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YOU: Who knew a dead Enforcer could lead to this much trouble? Anyone with a brain, that’s who. The relationship between Piltover and the Undercity is a powderkeg, and someone’s lit the fuse. Now you’re stuck in the bowels of the Undercity that despises you, because even an Enforcer who was *born* here is an Enforcer before anything else.
RHETORIC: [Legendary: Failure] Maybe the worst kind of Enforcer. A Piltover lapdog. A class traitor.
[-1 Morale]
YOU: You’re injured, tired, with no idea what's happened to your partner - and the only way out is up there, through a bunch of Silco’s glowing, drooling Shimmer freaks.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Too late to get precious about methods. Fight fire with fire, baby!
VOLITION: [Challenging: Failure] No, wait, maybe think about this--
YOU: Take the Shimmer.
[-1 Health]
[-1 Morale]
[+2 Physique]
HALF LIGHT: RUN.
YOU: A bullet hits the spot you were standing in, shattering a purple-tinged glass vial into a million glittering pieces - but you’re already gone. The world is purple-tinged, and brighter than it was. Up up up, up the leaking pipes and hissing vents, clinging by the fingernails and hurling yourself with unnatural strength, up to where the grinning gunman squats with his rifle still smoking.
1. PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Wrestle his gun away. [Heroic]
2. ENDURANCE: Run past him. [Impossible]
3. HALF LIGHT: Wring his fucking neck. [Challenging]
[This is a red check. It cannot be retried]
[Check Success]
YOU: You don't slow down. The creature squawks and his hands flail, but before he can drop the gun and grab at you, you fling him off the gantry and into the darkness below. There is a distant crunch.
PAIN THRESHOLD: KEEP MOVING. IT HURTS TO STOP.
ENDURANCE: NEVER STOP. YOU CAN RUN FOREVER.
YOU: Up up, to where two more patrol. They’re fast and strong, but you’re faster and stronger.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: YOU’RE A BEAST, BABY. YOU’VE NEVER FELT SO GOOD.
YOU: Your fists hit them like concrete blocks on pistons. Their bones crunch and their guns clatter. They go down and you keep going.
'ABANDONED' WAREHOUSE: The doors are locked, but not for long. You rip the steel door off its hinges, veins bulging purple, spittle foaming between your teeth. Your mouth tastes like blood. Your muscles twitch like they’re electrified.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Um…
YOU: You bound through the door. This room is empty, but you hear scuffling ahead, somewhere over the roaring of blood in your ears. You could stop and figure out what it is, but…
PAIN THRESHOLD: RUN. PLEASE. IT HURTS.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: This… this doesn't feel great. Did we take too much? How much was in that vial?
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN: Too late for second thoughts now, brother. Too late for any thoughts at all.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: Haven't you noticed who's talking, Harry-boy? Everything's gone quiet upstairs. There's nobody talking to you but your body, and your body says…
ENDURANCE: RUN.
PAIN THRESHOLD: HURT.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: SMASH.
HALF LIGHT: KILL.
SHIVERS: The stale air coats your fizzing tongue. In the warehouse ahead, four Shimmer-boosted goons prowl in the dark, tasting the air, listening for a heartbeat. In the dark, an injured Enforcer crouches, his shoulder oozing blood, his gun in his gloved hands.
KIM KITSURAGI: There’s only one bullet left. Even if his bad eyes see an enemy before they see him, he’s not making it out of here alive. Not without his partner.
LIMBIC SYSTEM: His partner could think. You can’t do anything but destroy.
1. HALF LIGHT: Get those goons chasing you instead. [Challenging]
2. ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Bring back the Detective. Get your brain working again. [Impossible]
[Check Failure]
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Just because I got you into this doesn’t mean I can get you out.
SHIVERS: There is no thought, there is only reaction. To the North, to the East, to the South, to the West, above you, below you: the Undercity pulses like a bassline, spasms like a muscle, shrieks like a murder victim. Its veins are ultraviolet. Its stains are indelible.
UNDERCITY: THIS PARTY DOESN'T STOP. THE BAND NEVER LEAVES. THE DRINKS ARE SPIKED. THE DOORS ARE LOCKED. DISCO INFERNO.
1. HALF LIGHT: Get those goons chasing you instead. [Challenging]
[This is a red check. It cannot be retried.]
[Check Success]
YOU: It’s a very simple strategy. You rip through the metal shutter like it’s made of cardboard, and howl like a wounded beast. Four sets of purple-glowing eyes find yours in the dark. Then, in an instant, they run to you.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: [Heroic: Success] You keep ahead of them, barely. Up is all you know, so up you go, into the barely-visible rafters. They scrabble after you as you leap from rafter to rafter, barely noticing the hundred-metre drop until it’s right beneath you. But you’re rapidly running out of places to jump to.
SILCO’S GOONS: And they converge, clawing their way towards you. No more sense of self-preservation than you, all joined on this one creaking rafter poised over oblivion.
- PAIN THRESHOLD: Break it. Break the rafter. [Heroic]
YOU: There has *got* to be another option.
1. PAIN THRESHOLD: FUCK YOU. NO OPTIONS. BREAK THE RAFTER. [Heroic]
[Check Success]
YOU: You grab the beam above and kick down with all your might. It shudders. The goons shudder with it, and cling, fear springing suddenly in their eyes. You kick again. And again. And just when the nearest goon’s nervous snarling has turned to resolve--
THE RAFTER: The crunch of the wooden beam breaking sounds in the warehouse like a cannon. Plaster rains from the walls. Glass falls out of the roof. Before it can hit the ground, the rafter sags, and falls away.
YOU: You just manage to cling to the beam above.
SILCO’S GOONS: They don’t think of that in time - the rafter’s already falling when they try. Howling, shrieking, they plummet with the broken rafter into the abyss below. It’s four long screams, and then a cacophony of crashes and thuds.
ENDURANCE: You hold on. And then, when the room has stopped shaking, you leap to safety on the gantry below.
THE WAREHOUSE: In the silence, you can hear nothing but the roar of your own heartbeat, the heaving of your own lungs. Then, in the dark, the scrape of fabric on metal grating.
YOU: You bound towards the source of the noise, a crevice between storage crates packed with glowing purple vials.
KIM KITSURAGI: His guns comes up and trains on you. What little light if filtering through the broken glass ceiling reflects off his glasses in a mirror shine. There’s a monster reflected in them. Its veins are bulging. Its teeth are bared.
HALF LIGHT: GUN.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective?” he gasps. The gun wavers in his grip.
HALF LIGHT: HE'S GOING TO SHOOT YOU.
YOU: You try to speak. What comes out is an animal gurgle.
KIM KITSURAGI: The gun dips. He takes one hand off it, like he’s about to reach for you.
1. HALF LIGHT: ATTACK. [Medium]
2. ENDURANCE: Stop. Think. Take his hand. [Legendary]
[This is a red check. It cannot be retried.]
CONTINUE?