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I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

Amaranthe Foreste

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Her eyes began to flutter open, but Ami squeezed them shut. She had never been a heavy sleeper, and she had learned that the best way to deal with waking up in the middle of the night was to just pretend it hadn't happened. Without even looking at the time she rolled over, pulling the covers around her and sinking into the sinfully comfortable mattress. Oh yes, she was definitely going right back to sleep.

Except for the shouting. Not from next door, either--the voice was unmuffled by walls or doorways. At first, sleep clouded her hearing, and she thought it was her mother--home drunk in the middle of the night. But even as Ami moved to pull the blanket over her head, she realized that the voice wasn't her mother's. Wasn't anyone she knew, in fact.

Ice rushed through her veins. Someone was in their apartment. She bolted upright, almost jumped out of the bed--

--and tumbled from the top bunk to land in a heap on the ground.

"Jesus fuck!" Ami winced, clutching her back where she had fallen. She latched on to the nearby bedframe to pull herself up, finally taking a good look at her surroundings.

Well, the good news was that there weren't any strangers in her apartment. Her eyes roved over the strange surrounds even as her mind raced.

Think, Ami. You went to sleep, then woke up in a weird room you've never seen. Gotta be a dream. That helped; some of the adrenaline that had been building up started to drain away, and she dusted herself off. She hadn't had a--what are they called? Loosey dreams?--dream where she knew it was a dream before. The experience was a bit strange, but she might as well see where it went, right?

To-Do

• Figure out what this place is

Her target was obvious at a glance, and she walked up to the door just as the pale young man was turning to address the room.

"You could safely say," she confirmed. Ami was only slowly realizing how many other people were here in her dream. She wasn't sure whether that was unusual. She turned to the other man (who she now realized had been doing the shouting) and gave him a loose wave to catch his attention. "Hey, boss. I don't know what you're worked up about but, uh. This is just a dream. So chill out." She punctuated her sentence with a solid, serious nod.

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

@rush99999 oh, that's correct, I just always find it interesting as a GM when players' reactions to a character differ significantly from my expectations

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Molly: "Hm, maybe I can get it surrender"

Ijin:

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Silas, you arrive at the scene of the crash. You've seen worse, but that says more about you than it does about the situation. The hoverbike has finally fallen silent, laying on its side against a nearby building; occasionally its damaged rear generator spits a dangerous-looking spark, but it doesn't seem to pose any immediate danger. Cho's body is across the street, and if anything, he might be in worse condition. His baggy clothing makes it hard to determine anything at a distance, but at a base minimum, his arm shouldn't be bending like that. Really, though, he needs a proper examination before you can say anything about his condition with confidence.

Molly, now that you're not in hot pursit, you can make out more details about the figure. The little bundle that was clutching Cho-Tyrek's back does in fact seem to be a child-sized ur-bot. The model isn't one you recognize. Ur-bots of this size tend not to be humanoid, for the simple fact that a humanoid body the size of a child isn't very useful for most kinds of work. It's the kind of thing that might be a rich person's toy, but this one has the overall appearance of a general-labor model, not the expressive features you'd expect from such a thing.

As you get closer, the little ur-bot gets more visibly nervous. At first it tugs harder on Cho's sleeve, but now even it seems to realize that it's not going to be able to drag the much larger man with it. Your words, meant to soothe it, instead jolt it out of its indecision; as you get into arm's reach, it jumps to its feet and bolts into the building, leaving your target lying on the threshold.

Meanwhile, flames are beginning to show in the back windows of the noodle truck.

Clocks

Catching Cho-Tyrek: [ C O M P L E T E ]
Grease Fire Gets Worse: [ | | | - ]
Ur-Bot Escapes: [ | - - - ]

Crew Status

Gambits: 3

I Am Thou: A Persona/SMT Inspired Story

I'm ready to get started, personally--I don't think there's anything still hanging that can't be resolved in the moment.

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

The Crow:

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Ijin, your second shot is as unerringly accurate as your first. Just as Cho is bringing his blaster up to fire at the truck, your dart sinks right into his carotid artery. He drops the blaster, hand flying up to his neck, but the drugs he's already been hit with slow him down, and by the time he pulls the thing out, its smaller payload has already been delivered.

The bike starts to slow down as his hand begins to go slack on the grip; his other hand, the one that just dropped the gun, grasps the other side, and Cho turns his gaze to the front, shaking his head like a punchdrunk boxer. He's clearly trying to power through the potent cocktail of chemicals you've pumped into him, and just as clearly failing.

Molly and Quintus, the noodle truck is just about spent after the abuse you've heaped on it. The engines are shuddering, the fuses on the dashboard are winking out under loads they were never meant to sustain, and black grease smoke is pouring out of the back of the truck in an ever thicker cloud. None of that matters right now, though, because your method of attack is based on a piece of ancient wisdom, from back before mankind took even its first faltering steps into the stars.

Force equals mass times acceleration.

The weighty truck slams into the rear end of the lightweight hoverbike at an oblique angle. The impact disables one of the antigrav generators, and the mangled back side of the bike suddenly drops even as it goes into a spin, pivoting on its still-functional front "wheel". If the stoned assassin had any chance of keeping control of his vehicle, you've just scuttled it.

Cho seems to realize that, because he doesn't even try. As the bike careens out of control, he pulls the small figure off of his back, wraps himself around it, and bails. He bounces off the concrete--boy, that looks like it hurt--and lands in an insensate heap next to the door of an abandoned-looking building. He's still, now, but the small figure wriggles out of his unconscious grasp and grabs him by one wrist, struggling to drag him. It doesn't look like they're going anywhere quickly.

The figure turns to look at you, briefly. Its face is clearly not human, but somehow--even in the monocular gaze of an Urbot--you see fear.

Clocks

Catching Cho-Tyrek: [ C O M P L E T E ]
Grease Fire Gets Worse: [ | | - - ]

Crew Status

Gambits: 3

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

well. uh. let me figure out what two crits in a row looks like lmao.

Noble Arms: The ASEAN War - Thread Three, the Darkest Hour

W.O. "Mikey" Rangel

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Refugee Camp, North of Manila - 12/3/2022, 10:53, UTC+8

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Mikey stuck her tongue out at Griff, but had to fight not to smile as she did it. If Griff had just been the other normal person on the task force (well, for given values of normal), she thought they probably would have ended up gravitating towards each other on that basis alone. She hadn't looked forward to being the only unblooded person on a task force that she had been told was one of the most active in the whole war; finding out that wasn't the case had been a relief. It was just lucky that he'd ended up being genuinely likable as well.

Her head jerked up at the announcement, expression suddenly serious. The South Koreans and the Japanese had held the strait, just as the Director had predicted. She didn't really know enough about the navies involved--or naval warfare in general--to know if that was impressive, but she decided to assume that it was. (She didn't know if it was better to phrase it as assuming the best or the worst, but. Y'know. Whichever.)

That sober thought kept her from cheering quite as energetically as she might have, otherwise. Instead, her gaze drifted over to Griff (himself looking serious, in what looked to her like the same funk she had seen him in before) across the gathered crowd (temporarily pacified, and she was just now realizing how tense things had been just a minute or two before, making her more than a bit anxious) then finally over to the other contingent present from the task force.

The scariest teenager I've ever met, she thought, and the Real-Deal No Shit Crown Prince of Japan.

She reminded herself that wasn't a fair judgment, in Cristina's case. Not that the other woman wasn't a teenager--just that Mikey had only left that particular category recently herself. (Somehow, that thought didn't help.) The scary part was definitely right, though.

The prince was even younger, and seemed correspondingly older for his age. That was how it worked for princes in fantasy novels, but she had thought it didn't work that way in real life. Not that she minded this alternative. Really, her biggest problem with him was that she had no idea how to act around him--royalty being completely outside of any context she had.

Mikey suddenly realized she had been staring at them just a tad too long. She caught herself, threw on a smile (which might or might not be visible at that distance) and gave an awkward wave before turning back to her pile of supplies.

Scum and Villainy - Plentiful Bounty

Good luck on your midterms, @meri!

Once @Penny rolls that extra die from Quintus, I'll write up a post, I just need to see if she'll get that second 6 first.