Kasimir

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Night One: Breach of Containment Whyren’s words were the first stone cast in a still pond. They skipped across the surface, and everywhere, ripples and eddies cut into each other, intersecting, marring each other. “What do you mean SynthKandra?” This was one of the hired mistrunners, the one who went by the street name of Vulture. “You mean one of the Faceless Immortals?” demanded Albatross. Whyren glared at the gathered mistrunners. The last thing he needed was yet another Pathian coming along for the joyride. On the one hand, this was classified information. On the other hand, Sandhya had already made the runners sign a veritable wall of non-disclosure agreements, and—and for a long moment, Whyren had the sinking feeling that old crows were coming home to roost. Old sins long buried but never forgotten. The ghosts haunted you, always. You could never get rid of them. The price you paid, for knowledge worth having. Whyren told himself it was worth it, and it had certainly secured his promotion to the senior research position. “It was one of the primary research projects being carried out in this facility,” he said. There was that brief, disconcerting flash of recognition in Kesed’s eyes, and for a moment, Whyren thought he felt the ground threaten to give way beneath him. Memories, sharp enough to cut. “Harmony has his kandra. Why not make our own? Synthetic beings with the capacity to perfectly imitate their targets, with access to their target’s memories, impulses, and instincts. Synthetic beings programmed with a deep loyalty to the corporation.” Whyren paged through the display, watching the sector heads carefully for any indication of interest. The response he saw gratified him: most of the research and lab heads looked fascinated. One or two of them looked revolted, but Whyren supposed that was not unusual. There was the occasional Pathian among Heron Industries employees, and talk of creating a shadow of Harmony’s own kandra seemed to sit poorly with them. Kesed said, “We’ve coined the term SynthKandra to refer to the entities this project proposes to create. This will require deep research expertise in Hemalurgic engineering, as well as the mechanics of identity. We don’t seek to repurpose mistwraiths or to gain access to Harmony’s own kandra.” Whyren wondered idly whose benefit that disclaimer was for. Harmony was careful about intervention. This was the only possible explanation for how the megacorps had become so dominant in the Scadrial of the future. And then there was Kesed’s own sensibilities. For a while, back when he’d suggested the idea, jokingly, over drinks, Kesed’d hesitated at first, before he’d seen the practicality of it. They needed a research proposal that would interest the sector heads, and industrial espionage and gaining an advantage over the competition was always a strong selling point. On top of that, it was the sort of challenge that Kesed thrived on: something just barely on the edge of possible, and audacious enough for Whyren’s own ambition. But then, for all Kesed was decidedly indifferent, you never really knew, with those Pathians. They took turns, walking the section heads through the various elements of the proposal. Whyren laid out the various budget concerns, and the resources that they would require. They’d argued over it for long nights: Kesed pointing out that they couldn’t submit a proposal to the section heads without being able to account for and minimise expenses, and Whyren pointing out they needed to be taken seriously and that meant establishing what the project needed instead of cutting it down to size to be run on a shoe-string. In the end, however, it was obvious. Whyren had offered them an idea too tempting, too interesting to be ignored. Not in this brave new world where megacorps jockeyed and jostled for every single shred of advantage over the competition. And Kesed had offered them a clear roadmap to achieving it. “Let’s see what you can do with the funding, Halcyon, Arnkell,” section head Cen said, with a toothy grin. “I think you can consider this project fast-tracked for approval.” The SynthKandra project had been a long time ago. Enough time that Kesed had walled the memories away, and compartmentalised them. He knew, of course, that Whyren had continued to work on Project Replicant. It had been their collective pride, their brainchild. Whyren had been promoted to a senior research position, and the project had snowballed and attracted more funding. And Kesed… Kesed had lost his nerve. Burned out. Had a crisis of conscience. Whichever way you wanted to put it. And he’d left, and things had never quite been the same between them again. Maybe that was it. Maybe there was that lingering grudge, because Whyren felt as though Kesed had in some way betrayed him. Maybe. “SynthKandra function as normal kandra do,” Whyren was explaining. “They are able to devour and to perfectly imitate their targets. They can also generate bodies if given a suitable template.” “Fine,” Scorpion bit out. “And how do we kill them, if they’re killing us?” “Anything can be killed,” Atari said, with quiet assurance. Kesed supposed that for a man sporting body armour he wouldn’t be surprised to find on elite private security forces like Knight Errant, and with a Tekiel Avenger and a plasma blade holstered on each hip, he would’ve felt pretty assured too. “Of course they can,” Scorpion retorted, heatedly. “But how? And how do we find out if they’ve replaced us? Because I’m not sure if it’s occurred to you, but we’re currently trying to re-secure this facility here, and our egghead tells us that this damned place has suffered a containment breach which means there might be more of them!” “Someone found out,” Kesed said. He nudged at the corpse with the toe of his boot and swallowed the reflexive discomfort. One thing when Project Replicant was theoretical. Another thing to see the results of years of research lying dead on the floor. “And someone killed it.” Whyren said, “Most of Project Replicant’s SynthKandra were designed with failsafes.” Kesed snorted. “Of course there’s failsafes. There’s always failsafes.” Whyren hesitated. Kesed supposed he would too, in Whyren’s shoes. If Whyren was telling them the truth, then no matter how many NDAs the mistrunners signed, Heron Industries would probably demand the liquidation of every single one of them. Project Replicant was that important. Knowing the SynthKandra existed was one thing. Knowing the failsafes built into their design was another. “There should be an armoury on this level,” Whyren said, at last. From the way his knuckles were white as he clutched his datapad, Kesed knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Oh, Whyren, he thought, with a touch of sadness. Years, and he hadn’t changed. Still as readable as ever. “I’d advise securing the armoury before going deeper into the facility.” “I’ve always wanted to play with some megacorp toys,” Beagle smirked. It didn’t reach his eyes, though. Whyren glared at him. “The armoury should have shock knives—modelled after the Rosharan pain knife, they carry a non-lethal charge specifically meant to disrupt the neuro-muscular systems of a SynthKandra. Used correctly, the SynthKandra will lose control of the shift for a second.” Kesed blinked. That was new. He didn’t remember that at all. Then again, he hadn’t worked extensively on that aspect of Project Replicant. “So we work out they’re SynthKandra from that,” Beagle drawled. “Sweet. Do the knives kill?” “What part of ‘non-lethal charge’ do you not understand?” Whyren demanded. “Any knife can kill,” Kesed stated. “You just have to stab hard enough and in the right place.” Whyren said, “You don’t start.” “Am I wrong?” From the way Whyren’s shoulders tensed, the tight, angry line of his mouth, Kesed knew that he wasn’t. Whyren took a deep breath and then said, “The knife won’t kill a SynthKandra. And the shock won’t kill an ordinary person.” “Good enough for me,” said Beagle, “If disappointing.” Kesed thought that was rather pushing it, considering the mistrunner crew was armed to the teeth. Probably literally, in some cases. He noticed Vel was watching, but saying nothing. There was another person who bore watching. He thought he noticed Vel keeping an eye on Whyren. Perhaps another plant. When it came to Heron Industries, nothing was obvious. Sometimes you had an entire circle of accountability going, with everyone watching everyone else. “Let’s move out then,” Kesed said. “You heard the man. I want one team to check for the armoury. The other team, you’re with me and Blue Team.” Whyren raised an eyebrow. To the unasked question, Kesed said, “We may know there is a containment breach but we also know there was a firefight here. I intend to find out exactly what happened here.” “I don’t trust you,” Vulture said, point-blank. Crocodile said, “Oooh, shiny,” and even unflappable Atari had a near heart-attack when Crocodile bent down and scooped up a shock grenade from the ground, the pin still in. “Please put that away,” Jack Ladrian said. Part of him wondered why he’d agreed to come on this job in the first place. Crocodile seemed an utter chaos demon, he was keeping an eye on Vulture and was certain that Vulture was watching him with just as much wariness, and as much as he’d taken this job for the same reason he’d taken the one before this, and the one before that, the revelation that the facility had suffered a containment breach and there were possibly more SynthKandra among them seemed to send his senses on high alert. What would Breeze do? For that matter, Jack felt that Wax wouldn’t have backed down from a challenge like this. He felt a brief spike of excitement at the thought. It was as though he was following in his ancestors’ footsteps, after all. It was what he’d always wanted. Maybe he’d found his shot at it, here and now. “If we’ve quite finished playing around with how much we distrust each other, I’d like to get back to work.” Atari glanced from Jack to Crocodile, those watchful eyes lingering on Scorpion. “I don’t trust you either,” Vulture stated. “Good,” Atari said. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, shall we?” He strode on down the corridor with a confidence that would have been arrogance in another runner, but Atari wore it well. Still, Jack noticed, Atari was very careful not to turn his back to Scorpion. No one was terminated! The Night has begun! It will end at 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8) on the 28th April, Thursday! PMs remain open! As always, please refrain from posting until I have reserved the second post.

Is this a good time to remind you you have nineteen minutes to rollover? I guess I can't nip off for a quick game before this. Would be a crying shame to miss rollover by accident...

the answer to an or question is always yes is this a good time to admit orlok picked the distro actually i thought it'd be a nice switch from asking wyrm since u all used to wyrm by now ok no as much as it would be nice to watch all of u panic & troll kas bro tells me i can't do that edited to add: i have corrected/updated the rule clarifications and everything i have been asked should be in there as well. do check the rule clarifications for each cycle.

This is my current votecount. As I have just napped after an all-nighter because I was required to OT even on leave, and brawled with Hael and Orlok (not brawled them and not simultaneously), I am tired as all hells. What this means is that if you notice a discrepancy in the votecount, please let me know ASAP.

this player gets it is both ok look example here Quartz Zebra is villager Sapphire Elephant is kandra. ellie is evil terribad no good and stabs zebra zebra dies then ellie devours him to become him & become more powerful & big & stronk & unstoppable ahem anyway ellie loses ellie account, takes over quartz zebra account zebra swaps teams but is not dead yet zebra gets a taken doc with ellie ellie's car now but zebra is wingman riding shotgun until ellie decides he likes sunburst toucan better & steals sunburst's body instead then zebra goes to dead doc still evil and sunburst becomes new wingman bro clear? pls say it's clear

You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means...

GM Announcement: In light of recent events, if you are asking me something in your GM PM or sending in an order and I do not respond within half a day, please tag me and ping again in the PM. This is because there is a chance I may not be able to see your question/order. Edited to add: Or Discord I guess. You can just DM me via Discord. But I do not and will not accept Discord orders barring extremely extenuating circumstances involving your inability to access the Shard. Edited to add 2: I promise you that being unable to locate your GM PM does not count as an extremely extenuating circumstance. ...Yet.

idk kas bro played ag8 trying to pretend to be araris, last i heard did pretty well too me though? i couldn't even die without outing stick u'd remember, hael :eyes:

it is when im ur gm and continuously nameslip and accidentally out people :|

i may be in my dotage but i m not so far gone as to not be able to recognise my im is not in fact playing this game >:( do not even try to confuse me burntling >:(

hey burnt give me one good reason to im waitin :eyes: just one (1) :eyes:

to everything: if u've played a tyrian game before, which i will neither confirm nor deny publicly, the short answer is that everything is done just like in a tyrian game this is basically a tyrian game+ no, no, no, no, no, no, no u will know if u survive death and the thread will know u survived death but that's it this bro this is a basic tyrian game at core normal se vote manip functionality is there this is basically a rioter so all vote manip works this way wyrm (1): ren, kas this is how it looks in this world ren is the rioter and own vote is removed no b/c im not that much of a troll >> elims have to outnumber, that's it edited to add: the only tyrian ruling im removing is smoked rioter if a rioter is smoked they still lose their own vote smoked rioting was nonsense on stilts and kas bro, ilu but u r a fool 4 ever allowing it the smoked rioter loses their own vote & its their own bloody fault they have no one but themselves to blame edited to add 2: i prefer players to green out the votes but kas bro has told me they get testy if u enforce this so i will count the last red vote, i'll just also quietly complain to wyrm/kas tt u guys find basic instructions hard

Pre-emptively correcting this: I have clarified previously that Elims may not be all kandra. This is in part the rationale for not announcing hops to the Village - it lets the Village know both the Elim team size and gives them a rough idea of team composition. See here: Cf. Two further rule clarifications: Kandra may not hop into a player who has been terminated. We'll assume that whatever they do to the body, there's not enough left for impersonation. Ouch. Kandra may do a side-shuffle: for instance, Kandra A kills and replaces Quartz Zebra, and Kandra B replaces the body vacated by Kandra A. This is technically possible and I am allowing this as it is high-risk: if Quartz Zebra is a Thug or Lurched, then both Kandra A and Kandra B will lose a conversion attempt. This used to be phrased properly in kel speak but I am bloody tired and annoyed after losing this post the first time and I probably shouldn't screw around with rule clarifications as I'd prefer you all understand what the rules are as compared to being confused. Oh, and yes, yes, for the love of the Ja, you can have group PMs! >>

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Day One: Choose Your Crew The murmur of conversation fell silent as Sandhya strode into the Electric Sparrow as though she owned the place. This was strictly-speaking false, but since she’d booked the place from Gan, it was true enough for the allotted time slot. Gan polished a glass at the bar, and briefly clasped Sandhya’s hand. The movement drew the eye to the one extravagance Gan allowed herself: the tattoo of a sparrow in flight on the underside of her wrist, with ink that shifted and danced in bright electric lines beneath the skin. The other arm—Gan had stories about how she lost it, when she was in the mood. Some of them even seemed like they might be remotely true. Servomotors hummed as she set the glass down. “Decent crowd,” Sandhya said, though really, she’d hoped for better. Gan snorted. “You get what you pay for,” she said. “Best crews don’t work cheap. And they’re thin on the ground right now. Too many of them running jobs.” Sandhya didn’t ask what sort, and Gan would not have answered her, anyway. It didn’t matter what there was between you: a fixer who said too much was a fixer who found fewer clients, and fewer mistrunner crews willing to use her services. And Gan was, if anything, one of the best fixers in this district. That was why Sandhya came back, everything else be damned. She liked to think she was practical enough to realise that, and so was Gan. Maybe that was the problem: too much ice in her veins. There was the tang of alcohol and the heavy scent of cigarette smoke in the air, and Sandhya swallowed her distaste. “Any idea if that’s most of them?” “Better question is, think more will trickle in if you wait?” It wasn’t a question. And as far as Sandhya was concerned, some deviation was tolerable. You had to allow mistrunners their eccentricities and proclivities, as long as they were effective. There came a point though, where enough was enough. If there was one thing Sandhya looked poorly on, it was tardiness. Time was boxings. Especially so when you were dealing with a problem so critical that it had led to a security lockdown in an entire Heron Industries installation. That really was the problem, when you thought of it. The board was going to have Etam’s head for this, and Sandhya found that she couldn’t quite bring herself to care. Not when she was cleaning up a mess that had happened on his watch. She strode over to the first booth and sat down, assessing the crew that had gathered there. Six of them, all of them confident enough. One of them looked like a weapons expert. Handy to have on any crew. This runner looked like he’d done a few basic upgrades at a chopshop, and his cyberware was battered but serviceable. That cyberarm though was top of the line, with a few modifications that screamed street work. “You the Yeden?” One of the mistrunners asked, nursing his drink. A Yeden was the term used for any client wishing to hire a runner crew under conditions of anonymity. Since then, it’d stuck. Sandhya nodded. “And you’re Ant.” That was the handle he’d gone by, on MistLands BBS. A quick surface profile on the Cognitive Matrix told her that Ant was a small-time runner, but’d done a few runs of note that had gone relatively well. From the chrome he was sporting, she was willing to bet there were more jobs from clients with bigger pockets that she hadn’t picked up on in her quick scan. “Mmhmm. Well, your boxings are paying us to listen, Yeden. What’s the job?” “Clean-up,” Sandhya said. “A research facility has entered security lockdown. We suspect either an inside job, or potential complications with a top secret research project. You’ll be working with one of our own response teams.” Ant grunted. “I don’t work with tourists.” “That’s not negotiable.” “Objectives?” asked another of the runners. “Penetrate security,” Sandhya said, counting them off. “Terminate the lockdown. Secure the facility.” She let that degree of ice creep into her voice. “And if there is any opposition, ice them.” Ant laughed. “That, I’m good at.” She believed it. He looked at the rest of his crew. “Tourist. Don’t like ‘em, never have.” “The boxings are good, though,” said another of the runners. “What corp’re we running for?” “Heron Industries.” The word hung in the air: heavy, forbidding. Finally, one of the runners gave a quick bark of laughter. “We’ll need to think about this.” “I’m short on time,” Sandhya replied, brusquely. “And willing to pay extra for skill and reliability. Gan set me up with a meeting.” Ant made a thoughtful sound. “That’s true.” “We need to confer, Yeden,” the other runner said. “That’s how it works. But we’ll decide fast. Is there more information on the run you can give us?” Sandhya shook her head. There was that possibility that it had to do with Project Replicant, that Whyren had been suborned, but…no. And that was why she’d set Kesed to watching him, in the first place. “The facility went into lockdown too fast for us to be able to ascertain the situation.” “We’ll confer,” the runner said, again. “Do so quickly,” Sandhya told them, and got up to repeat the same conversation again with the next booth. Mistrunners. Sometimes it was easier to call a Heron Industries response team when you wanted a reliable, fast response. But sometimes, you got better results from mistrunners. Right now, time was not on their side. And with silence from that first response team, Sandhya thought that throwing mistrunners at the problem was a better solution. And Kesed. Even if sometimes, Kesed introduced a whole new set of problems on his own. The expanse of the research installation loomed before him, secured within the chain link fence that ran about it. Loops of concertina wire snarled through the top of the fence to discourage fence-hoppers. Normally, there was the hum of electricity through the fence, but right now, it had gone silent. “Facility’s drone defenses are in full operation,” Solovey said. “Show me.” Kesed felt the pulse of heat as his comm acknowledged the incoming transmission, and then his display shifted to provide an overlay of the compound as seen from overhead—likely one of Solovey’s scout drones. Blinking dots showed the facility’s security drones on the grid. “Capabilities?” “I see at least two Farrsolin Ranger models. Likely connected to the security systems, if there’s no rigger jacked into the system operating them.” Kesed nodded acknowledgement. “Can you do anything about them?” Solovey scoffed. “Does a bear crap in the woods? Give me a few minutes and I can shut them down.” There was probably a security override but Kesed didn’t know it. Heron Industries was powerfully insistent on segmentation, which meant drek-all when they were looking at having to penetrate that security lockdown as it were. In theory, Whyren knew the security override code, as one of the senior researchers on a high-priority project, according to Sandhya, but the code could not be broadcast and had to be physically entered into a secured terminal from within the facility. Kesed grunted. Chicken-and-egg problem. Or bad design, as he liked to call it. Sometimes, you could make your facility too secure. Not that he’d have said that aloud. The crew of mistrunners that Sandhya had managed to send his way seemed competent, eager, and skilled enough. Whether that would continue to be true was something Kesed could only determine after they’d worked their way into the facility. Blue Team at least were operatives he’d worked with a couple of times. He knew their capacities and that gave him some measure of confidence. One by one, he watched the blinking lights on the display grow dim. “Done,” Solovey said. “Good work,” Kesed said. He turned to the others. “Time to move out. Drone system’s been shut down so we should have free access to the facility.” Blue Team looked determined. The runners wore a mix of expressions: some of them looked eager; others looked calmly focused, and a few of them looked bored. Kesed suspected the situation would change soon. There was a saying about how the best-laid plans tended to go to pieces because the crap hit the fan the moment your plans met the messy nature of reality. Whyren jogged after the advancing response team, and the mistrunners bristling with weapons. More than anything, he felt out of place. He was the researcher here—senior researcher, mind!—and he was acutely aware of the fact that his place was theorising and managing a complex research project, not attempting to break into a high-security research installation. Said research installation being his place of work only added layers to the clustercrap that was his life. His neck prickled. He felt Kesed’s eyes on him again, watching him. Assessing him, probably. He bloody hated that. The path to the front door of the installation was eerily silent. There was no sign of life, no hum from the security drones, not a single cry or whisper or sound that might indicate the facility was anything more than a lifeless hulk. His mind ran through the staggering list of people who worked in that installation, and wondered if they were still in there. If they were still alive. He wanted to tear his mind away from that morbid line of thought, and yet he couldn’t quite make himself do that. He kept worrying at it, as though it was a loose tooth. The teams stopped at the door to the installation. Almost on reflex, Whyren stepped up to the card reader and scanned his access pass. The reader hummed and chirped but the indicator light remained stubbornly red. “Security lockdown,” Kesed said. As though Whyren should have known. And perhaps he’d remembered once, but not when there were at least seventy-two emails from security every week briefing him about the latest measures being adopted. “Normal access is curtailed. But there’s an override available to responder teams—” The card reader chirped again when Kesed scanned his own pass, and then the light blinked green and the seemingly impervious blast doors slid open, retracting back on both sides like the jaws of some large beast. A blast of cold air hit Whyren in the face. He shivered. “Now you’re just flexing,” he complained. The words hung in the air between them, and part of him wanted to take it back. The words belonged to a time when everything between them had been so easy. So reflexive. They had been younger, then. More grey in their hair now. Older. More tired. Different now. “Part of the job,” Kesed said. Whyren was happy enough to let him—and the rest of the teams—sweep the entryway first. Dealing with risk wasn’t something he was interested in. That was their job, not his. He hadn’t even signed up for this. Sandhya’d more or less bludgeoned him into it. She was good at that. Someone called out, and the teams converged around a sight that Whyren was hoping to hell he’d never see again. There was signs of a firefight in the area, just past the entryway. In the entryway itself, close enough to the door, within touch of freedom, was a corpse. What was unusual was the translucence of the skin and flesh; as though it had gone gelatinous in consistency, revealing the bones inside and the signature metallic implants they’d worked so hard to develop. Whyren swallowed, hard. “SynthKandra,” he said, aloud. The words felt leaden. “Project Replicant. There’s been a containment breach.” The Day has begun! The Turn will end on 27th April, Wednesday, at 0100hrs SGT (GMT +8). PMs are open. Please remember to include both myself and the IM @Elbereth. Please contact me or Kas (if on Discord) via PM / DM if you have difficulty getting into your anon account. There has been at least one mishap already. Please do not post until I have reserved the second post for rule clarifications. Apologies for the time taken in set-up and write-up quality; I am beginning to learn the horror of anon games, and am also currently sick.

hey axl u old grouch liked our game 2gether even if we never played very often don't think u shld be soliciting u r not a supplicant & we can't send u off into the wilderness to die just like this all i have to offer u are kel's sheer insanity & kas bro told me 2 tell u he wishes u all the best, 2 die as a true Mando'ad & tt he's proud to see u especially represent us oh & yea right the important bit he wants to give u his ability to (very occasionally) summon the lynch with the wrath of eighty glorious suns on ur foes

mods pls feel free to stop me or re-edit this in if triple-posting bad: currently have 12 players, with a potential 13th pending clarification ideally game is designed for 15 minimum if u have good reason to worry about ur ability to cope, maybe don't, but if u r interested/free & on the fence, pls do consider signing up thanx @Wyrmhero edited 2 add: sign-ups r closed pls hang in there while i get ur accounts etc 2 u ty

Rule Clarifications: Player List: also pls u shld not be posting in this thread don't 4get is anonymous <3 kel

In his tattered dreams, Kesed found himself in that room again. He’d had that dream enough times, now. There was a nagging sense of familiarity to the room, to what was going on in it. He stepped forward, and in that moment, felt a deep foreboding in the pit of his stomach: instinct telling him that whatever it was, it was going to be ugly. Something he didn’t want to see. But he found himself walking forward, anyway. Some things you had to see. Call it bad justification, call it a sort of second sense. Some of the investigation team got that way about certain scenes. Kesed’d learned to pay attention to those instincts. As he strode forward, the room took shape about him, hardening into sterile clarity from the fuzziness of the dream. It was a containment room, like any other in the Heron Industries research facility. And there were two figures in the centre of the room, and shadows bleeding into the rest of it, obscuring everything in a shifting murk. He frowned, trying to make out who they were. He never could, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t seem to work out what the shadows were hiding, either. The psych always told him that was important, and he’d tried it all: dream journals, pills, but the dreams never seemed to quite leave him. If someone was trying to send him a message, Kesed’d just rather they have sent him an email. Cleaner and quicker than this sort of broken telephone. He woke up to the sound of his phone going off. It tore him from sleep, as surely as if an alarm had gone off. There was still no light through the shutters, not that he could make out. The glowing green numerals on the digital clock beside the bed were too bloody early for any sane man to be awake. The sense of foreboding only deepened. Few reasons Kesed could think of, when it came to why he’d be getting a work call at this bloody hour. He wasn’t on duty this week, and was off-site, but everyone knew that even when you were on investigation, even when you were off-duty, you were still on tap for incident management if the incident commander saw fit. Kesed reached out for his phone, blearily. “Arnkell,” he growled. “Kesed.” He recognised the voice instantly, and his concern levels only spiked drastically. This wasn’t one of the on-site teams, or the duty officer. She did other work for Heron Industries, some of which Kesed only suspected and had no way of confirming, and expected he’d be ruthlessly terminated if he ever knew the full extent of her activities. “There’s been a containment breach at the facility and the entire facility has been placed under security lockdown. Code Red.” “Sandhya. What’s happened to the on-site teams?” “Lost all contact,” Sandhya replied, briskly. “One of them managed to trigger the lockdown, so we know there has been a containment breach but the site itself is secure.” “Comms?” “None preceding the lockdown.” Which made things worse, Kesed thought. His mind had cleared enough for him to work that out. The situation was ugly as all hell, and he couldn’t for the life of him make sense of why there had been no word from the security teams on-site even before the lockdown had been triggered. “Assets?” “Red Team went in to secure the installation,” Sandhya said. “No word from them, but there was a distress signal from Red Lead’s emergency beacon.” Kesed pinched the bridge of his nose and thought. Wondered if it was worth being yanked out from the dream, thrown into a situation like this. Red Team was solid, which meant that whatever the hell had gone wrong at the facility, it had gone terribly, terribly wrong indeed. “What do you need from me?” Sandhya’s primary work in Heron Industries was asset management, which meant that in any reasonable world, Kesed Arnkell, security officer, black sheep, and overall failure should not be answering to her. In any reasonable world, Kesed should’ve been receiving a call from the duty officer, or the team leader reactivating all possible resources to manage this incident. But this was not in fact a reasonable world, and Sandhya was his handler. What tangled webs we weave, Kesed thought. So many people watching so many people. That was how Heron Industries worked: trust through accountability. Everything you did was watched. “I’m brokering the assistance of deniable assets,” Sandhya said. “You’re Blue Lead. Use them to secure the facility and lift the lockdown. Until the lockdown is lifted, nothing leaves the installation, not even comms. Report on the situation, and ascertain the status of Red Team if you can. Incident report to come afterwards.” “In your assessment, that is necessary?” Kesed asked. “Yes,” Sandhya replied, without hesitation. He’d never known her to hesitate. There was ice water in her veins. “And Kesed—one of the researchers was off-site at the time. Use all possible discretion to ensure he’s clean, but you’ll need his access.” Because they didn’t know what they didn’t know, Kesed thought. And because part of him, the wary, suspicious part of him, had been unable to rule out an inside job. The circumstances: the speed at which the installation had been placed under lockdown without any comms from the on-site security teams—a simple answer to all of these was that the compromise was internal. And that meant the off-site researcher was a potential connection. Did he know too much? Kesed didn’t know. Use all possible discretion, Sandhya had said. Researchers were the most valuable asset Heron Industries had, which meant that she wanted him alive and functional, no matter what. “Understood.” Instinct made him ask the question. Kesed would later wonder if it would have changed anything, if he regretted asking it, after all. “Who is the researcher? Do I know him?” He caught the very slight pause on the other end before Sandhya said, “Whyren Halcyon.” Fierfek, Kesed thought. Hard not for the name to bring that reflexive flash of bitterness and pain; the memory of better days. What had happened? “Do your job, Kesed,” Sandhya said, crisply. “I have mine.” “Roger that.” It was tempting to sit on his bed, in the dim not-light, even after the call had ended, staring into the darkness. Perhaps it was the fact that the dream still haunted him. Sometimes, he had dreams in which he was dying, although he never seemed to be able to see his killer. The shadowed room terrified him more. Whyren Halcyon. It had been at least two years. Emails and text messages that had gone unread; pings that vanished, swallowed up by digital space and the yawning chasm that had grown between them. There was that hostile edge to Whyren, that distance that Kesed had never fully understood, though he’d long since given up fighting it. It happened, Kesed thought. You were friends once; inseparable. Almost like brothers, even. But people changed, and common ground dwindled, grew vanishingly smaller, and then faded altogether. That was the way of the world. You moved on. And there was work to be done. There always was. He forced himself to his feet with a quiet sigh, and padded over to the kitchen unit. At the very least, he was going to make himself a bloody coffee before he tried to work out what was going on with the latest mess that Sandhya had dumped into his lap. “This,” Whyren said, with no small amount of distaste, “Is one hell of a mess.” Sandhya regarded him, eyebrow raised, inviting him to comment. Or, Whyren supposed, to dig himself deeper in the hole. Should’ve figured, of course. The one night he signed out of the installation to take a walk, to get a drink away from the stifling weight of the constant supervision and oversight, would be the damned night that they’d had some sort of containment breach or other. Whyren shivered at the thought. Research teams were tackling a variety of projects in that installation. He was aware of some of them, was one of the lead researchers on a very particular project, for all his sins. Some of which weighed heavily on his soul, even now. “Why don’t you tell me what you think happened, Whyren?” Sandhya asked. As though they were having a conversation over tea. As though Sandhya and her team had not swooped in on him the moment the facility went into lockdown, to secure him. He was an asset. They all were, in the eyes of Heron Industries. No one was indispensable. Even if you were one of the lead researchers on Project Replicant. God, Whyren hoped to hell that the containment breach hadn’t come from Project Replicant. The last thing he needed on his employee files was responsibility for yet another incident. “I don’t know,” he said, bluntly, meeting Sandhya’s gaze. “I was signed out of the installation, as you know. I wanted to get a walk to clear my head, and get a drink.” “There are on-site facilities,” Sandhya said. “Why did you feel the need to leave?” “It can be stifling in there,” Whyren said. Elected for the truth, because anything else would paint him as a potential conspirator if Sandhya was suspecting some sort of insider job. He wouldn’t be surprised, really. Disgruntled employees were wont to try their hands at industrial espionage and sabotage, sometimes as part of a defection. He wondered if that was what was going on here. “I was working on one of the problems that had surfaced with my project, and felt a change of scenery would do me some good.” Sandhya kept a good poker face. Whyren privately suspected it was because she scared more people into talking that way. He was wise to the trick, though, and kept his mouth shut. “Let’s say I believe you,” Sandhya said, at last. “I’m perfectly honest,” Whyren said, which would’ve gotten him an incredulous stare from Kesed, so long ago. The memory was tinged with pain, and a touch of guilt. Conscience, Whyren? Kesed would’ve asked. Even now, Whyren would’ve answered. He wondered why Kesed was coming to mind again, after so long. Perhaps it was the fact he was thinking about the project again, and the problems they were having with memory and identity. It’d been Kesed’s area of expertise, and things had never been the same since he’d left. “The most important step,” Sandhya continued, “Is to lift the lockdown and to re-secure the installation. The ongoing research in there is of paramount importance to Heron Industries.” Whyren nodded absently. He knew that. The higher-ups had their eyes on Project Replicant. He’d lost track of the number of progress updates he’d dispatched, even though the project had begun to get bogged down in a number of dead ends. Sometimes it felt like they were breathing down his neck, expecting him to devise solutions to hard problems that just weren’t tractable. “This means that I need you to re-enter the installation and confirm the status of the research projects. Assess them for damages, or disruption.” Whyren said, “What.” Sandhya simply looked at him. “I’m not security,” Whyren protested. “I’m a researcher.” “That’s why I need you to conduct this assessment,” Sandhya said, coolly. “You won’t be alone, Whyren. I have an operative and a response team underway, and I’m recruiting additional deniable assets in order to ensure your safety. But they will need access, and the only one who can perform this assessment is you.” Whyren resisted the urge to slump in his chair. Of course it was. Of course it came down to that. You were an asset. This meant that you were disposable, and if Heron Industries thought that sending you into a breached installation under security lockdown was the best course of action, then the megacorp would do it, ruthlessly. “Please tell me you’ve got a good team,” he said, resignedly. Sandhya smiled. “As far as I’m concerned,” she said, “Kesed has been an exemplary operative, and the team is up to standard.” “You have got to be bloody joking,” Whyren snapped, with disbelief. “Of all people, you choose to send—to send him into a compromised facility?” Whyren had always prided himself on being unsentimental, and coldly pragmatic. Or at least, pragmatic enough. But this decision from Sandhya was throwing him, badly. “Why?” he asked, at last. “Why do you have to do this?” But Sandhya, he thought, was at least every bit as cold as he was, and then just that ounce more ruthless. “Because he’s who I have on tap,” Sandhya said, returning honesty for honesty. “And because I trust him, and I trust his record. We need that installation re-secured, Whyren. Those projects are too important to lose just like that. And that means using every single resource I have on hand—even Kesed.” Especially Kesed, she might well have said. Whyren sighed and gave in. He was going to hate every second of this, he thought. The flickering lights from the sign were neon-bright, even in the light rain and the night mist. The Electric Sparrow, it read, with a simple sparrow, wings spread, stenciled in light after the words. There were districts where megacorp representatives never entered; not without a hi-vis security team armed to the teeth. This was not one of them. The district was run-down, and the woman who leaned against the wall outside the Sparrow wore the sort of mil-spec body armour that might’ve fallen off the back of a truck somewhere. She made no effort to conceal the carbine she carried; a Tekiel M-R7, if Sandhya wasn’t mistaken. She took in the passers-by with a lazy amusement, the sort that said she’d seen the worst the world had to offer, and laughed at it. Sandhya nodded to her. “Twei,” she said. Twei was a bit of a legend among those who ran the mists. You became a legend the same way mistrunners usually did: worked a couple of jobs for megacorps, did something so extraordinary or so daring or so impossible that it catapulted you to the status of a street goddess, an urban deity. In Twei’s case, she’d identified every single infiltrator on a mistrunner crew employed by Urbain Enterprises purely by tapping their comms and listening in on their speech patterns. Sandhya knew these things. It was her job to know things about people: it was what made her so valuable to Heron Industries. That, among other things. “Been a while, Lira,” Twei greeted, casually. No one used real names, not this deep in the districts where some doorways bore bullet holes, not this far below in the shadows, far away from the towering skyscraper offices of the megacorps. This district wasn’t the worst, but it was far from the best; the sort of place you went to to disappear, or to die quietly. It meant it was the best place to find hardened operatives who knew how to be discreet, who knew how to get things done without asking questions. Deniable assets. Mercenaries for hire. Mistrunners. Sometimes, mistrunners were a mixed group. There were those who’d just started to run the mists for the first couple of times. There were some good ones in there, but more often than not, they were cocky and overconfident, and prone to getting themselves killed because they hadn’t worked out where they stood in the very large criminal underworld, much less how to develop reasonable tactics, or assessments of situations. The experienced ones, though. The ones who’d gotten scars, and a few runs under their belt. The reliable ones, the ones with a decent reputation. Those were the ones well worth the boxings paid, and sometimes they achieved better results than full Heron Industries security teams. You could hire a mistrunner crew if you knew the right forums and boards to visit, but in the end, it always came down to a face-to-face meet. Trust was a rare commodity in the mists, and mistrunners wanted to know who was hiring them just as much as Sandhya wanted to know who she was hiring. The Electric Sparrow was one such dive: mistrunners hung out there, and the teams she’d identified and put some feelers out to all indicated a preliminary willingness to meet in the Sparrow and hear her out on the specifics of the job. The woman running the Sparrow, a former mistrunner by the name of Gan, was a fixer who’d worked her contacts for Sandhya and had come through many a time. Booking the entire Sparrow on short notice in order to secure it was a bold move, and one that would put her in Gan’s debt, but that was the way things worked in the mists. Her own superiors knew that. Sandhya stepped out of the mists and into the dim confines of the Electric Sparrow. She had some mistrunners to meet, and the clock was ticking. LG85/AN12: Do Kandra Dream of Electric Sparrows? “And blood-black nothingness began to spin A system of cells interlinked within Cells interlinked within cells interlinked Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.” —Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov As Scadrial marches on into the neon-washed reaches of the far future, Heron IndustriesTM is one of the megacorporations at the forefront of innovation, driving technological progress through its extensive R&D investments, and combining engineering with Hemalurgic science to usher in a new era of wonders and prosperity. ...For some. This, however, might be about to change for you. A representative from Heron IndustriesTM has been sighted lurking around the Electric Sparrow, putting out word that she has a job for a skilled Mistrunner crew. This, you hear, is the score: the big one. Heron IndustriesTM has never been stingy in compensating the mercenaries it hires, and for all the times you’ve run the mists, there might never be such an opportunity again. All you need to do is to penetrate a secure installation under lockdown, deal with a containment breach, and the boxings will be wired to your account. The risks are high, but the rewards are greater still. What could possibly go wrong? General Rules: Win Conditions: Roles: Taken House Rules: This is an anonymous game. Please do not post in this thread. Please sign up via PMing me on the Shard, or DMing me via Discord. If your sign-up has been acknowledged, I will tell you so. If not, ping me again in two working days for a reminder. Sign-ups are now open and will close on Monday, 25th April, at 0000hrs SGT [=GMT+8]. The game will begin as smoothly as I can facilitate this, but aim to get everything up and running by 0100hrs. Next post is reserved for player counts and rule clarifications, and will be updated with the player list once the game begins. Please do not ask rule clarification questions publicly either. p.s. hi guys i know kas has been wanting 2 run this but he needed a break from the shard & se so im running this 4 him el says shld be ok how hard can gming a game be amirite pls have mercy tho ive never gmed before will be my first game back since ag8 nice 2 see u all again =) Quick Links:

Partly I think. I remember vowing to grinch Endowment in LG29 if they kept resurrecting our grinch targets. Not saying this isn't a more palatable situation but it does have its trade-offs, which are player-based. Edited to add: I say this with all awareness that I am working on a game with no perma-death so.

Someone needs to make a Finding Dory joke here...