F.E.A.R Itself (HEAT Playtest quest! Also, F.E.A.R Sequel Quest!)

[X] Gloria lays a sheet of ice on under the Z's fucking up their mobility
[X] Gloria sends a Spray of Icicles out to flush out/Stake the Vampire
[X] Merc unties Albert, reloads/fires SMG @ the Vampire
 
Yeah, I'm just touching up the finalizations on a new draft of HEAT!

It's much better - there's not a lot of major changes, but lots of tiny ones that make the game better - save for one big detail, which is that the scale system has been touched up and made rationalized and universal!

I just need to get around to actually making more Post.
 
Interval 2.8: Thermal Equilibrium
Author's note: It's baaaaaaaaaaaack! And what is more, there's a NEW PUBLIC EDITION! HEAT is leaner! It's meaner! It's more badass than ever! Lets show it off!

The zombies slouched forward as you worked the new magazine into your RPL.

"Well, what are you going to do?" you hiss.

"Oh, watch this," Gloria says, quietly. "There aren't any fucking CNN fucking cameras here now, are there, Betters?"

She rubs her palms, then stands up. She lifts her palms up, then brings them slamming down onto the altar. Blue-white light flared from under her palms, casting her features in an otherworldly, eerie glow. Her fingers spread and a sound not unlike a frost lake cracking rushed through the air. The whole room had been lit in an almost hellish red light a moment ago - but now your breath fogged the air and your skin rose in gooseflesh as the still bound and gagged Albert wriggled, trying to sit up, your own reloading forgotten as the altar itself became a pure ice blue, then...the ice blue spread, sweeping outwards, rushing towards the zombies as they slouched and lumbered forward, swaying from side to side, their arms reaching out towards you, dumb.

Unaware.

They skidded a bit on the ice as it swept outwards, and to your shock, the ice actually humped upwards, as if it was about to cushion their fall...but...

Ice wasn't supposed to move like that. The crystals thrust outwards in jagged, hideous fractals, as if a hateful kind of mathematics was driving the spreading chill outwards in erratic, wild patterns. A zombie was impaled through the back of the head. Another's arm was sliced off by a scissor like pair of growths. More still crashed to the ground and were overcome, the ice sweeping over them, freezing them into unnatural, hideous positions on the floor.

Gloria's dark features shone with a daemonical light, her eyes delighting in the distortion and destruction. She lifted her palms from the glassy surface of the altar, laughing. "HAH!"

"Christ, I thought I was scary," you whisper.

"Mmhuu hharr," Albert said through the gag.

You were about to rip the gag off him when you noticed...

The mannequin kept trundling forward. Ice crystals shattered under its wheels and the machine guns it carried were swinging around, angling towards...

"GLORIA!" You grabbed her and yanked her down a second before every single bullet ever made in America hammered into your cover at once. The bullets whined and pinged off the ice, shattering the brittle stone of the altar, blowing chunks of white powder into the air, crunching and whistling by overhead. You and Gloria ducked low and you saw the vampire, a shrouded, shadowed figure lurking in the darkness. "Fuck this...fuck him!" You hiss as the bullets keep shooting by overhead, then rip the last of Albert's restraints off.

"Stay down!" you hiss to him and, taking advantage of the vampire lurking off to the side, you fired from your belly, the RPL jouncing against your shoulder. The vampire turned to mist and drifted away. Dick.

Then...

Click click click click click.

You peeked.

The mannequin was hastily working its magazines - pulling new belt boxes from the hampers attached to either side of its rolling base, the fingers moving with a disquieting disregard for how human joints should bent.

Time seemed to slow.

You started forward.

One machine gun was reloaded, in record time. The barrel started to swing to face you. You flung yourself forward and felt yourself sailing through the air as the machine gun started to belch flames and smoke - you could practically see the movement of the action, the twisting of the casings as they were spat into the air. Your shoulder hit the ground - skidded - and you snatched up your discarded G2A2. The ice kept you skidding as you aimed and fired from the hip while sliding. The bullets blew the first mannequin into shreds. The second swung around, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but flimsy wood was no match for a stream of hot lead, directed right to the face. The mannequin let out a hideous screech as its head ripped in half, and the torso flew to pieces. The left and right arm smashed to the ground, the .50 caliber MG still sputtering and hissing.

You finished your skid, came to a stop, and saw the whole tattered aparatus was sagging - and the room was empty still.

"...I've...never seen anyone move that fast," Gloria said.

"What about the Matrix?" Albert asked, standing up, rubbing his wrists.

"Okay, I've never seen anyone that wasn't Keanu fucking Reeves move that fucking fast," Gloria said, hopping over the altar, skidding long the ice path and snatching up one of the LMGs. She smirked, working the chamber. "Mamma likes."

You push yourself up. "Dr. Acula went running," you say, licking your lips.

---
[PROFILE UNLOCKED: ALBERT SUNG]

Where did he go?
[ ] He went to the stairs - he's rabbiting! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will gain 2 heat, putting you at 8 - this will overheat you, meaning you will be right, but arrive in a DANGEROUS SITUATION!)
[ ] He went to the lab - he's falling back for some new plan! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will fail, putting you at 0 heat.)


Current Heat [Merc]: 6/6
Current Heat [Gloria]: 0/6
Current Heat [Albert]: 2/6


DANGER:
19 (Extremely Hazardous)
SHOCK: 0/19

Breakdown!

First! Gloria will IMPROVISE! She has 4 ice themed powers, and 3 in cryokinesis , with the subskill of formation - she can do this. This gives her 7 metric steps. She spends 2 on range (going from +0 range to +6 range) allowing her to hit six hexes away. Then she spends 8 on AOE to give it a 3 hex AOE, which covers EVERYONE in that area. Now, she could then take another metric step to apply a tipped oomph...but, honestly?

This is way cooler: She spends 2 to get +3 damage, so that will take out every single zombie in the area for the low, low cost of 12 steps, meaning she racks up 5 HEAT and goes into cooldown as she freezes and shatters every zombie in the place. The DEATH MANNEQUIN is a Size +3 vehicle, with +3 armor, and three +3 LMGs, meaning that it soaks the armor with ease. Zombies, GONE!

Going into Cooldown lets the DEATH MANNEQUIN open fire. It's LMGs have 8-13 and a base damage of 6 and it creates a PINNED OOMPH with every 3 damage! So, that's 6, 6, and 6 damage, with 2, 2, and 2 pinned oomphs in a small AOE centered right on our heroes' heads! That's 18 damage and 6 pinned, so they're not moving, but they're so pinned their -3 cover is improved to -6!

Merc on her turn to untie Albert. That's a Diff 0 Finesse action, she succeeds with 3 oomphs, which she'll spend to negate the pinned (she feels encouraged with Albert by her side.) As the GM, I will allow this! Her next action, as written, is to open up with her SMG on that fucking vampire. He's 4 hexes away, within her range, and she has Guns of 3, with a -2 add for the SMG. But since it's an AOE, she doesn't need to aim AT the vampire. She just needs to spray and fuckin' pray. Guns 1 with a diff of 1+1 against an empty spot in the air means she puts down a damage oomph for 1 heat! That puts her at 6 heat, so she vents all 6 with Dig in, which improves the cover from -3 to -4, which is then doubled to -8!

The Vampire gets to act twice. He moves out of the SMG cover as his free action, then down the with his second. He's out of the fight for now!

The round ends! Oomphs decay, meaning damage goes off. Merc's burst does nothing. The DEATH MANNEQUIN hammers them with 18 damage, which is reduced to 10, then distributed among them at 3/2/2, putting Merc at 3, Albert at 2, and Gloria at 8! She OVERHEATS, but only mildly, adding 2 shock to the scene.

The GM will save that shock.

ROUND TWO

Merc goes first. She lays into the DEATH MANNEQUIN with everything she's got. It has 1 evasion, and she's got Gun 3. It's 8 hexes away, giving her a -2. So, she's going to swap to her Assault Rifle with a diff 0 Gun action, which allows her to blast away the last 2 pinned to start running to a new bit of cover while opening up! Guns 3 -1 for the gun's adds, with fast speed means she can drop 2 damage (or 1 damage and an oomph) 3 times. She takes the full damage, doing 6 damage, which is reduced to 3 by the manequin's armor. By taking 3 more heat (1 for each hit) she does, in total, 9 damage, which means she's at 6 heat and the DEATH MANNEQUIN takes 6 damage past its 3 armor. With vehicles, if you do their Size x2 in damage to their hull, then...they're just gone! The Mannequin is scrap.

VICTORY: 19 XP for everyone!
 
[X] He went to the lab - he's falling back for some new plan! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will fail, putting you at 0 heat.)
 
[X] He went to the lab - he's falling back for some new plan! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will fail, putting you at 0 heat.)

Hell yeah there's that Pointman Wade patented speed and slippy slides!
 
[X] He went to the lab - he's falling back for some new plan! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will fail, putting you at 0 heat.)

Glad you are back
 
[X] He went to the lab - he's falling back for some new plan! (Awareness Check, Diff 5. You will fail, putting you at 0 heat.)
 
Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Dec 27, 2021 at 11:57 AM, finished with 6 posts and 6 votes.


All right! Setting our heat to 0 in a safer fashion!
 
Interval 2.9: Enigma
"He's running for the lab," you say, your ears perking up as you listened to everything you could - and you swore you hear a shifting, rustling noise in that direction. "Come on! Albert!" You tossed him your G2A2 and he snatched it from the air. As he held it and matched your sprint, he managed to gasp out.

"You had...a wild time!"

"Tell me about it," you say, as you come around the corner, skid, hit the wall, then started down the corridor. The air started to grow stale and cold as you came back to the laboratory that you had appeared in. You swept the barrel of your gun around, then frowned slowly as you saw no sign of the vampire. You looked left, then right, then turned back to your friends. "Shit, where is he?"

"Invisible?" Gloria asks.

"I don't feel him," Albert frowns.

The lights started to flicker. Your com hissed and crackled, as if it was picking up some attempted communication. You swung your weapon back to cover the corners, while Gloria and Albert moved to cover other corners, all of your backs pressing together. The hissing warbling hit the highest pitch - then shut off with a click.

The door slammed shut.

You ran towards it, then put your shoulder to it, frowning as the lights stopped blinking. The door refused to budge. The handle wouldn't move. You looked out of the corridor - and saw the vampire, stepping around the corner hurriedly. He paused, seeing the doorway, then smiled slowly, his narrow features twisting into an inhuman expression of pure glee. You glared at him as he walked to the door, then caressed the glass window pane between you two.

"What an unexpectedly fortunate twist..." he murmurs, his voice just barely audible through the glass. "You escape, only to get...trapped again."

Your brow furrows, then you put the barrel of your RPL against the window.

"Ah, I wouldn't. Bulletproof." He raps the glass.

The light begins to flicker. Wink. The faint tink tink tink of the sound draws both of your attention up and away from one another. The lights in the corridors are plunging the whole window into blackness, so that all you can see is your own face, reflected against the glass as the lights alternate, on, off, on, off.

On, your own face.

Off, the vampire, looking at you with irritation.

On, your own face.

Off...

Something is standing at the end of the corridor.

Tall.

Lanky.

You step back from the door and the vampire turns his back to you. You can hear the faint sound of his voice, muffled by the door. "Ah, at last..." He sounded gleeful, almost gloating. "What I've been looking for this whole time."

The lights plunged into pure blackness. You could just barely see, illuminated by the tiny bounce-back of the lights that still functioned in the rest of the basement, the edge of the corridor through the frosted, bulletproof glass.

The figure takes a step forward. The vampire lifts his hand. Red mists and glows around his palms - an eerie light, casting out.

"Yes..." The vampire chuckles. Then, a confused sound. "I...wait..."

The figure takes another step forward.

"Wait, you're supposed to-" The vampire lets out a choked noise. "How? No! You're just a...some...you're just-"

The figure takes another step forward. You can hear whispering, hissing voices at the edge of your hearing. Your skin rises in prickling little goosebumps and you want to tear your eyes from the glass - but you can't stop watching, your eyes wide. The slowness of it only adds to the feeling of building...wrongness. The figure has moved close enough that you can almost see...hints of bedraggled hair. Naked and scrawny. Thin, long fingers. They reach out towards the vampire, who is recoiling, stepping backwards. He turns, then, and his face mashes against the glass.

His terror is all too human.

"Let me in! Please! Don't-...DON'T LET HER! DON'T!"

His palms mashed against the glass, slamming home. A fingernail broke against the bulletproof glass, smearing black blood. You went to the door, without thinking, grabbing the knob.

It was cold.

So cold.

The window went black. Something bubbled around your feet and you sprang back with a cry - as black blood flowed underneath the seal.

"Jesus Christ," Gloria whispers.

The lights settled. Once more, they glowed bright and normal - and the door swung inwards, revealing a corridor dripping and stained with black ichor. Thin strands of it fell from the ceiling, dragging themselves into long, stringy masses before they plopped onto the floor with tiny ripples. You felt, suddenly, as if your gun didn't provide much protection at all.

You looked back at your friends.

---
What do you do?
[ ] Have Albert use his psychometry to figure out...what the fuck that was.
[ ] ...nope. This counts as a win, we're leaving, we're leaving right now.

Current Heat [Merc]: 0/6
Current Heat [Gloria]: 0/6
Current Heat [Albert]: 2/6
 
[X] ...nope. This counts as a win, we're leaving, we're leaving right now..

I don't want Albert to kill himself for nothing.
 
[X] ...nope. This counts as a win, we're leaving, we're leaving right now.

Nope!

Nope nope nope nope!
 
[X] ...nope. This counts as a win, we're leaving, we're leaving right now.

Fuck this let's go find our 4th member and get the fuck out of here.

Edit: also let's burn this place to the ground.
 
Last edited:
[X] ...nope. This counts as a win, we're leaving, we're leaving right now..

Let us not make our allies look at the abyss.
 
Interval 3.0: Exfiltration
Albert gulped, then stepped up to stand beside you.

"Shoul-" he starts.

"No," you say, quietly, shaking your head. "No, you absolutely should not."

"But-"

"We're leaving."

"Bu-"

"Now."

You grabbed Albert's wrist and dragged him forward, Gloria following after, her LMG aimed back behind her as the three of you started forward into the grimy corridor. You walked quickly, and still got a thick droplet of gunk onto the back of your neck, which made your whole skin tremble and grow cold and clammy. You came to the stairs and headed up - and as you headed up, you could hear the faint sound of thumping helicopter blades. You and the others stepped out into the light outside, to find that the sun was breaking and there were several bodies stretched out on the grass - two of them were even the big wolf guys.

Half the building was burning, smoke reaching into the sky as you, Albert and Gloria stumbled out of the front door, your submachine gun tracing around for targets.

Tracy broke cover, poking her head from some brushes. "You guys are alive!"

She started towards you - battered and bruised, but still alive - and the thrumming helicopter blades resolves itself overhead as a trio of stealth helos come roaring overhead, their sound subdued...but not that subdued, all things considered.

SFOD-D teams started to rappel down. Your com crackles in your ear and you can hear Betters. "Thank god, we're back in contact - what the hell happened down there?"

"What happened up here?" you ask, looking around yourself as the special forces badasses start to fan out, their weapons sweeping over the bodies.

One of them whistles. "You sure we dropped in the right place, or is this a fucking furry convention?"

"Agent McBrant stayed in contact with me once you went in - and reported that you'd secured the viruses. We dispatched our backup teams to secure the site now that the BTX-01 and BTX-02 has been secured. McBrant said she had some shots exchanged with the hostiles still up here and...well, then you came back out," Betters says. "How banged up are you kids?"

You looked at Gloria, who looks fine, then at Albert, who look as if he'd been recently tied up and prepped for a sacrificial altar. Then you look over at Tracy. You shoot her a questioning look, and mouth the word 'vampire.' Fuck the fact she hadn't been in the basement, she'd know. Tracy shook her head subtly. Betters didn't know. Honestly, you weren't sure how you'd even begin to explain a quarter of what happened down there to him. Or to anyone. You looked back at the burning building, frowning to yourself.

"Eh," you say. "We'll live."

A helicopter settled down in the clearing.

The four of you clambered onto the helicopter.

The chopper began to lift up, into the air, away from the building.

"How did you know we'd secured the viruses?" Gloria asks.

"We secured them?" you ask, blinking. "I was too distracted by the vampires. And the zombies."

"You didn't secure them?" Tracy asks. Then, a beat later "The fucking what?"

"I thought you knew?" You say, looking at Tracy as the helicopter smoothly lifts and turns away.

"I knew about the vampires, but not the zombies!" Tracy says, shaking her head. "I got a pretty strong premonition of you grabbing the vials and taking them."

"I didn't take them!" you say, then open your vest. "See?"

They all look at the stunning absence of BDX-01 and BDX-02.

"Shit," Albert whispers.

The helo kept on its merry way.

"So, hows this for a total fucking balls up," you say, drawing your legs up. "We get shot down, all of us almost die, we don't even get the viruses...or arrest anyone. Or...even know what the fuck happened!"

Tracy narrows her eyes, slightly.

"What?" you ask.

"I mean," Gloria says, not noticing Tracy's look as she watches the landscape roll by under the gathering dawn. "We're all alive - that's a huge step up over the last F.E.A.R team, right?"

Tracy, though, reaches forward, and tugs open your vest.

Two gleaming glass vials are tucked into the empty pockets there, one labled with a BDX- and the other with a 2-XD-, their last letters cut off by the line of your pockets. You jerk your vest back, your face feeling cold.

"...another favor, huh?" Albert says.

"Another?" Tracy look worried.

You look back out the window. "...you know what?" you ask. "I don't fucking want to know."

***
Brrring.

Brrring.

Brrring.


*CLICK*

"Mm...yeah?"

"The anomaly has occurred again."

"Shit..." Sigh. "I'll be on a plane in ten-"

"We believe it is contained."

"How?"

"Unknown."

"Is it another Freeport?"

"...decidedly not."

"Okay." Pause. "Don't tell me, it's not because of the new-"

"Directly related, yes."

"Betters managed to find one, then."

"Without a doubt."

"But it's still contained?"

"Contained and...cautiously optimistic."

"Keep an eye on this, Geneviève."

"Of course, Senator."

"And Geneviève..."

"Yes, Senator?"

"Where are you calling from?"

**CLICK**


THE END...

I hope everyone enjoyed their spooky visit to the F.E.A.R universe - with enough holes and hints that I hope you're left with tantalizing mysteries and not annoyed bafflement! This thread did help a lot with my HEAT playtesting and I'm currently kind of at the point where to really move to the next playtesting stage, I need people who aren't me to GM HEAT to make sure it actually makes sense and doesn't just make sense to me!

Either way, have a happy new year!
 
You know, I was wondering if we were supposed to go looking for the vials before we noped out of there...

The ending was a bit Deus Ex Alma, but it was a fun quest. Thanks for running this.
 
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