[Pbp] Psychosis - Ship of Fools

Stories about games that you run and/or have played in.

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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
The corridors fly past, but although your path is as convoluted as you can reasonably make it, you are sure of your position. You can visualize the schematic as clearly as if it were still in front of your face. You hear no pursuit, but you come around a corner to see three of the passengers, all well-built men in suits.

"An Officer!" cries one of them. "Get him! If we hand him over, it will prove our loyalty."

They rush down the passage towards you, fists raised.
Thaluikhain:
"So, you have 'heard' something, but you do not know how? It is a peculiar position to be in. Perhaps it is a deep memory, something you once knew, but forgot so completely that you did not recognize it when it resurfaced." He raises one finger. "Or perhaps it is a conjuration, a glitch of memory left over from a dream." Knower sips his tea. "That has happened to me. Sometimes I dream that I am not myself, in a life far removed from this one, in a strange world. When I wake, it seems that some of those memories are at least as real as any others I have."

As Knower speaks, the murals seem to waver like heated air, and then...
In some respects, nothing has changed. You are sitting at a table with a white-bearded old man, sipping tea. In other, more substantial respects, everything has changed.

The table is quite bare, and rests upon a lushly grassed hill, sheltered by an olive tree. You and the old man are wearing only roughspun tunics, belted with rope. All about you, the landscape stretches away, rich with plantlife, and animal life as well, beasts and birds and other creatures, wandering in pairs. The air is fresh and clear.

"Sometimes," says Noah, "reality is a matter of faith."
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I turn, and sprint away, back the way I came if necessary. If I know this ship as well as I think I do, perhaps I can go through an area where my familiarity with the plans would let me move quickly, but where mere passengers would not be able to follow safely or with speed. Service tunnels? Confusing corridors? A dangerous, but traversible airship understructure? A sudden, idiotic rush of optimism assures me I must have options, or maybe I can merely outpace them and then get out of sight. I ultimately want to head towards Emergency Steering, but will settle for any route where I don't wind up tackled or shot at by belligerent, demanding assholes.

Perfect. Just when I had Grubel handled, now it's a new set of people who are also out to get me. I bet I have a really good idea of what the people in the cinema will look before I meet them, too... but, running now. Questioning of reality later.

((Playing Swords 20, if this is an opposed thing.))
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

(Ugh, I thought I sent this response a few hours ago.)

"I do. Why do you ask?"
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Post by Thaluikhain »

"I have tried to understand something of the nature of reality, and I would be grateful for your wisdom."
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
The passengers draw two cards: Queen of Swords and Nine of Cups.
You barrel around a corner and into a fourth passenger, an elderly woman. The two of you fall to the ground in a tangle.

"I say!" she cries.

Your pursuers also plow into the pile, adding to it. Somewhere in the thrashing, a boot connects smartly with your cheekbone, and all the pain of your waking re-erupts in your head. Blessed oblivion follows.

...

When you come around, you are in... the ship's cinema. At least five crewmen are here as well, one of them dabbing at your cheek with something that stings, the others talking quietly in pairs. Your head throbs, but it is an honest headache, not the chemical nightmare you've been dealing with so far.

"Hey, he's awake," says your attendant. The other crewmen start to gather around.

A door opens, and another two crewmen enter, along with one other man in a ship's officer's uniform.

"Another one," says one of the newcomers, to cheers and applause.
Hand: Wands 9, Pentacles 4.
Trace: Swords 20
Thaluikhain:
Noah laughs. "It is ironic that you should come to me for this wisdom, since I do not know whether I live in the future or the past, nor even if the words I speak are the words you hear. I will say this: no matter the circumstances I find myself in, I do my best to make the world as much better as I can manage. I believe that you could make the world a great deal better, but you have forgotten that you know how to do it. Do not dwell on that. Trust in your self and instincts, and your own ark will come to dry land."

The scene around you shimmers away...
You are standing in the street – no, a street, Knower's hab is nowhere to be seen. The street markers here are too vandalized for you to even know what level you are on, except that you are still in Blue sector.

You hear sirens nearby, and smell smoke. Down the street in both directions you hear raucous sounds, not worse than after a stadium game of ViolenceBall™ lets out, but somehow different in character, more purposeful. Something is going down.

The roof lights flicker and dim, leaving you in twilight. Is it city-evening already, or has whatever's going on damaged the power systems? In the gloom, a bright spot on the inside of your left wrist catches your attention. It is a fluorescent tattoo, an inch across, of the Earth as seen from space. Except that it isn't the Earth, the continents are wrong.

You definitely don't remember having that before. It has the same unreal quality as Knower's murals. As you look at it, you keep anticipating that the clouds will move and the planet revolve, although they do not.
Hand: Wands 8, Cups 5, Wands 2
Trace: Wands 20, Cups 16
Darth Rabbitt:
The servos lead you into the first chamber of moderate size you have seen on this ship so far, although it looks smaller than it is because it is carpeted (and also wallpapered) with more servos.

"My companion asks," says the large servo, "because if we are to fulfill our functions, we need to retake control of this ship. None of us have the ability to change its course, and in any case we can't approach the bridge without being destroyed by the hostile intruders."

"Will you help us?" says another servo in the same voice. You feel almost as though you are surrounded by a single distributed entity.

The speaker on your right cyber-arm crackles to life. *Reboot complete,* comes the voice of the Red Lance's computer.
There is information available here with a Pentacles challenge.
Hand: Pentacles 2.
Trace: Pentacles 14.
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I blink, looking around, feigning a slow recovery... or even slower, at any rate. I try to see if I recognise any of these men. I surreptitiously take stock of whether I still have the knife and my other accumulated posessioms, as well as my undoubtedly cool-looking hat.

I decide to try for "confident" and "authoritative". That way, if someone punches me in the face, at least it'll convey useful information about my status here.

"What is the meaning of this?? Explain yourselves!" I demand of the nearest crewmember.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Wrong how? As in the continents are much the right shape, but in the wrong places? (I take it it's not like how Mercator makes Greenland look really big.)

In any case, I run forwards to where things are going down to make the world as much better as I can manage. But I slow down close to where it's happening and look for a discreet place to observe.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
You seem to have lost your hat in one of the struggles, but Grubel's knife is in your jacket pocket.
"Sir, we-we found you being beaten by the passengers, saw them off and brought you here," says the crewman's who has been using a cotton swab to apply antiseptic to a gash on your face.

"With you," says another crewman, "and him," he says, gesturing at the other officer, "and us all together, with some breathing room to talk, we can sort out what's to be done. About Grubel, about his lackeys; I even hear there's some sort of secret mission going on. You're senior officer now, so I suppose it's your lead."
There's an optional Pentacles challenge here.

Thaluikhain:
Something like this:
Image
As you approach the big noise, you spot a handful of Sisters sitting lookout on a pile of rubble that used to be a shop. There's no obvious way past them without being seen, but at least you eyed them before they you. Your phone hums softly in your pocket and you take it out.

*COUNCIL AT THE ARCADE* it displays, opening your navapp to direct you there... and away from the ruckus.
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I look around the room, without regard for my abused head. I need to be noticing what's happening around me, and so I trust my general fitness to aid ny recovery while I focus my attentions outward.

((I'll put my only two eligible cards into the pentacle test, 4 Pentacles and 9 Wands))

"Hmm." I say, pretending to carefully consider the matter at hand while I stall for time. I wonder if I recognise any of these men, especially the other officer.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

To the arcade then. But examine the route and take another if it seems suspicious or dangerous.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

(I take the Pentacles challenge, using both my hand card and the trace.)

"Before I commit to doing so," I say, looking around the room to face as many servos as possible, "I need to be absolutely sure that you're giving me all that you can, both in information and material aid."
Last edited by Darth Rabbitt on Tue Jan 31, 2017 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny
The only face you recognize is one of the crew – you are pretty sure it's the same man you didn't follow up the gangway earlier today. The other officer is as unfamiliar as everyone else has been.

"Do we know yet who killed Loeper and why?" asks a scruffy crewman.

"What is this secret mission?" asks another.

"How do we regain control of the ship? And do we still plan to land as scheduled, or..."

As the discussion breaks down into babble, two things catch your eye. The first is a pile of dark blue folders, one of which has your name on it. The other, is a sharp white punch card, sticking out of the pocket of one of the crew.

The door swings open and there is a round of laughter from the crew as another officer is brought in by another crewman.
Your hand refills.
Hand: Pentacles 7, Cups 7, Swords 4, Pentacles 3
Trace: Swords 20
Thaluikhain
Your trip to the ARcade™, a place so noxiously unhip that it's the perfect secret meeting place, is uneventful. Along the way, you are joined by half a dozen other Rippers. None of them know exactly what's going on.

"Murderous ink, bar," says one of them, pointing to your wrist. "Real hammer-chisel stuff, not weak biofoil, yah?"

You walk past the classic headset games and projection booths, and all set down in the Lazer Tag™ arena, which is full to bursting with Rippers, half of whom are sitting inside the hologram targets, distorting their already-alien shapes.

"Listen up, Rips!" calls Stab Happy, who seems to be the ranking member present. "The big noise tonight is an anti-Sister riot. Seems that the norms are finally as tired of them as we've been for years." Applause and hooting breaks out. "Can it, feebs! It's not going anywhere. Sisters have too much muscle."

"So we help them out!" says Jazz Hands.

"Sucker play," says Stab Happy. "We don't hit the Sisters where they're all gonna be, we hit 'em where they ain't gonna be." He gestures and one of the arcade's projectors stops displaying an alien planetscape and instead covers a wall with a layout of... level Orange 44.

The image seems to vibrate in your sight, twinkling like an AR power-up. One node on the map in particular seems to waver and throb like an end boss' weak spot.

"Sisters keep their shit together because they can offer the best – real grub," says Stab Happy. "They get that from a farm on this S/U level they've squatted on. While all their soldiers are off breaking norm heads, we're going to find and break their horn of plenty. Without carrots, they won't hold their sticks very long. Now, break into squads, then come up and pick a sector to search."
Darth Rabbitt:
'Of course, of course,' says the large servo. 'We don't have much, but you're welcome to any of it. The overall plan is to get you to the bridge, where you can maneuver the ship into a relatively close orbit around a nearby star. The aliens' poor temperature tolerance works both ways, you see, so they should perish of heatstroke in short order.'

You are directed to an enormous pile of things that the servos have managed to preserve. Most of it is unrecognizable or obviously useless, but you do see what looks like a passcard of some sort, and also a computer pad, albeit one designed for someone with seven fingers and two thumbs.

*Standing by,* says your computer. "Complete the mission. Complete the mission.*
Your hand refills.
Hand: 16 Swords, 12 Cups, 4 Wands, 3 Wands.
Trace: 14 Pentacles
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I pay attention to how the officers are brought in. Are they nervous? Being carefully led, as I originally was? Prisoners?

I walk over and pick up the file with my name on it, leafing through it. I ignore the punch card for now- it's not like I could read it, if I did get a hold of it.

I try to remember if the ship plans suggested a stealthier route to Emergency Steering.

((What is a punchard, in this context? Like what would its purpose be? Am I right that it's a means of storing messages or data?))
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny wrote:What is a punchard, in this context? Like what would its purpose be? Am I right that it's a means of storing messages or data?
It could be a chunk of digital data for use in an early computer, or it could be a decoding tool (laying the card over the text reveals the hidden message through its holes), or possibly even both.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

I pretend to be enthusiastic about this and go find a squad and a sector.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

"And the plan once you reclaim the ship from the aliens?" I ask as I take both the passcard and computer pad, and look through the pile for anything else that might be of use (as a salvager I assume that Kyle knows that even broken or unrecognizable objects can contain components of some value). "Do you have anywhere you can return to? Would there be anyone or anything looking for this ship?" A complete and functional ship might be worth far more than any mere salvage, I think to myself.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
The officers came in carefully led, and neither seems especially nervous, more like quietly resolved. One approaches the crewman with the punch card, and takes it from him. They begin talking.

The folder contains your various identification papers, issued by the party in 1935. There are terrible photographs of you, and many personal details... but it is like reading about a stranger. None of it is familiar.

The last document in the collection is folded many times. Opening it, you discover it is a navigational chart. This feels familiar. Looking more closely, you see that it shows a course laid out between Argentina and Germany, marked at several points with dates and times. The last of these notes is in markedly different writing to the others.

It's the writing of whoever's doing my job, comes the thought. I was only replaced recently, this must be the current course chart.

With a moment's reflection, you can see two, maybe three, ways to get to emergency steering without much exposure.
Thaluikhain:
Of your bars that you'd want watching your six, only Sweet Pea and Slicer are here. Three's kind of thin for a squad, so Slicer grabs a guy called Dog, who he vouches for. They seem content to follow your lead.

The line moves quickly. Soon, you're in front of Stab Happy. He's been marking off called sectors with a can of black spray paint, which obviously doesn't mark the projected map, but does keep it from reflecting where the black paint covers the shiny wall.

"Point and click and get going, mango," he says.

Nobody's picked the sector that throbs in your vision. But then again, there are a lot of sectors that nobody's picked.
Darth Rabbitt:
The computer pad seems to be a passenger guide. You don't speak the language, but a little pecking around gets you to a navigable map. The servos tell you that it's not exactly up to date, but it's accurate as far as corridor and chamber layout go.

"With the hostile intruders removed," says the large servo, "our remaining directive would be to complete the ship's original voyage. However, with all the crew and passengers deceased, the priority for doing so is very low. Indeed since the ship's owner and legal heirs were among the victims, there is not even a strong reason to contact the authorities. We would defer to your best judgement."

A close examination of the pile, with the servos' help, yields several components. None of them much use on their own, but some batteries and connecting cables compatible with the local tech might come in useful.
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I look at the chart carefully, wondering at any anomalies in the course, or in how it's notes are written down. Or any odd happenstance or irregularities noted. I also want to check that our current course seems sound, and won't lead us into trouble while I'm running around like a nutcase, not doing my job.

I walk over to the officer and the sailor with the punchcard, and try to insert myself into their conversation.

"What do you think we should be trying to do? Also, tell me. Who is the current navigator?"
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Select the throbbing sector, I guess, and off to explore that.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

"Don't worry, you're in good hands," I say, grinning ear to ear. "Let's do this." I take the components and then attempt to locate the bridge on the map.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
The course seems sensible to you, and whoever is filling in for you seems to be following it. No anomalies are apparent. Even the course corrections appear completely innocuous.

As you approach officer punch-card, something small arcs in through the theater door, trailing vapor, and lands on the floor where it continues to spew the stuff. Immediately, your eyes begin to water. It is some sort of gas grenade!
Thaluikhain:
Stab Happy marks your claim with a rough 'X,' and waves you on your way. You are halfway to the door when a pulsing alarm goes off, and cries of pain erupt from the room. Looking over, you see Sisters! They have kicked in the fire exit and are sweeping the crowd with Hurt Ray™ handhelds, non-lethal but very painful field manipulation weapons.
Darth Rabbitt:
*What are you doing? Complete the mission,* nags your computer.

You locate the bridge easily, and devise a rough path to it, one which has access to some alternate routes in case of trouble. Just when you think the Ripper is as ready as it gets, you hear something disturbing. It is the servos' calm voice, but dozens of them at once, and slightly out of sync, repeating the same thing.

'Run. Run. Run.'

The servos are milling around, swarming towards the exits, as alien after dark-carapaced alien spills out of a hole in the ceiling, apparently eaten through by some sort of bio-corrosive. A whiff of acrid fume stings your nose. The aliens who hit ground begin smashing servos with a will, but they do not seem nearly as fast as before.

*Complete the mission.*
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Post by SlyJohnny »

I immediately kick the grenade down towards the lowest aisle of the cinema (or an unoccupied corner, if this room is flat) and then turn away from it, tugging the officer and anyone nearby along with me. "Shit! They're probably herding us out towards an ambush."

I look for a less obvious means of escape, like a service crawlspace or the window leading up to the projection room (assuming the projector is not just in the room with us). Failing that, I'll bolt for the nearest exit. If the pile of files is small enough that I can carry them underarm, I'll bring them with me.
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Post by Thaluikhain »

Hide under the furniture and scuttle for the door.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

I attempt to run past the creatures and down the rough path I've drawn to the bridge.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

SlyJohnny:
As your kick sends the noxious thing spinning away, another one flies in through the door. One of the crewmen, coughing and crying in the thickening mist, rushes up and presses a gas mask into your hands. You fit it on, snatch up the files, and after a moment's searching, open up a service access panel. The other officers, also bemasked, join you and together you pass into the cramped passage.

After an uncomfortable progression, you open another hatch onto one of the ship's corridors, startling one of the passengers, an elderly man. He stoops with an audible popping of his back and offers you a hand out of the crawlspace.
Thaluikhain:
As you move, Slicer hits you in the neck with a hypo of Liquid Courage™, which boosts your pain thresholds, although it also makes your vision a little distorted. Now you won't curl up like a roach if a Hurt Ray™ clips you, which is nice. Also nice, there's no Sisters between you and the door.

The Arena is a roil of shouting and shooting, but the cacophany drops away as you pass through the ARcade™ and head into the street with your squad. Sweet Pea leads the way at a run, apparently still intent on going after the Sisters' farm.

"I know a way up that won't be watched," he says. "In one of the abandoned zones there's a 'vator that still works."

As you run, you see a familiar figure ahead. It's Knower, a spray-can in his hand, and a bag of more spray-cans hanging from one shoulder. Apparently he's taking the opportunity afforded by the chaos to 'decorate' a few buildings.
Darth Rabbitt:
No need to go past them, you can make your route by going the other way. And you do!

The Ripper runs through empty echoing corridors and chambers, with only the alien map and the periodic chirp of his ship's computer for company.

*Complete the mission.*

All is going smoothly until you run through a fluctuation in the ship's grav-field, which leaves you pumping your cyber-arms and legs uselessly in mid-air. How you'll extricate yourself isn't obvious.

*Complete the mission.*
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