Commissions During Break: Wildtouched Part 6

Image information: The First is Kaga, during this plot she was changed into an anthro Red Tailed Hawk, and I'm pretty sure she's a Wildtouched Hawk Shifter just like Richard is. Here she holds a guitar that reminds her of Richard, not knowing what's going to happen to them. She's in her jail room, which has an illusory effect to make it look like an open field.

Second Image: This was a map I made for the plot that the characters were able to find. It was a hint for them from another of the Elf Master's underlings, trying to put some info for the characters to try to stop the Elf's schemes. He met with an unfortunate end.

Now from Arrow:

After some time in the jail, the characters had Richard, now under mind control, visit them. He indicated they were needed to set up some devices elsewhere. Despite questions and hesitancy, he was able to 'persuade' the other PCs to go set the first one up. We had three of these scenes for the PCs, interspersed with some smaller personal scenes between the PCs themselves, but they all followed the same base formula, where a set of boxes for a device would appear and the characters would have to go set it up.

The first such mission was on a access balcony to machinery on a New York City skyscraper. This scene only had a single door to the inside of the building, which, as an emergency exit, was alarmed as they later found out. The main reason of having it on the skyscraper balcony was that for me to have a limited area to have to GM; the PCs couldn't really roam too far and so it controlled some variables as I got my bearings. While they did try to mess with the device overall, they managed to get it set up after some difficulty, including flagging building security at least once, and then being controlled to turn the NPCs into guards.

Jakkal interjecting here. This scene had a hilarious incident where the characters were trying to figure out how they could sabotage the device, so that their Elf Master would not succeed. They had this idea to get it wet, hoping it would short circuit it. But RP characters being RP characters looked for any means possible to get it wet. Almost any, anyway. They opened the door that was the exit, and while the alarms are blaring, they notice the sprinkler system. Endy was the only one that could reach it, being a big huge tiger thing. They didn't tell him why they wanted him to bust it up, and he is unfamiliar with sprinkler systems being a kind of primitive dude from a sword and sorcery world. Well, after a lot of bumbling, they were unable to really get the thing soaked. Finally they told Endy why they wanted the water and he just looks at them incredulously and said, "Why didn't you just piss on it?!" The obvious solution evaded them and they were unable to sabotage it in the end.

The next away mission was in Halifax. This was in a dock/wharf area, where the PCs had more options for roaming, although they seemed to get to business faster than I anticipated. The assembly this time was more involved, and they actually were interrupted, by an organization they don't fully understand. The device airdropped from a chopper allowed communication with them and was able to interrupt the influence they were under from the fae lord to an extent. It wasn't a refined technology, but it did work. However, their communication was cut short by an order one of the PCs got from the fae to destroy the device. This order didn't carry any actual force behind it, but the PC in question voluntarily carried it out anyways, earning a fair bit of ire. After realizing what'd happened and that their comm link had been broken, the PCs instead set up the device and tried to tip it into the water...which was where it was supposed to go anyways. This wasn't the original plan, but it worked well enough in adjusting to the way things were going.

Jakkal interjecting again. After the last mission, the character saw that this was on docks next to water. And so, trying their plans again, they figured they could oopsie and accidentally drop it in the water. After some bumbling attempts, once more, to sabotage it, they finally "accidentally" drop it in the water. But it appeared that dropping it in the water is exactly what they needed to do to activate it. Once more they go back to their jail annoyed.

Finally, the last mission was in a rural area near Ottawa, and this was in theory a more open area. However, due to the prior instance of them not accepting overtures, this one had military already on site, which caused an extensive combat scene; I was definitely getting more comfortable with opening up options for the PCs. This device was set up successfully as well, with a defeat of the antagonists by the PCs with a lot of forest animal TF. However, by this point major fractures were showing in the way the PCs interacted, which I utilized to advance the story; notably, two of the characters were able to sabotage the device by changing critical timing code on it. Nonetheless, when the PCs returned after this mission, they saw a timer in the wall, indicating the approaching end...