Z-Day - 4:24 PM Central Time - Brooks High School, Omaha, Nebraska On the balcony-
"Yes, we're going to the library too," said LaTanya as she, Darnell, and Diana entered the balcony area overlooking the lobby. "I agree, we should stick togeth-" She stopped speaking, frozen in her tracks, when she saw the scene unfolding at the lockers.
Roy McCrumb was looming over Kyle Rogers, holding his baseball bat menacingly. Kyle had just opened his locker, and to everyone's surprise he pulled out a 12-gauge pump shotgun and leveled it at Roy. "I warned you!" he snarled as he squeezed the trigger. At this range he could hardly miss.
OOC,[b]Roy McCrumb[/b], you will be hit by the shotgun blast if you do not succeed at a Dodge roll. If you attempt a Dodge, you will not also be able to attack, though you may still run away in a direction of your choice. If you choose not to try to Dodge, you will have a chance to attack later if you're still capable of doing so. I need you to roll against your Dodge score on 1d100 now if you want to try to avoid the shot. If you fail this roll, or if you choose not to Dodge. I need you to roll 1d100 against your CON x 5, which is 70%. If you take half of your current HP or more in damage (which is 8 at the moment), and you probably will, you'll need to succeed at this roll to stay conscious. Once you've made your roll (or rolls) and posted the outcome here, I'll let you know what happens by posting a reply. After I post that reply you and everyone else in this thread may act, but not until this shot is resolved.
Sudden terror and highly trained reflexes allow Roy to somehow duck and twist away from the deadly spray of buckshot as the sharp "BOOM" fills the open space. Spinning his bulk deftly on one foot, Roy continues his motion in the same direction, away from Kyle and to the right. With nowhere to hide from a second shot, his animal instinct pushes him straight to the low balcony wall overlooking the lobby downstairs. Only then is there time for him to cry out a befuddled, "Fuck!!" - though his ears are ringing too violently to hear his own voice, the desperate squeak of his sneakers, or the bat in his white-knuckled fist as it strikes the railing and he flips over it into empty space.
On the balcony- Roy timed his leap perfectly, and Kyle did not have a chance to adjust his aim. The buckshot passed harmlessly through the spot he had occupied a split second ago.
OOC,Yes, you did that perfectly. Jumping over the balcony was a good idea, but it may still end up getting you hurt. Now you must make a Jump roll to land in the lobby below unharmed.
Everyone else may now act too. If anyone else wants to jump over the railing too, roll Jump as well. If it's not listed on your character sheet, the base skill is 25%. If you want to attack [b]Kyle[/b], you may do so once before he has a chance to fire again. You may use a weapon if you have one, or you may make an unarmed attack. Trying to punch him does 1d3 damage (plus your damage bonus) and has a 50% base skill. Kicks do 1d6+damage bonus and have a 25% base chance. Head butts do 1d4+damage bonus and have a 10% base chance. If you want to try to grab the shotgun, roll Grapple. The base chance for this is 25%. You will need one successful Grapple this round to establish contact, but that won't be enough to actually take the gun away from him. You'll both be struggling for it until one of you succeeds at a Grapple roll to grab it back. You may also run away without having to roll anything. From here you can make it to the southwest hall, the southeast hall, or the north hall in the current round. See the map in the Maps thread for more details. Technically you would each act in DEX order from highest to lowest, but you can each post when you have the chance since you're probably not going to interfere with each other.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Diana screamed at the top of her lungs hoping help would soon arrive, "You'll kill us all!"
With wide eyes and mouth agape she lunged at the weapon, and failed miserablely. she stumbled and fell to the floor in an embarressing heap. Despite teh situation, she could feel her cheeks turning red. She crawled back to her original position.
"LaTanya!" she said with a slightly sore voice, "you and him were in a relationship, do something!"
Ground Floor, Lobby
Time seems to slow down as Roy tumbles through the air. Through sheer luck his feet barely catch the edge of the lobby's security desk. His knees buckle, and he is sent diagonally toward the hard floor as the tall, heavy desk rocks backward. The bat flies away from his grip as he instinctively curls up for the final impact on the floor. Shaken and bruised, he pauses for a second on his back trying to clear his head and sense for injuries while the bat clatters toward the barricaded front doors.
On the balcony-
"Kyle, please, if I ever meant anything to you, put down the gun!" begged LaTanya.
"I love you, LaTanya," said Kyle. "I'd never hurt you. But I can't do that, or I'm dead."
OOC,If you've already acted, you'll have to wait until the next major update before you can go again. [b]Darnell[/b] still needs to act in this thread, and there are other players in other threads I need to wait for too. There are multiple things happening in Omaha, and I need to make sure all of the threads stay in sync and advance at the same pace.
OOC,No, everything you posted so far is fine. That's just to remind you that you can't do anything [i]after[/i] landing in the lobby until after the next major update. [b]Diana[/b] has also acted already this round, so she'll need to wait too. [b]LaTanya[/b] and [b]Kyle[/b] talking is happening roughly at the same time as the other events (technically, she started even before [b]Roy[/b] jumped, but there is some overlap.
In the lobby- Vice Principal Sharon Kaplan ran toward the lobby and heard Diana's shout from the balcony above. She also saw Roy McCrumb leaping down, landing on the security desk, and hitting the floor in a roll. That roll spared Roy from injury, and his bat did not stray far. He was easily able to regain his feet and retrieve the aluminum bat. Meanwhile, Miguel Garcia had raced away from the door to the security office as soon as he heard the shot. He took cover behind the security desk while drawing a 9mm Glock 17 from his inside jacket pocket. He took in the scene on the balcony in a split second, took aim at Kyle Rogers above, and fired. Sharon arrived half a second later.
OOC,Everyone may now act again. [b]Miguel[/b] gets two more shots this round, but most other people get to act before or at the same time as his next shot. [b]Sharon[/b]'s action will take effect after his next shot but before his last one. Fast Talk won't convince [b]Kyle[/b] to give up (only LaTanya could possibly get him to do that of all the people present), but it could distract him or get him to flee if it succeeds. [b]Diana[/b] and [b]Darnell[/b] have the same options as last round. [b]Roy[/b] is now in the lobby, so he can flee to any of the three halls and get out of the line of fire. The front doors are barricaded, and the other doors close to the lobby are locked. If he stays, he could attack by throwing a baseball at [b]Kyle[/b]. Thrown weapons get half the normal damage bonus, so he would do 1d4+1d3 damage if he hits. You could also declare it as a knockout attempt in the Note field on Invisible Castle. If you do this and it hits, make a Resistance Table roll of the damage you caused against his remaining HP (which is 13 right now). Thus, you'd need to do at least 4 damage to have any chance, and that would only be 5%. If you do the maximum of 7 damage, you'd have a 20% chance. If this roll succeeds, [b]Kyle[/b] takes 1/3 of the damage you caused (rounded down) and is knocked unconscious. If it fails, he takes full damage as normal, so there is no harm in trying. Anyone on the balcony attacking with a bat, a ball, or fists may also make a knockout attempt the same way.
Darnell paused when he heard LaTanya blut out she was pregnant, "What the fuck LaTanya? Is that why you won't have sex with me?" In his anger he ran up to Kyle and swung his bat at Kyle. He was so angry that he not only missed but the bat sailed out of his hands to the lobby below hitting the desk on its way down. "All I ever wanted from you LaTanya is your love. Yet you fuck this white boy, why cause he is richer then I am? Babe once i get into the NFL there will be no stopping how high I fly and climb. I will one day be in the Hall of Fame and you could have been there too." He was resigned to his fate knowing that he was close enough to get blown away.
Mr. Handy,Did i do this right this time? He got a 100 on his swing so I figured the bat flew out of his hands. Unless it hit him and broke maybe which would cause some damage right?
OOC,When you get a critical failure, I determine what happens. There's no way you're going to hurt [b]Kyle[/b] when rolling a 100. You might hurt yourself, or someone else up there with you, and you will certainly lose your grip on the bat. You also inadvertently get into the line of fire from the lobby, so [b]Miguel[/b] doesn't get his shots. [b]Roy[/b] can still throw a baseball at him by lobbing it in an arc, but if he misses he'll need to roll Luck to avoid hitting you by mistake. Give me a Luck roll yourself now so I can see exactly how bad this will turn out.
OOC,You don't need to apologize to me. I [i]want[/i] things to go horribly wrong, remember? ;) [b]Darnell[/b] will also be stunned next round. He'll be able to parry or dodge, but he cannot move, talk, attack, or otherwise act.
On the balcony- Darnell swung his bat and whiffed badly, spinning around. LaTanya gasped in shock as the wooden bat connected hard with her right leg. The bat then flew out of his hands and sailed over the railing, landing with a clatter in the lobby below. Darnell was equally stunned. Had he perhaps subconsciously wanted to hit her?
OOC,No, you hit her because you rolled 100 on your attack roll [b]and[/b] failed your Luck roll. Getting a 100 results in the worst possible outcome, especially when compounded by that failed Luck roll. Just be glad the damage wasn't worse. If you'd critically failed the Luck roll too, you might even have killed her!
Mr Handy,So now that I have managed to piss off Kyle and LaTanya I can expect 1) LaTanya to not talk to me ever again and 2) what is left of my short life to be ended by Kyle shooting me because I just shot the mother of his child? You better let me play this zombie! :P
OOC,You didn't shoot her, you hit her with a baseball bat. ;) And don't assume you know what's going to happen. You keep thinking your characters are going to die. What makes you think I'll let you off that easy? :twisted:
On his feet, Roy knows that he should run for cover in one of the halls before him. But he is full of rage and adrenaline. The slugger feels good and solid in his grip. Then he sees his best friend Darnell lose it and attack Kyle with miserable results. It looks like a suicidal move, and he and LaTanya are wide open targets. But Kyle is focused on them now, and not Roy. Without another thought, Roy shakes the bat a couple of times to test the weight in his deadly throwing arm, and hurls it whistling straight at Kyle's head, hoping at least to knock him out. Unfortunately the bat strikes the balcony wall and ends up hitting Kyle in the chest. At least the bat hits him very hard.
Mr Handy,OK, here's hoping I did it right this time.
OOC,Yes, that's right. 3 damage has a 0% chance of knocking him out. You do need to roll 1d20 for a random hit location on the missile weapons table, as it won't necessarily hit him on the head. You also rolled damage presuming you were throwing a baseball. The bat would do 1d8+1d3 damage when thrown. You got a 1 for your 1d3 roll, but you can roll 1d8 and replace the 1d4 with it. In this case, you may end up doing more damage.
Mr Handy,Crap - I guess I'll edit my action above to reflect the bat damage. But does the hit have to be random? I can't roll a called shot for his head at a 5% penalty to my aim?
OOC,You could have done that - if you had declared it when you were rolling by mentioning it in the Note section on Invisible Castle. You can't decide you wanted to make a called shot after you already know your roll succeeded by enough. If you do manage to score a knockout blow with enough damage, then it will have hit him on the head.
OOC,The bat only does 1d8+1d6 when hitting someone directly with it. Thrown weapons do half of their damage bonus, so it does 1d8+1d3. I have your 1d3 roll from before when you rolled 1d4+1d3, and that's a 1. Your 1d8 roll came up 5, so you do 6 damage total. This is enough to give you a chance of knocking him out. Since he had 13 HP at the time, you have a 15% chance. Roll 1d100. If you get 15 or less, he's unconscious. Otherwise, he's still standing.
It certainly is amazing how one's plans can change so quickly. The sounds of gunfire range in her ear and she was attempting to connect what she was seeing. The school's star quarterback had just fallen from nowhere and the boy she had been following earlier had opened fire on the Rogers boy. He appeared to be holding a shotgun.
Damn it.
She had little idea who had started the showdown but these were her students and she would not tolerate this behaivor regardless of the situation.
"Is this really what you want? Are there enough," she thrust her hand toward the doors, "people being slaughtered outside without the rest of you contributing? Can you comprehend that? Do you understand where we stand now? Our... civilization... right now stands on the brink of collapse and ruin. I won't put up with this nonsense, not in MY school!"
OOC,Is that right? I apologize for taking so long. Also, I realize that Sharon is not going to persuade him to give up but Sharon does not know that.
Finally, where is Diana's response? Is it before the first shot? After? What actions take place before she acts? Before I post for her I would like to be sure of everything.
OOC,That's okay, real life comes first. You've only taken a day to respond, so it really hasn't been that long for your Omaha characters. Even for [b]Raquel[/b], it's only been two days.
There's no time to use Persuade in the heat of battle, so I'll count that as a Fast Talk roll.
[b]Diana[/b] may act any time you're ready. Her actions take place after all the other things that have happened except for [b]Sharon[/b]'s action. Each round there are two cycles. In the first cycle, everyone with a ready firearm gets one shot, going in order of descending DEX. The second cycle also goes in order of descending DEX, when all other actions (and additional shots, if applicable) take place. [b]Kyle[/b], [b]Miguel[/b], and [b]Diana[/b] all have 13 DEX, but the two guys fired their guns in the first cycle. [b]Miguel[/b] can't fire his second or third shots, as [b]Darnell[/b] got in the way. Everyone else has higher DEX than [b]Diana[/b] (except for [b]Sharon[/b]), so the others all went first.
Diana stood in silence as the situation slowly seemed to worsen. The whole thing seemed like a ver very bad soap opera targeted at teenagers. The only thing missing was the alcoholic parent. God help them if things became any more cliche. She found herself unable to laugh at the entire scene though. Everything was much too serious.
With her eyes remaining on Kyle she bent down to help up LaTanya who seemed to be in considerable pain after being struck in the leg with a bat. She offered her hand LaTanya and broke her gaze with Kyle. Very quietly she said,
On the balcony-
"Really," said LaTanya, gritting her teeth in pain. Then she saw Darnell staring in shock as Kyle leveled his shotgun at him. "No! Don't kill him, I'll do anything you want!"
Kyle was still reeling from being struck by the heavy aluminum bat that had then fallen at Darnell's feet. Everything seemed to be closing in on him, and he could tell one of his ribs was cracked. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Things had gone too far, and there was no turning back now. Grimacing, he grabbed his backpack from his open locker and slung it and his shotgun on his back. Then he pulled out a 9mm handgun from his locker and grabbed LaTanya around the waist with his free hand. "You're coming with me." He made sure to keep her between him and Miguel down in the lobby so that he could not get a clear shot, and he supported her as he backed away around the corner and down the southeast hall. "Nobody try to follow us!" Soon they vanished from the sight of those on the balcony.
OOC,[b]Darnell[/b], you're stunned and cannot act this round. [b]Diana[/b], you're free to act.
In the lobby-
"Dammit!" cried Miguel, unable to line up a shot. He engaged the safety and slipped his pistol back into his inside jacket pocket as he hurried to the north hall, stepping over the shattered bat that Darnell had dropped and rushing past Jerry Law, Alvin, Keith, and Murray when they entered the lobby. "Kyle Rogers just tried to blow Roy away with a shotgun. He's hurt, but he's taken LaTanya with him. We have to get up there fast!"
Dr. Helene Saunders spoke on Jerry's radio: "Officer Wheeler, if one of those things has gotten inside, it must be stopped. If it kills anyone, we could be dealing with more than one soon. We must buy as much time as possible so the power can be restored. Rachel just came back to the lab, but she's nowhere near the kitchen. There have been shots fired inside the school, a shotgun and a pistol. I don't know why yet. It's up to you what you feel is most important to investigate. We need your help, but you must take care of yourself too."
OOC,[b]Roy[/b] and [b]Sharon[/b], roll Spot Hidden. Everyone in the lobby is free to act now. [b]Roy[/b], you are the only one able to throw something at [b]Kyle[/b] before he gets out of sight. You may throw one of your baseballs, as your bat is up on the balcony and the other one is broken. However, you must roll against half of your skill, which means you need a 37 or less to succeed. If you miss, you must then roll Luck to avoid hitting [b]LaTanya[/b]. The baseball does 1d4+1d3 damage, and you may make this attack a knockout attempt. [b]Kyle[/b] has 7 HP remaining, and any hit of 5 or more damage will automatically knock him out. If you choose not to throw a ball, you may leave the lobby down one of the halls.
Roy's head is swimmingas mortal fear dissolves further into rage. With Kyle still in his view, Roy yanks a baseball out of his sweats and hurls it after the maniac, aiming to knock him into next week. The ball connects. He can see by the impact that Kyle is hurt again.
OOC,Now you'll need to roll on the Resistance Table to see if it knocks him out. You did 4 damage and he had 7 HP left, so that gives you a 35% chance. Roll 1d100 and try to get 35 or less. If you get 36 or higher, you'll need to roll 1d20 for a random hit location and he'll take the full 4 damage.
In the southeast hall, upper floor- Roy's throw beaned Kyle in the forehead, and he collapsed on the floor like a sack of potatoes, unconscious. LaTanya fell on top of him.
Roy points a meaty finger at where he imagines Kyle to be lying in the hall above and yells at the top of his lungs, "BOOM! Headshot! Gotcha contact sport right here muthafucka!"
Diana made slow but steady movements toward Kyle. This was just like the scene in the movie where the hero checks to see if the moster was really dead. Except it wasn't. It never was dead and it would kill them all. She thought that two things were in order. First off, she needed to get that shotgun away from Kyle. He appeared to be unconscious so she should not have much difficultly with that. Second, and probably more importantly, she needed to get LaTanya away from him. She was obviously in considerable pain from when the bat struck her leg.
With careful movements, she picked up the shotgun from Kyle's hand. A second passed before she tried to help LaTanya with her other hand. She made a conscious effort to keep the gun as far away as possible from Kyle's body as possible. She wondered if the villan could feel LaTanya moving off of him. Would the change in pressure awaken the sleeping beast?
"Can you walk?" Diana asked with concern as she stretched out her hand to her.
OOC,[b]Jerry[/b] is in the lobby, on the ground floor. [b]Kyle[/b] is in the southeast hall on the upper floor, so you can't get to him easily. The only unbarricaded stairway is the northern one, and it'll take you some time to get all the way up to where [b]Kyle[/b] is lying unconscious.
OOC,I just posted about [b]Jerry[/b] not being able to grab [b]Kyle[/b]. [b]Darnell[/b] is stunned this round, so he can't say anything yet. [b]Alvin[/b] is in the lobby with [b]Jerry[/b] in this thread, and he is free to act.
[sub]Keith heads for the stairs.[/sub]
"Hey, wait for me Roy, leave a piece for me!" laughs Keith excitedly. "C'mon Miguel, lets see what has happened."
Alvin sighed and shook his head. "So it begins. The white boys fighting the white boys. At least I am not a target right now." He turned to Jerry and said, "what do you want to do now?"
In the lobby-
"Oh man, they are on our side shooting those things!" came Lori Desmond's shout from the east hall. "Hey! come to us!" Those in the lobby could now see her and Tariq al-Tikriti running in their direction.
OOC,You can try to jump up from the desk and grab the balcony rail instead of going down the hall. Roll Jump if you do - the base skill is 25%. If you succeed, you'll then need to roll Climb to get over the railing (the base skill for that is 40%). If either roll fails, you'll have to wait until the following round to try again. You won't get hurt unless you get a critical failure.
Sharon lowered her arms and felt her face blush. She felt rather silly now. What had she been thinking? The whole thing had sounded cheesy. She put her hand to her face and looked around. Things seemed to be under control now. The kid had been eliminated. She felt a bit of pride for her students. They certainly were taking control of the situation.
Satisfied with her surroundings she walked across the floor. Her heels clicked against the floor as she approached the door to the security office. She could not hear it though, the gunshots still rang in her ears. Despite this she tried to clear her throat as loudly as possible and almost shouted,
