Witch Hunt 2: OOC Options

[2bit]

This is the OOC thread for Team B in the game "Witch Hunt". If you're interested in joining the game in progress, please post in the thread "Recruiting: Witch Hunt". Enrollment is currently: CLOSED

This story is set in a slightly altered timeline. For details, please read the first few posts in the master OOC thread, Witch Hunt: OOC

Witch Hunt Team B is:
Tyler James (Trigger) - human, merc
Ether (KoneV) - human, hacker
Mr Whisper (djinni) - human, merc

Posting Instructions

"Speech" [cyan]
<Coms (spoken)> [yellow]
<Coms (subvocal)> [violet]
<Text Message> [black]
Thoughts [darkkhaki]
Memories [lightgrey]

No sigs in the IC thread, please!

Post a Place, Time [orange] only if your scene is different from the one in the post above yours.

Due to story considerations, none of your characters will begin the game with close ties to one another. All of you, however, know each other, or at the least, know of each other. You may have worked together as Alphas before, seen each other at rallies, have the same friends, etc. None of you are what you would call friends.

Ok - please check in, introduce yourselves, and figure out relationships. Once we have a final body count, make sure we haven't lost anyone, we can begin the IC.

[djinni]

Reporting for duty!

This guy is incredibly ordinary. Average height, average weight, average features, average sounding. in your business you've seen some of the highs and in the YBR you see alot of the lows, well, hell, most of ya say hi to the lows, everyday, but this guy is so.....so bland? whitebread? so uncannily average that you actually have trouble focusing on him. finding yourself looking for things in his wardrobe, his smell (also incredibly ordinary) that you can use as a topic for conversation, or even just to stare at....Nothing. It was like opening some Corp's matrix model of "the consumer" instead of the flesh and blood man, you assume is really sitting in front of you....Spooky. well now that you think of it there is one thing...just one...a single tiny detail that sets him apart from everyone else...his left eye sometimes pules a heartbeat line across the middle from right to left (it is whenever his cyberware activates, but only a handful know that.)

[ Spoiler ]

"OI over here" a gritty old man waves to his table "I hear you been askin bout that youngin what's he goin by this week? Whisper?" taking a long swill of his draft "buy me a drink kid and I'll tell ya what ya wanna hear...for the cause of course." tapping the side of his nose as he says this "Growing up in the Noose (in case you are not familiar with the Noose it was once a large city and shortly after the grand awakening, around the same time as the mass goblinizations happened along with several other catastophies, half of the city was reduced to rubble in the aftermath, 90% of the population in the fallen part of the city were suddenly turned into ghouls, some from death, and others by goblinization. This is the only recorded case of ghouls being spawned through a living host, it is assumed the intelligence of these ghouls is superior to normal ghouls due to the nature of the transformation. Evidence is from the use of sophisticated tactics. The surviving members of the noose fight to stave off the ghouls who are in constant war, and other encroaching awakened critters, the main danger is the ghouls who have no fears like those ghouls in large established cities there is no official enforcement division, or enough freelance help from bounties etc… to keep the population from running rampant, that and the sudden introduction of ½ the population of the city as ghouls sent the wealth and provisions into emergency rations. Now the only ones who brings reprisals to the ghouls are the moderately equipped locals who are steadily in the decreasing minority. It is assumed by the unofficial leaders of the struggling government that the population will have to be evacuated or will be extinguished if they can’t get some military assistance, the citizens of the Noose are mass Sin’d since the technology gap, and priorities fall upon the ghouls. The city itself is awarded an estimated number of SIN ID’s and when someone ventures out they are randomly assigned the next available slot for their passport. Unfortunately this leads to most citizens becoming SINless and these individuals simply fall through the cracks as most of their kind do.), he didn’t receive too much of a formal education since even now that area is infested with the ghouls from the fall, and winning the war against the living, he was strong enough before the age of ten to start hunting and protecting the once great city now reduced to mostly rubble. For several years he aspired for nothing more than to protect his friends and family, however his mother and father wanted something more. Seeing the life expectancy of those that protected the city, they feared even though he was a natural for it, it was doubtful he would live long enough to enjoy the life he was fighting to protect for the others of the city. His father used an old friend of the family to get his son away from danger. A human cyber doctor with Peruvian contacts, living in central America (Aztechnology country I think). He was operating illegally of course, and jumped at the opportunity to have an unSIN’d individual working for him. He traveled a lot, mostly to keep suspicions down, but a secondary motive was to acquire cyberware…warm ware from a living donor. Mr Whisper was signed on officially as a body guard but did almost anything the doctor asked of him, and most of it involved removing rare, or expensive pieces of Ware. Earning money and knowledge…it was during the trip to the west coast that he met…her…Cassie Euphoria…not just what he felt that was her name, a retired simsense star…the biggest star of her time, and the most beautiful person he had ever met. She took a fondness for him after he saved her from some unknown violence, her security team was killed and the assailants were moving in for the kill or extraction, or whatever they were hired for. when he acted without thinking, as he normally does, the surprise, damage, and overconfidence of his opponents after having removed her security team is the only reason he succeeded but that’s not the story she tells everyone. After a few years of correspondence they were married and he left his life with the doctor behind…he didn’t however forget the favor that doctor did for him, or how well he was treated. After a short time, the old family friend asked for one more favor…he needed help moving some merchandise and asked he old assistant for help. Euphoria saw him off at the airport…the last time she would see him…
The doctor had more selfish motives he knew that the illegal cyberware in his shop couldn’t be shipped anywhere and both it’s grade and his surgeon skills could hide it very effectively inside a patient…trusting no one else he used euphoria’s husband as his transporter, but of course as any good story would have it the twist was he didn’t tell Mr. Whisper about that…the surgery was a crucial success however, when he awoke all of his senses had been replaced with a cybernetic component and in addition several new senses were added. A sudden and abrupt change a you might expect this did not sit well with his fragile psyche. Growing up in the Noose, was a war everyday, there was no comfort and no peace. When you were a child, you ran until you were strong enough to fight, or hunt. It had only been a couple of years out of his entire life that he had left the fighting behind. But not long enough to make him strong enough to resist the pull of his darker side.
Especially with his escape into the Amazonian shadows, a place of contempt and disdain for those not gifted with magic. Slaves and underlings… little better than 3rd world sweatshop workers the only decency one can draft out of life is in the shadows but that is short lived since ritual magic has a tendency to find you if you are local enough to it…it is just a normal society that according to the zealot philosophy has been corrupted by the infestation of magic and spirits, whether that is true or not the rest of the world doesn’t care…but the sons, oh no you have to keep careful watch on those who have been corrupted, and who better to recruit into your ranks but someone who has first hand seen the horrors that a magic rules society brings? That my friend is why he was saved by the sons. Not his religious devotion to the cause but because of his logical approach to the aspect of magic. You don’t have to worry about him going off the deep end or slaughtering innocent awakened. Like some of the more questionable zealous kids. Oh no he is much much scarier, perfect machine that one…but I’m getting ahead of myself….here’s why….
When he awoke after his supposed friend had replaced his entire nervous system, eyes, ears, most of his brain, I’m talkin everything! the flood of new senses and alterations on his previous senses, was too much for his fragile childlike consciousness. Think about it you have trouble concentrating on more than one sense at a time…he was forced to perceive Eighteen new senses at once! That would send anyone into shock, but instead of shocking him into a coma the trauma left him psychologically scarred and he reverted into an autonomous state, kinda like instinct, now don’t get me wrong he’s not forgetting his life and friends but more often remembering only the ingrained instincts from his upbringing. You know the long hours of killing? The life of constantly watching for an ambush? his senses are so different now than the natural ones he was born with that the closest available description would be a virtual reality simulator, the difference being that the simulator only deals with five senses, so even a BTL chip to him now seems dulled, lifeless, and in slow motion, the trauma dampeners and damage compensation bioware he has lessen the brunt shock of being injured which burrows him deeper into the illusion of superficial existence, and away from his previous comfortable life. Because of the nature of his implants an everyday life full of normalacy and low sensory stimuli, He lives for action, most of the time his adrenal doesn’t even trigger in a fight, but the increased speed and commotion around him during altercations is what stirs him from a seemingly stoic existence. he hasn’t forgotten everything before he woke up in the doctor’s hospital room, but to him it doesn’t seem all that far fetched, that it was just a dream…after all in video games the main character is spawn to life instantly so why can’t he as well…in reality he doesn’t think of these things his new senses keep his mind occupied with stimuli so he lives in the current and projected future, instead of the actions leading to an aftermath.
His wife continues to look for him, sometimes she even finds him…after he’s left…but being without a Sin and having jumped around to other countries he is almost impossible to track down, more stealthy than a cat, and deadlier than any dragon if they find him it will be very hard to convince him that she still wants him to be a part of her life…of his past life…"

alright, he's not very talkative, he frequents a little club called Yellow Brick Road, shakes hands with the bouncer outside, hugs the bartender, and knows everyone's name who's ever worked there, he can be found there every weekend.
plays memory games against the regulars for drinks, and has never lost...yet ;)
how do we know of each other?

[Trigger]

Alpha Tyler James reporting for duty.

{Opening Channel----------->
{Channel Opened--
{Transferring File; Member Transfer: Tyler James
{Transferring----------------->
{File Transfer Complete--
{Channel Closed--

Document Opened:

Name: Tyler James

Tyler James is a full-member of the Sons of Apollo and also a member of the Alphas. His skills are top grade mercenary ranked and he has proven himself many times over to the cause of the Sons. His knowledge of the paranormal and his skill in hunting the threats presented by it are a great asset to any operation performed by the Sons. He may not have the verbal and social skills of many of our members but he is a smart soldier and well worth is blunt speech and crass attitude. Be warned though, his psychological profile shows signs of borderline personality disorder, an addictive personality, and many anger issues. He is being given counselling by the staff psychologist of the Sons, but a general warning still needed to be passed to you. He should be a fine addition to your team.

Long Live The Sons of Apollo,
~Alfred Ancient

[djinni]

Hi Ty.
do you look the part? big hulking brute of a man that can rip you into pieces? or like the Rural huntsman? what's your specialty? you frequent any night spots in Seattle?

[KoneV]

Ether present.

Looks: Ether is a fairly short (162 cm), wimpy (50 kg) and dark-skinned Japanese-looking human with obvious (black) cybereyes and white (dyed) hair. Ether is intersexed and tends to look like it – not in the way that combines obvious femininity and masculinity but rather a lack of sex-specific features. Other than that, Ether wears clothes. Usually comfortable ones. On the job, "comfortable" usually means a leather jacket, sports clothes, gloves, running shoes and a commando mask (ski-mask). Ether's voice sounds usually ambiguous enough to earn a second look, except when yelling (when it sounds masculine) or speaking quietly (when it sounds feminine).
Also, sketch 1 and sketch 2.

Personality: Ether prefers text messages and "IRC" to real speech, especially on the job – maybe because of voice, maybe not. Despite having some interpersonal skills, Ether isn't exactly what one would consider "considerate", though obviously Ether tries to not get on the worse side of people. Ether usually talks about terms in scientifc accuracy and without personal commitment or touch. Even if a topic started as personal views and opinions, Ether tends to stray toward the impersonal and universal – or at least theories and hypotheses. Ether seems a little bitter and will rarely, if ever, participate in small talk.
However, once people get on Ether's good side (which isn't all that hard), Ether will become quite friendly, relatively easy-going and will even participate in small talk, provided the issue is of interest. Ether also feels somewhat lonely and likes to sit around people, even if doing nothing otherwise. Then again, Ether doesn't want to be swarmed all the time and also appreciates moments of privacy.

Ether's background and other observations (not anything secret, really):

[ Spoiler ]

"I studied in a prestigious university to become an IT professor and scientist. However, that darned Matrix crash 2.0 ruined everything, killing off my parents and siblings. Even my significant other, who I shall call Electron, suffered in it despite becoming a technomancer. I tried to make an honest living but some unregistered mages wrecked it all, killing Electron and ruining my career. I was forced to live on the streets for a while and had a really hard time picking up pieces of life, so I presume you understand why I'm a bit desperate if the issue of personal life ever comes up. It doesn't mean you can't ask, though."
In addition, it seems Ether actually leads a real life outside the shadows since there's certain Matrix downtime at regular hours on weekdays.

Ether goes to Yellow Brick Road sometimes, maybe once or twice a week. That means Mr. Whisper has probably seen Ether at least. Maybe they've even talked? Otherwise ether mostly goes to grills and stuff like that, alone. Of course there's Matrix and plenty of games then, what with being a hacker. That's usually done from the car.


And now for something practical. Do you all mind if I use neo-pronouns of Ether? You know, new words invented to get a gender-neutral third person pronoun into English. My choice here would be the set "ey, em, eir" (straight from "they, them, their"). I can also call Ether "it" (it might be because I'm Finnish, but it really doesn't even sound weird for me to call a person an it) or just not use third person pronouns, like above in the looks and personality bit. Or I can use gendered pronouns, but I'd rather not. In any case, I'll do it the way you want it, so just tell me. :)
At least personal titles referring to one's secondary sexual characteristics won't be an issue since Ether's a "Doctor"!

Starting money: (4d6=19)*50 = 950 nuyen

[djinni]

what's up doc?
so we can be seen sometimes sitting at the same table in YBR aye? maybe even talking a bit about somethin?
so do ya dance?
what's yer day job? I'm a envelope sealer!
hey can you help me with my commlink...its got alot of spam on it!

[KoneV]

Yeh, but not "friends" yet, due to story considerations. Let's play it!
Ether does dance, but badly. At least that's what ey says, heh, no concrete evidence yet.

I could've sworn I put this in the last post... weird.
What Ether thinks of mages:

[ Spoiler ]

"If registered, they're... well, sufferable, but I doubt I would want one as a neighbor. That's as long as they don't use those reality-bending forces. If they do, they better have a really good reasoning. I don't think much anything qualifies for a good reasoning, though. Different planes of existence should not be mixed and forced to interact and affect each other like that, because it disturbs the entropy and balance of energy in the world, as far as I know. I doubt if even healing other people by channeling energy via the planes is desirable, because it still distorts the balance. I bet some of those spirits in the metaplanes are suffering in exchange for healing happening in here. That is, if they do exist and aren't just products of someone's imagination.
What was that about technomancers? I knew one and there was nothing 'magical' about it."

Oh, also, I'm willing to draw your characters too if you want.

[Trigger]

Whisper, I am neither the hulking brute nor the skulking rural hick. I am your normal average guy, not much too special about my looks, soka? My speciality is identifying the signs of mojo at work, tracking the bastards down and bringing them in, dead or alive. I know security and security systems. And I shoot, I shoot well. I go out sometimes, but not to anywhere particular. Usually whatever piece of drek bar is closest, blow off some steam.

*

Tyler has no code name that has ever stuck with him, so I leave it up to the rest of the team to give him one as they see fit. Also, I draw as well and here is a sketch of Tyler (as you may see, he was inspired by another Tyler).

I am also willing to do drawings for you all as well.

[djinni]

yep yep doc not as good of friends as me and tinman but hey...who knows...tracking down those who would seek to undermine our society has a way of bonding people...
alright ty sounds like we have similar skills, do you have a particular mode of killing?

[2bit]

Attention Alphas:

Waiting on Saytr to check in and finish his sheet. He's busy, as I understand, but we're going to forge ahead come Monday.

Here are some pieces of info from the Witch Hunt OOC thread which will be good to keep in mind.

[2bit]

Witch Hunt 2: IC thread going up later today! Saytr hasn't given me his final sheet and I haven't heard from him in several days, so I'm dropping him. The first post in the thread has been updated with the final team.

[djinni]

[2bit]

you can post in IC as soon as it's up and as often as appropriate. (But really, the more the better).

[djinni]

[2bit]

The Gloria Stein Hotel

The Gloria Stein Hotel (A Hilton resort, which is owned by Brackhaven Investments) is a 5-star place - a competetive choice for upper class visitors from around the world, and a popular place to rent a posh banquet hall for your political fundraiser, convention, art auction, shareholder's meeting, etc. etc. The Gloria Stein is also home to the Black Tulip, arguably Bellevue's best French cuisine. The rooms are all suites, and typically fill up 2 seasons in advance. The decor is Baroque, for that "old money" feel.

[djinni]

checking the news for anything out of the ordinary that might warrant an immediate call.

[2bit]

The News Nets are catastophe free. Anything less serious than mass murder or terrorist attack won't show up until the evening wrap-up (23:00).

[djinni]

[KoneV]

Yay, we're finally going!

I have a feeling I should roll something for checking whether Alfred's message is genuine, but I'm not entirely sure what (electronic warfare, software, forgery? average of all three? :D). Should I use a program or Logic? Guessing it could be an extended test...

Trigger, I'd like it you drew Ether. Always interested to see other people's takes. :)

[djinni]

yep yep smells like setup to me too...that's why I'm going early...cuz it'll be fun!

something I forgot to ask...
were the recipients of the text message CC'd or BCC'd
or was it a single text message made for us and sent straight to us individually?

I'm just curious about how alfred deals with the setups of jobs how he regards the alphas etc...

[2bit]

I've been feeling the pinch here at work, spare time has been rapidly decreasing - sorry for the hiatus yall. I've been working on a big post for witch hunt 1 but it's taking forever because of things that come up.

To answer your questions:
@KoneV:
Forgery is used more to determine if a physical item, or an electronic image, sound, etc, has been tampered with - but a text message (email) would more likely be standard hacker magic - Computer + Analyze should cover it.

@djinni:
No additional recipients are visible. As far as you can tell, it was sent to you individually. That's pretty normal.

If you go there now, you'll both get there - let's say - 20 minutes early.

[KoneV]

No problem, I've been somewhat busy in here too.

Rolled for the examination. Don't know how long it would take or how many rolls I get, but if it's just one test I get, let's take the first one. The number of the rolls I made is equal to the pool. Computer + Analyze (0, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 5, 1, 2)

Ether does have that ~1,3 hours while driving, at least... X)

[KoneV]

I assumed Ether figured the message was real, and that the neighborhood was cool.

[djinni]

shameless bump?

[KoneV]

Is 2bit gone?