This is indeed play time, but in the format of a run. Expect silliness. None of the bad stuff resulting from this run will follow you afterwards (including PC death), but karma earned will.

Pants stands up and kills all the other members of the team.  he then pulls out a phone and calls a number, "It's done sir.  You don't have to worry about them anymore."

Pants shakes himself awake and realizes that he dozed off some and was daydreaming while waiting for the food and the Johnson.

:P I have my next post drafted and was ABOUT to post it when Warlock posted, so I figured I'd hold on just a little longer.

I follow the Elf who fell out of the ugly tree and fell on the ugly ground back around to the side of the club. I attempt to keep all comments to myself as I take a seat with the rest of the group. I quietly wish I had a comprehend languages skill as I have no fucking idea what some people are saying. I point randomly at the menu and use haughty dismissiveness to hide the fact that I cannot read the damn thing.

I look around the table as people do introductions. I try to remember what I can, as it seems expected of me to respond, I do. "You can call me Castanova. I think my name pretty much says it all." I pull down the hood of my KICK ASS robes to reveal a very young man sporting an unkempt red afro with pasty "never been outta the basement before" skin tone.

I go back to surveying the placemat, and flip it over to start drawing some really terrible anime on the back while I wait for food, and try and figure out exactly which one of these people is out to get me. Or if they all are. I should probably just plan for that....

(Thank goodness Warlock is playing dumb. That post made me flinch so hard...)

The waiter waits patiently, then takes down your orders. She makes a face at Twitch's order, but doesn't say anything. She heads towards the back and intercepts the sommelier. The two have a hurried but whispered conversation. He laughs, nods, and heads back.

You continue to wait until nearly half after before the maitre'd arrives, ushering in a tall, impeccably dressed elf. The elf sits and rattles off a quick food order without even looking at the menu. The maitre'd takes the menu and bows, then hurries off.

Once the staff is gone he acknowledges you. "Ah, I'm pleased to see you made it.

"You may call me Mr. Johnson, of course. I know it is rude to go immediately to business, but by doing otherwise we would have to suffer either uncomfortable silence, or your banter, so let us make this quick while we wait for my food."

He produces a pocket secretary and pushes it across the table, then waits for you to read (six heads crowded around a tiny screen, I imagine it's a bit of a feat).

The p-sec has, neatly tyuped out, the following statement:

"This year the popular trid show, UCAS Idolize, goes into its seventh season. It would seem that a candidate in favor with those in power is not in favor with the voting public. Without the votes of viewers, the favored candidate will not proceed to be crowned as the greatest new pop singer that week. This is unacceptable to several powerful parties who are willing to pay for an unexpected shift in the competition. Each member of the party will be paid a sum of 10,000¥ for successfully <<press down>>
kidnapping the current leading contender. Payment is due on successful delivery of said contender, alive, to me, Mr. Johnson. If any other UCAS Idolize contestants are eliminated from the competition, no payment will be rendered. Upon payment, the contract is terminated, and neither party holds any further obligations over the other. <<end>> "

As the party finishes reading, Mr. Johnson pushes a manila envelope across the table. Careful block letters across the top say 'TARGET'. Within are pictures and dossier on the leading candidate.

Name: Becka (presumed to have no last name)
Species: drop bear
Weight: 23 kg
Height: 1.2m
Physical description: Sable colored fur with coral colored eyes, ear tips marked with self-described "chocolate tufts"
City and country of birth: Australia (more detailed information lacking)

Current status:
Becka is currently the leading contestant in the popular competitive singing trid show, UCAS Idolize. Poorly rated by journalists due to her inability to actually vocalize words, Becka has, every week, pulled in record numbers of votes. Shows oriented around Becka have gotten unprecedented ratings, which have encouraged the corporate sponsorship to allow her continuation in the competition despite requests to the contrary. Analysts believe she will easily win the competition.

Residence:
She is currently residing in a hotel suite adjoining the trideo studio. The suite and its security are all provided by U-Luv-It productions, a media subsidiary of Mitsuhama. She is believed to share her suite with a personal trainer by the name of Baz Ulbrich and three Elvis impersonators. Her room number is 1213, at the address 1414 124th Ave. NE in Bellevue.


While you're reading (and discussing), the food arrives;

St. Valentine is given a plate of two hot dogs and a large side of french fries.
Twitch receives his order of soup, salad, and risotto. The meat tastes a touch odd.
Firefox is handed a platter of green leaves, small, white flower carvings, colorful fruit and an assortment of other vegetation. It's not precisely clear which part is meant to be eaten.
Snow (the shadowrunner previously known as St_nougat) is handed a colorful salad, or possibly a bouquet
Castanova is provided with a tasty-looking, flaky, fruity tart. Sort of describes most of the people in the restaurant, actually.
Carver receives an extra plate and set of silverware.
The waiter brings out two bottles of wine and opens them, and pours water for everyone.

In front of the Johnson is placed a plate of live kittens which he proceeds to eat with relish.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:17, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

When the Johnson is finished spreading relish over his mewling kittens, Carver takes the rest of the ex-cucumber chutney and spreads it over his plate in an iconography most commonly referred to as a "frowny face". Embellishing with some of Valentine's Mustard and/or ketchup, he proceeds to demonstrate his condiment-laden sadness at the waiter until some form of food (preferably neither presently alive nor mewling) is placed on his plate.

"Has she been declawed and fanged, or has she slid past that terrible 'gruesome mauling' incident involving an underage fan two weeks ago?"

"No. She is, unfortunately, completely uncut."

"Kittens are better with mint chutney," Pants says offhandedly.

"A few questions, Sir.  First what is our time frame for retrieving the bear?  Second, assuming we accept the job because frankly I think it would be great for a bear to win that abomination that is considered entertainment, how are we to contact you?  Third, What is a Drop Bear? Fourth, can you prove us with any information on U-Luv-it production or their security?  and fifth, again assuming we accept, we will need a retainer for our services, are you able to pay that retainer?  there is nothing mentioned one here in this note."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:31, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

I lean over and take a bite of the flaky fruity goodness after processing the job for a moment. Hmmm...Flaky and Fruity. Must be elven. I grin to myself and pull out my spell book, and do a Fuchi Search for "Drop Bear" and pulling up the most relevant info I can. "This is all I know" I slide the pocsec that has "Spellbook" written on the back of it over to Mr. Question pants.

"If we are acquiring this sort of critter, I expect part of my payment to be a street-legal security helmet, up front. I don't even know how you are supposed to cuff them. Splat glue and a cabbage?"
Seeing no food is forthcoming, Carver pulls out a ReelKrill MRE, rips it open and spreads the contents on his part of the table. He sets the burner on his clean plate, lights it, and begins heating his faux chicken-massala. He briefly considers trying to make a "ranger cookie" out of the sugar, but instead dumps it and the dehydrated lemon-flavored chemical extract (or as the package calls it "lemon-flavored ade-product") into his glass of water. When the fizzing dies down, he picks out the reconstituted lemon-esque (tm) pulp out, and wipes it on the table cloth.

Firefox suppresses the surge of bile as she watches their Johnson break the first kitten's neck before sawing off one of its paws.  She held a spell ready to stun the remaining kittens should the elf not prove so compassionate the next time.  Apparently this one liked making an impression and so far she wasn't terribly impressed.

"There was no mention here of the degree of subtlety required here.  Obviously deniability on your part and that of your employers is a given.  However, this could be done noisily or quietly.  Is the objective here for Ms. Becka to simply go for a walk and not return with her manager expressing concern about her whereabouts, or are tabloid feeds of masked commandos throwing her into a van acceptable?  Naturally there is somewhat of price differential.

Given your employer's interest in the outcome, it seems likely that they may have some resources in place.  Is there any chance of gaining access to some of those?  Given that there will be expenses incurred prior to delivery, some sort of retainer or arrangement for expenses will naturally be required.  A portion of this could naturally be provided 'in kind'."

quote:

13:07, Today: Firefox rolled 2 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 2,4,1,2,5,3. Negotiation - bargaining (keeping dice).

That was pretty poor . . .

Mr. question pants hands the phone back to 'Fro, "Thank you."  and then looks at the dwarf, "Seriously?"

Twitch pushes his plate away no longer hungry.  The spectacle in front of him reminding him of a circus more than a meet.  He waits patiently for Firefox to finish with negotiations before saying anything.  After she finishes he merely states, "I will require buying some gel rounds for this mission."

OOC:  I am willing to share my karma pool if Firefox would like to reroll."

Confused by Mr. Pants' expression, he mumbles "do you want some?"

"No thank you but maybe you should let the adults do the talking now before you deep six the deal demand impossible things."

I give a nod to Mr. Question-pants and take my spellbook back and look over the details again. As things seem to be heating up, I put it away and focus a bit on my tasty fruit pastry. I make sure my fireball spell is ready in the event that things take a turn for the worse. I consider this thought for a moment, as there are many bystandars, and elven wood burns best. Perhaps a stun spell is in order...

Carver shrugs, looks back to his curry and mutters "You wanna talk then talk, stretch. Don't be bringing height in so early like it earns you a privilege." He glances to Warlock and points at the PDA "Mind if I take a peek at that? Non-metas not exactly my forté"

Saint Velveteen frowned at his hotdogs.  When he ordered two somethings, he had been hoping for something... more impressive.  He took a small bite anyway (causing half the hotdog to disappear), and it tasted pretty good.  Seeing their Johnson snacking on kittens, however, was a bit off putting.  He cringed when he thought about how many hours it would take to pick that fluffy fur out from between your teeth.  And with relish?  Now that was disgusting.

St. V leaned back in his strained chair as he waited for everyone to finish their bickering and bargaining.  Everyone seemed to need something.  Everyone but himself.  As long as he had his arms and his legs, he had everything he would need to complete the mission.  Of course other tools would be useful, but he always seemed to somehow end up on the losing end when he tried to negotiate.  He didn't know why, seeing as he was pretty good at it...

"We almost done here?" St. V asked impatiently as he nibbled on his last fry.  He doubted the answer was yes, so he pulled one of the place mats toward him that everyone seemed so engrossed in.  Saint Velveteen lets out a fart he had been holding in since arriving, silent but deadly, then says, "Let me know when we are."

Twitch is stunned at the blatant display of racism in front of the Johnson but manages to keep his professional face on and looks over the information the Johnson provides also wondering what a "Drop Bear" is.  "This meet is certainly not going well." he thinks as he reviews the information.

"nothing to do with race, everything to do with behavior."

Pants pauses, "you should be careful about playing the race card so quick."

Pants shrugs.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:58, Tue 28 Jan 2014.

"We can talk on this later." Carver grins through gritted teeth, slots a chip into his jack, allows his implanted cybergoggles to slide into place, and eats his MRE.

(I don't normally quote, but there's a lot going on ...)



"Before she wins, obviously! The big finale is on ..."
Mr. Johnson peeks under the table, where a small booklet labelled "Bear With Me" is tucked, just under the table cloth... "It doesn't say. Let's go for Tuesday. Is Tuesday good for everyone? Okay, Tuesday."



"Did you know that drop bears are not actually bears? In fact, they're more closely related to pandas! It's true."

"I'll give you my phone number. Just don't call me on Monday. Scandal is on on Monday. If you interrupt my Scandal, I swear to God, I will cut you."



"Ah! An excellent question. So good in fact, that I won't answer any of the ones that follow, because they pale in comparison."


warlock can find a quick article online. Renraku's Rakupiki gives an article something like this:
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Drop-Bear



"Oh, I'm sorry, I think I missed the bit where I'm a haberdasher.

"I don't pay in hat-wear, nor in kippers, nor bitcoins, nor little bags of drugs, nor whatever else you kids are using these days. I pay in nuyen, or sometimes VHS tapes of old reruns and expired Arby's coupons. At my discretion, of course."

(BTW, love the image of someone eating an MRE in a fine restaurant. Fantastic!)



"If subtlety were required, I wouldn't be hiring you lot, would I? Smash, grab, I don't care. It's reality television; no one believes anything on there anyway. Just don't kill any of the other contendors. That's important. Or do; I prefer not having to pay my runners."



"Well you would be mistaken. I .. my employers don't have any special 'ins'. That's why I'm hiring you lot. Just use one of your ... kablooey gun things, make a hole, and put her in a sack. Then hit her with clubs until she's compliant. And call me on the cellular telephone."

"And I don't pay ahead. Give you lot money before the job's done? I may as well flush it down the toilet. Look, you're not even done with the meeting and that one is talking about his next round of gels. Damn addicts."

Mr. J got four successes on his negotiation check. I believe that reduces the pay per person by 10% ;)

On a more serious note, SILLY FUN. Don't get bent out of shape with other people on the goofy adventure. Save that for Silver Angel.

I also love the idea of the party fighting over the negotiations table and warlock fireballs everyone. My normal runs are never this good!

I begin to slide my poc-sec over to the other man tremulously, and am very happy to see his visor go down, I listen quietly to the Johnson as he replies. Something tells me that this is not going very well. Not well at all. Then. It hits me. Like a ton of bricks, it hits me. I stifle the laugh as best as I can. How am I going to tell my friends about the meet with the Johnson who was eating pussy RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I do everything I can to contain the chuckles, but it is useless. I try and distract my situation by contacting my bookie and seeing what kind of numbers there are on the competition. If the numbers are good, I make a bet.

"Tuesday," Pants says slowly, "seeing how today is Monday I believe that you're going to have to pay us a hell of a lot more and then get home so that you can watch scandal."

Pants looks at his wrist where a watch would be if he had one, "tick tock.  Scandal is on at what time?  oh an hour.  and with the traffic out there today.  if we can seal this deal quickly you might make it before the first commercial break..."

He glances at his watch. "Next Tuesday. But you're right." he motions for the waiter to box up the remaining kittens.