I'm only just back from my holiday and getting into some sort of routine, so you'll get no side-eye from me. 

Elly didn't answer Crowe immediately. Her flashlight stayed on the canimoids, not directly in their eyes, but low enough to catch teeth, exposed servos, and the uneven twitch of bodies that had been repaired too many times by people with too few parts.

"Want is irrelevant," she said softly. The growling rolled down the tunnel and came back at them changed by concrete and distance... At least four. Maybe more behind them. Elly adjusted her stance slightly, blaster held low but ready, KIA still recording. "Need depends on whether the trail continues past them."

She shifted the light away from the pack just enough to sweep the floor between the animals and the tunnel beyond: blood, prints, disturbed grime, drag marks, anything fresh enough to argue with Crowe's very reasonable desire not to walk into a mechanical dog fight.

"Dispatch, Detective LE1-1.3," she said quietly, opening the channel without taking her eyes off the pack. "We are below the warehouse, an old steam tunnel. Multiple damaged canimoids blocking passage. Mark this as a hazardous access route. No uniforms or Evidence Collection through the lower door until RDU clears it or Animal Control arrives. Copy?"

A beat.

"And find out whether this tunnel appears on city plans. I want possible exits, maintenance access, and utility connections tied to this route."

She closed the channel down to a whisper and glanced at Crowe. "No warning shots. Too much concrete... and too many unknown utilities. I don't want to explain to Holden that we solved his new Rep-Detect problem by rupturing a steam line."

Her eyes returned to the canimoids. "If the trail ends here, we leave them to Animal Control and go to HQ. If it goes through them..." Elly let the sentence finish itself.

She took one slow step to the side, testing whether the animals shifted to block the tunnel or merely tracked the movement. Her light moved with her, searching past the growling bodies for the thing that mattered: Evidence first, fear after.

  If the dogs attack, and the distance is close, Elly will attempt to tear them apart with his bare hands. If there is a bit of distance, she'll fire one round, while closing the distance to move her into melee combat with the nearest one.

Sorry, guys, just getting hammered at work at the moment. I'm back now. Catching up on posts

Crowe looked at the beasts and then back the way they came.

"Do we want to go this way, or need to go this way?"

Crowe shrugged, "looks like the end of the trail for robo-old yeller."

That's for you and Scott to decide!

Cool. So just start blasting?

Happy Quaint American Folk Holiday to those who celebrate!

Scott, a much belated happy Canada Day to you, as well.

Cool.  You'll all ideally have an idea of the basic mechanics fairly quickly.  I'm tossing up whether I'll set combat encounters or as formally as Doug and I both did in the Darkening of Mirkwood, with a new thread for each round and game stats set out in the opening post.  I'm inclined to keep the numbers a little more back-end-y and see what that does to the flow of the game and its narrative.   

No worries man. I'll be back home this weekend and I'll be able to look in the book and put some time into this

After another day that's wiped me out, it's now 2:19 am and I'm buggered if I'm staying up any later.  I appreciate your patience, guys - an explanatory post is coming, I promise.  With the best will in the world, though, it's not happening now.