The Revolver was a hole-in-the wall dive bar skirting the edge of the undercity. Old-world neon covered the interior walls, advertising alcohol in dead languages. The music was blasting so loud patrons had to watch their glasses didn't vibrate off the counter when they weren't looking, and the snake-skinned, heavily tattoed, indiscernably gendered bartender had earned the name Sisyphus for their fruitless efforts to keep the synthol splashed over the counters to a level that was merely 'sticky' and not 'damp'.

It was a good day. A Rook - a member of the Gothic secret police that served as double agents between the government and the corps - had reached out to discuss a job, and had been willing to meet on Feast4Flower's home turf. Sisyphus was a Serpent-Servant, and that meant the Revolver was neutral ground.

Sisyphus lined up six shots of synthol in front of Feasty and Slate - the signature deal of the Revolver. "Your pet Dusky says hello - even comped this buzz."

The pre-dampened napkin beneath the shots was inked up, some kind of thaumacode linking to a darksite on the Weave. Had security, no passcode - some kind of riddle. First test before she even got know what she being tested for, looked like.

[Intelligence + Tech roll, Internet Savvy applies. Your total dice pool is 6d10.]

Azalea was grateful to land a gig so immediately. She drank in the atmosphere of The Revolver with a chuckle. It was exactly the sort of sight you had to ‘pay admission’ for. It would’ve been better if it wasn't the day after she stole away into the fresh corpse of mercenary Candy Cranston.

Azalea scanned the bar for anyone who looked like they might be her job contact. ‘Candy’ had set it up a couple days before Azalea took over management. Due to a certain deal, Azalea only had half of her memories to work with, and even those were playing coy. She would have to play things by ear.

Slate almost walked into her on his way to the bar. “Huh? Something up, C?” His tired-looking eyes locked on Azalea as he hobbled past her on his fresh crutch. He took a seat at the bar in front of Sisyphus. Azalea could feel him counting how long it took for her to finally join him.

“Ah, hey, yeah. Dusky! Love that guy.” Azalea wracked her half of Candy’s memories, trying to find… whoever this guy was.

“She’s fine. She’s nervous about leading the job for once.” Slate said. He wasn’t going to let on their de-facto leader might be suffering from some kind of brain damage. That had to be it, right? Sisyphus was potential work and that meant a potential lifeline.

All three threw back their shots, and Azalea tried not to gawk at Sisyphus. She wondered when or if the novelty of this world would ever wear off. She instead fixated her attention on the napkin. It didn’t look entirely unlike a QR code. Was it something- Ooh, that first shot had an afterburn. And she was supposed to drink three of those?

What was she… how was she supposed to make the napkin… do a thing? She could feel Slate’s expectant gaze boring into her. “We had a bit of trouble yesterday. She’s just tired. She’ll get it.” Slate washed the excuse from his mouth with another shot.

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Feast4Flowers rolled 27 using 6d10 ((3,5,4,4,2,9)).

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“I think I left my, uh, whatchamacallit…” Azalea mimed a small, handheld device and pretended to have simply lost a word she’d never heard before. With some luck she was somewhere in the ballpark of plausibility. “For the uh, code thing.” She was going to have to bone up on as much lore as she could get, and as fast as she could. She couldn’t afford to get caught up on stuff like this.

Sisyphus looked at you blankly. "You . . . left your impchant at home?"

The scaly bartender poked you in the forehead, touching a faint triangular identation there.

"Did you leave your frontal lobe at home too? Yeshu Crest, Slate, was this hermana's drive slagged?" There was a joking tone in there, but also genuine concern.

Trying again, you looked at the thaumacode through your 3rdEye impchant that all children were practically given at birth to get around in a post-perceptive society. A second scene unfolded like a black box kaledioscope before you, revealing a petite man in a black suit sitting on a stool. The second scene, through your 3rdEye, overlapped with your natural perception without obscuring it - there was transparency to it, and you could shift your attention to make either scene opaque and the other transparent.

A flash of of electric pain ran through Feast4Flowers, like someone tapping your funnybone, only all over. It was gone just as fast. "TESig verified - Neo-academ. A new godling walks amonst us. A little veal piglet ripe for slaughter." the Rook sipped from a steaming thermos. "Now, I tell you that because you need protection, young lady. You are a free meal ticket for anyone who finds out you have an extra friend riding in that thick skull of yours."

"Consider that an added benefit of this job, aside from the Sol. While you are working for me, the corps will keep thinking you are dead."

He took another drink from his thermos, and checked an Old World watch on his wrist. Feast4Flowers was perceptive enough to pick up that she was looking at man disconnected from the system - he did not have the same impchant on his forehead that she and almost everyone else did. A ghost.

"There is a rumour of something unusual going down at a certain salacious establishment near here, soon. Corporate augury has already jumped up their insurance premium in anticipation. The Olympians are likely involved, in some capacity - this is their turf. Are you confident in your ability to investigate this without bloodshed?"

Slate kept his expression steady, fighting back any give of his own confusion. He plastered a simulacrum of his usual deadpan, playing it off like everything was perfectly routine. He’d have time to glare daggers and prod questions when they weren’t sealing a deal. He kneaded at his temples for just a moment. “We had a big job, and she took a knock to the noggin. She’s seen a chop-doc, she can do the job. I’d do it myself, but I need to go back to said chop-doc for a leg fitting later.” He tried to make it sound like this was just run-of-the-mill business for them, and nothing to worry about.

Never mind all the other color suits were dead. They were effectively leaderless. And the support-gunner-social-media-manager was their most capable frontline agent. And she was… off. But she was all he had, so by the gods, he would make her do it.

He shot Candy some don’t-fuck-this-up eyes. She shot don’t-tell-me-not-to-fuck-this-up eyes back, and took the reins. “Brain hiccup. Doc’s painkillers have me lagging a frame. Gold’s usually the frontman, but his schedule’s keeping him. I’m good, just expect to recap here and there.”

She tried focusing on the impchant. Hmm. So it’s like AR then. No wonder people walking around seemed so… distracted. Azalea’d seen more than one person almost trip over a curb on their walk here. She winced at the sharp little pain. “Tch.” She narrowed her eyes at the mention of the extra friend. Did he mean her or the toad? She was going to have to look into some kind of data security after this, if someone could know that much so easily. “Well, I can’t say I mind the cover. The Olympians, huh?” And this was their turf, good to know. Well, if it was an investigation, she wouldn't be going out in bright pink battle armor. She wouldn't draw immediate aggro. “Should be able to go bloodlessly. What do we know about the case?”

She chewed over the other things he had said. TESig verified - Neo-academ. A new godling walks amonst us. She tried to dig into her half of Candy's memories, to see if that would've meant anything to her.