I'm really wishing I'd put a Police Etiquette skill on my sheet now or the Horseman PMV with the drone rack. Getting an armed drone in won't be easy, and then there's whatever gear the others choose to bring along.

On the other hand, we might be able to bribe that past one way or another...Mr. White and his silver tongue will be pretty useful there.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the drone chair has smart tires, so it can negotiate steps.

Alrighty, so how much time exactly are we looking at folks off doing their own thing before we get together again? Six, eight, ten, twelve hours? The amount of time will effect what I do with some of that off time. Also, we did not get any up front money, correct? Pretty sure we didn't, but just wanted to make sure.

Also, it occured to me that I neglected to subtract 1 from my pool on my data searches up to now. Fixing that from now on.

Gonna throw out a couple of Data Search rolls on the Ork Underground, specifically seeking information that's in Or'zet (the assumption being better details may be available).
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - Cumulative penalty for extended test (-1 per roll after the first) (12d6.hits(5)=3, 11d6.hits(5)=5, 10d6.hits(5)=5, 9d6.hits(5)=4)

I would also like to try to locate a pirate network (Data Search + Browse, 8, 1 Day) (Unwired Pg. 94) for future...needs. Going to rush the job (glitches with 1's and 2's, SR4A Pg. 65) since I'm on a bit of a timeline, making it Data Search + Browse (8, 12 hours). Figure I'm likely going to have to split that test up a bit (depending on pickup times, work for a few hours, sleep for three, work for more until picked up, work on the car ride there, etc.) to make it happen.
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - Cumulative penalty for extended test (-1 per roll after the first) (12d6.hits(5)=0, 11d6.hits(5)=5, 10d6.hits(5)=6, 9d6.hits(5)=2)

Whew, no glitch on the first one, but it was a NEAR thing Looks like three tests is what it takes, so that boils down to what...36 hours for me to locate a pirate network?

What kind of information is Quixote looking for on the Ork Underground? You can find plenty of info on the history of the Underground. Some info on various gangs that are down there. Thousands upon thousands of rumors and conjecture. No maps of the Underground exist at all, it changes too much and too often. At most you'll find something about the "villages" built up right up against each entrance. The rest of the Underground is just one massive shadow of conflicting info.

Time is against us- especially if she is in some kind of danger (like the Ork Underground), and the trail will only get colder. I suggest that we snatch a few hours of sleep and meet back up fairly early. Slacker, what time IC was it when we decided to call it a night? 3AM? I suggest we take 6 hours off and meet back up, so 9AM if I'm right about the time.

Slacker, help me out - with the armed drone Legs wants to take in, is it super off limits - the equivalent to trying to smuggle a nuclear missile somewhere, or more the kind of thing that we might be able to get someone to look the other way while we drive it into the underground? Perhaps I can get two favors from my Knight Errant contact, and get confirmation that she went into the Ork Underground AND see if we can get the drone in with us.

Sounds fine.

Can we do some digging on this person as well? What's an appropriate roll here, or does this mean calling contacts?

I was wondering if that note had gotten overlooked. Perhaps a contact would be good for that, maybe a criminal contact?

I knew there was something I forgot in my post. I wouldn't mind running searches for a Jack Turner, in Seattle, with connections in academia and magical nonsense.
Browse (6) + Data Search (4) + Encephalon (1) + PuSHeD (1) - 1x(number of attempts - 1) (12d6.hits(5)=6, 11d6.hits(5)=6, 10d6.hits(5)=3, 9d6.hits(5)=1)

As for information on the Ork Underground, mostly survival type stuff. The do's and don'ts, who can usually be bribed to get in/get out/get info, potential hangouts/watering holes where information is likely to be.

Going to put a call in to my mafia contact (4/4) about Jack Turner. 14D6E5 => 4

I still may call my Knight Errant contact, but I'll hold off just for the moment.

Jack Turner is an ork smuggler that is based out of the Ork Underground, mostly smuggling guns and BTLs.

The do's and don'ts of the Ork Underground are mostly stay out of the dark, don't go where there aren't lots of people, stay to tunnels you know, don't feed the wild life, some tips on telling when a tunnel is about to collapse, don't make loud sounds lest the devil rats and giant crocodiles hear you and swarm.

If you try contact anybody you see online about bribes to get in, they all speak up with great enthusiasm saying they can totally get you in, no problem, just send them 100-1000nuyen (depending how much they try to talk up the risks involved) and they'll meet you at the entrance.

You also find tourist information that says there is no fee to get in, though there are guided tours of the areas immediately around either entrance that costs 150nuyen per person (they do require you to sign a waiver saying they are not at fault in the case of death or dismemberment).

I think that's about all you are able to find. Mostly its difficult to get any reliable information at all. Any mention of watering holes are often squashed by people saying that the original poster is just trying to send you into a trap, or that the cave collapsed last month killing everybody inside. Or the directions are all based off landmarks only residents know/understand. etc.

We might want to see if searching for "Morel Stone" gets any data as well.

Looks like you're in luck, both your contacts in this time. I'll post something IC shortly for the Mafia contact. After that you can tell what you want to talk to KE about.

Actually, the drain on 4 hits by the spirit is a painful 8 stun, of which I only resist 1. So Gardner has a really bad headache after trying that, and won't bother trying to summon up another spirit until he has at least healed up most of that... Which is still fairly lucky that I can rest up and heal that...




I definitely agree that time is of the essence, Gardner won't argue with getting at least a little sleep, though. He'll try and get up between an hour and an hour and a half early, trying that summoning test that goes horribly wrong. He was originally getting up early in the hopes that the spirit might have something when we all meet. But as it turns out, it was so he could rest to get rid of the splitting migraine that hits after he tries to summon up a spirit to do the searching.

Giving up on trying to summon a spirit to do a search for now, Gardner is going to prep for the group heading into the Ork Underground by contacting MacCallister. Yes, he's our Johnson for this run, but he's also one of the major political advocates for the Underground, and happens to be one of my contacts already, so I'm guessing he might be willing to help out on this?

I only got 1 hit on an Etiquette+Loyalty test, so he might not be happy with needing to do something, but at least I didn't botch things up...

I'll wait to see what sort of info/assistance Mac can provide before I decide much else...

With one success, MacCallister isn't going to be of much help. He's pretty tide up in taking care of protection for Mercurial right now. It seems the death threats she had been getting before the show were genuine. So fucker sent a clutch of toxic spirits after her. He was able to get her out of there with only minor injuries, but the culprit got away.

His only suggestion is to ask one of the locals once you get underground to guide you. There's always some scrappy kid or another down there offering to guide topsiders foolish enough to go down.

He does warn you to stay clear of the invisible crocs before signing off saying he's happy about how fast you guys are moving. He's expecting to hear good news soon.

Just noticed you mentioned this. This is really only information that an archeologist or at least some kind of academic type would know/come across. It's not publish information.

Oh and I believe somebody asked about money. You guys could may have negotiated for half up front, but it was not expressly mentioned by MacCallister or Laurent. So no, you haven't gotten any money yet.

Interesting information from my mafia contact.

With that in mind, I'll offer my Knight Errant contact to try to scratch his back in return for his scratching mine.

He knows what I do for a living, I let him know that I'd like to check camera footage to confirm that a person entered the Underground from the Mall, and I'd also like to try to get an armed drone in ("I keep hearing rumors that the Ork Underground is rather dangerous.."). In return, I hear that they're looking for an ork named Jack Turner. I might be able to help them get his hands on him.

12D6E5 => 3

"Come on. We've worked with each other some in the past, but do you really think I'm going to let you not only poke around in our camera archives, but also bring an illegal drone to a populated and very public place like the Parkland Mall?" He's a bit surprised but you trying to ask him for that much, but your smooth words are able to talk him out of being angry.

"Tell you what. Looks like Athack is the detective in charge of the investigation into Jack Turner's activities. He's like to be down by the Tourist Highway right now because of rumors of more gang activity. Talk to him and mention my name. But I'm leaving it up to him to decide what to do with you and your Doberman, I assume you've got a permit for that, right?"

Wonder what the feasibility of breaking it down, splitting up pieces and parts between us, and reassembling it inside would be? For the REALLY illegal stuff on it, Quixote could try to sneak in carrying it on his person. Dunno how feasible that would be, but it's an idea.

Otherwise, if there's nothing else we wanna try to chase down, I'd say lets go ahead and forward some time and head on o'er to the mall.

Is it mentioned that Athack might be able to help us? He's also one of my contacts >.< He's only at Loyalty 1, but that's at least better than nothing...

And I might be able to help a bit with getting in a bit unnoticed... I know it's a little cheesy, but a Rating 5 Air Spirit using it's Concealment power on all of us will make us pretty hard to notice... I might have to go more powerful if we need to conceal drones too. It's up to Slacker how effective this is, I don't want to be an annoyance or anything here...

I can't think of much else that'll help us getting in, I don't have any appropriate knowledge or anything for this particular situation.

I would say that you really would only need to hide the drone and any other excessive (meaning obvious) hardware you guys are planning to take down with you. People go in and out of the tourist entrance all the time. Knight Errant isn't there to stop people, they are there to stop gang violence from the Underground spilling out into the public mall above. Though, do keep in mind that Concealment just gives people a dice pool modifier, and it doesn't take much to notice a drone stomping along behind a group of obvious shadowrunners. At most they would need to roll 2 hits to see the drone, it'd only be 1 hit needed to see the whole group of you.

As for Detective Athack. He might be able to help you, but right now he is unreachable. Mr. White's contact mentioned that you can probably find him at the Lordstrung's entrance.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3y5my0vo08ntjo/TouristHighway.jpg

That is a map of the entrance to the Tourist Highway. Is there a particular time you are all trying to get there? You guys going to try to find and talk to the detective first, or conceal the drone and then look for him? Or just skip looking for him and head on inside?

The KE guard toward would be off to the right with a nice clear firing field beyond the barriers marked on the map.

We obviously need to mod out Legs' wheelchair in the future with a LMG or something in a pop-up mount.

Really wouldn't mind taking my Ares Alpha with me, but with it having a +6 to concealability...hmm.
Heck with it, Quixote's gonna be taking pretty much his whole inventory with him. If possible, might have Legs haul my toolkits on his wheelchair for me. And, depending on how big his smuggling compartment is/assuming he's not using it for something better, might try to talk him into hauling my Ares Alpha for me

And, I hate to ask, but what about any air vents in bathrooms or something along those lines that might be meta-human sized?

We could try to go in one or two at a time to reduce our menacing profile.

If getting the drone into the underground is going to be a huge hassle, I'd suggest that we skip it- though I suspect Legs would disagree.

Surely there's someone who's willing to get heavy gear into the Underground for the right price. If it was as locked down as it seems, then no one in the underground would own anything larger than a heavy pistol.

You all have heard of this one guy that smuggled guns into the underground. Hid names Jack Turner. But seeing how you are likely to be fighting him eventually, he may notbe the best guy to use.

Must be the richest guy in Seattle, if he's the only bloke who can get weaponry into the Underground.

I was really just joking around. But do any of you have smuggler contacts?
If not, do you want to take the time to find a trust worthy smuggler and pay the price for said service?

Legs?

My suggestion would be to try and minimize our "big gigantic weapons budget". Sometimes you can't bring in the heavy guns. Unless someone has a smuggler contact or wants to pay big bucks to arrange for the big stuff to get smuggled in, I can't think of a great way to do that. Best I can do is use a spirit to negate the concealment modifier of the bigger weapons. So if you want to try and sneak in an assault rifle or something, that might work, but it's still a bit risky.

Personally, I don't generally carry in anything illegal (I own a few heavier weapons, but that's a strange situation and probably won't come up until maybe Gardner knows y'all a little better ).

I can't think of a great way to get the drone in, sorry. Even with help from a spirit, concealment can't make us or the drone invisible, just easier to overlook.

Oh, I'm willing to go ass-rifle less, but stories about invisible alligators have a way of making me want the sweet, comforting feel of a big ol' gun in the hand. However, for the sake of expediency, I'm willing to forgo it.

You guys could always talk to Athack once you get there as Mr White's contact suggested. Mr White is pretty persuasive after all and I'm even going to give him a bonus for dropping the KE commanders name.

Let's do what the GM says, and go pay Mr. Athack a visit then?

Will you be carrying your heavy weapons and/or the drone cloaked by a spirit from Gardner? Or first talk to Athack and see what he says?

Figure for me, it'll be light, easily concealed weaponry (shock gloves, FN 5-7C) and will stash my Alpha in the Roadmaster if Legs doesn't mind and go for the talk with Athack. If we get the nod, nifty, if not, no need to go back.

Everybody else agree with what taeksosin is doing? Heading to talk to Athack before trying to bring in the heavy stuff?.

Yes.

It's initiative time everybody. Yet another gang war has started on the streets of Seattle, this time with innocent tourists trapped in the middle.

At first glance one gang the Skraacha are attacking anything chromed up or not ork or troll; and the Reality Hackers are attacking everything else.

Currently the figures on the Knight Errant guard tower seem to be making calls to dispatch. With the civilians in the middle of things, you doubt they will be able to do anything until backup can arrive in force.

So, what is everybody doing?

Staying out of the line of fire.

Saving people who decided it would be fun to put their head in a lion's mouth is not really my line of work. Unless I'm being paid for it. Then its totally my line of work.

Dak has the right of it. Bet they had to sign a waiver, too. TW's going to grab some cover, draw the Predator, and keep an eye out for any gangers noticing them.

edit: Initiative 8 (Reflexes not online at time of roll) =2 . Initiative step 10, 1 IP. At my initiative step, Free Action to activate Reflexes, pushing Initiative to 12 (though with 1 IP that's kinda useless right now), Simple Action to ready weapon (Draw Predator, smartlink comes online and safety disengaged), Simple action to find available cover.

Fair enough Mr. White, but I still need an initiative roll from you. And take a look at the map link I posted earlier to tell me where you are planning to take cover? behind one of the tents/flimsy kiosks or are you trying to run into a shop for cover? Or run back up the escalator?

Also....you guys may want to think about how you were going to be asking KE to let you head into the Underground with illegal gear. They may be more inclined to do so if say they saw evidence of you working towards helping people rather than watching as innocents get killed. Just saying....

So...before leaving his place, Legs will also grab his trusty Thunderbolt and load it with hollow points, and stick it plus a couple of spare clips (also loaded with hollow points) into the drone chair's smuggling compartment.

Since he has it loaded up, Legs is gonna bring the Doberman into the mix.

Going to be in full VR, 'jumped in' to the drone, while commanding the Steed drone chair to find the nearest cover and take it. If there's no decent cover to be had, he's going to stick as close to the Doberman as he can without getting in its way.

Initiative 8 = 3 hits

Pretty sure cyber/bioware doesn't count for jumping into a drone, if I remember correctly.

Initiative 6D6E5 => 1

Where is the KE tower? I'm probably heading into one of the shops for cover. Uh, #7 perhaps.

The KE tower is off right side of the map. About 25 meters back with a completely clear field of fire between the barricades shown on the map and it.


Currently the plan was to come in to talk to Athack before bringing the heavier stuff like your doberman and [edit]Quixote's Ares Alpha. So, that drone would still be in your van and it would take at least one combat round for it to get here from the mall parking lot (I assume it's able to get out of the van without damaging it?).

I ended up starting this combat before you had a chance to speak up yes or no on that plan though. So if you were wanting to bring it speak now and then Gardner would need to make his summon and drain check before the combat started if he was going to do the Concealment thing.
And yes, when you are in full VR jumped into the drone you do not get bonuses from physical initiative boosters.

The Alpha is Quixote's, I have an AK-97. And since we'd not said anything otherwise (unless I missed something, always possible), it's still in it's case in the Roadmaster. I'm still in the process of writing up an IC post, I'll hold on it until we come to a decision either way and then finish it.

edit: TW will find cover behind the further of the two kiosks outside of #1. How many gangers are armed with guns vs melee weapons?

edit 2: Wait, the tower's behind us? Wow, uhhh, hopefully there's no friendly fire issues here.

The drone would be stored on a drone rack, and the RoadMaster is fully rigger adapted, so it can get out without damaging the vehicle.

Okay, so...change of plans, then. Legs will go ahead and command the Doberman to get its ass out of the RoadMaster and run over to the parking lot. In the meantime, I guess, he'll get the Thunderbolt out.

Want me to re-roll initiative?

EDIT: Here's what Legs has in terms of gear: Transys Steed (drone chair), the GM-Nissan Doberman with a LMG in the turret mount and loaded with explosive rounds (currently in the RoadMaster and working its way to the scene), Ruger Thunderbolt and 2 spare clips loaded with hollow point ammo, a full suit of form fitting body armor (with the YNT SoftWeave mod), an armor vest, and normal clothing.

You can roll the extra dice Legs gets from 'ware.


It's hard to tell. There are a couple dozen tourist running/cowering all over the place. You'd guess there are 6 or 7 gangers on each side and about half are doing melee (nailbats from the all ork gang and cyberspurs from the Reality Hackers)

How close to the burn line on the map are the civilians and the gangers? Are the gangers more interested in beating each other stupid(er) or are they just killing indiscriminately?

Add 1 dice for Muscle Toner enhancement = 0 hits

So his initiative remains the same, but he only gets one initiative pass instead of 3.

Also:

Initiative for GM-Nissan Doberman: Pilot (3) + Response (3) = 3 hits

Initiative: DP 7 -> 1 hit = 8 Initiative; 1 Pass

Gardner would be coming up without his Increase Reflexes cast, not knowing what sort of magical forces KE has, he wouldn't want to walk up to them with an active spell.

Needing a bit more time to react to all the gangers who are probably drugged or chipped up, he will cast his Increase Reflexes spell, Force 3 utilizing his Sustaining Focus.

Spellcasting: 5 hits (capped at 3 hits).

Drain: 2 hits (I take 1 Stun damage)

Effect: Initiative +2 (bumping it up to 10, not that it matters really), 2 bonus Initiative Passes (starting next Turn)


Could I get a bit better a description of where all the forces are? I'll be trying to go in to help and I kind of want to get a better idea of locations of the different gangs, civilians, where we started... that sort of stuff.


Lastly, I'll need to know if I was helping out someone with that Concealment from a spirit idea. Like I said, it only makes things easier to overlook, not actual invisibility. Gardner would have suggested it to help out someone that was insistent, but isn't going to bet his life on it or anything.