Rise of LOKI Session 8: The Curtain Falls

Characters:
Arthur - Alphonso

            - Fuegan: The Burning Lance

            - Rex
Kirato 
Hiro

Solo Mission

Halvorsen laid out the plan: Arthur was going to strike LOKI at the heart of his operations in the Congo, delivered by a repurposed dumb missile.  The prototype neural link helmet would allow Arthur to control all three AESIR, but less effectively than usual.  On the way in, he'd have to do his best to avoid LOKI's anti-missile defense systems.  Once landed, Arthur would destroy targets meant to elicit a response from LOKI.  Kicking the hornet's nest in this way should draw a large number of enemy AESIR; doing so would require LOKI to concentrate its presence in the area.

Meanwhile, Katerina would be monitoring network traffic for LOKI's "artificial brainwaves", and once they hit a high enough threshold, Arthur would hack into the communications network and shut it down, preventing LOKI from leaving.  Finally, he would trigger an EMP which would fry everything within several kilometers.

Arthur asked Halvorsen if it was safe to be disconnected by EMP, and was successfully assured that it was "probably safe".  He then brought up that he wasn't a hacker; that had been more Kirato's thing.  At that, Katerina piped up and explained that their AIs had taken on a resonance with the pilots and gained some of their experiences, so Fuegan would be almost as good under Arthur as under Kirato.  Not confident, Arthur put on the helmet anyway, and the missile launched.

Rise of LOKI Session 7: A Chance at Peace

Characters:

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

The Battle of Zermatt

The first Cowboy's shut down as its reactor failed, and Arthur stepped away from the downed Cowboy and destroyed the northwest AA gun with his sword.  The second stabbed Kirato twice with its knife, not quite crippling his weapon arm, while the third shot Hiro with its pistol, but failed to penetrate his armour.  Kirato drew his knife and stabbed the second Cowboy in its arm, and also failed to cripple.  The Knight, its reactor slowly flaring out, stood guard near the north AA gun and waited.

The knife Cowboy landed an All-Out thrust to Kirato's reactor for 40 injury, sending him to the brink of shutdown, while the other Cowboy, seeing it was incapable of injuring Hiro, granted a Target Lock to the Gunner, which had just regained its feet.  Despite never having done so before, Kirato Concentrated for a moment and Went Even Further Beyond, entering a Perfect Drift with Fuegan.

A hail of lasers sizzled as they shot through the rain at Hiro, but they all missed him inside the smoke cloud; the Gunner's chest glowed ominously, but began to dull as it fired burst after burst of laser fire.  Hiro shot back at the Cowboy to deny the Gunner a Target Lock, wounding it with the first, aimed burst but missed the second ("I just shoot up into the air screaming 'Ahhhh'").  The knife Cowboy's movement stuttered to a stop as its reactor shut down.

Rise of LOKI Session 6: Security's Day Off

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

Paintball

Back at Valhalla Base, a couple members of the security team, Chad and Smith, found the pilots and cheerfully them that they'd found a crate of paintball guns, and the pilots were supposed to play paintball with them for "combat training".  More than anything, they just seemed happy to be able to do something, as they hadn't been doing anything since the AESIR went online.  Arthur pointed out that he would be at quite the disadvantage as he is in a wheelchair, but Chad replied that it was actually an advantage as he doesn't make as much noise, and the smooth motion makes aiming easier.

The pilots tried to convince the security team that they shouldn't be involved for a variety of reasons.  "What if the paintballs have expired?" "Nah, they haven't".  "Wait, we can't play in the cold, frozen paintballs could really hurt you." "Actually, that's a good idea, maybe we should play outside".  "Are the janitors bored too?  Maybe they could play!" "No, that wouldn't be fair, you're the only other guys with combat experience".

Kirato agreed, then Hiro joined in so it wouldn't be 3v1, and finally Arthur agreed as well (Arthur: "Sadistic and Self-Loathing means I guess I have to accept").  As Chad finished helping them put on ballistic vests ("No goggles?" "No, we don't have any" "Can we have our AESIR helmets?" "Oh, we can't risk getting paint on those"), Carmen walked into the room, paintball gun at her side, and told them that this should be fun; the pilots immediately regretted their decision.  Hiro psyched up the other two, then did his "secret hi-five" of deliberately missing the other person's hand.

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.