Yup. Its fair to assume that's the case. Mind you Sammy's down payment to the new members should cover their upfront expenses so id only worry about the final payout should you choose to split it And it really is down to you guys.

Finally... DS is back online, but its midnight here, so I won't get a post together until tomorrow morning. I was just planning to post something along the lines of scorch accepting the message, replying, and heading to the cafe the next day - so if Zed wants to move forward, don't let me hold you up.

I'll be able to post tomorrow. Glad to see the forums are back up.

What is Manhattan Expresso Cafe like?

Similar to a typical coffee house - serves coffees of all kinds, - in this case mostly Soycaf latte, Soynnamon Latte, Vanilasoy etc but also real coffee. Its a small independant business not currently in the pockets of hte corps like the starbucks and Costa's of the world and has existed since the early 2000's (its a real place i found on google http://www.manhattanespressocafe.com/home.html) It offers a welcoming atmosphere, full of corporate suit types and rarely sees any kind of trouble. Well lit up front and offers a few tables to sit and relax at. The owner currently is listed as Dominic Carruthers.

There are back rooms which ostensibly are, as far as the every day person is concerned, storage and office.

Any more and your going to need to do some digging...

Some assumptions but opportunities for you all to make an entrance

1. ive set the timer from 2:45PM so arrive as you see fit.

2. When you enter the back room your greeted by Sammy - A wizened dwarf, scars across his face and hands. He wears shades and an expensive suit. Like dwarves for myth he sports a long plaited beard and several gold rings on fingers. The windows in the room are blacked by an electrostatic charge, an additional doorway (closed) probably leads outside into a back alley. The room has a doberman sat pointing at the doorway - an ingram white knight vidisble under its head.

Theres a fairly large card table in the middle of the room with 6 chairs (sammy is sat in the dealers chair facving the door you come in) on the table is a white noise generator.

Take it from entering the room....

Some assumptions but opportunities for you all to make an entrance

1. ive set the timer from 2:45PM so arrive as you see fit.

2. When you enter the back room your greeted by Sammy - A wizened dwarf, scars across his face and hands. He wears shades and an expensive suit. Like dwarves for myth he sports a long plaited beard and several gold rings on fingers. The windows in the room are blacked by an electrostatic charge, an additional doorway (closed) probably leads outside into a back alley. The room has a doberman sat pointing at the doorway - an ingram white knight vidisble under its head.

Theres a fairly large card table in the middle of the room with 6 chairs (sammy is sat in the dealers chair facving the door you come in) on the table is a white noise generator.

Take it from entering the room....

Assumed Yargo arrived first, since he posted his arrival at the counter already. I'm happy to edit it if he'd prefer it another way.

If the assensing roll matters, just go with me buying 1 hit per 4 dice. Won't get me much but it'll be a start.

Not sure how many dice you have, though. Feel free to sift out whatever information your character could achieve:
Assenssing Scorch:

7 dice.... at least one hit, probably two if actively perceiving applies. Not really a concern unless something unusual merits further attention.

Perception Test -Dire Radiant first -Yargo second -Dakka'Dakka third (9d6.hits(5)=5, 9d6.hits(5)=3, 9d6.hits(5)=0)

As it says, Visual Perception against the three newbies.
Perception 1 + Visual Specialization 2 + Intuition 3 + Vision Enhancement 3

5 Hits against Dire Radiant
3 Hits against Yargo
0 Hits against Dakka'Dakka

Looking for firearms, armor, and cybernetics.

Sammy gave each of the newcomers a certified cred stick with 10K on it.
I'll leave it down to each of you to let Trigger know what Vamp sees with his cursory inspection.

And its over to you all to do intro's and find out about the job. Bear in mind the longer you spend here the less time you have to get things in play. You're sitll not clued in yet on the actual time of the delivery.

Clothes, jewelry, commlink, trodes. Arabica coffee double shot. Certified credstick.

Scorch isn't doing any hacking (unless changing the alarm codes on the lock requires it), or scanning for hidden nodes, or anything, but I would be interested to know if anyone is providing a public PAN, and what public information it offers up.

Also, since I'm not sure what everyone is... Yargo is a male troll, but I'm not sure what the metatype of the other two are.

The Dire Radiant is a human female.

Yargo happy, but slightly nervous. He's healthy and awakened.



Yargo is wearing a dark grey suit and a white shirt (no tie). No obvious firearms, but he may notice his Form-Fitting-Body armor as the top two buttons of his shirt are undone.

On a side note, I may have forgot to mention this, but I typically can't post on the weekends. I hope that is not a problem.

Dire Radiant's PAN can have whatever you might think is amusing, but appropriate for a fake SIN.

Sounds good. *evilgrin*
One thing I would be interested in knowing, that I imagine you would have to come up with, would be the name that goes with the fake SIN.

You can imagine it. Creating names is hard work.

I just went to some random name generator. I use the names all the time for GMing, and also allow my players to use the names for their fake SINs. As far as Yargo, the name he is using is Leroy T. Bing. It's a clean record and whatever else is associated with a SIN.

Henseforth, Dire Radiant's fake SIN is named "Carmella Maske" (from some random name generator - good call Jimson)

"Maske" is a pretty cool surname, too - particularly for a fake ID.

I can just see the Fake SIn broadcasting a favorite nickname of Nasty Maske.

See? Isn't coming up with the mundane details of the alternate identities of your alternate identity fun?
(working on a IC reply as I finish up at work - should be up soon)

Now that everyone's on board, I should have my next post up soon. Have to run a quick errand though before heading home.

Scorch will thread a rating 3 encryption CF, and use it to encrypt his biological node - just to be safe - and will use his Resonance Trodes echo on each of the team, allowing him to act as trodes for them. He'll send the signals as AR (rather than VR) - since that should make everyone more comfortable than suddenly passing out. This should take up 4 connections (not a problem) and should allow us communicate via DNI without any real chance of anyone intercepting it. A more secure node to discuss business we could not ask for.

Also, FYI, if anyone feels the need - or would be startled - they can yank their hand away, and break the connection. Scorch won't make any attempt to maintain the connection.

Is that bold part the way Vamp really wants to present it?

My only comment would be that I think Vamp has taken some implications to be requirements - which might be a reasonable way to interpret our orders (particularly if we want to keep people happy) - but I don't think the first Johnson ever said we *had* to kill Duke, and I don't think the second Johnson ever said we *had* to recover him. Both of them seem primarily concerned with making sure that their dirty secrets don't get out - and both of them seem pragmatic enough to not mind sacrificing a pawn to insure that their whole operation doesn't go down.

Minor nitpick, but short of a simrig (which you may have, for all I know) Dakka'Dakka will (probably) be unable to copy the images. Scorch isn't going through your commlink (or simrig, or usual DNI interface) - the images are being transmitted directly to your brain - and although you guys are all connected (via trodes, and 4 communication channels allowing for DNI conversation) the hook-up doesn't provide you with access to any programs, and there also doesn't appear to be any operating system. Even if your mental command to make a copy was accepted, it doesn't appear to have a connection to your commlink (or whatever you wanted to copy the file to). It is all (probably) very strange, and I imagine that if Dakka'Dakka has his own AR going - he's seeing double of a lot of things (although Scorch's iconography looks different) but not of the stuff relating to the run (since its not being broadcast publicly into the air). If Dakka'Dakka commands his commlink to copy those AROs, he would (I imagine) get some sort of error message, because the commlink won't know what he is referring to.

Of course, some sort of sim-rig would allow him to record whatever simsense Scorch is sending him, for later.

Wow! did i really make it THAT complicated?

Very nice synopsis there Blackhat, Scorch has done himself proud. Also I would agree with your comment that Vamp has made in inference (not incorrectly either, its been vague enough for a reason) about Dukes health status at the end of the run. Interestingly if you got him out and back into the hands of the Dukes it might be an interesting coup and keeps both Groups happy. (since the 2nd Jay can continue to run the gang as a puppets and the gang get their rather talented intel guy back )

Interestingly there is still 1 loose end you've never considered looking at......

And also, remember the 1st Jay and Ork have only seen Vamp and Scorch. So splitting the team is a very interesting proposition. Also, Yargo's idea never even occured to me but it perhaps falls nicely into Sammys team choice

Damn, how can i top this run?

Wow! did i really make it THAT complicated?

Very nice synopsis there Blackhat, Scorch has done himself proud. Also I would agree with your comment that Vamp has made in inference (not incorrectly either, its been vague enough for a reason) about Dukes health status at the end of the run. Interestingly if you got him out and back into the hands of the Dukes it might be an interesting coup and keeps both Groups happy. (since the 2nd Jay can continue to run the gang as a puppets and the gang get their rather talented intel guy back )

Interestingly there is still 1 loose end you've never considered looking at......

And also, remember the 1st Jay and Ork have only seen Vamp and Scorch. So splitting the team is a very interesting proposition. Also, Yargo's idea never even occured to me but it perhaps falls nicely into Sammys team choice

Damn, how can i top this run?

Also at this point i'd like to award Vamp and Scorch 5 Karma each for sticking with it, great roleplay and character play.

Is it possible to spend some now? I'd like to spend 4 karma to pick up the first rating of electronic warfare (silly me, for forgetting) - but it can wait until after the run if you'd prefer we not "level up" until then.

My thought would definitely to enforce a down time for spending karma etc. Id perhaps suggest you need 24hrs to set aside per rank to gain the expertise and reflect on knowledge etc. (unrealistic but it would do.)

Okay, no biggie - now that we have another techie guy to pick up Scorch's slack.

Like how did J2 know about the run? Having conveniently confiscated the gear you required could be a coincidence, but he knew about the run already when you went to pick it up. Sammy, Lilith, BRG? Duke, via the BRG? Someone else we don't know yet?

Or maybe something else I missed.

Yeah, he did seem to know a lot about us (well, about Vamp) and seemed very prepared. We do know they were backing the BRGs and feeding them intel, though. They might still have some lower-ranking guys on the inside that could have told them who they got to talk to the runners (our first Johnson) and who those runners were, and who their Fixer was (Sammy)... and that might explain how they knew to be listening when Sammy put out the call for high explosives - and how they contacted him without him really knowing them.... Still feels like they were very on top of the situation though.

The fact that they only "blackmailed" Vamp, and not Scorch, as well, sort of leads me to believe that they're working with whatever leverage Lone Star already had, rather than digging up new problems for us, though. Scorch is a pretty easy target for well-informed blackmailers.

Here's another angle to think about how the J2 may have figured out the runners: that they are still in contact with the gang through proxies or other informants. After all, they are the ones setting these guys up for their own end, it would make sense to have more then one contact in the gang to keep tabs on them.

And nope, no sim-rig, just the control rig So he can't DL anything from the meat node.

See? Told you guys it would be secure! OOC, if you ask, Scorch wouldn't have any objection to transferring the data - just offer to make a connection with his PAN, and if you want things to be ultra secure, letting him touch your commlink is probably safer than using wireless. Might be easier to just ask for them after we're done having our mind-meld.

If we break the physical connection to the living skinlink, do we get dumpshock?

Do we want to have a parallel OOC planning discussion or just go with the fun of mostly IC?

I like keeping it IC. As long as we're on task, it shouldn't take much longer than having an OOC discussion - but I don't mind keeping both going as long as we remember to bring up the things said OOC IC at some point.

As far as dumpshock, I *believe* that since you are using AR, there is no dumpshock for disconnecting. If we had this meeting with everyone in VR, instead, it would be hot-sim VR, and there would be some fairly nasty dumpshock (and breaking physical contact might be a bit harder, since you're meat-body would be limp). DR should be fine to go grab some coffee and come back, but wouldn't catch anything said while she was gone.

I think you could assume we wait for DR to return before delving into anything important, though - no need to drag it out through multiple posts.

It's the awakened world. Force 1 spirits make excellent coffee cup carriers.

I'll take my queues from yourselves interms of moving forwards though in order to avoid stalling the game to a halt lets try to push for a plan of action by Tuesday.

Looks like our planning is coming along nicely. I'm having a great time. Just letting you guys know, I probably won't be able to post this weekend. Hope that won't be a problem.

Once your done with the IC planning, if you can post an order of events in OOC then im ready to move you on. Im also here if you need questions answering

I think we have enough of a plan to rough a bullet-list plan together, shortly - except that I still don't have any really slick ideas to cover the neo-anarchist angle. If anyone has any ideas, today, throw them up OOC or IC, otherwise, tonight, I'll try to put our order of events for our plan together so its ready for tomorrow.

I'm not too familiar with this gang. Yargo has Knowledge Underworld Personalities if that helps. Or is it common knowledge? Either way, he'd probably suggest dressing up in their colors, and maybe some other type of paraphernalia, when we hit up the van.

I think the issue is that the neo-anarchists aren't *one* gang.. it's pretty much a catch-all term for any "undesirables" - including the gang who is ACTUALLY orchestrating the break-out by hiring us. But I suppose we could just pick some other gang at random, dress in their colors, and maybe leave some AR graffiti behind with their 'mark', or something. I guess I imagine that what the BRGs want is for use to make this look more like the work of neo-anarchist gangers (who the PD are supposed to be keeping under control) and not really expensive shadowrunners, pulling off a professional extraction. It could be the case that they wouldn't' mind taking credit for the deed, themselves - particularly since we're not supposed to know who they are... but they didn't request a specific group, so the safer bet would probably be to pick someone else.

I think your idea is about right Blackhat. don't get too hung up on how it should look, I made an incorrect assumption at the time tbh so picking a colour and running with it would work for that particular requirement (DM Ruling hehe)