File: InsurgentCompound.png (1.28 MB, 1339x708)

1.28 MB PNG

>>5587251
The cracking machinegun fire from the western side of the village has drawn all but the most disciplined of the insurgents to the incipient brawl with the Kurdish force, leaving a skeleton force of four rough-looking jihadis clustered around your target building. Issuing a few quick hand signs, you get your six Marines on hand into a pair of small teams and then, with a chopping motion, initiate the ambush on the defenders of this piece of scum.

Suppressed rifles don't sound like clapping, that's movie BS. A suppressor takes the sound down from ear-splitting to merely loud, and in the chaos of the ongoing battle, it doesn't draw extra attention. Projectiles stream out in an lethal and orderly barrage, overwhelming this quartet of bodyguards rapidly. Each drops to the dusty ground incapacitated, leaving only the closed door between you and your target.


Staff Sergeant Halterwood moves up to the front of the formation, his breaching charge already in hand, and he looks over to you for approval on this phase of the op. You give a simple thumbs up as the team moves back to a safe minimum distance as they've practiced a dozen times already, and just like in the run throughs before, the demo blows the shitty little door right off the hinges. No sound from inside, though. Weird.

You don't have long to think about it as the team rushes inside, dominating the interior of the modestly-sized house as quick as lightning. The living room that you find yourself in is utterly empty (though it does look recently lived in), but the layout looks right from what the intel briefing prepped you for. An upstairs with two bedrooms; a downstairs kitchen, and a basement room they use for planning.

"Okay, easy day," you mutter under your breath, "John, Bruce, stay here and cover the stairs. We're clearing the downstairs first, since I'd bet anything that fucker is asleep on the second floor and we shouldn't wake Sleeping Beauty if we can keep from it."

They acknowledge, taking up advantageous positions and concealment as the remainder of your raid force proceeds deeper into the home. As expected, there's only the kitchen beyond the living room, which also sits unoccupied. At that moment, the hair on the back of your neck stands up all at once, some internal danger alarm blaring at maximum volume. You freeze- you fucking freeze. If you'd have moved just a bit faster, brought your M4 up from a low ready to a shooting position faster- maybe you'd have gotten a shot off.

It bursts out of the basement right then, just as you and your team are getting ready to sort through the kitchen for any relevant info on where the objective might be. Gunnery Sergeant Nathan Jones, your SNCOIC and second-in-command, is watching the basement door as the stack peels away, but he doesn't even get through half of his shouted warning before it's across the room. Whatever it is, it is a lethal blur of sharp movement, not discernable under the NVGs.

So fast..

>>5587257
There are two things that stick in your mind afterwards: the first isn't the shape of the entity, or its unnatural, inhuman double-maw: it's the way that it lifts Jones above itself and rips him in half. Like butter. Like a fluffy biscuit at Thanksgiving dinner. The second is..

>The way the creature moved with an etherealness unlike anything you've seen. Not a ghost- worse.
>The predatory aura it had: like sticking your head in the mouth of a tiger, a killing stench that you could somehow sense.
>Its teeth. They sit in your mind like razors, cutting your mind, but then.. when you think about IT more, you remember. [POTENTIAL SANITY LOSS]


After that, you don't remember anything else- not what you ordered your team to do, if anything; not how you came to be lost in the desert twenty miles from the target site, wandering for a day and a half in the Syrian sun. Definitely not the fate of your target, or the rest of your boys. It's all black. All darkness, lost to the great abyss of memory. The worrying thought is that you don't want those memories: that your mind is protecting you from what you've seen.

When you come back to, it's two full days later and you're at the FOB getting assessed by the corpsman for a traumatic brain injury. The story you get told is that a massive IED detonated in the basement, that somehow you miraculously survived it when all of your Marines got turned to mush. But that's bullshit, and when you tell the corpsman that, you know your time in Syria is over. You don't get to say goodbye to the SIGINT nerds in their windowless box or your detachment commander, or the partner force CO. You're off to Germany that evening.

File: Spoiler Image (408 KB, 973x972)

408 KB PNG

>>5587258
You spend two weeks in Germany under round-the-clock observation. It's annoying, but not as annoying as the persistent nightmares that stalk your sleeping dreams, always the same. Always that darting form, always ripping Jones apart. And always you standing there, frozen. It's not an enjoyable experience at Landstuhl Medical Center- not that the hospital itself isn't nice or that the nurse doesn't give you sympathetic looks and extra food when you want it. It's the fact that no one believes you when you tell them there wasn't an IED.

Sixteen days after the disastrous mission, a man in a black suit comes to visit you. He's tall, with black-graying hair and a pair of striking blue eyes that seem to pierce to your soul. He asks if you'd like to get a cup of coffee and change out of the hospital gown, and of course you say yes. You'd do just about anything to get out of the scratchy ass gown at this point, even if this is just some spook debriefer who took his time to get to you. He hands over your cammies and you gladly swap out your white shift for the familiar comfort of camouflage utilities.


The man brings you to a room in the basement of the hospital, past the morgue and into a keycard-locked section of the building. He notices your raised eyebrows at the secret-squirrel antics and chuckles a bit. "Trust me," he deadpans, "it's important."

Inside the little room are a pair of chairs and a large one-way mirror. So it is a debrief, then.

"Listen, Lieutenant.."

Shit, you struggle for a moment. What is your name? Was there actually a bomb?

>Max Jacobson
>Al Ford
>Write-in

"First things first, this conversation is beyond Top Secret. Consider this one-hundred percent need-to-know only, which is to say if you whisper a word to anyone else about this I will find you and tear you mouth to asshole." He cracks a sardonic grin. "Second- congrats on living. That's a rarity in these kinds of situations. That's why this isn't just a debrief: it's an offer."

The suited man slides a folder across the table. Stamped at the top is a large government logo you haven't seen before; a green triangle emblazoned some weird background. "Delta Green," it reads.

"Tell me everything about that night."


>Start from the beginning and explain everything that happened, even though it sounds crazy in your head
>Try to explain by filling in the gaps with what could have made what you saw happen- maybe chemical weapons or hallucinogens
>Write-in


Of course I fucked the formatting on the OP. Oh well. Welcome to Transcendence, a quest based on Delta Green- all the lore is my own, but based off of that premise.

>>5587261
>The way the creature moved with an etherealness unlike anything you've seen. Not a ghost- worse.
>Green Bean Meanerson
>Explain only things you could physically prove.

>>5587261
> Its teeth. They sit in your mind like razors, cutting your mind, but then.. when you think about IT more, you remember. [POTENTIAL SANITY LOSS]
> Harrier Dubois
> Stream of consciousness, no inhibition, no filter, no shame. Let our beautiful soul sing the song of derangement and trauma.

>>5587258
>>The predatory aura it had: like sticking your head in the mouth of a tiger, a killing stench that you could somehow sense.
>Max Jacobson
>Explain only things you could physically prove.
uhmmmm....

>>5587261
>The predatory aura it had: like sticking your head in the mouth of a tiger, a killing stench that you could somehow sense.
>Max Jacobson
>Explain only things you could physically prove.

>>5587258
>>5587261
>The way the creature moved with an etherealness unlike anything you've seen. Not a ghost- worse.
>Name: Sam "Ace" McQueen (the world's baddest Marine)
>Start from the beginning and explain everything that happened, even though it sounds crazy in your head

>>5587261
>The predatory aura it had: like sticking your head in the mouth of a tiger, a killing stench that you could somehow sense.
>Write-in
Adolf Hitler
>Start from the beginning and explain everything that happened, even though it sounds crazy in your head

File: Static.png (1.32 MB, 1920x1080)

1.32 MB PNG

>>5587285
>>5587357
>>5587389
>>5587420
>>5587458
>>5587514
Locked and writing.

>>5587261
You resolve to only explain things you can physically prove. The thing prowls your mind, but there's no reason to go absolutely nuts on this suited weirdo, particularly considering this is now some sort of pseudo-interview.

"It was another op, just like any other, sir-"

The man clears his throat and points to a small microphone on the table. "Speak up, Mr. Jacobson. Your record of this incident is a valuable piece of information in and of itself."


To be honest, you hadn't even realized you were speaking quietly. "Uh, yeah. Like I was saying, just another op. Det CO brought our teams out to kill or capture an ISIS senior official, supposedly involved in their 'special warfare unit', that's the wording they use to describe their really heinous shit like chemical weapons."

You continue on, becoming more and more uncomfortable as you go. Recounting the events of that night feels sacrilegious, as if you are treading upon the graves of all the men who doubtlessly died in that hellhole. "We got set up with a battalion of local Kurds, the PKK guys. Colonel Eylo was their commanding officer; he provided a covering attack on the insurgent compound for our raid."

The spook slides a piece of paper and a black gel pen across the steel table, tapping the blank sheet with his finger twice. "Can you draw me a map of this compound, Mr. Jacobson?"

Begrudgingly, you set to the task. There's imagery available of that place- you looked at it yourself. Why is this asshole having you draw him a fuckin' picture? It doesn't take you too long though, laboring under his watchful eye, and just as quickly as he slid the piece of paper across the table he takes it back, placing it in a navy-colored binder. "Continue, please."


"Right," you start, "so the Kurds initiated their assault on the western flank of the village at about 0200 hours with mortar fire and a machine gun platoon enfilading the enemy, which drew the large majority of their force- looked to be a battalion plus, in my eyes. Four or five hundred fanatics running through that village like ants."

You breath in deeply, taking a moment to gather yourself before you get to the next part. "We pushed through the edge of the compound pretty easily. There wasn't much resistance- a pair of insurgents who looked like they wanted to run off to the western edge, they caught a pair of .308 rounds to the head each- and we got to the target building with no trouble."

"That's where everything started going to shit," you say, and you can hear your voice quiver involuntarily, "we busted the door down with a small demo charge, and the whole place was empty. Bigwig like that, you'd expect a squad or two of personal security, some of their best. Maybe ex-mujahideen from the Soviet invasion days in Afghan or the like. Nada. So I set two on security for the upstairs and we moved into the kitchen."

File: Recollection.jpg (263 KB, 1600x1000)

263 KB JPG

>>5587677
Your breathing accelerates. Your heart starts thumping a strange rhythm in your chest, as though it were an aboriginal drum, thum tha-thum tha-thum. "That was empty too. All of a sudden, the hair stood up on the back of my neck; I don't know why, but it felt like everything in my body was screaming at me to move and I couldn't."

He nods, face plastered with an understanding slight frown. "Go on, please, Mister Jacobson."

"Jones, my SCNOIC." You falter a bit- remembering it brings on a headache and a strange feeling, like something is watching you. "He was probably ten or fifteen feet from the basement door. He was the one watching it while we were about to break off to look for any sign of where the target might be, and something, I don't know what.. I didn't see it well; it was dark and whatever it was was moving too fast for me to process. I do know for sure that it wasn't human- too big, too fast. It tore out of that downstairs area and split him fully in half. Raised him up above its head and tore him apart. He didn't even have time to scream."

"And after that?" Blue-eyes asks, the lines on his face a little bit softer now, less interrogative and more pitiful.


"It all goes black there," you respond, motioning to your head with a loop-de-loop gesture. "Corpsman said there was some ANFO explosive in the basement that they set off on us."

He opens his hands wide. "But that's not how you remember it."

"No."


Suit-man nods and taps his fingers on the table twice again. "Good. Conviction is important in this line of work, Jacobson. Now, there's one other thing about this incident you should know- since you don't remember anything that happened after that entity emerged from the basement. It's that..."


>..you're apparently the best gunfighter this world has ever seen. That thing was supernaturally quick, and you put enough lead into it that you lived. Well, that and it just didn't find you appetizing enough to come after you first. [Conventional combat focus with a minor null presence to supernatural entities.]

>..you have a strange talent of your own. Keep calm, but ISR assets on the scene have some sort of absurd heat coming out of that building, focused right on where you placed yourself in this drawing. We'll help you figure it out. [Strange offensive supernatural abilities with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

>..you connected with it somehow. Something about you attracts things like it, connects you with them. You tried to push it away mentally- and you did, just barely. [Some sort of strange connection to occult creatures with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

>>5587684
>..you have a strange talent of your own. Keep calm, but ISR assets on the scene have some sort of absurd heat coming out of that building, focused right on where you placed yourself in this drawing. We'll help you figure it out. [Strange offensive supernatural abilities with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

>>5587684
>>..you're apparently the best gunfighter this world has ever seen. That thing was supernaturally quick, and you put enough lead into it that you lived. Well, that and it just didn't find you appetizing enough to come after you first. [Conventional combat focus with a minor null presence to supernatural entities.]

>>5587684
>..you're apparently the best gunfighter this world has ever seen. That thing was supernaturally quick, and you put enough lead into it that you lived. Well, that and it just didn't find you appetizing enough to come after you first. [Conventional combat focus with a minor null presence to supernatural entities.]

>>5587684
>..you connected with it somehow. Something about you attracts things like it, connects you with them. You tried to push it away mentally- and you did, just barely. [Some sort of strange connection to occult creatures with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

F.E.A.R quest GO

>>5587684
>>..you connected with it somehow. Something about you attracts things like it, connects you with them. You tried to push it away mentally- and you did, just barely. [Some sort of strange connection to occult creatures with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

>>5587684
>..you connected with it somehow. Something about you attracts things like it, connects you with them. You tried to push it away mentally- and you did, just barely. [Some sort of strange connection to occult creatures with modest conventional combat capabilities.]

File: Vote2.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5587771
>>5587781
>>5587814
>>5587912
>>5587934
>>5587935

Locked and writing.

File: Transcendence[Operator].png (473 KB, 824x977)

473 KB PNG

>>5587684

Your conscious mind twists a little at the implication that you connected somehow with that unknowable thing. Any similarity to that entity is worrying. "Well, I can't say that's exactly comforting. That's really how I lived through that, though?"

"As far as we are aware," he proclaims, leaning forward, "yes. That and the fact that you and your team were armed with military grade weaponry and knew how to use it to good effect."

That second fact is a little bit deflating, but the belief that you've leaned on for a lot of your life is still true: your hard work pays off. While the skills that you've honed to a razor's edge over the years weren't the primary reason for your survival against this primal, terrifying threat, they played a big part in it. That's vindicating.


Conviction gained: Hard Work Pays Dividends


When the horrors of the supernatural threaten your mind, you can utilize Convictions or Bonds to lessen the blow on your sanity. Gaining this conviction has healed some of your Sanity damage, though some still remains as evidenced by your character sheet. Also present on the sheet are a list of stats (human norms are 10, and they can drop as low as 3 and go as high as 18), skills (roll under on d100s, which I'll be rolling when necessary), and unnatural talents you have. I'll post this any time it changes substantially, but feel free to ask to see it at any point.

"Thank you for that information. Every little bit helps, Mr. Jacobson. I mean that."

"Yes sir, of course. Now what's this about an offer?"


He flips open the folder in front of you, revealing your dossier- well, a version of it, anyways. You've seen your personnel file before, and it's dull stuff. This is not your normal file. It's filled with photos of your personal life, interactions with government agents and nongovernment entities, and a full accounting of the summer months you worked at Burger King while getting your college degree. It has interviews with your ROTC cadet buddies and every command evaluation you've ever received. In fact, this is probably the most accurate log of your life you have ever seen, going back to the day you turned twelve.

"Woah."

The spook nods as you look it over and smiles slightly at your utterance. "As I'm sure you've gathered, this is not a normal agency you are being recruited for. We have been watching for some time." He steeples his fingers. "Though I imagine there are some in the organization who would've wanted us to wait longer before approaching you. You are rather young still, Mister Jacobson."

"Twenty six, yeah," you murmur, still enthralled by the file.


"One way or another, Max, your life is changing tonight. Two ways to go here, okay?" He holds up both index fingers as you force yourself away from the story of your life, moving your focus to the man's ongoing pitch.

File: OdysseusSmile.jpg (60 KB, 400x300)

60 KB JPG

>>5588072

"First way is simple. This conversation stays here in this room in Germany for the rest of your life. After you come out of here, you toe the official line: an IED blew up your team near Deir-E-Zor, and that's that. You go back to the Marine Corps, you get your Purple Heart and your Silver Star with a valor device, and we call it a day."

He sees the look of disappointment on your face, and you feel a hint of commiseration, like he's been in your seat before and knows how you're feeling now. You imagine he probably has been.


"The second way is less simple. We leave this room after you sign some papers to make things formal, and we head back to the states- except this 'you'? It never comes home. 'You' die here of a brain bleed." He shrugs. "These things happen all the time with explosions of that magnitude. What happens after is that you get involved in the real work for the defense of our people: stopping things like that entity that tore up your team from ever seeing the light of day."

He finishes his spiel and sits there in silence, twin fingers still held in the air.


"I've never been a quitter, sir."

That pearly-white perfect smile flashes again, his teeth ever-so-slightly visible. "I didn't take you for one, Max. Call me Odysseus."


The plane ride across the Atlantic is filled with Odysseus' musings on his own early days as a Delta Green inductee, which is reassuring in a way. At least he didn't simply pop into existence like some sort of government imp made purely for bureaucracy. Not that Odysseus is impish.

The plane lands in Idaho somewhere- you don't catch exactly where your guide says you are, but you do at least get the state- and the next forty-eight hours are a whirlwind of activity and information. It is poured into your brain like a teacup to a firehose, all together too much to absorb. You do catch a few important parts, though.

>>5588080

Most importantly, just as Odysseus said, "you" are dead. No one from your old life knows that your death was faked; they all were told that you passed away from surgical complications in the hospital at Landstuhl. You're not allowed to keep any of your old identity documentation, and the one time you find some downtime to browse a computer in the well-kept library on the first floor of the complex, you even find that they've put your Facebook page to bereavement mode. Whatever the fuck that means.


Another big point is your new job: you're going to what Odysseus called a "tactical team", as soon as your inprocessing and quarantine period is done. He didn't have many details for you (honestly, he was nearly out the door again as soon as he arrived with you, he seems rather overworked), but you know what the words mean. The main sticking point is what or who you're going to be going after.

Two days pass and you finish with your inprocessing period. They give you a legit new passport, a drivers license (Connecticut? You've never even been to Connecticut.) and a set of credit cards in the name of Andrew Maxwell, along with two pairs of casual clothing and a fitted suit. That leaves you with about eight more waking hours in this place before someone comes to get you from the team after your quarantine.
>Spend the time in your room, trying to make sense of what's happened and get your head right (Skill Required: Psychotherapy. Since you don't have that skill, you'll roll against your POW stat to try and regain the last point of SAN you're missing.)

>Use the library a bit more to see if you can find out what happened to your MARSOC team

>Speak to the archivist at the Records department about seeing your file again- there has to be a reason they were interested in you from such a young age

>Write-in

>>5588088
>>Use the library a bit more to see if you can find out what happened to your MARSOC team
must check on battle buddies.

>>5588088
>Speak to the archivist at the Records department about seeing your file again- there has to be a reason they were interested in you from such a young age

>>5588088
>>Use the library a bit more to see if you can find out what happened to your MARSOC team

>>5588088
>>Use the library a bit more to see if you can find out what happened to your MARSOC team

Seems to be the most in character for our guy.

File: Vote3.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5588535
>>5588528
>>5588522
>>5588159

Locked and writing.

Be advised, this quest will move a bit slower on the weekends. This update should be out in the next few hours, though.

File: BadNews.jpg (104 KB, 370x406)

104 KB JPG

>>5588088
There's only one thing that feels right in your mind: finding out what happened to your team. Those men were- are- your brothers in arms, and you feel a sense of responsibility for their fate. The sergeant instructors in Officer Candidate School burned it into your mind years ago: you never leave a Marine behind, unless it's absolutely essential for the mission.

As you walk down the long and sparsely populated hallways of the inprocessing complex, you consider your newly-acquired remorseful conscience. Survivor's guilt is a term you're familiar with from battlefield psychology classes you've been forced into attending, and logically you know there's not anything more you could have done to affect that unholy monstrosity. Whatever happened to your guys is just what happened, the same way as if your Humvee ran over a roadside IED. You're not omniscient.


But the guilt remains. It is there in your heart, sitting festering and untended. Perhaps in some corner of your soul, you hope to find good news in the library rather than the near-certain reality of total death. When you arrive there, the snow-haired librarian is not the only individual inside. A lithe redhead sits at one of the two computer stations, slightly hunched over, and she gives you a grunt of recognition as you arrive.


You ignore her for now, fixated as you are on finding out what happened, but it isn't more than a minute before you find that dreadful article, the report from a week or so ago tearing into that already fresh wound. Seven killed in action. Three wounded. Mission objective reportedly escaped.


Fuck. That's most of the men you fought for and with over the past year of working up to this deployment and then on op after op, never with enough rest. The same guys you joked around with, playing card games and drinking smuggled-in liquor and reminiscing about home: most, if not all, are dead. You put your head in your hands as everything seems to spin.

"Hey, uh, dude? You okay?" The high-pitched voice sounds concerned, but you can't quite tell if it's legitimate or just sarcasm.


>Lash out verbally and lambast her- this idiot doesn't know the basic social courtesy of leaving someone to their private space?

>Strike up a conversation. You don't really feel like talking, but it could help.

>Just get up and leave. You've done what you came here for.

>Write in

>>5589328
>>Strike up a conversation. You don't really feel like talking, but it could help.

Even money she's part of our new team or base personnel we'll want to be in good terms with. Either way, you don't get anywhere by blowing your lid at people who don't deserve it.

>>5589328
>Strike up a conversation. You don't really feel like talking, but it could help.

>>5589328
>no im not okay
>>Strike up a conversation. You don't really feel like talking, but it could help.

File: Vote4.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5589759
>>5589793
>>5589886

Locked and writing.

File: Halle.jpg (1.16 MB, 564x705)

1.16 MB JPG

>>5589328
You lift your head up at the speech and you see the soft-faced woman staring at you with striking azure eyes, looking on at the beginnings of your meltdown. "No, I'm not really okay," you respond in a quiet mumble; her pitying visage is kind and warm.

"Well, wanna talk about it? I ain't really a therapist or anything, but I got two ears and a lotta patience."


Her humor draws a slight grin from you, but it barely breaks the corners of your mouth before your face returns to its crestfallen default. "Not sure how much we're supposed to talk about all this stuff, honestly. Some sort of mega-classified, right?"

She sighs, extending a slim hand to shake yours. You meet it as she continues on- surprisingly strong grip strength for such a small woman. "Yeup, hyper-mega-classified and all that jazz. I'm Halle, by the by."

"Max- err, Andrew, I guess?"


Halle lets out a little chuckle as she leans back to her own library computer, tip-tapping for a moment before she turns her attention to you again. "You can use your real name with DG personnel, ya know. Some people don't, since it makes a habit of it, but the Directorate cares a lot less than you'd think. This must be your first time doing inpro, right?"

You fix her with a curious look. "What do you mean 'first time?' You saying this whole thing goes on more than once?" That would be strange, to say the least. In the military, you did inprocessing at every different unit, but only once: when you went somewhere new, they put you into the admin systems and the like. What possible reason could there be to inprocess people more than once?


"Yeah," she goes on, her bubbly energy infectious, "every program has a different inprocessing.. well, process. They don't really cross wires, so if the admin elves wanna move you from program to program inside of Delta Green they have to debrief you, do all the lobotomies and stuff."

Again, you smirk. "And what program are you a part of, Halle? If you can tell me, that is."


"In-betweener right now. Just came from Central Computing, but I'm headed to support one of the tactical teams as a netmonkey. What about you?"


You shrug, pointing at your own screen. "Tac team. I was a MARSOC guy about two and a half weeks ago but I'm dead now, I guess. Along with all my guys."

"Ah." All her emotive energy fades abruptly as your surging despair threatens to overwhelm you. "Hey, listen. I'm sure whatever happened wasn't your fault, Max. I know I've had my own fair share of bad hands dealt, and there ain't anything you can do except fold."


Halle's words are kind, but they don't change the black hole in your heart. "I know. I've been through plenty of battlefield trauma classes, the kind where they teach you how to keep pushing when shit gets bad.. just feeling lost. What do we even do here, you know? Why's it worth it?"

>>5590016

"We can't speak in super specific terms, obviously," she whispers, leaning forward, "but all the X-Files stuff, all the Scully and Mulder skullduggery? That's basics. A lot of it is real, man. None of it is nice. All of it wants to consume us in one way or another," Halle remarks, countenance grim, "and that means we gotta do something. DG is it."

She waits for a response from you for a moment, but gets none. You're deep in thought now, and you only return a meek wave from her when she heads out of the library area a few minutes later. The events of that night just keep running through your head, and before you know it the clock chimes three past noon- one hour until you're due to get received by your new team. You hustle back to your room and pack up your meager belongings.


Precisely at 4PM, a knock sounds on your door, which then opens. You stand from the single gray chair in the room, confronted with a pair of black-uniformed men with subdued bronze badges, engraved with the Delta Green Emblem and a standard police star. "MPs are the same no matter where you go, huh?" you quip, and the front one of the pair laughs.

"Hand please, sir." You comply, extending your left hand where a small chip was inserted a few days ago, and the MP scans you with some sort of beeping device. After a few seconds, it emits a tone that seems to satisfy him, and he motions as he walks out the door. Dutifully, you follow.


Far down the main corridor is an exit door, which the MP badges out of. It brings you outside, finally, a joy in and of itself, but there's also a VTOL jet of some kind sitting on a launchpad nearby. Not anything you've ever seen, for sure; it looks closer to something out of a HALO game than a genuine piece of military hardware.

The back of the jet's troop compartment is down, open for passengers, and the MPs walk you up to the ramp. You find your acquaintance from the library already strapped in with a bag of her own sitting at her feet, and she smiles. "Hey, Max."


You return the greeting, finding a seat of your own in the otherwise-empty bay. "Hey, Halle. Just us, huh?"

"Just us. I'm gonna guess you don't have any clue where we're going?"


You nod in the affirmative, and she pulls out a small sheaf of folder papers from a pocket, referencing one for a moment. "Well, this Hawk belongs to TT-094, which means odds are good that's where we're going. That makes us team mates then, huh? Nice."

The jets spin up, the noise becoming a bit loud, and you throw on a nearby set of headphones to continue your conversation before you arrive- or maybe just to take a nap.


>Do you know anything about this team? What kind of things they deal with?

>What does a netmonkey do, anyways?

>Stay quiet and take a nap- you're sure there'll be some sort of assessment when you arrive

>Write-in

>>5590034
>Do you know anything about this team? What kind of things they deal with?

>>5590034

>subdued bronze badges, engraved with the Delta Green Emblem and a standard police star

Would we even know what the Delta Green emblem even looks like at this point?

>Do you know anything about this team? What kind of things they deal with?

>>5590034
>Do you know anything about this team? What kind of things they deal with?

File: Vote5.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5590081
>>5590109
>>5590124

Locked and writing.

Won't have time to finish this post tonight, so expect this one in the afternoon tomorrow.


>>5590109
You have seen it once before on Odysseus' copy of your file- Max remembers these kinds of little details pretty well.

File: TT-094 LOGO.png (33 KB, 428x531)

33 KB PNG

>>5590662
The humming of the jet engines is loud, and the feeling of speed that always accompanies air travel takes over quickly, along with a shaking that rapidly subsides. Must be some sort of special flaps or aeronautics to make the ride so smooth- real high-budget stuff, to care about that sort of thing. You marvel again for a second at this marvel of machinery, as any true appreciator of military science would.

Some moments later, you mentally distance yourself from musings about the aircraft. Your focus goes back to Halle, who sits across from you still flipping through her wrinkled set of papers, engrossed in thoughts of her own. "Halle. Do you know anything about this team? What kind of things they deal with?"


"Oh! Uhh, yeah. TT-094 is an Anti-Collaborator team."


She stops speaking and goes immediately back to her papers, ignorant of you staring expectantly for a solid 30 seconds. Finally, she looks up out of habit, and starts when she sees you still waiting for more of an answer.

"Man, shit, I keep on forgettin' that you're a total newb. Collaborators are pretty much what you'd expect- dumb idiots from kids fairytales that sell their souls or the like to real nasty entities, or cultists worshipping some tentacle monster for an extra year of life. They sound like the small fry of the bunch, right? In comparison to the 'great eldritch evils'?"

You consider briefly. "Not unless they're completely different from every other human being. People are shit."


She gives a light chuckle, one that sounds like butterfly wings in the wind with its airiness. "Haha, you hit it on the head. The AC tac-teams are serious business. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised they're throwing you right to TT-094. Lot of other teams might be better to get your feet under you, but maybe the Directorate saw something important in you."

Her smile lights up at that, and you pass the rest of the trip with quiet, less-heavy conversation.

File: Milan.jpg (1.12 MB, 600x1500)

1.12 MB JPG

>>5591670
The first sign that you've arrived is the gentle quieting of the thrumming engines, which whir and buzz as they simmer down. Halle gathers her things, the folio of notes collated once more, and you shoulder your own bag as the pilot comes over the intercom. "Welcome to Eagle Height, you two. Offload promptly please, we've got a refueling and then right into another trip."

Wind blowing in your face, you make your way down the ramp. This location is not nearly as bustling as the Idaho complex- only one other short runway is emplaced next to the one you currently depart from. Halle walks slightly behind you, following you silently as you both head in towards the towering building before you.


The construction of TT-094's headquarters is beyond spartan, at least from the outside. It looks to be completely made of reinforced construction, unpainted and unadorned, and the only notable features are the tall air traffic control tower and a few elevated watch positions, which look to be well manned. The entrance that you now arrive at is a beefy steel door that swings open as you get within three paces of it.

"Jacobson and Morrigan. Come inside."

The gruff voice belongs to a shortish woman, who quickly closes the door after you enter. Her auburn hair is tied up in a tight bun, no-nonsense, and the uniform she wears is a puzzling mix of grays and blacks.

She extends a hand to Halle first. "Halle Morrigan. Pleasure to have you on our team, finally. Gods know we've had plenty of help from Computing the last year or two with all the attempted Collaborator net intrusions."


Halle looks a bit sheepish at the praise, but nods. "It's a pleasure to be here, Commander Milan."

Commander Milan then turns to you, the top of her head barely coming up to your well-built shoulders. "And a new join. Ex-MARSOC Lieutenant Max Jacobson. Good to have you. Welcome to Delta Green, and welcome to TT-094."

Returning the handshake, you stand up straighter before responding. "Yes ma'am. Good to be along for the ride, whatever that means."


She moves along quickly down the concrete halls. Inside is a much different story from outside: there are dozens of black-gray uniformed personnel walking at a brisk pace, inclining their head at the commander and giving the two of you a curious look; you pass by half a dozen different rooms allocated to computer operations, a training bay, an armory, two common spaces and a gym.

Milan stops on a dime, the imperious clicking of her boots ceasing as quickly as it began. You've been brought along to a door that reads "Initial Assessment Room", which seems self-explanatory; as soon as you arrive, the commander turns to Halle.

"Miss Morrigan, no need for you to stick around here. Personnel quarters are two intersections down on the left; I'll see you at muster tomorrow morning, 0800 sharp."

Halle gives a smile to Milan and a little hand wave to you, and then you're alone again as she departs.

>>5591701

"Jacobson. Again, welcome. I'm sure everything is flowing in and out of your ears teacup-firehose style, but the important part is that you're here. We'll get you acclimated as fast as possible. For the time being, we need to get a couple of readouts that they didn't do at the main processing facility. Two in particular are going to be strenuous: Operator Competence Testing and Unnatural Talent Discernment. Any preference on order?"


>Operator Competence Testing first. You're pretty certain you'll nail that.

>Unnatural Talent Discernment. Maybe you can finally get some insight into that weird feeling

>Write-in (Questions for Milan are welcome.)

>>5591701
>*made completely of reinforced concrete

[Damn, goofed that one up.]

>>5591703
>>Unnatural Talent Discernment. Maybe you can finally get some insight into that weird feeling

>>5591703
>>Operator Competence Testing first. You're pretty certain you'll nail that.

Spooky stuff is spooky. Also, if our power is to be some kind of medium like the guy from F.E.A.R. we'll probably not be in great shape afterwards.

>>5591703
>Operator Competence Testing first. You're pretty certain you'll nail that.

>>5591703
>>Operator Competence Testing first. You're pretty certain you'll nail that.

>>5591703
>Unnatural Talent Discernment. Maybe you can finally get some insight into that weird feeling

File: Vote6.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5591771
>>5592149
>>5592167
>>5592338
>>5592358

Locked and writing.

File: SimRoom.jpg (121 KB, 600x400)

121 KB JPG

>>5591703

"Yes, actually, Commander. If you wouldn't mind, I'd rather undergo the OCT first. What precisely does that entail?"

She cocks her head to her shoulder in a pseudo-canine mannerism. "I had imagined as much. Come on in and we will get you situated, then." Milan spins and punches a long code into the keypad next to the door, and you are presented with a stunning sight.


The room itself is easily a quarter mile long, if not more; all open and set up with a collection of weird objects. Some have silhouettes that you recognize- concrete jersey barriers, anti-tank hedgehogs, and the like- but others are totally alien, marked with strange curving lines and unsettling feats of geometry.

A technician in that same muted black uniform scurries up, exchanges a few brief words in hushed tones with Milan, and hands you a helmet, an electrode-studded vest and a rifle simulator. "Okay, Jacobson, let me give you a rundown. You'll be presented with a selection of scenarios to assess your gunfighting skills, as well as your judgment, decision making and management of resources under pressure. Each scenario will follow concurrently until failure."


You grip the rifle in your hands, the weight familiar and comforting as your new unit commander continues. "Things like ammunition, any simulated wounds, and other conditions will carry over from scenario to scenario, so ball's in your court about what to start with and where to go from there. Good luck. We'll be watching your performance live, so call out if you feel you can't continue at any point."

You return her statement with a simple nod and Milan enters a small door on the side of the room. Alone now, you slip the vest on- weight not dissimilar to a plate carrier with armor inside- and put the visored helmet on.


As soon as the headgear slides over your skull, the visor lights up. You've seen augmented reality before in training, but this is another level entirely: the scene in front of you presents itself now as a dark forest. Superimposed over your view of the winding dirt path are two notable displays; one notates your available ammunition and gear, the other a list of objectives and situations. All three scenarios sound like an absolute shitshow, though apparently "simulated allies will occasionally be present and fully under your command". The question is, which will you begin with?

>>5593092

WEAPONRY: M4A1 SOPMOD W/IR LASER AND LIGHT. GLOCK 19 W/SILENCER. COMBAT KNIFE, LARGE.

AMMUNITION: 12 MAGAZINES 5.56x45mm, 30RD. 5 MAGAZINES 9mm, 17RD.

EQUIPMENT: 2 FLARES, 2 IR FLARES, 3 M67 FRAGMENTATION GRENADES, 1 POUND C4 EXPLOSIVE.
>CENTARUS SCENARIO
A confrontation in an open area with a highly mobile threat(s). Your objective is solely to neutralize the threat or threats marked on your HUD; when this task is accomplished, the scenario will terminate.


>MAXIMUS SCENARIO
You are trapped in a Directorate facility, under siege by human and Unnatural threats. Your primary objective is to protect sensitive Directorate material and personnel, and your secondary objective is to terminate as many of the hostile individuals and entities as possible. This scenario ends at a designated time limit of 2 hours.


>INFILTRATUS SCENARIO
You find yourself in the midst of a covert raid on a suspected Collaborator hideout in a suburban neighborhood. This mission will immediately fail if you expose yourself to non-target, uninitiated civilians. Your objective is to retrieve any material inside of the target building marked "DEROGATORY" by your visor. Upon reaching the exfiltration zone, your final score will be tallied for this mission by percentage of derogatory materials retrieved.


>Write-in

>>5593094

>Centarus Scenario

Let's start with our core competencies first. Find and shoot.

>>5593094
>CENTARUS SCENARIO

>>5593094
>>CENTARUS SCENARIO

File: Vote7.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5593244
>>5593421
>>5593739

Waited long enough; locked and writing.

File: CentarusSim.jpg (34 KB, 910x607)

34 KB JPG

Rolled 100 (1d100)

>>5593094

Thinking about it leads you to a clear conclusion: you should focus on the things you're certain about first. Find the enemy and take it down. You direct your eyes to the first scenario; a confirmation window appears, and with an inclination of your head the setting changes completely.

No longer are you on a dark forest path. Now, the long grass before you is wet with dew, swaying slightly in the wind that you swear you can feel whispering against your face. The grassy field streches for as far as you can see in the scant light, rising only slightly at the edge of your vision. Your hair is already standing up on the back of your neck, searching for a threat you know is there but cannot immediately see. You do a 360 degree spin, the standard 5 meter and 25 meter check, looking for anything out of place..


>Rolling Alertness against Normal difficulty (Need a 60 or lower.)

Crit success on a 1, crit fail on a 100. Successes and failures are gradiated- a 61 is a near-miss whereas a 90 would be a complete fuckup.

File: SOMETHING.jpg (920 KB, 1567x1591)

920 KB JPG

>>5594203

You pan across the emptiness in front of you, taking it all in. The simulation is vast and simply filled with places a potential foe could hide. Cautiously, you step forward a few more feet, sweeping your rifle over the skyline and peering down the optic to get a better view of what is going on.


>100


Engrossed as you are in the search, you miss the barely-audible rustling of grass behind you. You're tunnel visioning without even realizing it, the nervous system hyper alert to the point of exclusion. This extensive focus is torn away from you in a blink as you feel a searing pain in your lower back, a tearing sharpness scything through you, and you spin with a hissing grunt of anguish.

Behind you, already crouching to disengage, is a rocky-skinned creature that seems to blur while it moves. You can easily see your own blood coating its left claw, the prehensile tongue licking your vital fluid off the piercing talon as it makes distance.


HP: -2. 2/4 REMAINING.


>You are Wounded and take a 10% penalty to all further rolls until you receive medical treatment.


The thing is quick; probably faster than you, and definitely faster than you with a side injury. It's already danced off into blurry nothingness by the time you get your sight picture on line, but you snap off a few shots anyways. Fuck.

You wince as you bring one hand down from your side to assess the injury with your fingers- damn, that's deep, and bleeding profusely. Panic dances at the edge of your mind, but you push it away: you can handle this. Right?


Once again, you bring the rifle up and scan the horizon for options.


>Try to make it across the open plain to one of those trees in the distance; they'll at least provide you something to put your back against

>Move towards where you last saw the creature, to stay aggressive and push it out of its hunting pattern

>Drop prone and stay still to force it to approach you completely quietly- you think you can spot it this time

>Write-in

Rolled 14 (1d100)

>>5594203
Qm... For what's your roll?

>>5594230
Ow shit, you roll for us, got it

Fuck

>>5594232
[Yes, I'll roll everything. A rather unfortunate start to this assessment for Max, but it's what you do under pressure that's really special!]

>>5594229
>Drop prone and stay still to force it to approach you completely quietly- you think you can spot it this time

>>5594229
>Drop prone and stay still to force it to approach you completely quietly- you think you can spot it this time

>>5594229
>>Drop prone and stay still to force it to approach you completely quietly- you think you can spot it this time

>>5594203
Crit fail on our literal first roll of the quest? Oh boy.

File: Vote8.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5594288
>>5594529
>>5594628
>>5594742

Locked and writing.

Rolled 32 (1d100)

>>5594988

Nothing. Your sweep of the area around you reveals no foe, no invisible creature, and no target. That sets the tone for this engagement; almost like an extremely dangerous game of tag. It's faster than you are, and more agile? Time to switch tactics, then.


Your side screams as you drop down, first to a knee and then to your stomach. This is an ambush predator: it wants to catch you off-guard, to distract you and pick you off, not fight you head on. It made noise the last time it came at you, that you're sure of, so it stands to reason that this stone-skinned creature isn't capable of total silence as it approaches.


The wind is whipping at a decent clip, and the swaying grass makes a hushing noise of its own, but you try your best to tune those out. As you've learned to do before, you create a baseline for yourself, one that matches the not-quite-natural environment, and then you listen for the irregularities.


>Rolling Awareness against Normal difficulty, with a bonus due to total focus and a penalty from wounds that cancel out (Need a 60 or lower.)

File: StoneSalamander.jpg (860 KB, 2000x2000)

860 KB JPG

>>5595414

>32


The silence is almost overwhelming at first, now that you've managed to "turn off" the ambient noise, but it doesn't last for long. A slight scraping rasp is audible to your rear, perhaps twenty or thirty meters off, and it continues to inch closer to you moment by moment. The pattern is unusual, suggesting a loping gait or malformed shape, and your sharp senses hone in on it. That's your target, approaching from your five o'clock. You're sure of it.

With the wound along your ribs and stomach, you're less than completely sure about the shot, but you're not some schmuck off the street. You're a goddamn special forces operator, a Marine, and you've been shooting firearms since you were ten years old. You whirl about, hearing the thing skitter and scrabble- whether to try and get away from you or to close in, you can't tell. Either way, you come up to a knee and establish your shooting position as best you can in the half second you give yourself.

When you look into the magnifying optic, you draw an involuntary breath. Your ears and eyes have not been misleading you: the creature seems to have some sort of rocky skin, a thick covering of shale-like dermis across its entire body. Well, is what it is. You depress the trigger on full auto, sending rounds down range as fast as you can as the thing dashes your way.


>Firearms roll unnecessary- difficulty is 20% lower or more than your skill


In spite of its great speed and defensively-oriented skin, this stone salamander is not immune to bullets. Far from it, in fact; you hit it with at least half the magazine, and it drops squirming and writhing about ten paces from your position. Not every strange beast is un-killable, it seems.

You ready yourself for a return to the dark path, but none comes. The whooshing sounds of the air passing through the foliage continues, and the sun goes steadily lower on the horizon. That has to mean there are more targets- but how will you find them?


>Just lay back down and let them come to you- surely your blood will draw them, and it worked well enough for this one

>Use one of your flares to light a fire here; you'll be able to see better with more light

>Push out to the trees, now that this one is dead. A vantage point will assist in seeking out these things

>Write in

>>5595428
>>Use one of your flares to light a fire here; you'll be able to see better with more light

>>5595428
>Shoot the claws of the things we shot and basically make it scream. Maybe the show of torture can attract them one by one and attack, or intimidate them so they make mistakes

>>5595428
>Just lay back down and let them come to you- surely your blood will draw them, and it worked well enough for this one.

Assuming we don't end up more of them at once next, since we're in a wide open field...
Anyway, while we're waiting, can we bandage ourselves up a bit? I don't see a trauma kit in the Equipment section, but even makeshift first aid is better than nothing.

>>5595428
>Push out to the trees, now that this one is dead. A vantage point will assist in seeking out these things

>>5595455
>>5595515
>>5595675
>>5595755

[Quite a spread. I'll leave this one open for a few more hours, and if I don't get a tiebreaker, I'll try and blend these somehow.]

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>5595455
>>5595515
>>5595675
>>5595755

With no consensus, I'm going to go ahead and roll for what Max does here.

>1 Flares
>2 Write-in
>3 Repeat strategy
>4 Trees

File: Quick_Reload.gif (1.87 MB, 1280x720)

1.87 MB GIF

Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>5595428
A myriad of ideas run through your mind. It's impossible to formulate perfect strategy with incomplete information- you have no idea how many of them there are, or if they're all exactly the same as the one you've already brought down- but there are at least a few thoughts that merit consideration. You've done on-the-fly thinking like this before; it's what separates the good from the great in battlefield leadership.

First, and before you move on to strategy, you rummage through the web gear holding your magazines for first aid supplies. If you don't get the wound on your torso staunched, it could bring you down before you even finish this singular scenario. Luckily, a standard battlefield first aid kit is located on your rightmost pouch; you pull out some hemostatic gauze and dress the cuts.


>No First Aid roll required- difficulty of applying dressings is 20% lower or more than your skill


That dealt with, you consider just repeating what worked already. The reptilian creature seemed to be attracted to your blood somehow, and if the other targets are anything like this one, they might be drawn by your open wound. You think about it for a second and find a risk you're not willing to take- what if there's not just one or two more, but a half dozen, or even more? That plan's out.

Next, as you load a fresh magazine into your rifle, you think about setting a fire near you with one of your pair of flares. It's getting to be quite dark in this grassy field, and you don't like your odds against these things in the complete darkness. But that doesn't feel like a complete plan. What do you do after? They're sure to rush you once they know you can see them. You need some sort of other advantage. For a moment, your gaze slides over to the downed stone salamander, no longer twitching and writhing as it had been moments before. It's pretty clearly dead, now- shame. Maybe a continued application of pain would've lured others of its kind in, but due to lack of resources, that plan will have to wait for another time.


Finally, you look up and it all comes together. You can set a ring of flame around the trees over yonder- they're not too far, at all. Maybe a hundred meters. Pyrotechnics isn't your thing, per se, but you know well enough that a road flare should burn plenty long to light a ring of this tall, dry grass. It's just a matter of making it over there without getting ripped to shreds.


>Rolling Stealth against Easy difficulty (+20% to threshold) at a 10% penalty for wounds. (Need a 50 or lower.)

>>5596492

Your footsteps each sound achingly loud to your ears, every tip-toed touch of the ground an affront to the environment around you. It's hard to stay locked in on the effort of keeping quiet with the throbbing pain in your side, but you tamp it down. This may not be life or death, but it may as well be- and you always take what you can get out of a training opportunity. What's interesting, though, is not your own footsteps but the sounds you can hear from behind you in the freshly-dark savannah. The auditory stimulus reaches your ears similarly to how you detected your previous assailant, and with a careful turn you bring your weapon up to your right eye to see if you can spot more of the monstrosities lurking.

You can't see them, of that you're fairly certain. You can't get in your own head here, watching shapes in the dark where there are none, or you'll be lost completely. You keep moving, leaving the sounds to do whatever they are doing in the darkness alone.


>22


Mercifully, you reach the small copse of trees unmolested by any sharp-clawed creatures. The oily scent of the flare wafts up as you pull it out of your side pouch, and when you light it, bright red luminescence blooms into a halo around you. Perfection.

-1 FLARE.

Walking about the area, you ignite sections of the grass with the flare. The flame licks to life easily, as though eager to come into existence to devour, and it pulls a memory from your mind- still fresh, still painful. That night was awash with flames: a fact you simultaneously remember and discover all at once. Hellish fire threatening to consume everything, and in the midst of it all, between all the screams and the gunfire, it.


You catch yourself standing still, and scramble up the tree just in time. Your strategy has worked, alright: not one, not two, but four of the stone-skinned predators have sidled up to your fiery wall, licking their rocky lips with those long, spine-studded tongues. These are no mere animal intelligences either: they've got you flanked on all four cardinal directions. Fortunately, your head start on them has you in an advantageous position- you hold the initiative.


>Open fire! You're fast and accurate enough to take them all out before they can get to you

>Focus on one specific creature, then jump from the tree to where you've broken a hole in their cordon

>Lure them in by waiting them out, then use a frag to kill them all at once

>Write-in

>>5596539

>Shoot fast and accurate. We need to drop as many of them as we can before the fire dies down. Expect the unexpected and plan to duck against the tree and drop a grenade if they (or something else) jumps the ring.

>>5596729
>Support

>>5596729
Support.

>>5596539
>>5596729
Isn't that the same as open fire?

>>5596815
It certainly is.

>>Open fire! You're fast and accurate enough to take them all out before they can get to you.

File: Vote10.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5596729
>>5596766
>>5596803
>>5596815
>>5596874

Locked and writing. Write-in is similar to the first voting option, with some notable distinctions.

File: Aim_And_Fire.png (1.17 MB, 1042x560)

1.17 MB PNG

Rolled 40, 75 = 115 (2d100)

>>5596539

With the dull ache of pain still speaking into your mind, you decide that there's no use in waiting longer. It can only make your position worse to sit here any longer; decisiveness will be your savior against these unusual predators. You steady your hands against the tree, watching the four slithering stone salamanders fitfully approach the ring of flames. It does repel them.. but their hunger for your flesh is growing by the moment as the fires diminish. It's time to move.

From your cemented position, you have a good shot on two of them; then, a quick twist of the torso should let you drill the last two with a storm of lead. Two concerns present themselves: judicious usage of ammunition, as you won't have a lot of spare time, and a contingency in case the monsters manage to weather your firepower. The unclipping of a grenade pouch is all you need for the latter, and for the former, well- you'll just need to shoot fast, accurately, and take them out before the fire dies out.


Breathe in, breathe out. Slow, steady squeeze on the trigger..


>Rolling Firearms against Normal difficulty [-multiple targets, +steady position] with wounds penalty (Need a 50 or lower.)


Also rolling second dice as Throw at Hard difficulty in case of failure.. (Need a 25 or lower.)

>>5597530
So, that's a success, right?

File: BlinkingCursor.gif (968 KB, 800x600)

968 KB GIF

>>5597530

CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK


>40


The gunfire is ear-splitting even through your hearing protection, but you're too busy to worry about future hearing damage. Your weapon's trigger actuates rapidly as you unleash a semiautomatic fusillade of bullets on your quadrupedal opponents, precise and lethal. The first falls to the initial group of well-aimed shots, one to the head and one to the torso; the second creature follows suit in a matter of milliseconds, dropping limp and unmoving to the grassy floor with finality.

It is the latter duo that give you some pause as you rotate around to face them. They've wisely split up, rotating around you and leaping across the fiery boundary line with a roaring aplomb. The easternly one is a bit closer, and that is the creature you target first, centering your reticle on its slavering open maw. CRACK CRACK, and it steps twice more before finally slumping into a gory pile just inside of the circle of flames. The fourth one is only emboldened by the loss of its competing meal-mates and leaps a second time. It soars through the air, talons outstreched, while you strain to get into a good firing position.

click


FUCK, you're empty! You scramble out of the tree, falling down in a rough tumble as the salamander creature tears right into the tree limb that you were just posted up on. Your hands move in practice cadence, reloading the familiar M4 with grace, and a heartbeat later, you post a final triplet of shots into the thing's chest. It gives one last rattling groan and teeters off the tree, slamming into the dirt- and everything freezes in front of you.


MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.


You breathe a sigh of relief, and the surroundings shift back to that forest path. For being the simulation most suited to your talents, that was not easy. Notably, three options present themselves to you- not just two. It's nice to stop for a moment and just think, but there is a small two-minute timer up in the top corner of your augmented reality visor. Seems like nothing is easy here..


GEAR:

WEAPONRY: M4A1 SOPMOD W/IR LASER AND LIGHT. GLOCK 19 W/SILENCER. COMBAT KNIFE, LARGE.

AMMUNITION: 10 MAGAZINES 5.56x45mm, 30RD. 5 MAGAZINES 9mm, 17RD.

EQUIPMENT: 1 FLARE, 2 IR FLARES, 3 M67 FRAGMENTATION GRENADES, 1 POUND C4 EXPLOSIVE.


>MAXIMUS SCENARIO

>INFILTRATUS SCENARIO

>WITHDRAW
No penalty will be applied for withdrawing, but you forfeit the ability to continue the assessment, which could negatively affect your fitness score.

>>5597561
[Yes, that's correct! You want to roll below your skill rating, which with the wounds penalty in this case was 50.]

>>5597563
Can we still write in a scenario?

>>5597592
[That didn't seem to be an option previously, but I am generally amenable to write-ins even if they aren't explicitly posted in the prompt. I'll always let you know if no write-ins are allowed.]

>>5597563
>>5597608
>WRITE-IN: Trapped in a small populated village with a single Unnatural threat that is hunting down and killing the inhabitants of the village. The threat is fast, agile and stealthy. In order to complete this scenario, the threat must be found and neutralized before it kills all of the villagers.

>>5597637
+1
we can do maximus next

>>5597563
>INFILTRATUS SCENARIO

I really want to see how hard we fail the infiltration scenario. In-game it should hopefully be a great learning experience for Max, getting to see the side of Delta Green ops opposite to his usual experiences.

>>5597563
>INFILTRATUS SCENARIO

>>5597637
>>5597718
>>5598907
>>5599052

As it's tied, I'll leave this vote open for awhile longer- won't be writing until Monday, anyhow. Thanks for participating in the quest so far, anons.

>>5597637
Support.
We can do all 3 basic simulations but a write in might not et chosen again. After we finish this write in we can do the other two.

File: Vote11.png (1.29 MB, 945x632)

1.29 MB PNG

>>5597637
>>5597718
>>5598907
>>5599052
>>5599269

Alright, locked and writing.

>>5599987
>RESIDENTIAL EVIL

OP, you're a good egg.

File: Village.jpg (1.33 MB, 1024x768)

1.33 MB JPG

Rolled 70, 72 = 142 (2d100)

>>5597563
As you look over the last two scenarios, a thought comes to mind. Milan did describe the simulation in a way that insinuated it was adaptive to you. What if you presented it with a different scenario completely? No harm in trying it, you muse.


"System, I'd like to attempt a scenario with the following description: I am trapped in a small populated village with a single supernatural threat that's hunting down and killing the inhabitants of the village. The threat is fast, agile and stealthy. In order to complete this scenario, I'll have to find and neutralize the threat before it kills all of the villagers." The blinking lights on the HUD cease motion when you finish speaking, the running timer freezing as well.


The robotic voice echoes in your ear a moment later, sounding like it's practically inside your head with how loud it is. "INQUIRY REGISTERED. REQUESTING AUTHORIZATION FOR ALTERNATE SCENARIO, USER..."


The wait isn't long before the readout begins blinking again, this time with a new option highlighted. "AUTHORIZATION GRANTED, USER. RESUME CONDUCT OF TEST."

Flashing below the other options is now your customized test, albeit with a few tweaks. Clearly, no one wants this to be easy- your eyebrows go up a bit when you read through the newly "authorized" scenario.


>VENATOR SCENARIO [USER GENERATED]
You are closed into the footprint of a small village by a 1.5km radius circle of black fog that will kill you should you so much as touch it. The village is under concentrated attack by a singular human-level intellect supernatural threat with high mobility and stealth capabilities. Your objective is to render the threat harmless before it kills all of the villagers.

Secondary objectives include minimizing casualties to civilians and using the minimum amount of force necessary to subdue the threat, though not at the risk of continued danger to the locals.


"Yeah, alright. That should do fine." With a mental push towards the new option, you again find yourself in the midst of a completely different setting. The sim tech is flawless- you can't really tell how long has passed since you've been in here, and movement between the different scenarios is seamless. It makes you laugh a bit mentally- you had thought that Special Forces was the big-boy club as compared to the normal military, but even quad-tube night vision and air support doesn't seem to compete with your new job's gathered resources.


You leave the deliberations on funding for another time as you analyze the area around you. The air is crisp and cool, a full moon shines brightly in the sky, and a thin patina of pooled rain coats the ground. Trees line a thin road- perhaps more aptly named as a footpath. Some of the nearby houses have flickering candle-light in a window or two, but most are dark, and the only movement around is flapping of birds in the sky.

Ignore the dice- they aren't for you..

>>5600276

You trot along the road for a moment at a quiet clip, but not two minutes have passed before you can already tell that something is wrong. The hair on your neck stands tall, and while you come to a slower pace, a scream erupts from deeper into the village. It curdles your blood; you've heard the screams of dying men before, the deathrattles of people who believed they were invincible and found out the sad truths of mortality.


This does not sound like that. This scream sounds like someone utterly unaware of the danger that they were in, like someone who has paid the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That gets you angry.

At the same time, you recognize rationally that this is a human intellect you're dealing with- their words, not yours. It will not just jump over a metaphorical ring of fire. You have to out predict it, outmaneuver it, in order to win, particularly considering that your own supernatural abilities are rather lacking at best.


You come to a final stop as you reach the center of the village. A few windows are open and you can see people dressed in night clothes peeking their heads out suspiciously, some looking down at you with a quizzical glance. That scream came from further west into the village, but what to do next?


>Gather the locals in the small town square, so you can protect them all together; though it will take some time to gather them all from the many different homes

>Pursue the source of the scream and tell people to lock their doors and windows on your way

>Ignore the civilians and focus on trying to figure out what you would do in this situation (takes focus; cannot combine this with any other option)

>Write-in

>>5600159
[Thanks, anon. A splash of humor goes well with the dark subject matter, methinks.]

>>5600282
>>Pursue the source of the scream and tell people to lock their doors and windows on your way

>>5600282
>Pursue the source of the scream and tell people to lock their doors and windows on your way

>>5600282
>>Ignore the civilians and focus on trying to figure out what you would do in this situation (takes focus; cannot combine this with any other option)

We're dealing with a threat with unknown supernatural capabilities. If we try to hide everyone in a building, it might attack them through the walls. If we herd them in the main square, it might throw a fireball at them. The best way to protect them would be to focus on what we DO know about it and figure out a way to ambush and outmaneuver it before it knows we're here.

>>5600282
>Pursue the source of the scream and tell people to lock their doors and windows on your way
Too many unknowns to start ordering the civvies into a big juicy target.

File: Vote12.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5600713
>>5600391
>>5600289
>>5600287
Locked and writing.

Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>5600282

There is simply not enough information to gather all the civilians in one place at this time and you don't have the time to overthink things. That screaming person is in danger right now; if you make good headway, you may arrive in time to save them- or at least get some information out of the encounter. Setting off, your thick black boots slap on the ground in sync with your lengthy stride.


As you move, you continue to see people poking their heads out of windows and cracking doors, so you half-shout as you go. "Stay inside! There's something dangerous out here; lock your doors and secure your windows!"


Reactions are mixed. Some of the villagers take heed of your warnings, slamming the open portals closed and clicking bolts. Others seem amused at your policeman act, occasionally chuckling or rolling their eyes. Still others take a middle ground- squeaking doors shut slightly, but stay open enough to just barely peer through. It's a frustrating experience, but these computer-generated entities don't recognize you as carrying any sort of authority.

That, at least, does makes sense. You're not wearing a uniform- just a chest rig, a long sleeved shirt, and a set of camo cargo pants. It isn't exactly a resounding endorsement of jurisdiction.


The distance between the town square and the edge of the village where the scream ripped through the air is long enough that you start to feel that familiar burning of aerobic exercise in your chest. It's true-to-life, which is incredible in and of itself, but you can't afford to focus on the twinging beginnings of fatigue. You keep your ears and eyes open for any anomalies as you close in on what you suspect to be the site of the attack..


>Rolling Awareness against Hard difficulty with wounds penalty (Need a 30 or lower.)

>>5601620
Ouch.

File: Ruined_Window.jpg (319 KB, 900x611)

319 KB JPG

>>5601620
Your arrival to the scene is unceremonious. You set your sling, get down into a low ready, and approach the house at the scream's origin point. Twenty meters or so beyond the home, the road just ends- cut off by a thick, dark fog that oozes a sense of danger and malice. Don't want to get trapped against that..

The door is open and you can see no lights, which is already a bad sign. Walking slowly, you get closer and closer to the door, heart beating rapidly, and you push the wooden door further ajar to see the entryway. It's a disaster inside: shoes are strewn about the doorway area, dishes and glasses are shattered upon the floor nearby, and bullet holes line the walls. Nine millimeter, by the shape of the exit craters in the drywall. You didn't hear any gunshots, though. Strange.


>87

You continue your clearance of the little home like clockwork, trying to move relatively quietly but prioritizing speed over stealth. A clear picture builds in your mind as you go- someone was here, doing some nightly activity (perhaps brushing their teeth, since that's where the mess seems to start from), and then was assaulted by your target. They fired two or three dozen rounds out of a handgun (missing, of course).. and then you come to the blood.

In the ruined bedroom by the back edge of the house, a window was shattered. The broken edges and sill are drenched in quickly-drying red blood, denoting a path out of the aperture and into the village past the house. There aren't a lot of heavily forested areas that you saw- a park or two, but all sparse in terms of foliage. Surely you would have seen this person on the way out?


You consider your previous opponents for a moment and make a mental note: this thing could be completely invisible and you would have no way of detecting it conventionally. Maybe you need to set a trap for it, or make a substantial amount of smoke so you could see an invisible creature moving about?


>You have a Connection to Unnatural entities.. but no control over it.


B̸L̸O̷O̶D̴ ̵B̵L̸O̶O̷D̷ ̴B̶L̷O̸O̴D̴,̸ ̵K̷I̷L̶L̵I̷N̸G̵ ̸I̸S̸ ̷T̷H̴E̷ ̶F̴U̷N̴,̷ ̴D̶I̶E̴ ̷L̶I̴T̶T̷L̵E̷ ̸L̵O̶W̸L̷I̶E̸S̴ ̸D̷I̷E̵!

Slicing pain cuts through your head, and you grasp your skull with both hands. It feels as though razor blades are gliding through the flesh of your brain in the shape of words, like someone is cutting a soliloquy into your cranium. You're still trying to cope with the aftermath of the deranged direct-to-mind singsonging when your ears catch something you know isn't in your head. Another pair of screams, cut off abruptly- and close.


>Push out of the house and towards the other screams- the faster, the better!

>Take the time to double-check everything here; it could provide clues as to the nature of this entity

>Look for flour, a fire extinguisher or something of that kind in the house in case this is an invisible foe

>Write-in

>>5601652
>Take the time to double-check everything here; it could provide clues as to the nature of this entity
This is risky, as it means using up time that could otherwise be spent pursuing the creature, but I have a feeling that, once we arrive to the source of these new screams, it would've disappeared again.

>>5601652
>Take the time to double-check everything here; it could provide clues as to the nature of this entity
We need to figure out a way to tell what this is instead of blindly rushing into scenes where it's probably long gone.

>>5601652
>>Take the time to double-check everything here; it could provide clues as to the nature of this entity

>>5601652
>Take the time to double-check everything here; it could provide clues as to the nature of this entity

Rushing in with no information can only end with us dying along with the civvies. This isn't something we can brute force unless we catch it by surprise, and to do that we need to know what it is.

And while we're doing that

>look for flour or a fire extinguisher or something

as well.

File: Vote13.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5601663
>>5601667
>>5601759
>>5602183

Locked and writing. Pre-rolling Track at Easy difficulty with wounds penalty (Need a 50 or lower.)

Rolled 73 (1d100)

>>5602256
[Or I would be pre-rolling it, if I didn't forget to actually type in the options field.]

File: Spoiler Image (3.93 MB, 2048x1536)

3.93 MB JPG

Rolled 15, 64 = 79 (2d100)

>>5601652
Despite your immediate inclination to go rushing back off into the foggy dark, you hold back. It feels wrong to abandon people to whatever that creature is, but without any information at all you don't stand a chance against it. Unfortunately, a few people will have to pay the price- that's just life. You begin your search anew, this time looking for any clue as to the identity of your demented foe. As you return again to the front door, you make a mental note: the house is sparse, wrecked beyond belief, and looks to have been relatively spartan from the beginning. Perhaps it's a function of keeping things simple for the purpose of preserving processing power, but maybe it holds a clue to this creature's identity.

You pass along the hallway again, looking into the kitchen for a moment. The cooking area also looks to have been the site of a scuffle (or part of one), the cabinets hanging askew from their normal places. From the pans filled with chopped onions and the strewn-about raw beef, you assume this home's resident was probably in the midst of cooking dinner when they went off to the bathroom and got jumped by whatever is killing the villagers.


>73

One thing is off about the kitchen, though. Stretching your brain to connect the dots, you linger briefly on the onions.

Chopped onions. Well, if they were chopped, where's the knife?


Dropping the rest of your mental threads, you rummage through the drawers, the drying rack and the sink and find not a single blade. Not even a butter knife! Is this some sort of sharp-edge obsessed stalker? That is the only conclusion you can draw from this information and though you spend another few minutes sorting through the other rooms of the house, you find nothing else noteworthy. You even take an extra minute or two to try and find something grainy or a fire extinguisher, but the best you manage to grab is a bottle of squeezable dish soap. It fits neatly in one of the pouches of your little chest rig, and so along it goes with you as you make your way back outdoors into the night.

>>5602256
Well, nuts.

File: Spoiler Image (3.1 MB, 1406x2000)

3.1 MB JPG

>>5602717
It seems like a no-brainer to move onwards to the next house where you heard screaming from, but even with the ongoing pain caressing your judgement, you recognize that as a bad idea. That being said, it is currently the only thing you have to go off of. Luckily for you, the art of making bad ideas into passably-risky plans is something you mastered long ago, when you were still a candidate at Officer Candidate School.


Moving off the road and to the side of the path, you crouch low in what little cover you can find and watch the house from a distance. No further screams have emitted from the building after that original pair, and as you continue to observe, no more sound comes out of the building at all. You'd expect to at least hear something- but this is an exercise about shaping your expectations to expect the unexpected. That's a refrain you've heard a million times from your military leaders, but it takes on an entirely different meaning here with TT-094.

Two minutes pass, then three. Five. You're getting ready to get up and go back to the town square area and try to think up something else; on a whim you decide to circle the house once just in case.


You round the corner of the two-story domicile and come to the backside of the house where you find a small yard, complete with grill set and a tree with a swing hanging from it. It's idyllic, relaxed, peaceful: all the opposites of the current situation. A singular window up on the second story catches your attention. There's some sort of dim light coming from it.


>15 vs. 64, Awareness against Stealth adjusted for differences in skill and penalties for your wounds: 25 vs 44

In contested situations, your roll will always be the first one.


What were you thinking about? You look down at your hands. What are you doing?

No, wait. Something is wrong. That window up there, you were just watching it; there was a good reason. You look back up at the window, even though your eyes are sliding, doing the ocular equivalent of slurring one's words. The dim light you see is a faintly perceptible red patina around a tall figure, one that is emerging from the upstairs window now ever-so-quietly. The shattering glass makes no noise as the creature pushes through it and stabs its long, ossified claw into the siding of the home, limply carrying a pistol in an off hand.

It looks.. wrong. Looks bad. Sharp. But sort of like you?


SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT AND SHOOT THAT FUCKIN' THING, PENDEJO!


Somewhere from beyond the grave, you hear Gomez yell into your ear, and you comply immediately with a wild burst of gunfire. Un-aimed as it was, the blast goes wide, and the creepy-crawly turns your way, an eerie air of unrealness about its movements.


It stops.


You stop.

>>5602747
Max has not had Lady Luck on his side thus far, that is for sure. But you did get this one!


>>5602748
You can hear your breathing, but that is all. Everything else- all the sounds of the night around you, the quiet squeaks of your imperfect gear, the crunch of the grass underneath your feet- is gone.


>Break the silent deadlock and engage! You don't fear this thing!

>Try to reach out to it with your supernatural talent, even though you have no idea how that would work

>Run! You know more about it now, you need time and distance to formulate a strategy

>Write-in

>>5602753
>>Break the silent deadlock and engage! You don't fear this thing!
fuck

>>5602753
>Break the silent deadlock and engage! You don't fear this thing!
When in doubt, use gun. And if that doesn't work, use more gun.

>>5602753

>Engage!

And channel you inner Gomez and yell something like "Voy a meter tu cabeza en el culo de una vaca, puta de madre!"

>>5602753
>Engage!
Mag Dump the fucker and tactically reload.

>>5602921

+1 on the Spanish swearing.

File: Vote14.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

Rolled 69, 43, 85 = 197 (3d100)

>>5602780
>>5602894
>>5602921
>>5602935
>>5602971

Locked and writing. Pre-rolling Firearms at Normal difficulty with wounds penalty and the advantages of taking time to aim before opening up, which equalize. (Need a 60 or lower.)

Also rolling for your foe; remember, your dice always come first.

>>5603334
Gomez is right and you know it. There's no other solution here than blasting the thing with your rifle- when in doubt, apply more gun. You level the rifle and take in a lungful of air, steadying your aim and your mind all at once. When you're good and ready, you break the staring match in cavalier fashion.

"Hey, puto! Pinche pendejo, yeah, you!"

It cocks its over-elongated head at you. Muscles twitch visibly along its distended body and along the twisted arm, itching for action. For some reason it still hangs there just outside of the shattered window, staring you down, so you shrug and go on with the plan.

"Fuck it, fine. Have it your way, puta de madre."


Leaving the insults at that, you mash the trigger of your M4 and put five well-aimed shots into the torso region of the crawling horror before a full second can pass. It's quite a showing from you: the weapon isn't on automatic. All the results are center-mass shots within the vital region of a normal human body; if this were a man, you would have bisected the heart cleanly.


>69

Unfortunately, this is not a man. Your hard-acquired shooting skills go to naught here; even with accurate fire, the creature doesn't seem slowed. The impression you get (and the intense pressure you now feel in your head, that aggressive feeling like a hawk is swooping down on your head) is that you've just pissed the thing off.

It breaks its own silent vigil by leaping clear from the roof and your firearm falls silent as it does. It isn't that you're no longer shooting. You are; you can see the flash at the muzzle of the gun, and feel the bolt actuating back and forth- but rather that this creature seems to carry an aura of utter silence in a certain range around it. The claw-armed slicer scuttles across the grassy yard towards you, that greatsword-sized arm already high in the air to be brought down upon your body.

>>5603966

>43 on a Melee Weaponry roll, adjusted for your awareness of this attack and personal level of skill: 63


That blade arm slams into the ground mere centimeters from your side, a wave of wind washing off of it as you dive and roll out of the way. Damn, the abomination is fast! You cling tightly to the burning ember of rage inside as you re-center your gun and continue the enfilade of bullets, walking backwards all the while.

"Eat lead, you disgusting thing!"

Your screaming retort is silenced by its oppressive proximity, the sound not traveling more than a centimeter from your face. Again, it continues to take little heed of the rifle rounds slamming into and through its body. You're not stupid- you adjust your rounds upwards, walking the impact point from chest towards skull. At this change in tactics the murdering monstrosity cackles inside your mind while it lifts that cumbersome arm up to its cranium, covering it completely to avoid your precise onslaught.


Ś̷͙Ȍ̸͙M̶̩̋E̴̛͙ ̴̻̿F̴̯̔I̵̼͂Ŗ̷̎E̴̮͌ ̶̬͆W̸͙̌Ī̴̩T̷̞͆H̴͕I̶̙͒N̷̢̆ ̴͕͑Ý̷̤O̶̚Ǔ̴͙!̷̼̍ ̷̗̎ A̴̺L̵͍̽L̵̟̿ ̵̟͂T̸͕̽H̵͙̽E̸̫͘ ̴͔̐M̶͕̒O̶̘͋Ř̸̫È̵͚ ̴̮̉D̶͍̽Ẹ̴͐Ľ̶͈Ì̴͖C̷͙̿I̶̠̚O̶̧͛U̵͔̚S̶̤̽,̵͓́ ̵̩͠ T̷͓̒O̷̺͠ ̸̮̓J̵̜̓O̵̝͑Ḯ̸̝N̸̩̋,̴̰̄ ̵̨̚ T̸͍̐O̴̙ ̷̖̇B̵̕͜E̴͕̽ ̷͙̉O̸̓͜N̸̰̑E̷̖̎...


The wicked edge of the clawing horror's words is inherently distracting and try as you may, you have a hard time keeping up your gunfire on it. Out of the corner of your vision, while you desperately try to fight off its fell influence, you see the creature raise the pistol it holds, lining up a shot..


>85

A very wrong-looking operation happens in the action of the monster's handgun, the round jamming halfway between the ejection port and the barrel. It looks down frustratedly at the weapon, tossing it aside as you break out of the mental anguish it has subjected you to- and more easily, this time. Every time it gets easier. That's something you can take a bit of comfort in.

File: Stressed_Out.jpg (1.28 MB, 1034x999)

1.28 MB JPG

>>5603991
Shakily, you raise your long gun anew, but that flash of speed returns freshly to it's enormous form. The parting gift of booming gunfire you send after its backside is marginal, but certainly feels good (and has proper sound once again, thankfully). Your taut muscles relax, the post-adrenaline-rush shaking catching up to you already.

The thing is gone, but you can't even be sure if you hurt it at all. It has shown clear ability to hurt you, and most definitely some unarmed villagers- but also a strange distaste for open combat. You lean up against the side of the house, respiring and reloading. As you do, you think, trying your best to reconcile the unusual nature of that creature with your reality- even if this is a simulation.


If this creature was real, Max would've taken a point of Sanity damage on seeing his rounds have no apparent effect on the Silent Butcher.


>Set up a trap for the creature in the town square. If you gather enough people, it might be drawn into an engagement that favors you

>See if any of the villagers have weapons and are willing to aid you in a hunt for the creature. More firepower might be just what you need

>Take a shot at re-establishing that painful mind-connection that it has made with you twice now; maybe you can communicate with it

>Write-in

>>5604000
>Set up a trap for the creature in the town square. If you gather enough people, it might be drawn into an engagement that favors you
Get them to arm themselves. If it doesn't like open combat, I assume that it won't like big crowds either. Organising a hunt though is just asking for everyone to get picked off one by one.

>>5604000
>Take a shot at re-establishing that painful mind-connection that it has made with you twice now; maybe you can communicate with it
Maybe it's just misunderstood.

>>5604131
>>5604126
Split vote with less numbers than usual, so I'm leaving this one open for a bit longer. Post will be up either tonight or tomorrow afternoon, either way

>>5604000
>>Set up a trap for the creature in the town square. If you gather enough people, it might be drawn into an engagement that favors you

>>5604000
>>See if any of the villagers have weapons and are willing to aid you in a hunt for the creature. More firepower might be just what you need

We at least know more firepower isn't going to hurt us and has a chance of hurting it. Meanwhile if we bunch everyone up it might just decide to lay low until we let our guard down. Remember, we're on a time limit.

File: Vote15.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5604126
>>5604131
>>5605035
>>5605294
Locked and writing.

>>5605887
UPDATE

This one's taking me awhile to write, and my weekends tend to get busy. Hoping to have the posts up in the afternoon/evening on Sunday, though.

File: Worst_Case_Posse.jpg (1.98 MB, 1920x960)

1.98 MB JPG

>>5604000
Still shaking a bit, you wait a minute to regain focus and calmness. Alone as you are, you put your chances against this creature at a solid fifty-fifty: good enough for gambling, but not good enough for a life and death situation, even if it is simulated. That means you have to even the odds somehow- and what better way than to get more guns on your side? Unlike some of the other scenarios this one doesn't seem to forbid the enlistment of civilians into the hunting effort, just that you protect them to the best of your ability. You've already sacrificed a few of these people to get this done; a few more going down in the middle of a fight would be regrettable, but not world-ending.

Having regained your wits, you can hear a slight commotion from the town center area, so that's where you move to next. The light jog sets your side a-pulling again, causing a fair bit of pain, but it's no gunshot wound. You've dealt with worse before.


The time spent running is just enough time for you to formulate a plea to the townsfolk, but your words die in your mouth when you arrive to the square. There's already a group of people gathered here, by your count a minimum of two dozen. They're conversing in loud, agitated tones and as you draw within their sightline, the collective sets their angry attention on you.

File: Shotgun_Villager.png (180 KB, 248x251)

180 KB PNG

>>5608490
"Was that you shooting out there!? What the hell do you think this is, boy, a firing range?" an older man shouts from the front of the modest mob, clad in a flannel and hastily-donned suspenders. Luckily for your line of thinking, though, he totes a well-maintained double-barrel shotgun in his two meaty hands.

"Yes sir, that was me. Call me Jake," you say, infusing your voice with as much sincerity as you can muster, "Don't mean to interrupt your sleep too much, but you folks are in danger."


The dour-faced man grumbles something about "damned feds", but quirks an eyebrow at you. "How so, Jake? Seemed fine 'till you came running in here."

This isn't going to be as easy as you first thought. They've already riled themselves up into an upset throng; one wrong step could see you set in opposition to the very villagers you're trying to help. You have to convince them of your cause somehow- question is, how?


>Make up a convincing argument, but obscure the truth so the hunt seems less dangerous

>Tell them the truth straight up- you can't take this thing on alone

>Try to exert some sort of made-up authority to rally them into a proper posse of sorts

>Write-in [Dialogue combinations with any of the other options are welcome and may give you a bonus to any necessary rolls.]

>>5608496
>>Tell them the truth straight up- you can't take this thing on alone
We COULD take it on alone, but not without losing something like a kidney.

>>5608496
>Make up a convincing argument, but obscure the truth so the hunt seems less dangerous
>Tell them the truth straight up- you can't take this thing on alone
Don't tell them it's a horrible eldritch monster, they'll probably laugh in our faces. Say it's a man-eating bear that's been killing people or something like that.

>>5608496
>Tell them the truth straight up- you can't take this thing on alone

>>5608496

>Tell them the truth straight up- you can't take this thing on alone

Worst case scenario, they spook and we get no volunteers. Far better than lying and having them break down at a crucial time, or trying to twist their arm and risk getting thrown in a cell. Don't tell them about exactly who we are or that we're fighting something supernatural, though- DG probably has protocols for this our guy should know.

Sidenote- is captcha fucking anyone else over real hard recently?

File: Vote16.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5608629
>>5608693
>>5608744
>>5608816
Locked and writing. It's not on the character sheet because I completely forgot about it, but rolling for Max's Persuade attempt against the group with a bonus for your approach. (Need a 40 or lower.)


>>5608816
Captcha has absolutely been rather shitty on my end, so you're not alone.

Rolled 38, 45, 34 = 117 (3d100)

>>5608496
"Listen, I'll just be completely honest with you all. There's something really dangerous out there in the dark that's hunting everyone here right now. I can't be completely sure what it is, but I took a few shots at it with this," you grimly declare, holding up your rifle, "and it didn't drop. It's fast, strong, and tough, but with enough lead, I figure just about anything will go down. Any takers?"

>64

The flannel-clad man chuckles and murmurs break out among the crowd, some immediately turning away and moving off towards their homes. The old geezer smirks at you from under the hat. "You sure you hit this gremlin with that fancy lil' polymer pony there?"


You open your mouth to respond to his retort, but he keeps going. "You are right about one thing though- enough lead'll stop anything. I'll come romp about; if you're gonna keep on shooting, ain't no damn sense in trying to sleep through it until it's over and done with."

Nodding, you extend a hand that he grasps firmly. "Good to meetcha. Call me Bill."


Unfortunately by the time you've concluded with Bill's haranguing, the rest of the assembled group has melted away in ones and twos. This leaves you with considerably less of a team then you wanted, but two is better than one. Bill looks over at you and you point off to the treeline beyond, in the direction of where you last saw the amalgamated terror.

"Last I laid eyes on that thing it was out on the edge of town. I figure we'll head out that way and try to ambush it. Be careful though- it's damn quiet."


Rolling Awareness against a Hard difficulty and Firearms against Normal difficulty, with a +5 bonus to Awareness for assistance from Bill's elderly eagle eyes and normal penalty from wounds. (Need a 35 or lower on Awareness, and a 50 or lower on Firearms.)

Your two dice are first (Awareness, then Firearms), then Bill's own Firearms roll.

>>5609437
The far reaches of the village continue their total silence as the two of you pad along. Bill keeps pace quite well for a man of such age, his shotgun at the ready, and when he notices you looking at him, he smiles. "Did my time, way back in the day. I know a military man when I see one, Jake."

A goofy grin comes across your face. He's not too far off the truth (and hell, maybe in this scenario he's even right- who knows), and you nod. "You got me."

Your stalking trip continues in relative silence but for the flip-flap, flip-flap of Bill's loafers (a rather unstealthy choice, in hindsight). He seems unbothered, though; his visual focus is constantly on the move, scanning the horizon. At last, you arrive to the house with the broken second-story window, the scene just the same as you left it. As you make to approach the far corner of the home you see Bill's feet shift in your peripheral vision, and then everything goes into slow motion.


>38


You've felt this before in combat situations. The professionals you've talked to- shrinks, psychologists, brain scientists- all think it has something to do with the mind's processing of information under stress, or some function of adrenal overload. The take you have on the phenomenon is different: it's always been a guardian to you, an angel of sorts. Some divine grace keeping you safe from the dark and allowing you just enough of an edge to best your malicious adversaries.


In this case, you spin about in slow motion as the overwhelming silence all hits you at once. You didn't even notice just how quiet it was; only seeing Bill's feet turn was enough to make you realize something was wrong. Pivoting, you watch as a great gout of flame erupts from the left barrel of Bill's scattergun, slamming into the charging monster. It has that same quickness; even in the slow-time it moves at a rate similar to your own jogging speed. The old man's face is contorted in what you assume is a raucous war-cry, bellowing a scream that no one can hear.

You bring your own gun up, it moving like molasses through the thick air before it comes to be in position- right on the thing's neck. The rounds fly out of your gun, visible in the air to you somehow but making no sound. The juxtaposition of those two absurdities hit you at once, and in the midst of all this insanity you laugh a bit on the inside.


>45, 34


The combined force of your firepower has an immediate impact on the oncoming wrecking-ball of a foe- it tumbles, clutching at the fresh wounds on its neck and across its upper body as time snaps back to normalcy. The creature squirms on the ground and feebly tries to get back up, and Bill takes two steps back from it. He's mouthing something to you, gesturing wildly, when everything jerks to a stop again.

SIMULATOR TIME NEAR EXPIRATION DUE TO HEALTH RISKS. FIVE SECONDS TO EXIT.

File: TimeTickDown.gif (342 KB, 2500x1250)

342 KB GIF

>>5609468
As the system drops you back into its false reality, you see that a terrible dilemna awaits you. The beast's massive claw-arm is still in motion, (whether from some death-throe or active malice, you can't tell) and is plunging at your assistant's head. You don't have enough time to put two rounds on target- either you move the gun to the claw and fire, saving Bill and leaving the creature's death in question.. or you ensure the objective is complete.

The timer ticks down.


4.73


4.61


4.18


>Doubletap the creature. Mission comes first.

>This man helped you make this happen. This is still a mission success- the monster is incapacitated.

No write ins.

>>5609469

>Double tap. Sorry, Bill.

Mission first, then we go home, THEN save the civvies. "We are harder to replace than we think." -Alphonses Axioms for Agents #15

>>5609469
>>Doubletap the creature. Mission comes first.

>>5609469
>This man helped you make this happen. This is still a mission success- the monster is incapacitated.
Delta Green and all, I know, but we should put humanity first. At least until we get it slapped in our face the consequences of not being stone cold in the job.

>>5609469
>This man helped you make this happen. This is still a mission success- the monster is incapacitated.
Dont let the oldtimer die

>>5609469

>This man helped you make this happen. This is still a mission success- the monster is incapacitated.

I know which answer Delta Green would like.

I also know which one lets me sleep at night.

File: Vote17.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5609542
>>5609619
>>5609662
>>5609849
>>5609963
Locked and writing.

>>5609469
Your cognizance of time in this simulated existence is twisted, but you are certain you've learned a new truth of life: Five seconds is both an eternity and no time at all. The agony of indecision- and the realization that too much hesitation will rob you of your ability to choose- is broken when your muscles move, seemingly of their own accord. The heat-miraged muzzle of your rifle darts towards the descending guillotine-claw and spits a pair of hammering shots, slicing the top off of certain death and sending the bony blade tumbling groundward.

The timer moves below one second.


0.93


You hear the booming report of a shotgun.

Wait. You heard the boomstick!


In the last moment before you disappear from existence, the back half of your erstwhile companion's shouted statement becomes audible.

"-got that fuckin' thing! Damn, it sure is ugly as sin, huh Ja-"

Then, just like that, Bill is gone and so is the village. So is that beautiful expansive plain and that masterful sunset- as if painted onto the world's edge. You blink your eyes twice, readjusting to a harsh white light. When you last saw the real world you were standing on a marked spot in a large room, and that is again where you find yourself. A bevy of sensations strike your senses in rapid succession: your legs, sore and screaming from standing for a long time, your eyes, stressed and overused, and your head, aching with some sort of dizzying nausea. You nearly tumble over, but a nearby man lays a stabilizing hand on your shoulder.

As he steadies you, you make out the sounds of quiet but interested conversation nearby. When you turn your head, curious to see the source of the noises, the room spins around you like a carousel and you hear yourself gag on a rising tide of puke.

File: Kramenkov.png (871 KB, 384x894)

871 KB PNG

>>5610640
"Steady there, motivator. You alright?" The man to your side uses that code language that only Marines know, instantly identifying himself as a fellow (former?) jarhead. In response, you nod- slowly this time, so as to not disturb your slowly-subsiding nausea.

"Aye aye, all.. good here."

He looks askance at you, but gives a smile. "Good to hear. Wouldn't want one of my team newbies to go down and out to medical on their first day. It really is good to meet you, Jacobson- we don't get enough amphibious warriors around here, really."


Your spinning vision finally clears and you spot only one familiar figure among the seven now in the room: Commander Milan. She stands at the far end of the simulator, waiting at another secured door. The other six- five, if you don't include your new team leader next to you, whose nametag reads "KRAMENKOV" in bold letters- are all arrayed near you, speaking in low voices and clad in the same snappy black uniforms as everyone else you have seen. At seeing you look up, they come to a brief, rolling applause of golf claps before returning to their conversations.

Kramekov puts an arm around your shoulder and walks you forwards some, closer in to your new teammates. "Jacobson, meet Jiminez, Clark, Veritas, Prozchek and Stutten. Your new family. All of you freaks, meet Jacobson. Be nice."


It's a bit intimidating. Every face in the bunch has the look of a hardened pipe-hitter, each riddled with scars and with that familiar thousand-yard piercing stare that can see right into your soul. You know in an instant they'll see right through any sort of front you put up, so you address them with the most veracity you can.

"Hey, fuckers. Good to meet you."

That draws a peal of laughter from the assembled group: Jiminez, a small, scrawny Latino dude with a buzzed head; Clark, a corn-fed Midwest whiteboy; Veritas- a mystery, probably female, maybe some mix of Asian ethnicities, but more importantly clad in different clothing than the rest and looking put off at all the noise; Prozchek, an Eastern European with a long set of braids and an ugly grin on his face (missing three teeth?!); and Stutten, clearly German, clearly upset at having to be here, and clearly always trying to prove a point as the shortest guy in the room.


They are certainly quite a bunch.

>>5610651
Your new team escorts you to a small set of quarters, each of them curious about your story prior to joining Delta Green and TT-094. Apparently new joins are a rarity, so you enjoy a semi-celebrity status for being the most recent to experience "the real world". The group seems tight-knit and tough- you think you'll fit right in.

The barracks room is well-kept, filled to the brim with amenities, and stocked with snacks and a water cooler; you even have your own bathroom. You turn around and wish the rest of the team a good night- according to them, you were in the sim for six hours straight. It feels like it, too. You're utterly exhausted and before long, your head hits the comfortable down pillows.

Dreams buffet your mind as you rest, passing along and through your mental pathways. What dances in your head on this first night?


>A dream of shadows- unrecognizable, but terrible

>A dream of blood and fire- familiar and painful

>A dream of brightness and peace- nowhere you know, but that doesn't matter

>>5610655
>A dream of shadows- unrecognizable, but terrible

>>5610655
>>A dream of blood and fire- familiar and painful

>>5610655
>A dream of shadows- unrecognizable, but terrible.
Shadows of the coming doom...

>>5610651

Does "pipe-hitter" mean a) someone who takes a hit OFF a pipe, as in meth pipe, or b) someone who hits WITH a pipe, as in repeated iron pipe to the face?

Please don't say "yes"...

Also,

>Happy dream. He needs a happy place, playing with a puppy.

File: Vote18[IT_BEGINS].png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5610660
>>5610693
>>5610831
>>5610862
Locked and writing!

>>5610862
Closer to the latter definition, but it's a term used in military jargon to describe a particularly lethal or locked-on individual- SEALs, special forces, and the like.

>>5610655
Sleep is normally a landscape of blackness, silence and nothingness. On occasion this wasteland of inky dark is filled with vibrant color and vivacious life; a boundless meadow of flowers, or a family home with a loving canine companion nearby. You dream rarely, and when you do you hardly ever remember your mental wanderings when you awaken. Tonight your brain brings you to an unknown locale, a grove of trees and dead leaves blowing along the ground. The air itself feels wrong.

You recognize in some deep part of your mind that this dream is an outlier from your usual pattern- or maybe it is a nightmare. You are well familiar with night terrors after two deployments worth of harvesting men's lives like wheat (and the traumatic events of the raid at Deir-E-Zor). From a certain perspective, you have no regrets about the killing that you've done: it was for the right reasons, to stop others from coming to harm, and done to people who certainly deserved it. But once in a while when you rest, they visit you in the sanctuary that is sleep and violate your peace.


Here in this curious fall vale you find no eerie ghosts of your past. Things are quiet, only the blowing of the wind and the chirping of small birds breaking the peaceful stillness. That is, until you catch it: a faint humming, somewhere off in the trees beyond your immediate line of sight. Half-conscious, you walk along the beaten path in front of you, crunching the detritus of autumn under your bare feet and moving closer to the sound.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnV4O07USw


It rings clearer in your ears now that you have approached to a more appropriate distance. This is no humming, but a chant, an incantation or appeal to who knows what. Alarm rings faintly in your mind, but it is too quiet to influence your slow walk towards the source of the sound deep in the cluster of trees.

When you pass beyond a small clump of ash trees, the light in your environment changes. Before it was as though a regular autumn afternoon, bright and reaching through the trees. Now it is combatted by something, some force of shade that struggles against the rays of light, working to extinguish them completely. That, however, is the last thing that catches your eye.

File: Spoiler Image (215 KB, 1920x1045)

215 KB JPG

>>5611695
Stock-still in the other end of the grove is what seems like an endless line of amorphous shadows, vaguely humanoid and garbed in various states of armor: some are anachronistic, medieval or primal; others wear gear that you might bear yourself if you were to go on patrol. They all sing that quiet, wordless chant together, echoing and reverberating.

You process this all and take an involuntary step backwards at the sight of them, and they move in unison- one step forward. Behind their back, the black of night (no, deeper even than night) advances, destroying completely the light of day and spreading a malaise that you can feel from here. It is viscerally terrifying, a sense of inevitable death travelling with each step they take.

The spine-helmed one in the lead bears a great scythe in one hand that cuts the light wherever it goes, tearing great wide swathes of darkness out of the autumnal daytime as they approach you. Step back, step forward. They are inexorable. Unstoppable. If you turn to run, you know they will follow after you, and if you stand still.. you somehow know that you will eventually join their choir.

File: Veritas.jpg (939 KB, 740x1098)

939 KB JPG

>>5611709
The dream ends in a rush when your blaring alarm awakens you. Your second alarm- the one that means you need to hurry up, or you'll be late. Dressing rapidly, you shave and make your way out the door and nearly slam into Veritas, who looks to have been.. standing right outside of your door?!

She looks at you solemnly. "You seem troubled."


>Respond in the affirmative, and tell her about your strange dream

>Tell her that you're okay- you both have a morning briefing to get to

>Ask how she knew that you were feeling off: you look fine, as far you can tell

>Write-in


Multiple vote options are acceptable.

4chan post limits made this update a little wonky, but I hope it didn't detract from readability too hard.

>>5611719
>>Respond in the affirmative, and tell her about your strange dream

>>5611719
>Tell her that you're okay- you both have a morning briefing to get to

>>5611719
>Ask how she knew that you were feeling off: you look fine, as far you can tell

>>5611765
>>5611821
>>5612120
Holding this vote open for another hour or two, considering the split. If we get down the road a bit with no resolution, I'll just roll a d3.

Rolled 1 (1d3)

>>5611765
>>5611821
>>5612120
Alright, rolling.

>>5611719
"Yeah, you're right unfortunately. I'm not normally the type to share dreams, but this one had me shaken up."

You motion to the hallway and begin walking, Veritas following in your footsteps as she considers her response. When she does speak after some time, her voice is set in that same measured and consistent tone.

"The Weave of your sleeping mind was unsettling. I can imagine it was a rather unwelcome visitation," she says, motioning to your head. "Tell me of it."

She isn't wrong. The image of the spike-helmed spectre in particular is stuck on loop in your mind, engraved there like a bad wine stain on a white couch. "I was wandering in a meadow of ash trees in the autumn, and it was peaceful at first. Quiet."

Veritas is silent, so you continue. "I walked a bit in the grove until I came to a copse of trees, and when I passed through it, there was a group of.. dark-armored beings, emanating shadow. Almost like they were eating the light."


Her face pales. "That is ominous. I cannot say with confidence that your description matches any known Collaborator groups or their Unnatural affiliates, but it does worry me. Dreams are visions yet to pass, Maxwell."

You start to roll your eyes but stop yourself. You've seen more than enough crazy shit in the past month to just take that at face value, so you do, giving her a nod. She smiles thinly, still looking worried, as the two of you enter the briefing room.

Assembled on the interior of the spacious gray-walled room are not one but three separate teams, all looking as varied as your own. You find Kramenkov and the group- all present already but for you and Veritas- and find a seat just as Commander Milan enters the room and closes the door behind her.


"Good morning, TT-094. Let's get to business."

File: Low Mountain Site.png (268 KB, 681x550)

268 KB PNG

>>5613102
Milan pulls out a USB and plugs it into a nearby laptop, which whirrs and projects its screen upon the wall behind her. You were almost expecting a holoprojector at this point, but not everything has to be sci-fi, you suppose.

The screen displays a map of an area you're not familiar with, so you listen in keenly when the commander begins talking. Some of the assembled team members look bored, while others seem to have not heard anything about this briefing yet. That's not how it worked in the military.. but this is not the military. You're well familiar with that fact at this point.


"This," she starts, "is the vicinity of Low Mountain, an town in Arizona on the border of the Hopi Indian reservation. As most of you are aware, we've been tracking a nascent Collaborator cell in Low Mountain looking to extract some sort of Unnatural resource from the reservation nearby- and for those of you who are new to your teams, don't worry, your TLs will get you spun up after this brief as to what that means. We've confirmed in the last 48 hours that this house in Low Mountain is a high-activity hub for this group of Cees; they call themselves the Blackhand Collective."

You look quizzically at Milan for a moment until Clark leans over, whispering too loudly. "Cees stands for Collaborators. Easier to say."


She clicks a button and the screen moves from the wide-area map to surveillance footage of a house and a collection of smaller buildings on a large piece of land, all built upon a tall hill. "Site has drinking water, self-contained electrical and livestock. From all indications by field agents in Operations at DG, there's not a lot of going into town that they do, so we've been limited to covert collection operations." A grimace mars her face momentarily. "Unfortunately, the Cees are not fans of radio communications."

Milan moves on to another slide, this one marked with familiar military force strength symbols. That's a red diamond inscribed with two dots- the marker of a section's worth of men, two dozen or so. "Our collections suggest platoon strength on site in terms of trained weapons handlers, rotating on 12 hour shifts; expect a section-size security element to be on the lookout. I don't anticipate dealing with amateurs, but there's no indication that they have professional training of any kind."


With finality, she clicks another button, moving to a drier segment of the presentation. It lists in detail the assignments for each team and the mission statement of your action on this site in bold letters: Establish cordon, close lines, eliminate present members of the Blackhand Collective. Easy enough.

You take note of your own team's primary duty: security, keeping the flanks safe. Milan is holding your team back as the reserve for the operation, which makes sense to you, considering you're the only one in the room who's new other than Halle (who will certainly be sitting here in the ops center the whole time you're in Arizona).

File: Max Jacobson_DP1.png (475 KB, 824x977)

475 KB PNG

>>5613109
"Any questions?" Milan waits a beat before nodding. "We execute in T-90 hours. Get locked in- I know it's been awhile since we've deployed all teams at once; let's be 100% prepared for this one."

With that, the meeting adjourns, each team going off to the side to brief further. Kramenkov fills you in fully on what this raid will precisely entail- you're there to keep civilians out of the line of fire, to deal with any potential reinforcements that intelligence didn't anticipate, and to make sure none of the Cees make it out of the cordon. It's a simple enough duty.

>Any questions for Kramenkov?


Three days fly by as you work up to this new mission, and you find the purpose you expected to when you chose this path. It's gratifying to get down to the grindstone and show Team Bravo that you're serious about being an asset, not a burden. When the training comes to an end, you realize you've taken a step beyond where you were previously- whether it's because of the quality of the men and women surrounding you, or your own redoubled efforts, it's welcome either way.

+1 Sanity from Hard Work Pays Dividends


You've reached a Development Point- for all intents and purposes, a level-up. Pick a skill to increase by 5%; in the future, you'll be able to select from skills that make thematic sense (those that Max has used consistently or found particular need for). This is also a good point to note that you can only have one skill at 75 or higher, and no more than three skills at 65 or higher.

>Firearms
>Awareness
>Persuade
>Stealth


Max's previous interactions with the supernatural have had him at a serious disadvantage. After his familiarization with basic Delta Green techniques and his training sessions with Bravo Team, he's acquired an edge. Pick one (and only one) that he'll have going forward as a one-time bonus.

>You now roll twice and take the better of the two when using one of the following skills if you're not Wounded: Firearms, Awareness, Melee Combat, Dodge

>99s now count as Critical Successes, and your first 1 in any thread is treated as a 2 instead.

>You gain 2 Focus Points at the beginning of each thread. One is automatically spent when you roll within 5 of a DC to make that failure a success.

>>5613113
[Ah, shit, flipped the numbers on the second edge bonus. Your first 100 in every thread counts as a 99 and 2s now count as ones, if you select that bonus.]

>>5613109
>an town in Arizona

*A town in Arizona. D'oh.

>>5613113
Questions:
>Do all the teams get deployed on one op often? If not is that anything to worry about?

>Awareness
Need to keep an open eye out in this job.

>You now roll twice and take the better of the two when using one of the following skills if you're not Wounded: Firearms, Awareness, Melee Combat, Dodge

>>5613113
Any questions for Kramenkov?
>whats our rations looking like? Post op Chow?
>>Firearms
>You now roll twice and take the better of the two when using one of the following skills if you're not Wounded: Firearms, Awareness, Melee Combat, Dodge

>>5613278
Support.

>>5613278
>Do all the teams get deployed on one op often? If not, is that anything to worry about?

"Not really, no. Like the CO said, it's been some time since we were all out on one romp together. My take on it is that there's an unusual number of belligerent Cees, not that there's any particular danger necessitating everyone on deck. We have ways of knowing if they've got Unnatural assets, but they're not perfect. Keep your head on a swivel out there."


>What's our rations looking like? Post op chow?

"Heh, that's a Marine question if I ever heard one. We'll be wearing standard 1-day packs, so you'll have an MRE or two stuffed in there just in case. I do not expect to be out there longer than 24 hours, though."

>>5613113
>Stealth

40% is worrying on a skill we really can't afford to bungle at the worst moment and which we will be relying on often.

>>You now roll twice and take the better of the two when using one of the following skills if you're not Wounded: Firearms, Awareness, Melee Combat, Dodge

The third Edge was looking very promising too but while missing a check by 5 will be annoying, getting a reroll on 4 of our best and most used skills is huge and will directly contribute in us NOT getting Wounded.

Questions:

"So, other than tactical training, do you offer training for those with more... esoteric abilities? Because I know there's something in me I have no control over, and I don't like it."

>>5613278
>>5613289
>>5613515
>>5614433
[Another busy weekend; I'll leave this open for today and likely tomorrow, with a post forthcoming late Sunday or in the afternoon on Monday. Thanks for your patience with the weird schedule, anons!]

File: Max Jacobson_DP1.png (480 KB, 824x977)

480 KB PNG

>>5613278
>>5613289
>>5613515
>>5614433

>"So, other than tactical training, do you offer training for those with more... esoteric abilities? Because I know there's something in me I have no control over, and I don't like it."

"Uh, yeah, Jacobson. You already did that, remember? Your UTD session was like five hours straight. Threw some of the techs for a loop, that's for certain. You good to keep a can on that for this op?"

"Sure, yeah."


... you have no memory of the Unnatural Talent Discernment assessment other than Milan asking you whether you wanted to do that or the OCT course first. Were they concurrent, maybe? It isn't clear in your mind. You can always ask after the op is over, you suppose.


>Awareness increased, Reroll Edge chosen


Writing now.

File: Armory.jpg (542 KB, 1920x800)

542 KB JPG

>>5617538
You never sleep well the night before a mission and that doesn't change now, not even with the fancy bed and a room all to yourself. Considering that you only arrived to Delta Green a month or so ago, and to TT-094 only five measly days prior to this morning, you're as well prepared as can be expected. Even so, you feel a sinking stone in your stomach from the moment your alarm goes off at zero-dark thirty, one that grows in coldness and weight whilst you walk to the armory to draw weaponry and make ready.

Waiting for you there are your teammates, as well as the teams from Alpha and Delta- all told, a solid platoon's worth of legitimate warriors. They all check their firearms with rote, practiced efficiency, and you're happy to see more than a few grenade launchers and full-sized machine guns. No one is taking the Collaborator combat patrols lightly.


As you make your way up to the armorer's window yourself, you see Kramenkov motion you over. "You sleep alright, Jacobson?" When you shake your head in a negative gesture, he gives a wan smile in return. "Yep, me either. Make sure you get everything on your wishlist out of the armory before we leave; once we're on the bird, there's no going back on it. We're over here when you're done."

At that, you turn back to the tired-looking armorer, who checks your ID, scans something on your body and then waves a hand behind him. "Well, Max, what can I get you?"


>You'll carry your standard set of equipment today, same as always. (Rifle, sidearm and normal ammunition load.)

>You're going to go a bit heavier-duty, just in case. (Light machine gun, sidearm, and substantial ammunition load. Will weigh you down.)

>Something in a bigger caliber would make you happier about potentially going up against supernatural threats. (Designated marksman rifle in high-caliber rifle round. Comparatively less ammunition for the same weight as your standard load. No auto-fire, but higher stopping power.)

>It's a bit unconventional, but.. (Write-in option. TT-094 probably has it on hand if you can think it up.)


All normal issued equipment also applies- signal flares, night vision, and a pair of fragmentation grenades come standard.

>>5617572
>Something in a bigger caliber would make you happier about potentially going up against supernatural threats. (Designated marksman rifle in high-caliber rifle round. Comparatively less ammunition for the same weight as your standard load. No auto-fire, but higher stopping power.)

If we learned ANYTHING about eldritch gribblies, bring the biggest gun you can.

>>5617572
>>You're going to go a bit heavier-duty, just in case. (Light machine gun, sidearm, and substantial ammunition load. Will weigh you down.)

>>5617538
>you already did this, don't you remember?

I guess that explains why the simulation nasty in Residential Evil actually triggered our unnatural senses and why we conked out right afterwards. Reeeeaally don't like that nobody told us about it, though.
>>5617572

>standard load
We're not supposed to be expecting supernatural gribblies and standard load is the "covers every eventuality" load. Don't want to risk running out of ammo and doubly don't want to risk being weighed down by ammo when we need to motor.

>>5617572
>It's a bit unconventional, but.. (Write-in option. TT-094 probably has it on hand if you can think it up.)
A suppressed MP5/10 (the 10mm MP5) and a M1 Garand in .458 Winmag with a 4x scout scope, plus a standard load of grenades, flares and utilities, we'll eat the weight penalty just to be able to handle both threat classes with style.

>>5617827
Sounds interesting
>+Support+

File: Vote21.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

>>5617694
>>5617720
>>5617770
>>5617827
>>5617842
Locked and writing for the write-in option.


>>5617770
You are always welcome to write-in questions, comments or dialogue alongside your vote.

File: NotQuiteNight.png (556 KB, 957x625)

556 KB PNG

>>5617572
The armorer's right eyebrow raises, but he nods when you slide the request slip over.

"Yeah, I think I can make that happen. Give me a sec, not exactly standard issue." Two or three minutes later he comes back bearing a long wood-stocked rifle in one hand and your sub-gun in the other, a black-uniformed lackey behind him lugging a pair of ammo cans.

"Well, here you go. Hard to find in .458 SOCOM, but we've got one. Take care of it, will ya? And don't go getting left behind out there because you're dragging too much shit around. Rookie mistake, that." He finishes his lecture with a smirk, signing out the weaponry and calling out for the next person to come forward.


Weapons in hand, you go back to light discussion with the team before it's time to leave. Everyone puts on a cool-as-a-cucumber veneer, but beneath it all you can tell two things: the members of Bravo team trust each other, and they're more worried than they let on about this op.

The mood remains somber as you all move to the airfield, mounting up on three separate transport jets of the same model that brought you here. Twin engines spin up and you do your best to catch a few errant minutes of sleep where you can amidst the multitudinous noises of travel.


Hours later, the team is alert and awake as Kramenkov comes over the in-air comms. "Circling on target now. Alpha and Delta are dropping in close on target, we're going to land about a klick off the objective." A series of mic-clicks comes back as everyone acknowledges nonverbally.

You watch the pre-combat habits of your group with a sense of familiarity, each preparation and weapons check known to you- well, for the most part. With the new perspective you bear, the prayers and good-luck customs that these individuals do take on greater weight; you carefully observe each member's routine. They run the gamut: everything from Kramenkov's menthol cigarette to Veritas' actual ritual circles on the deck of the plane, absorbed completely in an otherworldly hymn.

Ultimately, the time comes and the red lights on the bulkhead of the dropship flash in a synchronized rhythm. "Let's move, people," your team leader says, and you follow along to a small ditch nearby as you watch the aircraft depart into the night sky.


"Alright, final FRAGO here. We'll be setting up an LP/OP to the northwest here to deter anyone coming from the town- I want Pro, Clark, and 'Nez over there." Veritas shakes her head, pointing to herself insistently.

"It's telling me I need to be there. Split one of the other ones off."

Shrugging, Kramenkov assents, rotating the map. "Alright, then. Me, Stutten and Clark on the rear security for the main effort. 'Course, now that leaves us with an odd man out. I'm inclined to put you at the observation post- unless you have other ideas, Jacobson?"


>That's fine- you're more than comfortable sitting on watch

>You'd prefer to be closer to the main effort and your team leader on your first op

>Write-in

>>5618612
>You'd prefer to be closer to the main effort and your team leader on your first op

>>5618612

>Whatever you think you need - I'm a team player.

I say we sit where he puts us.

>>5618612
>>That's fine- you're more than comfortable sitting on watch
good for our first mission

>>5618612

>That's fine- you're more than comfortable sitting on watch

Since we ended up bringing a long gun, might as well stay at the range where it's most useful.

Also, OoC, what does FRAGO stand for?

>>5618612
>.458 SOCOM
reeeeeeeeeeeeeee, pretty big sifference between .458 Winmag and .458 SOCOM, for reference .458 Winmag will reliably punch clean through an elephants skull

>That's fine- you're more than comfortable sitting on watch

>>5618819
Fragmentary Order or Frag Ord, usually an on the fly change of plans to continue carrying out the mission, most of the time in the form of diversions or follow ons.

File: Vote22.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

Rolled 54, 1, 77, 65 + 1 = 198 (4d100 + 1)

>>5618635
>>5618637
>>5618657
>>5618819
>>5618965
Locked and writing.


>>5618819
[See >>5618965; it's an order issued last-minute to solidify planning or make adjustments.]

>>5618965
[Sorry, my /k/tism lapsed for a second. The Garand is in .458 Win.]

Rolled 46 (1d50)

>>5619177
[Well, that last die didn't go as planned. Here's another shot at it.]

And hey, look, Max's first crit!

>>5618612
The dimming dusk sunlight continues to fall away as you memorize the notable sites on the map: the rally point (in case the operation goes sour), the main building of the Blackhand compound, and the final red line denoting a "no-pass" zone. With all that in mind, you grunt an affirmative. "I'm here for whatever you need. Off to the OP it is."

Kramekov dips his head slightly in your direction and then motions off to the west with a flat-handed chop. "Vee, you have command of the OP site. You know the drill, keep it tight and call if you run into something worth breaking radio blackout for. Otherwise, you're on your own until 2330. That's four hours on obj. Good hunting."


With that, the two teams break off. Kramekov, Stutten and Clark are left behind, trooping across the open ground uphill to close with the rest of 094's personnel; your group heads west to find a spot for reconnaissance on the town of Low Mountain proper. These rolling hills make for a hard hike, but each person of your four-man fireteam is at peak fitness and you pass the two-kilometer distance with comparative ease.

Up on the hillside you have an excellent view of the desolate town of Low Mountain and the road to the Blackhand compound; all the makings of a prime site for an observation point. Veritas wordlessly gives the signals to split: one team in a cluster of bushes up high on the road and one team a bit further back, around the bend. You settle in on the high position a few meters from Jiminez's left shoulder and get your position set up with proper camouflaging elements, taking only a moment to glance at his work. He's no slacker, and by the way he sights in on a long-barreled bolt action it seems like he's the team's sniper. Lucky- you've done plenty of spotter work.


Everyone gets settled and set in just a few minutes, which is well within your expectations for these elite soldiers. The worst part comes now, then- the inevitable waiting until something happens. Over time, though, you've come to appreciate moments like this; gifts of silence in the midst of the wild struggle for life that combat is. Then again, nowadays silence brings up unpleasant memories (even if it was just a simulation.)


A scant ten minutes goes by before you spot the first movement far below on the road- three beaten-up tan SUVs, moving at a relatively slow pace and coming from the town in the direction of the compound. You motion back to Veritas to come forward, and painstakingly she crawls up the trench alongside the road to your position.

"What do you see, Jacobson?"

"Down there," you say, poining carefully so as not to disturb your meticulously-created hide, "three vics. Headed this way."

"Let us see who we're dealing with," she responds, and sits up into a crosslegged pose. You look back at her with some confusion, but 'Nez (without looking up from his optic) just chuckles.

"You get used to it, man. Vee's pretty damn useful; just let her do her thing."

File: Spoiler Image (725 KB, 703x699)

725 KB PNG

>>5619607
Watching the vehicles proceed slowly up the road, you take a moment to look around for situational awareness. It's no good to get too tunnel-visioned in on one thing. The night air is crisp and fresh, and you breathe in as you glance about, taking it all in.

The SUVs down below are trundling along; no threat, at least not yet. Back around the bend, you search for a solid fifteen seconds before finding Prozchek's position (and that's only after he sees you looking back and nearly-imperceptibly wiggles the barrel of his LMG.) There are no sounds of gunfire from up the hill, which means one of three things: they're still closing in, the op is going VERY well, or the op is going extremely poorly.


Just as things are looking quiet, the world around you erupts into a cacophony of sound. Up at the compound the blast of explosives melds with the chattering symphony of a coordinated firing line, a dance of death. Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell who's shooting at who from here. At the same time, the vehicles that have been steadily closing in pick up speed, accelerating to a breakneck pace. The veil of silence is ripped off, and Prozchek speaks up to be heard over the uproar.

"What's the call, guys?!" he belts out, the deep bass of his voice contrasting with the ongoing racket, and then Veritas drops out of her trance.

"That is the tribal police- they shouldn't be here at all. Operations at higher-echelon was supposed to have that handled." Her face melts into a grimace. "If they keep coming, we have no choice but to kill them and clean the mess up afterwards. If they get through the cordon and end up being with the Collaborators, it will utterly ruin the operation.. not to mention the potential casualties."


>76, 1 [CRIT!] for your Awareness roll
>77, 65 for Veritas and Jiminez


It is at this point that your attention is drawn to a strange distortion in the air to the east. The anomaly is a swirling, twisting aberrance; shapeless but enthralling. You stare at it for a long moment before you feel Veritas' hand on your shoulder. "Hey! Pay attention. We're going to try and shoot out their tires; if that fails, it is game on. On my mark."

The squealing of rubber on the dirt road is loud in your ears now, and the vehicles are perhaps only three hundred meters from you now. This anomaly could be nothing, just a trick of the evening light, or even an active distraction by the Blackhands- or it could be serious.


>Alert your teammates to the anomaly, even though this will take up valuable time and distract from the attempt to nonlethally disable the tribal police

>Wait until after you've disabled the police vehicles, then let your teammates know something's going on

>Do something about the anomaly yourself and let them focus on the cars [What are you doing?]

>Write-in

>>5619637

>
>Alert your teammates to the anomaly, even though this will take up valuable time and distract from the attempt to nonlethally disable the tribal police

I foresee this going poorly, but I also would hate to deal with recriminations of the "we could've avoided this if only I'd spoken up earlier" variety. Besides, the police aren't really "clear and present danger" just yet.

>>5619637
>>Write-in
Tell Vee about the anomaly then see if we cant crack a few engine blocks with our garand, Vee is the most likely to be able to notice and make heads or tails of the anomaly whereas the other guys are more useful behind their guns at this stage.

>>5619637
>Alert your teammates to the anomaly, even though this will take up valuable time and distract from the attempt to nonlethally disable the tribal police

>>5619637
>Alert your teammates to the anomaly, even though this will take up valuable time and distract from the attempt to nonlethally disable the tribal police

File: Vote23.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

Rolled 33 (1d100)

>>5619876
>>5619883
>>5619889
>>5619961
Locked and writing.

Rolling Unnatural Lore for Veritas against an Easy difficulty (DC 70 for her.)

>>5619637
You look between the oncoming automobiles and the clearly-supernatural occurrence and make a decision. "Veritas, there's something going on over there," you urgently intone, "Forget about the cars for a second!"

She whirls to face your pointing finger, her auburn ponytail whipping underneath the angular helmet she's wearing as she does. Her eyes widen when she observes the abnormality, the gun in her hands dropping to hang on its sling. "That.. that's an omen marker!" Vee's voice shatters from her normal, restrained tone into a warbling pitch of despair. "We need to --"


The end of her frantic sentence is cut off by an ear-splitting eruption of fire from Prozchek's MG- he's too far away to hear your discussion of the anomaly, initiating the tire-busting ambush as agreed before. The rounds skip off of the dirt on-target and slam into the front vehicle's right tire, sending it skidding off course as Veritas distends her fingers in a patently supernatural manner.

"Whatever happens, 'Nez, Jacobson, don't let anyone interrupt me! That marker means they're setting up some sort of ritual that involves a big sacrifice- get word to the rest of the team. I'm going to try and stall."

She finishes relaying the dire news to the two of you and slumps over like every bone in her body has turned to jelly, leaving you to catch her head before it collides with the rocky floor. To your side, 'Nez is laying in a shot at the second fishtailing car (which is nearly out-of-control as it is), and when he pulls the trigger the second vehicle goes completely off the road and rolls thrice before tumbling to a stop. All of the beater SUVs have now ceased movement completely; the closest sits a mere seventy five meters from your position.

File: Sheriff Hatathli.png (997 KB, 632x946)

997 KB PNG

>>5620591
You watch as a dark-skinned man emerges from the lead vic with a wide, white-felt hat on his head and a silver Beretta pistol at his hip, a shotgun left behind him in the driver's seat. He raises his hands high to the sky as he piles out of the car, speaking as he does in a conciliatory inflection.

"Whoever you are, you've got us dead to rights and you haven't killed us yet. M'name's Sheriff Dawson Hatathli, and I'm gonna go ahead'n hope that trend continues, but I do want you to understand that assaulting tribal police officers is a felony, just like a normal cop. So you'd better have a damn good reason for whatch're doing. Care to explain?"


Jiminez, for his part, keeps the rifle trained on this head cop but mumbles under his breath. "You talk to him- I can't fuck up my shot. I'm seeing some people moving about behind the third car back there a ways; if we want to bust 'em up now's the time mane, before they all spread out."

The ball falls into your court with Veritas down and your team in an armed standoff with these policemen; albeit, you are at a significant advantage. The sheriff(?) doesn't seem to know precisely where any of you are, speaking generally into the harsh wind.


>Try to convince the man to turn around, cram into the two remaining functional vehicles and leave [What argument do you make?]

>Attempt to suss out his purpose for being here and go from there, considering Vee's concerns about the police

>Signal your teammates to fire away- it will get your hands bloody, but you can't risk the mission for these idiots who wandered in on something serious

>Write-in

>>5620597
>Signal your teammates to fire away- it will get your hands bloody, but you can't risk the mission for these idiots who wandered in on something serious

>>5620597
>>Try to convince the man to turn around, cram into the two remaining functional vehicles and leave [What argument do you make?]
"You are interfering in an Internal Revenue Service matter, turn around now otherwise you won't need to pay taxes ever again, and yes you can claim the damage to your vehicles as deductions."

No one is scarier than the taxman, and no one gives less of a shit whether your alive or dead than the taxman.

>>5620597
>>Signal your teammates to fire away- it will get your hands bloody, but you can't risk the mission for these idiots who wandered in on something serious
fuck plot points, open fire!

>>5620679

+1 Support, and say that we suspect this cult is part of a front to launder drug money. The story is that drug cartels who are buying opium from Afghanistan are moving money into the US, and that the cops matched the profile you had of the heavies the cartel used to transport cash, so you needed to stop them before they got in the way of the raid. Also point out that while you stopping them might have been an "error" (oh, sorry, we didn't realize you wuz tribal cops), this is also a federal matter with National Security concerns due to the possibility the Taliban is using the cartel to move people, not just money. We need you to turn around and walk away, go get checked out at the hospital pls. Also leave a couple guys at the crossroads to keep people from wandering down here, ok? Our bosses will call your bosses and sort things out about 5 levels up. What's your badge number? Also, we were never here - secret squirrel stuff.

>>5620679
>>5620970
Supporting

>>5620679
IRS is as good a cover as any, nowadays. Supporting.

File: Vote24.png (1.3 MB, 945x632)

1.3 MB PNG

Rolled 23 (1d100)

>>5620676
>>5620679
>>5620744
>>5620970
>>5621025
>>5621034
Locked and writing for the IRS impersonation!

Rolling Persuade at an Easy difficulty- some good arguments in those write-ins, and no one wants to fuck with the Feds (Need a 60 or lower.)

File: CheekyIRS.png (451 KB, 588x388)

451 KB PNG

>>5620597
It makes the most sense to not risk a gunfight here- even if you do have the edge on these tribal amateurs, you're outnumbered heavily. You stand up out of the hide you've made on the crest of the hill and watch as the Sheriff restrains a twitching, instinctual draw of his pistol, instead merely cocking his head to the side.

"Attention, Navajo Tribal Police," you declare, "You are interfering in an Internal Revenue Service matter- approach any further, and you won't need to pay taxes ever again, I promise you that."


>23


Sheriff Hatathli's face stretches taut in a grimace. "Ah, fuck, you have'ta be kidding me. Atsa, Elu, come on up, we're not gonna do footsies with the IRS. Besides, I bet you guys have a Reaper drone up there someways, no?"

You nod convincingly, continuing the charade while the sheriff's men advance forward with weapons holstered and hands at their sides. "Sheriff, I'll be honest with you. I appreciate your attempt to help on a personal level, but the reality of things is that you're way in over your head. This compound up here is a big-time front for drug money smuggling; opium from Afghanistan and all kinds of other bad shit."

He looks scandalized, about to speak, but you continue on. The more you can build your legitimacy, the better. "With those unmarked SUVs you have there, you match the exact description of their muscle guys, so we had to stop you on the way up- had no way of telling you were tribal police- but in any case, this is a federal national security matter. Might be Taliban up there, Sheriff."

"You're kidding me. I thought I was done with the Taliban after I came back from Kunar in '08," he groans, "Shit. Well, err, I imagine you woulda told us if the town had any roots with this group, right?"


Again, you nod. That seems to satisfy him, and as you turn back to a non-existent platoon of hidden troops and make some nonsensical "stand down" gestures, he clears his throat. "Uh, so, we should just leave? Or can we help in some way? I've got ten well-armed police officers here, minus the ones in the rolled-over vehicle; they've probably got concussions now."


>Yes, stick around- half your men will take over our watch position here, half will come along to beef our team up

>Yes, but just stay here and make sure no one else comes up this road, bottom line

>No, just leave

>Write-in

>>5621797
>>No, just leave

>>5621797

>No, just leave.

>Again, personally, I'd appreciate the support and thank you, but I've got orders to keep local involvement as low as possible, so I'd like to ask you to take off. They didn't say why, but the section chief was emphatic about not causing any news around here. My guess is after we're done with the raid, someone wants to keep an eye out to see who comes looking and follow them for a bit, so they don't want anyone in the town talking about it. Can you keep things here on the down-low?

>>5621797
>>5621909
This

>>5621797

>No, just leave

If whatever ritual the Blackhands are cooking up is completed they're going to be fodder for whatever bugnasty pops up, and if they survive that it's odds to evens whether DG inducts them (if they do really, really well) or collateral damages them anyway.

Actually, can we ask them to set up a second cut-off further out? That way they're out of the way AND we have an insurance of sorts that no random tourist is gonna show up.

File: Vote25.png (1.29 MB, 945x632)

1.29 MB PNG

Rolled 22, 48, 84, 24, 86, 37, 29, 28 = 358 (8d100)

>>5621806
>>5621909
>>5621948
>>5622031
Locked and writing.

Rolling for a bunch of stuff. This will be a long update, hold on to your butts!

File: Radio.jpg (544 KB, 920x490)

544 KB JPG

>>5621797
You consider the situation for a moment; in the distance, the gunfire has slackened to occasional pops and cracks. As you're mulling over what to say, Jiminez is on the radio beside you calling in the Unnatural threat (using the predetermined brevity codes for potential listeners on the net, of course.)

"Venice, this is Bravo Three. Apple pie, apple pie, over. Details to follow in three mikes."

The speaker only hisses static in response; 'Nez looks up at you and mouths "no response". That's not a good sign.


"Look," you begin apologetically, "Again, personally I'd appreciate the support. Thanks for the offer, but I've got orders to keep local involvement as low as possible so I'd like to ask you to take off."

The sheriff sighs out, but gives a thumbs up. "We can do that, yeah. Any idea why or how long ya might be around these parts?"

Shrugging, you answer. "They didn't say why, but my section chief was awful emphatic about not causing any news around here. My guess is after we're done with the raid, someone wants to keep an eye out to see who comes looking and follow them for a bit, so they don't want anyone in the town talking about it."

He nods, so you continue. "Can you keep things here on the down-low - and you know, actually, you can help out. Just go sit down at the bottom of the road and make sure no one heads up this way, okay?"


He glances over at the rolled-over SUV where two of his men are helping three others out of the downed vehicle and shakes his head. "Simple 'nuff. Wish the suits up above both o' us had coordinated ahead of time; would've saved some headache and at least one pair of now-shitty pants." The both of you laugh and the sheriff tips his hat as he heads back to the remaining two cars, looking back over his shoulder the whole time.

You wait until he starts the vehicle before looking down to 'Nez. "What do you mean, no answer?!" you hiss, to which you receive a quizzical expression.

"I mean Commander Milan didn't answer, ese. Neither did K-man when I tried him, either."


"I've got a radio tuned into 460.245 megahertz if you need to reach me," Hatathli shouts, interrupting your hushed conversation with a wave, "Keep in mind y'all just blew the tires out of my working cars, so it'd take us a minute to get up here, but if you need me that's how to get in touch!"

At that the SUVs limp away, one making a harsh grinding noise and the other thump-tha-thumping on a misshapen wheel. You feel bad about the damage to what is likely a very underfunded policeforce, but there are more important things afoot- namely the lack of response from anyone on the net.