I think Beta's question was more "was the wall where Mato saw the figure close to the wall where the safe is located?"

Posted ICly with some theories. Not sure if AM and/or Jawsey have the knowledge skills to confirm or deny.

No, the safe was in the middle of the adjacent room.

Jawsey knows that all the wards were created by his current Master McElroy

I pulled out the CRB and refreshed myself on how search works, then updated the rolls in the spoiler in my IC -- likely not good enough to spot anything that Invictus has concealed, but the roles are what they are.

The other two don't have to wait on Jawsey's spirit search, they could be off doing other things (as could Trouble)

A helpful lore info on artifacts: If their physical form is destroyed, they reappear over time somewhere else - most often in a more modern form.
Invictus' sword was/is such an artifact.

Cool info, Jack!

Cool info, Jack!

Running behind. Picked up some new (undesired) responsibilities at work that are slowing me down. I'll try to catch up soon.

Not to be overly paranoid - although I know that's a key component of playing Shadowrun - but is this the only reasonable IC explanation?

Is there any possibility that Invictus was trying to set himself free of the sword (permanently) and screwed up (also permanently)?

Relying a bit on Jawsey's and AM's knowledge skills here.

With the information you have now, yes, this is the most likely explanation.
He's not a genie freed from his lamp, but more like a rat whose tunnel to your house collapsed.

Okay, fingers crossed, I think I'm past the worst of it for now. I'm hoping to have a bit of breathing room this week (then next week will be painful again) as long as things don't blow up on me tomorrow. (Knock on wood.)

I'll try to get an IC post up soon!

Alright, going to roll Judge Intentions. Per Cutting Aces, the combination of Thermal Mood Reading with Vocal Tension Lie Detection is worth +3.

Charisma 4 + Intuition 6 + Social Software 3: 13d6t5 2 hits

Well that's disappointing. I'd like to think that I've been paying the 500/month subscription fees for a reason. I think this conversation is fairly crucial so let's put a point of Edge toward that.

rerolling incompetence: 11d6t5 3 hits

Pretty disappointing. 5 hits total for Judge Intentions.

As far as you can tell, his surprise is genuine

Vaccinated to Covid today first dose, they finally reached my age group. Let's hope we'll get out of this nightmare.

Congratulations. I saw in the New York Times that Israel has the highest vaccination rate so far. (You were off the top of the chart, somewhere near 30%.)

The U.S. is closer to 5%. I know a few health care professionals who have been vaccinated and I'm hoping my parents (over 70) can get vaccinated soon, but I'm not really expecting mine until spring at the soonest, early summer more likely.

Yeap over 80 percent of the people above 60 are vaccinated, and about 30 percent of the population are in the process. By spring we'll be on the way out if the vaccine works. Amazing that our government could pull off so many vaccines so quickly.

Yah, Israeli government did really well at procuring vaccines, we've been listening in admiration at the numbers there!

Here in Canada we are lagging behind the US. Our government has booked vaccines from many different companies, back when it was not clear what would work and when it would get to market, but when you spread your bets you don't have the same chance to hit it big (i.e. the existing, priority, contracts from any one company won't cover the whole population). Plus they avoided buying from factories in the US, for fear Trump would prevent exports for some time period, but now the EU is making noises about not letting vaccine leave the community ... plus both Pfizer and Moderna have slowed down deliveries for various production related reasons. People are freaking out about the slow roll out, especially as the more contagious British variant has started to circulate here. We have a minority government currently, and I see some chance that it will fall if the delays run much longer.

I'm just hoping we get enough to get to my Mother's age bracket soon (she is 83, but in great health and living in her own house still, so high priority but not the highest. They are still working on the most exposed health care workers and people in care homes so far)

********************

This has been a really long week, which somehow went by really quickly. Quarter end at work managed to align three different deadlines, so I'm afraid my attention slipped off Shadowrun. Some stuff to get through this weekend but then hopefully next week will be back to something more normal.

Sorry that I didn't think to throw in judge intentions when I posted Jawsey's initial talk with McElroy. I can't think of useful rolls to make at this point.

Also, some time back Mato had asked a magic theory question of Jawsey and AM. I didn't respond to that mostly because Jawsey is still learning magic theory trid shows and asking questions of AM, IIRC. He has essentially no magical training, including in magical theory.

AM is quite a scolar, but I got the impression that Jack gave us that info to speed things up. Should I roll now?

No additional rolls necessary. Keep the flow going

Checking in on folks. How is everyone doing?

I'm getting more responsibilities at work. I had a full-time list and I swear these new tasks could be a second full-time job on their own. It's seriously cutting into my PbP time, which is a drag.

How's everyone else?

New year has really started - all defered projects are now coming up all at once - so I feel you.
But slow going is better than no going at all

I'm a few posts behind. If I don't get one up today then I have the day off from work tomorrow and so should catch up then.

Caught up.

Jack's spoiler called for "Persuasion" but I'm not sure what that is in SR5 skills. Con?

Mato's social skills are all pretty much at 1 so I'll just roll 1:

Charisma 4 + Etiquette/Negotiation 1: 5d6t5 3 hits

Pretty good for a modest dice pool.

Now rolling Judge Intentions to gauge Nassau's response:

Charisma 4 + Intuition 6 + Social Software 3: 13d6t5 6 hits

Certainly better than my last time around the block.

Sorry, yes, I meant con.

In a way I like Persuade or Persuasion better because they are broader. "Con" implies lying. If so, what skill should I roll to convince someone that I'm telling the truth of I actually am telling the truth? Persuade is much more apt than Con.

Did Judge Intentions reveal anything interesting?

Thanks for picking up the conversation, Gilga, Tecumseh.

I agree about the weird case of "how do I convince someone that I am sincere/telling the truth" in SR. In my home game we've veered all over on that, without coming up with an answer we love.

She seems to be telling the truth - and might be interested in Mato, or at least her reaction is much more positive to you than to AM.
She certainly isn't stressed as you'd expect if she was trying to hide something.

The problem with trying to fast talk someone in an RPG: did it not work because they resisted a roll? Or did it not work because they didn't know anything? At least when you are trying to knock someone over the head you know if your effort was successful or not!

I can assure you that your con worked
It's the first sentence out of his mouth that contains the vital clue. Don't let him distract you by focusing on Invictus.

Jack can AM determine who controls the agent somehow?

Nope, that would only be possible if someone had formed a persona on the same device. But you can tell, that it is military quality (R6).

Seattle Free Spirit community roll for any knowledge of Winter Storm
Seattle free spirit community: 9d6t5 1 not great. Hopefully last night was good enough sleep to recover an edge? Will use one to re-roll fails
re-roll fails: 8d6t5 4
Total of 5 successes.

Winter Storm is known as a hardcore human-apartheit proponent in Yakut. Very keen on growing in power too, so quite free with spirit pacts. Basically, if you are willing to provide him with Karma it will give you a deal.

"human apartheit" = keep humans limited to certain territories, and inferior to spirits (and presumably dragons, etc)? (this may be talked about in one of the books, but if so I haven't read that one)

That is precisely correct

Is the triangulation idea feasible? Mato can't do the math but maybe AM can.

Yes, it is. You can pretty much infer, that the shot was taken inside the green house - likely from a position close to the ceiling.

Technically we already know that the shooter was inside because of no entry holes in the greenhouse. We had a wicked perception test and examined the greenhouse.

Well I think there was a possibility that the shot came from outside the greenhouse. Through an open door, for example. I was thinking that a flying drone could have sniped from an elevated position.

WEll I tried IC to find some evidence of a flying drone, but none was found. Perhaps the looped sensor but even that.

@Dongle

Just so that there is no missunderstanding - the dongle is no longer there - just the agent within the library terminal. Which is why the agent appeared dormant to Anna the first time she noticed it.
Also, you did find evidence for the flying drone - the recordings of the sensors which indicated a very specific drone model.

Also, Mato is right about the general disdain of Russians for Yakut spirits. Most of them would react violently to learning that someone is betraying the Motherland by doing business with them.

Jack, what are the contact instructions for Winter Storm? a commlink ID? locations to look at in the astral? Dead letter drop?

He naturally doesn't have a commlink. In general, you use a low level spirit, tasking it to send you find him and speak on your behalf to him. Better avoid sending a bound spirit though...

Is there information about where it is (Yakutsk? Seattle?). I'm asking both to wonder how hard it would be to find it, and also if it is currently local or not.

As far as you know, he is in Yakut

Well the IC post said "Conveniently, the file also contained its contact information." So we probably thought it was more precise than "in Yakut".

We can send a spirit but that ties one up for the day.

Let's reach out to Katya in Russian. I think we may be able to play her Russian nationalistic tendancies off on whatever competiting faction is potentially working with Winter Storm. Could warm Katya up a bit.

Yeah, sorry, that was imprecise. It contains the location where you can send such a spirit (or mail if you desire so), basically an address in Yakut.

Cool, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

That still ties up a spirit, but presumably for far less time then having one search all of Siberia. Yakut's probably in the neighborhood of 10MM km² or so, which is the size of Canada (9.98MM km²).

Approximately what time is it ICly and when does the hunt begin?

I know Mato will be attending the hunt in-person but I'm not sure how soon that is (i.e. if there's time for him to question Katya beforehand) or if there's anything special he needs to do.

I presume the Chasseur Field Uniform is the appropriate one to wear? I believe that's what Mato would already be wearing (as opposed to, say, the Chasseur Gala Uniform tuxedo) so I don't think I need to change. But correct me if I'm mistaken.