We should be wrapping this soon then. Any ideas for the title of the Between-work thread?

Well, as a group, we have some housecleaning to do... leftovers that I can think up immediately include:

1. Disposition and full debrief of the hog-tied dude sitting in a shack somewhere
2. Dispose of Eyes's body
3. Move out the other 6 kids, debrief them as much as possible (get the data dump on what they went through)
4. Work out from the new Johnson whether they're interested in any of the info we've collected
5. Figger out whether or not we can keep Dances as a contact

Personally, Caliph has a couple goals
1. Get his truck back.
2. Talk to wise man colorado, get him to keep some feelers out for Blood of the People info.
3. Figger out how to spend the rest of the money.

@Rob
So I know I've been a little slow to post over the past few weeks, but give me a chance to post on par k? Caliph was zipping around this last scene like Mercury. I was posting my steps slowly to give you a chance to post on par. I have been trying to post in every day.
--------
@Fisty
You said something in a post or IM about the name of the evac crew. I can't find that now that I'm trying to. (Yes, I realize I'm probably blind. )
--------
Perhaps some disposal there as well.
Check
I need to connect up with Spider. I think Virginia's com is compromised. Hell, she might even be.
Getting the rest of the initial pay is the first step there, though this is a good call. We should see if there is any follow up. Though I am still itchy to get out of town and let the heat cool down.
And Virginia and determine if the 2k is enough to repair the hard feelings with the evac crew over the continual changes in terms.

Nix - Personal Goals
1. Work with Spider. Get Nix' com and com security state of the freakin' art.
2. Eat at a nice oriental restaurant.
3. If that karma bonus comes, initiate (psychometry).
4. Bind up a slew of elementals
5. Pick up an attractive, dark skinned, elven girl with low self esteem and sweat out some stress.
6. Find a decent rating health focus and bond it.
7. Send his wife an expensive gift. (ok, ex-wife)
8. Buy a chameleon suit.

@RJ - word. Sorry bout that. A little bit of RL rob stepping over IC Caliph. at some point at the end of the thread or in the OOC we should post some ideas that the characters would've worked out hanging around after hours.

@Rob - Agreed. Memory serves that when we started this run, Nix and Caliph had all sorts of code phrases between each other.
Truth be known, when the pressure is on in RL I get pretty autocratic and I know that despite the fun on this run we both were growing anxious for the end. I'm extremely happy that the three of us lasted this out.

ok RJ, some clarification on your pay:

I double checked the agreed upon pay. The agreement was for 20K of the 100K up front, plus an additional 5K for leaving fast. The few Johnson has 4 credsticks valued at 20K, for a total of 80K, plus the additional 12K for the Evac crew.

And the evac/smuggler crew is called the Sky People.

Nix still hasn't gotten a reply from Spider,

Pay: Thanks for the clarification
Sky People: Noted
Spider: Got it.

Thanks!

Post updated.

*pokes his head out from his lurking* So was that a "No, we don't want Mickle's interesting character clogging up our game"?

No, welcome aboard. How's your edge?

We're looking at a very lucky (5 edge) combat hacker who, surprisingly enough (to me) doesn't suck hardcore at either aspect.

I thought that was understood - I grabbed the money from the new johnson and gave it to Rupert a while ago, specifically so they could GTFO with a quickness. Figured they'd appreciate that more than awkward remonstration at the scene.

Yep. They're paid and good to go. They just hadn't actually left yet, not wanting to take off in te middle of attack helipcopters.

The boy is delivered and safely away. The job is finished. If you'd like, we can wrap the rest OOC and get on with getting on. Unless there's something you'd like to address IC still of course.

At least as far as I am concerned, I think this might throw us into the "in between runs/setup for next run" phase.

There's lots of stuff he'd look into - kind of detailed in last IC post. Your call on how to run it.

Just waiting for RJ to send in his vote.

We can wrap the following items up in OOC if you like:
1) Get back to fox-boy, determine what his additional value is to Mr Johnson. At this point, I realize we have a buyer of "1".
2) Retrieve Eye's body and deal with it.
3) Get the reward money from Virginia for the additional boys.
4) Caliph's ride
5) Back to Seattle.

Once back in Seattle, a whole new list starts. If Spider has not replied by then, that is job #1. We owe him more than a few nuyen.

1) Fox-Boy is dead. The body is splattered all over the place, the victim of ritual sorcery.
2) Eye's body- Virginia can take care of that, for a small fee ($500)
3)Net another 180,000 from the other boys return. Virginia got her cut, and the corp took some as well, although they made a bigger deal of the PR they got out of it.
4) Caliph's ride can be picked up, and repaired for about 20K worth of body and frame work. The Sky people can be taken as Smuggler contacts , Loyalty 2, connection 3 (they're good, but limited in scope).
5)Back to Seattle. Easy Enough

Spider- Spider was nailed by the rival decker as the team was leaving the orphanage. He got blackhammered, but survived, thanks to a biomonitor and doc wagon. He's debating the merits of hunting the decker down.

The orphanage's dorector shows up dead the next day. She was hit by a car. Very sad. There are account numbers on the comp, but of course no pass keys or codes.

Caliph is the opinion that we should take care of eyes' body, for two reasons -
1. Why pay $500 when a simple thermite grenade will do the trick? (he knew the ropes).
2. Recover is commlink iff possible and get our info off it. Distribute the rest of his stuff if it's still there.

With his ride, Caliph was going to go back and spend some time with the sky people, contribute elbow grease to the job, maybe learn something, and bond with new friends. He will also pay them for the orginal airlift of his truck that got us out of the 'multiple-elemental' situation. I had some plans for modifying the vehicle - mostly since Arsenal came out after he was created, and he really would've orginally purchased a Hotspur in the first place.

As far as contacts go, we've got New Johnson and Sky People. Can we also get Virginia and Dances-on-Clouds?

RJ - can caliph trade contact info for Raul in exchange for a meet-up and introduction to Spider?

Also, Caliph was planning on taking the long way home (driving), and detouring to meet Wise Man Colorado and give him the info on the bad guys, take Raul out to lunch on the way.

Alright, then since you're goign to be doing work on the vehicle anyway, and sticking around in the area, drop yor cost down to 15K, as you'll be able to use some available materials and facilities, and probably cover some of the repaired infrastructure in your upgrades. Caliph can take Loyalty 3 Sky People.

Virginia 3/3 , Mr Johnson - Iris Computer Systems 1/4 , Dances on Clouds - Corp Mage - 3/3

If you want to take on Eyes body yourselves, just let me know specifically what you want to do with it.

What mods are you doing on the vehicle? Or will you buy a new one? Or both? You've got some cred to work with now?

20 karma for actually completing a Dumpshock Shadowrun

1) Ughh. Does nothing for my paranoia except kick it into overdrive.
3) For that kinda payday, they can have the PR.
4) Pay that out of team funds.

Rob - We need to drop some serious nuyen on Spider. We are setting on a positive balance of 247,640 for this run (after the above repairs to your ride). What say we each take 100k and drop the rest on Spider? He did help several times in the run and cleaned up the electronics at the climax, not to mention getting flat lined.

Agree to both.

I already paid the 3k for the first extraction at time of delivery.

Fisty - What is the company name for Dances & Johnson. Does Johnson have another name or title?

Sure.

Fisty - While Caliph does that, Nix will meet with Trixy. Provide her the connections to the kids (excluding details about Jonus, Dances, etc). Provide photos of the foxy-boy post ritual death, the connection with WalkingHawk and several 'scoop' items that do not compromise Dances or the team.

RJ - There's pretty much nothing left of any use on Nix'x commlink. It was thoroughly hacked by a top notch decker before he moved on to trying to crash it. Any information Nix would have compiled, including pics, would have to be dug up again. Following up, the decker used Nix's own research to tie up loose ends, deleting information through out the matrix, leaving very little in the way of a data trail. The kidnapped children information would be around, with some digging, but a lot of the data correlaations would no longer be around on the 'net.

Alright, but he's gotta give Trixy something. He can definitely give her footage of fox-boy, post ritual. He can provide the names of the other children, the orphanage and Walking-Hawk.... Yea, its all weak but she is a tabloid reporter after all.

He can also cuss very loudly and long about comlinks.

Just read thru you guys game a couple days ago and Pm'd Fist to say what a good read it was. Looks like I am getting to join up so I wanted to introduce myself. I am currently hashing out a Investigator type character (Skill Monkey/Face).

@fist- I was just wondering if there were any house rules for contacts. I read the other thread you pointed to at the beginning of this one but I may have missed it. In RL I tned to glitch a lot on perception checks.

Will have my character up by tommorow hopefully, I have most of the background figureds out in my head, just need to put it on paper and finish number crunching the stats.

Thanks for letting me join such a good group.

RJ - the footage on the commlink was deleted. Hell, his phone number list was deleted. The decker took a lot.

Ravens- 500 BP, everything else was pretty much the usual. RJ, rob, let me and Raven know if Ive forgotten anything I allowed you at build.

Welcome.... and as you probably saw, we have no issues letting character's die when they are abandoned by their players. The last run took 18 months so I hope you have a strong dose of perseverance and patience!

You seem to be misunderstanding.
You said we found fox-boy dead when we went to check on him... I'm going to shoot it then. I understand my com is toasted.
And I sent the list to Virginia, plus having looked at it. Even if Virginia's was wiped as well, I should be able to remember a few names... right?
(Grumbling about damn hackers...)

On another note, just recovering from the paranoia of this run will cost Nix 75k (I just worked up the spread sheet of expenses.)

Also, it would be real nice to have one of the new players with local contacts where ever the next run is. (hint, hint...)

Barring anything major happening in RL then I should be just fine. I read thru the IC post and thought it was an excellent stroy so I am interested in keeping it going.



Unless there are rules about free contacts I have all of mine tied into the Agrus group. It fits with the character background plus I ran outta BPs.

Also, some of the equipment and contacts I was wanting to get, I didn't have enough BP for, so I am writing a background to show Alex coming out of a run-gone-bad. Where he lost some of his best fake Sins, all of his spydrones, his main lifestyle (a high lifestyle linked to his best sin) and other bonus equipment. Thus leaving him pretty much with what he was carrying for the run or was in his safehouse (1 month Middle Lifestyle w/ high security). I think it makes an interesting background and already gives me a list of purchase items to buy in the future.

I have the character stats crunched just need to put a bettter finish on the background, Should have it available tomorow.

huh... that reminds me. Where do you want Brennan to be posted?

@RJ - with respect to Caliph's truck and Spider, we can either treat them as team resources or individual resources. Absolutely concur with the notion that we should drop some $ on Spider (nicer than a fruit basket and a get well card). I propose the following:
1. Bank $27,640 on 'Get well' and 'payment for services rendered' stuff for Spider. Chose that number because it's about equivalent to the amount spent on Caliph's truck and makes for a nice even number for the rest to be divvied out. That $20K for the truck will go into a slew of other improvements.
2. We got another $20K - minimum - in business that he gets first bid on: both of us will need new high-rating fake IDs, and we should seriously consider a team 'hacked software pool' that includes some defensive utilities and an agent we can load on our commlinks to f**k-up intruders.

Concur with the price tag of the resultant paranoia, as well - I recall the start of this run, when some folks thought we were too cautious. Anyone who reads the backstory will understand why now.

Also, WRT cybersecurity and the commlink hack - caliph's going to get a fake tooth with a datachip installed to back up his commlink to (0 essence cost, baby!). Suggest you do the same.

WRT Trixy - Caliph's still sitting on a whole bucket of info from this run, including targetable information vs. Walkinghawk (whom he reserves the right to murder, at a future, less hot, date. The assassination of foxyboy and moonswallow makes him rethink that now). He didn't lose much. Caliph and Nix can cross level this info. Just of note, if Trixy runs the exclusive, then (unless something else equally calamitous has happened to the BoTP organization), they'll figure us for the source of info and try to kill her. We've already dumped all this info on Iristech's johnsons, Caliph will dump all this info on Colorado, in between the three of them that might scare the bad guys enough to slow 'em down.

WRT to the paycheck: Man, that's a fat stack of cash. Do we want to drop about $20K into a team fund, for the kind of stuff we had to pull out of our rear for on this run?

@Raven, Mickle: Word with RJ. Took us a minute, a whole lot of drop outs, and a couple unfortunately timed commo lags on many of our parts, to get through this. If you're in, look forward to more cool peeps.

Same here. Where shoudl Alex be posted?

@RJ, Fisty-

Shorthand - WRT = with respect to.

WRT loose ends:
1. Caliph ain't worried about the grappling hook he left on the building- it wouldn't have fingerprints, since he couldn't have handled the apparatus without climbing gloves on, and it's a hunk of metal at best tied to a soon-to-be-burnt ID.
2. WRT the car left in the grocery store's parking lot - Still might have some biometric samples. Orphanage wouldn't have linked it to us, since spider hacked their cameras, but the grocery store might. Not worried about the fake ID, since Johnson got it for us. Caliph will send Virginia a quick heads-up that it's still out there, in case she has some loose ends to tie up. To do it best, either she or we can pay some gutter kid to willy-pete the car. Caliph is willing to pay for that service if it comes down to it. All the Iristech people deserve a heads-up on the possible personal seucrity threat.
3. WRT Eyes' body: Forgot he was in a hotel room. Given the heat, too risky to move it from a public place like that unless we can bribe the desk clerk (quite reasonable, if it's a seedy place) or forge credentials as his family on short notice. Pay one of the hotel workers to grab the stuffand report the body. After that, divide the stuff, pray for the dearly departed. His contacts will find out he's dead from the obituary. If Virginia 'handling the body' for 500 means something similar to this, and we can get his stuff, I'm cool with that.

@Ravens, Mickle - we have our characters posted in "Cast of Shadows"

@Fisty - how do you want to manage the 'post-run shopping list' and karma expenditure? PM? Post here? I'll detail the vehicle mods there.

@Rob - Ok starting with 267,640 -20k Caliph's vehicle -27,640 Spider -20k Buy IDs from Spider -20k team fund = 90k each

Just need to get something to Trixy. Enough to smooth over the data she provided earlier, not enough to get her killed. Grease the contacts, keep 'em happy, maybe even earn some additional loyalty.


I got high hopes for a great game.... but be warned, I'm from Missouri (the 'Show Me' state). Let's strap in and game on!

Forgot about the car. It was a dumper though.

Yea. Just as easy to let her handle it and be done with it.

Greetings from across the river, mate! Illinois, here.

-@RJ:

Yeah, but eyes's stuff is worth a buck or 2... We might seriously want to devote some resources if it's still round...

Concerning Eye's gear, remember that he was shot in the head. Which means there was a person there. They would have taken anything if any real value, such as his commlink. That would also mean that they've got from Eyes, Caliph's, and Nix's comms all the information they collectively had together , including contacts information, fake SINs an licenses, passkey information that might have been on there, etc.

Gee, good thing there's a hacker to be adding to the team, plus cred to burn on upgrading your commsec.

Raven, Mickle, the Cast of Shadows Sticky would be the place to post your characters, as rob/RJ handily pointed out.

For addendums, PM me the changes, and make alterations to your posted sheet.
If there's anything you have questions on, or anything that has a high Avail that you need to roll for, let me know before assuming and adding.

Poopy! Eyes had some good stuff. Oh well, can't have our cake and eat it too. On that note, then, Caliph will call his friends and tell them his new commcodes, when it becomes appropriate.

For the truck, when Arsenal came out and I saw the 'Tata Hotspur", I thought "that's the vehicle Caliph would drive'. And also more along the lines of how I'd been describing his truck from the start. So, on the assumption that it's the same truck, can he pay the difference in price between the Bulddog and the Hotspur (25 K + 15K for repairs) and take the newer truck?

Since he lives in the back, I would take a 40 point hit in speed and a 10 point hit in max accell (making it 160 and 20/40, respectively) for the fact that he has a camper back installed with living space. He's also taking "high" amenities to account for teh space restrictions (2 slots).

Posted stats in the Cast of Shadows thread, still working on the final draft of the background. Let me know if I need to make any changes.

@Fisty

Just posted the background as well, Let me know what you guys think. Feedback is always welcome.

In our (these days rare) table top games, I have a general policy that if you weren't able to get something before because of lack of a book, then you can swap out for it later. So yes, go ahead.

RJ- Your upgrades all look good (and make sense, what a wonder! So rare these days). What metamagic are you learning?

Psychometry (imagine that!).... and I'm wishing I've have never wasted karma on Quickening. You've taught me to hate that one.

I've had the same problems with Quickening myself In theory, it's awesome, but as soon as you start running into wards, it becomes a huge problem. Be glad that I don't use Grounding like I do in my House games. Mostly it becomes a pretty deep karma sink. But it most definitely does have uses. Just be creative.

RJ

While thinking about my acquisitions, I was thinking through a brief review of the mission and places where we performed well or goofed. Since this is something Caliph and Nix should talk about in the interim (the hard work portion of developing team SOPs), here's the brief version of what I came up with from Caliph's point of view. I consider this a psuedo-IC post.

1. Meet with the fixer: Went well. Lots of PAN to PAN comms, potentially decipherable.
2. Meet with the Johnson: Went more or less well. Some mission creep between 'the meet' and 'initial reconnaissance and info collection' that caused heartache at the time.
3. Transportation after the meet: Headache. Should've rented a spare car or budgeted for taxis, so we could split up.
4. Recon of area around Dances house: Went well, but didn't glean any useful information.
5. Data searches and other leads: Went well, but discombobulated.
6. Meeting at the police station: Gained some good info. Could've gained more if somebody more likeable than Caliph did it. Wasn't thinking about countersurveillance at the time, which contributes to them picking up our lead and ambushing us. Camera neutralizer would've been useful.
7. Ambush with the spirits: Need additional threat detection and offensive capability on the truck. More armor wouldn't hurt, either. Higher rating decrypt/electronic warfare capability to pick up threat. Need a better way to detect magical surveillance of us. Sniper rifle was effective. Foxy boy went down like a chump, thanks primarily to Nix. Walkinghawk damn near killed us. One combatant ineffective due to external circumstances.
8. Extract from the site, interrogation of Foxyboy: Both went well, no issues. Better wards on holding cell, maybe plan ahead for prisoner capture/containment/extraction. Could've gotten Walkinghawk alive if we'd done it better.
9. Raid of the orphanage: So-so. Sustain stelath on scene and patient approach. Buy higher rating Taser or nonlethal weapons and learn how to use it. Lots of PAN-to-PAN commo, too much matrix commo w/spider, should've had a rehearsal beforehand or on-site decker. Should've broken link over matrix after Spider initially neutralized security systems. Need better defense against security deckers. Could've used more guns, with more hardwired connections, for perimeter security. Next time bring stealth rope. Pulled an extraction method out of our rear, should've thought about it/rehearsed/coordinated for it prior to op execution.
10. Wrap-up: CHA-CHING!

Caliph's take home:
- Spend some money on trruck.
- Beef up Commlink, matrix security.
- Buy some additional sensors/privacy stuff
- Shuffle some weapons
- Learn basics of influence skill group.

1. Meet with the fixer: I have the spell Mind-Net. That cannot be hacked. We should use that.
2. Meet with the Johnson: Some creep is expected as we seek to understand and brainstorm. I consider that positive.
3. Transportation after the meet: This will be case by case, but now that we have an expense account we should use cabs when needed.
4. Recon of area around Dances house: Eye's spell based recon was one of the best clues of the game.
5. Data searches and other leads: Again, brain storming is messy. Granted it was at this point that several team members went off-ranch.
6. Meeting at the police station: This emphasized that everyone needs social skills. I see that you've purchased some of those.
7. Ambush with the spirits: You said the word: counter surveillance. We need to be far more paranoid or get some fodder... or both.
8a. Extract from the site: We need to insure that we have an extraction team on retainer from now on. That seems to be a given.
8b. Interrogation of Foxyboy: I would hate to think that we will resolve every run with a kidnapping. I would agree with establishing a safe-house with a powerful ward and security though.
9. Raid of the orphanage: Hacker with the team, check. I bought a chameleon suit.
10. Wrap-up: Boo-ya!

Nix's Take Away
1. Massively updated com. Flush current com and use it as a secondary. Carry a throw away com as well. He is now uber paranoid.
2. Lost my primary fake SIN, lucked out that he has a real SIN that was not loaded. Carry several off-line datachips, each with a SIN and separate LTG's, shadow server accounts, etc.
3. Buy another fly-spy, this one beefed up with sensors.
4. Initiate: Psychometry. The ability Eye's used to get the initial info at Dances.
5. Move to a new, security conscious life-style.
6. Spell foci to provide better management of Increased Reflexes.

Re: Countersurveillance: Caliph has no real real optioms for countersurveillance against astral tracking. Unless a spirit can be bound to him with the remote service of "be Caliph's bodyguard" - which he would be inclined to cover the operating costs of - he's SOL. I don't know how any skills available to him can screw up magical detection (trumps disgusie skill, trumps con skill, trumps the 40 BP I spent at character creation to make him hard to track). I invested in shadowing skill to do it better. Until then, the magical angle of countersurveillance is up to you. He plans to invest heavily in the physical and matrix angles as well, but such is life.

Re: Kidnapping - Caliph has plans to invest some scratch in making that easier. 2 pairs of Magecuffs, etc.

Re: Extraction team on retainer: Sustain. Yay operations budget.

Re: Security: New comms good, security programs better. Security programs EXPENSIVE. Money flying away after we earned it. Can we get some of our new hacker's nice programs? Aside from that, seems like the kind of thing team software pool very useful for.

well, your new hacker will gladly donate to the team pool... unfortunately, he ran out of money before he could max out his program options... but security will be covered. 'Specially once he gets his agents going... *cackles*

nm, I'm sending you this in PM

Well you now have a face for the social stuff. I made him a little more rounded though so he isn't a porno-mancer. He can hold his own in a fight and is focused more to detective work than seduction. I gave him skillwires to cover any weaknesses and everything is legal except for the smartlink in his eyes (Unless I overlooked an R somewhere). Alex is compulsive, paranoid, and knowledgable on many aspects of security, so plan now on being reminded alot about potential security issues.

I also would am willing to contribute to the operating budget but same as Mickle I spent all of his budget already.

Sorry guys having a few days of much business and little sleep here. I'm gonna probably be low on the posting for the next couple of days here. Temporary though. Promise.

Nix and Caliph checking out the meet site:

Here is another render to give you a little flavor to tide you over through that horrid thing we call work.