Week 91 debriefing: Crocodiles, Swamps and Secret Telepathic Tech

The Location: A secret base in the swamps of the Congo

The Team: Silvia, Karishma, Fenris, Amets

The Mission: Break into Penumbra's secret Congo base and loot it - they have at least a telepathic heavy weapon of some kind

The Summary: The first challenge was getting to the base, since it was hidden deep in the Congo swamps. After a couple of days hiking, the team encountered a giant crocodile, which proved to be unfriendly and very good at sneaking up on people through the water. After a bit of fighting and only a little bit of Silvia being chewed by a giant reptile, it was driven off. It was later realised that this creature matched up very well with an old Gemini project that was discontinued about 50 years ago.

Upon reaching the Penumbra base, the team encountered the next challenge - the mysterious perimeter sensors around the base, based in five towers. Karishma was able to ascertain that they were producing a psychic sensor field and then was able to use her nullification powers to get everybody through without anybody being detected.

The team then made its way through a small door and into the Penumbra base. Scout powder was released to give a map of the layout, which showed a corridor going in three directions - to a hanger bay, a workshop and a computer room. It also showed five hostiles, two in bedrooms, two in a meditation room and one in the workshop.

Karishma and Silvia sneaked over to the workshop and waited invisibly, while Fenris and Amets sneaked over to the computer room and Amets began hacking. She proceeded to find out that the computer was connected up to a very, very secure system - probably Penumbra HQ itself. Regardless, she continued hacking - and got through in record time and began downloading all of their secret projects.

At this point, the Comoros Agents realised something was up and things began to get interesting. Silvia began fighting the Agent in the workshop, who grabbed a gauntlet that seemed to enhance his psi-blade (Agent1). Another Agent (Agent2) ran out of the meditation room and encountered Fenris. They caught the first pennymine arrow, but the second destroyed their head, killing them fairly comprehensively.

A psi-blade specialist (Agent3) ran towards Karishma and she decided she didn't like his psi-blade and so attempted to nullify it. Another Agent (Agent4) dashed out from the meditation room and also went for the workshop. Fenris would have followed, but was distracted by the sudden appearance of Agent5 in a cyberframe. It was also around this point that Agent6 appeared and decapitated Karishma, which was a bit of an inconvenience.

All of this added up to an unpleasant looking situation, especially when Agent4 picked up the telepathic heavy weapon and shot Silvia with it. However, this is the point when Fenris activated her overdrive net and proceeded to murder the cyberframe user with a knife and pure speed. Silvia deployed horrible toxins and Karishma continued to fight perfectly well without her head. The Comoros Agents attempted to flee via the anti-grav vehicle in the hanger, but only one (Agent1) managed to make it out, since Silvia was unable to get into the vehicle.

In conclusion, the team grabbed a whole bunch of prototypes in addition to the data Amets had retrieved and then spent another couple of days getting out of the swamp.

Stuff to go in the room
Info on the Gemini crocodile
Data from Amets' hack
Prototype ion shield
Prototype invisibility field
Prototype telepathic heavy weapon

Silvia's comments: Congratulations everyone, we secured a lot of very valuable goods and everyone made it out...alive, at least. Although we cut it a bit fine at points.

Prototype Telepathic Heavy Weapon
Class: Heavy Firearms
Range: Medium
Rate: 1
EMPS: 6
Ammo: Energy Cells (as Heavy Weapon) and TE (as the assault skill)
Damage: Allows a psychic to use D10s instead of D6's for their assault damage OR apply an 'extra' to the blast for free.
When firing this weapon a psychic does not need to roll to activate the assault skill, but instead must aim the weapon with a Perception + Heavy Firearms roll. The user spends TE as they would normally when using the assault skill but the weapon amplifies the amount of energy that can be channelled into the blast.
Note: This attack cannot be maximized. This would cause significant damage to the weapon and possibly cause a psychic backlash similar to a critical failure.

Prototype Ion Shield - Telepathic Energy Absorbing Shield Prototype
EMPS: 5 (only damaged when active)
This is worn on the belt like a shield, but only activates when it detects the user's psychic shield nearby. It tunes itself to the shield and absorbs energy from psi-blades and psychic assaults that hit or pass through the shield. It does not add additional defence, but will give the user TE equal to the level of the user's shield or the power used to attack the user (whichever is lowest).
For example, if the user has a level 3 shield and is attacked by someone with a level 6 psi-blade, each attack will grant the user 3 TE. The user cannot have more than their maximum amount of TE this way.
Because it is tuned to the user's shield, when the shield power is activated any double rolled will cause a critical failure, as the device interferes with it.

Prototype Invisibility Field - Thermal Cloaking Emitter
EMPS: 5 (only damaged when active)
This device is a disc about 8 inches across with 4 straps hanging from it. It is attached to the upper arm by the straps and activated automatically when the cloaking power is used. The Phase Shifter automatically regulates a psychic invisibility field to also block thermal radiation without the user needing to spend additional TE points.
The device is a prototype and will critically fail on all doubles rolled to activate the cloaking power, even if the user has cloak as their profession. These doubles cannot be re-rolled with a conviction point. You do not know what will happen if the device critically fails.
The cloaking field lasts for one scene and must then be recharged from the mains for 30 minutes to be used again.

Psi-Blade Focus Gauntlet - Production quality
EMPS: 6
Worn on the hand that the psi-blade normally forms from. The gauntlet uses energy clips at a rate of one per activation. When a psi-blade is summoned it will be at one level higher than the user's normal level without costing any additional TE.
If the user rolls a critical failure when they summon the psi-blade then the gauntlet will be reduced by d6 condition levels as the badly summoned blade cuts into the glove.

Information Sales
Information on the Gemini "Crocodile" - Gemini bought this data back, though it was not worth too much to them. Apparently they aren't worried about being caught releasing things into swamps, but the data on offer was of interest.
Data from Amets' hack - Penumbra coughed up the cash for these files as soon as they answered my call. Companies that have just had their R&D databases stolen are always so cooperative.
Prototype ion shield - The physical shield itself was allowed to go to auction and was snapped up by Comoros.
Prototype invisibility field - Liberty Black bid some pretty high numbers for this little gadget. I think they like the idea of using psychic powers for even more stealth capabilities.
Prototype telepathic heavy weapon - Comoros bought this prototype back. Maybe they don't want their Corporation's newest anti-vehicle weapon being given out to their enemies too soon.

Comments from CEO Lee
Excellent work everyone. I'm confident that we've been added to Penumbra's shit-list, so watch out for... psychic... bombs or whatever it is they use to assassinate annoyances in that company.