Kid Kinetic and the Space Knights! Issue #2 "Ummm where are we?"

There was a distant voice in reply...

'Ryan?' it uttered, after a few moments.

'RYAN!' repeated Joe. 'Man am I glad to hear your 'voice'. You gotta get us outta here! We're drugged up with some... ugh... icky goo. I tried reaching Rachel's mind but she's out of it! I er... did dig in there and found out she's kind of into girls but... I dunno, that's kind of hot I think and...'

'Focus!' said Ryan as he could hear Joe's mental voice getting fainter.

'yeah... focus. My body won't move! Those alien things that remind me of those things from Dungeons and Trolls or whatever you n Tim played ... lame games... anyway. There's more of them! I counted at least six and underground isn't underground at all! It's some kind of... crashed spaceship! Wait! There's more! Other creatures... some humanoid but with blue skin... there's a guy with a snake head too... hooked up into some kind of machine! It kind of reminds me of the matrix, where they are all dreaming and their mental energy is... oh no. Someone's coming. I can move my eyeballs to... no! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

The psychic link was severed painfully and Ryan blinked coloured dots from his eyesight as his head cleared. So that 'cave' was actually a path cleared through rock and earth to get to submerged crashed spaceship in the jungle and this place had grown over the top of it. Now the aliens captured intelligent beings to use as sustenance and his friends were on the menu!

"Good old Joe. Loyal to a fault" Ryan mused.  He could have easily mimicked Rachel's 2D power and escaped but he stayed behind to protect his teammate. The big question was from what. Just one of those aliens nearly killed him. Taking on five more was certain death.

Kid Kinetic sighed then crept into the tunnel. They both were going to owe him big time if they made it out alive.

The inside of the 'tunnel' was algae covered and overgrown but too straight and uniform. It was clearly some kind of hatch or entrance to the vessel that had discoloured and succumbed to nature over time.

It was dark too and Ryan squinted, feeling that there was something moving about in here. As with everything else on the planet, insects were twenty to one hundred times larger than on earth, strange coloured and probably ten times deadlier! He shuddered as a ten feet long millipede thing crept past him on the floor then towards the exit.

As it got there the ground opened up slightly and the entire thing with all its thousands of legs was swallowed up, slurped into somethings mouth! The 'ground' closed up in a heartbeat!

Ryan made a point of remembering not to step there.

He did see a green glow that gave some light and saw a kind of goo. It had come from the backside of a foot long beetle which crept up the wall and oozed the goop behind it. Beetle poop? Ugh.

The corridors were pretty much 20' by 20' and only misshapen because of the crust of life and ages that had grown on them. This ship had been here for a while then... The metal seemed like steel but was slightly warm to the touch, and didn't flex even when he pushed with his superior strength!

OOC Going deeper in? Sticking with the stats you have from before?

KID KINETIC
HP 150

Dexterity: 9 Strength: 9 Body: 7
Intelligence: 9 Will: 1 Mind: 1/5
Influence: 1 Aura: 1 Spirit: 4/7 Doesn't regenerate (symbiote)

OOC Kid Kinetic will keep his stats the same and creep in stealthily.

"Hold on, Joe. I am on my way!"

Ryan wonder if the symbiote could sense his trepidation.

"Listen, pal. We might not make it out of this one. If I go down, try and escape back to the camp."

KID KINETIC
HP 150

Dexterity: 9 Strength: 9 Body: 7
Intelligence: 9 Will: 1 Mind: 1/5
Influence: 1 Aura: 1 Spirit: 4/7 Doesn't regenerate (symbiote)

As he ventured deeper into the cave Kid Kinetic got the idea that yes, this was in fact a spacecraft, or part of a very large one at any rate.

When it had smashed into the ground the jungle had eventually grown on top of it. Now as he crept through the darkness illuminated only my strange green algae and moss, climbing over and around vines and roots that had thrust their way through metal eventually, he became somewhat awed by the size of it.

Something... Something felt off. Odd.

He looked through the darkness and tilted his head.

OOC Perception Check AV9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 2,4,+0 Total:6 (15) vs
OV5 + Roll(2d12)+0: 4,5,+0 Total:9 (14) +1 (to Will 2) vs Rv5=Failed

Hmmm. Maybe he was imagining it. Initially he thought there were sticks that looked like skeletons on the floor of the corridor/tunnel but they were grime covered and tricky to identify. There were a lot of them several inches deep as the corridor expanded to twenty feet across up ahead.

The way was cluttered with plants that clearly had no problem surviving in darkness. Fungi, moss and strange flowers that had heads the size of a football. They bloomed various colours, red, green, blue and seemed random. It was getting quite dark now and hard to see. Luckily the headset he'd been given was still active for a while longer and he switched it on. Now he could see bones, debris, fur, claws, the odd tooth, all scattered in a line across the corridor but cut neatly off past a certain point. Indeed, scanning with the headset showed the corridor, whilst dull and tarnished, was free of plant or animal life.

It smelled like rotting meet as he approached that 'line' when debris gathered then was absent in a neat straight line and there onwards.

"Yuck! That smell almost makes me lose my appetite. Almost."

Kid Kinetic will follow the straight line.

Kid Kinetic picks up a handful of bones and starts flicking them over the line.

FWASH!

Lasers fired from each corner of the corridor to form a field of red energy... and when KK expected the bones to clatter onto the corridor... there was nothing! Not even dust!

The spacecraft clearly had non functioning areas... but they worked just fine from a certain point inwards!

Those lasers were powerful enough to incinerate bone! Could Kid Kinetic survive if he decided to cross that line...?

So, the spacecraft had it's own security system. Cute. It might keep the ordinary riff raff out but it had never dealt with anything as fast as him.

Kid Kinetic took hold of his foot and pulled it back to flex his quad like he would in his normal team practice sessions. Only this time the safety protocols were turned off.

Kid Kinetic got into a starting position. "Hold on tight, buddy. And get ready for a ride on the Kid Kinetic express!"

"Ready, set...Go!"

OOC KK will sprint across and use his acrobatics to try and dodge the laser beams.

OOC Posting this in all the game threads but...

APOLOGIES FOR THE ENFORCED ABSENCE! Exams at work then 18 hours without internet/land line (not just me it seems, an entire postcode it would seem which is dozens of towns and villages) has left me high n dry! Anyway, back at it...

=========

Kid Kinetic sped across the threshold and heard something whirr...

FWASH!

Lasers shot out!

OOC Heat vision 11 + 2D Accuracy + Roll(4d12)+0: 7,6,8,2,+0 Total:15 (26) vs
OV9 + 2D Acro + Roll(4d12)+0: 8,5,9,9,+0 Total:18 DOUBLE plus Roll(2d12)+0: 2,7,+0 Total:27 (36) Missed!

Skidding to a halt and looking back some fifty feet, Kid Kinetic saw dust rising from the floor but the deadly lasers had missed him!

Somewhere in the huge submerged ship an alarm blared!

Someone knew he was here!

The corridor led on deeper into the vessel, slightly sloped downwards into its depths. The young hero heard a distant KLUNK! and whirring sound... as if something... or somethings... were travelling down the corridor on tracks towards him...

He saw a door on the left but figured it was closed. Still, he had only three choices - the door, back the way he'd come or face whatever was coming up the corridor!

"Ulp, so much for the element of surprise! We'd better keep moving."
Kid Kinetic tried to wrench open the door with his super strength.

Using his strength to force the door, Kid Kinetic hoped to get out of the way of whatever was coming!

OOC Str 9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 11,8,+0 Total:19 (28) vs
OV6 + Roll(2d12)+0: 8,12,+0 Total:20 (26) +2 (to 11) vs RV6=5 RAPs

The door strained against KK's power but could not resist!

He slipped inside and pulled the door to...

A light automatically came on in the room and he gasped! It was quite expansive, and though the technology was alien, it seemed to be a lab of sorts. Dissected creatures and plants were everywhere on different tables and beakers/devices and even scalpel type objects were all over. The room must be fifty feet across and at least as wide, and on the other side of it was a door like the one he'd come in. He couldn't hear much ...

OOC Perception 9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 8,10,+0 Total:18 (27) vs
OV5 + Roll(2d12)+0: 12,1,+0 Total:13 (18) +4 (to 5 Will) vs Rv5=0 RAPs. Failed.

... and couldn't tell if the ... whatever they were... had passed by or even if they were outside the door!

Fifty feet might as well be fifty centimeters. Kid Kinetic was at the other door in the blink of an eye. He did not want to risk contacting Mimic Lad telepathically so he pressed his era to the door....

Perhaps the door was too thick to hear through or there was no one on the other side to hear, but KK couldn't make anything out.

It was locked though, and would take that staggering enhanced strength to push/slide open to the side if he wanted to.

He glanced back across the lab. Those robot sentries might well decide to check in here. He had to hide, go through the door into the next room or wait and confront them if they decided to check the place out!

This called for Plan B, as in "Barricade"! In a blur of motion, Kid Kinetic moved tables and furniture and piled them in front of the door he entered through. He then got to work on pulling open the other door.

The door was barricaded in the blink of an eye with tables, chairs and anything otherwise not strapped down.

Then he set his strength to pushing and sliding the door open...

OOC Str 9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 9,12,+0 Total:21 (30) vs
OV7 + Roll(2d12)+0: 1,1,+0 Total:2 FAILED OV0
+8 (to 17) vs RV7=9 RAPs Success

Kid Kinetic wrenches the door open with little effort and looks into the room beyond... and gasps!

He is stood on a balcony that runs around a large (100' long and almost as wide, 40-50' deep) room with glass tubes connected to pipes and hoses running into machines that line the walls.

Inside the tubes? Forms. Animals, some humanoids... he looked about. There! His friends!

Behind him he can hear crashing sounds as the robots force their way into the lab room...

"Uh-oh. Plan B is a Bust!" Kid Kinetic needed to free his friends but 50 feet was a long way down even for an accomplished gymnast like him. He looked around for a another way to traverse the distance. "Aw, forget it. I'm suddenly in the mood to fight some robots."
Kid Kinetic took position to blindside the first robot that smashed through.

KID KINETIC
HP 150

Dexterity: 9 Strength: 9 Body: 7
Intelligence: 9 Will: 1 Mind: 1/5
Influence: 1 Aura: 1 Spirit: 4/7 Doesn't regenerate (symbiote)

OOC Apologies for my unintended absence! I completed on a house move on 30th June and since then every day I've been decorating/renovating and working for the most part. To cap that off my current home (rented) internet is cancelled and my mobile phone/tether is awful/slow. Well, apart from in city centres (where I am now, at work on a break at 21.57 on a Friday night). Hopefully (in theory) by this time next week I should be partially moved into my new house and also have internet back up and running. Needless to say, thanks for your patience!

Kid Kinetic zipped to the side of the door and waited till a robotic arm started tearing at the makeshift barricade he'd made.

Then he leapt at it, trying to tear it off!

OOC Assuming 1D split M Arts/Acrobatics normally but for this first (surprise) attack all on M Arts so 2 Dice Martial Artist to help you hit...

CRIT BLOW AV9 + 2D M Arts + Roll(4d12)+0: 3,7,11,1,+0 Total:18 (27) vs
OV6 - surprise 4 + Crit Blow 4 + Roll(2d12)+0: 3,12,+0 Total:15 (21)
Hit +3 (to 12EV) vs RV10 - Crit Blow 6 (RV4)=8 RAPs. The Robot goes DOWN and is OUT! (Body 5 + Skin Armour linked)

With a huge SMASH Kid Kinetic trashes the robot as it tears through the barrier, his new found super strength tearing the alien metal apart like it was paper!

The other robot whirrs, klicks, states something in an alien tongue and hangs back outside the hole in the door whilst levelling an arm attachment that looks suspiciously like some kind of laser gun!

OOC Kid Kinetic wins initiative (easily) but that blaster could do some damage! Split the Attack/Defence dice 1/1 or go for the attack 2/0, or be defensive 0/2? Crit Blow (hard to hit) or Devastating Attack (very hard to hit but will mince this thing)?

"It's time to rock and sock this robot!" Kid Kinetic draws back his fist and prepares to reduce his opponent to rubble.

OOC Ryan will spend HP to add 2 dice.

KID KINETIC
HP 150

Dexterity: 9 Strength: 9 Body: 7
Intelligence: 9 Will: 1 Mind: 1/5
Influence: 1 Aura: 1 Spirit: 4/7 Doesn't regenerate (symbiote)

OOC 2 Dice for attack, 2 dice for defence (from Acrobatics)

AV9 + 2D (HP) + Roll(4d12)+0: 6,3,6,4,+0 Total:12 DOUBLE plus Roll(2d12)+0: 6,1,+0 Total:19 (28) vs
Ov6 + Crit Blow 4 + Roll(2d12)+0: 5,9,+0 Total:14 (24)
Hit +3 (to 12EV) vs RV10 -6 Crit Blow (RV4)=8 RAPs. The second robot is DOWN and OUT!

With his enhanced strength coupled with his astonishing speed kid Kinetic pounds on the robot, each punch crunching the metal inwards and applied dozens of times per second...?

The result is a roughly box shaped pile of scrap!

KK knew that the robots would have sent some kind of message to the aliens who called this crashed/submerged spacecraft home! That meant he only had a short amount of time to help his friends... but what about the other aliens cooped up in the matrix style cocoon/tubes?

OOC Head straight to help your friends or try to slow down the undoubted flow of robots that will soon come to avenge their buddies?

OOC I had spent HP to add two dice for the previous roll.

"We'll, let's hope those guys were under warranty. C'mon, pal. We gotta go free Joe and Rachel! Then we can try and figure out this alien tech to release the other hostages."

OOC You already had two dice from Martial Artist Skill to use for attack. To get an extra two dice on top of those (for four extra dice) gets expensive - it would cost 15HP per extra die in this particular case. I did things this way to prevent someone with a massive pile of HP simply burning through their stash to steam roller everyone. If you already have skill dice (which you do) then to add to those with HP will cost you more than someone who has no skill dice. However the flip side is that you get those skill dice every time without spending HP whereas someone without the skills would have to spend, spend, spend to keep up.

Someone like Batman has a huge amount of skill dice for pretty much everything and a big stash of HP to spend. That's all well and good but when you are the peak of human perfection/knowledge/skill it will be very costly to improve on that!

Example:

Batman's five dice (!) from Detective means he rolls 7 dice (normal two dice plus five skill dice) every time he tries to figure out who killed Professor Plum with the Candlestick in the Library (or whatever). To add even more dice than that he counts the cost as if he'd had to buy six dice with HP so it costs 51HP to effectively add just the one extra die. That's to stop people who already have a massive advantage (huge skills) completely breaking the universe by spending a pile of HP for even more dice and virtually guaranteeing a double 10,11,12 type result every time.

I added the 2 dice you get from Acrobatics to defence and spent the HP as you said to boost attack from 0 dice to 2 dice so you got the best attack (2 dice) and best defence (2 dice). If you'd wanted those two extra dice on attack (on top of 2 dice from Martial Artist) it would have cost 30HP in total which is a poor return but you'd have rolled four dice for attack.

Any time you have an issue or query with the way I've done things I'm 100% fine with editing the post and starting from scratch - I have no problem with that at all. Any time there is some issue, or doubt, or a better way of doing things through the rules or (more probably) through my house rules, I always, 100%, every time, guaranteed, come down in favour of the player then move on.

Kid Kinetic sped over to Joe and Rachel, side by side in the clear plastic type cocoons.

Both appeared to be floating in some kind of oxygenated gel - or at least he assumed it was oxygen, otherwise both would have drowned! With a look around the coffin sized devices he saw various pipes, tubes and wires trailing from it to various central machines and hubs. They were marked with alien symbols on touch screens and KK had the choice of whether to simply yank the cables, smash the cocoon or try to figure out how to open these things safely.

He glanced at his friends, floating unconscious in the tubes.

If he suddenly yanked them without any kind of shutdown process might he cause more harm than good? Looking about at the other cocoons he saw the other aliens, of all shapes and sizes. Most were humanoid, some looked like gaseous clouds or blobs, others insects or mineral based.

There were hundreds in here. What purpose could the 'Mind Flayers' have for keeping them like this?

With the alarm still blaring he knew time was running out. Despite his astonishing speed he figured there was only so much he could do on his own...

He took a look back at his friends. They were counting on him! He was the only one who could save them!

What was the right thing to do???

In most situations, Kid Kinetic would throw caution to the wind and smash open the cocoons. He now had the gift of a keen, analytical mind.

Ryan took a moment to ponder the situation and to study the strange controls. It was only a matter of selecting the right sequence...

Kid Kinetic used his supercharged mind and astonishing speed to think the problem through. What might take minutes would take only heartbeats of time!

OOC Int 9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 7,7,+0 Total:14 DOUBLE (plenty of doubles turning up today in this and the other threads!) plus Roll(2d12)+0:
3,11,+0 Total:28 (37) vs
OV7 + Roll(2d12)+0: 7,1,+0 Total:8 (15) +7 (to 8 Will) vs RV7=1 RAP

RAP results...

1) Pulling the power will be a BAD thing. The cocoons are somehow tied into the life support requirements of the inhabitants and the clear liquid that was energised with whatever the occupant required and recycled the exhalations of the occupant.

Kid Kinetic needed more information to make an informed choice. His mind was superb, his will less so. Might there be something else he could figure out?

OOC you have options.

Rearrange the stats to boost will?

'Go for broke' which makes it harder to succeed but reduces the resistance value of the task to make a result much more likely (if the roll is decent)

Use HP to buy dice?

Simply try again and hope you have enough time to figure it out? As soon as you fail, the difficulty will increase, but you already have 1 RAP on the board and I will apply that to further results... You're up!