Sooooo...is everyone okay? I'm not just getting no updates from the site thanks to a glitch or something?
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Yikes. I mean I like a good snow but being trapped at work would NOT leave me in a good mood. Only problem is Meat's now staggered...if we run, he's not making it out.
"Keep talking, lady...just makes your mouth easier to shoot."
Eh, I honestly think everyone panicked at Covid but I haven't seen the evidence it's as bad as some want us to believe. Probably shouldn't get into it here because I'll likely piss some people off. All's well that ends well though; we've all survived worse plagues than covid so I'm not worried.
Bah. Covid's nothing but a poser flu. Feels miserable, doesn't really do that much damage. Keep the vitamin C comin' and just take care of yourself; you'll be fine.
Alright, time to redraw the battle line... Peeved at the fritzing robot's continued lecturing (or ordering, or whatever it was actually saying) Tori dashes toward Meat's position, spotting a perfect opportunity to slide between his legs and (hopefully) past the bot's guard before jumping up to stab it in the core.
Yeah, colds may not be a major threat but it takes your immune system a buttload of work to clean them out...and your body just complains the whole damn way.
Okay you know what? To Besmara's ass with this; I've had ENOUGH. Tori slings her rifle over her shoulder and pulls out her survival knife, crouching low in the fog and silencing her breathing.
I use discord and check here, so I don't guess it would affect me much either way.
Going to the dentist in the morning; gonna put me under while they pull out a couple bad teeth. If I don't post anything tomorrow night, don't panic; I'll probably be sleeping it off. Never been sedated before so chances are it'll linger.
Tori's eyes widen as the robot regenerates. "Oh, nine HELLS no."
Tori chambers another round, growling.
"Damnit!" Tori Opens fire on the fritzing bot, swearing curses under her breath, likely at everything Azlanti-related.
Eyes widening slightly at the find and the challenge inherent in claiming it, Tori shuts the door. "Well...good news and bad news. Good news: salvage. Bad news: it's guarded. More good news: they're cadets and I don't feel bad about taking them down. More bad news: they have the high ground."
"Alright, I'm going for the other side. I want to see what's waiting for us before we start shooting. If it's clear, I'll take up position at the other door and someone can go for the trident. If it loses its temper, well...guess we'll figure out what that trident can do, hm?" Not keen to let another opportunity slip by, Tori sidles along the west wall away from Lenesel and the now-distracted bot, hoping its field of vision is locked on Len. You don't see me, you don't see meeee...
Tori cocks an eyebrow at the looping reply. "Soooo...is it stuck? Sounds like it's stuck on something. I say let's make our move now, before it gives up."
Tori shrugs. "I mean, it already thinks I'm someone who's not supposed to be there, so it definitely can't be me..."
Tori chambers a round and takes up a spot with a relatively clear shot at the bot. "Fine by me; I just hope his plating's as rusty as his optics; otherwise this is gonna take a few shots..."
Tori freezes as the bot rises from its torpor. At Lenesel's warning, she retraces her steps and walks backwards to the door, facing the bot the entire time. "Okay, best case scenario is out...any thoughts anyone? We want to get to what's left of this wreck we have to get past him and we don't have all day here..."
On opening the door, Tori reflexively levels her rifle at the bot. Damn Azlanti and their 'bots..." Seeing it's inactive, she relaxes only slightly, glancing between it and the trident. After a moment of weighing her options, she sighs. "Okay, don't shoot it unless it goes hostile. Maybe it's just a butler bot. With a...laser rifle. That's...out of power? Yeeeeeaaah, let's go with that." She steps into the room, then closer to the trident, pausing with each step to note the bot's reaction, if any. If/when she reaches the trident, she slowly reaches for it, eyes trained on the robot the whole time, muscles coiled for a dive to cover.
After reloading, wiping her brow and kicking the malodorous corpse as she walks into the lab, Tori exhales a long, exasperated sigh. "Nothing. Naturally." She takes a look at the metal vial, muses at why a vial would be metal, and moves south, through the lab and across the hallway. "Better be something of worth back this way; we're running out of time and running out of ship. Come on, let's finish up." She moves to the door and examines it for access...or danger.
Impatient to see the end of this slog, Tori lines up her scope and waits for her shot, trying to time her round between Meat's swings and dodges...
Not keen on being within arm's reach, Tori scrambles past her team back through the hallway. Hesitant to fire into the melee, she instead reloads.
Tori frowns at the shamblers, barely fazed by the party's shots, and looks down at her survival knife for just a moment. Yeah, right... She then shifts her position a bit, trying to hit one of the undead heads bobbing towards them.
Tori resists the urge to scrunch her nose at the smell, but only just. Once the complete picture of zombified Azlanti is clear, she starts to rethink her position before snapping off a shot.
She then falls back a few steps to let the big boys in to play.
With the door open and the hall clear, Tori moves up to the door on the northern wall, waving the team up before she attempts to open it.
"Oh, nine hells..." Tori grimaces at the empty space which almost certainly is the very prize all parties were after. "If the drive was here and the Azlanti have it, then we may have just lost literally everything." But that corpse outside only JUST died... With renewed urgency she marches to the eastern door to get it open. "Maybe we're lucky and they're still here. Let's move!"
With a fresh magazine chambered, Tori centers in on the remaining flyer and squeezes off a round.
Tori takes her shot at the survivor, noting the ping of an empty chamber. She opts to reload instead of watching the effect of her shot.
Deciding to let the Vesk have his fun, Tori instead aims for the other serpent.
With her barrel already leading, Tori wastes no time snapping off a shot.
Tori frowns, shakes her head, steps back, crouches and takes aim, motioning to the manual lever. "After you, boys; just be ready to dive for cover. Gods know what else is squirming around in these old bulkheads..."
Tori moves up to the south door, watching her step for any noisy debris as she presses up against it to listen for sounds on the other side.
Tori loads a fresh round and chambers it, slamming the receiver into place. "Bigger targets just mean places to put a round." She moves up to the door, leading with her barrel as she examines the entrance and scans the interior. "Now then..." she wonders aloud, "Spill it, you old wreck...what the hell's under your skin that's got these bastards getting so far under mine?"
Yeah, things aren't going as smoothly as she hoped. She's just not looking forward to the neverending stream of 'I-told-you-so's' from her Pa.
From exasperation to surprise to aggravation in a moment, Tori manages to spin away from the worst of the webbing, shaking off what clings to her before it burns too deeply. "Okay, FINE," she growls as she levels her rifle at the worm and vehemently squeezes off a round.
Tori sighs, shaking her head at the blustering worm--which is no bigger than her--and shoulders her rifle. "Anyone want a piece of this thing? Feel free to scare it off; I'm tired of wasting ammo on the wildlife."
Seems like they spent a lot of time designing that progression and not a lot of time thinking of interesting things or fun useful options to have. All those tables and it's literally just "fire, electric, physical or injection" basically. lots of headroom for bigger numbers, not much space to spread out horizontally and do different stuff.
Up to FOURTH level? Whoa. That's not really happening; most of that stuff is up over 2000 and I'm not that greedy...even if we sold a few things we've found I doubt we'd have enough to go shopping for fourth level stuff...maybe we WERE meant to do some more looting. Honestly not even sure what the hell I'd buy. Seems like you have to go through a half dozen levels of item tables to get an improved version of whatever weapon or armor you already have; otherwise you're switching damage types, armor styles and generally going all over the place. Aside from restocking on things like ammo, supplies and consumables, or perhaps the odd armor upgrade, not seeing a lot of options to shop for at the moment.
Hah. I'm no more familiar really. I just know how to find stuff on the PRD and I have the core book. I have general RPG experience so I kinda had an idea what would probably be most critical first but beyond that I'm flying almost as blind as the rest of us. This probably isn't even the "optimal" set of choices right now; I just like building and customizing cool spaceships that do cool stuff.
So that's...20 extra BP to play with and 4000 UPB's to spend? Alright, so assuming BP is the primary limiter on starship upgrades, here are just my initial thoughts on what I think we should upgrade in descending order of priority. A wishlist, if you like. Upgrade power core to arcus heavy; incidentally also takes care of the glitching in our current core. 3 BP, +30 max PCU. Add gyrolasers to port and starboard mounts so more folks can pewpew at once (don't forget each one can cover the adjacent arc at a -2 penalty so we could actually have all three lasers fire at our rear arc in a round) 6 BP, +20 PCU Upgrade shields to basic 40, giving us a bit more cushion. 2 BP. +5 PCU Upgrade sensors to basic medium. Forewarned is forearmed. 2 BP. Upgrade computer to mk1 Trinode so up to three different checks can get a +1 in starship combat rounds. YOU get a +1, YOU get a +1, EVERYONE gets a +1! 2 BP. Upgrade armor to MK3, because AC is always good. 1 BP. upgrade to mk4 defenses, because screw your missiles. 4 BP. We'd be using 10+10+5=25 additional PCU from the shields and new lasers, leaving us at 126/130 PCU even with all non-essentials running. It'd upgrade our AC to 14, our TL to 16, double our total shield points to 40, give a +2 on various sensor checks, give us two more guns, allowing up to four people to man the guns at all directions and provide up to three +1 bonuses to various ship checks during combat each round. All of this is, of course, at the purview of the DM's discretion, availability, downtime permitting, etc. and if anyone has other thoughts, please do chime in. I think any or all of these upgrades would be pertinent to our needs and provide a comprehensive general upgrade to our baby.
Tori's eyes light up at the data regarding the ship. "FTL? Without the Drift? That's definitely pre-Gap technology. If azlant learned how to go FTL without the drift they could--" She immediately grabs downloads of the maps and files, mumbling to herself as she packs up and reloads her rifle. "Couldn't be simple. Couldn't possibly be that simple. Just had to pick up ONE passenger and drop off some crates. Milk run. Easy. Even get paid twice. Nope, had to throw in ancient technology, xenophobic imperials and a super-special ship to bait me in, didn't they..." she finishes her reload, slamming the last round home for emphasis. "It's like they WANTED to get shot." She rests the butt of her rifle on her hip, biting her lip with a furrowed brow. Do we just grab Cedona and let them have the damn ship? Do we secure the ship and threaten to blow it to pieces if they don't give her up? And if the ship's her whole reason for being here, what if she doesn't want to go without it? Best ending's if we get her AND the ship off-planet but THAT'S not gonna happen...maybe she just wants to keep this rune drive out of their hands. "DAMNIT! Pa's never gonna let me live this down..." Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, she heads for the door, speaking aloud to the whole group without looking. "We're getting paid extra for this if I have to hold all of Absalom station at gunpoint." As her path coincides with a burly Vesk curling a rifle in his tail and an Azlanti on his shoulder, she lifts an eyebrow. "You know, field rations are generally easier to carry...and don't usually have bones in them."
Tori rolls her eyes and steps up beside Lenesel. "We're actually here to pick Cedona up...and unless she's tucked into a hidden panel in the walls here, then..." She looks at Len a moment, then sighs, "Then yeah, the job's not done. We should comb this place over, take what's useful to everyone, learn what we can and see if we get a lead on this lieutenant."
After a bit of tinkering, Tori manages to extract the signal jammer, shutting it down and stashing it. She glances over at the unmoving mage. "You don't mind, right? Good." She ensures the alarms are off and security functions are disabled to allow free movement. If she's able to find the controls for the brig, she opens those too. Hopping out of the control chair, she makes for the door, then stops to scan her comrades a moment. "You lot take a breather; the neighbors and I can probably finish up here." She then heads for the front door to meet up with Aibretta and the colonists.
Exhaling, Tori lowers her weapon slowly, eyeing the downed Azlanti for signs of resurgence. Satisfied they are in fact out of the fight, she slings her rifle and hurries into the room, scanning the instrument panels for whatever looks like door controls. "Where is there never just a big red button..."
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