Realizing that continuing forward towards the center dome might cause the group to run into the two cyborgs that they saw heading that way from one of the outlying domes, the group stays in this chamber. Peter maintains his illusion of a cyborg on himself while the rest of the team finds places to hide and possibly ambush the cyborgs if they decide to enter this room.
Minutes pass and no one arrives. Nor does Peter see any movement along the tubes to the other domes. Apparently the two cyborgs stopped at the central dome.
Peter indicates for Cal to move forward and check things out invisibly. Knowing that the cyborgs might have special senses that might detect the invisibility, the group stands ready to rush forward if Cal indicates that he has been spotted.
Cal pushes the button on the door and enters the tube that connects this chamber with the central dome. It is empty. He moves invisibly forward to the central dome where another airtight door blocks his way. His clairvoyant sense is still unreliable so he puts his ear to the door to listen, but hears nothing. He pushes the button, steps through and closes the door behind him.
He is in a hallway that parallels the outer shell of the dome. Ahead of him is a narrow passage going towards the center of the dome. Two doors lead off of this passage while two more doors lead off the curved outer passage.
Suddenly one of the doors opens and a cyborg steps out. Cal sends a quick alarm to the group over the mind link, and then presses himself up against the wall. The cyborg gives no indication that he noticed Cal as he walks past him and around the curve of the dome. Cal hears another door open and then close, and then all is quiet again except for the whisper of the ventilation system and the distant hum of a power plant.
Meanwhile, as Cal is avoiding the cyborg, Marco attempts to find other minds in the complex. As he is doing this, he is suddenly attacked by an unseen, mental attacker.
ATTACKER: ECV 12, needs 15- [rolled 10], Effect [rolled 4 3 5 2 4 2 1 6 5 3 6 2 6 5 1 3 - Total: 58, Body: 17]
PETER: Should Peter sense that the attack has been made, he will immediately lend his support Marco using telepathy via the mindlink (assuming that will help). Any illusion that Peter has up (not including his personal illusion) will drop at this time. But I'm assuming that people have gotten behind more solid cover against just such a possibility.
TECH: 12d6 Telepathy to fight the unknown effect. [rolled 3 4 6 5 2 5 1 5 4 3 5 5 - Total: 48, Body: 12]
GM: Peter senses the attack on Marco but not the source. He also senses that the attack failed.
GM: Marco knows a bit more. The attack was a telepathy attack that tried to go into his subconsious but (barely) failed.
PETER: {Report. Do you have any clue whether that was an active mind or an automatic defense?}
GM: Marco is not sure.
PETER: {Okay, there are two possibilities - it's an automatic Zho defense, or it's the cyborgs. Since something like this happened topside and there's been no apparent alert, I'm thinking the automatic defense is more likely. We should know in a moment by whether a pile of cyborgs come piling in. Assuming it's a defense, though, it was triggered by a psychic probe in each case. That means we need to be very careful about sending out such probes.}
MARCO (ooc): Was that a direct attack on me? Or, was it an attack on the "illusion of another mind" that I projected? Or, was I not able to project an illision outside of the mind protection that I"m providing the group?
GM: You had indicated that you wanted to have either Mind Shield (mental force wall) or Mind Cloak (mental invisibility for everyone) up so Illusion of another Mind cannot be up. My assumption is that Mind Cloak is up so everyone in the group is mentally invisible (Peter and Cal by their own abilities and everyone else because of Marco). Marco was attacked dispite being mentall invisible which means that whoever or whatever attacked had some other means of targeting Marco.
PETER (OOC): Speaking of which, just as a reminder, Peter has had his mental invisibility up throughout the entirety of the Samurai base, and will keep it up unless he falls unconscious.
GM: Yep, everyone in the group is invisible to mental senses. :)
PETER (OOC): Unfortunately, the mental invisibility that Peter can keep up constantly is personal only. If Marco has something that'll keep everyone else hidden, that's wonderful. But I'm afraid it's beyond Peter's abilities. He could use an illusion to obscure their minds. But not make them invisible.
GM: Yes, Peter and Cal are invisible due to personal abilities. Everyone else in mentally invisible due to Marco's Mind Cloak ability.
CAL: Looks like we'll have to investigate the "old fashioned" way. ;-)
CAL: Cal will continue searching, using eyes, ears and nose and maintaining his invisibility. He'll also relay 'directions' back to the group so we have a general idea of the layout of the areas that he's explored.
GM: Will Cal be opening any doors or just sticking to already open routes. Obviously if Cal opens a door, and there is a cyborg in there, it will probably notice the door open even if it can't see Cal.
CAL: RE: Opening Doors - IMHO, not yet. I think we want to get an initial survey of the place while causing as few as possible 'anomalies'. Once we have a better idea of where everything is (especially the cyborgs) we can start worrying about doors.
Cal moves slowly around the central dome. He finds two tubes leading off from the dome, both with closed, airtight doors similar to the ones he encountered coming from the entry dome. In the very center of the dome is a living area containing a long table surrounded by 12 chairs. There are 12 depressions in the table, one in front of each chair that look to be very small sinks, complete with a metal spigot and knob for dispensing water (or at least Cal assumes it's probably water).
Also in this area are numerous cabinets, a huge, empty vat with green stains on the bottom under a spigot sticking out of the wall, and a massive spherical apparatus roughtly the size of a dishwasher. On top of this latter machine are openings of various sizes, one notably larger than the others. Around the bottom of the machine are many tubes and deposit areas. Fixed into the sphere's equator are three sets of buttons. Cal is unsure as to what this device is meant to do but it looks like stuff is supposed to be fed into the top, and then the buttons somehow do something to make stuff come out the bottom. The entire area, adjacent to the long table, looks to be some kind of kitchen.
Cal is unable to investigate any further without opening a door - either one of the 12 doors in the dome, or one of the 2 doors leading to other domes (or the door heading back to the entry dome where the rest of the group is waiting). He has seen no other cyborgs.
MARCO: Assuming that Cal reports back via mind-link. {This doesn't seem to be a large population center, and I'm wondering whether the cyborgs that we've seen and heard of are the last of their kind - maybe left over from a long ago event or something}
GM: Just want to remind the group that the ball is in your court. What does Cal want to investigate next, one of the interior doors in the central dome, or one of the two pressure doors that lead to the access tubes that go to the other domes? Or does he want to return to the entry dome and rendevous with the rest of the group.
GM: Meanwhile, will the rest of the group remain in the entry dome for now while Cal continues to investigate?
CAL: This area is apparently empty. I can start opening doors to explore further or we can regroup and start going through the domes together. What do y'all think?
PETER (OOC): Sorry, I wasn't sure that the whole mental attack incident was finished. I'm guessing then that it was a single incident, not repeated, and that we can move on, pledging to be more careful in the future.
GM: Sorry, my bad. The attack happened once and did not repeat. Marco knows that it was definitely a Telepathy attack.
PETER: {Cal, find us somewhere we can stage ourselves to. If there are any open door or obvious storage closet, check that out first. Barring that, we need to make a best guess as to where is safe to move. If you saw where the cyborgs went or even have a guess, we can try a different area from that. This entry way is just too open for my liking.}
PETER (OOC): The plan is to get out of the entryway ASAP. That means waiting for a time when tubes seem to be empty and finding a room to stage to. As soon as Cal finds us a room, we'll move. I don't want to wait for Cal to do a full circuit of the dome. We just don't know when the next elevator will come. But I want to be out of the entry way before that happens. Can Cal at least make a guess as to what rooms are larger/smaller/storage? are there labels on the doors? Are they different styles? Can you tell by where the doors are placed? I know in my house, you could make a pretty good guess as to what are closet doors and what are room doors just by knowing the general layout of the house and noticing that closet doors tend to be either (a) a bit smaller, or (b) of a different type.
CAL: "Yes Sir"
CAL: Cal will redo his circuit of the dome, checking out likely doors. He will be careful to check for alarms before opening doors.
MARCO (GM): I'd like to make note of the time between the two attacks so that I can track whether this is an "automated" defense or if someone knows that we are here. Eidetic memory should help figure out the interval.
GM: Both attacks happened in apparent response to some action by the group. The time differential does not seem to give any indication as to whether it was an automated defense or an actively hostile entity.
MARCO (GM): Can I make an attempt to build a list of "action[s] by the group" that would have lead to the attack?
ERICT (OOC): I was under the impression it was each time you tried a larger scan with your Mind Scan or Mental Radar or whatever you call it.
CAL: Cal's mental clairvoyance triggered a response also - though that appeared to be a different kind of response (Flash vs. Telepathy).
GM: It's happened twice so far. The first time was when Cal tried to send his clairvoyant vision through the barrier in the elevator shaft, and the second was when Marco attempted to Find Minds.
Two of the doors in the central dome looked to be bathrooms so Cal decides to take the chance of opening them. He opens the women's bathroom and finds it empty. He quickly enters and looks around. It does not appear to have been used in a very long time. It contains two shower stalls, two toilets and two sinks.
Cal listens carefully at the door before heading back out and is glad that he did. He hears heavy footsteps approaching. He continues to listen at the door as the footsteps draw nearer, but then pass by the door and recede. He waits another minute and then exits the woman's bathroom.
He repeats the process at the men's bathroom and finds a similar situation. A room that doesn't look like it has been used in a long time. Like the woman's bath, it contains two showers, sinks and toilets.
CAL: (via mind link) It appears I've found a hiding place - the restrooms haven't been used in a looooong time. I'd guess, not since the Zho were last here. Cyborgs are walking around - heard on a moment ago so getting here will require some care.
CAL: Cal will provide directions to the restrooms as well as the direction the 'heavy footsteps' were headed.
PETER: {Roger. I'll scout forward invisibly, when the coast is clear I'll bring the rest of the group up, using illusions as necessary for cover. Erict and Rosin, if you can do your teleport quietly enough, that would be ideal. If it'll be too noisy, we do it the hard way. We stage ourselves to the restrooms as soon as we know it's safe.}
PETER (OOC): Peter will stay invisible unless an illusion is needed to hide the group. We'll use teleport if it's quiet, regular movement otherwise. Hopefully between Cal and Peter serving as invisible scouts, we can get people in without being seen.
ROSIN (GM): What are the special effects of Rosin's teleport? It's not invisible, but I don't remember any tell tale bamfs when she was using it against the group.
ERICT: {Ordinarily I would say that my Far Move can get us there in multiple trips, once I know where it is, and I could make it in a single hop each way using the closed doors to minime the sonic signature of my teleportation, but I want to warn against teleporting through the walls just in case they interfere. The silvery substance on the walls outside seemed likely to block teleportation as well as other abilities. Perhaps a test is in order.}
ERICT (GM): Technically a defense like that we should be able to figure out what it protects against without blind teleporting through a wall and taking maximum risk. I believe even this special coating has to have SOME type of SFX that we can figure out. If not, so be it, is there a way to test it with less risk? Or am I talking out the side of my mouth and completely mis-remembering and we already know it doesn't block teleportation, only other things?
GM: Unless you buy invisible special effects on the teleport then it makes noise. It can be a "bamf", "whoosh", or whatever you want but it does make noise.
ERICT (OOC): Yes and no. A power without IPE must be visible to three senses chosen when the power is designed. I believe at one point I asked to define Erict's teleport as noticeable to vision, smell (ozone) and touch (the hairs on your skin tingle if you're nearby). It may be that you think these three senses are not common enough and that I should define a fourth, but that could easily be taste (a coppery taste in your mouth from the electrical discharge). Even if it must be visible to hearing that doesn't mean it has to be an extremely noticeable sound, like bamf, I actually consider bamf to be a limitation on someone's teleportation to make it even more noticeable. Unless you mean the kind of bamf in the X-men movie, that's a lot quieter than my imagination led me to be when reading the comics :)
ERICT: In any case it need not be super-obvious, but it's definitely not invisible and probably not completely inaudible either.
GM: I'm fine with this analysis as long as by visible to the vision sense group you mean that it is clear that teleport was just used. In other words, if you teleport into a shadowy corner of a room inhabited by people who may not have been looking that way when you arrived, it is clear that something strange just happened upon your arrival. If there is a lot of stuff going on in the room, such as a wild party or something, then you MIGHT arrive with no one noticing.
ERICT (GM): Agreed. I envision a brief, dim silhouette of static followed by the appearance of the target(s) teleporting. Would definitely draw attention in a quiet room with people who aren't half asleep, but not necessarily in a raucous crowd or indirectly around a corner or something (i.e. appearing inside the bathroom of a quiet restaurant with no other patrons/witnesses in the bathroom, it wouldn't shine like a blazing sun underneath the door and draw attention outside said bathroom). It MIGHT draw attention when we exited the bathroom, based on how closely the patrons were paying attention, but that's not the actual teleportation's problem ;)
GM: The group does not think teleport will work through the walls of the domes, or through the pressure doors between the domes and the access tubes.
Using Peter's illusions to maximum effect, the group departs the entry tube and makes their way to the central tube. Peter is visible as a cyborg while the rest of the group "blends in" to the transparent walls of the tube. Because the group is moving, it is not a very convincing illusion but it better than nothing and might prevent a cyborg, who enters a distant tube, from automatically noticing the group.
The group reaches the pressure door leading into the central dome. Cal is waiting on the far side as it opens.
GM: Luck roll for a cyborg to appear as the group is making their way to the restroom. If roll is 15 or higher, then a cyborg appears, [rolled 5]. Otherwise the group makes it to the restroom without incident.
GM: The group makes it to the restroom. Let me know what you want to do now. |