# Night's Black Agents: Countdown (demo encounter)



## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


The sign-up thread is here; this is a finite, one-encounter game demo designed to show how GUMSHOE works. We're using the pre-gen PCs located here that I wrote and Hypersmurf gloriously formatted. I have info on playing GUMSHOE in post #28 of the sign-up thread, but we'll address any rules as they come up.

Players currently include Mudbunny (Oliver Quinn, Irish explosives expert who's weeks away from retirement), Committed Hero (Hung Ke Lee, American hacker and adreneline junky), Walking Dad (Dr. Felix DuBois, French assassin and almost certainly not a serial killer), Kaodi (Mace Hunter, American con-man who would really prefer to keep secret the fact that he probably is responsible for killing Quinn's family). Hypersmurf is playing Gabriella Castellanos, Colombian sneak thief obsessed with Hung-Ke, and 71gamer is playing Persephone Cardiff, ice-cold analyst and mastermind.

Night's Black Agents is a glorious RPG by Ken Hite about super-spies vs vampires, basically the Bourne Conspiracy if Treadstone was being run by the undead. We're playing it straight here; no vampires, just good old-fashioned Super-Spy action.







OPENING SHOT: The sky is a gorgeous shade of blue. We're miles high, and the camera's looking down on an idyllic landscape of puffy white clouds and far-away terrain. The sun shines high in the sky overhead, a 737 airliner flies away from the camera at the top of the frame, the music swells, and --

Suddenly, something shoots past the camera at high speed, falling towards earth.

Not something. Someone. Two someones. MACE HUNTER and DR. FELIX DuBOIS plummet towards the ground, hair whipped back by the high wind, DuBois looking imperturbable and Hunter looking devastatingly handsome. Clearly, this image is going to be on the movie poster. Neither of them have on parachutes.









*OOC:*


[mention=59043]Walking Dad[/mention],      [MENTION=1231]Kaodi[/MENTION], what do you do?







The camera pans down. Below them and off to the east, five other sky-divers are getting away. It's reasonable to assume that they have something that Hunter and DuBois particularly want.


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## Kaodi (Apr 29, 2013)

The camera cuts to a close up of the two men cutting through the air. Mace Hunter sets his jaw slightly to one side as he thinks on the plan of attack. Turning his head towards DuBois he calls out with a wry smile, "Good thing we didn't waste any time with the parachutes; they might have gotten away if we had." With that he tucks his arms in straightens out in a full headlong dive towards their targets. Momentarily he drifts out of the shot.


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

Mace's Google Glass (as hacked by Hung-Ke) are tracking the five falling bodies, and we see it from the camera's view. The close-up indicate that there are four shorter, swarthy thugs -- Latin American, most likely. They are in free-fall formation around a woman with long black hair, amazing bone structure, tall and agile and beautiful enough to grace the cover of a magazine. She has a mobile telephone in her hands, a telephone that your team particularly needs. She is completely ignoring the on-rushing ground as she attaches some sort of device to the phone. 

Suddenly the cross-hairs and data feed on the glasses shorts out, fuzzes, disappears. Irritating, and bad timing. 

...and the scene shifts to suggest why. 

INTERIOR, DECOMMISSIONED EX-RUSSIAN LAUNCH FACILITY. 

Dull, gray, grimy, filled with outdated computers and buzzing fluorescent lights. HUNG-KE LEE sits in front of a bank of computers, with OLIVER QUINN and PERSEPHONE CARDIFF across the room. There are two Russian goons in the room with guns drawn, and a heavily tattooed seven foot tall bald gorilla of a man -- looking a little bit like the mechanic Indiana Jones fights outside of the flying wing in Raiders of the Lost Arc -- has just buried a fire axe in the monitor besides Hung-Ke's head. Sparks fly everywhere in a burst of actinic light. "You die now!" suggests the bald man in a bad Russian accent as he works the axe free. 

Hung-Ke's phone gives an audio update. "45 seconds to missile launch."

Hung-Ke, if you don't get the launch codes off of the phone that sky-diving woman has -- and if you don't get them in the next 45 seconds -- the not-as-decommissioned-as-you'd-think missile is going to launch a nuclear payload into Israel. That'd be bad. People are trying to stop you, you don't have the phone yet, and time is ticking down.

What do you and Quinn do?


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> The camera cuts to a close up of the two men cutting through the air. Mace Hunter sets his jaw slightly to one side as he thinks on the plan of attack. Turning his head towards DuBois he calls out with a wry smile, "Good thing we didn't waste any time with the parachutes; they might have gotten away if we had." With that he tucks his arms in straightens out in a full headlong dive towards their targets. Momentarily he drifts out of the shot.











*OOC:*


Kaodi, here's how general abilities work. Decide how many points you want to spend, roll a d6, add 'em, and try to reach a 4. That number may rise or lower if the task is particularly hard or easy. On 2 points spent you usually only fail on a 1, and a 3 spend is usually an automatic success. I'm fine with you deciding your spend, rolling a die on your own, and posting the results. 

In this case, make an Athletics check to close the ground between you and the skydivers.

Also: this is perfect. Good post, there.


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## mudbunny (Apr 29, 2013)

The camera in the launch room zooms in on Oliver's right shoe as he slowly slips it off and slides it towards the two gun-wielding goons, aiming for a spot between the two of them. (Athletics; spend of 2; 1D6+2 = 4)

Oliver has a beatific smile on his face as he calls out to Hung "Hey...you know how I swore I would never make a shoe-bomb..."

The camera zooms in on the dark interior of the shoe, which is broken by a series of faint red flashes. (Explosives; spend of 3; 1d6+3=9)









*OOC:*


The bomb in the shoe is designed to be a flash-bang type explosive, with the wavelength of the flash in a range which is filtered out by the glasses that Hung and Oliver are wearing. Do I have to spend a point of Chemistry for this, or can I use Network to make up a contact from his experience in the IRA who can make the proper type of glasses.


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## Kaodi (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


As it seems time is really of the essence, I will just spend the 3 Athletics points: 1d6+3=5


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## 71gamer (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


Where is Persephone in this mess? Am I being swung at with an Axe as well?


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


Bad guys are generally going to go at the bottom of the round.  
Mudbunny, spending a point of Chemistry for that protection would be entirely appropriate (and really clever!) Go ahead and do that.
71gamer, Persephone is over by the thick glass doors leading into the launch room. So, speaking of which...







The air shakes with the force of Ashcan's flash-bang, and the glasses worn by your strike team darken instantly to block out the worst of the dazzle. Enough noise from the explosion comes through the encrypted earbuds to make Mace Hunter and Dr DuBois wince. Ashcan looks down at his stocking foot and the shredded remains of his favorite shoes, and it's hard not to have a few regrets. Ah, well. Only a few weeks 'til retirement and all this will be behind him.

It's worse for your foes in any case. The two Russian goons stagger backwards, swearing creatively and clutching at their eyes. They have guns out, but they're waving them around blindly (by definition). One shouts "Sergei! Where are you, so we don't shoot you?"

The bruiser growls "over here," and grins at Hung-Ke with what remains of his teeth. "You and me, little typing boy. We will dance." He hefts the axe.

Meanwhile, Persephone is covering the heavy glass doors leading into this room. An elevator at the end of the hall, visible through the glass wall, goes "BING." The doors slide open and three more thugs step out. One catches your eye. It's Viktor Eschenko, Russian arms dealer and the architect of this particular deal. You've crossed paths before. Persephone, he's going to be _very_ displeased with you.

"Ah, Cardiff." His voice is flat and annoyed, his Russian accent clipped with barely controlled fury. "So like you British to show up where you are not wanted." He raises a heavy caliber pistol, fires, and the glass immediately in front of Persephone's head bursts into a crazy fractured starburst of impact. His aim was both casual and perfect. The glass may not be bulletproof, but it is bullet-resistant -- at least for the first shot. Persephone is spattered by glass fragments but remains uninjured.

What does Persephone do?

Meanwhile...

FLASHBACK

INTERIOR, PLANE

Mace Hunter and Dr DuBois boarded the airplane surreptitiously, hot on the trail of Gregori Vilnich. This information dealer set up the deal which sold the warhead and the launch codes to Eschenko, and his encrypted phone is where he stores every bit of information he gets. The plan was simple: steal the phone, transmit the launch Abort codes, load in a virus, and slip the phone back all without him noticing. Vilnich sat down next to an utterly gorgeous woman, however, and was quickly drawn into conversation. By the time the plane was in the air, Vilnich had slipped off into a nap and the woman had gotten up to use the bathroom. Perfect timing. Problem is, Vilnich wasn't sleeping, he was dead -- and that woman just blew open an emergency exit and, along with her four bodyguards and the phone in question, leapt through the exit into the swirling emptiness outside.

There was nothing to do but follow her.

END FLASHBACK

Mace Hunter folds in his arms and dives towards his targets. The four bodyguards see him coming and fumble for firearms, although they're clearly not as experienced at sky-diving as Mace and the good Doctor are. Spinning in the air, they point their guns, but Mace and DuBois may be able to act first...









*OOC:*


Mace, you can probably snap off a shot if you want to. It's a little harder than normal. Persephone, you have what we call a wealth of targets. What's your plan?

By the way, you guys have the skill Preparedness, and this lets you pull gear out of nowhere. Since Persephone has it with 8+ points, she can narrate a flashback to have some unexpected plan in place.

Eschenko, incidentally, only spent 1 point of shooting and rolled a 5. The glass absorbed this damage, though.


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## Committed Hero (Apr 29, 2013)

_He can trash all the monitors he wants_, thinks Hung-Ke to himself. _I only need one - plus a CPU. But first...._

The gravity knife - warm from being so close to his forearm - slips out of its harness, and the blade locks into place as it rests in his palm for as long as he needs to aim.









*OOC:*


3 Weapons points to throw the knife at the axe-wielder.


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## Kaodi (Apr 29, 2013)

"Simplemente un buen tiroteo en el Sky High Corral, eh, muchachos?" shouts Mace as he wraps his hand around his pistol and flips open the snap with his thumb. "Draw steady, arm straight, and _pop_!" he says to himself as he draws and fires at the nearest thug.









*OOC:*


Google Translate is a little clumsy but using it can add a little extra flavour, I think. Spending 4 Shooting points: 1d6+4=5 . Looks like I needed 'em. Also, how much detail is expected in order to make use of something like Technothriller Monologue?.


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

One of the four bodyguards takes Mace's slug in the throat. The impact knocks him into a backwards somersault, corkscrewing a spiral of blood as he stops free-falling and starts plummeting uncontrollably. The other three exchange a look, and one says, "¿En serio? El hecho de que nosotros somos él cosas de América del Sur somos los vaqueros mexicanos." 

_Subtitles appear: "Seriously? The guy thinks everyone from South American is a Mexican cowboy."_

Then they start firing towards the spy. Two of their shots go wild, but the third puts a bullet neatly into Mace's left thigh. Pain arcs through Mace's body as he falls closer.

He can now see that the woman has a device clipped to the bottom of the phone. She's cloning it, de-encrypting it, or both. Her eyes lock with Mace's and a brief, radiant smile flashes across her face. Deep brown eyes, high cheekbones, maybe a little too skinny. She moves like a model, and she also moves like someone who's had espionage training. Judging from your tradecraft, from France, you suspect.

MEANWHILE:

The knife buries itself in Sergei's shoulder. He grunts, scowls, and doesn't even take the time to remove it. Instead he slugs Hung-Ke in the stomach with the haft of the axe, grabs him by the throat, and lifts him up out of the chair so that he's on tip-toes. 

"You win prize," he grates into Hung-Ke's face. "Before I was to kill you. Now I will chop off hands, make you watch, and THEN kill you." He slams Hung-Ke against the wall hard enough to shake down plaster, although the knife still in him makes him wince. He wheels around and brings Hung-Ke with him, still holding him by the throat. With his good hand he flips the fire axe in a full 360 before catching it. "How you say in America? 'Batter up.'" 

Across the room, shots ring out as both blinded thugs shoot wildly at Quinn and Persephone. Both miss. Bullets bury themselves with metallic thuds in delicate electronics. 

Hung-Ke's phone chirps, the voice that of a well-known feature actress Hung-Ke dated last year. "40 seconds," it says sweetly.









*OOC:*


Still to go this round: Dr. DuBois and Persephone. 

Rules trivia: guns do 1d6+1 dmg (more at point blank range), weapons do d6, hand-to-hand does d6-1. Go ahead and roll your damage yourself if you hit someone. You can do a few more points with called shots, which also raises the number you need to roll to hit; announce (or at least decide on) called shots before you roll your die.

Another bit of rules trivia. See the top of your sheet where it says Trust? As long as you're in communication with one of those agents, you can give them a point of trust. It gives them +1 on the roll they're about to make. Due to the nature of PbP, I'll let you do that retroactively after someone has missed by 1, if you need to.

Back to the game: Mace takes a measly 3 points of damage to his Health. H-K hit Sergei for 5 points, enough to get his attention. Sergei spent 2 points of Weapons and rolled a 4, easily hitting H-K for 4 points of damage. He's currently using H-K as a mook shield, however, which makes Sergei harder for anyone but H-K to hit.


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


Last post edited to include Mace's actions.















*OOC:*




Kaodi said:


> Also, how much detail is expected in order to make use of something like Technothriller Monologue?.




Enough to be awesome. It doesn't have to be actual gun jargon -- a good gun-related catch line or one-liner will be a fine substitute, as will a cool explanation of what you're doing with your firearms. If you write something, look at it askance and think "that's lame," then it probably isn't good enough.


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## Committed Hero (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


I'm a mook?!

I will give Persephone a point of Trust, here's hoping she uses it to loosen the vise around my throat.


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## Piratecat (Apr 29, 2013)

Committed Hero said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> I'm a mook?!











*OOC:*




Hell no. You're one of the marquee stars! Sergei doesn't know that, though. Poor bastard. In rules terms, normally the target of Mook Shield can't do anything except get shot painfully by his own allies. You can, though. So can Persephone if she's accurate enough. Sergei's going to be really surprised.


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## Committed Hero (Apr 29, 2013)

*OOC:*


I know, I just wasn't expecting my own tactics to be used against me.

Plus it appears he is NOT a mook!


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## 71gamer (Apr 30, 2013)

Persephone shakes the glass out of her hair and draws two pistols, "hands off, Ivan" and fires two shots at Sergei, hopefully missing Hung. 









*OOC:*


Need to look up rolls, he's the threat in the room so I'm going big, 1d6+1+3=__ and 1d6+1+3=__, that's two shots with 3 point spend each and a +1 from trust (hopefully he trusts me as I am shooting past him as mook shield)...

rolls:
1d6+4=5, 1d6+4=10

that's 3x3 gun spend, leaving me with 1 pt.







persephone then sprints, closing the gap between her and Sergei, hoping she can figure out something, anything to do to hurt this guy so Hung can get back to work.


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## Hypersmurf (Apr 30, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> Then they start firing towards the spy. Two of their shots go wild, but the third puts a bullet neatly into Mace's left thigh. Pain arcs through Mace's body as he falls closer.




The accurate thug smirks... then his eyes go wide behind his goggles as the camera pans to reveal the hitherto-unnoticed Gabriella Castellanos knifing in from an oblique angle to collide with him in midair.

She shows brilliant white teeth while wrapping an arm around him, and leans close to shout in his ear.

"*I APPROVE ON GENERAL PRINCIPLE...*" she says, nodding upwards at Mace, "*... BUT I'M AFRAID I NEED HIM ALIVE RIGHT NOW!*"

And snakes her free hand down to yank the man's ripcord, pushing herself clear...









*OOC:*


Filch check?  3 point spend gives... ooh!  A 9!

(Do you want some Athletics or Infiltration to show up from off-camera?)

Also, would Data Recovery be an appropriate Investigative Spend for more clarity on what Mme l'Espionne's current activities portend?


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## Piratecat (Apr 30, 2013)

If Persephone has a reputation for being ice cold and pragmatic, she just proved it. Twin shots ring out in the closed space. Her first bullet is fired _through_ Hung-Ke, blood blossoming out of his side as the bullet pierces him before tumbling and ripping through Sergei's midsection. The huge man stumbles backwards in surprise and drops the hacker to the filthy tile floor. That turns out to be a big mistake. Persephone's second bullet takes Sergei center mass. The Russian wobbles back and forth on legs like tree trunks, eyes glazing, blood dribbling out of his nose and the corner of his mouth. He drops the axe and one hand scrabbles for the knife in his shoulder, trying to get it out before Persephone closes the distance between them..

"35 seconds," chirps the phone.

Meanwhile, in free fall, the accurate thug's parachute deploys with a WHOOMP! Uninjured, the small man shoots upwards and out of the fight. Faint gunfire directed towards Gabriela can barely be heard over the roaring wind, and if a bullet even comes close she never notices it. Gabriella glances over at the woman. Definitely too skinny, she realizes, in a way that's artfully hidden by good make-up and superb tailoring. You could cut yourself on those cheekbones. A small green LED blinks on the bottom of the device she has attached to the phone. The design is unfamiliar but it's almost certainly decrypting the phone, slurping the data, and re-encrypting it on the mirrored data drive in the process. Any second now she'll have a secure copy of the data for herself, and a phone that's been de-encrypted. No telling what she'd do then, but if Gabriella was in her shoes, the answer would either be "toss the phone one way and dive the other," assuming you'd go after the more vulnerable target, or "pull her rip cord and wave bye-bye."

It suddenly occurs to Mace that the quantity of available parachutes in play has dropped from five to four. It also occurs to him that Gabriella is probably aware of this fact and doesn't give a damn. Based on her irrational and betrayed annoyance after their brief, torrid affair, Mace honestly wouldn't be surprised if Gabriella was cutting down the number of available parachutes on purpose.

The two remaining thugs turn their gazes towards Dr. DuBois... 









*OOC:*


71gamer, the +1 trust only applies to the first shot, but that's no problem. Hung-Ke takes four points of health damage from the mook shield. It's still probably worth it. H-K now has 2 points of health. You'll probably want to keep him above 0, but Persephone has a few points of Medic, enough to keep him on his feet if worst comes to worst.

H-K, however, may be the teensiest bit irked.

Hypersmurf, I'd normally have you make an infiltration roll to close in like that, but you did the graphic design on the character sheets; you get a pass! One thug and one parachute, removed from action. In a game, this is a point where a player might spend an interpersonal point from an ability; if that thug showed up later in the adventure (and let's face it, he'd have to), there'd be some sort of professional bond between Gabriella and the thug that could always come in handy.

Hyp, spend that Data Recovery point. Normally you wouldn't need to to just understand what she's doing, but the spend gave you options and tactical information beyond the normal.

Walking Dad, what does DuBois do?


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## Walking Dad (May 1, 2013)

Close up on Du Bois' face, showing cold eyes and a smirk that doesn't reach the eyes. The camera follows his slender hands to his hidden back holsters, showing him drawing his twin silenced pistols. The silencers made no real sense in this situation, but he didn't planned for using him in free fall as he prepared for the day.

He points them at the last two thugs, judging the trajectory, the distance and the terminal velocity speed as he fires both of them at once.

The camera shows the interior on one of the guns. The ignition explodes the bullet forward as it spins through the barrel, leaving the silencer slightly rotating with only a hint of a flash, cutting through the air and toward the heart of one on the thugs. The other thug is show with a spray of blood exploding from his throat, one hand clutching his neck. Back cut on the French assassin, still falling and his twin pistols leaving a trail of smoke in the air.









*OOC:*


spending 3 shooting and two athletics on Twin pistols. Using the remaining shoot points, 2 on the easier target, 3 on the second, harder one.


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## Piratecat (May 1, 2013)

*OOC:*


I know who's seen _Wanted_! Walking Dad, normally when you attack go ahead and roll your attacks. I rolled for you in this case, and using both pistols paid off (as it did for Persephone a minute ago.)







The two remaining bodyguards turn their gazes towards Dr. DuBois -- they're both Peruvian of native Indio extraction, Dr. DuBois would guess, based on their stature and distinctive cranial shape -- and for at least one of them Dr. DuBois is the last thing he sees. The dull thump of bullets hitting flesh carries over the screaming wind. One immediately clutches his throat as crimson sprays outward, and his previously controlled free-fall becomes awkward and wild. His pistol slides from his hand and falls into the air. Droplets of blood spatter against Gabriella. The other thug has a chest wound but is somehow still alive, face grimacing with pain. He spins in the air, panic rising, glancing at the woman he guards...

...and despite his wound, placid competence returns to his face. Hmm, notes Dr. DuBois. That's odd.

*BING!* beeps the device on the phone that the woman holds. She pulls it off the bottom of Vilnich's stolen cell and tucks the device into her jacket. "I would love to stay and chat," she shouts over the wind, and to Mace her voice is like warm honey. "But I have places to be. I don't think we'll meet again. This has been a... how do you say it? A blast." She smiles and her hands move incredibly quickly. She throws Vilnich's de-encrypted cell phone off to the right side of the frame -- the camera lingers on it for a second as it tumbles away through space, only visible as it's tracked through the teams' glasses -- and pulls something from her jacket. "Literally." She flattens her arms to her side and dives off at an angle to the left, out of frame, in the opposite direction from the discarded cell phone. You have a choice. Go after the cell phone, go after her, or stay here and grab one of the three available parachutes?

Oh, that thing she pulled out of her jacket and left behind? A live grenade, hanging in mid-air, about to go off next to Gabriella and Mace. If it does, the undamaged parachutes aren't the only thing you can kiss goodbye.

What do you do?









*OOC:*


Back at the launch facility, Quinn, Persephone and H-K can go as well. Sergei is moving a little slowly at the minute, two unnamed thugs are still flash-blinded, and Eschenko and his men need to get into the room where you are. Your actions will come first.

Rules note: In GUMSHOE, just having an investigative ability gets you clues. Sometimes you have to tell the GM you're using that ability ("I have evidence collection, so I'm going to check the scene for fingerprints and DNA evidence"). Sometimes the GM tells you. In this case, DuBois's medical knowledge pinpoints those bodyguards as Peruvian. Mace's tradecraft indicated that the woman was probably trained by French intelligence, although she doesn't particularly look French. In the course of the longer adventure, those things would likely become relevant.

I think the smoothest game play happens when the GM remembers that the PCs are utterly competent super-spies and stops stressing about keeping that kind of information secret. Hands down, that was the biggest leap I had to take when first running GUMSHOE.


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## Committed Hero (May 1, 2013)

"Where would you've shot me if I wasn't on the team, 'Seph?" Hung-Ke grimaces as he pulls the wrecked monitor from its place on the worktable.









*OOC:*


2 more Athletics to spend smashing Sergei with it - I am hoping his condition results in a lower Hit Threshold.


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## Kaodi (May 1, 2013)

The camera snaps to a close-in of Mace, already grimacing from the pain, and you can see his eyes bulge slightly. But it not the grenade that has momentarily surprised him. "THAT'S THE SAME THING YOU SAID IN MARSEILLE!"

FLASHBACK

INTERIOR, HOTEL BAR

Mace steps into the frame, close up, dressed in a classic black tuxedo. His handlers are taking care of a few details before sending him in to spy on what is allegedly an IRA cell, so he has been sent to Southern France on an errand before the main event gets underway. He glances in both directions and then the camera pulls away slowly as he walks towards the bar. 

There are several people at various tables and stools even though the evening is still a little young for drinking. But Mace does not intend to let that stop him. He walks up to the bar and orders a rye on the rocks. The camera flips to behind the bar, looking out. Mace looks again to his right. The camera pans to the left and there at the end of the bar in a stylish black dress is a gorgeous woman with deep brown eyes and high cheekbones. She is a little on the skinny side, but that would be unsurprising if she were a model. She is easily good looking enough to be a model.

"Get the lady a drink, will you?" says Mace to the bar tender.

The camera does dark for a split second and when the picture re-appears Mace and the woman are sitting at one of the tables and both are smiling. "I would love to stay and chat," says the woman apologetically as she gets up from her seat, voice like warm honey. "But I have places to be. I don't think we'll meet again."

END FLASHBACK

Mace's eyes narrow and he curses himself for not recognizing the woman sooner. There is no time to worry about that now though, just another opportunity missed. Suddenly he fades out of focus as the camera quickly zooms out to the live grenade hanging in the air. Mace's hand shoots out to grab it and with arm out he spins around and launches it like a rocket right at the woman. "Shortstop! All-American, babe!"









*OOC:*


I do not know if this really works but I am guessing I can use Connected Cover to create an identity known to woman. How many points you need for that I am not sure (use 6?), but Mace has a tonne of them. As for throwing the grenade, I use all 5 remaining Athletics points: 1d6+5=10 .


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## Piratecat (May 1, 2013)

*OOC:*


Hung-Ke, those should be Weapons points instead of Athletics points (with the three relevant pools being Weapons, Hand-to-Hand, and Shooting.) You have Weapons points left, right?

Mace, I'll give you a 3-point refresh in one pool (ie you add 3 spent points back to a pool of your choice) if you agree to the following changes in your flashback:

1. It's no wonder you didn't immediately recognize her, because she wasn't skinny then. She was in superb shape, curvy, and fashion-model leggy; there was no hint of this gaunt look that she's now trying to hide. She had told you her name was Elena, no-last-name-given, and she spoke fluent French with a South American accent. She said she was a Parisian fashion model on holiday. You believed her, as it made a great cover story, but even then you could tell she had training. She's better now, much better. You've never been quite sure if it was she who so badly complicated that errand for you or not. 

2. The camera doesn't fade back in with the two of you at a table. It fades back in with her sliding out of your hotel bed. The conversation you had remains identical.

Work for you?


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## Committed Hero (May 1, 2013)

*OOC:*


Weapons is what I meant, leaving me with 3 points left. Thanks!


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## Kaodi (May 1, 2013)

*OOC:*


Hell yes. I believe I will refresh Athletics. That should be eminently more useful at this point, especially when it comes to avoiding Death By Sudden Stop.


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## Hypersmurf (May 1, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> One immediately clutches his throat as crimson sprays outward, and his previously controlled free-fall becomes awkward and wild. His pistol slides from his hand and falls into the air. Droplets of blood spatter against Gabriella.




Thankful for the stylish Louis Vuitton sunglasses keeping blood out of her eyes, Gabriella takes a split-second to consider the pistol - as, apparently, the only passenger on Flight 383 who _didn't_ smuggle a firearm past airport security, she could use one.

But more pressing concerns abound.



Kaodi said:


> The camera quickly zooms out to the live grenade hanging in the air. Mace's hand shoots out to grab it and with arm out he spins around and launches it like a rocket right at the woman. "Shortstop! All-American, babe!"




Gabriella rolls her eyes.  "*Showing off is so unappealing.*"

Meanwhile, the angle of her free-fall has brought her into proximity with the _more_-unfortunate of duBois' two victims.  Her fists clamp tightly onto his lapels, drawing her close to the corpse with her heels hooked behind his thighs.  The two rotate about their mutual centre of gravity - once, twice, three times - and then Gabriella plants the soles of her feet in the man's belly and straightens convulsively, launching them in opposite trajectories.

He tumbles bonelessly towards his remaining compatriot... while Gabriella uses the momentum to begin a chase after the glittering cellphone.

... only now, she's wearing the dead man's parachute...









*OOC:*


Primarily, the intent of this action is another Filch check to swipe a chute off the body.  Secondary goals are to pick up some ground on the cellphone, and to interfere with the last goon's shot by tangling him up with a corpse.

If I chuck in four Athletics points (the cost of the Jump In action) and wind up with a good Filch total, is it possible to make any progress towards a secondary goal, or is the round basically taken up by the chute acquisition with everything else flavour text pointing toward future intent?

(Possibly bearing in mind the prior Investigative Spend having primed her for the likelihood of having to pursue a falling phone.)


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 1, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> I do not know if this really works but I am guessing I can use Connected Cover to create an identity known to woman. How many points you need for that I am not sure (use 6?), but Mace has a tonne of them.











*OOC:*


Non-critical in an Encounter format, but in a Campaign, it's worth keeping in mind that unlike most of your General skills, your Cover pool never Refreshes.  The only way to replenish it is to pay XP into it, basically.  So while it can be super-useful, it's also not something to blithely drain the way you can with Disguise or Shooting, say.

Since this _isn't_ a campaign game, this is more in the nature of a trivia note than anything else!


----------



## Piratecat (May 2, 2013)

Hung-Ke hefts the shattered monitor. Luckily it's a CRT, not a LCD flat-panel. Hanging onto the power cord and spinning, wincing in pain from Persephone's gunshot, he slams the monitor down directly on the gravity knife he has still stuck into Sergei's shoulder. The monitor acts as a hammer, jabbing the razor-sharp blade deeper into the huge Russian. Sergei screams and takes two steps backward, staggers, and topples directly onto a live wire exposed by his compatriots' wild gunshots. His scream is cut mercifully short by a lethal arc of sparking electricity, and the smoking corpse topples to the filthy floor. 

Outside the room, Eschenko rolls his eyes. "Do you have any idea how long I had to hunt to find someone like him, Cardiff? Now you're interfering with my choice of personnel." Standing back, he gestures to his thugs. "Men? Open that wall. $50,000 American dollars to whoever kills the nerd. Another $50,000 to whoever kills the woman." He smiles slowly. "Go on. Impress me."

The two blinded thugs inside the room blink rapidly, clearing their vision.

Hung-Ke's phone interrupts cheerily. "30 seconds."

Meanwhile, in the air, Gabriella -- and how did she manage to fasten those buckles so quickly, anyways? -- soars downwards towards the tumbling cell phone. The ground is rising disturbingly quickly. The corpse she kicked off of slams into the one surviving bodyguard. That man grasps his dead friend, wrestling him in place as an impromptu shield as he takes shaky aim at the incoming Dr. DuBois. You can see his mouth moving, uttering prayers in Spanish as he tries to kill his assailants and save his own life.

All of you are momentarily rocked as the grenade goes off. Showing off exceptionally well, Mace was able to throw it far enough to keep you out of the blast radius, but was he able to catch the mysterious woman? He squints through the dissipating smoke and flame, zooming in with his glasses to gain a close-up on the woman's lovely face. She's stunned, bloody and injured from the blast, but still conscious as she tries to regain control of her fall. The look she shoots Mace is pure vitriol, hatred and grudging respect and unanticipated lust inextricably mixed, and she wipes blood from her brow.

She checks; she still has the device. One hand rises towards her parachute's ripcord. 









*OOC:*


Dr. DuBois, Persephone Cardiff, Ashcan Quinn -- Actions?


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 2, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> Meanwhile, in the air, Gabriella -- and how did she manage to fasten those buckles so quickly, anyways?












*OOC:*


It's the escape artist training.  She's an absolute whiz with buckles, straps, and restraints of all descriptions...


----------



## mudbunny (May 2, 2013)

Quinn starts as he hears the start of an explosion through his earpiece until the noise filter cuts it off.

"Gabriella!! Are you all right? What happened?" he yells in panic as the filters disengage. He presses the earpiece harder against his ear as if that will help him hear her response better until a spark from one of the recent gunshots burns his hand, bringing him back to the here and now.

Quinn takes a quick look around to asses the situation.

"Let's see, big dude is down, as is one of the thugs in here. The other one is fine for the moment. On the other side of that glass, on the other hand, there seems to be a bunch of people who are decidedly unhappy with us. Not sure why..."

Pulling his pistol out of his pants, Quinn builds up a head of steam and dives across the entrance to the control room, focusing on the head of the goon closest to the entrance. _I aced the TRA training courses for accuracy, lets see if I still have it_









*OOC:*


 Spend of 4 shooting, 1 stability to double-tap the Eschenko in the chest assuming the first attack hits, which is a requirement to use my Extra shooting attack cherry. I also want to use the Called shot aiming for his head.

First shot (spend of 2 shooting)- 1d6+2 result = 7; Damage 1d6+2 (Called shot) = 3
Success (I assume a 7 overcomes the +3 hit threshold for the chest)
Second shot 1d6+4 (required spend for doubletap) = 6; Damage 1d6+2 (called shot) = 7

Note that i am not sure if I can use extra hot AND called shot at the same time. If I cannot, I will just go for a called shot for Eschenko's head with a spend of 3 shooting)







Quinn dives across the doorway, all of his focus on the pistol at the end of his arm. He remembers what Brady, his shooting instructor back during the time of troubles, said to him. "The good shooters, the one for whom it requires no thought...to them, the gun is just a part of their body, like a finger or a toe. When you can do that, stop thinking about the gun as a gun, then you will find shooting requires little or no effort." The panic in his mind at a lack of response from Gabrielle makes it difficult to enter that space, but he just manages.

His focus narrows and he can no longer feel the pistol. It is just there, like the hair on his arms is. To say that he brought the pistol up would be to diminish what happened. Looking back, Quinn would not be able to say that he saw the target in his sights. He simply brought his hands up and the sights of the pistol simply moved to occupy the line between his eyes and Eschenko as if they were belonged there. His finger caressed the trigger, applying the minimum pressure required to overcome the 2 lb trigger pull weight and send his round down the hallway.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 2, 2013)

mudbunny said:


> Quinn starts as he hears the start of an explosion through his earpiece until the noise filter cuts it off.
> 
> "Gabriella!! Are you all right? What happened?" he yells in panic as the filters disengage. He presses the earpiece harder against his ear as if that will help him hear her response better until a spark from one of the recent gunshots burns his hand, bringing him back to the here and now.
> 
> ...




<*Business as usual,*> comes Gabriella's reply a moment after Quinn shoots.  <*Mace is flirting with the target - boy has some strange notions of foreplay.  Hung-Ke - I should have your codes within the next sixty seconds...*>


----------



## Committed Hero (May 2, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> Hung-Ke hefts the shattered monitor. Luckily it's a CRT, not a LCD flat-panel.




One thing you can count on with respect to Russian technology, always a decade or so behind the times....



> *Hung-Ke - I should have your codes within the next sixty seconds...*




"If you can't get them to me in the first thirty, don't sweat the last thirty. Just keep the channel open for as long as you can."


----------



## mudbunny (May 2, 2013)

Quinn relaxes as he hears Gabriella's voice come through the earpiece.


----------



## Piratecat (May 2, 2013)

*OOC:*


Some Administrivia: 
 - In order to grab that parachute and head off after the phone, Gabriella spent 4 filch (4+4=8, plenty!) and 4 athletics. She's now hurtling down towards it and - barring unexpected complications - will catch up next round. It tumbles in the air.
 - There are two remaining bad guys in the air, "Elena" and one shot-but-conscious bodyguard. "Elena" has her own chute, as does Gabriella. DuBois and Mace do not, yet. One living foe and one dead foe tumbling nearby still have chutes.
 - There are 5 visible bad guys in the launch center. There are two thugs in the room with Quinn, Cardiff and Lee; these are the ones that Quinn blinded briefly with his shoe bomb (and who are still -1 to hit). There two more outside the glass-enclosed control room, accompanied by Eschenko. 
 - I didn't specify whether the door leading into the control room is locked or not. Based on Quinn's update, it's both open and unlocked.
- You can totally use extra shot and called shot at the same time, because doing so is completely awesome.







A lot of things happen at once.

Blinking the dazzle out of their eyes, the two nearby thugs duck behind a control counter and fire at both Hung-Ke and Persephone; they heard their boss, and neither of them wants to turn down a pay bonus like that. One bullet grazes Persephone's thigh, leaving a trail of fiery pain along the wound. The other thug blinks rapidly, takes careful aim... and instead of shooting Hung-Ke Lee, he shoots his cell phone. The bullet smashes the plastic and electronics to splinters. "Go ahead," says the thug. "Try to transmit your abort codes now." He laughs, an ugly grating sound, and ducks behind the counter into cover.

Quinn's leap past the open door is astounding for someone so close to retirement. The two men outside seize their chance and shoot at him as he flashes past. Both shots miss, leading him too much as he passes the doorway, but both bullets shatter the glass just above where Quinn is landing. His roll carries him into jagged shards of glass that turn out to be a lot less bulletproof, and a lot sharper, than he might have hoped. Quinn manages to keep his face clear, but the sides of his hands and his foot without the shoe end up slashed and bleeding. 

It hardly matters, though, because the guns virtually _sang_ in his hands. Eschenko has no way to duck in time, and both bullets hit Eschenko's chest dead center. The middle-aged man is knocked down and back by the impact, surely a kill shot to the heart; the only way someone could possibly survive that would be to be wearing a Kevlar vest. 

Groaning, crawling on all fours, Viktor Eschenko crawls backwards into the cover of the elevator. He leaves no blood trail behind. Rolling himself with a pained grunt onto the elevator's floor, Quinn can see that the front of Eschenko's impeccably tailored suit has been ripped open by gunfire, revealing two squashed bullets buried in the front of a bulletproof vest. "Quinn?" Eschenko's weakened voice is as cold and terrifying as you've ever heard from a man. "You _dare_? My men are going to kill you, and you can go to your death knowing that I'm going to kill all your family. ALL of them." The elevator doors begin to close.









*OOC:*


Persephone takes 3 points of Health damage from a bullet. H-K loses his cell phone (the thug spent just about all of his remaining shooting points, hoping that it would stop you from being able to receive and transmit the abort codes. Does it?) Quinn takes 4 points of Health damage from broken glass (technically one of the shots hit him, but this is a cooler way to describe the same mechanical effect). Eschenko takes a crapload of damage, but the bulletproof vest mitigated enough of it that he knows it's time not to stick around and watch. 

Dr. DuBois? One man standing (using a corpse as a shield), one woman injured and escaping.
Persephone? Two men in the room with you behind a counter, two men outside, Eschenko departing via elevator. Actions?

And don't forget that many of you have Preparedness. Quinn, I believe your Mechanics can be used in place of Preparedness if you need to rig up a gadget, device or weapon on the fly.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 2, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> And don't forget that many of you have Preparedness. Quinn, I believe your Mechanics can be used in place of Preparedness if you need to rig up a gadget, device or weapon on the fly.












*OOC:*


Yeah - between the two of them, Persephone and Ashcan have an effective 16 points of Preparedness, plus the 'Swiss Army Prep' and 'In The Nick Of Time' cherries.

... and a surfeit of Explosive Devices on Ashcan's part, of course...


----------



## Walking Dad (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


weird situation. DuBois has his pistols drawn, but no shooting dots remaining. Could have my description count as a Technothriller Monologue? If not, what skill do you use for thrown weapons?


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 3, 2013)

Walking Dad said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> weird situation. DuBois has his pistols drawn, but no shooting dots remaining. Could have my description count as a Technothriller Monologue? If not, what skill do you use for thrown weapons?












*OOC:*


I'm not the GM, but I'll state with some confidence that the CSI follow-the-bullet-down-the-barrel camerawork falls well inside the parameters of a Technothriller Monologue!

For throwing knives etc, the skill is Weapons - and since you have the Quincy Morris' Bowie Knife cherry, you're much better at it than most people!


----------



## mudbunny (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


Also, lack of shooting dots just means that instead of rolling 1d6 and then adding a bonus, you just roll 1d6.


----------



## Piratecat (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


Not weird at all. Think about a Bourne movie; someone shoots someone, then kicks them in the crotch, then hits them with a lamp. They're _actually_ using Shooting, Hand-to-Hand and Weapons in three subsequent rounds so that they balance out their pools! This is a game where you're encouraged to describe glorious things for yourself, and because you choose which abilities you have and how many you spend, you decide whether or not they occur. 

As others said, with nothing in your shooting pool you have a few options:
 - The "view inside the gun" description is _absolutely_ cool enough to trigger Technothriller Monologue. That gives you three points back immediately, if I remember correctly. Glad you asked. 
 - You have more than 8 points in Weapons (DuBois tends to prefer more intimate weapons than guns; he particularly likes scalpels. Not that there's anything creepy about that. Cough.) and that lets you throw weapons flawlessly.  Heck, throw a pistol if it makes you happy.  
 - If you had decided to shoot anyways, you'd just roll a d6 and add nothing. If someone has Trust in you, and is in touch with you, they can also give you 1 point of Trust on a roll.

Let's face it, DuBois is an incredibly proficient assassin. For mooks in particular, the question is usually how long you allow him to live and how you choose to kill him, not whether he manages to escape.


----------



## Kaodi (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


I would be happy to give DuBois a point of Trust this round.


----------



## Piratecat (May 3, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> I would be happy to give DuBois a point of Trust this round.











*OOC:*


Don't tell me, roleplay it!


----------



## Kaodi (May 3, 2013)

At this point Mace Hunter is thinking that it may be time to turn his attention to the rapidly approaching surface of the planet. It is a good thing that he can rely on DuBois to do some clean up while he worries about getting them parachutes.


----------



## Piratecat (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


And how do you want to go about getting those parachutes?


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## mudbunny (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


 One thing that I am finding as I read the manual is that this system allows for, from my point of view, a lot more narrative freedom than other games. For example, if you want to say that you have a brace of throwing knives strapped to your chest, then you do.

Re-reading, I think I need to make it clearer. Compared to games like D&D or GURPS, where you have an inventory list, and if it isn't in the list, you don't have it, or if it hasn't happened, you can't make it up, GUMSHOE (which nights Black Agents is built on) allows the player much more control on making up backstory and such to justify what they are doing now.


----------



## Kaodi (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


Hmmm... I think it depends on what DuBois does next.


----------



## Piratecat (May 3, 2013)

*OOC:*


We're at the end of the second round, waiting for  [MENTION=88980]71gamer[/MENTION] (Persephone) and  [MENTION=59043]Walking Dad[/MENTION] (Dr. DuBois) to go. Posts 34 and 39 summarize the tactical situation. Dr. DuBois gets 3 points of Shooting back, and has a +1 (trust) on his next roll if he wants it. You guys are enthusiastically encouraged to grab narrative control and make stuff up; I'll holler if it ever needs to get changed. Since this is a spy movie, I'd be practically disappointed if you didn't do stuff that surprised me.

I am finding this tremendously fun. Thank you, all of you. 

(Technical note: I am technically handling Trust wrong, but that's only because this method is much simpler for me to track and has the same effect. GM prerogative!)

I'll be gone all day tomorrow. If possible, let's finish this round today and I'll update on Sunday. We're running out of time before that missile goes...

Oh, one more thing. If you think of it, please don't include your .sig when you post. It makes the thread a little more difficult to read. Thanks!


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## Walking Dad (May 4, 2013)

Du Bois uses the blast wave of the explosion to dive below the last thug. The camera angle shows him from below as he lets one pistol go to grab his jacket and unfold it, giving him just enough updraft to come up behind the surprised man. As he hits the thugs head with the pistol handle, the view changes to x-ray and the spectator sees a broad needle like device coming out of the handle and punctures the stunned man's brain. The doctor grabs the body, not willing to loose the last chute.









*OOC:*


spending hand to hand for Feint. Called shot for the head. Spending 2 weapons on the attack +1 trust
weapon attack (1d6+3=6)
not sure how to roll the damage.
Could I some how declare that his next shot is tracer/burning ammo, able to set a chute on flame


----------



## Piratecat (May 6, 2013)

*OOC:*


Weapon damage is usually a d6, and you rolled a 4. Alas, poor mook, we hardly knew you. For tracer/incendiary ammo, make a Preparedness check at a TN of 3 and you've got it! The number is usually 4, but as a wetworker you're more likely to have some than anyone else. Also, I love the image, and style goes a long way.    [MENTION=88980]71gamer[/MENTION] 's turn next, then round 3. (Edited for pre-coffee goof)







Dr. DuBois grabs the dead Peruvian in one long-fingered hand, sliding the poison syringe back and holstering his pistol almost by reflex. The man and the corpse spin in mid-air, corkscrewing, and the good Doctor begins to slide the thug's lifeless limbs out of his parachute. _Interesting,_ thinks DuBois. _Not only are these men Peruvian, they're all from the same village... in the Andes, unless I miss my guess. Note the adaptations to high altitude exposure and the characteristic signs of a relatively isolated breeding pool. They have had basic bodyguard and combat training, not that it helped them much, all in the distinctive style of the French espionage corps. Probably personally trained by the young lady. She could have done a better job._ 

DuBois considers her for a moment. He didn't get a great look, but he knows medicine, and she seemed to be wearing padded clothing to disguise a near skeletal degree of emaciation. He'd guess cancer if he had to, although neither that nor anorexia jibed with her clear vivacity and levels of energy. Something is wrong. Drugs, perhaps. And her physical condition didn't explain why she was willing to kill a man and jump out of a plane to get that phone.


----------



## mudbunny (May 6, 2013)

*OOC:*


I went at the begining of the round, it is [MENTION=88980]71gamer[/MENTION] who is left to go.


----------



## 71gamer (May 6, 2013)

*OOC:*


Sorry, was camping for a long weekend. I will finish up my round in the next hour after getting caught up, and will be a heck of a lot more connected the rest of the week!


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 6, 2013)

71gamer said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> I will finish up my round in the next hour...











*OOC:*


I don't believe you!


----------



## 71gamer (May 6, 2013)

*What? Another phone?*

(Preparedness test: Autosucceed w/MOS)
A bit of a control freak, Persephone trusts no one as much as herself. 

Flashback: As Hung begins to make the call to relay the codes, she stops him. "I know this is your thing, but you'd better give me that number". After some squabbling, she saves the number to her phone as Hung reads it off, snaps the case shut, and says "trust me, the way this has been going, It wouldn't surprise me if..." and stops as she hears the distinctive sound of Russian voices yelling in the hallway...

Back to current time: She wipes her blood off her hand, reaches into her pocket, and grabs the backup cell. Persephone dials the number and throws the secondary phone to Hung and quips "...an ounce of preparedness!" Get those codes and I'll patch you up. But for now, Ivan calls" and sprints towards the closing elevator. 









*OOC:*


I assume that's how preparedness works, and hopefully just having a second phone isn't too cheesy. Sorry about the time between posts!


----------



## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

*OOC:*


Not cheesy in the least! Heck, considering that the first time I ran NBA [MENTION=3448]Cerebral Paladin[/MENTION] used Persephone's preparedness to produce a rocket launcher and blow away my triumphant bad guy's fleeing helicopter, it's positively tame and completely in character. Due to the nifty past-time nature of a flashback, you can still take a combat action. In order to get to the elevator you're going to be running right into those two goons in the hallway, and that's extraordinarily dangerous. What's your approach, who do you want to attack, and how?


----------



## 71gamer (May 7, 2013)

*OOC:*


I'm not sure if I can play it this way, but here goes--I am going for my technothriller monologue refresh on shooting for the next turn







As she runs towards the goons closing ranks and the closing elevator beyond, she holsters her second gun, and in her favored hand, feels the familiar nylon grip, worn from years of service, knows every scratch on the stainless slide, knows the rough patch where a serial number used to be. With every fibre of her being, she hopes this is enough... attempts put her elbow deep in the weaker thugs' nose, hoping to cause enough physical duress to slip by.  She watches how they move, feinting to the left and right, and makes a lightning-quick dive to the right thug's face. She is off-balance, and doesn't quite weigh enough for this kind of attack; physical violence is not her forte, but maybe fate will look kindly on her tonight:

Hand to Hand attack +2 points (1d6+2=7)


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## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

One thug goes down, blood spurting from his nose. The other one is both fast and wary; he spins his pistol in his hand, holding the barrel, and cracks Persephone on the back of the head with it as she rushes past. He then shoves her as hard as he can towards the back wall and the elevator, likely hoping to push her into the wall. A blackish-red flare goes off inside Persephone's head, the worst kind of fireworks, and she catches herself enough to stumble towards the elevator. Due to that shove, ironically, she reaches it just before the door completely closes. Eschenko is inside on the floor, gasping for breath through doubtlessly bruised ribs, and he fumbles for a weapon as Persephone's face appears.

"Cardiff," he manages to get out, "it's kind of you to deliver yourself to me. Like a going away present." He smiles, displaying top-notch dental work, and starts to pull something from inside his jacket. 

She could toss something through the door, insert her hand so that the door re-opens, or (probably, with a TN 4 Athletics check) leap through without causing the door to reopen. 









*OOC:*


[MENTION=88980]71gamer[/MENTION], 6 points of damage from that Weapons attack, but one thug is down and you're past the other. You get 3 points of shooting back. What do you want to do with the elevator?


----------



## 71gamer (May 7, 2013)

Persephone slides her foot into the elevator and levels her gun at Eschenko's head, staggering from the massive blow dealt by the thug. 

"Eschenko, I had a better gift in mind. Good night..." and pulls the trigger. 

+4 shooting, using it all up. (1d6+4=7)


----------



## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

[Start of the 3rd round]

Of the two remaining thugs behind Persephone, one is choking to death on his own blood, the result of having his nose driven into his face. The other shoves Persephone hard just after her gun barks, pushing her fully into the elevator. The thug stares in irritation as the doors shut in front of him with Persephone and what's left of his boss inside. He was gonna kill her! But if he had, with Eschenko dead, would he have gotten the bounty? Probably not. He shrugs, turns, and starts into the control room to kill that damn hacker instead. 

The remains of Hung-Ke's old phone pathetically squawks out a short, warbling voice. The speaker has been shot, but the chronograph is still working. _Twenty seconds._

The two thugs in the control room already exchange a glance from behind their cover. "We've got 'em," one grates, and the other agrees, deespite the fact they're low on bullets. They move as one out from behind their cover. The one who shot Hung-Ke's phone starts across the room for the hacker, throwing a desk chair in his general direction as he comes. The chair goes wide. His partner, a taller and uglier man missing half an ear, does an impressive front roll to close the distance and comes up punching Quinn in the face with one meaty, tattooed fist. He brushes greasy hair out of his still watering eyes. 

"You an old man," says the thug to Quinn in his thick Russian accent. "Look a little bit like Santa Claus. I'm gonna go to kids at American malls on Christmas and tell them I killed Santa, maybe show them picture of your head. What you think of that?" He feints again, circling Quinn slightly, and spits. "You got pistol. I got fists. I still gonna win."









*OOC:*


Persephone inflicted a massive 8 points of damage to Eschenko's head, which is now a bloody mess. She has also taken another 1 point of health from that Hand-to-Hand shove, and is separated from the rest of the group. Quinn takes a measly 2 points of Health from the fist to his face, and the thug is right in front of him. Hung-Ke got missed.





 

Inside the elevator, the Russian equivalent of Muzak plays. Persephone looks down at Eschenko's remains. Her marksmanship was top-notch and she was at point-blank range, and the left side of his head is a bloody ruin. She feels her own wounds, knows that they only have seconds left to stop that warhead, reaches up to touch her earbud for a status report and --

Eschenko's one remaining eye snaps open.

*"Cardiff."* His voice is bubbling, strained. It looks like his inhalation requires a conscious effort. *"My Master spoke the truth. I smell you, Persephone. Perrr-Sephhh-Onnnn-eeee."* He drawls each syllable out, tasting it. *"I smell your blood. I need it, I need you, I need it to recover. My master has plans for me."* He stares at her with his one remaining eye, and she can see that it doesn't contain a single shred of sanity. She can also see that his eye teeth seems to have gotten much, much longer.

Brains dripping onto his impeccably tailored suit, Eschenko struggles to his feet.









*OOC:*


Remember when I said this was a game of super-spies vs vampires, but that we were playing it straight?

I lied.


----------



## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

*OOC:*


What are Mace, Dr DuBois, Gabriella, Quinn, and Hung-Ke doing?


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 7, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> What are Mace, Dr DuBois, Gabriella, Quinn, and Hung-Ke doing?












*OOC:*


I'm still chasing a phone - I think you indicated I could reach it this round, but I'm not sure if that's the whole action or if that's where my action begins...?


----------



## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

Gabriella spirals down through the sky, targeting reticule on her glasses tracking the phone as it tumbles through the air. Frankly, this would be a lot more fun for her if Hung-Ke was here with her instead of Mace. 









*OOC:*


That's where it begins. Filch check to catch the phone. Assuming you succeed, H-K gave you a gizmo to slap onto it that does some sort of hacking thing. You still have that?


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 7, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> Gabriella spirals down through the sky, targeting reticule on her glasses tracking the phone as it tumbles through the air. Frankly, this would be a lot more fun for her if Hung-Ke was here with her instead of Mace.
> 
> 
> 
> ...












*OOC:*


Well, of _course_ I still have the gizmo.  Hung-Ke _entrusted_ me with it, and that's the sort of behaviour I'm trying to encourage!

But, um, I've been spending Filch pretty heavily so far this scene, and I have only one point left.  What I'd like to do here is trigger a Filch Refresh with a TFFB from a flashbacked Electronic Surveillance spend... cool?







_A week ago..._

"*I'm not saying they aren't functional,*" Gabriella insists.  "*Just that the frames are completely wrong for the shape of my face.  See, aren't these much better?*"

She slips off the Google Glass eyewear, and replaces it with a pair of her favoured Louis Vuittons.  She leans in close to Hung-Ke - in and _down_, just a little lower than was really necessary even with him seated at his console - and dares him to disagree.

"*So if you could just do your thing and move all the electronics from there to here, I'd really appreciate it...*"

After a moment that lingers an awkward second too long, she stands back up... and then crowds closer again to perch on the edge of Hung-Ke's chair.  ... well, on his thigh, really, since the chair isn't big enough for two.

"*Oh, and I've done some refinement of the Tracking Lock algorithm.*"  She calls up a source file from the server and begins highlighting her changes.  "*There's a predictive element now, so it doesn't just caret where the target is, but where he most likely will be.  Makes calculating lead distance automatic, rather than something you need to do in your head... still needs some field testing, but it feels pretty solid to me so far...*"

-----

As the phone tumbles below her, Gabriella tightens her delta track to increase her speed, and switches her targeting to Predictive Mode to ensure she doesn't miss the catch...









*OOC:*


So if the investigative spend can give me some Filch back, I'll spend what I need to hit the TN to catch the phone!


----------



## Piratecat (May 7, 2013)

*OOC:*


Investigative spends will gain you +3 on a General Ability roll, if you can justify them -- and you do a beautiful job. Good scene.







And as easily as a casual grab from a rich executive's suit pocket, the phone slaps neatly into Gabriella's outstretched palm. She grins down at it, and so can't help but notice that the ground seems much closer than she'd really expected it to be. 

You have time this round to either pull your rip cord or slide H-K's device onto the phone. Which do you choose?


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 7, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> And like a rich executive's wallet sliding out of a suit pocket and into her own, the phone slaps neatly into Gabriella's outstretched palm. She grins down at it, and so can't help but notice that the ground seems much closer than she'd really expected it to be. You have time this round to either pull your rip cord or slide H-K's device onto the phone. Which do you choose?




One advantage that the original Google Glass frames had was that they _didn't_ occlude the top half of the altimeter readout on the HUD.  But there are sacrifices that must be made for fashion.  It's not clear if that first digit is a '6' or an '8', but Gabriella's pretty certain it's an 8.  Almost 100% confidence.

That would mean there's still time before minimum safe altitude, but WWIII is approaching even faster than the masts of those extravagant and overpriced superyachts moored in Port Hercule below (although should the cars on the Grand Prix track be looking _quite_ so large just yet?), so Hung-Ke needs those codes _now_.

She slaps the widget into the phone's micro-USB port.  "*Hung-Ke?  I have the codes... I'm uploading to your... malparido! 'Outside the coverage area', chuchamadre!  Persephone, are you near Hung-Ke?  What's the number for your phone?  I'll send to you... huh, and maybe there's a bonus here...*"









*OOC:*


_I_ know Persephone's a little busy right now, but Gabriella doesn't.  On the other hand, Persephone's already passed her phone on to Hung-Ke, so all she needs to do is recite some digits!

What I'm looking for is a point of Trust from Persephone - I have the Data Recovery skill but no points left, so I'd like to use the Trust point as an Investigative Spend for some additional information from the phone on top of the Abort Codes.  What springs to mind is the IP address of the cloning device Elena used, and perhaps the login and password she used to access it from this phone - so that if she gets away from Felix and his incendiary pistol, Hung-Ke can track her gadget later... and possibly even log on to it and change a few numbers around.

And _next_ round, I can pull the rip cord.  There's probably plenty of time.


----------



## Kaodi (May 7, 2013)

*OOC:*


Preparedness: 1d6+2=5. Hope that is enough for what I am going to try.







Mace spares one last moment to glance towards Elena as she streaks further and further away. That intense glare of hatred and lust all mixed together was almost intoxicating, and for a moment he wondered if he filled himself with that he would feel something real again. Not something good, no definitely not good. But real. But the thought was fleeting. The spy turned his attention back to the last free parachute and angles himself towards. He dispossesses the dead henchman of his life-saver. Elena would have to wait.

But not for long.

FLASHBACK

Everything had gone horribly wrong. The Brits had botched the takedown of the IRA cell. Over two dozen people had died. Catriona had died. Her children had died. Mace Hunter had died, at least inside. 

His wits had not entirely left him, even in his grief. Mace put together a disguise and chartered a small cargo plane to get him off the Isles. But somehow they had known. The plane was flying over the Irish Sea when they made their move. 

There were four in total: two men who were supposedly cargo handlers and the two pilots, who had switched the flight controls to auto. They came at him pretty much all at once, and bereft of any weapons he was only able to kill one of them before being subdued, even with his superior hand to hand training. Then they opened the hatch and just tossed him right out into open air. 

By rights he should have been killed when he hit the water, but the plane was flying low to obscure the drop and fate intervened. He woke up a week later in a tiny hospital on the Isle of Man. They told him that he had washed up on shore one morning, almost dead. Mace stayed there just long enough to recover, and then he left. The IRA must have thought he was dead, because he did not have any more trouble with them after that.

One thing was for certain though: that was the last time Mace Hunter got on a plane while on the job without some insurance.

END FLASHBACK

The camera is below Mace, looking up, zoomed in so that only the spy and the now liberated parachute are hanging in the air. Mace is spread out now to maximize wind resistance. Suddenly the pans to centre on the parachute, and then back to Mace. To the discerning observer it is immediately apparent that something is up, because the spy is not grabbing for it. 

The camera zooms in slightly so that only Mace is visible. The spy quickly sheds his coat and his sweater before undoing his belt and kicking off his pants. Underneath he is wearing something else: a deep, deep red nylon suit of some kind. He then reaches off screen and pulls the parachute back into view, deftly slipping it on. 

Mace looks up over to DeBois and says with a grim smile, "I best not keep my date waiting." And then he reaches up to draw two pull cords on his chest. But they are not on the parachute, they are on the nylon suit. The spy stretches out his arms and legs and with a light swoosh nylon flaps spread out between his arms and body and between his legs, inflating slightly. Fortunately the bullet he took in the leg does not appear to have hit any vital working parts. And now Mace Hunter may not be a bird or a plane, but he is the next best thing after Superman: a super spy with a wingsuit.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> ... the next best thing after Superman: a super spy with a wingsuit.












*OOC:*


Hyp: Awesome!
Gabriella: *Of course he managed to take his pants off in the middle of an op...*


----------



## mudbunny (May 8, 2013)

Quinn takes a quick look around the room, taking stock of the people in the room and considering blast patterns of the various minor explosives (disguised, of course) that he had set up on the equipment around the room. Crap...pretty much any explosive there would result in some collateral damage. Oh well, when in doubt, bluff big.

Quinn steps back a minute and shrugs off his jacket, revealing what anyone who has watched any amount of news on the troubles in the middle east or in the various "-istan" countries would recognize as a explosive vest.

"Your fists may trump my gun boyo" he says as he drops his gun to the floor, "but  I am certain that this vest trumps your fists. So, the question is" as he stalks closer to the thug, "how good are you at disabling explosives?" As Quinn takes another step, he pulls at something in his vest, and a LED starts flashing.









*OOC:*


I assume a spend of 1 to have the vest prepared is what I would have to do. Also, I am looking up Streetwise and Intimidation to see which would be appropriate for giving the impression that I am ready to die. Will add more as soon as I figure out which I should spend, or if it is even necessary.















*OOC:*


It is intimidation, so I will be using a spend of 1 intimidation to intimidate the goon in front of me to leave.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

mudbunny said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> I assume a spend of 1 to have the vest prepared is what I would have to do.












*OOC:*


Preparedness is a General skill, so it's a Simple Test (1d6 + spend vs GM-determined TN) rather than a straight spend like you'd do with an Investigative skill.  Unless, like Persephone, you can just declare a success once per session with your MOS!  So if the GM calls it a TN of 4, you can roll (50% chance), spend a point of Mechanics (since Ashcan can use Mech-for-Prep) and roll (67% chance), or just decide you don't want to risk blowing it and spend 3 points of Mechanics for a guaranteed success (since even a 1 on 1d6 will total the TN with a +3).

What I've done a couple of times already is to tell the GM "Here's what I want to do - spend as much as I need to guarantee it", which helps speed things up in a PbP, but also left me nearly tapped out of Filch when I needed to make another Filch test!


----------



## mudbunny (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


 My MOS is explosives, would me using my MOS to have the vest ready work? If so, I will use my MOS. If not, I will spend the 3 mechanics to get the vest.


----------



## 71gamer (May 8, 2013)

Hypersmurf said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> _..._What I'm looking for is a point of Trust from Persephone....




you've got it...


----------



## 71gamer (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


I'm going to have to respond in the AM, but is there some way I can roll an athletics to pop the service hatch and get through it before the mangled fanged beast cozy in the elevator with me can get all up in my sh$$?

Also, I like the IdEA OF leaving a grenade behind, is that feasible?


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


Mace, that was spectacular.

Gabriella, thank you for providing Monaco (and the appropriate level of snark)! Persephone can read off her phone number, even if she's the tiniest bit distracted. Trust points can't be used as investigative spends, as they apply to General Abilities - but I'm not going to be too fussy, especially considering that H-K knew what he was doing when he rigged up his little data vacuum. If there is additional clues involved with the phone, you'll hopefully grab enough data to look at them later.  EDIT: nope, I'm mistaken! Totally legit. Huh, learn something new every day.

Quinn, what a great idea, and it's even easier than you think. Your intent, I think, is to intimidate -- and the system doesn't care whether you're snarling at someone or showing off your extremely terrifying vest. Especially considering that explosives is your niche, I think it's totally reasonable that you've had it there the whole time. If you want to use it, however... So here's the deal. If you want to terrify the thug in front of you into surrendering, that'd be an Intimidate spend. If you want to get the other thug out in the hall, spend two Intimidate points (I think you have two.) You can't substitute in H-K's thug, as the guy is distracted and doesn't see you. Finally, if you want to use your Explosives MOS, you could do cool stuff like have the vest be made of shaped charges that incinerate people near you but (hopefully) don't kill you in the process. You certainly know how to make that sort of device. Let me know how you want to approach it and I'll handle things accordingly.

Persephone, I'm sorry I'm kind of a dick.   In exchange for separating you from your team, I'll give you a free 3-point refresh of any pool you like. Grenades are generated with Preparedness (Target Number 4) and thrown with athletics (only a TN of 3 if you're leaving one behind. Feel free to leave it somewhere good.) Athletics or explosives would also help you dodge the blast, and you can use Athletics to pop the hatch and get yourself the heck out of the elevator car (TN 5, slightly harder than normal.) Don't forget to call on trust if you need it, describing how it happens. And as always, as has been said about the character, there's no need for Persephone to act when she can retro-act. Flashbacks and preparedness exist to serve you, so you have some fun options either way.







The mysterious woman doesn't see Mace approaching. She's putting distance between herself and the other agents, as is reasonable, but Mace is swooping in from behind and able to move far faster laterally than she can. 









*OOC:*


DuBois, if she was in fact trained by the same people who trained you, you may be able to tell Mace at precisely what altitude she'll pull that rip cord. If you do, it may help his timing.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> Persephone can read off her phone number, even if she's the tiniest bit distracted. If there is additional clues involved with the phone, you'll hopefully grab enough data to look at them later.












*OOC:*


Rock.  Hung-Ke, expect a data dump to Persephone's backup phone any second now.


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## Walking Dad (May 8, 2013)

DuBois finally understood the strange familiarity with the womans movement. "Wait for it... now!" He calls at Mace. The screen splits, showing both the ripcords of the Frenchman and Mace's old acquittance and them pulling it at the exact same time.
DuBois admires the con man's foresight to bring a wing-suit. All he maged was to bring some tracer mounts, to signal a retraction point... but they could be useful for get things burning, too.









*OOC:*


Preparedness for tracer ammo (1d6+1=3)
He got the tracer ammo.
Giving Mace 1 Trust
Pull the cord with the woman

Pools:
Athletics 6
Shooting 3
Hand to Hand 0
Weapons 6
Preparedness 0


----------



## Committed Hero (May 8, 2013)

Hung-Ke sets the thrown chair upright before the least-obsolete computer in the room - then thinking the better of it, kicks it rolling towards the advancing thug before leaning over two keyboards. 

"I don't have any more time to wait, muchacha," Lee says wistfully to himself. With one keyboard, he accesses the botnet waiting for the connection to Gabriella's device. Once she's patched into the phone, it should transfer the codes to the telemetry program he has opened with the other keyboard.









*OOC:*


I will spend the last of my Weapons pool. I am assuming my Digital Intrustion MOS will get the job done once i need it to. If not, let me know what tasks I need to accomplish.


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## mudbunny (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


2 points of Intimidation it is then combined with my MOS to make the vest be out of shaped charges that don't leave me as nothing more than a red stain and some socks.


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

Hung-Ke disdainfully kicks the rolling chair across the room, and the charging thug leaps over it--and misses. His foot hits the seat, the backrest catches him mid-shin, he loses his balance, and all that momentum carries him forward towards the tile. He doesn't get his hands in front of him in time. The crunch of bone hitting Formica is satisfying, and the semi-conscious thug turns out to be a lot more interested in weeping and rolling around, clutching his face, than he is in hanging on to that pistol.

Unexpectedly pushed back by the impact, the office chair rolls to a stop at Hung-Ke's feet. He looks at it, raises an eyebrow, and sits down as Persephone's spare phone beeps. _"Ten seconds,"_ the hacker's old phone warbles from where its been kicked under the console, but the hacker doesn't even hear it. He's busy typing.

Across the room, Ashcan Quinn stands smiling at the burly man in front of him. The LED on Quinn's vest blinks quite merrily. "Are you INSANE?" bellows the Russian. "You vould kill yourself, and your friend, and launch that missile!" He makes up his mind that Ashcan is bluffing, raises a fist with a small sharp knife in it, and then meets Ashcan's gaze. 

They stare at each other from three feet away, the tall muscled tattooed mobster and the spry, elderly Irishman. They look into each other's eyes, and they take a measure of what the other is capable of.

The mobster breaks first. He quite deliberately tosses his knife and gun away, puts his hands behind his head, and says, "You are a crazy old man. I surrender." And then he sits down on the floor.

The other thug is coming through the door when this happens. He sees the vest, backpedals like mad, and runs for the exit. Quinn can see him punching the elevator button five times in rapid succession, giving up, and dashing for the door to the stairs down. The slam echoes through the space, and the only sound is of thugs groaning and Hung-Ke's madly typing fingers.

_"Five seconds."_


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

The parachute unfolds with a FWUMP, and Dr. DuBois is gracefully circling through the air. Far above him he sees the one remaining Peruvian, probably hoping to land somewhere inconspicuous. Below him he sees sea birds wheeling over Port Hercule. Gabriella seems to be falling to her death, and Mace Hunter in a wingsuit is chasing the deadly spy who brought everyone to this impasse. Somewhere far away, Persephone is swearing. Nuclear war is due to break out in less than five seconds.

It is a pleasant afternoon, all things considered. 

Far below Dr. DuBois, a gorgeous yacht races through the water towards the parachutists, one man at the helm. DuBois judges it likely that this is to be the female spy's ride back to shore. The late afternoon sun glinting off the ship's glassed-in wheelhouse shows a refraction pattern consistent with bulletproof glass, but the top of the wheelhouse has its canvas rolled up and is open to the air. No one, it seems, remembers that fights usually occur in three dimensions. Even from this high up, DuBois can see the man's receding hairline open to the French Riviera sun.









*OOC:*


Doctor, you have a clear shot if you choose to take it. 
Mace, how do you want to handle your approach?


----------



## Kaodi (May 8, 2013)

Mace, quickly closing the distance between himself and Elena, looks for a trajectory that will allow him to circle the woman as she falls. If there is one small downside of having his wingsuit deployed, it is that it limits the arm movement needed to point his gun.


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> Mace, quickly closing the distance between himself and Elena, looks for a trajectory that will allow him to circle the woman as she falls. If there is one small downside of having his wingsuit deployed, it is that it limits the arm movement needed to point his gun.



She's pulling her rip cord. Based on Dr. DuBois' shouted advice, you can catch her easily if you close and grapple with her *right now*. If you wait until that chute deploys, you're going to be out of luck.


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## 71gamer (May 8, 2013)

Persephone NEEDS to get out of this elevator. Whatever it takes, this was a huge job, there are lives in the balance, and, most importantly, she CANNOT let Mace down. MACE! (spending that point of trust). Her hand hand drops to her side, and feels the detonator Mace handed her when preparing for this mission: 4 Preparedness, 1 trust (1d6+4+1=6)!

She steps up to the bloody mess on the floor, and, after thumbing 15 seconds onto the countdown timer and hitting START, slams the small explosive into the gaping cavity in the creature-formerly-known-as-Eschenko's head. 3 Athletics, grenade skull cavity slam (1d6+3=8)

"Eschenko, it's been real, but I have a mess to clean up...and you're about to be a mess"

She looks up at the elevator access hatch, knowing she only has 15 seconds to get VERY clear of this soon-to-be ex-elevator. 4 Athletics, hatch leap (1d6+4=8) Persephone leaps and pushes the door with her palms, positioning her weight perfectly and sends her feet through first. Her years of physical training in UNIT have never paid off like this, her lithe figure slipping through the 2-foot square with graceful ease. (is this OK for an athletics refresh?).

Persephone is intent on getting out of the blast zone, but a thought keeps disturbing her, what the *HELL* was that in the elevator?









*OOC:*


Oh man, I am a big fan of spending all my points. I took your 3pt refresh and applied it to Athletics, since that's pretty much all I am doing. Preparedness for the grenade, Athletics to jam a grenade in a vampires head, and athletics to leap through the access panel. I did my athletics refresh in order to have a few extra points to apply to a roll to evade the explosion and hopefully snag an access ladder in the process.

You aren't being a dick, you're being a good GM =) This kind of thing isn't fun if we aren't risking our lives! I almost  when I realized I was trapped in an elevator with what seems to be a vampire,,,,


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

*"Carrrrrdifffff!"* A bloody, grasping hand claws for Persephone's blond hair as she exits through the roof, but by then she's gone. A quick leap for the service ladder and off the descending car, and for just a second she can see Eschenko's one insane eye staring up at her in hunger and confusion, the detonator still slightly sticking out of the side of his head. He howls with need. *"Carrrrrdifffff!"*

By the time the explosion comes, and the rush of fire and shrapnel blow through the ceiling of the elevator, Persephone is nowhere in the vicinity.

SCENE CUT: FACILITY LOBBY

The elevator *bings* open. The hardened mercenary thug left to guard to lobby turns to idly see who it is. We don't see into the elevator, other than the faintest glimpse of red; the camera lingers on the merc's face as his eyes bug and his face turns gray with revulsion. He staggers backward. 

CUT TO

Persephone, reaching her previous floor on the service ladder, a grim little smile on her face.


----------



## Kaodi (May 8, 2013)

Mace sees that he is out of time. He banks and suddenly he is cutting through the air. The spy smashes into Elena, spinning her around as one arm snakes around her waist and the other grasps for the phone. In the midst of grappling for a brief moment they find themselves face to face, the camera zooming in for a close up.

Time seems to slow down as they stare into each others eyes. And Mace says, focusing his powers of extraordinary handsomeness and plot-perfect timing, "My favourite dance goes just like this. Do you not think it would be better to put all this behind us and just go dancing on the Riviera? I cannot think of a more perfect way to take advantage of such a beautiful day as this and the companionship of such a beautiful woman as yourself."

Meanwhile, when the camera zooms back out and time seems to resume, Mace Hunter has Elena's cloned phone in hand.









*OOC:*


Spending both of my 2 points of Flirt to get whatever effect I can, 3 points of Filch: 1d6+3=8, and 2 points of Hand to Hand: 1d6+2=4 if it is necessary to set up the face to face situation during the grapple. Completely forgot the Trust placed in me until after I rolled, :\ .


----------



## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

_"5... 4... 3..."_ Hung-Ke is typing as fast as he knows how, his fingers flying over the keyboard as his hacking algorithms break through the slightly antiquated security around the Russian missile launch. He probably wouldn't be able to do it so quickly, normally, but he wrote this code himself as a teenager. 

Lights on the control panel are blinking furiously. A warning klaxon goes off.

_"2... 1..."_ Hung-Ke types in the last number of the abort code and smacks "Enter," and waits expectantly. 

_"Zero. MISSILE IGNITION..."_ 

Hung-Ke frowns, rolls his eyes, and smacks the keyboard again, this time hammering his index finger down on the blood-sticky Enter button. 

_"...ABORTED. LAUNCH ABORTED. LAUNCH ABORTED. LAUNCH ABORTED."_

And as Persephone strides back into the control room, smelling of smoke and blood and cordite, and as Ashcan Quinn zip-ties any living thugs, Hung-Ke Lee leans back and looks up at the horrible equipment he had to deal with. He smiles.

CUT TO: OVER MONACO

Dr. DuBois is parachuting down, considering his extraction plan. Gabriella Castellanos is reaching for her rip cord before the ground makes it no longer necessary. And Mace Hunter is arm-in-arm with the mysterious Elena, whirling through the air. Her body feels far too thin beneath her clothing, but oh my, Mace, her eyes... they're astounding. She kisses you, hard, as you both continue to plummet through wisps of cloud. A bird squawks past as you feel her hand in your hair. 

"I've missed you," she whispers into your ear over the rush of the wind. "I'll dress to impress. Shall we say 10 o'clock in front of the casino? If anything changes I'll call you." She pulls back a little and grins, a wicked and friendly smile of triumph. "After all," she purrs, "I know my own phone number." Then her hand moves and _your _ chute deploys, ripping you upwards and away from her. You look down at the purloined phone in your hand and realize that somehow she switched them; you aren't holding the data record of the phone she cloned, you're holding Elena's own personal cell phone. Damn.

Elena disappears through a cloud beneath you, a trill of silvery and delighted laughter trailing behind her. You see her chute deploy just before she hits the water of Monaco's bay, enough to slow her down before she cuts the parachute cords and knifes deep into the azure waves. Her chute drifts idly away, twisting in the wind. The camera follows her down, through the bubbles, and the theme music swells.









*OOC:*


Elena uses _her_ MOS of Filch to steal back the cloned phone and substitute it with a different cell. Then she blows her remaining points of Filch to pull your rip cord (6+6=12). In a game, you could probably cut your own chute and go after her, at the risk of some serious harm while landing -- but more likely I'd say "nah," and call the scene there, with you having both a date and some important clues. 

Well done, people. That's what a Night's Black Agents game is like.

Any last actions / attacks / maneuvers / comments / roleplaying before the opening credit sequence rolls?


----------



## 71gamer (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


No, but that was awesome--how many times have you run this? And is it different usually? Thank you!!!


----------



## Kaodi (May 8, 2013)

Mace Hunter looks at the phone in his hand blankly for a moment. But then he smiles wryly and puts it in a zip-able pocket in his suit. Apart from the date, perhaps Persephone will be able to mine it for clues. He glances over to make sure Gabriella and DuBois are okay before his gaze drifts back towards Elena. The camera snaps back to his face for a moment as he quietly says, "Now _there_ is a woman who knows how to get your blood running..."  and then it pans out, going further and further, circling the spy as he guides his parachute down towards the water of the bay.









*OOC:*


 I would like to thank you as well, PirateCat, effusively. You may remember that I had been following the Story Hours of Sagiro and yourself since the early days, and as I am not able to go to conventions I had not thought I would ever have the privilege of playing in any sort of game you DMed. 

I am also grateful to get to play with Hypersmurf, another real EN World stalwart. Gabriella's commentary on Mace was great  .

Thank you, mudbunny, for getting all of this started, and everyone who did a great job with their character.


----------



## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> Elena uses _her_ MOS of Filch to steal back the cloned phone and substitute it with a different cell.












*OOC:*


Bwahaha awesome.









> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> Well done, people. That's what a Night's Black Agents game is like.












*OOC:*


I've said it before, but one of the things I like most is the Assumption of Hypercompetence - the fact that in most cases, when you think "Hey, you know what the coolest thing that could possibly happen right now would be?", the mechanics actively support that being _exactly what happens_, rather than saying "Well, yeah, but given that your odds of pulling it off are about 1 in 40, you're probably better off punching him again".


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## Piratecat (May 8, 2013)

*OOC:*


This was absurd amounts of fun. Thank you, everyone. I couldn't ask for better or more responsive players; it's tough to run through one of these things quickly. I'm glad we did. Hell, I'd see this movie.
   [MENTION=88980]71gamer[/MENTION], I've run this adventure maybe 2-3 times. I'd say this is the best opening scene I've seen.

I certainly don't run any other GUMSHOE game like a movie, but one of the things I like about the game system is that it does a good job of modeling certain genres. If you're talking spies, I think looking at it with cinematic language is a lot of fun.

Gratuitous plug: I'm working on _TimeWatch _right now, a time travel GUMSHOE game. Keep an eye out for playtesting in a few months!


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## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

Piratecat said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> It's tough to run through one of these things quickly.
> ...












*OOC:*


The two big disadvantages of PbP tend to be the pacing, and the dropoff rate.  Both of which are almost always minimised as problems in the 'honeymoon phase' - the first little while after it kicks off, when everyone's super-enthused - so for a short-duration showcase like this, they don't pop up as issues.

The biggest _advantage_ of PbP (discounting the ability to bring together a group who can't arrange a face-to-face game) is that people have time to think and to edit before committing to what they present... you don't have to have the brilliant idea _right now_, you can take five minutes or half an hour to craft something spectacular.  It gives more opportunity for evocative imagery, and makes it easier for us mere mortals to portray the witty superagents who always have the perfect quip on the tip of their tongue, and always react with the optimal response to the situation - we might not come up with that quip in a real-time conversation, but give us some time to think, and the _PC_ will.

So I'm not surprised we pulled together a fun, adrenaline-packed cinematic experience - like all good secret agents, we cheated


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## Hypersmurf (May 8, 2013)

Kaodi said:


> He glances over to make sure Gabriella and DuBois are okay before his gaze drifts back towards Elena. The camera snaps back to his face for a moment as he quietly says, "Now _there_ is a woman who knows how to get your blood running..."  and then it pans out, going further and further, circling the spy as he guides his parachute down towards the water of the bay.




Hanging from her own chute, Gabriella closes her eyes briefly as the harsh Russian syllables of _LAUNCH ABORTED_ blare tinnily through her earbud.

When she opens them, the Predictive Caret of her target lock is highlighting Mace Hunter and the blossoming canopy of his parachute below her.  Mace did his part of the job - the world isn't going to end today.

Gabriella makes a pistol with thumb and forefinger and aims carefully.  "*¡Praca!*" she whispers.

Next time, she's bringing a gun.


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## Committed Hero (May 9, 2013)

*OOC:*


Thanks all around, it was a blast.


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## Hypersmurf (May 9, 2013)

Committed Hero said:


> *OOC:*
> 
> 
> Thanks all around, it was a blast.











*OOC:*


Eschenko is glaring at you.


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## Walking Dad (May 9, 2013)

> Thank you all for this great game




DuBois looks down at the receding hairline and considers pulling the trigger... but after all he fancies himself a self-controlled and precise man. The job is done, he will not get paid for the shot and they are all professionals here. Just killing someone out of spite isn't the way this should end... but there is always another time!


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