[Malevolence]

I'll let Diamondback do his thing (after waiting a prudent amount of time to satisfy Sam's curiosity). I'm not dismissing him yet - he'll accompany us back to camp where Ohanzee's original intent would have been to dismiss him, but with Sam down, it's better safe than sorry to have another combatant just in case.


Heal on Ohanzee (technically done while we were waiting for the Sasquatches to die):
Cast Heal F6 [Magic 6 + Spellcasting 5 + Focus 2 - Wounds 1]: 12d6t5 7
3 to heal, 3 to speed it up to 1CT (not that it matters), 1 lost to limit.
Resist Drain [WIL 6 + CHA 6 + Centering 2]: 14d6t5 3 vs. 2 drain (F-4), so no drain.


Observe in Detail using Astral Perception, specifically looking for two things - what the nature of the malady is that is laying Sam low (Ohanzee is assuming that it is either an infection or a toxin) and what the nanites are doing about it.


Need at least 3 hits, preferably 5 on 11 dice:
Assensing [Assensing 4 + Intuition 4 + Specifically Looking 3]]: 11d6t5 4
Meh. At least I get a general idea of the malady, just not a specific diagnosis. Maybe Kat wants to assist and turn it into a teamwork test?


And, while I'm assuming Sam refused care prior to returning to camp (since we'd want mundane care first before Magic to maximize healing), I'm going to queue up a heal for him for when Doc has finished. Presumably it will have still been less than 1 hour since his wound was sustained.
Cast Heal F6 [Magic 6 + Spellcasting 5 + Focus 2]: 13d6t5 6
Probably all to healing depending on what he has left once Doc finishes.
Resist Drain [WIL 6 + CHA 6 + Centering 2]: 14d6t5 5 - again, no drain.

[Tecumseh]

Ohanzee heals himself. He also heals Sam, should Doc flub his rolls.

Ohanzee confirms that it's an infection/disease rather than a toxin. The good news is that the nanites are helping to battle it; the bad news is that the disease is very virulent and seems to be getting the upper hand (as evidenced by Sam's collapse and nausea).

Waiting on rolls from Zweiblumen, who is working through last-day-on-the-job stuff today. Unless he seriously pooches the roll on those we'll know more shortly.

[Tecumseh]

He was also curious as to how the nanites would respond to such a malady infringing on their turf. Though he wouldn't have wished this on any of his friends, it did present an opportunity to see if the nanites provided them any resistance to infections or toxins (other than alcohol). They seemed to get along with Kat's Infection well enough, but HMHVV was as much (or more) magic as it was disease and so might escape the ability of the little machines to detect.

Just to be clear, Katsina does not have any nanites in her system. She is the only one completely free of them. (Ace's levels are extremely low, but not 0.) It's possible that Ohanzee has observed nanites attempting to infect Katsina, only to have her Regeneration overwhelm them easily.

[Zweiblumen]

Sorry for the delay, yesterday ended up crushing me.  Tec rolled for me since I was otherwise detained:

Logic 9 + Biotech 5 + Medkit 6: 20d6t5 6 hits, this is enough to patch up Sam's wound, although Doc will need to be exceedingly careful about contamination
Logic 9 + Diseases 2 + Hemotology spec 2: 13d6t5 4 hits

So, we've got Sam healed, but he's gotta fight off the infection, finding out if there's anything medically we can do to help him.  Dunno if either Ohanzee or Katsina have a way to boost willpower and/or body, but doing that will add to Sam's die pool at the least.

[Zweiblumen]

Tec, can I do any medicine rolls to help him out here the way you can help with healing rolls?  My IC says specifically that I can't, but I don't mind being wrong here

[Malevolence]

Just to be clear, Katsina does not have any nanites in her system. She is the only one completely free of them. (Ace's levels are extremely low, but not 0.) It's possible that Ohanzee has observed nanites attempting to infect Katsina, only to have her Regeneration overwhelm them easily.

Yeah, I keep forgetting this. IC updated.


Maybe we should get some beer into him to help the nannies with their fight?


ETA: Heh. Beer as medicine. I still love that thought...

[Tecumseh]

Per Doc's revelation, Sam has the Weak Immune System quality. Tough way to find out.

@Poindexter, here are your options.

The way the rules are written make it exceedingly unlikely for anyone to resist HMHVV, and Sam's weak immune system compounds the problem further. There are two options:

1) Permanently burn a point of Edge to defeat the infection.
2) Fight the infection with dice, which can have three possible outcomes:
     2a) Win, and stay Sam.
     2b) Lose, and become a fomóraig.
     2c) Lose, and die.

#2a is a steep hill to climb. With Sam's weak immune system, the power of the disease is 12. That means Sam needs to resist 12P three times in order to survive. That said, Sam has a big soak pool (Body + Willpower = 15) and big Condition and Overflow monitors which mean he can take 23 boxes of damage without dying.

The really bad news is that "the Power of a disease can accumulate. If a Disease Resistance Test doesn’t reduce the Power of the disease to 0, the remaining Power is added to the Power of the next Disease Resistance Test until the minimum number of Disease Resistance Tests has been reached."

For example, round 1 Sam is soaking 12P. He soaks 5 boxes and takes 7P damage. Round 2, he then has to soak 19P (Power of 12 + 7 unresisted from round 1), and the same pattern repeats in round 3. Brutal.

It gets worse. Sam has to reduce the power of the disease to 0 by the end of the third roll in order to beat the infection. Otherwise he survives, but becomes a fomóraig.

4E was very clear that, "No inoculations or antiviral agent has been developed which provides any bonus or protection against any species of HMHVV" (Runner's Companion, p. 82). That said, they've changed the infection rules between 4E and 5E (generally making HMHVV slightly more possible to resist) so it's possible that this has changed too. Run Faster hints that antiretrovirals might be effective, and if anyone were to be able to cook up something on the fly it would probably be Logic 9 Doc.

We'll make this a Teamwork test. Doc can roll Logic 9 + Biotech 5 + Medkit 6 = 20 dice to supplement Sam's dicepool. Doc's limit for this is 9, his Mental limit for Logic skills. (His mental limit is 10 for Intuition skills).

I've run all the numbers. If Doc and Sam both use Edge for all three rolls (Doc preroll, Sam postroll) then Sam has a 22% chance of beating the disease.

Or perhaps Poindexter wants to go the Infected route? Also viable. Let us know.

[Zweiblumen]

Doc is going to do everything he can to "save" Sam.  And I feel I've got most of that prepped in the IC (lemme know if you disagree).  I'm going to roll the biotech roll with pre-edge pushing the limit (Though not *that* likely I'll beat my limit of 9, but here's hoping ).  If Poindexter wants to run as a fomóraig then he can buy less hits

Saving Sam with pushing the limit! Logic 9 + Biotech 5 + Medkit 6 + 7 Edge = 27: 27d6h5 9
Two extra hits coming from exploding 6s, a little below average and didn't beat my limit, but it's 9 extra dice for Sam if Poindexter wants 'em!

[Poindexter]

Two extra hits coming from exploding 6s, a little below average and didn't beat my limit, but it's 9 extra dice for Sam if Poindexter wants 'em!

I'll take em.

Soak 12P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 8

so that's four dmg, putting me at 8 boxes total, unless the wound has been healed already. I'm not sure.

Soak 16P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 9

seven more dmg, putting me at 15, and into overflow.

Soak 19P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 7

twelve more, putting me dead, so I'm gonna edge that last one

Edge to re-roll: 17d6t5 6

that makes it six more instead, so I live, but as an infected, eh?

neeto

How long does it take before Sam is lucid again?

[Tecumseh]

20 hours. I'm stepping out the door right now but I'll post more details tonight.

[Poindexter]

Ok, so im looking though what happens when you become infected, and it's pretty damn confusing. So far, I've gathered the following changes:

1- Different Min/Max on a few attributes.
2- Essense goes up to 5 (WOW!)
3- Dual natured,
4- Cyber and Bioware stuff
5- Armor +1
6- Reach +1
7- Corrosive Secretions
8- Bite and Claw attacks
9- Moderate Sun and Air pollution allergy
10- Hunger for Metahuman flesh
11- Logic -1

It says my bioware loses 1 point of rating, so that brings the dmg compensators down to 11, which still leaves me unable to take wound penalties. But the muscle toner loses a rating, too. That's -1 Agility as well as 1 die off all my combat tests. (Yuck) It also says I have to make a rejection roll for all my non-deltaware cyber-implants. I'm gonna assume neither of them are and roll for both.

Bone lacing Rejection (Body 10 + Ess 5): 15d6t5 3

thank god!

Wired reflexes Rejection (Body 10 + Ess 5): 15d6t5 2

God dammit! I'm gonna edge it.

Edge to re-roll: 13d6t5 4

Ok, so my implants are all good.

EDIT: 12- 2 points to spend on Reaction, Body, or Strength. Thinking bout doing both on Reaction.
13- 2 points to spend on Willpower and Intuition. Thinking about doing both on Willpower.

[Zweiblumen]

Two extra hits coming from exploding 6s, a little below average and didn't beat my limit, but it's 9 extra dice for Sam if Poindexter wants 'em!

I'll take em.

Soak 12P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 8

so that's four dmg, putting me at 8 boxes total, unless the wound has been healed already. I'm not sure.

Soak 16P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 9

seven more dmg, putting me at 15, and into overflow.

Soak 19P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 7

twelve more, putting me dead, so I'm gonna edge that last one

Edge to re-roll: 17d6t5 6

that makes it six more instead, so I live, but as an infected, eh?

neeto

How long does it take before Sam is lucid again?

So we healed you're damage to start.  And you've at least 3 points of edge left, so you could definitely post-roll edge those rolls and likely not only survive but not be infected.  Again, if you want to play an infected that's cool, just sayin' that it's RARE that someone can beat it and if you did that would be a story to tell Sam's grandkids!

[Poindexter]

Two extra hits coming from exploding 6s, a little below average and didn't beat my limit, but it's 9 extra dice for Sam if Poindexter wants 'em!

I'll take em.

Soak 12P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 8

so that's four dmg, putting me at 8 boxes total, unless the wound has been healed already. I'm not sure.

Soak 16P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 9

seven more dmg, putting me at 15, and into overflow.

Soak 19P test 1 (Body 10 + Will 5 + Doc 9): 24d6t5 7

twelve more, putting me dead, so I'm gonna edge that last one

Edge to re-roll: 17d6t5 6

that makes it six more instead, so I live, but as an infected, eh?

neeto

How long does it take before Sam is lucid again?

So we healed you're damage to start.  And you've at least 3 points of edge left, so you could definitely post-roll edge those rolls and likely not only survive but not be infected.  Again, if you want to play an infected that's cool, just sayin' that it's RARE that someone can beat it and if you did that would be a story to tell Sam's grandkids!

To be honest, I was sorta hoping something would go wrong while feeding Katsina one night and he'd end up getting infected that way, so this is just as good. I kinda like the idea that IF we survive this thing, that perhaps Sam and Katsina will stalk the night together, righting wrongs and dispensing justice. She'd be Batman and Sam would be the massive troll Robin. Sounds fun, eh?

[Zweiblumen]

Works for me Playing an infected sounds interesting.

Off Topic: the quote in the Run Faster sections about infection and resonance really puts a nail in the coffin of playing a sprite technomancer   Talk about a perfect techno!  Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Tecumseh]

There's a lot going on here for Sam.

Agility: -1 due to lost grade of muscle toner, now 5 (8 )

Let me know if you decide to put 2 points in Reaction or if you want to spread them around.

Willpower: Run Faster says that 4 is the racial maximum for a fomóraig's Willpower. This is almost certainly a typo, as no other HMHVV species has a maximum Willpower below 7 and fomóraigs explicitly have an Improved Mental Attribute for Willpower. We'll be treating the racial maximum as 8.

Logic: -1, now 3

Let me know where you're going to put your Mental points too. I see that you're thinking about both in Willpower, but let me know when you decide.

Here's a devil's bargain for Sam: in 4E, fomóraig lost 2 points of Charisma but gained more than +1 in Body and Strength. I will let Sam trade points of Charisma for points of Body or Strength at a 1:1 ratio. (So -2 Charisma = +2 Body or +2 Strength or +1 each, etc.)

Essense: -1 due to the transformation, see p. 138, now 0.84 (I ruled that some of the lost Essence came from the essence hole created by the lost bioware grades)
Magic: +1, now 1 (yes, even with the <1 Essence)
Edge: unchanged, 1 of 4 remaining

Natural Dermal Armor: +1, so now +2 (does not include bone lacing)
Magical Guard: Sam can now learn Counterspelling, but doesn't have any ranks yet.
Natural Weapon - Bite: DV (STR+1)P, AP –1, –1 Reach
Natural Weapon - Claws: DV (STR+3)P, AP –1 (in the book this is only STR+2 but I'm boosting it to STR+3 so that it's not a downgrade from his regular titanium skeleton attack)
Corrosive Secretion: Acid, 2P, AP -2

Sam's Armored Jacket has Chemical Protection 2, which I'm going to say protects it from his Corrosive Secretions. Technically this does not apply to Sam's pants but I haven't decided how strict I want to be about this. I might sweep this under the rug so that we don't have a pantsless fomóraig running around. This is a family game, you perverts. (Although given how cold it is, his junk might be sucked up so far into his body to make being pantless rather less of a scandal.) Alternatively, I might make you buy him an Urban Explorer Jumpsuit or some other full-body outfit with chemical protection.

Dual-Natured: Sam can now see the Astral, although it probably confuses the shit out of him. He can learn Assensing.
Allergy: Air Pollution, Moderate
Allergy: Sunlight, Moderate
Dietary Requirement: Metahuman Flesh
Reach: Reach is still +1, not +2. The note simply confirms that fomóraig do not lose the natural +1 Reach of a troll.

Damage: The rules are unclear whether damage from HMHVV (the disease) is the damage of the disease transforming you into a new species or if it's separate and you emerge from your coma with all this internal damage. For convenience I'm going to say that the damage Sam suffered was the natural process of turning into a flesh-eating monster, so he does not have to heal it separately. Sam does not have any damage.

Time of transformation: 5E says 5 days; 4E says 20 hours. GM discretion to go with 4E for convenience, even though the 5E rule does make sense.

Carrier: Sam now has the Carrier negative quality (p. 141, Run Faster) It's unclear to me whether this is only supposed to apply to people who survive the infection but don't transform, but the underlying rules of the quality all apply to Sam anyway, so I'm going to say that he has it.

Did I forget anything? Let me know.

Next
I'll give everyone a day or two to IC a post about Sam losing (or winning?) the battle against HMHVV. Go ahead and RP anything your character would do during the following day, which will be (comparative) uneventful at camp. Discussion about the burner comms is also valid.

The quicksilver camera will take a good photograph of the obelisk. Said photograph can be delivered to the DIMR in person, via courier, via spirit, whatever you come up with. Going into town could also provide an opportunity to purchase some clothing for Sam's new allergy. Katsina will recommend a ballistic mask with chemical protection, but other options are available. I believe you have ¥2,420 left without fencing anything, although you'll need at least ¥250 of that to rent the van for a couple more days.

Phew, that's a lot. Let's get to it!