Charm City [IC] Options

[pbangarth]

Bongo considers the roof hatch for a moment. It's in the west bedroom on the top floor, and happens to be the one Willie took. Willie is as interested as Bongo in the contents Tubesnake's pet revealed. Willie gives the ceiling light a tug, and the hatch opens!

Tubesnake's inventory checks out, but of course a duffle bag in the hidey hole is a magnet for Bongo's attention. He pulls it out, looking for anything else the nook might contain.

Bag on the bed, Bongo opens it.

[sunnyside]

It takes a bit of pulling to bring down the hatch. It wasn't locked, and the mechanism is actually quite loose. The issue was the paint over the whole thing. At first it sags, then the wooden corners of the panel burst through and soon the paint tears down all three sides to allow the door to open, dropping a small rain of dust and detritus on the bed.

The duffle bag has a set of boots with a quick hook latching system, an Urban Explorer jumpsuit, two more mags of regular ammo for the SMG, a big bag of Almond Joy candy bars, a rating 2 medkit, a grappling hook with 50 meters of rope, and a bike helmet.

In the pockets of the jumpsuit are a meta link comlink with its battery disconnected, a beat up certified credstick with 50 nuyen, a little bag with clip on tusks, and a latex mask with brunette wig.

The the mask and tusks would give you a female ork.

The gear all seems functional, though only the rope, candy, grenades, and medkit seem new.

[Thanee]

With the guys busy somewhere upstairs, Selina sets off to take a look at the house herself. Hopefully, she will find a room that is clean enough to be considered for staying here for a few days, or however long this job is going to be. They do not have a whole lot of details, yet.

She dreads a little even looking into what passes for a bathroom in here. But you never know, maybe it is not all that bad? One can hope.

[Koekepan]

Paul isn't one of those guys who whistle while they work. Instead, he clamps a jobsite radio the size of a beer crate to the roof of his van, and turns on a mix of cyberpsychedelia. It's a fitting commentary on the state of the world while the speakers intone:

I took a look inside myself and listed what I found
chrome steel, hydro lines and a tiny whining sound.

"Wish I knew who had the maglock key codes. Reckon I should start by reprogramming 'em all."

He checks the contents of his toolbelt, adjusts his suspenders, and starts going through the inventory of doors. "Hey folks, I'll set your door locks to whatever you like, or get you the fresh code. Or just leave 'em, I don't care. Just let me know either way."

[pbangarth]

Bongo pipes up out the window, "I have a maglock passkey, if that helps."

Then he figures he should keep that kind of info quiet. Oops.

[pbangarth]

Bongo confers with Willie. "This stuff all looks like an emergency get out of town kit."

Willie considers the female ork disguise. "Huh. Great way to be in-cog-neeto. Though I guess better than being in-car-serrated." He guffaws at the joke. Something he never would have come up with in the past.

[sunnyside]

The house is actually fairly clean, like there was actually a cleaning service that went through. Though most of the place is old and dated. The basement toilet is new though. Actually it's maybe the only new bit of furniture or decor that is new in the place aside from the white touch up paint job. Though the matlock are fairly modern. Everyone has user level access, allowing them to claim a room and set a personal code. As well as recieve alerts if anything happens to the lock.

Presumably Brewster or one of his associates have the security/admin passwords. You have no idea of any of the ratings.

[Koekepan]

Paul wanders through, and starts at the circuit panel. "Power's dropping for a bit, folks. Gotta clean up this wiring."

More quietly, he adds while working: "Doesn't look like they rewired or anything when they built overhead. Probably just waved a code handbook at it and signed off. Fraggin' typical." However, it doesn't take him long to replace a run of wire at a time with the help of a crawling drone with a wire dragging along in its wriggly jaws. Sure beats the old fishtape and pole.

"Y'all know there're roaches the size of carpentry pencils in these walls, right?"

[pbangarth]

Willie chimes in at that mention. "Hey. fry 'em up with a lot of salsa and they ain't half bad. " Better than some of the dumpster meals he had as a kid in Seattle.

[Koekepan]

"Yeah? Reckon it's protein either way. Still, I could send a drone through here with a bug bomb, clean 'em out. We'll probably have roaches again later in a week, though. Never keep them out of a place like this. Rats bug me more because of the diseases they carry."

[pbangarth]

Willie replies, "Never ate rats. Did kill them, though. Competition for my dumpster diet when I was a kid."

[Thanee]

Selina is pleased to see, that this is not nearly as bad as she had imagined. The place has seen better days overall, but that'a okay. Old buildings do have a certain charm, too.

[sunnyside]

(OOC: Since he mentioned messing with all the wiring I gave tubesnake one reroll with bonus on a perception test, where he did much much better. Presuming he's thorough, there isn't anything else odd inside walls or crawlspaces in the building. Also, just to be clear, I'm operating under the assumption that Selina hasn't been astrally observing. If the intent is that the "cat" does so automatically and it's been following her around or something, please write that out. )

In messing with the wiring Tubesnake notices a bulge inside the wall near the front door, putting tension on the screws holding down the copper leads providing power to the doors maglock. Whoever stuck the crude box in there probably just forced it without much care for the wiring. Judging by the screws going every which way, there weren't much for remodeling generally anyway.

There isn't any opening on the inside of the wall, but someone with sharp eyes and a close look on the wall from inside the house could pick out a slight oddity with how a part of the wall is aligned. Physically touching the spot would reveal it has some give. More like cardboard than lath and plaster.

[Thanee]

After a physical inspection of the place, at least some of it, Selina decides to take a look at the astral side of things and shifts her perception over to see how the building looks from this angle.

[Koekepan]

Tubesnake wraps up the work at the panel, and starts going around the house's maglocks, starting at the front door. Always look at the job first before sticking your tender fingers in, and he looks, then looks again, and then frowns. Slowly he shakes his head, giving a slow, low whistle. "Code spec, this ain't."

He thinks for a moment, and then goes back to his van to pick up a few more tools, including a stud finder, a signal monitor, a hand drill and some bits, and an endoscope. Back in the house he gently drills a couple of holes into the wall, just enough to get into the space around it, and get him a really good view of whatever is going on in there without disturbing it. Given that one of his earlier finds incorporated explosives, he's not taking chances on this one.

So he'll have to patch the wallboard up when he's done? That was always going to have to happen.

[sunnyside]

In the astral, the first thing noticed is what isn't there. Specifically, the building has no wards of any sort. Though this may help it blend in with its neighbors which don't have wards either.

Astrally the inside of the building is very calm. Though the background count (1) of the neighboring downtown houses sort of oozes in through the shared walls, but not enough to be a problem. There is some lingering of a domain of something in the larger rear bedroom on the second floor, but it's almost entirely gone.

Back in the physical world tubesnake pokes around outside the box. It seems a crudely done craft job. Someone made a wooden box about two feet long and about six inches wide by nailing together what might have been scrap plywood. Judging by the occasional bent nail they didn't do this sort of thing regularly. They then seem to have nailed the box to a stud on its side.

They made the hole larger than the box putting it in, and they patched it up, so looking close from the back Tubesnake can see they patch. They did it with cardboard instead of something like drywall. Looking from the front from inside the house you can manage to tell the difference from the cardboard section and the rest of the wall, despite being painted over.

[pbangarth]

Bongo had been rubbernecking as Tubesnake explored. "Man, there are all kinds of hidden treasures in this place. It's like we're in a game of Dungeons and Dragons v. 19.5. I wonder what's in the box. "

[Koekepan]

Tubesnake frowns at this set of revelations.

"I do too, but whatever it is I'm not too crazy 'bout it. Well, the wall's just a bad patch, let me slice it out. Then we can find out what kinda homemade claymore they got in there."

Putting the deed to his word, he pulls out a tube of glue and a chunk of dowel. He glues the dowel to the wall patch by way of a makeshift handle, then produces a utility knife and carefully slices around the outline of the cardboard patch, all the time holding it up by the dowel before lifting the cardboard away smoothly. He flips this into the corner as trash, then puts the knife away and produces a beefy pair of pliers to remove a few of the more easily accessible nails, while assessing whether this box is just standing by itself or might be wired to anything else.

[sunnyside]

Once the cardboard is removed Tubesnake and Bongo can see that the "front" of the wood box is open. Sitting inside is a Remington 990. Instead of the usual stock it has an oversized pistol grip. Something a very large metahuman could handle, but wouldn't be very ergonomic for Bongo or especially Tubesnake or whoever would fit into the clothes in the duffle bag upstairs.

Looks like anyone who knew about it could punch through the cardboard and yank it out if they were standing at the front door.

[pbangarth]

Looking over the shoulders of the other tow, Willie says, "Let me have a feel of that. See if it fits hands a little more substantial. " He gives the 990 a try for fit.

Substantial? Where did that come from? Ain't my vur-nakuler. Vurnakuler? What the frag!

[Koekepan]

Tubesnake doesn't get in Willie's way, but does mildly add when Willie grabs it: "Careful there, buddy. I bet it's loaded. Go have fun with it, but I gotta patch this mess up and maybe do another detailed review for other surprises. I kinda wonder if Brewster knew about all this, and if not, who put it here and when."

[sunnyside]

(OOC: In game terms the weapon has the metahuman customization (troll) mod. It is loaded with APDS, but there are no reloads in sight.)

[Thanee]

Selina assumes, that someone had put up their magical lodge in that bedroom. She was wondering about the same thing, but it would take her almost a week to get everything in place properly. Since they didn't even have a timetable, yet, there was little point in getting started with something like that.

So, after her curiosity has been satisfied for the time being, she heads off to see what the rest is doing. Here and there, she communicates with Fiona via their shared link, to keep on top of what is going on out front.

"Hey, guys! Found anything interesting? I still need to put my bike into the designated parking area, but not in a hurry. Seems like it is safe enough out front for now."

[pbangarth]

Bongo replies to Selina,"Yes, we found an escape hatch to the parking lot and some get out quick supplies. Also hidden here in this hidey hole a shotgun. Looks like previous residents were interested in having options."

Willie chimes in, "Yeah, and one of them musta been big, a troll I guess, 'cause this shotgun don't even fit my big hands."

[Koekepan]

Tubesnake grumbles while pulling bent nails and skew planks out of the wall: "Besides the abandoned emergency supplies? Just rot, vermin, damaged wiring and drek carpentry. Didja need a bug-out bag?"

More quietly he adds: "Dangit, it wasn't a bad idea but it was built by toddlers. Gotta do it right. Fix up these studs a bit, too."