OOC: SRM04-00: Back in Business, OOC thread for Back in Business Options

[Forces In Motion]

I'm really wishing I'd put a Police Etiquette skill on my sheet now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) or the Horseman PMV with the drone rack. Getting an armed drone in won't be easy, and then there's whatever gear the others choose to bring along.

On the other hand, we might be able to bribe that past one way or another...Mr. White and his silver tongue will be pretty useful there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Oh, and for what it's worth, the drone chair has smart tires, so it can negotiate steps.

[taeksosin]

Alrighty, so how much time exactly are we looking at folks off doing their own thing before we get together again? Six, eight, ten, twelve hours? The amount of time will effect what I do with some of that off time. Also, we did not get any up front money, correct? Pretty sure we didn't, but just wanted to make sure.

Also, it occured to me that I neglected to subtract 1 from my pool on my data searches up to now. Fixing that from now on.

Gonna throw out a couple of Data Search rolls on the Ork Underground, specifically seeking information that's in Or'zet (the assumption being better details may be available).
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - Cumulative penalty for extended test (-1 per roll after the first) (12d6.hits(5)=3, 11d6.hits(5)=5, 10d6.hits(5)=5, 9d6.hits(5)=4)

I would also like to try to locate a pirate network (Data Search + Browse, 8, 1 Day) (Unwired Pg. 94) for future...needs. Going to rush the job (glitches with 1's and 2's, SR4A Pg. 65) since I'm on a bit of a timeline, making it Data Search + Browse (8, 12 hours). Figure I'm likely going to have to split that test up a bit (depending on pickup times, work for a few hours, sleep for three, work for more until picked up, work on the car ride there, etc.) to make it happen.
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - Cumulative penalty for extended test (-1 per roll after the first) (12d6.hits(5)=0, 11d6.hits(5)=5, 10d6.hits(5)=6, 9d6.hits(5)=2)

Whew, no glitch on the first one, but it was a NEAR thing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Looks like three tests is what it takes, so that boils down to what...36 hours for me to locate a pirate network?

[Slacker]

What kind of information is Quixote looking for on the Ork Underground? You can find plenty of info on the history of the Underground. Some info on various gangs that are down there. Thousands upon thousands of rumors and conjecture. No maps of the Underground exist at all, it changes too much and too often. At most you'll find something about the "villages" built up right up against each entrance. The rest of the Underground is just one massive shadow of conflicting info.

[Dak]

Time is against us- especially if she is in some kind of danger (like the Ork Underground), and the trail will only get colder. I suggest that we snatch a few hours of sleep and meet back up fairly early. Slacker, what time IC was it when we decided to call it a night? 3AM? I suggest we take 6 hours off and meet back up, so 9AM if I'm right about the time.

Slacker, help me out - with the armed drone Legs wants to take in, is it super off limits - the equivalent to trying to smuggle a nuclear missile somewhere, or more the kind of thing that we might be able to get someone to look the other way while we drive it into the underground? Perhaps I can get two favors from my Knight Errant contact, and get confirmation that she went into the Ork Underground AND see if we can get the drone in with us.

[Slacker]

Whew, no glitch on the first one, but it was a NEAR thing Looks like three tests is what it takes, so that boils down to what...36 hours for me to locate a pirate network?

Sounds fine.

[Dak]

2) A note jotted in the margin of the next page “Jack Turner, Seattle, 20:00.”

Can we do some digging on this person as well? What's an appropriate roll here, or does this mean calling contacts?

[Slacker]

I was wondering if that note had gotten overlooked. Perhaps a contact would be good for that, maybe a criminal contact?

[taeksosin]

I knew there was something I forgot in my post. I wouldn't mind running searches for a Jack Turner, in Seattle, with connections in academia and magical nonsense.
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - 1x(number of attempts - 1) (12d6.hits(5)=6, 11d6.hits(5)=6, 10d6.hits(5)=3, 9d6.hits(5)=1)

As for information on the Ork Underground, mostly survival type stuff. The do's and don'ts, who can usually be bribed to get in/get out/get info, potential hangouts/watering holes where information is likely to be.

[Dak]

Going to put a call in to my mafia contact (4/4) about Jack Turner. 14D6E5 => 4

I still may call my Knight Errant contact, but I'll hold off just for the moment.

[Slacker]

I knew there was something I forgot in my post. I wouldn't mind running searches for a Jack Turner, in Seattle, with connections in academia and magical nonsense.
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - 1x(number of attempts - 1) (12d6.hits(5)=6, 11d6.hits(5)=6, 10d6.hits(5)=3, 9d6.hits(5)=1)

As for information on the Ork Underground, mostly survival type stuff. The do's and don'ts, who can usually be bribed to get in/get out/get info, potential hangouts/watering holes where information is likely to be.

Jack Turner is an ork smuggler that is based out of the Ork Underground, mostly smuggling guns and BTLs.

The do's and don'ts of the Ork Underground are mostly stay out of the dark, don't go where there aren't lots of people, stay to tunnels you know, don't feed the wild life, some tips on telling when a tunnel is about to collapse, don't make loud sounds lest the devil rats and giant crocodiles hear you and swarm.

If you try contact anybody you see online about bribes to get in, they all speak up with great enthusiasm saying they can totally get you in, no problem, just send them 100-1000nuyen (depending how much they try to talk up the risks involved) and they'll meet you at the entrance.

You also find tourist information that says there is no fee to get in, though there are guided tours of the areas immediately around either entrance that costs 150nuyen per person (they do require you to sign a waiver saying they are not at fault in the case of death or dismemberment).

I think that's about all you are able to find. Mostly its difficult to get any reliable information at all. Any mention of watering holes are often squashed by people saying that the original poster is just trying to send you into a trap, or that the cave collapsed last month killing everybody inside. Or the directions are all based off landmarks only residents know/understand. etc.

[Dak]

We might want to see if searching for "Morel Stone" gets any data as well.

[Slacker]

Going to put a call in to my mafia contact (4/4) about Jack Turner. 14D6E5 => 4

I still may call my Knight Errant contact, but I'll hold off just for the moment.

Looks like you're in luck, both your contacts in this time. I'll post something IC shortly for the Mafia contact. After that you can tell what you want to talk to KE about.

[Kiirnodel]

...Also sorry to say that on 5 dice this spirit actually just rolled 4 successes. So your summoning fails, but you stil have to resist the drain. So take 3 boxes of stun damage since you only got 1 success. Oh, but i guess it doesn't matter since you'll be healing back up.

Actually, the drain on 4 hits by the spirit is a painful 8 stun, of which I only resist 1. So Gardner has a really bad headache after trying that, and won't bother trying to summon up another spirit until he has at least healed up most of that... Which is still fairly lucky that I can rest up and heal that...

Time is against us- especially if she is in some kind of danger (like the Ork Underground), and the trail will only get colder. I suggest that we snatch a few hours of sleep and meet back up fairly early. Slacker, what time IC was it when we decided to call it a night? 3AM? I suggest we take 6 hours off and meet back up, so 9AM if I'm right about the time.

I definitely agree that time is of the essence, Gardner won't argue with getting at least a little sleep, though. He'll try and get up between an hour and an hour and a half early, trying that summoning test that goes horribly wrong. He was originally getting up early in the hopes that the spirit might have something when we all meet. But as it turns out, it was so he could rest to get rid of the splitting migraine that hits after he tries to summon up a spirit to do the searching.

Giving up on trying to summon a spirit to do a search for now, Gardner is going to prep for the group heading into the Ork Underground by contacting MacCallister. Yes, he's our Johnson for this run, but he's also one of the major political advocates for the Underground, and happens to be one of my contacts already, so I'm guessing he might be willing to help out on this?

I only got 1 hit on an Etiquette+Loyalty test, so he might not be happy with needing to do something, but at least I didn't botch things up...

I'll wait to see what sort of info/assistance Mac can provide before I decide much else...

[Slacker]

With one success, MacCallister isn't going to be of much help. He's pretty tide up in taking care of protection for Mercurial right now. It seems the death threats she had been getting before the show were genuine. So fucker sent a clutch of toxic spirits after her. He was able to get her out of there with only minor injuries, but the culprit got away.

His only suggestion is to ask one of the locals once you get underground to guide you. There's always some scrappy kid or another down there offering to guide topsiders foolish enough to go down.

He does warn you to stay clear of the invisible crocs before signing off saying he's happy about how fast you guys are moving. He's expecting to hear good news soon.

[Slacker]

We might want to see if searching for "Morel Stone" gets any data as well.

Just noticed you mentioned this. This is really only information that an archeologist or at least some kind of academic type would know/come across. It's not publish information.

[Slacker]

Oh and I believe somebody asked about money. You guys could may have negotiated for half up front, but it was not expressly mentioned by MacCallister or Laurent. So no, you haven't gotten any money yet.

[Dak]

Interesting information from my mafia contact.

With that in mind, I'll offer my Knight Errant contact to try to scratch his back in return for his scratching mine.

He knows what I do for a living, I let him know that I'd like to check camera footage to confirm that a person entered the Underground from the Mall, and I'd also like to try to get an armed drone in ("I keep hearing rumors that the Ork Underground is rather dangerous.."). In return, I hear that they're looking for an ork named Jack Turner. I might be able to help them get his hands on him.

12D6E5 => 3

[Slacker]

"Come on. We've worked with each other some in the past, but do you really think I'm going to let you not only poke around in our camera archives, but also bring an illegal drone to a populated and very public place like the Parkland Mall?" He's a bit surprised but you trying to ask him for that much, but your smooth words are able to talk him out of being angry.

"Tell you what. Looks like Athack is the detective in charge of the investigation into Jack Turner's activities. He's like to be down by the Tourist Highway right now because of rumors of more gang activity. Talk to him and mention my name. But I'm leaving it up to him to decide what to do with you and your Doberman, I assume you've got a permit for that, right?"

[taeksosin]

Wonder what the feasibility of breaking it down, splitting up pieces and parts between us, and reassembling it inside would be? For the REALLY illegal stuff on it, Quixote could try to sneak in carrying it on his person. Dunno how feasible that would be, but it's an idea.

[taeksosin]

Otherwise, if there's nothing else we wanna try to chase down, I'd say lets go ahead and forward some time and head on o'er to the mall.

[Kiirnodel]

Is it mentioned that Athack might be able to help us? He's also one of my contacts >.< He's only at Loyalty 1, but that's at least better than nothing...

And I might be able to help a bit with getting in a bit unnoticed... I know it's a little cheesy, but a Rating 5 Air Spirit using it's Concealment power on all of us will make us pretty hard to notice... I might have to go more powerful if we need to conceal drones too. It's up to Slacker how effective this is, I don't want to be an annoyance or anything here...

I can't think of much else that'll help us getting in, I don't have any appropriate knowledge or anything for this particular situation.

[Slacker]

Is it mentioned that Athack might be able to help us? He's also one of my contacts >.< He's only at Loyalty 1, but that's at least better than nothing...

And I might be able to help a bit with getting in a bit unnoticed... I know it's a little cheesy, but a Rating 5 Air Spirit using it's Concealment power on all of us will make us pretty hard to notice... I might have to go more powerful if we need to conceal drones too. It's up to Slacker how effective this is, I don't want to be an annoyance or anything here...

I can't think of much else that'll help us getting in, I don't have any appropriate knowledge or anything for this particular situation.

I would say that you really would only need to hide the drone and any other excessive (meaning obvious) hardware you guys are planning to take down with you. People go in and out of the tourist entrance all the time. Knight Errant isn't there to stop people, they are there to stop gang violence from the Underground spilling out into the public mall above. Though, do keep in mind that Concealment just gives people a dice pool modifier, and it doesn't take much to notice a drone stomping along behind a group of obvious shadowrunners. At most they would need to roll 2 hits to see the drone, it'd only be 1 hit needed to see the whole group of you.

As for Detective Athack. He might be able to help you, but right now he is unreachable. Mr. White's contact mentioned that you can probably find him at the Lordstrung's entrance.

[Slacker]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3y5my0vo08ntjo/TouristHighway.jpg

That is a map of the entrance to the Tourist Highway. Is there a particular time you are all trying to get there? You guys going to try to find and talk to the detective first, or conceal the drone and then look for him? Or just skip looking for him and head on inside?

The KE guard toward would be off to the right with a nice clear firing field beyond the barriers marked on the map.

[taeksosin]

We obviously need to mod out Legs' wheelchair in the future with a LMG or something in a pop-up mount. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Really wouldn't mind taking my Ares Alpha with me, but with it having a +6 to concealability...hmm.
Heck with it, Quixote's gonna be taking pretty much his whole inventory with him. If possible, might have Legs haul my toolkits on his wheelchair for me. And, depending on how big his smuggling compartment is/assuming he's not using it for something better, might try to talk him into hauling my Ares Alpha for me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And, I hate to ask, but what about any air vents in bathrooms or something along those lines that might be meta-human sized?

[Dak]

At most they would need to roll 2 hits to see the drone, it'd only be 1 hit needed to see the whole group of you.

We could try to go in one or two at a time to reduce our menacing profile.

If getting the drone into the underground is going to be a huge hassle, I'd suggest that we skip it- though I suspect Legs would disagree.

Surely there's someone who's willing to get heavy gear into the Underground for the right price. If it was as locked down as it seems, then no one in the underground would own anything larger than a heavy pistol.