Copperhead can provide *some* level of overwatch/backup, but not a whole lot.  It'd be close to blind fire shooting into the warehouse and I'd only have a combat turn or two before someone took me out.  So I'd be good for a distraction, but not much more.

So, if WD is still up for putting his hoop on the line, it seems like the plan is as follows:

- Get Caduceus's spirit to conceal Copperhead's drone and then have that try to skitter it's way to the warehouse, leaving the Docwagon bracelet ready to trigger.  And hopefully getting in position to have eyes on and provide a tiny bit of backup to WD.  (I can inject one ankle with a dose of narcojet . . .)

- Caduceus to do what he can to plant the seeds that this is a setup and/or put some grenades in place to use later as a distraction.  (Priority being on non-dection and subtlty.)

- Noruas mans the guns and monitors sensors

- White Duck talks his way into the hornets nest and tries not to get stung :)

Fingers crossed . . . :>

That works for me.  It might be difficult for Caduceus to use certain spells unnoticed though, since there are people watching astral space at the moment.  For instance, I believe they will instantly recognize an illusory sniper as magical and not a real sniper.

It depends where you put the illusion.  You have a good sense of where the magical people are.  They can't cover everyone or everywhere.  Having someone catch a glimpse of someone in tactical gear peering through a window, only to have them vanish again won't likely arouse suspicion.  Only trick would be cleaning up the magical residue if someone were assensing the space.

We don't want to be super obvious - nothing to give the mages a direct target to go look at.  Just enough to prime the pump, get the rumors flowing so that, once the trigger is pulled, most of the gangers have the default assumption be "this was a setup, let's get the frag out of here".  If we can get a critical mass to bug-out, the rest will follow.

Implanting the idea that "my cousin phoned and apparently LoneStar is planning a huge bust in this area" or "you ever see a LoneStar drone pay this much attention to the Barrens before" or "that guy the boss is talking to, doesn't he look like that undercover cop who took down [insert name of arrested drug boss]?".  So long as the spells are cast when no-one's watching, those sorts of statements are unlikely to raise suspicion enough to lead to an assensing.

If we didn't care about bloodshed, we could also do illusions that make them think that one of the other gangs is positioning to be aggressive, but that's more likely to trigger a fight than a flight, so may be best to avoid that.

I know this might be a silly question, but would it be too late/impossible for WD to carry the scorpion with him?  That way we can have two sets of eyes if we do manage to get into the building?

I couldn't think of a good way to get it to him.  If the leader agrees to let him come in, it'd be hard to say "just a sec, I need to get some things".  And I presume he'll be escorted, so it'll be hard to bend down to pick up the scorpion without being noticed.  And there's a likelihood he'll be searched on the way in.

I can drive the scorpion at up to 1 m/s, though allowing for stealthy pauses followed by bursts of speed, I'll probably average half of that.  Assuming about 300 meters actual travel distance - allowing for moving around or over obstacles and keeping to cover, it'll take me about 10 minutes to make it to the building.  Whether I'll make it before White Duck depends on what sorts of delays there are.  If things move quickly, he can always stall a bit while they're patting him down, etc. to give me more opportunity to get into position.  It's a bit more of a concern if they take his comms.

WD - by "take the sewer route" do you mean you're game for the idea of setting up some external distractions and setting things up so we trigger stuff when Docwagon arrives and use the distraction to disable our target and grab the chip before they can respond?

If you have other ideas, feel free to share.

Also, do you have serious objections to an outcome that results in the leadership all being dead and the peons in some degree of a gang war fighting each other?  It's going to be *very* hard to pull this off without a risk of many of the gangers getting hurt.  And Copperhead's not likely to sign off on an outcome that doesn't involve blowing the warehouse by setting off the heavy munitions unless she's confident that LoneStar is going to take care of it (i.e. they're already inbound)

In terms of my contributions to the party, I have the following on-hand in the van:
Non-lethal: 3 concussion, 3 Neuro-stun VII, 3 IR smoke, 3 CS/Tear gas, 2 Nausea non-aero grenades; 3 flashpaks
Lethal: 3 HE and 2 white phospohrus grenades + 5kg of plastic (compound IV)

I've also got 2 radio detonators.

I think for inside, we'll plan on 3 neurostun grenades, one concussion and one smoke and a couple of the flashpacks inside.  We can then use some of the others for outside as a distraction.  If we can use the scorpion and/or magic fingers to distribute the grenades beforehand, that'd be ideal.  A force 4 hearth spirit to provide concealment plus an illusion that the sewer cover is right where it's supposed to be should in theory allow WD and Caduceus to get into the room before things start so that once the gas kicks in and the smoke, concussion and flashpacks go off, they can move straight to grabbing the chip and getting back out.  I figure Caduceus can be responsible for grabbing the chip (hopefully from an unconscious target if the gas grenades and scorpion are successful).  WD and the spirit will provide cover and deal with anyone who looks like they'll get in the way.  As soon as they're safely down the hole, we blow the warehouse.  Outside, Noruas can keep chaos going with the bigger drone and the van, then bug out.

While 'I' am all for the plan since its nice and simple (and not the standard Copperhead/Firefox-style of pages upon pages worth of details), I do have a question in regards to my character's role in this plan.

Can my character multi-task?

In real life I'm sure I could possibly drive a van (well enough) while shooting a grenade launcher (poorly aimed and recklessly out the side of a window), I don't think I can possibly fly a UAV with my feet as well.  Having said that, are there any rules in the game with regards to multi-tasking?  Or am I going to be switching between active roles by the millisecond?

I can add more details if you'd like ;>

Both the drone and the van have an autopilot.  So long as things don't get too complicated, they can drive/fly on their own without crashing if you've given them instructions.  The drone can even shoot on its own.  It'll fire *better* if you're directly controlling it, but in this case, we're just trying to sow confusion, so it doesn't much matter whether you hit anything.  You'll sort of be playing the role of conductor sitting in "armchair" mode where you can see what's going on everywhere and sending instructions as to what each vehicle is to do and maintaining situational awareness and trying to make sure that neither vehicle gets into trouble.

It may actually be best to keep the van out of it and for you to focus on the drone.  I *really* don't want them to take out the drone, but realistically, it'll be impossible for anyone who doesn't have a heavy weapon.  And if the drone gets lost, the money for the chips should cover it.  On the other hand, the van is our ticket out.  So it'd be best if we didn't have a swarm of bikers trying to take it out.  We should probably only using it if we need to.

Understood.  Thanks.

Only open question then is whether we're ok with taking out the gang leadership.  I know WD doesn't want to cause too much damage to the Tuskers, but I suspect he's not a huge fan of the leadership right now.  And that's not a call we have to make right away, so we can discuss it here for a bit before anything else happens.

I haven't heard any objections, so I'm going to start moving things forward.

Sure thing, no objections here. I agree with the plan CH pitched, and my character might be a bit better at navigating the underground than most people.

WD, I think you're going to be taking the lead on planting the grenades, so indicate how you'd like Caduceus and Noruas to support you, describe what you're doing and make the necessary rolls - which will presumably be stealth and maybe a bit of disguise or other things mixed in.  You'll get access to any encrypted enemy coms after about an hour.  Non-encrypted stuff and overwatch you'll have right away.  Objective is to make noise and trigger a brief panic in the external stuff so they can distract the leadership before we jam radios.  You can decide on the appropriate mix of death and property damage vs. just general chaos, as well as who you want targeted for the former vs. the latter.

Papa will decide if my rather weak knowledge roll on gang info was enough for me to indicate any of my own preference (i.e. those that the Hell Hounds are currently allied with or opposed to).

I'm planning to send my drone alone through the tunnels with IR and ultrasound once I'm done cracking radios.  If you want to be involved in the scouting, let me know before then.

That I do, actually.

Well, I was waiting to hear White Duck's response to Caduceus's question would be in the IC thread, but at this point should I just have Caduceus go off on his own and plant some grenades and/or suggestions?  Are Copperhead's grenades able to remote-trigger?  I would rather Caduceus not be too close by when people start scanning the area for saboteurs.  Especially if there are people in astral space able to see Caduceus working his magic.  He is going to be in trouble if he gets into any sort of combat situation.

Yeah, I sort of expected WD to take the lead with grenade-planting.  He may have limited availability again.  I'll let Papa make the call about whether we should proceed or wait for him - given he's likely to be the one most in harms way...

The grenades will all be set to detonate from a single remote-control signal.  Noruas can trigger them when we're ready to go in the warehouse

Yeah, it has been a while, and WD has had some availability issues before. We can NPC him until he jumps in to tell us otherwise.

Caduceus, you can either take the lead, or the group can agree WD will plant the grenades, in which case I'll roll on his behalf. I'll aim to post Monday/Tuesday.

(Also I'll say, since I got my promotion, my life has been absolutely bonkers. Most of these delays are my fault. But I do want to keep things moving if I can help it.)

Congrats on the promotion!

Congrats on the promo, condolences on the bonkers :)  Hope things settle down to a manageable state.

Due to the command-in-chief putting a freeze on hiring and general lunacy... I've probably got three years, nine months before things settle again.

It's good to be a Canadian . . . :>

Noruas doesn't actually have to switch channels.  He's in the virtual equivalent of the command chair of a security room with dozens of AV (and a few audio) feeds around him, with the ability to toggle any one of them to the big screen or zoom or pan as he sees fit.

I didn't know I was getting unprecedented access!  Why, thank you!  ;)

Caduceus, presume you'll summon a second spirit once you're beneath the grate who can conceal and guard the two of you and the scorpion and be ready to confuse anyone who tries to attack us?.

I presume the two of you will remove the bolts and try to slip in unnoticed.  I'll pull the trigger on the bracelet as soon as you're in.  While you wait from cover,  You can use the scorpion and/or magic fingers to try to position a couple of the gas grenades as well as the grenade that's going to take down the warehouse.

Noruas should detect the inbound DocWagon chopper from the drone before anyone else notices, so we can get positioned.

Caduceus, it's your call whether you want to try to use your magic fingers before we set off all of the grenades or after.

If the former, you grab the chip, we blow the gas grenades and distraction grenades and Noruas opens up with his distractive fire while the two of you (and hopefully the scorpion) head back down to the sewer.  As soon as you two are clear, I blow the warehouse.

If the latter, then I'll try to do a sneak attack on our target with the scorpion.  As soon as the needle plunges in, Noruas will set off all the grenades.  Hopefully the combination of the injection plus the gas grenades will take our target down.  The two of you can figure out how to grab the grenade and cover each other in the smoke and confusion and get your hoops back to the sewer.

In the sewer, I'll position my crawler to cover your retreat.  Anyone who comes down before we blow the warehouse is going to get a couple of shotgun blasts to the legs or face before they can do much.  Bigger risk is someone dropping down a grenade.  In that case, all the crawler can do is eat a bit of the blast.

Once the warehouse blows, Noruas can get the van to the pick-up point while I provide overwatch and cover with the aerial drone as necessary.

Any other details we need to figure out before we pull the trigger?

As soon as Caduceus enters the hearth domain, he will conjure a hearth spirit or two to conceal and guard them, and confuse people when the bombs go off, and maybe look for astral presences for them before heading in.  He will use his Stealth spell to make the sewer cover silent as they open it and peek inside with Clairvoyance before climbing up to make sure the coast is clear.  Maybe do a mind link with Duck as well in case these guys have radio jammers of their own.

Once they are in a good position, Caduceus can help set the gas grenades and wait for the gas attack/injection before he and Duck go about removing the chip and getting out of there.  He doesn't want to deal with this guy while he is conscious if he doesn't have to, considering how well it went the last time he dealt with someone with a chip in.  (She resisted his suggestion spell and later stabbed him in the gut.)

Would Caduceus be able to use the Antidote spell on themselves right now to boost their resistance to Copperhead's gas, or would he need to wait until they are actually exposed to it?