Duvors

Aysu will start a G6, move to F5 and attack any still hostile NPC's. Billeck Will start at B2, move to D2, and do the same as Aysu. Wollipog will start in C7 adjacent to the central display case and attempt to free its occupant.

Round 1 Ronin moves to E3 Ronin uses Sleep Gel on ??? (??? Restrained Immune!) Decker moves to D4 Decker gives Ronin the Ghanta ??? Sizes up Ronin ??? attacks Ronin - (3,4,2,6,6,2,4,+3) seven successes vs. (3,1,5,5,+6) eight successes. Ronin leaps around the figure, throwing one of his many concoctions in its face. The creature stands unconcerned, seemingly unaffected by the substance. Decker, realizing time is of the essence, leaps across the room and hands Ronin the ghanta. The creature... does nothing more than face you, though Ronin feels his protection weaken. Enemy ??? ??? cycles old ??? Pugilist Vitality: 8/8 Velocity: 6 Strength: 7 Skill: 5 Smarts: 4 Proficiencies: Athletics 5, Insight 5, Intimidation 5, Stealth 5. Spatial Incoherence: Is immune to Restrained and being moved against its will. Iron Grip: Adjacent Restrained enemies move with this creature. Impossible Speed: May act twice in a round. Soul Bound: If killed, Greg Smiles will also die. Party Ronin (Yzalirk) Warded! (3 Attacks)[REDACTED] Male [REDACTED]Character Points: 0/19Vitality: 7/7Velocity: 3Strength: 1Skill: 4Smarts: 3Spirit: 0/0Proficiencies: Athletics 1, Artillery 1, Deception 1, Melee Weapons 2, Perception 1, Stealth 1, Survival 1Known Spells: NoneCredits: 222Equipment: Cloaking Generator, Hard Light Katana (Calibrated Energy Melee Weapon), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration.Inventory: Gator Tooth (Can be converted into either a Kinetic or Elemental Standard Melee Weapon by a craftsman), Ion Laser (Calibrated Energy Artillery Weapon), Haast Flamethrower (Substandard Short Range Elemental Weapon) Overcharge: Once per battle, add +2 to next attack, all subsequent attacks have -2, Rocketpack - Armor Attachment (+1 to Velocity when wearing this armor), Flashlight (Tool), Ghanta (Tool) Once per battle, may be used to Stun all unholy enemies as an action. Can be used with Machen's Notebook and a Holy Candle to conduct an exorcism, Frozen Blood (Consumable) ???, Lamplight (Consumable) ???, Æther Shroud (Consumable) ???, Cytherian Salts x2 (Consumable) ???, Plasma Potion. Decker DaCabe (Endgame) Warded! (4 Attacks)24 year old male Human Caracter Ponts: 0/19Vitality: 7/7 Velocity: 2 Strength: 4Skill: 3Smarts: 1Proficiencies: Melee Weapons 1, Short Range Weapons 2, Medicine 1, Perception 1, Athletics 1Credits: 52Equipment: Double Barrel Voltaic Shotgun (Calibrated Energy Short Range Weapon), Telescopic Stock - Weapon Attachment (Spend an action to change this weapon's optimal range by 1 category), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration, Machen's Notebook (Tool) Adds +1 Occult and Religion successes, my be used with the Ghanta and a Holy Candle to conduct an exorcism.Inventory: Unloaded Pistol (Calibrated Kinetic Melee Weapon), Sandblasted Cuirass (Standard Kinetic Armor), Old Wolfclaw Veteran's Shield (Substandard Kinetic Armor) Dented Iron, Plasma Potion, Holy Candle 3x, Flashlight (Tool).

It means that you're under the effects of a Warding Bond. That bit where Solon blessed you was him casting the spell at highest level (he can only do this on the temple's premises, so don't kick yourselves for not bringing him along). I forgot it during the swordfight and decided to let it slide since you weren't going to take damage there anyway. Edit: Checking again, I somehow forgot that Warding Bond works off attacks instead of rounds. Fixed.

Enson will start at G5. If the Daraki is still alive at the end of Jonk's turn, he will attack them. If dead, he will make a persuasion check vs. the Chimeran (See spoiler).

'I only need two players.'

... There is silence for a moment, before the radio in the office behind you crackles into life. "#Czzrch# 'Wrong' #pzzichtch# 'Number'" Suddenly, the creature appears before you, his hand around Ronin's throat, before vanishing- taking Ronin with him. Ronin, you know you're moving, but somehow you can't see what's happening and... time doesn't seem to be passing? Suddenly, vision returns. You're in a corner of the warehouse, the creature standing over you menacingly. For you, Decker, the transition is instantaneous. One moment Ronin is by your side, the next he's on the other side of the building. Desperately you flip through the book to find something useful, before finally finding a ritual you think you can perform with what you have - but you'd need Ronin's help. Fight! Round 0 Decker Velocity Check - (2,2) No successes Ronin Velocity Check - (5,6,3) Two successes Enemy ??? ??? cycles old ??? Pugilist Vitality: 8/8 Velocity: 6 Strength: 7 Skill: 5 Smarts: 4 Proficiencies: Athletics 5, Insight 5, Intimidation 5, Stealth 5. Spatial Incoherence: Is immune to Restrained and being moved against its will. Iron Grip: Adjacent Restrained enemies move with this creature. Impossible Speed: May act twice in a round. Soul Bound: If killed, Greg Smiles will also die. Party Ronin (Yzalirk) Warded! (4 Attacks)[REDACTED] Male [REDACTED]Character Points: 0/19Vitality: 7/7Velocity: 3Strength: 1Skill: 4Smarts: 3Spirit: 0/0Proficiencies: Athletics 1, Artillery 1, Deception 1, Melee Weapons 2, Perception 1, Stealth 1, Survival 1Known Spells: NoneCredits: 222Equipment: Cloaking Generator, Hard Light Katana (Calibrated Energy Melee Weapon), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration.Inventory: Gator Tooth (Can be converted into either a Kinetic or Elemental Standard Melee Weapon by a craftsman), Ion Laser (Calibrated Energy Artillery Weapon), Haast Flamethrower (Substandard Short Range Elemental Weapon) Overcharge: Once per battle, add +2 to next attack, all subsequent attacks have -2, Rocketpack - Armor Attachment (+1 to Velocity when wearing this armor), Flashlight (Tool), Frozen Blood (Consumable) ???, Sleep Gel (Consumable) ???, Lamplight (Consumable) ???, Æther Shroud (Consumable) ???, Cytherian Salts x2 (Consumable) ???, Plasma Potion. Decker DaCabe (Endgame) Warded! (4 Attacks)24 year old male Human Caracter Ponts: 0/19Vitality: 7/7 Velocity: 2 Strength: 4Skill: 3Smarts: 1Proficiencies: Melee Weapons 1, Short Range Weapons 2, Medicine 1, Perception 1, Athletics 1Credits: 52Equipment: Double Barrel Voltaic Shotgun (Calibrated Energy Short Range Weapon), Telescopic Stock - Weapon Attachment (Spend an action to change this weapon's optimal range by 1 category), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration, Machen's Notebook (Tool) Adds +1 Occult and Religion successes, my be used with the Ghanta and a Holy Candle to conduct an exorcism.Inventory: Unloaded Pistol (Calibrated Kinetic Melee Weapon), Sandblasted Cuirass (Standard Kinetic Armor), Old Wolfclaw Veteran's Shield (Substandard Kinetic Armor) Dented Iron, Plasma Potion, Holy Candle 3x, Flashlight (Tool), Ghanta (Tool) Once per battle, may be used to Stun all unholy enemies as an action. Can be used with Machen's Notebook and a Holy Candle to conduct an exorcism. The Exorcisim To begin an exorcism, you must spend an action to use either the notebook, the ghanta, or a holy candle. After that, you complete the ritual by spending an action to use each of the items. You may use these items in any order, but once one of them is used the ritual has begun and you have two rounds to complete it. Using the items follows the same rules as the rest of the game - you can freely use the consumables from your inventory, but you must equip the tools before you can use them. Good luck!

"Lead on, good sir."

Your resolve firm, you open the door and step out into the warehouse. You make your way into the emptiness of the warehouse. The walls on either side are lined with shipping containers, while large crates lie scattered about. A shelving unit on one side of the door is the only other thing of note. You take another step... .. and stop. There, where there was nothing an instant before, is a figure. It seems to be wearing a workman's outfit, but it's head and hands are a matte black. You have a slight moment of consternation as you register this, and you try to think of what to say. Your eyes water. Like an image in a slideshow, the figure is now looking toward you without having turned around. And yet... and yet it did turn. Somehow you are as certain of this as of your own heartbeat. It moved without occupying the intervening space, it skipped moving to arrive at its destination ahead of time. What will you do now?

MM Note: Due to the time crunch I'm under, I've decided you have 24 hours for final preparations.

On closer inspection the calendar appears to be a list of arrival and departure times for ships, along with cargo manifests for each. However the manifests and the names of the ships have all been scribbled over with black pen, and a note at the bottom reads 'The hell was I thinking?'. The filing cabinets, on the other hand, are empty. The only thing you do find is a handful of lint and a coin of unknown denomination. All of these are one-use single action potions with a one round duration. I'll allow you to apply them to weapons, but they'll cease to deal their effect after the first successful hit. As for throwing them, I suppose that would be possible. I'll allow them to be thrown up to two squares. I should also mention that, since the notebook and Ghanta are tools, they have to be equipped in order to use them, which takes a round to do.

"We just killed three of them, their bodies are still lying out there. And frankly I'm not prepared to trust in the finer feelings of people who work for such an employer. Keeping sapients for display! Urrgh." Shuddering, he continued; "It seems to me that our only course is to attack. We certainly have the element of surprise, the only question is how to use it. Oh, by the way..." He addressed Wollipog. "It occurs to me," he said, "that if these people are stockpiling Nanite Elixirs, then sooner or later we'll have need of them ourselves. Do you think that exo-suit would let you carry a few?"

Having nothing better to do, the two of you make your way up the ladder single file. At the top of the ladder is a trapdoor, which you attempt to open. The going is difficult. Not because the trapdoor is locked, but because the trapdoor has been covered by a heavy blue object made of fabric. Fortunately you're able to lift the trap enough to grab the offending material and drag it to one side, briefly blinding yourself by the bright electric glow of interior lights. Hauling yourselves up, you take a look around the place you find yourselves in. The room is spartan in furnishings. Bare walls, bare ceiling, and bare floor all made of foamcrete panels. The only furnishings are a wall-mounted radio-clock, a pair of filing cabinets with some sort of calendar atop them, a shelving unit with miscellaneous items, a spinning office chair, and a desk with some notes and a pair of newspapers strewn on top. The only other feature in the room is a door. A metal door painted brown, exactly like the one you saw through the peephole in Grey and Brown.

"This is certainly much better hidden than the one out front." Enson muttered to himself. Having said this, he made his way out into the entrance hall, stopping when he saw Jonk listening at the door. Sidling over quietly, he listened for a moment to the voices beyond. After a moment he nodded to Jonk and slid over to the mess hall. Once inside, he coughed and addressed his companions. "I can't find any sign of where Bertam has been taken, but there were three people in the storeroom recently. I saw their footprints." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the door he'd just come through. "There are people on the far side of the middle door, the one across from the entrance. They don't seem to have noticed we're here yet."

I've found a minor formatting error in the Pugilist's class card.

In a final effort, Enson will knock on the walls in the hope of finding something.

Enson will do the obvious thing and attempt to follow the prints.

That'll definitely free up a slot. Also, take note of what's in each other's inventories. I also noticed a few mistakes I made when copying your stats, so that's been fixed now. The protuberance, which you previously dismissed as the result of metal fatigue, slides gently into the wall with a 'click'. A moment later, there's a whirr of motors and the double doors swing inwards, revealing a ladder going up. Kinda hard to see with all the white around the picture, but there is a ladder there.

Enson stood back, contemplating the room. "No indication of where they left, but it would be an awkward method of egress that involved moving those heavy shelves covered with fragile bottles. The same goes for that pile of boxes in the corner. Whatever happened in here happened quickly, so there must have been some rapid method of egress free from obstruction." He pondered for a moment, before leaning down to inspect the floor.

Despite scouring the room, you're unable to find anything further of note. A knife, a bucket whose interior is stained by dried blood, some discarded chains, and nothing more. Disquieted by what you've found, and by what you haven't, you make your way back along the passage. As you go, you look about nervously for the creature, but thankfully you see no evidence of its presence. Reaching the other dead end, you can now see the outline of the hidden door in the end of the passage. But how to open it? Party Ronin (Yzalirk) (Duelist)[REDACTED] Male [REDACTED]Character Points: 0/19Vitality: 7/7Velocity: 3Strength: 1Skill: 4Smarts: 3Spirit: 0/0Proficiencies: Athletics 1, Artillery 1, Deception 1, Melee Weapons 2, Perception 1, Stealth 1, Survival 1Known Spells: NoneCredits: 222Equipment: Cloaking Generator, Hard Light Katana (Calibrated Energy Melee Weapon), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration.Inventory: Gator Tooth (Can be converted into either a Kinetic or Elemental Standard Melee Weapon by a craftsman), Ion Laser (Calibrated Energy Artillery Weapon), Haast Flamethrower (Substandard Short Range Elemental Weapon) Overcharge: Once per battle, add +2 to next attack, all subsequent attacks have -2, Rocketpack - Armor Attachment (+1 to Velocity when wearing this armor), Flashlight (Tool), Frozen Blood (Consumable) ???, Sleep Gel (Consumable) ???, Lamplight (Consumable) ???, Æther Shroud (Consumable) ???, Cytherian Salts x2 (Consumable) ???, Holy Candle (Consumable) Prevents unholy enemies from entering a space adjacent to the user for three turns. Inventory Full! Decker DaCabe (Endgame) (Bystander)24 year old male Human Caracter Ponts: 0/19Vitality: 7/7 Velocity: 2 Strength: 4Skill: 3Smarts: 1Proficiencies: Melee Weapons 1, Short Range Weapons 2, Medicine 1, Perception 1, Athletics 1Credits: 52Equipment: Double Barrel Voltaic Shotgun (Calibrated Energy Short Range Weapon), Workman's Outfit (Standard Kinetic Armor) Filtration, Flashlight (Tool)Inventory: Unloaded Pistol (Calibrated Kinetic Melee Weapon), Sandblasted Cuirass (Standard Kinetic Armor), Old Wolfclaw Veteran's Shield (Substandard Kinetic Armor) Dented Iron, Telescopic Stock - Weapon Attachment (Spend an action to change this weapon's optimal range by 1 category), Plasma Potion 2x, Holy Candle 2x, Machen's Notebook (Tool) Adds +1 Occult and Religion successes, my be used with the Ghanta and a Holy Candle to ???, Ghanta (Tool) Once per battle, may be used to Stun all unholy enemies as an action. Can be used with Machen's Notebook and a Holy Candle to ???. 10/12 items. MM note: I recommend you take this opportunity to shuffle a few items around.

There are no torn sections. The reason for the missing text is that most of the book is soaked through with blood and illegible. Since there's nothing else for you to really find here, and the additional features of the Ghanta and the Notebook can be learned without having to stay in this room, I'll be moving you along to the other door shortly.

"Mmm. Well, either his captor dragged him out past the fight and we somehow failed to notice, or there's another way out of this room." Enson will search the room for alternate exits.

You can see they are indeed candles, and that they have been lit. Notably, the one at the apex seems to have been kicked over, while the other two burned down to lumps of wax. Examining the fallen one, you find it's much the same as the ones Meroi gave you. Holy Candle: (Consumable) Prevents unholy enemies from entering a space adjacent to the user for three turns. The large red text is clearly in a different hand. Decker Insight Check (DC 2): (5,3,3) One success. Unfortunately, you cannot see any distinctive features that- wait, what were you thinking of? You look down again at the book. It ends with Machen's entry on the 21st. Wasn't there more? finding a keypad, or a screen for that matter, is something of a challenge. It takes you a moment of fumbling to find a panel that opens up and reveals a screen. Decker Coding Check (DC 3): (5,2,1) One success. Unfortunately, you aren't a software programmer, so the scrolling lines of code mean nothing to you. Decker Occult Check (DC 3): (6,3,2) One success. There's something off about the code, but again you lack the necessary expertise to identify it. As you stand up from your fruitless investigation, you see something sitting atop the computer. Ghanta: (Tool) Once per battle, may be used to Stun all unholy enemies as an action. Can be used with Machen's Notebook and a Holy Candle to ???

"Well." Enson said, taking the map from the bulletin board. "I'm not sure what I've found of use here yet. Excuse me..." Enson will return to the storeroom and search for any traces of Bertram.

"Billeck, I believe this is your area of expertise." Enson said with a gesture. Having done all he could with the computers, he examined the message board.

Written.