((lol, yeah))
Fine. Ahmetia, you've got two games running, one with me and one with Harry. No, they won't merge--your characters are far more likely to diverge than merge, and you'll need to maintain separate character sheets for the two games.
--M. J. Young
Right. And we left you off in this game having just escaped a pirate trap.
You've made a friend in Margrave. He thinks you're a genius. He still doesn't realize that it's all there in the manual.
The medic/galley team continues to teach you the basics of both. So long as you remember which bits are for cooking and which bits are for healing, you'll be okay. Just don't cook the patients.
Pretty soon the ship is back under way. The guy they rushed off to surgery recovers, but it's slow. Even post-modern technology can only do so much for somebody who got his face plasma'ed off in and spent five minutes sucking vacuum. Still, other than him, nothing too bad is happening, and you are making decent time en route to Emerald Station.
((awww, you mean I can't cook them? lol I was totally seeing a Mrs. Lovetts thing with them :-P))
I probably now ask more from Harrison if he is up to it for help in defending anything when we were both free to do so.
Harrison is, as he has been, more than willing to teach you self-defense. For the most part he fights unarmed. In the close confines of a spacecraft it's the most logical choice. His fighting style is one akin to kempo - fast, defensive, weapon-averse, with a focus on retributive damage and counterattacks. One of the more interesting tricks in his arsenal - one he is willing to show off, but not willing to teach you yet, as it's quite dangerous - is that he can fight just as well in zero-gravity as he can under full load.
Is there anything in particular you want to learn, or just the style itself in general?
((the style itself, I can't imagine being picky would make a difference))
Well, I still don't have a proper all-filled-out copy of your character sheet - sorry we didn't get to do that at Ubercon - but here goes...
His style is largely defensive, so it's a bit hard for him to teach it alone. You don't really know any proper attacks, so he'll have to call for help. "Help" in this case consists of another security man - he'll get a name when he appears three times - who actually knows an aggressive fighting style.
Between the two of them, they will be able to teach you. As time goes on, we'll develop some moves for you, but for now it's fairly safe to say that with them as teachers and examples, you will manage a 1@1 Kenpo Karate Bod 7@1. This is a fast, defensive, weapon-averse fighting style. You can expect to learn a lot of counterstrikes and throws, but for now getting you into the stance and moving on your feet properly is enough to satisfy your teachers and - if you've never learned a martial art before - enough to amaze yourself.
((nope, never, danced though so stances wouldn't surprise me, in weapon adverse, do you think this would work well with staffs?))
Harry--one of the reasons I had trouble with your version of the scenario is the fact that you're inventing names. The scenario comes complete with full names for crew and a few extras. You can pick up copies in Word at http://www.multiverser.org/multiverser/support/crewlist.doc and in PDF at http://www.multiverser.org/multiverser/support/crewlist.pdf so you've got them close at hand. The Word version is easier to use, since you can edit it more freely, but there's no lock on the PDF if you want to use it and have a PDF editor.
Ahmetia--averse means that holding a weapon impedes your ability to use the techniques.
==M. J. Young
((ah >,<))
Harrison is one of the names on your list. And besides, you never name your NPCs anyway. If I want a fat cook named Gopher who's also a medic (and a drug addict) why can't I? You find names to be a chore. I like naming NPCs.
And yeah, what the boss said.
Incidentally, MJ, I know you've done a lot of work on martial arts styles. Do you have a writeup on anything like Kenpo? An unarmed defensive style that is all about counterattacking and hurting the enemy with his own attacks?
((Personally, I like naming characters if I have a list with me, like baby naming sites and this document I get from the Stirling Honourable Gamers Society website))
And besides, you never name your NPCs anyway. If I want a fat cook named Gopher who's also a medic (and a drug addict) why can't I?
It's not that you can't; it's that all of the pre-made tables for events involving crewmen refer to them by pre-assigned name, rather than by rank or any other designation. When you've introduced characters with names not from the lists, that means extra work for MJ, who is used to running the scenario basically straight from the notes.
As for your martial arts question, I'd advise checking here first.
Ahhh, I follow. So I have to decide who on MJ's list 'Gopher' actually is, in case he comes up on a chart. That makes more sense.
And thank you. Her new fighting style is almost certainly this:
http://tiras.tripod.com/ma/style016.html
((I'll have to change the name then))
So you're learning martial arts.
You're four days out of Emerald Station, which leaves you with a few shifts in the galley and a shift or two in sick bay. Is there anything else you want to do while en route?
((Probably nothing of significance unless I happen to run into someone I have considered my friend while I've been there))
Other than Harrison, you don't encounter anyone you particularly consider a friend. Gopher and the other medics are really more like colleagues, and those guys from Astrogation have been laying low ever since their debated discovery turned out to be a disastrous pirate trap. Even the first mate, who gave authorization for that little jaunt, has been in the doghouse lately.
Arrival at Emerald Station is an interesting thing, a two-step approach to a very large planet.
You can see the planet - officially registered as Emeraldas 7, being the seventh planet from its star, but called simply Emerald - from a long ways off. It is several times larger than Earth, and most of its surface is a dull brownish tan that reminds you vaguely of the color of camels. Despite its immense size, its gravity is described as 'standard' which you have come to understand as meaning 'Earthlike'. How? It seems Emerald is an entirely rocky planet, with almost no native metals.
The port of arrival is Emerald Station, an orbital platform in geosynchronous orbit over a spot on the planet's equator. There, the captain must make a brief report on certain qualities of the ship. This involves you only briefly - you are on duty in the medical bay when the captain patches you through to the station administrator. The chief medic on duty gives a description of the medical facilities, describing the capacity of the ship to contain and treat any radiological disasters that might occur on board.
Once you've passed this inspection, the ship is allowed to descend into the atmosphere. You are asked to accompany Lefton - the medic with the lavender cybereyes - as part of a mandatory medical detail during the trade.
I straighten myself out before I go slightly behind Lefton to follow him to where I am suppose to go.
(Lefton is a woman.)
The surface of Emerald looks like something out of the Old West. It's a hot, dry place where the wind blows dust in clouds that drift across the horizon.
The starport where you put down is a flat expanse of what appears to be some sort of native stone, deep black with a faintly translucent, waxy surface. It looks a bit like obsidian, but with deep green inclusions the color of polished jade.
The miners who come out to meet you are driving an open-topped cargo truck, more like a barge on wheels, really. It has five large, grey cases laid out in two layers, all heavily locked and with warning markers all over them. Your medic training tells you those symbols mean 'radioactive'.
Your own people are driving a similar barge, loaded with stuff from the ship's hold, mostly refrigerated crates filled with food.
Out in the dust, you catch sight of something. A flash of light, brighter than the surrounding sand, like sunlight glinting off a mirror...
I probably wont be saying or dong much or anything.
About a minute or so after you don't say anything about the light glinting off of something in the sand, a spear comes flying in a high arc, and slams into the shoulder of one of the mine guards. He lets out a horrible shriek, and drops like a sack.
The other miners all draw blasters, and the other guards shoulder their rifles.
Lefton grabs you by the arm and attempts to drag you behind your ship's barge.
The guards are pointing their blasters this way and that, but they don't seem to see anything, or at least nothing worth shooting at yet.
I am probably trying to get myself to not be so shocked to watch the guy who just got hit to notice his injuries.
It takes you a few minutes before you're able to snap out of it. In that time, more things happen. More crude weapons come flying out of the sand, most of them missing their marks or being batted aside by men with rifles. They return fire, kicking up more dust, which only provides more cover for whoever or whatever is attacking.
When you do snap out of it, you realize a few things. The man had the sense not to try to pull the spear out which, as you know, would cause further bleeding. The spear itself is of a very odd make: it's not made of wood and metal as you might have expected, but made from a length of aluminum piping with what appears to be a pulsing green shard of glass strapped to it for the head. The man himself is clearly either in shock or unconscious, as he has not tried to get up since being hit.
You have your medical kit with you.
It's twenty feet of open ground between you and that man.
Lefton is still hiding behind the cargo hauler.
I spend a few moments to try and see if I could see any complications other then the obvious bleeding that I would not be equipped for.
Nothing that occurs to you offhand. The bleeding is actually not that much - since the spear is still in place, it's keeping the wound from bleeding. Immobilizing his arm and getting him back to the ship's medical facilities is pretty much all you can do for him just now. Repairing his shoulder will require surgery, and nothing else about this situation is telling you anything useful.
Are you actually getting closer to him, or just spying from here?
Spying unless the opportunity seems good to try and get him.
Seems clear. Well, everyone is pointing guns around, but nobody else has gotten speared lately. Although there is what looks like an axe embedded in one of the facility walls that you're fairly certain wasn't there a few minutes ago. But for right now it looks kinda clear.
I was a few moments more before I begin to head over to the man to aid him.
Lefton tries to pull you back.
As you run, another of those green-tipped spears comes whistling out of the desert. Two of the guards open fire, and the spear sinks into the dust about a yard short of you.
When you get closer, you realize it shouldn't be too hard to get the spear out, once you get this guy back aboard. It's not barbed or anything, just heavy. As you get nearer the tip of the spear, it feels weirdly hot. Like holding your hands near a candle. But the tip itself isn't hot.
Your medical kit includes bandages and antiseptic, and once you set to work, it's easy enough to immobilize the spear and bandage it still. The harder part is immobilizing his arm in that position - you don't want it to move or it might tear further. You'll need something to splint it wither.
((sorry I haven't posted here in a while))
I am not sure if I have anything specifically used for that. Because I am assuming this spear is big and big things like to wabble and humans don't not move when they're in pain no matter how hard they try.
((btw, I started reading this webcomic, I thought you might like it http://goblins.keenspot.com/d/20050626.html ))
You notice that the spear that was thrown at you while you were running is made of wood. It's a bit thick, but with a bit of effort you might be able to break a length of it off to use as part of a brace to pin his arm in position, along with some bandages. It missed you while you were running - it's a good twenty feet of open ground back to the spear, and then back into cover where your wounded man is. You'll be exposed the whole time you're getting there, but it's pretty much your only option - you didn't exactly pack splints and everything else around you is made of metal. Of course, you could just say damn the damage and try to hold it still by hand while you run/drag the wounded man back to the cargo hauler where Lefton is still holding out.
Meanwhile the guards continue to posture with their rifles, but very rarely do they actually fire, and when they do it seems they hit nothing but sand.
So basically if I mapped it out.
-----------------Spear
--Me & Him
--------------------------------Cover
That would be about it right?
Yep. Precisely. You have most of your incoming fire from the left and downpage-left, insofar as you have any incoming fire, which is sparse (only a few thrown weapons so far, remember).
So basically my best option based off that mapping would be to get the spear, try and avoid other spears, and then head for cover in a sort of v like motion?
More or less, yes.
Then that's what I'll do while I take him to cover as well.
((I think we've both been flaky >.<))
You get him to cover, and you get the splint made up and put in place. His arm is now suitably restrained so that, if you hold him up under his other arm, you should be able to get him back to Lefton without hurting him too much more.
As you are ducking back behind cover, something sparks off the top edge before burying itself in the ground. It's a smooth, sharp circular disc (rather like a sharpened discus or the blade of a pizza slicer) made of the same weirdly luminous green crystal as the spearhead, and you notice an increasingly uncomfortable warmth coming from both.
"That's not good," I say while looking to the disc. "I wonder how many of those they have."