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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 8:50 pm
Artifact Search This mission can be taken on solo or with a group. You can run this mission more than once. Equipment Pack:- red flag set (for marking your trail) - 1 bandage (roll 1d cool - 1 FEAR scanner - GPS mapping app for your cell phone (to record locations of FEAR spikes) - 1 days worth of MRE's - 1 pair of spare socks and an apple with a smiley face on it Division Bonuses:- Life hunters have extra bandage kits (trainees roll 1d12, intermediates roll 1 d20; the number of these heals is not unlimited, but rather equal to the number of people in their party) - Death hunters need to scout ahead of the group, looking for signs of danger, avoiding it when possible, and reporting back to the group. They're skilled in avoiding damage. (trainees get 4 auto-damage instead of 5, intermediates get 3 auto-damage instead of 5) - Sun hunters are usually a group's most effective offense force. (During a battle, a trainee is capable of two recoveries, and an intermediate is capable of three.) - Moon hunters create the defensive line that enable groups to take on and survive powerful opponents. (trainees roll to block battle damage using 1d12, intermediates roll 1 d20) - Mist Hunters fill the gaps as needed. (trainees can fill each role one time, in battle or in response to prompts, intermediates can fill each role twice. Both use the trainee rolls of other divisions) Prompts: Group leader rolls 1d100. If you have multiples of a division, they can all roll when prompted to try and thwart damage 1-20: A peaceful white landscape. Maybe a little boring, but better than certain alternatives. Careful! There's some precarious footing ahead! If you don't have a Death hunter to scout, everyone gets 5 falling damage! Death hunters: roll 1d4, if you roll 1-3 you successfully navigate the party around an icy path. If you roll 4 everyone gets 5 falling damage. (FEAR scanner reading: low) 21-40: There's a loud cracking sound in the distance! In the distance a large group of penguins flee the area! The ground begins to shake violently under your feet! If you don't have a moon hunter, everyone gets 5 quake damage! Moon hunters: roll 1 d4 for every member of your party to try and protect them. For every 1 you roll, you fail to protect 1 person from damage. (FEAR scanner reading: moderate) 41-60: You're crossing a a large stretch of ice, when someone looks down and sees something odd beneath it. Once you've passed beyond it and reached higher ground, you look back and see what resembles a massive eyes beneath the surface. It suddenly swivels to stare at your party. (FEAR scanner reading: SPIKE) 61-80: You hear something snap behind you, and turn just in time to see the last flag you've planted get sucked underground. When you inspect where it was you see nothing but a hole going down further than your eye can follow. All of your other flags have met a similar fate. Any party without a Life or a Death hunter lose 10 hp due to getting lost. Death & Life hunters: roll 1d4 to scout the way back or tweak your phone's mapping. If you roll a 1, you are immediately successful, no one take damage. Roll a 2 or 3, you take a little while to figure things out, everyone gets 5 dmg. Roll a 4, and you're unsuccessful, in a few hours the search crew finds you and leads you back to the base. (FEAR scanner reading: moderate) 81-100 BOSS FIGHT!Once again the ground beneath you shifts and buckles eventually cracking open as a massive tentacle bursts from the surface and strikes out at your party! When defeated, rather than dissipate, the tentacle slithers back underneath the surface.  (FEAR scanner reading: SPIKE) HP: 20x(the number of people in your party) Auto Damage: 5
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 8:57 pm
After the meeting, Madison hesitated at the door of the meeting tent. She drew her coat a bit tighter around herself for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold. So all of this was connected to the so-called Apocalypse. The end of the world. And once again, as in 1999, it seemed the Hunters were the only ones standing between humanity and doom...
It would've made a great movie. She didn't particularly want to be starring in the real thing. So this artifact would have to be retrieved - they needed every chance they could get. She'd go out alone if she had to-
Going out alone is foolish, Kouki muttered. We will not let you.
Sheesh, okay Mom, Madison thought back, rolling her eyes, though she had to admit the serpent-sword was probably correct. She'd have to find a partner...
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 9:32 pm
Ennéa shuffled towards the tent exit along with the rest of the hunters after the meeting when she noticed Maddie standing off to one side. She paused and then changed directions, cutting across the group to go stand beside her friend.
"Hey Maddie." She said, pulling the hood up on the heavy coat she had picked up from requisitions. It was cold by the exit after the stuffy warmth of the meeting. "Y'know, I used to like the snow." She commented, looking out at the falling snow outside. "Snowforts were awesome. I used to spend all afternoon building really huge ones and then Tobias and me---" She cut herself off. "Well, it was fun." Ennéa finished lamely.
She sighed. "Not really looking forward to going out there and looking for this thing though. But we gotta, huh? Man..."
Ennéa forced herself to straighten. "Wanna go together?" She asked directly. "If we gotta I would rather go hunting with a friend than by myself."
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 9:47 pm
Madison grinned in relief. "Yeah... yeah, that'd be great. I wouldn't go out there alone even if I was a divi-" She cut off the end of that sentence, quickly; wasn't that how Julie had ended up... how she had ended up?
No. She was not going to think about that.
"But sure, let's go together." She smiled. "I'm in your division now, remember? Gotta look out for each other. When do you want to go - now? Later?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:04 pm
"Awesome." Ennéa smiled, relieved. Her friends had been nothing but kind to her since her punishment but a small part of her still worried that they no longer trusted her. She had broke promises and left them without saying anything, after all.
"I remember you mentioned you switched. Go Death. Woo!" Ennéa's smile slipped when she realized what she was saying. "Though uh, let's not literally." She cleared her throat awkwardly.
"So... anyway. I'm ready to go now if you are. Shall we go grab some supplies?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:13 pm
"Yeah, not literally," Madison agreed, a little awkwardly - she nodded in relief when Ennea changed the subject. "And they're even giving us pre-packed kits this time! That's thoughtful." She paced over to the pile of packs and picked one up, rummaging through it, coming up with the (de)faced apple.
... What.
"That's, uh. Morale-boosting, I guess," she said dubiously.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 10:59 pm
"Haha!" Ennéa grabbed her pack and rummaged through it for her apple. "It's cute!" The smiley face on hers was sticking out its tongue in a comical fashion. She held it up in front of her face. "Apple hunter reporting for duty, Madison ma'am." She said in a mock bass voice. "Orders?"
It felt good to laugh.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:06 pm
"Thank god there's no fruit division," Madison sighed, then grinned wryly. "Let's head out. Though, uh, apple hunter should probably... not fight. Unless it comes down to the wire. He, uh, probably has a family to think of. Or something."
Given that earlier, Robert had been rolling around pretending to be invisible, she figured talking about apple hunter didn't mean her sanity was eroding.
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Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2012 11:13 pm
"Good idea." Ennéa said seriously. She tucked her apple back into her pack. "Though Apple Hunter says it is prepared to hurl itself at any enemies we encounter should it need to, sir ma'am sir."
"Though let's hope it doesn't come to that." Ennéa said with a slight twinge of apprehension in her voice.
She trudged outside, heading towards the vast expanse of white beyond the camp. "It's too cold for bugs, right?" She asked wistfully.
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:16 am
"Definitely too cold for bugs," Madison said immediately, hoping it was true. She was heartily sick of bugs of all kinds. As they stepped outside, she summoned Kouki, the swordbelt and scabbards settling easily even around her heavier winter gear. "Better grab Baraz," she advised Ennea, walking in a straight line to the barrier before she lost her nerve. After all, the barrier had done ******** at the other camp, so going beyond it wasn't a big deal... right?
The air felt like it crackled along her clothing and hair as she stepped through. "Okay, let's go - you ever used one of these before?" She'd automatically strapped the FEAR scanner to her wrist, the action pretty much reflex now after the Death missions she'd been on. "It's like a... what do you call it, for radiation and stuff? Geegar counter thing? But for freaks and sh- uh, stuff." Somehow it felt kind of wrong to be swearing around Ennea.
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:17 pm
"Uh... I've used the runic trapping guns before?" Ennéa peered at the FEAR scanner. It looked easy enough to use without too much explanation. She dug through her bag and secured her own scanner to her wrist. "I think I can figure it out though."
Baraz on the other hand...
Ennéa held out her free hand and summoned the ahriman. Ever since waking up from the pod, Baraz had been oddly silent and withdrawn. He had helped her fighting the twin centipede monsters but beyond that he'd hardly spoken to her aside from when necessary.
Enough had been going on with the mission and everything that Ennéa hadn't really had the time to worry about it. Though, if she were being brutally honest with herself, Ennéa knew that was a convenient excuse. She knew Baraz was upset at her and she just didn't want to deal with it. Not yet.
There was a noticeable pause as Ennéa continued to hold out her hand expectantly but finally the axe appeared. She could sense Baraz's resentment in her mind like a sneeze that just wouldn't come but she guiltily ignored it.
Ennéa instead turned to Maddie. "See anything on the scanner?" She asked hopefully.
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Sosiqui rolled 1 100-sided dice:
79
Total: 79 (1-100)
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:11 pm
"Nothing yet," Madison said, walking forward, dropping a flag every so often. They flapped in the breeze, visible through the snow being lifted free of the ice by the wind. So far, so good...
beep!
Her eyes quickly focused on the FEAR scanner. "What was that? ... hm. Normal levels again. Maybe nothing..."
BEEP!
She turned just in time to see the flag she'd placed, several feet beyond them now, get sucked down as if something had tugged it down from underneath. "Uh. I... let's re-orient," she said, hurriedly, and picked up the pace. That had been a pretty high spike, but it wasn't recurring, so... "Which direction... crap..."
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Frigoris rolled 1 4-sided dice:
4
Total: 4 (1-4)
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:23 pm
Ennéa looked around. "I'm... not sure... ?" Everything around them was flat and white with no visible landmarks or anything to orientate off of. They had walked out far enough that she couldn't see the camp from where they stood and to add insult to injury it was snowing so they couldn't even follow their tracks back.
She turned and looked directly behind her. Was the camp in that direction? Ennéa squinted that direction to see if anything looked familiar. It didn't and then she remembered they had veered off to the side for a while following a slight abnormality on the FEAR scanner so it couldn't be that way.
She turned to her right. That way maybe...? It all looked the same to her.
"Argh. I don't know, Maddie." She finally sighed.
Thankfully, after about an hour of uncertainly turning around in circles, they saw a search party off in the distance and followed them back to camp -- not more than two hours after they had left it.
"Well, that was a short mission." Ennéa said wryly as they trudged back inside the wards. She looked over her shoulder back out to the white landscape and chewed her lower lip, considering. Part of her wanted to call it a day and go goof off in the rest tent with a mug of hot cocoa...
But that wasn't why there were here.
"Do you... um, I mean we came back so soon," She shrugged and grinned sheepishly, "it almost feels like a false start. What do you think, Maddie?"
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:51 pm
Madison was doing her best not to be discouraged - fresh out of the gates, practically, and something had gotten to them... but that just meant there was something out there to find, right? Something out there that they (whoever 'they' were) didn't want them to get their hands on.
"Oh yeah, I'm good to go. Let's head out," she said, flashing Ennea a thumbs-up. "You wanna take the lead this time?"
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Frigoris rolled 1 100-sided dice:
88
Total: 88 (1-100)
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Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:52 pm
Ennéa was surprised but pleased at Maddie's question. "Y-yeah? I can lead. Um, you sure you don't mind?"
She shifted her pack and re-secured the straps, then took a deep breath. "Let's head out then!" She cheered with a raised arm.
Ennéa jogged back through the wards in the direction they had previously taken. Maddie had seen a large spike on the FEAR scanner around there so that seemed to be the best place to start.
She couldn't tell where exactly they had stopped previously, stupid boring samey landscape, but Ennéa supposed they were close. She swept her scanner around with an air of importance. She was leading this mission. Maddie trusted her.
Ennéa grinned to herself, feeling pleased.
Her smile faltered as her scanner suddenly gave an ear splitting screech. "WHOA--" Ennéa didn't have more time to react beyond that as a giant tentacle burst through the snow and ice practically where she was standing. "AHHH! MADDIE!!" She yelled, as if her squad mate wouldn't have noticed a giant attacking tentacle.
The tentacle swung at Ennéa like massive tree trunk aimed for her head. Ennéa had just enough presence of mind to bring Baraz up, letting the axe block most of the damage. "Ow!!"
Damage: n/a Ennéa's HP: 36/40 Tentacle's HP: 40/40 Charge: 0/3
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