Umbrae Europae [IC] (part 3) - Mist of Nycthemeron, A third installment of the Umbrae Europae Campaing (started elsewhere) Options

[Jack_Spade]

Rex hid the drone as well as he could and asked the Kami for another favor. That done, he moved back to the van, taking care to stay hidden and not to draw attention from the mercenaries and their mage.

[ Spoiler ]

Disguise+Int to hide the drone:
Disguise: 15d6t5 6
Concealment for -9 to perception checks

Sneaking to get back to the van:
Sneak: 15d6t5 5
Concealment for -9 to perception checks

[Haywire]

For Game Master

[ Spoiler ]

Pilot + Reaction: 15d6t5 6 (limit 6)
[\spoiler]

[Romain Pelisse]

It takes but only a few minutes for Rex to circle around the mercs and get back to the van. Stuck in the mouth of his feline form is the old fashion talkie-walkie from the WW2. On his Waywalker is getting quite nervous. There is numerous icons appearing from several direction. Many drones are appearing on the grid, building a sensor network to try to locate their position, and several armored vehicles are also getting closer. Quite soon, most of the roads out of the zone they are going to be closed, making their escape far more complicated. Using his knowledge of how sensor works, with some fine driving skills, Waywalker attempts to slips through the tight detection network building around them...

[ Spoiler ]

Sensor Array of the High Council of Brittany: 15d6t5 5 (limit to 6) - Waywalker does slips through!!!

Limiting to the maximum the signature of his vehicle, the rigger plays a game of cat and mouse with the impressive network being deployed by the High Council of Brittany, on behalf of their opponent. Using every bit of gap in the network, playing the drone to make them move and focus on the wrong places, Waywalker finally manages to get their vehicle out of the network grid and its way back to Paris. As the rush of adrenaline, tied to sense of immediate danger, suddenly goes away, Waywalker suddenly realizes how exhausted he is.

[ Spoiler ]

Technically Waywalker is "awake" for more than a day and should suffers fatigue, but his body has been resting while he was in VR. So the exhaustion is more mental than anything else.

On the back of the truck, Rex, still in a feline form, observe the weird, old fashion talkie warlike he managed to bring back from the drone's hands. The thing is clearly dead. The battery is dead and gone, and the mage has no idea how easy, or even possible it is, to fix the device...

[Jack_Spade]

Rex felt the relieve of leaving this area all to well. One by one he let go of all the spells he kept on himself, thanked the Kami and bid it farewell after he took over maintaining his dog form.

The little device fascinated him. Luckily, he knew a way to learn more about it.

[ Spoiler ]

Casting Analyse Device F8 on the Walkie Talkie
Analyze Device: 22d6t5 9
Resist drain: 21d6t5 5
No Drain

[Haywire]

#80

It wasn't easy. It was more like a chess play, where the stakes were their lives. But Waywalker was a damn fine player and so exploited every bit of error in the system to slip throught the cracks. And soon, like a shadow, he was gone for the good.
"You see, if there is a way I will find it. Now, as I set the pilot to Paris, shall we see what we got?"

[ Spoiler ]

Could Hardware help with the understanding of the device?
[\spoiler]

[Jack_Spade]

"Right you are. By the way: What the hell happened in there? It was like you were astral projecting - through your drone. Really creepy. I didn't make any friends there and they'll likely have learned my spell signature by now. But about that thing you brought, I can tell you the following things about it..."
Rex answered.

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

As you guys keeps falling back on past tense, I'm going to switch my narration to past tense too. It seems to be easier and it will be a nice read if we are all writing in the same tense.

@Jack_Spade with 9 net hits on your spell, I'm waiving Object Resistance.

Rex focused his sense on the device, while casting his spell. Suddenly, the device felt like it was opening itself to the mage's eyes. He could see and understand every piece of wiring in it. How this transistor connected to this little speaker and how the antennae allowed to received the signal of other similar devices. However, keyword was used. This talkie-walkie was definitely broken. On top of empty battery, it would required some fixing for sure.

Then, Rex felt something strange. Frowning, he focused again his sense deeply unto the device. On top of being broken, he could felt that the device was... stuffed? Like something that did not belong to it was inside it...

And that was when Waywalker, finally back into in his meat body, slips into the back of the truck, offering his help with the little device. Grabbing a toolbox nearby, the Rigger started, very carefully tinkering with the device.

[ Spoiler ]

@Waywalker, it's too easy to require any test - just having Hardware is enough, so...

He first opened its casing and discovered surprisingly, that a piece of paper, folded ten thousand time, was jabbed inside! Unfolding carefully, the runners realized it was an old paperwork from the WW2. Despite the cryptic-ness of any kind of administration form, the duo quickly understood what this sheet was about.

This was a transfer order, to move an item from the Kommandantur in Brittany to a secure location! The Nazi had removed the book, just a few weeks of short of the end of the war. According to the paperwork, the precious tome was to be moved into a secure location, a hidden, and apparently secret bunker, in the frontier of France and Germany.

Suddenly, Rex tenses. He immediately have a very bad feeling about this. Even before Waywalker can performs its own Matrix search, the mage rushes onto the Matrix and access a map to locate the small village mentioned as being close to the bunker entrance.

>>> You have to be fucking kidding me!!!

Rex shares the map in AR with Waywalker. The village is Kastel-Staadt, just a few kilometers off of Serrig.... Deep into the SOX.

[ Spoiler ]

@Jack_Spade yeah, I know. SOX again. I am a asshole (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xm3eqzgOW...amp;usp=sharing

[Jack_Spade]

<<Sometimes I feel as if the universe just hates us. At least this time around we already have the necessary equipment. Do you have any current information about where we can best enter the SOX?
We could ask our friendly rigger AI if they'd help us out on that one.>>
Rex sent to Waywalker.

[Haywire]

#81

"Really? Again that hellhole? Well, certainly we'll be more prepared..."
Waywalker was puzzled as he realized that the Fae Professor tricked him with that device. "I could have just run away... however, I had my bit of fun with the guards."
"Back in the Mist i was in the Fae Realms, and I had to bargain with one of them for that little piece of information. Going into the SOX would be easier with Nestor...you could call some mojo to make it come to us? We're not in a hurry since only us have access to the location of the book,so we could wait a day for the heat on the Mist border to fall down...or we could press the advantage. What do you think?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<How valuable is the Nestor? I certainly agree that remote operations would be much preferable, but I worry about the Nestor's capability to retrieve the item.
I'm thinking about purchasing a more combat suited model - wearing strong armor, radiation shielding and some sort of weapon. I could further enhance it's durability and improve your pilot skill.

If we can't secure the help from Racer, I could float us above the radiation sphere to get us to this bunker place without suffering the radiation and astral pollution. With a second levitation - provided likely by a Kami, we can lower the robot to the ground - right at our target. A weather control effect might be necessary to get a clear line of sight - and possibly also an optical telescope - so I can pick it and the book back up again.

Of course that would rely on us floating above the SOX, concealed by a Kami for quite a long while. The van would be to heavy, so we'd have to rent a smaller vehicle.
On the plus side, we'd have less interference to deal with. Entering the bunker might also necessitate getting a repeater on the ground.

What do you think?>>

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

Floating over the SOX, concealed is (IMHO) like a armoured troll stepping into a fire line. Yes, in terms of mechanics, you can do it, because you know the dices and stats are on our side, but nobody would do it "in real life". Even if the mechanics makes it unlikely, a simple encounter with the magic field might disturb the spell and hurls you toward a certain death... That being said I don't think you'll have to resort to such an extreme option.

The two runners sent a message to Racer, or at least, to the last device they saw the AI being online with. Now, they had to wait for the digital being to reply. Rex's proposal - flying over the SOX, was not looking good. On top of being risky business - flying magically, on top of a very disturb magical field, SOX air security is pretty tight. Clearly the corp there does not want people to intrude on their secret experiment, well hidden within the radiations of the place, and the MET2000 had thus deployed both ground to air missile system, but also had choppers and planes patrolling. If any sensor or patrol managed to catch a glimpse of them, they might just get shot down from the sky by a rocket!

[ Spoiler ]

I'm deciding for you guys, that you at least spend a night in your safe house in Paris to recover...

Anyway, the two runners were exhausted and had already push their luck to the maximum for the time being. They were already both asleep when their vehicle parked nearby their safe house. Shadowrunners are always aware of their surrounding, so they did not walk like zombies toward their little shacks, but they were certainly happy to not run into any trouble. They spent the next day resting and checking out the matrix for news about their recent encounter in Brittany. Sadly, the news were not good.

Indeed, the High Council of Brittany had released an official warrant for the arrest of "at least two intruders" into the "security zone around the Mist", and some video footage allowed them to have a made out the make and model of their van. Of course, Waywalker had already swap the transponder, but still, the "authority" are now paying attention to vehicle like theirs. Also, the security forces have retrieved the little Nestor they had to leave behind. Waywalker had scrubbed it clean, so he news there was nothing that could trace back to them, but still..

[ Spoiler ]

Sorry for the drone, but this way, you have to move forward and not go back to fetch it. You both gain an extra point of karma for losing the drone.

It was now the evening of Saturday 14th of March, when the runners finally got a message back from their friend (?) Racer:

>>>> HUMAN ENTITY REX AND WAYWALKER - YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. STAND THE REASON FOR YOU BEHAVIOR ?

[Jack_Spade]

<<Greetings Racer. We have a mission that leads us back into the SOX. We'd like to hire you as our transport so we can retrieve an item for our employer.
Do you have time for this and what payment would you desire?>>

Rex replied as soon as he got the message.

[Romain Pelisse]

The answer from Racer came very quickly - but also loaded with files attached.

>>> ENTITY REX - I HAVE NO INTEREST FOR MONEY. BUT MY CURRENT SHELL HAS BEEN DAMAGED. IT ALSO NEEDS FUEL. THAT IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE. FIX MY SHELL AND GIVE IT FUEL...

Accompanying the message was a shit load of information on the current state of the vehicle. Apparently, the AI had run all kind of analysis software on the GMC Banshee, and was sharing those result, but also transfer a lot of information from the internal system.

[ Spoiler ]

@Waywalker I'm guessing you are the one able to read and analyze those information. If you happen to have Aeronautics Mechanics, please roll that with Logic (limited by Mental). Otherwise, you can default by using Intuition + Pilot skill (any pilot skill) with a -2d penalty.

>>> ENTITY REX AND WAYWALKER - WHERE DO YOU WANT ME TO TAKE YOU ?

[Jack_Spade]

<<I sure we can get you what you need.
You are more knowledgeable on the terrain of the SOX. We are currently west of the zone, but we can meet up wherever you deem safest for the meeting and the repairs.>>

Rex replied, happy to not having to enact the crazy hovering plan.

[Haywire]

#82

Waywalker was grateful that Racer was still in activity and that he could help them with this SOX trip. He looked at the status report trying to figure out what the problem was.
"We should be able to get a walker drone with weapons quickly enough for the supplies for your Banshee to arrive...let's see what we got."

[ Spoiler ]

Intuition + Pilot: 11d6t5 2
Should we buy a Ares Duelist?

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

I was thinking a SPARRING DRONE from HT p.190
It has solid stats, high body and can be very well modified while being really cheap

[Romain Pelisse]

Waywalker parsed the information provided by the AI in a matter of seconds, and it does not look good. First, Racer had been pushing the limit of this T-Bird for a while now, and many systems are on the verge of failures. On top of that, the radiation of the SOX has been constantly hitting the vehicle. Clearly does not care about radiation itself, but those are also putting an extra strain on the system. Then came fuel consumption. On this front, it appeared immediately clear to Waywalker that wherever the T-Bird was currently would be more/less where they would need to go. And they'll need to bring some fuel, because the VTOL's reserve were clearly depleted.

Just refuelling the VTOL would normally cost around 500¥, but Racer sent along some extra chemicals and an instruction to "brew" its own fuel. Waywalker had no idea if this new mix will be efficient or ruin the vehicle's engine, but for sure it will bring the cost up to 1000¥. And it was the smallest part of the bill. For the T Bird fly again relatively safely, Waywalker will need to fix many systems and perform a lot of maintenance.

[ Spoiler ]

In terms of game, the T-Bird has suffered 5 Boxes worth of Damages, which means to fix it you have to pay 5% of the vehicle original price - it's 10% for other stuff, but I recall that, somewhere, it mentions 5% for vehicle. Sadly, a GMC Banshee cost 2.500.000¥, so those 5% * 5 leads back 625 000¥ (if my math are correct), that I'm going to round down to 500 000¥. Even if the T Bird is not utterly damaged (only 5 boxes), it is still unable to move and part of the repair includes the quite needed radiation isolation shielding. You could only repair a couple of boxes, but this will basically give the defective quality, making likely to fail dramatically at some point... (but, yeah, you would get one point of Karma (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ).

Doing a quick browsing for spare part and other component, Waywalker calculated all those shopping will cost roughly half a mil ! Certainly not petty cash. Waywalker was the sure AI was not trying to screw'em over, but probably to naive about real world to realize what it is asking of them.

[Jack_Spade]

When Waywalker showed Rex the necessary expenses he really missed the ability to whistle. Instead he replied:
<<I can offer you 100.000 Nuyen adhoc, 50.000 more with a days time. My total reserves are around 200.000 - and only because living like a dog isn't really that expensive.
Seriously, for that price we could almost buy a new T-Bird. Do you think we can scavenge some of those parts from other machines of this kind? There is a spell that allows you to fix stuff. Problem is, you can only use it once on any given vehicle. If I learn this spell and we could gain access to similar machines, we could steal a few parts each. Then I can fix that with magic without compromising Racer.>>

[ Spoiler ]

I think it's a good point to mention that you can repair stuff like this with insufficient parts:

p.29 R5

If you don’t have sufficient parts for your repair, you’ll take a penalty to the Extended Technical Skill Test, depending on how short you are: Increase the interval to one day, and for every box worth of parts you lack, you take a –4 dice pool penalty.

Also scavenging:

You can tear parts out of a working vehicle or drone (the target) for use in the repair of a similar vehicle or drone (your gamemaster will tell you if your scavenging victim is similar if you’re not sure). First, decide how much damage you’re willing to inflict on the target, in Condition Monitor boxes. Then the target takes that damage (with no chance to resist) and you make an appropriate Mechanic skill + Logic [damage inflicted] Test. For every two hits, you scavenge one box worth of parts for your repair job.


Also of note: If we invest the money for just one box of damage instead into a swarm drone network to help with the repairs, we can easily go down to a penalty of -8 or -12 to fix the T-Bird

[Haywire]

#83

Waywalker almost fainted looking at the bill at the end of his calculations.
Regaining his composure after a moment, he thinked about another solution... "Rex, I know that we can cannibalize some other stuff to get our components...How about we look for a junkyard here in Paris?"

[ Spoiler ]

Sekretar teamwork: 6d6t5 1
agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 7
matrix search: 22d6t5 10

[Romain Pelisse]

When Waywalker started looking for a junkyard in Paris, he was not surprise to find none within the inner city limit. Paris has become, for a while now, a haven for tourism and an over monitored places for super rich on the Grand Tour. However, Paris also have two large airport along with several smaller ones, which means a lot of planes being maintained and fix around the capital. His search got very lucky it dug up a semi-legal place, mentioned on some obscure runner's forum somewhere in Mitry-Mory, north of Saint Denis, just south of the large Charles de Gaulle Airport. If the airport is a high security zone, crawling with drones and security outfit from both Ares KE and NeoPD from Renraku, the suburbs cities surrounding the place are completely ignored by the authority, which is certainly making things better for the two runners.

The place is not actual junkyard, but more of scrap metal recycling structure. It's supposed to be a small, independent small business, getting second hand pieces from the large airport along with some other small one. The name is blend as possible "Le Metallo SARL", which roughly translate to the "the metal dude Inc.". It is surprisingly run by a woman whoever. The picture on the matrix site is showing her rather cute face, with a blond pony tail behind a truck hat. Her name is "Anne Dupont". Doing a bit more of research on her, Waywalker quickly feels that this might just be a fake SIN , as there is too little, too convenient information about her squeaky-clean life.

In the forums entries Waywalker found, several people mentioned the place has being "Shadow friendly" and having deal with her quite often for spare parts. However, she does not deal in anything illegal, like weapon or armor. She just appears to let people buy spare part "off the book".

[Haywire]

#84

Waywalker enjoyed the night's sleep and the feeling of being again in his meatbody. "Rex, it seems like we foumd someone that could sell us some parts for Racer without costing us our kidneys..."
"I'd say that with the book buried deep in the SOX nobody is going to anticipate us, so I could read something on the Banshee to fix it myself today, while I arrange for a little purchase..."

[ Spoiler ]

I'd like to buy a Evo Proleterian with the Aeronautive Mechanics autosoft and to buy 1 point of Aeronautive Mechanics skill

[Jack_Spade]

<<Good. I'll work my mojo once you start your repairing. I'll assist you as well as I can.>>

[ Spoiler ]

Since we want a humanoid combat drone too, wouldn't it be better to buy that one + the autosoft?

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

If it's OK with you, we can say you spent a week doing shopping, "learning things". You can rest, hide for a bit, refresh edge. And we skip to the meet with Racer at the SOX ?

[Jack_Spade]

During the rest and recreation, Rex learned that his idea of using a spell to fix lost parts wasn't going to work, as only broken parts could be repaired in that way.

The first thing he did was enhancing giving Waywalker an intimate knowledge about the capabilities of his repair tools.

[ Spoiler ]

F8 Analyse Device for Waywalker on his repair tools with 15 Reagents for Limit
Analyze Device: 22d6t5 9
Spending Edge for Rerolls:
Analyze Device Edge Reroll: 13d6t5 3
Gear Resistance: Object Resistance: 9d6t5 4

+8 Bonus dice for Waywalker on Aeronautic repairs
Resist Drain: 21d6t5 8
No Drain.

Spending 1 Karma to quicken

F9 Increase Logic Spell on Waywalker
Increase Logic: 20d6t5 10
Waywalker has a total Logic of 5(9)
Spending 1 Karma to quicken
Drain resist: 21d6t5 3
Taking 2 points of physical drain damage.

#114

[Haywire]

#85

Waywalker spent the week reading information manual and guides for the Banshee. Luckily Ms. Dupont had all the parts they needed to buy, as well as a drone to help him.

[ Spoiler ]

Aeronautive Mechanics: 1 Karma
Evo proletarian; 4000 NY
Sparring Drone: 4500 Ny