The Clueless and Stealth, Part Two Ahhh, my pretties. Back yet again for another sorry tale? (cue evil cackling laughter and dead runners rising from the crime scene to terrorize a hapless Lone Star cleanup crew). This month's featured story is perfect for Halloween. You may recall that last month, in part one of this series, we had a group of runners trying to sneak into a temple? Well, when I first received the submission from an alert reader, the story was in two parts. The first part had a clueless individual being dropped by the rest of the group after blowing the group's stealth. The second part of the story occurs during the same scenario, but involved an entirely new group of runners, which makes me REALLY sad for the GM in question. And leads to the question… can a run be cursed? So, let us revisit the pain… The Mission: sneak into the temple of a maniacal cult and rescue the virginal daughter of a CEO before she is sacrificed to a kraken. During the infiltration, the intrepid group manages to 'borrow' some white acolyte robes for disguises. Clad in white from head to toe, they stealthily make their way through the twisted passages of the ancient temple. From ahead one of the group hears muttering and they stop. It turns out they have reached the dining hall of the temple guards who are congregating for the morning meeting/briefing. As the group ponders how to go about passing this obstacle, one of them hears someone approaching fast down the hall towards them. The runners shrink back against the walls and, as the guard runs by, tackle him, incapacitate him, and then the Sam of the group (hereafter known as Mr. Bloodlust) chops off his head! This minor commotion, though too quiet to be noticed in the meeting, disturbs a room full of 'sacred animals' being kept for sacrifices. In order to silence them Mr. Bloodlust jumps into the room and, using his combat axe, slaughters the twenty or more sheep. He does this with great abandon, spattering their blood and gibs all over the walls in the process (killing with a combat axe is MESSY). After this little killing spree, Mr.Bloodlust leaves the carnage and returns to the group. As he passes by the body of the dead guard, he realizes he has a chance at a free weapon and, reasoning in typical sam fashion that one can never have too many guns/too much ammo, strips the cooling body of combat webbing (complete with pistols and grenades), and slips it on OVER his robes. At this point, the group realizes that they have to pass through the meeting room in order to get to the remainder of the temple and complete the mission. The voices from the guardroom have increased in volume as more people arrive. As the group stands around pondering their next move they hear someone in the meeting call out "Hey! Where's Abdul?" Glancing down at the combat webbing name badge that says 'Abdul', Mr. Bloodlust gets an idea… Of course, he consults no one else regarding this cunning plan. He bursts into the dining hall and yells out, "Somebody killed Abdul!" At this point, the GM stopped the game. As he puts it "I had fallen to the floor laughing so hard that I could hardly breathe!" GM: "What the Hell were you thinking?" Mr. Bloodlust: "Well, I figure they'll all want to investigate Abdul's death." GM: "Okay, let's imagine this scene. An ork clad in the blood-drenched robes of an acolyte, bearing a bloody, gore encrusted combat axe and WEARING the combat webbing and name-badge of 'Abdul' rushes into a room full of security personnel and freely announces the death of somebody HE HAS MURDERED! Mr. Bloodlust: (is quiet for a moment) "Ooops." At that point, three other players passed notes to the GM stating they would take shots at Mr. Bloodlust during the ensuing battle. Does it surprise you that the character didn't survive? Personally, my imagination is still reeling from that. It's like something out of a bad comedy/action movie, don't you think? Regarding our next little tidbit (which was submitted by one of CLUE's network of alert readers), this is NOT a clue story. And it's not even a stealth story. But it sends enough chills up the spine to warrant mention, especially so close to Halloween. Please note that this account was submitted by eye-witnesses, and I did confirm. Who needs a curse? "My group of six runners was in the process of breaking camp to continue on our journey through some flatland. From over the horizon came the silhouette of two GMC Banshees. Not prepared for a firefight, the team scrambled to break out the ordinance, the rigger sprints for the Bison, etc. The troll mage, who has had an unfortunate experience with Banshees in the past, panics and tosses a fireball at the closest one, throwing in all the dice he can get his hands on. The result? He rolls 28 dice for the fireball. The group was hushed as he shook the huge handful of dice and cast them onto the table. They came up all ones. So, as the Banshees bear down onto the camp, the troll mage erupted into a mushroom cloud of organic debris. We stopped playing for the night. It was a baaadddd omen…" Wow. I hope never in my life to see that. Can you calculate the odds of that happening? Players get complacent about the rule of one, after all, if you're rolling more than two or three dice, the odds of getting all ones are pretty negligible, right? Guess not. Let this serve as a warning to us all… See you next month! Karen Karen - karenmr@shadowrun.html.com