Salted Wounds [IC], a Deep Black Sea game Options

[Thanee]

<< On my way ... He might have some additional protection, like spirits and so on. Guards are also possible. >>

Nova immediately started towards the closest entry-point into the building (door, window, whatever to get inside the quickest).

[Volker]

"Good, this time, no-one rushes in. Wraith, as soon as James and Nova are close, check out the astral. No sooner, lest you warn him.
Sharkboy, what do you think of securing the area outside lest the mage attempts a flight?

Eliza, if your persona can stay somewhere close, I can guard you. He won't beat the two of us. He can try.", she adds with a wink in her voice.

[Luckace]

Wraith left his cover as Sharkboy entered the scene. He was panting heavily, but seemed to be all right. He nodded as a silent "thank you" towards Nova and Sharkboy.

"Aye.", Wraith agrees to bnc's plan. "If you need back-up in the astral plane, I have a bound spirit with me. But I'd rather not try any summoning now, as to not alert the mage and the watcher.
Bnc, is it to late for you to intercept any information the drones caught? They might have gotten my face."
He looks at Herr Nagl, trying to figure out how badly the man took the drone-invasion into his home.

[ Spoiler ]

Judge Intentions (janitor): 10d6t5 5
Basically, Wraith wants to get the guy's intentions towards us and, if necessary, will try to assure the janitor that we mean no harm for him and that there's no need to report us to any kind of law-inforcement or whatever dumb ideas he might get.
@Jack: please decide whether I shall make any rolls (con, leadership, comforting him with a heal spell...) to determine his effectiveness, whatever he would deem most appropriate with Nagl's condition.

@Gilga: Does Anna's spirit stick around, or does it leave due to expired services?

[Gilga]

Anna readies her pistol and says "Let's go grab a mage... Do it quickly, knock him out with gel rounds and fetch him to the car. Keep him blindfolded and have Wraith do that mind mojo once we're sure we're outside of his car."

[Thanee]

"Gel rounds? Not sure, I even have something like that. Let's see ..."

Nova slung her rifle over her shoulder and pulled some pistol clips from a pocket.

"Armor-piercing ... Explosive ... ah, here ... Stick-N-Shock! Does that work?"

She readied her pistol and exchanged the clip for the non-lethal ammunition.

[Gilga]

[ Spoiler ]

spirit sticks around.

[Jack_Spade]

A quick discussion between bnc and Anna made both realize, that the mage was most likely conducting the art of Psychometrie and maybe even Divination. bnc realized that even a very specialized mage could need weeks to find useful traces of someone who lived over two years ago in a rented flat - not to mention the time needed to acclimate to a given background, which was certainly a lot easier to do without having a lot of humans with troublesome emotions around.

Her drones couldn't look into her old flat - a thick blackout curtain stopped any kind of visual confirmation. Not even infrared could pierce the thick insulation. She knew from her time there, that these kind of curtains hadn't been there when she lived at the place. So either the renters after her had installed them or the mage had sought ways to minimize any kind of distraction.
When her deck had rebooted she no longer could find the RCC online as well. The remaining drones all seemed to be in their recharging station. Something told her that she must have missed some kind of spydrone or hidden sensors on her first matrix sweep.


Wraith helped up the badly shocked Janitor. A slight tremor and ash grey face showed that the electric shock certainly hadn't been good for his health. Without resistance or much of a response at all he let himself be sit down in one of his chrome chairs.
"Boy, tell me the truth: You are a shadowrunner, aren't you? Either that or a travelling circus. Shit. Please don't kill me."

[Gilga]

"That will do, let's go get him!" she said.

[Volker]

As silently as possible, bnc positions the rotodrone in front of the kitchen window, James at the window to the sleeping room. As soon as Nova and Sharkboy have their positions, bnc replies.

"I'm sorry, the data has been transferred, the spider retreated. What's seen is seen, old friend.

Speaking of. It's your moment to See."

[Luckace]

"Kill you?", Wraith replied to the frightened janitor with honest surprise in his voice. "Frag no! From us you got nothing to fear, I swear. But I'd fear whoever sent these drones we just saved you from. Staying here might be dangerous. Got a go-bag? Grab it! Quick!"

"On it."
After (with as little chit-chat as possible) making sure the man understood the gravity of the situation, Wraith took to his actual task:

Knowing where to look for the mage, Wraith quickly but carefully took to inspecting the mage's aura, including any magical preparations he might have set and shares every information he finds. Should he spot any obvious astral threats, traps or watching entities, he will report those instantly and only delve into deeper assensing afterwards.

[ Spoiler ]

Assensing unknown mage: 10d6t5 3

getting Mr Nagl to straighten up: Leadership: 12d6t5 6

[Jack_Spade]

The janitor nodded, but moved only sluggishly while he went into his bedroom.
Letting himself fall into a seat, Wraith left his body behind and ascended within the building - but was stopped short by a manabarrier that encompassed the whole flat. Taking a look into the corridor and the staircase he saw the aura of two people in front of the door. As far as he could make out, they were heavily augmented - nothing like the biomods that the guys in the museum had sported, but real, honest to god essence munching chrome, giving them a similar appearance to Nova on the Astral. There was also an unmistakable astral trail of another astral entity that had come by only a few seconds before.

[ Spoiler ]

The flat has been astrally protected with an F10 Ward

[Luckace]

Dissapointed, Wraith returned to his physical body as soon as he spotted the obstacle and the guards.
"Nova, wait! There are two highly augmented guards up there, right in front of the door. Really heavy tech, you'll need backup. As well as... something astral, that just came through. Most likely it informed the mage.
The flat itself is sealed with a powerful astral ward, keeping any foreign magic out. Impossible to spot what's inside.
I can ask a spirit to aid you with the guards, but as soon as you're through the barrier, you're on your own."

[ Spoiler ]

Does the trail lead through the barrier (indicating that it was the astral image of the mage himself, as the ward's creator wouldn't be impeded by it? or does it just lead somewhere through the corridor?
And is the watcher still outside, or could it have been him?

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

It could have been a high force watcher, but you'd have to assense it a bit more to be sure.
The creator of the ward can give free access to whomever he wants, so it's not easy to tell

[SquirrelDude]

Sharkboy did a look around the back steps to make sure there weren't any more drones coming out of the wood-work to attack the janitor and then hustled over to assist Nova.

[Gilga]

Anna replied to Wraith "I am coming with them... I'll envelop us with a mana barrier of our own to protect from their mojo. However, perhaps bnc can achieve the same without violence? We only want to find out what they know, perhaps there is a better way? Or perhaps we can get their agreement to look around the flat? We are only conflicted once Bean Si is found, until then we may have some common interests to work with... no?"

[Luckace]

"Fair enough, but be quick. Whatever astral creature passed through there likely warned the mage. I'll watch the surroundings then, in case he makes an escape. But I see no point why they would allow us - obvious opposition - to snoop around in their affairs.", Wraith replied to Anna's suggestion.
"Say when you're ready to strike, and I'll ask a spirit to aid you."
Wraith orders his bike to come close to the flat so he can, if necessary, chase after posible runaways.

[Thanee]

"Sure, they will talk... let's just kick in the door and shoot them before they do the same to us," Nova said.

"Also, remember what you said about them maybe holding a grudge due to that previous incident. The drones have seen both of them."

[SquirrelDude]

"If they recognized us, I'm sure they're expecting some personal photo-ops, and we shouldn't be rude and keep our fans waiting. You can knock on their door, but I'd rather treat them to a surprise visit."

Sharkboy quickly and quietly glided up the scaffolding to reach his their watcher's level. He moved along the outside of the building until he found a window that didn't need to be broken or have its security cracked. Sharkboy shimmied through the window, and slowly crept up toward the empty flat's door, doing his best to see or hear if his presence in the building had been registered.

[ Spoiler ]

Gymnastics, Scaling Scaffolding: 17d6t5 5
Sneaking, Doing it quietly: 13d6t5 6
As the building is under construction, I imagine the window fixtures that aren't getting replaced are covered to prevent damage, and the rest aren't installed yet. It shouldn't be too hard to find a quiet way into a flat.

Perception Contacts/Earbuds Bonus: 13d6t5 10

[Thanee]

In the meantime, Nova was positioning herself in the staircase, ready to open fire on the guards. Her sidearm had vanished and she was holding her rifle, waiting for the rest to be in position.

[Gilga]

Anna follwed Sharkboy's strategy, but would select a different apartment if possible as to not alert the guards.

[Volker]

While the last of her chummers get into position, James loads APDS ammo and bnc scans the surroundings for any suspicious icons, even goes searching for hidden ones.

[ Spoiler ]

Matrix Perception: 5#13d6t5 7 7 3 7 5

If no suspicious icons draw her attention, she then says: "Go astral babes, or whatever the fuck you do. Enter in 5, 4..."
bnc Jumps Into James.
"3...2...1..."

[Luckace]

[ Spoiler ]

Aeraziel, your help is needed once again. A fiendish mage is attempting a vile ritual to harm my friends - he needs to be stopped at all cost! Appear and vanquish him and his evil-doers.
Timing his prayer according to bnc's command, Wraith unleashes his spiritual companion into the physical world.

---

Out of nowwhere, a shimmering apparition started manifesting inside the hallway, in the farther end of the corridor. Limbs formed and white wings started spreading through the corridore.
Unlike the angelic figure the team had encountered on the graveyard, this on bore an intimidating crackling and the air around it seemed to fizzle, as if extremely high voltage was being conducted right through the spirit.

Wraith followed the events through Nova's smartgun-system and kept overwatch on the physical plane.

[ Spoiler ]

Initiative (Aeraziel): 2d6+16 22
Simple action1: Command bound spirit (Aearaziel, the one with elemental attack and fear): "destroy everyone and everything stopping us from stopping the ritual in the order goon1 (the one farther away from Nova, so the spirit will appear on the other side of where she stands and hopefully takes the guards attention away from her so she can get a clear shot) -> goon2 -> mana barrier -> mage"

Spirit's first action: materialize
Second action: elemental attack goon1

[Volker]

After forwarding all the information, bnc says:
"Give me a sec. I'll try and deal with the platforms. Any good reason why I wouldn't just frag them to hell?"

bnc pops a dose of Whoom, hoping against hope for a good old matrix combat.
She then tries to hit a mark in preparation of the actual attack.

[ Spoiler ]

Using Fork against both: Hacking on the Fly: 17d6t5 5
meh.

[Jack_Spade]

[ Spoiler ]

Both devices defend with their Master's INT+FW
Defense: 2#15d6t5 8 5

One platform gains a MARK on you - which doesn't do anyone any good at all.
Nothing else happens

[Volker]

Cursing softly, bnc tries one last time before launching the actual attack, knowing the opponents won't just sit patiently until the team enters.
bnc initializes the countdown from three while launching some seriously harmful junks of code at the AROs next door. At the count of 1, bnc prepares for battle.

[ Spoiler ]

Complex Action: Hacking on the Fly: 17d6t5 6
Opposed rolls: 2#15d6t5 5 4 marked both
Free Action: loading Battle configuration

Complex Action: Data Spike: 15d6t5 5
Opposed rolls: 2#15d6t5 2 3
Now that's good luck for once (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Thank you, digital dice gods. I shall sacrifice snippets of the most elegant code to you in honor and worship!

That's 8 (Attack) + 2 (marks) + 1 (mugger) + 1 (decryption) + 2 (hammer) + 2/3 (net hits) = 16/17 damage. I assume that would roast them.
Free Action: Swapping back to Shell.

Guess this is a good time for ini:

Initiative: 5d6+12 28