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The Accumulation of Capital (Syndicate/MCU)

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Voting will close in 4 hours and I'll try to get an update up soon after. Ironically, capitalism is to blame for the long update cycle. :V
 
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Tutorial VI
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Attempt to hack the lock using your DART.
    No. of Votes: 4
    Teocraso
    hcvquizibo
    keios
    Pyro Hawk

    With a curt command, you order Johansen and Niall to keep an eye on the —fortunately— still distracted guards as you prepare to make the most of your wealth of borrowed meldware. Striding up to the steel and composite hatch, you kneel down next to where you think the locking mechanism is buried and place your hand against the smooth metal exterior. Closing your eyes, you focus on the mnemonic phrase coded to your DART.

    ─
    \
    |
    /
    ─
    *DART VISION ACTIVE*

    The change feels like a blast of icy wind against bare skin. The nearby firefight, once almost deafening loud fades away until only the dull bass roar of raging fires and explosions are left. The heat and sunlight, once stuffy and burning, disappear from your awareness entirely as it's replaced by a numbness that you can almost feel spreading from your neck down.

    Opening your eyes seems to take an age, the milliseconds stretching out like bitumen on a hot day. Surrounding you, stand your team, their bodies now burning with a furious orange light that fails to even dent the gloomy darkness that now surrounds the five of you like fog. Just beneath the surface of their glowing bodies, you can see maddeningly complex whorls of gold-white light thinner than a hair blaze, while larger and duller loops and sacks lay buried beyond even those.

    Looking down at the now ghostly hatch, you see several orange cables plunging into a dense mess of sapphire light that hangs like a jewel just beneath your hand. With a cold smirk, you scroll through your list of toys and stare into the light.

    ======

    Could I get a roll of 3D6?
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Tutorial VII
  • Threadmarks
    • Nevill said:
    3d6, coming up!

    Pretty good!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    14 versus 12 = success!

    Instantly, a burst of deep crimson light infects the sapphire jewel and sends questing tendrils outward like a drop of blood in water. As the tendrils spread, they wrap themselves around the heads of the snake-like cables and the light within them sputters and dies. An instant later you feel the hatch start to tremble beneath your fingers and with a satisfied smile, you push down the DART overlay until the world snaps back into focus. Immediately, the trembling of the hatch transforms itself into a burst of motion as it smoothly slides away and reveals a portal to a dimly-light service corridor. Looking up, you see that only a few seconds have passed since you started your hack. 9 versus 8 =???

    "Go!" you order and Niall and Johansen snap into action, hurtling into the portal without a hint of hesitation. As soon as they give the all clear, the rest of you follow them in; the sounds of battle dying away as the hatch moves back into place.

    This is… better? You think to yourself as you glance around the corridor. Behind you is nothing but an unpainted steel and concrete wall while before you, guarded by Nial and Johansen, the corridor continues for a dozen meters before terminating in a T-junction.

    What do you do?
    [] Take the left corridor.
    [] Take the right corridor.
    [] Split up and take both.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Also, feel free to suggest other actions if you'd like. Let's face it, I'm not bright enough to think of everything. :V
     
    [q] Stay at the junction, while Niall goes left and Johnson goes right.



    Is there any difference that we can see between the two directions?
     
    [x] Take the right corridor.
    We are too few and there are hostiles inside. Just pick a direction and stick to it.
     
    Last edited:
    pantherasapiens said:
    [q] Stay at the junction, while Niall goes left and Johnson goes right.



    Is there any difference that we can see between the two directions?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The left corridor extends for maybe a half-dozen meters before ending at a pretty standard powered door. The corridor on the right extends for maybe 20 meters before branching, with another door lying just beyond that point. A quick check with your DART overlay reveals several high-capacity data cables buried behind the wall and running down the right corridor.

    You also note that none of the augmented reality signs you'd expect to be present are popping up in your DART's HUD, but that's most likely because you don't have the access codes to the internal network.
     
    First up, the Thermite Gun's image is broken.

    Second, I take it the Adrenal Resurge and Breach Spike descriptions are something that's due to the game you've based this on? Because they're very 'game balance' in nature... Are you going to be running them differently or what?

    Eg: Adrenal Resurge is less 'kill and gain more time' and more 'When involved in combat and attacking, the DART system uses resources to extend the duration that it can run for.'? Or something.
     
    Pyro Hawk said:
    First up, the Thermite Gun's image is broken.

    Second, I take it the Adrenal Resurge and Breach Spike descriptions are something that's due to the game you've based this on? Because they're very 'game balance' in nature... Are you going to be running them differently or what?

    Eg: Adrenal Resurge is less 'kill and gain more time' and more 'When involved in combat and attacking, the DART system uses resources to extend the duration that it can run for.'? Or something.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Bugger, I thought I tested the image. I'll fix it in a tick.

    The descriptions are pretty much taken from the game, yeah. I'm still not 100% sure on whether I'll bother with a proper adrenaline spend and gain system as that seems too grognardy for me, but for now, I'd say that you should take the text as broad guidelines rather than hard rules. If in doubt, feel free to ask me to clarify any point that seems odd.
     
    The vote will close in an hour so I can get to work on the update.
     
    Tutorial VIII
  • Threadmarks
    • Vote Tally : Crossover - Sci-Fi - The Accumulation of Capital (Syndicate/???) | Page 2 | Sufficient Velocity [Posts: 34-40]
    ##### NetTally 1.9.9
    [x] Take the right corridor.
    No. of Votes: 2
    Nevill
    Death and Faxes
    Total No. of Voters: 2

    Making an executive decision based on the logic that more sensitive areas would be located further into the facility, you silently order your team to advance down the right-hand corridor as quickly as possible. With Asha guarding your rear with her modified Kusanagi, and Niall and Johansen taking turns to advance and cover, the rest of your team move swiftly and silently down the spartan corridor; each of you acutely aware of your relative vulnerability as you move into the open air. It's only thanks to years of dealing with the Syndicate equivalent of a pool of piranha that you're able to hide how tense you've become, and you can almost hear your nerves fraying as you strain for any hint of detection.

    Slowly, as you pass by one blank section of corridor wall after another, a feeling that's been bothering you ever since you arrived crystallizes into concern and you look around more closely as you move.

    You know the Church of the New Epoch. Not very well, admittedly, but enough to know that they're the closest things to expert marketers that exist in the apocalyptic cult world and that they can't go anywhere for any length of time without leaving behind some sort of hastily scrawled parable. It's… odd that they haven't done this yet. Especially for a group of cultists as large as this.

    Dismissing the thought as extraneous, you refocus on the mission at hand and continue moving down the corridor before sliding into place next to the junction's entrance and beside Johansen. Almost as one, the two of you crouch and cover the door opposite you with your rifles as Niall, Shaw, and Asha all move into position.

    With your team in place and the area seemingly secure, you take the chance to peek around the corner. Unlike your own corridor which is lit —albeit somewhat dimly— by strips of bio-lume lights set into the top and bottom of the walls, this one is lit by barely-there splotches of dull amber which fade and brighten seemingly at random. If you had night vision equipment it wouldn't even be an obstacle, but this mission had been put together so rapidly that if anyone had thought to send them, they were probably sitting in Nairobi or Pretoria or something.

    "Infrared guide lights", mutters Johansen, "it's probably only meant to be used by delivery 'bots."

    For a moment you pause to consider how you'll clear the corridor before remembering that Shaw's EWAR gear might have something handy. With a flick of your eye, you bring up the accompanying list of contents and break out into a grin made feral by your borrowed body's gaunt face. Turning to face Shaw, you tell him your idea and with a silent nod, he sidles past you, calmly drawing out a loop of hair-thin fibre optic cable from his webbing with one hand. As he stops beside the shadowy entrance to the corridor, he feeds the cable around the corner and as he does so you open a display via you DART.

    =====

    Could someone roll 1D6?
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Tutorial IX
  • Threadmarks
    • 5 versus 4 = Success

    Unsurprisingly for a cable this thin, the infrared feed is both grainy and washed out, and the once dull amber lights now burn brightly enough to drown out their surroundings, but the image is clear enough for you to see that nothing lurks in the corridor's shadows that aren't either invisible or too far away.

    Instantly, relief floods your body, and muscles you didn't realize you were tensing relax. Turning back to the others you order them to:

    [] Advance down the corridor
    [] Move to the door, breach, and clear.
    [] Split up, guard one and advance down the other (which ones?)
    [] Write     in.

    (I swear you guys pass all the rolls I want you to fail :V. Let's see if you can avoid turning the world into a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk wasteland during the tutorial).

    Edit: Also, sorry for the short length today but I went to bed late last night and felt pretty bad this evening. Hopefully, tomorrow will better. :)
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Advance down the corridor

    Could probably clear the room, but is it worth the risk of setting off an alarm?
     
    Vote Tally : Crossover - Sci-Fi - The Accumulation of Capital (Syndicate/???) | Page 2 | Sufficient Velocity [Posts: 44-45]
    ##### NetTally 1.9.9
    [x] Advance down the corridor
    No. of Votes: 2
    Nevill
    Navarque
    Total No. of Voters: 2

    "I think I saw this place in a horror movie once," muttered Idowu as you began your advance into the shadowy depths of the corridor. At the time it seemed funny, you all chuckled at the thought of running into zombies, shape-shifting aliens, or the perennial slasher going the other way. After all, if anyone can deal with a middling serial killer it's five pissed off soldiers with heavy weapons. Five minutes and an endless advance into a darkness that seems to swallow up sound, light, and heat later, and you've been stripped of that good humour.

    With caution born of paranoia, your team advance down the shadow-swaddled corridor, guns held at the ready and nerves wired tight for the first sign of any threat. Meter after agonizing meter you advance into the depths of the facility, your DARTs dutifully mapping both the winding course you take and the steadily dropping temperature that has long since passed zero.Cayman-Global either didn't expect people to be using this path, or they figured that putting freezer into a service tunnel is the right kind of dick move for them.

    Whatever the case may be, the cold combined with the darkness gives the place a hostile and alien feel, and to you at least, the dull amber light has taken on a menacing air as it gives even the smallest shadow a deepness they shouldn't have.

    ===
    Could I get 3D6?
     
    Tutorial XI
  • Threadmarks
    • Nevill said:
    Rolling.

    Meh. Slightly below average.
    Click to expand...
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    9 versus 8 = success

    =======
    Suddenly, from out of the shadows ahead of you, a soft shuffling and padding sound comes echoing down the corridor, and with a quick gesture of your hand, you order the team to halt its advance. Instantly, the five of you stop and listen, and presently you're rewarded.

    *Slap, slap, slap, slap*

    It's quiet, barely loud enough to be heard even with your augmented senses, but somewhere up ahead of you something is moving around.

    *Slap, slap, slap, slap*

    Whatever it is, it's also getting closer….

    Short-term vote - 30 minutes till resolution: What do you do?
    [] Advance to contact.
    [] Wait here and meet it.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Wait here and meet it.

    No one expects anyone else down here. We have the advantage of surprise, and hopefully the territorial advantage if we set up an ambush. We can't afford an alarm, so... if it's a hostile, I hope they die quickly and quietly.
     
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