The Piri Reis Map is the fifth item on the auction block. The intermediate items have gone for numbers in the 6-7 hundred thousand nuyen range with bidding moving up steadily in the 5-10 thousand increments. Initially there are several parties bidding, that quickly whittles down to two interested bidders. As each auction ends, the winning bidder rises to go and pay for their purchases.

When the bidding begins on the map, it seems to follow the same pattern, will several parties quickly making 10,000 nuyen increments to the beginning price of a quarter million. Jane decides to try and make a bold move as the price approaches 500,000, she rises and bids for the first time, "One million nuyen!" The broker is taken aback at the sudden increase but smiles and recovers quickly. "That is one million nuyen for the Piri Reis Map by the mysterious elven woman in the sixth row, are there any other bidders?" Several collectors in attendance immediately wave off, and the seconds stretch as the runners wait in anticipation.

"One million, 25 thousand."

Torley looks around to see the red haired elven woman that Samriel had been speaking to when they entered the artifact viewing at the palace (see page 12 of this topic). "Million Twenty-five from the Tir Tairngire representative." The broker looks back at Jane, who drops into her seat, "That was the whole bankroll." she whispers to Torley as she waves off the broker. With the tension broken, several other big players are back in the hunt as the price jumps 25 thousand at a time.

Torley looks at Jane and barely manages to hide a look of disdain. He marvels at her lack of auction experience and, more so, her puny bankroll for one apparently so talented and connected. She must have come down in the estimation of many in the room. "That was it?" he manages to say quietly and with an even voice. He turns his attention to the remaining bidders.

To the team, he messages, <<We are out of the running for the item. Bigger bankrolls than ours win out. Will keep track of who gets the item and advise.>>

O'Connor smirked, *I'm getting my way, and if it goes bad I don't take the blame.* He turned to Starlet, "Looks like we're playing offense in the scramble. Any tricks you got for tracking this map?"

'I had 48 hours to call in favors and liquidate assets to be able to put a bankroll together, without starting rumors or bring even more opposition, all from half a world a way from my regular contacts and with a shitty matrix, if you think you could have done better, feel free to enlighten me." Jane looked pretty upset at herself, in spite of this speech, but she recovered quickly. "This is going to be over very soon, go ahead and queue up for the elevator, so you can give the rest of the team as much time as possible to prepare once we know who wins."

As Torley follows her instructions he sees the auction come to an end with Aztechnology, the Apep Consortium and the Nubian in the loose robes, representing the Great Dragon Celedyr, being the only bidders left. In the end it is the Nubian, whose name you hear is Medjay that wins the map with a bid of 2.1 million nuyen. As Medjay moves to the payment room Torley sees the ripple of activity it starts, on this floor at least, as others get in line behind him, and ahead of the wizworm's flunkie, and others people are suddenly moving to corners to hold whispered communications with people that are not present.

At the garage level, every other vehicle with a driver has suddenly been readied and those not driving are holding conferences or talking on their comms.

Sammy hadn't expected much else when she had seen from Torley's camera who was there. While she wasn't sure who was bankrolling Jane, megacorporations and great dragons had notoriously deep pockets.
"I'm not sure," she said to O'Connor, "even though it's magical and I've seen it, tracking items is really tricky. And we will have to wait until the item is out of this building, as I'm sure there's wards around it. If the real thing is even here and not in the palace where we saw it last. I must say I'm not all that happy we have to go up against a dragon flunky."

She has a look around for the people who had arrived with the Nubian. That was going to be the competition now and they deserved an extra check.

Medjay had arrived in a rather standard issue high class corporate car, not a Nightsky by any means but certainly a luxury model, likewise his crew was fairly standard high end security. No mages, but they two men sported some mods, probably smartlinks and comms, and a vehicle control rig for the driver.

Torley messages his teammates, <<If my video feed didn't make it clear, one Medjay representing Celedyr is the winner of the item. See if you can tell anything from their team downstairs. I'll try to get something up here as I come down to you.>>

He shakes his head, and holds a hand to one ear, as if he is having technical trouble. He steps slightly to the side to 'rectify' the problem, and lets any between him and Medjay go ahead. He tries to get himself into the elevator load that includes Medjay once the 'technical problem' clears.

Well, that idea gets squashed right away. Losers don't get to ride with winners. Oh well. Torley gets in the next batch of elevator riders and contents himself with seeing if he can learn anything from the others in the elevator. He listens first to see if any conversation is worth joining.

<<His security looks very limited,>> Sammy texted back, <<but I don't believe any of it. He probably has half an army out there. No way a dragon flunky giving out that much money would have so few security. Say, what's Celedyr's metahuman form? Anybody know?>>

The other elevator occupants are the teams from Aztechnology and the Apep Consortium. The ride down is silent as the five of you stand with backs to the wall and stare at each other.

O'Connor stood at the ready, doing his best to not fidget or pace. The scramble would start soon, and they were at a severe numbers disadvantage. He did have an idea though. He asked Starlet, "How indepth can commands to spirits be? If there's vehicular combat, we could have your spirits drop the tear gas and smoke grenades into cars, but I don't think they'd know to pull the pins. Can you tell them to do that as apart of the task? Or would task one be pull the pin, task two place in car?"

Both corporate teams bolt for their groups when the elevator doors open. When Torley exits the doors close and the car shoots up it's tube. By the time he reaches the rest of the team, all of their comms chirp, "Medjay is in the elevator, keep me in the loop and DO NOT READY OR FIRE A WEAPON ON VICTORIA ISLAND."

Torley laughs at that directive. As he gets in the front passenger seat of their car, he says, "Looks like the real party starts off island. I can't drive worth drek, so I hope one of you can. I like the idea of spirits making trouble for the other teams. If the grenade idea seems tricky, there's always the spirit power to cause accidents. If we are close to another vehicle, I could mess with the driver temporarily as long as I can see them. Same with Starlet! Huh. You OK with having the steering wheel, O'Connor?"

The seconds stretch out, as a couple of dozen eyes watch the elevator. Is it taking longer than it should? A few more seconds tick by as groups contact people upstairs to find out if Medjay actually got on the lift.

Something is definitely wrong.

Torley suggests, "Looks like he had another way out. Should we book it out of here and catch his vehicle heading out?"

"He probably took the elevator up and airlifted out," Sammy said, "that's what I would do. Head to the airport and get the hell out of here as quickly as possible."

She called up a watcher spirit and set it to look for Medjay. Those were the best at tracking, despite being stupid otherwise.

"Huh. Why didn't we think of that?" Torley is getting frustrated. With himself; with his boss.

O'Connor took the driver's wheel and set course for the airport until Starlet's watcher reported a sighting. He chocked down his resentment towards Starlet for once again ignoring a direct question he asked her. It wasn't the time or place to teach the bitch manners.

He commed their boss, <"The target didn't come down to the garage. Everyone is getting ansy down here. Starlet believes he airlifted out. She has a watcher up, and we're making our way towards the airport until we get a sighting.">

He whispered to Torley, "Despite the illustrious Starlet dismissing me as beneath reply, I still think my grenade idea has merit. Perhaps you could rephrase and present the idea as your own, Her Eminence may grace you with a response."

"There is no helipad, he had to go down. Maybe he didn't stop in the garage?" Is Jane's reply, and she is right, the watcher comes quickly back to Starlet to report that Medjay is speeding away on an okada from the front of the building.

Because of O'Conner decisive action he is able to get out of the garage first ahead of the other vehicles, but he can see that won't matter much as the okada is weaving through traffic. As the other teams spill out behind you, you see four men, wearing the tell-tale Aztechnology armor, take off on foot
at a steady jog toward the Eko Bridge. They’re moving faster than the taxis and cars idling on the crowded enclave roads. The Apep group emerges from the garage heading in a different direction, riding fast-looking motorbikes and weaving through the idling cars.

Torley leans out of the car window, amplifies his voice with his Voice Control power, projecting it forward to the cars blocking them, and in Yoruba Commands the drivers in front of his team, "PULL TO THE NEAREST SIDE".

He looks to O'Connor and shrugs. "It was worth a try." He then turns to Sammy and says, "Do you think O'Connor's idea will work? Using your spirit as a grenade-dropping drone?"

"What idea," Sammy asked, "sorry, I was a bit distracted getting a good read on the magical ability of our adversaries. Grenade dropping spirit. In theory, it can work, but I've a fire spirit ready and you don't want something that's essentially on fire to handle explosives, so in this particular idea, no, we can't do that. But the spirit can cause accidents or if all else fails, blow stuff up on its own. I think we best also get going on foot or using motorcycles, this traffic isn't really going anywhere."

That was an INCREDIBLY bad idea. Torley's command has caused at least three wrecks and a half a dozen fistfights, as well gotten the attention of a cop or two. It also does absolutely nothing to help your progress or hinder the opposition at all.

O'Connor angled their vehicle to block those behind as much as possible. He exited and began a foot pursuit, while looking for any bikes or okada that could be commandeered. He commed Frosty, <"Target is zipping away on an okada. We're currently pursuing on foot. Ahead of us are an Aztech team, also on foot, and an Apep team on bikes. All others currently behind us.">

Torley leaps out of the car and follows O'Connor, scratching his head and wondering whether he has screwed up the whole process. Nah, he thinks to himself. Clearly this drek would have happened anyway. Wasn't my fault.

There is quite the commotion left at the garage entrance when the team abandons the car, which is exactly what Bullet Storm wanted. They dive into the commotion that Torley created, with BS and Lil Homie leading the way. Medjay's okada can be seen making a left turn ahead, while the Apep bikes, after a moments consideration, continue on their original path towards the Third Mainland Bridge.

Lil Homie pipes up "He is heading for the Go-Slow! This way!" as he cuts through an alley. Leaving the chaos behind the three of you reintroduce yourselves to your meat bodies as you try to keep up with the scampering street urchin while maintaining a resasonable pace on foot.

Minutes later, the Eko Bridge comes into sight a block or two away, the familiar slow traveling flea market already audible before it comes into view. From your angle you can see that Medjay has abandoned his vehicle and the brilliant white of his voluminous flowing robe is a streak of steady movement on the bridge. The Azzies have made it to the start of the bridge ahead of you and are already pushing their way through as well.

Jane comes across the comms "Okay Devils, looks like you are in a horserace and the airport is the finish line. Regardless of who wins, Lagos is not going to be a fun place to be a paleface, if you get my meaning. I am going to get with Innocent Dobiri and arrange our extraction, you guys try to get that map from Medjay. That map is the most important thing and it needs to be intact, so don't go blowing him up or riddling him with bullets, understood?"

O'Connor pursued the target with haste, "Starlet, speed us up or slow him down. Torley, once we're on the bridge, start a riot as we pass. I don't want any more of the competition getting off the island by this bridge."

Sammy had followed the others on foot, weaving amongst the people and keeping her respirator on her face to avoid an asthma attack.
"I can't do anything to speed you up and I can't blast anything until we're past the checkpoint," she called back, "or wait, maybe I can try something."

She switched sight to the astral and while she kept running (dodging people and things from their aura in the astral) she called up her spirit.
"As soon as this man is past the halfway point of the bridge, use your accident, confusion or noxious breath powers to slow him down," she said, giving Medjay's aura signature. With a nod the spirit moved off.

Starlet sends the fire spirit on his task as Torley begins to strategically whisper commands into ears as he slips past different people on the bridge. His efforts quickly bear fruit as different individuals begin yell or start throwing punches. The confusion he is sowing and the crush of metahumanity that is his playground makes his task a piece of cake, no soy or krill involved in the baking.

No one is able to see clearly when the fire spirit makes his move, but the aftermath is certainly visible as the burning smoke attack lights a few fires in the area of the attack. Minutes after, when BS and LH arrive on scene, they observe the white blur had reached the far side and saw another okada zipping up the street before turning a corner. O'Conner observes the fleeing vehicle is not being driven with the same skill on this side of the bridge, proof that Starlet's spirit scored a hit on him, probably a good one.

O'Connor continued onward, "Good work, but no rest for the wicked. Lil' Homie, weave through and push ahead, secure us transport. Starlet, keep eyes on the target. We can't lose sight of him. If he's smart he'll hand of the map while out of sight and act as a decoy. Drek are we sure that isn't happening already?" He commed Frosty, <"Gaining ground on the target. Do you know where the rest of his entourage went? Are we sure he has the Map, and isn't just a decoy?">

Jane responds, "I don't think anyone else from his group has left, it's just him. He's an operator though, no question. Since I had some nuyen to burn, I bought myself some intel. Apep has drones in the air, and thanks to certain member of their team with a thing for blonds, I am getting to piggyback on their feed, apparent Medjay moved back to Western Avenue. That's the road that feeds the Bridge you are on."

Lil Homie will hand you back the AK, "Faster without it!" and bolts into the crowd. Once the three of you have regrouped, you move forward as a unit. When you reach the end of the bridge you still haven't seen the Azzies, and Lil Homie reports the same. He has 3 okadas with drivers and a van with driver waiting.

With her spirit gone, Sammy summoned a watcher and set that on the target with the order to follow the guy and she would keep tabs on the watcher through their link.
"I have a rough fix," she said, "I can't run and go astral at the same time."
She does a quick check on the astral to see if she can see the azzies. She knows they have a lot of magic at their disposal and going invis ins't all that hard, but you still stand out on the astral. Even more, as the active spell is clearly visible.

She will follow the others, either on foot or on the okadas.

Torley jumps in the van by a window he can open and close.

Even with the lot of you being in as good shape as you are, that run made you grateful to sit for a minute. As you reach a new district you notice a couple of weird things, there is rubble and garbage piled 4 meters high in a solid wall on the east side of the street, and no is using the sidewalk or half a lane of the roadway on that side, but rather cramming themselves over the median and dodging the oncoming traffic, your drivers included.

Torley scans the barricaded side to see if he can figure out what everyone is running from.

You spot a sign among the rubble "Surulere...", that reminds you of an entry from you datafiles on the area.

SURULERE

North of Apapa is the burned out district of
Surulere. It’s a spooky place, an area surrounded by a
crowded sprawl but dotted with the shells of burnedout
homes, all but empty of metahuman life. There are
other things that exist among the burned ruins, though,
and those things are the reason that Surulere remains
so empty.

In 2011, when VITAS fi rst arrived in Lagos, the
death toll was overwhelming. The virulent disease was
bad enough on its own, but coupled with the overcrowding, the
lack of sanitation and basic health services, and the malnutrition
of the general population, the epidemic was ten times more
devastating in Lagos than in other sprawls. In most areas of
the city, the death toll hovered at 75 percent. But in Surulere,
VITAS claimed close to 100 percent of the population—nearly
one million dead within twenty-three square kilometers of land.
When the Awakening occurred and the tide finally began to turn
against VITAS in late 2012, Surulere didn’t have a single living
soul left in its borders.

> Why was it so bad in that one area?
> Butch

> No one really knows. Many of the hardest hit areas were around
hospitals and medical centers in Lagos. Surulere had its share of
those, but no more or less than other areas.
> Am-mut

> My great-auntie remembers that time well. She was the maid
for a doctor who practiced at Surulere General Hospital. She said
she heard him gloating over how he was going to become rich and
leave Lagos. Surulere General received no medication to combat
the virus, but the doctors there convinced the people who came
to them that they had a cure. They charged a few naira to give
the ill and the frightened a single shot—which contained only saline.
People flocked to the hospital from across the city, and the doctors
responded to the crowds by reusing needles, transferring the virus
to all who came for a cure. The crowded camps around the hospital,
where the ill waited and died, became breeding grounds for death,
spreading the virus with each strangled cough. In fear, the survivors
set the camps aflame, and those fires stretched through Surulere,
burning those the virus hadn’t yet killed.
By that time, the doctors at Surulere General had long since
escaped with their millions of naira. Many of the ghosts who remain
in Surulere are trapped by their desire for vengeance against the
doctors who took their lives and the lives of their families.
> Honesty

Though dry land is at a premium in Lagos, no one is willing to repopulate
Surulere. Walls of garbage and refuse pile up at
the border, as the locals are too superstitious to enter the area to
dump their trash. The packs of wild gomatias (giant Awakened
chameleons) won’t go near the area, and many of the locals around
Surulere use the giant chameleons’ aversion to mark the land that
it is safe (relatively speaking, of course) to travel. The chameleons
are no doubt reacting to the high background count of the area,
but locals see it differently.

> It’s not completely true that no one lives in or enters Surulere.
There are several Shokpona cult groups who are based out of the
area, but locals won’t talk about them. You’ll see the priests in their
masks leaving the district at dusk, walking through the neighboring
districts and taking the offerings left out for them.
> Honesty

> And what are those offerings? Corpses. Many families believe that
the priests carry the virus with them, and they leave out a dead body
(someone from their own household or a purchased corpse) to divert
the priests’ attention from their household when illness strikes.
> Chiemeka

> That certainly isn’t a part of Yoruba religion, or Christianity or Islam
…>
Goatfoot

> Superstition, coupled with a dark-ages understanding of disease
transmission and modern medicine. They leave the corpses out to
appease the priests of A-soro-pelerum.
> Black Mamba

> A-soro-pelerum?
> Elijah

> “He who should not be named.” I believe our pragmatic Mamba is
a bit superstitious herself. Many who live near Surulere believe the
priests of Shokpona can cause VITAS, malaria, leprosy, or any other
disease with a single look or gesture, and saying the god’s name is
enough to draw his attention. I’m not saying it’s true or false, just
that it’s what they believe.
> Am-mut

> I’ve seen the priests of Shokpona. They looked remarkably like
sasabonsam.
> Duante

Torley relays info to the team. "Looks like we are going by that region called Surulere we read about earlier. Bad mojo and nobody goes there. I'll keep an eye out for nastiness coming our way from there. I don't see anything that links to the target or any of our competition."

O'Connor mused that if it was avoided by thr locals then there'd be no traffic and there was a chance other foreigners would think to use it as a shortcut. He asked their intrepid guide/his protégé, "So Lil' Homie, about the stories of that place, how much is fact and how much is superstition? If there's no traffic it'd be a great way to gain ground."

Torley considers. "I believe there is a background of misery and death that would affect anyone with magical ability. There is, according to local history, a cult that lives in there that wields magic of an unsavoury kind. Yeah, you can take a shortcut through, if you can find a break in the wall of garbage, but expect to have any magical ability on our side to be restricted. And maybe be attacked by the cult. If the potential payoff is good, it might be worth it. Can you figure the path of our target could be intercepted if we go through there? "

Unfortunately, you magical efforts at tracking Medjay are a bust, whether it is the awful astral presence of what happened in Surulere or some magical resistance, he is in the wind at the moment. The Azzies are a similar issue, the don't have a magical element in the group you are following so they are blending in too much, the background count is, again, not helping.

Torley doesn't know how well his mojo works in this unfriendly atmosphere, but he tries something.

Out the side where people still are, he shouts to what he guesses is the most likely group to see Medjay go by, using his Commanding Voice in the local language, "Point okada white robe where".

The gentleman you direct the command to points the way you are heading, straight up Western Avenue. A minute or so later you clearly hear automatic weapons fire, a lot of it, coming from the intersection ahead of you. You are about a minute away on foot, the vehicle traffic has halted completely.

Well, at least it became unnecessary to brave the creepy, possibly haunted, part of town. He took off for the gunfire at a run without hesitation. He told Torley, "Get them to clear a path!" They were close, but a lot can happen during a fight in a short amount of time.

Torley shakes his head in wonderment. Didn't his last attempt to clear a path result in the opposite effect? He follows O'Connor, but to one side a bit to see what's ahead. If a clump of bodies looks to be an impediment he will order them to disperse.

Sammy had been following the others and lost her watcher. She also felt the background count change. In the days they had been here she had gotten used to the regular stuff, but here it simply felt awful. This was going to hurt, as all of the party were magical in nature. So she gritted her teeth, tried not to think about what was needed to get a background count like this over such an area and followed. She also had her pistol out, guessing it would work better then her magic at the moment. She did take a moment to cast a spell to let her move faster and place it into one of her sustaining foci. She did use the hand gestures she had learned before coming here to make it easier, something she really needed in this location.

In the time it takes to cover the distance to the intersection, Bullet Storm gets about 10 meters in front other the others, which gives him a heads up of the players. At least 6 Area Boys are blowing the hell out of a van that is stopped on the east side of the road right in front of the Surulere rubble wall. They are firing from cover, up the cross-street of a T-intersection.

OOC: Going into rounds, no surpise possible, but Torley and Starlet need a full movement to be able to interact with the Area Boys.

Image is reference only.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dtym4totwx1o...xmwzil&dl=0

[OOC, Sorry. : So, the black arrow shows the direction of travel of our target, the red dot is O'Connor, the crosshairs mark the unfortunate van, and the rest of us are just approaching the intersection.

Is all of that right?]

"This is not good. Not good. This is bad. " Torley is running towards a gunfight. He pulls his weapon of last choice ... the Roomsweeper. "Oh, what the drek are you doing?"

He runs through in his mind all the Igbo he learned over the last few days. Drop your weapon sounds a good bet. Run away. Don't shoot. He the enemy ... shoot him.

"This is not good. Not good. This is bad. "

He's huffing and puffing a bit from all this running.

" Yeah, thrills are fun. Get your blood up. But an army shooting at me? "

"This is not good. Not good. This is bad. "

Combat Round 1 - Initiative Pass 1

O'Connor moved towards the cluster of Area Boys and chucked a tear gas grenade, aiming for the center of the group.

Combat round 1, IP 1

Sammy had gotten a bit behind to cast her spell, so she ran after the rest, staying as close to the buildings as possible.

Torley quakes, hems and haws, and dawdles into the intersection, ducking through obstacles and tries not to get shot. [OOC: Full defence]