Actual Play
We block off unused tunnels in our headquarters.
Raum hears voices from far away down unexplored tunnels — a commander
giving instructions to troops — it sounds like Dr. D!
“Need to get V'Sori separatist at lab in docks area, he'll lie on the
floor as soon as trouble starts, he's expecting you. Here's a
map.”
Stygian Veil makes a Knowledge (Engineering) roll and knows that we
can't be heard by them.
We search for info about Dr. Aiden online. He is a member of the
Association of V'Sori Scientists. They have a lab near the docks, but
the location is classified.
We try to follow voices down the tunnels, but can't find them.
Chow's restaurant is closed down — the whole city is a war zone.
Docks had Farmers' Market, a V'Sori naval outpost, and is area run by
the Longshoremen (a band of criminals).
We call Mr. Fixit, who gives us the address of the V'Sori weapons
facility that includes Aiden's lab; it's well protected and very
secure.
We take one of our panel vans (from our time near the University motor
pool). Our Fin is riding in the passenger seat and Force Caster is driving.
We are stopped by a V'Sori patrol and Stygian Veil tries Mind Control,
but fails. Raum tries Persuasion (thank goodness for
Gifted) and gets two raises: “we've got a vital shipment of
lab equipment”, and gets the ok to continue.
We come to a bombed out road, and are forced to take an alternate
route. Bunches of V'Sori and Neptune Guard's jump out from opposite sides of
the road to attack each other as we drive by, and we are caught in the
crossfire. (Most of the V'Sori are drones.) We are interrogated by some
V'Sori and then attacked, they blow holes in the sides of our van. Our
Fin jumps out of the van to protect us, attacking the V'Sori. We
retaliate, and Force Caster takes us through an intersection, leaving dead
bodies in our wake. When we stop we are interrogated by some of the
Neptune Guard, who recognize us and start to attack, but we kill them, and the
last of the V'Sori flee. Our Fin catches up and gets back in the van.
We are finally outside the Center for |VS| Weapons Research —
it is an unmarked building surrounded by a security fence with guard
towers, a couple of blocks from the actual docks.
We got miniaturized and into vials that Stygian Veil carried, then Stygian Veil threw
fusion grenades at the guards on the towers, and teleported into the
building. The first room was a loading area, and probably had a few
war spheres. There is a second room, with more war spheres. The
third room is absolutely filled with war spheres; Stygian Veil dropped
fusion grenades and teleported to the next room, where we finally
found four V'Sori scientists and one human (apparently a janitor). All
the V'Sori scientists were lying on the floor. We ask who “Aiden” is,
the other scientists point him out, and Stygian Veil tries to Mind
Control him [???] and fails. Aiden Mind Control's Stygian Veil; we
eventually figure out that something is definitely wrong because Stygian Veil
talking and acting odd, but we're still in vials and can't do
anything. Eventually Stygian Veil overcomes the Mind Control
(because Aiden keeps asking for the location of our base), hits him
with the shrink ray, captures him in a vial, and shakes him
unconscious.
Somebody ([Who???]) killed the janitor during this. I presume we
killed the other V'Sori scientists once we knew who was who.
As all this was going on we heard a heavy weight bash into the roof of
the building, and the ceilings of some of the other rooms collapse.
When we get to a position to see, it turns out that an Atlantean sub had
been lifted into the air with Telekinesis and was hovering
over the building. Heroes were leaving the sub, climbing down into
the weapons facility on ropes. We must have dropped some fusion
grenades near some of the heroes. We saw Mechnoman climb up on the roof to
see who was dropping the fusion grenades. At the same time Stygian Veil was
struggling with Aiden so that we could destroy the Atlantean sub with more
fusion grenades. Eventually we do, and leave the area in our van.
We headed back across the war-torn city. After about 2 miles, we run
into what appears to be a Longshoremen-manned check point where they are
stopping every vehicle, inspecting the occupiers and vehicle, and then
waving them on into a warehouse. There must be some other exit,
because we've seen too many vehicles go into the building. On
approaching our vehicle the Longshoremen take our picture to “check against
their database”, then tells us to exit the vehicle. Stygian Veil teleports
out, drop the Fin and Raum, and Force Caster jumps out. Raum jumps into the
middle of a group of Longshoremen and attacks. Eventually we kill all but two
of the Longshoremen and then the leader — Willy the Fin [???] puts up his hands
and says that they can help us.
It turns out that Ricky Six-Fingers and his gang moved out of Southpoint after
Dr. D's revelation into a headquarters in Tempest, and the Longshoremen know
where it is and are planning to hit it in a couple of days. The Longshoremen
tell us that they've heard that Vince volunteered to do the hit on us
and has disappeared [???] while he's working on it. The Longshoremen offer us a
police car to replace our transportation, but Raum has noticed
police cars getting attacked and asks for other transportation
options. They have a couple of motorcycles, and we take them.
Willy the Fin gives us a communicator and tells us we can contact them on
channel 6. He tells us not to use the regular comm system because
the V'Sori have gotten real sophisticated in exploiting the regular
system.
We head out and get back to our area without any further mishaps.
Raum asks our minion, Frank, to work on the comms issue, starting by
checking the Longshoremen comm for surprises. He finds out that it has an
inactive tracking device which can be turned on remotely, but he is
able to remove it, and we can keep it in a Faraday cage. He also says
he can work out a secure method of communication for us.
We work to figure out how to interrogate Aiden without letting him
keep attempting to Mind Control us. Our Fin says that the
Vince don't like cold: 30℉ makes them very uncomfortable, and we
determine that will be enough to keep him from concentrating hard
enough to Mind Control us. Joe's Pizza is nearby
and closed for the war, so we go there and interrogate Aiden.
Aiden wants to defect to those who oppose the V'Sori. It turns out that
the V'Sori are split — some want to leave earth, thinking that they are
doing more harm than good. He designed the satellite system to
control the V'Sori drones. He could stand down all the drones
worldwide. It can't be done remotely, it has to be done on the space
station. Dr. D keeps a space vessel in a warehouse in the Tempest
district. Aiden contacted Dr. D by telepathically broadcasting message
to him — they have met before, so distance is no object. Each drone
has an auto-destruct function that can be triggered from the
satellite. Updated battle plans can also be downloaded into the
drones. The satellite is very heavily defended. It is manned by
technicians responsible for software maintenance and by Fins, ware
drones, and Super Fins. The V'Sori Overmind commanded the V'Sori to attack
Earth at this time. Several think it was unwise, but when the Overmind
says something it must be done. Aiden opposes because Overmind has gone mad
and resents the Atlantean overthrow of the Vince here on Earth. The Overmind has
an unreasonable fear of Earth, and has put off the attack several
times, has spent centuries scouting and manipulating behind the scenes
— the Overmind assisted the Nazis, for instance. Aiden hopes that if the
V'Sori fail this time the Overmind will give up.
The V'Sori have new technology, advanced bio-mechanical manipulation
that allows them to (non-reversibly) change a earthling's biology to
V'Sori biology without affecting any super powers. (Much improved from
the things along this line that we've seen before.) Many of the V'Sori
we've seen were former prisoners, mind-wiped. They mind-wipe the
prisoners, load up a standard V'Sori mind profile, perform the
conversion process, and the former prisoner wakes up a V'Sori in mind
and body!
They make drones from former prisoners who are too badly damaged to
make into V'Sori — war spheres are made from those who are the most
badly damaged. Hyper drones are cybernetic — they look more like the
dead. Hyper drones are also controlled by programs from the
satellites. Anvil tells us issuing the “shutdown” or “auto-destruct”
command to all drones is a simple process.
[¿¿¿I have something here about “protect Tempest district”???]
Those who change to V'Sori gain the Aquatic and
Telepathy racial abilities, same as Atlantean as far as stats go,
but look like V'Sori. One ingests the agent and the transformation
takes place over a week. Don't know if it works on Atlantean. Some Atlantean
have passed for V'Sori (at least to look at).
The team that was to get Aiden was planning to get the stuff to make
the change so they could sneak in. His team was Lucky and
4-Star and Mechnoman.
Ricky Six-Fingers is thought to be a legend, one of those criminal bosses that most
people don't think really exist.
Aiden has sophisticated neural package they us on new V'Sori. (Force Caster says
that's why they invaded: that and revenge on the Atlantean.) V'Sori have
native psionic abilities that make it difficult to mind-wipe one once
it has been transformed.
Atlantean do reproduce biologically.
The drone control satellite is armored heavily — nothing but it own
core exploding can damage the satellite.
Five software technicians to correct faulty programs. Fins can get
things through DNA scanner (We could go in under skin — scanner only
checks the very outside of the epidermis). Drones have a safety
feature — they can't attack V'Sori, alas.