Fetzen

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

I'd like to try and toss my hat into the ring for this one again :)

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Attack

[1d20] Roll: [1] Result: 1

Fyr raised his fist slowly, but no less angrily as reality forced him to stare at the blood running down from his now rather demolished knuckles. That would buff out at some time for sure, but definitely not for the next days or even weeks to come without some magical assistance ? He had quite successfully knocked out the oak table with his strike, but only because the assassin he had actually intended to hit had managed to evade impending doom completely.

It had not even been that other arm where he had just suffered a cut, but the other one that had been still perfectly fine. There was no way to work around this embarrassing misery by claiming to have been impaired, was there ? Worse still, his intended victim was getting back on his feet just as Fyr was trying to start ignoring the pain...

MINERVA FORCE

Suiting up and squeezing himself into the Minvera Force's uniform was nothing Harald hadn't become used to many months ago, but doing so with the definitive info that this was not a drill felt quite different still. Slightly nervously, his fingers slid over the keyboard of his laptop giving the next input that would keep the system busy just long enough for him to check his weapon. His secondary weapon, that was. He considered this laptop to be the primary one and the pistol a tertiary stopgap measure, but just maybe. So it was always good to give his digital assistant some maintenance and cleanup before departure, but it was even better to make sure that none of these updates had turned things into a binary mess accidentally. This was not Microsoft where one could almost expect that to happen, but still...

Software really wasn't Harald's primary concern at this point however -- it was trigger-happyness. This was essentially some sort of first contact at least on their side and they would go in not even trying to stretch out a hand, but with the firm intent of fixing up any alien's lead deficit ? Sure, hostile action against a cargo ship was not nice to say the least, but the mere thought of an alien species capable of interstellar travel coming to Earth just to attack some big, rusty bucket running on Diesel fuel was no way less horrifying in its own respect. It was just way too ridiculous not to blatantly point at some much bigger affair behind it. Either that or somehow these aliens were brainless creatures who had somehow managed to miss the fact that the universe held all the resources one could possibly need in abundance without coming to Earth. The only thing that made Earth so unique was the presence of life, but killing that would take this aspect away which made no sense either...

---

At least the pilots had not to stress their minds about that, he thought. They would be out of this thing soon enough, but that was assuming that they would make it there in the first place. Harald didn't know whether anybody else of their team had any real idea about handling an aircraft, but he certainly hoped that the guys in the cockpit really knew what they were doing. Otherwise they all should have come with a lifejacket and some extra bait for distracting the sharks instead. Oh, and speaking of sharks, if he was ever to lead an alien invasion, he'd do it exactly this way and go submarine instead of keeping UFOs roaming in the sky. Humanity knew fewer things about the ocean floor that it did about the moon. If these aliens were already building a damn construction yard down in the Mariana's trench, science would likely not know anything about it yet.

UDO, 'unknown diving object'... The German operative remembered having heard of this in some old computer game.

Anyway, they would either find out something, die right away or come back with more or less empty hands. That was abundantly clear. Harald tried to take in the looks of his teammates as long as he'd still have the opportunity, but soon found out that the gear they all had to carry rendered this to be a quite difficult task. Some sort of anonymity had probably been considered the very least a positive side effect in the design process. At least Avalanche was easy enough to spot given the fact that he had just decided that deliberately risking open sparks in an aircraft was not against regulation.

"I wouldn't say I was dragged out of a shithole to be honest. I would rather say that some other people's shitholes brought me here." Behind his face mask, Harald couldn't resist a sheepish grin at this point. Yet could he dare to openly blame U.S. government agencies for what they seriously dared to call 'IT security efforts' or would this be taken as an offense ? "And I hope for you it's not an LNG carrier we're headed to or you won't even have an open deck to make proper use of your gun -- not the mention the danger of all the highly compressed gas itself. How many millimeters of steel can this thing punch through ?"

MINERVA FORCE

Harald

Harald Müller
“Creep”

---

___________________________________ P R O F I L E Age 34 Sex Male Race/Ethnicity German Nationality German Spoken Languages German, English Hometown Heidelberg Height 6'1" / 186 cm Weight 209 lbs / 95 kg ___________________________________ E Q U I P M E N T - Mossberg 500 Shotgun - Sig Sauer P320 (including suppressor) - Utility Items: Combat knife, ruggedized laptop, gas mask, emergency medical kit, night vision goggles, climbing rope ____________________________________ A T T R I B U T E S Athletics: 13 (+3) Dexterity: 10 Perception: 12 (+2) Willpower: 13 (+3) Charisma: 13 (+3) Modifiers: (None at the start.)

____________________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE Harald's face looks like a near perfect approximation for the soldier's cliché. One could argue that he has optimized his hair for a nice and comfortable fit underneath a helmet by cutting it very short, but the reality is that this mild Mohawk haircut has been accompanying him for many years already. The same applies to his beard that is just long enough to give his face a bit of a softer look. His eyes lie a bit deep in their sockets, giving him an unintentionally grim look at times while otherwise being completely unconspicuous with their their color hovering somewhere around gray. The time in the military and the subsequent exposure to sunlight has rendered his skin to be darker than ealier in his life, but his generally pale nature still makes itself seen when those gentle, red speckles appear due physical strain making his blood rush in underneath his body's outer hull. Speaking of the latter, medical examination upon entry into the Minerva Force has confirmed Harald's complete lack of scars, tattoos and piercings. Even all the teeth are still ready to be dislodged in the next fist fight. A quite sedentary lifestyle has left excess pounds on his ribs which training managed to shake off for the major part by now, but with the muscle added in exchange his overall stature still makes him a bit vulnerable to any 'Get out of my way, you [insert derogatory expression here]!' kind of provocations. The only constant in Harald's dress style is that there is no such thing as a constant. He has been spotted in shirt and shorts and in a rather expensive looking business suit with a perfectly tied tie, so it's either a don't-care attitude or the very opposite of that with him trying to adapt to every situation the best he can. ____________________________________________________________________________ PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE This report is purposefully written on traditional paper in addition to any data input into our digital systems so at least one uncompromised copy always remains. Any reader shall consider this as a safety precaution against the nature of its subject. I am aware of the fact that this circumstance might already reveal something both positive and negative about said subject in spite of this merely being the preamble. My apologies. The subject is cunning and ruthless, but not in the broadest sense. Analysis has shown that his threshold to hurt and kill individuals is above the average for a person in the military, but I would not be surprised if one of us would find dodgy, 'adult' material on his computer one day because just telling that person that the system was unsafe is too 'boring'. On one hand, the subject fits the bill for something that is called a 'Kellerkind' in his native tongue: an individual who spends a large portion of his time alone, gaming and doing whatever else can be done in front of a screen and not attending to what the majority of people normally does at the same time. On the other hand he does not fit that bill at all because that would also involve degenerating into some kind of very unhealthy, ignorant sloth. This is clearly not the case with him as tests have shown the subject's social skills to be quite acceptable, even better than those of a few others of my recent subjects. Having read his vita I suppose that is the benign part of his parents' rather strict rule during his youth. The subject has achieved exceptional results on the intelligence test and shown a great deal of creativity when confronted with new situations. The reaction speed was subpar which I am interpreting as a tendency to think first and act second. This behavioral pattern also applies to receiving orders. I therefore recommend to give him tasks in a more abstract formulation as many very low-level instructions have been met with noticeable resistance. ____________________________________________________________________________ BIOGRAPHY Mr. Harald is one of two childs, his mother being a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for plasma physics and his father a commercial airline pilot. His brother, while a rather interesting subject maybe worth its own study, is not of any further relevance in the context of this report. He was born late enough to effectively miss the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunion of East and West Germany while he still was a very small child. Given the relative wealth of his family, he was at least slightly pampered during his upbringing. That should be taken with a grain of salt however as, at the same time, a clear goal for as high an education as possible was set. I cannot tell at this point how far the subject's decision to go for computer science instead of following the footsteps of any of the persons around him truly triggered conflict, but Mr. Harald keep insisting on that it did create some friction indeed. If this is true, then the subject's decision to join the military for an extended period of time appears much more relatable than it would otherwise. We no longer live in a time when shooting a rifle and ramming your bayonet into your opponent's chest was all you could do as a soldier after all. A silent '**** ***' in combination with the discovery of some yet unknown talents following is my educated guess. The way he ultimately ended up here in the Minerva Force is a bit unorthodox though. To cut a long story short, the subject's private hacking activities combined with sheer luck and some serious incompetency on the other side of the internet got him into possession of some classified material about the extraterrestrial. The government agencies knew he had it only shortly afterwards, they also knew where he lived, but just arresting him would still have left the many potential backup copies on third-country servers ready to be released. So, basically, they bought his loyality with an offer he failed to resist. If he's that interested in that kind of stuff, why not offer him some first hand experience ? ____________________________________________________________________________ SERVICE RECORD - Mandatory service in the German military forces - Extended voluntary service in CIR, performing SIGINT activities - Creation and exploitation of a security breach in the U.S. government's digital systems, unauthorized access to classified material about UFO encounters - Hired by the Minerva Force, subsequent single combatant training to make him more useful in the field ____________________________________________________________________________ MISC - Speaks English with a considerable accent. - Coffee addict, like's Coke a lot as well though. - His rationale for using a shotgun is 'better damage output to noise ratio', claiming his hearing is quite sensitive. - Has a private pilot's license.

MINERVA FORCE

Harald

Harald Müller
“Creep”

---

___________________________________ P R O F I L E Age 34 Sex Male Race/Ethnicity German Nationality German Spoken Languages German, English Hometown Heidelberg Height 6'1" / 186 cm Weight 209 lbs / 95 kg ___________________________________ E Q U I P M E N T - Mossberg 500 Shotgun - Sig Sauer P320 (including suppressor) - Utility Items: Combat knife, ruggedized laptop, gas mask, emergency medical kit, night vision goggles, climbing rope ____________________________________ A T T R I B U T E S Athletics: 13 (+3) Dexterity: 10 Perception: 11 (+1) Willpower: 13 (+3) Charisma: 13 (+3) Modifiers: (None at the start.)

____________________________________________________________________________ APPEARANCE Harald's face looks like a near perfect approximation for the soldier's cliché. One could argue that he has optimized his hair for a nice and comfortable fit underneath a helmet by cutting it very short, but the reality is that this mild Mohawk haircut has been accompanying him for many years already. The same applies to his beard that is just long enough to give his face a bit of a softer look. His eyes lie a bit deep in their sockets, giving him an unintentionally grim look at times while otherwise being completely unconspicuous with their their color hovering somewhere around gray. The time in the military and the subsequent exposure to sunlight has rendered his skin to be darker than ealier in his life, but his generally pale nature still makes itself seen when those gentle, red speckles appear due physical strain making his blood rush in underneath his body's outer hull. Speaking of the latter, medical examination upon entry into the Minerva Force has confirmed Harald's complete lack of scars, tattoos and piercings. Even all the teeth are still ready to be dislodged in the next fist fight. A quite sedentary lifestyle has left excess pounds on his ribs which training managed to shake off for the major part by now, but with the muscle added in exchange his overall stature still makes him a bit vulnerable to any 'Get out of my way, you [insert derogatory expression here]!' kind of provocations. The only constant in Harald's dress style is that there is no such thing as a constant. He has been spotted in shirt and shorts and in a rather expensive looking business suit with a perfectly tied tie, so it's either a don't-care attitude or the very opposite of that with him trying to adapt to every situation the best he can. ____________________________________________________________________________ PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE This report is purposefully written on traditional paper in addition to any data input into our digital systems so at least one uncompromised copy always remains. Any reader shall consider this as a safety precaution against the nature of its subject. I am aware of the fact that this circumstance might already reveal something both positive and negative about said subject in spite of this merely being the preamble. My apologies. The subject is cunning and ruthless, but not in the broadest sense. Analysis has shown that his threshold to hurt and kill individuals is above the average for a person in the military, but I would not be surprised if one of us would find dodgy, 'adult' material on his computer one day because just telling that person that the system was unsafe is too 'boring'. On one hand, the subject fits the bill for something that is called a 'Kellerkind' in his native tongue: an individual who spends a large portion of his time alone, gaming and doing whatever else can be done in front of a screen and not attending to what the majority of people normally does at the same time. On the other hand he does not fit that bill at all because that would also involve degenerating into some kind of very unhealthy, ignorant sloth. This is clearly not the case with him as tests have shown the subject's social skills to be quite acceptable, even better than those of a few others of my recent subjects. Having read his vita I suppose that is the benign part of his parents' rather strict rule during his youth. The subject has achieved exceptional results on the intelligence test and shown a great deal of creativity when confronted with new situations. The reaction speed was subpar which I am interpreting as a tendency to think first and act second. This behavioral pattern also applies to receiving orders. I therefore recommend to give him tasks in a more abstract formulation as many very low-level instructions have been met with noticeable resistance. ____________________________________________________________________________ BIOGRAPHY Mr. Harald is one of two childs, his mother being a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for plasma physics and his father a commercial airline pilot. His brother, while a rather interesting subject maybe worth its own study, is not of any further relevance in the context of this report. He was born late enough to effectively miss the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunion of East and West Germany while he still was a very small child. Given the relative wealth of his family, he was at least slightly pampered during his upbringing. That should be taken with a grain of salt however as, at the same time, a clear goal for as high an education as possible was set. I cannot tell at this point how far the subject's decision to go for computer science instead of following the footsteps of any of the persons around him truly triggered conflict, but Mr. Harald keep insisting on that it did create some friction indeed. If this is true, then the subject's decision to join the military for an extended period of time appears much more relatable than it would otherwise. We no longer live in a time when shooting a rifle and ramming your bayonet into your opponent's chest was all you could do as a soldier after all. A silent '**** ***' in combination with the discovery of some yet unknown talents following is my educated guess. The way he ultimately ended up here in the Minerva Force is a bit unorthodox though. To cut a long story short, the subject's private hacking activities combined with sheer luck and some serious incompetency on the other side of the internet got him into possession of some classified material about the extraterrestrial. The government agencies knew he had it only shortly afterwards, they also knew where he lived, but just arresting him would still have left the many potential backup copies on third-country servers ready to be released. So, basically, they bought his loyality with an offer he failed to resist. If he's that interested in that kind of stuff, why not offer him some first hand experience ? ____________________________________________________________________________ SERVICE RECORD - Mandatory service in the German military forces - Extended voluntary service in CIR, performing SIGINT activities - Creation and exploitation of a security breach in the U.S. government's digital systems, unauthorized access to classified material about UFO encounters - Hired by the Minerva Force, subsequent single combatant training to make him more useful in the field ____________________________________________________________________________ MISC - Speaks English with a considerable accent. - Coffee addict, like's Coke a lot as well though. - His rationale for using a shotgun is 'better damage output to noise ratio', claiming his hearing is quite sensitive. - Has a private pilot's license.

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Fyr looked at his axe for an instant as he realized that he had just lost his family heirloom a second time right now. It was only a tiny bit of hestitation however as way too many things were happening just now all around him, including a sword directly aimed at him.

It seemed though that the man wielding it experienced an equal amount of misfortune. The blade missed though it still came very uncomfortably close to Fyr's skin.

Bereft of his primary weapon due to his very own actions, Fyr reached for the spear he had obtained from the demonfolk back in that ugly cave and pushed the long weapon forward towards the second assassin.

Attack roll, success

1d20 = 13, Success

The metal tip punched what looked like all the way through the man's thigh and, once Fyr started to pull back, started to exhibit some quite asymmetric behavior. In other words it acted as sort of a barbed hook and caused even more bloody destruction in the process. That leg would not work again anytime soon and, assuming that radical treatment wasn't applied very rapidly, would probably pull the rest of the man's life down with it. At least that was how Fyr thought.

The Five Senses - Second Arc (Accepting New Players!)

Týfurkh

Týfurkh, once in the private quarters that had been assigned to him and Jen, couldn't help but find the degree of smell emanating from the other man to be rather disturbing. He didn't mention it though for he had plenty of reason to assume that he himself wasn't in any better state. With the sweat of the men combined however, the olfactory aspect of the air inside the room quickly ascended to a level of potential mass destruction. Good thing that they both had probably become relatively immune to it already. Even if not though, using the bath tub was not a viable option: Given the 'art' of food prep they all had witnessed already, Týfurhk would not really have been surprised if the servants had mixed up fresh, hot water with water taken from the sewers. That was assuming that this place actually had sewers, however...

After having put down his armor and other gear in order to don some light, textile clothing, Týfurkh had trouble falling asleep. Chres' familiar whizzed through his thoughts just as she did through the air for real. The incident at the dinner table had lowered the bar in terms of Sil's accountability a lot further and he couldn't get rid of the thought that something more... serious ?... might happen in the future. Good thing for him he didn't witness Sil's mishap with the water bucket!

His head ached and the dim light coming in through the window was still too much to spare his eyes from some pain as they tried to adapt, coming from the complete darkness they had just been in with their lids closed. Wasn't this Lord Ru'Tev even able to arrange for some ruckus in the middle of the night not happening ? Or was this even the middle of the night already ? Týfurkh didn't know. He could only hear some male voice distorted by the walls and corridors it had to get through along with the dampened trampling of feet. Not suspecting anything malicious at first, he didn't want to wake up Jen and tried to get out of the bed as carefully as possible in order to have a look outside.

With the door open, he could hear much more clearly. These were Karina's and Chres' voices accompanied by the sound of fists and weapons clashing! He shut the door firmly again immediately, his heartbeat taking a sudden jump. There were no bars or anything else installed, at least not from the inside, so the only way of locking the door was to block it with something else.

"Jen! Jen! Wake up! We've been set up and need to fight!" He needed some moments to get his gear ready and assumed that Jen would be happy about some slight preparation as well, so while shouting, Týfurkh started moving some spare furniture he could find towards the door. The last thing they needed now were some assassins stumbling inside while they were still half asleep. Needless to say that this action created a lot of noise to wake up the other man, too.

The Mystery (WolfLover + Fetzen)

"If you wish, I could certainly show you a trick or two." Valentin offered, though deep inside him he knew that this far from an entirely altruistic offer. He just really hated having to defend somebody else that wasn't him as well and, from what they both had heard so far, this mission was bound to include some serious trouble. Experience dictated that way and he had learned not to toss his own gut feelings into the wind.

Finding the way out proved to be a lot easier than the other way around, but only due to the fact that they could always use the look out of the next window in order to orient themselves and find the most likely route back into the courtyard again. The soldiers there had apparently undergone some sort of shift change, but Mr. Reinhardt made his presence still felt by snorting at them. Halfway unconsciously, Valentin reached for Amara's hand in an attempt to drag her along a tad more quickly in order to get away from the man's unnerving presence.

"So, all of this sounded to me like we don't have much time at our disposal. What do you think about grabbing our supplies and meeting at the stables again ? Given the smell I'd imagine they're over there..." and he gestured towards a wooden addendum built adjacently to the main wall surrounding the courtyard. There were obvious signs of many hooves tramping the ground around it.

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Fyr barely had enough time to raise his hands as a protective barrier in front of his face before the blast hit them all. He was partly thrown over the table, partly rolling himself across it in an attempt to build some distance even as disaster already was in progress. The result was a bleeding nose or at least that was what he could diagnose himself given the lack of time -- there was probably more he couldn't feel yet. And of course he picked up plenty of weeks, if not even months old dirt from other people's shoes as he hit the ground hard.

Great! He had hardly been given the opportunity to get rid of demonfolk blood splattered over his chest and now he was already struck by bloody scraps of intestines again! That was not to mention a few pieces of broken glass from the many bottles that had also suffered. Had the greatest pirate off all time's stare just been way too intense and energetic or had that really been a boob bomb giving everybody goose bumps ? This tavern was a damn booby trap! The sound of more footsteps came closer and a distinct and no less eerie glow could already been seen reflecting slightly from where the floor was actually polished, so quick action was in dire need.

Where had his trusty family heirloom gone ? It was quite the heavy thing, but the explosion had displaced it considerably still. Fyr was on the verge of launching himself towards it, then felt a foreign hand touching his shoulder. He heard Arthur's voice over the chaos around them, some words he couldn't understand at least verbally. Yet the unfamiliar warmth beneath his nose decayed, the bleeding was no more and so some of the other things he hadn't even been aware of yet. A very short appreciative nod was all Fyr could return before the other man's attention was drawn elsewhere again though.

So now to retrieve and use a proper weapon, finally! Only now Fyr's vision skimmed across the remainer of the room: This was not a slaughterhouse, but an extreme caricature of such! He rubbed the axe's handle against the nearest piece of halfway clean cloth he could find. It looked like some now dead man's clothes, but he needed a firm grip not weakened by blood acting as a lubricant. Five hostiles were there, three acting as backup while two apparently thought nobody would stumble across the idea that they might have more than a dagger each at their disposal.

No, certainly not after this overture! It would be them who'd be cleaved in two, not even more innocent patrons!

Attack roll

1d20+1 Roll => 3

Kings and Killers: A Classical Fantasy Adventure (Chapter 1)

Fyr felt a big stone rolling off his heart when his exlanation of how things happened apparently was accepted. Fighting against all of those simutalenously ? Would definitely not have been easy to say the very least! He wasn't so sure though about whether challening the thug's traning scheme had been such a good idea because now they had an open invitation to make him their new training supervisor. Dealing with these thugs for a longer term was not exactly the prospect Fyr had been looking out for.

Aside from that though, this Oasis and its town actually started to look better in his eyes than before. Dal and Ashe made a quite good job at entertaining people and he could see and hear coins being tossed towards them. Maybe the greatest pirate of all times was the greatest entertainer of all times instead, but didn't want to admit it ? Fyr made a quick mental note about using this as a means to tease the man when needed, then opted to choose his drink: The first bottle looked as if containing either very fluid honey or fermented camel pee if that was a thing. The second bottle was a massive flask made out of intransparent glass, its contents unknown until poured. The third one had just been put onto the stove so to make its contents vent steam. Some sort of tea, perhaps ?

"I... take the second one. I like things that look as dark and abysmal as my heart!" he tried to make a joke to reinvigorate himself.

And what kind of liquor came out of that black hole of a bottle! The barmaid had barely taken off the cork when the air already seemed to be replaced by something tormenting and flammable. What was this ? Pure alcohol mixed with fresh tar from the pits or had the inhabitants of this desert figured out something even more radical ? Yet now there he was, surrounded by thugs and with at least half of them grinning as they eagerly expected their newcomer to start drinking what probably was both harmless and a significant achievement in terms of destillery once one managed to get past its revolting stage.

Fyr took the first gulp and it felt like lava flowing down his esophagus. The thugs were cheering while he thought that his vision had just became slightly blurry. And... wait... what was that ? As Fyr shook his head in a futile attempt to get rid of the drink's initial side effects on the unaccustomed, he inevitably got the rest of the counter into his view again. Was there really a naked woman standing around or had his mind started to fail ? It was at this point when Fyr actually felt thankful for the thugs being there for some of them shared his own, slightly bewildered expression in spite of having made a different choice of drink.

So this was real!

"Hey you!" Fyr's voice was loud enough to be picked up easily and the horizontally arranged trunk that was his muscle-laden arm pointing at the woman should be seen easily enough as well. In theory, that was! "Could you be a bit less daring, perhaps ?" That was not a question, more of a demand.

Fyr blinked several times, but the slightly blurry vision didn't go away. Still he had the gut feeling that something else was going on. Had the thugs cheated him by making him drink a poison or the like ?

Perception roll

Fetzen Request: [1d20] Roll: [12] Result: 12