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

[Haywire]

#183

Waywalker shared his findings with Rex and replied: "I think we should be sure about the portal before dropping our information in the shop. Maybe someone talked about it in some obscure forum?"

[ Spoiler ]

agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 4
agent teamwork (Sekretar): 6d6t5 1
Matrix search: 21d6t5 9

[Romain Pelisse]

The Kami replied mentally to his summoner:

"Sadly, no, oh my master. I had barely started my investigations. Also it is quite hard for me to find for you something as.... abstract as a 'portal'. My ability works better if you have a good mental image of the target. Or even better if you have already seen once the object. To your bidding, I would need to assense suspicious auras and unexplained echoes in the astral. I was going to do so, but I advise against when I realized I was not... alone here."

The Kami could feel Rex's disappointment so he replied to the mage's second question:

"Oh my master, I think you may be able to do a better job than me from the physical realm. As I've mentioned the astral here is very, strange and confusing. It is quite hard to match what one's see and what is actually your plane of existence. I would recommend you came here on your own, maybe astrally to get the lay of the land and then maybe go on the site in plane of existence. Finding such portal is not an easy task. They are rare and well hidden. It's no simple task... Otherwise others would have simply tasked a meek Kami like myself to do it and already found it."

In the meantime, Waywalker was searching the matrix for references to such a portal. At first, all he could find was a series of unexplained disappearances in the direct vicinity of Montmartre. A few artists, not so successful but somehow surviving, have disappeared regularly. Horizon, in charge of keeping Paris as touristic friendly actually file several reports of missing persons to the Police National. The megacorporation even bother to fill again the dozen of cases when Renraku's Neo PD took over Paris contract in January. Neo PD had yet to publish any kind of results on the matter.

Looking in local forums, he found some expected rumors and ghost stories. Some people said to avoid the place at night, especially after midnight. Most of the disappearances reported to Neo PD seems to have happened, indeed, late at night. Taking a better look at the calendar, the decker even noticed that ten of the disappearance happened on new moon night. Waywalker then went back to the awakened forum he browsed earlier to see what the magically active population of Paris was saying about Montmartre.

Not surprisingly, Waywalker saw several mentions of the presence of a portal nearby. Many awakened of Paris had come to this conclusion, and suspected the disappearance to be tied to it, but had no clue where the portal would be located. On the most recent entry, Waywalker also learn that the university of Fontainebleau, backed by the [url=https://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Astral_Space_Preservation_Society)[/url]Astral Space Preservation Society, were rumored to have a task force made of arcanoarcheologist currently investigating the astral site. Sadly, Waywalker could not find any confirmation on the University feeds. If such project was ongoing, the University has deemed unwise to talk about it. Looking at all the exchange, Waywalker kind of wish we could perceived the astral. The awakened who had peeked through the astral over there reported incredible things, often difficult to describe.

[Jack_Spade]

"Alright, thank you for your service so far, I'll do as you suggested. I'll call upon you again if I may." With that, Rex dismissed the faithful Kami.

To his partner he said: <<Alright, it seems as if it's a bit more complicated to find this portal. I'll need a place were I can savely leave my body behind and since that isn't entirely possible right now, I'll do the next best thing and ask a Kami to take watch. So for the next our or so, don't wonder if my body doesn't respond to matrix signals - it will be just a Kami left inside to keep the lights on.>>

[ Spoiler ]

Channeling an F4 Beast Spirit
Summon F4 Spirit of Beast: 20d6t5 7
Spirit resist: 4d6t5 0 [4d6t5=1, 4, 1, 1]
Resist Drain: 21d6t5 9
Pretty obedient

Going astral and searching the area, starting with the cathedral and moving in a spiral from there until I find something or I have to return to my body.
Astral Perception: 15d6t5 7
Assensing should I find something interesting:
Assensing: 11d6t5 5

[/spoiler

[Romain Pelisse]

After leaving his body, it took Rex a little while to leave the premise of the forest and find its bearing. One travel at the speed of mind in the astral space, but one needs to have good sense of where one is going. As Rex astral form left the forest their hideout was hidden within and reach the city limits of Paris the astral space changed almost completely. As he was zapping through the city he almost got overwhelmed by flashes of the past - like a scene of an arrest during WW2 occupation, or by historical landmark that were as present in the astral as on the physical plane. As he passed nearby the Notre Dame he was not surprised to spot not one but several other aura flying around the building. The sight from the astral was magnificent.

The impressive building looked exactly liked he was just finished. Actually he could spot monks working on finishing the gargoyles and peasants carrying stones in chariots at the foot of the numerous spires of the church. Those were mere echoes from the past but Rex did lost a second or two enjoying the view before flying down toward the north of Paris. He soon arrived in the vicinity of Pigalles. There was again flash and echoes of the past but also a strong smell of sexual tension, depredation and despair, all mixed in strange flux of different kinds of music. It was dizzying...

At least Rex found the church on top of Montmartre, the one called Le Sacré Coeur. As he expected, this one turned out to have a far more palatable astral but was also aligned with a different kind of magic than his (theurgy he expected). Rex disliked feeling the background count messing with his magic but fortunately for him, he did not had to stay too long. First he did not spot anything suspicious that could to a portal but also the astral space in the direct surrounding of the church was "too clean" (sort of) to be hiding be able to hide something like a portal.

He then moved to the famous little place where some many painters of the past have spends months or even years perfecting their craft. To the mage despair there was there again a distinct astral background which would affect his magic - but not too much he quickly assessed. Echoes of the past and other flashes of previous events were again a frequent occurrences here. It was difficult to distinguished them for reflection of the physical realms. To make matter worth, most building were so ancient that they were fully present in the astral and thus difficult to scout on. Nevertheless the mage carried on...

[ Spoiler ]

For future reference: background count here is 1 and any astral perception test or assessing test needs have a penalty of 2

... However, the mage was quickly interrupted. He was barely there for an instant that he spot a couple of astral entities also in the vicinity. Being careful he opted to first try to not be spot.

[ Spoiler ]

@Jack_Spade roll your Intuition + Sneak and let me know how you want to play this out!

[Haywire]

#184

Waywalker was intrigued by his findings. "So this university keeps its mouth shut, eh? I'll have a look in their host."

[ Spoiler ]

matrix perception: 18d6t5 8
agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 4
Hacking on the fly: 23d6t5 13 (Limit 12)

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

Astral Stealth: 15d6t5 4

Astral Perception: 13d6t5 6

Rex kept in the shadows of the astral representations of the surrounding buildings and watched them a bit, but avoided to pierce their auras with his gaze, lest they noticed him before he could be sure about the danger they might pose.


#262

[Romain Pelisse]

Locating the host of Fontainebleau on the Matrix was easy, it was , as expected, hovering around the university location nearby Paris. However this was but the public host, finding the one were the research and project was a bit more tricky but Waywalker has been exploring the matrix long enough to spot it. A simple 3d dimension diamond, hovering above one of the main building turns out to be the host he was looking for. Taking a look at it, he quickly found out that the university had not saved any money on their matrix security.

[ Spoiler ]

Host Rating 8, A7, S10, DP8, FW11
University's Host resist hack on the fly: 19d6t5 6

But in the end, it did not matter. Waywalker was not just good, he was the best. Without anyone noticing, he got a MARK on the host and went inside. And his brain almost immediately hurt.

Not from an IC attack or a spider blasting his cyberdeck with data spike. Not just form the virtual reality used here. Data and icons were flying, left and right, at a pace he had rarely thing. Everything we designed to ensure a maximum rate of exchange but also a constant "ping pong" of ideas between persona. This was so exhausting that Waywalker's persona first found shelter into a virtual classroom where a guest professor from the People University in California where giving a lecture to students across the world. This gave a minute to Waywalker to find his marks (not MARK) and decide what to do next...

In the meantime, in the astral space, Rex managed to stay out of sight of the few entities he had spot. Those appears to be standing still but not have noticed him.

[Jack_Spade]

"No risk, no gain." Rex thinks to himself before daring to assense the assembled crowd from the relative safety of his hiding spot.

[ Spoiler ]

Assensing: 11d6t5 5

[Haywire]

#185

Waywalker sent a text to Rexmì, knowing he would read it later: "Maybe I should email the University to up their Matrix security, there is almost no challenge..."He was amazed at the amount of data, and messages, and videos being exchanged between personas. He almost had nausea at the sight of it.
Next step was to locate the area of the host where the arcano-archeologist data and/or the data of the Astral Space Preservation Society were...

[ Spoiler ]

Matrix search: 16d6t5 4

[Romain Pelisse]

Rex read the aura of one of the entity as carefully as he could, trying, as much as possible, to not attract any attention to himself. Fortunately for the mage, the astral traveller he was investigating was too busy observing the astral phenomenon to even realize his aura was being read. He was a young adult, male probably around twenty years old. No dark spot on his aura confirmed to Rex that the young man had no cyberware. Currently, he was excited and passionate by what he was doing, which apparently, in his mind, was akin to work.

As the other auras appears to be working together with the one he was reading, Rex concluded quickly that he was witnessing a group of arcano-archaeologists, investigating the astral phenomenon. Unbeknownst to him, his companion was soon going to be able to tell him more about it.

Indeed, now inside the host of the Fontainebleau University, Waywalker had perform a deep search into the files and project data available to him. The result has aggregated, almost immediately, into one file by the system. Sadly, as part of the information were classified, Waywalker saw right away that the file was consequently protected. Some work will need to be done if the decker wants to know more about this research done in the vicinity of Montmartre...

[Jack_Spade]

Rex decided to try to learn about the phenomenom himself as well. Still without disturbing the others, he changed position to get a better look on what they were staring at.

[ Spoiler ]

Forgot the -1 to my dp on my first rolls

Assensing: 10d6t5 7

Hm. Quite obviously Orokos thinks the less dice you have the more successes you should get...

[Haywire]

#186

Waywalker icon smiled as he saw the results of his work. "Well, at least they are not so foolish to leave the data unsecured..."

[ Spoiler ]

matrix perception: 18d6t5 3 (to look for data bombs)
crack file: 17d6t5 5
edit file (to copy): 16d6t5 2
Post Edge: edit file (to copy): 14d6t5 7

[Romain Pelisse]

Rex was not the best when it came to read and interpret aura. He generally delegated this kind of things to his Kami. However, today, against all odds, he was pretty good at it. Following the activities of the other astral visitor, he quickly realized that the astral here was in fact limitless. By gazing into the aura of any corner of the streets and building, flashes of the past suddenly appeared in front of Rex's eyes. Those flashes were fascinating. The nature of the astral allow Rex to see how things exactly happened, but also feel the emotion of the people involved. No wonder why Fontainbleau decides to lunch a project to investigate this arcano-archaeological site!

On his Waywalker was cracking the file associated to this exact research. The encryption was rather high but not enough to stop Waywalker hacking skills! The file now opened Waywalker went on to try to copy and was barely able to do it! Maybe the host finally realized that something fishy was happening because as Waywalker finished copy the file over, he spot an IC being launched. He had time however to step out of the host and jack out before the IC could do anything to his persona.

[ Spoiler ]

Fontainbleau's research file resists cracking: 10d6t5 2
Fointainbleau Host resits File Edit action: 19d6t5 7

@Haywire I assumed you would step out rather than engage the IC. I hope I have not railroaded you, just wanted to move the story forward

A few instant later, Waywalker was back online, with no more overwatch tied to his Persona and could thus study the file with all the comfort of VR. The research content itself was gibberish to decker. The french was difficult to translate for his linguasoft and most used to esoteric or magical lexicon that was way above his own magical knowledge. He was sure Rex would be able to understand it but he knew by context that those reports were not about. Also because those were NOT the encrypted part.

The encrypted part were actually about the finance of the projects and also some exchange with "anonymous" sponsor being the research. Of course, the anonymity disappeared in the encrypted segment of the file and Waywalker was thus able to uncover that the all project was paid by only one organization: the Astral Space Preservation Society.

Also, in the exchange between the teachers and their contact at the society, a french-Vietnamese Ork named Tran Nguyen Huu, it was clear that the society were using the research as a cover to try to the locate the rumored portal. Apparently, Tran had access to some expert who confirmed to him that there must have been a portal nearby. If the students have not been made aware, the teacher running the project, Elisa Duquesne was fully aware of it and really much trying to please the ASPS. Sadly, she was not making too much progress, at least not enough according to Tran...

[Jack_Spade]

After a few minutes, Rex returned to his body - not entirely satisfied with what he had found out so far. Studends poking around would make it harder to keep the place for the trap secured. But then it would also make their story more belivable as well.
Talking to Waywalker to inform him about what he found, Rex learned that the ASPS was behind this.
<<It's getting more complicated. Maybe we should talk to this Elisa. Tell her that we are fellow researchers looking for the gate. Maybe there is cooperation possible.>>

[Haywire]

#187

Waywalker paused for a moment to focus his thoughts. "Obviously these guys do not know where the portal is, or else we would know too. The ASPS does not know shit too.
What if we first find the portal to Kadath? Do you think, from the documents, we could succeed at finding the portal somehow? I'm relying on your mojo knowledge; I'm in the dark here.
If yes, we should rush, if not we can try to cooperate with this professor and I'll upload a fake curriculum for us in a believable university host."

[Jack_Spade]

<<I'm not particularly good at doing stuff like this myself - and the book is pretty vague on all of it. This whole place is like a haystack - and I have no idea what the needle looks like.
If we can get a good description of what the gate should look like, I might have a chance to narrow it down with the book but also by calling on a more powerful Kami.
Use your fake credentials that you used for the library - the student should still be out of Paris for a little while longer.>>
Rex replied.

[Haywire]

#188

"Ok, at this point we need to find Kadath and we're unable to get to it on our own. So be it. I was wondering: what if I made up some credential in the ASPS? We could say we've been sent by them, and the professor could not deny us help. What do you think?"

[Jack_Spade]

<<Risky. I don't know enough about them and their business to feed you lines. Appearing as a student I could probably manage. Keep it simple. >>
Rex replied

[Haywire]

#189

"Right. But then I should plant some information on the University Host, to appear legitimate..."

[Jack_Spade]

<<Haven't you done so already? Tss, are you getting old, or something (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Come on, we've got to get to know that nice female prof>>
Rex replied, making sure Waywalker realized that he was just teasing him a bit.

[Haywire]

#190

"I have not seen a photo of her... I hope she's a nice lady and nothing like my teacher of Math!"
Waywalker laughed and then went limp in VR.

[ Spoiler ]

I already know the University Host so, I try to hack it
agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 6
Hacking on the fly: 25d6t5 11
If I am successful, I'll plant an authorization for us being accepted for this project
edit file (to plant the fake): 16d6t5 5
Post-Edge:
post edge: 11d6t5 3

[Romain Pelisse]

[ Spoiler ]

host defense: 19d6t5 9 (against hack on the fly)
host defense: 19d6t5 6 (against edit file)

It did not took that much work for Waywalker to plant some data to help them pretend to be student. With a little hack he added some information to make their cover appears legit. Of course, if anyone were to check out an external source, like the company supposed to vet the student or simply pass a couple of phone calls, the all cover will be blown. There was little reason for anyone to do so, but to be cautious, the runners will have now to act promptly before someone - or some IC, noticed the discrepancies.

[Haywire]

#191

"I'm ready to go, but I'll rely on you for the mojo-speak, or I'll blow our cover..."

[Jack_Spade]

<<Don't worry, I'll play the helpful guide dog and keep you on track. Still, it will be best if I disguise your aura a bit beforehand.>>
Rex replied and got to work at once.

[ Spoiler ]

Manascape F6 on Waywalker so he looks like a low magic student and so the quickened spells on him stay hidden


Manascape: 20d6t5 7
Resist Drain: 21d6t5 7
No Drain.

[Haywire]

#192

Waywalker looked on the Matrix for Professor Duquesne's commlink, to text a message: "Hello Professor Duquesne, I'm a new student assigned to your reasearch project by the University. When could I meet you?"

[ Spoiler ]

agent teamwork (deck): 12d6t5 5
matrix perception: 23d6t5 11