ALL THE BRICKS - Prologue: What Rough Beast

Just as pig mask is disappearing beneath the fire of Lum's drone, Faust is already turning his guns on the vatjob making her way toward the runners. Faust's Crusaders are several inches too high thanks to recoil and he spends half a second recovering before opening up with a controlled shot from each weapon.

Both shots hit. One bullet PLINKs off the charging woman's left cyberarm and releases a shower of sparks. The other impacts her abdomen and becomes lodged among the guts. She falls against a vertical handrail in an attempt to stabilize herself.

[sblock=OOC]Faust is firing 2 bullets this turn and he fired 6 last turn, for a total of 8. He has a Recoil Compensation of 7 (last time I listed your Recoil Compensation as 5 - this was a mistake as I only considered the Crusader gas-vent system once. Sorry!), for total Recoil of 1.

Agility 8 + Pistols 2 + Semi Automatics spec 2 + Smartlink 2 + Take Aim 1 (two guns - again, forgot this last time, sorry! Teaches you not to calculate your own pools!) - Recoil 1 = 13 dice

Attack 1
Faust rolls 3 total successes ^Link
Faust scored 1 net success
Ares Crusader II base Damage Value 7P + 1 net success = 8 modified Damage Value
This does not meet or exceed target's armor and so is doing stun damage.
Target rolls 6 successes on Body + Armor, reducing damage to 2.
Target dealt 2 damage

Attack 2
Faust rolls 2 total successes ^Link
Faust scored 1 net success
Ares Crusader II base Damage Value 7P + 1 net success = 8 modified Damage Value
This does not meet or exceed target's armor and so is doing stun damage.
Target rolls 2 successes on Body + Armor, reducing damage to 6.
Target dealt 6 damage

Target dealt a total of 8 damage. 36/40 rounds left in each Crusader.[/sblock]

---

The MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone drops its nose and slips toward the door to shield its injured master. It considers cyberarms as she charges and when her banzai attack is halted by gunfire from Faust it immediately opens up with a single shot - POP. The vatjob's face is torn away and blood sprays the wageslaves taking cover beside her. She collapses in a heap.

[sblock=OOC]The MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone is moving into the corner in an attempt to shield Lum the Mad. Then it uses the Take Aim simple action and the Semi Auto simple action.

It's firing 1 bullet, on top of the 6 it fired last turn, for a total of 7. It has Recoil Compensation 4, for total Recoil of 3.

Pilot 3 + Autosoft 6 + Take Aim 1 - Recoil 3 = 7 dice

Attack
The drone rolls 3 successes ^Link
The drone scores 2 net successes
The Shiawase Arms Monsoon base Damage Value of 10 + 2 net successes = 12P modified Damage Value
Damage Value greater than target's armor (-1 AP), so damage is physical.
Target rolls 6 (!) successes on Body + Armor, reducing damage to 6P
Target dealt 6P damage

Target dealt a total of 6 damage.[/sblock]

---

[MENTION=40413]GlassEye[/MENTION], it's Lum the Mad's turn.

Lum the Mad

Everything was moving in slow motion. No, wait. Lum was moving in slow motion. Everything else was hyped up like video played at 4x speed. Lum slumped against the wall; he hurt like a sonovabitch. Maybe he should demand a refund since his armored jacket didn't work like advertised. He stared dumbly at the grenade, had just barely registered its existence at his feet before Herald had it scooped up and dumped outside the subway car. His vision was blurred, his aim was drek, he let the barrel of his Predator fall to point at the floor. He looked back and saw Cyberarms' face disappear. Couldn't have been real. He crawled towards the front of the car, towards Woodley, as far as he could make it. Looking back he saw a thick smear of bright red. Just like in the movies.

Lum leaned against the interior wall of the train as far as he could make it, taking what cover he could, and wondered if his medkit was still in his pack. He thought maybe he used it up earlier but he couldn't remember.

[sblock=OOC]Move towards Woodley. Take Cover, if there is any to be found.

The drone seems to be doing better than Lum, so no orders.[/sblock]

"You're dead wormboys!" shrieks Lunchmeat when cyberarms goes down. Her voice is cracked and her eyes are wide with insane rage. "You're all chop suey, you hear me!" Planting her feet hard in the doorway and gripping her machine pistol with both hands she yanks its barrel left and right as she sprays bullets, raking cars three and four with gunfire. Shots CHING and PROW off the walls, benches, and floor of the next two cars. The runners all pull themselves into cover as best they can but Herald is standing in the open and he takes a round in the shoulder. He's forced back a half-step but thankfully the bullet hasn't made it through his armor jacket. He'll probably have an ugly bruise for a while.

[sblock=OOC]Lunchmeat is attacking Lum's Roto-Drone, Herald, and Faust in the same sweep of full auto fire. The massive recoil drops her pool considerably, and the splitting of pools brings it down to almost nothing.

Attack 1 - Against the drone
Lunchmeat rolls no successes and the attack misses.

Attack 2 - Against Herald
Lunchmeat rolls 1 success.
Herald rolls Reaction 5 + Intuition 5 - Full Auto 9 = Pool of 1, Rolling 0 successes ^Link
Steyr TMP base Damage Value of 7P + 1 net success = 8P modified Damage Value
This does not meet or exceed Herald's armor (12) and so is doing stun damage
Herald rolls Body 2 + Armor (12) = Pool of 14, Rolling 5 successes ^Link, reducing damage to 3
Herald takes 3 Stun Damage
Herald is taking a -1 wound penalty to all actions

Attack 3 - Against Faust
Lunchmeat rolls no successes and the attack misses.[/sblock]

---

Balaclava, still in partial cover beside Lunchmeat, keeps putting rounds into the runners' car. POPOPOPOP. POPOPOPOP. Long bursts of automatic fire every half-second, enough to make everyone keep their heads down. The sparks and sounds of impacts are everywhere. A wageslave in car two takes a bullet and goes down. Lum's Drone and Herald are both caught out in the open and they dive to get out of the way. The Roto-Drone is barely quick enough and it drops to the floor with a bang.

Herald isn't fast enough and he takes bullets to the leg and hip. He's seriously hurt.

The only good news is that balaclava won't be able to keep up this rate of fire for long.

Suppressing Fire: Balaclava is laying down suppressing fire and he got 5 successes on his roll. This means everyone in the suppressed zone (which includes everyone in car four - that's all of you) gets a -5 suppression penalty to all actions until balaclava is forced to stop shooting (which will be on his next pass - suppressing fire takes 20 bullets). As if that wasn't bad enough, anyone who is not either a.) In cover, or b.) Prone, must get at least 5 (!) successes on a Reaction + Edge (full Edge Rating, not remaining Edge) roll to avoid taking damage.

[sblock=OOC]A Hit the Dirt interrupt can be used to avoid taking damage if you're in the suppressed zone when it's not your turn. This costs 5 initiative.

Lum's Roto-Drone uses 5 initiative to Hit the Dirt.

Herald doesn't have enough initiative to Hit the Dirt and must make the roll, as unlikely as it is that he'll pass.

Herald rolls Reaction 5 + Edge 2, Pool of 7 = 1 success ^Link
AK-97 base Damage Value 10P equals or exceeds Herald's Armor (12 - AP 2 = 10), so damage is physical
Herald rolls Body 2 + Armor 10 (12 - 10) = Pool of 12, Rolling 5 successes ^Link, reducing damage to 5
Herald takes 5 Physical Damage
Herald is taking a -3 wound penalty to all actions (-1 from stun, -2 from physical)

Note: I accidentally used Herald's old, unmodified sheet so he actually got a few extra dice from his old, higher Reaction score! You're welcome!

The only way for you to avoid taking more fire (and probably going down) is to either take cover as a simple action or go prone as a free action.[/sblock]
Initiative: Round One, Pass Two
Death Otter - 17 ^link
Faust - 15 ^link
Crack Sprite - 14 ^link
Patrol IC - 08
Lum's MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone - 06 ^link (-5 Hit the Dirt)
Lum the Mad - 06 ^link
Lunchmeat - 06
Balaclava - 04
Herald - 01 ^link

[sblock=Rough Map] [/sblock]

---

[MENTION=6776381]Mosier[/MENTION], it's Herald's turn.

Herald's been shot three times - twice right through his armor. He knows his only chance is to drop to his belly or dive into cover.

Herald drops prone and gathers his resolve. Until now he had been lucky. Nobody had ever shot him before. He wasn't that kind of Runner. Now, Herald is surprised at how distracting an injury can be. He's not scared, exactly; he has too much self control for that. But he is concerned. The conceited affectations are gone now. No time for chants in Latin or heroic posing. He needs to save his own life.

From the undignified position flat on his stomach, Herald concentrates and does his best to ignore the pain of injury as he summons a fire spirit. His eyes and hands glow, and the mana around him begins to boil...

[sblock=Summoning attempt]Herald is attempting to summon a Force 4 spirit of fire with the fear power. He will use Edge for the summoning attempt (not to resist drain).[/sblock]

Herald is suddenly flush with a deep red aura - in the next moment it's gone and his eyes and hands have returned to normal. The temperature in the car is rising and within a second or two it's like a sauna. There's no visible change so there's no telling what the magician has done.

[sblock=OOC]Rolling Magic 4 + Summoning 5 + Edge 3 - Wounded 3 = Dice Pool of 9 with exploding 6s vs Force 4
You rolled 2 successes ^Link
You scored 2 net successes
Resisting 2 drain with Willpower 4 + Charisma 8, Dice Pool of 12 = 2 successes ^Link
You take no drain damage
The fire spirit arrives and owes you 2 services

On services: It's a simple action to give a command to a spirit. There isn't a terrible need to micromanage if you don't want to - you can simply order the thing to fight in combat and it will do its best, making use of as many of its powers as it can as intelligently as it can. The spirit is not likely to care much about property damage or the lives of bystanders so usually you'll want to give it orders like "Kill those two! And ONLY those two!" or "Get rid of them! And try not to burn the whole place down!" if there's any chance it can hurt innocents. You can further direct it in combat as you please, telling it to focus on particular enemies or whatever. Further specifications within the context of a combat for which you've already used up a service don't require further simple actions - just tell it what you want.

Keep in mind that once ordered to fight it will need to spend a complex action to manifest. It will be delaying its initiative (to your initiative count) until ordered to fight. I'm not listing its initiative this round because this was your last turn for the round and thus there's no point. It will roll its astral initiative at the beginning of the next round.

Ordering a spirit to use a power with a sustained duration always takes an additional service (and thus a simple action), though the spirit may choose to use it on its own in the heat of battle.

Fire Spirit
Body 5; Agility 6; Reaction 7; Strength 2; Willpower 4; Logic 4; Intuition 5; Charisma 4

Skills: Assensing 4; Astral Combat 4; Exotic Ranged Weapon 4; Flight 4; Perception 4; Unarmed Combat 4

Powers: Accident; Astral Form; Confusion; Elemental Attack; Energy Aura; Engulf; Materialization; Sapience

Bonus Power: Fear

Weaknesses: Allergy (Water, Severe)

Special: +5 meters per hit when sprinting[/sblock]
Initiative: Round One, Pass Three
Death Otter - 07 ^link
Faust - 05 ^link
Crack Sprite - 04 ^link

---

[MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION], it's Death Otter's turn.

Death Otter chuckles wickedly at the Patrol IC's response. Agent software never took input from outside their parameters very well, and IC were basically just very specialized agents.

She gestured at the Crack Horror and said, "Run silent and lock this system down. Freak the normals!"

The sprite rose up from its hunched posture, showing a silhouette that was considerably taller and more emaciated than it appeared to be at first. Its tattered wrappings moved restlessly, as if it was in a strong wind, or underwater...then began burrowing into the floor and walls of the 'train car' of the host. From those spots, corruption spread. Pools of blackness, with fitful flashes of 1's and 0's and random flickers of images constantly changing deep within. Shadows converged over the sprite as well, and its existence became ephemeral...ghostly.

The Matrix was wrong here, and the disembodied presence of the Host hesitated at it. Had it launched the IC already? Was everything all right? It needed more data, but the data coming from that area was not easily interpreted. Doggedly it repeated the launching of its intrusion countermeasures...and just as quickly lost track of the process again.

This would continue for some time, while the Horror worked her wicked will.

With any luck it would take the spider on call a bit longer to jack in. But Death Otter wasn't trusting luck today. Not anymore.

"ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FUTBOL!" she shouted...and a massive presence began to manifest behind her. Barrel-chested, with long gorilla-like arms and ludicrously stubby legs. Clad in shiny greenish, high tech armor, with a face devoid of any features except a pair of glowing, perpetually angry eyes.

(Simple action to issue command to Crack Sprite - Begin Suppressing the host's IC response. Rating 6 means this lasts a maximum of 3 turns. She included a run silent clause, but I don't think this'll work when she's marked...I believe sprites share the marks on their compiler. But if not, then yes, silent. And if so, well...if it uses a separate service we can omit that clause. Otherwise there's no harm in trying. Suppression doesn't involve a die roll.)

(Simple action to call FUTBOL.)

Death Otter - The Matrix, NYNet, NYS Transit Train 213 Host

The crack sprite's infection spreads through the car, slow at first, then faster. The Patrol IC ducks for cover behind a bench, closing his eyes as the walls around him turn black. Thankfully for him he can't see FUTBOL while he's praying to the Matrix gods with his eyes shut.

[sblock=OOC]IC will be queued up to launch as normal but they won't actually be launched for 3 rounds. FUTBOL won't arrive bodily in the Host until the beginning of the next round but it's fine to have it be here flavor-wise now.[/sblock]

---

[MENTION=6763059]Rubberneck[/MENTION], it's Faust's turn.

Suppressing fire is coming in hard and Lum the Mad and Herald have both been tagged. Still, balaclava can't keep up with that rate of fire for long and Lunchmeat is standing out in the open...

[sblock=OOC]With the suppressing fire penalty and the accumulated recoil it's next to impossible that Faust would be able to hit anything this pass.[/sblock]

Faust ducks for cover as molding and plastic explodes around him. He finds a sweet spot behind cover and takes aim, switching his weapons back to burst mode. He takes a few deep breaths to steady his hands as he readies for his next opportunity to attack.

Initiative: Round Two, Pass One
Crack Sprite - 26 ^link
Faust - 24 ^link
Death Otter - 23 ^link
FUTBOL - 24 ^link (delaying initiative)
Lum's MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone - 22 ^link
Patrol IC - 20
Lunchmeat - 18
Lum the Mad - 13 ^link
Herald - 13 ^link
Fire Spirit - 17 ^link (delaying initiative)
Balaclava - 13

Death Otter - The Matrix, NYNet, NYS Transit Train 213 Host

One of the sliding doors near the back of Death Otter's car opens and IC steps through. He's in heavy riot gear with a ballistic vest and combat helmet - all of it black. He lifts his shotgun, ready to put a slug into Otter, when the crack sprite's corruption surges up his feet and legs. He stumbles and fires wide, shattering a plastic window behind Otter. "What the hell!" The corrupted code coats his body, locking him down. When he screams it's a dial tone.

Black IC. This is the heavy stuff, the stuff that can kill you. Not just your persona - you. It's shocking, but it makes sense: The possible use of a hijacked subway train in a terrorist attack has likely made IC of this kind standard. Good thing her sprite is taking care of it.

[sblock=OOC]Otter's crack sprite is suppressing the IC. He won't launch until the beginning of the fifth combat round.[/sblock]

---

[MENTION=6763059]Rubberneck[/MENTION], it's Faust's turn.

[sblock=OOC]Faust no longer has an issue with recoil, but suppression (-5 Suppression + Take Aim 2 = -3 penalty) is still an issue. Faust can fire now or delay his initiative this pass until after balaclava (he won't have the ammo to keep suppressing and his recoil is over 20, enough to drop his pool to 0 - he'll likely spend his entire next pass reloading). You're choosing between decreased accuracy and letting Lunchmeat have another turn.[/sblock]

Faust controls his breathing and leans out of cover once more, this time focusing on Lunchmeat. Both machine pistols chatter with a burst of lead.