So we've sort of jumped off the railroad here. According to the adventure text, that warrants my beating you each with a stick (player or character, GM's choice), but since you're going back to get Becka (presumably), I don't think it's too big of an issue ...

To recap, at this point the party has narrowly escaped the secretive Drop Bear Council. They've been tasked with rescuing Becka the Drop Bear from the wicked immortal elf, Fortuna. However, since they never successfully delivered Becka to Fortuna in the first place, they will need to capture Becka from her hotel room and deliver her to Fortuna's house, so they can rescue her and complete their contract. (Whether you actually do this or not is totally up to you guys. It won't be as intense as last time, because they're expecting you. Like, in a good way.)

Either way, the DBC is expecting the party to roll out to Salish-Sidhe territory, where Fortuna's country house is, and break in.

"So guys, since we need to deliver Becka and technically haven't completed the mission we had in the first place, I propose we do that thing in the OOC board. Sounds like a plan to me."
"Valentine, do you still have the name of Dr. Birwin? He's a linchpin and I'd much rather have him with us than not."

"Sounds good to me"

Snow was already wearing his Elvis costume, old fat Elvis with an absurd amount of sparkly bits and tassels

plus extra tassels but you cant see those.

That sounds legit. Actually, I was sort of assuming Snow had been wearing his elvis costume for the entire adventure.

Normally its young Elvis costume, with the extra tassels that people cant see.  He switched things up today.

Firefox goes for the bad-boy leather look.  And a mini-skirt.  It has tassels, so it still counts.  She dials up Dr. Birwin.  "Do you have time for another visit?  There's an issue we think you might be able to assist with."

St. Velveteen merely shudders in response to Carver's question.  Even if he did have the man's number, he would never want to call it.  Best to leave that task up to Firefox.

The baby blue bell bottoms and eagle cape was the look St. V went for.  Not to mention the high-security chastity belt.  He fastened down his black haired wig and pulled down a pair of sunglasses to complete the look.  "I think it's time for Elvis to leave the building."  He grabs his gear and hops into his usual seat in the truck to await the others.

"Crikey! Still chasin' drop bears, are ya? Or have ya moved onto something bigger? Speaking for myself, I've been taking a liking to the biggest, most dangerous predator in the Seattle Metroplex. The rare and dangerous, investment banker. Reckon we can scare up a few of them in their natural habitat. Fabulous critters, they are, fabulous."

"I've seen one or two but only from a distance.  They can be a bit skittish.

It appears someone's kidnapped one and given the perpetrator's reputation, I'm very much concerned the poor thing might be on the menu.  We were hoping to round up a few of its compatriots to help teach the scoundrel a lesson.  Are you up for a bit of an adventure?"

"Adventure! I'm always up for adventure. Tell me who you reckon kidnapped the blighter. This sorta thing happens more common than you think. I tell you what, I'll be right over."

Firefox sat listening to the static of the disconnected line feeling slightly disconcerted that she hadn't let the auzzie know exactly where they *were*.  She also hadn't told him to bring an Elvis outfit  But then, she'd been feeling perturbed throughout this whole scenario.  She turned to the rest of her teammates and realized she'd also forgotten to ask him to bring rhinestones.

"He's in."

snow put the keys back on the table.  "I guess we wait till he get here then. anyone up for a game of parcheesey?"

As Snow is making his offer, there's a screech of tires outside. The door kicks open and Birwin jumps into the room, wearing his short shorts, boots and high socks, and tan shirt. Right behind him is his assistant, whose accent is so thick he has to be dubbed by a voice actor, and a pair of camera men.

"Crickey, what have we here? Looks like a happy den of Elvises. Not too common them; they're naturally very shy. You can tell these ones have had a very tough winter, because happy Elvises store up a layer of protective blubber and morphine.

"Now what do you all Elvises say we go and rescue us a drop bear!"

Birwin doesn't wait for a response. Instead, he and his assistant leap on Carver and wrestle him to the ground, then run out the door with him and throw him in the back of their van. They jump in the cab and floor it out of the parking lot, their camera men in hot pursuit.

I honestly thought he was saying something about 'elves' not 'elvis'

"good, I have no idea how to play parcheesy anyway." Snow grabs the keys and heads out to the truck.

Seeing St. V he pulls out a G.I. Troll action figure and hands it to St. V.  "Now will you please show on Skullcrusher here where the bad man touched you?"

Carver, decked out in his brand new jail-house rocker outfit, mutters a few obscenities into the breathable nylon bag that Birwin somewhat overzealously strapped over the dwarf's head. With his free foot, Carver will pass on most of the pertinent information through morse code and emphatic sounds to push Binwin towards the UCAS Idle competition complex so they can recruit the real Becka to save her mate.

Firefox wondered briefly whether Carver had a chastity belt on too.  She had one back at her apartment, but it probably wouldn't fit a dwarf.  At least, not from what she'd heard . . .

Hopping on her bike, she gave Jonas a quick ring.  "Seems like there's going to be a party down at the Idol complex.  You and the rest of the guys and gals are welcome to join in the fun if you like.  Wear Elvis costumes."

Gunning her motor, she set off in pursuit, waving at the drop bear hanging from a nearby street light.

Birwin arrives at the hotel. Already gathering outside is the scruffiest looking Elvis convention ever seen this side of a Las Vegas Day-After Christmas.

Jonas meets up with Firefox. He's wearing an Elvis army getup, and he looks very confused. "Listen, you aren't expecting us to sing or anything, are you? I mean, the boys will dance off with the worst of 'em, but singing is too much, even for me."

The rest of the crew arrives shortly behind. A helpful security guard, convinced you're here for a show in the studio, tries to guide you across the way to the studio doors.

Carver pushes one of the more charismatic characters forward to convince them that we all forgot something critical in our apartment's changing room.

Guard wonders what you could possibly be missing, you're all so fabulous.

In his best Elvis impersonation (which is surprisingly good), "Trust me lil' lady, you don't want to know.  Though if you want, maybe my friend here can show you after show.  It does involve peanut butter, a monkey, bananas, and a platypus.  Gotta be careful with those platypussies though."

08:17, Fri 05 Sept 2014: Snow rolled 21 using 7d6 ((2,6,2,1,1,6,3)). Security Etiquette.

"Nah, if I need you to abuse someone's senses, that'd probably work but might take too long"

"Yeah, I could show em," St. Velveteen says, adding on to Snow's statement.  "But only if he earns himself a pair of blue suede shoes first.  It would break my achey breaky heart if we let just anyone in on our trade secrets..."  He looks heartbroken for a moment at the thought before brightening and looking the security guard in the eye with a smile on his face.  "How about it?  Would you like to be a king?  Come with us and we can show you the way of rock!"  He turns his back and strikes a pose, putting his eagle cape on full display.

In response to Snow, the guard chokes back a giggle, then chokes back a yuck.

"Sorry, gentlemen. If you'll stop the puns, it'll be right this way." She holds open the door for Snow to enter, and is probably ill-prepared when everyone else follows into the hotel lobby.

Snow moves in close to the guardsperson, "thank you, thank you very much"

and try to slip their keycard/badge/whatever to access doors.

08:18, Today: Snow rolled 42 using 5d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,(6+2)8,(6+2)8,4,(6+6+6+3)21. Stealth Pickpocket.

21!!!!!!! holy crap I think snow didn't even realize he tried to lift the key card

For the record, the number of successes counts more than the successiness of the success. So your 21 counts as high as a 6. However, I like big numbers, so I normally still count crazy high rolls as an additional success, because it's awesome.

The guard is momentarily surrounded by Elvises. "Hey hey hey.""thank you very much""hey hey hey!" The group hip-thrusts their way into the lobby. A few people come up for autographs. Snow checks his pockets and finds he got not only her keycard, but also her ID badge!

Been quiet, so I'm going to assume the party continues.

The group already knows where they need to go, and Snow has a badge. A quick swipe on the elevator pad and the doors open. The five of you climb on in, followed by Birwin and his camera crew, forty additional Elvises, and elderly Ms. Madius who forgot her camera in her room. She creeps on in and the doors close. The Elvises continue to hip-gyrate and grin, all jammed together. "Ri, this is a very unusual circumstance, to see so many Elvises all together in one location," Birwin narrates.

The door opens on the eighth floor and Ms. Madius steps out, grinning and covered with sequins. She blows you all a kiss before you continue up to your floor.

The doors open and you all spill out. It's a little easier to find the right door, as it's the one that's already been kicked in. Peering in you can see the foliage. There's also a tray waiting by the door with a ham and cheese sandwich, and thirty or forty bundles of tightly wrapped eucalyptus leaves.

Somewhere inside the room, the bears watch you: @('0')@
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 14:39, Tue 16 Sept 2014.

"Mr. Birwin, it might be best if you led the way"  She moved aside, giving a rather violent hip thrust to the groin of one of Jonas' boys who was carrying the Elvis thing a little too far.  "She might respond a little better to you"

EDIT: fixed formatting
This message was last edited by the player at 14:57, Wed 17 Sept 2014.

snow takes up position by the door outside of the suite like he did the first time they were there.

He picks up the ham and cheese sandwich and tears it roughly in half and offers the larger piece to St. V before taking a bite.

St. V hip thrusts people aside as he exits the elevator.  The burly troll Elvis heartthrob knocks quite a few over, but doesn't have time to care.  There was half a sandwich with his name on it!  After stuffing the entire half into his mouth and standing at the ready on the opposite side of the door frame as Snow, he urges Birwin into the room as well.  "Fi'fox 's righ'."  He swallows his sandwich to avoid spitting more crumbs all over Birwin's face, then starts over.  "Firefox is right.  You're the one with the freaky nature skills and all the cameras.  Go see what ya can find."

"Ri', you all stay back, these fellas pack quite a wollop!"

Birwin leaps into the room. A moment later the camera crew leaps in after. The bushes shake and rattle. Bears growl  and drop. Baz, the trainer, comes dashing out of the room in his underoos, glowers at the lot of you, then runs for cover. A moment later you hear a crash of glass and a CRIKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!.

Birwin's assistant peeks his head out. "There's been a bit of an accident. He's subdued the majority of the animals, but it seems Mr. Birwin himself may be in need of some medical assistance."

"Gents, Ladies, Hunks of burning love, if you will excuse me it sounds like I have a devout naturalist to attend to." Carver points a hip gyration to the assistant, "You can lead the way". He swings his hips back to the party, "I figure the rest of you can escape under the cover of armed medical intervention teams, but I'd like to make sure he survives long enough to take advantage of them. Meet you back at the car in ten. Fifteen tops."

"Umm, don't we need the bear first?"

Firefox ponders briefly why she hadn't had a spike welded to the top of her helmet as she summons a swarm of watchers and prepares to enter the jungle environment.

"I thought the plan was to let Birwin take the bears and loose them on the elf.  Now if Birwin is out of play then i guess we have to make the delivery."

"Yeah, it looks like we have no choice but to grab the bear ourselves.  We gotta be sure it's the right one this time though."  He points a finger at the pile eucalyptus bundles and says, "But there's no way we have time to check each one in there..."  He assumed there was probably one for each drop bear in the room.

He looks at the bundles for a moment, then at the elevator full of Elvises, and then at the bundles again.  Then, addressing the elevator of rock and roll legends he says, "Yo, kings!  Everyone grab a eucalyptus bundle and a bear then pack back into the elevator.  We can sort everything out later."

"I think we should give them all to Q or whatever letter the elf is going by today."

St. Velveteen gives Snow a great big congratulatory pat on the back.  "Perfect!  If we deliver them all, we deliver Becka too.  Which makes our goal gotten!"

<gold>"Hubba hubba,"</gold> the Elvises pile out of the elvisator and pick up the large bundles of eucalyptus, carrying them back. Once the packages are cleared, some of them start getting the potted plants and carrying them in as well. As they're moving the jungle into the elvisator (possibly with some still stalking drop bears) one leaps at the glittery gangers. There's a brief scuffle, a lot of sequined blood, but eventually the animal is put down.

As the room clears, you find that three more of the animals seem to be sleeping soundly, stretched out in the middle of the floor, apparently somnified mid-leap. And there is a broken window out of which, presumably, Birwin has taken the Great Drop. (I expect Carver is willing to provide medical expertise, but I don't want to presume his method of transit).

Carver will perform a grappler-assisted hip-thrust-shuffle down the side of the building whilst repeating "Medical professional, pay no attention pretty lady" to anyone who looks out the window.
I'll do my best to stabilize Birwin and have someone get a Docwagon response team in.

(OOC: I went ahead and rolled for climbing. I see your athletics is 2. You have climbing equipment, and you're going down, so both big bonuses, but the surface of the building is all glass, which is a penalty. Rolled 2, 1, which I believe qualifies as a critical failure (granted, just about every failure is 'critical' dangling from 13 stories up). You want to do anything about that, or just let the dice lie?)

Grappling hook, dude. I can rappel down without a problem.
Or I can be a weenie and take the stairs.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:26, Mon 29 Sept 2014.

(I included the grappling hook, but also penalties given the slippery 'terrain', hence the TN of 3. Even with the minimum TN of 2 though ...

Had to crack open the rule book. In SR3, it's ALL 1s are a critical fail. They changed it to half in SR4. So that's my bad. I don't have my Companion book on hand either. So I'll rule that Carver doesn't make the Great Drop, as exciting as that would be (Thaden would have bounced, not sure about the new guy). But he won't be moving very fast.)

While Carver is gradually shimmying his way down the side of the building, the remainder of the group crowds into the Elvis-filled elvisator. About thirty of you stand, shoulder-to-shoulder (or shoulder-to-hip, in the case of St. V), many of you holding eucalyptus shrubs or packets, so the whole ceiling of the elvisator is filled with thick foliage.

The doors close and the car descends. One of the gangers poots and apologizes. As you pass the eighth floor, some of the canopy shakes, and low growl echoes through the elevator.

St. Velveteen sweeps one of his massive arms through the rustling area at cyber-enhanced speeds, his eagle cape trailing behind, and hoping to pin what he assumes is a cloaked drop bear to the wall.  "I thought you found all of 'em, 'Fox," he says with a grunt as he swings.  He did NOT want one of those little buggers gnawing on his brain-meats.

12:47, Today: St. Velveteen rolled 3 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+3)9,4,2,1,(6+4)10,2. Unarmed combat. Pinning a suspected drop bear.

The Elvises react immediately; some start banging on the doors and walls. Another pulls her gun and starts firing wildly into the bushes (and the ceiling above). St. V stabs a sexy, glittery arm in and comes away with an adorable drop bear cub, gnawing eagerly on his wrist.

The elevator arrives at the bottom floor and the group tumbles out and back to your party wagon/motorcycles/camera van.

Carver arrives soon after to the ground floor and releases his grappling hook. A  quick diagnostics shows Birwin is in the Deadly Overdamage boxes. Carver though is an expert, and can stabilize the man until DocWagon arrives.

Carver is not about to let a damn seven story fall get in the way of a lifetime of educational achievement! Medical skills yo!

Snow heads over to the truck and fires up the engine, the sooner they get away from here the better.

Saint Velveteen rips the cub off of his wrist and holds it by the scruff of its neck.  He considers tossing it aside, but the cuteness factor quickly overpowers that impulse.  The big troll soon finds himself fashioning a little hanging bag out of his cape to carry the cub in, stocking the little critter's new private quarters with a eucalyptus bundle.  By the time they reach the truck, St. V had already moved the cub into its new quarters and named him Little Velveteeny.

Once he got Little Velveteeny squared away inside the truck, St. Velveteen says, "Well, I s'pose we should get on with this job so we can go home sometime today.  Looks like Marilyn and I may need to make some living adjustments..."  He looks among the bears that they have to make sure they obtained the correct one this time.

Four not-quite-successes...
10:04, Today: St. Velveteen rolled 4 successes using 4d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+1)7,4,5,5. Perception. Is Becka here this time?

(OOC: I'll post a longer game post later, but to answer your question... probably?)

Firefox joined the troll in examining their acquisitions, seeing if she can recognize the aura of the critter she'd seen on stage the previous night.  She really didsn't want to come back a third time.  Who knew what she'd have to wear. . .

quote:

09:30, Today: Firefox rolled 1 success using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 8 with rolls of (6+4)10,5,2,3,2,2. Identifying Bella.

That should do it, even without a bonus from astral.

She gives a wave to Jonas as she returns to her bike.  "Presume the next step for you guys is a bar.  Be sure to send me pictures"

Once everyone is on board Snow starts the car and heads off to where they can find their johnson.  they have a deliver to make.

As they head out with the drop bears in tow, St. V gathers the little beasts around for story time.  He figured it would be a good idea to keep them occupied until they reached their destination.

12:33, Today: St. Velveteen rolled 2 successes using 3d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,2,(6+3)9. Childcare.

Short chapter, but so worth it. +2 Karma for everyone.