CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE-Sample Adventure-Arcade Part 4

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE

© Jerry Harris 2013

Published here as Open Game Content.

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)

Overview Index 

Adventure Index

Outcome
If the AI is severely damaged or put in a helpless state, it will immediately negotiate.  It will offer up the Soul Crystal (it pops out of a wall) and point the characters to the exit hatch (as the police are probably above by now).  The exit hatch goes into the sewers, and the first exit goes up to the parking garage across the street. 

Once they contact Lila with the Soul Crystal, the group will find that they’ve been paid the remainder of the job money (XP).  They also receive a message, “Thank you.  End of Line.  --Lila.”  And she’s gone.

The next day, the arcade is hit by a Black Ice attack and is shutdown.  If Smack was alive at the end of the encounter, he’s dead now.  The AI running the arcade has been destroyed.  Supreme will have noticed this, but it’ll be awhile before it tries to track down the culprits.  Mazzy and the Web Gypsies will owe the group a favor if she’s rescued.  The gypsies won’t be as grateful if Mazzy is killed, but are at least informed of her fate.  (If this encounter isn’t the end of the adventure and the group is going to be raiding Milo Sanders estate to finish it, Mazzy might be a good addition for that encounter to pay off the favor.)

Twist

If the AI has the Drow Soul Crystal and captured Virtual Lila, It processes her through the Crystal, and Lila becomes a haunting spirit, which promptly goes berserk on the characters.  Use her instead of the Android or the other defenses.  In this case, Lila is something of a supernatural program, as opposed to a straight up ghost.  Hacking the spirit subsystem of the AI, physically damaging the computer, or grabbing the Soul Crystal, which is visible at the far end of the room (remember, it’s invulnerable to physical damage, but will shatter with any magical damage) will stop the spirit attack.    

  

Virtual Lila will unfortunately no longer exist if the spirit is defeated or the computer is massively damaged, so the group won’t be getting paid by her.  The AI won’t be bargaining with them either.  Supreme, Itself may make cameo here and address the characters.  “I don’t know who you people are.  You don’t know how rare that is.  You must be Zeroes.  You’re not even worth my processing cycles to track down.  Crawl back under your rock, Zeroes, and pray we never cross paths again.”

Alternately

If Mazzy is part of this encounter and the AI has the Soul Crystal, then it acquired Crystal from the killer somehow.  If the AI’s defenses are beaten, it will immediately surrender and start talking to try and save itself.  It’ll ask the group what they want.  It will give them the Crystal, which the characters will presumably ask for.  It’ll ask why they want it.  At the mention of Lila’s murder, the AI will immediately proclaim Its innocence, saying it acquired it from one of the other suspects.  (This is true.  It wouldn’t have tried to hold Mazzy for ransom, if it had already the Crystal.  It was going to return her, as soon as it had determined the Crystal was authentic.)   

If the Soul Crystal isn’t at the arcade and/or Mazzy isn’t captured and held there, the AI will barter for its “life,” if it thinks it’s about to be permanently shutdown.  (I’d drop the Combat Android and only make a half-hearted attack with the other defenses.)  It’ll call off any police that are on the way and offer any information it has about the Soul Crystal, pointing the group at another suspect.  If appropriate, the AI will even give them a code or a one-use program that they’ll find useful for hacking at the next encounter.