IC: A Short Victorius War, A Living in the Shadows Game Options

[Tiredronin]

23:07:20 Sunday January 7, 2063 Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup

Daedaus spent as little time as necessary scoping out the inside of the warehouse, he looked around for some place to sit where he would be minimaly disturbed. Deciding that in the car would be the best option.

He gave a glance to his teammates, clearly conveying his intention to keep watch despite the help of the elves and sat down in the back seat of the car and once again projected his senses out into the skies above.

Determined to not be caught unawares yet again, he carefully studied the layout of the building, the surrounding blocks and sifted through any and every angle of approach with this keen tactical eye.

No more tonight, Icarus, Talos, lets make darn sure nothing gets in without our knowing.

[Shadow]

00:15:20 Monday January 8, 2063 Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup

The long day was starting to catch up on all the players. The doc spent the first hour looking over Tenmou and assessing his physical and mental condition before declaring his intention.

"Your best chance is for you to rest till the morning, let your body clense itself of the toxins it has built up, then Bear and I can begin the healing process." He waved Tenmou torward a far door, "in there is a cot, some food and water, use it, Doctors orders."

In the car Daed carefully monitored the data stream coming in from both his drones, it had taken a while but the blimp had finally caught up to them and took its stationary position above the warehouse. Other than the usual traffic all looked well.

[banditf50]

00:17:45 Saturday January 8, 2063 Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup

Virgil waited until the Doc had seen Tenmou off to rest before approaching the healer with his own particular ailments. He knew that whatever affliction had befallen him was likely to be far more difficult to diagnose, and dedicated healers like Juliette and this elven shaman were Virgil's best hope for aid.

Extending his hand Virgil introduced himself kindly to their benefactor. No use in me being any more of a stranger than I have to be.

"My name is Virgil and I'd like to thank you for the hospitality that you have shown us thus far, despite us being strangers to you."

[Shadow]

00:18:45 Monday January 8, 2063 Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup

"Virgil eh? Nice to meat you omae," the big doctor shook his hand. "No problem, Erebus has taken good care of my people in the past, least I can do. 'Sides, he's paying me."

[Cedric Rolfsson]

00:19:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

The near silent buzz of his wristphone caught his attention, showing yet another ID BLOCKED number.

"Hoi." Erebus kept his answer short.

"Erebus its Elan I received your call, and wanted to inquire as to the exchange arrangments concerning the item I'm purchasing. I have a trusted courier available immediately, who I can send to your location if that's acceptable. I'd like to facilitate the exchange however possible." Elan's voice dripped sweetness like warm honey, enough to make Erebus want to gag.

Ya, I bet you want to get your hands on the deck, probably already got a buyer ready to turn your investment into profit before dawn.

Erebus tried not to be bitter, it was just business, but he hated getting screwed on a deal. He'd already been slotted over on the job from Max and now he was getting about 50 cents on the dollar for his deck from his other fixer. It just wasn't his day.

After quickly verifying that it would be okay to have someone meet him here at the warehouse with Doc he gave the address to his fixer who assured him the courier could be at the site within 20 minutes.

"Certified credsticks chummer. Nothing larger than :nuyen: 5,000 per stick please. I'll have the deck waiting. Have your courier request a verification code Lima and I'll respond with the name of the place where I picked up the earlier items I purchased."

That was extremely fragile tradecraft but it was pure paranoia at this point, anyone causing trouble for him here would have to wade through a crew of Elf go-gangers to get the job done. While he didn't doubt that a bunch of rocket bearing Yaks could do that he was relatively certain that they couldn't do it quietly.

[Shadow]

00:45:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Things start to wind down as the team realises that there isn't a squad of assassins ready to jump out at them at a moments notice. The location seems relatively secure.

Daed spends most his time jacked in to his two drones on patrol. Even so the craziness of the day is starting to catch up with him, on everyone, as the adrenaline leaves and the toxins from sleep deprivation move in.

One of the elf gangers yells down from the cat walk, "rider coming in, looks like Erebus' pigeon."

[Shadow]

00:47:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

The courier parks her bike cross the street. She is dressed all in black and red riding leather with knee high guard boots. Without taking her helmet off she walks up to the door and knocks. She carries a satchel in one hand.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

00:47:02 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus slide the door open without stepping out, centering himself in front of the courier, with the cyberdeck in its case held loosely in his left hand and his right hand conspiciously free.

"Hoi. You from Elan?" Erebus asked politely, more than a little nervous about the satchel, his mind trying to calculate the damage that size of bag packed with explosives could do.

[Shadow]

00:47:35 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

The girl takes her helmet off letting lonf black hair cascade down. "No, I'm from the north pole, ho. ho. ho. Heres your package, an I have mine?"

[Cedric Rolfsson]

00:47:38 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus swallowed his first three responses to the wise hooped courier and finally settled on a short nod.

"Verification code?" He asked.

"Lima." The courier responded in a bored voice.

"Paradigm Shift." Erebus responded. He made a mental note to speak with Elan about the jokers doing courier work as he handed over the cyberdeck for inspection and accepted the satchel in exchange. He pulled his p-sec to beginning scanning the credsticks in the stachel.

[Shadow]

00:50:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

With the girl gone Erebus quickly counts the money, to his surprise the satchel contains 45k in cert cred.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

00:50:30 Monday January 8, 2063 - Warehouse 7th and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus slipped the satchel over his shoulder, and headed back towards the office where Doc was working on his friends. He regretted the loss of the cyberdeck but with things getting this nasty this fast he needed the flexibility of certified credsticks. He made a mental note to talk with the other runners about keeping their eyes open for the chance to boost another deck if the opportunity arose.

Once inside the office he found a private corner and began secreting the credsticks about his person in various places, keeping a few readily accessible. He made sure he had a few low denomination credsticks to help pay off Doc and the gangers who were providing cover for Doc while he worked. The street shaman was a good man and a valuable resource for someone in Erebus' line of work, he couldn't afford to short him.

[WinterRat1]

00:55:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Warehouse 7th and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

While the street doc was taking care of the others, Dragon made it a point to reload all his weapons carefully, cleaning them as necessary and inspecting them for damage. After all the action he’d been seeing today, he figured that was the only smart thing to do. He had no doubt he’d have more need of them before this mess was all over. How on earth had they gotten into this in the first place, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Freeing his mind of emotion, looking at the events of the past few days with an objective eye, he had to admit to himself he didn’t like what he saw. He’d been hotheaded and irrational, and had made some grievous errors in judgment. Thinking back to how he’d almost splattered that kid outside of Virgil’s apartment, and Tiffany’s admittedly fair horrified reaction, he admitted he’d been teetering on the edge of losing control.

His humanity had been walking a razor edge lately, and while some lost it with a feeling of disconnect and separation from the world, he was losing it in the grips of an irrational killing rage, a tightly controlled frenzy that might have racked up even more deaths to his soul, or what was left of it by now, if not for those around him keeping him in check.

There was a lot to think about there, like why he was so close to losing it. Why he’d become so bloodthirsty in the last few days. How had he managed to make so many mistakes in so short a period of time? And more importantly, what was he going to do to ensure he didn’t repeat those mistakes? Of course, that didn’t even address cleaning up the various messes lying around that needed to be dealt with as a result of his screw-ups.

While he was sitting in silence with his thoughts, he noticed Erebus busily taking care of some business, making some calls and later, making an exchange with a courier outside. Although the elf offered no explanation for his actions, it was reasonable to say he’d been a solid teammate so far, so until there was reason to doubt, he rated an ‘OK’ in Dragon’s book.

As soon as Erebus finished taking care of whatever business he had with the visitor outside, he headed immediately to a private corner in the back. Finally finishing up whatever he was doing, he went and whispered some words to the doc, who nodded and pointed at an empty office near the back of the warehouse.

Walking over to Dragon, the young elf nodded grimly. “He said we can use the office in the back over there.” Rising to his feet, Dragon checked his weapons one last time, ensuring everything was in its proper order and condition, then strode towards the trunk of the car. Unholstering one of the Guardians and leveling it at the trunk, he motioned for Erebus to open it.

Understanding his intent, the elf stood off to the side, well clear of Dragon’s line of fire, and popped the trunk. Their precautions proved not quite founded, as their captive made no move to escape. Though awake, he made no move to try anything, blinking his eyes in the sudden light of the warehouse, dim as it was.

“Out.” Motioning with his head, the mercenary indicated the direction their prisoner should walk. Awkwardly trying to get to his feet and climb out of the trunk with his hands bound behind his back, the prisoner was obviously still groggy, staggering as he exited the trunk and headed towards the office.

Once they got there, Erebus roughly jerked the man into a seat, and secured the restraints holding his hands together to the chair itself, courtesy of another pair of restraints. His legs were similarly secured to the chair. Putting the gun away, standing a few feet in front of him, Dragon looked down at the man.

“I’m going to keep it simple. You will tell us who you are, why you came after us, who sent you, and where we can find him. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, and frankly we don’t care which.”

Looking at Erebus, he asked casually, “You have any other questions you would like him to answer?”

The elf shrugged and leaned against a wall just inside the peripheral vision of the man, to remind him he was there without giving him anything to focus on.

“I’d say that’s a good place to start.”

“You heard the man.” Dragon looked back at their prisoner. “Start talking.”

[Shadow]

01:04:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Warehouse 7th and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

In the light the mans Japanese heritage was obvious, as was his stoic expression. He looked up at Dragon and smirked. His unwillingess to cooperate written on his face.

[WinterRat1]

01:05:00 Monday January 8, 2063 - Warehouse 7th and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Dragon waited a full minute for the man to change his mind, but the smirk never left his face. Rolling his eyes and glancing over at Erebus, Dragon sighed loudly. "It's going to be the hard way, isn't it? They always want to do it the hard way."

Pulling a sharp Cougar Longblade from his belt, he held it up to the light and examined it melodramatically, checking it for dents and flaws. There were none, of course, but that wasn't exactly the point anyway. "Hmm...no, not quite right. I'll be right back."

Leaving the room, Dragon rummaged around the warehouse for a few moments under the instruction of one of the doc's guards before he finally found what he was looking for.

Returning to the room, he looked at the prisoner and said, "Here's how it goes. I'm going to ask you questions. You're going to answer, or I'm going to start chopping off your fingers, knuckle by knuckle." He shrugs and adds, "I know you can get replacements for those no problem. But then, I'm going to start moving on to things that aren't so easy to get replacements for, if you catch my drift."

The man looked a little nervous, but the sneer never left his face, although his hands flexed nervously from their place of constraint on the arms of the chair. Shutting the door, Dragon slapped himself on the forehead. "Oh, did I forget to mention? I will be doing the chopping with this."

Holding up what he had been looking for in his left hand as he moved towards the thug with deadly intent, he let the light illuminate the object in his hand. A dull, rusty metal knife.

"Oops, did I say chopping? Maybe sawing would be a better term. All right then, I'll be a nice guy and ask, do you have a preference for which hand you want me to start sawing, or should I just pick one?"

[Cedric Rolfsson]

01:05:02 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus leaned back against the wall and watched the show dispassionately. Dragon came across as a mean little fragger that's for certain but it still remained to be seen whether he'd actually have the stomach to saw off the Yak's fingers.

Reaching into a pocket he pulled out his small butane lighter, and held it up to catch the light and Dragon's attention, before he flipped it to the other runner.

"Here amigo blood loss can delay these conversation's horribly, this'll help."

With that addition to the on going show Erebus resumed his position against the wall to see what would happen. If the other runner could do this to the helpless Yak it would give Erebus a solid feel for where Dragon drew his lines. While killing someone in a dustup when it was kill or die was one thing, Erebus had only met a few people who would do out right torture. Vick Viscous had actually gotten off on causing pain, and Trooper who had treated it like it was simply business. He hoped Dragon was closer to the later than the former.

[Shadow]

01:05:10 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

As Dragon moved to start his bloody work the man stiffened. As if pain had just lanced through his body. Just as quickly as it came, it passed, and the man was free.

It happened so fast that a the time it took was the blink of an eye. The man was on Dragon, savagley chopping at him with broken hands.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

01:05:11 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus blinked.

In that time everything had changed, his weight still settling back against the wall all of a sudden was a major impediment, forcing him to fight his own momentum as he threw himself away from the wall and towards the not-so-imprisoned prisoner.

Too close for guns. This is going to get nasty.

Hands raised, half open, ready to form a chopping blade or smashing fist he hurled himself into combat.

[WinterRat1]

01:05:10 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

It was definitely one of those days. Just when it seemed that things were finally starting to turn around, even a little bit, something had to happen to annoy him even farther. They finally had a prisoner, seemingly helpless and in a position to finally fill in some of the considerable gaping holes in their intelligence, and he just happened to have a seemingly magical ability to escape his restraints despite his condition.

Not that Dragon was particularly worried. Physad or no, he was still badly injured, and in no condition to take Erebus and himself, and escape from the warehouse. Still, he was pissed, and definitely not in the mood to play nice.

All this flashed through his head as the man launched himself at Dragon, who immediately responded with a brutal counterattack. He was tired of all the crap of the last few days, and if this guy wasn't going to talk the easy way, or the hard way, he was going to talk the really hard way. And it was going to start right now.

[Tiredronin]

00:52:36 Monday January 8, 2063 - Warehouse 7th and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup Barrens

Having scanned the layout of every potential route of approach, rooftop, and sniping location for a radius of 3 blocks of the warehouse, Daedalus still felt slightly on edge as he monitored the courier's arrival, exchange and exit with a wary eye (and machine gun) from Talos.

He finally stepped out of the car to stretch his legs, checking back on the drones every few minutes.

[bclements]

01:05:10 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

As Dragon almost lashed out at the now-former prisoner catching a flash of clublike hands with thumbs writhing at unnatural angles as the Asian man chopped down, Erebus's diving chop connected against the man's bald head. Catching him neatly at the temple, the blow caused a stream of blood laced spit to come from the man's mouth, landing on the dirty floor milliseconds before the prisoner followed it to the ground, out cold before he could land a blow.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

01:05:11 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

He looked down at the unconcious man, rubbing his thumb into the palm of his right hand to ease the ache caused by the blow. Then glanced over at Dragon in time to see the look of lethal menace fade from the smaller man's features.

"I don't think he's going to co-operate chummer." Erebus said drily.

[WinterRat1]

01:05:15 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

The lethal menace may have faded from Dragon's face, but something far darker replaced it. The repeated screwups over the past few days, plus all the problems it seemed he'd inadvertantly stumbled into made something like this a relatively minor thing. Still, even something as small as not taking into account the possibility the man might have escape artist skills was enough to push Dragon's patience with himself to the breaking point.

That this punk had been the final straw probably wasn't his fault, but Dragon was absolutely through with things not going his way. This guy was going to help. He just hadn't come to grips with it yet.

Smiling tightly at Erebus, he replied, "He'll cooperate. He's just delaying the inevitable. If he wants to play hero, fine. He's just making it harder than it has to be, and given what kind of mood I'm in, that's a really bad call on his part. Go grab some chains, would you mind? I'll handle setting him up here."

Without looking to see if Erebus complied with his request, Dragon began stripping his prisoner down. People always felt more secure with their clothes on. This guy obviously felt secure enough to make a move on the two of them, even if he had to dislocate his hands in the process. That made him crazy, confident, maybe even a little of both. Hence, time to start chipping away at that security.

Handcuffing his prisoner stark naked back to the seat again, this time tightly enough the flesh near the cuffs would probably begin to swell soon. Dragon also made sure to wrap their prisoner's arms around himself, handcuffing him to the opposite end of the chair. He also cuffed his legs to the opposite back leg of the chair in an 'X', meaning if he did get loose again he wouldn't have the position necessary to gather the momentum to fling himself at his captors.

This accomplished, he began rummaging around the room for other implements of pain while he waited for Erebus to bring the chains, keeping a close eye on the prisoner all the while.

[Cedric Rolfsson]

01:05:47 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - Puyallup Barrens

Erebus walked out of the smaller room as Dragon began manhandling the prisoner back into the chair. The smaller street sam seemed calm enough, but Erebus had a bad feeling about this. He kept waiting for Dragon to pop; to start cursing or yelling or hitting things, anything to release the frustration and tension they were all feeling.

Erebus could feel that tension, knowing they were in a situation where they had very little control, in which they were placed in opposition to not only Lone Star and the corps, but also to the Yaks and the Mob. He knew enough about organized crime to know that while the shadows might hide him from the corpers, the shadows didn't exist that were dark enough to hide him from either of those organizations if they were serious about finding him. It was either come out on top or come out in a bag now. No matter what happened the young elf was relatively sure that being shot at by machine gun and rocket wielding bad guys ranked pretty high on the "work-related-stress" insurance charts. He walked over to the car they came in and began rummaging through the trunk, looking for snow chains or cables Dragon could use for his little project.

He had a real bad feeling about what was about to happen, and reached inside himself to find that silent place where his pyche could hide while bad things were happening. Amanda had taught him that, the ability to school his face and body to show nothing, to be able to do what had to be done, no matter what kinds of nightmares it would cause later. He had a feeling that Dragon was about to do things that would be excellent nightmare fodder.

[bclements]

01:10:12 Monday January 8, 2063 - Abandoned Warehouse - 7th Street and Eatonville Highway-Puyallup Barrens

Checking the trunk and being careful not to further dent the car in wrenching it open, Erebus found nothing to help tie up the prisoner, though the tire-iron caught his eye.

Picking it up almost reluctantly after remembering what Dragon had said, he dug deeper into the mess of the trunk, eventually coming out with a grease stained safety yellow set of jumper cables. The two meter long length of braided wire and plastic insulation seemed perfect for the job.

Digging them out from the piled plastic bags and the spare tire, Erebus tried not to think about the alligator clips the size of his hand, two on each end, bright copper teeth grinning in the streetlamps.


00:31:08 Monday January 8, 2063 Abandoned Warehouse 7th Street and Eatonville Highway - Puyallup

“So, you’re not physically injured, right?” Doc said after looking him over. “You don’t look so hot, but from what Erebus said you’ve had a long day. What seems to be the problem?” the shaman asked in a gentle voice that belied the harsh gang colors on his jacket.