Fortunate Son (The Gamer)

Looking out over the area, you snorted.

"Manfred, remind me to grab the car when we're done here." you said, flicking out your baton. Pulling your focus together, you snuck towards the store. With catlike tread, you advanced slowly on the store. Alright, there were two of them there. This should be a piece of-

vwwwwwrrrrrrr... went the automatic door, and one of the thugs turned around towards you. Mentally slapping yourself on the face, you rolled to the side as a pair of rounds flew out the door. Running, you pressed yourself against the side of the building, using it as concealment.

"Yo, Abdul! We got company!" the shooter said.

"Gimme a minute!" the second yelled. Moving around, you started looking for ways to get an advantage.

"Manfred, any ideas?" you hissed, ducking as one of the robbers potted a window near you.

"Hmmm..." Manfred said, humming. "Gimme a minute."

As another window blew out, Abdul the Robber yelled at you. "If you don't come out here, I'm gonna pop this kid here!"

Frowning, you growled. You needed to act, now. Snarling, you slammed your baton into the window to the right of you, drawing a hail of bullets. Conviently, this let you dive through a previously-shot window to enter the store. Running through the stands, you managed to get the angle on one of them, using a slide-tackle to take out his legs and a quick baton-pass to the face to stun him. The next one got a nut punch, followed by you leaping up to crack him around the head. There was still one moaning on the ground, though- you hadn't ended him yet. A well-aimed stomp to the throat fixed that little issue, while two swift strikes to the neck did the same to his comrade.

Moments later, you grabbed both the recently-killed bodies by the ankle, and started dragging them out to your new car.

"Kid!" you yelled at the cashier. "How soon till the cops get here"

"ah... er... ten more minutes..." the kid said, gulping.

"Good." you said, chuckling. Moments later, you grinned and stopped, claiming the criminals' guns. "They walked in, alright?"

"Yessir."

Walking out, you looked over the car. It was a beat-up car, the Honda logo on the busted-up hatchback hinting to it's age and manufacture.

"Really, Henri?" Manfred asked, sighing. "A Honda Civic?"

You snorted, opening the hatch and tossing the bodies in easily. "I'll get something better, eventually."

"Still. It's a '73 Honda Civic. Have you no pride?"

Snorting, you checked the fuel gauge and drove off into the night towards the river. You had corpses to dump.

---

It was about ten-thirty the next morning when you woke up, and you groaned quietly. You were stiff, sore, and more than a little grumpy as you opened up a military ration for brunch. You had about two days worth, and more importantly you were filthy after last night. Still, you had gotten two slightly-used sets of clothes, ninety dollars Canadian, and a pair of really, really shitty Tokarov pistols and about thirty rounds ammo.

"How the hell did two crooks get Warsaw Pact weapons, anyway?" you muttered, dissasembling them with deft hands on the clear chunk of concrete you'd made for a table. "Also, these things are- WOAH!"

Tokarov Pistol
7.62x25mm Tokarev Round
Poor Quality
Unreliable, Old, Finicky
4d8 Damage, Bleed x2,

"Oh, hey, last night musta got you enough to use the Item Viewer." Manfred quipped. "That's the five-line brief on it. Name, ammo or dependency, Quality, Item Traits, and Use Traits respectively."

"So they're pieces of shit." you opined.

"Well, yes. However, take 'em apart and knock the worst of the crap off the guts of it, and you can probably take the Finicky trait off."

You groaned. Another thing to put on your 'to-do' list. "Can I do the same to that piece of shit car I got?"

"Yeah."

You moaned again. "God, I need to get some better kit."

"Yep. Speaking of which, what's on the docket for today?"

---

VOTES

[] Quest: House, Hearth, and Home- Your safe house isn't very safe or house-like. Fix that up by cleaning up physically by making a habitable area, and security by taking care of anyone liable to infiltrate while you devise defenses.
-[] House: Get some creature comforts in here, like a bed, stove, etc.
-[] Hearth: Clean the joint up some; make sure it's roughly habitable
-[] Home: Start scouting the area out so you're not surprised by anything 'interesting'

[] Quest: Papers, Please!- You have no documentation or communication, which might make some problems if you run into the law
-[] Alles en Ordung: Poke around for a state ID or something to use to prove you live here.
-[] Eighty-Day Wonder: Get a car so you can move around, and if neccesary go to other areas for reasons.
-[] Squtter's Rights: Find out about your new safe house, and make it yours.

[] Quest: Make a Man out of You- You've got abilities, right? Time to learn how to use them.
-[] No one's as strong as Gaston: Find out your strength the hard way. Time to lift and throw
-[] No one's as quick as Gaston: Time to figure out that Dex stat, and that means sprints and leaps.
-[] No one's as smart as Gaston: Numbers related to intelegence, hmm? Time to use your head and learn what the numbers mean!

[] Your to-do list. God, your to-do list. You can feel it growing as you think.

You sighed miserably. "Papers, Manfred. It's all about papers. More importantly, finding out the paper trail on this old junker of a factory. Time to hit up the city hall."

Grabbing the two Tolkorevs, you slipped into the driver's seat of the Honda Civic. Pushing in the clutch and starting the car, you heard the engine cough, sputter, and a loud BLAM! go out of your exhaust. Stopping the attempt to drive off, you popped the hood and watched a plume of steam pour out.

"Henri, I'm no auto mechanic," Manfred said, chuckling. "But I think your car's fucked."

Stepping out, you focused on pulling up your Item Viewer.

Honda Civic, '73
Gasoline, Midweight Oil, Tires, Antifreeze
Poor Quality
Unreliable, Old, Finnicky, Manual, Conspicuous, Inoperable
120mph, 200 mile range

"Yeah... 'Inoperable' as a trait is bad, right?" you asked.

"That's a problem, yes. Cars usually have a half-dozen Gamer-recognized sub-components, though, and at least four of 'em would need to be screwed up."

"Whelp, time to hoof it over to city hall. Gonna need to put this on my to-do list."

---

At the City Hall, your request for public information went over well, you making small-talk with the clerk as the files got pulled. The short version was that your building was a warehouse and industrial center owned by the Robin Tactician group international, an America-based defense and arms company that seemed to be very busy in Africa and Southeast Asia with arms deals and security contracts.

"Dr. Mercedes wasn't dumb. He knew he needed security, and there were more than a few toughs he could dragoon into it." Manfred exposited, vocally annotating the dull files. "Robin was the chief of security, and was also the one that played shell-games to make it so nobody realized there was a lot of money getting thrown at a lot of places that were... questionable, at best."

"How questionable?" you asked, closing the manilla folder as you went to a coppier to make a personal file.

"You know the Taliban, right? Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, did all sorts of nasty shit. We were funding their Russian arms purchases for a while."

You blinked. "Why?"

"Picking the best out, getting a sounding of the organization. When we pulled funding, they started running out of bullets and bodies real damn fast. At the end of it, we came out pretty damn far ahead- the Russians got our Russian branch involved in building Armatas and Sukohois. Now we can siphon off tanks and jets for next to nothing, and there are a whole shitload of Cold Waer armories we have the keys to."

Shuddering, you left the City Hall and checked off your Bureaucracy skill hitting Level 10. "So, you funded terrorists... to get tanks and planes."

"Well, Robin Tactical did." Manfred explained. "I was with Bosner & Co, our HR company."

"Wait." you said, stopping. "You, a voice in a ring-"

"Terminal cancer patient, actually, but go on."

"-okay, future voice in a ring, did HR?"

Manfred snorted. "Well, yeah. Someone had to do it! How the fuck do you think we've been keeping The Gamer's systems operation for thirty fucking years, hmm? When The Doctor kicked it, all... oh, I'm, gonna say thousand of us, needed to work together to keep the magitech running. HR was a huge part of that!"

"Jesus, just trying to process." you said, waving a hand. "Hey, is that another Random Encounter token blinking?

"Yep. Looks like God decided to bump your CR up some, too. That's no penny-packet encounter you'd be going after. Interested?"

---

VOTES

[] Take the Encounter.
-[] Guns up. Last one was violent, so will this one.
-[] Stealth Mode. Cheeki Breeki time.
-[] Diplo Mode. You are a decent talker.

[] Leave the Encounter, go home, finish your Quest and get XP.