Who's at the plate?

Yes.

If I understand this correctly, bar is filled with nasty smoke stuff, Bubbles is behind the counter playing dead, there have been a couple gun shots from the office area, some into the bar area, and one inside at least.

Despite the idiocy of sticking your head up in the midst of a shoot out, Bubbles can't resist, she'll now get up and then look over the counter to see what's happened!

I believe the get up and observe in detail will cover the actions.

Sooooo - wondering if maybe those of us blessed with third initiative passes shouldn't start working their way down the initiative roster with declarations/rolls/etc.

Well, I could have posted almost 3 weeks ago, but was waiting for a few things ... Dire to post IC ... the GM to confirm that the nasties don't actually have a action ... you know, trivial stuff.

I could post IC Bubbles laying still on the floor not breathing, but it doesn't seem that interesting.

You could. Or you could post the stuff that you said your character was actually doing.

Dunno what she'll be seeing though. No GM since I posted.

Just threw some fluff up in the IC, since it was literally a couple of days from slipping into the archival graveyard.

At this point I very much fear the worst from this game, but I won't bail until we get some word from the GM.

Works for me.

I'll throw up a dice roll if and when needed.

Ok, let's start with the apologies--A swarm of activities, both personal and professional hit me and Dumpshock made it's way to the bottom of my priority list. That doesn't really excuse me for missing a month of posts though. I'm sorry.

Thanks to Adamu for rattling my cage and getting me back in here.

Who all do we still have in the thread?

Well, me obviously!

(I am so happy I am ALMOST considering breaking my rule against using the little smiley face thingies.)

Yep still here.

Present and accounted for!

I am here as well.

Speaking OOC to save weeks of posts -

Assuming we can get either or both of these bitties conscious again, I have no doubt we could get further intel out of them, especially cross-examining both. And we definitely need more intel.

On the other hand, both are at least non-ambulatory, the van's a few blocks away, the police are coming, they could be wired/bugged, they will be missed by their people sooner than later, yadda yadda yadda.

All of which is short term.

Medium term ---- what is their "final disposition" under our care. THAT question, at least, I suppose maybe we ought to leave for IC...

My vote's in IC.

First Aid to Heal or Stabilize - I don't know how bad off she is, but it's the same roll, just a different result.

If it is Stabilize, that'll do for now until we get her in the van.

Skill + Attribute + R5 medkit -1 for Indoors = 11 dice (plus or minus whatever else from the GM - unwilling patient? Anyone with First Aid help out for +1 die each? Her implants? Don't care if she's magical or a TM)

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

She is now stabilized.

Pesto can get the van to the bar real quick without anyone leaving it.

I agree in IC for that question.

wow - just wow

I have spent all evening poring over the thread to get my brain back up to speed on all that is going on - what a cool mystery.

Anyway, I am only about half done resifting through all this stuff, but as I am sure everyone else already knew, we are now sitting on a freaking TON of leads - we have the rich man's problem of having more useful things to do and follow up on than we will ever have time for (especially in a forum game).

But just to chime in OOC at this point - one thing I think is that we should NOT kill Tara.

I am aware that the conclusions we have reached over the past couple of days are that

We need to wrap up and skedaddle
It is too much trouble to haul two unconscious bad guys out of here
We haven't talked to Hayden yet (and my guess is she knows more), so we take her.

Now, that also implies that Flint is going to put a bullet in Tara's head on our way out of here, and that was fine with me.

But thinking again -
Reason we need to off her - she knows our faces, knows what we're after.
Well, not only is someone soon going to figure out they've got some active players after them, they apparently already have an assumption about who we are (and it seems possible that their assumption is correct). And as for faces, Clara was hacked already, and who knows what else - Hayden may have already sent our images out anyway.

And reason not to kill Tara, but just leave her - she won't be conscious for a good while.
She's tied up anyway.
While she's out, her headware comm (or her brain if she's a drug-created faux TM) remains largely defenseless, and Pesto wanted to hack that one-way trap door he found in her system...who knows where that leads...
When she comes to - contacting her own people could just get her killed anyway. But if she does go to them, and we've still got a covert link to her comm...

Just thoughts - we have a LOT of leads now, and if people think it is just easier to off her, not a big deal to Al.

Eager to hear others' thoughts on this and other issues, OOC or IC.

I plan on a big clue/lead round-up once I finish sifting through the thread to my satisfaction.

If you want to take her with us as well, I can understand that, but I still don't see why it'd be better to leave her alive than dead.

As for the overall, overarching plot and any potential leads, Flintlock was away for a bit, so might not be as up to date on everything as the rest of you.

One reason to take them both is that one of them is shot up real bad. She may die or not be able to give us any intel for a long while. That is unless someone has a healing mage as a contact.

The other one can be "questioned" without worring about her dying, well at least not having any extra worrying due to a gun shot wound.

I agree. I was referring to the suggestion that we leave one, but don't kill her. Makes not much sense to me to do that. But I have no problem with taking them both.

You guys are absolutely right - if we have uses for both, we should try to take both.

And the idea of just leaving one here alive was basically stupid.

I often am guilty of overthinking things - good to yank my leash and remind me to keep things simple.

So, one question is, just how big is our Van of Holding? Five of us, plus the two waitresses? I suppose if we must we can leave the beer kegs...

Pesto? Bishop?

Another thing, the main reason to break the plan Al stated IC - to take Hayden and "leave" Tara is that Pesto found a cool trap door to hack. But the fact is that Al knows not a thing about that.

So IC-wise, bringing Tara along is up to amra28....

(On that topic, there is a freaking wealth of good stuff the Sun got out of Tara in the interrogation ...and the stuff Mitch said! - did you guys maybe tape that or anything? Is it cool for the rest of us to discuss it OOC? Especially in forum games I reckon table talk is a good thing to keep things moving at a decent pace, but don't want to step on any toes...)

Figure we can keep the jammer on both of them till we get moving, then we can work on whatever with our friends.

Leaving dead bodies for the Star is leaving evidence.

Does that mean you want to take Mitch as well?

Anyway, since we are pretty much on our way out of here, maybe a quick inventory -

Two naked women on the way out.

The forge was already loaded into the van.

Al's pockets contain the contents of the lockbox behind the bar.

The girls' possessions - someone have those?

Sure would like to know whether Hayden was carrying a commlink. Tara wasn't, but she had a node nonetheless. We have assumed that means a headware comm...have we confirmed that?

I guess that makes three bodies in the van.

Bubbles can walk, or steal a car.

Mitch could also have something valuable for us.

Not really sure how many can fit in the van, up to Bishop.

As you suggested we can leave the beer (my heart breaks), plus only the injured prisoner and the driver need to be comfortable for a short trip.

Someone can hitch a ride with flint on the bike.

Is Flint taking the Shotgun?

RE: The Van--Plan that it can fit 8 people. Each keg counts as 1 person.

Flint is taking any and all guns that have been found. Got a list?

If you are refering to the old shotgun that was under the bar though, Flint already put that in his bike storage compartment a long time ago when he got out his Medkit (I actually even wrote about it IC).

Bubbles also counts as two people. so no kegs!

But Flint can take Sun, so that's a keg back.

Actually it is crowded in the van. There is a large and medium drone in there.

Edited my IC post ... for those keeping track.

Sounds about fine to me.

I'm good with that.

Maybe you could fit a keg on top of Mitch.

Firepower level good.

Lack of magical support bad.

I just had another thought. Bubbles and Pesto will probably want to hack any nearby camaras to erase all footage of us in this immediate area. I believe we got a list sometime when we first scouted the place.

A very good idea indeed.

Cameras we've spotted are pointed at the nearby intersection or directed at the storefronts of some of the nearby businesses.

Near as we can tell, none look at Bar Krutenau.

But there could be some we missed, and in any case it seems very unlikely that we didn't get picked up at some point in all our comings and goings.

Adamu--Do you have any demolitions skills? If not roll Logic-1 just to see how well you get the building burning...

Team--Where are you headed since you can't stay at the bar?

You mean, after Flintlock retrieves his bike?

edit: Oops ... already done (note to self (yet again) Read IC thread before posting!).

Starbucks?

Okay dokey - the problem with forum games is that a few hours in our characters' lives has been spread out over a year now in RL.

So, since we are currently at a big "what next?" moment, I thought it would help us make a better decision if we had a sort of recap of information gathered so far.

There are no insights here that I'm not certain haven't already occurred to everyone, no clues I noticed that everyone else already hasn't. But I thought it would be helpful to have some of those clues and theories condensed into one post.

Everything here is known to at least one of our characters, but much of it is not yet known to all - at least there has been no IC sharing of some of the info.

(A quick - "The team quickly brought each other up to speed on the things they'd each experienced over the past thirty minutes" post in the IC by someone might be pretty helpful, but it probably STILL would not leave every individual character knowing every detail. So we are deep in OOC table talk territory with this post.)

The job:
Destroy manufacturing facility.
Identify whoever is bankrolling the operation.
Lethal force along the way encouraged but not required.

From Mitch's sampling, we learned that the drug - at least what the Johnson gave us - is similar to Ecstacy - lowere inhibitions and control, heightens outgoing behaviors and sensory feedback.

We confirmed that wanting another fix leads the user to something - the drugs? the dealer? The former seems more likely.

Led us to the Ragman.
He talked about hostages.
He thought he had Doc Wagon coverage.
As he was dying, he wanted someone to take his jacket, which was full of the drugs.
There may be clues there. But he acted crazy (who is his invisible friend Vanya?). And Tara said he was crazy (is she believable?)

More concretely:
At the moment we physically captured him, he self-destructed. It was massive internal damage at the cellular level that started from his lungs and worked its way out.
It honestly doesn't seem like he was interested in triggering it himself....
He also had a subcutaneous security RFID that had recently been implanted, and enough product to qualify as a dealer. This gives the lie to Tara's statement that he was no more than a crazy addict, at least partially.

We examined the RFID, but couldn't trace it to anything.
I could find no IC or OOC reference to destruction or disposal of the Sec Tag - which means that unless I missed something, Bubbles may still have it...

We discovered by accident that the aerosol form of the drug (nanites?) can and does form itself into a Matrix node which tries to connect itself to the Grid. The more of the stuff there is, the stronger the signal.

We tried hacking it.
Our first finding was that whenever the hacker tried to get their claws into any part of the node, the nanites forming that part would die off, their tasks being taken over by other parts. This makes it very resilient to hacking attempts (at least the ones we tried).
Dire theorized that this might be a good way to crash such a node - heavy brute force hacking could cause it to sort of self-destruct.
Upon further experimentation, however, we found that that only caused dispersed parts of the cloud to reform on a different frequency.
We also found that it seemed that even if we could hack it, it never formed a complete node - there was some missing ingredient to the cloud we tried hacking in Al's internal air tank.
THEORY - requires a biological component (brain?) to "complete the circuit."
NEXT THEORY at that point: how can the drug help people find more drugs? Since even the drugs in cannisters for sale were found to emit a signal, then IF the drug needs a brain to form a node, it could then Scan for a familiar Matrix connection - the drugs.
This is the first point at which any of us started conjecturing in IC about any sort of TM-like phenomenon. Note that the game is taking place Oct 18, 2070 - at which point public awareness and hysteria regarding both TMs and AIs is in full swing.

Ragman had matchbook for Bar Krutenau.

Outside the bar we found a merc known as Axe dead by drugs.

In the bar we found a bunch of encrypted files, a stash of drugs and what might be base materials for the drug - something in more raw form, it looks like - and also a forge which we think can make up to 100 doses of the drug per day.

The files were a wealth of info -
Treatises on medicine, chemical engineering, matrix design theory
Also references to AIPS - Artificially Induced Psychotropic Schizophrenia Syndrome - the supposed precursor or sign of TM capability.

Reference to a clinic in Georgetown (southern part of Downtown district of Seattle 'Plex), which we have reason to believe is South Seattle Medical Center.

We found distribution schedules that indicate this forge is NOT the main manufacturing facility.
It is a distribution facility (as is another place called Location Bravo). The dealers it supplies generally cover 70 city blocks each (freaking huge - think of the cost efficiency), relying on customers to be able to find them.
(Tara said that the "boys in the lab" make a "base product" which distribution centers "modify to different forms" - by different forms she seemed to be implying delivery formats - pill and whatnot - but I am wondering if there aren't different variations on this substance - also, if it's a pill or a liquid, can it still coalesce into a node?).

THEORY: If all the "base material" is made at "the lab," then that's our target - South Seattle Medical Center or some part thereof seems a likely candidate.

Also on the files, and very interesting is that Seattle is a test market (very large organization we are dealing with???), and that the "positive results" have outweighed the negative side effects of subject death.

THEORY: Positive effects refers to success with developing a TM-creating drug, with zillions of eager drug fiends not only acting as test subjects but also subsidizing the operation???

We captured Tara, who is obviously some sort of player, and in the employ of our opposition organization. Only a hired gun, maybe, since she doesn't know as much as she might.

we have her still as a prisoner.

Among other toys, she had an aerosol cannister in her shoe. To the best of my knowledge we have not determined its contents.
She also had a detonator in her shoe (not really accessible for emergency use...), which we disabled, but we have not found what, if anything, it was associated with.

We found no commlink anywhere on her, and yet she maintained not only an active node, but also its connection to the Grid. Headware? I would sure like to confirm that there really is headware there, and not just some drugs....

Hacking her node, there were records of calls to "Three" and "Five," with partial access codes, or something like that.
Her node is full of webs and other spider imagery, and they resonate ominously when browsing for info on the drug is done.
There is a one-way portal to somewhere that Pesto was about to hack but didn't have a chance to.

Interrogation revealed many interesting statements.
In addition to the aformentioned stuff about the Ragman being crazy and the "base material," she said:

She said that the office belonged to Keith. It seems he's her boss, the next person up the ladder.

She insulted people twice (Sun & Ryan, then Ragman) by calling them "wastes of flesh." She also twice referred to a "price" associated with using the drug ("pay a price" and "realize the price."
Those really might be nothing, but I always get suspicious when the same exact turn of phrase comes up multiple times.

More importantly, she said that we were "the wastes of flesh sent to look in on us". And that we had no idea what we'd stepped into.

To me, that line strongly suggests that her organization has a rival faction or upper echelon that they are concerned will be displeased with what they're doing. Our Johnson may or may not represent such an internal rival.

Which brings us to Mitch.
Hayden shows up and we have to fight to capture her. Actually, she goes aggressor on us.
Many questions - Probable that she only tipped to our presence as she got close, since she didn't call any other members of this organization to help her. Overconfidence? Figured back-up would go scorched earth and she has a personal connection with Tara so wanted to try to save her (could be capitalized on in interrogations)?
And what was her goal? It wasn't to silence Tara, or Mitch would have shot at Tara instead of Ryan. Was it to grab something (if so, did she get it and do we now have it?) Rescue Tara?
In her attack, she hacked our drone, and then used some kind of drug/poison gas on us.

In VR in Clara's node, right after inhaling and being affected by the drug, Pesto encounters evil porcelain doll contruct, which twice plays "now you see me now you don't".

Mitch has no protection from the gas then enters the office.
Now, from the moment he enters the office, he's hostile, not just from the moment he shoots. We can infer that from the fact that Sun saw him steal a gun instead of just ask his teammates for one.
This behavior - taking drugs earlier/getting gassed now --> Hayden is obviously a skilled hacker --> having let the break-in/interrogation take place and only doing any betraying NOW --> everything we've already learned, point to the idea that Hayden hacked Mitch"s brain, that the drugs rendered his mind open to wireless connectivity and she took advantage of it. Hell, maybe if her gas grenade had affected more of us, she could have had us all, explaining her having the confidence for a lone cowgirl attack.

IF that is correct, it coud explain Mitch's attack line - "Fuck the major." If she, like Tara, assumed she knew who we worked for, she might say that. And our Johnson had a very military officer bearing. Could well be that we work for one side of an internecine conflict, that our J is "the major," and that the opposition is expecting us, knows who we work for already, and possibly only expects us to have a limited mission ("looking in on us"). I think this is further supported by the fact that we are ordered to destroy a physical asset, and kill who gets in our way, but rather than a specific kill or capture order, we only have to IDENTIFY the top bad guy - keep rogues execs in line, but don't be too harsh? Maybe I'm reaching on that part.

Final and much less interesting note -
Yaks control most of the chip trade around here.
Mafia dabble in combat drugs, but
Triads handle most of the street drugs.
Vory trying to break into market.

Somewhat more importantly - the bar we just burned pays protection to the Ragers, who pay protection to the Mafia.

So there's the roundup of our progress so far. I would REALLY like if it anyone and everyone throws in any additional insights, observations, clues, whatever, cuz I'm sure I missed a lot.
(And my hat is off to the GM for creating such a rish milieu.)

I am not sure where we should now GO. Pesto is driving....

Some ideas on what to do -

Boring but maybe important -
inventory of stolen stuff - Ragman's sec tag, aerosol in Tara's boot, EVERYTHING Hayden was wearing, shotgun, etc.
Need to scan all of it if we are to have any hope of not being located and gangbanged by a much superior force.

And does Tara have headware or not?

We need to hack that trapdoor in Tara's head.

Hayden will have a node...external, internal comm?

We need to interrogate Hayden.
How to find Keith?
Who is the Major? Who is the other faction?
Where is Location Bravo?
Security at South Seattle Medical Center?
Who has she told there is trouble - how long for a response to the bar burning, them going missing?
How did she hack Mitch? How does the drug work? Are there different forms?

General research on South Seattle Medical Center.

Once we do all this stuff, we are almost sure to have more data than we do now.

So I would suggest just going somewhere quiet and well out of this neighborhood (anyone have a safehouse?) and doing the hack, loot exam, and interrogation.

But we can't take too darned much time with it, cuz very soon the opposition is going to know there is trouble and either batten down the hatches or come gunning for us or both.

Sorry for the longest post in the world.

Just a note - I am currently travelling and will be for the next few weeks. I will still be checking in as often as possible, but if I am off the grid for a bit, PLEASE do not wait - Al will go along with whatever you guys want to do, and Bishop can roll for me.