Well Hey, lets do some data analysis, try to figure out if there's anything useful.
House Operations, does that include anything related to the garden? House keeping, hey there must be records on how they're payign their gardner and how much, and more importantly where they are sending payments, etc etc.

So Yeah, we're going to root around. And having access to the garage is good stuff
Data Search + Browse: 14d6: 3 2 6 5 2 5 4 1 1 6 3 4 2 6 (5) hits

Do I have access to the Garage inventory, a camera link? Any of that?

If you're around a bunch today hopefully we can get most of the matrix stuff hashed out and give everyone a chance to move on to other things. At some point you should reconcile most of this into an IC post, but I'll keep the majority in OOC to get things going a bit quicker.

In any case,

Garden: You find records for plant food and basic supplies which are ordered approximately quarterly and delivered by a local company. The next order has already been submitted and is scheduled for delivery on April 5th. Otherwise, there are irregular entries for miscellaneous equipment as they break or wear out (spades, shears, etc.). There aren't any items currently listed as in need of repair or replacement.

Garage: There are 2 lawn-care drones that are outfitted for mowing the grass and keeping the walkways clean. The garage also currently contains a pickup.

Financials: These are encrypted, so you'll need to roll Decrypt+Electronic Warfare extended test, threshold 10. Interval is combat turns, so it's not really a matter of if you can break it, more of needing to make sure you don't glitch .

Cameras: There are a handful of cameras attached to this node, 1 in the garage, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in the house entryway, 1 on the outside of the main door to the house. These are obviously not security cameras, as they have huge blind spots and only save the last 5 minutes of footage. There are 2 people visible working in the kitchen. The main door camera shows an SUV drive up a few minutes ago, two men get out, grab a cooler from the back, and then the SUV drives off. The men enter the house and can been seen briefly on the entryway camera.

Can I copy the financials to my deck? And then start a decrypt running on them offline? instead of here on this node?

Yeah, you can copy it off if you want.

okay Decrypt+electronic warfare: EW(4)+Decrypt(4)+PuSHeD(1)+vr(2)+custom(1)=12d6:
1) 1 6 1 5 2 4 1 2 4 4 3 3 (2)
2) 2 5 2 5 5 2 1 2 2 5 3 (4)
3) 6 3 5 3 4 6 6 5 5 4(6) (12) hits

create an account here so I don't have to hack again.
I'll just buy the hits (gives me 5)
Going to leave a connection open here, while I look at stuff, and going to go into the main node again and look at the 3rd building

I'll summon a force 4 spirit with concealment and movement (I'll post the rolls in a bit), and zoom off on my bicycle to somewhere a little closer to the car that Dante and Hope are following. I should be able to get up to quite a high speed (30..40mph), and not attract too much attention with the concealment.

Oh and I forgot the datasearch for that license plate:

19d6: 6 5 2 6 3 6 6 3 1 5 2 6 4 5 2 6 4 2 3 (9) hits

Summoning force 4 spirit of air: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2985069/
Its counter roll: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2985070/
Resisting drain: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2985072/
First aid of the drain: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2985075/ removed 3 points of drain

Summary: 1 nett success

You, sir, have just inadvertently shown your age

Wait, you mean the 1st Printing, 1st Edition book in my library wasn't good enough?

Heh, I wish I knew what happened to my 1e rulebook, I've still got several of the random sourcebooks in a box with my 2e stuff. (To be fair though, I didn't actually play much 1e, mostly started with 2e.)

In any case, working on the IC post now.

Seth: Don't forget that if you want to summon another spirit, you'll first have to dismiss the fire spirit you summoned earlier, since you can only have 1 unbound spirit at a time. (The time is negligible since we're not in combat, just a reminder.)

phlapjack: You should make a Shadowing test for tailing the SUV. (Shadowing(Vehicle) + Reaction +/- Handling, limit Shadowing to your Pilot Ground Craft skill)

I'm at home and have access to invisible castle, so gonna use it this time:

Analyzeing Building #3 again, just to be sure:

16d6.hits(5)=8

Going to Hack it on the fly again, again spending an edge

21d6.hitsopen(5,6)=12

Then the stealth roll:
14d6.hits(5)=6

Uh oh...

Ok, Reaction(8), defaulting(-1),handling(-1) = 6 dice

1 hit

Yes.

Sadly Fire spirits don't come with movement or concealment which I plan on using to get to where the action is!

just a reminder, in case it got lost in the shuffle

You're good on the sneaking, though the node actually came close . I covered most of what I think you'd immediately look at in IC. As admin you essentially have control of all of the cameras and sensors. The node itself keeps 24 hours worth of video/sensor data. Let me know what exactly you want to look at and I'll get that to you.


Hehe, the other guy isn't exactly watching for you, so you're good for now at least .


Yeah, I didn't miss reading it, but I did forget to include it in my last IC post. That should be fixed now.

I'd like to see how good the garden coverage. What all the cameras cover, etc. What modes they have, what kind of sensors are around. See if there's any sensors on the flower pots to make sure they're just so... etc.

I want to take stills of every view from the camera, and pass those down to my commlink, and over to ting-ting.

create myself an account for this node. Then I want to start thinking about slow hacking the big-bad node. That node looks too beefy to fast hack, but that's going to take a while.. so I'll check with Ting-Ting first.. let me put up a setting post.

What does Ting-Ting know about the Chrysanthemums, that might be helpful for us here? What do they deal in, for example? What could be in those packages?

Intuition + Hong Kong Triads -> 5 hits

Bye
Thanee

I'm struggling to see how I can contribute at the moment, so I am hanging around fairly close to the garden. With New Year around it should be easy to find a place that is partying.

I'll also ask around after the Chrysanthemums (Shen Li the Red Pole Triad and Han Hung the fixer / Dodgy establishment / pit fighter)
(I cast increase charisma and use the 4:1 rule to get 3 successes and resist the drain)
wow: 6 successes on etiquette http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2999580/

I'll post the conversation with any data I get

Edana, I missed it.. did I get information on the licenseplate.. the car is registered to a russian company? right?

sabs: Correct, it's registered to a Vladivostok based alcohol importer. "The license search turns up quickly, indicating that the vehicle belongs to a company called TV Imports, apparently a liquor importer with its home office in Vladivostok, along with a couple warehouses located near the docks in Hong Kong."

Thanee: Ting-Ting knows that while they're most infamous for the organ-legging, the Black Chrysanthemums also have their hands in human trafficking and slavery. They are primarily based in Kowloon's Walled City, and are rarely touched by the police because of that. Their overall leadership is largely unknown, but they are considered ruthless. It's probably safe to assume they have some dealings in drugs, but it's not a focal point of the organization.

Seth: Are you looking for something specific in your queries? General information-wise you get back basically the same info I gave Thanee. They are considered bad news however you look at it, but if you need to move people or get organs, they're likely one of your best bets.

Gonna start my prob of the big-bad node of DOOOOOOM.. DOOOM I say.
uh right..

It was a 5/5/6 system right? so I need 17 hits for an admin account?

Probing: Hacking(4)+Exploit(6)+VR(2)+Encephalon(2)+PuSHeD(1)+CustomI(1)+Optimized(1)=17d6
1) 5 6 3 4 6 2 2 4 4 1 5 4 5 6 3 5 2 (7) Hits
2) 3 2 6 4 2 4 6 2 4 5 6 2 2 1 6 5 (6) hits
3) 4 6 6 2 4 1 1 2 3 5 5 3 2 2 6 (5) hits

18 hits, 3 hours of slow probing.

Given current timestamp, that puts me at able to get into their system around 2AM.

Decrypting the node will take a bit of time as well before you can access it, EW+Decrypt(12, 15 minutes) extended test. 5/5/6 is correct for the stats.

Also, you'll need to make 1 stealth test per hour on the base node to cover rescans by the IC there, and another stealth test for when you move into the big node.

The KTV you're at technically closes at 3am, but since it's run by Dante's contact, you can try to persuade more time out of him .

EW(4)+Decrypt(4)+VR(2)+Encephalon(2)+PuSheD(1)+custom(1)=14d6:
1) 1 3 6 1 5 3 2 2 6 6 2 3 1 4 (3)
2) 6 1 4 3 2 2 4 2 4 6 6 6 4 (4)
3) 2 1 5 6 6 5 5 2 2 1 4 2 (5)

45 minutes to decrypt.

4 Stealth Rolls:

Hacking(4)+Stealth(6)+Vr(2)+Encephalon(2)+PuSheD(1)+CustomI(1)=16d6
1) 5 2 4 4 3 4 5 5 5 6 1 6 3 6 5 2 (8) hits
2) 6 5 5 6 3 1 4 3 5 1 2 4 3 6 4 3 (6) hits
3) 5 2 2 6 5 6 2 3 5 5 4 6 3 6 3 6 (9) hits
4) 3 2 1 3 2 3 6 1 3 6 4 1 5 3 6 4 (4) hits eeeek

Logging into the big bad node:
stealth: 6 5 6 3 2 2 5 1 6 4 2 1 2 4 3 5 (6) hits

This pushes the timestamp to 2:30am when I get in..

I suspected as much. For 7 successes can I get a few names, and perhaps the names of any heavily involved in these gardens?

There aren't any direct ties between them and the owners of the house/garden. According to Max's contact, Shen Li Chang (the gardener) has close ties to them. The only person in the Chrysanthemum's upper power structure that you can get a name for is a man called Hak, which is likely not his real name, but he's not someone you really want to meet if you can avoid it.

Shen Li (your contact) can tell you that a man named Han Mu, a known member of the triad, runs a bar called Salamander on the outskirts of the Walled City. Some of the lower gangs associated with the Chrysanthemums hang out there from time to time, so if you really want to contact them about something, it would be a place to start.

(As a complete aside, I really hate the Chrysanthemums, that word is so awkward to spell. )

sorry I haven't posted. Final couple weeks of school are hell. *dies*

Edana, how much would a KTV session run? 50 per hour? If Dante gives SunQi 500 for the whole night, would that cover us?

All: Dante has a contact in the Chrs., and we could also go to that bar to talk to other gangers. But I'm worried that any questions we ask might get back to the gardener, esp. if he has important connections of his own in the Chrs.

Let me see if I can contribute to this data search stuff, take some of the pressure off of Fractal...

OK we have done a load of data searching, and a bit of recon.

I wouldn't mind a summary, as I suspect I have not got the whole picture. The main messages I have got are:

• There is a gardener Shen Li Chang, who's exact threat potential is unknown but probably high
• The Chrysanthemums are seriously unpleasant and are involved somehow. The gardener has close links, I don't think the house does
• The task is actually quite straight forward apart from the gardener
• We have matrix access thanks to our red hot decker, and we have video feeds of the place thanks to our red hot rigger

If we don't go for the bonus (which I suggest: I like to get paid, and the bonus looks like it increases the difficulty quite a lot), our only problem seems to be dealing with the gardener.

Since I don't want to go head to head with him: he is probably quite hard, and killing him will probably forfeit our contract, I would like to brainstorm some ideas for dealing with him. My starters:

• Influence / Mind control him, using spirit or magical powers
• Food poisoning / him being seriously ill
• Cause an emergency elsewhere that requires him to leave site
• Fake a message that requires him to leave site
• Frame him with the Chrysanthemums

Can you information gatherers see if you can find out if he ever leaves site?

@Edana
You are not wrong about Chrysanthemums being hard to spell

We still have absolutely no idea, what those payments are for, right? Hmm... that's one pretty huge blind spot there (along with the gardener), when it comes to making an actual plan.

Bye
Thanee

Sorry to be dense Thanee, which payments?

The payments to the gardener.

Bye
Thanee

@Thanee
I'm still dense. It's hard conversing like this as we only have the words and no gestures. I will explain my denseness:

One link to payments is here, but I couldn't see anything exciting there. Your comment was "We still have absolutely no idea, what those payments are for, right?", which implies that you think there is something exciting in the payments area that I have missed. I appreciate that the financials still haven't been decrypted, but financials are often encrypted (even today we encrypt ours).

@General
Re reading the post above, I just had a moment of concern "These are obviously not security cameras, as they have huge blind spots and ...". Does that mean that there is a separate security camera system?

There is, and I cracked it later on keep reading the IC thread.

Here's the relavent posts:
The Payments

The Surveilance Node

Yep, he gets like 50k every month... that's quite some money for "gardening services". And there are those "special tags" also ({S-1-3}, etc).

That money sure is for something... and we do not know what that something is.

Bye
Thanee

hes' getting 160K every 3 months.
160K...

I'm glad I asked otherwise I would have missed that.

I think its safe to say that if he gets paid over 50K per month that much he is seriously badass. The smell of sulphur is another give-away.

I agree it would be nice to know what's in the packages, but at some point we have to decide how to deal with him...

Do we have to deal with him at all if we don't want the bonus? We need to do the changes by 4am on the 23rd, until 6pm on the 23rd. The gardener is next scheduled for the 22nd. We can do that no real problem. Depending on how deeply I can get into the drekhotnode they have. Waiting on Edana for that.

I like this 'dodge the bullet plan'

Hell, I want to see how far down the rabbit hole this goes

It sounded like there were some anomalous, possibly nefarious things going on with the garden too..."there seems to be an irregularity in the stone walkway near the center of the garden. A closer examination reveals a deliberately cut circle, perhaps 1m in diameter. There aren't any indications as to its purpose though."

I'm meta-game guessing that there's some very bad stuff going on there, of which the "gardener" is an integral part. Can't wait to see it unfold...

I don't think its meta gaming at all

• As a devote daoist I believe in demons.
• The gardener is very old (and there powerful in daoist terms)
• There are hints that he has achieved immortality
• He reeks of sulphur
• He gets paid a huge amount of loot every month
• He has wierd feng shui or mystic circles in the garden

Personally I think he is a bad luck gardener either working for the lower orders of the celestial hierarchy, or even worse for outsiders. But not being stupid I have discovered what happens when I explain obvious truths to unbelievers.

Just a thought for you. Parties are for several purposes: having fun, finding sexual partners, establishing dominance, demonstrations of power, appeasing... I wonder which of these undertones is going to be demonstrated. I wouldn't be surprised if its not 'demonstration of power', and the purpose of our mission is to spoil that demonstration.

Whoops! Meant "every month" up there, of course.

Bye
Thanee

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1059827



Bye
Thanee

sabs: I'm waiting a little to advance the timestamp to when you get into the node, as Dante and Hope are still trailing the SUV, which will presumably complete before you're done with the hacking.

phlapjack: Well, a gaming parlor is 30 per hour, per person, so ~50 an hour for a room at the KTV is probably about right, plus whatever drinks/food you get. (Having never gone to one, I have no idea how they're actually priced IRL.) You guys went there at ~7 pm, so giving Fractal an extra 2 hours just to be safe would be ~4:30 am, which is 9-10 total hours. So probably closer to 750 if you want to toss in a reasonable 'bonus' for keeping it open past hours.

---

I think I've caught up on everything now, let me know if I missed something.

Edana: gotcha, so Dante will send 750 to SunQi

I have to say I am quite enjoying this.

I feel like the D&D player who wandering down a corridor spots a secret door. Opening it he comes to the sealed door with a sign on it "Do not enter. There is great evil buried here. signed 'The Gods'". Who could resist taking a peep?

best way to get people to enter is putting a "Do not enter!" sign, huh?

Seth, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you can do magic through a feed from a drone ? So the magic fingers / drone close-up view wouldn't work, I don't think. Large chance I don't know what I'm talking about, here...

sabs: Along with EVERYTHING else Fractal is doing, can he pull the video feeds to analyze guard movements? Length of time for a route, route taken, etc, etc. If we sneak a person or two in, that'll be some critical info, I think.

I need to make a checklist of everything we found out so far. I have this nagging feeling that there's stuff that I've just missed or forgotten...

You are only slightly wrong

If I cast the spell I need to have line of sight (a telescope is ok, a drone feed is not). However I can use the feed to give me fine control over what I see:

Ok gotcha. In that case, maybe even the security cameras would be enough? Still gotta find a way to get initial line-of-sight...hmmm...