I think a meet with Sonora's contact to get our weapons modified etc is still planned. Do we play that out or just summarize it somehow?

Mmm, I'll leave that up to Doc Chase. He can either opt for a summary or he can put his world-building skillz to use and come up with something elaborate. I'll go with it either way.

No problem chief. I'll get on that in a few minutes.

So you know boss, I'm going to be out of town for the next two nights; so I will be unable to post.

Word. I'll keep it in mind.

I'll be building La Guaira tonight/tomorrow. Got suckered into moving stuff in this weekend, but it'll be...interesting.

Building in process. I PROMISE. The 15th is coming up so there's customs paperwork out the keister. Should be done with the majority today so I can spend some time on it.

I'm still ridiculously busy with life... so carry on

You know what Doc? Sergei needs a second-in-command named Yosef. Former russian secret service type.

Iosef? I agree. Sergei has existed in my games in one form or another for about five years now.

Has everyone done what they needed or wanted to do for downtime? I think I need to start the plot rolling forward again. I want to bump it forward like two days from when Downtime started, when everyone met at the parking garage to dump off the Azzie.

I can do a summary of the gun meet, otherwise everything's done. We just want to assume Sergei has the swag the people that don't already have all their weapons need? If so, I'll blast through it , everyone who tagged along had lunch and it was great, and we can do our thing.

Abs: Do you want/need a list of what Sangre wants Sergei to install for him (he has all the necessary parts)?

I think we might as well do that. Was expecting someone else would have something do say or do within the scene, guess not. I would of done something, honest!

Besides, people will probably post more when the shooting and exploding are happening.

That's what I'm thinking to.

Sergei will be able to do mods and whatnot. We can assume that's possible. Since the price of the mods includes installation, and since you've already paid for them, we'll just say part of that money went towards Sergei's installation fees. Just be legit with docking the amount from your funds and we'll all be good.

All right. I'll edit my post with a summary, everyone has their happies, and we can get back to what we were doing.

Alright. I am going to assume that everybody has done what they want to do, but I'm going to leave last minute stuff up for declaration for the next 24 hours or so, give or take a couple hours. If anybody wants to do anything else in the downtime, let me know. Otherwise I'm going to advance the timeline.

I realize I haven't been around much lately. I've sorta been on vacation from everything, and the wife has (*ahem*) appropriated me more than I had anticipated. I love you guys and all, but not as much as I love getting laid. I hope you'll understand.

@Grimm
I do believe your timeline is going to pick up with Alex arriving in Barrio Santa Rosa, about when I set down the new posting date and time. Our stories will pick up from there. He's got a lead into that area for finding the mysterious person or person's "responsible" for the carnage near the Taqueria.

No problem boss.

And you should love us more than getting laid. Especially with the way you mercilessly violated Smiley's car.

Violated? He fucked that car like a one-legged hooker.

Alex oughta be able to catch us returning from the docks and spot Sammy hopping out to open a garage door for the rest of us. Now he just needs to think of how exactly he's going to confront a bunch of crazy bastards who allegedly blew up a section of town. Hopefully he can figure that out in time to help us hijack a boat.

All right, the rest of you get posting. I feel like I'm talking to myself.

There, I posted so you weren't talking to yourself. I also fast forwarded us back to the garage, so I apologize if anything wanted to say something witty to the russians.

Hooray!

I'm sure there will be increased opportunities later.

I'm back everyone.

And goddamn I got depressed writing that last entry. I hope it depresses all of you, too.

Damn it, I got ninja'd by Doc Chase. I hope that update doesn't fuck anybody up too bad.

No, it meshes pretty well. Smiley has three hours to make his pitch and we start planning before the news comes on and our plans change.

Three hours to make the pitch isn't a problem. The problem is that this plan is kinda dependant on a contact coming through with info. Everyone starts getting panicky before shit gets comfirmed, it can get hairy.

So yeah, Smiley would just love to hear from Devilbwoy any time now.

Look again: it's 27 hours later. I moved it to the next day, to keep things in the swing with my desired timeline.

Oh. Well then what the christ did everyone do within 27 hours? Stare at walls? It doesn't take a full day of walking and sneaking into buses/trains/etc to get to Barrio, so Alex must of fell asleep at some point.

Well, he is crazy. I'd assume we'd be getting furniture/defenses set up at the place, now that all this is rolling in.

Yeah, manic break could easily mean staying awake for 3-4 days.

Well, whatever. Everyone at the garage can now assume Smiley has explained his plan in full. As a recap for those who insist on not reading other peoples posts:

Smiley wishes to hijack a boat that is intent on smuggling weapons either in or out of Caracas, although he made a special preference for stealing guns intent on reaching Alianza that are being delivered by people from the Yanqui Drowners, or at least one of them. Smiley will point out that doing this will not only get the group a good bit of favor from local pirates, but these guns could be used to buy fast friends with any local militia or gang, like say the Bolivar.

Coatl oughta love the idea of killing a Yanqui Drowner, Sonora oughta like the idea of making Alianza not so well-equipped, and Dexter will like the idea of having a huge bargaining chip. Sammy/Sangre and Mono will probably just like the idea of having more guns.

EVERYBODY HAPPY!

I'm not. Can I have a hug?

Well how the hell am I supposed to read this recap, if you're posting it? You're not thinking here, man!


Ohhhhhh yeah.

Ok, so school has started up and is taking up a bit more of my time than I anticipated. If I have time tonight after math and English homework, I'll post, if not, I'll do it when I get an opportunity. I'll try my damnedest to stay in the game if I can.

Oh man, don't I know *that* feeling...

Going to once again dig for communications and see if there is any chatter about the elf or car.

7d6.hits(5)=4

Don't worry Doc, Smiley isn't asking because he wants to shoot her in the back. Not yet at least.

Heaven forbid she ever gets Medicine as a skill to patch you folks up - She'll pull a Simon on Smiley the moment she's able to.

Based off her skillset, knowledge skills and personal history cooking around in my head...Hmmmm.

I'm still around by the way. Just WAY too busy with life to actually post

And although I haven't posted so yet, Rastus is right on the ball. Dexter will probably agree with the idea of getting some supply to the Bolivar

@Grimm
I want an Electronic Warfare+Decrypt Extended test from you. It will be subject to a cumulative -1 penalty. Just roll your base pool, and keep rolling while subtracting a die from it each time until you don't have any more dice to roll. I want to see if you can get a certain threshold before you're unable to proceed.

And while you're at it, give me a Willpower+Logic test, too. No modifiers on that. May not even use the roll, but I want to go ahead and get the results in case a situation comes up.

One of these days you're going to have to start posting again. I mean, I don't want to tell someone to cut out an otherwise awesome writing style but if push comes to shove in order to do what you love(posting in this game), you could cut down the noir narration a tad. Make posting IC that much easier at least.

Off to hide in the bunker now.

I'm going to be away the whole weekend, very likely without internet acces.

Sorry about that Abs, I missed your post.

9d6.hits(5)=2
8d6.hits(5)=4
7d6.hits(5)=1
6d6.hits(5)=1
5d6.hits(5)=2
4d6.hits(5)=2
3d6.hits(5)=2
2d6.hits(5)=0 (Glitch)
1d6.hits(5)=0

Will + Logic
9d6.hits(5)=2

It's cool. I can proceed with what I had planned now.

I'll post it later on tonight. I'm currently at work. Once I get to a stopping point I'll take a break and put the update up.

Alright. A few points.

@Grimm and Rastus
Yes, Alex is, indeed, Sniffing out on Smiley's commlink. He's listening to the whole conversation from the point where I started relaying it to him. Grimm, assume that whatever Smiley and DevilBwoy say to each other, you are also hearing. Rastus, just keep the conversation with DB going as normal. I know you won't play the metagame card or anything. I had Grimm make the rolls in order to see if he got ahold of the transmission or not. I assumed that you were running your R:5 Encrypt.

@Doc Chase
That scene for Sonora is concerning that thing we talked about. Since you indicated you were interested in the idea, I went ahead and started some plot to work it in. The colored part is the part that did not happen. I indicated a lack of reaction on Coatl's part to make it clear that only she saw it.

I'm not leaving Coatl or Dexter out. I know you guys are still around. El Mono as well. El Mono is still in the game, but I'm assuming he's in the background. Rystefn has been polite enough to let me know he's still around, just busy, so I'm not putting him on the same bus as DrZaius and Lahmslea.

The Yanqui Drowners directly deals with Coatl's storyline, and the arms shipment (I think?) is intended to butter up Bolivar '49 (after the group picks through it I'm sure.) So this will also pull Dexter and Coatl into the plot once the initial conversationing is over with. So I didn't exclude you guys, I'm just letting things come together as of now.

This is post is to reflect the ooc mechanics of what Alex is about to do. IC post incoming shortly.

Threading together a Track CF:
8d6.hits(5)=1

Fading Resist Roll:
10d6.hits(5)=3

Improving the Track CF:
8d6.hits(5)=4

Fading Resist Roll:
10d6.hits(5)=4

If I'm doing this correctly, that should leave me with a Track(5) with all Threading stun resisted.

At this point, Alex is going to attempt to track the voice he recognizes from the video to its point of origin. I don't know what defensive measures he is running so I'll just post the rolls and you can just remove dice from the end of the roll to reflect Smiley's defenses. Also, if I read right; sustaining the Track CF will cause me to suffer a -2 to the rolls. So, I'll include that in the base rolls.

I also want to use Edge on the first increment roll of the Extended test.

Edge + Computer + Track - Sustaining
9d6.hits(5)=4

Scored one 6.
1d6.hits(5)=0

5d6.hits(5)=2

4d6.hits(5)=0

3d6.hits(5)=0

2d6.hits(5)=1

1d6.hits(5)=0

Christ these fuckers require a lot of dice rolling. Also, is it possible to start a new track on the signal from whatever node he ends up on last to try to pin down the signal? (Provided this can occur in the time span before Smiley and Devil hang up.)

Yes, alot of Matrix tests require absurd amounts of dice. But I have to go with the rules as they're written or it throws the game balance off. Sorry.

Okay, first point: It's a grey area in the rules, but for threaded CFs, I don't allow people to thread and then re-thread the same CF higher. In your case you would have a Track 4, since you got a Track 1, didn't like it, and then rethreaded it. So your pools will be down a point for that.

HOWEVER, when you thread and sustain a Complex Form, the sustaining penalty does not apply to those tests. So you would be up a point in that regard.

Here's the big bitch, though. Smiley is running a Rating 5 Stealth program. That applies itself as a dice pool penalty to ALL of those pools. So your real pool is -4 from those.

Your chances of succeeding aren't improved from your original rolls, and you need to hit a threshold of 10 to find him.

Making a GM call for the sake of getting the story going, since you got 6 hits on your original attempt, I'll round that up to 10 and say that since Alex was taking his time and being real careful he didn't get hit with the cumulative penalty, and that he eventually found where Smiley was. I'll make a post for that.

In the future I'll be a little more hardnosed about Track actions, especially in regards to using it on NPCs. But for now good enough is good enough.

Alright, no problem. Yeah sometimes the rules need to get fudged for the sake of the storyline. Otherwise, I'm gonna be spending a good long while searching Barrio Santa Rosa by foot. And no problem about the threading thing, the way I read the rules was that it would work which is why I did it.

Another thing I didn't realize was I could have had a sprite sustain it for me to negate a penalty, but I didn't notice that until after I posted.

You also probably could've just had a sprite do the Track for you. In fact when I originally read your IC post (which I read before your OOC mechanics post) that's what I thought you were doing.