You can say it harder to track direct comms all you want. You can even say Mr. White's contact was lying. The facts are, Mr. White got a call from a contact who says he started doing some research on Acson to try help Mr. White and very quickly found his activity being monitored and tracked. The contact believes that tracking was from Horizon and warned that if Horizon is that hot on this subject, he personally would we leary of even mentioning names over the phone.
Likewise, the fact is that Mr. White was contact by somebody known to be connected to Lung. The agent never said anything at all about who he was working for. All he said is that he wants to know what the Draco Foundation is interested in Acson. Mr. White already said that the team was looking to see if the Draco Foundation wants to hire him and the agent said that there had to be more to it.
I believe there was some erroneous assumptions that this meant Lung is after the book, which is why I posted earlier that instead of thinking that Lung is after the book, all you can assume is that Lung is interested in what the Foundations are up to (i.e. he and/or his agent(s) has been covertly monitoring all activity by said Foundations).

Right, seems like we're on the same page. There is a reason I was avoiding names over the commlink, it's just apparently Moreau doesn't care. So I'll be wary but not necessarily paranoid about it. And you can definitely believe that if we get ambushed while at the meet with Moreau, I'm going to be getting him into the action too. Don't care how experienced you are, you can deal with consequences of your actions just like everybody else.

As far as the agent that Mr. White has on the commlink, my vote is to not tell him anything, we already have more information spreading across the matrix than we care to have (as is shown by the fact that we received said call).

Well, technically it wasn't an offer to the team at large, the guy was hoping Mr. White would be greedy. Good thing for you guys Mr. White isn't or you would never know about it.

Heh, even more reason not to tell him, don't know how much he was offering, but my guess it wouldn't be nearly worthwhile if it's split among the group...

So, are we arriving at the Pier where Moreau told us to meet him?

Eclipse is already there and nothing else happens to you guys before you get there. So yeah, I believe that that's why there was the talk of somebody wanting to clown it up at the entrance.

How are you guys approaching the restaurant?

Well, just a quick question for prep purposes. Was the ride around town enough to get an hour's rest for the purposes of healing Stun damage?

Depends on if you were taking a nap or being paranoid like the rest of the team and looking out for tails/ambushes/dragons.

Gardner was taking a nap for the majority of the trip... he lacks the skill to be reliable for tail tracking. I got 5 hits on the Body + Willpower test, more than enough to heal up my Stun damage.


Also before going in, Gardner will cast Increase Charisma on Mr. White to help boost his negotiating skills (and other talky things should we need them).

Spellcasting: 6 hits

Drain: 2 hits (no damage taken)

Results: Mr. White's charisma is 9 (assuming he has a starting charisma of at least 3 or 4 and doesn't have the Exceptional Attribute quality in which case it is 10)

EDIT: I do this before we leave the van, basically I ask him to lean over and I do the same thing I did at the start of the mission before he went to go to the party.

Ok, Sounds good.

You guys sending Mr. White in alone? Sending him in with Acson? All going inside? How's it working?

Oh right, that part of us going in

I was planning on going in along with Mr. White, and of course Acson (this is supposed to be some sort of job interview or something, right?)

I will suggest that at least one other person comes in for at least personnel protection, if others want to stay outside and keep watch, that's cool too. We have a 6 man team here, I'm thinking 4 inside for meet and protection, 2 outside for overwatch and cover?

okay yes there has been some confusion and some assumptions incorrectly made, to clarify :

I never met you cummers before and there's no way I can tell who your contacts are and if they aer trustworthy
so I'm not leaving all my gear, dropping my armour and wandering complete unprepared for any ambush into ... wait a sec .. you said restaurant didn't you ?! ... DAMN ...

so, short of wandering up looking like a Street SAM and scaring all the nice folks, the idea was .. well you know the idea ... and For YOUR Information ... I think we ALL make particularly good Clowns ... so far

and Lastly, Mr. White may as well have said one word only .."Dragon!" and we ALL started putting more armour on ! ..

so, the question ermains, is Mr. White going in alone to meet this guy with no cover .. potentially into yet another hostile situation

or are certain folks taking OFF all the gear we just went to fetch .. and going in with him ?..

Silas will sadly be staying with the van due to popular opinion on his skills.

and I stated quite early on, he would be sleeping for an hour or more while we travel and gear up, Sammiches make me sleepy !

5d6.hits(5) → [3,6,3,4,3] = (1)
if required, thought stun was just time based

Healing stun is an Extended Body+Willpower test with a duration of the 1 hour of rest.

As far as the meet goes, as I mentioned in the IC, Gardner will tell people that he knows this guy (and I think I prefaced the original call with the fact that I was calling up a guy I know). Nevertheless, I do agree that Silas' skills probably work well for us keeping watch outside.

So who wants to go inside among Eclipse, Tundra Wolf, and Needle?

Mostly, I was just harassing Gardner about the rest thing. Anybody that wasn't actively doing something (i.e. Eclipse that was riding his bike and Needle who had previously mentioned how she was actively scanning the airwaves for signs of tails/ambush) can make the standard BOD +WIL test to see how many boxes of Stun damage you recovered.

I'm not going in. I'm staying in the van and watching the matrix for anything unusual. Or, well, more unusual than having a guy who stole some shit from a major corporation who, by the way, orchestrated his own extraction and is now looking to sell himself off to the highest bidder, all the while hoping Horizon doesn't ambush the shit out of us.

Make sense?

Ha! I see what you did there.



But I already had zero stun, thanks to Needle's expert massage and morphine-infused tea! Muahahahaha!


...I like four in, two out, or maybe a little less. I figure if the ambush is already inside the building it's going to be a hell of a fight and the guys outside will be there pretty quick, but if people roll up on us from outside we want as many guns as possible delaying them to get The Squishies to safety.

Sure, sounds fine. I'll send you an encrypted feed from my comm if you'd like so you can listen in on our meet if you'd like...

So which of Eclipse or Tundra Wolf (or both) want to come in? I'd like at least one more person in with us, just in case we do get jumped and the people outside somehow don't notice the approach...

Since it's pretty much required for Mr. White to go inside considering he's the face, I guess we are only waiting to hear what TundraWolf is wanting to do. Then we can move forward with you guys heading inside.

Eclipse will stay outside. He's not very good at the talkin's, would raise some eyebrows in his current get up, and really wants to use his beloved SMG.

I agree on the 4/2 split. I'm already armored up for war, so it's probably not the best idea that I go in. You guys have already proven that you're better at getting out of a firefight than me, so I've got not problem being the cavalry.

In staying in character, TW will not have rested. The phone call to White plus Moreau's unbelievably unprofessional behavior will have TW watching out every window in the van, up and down, forwards and back the entire time. Every now and again he'll look at Ascon with an expression like he's calculating figures, then shake his head and go back to looking around.

So, accounting for me before everything goes to shit again: 2 Physical Damage, 5 Stun. -1 Modifier to all tests. 1 Edge remaining for this mission.

Dammit, I guess we flip a coin for which of us goes in, O'Ryan.

Alright... so unless Zephyr disagrees, I would suggest the three of us that know Moreau already be the ones who go in.

EDIT: Or you guys figure out who wants to be holding onto their big gun more

Those of you that know Moreau - was this behaviour uncharacteristic? Is it possible he was trying to warn us, by leaking the information that certain things were already known etc. etc?

Chrome, heads or tails!

Tails.

edit. So, did I lose and have to go in, or did I lose and you go in?

edit 2: TW knows Moreau from meeting him once. He's got no clue.

Just wanted to mention that you guys can see the occasional guy with cyberware/armored coat in the crowd waiting outside. Only a couple, and not in a group together or anything. I'm just saying that armor/cyber won't get you turned away or anything.

Also, Silas already said he was staying outside (I assume he's still in the clown gear?).

If we are doing a 4/2 split it would need to be Mr. White, Gardner, TundraWolf, and Eclipse. We can totally do the split differently though if you want to do a 3/3 split so just the guys that know Moreau go inside.

Get in there!

Edit: Silus with the LMG, me with a SMG and a desire to show that with gear I'm not a waste of space, and Needle ready to ram people and break another bus should be terrifying!
But, if we're sticking with the 4/2 split the LMG is def. the one we want outside, and if Eclipse won't get turned away for the armored coat over everything... may as well go in?

Those who have met Moreau before would be able to recognize him as a plain talking and straight forward individual. So, I'd say they wouldn't find it that out of the ordinary that his response to Gardner was plain talk and straight forward.

He won't get turned away for the coat.

Hrmph. Okay, well, looks like it's everyone but Silas and Needle. Yes, Silas, we'll bring you another sammich. You've probably already wrung every last nutrient out of that one you got earlier.

Definitely need to get a concealable holster for the Predator. Don't know what I was thinking when I set the character up before with the Viper.

Probably the same thing I thought when I decided a holdout pistol was a good backup weapon. "Oh, I got 90 net hits? That's.... 4P."

I can't remember who took Mr. White's gun before he headed into the Horizon building, but I would think it's safe to assume he has it back by now if he wants it.

Nah. He's better off without it.

I dunno, might be worth having at least something to fire back with if you need it.


So we're going in with four, Needle and Silas sticking outside? or is Eclipse also going to stay outside?

I don't think it really matters, but I've posted up IC to have the group, whoever is going, inside and at Moreau's table.

Yes please.

10k total is a far cry from Acson/Scion's initial 8k each.

My apologies, no. It's 10k each. I must have left out that word when i posted IC. I'll fix it.

edit: The IC post is fixed.

So, are you guys going to try contact Laurent of the Atlantean Foundation to get a counter offer now?

What, no negotiation to get more pay? That's the whole reason I cast the spell on you, Mr. White...

I think White should counter offer. If we can get more cred out of the DF without needing to potentially bring more people into the loop that we've got this little shit and his book...well, that just strikes me as the more ideal situation. It's bad enough that agents of a Great Dragon are already talking to us and Horizon's already widening their comm net, let's try and not bring more people into this picture.

That being said, if Moreau won't budge (which I get the feeling he won't, the way these Missions are written) than we'd probably want to see if the Atlanteans want to throw more money our way. Especially since we're going to have to find a place to sit on Ascon until tonight for a hand-off, and it's attendant ambush (because it's not Shadowrun without the end of the mission going tits up somehow).

I guess Mr. White is just as straight talking as Moreau. He's already shown himself to being against greedy behavior with how he went straight to the rest of the team with his private offer from an outside agent for some info. This seems like more of the same IC behavior. This is what comes of having characters with different values/motivations.

I left the scene where it is if one of the other team members that's there cares to speak up. If somebody doesn't like how Mr. White handled the situation, then say so. But it needs to be handled as IC talk.

Fair enough. Slacker asked me the same thing.

I know its standard Shadowrun/Game trope to weasel for more money at every opportunity, but I don't do that in real life - not all the time, and it seems grubby to me for my character to do it. But then again, I'm not a contract laborer in a dangerous line of work.

Slacker, can I modify my post and try to hit Moreau up for more cash, or just give it a shot next time?

Needle is crawling in her skin as she's listening to the exchange. And she certainly hopes that 10k is for every member of the team, and not just the 3 sitting at the table...

"You see, Mr. Moreau, in addition to Shadowrunning, we're also a fully functioning nostalgia Ska band, early to mid 1990's. That's why I listed the names of two drummers, a saxophone player, a bassoonist, a cymbal percussionist and four trumpets on our expense form."

How about this. Let's roll the dice first and see if you'd even be able to negotiate up the price. Remember from the previous encounter, Moreau has tailored pheromones and such to make him quite the negotiator. If it will make a difference, you can adjust the IC post. If not, then we don't need to bother.

Sweet.

13d6.hits(5) → [6,6,5,6,6,4,3,4,4,4,5,6,3] = (7)

Hmm....the real question is would counterspelling work against your magically enhanced charisma. Moreau has 12 dice from his mage friend doing overwatch, but the spell was technically cast on Mr. White. Eh, i think he's supposed to get the counterspelling, but I'll let it slide because he still has more dice than Mr. White.

However, he doesn't roll as well as White did. He got 5 hits. So that means he'll give you an extra 500 each. And yes, that includes the two team members acting as backup outside.

Oh man, TW's practically having an aneurism trying to keep his temper at this point. When Moreau drops that line about finding out the package's worth he will fix Ascon with a look that promises a slow, painful death if he so much as peeps.

Lol. Oh come on. You're already getting an offer thats 30+% over what he offered you as the Scion . isn't that enough to cheer up TW?

It's not the amount. It's the dig at his professionalism. Which, from Moreau's perspective is deserved, but from TW's (who got the 'run from a semi-trusted source) it is "not cool, bro" territory after the events so far. Just trying to stay in character, Slacker.

Oh. I totally agree. I'm just having some fun. Its great roleplaying and exactly why I had him make the comment.