4pm rolls around. Noruas is wrapping up his day (close enough to taste it!) The rest of the party wake up by whatever is their preferred methods (or not at all, if your preferred method is 'someone calls you and shouts at you that it's time to get to work'.)

If people want to reach back to contacts about previous requests, or reach out to 'night time contacts', this is probably the time for it.

Duck asks Julie to hang back a bit when she makes her daily stop of arriving at his store when it opens, reading all of the new materials, then not paying for anything at all. In turn, she'd spotted him more than a few packs of naturally-rolled Native American-brand smokes during her time. If Duck were James Bond, she would be his MoneyPenny, with ever-present flirtation going on between the two since Duck had moved out to Seattle, likely never to be consummated in any way. Duck didn't like that he was so close to the young woman to begin with, and even though the two were only six years apart, he'd come to see her more as a sister over the years than someone he'd want romantic involvement with.

"Hoi, wanted to ask you if you knew about any off-grid docs that operate on awakened folks. My other job's got me investigating some leads, and, lo and behold, those leads take me right back to the runner community. Anyone you happen to know that would fit the M/O there?"

I'm expecting a call from Alfred.  Based on his predicted timeline, I presume his call will wake me up.

Actually, you were supposed to call him, but we can work it this way.

Albert calls back to Copperhead. "I did locate Ms. Goldenhair. She is in the medical offices of the esteemed "Dr. Bob Quickstitch, MD". I am sending you the address now. I did take the liberty of informing Dr. Quickstitch you would be stopping by to price some new implants.

"As for Mr. Cooperman, he has been surprisingly quiet. Nothing from the past few days. It's possible he's on travel. I hesitate to mention it, but it's also possible something more foul has befallen him. It is a liability of the circles he travels in. I will continue listening though. Apologies for the delay."

Julie looks up from book #239 of Transanim, a comic about about an intelligent red panda, a robot, and a talking human who go on space adventures together. She gives her trademark crooked grin "Yeah, of course. I've got a friend who does faith healings. She's a shark shaman, if you can believe it. She does this whole song and dance too, it's awesome. Why? You feeling okay?"

"Tanks.  Ya know where Cooperman likes ta squat?  Kin mebe do some legwork 'an see if 'e turns up.  Der's a short fuse on da job.  Not sayin' ya should stop yer diggin' doh."

It went without saying that the legwork would involve probing by her teammates.  Copperhead rarely got positive results when approaching strangers for information.  Or anything, really.

"Oh, hai, I'm feeling like my usual self. Even got a good nap in before we opened. Specifically, I'm looking for anyone that may have been taken in on <provide date of run here> and still might be kicking. Morgues have turned up nothing, which is good, but I figure you've got more knowledge in that area than me. Know anyone that'd fit that profile?" he responds, idly working on a deck of an old Steve Jackson card game called "Illuminati" as he sips his coffee.

After waking up, Caduceus checked his messages to see if he had any new notifications from his mortician friend or any of his team members, then got ready for another long night.  He grabbed a quick bite to eat, headed to his storage locker for his gear and motorcycle, then headed out to meet up with the others.  When he was already on the road he called up Copperhead to see where he could meet up with her vehicle, since it seemed to be their base of operations at the moment.  He was also curious to find out what information Noruas was able to dig up, but decided to wait until he was off his motorcycle before asking.

Albert responds, "Unfortunately, no. Mr. Cooperman keeps his personal life well concealed. But he is not normally difficult to reach."

Julie responds, "Hmm... Not my normal circles. I can ask around though. I don't suppose you have some more comic-book related questions? Or magic maybe?"

Caduceus message light blinks. There's a message from Kaira; "Hey, may have found your Jane Doe. Scraggly, blonde, wearing a couple bangles. She didn't check out as magic, but she's missing uh... pretty much everything. Bit of a dissection, really. You sure those perforations were bullets? Anyway, give me a call if you want to swing by. I'll bring out the bucket."

"Soka.  Keep diggin if ya can.  We'll go pay a visit ta Freya"

She dials up the team.  "I foun' da mage.  Duck, probably bes' if ya does the chattin.  An Snakey, be good ta have ya.  She may be hurtin, but spect she kin still wiggle 'er fingers.  Noruas, kin pick ya up too if yer done yer shift.  If ya kin run a back check ona Doc Bob QuickStitch first, dat'd be ace."

"Yeah, here's one for ya to ponder: Batman used to kill the shit out of people in the early days. Seriously, no code or anything. I have an issue reprint in the stacks somewhere where he murders this mentally ill guy by dragging him from a rope in a helicopter." he nods sagely, checking his comm when it rings and holding up his finger.

"Gotta take this."

"Well, let's hope she's receptive. Very good find, CH. I got nothin' here but that, that's something we can work with. You can pick me up at 8. Same place you dropped me off."

waiting a bit, as there aren't any actions listed here. Everyone ready to head to Bob's Quickstitch to meet Freya?

Want to give Caduceus and Noruas a chance to say whether they're coming with or not.  Also wondering whether Noruas learned anything interesting he wants to share.

Ready whenever you guys are.

Sorry, I meant to get a post up earlier yesterday, but it completely slipped my mind when I had time to do it.  Caduceus is ready to go!

Before taking off on his bike, Caduceus messaged Kaira back, "Thanks.  I'll let you know soon."

While picking up a serving of greasy mystery meat from a street vendor for a quick meal before work, Caduceus replied to Copperhead's call.  "I'm on my way," he confirmed, grinning at being called Snakey.  "Any of you dig up additional useful intel from your contact networks?"  Even as he asked he was busy texting Kaira, "I don't think I'll need the bucket."

Send me your location, and I'll meet you guys there.  Sorry, couldn't find much else on Cooperman.

The rigger provided the address, passing on advice to avoid the 173rd street bridge.  The combination of the poor maintenance and the metal scavenging from those who lived beneath made her certain it was bound to collapse.  And with her luck, a teammate would be the one to trigger it.

"Meet up wit my van.  I'll be a block away.  I gots a 'pointment.  Whitey, ya kin be my boyfren.  Snakey, ya kin mebe pass out in da waitin room while ya does yer astral stuff an fines our girl."

Understood.  I'll see you guys there.

Noruas heads home first to get cleaned up and take a quick nap before changing and putting on his mask and heading back out.

How long does it take me to get there, PB?

Noruas's ride is pretty uneventful, via subway and taxi.

The rest of the party proceeds to the clinic, when a light machine gun roars to life before the van. Copperhead immediately takes evasive maneuvers, pulling the van into a side alley while her drones boot up. A pair of bikes in Blood Rumbler colors, accompanies by a Red Rover roar by, spraying flechettes into a bar down the street, then peel off. Those midgets in the Red Hot Nukes aren't going to like the fact that their favorite hangout doesn't have a front window anymore. Copperhead can take a few turns and put some distance between them, in order to continue on unmolested.

The clinic itself is clearly marked with red crosses, probably using paint. The building is squat, reinforced cement, with steel shutters over the windows and a pair of old jeeps parked out front.

Go ahead and specify who enters and who is staying outside.

Although you expected it, the smell of disinfectant hangs heavy in the air. A place this size obviously cannot afford the ultrasonic disinfectors commonly used in hospitals and clinics throughout Seattle. You enter a small waiting room, decorated with dilapidated furniture and tasteless wall hangings. Across the room, a harried nurse sits behind a plexiglass screen, rapidly entering data into a well worn terminal.

You must have hit the slow time, because most of the chairs are empty. Except for a couple of rockers waiting in the corner, the remainder of the room's inhabitants are squatters. All are hoping for some free medical service, which is occasionally provided at the end of the day. The nurse continues her typing as you approach her station.

The Lonestar drone would already be flying.  Not much point activating the other drones.  It'd take 5 minutes to unload the Doberman and the RV's armor would be breached the whole time.

The evasive maneuvering wasn't strictly necessary, but there was no point advertising that she was armored. Ducking out of the way made her seem like no threat.  And she preferred to keep it that way until she was ready to unload some lead.

Copperhead's drone scoped out the area well before the bison arrived, scoping out a parking spot of sorts in an alley adjacent to the clinic.  If there's cabling suggesting a potential for an access point tap, she'll park right beside it.  The security situation made her a tad nervous.

"Snakey, ya wanna scan da place 'fore we goes in?  I'm thinkin' ta say dat it's my boyfren dat wants da cyber.  I wants ta get back ta o'er watch right fast.  Noruas er Snakey, one o' ya k wit stayin wit da rig 'til I gets back?  Lemme know on da comm if ya sees trouble."

She set the screen in the back to show feeds from the front and rear cameras of the Bison as well as the overall area view from the Lonestar drone, stationed a comfortable 1 klick up.  She shoved her deck into a tattered knapsack and stepped out into the rear of the RV, pulling on her respirator and goggles.  With her hoodie up, her scars were barely visible, but she seemed somehow disconcerting anyhow.

She considered digging out the drill and passing it to White Duck for kicks, but decided against it.  That man's hoop was still puckered up way too tight.

Noruas arrives on scene not long after the Rumblers had passed through.  He had gotten an hours worth of sleep but it did not help his mood.  He calls in to the team via his comms, I'm on the scene.  Just give me ten minutes to check out the outside of this place, then I'll join you guys back in the van, wherever that is.

The dwarf walks around the outside of the clinic observing and looking for openings of entrances or exits as well as points where he can tap into the matrix of the building.

"Yeah, I'll scan the place before you go in.  I can watch your vehicle for you when I'm back, but if you want any spiritual protection I will need to enter the premises.  Something for you to consider while I'm away."  With that, Caduceus slumped into one of Copperhead's seats and he shed his physical body as a snake sheds its skin.  After taking a second to make sure his own body hadn't slid into a haphazard position, he headed for the facility.

Firstly, Caduceus checked for any barriers the hospital may have, as well as for any other basic magical defenses that might sneak up on him.  Then, assuming the risks were minimal, he took note of the general layout of the facility before beginning his search for the mage.  He knew she was supposed to be badly injured so he scanned patients for auras that would reflect trauma similar to what he would expect her to have.  He would then take a closer look at the likely candidates' auras to determine who would be magically active.  Once he was pretty sure they had found their target, he would really peer into her aura and try to determine all he could about her (assuming she was not also looking back at him on the astral, or astrally projecting herself.)

There is a steel door in the back, but no handle. Most likely it can only be opened from inside. Noruas doesn't check if it's locked, but given how the rest of the building is fortified, it's a pretty good bet.

There are some lines to the building; power and telecom. But they seem to old to support proper, high-throughput Matrix work. Noruas may be able to crack into the telephones, but he doesn't expect to find much else wired up here.

Caduceus does a magical sweep of the clinic.

Duck gets out and has a smoke while the rest of the group does recon, idly wondering what sort of surgery one such as himself would possibly need or ask for.

After returning to his body and sitting upright, Caduceus reported his findings.  "Well, I didn't find the girl, but there was one room I couldn't enter.  It has a magical barrier.  I'm guessing that's where our target is.  It's the last patient room of the six that are there."  He gave more detailed instructions about where the room was so that they would know exactly where it was in relation to their current location.

Copperhead chugs down the remains of her coffee, then addresses the face.

"I 'sume ya wants ta talk yer way in 'gain.  Ya kin bring da case fer back-up 'r an extra set 'o eyes if ya wants.  I'll check ya in, den head back ta da van.  Ya wants anyone ta hang in da lobby fer backup?  Snakey kin probly grab a spirit ta 'stract folks if ya need.  'r plant some s'gestions.  Keep yer comm on, so ka?"

She did the best to keep the edge out of her voice when she said the last, but doubted she'd been successful.  Life would be so much easier if most jobs didn't require teams.

The rigger was hoping to make this a quick in and out.  She'd spent far more time in clinics than she cared to recall . . .

Noruas returns and reports his findings.

Seems there is no other way in.  There is an exit in the back with no way in.  No points in which I can tap in either.  Need me to go in with you guys as an extra gun?

Duck yawns, going through the idle motions of a kata to stretch out a bit.

"Doubt we've got a fight on our hands inside. Probably best served to keep all eyes on the exterior to handle any unknowns. I think as long as I'm careful around the wounded tiger herself, she won't bite, and if she does, it's not going to be in her advantage to do so, depending on how extensive the injuries. Do we have a name on her, by the way? It'll help."

You already know her name's Freya.

"Last name's Goldenhair.  Ya knows everythin else I does."

EDIT: fixed formatting
This message was last edited by the player at 03:27, Thu 05 May 2016.

"Hmm, maybe I can work the visitor angle." he checks his credstick for good measure.

"Hopefully I won't have to place any bribes. This op's had low overhead for us so far and I'd prefer to keep it that way. Anyway, a name works. I'll have to bullshit my way to her, but that's how I got through college, and usually how I get served quickly in a crowded bar. Anyone want to tag along with me in person? CH? As long we enter unarmed or appearing as such, I wouldn't mind having a guest with me, and poor old Cad is probably getting tired of looking at me."

"I gots a 'vitation.  I'll say it's fer you.  Dat'll get'cha ta da back.  From der, it's up ta yer silver tounge."

She unstraps the case and gestures to it with a bit of a shrug, then opens the door and steps out onto the puddled curb, avoiding a lump that looked questionable.  She walked to the reinforced entryway.  Her hand stayed close to the pistol strapped to her hip, not because she could do much with it, but because anyone sizing her up wasn't likely to know that.

"Wha' name ya wan me ta give?"

EDIT: Fixed formatting
This message was last edited by the player at 17:37, Thu 05 May 2016.

"Let's go with Donald LeBlanc." he says, combining the name of a rather famous duck with the French word for white. He actually knew a couple of guys named Donald LeBlanc back in Louisiana- two old fishermen that knew all of the good spots for fishing...and conveniently disposing of corpses, incidentally.

He walks up next to Copperhead, straightens his collar, and puts out his cigarette.

"Good to go."

"If you think you'll be ok, I'll stay out here and keep my eyes on the exterior, as suggested.  I don't see much gain in conjuring a spirit if it won't be protecting you, since an astrally sensitive person may detect them and up their guard because of it.  If you need a distraction, I've got other tricks up my sleeve."  He let his lips slide into a predatory smirk and cracked his knuckles as he leaned back in his seat.

"Just keep your heads on guard for any manipulation magic.  It can be subtle.  Don't take it personally when I look you over real good for stray magics when you get back either."  Even now he was re-familiarizing himself with his team's auras so it would be easier to notice any changes later.

Assuming you're not taking the case?

Copperhead leads the way into the building, takes a quick glance around and approaches the admitting window, taking care not to actually touch anything.

"Name's Copperhead.  Alfred called wit a 'pointment fer my boyfrien ta spec some upgrades?"

Although you expected it, the smell of disinfectant hangs heavy in the air. A place this size obviously cannot afford the ultrasonic disinfectors commonly used in hospitals and clinics throughout Seattle. You enter a small waiting room, decorated with dilapidated furniture and tasteless wall hangings. Across the room, a harried nurse sits behind a plexiglass screen, rapidly entering data into a well worn terminal.

You must have hit the slow time, because most of the chairs are empty. Except for a couple of rockers waiting in the corner, the remainder of the room's inhabitants are squatters. All are hoping for some free medical service, which is occasionally provided at the end of the day. The nurse continues her typing as you approach her station. When Copperhead talks, the nurse silently stops typing and points at the number server above her window. Clearly you are expected to take a number and wait your turn. Without waiting to see if you do, she goes back to typing.

The rigger waited for White Duck to take a number then gave him a wave.  "Gonna grab a soycaf an do some shoppin'", just in case anyone cared, though looking around, that seemed unlikely.  Though as she stepped out the door, she realized that a soycaf wouldn't be a bad idea.  She popped into a Kwicky-Mart across the street.

"Grabbin soycafs.  How ya take'em?"  She paid the extra $5 Nuyen for a double caffiene shot in each and grabbed some of the ready-made soy sandwiches.  She was glad it was soy as she'd hate to eat real meat that'd been sitting around as it looked like these packages had been.

Duck takes a glance over his shoulder, then back to Copperhead. He vaguely shakes his head, then turns back to the nurse.

"Pardon me ma'am, but in case you haven't noticed, we aren't your usual clientele. We aren't going to take a number. Why not just give me *a* number, then I'll give you that number back, then you get me in?"

Copperhead swore and turned around mid-street, heading back to the alley.  She flipped the bird to the cab who screeched to a halt centimeters from her shin, then ducked into the driver's seat of her rig.  If White Duck was in that much of a hurry, coffee would have to wait.  She got the sense he wasn't likely to spend much time waiting to talk to the doctor.

The rigger quicklly jacked in and did her her best to get a radar, thermal or any sort of image of who or what might be in the warded room.  If Goldenhair was busy catching up with her runner buddies or having a family reunion, it was best if the tempermental face knew it before he barged through the door.

quote:

19:51, Today: Copperhead rolled 3 successes using 5d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1,5,(6+3)9,1,4.  Sensors.

Even in an urban environment, that should be enough to get a lock on whoever's there . . .

The nurse raises an eyebrow, then activates the microphone by her desk.

"Credstick."

Most likely she's asking for a credit check (should she actually want to charge you for anything, you'd need to approve it before it could go through. I assume you do so.) Realizing you actually have money, she takes some data for you (but doesn't especially care if any of it is legitimate), then buzzes for a nurse, who escorts you past the security door and into a small checkup room to wait.

Outside, Cooperhead gets a lock on a single individual in the specified room.

I am assuming everyone else is in the van.

Noruas heads back out to the locked back exit he had found and lies in wait in case their target decides to move his way.  He takes Copperhead's briefcase with him.

"<i>Jus da one sig'ture in da target's room.<i>"

She continued to monitor the surrounding area for any surprises, keeping a close eye on the area that was recently hit by the motorcycle gang, while still monitoring the target in the room.  She kept an eye on Noruas as well.  In the event anyone did exit into the alleyway, she could likely have taken them out before they made it to either end, but her way could be rather noisy, so having an alternative wasn't a bad thing.

Noruas places the briefcase opposite the doors entrance as far away from it with a clear line of sight.  Traps weren't his specialty, but it'd be better to be safe than sorry. Copperhead, does the case have any gel rounds in case we need it?

The dwarf takes a position behind whatever cover there is with a line of sight at the exit.  He takes out his silenced-Predator and checks the clip to be sure it is filled with gel rounds and not EX explosive rounds.

"Jus darts.  Da kick-back'd be too big fer anythin else useful.  Mine 'da camras by da door."

She didn't know for certain there would be cameras, but with a place this fortified, it seemed likely.

What do I roll for 'looking for cameras'?

Perception, which is your Intelligence + any modifiers your character may have - generally none

23:02, Today: Noruas rolled 4 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 ((5,1,(6+3)9,1,4,4)).

Dart leans out into the hallway, looking for cameras or anyone present. If the coast is clear, he attempts to sneak to the warded room. It was unlikely he'd get the jump on Freya, but he'd assumed it would be a bit easier sneaking past a couple of nurses if need be.

Caduceus let his consciousness sink into the cracks and crevices of the streets as he performed his ritual for conjuring a city spirit, in case he needed it to help with a distraction.  (He also had it use Concealment and Guard on Noruas out in the alley.) He then helped Copperhead monitor the monitors from his seat in her van.  He didn't like not knowing what was going on inside though.  But then again, as a snake shaman, he pretty much didn't like it whenever there was something secretive going on that he didn't know the details of.

"I should probably mention, once you are in the room, I could monitor the hall for you from out here.  I have a sort of remote-viewing spell, clairvoyance, that can let me see things from here while remaining in radio contact.  I could warn you if anyone comes to your door.  I may need to move closer though..."  To Copperhead he asks, "How close are we parked to where I described the room being?"

10:30, Today: Caduceus rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 2,(6+2)8,4,3,(6+1)7,3.  Conjure Force 3 City Spirit.
5 services, 2 used, 3 remaining
10:30, Today: Caduceus rolled 3 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 5,(6+3)9,5,1,2,1.  Drain test.

That's PB's call.  However, I can and will move if it would help.  Seeing as she's in the "last room", presumably she's near one of the walls I could park beside.

"Sounds great, Cad. I'm currently en route to the proper room. Would rather deal with its occupant than any personnel though, at least until I've clarified my intentions with her, so if you can get close enough to throw up some chaff should someone try to interfere, I'd appreciate it. In the mean time, I'm going to go with my wits. I'll keep recording." With that, as if testing the waters prior to jumping in, Duck sets foot into the hallway and starts to sneak towards room 6, remaining casual if anyone spots him and asking about the location of the restroom if he's stopped.

The back of the clinic is more of an alley than a road, and doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic. There's a single camera over the back door, with a very narrow view. It's easy for Noruas to stay out of that range, and there's no shortage of soft and hard cover.

The parking in front of the clinic is limited to street parking only. The van is a few spots down, perhaps thirty five feet from Room 6. Unfortunately, the burned out husk of a car and a fortress made out of shipping pallets blocks you from parking closer.

White Duck tries the door, only to find it's locked. He doesn't have much time to examine it, when the door opens and a nurse enters. Without looking up from her clipboard, she says "Clothes off. Hand me your credstick." She holds out a hand for (presumably) the stick.

Clarification - crates and car are also blocking driving access to the alley?

Duck hands her his credstick, but doesn't remove his clothes.

"This is like a really kinky mugging." he smirks.

"As much as I'd like to star in whatever hidden camera erotica you've got going on here, I'm gonna pass on that bit. I'm externally asymptomatic, I've already been diagnosed, and I just need a word with the doc to re-up my scrips. Besides, I've already promised all my naked time to my dentist."

The back alley is partially blocked by a dumpster and some old furniture. You could probably drive through if you cared to, but who knows who or what is hiding underneath.

The nurse looks up for that one, and arches an eyebrow, but the credstick shows a positive account balance. "What's the prescription list?"

"It's a compound, actually. Used to treat withdrawal and addiction, mostly organic. My local doc said I needed it and sent me here to obtain, said you folks were friendly with awakened types." he searches his pockets for a moment.

"Well damn, I had the name written down somewhere. Do you know which med I'm talking about? Maybe I could just speak with the doctor?" Duck began to wish he'd have just asked CH to shoot him in the leg or something instead. It would have gotten their attention more quickly, plus CH would have gotten to take out a little latent aggression on him, which he was always certain he deserved in some way.

PM

"Okay, look, tell you what. I'm really just here trying to visit the occupant of room 6. I need just a few minutes of Freya's time, and your time and assistance are valuable to me. Maybe we can just pinpoint the numbers on how valuable your time is and we can stop wasting ours here?" he asks, changing his tone a bit and switching gears when he notices the nurse seems more interested in her probable shopping/drug addiction than patient care to begin with. The direct approach was working for him so far this run, and Duck always felt more comfortable with honesty than deception. He'd leave lies to rest with the people who tell them regularly and let them deal with the consequences.

Copperhead winced.  He shoulda bringed da case . . .

She shook her head and continued to concentrate on the surrounding environment

When Caduceus heard White Duck's blunt response to the nurse, he just crossed his arms in his seat, shook his head slowly, and chuckled softly to himself.  He still thought the kid might get them all killed with his antics, but Caduceus was no longer quite as put off by the way White Duck went about his business.  The shaman's meditation and nap during the day had helped to put things into better perspective.  His totem, Snake, helped him to understand that every serpent hunted its prey in different ways.  "Duck has his own way of doing things, that's for sure," he commented to Copperhead, still chuckling under his breath.  (Off radio so as not to distract White Duck.)  "At least it is a random nurse and not a paranoid man on the run this time."

She smirks on the other side of the partition.

"'E best watch 'is 'oop.  'r she's gonna pull on a rubber glove."

The nurse arches an eyebrow, looking White Duck over critically.

"Put your weapons over on the bed."

(I assume you comply.)

As you disarm, she plugs something into the credstick and hands it back; a charge is waiting for White Duck's approval, for 1,500¥.

Duck smirks, then shrugs, taking out a deck of playing cards, his pack of smokes, and a lighter, tossing it onto the bed. In a place like this, with all of these sharp objects around, he'd never truly be disarmed to begin with. The one thing remaining in his pockets is a credstick, to which he approves the charges.

"No guns or anything like that on me I'm afraid. Ready when you are to proceed." he remarks, holding out his hands and allowing the woman to pat him down if necessary.

The nurse motions you to follow her toward the rear of the clinic, to room 6. The nurse knocks twice on the door.

"Freya, there are some people here to see you." She pushes the door open and steps inside.

The room has several bouquets of flowers. The fresh air is a welcome relief after your long spell of breathing disinfectant. The nurse closes the door behind you. Sitting up in bed, wearing a light blue hospital smock, is a strikingly beautiful Elven woman. Although she seems tired and somewhat pale, she smiles and extends her
hand to you.

"I am, as you have already guessed, Freya Goldenhair. How can we help one another?"

Outside, another hobo wanders into the clinic front door. The road is picking up traffic a little with the lunch crowd; mostly big old beaters or work trucks.

Taking her hand gently, but firmly into his own. Duck gives a good shake.

"I'm White Duck, but you can call me Duck if you like. I'm certainly charmed, though you're likely accustomed to having that effect." he offers a friendly smile, his albino features unable to mask the slight blush on his countenance. He takes a seat, bedside, then continues.

"I'm working with a team to recover the assets you were hired by Cooperman to obtain. I don't know the guy at all, honestly, but he seems like a real dirtbag for leaving you in the lurch. While admittedly, I'm technically working against your old job's expectations, I'm presuming your end of the contract was regarded as null as soon as your guy left you for dead." Duck looks out of the window for a moment, if anything, to keep himself from staring into her eyes for too long, then back to her.

"If that's the case, I'll let you know that I've already talked with Tee Hee, and, if he's smart enough to lay low, he's still breathing, in case you were worried about him. My employers didn't specify any living targets for this assignment, so I'm really just trying to retrieve the package they lost. In other words, I'm certainly not out to get you, I'd just like to know what you know. Even in that hospital gown, just getting a look at ya might just be worth the fifteen hundred I paid to get in here, but I'm hoping you might be inclined to assist."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Tue 17 May 2016.

Freya grins, a little lopsided owing to bandages and fresh synthskin on the side of her head. "I'm done with Cooperman. He cut me loose as soon as it was convenient, and I'm still owed money. Until he pays me what I'm owed, and my medical bills, I'm happy to give him away to any rat, or gentleman, who comes asking nicely."


She smirks again at Duck's comment on her gown, "don't get cheeky. I don't think I'm your type, and even in this hospital gown, I could clean your clock."

Duck laughs.

"Sorry, that wasn't a put-on, I'm just honest, sometimes to a fault. I've sorta got my eye on an old friend of mine for romance-type stuff, but that's beside the point. We're going after Cooperman ourselves. I'd invite you along- seems personal, but you're in recovery. Any clues on where we can find him?"

"No, the little rat disappeared. I've been reaching out feelers for him though. I've heard about Val and Griffin though. They might know, if you can get close to them. Griffin has a little flat downtown. Not that I'd think he'd help you. Val's doing something with HSE. I guess she used the job as an excuse to get on their books legit. Doesn't seem like her, but... a girl's gotta eat."

Once Caduceus was pretty sure that Freya wasn't going to be too hostile toward White Duck, he decided he would make an attempt to monitor the hall outside the room where Duck and the mage were talking.  It would be good to know if anyone in the clinic was encroaching on their privacy.  "I'm putting myself on hall monitor duty," he reported quietly to the team.  "My eyes are leaving the RV."

Caduceus sat in his seat and closed his eyes, beginning to cast his shamanic magic.  He sat perfectly still and controlled his breathing, then let his consciousness slither out from his body.  He imagined it as an actual physical thing, like a snake stretching impossibly long from the base of his skull out into the world beyond.  It slithered out of Copperhead's RV, across the sidewalk, into the clinic, and to the hall he had observed while he was astrally projecting earlier.  When his consciousness-serpent reached its destination, it and Caduceus opened their eyes simultaneously.  "I can sseeee..." he reported in a whispered hiss over the coms.

Clairvoyance Spell
Rolling for a Force 3 Clairvoyance spell (his max) vs. a target of 6 (range of 18 meters)
Rolling 3 Sorcery dice + 3 Spell Pool Dice + 2 because he is a snake shaman casting a detection spell
21:07, Today: Caduceus rolled 2 successes using 8d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 6 with rolls of 3,3,(6+1)7,5,(6+5)11,5,3,2.  Clairvoyance.

Drain Test
Rolling 3 remaining Sorcery dice + 3 remaining Spell Pool Dice vs. a target of 2 (Force 3 divided by 2)
21:14, Today: Caduceus rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 2,(6+6+1)13,3,1,(6+3)9,4.  Clairvoyance Drain Test.
That should reduce the default of medium stun damage down to no stun damage.

"Well, we've never met Cooperman. Maybe you could give us a profile on the guy, tell us what you know about him, and we might be able to narrow it down. My team has ways of getting things done with very little. Heck, you'd probably be surprised at what we worked with that led us to you. As for Val and Griffin, I'd of course like to meet up with them both. Do you have contact info for them? Would you be willing to arrange a meetup?"

Duck takes out a pen and pad, realizing he didn't turn in the ink pen when asked to put his weapons on the bed, running through several different ways to kill with it by idle instinct before realizing he was getting lost in thought, ending the train of thought with a *click* for its caboose.

I love the spell description there! +1 karma.

"If I had contact to any of them, Cooperman would already be dead. I don't think Griffin would be happy if I showed up at his pad. Val got hired by Cooperman, and I only know she's at HSE from hearsay.

"As for Cooperman, that jerk face is a rat, plain and simple. He'll do anything for a little extra piece of the action. He's not so much in it for the nuyen as he is for the power. I suppose that's why he went on the run. He must have figured those chips would make him more powerful, for all the good it'll do when I get hold of him.

"He's really into history, considers himself an expert in the field. Blessed Lady, if you ever get him started, he'll talk your ear off. The battle of this, the general of that. Can't quite figure it, but he seems to have a serious lock-on for Genghis Khan. Why anyone would want to imitate that smelly barbarian is beyond me. In any event, he loves all that old stuff. The more obscure the better."

"He's not too distinctive. Short, 5'4". Dresses well though. Texas accent. Talks about posterity a lot."

In the hallway, Caduceus continues to watch. The hallway is mostly quiet; the doctor goes into room 4 and closes the door behind her. There's some screaming, then quiet, and the doctor walks back out, her apron spattered with blood. A nurse enters behind her, carrying a cyberfoot still in its shrink-wrap.

Noruas keeps his position by the back alley. Things are quiet, which is good.

Out in the parking lot, Copperhead keeps her eyes on the radar and cameras. The avenue gives her plenty of contacts to track, but none seem suspicious. Van, freight truck, minivan, motorcycle, motorcycle, sedan ... when with a screech of rubber, the sedan jumps the curb and the engine roars. Copperhead has a moment to brace herself before the big sedan smashes into the rear corner of the van, spinning it ninety degrees.

Resist damage of 3M for your van. You can use pool dice. If you take any damage, you need to roll a Crash test as well.

Everyone can roll initiative if they'd like, and Noruas and White Duck should roll a perception check (audio) to see if they hear the collision. At this point, only Copperhead is aware of the position of the car, and she and Caduceus both know there's been a collision.

I'm parked on the street, so I'm not clear on why/how it's jumping the curb to hit me.  (I couldn't get into the alley, as I understand it.)

What does Copperhead notice about the approach of the sedan?  I gather "engine roars" means it accelerated into the crash?  Was it erratic before it hit me or was it a deliberate last-minute turn?  Did it blow a tire or show any other sign that this might be accidental?  Does the driver try to adjust to avoid me as I dodge or to hit me more effectively?  Essentially, how confident is she that this was deliberate vs. not?  Perception test to see how much I pick up.

quote:

09:08, Today: Copperhead rolled 2 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 2,(6+2)8,2,1,(6+1)7,1.  Perception.

Damage resistance test, using 5 control pool dice

quote:

09:08, Today: Copperhead rolled 7 successes using 9d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 3,1,5,(6+2)8,1,(6+6+1)13,3,5,5.  Damage resistance.

Staged down to nothing


Seat restraints applied tension as soon as the rigger noticed the imminent collision.  She hoped Caduceus was buckled up . . .

The emergency brake toggled off and the RV moved slightly forward as the oncoming vehicle veered toward her.  Copperhead didn't have enough time to accelerate out of the way, but she could at least choose the point of impact and give the energy of the collision somewhere else to go.  The oncoming vehicle caught her squarely on her rear corner bumper, accelerating her into the left-hand turn turn her wheels were already making.  The Bison used the stolen momentum and it's own acceleration to complete a full 180, pulling into traffic opposite the sedan.  She drove past heading west and using the drive-by to take a good look at the attacking vehicle - though the tinted windows made it difficult to see exactly who was inside.

As she drove, her brain absently noted the swearing cyclist she'd edged off onto the cluttered sidewalk on her right.  A cavalcade of fruit poured onto the street triggering further yelling from an aged street-side vendor.  They'd both better find cover fast, because things were likely to get messy.

She watched for signs of other attackers and to see how the sedan responded.  She didn't want to aerate some poor sarrary-man whose stim-patch had run out after pulling an all-nighter.  But if this was an aggressive action, someone was about to have a *very* bad day.

quote:

09:28, Today: Copperhead rolled 28 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 3,6,3,4.  Initiative.

I'll wait to hear more about what I see before I decide on my actions.  I won't radio the team know until I'm sure this is an attack.

Initiative
11:31, Today: Caduceus failed (no successes) using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 7

Does Caduceus need to roll anything for damage from the crash or something?

Caduceus let out a frustrated string of Portuguese as he slid in his seat.  His conciousness-serpent snapped back like a tape measure as he stopped sustaining his spell and Caduceus's sight returned to the RV.  "What the frag happened?" he asked as he regained his bearings.  Already he was calling forth the City Spirit he had conjured earlier in case he needed its services.

The crash itself probably wasn't very noticable as I doubt either vehicle took much damage - the oncoming car was only traveling about 40km/hr when it hit, so it may have a dented fender if the driver's incompetent.  Major noise would have been the squealing tires.  And Caduceus may have noticed when his head hit the wall (or the floor) :>

Copperhead's voice comes over the speakers into the back.

Collision.  Assessin'

The car accelerates at the last moment; it was clearly a deliberate, last-minute turn, waiting until it's too close for you to dodge.

14:28, Today: White Duck rolled 4 successes using 4d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 5,(6+4)10,5,(6+2)8.

Duck instantly gets up and checks the hallway upon hearing the noise.

"May have a situation here, Freya." he explains to her briefly before touching his finger to his ear and subvocalizing.

"Sounds like someone rammed you with their car, CH. Could just be your paranoia rubbing off, but it seems like they accelerated on purpose. Standing by to assist."

Duck, you're at the back of the building inside a room.  You may have heard some street noise, but unless you've got exceptional hearing, I doubt you know more than "something vehicular sounds like it's happening outside" - certainly not that he accelerated to hit me :>

"Hostile veh'cle.  I's got it covered.  'll keep ya posted."

She considered whether to wait for the vehicle occupants to exit or whether the vehicle would follow.  The problem was that if there was a full team, she could lose one or more of them in the crowd.  Far easier to deal with them while they were confined.  And dealing with the driver would stop the vehicle just the same.

The first step was to blow out a window or two.  She opened up with both rifles, firing EX rounds.  She couldn't really aim when firing both, but all she really needed was to hit the general area of the back window.  Her odds of hitting anyone inside with more than glass and shrapnel were slim.  Explosive rounds tended to go off on impact with the first thing they hit, especially if it was armored.  And that suited her just fine.  She didn't want the occupants dead, merely accessible.


Maneuver score: -3 (van) -3 (tight) +0 (<10 m/turn) +5 driver test = -1


Phase 1
Free action - trigger my pop-up turrents.

Complex action - accelerate (I realized after the fact that I couldn't have done this in the round where I was hit)

quote:

4:10, Today: Copperhead rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 4,1,3,3,(6+6+5)17,5.  Acceleration.

End speed = 6*5 = 30 meters/turn.  So second phase will be a few meters past the sedan.  Final grenade will be from about 12 meters past the vehicle.

Phase 2
1st simple action double-tap with both rifles on the sedan's rear window (depending on how far you think I get before firing)

Short range (4).  Smartlink -2?.  Blind fire to hit passengers (in theory +8, though I think the modifier should be less, seeing as the location of the driver and passengers are roughly known.  Given my roll, probably not relevant though.)

quote:

13:43, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 10 with rolls of 1,4,2,2,4,1.  Shooting at driver (and busting back window).13:47, 13:44, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 10 with rolls of 4.  Missed die for extra bullet.
Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 2d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 10 with rolls of 2,4.  Forgot the second gone.

So that should be 4 (7 if you allow the smart link) successes on the window, none on the passengers.  Window is being hit with 11S (EX rounds).  Hopefully that's enough to open a decent hole (it certainly would for barrier 8 armor-rated glass).  If not, I'll hit it again and forego my first aim.

Second simple action - aim

Phase 3
First simple action - aim
Second simple action - fire grenade

Short range (4).  Smart link -2.  Aim -2.  Called target +4.  Using 6 dice from control pool.  Concussion grenade

quote:

14:14, Today: Copperhead rolled 7 successes using 12d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 3,4,5,2,4,5,1,4,4,5,2,1.  Grenade.

quote:

14:21, Today: Copperhead rolled 10 using 3d6 with rolls of 4,2,4.  Scatter.

So 3 successes to reduce scatter to 0, leaving 4 successes to stage damage up from 12M stun to 12D stun.  (And that's not counting rebound from being inside a largely enclosed vehicle - so there's probably going to be some unhappy eardrums.)

05:36, Today: Noruas rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1,4,5,(6+2)8,4,5.  Perception test to find out if I heard a crash.

The dwarf perked at the sound of metal clashing against metal.  He quickly asked, What the hell?  Anyone need back up?

The van's wheels spin a moment before getting traction and launching backwards. An ork pops out of the side window of the car and fires off bursts with her AK-47. Rounds pelt off the side of the van. The ork shrieks, "Get some! Get some!"

The van barks twice and the windshield and rear window shatter. The AK ork throws open her door and dives away, spraying suppressive fire as she goes. The front passenger door opens and a second ork jumps out, ducking for cover between the door and the car.

Noruas hears the crack of a rifle shot behind him, from some building behind the clinic.

Around the corner the sedan came from, a pair of bikes come around and puppy their engines. Already the other vehicles in the area are responding, trying to get out of the way. A box truck pulls up beside the Bison and the driver shouts something indecipherable.

The windshield just above and to the right of Copperhead's head cracks and something embeds itself in the ceiling of the Bison near Caduceus.

Caduceus's spirit appears beside him. "Hello, chief! Are we taking a ride?"

Copperhead's grenade launcher fires with a "WHUMPF". The projectile arcs neatly into the center of the car. There's a momentary shout of surprise followed by a burst which shatters all the remaining windows in the car.

pausing here--Copperhead has expended all her actions, but everyone else still has an opportunity to act before the turn ends, if they'd like
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:55, Wed 25 May 2016.

Caduceus flinched involuntarily when he heard something embed itself over his head.  He half-covered his head with a sleeve of his armored jacket as he made his way to a more secure part of Coperhead's RV (not that there were many options...).  To the spirit he replied, "I need you to-" he paused as Copperhead's grenade launched drowned out his voice.  "-To Confuse the guys shooting at us.  Their buddies too."  The shaman crouched in the most secure spot he could find and cursed the fact that violence had indeed found them on this run.  He had had his hopes up that the stun rounds they had used previously would be as far as they needed to go.  No such luck.

Here are my reactions depending on the answer to the question: IS the shot aimed at me?

If it is:

- KU-SO! curses the dwarf in Japanese as he dives for cover behind whatever solid cover there is in this alleyway, like a champion olympic swimmer diving off for the 100 meters for gold place.  As soon as he lands he searches for the shooter as best as he can behind whatever cover he has found.

If it is NOT:

- Noruas makes sure the briefcase is pointed towards the alley entrance before dashing to find the shooter in the next building over.  He does his best to stay hidden as he moves from cover to cover.

Either way he loops in the team.

In case nobody notices this, we've got a shooter in a building behind the clinic.  I'm heading there to check it out.  I might need back-up.  Duck, I've left the briefcase by the back door exit.  Feel free to pick it up and or use it should the opportunity arises.



07:55, Today: Noruas rolled 2 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 5,3,3,3,5,2.  Searching for shooter in the adjacent building...
(By the way, this is a perception roll.  Would it matter if I had smartlink in helping with the search??)

Wincing slightly as his senses were honed in on the rifle shot, Duck turns to Freya.

"Seems we're under assault, sounds like multiples. If you got a gun, get it ready. Grabbing my things. Will return momentarily." he says this plainly, taking a deep breath, checking the hallway to make sure it's clear, then swiftly moving into the previous room, grabbing his things, keeping the pack of smokes and lighter in-hand, then re-enters Freya's room, pulling one out and lighting it. If anyone were going to tell him he couldn't smoke in here, he figured they currently had other priorities, with the area immediately outside the clinic very quickly sounding like a warzone. He holds up a hand to his ear and continues on, comms active.

"Looks like we're the target here. Let me know if my kung-fu is needed. Currently guarding our informant. Dunno what's in that case, but if it ain't grenades I don't really plan on usin' it." he winks to Freya, his smile disarmingly charming.

"Rifleman on roof out back. Freya, think you can locate them for us?"
This message was last edited by the player at 15:26, Wed 25 May 2016.

Clarification of positioning:

Actually, the van's driving forward.  As I understand it, the sedan approached from the rear and hit the back rear corner, spinning me out from the curb 90 degrees.  I used the momentum to continue the turn so I was facing 180 degrees, in parallel with the sedan, then accelerated back the way the sedan came from while blowing out the rear window of the sedan as I was driving away from it.  I'm now driving directly towards the two approaching bikes, though in the opposite lane - if they're bothering with being in the proper lanes.  The box truck beside me will soon be behind me and will begin obscuring my direct view of the sedan.

Only way the passenger orc has cover from me is if they got out of the front door of the sedan and then opened the rear door or opened the rear door and ran to the other side.  In either case, they are pretty close to point blank when the grenade goes off.

If the shooter is on/in a building behind the clinic, presume that building is taller than the clinic.  Is it also taller than all of the surrounding buildings?  I'm wondering how easy it is to pull to a stop up against something a couple of stories tall that would obstruct the shooter's line of sight.

Also, how far away are the bikes?  Trying to figure out whether I'll intercept them this turn or next.

And for the record, I had 6 dice of control pool left to help reduce damage from that shot, which if it wasn't a sniper rifle or EX ammo, should have been a base 2L damage. :>

The clinic is the only one-story building on this block.

You will intercept the bikes this next turn.

The shot missed its target. I didn't bother rolling for damage to the vehicle. However, no damage on the status bar does not mean no cosmetic damage. And yes, the rifle has some solid stopping power. Unlike the AKs, it will penetrate.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 10:11, Thu 26 May 2016.

The question is, given that I know the setup of the buildings, can I get out of line of sight of the shooter this turn by continuing to drive forward and keeping to the shooter's side of the street, up against one of the buildings, or is there some sort of a tower they could be on that would still have line of sight over shorter buildings?

A standard rifle will start at 2L damage for my vehicle and can stage up from there.  (There's a reason that's what I've got mounted :>)

quote:

18:33, Today: Copperhead rolled 26 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 4,3,6,1.  Initiative.

EDIT: removed content posted eroneously before end of previous phase
This message was last edited by the player at 21:15, Fri 27 May 2016.

quick clarification, I started this initiative pass and processed Copperhead's actions. I haven't processed anyone else's. So yours will be the top of the next turn.

White Duck ducks back into the hallway. One of the nurses closes the door into the waiting room, and secures it with a padlock. Seems like you may be locked in here for the moment. But at least he has no issue grabbing his gear.

When he gets back in to Freya's room, she's sitting up with her own handgun at the ready. "And leave you to watch my body? We just met, mister. Why don't you head on out to make yourself useful, and I'll be out just as soon as I'm done."

Noruas dashes down the alleyway. The gunshot gave him a direction. The sound of a large-caliber rifle cycling tells him he's almost right underneath it. There's a fire escape ladder on one building, not the other, so without knowing which has the shooter on top, he starts climbing (I assume, you can correct me if he takes other actions.)

The two motorbikes separate, one approaching on either side of the van. As the van turns on the blinkers and starts to turn, the one bike turns to go wide, dodging the van and the stuck car in this case, the biker still had an initiative phase, Copperhead did not. The biker has the option to ram or dodge, and doesn't care to drive right into the meat grinder. The second bike drives around the other side, between the van and the box truck. Caduceus hears something distinctly 'thunk' on the outside of the van, but nothing else happens, as the two bikes zoom past on either side.

Caduceus's spirit tips his hat, "sure thing, chief," and disappears from inside of the van.

Outside, the car lights up as the ork behind cover sprays fire. The sedan shifts into gear and backs up, knocking the shooter down. It's not clear what the sedan is trying to do, as it shifts back into drive, then back into reverse. The AK ork who originally got clear of the car continues to run across the road, spraying cover fire. The rounds don't do more than pitter patter against the side of the van. A second shot barks from the rooftops and a neat hole punches through the windshield. Noruas hears the puppy cycle again. Copperhead, resist 2S, 3 successes.

Combat turn is ended, go ahead and reroll initiative. Caduceus has one more simple action, if he cares to use it. At this point, the two motorcycles are behind the van and proceeding away. The van is getting up to speed. The sedan seems to be temporarily neutralized, thanks to Confusion, and in the process has neutralized (or at least seriously delayed) one of the shooters as well. Another shooter is running to cover, and isn't looking so hot. There's an unknown shooter on the roof Noruas is closing in on.

15:03, Today: White Duck rolled 15 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 3,6.

Duck smirks. He wondered how well Freya knew the people who worked at this clinic, as they dimed her out on what was probably Duck's biggest diplomatic face-type fuck-up yet. Nonetheless, he closed the door so she could do her thing. Looking to the nurse, he moves up to the back door, which thankfully hasn't been locked yet, and exits into the alleyway, looking for an entry into the building Nouras isn't currently scaling. If it happened to be locked, he'd kick it in. He knew that CH would want to have a loooong talk with the party responsible for screwing with her vehicle.

I'm confused.

CT#1: I get surprised, sedan hits me and I react by staging the damage to nothing

CT#2 - I complete my 180, pass the sedan, blow out its windows, fire the grenade, AK-ork hops out and starts shooting, bikes appear around the corner.  I thought the "remaining actions" were for the other PCs, not the NPCs.  What I'm now understanding is:

continuation of CT 2 (while I'm passing box truck), bike #1 passes on left of box truck (which is traveling opposite me on my left), bike #2 passes on my right and leaves a thunk on my right side

At that point CT#3 starts

Question #1: Is that correct?  If so, my previously posted actions make no sense and I should repost my actions - no point accelerating to ram two bikes who are behind me.  If not, then I'm confused as to why I can't ram the bike that tries to get around my right.  If I don't have time to accelerate first, obviously I wouldn't . . .

Question #2: If I'm driving away from the clinic (and the building behind it) and I get a shot through the front windshield, I'm reading that as geometrically impossible to be from a shooter on a building behind the clinic.  Seeing as you stated in your summary there's only one sniper, I'm assuming that we have different assumptions about the geometry.  Or perhaps we can agree he shot through the roof rather than the windshield?

Question #3: What the heck is he shooting that does 2S to a vehicle?  The highest power sport rifle firing Ex rounds is 11S, which becomes 5M on a vehicle which becomes 1M or 3L due to my vehicular armor.  If he's got a sniper rifle, that's 14S (or 16S with EX) which would become 7M/8M against a vehicle or 3M/4M after armor.

Question #4: You indicated number of successes, so presumably I get to dodge, meaning that it's possible nothing pierces the vehicle at all?

Question #5: I'm gathering that you decided the concussion grenade blew out the windows at level 10D so there was no bounce to further increase the power and that with impact armor and darn impressive bodies, the driver at least staged that down to S, which allows him to be confused and driving erratically?  (In theory, stun grenades aren't supposed to cause any physical damage, but I'm fine with the windows blowing out from a realism perspective.)

I'll re-post my actions and you can update your post accordingly once you confirm my understanding, if that's ok with you.

edit: Just realized, I made the terrible mistake of jumping between SR2 and SR3-style initiative. The ordering of actions is not kosher, but the count is.

First pass, initiative 27, you popped out puppies and accelerated away, getting some distance. Second pass, initiative 17, you fired both rifles and aimed your grenade. Third pass, initiative 7, you launched the grenade. That's the first turn. Had I done it properly, the sedan and all of its passengers would have acted right after you on 27, and the motorcycles would have come around the corner. Instead I had an edition-fart and two of the orks and the sniper went on the second pass, and the motorcycles entered the scene that pass as well. Then the rest waited until the third pass, after you kindly delivered a grenade. I'll try to remember next time that speedy riggers go first--and also last.

There are no 'reaction' things you can do in a vehicle, unless you delay actions. So if they decide to accelerate or maneuver, unless it's directly competing with you (like positioning), there's nothing you can do about that.

The rifle round is not against the vehicle; it's against the vehicle's driver. Once it gets through the vehicle's armor, the minimum you're going to roll is 2. Yes, you get to dodge, presumably as the vehicle, not as the person, as you're jacked in.

You're right about the shot from the windshield. That's a problem when I'm looking at a sheet of numbers and mechanics, spend thirty minutes calculating everything, then try to turn it into descriptive text. It would be through a window or the roof.

For the concussion grenade, I did stage up the damage, but not up to 20D or anything crazy. That's the sort of ruling that comes back to bite the team in the butt later :P I believe I set it to 15 for the two inside the vehicle. The orks threw all of their combat pool, their considerable body, and armor into it. But since you're curious, of the two orks in the car and the two outside, three got Serious stun, one got Deadly. They are effectively disabled from anything but the most basic actions. Combined with Confusion, that makes life very interesting.

This message was last edited by the GM at 23:30, Thu 26 May 2016.

If he's targeting me, it's blind fire as the windows are all tinted and I'm also not likely sitting in the usual place, seeing as the vehicle is designed for me to drive/rest in comfort and I have no need to see out the windshield.  (My understanding is that pretty much all vehicle windows are tinted/reflective by this time-frame to avoid the "visible to the bored ganger mage" issue.)  As well, my speed of 10+ m/s is equivalent to at least running, so he's at a +10 TN.  Even if he's got a smart link, that's a TN of 12 and a miss from my read of the roll.  And next turn, he'll have the strobes to deal with too.  Let me know if I still need to dodge and how many successes and whether he decides to aim for the engine block rather than me due to the re-evaluation of the relative difficulty.

From a description perspective, fully understand :>  Based on my understanding of the current state of things, if the shot hits, I think it'll have to go through the roof as the driver's side window is blocked by the truck beside me at the moment.

To confirm things in terms of the bikes - at the end of T2, one bike is on the left side of the truck I'm passing and the other bike is on my right, having just "thumped" my side.  So for my third phase, I have the choice of firing the grenade launcher or doing something about the bike on my right.  I think I'd go for trying to disable the four people in the vehicle sooner rather than later, on the presumption that the grenade won't go off with the driver right beside it at the end of the turn.  However, my actions on T3 will certainly be different.  If you confirm, the above, I'll edit my post accordingly and you can then update yours.

Also, one of my actions in T3 is going to be to try to scrape off whatever the biker just attached to the side of my van against a light standard, building, parked vehicle or whatever's handy.  Oddly enough, that's not covered in the rules - not even in R3 :>.  I'm thinking I just roll a "positioning" test and you decide whether my successes are sufficient and whether I take anything more than paint damage in the attempt.  If you'd rather I rolled something else, let me know so I have a sense of how many control pool dice, if any, to throw at it.

I gave a +4 for partial cover, same as I give when you're shooting other drivers, on the assumption that you're still more or less in the driver's area, plus aim actions.

You parked next to the clinic. The box truck is on the other side of you (otherwise it would have to be inside the clinic). It does provide cover from another threat, but not against the sniper.

05:16, Today: Noruas rolled 18 using 3d6+10 with rolls of 1,5,2.  Rolling for initiative...

OOC: You know me so well PB! ;)


Dashing up the fire escape as fast as his short legs could carry him, Noruas tries to keep his steps as quiet as possible.  He certainly didn't want the sniper to switch his aim to him.

But I'm not parked anymore.  At the end of turn 2, I'm driving with speed 30 in the right-hand lane away from the clinic which is behind me on my left.  The box truck then approached, which would put it on my left (facing into oncoming traffic, I guess) unless it's on the sidewalk to my right.

Didn't realize it was so easy to take out the driver of an armored vehicle.  Based on the rules, the power of the attack only drops by the armor rating, not armor rating * 2.  So I'm not sure how the power gets to only 2.  The +2 for my speed wouldn't make a difference in the rolls, so:

quote:

07:43, Today: Copperhead rolled 1 success using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1,1,5,3,2,2.  Control pool to dodge rifle.
07:45, Today: Copperhead rolled 5 successes using 5d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+4)10,(6+3)9,5,(6+6+1)13,(6+1)7.  Karma to re-roll failures.

You didn't comment on the rest of my planned actions, so I'm going to comment out my my previous post and describe new actions here.

Copperhead swore as the bike appeared to attach something to her RV.  She veered further to the right, narrowly missing the bike as it continued past her.  She'd deal with that fragger later.  Her first priority was to scrape off whatever he'd attached to the side of her baby.  The van followed a complicated serpentine that brought the van's side wall a mere millimeter from a convenient lamp post.  She listened and watched the rear camera to verify she'd been successful before bringing her right-side rifle to bear.  The right rear rifle aimed down and coughed twice, gel rounds slamming into the biker who had left behind the "present".

Her language was even more choice as a second rifle shot slammed into the pavement only inches from where she'd been half a second earlier.  She continued evasive maneuvers and brought the feed from her drone online and searched to find the sniper's location.  Wherever the fragger was, he was well hidden.

Somebody fine me dat shooter!


Phase 1, complex action - positioning to get rid of anything on the side of the vehicle

quote:

08:01, Today: Copperhead rolled 6 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 4,3,3,5,4,(6+5)11.  Positioning by lamp post.

Phase 2, free action - turn on strobes
complex action - shoot the fragging biker, 6 dice of control pool

+2 "running", -2 smartlink, 7S damage absorbed by half of impact armor.  Needs 4 successes against TN 7 to not fall off the bike if he doesn't dodge (and doesn't stage down from deadly stun)

quote:

08:04, Today: Copperhead rolled 7 successes using 12d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,(6+3)9,3,4,5,3,5,1,1,(6+1)7,(6+5)11,1.

He can dodge using vehicle control pool and 1/2 of combat pool.  If he takes S damage, he needs 4 successes against TN to not fall of the bike, 2 if he stages down to M, 1 for L.  If he falls off, he and the bike will take crash damage too.

Phase 3, bring up video feed from drone and search for shooter

quote:

08:07, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 3,2,2,1,1,3.  Scan for shooter.

quote:

08:11, Today: Copperhead rolled 28 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 2,5,3,6.  Initiative - CT 3.

Will post new actions when you update current situation.

Copperhead (and Caduceus) seem to be mercifully unharmed by the rifle shot.

A voice booms from the clinic's loudspeakers, "PLEASE MOVE AWAY FROM THE BUILDING OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING."

Caduceus hangs on as the van abruptly shifts, rolling on its shocks. There's a CRACK as the van neatly sideswipes a telephone pole. In her rear-view camera, Copperhead can see pole's access door has been broken off and flung somewhere by the near-collision. The AK ork trucks it across the street and past the light pole, towards the far sidewalk. There's some debris on the ground, that Copperhead is pretty sure wasn't there before. There's still something like paper stuck on the side of the van. Probably nothing?

The sedan begins a convoluted three-point turn. The ork next to the car shouts and punches it before crawling away.

One of the bikes curves around the corner of the clinic, heading towards the back alley. The other stops at the end of the street and turns around.

Noruas keeps climbing up that ladder. Unfortunately, ladders aren't made for dwarf limbs.

White Duck busts out the back access door to the clinic. An alarm sounds behind him. There's a briefcase in the middle of the alley. With a flying leap, WD can bust through a boarded up window, landing in the bottom level of a three-story, open architecture warehouse. The steps up to the catwalk are rusted and broken, but with a good running jump he should be able to make it ... then to find roof access!

The bark of the rifle echoes across the alley, and the shooter cycles the gun again. Copperhead manages to dodge, using only 2 control pool

The alley bursts into light as the van strobes kick on. The rear rifle fires and the biker launches off his bike, the bike twisting and tumbling beside him until they both come to a stop.

The sedan continues its turn, now effectively blocking all traffic on the street behind the van.

Noruas makes it up to the top of the building. Down below, a motorcycle roars down the alley. Noruas is still trying to be sneaky, but at this point, the gig is up. The shooter is on the far building, dressed in dark street clothes and carrying a heavy rifle. They turn and fire from the hip.

(Noruas, go ahead and decide how you'd like to handle this; 8 successes on the shot.)

White Duck runs towards the broken stairway and in a graceful leap, crosses the gap, then continues on up towards the catwalk. Outside, a motorcycle roars by. At the end of the catwalk is a utility ladder up.

Copperhead scans for the shooter, but fails to find anything. A cadillac SUV pulls out from an alley across from the clinic, nearly colliding with Copperhead as it makes a sharp turn towards the main drag. Behind Copperhead, something explodes near the sedan and light pole. There's a flash of smoke and noise and the light pole tips over, crashing onto the box truck.

(Caduceus still has actions. Everyone, time for initiative!)

After hearing the crunch alongside the RV, Caduceus called forth his spirit friend once again.  "Guard this vehicle and its occupants," he said.  A bad accident at this time was the last thing they needed.

14:13, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 5.  Initiative (+6).
Total Initiative = 11

"While you are at it," he said, calling his spirit back again before it could get too far, "Why don't you try to give our enemies out there a few Accidents as well."  He felt his spiritual connection to the conjured being diminish as his last service was used up.  Caduceus quickly scanned where he was sitting  to make sure he was in a secure spot, then worked on clearing his mind.  He would need another spirit's help, so he got down to the business of conjuring one.

Pass One
Using last service and securing myself.

Pass Two (assuming he doesn't take damage from pass one)
Conjuring a new Spirit.
Force 4 City Spirit.  Rolling 4 and saving 2 for drain.
14:53, Today: Caduceus rolled 3 successes using 4d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,3,(6+5)11,(6+6+3)15.  Conjure Force 4 City Spirit.
14:54, Today: Caduceus rolled 5 successes using 8d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,2,3,5,3,5,(6+2)8,(6+6+2)14.  Drain Test.
So 3 services and no drain.

We've got multiple alleys going on.  To clarify:

There's an alley that curves behind the clinic.  It's blocked from large vehicles, but the bike evidently managed to get in.  Noruas is at the top of a ladder off the alley and hoping he falls onto the roof, not off the building (8 successes sucks :()  White Duck is on his way up the same ladder.

There's a second alley that intersects the main drag further up from the clinic.  I'm turning into one side of it, while a limo is turning out of the entrance opposite, heading onto the main drag away from the clinic.

Accurate?

quote:

15:42, Today: Copperhead rolled 28 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 4,6,5,1.  Initiative.

Free action - trigger four linked under-mounted thermal smoke grenades.  (I expect the sniper will be otherwise occupied, but Copperhead doesn't know that.)

Simple action - jump into the Lonestar drone (I'm assuming the pilot takes over driving the van automatically?  If so, it'll presumably continue driving forward at a safe speed - which given visibility and how clogged the alleys around here are, is probably pretty slow.)

Simple action - scan rooftops for gunner.

quote:

15:44, Today: Copperhead rolled 3 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1,(6+6+6+5)23,3,(6+6+5)17,3,4.  Perception

Shouldn't miss him this time

Free action to occur in the phase of whoever goes next - turn on ECM

Phase 2 (just in case this turkey has a second action)
Simple action - select ammo
Complex action - fire 8 rounds at the sniper

quote:

15:54, Today: Copperhead rolled 6 successes using 13d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 2,2,2,2,2,4,4,1,5,5,(6+2)8,1,(6+5)11.  Hit the shooter.

Scope brings the extreme range down to close, but can't use the smart link.  Sounds like he doesn't have much cover from the air and he isn't moving.  So assuming a TN of 4.  If he doesn't dodge, that's 5S, resisted by half impact armor, rounding down, higher likelihood to be knocked prone.

I'll reserve my final action until after I see how all of this plays out.


There was a hiss as thermal smoke began pouring out from around the four sides of the van, quickly filling the alley around her and pouring onto the street behind and the area above.

Confident that with the strobes, the smoke and the close walls of the alley, her baby (and her body) would be relatively safe, her consciousness leaped into her drone.  The wide open space feet glorious compared to the narrow confines of the alleyway.  She scanned the rooftops again, this time with the luxury of much greater control of the drone's sensors.

She the shooter found him immediately, and also her poor dwarven friend who seemed to have successfully redirected the sniper's attention.  Perhaps too successfully.

"Less trade places, moth'r-fragger"

The LMG toggled to gel rounds and she opened up, peppering the rooftop and the shooter with plastic slugs.  The sound of the shots was faint, but the rounds slamming into the rooftop were certainly enough to attract attention.

The dwarf does his best to aim at the shooter with his Smart-Link and gently squeezes off a few gel rounds.

Duck ascends the ladder as well, listening to the shooter's blast to approximate the distance between he and his opponent. As he climbs, he draws three cards from his deck with one hand just before vaulting over the end, quickly flicking out one of the playing cards in his hand with deadly, unerring accuracy at the sniper, then ducking behind a nearby vent to block line-of-sight from the rifle.

19:37, Today: White Duck rolled 6 successes using 8d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 5,(6+1)7,4,4,1,3,1,(6+5)11.  Throwing, -1 TN stationary, 3 CP. &M Damage, Impact armor resists.

07:40, Today: White Duck drew the 3 cards: 3D, 3H, JH using a deck of 52 cards. Looks like he threw the three of diamonds.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:41, Wed 01 June 2016.

So pulling Caduceus's note in, plus his action... Caduceus does have initiative on the sniper here, and I try not to let RL posting issues penalize players when I can help it. However, looking back at the rolls, the Concealment is not enough to hide our dwarf as he climbs the ridge of the roof ...

Noruas reaches the top of the ladder. He can see across the edge of the far roof, where the sniper is kneeling, scanning the road in front of the clinic. Unfortunately, the sniper sees Noruas as well, and turns her attention (as well as her large rifle) towards the dwarf. Without pausing to aim, she pulls the trigger, and ... thunk. The round stovepipes in the chamber and the sniper grabs the slide to cycle it.

Behind the sniper, a small roto-copter rises past the rooftops. It easily spots her IR signature from the improved vantage point. Meanwhile, the roof access door behind kicks open and White Duck steps out, weapons at the ready.

Noruas is first on the draw and pops off a round, hitting the sniper in the shoulder. (GM assumption here; Noruas also climbs over the edge of the roof top and ducks down to find some cover). The sniper dives to the side as White Duck chucks his cards, but each hits and buries itself in her armor.

The sniper takes a shot at Noruas. The brick wall Noruas is hiding behind bursts outward in a spray of clay and lead shrapnel. Noruas is injured, but still standing.

Caduceus's same little spirit reappears in front of him, now looking a little larger and more 'real'. "Whaaaatt?? I'm tired!"

The drone preps its weapon and locks onto its target. Noruas pops off two more rounds, but the sniper seems unaffected. The drone's gun blasts fire, pelting the sniper. She's injured, but still standing.



Pausing here. White Duck, Caduceus you have one more action, as does the sniper. Because it's the entire crew ganging up on one character, I'm not too worried about rolls--just on how the confrontation will end.

Everyone on the ground is either unconscious or fleeing (well, except for the sedan, apparently, but that's quick mop-up). We don't need to draw out combat turns for that either, unless people want to.

As a note, I don't usually calculate knock-down unless it's really relevant, like standing on a motorcycle or clinging to a ladder. It adds a lot of numbers and slows down combat, usually in favor of the one who is already winning.

Actually, the done is already 1km out.  Copperhead likes to keep out of range of return fire, plus it makes her harder to notice, her shots harder to hear or localize and gives her a better view.

And I definitely have plans for the limo.  Is the bike rider who made it into the alley bugging out now too?

Her voice barks into the back of the van.
"See if ya kin slow da limo down.  I gonna take care a da res."

She watched as White duck tossed something at the sniper.  She didn't realize he carried shurikens.  The man was full of surprises.

She unleashed a second hail of bullets on the sniper.  If the target was smart she'd lay down whether she had to or not.  A small part of her brain kept track of the second biker.  She wanted to know if they tried to make a break into the building.  Provided they did the smart thing, her next target was going to be the limo.  She had a good idea who was inside, and a conversation was definitely in order.


Final action of the phase - occurs on 8.  6 combat pool, 8 rounds

quote:

12:53, Today: Copperhead rolled 10 successes using 19d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+3)9,5,4,4,2,3,4,4,1,(6+5)11,2,4,3,4,2,3,2,2,(6+1)7.  Shoot the snipe

Base damage of 7S stun, half impact armor.  Good luck standing after that chummer . . . :>

(Unless she's got partial cover from something a km up, in which case her combat pool will probably handle 3 successes if she has any left.

Initiative for next round:

quote:

12:57, Today: Copperhead rolled 31 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 6,3,5,5.  Initiative.

So four phases for me

There's no sign of the biker who went down the back alley. Could be bugging out, could come back to haunt you. You want to go hunting?

Also, you only had three phases this turn, which have already been spent. Your next shot would be for the next turn--it's up to White Duck and Caduceus to take down the sniper before she finishes up on Noruas.

In message 95, I only declared 2 phases worth of actions.  What was my third phase?

1: jump into drone & scan
2: select ammo/prep weapon (there is an extra simple action there if you want it)
3: Fire weapon

Not that it makes a big difference at this point. White Duck should be able to wrap this up.

Nouras, despite potentially being distracted by incredible pain, likely notices a shift in Duck's normally friendly countenance. His eyes, untinged by his own control over their color, seem to glint oddly in the lights of the city for just a brief moment, then he moves in.

In a fluid, spinning movement, he dips low, then springs in, covering a considerable amount of distance in his stride, his knee whipping upwards in an attempt to potentially cave in the sniper's chin, a foot extending swiftly from below to fling her from the roof.


08:13, Today: White Duck rolled 4 successes using 10d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 3,4,3,3,5,2,3,4,3,5.  Unarmed Combat, 6S Base DMG.
Yeesh. Used 4 CP there and still only 4 successes.

Arm/disarm is a free action (SR3#157).  Selecting a clip if you have "selectable clip" is also a free action if the weapon is smart-linked (CC#78).  I assume that selecting a clip is part of arming/disarming weapon.  (It's hard to "arm" without doing an initial ammo selection.)  The free action for switching ammo simply means that you don't need to disarm and rearm the weapon in order to switch ammo.  The alternative is that having multiple clips for the weapon rather than one changes you from being able to activate and fire in one phase to needing two, which doesn't seem reasonable to me.

"Right."  Caduceus looked to his spirit once again.  He used lingo and descriptions that the spirit would understand, but his message as the layman would understand it was, "I want you to cause that limo to have an Accident as quickly as possible so that the vehicle stops moving and stays stopped.  Pop the tires, smear the windshield, pull out brake lines, or whatever else you have to do to get the job done."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:44, Sun 05 June 2016.

Ah.  Typo on my part.  So can I see what the biker is up to?  Is the bike still in the alley?

So, with moderate damage, I'm guessing I'm capable of getting off the roof by myself?

Yes.  Though you'll probably be swearing a bit, at least under your breath.  Between the clinic or myself and Caduceus, we should have you totally back to normal.  (Though you may need a change of clothes before you can go back to work . . . :>)

Awesome juice thanks.  BTW, is the 'selectable clip' option available?  Or are we going with the standard let's use several phases option?  I know I might regret it later on when our opponents start using that feature, but I just kinda wanna know.  And is this limited to only certain guns?

The dwarf curses quietly under his breath as he felt a blast of shrapnel tear through some of his armor.  He quietly prayed for reinforcements to show up as he dove for cover again.

White Duck charges at the sniper. She raises her puppy as a staff to protect her, but the weapon is awkward and her precarious sniper nest on the edge of the building works against her. She blocks the attack at her head, but the sweep catches her. She balances for just a moment on the precipice. White Duck can see her eyes go wide as she realizes what's happening, and then she's gone.

The limo put on speed as it dodged traffic on the avenue. Behind it, the remaining bike peeled onto the road, popping a few stray rounds towards the van. None of them are well aimed, nor large enough to cause real damage. As the limo approached a turn, a nail-covered board fell across the road. Tires scream as they grasp at the asphalt. A quick maneuver and they evade safely.

Noruas from his position no longer needs cover. He can see the limo, the van, and the bike, as they dodge in and out of traffic, heading towards the interstate. He can also see the sedan in front of the clinic, as it takes a moment to reorient.

(Copperhead has already rolled initiative. Everyone else who cares to participate can. As the vehicles move out of range, it'll be very difficult to be effective for the two on the roof, but they can go back and check on Freya if they want, or mop up on the ground, or just take a smoke break.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:27, Tue 07 June 2016.

Duck, you wanna help me mop up the leftovers on the ground floor?  Otherwise I don't think the clinic will let us in even if I'm bleeding all over the place like this.  Oh, and please help me loot that sniper's equipment.  I think we all wanna know who hired these guys.

06:52, Today: Noruas rolled 15 using 3d6+10 with rolls of 2,2,1.  Initiative.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:53, Tue 07 June 2016.

Clarification - the board dropped from the limo or someone else?  (And if someone else, did it get dropped in front of the limo?)

The drone swiveled in the air, switching from gel to EX rounds and began laying down a line of suppressive fire about 10 meters in advance of the speeding limo, tearing chunks out of the asphalt and peppering the area with shrapnel.  The message was clear - Stop, or your in a fragging dreckload of trouble.


Phase 1
Free action - switch ammo
Complex action - suppressive fire

10 rounds, not sure if they're spread over 2 or 3 meters to cover enough of the road it's not possible to drive around the hail of bullets.  The limo needs to make a successful dodge test to avoid the bullets.  If not the vehicle gets hit with as many bullets as they fail to dodge.  At that point, the passengers can also dodge, but with only half pool.  If they fail to miss the bullets, I make an attack roll with 6 dice needing 6s for the vehicle and 10s for each of the passengers.  (Or more if the vehicle itself has partial cover from my vantage point ~1000m up.)  Base damage for the vehicle is 5M and for passengers is 11S, subtracting armor.

Let me know what sort of cover the vehicle has for the rest of the turn if it opts not to stop.  I'll describe my remaining 3 phases when I see how the limo reacts.

From a nearby board up building, in front of the limo, as though by Accident!

Separate question - can gel rounds pierce vehicle armor?  In principle, if I'm shooting at the driver with gel, the 7S damage would become 3S (if the vehicle has 4 armor).  But I'm wondering if you'll disallow that from a realism perspective.

I'll play it by ear, but realistically, gel rounds aren't likely to cause any damage.

They certainly won't cause damage to the vehicle - hard to "stun" a car (though they may well  create nasty dents).  The question is whether you can essentially fire rubber bullets through an armored windshield and knock out (or at least give a nasty headache to) the driver.

Not initially, no. Blow out the windshield first. If it's not armored, that's not too hard. If it is, well...

Duck's eyes turn to Nouras as he speaks up, tinged pink, widened and full of what can only be interpreted as fury. By contrast, his countenance itself was calm and placid. There was something about his look that might remind one of a jaguar that caught sight of its prey. The first part of the dwarf's sentence seemed like a slow-motion blur in the background to him.

His muscles tense, and he snakes forward, closing the distance between himself and the dwarf in a swift, reflexive action. He finds himself within striking distance before he hears the words and recognizes the situation as one that has been resolved by violence.

There was something about that look in the woman's eyes when he pushed her from the ledge that struck him.

"She was shooting at other people with lethal intent, including my stubby little buddy."he'd told himself as his expression calmed and his posture relaxed.

"This guy, who's this fuckin guy?" asks his own inner voice of itself.

"Calm down self, this guy's your stubby little buddy. Don't kung-fu this one." it replies.

"Sorry about that man, adrenaline. You gotta kinda work yourself up in order to break people with your hands, yanno? Damn, almost got you there." he laughs.

He snaps on his mempo.

"I'll get you into that clinic, man, but we have to get you off this roof. That is one *nasty* gutshot. Let's have a little fun, shall we? I'll carry you down. Put pressure on that until we can get it tended. Got your credstick handy?" Duck draws a fancy handkerchief from the inside pocket of his suit. With his card tricks, it isn't entirely unlikely that it would be tied to numerous other fancy handkerchiefs, but alas, it is just the one. He hands it to Nouras as if he didn't want to get any blood on him.

18:57, Today: White Duck rolled 12 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 3,3.  Initiative, ROUND TWO?!?!

Duck's Mempo: https://img1.etsystatic.com/04...l.660849347_o0ge.jpg
This message was last edited by the player at 00:21, Thu 09 June 2016.

Noruas thought he was seeing things when White Duck was seemingly a blur, appeared closer to him in what seemed like an instant.  He shook his head as if trying to fix an old trid with terrible graphics.  He opened his eyes again, and there was White duck with a face mask on.

Nice mask, he comments, while keeping one hand on his wound.

He gratefully accepts the handkerchief and presses it against his wound.  He replies, Nah, I think I can get down by myself.  As for the clinic bills, let's see if our sniper has any cred on her that we can use.  It's only fair since she was the one that caused this.  And let's grab her gear as well, we could possibly use it in the future.  It's not like she's gonna need it anymore.

And with that, he heads down the stairs grimacing painfully with each step.

12:08, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 10.

With his spirit already out there causing accidents to help them out, Caduceus moved to where he could get a good view of the limo in case anyone decided to get out and try to run.  He put one of his concussion grenades from his satchel into his hands (although he doubted he would end up using it) and then scanned the area with his astral sight to make sure nothing magical was going on that would surprise them later.

The limo takes evasive maneuvers as it passes through the rain of bullets. Meanwhile, rounds punch through commuters, leaving cars screaming and crashing. The limo turns hard to duck into a side street, momentarily breaking contact. Hiding maneuver, 4 successes. Its maneuver score is 10 lower than yours. The road between you just turned from Restricted to Tight, owing to car crashes.

Caduceus: Can't do astral perception from the van either. You need to either open a window, or astrally project. From the rules thread:

"-Transparency on the physical has NO bearing on transparency on the astral. You can't cast astral spells through closed windows unless you're dual-natured." (This is different from canon.)

Meanwhile, White Duck and Noruas can get back to the ground if they care to (WD much faster, between the wound and the long legs). There's not much to scour from the rooftop; a pair of binoculars and some netting with the sensor camouflage pattern. Most likely everything else went over the edge with her.

Duck gets back to the ground and retrieves his card. He also rifles through the woman's things to see if she had any information on her. In spite of his rifling, he doesn't take the rifle. His priority was assisting Nouras, who for all he knew could be bleeding out, so he'd let the dwarf handle picking up the rifle himself if he wanted it that badly. Instead, after looking for information, he removes his mask, then moves back to the back door of the clinic and knocks, or looks for some sort of intercom.

"Uh, hello? We've neutralized your attackers, but one of our guys is injured. We, uh, still have credits. Mind helping us out?"

I'd have been pretty careful to lay down my line of fire in such a way as it wasn't impacting other vehicles.  I.e. I wouldn't actually hit other vehicles.  I didn't picture this as a rush-hour situation?  That said, panic-driven crashes do seem realistic, so no problem with that.

And the rigger rules around this are definitely dumb.  Hiding and relocating should be opposed tests.  As it stands, his driving skill plays into his ability to get away, but mine doesn't play into my ability to find him again.  I'll propose some ideas when this combat are done. :>


Copperhead swore as the limo ducked out of sight, maneuvering to try to pick the vehicle up before it had a chance to lose her completely.


Target: Signature 2 + 4 successes + 3 for "tight" -2 for exactly 10 difference in maneuver score = 7

The rules say I can use sensors or perception and perception has more dice, so . . .

quote:

14:51, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,2,2,5,4,2.  Relocate.
14:51, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 5,1,4,4,5,2.  Relocate again.

14:52, Today: Copperhead failed (no successes) using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 2,2,5,5,4,2.  Relocate 3.

I screwed up there.  I should have done positioning on that last roll.  Oh well.

quote:

14:55, Today: Copperhead rolled 27 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 1,4,6,4.

Next CT, I'm going to spend first two actions "positioning", using all driving pool, then try again to locate - hopefully the positioning will give me a -4 instead of a -2 advantage and I'll lose the +3 for tight because he'll be beyond the accidents.

I guess I may as well just declare actions for next round seeing as I presume all he can really do is accelerate and continue to try to hide.

Maneuver score:
Vehicle +5, Terrain 0, Speed 0,

quote:

16:40, Today: Copperhead rolled 17 using 12d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test with rolls of 4, 1, 2, 6+6+5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 1, 1, 4.  Maneuver score.

So 22.

He'll be -3, -10, Speed/10 and whatever he gets on his open test.

quote:

16:46, Today: Copperhead rolled 6 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 3,4,(6+3)9,4,5,2.  Accelerate.

Speed of 9, so that's 54 meters/turn at end of this turn, so +5 to maneuver score next round.

quote:

16:48, Today: Copperhead rolled 12 successes using 12d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of 2,4,4,4,(6+1)7,3,4,(6+3)9,5,5,4,5.  Positioning.

So that's +12 to maneuver score next round

Relocating again:
Signature 2, +4 (+ more?) escape bonus, +0 normal terrain (assuming he's clear of the crashed vehicles by this point), -4 (assuming I beat his maneuver score by more than 10)
So base TN of 2, adjusted by whether he hides from me this time.  But this time, he'll hopefully be at +6 for my higher maneuver score and may miss his -2 for tight terrain.

quote:

16:53, Today: Copperhead rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 2 with rolls of (6+1)7,2,1,3,5,3.  Locate.

Hopefully that's enough . . .

18:00, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+4)10.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 12

Caducus silently cursed the RV's lack of easily openable windows as his senses slipped back to physical space.  He called back his spirit once more and said to it, "Keep tabs on the vehicle you are causing Accidents for and keep me up to date on where it is.  Don't let it escape your Search."

Then, not wanting the limo to escape them, Caduceus felt it was time to take measures to slow it down.  For that he shifted his spiritual self from the City domain to the domain of the Wind spirits.  A denizen of that domain would be able to slow down the limo's movement, or speed up their own if necessary.

Phase 1 he uses another service from his city spirit (Search)
Phase 2 he conjures a wind spirit.

Conjuring a Force 3 Wind Spirit
18:11, Today: Caduceus rolled 5 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 3,4,4,4,3,1.  Conjure Force 3 Wind Spirit.
5 services, 0 used

Drain Test
18:12, Today: Caduceus rolled 4 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 2,4,4,4,5,2.  Drain Test.
No damage.

Noruas eventually reaches the ground floor and pulls out his cellphone.  He takes a picture of the sniper's face and puts the phone back in his pocket.

Duck, do me a favor and grab the sniper and her gear.  I'm sure the clinic could use whatver is left of her body as payment for my treatment.  I didn't bring enough creds with me, so the equipment might also be handy to trade as well.  Well, if it comes to it, we can trade all of the stuff minus the ammo.  I'm sure we don't need other people to have more loaded weapons pointed at us.

Caduceus's spirit disappears--hopefully not for the last time, as Caduceus slips between domains.

The wind spirit appears on command, as a puff of thick, diesel smoke (and no sense of personal space). "Whaaaaattt?" it gasps at Caduceus.

White Duck rolls the sniper over and digs through pockets. She packed light, probably realizing not much would be required for this. An energy bar, a bottle of water, a trauma patch, a knife, some paracord, a pack of chemically-impregnated plastic stick "cigarettes", plus her camo-pattern armored jacket and about a dozen and a half EX explosive rifle rounds. Her rifle landed not too far away and doesn't look any better for the wear. The butt is broken off, the scope ruined, and the gun will need some TLC before anyone is willing to hold it next to their cheek again.


The traffic isn't 'rush-hour', but you're definitely not alone here, and the limo was heading towards bigger roads with more traffic. Now that its veered off, that may not be the case. And yeah, I thought the Hide rules were weird too, maybe to give the characters a chance to survive serious opponents. It is sort of opposed, but... not really. I don't think there's anything else like it in the book. Also worth noting, Positioning wouldn't have helped you--the bonus applies on the next Combat Turn.

Copperheads scanners come up empty and there's no sign from the little drone (as a note, I hope that Copperhead hands watching the drone feeds over to someone else while driving. I don't know that the drone is smart enough to find the car by itself.) Copperhead adjusts her search pattern, as Autonav brings up maps of the local area and the major intersections. Copperhead knows she has to be careful--they aren't too far from go-gang territory, and that would add a pretty nasty touch to this encounter.

Then the limo blasts out of an alley, tires squeal as it turns into traffic, then again as it dives into the next alley, moving too fast by half. For the moment, at least, Copperhead has visual.

(At this point, everyone else has additional actions, as the rigger actions took their entire turn.)

Noruas finds that no, going down a ladder is not faster than going up, unless you don't especially care about the ending. White Duck finds the back door to the clinic seems to be pretty well closed up, but the loudspeakers boom, "GO AROUND TO THE FRONT FOR SERVICE. IF YOUR FRIEND CAN'T DO THAT TELL HIM TO LAY DOWN AND DIE A LITTLE AND WE'LL SEND A PICKUP."

Van is parked back in the alley, blinkers on and surrounded by probably 30 meters worth of thermal smoke (popped 4 grenades inside a pretty narrow space).  I'm jumped into the drone.  It has better sensors, maneuverability and fire-power, plus it's pretty much out of range of anything that can shoot back.

For the next round:

quote:

15:38, Today: Copperhead rolled 36 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 6,6,6,6.  Initiative.

Oooh yeah . . . :>

quote:

15:57, Today: Copperhead rolled 8 using 6d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test.  Maneuver score.

So my maneuver score is 5+0+5+12+8 = 30
His is -2, -2/-4 (depending on whether he's still in "tight" terrain), speed/10 and his open test.

I'm holding action until I see what he/she does.  On his turn I'll take a free action to see if there's anything I can drop (utility pole or something to block the exit of the alley).  I need something I can drop by shooting it, that is unlikely to cause civilian casualties and that there's no chance of the limo getting past without taking significant damage.  Also, I need a sense of how hard it's going to be to make that happen.  I'd rather not shoot the limo, but will if that's obviously the best solution.

"Bingo mudder-fragger"

Duck laughs, tossing Nouras the trauma patch casually.

"As I thought, came prepped and didn't bring her license. Smart move with taking a phone pic. Wasn't it Junior that went around with a clutch of orks all the time? Rough-looking types?" Duck tries to think back and see if he remembers the woman's face from elsewhere for a moment. He leaves the rest of her gear, having no use for any of it. She probably had a mercenary background, considering all the items she'd carried that didn't make sense to have in an urban environment. After all, who else would want to eat some shitty energy bar when they had all of these perfectly good restaurants all over the place? Cammo in the city? Military types were always so quirky.

He retrieves his card from her body, pulling it out of her armor and wiping away the blood on her jacket, replacing it in the deck. Didn't want to leave any literal calling cards behind, after all. He puts the deck back into his pocket and reaches into the other to pull out his smokes, lighting one up in a swift, well-practiced motion.

"Maybe Cad can patch you up if those two don't die in some fiery holocaust."

19:33, Today: Caduceus failed (no successes) using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1.  Initiative (+6).
Total of 7.

The snake shaman coughed a little as his new smoggy little buddy appeared.  "I need you to slow down the limo being targeted by the city spirit.  Slow down its Movement as much as possible and keep it slow.  Same with anyone who exits it too."  He waved it away as he coughed again, despite the spirit not being made of actual matter.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:44, Sat 11 June 2016.

'Die a little' my ass.  Ask them if they want what's left of our freshly available organ donation?  I'm sure they would be able to get something out of her.  Oh, and keep the ammo we get off of her.  We could probably sell or trade that.

If the clinic still insists on us heading to the front, then we, or at least I will head in through the front.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:08, Mon 13 June 2016.

"Or put it in one of CH's guns. Good thinking. Let's go for less bleeding instead. I can't stop looking at that gut-hole when you talk. At least slap the trauma patch on it or something, I'm starting to get queasy." he reaches down, pocketing the ammo, then on a hunch, checks to see if the woman was wearing dog tags. Then, he moves over to assist Nouras as they walk to the clinic. Not exactly able to lend him a shoulder, he has decency enough to hold the door.

"How are y'all doin' over there?" he asks over the comms. It seemed like the intensity of the moment was letting a little of Duck's Louisiana show.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:37, Sun 12 June 2016.

I thought I posted this, but apparently I did not ...

CH, the terrain is older buildings, lots of brick and cement, all in disrepair. It wouldn't be too hard to collapse a wall, partially blocking the road. But bear in mind, the limo is on an SUV chasis. Not the full maneuverability of an SUV, but still more than a mercedes. You do have the advantage, and the limo is not able to hide this round.

Caduceus's spirit disappears, leaving a rancid yellow cloud in its way. Far out of sight, the limo hits potholes, and the speedometer drops as it tries to negotiate them without breaking an axle.

Meanwhile, WD and Noruas limp around to the front and the door is unlocked to let them in. There's a bit of a line, as one of the orks from the street is escorted into the back and the door to the rooms locks behind him. The nurse looks Noruas up and down. "I thought you were hurt. Sit down, we'll put you in the back in a moment."

I have no clue what I'd have to roll to do what I want to do, nor target numbers, so it's hard to evaluate the viability of this as a strategy.  My preference is to block both ends of the alley he's in (two consecutive shots where his action between them is limited to stopping so he doesn't crash).  However, that's only reasonable if I'm 80% plus certain of pulling it off - i.e. putting enough debris in the right places that the vehicle can't possibly get around.  Objective being to show at least a degree of respect for the orc's property & well-being.

If that's too hard, then I'll just disable the vehicle and be done with it.  Is it a full +4 called shot modifier to disable it without starting it on fire/blowing it up, even though I'm using EX rounds?  Idea would be to blow off a tire or two.

Also, I was holding action, so I presume his first action is to decelerate and I now get my 4?

I's gonna stop da limo.  Duck, we's gonna be negotiatin' soon.  If ya get ta da van, I kin give ya a lift?  Er I kin do da talkin' wit my Antioch . . .

Noruas' eyes widened with disbelief. If this isn't wounded enough for ya, I'd hate to see the guys who you call 'wounded'.  Obviously, he kept his thoughts to himself.  He takes a seat on the nearest chair and continues to eye the crowd in front of him.  He was pretty sure they'll need to question one or two of these guys before they go.

The dwarf taps White Duck on the side and says, Why don't you be a gentlemen and see if the other fellas here need a good listener.  I'm sure some of these poor 'wounded' souls could use some company.

Duck glances to Nouras, then subtly shakes his head.

"Clearly our friend receiving treatment isn't in his usual neighborhood. Great thing about that is, we can be here to pick him up when he's released. Maybe if you pay them off, we can get his rather flattened friend brought into the same room. That would certainly hasten his exit."

With that, Duck steps outside, sparking up another smoke and bringing his fingers up to his ear.

"I'll stand by outside until you can come pick me up. I'm not sick enough to spend this much time at the doctor today."

Noruas shrugged in response.

Don't got enough cred for that.  I'm pretty sure this place is gonna cost me a couple arms and legs.  Possibly a whole corpse too.

"Thought you were a business-man?" He asks, amused, handing him the handful of ammo.

"There's a whole corpse you can use, but eh... I mean, do you have some kinda expectation that I'm going to foot your bill here?"

In this case, hitting the building isn't hard. Probably what I'll do is basically use modified Movement rules for spirits; give you a TN of 6 for trick shooting, then the driver gets to make a vehicle Handling test to keep up speed, and your number of net successes reduce his speed. He's losing speed quickly, between the two of you. And yes, you get the 4.

With his spirits out completing their services, Caduceus sat calmly in his seat in the back of Copperhead's RV and joined in the conversation. With Copperhead's smoke grenades, he couldn't see much now anyway without astrally projecting from his body. "I could always try sinking my own fangs into them a bit too, if you're busy, Duck.  I have some of my own tricks for getting things out out of people too.  Both magical and mundane.  Probably won't end up being as... polite, as your style though."

"I'd put money down on it being JR in that limo. Any takers on that action?" he asks, pronouncing it 'Jay-Arr' instead of 'Junior.'

"One of the perps that was high-tailing it away has been dumb enough to check into the same clinic. If you don't catch their ride, we can wait him out and swipe him up the moment he leaves." he says over the comms, wondering where in the world the spirit-talker who seemed like she'd be right behind him out the back door, had wondered off to.

The rigger scanned the alley.  It was time to pin the mouse's tail.

Her head speeded through the calculations and she waited while the limo moved into position.  Her cannon unleashed a sustained burst chewing through brick, wood and decaying metal.  The wall collapsed, filling the alley with smoke, dust and whole lot of cindercrete along with a twisted fire escape.

"Get through dat mess fragger"


Phase 1 - Shoot the wall

Base TN: 6.  -1 for moving toward, +1 for >30m/CT, -1 for exceeding target maneuver score by > 10, 0 for moving in normal/open terrain, -1 for target stationary, -1 for target size

8 rounds, 6 dice from pool

quote:

10:41, Today: Copperhead rolled 12 successes using 19d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 3 with rolls of 3,2,4,5,5,2,2,5,(6+3)9,1,1,5,3,5,1,(6+4)10,1,4,3.  Take down wall to block in limo.
10:47, Today: Copperhead rolled 2 successes using 5d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 1,5,1,2,(6+6+3)15.  Demolitions - companion skill.

I had held action, so I think everyone in the limo has had a chance to act, but in case they were holding their actions, I'll wait to declare what happens next phase to see if anything interesting happens.

Also, is that sufficient to keep him from backing up or only from moving forward?  Also, if you disagree on the modifiers, I might take an extra phase to aim

The wall collapses across the alleyway and tires squeal as the limo turns away from the impact. It slows and, for a moment, looks like it may crash, but the driver retakes control at the last moment as the car hits the rubble hard and roars over it. Suddenly, as though in response to an unseen force, the rocks shift and a pair of 4x8 boards hit the grill of the limo. With that, the car finally rolls to a stop.

Despite having the opportunity to try and reverse out (or slowly climb the rubble pile), the vehicle keeps its position.

In the clinic, the nurse returns and brings Noruas into one of the examination rooms, laying him out on the table. The nurse, a heavyset ork, pulls back his armor and cuts his shirt, pulls out the bits of shrapnel and grit, then wanders off, leaving Noruas with an open gut wound to ponder the nature of reality for a while.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:49, Wed 15 June 2016.

The drone continued to descend in a stately fashion.  She was in no rush to get into range, but having a better view wouldn't hurt.  Copperhead watched the vehicle carefully, prepared to lay down suppressive fire if the limo tried to move or anyone tried to leave.  Once it appeared the occupants were hunkered down, she sent instructions for her van to join her, guiding it to bypass the worst of the traffic issues the recent chaos had triggered.

"Whitey, ya wanna ride, ya walkin' er ya wan us ta deal wit 'im?"

She continued to keep an eye the vehicle for any activity, ready to appropriately discourage any sign of creativity.

I'll continue to hold action, ready to respond to whatever they do.  The van's jamming, so inbound or outbound communications are going to be challenging for them (rating 6 jammer).  If the vehicle attempts to move forward or backward, I'll fire 10 rounds of suppressive fire either in front or behind (whichever way it's trying to move).  If one of the doors open, I'll aim and fire 7 gel rounds at whoever steps out.  If multiple doors open, I'll lay down suppressive fire (gel rounds) in front of each of the doors.  If I have a chance to run a full scan on the vehicle to get a sense of number of occupants, I'll do that.

As he lay there with his gut open, Noruas begins contemplating on his place in this universe, and how things came to be the way they were now.  It was as if life had tapped him on the shoulder to express the beauty he should be witnessed to....then sucker punched him in the face with a gauntlet.

I'll take 10 nuyen on the fact that CH and the others will eventually come face to face with JR.

"Thought you said you'd be swinging by, but I can jaunt over if you give me the location." says Duck, shaking his head as it seems like this crew has more than one plan for him, but only one of him to carry those plans out. He takes another drag from his smoke and waits on the location, hoping it was close enough to avoid breaking a sweat.

Where is White Duck?  If he's outside, I'll stop the van for you to get in.  If not, you'll have to hoof it.

"S'rry.  Tot ya was still inside.  Didn see ya wit da smoke"

Copperhead will expend the necessary complex actions to direct the van to stop and pick up duck before continuing on to where the limo is, but will only do so when she's confident she'll still have the drop on the limo and its occupants if they try anything.

The limo idles for a bit, then a window rolls down and Junior, still dressed in his half cape and suit. "Hey now, there's clearly a misunderstanding. Whoever you are, you should know I have a platinum Lone Star contract. I'm paid up, you can't be restraining me. Now get out and let us go on our way."

I'm probably still ~900 meters up.  Not sure if my audio is good enough to make him out or not.  And the van's not there yet - probably another 30 seconds or so, what with picking up Duck.  Let me know if I can hear him well enough to make out what he says (or whether my loudspeaker is loud enough to be heard at that distance.)

"Just N-cap that fucker. While I gravely miss the opportunity to personally press holes into his lungs, it's more important we put him down now and early." he grumbles, idly cracking his knuckles and hoping CH has a good place to hold him.

he's pretty loud

I'm going to speed things along a bit (the post below covers 6-7 turns worth of time or so).  I'll roll this back and adjust if anything significant needs to happen that would affect what's below

The drone's loudspeaker echoed through the alley and much of the surrounding space.
"PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR VEHICLE.  WE ARE ASSESSING THE SITUATION"

The drone descended to a height of about 200 meters and hovered, positioning itself centered in the alley and just slightly in front of the limo, giving her a clean shot through the front windshield, should she so wish.  She ran a few active scans of the vehicle to get a sense of just how many occupants the team was dealing with.

Meanwhile, the van stopped for Duck, then wove its way through traffic toward the alley.  On arrival it backed its way in, cutting off any opportunity for the limo to back up.  If it was going to try to get away, it was going to have to navigate the pile of rubble, the spirit's help and some significant machine gun fire.  Both rifles and the rear grenade launchers trained themselves on the limo

With her second vehicle in position, the loudspeaker activated again, though with the reduced distance, not quite as loud.  And the voice was rather distinct from the pre-programmed LoneStar instructions.

"'k Mr. Jun'r.  I coulda turned yer fancy ride ta scrap five times o'er by now an you wit it.  So ya know we's not lookin' ta kill ya, e'n doh we probly otta.  We's jus' lookin' ta talk.  You step outta da car an come on o'er.  An' ya tells yer friens ta stick tight an' keep da winnows shut tight.  Ya coop'rates an' ya's on yer way.  Ya don, and ya's gonna fine out dat yer udder platnum contract - da one wit' Doc Wag'n ain worf dreck when ya's been turned ta a grease spot."

Her voice comes over the radio without a pause.  "I kin drop 'im if ya wants, but yer da one dat's gonna hafta lug 'is fat hoop inta da van.  Pro'ly best if ya kin get 'im ta take a ride.  E' prolly tinks 'e kin take ya better when da drone can't see 'im too"

Duck is just finishing his smoke when CH pulls up and he hops in. As she drives, he pipes in.

"Don't worry about the Star threat. My brother-in-law happens to work for them and they'll occasionally contact me for a consult. Can't exactly carry out any terrorist attacks and get away with it, but for giving some asshole trying to kill us a bad day, well, I can probably talk us out of any potential trouble."

With Copperhead's speedy driving, Duck finds himself there after he's done explaining, clipping on his respirator/mempo again, then making his hair and eye color that of an average Asian male, the same as when he'd first run into Junior. He steps out of the vehicle and begins his approach, ducking behind some rubble just in case anyone hops out with an SMG before he closes in.

"Alright Junior, have you and your crew toss your guns, then get out of the car yourself, hands out and up as you exit. If you don't comply, we're going to ensure that the day you'll have will be significantly shittier than the one your merc sniper girlfriend is having, well, had, by providing you with some extra holes for ventilation and streamlining. Now man up, show some spine, and stop hiding in your limo like some whiny piss-ant, or you and everyone else who might be hiding in your car is going to die because of your cowardice. If not, well, I always enjoy a good explosion, or series of explosions."

He looks to the van and shrugs. Putting his fingers to his ear, he comms in a brief, but succinct message.

"If he decides to try to call this as a bluff yammer some more, pull the trigger and blow this fucker to hell. We might not get the info we want from him alive, but at least we'll be eliminating a problem before it gets bigger. Plus, well, I don't like to bluff."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:02, Mon 20 June 2016.

While Copperhead made her way to the scene, Caduceus took this opportunity to pop out of his body for a moment.  "Going astral.  I'll be right back."  He went to where he knew Jr.'s limo was and scanned it for any astral barriers or any magic in place. (Aside from the magic from his spirits.)  If there were no barriers, he would pop in and assess the auras of everyone in the limo before heading back to the RV and reporting his findings to the others.

As the van. Approaches, Junior climbs out without being prompted, but when white duck says his part, junior pulls out an oversized handgun and puts it on the hood. He then approaches the van, still full of swagger and confidence.

Inside the van, copperhead and caduceus count two people, both wired. There's no magical defenses caduceus can detect.

Back by the clinic, motorcycles have arrived baring visible red gang symbols. One peels off to watch copperhead and junior, while the others pick the bodies.

"Inside the van" = "Inside the limo"?  That includes the driver?

How many bikes?

Copperhead sets the audio and video feeds on the van to record.

Duck looks to Junior plainly as he approaches, motioning for the ork to get into the back of the van. Duck's vicious, darker half wanted blood on its hands, wanted to literally rip each tooth out of the man's mouth. He'd already cost people their lives to seek out profits and power, and now here he was, feet away. He holds out a hand for Junior to stop in his tracks, letting him close to about five feet away before he does, then speaks aloud over the comms, loud enough for Junior to hear.

"Yanno, I'd rather carry him in than let him walk. I have some...issues to settle."

He sizes Junior up, tilting his head a bit like a curious puppy, then grins, removing his sport coat and tossing it into the body of the van. Then, he unbuttons each cuff and rolls up his sleeves to his elbows. They are both adorned with vibrant, colorful sleeve tattoos, ones that seem to pop out like comic book art on the canvas of plain, unpigmented skin that would be any tattoo artist's dream. Duck steps forward, then puts his dukes up.

"Put em' up, Junior. You could stand to lose a little hubris before we have a discussion."

Copperhead cocked an eyebrow.  This was going to be interesting.  It was a shame she had to keep her attention disbursed to make sure no-one else intervened.  At least she'd have the recording for later . . .

I really hope you know what you're doing :>

Seriously?  Now?  You gotta pick the time when I can't watch this live? said the dwarf over the comms.

As the nurse bustles away to gather other much needed items for his wound, Noruas takes the moment to switch his gel rounds with that of EX-explosive rounds.  He didn't want a second round of spilling his guts for that day.

three bikes at the battle scene, one playing overwatch. And yes, I meant the limo. Three including the driver.

Junior approaches with his hands up, "hey, hey no reason for this to turn violent. You're the fellas from that uhhh... who they hired, aren't you? Shame about your van getting all shot up. Rough neighborhood."

Junior comes in close then, when he doesn't think White DUck is paying attention, he makes for a sucker punch.

I don't have my rule books in front of me. WD, you're welcome to roll first. I'll see what I can figure when I get a chance, no later than Wednesday.

Duck barks out a laugh. When Junior draws near, he even rolls his eyes, fully seeming to *expect* a sucker-punch. He remains in his stance, then seems outright gleeful when Junior attempts it.

"I thot I thow a thucker punch!"

He easily sways to the left, catching Junior's fist and letting it pass in a whiff beside his head, his other hand closing in on one of the ork's tusks, moving Junior past him and holding onto the tusk, yanking it free of his mouth at the end of the momentum.

Duck spins around to face his opponent, bloodied tusk in hand with bits of gum and root still attached, then tosses it up and catches it with a smirk.

"I did, I did thee a tucker punch! Wanna try again, or are you good admitting that you can't even *cheat* to beat up a scrawny albino now? Either way, I'll be keeping this as a thouvenier."

Post edited to reflect clarifications/rerolls 7/1/16.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:48, Fri 01 July 2016.

As White Duck and Junior initiated their machismo battle, Caduceus peeked out from the doorway of Copperhead's vehicle. It was just in case White Duck got in over his head and needed a spell or a spirit to help intervene.  The shaman didn't quite grasp why White Duck was picking a fist fight right now, but he had shown to know what he was doing before so Caduceus refrained from criticizing.  He did, however, keep an eye on astral space on the off chance that any magic entered the fray, or in case Junior's aura hinted at any ulterior motives.

Note: Caduceus had previously asked his Wind Spirit to slow down the Movement of anyone who exited the limo.  Not sure if it is a factor in hand to hand combat or not.

Note to all: White Duck revised his last post, in response to his reroll.

Junior stumbles backwards, bleeding from his jaw. He touches the injury gingerly, then looks up at White Duck. "You think you can embarrass me? I'll show you ..."

Spurs slide out of his fists with a *snikt*. He raises his blades and charges at White Duck swinging. The two dance back and forth, neither scoring a blow.

Copperhead winced as she saw the tusk break.  One way or the other, Junior was going to have to die after this.  White Duck had just turned the orc into a mortal enemy and mortal enemies with the sort of power Junior obviously had were best left under 6 feet of dirt.  Plus this particular episode was way too public for any threat of blackmail to be useful on him.  The trog had been publicly humiliated.  There was no way he was going to step away from that.  The only question now was how to take him out without violating the "keep it quiet" edict from their employer.  And how to keep Lonestar from tracking it back to them.  White Duck was proving to be more trouble than he was worth.

She temporarily excluded Caduceus from the channel.  He didn't need a distraction right now.

"Snakey, kin yer spirit keep da bikers occyapied if dey gets hot under da collar?  I'll manage da ones in da limo.  I spect deys gonna be wantin ta innervene pretty soon.

Noruas, hows da patchin comin?  Could be we'll be needin ta 'stract ya in da face o some biker oppsition preddy soon here."

She kept a sharp eye on the occupants of the limo and positioned her drone to minimize the cover the bodyguard would have when he opened the door.  He was the most likely one to make the first move of the two in the vehicle.  When he did, she was going to give him one drecking nasty headache.

I'm not sure if I can aim at the body-guard while he's still inside the vehicle and be able to have it count when he opens the door to step out (or if I can aim at where he'll have to be to exit or at least stick his gun out the door he's beside).  If I can, I'll aim for -3 and hold action.  I'm guessing the drone has the best line of to the bodyguard, but if it happens to be the rifles on the van, then I'll position the drone to handle the driver and will aim with the van.  Gel rounds selected both vehicles and drone will over just inside medium range.

Duck narrows his eyes as he works to avoid the whooshing spurs, managing to step back unscathed from the exchange. Seeing the now-lethal intent of his opponent, Duck has no choice but to try to put Junior down permanently himself. He'd known going into this that one of them was probably going to die from this exchange, but with the ample video evidence of Junior not only overseeing a failed strike-team attempt personally, but coming at Duck with a sucker punch and spurs, it would be hard for the ork to defend himself with clever corporate maneuvering, especially since Duck himself was a contracted worker for that same corporation.

He ducked under a whooshing spur, narrowing his fists into flat palms, then strikes out at Junior as if his hands were knives of their own. Incidentally, the rapid series of attempted cutting strikes creates an odd-sounding whistling noise.

12:09, Today: White Duck rolled 16 using 2d6+6 with rolls of 6,4.  Initiative.

12:15, Today: White Duck rolled 3 successes using 9d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,1,2,2,1,1,5,4,3.  Unarmed Combat, Attack, Using 3 CP.

Going to use second karma reroll here. Need to put him down quickly.

12:16, Today: White Duck rolled 2 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 5,2,4,2,2,3.  Karma Reroll (2 of 2).
This message was last edited by the player at 17:18, Tue 05 July 2016.

If you're using sensors, you can get a sensor lock on the bodyguard. That'll stay even once she steps out of the vehicle. You can't really get a manual lock on a target you can't visually see though.

The bikers are still staying back and observing.

Sensor lock on a human is pretty useless in an urban environment.  It gives me 2 extra dice in exchange for a +2 on target number.  (If I was under heavy TN modifiers, it might be different).  So I can't aim for where I know the target's going to have to be?  If he opens the door to the car and sticks his gun out, I pretty much know where is body is going to have to be.

No. The actual target is a pretty big target when it comes to aiming.

"I'll try to keep them from getting too worked up in the first place," Caduceus replied to Copperhead.  He called forth his smoggy wind spirit even as he continued peeking out from the RV.

To his spirit he instructed, "Confuse anyone who approaches this vehicle or those two fighting out there.  Excluding only those two fighting out there, the two in this vehicle, or anyone escorted by one of us."

I'm not so worried about them approaching - more worried about them shooting from where they stand . . . :>

Getting a little bit nervous about just how intensely the albino was beating on the orc, and no longer that worried about a distraction, Copperhead opens the channel again.  "Don't squish 'im.  'E might know where da chips is.  An der's no nuyen witout da chips."

On the plus side, she might soon get to practice some of her first aid skills on an orc.  She'd never had a chance to play with the guts of one of those before.

White Duck scores a second solid hit across the chin. The crack of bone is audible from the van. Junior charges in a rage, slicing at White Duck's head, but WD sees it coming and easily side steps, landing a solid blow in Junior's belly. He stumbles back, gasping for breath, but he makes a hand signal at the car.

Junior attacked. For expedience, I rolled White Duck's defense. Both of you have one more action.

Duck's combat haze fizzles a bit at CH's words. On examining his badly-outmatched opponent, Duck's shoulders slouch a little. He still remains ready for an attack, but he hesitates, likely to end up killing the man on his next counterattack.

"Look pal, I'm clearly better at this. My teammate's asking me to stand down, and I don't blame her, but if you come at me again, I'm going to kill you with your own tusk. Take a knee here and I spare you. I know your ears are probably ringing, so nod if you understand me."

((Will use 4 CP up on the next counterattack))

Copperhead's voice booms over the drone loudspeaker:
"OPEN DA DOOR OR DA WINDA AN I'S GONNA AERATE YA REAL GOOD"

She expected them to do it anyhow, but at least they'd been warned.

Junior considers for a moment longer, then withdraws his arm.

"Frag you both. You aren't even worth my time." He turns his back on White Duck and walks (with only the slightest limp) back towards his car. "I'm not bowing to no damn breeder. You're just street scum. You're nothing. Born nothing, and you'll die nothing. I don't need to waste any more blood on you."

From their places, the two go-gangers now watching the proceedings jeer at Junior. Whether they're there at his beckoning or just to pick the corpses, they seem to be spoiling for a fight.

"This nothing-breeder just beat your ass, and you're lucky I'm allowing to continue to allow YOU to waste oxygen. You are a sni- know what? Nevermind." he pauses, considering something.

"We're in for some fun, don't worry about it. Please, keep trusting your pride, you're gonna be *fiiine*..." Duck grows a slow, demented-looking smile across his face as he speaks, his words dripping with venom. Opens the door to the RV for Junior, motioning for him to get inside and closing it behind him if he complies, giving a nod to Cadeuces to make sure he's good before he does.

He looks to the men in the limo, tossing their bosses' tooth into the front window of the car, albeit from his position directly next to the RV. It lands accurately in the driver's seat.

"Your boss is an asshole." He states, loudly enough for them to hear. He then looks towards the gangers, then shrugs. Why not?

"Hoi chummers, I'm still fresh! Any of you wanna have a go? I promise to go easy on y'all!" he barks a laugh, throwing his coat over a shoulder and getting out his pack of smokes.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:06, Fri 08 July 2016.

I'm going to take the liberty of assuming Junior's next actions - because I can't imagine him doing anything else.  If necessary, I can revise.

Copperhead waited to see if the orc would show any sign of turning around.  When he didn't, the debris-strewn terrain in front of him exploded with fire from her light machine-gun, peppering the area and Junior with shrapnel.  The loudspeaker echoed off the surrounding buildings.

"'E SAID TA GET INNA FRAGGIN VAN"

Supressive fire a meter or two ahead of him - and well before he gets close to his car.  I'm assuming we've got 20+ meters between the vehicles - I'm just at the end of the alley and he was about 2/3 of the way through before I dropped a wall around the car.  Plus he's slowed, so he can't travel too fast over the rubble.  Fire covering about 2 meters in width - so he needs 5 successes on a dodge to avoid being hit.  And if he does try to dodge or go around, my next attack isn't going to be aimed to avoid him . . .

Junior walks back towards his car. When the drone's gun fills the air with lead, he drops to the ground instinctively and waves a hand signal in the air.

Go ahead and roll initiative again and actions. I don't imagine this will take long to resolve though.

It's actually filling the air with gel - and a bunch of broken bricks and not a small amount of dust . . . :>

quote:

07:53, Today: Copperhead rolled 23 using 4d6+12 with rolls of 1,3,1,6.  Initiative.

"PUSSY"

If Copperhead wins initiative, she'll hold action until either Junior or someone in the vehicle tries something and will intervene on their phase.  So opening a window or door or weapons port or Junior starting to make a run for it.  Or something else of interest.

They are both going to take actions, so go ahead and roll for whatever it is you're going to do, and whoever moves first gets shot (I guess). Once White Duck posts, I'll process, since Caduceus hasn't indicated he's too involved in this, and Noruas is getting used to having his guts internal again.

Actually, I'll focus on the body guards.  Junior's on the ground, slowed and semi-disarmed, so I'm pretty sure White Duck can manage him.  So I'll either be hitting whoever exits the car or the limo itself if it tries to shoot or back up.  I'm leaving the bikers in  Caduceus's hands. :>

Sorry for my lack of posting.  But yeah, Caduceus isn't too involved in this fight.  He is mostly just observing from the RV and ready to help in an emergency.  To him it seems Copperhead and White Duck have most of the situation under control.

09:23, Today: Caduceus rolled 1 success using 1d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4.  Initiative (+6).
Total = 10.  Same as White Duck.

From his observation spot in Copperhead's RV Caduceus kept an eye on the situation unfolding before him.  When it became obvious that hostile actions were picking up again, he called back his wind spirit one more time.  "Ok buddy, turns out I need you to Confuse those guys right now.  Not later."  He indicated to the spirit all of Junior's goons, the bikers, and Junior himself whom were not already under its "spiritual guidance."

Making some assumptions here so we can wrap up combat...

The back door on the limo flies open. There's an ork fortified in the back, with what looks like a very big gun aiming at White Duck. The drone opens up, firing a line of rounds into the car. The shooter, behind her layers of armor, in turn fires down at White Duck. White Duck dances away, as rounds tear up the asphalt around him.

Each burnt up 6 points of CP

Junior scuttles across the field of fire, to take cover behind the remains of a wall.

Caduceus gives his order, and his spirits disappear. There's no movement from the gangers.

If I'm shooting the car, I've got the following modifiers:
- Medium range - Base TN 5
- Smart link -2
- Stationary object -1
- Large object -1

So I assume I'm shooting at the orc who has partial cover +4, so that makes my TN 7.  You missed the extra 7 dice for a long burst.

quote:

10:57, Today: Copperhead rolled 1 success using 7d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 7 with rolls of 3,4,(6+1)7,1,2,4,3.  Auto-fire.

Her armor counts for half and she's resisting 11S.  If necessary, I'll use karma to re-roll failures.

Oh, and if she's still in the vehicle, she only rolls half her dodge.  (And if she's not in the vehicle, she doesn't get the partial cover bonus :>)

I forgot about half-armor :P And I only saw the GVIV, so I kept the burst length down to avoid a recall penalty, but I suppose that didn't make a super-huge difference.

How is the damage 11S?

Total recoil comp is 2xbody =4 + GV III = 7, so I can fire 8 bullets before taking penalty.  I saw 12 dice rolled, which would be my gunnery + 6 CP, so it didn't look like you fired a burst at all.

Base damage is 9S for an LMG.  It's firing EX ammo, so that bumps to 11S.  And don't forget to check for knockdown if she doesn't dodge everything damage (she needs to roll a body test of 5 + damage modifiers - # of successes depend on wound level - to keep from getting knocked back into the vehicle or taking additional modifiers on her actions if she can't move backwards.)

I did warn her to keep the door closed . . . ;>

After dancing past the hail of bullets, Duck's eyes meet Junior's. He tilts his head to the side a bit, then rushes forward, a simple, single handspring through the debris takes him behind the same cover the ork is hiding behind. Holding himself low on the ground, he balances himself on his fists, bringing out his two legs behind him and whipping them forward in rapid succession towards Junior's face, not taking any time to ask questions, each foot flying towards the ork's face and trying to crack it into the concrete barrier they are both hiding behind.

07:19, Today: White Duck rolled 4 successes using 10d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+2)8,1,1,3,3,2,(6+6+3)15,4,2,(6+3)9.  Unarmed Combat, Attack, Using 4 CP.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:30, Fri 15 July 2016.

Thought you were firing gel rounds. Alright, I'll recalculate.

I was firing gel in front of Junior.  But gel isn't going to penetrate the vehicle that the gunner's mostly hiding in, they've had plenty of warning and if they're smart enough to keep their head down once they're bleeding, I can patch them up later.  Plus, I don't need them alive.  All that said, I'm not sure I was explicit, so my bad.

White Duck pounds Junior across the skull with both boots hard enough to send his limp body flying out the far side of cover. He hits the ground, hard, and doesn't move. The gunfire stops. There's a distinct moment of silence, as no one moves.

The limo engine roars and the car accelerates away, leaving Junior passed out, possibly dead, where he lies.

In the distance, the go-gangers laugh to one another. The battle is won. After another thirty seconds, the two kick on their engines and drive their way down leisurely towards the battle site.

(Assuming here no one is bothering to pursue the limo or shoot at the gangers ... You do have time to do other things before they arrive.)

They approach the group with no fear, but also no sign of aggression, no weapons aimed at the group. They stop their bikes, the engine still too loud to talk over, and the leader shouts, "Not bad, whitey. Looks like y'all got what you want. How about you all beat it now, we'll cover you in case the Star comes around."

Does Copperhead have a sense of what the "big gun" is?  Are we talking LMG or heavier or just an assault rifle or SMG?  She's trying to figure out whether it's worth stopping the limo to get it.  I presume with the rubble and the spirit, I've got ample time to take out the engine block if necessary?

Duck nods, searching Junior's pockets and personage for anything of value to either the group's objective or monetary requirements. He also checks to see if Junior is, in fact, dead.

"Yeah, might be tough to bail immediately, chummer. One of ours is in that clinic with a gut-shot wound. We'll be on our way once we collect our own, if that's fair to you." he says to the gangers, not making any threatening motions towards them either. This seemed like a bad spot for the group to lose its decker, either way.

The 'big gun' was definitely an assault rifle or larger, but nothing as big as an MMG. You could take out the engine block, but you'd still be dealing with an armored, armed vehicle surrounded by gangers.

Searching Junior, his handgun fell in the street when the car drove away. Looks like a Browning MaxPower with a gold-plated grip. He has a pair of grenades hidden in his coat pockets, plus his pocket secretary, a wrist phone, and a handful of invitations to some sort of media-corp party. Smart boy, he didn't bring his cred stick to a gun fight (at least not where it might be so easily lifted) and his docwagon bracelet is beeping. He does appear to be alive, if only barely. He won't be talking for quite a while, even with hospital care.

The gangers seem okay with White Duck checking Junior's pockets, even as they laugh about who his cape will look best on. "Yeh yeh, go check out your friend. We'll just tell the Star you drove off and we didn't get a good look. Probably want to get that beater of a van outta the area though. Yah know, catch a cab home tonight or something."

"Snakey, if we get'im conscious fer a bit, ya got a mine-probe tingy dat'd work on 'im if e' can' talk?  Udderwise, I guess we gets decker-boy ta crack 'is secr'tary an drops 'im off fer parts.

Any case, best 'ta get 'im inna van 'fore I turns off da jammer."

She shakes her head and grumbles with the mike off.  The whole point of stopping Junior was to ask him questions, so why break his fragging jaw - and most of his face?

Caduceus kept an eye on the bikers as he replied to Copperhead, making sure they didn't try anything sneaky.  "Yes, I do know how to shape my magic in a way that can probe his mind.  I could also try to influence him to be more cooperative, but I doubt that will have much effect at this point."  Caduceus stepped outside to go help White Duck with Junior.  "Of course we will need to keep him alive and get him conscious again...  I have some spells that might help with that too."

"Den lets get 'im loaded an' get da frag outa here 'fore the real Star dones shows up.  Er Doc Wag'n. Er worse.

Nouras, ya ready ta roll yet?  Mebbe we kin drop Whitey wit ya an ya kin chat wit' da mage an ya kin work on da orc's 'tronics.  An Snakey an me'll fine a place ta patch Junior enuff ta see what 'e knows an den see if we kin fine a place dat needs some fresh meat an used cyber"

She left it as a given that the orc wasn't going to be going home.  If he left their hands alive tonight, there was no doubt there'd be an astronomical price on all of their heads by morning.  Not the way she'd prefer to play it, but the adept hadn't left a lot of options.  At least the executive was still alive.  Mostly . . .

She frowned as she watched the blood dripping from the man's face.  It was going to be time to break out the bleach when she finally got home.

Well, that certainly didn't take long, replied Noruas, Be sure to get rid of or jam any trackers Junior might have on him for Lonestar or Doc Wagons. (Coz nobody mentioned taking those things off his body.)

Yeah, swing on by and pick me up.  I'm nearly done here, or at least I hope I am.

He asks the nurse with a cheeky smile, So, am I gonna live, doc?

When he's inside the van and the door's closed, no electronic signals can get in or out.  We'll strip off his devices later once we've moved.

As Caduceus picks up Junior, the lead ganger shouts out, "hey, the meat a relation of yours? He ain't answering no questions. Get your drek and get out. I don't want the Star bangin' on my door neither before I can drag moneybags off somewhere to ehh... 'extract his 401K', heh heh heh." He looks back to his comrade for confirmation that his joke was good, then back at the lot of you.

"Yeah, I know you're thinking about grabbing and go. But that corpse pays your toll through Red Rovers, and that means you go through all Khan turf, all the way back to Bellevue. I don't need to fight you, chummer. I just need to slow you down long enough for one of those Star ghetto birds to fight you. So think damn hard how much your pretty li'l rolling trash heap is worth."

With that, he leans back in his seat, no flashing of weapons, no bravado, just chewing the end of his ciggie and watching what you decide.

Duck laughs.

"He sure as drek ain't family. My scrawniest brother is tougher than that heap. Has nicer tusks too." he fishes into his coat, pulling out his pack of smokes and a matte-black zippo with a gold-engraved duck on one side.

"This one's probably got plenty of 'benefits', but probably not much of a 'package', if you catch my drift." he says with a wry grin, drawing the pack of smokes from his pocket and lighting one up.

"Anyway, thanks chummers. I'll fetch our own and we'll fetch a cab." he looks to the van, slightly shaking his head, seeming concerned about the damage. Wouldn't help that her ride got banged up. CH was already going to be pissed about that last pair of head-kicks, most like, but he was also relieved that Junior wasn't going to be recovering from those injuries without permanent, lasting damage. He gave that one more chances than most to take a knee, but he couldn't do it.

As he started his walk back to the clinic to check on Nouras and the other runner, who seemed to be joining them at first but ended up MIA, he finished his cigarette and wondered if having folks around to check him on his own stubbornness would be of benefit to him. In this case, he wasn't the one on the ground with the partially caved-in skull.

I presume Duck grabbed the secretary and gun and anything else of potential use/value?

As Duck walked away, there were a couple of quiet "THHHP", "THHHP" sounds.  Junior's head The top and back of Junior's skull exploded outward, spattering blood and grey matter on the surrounding debris.

"Didn't wan' da Doc Wag'n folks 'succitatin' 'im.  Duck, kin ya give da sec'tary ta Snakey?  It's gonna be broadcastin' 'til I fixes it.

I gots ta get scarce.  Ya 'k ta meet wit' Noruas an chat wit Freya?"

"E'S ALL YERS.  DA JAMMIN'S COMMIN OFF PERDY QUICK, SO I'D BE MOV'IN 'IM SOON"

She left it unsaid that they should remove the Docwagon bracelet.  They seemed like a relatively bright bunch.

After pausing to make certain that the gangers didn't show a hostile response to her shots and waiting for the adept to provide the secretary, she retracted her miniturrets back into the roof of the van and pulled out of the alley.

If the gangers are bothered to have the merchandise damaged, they don't act on it. As the van pulls away, the second biker rides up and catches Junior under the chin with a jagged hatchet. With some hefting, the body goes over the back of the bike, ichor dumping down around the stained muffler and rear wheel. With that, she hauls off, the leader following a moment after. A few more bikers are still lurking around the area, picking through the remains of the battle for any salvage and watching for trouble. But they won't hang out for long.

On the walk back the clinic, White Duck sees both Lone Star and Docwagon choppers fly past, always keeping a safe distance as they scan the area with spotlights and a host of invisible sensing instruments. They're still hovering outside when White Duck arrives at the clinic door. The clinic is still buttoned up, with the vagrants inside now holding little paper cups of weak soup, as they wait for either medical service or safety outside.

Noruas is feeling much better. He'll still be limping until he gets some proper rest, but all his bits are approximately where they should be. He's served the bill for $100 and told to get the hell out. Freya is waiting in her room if you have more questions for her.

"We'll meetcha two at Fragged up Franks at noon.  Keep yer heads low.  Da star's gonna be sniffin aroun fer a bit."

The bar was far enough away to be outside any Lonestar activity associated with their most recent activities, but close enough it shouldn't be too hard for the decker and adept to make it if they were forced to do so on foot.  Though she doubted Lonestar would put up enough of a dragnet to have roadblocks.  The price the local gangs would extract in damaged equipment and personnel made that unlikely for a low-level exec like Junior.  It wasn't as though they'd murdered a AAA CEO or something.

As soon as she had the pocket secretary in-hand, Copperhead headed out, working to put maximum distance between herself and the inbound choppers.  Her drone dropped in altitude, cruising much closer to street level, losing itself in the electronic noise of vehicular traffic.  Her jammer silenced, eliminating any possibility of triangulating her position based on the electronic noise.  Once she'd put a good 5 kilometers of distance and was confident that neither her van nor the drone had picked up a tail, she parked under a convenient overpass that wasn't occupied by squatters or others likely to pay too much attention to what she was up to.

The driver panel opened and she emerged into the rear.

"Dat was a bit messier dan I'd 'spected."

We can fast forward this a bit if you want.  I plan to disable the antenna on the secretary, make a copy of the data on it and grab what I can from the copy that's not encrypted.  I'll also do a bit of a paint job on the van to make it a less exact match of any description or video from the scene of the fight (covering up bullet holes, adding a racing stripe or two, etc.)  I figure there's about 60-90 minutes between now and noon?

Caduceus was not too upset that they no longer had to deal with Junior. The shaman hopped back into Copperhead's vehicle and rode with her to the rendezvous point, helping with his spirits and magic when needed.  A little concealment from a city spirit here and there to make them less noticeable, a little bit of a Trid Phantasm or Physical Mask to disguise their vehicle, or a bit of Clairvoyance to peek around a corner when necessary.

He definitely breathed a sigh of relief if/when they made it out of hostile territory, however.  Replying to Copperhead's comment, he said, "Messy.  Yeah.  That's an understatement.  I did not expect a low-key hospital visit to turn into such a..." he searched for the word, "...tornado of drek."

Duck flicks out his cigarette at the door, putting it right into his stride so that it's under the ball of his foot when it hits he ground. He  pops into the clinic, paying Freya a visit first by simply dipping his head into her room's door.

"Say, if you ever want to go on an incredibly interesting date with an incredibly good looking guy (that's me) sometime, my number's good for that. Oh, and for work stuff too. Yeah." He says with a charming smile, moving on to pick up Nouras and heading out to find a way underground.

"Come on. We need to get our suits cleaned if we're going to a fancy party." He says, hqnding the dwarf an invitation to the party.

"I totally kicked that guy's ass for you, by the way. Nobody shoots my buddy in the gut and gets away with it." He grins down to Nouras and leads the two to the nearest entrance to the ork underground.

EDIT: Added a little color to this post. No, not figuratively, I literally forgot to color in Duck's words.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:34, Fri 22 July 2016.

Noruas smiles at the mention of a fancy party.  It had been years since he and Miyuki crashed a party of the like.  He grabs an alcohol wipe from one of the stands and quickly releases himself from all the blood that was in his hands.

Two questions, he quickly replied as they walked on, Did you get a recording of Junior's beating?  And how much heat are we going to pack for this party?

As Duck walks along with Nouras, he draws a fresh smoke and lights it.

"Yeah, probably. Not sure CH's cams will entirely capture the smugness of that bastard, or if her cameras were high-res enough to get good motion capture on my strikes, but knowing CH, probably. As for heat, I dunno, that's to be discussed. I'm sure you can probably tell that I can grievously injure someone with a paper airplane if I want, but guns aren't my thing. That's on y'all."

The dwarf casually tosses the wet wipe aside and laughs.

Yeah, for you maybe.  But the rest of us are still mere motrals.  We need our guns, and preferably, EX Explosive rounds.

So are we skipping ahead to the Ork Underground or are we gonna be walking through tall grass here, if you get my drift?

That's up to Bear, but realistically he just wants to go down there for a fresh change of clothes.

Duck makes his way through a series of tunnels, some eerily quiet and others packed and heavily trafficked by the fringes of metahumanity. Duck seems right at home, even visibly appearing more comfortable as the two venture deeper underground. They find themselves at an abandoned subway station within about thirty minutes, and after arguing with a troll dry cleaner in Japanese for a good fifteen minutes, she agrees to take their blood-stained clothes and clean/patch them. Duck leads Nouras two doors down, to a location called Crane's comics. A human of Amerindian/Hispanic descent is inside, haggling with an ork that doesn't look like he gets out much over the price of a vinyl sculpture of a rather voluptuous woman with purple hair and a skimpy outfit. She calls Duck over, Duck states a price, and the ork sighs and pays up. He moves back to Nouras and shows him around.

Inside the confines of the abandoned subway terminal's once-quiet cylindrical hallways rests a small row of about ten different shops, all repurposed over the years to serve the clientele that usually inhabit the Orc Underground. This particular old corner bookstore houses two shops- an antique, real-paper comic store run by Duck and a talismonger's shop that sells natural foods and materials for ritualistic purposes, which occupies what used to be a built-in coffee shop back when the station was populated and the location served Corporate America. A place that used to sell digital paperbacks and soycaf now exists to serve the denizens of the underground, so while the essence of what once was there still lingers, the flavor of the place has changed dramatically.

Duck himself lives in the back room of the shop, with his inventory all kept out on the sales floor, the back room is larger than some small surface-level apartments. The whole place is protected by one of those shopping-mall style garage-like rolling metal grates, and Duck locks himself in when the store closes, which turns out to be whenever Duck decides it's closed.

Moving to a small clothing rack in the corner, he fishes through the various vintage tees and hands Nouras a vintage Wolverine T-shirt and some XXL Batman-logo childrens' pajama pants to change into, pointing to a door to the back.

"At some corp suit party? Doubtful packing ANY heat is going to be practical. Security's gonna be tight and it could compromise us. Besides, after you see those vids, you might just realize you already got two guns right here." he holds up his fists comedically, but, given the location of Junior's brains at present, he actually isn't kidding at all. Duck was like one of those vivdly colorful snakes- pretty to look at, but all that color and flash was supposed to serve as a warning. Duck's physical appearance was relatively unimposing. In fact, he looked like the type of guy who would help an old lady cross the street, but Nouras likely knew better at this point.

"We may need them if we end up tailing someone out, which I'm anticipating we'll need to do. The astral is no-doubt going to be packed too, so maybe we should have Cad suit up as well and join us. CH seems a little sour and looks a lot runner, so we may want to have her on overwatch as per our normal modus operandi. Maybe after this is all said and done, we can throw a little shindig ourselves and have her as the guest of honor."

Freya regards White Duck's offer. "Yeah? I'll keep that in mind. Say, maybe pass me the dwarf's number before you leave?" She winks.

"I'll probably be here for another day or two, just to be sure I'm straight. If you need any more questions answered--maybe don't bring along the running gunfight with you."

The invitations: each invitation is a specially monogrammed, gilt-lettered invite to the HSE Premier Party at an address on Queen Anne's Hill, as 'honored guests' of Mr. Pengrave.

The pocket secretary is locked. Fortunately, Junior planned to guard it with his fist more than his passwords, and Copperhead's computer skill is nothing to sneeze at. It takes about an hour to pop it open, and it's quite the treasure trove. His calendar shows he's been meeting repeatedly with Pengrave of HSE, and his call list includes half a dozen calls to Tee Hee, Pengrave, and someone named Cooperman.

The man was also quite the fan of dictations. There's miles of the stuff, ostensibly 'for his book'. Half of it is rubbish. The other half sounds like it could be marketable until you stop and really think about it and realize it's also rubbish. He has long lists of corporate structures and new simsense projects, people to hire or fire, and some choice words about Manes.

There are a few other nuggets, including "note to self, Val is running Cleo, and Griffin's messed up with Jack." He also has several versions of a speech he plans to give at the Global board of directors meeting on Friday, lambasting Urian's leadership and the significant financial losses for the company.

His notes include plenty of phone numbers and a few addresses, none check out as anything interesting, but also character strings that look suspiciously like passwords. Most have their purpose clearly written next to them ("HotShortStack.com", simsense data stores, and the like). Three of them do not.


At this point, I am considering this chapter closed. You have /two nights/ left to get three chips, so you may want to consider splitting up or doing some more research with the hours you have available. It is currently evening, around 6:00pm Wednesday. Getting washed, dressed, and to the party will take a few hours. Expect to arrive fashionably late :) (Maybe Junior's wearing capes everywhere wasn't such a bad idea after all, and he does seem to have a thing for 'street chic'.)

I'll leave the thread open for WD/Noruas to continue their chat, and any other post-battle activities CH/Caduceus get up to. I'll post karma momentarily.

KARMA! Hurrah. Things moved very smoothly, even against pitched odds. +2 karma for everyone. White Duck especially shined in regards to jumping in and excellent descriptions. An additional +1 karma to him.

Yeah, alright.  Let me see if I can ask around regarding our host for this party.  Got anywhere I can plug in safely and leave my meat for a few hours?

Duck chuckles. "Yeah, but we never use it. This old store used to have a public access feed before these tunnels were shut down. Not sure if it's still working, honestly, but uh, you can try it if you like."

He points to a low wall along one of the coffee shop's borders. Uncomfortable-looking plastic and chairs line the way for several dusty ports lined along the wall. The small coffee tables are cluttered with paraphernalia from the talismonger's shop and old collectibles from Duck's. Looking at some of the merchandise, it's hard to tell which.

None of the ports are immediately functional--but with a little tooling, Noruas can get enough of a connection out to at least check his email. No full-on VR until he takes the time to do a more thorough job.

With the exterior of the van cleaned and visually adjusted, the drone re-charged and the gun barrels cleaned, Copperhead drove the pair of them to the bar she'd mentioned earlier, ordering an enormous plate of nachos and a double-expresso coffee.  She sort of felt like a beer, but she'd seen a few too many fellow soldiers and not the odd runner who'd failed to adhere to the "no drinking while on duty" adage.  And a runner was on duty from the time the fixer called until the nuyen was in the bank and your feet were up on the end table.

She handed the secretary to the mage to see what sense he could make of things while they waited for the other two.

"Da passwords could be fer 'is office 'puter.  I'm tinkin a break-in der could be good.  Before dey figgers out he ain't comin back and changes all da locks.  Da J kin mebe keep some o da heat off too.  An we should figger out who dese Cooperman an Pengrave dudes are.  Woulda been better if we coulda talked ta da orc 'fore 'is head got smushed."

I'm assuming the other two of you are coming so we can share intel?

"Yeah, it's hard to read the thoughts in a smooshed head," Caduceus said with a shrug.  He was not a fan of violence and Junior's death had certainly been a violent one.  There wasn't much they could do about it now though, so he opted to focus on the information they did have.  Uprooting secrets was a snake shaman's specialty.  He took the secretary and helped to sift through the information.

After a bit of thought he said, "Well, we know Tee Hee was involved with the chips, so that implies that these other two were too.  Actually, now that I think about it, Tee Hee's fixer was named Cooperman, wasn't he?  Pengrave sounds kind of familiar too..."  The neurons in Caduceus' brain were firing like crazy now, searching for the appropriate connections.  Junior, sim chips, corporate deals...  Then it hit him.  "Wasn't Pengrave the Hollywood Simsense guy?  The one that was in talks with Junior's company?  Seems likely a guy in his position could have some use for some stolen chips."

Looking through some of the other tidbits he said, "I don't know what 'Val is running Cleo, and Griffin's messed up with Jack' is supposed to mean, but it sounds important.  Could be people who slotted the dangerous chips.  As in Val is running the Cleo chip alright, but Griffin got messed up after slotting the Jack chip.  Could mean something completely different though."  He shrugged.

Looking at the list of passwords, Caduceus smiled.  "Heh, he thought he was being clever, didn't he?"  He pointed a finger down the list of passwords.  "What he failed to realize though, was that by labeling his other passwords, he practically tells us what these last three are.  Just think of what you know he would have a password to, like his office computer, then see if it is anywhere on the list.  If it's not, then it is a safe bet that it is one of the unlisted ones."  He checked through the list to see if his list included a password for his office computer and/or his home security, which seemed like another likely candidate.  He then shared his findings with Copperhead.



For a bit of a refresher, here is a quote of a bit of what we have learned about Pengrave and Cooperman already. (and Junior, for that matter)

Looking at dustiness of the place, Noruas quickly fixes it up and plugs in to check out his email.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:31, Tue 26 July 2016.

Copperhead had already told you over the radio where to meet.  I'm not sure whether we're assuming wireless email or not?  But you could certainly phone her if you want to change plans.  She'll get grumpy(ier?) though because the nachos are already on the table . . . ;>

Duck meets up with the rest of the group after Nouras is finished and the two get their suits cleaned. He doesn't seem hungry. Instead, he hands the two their party invitations.

"Looks like we've got a party to attend this evening."

Copperhead looked for a napkin to wipe her hand before accepting the proffered piece of glittering cardboard.

"What fer?"

She opens the card and reads before interjecting over top of any explanation.

"Jun'r was talkin' ta dis Pengrave dude a bunch.  Da party is mebe a chance ta get close ta 'im.  Dunno if we should all go in though.  Dis face ain't da best in a party crowd."

She handed the invite back before grabbing another nacho loaded with soy cheese and and red lumps that were likely supposed to resemble tomatoes.

Noruas was tempted to grab some nachos as well but thought better after looking at his cleaned suit.

I'll need you guys to give me a few hours to check the place out in the matrix.  That way I'll be able to provide some intel in case you need it.  Anybody know if we have a stable connection around here?  I also need someone to watch over my body.  Thanks.

I'll let Papa rule on the quality of the connections here.  I'd picked the bar with the expectation some decking might be necessary, but don't know what quality of connection might be expected in a "connected" bar.

"Well, in that case, CH, we'll have to round up a few beers and bottles and throw you your own shindig once this is all through. You probably saved my hoop back there, which is much appreciated, so I at least owe you that much." Duck lights up a smoke, but sits on the outside of the table and blows it away from the group.

"I have a hunch we'll find one of the chips with Pengrave, or at least get a lead to it from there. Hmm, the evidence suggests we'll probably find another with Cooperman. I think Cad's onto something with the Cleo and Jack thing. Maybe we give a call to Roxy- she might be able to shed some more light on what these chips do and how it might be related." looking to CH's to-be-unused invitation, he considers.

"Think we should give her that invite?"

Noruas can slide a hundred nuyen to the lady behind the bar and get private access to the network jack, buried somewhere in a snake's nest of old power and telecom cables. The connection isn't great--he won't be burning rubber. But for basic surveillance, it should suffice. If Noruas wants to run a line out to a table by the bar, he can at least veg somewhere more comfortable than 'beside the trash cans'.

Who's Roxy?  Did a search and the name isn't coming up

"Should mebbe chat wit da J.  If da slips is slotted, best ta know if der's any tricks ta gettin dem out.  An mebbe fin out what day does.  Er at least if der's any 'cautions we otta be takin.

Ya be wantin o'erwatch 'er should I be doin somethin' else, like mebbe hittin Jun'rs office?"

Roxy=Roxanne, the assistant to Manes.

"Yeah, definitely call the J," Caduceus agreed.  "Ask her if that Cleo/Jack thing means anything to her, or the passwords.  Might be related."  He took a sip of the ice water he had ordered, unconvinced everything floating in it was actually ice.

"I think it might be necessary to split up in order to cover all our bases though, considering our time is tight.  But right now I think we should do a bit of digging.  I got some people I can call about this party," he flipped an invitation over in his hand, glancing down at his clothing, "and a set of nicer clothes I should probably go switch into if I'm one of the ones we decide is going to the shindig."

"Right, I'll give Roxy a call and see what she knows about Cleo and Jack. One thing CH, I think if we find any chips onsite we'll have to follow them offsite for an extract. My instincts are telling me that you should prep for pursuit." he grins, considering something.

"Quiet pursuit if possible. We'll need either eyes or a few tracking devices to do the trick. I can plant the trackers myself."

"Kin do.  I gots some out inna Bison if ya needs 'em.  Mebbe see if dey can gets us access to Jun'rs 'puter.  Now dat 'e won care oo's snoopin'"

Sounds like a plan.  Now, does anybody know where I can plug in to do some research on our upcoming party?

After Noruas's question about finding a place to plug in, Caduceus goes to the lady behind the bar to inquire about any nearby places.  After a moment he slips the woman a hundred nuyen and returns to his companions.  "Got you your own private jack.  Here.  Can even run a cable out to the table, if you really want to.  Hopefully it'll do."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:06, Mon 01 Aug 2016.

Alright!  Thanks.  Let's get started! said Noruas as he gently eases into the chair.

When Nouras starts decking, Duck steps outside to make a call and have a smoke, hoping the team doesn't mind not listening in. He figures if any were that determined, they'd step out with him. He lights one with his zippo, then places a call out to Roxanne.

After six rings, Roxanne picks up. "What's your status?"

"Tell me what you know about Cleo and Jack. Would rather know what's in Pandora's box before we open that any further." he says, taking a calm drag from his smoke and hoping that his ability to get right to the point would lead Roxanne to providing answers in a similar fashion.

There's a pause on the line.

"How much do you know about skillsofts?"

(Assuming you confirm you know a fair bit ...)

"The chips are types of skillsofts chips. They provide the customer with specialized skills, but at a deeper level.  They don't just provide the customer with a new skillset, but influence how the customer uses them.

"Jack and Cleo are the prototype names. They're just proof-of-concepts though. They're not made for regular use."

"Yeah, but it's looking like your thieves broke the street date on that. What types of skills would Jack and Cleo now have? Considering right now, your only 'customers' have likely slotted these chips, it *might* help in retrieval if we have more of a clue as to what, or possibly who we're dealing with here." he says, rolling his eyes after Roxanne's corpspeak continues to obfuscate her ability to tell him what he wants to know.

"The intended customers for the pilot are... military. Cleo is the least violent though. If they've been slotted, reasonable precautions should be taken. Even with Cleo though, the results may be unpredictable."

"That's why I'd like more information on what types of personalities we're dealing with. My job is to minimize unpredictable elements and to get you your product safely, or verify the destruction of that product. I can't mitigate some of these risk factors if you give me nothing to go on." he takes a drag of his smoke, spigging off the ashes in a nearby puddle.

"I don't care so much about who was going to get these chips, just who's got them now. If you're telling me the chips affect behavior, then wouldn't it make logical sense to prep the team you hired with, in the very least, some sort of profile these behaviors will be like? Point blank, you oughtta know we'd have a much easier time tracking down your product if you can tell us more about what we've gotten into. As it stands, we already know enough compromising information through our own investigations. Since that cat's sort of out of the bag and you know we're making some legit progress, can't you cut us a break here and just come out with it?"

Will make a Negotiation roll here if you deem it necessary, boss.

"I'm not in the technical side. But one is political, liaison. One is a melee specialist. One is a strategist. Like I said, the focus was military customers. They will have that skillset, and they are... instinctively inclined to use it. But the underlying personality is still a complicating influence. It will be a force multiplier when they are in agreement. We've had difficulties mediating them when they don't. But the other issues are more psychological. We don't have a full profile yet. It was a laundry list. But remember, this was just a pilot. It's just a proof of concept, so we could secure ongoing research money."

"I see, well, in that case thanks for the info. We had a run-in with our mutual acquaintance, by the way. Last we checked in with him, he was in a tight spot with some gangers. Outlook isn't so good for him. By the way, will I see you at the party tonight?" he asks, seemingly always trying to get himself a date.

"What party?"

"One for this fellow named Pengrave. I take it we won't be seeing you there then?"

"Oh... Pengrave. That would make sense. No, I am definitely not invited, and hope never to be. Try not to make too much noise. There will definitely be media there, and private security on call."

"Right. That logically leads to my next question- you know of any way to unslot a chip without making too much noise? There any way to extract them from someone using them without geeking the users first?" he asks, scratching at insistent stubble, then withdrawing the stubble back into his face once he notices it.

"You should be able to just remove it. The user might suffer some disorientation afterwards. If it's someone important, you should probably take them back to us to remove, just to be sure."

"Uh-huh, I see..." he says, as if writing something down. He flicks the ashes from his smoke and glances inside for a moment.

"What sort of specialized personalities are we going to run into? What sorts of skills do each of them have programmed in?"

"One is a liaison. Political, really. One is a melee combat specialist. The last is a tactical and strategic commander. They'll all have skills appropriate to their role. I could give you what's on the brochure, but I'm not a neuro-programmer. I can't tell you how that translates into real-world encounters."

"Well, we started without so much as a brochure, which is your right as an employer, I'd think." he says, thinking to himself quietly.

"Very well, I suspect we'll be able to retrieve one of your chips tonight." he says, not certain, but having a sneaking suspicion that he might just find that political liaison at this evening's shindig, if the team was going to find that person at all.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:29, Fri 26 Aug 2016.

The dwarf logs out and returns to his teammates.

I've got not so good news.  The not so good news is that I've managed to check out the party joint wherever there was a camera, unfortunately, its useless since it doesn't cover most of the places we need to see.  The patrols weren't very clear or defined yet since there are no guests yet, and now they probably know someone was trying to snoop around their systems.

"Hopefully da heat'll die down 'fore ya goes back in.  Da ya know where da 'trols are for da locks an elevators an sprinklers an such?"

Caduceus was a bit disappointed that Noruas's search didn't manage to produce more fruitful results, but such was life.  "Did you at least get a good look at what type of place it was?  Like, the level of wealth someone who owns it might have?  It could clue us in to the sophistication of other resources they may have invested in.  Also clue us in to how dressed up we should get for this party."

Using Caduceus's background knowledge to gauge what level of wealth they are dealing with at the party based on Noruas's description.
17:22, Today: Caduceus rolled 2 successes using 4d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 4,4,3,2.  Knowledge: Seattle High-Society.

Eh...this'll have to depend on PB.  I don't believe I know how dressed we should get for the party since there weren't any guests yet as they were still prepping for the party.

That's ok.  I didn't expect you as a player to necessarily know this information, but Noruas might know more since he was actually seeing through the cameras.  I figured if people weren't actually dressed up yet, we may be able to gauge the level of wealth by the decorations being set up and the fanciness of the house itself.  A house that has Mona Lisa's hanging on the wall, Olympic sized swimming pools, and huge diamonds in display cases will probably be a lot more sophisticated than a house with art from Walmart.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:02, Sun 28 Aug 2016.

The place is posh. This is a few steps below an IPO opening. They are blowing money out of their butts. Expect security to be pretty tight, and sharp expectations for style. Not at the level of Mona Lisa on the wall, but yes, there is a heated pool.

Caduceus listened intently to the details and painted a mental picture in his mind.  He nodded sagely.  "Sounds like I'll have to skip my nice clothes and go for my really nice clothes.  Don't think I've ever even taken them out of their dry cleaning bags before.  If any of the rest of you need some clothes that are, shall we say, tres chic, I've got a guy I can call that could probably hook you up."

Copperhead gestured to her face.  "It'd take sometin more'an tray chick ta' make up fer dis."

She grimaced.

"I kin keep watch from da outside.  If ya needs backup 'er a d'straction 'er somethin, I'll be wait'in.

Do we gots plans 'er blueprints fer da place?  An what's our 'jectives?  Ta talk ta Pengrave an see if 'e knows were da chips is at?  Ta see if Val is der runnin aroun' wit da Cleo chip an try ta unslot it?"

Duck smirks to Caduceus.

"I'm always down for some new threads. Feel free to put me in touch with your person." He looks to CH.

"Objectives? Spy on Pengrave for info, listen for any interesting tidbits of info that arise, and retrieve a chip or two if we find em', yes."

"Will do," Caduceus replied to White Duck, making a mental note to contact Benny about some new threads once they finished their little discussion.

"With the objectives in mind that White Duck stated, it seems he and I are the logical choices for attendees.  With Duck working the crowd and with me keeping an eye on the astral, I think we should be able to glean a great deal of information from the inside.  Meanwhile, the two of you," he pointed at Copperhead and Noruas with two fingers, "could do as Copperhead suggested for herself.  Overwatch, distractions, trailing leads, etc.  Making sure nothing sneaks in or out of the perimeter without us knowing, whether it be by land, air, or matrix."

Caduceus took a sip of his ice water and then rubbed his hands together energetically.  Looking to Noruas he asked "So do we have a picture of this Pengrave guy?  It would be nice to know who we are looking for before we meet him.  And how about an address?"  He flipped over one of the tickets to see if it happened to be written on there somewhere.  "I should probably do an astral sweep of the area too, but maybe it would be best to wait until it is closer to our time of arrival for that."

"Da ya wanna bring da scorpion in fer anodder set 'a eyes er mebbe ta give a trouble-maker a quick dose o' Narcojet, er would ya rather keep it simple?"

"Let's keep it simple. Seems like an unnecessary risk to take anything like that in when neither Cad nor myself need it. I'm actually concerned about taking in comms too." says Duck, pondering as he checks his pack and finds it empty.

"If ya don bring yer coms, den dere's not much 'at we kin do fer o'er watch.  Mebbe we should go 'an 'ack Junior's office?"

"Hrmm, I'm not sure that'd be advisable, as if someone makes chase and drives off, we'd be screwed out of an opportunity. Call it a hunch, but I don't think we should split. Now, if you want to use the party as cover to sneak into Pengrave's stuff, we could probably get you both in as workers. Not sure how good either of you are at sneaking though." he says with a shrug.

"The ninja stealth action is usually up to me."

Noruas shrugs at Copperhead's suggestion, Sounds like a plan.  I mean, since these two, he motions to Caduceus and White Duck, won't be wearing any comms it'll be hard to keep them in the loop of whatever we find even if we do find something.  But I still think we should probably stay close enough to them in case they need us to bail them out.  How far away is Junior's office in relation Pengrave's party?



The dwarf smirks at White Duck's comment, You'd be surprised at what I can do....besides getting a belly full of lead that is.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:48, Fri 02 Sept 2016.

"Oh ya, I bet you're like some sort of fancy wizard in the matrix too." he smiles, then looks around.

"Matter of fact, it seems like we all have our specs and are pretty well-rounded. Would make for a nice little outfit if I can figure out how to stop pissing you guys off." he scratches the back of his head, seeming embarrassed at the admission of his own truth.

I prefer the term, "Sorcerer Supreme", thank you very much, said Noruas jokingly.



Simple, we just blame all our mistakes on you from now on, replied the dwarf jokingly again.  Then in a more serious tone, Well, I'm sure we all have our faults that need adjusting.  Everybody here just needs to be a little more understanding of each other and I'm sure we'll all get along just fine.

Caduceus let out a low chuckle.  "Yeah, we got off to a bit of a rough start, didn't we?  But I think that our last run-in with Junior proved that we all have our eyes on the same goal.  Now it's just a matter of learning to focus on it from the same direction."  He held his hands up to mimic looking through a handheld telescope.  He returned one hand to his lap and the other to his drink resting on the table.

"That being said, if our goal is to keep it simple, then I think sneaking two people in is probably not the way to go.  Especially if we are thinking that even sneaking in simple coms is going to be too risky.  And especially especially since we are unsure if their skills will even be necessary.  If it turns out they are, then I suppose I might be able to jump out of body and contact them on the astral plane to let them know.  Wards permitting, of course.  And while we are on the subject of magic, I do have a simple spell that can allow at least White Duck and I to keep in communication with each other, provided we stay close enough to one another.  Link our minds, so-to-speak."

Caduceus sipped his water, then placed both hands onto his lap.  He directed his next question to his more tech-savvy companions.  "If we were to place a tracking device onto someone, would we be able to activate it later?  Like, if Noruas and Copperhead did go check out Junior's place, could we still use the tracker an hour or two later after we meet up again?  It kind of feels like we should try and strike Junior's place while the iron is still hot, you know?  Especially considering our short time table.  But if it is best to wait, then so be it."

Copperhead nodded in agreement when the conversation turned to inter-group conflict but didn't add anything further.  She'd found in the past that sometimes the best way to smooth things over was to keep her mouth shut.

"If ya don wan ta take da good comms, I gots an ear-plug cell one a ya kin borrow.  Snot s'cure an if der's jammin, it'll turn ta a puddle o' static.  But der should be no problems gettin' it past s'curity.  I spect most o da 'tendies'll probly be on da phone 'least half da time.

Da tracker' remote activates.  Gots 'bout a 2-k radius inna city.  Mebbe less if it's rainin.

Let's give da party 'an hour er so.  Noruas can scout Jun'rs digs while we waits.  Ya fine somethin useful, we waits fer ya.  Da party sucks, den we moves ta 'is office.  Soun ok?"

She drained her cup of soycaf and signalled for another.

Call me a coward if you guys want, but I would like some back up if I am paying a visit to Junior's office.  I've already fulfilled my quota of belly-full-o-lead once a day, said the dwarf in a matter-of-fact manner.  The dwarf then realised his mistake and adds, Unless we're talking about the matrix.  Then yeah, I'll be fine on my own.  Anybody pick up Junior's office address in the mean time?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:39, Sun 04 Sept 2016.

"If we decide to do da office, I kin be da legs and ya kin do da 'trix stuff.  I dunno where yer meat's best ta be do."

Probably best if it is closer to the source.

"Well, problem is, Junior's personal security level is even more of an unknown than what we're walking into. I think by trying to send you there whilst we're at the party, we'll be out a ride and a decker if we need them, and you'll be out some muscle, a face, and some spells if your infiltration into his office doesn't go over well." he has a look of consternation on his face as he considers the reality of the situation.

"I think maybe we should make sure we get a lock on at least the one chip we suspect is going to be there before we bite off more we can chew with two simultaneous infiltrations. Our direct paydirt is likely going to be at this place- maybe we could earn a third of our check before we go on indulging this curiosity?"

"Dats why I said we'd do da party first.  Ifit pans out, we stays.  If not, we moves on to da office."

"It sounds like we are in agreement then," Caduceus said, reading everyone's facial expressions.  "We all go to the party first.  Then, only if it becomes practical, we go check out Junior's place at a later time."

Duck nods, adjusting his blazer and rising.

"Guess it's time for some new duds then."

OOC: So, how much would these tres chic clothes run Duck, and can he negotiate the price down?