Just tell the Navy "no".  That's how that works, right? 

No worries, man.  We'll play around you, as needed, and keep your chair warm.

These are some cool ideas, Brom. 

I need to start reading this thread more often, and start doing some of this.

The party waves away any paltry reward that the woodsman might have to offer, but they do inquire about the undead and when they were spotted. 

"Ah can't say as ah've spotted 'em afore, meself," he explains, "though game 'as been scarce 'o late.  Woods 'ave been more quiet, if'n ya ken me meanin'.  Nary a bird for days... a week, mebbe."  He shakes his head.

"Ah been rangin' farther to find meat, was out 'untin' taday.  Left yestermorn, spent tha night in tha woods.  Were 'eadin home this afternoon, saw tha tracks coming from tha northwes'; a whole slew 'o footprints.  Ah saw a man dressed all in black, Ah did, right afore tha dead came outta tha ridge at me.  'e didn't seem none too afraid 'o them, even after 'e saw tha lot.  Mother be me witness, the bastards didn't even look at 'im, they just came fer me - and for me 'ouse and family!"

DMs note: if there are anyother specific questions, let me know, and I can edit that in here.

Later, you do what searching you can in the failing light.  Even in the thick mist, it would be difficult to miss the trail; a great many footprints in the soft dirt lead off tot he northwest, just as the woodsman said the would.  It is abundantly clear that the undead traveled in numbers through here - and it is quite possible that there are more around.

Eventually, the light fades too much for further exploration, and you return to the cabin.  The woodsman and his boys are busy hauling the deal from the cabin, with the boys showing remarkable work ethic despite the grisliness of the task and the tenderness of their ages.  The wife, who previously accepted healing aid without comment, does not lift a finger to help.  She sits, silently, in a chair, staring towards a wall - but very clearly, staring into space. 

A bonfire is made of the corpses, just to be sure that they do not reanimate again.  The night passes without incident. 

It's great fun, Roger.   The rocket kit we used has everything but the consumable stuff (engines and wadding), costs less than $20 USD. 

The drone Noah is flying is very reasonable for what it is; about $50 orr so on Amazon. 

Man, I am so sorry to hear that.  Nobody will peep over a day or two, I wouldn't think.

It was a great time, no doubt.  I expect that we will be repeating it a few times.

As some of you know, I do some blogging about... dad and family stuff.  I might share a recipe or a project; in this entry, I just share a fun day with the boys.  Check it out (and if you like, you can subscribe to the blog, follow the facebook page etc): Rockets and Drones, oh My!

**checks party roster for a ranger**

Nope.

**checkes party roster for tracking proficiency**

Nada.

Heh... "not to be callous"... after making an INSANELY callous comment. 

I would like a post for Aranwen, too...

Okay, everyone has posted in the staff neeting.  Giddy, feel free to backpost Nyle's answers to the various crap that Drake threw around. 

Duncan, Eol - you guys look like you are going to have a social/driking RP to post, no?

Unless someone has an item that is of pressing need, I'm about to jump things forward in time - to Saturday night, to be precise.  Feel free to backpost as necessary.

"Hey, Jackobot, how long is this supposed to take? Does Team Leader need to fill out any of those forms?" Steam asks,

"BEE-DEE-BEE-DEE-BEEP, superior troubleshooter," Jackie intones, "I cannot accurately predict how much time will be required for the superior staff of the PLC to process the requests of the other superior humans, nor am I privvy to information about their requests or the complexity thereof."

It pauses, as if caluclating.  "BEE-DEE-BEE-DEE-BEEP.  By my calculations, it will take... as long as it takes."

Can robots be sarcastic?  If so, Jackie certainly carries that in its tone.

"BEE-DEE-BEE-DEE-BEEP.  I apologize, oh outstanding one, but as I am not personally assigned to the PLC, I have not been programmed with the requirements of which forms will be ncessary for the esteemed Team Leader to complete.  At your service."

The waiting is excruciating.  It would appear that even trivial requests are met with a variety of form requests - some of which are available at the long table, though it does not seem to be uncommon to have a clone sent to come other location in search of either a form or the correct authorization to be placed on one.

As sentiment grows for a way to bypass the line, an Orange clone seven or eight spaces ahead of you seems to have the same idea.  "Here, now!" he states, "I outrank the lot of you, and am on important business for Friend Computer.  All of you Infareds and Reds, out of my way!"

As he begins to push past, one of the laser cannons hums loudly, points, and burns a massive hole in his chest.  Before the clone's dead body can even hit the floor, the Computer's voice emits loudly though the various speakers in the room. 

CUTTING IN LINE IS TREASONOUS, AND IS DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR HAPPINESS. PLEASE OBEY ALL OTHER POSTED REGULATIONS.

AT YOUR SERVICE.

There are no posted regulations visible anywhere within the room.

-----------------------------------------------------------

After approximately three hours, you find yourselves at the front of the line.  A bored, weasel faced, sandy haired male Infared with a nametag of "Stock-BOY" greets you. 

"Welcome to the PLC, Citizens!" he oozes with a pasted on smile.  "I am here to expedite your equipment requests.  Please provide your mission number to begin."

Having just been through this drill with the electrified door, you are all aware of the fact that you do not actually possess a mission number - or, at least, that none has been communicated to you.  When he learns this, Stock-BOY becomes far less helpful.

"If there is no mission number, then no equipment has been reserved for you," he states flatly.  "Thank you, and have a nice day."

Okay, so now what?

I have posts from everybody except Blackthorn.  But I'm not sure how the party wants to proceed. 

Talk to the woodsman or his family?  Take his offers of payment?  Keep moving along the road to the west?  Do other exploration?  Retire to somewhere sunny?

Some are phishing.  They figure a hobby site isn't well protected, but that people are lazy - so if they use a username/password here, they may use the same combo for their bank or credit card. 

Some just like to watch the world burn.

What is happening is that we are the target of some hackers.  They send a TON of requests at the site, trying to grab information from the databsse in some very clumsy, easily defeated ways. 

But they never stop. 

So what happens is that they sometimes fire off attacks back to back to back from different IP addresss, and do so very rapidly, causing a mini DDOS attack against the site. 

I have set up one fence that sees their attacks, matches a pattern, then immediately drops the trafffic and kills them at the firewall level (thus preventing them from making any more requests). 

But they change tactis from time to time, which can end up slowing the site down or knocking it - and the other webistes I run off of this server - off line. 

I'll keep an eye on the logs and work to keep fencing them out.

It looks like the Hexatris isn't going to work out.  However, The George Washington Carver has gotten off to what looks to be a successful start... and the Peregrine is humming right along.

So far, so good, fleet!

No worries.  As I read this again, I realize that I really haven't given you guys much to do except post something like "dude, long lines suck."

I posted one update; there's not a ton ton for you guys to do at this moment, I suppose, so I'll post another shortly (maybe today). 

I will wait until everyone who is planning to respond to the meeting can do so (assuming they can do so soonish... I don't want to wait a week). 

The thing with Trek is that you have so many storylines going on that you just about are guaranteed to have the scene jump around a bit.  This is why the post header and timestamp part is SO important, and that's why we do the logbook in Trek tools - to help kep it all in order. 

It's always, always okay to backpost - assuming that your posts don't contradict the future.  Say, your character is on the bridge at 3 PM, but you backpost that they took a shuttle on a five hour flight at 1 PM.  That would obviously be a no no.

But backposting does allow you to fill in those interactions and side plots while not holding the overall game back. 

Hey all,

I don't want to sit stangant for long.  I am very close to bumping things forward to the next game day.  And, as a matter of fact, I'm considering bumping thing ahead several days, until the next mission-related issue arises. 

Right now, I'm looking to move us to Saturday evening pretty soon, unless there are mission-related posts that need to get handled first.  So... Bueller?

That is fantastic.

No birthmarks, though...

I'm not questioning how you play your characters, I was just surprised at how it unfolded. 

As for cries... I mean, mom was already paralyzed by the time you got there, and when you crested the ridge, you were still a good fifty yards away from the cabin... with the boys trying to hide.  Ch'dau picked up on a scream as he approached the door, but there wouldn't have been much in the way of screams until the zombies got the boys.

Hah, the lack of IDing the gigglers is frustrating to narrate, but I haven't found an excuse to give you another knowledge check. 

I guess so. 

I mean... Kith is supposed to be selfish, so I can see her giving a pass toward rescuing unknown children. 

But Gib?  Cedric? Aranwen?

I dunno.  In hindsight... had the boys died, they died.  It would have just added to the horror of the situation, I suppose.

First off - there seems to be some confusion, somehow or another.  Apprently, I somehow failed to communicate that the fight is over.  I have both Cedric and Midge outside, posting as if they are preparing to encounter zombies. 

The warriors cleared the zombies on their way inside the cabin.  There are no remianing undead at this time. 

Second - none of you have ever heard of undead that might rape.  Most undead do little that resemble "living" activities - a few noteable exceptions would be ghouls, ghasts, and vampires consuming flesh or blood, and vampires sleeping during the day.  By and large, undead do not eat, do not sleep, do not rest - and certainly do not procreate sexually or have sexual contact.  If they procreate, it is through supernatural means - killing and raising a victim as that type of undead. 

And then, an aside...

Ch'dau was, indeed, rash.  His actions are also the only reason that the boys survived.

When I drew up this encounter, I envisioned hereos of goodness rushing to save the day when they found a badly wounded father begging for help saving his children from the very sort of undead that the party had been fighting.  While I understand being tactically smart, I have to admit... I was a little surprised at the reaction that he was instead laying some elaborate trap, that he needed to be vetted, the area scouted, etc. 

The older boy would have died the next round, the younger in a round or two after.  I had envisioned this heroic rescue in the nick of time... I guess that I didn't take everything that I should have into consideration.

I'm not sharing this in an effort to tell you how to play, mind you.  Just sharing my thought process as to how I had expected this encounter to play out.

I guess that I don't undertand the issue. 

The text boxes here are literally nothing more than standard HTML textarea controls.  All of the fancy formatting and such is just CSS presentation and javascript, but if you disable javascript, you still get a plain Jane textarea that you can type in, paste in, etc. 

I normally post from a PC.  However, I do regularly post via Android Galaxy S8+ for Q&A threads, PMs, etc. 

To copy/paste on my phone it exactly like it is to copy/paste to any other app (email, texting, etc).  Highlight, hold press, option pops up to copy/share/select all, plus an extra context menu.  I tap copy.  Then, I head here, hold press again, paste is an option.  Choose paste, text shows up.  Should be the same process (with slightly different labels) for iOS.

There is nothing OS specific here, no progrmming behind the controls, etc.  If you see the text boxes, you should be able to interact with them like any box.

Life happens, Dunc.  You are keeping us in the loop, so I'm good.  Worst case, we NPC around you a bit if need be.