They have a mage on watch. He/she/it will notice the spell building (takes hours) and astral track it.

As I said, I'm not 100% sure how this will work out, but I don't think detection is very likely. Ritual has to be completed first for the spell to be even able to come anywhere near the target, so we can't be traced back through a spell while the ritual is in progress. Assuming that tracing back a clairvoyance-type spell back to its source is even possible.

So the only way for them to catch us while we are doing the ritual is if they actually notice it being cast. But why would they? Why would that mage keep astral watch on a room in a building 2 kilometers away in the city? I don't think that rituals are inherently more noticeable in astral space than normal spellcasting, or at least I did not find anything about that in the book. And keep in mind that this will be a low force ritual (it will have to be, as Winter is not really an expert here), yet with Mason helping even Force 2 is likely to give enough range to the spell to keep that mage 2 kilometres away. And the ritual is cast behind a barrier anyway.

To be clear, I don't mind at all if we try something else instead to get some info on the target, as long as we try something. Going there, kicking in the doors of the first building, trashing the place, realizing the server is not there, then going back outside to try the same with the next building, all while we are being shot at is something I would like to avoid if possible.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:20, Fri 02 Oct 2020.

I can pilot a microdrone in on silent and peek around. Then if I find a room of computers, cyber stealth in to find the right one.

For clarification on the Detection spell ruling, here's the definition of the 'Passive' quality from the rulebook:



If anyone in the target area gets line of sight on the subject, physical or Astral, they can detect the spell. Otherwise, it's undetectable.

In reply to Cheshire (msg # 289):

That sounds like a plan, assuming it doesn't get spotted.

I'll post tonight or tomorrow.

So, a bit of ritual surveillance (scrying  if you like) and a good ol' drone snooping? I'm not well clued up on drone rules, but I'm assuming its got all the necessary sensor gubbins to get what we need?

No reason we can't try both, right? Or any other ideas?

And thinking ahead, how would we proceed with the actual mission? Try to sneak in or go fast and loud right from the start? Through the gate or cut through the fence? We have lot of magic at our disposal, so we could even try levitating the whole team over the fence and up on the building with the servers.

I take it we have enough reagents of the correct type to pull off the ritual? I have 10 for use by hermetic nerdy types.

I have plenty. Those things are crazy good for a dedicated spellcaster. Anyway, let's do this then.

I, uh...meant today...<.< >.>

I'll try to clear some things up, if I can. First, teamwork:



Ok, the limit goes up by 1 for each successful assistant, but leader can only get extra dice up to his skill rating, which was already covered by Drifter. Winter's actual skill is not that great, I'm afraid. As for the drain:



So, since defense only rolled 1 success, we each need to soak the minimum 2 drain. I think.

Also, I've mistakenly written that I needed only one success on my ritual spellcasting roll, I needed 2 to beat the defense roll. Fortunately that worked out alright.

In reply to Winter (msg # 298):

Yeah, all that seems fine. I'll put the results up sometime tomorrow.
:)

GM, Drifter and Mason participated in the ritual, so they should be receiving the same info from the spell Winter is, I think. Would it be ok if I shared it with them then?

Guard patrol routes & numbers? Fence construction? Regular staff numbers & where they tend to go? Car parks/pool areas? (I case we need an IEDistraction), area rating? That's all I can think of on 5hrs sleep.

In reply to Winter (msg # 300):

Of course. I wasn't sure who the target of the ritual was, so I left it up to you. :)

Alright, I'll share the info directly with Drifter and Mason. Not sure about the rest of the team, there's a lot of info here (great post by you btw, obviously you've put a lot of effort into this). We can summarize it for them, I guess? Not sure if is possible to record the data from the spell. Maybe with a simrig, assuming someone has one?

Wow, that is a lot of info. The only thing missing is the area rating, but thats me not being clear in what I meant. I was asking if the one not involved in the ritual might be able to find if its in a Z zone, or if its more elite the barrels. Im thinking for KE response times if when it goes noisy.

In reply to FreeMason (msg # 304):

Oh, of course. Right. The area in question is a small corporate base / testing ground, so it's 100% corpsec. If they do bring anybody in, it'll be from their main HQ in Seattle proper.

Plan A: Sneaky sneaky ninja.
Summon spirit. Use Concealment power. Cross fence/ward.
Summon new spirit. Use Concealment power. Move to spiders. Sneaky bash spiders.
Armed with the spiders codes, sneaky bash mage.
(order of these two may be reversed if desireable)
Using override codes from spiders, move sneaky to server. Apply magnet.
Leave.

Cheshire can send a drone down the vent along with her hand (think Thing from the Addams family) to attempt to get the paydata. Can also send some microdrones down the wiring at the base of the fountain to fry wires connection and disable security. Cheshire can meanwhile lie in wait to brick the spiders when it gets loud. We can sneak in probably, but it will most likely get loud before we leave. She has an Ares Roadmaster with a ram plate...to drive through the fence for us to get on and leave.

Ok, since I'm out of question, I guess we can wrap the ritual up? Wait, here's one more, is there anyone present in those servers when Winter looks inside?


Anyway, about our plans... we need to "destroy the servers where the data is located". First problem, there are two of them in two buildings, both similarly fortified. Which one do we hit? The bigger one? Both of them to make sure?

Second problem, watcher spirits guarding the perimeter. If we try to sneak in, would stealth or even invisibility help at all against them? Would concealment power?

Third problem, if we are going in loud, in worst case scenario we could be facing 40+ guards just on site, judging by the number of bunks for security personnel in the facility. Admittedly they are probably not all of them there all the time, but a good part is likely to be. And while they are not full on special forces, they are reasonably well equipped and seem to know what they are doing.


The spell gave quite a lot of info that I'm not sure how to present, whether to just post for everyone to read or try to summarise it. I guess I could just post it openly and we could handwave it as a recording of the scouting, if someone has a simrig Winter could borrow? Or handwave it as just a very detailed debrief later to the team members that did not participate in the ritual?

Cheshire could have the host to see where the physical location of the right server is. The guard house can be rigged to lock people in. The Watcher spirit is a big concern. We would basically need a distraction to pull them away from a specific spot.

Maybe hack the armoury too, to stop anyone coming after us in armed/armoured vehicles. As for getting through the fence and distractions, does anyone have any gang type contacts?

Although this creates problems, I'd say hit both sets of servers to be sure of success. There must be access for meta humans somewhere for maintenance, upgrades and whatnot. Do any of you hacker types know if shutting the cooling systems off (& any backups) would do the job? Might be those systems are less heavily protected than the actual servers.

If we can keep the security rigger occupied elsewhere, do we have the means to break into the relevant buildings quietly? Or are we making our own "doorway"?

*facepalm* I'm an idiot. Even more so because it might have already been mentioned. With all the magicians we have, getting an eart spirit to tunnel under the fence in the right place shouldn't be a problem, right?