He says this later or earlier, not sure which one.

Good questions.

So, its complicated

Each zone has its own security and law enforcement:

UCAS - Lone Star
CAS - Knight Errant
PCC - Pueblo Security Enterprises Inc
Sioux - Eagle Security Services Inc

These corporations enforce the laws of the sector, although the trials are presided over by members of the sector government, not the corporation itself.

They also have their own military forces (the military forces of their home nation)

Then there is the ZDF. They report direct to Ghostwalker, man the borders between the sectors, and technically have jurisdiction that supersedes the authority of the Sector Governments. That doesn't always get pushed too hard, because sovereignty is a hot button issue - but technically the ZDF can pluck a criminal out of a sector's law enforcement's hands if they are guilty of a crime that crosses borders (or something defined by Ghostwalker - so don't piss him off )

As far as payment, I probably wasn't clear, but partial payment is allowed - but not in stages (so when you have pushed the investigation as far as you can, come to him for payment, but then you are done, and if there are parts of the run that are incomplete, they stay that way.)

From my initial take, we've got three groups we have to focus on:

1) Lynx & Co. I imagine that most of the murders are going to be somehow linked to this group. The ones that aren't may not be related to the conspiracy at all.
2) The Los Mags: Appear to be part of the conspiracy considering the targets of Lynx & Co. and their connection to Crimson Fire and arresting Los Mag personnel.
3) Lone Star: Whoever is taking the graft on this deal within Lone Star to make it go away.

The first group should be comparatively easy to identify and apprehend. The second and third groups remain a mystery to me with respect to how we are going to identify the conspirators and apprehend them for the authorities. One of my biggest concerns is that if we take down the first group, the second and third groups are going to ground or work to eliminate any connections they had with them. We would have to move really, really fast if we were going to rely on the first group to snitch on the second group. I'm not sure if the dirty Lone Star group would even have a connection to Lynx and Co.

Questions to ponder...

ETA: I can't think of any more questions to ask at the moment (unless he wants to give us real Lone Star badges to go interview people )

Ok - I'm going to eat dinner, and then do a few things with the family, if I come back on later and no one else has posted any questions/comments, I'll assume you guys are done, and end the scene.

Ok - just to show you how I calculated the cost of the taxi ride, as I'm not trying to gouge you out of your hard earned cash, the trip from Nics to Mccormick's is about 32 km each way (ignoring the detour to pick up Ramirez).

If you look at the prices for Mile High Limo (the cost of living document in the dropbox - page 2), you will see that they charge 10 per km, but that is for the Warrens. Fares outside the Warrens are 1 per km.

I figure that the price would be this: the shortest route from Nic's out of the Warrens is about 4 km. So if we charge you the Mile High rate for those 8 km (4 each way) and the standard taxi rate of 1 per km for the other 56km of the trip, that comes out to a easier to handle 136 nuyen, with the 50% tip bringing it to 204

Are all 4 of you going back to Nic's to rest, or is Grease going home to meet up with you later?

I am going to be staying at Nics for the duration of our investigation, and I would probably recommend Amy and Grease to do the same.

Amy does the same. At this moment, I don't see why Grease needs to though. We'll really need to pool some of our money as we had discussed and invest into a group safehouse.

That's fair to me. If no one objects, I'll deduct 51 from everyone's expense ledger since the reason for the taxi was a team event.

Fine by me.

I think Grease will stay at his own place; he's snobby about the Warrens, his garage is at his place, and he wants to do stuff without the team knowing about it

ETA: Also, I forgot the reason we hired a taxi in the first place was because Grease was too big of a jackass to loan out his beemer

So we had agreed to go to the park in the middle of the night, right? I don't think there's anything else.

Grease has got to get his drone out of the Manuel house. I think he'd want to do that around 1 AM, assuming they'll be asleep by then. Let me know how you'd like to do that Lobo; I'd be cool with you writing up the scene like you do with overkill's matrix runs.

-DrZ

Ok, so here's my understanding of the plan, as well as my questions:

1) Jack, Amy, and Overkill are heading back to Nic's.
Question: Are they stopping to buy him something on the way, or are they planning on doing that some other time?

2) Grease is heading back to his place, and around 1:00 AM will be jumping into his drone to try and get it out of the Manuel house.

3) The plan is to head to the burial place in Yak territory later tonight.
Questions:
What time?
Where are you meeting?

1) We'll do it later. Maybe there is an "antique" shop where I can pick up a Walkman or something for him near one of the remaining sites.
3) I just sent a message to Grease. Jack is suggesting 0315 to meet up at Nic's and head out. I assume our abbreviated sleep schedule is going to prevent me from regenerating Edge. One of the reasons I was hoping Ramirez didn't want to meet with us tonight.

Drave will be looking around for a relatively comfortable spot to catch some quick sleep before we go digging up corpses.

Any extra couches in Nic's place, or is he at capacity with all these extra bodies?

You're probably going to have to sleep on the floor, same with Jack and Kevin. Amy and Sam can take Jack's mattress. There really isn't a "den" or living room. The front part of the house is an open space with a bunch of junk, bric-a-brac, and old tech jameed wherever it can fit with a rickety counter built against the wall opposite the front door. Two doors open into the "living space" which consists of two small bedrooms and a bathroom (which Nic refuses to let customers use).

If there is a couch in the front room, it is buried under a pile of stuff. Nic might be a bit of a hoarder.

Okay then:

1) Yes it does prevent you from gaining edge back.
2) Is anyone (besides Grease) planning on doing anything before the meet?
3) Grease - are you planning on doing anything besides getting your drone back?

If the answer is no to questions 2 and 3, then let let me know, and I will post transition scenes for the arrival at Nic's, then a brief attempt by Grease to extricate his drone, and then a transition scene where Grease comes in his taxi to pick everyone up.

Assuming Overkill and Amy don't go home between now and then, their equipment will be whatever they had when they showed up to Nic's to begin with. In Amy's case, it is easy, as she pretty much carries everything with her anyway. For Overkill, he would have whatever he was carrying from back in post#513 from the IC thread, when he was going to Jack's to begin with.

There is no spoiler tag on that post indicating equipment he is carrying (which I should have caught at the time, since the other 3 characters have them in the next 3 posts).

@Overkill, please make a list of what you would have been carrying when you left the house at 5:00 or so. Of course, you will have time to go back to your apartment and get other stuff if you would like between now and 3:00, if you want to do that, let me know as well.

Oh I am sorry, I forgot to go back and post that, here is the list of everything he packed in his duffle:

I was going to search for Lynx, but given that it will take at least 6 hours and he would like to get some sleep before digging a hole, he will wait until tomorrow to begin.

Just a quick note: Grease will probably pick the team up in his BMW, i.e. his "srs bns" car. I don't think Grease is planning anything else, unless there is something particularly of interest when he tries to get the drone out of the Manuel house.

-DrZ

@Grease,

Thoughts at what you would like to try next?

Chimney? Or can I get into the basement?

The house does not have a fireplace, and the door to the basement is closed.

Is there a fan in the kitchen that leads to the outside? AC window units? Loose wiring? Anyplace I can get into the wall itself?

DrZ

Can you cut the tape from the hole in the window?

The house is cooled with central air, so no wall AC units.

There is a fan in the kitchen over the stove, but it is covered with a fine mesh grating.

You could get up into the central air ducts, but this is a closed system that would eventually deposit you inside the evaporation coils on top of the furnace, and then down through them into the collection plate (for liquid) under the furnace.

To get into the wall would require you to burrow into the wall itself.

The tape (as Amy pointed out) might be the best option.

Should we wait to post IC until Grease gets his drone free?

I don't think that is necessary. Either he will extricate the drone now, or he'll have to wait until later. If he has to wait, he can fly it under the couch again until tomorrow morning. I'm just waiting on whether or not he gives the go ahead to try and get out through the tape, or if he has a different idea that I've not thought of (which is totally possible).

If he does get the drone out now, I imagine he'll put it on autopilot to get it home, and then get some more sleep (that's up to Grease obviously).

I like the tape idea. Can I worm my way through the hole? This kinda depends on how big a "fly spy" is, to some degree. I had in my mind's eye a dragonfly.

-DrZ

ETA: And yes; I'll autopilot him home. I will also have the dog-brain transcribe any audio it picked up.

@Grease,

Give a list at some point of what you are bringing to Jack's as far as equipment and drones - you guys never really discussed a detailed plan for what would happen tonight, probably want to take care of that.

Chrome was posting something so I am going to wait to post anything IC.

The gear I am taking with me is Jack's combat load-out (SMG, Armor Jacket, etc). Should be in the post where everyone arrived at Nic's after my meeting with Honeypot.

I have a vague sketch of a plan, but we should probably hash it out IC.

We head towards the area, Grease can send a drone to inspect the park and try to ID the potential grave site using the ARO Stingray provided. Once we have a good idea of the location (or not), Grease parks the car fairly close to the park, we sneak over and Amy uses a spirit to excavate. The rest of us take up firing positions while the spirit does its thing. We recover whatever we can, have the spirit reinter while we book it.

Hey Jack, I changed the interactions between our characters a bit to allow for her to get a dream from her mentor.

I also made her react abruptly because her reaction as an adept is really jacked up.

ETA: My gear will be the same as last time... which is comprised of most of what she owns. She's wearing her armor jacket again considering what they're about to be doing.

ETA2: Maybe I should tell my spirit to return to the metaplanes as he sees fit and summon a new one, this time an earth spirit who will find the task of digging up bodies from the ground well suited to his abilities. Does that make sense?

I was thinking Grease would send RHex with the team and wait in the car in case they need to get out of Dodge ASAP. He can send a drone to do some recon before they head out that way as well.

ETA: I suppose I should mention RHex has his weapon fully loaded; 250 rounds of regular ammo on an AK-97 with a sound suppressor.

ETA2: Do we all have micro-transceivers?

If you think its necessary, but couldn't you just remote pilot the car to us if the drek hits the fan?

Leaving you in your car alone to wait for us seems a bit risky, as it would be easy for you to come help us, but much more difficult for us to go help you if anything happens. You wouldn't have anyone to watch your back.

Drave is otherwise ready.

I don't think there's a reason to dismiss the spirit; as long as you have favors left and have already taken drain there's no penalty for having multiple spirits summoned, right? Or am I remembering that wrong?

-DrZ

You can only have one spirit summoned at a time in SR5. You can have up to your Charisma Bound, but that's a much more involved and expensive process.

With that said, I don't see why we shouldn't keep this spirit until we've had a chance to check out the park first, then Amy can summon the Spirit of the Earth to do the heavy lifting digging.

That is older editions. Amy can only have 1 unbound spirit at a time.

ETA Ninja'd by Jack

I edited my post and added an interaction between Jack and Grease.

Yeah you're right, an F5 Human spirit can help us a lot if there's trouble before it's time to dig.

Just an FYI - I put a map of Sagebrush Park in the dropbox in the Adventure Folder.

Is "Stingray's ARO" the location of the gravesite? I thought he said it was on the South edge of the park.

Stingray's ARO is the location of the gravesite, yes. If you look again, you will see that it is on the south side of the park.

Well, at least now it is

Cool.

While we're still a little way away, Grease could launch a drone to do a pass over the park and look for anyone lingering about. Assuming the terrain is roughly the same as displayed on the map, it looks like there is a road cutting through the middle of the park. Grease could take that coming from the south and we could hop out as the road enters the park. If there are any people between us and the location, maybe Amy's spirit could go tell them to get lost of something. We would just walk along the edge of the park using the trees to cover our advance, then get to work. Grease could setup somewhere slightly north of the park on that road and get ready to burn in and pick us up if needed.

I'm a little busy this morning, so I probably won't have time to put up an IC post. I approve of this plan, and am OK with Lobo posting to that effect on my behalf.

What would your plan with Rhex be? - i.e. does he stay with Grease or get our with you?

Honestly, I've never been sure how RHex gets in and out of the car to begin with, so I think DrZ would have to clarify. My personal preference would be that it comes along and maybe sets up a spotter position close to the road to cover us and Grease's exit. It has an AK-97 AR in the weapon mount, right?

My guess is that it is intended that he carries the drone in the trunk.

If he puts it in at his house, I can see him having some sort of ramp or rig to pick up the drone and put it in.

The book doesn't exactly give sizes on the drones, so we'll say as a caveat that it would fit inside the trunk.

It doesn't give a weight on any of the drones either, but with only a 2 Strength, I'm thinking it may not be possible (or IF possible, then certainly extremely difficult) for him to actually get the drone out of the car without assistance.

Jack can certainly do so.

It does have an AK97.

In past editions, I think the Steel Lynx came up to a little higher than a human's waist when its legs were in the down position, and about head height when the legs were up. A doberman is probably a bit smaller, I would think it probably clocks in about this big. I was going to go with the Quad, but I think that's probably closer to the size of the Aztechnology Crawler.

If Jack can lift it out of the trunk, he'll do that.

First off, I rule that Grease's Doberman must look exactly like that picture you linked to.

Jack would easily be able to lift it out of the trunk.

I concur with Lobo, that's the best Doberman pic I have ever seen!

Drave would likewise approve that it was modeled after a VW