O'Connor clenched his fists, spoiling for a fight. This jerkoff hadn't swung yet, but it seemed imminent. He wondered if Torley would have to use any of what he picked up in their training session.

Clem was giving the punk nothing back, but one of the others saw Con seething behind her, "Better wash ya step there Aaron, her boyfriend looks pre'y mad."

"Is that right Colin? He's prolly mad she ain't going ta be able to peg the little race traitor latr on, I'm 'bout to show her a real human MAN."

"Oh, is that it then?" says the one called Colin,"You like to take i' up the bum?"

Meanwhile Snow whispers one more word to Starlet, "Go!" before moving to cover Torley's other side from the two there. She follows her words with a quick text >>MAKE THE DROP

The last guy is kind of hanging back and getting a slug off what looks like a very expensive bottle of bourbon.

Viktor seems to be trying to clear his head, "You...magic..." and he goes red clenching his fists.

O'Connor thought the lead piece of trash turned a rather interesting shade of red. He wondered if the guy would pop a blood vessel. He shifted his weight, preparing to rush in when things escalated.

He also idly scanned the alley for any thing that he could shove up Colin and Aaron's hoops. He probably wouldn't get the opportunity if sec response times were any good. Still, if given half a chance...

Torley moves to the side to draw eyes away from the package, invisible though it may be. "Come on, boys. There's no satisfaction here no matter how things shake down. What's gone is gone and nothing will change the past. It's time to sleep on it and start new, profitable fun in the morning."

Sammy kept going on, but she told the team over their comms that she could come back quickly if needed. And to try not to have it turn into a fight.

Viktor screams "I am taking 45k out of your blood!" and charges at Torley, that is the signal for the rest of them to start swinging.

When Sammy goes inside, the double sets of doors closing behind her effectively muffle the sounds of the commotion outside. While the doors she entered were the closest to the desk, it will also take her out of sight of them if she goes to the desk where she sees the manager tapping at a terminal.

As his opponets rushed in, O'Connor grinned ferally, "Fraggin' finally."

Torley sees nothing but trouble coming from trying to injure this fool. Daddy may not be all that understanding about holes in his son. Torley does his best to just get out of the way of the charge. Maybe the kid will trip and knock himself out.

Sammy looked around to see if they guy they were supposed to meet was present. She also dropped the invisibility on her backpack, so it would look as if she had luggage, in case it was important.

Snow and Clem take full defenses, and avoid their attackers initial attempts, though it seems like these young men have some training. (O'Conner can take additional actions)

-----------------------------

Your instruction was to make the delivery to the man at the desk. Starlet attempts to do so, but at the last possible moment a large middle aged woman appears in front of her and blocks her way. She is wearing, what appears to be a hotel bathrobe over silk pajamas.

"Excuse me, EXCUSE ME! My name is Karen White, my husband is Grant Hyde White, I am going to need to speak to the manager about the service here."

O'Connor was a bit surprised that these morons actually seemed to know what they were doing in a fight. It didn't help their opening blitz though, and it wouldn't save them on defense. He began laying into the unfortunate soul closest to his fists.

The rich prick manages to block the first, but not the next two. His expensive clothes have some impact armor but not enough to completely escape harm.

Although not as much as Con, Snow and Clem score hits on their opponents based on their speed as well. None of them seem inclined to stop though.

"You're fast ork-lover, but you hit like a bitch."

Viktor has no snappy commentary for his missed charge, he just screams and charges again.

Oh great, Sammy thought as she was just about to hand over the package. She quickly send a subvocal message to the rest of the team that she was held up at the reception by some wining bitch in a bathrobe and if she was needed, she would come back.

The man behind the counter looks up at the two women in front of him, he starts with Starlet and then assumes a face of somewhat strained politeness for the scowling human right next to the desk.

"Again, as I told you last night, Mrs White, I am the night manager of this hotel. What can I do for you?"

----------------

(OOC: forgot to mention, roll initiative for round 2)

Mrs White looks askance at the man's assertion that he is important enough to be remembered, "It's the bed linen, I don't know who you are used to dealing with, but SOME people can tell the difference between 1000 thread count sheets and 2000. I was assured this was an UPSCALE establishment." she looks to Starlet for support, startled to find an ork in working clothes standing there. "...I guess they were not telling the truth" she mumbles, turning back.

The man at the desk also looks Starlet's way again way again, He seems to hear the crockery moving in the bag and looks at her suspiciously.

For once in a blue moon, O'Conner is the last to act, not that it mattered much. He still has two attackers, Torley's move to avoid Viktor's charge caused the boy to ram, full speed into a planter and knocked him on his ass.

(Go ahead with all you actions Necro)

O'Connor scoffed at the mouthy douchebag, "Your insults are hurting me as much as your fists." After making his flurry of strikes, he backed up against the wall. It would limit his defensive options, but he hadn't been given reason to worry on that front. He was hoping that his opponets were drunk and angry enough to hit the wall with their full strength. He gave a condescending smirk, "You're weirdly focused on attacking my masculinity. So what's your damage? Can't get it up, or is it so small no one can tell either way?"

Although O'Conner is getting licks in, it is going to be a minute at this rate if he puts either of these goons down. He sees Clem has wrapped up her attacker and is squeezing him out, but Snow is trading heavy blows with hers.

O'Conner is also starting to hear sirens inbound.

--------------------

The man at the desk says to the lady, "Ma'am I will send housekeeping to your room with a selection for you." turning to Starlet "Yes ma'am, are you checking in? Have you stayed with us before, you seem familiar?"

"No, sir" Sammy said, as she took out the package out of her bag. She hadn't been told a specific person at the desk, so this one would do.
"I'm just here to deliver a package. And to your second question, I've been told I look a lot like some American actress or something."

"Actress? Yes, that must be it. I was binging some old Karl Kombatmage trids the other night." he takes the satchel and opens it for a peek and smiles. "I will make sure this gets where it is needed, thank you." He turns back to Mrs. White, who hasn't moved and is turning red from the fury of being ignored, looking serenely benign.

-----------------

Outside, things just suddenly went sideways. The guy hanging back has a taser and pops Clem with it. She falls heavily just as Snow takes another big shot, before drops her guy in return. The sirens O'Conner heard are increasing and now visible, multiple vehicles maybe a block or two away.

O'Connor gave a belabored sigh, "Frag it." He activated the gun slide, suddenly pointing a pistol at the guy with the taser. He drew his machine pistol off his hip with his other hand and pointed it at the two fighting him. He snarled, "Playtime's over. You wannabe rapists have to the count of two to stand down. One..."

O'Connor figured that the faces would get his unsubtle hint at how he thought they should spin this to the cops. It would only be a minor stretch of some of the prefight goading, and probably would have happened to the women if they lost.

Sammy nodded at him, made sure she had the name on his name tag, in case their employer wanted to know who they had given the stuff to and walked out. Not run, but a brisk walk, back to where they had entered.

When Starlet turns toward that door, she sees a large black troll is now standing in the way of them. She watches someone approach the door and the man holds up his hand. "Security incident, this exit is closed, please use another."

-----------------------------

Snow stumbles over and basically drops an elbow to the top of the guy's head that had had the life squeezed out of him by Clem, and collapsed over her protectively.

She looks at Bullet Storm and says, "Take Torley and RUN. You have to find the thief."

O'Connor was not one to run from a fight, less so if it meant leaving people behind. But as Snow pointed out, they had a job to complete. He noted how close the cops were, "She's right Torley. We need to go." He looked to Snow with regret, "We will get you out of this. I promise." With great reluctance, and not a small amount of self-loathing, O'Connor made his escape down the alley with Torley ahead of him.

Torley doesn't need to be told twice. Even police at home find smooth talk annoying. In a foreign land like this, who knows how long it would take to extricate himself, much less the others. The women's plan to blame sexual assault on the men is a good one. Hopefully this isn't one of those places where the woman is always at fault.

He keeps pace with O'Connor.

Once they were out of the immediate area, and seemingly in the clear, O'Connor slowed Torley, "Let's hold up a sec. Need to fill in Starlet, and pick a place to meet up." He made the call himself given that they couldn't risk Torley's tech jinx acting up.

Sammy didn't want to get into a fight with hotel security, so she moved to the closest other exit and tried to get to the others as quickly as possible. When she got O'Connor's message, she acknowledged and ran off towards the rest of the team.

After conversing with Starlet, O'Connor started moving again towards the meet point. He turned to Torley, "Let's grab Starlet and get the frag off this island." His mind was racing even faster than his body usually did, *Frag, what do we do now? Actually need a plan this time around, drek. Okay, first things first, we get back to the fixer and get our intel. Second we secure the idol and Jane's invite. After that we find out what's happening with Snow and Clem. Step after that depends on what we learn.*

Torley faces a dilemma. He is the silver-tongued smooth-talker of the team. He should be shmoozing the women out of trouble. But ... there is almost zero chance the approaching cops are going to listen to anything, and are likely to throw anyone in arms reach into jail. Can't do much from in there. If they succeed in the search for the stolen item, then maybe a grateful King will put in a word. Or ... a newly successful Jane can throw some cred in the right direction.

"I'm with you, O'Connor".

O'Connor felt a bit better after coming up with at least the framework of a plan. He asked Torley, "When we report back to the fixer, can you ask him to keep an ear out for what's happening to Snow and Clem? If their situation is completely fragged, I doubt the cops are gonna give 'em a comm call. I ran because we do have a job to do, and I trust Snow to handle things. Given how this culture deals with women though, I think there might not be a way for her to win.

And if they are totally up drek creek, I'm abandoning the run, at least until I can save them. I get it if you and Starlet don't or can't. You mentioned the two of you are tied to Jane in some hush-hush way. Just thought I'd give you a heads up."

"Saving the two of them is top of my mind, too. I just think going in guns blazing is not the best way. Sometimes you have to turn power against power to get your way, rather than batting your head against a wall, hoping to break through. Not that I don't believe you have a hard head, big guy." Torley gives his signature grin. Wish I felt as confident.

O'Connor nodded, "Well, we'll figure it out when we know what we have to figure out."

"What is going on," Sammy asked as she reached the others, "and where are Snow and Clem?"

O'Connor gave a sigh, "That group of pricks actually had some bite to back up their barks. Fist fight broke out. Clem choked out one, but then got tased. Snow also took one down, but it was near a double KO. She told me to take Torley and leg it, so that we could get this job done. By now, Clem and Snow are probably half way to lock up."

The team is able to get on the train leaving Victoria Island without incident and return to Lagos. During the drive back you all receive a text from Snow.

--We are fine, it looks like we are going to spend the night in a holding cell, mostly due to our weaponry. You should have seen the look on the rich boys faces when they took our hardware, I almost laughed. Our IDs seem to be holding up so we shouldn’t have any problems, probably end up with whatever counts as a disorderly conduct ticket around here, once the courts open in the morning. I have also sent word to Jane so that should help too.
--Don’t send a reply, I am sending this from my headware and I am going to shut it down after sending this to avoid risking detection.

Returning to the restaurant, you find that Hippo has left word for you.

“You are looking for an Igbo adept known by the name Silence, got no address, but he is known to frequent a brothel and bar called the Dancing Ork in Agege.”

Torley nods at the news. Looks like we are free and have a date. Best to follow up right away, seeing as others are on the job, too.

O'Connor let out a breath of relief after receiving Snow's message. He was now free to focus on the run, and could put aside suicidal heroics.

He agreed with Torley to a point, "Time's against us, but we should take a moment to hash out a plan." He chuckled at the irony of him of all people advocating thinking through their actions. He continued, "We're at almost half strength and lack any tech ability. We're only getting one shot at this."

While he had strong opinions on how they should approach this, he knew that the other two would be more aligned to each other. He'd let them lead the discussion, and provide counter points rather than put forward ideas that would be shot down out of course.

So, why don't we list what we know. Work from that. This adept named Silence was good enough to sleaze through some serious defenses around the King's stuff. We are short two of our members, but we have a good fighter, some good magic, and ... me!

If Silence frequents this Dancing Ork in Agege, chances are he has friends there, or at least acquaintances who might consider helping him out.

Time is short, as you say, so waiting till tomorrow might be a problem.

We were told Silence hangs with some gang to the north. Do I have that right? Not sure.

Anything else?

"I didn't know that he hangs out with gangs," Sammy said, "of course, that doesn't mean it's not true. We should indeed go as quickly as possible, despite being short-handed. Luckily this location means that having less tech support isn't the big problem. I think we first have to get some information on this Dancing Ork 'bar' before we go there. It's always good to know on who's turf we're going to be. And I guess this adept will most likely be geared towards stealth rather than combat."

We could discuss as we travel. What's the best way to get there?

Lil Homie comes to the rescue again, he has actually been in the Dancing Ork and gives you the layout of the place. It is an Area Boys hangout; they have a compound less than a kilometer away. It sounds to O’Conner’s and Starlet’s ears like an Old Western saloon type place, big open room with an upstairs for more private encounters. The driver will not be able to get you very close, this is one of those areas with few roads and is mostly built up out of the swamp with footbridges everywhere. He can reach an open area market that sits roughly halfway between the brothel and the compound.

Torley strokes his chin, then grins. That answers that question. Now we just have to figure out how to convince an adept sitting in a hangout of a ganger outfit to give up the thing he stole. My kind of day!

O'Connor rubbed the back of his head, "Even before that, we need to identify this Silence without alerting or spooking him. If he's at this brothel instead of a bolt hole, then he must has local protection. Given his name and the job he pulled, good money on our thief disappearing in an instant if we have to tangle with any type of bodyguards."

Torley pipes up after some reflection. Well, it might help that, over the course of the last day I've picked up a little Igbo. I think I could carry on a simple conversation. This might help in the Dancing Ork.

Maybe I could pick up info just by listening in. We, or I, will still stick out unless Sammy can make us or me look a little less conspicuous.

"I can do that," Sammy said, "but I have to stay in sight of you, or it won't work. There are two options. The easiest is a Makeover, but that gives the least changes. It's like visiting a beauty parlor. What they can do there, I can do with the spell. The other option is Physical Mask. With that I can add an illusion and make you look like someone else, within limits. The advantage of this one is that I can do a lot bigger changes, but I have to sustain it and people can see through it. With Makeover the changes are smaller, but permanent... well, just like any other treatment at a beauty parlor is."

Torley considers the information they have. Some ideas get bandied about, and he decides to offer a course of action.

Here's what I think is a plan. Sort of. Sammy, you do your mojo and make me and you look like ordinary farmers or fisher folk from this neck of the woods. Maybe our little buddy here can suggest a place that is close enough for us to be in town, but not so close that there is likely to be someone in the bar from there.

That covers us looking right, and my limited vocabulary possibly acceptable. That leaves you, Sammy, who can't speak the language. This is where your acting chops come out. We pretend to be like so many of the locals, a woman browbeaten by her domineering husband. You play the meek, frightened 'little woman' who says nothing and looks to me if and when someone speaks to you. I answer, like the misogynist asshole you KNOW me not to be. He smiles that million nuyen smile.

O'Connor, you cover the likeliest exit in case Mr. Silence decides to make a run, or if we do and you need to cover our retreat. Inside, we observe, and try to figure out who is our target. Once we have him pegged, we decide how to proceed.

How's that sound?

The plan seemed like it was as good as it could be. Con nodded his agreement to it, "Plan seems good. I'll post up at the intersection where the pathways to the market, brothel, and warf meet. I can move to intercept no matter what route the target takes. You'll just have to tell me where Silence is headed."

"Okay," Sammy said, "just let me check a few things."
She had a look at a few pictures of people to make sure she would get everything right. Then she got casting, starting with Torley before doing the same herself. She kept the general height and weight of each of them to make it easier, just changing things that they looked like natives of the same height and weight as they did now. She even kept Torley a human and herself an orc to keep things easy.

O'Connor looked towards Lil' Homie, "Either of you have a burner comm we can give Lil' Homie? He can watch the brothel from the outside and tell us where Silence goes if he pulls a runner."