USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FIRST ASSIGNMENT- 'The Museum'

Thwup thwup thwup thwup thwup thwup thwup thwup

Helicopter blades, fading into a different noise.

You/are/dy/ing/az/ral

The buzzing, clipped metallic tone cannot quite pronounce the subtle syllables of the name correctly.

But/do/not/des/pair.You/will/die/a/he/ro/in/this/war

Blood flows easily out of Azrael, and it is hard to deny the machine is right.

Beneath the burnt sky, a a great hovership plunges, spinning, its engines aflame. Smoke pours from it. It is out of control, and to crash.

Is/this/not/what/you/wan/ted?

"Warning, life signs critical."

"No..." says Sequel. "No no no no noooo..."

And then another diagnostic speaks up.

"Warning, life signs critical."

And another.

"Warning, life signs critical."

As Sequel runs around, trying to will those jacked in back into life, he trips over a discarded relic; a burnt cowboy hat.

"Life extinct" A flatline tone

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

---

"AHH!" yellls the young man as he wakes up from the dream. Confusing images. He'd had many such images lately. One image, a person falling from a high building, that troubled him greatly, but he could make no sense of it. This dream was particularly sharp.

Hurriedly, he got dressed and ran out of his room. The woman by his side stirred as he did so.

"Neo?"

He ran down the high balconies of Zion, and hammered hard on a metal door. A man answers, but the younger man speaks before he can react

"Morpheus. Where is Dallas? Is the Shez still in dock?"

"No, Neo. It left last night." The young man looked pained. "What is it, Neo?"

"I don't know." Silence, for a few seconds. "When are we going back in?"

-----

And so welcome back, at last, to my Matrix game.

Three years on or three months on, game time or real time, it feels like a long time however you look at it. Well, you are all trained and practiced and ready to go now; you are as ready as we can make you.

The vibe with my Matrix games is that the struture of the Assignments tends to be pre-set. The set piece battles, especially, are destined to happen no matter what. This is not an open-form exploration game. However, there is more to this game than simple plot discovery. Things are there to be won and lost, by your actions. This is literally true for those on the Combat Path. For those on the Philosophy Path, it might get more complex than that. Still, we will see. In any case, the two Paths will be together for some while. The threads will split at the start of the Assignments where your Paths do.

As a reminder- players cannot enter the Matrix unless they have submitted an Oracle prophecy, so try your best to submit anything if you are sitll behind there. Of course, you can't join if you don't have a character either. At the time of writing, this game is chock-a-block full, so I am afraid new players (unless they are veterans of my games, in which case they are low maintenance) will have to sit out for now.

The game will also rapidly approach a point where the arrival of new players is absolutely impossible anyway!

The Matrix is a great setting to RP in. Nonetheless, stories have to be very specific and thematic. It is not like Star Wars, where there are always more plots to be found, especially for the Light Side. Matrix games are rare becuse their plots are, though a third game is possible.

Partly because of this, and partly because The Matrix is quite a harsh setting anyway, these games are specifically dramatic and high-stakes. What is at stake in this game is as important and vital as the plot of the films themselves. No-one has a guaranteed ride through; lives are certainly at stake.

There will be a small amount of people whose lives are not at stake, at least not until the appropriate time. That is those people whose Oracle prohecies are relevant. Successful completion of thse Prophecies results in an experience bonus. Think about that. However, once resolved, you don't get another.

The real harshness is a little way off as of yet. We start off with an Assignment which will play out very much like what the Veterans of this game are used to. However, as befits the plot of the game, you may find some of your enemies are a tad unsual. The crew of the Bounty in the last game were highly competent, but just like you at the end of the day. It's not going to be so simple from now on.

This Assignment was in fact already written at the point you guys were playing the final Assignment of the last set, and was specifically described at inception as the most violent Matrix confrontation yet done. Oooh.

Let's see what happens.

ASSIGNMENT ONE- THE MUSEUM

---

The brief was simple. The targets wee coppertops, but part of an underground organisation that intelligence acquired said was used by Exiles of some description.

Exiles- programmes within the Matrix that do not seem to be working for the system. Their reaons for being there, the way they work, what they do and what they want... all these things are unknown. Zion needs to gauge their threat.

As it is the job of Captains Dallas and Marduk to investigate such anomalies in the Matrix- after the uncomfortable revelation of the existence of such things a few months ago- the decision was taken to send in two very large teams to 'persuade' the targets to tell the Zion boys and girls what they knew about the Exiles, which turned out to be nothing. But more importantly, details of an upcoming meeting, in which Exiles were to be involved, were to be given, with all due encouragement.

Such encouragement was duly given.

Captain Dallas is wearing a dusty brown coat/cloak, and the inevitable cowboy hat. he is in the toilets. He is neither shirking work nor taking a break, as becomes clear when you guys catch up with him. The toilet door is broken down, one of the stalls is broken down, and Dallas is holding a man's head down the toilet.

"Huh? What was that?" says Dallas. Some drowning gurgles are all that is said in reply. "Can't hear ya!" More gurgles.

"Hi guys," says Dallas. "Got the time, just not the place. This lowlife doesn't seem to be making any sense any more."

There is frantic bubbling from the toilet.

"Huh? I can't hear a damn word you are saying! I dunno, you think I should let him breathe? Sounds kinda sissy. Ahh, well..."

Dallas lifts the man's head, who then takes the opportunity to suck in a continent's worth of air.

"Tell me where it is, or you go back in the bowl."

"The museum!" screams the man, with an accent. "The Natural History Museum!"

"Thankyou..." says Dallas, smashing the guy's head down on the toilet bowl as he heads out. "Six this evening. Now we have a place. We're done here."

Dallas files out, you guys behind.

"Va te faire foutre," says the man, slumped over the toilet, towards all of you as you leave. But no-one hears him.

The Real

The Shez and the Percy are in comms link. They are parked not far from each other, at a safe broadcast point.

"Sweep's clear," says Sequel. "Nothing around for miles."

"Lucky," says Ariadne. "Squids are moving in on more and more o our good braodcast points."

"Hear about the Hammer?" asks Finn, over the radio. "They're stuck out in the Northern quadrant. Can't broadcast, can't move. Squids hemming so many points that they don't have a clear way on."

Dallas snorts.

"They're too scared to block my broadcast points," he comments.

"Ok," says Marduk. "So, we've got a time and a place; the Natural History Museum..."

"That's a joke of a name, so it is," interjects Finn.

"... at six. That's still an hour before closing. We don't know much at this point. We don't know who is meeting whom, and why. It's being held in a public place, so it can't be anything like a council or board meeting. Sounds more like a criminal deal. Well, our instructions are simple. We've got to get in there and find out what is going on."

"We're breaking things up a bit for this one," says Dallas. "And not by ship; we're dividing up people by their... uhhh. temperament. I'll take a group into the Museum itself, to see what the hell is going on."

"And in deference to how things have gone with us before," says Marduk, "I'll keep a team outside. As backup, but also, possibly more importantly, we're guarding the route between the Museum and the nearest exit point. It's not a long way... but just in case. We have a spare we can look out for as well."

The teams are named. By 'coincidence', they split into the Philosophy Path and Combat Path.

The Philos will be dlighted to know that you are with Dallas for this one.

At this point, I'd better make sure everyone knows where they are at! A list would be nice.

about who's philo and who's combat I assume?
Combat:
Cloud
Barb
San
Mors
Melis
Fire
Burn
Ares

Philo:
Spades
Melkor
Mirage
Berserker
Sirin
Balder

pretty sure a few are missing!

Yupyup.

can't find them declaring which path they want tho

Well, that sounds forboding.

Azrael's philosophy, Fire.

"Any idea of our targets?" Azrael asks Dallas.

Well, Helios still hasn't said which path or submitted a prediction.

Klez is on Philo, I think.

And waiting outside? Pffft....

Hawk is Combat. I'm missing Dallas already. 😛

Just you wait Lana, I bet it's raining, too.

indeed waiting outside sounds boring but someone has to protect those pussy undercover guys and keep their exits clear

Its the matrix. Something is going to F up, and its gonna be fun.

Hell yes.

"Ready to get this show on the road, Burn?" Ares asks.

"A nice gentle mission acting as back-up? Yeah, I'm game for that. Although an hour before closing will mean there will still be people in there, and these exiles could create enough of a disterbance to bring agents, so try not to agrivate them." Cloud says looking at the new members of the team going into the museum.

Yes Berserker is on the Philo Path.
"I'm ready to go"

"Great. My first time on a real mission, and what do I get to do? Babysit doors," Hawk groans.

"You'll be begging for a break soon enough!"

"Oh, don't worry. Things have a habit of turning out spectacularly different then we expect them to. We wouldn't be out here on guard duty if Dallas and Marduk didn't think that it would be needed." San replies.

(and rain I'd be fine with. Snow on the other hand...)

"Lets rock."

(Oh yeah, Heph is Philo path as well, if I remember correctly)

New List: (Ush feel free to delete all this jibrish after the list is complete btw. I just wanted to get the game started)

Combat:
Cloud
Barb
San
Mors
Melis
Fire
Burn
Ares
Hawk

Philo:
Spades
Melkor
Mirage
Berserker
Sirin
Balder
Azrael
Heph (according to Lana)
Klez (according to Lana)