Hmm maybe exploit Daves ambition and explain, this is his once in a lifetime moment. Think of the ratings. :D
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Cloud is Dead (Final Fantasy VII CYOA)
- Thread starter Random
- Start date
C) + H) "Your boss is dead. I've taken the studio. Surrender now. A Shinra counter-terror squad is already on its way. If you don't surrender peacefully, the only way out of here for you is in a bodybag."
Or A) nothing.. they might give away more info if they keep trying to contact their leader
Or A) nothing.. they might give away more info if they keep trying to contact their leader
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Right now there's 1 vote for D), 3 votes for A) (counting EFRYKAD's H as an A vote), 3 votes for the trying to start the cameras up, 2 votes for C) and its variants, 1 vote for F), 3 votes for using the PHS to call the authorities, and Grimgravy's suggestion for using the corpses as psychological warfare against the terrorists. It's all a bit scrambled, so I'm going to simplify it and ask for a run-off vote.
I'm going to just go ahead and confirm that Marcus will use the phone to call the police no matter what else happens, so that can be removed from the vote entirely.
That leaves two major questions:
A) Say nothing on the radio or C) Announce who you are and what you've accomplished?
Try to get a live feed going or not? Y/N?
There are still cameras around that you haven't used to barricade the doors, non-portable ones bolted to the floor. But it's important to note that Marcus does not have the technical expertise to get a livefeed started. You'd have to ask for some of the crew to help set that up.
I'm going to just go ahead and confirm that Marcus will use the phone to call the police no matter what else happens, so that can be removed from the vote entirely.
That leaves two major questions:
A) Say nothing on the radio or C) Announce who you are and what you've accomplished?
Try to get a live feed going or not? Y/N?
There are still cameras around that you haven't used to barricade the doors, non-portable ones bolted to the floor. But it's important to note that Marcus does not have the technical expertise to get a livefeed started. You'd have to ask for some of the crew to help set that up.
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- Joined
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- Messages
- 2,812
Sorry about the delay. Was one of those weekends where it's just one thing after another and you don't get any real rest or hobby time. On top of that I realized I mixed up the two different talk show hosts; the one for the show you're at is John, not Dave. Dave was the guy at the first talk show, and you drove to a different one. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.
The Hero Returns, Part XIV
"Boss? Boss?"
"No response," says a different voice on the radio. "Did Shinra roll out a jammer?"
"Then we wouldn't be talking right now, wiseguy. Maybe he's deep sixed. We'd better get back there," says a third voice, much deeper.
"Hold on. If that's true, the building might not be secure. We gotta sweep it again."
"You joking? We don't have time for that!"
"We don't have time not to!"
"You're not the boss, asshat!"
"If he's not in contact, then we have to operate without him!"
"I'm going to sweep the northeast hallway and work my way west on the third floor to the control booth."
"No! Get back to the studio!"
"Go yourself."
You chuckle a little. They're definitely in disarray and they're spewing mission critical intel at each other on an unsecure channel. You almost feel bad for them.
Listening to the radio and cross-referencing their directions and routes with your admittedly cursory knowledge of the layout, you're all ready to mount your defense, but then you realize you've totally forgotten about something crucial. You don't have to just wait and hope help's on the way. You have a phone in your pocket.
Setting the rifle down on John's desk, but keeping your hand firmly around the grip so you can swing it up and fire at a moment's notice, you fish the PHS out of your jacket pocket with your left hand and struggle through pressing the buttons one-handed to dial the police emergency number, 811.
"Hello, 811 operator here. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"This is Marcus Westmore. I'm in the Evening Digest studio. We're under attack by terrorists."
The woman on the line pauses, then very curtly answers, "Please hold."
You stay on the line for a while, and someone starts banging on the northeast door to the studio, the one jammed with the Buster Sword.
"Hey! Open up! Boss!" shouts a voice you recognize from the radio. "Hey! You in there?!"
You cradle the cellphone between your shoulder and your head, lifting and swinging the rifle around to cover that vector. There's nothing but silence coming out of the phone, but it's still your best hope of getting out alive. With your head bent down in a funny way and your shoulder raised for the phone, you can't quite call it an optimal position for aiming. It occurs to you to maybe put it on speaker phone, but the banging intensifies and soon the guy trying to pull the door open gives up and starts shooting the hollow steel door full of bullet holes. He's not aiming at the locking mechanism, so it's just a waste of bullets; they all just bounce right off the Buster Sword and you're pretty sure you hear at least one ricochet right back through the door and back into him, since he starts shouting and groaning in pain. You quickly grab the phone from the crink of your neck and set it to speaker, then place it at your feet so you can properly aim and prepare to shoot the guy if he somehow manages to get through.
Sounding very frustrated and furious, the guy unloads the rest of his magazine, some of the bullets going into the ceiling. He starts screaming into the radio that there are hostiles in the studio; you guess he didn't understand what had hit him and just assumed it was enemy gunfire. Still, he is technically correct, just not for the right reasons. The radio lights up with reports of the terrorists acknowledging him and all announcing that they're heading for the studio, and you shake your head. You're really out of time now. It sounds like there are at least twelve or so more terrorists, possibly way more if they're traveling in teams of 3 like the boss and his two flunkies you took out. That means you can expect thirty to forty bastards coming your way in the next few minutes. Wonderful.
"Westmore," comes a female voice on the phone, different from the operator. It's lower. Meaner. You nearly shoot your own cellphone, as startled as you are out of your focus.
"Huh? Who's this?" you ask.
"SOLDIER."
Your blood runs cold in your veins, immediately recalling the terrifying experiences you had both in dream and reality. Shinra brought out SOLDIER for this?
"What? Why? Shouldn't the Counter-Terrorism Unit be in charge?" you ask.
"President ordered SOLDIER to handle the incident."
You groan loud enough for her to hear you. You realize you don't know much about Rufus Shinra; he seemed pragmatic when you met him for just that short while, but he should know better. There are special units for a reason.
"Is that a problem, Major?" whoever it is snaps impatiently.
"It's not your job to handle this," you say, feeling irritated by the arrogance of this SOLDIER lady.
"You going to whine about jurisdiction, or are you going to tell me what room you're in?"
"I'm - no, we're in the studio. I'm on the set itself. The audience is in the bathrooms."
"You in command of the room?"
"That's right," you mutter under your breath as you notice hard banging on a few more doors now. The enemy is congregating all around the studio. You're surrounded. "Enemy's using 303.22 as their freq."
"We noticed. Are you armed?"
"I've got a rifle."
"Put it down."
"What?"
"I said, lay down your rifle."
You narrow your eyes at the phone, shaking your head. She can't be serious. Can she? The enemy's at your doorstep and not all the barricades are totally solid and holding up to the hard assault of a bunch of men ramming the doors. One of them's going to break down in short order, chairs stacked up tumbling away and clattering to the floor.
"Not really an option right now, if I'm being honest!"
"I can't guarantee your safety if you don't, Major."
"What, you got an assault team on the door and ready to clear the room?" you snap angrily.
"Not on the door, exactly. I've taken care of the marksmen on the roof."
So there were hostiles up there after all. You're glad you decided not to tell the people to make a run for it. But it doesn't make you any less pissed at this woman.
"What, you just took them out? What happens when they don't report in?!" you yell. "Did you even have a plan?!"
"Improvisation is SOLDIER's specialty," she answers calmly.
Oh great. Of all the supersoldiers to get assigned to saving your ass, you get a goddamn cowboy. This is why you wanted the CTU.
"Then you can improvise around me having a rifle, lady," you say, watching the barricade behind the southwest door finally collapse, the door breaking inward from one last good kick from a big and beefy terrorist in a balaclava. You and he move to gun the other down simultaneously, but you're faster on the draw, and you put two rounds in his skull and drop him before he can even lift his weapon in your direction. The death reflexes cause him to pull the trigger regardless, though, and his gun sprays harmlessly over the floor. You see a couple heads poking out from the around the doorway, and fan the trigger, suppressing them and anyone else that might be hiding in that hallway. More of them come out, and you fulfill the grim history of what a man on overwatch covering a single, sole angle of assault has done and will always do. You pull the trigger over and over and just gun down man after man after man, slaughtering them like a sniper in trench warfare. It's so easy that an infant could do it, and that's a chilling thought. Your magazine clicks dry, so you quickly swap it out with practiced ease, and shoot the next few idiots who throw their lives away for their cause. In under a minute, you have killed nine men without missing a single shot. You make sure they're dead if they start squirming, putting one last bullet in them.
Another barricade begins to collapse on the opposite end of the studio, and you whirl, seeing the table knocked out of the way and a terrorist shouting as he trots in, but he does not seem aware of where you are, so you easily pop him twice in the center of mass and he's done. Just as you do that, you see in the corner of your eye movement from the first door that was compromised, and swing around, but you're too spread thin in focus and reflexes, and don't react in time to stop the hail of bullets that fly at you from a hostile assault rifle. You duck under the desk, hearing the thuds of bullets that slam into its wooden bulk, stopped before they reach you. You're pinned, and you can hear several of the bastards shouting directions at each other as they come marching right into the studio through both entrances.
"Hostile under the desk!" one shouts. "Oh my god, he killed them all like dogs!"
"Flank him!" another yells. "Make him pay!"
"Where are the hostages?"
"Take the bastard out!"
You've really done it now, you think, rubbing your sweaty face with a hand. Training and experience is not infinitely powerful. It was one of you and dozens of them, and you did your best, but it was too easy to corner you since you're just one man. And that's the match. Maybe trying to fortify a studio set was not an ideal course of action. You glance at your phone, planning to ask the SOLDIER to come help, and see that the call was hung up. Great.
What do you do?
A) Throw down your rifle and surrender; they still need hostages and surely you'd make a good one.
B) Stay under the desk and blindfire your rifle in random directions to suppress them all and buy time.
C) Leap out from the desk and try to run, using suppressing fire to get to the door blocked by the Buster Sword; it's the closest one, should be the easiest door to get through, and you don't think there are many hostiles waiting behind it compared to the two doors that are now open and swarming with terrorists.
D) Throw smokes, then try to bolt as in C)
E) Throw frags, then try to gun down anyone not dead from them.
F) Kill yourself before they can take you hostage. Better to die on your own terms than let them decide how painful to make it.
G) Alternative
Roll Results
Character Sheet
The Hero Returns, Part XIV
"Boss? Boss?"
"No response," says a different voice on the radio. "Did Shinra roll out a jammer?"
"Then we wouldn't be talking right now, wiseguy. Maybe he's deep sixed. We'd better get back there," says a third voice, much deeper.
"Hold on. If that's true, the building might not be secure. We gotta sweep it again."
"You joking? We don't have time for that!"
"We don't have time not to!"
"You're not the boss, asshat!"
"If he's not in contact, then we have to operate without him!"
"I'm going to sweep the northeast hallway and work my way west on the third floor to the control booth."
"No! Get back to the studio!"
"Go yourself."
You chuckle a little. They're definitely in disarray and they're spewing mission critical intel at each other on an unsecure channel. You almost feel bad for them.
Listening to the radio and cross-referencing their directions and routes with your admittedly cursory knowledge of the layout, you're all ready to mount your defense, but then you realize you've totally forgotten about something crucial. You don't have to just wait and hope help's on the way. You have a phone in your pocket.
Setting the rifle down on John's desk, but keeping your hand firmly around the grip so you can swing it up and fire at a moment's notice, you fish the PHS out of your jacket pocket with your left hand and struggle through pressing the buttons one-handed to dial the police emergency number, 811.
"Hello, 811 operator here. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"This is Marcus Westmore. I'm in the Evening Digest studio. We're under attack by terrorists."
The woman on the line pauses, then very curtly answers, "Please hold."
You stay on the line for a while, and someone starts banging on the northeast door to the studio, the one jammed with the Buster Sword.
"Hey! Open up! Boss!" shouts a voice you recognize from the radio. "Hey! You in there?!"
You cradle the cellphone between your shoulder and your head, lifting and swinging the rifle around to cover that vector. There's nothing but silence coming out of the phone, but it's still your best hope of getting out alive. With your head bent down in a funny way and your shoulder raised for the phone, you can't quite call it an optimal position for aiming. It occurs to you to maybe put it on speaker phone, but the banging intensifies and soon the guy trying to pull the door open gives up and starts shooting the hollow steel door full of bullet holes. He's not aiming at the locking mechanism, so it's just a waste of bullets; they all just bounce right off the Buster Sword and you're pretty sure you hear at least one ricochet right back through the door and back into him, since he starts shouting and groaning in pain. You quickly grab the phone from the crink of your neck and set it to speaker, then place it at your feet so you can properly aim and prepare to shoot the guy if he somehow manages to get through.
Sounding very frustrated and furious, the guy unloads the rest of his magazine, some of the bullets going into the ceiling. He starts screaming into the radio that there are hostiles in the studio; you guess he didn't understand what had hit him and just assumed it was enemy gunfire. Still, he is technically correct, just not for the right reasons. The radio lights up with reports of the terrorists acknowledging him and all announcing that they're heading for the studio, and you shake your head. You're really out of time now. It sounds like there are at least twelve or so more terrorists, possibly way more if they're traveling in teams of 3 like the boss and his two flunkies you took out. That means you can expect thirty to forty bastards coming your way in the next few minutes. Wonderful.
"Westmore," comes a female voice on the phone, different from the operator. It's lower. Meaner. You nearly shoot your own cellphone, as startled as you are out of your focus.
"Huh? Who's this?" you ask.
"SOLDIER."
Your blood runs cold in your veins, immediately recalling the terrifying experiences you had both in dream and reality. Shinra brought out SOLDIER for this?
"What? Why? Shouldn't the Counter-Terrorism Unit be in charge?" you ask.
"President ordered SOLDIER to handle the incident."
You groan loud enough for her to hear you. You realize you don't know much about Rufus Shinra; he seemed pragmatic when you met him for just that short while, but he should know better. There are special units for a reason.
"Is that a problem, Major?" whoever it is snaps impatiently.
"It's not your job to handle this," you say, feeling irritated by the arrogance of this SOLDIER lady.
"You going to whine about jurisdiction, or are you going to tell me what room you're in?"
"I'm - no, we're in the studio. I'm on the set itself. The audience is in the bathrooms."
"You in command of the room?"
"That's right," you mutter under your breath as you notice hard banging on a few more doors now. The enemy is congregating all around the studio. You're surrounded. "Enemy's using 303.22 as their freq."
"We noticed. Are you armed?"
"I've got a rifle."
"Put it down."
"What?"
"I said, lay down your rifle."
You narrow your eyes at the phone, shaking your head. She can't be serious. Can she? The enemy's at your doorstep and not all the barricades are totally solid and holding up to the hard assault of a bunch of men ramming the doors. One of them's going to break down in short order, chairs stacked up tumbling away and clattering to the floor.
"Not really an option right now, if I'm being honest!"
"I can't guarantee your safety if you don't, Major."
"What, you got an assault team on the door and ready to clear the room?" you snap angrily.
"Not on the door, exactly. I've taken care of the marksmen on the roof."
So there were hostiles up there after all. You're glad you decided not to tell the people to make a run for it. But it doesn't make you any less pissed at this woman.
"What, you just took them out? What happens when they don't report in?!" you yell. "Did you even have a plan?!"
"Improvisation is SOLDIER's specialty," she answers calmly.
Oh great. Of all the supersoldiers to get assigned to saving your ass, you get a goddamn cowboy. This is why you wanted the CTU.
"Then you can improvise around me having a rifle, lady," you say, watching the barricade behind the southwest door finally collapse, the door breaking inward from one last good kick from a big and beefy terrorist in a balaclava. You and he move to gun the other down simultaneously, but you're faster on the draw, and you put two rounds in his skull and drop him before he can even lift his weapon in your direction. The death reflexes cause him to pull the trigger regardless, though, and his gun sprays harmlessly over the floor. You see a couple heads poking out from the around the doorway, and fan the trigger, suppressing them and anyone else that might be hiding in that hallway. More of them come out, and you fulfill the grim history of what a man on overwatch covering a single, sole angle of assault has done and will always do. You pull the trigger over and over and just gun down man after man after man, slaughtering them like a sniper in trench warfare. It's so easy that an infant could do it, and that's a chilling thought. Your magazine clicks dry, so you quickly swap it out with practiced ease, and shoot the next few idiots who throw their lives away for their cause. In under a minute, you have killed nine men without missing a single shot. You make sure they're dead if they start squirming, putting one last bullet in them.
Another barricade begins to collapse on the opposite end of the studio, and you whirl, seeing the table knocked out of the way and a terrorist shouting as he trots in, but he does not seem aware of where you are, so you easily pop him twice in the center of mass and he's done. Just as you do that, you see in the corner of your eye movement from the first door that was compromised, and swing around, but you're too spread thin in focus and reflexes, and don't react in time to stop the hail of bullets that fly at you from a hostile assault rifle. You duck under the desk, hearing the thuds of bullets that slam into its wooden bulk, stopped before they reach you. You're pinned, and you can hear several of the bastards shouting directions at each other as they come marching right into the studio through both entrances.
"Hostile under the desk!" one shouts. "Oh my god, he killed them all like dogs!"
"Flank him!" another yells. "Make him pay!"
"Where are the hostages?"
"Take the bastard out!"
You've really done it now, you think, rubbing your sweaty face with a hand. Training and experience is not infinitely powerful. It was one of you and dozens of them, and you did your best, but it was too easy to corner you since you're just one man. And that's the match. Maybe trying to fortify a studio set was not an ideal course of action. You glance at your phone, planning to ask the SOLDIER to come help, and see that the call was hung up. Great.
What do you do?
A) Throw down your rifle and surrender; they still need hostages and surely you'd make a good one.
B) Stay under the desk and blindfire your rifle in random directions to suppress them all and buy time.
C) Leap out from the desk and try to run, using suppressing fire to get to the door blocked by the Buster Sword; it's the closest one, should be the easiest door to get through, and you don't think there are many hostiles waiting behind it compared to the two doors that are now open and swarming with terrorists.
D) Throw smokes, then try to bolt as in C)
E) Throw frags, then try to gun down anyone not dead from them.
F) Kill yourself before they can take you hostage. Better to die on your own terms than let them decide how painful to make it.
G) Alternative
Roll Results
Agility 7 vs. Terrorist Forces Agility 3; Marcus acts first
Marksmanship roll to take out terrorists in killzone:
Roll: 1d20 + Agility 7 + Marksmanship Lvl. 2 - Exhausted status effect = 20 + 7 + 4 - 2
TN: 10
Final Result: 29
CRITICAL Success!
Consequences: TN10 - 29 = 19/2 = total terrorists killed in killzone = 10 kills
BLOODBATH
Terrorist Forces fire at Marcus
Roll: 1d20 + Agility 3 - Decent Cover - Demoralized = 8 + 3 - 4 - 2
TN: 17 (10 base + Agility 7)
Final Result: 7
Failure!
Marksmanship roll to take out terrorists in killzone:
Roll: 1d20 + Agility 7 + Marksmanship Lvl. 2 - Exhausted status effect = 20 + 7 + 4 - 2
TN: 10
Final Result: 29
CRITICAL Success!
Consequences: TN10 - 29 = 19/2 = total terrorists killed in killzone = 10 kills
BLOODBATH
Terrorist Forces fire at Marcus
Roll: 1d20 + Agility 3 - Decent Cover - Demoralized = 8 + 3 - 4 - 2
TN: 17 (10 base + Agility 7)
Final Result: 7
Failure!
Character Sheet
Name: Marcus "Steelwall" Westford
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Fine
Status: Exhausted
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2, Bluff Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: Nice Suit, PHS, note from Janice, Tom's business card
Gear: Shangwu Arms AR-16 w/ 1 mag (14 rounds remaining), 1 full spare mag, 2 smoke grenades, 2 frag grenades, handheld radio on terrorist frequency
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Fine
Status: Exhausted
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2, Bluff Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: Nice Suit, PHS, note from Janice, Tom's business card
Gear: Shangwu Arms AR-16 w/ 1 mag (14 rounds remaining), 1 full spare mag, 2 smoke grenades, 2 frag grenades, handheld radio on terrorist frequency
E
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
Yeah.
Dayyālu
Arcane
Eh.
G) Put down your rifle, seek cover under the desk.
Let's see what happens.
I am half-convinced some asshole SOLDIER is toying with us, seeing how many we kill before coming in. It's dumb, but again, ShinRa.
G) Put down your rifle, seek cover under the desk.
Let's see what happens.
I am half-convinced some asshole SOLDIER is toying with us, seeing how many we kill before coming in. It's dumb, but again, ShinRa.
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
Free time is a myth that only exists in fairy tales.
The Hero Returns, Part XV
Cornered. Nowhere to run. Bullets slamming into the wooden behemoth surrounding you, spraying wood and splinters everywhere. You're just sitting there, waiting to die. You have a brief image of sticking the barrel of your rifle in your mouth and just ending it. It's fleeting, but it was there. It doesn't disturb you too much. You close your mind to such thoughts and focus entirely on the battle. Your hands are a bit shaky, but functional. You just take things one step at a time and let your training take over. [Discipline]
Cornered, but not sundered. You can't say you've ever been stuck in a situation like this, hopelessly outnumbered, underequipped, and pinned down in an indefensible location. The reaper's coming for your head. So you'll greet him with high explosives.
You pull the pin on the first frag grenade, crawl out from under the desk, wait for a lull in the hail of gunfire, and pop up just long enough to aim it before you fly it at the nearest cluster of motherfuckers. You don't even take the time to appreciate the geometric, parabolic artistry of your toss, nor to marvel at just how close they've gotten to you. [Athletics] You duck back down before you can get ventilated by hot lead, and feel a bullet whizz past your scalp, chuckling out of surreal amusement. But just as you think you're safe, one blows through the desk and your upper left arm lights up in sudden agony, feeling like someone just stabbed you. You got hit. Red seeps into your nice suit sleeve, ruining it forever as you grit your teeth and grab hold of the damn thing, the muscles in it contracting of their own accord until it's all scrunched up. "Fuck!" you shout, just as your grenade goes off.
Boom. Yells. Screams. Pain and terror. It occurs to you that they didn't say anything even after you threw the frag. No yells of surprise and panic, no shouts for everyone to get down. You realize they must not have even noticed what you were throwing - they must have assumed it was a rock or a shoe or something, a desperate and clumsy toss. You sympathize with them. You are acutely aware of what it feels like to get hit.
They're not firing anymore. You try to test your arm, and the damn thing just won't move. Trying to unbend your elbow or operate your fingers at all sends fresh, hellish streaks of pain through your whole limb, so you give up on it. You need to piss. You're half tempted just to let it all out in the pain-tinted animalistic thoughts you're reduced to, but thanks to your training you somehow manage to retain the clarity of mind not to void your bladder. That can wait for when you're safe, or when you're dead. You still have a frag grenade left. You grab it into your good hand, wrapping your teeth around the safety pin, and realizing that you're shaking. You're going into shock, probably. You don't have much time left before you become totally incapacitated as your body shuts itself down. The fighting spirit is leaving you faster than you can try to psyche yourself up. Desperate, you yank the pin out of the grenade and rise just to fling it at the nearest son of a bitch you see. While up there, you see the bloody results of your first grenade. The blood and smoke left behind catches your eye, and in the fog of the pain and fear, you freeze up, your throw gets awkward, and the explosive slips out of your blood-slick fingers, thumping onto the swiss-cheese desk in front of you.
You don't even have time to curse as you dive back to the ground, landing on your poor left arm through which a fresh jolt of tender fresh excruciation erupts, making you roll on your back and groan as every nerve in you rebels against your brain and you vomit just as the grenade detonates and a huge wave of pressure, heat, and wood fragments rain on you. For a second, you think you must be in Hell. Then your senses clear up, ears ringing, you're heaving breaths through a throat that still burns from your own stomach acid, and you stagger to your knees, crawling as best you can for your rifle -- but just as you get your hand on it, someone bashes your face with the butt of a rifle, and you're laid flat on your back, dimly aware of the ache in your face, the warmth of your own blood leaking from your nostrils. It's nowhere near as bad as what your arm feels like. No, actually, both your arm and your nose are going numb, you realize. A barrel is pointed down at your face. Your vision swims, and you can't quite make out the face of the guy holding the rifle. No, wait, that's because he's wearing a skimask.
You hear a strange sound, somewhat familiar. It takes you a little while to place it. That's right, it's the sound of materia activating, that noisy little whine that gives away your position if you aren't careful. But when did the terrorists get materia when they can't even afford body armor?
The guy standing over you suddenly slumps over after a brief, golden blur passes by, and after a few moments you see that his head is just... gone. Blood spurts out from his neck like a fountain, falling on you. There's a bunch of gunfire, but not that you can see, only hear. There's some screams. Some yells. Something like metal smashing through metal, and grinding. The noises of flesh being parted, ripped apart with brute strength.
Then, all the noises stop. You think you're fading from consciousness or going deaf, but in fact, you figure out that it's just that the battle's over. Someone walks over to you, and you turn your head to see the woman wearing a full suit of ShinRa SOLDIER armor, some sort of advanced NV/IR goggles on her head, even her mouth concealed by a tactical mask. Not a single bit of flesh is exposed. In her right hand is nothing more than a standard ShinRa combat knife, issued to even the lowest of grunts in the Public Safety Department. It's bloody as hell. In her left hand is a glowing green orb from which the light slowly disappears, some sort of spell materia.
"You're not very good at following instructions, Major," she says in her husky voice, grabbing you by your good arm and pulling you up to your feet. You appreciate the gesture, but fall over the second she lets you go, thudding painfully but thankfully not on your wound this time.
"Like... Like I'm gonna let them take me hostage," you manage to spit out as she wipes the blood off her knife with a rag, tosses the rag, and puts the knife back in her hip sheath.
"That is usually how you survive situations like this," she says, sounding more than a little annoyed. "Thanks for making my job harder. Still, on the bright side, the Company's going to love the PR on this one. The hero who stopped AVALANCHE. Twice."
"They were AVALANCHE?" you groan, almost dreading the thought of more of these damn interviews, asking the most immediate and pressing question on your mind.
"So they claimed to the police when they gave their demands," the SOLDIER said. "And I'm sure you're smart enough to guess what their demand was."
Of course you are. Barret Wallace. Their leader.
"They must've mobilized everything they had to try to get him off the chopping block. Well, considering one off-duty security guard—" she says, putting particular emphasis on those last two words with almost scathing tone, "—managed to steal all their valuable hostages and gun down half of them, they really must be scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to manpower."
She presses a button on the side of her helmet, likely the radio. "Command, studio's clear. Emergency exit is open. Bring a stretcher. Major Westmore has a bullet wound and needs medical attention." Then she waltzes over to the chained up emergency exit, grabbing the chain and ripping it off of the door with nothing more than the brute strength of her hand. She kicks the door wide open, then turns and just walks away. One thing catches her attention, though, the Buster Sword, which she goes to and withdraws from the jammed up spot you left it in. She turns it over in her hands, examining it like it's as light as a pen, then tosses it aside. "Command, proceeding to clear rest of the building." Then she moves on through one of the few open doors.
Everything from that moment on is so quick. You fade from awareness several times, feeling like every time you blink the stretcher you're being carried on is in a new locale, going down the emergency stairs, in the ambulance, in the hospital. The same goddamn hospital in Shinra HQ that you just got out of. What a pisser. The bullet is pried out of you while you're stuffed to the lungs with painkillers and then you're patched up. As you finally start to feel secure where you are, no longer plagued by the adrenaline of combat and not expecting a terrorist to come marching into your room every time you blink, the allure of the anesthetics becomes stronger and you allow yourself to finally get some badly needed rest, shutting your eyes.
But before you really drift off, you reflect on the day's events. You feel like something's changed. Something's different about you. You're not quite the man you were before the AVALANCHE attack on HQ, nor are you the man you were before the AVALANCHE attack on the Evening Digest studio. They weren't your first combat engagements, but they're definitely something far more meaningful than light skirmishes with monsters in an armored convoy or beating up would-be pickpockets and shoplifters in the HQ. For the first time in your life, you were on your own. Unequipped. Unprepared. Twice in a row, in fact. You really did not enjoy either event, but... having come out of both incidents in a reasonable state, you think you might have gained something from the experiences. Like you've awakened, become more alive. Or maybe you're just high on sweet, cloying, mind-numbing drugs.
Marcus has gained a level!
Choose one Stat to increase:
A) Strength
B) Agility
C) Tenacity
D) Intelligence
Choose one Perk:
E) Touched by the Lifestream (if an enemy attack would kill Marcus, it becomes an automatic miss instead of a hit, but only once per Chapter)
F) Tough Guy (Exhausted, Starved, Dehydrated, Bloodloss, and all similar status effects have their penalty reduced by 1)
G) Killer Instinct (Gain a +1 morale bonus to Marcus's next roll after killing a target, but the effect does not stack per kill)
H) Analytical (Know the actual numerical TNs for various choices before picking them, if any; only factors in known variables and circumstances, not unknown ones)
Roll Results
Character Sheet
The Hero Returns, Part XV
Cornered. Nowhere to run. Bullets slamming into the wooden behemoth surrounding you, spraying wood and splinters everywhere. You're just sitting there, waiting to die. You have a brief image of sticking the barrel of your rifle in your mouth and just ending it. It's fleeting, but it was there. It doesn't disturb you too much. You close your mind to such thoughts and focus entirely on the battle. Your hands are a bit shaky, but functional. You just take things one step at a time and let your training take over. [Discipline]
Cornered, but not sundered. You can't say you've ever been stuck in a situation like this, hopelessly outnumbered, underequipped, and pinned down in an indefensible location. The reaper's coming for your head. So you'll greet him with high explosives.
You pull the pin on the first frag grenade, crawl out from under the desk, wait for a lull in the hail of gunfire, and pop up just long enough to aim it before you fly it at the nearest cluster of motherfuckers. You don't even take the time to appreciate the geometric, parabolic artistry of your toss, nor to marvel at just how close they've gotten to you. [Athletics] You duck back down before you can get ventilated by hot lead, and feel a bullet whizz past your scalp, chuckling out of surreal amusement. But just as you think you're safe, one blows through the desk and your upper left arm lights up in sudden agony, feeling like someone just stabbed you. You got hit. Red seeps into your nice suit sleeve, ruining it forever as you grit your teeth and grab hold of the damn thing, the muscles in it contracting of their own accord until it's all scrunched up. "Fuck!" you shout, just as your grenade goes off.
Boom. Yells. Screams. Pain and terror. It occurs to you that they didn't say anything even after you threw the frag. No yells of surprise and panic, no shouts for everyone to get down. You realize they must not have even noticed what you were throwing - they must have assumed it was a rock or a shoe or something, a desperate and clumsy toss. You sympathize with them. You are acutely aware of what it feels like to get hit.
They're not firing anymore. You try to test your arm, and the damn thing just won't move. Trying to unbend your elbow or operate your fingers at all sends fresh, hellish streaks of pain through your whole limb, so you give up on it. You need to piss. You're half tempted just to let it all out in the pain-tinted animalistic thoughts you're reduced to, but thanks to your training you somehow manage to retain the clarity of mind not to void your bladder. That can wait for when you're safe, or when you're dead. You still have a frag grenade left. You grab it into your good hand, wrapping your teeth around the safety pin, and realizing that you're shaking. You're going into shock, probably. You don't have much time left before you become totally incapacitated as your body shuts itself down. The fighting spirit is leaving you faster than you can try to psyche yourself up. Desperate, you yank the pin out of the grenade and rise just to fling it at the nearest son of a bitch you see. While up there, you see the bloody results of your first grenade. The blood and smoke left behind catches your eye, and in the fog of the pain and fear, you freeze up, your throw gets awkward, and the explosive slips out of your blood-slick fingers, thumping onto the swiss-cheese desk in front of you.
You don't even have time to curse as you dive back to the ground, landing on your poor left arm through which a fresh jolt of tender fresh excruciation erupts, making you roll on your back and groan as every nerve in you rebels against your brain and you vomit just as the grenade detonates and a huge wave of pressure, heat, and wood fragments rain on you. For a second, you think you must be in Hell. Then your senses clear up, ears ringing, you're heaving breaths through a throat that still burns from your own stomach acid, and you stagger to your knees, crawling as best you can for your rifle -- but just as you get your hand on it, someone bashes your face with the butt of a rifle, and you're laid flat on your back, dimly aware of the ache in your face, the warmth of your own blood leaking from your nostrils. It's nowhere near as bad as what your arm feels like. No, actually, both your arm and your nose are going numb, you realize. A barrel is pointed down at your face. Your vision swims, and you can't quite make out the face of the guy holding the rifle. No, wait, that's because he's wearing a skimask.
You hear a strange sound, somewhat familiar. It takes you a little while to place it. That's right, it's the sound of materia activating, that noisy little whine that gives away your position if you aren't careful. But when did the terrorists get materia when they can't even afford body armor?
The guy standing over you suddenly slumps over after a brief, golden blur passes by, and after a few moments you see that his head is just... gone. Blood spurts out from his neck like a fountain, falling on you. There's a bunch of gunfire, but not that you can see, only hear. There's some screams. Some yells. Something like metal smashing through metal, and grinding. The noises of flesh being parted, ripped apart with brute strength.
Then, all the noises stop. You think you're fading from consciousness or going deaf, but in fact, you figure out that it's just that the battle's over. Someone walks over to you, and you turn your head to see the woman wearing a full suit of ShinRa SOLDIER armor, some sort of advanced NV/IR goggles on her head, even her mouth concealed by a tactical mask. Not a single bit of flesh is exposed. In her right hand is nothing more than a standard ShinRa combat knife, issued to even the lowest of grunts in the Public Safety Department. It's bloody as hell. In her left hand is a glowing green orb from which the light slowly disappears, some sort of spell materia.
"You're not very good at following instructions, Major," she says in her husky voice, grabbing you by your good arm and pulling you up to your feet. You appreciate the gesture, but fall over the second she lets you go, thudding painfully but thankfully not on your wound this time.
"Like... Like I'm gonna let them take me hostage," you manage to spit out as she wipes the blood off her knife with a rag, tosses the rag, and puts the knife back in her hip sheath.
"That is usually how you survive situations like this," she says, sounding more than a little annoyed. "Thanks for making my job harder. Still, on the bright side, the Company's going to love the PR on this one. The hero who stopped AVALANCHE. Twice."
"They were AVALANCHE?" you groan, almost dreading the thought of more of these damn interviews, asking the most immediate and pressing question on your mind.
"So they claimed to the police when they gave their demands," the SOLDIER said. "And I'm sure you're smart enough to guess what their demand was."
Of course you are. Barret Wallace. Their leader.
"They must've mobilized everything they had to try to get him off the chopping block. Well, considering one off-duty security guard—" she says, putting particular emphasis on those last two words with almost scathing tone, "—managed to steal all their valuable hostages and gun down half of them, they really must be scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to manpower."
She presses a button on the side of her helmet, likely the radio. "Command, studio's clear. Emergency exit is open. Bring a stretcher. Major Westmore has a bullet wound and needs medical attention." Then she waltzes over to the chained up emergency exit, grabbing the chain and ripping it off of the door with nothing more than the brute strength of her hand. She kicks the door wide open, then turns and just walks away. One thing catches her attention, though, the Buster Sword, which she goes to and withdraws from the jammed up spot you left it in. She turns it over in her hands, examining it like it's as light as a pen, then tosses it aside. "Command, proceeding to clear rest of the building." Then she moves on through one of the few open doors.
Everything from that moment on is so quick. You fade from awareness several times, feeling like every time you blink the stretcher you're being carried on is in a new locale, going down the emergency stairs, in the ambulance, in the hospital. The same goddamn hospital in Shinra HQ that you just got out of. What a pisser. The bullet is pried out of you while you're stuffed to the lungs with painkillers and then you're patched up. As you finally start to feel secure where you are, no longer plagued by the adrenaline of combat and not expecting a terrorist to come marching into your room every time you blink, the allure of the anesthetics becomes stronger and you allow yourself to finally get some badly needed rest, shutting your eyes.
But before you really drift off, you reflect on the day's events. You feel like something's changed. Something's different about you. You're not quite the man you were before the AVALANCHE attack on HQ, nor are you the man you were before the AVALANCHE attack on the Evening Digest studio. They weren't your first combat engagements, but they're definitely something far more meaningful than light skirmishes with monsters in an armored convoy or beating up would-be pickpockets and shoplifters in the HQ. For the first time in your life, you were on your own. Unequipped. Unprepared. Twice in a row, in fact. You really did not enjoy either event, but... having come out of both incidents in a reasonable state, you think you might have gained something from the experiences. Like you've awakened, become more alive. Or maybe you're just high on sweet, cloying, mind-numbing drugs.
Marcus has gained a level!
Choose one Stat to increase:
A) Strength
B) Agility
C) Tenacity
D) Intelligence
Choose one Perk:
E) Touched by the Lifestream (if an enemy attack would kill Marcus, it becomes an automatic miss instead of a hit, but only once per Chapter)
F) Tough Guy (Exhausted, Starved, Dehydrated, Bloodloss, and all similar status effects have their penalty reduced by 1)
G) Killer Instinct (Gain a +1 morale bonus to Marcus's next roll after killing a target, but the effect does not stack per kill)
H) Analytical (Know the actual numerical TNs for various choices before picking them, if any; only factors in known variables and circumstances, not unknown ones)
Roll Results
Discipline roll to stay cool under pressure:
1d20 + Discipline Lvl. 3 + Tenacity 6 - Exhausted = 15 + 6 + 6 - 2 = 25
TN: 18
Good Success!
Marcus acts first!
Athletics roll to throw the first frag:
1d20 + Athletics Lvl. 2 + Strength 4 - Exhausted = 12 + 4 + 4 - 2 = 18
TN: 12
Good Success!
Terrorists fire back!
1d20 + Marksmanship Lvl 1 + Agility 3 + massed fire bonus = 7 + 2 + 3 + 5 = 17
TN: 19 (Base + Agility + Cover Value - Exhausted)
Bare Success! Marcus is shot in the arm!
Grenade detonates!
1d5 possible kills out of 13 targets, +1 for Good Success on throw = 3 + 1 = 4 kills, 1d5 possible wounded = 2 wounded
Round Two
Grenade throw 2
1d20 + Athletics Lvl. 2 + Agility 7 - Exhausted - Bloodloss = 2 + 4 + 7 - 2 - 4 = 7
TN: 12
Bad Failure! Fumble, but able to take cover before detonation!
1d20 + Discipline Lvl. 3 + Tenacity 6 - Exhausted = 15 + 6 + 6 - 2 = 25
TN: 18
Good Success!
Marcus acts first!
Athletics roll to throw the first frag:
1d20 + Athletics Lvl. 2 + Strength 4 - Exhausted = 12 + 4 + 4 - 2 = 18
TN: 12
Good Success!
Terrorists fire back!
1d20 + Marksmanship Lvl 1 + Agility 3 + massed fire bonus = 7 + 2 + 3 + 5 = 17
TN: 19 (Base + Agility + Cover Value - Exhausted)
Bare Success! Marcus is shot in the arm!
Grenade detonates!
1d5 possible kills out of 13 targets, +1 for Good Success on throw = 3 + 1 = 4 kills, 1d5 possible wounded = 2 wounded
Round Two
Grenade throw 2
1d20 + Athletics Lvl. 2 + Agility 7 - Exhausted - Bloodloss = 2 + 4 + 7 - 2 - 4 = 7
TN: 12
Bad Failure! Fumble, but able to take cover before detonation!
Character Sheet
Name: Marcus "Steelwall" Westford
Class: Ranger
Level: 2
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Severe
Status: Exhausted, Bloodloss, Crippled Left Arm
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2, Bluff Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: Ruined Nice Suit, note from Janice, Tom's business card (bloody)
Gear:
Class: Ranger
Level: 2
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Severe
Status: Exhausted, Bloodloss, Crippled Left Arm
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2, Bluff Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: Ruined Nice Suit, note from Janice, Tom's business card (bloody)
Gear:
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
Perk selections are based on what perks you already have, and what you've done before gaining the level. If you don't use Strength for example, you won't get any perks related to it. And if you use Strength but fail, you also won't get any perks based on it. I'm not gonna bother to make hard stat gates for perks, but in a general sense, yes, if you want to get a wide variety of perks, you want a balanced stat spread.
I agree with Baltika, Marcus seems to have a knack for entering into hairy situations and sooner or later the dice are going to betray us.
However, looking at recent combat it seems like agility is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for getting out of harm’s way. As much help as that strength point would be in hefting ridiculous metal slabs around, I figure it’s great to make our current advantages even more powerful.
BE
However, looking at recent combat it seems like agility is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for getting out of harm’s way. As much help as that strength point would be in hefting ridiculous metal slabs around, I figure it’s great to make our current advantages even more powerful.
BE
Baltika9
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2012
- Messages
- 9,611
Strength impacts all aspects of a soldier's life. I would hate for us to be stuck in a stupid situation just because Marcus' strength is below average. For instance, not being able to carry a .50 Cal up a hill.
Moreover, I don't want to fall into the min-maxing traps. This CYOA follows the Age of Decadence model: min-maxing will only get us so far.
Moreover, I don't want to fall into the min-maxing traps. This CYOA follows the Age of Decadence model: min-maxing will only get us so far.
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