"Of course, let me show you my identification." you say, reaching into your pocket for your phone.
"I'm afraid that will not be sufficient."
You have roughly enough time to curse internally before the bullets start flying.
Now that you've been shot, I can explain how Resistance rolls works.
You can choose to Resist or minimize the outcomes of bad rolls. In this case, you can Resist the Lv. 3 Harm "Gutshot", reducing it to Lv. 2 Harm "Grazed."
When you Resist a consequence, you gain between 0 and 5 Stress.
Note that a Resistance roll will not erase the bad roll, just mitigate the consequences of it.
[ ] Prowl(1d)| Run like hell to the stairwell. [Effect: 2(Standard). Position: 1(Desperate)]
[ ] Prowl(1d)| Pretend to be dead. [Effect: 3(Great). Position: 1 (Desperate)]
[ ] Tinker(1d)| Try to hack the turrets and stop them from firing. [Effect: 1(Limited). Position: 1(Desperate)]
[ ] Write-in| What do you do, with what Action?
[ ] Push yourself(+2 Stress)
[ ] +1d
[ ] +1 Effect
[ ] +1 Position
[ ] Resistance roll| Reduces Lv. 3 "Gutshot" to Lv. 2 "Grazed", but costs Stress.
Progress clocks: "??? get to Stavro": 3/8
Stress: 2/9
Harm: 2nd(Wounded leg)
Loadout(3/3):
Plasma cutter/security baffle
Hacking gadget
Data gadget
When making a Resistance roll, you roll a number of D6 equal to the number of pips in the first column of the relevant attribute.
That's Prowess, in this case. 1d=2
You gain Stress equal to 6 minus the highest die result.
6-2=4
Stress: 6/9
Gained Lv. 2 Harm "Grazed"
Well, that could have gone better. Thankfully, the turrets seem to take you falling bonelessly at the floor as a good reason not to keep sending pieces of high velocity metal at you.
1d=1
Failure
After a few moments, you peek open one eye. A golden pyramid shines back at you.
"Mr. Fawkes, I am not, strictly speaking, sentient, but I am also not stupid."
There is a small "thwip"-
***
-and then you wake up. You're lying on a very expensive couch, in a very expensive penthouse.
Ah. You've reached the top floor. Sooner than expected.
"Okay, fill me in." says Baron Stavro, leaning against the glass floor-to-ceiling window looking out on the Harmony skyline. "I mean, I'm no super-genius, so please tell me the devious cleverness behind marching into my own building, trying to hack a goddamn AI with a bargain-bin universal remote, and then trying to fucking play dead in front of it. I'm sure this explanation will be fascinating."
You sit up from the couch, pulling the sleep dart out of your neck, eyes drifting around the room. Two cyber-guards, eyes replaced with gold-rimmed sensor sweets, both of them easily capable of taking you out. Stavro, who is middle-aged and unaugmented, but is almost certainly not defenseless. Probably more Maximus-controlled turrets imbedded in the floor or ceiling.
"Well, you did seem vulnerable. Whoever's attacking you moved through your enforcers like wheat, as well as the police."
"My boy, those are the police." He finally turns toward you. "Apparently they've got a bug up their ass about some old dirty laundry of mine. And to think, I just had dinner with the Commissioner last Thursday."
"I feel like deploying power armor, energy weapons, and attack droids against you might be about a bit more than dirty laundry."
"Well, you know." he strides over and sits down opposite you. "If you wanna get ahead in this town, you gotta be willing to bury a few bodies. But enough of that. Tell me, how've you been?"
"Stavro." you say, looking over your shoulder. "Why haven't you killed me? You must know why I'm here."
"Please. Call me Baron, at the very least. And you didn't answer my question."
"I've been well enough. Running from hiding spot to hiding spot, gathering research. Please answer mine."
"Welp." he sips his drink. "Like I said, trouble with the police. I've gotta go and hide, until this blows over. Somewhere sunny. That's where you come in. I need someone to steer the ship."
It takes you a second to formulate a response to that.
"You. You want me. To stay here and be your puppet."
"Pretty much." he deliberately slurps his drink. "I wrote you back into the will, just for the purpose. So. Waddaya say?"
You stand up and start pacing. You realize, after a second, that you are literally vibrating with rage.
"Do you have any idea how many times I've fantasized about strangling you? Thinking about my hand placement. How I would break your arms first, so you couldn't fight back."
"You always did have quite the imagination." He sounds like he's making polite conversation over dinner.
Your rub your wrists into your eyes.
"No, no, I don't think you understand. Your existence makes me sick to my stomach. I despise you and everything you are, and everything you did and could have done. I thought my purpose in life was to eradicate you for the longest time."
"Well, I hope you found something more constructive to do."
You look out at the city, spreading out to the horizon, the sun setting the canals on fire as it dips below the horizon.
"You could say that. I decided that I'm going to save the world. Or at least help save it. I'm going to be one of the people that eradicate you and every other billionaire parasites like you from the surface of the Earth, and build utopia from your bones."
He snorts.
"God, that takes me back. I was young too, once. Thought I would change the whole system too. Look where it got me." he spreads his arms to the miniature palace that surrounds you. "But fine. You wanna be the world's savior? Go ahead! My Empire would be the best way to do it. I'd love to hear you explain that bit about "billionaire parasites" at the next board meeting."
"Well, I'll admit my coming here was somewhat selfish. As I said, I want to watch you suffer. But watching you go to prison would be almost as good."
You start thinking. Assuming Maximus turned the elevators long enough for one of Stavro's mooks to go down, drag your unconscious body, and bring you up here, while the police still have to take the stairs, fighting the cyborgs all the way-
Progress Clock: "The HCPD get to Stavro" 5/8
They'll get here soon, but probably not soon enough.
"Do you really hate me that much?" Stavro stands, hands in his pockets, walking toward you.
You look him in the eyes. Exact same brown as yours, damn him to Hel.
"You hurt mom."
"Oh, my beautiful boy, I loved your mother. I just had to remind her of that, sometimes. She didn't know what was best for her, I did. She was so lost without me."
He actually grabs your shoulders in some mockery of tenderness.
"You hurt me." And damned, if you didn't sound like a teenager again, saying it.
"I fixed you. You have no idea the strings I had to pull, to put that kind of tech into your head. But it worked. It made your perfect. No more crying, no more talking back at me. Look at you, you're shot and bleeding, but you'ved barely noticed. You're invincible. Philo, I'm dealing with dragons and superheroes. I'm not cut out for this new world, but you are. You'll be a new kind of CEO, the kind the world has never seen before. Utterly ruthless, utterly vicious."
He lets go of you, and turns away.
"Of course, I don't pay for something I can't control." He says, reaching into his pocket.
You scream, as the bullet hole in your leg and the large cut in your side suddenly become more than a mild awareness in the back of your mind.
You fall to the ground, whimpering.
Stavro kneels, holding a small black remote in his hands.
"You feel that? That's called pain. The implants were dulling it. I just turned them off. I'm feeling generous, so I'm going to turn them back on again." He pushes a button, and you stop screaming.
Dulling isn't the right word. You still feel it. But you're safe from it. It can't touch you, there's a wall between you and the pain.
"Now," he says, smiling? "What do we say when someone is being generous?"
It also blocks your fear, and other doubts. Which is probably the only reason you can smile and say
"Fuck you very much?"
He scowls, and pushes the button. The pain comes back, strong as ever.
"Well, worth a shot." He stands up, puts the remote in his pocket, and nods to one of his guards. "Kill 'im and rip his mods out. We'll see if Doctor Henry can install them in someone more useful."
You push a fist into the ground, slowly levering yourself up.
"That's it?" And godsamnedthishurtsbutdon'tstoptalking "You're not even gonna try to seduce me to the dark side?"
"Frankly, kid, you've been a disappointment for a while now. You couldn't even sneak into a building properly. What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that you were such a raging egomaniac that you couldn't just kill me, you had to bring me here to taunt me in person." You push one leg under you, until you're kneeling. "I didn't need to sneak past your security, I just had to fail at it."
"Are you seriously telling me that getting shot and tranqued was part of your master plan?"
"Plans don't survive contact with the enemy. What I have, dad" okay, that sounded a little too petulant, even to you "is a gimmick."
At any point, you can retroactively declare to have don something in the past. The more difficult and/or convenient that action was/is, the more Stress it costs. There is occasionally a roll needed, but you've been rolling badly enough so far that these will just cost Stress.
You have 6/9 Stress. Each gimmick below costs 1 Stress. If you gain more then 9 Stress, you will be unable to use Stress for the remainder of the Mission. That includes Pushing Yourself, Resistance rolls, and Flashbacks.
What is your gimmick? [Pick a Maximum of 3]
[ ] One of the Cyborgs is working for you [+1 Stress]
[ ] You have a hidden weapon [+1 Stress]
-[ ] Write-in: What it is? A laser-swordcane? A sonic pistol? An EMP grenade(which the cyborgs are not immune to).
[ ]You tipped off the superheroes[+1 Stress]
[ ] A police communicator, with the button held down [+1 Stress]
