Jack's sprinting. His current and continuing mission at this point is to get the girl to safety.

Cool, I'd like to assense the one touching me.

9d6.hits(5)=1

With one hit you know that the target is Awakened, Lol

You also know that the he is somewhere along the angry/defensive spectrum as far as emotion.

...I mean, didn't the dude just tell us to GTFO or they'll hurt us? Is there any indication that they won't let us GTFO as requested? Or was that message intended for Amy's spirit?

My understanding of our astral communication rules is that if something was intended for the spirit, Amy wouldn't have "heard" it.

I also find that there's no indication that they're leaving us alone, hence Amy's warning about getting too close.

It seems to me it would be kind of dumb to tell us:



If we don't have the option to leave. Might just be me.

With regards to the Astral communication - the projection is speaking to Amy, as she is the only one who is obviously Awakened, and the projection is assuming that Thraha is bound/summoned by her (although a couple quick assensing test will show that the astral signatures match) - and so he knows that telling the spirit to leave is rather pointless, as it has to do what Amy says.

I feel like this could be a good place to roll astral etiquette.

This is a thing? Awesome.

To be clear, you want to make an Etiquette test to try to change their perception of you up one or more steps? I.e. from Hostile to Prejudice?

Not sure if it applies, but it could be in the spirit of the rules, especially if somehow I blundered. You could alternatively just see it all as street etiquette, or some other skill like negotiation I guess? I dunno, I just feel like it's a social situation of some importance.

That sounds like a fine way to handle it, yes.

I'm of the opinion Grease is a "live in the moment" type of guy. While what Overkill did is something he would consider a serious setback (I'm not positive he wouldn't have said to drop the girl..) at the same time, he's going to move forward and try to finish the job. Overkill was in charge, it was his call, and that's that. Besides, Grease just saw him execute 3 different people in about 20 minutes, he probably isn't going to give him notes right at the moment

-DrZ

Okay then.

You have an Etiquette of 2, and a Charisma of 7.

Modifiers are as follows:
NPC is Hostile, -3
Your desired result (i.e. you are leaving, you leave us alone, and we'll get out of your hair) is Advantageous to the NPC, +1

So you roll 7 dice
7d6.hits(5)=2

This is resisted by his Perception + Charisma of 7 dice
7d6.hits(5)=1

So, the fact that you got 1 net hit means they "accept" you - so to my mind, that means they accept what you are saying at face value - although they will watch to make sure you leave.

You didn't get 3 net hits, so they still are Hostile toward you.

I'm going to be busy for a few hours - you guys can go ahead and post away. If, in fact, you simply leave, and make no attempts to harm the tribe or their spirits, then they will let you go, stopping at the barricade. (although they will retrieve Blondie's body).

You guys should also discuss where you are going next.

Ha, I'm glad that worked out!

Once we're in the car, I think we should try to wake the girl up with the medkit. That might affect our decision as to where we're headed.

Apart from that, I'd say we'll feel much more comfortable in the Warrens.

Awesome, my internet connection ate my post.

- The warrens seem like the best idea.
- I can try to patch her up in the car, but since she's awakened and the conditions aren't so great, I'm not sure how well that would work. Might want to wait until we get where we're going.

Yeah okay. I'm not very worried about what she tries to do to us, but why take any risk. People can do crazy things when they wake up in a stranger's car.

Where in the Warrens? Back to our house?

I would think either Nic's or Overkill's house. Since we don't have Blondie anymore, I don't think Overkill's place necessarily provides us with any advantage. I think Nic's is closer to the chip house so it might be the better choice in the event Stinger shows up there.

Has anyone checked the victim for wireless/rfid tags?

Not that I am aware of. My understanding is that she's basically wearing some sacrificial robe or something. Would obviously be a good idea for Overkill to give a look-see.

Correct - she is wearing, well, robe is probably wrong in that it denotes a long flowing thing, this is more like a sacrificial nightshirt.

Overkill takes a quick check for hidden RFIDs

8d6.hits(5)=3

And detects none in the area.

My plan, assuming no one has any objections, is to put up a transition piece IC that puts the 5 of you in Grease's taxi heading toward the Warrens. At that point, someone should probably discuss where to go IC.

Sounds good.

Yeah that sounds good.

Out of character, Grease's house is much closer, and has less of a Noise problem since it isn't in the Warrens - however, I don't think that in character, Overkill has any idea where Grease lives.

IC, I think DrZ has made it clear he has no intention of bringing the crew to his house. If he has a strong enough connection at the Rusty Bar-rel, maybe we can make use of their storage room. Bars usually have a reasonably large storage room for spare kegs, etc.

That is correct. He doesn't want a bunch of murderers to know where he sleeps!

I'm not sure on the connection to the Rusty Bar-rel; Grease's contact there stems from his "I know a guy" quality local to the UCAS sector of Denver. He doesn't have a specific connection with the bartender; more just that everyone knows who he is in that area.

-DrZ

I don't think the owner of the Bar-rel would let you use the back room, at least without a discussion and compensation.

That's fine, plus we don't really have any idea how the girl is going to react when she comes around. If she can cast, I don't want to be discussing remuneration with the Rusty Bar-Rel owner for property loss from a fireball. If Overkill is down with is, let's just drive to his place. Perhaps he can pull off his hack en route since we have to cross through the UCAS sector to get to his place in the Warrens.

Ok, so 15 minutes have now gone by after the first illegal action by Overkill - adding 2d6 to his OS.

No that you are in the UCAS proper, noise is reduced to 1, plus the noise of 2 for the icon, plus the distance of 3, plus the target is on the public grid, for a total of 8 noise. The signal scrub and the datajack reduce that to to a penalty of 5.

In order to put another mark on it, he needs to do another Hack on the Fly

11d6.hits(5)=3

Oops - rolled 2 too few dice:
2d6.hits(5)=0

That didn't help

It resists (and fortunately doesn't roll well)
8d6.hits(5)=2

So Overkill now has the 2 marks he needs to perform a Trace Icon test.

However, his dice pool for this now is only 5 (including the VR bonus) - should he try it now?

Given the cumulative noise values for originator and target that we're using, I was going to say it would be a terrible idea, but since it's a Data Processing action, there's zero consequence for attempting it, barring a glitch.

Okay then - here goes:

5d6.hits(5)=2

It resists
4d6.hits(5)=0

Success

Is Jack's bio-monitor still showing to be wireless on? I'm not sure if anyone can trace it back to me, but I'd rather we destroy it if possible. Since I'm still the owner, I imagine I could grant three marks to Overkill so he could brick it in one shot given a Hammer/Mugger combo.

There really isn't a point to that - remember that bricking it doesn't actually destroy it - and anyone with the ability to track that back to you (if it could be) would have the ability to fix the bricking.

If they critical glitch the repair roll, they destroy the device, don't they? Plus they may not have the capability to repair it, in which case they may just throw it away, which would work in my favor in any event.

True - it should be easy enough for Overkill to brick it if you want.

ETA - when do you want it done, btw, bearing in mind that even something simple like that will add hits to the OS, and depending on how long you want Overkill to keep his mark on the icon, that may matter.

Jack just doesn't like the idea of leaving usable gear behind, particularly gear connected to him.

Ok, so Overkill's attempt to Brick the device:

Cybercombat + Logic + VR, =16 dice

Noise=4 for environment (its and yours), 2 for grid, 1 for distance, total of 7, -3 for NR is a penalty of 4

12d6.hits(5)=5

It resists
4d6.hits(5)=1

So he does Attack 5, +2 for Hammer, +4 for net hits, +6 for 3 marks, +3 for Mugger for a total of 20 DV

It resists
4d6.hits(5)=1

And it is quite thoroughly bricked.

That dude is such a Matrix stud.

I haven't posted because there isn't much for my character to do right now.

If the plan is to go to Overkill's place and wake the girl up, I'm all for a cut scene.

Ok - I'll put one up if everyone else is ok with it - I am waiting to see if Jack or Grease want Overkill to cut the connection yet or not.

Can he find out more about the device before he breaks the connection? Like exact location, name of owner, past phone calls, whatever.

Oh sorry, I kind of forgot that Overkill was on GM control right now.

Now that we've roughly identified the location of the device connected to the van, I think he should cut his connection unless he wants to try a Matrix Perception check to get more details on the icon. Since he never got more than one net success on his HotF attempts, he never got any additional detail. Personally, I don't know if knowing what kind of device it is is really all that important compared to knowing where said device is at almost Midnight.

With that said, Overkill's Matrix Perception ability is not all that great. Hmm... when he made the initial spotting test, did he get enough successes to get the device's identifying information? If so, I don't know why he doesn't just reboot and then attempt to spot the icon again and get additional information on it at that point. He's running against the clock right now...

ETA: Reviewing the posts, Overkill never scored enough hits to get any identifying information on the device (man he had a lot of 1 net hit successes). I think he may want to take a shot at it now that we're in a less noisy area, then reboot. Hopefully he'll get something so we can try to spot the icon again when we need to...

Ok - here it goes

Matrix Perception
5d6.hits(5)=2

It resists
5d6.hits(5)=2

Sorry - no dice

OK. Unless you think he would risk a 3d6 possible glitch/critical glitch, I would say break the connection. It would have been nice to be able to spot it again in the future, but I don't think we want to risk blowing our cover.

Ok - lm going to be busy for the evening, but late tonight I'll post the cut scene that brings us to Overkill's.

Btw, I can tell you right away that I won't have much access to the internet, if at all, between June 20 and June 24.

Sorry, I've been monitoring today but haven't had much reason to comment. I'm good with moving to a cut scene.

DrZ

Ok - no problem - thanks for letting us know - hope you are going somewhere fun

I've got a dental appointment in about an hour or so. Probably won't be posting again until this afternoon.

I'm first moving and then travelling. I'll still be on the west coast though