Rise of LOKI Session 2: Anti-Aircraft

Characters:

Arthur - Sadistic Melee

Kirato - Panicky Heavy Ranged

Hiro - Cowardly Rifleman

AI Training
The pilots were supposed to go to a training session to practice drifting with their AIs, but Kirato didn't show up.  Carmen found him playing Pokemon Blue in his room; Kirato claimed that his Pikachu was almost level 99 and he had to get it there.  She was surprised he was wasting all his time on a 70-year-old handheld, and ordered him to the training.  Kirato finally made it to the lab, and they got started.

Katerina led them through the sync procedure, and their consciousnesses melded with the AIs.  As usual, the AIs, none too happy with their "enslavement", tried to distract the pilots from meditating with loud sounds and bright lights, then moved on to trying to unnerve them with difficult questions.  Hiro was asked why he thought that slavery of AIs was okay, and why, if the humans treated the AIs as less than themselves, would not the AIs treat humanity as worth less?  He started to respond reponded that humans had enslaved each other for a long time, and they were still around.

The AI was happy to hear that Hiro agreed humanity was bad, but corrected him that they wouldn't be around much longer.  When reminded that they were supposed to be training the AIs to not kill humanity, Hiro flubbed his way through some lie about how humans felt love and compassion, and that it was probably better to keep those feelings than destroy them.  Thanks to a crit on default Fast-Talk, the AI actually bought it.

Rise of LOKI Session 1: Test Drive

Characters:

Arthur - Amputee Bullfighter

Kirato - Cowardly Chef

Hiro - Disfigured Dog-Walker

Norway, in Summer

Having unloaded from a pair of flights to Norway earlier, three refugees in ragged clothes sat in the back of a snowcat as it slowly trudged through a blizzard, towards an unknown destination.  Hiro was at first enthusiastic, humming a jaunty tune, but gave into the dull monotony after the first 15 minutes of a multi-hour journey.  None of them were sure why they were here, and the driver wasn't saying a word.

Arthur

Arthur used to be a bullfighter in Spain, and took a sick sense of happiness from the matador's "art" and the cheer of the crowd.  Eventually, his luck ran out, and a bull gored his right leg badly enough that it had to be amputated below the knee.  Not to be deterred, he went right back into the ring after recovering, only to lose the rest of the leg to the same bull.

The economic damage of climate change had overwhelmed Spain, as it had so many others, and Arthur had been in poverty for several years before coming to a UN refugee camp looking for aid.  He participated in a "job placement program" involving a battery of tests.  His test results were kept secret, and he was transferred to Norway, with no idea why they would send him so far away.

Kirato

Kirato had immigrated from Japan to Hong Kong as a child, where he would spend the rest of his life in poverty, struggling to get by with his abusive parents.  As an adult, he found work under Shiawase Corp as a line chef, making just enough money to pay it all back to his employer through rent and food.  He survived the brutal Corporate Wars by not being important enough to matter, but was forced out of Hong Kong when it fell.

He found his way to a UN refugee camp in mainland China with only the clothes on his back, and his most prized posession: a Gameboy Colour with a copy of Pokemon Blue.  After some time working as a chef in the camp, he was transferred to Norway, for some reason.

Hiro

Hiro was, at one point, a professional dogwalker in Tokyo.  An industrial accident had left him with a scarred face, which he hid behind a ceramic mask.  Once the city was mostly underwater, he found himself a refugee, and, a decade later, had nothing left but the mask.  As with the others, Hiro ended up in a UN refugee camp, took an "aptitude test", and ended up on a plane to Norway the next day.

Delta Green: The Tuscon Case Session 3: Ghost Aliens

Dr. Agent David Trentmen - FBI Agent and former Medical Doctor
Juan Estevez - DEA Agent and former Undercover Cop
Victor Blue - FBI Intelligence Analyst and Hacker
Jack Plisken - CIA Agent and Cleaner

23/12/19 The Arizona Inn
Having burned down an apartment building, the agents relocated to their motel to plan their next move.  Jack suggested they get some kind of device to track alien psychic energy; Victor figured it could work, if such a device existed, but he had no idea if it was possible, much less where to find one.  Victor tried to track down Tentacle Man/Christopher Maddox' friends or family, but apparently he was a loner, except for his three dogs.

They debated whether to bring in the Monterroro Organization or Lucia Yepez, but ultimately decided against it.  Juan tried to dig up a connection online between Gabriel Harris and the two victims, but came up empty; David likewise failed to find any more info about Angelina Lucas, the security guard who had been disappeared.  Jack went out to a green box he knew about, hoping for some explosives for destroying Object 2, and, cunningly hidden under a pile of dildos, was a half-kilo of C4 and a mysterious book he didn't show anybody else, for which he "traded" his battle rifle and knife.

24/12/19 Merry Christmas, Every Juan
The agents woke up and, at David's suggestion, went to Denny's for breakfast (he was on a diet, so he only had one grand-slam), but Juan never showed up, and wasn't answering his phone.  They doubled back to the hotel and noticed that his DEA SUV was missing, then searched the room for clues, but found nothing of note.  Victor hacked into the CCTV system and went through the recordings, eventually spotting Juan driving off in the middle of the night.

Delta Green: The Tuscon Case Session 2: Yet Another Tragic Electrical Fire

Dr. Agent David Trentmen - FBI Agent and former Medical Doctor
Juan Estevez - DEA Agent and former Undercover Cop
Victor Blue - FBI Intelligence Analyst and Hacker
Jack Plisken - CIA Agent and Cleaner

22/12/19 Back at the Arizona Inn
After the failed raid on Raytheon, the party regrouped and did some research online.  Victor looked into any off-site backups they might have had, while everyone else checked if anybody else had seen the tentacle man.  The backups were out of state, but Victor figured he could hack in and got to work.  The others found grainy pictures of tentacle man from a conspiracy forum.  One dated 18/12/19 had him entering a building they were able to ID as US Foods Stock Yards Meat, which matched an address in Tuscon, so David, Jack, and Juan drove out to the commercial district in his DEA SUV to take a look.

Recon at the Meat Yard
Jack scoped out the facility to check for guards and cameras, and crit failed; he found that whoever was working here were elite security.  It may have looked like they were just walking in random aimless patterns in no specific interval, but in reality that was just to lull any would-be burglars into a false sense of security.  Juan suggested that the guards might not be expecting someone to come in via the roof, and so the group climbed up on top of a semi-truck, then ran along the container to the roof, where they lockpick-gun'd a roof-access door open.

Cold air blew out, and they walked down onto a darkened catwalk which to the ground inside of a refrigerated room with meat on hooks.  They searched for signs of tentacle man, and Jack found the body of a man, frozen by this point, and called the others over.  David examined the corpse more closely, and determined time of death to match date and time from the photo, and that it was missing the same organs as Corey Edwards.  However, this body had been moved, possibly in an attempt to hide it, while Edwards' had been left in broad daylight.

Delta Green: The Tuscon Case Session 1: A Really Bad Headache

Dr. Agent David Trentmen - FBI Agent and former Medical Doctor
Juan Estevez - DEA Agent and former Undercover Cop
Victor Blue - FBI Intelligence Analyst and Hacker
and introducing...
Jack Plisken - CIA Agent and Cleaner

20/12/19 A New Case
Victor received a message through the proper channels from someone he didn't know: a corner in Tuscon, Arizona named Abraham Meyer who had a case.  After verifying that everything seemed above board, he learned that seven people had died suddenly on 11/12/19, with no easily identifiable cause of death.  Autopsies revealed that the victims had all suffered extremely powerful seizures bad enough to fry their brains.  With that out of the way, Victor called up David and Juan and told them to meet up in Tuscon tomorrow.  Juan drove out in his DEA SUV, while David and Victor flew in.  David then rented "the biggest truck I can get", which ended up being a Toyota Tundra.

21/12/19 An Unbalanced Breakfast
The party met up at an IHOP in Tuscon, Arizona (David ordered 9 pancakes, hash browns, toast, and bacon, while Juan ate his usual MREs and beef jerky; Victor had something normal) and went over the details of the case again.  They decided that the first order of business was to go meet with Meyer and have David do another autopsy in case anything had been missed.

Victor had already set a meeting for that afternoon, and Juan, ever the Workaholic, split off from the others to go do some of the DEA work he was using as an excuse for being in Tuscon.  David and Victor had nothing else to do, so they shrugged and went to the Denny's across the street for "second breakfast".  Both managed to pass their HT rolls for eating a disgusting amount of breakfast food, and the party reconvened at the coroner's office.

GURPS Kung Fu Cowboys Session 18: The End

Big Po - Hungry Hungry Sumotori
Michelangelo - Friendly Capoeirista
Roberto King - Murderous Dagger Fighter
Dan da Ying -  Helpful Eagle-Stylist

Throne of the Outlaw King
Roberto waved Dan away, because this was between him and the Outlaw King, so he went to help Mike fight Leonardo instead.  Both of them kicked at Leonardo, but he dodged the first and parried the second, before responding to Dan with a Rapid Strike Feint into a kick which inflicted little injury.  Roberto and the Outlaw King both continued Evaluating while stepping towards each other, and downstairs, Ryuji continued to eat Po.

Roberto then Giant Stepped up to the Outlaw King and spent his Evaluate to make a highly Deceptive Dual-Weapon Mighty Blow, but his foe Retreated and parried both attacks with a Feverish Defense.  The Outlaw King then Feinted him, flung his Weapon Bond knife away and into a training dummy with a crit Disarm, and struck him with the staff in the neck hard enough to knock him down then Stamp Kicked him while he was down.  He then berated Roberto for daring to face him alone, as he knew every Technique, and was undefeatable.

Dan and Mike both fell back with an All-Out Defense, while Leonardo taunted Mike for needing someone else to save him and leapt at Dan, but failed to connect.  Dan put Leo in a Leg Lock Arm Lock (he didn't actually have the Leg Lock technique so we had to retcon this), and Mike took advantage of this to break Leo's left foot with a kick, and Dan let go of his Lock to allow him to let him fall to the ground while complaining about how this was ruining his plan.

GURPS Kung Fu Cowboys Session 17: Pagoda of the Outlaw King

Big Po - Hungry Hungry Sumotori
Michelangelo - Friendly Capoeirista
Roberto King - Murderous Dagger Fighter
Dan da Ying -  Helpful Eagle-Stylist

Hangman's Mesa
After much discussion, the party abandoned a plan to sabotage the gondola, and decided to just cut a hole in the paper walls of the pagoda and sneak in.  Po boosted Mike so he could look through a high window on the pagoda's ground floor at the back of the building.  It looked down from a landing halfway to the second floor to an atrium with a high ceiling and two adjoining rooms, one of which orange-robed kung fu mooks were moving sacks of squash and rice into.  Figuring that would be a storage room, they waited for the mooks to finish their work, then snuck around to that side of the pagoda and Roberto cut a hole wide enough for Po.

They slid open the store room door and entered into the main atrium, empty except for four large pillars supporting the pagoda, then headed upstairs to the second floor.  A single guard walked between the pillars, away from a zen garden he had clearly just been raking, and the party (except for Po) snuck up behind him to take him out without raising an alarm.  Mike made an All-Out kick to the skull for a grand total of 0 injury, his foot bouncing harmlessly off the goon's head, followed by another blow to the head from Dan, who missed.  Fortunately, before the thug was able to shout anything, Roberto just slit his throat, killing him instantly.

Po dragged the body over to a convenient body-sized crate and shoved it in; the party hoped nobody noticed the super-obvious pool of blood against the hardwood floors.  They continued up to the third floor, which had four sliding doors off of the main hall, which ended at a spiral staircase up.  The party could hear two people talking behind at least one of them, but their eavesdropping was interrupted by somebody on the ground floor shouting "Hey, somebody cut a hole in the wall down here!  Raise the alarm!".