Rise of LOKI Session 5: A Breakthrough

Characters:
Arthur - Alphonso
Kirato - Fuegan: The Burning Lance
Hiro - Rex

Amphibious Landing

The party were airdropped just off the northwest island of the Rugen archipelago.  Kirato used the scanner and determined that the source of the power spike was likely on the south end of the main island, so they waded through the ocean in that direction, wary of enemies.  Hiro scanned with his Radar and spotted an enemy AESIR in the center of the main island; one of the Bricks with superheavy armour and homing missile launcher.

It hadn't detected them yet, so they advanced some more, at which point it spun and fired a missile at them.  Hiro noticed a massive bullet crash into the water behind him, but none of them could see the source, and another AESIR, this one a Knight with sword and shield, activated Booster Jets from somewhere on the south end of the main island and leapt towards Kirato, narrowly missing.

Arthur stepped onto the island and tried to remove the Knight's sword arm, but it managed to dodge, while Kirato panicked and froze.  The missile flew towards them, hanging low to the forest, and Hiro missed it with a burst of lasers.  Kirato recovered from stun ("Oh right, it's just like a video game!") as three mystery bullets slammed into Arthur from different directions; nobody could tell where they were coming from.  The Knight slashed at Arthur, but he managed to parry, then cut off its sword arm in retaliation.  

Rise of LOKI Session 4: Mr LOKI, Tear Down This Wall!

Characters:

Arthur - Alphonso

Kirato - Fuegan: The Burning Lance

Hiro - Rex

Dropping Like Flies

Arthur triggered his Booster Jets and started forward, but the Cowboy that was watching the flank opened fire with an All-Out Attack from its pistols once he moved into the open, two bullets connecting through a storm of flares.  Arthur, slightly worse for wear, left it to get to the Knight, but the Cowboy followed him anyway, jumping out of the fog to shoot him some more from mid-air before landing.

Kirato, his AESIR on the brink of failure, decided to Overload his Reactor Core, and succeded; his mech went into overdrive, but the systems could only take 6 more seconds before shutting down.  The Knight stepped away from Hiro to face Arthur, and stunned him with a heavy blow from its sword, while the Melter missed Hiro with a burst of acid.  One Cowboy jumped to flank Kirato, shooting him twice, while the other shot Hiro from point-blank range.

After a brief discussion ("I can't All-Out Attack, I need to dodge!" "What's your dodge?" "Half of 9"), Kirato took out the Knight with his burst laser, landing all 7 shots, then spun and missed the flanking Cowboy.  The Melter continued stepping closer, and this time hit Hiro with acid spray, melting the rest of his DR away, which was followed by a trio of shots from a Cowboy.  The other Cowboy shot Kirato, but he didn't even feel it hanks to his overloaded reactor.

Rise of LOKI Session 3: Dambusters

Characters:

Arthur - Sadistic Melee

Kirato - Panicky Heavy Ranged

Hiro - Cowardly Rifleman

Bunker Bustin'

Arthur activated his Booster Jets to leap towards the first enemy AESIR, but fell over in the mountainous terrain, while Hiro shot another missile out of the air with his laser rifle.  Kirato kept Hacking the second mech, bringing it to 20 Control Points, then Shut it Down; Schweitzer thanked them for bringing one in intact for research.  Just before Arthur made it back to his feet, the remaining Brick fired its missile at the ground nearby, and he failed to Drop and Dodge the area of effect, getting knocked down and stunned ("Would you please react to being hit by a missile?" "Uhh, ouch, that hurt").

While Arthur slowly got back up again and Hiro stumbled towards the enemy AESIR, Kirato moved into range and just barely Hacked it for 2CP.  The last drone started flying at Kirato, and Arthur landed an All-Out Attack (Double) on the Brick, destroying its Auto-Loader with the first and its Radar Suite with the second, stunning it.  He called back to HQ, asking if he could destroy this one, and Schweitzer didn't seem too upset, so Arthur stabbed the Brick's Reactor, utterly destroying it.  The drone retreated out of range, and the battle was over.

Debriefing

The intact Brick AESIR was brought back to the hangar, where Schweitzer and the rest of Engineering descended upon it for research and analysis.  After several hours, the party were called into Holger's office for debriefing, the many monitors plastered with images of the Brick and its subsystems.  Now that they had a good look at it, the Brick was unmistakably related to their own AESIR, if a bit chunkier.

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.