[… Video-feed with subtitles in 7 languages, rolling on repeat on the Ducktail Pub’s Bill-Board, and on the VIP rooms’ VR pleasure cocoons’ AD spots…]
A cartoon in the rubber-tube style shows the inside of a cave, illuminated by floodlights and decorated with colorful drapes and hanging tubes, all moving and bouncing to the tune of piano music playing in the background.
A mass of people in a tangle of limbs rolls onscreen from the left, caricatures of a domaru, an ORC, an Exrah, a Su-Jian, a Makaul, and a random prospector with a long white beard, jeans overalls, straw hat, moonshine jug, and an ancient pickaxe.
“Not all clients are trustworthy!” A weirdly cheerful male’s voice rings over the music “and it seems like we have some here who got a bit of of the Tourist Fever! That’s too deep in our caves, friends! You’re gonna trespass into the Ducktail’s turf”
A cartoon caricature of a duck-mercenary walks in from the right, guns blazing, tossing grenades, knives, horseshoes, and Cave Ducks at the motley crew on the left. As they get close, a cloud of dust and smoke appears over them and rolls around on the screen, hands, heads, weapons, and cats emerging randomly from it, punctuated by well-synthetized -bonk- noises.
“Would you look at that!” exclaims the narrator with obviously faked surprise “One of our own contractors has shown them just how dangerous Dewey is for tourists!”
The smoke dissipates, revealing the mercenary, standing on top of a pile of chips, which look kind-of like Cubes. The cartoon duck salutes at the screen, his chest puffing to comically large proportions, showing patches of all mercenary companies on it, the StarCo one nearly faling off.
“You did well, Brave Merc!” the voice rings on “Now collect their Cubes and bring them back to the pub for a handsome reward! But not all Cubes!”
The Duck stops short from collecting the chips from the ground, produces a microscope from his back pocket, and examines one Cube. The image zooms dramatically on the chip, showing the words “VIP, BOSS, HEAD HONCHO, CHIEF, CHARACHTER”
“Yes! that one” the narrator confirms with calibrated enthusiasm “All Cubes with a command-and-conquer type serial number, and all Cubes with a Commendation-of-Uniqueness type serial number are worth a whole 300 BitCreds over at the Ducktail Pub’s VIP room!”
The words on the chip morph into a serial number, the first three letters highlighted “That means all serial numbers that start with C3U! That’s right little duckie!”
The cartoon duck, suddenly at a saloon decorated with the Ducktail Pub logo, reaches the bar, unloads a sack full of chips over the counter and immediately recieves an excessively-shining gold bar from the impassible bartender, who’s also an anthropomorphic duck.
The bartender turns around, dumps the chips into a cardboard box, closes it up at the rythm of the piano music still playing in the background and slaps a label on it. The camera pans close and freezes, so it’s clearly readable: -To: the Tourists. All expenses by: the Tourists’ mommas-
“Of course” the narrator pretends to chuckle “we are going to take care of the Cubes and send them back to their owners…. as long as they pay for shipping!”
The cartoon duck turns towards the camera, looking at the viewer, then it speaks, and it’s still the same narrator’s voice, but in a falsetto: “What are you waiting for? Go our there and claim your BitCreds!”
The Combined Army expeditionary force ship, the Manifestation of Absence, is in system and up to no good.
Courtesy VeryFastPanda
There’s a Demarok creature aboard, which led to all sorts of tomfoolery during an Imperial Service boarding and inspection! Look here for the after action reports from both sides!
Corporate security forces are seeing a lot of action in the Averroes Hospital Campus! Some are just Hassassin Fidays deep undercover, and others are jaded veterans with a golden parachute of a life insurance policy and a Maghariba Guard on their kill tally. Regardless of who you’re rooting for, the money is good! Just how much of it you’ll get in BitCred versus more standard currency is a different story though…
Courtesy puldin
Speaking of stories, our veteran warcor Erin O’Nealz finds one of her selves awake and possession of a mysterious message addressed to her from a sister she’s never met…
The Imperial Service, led by the great Sun Tze himself, descends on Biosphere-7, a now abandoned domed biosphere on LuY 911. Is it just a “overgrown greenish pustule on the underbelly of a stinking slag heap,” or it something more?
Editor’s note: Definitely check this batrep out, it has animated art!
Well, to answer the question of what’s in the box, it’s an angry Xenoform! Eye of Hipparchus forces move in to interdict a Shasvastii attempt at releasing the Xenoform!
Zero Burn is putting his quantronic thumb on the scale! A team of Nomad agents is dispatched to the Nightcall races. Still, no one knows what a C-ZAR is!
In the bowels of 1777 Du-ɛ there is a high stakes motorcycle race held by a syndicate of former Breitschwert Group members for the entertainment of the various pirate crews, merc companies, and Submondo smuggling outfits that call that benighted rock home. Professional Riders from across the Human Sphere come to compete–mostly burnouts from military black ops teams, former Bōsōzoku looking for a new circuit, and a mixed bag of speed freaks and rich kids chasing forbidden thrills. The stakes are high–deadly for Riders and highly profitable for bookmakers and degenerate gamblers alike chasing increasingly gruesome and esoteric prop bets. Rumor is that the Breitschwert guys hate losing and use a ringer to hamstring the best racers so that the house always comes out on top. There are other rumors too, about handlers from offbooks ops using these races to recruit deniable assets, the kind of barely stable daredevils that won’t blink in the face of a suicide mission with survival estimated in the point zero zero percentiles, because they have nothing to live for but the next stunt and are arrogant enough to think they can not only beat the odds, but make them.
borisgreymenace
Editor’s Note: If you wanted a motorcycle race in the middle of your Infinity game, look no further than the custom mission, Nightcall, included at the end of this battle report!
Never say that the Imperial Service doesn’t get results. While the Kiel Saan involved in smuggling was unfortunately killed by the Morats before they could be extracted, an ISS traitor was exposed and summarily executed!
