OOC: This is a placeholder message for the newest Magnus thread, GMed by Glantri.  :)

On your way to work you reflect on your good luck, having won this new fully electric car, which supposedly you'll only have to recharge once a week based on this new "Scriff" technology in the batteries.

Then, as if the universe could hear your thoughts and had a sick sense of humor, everything falls apart. A tractor trailer swerves into your lane and sends you careening into a ditch. Your airbags deploy but you smell an acrid scent in the air and the last thing you see are every inch of the dashboard lit up in warning lights and a golden goo on your hands, and you go unconscious.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You wake up laying on a hard cold surface and you hear loud sirens going off, it doesn't sound like any ambulance you've ever heard though, more like a klaxon horn. You feel two strange tugging sensations, in opposite directions. One towards the sound of the noise and one away.

Upon opening your eyes, you see that you're in a nondescript metal corridor with one red strobe light that is emitting what has to be a warning. Both directions come to an metal door, One with a large painted 18-B, the other with 16-B, both in blue, with smaller lettering that you can't make out from this distance.

Oh. That's not good.

*BUZZZAPP*

I get up. And walk to the door that says 18-B and read what door says.
What's going on here? Where is my car? Where am I?
I knew I shouldn't trust an Electric Car.

Underneath the 18-B is the designation of "SECONDARY CARGO BAY".

To the right of the door there is a slider, which is in the position labeled closed.

Where am I? Some sort of ship? Who would take the trouble to bring me here while I was unconscious?

I walk towards the siren. I'm on guard because this seems really suspicious to me.

The siren consists of two parts, a light that appears to be glass like which is emitting a red strobing light, and three grooves on either side which have a high pitch siren coming out of it. The noise is loud enough that it's borderline painful to stand close to in order to inspect.

You notice that the pulling sensation coming from towards 16-B has shifted substantially, and is at about a 30 degree angle from what it was before. The other has remained constant.

What is this odd sensation?...

I'll walk towards the door labeled 16-B and try to open it by messing with that slider.

The door opens smoothly, with only a slight delay after you manipulated the slider into the open position, and you see a roughly 5'8" tall man towards you, wearing a brown trench and blue suit underneath. As he reaches you he motions to back up, and he flys around the corner and starts to close the door.

"Hey, sorry to make this quick, but we should really be moving, the natives here don't much like us just popping onto their ship unannounced. I versed in maybe 15 minutes ago, and have been trying to dodge their security sweeps since. Name's James, haven't met too many others yet, how about you?"

I'll follow his lead for now but I talk while I move.

"Huh? Versed? What are you talking about? What do you mean by popping in unannounced?
... My name is Eli by the way."

He glances back at you in confusion as closes the door and places a round disk at the upper and lower joint of the door, tapping it slightly causing a brzzt noise. His confusion fades quickly as he mumbles, "ah, must be his first, maybe second..."

"So much to explain, so little time, Run with me as we talk." and he books is for the other end of the corridor.

"So, you've just joined a rather unique club. You died, but refused to stay dead, or maybe you came very close to death, I'm not really sure myself. But you got infected with scriff somehow, or all the others I met have been so far at least. That scriff is stubborn and won't let you pass on, and instead jaunts you around to alternate realities instead of letting you die. Dieing still hurts mind you, so don't treat it too lightly. But that's what happened, in a nut shell, or maybe an egg shell, or a treasure chest... but as for where we landed, this is a ship run by space pirates as best as I can tell, they're armed with laser rifles but relatively low grade space flight, stuff can still kill you though. From what I've been able to tell, the ship is stuck in orbit around a black hole, possibly in the middle of a sling-shot maneuver in an attempt to escape."

He gets to the other side about then and opens the door quickly, tapping his foot as it slides open and slipping through as soon as he can, and closing it as quickly. The room is stack upon stack of various goods, some giant eggs sealed in steel and glass containers, some cannisters sealed with foreign writing on them, and some unlabeled boxes. You see some of your equipment (I don't know whether it's in a backpack or some other case, or just strewn about, you tell me) on the top of a 10' tall shelf in the middle of the room. There are movable ladders every other isle.

"Your stuff will come along with you, mine is unfortunately outside the ship, other than a couple of magpucks. I've been using them every so often to slow them down while chasing me. You should feel a pull to your equipment, as well as other versers, that's how I tracked you down so quick. So, where's your stuff?"

OOC: My things are spread around that platform. I'll need to gather them and organised them.

I listen as I run with him. It's really unbelievable. But I haven't felt anything like this before. And I don't feel the rocking that we would feel on an ocean vessel. So I'll believe him for now.

"My things are up there." I point to the self where they are.
"My gun should be up there with them. You set up a barricade for cover while I go get it. I'm sort of an amateur with it but I should be able to hit them if we are close enough.
Oh I also have a bow with 5 arrows. Do you want to use it unto we grab some laser rifles?"

I'll move a latter over by where my stuff is and climb up. I'll get my Glock out of it's case and grab the 3 magazines. I'll also grab my bow and quiver and go back down.

He nods and gladly follows your lead. "I'm decent with a bow, not great but not the worst. And it's better than nothing." And he goes to work as you instruct, dragging some of the heavier looking cases over in front of the door forming a baricade.

You have about 5 minutes before you start hearing a loud banging, coming from the other end of the corridor. James says "looks like they caught up, the magpucks should keep that door closed for a little, but it'd be best to get into position soon, we have another 5 minutes at the outside I would guess."

I think a bit and grab my sword too in case they get close. And the two handed club

"If they get close we can use these."

I'll let him use my bow and arrows. I'll but two magazines in my jacket pockets and put the other one into my Glock. I'll turn the safety off and keep the gun aimed at the door. and I'll wait for it to open. Obviously I'm keeping most of my body behind the heavy cases and use it to brace my gun and steady my aim.

"... Ok. We are going to shoot them as soon as the door is open enough to shoot. Right?"

I'm waiting and steeling my heart for what I have to do.
As soon as they open that I'm opening fire. I'm going to aim for center of mass until they go down and then move to the next nearest target.

He thanks you for the use of the bow, and sets four of the arrows down behind the baricade and readies the last.

"Agreed, center of mass. This never gets any easier though, even with them wanting to kill us..."

After a few agonizing moments of the doors slide open to reveal 5 men in what looks similar to a flak vest, with a glossier look than you would expect, each holding an odd looking rifle. One of the men is noticeably in charge from posture and signals he's giving.

Since you and James were ready your shots go out slightly before the others. You aim just slightly too high,and your bullet misses the man in charge, hitting a computer terminal behind him and sending up sparks. James steps out from behind cover, readies an arrow and fires true, sinking it deep into the one mans unprotected upper thigh. You hear a roar of pain as he falls to the ground clutching him leg and crawling back behind the wall. He's dropped his weapon.

The return volley comes in then, two of the shots hit the baricade instead of you leaving huge scorch marks but one shot grazes you while returning to cover, and one lights James up. He makes it back to cover, but his upper chest is a giant blister, with the clothes burnt off.

OOC: I was tired last night so I didn't think of it. But my leather welding jacket and my chain shirt would be useful as armour. Up to you if I thought to get them and put them on in that five minutes.


What ever doubts I had about James story are shattered be them using literal laser rifles. Still. I don't want to die and I refuse to just sit down and die.

"Think you can continue James?"

I change my position from my last shot. Forcing them to change their aim and give me a precious second or two to get my shot off before returning to cover and moving once again. I force myself to remain calm despite being shot at. panic and fear are harmful to me at the moment.

OOC: Not a problem. How does armor work, giving them a minus modifier for firing against it or subtracting from the resulting damage?

James grits his teeth and nods "It's worse than it looks, it always is with energy weapons." But you can tell he's trying to put a good face on it, he can't take too many more like that.

The man who took the arrow to the thigh is apparently tougher than expected, and takes the first shot of the round, sliding out into the doorway and aiming and taking fire. The poor fool didn't realize his laser rifle had gotten damaged in his fall, and it overloads exploding in a small ball of plasma. His remains are rather neatly disintegrated as is a 1/2" trench in the floor near him. The man immediately to his side flinches away and missing his shot. The leader takes command of the remainder and coordinates fire. Both of the henchmen peg James as he stands to take aim. He gets shot in the face and arm, and falls backwards, moaning slightly, with a disturbing gurgling sound. He does have time to get his arrow loosed, which takes the leader in the arm with a grazing shot.

You pick your moment in the mayhem, popping out of a location they didn't expect you to come from and hit the captain squarely in the chest, driving him back several feet and knocking him to the ground.

OOC Basically yes. It gives a negative sit mod to hit you. I don't really like how that works out so it is different in my game. I'll explain more in a private message.

Damn, He's hurt bad. I'll have to end this quick.

I'll take advantage of the situation to fire off a few more aimed shots before returning to cover.
One for each of the men that are standing.

You take three shots at the men as they back up towards their leader to pull him to safety, you land each one squarely, although none of them were by any means debilitating.

There is a brief moment of quite as you hear some scuffling from what you can only imagine is the men treating their leaders injuries. Looking over to James, he's in rough shape. His face looks like its been held to a hotplate, and his left arm is limp. He's pulled himself out of the doorway entirely, but is coughing up bits of blood every so often. He flashes you the weirdest smile as he sees the concern on your face.

"Remember what I told you, we can die, but we won't stay dead... *cough* ... it does hurt like nothing else though."

You seem to have a few moments to do anything if you wish.

They are reeling, Time to press my advantage and do something crazy and stupid.
 I draw my sword and leap over the crates.
I roar at them to intimidate them and make them Think I'm Crazy and full of Bloodlust.
Then I Charge still roaring.
I fire off the remaining shots in my pistol  into them as I charge. When I Get into melee with them I'll shove my empty gun into my pocket and then Grip my sword two handed.
I roar some more as I Bring my blade in a downward chop into the shoulder of one of the pirates.

Hopefully I'm so scary that their moral breaks.

Two of the remaining men flee, although in such a haphazard way that they don't get very far. None the less, your intimidation did it's trick on them.

Your first shot while you run catches the man who's tending his leader in the head as he turns to look in your direction, and you charge the leader.

You don't notice until it's too late that he's braced himself against the computer terminal behind him, and has leveled his laser rifle. As your blade strikes down into his neck his rifle fires and your stomach momentarily feels like it's being torn in every direction possible. You blink twice, seeing the leaders dead eyes staring back at you and everything goes black.

Well. I knew it was a stupid idea. Awesome but stupid.

I just sent Oak a message asking for the post ludum and for the next world area.

For what it's worth, it made sense to me. You're defending a fellow verser and you don't know how battle hardened these folks are or not, and the attrition game did not favor you.