[Solo Game/PF] Gatebreaker Agency

[FrightKnight0]

Today was an ordinary day for Warren Murdock. He'd woken up, performed his morning ablutions, dressed, and set off for work. The subway was as cramped as usual for a weekday morning in New York, stuffed to the gills with businesspeople, teens heading to summer jobs, and all manner of tourist. However, among all of these myriad individuals, one caught Warren's eye in particular. Dressed in a lab coat, the man's black hair and expression were both wild. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, and his hand never left his briefcase, which he clutched in a white-knuckled grip. He seemed overstimulated by the train, like he was trying to watch everyone at once, his fingers drumming on the side of the briefcase as his eyes darted back and forth in the sardine can of a train car.

Suddenly, the train shuddered and shook. People who were standing were thrown to the ground, Warren included, as the vehicle bucked wildly, derailing. The dim light of the tunnel outside shifted and took on a hellish red tone. Hundreds of people started screaming in panic as the train car descended, its occupants experiencing a moment of weightlessness before-

CRASH!

Warran awoke, pushing himself off the ground with his right hand.

His formerly missing right hand.

The train car seemed relatively intact and even the right way up. Its occupants were unconscious, with blood staining random surfaces where they'd been dashed about by the impact. The man in the lab coat's brief case had been shattered, the edges glowing bright blue and throwing off what looked like azure campfire sparks. You can hear movement outside, not directly outside this train car but in the general area, something big and lumbering, stomping and dragging its feet in the middle distance.

What do you do?

Spoiler: OOC

Show

You've got all your character abilities and have automatically shaped your veils for the day. More detail will be uncovered as you investigate the scene. Make whatever rolls you'd like to make to get info on what's happening around you. The government has done a pretty good job keeping the Gates under wraps, so you have no idea what's actually going on here. Wild mass guessing IC is encouraged.

OOC Thread

[beholderkin]

Indecision paralyzed Warren for a moment. Too many things were happening that demanded his attention. He somehow had his missing arm back. The train had derailed and he was trapped in the subway. There were injured people all around him. there was something outside that did not sound like help arriving. For a moment, he just sat there, bombarded with choices.

After the initial shock, however, his brain started shutting down the panic. That cold feeling he got when he felt something bad was about to happen and that there was nothing he could do to prevent it...so why worry about it? Worry about mitigation and response instead. He'd originally felt that feeling on his first roller coaster. It was always the same - an instant burst of panic followed by cold acceptance and an unnatural calm. It had happened several times over the years since, like when falling off a ladder and calmly going limp, allowing him to walk away without injury. The most notable time was when he had lost most of his arm in the accident, and tied off the stump with a belt and calmly called 911, which saved his life. When he asked about it in the hospital during recovery, the doctor's said that cold feeling was the surge of adrenaline triggered by his 'flight-or-fight response', and that it was just his brain's way of using that chemical - suppressing emotion, facilitating quick rational and logical thought processes.

Thoughts clearing, his brain immediately sifted through priorities. As much as he wanted to investigate the use of an arm that shouldn't exist it was ultimately not relevant to his own immediate safety at the moment. What the hell was those blue sparks coming off that creeper's broken briefcase - was it a laptop with a custom case, maybe? He could start providing the barest hints of first aid for himself or others, but that should come after ensuring immediate safety. Concerned that the noises outside might be the echoes of another subway far, the noises seemed the most pressing concern, so that is what he chose to see to first.

Climbing to his feet, making sure he wasn't bleeding heavily anywhere or had any visible holes in him, he cautiously made his way through the tangle of people and debris to the nearest accessible emergency exit, determined to investigate the noises and assess the scene from the outside. After all, something had caused the train to derail, and finding out what exactly that reason was should be on the list of priorities somewhere too, he thought. He gives the train car one last scan before trying the exit, gathering information visually as best he could. Since he was about to move away from passengers, he decides to grab the guy's weirdly sparking briefcase too as an afterthought, if only to drop outside away from people where an exploding battery wouldn't cause much damage.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Perception (Spot/Search): (1d20+9)[17]

[FrightKnight0]

As Warren's hand closed around the handle of the ruined briefcase, he felt his arm warm up in response. Looking down at it, he'd see glowing blue lines beneath the surface of his skin, pulsing in time with the blue sparks coming off of the empty container. Aside from that, his body appeared to be in great shape. Better than great, even, he hadn't been in this good of shape for years! His clothes were a little loose on his slimmer body, though a quick tightening of his belt fixed that issue for the moment, and he'd acted without thinking, grabbing the briefcase in his newly regrown hand.

The calmness that settled over the man was about to be sorely tested, though. Looking out the window revealed, not a subway tunnel, but a blasted red plain that seemed to go on for miles, dotted with large spires of rock like jagged teeth, geysers of fire shooting up into the sky, and the shadow of some great, lumbering beast in the distance, its steps matching the grating, shuffling noises that Warren was hearing. Multicolored creatures with wings flew between spires of rock, eying the derailed train car with curiosity but, for the moment, not daring to approach. Testing the train door, Warren found it jammed shut. He could try to force it open, or focus on the other passengers for the moment.

[beholderkin]

Gazing out the window, Warren's numbed mind drew a blank. "Ah. So...we died, and went to hell. That...um...sucks." Glancing at his arm holding the broken briefcase, he snorts, "That kind of explains the arm. Gotta be nice and healthy to be properly tortured, I guess," he muttered. He vaguely remembered something being said along those lines in The Princess Bride, but he pushed the idle thought aside as irrelevant for now.

Turning his attention to the busted Briefcase glowing, and then to his new arm, seemingly glowing with the same light. Furrowing his brow, he wasn't sure what to do with it, with the doors stuck. Well, if it exploded, it exploded. It seemed he might already be in hell, so oh well. Setting it down, he eyes the injured crowd. Eyes latching on the guy in the lab coat, he smirked, "Gotta start somewhere. Might as well start with the guy who might know if we have a potential bomb on board."

Making his way to the man in a lab coat, he checks him over for injuries, recalling high school health class and various half-remembered HR Safety & First Aid training videos he'd had to suffer through.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Show

(Untrained) Heal Check: (1d20+5)[18]

[FrightKnight0]

As Warren lifts the briefcase off the ground, it starts to fall apart, the blue light inside appearing to be radiating from the edges of the hole in the front and nowhere else. Whatever was in here, it's not in here anymore. The sounds of skittering made themselves known as a number of small creatures landed on the roof of the train car, claws scraping dully against metal but finding no purchase in the steel for the time being. Moving quickly, Warren knelt down by the unconscious man in the lab coat and attempted to check his vitals.

As he focused his intent, his newly replaced arm began to glow with the same blue light as the ruined briefcase. Light blue lines spread across the corners of his vision, before the words "M.E.G.A. System Initializing" dominated his vision for a brief handful of seconds. After just enough time for his brain to process the words, they disappeared, replaced with some kind of video game-like H.U.D. displaying his pulse in the bottom left of his eyes. A window appeared as he touched the man in the lab coat, displaying an EKG readout with his pulse and an annotation; "Status: Unconscious, Breathing, Heart Rate Normal."

If Warren caught sight of his own reflection, he'd notice his eyes glowing the same luminescent blue as his arm, lines reminiscent of circuits spreading throughout his body from the shoulder of the new limb.

[beholderkin]

Eying his arm once again, his eyes catch a glimpse of something and turn to even more eerie lights, but he sees the source was his own now-glowing eyes in the distorted reflection of a stainless steel handle bar connecting the end of one seat to the top of the train car. Feeling the calm of his mind shake slightly at the rapid influx of new information - all of it disturbing - he takes a deep breath and shakes his glowing hand away from the rapidly deteriorating remains of the case. M.E.G.A. System? He glances out the window again at the hellish landscape. More like Mega Screwed.

Looking at the man in the labcoat again, he sighs. Well, now that the problem of the potentially dangerous case solved itself, he didn't think forcibly waking someone up who would undoubtedly start making noise was a good idea. He didn't want to motivate whatever was making the sounds he heard coming from the roof by drawing even more attention to the interior of the train car. Not knowing what it was, but getting a very bad idea of what it might be from the hellish landscape he saw outside, he didn't imagine that whatever was making the sound had good intentions. I need a weapon. glancing around at the fallen passengers, he wanders if any of them were packing heat. I mean...this is 'Murica. Couldn't hurt to check. Decision made, he decides to start patting down the fallen passengers, and begins looking for people that look like either cops or criminals as likely first places to check.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Show

Perception: (1d20+11)[26]

[FrightKnight0]

As Warren moves to check the other passengers for weapons, two things happen. First, the same kind of transparent blue overlay appears on four people in the train, red outlines highlighting four different handguns and two knives distributed between them. Secondly, a pair of shimmering blue crystals appear hovering near his hands, gleaming with a light that seemed to come from inside them, following the motions of his fingers in a way that intuitively makes sense to him. A glance up at the roof reveals more red highlights, concentric rings highlighting the location every time one of the creatures on the roof takes a step, a visual representation of the sound. He could probably aim at them like this, though not perfectly. As best he can tell, there are four of whatever the things are on the roof, and he has no idea if there are any more in the air.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Show

I'm gonna say you can throw ranged attacks with your crystals or one of the guns through the train roof with a 50% miss chance, with that perception check.

[beholderkin]

Briefly checking the four people his vision highlighted with the outlines of weapons to see if they looked like obvious criminals, even as his mind goes cold at the influx of even more strange information. Deciding that he'd relieve anyone that look like they'd become a problem when they woke up of anything they would cause even more panic with.

Glancing at the roof and the highlighted pings of light coming alive in his vision, he instinctively flexes his will...and the four hovering blue crystals seemed to vibrate in the air without sound and each shot a beam of that same strange blue light towards four seperate places where the ping of sounds on the roof he'd focused on as if they were high-intensity blue laser pointers.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Show

Note: As the Crystals of Radiance are being used as his Veil Knife, they are automaticalls 'Bound' in whichever slot he choses (Headband), but do not take up the headband slot for the purposes of using other Veils. This means he benefits from all the enhanced benefits of the 'Headband' Bind, including the increased limit of 4 crystals instead of 2.

While having multiple crystals in effect, he gains the benefit of multiweapon fighting feat (but only in regards to the crystals), allowing him to attack with all four at a -4 penalty for each attack.

Full Round Attack:

1. Crystals of Radiance Attack vs Touch AC: (1d20+6)[24] doing (2d6+2)[14] damage* if successful. (50% Miss Chance: (1d100)[90])
2. Crystals of Radiance Attack vs Touch AC: (1d20+6)[20] doing (2d6+2)[10] damage* if successful. (50% Miss Chance: (1d100)[35])
3. Crystals of Radiance Attack vs Touch AC: (1d20+6)[15] doing (2d6+2)[14] damage* if successful. (50% Miss Chance: (1d100)[83])
4. Crystals of Radiance Attack vs Touch AC: (1d20+6)[20] doing (2d6+2)[11] damage* if successful. (50% Miss Chance: (1d100)[69])

Immediate Action: 'Unfolding' the Machinist's Powered Armor if percieving an incoming attack (but only in such case - otherwise it stays 'folded away').

Damage*: "Half of the damage dealt by your crystals is either treated as fire damage or untyped damage that bypasses any damage reduction, resistances, or immunities, whichever would be more beneficial to you. For example: If your target is vulnerable to fire damage all of the damage dealt by the creature would count as fire, but if they were immune or resistant half of the damage would be untyped."


Warren Murdock
Male C/N Human - Veilknife 3 // Integrator 2 / Circuitbreaker 1, Level 3, Init 3, HP 36/36, Speed 30'
AC 25, Touch 14, Flat-footed 22, CMD 17, Fort 6, Ref 7, Will 9, CMB +3, Base Attack Bonus +3, PP 4/4 , BE 0/5
Nano-Construct: [Bound] +1 Crystals of Radiance (+2 Bioenergy) +10 or +6/+6/+6/+6 (2d6+2, 19-20/x2, 50')
Nano-Construct: +1 'Dagger' (+1 Bioenergy) +8 (1d4+2, 19-20/x2)
Nano-Construct: +1 Machinist's Powered Armor (+10 Armor, +3 Dex, +1 Natural, +1 Deflect)
Abilities Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 20, Cha 7
Condition Awake, Alert, Psionically Focused, Fast Healing 2

Spoiler: Nano-Constructs (Veils) Shaped

Show

• Crystals of Radiance [Bound: H̶e̶a̶d̶b̶a̶n̶d̶]
• Barrier Belt [Belt]
• Eyes of the Hawkguard [Headband]
• Machinist's Powered Armor [Shoulders]
• Chef's Armory [Hands]