[ERF] Primer Games

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Insano-Man
Administrator

I could not have asked for more, but more time.

Posts: 810

[ERF] Primer Games Sept 17, 2018 14:30:26 GMT -5

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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 17, 2018 14:30:26 GMT -5

START IT UP
The primer games are a series of basic stories and campaign concepts with scaling scopes. Their intent is to provide a quick introduction to Erfbound's setting and allow players to get into the groove of playing it out. A primer game can be called to action at any time, for any reason, by anyone in the setting, but only one can be active at any given time. Primer games are listed and carried out on Erfbound's Discord server. Be sure to pop in if you want to see what they're all about!

The following is a list of all active and concluded primer games, with their original pitches, resolution summaries, and game logs included. This list will be updated as more primer games are started and finished.

If there are no cars left to drive, why shouldn't I walk in the street?

Insano-Man
Administrator

I could not have asked for more, but more time.

Posts: 810

[ERF] Primer Games Sept 17, 2018 14:34:56 GMT -5

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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 17, 2018 14:34:56 GMT -5

RETURN TO CASTLE WIENERSTEIN
Status: Finished, on June 8th, 2018.
Started: April 9th, 2018
Participants:

Insano-Man, as host and narrator
CouchPotato360, as Jon Wolfgang Henschel
Saebelorn, as Detlef Mullane
Snivs, as Foedus
Silverwing, as Oz and a glass siren
Prejudice, as Nadezdha T. Nimitz
Katherine, as Lucia nox Floriana and Charlie Ahern
Britton, as the extraction shuttle crew and escort pilot

Concept:
A week ago, Colonel Dennis Morris, the "Duke of Sausage", ordered an all-out offensive against the Cult enclave of Crimson Keep, deep in the Crimson Expanse. The operation was a resounding success; the Keep was destroyed, the cultists scattered, and casualties were limited all around. There's just one problem. You're still there.

The team must trek across the continent of Talto in an attempt to return to the Duke's fortress, the infamous Castle Wienerstein. Along the way, you will meet many meat monsters and crazed cultists. They will try to murder you. Don't let them. Terrible things will happen to you if you let them. Along the way, you'll have support from orbital artillery, likeminded Loonies, and a whole lot of chaos.

Conclusion:
Crimson Keep was destroyed by way of a garbage hauler liberally flung at the Cult stronghold. The hauler arrived thanks chiefly to the team of Entry Delta, led by Looney sergeant Jon Henschel and assisted by the Space Looney paleworlder Foedus. The team was cut off from extraction and support by a meat tornado in the region. They were forced to evacuate on foot - while still being pelted with meat. Soon after, they discovered a Looney IFV left behind. The half-track was commandeered, the team exfiltrated, and the monsters left hungry.

The adventure didn't end there. There was still a hike across a meatscape to cover. In that time, Lucia disappeared, only for Charlie Ahern of Decoy Charlie to take her place. A Cult sermon was overheard during her extraction, providing unusual insight into some of the Cult's goings-on; whispered names, brazen lunatics, and viscous revelations. As the team went along, they met many meat monsters. The team was not murdered. They instead went on to pulverize a Cult position and knock out a small armored convoy. Extraction followed - under increasingly desperate odds.

Space Loonies pulled the team up and deposited them aboard a frigate in orbit. The landed Loonies and their mercenary companion soon bounced back down to Castle Wienerstein. In the end, the operation was a resounding success. The Keep was destroyed, the cultists were scattered, and casualties were limited all around. The team was debriefed, commended, and sent along their way. All in all, Operation Dumpster Drop was quick, to the point, and a tidy victory.

Character Resolutions:
- Jon Wolfgang Henschel

After getting the surgical procedures he needed (which were relatively comprehensive) Jon was back home in no time. The return party was truly where he could unwind, even if he wasn't the most outwardly social person, upon getting himself as drunk as humanly possible he was actually a very personable soldier. Laughing, joking, smiling, shouting without it being orders, he had a good time. Having no direct deaths under his command was also a particular point of pride, they did their job and everyone he could bring made it to their homes too. With everything that just occurred seeming like a sleep-deprived blur, the debrief was a tad hard for the Sergeant. He had since cleaned himself up and put on a presentable display for his peers, but anyone looking at him could tell he was slightly hungover and feeling the aches from that op.

Not only was he fortunate enough to experience the celebration post-op, but he was also honoured with a brief ceremony for the granting of commendations. He may have been humble and arguably mellow about the whole thing, there was a glint of pride in his eyes. His extra spending money was put to good use as well, as good as he could given the brief period of time had.

When things returned to normal and he was back on patrol, nothing noteworthy happened with Jon. Not until he was handpicked for another journey abroad anyhow, except this time he was leaving the continent. Help was needed elsewhere and ultimately Jon was selected as a worthy candidate to mediate on some Looney-alien affairs for another bunker, the Robar Command Post. With a quick brief on what he was doing, he had little choice but to comply and made his necessary preparations for a departure. At the very least, he might have had a semi-familiar tagalong, but only time will tell.

- Detlef Mullane

Detlef had taken the ride home stoically, having done a pretty good job - possibly even in his own eyes. He'd borne the celebrations well enough, and the medical examinations, having the visage of a statue being adorned by party hats and sutures both. While it wasn't entirely clear what the extend of his wound was, he hadn't been turned into a meat creature and at any rate people figured he was basically exactly the same as he'd arrived.

Despite his complaints to remain at Wienerstein to continue in anti-meat operations (just ones at the border rather than any further deep-strikes), he was packed and ready to go. When he left, nobody noticed a ship leave. Did he use the MASTER system on his way home? Whatever the case, Fort Fugue was one gun stronger some time afterward, after reports came on of his safe return. A meat-veteran of such a calibre would be especially useful to the region, only just considering the possibility of rogue meats wandering in from the west unwanted.

- Nadezdha T. Nimitz

Nadezdha had quickly disappeared after the mission had ended, sequestering herself in the first available bunk and sleeping through most of the proceeding hours. Nobody would hear much from her, until such a time came when someone finally may have gotten worried, and come to check on her. What they would have found was an empty, neatly kept and tidied room with no trace of the medical officer. Records would show she had woken up and done her routine in the earliest hours of the morning, slipping out quietly to parts unknown. The last anyone had heard, she'd intended to return to Set, perhaps for a less strenuous job opportunity.

Regardless, Nadezdha had followed procedure and left the others without so much as a goodbye - although she had left what equated to a digital business card, should anyone need her services. But who knows when that would be? It was difficult to say, when it came to the strangely distant medic.

- Charlie Ahern

The fairly familiar tagalong Jon had was Charlie.

Engineers of Charlie's skill were in high demand, and as such being moved from bunker to bunker wasn't uncommon for her. She would be sent to one bunker to get it into proper shape, teach some of the less-skilled engineers, and then be routed to yet another bunker. At times she would go back to her home bunker, because in the end that was where her loyalty ultimately lie, but the prospect of traveling was refreshing. Even in the case of Castle Weinerstein, she had volunteered to be part of the team that set up some of the FOBs, and her time spent with the crew was largely happenstance. For the most part, she had been away from any celebrations taking place for her own reasons. It could have been because she believed she didn't really do much, but it was also partially because she wanted to turn over the evidence she recorded on her drone to those who would be able to do more with it... and maybe make a copy or two for herself.

Afterwards, she had boarded the same shuttle bound for the Robar Command Post to fill her role of engineer and trainer to make sure those at the bunker could maintain things themselves. There was always another bunker to go to, and more times for her to do what she particularly enjoyed the most: her field of expertise. Maybe she would even bump into Jon during the ride there, and have her first time experiencing what it felt like to have a friendly(?), familiar face around.

- Foedus

With his adventure on Set's surface having drawn to a close, Foedus decided it was time to head back home. And for him, that meant up in high orbit, at the Hetzer Quarry. For better or for worse, he had also invited Oz to come with him. Some would've called it a strange choice, and they would be correct. With the careful, cautious, and judgemental Space Looney attitude that floated around up there, it seemed Foedus would have to call on some favors to allow for Oz to take up residence there - not that he minded. Perhaps (and this was the dominating rumor among any who had heard) it was a sense of kinship that tied these two together. Neither of them seemed to harbor the implicit racial bias that was so prevalent elsewhere. No words had really been exchanged about the matter, yet it was clear to both of them that they felt the same way.

Yet something in Foedus was not content with sitting still. The feeling welled up the strongest whenever he neared any of the windows and could see the planet below. There was something about their excursion that had been worth it. It was a quiet kind of thrill. There were questions aplenty down below, and if he was lucky, some answers, and he was anxious to get either.

- Oz

Oz, the robot who had been literally dropped into the graces of the arrival team decided to drop out as suddenly as it had arrived. The monotone droid truthfully had zero sense of personal direction and eventually decided to follow the party member with the most similar view of the world, Foedus. Oz hadn't even asked Foedus if it could come, only following the paleworlder around like a lost dog until they were brought along on the ride. Oz had a big tendency to vanish into history and situations around it, and that's what it did. The robot had taken up permanent residence in the quietness of space and faded into obscurity even among those it worked along.

Last Edit: Dec 2, 2018 5:15:41 GMT -5 by Insano-Man

If there are no cars left to drive, why shouldn't I walk in the street?

Insano-Man
Administrator

I could not have asked for more, but more time.

Posts: 810

[ERF] Primer Games Sept 17, 2018 14:40:40 GMT -5

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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 17, 2018 14:40:40 GMT -5

RUMBLE IN THE URBAN JUNGLE
Status: Finished, on January 3rd, 2019.
Started: June 25th, 2018
Participants:

Insano-Man, as host, narrator, and...
- Jimmy!
- Pedro Fives
- Raki'Sakazzah
- Ves'Narun nes'ara Drassa
- The Dough Man
- Amin'Solah ki Westbridge nes'ara Wyvernkeep
- The Ratter
- The Catter
- An android representative of Gregor Chuikov
- ...and various goons, clones, rats, and freaks.
Saebelorn, as guest game master and Ironbrains
Britton, as Xavier Warren
Clarity, as Allie Markell
Cot of Confusion, as Finnigan Waterpipe and Gillium
CouchPotato360, as Jon Wolfgang Henschel
Coolguy, as Ashton Winters
Icesinithol, as Huang Xing La
Katherine, as Charlie Ahern and Emilia Cortez
Prejudice, as Nadezdha Nimitz
Rovolloth, as Valadile
Silverwing, as Areres Kimp

Concept:
The enigmatic and just-a-bit-too-energetic Jimmy has asked your sorry lot- err, merry band of misfits to help clear the way to...something. He's not exactly been clear about all this. He's also threatening to kill you if you don't listen to him. You should take it under consideration. He is, however, willing to pay you if you pull it off. Quite a bit, actually.

He's also given you liberty to tackle the objective however you please. Expect to fight a lot of clones, a decent chunk of goons, and a few hackers. Expect to go down quite a ways to get there. Expect things to get weird before you're done. And be ready to grease a few palms and smooth-talk a few henchmen.

Conclusion:
The job was simple. Jimmy needed a crew to find a corpse. The target of the assignment was Raki'Sakazzah, long-dead mastermind of the long-dead Fair Hand. A redworlder, a cyborg, and - so far as the city was concerned - a pile of S&C-stamped ashes. It was something other mercs - local city help - had all failed to do. To that end, Cloneston's clone prince called up as many foreigners and outside help as he could find. Space Loonies, out-city mercs, and even a quasi-kidnapped crew of Loonies. It all started out on the Raffemaster Industrial Plate, the same place Raki was claimed to have been cremated. Things were already weird.

To get around the city without a speeding ticket, the team sought the services of a clone district commissioner on newly-acquired Jimmy turf. A tram-line interception and an arrest later, they found him. Commissioner Ironbrains was the man of the operation. To secure his services, the team needed to assist him with a gang bust. It went about the way any local could've expected; it was a massed clone assault on a slum over a few petty offenses. Gang survivors were slim. Justice was served with a side of collateral. The commissioner was on the team.

The next part of the plan was to track down Ves'Narun, cousin to Raki and one of the Fair Hand's best scouts before it burned up. She'd gone back to her old merc gig - which meant being as impossible to find as she could manage. To find her, the team caught a ride to her hometown; the redworlder holdout of the Drassa Enclave. The first idea was to knock on her door and hope she was home. What happened instead was a break-in of her apartment in the rich part of the city. It was nothing short of a miracle that no one ended up in Self-Defense Committee custody - especially after Jimmy and Pedro set the outskirts of the Enclave on fire.

The intel swiped from Ves's place pointed off to the Exeter Utilities tower, off in Chuikov's turf. The place was an S&C setup on Ves; low-level grunts were swarming the place, with a few already dead in a killzone. Ves was nowhere to be seen. The team made a quick infiltration on a bogus claim as a work crew. That accelerated quick into shots and screaming. In the end, the S&C mercs turned up dead, and Ves popped out of a convenient sewage pipe. She wasn't exactly pleased to meet them, but she was on the crew. The whole incident was set to go down in history as the Exeter Massacre - and the team wasn't done yet.

The next target of the operation was Ezimat nes Zak, Raki's right hand and monster muscle. Finding him was all about following the blood; the team had to look in the undercity, for mangled mutant marauders that might've run into the Dough Man. A slaughter presented itself at the Douglas Fineberg Plaza, which led further on to the Baldwin Tower. A mutant bash, a few near-death experiences, and a stolen cat later, and the team was gifted with the Dough Man. Soon enough, the nights on the Tombstone Plate were filled with his squelches.

The team moved on next to nab Amin'Solah, Ves's half-sister, Raki's cousin, and one of the Fair Hand's best hackers. The big trouble was that she was cooped up in Wyvernkeep, Cloneston's center of smut. Amin was lucky enough to be one of Damsel's cybersecurity specialists - which meant the team had to figure out how to get to the top of the tower. To do that, they posed as representatives for a high-profile client in orbit. That got them up. Getting out was another story. It started off first with a strangling incident between Ironbrains and Amin. It ended with a drawn-out shootout that nearly killed half the team. The city remembers it now as the Lion's Den Breakout - one of the biggest heists ever pulled on Damsel turf.

After that, it was all about the hunt. The crew deployed in force to scout out all of Raki's potential hideouts. Ironbrains pulled together the Gorralad Lockdown in that time. Jimmy and Amin stirred up trouble all over the web. Slowly, the puzzle came together; someone with the Fishbowl's flair was out there and grabbing assets. They were pulling together a network of contacts and processing power for something. A couple of weeks later, the last piece went in. TransUrban TeleComms was the center of it all - and S&C was already on the scene.

Jimmy pulled together a small army for the job. The crew shipped out in full force. S&C brought in reinforcements and escalated. Even Beth showed up to the party with a small squad of mercs. It was chaos in its purest. The team moved from the tram station to the half-finished top, with Jimmy holding the door behind them. A gunship strike knocked down Ves around the time the team got to the roof. Not long after, a fight broke out with a Chuikov android and his escorts. Right there in the last room was Raki'Sakazzah and his own team of mercs, ready to pull off another last stand. Instead, with the crew's help, he was out the door and back to the RIP just like he'd done two years prior. The tower came down behind them. The job was done.

Most people on the crew survived the whole trip. They pulled up their earnings, pulled out of the Tombstone Plate, and went back to their lives. Most of them went elsewhere - to orbit, the wastelands, or to bigger and better jobs out across the globe. Not many stayed in touch. The team never had a name, but the city remembered what they'd done as the Cross-Cloneston Rampage. They'd made names for themselves. They'd bested some of the best in the city. They'd set the stage for the return of one of the city's top alien masterminds - and laid the table for the Cross-Cloneston Crackdown.

Character Resolutions:
- Jimmy

Jimmy's plan went beyond the Fishbowl. He had a scheme for something dark, dangerous, and deep into the city. It was a few weeks after the last member of the team had left the safehouse that he launched into a raid against Beth. It was a strike at the senator he hated the most, in the place where it'd hurt the most; the Restricted Residence Zone, up in the north.

The RRZ was a mess of mystery, packed tight with blacksites, research facilities, and spooky abandoned buildings. Beth owned most of the place. Mutants and renegade clones owned the rest. In on the job was most of the city's serious muscle. DuBuon's, the Emptyhearts, the East Breach Kings, Precinct 805, and Raki himself - if they had a name, they were part of the party.

What Jimmy did, no one would talk about. Jimmy said nothing. His crew said nothing. Beth didn't say anything, either. Instead, just a few days later, the first senator launched an assault on Jimmy that made the July Stampede of 1240 look like a kid's show. AVALON Security and just about every private military company jumped up, moved out, and pressed on. No one had any idea why. All that mattered was that Jimmy wasn't welcome anymore.

The force of the offensive brought the clone prince down a few pegs. When Beth jumped in, so did everyone else. S&C hit back for the string of raids he'd carried out. VANDAL saw the movement and started pulling intel for everyone else. Mercs with grudges, hackers with ambition, and clones with parking tickets followed in after. By the end of it all, Jimmy's territory was cut down by half - and what was left was still under siege.

Jimmy lost most of the city, but something strange happened in all that. Somehow, he wound up at the Blue Wall - the Beth-dominated mountain range far off in the southwest from Cloneston. A lightning siege on the Wall's fortresses and cloning plants ended with Cloneston's clown taking over what no other senator had managed to seize. By the end of it all, Jimmy's territory had jumped an ocean - and no one could figure out how.

All things together, it was hard to say Jimmy had prospered from it all. The clone prince has been exiled to the antarctics, to plot his return. He's been beaten, broken, and hurled out of the city like the drunk he is. The fires haven't died yet, but people around the city are calling it the Cross-Cloneston Crackdown. He has his own ambition to blame. It's going to take years to build up what he's lost - decades, more likely. Even if he holds onto the Blue Wall, the city is going to be a tough nut - if he ever finds a way to return at all.

What no one can figure out is the way Jimmy reacted. He's suffered, lost, had his clones and henchmen broken at every turn - and the cocky git is still grinning about the whole thing. Anyone with sense would've called it an awful loss. Jimmy doesn't see it that way. He'd found something, in that dark place. He'd found something big. He's just got to wait until he can put it to use.

- Pedro Fives

Pedro Fives shared in everything Jimmy had. Just as always, he was the clone prince's right-hand man. He didn't share in the black operation that kicked the clown out, but he was there in everything else. He was a fireman across the city, hitting up flashpoints wherever Beth was mobilizing. He was an army by himself, taking down mercs and clones like a force of nature. All that time, he had that same, stupid grin on his face - and a one-liner for every mook in his way.

Pedro was able to manage things that didn't seem possible. By himself, he fought off an S&C siege down in Tobias Freeman Plunge, with goons literally falling from the sky on top of him. He ran one-man decoy operations aimed at keeping the Fishbowl alive in Jimmy's employ. He hit the undercity, the cloud plates in the Uptown Flats, even the wasteland in a gunship crash - and all in just three weeks of non-stop chaos.

Pedro went along with Jimmy in the big raid that took the Blue Wall by storm. It was just the same as Jimmy; one day, Pedro was in Cloneston, the next, he was punching the heads off of Beth clones out in the mountains. There, he was the star player of Jimmy's siege. It was him and his fists that broke Beth's back out in the Blue Wall.

Pedro's future is clouded, but it's anything but mysterious. He's still at the Blue Wall, still bumping fists with Jimmy and his pod brothers, mopping up every last bit of Beth and AVALON still left. One way or another, he's going to be there when Jimmy comes back - and right at the head of the charge. It's just to be seen when and how that'll happen.

- Raki'Sakazzah

Raki'Sakazzah was a dead name for two years. He'd started a gang, gotten it killed, and earned a mixed reputation for skill and treachery once his memory had been buried. When he came back, and his name started getting around, not one thing changed. He was a top merc, a superstar hacker, and a serious provocateur, but the city had forgotten about him. The only people who paid it any mind were the redworlders in the Drassa Enclave - and most were on the fence about the whole "faked death" thing.

What got people talking was what happened up in the Restricted Residence Zone. Raki was part of the league of mercs that hit the place for Jimmy. Supposedly, he was one of the most important people there; the cyberwarrior in charge and the mind master of the major details. What he did up there, he's not saying. What it got him was one of the biggest manhunts in the city.

Beth didn't like aliens. What Beth really didn't like were aliens poking around under the senator's skirt. When Raki came free of the RRZ, he was hounded by every AVALON grunt and Beth clone in the city. If the senator wasn't hitting Jimmy, it was going after the Fishbowl. Drassa saw three major search operations go through its streets in just one week after the RRZ raid. The Self-Defense Committee was just a hair away from starting off its own war against Beth.

All that time, Raki was in hiding. Jimmy was still a good host; he did everything in his power to keep the Fair Hand's mastermind tucked safely away. S&C tried to keep his name from getting out just to avoid the bad press. VANDAL wanted to keep a button-pusher like Raki on the table. Beth never found him. He's stayed in hiding since.

No one knows what the Kalav'Lees's old founder is in for or up to. He's stayed out of the public eye, gone silent as silent can be. Chuikov claims to have killed him at least once every weekend, but a body never turns up. Whether the Fishbowl's biding his time for a comeback, or working out his retirement fund, only two people can say - and the only one that's still at large isn't talking.

- Ves'Narun

Ves'Narun was a big deal for the senators in Cloneston. She was the mercenary nobody knew about, that everybody knew about. She had such a tiny footprint on the day-to-day affairs of most people - hired help included - that only Drassa knew she existed. She was so immensely useful to the major players - contractors, open-minded clones, and senators' agents - that she was one of the first people they called. Hearing about her loss was just the same; the biggest shockwave no one ever felt.

First and foremost, Chuikov claimed credit. It was his to claim, and not a single person in the city was surprised. As per his usual, he never produced a corpse. VANDAL hooked into that right away, and shouted out that it was bunk - which was a break in character no one saw coming. Beth said nothing, but her people silently backed the claim - another oddity for the senator's norm. Even Jimmy had his lips sealed. That was the biggest break of all.

Jimmy was the expressive kind; he mourned the good mercs - or his mercs, at least - and danced on everyone else's graves. With someone like Ves, with a big name and a spot in Jimmy's favor, most people expected a bucket's worth of tears. Instead, he said nothing. Even as his empire was crumbling around him, as Drassa was demanding some kind of explanation, the city's loudest voice said nothing. He didn't confirm it. He didn't deny it. He just did his best to ignore the question.

Drassa's Self-Defense Committee held a funeral when word finally got out through Ves's sister. Amin and Raki weren't there to attend; they were too busy hiding from Beth. Redworlder mercenaries and major contracting houses all had their moments of silence for the Fair Shadow. Even a few undercity mutants were hurt to hear the news. For the ordinary folk in the city at large, no one even noticed the tears.

So little actual information made it out that about half of everyone who knew Ves doesn't believe it. Rumors are flying about where she is and what's happening. Some say she's in hiding with her sister, with Jimmy covering for her. Others say she's having her skin peeled off by Chuikov in a jail somewhere. Uglier rumors say Damsel Center caught her while no one was looking. A handful even say she's finished her life's work; that she made it out of the wasteland for good. The empty casket has done a lot to muddy up the facts.

The wastes never heard about it. The White Hunter is still out there, as far as the mutants and rejects are concerned. Tales about her keep popping up. She's scoured a mutant warband here, broken up a raider convoy there. She's killed a father for dumping his son in the badlands, she's shown a daughter the way to her mother in the scums. Traders even passed on tales that they'd seen her in a few towns, mingling with mutant mercenaries. For Ves's hometown - her real hometown - it's as if she never left for the city in the first place.

- Amin'Solah

Amin'Solah didn't walk away from the job happy. She was paid, looked after, and saw one of her great schemes realized, but none of that mattered. Her sister was dead. She had exactly one relative leftover. She had him to blame for losing just about every member of her family. To top it off, Amin was stuck with him - and with Jimmy.

After Damsel, she had no respect. After Raki, she had no family. After the raid on TransUrban, she had no career opportunities. Chuikov wanted her head on a stick. Damsel wanted the other end on a stick. Beth wanted her off the planet. VANDAL was too shifty to work with; if the price was right, she was going to end up in S&C clamps - or burning to death just to make it a spectacle.

Amin wanted nothing to do with the Fishbowl after it was all over. That didn't change the fact that Jimmy was still her only gig in town. After the TransUrban job, it wasn't about money anymore. It was about staying alive. Without Jimmy, Amin was on her own in a city that didn't want her anymore. Her only choice was to take whatever job he asked for - which meant going right back in with Raki.

The destination was the RRZ, on Jimmy's big break that broke his hold on the city. Amin was a star player about as big as Raki, as far as word got out. She was crucial to the success of the operation - whatever it was she was doing. Not one person has talked on the specifics of the job. For all the big players, it was as black as a black operation could get. For Jimmy, it was a time bomb he lit the fuze for.

For Amin, it was a turnaround that came out of the blue. The Amin that left for the job was someone no one recognized anymore; brooding, angry, not sure if she was supposed to cry or kill someone. The Amin that came back was the same spunky girl everyone remembered. Something had happened on that big job, with all those big names flying around. What it was, Amin didn't say. What she came away with was a spring in her step and a mint in her pocket.

For a little while, at least. She didn't warm up to Sakazzah, but she was forced into hiding with him when Beth came looking. The manhunt was for Amin as much as it was for the Fishbowl. She'd done something in there Beth was never going to forgive her for. What S&C might've done to her wasn't even going to come close. Before anyone could figure out how she'd made her peace and renewed her sass, she was gone again.

Only Jimmy and Raki know where Amin is now, but people still hear from her in little bursts on the internet. She's up to her old antics on forums and bank accounts. She's the silent assassin of clone networks whenever she has to swap safehouses. What she's going to pull next, nobody can say, but the spam queen of the south has resumed her throne.

- Ezimat nes Zak

The Dough Man is. The Dough Man has been. The Dough Man will be. He came away from the TransUrban job with a gaping hole in his chest and enough gunshot wounds to kill a district commissioner. He rose up the next day as a noodly pinball that had two of his favorite people in the same building. Not many people prospered from the hunt for the Fishbowl. The Dough Man had the time of his life.

He was there for every moment that came after. He was with Raki and Amin, hitting up the RRZ and bouncing off of Beth's mercenaries. He was there next to Pedro, slapping half the city in some kind of twisted buddy-cop act. He split off when Fives went to the Blue Wall, and kept up his campaign of crunch in Cloneston. Things were looking up for the Dough Man. He had more meat than he could eat.

When Jimmy collapsed and Raki went into hiding, Ezimat didn't go with him. He was too loud, too noodly - that kind of terror was going to bring in attention. The clone prince kept him outdoors on the hunt, running raids and decoy operations everywhere he was needed. Chuikov tried, exhaustedly, to contain him. When that failed, he tried to convince the city that he'd killed him. With that kind of horror running around, making that kind of a racket, not one soul in the city bought it.

Ezimat's still up to it. Neither Beth, nor Chuikov, nor even the death of his wasteland equal could get him to stop. He's still slapping faces off and snapping necks all across Cloneston - sometimes, even Jimmy's not sure where the Dough Man's going. The only trend he's followed is the road home; every time he's been set loose, Ezimat's gone further and further down. What's going happen if he ever hits the undercity, no one can say - and nobody wants to find out.

- Ashton Winters

Ashton left Cloneston as soon as he could. His supplies were only meant to last for the month he was down there, with food running out, his filters needing replacements and his cybernetics needing maintenance, he couldn't stay any longer even if he wanted to. To the people he worked with, Ashton was just a spacer looking to get better gear, no one special. He was there, mostly kept to himself, and when the mission was done, he left.

Returning to the Fairbrook Orbital Defense Cluster, he was welcomed back with a full decontamination, a burning of nearly every bit of clothing he wore, and a confiscation of everything he acquired on his mission, aside from his personal belongings. For succeeding in the mission and even exceeding expectations, he was rewarded with a promotion to full Operations Technologist, a fair amount of credits to spend on new equipment and cybernetics, and a couple months of therapy. Ashtons first purchase was a brand new hardsuit suitable for his new position. The rest of the money was kept in reserve, slowly being put to use in his various experiments and prototypes.

What happened down in Cloneston changed Ashton. He never openly spoke about what happened down there, though he did post the video of him shooting the Gregorbot in the face to prove to his friends and family that he actually did it. Ashton appreciated his life on the FOD just a little bit more due to how predictable it is, but at the same time, he was a little bored.

Despite all the horrific experiences he encountered, it was an exciting experience. He learned things he didn't know about himself. He managed to kill people without getting killed himself. And most of all, he got to show the superiority of his augments and futuristic technology.

After it was all said and done, Ashton was returned to his duties as an engineer on the Fairbrook Orbital Defense Cluster, his friends and family thought him a hero for managing to complete the mission solo. His superiors found him to be a useful asset on these types of missions, and kept him in their database. Life mostly went back to normal during this time, though any free time he has was devoted to making new equipment for his next mission. Next time, he will be prepared for whatever Set can throw at him.

- Finnigan Waterpipe

Finnigan once again set out into the wastes to finish business. Armed to the teeth with whatever money could buy, he searched for his old gang, the Orange Rattlers. And he kept searching for years, following leads and whispers of raids by bikers- none of them leading anywhere. Even with Finnigan’s persistence, after the fifth year, even he had to give up. He didn’t know where he was, where his gang was, or if they even survived after his mercenary work. However, in this waste-wandering, Finnigan stumbled upon the historical cult that raised him, Hell’s Feathers, in a state of disrepair. After a quick reunion between Finn and the few others remaining, he decided to stick around. Now, Finnigan is content in protecting his old family, acting inconspicuously as one of the heaviest armed guards in the wasteland.

About his time in Cloneston, he was more than willing to share a story or two from his stay there, but in time it just became another chapter in his story before settling down. It was unlikely that Finnigan understood his role in changing the city, and, quite frankly, it was hard to say whether or not he would have cared either way. To say it didn’t change him, though, is a different story. He saw legends with his own eyes, Leather Man chief among them, and had then on paid utmost attention to avoid the wasteland myths. Furthermore, he left Cloneston with substantially more knowledge than he entered it with. Sapient A.I's, Spacers, Aliens had all made and left their mark on the ignorant Finn. It was more than a life’s worth of experience for the wasteland barbarian, and more than anything, made him weary to settle down.

- Commissioner Ironbrains

Ironbrains was kept under medical care for most of the time in which the Raffemaster was still being used as a hideout. He was polite and quiet. He was much more flexible when it came to the application of procedure and ordinances than when he first met the team - by arresting them. He ultimately was incapable, or even possibly unwilling, to make good on the arrest and capture of Jimmy - of course, functionally it was like trying to arrest the ocean, anyway.

He eventually returned to his precinct during the quiet lull, congratulating those who hadn't yet left one more time, and offering distinguishing positions in the Sector S-510-A Police Department.

He was silent when the RRZ mission occurred. He certainly didn't take part - he had become more subtle in his dealings, but not nearly enough to move half-way across the city unnoticed. He was silent through most of the fighting afterwards. It was when things clearly shifted into the Cross-Cloneston Crackdown, and Jimmy began taking the brunt of the ire of senators and mercenaries alike, that Ironbrains struck.

Almost the entire distirct police force discharged from the PD, flooded over neighbouring sectors, and began to conquer the commissioners there, using legal justifications of varying veracity and - strangely - the logistical and tactical assistance of many hackers. What it meant was that Ironbrains' territory had increased significantly in a few days under the cover of chaos, and then stopped. He suddenly pledged fealty to Jimmy.

The land was attacked shortly after, and much of it was lost, but what Ironbrains had when the dust settled and the all-out war settled back into the grind of long-term conflict was a fiefdom, directly between Jimmy and Beth. He made at least one of his aims public - that he would prosecute the law efficiently and as compassionately as possible.

He didn't seem to be lying. He had some sort of amnesty - or coercion - program for hackers, that was clear - they were integrated into his operations as force multipliers and network boosters. It was even rumoured between those in-the-know that he had been offering lucrative positions in his new petty kingdom of justice to his former compatriots still in the city - Pedro, Ezimat, Amin, Raki. In the wake of the collapse of Drassa, Ironbrains was one of the few commissioners whose circuitry was aberrant enough to recognise Redworlders as people as well. He offered places to stay, temporarily or permanently, to refugees.

He made other plans clear, as well - he would utilise the nearby orbital shipping to provide work - real work - to citizens in his territory. He began to hunt down gang leaders' hideouts and leaders pre-emptively with pinpoint strikes. He made the streets if not safe, then at least walkable. He vowed to set up Clone-staffed Fire and Emergency Structural Repair Brigades.

He had thrown his hat into the ring. From apolitical functionary to ambitious mover-and-shaker in a couple of months. Could he hold it together? Clones had never been rulers in Cloneston. There were a hundred ways in which his plans would collapse, but he had experience now - and the scars to show for it.

- Allie Markell

After everything, Allie needed time off. She left Cloneston after a week. She refused a ride back to the wasteland, instead choosing to fly up to the nearest space station in orbit. There she stayed for two months. She took up a job as a small-time doctor, propping up a temporary clinic. She refamiliarized herself with the spacer culture she left behind four years ago. She used the credits from the operation to do a complete overhaul on most of her cybernetic components, with new thrusters, improved UI, and a stronger gravity cannon. She kept an ear out for word down in Cloneston, though she only got more of what she knew. She put her hectic life on hold, leaving plenty of room for self-reflection.

Allie left Set’s planetside as a toaster filled with doubt. How did she feel about the Cloneston she left behind? If her experience of the past told her anything, Cloneston was about to undergo even more turf wars. How did she feel about her actions? To what extent was she responsible for the damage and destruction? Did she really help the right people? Allie’s defective processors couldn’t crack those questions, no matter what she tried. After a month of trying, she grew bored. After another, she grew sick and frustrated. She gave up, leaving her questions of conscience for a later date. There was, after all, more of Set to cover. And thanks to the scale of the RIP job, and the thrills she had from helping it along, her ambition was growing too. It was time to find bigger things to see and do on Set. She just had to hope that it didn’t end up in flames this time.

When in came to the things she saw and the people she met, those stayed in her metal brain. She had spent years in the wastes,seeing mostly humans or cave monsters. Cloneston’s wild mix of clones and Police Commissioners, wide-branching hyper-intelligent AI, Redworlders and Space Loonies, combined with her experiences of high-stakes shootouts and long-winded chases, it all managed to re-broaden her horizons. At the very least, it was a trip down memory lane. On a personal level, she would remember the people she met and the lives she helped save. Her relationship with Jimmy, however, grew very complicated. It was likely that the clown prince wasn’t seeing Allie Markell anytime soon.

- Valadile

After never showing up,
Being absolutely unreliable. .
It was no surprise that the giant lizard would easily slip out of the peripherals of the team. Who was that big thing? Some kind of Dinosaur?

Val slipped into the cracks of the world. Disappearing into the smog of Cloneston for a while. Probably showing up by word of mouth or creeping by on camera footage every now and then, like some kind of sewer crocodile - before completely disappearing.

One day, it joined the shadows. Or did it become a part of the earth?

- Areres Kimp, Charlie Ahern, Huang Xing La, and Jon Henschel

About a third of the way through the Rampage, the team shed a few of its more politically-controversial staff. What no one saw, heard, or knew about was that the four that left - Areres, Charlie, Jon, and Huang - all had an adventure of their own that took them out of Cloneston. Somehow, they survived - not just survived, but made it all the way out into the Darimesan antarctics to a town and a Looney bunker.

What happened along the way, on the other hand, was rough. Slack supplies, sludgy shootouts, worthless maps - to say things went well would have been the biggest lie anyone had told themselves on the whole trip. Still, they went.

It all started off quiet; sneaking out, across the city, and out of Jimmy's turf. That was the easy part. The plan started off with finding a mercenary gig, to try to top off on supplies and information before getting down. Ideally, after earning enough respect, it would've been a cinch to find someone who'd help everyone down. It didn't exactly turn out that way. The only details anyone knew about Cloneston were the broad strokes; the clones, the AIs, the despair. Nobody knew the local politics. Things got messy.

It took at least a month just to get to the undercity. That was a few dozen gang brawls and slammed doors later. Just about everyone was shot at least twice before the team could even find a way down. Hospital bills and bribes ate up most of the money that was meant for supplies. Somewhere along the way, Huang picked up on a tip from one of the team's employers. That led to an undercity railroad of some kind. It was a pipeline for mutants, aliens, and sentient clones to get out of the city. That almost turned ugly. As it turned out, the shark-skinned taxmen running the show weren't fond of humans, much less Loonies. Much to everyone's good fortune, Areres managed to keep the situation contained.

That was where the team's luck ran out. The railroad got everyone to the undercity, but that was as far as their generosity was willing to go. Transportation taxes bit into the team's supplies hard. The undercity bit harder. There wasn't a single minute that went by without someone shooting something or getting bitten by something. Charlie and Huang were nearly run over by a clone tank when an avalanche of debris trapped them in the middle of the road. Jon nearly turned out as a cucumber when some awful city-bottom disease snuck in through a cut. Getting out took at least a week of all that.

Time in the wastes was mercifully brief. Kimp came into his own out there, and he settled on speeding everyone through as quickly as possible. It was a double-edged sword in the end; it meant less time in the rot and diseases of the wasteland, but less time with an experienced guide calling the shots. It took another couple of weeks to get to the snowy side of Darimesa, with mutant skirmishes about every other day. Belts tightened every night. The irradiated game and sludge-slathered flora didn't make it any easier.

Getting across the cold was the hardest part of it all. Gang brawls and mutant shootouts were tests of skill. Trudging through the snow, over the span of a month, with only Looney maps and gut instincts to work with - that was a test of endurance. The team didn't have much left by the time the swamps gave way to tundra. For the most part, it was just about keeping warm. Staying out of the wind, bundling up, and keeping hardware from breaking down in the cold. A long walk and a bad fall tore off Huang's cybernetic left hand. The rest of it was dealing with the local flavor. The team had to kill Charlie six different times when glass sirens started stalking their campsites. The jokes and funny looks held on for a long while after.

By the time all was said and done, and the Loonies' home base was in easy reach, the decision was made to split up. Home security was everything to a Looney, and outsiders - especially mutants - weren't exactly popular with cavemen. Jon and Charlie helped Huang and Areres find a surface-side village to bed down in. Being that the area was rife with sorassan, that went about as well as anyone could've expected. There were more shootouts, brawls, and hissy arguments with squid men. When the team finally found someone who could speak English, it was a town of redworlders - and it did not end well. After an extra week of pecking on crumbs and following snowed-over trails to new towns, the team finally found a human settlement; Jarjeton, small, tiny, cramped, and desperate for help.

Everyone split up after that. The Loonies went to their new home, the others hung around for odd jobs and townie life. Home's reception for the Loonies was lukewarm, to put it lightly. Their story was equal parts confusing and distressing. The loss of a transport VTOL, crew and all, was bitterly painful. For the newly-established townies, life was just as hard and cold as it'd been when they were slogging through the snow. The prime distinction was the lack of starvation - on most days. Occasionally, there was a tussle with alien raiders, but most weren't expecting clone rifles and practiced marksmanship.

Things didn't go so well. No one prospered from the trip across the ice. Still, everyone was alive by the end of it. Whether they'd ever see eachother again was a question left to be answered. Whether Jimmy would ever show up for a visit - that was a question no one wanted to answer.

- The Ratter and the Catter

What happened to the ratter and the little feline blob the team had picked up was another story. They disappeared from the safehouse the day the team packed up. No one had claimed the ratter. No one had claimed the catter. Deep whispers in the Southern Industrial Corridor soon spoke of a legendary pair of vigilantes; a beast of unstoppable bloodlust, a fiend of silent cunning. They spoke of challengers to the throne of Ratticus I - the heroes the city needed to foil his verminesque ambition. The Rampage was but their springboard. Their true adventure had begun.

Last Edit: Feb 4, 2019 9:40:12 GMT -5 by Insano-Man

If there are no cars left to drive, why shouldn't I walk in the street?