Neverwinter Connections

// Happy New Year Guys //

Alpha had to go into some facility hoping to find some important component or rescue a group of rebels.
JD was confident that they could crush the Advent team sent to kill the rebels as well as whatever backup team ADVENT would send to help. He was correct. All Aliens were defeated. Bodies or parts were retrieved and secured for further research. Alpha needed something to boost morale and that was that.
Now there was that strange portal. He wondered if the Psi powers could be combined? If so they could help Bo do whatever she was trying to do. Everyone was excited about that avatar autopsy. May be it was essential to the war effort. May be.





RESEARCH

1. Avatar Autopsy
2. The Portal (not in the list but we need it)
3. Acid Grenade

MANUFACTURING

JD will make Heavy Plasma Ammo (else we gonna big empty guns)

1. Psi Amp
2. Advance Surgical Kit
3. Misc Ammo and/or Medical stuff


//

On a side note I have been working on a char concept for the next campaigns. Looking at the party I considered goblin or duergar (I kind of prefer the former) and some evil class like assassin or blackguard. I did not get very far so your input is welcome.

"Thought?" Bo responded with a grunt. "Thought is something bigger than we ever believed it to be. Something that was an internalised, private process of human existence is now what? Our greatest enemy? Our greatest weapon?" She shrugged a little and waved a hand to indicate her own uncertainty on that issue.

"A while ago we made a machine work with it. A machine." She shook her head with the enormity of what she was saying. "A few months ago biological beings were an island apart. Bar a few incursions into implants to keep parts of us functioning or cybernetic prosthesis we had no integration, and even then they were separate in design and mostly independent of operation from our body. Where that existed it was by picking up electrical impulses from a nervous system trying to work as it always had."

"But now? We don't really know how we did it yet and we don't what it's going to cause but we are making things work with our mind. So yes, think about your future but remember ..." She took a long look at everyone then focused on Henderson in particular.

"Thought isn't what it used to be."


((Research
- Complete Avatar Autopsy.
- A single point so finish Acid Grenades.
- Improved Medkit 3, Bo will use Treat Injury 20 to try and help.
- May as well go with Mind Shield if anything is left.
- Beyond that the Nanomedkit if the Avatar Autopsy pays off is very high.

Manufacturing
- Complete the Experimental Surgery Kit.
- Make a spare Psi Amp, emphasising 'spare' as I think one in use is enough and more people shooting is better.
- Put the rest into medkits because we really, really really need them. We're burning through them like tissue paper and we need a stock in case we can't get back to base. No healing spells that refresh in D20 Modern!

Bo will Psi train again.))

Stanley glumly perused his tablet and contemplated his options. Everyone seemed so sold on psionics, not too many other projects were drawing much interest from the team these days. Well, someone had to work on other options, so he dug up his notes on the persona shield tech and began to slowly review them. The solution was here he was certain, he simply would have to study and test things more carefully.

//research 16 on personal shield.

Session 39

+1050xp to everyone for IC posting.
+500xp to Bo, Daud, and Jesse for critical successes on skill rolls.

The email from Central begins:

This is it people. No point in holding anything back.

* * *

FROM: RICHARD TYGAN, X-COM RESEARCH LEAD
TO: MEMBERS, PLANNING COMMITTEE
CC: CENTRAL
RE: Research/Manufacturing Progress Report, Week Ending January 3, 2036

We are ready.

In the end it was the Avatar that provided the key. We knew that psionic energy triggered the portal, but had no way of targeting a specific destination. But our study of the Avatar found psionic resonance traces that we were able to resolve using the Psi Amp and the Shadow Chamber. The aliens’ use of their psionic network to control their puppets may prove to be their undoing.

Chief Shen is preparing the Psi Portal for operational deployment. We have no way of knowing where it will take you, but we are reasonably certain that it will be to the location where the Elders’ psionic signals originated. However, this will require the Avenger to land and divert all power to the portal, and to maintain that for as long as it takes to complete your mission. I will leave it to Central to cover the operational details in his briefing.

The knowledge we have gained from our study of the Avatar will continue to advance human scientific understanding for decades, if not centuries. In the short term, our improved understanding of how the Elders control their creations has allowed us to finish work on a prototype Mind Shield that should protect one of our operatives from the aliens’ mental attacks. I have done all I can to wrap up our current outstanding projects, and am diverting all of our resources to preparing the portal for your mission.

Base rolls:
X-COM Research Capacity (3d10+8+Avatar boost [free project, and enabled completion of Imp Medikits 3]): rolls 6, 4, 1, +2 (Darius Singh) +2 (Greta Kanem) +4 (Permanent Upgrades) (10/10 in Psi Portal [completed], 15/15 in Avatar Autopsy [completed], 15/15 on Acid Grenade [completed, 3 prototypes available], 15/15 on Improved Medikit 3 [completed, all medikits upgraded], 20/20 on Mind Shield [prototype completed], 1/20 on Personal Shield).

• Stan: +16 vs. DC25 on Personal Shield, roll 13 (Success). +1 to project.
• Bo: +20 vs. DC20 on Improved Medikit 3, roll 16 (Critical Success). +3 to project. +500xp.
• Jesse: +22 vs. DC15 on Psi Portal, roll 16 (Critical Success). +3 to project. +500xp.

X-COM Manufacturing Capacity (3d10+4): rolls 9, 5, 6, +1 (Mendoza), +2 (Tieffendahl), +1 (Johnson). (Experimental Surgery Kit completed, Psi Amp completed, 1 box of Regular Plasma Ammo completed, 1 box of Beam Cannon Ammo completed, 5 extra medikits completed).

• John: +11 vs. DC15 on Plasma Ammo (heavy), roll 5 (Success). 1 box completed.
• Henderson: +10 vs DC15 on Plasma Ammo, roll 8 (Success). 1 box completed.

X-COM Medical Capacity (3d6): rolls 4, 4, 3 (11 new medikits produced this week)

Psi Training (2d10/week):

Daud: +3 to Psi Potential score. New score: 143
Bo: +2 to Psi Potential score. New score: 164
Henderson: +11 to Psi Potential score. New score: 135 (Psi Training 4)
Jesse: +18 to Psi Potential score. New score: 152 (Psi Training 5)
John: +9 to Psi Potential score. New score: 150
Vic: +11 to Psi Potential score. New score: 74

Victor: morale support on Avenger: +11 vs. DC20, roll 4 (No Result).
Daud: tracking tool thief: +21 vs. DC20, roll 13 (Critical Success). +500xp. Results will be adjudicated in-game.

((Server up, usual details.))

"Under Fire"

Everything was ready for the journey beyond the portal assuming it could be activated. The team spent time gathering supplies and getting ready to go. Alpha was a bit short on ammo and medkits which was not ideal for the toughest mission ever. They also investigated the missing tools. Apparently it was nothing too serious. Soon after the ship landed in a remote area, far from everything hoping not to get disturbed by ADVENT while activating the portal. That was not too be. They came out of nowhere and attacked. ALPHA got out and chased all the aliens and there machines. It was a tough fight. Many were injured. The team used hundreds of rounds, a few grenades and most of the medical supplies. On the plus side, after the team received medical treatment Bo managed to make the portal work.

It was the moment of true a "Do Or Die" mission to save Earth.
JD had some trouble with his armour and was hoping it could be fixed before the big jump.

Once again, the aliens had some very bad timing. The team didn't have a lot of time to figure out just how ADVENT knew where they were or when they were going to try activating the gate, though, because it was now or never.

They'd fought an Avatar out there in the ambush, and it felt like this one had been significantly tougher than the previous ones they'd encountered. Daud was worried they might be complete, and that XCOM was too late. There just wasn't any time.

Getting to assault the elders themselves had been all Daud dreamed about for months, but watching the gate power up, he found he still had a bit of doubt to push down. Would they survive this? Would it matter? Instantly the thoughts were banished, as were time and distance, as the gate opened.

This was the moment. This was their shot.

The circle of light shuddered into being in front of Bo and to her surprise she could see it in four dimensions. The usual three with her eyes and a fourth with her mind. The impressions she received were almost impossible to interpret and defied effective verbal description.

It smelled red around the edges but near the centre it tasted soft to the touch and emitted a sense of curliness. As the others walked through she could see the trepidation and determination in varying levels of treble and base. Striding forward herself she stepped through a wall of peppermint waves with a finishing bouquet of crimson. Then she stretched.

Her legs extended so far in front of her it's toes could have reached Florida while her back foot hadn't left New York. Which, she speculated momentarily, would put her backside somewhere in West Virginia. For a fraction of a micro measure of a second, in the back of her mind her mother nodded at the appropriateness of that before she contracted with a tangy orange sensation and stepped through another wall, this time a pastel shade of liqourice in smell.

The others around her spread and she found she couldn't resist a chortle.

"We're not in Kansas any more, Toto."

They made teleportation seem so safe and normal in the stories he'd sometimes found, in the books he'd managed to collect, in what seemed like another life. Bing, you're in one place and then you're in another. But oh, psionic gates, as it turned out, they messed with you... to move by thought, you had to become thought. And just like doctors said, don't eat or drink before a procedure...

Well, he went in feeling worried and guilty. And that wasn't a recipe for a fun trip. Beta team... "Hey, you both in on this? Welcome to Alpha Team". Downed and near dead not ten minutes later. Daud's panicked yells at being on fire, they hadn't let him forget that one. Grilling Darius, well, that had just brought up crazy Janet, with a gun to the engine, couldn't talk her down...

Once it started, was hard not to cast the mind back, the further he went across space. The old resistance, the original crew, the ones who hadn't made it. Talia, Angela, old Bob. Imagine if they'd have had the chance to join X-Com, Talia and Shen would have gotten along so well. Those two who'd gotten left behind, getting the rest of them out of jail, what had been their names? Crazy Jeffords, the man with the bombs... Doc Rosen, his kid without a father... poor doomed Cullen.

All those people he'd traded books with, organised with, talked big talk about trying to make a difference with. Had any of them had a journey like his? Had a chance to escape, join up with something worthwhile? He had a sick feeling they hadn't.

As he started to take form again, deep in who-knows-where, he tried to fight to pull himself together, not let himself be spread over a million woes. Just carrying the weight of his woes on this trip was enough. The depth of woe on the planet, he couldn't start to grasp, and yet there they were, tugging at him. Come on, Vic. He told himself, dredging down deeper in the cloud of fuzz and ideas that was himself, trying to find some grit in amongst all of it. Don't fall at the end. Don't fall at the end!

Jesse looked behind her at the people she'd come to know as her comrades. Friends, even, though that was a word she might never get used to. Squadmates? Yeah, sure. That was easier to swallow.

Every time they went out there, there was a chance they wouldn't be coming back. They all knew that, right from the start. This felt different, though, and not just by degrees.

This must be what endings feel like, she thought. That made her grin. So be it. She'd been ready for this a long time ago.

"What are you idiots waiting for, then? Come on. World's not gonna save itself."

And then, she jumped.

It was it. This was it. The climax of his story. Of their story. Their story had humble beginnings at the start where they met. Prisoners within an ADVENT facility. They were strangers then. They were conscripted into a resistance and fought together. They were acquaintances then. They were rescued by XCOM and conscripted again. They were squadmates then. And now they were about to either the world or doom it forever. And now they were like family.

The future was uncertain for all of them, but Henderson was sure of one thing. He had no past, he only had his present. So he would use it to do the one thing he still felt was his. He would do what he could for his fellow man, just as Henderson had done for him.

"All stories come to an end, and all chapters come to a close. So let's end the chapter on aliens in this book we call Humanity."

Stanley studied the glowing portal, wondering what nightmare beyond was he stepping into. He gripped his plasma rifle and did a quick double check of his gear. The alien leaders supposedly lay on the other side. Would the team be up to dealing with them? Most had done a bit of mental training, but would it be enough? He had no such talent himself, and knew he would have to steer well clear of these creatures to avoid their mental blasts. He was just a tech with no special combat training or heavy armor; what could he possibly do to make a difference? He shrugged and shuffled on thru the portal after the others.

Session 40

+1050xp for full-party IC posting.

((As an aside, I've copied the PCs indicated from the vanilla server vault to EE, with the exception of Mirg as he needs to roll a new one. You should be able to see them there on there when you login so if not then let me know.))

((Server up. Usual details.))

As always, an excellent campaign, everyone.