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

[Jack_Spade]

Rex welcomed the excuse to stop reading and deciphering the book. For a highly sought after book it was pretty tedious to read.
Relying on the simple dog form of a friendly Golden Retriever, he kept his astral sight open.
<<The brothel is warded in the astral. I'll have to kill a bit of the awakened algae in the wall if I want to take a look inside. Can you hack the cameras to get access to their system? We could use the invisible cable trick again.>>

[Haywire]

#143

"We seem to have found our target. I'd peek inside their host to get some feed from the cameras and if we can track this girl down."
After relying most of the trip on the autopilot, it was nice for Waywalker ot be back in the centr of the action.

[ Spoiler ]

agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 1
matrix perception (looking for the host): 17d6t5 2
If it's not enough I'll reboot and retry
matrix perception (looking for the host): 17d6t5 7

[Jack_Spade]

Meanwhile, Rex concentrated on the astral, trying to pick up any aura's of powerfull magic that had happened around here in the last hours. He didn't expect to find anything, but you never knew what kind of Kami's these people kept around when they went out for a bit of carnal recreation.

[ Spoiler ]

Assensing: 11d6t5 2

[Romain Pelisse]

Rex spent some minutes gazing into the astral with his eyes closed. Not far from him, his partner, Waywalker knew enough about magic to recognize the small changes in the air or the barely visible weird glow emanating from his dog eyes. The decker was certainly hoping for the dog shaped mage was more successful than he was.

He already rebooted once his deck and try to again, just to be sure he was not getting anything wrong. According to his scans, there was nothing close to a host anywhere near the small house. Actually, the all thing looked completely dark in the matrix. Out of desperation, Waywalker even ran a diagnostic software on his deck antennae. Until the answer finally came to him.

A fragging Faraday cage. This all building was shielded in such a way to create a freaking Faraday cage. No signal from the outside could get in, neither anything inside could get out. The only way they could have access inside the mansion would be to use some wired infrastructure from the last century... Well, last decades, but still...

Looking at the building, in the real world, carefully, Waywalker now saw that all the windows were actually fake, painted over white bricked wall. The only opening appeared to be the main door. A fancy, nice looking, old door, that has clearly modified to not break the Faraday cage.

In the astral, Rex was not getting more lucky than his partner. At least, at first. With his assessing skills, Rex could feel the secretiveness of the place, how the all mansion felt almost... removed from the surrounding streets because of it. A bit more deeper into the astral, his nose catch a whiff of the raw sexuality happening in the place. He got a small taste of the customers excitation, being teased by the tenants, his ears suddenly filling up with noise of moaning and perky laughter....

He got so distracted by what he was sensing that he almost missed it. Next to house, there was a glimmer in the astral, some unidentified aura that seems to be wrapped into the wave of emotions pulsating from the brothel. As Rex focused his attention to the aura, trying to get a proper read of it, the glimmer suddenly took shape into the astral, the shape of a translucent, young woman. A beautiful, human one - with long blond hair falling into her back, and just wearing an old fashioned (not revealing at all by this century standard) nightgown.

Her soft eyes landed on Rex's astral form, questioning him and his presence without muttering a word...

[ Spoiler ]

@Jack_Spade don't forget that Assessing is for reading aura, not to see "things" in the astral. For that it is regular Perception. (then you can spot something and then decide or not to assense it....In this case I assumed you succeeded in your Perception test enough to spot this aura.

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

Whoops, yeah forgot about that.

Rex moved closer to the appearance - he still had the disguised aura of a dog upon him so he had to play the part of a shifter:
"Greetings, oh luminous one, if I may introduce myself, I am called Rex. It is a fine night to be out and travel the world. What brings you to this place if I may ask?"

[Haywire]

#144

Waywalker was quite pleased with his discover; at least he found why he couldn't see anything.
"Oh boy... how didn't I think of a Faraday cage earlier? Maybe my brain took a hit from the SOX trip? Rex, after this is over I'll go get a full check-up!
However, electrical power and wired matrix connection shall go in and out somewhere... I'll check it old school."
It took only a couple of seconds before a drone was buzzing like an insect out of the van and directed to the house...

[ Spoiler ]

pilot aircraft: 14d6t5 2
electronic warfare (perception): 21d6t5 5

[Romain Pelisse]

It took a little while for Waywalker to deploy his drone and start looking for a possible way to tap into the brothel's dataline. He had to do two full tour of the house to map it correctly and, in the end, had to do some educated guesses. Clearly, France - or at least this part of the country, had very quickly jump on the wagon of the wireless matrix and none of the usual "reminders" of the previous, wired infrastructure were to be seen around the bordello. However, Waywalker spot an access to the sewer, right behind the house that was tagger, in AR, as being also a technical access for the electric grid. Obviously, there was also a maglock on it - not the strongest one, for what Waywalker could see, but maybe below it, the decker could find some line to tap? Sadly, being in the center of the city, the streets were quite busy, with a lot of people wandering or shopping.

In the astral, Rex had to wait what felt an eternity to him until the mysterious woman replied. Rex got immediately the feeling that she was speaking in French, but in the astral, languages did not matter.

"Hi there, ô Wanderer of the realms of the Dead... I can see you are not from here and thus neither bound to this place of dread and sorrow... So, if I may ask, what brings you here, if not damnation?"

[Jack_Spade]

"The quest for knowledge. So you are a restless soul? What can you tell me about this building and its inhabitants?"
Rex stayed friendly but was ready to retreat in a heartbeat should the Ancestor Kami decide he didn't like being questioned.

[Romain Pelisse]

"Oh I can tell you plenty about this God-forsaken place... It is all but a tale of sorrow and pain. Within these walls, men come for please and women are to do their bidding. It is a place of carnal sin, where the soul of the innocent are lost. I am such a soul, I must confess. I've been lured in this place by the illusion of freedom, and, unknowingly, been doomed since then. Haunting this place is my damnation, I am here to warn the innocent coming here and try to chase them away before they are also doomed! Sadly, I'm unable to do so since this... impenetrable barrier has been set. So here I am, damned to an eternity of aimless wait..."

[Jack_Spade]

"I see. Now, I am neither innocent nor without a heart. Is there a way to break your chains and set you free? How did you die and who did it to you? I could create a breach in the barrier for you - you'd just have to describe to me everything you know about the insides of this place - rooms, people, secret accesses..."
Rex continued amiably.

[Romain Pelisse]

Rex probably got more than he asked for, as the ghost started a long, long (and sad) tales of her life in the brothel. Being in astral also meant that it was not only a story he was listening to, but that he also got glimpse of memories, flashing his mind, as she speaks, but also wave of emotions and even smells or feelings. It was highly disturbing for Rex.

The story of the ghost was a fairly classical one. Born in misery but with a fair appearance, her family resorted to sell her to a local brothel. After years of services, she got pregnant, but her son was immediately taken away from her by the father - a rich John. She died, of sorrow, a few month after. Sadly for Rex, the story was not only depressing but useless to him. It was clear, at the end of the tale, that the ghost (if it was really) had lived decades ago. The all story - impression, images and sounds too, looked like it came straight out of a book from Emile Zola. It was clear to the runner that none of the information she gave him would be of any help today. Except maybe for a basic sense of the internal layout...

"... So this is the story of my life, ô Wanderer of the realms of the Dead. It is, but, a sad story about damnation and I am now bound to this place, condemned to haunt until the end of time..."

She paused a minute, suddenly remembering Rex offer.

"But you say, mighty traveller, that you can open this walls for me? That I could again exercise my vengeance on this place and prevent young women to fall into the vicissitude of men?"

[Jack_Spade]

"Indeed, fair one. I ask of you only one thing: Wait for my call to you and don't harm me or my friend in the car over there. I'll return to you once I have spoken to him."

Rex quickly retreated to his body to recount his adventure to his chummer:
<<...so not much use to us except as a distraction - which admittedly a free Ancestor-Kami like her might be quite well suited for.
So what did you find out with your drones?>>
After learning about the shielding
<<Hm, that's not ideal. I'd bet that they have a strong jammer running inside as well. Still, if we can insert a wire with an antenna somewhere you should be able to get access. A restless dead hooker would probably be a good distraction in that regard. So tell me where and I'll astral combat a hole into the barrier on the other side to let her in.>>

[Haywire]

#145

"From what I remeber you told me time in the Astral is felt differently than in the meat world, right? What if I went in as a "client" and got a look around when hell breaks loose?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<If you want to risk it. Just be aware that I won't be able to come to your help without breaking a lot of things quite noisily. But then, I wouldn't want to deprive you of the opportunity to visit a French whorehouse.
Oh, and you have to move slowly through the door, so I have a chance to get the spells through the barrier that I quickened on you. Otherwise they will be destroyed or - what might be slightly worse - the brothel mage learns that someone tore down their barrier.>>

Rex replied, failing to mention that he could dispell his own spells too. But he felt it would be quite a waste of very good spells...

[Haywire]

"You have a point. The other chance is to access the building matrix trough the electrical grid, but is going to be a little difficult. Could you determine if the undergound access is protected too by the mojo or is it safe?"
In themeantime Waywalker shared with Rex what the drone found out.

[Jack_Spade]

<<Underground is tricky: I can't project through solid earth. But I suspect there is another ward behind that barrier anyway. So we'll breach this thing the old fashioned way: Sabotage the defenses.>>

Rex replied, while also sending out a call to one of the sneakier Kami he knew.

[ Spoiler ]

Summoning an F6 Spirit of Beast - Rat
Summon F6 Spirit of Beast: 20d6t5 7
Spirit resist: 6d6t5 4
Drain resist: 21d6t5 9

3 Services

Have it use Animal Control, collecting mice and rats and send it into the walls of the brothel, to disable the Farraday cage (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

He felt the Rat Kami try to resist his call, but Beast gave his words as usual a little extra pull and Rex even managed to deflect the pain that the psychic screech tried to inflict on him.
"Honored Rat, I have a favor to ask of you: Gather mice and other rodents and have them gnaw a breach into the organic barrier that shields this building. They also are to gnaw holes into the thin wires running through the walls - not the thick ones that carry electricity. Now go."

[Romain Pelisse]

After Rex asked the help of the Rat Kami, all that rested to do was, wait and see. Waywalker remains in the van, in full VR, constantly scanning the area covered by the Faraday cage. It took more than a hour for the rodents action to take effect. It started not by the Faraday cage breaking up, but by the red light on top of the entrance flickering before going off for good. Then, almost suddenly, the Faraday cage disappeared and a myriads of icons suddenly appeared. Sadly, the effect was far from being invisible from the inside, Waywalker could see almost immediately that some icon were already either shutting down or rebooting... What he was planning to do, he would not have that long to exact his plan!

[Jack_Spade]

Rex had followed the progress of the vermin through his connection to the Rat Kami, so he was ready to warn his friend:
<<They are through the insulation and on the wires. Whoops that was one of the thick ones. I told them that they should avoid those. Anyway, looks like there will be showtime shortly.>>

[Haywire]

#147

Waywalker was surprised at the sheer number of icons floating. Without losing his wits he quickly looked for the commlink of the Maitresse, his best shot for finding the informations he was looking for.

[ Spoiler ]

Initiative: 5d6+14 31
matrix perception: 21d6t5 6
Hacking on the fly: 19d6t5 7

[Romain Pelisse]

As soon as the Faraday cage broke and galaxy of icons appeared in front of Waywalker eyes, but almost as immediately, all those stars started to go dark one by one. The decker's Persona jumped into the cluster of icons, as fast as his DNI connection allowed him. It felt like jumping into some sort of meteor shower. Looking desperately at all the suddenly available icon, Waywalker searched for one that could match the commlink of the "Madame Claude", the woman running the bordello. Sadly, like any less than legal operation, the people involved were smart - most of the icons were indeed commlink, of various quality, but most were either empty or freshly formatted. All, but one, as it appeared soon to Waywalker. The device also appeared to have a rather strong firewall - and had yet to be shutdown.

Waywalker's persona flies toward the icon, with incredible speed, and aims toward, attempting to bypass its firewall...

[ Spoiler ]

First pass (31), Waywalker does a Matrix Perception, Second Pass he puts a Marks (21)
Firewall resists Waywalker's hacking: 10d6t5 3 - pass, Waywalker got a MARK on

On the third passes, the owner sends a shutdown command! The device will be off at the end of the combat turn

... and successfully managed to get a MARK on the fancy commlink. As soon as he does, Waywalker sees that many, if not all of the devices inside the house - some camera, microphones, running silent, and other more mundane device (like a toaster) are all linked to this device into a PAN. As he got access to the device he also saw that many files lives on the commlink, purposely removed from the matrix cloud file system. Sadly, he also realized that the owner just send a shutdown command - the Decker has barely a second to attempt to leverage his infiltration!

In the meantime, in the physical world, Rex, still in the van, parked not so far from the old house, saw three large guys coming out of the main door. They are wearing fancy, but clearly armored, suits - probably coming from one of the Mortimer of London line. One of them he so bulky that the mage expected him to be an Ork, while this is difficult to say as he is standing behind the two other, and in the shadows. Once on the porch, the three individuals starting looking at their surrounding, clearly try to spot if a they can spot who is responsible for the sudden failure of the Faraday's cage.

[Jack_Spade]

Rex relied on the fact that the windows were polarized and that he looked - well, was - a dog both in the mundane as well as on the astral. But just in case he kept still, trying not to get noticed. But just in case, he gave Rat the command to have the rodents now attack all lines and cables in the wall, hopefully shorting out the lights again. That done, he commanded the spirit to erase his traces on the astral and then be dismissed.

[Haywire]

#148

"Bingo!"
Having a MARK, Waywalker tried to break the protection of the files and grab sometinhing useful, like the file that could give him away the identity of the prostitute liked by the St. Sylvester priest.

[ Spoiler ]

crack file: 17d6t5 5
edit file (to copy): 17d6t5 6

[Romain Pelisse]

Skimming quickly through the file of the commlink, Waywalker spot an encrypted file and decide to go for it. Without even looking for a databomb, he decides to attempt to crack it...

[ Spoiler ]

(Third pass 11) Encrypted file resists being cracked: 6d6t5 0

... the file barely puts on a fight, and let Waywalker in like if he was a legitimate owner. He then attempt to download it, but sadly, this is when the data bomb that he overlooked blow up in his (Persona) face! As Waywalker's firewall attempt to mitigate the damage of the data bomb, the hacker sees, heart broken, the file disappeared from the matrix as the commlink also shuts down.

[ Spoiler ]

Databomb damage: 3d6t5 2 (resisted with Firewall + DR if I recall properly)

Outside the brothel, Rex's order have been followed by the rodents under his Kami's order. The suddenly flickering lights immediately put the three goons on alert, and two of them go for the cover. The third one however remains undisturbed and seems to focus on his AR...

[ Spoiler ]

@Waywalker can you roll Logic + Sleaze, as the soldier is trying to locate any running silent icon...
Spotting any running silent icon: 4d6t5 2

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

Minor correction: The databomb doesn't do rolled successes damage but the combined value of those rolls. In this case 12 Matrix damage

Rex turned around as he heard a fizzing and crackling sound from his friend's gear
<<Are you alright?>>
Just in case, he began preparing a heal spell.

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

@Jack_Spade: darn, u are right, I always forgot about that... Sorry for the nose bleed, Waywalker.

Also, am I right to assume that all your devices are running silent and PAN into Waywalker's cyberdeck (and thus share the same Sleaze attribute?