Perception tests to reveal more info about your wayward soul at the bar Krutenau.

Dire--Were you going to look at the tag any more in depth, or are you satisfied with what is currently known?

Perception test -

Attribute + Skill = 6 dice
4 6 5 3 3 6 = 3 successes

And as long as we are still near the docks, I might as well continue to torture Bishop with knowledge skill rolls -

Intuition + Seattle Dockyards + Criminal Activities Spec = 9 dice
Especially interested in who normally sells drugs round these parts
5 5 6 5 4 6 4 6 3 = 6 successes!!!

Intuition + Seattle Waterfront Dives = 7 dice
Earlier there was a distinction made between places the Mafia controls and places that just pay them protection - just hoping to know which the place is
1 2 1 1 1 6 1 = 1 success plus a glitch

Adamu--
Drugs will depend on the type and vary by syndicate. Yaks run the chip market. The Mafia has occasionally been known to drop combat drugs into the market, though the Triad control most of the street drug trade. Recent rumors have had the Vory sniffing around the edges to find a way into the market.

The Bar Krutenau pays protection to the Ragers who in turn pay the mafia.

Thanks - rereading that a few times, I think it may be very useful information....

Okay people, once again the possible leads are mounting up.

* This new person is obviously both an out-of-towner and either dead or wasted.
Contact him now? Watch him and wait for him to get sober (if he ever does)? Could stake him out and follow him, but personally I'd rather know more about whether he has any value (metagaming aside) before we make that time investment.

* In any case, we can hit this Bar in five hours.

* We still may have some electronic leads.

* At some point after some other people have a chance to IC, Al will share what he knows about the drug trafficking patterns in the area. The fact that we've been hired to mess up a new player on the drug scene should perhaps make us start looking at local Vory ops. I've got one dockworker contact. Anyone else have a line on the Vory?

Eager to hear everyone's thoughts on recent clues and on what we should do next.

I will be offline for the next 48 hours as I fly out to Dallas for work. Expect posts from me on Tuesday.

If you guys can formulate a plan of action, with some dice rolls etc, I can bump everything together.

Yikes, I really hate us to miss the chance for a big bump forward.

Hmmm.

Well, why beat around the bush? I lurk around here enough to know that every player in this game has been logged in since Bishop's last post...

I mean, really, I know I post a lot, mostly to try to keep things moving, but I honestly don't think that I in any way prevent others from posting. In fact, I go out of my way to toss the ball into other peoples' courts....

Or maybe I'm just insecure and paranoid cuz I love this game before all others...but even if people are busy or don't have anything specific to add to the discussion of what to do next, just a "XXX sounds good" would be nice...

There certainly is plenty we could be doing...

Anyway, if there's a problem, either with me/Al or with anything else, let's talk about it.

If there's not, just please chime in so we know.

Bubbles doesn't do plans.

Sounds good to me.

Scan 5 + EW 3 = 8 for determining what frequency the security tag responds to
3 hits 6 5 3 3 3 5 1 4

Not sure if this is the right test. So let me know if it's something else.

Your new best friend is human, 2m and 160 kgs, (6'7" and 340 lbs). Leather jacket, over a t-shirt and jeans. The slap patches are blank, no notices about the drugs they are carrying or warnings from the Surgeon General.

I am monitoring things but nothing plan wise popped into my head.

Dire--You are able to find the frequency, though the tag is not currently scanning for activity.

Bishop - do the unmarked patches match anything in the Ragman's stash?

Looking through pockets for now. Also interested in haircut and tats, and whether he feels warm at all.

Everyone - would sure be nice to do a THOROUGH search of this guy, if anyone else is up for it.
But there is no way in hell Al is going to drag this big-boy's carcass into a nearby alley by himself.

The unmarked tags are common for street drugs in patch form. The Ragman did have a few patches, amidst the other drug forms.

Does this dead guy have a security tag that responds to the same signal as the one we got from raggedy man?

Callouses - does that include a trigger-finger callous?

Look around for cameras or anyone watching us.

Perception test - 6 dice + 3 dice for active search - 1 6 4 6 2 1 3 3 6 = 3successes

Also, looking around to see if I can tell if he was dragged or walked here, and from where.

Tracking - 8 dice - 4 2 6 6 2 2 1 1 = 2 successes

Dire--Nothing responds to that precise signal. An EW test will let you scan the area for other signals and localize the frequencies.

Adamu--His trigger finger is calloused, but not moreso than the rest of his hands. They look similar to a day laborer and melee combatant.

Dire--You have localized the signals that were detected earlier. There is a clear signal from Al's chest, several muddied signals from the drug stash, as well as, the team's wireless gear that is not in hidden mode.

BishopMcQ, Pesto left the drone watching the Ragman's body. Did anyone ever show up yet at the body?

Amra--Not yet. All told it has been about 15 minutes from the time you left the body. It does not appear that DocWagon is going to come.

Contents of the Duffel Bag:
AR Gloves; Glasses w/Smartlink and Image Link; Ares Predator IV (w/Concealable Holster and 10 clips of Explosive Ammo); Remington 990 (Smartlinked, w/10 clips of Flechette Ammo); Combat Axe; Jungle Camo Suit

The Commlink:
Transys Avalon Commlink (w/Renraku Ichi OS and Sim Module Modified for BTL/Hot Sim)

Yikes! Now we know what happens to players that drop out of the game!!!

Bishop - as you may recall from the recruit thread, Gremish and I had established that our characters knew of one another, having been on the same continent and in basically the same profession about 10 years ago.

And just to nit pick - Remington 990 is magazine loaded. Holds eight rounds - so - 10 "clips" equals 80 buckshot (flechette) cartridges?

Al helps himself to those, dumping them into his satchel.

Commlink would be a nice bit o' booty, but that goes to Bubbles. Whatever data is on it, however....

I had to tie up loose ends...and I wasn't sure if people realized that this bar was the last place Axe was seen IC. Anything you had worked out earlier, still stands, so the knowledge of him in general is fine.

Nitpick away, clips was the easiest way to count the number of reloads.

Damn - there it is on page 2! Oh well, even if anyone remembered, my hat's off to 'em for not metagaming it, since none of our characters would have known about it.

Very cool to see the internal story consistency, though.

Well, I guess we've all got our thinking caps on now.

The drug is a transmitter. Okay. But how does the drug user, in addition to getting high, pick up the signal so he can find more drugs? Some sort of limited TM effect?

Things we have to decide -

* We have all these drugs now that we got from the Ragman.
Do we dump them to keep people from finding us? They may be tracking us as we speak! Or they think we're the Ragman, and will get aggressive once they realize he's dead.
Do we keep them, hoping someone is tracking us, so when they try to kill us we can nail them? To me, that seems like a bad play, cuz the fight would be on their terms, and the two people our team lost, Axe and Ryan, were our two best fighters.
Do we keep just a little, for more bloodhounding or maybe to try and get them analyzed?
I like dumping them all, but it's not a decision I'm going to make on my own.

* Assume we keep this guy's gear. How to get rid of the body? Just leave him here? Rolling dump in some alley while it's still early and no one's around? Contacts?

* Do we want to slightly risk operational security by calling some contacts to see what they might know? Ask about this new drug, maybe about Vory involvement?

* Bar Krutenau is obviously our best lead. Do we
A) Break in now while no one is around?
B) Wait till they open and go in?
C) Stake the place out for a day and see what we see?

* Fun for Bubbles when she gets back, if she is up for it...
A) Data on credstick?
B) Data on Axe's commlink?
C) Any more ways we can work this wifi frequency lead? On that one, she did give us the frequencies to scan for them ourselves...Al can do it if no one else cares to, but his Scan program is rating 1, like the rest of his crappy commlink (do have signal 3).

Gah, too much thinking.

You forgot the option of take more drugs, get shit-faced and find another dealer.

Let's start by getting the data off of the commlink and credstick. We may find something that changes our options.

My apologies for my absence. Let me assure you all that I have been up to no good in the intervening time.

But, from the looks of things, I came back just in time to avoid a nasty GM-inspired fate.

EW 3 + Scan 4 = 7 checking for frequency while walking to meet with others.
2 hits 1 6 2 4 4 1 5

sigh, looks like I missed buying the response up to 5... shall be remedied someday.

What are the rolls for hacking the commlink when we get together again?
Exploit 4 (Stupid response cap) + Hacking 4 extended roll for hacking on the fly?
2 hits 3 6 4 2 1 5 4 2
1 hits 3 4 5 1 4 4 2 3
1 hits 1 1 5 1 4 3 2 4
4 hits 1 4 3 5 6 4 5 5
(Stealth 4, stupid response cap...)

I think his nice commlink only has firewall 2, so that's possibly admin access.

And is Bubbles the only Hacker available?

Hmm, we have the commlink, we may have it hacked, but what we actually want to know is where has it been, e.g. backtrack it's data trail. If the device itself doesn't have it logged, what do you use to follow the data trail? There's text in the book all about covering up your own data trail, but nothing about how you use itself except for tracking down a current active persona/icon/connection with Track software.

Dire--You have admin access if you want it. I'll answer any questions the team has about the data on the commlink. As far as backtracking his datatrail, make an extended test (Data Search + Track, 1 min)

Bubbles don't do Track....

Which is why it might be useful is someone else has Track. What we just did, roll someone for their commlink, that's Bubbles style, this tracking down where a commlink has been through the Matrix, that's for VR heads.

Pesto can also hack but I figured Bubbles would be better at it. I also have the track program so since you have admin access to the commlink you can give Pesto a login and he can use his track program.

Amra--Do you want to post those tests and we can move forward?

Data Search + Track + Hot Sim VR = 3 + 5 + 2 = 9.


2,4,1,6,1,6,1,3,3 = 2 hits

3,6,4,3,3,4,6,3,4 = 2 hits

2,2,6,1,4,1,3,1,4 = 1 hit

1,5,6,3,4,1,1,2,1 = 2 hits

2,3,3,3,1,6,2,5,6 = 3 hits

Ok Hopefully these are enough rolls. My God are these some bad rolls.

Changing computers so will be offline for about the next three days.

Absolutely don't want to slow things down - Al will go along with whatever the team does, and Bishop has my sheet if any rolls are required.

See ya soon.

Waiting on some IC stuff to clear it's way. Once your discussion is completed, or on Tuesday, whichever comes first, I will push you along.

Unless I hear something different, I'm suspecting that you will do a drive and roll with the current body, keeping loot that you can use or sell. From there, the plan is still open on whether you are smashing firewalls of Bar Krutenau or instead smashing windows to let yourselves in.

Just give me a nudge when you think it's appropriate.

I'm sure we can think of several explanations to cover Flintlock's absence, when the time comes.

Nudge. As far as explanations to cover his absence, about an hour has gone by since this message was sent to the team.

"Business with trogs, will catch up."

Yeah, looks like we are waiting for the two techies to decide IC whether you can hack a cloud of nanites....
If they have a signal, which we know they do...
And IF they collectively form a node - much bigger if, I guess....

Dire let me know if you want Pesto to assist Bubbles or sit back and watch.

Not sure what we actually do, I think it'll be scan and analyze with either Hacking or EW, or some combination.

And I wouldn't surprised if nothing happens, or we need to pump someone full of nanites before it activates. If that's what they are.