Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 9591423" data-attributes="member: 11760">The two hoverbikes came screaming down the road, sounding like the galaxy's largest hornets. The black-clad and helmeted riders zipped up alongside the hoverwagon and signaled that it should pull over. Now.Albedo sighed."It's fine," he said to the terrified Murian driver who'd let him ride along with him for the past 20 clicks. "It's me they want."No sooner had his boots hit the soil than the wagon was off, leaving him with the two riders, both human, one man, one woman. Without taking their eyes off him, they carefully got off their bikes, hands moving to their weapons."Armtek 9000," Albedo said, brushing his poncho away from his own pistols. "Sidearms of the Navy's Masters-At-Arms.""Did you think you could outrun the Admiral?" the female figure, ex-Navy police like her partner, asked, her voice crackling through her helmet speaker."Are you in the Guild? 'Nomads Don't Kill Nomads.'"Quoting the Guild Code only provoked the start of a snicker from the male figure as he began to draw his pistol.There were two flashes of light and both figures went down. Albedo walked over to them without holstering his weapons and shot each figure in the face, just to be sure."Good to know."Each wore a badge cam, a red blinking light indicating their encounter had been streamed back to someone, somewhere, and passing the information on to a secure Naval channel.Albedo holstered his pistols now and pulled off the badges, holding them up so they could get a good look at his face."Killing me won't bring her back, Admiral."Then he turned off the badges and tossed them into a ditch beside the road before searching the dead hired guns for the keys to the hoverbikes.He would be far away, faster than he could have traveled hitching rides on a hoverwagon, if back up for these two was coming.At nightfall, Albedo found himself at a papery Lek'tok hive, put up for the night in the back of a hoverbike garage owned by a former imperial mechanic named Nahki Kkash. The second hired gun's bike paid for a quiet place to sleep, a bowl of a sweet-smelling warm gel and secrecy. A buzzing, flickering portrait of the Red Emperor glared at Albedo from behind the counter, disapproving of his presence."They hid a fuel depot under my hive, on the third moon of Talus," Nahki Kkash said, cupping her forelimbs around a mug of Ferment. "Wanted to scat fast if the Old Empire came calling. So naturally, the Old Empire set it on fire from orbit. Burned everyone alive, including 3,000 larvae in the nursery."Albedo said nothing, just listening."I heard about it a month later, right as we were disembarking for shore leave on Veltari," she said eventually. "I was a true believer. One of the best mechanics in the fleet."If they execute me for desertion, there's no one left to mourn me."[SPOILER="This round's rolls"]Rolled a 5 on the Exploration table. If I had a 3 Notoriety, I would find a Lead at long last. Gotta be on the lookout for those opportunities. Instead, I go on to the Exploration Events table, where I roll a 2 and then a 4 on the subtable.A speeding vehicle appears out of nowhere and two Hostiles who work for a powerful crime boss leap out to confront me. I roll a d6 and get a 4: They're masked Humans. What do these masks look like and where have they seen you before?As they're Hostiles, I can Threaten or Attack them. But I see that I can gain Notoriety for killing them, so that's what I'm going to try this time. They have a +1 on their Challenge die and +1 health. I have to fight them one at a time, in typical gamebook style. Bad news for them: My handy-dandy laser pistols give a +4 on Challenge rating -- I'm getting better at reading the slightly cryptic symbols in the book which probably could be explained more than once.I roll a 4, which is an 8 with my modifier. The first thug rolls a 5, which is a 6 total. I kill him dead, getting +1 Notoriety.Against the second thug, I roll a 3, which is a 7 with my modifier. She rolls 3, which is a 4. Another dead hired gun. I can only get one Notoriety per fight, but this gets me to 3 Notoriety at last, giving me a chance to start finding Leads (among other consequences).From there, it's on to the Destination. I roll a 4, meaning I arrive at another town run by locals. Instead of choosing to go to Destination events, I pick the better part of valor and Speak with a Local, then rest and gain +1 Motivation, the meta-currency.Rolling up the Local, I roll a 1d6 and she's a Lek'tok. Rolling on their naming table, that gives us a 2, for "Nahki Kkash." A 1 on the Personality table says they're vain. Going to the Speak reaction table, I add half of my Favour (3) rounded up to 2 as a bonus on my roll. I roll a 6 + 2 for eight, against Nahki's 6, so I succeed.A roll on the Speak table for conversation gives me a 6, so Nahki once fought in the war between the Old Empire and the New Uprising. "Which side did they fight for and why do they regret taking part?"And that's a wrap for this turn. Hopefully that 3 Notoriety will get me finding Leads and getting closer to the eventual showdown with Itsuki Itch.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

Verification