And I'm back

Edana:

Fractal will be doing the following things, while sipping on one of those yummy tapioca pearl drinks:

Data Search Li Shen Chang: Data Search(4)+Browse(6)+Custom Interface(1)+EncephalonII(2)+PuSHeD(1)=14d6 5 2 2 3 1 5 6 6 1 6 6 5 5 3 (8) hits

Data Search Finding the external node for the Garden House. 14d6 4 2 3 2 5 1 6 6 2 1 6 6 3 6 (6) hits
Computer+analyze: 14d6 (get information on the node) 5 1 3 2 4 4 2 4 6 6 1 3 3 1 (3) hits. I'll do another Analyze to get some more detailed info. The first roll gets me basic information about the nose. Firewall rating, System rating, probably response.
3 3 2 6 5 1 4 5 5 1 4 4 4 1 (4) hits. Looking for databombs on the entry, and figure out what kind of IC maybe running on the system.

Once I have that info, i'm going to start my slow probe, going for am Admin account
It's a Exploit+hacking(System+Firewall+6) 1 hour interval extended test.
Completely forgot about the +2 vr bonus

I don't know if you're using the -1 die for extended tests optional rule or not:
17d6 5 3 1 2 4 4 2 6 5 4 6 5 4 1 4 1 5 (6) hits (1 hour)
17d6 2 1 1 1 1 3 3 1 6 2 4 6 1 5 4 3 5 (4) hits (1 hour)
17d6 5 3 5 5 2 1 4 1 5 3 2 6 3 4 1 5 4 (6) hits (1 hour)
17d6 1 3 6 4 6 2 5 6 5 6 6 1 5 3 6 4 1 (9) hits (1 hour)
So after 4 hours I have: 25 hits. Unless you're using the progressive -1, in which case I have 21 hits.
That's both enough for a system 6/firewall 6 system. so that's something. I'm not going to try to use my probed exploit until I have the info from all the other rolls first.

lol. I'm so pleased that my true worth has been realised. I can buy the drinks! Hurrah!

Bye
Thanee

dang! Sorry Kim - brain fart on my part. I've corrected the posting.

Spells!

Force 4 influence "I'm allowed here": Spellcasting (4) + Magic (6) = 6 hits

Drain soak: Will (5) + Logic (5) = 3 hits (drain soaked)

Force 4 influence "punish arrogant complacency": Spellcasting (4) + Magic (6) = 2 hits

Drain soak: Will (5) + Logic (5) = 5 hits (drain soaked)

OK I'll answer you IC when I know.

Lets also try doing it when you were concealed (i.e. it might make a difference whether or not the watchers had an opportunity to see you.

If Edana can include "whether it worked" on the concealed, I'll bundle the results into an IC reply

Apologies for not posting for a couple days, been busier than usual. I'll work on a post over lunch to answer and give results from your rolls so far .

Max was mostly curious whether he'd be able to make Influence work on watchers. If it doesn't even work, trying to hide from them to cast won't be worth the trouble. If it does, they can practice in slightly less conspicuous locations to figure out how to hide and still get LoS on the spirits.

Seth & Mickle
For the current watchers, they're purely astral, so the only way to cast on them would be to be astral yourself, so in this case,
Dr. Yang gets an almost instant ping back that they spotted an astral form when you get outside to cast on them. The first influence spell seems to have the intended effect, but the second cast makes the watcher just look dumbfounded for a moment before going back to its normal watching. (An INT 1 watcher isn't likely to have any idea what "arrogant complacency" means .) I'll let you guys deal with writing that out IC however you'd like.

Meta-wise, you can RP out however you'd like, but watchers are going to be susceptible to pretty much any influence suggestion as long as they can understand it. What they report back is going to be highly dependent on what their actual orders are. In the current case, the only parameter Dr. Yang gave them was "Report astral forms", so even if you attacked them, they wouldn't report anything beyond seeing you. If you manage to hide on the astral such that the watchers can't see you, you'd be able to use the spells on them, but unless the influence included something that kept them from reporting it, they'd (potentially) report seeing the astral form of the spell. (I'm assuming resolution in that case would be spell effect then watcher report. They could still critically glitch the assensing roll to spot the spell though and miss it that way.)

Keep in mind that you can't expect them to remember hugely complex instructions either, so something like "Report any astral forms or spells" is going to be pretty common. (If you have something specific you want to test out, let me know and I'll let you know how it works. Hopefully I've covered most of what you'd want to know though.)

sabs
I'm including your data search and scans in the IC, but I'm going to leave the timestamp at 7ish for now. Your exploit will take 3 hours, so you'll be able to log in at 10ish, once the others are ready to advance time to that point. (Response/Firewall/System are rating 5).

Well that's more fun and games with watchers than I have ever had before: normally they are so useless that we don't bother summoning them. Its nice to see that in this game they have a point.

A rules question for you:
So as far as stealth goes, we can use concealment so they are (2* summoners force - concealer's force) on their skills. Can we actually use infiltration when we are astral, so that we can make it an opposed roll? I assume if we can it would be logic + infiltration instead of agility + infiltration.

I just noticed Mong Kok is not the same place as Taikoo Shing.

Seth
Yeah, you can use the Concealment power to reduce a watcher's dice. Astral infiltration is possible, but it's going to be less effective than sneaking in normal space, since astral forms are essentially light sources. That will somewhat depend on the exact approach you take and how much cover you can find to hide behind on the astral. Don't forget that patrollers have a built in penalty to their roll as well depending on the size of their patrol area.

---
Location Map

I marked the general location on that map in yellow for where you're headed. (I really need to find something better than paint for editing maps.)

Thanks. Didn't know about the patrol area, I'll chase that up

Unless we want to be a group of mundane's though we have to work out how to deal with watchers. If we cannot cast spells, use spirits or use foci because of watchers we have to know what to do about that.

Because I suck hardcore :)
Data Search on tracing the money trail for the House/Garden we've been sent to mess with:
16d6: 1 1 3 5 3 5 5 1 5 2 5 3 1 3 1 5 (6) Hits.
(love that +2 vr bonus)

Who owns it, who they might link back to, what's the chances one of the Triads owns it, or worse, Wuxing.

Going to be out of town until Wed...

Even though I seem to be the only one who cares where we are, I'd still like to know.


I read this like the place was renamed by Dante, but it could be that Dante just said something else in case someone was listening in and he sent the real location because he thought that was secure.

If we were going to Mong Kok, then 70 minutes seem excessive for a trip that would normally take 10 minutes.

The KTV place you're meeting in is in Mong Kok, I think he just said something different in case someone was listening in. As far as trip time, there's decidedly little information on how Lantau's roads are developed after the parks are mostly taken over by corps, but the only road shown on the map in Runner Havens mirrors what's shown on google maps, so I used that to get an estimate of time to the rough location. It's a long trip because the road goes to the north center of the island, then cuts down the middle before coming back along the southern coast to where you need to go. You could probably cut time off that trip if you're willing to drive through corporate enclaves, but I'm assuming that wouldn't be the default route chosen by autodrive.

I wasn't talking about the traveltime to the island, but of the hour it took to get from Tsim Sha Tsui to Mong Kok.

Ah, yeah, that probably should have been more like 15-20 minutes, though it's easy enough to write it off as people taking longer routes to make sure they're not followed. Probably not worth going back and editing timestamps for that.

(Also, I'm working on an IC post, but probably won't get it done until later this afternoon. At least I get off work early today .)

I'm still here! I am just guarding a hackers body at the moment, so unless he takes damage, or until he comes back I will be a little quiet.

Apologies for the delay in updates. I bumped the timestamp for both subgroups to 8:45 so we don't have weird cross-time discussions. If there's anything the people at the KTV bar want to have done during that time, let me know, otherwise I'm expecting it's mostly filled with permutations on the posted discussions and some entertainment.

If you don't have anything you particularly want to accomplish, we can bump the time up to ~10:15, which is when Fractal's hack will be completed.

Also here's the overview map of the property. Let me know if you have any issues or questions about it. (My artistic skills are decidedly subpar, and paint doesn't make things better .)

Thanks for the map. I like maps they make many things clear. Could you mark on it the plant that we have to rotate?

I vote to move the timeline to around 10:15. I am very interested in what Fractal has to report: especially any files on our gardener and any programs watching the plants.

I've just realised that I asked a contact a question, but didn't post a die roll. 3 successes. Mostly I'd like to know the attitude of the red poles to the Vory (partners, enemies, uninterested...) and if they think its like this is a Vory company, or just a rich investor (we are in capitalist Hong Kong after all).

Btw, I'm still reading, i'm just waiting for my timeline to advance. Unless you want me to post a filler post about me distractedly drinking tapioca drinks, and occasionally doing full Vr kareoke

sabs: Feel free to advance the time to a bit after 10 to do whatever you'd like with your hacked account, since it doesn't look like anyone has anything they specifically want to do up to that time. (And we can have a bit of backtracking in timestamps if there's something I missed. I mostly just don't want us time-skipping all over the place .)

phlapjack & kim: Are you guys planning on hanging out watching the property for a couple hours, or just wanted to see what's there and visually verify the maps given? If you're planning on staying a while, where are you parking the drone after getting the overview?

seth: It's several plants that need to be moved, but they're all inside the area marked 'garden' on that map. I'll try to get a more detailed garden area map up soon that has those marked on it.

OK so two plans are:
1: Deal with the gardener in some way
2: Influence the watchers (concealment and infiltration to get close, then influence)
3: Use magic fingers to move the plants
4: Maybe tweak the video feed so that it shows the plants in the correct place

The other
1: Deal with the gardener in some way
2: Use a drone to move the plants
3: Maybe tweak the video feed so that it shows the plants in the correct place

For all of these dealing with the gardener is the hard bit.

Options:
Bribery: I don't think it will work. He smells of sulphur. He's up to no good, and money is not a motive for him
Blackmail: maybe. We don't have enough data
Make him sick: I think this might work
Kidnap him: I think this might work...very risky
Influence him to go for a holiday, have a day off...might work
Something else:

I think for any of these to work we need more data. So I guess the questions are "does he ever leave", "what does the computer say about him", "do any of our contacts offer leverage"

So the hard problem is dealing with the gardener

If we don't manage to move the plants unnoticed, we won't need a plan for the gardener. Let's focus on this problem first and agree on how we're going to do it.

We need to take care of:
a: lots of cameras
b: 4 drones
c: 2 or 3 guards
d: 2 watchers
e: few dogs

a) hack into the system, edit the footage
b) hack into the drones, cancel any alarms
c) sneaky sneaky time
d) influence? sneaking? we'll see.
e) if we influence the watchers, summon an air spirit to distract them?

I should know more about our chances of getting in soon.
That system is fairly beefy. 5/5 means he'll have 10 dice to get 6 hits. If he gets lucky, we could be in trouble.

Once logged in:
Computer+Analyze=13d6 4 1 4 2 3 4 6 5 6 6 2 3 1 (4) hits.

Node didn't get lucky (In fact it was pretty much perfectly average ). I need you to roll Hacking+Stealth though, as the IC present gets its own perception to detect you when you log in, and that's an opposed test, not a threshold.

Hacking+stealth: 13d6: 1 4 6 4 5 5 2 5 3 6 6 1 2 (6) hits
Lets cross our happy little fingers.

a. Not sure how hard it is, but looping the last few minutes will probably do. I don't think it's a good idea to keep the feed different from reality after we're done though. Some plants suddenly changing position will be harder to notice than the plants moving or any editing.

b. Cancelling the alarm might be enough if the drones do nothing else. I think they should patrol exactly the same as we'll show on the cameras though.

c. The guards will probably not be in the garden, so it should be easy enough to keep out of their sight.

d. I hope it works.

e. Distracting the dogs won't stop them from barking and the guards will come to see why they are. Of course if we're not going to be inside the garden (using magic or drones) the dogs might not do anything.


None of this will be easier during the celebrations, unless there will be guests partying in the garden, in which case we'll need a new plan.

Maybe we (read, Fractal) can find out how the celebrations will look like? Maybe they happen every year there? Sounds like something we might be able to figure out beforehand.

Bye
Thanee

Sorry guys: I am currently in my sick bed, and won't be able to post much for a couple of days.

I'd just like to say that I think this is easy apart from the gardener. Watchers we can deal with influence + infiltration + concealment. The plants we can move with magic fingers. So the only problem is the gardener.

Agreed. I think the gardener is the main problem, and furthermore, the main difficulty, which could result in a failure of the whole thing, if we cannot deal with him properly.

Bye
Thanee

sabs: You need to roll Reality Filter + Respose against the system to see which metaphor wins. (You need 7 or more hits, otherwise the system wins and you're at -1 Response in the node.)

We're going to need to use the tool the Johnson provided us, to measure the rotation of each plant to make sure it's correct. Will we be able to do that measuring, if we're using magic fingers from a distance? Or does the tool require us to be physically next to the plant in question? We'll have to take a look at the measuring device to make sure...

wow 7?
*blinks*
7?
Well that's not happening but I'll roll in case I get lucky
response(6)+Reality Filter(6)=12d6: 2 5 1 5 1 1 5 5 6 4 6 4 (6) Hits. I'm going to spend edge. 4d6: 1 5 5 3 so (8) hits total.
I guess I got lucky.
Edana: I think I want to go check out the office building right now, before trying to get much deeper into the heavily secured node.

Your point is valid.

My thoughts on this is that we move the tool close using magic fingers, get a dragonfly up close to allow us to read it, then do the movement. So long as I can see the tool and the plant, this should work.

@Edana
Are the plates that these plants are on cheap and readily available (from a gardening nursery for example) so that we can practice, and see if the plan will work?

Heh, yeah, it's an opposed test and the system ended up with a really lucky roll. At least it's not the end of the world .

As far as which 'building' you want to visit, feel free to run analyze or the hacking programs you'd like. All 3 are portals to different nodes within the system, which will have their own security/stats.



It'll be easy enough to duplicate for practicing purposes. You'd have no problem rotating with the Magic Fingers spell, the biggest issue will be using the measurements and potentially fine accuracy. (If you want visualization, imagine your basic clay pot, put a steel disk in the bottom before filling it. Then embed a reasonably strong magnet in whatever you're putting it on. The purpose is to keep them from accidentally moving, not to prevent deliberate effort.)

I'm still here. Just not sure what Max could be doing right now, since he doesn't seem to have an address to go to and I don't particularly feel like making 14 posts of Max yawning, coming up with bad ideas, and throwing spells at watcher spirits.

Analyze the Shack:
Computer(4)+Analyze(6)+Custom Interface(1)+PuSHeD(1)+EncephalonII(2)+VR(2)=16d6: 5 5 3 2 2 5 6 5 4 6 6 4 4 4 5 1 (8) hits

Going to make a few rolls at once to give you more to work with.

Analyze of the other 2 nodes/buildings
16d6x2:
5 3 1 3 6 5 6 5 5 1 2 4 3 5 3 1 (7) hits
6 1 1 4 3 4 3 2 1 2 2 6 6 1 6 4 (4) hits(sigh I could have bought that many)
For analyzing the other two.
computer+edit: 16d6: 3 6 4 4 3 2 3 5 6 6 4 6 5 2 2 6 (7) create myself an admin account on this node for later use.
computer+edit: 16d6: 5 1 5 3 4 2 3 6 2 3 5 6 5 4 4 1 (6) hits to remove traces of that account creation from the logs.

sabs: System 5/Response 5/Firewall 6, node is encrypted. Let me know if you're looking for something else specific. (You can roll for potentially more info on the other buildings as well, but I'll just give you S/R/F for them, since you're unlikely to get below 3 successes. Tower is 4/4/5, Office is 4/4/4.)

Mickle: You know the gardener lives in the Walled City (Kowloon), but lack an actual address. Ting-Ting, Dr. Yang, and technically Fractal, are physically at the KTV, so you could have a conversation with them about random things. Or you could try calling/messaging contacts for information. That's just a couple suggestions off the top of my head. You're certainly welcome to try other things as well . (Also, I should be around a bunch today and tomorrow, so if sabs is around enough, we can try to hash out most of the matrix stuff relatively quickly.)

Those were the rolls for the other nodes
I got7 and 4 respectively.

Hehe, you added these while I was typing . Basic stats for the other two nodes are in my previous post. The tower has 4 generic user icons currently active, plus 1 agent/ic. The office currently has 1 agent/ic active.

Creating the account is fine, but you can't edit the logs, as they are not located on this node.

Does it look like I can use the account I created on this node, to enter the other node? Or am I going to have to slow hack tha office node too?

Accounts above user-level access on this node don't transfer to the others, so you'd have to hack them separately. (You could create a user account and log in that way, but your actions would be limited to that level of access. There is no user level access on the encrypted node.) With a firewall of 4, you could probably hack the office on the fly with a moderate chance of being noticed. (Statistically you can get admin access in 2 complex actions, and would be facing 16 dice vs your stealth of 6. So, not 'safe', but better than even odds in your favor.)

it's awfully close, buying is 4 hits, average is 5. All I need is 1 variation and i'm caught. That's outrageously not safe. And, I have 16 dice to get 4+6, 10 hits. Maybe I can hack on the fly and spend karma to get myself 21 dice, with exploding 6's.
On average I get 7 hits, 3 of which are 6's which nets me 8 hits. I'm going to try that. See how well that goes:

So, hacking on the fly for an admin account on the office node.:
21d6: 3 6 1 6 3 4 6 2 6 2 3 1 2 5 6 5 1 6 3 4 (8) hits/6 6's. 3 6 6 1 4 6: (3) hits: 5 6 2 (1): 4
Total: 12 hits in 1 complex action.

(and I'm down to 2 karma)
Good use of Karma :) except of course there's probably nothing in that node.

Well, there's stuff on the node, the real question is if it's stuff you want .

And you're good, the node only got 2 successes, and the IC also only got 2 on it's analyze, and I'm pretty sure you can just buy the 3 you need to keep the IC from seeing you.

Let me know what you're actually looking for, but the 'office' node appears to be record keeping and the house operations (so if you want to turn on the stove, have at it ). Again, access logs are not local to this node. There is a link between this node and the encrypted node, and also a slaved link to the garage (ie. automatic admin access to the garage.)