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"I see a lone boatman blasting the trees from the water," Caduceus reported. "Should I risk trying to take him out? Or distract him so we can retreat into the trees?"

"Take him out if you can do it without getting yourself fragged!

"I like boats. Can you mojo him?"

"I could try and Influence his actions," Caduceus confirmed. "Or I could create an illusion to distract them, or possibly conjure a powerful spirit and send it his way."

In reply to Caduceus (msg # 204):

I"m liking the powerful spirit option.  Kill the guy with the big gun!

Duck chimes in, having taken some time to get his bearings prior to getting back onto his headset. “Just one left on the boat? Sounds to me like we’ll be riding a boat back.”

Hairy will sneak as close as he's able and see if he can line up a shot. But mostly he's hanging back for the magic users to do their thing (and he can mop up).

"I'll see if the boatman likes drowning," Caduceus said, trying (and failing) to make the prospect of sending a river spirit at the guy into something humorous. As a follower of Snake, Caduceus tried to avoid violence as much as possible, but they were pretty desperate at the moment. A viper backed into a corner had little choice but to strike. And commandeering that boat would eliminate a major threat, give their group a potential way out of this accursed jungle, and possibly prevent anyone from going to get backup forces to cause them problems in the future. So the shaman reluctantly went to do what needed to be done. "Give me a minute."

Sorry for exceptionally slow response.  I had it in my head I was waiting for Caduceus and had forgotten he'd already made his response.  I'm going to move things along a bit.

The guard piloting the boat, who'd already been more than a bit unnerved by the lack of responsiveness of his comrades completely panicked when he heard the slosh of water and saw the giant river spirit bearing down on him - a spirit that was definitely more powerful than the Force 5 Caduceus had intended to summon.  The man opened the throttle wide in a hope to move away from the spirit, but it was already on the boat.  It relentlessly surrounded the man as he struggled and splashed, actively forcing water down his throat and into his lungs.  In about 5 seconds, he was out cold and a little more than that he was very definitely dead.

The snake shaman flew out in pursuit of the now unpiloted speeding boat and was able to slow it down before it made it too far out into the river and turn it around and bring it more or less back to the spot where it had been idling previously.  He also shut down the guns before they completely ran out of ammo.  He opted not to approach quite as close to shore as the vehicle had been previously because, frankly driving wasn't really his thing, much less piloting immense rivercraft, regardless of how slow the current was.  He could however, figure out how to lower the anchor, freeing himself to float off in search of White Duck.

Once he found the physical adept, there was no issue recognizing the source of the man's confusion and the troublesome spirit causing the effects was quickly banished.

With the gunfire ended, the jungle slowly returned to its muggy oppressiveness and the mosquitos resumed their annoyance, drawn in even more abundant numbers by the runners' recent exertion, sweat and general odor.  Dr. Al'mansour crept out from the tree he'd been hiding, drawing Dr. Saunders behind him.  He glanced down at the two dead guards, then holstered his weapon.  "Do you think there'll be more?"

You can all rejoin each other.  You've got a boat and one service left of a powerful river spirit.  Caduceus is in good shape, your clients are more or less ok - physically at least.  The rest of you feel like dreck.  What's your plan for what's next?

“Holy hell, we need to get the frag out of here.” Says Duck, massaging the back of his neck as if recuperating from a hangover. He finds Hairy and gives him a nod.

“Say, you got a smoke? Also, did you still manage to smuggle in those grenades or were they theirs? Would you happen to know where one might secure such items in the Seattle Metro area, perchance? I was obviously a decent pitcher in little league.” He smirks, then turns to Kate.

“Look, I’m throwing in ten kay extra for each of you out of my own stash for this incredibly shitty assignment. We can meet up at the shop for that.” He smiles apologetically, giving her a polite nod.

In reply to White Duck (msg # 210):

"We have a boat, a spirit to protect us, so we should be home free.  Why don't I feel relieved?"

Late climbs aboard the boat looking like she expects it to explode any second.

Caduceus was really more of a motorcycle guy rather than a boatman, but he still managed to get it from point A to point B. This time. He would be more than willing to pass the reigns off to someone else for the next leg of their journey. Which he assumed would be by boat.

"I agree, we should get out of here and back home as soon as possible. But we definitely need a plan." He gestured toward the boat. "I think we should take the boat, of course, even though there is a good chance it can be tracked somehow. Anyone know how to check for that? My spirit buddy can probably conceal us quite nicely if we find a spot along the shore to recover a bit. Nobody is at risk of bleeding out immediately, right? I can do some healing magic, but I will be much more effective after taking a breather for a while."

The shaman looked around the area, surveying the destruction. "I suggest we grab what we need from what is left of our camp, take anything useful these bodies have on them, and get the frag outa here. Pronto."

Hairy takes his time emerging from the jungle. He's been shot in the back too often to let his guard down early. But once he feels safe, he ushers the two scientists onto the boat.

Responding to Duck, he checks his pockets and hands over a few, slightly squashed ciggies. "Don't light 'em 'til you're ready to be out for a bit. I don't bother with weak drek. I like 'em with just a pinch of LSD to really mellow me out."

He pulls through his remaining grenade cache as well. "Yeh, the army base always has some 'nades just past their 'best buy' date. I got a contact who picks 'em up cheap. Don't mind sharing a few. Gas, defense, offense, knock-out. Whatcha need?"

Hairy does also check out the boat, to see if he can suss out how to drive the thing. He's been the wheelman more than once, and what's a boat except a car without wheels? He doesn't mind checking over the gun too, to see how hard it would be to fire manually. They might need to before they get out, and even if they don't, he'd enjoy sending some lead into the jungle before they fly back home.

I've heard a few discussions about what *should* be done, but wasn't clear what was *actually* being done.  So far, you've got a boat anchored about 3 meters off shore, in water that's presumably around that depth.  A few of you have made it to the boat, which involved some swimming and/or Caduceus giving you a hand by dropping a vine for you to grab.  Not clear whether you're all on board?  Who's doing what?  Ideas I've heard so far: search bodies, grab stuff from camp, get spirit to protect boat, check boat for tracking devices, drive boat somewhere else?  Say what you're doing and make rolls as a appropriate

The boat was probably about 20 years old, but well maintained.  The guns were relatively new and hooked up to a joystick type system.  Ammo was fed from below decks.  The boxes for the machine guns were close to dry, but Hairy found are a couple of full boxes in a closet he could chain in if need be.  The vehicle also had a center-mounted assault cannon.

You'd need a build & repair check to disconnect the weapons from their current mounts with a base time of 30 minutes using the limited tools aboard.  Note that the weapons are relying on their mounts for recoil-comp, so hand firing them is gonna result in a *really* sore shoulder.

"So what exactly happened here?" Caduceus asked as he worked. He hoped for a brief summary of events, since he hadn't actually seen most of the action.

Caduceus made sure that the fruits they had come all this way to collect made it aboard. (After first asking his spirit to keep the boat and its passengers Concealed.) However, he avoided touching any fruits directly. He knew it would be a shame if they came all this way just to leave their plant-prize behind. Even if they ended up having to ditch the scientists at some point, maybe they could still scrape up a small payment for the fruits alone.

Aside from that, Caduceus floated around to help gather the most expensive and important gear they could gather in a short time. Focusing first on any enemy mages, since they would likely have the things that Caduceus would consider to be "the good stuff." He also scanned for any enemy gear that had particularly strong emotional auras attached to them, since favorite gear tended to have better features.

He also kept an eye on the astral, just in case any enemy mages came floating by for a snoop. He asked Kate if she could help do the same too. After all, two sets of eyes were better than one.

---

Here is what Caduceus is doing.

Asking for a summary of events (ooc is fine)
Asking spirit to use Concealment on the boat/passengers.
Making sure they have the fruit they came for.
Grabbing gear essential for the trip home.
Grabbing any magic-related gear.
Grabbing expensive gear, prioritizing the lighter stuff first. (Scanning enemy gear for strong auras. Favorite gear is probably better, right?)
Keeping an eye out for astral threats. (Can Kate help with this too?)
Searching the boat/boatman last, since he can do that while they are on the move.

15:31, Today: Caduceus rolled 3 successes using 5d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 2,3,5,5,(6+3)9.  Aura Reading (Auras) - looking for magic gear.

15:32, Today: Caduceus rolled 2 successes using 5d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of 3,4,3,3,4.  Aura Reading (Auras) - looking for enemy gear with a lot of emotional attachments.

15:35, Today: Caduceus rolled 4 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun system with a target of 4 with rolls of (6+5)11,(6+3)9,5,4,1,3.  Perception - keeping an eye out for threats, both physical and astral.

This place is hot and smells like an armpit. No time like the present to get things moving...


Hairy is:
1. Seeing if he can suss out the controls (using Car skill, definitely one success there:
((3,2,3,2,(6+5)11,2)).

2. Prepping weapons. He can get by on Gunnery, but prefers Heavy Weapons. I don't recall if you get a default b/r skill with the main skill. If not... he doesn't have any, and probably isn't bright enough to warrant trying.

3. Probably looking for a map or something? Someone else will need to do the map-reading. We need to get back a/the airport.

Someone else can worry about dressing the boat up so it doesn't look like a fragging gunboat.

The group quickly stripped the bodies.  White Duck's original guard was alive, though still unconscious.  The others were definitely dead.  The bodies don't have a lot.  Wallets, id and credsticks with denominations that'd be hard to transfer elsewhere.  All have helmets, armored vests, radios and heavy pistols and three have SMGs, though two of those are pretty much out of ammo.  No grenades (which is probably a good thing for you...)  Nothing magical on the shaman either.  Searching astrally for 'treasured posessions' netted you a couple of family photos and a clearly non-magical pipe, but nothing exciting.

You also grab the fruit and what of the scientific equipment you can salvage quickly.  It's hard to know if the boat operator might have radioed for help - or how long it might take to arrive, so getting away from the scene of the firefight seemed wise.  Dealing with an aerial drone, or worse yet, a T-bird, did not seem like a fun way to end the day.

Caduceus summoned yet another spirit, ordering it to conceal the boat, and the four runners and their ?employers? out on the river.  The good news was that it was wide and it was not hard to keep a decent distance from the trees given the width.  While Hairy wasn't exactly a skilled captain, he could manage that much at least.  And directions were easy - keep going up-river, avoid the Amazonian settlements and get yourselves back to Iquitos.  The only downside of travelling down the middle was that if something came along that could see through the mist that encompassed the boat, there was little chance of getting it under the canopy.  However, there was also no risk of running into logs - or things that looked liked logs.

Once Hairy had the boat out in the middle of the water, he turned the controls over to Caduceus and went to see what he could do about removing some of the heavy weapons so he could use them directly.  However, with the limited tools available, the movement of the boat, Hairy's nasty headache, and the fact that Hairy was far better at firing guns than trying to manage the hardware used to mount them.  Finally, he gave up and returned to the cabin.

Finally, the group had some time to catch up with each other.  It was quite clear that, by now, a jungle vacation was now in the "wouldn't wish on my worst enemy" category of everyone's bucket lists.

Apparently there had been a total of 5 guards - 3 regular troops, one shaman and one on the boat.  White Duck had taken out one of the guards, though not before he was able to get off a few shots.  He'd waited to ambush the final guard, not anticipating that she would be a magic user.  She'd hit him once with a nasty sleep spell, leading him to retreat into the woods, where he'd subsequently been accosted by a spirit whose confusion and accident powers had largely left him out of the remaining fight.

Caduceus had followed the other two up the trail where he'd floated into an ambush, and it was only the fact that he'd been floating and been able to zoom up into the trees that had kept him alive.  That plus the fact that the two guards furthest up the trail were a bit distracted by a pair of manifesting spirits - the one Caduceus had originally sent to chase the guards and another, presumably the shaman.  The two spirits had eliminated each other and, somehow, all of the services Caduceus had available had been used up.

Despite his escape above the trees, Caduceus had taken a few wounds that had significantly diminished his own capabilities.  He summoned a spirit, then focused on healing himself and was able to witness his second spirit finishing off the shaman.  Then he headed off and summoned yet another spirit to take care of the guard on the boat and get the boat back to shore.

Hairy and Kate had been furthest up the trail.  Their initial plan to hide the two remaining scientists in the woods so they could double back on the following soldiers hadn't gone over well with your 'clients', however with some negotiation in which Dr. Al-Mansour showed an unexpected degree of competence with a weapon and how to behave in a live fire situation, the group backtracked a little and, with a lot of heavy weapons fire, a few grenades and a few fireballs was able to take out the remaining.

Caduceus took the time to heal the physical damage of those who'd been shot.  However, the mental wounds and exhaustion would just take time

The group had been out on the river for about 1.5 hours.  Hairy has heard some voices coming from the radio.  Caduceus translated and confirmed that it was the group at Letcia checking to see what was up with the patrol boat.

<orange>What do you do?

Everyone's current states:
Caduceus - full health
White duck - medium stun
Kate - serious stun
Hairy - moderate stun
Dr. Saunders - full physical health, still loony but content to sit wherever asked
Dr. Al Mansour - full health

Sorry to take so long getting this out.<orange>

Kate needs rest.  Any more strain and she's going to have a problem even seeing straight.  So, unless someone starts shooting, she's going to recover.

"Hey, snakey, if you call up a spirit, can it speak Portuguese? Cuz I don't think any of us speak the local lingo. And can anyone look at the maps? See if there's like a detour river or something? I don' wanna hit these guys coming down the other way."

Caduceus headed into the cabin and listened to the radio.  A few of the words weren't clear, but the gist was yelling at 'Rodrigo' to stop smoking and get his hoop on the radio and report in.  Deciding that if he was going to fake reporting in, it might be a good idea as to what to say, the snake shaman headed to where he'd had Hairy dump the unconscious guard White Duck had taken out to see what he could get out of the man's head.

Mind probing someone who was unconscious had some pros and cons.  On the plus side, the victim was less likely to notice it had happened.  However, you had to get all the way into the deep thoughts to get anything useful.  Probing someone's dreams could sometimes be entertaining, but wasn't super useful.

Caduceus - what force do you want to cast the spell at and how are you allocating your pool?  Lower force means easier to resist, higher force means harder to avoid drain (base drain is [Force]S).  You need 3 net successes to get anything useful.

"I think I will be able to manage," Caduceus replied to Hairy in Portuguese, with a wink. Then in English, he said, "Let me poke around in our prisoner's mind for a bit though before I say anything over the radio. I'll say the radio-man was dealing with some diarrhea and/or smoking his favorite pipe or something to explain away the time. Whatever will make the most sense after I have a peek."

When his target was within sight, Caduceus narrowed his eyes at the man, staring at him intensely. Like a snake about to lunge at its unsuspecting victim. But instead of lashing out physically, Caduceus lashed out with his mind. His psychic fangs pierced the unconscious man's psyche and the snake shaman soon began to swallow his thoughts whole, absorbing the precious secrets hidden within.

---

I'll go with Force 6. I'll use 6 Sorcery Dice, 2 snake shaman dice, and 1 Spell Pool dice. For the Drain test I will use 6 Willpower dice and 5 Spell Pool dice. That is a total of 9 for the spell and 11 for the drain.

I'll use Physical Mask before talking on the radio as well, but let's see how this spell goes first before allocating those dice.

Initially, there was only darkness.  The surface thoughts there would normally be were absent, but after diving more deeply, he began to receive images, sights and sounds.  The most vivid were of a young woman named Agueda and a little girl, maybe two years of age, named Catia - his wife and daughter.  The soldier was clearly worried about seeing them again.  His last thoughts before dropping unconscious had been of them.

The team had been out on patrol, after reports of gunfire.  One of their primary responsibilities was keeping an eye out for rebels.  They'd found the remains of Bichu's boat and had been looking for signs of survivors or rebels when they'd heard the gunfire that morning.

Digging around, Caduceus was able to find the names of the dead guards and shaman.  A recent wedding - for one of the now dead guards gave him the name of the local captain and radio man.    The border patrol was relatively lax.  No passcodes or protocols.  He was out here because he'd pissed off his trainer who recommended shipping him out to 'nowhere'.  On the plus side, there wasn't much rebel activity out this way.

The boat was their primary way of managing river traffic.  The river was relatively narrow at Letecia, even so, neither the LMGs nor the rifles in the guard towers would have much luck hitting anything close to the far bank, which was still nearly 2km away.  The team did have the ability to call in air support, but that'd take about 20 minutes.

When he finished and released his hold on the guard's mind, the shaman had a sheen of sweat and had the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes.  He couldn't shake the image of Catia grinning up at him, holding out a little flower.

He could hear the voice on the radio again, the anger now tinged a bit with concern.

You've got light stun.  What do you do next?
EDIT: corrected drain and adjusted description to match
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:41, Tue 28 Sept 2021.

Caduceus wiped the sweat from his brow and did his best to swallow the lump in his throat. It was always rough when you were forced to face the reality that your enemies are people too. It also helped to reinforce his resolve to remain as pacifistic as possible when it came to ending peoples' lives. Such was the way of Snake. He tried his best not to let what he saw affect him emotionally too much though. After all, failure could mean that their team's own friends and families would end up with sad dents in their auras.

After taking a moment to compose himself and organize his thoughts, Caduceus pulled a small item from within his gear. A piece of chameleon skin pressed between two pieces of plexiglass. It was an Expendable Spell Focus usable with illusion spells. He figured now was the appropriate time to use it. He concentrated on the form of the drowned radio man, and channeled his magic to take on the man's form. His appearance, texture, voice, and even smell changed to become like the boatman. Only the voice was really necessary, but the rest would help him get into character.

Once transformed, Caduceus picked up the radio receiver. In the boatman's voice (pulled from the river spirit attack and Rodrigo's memories), he said in Portuguese, "[Radio Man] here [Captain]. Sorry for the delay. I had... stomach issues. I'll spare you the details. We found a campsite that we think probably belonged to the survivors of the sunken boat. Looks like a Macareu or two trashed their camp though and one or two of them ran off into the wilderness. [Dead guards and shaman] are working on tracking them down. Taking their sweet time though. I think Rodrigo even literally stopped to smell the flowers. Probably picking some for Agueda and Catia. They looked a lot like the ones they used in that wedding we all went to for [bride and groom]."

"My guess is it will still be another hour or so. I'll keep you posted if anything noteworthy happens. In the meantime, my pipe isn't going to smoke itself."

---

Casting Physical Mask on myself to look and sound like the radio man. I am using my expendable spell focus to give me 2 extra dice for the illusion spell. I don't think I want to risk going above Force 4 with this spell (+1 to drain and +1 for my light stun). I get 6 sorcery Dice, 6 spell pool dice, 2 snake dice, and 2 spell focus dice, for a total of 16 dice available. Target should be 5 (4 base, +1 stun). Drain target is probably 4 (1/2 force, +1 stun, +1 to drain) versus medium stun. If all of that sounds accurate, below is how I will allocate my dice.

Casting Dice: 12 (6 sorcery, 6 spell pool)
Drain Dice: 10 (6 willpower, 2 snake, 2 spell focus)