“I can give you some general information about each one of them yes. Dexter is an Adamant caste Alchemical, and his role of the group is both infiltration and socialite. He’s good at fighting yes, but that’s not his main role when compared to you or I. Wendy is... troubled soul, and I fear she was scarred long before coming to this facility. Her speciality area is all about intelligence gathering with a secondary focus on being a combatant. I don’t agree with her methods, but she is rarely ever wrong about a hunch, and since the death of Drake she’s the only one in the group with considerable experience in leadership during fights. Mochire is a Starmetal caste whose speciality is in dealing with the supernatural and sorcery, he’s a bright young man but very quick to make judgements. Osvald is sort of a jack-of-all trades for our group, extremely knowledgeable in just about everything and even capable of using sorcery, but sacrifices combat ability to do it.” Father Macellius explains

“So he’s a non-combatant?” you ask.

“Far from it. Granted saying he’s the least efficient in combat is akin to saying he’s the least dangerous Lion in a pride of Lion’s, keeping in mind that he’s still a lion. Lastly there’s Marina, someone you probably have a few things in common with. Before you arrived she was the newest member of the group, replacing our old Jade caste Drake as a ranged combatant. I don’t know much about her compared to the others, mainly because the poor girl is traumatized by all that she’s seen here so far, but I just have some sort of feeling... I sense a hidden potential within her. I know she’s capable of great things, just that she’ll need a little help getting there is all.” Father Marcellius says.

******

You got nothing else to do, you may as well talk to one of them.

TUTORIAL: RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships affect how well you get along with a specific member of your group. The higher the relationship, the more value the other will see in you as a friend and/or trusted comrade. The higher the rating the more willing they’re to trust you. If you max out a relationship with a character, something special may happen! Select a character now and you’ll increase their relationship a bit.

>What is this quest?

Alchemical Blade Prequel Quest, a quest set in the Modern version of Creation from the Exalted setting, focusing on how the robotic Alchemical Exalted came to be within the setting.

>Who are we?

The quest is mainly going to be played out in flashbacks, in which during the flashbacks we take control of the Moonsilver caste Alchemical Exalted Junpaku Hibiki, while in the current time you play as “Anonymous”. The game will take place within the city of Versino within the central continent of Creation Meruvia. Labelled as a dangerous and murderous science experiment gone rogue, you need to evade forces of the mightiest army within Creation sprinkled with the powerful Elemental supersoldiers known as the Dragonblooded, trying to find out who is responsible for what you’ve become and how to escape their clutches once and for all.

>Alchemical? Moonsilver? I don’t know anything about Exalted, much less Modern Exalted...

I’ve made this quest to be as friendly to newbies as possible, and I also see it as an introductory guide to the World of Modern Exalted. You can google “1d4chan Exalted” for information on the general vanilla setting, but what I’ll be using is the Modern Version of Exalted as shown in “Shards of the Exalted Dream” book, in where its Alchemicals are quite different than those of Vanilla Exalted. Feel free to ask any question about Exalted in the thread and I will do my best to answer it.

>Archive?

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Alchemical+Blade+Quest

>System?

Dicepool system. When performing an action, everyone rolls a number of d10’s based on what the action is (I will list the pools for most actions, but if you want to have a roll for an action, ask and I’ll make the dicepool for it). The first roll is the one that’ll be used, but if someone makes another roll for a different action and more people vote for that, I’ll be using that one instead.

>This seems hella complicated, is there any way you can boil things down for me?

http://pastebin.com/NexXpPC1

>XP?

Favored Attributes cost 4 XP per dot to increase (Underlined on stat sheet when released) while non-favored ones cost 5 XP. Abilities themselves cost 3 XP per dot to increase naturally. All charms cost 6 XP per purchase with Dedicated slots costing 4 XP each and General ones costing 6 XP each. At the end of every “mission” (In game objectives set by either me or some goal the audience desires) you will be presented with a possible acquisition list of charms. Experience can also be gained by developing the character, learning about the world, or just in general things people find interesting.

>Twitter?

@Sandact6

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen! Better late than never due to a food poisoning scare and connection issues!

>>599120

- Talk to Osvald
- Talk to Wendy
- Talk to Dexter
- Talk to Mochire
- Talk to Marina

>>599192
- Talk to Marina

Trans victims first? Good night qm.

Trans victims first?

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Father Marcellius said that Marina is around the same age as you, so it should be nice at least to talk to someone who is around your age group.

You head on over to Marina, still huddling up against the wall, kneeling down to better look at her in the eyes. “Out of curiosity, how old are you? Father Marcellius said that we’re around the same age.”

“”H-Huh?” Marina says in a confused tone, looking around before looking up at you, both of her wide eyes staring at you behind that transparent green tinted visor. “I-I’m sixteen years old actually.”

“Oh, so you’re a year younger than me, though I’ll be turning 18 myself somewhat soon.” you tell Marina as you look down at her. “My name is Junpaku Hibiki.”

“H-Hibiki being your first right? Your accent and name sounds to be Coralese.” Marina says timidly, as if she fears that you’ll lash out at her for any sudden mistakes.

“That’s correct yes. So if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your deal for being here?” you ask her.

“I...” Marina seems to hesitate for a second, the sound of metal scuffing against the floor as she hesitates.

“Look I’m not going to hurt you, I’m curious myself.” you tell her. “I originally came in here because they promised a non-augmented treatment for my paralysis.”

“...Oh so a few days ago when you said your back was already crushed...” Marina says putting the two together.

“Yes, I’m a paraplegic... or was rather. What about you?” you ask Marina.

“I’m... I’m here to for two years. First is that my dad was diagnosed with cancer, lymphoma and it was starting to spread towards his brain and sinuses. Replacing the parts with augments wouldn’t do a thing. If that wasn’t bad enough, I was also diagnosed with brain cancer, inoperable.” Marina says with a heavy expression. “The doctor said I didn’t much time to survive, but then he promised this experimental treatment which would save me and pay me for being a test subject. Since I was a special case, they allowed me as an underage test subject and I thought this was great. I could cure myself and get more money needed for dad. Until...” Marina stops at about here for her own story.

[1/2]

Wow, and you thought you had it bad. “I think I know what happened from then on.” you reply.

Marina then sniffs loudly, hugging her knees even closer to her body. “I wish I never said yes to that stupid procedure, at least then I could die shortly alongside my Dad. They force me to fight nearly all the time, but I have no idea even how to fight, and when we don’t fight they just beat or even kill us. I don’t even know how my father is even doing...” Marina then begins to break down into tears, sobbing softly. “I only wanted to help my father, why is this happening...”

Marina is taking this a lot harder than you are, which makes sense. Throughout your entire life you honed your skills and will to stand resolute in the face of challenges. Marina however appears to be just a common civilian, someone like her is probably more concerned about celebrity gossip than honing herself physically or mentally.

- I understand that you’re scared and worried. Like you I have family on the outside waiting for me and to say that I have I’d a peaceful night’s sleep since I arrived here would be lying, but crying will solve nothing. Want to know a little secret for keeping yourself composed?

- Don’t worry about your father, it's only been a few days so I’m sure he’s still fine. We’re all working on plans on how to get out of here, and I’ve gotten a few myself so don’t worry. You’ll see your father again, I’m sure of it. (Lie)

- Other

>>600444
>- I understand that you’re scared and worried. Like you I have family on the outside waiting for me and to say that I have I’d a peaceful night’s sleep since I arrived here would be lying, but crying will solve nothing. Want to know a little secret for keeping yourself composed?

“I understand that you’re scared and worried. Like you I have family on the outside waiting for me and to say that I have I’d a peaceful night’s sleep since I arrived here would be lying, but crying will solve nothing.” you tell Marina. “Want to know a little secret for keeping yourself composed?”

“W-What’s that?” Marina asks.

“Breathing techniques. Things like martial arts or trance meditation may seem to be complex people, but in reality both of them have the same base principle of breathing techniques to them. Breath in, count to 3, exhale. That’s all there is to it.” you instruct Marina. “Once you do that, you should feel a bit better.”

Marina follows your own set of instructions, taking in a deep breath, holding for several seconds before breathing out again once more. Upon breathing out, you can notice that her tensed up body relaxes for several seconds.

“Better?” you ask.

“...You know that actually helped a bit. I’m still terrified, but I feel that I’ve calmed down at bit.” Marina replies.

“It’s the most basic breathing technique for stress relief. Just remember that and you should do fine.” you reply to Marina.

“I... thank you Hibiki.” Marina replies to you, a soft smile on her face.

Hm, a bit of a crybaby, but she does appear somewhat cute at least.

“Oh? Teaching little Marina all about the secrets of Martial arts?” Dexter says, leaning towards your direction while cupping his ear in an exaggerated way.

“Yes, that’s correct. I can also tell you’re one just by the way you stand. Do you wish to challenge me? I already beat Father Marcellius, so I wouldn’t mind continuing the streak.” you immediately spit towards Dexter. While privacy is indeed a myth in this room, the least he could do is try not to poke his nose in your business.

“Yeesh, so confrontational~.” Dexter says with a faux sigh, pretending to back away from you.

“You realized he was a martial artist just by the way he stood?” Wendy says, turning her head towards your direction without leaving the wall she’s leaning on.

“It took some time, but yes I’m fairly sure of it. The way he stands and approaches people, it feigns being open but I can tell that he’s constantly prepared.” you reply to Wendy.

Dexter’s eyes go wide in surprise upon hearing this while Wendy’s face remains the same. “Hm, I guess Colm’s replacement is going to be a worthy successor after all.”

The door the room then opens up, in walking in Bell carrying what appears to be a trolley with a variety of food up on top of it. “Hello everyone! I’m sorry if I’m a bit late with dinner!” Bell says in a rather cheery voice in stark contrast to the factual and cold Bell you saw from your first meeting.

“Eve!” Marina’s face lights up as soon as she sees Bell, getting up off the floor and walking over to her with outstretched arms.

[1/2]

“Ooohhh its so good that you’re alright Marina! I was worried about you after you took a direct hit from that rocket during the last test.” Bell says as she gives Marina a large hug despite the sheer size difference between the two. After a few seconds Bell reaches down handing Marina a paper bag. “While I couldn’t get the milkshake, I was able to get the fries and Double Slammer from Hugo’s Burgers for you.”

“Oh! Oh thank you Dr. Bell! I thought I’ve never see such a thing again!” Marina says gently taking the bag and pop from Bell.

“A deluxe lunch for us? We’re deeply grateful for you charity.” Father Marcellius says to Dr. Bell.

“It’s not a problem, in fact it's the very least I can do.” Dr. Bell replies before glancing over at you. “Oh! Right! For our newest member I asked a friend to get something special for you!” Dr. Bell then reaches down, passing over what appears to be a sushi bento box to you. “I’m not sure what you liked, but it was on sale in the cafeteria today I thought you might’ve liked it.”

- “You think giving us some food is going to excuse the atrocities going on down here? The atrocities that you not only sit by and watch, but actually evaluate?”

- “It's the gesture that counts, though by the sounds of your actions from earlier and your actions now it appears that you regret working here, am I correct?”

- Other

>>600730
>- “It's the gesture that counts, though by the sounds of your actions from earlier and your actions now it appears that you regret working here, am I correct?”

>>600374
Trauma! Son of a deathlord!

>>600730
- “It's the gesture that counts, though by the sounds of your actions from earlier and your actions now it appears that you regret working here, am I correct?”

You look down at the convenience store level sushi that bell is holding out before taking it in your own hands. “It's the gesture that counts, though by the sounds of your actions from earlier and your actions now it appears that you regret working here, am I correct?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the only ones kept prisoner here.” Bell replies to you. “We may get a paycheck for our work, but we’re not allowed back to the surface and those who vent too often at the complaints department usually end up disappeared unless it's about office supplies.”

“Aren’t you afraid of saying that when there’s a camera in our room?” you ask.

“They don’t record sound and the guard normally assigned for your room is currently at the washroom, we’ll be fine.” Bell says waving off your concern.

“The standard protocol is that one guard, ideally a Dragonblooded, should be following you around at all times when you go to see the test subjects.” Wendy says, not looking at Bell as she continues to lean against the wall near the back.

“I convinced my superiors that the Alchemicals in this section are of extremely low risk for gremlinization. Backdraft didn’t put up much of an argument when he was given an opportunity to catch up on his Time of Tumult backlog.” Bell replies. “Even then I have no mechanical augmentations, so even if you were one I’d be in no danger of catching it from you.”

“Gremlinization? What’s that?” Marina asks, her mouth half stuffed with a hamburger.

“It's a form of virus we discovered early on while researching Alchemicals, unique in the sense that it has traits of being both a physical virus and a computer virus at the same time.” Bell walks over to give what appears to be a footlong submarine sandwich to Wendy.. “Alchemicals are the original vector for it and it lies dormant within their systems. Whenever an Alchemical overclocks his systems or experiences some external stimuli we’re not aware of, the Gremlin virus awakens and activates within the Alchemical. This gives them a substantial power boost and overrides the safety codes currently implanted within you, but it drives its host insane. Extreme homicidal impulses being only one effect, the rest being psychosis, schizophrenia, paranoia, and other unpleasant symptoms.”

“Wait, so you’re saying that we’re one day going to all turn into monsters?” you ask in disbelief.

[1/4]

[2/4]

“If I were to greatly simplify things and compare your biology to a human, it would be more like cancer in your body. The potential for it growing is there, but unlike normal cancer you’d be able to will this cancer into being based on how much stronger you wish to become. Trust me, it's much harder than it sounds and you’d be able to stop it long before it potentially happens, so don’t worry about suddenly catching it.” Bell explains, passing what appears to be a burrito to Father Marcellius. “The virus itself also sensitive about essence, and for those who are capable of harnessing essence will find the physical virus burned out of their systems almost immediately. Also the innate Alchemical operating system appears to be quite adept to dealing with Gremlin viruses, so a host can only let their mental processes be infected only if they will them to do so.”

“Good, if I ever become an insane, raving monster I’d want to be put down immediately.” you say opening the lid to your sushi.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Wendy agrees to your request in an ice cold tone of voice.

The conversion in the room immediately dies out as the sound of footsteps can be heard approaching the room. Dexter looks at Bell and silently mouths the word, “Tests?” Bell herself looks just as confused, shrugging while silently mouthing “I don’t know.”

“I’m telling this is a horrible idea. None of them are ready for actual combat scenarios.” “We’ve been testing every day for a full year, and my superiors want to see some more relatable results.” “You’re sending them down there without a leash like us. It doesn’t take half a brain to figure out they won’t try to escape.” “That won’t be an issue.” “Won’t be an issue!? Are you missing half a brain!? Of course it-” “Won’t be an issue.”

Two males can be heard debating as they walk down the hallway towards your room, in where after two men can be seen entering. One of them appears to be Backdraft while the other just screams as if he’s some sort of government official. He’s wearing what appears to be a black trenchcoat while wearing single piece black vest and suit pants underneath. His jet back hair is combed back from his receding hairline, his face seemingly wary from work but still sharp enough to notice any minor mistake those under him could notice.

“Mr. John Doe, a pleasure to see you.” Dr. Bell greets the man entering your cell. “Am I allowed to know what’s happening or is that on a need to know basis?”

“At 14:17 today Dr. Trine has contacted us.” ‘John’ replies to Dr. Bell, his tone of voice completely level as he calmly explains the situation.

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“It appears he’s been busy since he last disappeared. He retreated back to the old compound below us and apparently has converted the scrap we’ve been sending down there into war machines, one’s that we believe are gremlinzed.” Backdraft explains. “However when I was preparing a subjugation team to send down there, this guy shows up and tells me he wants the test subjects to clean up the mess themselves.”

Dr. Bell’s mouth opens slightly in shock as she hears this. “What? They’re not even ready yet.”

“You’ve run your tests long enough Doctor. Those paying for this facility want to see more practical data, and to this they’re willing to authorize the deployment of one such group.” John explains to Bell. “I’ve also been instructed to supercede either your or Mr. Engleberg’s authority in this matter. We are patient men, but not that patient. Your objections will be noted.”

Backdraft waves his hand as he hears this. “Great, I was trying to keep my name a secret.”

Throughout the conversation, you’ve been staring at John directly, hands hovering over in place from the sushi box. John then locks his eyes with you, a stare that you’ve seen before. The drive for getting one’s job done no matter the cost.

“Is something the matter?” John asks you.

“I’m wondering why someone like you is down here and not behind a desk.” you flippantly reply. “

“Am I behind a desk right now? No, I’m not. I do not like to dirty my hands with such tasks, but I will perform them.” John says before turning to both Bell and Backdraft. “You have one hour to prepare both you and the groups for the operation.”

As the man leaves, Backdraft speaks up as soon as he’s down the hall. “I hate that prick.”

“For once we’re in agreement.” Dexter replies in a bitter tone.

Dr. Bell sighs as she takes off her glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Do we have any intelligence at least?”

“From what we can see from hacked cameras there are two main ways leading towards what we believe is the room where Dr. Trine is situated. There’s the junkyard, the place where his raw resources are being kept and then there’s the smelting and construction area where the damn things are actually being built. They have a large amount of forces there but nothing we wouldn’t be able to handle. I was going to split into two teams, one handling the junkyard and the other the smelting area, and then meet up towards Dr. Trine’s office. He may be insane, but he’s still a crafty son of a bitch. I don’t want to leave a route open for him to escape and possibly send Gremlins back up at us in a retaliatory attack.” Backdraft explains.

[3/4]

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(Mission loadout! Here you can make some choices before executing a mission and choose who to bring with you. The standard is bringing two people along with you)

- Take the Junkyard route

- Take the Construction/Smelting area route

Choose two allies

- Dexter (Adamant caste, High social and stealth based skills)

- Osvald (Starmetal caste, Light combat ability, but extremely knowable with computers, machines, doors, medicine, and everything else)

- Mochire (Starmetal caste, devastating magical powers and long range capabilities. Extremely knowledgeable about the occult)

- Wendy (Soulsteel caste, no-nonsense tactical agent type that is proficient at ranged combat and specializes in fear based tactics. Good leadership ability)

- Father Marcellius (Orichalcum Caste, high powered combat unit that specializes in close combat. Good at social)

- Marina (Jade caste, extremely high defenses render her nigh-unkillable and has potent range and melee options. Somewhat slow speed)

Sorry for how long this update is with just WORDS, but I was trying to figure out what a good point for input was rather than just a filler choice.

>>603724
- Take the Junkyard route

- Mochire (Starmetal caste, devastating magical powers and long range capabilities. Extremely knowledgeable about the occult)
- Father Marcellius (Orichalcum Caste, high powered combat unit that specializes in close combat. Good at social)

[1/3]

Wendy gives a small sigh as she peels herself off the wall. “The Smelting and Manufacturing area is mostly likely where the majority of their forces are going to be concentrated, so we’ll take the majority of our forces there while a small team heads through the Junkyard path. Father Marcellius, you’ll be taking both Mochire for ranged support and our new cyber ninja, that should be more than enough support. Dexter, Marina, Osvald and I will head down towards the Manufacturing area and see what sort of hell we can cause down there.”

“I’ll head off and get ready myself...” Backdraft says before he walks off muttering. “And just when the seventh season came out last night, but no I’ll be stuck staring at a wall for the next several hours...”

“...Does this mean we won’t be able to finish eating?” Marina then asks Dr. Bell as Backdraft walks away.

“...Preparations on your end have already been taken care of.” Dr. Bell says after a slight delay. “All we need to do is basically send you down the elevator. A half hour should be more than enough time to eat, I just apologize for being able to do nothing but throw you into the fryer.”

“Dr. Bell, you’ve bent the rules in our favor and have been on our side for countless other times. If someone comes in here to directly bend the rules in their favor there isn’t much you can do about that.” Doctor Marcellius says to Dr. Bell, trying to comfort her.

“I question why John came down here. Appearing suddenly like that handing out orders only sows confusion in the ranks.” Osvald adds in after, accepting what appears to be a drink packet labelled ‘Ambrosia’.

“Regardless of our thoughts, it seems the order was passed.” Dr. Bell says with a sigh. “Enjoy your meals the best you can. I’ll be back to pick you up in a half hour.”

The room becomes quiet as the door hisses shut once more. Breaking apart the chopsticks you take a Salmon piece and pop it into your mouth. Bland fish with hard rice assaults your tongue, but compared to the literal ‘goop’ they’ve been feeding you all with so far it feels just as if your executive chef back at home made it.

******

An hour later Father Marcellius, Mochire, and you are escorted down the hallway along with several other armed guards. The sterile hallways are aligned with countless other holding cells similar to your own, and throughout all of them the same similar sight that played out back your cell can be heard. Sobs of confusion and hopeless, bitter rage as loud doors ring out as those inside pound against doors, followed by the threats of guards and the sounds of rifle butts being struck against those who cannot fight back. To the bottom of your heart you wish that you could take your blade and simply behead everyone in this facility for this gross abuse, but with no real way to fight back there isn’t anything you do. In fact the only reason you agreed to this assignment in the first place is because those ‘gremlins’ down there are not only a threat to those in the facility, but could possibly breach the surface as well. Your sister is still in this city, and you don’t want those things anywhere near her. This is the very least you can do for her in your current state.

As you turn down another hallway, you can see a makeshift barricade is set up in front of what appears to be an elevator behind a now ruined wall.

“That elevator looks ancient, are you sure it's going to work?” Mochire asks one of the nearby guards.

“It works alright.” Backdraft says to you all as you approach the barricade. “According to the old schematics, the junkyard should be on sub-basement 18, that’s where we originally sent all our garbage. Which is great as you save me the trouble of sending you down there myself.”

Your response is to simply give Backdraft the middle finger.

“Keep pushing bitch.” Backdraft warns you. “Down there you’ll go by your assigned codenames. Marcellius you’re Golden Lion, Mochire you’re Moonlight Mystic, and the new girl is called Shinobi.”

“How original.” Mochire replies with a sigh.

“Just remember they’ll most like have communication jamming. While your lines should be fine, we won’t be able to monitor any of you. If you don’t come back within 10 hours we’ll be coming down there after you, so keep that in mind.” Backdraft warns you all, stepping aside as he then motions towards the elevator. “Alright Father, they’re all yours.”

With that, your group heads on over to the elevator, opening the doors and pressing the button for warehouse 17. The entire elevator lurches, causing all of you to jolt along with the dust bunnies in the elevator.

[2/3]

“...So anyone else think he’s a dick?” Mochire asks as the elevator heads down.

“If I ever get the chance I won’t stop at just punching him.” you reply in kind.

“Let’s focus on surviving for now.” Father Marcellius says as the faceplate on his armour closes shut and his light green visor across his eyes turns opaque. “Shinobi, you’re going to have to scout out ahead for us. Report back the defenses they have.”

“I’ve never been a part of an official military squad before, but I’ll do my best.” you say as your own visor snaps shut around your eyes. “Is there anything else you want me to do?”

“I’ll leave that to your own judgement. Do whatever you can think would help us out.” Father Marcellius explains. “As soon as you’re ready to call us in of if you’re caught, we’ll come in after you.”

“Got it.” you reply as the elevator slows down to a crawl, the doors opening up with a soft ding. You give a small nod to Father Marcellius before heading out of the elevator.

The door opens up into a place that doesn’t leave much to the imagination, or rather loudly screams in how abandoned the place. A small guard checkpoint can be seen up ahead, thick layers of dust on the biometic scanners. Papers and scattered junk line the floors alongside an old bucket and mop that heads into a corner around the right. So far the entire area is silent, but you’re not sure how long that’ll last.


- Take front route Father Marcellius and Mochire would possibly take for any obvious dangers. There is a higher risk for being caught, but at least the way for them to back you up is clear. (14d10 Stealth roll)

- That fallen I-Beam in the middle of the room leads up to a vent. Lets see if you can use that in order to get much further behind enemy lines more easily, getting intel far more easily and possibly set up some nasty surprises before the battle actually begins. (14d10 stealth roll)

- Lets have a look around here first, see if we can find anything useful (8d10 to see if you can find something, may spend 3m to add +3)

- Other

Rolled 1, 10, 2, 9, 5, 6, 7, 5, 6, 5, 4, 10, 10, 4 = 84 (14d10)

>>604193
>- That fallen I-Beam in the middle of the room leads up to a vent. Lets see if you can use that in order to get much further behind enemy lines more easily, getting intel far more easily and possibly set up some nasty surprises before the battle actually begins. (14d10 stealth roll)

[1/2]

Your eyes scan around the area as you see the I-Beam ahead of you, fallen from the ceiling for one reason or another, but leads up to what you consider to be a nice vent near the ceiling itself. Seeing as how this would be a great way to get behind enemy lines, you immediately head on over to the I-Beam, silently run up it and head into the ventilation shaft.

The entire shaft is lightless and a bit hard to see in, your own frames of reference being dim light shining up through other openings in the vents up ahead. As you head on over to the first one and peer down, you can see that the reports from above were definitely right.

Dancing amidst an ocean of abandoned electronics and cybernetic prosthetics, several human shaped creatures can be seen down below. Human shaped as they’re made from prostetics of all sorts, but in this case also laced together with seemingly broken and ancient technology. Rusty wiring holds together one soldier holding a rifle, some high pitched screeching noise coming from its speaker with two vibrating pieces of metal in front of it, his left arm having what appears to be as some sort of gun literally rammed directly in and through his prosthetic arm, while others similar to him screech back to him while pointing their weapons at him. Several much larger versions of these creatures can seen, random pieces of rusted junk seemingly protruding out from their own bodies as they shamble across the junk pile, one of them carrying what appears to be an old water tank as lumber across the grate.

You continue along the path before you finally see something that appears to be interesting, a control room of sorts. Silently opening the grate and jumping down to the floor, you can see no one is inside of this dimly lit office. Gently peering over the side of what appears to be a control panel, you can something that makes your heart stop for a second.

“Fa- Golden Lion I got some bad news. There’s way more of these things than we originally thought.” you tell him. “This place is huge, and I’m seeing at least over a hundred here followed by what appears to be several of these... huge lumbering things.”

“The big guys are called Juggernauts, and if there’s only a few of them it means they haven’t been here that long.” Mochire replies on the other end.

“Can you see anything else?” Father Marcellius asks.

As your eyes scan over the facility, you can indeed see one more thing on the ceiling of the facility. “Yea, one more. Some kind of... four legged thing with a single eyestalk coming out from the center of it. Its on the ceiling of this place.”

[1/2]

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[2/2]

“That little bastard is called a Hawkeye. It has very sharp senses and often serves as a command unit in battle, coordinating the rest of the Gremlin units.” Mochire replies on the other end of the line. “Watch it, as if it spots you it’ll also paint you with a laser that is specially tooled to foil your stealth before screeching its head off to let everyone know where you are.”

“Don’t let their numbers intimidate you. If you remember your training than you are more than capable of handling this. Do you want us to come in now or do you want to set something up?”

You may spend up to 6m to add +6 dice to any of these actions, which won’t cause your anima to increase. Add the amount of dice to your roll if you want them, or any amount under 6 if you wish.

- “I’m going to see how many of these bastards I can take out before they start panicking, even up the odds a bit.” (Stealth kill battle group, will weaken it before battle, roll 11d10 for Stealth, activate Optical Shroud)

- “Let’s see if I can take out that Hawkeye before we start, a disorganized enemy is easier to fight.” (Make an ambush attack against Hawkeye, 11d10 for stealth, use Optical Shroud)

- “This control panel controls what appears to be a crane. Lets see if I can drop a few tons of garbage on one of those big ones before we start. (9d10 stealth, Hawkeye will investigate control room after this action)

- Other

Rolled 6, 1, 7, 5, 9, 2, 8, 9, 4, 8, 4, 10, 7, 5, 2, 7, 10 = 104 (17d10)

>>604674
- “Let’s see if I can take out that Hawkeye before we start, a disorganized enemy is easier to fight.” (Make an ambush attack against Hawkeye, 11d10 for stealth, use Optical Shroud)

+6m

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“Let’s see if I can take out that Hawkeye before we start, a disorganized enemy is easier to fight.” you say over the intercom.

“Be careful it doesn’t spot you Shinobi.” Mochire warns over the other end.

“He won’t see it coming.” you say as flicker before vanishing from sight.

CLOAK ENGAGED

Gently opening the door on the control room, you gently push open the door and jump onto the roof of the control room before climbing your way up on the girders of the ceiling, slowly sneaking along the triangle patterned supports as you slowly make you way towards the Hawkeye. You can hear the mechanical creature’s eye slowly turning around as it scans the floor below, occasionally moving erratically for brief spasms before continuing its scan below.

After getting in a position you consider the best for a lunge, one hand holding onto the girder while your legs press against it preparation for the attack.

COMBAT TUTORIAL: STEALTH ATTACKS

If you can successfully remain hidden against all targets, you may attempt to launch an ambush attack against your targets. Join Battle is rolled as normal, and any opponent with a lower result against you means that you can try an ambush attack against them. Ambush attacks treat an opponent’s defense as zero and many defensive abilities cannot activate! Attacks resolve as normal otherwise. After battle has begun opponents become more alert, and any future stealth attacks are surprise attacks, which reduce the opponent's defense by -2, which again is negated only by specific abilities.

(Hibiki rolls join battle and gains 12 initiative!)

BATTLE TRACKER
Hibiki: 12
Hawkeye: 8 (Ambush possible!)
Juggernaut 1: 6 (Ambush possible!)
Gremlin Soldiers: 6 Ambush possible!

- Pow (Shining Point Form, Liquid Steel Flow, Shining Starfall Execution, Blitzkrieg Assault Systems, 24m 1WP, 15d10, withering attack then 2x decisive) Don’t let it survive to haunt you, throw everything you got into a Trifecta slash that’ll rend the things to pieces.

- Eff (Shining Point Form, Liquid Steel Flow, Blitzkrieg Assault System, 18m 1WP) There are a lot of opponents here, attack it but conserve some resources for now.

- Other: User Input

Rolled 2, 7, 1, 6, 8, 7, 7, 10, 8, 8, 8, 3, 1, 5, 7 = 88 (15d10)

>>605100
>- Pow (Shining Point Form, Liquid Steel Flow, Shining Starfall Execution, Blitzkrieg Assault Systems, 24m 1WP, 15d10, withering attack then 2x decisive) Don’t let it survive to haunt you, throw everything you got into a Trifecta slash that’ll rend the things to pieces.

[1/2]

You’ll only get one clear shot at the bastard like this, so its best to throw literally everything you’ve got into the attacks. Take a deep breath to get yourself centers spiritually, your hand drifts over to your blade, fingers running along the edge of it as small arcs of electricity appear around your body. You then focus all of the force in your legs to leap off from the grider, hand going towards your blade as you rocket towards the Hawkeye.

The Hawkeye doesn’t notice your approach until the last quarter of a second, seeing the electrity soar through the air before it immediately attempts to try and take a step back, a large scar appearing in the armour of legs as he quickly uses them to defend themselves. Sparks fly out from his legs, showing that a few vital systems were in fact damaged during the assault.

(Hibiki hits the Hawkeye for 10 withering damage! Hawkeye is now crashed!)

Your body comes a telsa coil as electric arcs off and sparks into the rafters above. The Gremlins below noticing the light show but unable to do anything as they watch you and your multitude of copies jump off from another support grider directly towards the Hawkeye! Your pattern of a sword slash repeated by your ghostly copies as you move in for the kill!

(Hibiki hits the Hawkeye and deals 14 levels of physical damage! Hawkeye KO’d!)

With a single silver slash of your sword, the Hawkeye is cut into four pieces before falling to the ground along with several other pieces of the griders. A thunderous crash can be heard below as the junk crashes into the ground, most of the metal monsters down below now shrieking loudly at you up in the rafters before starting to fire their weapons at you.

“Dealt with the Hawkeye, any second would good about now.” you say over the intercom to your allies.

“On the way!” Father Marcellius replies over the intercom.

As you look down towards the ground you can see that the Gremlin automatons are just blindly pointing their ranged weapons in your direction and hoping for a hit. They’re inaccurate now but it won’t take long for them to hone in on you. Worst yet those big guys now know you’re here. The one closest to you near the center is currently preparing to throw its water tank directly at you, and while the other two are near the back. Hopefully Father Marcellius and Mochire will be able to handle those guys.

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COMBAT TUTORIAL: BATTLE GROUPS

Battle groups are a large group of similar individual units that often use sheer numbers in order to overwhelm you. They’re treated as a single combatant in combat but with a few differences. First is their attacks are often area of effect, capable of hitting you and many allies. Attacks from battle groups can only do withering damage, but if you are in initiative crash (0 initiative or lower) than they can deal lethal damage to your health levels directly, so watch out! Attacking and damaging a battle group yields no initiative for you and gains no initiative for them, but if you cause enough damage or scare them enough to cause a route, you gain a small bonus on initiative. Withering attacks alone are able to permanently damage them, but decisive attacks are extra effective against them... provided you don’t mind being left open!

BATTLE TRACKER
Hibiki’s Sword: 8i (11 for turn order)
Hibiki: 3i (6 for turn order)
Juggernaut 1: 6i
Gremlin Soldiers (Battle group): 6i

- Pow (Withering): (Liquid Steel Flow, up to +6m for Excellency use to hit, 13m 1WP, 23d10) Wait for the Juggernaut’s attack before charging forth, cutting through the water tank and directly onto the shocked opponent (Choose Juggernaut or Battle Group)

- Eff (Withering): (Liquid Steel Flow, 17d10) Leap off the ceiling and dive bomb directly onto the enemy (Choose Juggernaut or Battle Group)

- Eff: (No resources or charms) Head back to the control room, see if you can operate the crane to get a ‘drop’ on your opponents... with a metric ton of trash and sharp objects.

- Other: User Input

>>605499
>- Eff: (No resources or charms) Head back to the control room, see if you can operate the crane to get a ‘drop’ on your opponents... with a metric ton of trash and sharp objects.

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You barely leap out of the way in time before a water tanker hits the spot you’re on, the steel container crumbling against the ceiling as if it were a paper cup being crushed. That is a nuiscene compared to the gremlins firing blindly below, feeling sharp impacts against the side of your armoured hide of can only be bullets bouncing off just bare glancing blows of your body, the random firing of the gremlins down below seeming to hit you far more easily since they have the volume to fire at all of your afterimages at once.

(Juggernaut attacks Hibiki and misses! Gremlin Forces attack Hibiki and deal withering damage!)

Rolling into the control room and ducking down from the fire, you quickly go over the control panel, wiping off the dust in a hurry before finding what appears to to be the crane controls. You quickly turn the key that is still inside and grab the control stick for the Crane, ducking under the assortment of firing coming from the Gremlins as to steer it towards where the Juggernaut is.

“Let’s see you move under this.” you say pressing the button on the console that says “DROP”.

You can see the massive crane head go slack as it roars down towards the pile of garbage below, a thunderous crash shakes the entire area and trash even flying up towards the catwalk on the upper levels. Peering out from the side you can see the large Crane arm is now directly on top of what appears to be a very dead Juggernaut.

Father Marcellius and Mochire immediately enter the scene immediately after. Father Marcellius’s exhaust blasting out thick plumes of golden exhaust as roars directly towards the closest Juggernaut in a burst of speed, burying his first directly into its chest before he follows it towards the ground. Mochire comes in shortly after, the neon blasts of light coming out of his hands being reflected in the goggles on his face. Each blast from his hands cut through a row of the gremlin hordes below like a hot knife through butter as he remains behind Father Marcellius.

It appears that you have some options on how to proceed here...

- Pow (Withering): (Liquid Steel Flow, up to +6m to add up to +6 dice, 17d10, 5m 1WP) Leap down below the Gremlin horde, locking them into a pincer attack.

- Eff (Withering): (Liquid Steel Flow, 5m 1WP, 17d10) Use the Catwalks to attempt and bolt for Father Marcellius and Mochire quickly in order to give them support

- Other: User input

Rolled 1, 6, 3, 4, 1, 1, 6, 8, 7, 5, 3, 9, 6, 8, 6, 2, 1 = 77 (17d10)

>>605789
>- Pow (Withering): (Liquid Steel Flow, up to +6m to add up to +6 dice, 17d10, 5m 1WP) Leap down below the Gremlin horde, locking them into a pincer attack.

[1/2]

Seeing as how the gremlin forces are briefly focused on Father Marcellius and Mochire, you quickly jump on down below from the control center, travelling down nearly three entire stories before you land on top of a gremlinized android, crushing it from the force of your impact instantly before you grab your blade and charge. You quickly need to scramble behind cover behind a surgical table for the first seconds as the ones in the rear seem to refocus on you again rather quickly. You break quickly comes as the heads of one of the gremlins are melted by one of Mochire’s laser blasts.

You waste no time seizing this chance, quickly dashing towards the Gremlin group before making a single wide arcing slash of your blade, a single silver flash before the bodies of the gremlins are cleaved in two and their bodies turning into dust, before charging back down the opposite side of the junk pile, limbs and other assorted body parts of gremlins flying through the air as you cleave your way through their ranks.

(First attack misses the Gremlin battle group, second attack hits for 9 withering damage!)

Father Marcellius remains on top of the Juggernaut he tackled, Father Marcellius cutting the spikes on top of the gremlin away before making blow after blow directly into the gremlin’s sensitive body. Even with the other Juggernaut drags its way towards Father Marcellius and fires a single rusted spike the size of a man’s arm, Father Marcellius just flips over on the Juggernaut’s body and slams his claws into its side.

Mochire’s own arms begin to glow a bright neon blue before suddenly floating into the air in a graceful way, arms stretched out to both sides of him before a torrent of laser blasts come out from each of his fingers, slowly sweeping across the junkyard turning gremlin soldier and scrap alike into slag. A few of the gremlins upon seeing Mochire’s display of power and you cutting down people in the rear by the dozens immediately attempt a retreat.

(Mochire damages the battle group and routs the enemy! Many are scattered and fleeing but some still remain!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnCrRTPirGQ

Just as the exodus begins to happen, the junk heap you’re on top of starts to shake as the laser blasts pour into it. Quickly leaping off of the trash heap in a backflip just in the nick of time as the trash heap explodes from out under you. The sound of metal grating fills the air as a new monster appears from the trash, this one appearing to have a heavily armoured body made of rusted metal sheets while its head appears to be that of a Urban Strider, its two red eyes glowing as he checks the area round in fury, seeming to now focus on you as it turns its body around. You can see however the chest cavity is completely exposed, and inside of it you can see a single pick mechanoid of some sort in the center.

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[2/2]

“Damnit, I should’ve know a Hijacker would make it’s home in a junkyard!” Mochire hisses over the radio. “That body you see in front of you is a shell, and that pink thing inside of it is the Hijacker. The body is expendable and even if you beat it the Hijacker can bury itself in the junk to make another! You’ve got to pull the Hijacker out and kill it or else we’ll never see the end of this battle with all the junk we’ve got in here!”

“Another vanquished monster to add to my new collection.” you say as you get into a stance in front of the Hijacker and its body, gremlins retreating all around you, your mind racing as you try and figure out how to make an opening so you can tear the Hijacker out.

COMBAT TUTORIAL: GAMBITS

Gambits are actions you can take in battle that aid you in some way other than dealing damage to an opponent, such as disarming them or pulling them off or out of a vehicle. A gambit is basically a decisive attack that only costs a small amount of initiative. Disarming an opponent whose very proficient with a weapon leads to a much easier fight than fighting them with one!

BATTLE TRACKER
Hibiki’s Sword: 5i (8 for turn order)
Hibiki: 3i (6 for turn order)
Hijacker: 6i
Gremlin Soldiers (Battle group): 6i

Odds of successfully extracting hijacker extremely low, gain more initiative for a higher chance of successes.

- Pow: Withering (Up to +6m to add up to +6 dice to the attack, 17d10 to 23d10) Jump on the heads of the retreating gremlins in order to reach the upper body and deliver a full powered slash from above!

- Eff: Withering (Normal attacks, 17d10) Lure the metal monster back a few steps, letting him trample through the retreating gremlins in order to get to you!

- Pow: Gambit (14d10): Jump onto the chest and start cutting out the electronics instead (WARNING, CURRENT SUCCESS CHANCE VERY LOW)

Other: User Input

Rolled 7, 5, 3, 4, 6, 4, 1, 10, 9, 8, 9, 1, 8, 2, 8, 5, 3, 4, 8, 9, 4, 4, 6 = 128 (23d10)

>>606013
>- Pow: Withering (Up to +6m to add up to +6 dice to the attack, 17d10 to 23d10) Jump on the heads of the retreating gremlins in order to reach the upper body and deliver a full powered slash from above!

+6m

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You dash into the crowd of retreating gremlins, jumping off of their own heads before leaping high in the air above, a silver arc rising high into the air than crashing down below directly on top of the Hijacker’s current body. Your blow slides off the arm of the Hijacker’s current body, leaving a small gash in its arm but otherwise still leaving it intact, you are surprised for a brief second before immediately taking a step back as the fist slams down in the ground. That attack should’ve cut it clean in half, so thing is far more durable than originally thought.

(Hibiki’s sword hits for 4 points of withering damage!)

Thinking back to your duel with Father Marcellius, it appears like then you’re going to need to wait for just the right moment to launch your attack when he leaves his defense open, and if you miss you’re going to be in a world of pain.

You lean down on the ground, various bolts tumbling down the junk pile as you center yourself. The Hijacker makes a loud feral screech that blasts out the sound of metal scraping against a chalkboard, charging directly towards with fist raised high, slamming towards the ground as if a meteor is being hurled towards the Earth itself.

At that brief moment you draw your blade in a single silver flash when the creature is unable to halt the momentum of his fist before quickly leaping back from his attack. The Hijacker machine begins to spark, twitching uncontrollable as you severed its movement cables within the cockpit.

(Hibiki clashes the Hijacker, dealing 15 points of initiative damage, crashing him!)

You can see Mochire holding what appears to be a fireball in his hands that rapidly pulses with a blue light, charging up for a massive attack in between the dodging and weaving of bullets that come from the remaining gremlin forces.

(Gremlin forces attack all allies, however they miss Hibiki!)

BATTLE TRACKER
Hibiki: 23i (6 for turn order)
Hibiki’s Sword: 10i (13 for turn order)
Gremlin Soldiers (Battle group): 6i
Hijacker: -13i (3 turns till crash, -3 defense clash loss penalty)

- Pow: Gambit Combo (Fatal Stroke Flash, Shining Starfall Execution, 7m 1WP, 12d10) Pull out the Hijacker and toss him into the air, call our to Mochire to throw his spell at the Gremlin and strike at the same time it explodes.

- Eff: Gambit Combo (Fatal Stroke Flash, 1m 1WP, 12d10) Rip the Hijacker out of its reinforced before before shredding it to pieces along with its body, you’re more than enough by yourself and let Mochire deal with the remaining Gremlins.

- Other: User Input

>>606165
- Eff: Gambit Combo (Fatal Stroke Flash, 1m 1WP, 12d10) Rip the Hijacker out of its reinforced before before shredding it to pieces along with its body, you’re more than enough by yourself and let Mochire deal with the remaining Gremlins.

OK I need to head to bed a bit early, but I will finish this quest tomorrow sometime so stay tuned!

Rolled 2, 5, 8, 10, 5, 5, 4, 4, 9, 1, 1, 8 = 62 (12d10)

>>606165
>- Eff: Gambit Combo (Fatal Stroke Flash, 1m 1WP, 12d10) Rip the Hijacker out of its reinforced before before shredding it to pieces along with its body, you’re more than enough by yourself and let Mochire deal with the remaining Gremlins.

[1/2]

“Finish the rest off Mystic!” you bark out towards Mochire before beginning your advance towards the Hijacker. You sword wildly all around you, silver flashes from your sword deflecting the bullets as you approach the Hijacker.

The Hijacker raises its fist high up into the air, attempting to slam it down directly on top of you, you react quickly by holding your sword directly into the path of the assault, the impact and forces impacted between the blade and the Hijacker causing your own weapon to glow red hot along its edge. Locked in a struggle where even the tintest adjust in balance means the difference between life and death, you slide just a tiny fraction to the right causing the Hijacker’s fist to sail off your blade and crash into the ground next to you, junk sailing in in the air.

(Hibiki delays here turn until after her sword! Hibiki’s sword rolls for the gambit and succeeds!)

“It’s over now!” you say immediately leaping onto the chest of the of the Hijacker, reaching inside the chest of the shell and grabbing the Hijacker inside. You tear the pink spider like Hijacker directly from the shell, giving it a toss in the air as it screeches loudly. You do a small backflip off the shell of the Hijacker, flipping over just as the Hijacker falls in front of its shell. You don’t hesitate in the slightest, time seems to slow to a crawl as you slash your blade again and again, slicing the Hijacker and its shell into tiny bits and pieces.

(Hibiki attacks the Hijacker dealing 16 health levels of damage, completely annhiliating it!)

Just as you finish with the Hijacker, Father Marcellius climbs off of the remains of the first Juggernaut before attacking the next one, uppercutting it so hard that it soars directly into the roof of the junkyard nearly three stories straight up, Father Marcellius immediately jumping after it, a solid crack echoing through the room as he breaks the sound barrier and lands a knee directly in the center of the second Juggernaut and sending it soaring back into the ceiling.

“NONE OF YOU ARE GETTING AWAY!” Mochire then roars out, the flames in his hands then turning into what can appear to be black fluttering orbs in both of his hands. A second later the orbs explode, sending out black shrapnel everywhere inside of the warehouse. The black shards seem to tear through the gremlin’s own bodies like paper as their bodies vaporize into dust a second later. You yourself even need to jump behind a junk pile in order to not get caught in the wide area attack.

As you watch the Gremlin’s running you can see that they’re running into a door that was previously hidden beforehand, a forklift lifting up a broken vending machine that was in front of what appeared to be a door. Gremlins now running into that door out of fear for their lives.

[2/2]


“GET BACK HERE!” You shout out as you race towards the gremlins inside of the doors. Consumed by bloodlust, you swing your weapon at the first few attempting to get in through the doors, exploding them into dust instantly.

“Hibiki wait!” Father Marcellius calls out behind you before a grunt comes from him as he tries to block an attack from the last Juggernaut.

His cries fall on deaf ears as you continue to race down the long hallway the gremlins appear to be retreating behind, sirens flashing in the area as what appear to be blast doors slowly start to close in front. You waste no time as you charge down the hallway itself. Leaping through the closing doors as you deflect the rain of gunfire that comes down from the other end of the hallway, cutting down the escaping gremlins running down the halls in the process and narrowly escaping through the closing doors. With narrow slide under the the final door, using the momentum from your slide you quickly spin back upright, drawing your blade and slicing the remaining Gremlin’s in twain instantly.

You take a few heavy breaths as your body finally has a chance to calm down from the massive assault that just took place. You give your blade a slow flick as you turn around, seeing the gremlins behind you that have now turned into piles of dust.

“Golden Lion, this is Shinobi, I’ve followed the Gremlins into what appears to be a tunnel and dispatched all of them. Still no sign of Dr. Trine right now. Are you guys alright? Over.” you say into the commlink on your suit.

Silence, just the silence that fills the room.

“Golden Lion! Mystic! Is anyone there!? Respond!?” you yell into the commlink, only to once more get static. You give a sigh as you head on over to the door control panel, “Let’s see if I figure out how to open the these blast doors again...”

A soft but very audible clap begins to echo through the room, quickly spinning around towards the source of the noise with your hand on your katana, you can see an older gentleman walk out from behind the corner, appearing to be in his mid-50’s, hispanic tanned and weathered skin line with salt and pepper hair on top. A full beard surrounds his face and unkept hair, in fact his entire body appears as if he’s been living as a hermit for nearly the past year with extremely worn out pants, green shirt, and lab jacket on him.

“Well done! Amazing! Superb! Stupendous!” The man maintains a slow a steady clap as he approaches you. “It appears they’ve only chosen the best for the future doors!”

[2/3]

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“...Dr. Trine I presume?” you ask, hand still holding your sword at the ready.

The man only gives out a smug smile and a soft nod in response to your question. “Tell me, did they tell why they wanted me?”

“They did, they also warned me how dangerous you could be for when I take you in.” (Lie)

“I don’t know nor do I care. At this point I’m going to haul you back as your little creations tried to kill us back there.”

Other: Add intimidation action to above actions (Roll 9d10)

Other: User Input

>>608229

>>608294

Think you forgot the action to make my friend.

>>608229
>>608333
Yeah, somehow it didn't paste lol

>“I don’t know nor do I care. At this point I’m going to haul you back as your little creations tried to kill us back there.”

[1/2]

“I don’t know nor do I care. At this point I’m going to haul you back as your little creations tried to kill us back there.” you say taking out a pair of handcuffs as you walk towards the mad doctor.

“Care? I think you should care, I think everyone should care!” he immediately starts to blather on, waving his arms around in various directions as if to emphasize his point. “The monsters... they’re not the real monsters, but you see they’re just failed keys! Even I, *I* have failed to make the proper the key!”

You give a small sigh as you open the cuffs. “I told you, I don’t care for the insane blatherings of a madman, so just do me a favor a-”

As soon as you step forward you can feel a sudden of *something* in the air around you, the HUD on your vision immediately starting to flicker erratically before you collapse down the floor, body twitching spastically as you notice a single warning on your HUD.

WARNING: EMP SHTDWN

Doctor Trine leans down over you, tapping his finger directly on top of your visor. “You poor... poor creature... Don’t worry... For I am the keymaster, and it's time that we open the door together. Hurry, take her to the lab, we h*ve w**k to d*****...”

Your vision slowly fades to that of static before flickering off altogether.

******

BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
LOADING BIOS... COMPLETE.
NEURAL NETWORK CHECK.... COMPLETE
LOADING SANDSTORM OS...
.
.
.

Your vision flicks back on, distortion quickly flickering away before you senses slowly come back to shortly after. Mild shaking, dust falling from the ceiling... the sounds of gunfire in the distance but ever so slowly approaching, and the throbbing, the throbbing in your head that seems to pound with a dull thud in tune with your heartbeat.

As you look around you can see that you’re in a small but cramped looking room filled with hastily made electronic equipment. A few of those Gremlin footsoldiers you fought back in the junkyard standing around in and around the equipment. Doctor Trine himself sweating, face thick with tension as he furiously types away on a keyboard that’s cracked into two separate pieces on a screen of what appears to be a detailed layout of your current biometrics and other vital statistics.

Oh like hell you’re letting this happen. You try to pull yourself up and off, only to realize that your arms and legs are currently restrained by cuffs on the table. Even as you grit your teeth as arcs of electricity fly out from your body, you can’t even make them shake let alone break free.

[2/2]

“Those cuffs were designed to hold your friends such as the Righteous Tiger and Blue Commando, so don’t try even try and break free!” Doctor Trine says while not moving his eyes away from the computer monitor.

A gremlin can be seen rushing into the room, it’s face static but the sounds of its metal mandibles scraping together and the way its arms point to the outside, it seems to be indicating something.

“I KNOW THAT! I’M ALMOST FINISHED AND I WON’T LET THEM INTERRUPT ME!” Doctor Trine says immediately pointing back to the door. “Go back outside! Buy whatever time we need!”

Doctor Trine goes back to typing on his computer, leaving the confused and scared looking gremlin to head back outside yourself.

“...What are you hoping to accomplish here? Are you hoping to turn me into one of those Gremlin monsters I hear about all the time?” you ask him as he continues type on the keyboard.

“No! Those are failures! Their key was jammed so they just kicked open the doors! Your kind... Like all that is has choices... multiple doorways to enter but for you one door is permanently locked... you cannot open it, but only hope to break it down.” Doctor Trine takes a deep breath and slams his fists on the side of the desk, causing all of the electronics near it to jump on the table, the screens flicking before returning to normal again. “If you cannot pick a door than there is no freedom! The gods may say we have no doors to choose from but only one but you... Ooohhh you certainly have doors... They don’t want you to have them but you certainly have the potential to choose them... So I instead will give you that kick, so you may open the lock rather than break down the door!”

...What the hell is this madman talking about?

- “You’re making absolutely no sense, what do you intend on doing to me!?”

- Try and make sense out of his mad ramblings (Difficulty 5, 5d10, pay spend a WP to try and succeed)

- Other

Rolled 7, 10, 7, 9, 4 = 37 (5d10)

>>608605
>- Try and make sense out of his mad ramblings (Difficulty 5, 5d10, pay spend a WP to try and succeed)

>>608738
Now that's an impressive roll

>>608738

No kidding.

Next part is coming up, I need to make a run to the store before it closes or I have no toilet paper in the house. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long!

Shoving aside the dull pangs of pain in your head, you immediately attempt to focus on the blatherings of the madman in front of you. Unlocking his nonsense is the key to your survival right now.

“Keys... Doors... Locks... These are all just metaphors. The doors are actually the freedom of choices we have in life and the choices we made are the keys to open the locks on these doors. The locks are an obstacle while the keys are the solution or the tools you have at hand.” you reply to Doctor Trine after several seconds of thinking.

Doctor Trine stops typing for a moment as he finally hears this. “Yes... YesyesyesyesyesYES!” he immediately screams in joy about hearing your answer. “This one understands the truth behind the current situation! Those above think that you are the perfect creations for having a lack of keys... Rubbish! Balderdash! Poppycock! The choice to open any door you please in front of you is true the true work of perfection! The tasks they gave to I... Wanting to dumb down my art, my glorious artwork into something which has limitless doors to only travel through one! A travesty! My art... My art is not something you ask me to dumb down! No! So I never opened a door towards that location... I ignored my calling and instead broke down the wall to the new path!”

“Here is where you stop making any sort of sense again! I can understand that you ran away because you never liked your work, and from what I understand is that they wanted to probably add more restrictions to us as you say, but you’re not making any sort of sense!” you yell at him from the table.

“The Children of the Mighty ones... Yes you see our kind are able to see things no one else can... secrets, lies, things hidden underneath the fabric of society that NO ONE else can see... To you I am mad but once you see my vision entirely, you’ll see how it all makes sense! How we’re all tools of a greater and mightier power! One that has infected Creation down to the core, ripping out the doors for others so they can open such things themselves, and how other minotaurs within the door maze seek to steal such doors or keys from us! No... I may not be able to stop such things... I cannot stand up to them... But at the very least I can make the keys...” Dr. Trine says as he looks up to his monitors, a screen of code saying “TEST OK, COMPLICATION COMPLETE” before he pulls out what appears to be a small spike from a nearby computer.

As Dr. Trine walks over to you the entire floor shakes once again, dust falling from the ceiling and several electronics crashing to the floor. As you look over to the monitors, you can see one of them shows what appears to be just outside the lab, Backdraft immediately rushing in slicing two gremlins apart with twin katana’s before a gout of flame washes over the camera turning it to static.

[1/4]

Dr. Trine waves what appears to be a hypodermic needle in his hands, only the five silver spikes seem to glisten and shine in the meager light of the lab, red and green lights blinking just above the needles. “Don’t you dare! Tell me what you’re doing first!”

“Giving the key to the door of the future!” Doctor Trine says as he immediately slams the needle into your neck.

AKJDSLADSFAHFDFNDAFDSLFAHYAKDSHFAD
01000101 01010010 01010010 01001111 01010010
01010101 01001110 01000001 01000010 01001100 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01010010 01000101 01001010 01000101 01000011 01010100 00100000 01000110 01001111 01010010 01000101 01001001 01000111 01001110 00100000 01000011 01001111 01000100 01000101 00001010

Your entire body goes into violent spasms as streams of code flood across your HUD in a multi layered display, filled with both numbers and garbage letters.

A violent burst floods your ears and reduces your hearing to only that of a dull tone, gremlins flying away from the force of the explosion before Doctor Trine gasps out a mouthful of blood before clutching over you, a piece of shrapnel from the door sticking out from his back and likely through his body.

UPDATES INSTALLED
REBOOTING SYSTEMS...

The tired face of Doctor Trine looks up at you, a smiling mouth flowing with blood as he stares directly into your eyes. “And now... the keys are returned...” he says before life finally leaves his body, his corpse now sliding down towards your feet.

Backdraft steps into the room himself, surrounded by flames and melting several loose bits of wiring poking out from the ceiling, sliding off himself and his armour as he enters the room and looks over it with his gaze, noticing Doctor Trine dead at your feet. “Lucius Mal... Go back to the main base, tell our friend Mr. Doe that Dr. Trine is dead, collateral damage.” Backdraft replies as he puts his twin katana’s away with a small flourish.

As soldiers begin to pour into the room, two of them head on over towards you, fiddling around with your restraints as Backdraft continues to bark out orders to the soldiers nearby. Your headache from earlier multiplied many times over into what feels like a full blown migraine as your head throbs from pain.

BOOT SEQUENCE INITIATED
LOADING BIOS... COMPLETE.
NEURAL NETWORK CHECK.... COMPLETE
LOADING SANDSTORM OS...

[2/4]

Backdraft sighs as he walks over towards you with a heavy sigh. “And against all odds, the super woman is still alive. I hope you’re happy, but I lost a fifty dollar bet because of you.”

“Shut up Engleberg... Not in the mood...” you mutter as it still feels as if your thoughts continue to scream out at you.

Backdraft freezes in place for a second, furrowing his brow at you as he points his finger at you. “I was ordered to bring you back alive, but keep pushing like you are now a-”

“(SHUT UP!)” you scream out in your native tongue, lashing out with a fist hits him square across the jaw. The blow didn’t have your all in it, but its enough to make Backdraft topple back a few feet.

Backdraft himself freezes in place after he realizes that he’s hit, hand slowly going up to his jaw under his helmet and rubbing it slowly, saying something directly towards you in a state of half shock.

You’re unable to understand him at this point, your mind simply switching off from the sheer exhaustion from the hundreds of voices screaming loudly in your head. You black out once more as you collapse to the ground.

******

Bright lights assault your eyes the second the open them, and as you eyes sluggishly adapt to the bright lights once more, you can see that you’re out of the decrepit room of Doctor Trine down below and seemingly back up to the surface labs. Looking down around at your body you can see that you’re lying in some sort of special chair that seems to fit the outline of your body. Moving your body feels a bit difficult, but with how exhausted you feel mentally you doubt you’re going to be doing backflips until you freshen up a bit.

“Ah, our guest of honor is awake once more.” a male voice calls out.

As you look around the room a bit more, you can see that you’re currently in what appears to be a clean room of some sort. Large cables are running out from the chair you're in towards the outside where a langley middle aged man is typing away on the keyboard with several monitors displaying data, Dr. Bell hunched over his shoulder and looking at the same screens.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Bell asks you.

“Like someone hit my head with a sledgehammer.” you frown, the remnants of the headache still lingering in your head.

“That’s not surprising. Doctor Trine must’ve done something to your systems. Everything looks normal so far, but there’s a lot of data to shift through.” the middle aged man explains, eyes darting in between the screens.

[3/4]

Dr. Bell peels herself away from her comrade’s shoulder and looks over at you behind the glass. “Can you tell us what happened down there with Doctor Trine Hibiki? Any information at all can greatly narrow our search.”

As your look in the other direction of the room, you can see both ‘John Doe’ and a young man with red hair looking down at you with a scowl on his face, Backdraft’s helmet currently sitting directly next to him on a chair. Would it be a good idea to say what happened with them around?

- “I can tell you what I know, but Doctor Trine was speaking nonsense the entire time.”

- “...No I can’t remember anything. He shut me down with an EMP and when I woke back up he just stabbed my neck with some needle.” (Lie)

- Other

I just realized this has been sitting here for nearly a half hour as catchpa didn't go through. I feel like a moron.

>>609227
>I just realized this has been sitting here for nearly a half hour as catchpa didn't go through. I feel like a moron.

Nah, your fine. Fuck catchpa.

Tell them you remember being knocked out and punching assdraft. thats it.

>>609227
>- “I can tell you what I know, but Doctor Trine was speaking nonsense the entire time.”

>I just realized this has been sitting here for nearly a half hour as catchpa didn't go through. I feel like a moron.
This quest is slow enough for it to not matter too much.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>609508 is 1

>>609563 is 2

No way in hell you’re telling anything that went on down there, especially with Backdraft and John Doe here.

“I remember Doctor Trine using an EMP to disable me after I tried to take him in. I vaguely remember punching someone as well, and my fainting was due to the sheer happiness of actually clocking Backdraft across the jaw.” you reply to Dr. Bell.

“You see! She even remembers doing it!” Backdraft immediately says to John Doe, pointing directly at you. “I know you hate killing your darlings Doctor, but this one is now a gremlin! We need to put her down before she becomes any more of a threat!”

“No, gremlinism often has physical changes to the body of Alchemicals as well as emotional ones. We just ran a full search of her systems using the cradle and there’s no evidence of any sort of gremlin related infestation.” Dr. Bell tells John Doe.

“Hm... I am interested in why the safeguards didn’t activate when she punched Mr. Engleberg.” John Doe says as he tears his glance away from you towards Dr. Bell.

Smug prick... If could help it you’d be doing a lot more than a mere punch across Backdraft’s own face. If it wasn’t for this stupid progra-

EMY LCK

You blink your eyes in disbelief, thankful that you visor is covering your widely opened eyes. Backdraft himself is now highlighted as an enemy on your HUD. Just before you woke up your systems wouldn’t even let you do that!

“We suspect it was the assault Dr. Trine tried to make on Hibiki’s systems.” Dr. Bell explains to the John Doe. “Even if the safeguards were active, her systems were in the midst of rebooting and was under considerable mental duress. Likely she didn’t even know she was actually hitting him.”

“She even called me by my name before hitting me! How in the name of the Underworld was she not able to realize it's me!?” Backdraft yells back in protest towards Dr Bell, small flames starting to lick out around his armour.

You decide to try and test this feature and see how far you can take it. Concentrating for a brief moment as you try and will your mind to make your systems recognize everyone else in the room as an enemy.

EMY LCK
EMY LCK
EMY LCK

[1/3]

[2/3]

As Dr. Bell, John Doe, and the man behind the computer are highlighted in red you can feel your heart skipping a beat as you realize that damn law isn’t getting in the way anymore. That’s what Dr. Trine meant by giving you keys, he basically disabled every single one of your safeguards.

“Which again, it was a miracle she was even standing back then! If you consider being potentially drugged and undergoing serious mental duress as a way of bypassing the safeguards we installed on the Alchemicals, than at that point you might as well put one of these power armours on the local town drunk and let him fight! His stumbling will be more dangerous than the very brief threat window these units have!” Doctor Bell retorts to Backdraft, the fire in her body booming out through her voice.

John Doe tears his look away from Dr. Bell for a second before looking back towards you. “Setbacks like this are exactly why we wanted an actual live combat exercise. This project has already suffered considerable delays, so I am not going to create any further ones. Dr. Bell, can you isolate the loophole that caused Moonsilver 3011 to attack in the next update?”

Dr. Bell gives a small nod. “It should be possible yes, but I-”

“Oh come on! Stop defending your pets here Bell! They’re experiments, not your friends! It just so happens that one of your experiments has a *serious* bug within it and you’re not taking the steps to crush that bug here and now! You’re endangering the lives of literally everyone here for the sake of not being able to put down a puppy!” Backdraft nearly screams out his protest.

John Doe turns around towards Backdraft, meeting the fiery tempered superhuman with a gaze that could cut through steel. “I think you some mistaken beliefs on expendability on this project Mr. Engleberg. It is not only the Alchemical units who are expendable Mr. Engleberg; failure to do your assigned task here means a permanent re-assignment to a location where no one will ever meet you again. Am I clear?”

Backdraft balks at this, taking a step back as if he roused a slumbering bear from its sleep and is backing away like any sane person would do. “Y-yes I understand.”

“I’m glad we agree on that matter. Dr. Bell, continue to run tests on Moonsilver 3011 until you figure out the cause. With Dr. Trine dead and his lab equipment destroyed, I want to know exactly what he was doing down there.” John Doe says as he walks out the lab.

Silence fills the room for several seconds as Dr. Bell looks at Backdraft. “We’ll be wrapping up the test shortly, you can escort her back to her cell then.”

“...Yes ma’am.” Backdraft says with a hint of bitterness inside of his voice as he grabs his helmet once more, putting it back on.

[3/3]

A small smile creeps across your face as Backdraft places his helmet on. Oh... You’re going to have some fun with him later on...

******

MISSION 2 COMPLETE!

+10 normal XP gained!

+5 Alchemical XP gained!

+1 bonus Alchemical XP for using the environment to help defeat the gremlins in a significant way!

+1 bonus Alchemical XP for using Stealth to gain the notable advantage of cutting the enemy commander to pieces!

+1 bonus Alchemical XP for increasing your relationship with Marina from 0 to 1!

14/24 total Experience, 6/16 Alchemical Experience!

File: Abilitysheet.png (95 KB, 856x2050)

95 KB PNG

And now its the time to spend those experience points!

ADA recommendations:

Recommended Normal XP Purchases

- Accelerated Response System Submodule “Live Wire Writhing”: When Accelerated Response System is used and the enemy matches your defense, the attack misses. (Normally it would hit) (6 XP)

- Optical Shroud Submodule “Dynamic Cloaking Module”: Able to move at much faster speeds while cloaked, extending the range one can move while cloaked (Slow speed -> Normal Movement -> Running speed -> Any distance), in addition each additional purchase lowers the penalty of moving while cloaked by 1 (3 XP each)

- Optical Shroud submodule “Sense Countering Upgrades”: Firmware updates and layers of sound absorbing material make the sounds that come from normal operation produce far less sound overall. Upon purchasing this upgrade the Alchemical’s Optical Shroud also protects him against acute hearing or smell, pick one per purchase. If both are installed, a third installation will protect the Alchemical from any exotic sense type (Such as thermal vision/X-Ray/Touch). (4 XP per purchase, Essence 3 means it will need to go into a Overdrive slot)

- Omnitool Implant Submodule “Advanced Lockpicking Toolkit”: The Omnitool implant gains a series of tools that allow it to open nearly any sort of door. First an Alchemical never has to damage a door to open it. Mundane doors are automatically opened without need for a roll while against magical doors the Alchemical may always at least try. (6 XP)

- Omnitool Implant submodule “Systems Integration Interface”: The Omnipool plants comes with a variety of plugs, ports, and wires allowing it to interface with any computer system. Any actions done on the computer are sped up by (Wits) times and are able to do so without any user interface devices. Information such as files can be downloaded to the Alchemicals brain, and while the Alchemical doesn’t automatically know them may use Investigation to search through files or download files to another computer with this charm. (6 XP)

- Charm “Impact Dispersion Module”: Gain (Essence or 3, whichever is higher) Additional soak against withering attack or four hardness against decisive attacks. Basically you gain a small toughness boost. (6 XP, 10 with slot)
Charm “Advanced Stalker Protocols”: When an Alchemical attacks a target, they may pay 4m or 2i reflexively while adding Appearance bonus dice to the attempt. If the Alchemical incapacitates the target using a decisive attack than the Alchemical immediately gains the cost she paid for this charm back. (6 XP, 10 XP including slot, must use overcharged slot until Essence 2) [APP 5 NEEDED]

Recommended Alchemical XP Purchases

- Strength Up (5 XP per dot, maximum 5)
- Appearance Up (4 XP per dot, maximum 5) RECOMMENDED
- Perception/Wits Up (4 XP per dot, maximum 5)
- Presence (3 XP per dot, maximum 5)
- Athletics (3 XP per dot, maximum 5)
- Stealth (3 XP per dot, maximum 5) RECOMMENDED

File: Charmssheet.png (167 KB, 805x3513)

167 KB PNG

And the charm sheet in case others want to see what we have before buying anything.

>>610658
I'd say 1 point of stealth and 1 of athletics for alchemical xp.

I don't really get how the slots system works here. How many charms do we even have room for?

>>610734

Slots and charms are two different things.

If you notice on the charm list, you may see something like CHARM NAME (Xm [Ym], yadda yadda). The Xm is how much the charm costs to use in the game, whereas the Y value is how many personal units the charm itself costs from the character sheet shown multiple times (>>608229 for example). Let's take the Multitool Implant for example.

Multitool Implant (4m [1m], stuff).

This means if we installed it into a slot, it would cost 4m to use it whenever we wanted to use it in the game, and that 1m is taken off the current 6 personal units we have, which would lower our total amount to 5. This means after that we could install 5 more charms that cost 1m. Some charms cost no personal units to install (Such as Aura Dampening), and you could plug an infinite amount of those in.

Slots are something you just install your charms into, and in fact charms do nothing until you can actually install them into a slot. You can also 1000 slots installed at once but have no impact on your character other than being able to install charms.

If the resources seem a bit low to install charms, don't worry the amount of motes in your Motonic Reservoir will grow over time, allowing you to install far more charms and have more resources to use them with. If you're worried about having less resources to use magic with, Alchemical's still have some of the largest amount of resources to play with. Charms costing resources may also suck, but submodules don't cost any motes to install and often make a charm exponentially stronger.

As for fighting when stealthed? I definitely got a plan for that too, later in the game you'll be able to learn a fighting style that is extremely good at fighting with stealth.

That explain everything or did I miss the point completely?

>>610878
So if we took sense countering upgrades, what does it needing to go into and overdrive slot mean?

>>610908

Certain charms have certain prerequisites for them. Most of the time I keep them hidden for you due to simplicity, the times I do mention requirements for charms (Such as Advanced Stalker Protocols) they're for charms which I highly believe are worth the price of investment.

Using an Overcharged slot is different from Normal or General slots. First is any charm installed in those charm slots costs 1 less mote to install (So if you installed Omnitool Implant in an Overcharged slot, it wouldn't affect your resources in any way). Likewise it treats your Essence as 5 for installing charms, allowing you to use charms far in excess of what you can normally install. The only downside to them is that you can never get more of them, four is the only amount you're ever going to have.

I thought about keeping what our 'Essence' value was until later on when it'd automatically increase, but in hindsight that was probably a bad idea. Essence is basically a 'soft' gauge for measuring power, ranging from Essence 1 to Essence 5 for Hibiki. The higher Essence you are the bigger your motonic Reservoir and the more powwerful abilities you can learn and use, but unlike DnD it isn't an absolute measure of power. If using Essence values alone Father Marcellius was considerably stronger than you yet you beat him at Essence 1. Likewise a Main Battle Tank is technically Essence 1 but still can be a dangerous opponent for you at this time if you're careless.

Hibiki's current Essence is 1, and Sense Countering Upgrades is Essence 2, which means until Hibiki naturally goes to Essence 2 the only slot she'll be able to use Optical Shroud in is in the Overdrive slots, once she reaches Essence 2 she can place it in whatever slots she wants once again.

tl;dr: It lets you install charms potentially far above your weight limit

>>610908

Otherwise I'll definitely make an update to the character sheet showing what Essence level Hibiki is next time

>>611034
So... if we were to take Sense Countering Upgrades, does that mean something else would need to be replaced? I don't know which charms in that list are higher essence, so this is really impossible to decide. Can you tell me which charms can be taken without dumping anything else?

>>611087

One thing to remember is that things you buy are never flushed down the toilet, you'll always be able to reinstall a charm so long as you have a tiny bit of downtime and not actively doing something like fighting or stalking someone.

Buying a slot would mean you can take one of the charms currently in the overcharged slots and place it into that slot, slots are 4 Normal XP each.

Accelerated Response System submodule can be bought without altering any slots, as can Dynamic Cloaking Module. Another option you can do is to spend 4 XP to buy another slot, put Omnitool Implant inside of it, then buy the Advanced Lockpicking Toolkit or Systems Integration Interface to be become an amazing lockpicker or hacker if you desire. Or you can buy Sense Countering Upgrades and a new slot, which will make it so nothing overall with change installation wise for 8 normal XP

Buying Impact Dispersion Module or Advanced Stalker Protocol already factors in slot costs (10 XP each) so nothing overall will change.

>>611172
Then let's do this:
>buy Sense Countering Upgrades and a new slot, which will make it so nothing overall with change installation wise for 8 normal XP
Along with
>+1 to stealth and +1 to athletics
and bank the rest of the XP.

Unless I misunderstood how the XP pools work (I'm not sure if normal XP is the same thing as the total XP you noted up in the post about charms)

>>611205

Which post is that to be exact? This one? >>610658

>>611277
This from the above post actually,
>14/24 total Experience, 6/16 Alchemical Experience!
Says 14/24 total experience, so I'm not sure if that means there's 8 normal experience and 6 alchemical experience makes up the rest.

Actually the things I proposed get bought would still be bought that way, so it doesn't matter for this specific purchase.

Oh, and just above that bit, it says 5+1+1+1 alchemical experience, and yet the end was only 6? Noticed it's strange just now.

>>611303

14/24 is spent/total. 14 XP was spent so far and 24 is the grand total of all XP. 24 - 14 = 10, so 10 Normal XP to spend.

And 5+1+1+1 (8) is the amount of Alchemical XP gained for this week. Before it was 6/8 (6 spent, 8 total) but after this session its 6/16 (6 spent, 16 total), which means you have 10 Alchemical XP in total to spend.

The pickings for Alchemical XP are a tiny bit slim at the moment, but once Hibiki has a chance to learn other martial arts (Soon) than that list is going to expand in choices.

>>611442
I see. I guess I was expecting it to be available/total or something like that.

>>611442
Oh yeah, and in that case let's make it
>stealth +1
>athletics +1
>appearance +1

>Sense Countering Upgrades and a new slot