Quest A Sword Through the Multiverse: Stabbing Space Whales[A FSN/Worm quest]

ConfusedCanadian

Well-known member
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.

I'd love nothing more to chase after the assassin but we are by ourselves and we don't know if there are more assassin's if saber was here I would say divide and conquer but she isn't.
 

Reklos

Well-known member
[X]Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives

It's never a good idea to leave an assassin's target unattended while you're pursuing the assassin because you never know what they've got up their sleeves. That, and since this guy is invisible what's preventing him from backtracking while we're chasing them and finishing off the Prime Minister? Better safe than sorry in my opinion.
 

kelgar04

Well-known member
[X]Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives

Supprised maggie hasn’t made one of her famous phrases yet she wasn’t called the Iron lady for nothing. Even if it was originally intended as an insult.
 

KirkLander

New member
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.

I’m leaning towards chasing the attacker down, but we can’t seem to be able to pin them down without them giving themselves away first.

I don’t think there is a second attacker. The previous time they fled as soon as the device malfunctioned and we haven’t been attacked during this attempt from another source.

I think it really just comes down to how confident we are in tracking them down without them slipping away or backtracking back to the pm’s. So maybe we should play it safe in case we flop again?

Thoughts, anyone?
 
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a chance for total victory on the attack is not worth the risk for total loss (both in terms of them completing their goal and us losing a ton of reputation) when we are pretty much guaranteed victory if we defend.
 

Inverted Fallecy

Beware the Dialogue that Spews Forth!~
[X]Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives

As much as I want to chase after them, the risk of the potential loss of life and collateral damage with a ruined reputation is making me stay my hand. We could have brought Saber, but we didn't.

For now, we should just guard the Prime Minister and then (if possible) do some investigative work in case the assailant left any clues that we could add to the info we gained from fighting them off.
 
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.
-[X] Try to use structural grasping through the floor to get some idea of where the assassin is fleeing. You've never done this before but you don't need good details just hopefully a general direction/ is he still in the room. If he's running he should be the only one trying to leave the property or avoid other people.
 

Lancelot

Well-known member
Haven't we already surrounded her with shields to the point that until we dismiss them no one can reach her?
 

Arlos

Sad Monarchist
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.
-[X] Try to use structural grasping through the floor to get some idea of where the assassin is fleeing. You've never done this before but you don't need good details just hopefully a general direction/ is he still in the room. If he's running he should be the only one trying to leave the property or avoid other people.

Esh, I have no good idea on how to do both, so at least let’s try something.
 
A Brave New World 12

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.


A Brave New World 12​

You considered chasing after the attacker for a moment, but in the end you grit your teeth, and remained where you were. You listened carefully, but the only sound was the blaring of the alarms. Even the perpetrator’s rapid steps had been lost to the cacophony within a couple seconds.

“Good heavens, that was …” Mrs Thatcher began to speak as she stood, then she saw the remains of her two guards, collapsed outside the doorway and her expression hardened.

“What happened?” she demanded as reinforcements finally began to arrive.

You sighed and opened your mouth to explain ...

ASTtM​

“... and so I had to choose between leaving Prime Minister Thatcher exposed to any potential collaborators and letting the attacker retreat. Without knowing what else was going on or if there were other attackers elsewhere in the building, I felt I needed to remain,” you finally concluded more than an hour later, in a room down the hall. It was the third time you’d told the story, and the repetition hadn’t improved the tale or your mood.

“And you can’t tell us anything about the attacker?” one of several suit-clad men who’d been introduced too rapidly for you to recall a name demanded.

Even before he finished speaking, you were shaking your head.

“No. His invisibility field never fell during the attack. Frankly, if he hadn’t rushed back before he was ready, this attack would have been even worse,” you said, then registered the baffled looks you were getting.

“Young man, this was quite bad enough! We’ve got two dead men from Baroness Thatcher’s protection detail and nothing at all to show for it!” another suit said. He had a color name. Black? Brown? Something like that.

“He clearly wasn’t truly prepared for this attack,” you argued. “If he had been, he would have included whatever silencing system he used on his gun to either reduce or eliminate the sound his footsteps made. If he’d done that, it would have been almost impossible for me to track him. I wouldn’t have even been able to be sure that he’d left.”

That drew everyone to a halt. Several faces in the room paled and someone gave voice to a truly vile curse. Had they really not realized the implication of an entirely silent weapon? Compared to eliminating the sound of a gunshot, eliminating the sound of a footstep should have been simple. How could supposed professionals-

You took a deep breath and stomped all over your irritation. This wasn’t Serenity’s court where enemy mages and esoteric technology were both well-known and expected threats. If a new Age of Heroes was just starting here, even experts could be forgiven for not realizing the expanded nature of the threats they were likely to face.

“If he can build a truly silent handgun -not Hollywood silencer quiet, but truly noiseless; no sound at all when fired- then there’s no reason he can’t build some device to silence his footsteps, or even the area around himself,” you explained and were preparing to continue when the first suit spoke up again.

“One moment, you seem certain that this man was the one who built these devices. What makes you so sure of that?” he asked.

That … was a good question. You were sure of it, but as to what had led you to that conclusion …

“He wasn’t actually very good with his gun,” you said as the answer came to you. “He knew the basics,” you continued, “but I was a stationary target, anchored between Prime Minister Thatcher and him, and his accuracy was just atrocious. If whoever was responsible for this couldn’t find a better gunman than that, they certainly shouldn’t have been able to afford to build such advanced technology either.”

“So we’re probably looking for someone with a very personal vendetta. A pathological need to get revenge perhaps?” another one of the suits, darker complected than most -Mr Rapani? Something like that anyway- said. “Now, that we can use to start narrowing down a list of suspects.”

All around the room, men in suits perked up at the chance that they could do something instead of sitting around without any leads. Rampani’s -yes, that was it!- eyes turned back to you.

“Any other insights? Anything at all that you picked up about the attacker?” he asked.

You thought about it for a long moment, but began shaking your head.

“Without being able to see him, I can’t really say anything else conclusively,” you paused for a moment before a thought occurred to you. “At least not about him as a person. His technology, on the other hand, I think I can comment on.”

The suits who had started to slump a bit when nothing else had appeared to be forthcoming were now all focused again.

“I think the next time he appears, our mysterious assassin will have taken even more steps to improve their gear. Since I was able to track him this time by sound, I fully expect his next outing will include a silenced suit, not just a silent gun. Maybe also stealthed demolition charges, or some sort of improved grenades.”

That sobered everyone in the room even more if that was possible.

“On the other hand,” you continued, “you’ve got some relatively low-tech options that should make infiltration harder. The first is to find the thickest, fluffiest, high pile carpeting you can source, install it everywhere, and train your protective detail to watch it like a hawk for footprints appearing in it where there shouldn’t be any.”

That managed to break through British stoicism to draw looks of disbelief before brains kicked in and you could see them actually thinking over the plan on its merits.

“Another thing you could do would be to create mantraps at every entrance that measure the weight of incoming persons and packages. If you know what they should weigh, and you’re seeing something off by more than a kilogram or two …” you trailed off. Lock the mantrap down, fill it with an irritant, and wait for it to incapacitate whoever was inside. That implication was clearly picked up by the rest of the room. After a moment, you proceeded.

“The last, well, let me introduce you to an old Japanese invention called Nightingale Floors ... ”

ASTtM​

Assassination of Margaret Thatcher averted. Even though the perpetrator escaped to fight another day, this has had a major effect on how parahumans in England will be treated. Rather than hearing about David Martin and then an unknown parahuman that murdered the British Prime Minister, the English press have already started running stories about a mysterious Guardian who captured a murderer and foiled an assassination plot.

Shirou has also managed to provide simple, low-tech security measures to help foil further Stranger infiltration attempts in the future. Gain 3exp for making a major impact.


Listening for other enemies, Perception+Awareness: 10d10=5 successes

Power analysis, Intelligence+Occult: 8d10=4 successes.

Recalling factoids, Intelligence+Investigation: 6d10=1 still 1 success, even with the reroll.

Creating countermeasures, Wits+War: 8d10=1 6 successes.

Next update will be the end of the month complete with voting for next month’s activities and the rumor mill post to follow. I wanted to get to that with this update, but my motivation this week has been low. Do recall that Shirou is up to 7 exp, and this can be spent 4*current rating to raise Attributes, 2*current rating to raise mundane skills, and 3 per dot in a specialty. Legend and Supernatural skills are special cases and can not currently be bought, but grow narratively.

Thanks again to Seraviel for beta reading.
 

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