Infiltration Challenge, Examining situation variables Options

[Eyeless Blond]

You can get a free ubuntu CD, but it takes a few weeks to get to you.

[Synner667]

Hi,

I'm intrigued in why there's mention of causing the building to evacuate, then locating and picking up the target ??

Load the ventilation system with something not-too nasty, notify law enforcement/emergency agencies of an emergency of a terrorist threat, pick up target once outside the building in the ensuing chaos.

[Hey, nothing to stop me using the plan from Neuromancer]


Just my thruppence..

[Crusher Bob]

Alas, the links to the old forums seem to be no longer working. One of the mission constraints was that whoever was holding the package not notice she had been rescued for some period of time (iirc, you'll also notice that this thread is somethingl ike 5 years old). There was some slight discussion about thingsl ike forced entry assault or some more overt monkey business like you suggest, but we decided to stay within the original contraints and see how things turned out.

[Talia Invierno]

[Xirces]

We need /something/ to wrap this up!

I've been waiting four years to see what the deal is here and you can't let us down now :)

[Talia Invierno]

Oops, sorry, Xirces.

I'd based The Enemy loosely off a character in the Nosferatu novel. The premise here was that a high-initiate nosferatu -- formerly a spike elf, for the plot device -- had established a headquarters here. He'd chosen it specifically for the manaline which ran under it.

Under the guise of an import company, he'd been bringing in people from abroad: every one of which was soon quickened with two control spells: thoughts and emotions. (The addictive nature of essence drain reinforced the emotional aspect.) The place itself he gradually began to have overhauled to his specific needs: always maintaining the facade of a smallish company without anything of value sufficient even to require warding. His idea of security was, however, a bit antiquated: and because he was specifically limiting independence of thought in others, there was no independent source to bring him fully up to date in some of the tech involved.

He was enough tech-savvy, however, to have made a small addition to the ventilation system: just a light Willpower-reducing gas which was added only during the daytime and flushed at night. This made it much easier to establish the above control spells. Ghost had been briefly exposed to it. It had the potential to become an issue, but never did.

The longer he'd been there, the more he was able to completely shut off the company front from outside annoyances, such as outside security contractors who might have started to suspect something was going on; and who couldn't be made to vanish as easily as the (meta)human imports. In the meantime the turnover of people gave a constant source of Essence. Elves he'd occasionally tried to turn, without long- or even medium-term success: although some lasted long enough to work for him as in-house security. You encountered two of them just before they became non-successes. What remained of the non-successes was sold by the company as fertiliser.

(All of which contributed to quite a nasty background count, to the point where it lightly influenced those who encountered it. Basically, stable situations were likely to become uneasy, and uneasy situations were likely to turn bad.)

After long research he'd determined the one key element that would be needed to complete his goals: a young elf anchorwoman. He'd been stalking her for some time, and had discovered that she was not only secretly Awakened but an initiate. If he managed to make her nosferatu of her own "free" will, all the rest would follow.

The girl was kidnapped secretly, in such a way that everyone thought she'd fled the station after an argument with her producer that had left him in a coma. (He was actually a friend of hers, and had tried to defend her, unsuccessfully.) Several people "saw" her leave the building.

The ritual began. Time was critical, now.

Unbeknownst to our Enemy, the girl had friends who didn't believe the surface story. One of those friends suspected who might be behind it and had the resources to hire and keep hired some high-level, reliable shadowrunners to confirm it (and, if the girl was on site, to free her): but that friend (of the "Friends in High Places" variety) also intended to make the counter-abduction a small demonstration of personal power against the nosferatu. That's why part of the run condition was to leave no traces (or at least no traces that could be quickly uncovered). That friend thinks of power not as a hammer but as the horse's head -- though he's not mafioso.

That's all I can pull out of memory, cold. If anyone has specific questions, I'll try to answer them.

[Eyeless Blond]

I think the thing that jumps to mind most was that weird Astral vacuum thing that was going on, where Trogdor ended up not being able to leave (and had to zap himself, sparking that debate over whether or not he could, etc etc.) I think that's the part that really unnerved me, mostly because I had no idea what could be going on.

[Talia Invierno]

You had the equivalent of a significant astral river running through that part of the basement. Trogdor was astral, and thus could be caught in the current.

[Talia Invierno]

Sorry, forgot --

The collar was anchoring an Agony spell to Juliana, the trigger was her attempting spellcasting, and, because of the nature of her spellcasting, anyone in the area would get the backwash. (She had originally been created under SR2 rules with innate "project emotion" and "project sensation" spells: a strong major for her is anything empathy/emotion-related.) Despite that, she'd managed to burn her way out of the iron manacles -- which helped, you'll remember she had a severe allergy to unalloyed iron. That's where the burns you saw came from.

Besides the one who put the collar on: any mundane with no magic being held on them (sustained or quickened spell) could have removed it safely. It responds badly only to the touch of a magic-influenced aura.

You might encounter her and other members of the d'Erethiel family in the Living in the Shadows threads, over in Welcome to the Shadows. The events of this thread are a part of its history.

And finally: because she was reluctant to speak up, you left her foci behind :)

[WinterRat1]

[Talia Invierno]

*laugh* ... so I guess this would not be the time to mention that the target has since undergone a metaquest specifically to learn more of the true nature of her Enemy.

I don't know if I explicitly mentioned it or not, but the team that succeeded in this would have been handsomely rewarded ... and then immediately given a second commission: to retrieve those foci.

[WinterRat1]

[Talia Invierno]

That reference goes back to the very first ever IC page of LitS ... and thus predates me.

Make of that what you will.

[WinterRat1]

Yeah, but you were the one who ended up picking up that reference and running with it into a full-fledged story. Would I put it past you to figure out a way to intertwine the two seemingly unrelated items? Absolutely not.