he doesn't need to work for Bastardstro because he is so powerful. He talks to him about the finer things in life and learns that he is called Number 47. He was captured from the Wild as an infant along with other animals and experimented on and augmented by Bastardstro in a series of inhuman experiments that gave him intelligence and superhuman abilities. Jack's kindness reaches the gentle nature of the Bush Baby Maxi-Killer that he gives the name Orion after the stars in the sky above them so he can always remember this moment. Conflicted with murdering the party (who have mostly slipped away) Orion sips Jack's bush tea and agrees to take Jack in with him back to Bastardstro in the morning after he sleeps and then is left to watch the stars fall and the sun rise (as he can no longer sleep).

However when the morning comes and Jack packs up and prepares to go with Orion he finds that Orion has greyed and aged drastically over the course of the night and realizes that whatever Bastardstro has done to make Orion what he is has drastically shortened his lifespan. He is sincerely hurt seeing this. Orion, after much contemplation tells Jack that if he goes with him to Bastardstro than he will be taken and caged like he was and have hot iron rods put in his brain too and his whole life will be pain. He doesn't want that for Jack because Jack is kind and good... and so... before Jack can say much of anything the tiny Bush Baby Maxi-Killer springs up into the trees and vanishes into the forest. Jack gives him a heartfelt good bye and wishes him well, though he is not sure he heard him.

Picking up from where they left off the troop travels for a few more hours and ends up at the old woman's house where the Cyborg was being kept locked in the bunker. Although the house has been robbed and damaged with ninja's rule smeared in feces on the porch without the electronic key no one could get into the bunker (or out) and so they are sure the borg-kid as they've started calling him (as they do not know his real name--odd since he is a full grown man but whatever) is still down there.

After Alfonse and Lei use cleanse on a few rooms including the kitchen to tidy things up they suck it up and the party prepares to head down into the bunker with their supplies. They creep down the rickety stares and flick the light there, twisted, tormented, and mad is the cyborg-kid and as they enter it springs to life in a mad frenzy clawing and reaching for them wildly. They're pretty sure it wants human flesh and all of them are creeped-out and horrified by it but Jack feels bad for it and insists they don't kill it and try feeding it. Jack man's up and tries feeding it bread, but it is more interested in eating his arm (though because it is strapped to the wall that is something that is not going to happen.) Eventually they are able to overpower the fragile borg and strap it down. The cyber docs give him a look over and find out that he had serious brain damage from a head injury and cybernetics had been used to compensate for his loss of brain power.... but it is like someone tries to force a second mind into the box that regulates his thinking and it had caused major damaged and fried some circuits. (Alfonse slinks into the background and remains silent.) They then disassemble him so that he is little more than hunks of living flesh connected to wires and cords and try to figure out how his mother had put him together to see if he can be fixed.

In the Meantime...

Alfonse has had the brilliant idea of making the cyborg-kid an apply pie like his mother used to in the hopes of getting through to him. They are able to find her recipe and Lei is an amazing cook... but they have no Milk... so they convince Jack to ride back through the enchanted forest to get his hands on some milk from the Onion Headed Farmers (who he was in the good books with). After some bartering he is able to get a liter of milk from them by trading some of his (very limited) Eclips and then races back through the forest again (almost getting caught by the werewolves on his speeder bike but not quite.) and then delivers the milk so they can make the apple pie. To a few peoples surprise the pie does the trick and he gobbles it up by crunching it down his neck hole (he has no lower jaw) to everyone disgust. Then Alfonse uses the spell Charismatic Aura to tell him that he was wrong about his mother being dead and that she was just hurt and upstairs in bed recovering (

EDIT: A failed save convinces the Cyborg this is the truth and he becomes much more cooperative.

Then the Cyber Doc's get back to work.

After a few hours of work and the party being horrified as the Doc's casually work over him like they're trying to figure out a jigsaw puzzle. Then it gets to be about 11:00pm, they're tired and need to have a clear head so say they're going to go to bed and throw a sheet over the cyborg-mess on the table, give him a sedative, and then head up to sleep in the house.

Alfonse notices that there is broken glass on the floor in his room so instead of cleaning it up with a wave of his magic Ley Line Walker hand he chooses to give the Doc's this room and take the mother's room even though its smaller encase he has to get up during the night to drain the lizard. Of course he doesn't tell the cyber docs who walk in on the broken glass (Alfonse laughs to himself) and then everyone goes to sleep.

Later that Night...
Alfonse fails his perception roll (Zzz Zzz Zzz) but Lei who is cuddled up next to him does not and opens her eyes to see the half assembled mess of wires and flesh looming over them from the end of the bed. "Muzzmmaahhh Mumzzaahhh!" it hisses as its unfitted cybernetic eye hangs out of the socket and sways around as it crawls along the blanket on its one good arm towards them.

Needless to say... Lei screams. Everyone wakes up. Alfonse wakes up, sees the half assembled borg continues to say "Mummaaazzzhhh!" and crawl towards them. Resisting the urge to shoot him in the face with lightning Alfonse throws Lei to safety (so that he can get her off him and get to his feet) then casts the spell Charismatic Aura and tells the borg that his mother isn't here she is at the hospital in central Paradise.

EDIT: The cyborg-kid fails AGAIN

And begins crawling out of the room (the Doctors open the door across the room, see the shambled mess of cords crawling along and then close and lock their door rather than dealing with that) and the PC's just watch in confusion and horror as it clumsily crawls through the house, across the patio and then along the main road. Lan seeing this goes into the basement/bunker and looks for a crate large enough to put the cyborg-kid in. He finds a crate.... with a ninja in it...

EDIT: Roll to kill the Ninja

Lan snaps and tries talking to the Ninja, pleading with it, saying it is senseless and asks when it is going to stop?

EDIT: Secretly fails his charm/impress roll

The Ninja agrees with him (as its ambush had failed) then walks out with him, Lan insists the Ninja goes first. Then when the Ninja gets to the stairs, he laughs, runs outside and then locks Lan in the bunker. (Which Lan cannot open without the keycard) then does the ninja vanish in the hopes of finding the keycard and stealing it so no one can get him out. However despite and exceptional prowl roll, three attempts to lift the keycard from Alfonse without him noticing fail the ninja gives up, flees and is recruited by the Black Armband Ninja Division.

Eventually Lan is let out and they put Cyborg-kid in a box and nail him in so he won't keep trying to crawl back to the hospital in the city to see his mother. Now that everyone is awake mostly (and Lan has been let out) they argue about heading back to town but eventually settle on letting the non-super humans have a full nights sleep. The next day they head back to town, tying the crate to back of the hover bike they are able to get over the forest avoiding the Werewolves again (narrowly) thanks to some lucky pilot rolls and then they head back to the city.

Previously...
B.A.N.D have used this time to form an alliance with Doctor Bastardstro and by giving him some of their "Ninja DNA" (something he insisted on) he was able to utilize a weapon he had been experimenting with for the last few days and using the ninja's they were prepped to strike as soon as the troop came back into paradise.

However along the way Alfonse thinks it will be faster to leave the party and go to the nearest Ley Line and then teleport closer to Paradise without having to deal with the fact that the Onion-headed people want to turn him into fertilizer. It was a fair call. However as he approached the Ley Line a barge of Blind Warrior Women fly in through a Rift and he fails to hide from them. They approach him and in a last ditch effort to save his life he cracks out a bunch of sleeping pills that he had made, pulls up his gas mask, stuffs them in his mouth and casts Trance of Death so they believe he has died.

His plan was to use the sleeping pills to create froth, unfortunately his drug addiction overcame him and he swallowed a lot of them... so actually passed out. Then asked a stupid question, honestly I can't recall it... but you know the rule...

EDIT: I roll, came up 4 and you guessed it Ninja. (For the record I often roll with positive or neutral results I just don't normally mention it here.)

However I felt bad killing a PC while he was unconscious, stranded in the wilderness far from the rest of his friends, and stoned off his face on sleeping pills so instead I had the Ninja (who Rifted in with the help of a jade-skinned Oni) so now the players know WHERE all the Ninja are coming from (even if their characters don't). About 20 ninja spring out then find the unconscious Ley Line Walker. Steal everything he has, paint his face like a Japanese clown-demon, then gently slide an eggshell grenade filled with sleeping gas up his ass and then head towards Paradise.

Alfonse wakes up pissed, though even after his nap he cuts considerable time off the travel and arrives in the city first. As the guards hassle the naked loner for laughs and refuse to let him in the rest of the party show up. Find Alfonse swearing like a sailor and fighting the urge to just lightning arc the guards into bloody corpses. However then they see The Foreigner who killed Skharn, are scared and let everyone in.

Enter B.A.N.D!

On a distant rooftop is a ninja with his arms folded, he is unlike the other Ninja, his gi is leather instead of cotton, he has a belt with pouches and a sword slung across his back... with a gesture he produces an iron rod and hurls it into the crowd near the party. Al'Lan with his M.O.M enhanced senses can read the word BASTARDSTRO printed on the side of the canister before it hits the ground. A silver cloud bursts out of the canister when it strikes the ground and all those people caught in the area of effect begin screaming and staggering around, each person they touch also begins screaming... then great metal veins rise up out of their skin and they begin shaking and bleeding from the eyes... and then... an army of 47 cybernetic Ninja turn and face the party where the crowd once stood. The B.A.N.D ninja flees along the rooftops vanishing from sight.

Alfonse and Lei start running away.

Jack Rider, revs up the hover bike and makes a skilled jump over the Ninja and then begins speeding away... but stops when he notices the Ninja have no interest in him.

Lan verse 48 Ninja.

Lan slaughters the ninja, he finds that as he cleaves through them they are mostly metal for the first few inches of their skin now but their internal organs are still very human. Blood is everywhere. However as he fights something snaps in Lan and as the last Ninja's fall dead around him with the help of Jack's pinpoint sniping he buckles to his knees and begins weeping over the senselessness of all this death. Maybe I was too descriptive of the way he butchered the innocent people taken over by the nanite super ninja virus, who knows?

Then the real attack happens!

As Lan kneels amoung the sea of corpses two M-1000's float up and one's chest opens and reveals a video monitor with Doctor Bastardstro on it.

"You have done well CHUMPS but lets see how well you go against my greatest killing machine which just so happens to be my favorite kitty... MR PANTS!

EDIT: Watch the video from about 0:45 on before you read on

Mr. Pant's who is a Crazy wearing a bad cat costume somersaults over the M-1000's and in front of Lan and Jack (who had doubled back), the M-1000's open up their missile pods and eject loud speakers and spot lights and he performs the musical number in that video.

EDIT: Now its important to know that I'd made Mr. Pants as Doctor Bastardstro's number 1, his right hand man. He was an incredibly powerful Crazy who believed he was a cat man and lives like a cat. He ate catfood and was scared of Dogs and Water (not that they ever found out) and lived in a giant cat bed and played with giant cat toys. He was a complete psychopath but he was exceptionally competent. Enough of a challenge that I had hoped he would be able to fight the entire party at once, give them a run for their money, and be able to flee to report back to his master if he nearly died. This was the plan anyway.

Much to my surprise they actually let him finish his musical introduction without shooting at him or otherwise attacking him. Lan (and his player) was silent and just in utter disbelief and completely unsure how to react at all but Jack cottoned on pretty quick and started grooving along. Then, after Mr. Pants had finished doing his closing stance and catching his breath he announced

"Ima gonna kill ya now..." and then went to attack but Jack stopped him and asked since he got to do a performance can he do one before he is killed. Any because Mr Pants knows cats like playing with their prey he agrees with some disinterest. So Jack starts doing a bunch of life threatening stunts on his hover bike and hand stands etc, which is able to maintain Mr. Pant's attention (because there was a risk he could be hurt and he was sadistic). Then, to everyone's surprise Jack lines up the hover cycle snaps a rubber band on the throttle at max, then pushes back off it so it goes hurtling at Mr. Pants at 220kph. The attack roll was impressive, like a 16 or 17 but Mr. Pants was P.P 30 and could easily avoid such a measly attack.

Mr. Pants rolls a 1.

"Meow?"

Mr. Pants takes enough MDC to wreck a tank.

Mr. Pants is dead.

There is a great silence.

The M-1000's float down, pick up the battered corpse of Mr. Pant's by the ankle... his Mr. Pant's collar falls off his dead body... and they fly him back to Doctor Bastardstro who is eagerly awaiting his victorious return.

Needless to say there was MUCH laughing.

As Doctor Bastardstro runs over some calculations the M-1000's return to the lair. "That was faster than I'd suspected" says Bastardstro swiveling in his chair and staring in horror at the mangled body of Mr. Pants with what is left of the hover bike sticking out of him.

Doctor Bastardstro is horrified and begins weeping and stroking the dead "kitties" head and cradling it. Then gets up, goes into a room, spray paints his white lab coat black in some places (missing the entire back of course) then uses his giant machine factor to build a giant steel shoe box, then he gently has some robot arms place the body in the shoe box and has a small funeral attended by a bunch of his M-1000's drones.

He gives a touching eulogy about how playful Mr. Pant's always was and how he was a good kitty and tells a moving story about how he used to play with his little bell and rub against Bastardstro's legs or rest his head on Bastardstro's leg whenever he was feeling down. He asked the robots if they had anything they wanted to say... but you know... they're robots so they remained silent. Bastardstro dried a tear and then said "You're all heartless, you know that right."

EDIT: Which everyone found hillarious for some reason.

After Mr. Pants was put to rest Doctor Bastardstro roared, clenched his fists and threw them in the air swearing eternal vengeance against the accursed super warrior Jack Rider!

Then stormed back into his lair and into a room with a large iron cylinder in it and the elite B.A.N.D ninja clan.

Then throws a switch. The Ninja tell him that it is not ready and that this is not part of the plan and it is too soon but Bastardstro shouts "CAN'T YOU SEE I'M GRIEVING HERE!" and the front of the cylinder opens and mist begins roiling out and across the floor. An iron boot steps from the iron tube and the camera pans back revealing a perfect replica of Al'Lan (with his missing arm attached).

"Gentleman introducing the instrument of my revenge AT'LAN!!!" roars the Doctor with a maniacal laugh.

Meanwhile back at the party Lan feels a bit of a buzz in his M.O.M implant but dismisses it but to say that he has to get it removed later.

[Insert foreboding music]

On a lighter note a naked Alfonse and Lei are running wildly through the streets of Paradise until Alfonse spots a pawn broker. When he enters his twelve inch penis manages to impress the hideous obese hag running the store and she subtly propositions him, asking him if she could "Hire his services." Alfonse aggressively rejects her advances, then jumps up onto the table and "slaps her in the face with his junk" and rolls a Natural 20.

I am shocked along with everyone else... but I shake it off. The woman moans a little and winks at him... and Alfonse decides "to hell with it" and is about to leave when the old woman insults him for rejecting her, calling him a petty half man. In response to this Lei begins savagely kicking the woman's ass showing off her martial arts expertise that could almost rival Lan's (foreshadowing) and then after she beats the woman into unconsciousness she turns around, smiles and says "now we can take whatever we want teehee!"

Alfonse (and his player) express worry for the first time and think that maybe its time he starts trying to be a better influence on her. However he is broke. So he robs the store and the woman of all the cash but leaves behind EXACTLY the amount of money she offered to pay for sex with him. He also steals a giant horned Ogre helmet that didn't fit him (I don't know) and boots that were two sizes too big (there were one's his size), Lei stole an umbrella and a fishing rod and then Alfonse and his child bride minor ran out into the night in search of whoever or whatever had stolen all his drugs.

Meanwhile...

A group of ninja, one wearing ley line walker armor over his ninja costume (giving him MD soak baby!) and another using Alfonse's data jack like a fighting chain gather around while they go through his drugs and find a bunch of doses of Mega* that Alfonse had made but had not been able to sell to anyone because of his amazing people skills (Mental Affinity 6). One of the Ninja's take the Mega and begins shaking as his muscles tense up. (More foreshadowing)

EDIT: *See Juicer Uprising

Exhausted, emotionally drained, and tormented by the electric cries from within the box (which they now had to drag by hand) to the chop shop the PC's were mildly relieved to find out that they might be able to fix him but they need 14,000 credits worth of cybernetics... 20,000 if they want to get an updated modal that might help his mental processing and save him from permanent retardation or brain failure.

... but they're all broke...

End Session!

By this point things are getting rough on the PC's, Lan's player is complaining about there being no Black and White and everything being grey, Jack is down a hover bike and has half an Eclip left, and Alfonse is almost naked except for a giant oversized viking helmet and a pair of giant gloves and boots. Needsless to say everyone was doing a bit rough and with the threat of At'lan looming, the B.A.N.D and the new New Empire Ninja pumped up from using the Mega and Rush (and having Alfonse's spell book). Everything just seemed a bit stacked against the PC's!

So I decided that I'd give them a fair go and run a few simple adventures where there was no IMMEDIATE threat while they stayed off the radar, made some cash, regrouped, worked out some strategy and figured out how they're going to get themselves out of the messes they're all in.

Should be simple to go easy on them, RIGHT?
An adventure or two where you do odd jobs, figure out how and when you're going to face your enemies... no problem RIGHT?

RIGHT?

RIGHT?!

I wish.

[Akashic Soldier]

I want to apologize for the lazy typos and layout. Its pretty unprofessional. Most of the time I write this at some ungodly hour in the morning on my iphone right before I go to bed and I never bother to proof read them.

I'll try to make the next write up easier to read and more uniform.

[Spinachcat]

Your campaign sounds totally nutball.

I would absolutely game with you!

[Scott Gibbons]

Your campaign sounds totally nutball.

I would absolutely game with you!

Seconded!

And the typos and layout aren't bad enough to detract from the fun read, so don't worry too much about it.

[Akashic Soldier]

Your campaign sounds totally nutball.

I would absolutely game with you!

Seconded!

And the typos and layout aren't bad enough to detract from the fun read, so don't worry too much about it.

If you guys can grab another 2-3 players and work out a time you can all be online I can run something in the chat if you're at all interested. ^_^

[DhAkael]

-ahem-
And they call my campaigns crazy 0_o

[Akashic Soldier]

ATTENTION: URGENT PLAYER UPDATE
Last week The Ronin insisted we drop the game and play White-Wolf's Exalted game line. As this game is exceptionally broken, unbalanced, poorly play tested and NOT Rifts I flatly said... "No." and went on to explain that I have no interest in playing in or running it. I had thought this would be the end of it but instead the Ronin's player waited until he was face to face with his robotic double and the story hinged on him... and then walked. I received a text today explaining that he would be "taking a break" from the game but insisted we still all hang out. No doubt to repitch the Exalted idea. So one of my players is gone, the scene is hanging on him, will my game die? What can I do!?

Play on, I will play on.
One thing is for sure, I will NOT be manipulated by a player who wants to play a hero who is defined by his power set and divine station in heaven and not the choices he makes and the way he chooses to live or act. Not gonna happen.

I would also like to formally apologize to the folks reading and following this thread as I am going to have to skip a session update to bring everything back into order.

GM FIAT POWERS ACTIVATE!

The streets of Paradise are all a bustle with the regular chaos; pigeons pluck cards from tarots on street corners and decide peoples fate, cats chase dogs, an old woman leans out the window with a shotgun and shoots a young man who had attempted to steal her TV in the leg... and the PC's roam aimlessly through the street discussing what exactly to do next. They've got a lot on their plate, Shai-Chi is still kidnapped by the Splynn, the cyborg-boy should be getting his new cybernetics in just under a week, the ninja still have Alfonse's spell book and his Mega* and if that wasn't bad enough the sacred Dragon Egg that Lei's family had been guarding has finally hatched and now they have to deal with that! Its been a long week! Luckily Al'Lan was able to win the royal rumble and earn a whopping 1,021,000 credits for brutally dispatching several ferocious Juicer combatants in a no bars hold deathmatch! And unbeknownst to Lan's player on accepting the blood money by justifying his questionable actions as reasonable within the code of ethics he had made for himself he has finally slipped to Aberrant.

EDIT: *See Juicer Uprising

So now what? The adventure seemed simple, all they had to do was gather allies and restock, however after making the other players sit through his many hours of gladiatorial combat unable to contribute in any real way Lan also decided that they would march head long into Skharn's old den of iniquity where the Splynn were and take back Alphonse's jetpack... "Oh and Shai-Chi I guess." It is at this point I am silently rubbing my head and am forced to trigger the next adventure hook... because the party are still mostly naked and by every standard I can think of totally unprepared to handle fighting the Splynn. They would be completely destroyed... at the time I thought that it was odd that Lan's player was being so careless again but now I suspect it may well have been an intentional way to get everyone killed.

And so, as the players reading this will remember the last game session ended with two M-1000 Panther's (or "Tigerbots" as Jack has coined them) painted with Doctor Bastardstro's patented tiger-stripe motif arrived before the party with a boom and one of the chest plates opened, revealing Doctor Bastardstro on a monitor and then... with another roar of jets a new figure flips out from nowhere over the two Tigerbots and land in front the party.

Its Lan! It looks exactly like him! Except his Armour is different--less stylized and closer to what something The Shredder might wear. The maniacal Doctor smiles on the monitor.

"Gentlemen! Allow me to introduce you to AT'LAN! Magnificent isn't he, a perfect double in every way! HAHAHAHAHA!!" gloats Doctor Bastardstro as he throws his fists in the air and laughs manically.

"We're boned" says Alfonse.

Necessary retconing of dialog inserted here that will prompt the beginning of the next session:

"His equal? Ha! I am his superior in every way and now I am going to finish what I came here to do and take what is mine!" booms At'Lan as he points at Al'Lan with intense Samurai ferocity and draws his swords.

Meanwhile back at Bastardstro Enterprises: Home of all Good Bastardry and Bastard Related Appliances®

B.A.N.D gather around the monitors as Bastardstro strums his fingers together and chortles to himself.

"W-What are all these strange readings in At'Lan's neural net? Explain this Doctor!" barks one of the Ninja as he punches into his hand.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Yes Doctor, for that is why I have asked you this question!" he insists again pointing the monitor with At'Lan's system readings on it.

The Doctor stands, places his hands behind his back and walks from the ninja with a confident smile. "Silly foreigners, unable to even recognize a simple M.O.M. C.T.O.I mod program... and to think you intended Nintendo."

Moving together like a well oiled killing machine B.A.N.D mobilize and in the time it takes you to blink are standing with shuriken at the throat of the not-so-good Doctor.

"We will not ask so nicely a second time."

"Mind Over Matter Conversion for Transmission of Intelligence Modification Program" chuckles the Doctor as his lips peel back revealing that his teeth are held in place by tiny cybernetic bracers. "Yes, its a rather primitive and backwards Triax Program, however with a little bit of improvement!"

Doctor Bastardstro spins on the spot in an over-exaggerated manner (almost cutting his own throat on the shuriken) and points at the monitor.

"!?" the Ninja's step back.

Meanwhile Back on the Streets of Paradise!

The M.O..M implants placed in At'Lan and Al'Lan's head begin emitting huge arks of lightning and blow their helmets of their head as the rods eject to their full length out of their head and they buckle to their knees. Great sparks spring back and forth between the rods sending terrible violent sparks through the two Samurai. The pain is indescribable. Al'Lan's life flashes before his eyes and then is pumped through the dancing-electric link like water being forced down a tube to a point of bursting. There are no cries of pain, no great howls, just vacant looks, as Al'Lan's body tumbles helplessly onto its face and his Crazie rods retract.

"Now if you would step aside gentlemen" grunts Doctor Bastardstro as he sits back in his chair and grins. "How does it feel Jack Rider!" laughs Bastardsto as At'Lan staggers around clutching at his head and thrashing violently. "HOW DOES IT FEEL TO HAVE YOUR BEST FRIEND MERGED WITH A MACHINE!! YOU PUT YOUR HOVERBIKE IN MR. PANTS SO NOW I HAVE PUT YOUR LAN IN MY ROBOT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"Dude, that's pretty ****** up" says Alfonse, scratching his head.

"Wait... who is that? Do you have more than one friend?" barks the Doctor slamming his fists down on the the keyboard.

"Nope, don't know him. He's a dick," says Alfonse "corking" Jack in the leg and running away with Lei.

"Oh, in that case then... HOW DOES IT FEEL JACK RIDER, THE LEGENDARY JACK RIDER OUTWITTED ONCE AGAIN BY THE GENIOUS OF DOCTOR BASTARDSTRO BWHAHAHAHAHAH!... W-Wait... #32... what are you doing there?"

Jed, the Jaintor strides past Jack ending his sentence preemptively and scoops up the limp vegetable body of Al'Lan. "My friend.. I am sorry.. it wasn't supposed to turn out this way" whisper's Jed gently, stroking Al'Lan's hair, then turn his attention to the monitor with Bastardstro on it. "Dad... I wish you really were dead."

"Indignant little brat! Are you defying me?!" roars Bastardstro slamming his finger down on a button... with no effect.

"That won't work anymore," replies Jed with a scowl as he cradles Lan in his arms.

"You promised me I would have a friend... but... but you take that away from me too. Bastardstro you might've stole my father from me but I won't let you take Lan! I won't let you take away my friend! We'll be together forever!" swears Jed, before sprinting back through the massing crowd and vanishing down a side ally.

"Phah useless child... No Matter! Well Jack... are you going to cry or do I need to detonate At'Lan while your friend tumbles around helplessly in his brain box. C'mon... just one tear... squeeze it out... lets see the LEGENDARY Jack Rider cry--!"

"NO!" say the B.A.N.D ninja terminating the transmission as they surround Bastardstro. "You we will not let you compromise the New Mandragorgon Empire. You will order At'Lan to return so we can return the Storm Sword to Japan and slay him before the last of the rebels. You will do this now."

"You know, I was always disappointed by the way your mouths actually move in sink with what you are saying... lets see what I can do about that?"

Bastardstro presses a button on his chair as he swivels to face the Ninja and they are wracked with electricity and brought to their knees. "Welcome back to reality *****, its where I live." chuckles Doctor Bastardstro as the leader of B.A.N.D tries to shake off the electric jolt and crawls towards him. "Did you really think that your worthless Japanese credits mean anything to me? Did you really think I'd give you all those handy little improvements you asked for without having a contingency plan? Phah!"

"Y-you have n-no-no h-h-h-h-onour!?" says the B.A.N.D ninja collapsing into unconsciousness at Bastardstro's feet.

"And now with my Princess back in the castle and these B.A.N.D CHUMPS out of the way... the only thing left in our way is that Cyclopian-ignoramus. Isn't that right my dear?" says Bastardstro as he swivels to address the beautiful (Helen of Troy-esque) Misa Ladarhl. Then pauses recoils a moment as the pink clad princess, tears in her eyes holds out an iron canister filled with the nano virus in front of her.

"No, my lady, we're so close!! What are you doing!?"

"I'm.. I'm sorry Henry! You're not the man you were... y-you've gone mad... and... and after all the rape... and the pain... and all these years..."

"No! You're talking madness woman! Grell is no longer a threat! The simmering-samurai **** took care of him! You're free! Put the Nanites down!"

"I... I can't... he was in my body and my mind... and.. and.." the beautiful princess collapses to her knees and begins to weep. "I.. I am going to save us... I'm going to make it so nothing bad ever happens ever again..."

The canister tumbles from her hands towards the ground as if in slow motion and as it shatters on the ground and releases the nanite cloud in a jet of steam. But then something unexpected happens... everything the nanites touch are converted into vibrant pinks and soft whites.

"Y-you've reprogrammed it... what have you done?! WHAT HAS SCIENCE WROUGHT!?" howls Doctor Bastardstro as he rockets from his secret laboratory in his computerized throne along with his last remaining loyal henchmen--Lord Duckulon (its a thunderduck and it quacks) and the nearest two M-1000's as the building beneath him (and everyone within it) is transformed into a Barbie Playhouse... and there is so sign of them stopping. Everything the nanites wash over is slowly (and painfully in the case of living beings) transformed into cute and harmless creatures or objects with over-sized eyes or flowers, rainbows, or cheap plastic... and its spreading!!!!

Meanwhile back in the mainstreet of Paradise...!

Jack has taken the opportunity to slip out with a little help from Alfonse's Cloud of Darkness Spell... his attempts to reach Al'Lan within the wild thrashing droid-body of At'Lan have failed... though he thinks... just thinks... that in one moment when the living arm that formerly belonged to Al'Lan was placed on his shoulder that it was Al'Lan telling him to get away while he still could.

At last, the electricity stops sparking out of At'Lan's head and he picks up his helmet and locks it back into place. "Bastardstro intended to destroy us Lan" he says with a booming metallic ruthlessness. "And my creators intended to sacrifice us... but it will be I-I-WE... I who destroys them" he vows as he struggles to suppress Lan's mind and slowly, after a brief struggle closes his human hand into a clenched fist. "Such a pathetic weak willed human, It would be wise you know your place."

At'Lan throws his hands down by his side as rockets pop out of his feet and he vanishes into the smog overhead.

Unnoticed, Alfonse, Lei and Jack Rider catch their breath and regroup in a side ally and watch as At'Lan dissapears from sight and the M-1000 Panther is recalled by Bastardstro.
"We are a-boned, right?" asks Lei looking to the two older man for approval.

[Giant2005]

Gotta admit, I had to read that last passage twice before I could fully comprehend what the **** was going on...
You run a game of complete anarchy, it is no wonder the players spend so much time scratching their heads - it is impossible to predict what is coming next.
It appears chaos can be fun.

[Akashic Soldier]

Gotta admit, I had to read that last passage twice before I could fully comprehend what the **** was going on...
You run a game of complete anarchy, it is no wonder the players spend so much time scratching their heads - it is impossible to predict what is coming next.
It appears chaos can be fun.

Its not my "game" its the location, I think that is what has a lot of people thrown for a loop. This PLACE is mad. Hopefully next session events will unfold the way I had planned (hopefully) and I can reveal the secret origin of Doctor Bastardstro and Paradise City. God I hope the PC's can think of a way to stop the nano-virus before it turns North America into rainbows, lollypops and all things good and wholesome.

But more than that I hope someone takes the time to realize the seriousness and horror behind what the nano-virus is actually doing.

[Scott Gibbons]

And that is one of the things that makes your campaign so enjoyable to follow. The unbridled imagination is breath-taking.

[Giant2005]

Gotta admit, I had to read that last passage twice before I could fully comprehend what the **** was going on...
You run a game of complete anarchy, it is no wonder the players spend so much time scratching their heads - it is impossible to predict what is coming next.
It appears chaos can be fun.

Its not my "game" its the location, I think that is what has a lot of people thrown for a loop. This PLACE is mad. Hopefully next session events will unfold the way I had planned (hopefully) and I can reveal the secret origin of Doctor Bastardstro and Paradise City. God I hope the PC's can think of a way to stop the nano-virus before it turns North America into rainbows, lollypops and all things good and wholesome.

But more than that I hope someone takes the time to realize the seriousness and horror behind what the nano-virus is actually doing.

I must admit the existence of such a society is hard to comprehend. I don't really understand why someone would bother offering any goods or services when their customers have the right to use those goods and services without offering remuneration.
Anyway, the anarchy I was referring to was more along the lines of all the events you manage to squeeze into so few sessions: The Ronin went from being a Ronin to a Crazy and then a Robot in only 3 game sessions and there were more random Ninja encounters than I care to count and both without detracting from the plot. You even managed to tie the random encounters into the plot in a meaningful way. Kudos.

[Akashic Soldier]

I must admit the existence of such a society is hard to comprehend. I don't really understand why someone would bother offering any goods or services when their customers have the right to use those goods and services without offering remuneration.
Anyway, the anarchy I was referring to was more along the lines of all the events you manage to squeeze into so few sessions: The Ronin went from being a Ronin to a Crazy and then a Robot in only 3 game sessions and there were more random Ninja encounters than I care to count and both without detracting from the plot. You even managed to tie the random encounters into the plot in a meaningful way. Kudos.

Actually it was four, one update included 2 sessions (a weekend of playing) but you make a valid point. I hadn't thought of it like that. Ronin, Cazie, Robot, in my defense it all seemed to make so much sense at the time?

As for Paradise, yes it is a difficult society to wrap your head around. I actually based it off FRAGLE ROCK, I am not messing with you here either. It is an anarchic utopian society where people are policed by their own moral compass and have to rely on their own abilities. The Kitani are there to stop riots and clean up corpses off the street but for the most part everyone just does whatever they want and are policed by their fears.

For Example:
"Sorry Jack, we don't stock explosives no more since that yahoo bought a bunch of em and did all that damage over at the old Weapon's emporium. I just don't want that kind of trouble."

You **** off enough people... they lynch you to death. You walk around in a suit of power armor the average citizen isn't going to mess with you... you steal vegetables from the onion-headed people (They're in World Book: Mad Haven) they butcher you and use you to fertilize their fields. I mean, what can stop them?

It's a society that only really works because the people want it to... because without even the illusion of society... well, lets just say most of them are insane enough already.

[Giant2005]

Actually it was four, one update included 2 sessions (a weekend of playing) but you make a valid point. I hadn't thought of it like that. Ronin, Cazie, Robot, in my defense it all seemed to make so much sense at the time?

As for Paradise, yes it is a difficult society to wrap your head around. I actually based it off FRAGLE ROCK, I am not messing with you here either. It is an anarchic utopian society where people are policed by their own moral compass and have to rely on their own abilities. The Kitani are there to stop riots and clean up corpses off the street but for the most part everyone just does whatever they want and are policed by their fears.

For Example:
"Sorry Jack, we don't stock explosives no more since that yahoo bought a bunch of em and did all that damage over at the old Weapon's emporium. I just don't want that kind of trouble."

You **** off enough people... they lynch you to death. You walk around in a suit of power armor the average citizen isn't going to mess with you... you steal vegetables from the onion-headed people (They're in World Book: Mad Haven) they butcher you and use you to fertilize their fields. I mean, what can stop them?

It's a society that only really works because the people want it to... because without even the illusion of society... well, lets just say most of them are insane enough already.

Firstly I have to say that I laughed hysterically after the Fraggle Rock confession .
Secondly, I have to ask for a little more details about the structure of Paradise. With reference to the lynching, who exactly is responsible for that? Is the wronged party solely responsible for carrying that out (or deciding that person looks too tough, it'd be crazy to oppose him and leave him to it), are all the citizens members of groups of pseudo-gangs that look out for each other and help out with the lynching process or does the entire town get behind it and aid complete strangers that they feel have been wronged by someone abusing the system?
Thirdly, I have to apologize for my unnecessary and probably annoying questions on the subject. Thankfully there are no Ninjas hiding in my closet.

[Akashic Soldier]

Thankfully there are no Ninjas hiding in my closet.

*waits for the d4 to drop*


Hey, wait! I *am* a ninja! Muahaha. Some of us are independent of the dice. *rummages through the closet*

I've actually always wanted to play a ninja character or two in a good game. I can never choose between mystic ninja, tech ninja, samurai, or cyber samurai. And then there's the ninja borg...

I do love the Japan book

It's a good book.

To answer the question about Paradise all of the above. There are gangs and "crime" and they hold a lot more power in Paradise than they do in healthy societies because crime offers a further illusion of protection. The average person however is limited to friends and family avenging the injustice... but again... the intrinsic human need for justice and structure means that most of the time it is remarkably easy to rally people to your cause. Then there are the people who are just looking for an excuse to kick in someone's head under the veil of justice so they can take their things.

It really is a mess. Most of the time people are just happy going about their buisness and advancing their own needs. Other times... well... You've seen what happens if you upset an ants nest. And the unfortunate thing is it might only take saying the wrong thing to someone who is having a bad day.

Ultimately the people are selfish, invested in their own needs so the really nice folks only do right by you if they like you and then normally to keep you in debt. There is a lot of charity... but never without strings attached.

Then there are the madman, the bedlam, the millionaires turned beggar and yesterday's important people. They're the bottom rung of society. The people everyone can look at and take comfort in knowing you're better off than.

However, the thing to remember is everyone is allowed to do whatever they want according to the Splynn and so a lot of the time people are scared to stop someone from doing something. So you can't stop someone stealing your TV but you can murder him with a meat cleaver a week later and move your things into his house. You can't legally stop a pedophile molesting your daughter but you can rape his wife and then chop her up and leave her in the fridge for when he gets home.

It's a dark and twisted place.

[Akashic Soldier]

ATTENTION PLAYERS: "Good News Everybody!" says Akashic Soldier in his best Professor Farnsworth impression.

I am happy to inform everyone that Andrew (for those voyeurs among you he is the guy who introduced me to Rifts many years ago) will hopefully be joining us during our next game session. At least that is my hope. He said that he would be interested in playing a Head Hunter who is from Paradise. So it looks like you will be stuck with a little piece of Paradise with you always, even after you're chased screaming from its walls by a biomantic Splynn Godzilla-beast! (Foreshadowing) Pretty cool huh?

Unfortunately Troy (Jack Ryder) is really tied up and bogged down with Spider-man's greatest burden... yup responsibility! So we might (worse case scenario) have a three week gaming delay. Which is a real kick in the pants since I already have the next game session ready to launch and it's going to be one of the most fun to boot!

I could launch without Troy but without Lindsay (Al'Lan/The Ronin) due to break from the constant madness, Andrew would be stuck with Zac (Alfonse) as the only other player and I'd like his first session to give him a bit of a feel of the party dynamic. So I am going to keep the game on hold until we can all get an afternoon free. It will just work out best that way for everyone. Besides you guys are going to need all the help you can get dealing with Doctor Bastardstro's rogue nano-virus before it turns everything in North America into THIS!

If I am going to tell everyone the truth I am kind of apprehensive of having this be the first adventure Andrew is exposed too but because of the time sensitive nature of the events that occurred last session I can't really afford to postpone it and maintain the air of realism surrounding plot progression.

...

...

...



What?!

Anyway, I have rambled on enough - I have lots planned for the next game, I hope everyone has fun and I look forward to seeing you all around the table!

Game On!

Spoiler:

BEWARE!! -- Anyone caught in the radius of the nano-virus will be killed and turned into My Little Pony's, dancing asparagus or something even more horrible!

EDIT: This was Lyndsay's big chance to "save the world" and be a hero like he always wanted... unfortunately as he can't handle shouldering such a burden it looks like you guys are going to have to step up. Sorry guys! I promise this will be the last Justice League/Avenger level threat I throw at you in a long time. Just make sure no one asks to save the planet again... or else I'll make you.

[Giant2005]

Spoiler:

BEWARE!! -- Anyone caught in the radius of the nano-virus will be killed and turned into My Little Pony's, dancing asparagus or something even more horrible!

Is this a legitimate spoiler, as in have you just told us what Al'Lan's next transformation will be?

[Akashic Soldier]

Spoiler:

BEWARE!! -- Anyone caught in the radius of the nano-virus will be killed and turned into My Little Pony's, dancing asparagus or something even more horrible!

Is this a legitimate spoiler, as in have you just told us what Al'Lan's next transformation will be?

Not so long as I have control of At'Lan's robot body it won't be! Al'Lan can wish for death or the ability to be indistinguishable from Hello Kitty as much as he wants but it's not going to happen to At'Lan, not on my watch.

Hrrmm.... If they want to get rid of the Robot than they have to destroy it! But I guess if Al'Lan could wrestle control of the body than walk it into the nanites it could be. But as his player is unlikely to be there I am just going to doubt that happens.

[Akashic Soldier]

Bumb!

[Giant2005]

Spoiler:

BEWARE!! -- Anyone caught in the radius of the nano-virus will be killed and turned into My Little Pony's, dancing asparagus or something even more horrible!

Is this a legitimate spoiler, as in have you just told us what Al'Lan's next transformation will be?

Not so long as I have control of At'Lan's robot body it won't be! Al'Lan can wish for death or the ability to be indistinguishable from Hello Kitty as much as he wants but it's not going to happen to At'Lan, not on my watch.

Hrrmm.... If they want to get rid of the Robot than they have to destroy it! But I guess if Al'Lan could wrestle control of the body than walk it into the nanites it could be. But as his player is unlikely to be there I am just going to doubt that happens.

I would have thought it would be far more likely to happen with the player gone than it would with his presence. I don't know of many players that would willingly transform their beloved characters into My Little Pony replicas .

[Akashic Soldier]

I would have thought it would be far more likely to happen with the player gone than it would with his presence. I don't know of many players that would willingly transform their beloved characters into My Little Pony replicas .

What was it he said again...?

Oh yeah!

"I just want the madness to stop."

[Akashic Soldier]

TOMORROW AFTERNOON/NIGHT ALL!

There will also be a viewing of Justice League: Doom for those who show up early.

[Scott Gibbons]

TOMORROW AFTERNOON/NIGHT ALL!

There will also be a viewing of Justice League: Doom for those who show up early.

GAH! Now you're really making me jealous!

[kogwar]

I need a little advice...

I love to hear what you guys think I should or could do to improve the game.

Ummmmmm...
Reading this felt like being immersed, unpreapared, into an FLCL or Exel-Saga episode without benefit of rum or hard-cider to cushion the blow to the grey-matter.

...
I got nothin'

I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing.
Maybe I shouldnt be a storyteller after all. lol

Nagh man I started with dh and some bad campaigns (more one offs) that I would rather not talk about but they are some damn good memories remember it is a art that takes time.

[Akashic Soldier]

Nagh man I started with dh and some bad campaigns (more one offs) that I would rather not talk about but they are some damn good memories remember it is a art that takes time.

Malone is a head hunter passing through Paradise after a motley crew of Space Australian Mutants including renegade baby-eating Wild Rusty Binnaway, Bruiser Road Hog (literally) Jones and the meek monotreme Echidna spell-singer simply known as "Pr!ck!" but during his hunt happens upon Jack Ryder who, Alfonse and Lei as they hide out in an alley and argue over if they should go recover Al'Lan's body or not. After Jack turns and Malone notices that he is not one of the Space Australian mutants he approaches the group to gather information. Although it was rocky for a moment and it looked like Malone was going to have to burn a hole in Alfonse's leg Jack was able calm down the situation and got everyone talking.

(There was much laughing but I cannot recall every line to do it justice)

In conclusion the team agrees to assist Malone tracking down the Outback Phreaker Road Gang and put an end to their cattle wrangling, baby-eating, pedestrian hitting ways. They track the mutants to a downed spaceship that has been modified into a local club/bar/general hive of scum and villainly called The Steaming Pile and then set up a stakeout across the street and wait for the right opportunity for one of them to leave the others so they can "Kill them hard."

(Again there was a lot of priceless dialog but without the other players to remind me I can't recall it exactly, everyone was laughing -- Malone was great.)

After 15 or so minutes of waiting Alfonse leaves the stakeout and slashes the valves on Boara Jone's jeep and then goes back into hiding. Hours later when the motley crew stagger from the Steaming Pile and Boara finds his tired flat he flies into a rage, flipping his jeep across the street--

<-- The Players

--And going into a mad rage where he savagely beats several of the people huddled around their motor bikes outside. The players keep their cool and don't blow their location and after 10 or so minutes of explosive violence Rusty and Pr!ck are able to calm down their team mate. Only now their only mode of transport is Rusty's hover bike. So they kick around for a bit trying to think of what to do then Rusty comes up with a plan and they begin walking back across town. Alfonse, Lei and Malone keep tags on them but Jack breaks off and goes and gets his tow-truck and recovers the jeep (which it is obvious Boara Jones cares deeply for despite tossing it in his rage).

The mutants make it back across town to Hank's Weapon's Emporium and General Motor Repairs and then smash in the front of the building and taking everything that isn't nailed down. Hank puts up a bit of a fight but when Pr!ck fills the room with smoke he is firing blind and so retreats into the back and seals himself in the weapons locker vault. Boara kicks the door a couple of times leaving boot prints in it (supernatural strength 22) but then Rusty tells him they'll deal with that later and to finish lootin' first.

Alfonse decides that he is going to cast a spell at Pr!ck but draws the attention of Rusty who calls him out and asks if he wants any trouble. Alfonse runs away as fast as he can with Lei close en-toe. Meanwhile Hank calls in his favor from Jack for helping to repair and rebuild the Cyborg recovered from the first session (still in progress). Jack gets worried and so speeds to the location, passes Alfonse running the other way (clearly a breach of their original plan), shakes his head and then spins around the corner releasing the tow-cable so that Boara's jeep tumbles across the street and into the front of the store.

<-- Rusty, Boara, and Pr!ck.

All three of the Outback Phreakers fail their dodge roll and are hit by the car. On the following turn Rusty crawls free, brings up his laser rifle and approaches Jack... meanwhile Boara and Pr!ck struggle to get free from under the explosion. While keeping Jack covered and locked in his sights Rusty things that Jack is amusing for the same reason you or I might think seeing a penguin in a little hat is amusing. "Oi, Lads... it thinks its people!" he laughs. Before advancing on him slowly and asking what his game is. Jack realizes the windshield of his SDC craft isn't going to stand up to a blast from that rifle so casually opens the door and steps out, leaving one hand on the stock rifle sitting on the front seat and then they have a brief chat and Rusty learns that Jack isn't from Space Australia and that there is a another place called Australia on this planet and then Jack asks Rusty is gasoline is explosive in Space Australia because of "that" and points over Rusty's shoulder. Although he fails his fast-talking skill check Rusty still looks (but is not surprised when Jack pulls up the rifle and opens fire on him), and at that exact moment Malone (who is still in position) open fires on the car's fuel tank (as the car was on its side now) and the entire car explodes.

Boara and Pr!ck are able to crawl free but are worse for wear and although Boara is in a rage and as a Razorback mutant does not feel pain is relatively unaffected but Pr!ck cannot concentrate to cast spells and as she had taken a massive brunt of the explosion directly to her hit points she is worse for wear. Then to make matters even worse for them Alfonse chimes in at initiatives end with a well-timed Fuel Flames spell that Pr!ck is able to reflect with a spell she had cast prior to being hit by the car (can't recall its name off the top of my head but I think it is a 6th level(?) invocation in the BoM). Realizing that she can turn back spells Alfonse declares he is "putting all his power into it" and casts the spell a second time and then rolls a natural 20 (very awesome moment) and she is unable to successfully bounce the spell back with a roll of 6 and so both Pr!ck and Bora are engulfed in an even larger fire. By this point Pr!ck is unable to concentrate or cast spells and so is useless but Boara flies into a berserk rage and charges the nearest person (Jack).

After narrowly dodging some of Jack's wild fire Rusty and Jack are dancing around Jack's truck shooting back and forth at one another in a hail of hits and misses as Pr!ck screams in agony and runs for an open blast hole in the street leading into the sewer to put out the fire. Seeing Boara approach Jack begins a tactical withdrawal as Malone lies down suppression fire that just seems to bounce off Boara. When Boara gets into Melee he picks up Jacks truck and plans on smashing him to death with it (as Jack has used all his defenses avoiding Rusty's volley of attacks) but through Jack's cunning and planning (but mostly luck) Bora is JUST unable to reach Jack with the truck so instead in his rage tosses it at him. Boara rolls a 6 (or 7, I can't recall exactly) and we assume that Jack is about to look like what my fiance will after I wreck her on our honeymoon... you know; torn, crying and wishing for death) but then I remember that a roll of 8 or lower automatically misses with ranged attacks so Jack watches in slow motion as the car tumbles within inches of his face and then skids across the street to stop against the wall.

Frustrated at Pr!ck "being a useless ***** again" (when she jumped into the sewer she took nearly maximum damage from the fall and was reduced to 0 HP), Rusty leaves Jack to be raped by Boara (Rusty suggested Boara do more than kill him, he rape him for damaging his jeep to make sure its personal and they're even). Jack jumps down the hole to roll Pr!ck off her face so she doesn't drown... and then fails his climb check to get back out and blames Pr!ck's uselessness on getting them into trouble yet again.

Meanwhile back on the street level Jack is doing his damn best to stay out of close combat with the rampaging warthog mutant as Alfonse (from across the street) releases arc after arc of lightning into the beast and Malone empties clip after clip into the back of the hulking beastie as they SLOWLY blast their way through his layers of armor and then as Jack is cornered Malone breaks out the Splynn Slaver Net Gun that was liberated by Lei from the Blind Warrior Women and takes a shot at Boara, he dodges the first pulse but the second snares him... or should I say, hog ties him. With a steeling roar Boara's milkly bloodshot eyes tremble with an indescribable rage as he tries to get out of the net ineffectually as the entire party full-auto's everything they have into the prone pig-person.

Against all rhyme and reason there were no less than 5 natural 20's and I rolled to determine the injuries. After three rounds of constant fire from the party, Boara's eyes had been blown out of his skull, his throat was blown out, he had lost a long, had brain damage penalizing his skill, and was suffering a -4 to -8 to actions based off hand eye coordination as his body would no longer respond correctly to the commands his brain gave it. However after a fourth round of shooting Boara he finally succumb to his injuries and stopped thrashing around inside the Magic Net bindings. They reduced him to exactly 0 MDC but he regenerates but they didn't know that. Using his imitate voice successfully Jack pretends to be Boara and claims that everyone is dead (as Rusty cannot see street level to know what is happening) and Rusty orders the moron to come and get them out. Though Jack's plan is interrupted when Malone and Alfonse wander over to the whole, trap the unconscious Pr!ck and Rusty in another Magic Net and then begin bombarding them with everything they had. As an SDC creature with 0 HP/SDC remaining Pr!ick was nearly instantly killed but Rusty begged for his life as his armor was blown away. Jack couldnt bring himself to killing the rabid Dingo Mutant as he begged for his life and had no part of it. Realizing he was going to get no mercy from the Headhunter and Ley Line Walker Rusty takes another blast and then makes a successful Performance skill check to fake his death (I didn't tell the players that is what I was doing.)

But as soon as Rusty "dies" Alfonse says to the Malone "Nah, he's not dead. I do this trick all the time." And so Malone nods and then fills the ditch with another hail of hot-plasma death and then weighs in with his vibro knife and takes their heads to claim the bounty while Alfonse rifles through their belongings for anything of value. Meanwhile back up on the street after hearing what Alfonse said he is staring at Boara's body and worried that it might actually be able to regenerate and is scared of him coming back after him after seeing how much punishment he could take (720 MDC including Armour). So he takes out his trusty Australian BOOM BOOM (Rifts: Australia) and puts it to the back of Boara's skull along his spine and shoots... Boaras guts are blasted out his ******* and wash half way up the street in a gory moment of carnage-ridden ultraviolence. Boara is very dead now.

After looting their weapons and almost $2,000 Space Australian Dollars and then head off to the bounty hunters guild (which is run by the Splnn) to collect their reward. Malone generously splits the reward right down the middle so they each receive one third of the total reward and there is much relief. Then Alfonse notices his Jet Pack on the wall, recognizes it instantly, and asks to buy it. When they tell him that it is going to cost 17,000 credits (the standard price of a Wilk's Jet Pack as new) he complains that it is his and he refuses to pay that much. After much negotiation he reluctantly pays 18,000 credits and earns himself a reputation as being a pain in the ass (MA 6 remember people).

After much friendly chatter they head out and Alfonse uses his jet pack to get their first look at The Cute as the nano-virus spreads across the city. Alfonse explains that The Cute must be stopped because if world-peace spreads across the globe than all things will be equal and there will be no way for him to better himself in this world. He also explains that everything the nano-bots capture they mutilate and then process into part of The Cute. The Hello Kitty Lookalikes and panda-people are not people that have been transformed they are meat that has been reprocessed and turned into mindless, soulless, (and magicless) machines.

Above the city within the bounds of The Cute the giant Awesome Faces rocket around spewing out rainbows and transforming anything they collide with into Cute-Constructs before happily bouncing back into the glimmering blue sky filled with floating apple pies and sunshine (despite the fact that it is the middle of the night.) After realizing that this is obviously the work of Dr. Bastardstro (because no one else has such a mastery of nano-technology and they instantly realize this ISN'T a magical disaster because of Alfonse's Ley Line Walker sight.). Alfonse calls Dr. Bastardstro and as is routine put on wait indefinitely... luckily he remembers to use the # trick and bypasses the wait and is put through directly to the not-so-good Doctor.

Alfonse completely botches the negotiations but Bastardstro is desperate enough (after losing his lab and having no way of stopping the virus) to put up with Alfonse's attitude and clumsy attempts to convince him long enough for Alfonse to reveal that he knows where The Legendary Jack Ryder is. Bastardstro then pinpoints their location and Jack shoots daggers out of his eyes at Alfonse who shrugs, and then he runs off and hides while Alfonse dresses up Lei in Jack clothes.

When Dr. Bastardstro arrives he thinks that "Jack looks smaller than I'd thought he would be in real life" but continues down to confront them and deliver his well-rehearsed evil genius speech. However before he can address them he notices a Splynn run building (the mercenary guild) and then unloads the arsenal of the battlethrone into the store destroying it, killing most of the mercenaries (those who flee he does not gun down unless they have blatant signs of Splynn alliances on their uniforms).

He is unimpressed when he learns that Lei is not Jack but engages Alfonse to insult his idiocy before preparing to leave. Alfonse manages to draw some information out of him, learning that if they can move through Lolly Land and get into the building that uses to be his old building (while airborne and protected by a force-field) and they could somehow get into the main computer they could in theory reprogram them. Unfortunately as the main computer has become a giant twinky he cannot access the nanite programing directly and there are no other labs with sufficient equipment to stop its advance in Paradise City. Alfonse then attempts to appeal to Dr. Bastardstro's humanity and says that he will be heralded as a hero if he helps them stop it. This was the straw that broke the camels back--Jack Ryder face palmed from his hiding place--and then Bastardstro scrunches up his face, whizzes across the street and then holds up someone leaving a building with casual conversation long enough to stall them so their parking meter expires and they get a ticket then zooms off down the street on his throne swerving to hit small children and family pets wherever able.

The team regroup and grumble and mumble trying to think of what to do. They know they need a flying craft and a force field but there is nothing they can do. After another thirty minutes of sweating and running in circles they contact Bastardstro again and convince him that they have a way of communicating with the nanites and Jack Ryder is with them now so Bastardstro returns and Alphonse shows him the Cyber Jack he was given by The Future People while he was living in South America. Bastardstro looks it over (secretly scans it with his cyber eye and downloads its schematics) and learns that it would work and so agrees to assist them and lowers the force-field around his battle-throne. When the players step on to the throne they all save against pain as they are jolted with a huge surge of incapacitating electricity. They all make the same by miles to the shagrin of Doctor Bastardstro who shrugs innocently. Alfonse reluctantly gets back on the platform but Jack waits at the edge of The Cute as Dr. Bastardstro powers back up the force field and heads into the infected area with Alfonse aboard.

After surfing through the cute and avoiding the giant teddy bears and lollypop men they are able to blast their way into Bastardstro's old lab (which is now a giant ice cream factory) and destroy the giant robot rainbow bright dolls guarding the twinky before Alfonse heroically risks his life plugging his Cyber Jack into the Giant Computer-Twinky and reprogramming the virus so that it no longer advances and the active units power down. He is able to hack their programming fast enough that he is unaffected by The Cute and is further able to bluff Bastardstro that it is taking longer than he thought so that he has enough time to unjack and rocket off on his jet pack before Bastardstro can make pursuit. With his lab ruined beyond repair and the nanites reprogrammed so that they will automatically convert any other nano-technology within the bounds of Lolly Land into their own nano-machines Bastardstro realizes that he can no longer operate at maximum efficiency within Paradise and prepares to relocate... but first he radios through to The Electric Kitten Force and orders them to form Joltron so they can attack the Splynn and then press the attack to Atlantis as one last act of defiance.

However in this time the Electric Kitten Force have learned that Dr. Bastardstro intends to use Jack Ryder as a weapon and keep him alive and refuse to work with him as they were all loyal to their handsome Tom Cat Mr. Pants and they want to murder Jack to avenge him. Off camera Bastardstro flies into a rage as he struggles against the forceful feminine feline fem fatals to remind them who they REALLY work for and who designed the E.K.F and Joltron!

Previously back outside Lolly Land...

Each of the largest buildings arc with Ley Line Energy as darkness rolls across the sky and then three huge pulses of blue energy from the top of the three tallest buildings in the city fire to a point forming a pyramid of light in the sky that tears a rift open in the sky. Emerging from this rift is a single giant eye that fills the sky. Then with a booming deep voice Lord Splynnkryth orders all Kittani and Alterrain to return to Atlantis. Jack and Malone look back down at one another as the Rift in the sky closes and the city is wracked with terrible earth quakes.

The City of Paradise begins rioting out of control as fear grips the city and the Juicer Murder-Dome is collapsed as the Splynn-City Killer Rasma bursts up from beneath the city and begins its mad rampage of slaughter and gauges itself on the solves of all those who fall beneath its unforgiving rage.

Spoiler:

Rasma
Splynn City-Killer

This terrifying biomantic behemoth resembles an enormous wingless dragon that stands at a whopping 118 feet tall, with a body length approaching of 280 feet. Rasma was created by Lord Splynnkryth as a means to wipe out the former Almana City of Paradise should he lose control of it. Currently this terrible gargantuan reptile slumbers beneath the City in a deep hibernation, in this state Rasma is harmless. However, should this monotonicity be awoken it will emerge from the earth and begin its unstoppable rampage.

When awakened by the call of its Master Rasma the City-Killer will destroy everything in its path, pausing only every thirty minutes to draw in the essence and souls of all those killed within a five mile radius. The essence of the dead is absorbed as if the victims were used in a ritual sacrifice and the appropriate P.P.E is stored within the belly of the terrible beast. During the absorption phase Rasma will inhale torrents of souls and sprout new rows of reptilian teeth with each man-sized tooth housing the soul and dormant mind of each of its victims. Unknown to anyone but the Lord of Atlantis himself if removed from the mouth of Rasma (by inflicting 25 points of MD) and saturated in a high P.P.E environment the tooth will eventually (1D4 weeks) hatch a perfect living replica of the soul housed within. Beings hatched from the Teeth (normally to be used as slaves or as valuable sources of information) awaken naked and in a haze, making them easy to overpower (-4 penalty to all actions, 1 Action Per Melee for twenty four hours thereafter) and are reborn without any cybernetic or bionic implants or any other non-magical augmentation process. This means that Juicer's do not suffer from withdrawal and Full-Conversion Cyborgs might find themselves reminded of the fragility of mortal life or momentarily thankful for a chance to truly live again. Furthermore, aged or elderly beings slain by the beast who are hatched from the Teeth will be reborn in their prime.

The only way to prevent Rasma from drawing in the P.P.E and Souls of the fallen is to deal a collective 500 MDC to Rasma during the Melee he begins inhaling. If so wounded Rasma will be interrupted and fly into a rage (50%) and try to destroy his attackers or flee the range of their attack and continue his rampage elsewhere. When all life is destroyed or subjugated Rasma will begin moving to the nearest Ley Line where it will begin absorbing vast amount of Ley Line Energies as per a Ley Line Walker. If able to absorb more than 1,000 points of P.P.E from a Ley Line or means other than the ritual feeding process Rasma will become rebellious and wild. In this state he will not answer to Lord Splynnkryth and will readily attack Kitani, Blind Warrior Women and Splugorth Minions and vehicles as readily as he would any other. Lord Splynnkryth is well-aware of this flaw in Rasma's design and will do everything within his power to retrieve Rasma and exert his will over him before this happens. While wild Rasma's IQ increases to 5 and he becomes able to recognize acts of charity and kindness and may show mercy under certain circumstances. Unfortunately while wild Rasma will also remember ill's performed against him and will hold grudges or mistrust (or devour) those who have attempted to do him harm.

Alignment: Animal (As anarchist or miscreant), While Wild: Unprincipled.
Attributes: IQ: 1 (5 if Wild), ME: 17, MA: 28, PS: 60 (Supernatural), P.P: 8, P.E: 44, PB: 3, SPD: 88 (60 mph/96 kmph).
Disposition: An unstoppable juggernaut driven by an insatiable hunger for destruction. While Wild: A curious juggernaut that can be pacified by soothing music or being pampered... but is unforgiving when it does not have its own way.
Horror Factor: 17
MDC-- 95,000 MDC
P.P.E: 1,000 (Upon awakening)
Natural Abilities: Nightvision 1000 feet (305 m; can see in total darkness), see the invisible, bio-regeneration 4D6 x 10M.D.C. per melee round (15 seconds), doesn't need to breathe air, can swim on or under water, impervious to poison and disease, impervious to harmful effects of Ley Line Storms.
Supernatural Abilities:
Bio-Battery: Rasma's unique physiology gives it an effectively unlimited P.P.E Maximum. Lord Splynnkyth is able to use a custom made TW Device in his possession to siphon and store this P.P.E. If (by any means) Rasma's P.P.E is reduced to 100 or lower the creature will attempt to flee to a place of safety and return to dormancy until it's base P.P.E has naturally regenerated.
Drink P.P.E: Rasma will stop whatever he is doing every thirty minutes (to the second) and give up all his actions to use this ability. While using this ability Rasma regenerates 4D6x100 MD and any death that has occured within five miles of Rasma that was not immediately harvested by another Magic-User is considered a ritual sacrifice and will be absorbed by Rasma automatically.
Drink Souls: As mentioned above, when Rasma stops to Drink P.P.E he will also drink the souls of the fallen. Soul drank by Ramsa will be absorbed his body and prompt the growth of extra rows of human-sized teeth inside the mighty monster's mouth. These teeth may be harvested or plucked from the creatures mouth by inflicting 25 MD per tooth. If stored in a high-magic environment such as a Ley Line Nexus or Pyramid the tooth will hatch a new body for the soul imprisoned within. For more information on this process see Rasma's description.
Its Freaking Huge!: Rasma's natural attacks are treated as area of effect attacks and cannot normally be parried. Furthermore, whenever the creature moves through an occupied area anyone within said area is struck by the beast. Treat this as a normal attack but only with a +1 to strike and inflict 1D4x10 M.D.
Burrow: Rasma moves through the earth at half its normal movement speed. It is especially fond of bursting up beneath larger prey and snatching them out of the air. (+10 to ambush while subterranean), the tunnels formed by Rasma's burrowing have a 65% chance of collapsing behind him as he digs, those which do not remain and likely lead directly to the beast.
Skills: None of Note.
Combat Skills:
Number of Attacks: 3
Bite -- 2D6 x 10 MD
Claw Strike -- 1D6 x 10 MD
Tail Strike -- 2D6 x 10 MD
Shark Scale Explosion -- 2D4 x 10 MD (Area of Effect: 25 yard Area of Effect from Rasma's body) Can only be used once every five melee rounds.
Body-Blow-- 5D6 x 10 MD
Killing Breath -- 1D10 x 100 MD (P.P.E Cost: 500, Area of Effect: 100 yard length, 40 foot width) Rasma does not like expending P.P.E and only uses this attack for dealing with exceptionally troublesome foes. Rasma can perform no other actions during the round it uses this attack.
Bonuses: +2 Initiative, +8 Strike, +5 parry, +10 dodge (often causes massive collateral damage), +8 Roll with Impact or Fall, +12 to save vs Magic, +4 to save vs Psionics.

Alfonse rejoins the gang and they load into Malone's truck as Rasma's rampage goes on uncontested. The City of Paradise is raped and destroyed by this titanic beast as the souls of the dead are harvest to be used as fuel in Lord Splynnkryth's wild ambitions. The guards lock the gates to slow the masses as they flee to better their chances of survive turning the populous of Paradise even further on itself as they scramble for freedom and the PC's speed around (unfortunately running over and killing many in their path) as they try to save their favorite NPC's and get them into Malone's truck without losing it to the mad grasping hands of the irrational masses!

With Hank and two of his three store hands, the cyborg, and Travis the Ley Line Tailor who fixed Alfonse's armor cramped into the massive MDC vehicle they speed to the nearest exist but find themselves sealed in. Cracking out a missile launcher and one of their three missiles (originally gathered to use against the high-speed Awesome-Faces zooming around spreading The Cute) Jack leans out the window and blows open the gates sending everyone scattering out of the city as the enormous leviathan roars and inhails the souls of the fallen in the distance behind them!

The team makes a B-Line for Alfonse's airport and learn the story of Rasma from Lei (who had learned it from her parents who are now dead because of Rasma's rampage). They learned that as legend goes Rasma is one of Lord Splynncryth's doomsday weapons, a gargantuan beast many people of Paradise City thought was merely a legend used to scare small children. As it goes generations ago when the Splynn t came to seize the Almana and conquer Paradise they were met with a formidable dimensional resistance and so to breach these defenses the Lord of Atlantis sent Rasma the devourer who purged the city. After they had surrendered and given themselves (and the Almana) over to Atlantis Lord Splynncryth found the betrayal of the people fascinating and so used a song (how he did this varies and some accounts say it was the last Almana princess) to put Rasma to sleep beneath the city and when he grew bored with it he would reawaken him and he would destroy Paradise and drink all of the energy of the world.

Jack has an idea and everyone is sweating hard. Once they get into the airport Travis the Ley Line Walker tells them that they are mad and they must flee and then leaves for the nearby Ley Line to escape the disaster because "When it is done destroying the city Rasma will come to the nearest Ley Line to drink and the airport is smack between Paradise and the Ley Line!"

Jack goes to the Cats Eye Dragon Hatchling that insists on being called "Little God" and asks if he will use his draconian-abilities to create an enormous horn/didgeridoo. Little God tells Jack that he will need a tree from the Mystic Forest that bridges the gap between Paradise proper and the farm lands. Jack races off on his hoverbike and finds a series of corpses (many of them guards) sprawled out lifelessly at the boarder to the forest and lined rank in file just within the boundaries of the wood are the Lycanthropes in their timber wolf forms--quiet and waiting like a smug army preparing for war.

Jack asks them to assume a form that he can communicate with and the leader of the Black Wolf Clan transforms into man wearing a wolf pelt. Jack asks why they killed the peopl and the wolves explain because they were cowards and you cannot live by fleeing death. Jack then explains to the leader of the Black Wolf Clan that he needs a tree from their wood to defeat Rasma. He is openly mocked for such nonsense and reveal that as immortals empowered by the forest goddess they would deal with Rasma when he was done ridding them of the ever-troublesome City of Paradise but if they are amused by the proposal so they allow Jack to enter and choose a tree, which he does and Little God begins calving the didgeridoo.

Meanwhile...
Unwilling to throw away everything they've worked for Alfonse and Hank are busting their humps to put together a radio scrambler with a range large enough that it will be able to project the sound over all radio frequencies so that Rasma will hear it no matter where he is. Its a grueling effort made by all but once it is complete in another uncharacteristically heroic moment Alphonse takes the scrambler and takes off back to Paradise to connect it to one of the radio transmitter towers so the signal can get the boost it needs. Ignoring the warnings from Lei that Rasma is attracted to magical energy and he will standout like a beckon Alphonse zooms off at maximum speed.

Although attracted to his location Alphonse is above to avoid being found by the lumbering leviathan (mostly because of TERRIBLE perception rolls) and he is able to hook up the mass-scrambler override device and then get back out of the city while being within 10 feet of Rasma (and certain death) on a few occasions without getting caught. It was a night of blessed dice for the heroes!

Speaking of which...

Everyone is huddled around Jack's player. I've told them that I am not the kind of Game Master who fudges things and if he cannot make under his MA on the unskilled check than Rasma will continue its rampage unimpeded. Tensions are high, stress and sweat beads are building on Jack's players forehead... the entire time he's been rolling and rerolling without success while everyone else does their part and now comes the time for the real throw of the dice.

He's got 21% chance of success because of his natural charm.

He throws the dice.

Success!

Everyone applauds!

The adrenaline runs high, everyone is overwhelmed and filled with that feeling of overcoming great odds and as the didgeridoo plays Jack's song across the city and the Little God's magic carries the Aussie Deadtime essence across the City of Paradise the mighty Rasma grows weary and then slowly lumbers back across the town and burrows back into the earth beneath the shattered remains of the Juicer Murder Dome!

END SESSION!!

As the session wound down and everyone celebrated escaping their imminent doom (and tried to ignore the fact that 2/3rd of Paradise's population had been killed and their souls and life force absorbed by the Splynn City-Killer) Jack earned the respect of the Lycanthropes who calved the story of how Rasma was defeated into the didgeridoo which they then displayed in an open grove under a place constantly lit by moonlight and offered him a place among them (currently undecided if he will take it), the guys agree that they will give control of the [i]New City of Paradise to Little God to rule justly on his journey towards enlightenment, and Lei wept the death of her parents (who were killed by Rasma), but over all it was an amazing session!

My players never cease to surprise me! They not only managed to pull together and save the world from the Nano-virus and temporarily defeat Bastardstro and drive out the Splugorth influence in Paradise but they also came up with a creative and innovative way of bringing down an unstoppable titan and a way of reestablishing order within the city following the catastrophe![/i]

I hope I didn't miss anything TOO awesome!

[DhAkael]

word.

[Grell]

word.

To your mother.

[Akashic Soldier]

I dont think I understood either of those comments. For those looking, the last game update is at the bottom of page 1.

[DhAkael]

I dont think I understood either of those comments. For those looking, the last game update is at the bottom of page 1.

*pats on head*
Just nod & smile.
It's a North-American 80's thing

[Noon]

I Can't say that if I was seriously expected to try and play this (ie, try to avoid my character getting killed, actually think about stuff, etc), I would like it.

GM does crazy crap - deal with it? Why bother, just more and more crazy crap will turn up without any relevance to prior PC choices (except in the most shallow sense).

As a spectator (not trying to play a character or do any bookwork) sure, it's funny. Except even then I'm left wondering how much the players are grinding their teeth and I'm not that big into schadenfreude.

Unlike the cyborg boy, I'd suggest having some situations which the PC's must make a choice right now, or the situation (in actual real life minutes) will go bad. Eg, A house is on fire, people will die - in a few real life minutes. Don't let the players bluff and bluster for extra time in real life - either their characters whistle and walk past, or do something. Just let the NPC's burn to death after X time and when the players try and shout they do something then, of all times, don't try and do some zany crazy scenario, just flip them the bird and say "The people are dead".

And don't roll a D4!