Skip to main content

Cut Scene: Weldon Escapes

Weldon sat up and rubbed his shoulder through the synthetic plaid of his shirt.  "Ow" he mouthed, not actually speaking.  Stun batons hurt.

Weldon started a web search on AR for "Weldon Smith" while he grabbed at his right eye with his fingers.  Forcing back his eyelids, he grasped his eyeball directly.  There was a wet squelch as he gave it a tug and it was extricated from its bio home.

It looked like a normal green eye except for a set of ten or so shiny gold leads poking ever so slightly out of the back and the slight tint of blue in the gel that hung to the back of it. He closed his empty eye socket, keeping his other eye open to identify the center pin.  He pressed it firmly and set the eye onto the floor.  A new node flipped open on his AR PAN status.  He held his nose at the tip for moment, adjusting to the pungent smell of sterile artificial joint lubricant, aka "blue smooth".

He tasked it with a simple command to "free me".  Pieces of the eye came apart and suddenly it had legs, arms, and other appendages.  It used suction feet to climb the smooth walls and then clamped onto the small antenna.

Weldon leaned back against the wall, fighting the unconscious urge to paw at his empty eye socket.  His hands lay propped on synthetic natural-feeling fiber jeans in classic blue.  AR popped up a map.  There was a public address for "Weldon Smith".  He recorded the location and saved the map for later.

He stood up.  The eyeball-like insectoid dropped onto his shoulder and climbed back into position, waiting for him.  He used both hands, one from below and one over his head to pull the eye socket open again.  The eyeball gently pushed itself back into place with another small squish.  There was a barely audible click as the appendages closed back into storage.

The cell started to move along various tracks until a new wall appeared.  A young man with an overzealous shave and greased perfect hair spoke through a view screen:  "Mister Weldon Smith, you are being released.  It appears there was some mistake in your detainment.  Once you pay a 20 nuyen processing fee, you are free to go."

Weldon didn't move.

"You payment has been approved."

The cell moved again and without warning he found himself dumped out onto the sidewalk.  He stood up, brushed off the dirt from the concrete, and started walking.  The map from earlier was tracking his movement  and he moved.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

5E Starting Gold and Equipment for Higher Levels

The DMG has a rough recommendation for starting gold and equipment for higher levels, but with my groups running one-shots, we wanted to nail it down to level by level. Here's my DMG-inspired table. Generally I allow equipment to be traded in during character creation for half book value, where applicable. I also, as a GM, offer to make custom magic items for players who can't choose. A list of magical items by rarity can be found here  with stats available in the DMG. I also generally allow players to buy healing potions (2d4+2) for 50gp and greater healing potions for 250gp (4d4+4). PHB items are available at book cost at creation. I do not allow other equipment to be purchased except in game. This is generally based off the "high magic" campaign. Level Starting Gold Starting Equipment / Magic Items 1 - 160gp  OR Standard starting equipment 2 210gp Standard starting equipment 3 285gp Standard starting equipment 4 365gp Standard sta

An Analysis of Tasha's Caldron of Everything: Spells

 I am going to be evaluating "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" for incorporation into my own games. I figured I would go ahead and record this analysis on my blog here so other folks can follow along and glean some useful information from the time I spent. I tried to find an in-depth analysis elsewhere, but at this time none so detailed as this seems to be available. You will not find any of the text in its entirety in this blog. I will be referencing the first printing of the book, so please refer to that as you read along. There are no released errata for the book at the time of writing, although there are errata from other books that affect some of this content. There are 21 spells in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. This includes Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Lightning Lure, and Sword Burst cantrips that were originally published in Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. There are 9 spells that allow you to summon creatures of various types. Three spells are notabl

GM Tip: Changing the Effective Font Size in Roll20

I've seen this complaint a few times in roll 20:  can't adjust the font in the chat window.  Unfortunately, they haven't added controls for this yet, at least not at the level of account I have.  For me the font is just too big, but I know for a lot of people it is too small. I am using chrome to do this, but I am sure it will work in other browsers. The method basically allows to increase/decrease the size of the font/controls by about a factor of 2 easily. To increase the effective font size, zoom in with the browser (ctrl-plus), and reduce the zoom on the map, until it is back to the size you want. To decrease the effective font size, zoom out with the browser (ctrl-minus), and increase the zoom on the map until its back to the size you want. The main limit of this is the limited range of the map zoom, which really limited me to fonts doubling to halving in size. Default size with chat font Decrease browser zoom and increase map zoom to reduce font e