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[bull30548]

Moving behind the planter and leaning out Kinsey begins the gestures subconciously. Even though the others can't see it the faint glow of defensive power is over himself, the elf and the yelling one. He couldn't see the girl or the guy in the mask but that couldn't be his problem right now. He had way too much on his mind with the headache brewing in the base of his skull, the sustained spell and this wonderful shit storm.

OOC: Counterspelling is my free action taking a moment to observe through the he if I can is my simple action.

[kv]

"As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."
- Leonardo Da Vinci

Heroes

The good news is that you all survived the drone.
Bad news: the drone wasn't the main foil for the scene.

New Friends:
Initiative: 9d6.hits(5) → [5,3,5,2,2,2,6,3,4] = (3)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3631255/


Scarlet: 16 @ 3 passes – Long burst, 10 DV w/5 successes
Sly: 15 @ 3 passes – set up Laser Rifle
Galbraith: 15 @ 3 passes – Shotgun @ Drone; AP -1, DV 7 + 4 (vital area) + hits (3)
Dubois: 15 @ 3 passes (VR) – Jam on the Fly
New Friends: 12 @ 3 passses - Enter, Stage Left.
Kinsey: 12 @ 3 passes  - Ready Counterspell, Go Astral, Observe

Ares Citymaster (Riot Control Vehicle)
Handling –1 Accel 5/30 Speed 120 Pilot 3 Body 16 Armor 20 Sensor 3 Avail 20R Cost 51,200¥

Galbraith's shot pings harmlessly off the armor of the riot control vehicle- it's a Renracu knock-off of the ARES Citymaster, but a rose by any other name would smell just as sweetly. The ricochet takes out a part of the plascrete wall it hits.

Oddly, the turret doesn't turn to target Galbraith, or even point toward the hole in the wall- it's pointed upward, and you get the vague uneasy sense that its waiting for something. The walls of the vehicle facing the entry point slams open, showing a little light from inside the vehicle as well as revealing the four figures in hardened full body armor and a full-head helmet, red like wet blood and styled after Japanese samurai. Each one is carrying an FN HAR assault rifle and a katana, as though anyone would doubt a person in red Samurai armor meant business.

These scary mother-fraggers are the Renracu Red Samurai.

The businesslike march of these men (or women- hard to tell, with that much ballistic kevlar) brings them toward the entrance.

Dubois

The Node here is in shambles- barely an ad hoc network from employee comms- few, if any security guards upgrade their commlink. Aside from Eric's signal, there's the cute girl that was playing World of Shadowcraft earlier, although she seems to be spending her adrenaline-enhanced terror posting to social networks about how scared she is. Eric can feel the arrival of the jammer- it's a full-on Node built into... maybe a drone or something. It's piping out red-hot BTL at the moment for anyone with an open AR connection, talking about how Renracu is dedicated to making the world a safer and better place; on the official channels it's playing an emergency broadcast message; and to the authorities, particularly the ZDF it's sending the legal equivalent of a Frag Off- a dense legal document defining this activity as protected enforcement under the Shiawase Decision; protection and recovery of corporate property or persons, or defense of same. No help is coming, and if they do, it'll be an all-out drek storm.

Kinsey

Kinsey can feel the astral energy burning through him- sustaining a spell is like trying to recite the alphabet backwards while juggling. It's not impossible, but it would be much easier if everyone else would just sit the frag down and be quiet so you could think. The joker in the pest extermination suit is on Kinsey's left, and the ork shouting by the hole in the wall is calling out incoming. The lethal elf with her own assault rifle is near the original table, not exposed in the middle of the floor, but not behind any decent cover, either. Jamming the astral with mana static is easy- and it'll keep anyone from nuking the area with a manaball. It's not even hard to maintain, although Kinsey had heard that it was hard on electronics to be around a mage pumping out this much energy. That could just be a trideo thing, though, sometimes it was hard to tell what was made up and what was real.

Drifting into the astral phase, Kinsey can see the auras of the people around him- not the surreal never-night world of the astral that he was used to- this place was polluted with the terror of the patrons, and decades of banal patrons buying tasteless food that wasn't good for them. Not enough to make mana-slinging more difficult, just enough to itch under your skin.

The walls have been reinforced with the happy childhood memories of many kids seeing clowns and amorphous purple blobs, so there's a sense of where the walls of the establishment are, but it takes some concentration to figure out whom is who from the way you've seen them before.

The guards pulse with tightly controlled fear, and an overwhelming sense of duty- not hard to pick out. Your fellow runners are all different shades of desperate, but no more so than the other patrons, they just seem to be managing it better. If you hadn't marked them with part of your manaflow, it would be hard to pick them out of the crowd.

Lastly, there are five people outside, approaching rapidly. Whatever they're arriving in is highly technological or brand new, because it's nearly invisible in the astral, and the five look as though they arrive seated several feet off of the ground, like on a magic carpet. It would be amusing, if they didn't have the wrecked auras of someone with too much cyberwear, and the determination to kill- to murder.

Oops, I forgot an updated map:

[Ruski]

Sylvester slides his laser rifle across the counter top as he side-steps to the right, making room to his left. He never takes his eyes off of the opening, nor does he let the barrel point in any other direction but down range.

Turning his head he takes a deep breath to shout through the muffling baffles of the gas mask. The mask always made him sound like some crazy ‘Secret Agent James Bond’ villain, but with the explosion in the past and the machine gun fire taking a short recess break it would at least be possible to be heard.

”Roger! It’s not over yet! Get behind cover here with me and tell your buddies to get some of their own; that drone was just the opening act, not the grand finale! ”

[Ingo Monk]

"We need eyes outside" Eric thinks to himself, as he reaches out tries to grab a hold of the APC.  If he can get in he should be able to disable the jammer and manipulate the vehicle to the team's advantage... or at least be a distraction.

Hack on the fly + Extended test vs. target's firewall
Hacking 5 + Exploit 4 = 9
9d6.hits(5) → [2,3,3,2,3,4,2,1,5] = (1)

Ick!  Well, at least it's not a glitch
Gain control of the APC, maybe use the turret on the red samurai?  At least the rigger has some minuses at this point

[Bullet Sponge]

Updated 2nd Simple action: move back the few steps to his pack
Free action: safety the shotgun

[bull30548]

Almost unconciously shrugging his mage sight off he looks again and simply points his finger around the planter.  Doc never got why he did it he didn't either but he still needed something to help 'focus his will' so to speak.  Usually an open hand was all he needed for a manaball.  But a manabolt is more like a firing a bullet.  Thankfully it a lot more accurate than a gun and all that beautiful red armor did was absolutely nil.  Also no need to advertise his entire arsenal in a night.  Hell, his paycheck was going to be getting out alive.  Also he wasn't sure on the range of how far from the two guys by the wall and the APC.  And he really didn't want to piss off that elf.  All that running through his head as he felt that magic bullet forming and then letting it fly.

Steps to Casting"

1. Choose the Spell you wish to cast at the target

The spell you're casting is Manabolt (SR4A, pg 204)
Type: M  Range: LOS  Damage: P  Duration: I  DV: (F/2)

If you wanted to trade your hard-target physical damage spells for stun spells, they work equally well, and with a little less burn on the brainpan. For Instance: Stunbolt (SR4A, pg 205)
Type: M  Range: LOS  Damage: S  Duration: I  DV: (F/2) - 1

2. Choose the Force for the spell, up to twice your magic rating

You chose Force 5, equal to your Magic Rating. I'm using the sheet here for reference.

3. Add you Magic to your pool

Magic 5

4. Add your Spellcasting to your pool

Spellcasting (Spec: Combat Spells) 5 (7)

5. Add the bonus for your mentor spirit to your pool, if applicable.

You don't have a mentor spirit, but this is one area where I think it would be beneficial- when I'm playing a mage, looking through the mentors and figuring out which ones would work and which ones wouldn't also helps me to get a handle on the character. Still, you have 12 dice at this point, not too shabby.

6. Add the bonus for a Spellcasting Focus to your pool, if it is of the correct type and you do not wish to save it to resist drain later.

You have a Spellcasting Focus (Combat) (Force 2). For bookkeeping purposes, I'm going to save that for Drain later.
You also have a Sustaining Focus (Health) (Force 2), which I would have recommended using to sustain your Increased Reflexes spell. More on that in a bit.

7. Subtract any Wound modifiers (or modifiers from sustained spells) from the pool.

Kinsey took 1 stun damage while casting Increased Reflexes at the start of combat. He's also sustaining Increased Reflexes for a -2 penalty, with no reason that I understand, so let's go ahead and move that to his Sustaining Focus.

8. Roll your pool dice, add up your Hits. If you glitch, tell the gamemaster.

Magic (5) + Spellcasting/Combat Spells (7) + Wound (-1) = 11 Dice
11d6.hits(5) → [5,1,6,1,4,2,4,6,5,3,6] = (5)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3637966/

9. Take the lesser of your Hits and the spell's Force; this is your Actual Hits Total.

In this case, the number of hits (5) is the same as the Spell's force (5), so there's nothing to worry about. Typically, you take the lesser of the two options, which gives a good reason to not just cast at low force and pump it up with a big dicepool.

10. If the spell is resisted, and your target is living, the GM will roll resistance pool and subtract from your actual hits. If your target is non-living, the GM will compare your actual hits to the threshold. If your actual hits is reduced to zero or less (in the former case), or if your actual hits falls short of the threshold (in the latter case), skip to step 12.

Resistance for Mana spells is Willpower. If this had been a physical spell, not only would the target get to resist with Body, but he or she would also be allowed to use armor to resist damage.

 In this case, we're going to say you targeted one of the 'lowly normal' Red Samurai instead of the Lieutenant. The target has a willpower of 4, and will roll to resist damage normally.
4d6.hits(5) → [3,3,1,4] = (0)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3637967/

11. Tell the GM your Actual Hits, and the Force of the Spell. Your GM will determine the effect of the spell.

The red samurai rolled a glitch on her Damage Resistance, so in addition to taking 5 boxes of damage, we'll say one of the target's implants stops working- 1d6 (5) so her Muscle Toner begins functioning ineffectively, and she loses 1 dice to Agility tests. We'll leave her at the same initiative, for the sake of bookkeeping, but she's going to regret that here in a little while.

Resisting Drain

12. Start a new pool, add your Willpower to it.

Willpower (4)

13. Add the Attribute that your tradition uses to resist Drain.

Kinsey is a straight-up Mage, and resists with Logic (3)

14. If you did not add your Spellcasting Focus rating to your spellcasting pool, add it now.

Here's your bonus (+2). That's why we saved it for later.

15. Roll your pool dice. Subtract one from the Drain Damage value for each hit.

Note that this pool is not reduced due to sustaining a spell or wound modifiers. This is important- and a detail I had missed before this game; damage resistance rolls are almost never subject to modifiers.

Anyway, Drain Value for Manabolt is F/2. Drain is rounded down (SR4a, pg 203, 'Drain Value'). Force 5 / 2 = 2.5 rounded down to 2. Kinsey needs to resist 2 drain.

Kinsey has Willpower (4) + Logic (3) + Sustaining Focus (2) = 9
9d6.hits(5) → [5,6,2,6,4,1,4,3,1] = (3)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3637974/

16. If you did not reduce the Drain Damage value to zero, apply the damage to your condition monitor; physical if the force was greater than your Magic rating, stun otherwise.

Kinsey resist with zero drain, after inflicting 5 damage to a badass Renracu Red Samurai without breaing a sweat.

[Bullet Sponge]

Obviously I need more power. I wish I had that .50 cal I saw in that old trid last week. I guarantee they'd feel it if I shot them with that. Well, like Granny always says, "Wish in one hand and...."

Free Action: Drop the 'Remy
Simple Action: Pull the MA-2100 out of the bag
Simple Action: Chamber a round
Free Action: Connect Smartlink to MA-2100 while chambering the round

[Ruski]

Preparations only get you so far in any fire-fight.
A good exit plan, Decent cover, and a stable firing platform could individually make or break any given combat; but the only way you could see what difference it made was to live through said combat… and the only way to do THAT; was to shoot the other guy before he shot you.
That made first shots very important. For most people: the first round always ends up going wild: after that training kicks in and you remember that you can’t just squeeze the trigger wildly when you see any sort of target.
However: most gunfights last about 20 seconds, according to the law-enforcement numbers published last year. And that includes walking over to kick the corpse and make sure he’s really dead, and just not faking it.
So: here’s where the plan hits reality.
Red Samurai: the height of killer professionals. No warning shots, no negotiations, just hate and death vs. death and hate.
Don’t rush it. They are breaching. As they rush through the fatal funnel they cross the most dangerous part of entry for them. No cover to speak of, and all their eggs in one proverbial basket. Oh what I wouldn’t give for a grenade right about now…
Oh well: focus on what you’ve got. Don’t jerk the trigger, send the fire command mentally don’t grasp at straws, these guys are fast, they aren’t going to stand around and yell at civilians. It’s a moving target, aim for what you can hit. Center mass? Maybe try to go up high on the chest, may get lucky and melt their facemask in, or burn out their throat.
All you can do is all you can do.

Aim for vulnerable spot.
Firearms: 4 // Agility 7 // +2 dice (Smartlink)  // +1 Dice-pool (Personilized grip & various mods)// +1 dice (Aim)// Vital-area called shot -4 dice pool (+4 weapon damage) //
= (11) dice (unless you want to give me extra for my stable firing platform.)

Laser Rifle: 5P vs. half armor. (upgrade to 9P for vulnerable shot)
11d6.hits(5) → [1,2,6,1,5,1,3,5,3,5,2] = (4)
11d6.hits(5)=4
Use Edge to re-roll failures.
5d6.hits(5) → [4,6,4,4,2] = (1)
5d6.hits(5)=1

Resist:
5 successes at 9P vs. half their armor.

[Ingo Monk]

Eric continues trying to take control of the APC

Hack on the fly + Extended test vs. target's firewall
Hacking 5 + Exploit 4 = 9
9d6.hits(5) → [3,1,6,1,1,3,4,1,2] = (1)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3652244/

Oh God!  One more 1 and that would have been a glitch!  Invisible Castle doesn't seem to like me much lately.

[kv]

"When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply  jake, then you're frightened of death."
 - Marilyn Monroe

Round 2.3
Scarlet: 16 @ 3 passes – reload, maybe move to cover
Sly: 15 @ 3 passes – call to his buddy, tell him to take cover.
Galbraith: 15 @ 3 passes – take a shot, drop gun and run for bag
Dubois: 15 @ 3 passes (VR) – continue hacking node
Red Samurai: 12 @ 3 passses - Enter, Stage Left.
Kinsey: 12 @ 3 passes  - Ready Counterspell, astral perception

This is just the resolution of already posted actions for Round 2.3; all new actions come toward the bottom of this post.

Scarlet

Scarlet drops her half-empty mag into a pocket as she slides a fresh mag into her assault rifle, keeping her head down as she moves toward cover. That back counter is becoming a target-rich environment, as it's known, so she heads toward the only other bit of cover she's seen- the bathroom doorframe.

Kicking open the ladies' room door, Scarlet takes a knee and trains her muzzle on the opening, knowing that something bad is about to come through that hole.

Scarlet aims to make them regret that decision.

Sly

The trained professionals are hopelessly outclassed in this fight- if they just had to deal with the thugs Rastire brought in, they would have been outclassed- but these are Red Samurai. They believe that they're already dead and that only through combat and death can they find meaning and life. That's some philosophically heavy drek.

Calling out to Roger doesn't do much- either he's hard of hearing with all the shooting and explosions, or he's a little slow, but eventually he gets the jist of Sly's message: 'Get behind cover,' and wanders over to crouch slightly behind the exterminator with his taser out.

Galbraith

The APC roaring down the alleyway toward you is no joke- it's a seriously armored vehicle, and as Galbraith holds his weapon ready and carefully fires at the turret, what's possibly the weakest part of the armor, the shot simple bounces off, punching a hole in the plascrete of the alley walls in the near-blackness.

The APC is running Renraku AROs on the outside, including a feed that makes you feel the sea breeze of eastern Japan on your face as you stare toward the rising sun and think tranquil thoughts- there's no way a feel that Better than Life is legal, and generally frowned upon in polite company.

As the shot bounces off, it's clear that you'll need to upgrade your arsenal for something that packs a little more punch. The doors are cracking as Galbraith takes three steps, putting him at the corner where the hacker is napping, and he drop the Remington next to the bag as he searches through the bag for the sniper rifle

Dubois

The node is designed in a tea house setup, an oversized moon reflected in a pond rippling from the slight breeze as cherry blossoms fall onto the surface of the water.

Finding the node is no problem- it's pumping out static on every frequency that it can, and pumping out company doctrine as fast and hot as it can to the passerby, as well as giving the bird to the ZDF who doubtless want to come in and make a crater out of this thing- Ghostwalker is going to be pissed when he hears about this little incident.

Kinsey

Kinsey watches as the human-deprived auras quickly approach the McHughs, trying to get a read on what cyberwear they have: a lot; and where they have it installed: pretty much everywhere.

The good thing about a refrigerator is that they don't have a lot of will when it comes to resisting mana burn.

"The solution of every problem is another problem"   
 - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Edit: Continued 4-SEP-2012

Round 3.1
Scarlet: 16 @ 3 passes – From cover, lay down cover fire*
Sly: 15 @ 3 passes – Shootzor someone's face off
Galbraith: 15 @ 3 passes – Swap for sniper rifle
Dubois: 15 @ 3 passes (VR) – continue hacking node
Red Samurai: 12 @ 3 passses - Enter, Stage Left.
Kinsey: 12 @ 3 passes  - Magikzor someone's face off

Scarlet lays down cover fire (Suppresive Fire, SR4A pg 154)
17d6 per Yogi's previous post, minus some modifiers: http://www.jackpoint.net/sheets/ranged.modifiers.html
Attacker Running (-2), Target has good cover (-4), Attacker firing from cover (-1), Attacker Firing in near darkness with thermographic vision (-2) = 17-9 dice = 8 dice
8d6.hits(5) → [2,2,2,3,2,1,1,5] = (1)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3682797/

From the door of the woman's rest room, Scarlet shouts at everyone to stay clear of the opening, and lays off a chatter of machine gun fire, not aiming at anything in particular, but spraying bullets and praying someone is stupid enough to stick their heads out.

Anyone stupid enough to be out in the line of fire better be smart enough to keep their heads down or armored like a tank.

Sly shoots at the mook- who gets a chance to dodge before the attack hits.
Red Samurai Leader: Dodge (4) + Reaction (5) Armor penalty -1 = 8 (let's say +1 for Ruski firing from cover, +4 for his own good cover)
13d6.hits(5) → [6,1,4,1,1,6,6,1,2,6,1,5,1] = (5)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3682803/
I'll give it to Ruski, even though ties are supposed to go to defender, because Ruski used a point of Edge.
Ooh, almost a glitch on the RedSamurai's part, too. One more 1 would have gone very badly for him.

Anyway, Damage resistance -1/2 impact armor
Bod (4) + Impact Armor (10 *.5=5) = 9
He's going to waste his professional pool on this; +5 dice = 14 (he really doesn't want to die in round 1)
14d6.hitsopen(5,6) → [4,4,[6, 1],3,4,1,[6, 5],4,2,1,3,4,5,2] = (4)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3682806/
Red Samurai Lieutenant takes 5 boxes of physical damage (ouch), even with all his armor and training.

With a quiet hum indicating that the capacitor has fully charged and is prepared to discharge, Sly takes aim at the opening, waiting for the first red samurai to show him anything worth hitting. In this case, one of the mooks sticks his head up and surveys the entry point briefly, only to catch laser in the face.

It's a glancing blow, but a glancing blow on someone's face with a weapon that cuts through armor like soy-kheez still does a lot of damage. It's hard to tell what exactly got hit, but if the man's howl of pain is any indicator, it got him good. Maybe burned out one eye and half of his face.

Galbraith

With Scarlet's gun barking ammo in the general direction of the hole, and the flash of a heat laser, Galbraith is probably happy that he has his back turned, swapping out weapons and preparing for one hell of a fight to come. You're not really sure why, but it brings a smile to your face when the immortal and untouchable Red Samurai howls like a kid being beaten in public after the laser show.

Also, apparently the exterminator with the positron accelerator isn't someone to piss off.

I'm going to say that two successes isn't enough to crack the node.

The node appears to have been lovingly sculpted by some hacker with a japanese fetish; everything is dripping with corporate irony in a way that can't actually be intentional. You feel like sending an image scan to the dumpshock crew, so they can get a good laugh at it. 

Dubois' second attempt to crack the patterning of the japanese code results in a system blip, a red alert that probably signals whoever is here to come do something about the intruder.

Fortunately for you, they're too lazy to run over here themselves right away. Unfortunately for you, this node is loaded with baby swarm IC.

The Red Samurai turn:

Two grenades toss through the hole, each one designed to do who knows what.
You have a split second to react.

We'll give Kinsey a chance to save that roll, and save his bacon this round, if he (or Bull) wants to. If he chooses to forgo the attempt to take full cover behind the counter, the grenades go off at the start of the next combat pass

[kv]

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark."
- Francis Bacon

The two grenades spin through the opening, one landing significantly inside the building, the other dropping just inside the rough aperture. There's no knowing what the grenades will do.

Okay, so I still need to know what Kinsey's action is for Round 3.1, and I need Round 3.2 actions for everyone;

Ingo, Eric is in the 'waiting room' of the node, where the system has loaded IC (Baby Swarm- Unwired, sample IC, pg 70) to deal with an intruder who doesn't even attempt stealth.

Bull, I still have no idea what you want Kinsey to do. Run away? Throw the spell? I'll let it land, even though there's no valid target yet, because we're all still learning the rules and how to function in PBP.

Galbraith- I'm assuming the shooting action is delayed until there's actually someone to shoot at?

Yogi, are you there at all? Picinic baskets are going unpilfered! The travesty!

Ruski, you keep doing what you're doing.

[bull30548]

The clink clink and sound of really large spinning coins makes Kinsey forgo valor and run like hell.  Praying the whole way he doesn't just get shot in the back or the face by laser boy over there.

OOC: Yeah I seek cover quickly though ironically I don't think it breaks my counterspelling at all.  Oh and did a resamurai only I had a good angle on go ouchouch my head and fall over dead or is it still a full unit (ok maybe four guys and a headless one).

[Ingo Monk]

Continuing the hack.  I don't think I would have notice the clinking on the ground next to me since my senses are otherwise preoccupied.

Hack on the fly + Extended test vs. target's firewall
Hacking 5 + Exploit 4 = 9
9d6.hits(5) → [3,4,1,6,6,2,2,4,6] = (3)
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3684612/

Much better this time!

[Bullet Sponge]

Grenades?!?! Then why are they still walking in the door.....? Obviously, they want something or someone in here. 'Specially since the building is still standing. SOP would be to disable as many folk as quickly as possible without destroying their target. Means those grenades gotta' be flashbangs. I'm betting my life that they aren't the type to go off book.

Free Action: Activate Low-Light Vision
Simple Action: Aim for that thin spot in the helmet right over the eye. (Preferably the same RedSam that got lit up.)
Simple Action: Fire
Free Action: Activate Flare Compensators & Sound Dampeners

Agil 7 + Longarms 4 + Smartgun 2 + Aiming 1 - Vulnerable spot 4 = 10d
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3686064/
10d6.hits(5) → [2,3,5,6,6,4,3,3,2,2] = (3)

Extra Free Action: Pucker up TIGHT and hope I'm right!

[bull30548]

Slipping the fiberoptic down to avoid shrapnel or bright flash if the grenades are flash bangs. Pointing it at the wall  so that I can push it back over the counter very quickly.