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ramblinganthropologist · 4 years ago

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N7 challenge 18 and 19 - Blue and Substance

Yep, doubling up prompts again... it’s Nano, I’m only human.

Summary: Extra, extra... Commander Shepard’s gotta engage in some mild censhorship after a tabloid leaks a photo of him imbibing a mysterious substance. Just what is it... and why does it smell like blue raspberry? The hell is the Alliance up to these days?

---

…

Why did he get the feeling he was being watched by more than just hamsters?

It was probably just a feeling, but Alistair couldn't shake it as he entered Citadel Critters that afternoon. Normally this was his favorite place on the station, but... well, the walk over from the docks had been unnerving to say the least. If anyone caught sight of him, they stared. A few even whispered, but it was all too low for him to pick up.

Great, who was he fucking now according to the media?

“Good to see you, Al.”

At least Mike looked normal and happy to see him. Alistair was glad for that as he raised his hand in a friendly greeting. That was of course a mistake – from the wrist almost to his elbow he was still bandaged up like a mummy. At least the bandages had stopped bleeding.

Normally medigel would be the thing for this, but the wound type needed healing the old fashioned way. As a medic he understood it... but as a twitchy biotic, it was itchy as hell and he hated every moment of it.

The shopkeeper winced at the sight of him. “Am I allowed to ask what happened there, or is it secret Spectre shit?”

“I got too close to a krogan on Tuchanka and we traded paint. Their bacteria is pretty toxic, so I can't seal it up with medigel.” He shrugged. “Least I didn't break anything. Then that would have to heal the old fashioned way too.”

He was kind of glad that krogan was dead, all things considered. Not just because he tried to kill him, but he tried to kill his nephew during his Proving. Nobody messed with Grunt and got away with it; didn't matter what it was. Shit, he'd taken on a thresher maw for the kid and he still had to go to therapy considering them. If that wasn't proof he liked the guy, nothing was.

But anyway, he was glad that fucker was dead. Asshole.

“Now you're fighting krogan hand to hand? Maybe there's something to that tabloid story after all.” Mike winced as he seemed to bite his tongue. “Shit, I said I wasn't going to ask you about that, it's clearly bullshit...”

…

What was clearly bullshit?

Alistair frowned as he checked his omni-tool, going to a site he knew fairly well. It had been a while since he had checked in with Citadel Daily, but it looked like for the most part they were still behaving. Sure, he wound up there – but they weren't mentioning who he was fucking or anything.

The answer was nobody, by the way, because the universe hated him.

“Well... it's not from Citadel Daily, so I think you're going to have to fill me in.”

The shopkeeper looked uncomfortable as he rubbed the back of his neck. “It's from some smaller paper, but it's kind of gone viral. They ran it in last week's Spec-Check.”

Ah, he'd heard of that. Hell, he'd been in it once or twice. Half the time it was getting censored by the Council for accidentally falling ass first into the truth, and the rest of their stories were so obviously fake that they provided excellent cover. The ones about him had all been fake... but maybe it would explain the stares.

Mike grabbed his datapad from a nearby table and tabbed over to an article he had clearly read a couple times. He wasn't looking Alistair in the eye as he handed it over, and his hand trembled a bit. Clearly, someone was feeling a little guilty...

“What the hell?”

There, in bright font, screamed out “Commander Shepard: Under the Influence of Biotic Boosting Substances?” with a picture of him in armor. His eyebrow zoomed to his hairline as he realized it was taken on Tuchanka. How had he missed a krogan taking a picture of him?

More importantly, who had sold him out and why did he need to tan their hide?

“So this story...” he flicked through. “Implies that I'm on some illicit substance to boost my biotics. They know red sand is a thing, right?”

The shopkeep shrugged. “Keep reading, they imply it's some purified Alliance version they're testing on you. The paper called it blue moon...”

Alistair's vein throbbed as he flipped to the picture. Clear as day, there was a picture of him opening a tube of a obnoxiously colored, bright blue powdery substance and swallowing it down. Judging by the scenery... he had gone after a thresher maw not long after it was taken.

Ok... he could kind of see the hook there, but come the fuck on.

“I told people it was bullshit, the Alliance isn't going to risk its first Spectre on shit like that...” Mike's voice wavered. “But then more pictures showed up.”

Now he really had to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Mind telling me where I can find these guys? I think I need to give them the Citadel Daily special.”

“Is that the part where you toss them out a window?”

No, it was the part where he let Bo threaten someone with defenestration. Problem was that his XO was still back on the Normandy with her adoptive son. They were having a bonding moment after what had gone down on Tuchanka. He was eventually supposed to bring them back snacks, but... well it looked like he had to make a pit stop first.

“We'll see. Now, I gotta get to tracking them down...”

---

Unlike Citadel Daily, the office of Eye on the Citadel was much smaller and in a more run down part of the Wards. Some might have called it seedy, but Alistair didn't care as he got out of the cab and checked his omni-tool. On it flashed the details he needed and had acquired from EDI when he had informed the Normandy where he was going.

“You packing your blue moon, Commander?”

Alistair rolled his eyes as he touched the piece in his ear. “Joker...”

“Sorry, Commander. I know you're touchy about it and all. Just don't throw anyone out a window with your mind.”

Yes, yes he was. Regardless, the Spectre sighed as he approached the front door. The sign said to knock, which he did. He even stepped back, waiting. For a long while, he wasn't sure if anyone was home.

Then he heard the skittering in the background.

“Shit, it's Shepard!”

Someone wasn't very subtle. They were also looking through the peep hole directly at him. Despite himself, he gave a little wave as he waited for the door to open. Whoever was there squeaked, and it sounded like they fell down.

Hopefully they hadn't broken anything before he got the chance to try.

“Hello, are you alright in there? It sounded like you took a nasty fall. I'm a medic if you need some first aid.”

Someone was sniffling behind the door. It was so damn pathetic that Alistair sighed and reached for the doorknob. In a few seconds, his picking program had made short work of the lock. That allowed him to gently twist the handle and open the door.

Just like he thought, there was a person on the floor, holding their ankle with big tears in their eyes. From where he was standing, it just looked like a bad sprain. It was nothing a little medigel and some rest couldn't handle, and luckily he had the first ingredient on hand.

Problem was, the person who had just entered the hallway looked as though he had murdered someone.

“So Commander Shepard breaks and enters on top of consuming illicit drugs.” Their camera was out. “Eli, did he hurt you?”

Alistair's tone was as dry as Tuchanka as he motion to the prone human. “I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure they sprained their ankle falling.”

The man with the camera looked from his partner to his subject a few times. He still took a few pictures before he put it away – note to self, blast that late. A few seconds later, he was helping Eli to his feet – somewhat unsuccessfully. He was way off balance.

“If you do it that way...” He winced as both men went tumbling. “... that's going to happen. Did you break something too?”

Camera man wasn't amused as he tried to free himself from underneath his prone friend. “I'm fucking fine, what the hell are you doing here? You broke in!”

Alistair gestured to the fact he was still on the other side of the door. “I haven't even entered the house yet, good luck proving that.”

Clearly, he was dealing with a real genius. He doubted this was the man who had written the article about him – not enough imagination. Maybe it was his photos, but definitely not his words. That he attributed to Mr. Sprained Ankle, who was still trying to get up on his own power. With his luck, he probably sprained the other one...

Just what he needed, a rescue mission when he was trying to be intimidating.

He sighed and let his anger trickle out. “May I enter so I can administer first aid? You've followed me enough to know I'm a medic.”

“Yeah, a medic tripping balls on blue moon!” Camera man pointed at him. “I saw you take it twice on the Citadel, once with your fucking niece! You have a problem, and I'm going to expose you so people know not to-”

The beeping from Alistair's wrist drew the Spectre's attention. He frowned and flipped it over. A familiar program was warning him that his sugar was currently in the low 60's. If this kept up, he was going to risk really becoming a space cadet.

Talk about appropriate though.

“You're about to see another dose, actually.” He pulled the paper tube from his jacket pocket and ripped off the top. A few seconds later, down his throat it went. All he tasted was sour blue raspberry as it traveled down his throat.

He really hated blue flavors... green apple was where it was at.

On the floor, Eli sniffed. “Is... that candy?”

“Homemade pixie stick mix. It's cheaper than buying the individual tubes.” He tossed Camera Man a packet. “Test it if you don't believe me. Mine's a little more sour than the commercial mix, but it's still basically sugar, citric acid, a little bit of flavor with the color.”

Somewhere, he was pretty sure a thousand 'don't do drugs, kids' infomercials went through both men's heads as they examined the packet. The vein continued to throb as he waited for his sugar to creep back to normal levels. At least it wouldn't take long – he had caught the low fairly early.

It was Eli who took the packet, giving a little bit of the powder a cautionary lick despite his coworker's protests. When his face contorted in the classic sign of sour, the Spectre sighed in relief. Still, it was hard to resist pinching the bridge of his nose.

“He's telling the truth, Sam. It's like a high powered pixie stick.” And then the man wasn't looking at him. “Shit... you've been eating these the whole time, haven't you?”

Alistair held up his wrist, showing the blood meter reading. “Have to or I go into hypoglycemia. It's part of being a biotic for me. So I guess we can say you were kind of right about it being a biotic booster. However, I don't think anyone outside an elementary school classroom is going to call it illicit.”

He at least allowed a smile. “So, you going to let me in now to help with that ankle, or are you just going to live on the floor from now on?”

---

“So, did you throw him out a window?”

“No, and did you want the Cheetos too?”

Alistair could hear Bo groaning on the other end of the line as he picked out snacks for his trip back. He had quite a few – enough to fill the basket. That was understandable, given he was helping to feed a krogan and a high powered biotic. Between the two of them, he wasn't sure who could eat more. Some days it was a toss up.

So he added the Cheetos anyway. If she didn't want them, he'd eat them later.

“You're such a fucking boy scout sometimes, Al. You could've at least fucked with him a little bit.”

The Spectre shrugged his shoulders as he added a few more things to his basket before heading for the self check out. Given the time of day, the store was pretty packed. He still felt eyes on the back of his neck, but not as many as before.

The blog post had gone out while he was checking Eli's ankle. He had been right on the credits about who wrote for that duo...

“I got my retraction, and he learned not to stand on things while you're spying on a Spectre. Everyone walks away happy.”

“Yeah, except the people who bet you'd throw them out the window.”

Well, that was their mistake. After all, he WAS known for being the boy scout. She had said it herself. Though, he knew she hadn't bet on him, though not because she knew him well. Bo wasn't allowed to bet on anything involving him, due to the fact she was usually involved. This was a rare technicality that had kept her out of the pool.

Too bad, she could've cleaned up.

“Who managed to take the pot home?”

“Garrus. He better be taking you on some kind of date with that money when this is over.”

The thought of it made Alistair's face heat as he started scanning things through the self checkout. “Come on... we're not...”

“Not with that attitude. Also, did you get the nuggets? We were going to watch Jurassic Park next, they'd be a good theme snack.”

He sent her a picture of the massive sized bag of dinosaur-shaped nuggets before finishing up. Soon, he was out the door and blending into the crowd as he put his hood up to avoid the lingering gazes. Hopefully with time, it would settle down.

As he headed back to the Normandy, Alistair was glad for one thing... that he hadn't told anyone the thought of throwing someone out a window had crossed his mind more than once as he healed Eli's ankle. That would've probably lost the pool for Garrus, and maybe he was hoping for that date sometime this century.

Well, that and being cleared of being on weird Alliance drugs like a guinea pig. That was good too. But seriously, how the hell had they come up with that? Anyone with a brain in their head knew as a Spectre he technically wasn't part of the Alliance anymore. If they had any neat substances to test out, it would be on people they actually held marching orders for.

Oh well... at least he'd been able to get the green color this time. No more blue moon for him. Maybe he'd keep the name for the blend, though... it was kind of catchy.

#ramblinganthropologist's writing #N7month #Alistair Shepard

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dakotasraspen-blog · 7 years ago

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Why the deck of many things is a bad idea and I hate it

I just had a very long and quite fun table top RPG session (fun for me, the DM); I may put up a synopsis, but not right now.

Due to illness, Thanksgiving, and family stuff, the game had been put off for three weeks. Because of this long wait between games a few members of my group were going a bit stir crazy, so I decided to put on the best show I could.

At the moment we are playing the Dresden Files fate game. My players had a battle with some giant ghouls, a ‘friendly’ run-in with a master black court vampire, and some rather nasty fairy tricks on my part.

I kinda feel bad, but sometimes it’s nice to see your players hit a really fucked up roadblock.

On that note, I want to write a little piece about DMing. I might make this a regular thing, I might not. Here we go.

Do you hate your party? Did you pick the Forgotten Realm setting and they came at you with: a gnomish cowboy who speaks in a terrible southern accent; a man playing a woman who won’t stop hitting on everything she sees; the rogue who cant stop stealing things and keeps fucking the party over; and, the guy who made the blackguard CE joker “some men just want to watch the world burn” type, when everybody else is good or neutral?

Do you want to see your party suffer, and die a slow painful death? Do you want a whole session based around one item? Do you think watching your game melt like styrofoam in gasoline is a fun idea? Give them a Deck of Many Things.

At first glance, the Deck of Many Things is a cool as hell item. It combines power, danger, great wealth and total destruction. Its considered a Legendary Item! and seems like the perfect thing to put at the bottom of some horribly deadly dungeon. So the new DM does this - They put it as the final great reward. I’ve done this, you may have done this. Then we saw what it did to the party and we despaired.

For those who don't know, the Deck of Many Things is represented by a deck of 22 playing card that you draw from. Before a player draws she need to declare how many cards she will take. After she declares and start drawing, nothing short of death or the intervention of a god can stop her.

The options in the deck range from giving the player a castle infested with horrible monsters, giving the player a large amount of gold, giving the player a free level, or trapping the player under the earth for the rest of eternity (or in another dimension, or in a crystal guarded by some bad ass monsters - it depends on the edition).

The problem here is that some cards in the deck will instantly kill a character. This is bad. In a low level game or a game with strict rez rules this sucks for the player. Sometimes it’s worse than death. The above example of trapping them underground puts a character out of the game forever unless the group has a high level wizard and a lot of elbow grease. This means that recovering the character may take several sessions totally derailing what you, the DM were, planning - not to mention forcing the player make a throw-away-character, or just sit the sessions out. Both of these options have their own problems and they are just not very fun.

You’d think that knowing that drawing a card could totally remove your character from the game would dissuade the players. It doesn't. They see that free level or that cool castle and they draw.

Maybe the player declares she will draw one card. And she does. And hey! It’s some nice effect, a level 5 follower, a couple thousand gold. Nothing game breaking and it gives a nice perk.

Encouraged, the player sees this cool thing and thinks maybe they can get away with another draw. So they draw again, two cards. This time maybe they get a shiny magical item, and a mini-death gets summoned that they have to kill. They kill it and think “Cool!, maybe I can draw again and get that golden apple of a free level”, arguably the single best thing any item in the book gives you.

This goes on for a while. They keep drawing until they fuck themselves over and they get removed from the game

It may not happen all at once, but unless the deck gets taken away from them it will eat one character every couple of sessions.

This can all be attributed to the fact that its pretty much gambling. They draw and get hooked, and then they continue to draw until they can’t anymore. It works like a slot machine - one with a car battery clamped to your balls/labia that shocks you every time you don't win anything.

In my opinion this is the worst cursed item in the game. The really fucked up thing about this item is that it doesn't just kill the players, it kills the game. The whole game. Every session becomes a game of chicken with this fucking deck. Any horrible monster, any deals with evil demons, any grand feast with intrigue and poisonings, gets shunted to the side.

“Phew, that fight with Azagalanarailalanara the Defenestrator is over. He sure was a tough opponent, especially when they called in the battle Balrogs! Why did we do this?” shouts the Barbarian.

“Prisoners, I think,” says the Wizard

“Its the princess, you dumb bastards,” says the Rogue who, has been trying to get into her pants the whole game .“ Am I the only one who takes notes?”

“Yes,” groans the party.

“I hate you people.”

“So, let’s go grab the prince before the phase spiders drain him of his fluids and make him into decorative art,” says the Wise Druid.

“Great plan,” says the Rogue, with a massive eye roll.

“Wait,” says the Barbarian, “this fight was stacked against us!”

“Sure was," says the Wizard. “The gods don’t seem to like us very much, maybe they should calm the encounters down.”

The rocky ceiling starts to tremble.

“I hate you,” says the Rogue.

“Well, we just overcame some impossible odds, what do you guys say we draw a couple cards?” says the Barbarian.

“No!” choruses the party.

“I’m doing it!” yells the Barbarian. “I shall draw three cards from thee, oh Deck of Many Things.”

“It can’t hear you, you don't need to be so theatrical,” says the Druid.

He draws a card. A mini-death gets summoned and he smashes it to dust. He draws another. A deed to a castle appears in his hands.

“Ooh, we should go there next,” says the Rogue.

The DM groans as his planned story dies a sad, forgotten death.

“Yeah that could be cool. I always wanted a castle,” says the Wizard.

“Third card,” says the DM.

“Oh yeah, right,” says the Barbarian.

He draws a card and gets instantly turned to dust. The deed falls to the ground.

“Eh, I didn't like him anyway,” says the Druid.

“What she said,” says the Rogue.

“So, we should save these peasants or whatever and go clear this castle,” says the Wizard.

“Princess,” says the Rogue, thinking about stealing the wizards spell book.

“I don't care,” says the Wizard already thinking about he’s going to do with this new castle.

Annnd there goes your story. It’s over. Now its Castle Fun Times. They kill all the baddies and then the game devolves into making a peasant rail gun or bullying people into joining their militia.

Have fun making that interesting.

Soon the whole party will die, over and over. And you will hate them, because they keep drawing from the fucking deck. Then you’ll kill the party with a dragon fart or whatever, and switch to vampire, because by now you really want to see your party suffer.

I’m not the first person to write this article, nor shall I be the last. I just want to do my part.

Bye for now, Dakota S. R. Aspen.

#d&d 5e #Deck of many things #Dresden files #Dmthings #Rocks fall everybody dies but its slow and painful and you want to strangle each and every member of your party for doing this to you

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