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

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

I don't have many devices, so yes, my goggles (which are modded to act as a commlink) are likely slaved to Waywalker

[Haywire]

#148

"Porca miseria!" Waywalker thinked in italian as the matrix bomb blowed off in his face. "I couldn't have done differently given the time-frame..." was his only consolation. The explosion was very bad on his persona and on his deck, and he barely avoided being dumpshocked.
"We're out on our luck. The commlink went dark and I couldn't get my hands on the file. What should we do next? Having identified Madame Claude commlink we could retry in a few days but I think the rodent trick could not help us again..."

[ Spoiler ]

You are right!
logic+ sleaze: 16d6t5 3
resisting matrix damage: 8d6t5 5
Total 7 Matrix damage (on 9 boxes)

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

Try to spot Waywalker's deck: 6d6t5 1

With Waywalker getting some serious matrix damage and the brothel's guard clearly trying to locate them, the two partners got worried and quite tense. It took a few instant for the three large men, in front of the house, to gave up and simply come back in. This all operation had been a bust, but, at least, they did not have to deal with more problem.

[ Spoiler ]

Not railroading you, but I'm going to assume that you stick around for a little while, which gave one hour for Waywalker to fix his deck

Waywalker was still trying to repair his deck when he noticed, roughly a hour after the all mess, that Madame Claude's commlink icon suddenly reappeared on the matrix. It was still running silent, but now Waywalker knew her commcode. Checking out the icon, barely booted, Waywalker realized, the commlink was actually calling an other (and so in the process of establishing a matrix communication)

[Jack_Spade]

<<Keep cool and concentrate on repairing your stuff. I think it's time to take a discreet look into this house of sin.>>

Rex left his body behind and went into the astral, searching for the vengeful free Ancestor Kami. Once he found her, he told her:

'This is your chance, the back of the building has been breached and I'll take down the barrier for you.'

[ Spoiler ]

Casting a F10 Mana Barrier and moving it to intersect with what ever other barrier the brothel has, causing it to collapse for a few seconds (and knocking out any other dual natured beings in the wall)
Cast Mana Barrier F10: 22d6t5 7
Resist Drain: 21d6t5 7
No drain

Moving the barrier at the damaged back wall:
Mana Barrier Intersection: 20d6t5 10
Anything dual natured has to roll Mag+Cha and beat 10 successes or be disrupted/knocked unconscious.

The barrier is attuned to let the spirit pass through.

[Haywire]

#149

Waywalker went from VR to AR to fix his deck; luckily he always had some spare tools and parts at hand. After working for a while he noticed that the commlink was running again. "We should not lose this chance to get our info!"
Readily he jumped back into VR to eavesdrop the conversation.

[ Spoiler ]

hardware: 14d6t5 5
2 Matrix Damage still on the deck
agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 2
matrix perception: 20d6t5 5
If spotted: agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 5
Hacking on the fly: 22d6t5 8
If MARKed: snoop: 17d6t5 3
Matrix perception to find who is contacted: agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 2
matrix perception: 20d6t5 5

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

@Waywalker I considered you don't need to spot the commlink, you were actively scanning for it and I just ruled out you saw it came back online.

Madame Claude's commlink resist hacking: 10d6t5 0

Despite his recent set back, Waywalker did not waver. His persona jump on the commlink's icon and discreetly found a weakness in its firewall, enough for him to put a MARK on it! With this MARK on the device, Waywalker could now try to snoop on the ongoing exchange...

[ Spoiler ]

Madame Claude's commlink resist snooping: 10d6t5 3 (draw, but I'll give you this one)

Waywalker was barely able to force the device's firmware to duplicate the channel, but he still managed to do it. When the streams arrived to his device, the recipient commlink still had to accept the connection. Waywalker hold his breath (as much as one can in VR) and waited to see if his partner and him were finally going to catch a break...

In the meantime in the astral, Rex had found again the ghost spirit, still weeping in front of the protected house. Casting a powerful spell, he suddenly surrounds her by a bright, white lighted sphere of Mana. The sad lady seems to hold a breath a seconds and smiled at Rex's display of power.

"Shiny and so beautiful! You, ô visitor of the Realm of the Dead, are clearly an artist in the craft of magic!"

Nodding at the ghost, Rex slowly shift the manasphere towards the damaged ward of the house. As the sphere surrounding both of them advances, it forces the astral barrier of the brothel to retract, giving, at last, entrance to the ghost!

At the same time, Madame Claude's commlink finally establishes the communication, after a dozen of "bips":

"... You are not supposed to use this number!" (says, in French, and rather rudely a deep, dark voice on the other side of the line)

"I do know that, Your Excellency, but I have to call you to cancel our appointment tonight. We had ... a security incident."

The man pauses for a all second but before he can answer, some scream echoes behind the Madame Claude. It's clear for the runners that their ghost friend has already manifested and is already running amok in the house. Madame Claude goes on:

"What the Hell? ... Your excellency, I have to go. All my..."

"Say no more. Understood. Thanks you for your diligence." and he hangs up...

[ Spoiler ]

Mysterious recipient's commlink running silent: 5d6t5 3

... but now, Waywalker has spot the device icon in the Matrix, despite it running silent!

[Jack_Spade]

Rex began to hastily scrub away his own signature again, before returning to his body.
<<I just let loose an angry Kami inside the club. With any luck they'll think she is the originator of the rodent attack as well. We should go while the security guards are going back inside.
Did you find out anything?>>

[Haywire]

#150

"Well done Rex, luckily we'll be in the clear for this little..."accident". Now I got ourself a lead: madame Claude was on the phone with our new Excellent target..."

[ Spoiler ]

agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 4
Hacking on the fly: 21d6t5 8
matrix perception: 18d6t5 6
What is inside the commlink? I'm looking for files etc and for data bombs xD

[Romain Pelisse]

Waywalker did not wait for the exchange to be finished. The minute Madame Claude said "Your Excellency", he started looking for the icon of the recipient. Once he got it in his VR sight, he started hacking it to get a MARK on it. Which he got immediately.

[ Spoiler ]

Commlink is DR4, which means 8d6 so no chance it can beat Waywalker's 8 hits

Once he had access to the commlink, he start looking into the files and was very quickly disappointed. The commlink had been formatted, just a few days ago, and contained almost zero data. Not even the usual free files coming with this kind of device. The contact list was empty but for one commcode... the one of Madame Claude. This device was definitely a burner commlink dedicated to one thing: communicating with the brothel.

As the Waywalker observed the current activities of its user, he realized things were about to get worth. Whoever was behind the commlink was clearly about to format the device again and reboot it! Waywalker, again, had, but a few seconds, to exploit anything from it.

[ Spoiler ]

You may have up two full rounds in VR, as it will take the user (in AR) a full round to format the device and an other one to reboot...

[Haywire]

#151

"This is no match for me, but I am not sure I'll find anything useful..."
As content from the commlink poured before Waywalker's virtual eyes, it becomed clear that it was only a burner phone.
" It's a burner phone, but even thtat could be useful to us. Let's find out where is this commlink!"

[ Spoiler ]

Hacking on the fly: 17d6t5 2
Post EDGE: Hacking on the fly: 15d6t5 6
trace Icon: 16d6t5 9

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

With DR4 device, there is no way it can resist to both the hacking and the trace action...

As fast and as stealthy as the first one, Waywalker added a second MARK on the commlink and began immediately tracing its icon before it got rebooted. Almost instantly his persona zoomed to a point quite North from is current position (in the meat space), and nearby the Channel. Looking at the geotag, the decker realized the commlink was somewhere on the coast of Normadie. Flying toward the actual location, Waywalker soon realizes that the commlink lies into a landmark of France, the famous Mount Saint Michel.

As his persona zooms even closer, before the icon blips out of existence, Waywalker even managed to locate not only the building but the room inside it where the commlink currently is. The owner of this device is not only in the Mount StMichel but even within the limitation of the cloister. Whoever is using this commlink, he must belong to the French Catholic Church, as it seems that France gave back the all site to the institution a while back.

[Haywire]

#152

Waywalker smiled even as his connection with the commlink died. He tried to locate some other Icons but knew he had very little chance of success.
"I think we found our brothel client and is a bit far from here, so we will have time to rest a little." Waywalker shared his findings with Rex:
"I'd go there, to Mt. San Michel, to try and get some info on their connection to us, the book, and so on. I'll draw our ride for the autopilot. Do you have any ideas?"

[ Spoiler ]

matrix perception: 18d6t5 7 (looking for other commlink Icons nearby, like the real commlink of the guy)
navigation: 11d6t5 4
Autopilot: 11d6t5 3
In the meantime, if I have the time: hardware: 14d6t5 2 (All damage cleared in 1 hour)

[Jack_Spade]

Rex replied: <<Well, well. If you remember I tracked that spirit that spied on you in the secure library back to St. Michel. I wouldn't be surprised if we had to find a way inside the cloister to get the next lead to the book - or the book itself.
Anyway, I'd better get back to studying our current copy - I still hope to be able to find something in it. Meanwhile you could try and find out if there are any mentions of a secret passage into the island fortress. Once we are closer, I'll send a water Kami to take a look at the base.>>

[Haywire]

#153

"You're right, with all that happened I forgot that detail. Seems we're going to find something, and I'm not sure of what. I'll dig deep into the Matrix to find what you mentioned..."

[ Spoiler ]

agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 4
agent teamwork (Sekretar): 6d6t5 1
Matrix search: 21d6t5 4

[Romain Pelisse]

A quick browse of the matrix quickly reminded the two Shadowrunners what they had previously learned about the Mount Saint Michel. The renovated building was given by the French Catholic Church (FCC) - a separate entity from the Catholic Church, to the latter, in attempt of appeasement in the late 50's. While relation between the two churches has far from being normalized, this gesture did help establishing a better communication in between them.

The Mount Saint Michel became quickly the HQ of the Order of St. Sylvester in France. Any operation involving the order is generally planned and executed from there. The place thus has high security, already to care for the large amount of tourist visiting it, on a daily basis, but also to ensure that the "cases" of the Sylvestrine are not being spied on.

So unsurprisingly, as Waywalker quickly found a rather strong host on his way. Any devices or information coming from the place is thus being protected. From the outside, it also seems that the host provide security and data processing for all the touristic related needs (from VR visit, to AR to guide - or rather track tourist) along with business management for the numerous small shop selling memorabilia or the simply the famous dry cookies from the place.

[ Spoiler ]

Host Rating: 9 (Affluent groups, regional corporate hosts, major government, secure sites), A10,S9,D11,F12

Fortunately for Waywalker, the cloister plan are in fact public and does not requires access to the host. He quickly searched for the room in where the commlink was before being shut down: "Corporate Relationships Bureau". Apparently, this office is in charge of communication with corporate powers, in France, that interact, for one reason or an other, with the Order of St Sylvester. As he would have expected, Waywalker couldn't really find a more accurate definition of this agency.

However, he collected some rumors on numerous "shadow-friendly" forums stating that this office is often used to funnel money from corporate entities directly to the Order for either "service rendered" or "sponsorship". Regardless, Waywalker quickly identified the man in charge: Monseigneur Lebrun. He was not a very much public person, but he did appear on some video feeds, generally for official business of either the FCC or the Order of St Sylvester (those being far less common, obviously).

He was a human, mid forties, with a rather sympathetic, roundish face. While not yet completely bald, his brown, hairs had clearly begun their departure. The man look rather common and seemingly harmless, which looked surprising given the kind of dealings he appeared to be in charge of.

[Haywire]

#154

Wayalker shared the results of his errands with his partner in crime.
"I don't think it will be necessary to go inside...physically.
I found their Host and I'm planning to enter it once I've finished repairing my deck. Do you want to try and find this Lebrun with your mojo? The autopilot will drive us safely where you want if you need to be in a particular location."

[ Spoiler ]

I forgot my + 2 dice bonus to Hack on the fly since the re-start after the pause on July XD Now I will include it.
agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 3
Hacking on the fly: 22d6t5 10

[Jack_Spade]

<<I can do that, but I'll be at risk of being spotted. I'd prefer to ask a Kami to do so, as that will provide me with more options to hide again. By the way: Do you have a picture of him? That will allow me to narrow down the search quite a lot.>>
Rex replied.
Once he had received the feeds, he nodded: <<Good, now I can have a spirit search for him. The search alone won't trigger anything, but it is still best to get as close as possible to his position. Every kilometer makes it harder for the Kami to find him - especially if he is behind a barrier of some sort.>>

[Haywire]

#155

"For my limited understanding, Kami are a part of your mojo." Waywalker laughed as their van proceeded in the direction of Mt. St. Michel.
"I think he should be inside the compound, in little time we should be there. Do you want to eat something while we're on our way?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<Always.>> Rex replied while he began to prepare his summoning

[ Spoiler ]

Summon F6 Spirit of Men: 22d6t5 8
F6 Spirit of Men resist: 6d6t5 2
Resist Drain: 21d6t5 7

Search: 13d6t5 4
Search: 12d6t5 4
Search: 11d6t5 4
Search: 10d6t5 0
Search: 9d6t5 3
Search: 8d6t5 2
Search: 7d6t5 4
Search: 6d6t5 1
Search: 5d6t5 2

24 Successes after 9 hours should be enough to get the location even with the strongest barriers in place

[Romain Pelisse]

The road trip from Rennes to the Mount Saint Michel used to be a rather short one, but with all the foray did by the Mist since it appearance, many road have been diverted. Adding that to the fact that, as shadowrunners, Waywalker and Rex tried to keep away from the highly control autoroute, it took them a bit longer to get to the vicinity of the Mount St Michel than one would have expected.

As the impressive landmark was finally appearing on their horizon, Rex's Kami came back:

"oh, Thy Master of the Unseen Art, who yield control over me: I have accomplished what you tasked me to perform. The man you seek is indeed inside this ... Castle on water. He is behind a powerful magical barrier that has denied me access to him. But he is there, that I can tell for sure, Ô my master..."

And with this final words, the spirit popped out of existence and went back to its astral realm....

[ Spoiler ]

Guys, i'm a bit confused by what you are doing right now. For instance I did not see the point of sending a Kami to confirm that the guy was indeed, next to his commlink, and I'm not sure what Waywalker wants to achieve by hacking into the rather well-protected host of the Order of Sylvester. It would help me a bit if your characters could discuss a bit how they want to use the information they got from the brothel to learn more about the activity of the Order in regards of your quest for the Nuctéméron...

[Haywire]

#156

After grabbing soyburgers and some soy-fries at a McHugh's, Waywalker talked to Rex and shifted his fingers in AR to draw a virtual framework:
"Let's re-examine our informations:
1) We're looking for a book, a rather dangerous one, and we're waiting for our Ghoul Johnson, Mr. Corbitt, to finish his analysis of the other book we found in the SOX to get a clue on its location;
2) Our enemies are the Professor, a being from the Seelie Plane (and an evil one) with which I had a contact in my search for the "Book of Haute Magie" in the Mist and the order of St. Sylvester, which had a spirit spy on us in the library at the beginning.
3) We managed to get to know the name of a high ranking member of the Order, and I got knowledge on their Host, in which I would like to enter to get some information on how did they know where in the SOX the book was, given how careful we were. If there is a "deep throat" or an insider, we need to tknow before going on the search of the second book.
Do you think I forgot something?"
Waywalker started eating his soyburger waiting for his companion reply.

[Haywire]

#156

After grabbing soyburgers and some soy-fries at a McHugh's, Waywalker talked to Rex and shifted his fingers in AR to draw a virtual framework:
"Let's re-examine our informations:
1) We're looking for a book, a rather dangerous one, and we're waiting for our Ghoul Johnson, Mr. Corbitt, to finish his analysis of the other book we found in the SOX to get a clue on its location;
2) Our enemies are the Professor, a being from the Seelie Plane (and an evil one) with which I had a contact in my search for the "Book of Haute Magie" in the Mist and the order of St. Sylvester, which had a spirit spy on us in the library at the beginning.
3) We managed to get to know the name of a high ranking member of the Order, and I got knowledge on their Host, in which I would like to enter to get some information on how did they know where in the SOX the book was, given how careful we were. If there is a "deep throat" or an insider, we need to tknow before going on the search of the second book.
Do you think I forgot something?"
Waywalker started eating his soyburger waiting for his companion reply.

[Jack_Spade]

Rex replied while munching his own burger:
<<My Kami came back and confirmed that Monseigneur Lebrun is indeed were you located his commlink - also it is highly probable that he is the one behind the Kami spying on us.

Now, as I understand it, you have to take a look into the host to search for any clues Lebrun could have collected on the whereabouts of the book. Hopefully we could combine those with the info we might gain from our book.
If there is nothing inside the host, we need to search his desk or other personal area. Finding the snitch would be nice too.

Finally, to get into this host, I assume you need a device slaved to this host. And the only one we know for certain is the link of the Monseigneur.

Since we obviously don't want to enter the building, we need to steal it when Lebrun leaves his fortress to visit the brothel or some place else for that matter.

Do you concur?>>

[Haywire]

#157

Between one handful of fries and a bite of soyburger, Waywalker replied:
"Yes, I agree. I could try to breach into the host from here, but a direct connection would help with the first assault."
After a sip of soy-coke, the rigger continued:
"Well, we do not know for sure if the commlink is slaved to the Host, but could have interesting information even if it's not slaved. The other option is to locate some other device not too weel guarded and proceed from there, like a camera or maybe a speaker.
Given our position, I'd favor to try the brute force approach first and go for the frontal assault.
What do you think?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<I as usually defer to you on those matrix things - but if you allow me to draw the parallel - if it was an astral object, I'd spend some time to analyse it and try to learn as much as possible about the device before I start to dispell or attack it. I assume you can find the commlink in the matrix? Gain whatever information you can: What are it's defenses what were the last actions taken with it, does it run silent, etc.

Because if the brute force approach fails they will go after us and the window of opportunity may close completely.>>
Rex replied.