Thirty minutes ago I finish an eight-day binge fueled entirely by profit motive and virtual amphetamines. Bastards gave me more trouble cracking their system than I'd expected - somewhere along the line I got hit with a memetic spiral and spent almost four hours in a near-death coma chanting candy bar jingles to myself. My own fault - I knew the Easter Seals people played rough.

Twelve minutes ago I get a call from Wendy. She didn't sound good.

Oh shit, not wendy. We hate her, right?

I met Wendy in college. She was fucking the campus AI. Some kind of blackmail deal to keep it from reporting her parents as no-genes. We never hooked up, but our circles venned enough where we knew each other. I was at a B-and-E party in an abandoned hi-rise with my friends, all of us sitting on the petrified plastic carpet when she showed me a lotek pic of her as a kid - this scrawny 11-year-old holding a trophy and a professional-looking rig.

Turned out she built custom jobs to pay for her tuition. I didn't trust her work then - I hadn't been able to get my hands on an adrenaline buffer yet, and reports had started filtering in about people dying when their rigs maxed out their heartrates. That was before anyone knew about Rem.

what's up with wendy?

I told her to meet me at the closest Friskie's Sandwiches. The food is shit, but they were giving away free citizenship a few years ago and I needed some sovereign ground to lay low for a while. I grab a table in the back, near some lotek standup games. The noise won't stop anyone with bunny ears but it's the best I can do on short notice.

Then I see Wendy.

She hasn't changed a bit.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asks. leaning on the edge of the table. Not many people can pull off a catsuit like her.

She keeps her voice calm but I can hear that frayed edge at the back of it - the same edge I heard when she called.


What will you do now, Fu- I mean, hacker?

>>18532488

Ask her what she's paying before anything else... then see if what she needs fits the price.

Incidentally, you're doing /tg/ proud once again. Keep at it!

>>18532504
Agreed. Price, then task.

>>18532504
>>18532530

"It's always business with you, isn't it? Look, this isn't about a job, Jack. I think someone's trying to kill me."

She glances toward the door, nervous. I can't help doing the same.

"Who's trying to kill you? You sell someone a bad rig? Besides, I don't do bodyguard work. You know that. You need code, you come to me. I don't stop bullets."

She looks at me and starts to say something. I want to cut her off, but I let her get it out anyway. Might as well get the whole yarn before I blow her off.

>>18532643

"Four months ago I did this job for a kid. He said he was twenty, but he looked sixteen. Wanted a higher overflow on his input. Doctors wouldn't let him do it, but he paid for all the equipment up-front. He said I could keep it if he didn't pay, so I figured I'd come out ahead anyway. Stupid, stupid - I should have walked when he couldn't pay right away."

"So what, you fried his left hemisphere and now he's trying to off you?"

She looks at me again, and part of me regrets making that crack.

"Everything went fine. He paid, got up, left. Then a week later he was dead. I saw a feed, and it showed his face - he was the son of the senator for ABS Plastics."

"The feed didn't say what he died from, but I mean, come on! What if they think it was something I did?"

I give her a look and she returns it. "You KNOW my stuff is safe, jackass," she snaps, calling me the name she used to use when she was pissed off at me.

"Ever since then I can't stop feeling like I'm being watched. The other day this guy followed me onto the subway-" she stops, and looks around, more jittery than before now that she's gotten herself wound back up.

"I think I'm losing my mind, Jack!"


What now?

>>18532727

Remind her you can't do bodyguard work - but make a sensible offer for help with an identity scrub. Also: pressure her to make sure she's not omitting any information. Was the kid involved in anything? Did she have to do any "specialty" upgrades that would raise an eyebrow?

>>18532776

And we don't do bodyguarding, but surveillance is basically data. We can set some cams near her place, see if there's actually anyone tailing her.

>>18532776
>>18532800

"Come on, Jack, you know I'm already as far underneath the radar as anyone can be. Biometric signatures are about the only thing I can't spoof. Shit, did you really think I had citizenship-plus status here?" It's true, she probably has half the readers in town thinking she's someone else. "And no, I don't know if he was into anything else. I mean, shit, he was the son of a senator. It's bad enough being caught giving him a bigger overflow."

Theoretically the overflow limit on a rig was a personal right, and anyone over the age of 18 could modify theirs to give them more immediate feedback. In practice, the only time anyone cared about it was when some prep-school dropout fried his brain on sims of beating women to death. Then it was a big deal, and the feeds were full of crackdowns and how-tos for a three-day cycle before things would go back to normal.

"Fine, then what do you want?" I ask her. "I can set you up with a whole new life somewhere nice and full of mosquitoes." That was an old joke between us - all those old stories about how people used to hate mosquitoes back before they had gone extinct.

She starts to say something, and I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. If it wasn't for the last ROM cycles of the adrenomax circulating through my brainstem I wouldn't notice anything, but I do - the guy playing the lotek game lost his last one-up thirty seconds ago. Now he's looking toward the doorway-

>>18532998

Who the fuck-

Shit!

Roll a d12 for whatever you do, Jack!

rolled 10 = 10

FLIP TABLE, GET DOWN

>>18533075

"What are you do- shit!" Wendy cries out as I flip the table up, amped reflexes forcing my muscles past their normal tolerances. An instant later the harsh BRAAAP of automatic weapons fire thunders out and takes three big chunks out of the table.

WHAT NOW?!?!?

Soundtrack for this scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpfB7LRfEKo&t=1m50s

rolled 11 = 11

Acquire HOT COFFEE
Use HOT COFFEE on GUNMAN'S FACE

rolled 12 = 12

>>18533148
Quick, find something to throw!

>>18533175
>>18533165
Keys. Apply thrown keys to his face. Everyone has metal, jagged keys in their pocket.

Oh damn, lego quest, it's time for a pb&j and watching a thread.

>>18533175
>>18533165

"EXCUSE ME!" I shout, grabbing a payper cup full of hot coffee and flinging it forward. The adrenomax might not be the same caliber as what they give the high-school football players but it does its job!

>>18533278

"YAAA-" he shouts, surprised by the scalding hot coffee currently blistering his face.

WHAT NOW?!?!?!?

OH FUCK LEGO QUEST!

>>18533286
drop kick

>>18533286
MENTALLY TRIGGER SECRET SPECIAL-CASE AMPULE OF ADRENAMAX
DIVE FOR GUN
POP POP POP WATCHIN' FUCKERS DROP

rolled 1 = 1

>>18533314
fucking forgot to roll

>>18533314
To one of his knees, if possible. People hate that.

>>18533321
>1

NOW IT'S LEGO QUEST!

rolled 10 = 10

>>18533318

Get gun, grab girl, get gone. No trail of bodies yet, we'll escalate the situation when necessary and not before.

You know, it would make sense for someone as wired up as we are and in such a shady/dangerous occupation to have some... reserve equipment tucked into our body.

I would, at least.

Go go missile launcher arm? Super reflex stim package? Concrete-cracking musculofiber enhancements?

What is a no-gene?

>>18533321

"Come on, asshole," I say, striding toward the downed gunman, full of artificial swagger.

Then, three steps away, the adrenomax clocks out and the shutdown hits me like a ton of bricks.

>>18533370

Wendy screams, and the Friskie's swims around me like a hallucinogenic dream. The guy from the lotek is fighting with her, trying to get her outside. I can hardly focus on them.


Roll a d12 and link to this post for whatever you do!

rolled 7 = 7

>>18533388
Pick up someone and throw them at the badguy

>>18533350
Someone with undesirable genetics. What we would call pre-existing conditions.

>>18533343
You're not that kind of scum.

rolled 1 = 1

>>18533388

Get the gun, stagger to cover.

rolled 11 = 11

>>18533388
Hallucinate harder

Try to interact with your hallucinations physically

>>18533343
It sounds like we are biochemically augmented, rather than just spiced together with random machines.

Best bet would be some kind of super kung-fu or maybe poison.

rolled 11 = 11

>>18533388
Fuck! Bad time for a crash! Bad BAD!

Flush our system with juice again. Shit's going to be hell on us tomorrow but better hurting everywhere in another place than dying in this one.

Then grab the gun, kick the guy in the teeth, and run out the door with Wendy.

rolled 4 = 4

Charge towards wendy/attacker

>>18533399

Some part of my oxygen-deprived brain thinks it's a good idea to try and throw a customer at him. I get two more steps and try to make a grab at him before my legs go limp and I bang my chest into the corner of the table.

At least I've got the feeling in my chest back.

"Let go of me, asshole!" Wendy shouts. I gasp in a breath of burning air and look up in time to see him hustling her toward the door. Then it hits me.

Friskie's is sovereign ground. A murder on their property will bring them down like the wrath of God. But a murder on the street - no one will even look his way.

If I don't stop him before they get to the front door she's dead.


ALL THOSE ROLLS, TOO LITTLE TOO LATE! BETTER MAKE ANOTHER ONE, AND MAKE IT COUNT!

rolled 2 = 2

>>18533497
Grab that cup!!

rolled 9 = 9

>>18533525
DO A BARREL ROLL!

>>18533528
...and throw at badguy

rolled 2 = 2

>>18533525
We we shoot Wendy, they will have to leave or be implicated.

This the the worst plan ever, so it has to work.

rolled 10 = 10

>>18533525
Fuck the augs, fuck the chems, fuck our hardware.
We will do this on sheer grit and determination.
TACKLE THE FUCKER.

rolled 10 = 10

GET
THE
GUN

I've missed these threads so much

>>18533528

I spin around and my legs give out, dropping me to the tiled floor and knocking the wind out of me. Wendy drives a heel into his shin but it doesn't slow him down!


LAST CHANCE!

rolled 12 = 12

>>18533591

Gun by head! Use on man!

>>18533601
YES.

rolled 3 = 3

>>18533591
>>18533591
THROW THE GUN AT HIM!

rolled 7 = 7

>>18533591
Kick shoe at his face

>>18533601
NO! We can't murder people in here!

>>18533624
>The Po-lice
>Fuck Them

Self-defense, anyway. Motherfucker shot at us.

This is awesome.

>>18533601
>>18533624
>use on man
>not shoot
Obviously, we throw it at the guy and nail him in the head with it, knocking him out

>>18533682

If that's how you use a gun, you must be popular down at the shooting range.

But I suppose it's an interpretation. It's in OP's hands now.

>>18533601

Say cheese, asshole.

>>18533699
>If that's how you use a gun, you must be popular down at the shooting range
I think they might be jealous of how well I throw, they no longer let me onto the range nor into the store.

rolled 6 = 6

>>18533700
Shoot wendy for risking jacks life

>>18533712
Why would you do that.

We can use her for information or a bartering chip at least.

The gun shakes in my unsteady hand as it BRAAAAPs out another round of death.

>gattaca/blade runner lego quest

Snarklemas came early

rolled 5 = 5

>>18533729
Kill her, in the building, ruin the corporation trying to kill her and take out your rival all at once

Looks like we're moonlighting as a bodyguard after all.

Let Wendy know the meter is running. We don't get shot at for free.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." My head is pounding. This is all wrong.

Wendy rights herself. Not a scratch on her. "Nice shooting."

A few of the less jaded customers flee out the door. The others pretend they didn't see any of this.

I wish I had read the Friskie's policy on stand-your-ground laws.


What now?!?

rolled 10 = 10

>>18533761
Think of someone who could help us.

rolled 9 = 9

>>18533737
I agree with
>>18533751
Rollan to kill her

rolled 11 = 11

>>18533761
Search MAN for ID

Remove all traces of your FACE and anything IDENTIFIABLE OF YOU from local camera feeds

rolled 6 = 6

>>18533761
attempt to seduce Wendy

rolled 4 = 4

>>18533761

Hack Friskies security cams, make sure footage is in our favor.

>>18533773
>Legoquest
>Seduction roll isn't a "1"

Something is wrong in the universe...

>>18533766
>>18533769
>>18533770
This is /tg/.
One part talkative
One part THAT GUY
One part practical

>>18533751
She's not really a rival. You work with software, she works with hardware.

/railroading

rolled 9 = 9

>>18533770
>>18533766

Let's do those two and keep Wendy alive for now...

>>18533780
Don't worry! It'll be a 1 when it's needed.

>>18533770
>>18533766

My mind is screaming at me to run, but I force myself to go fishing and surprise surprise I get a bite. No time to check it out now.

"Can you-" I start to say to her before she holds up a slim blinking shape.

"Already on it. Ten second delay, then kiss every electronic device in this place goodbye."

I don't bother calculating how much something like that set her back - enough that she doesn't owe me for saving her life, at least.

"Come on," I tell her as I stow the gun in the back of my belt and grab her hand.

"Where are we going?" she asks as I stumble-lead her out the door.

"I know a guy."

rolled 12 = 12

>>18533867
Right. Who can help us in this situation?
We need a safe or at least untrackable place where we can follow up leads and get in contact with people who are better at this sort of thing than us.
What untraceable assets/resources have we got available? You don't get anywhere without cash or favors, and I know someone like us has gotta have some stashed where nobody is tracking it.

rolled 8 = 8

>>18533874
The guys bame is Bumblebutt

rolled 6 = 6

>>18533867

Time to bug out. Catch a cab, read that data while in transit.

>>18533879
>wasting a 12

>>18533874
SWAG

rolled 12 = 12

>>18533896
>Blockout
Run to the nearest Vault.

rolled 8 = 8

>>18533896
Seduce wendy

>>18533879
That 12 was not wasted (no 12 is ever truly wasted!) but I need a few minutes to get the next part set up.

rolled 3 = 3

>>18533879
>>18533907
>Two wasted 12's.
>bueno.jpg

rolled 3 = 3

>>18533874
We wouldn't be so careless as to take a citizenship without at least one good contact to back it up. If we can get in touch with that guy in corp security, we won't even need those tapes scrubbed- he can retroactively make us a corp security contractor, all clean and above-board, and even get us paid for eliminating a threat to corp control of their sovereign ground. Of course, no favors are free...

rolled 2 = 2

>>18533889
I second this

rolled 3, 6, 4, 2, 4, 10, 7, 3, 12, 3, 9, 10, 7, 2, 4, 8, 6, 8, 9, 7 = 124

>>18533912
> (no 12 is ever truly wasted!)
Hot diggity dog! I'm on that in a heartbeat!

rolled 6, 12, 7, 2, 5, 4, 7, 4, 2, 11, 9, 8, 5, 9, 5, 7, 6, 11, 1, 3 = 124

>>18533922

Burning questions:

What did Wendy do to slag these guys off?
Who are they?
What's on that disc?

And possibly most important: Why did Wendy come to US?

>>18533922
>>18533929
STOP ROLLING

NO 12 MAY BE WASTED, BUT NO 1 IS WITHOUT PAIN

rolled 2, 2, 9, 5, 7, 8, 6, 9, 2, 5, 6, 2, 8, 7, 4, 9, 1, 2, 8, 12 = 114

>>18533929

>>18533929
>>18533922

rolled 3 = 3

>>18533922
>>18533929
>Roll 40d12
>only 2 12's

>>18533933
Oh.
I suppose that makes sense.

rolled 1 = 1

Rolling 1d12 to bring op back

>>18534067
Well done!

>>18534067
You killed OP.

>>18534067
>this is your face. forever.

"Yeah, you can lay low here."

BB says the magic words once I cough up the magic cred. We're friends, or as close as people like him and me can get to that word. BB's lotek all the way, despite the upgrades Nestle gave him along with the other fifteen thousand-odd soldiers when they finally moved against the natural-sugar cartels.

>>18534067
I love how lego quest dice have a sense of humor.

rolled 11 = 11

>>18534099
Seduce Wendy.

"So what's on the disk?" he asks as I finish up the short version of the last hour.

"Don't know yet. It's encrypted, whatever it is, and I didn't have time to open it up on the bus ride over here."

"You still have that old 37-TDR rig?" Wendy asks, twisting the corner of her lip up into a smirk. "Gotta keep up with the times, Jack."

"I get by alright," I tell her. "You don't think you're the only girl I've let work on my rig, do you?"

>>18534130
>You don't think you're the only girl I've let work on my rig, do you?

Swag

rolled 1 = 1

>>18534130
Decrypt it.

>>18534147
>1
>THAT'S NOT THE DISK DRIVE, IT'S MY MICROWAVE!

>>18534147
>critical failure decryption roll

I can't fucking wait for the results

rolled 12 = 12

>>18534130
Well if our rig is old, we might as well get around to either upgrading it or helping Wendy get her stuff set up.

"Whatever you do, just keep it down," BB says as he tosses his oily gloves on a workbench and heads for the couch in his office.

"Don't wake me up unless someone's shooting at you," he grumbles before closing the door.

rolled 5 = 5

>>18534166
Rollan for yew to refer to him as BumbleButt

rolled 3 = 3

>>18534166
>>18534202
Obviously his name is Jason.

>>18534114
>>18534159
>>18534147

"Thanks for, you know, saving my life," Wendy says, leaning back against a pneumatic lift. The way she's posing doesn't do much to help me concentrate on the disk. I'm caught off-guard, this wasn't what I was expecting to happen. She's always been off-limits - is it just the natural adrenaline from the Friskie's shooting talking?

Wendy looks at me and my mouth goes dry.


Time to make a decision - upgrade or interface?

rolled 11 = 11

>>18534214
Interface.

rolled 10 = 10

>>18534214

upgrade?

rolled 6 = 6

>>18534218
>>18534229
9.

>>18534233
How do you make that upside-down 9?

rolled 1 = 1

>>18534214
Interface dat ass

rolled 12 = 12

>>18534243
d(-_-)b

>>18534247
RIGHT ON TIME

"Don't say anything," she whispers as the gulf between us collapses.

rolled 7 = 7

>>18534288
I don't know what this is but I'm rolling a d12 for it.

>>18534294
Bye op

rolled 9 = 9

>>18534288
1-5 secks
6 69
7-8 buttsecks
9 69
10-12 fingering

Oh, wow.

DID NOT see that last part coming!
>That's what she said!

Anyway, I got started two hours later than I'd wanted to, so apologies for cutting it off at this point... at least now I've got all the stuff put together to start early next time!

I'm looking at starting tomorrow night at about 22:00 4chan time. If I can't do it tomorrow I am definitely going to shoot for Monday at the same time.

I hope people had fun!

Are you going to do the behind the scenes thing now? I always loved that part of your quests.

>>18534323
>Are you going to do the behind the scenes thing now? I always loved that part of your quests.

Sure!

Back when I first had the idea for BLOCKOUT, I was planning on buying a bunch of business suit chest pieces, punk haircuts, and other "cyberpunk" themed Legos... then I realized that I could go about it a different way and use what I had. As you can see it's not nearly as grim and gritty in full color.

Great quest! Too bad I won't be here tomorrow to check the follow up. Will this be archived?

>>18534370
Already has-
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html

Vote that muffa' up.

>>18534366
Wonderwobbles! Wendy wears a wig!

>>18534378
Voted. I hope you'll be able to continue making great quest threads like this!

>>18534400
You didn't think that was the actor's real hair, did you?

And for anyone who missed me bragging about it in yesterday's thread, I recently upgraded my giant tub to a pair of three-drawer wheeled storage bins. They make finding parts a LOT easier.

>>18534378
>description text for thread
And lo, Lego Quest did smile as he read it.

All other LQ games can be found on suptg (except The Big Burn part 1, for some reason):

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=lego%20quest

Here's all of the After the Brick games collected in .cbr format, including that missing After the Brick:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/vb0eib

I enjoyed this very much OP, fucking great everything.

>>18534366
Yeah, I can see how the assorted shirts and bright yellow heads might have clashed with the tone of the quest. Did you use take the pictures in black and white or were the images originally in colour?
>>18534443
Have you gotten any new set since the last time you ran a quest?

>>18534443
For some reason I thought you'd have more bricks. This seems like only twice as much as what I have from my childhood.

You do seem to have way more minifigs than I ever had though.

>>18534486
I took the pictures in color, then Photoshopped them into grayscale using the vibrance saturation setting. I had to play around with PS, because the normal desaturation makes the image very grainy-looking. This way it retains the shine of the plastic.

I have gone kind of crazy with the single-bagged minifigs.

>>18534489
I don't have a ton of bricks. Most of the sets I got as a kid were fairly brick-light, so I ended up with a lot of castle wall pieces, spaceship parts, etc. I probably have less than four gallons of bricks total (not including the flat planks).

>>18534583
Sorry to go off topic but were you the one making the slim system rules?
Either way, love your work!

Here's a full shot of the Friskie's restaurant. This was originally a set for Spaceman's game, but I repurposed it and added some tables and chairs. The arcade games in the back were there already.

>>18534639
>Sorry to go off topic but were you the one making the slim system rules?

No, I have nothing to do with that. Why'd you ask?

>>18534661
Sorry to bother you then. I thought It was someone related to Lego Quest but evidently I was wrong. Hope to see more Lego Quest soon though

rolled 12 = 12

>>18532455
I so wanna do a lego quest but itll never be as good as yours plus only have shitty phone camera. rollan for my shame level

>>18534681

>>18534693
>>18534681
I have failed the spirit of legoquest

Lego guy, is there a place to buy bundles of lego hair pieces?

All right folks, that's a wrap!

WHO is trying to kill Wendy?

WHAT is on the disk?

WHERE did I put that one piece?

Some of these questions may be answered, and more, on the next installment of LEGO QUEST!

>>18534759
Bundles? I don't know about that.

I buy all my stuff on Bricklink.

>>18534763
I'm pretty sure THAT GUY is trying to kill Wendy.

>>18534639

No, that'd be me - who also does the Brikwars threads. I really ought to go ahead and get a tripcode one of these days.

Well done as always, LQ - and very nice use of B&W! Also;

>I have gone kind of crazy with the single-bagged minifigs.

I share your pain.

>>18536535
>why can't I hold all these tower guards

Seriously, all these Series 5 minifigs and not a single Man in Lizard Suit?!?

>>18535842
I chortled.

>>18537371

You don't grope the bags? I can pick out anything from a series if I know what bits to look for. I passed over a bunch of Lizard-suit-men in search of other prizes.

I just moved, but the store back where I was had really cool staff and a surplus of boxes. They'd let me and my girl feel up the bags for hours if need be; on two occasions they even busted out fresh boxes to let me look for the rare ones (Dwarf and Elf, got both). I later saw an elf at a comic con going for 15 bucks... talk about luck!

>>18539365
>You don't grope the bags?

I am terrible at it. I was at an alternative kids' toy store about six months ago and the clerk working the counter was ridiculously talented at finding specific ones. Apparently she had gotten all the ones she'd wanted so far out of their latest shipment so she offered to find a spaceman for me. And she did. Otherwise I just hope for the best. I ended up with a bunch of Barnes & Noble gift cards, so I've been grabbing six or eight bags every time I'm there (which isn't very often; there isn't one close to me).

In LQ-related news, I don't think there's gonna be any game tonight, but the chance of a game tomorrow night is currently in the high 90s.

BLOCKOUT has been added to the wiki:

http://legoquest.wikia.com/wiki/BLOCKOUT