White Out [Cosmic Era RP]

[Scrasamax]

Muldoon's stealth technique was rusty, but it seemed to not matter to the fleeing men. His taking aim was well worth the moment, as the cloud of pink mist indicated a solid torso hit. The man staggered on several more paces before slamming into a tree and going down. His companion started running in an evasive pattern.

Back at the explosion site, the survivors had finally started taking cover. They had not started shooting yet, but it was only a matter of time.







Anyone wish they had grabbed the magnetic rifles back at the crash sites?

[EchoMirage]

Blue chuckled as the burst of nails and entrails showered the patrol.
Only if more of them had bombs on them!

A nagging voice inside Blue's head cut the reverie short, reminding the mutant to find any other vantage point before the comfy stretch of wood was showered by a hail of lead.
Then, the fun could begin anew.
Blue sneaked off, then raised the binoculars to look at their enemies, to see if anyone had conveniently located explosives. Let's say, a grenade...

Sneak to obscure Blue's position, look whether any foes have anything that goes boom, shoot it - or ideally, if it's grenades, pull the pin telekinetically.

[Scrasamax]

Fade and Prewett moved forward, Prewett carried a serviceable if unremarkable rifle, but Fade was by far the more dangerous with his two pistols. The gun adept drew, his eyes tracing paths down the barrels, creating conduits between the guns and the hostiles in the clearing. The pistols spat fire, and next to him Prewett laid down a hail of lead.

Prewett rolls D20 - gets 13

Prewett's barrage drops several members, and others are forced to duck and cover.

Fade rolls 2 actions D20 - 20, D20- 14

The leader of the group is shouting orders at several men with guns when her head explodes like a melon, and the previously wounded shotgunner is dropped with a shot to the chest. The hostile patrol is down to three members.

[caesar193]

Brian sighed as he waited in cover for his companions to finish off this patrol. Lacking a weapon (at least, a weapon with range), he had to cower and trust in a pair of mutants! Sure, there was a couple of humans and the seibertron to make sure they didn't mess it up, but the sting of it still, well, stung.

As he waited, he examined the electronic stuff he had "borrowed" from the house back there. If they were going to be of use in the arco, it would be best to find that out before they reached it. Or if they would be of no use, selling them was always going to be an option.

(OOC: do I need to roll for this? I figure its common knowledge, unless its particularly obscure stuff.)

[axlerowes]

Mouldon head away from the group parallel to the other fleeing man, he sucks in a large volume of air to try and catch the fleeing man's scent.

Muldon may be sure footed but he is not fast, Running check: d20_2

Perception check, get the man's scent: d20_17

[axlerowes]

Muldon opens his channel to Brian and the others

"I am tracking one of the 'Others', he is out pacing me considerably. This action is so fluid....anyway after this mission I was thinking of investing is some further physical upgrades. A larger power source and higher cycle servo motors would improve my speed, but I would have to add some extra heat sinks, alternatively I was thinking of adding some armor plating to my super structure. Do you think commerical armor would make me more marketable. After all , commercial Armor is a dense ferro-plastic material that is good for dissipating kinetic impact and some thermoablation. This armor is light in weight compared to metallic and composite armors, and against civilian and light military weapons provides excellent protection. Commercial armor does have a major weakness. It's plastic base material is very vulnerable to weapons specifically designed to defeat armor. Armor piercing rounds and weapons have their critical threshold effectively doubled when facing off against commercial armored vehicles and mecha.  It is either that or a espresso maker, either way I think I could attract higher quality clients. No offense guys. "

[Scrasamax]

Prewett answers as Fade eliminates the last of the party that stood their ground with brutal efficiency. "Personally if I were you Muldoon, I would possibly consider a full chassis upgrade, there are some very interesting animal emulation designs, I know that there is a cybernetic lynx body that has serious speed and mobility, and a hip mounted hardpoint. I know a drone rigger who uses a black one with a pair of light machine guns mounted on it, goes by Ravage. Cold guy, cold guy... or girl, never meets anyone in person.'

[EchoMirage]

"Ravage sounds charming" Blue laughed, and went over to kick at one of the dead.
"I wonder why a teen &^%$@ would charge us, dressed up in TNT as if it was glitter. As if she was made to serve somehow."
Blue had to shake that horned head to clear out the fuzz.
"I bet these crazies were what happened to the arco. Ready to shoot some civilians?" Blue added cynically, then scrounged the corpses for anything useful.

[Scrasamax]

Blue manages to find a large number of weapons among the downed civilians, most of it is conventional firearms, but more interestingly, there are several improvised explosives. There are also key cards, some food rations and ammunition

[axlerowes]

Muldon moves slowly through the pine needles and snow.  He leaps forward on to small rise flapping his wings to guide his movement. Muldon's query is over 100 yards away now,  barely visable through the trees.

"Do you know why they built the first siebertronian brain Mr. Brian?  Some will say it was because they could and I do understand that argument in a larger sense. But there is always a specific reason. The first brains were built, not make an intelligent creature per se, but to understand vision.  Most of the human brain and my brain as well is dedicated towards vision. Never mind that we only use 10% of our brain crap, we use most of it to construct what is we see.   From what I have been told, they have not been able to build a computer that can see as well as human."

Muldon studies the mans running pattern, finds and angle and waits.

"Oh yes AIs can see really well when you give theme a bunch of hardware, but if you were to give a computer the same information you actually getting from you retina, it wouldn't be able to see a thing. That is because our brains, yes our brains, build the images based on context, memory and imagination. Consider this very simple image

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Kanizsa_triangle.svg

We see a line between the circles and and the black bars, we see an outline of a white triangle. It is not there, there is no line, yet we see it.

Consider this image

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5639/2020/1600/dalmation.gif

How can you see the dog, it is just dots? Oh yes one  can train a computer to see the image, but the computer will never imagine what is there, it will always knows the truth, there is no line, there is no dog.  Those of us with a true brain know what should be there, and we make it real."

*pwwft*  Muldon fires his final shot in the clip.   D 20 Roll_15+2=17



 

[Scrasamax]

Muldoon's target drops to the ground, flops a few times and leaves a crimson fan across the ground.

The ais is silent, the guns are quiet and it will be a few minutes before the wildlife creeps out of it's hiding places

[caesar193]

Brian sighed. About time his... Colleagues? Co-workers? Party members? There seemed to be no term that encapsulates both the obvious failures of the mutants and the obvious successs of the non-mutants that fate had thrown together into the same group. Anyway, it was about time they finished with this patrol.

Brian stood, stretched, and slipped his electronics into his bag. He wandered down range towards Blue and the corpses.

"Let me see..." Brian said, " I do believe one of their guns for me."

He picked up a rifle, examined it for a moment, and decided that it was fit to be his weapon. He scavenged some extra ammo off some of the corpses. He also picked up a keycard. Just in case he failed in hacking his way through. Besides, who was he to ignore a gift like this? Anything that made his job easier, the better.

"You want these explosives?" Brian asked Blue. "Though it kills me to admit that a mutant could be than me at something, you've probably got more... Experience blowing things up instead of, say, gracefully dodging firewalls with amazing finesse, to get at the prize within."

[EchoMirage]

"Brain, we get it, you are awesome at what you do, and I humbly suggest that you get a shirt with a slogan that states as much."
Might cut down on the yapping, as all present would be informed about Brian's latest insight.
"There's ones where you can change the slogan through your datajack, too. So, when someone murders the frag out of you, he at least sees that you wish the world to know: 'Ich vögel' jede am ersten Rendez-vous.' "

Blue took the explosives, and stuffed a satchel. Might come in handy later.

"Until then, don't tell everyone your deep insights, you might rub someone the wrong way."
Sure, Blue felt like slapping the kid; but then, felt sorry for him too.
Then, the neo-ethnic smirked, staring at his belly.
Abdomen, alright.
What was that movie where they sliced open the riding... thing and hid inside?
And you thought they smelled bad on the outside.
Ha.

"Rub people the right way, Brian" Blue gave him a toothy grin and, explosives and some keycard packed, headed towards the arco again.

[axlerowes]

Muldoon collects trophies from his kills, thumbs, reloads his rifle, and makes a tracking check to determine where the others came from.

Tracking, Muldoon's wheel house, d20_15

[Scrasamax]

The civilian party was in the process of making what looks like a basic perimeter sweep, and they didn't seem to be in a big hurry, or particularly neat.

There are several paths that lead to the industrial arco.

1. The Main path follows a paved utility road through the trees until it reaches the city perimeter, and the canyons around high rise buildings and then into the feet of the industrial arco.

2. Fan around through the forested terrain to reach the 'forest wall' and then enter the city from a less obvious direction.

3. Go down to the canal and follow the waterway to the arco general vicinity, but this path is going to be rather obviously littered with ship and aircraft debris.

[caesar193]

"Hmm," said Brian. "I say we go by canal. Obvious main path is obvious. Forest is too... Easy. Simple. Besides, the plane and ship wrecks might have looting opportunities."