Santos will try to cloak himself in an Improved Invisibility spell.

Spell Cast Force 5: Magic 6 + Spellcasting 5= 11 dice
11d6.hits(5) → [3,2,6,2,2,6,5,5,1,6,3] = (5)

Drain Resistance (DV 3): Willpower 5 + Charisma 5 + Power Focus 2 = 12 dice
12d6.hits(5) → [4,3,4,1,2,1,3,3,2,2,2,1] = (0)

Ouch! No hits on that resistance check. So Santos takes 3 points of Stun damage.

Who gets sick on Christmas? Your GM, that's who.

Forgive the delay in responding to you guys. I'm sorta ill and I've been doing family crap. I need maybe another day to get my shit together so I can write a follow-up. My illness sorta peaked today. Totally lost my voice and I feel like crap. Just giving you a heads up on what's going on.

Pff. You and I both, Abs. The flu's mutated into a full-blown sinus infection on my end, and my wisdom teeth decided to act up at the same time. It's like the French Revolution in my headmeats.

Sorry, folks. I had to get emergency dental work and then the holidays, so I haven't been around much. School is starting next week, so I'll probably be kind of slow, but I'll post when I can.

That's cool. Since you've made an effort to keep us in the know, I just have El Mono on autopilot right now. He won't get lost in this "shuffle" at the Pier.

@AStarShipForAnts
I didn't forget about Harper in that update. She's by herself at the truck with the now somewhat calmed women. Aside from the ork's pistol he didn't really have anything. Santos just ran off in the direction of the fighting -- which you OBVIOUSLY hear at this point, since it's basically just around the corner of the building. You can choose to get involved in all that or you can run away and try to regroup later. I didn't want to force you or railroad you, in other words.

I assumed combat was 'over' for us, so I decided to take more liberty with what I could do in my post.

It's fine. I totally dug that nonchalant shotgun blast to Puck on the way over to Sonora.

And Harper still can't find any keys?

The truck is running. The keys are in the ignition.

Doc, Santos is, I hope, still Invisible, so maybe not as easy to see

16d6.hits(5) → [2,4,3,3,6,3,4,5,2,5,6,1,6,3,3,6] = (6)


What was that?

Well I'll be darned!

While that is an impressive roll for Perception, the mechanics for resisting Illusion spells are that you have to roll an attribute (+Counterspelling if applicable) against it. That Perception roll would probably overpower any Concealment power, though, due to the large pool.

For ImpInvis, I you have to roll either Willpower or Intuition -- I can't remember which one right off the top of my head. I know Invisibility and ImpInvis are resisted with different attributes because one is Mental and one is Physical.

I would assume Int/Physical, then. Mostly I did it as a joke.

Abs,

It is Intuition + Counterspelling. Santos cast Improved Invisibility, which is a Physical spell.

I knew it was Intuition for one and Willpower for the other, I just didn't have my books available to check up on which was which.

I'm honestly glad I run for a bunch that knows that Invisibility spells can be resisted. Most people sorta assume being invisible in absolute in Shadowrun, when that isn't necessarily the case. Dudes I used to run for would always cast those spells at Force 1 and wonder why all the goons were able to see right through it.

I'd like to point out that while Doc's perception test surely didn't resist the spell, it's not 100% fair to throw out the results. With that many hits, it's not hard to imagine Sonora could see puddles being splashed or bullet casings being knocked about despite nothing but empty space being in sight. It's called invisibility, not intangability.

Besides, resisting that spell is for suckers. Real men negate invisibility spells with suppressive fire and grenades.

Doing the suppressive fire against nearby gangers and/or covert-ops guys. Hope Santos doesn't get in the way.

Agility 4 + Gunnery 4 + Specialization 2 = 10 dice
10d6.hits(5) → [5,6,6,2,2,3,6,4,1,2] = (4)

Hey, better result then I thought I'd get. Now I really hope Santos doesn't get in the way.

Santos is going to steer clear of crazy rigga' with big machine gunna'; if suppressive fire looks like will be getting too close, he will throw himself prone and hide behind the closest cover!

No kidding! How's he going to obscure the boat if he's a bloodstain on the pier?

Okay, amused *10. OiD to find another high-cal sniper rifle, plus the Intuition roll to resist Santos' II spell.

OiD:

16d6.hits(5) → [6,1,6,3,3,6,5,2,5,4,1,4,1,3,4,6] = (6)

Intuition roll:
3d6.hits(5) → [2,5,6] = (2)

Also: HAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA

Cool. I'll have a post up tonight.

While Santos hides behind cover, can he still see the Leviathan, Sonora, Smiley, Alex, etc.? He will try an assensing on whomever is on the ship:

Assenssing 1 + Intuition 3 = 4 dice ==> 4d6.hits(5) → [3,3,3,1] = (0)
Well, that sucks! Anyway at least no glitches. Aslo just remembered that I need to remove 3 dice due to sustaining a spell and stun damage. So only 1 dice, and first dice was a 3, so failure without glitch.

=============================================

Next he tries summoning a Guardian Spirit of Force 4:
Summoning 5 + Specialization (Guardian Spirits) 2 + Magic 6 + Mentor Bonus 2 - Drain 1 - Sustaining Spell 2 = 12 dice
==> 12d6.hits(5) → [4,3,5,2,3,4,4,6,3,6,2,3] = (3)
Spirit (Force 4) Resistance = 4 dice ==> 4d6.hits(5) → [3,3,2,1] = (0)

Santos Drain DV2 = Willpower 5 + Charisma 5 + Summoning focus 3 = 13 dice
==> 13d6.hits(5) → [1,5,5,3,1,5,6,4,1,3,1,3,3] = (4)
No drain!

=============================================

Then will ask the Spirit to possess his body:

Possession Test: Force x2 + Willing Subject = 4 x 2 + 6 = 14 dice ==> 14d6.hits(5) → [3,3,5,5,4,5,4,2,6,6,4,2,4,6] = (6)
Santos Resistance: Intuition 3 + Willpower 5 - Sustaining 2 - Stun damage 1 = 5 dice ==> 5d6.hits(5) → [4,3,4,4,3] = (0)
Body possessed!

=============================================

He will then wait for a lull in the mini-gun fire (during re-load of ammo maybe) and will ask Spirit to get him onto the ship using his Movement power (i.e. Normal Movement x 4) and full dodge against any gunfire that may come his way. Santos will continue to sustain the Improved Invisibility spell.

Now to get all this into the IC.

Ha! That's not going to end well. Looks exactly like the spirit Sonora slashed a chunk out of the night everything started.

Yes, I know

I have a feeling Santos will not survive the initial meeting with the group he is so desperately trying to make contact with. But alas, he is a dumb kid who thinks he's invincible...

I may need to ammend my IC posting to describe the spirit a little better. I envision the Spirits Santos summons looking like African Warriors, sort of like Shaka Zulu (spear and long oval wooden shield). The spirit Sonora beat the crap out off was a Yanomami Indian, which are very different physically. However in a gun battle I can see where things could get confused pretty easily. However the spirit is possessing Santos, so you will eventually see a mulatto kid, visibly possessed by a spirit of thunder and lightning (i.e. crackling energy streaming from his body, strong smell of ozone, etc.), but will not see a native, naked warrior.

Well, right now Santos is possessed. He's obviously (at least according to Street Magic) got some sort of magic or spirit stuff going on with him, but he doesn't look exactly like the spirit does. I think the crackling of electricity and the smell of ozone (and other such manifestations) are enough to show he's got a spirit inside of him. No need to go all crazy.

Maybe very tiny spoilers: the spirit called previously against Sonora and Coatl was a guardian spirit in the form of a Yanomami warrior. The Yanomami are a tribe of indigenous South Americans that live kinda-sorta near Caracas. You can pull up pictures of them on Google Image Search to get an idea of what I was envisioning for them.

Even if Sonora saw this spirit manifested somehow (which it can't), I think there are enough similarities to freak her out a bit, but I don't think she would totally mistake it for the exact same spirit she knifed a few evenings ago.

12d6.hits(5)=2

Perception: Harper is looking for familiar people on the dock, her teammates.

@Starship
Right at this moment, Harper spots Santos on the deck, waving his hands to the others on there and begging them not to shoot. She found where he went.

You can amend your post or just post a follow up with the new information.

Otherwise, no team mates. They are nowhere to be found.

Hey Abs. Sorry about the unexplained absence. My hard drive blew up and it was awhile before I could afford a new one. If possible I'd like to rejoin the game or wait for a slot to open.

We kept the seat warm for you. Alex is just below deck, doing technomancer stuff.

I've been at a gaming convention all weekend, but I am back now. I may get around to updates tonight but no promises. Tomorrow at the latest.

I was intentionally being sorta hands-off for the moment so that Santos and Harper could introduce themselves (briefly) to the team on the boat currently.

This scene is almost done. Depending on how badly you piss off the Azzie blockade, it could wrap up soon or drag out a little more.

Once it's done you guys will get some brief downtime and a pile of karma to blow on whatever you'd like.

I'm going to speed things along since I do want to close this scene out. I'll dump some information here and you guys can react accordingly in IC.

@Grimm:
You get full control of the ship. There are no hidden tricks and traps as Puck had quite the opinion of himself and his ability to keep dudes out of his ship. You do find some old shipping manifests, lists of officials in various ports of call who are open to bribery (including this one), some information on smuggler's hideouts, and a list of friends and enemies of the Yanqui Drowners.

@Everyone Else (Especially Smiley):
You have two options here. You can try to run the blockade (and you'd have to pull out all the stops and hope you are lucky), or you can just run away along the coast. The blockade is situated in a semi-circle surrounding La Guaira, and they are mostly interested in keeping ships in or out so that they cannot go anywhere.

@Smiley: If you run the blockade you'll have to give me a good plan for doing so. If you decide to run away along the coast then I think you have some relevant knowledge skills that you can give me rolls for.

When I get the scene closed out you guys will be given an as-of-yet undetermined pile of karma. You guys can spend that on attributes, skills, initiations, spells, whatever. No learning tests will be rolled and the usual "only learn one thing at a time" rule will be suspended. Have karma? Can spend.

I will also be giving something on the order of two days of downtime. When I get the downtime going, I will be advancing the plot. Things will be happening in the meantime.

Hopefully the new... "developments" will reignite interest and momentum in the game. I assure you there will be interesting twists and turns, especially since I'm divorcing our plot and timeline from canon as established in the lackluster War! release.

And in line with For Fun And Profit, right?

I don't know what all that involves, as I haven't read any drafts and I don't know how people are expecting things to play out.

Truth be told, that's up to us. Still need to finish out the Caracas doc and link it to Maracaibo.

I would of tried to run the blockade, but this is the Leviathan, not the USS Enterprise. Can't exactly bounce the graviton partical beam off the main deflector dish and make shit up as I wish.

At least we're not on Voyager, pounding on the door,
When it suddenly dawns on us that we've seen this show before.
We might be in a warp bubble and slightly out of phase,
But it was way back in the 60's, when they called it Lost in Space.

By the way Isinghar, Smiley is from San Francisco, so I don't think he'd sound like a local. Definately be able to speak flawless Aztlander Spanish, but his accent would be more NorthAm than anything.

I knew that and forgot! Ok will edit my post as soon as I get back onto a computer (using smartphone at the moment).

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to say that Harper's going to be speaking in heavily accented Spanish unless otherwise indicated.

Sonora will still respond in English. She needs the practice.

Excellent!

Totally blanked on hacker-oriented sex euphemisms.

I'll say. 'Sniff the packets', 'flood the kernel' and 'force a hard start' were completely ignored.

Are those applicable to Shadowrun though?

Wow... really sorry to drop for so long. Serious compy malfunction scrubbed the hard drive, down to OS failure. At least now I'm not on Vista anymore. I'm pissed I missed the climax, that was a great action sequence there. I was reading it from the edge of my seat. Got a date tonight, so I can't post a catch-up, but sometime in the next few days, probably. Thanks for not dropping me.

Alrighty, it is time to push things forward! I am giving some advance notice before I do so folks can start RPing towards some sort of stopping point. Let's say tomorrow night about this time I'm going to make a post advancing the timeline about 24 hours.

(In other words, in 24 hours the plot jumps forward 24 hours. Funny how that works, ain't it?)

You can roleplay getting towards the safehouse, make requests here for stuff, and spend karma.

Oh yes. KARMA. I told you guys that you were going to get a pile of it. So take 35 karma. Spend it HOWEVER YOU LIKE. Have karma? Can spend. Want to raise your Pistols skill several ranks? If you have karma you can do it.

Why am I being so permissive about this? Quite simple, really. We've been on this scene several months, and I haven't seen any bad roleplay coming from anybody. Some of us are just joining, while others have been here since the beginning. This pile of karma is enough for new people to catch up a bit and round out some skills and for older folks to be rewarded for sticking through this drawn out part of the plot.

As for what's in the weapons crates? I haven't listed exactly what's in them. So you guys can help me help you: You tell ME what's in them (within reason.) This is a pass/fail thing. If you come up with an absurd list, I veto it and come up with some other list. If you come up with something and I don't think it's too ridiculous, I approve it and you can distribute armaments to your wishes. Consider not just bang-bangs, but also armor, gadgets, accessories, the sort of stuff that helps warriors kill other people. Remember, if you start requesting ridiculous stuff, I will lean towards a veto, so tread the line between awesome and over-the-top carefully. There are four fairly large crates, so get an idea of what can fit inside of them and go from there. I already gave out a Barret sniper rifle for free: that's a gimme.

@Rystefn: While you have been absent, you have also showed us the courtesy of telling us about your situation, so I'm under no obligation to sweep you under the rug. I'll keep the seat warm for you so long as you show me the same courtesy you have been.

I think I speak for the group when I say we do not need weapons, equipment, or armaments. Rather, we only need four crates of Bliss. With that much Bliss we should be able to get blasted for the duration of the assault and probably the occupation and the eventual fall of the Aztlan Empire down the road.

Mmmm. Bliss.

Bliss? Small potatoes, son. Also, doesn't make sense in an arms shipment. Better to make one of the crates full to the brim with pure grade A novacoke.

Seriously, though, I think we're mostly happy with our weapons at the moment, so aside from the assault rifles that are really required to make the shipment make sense, I'd say let's get the fun stuff. Couple rocket launchers and ammo for them would be fun times for all and sundry, I think. A box full o' grenades would be a nice thing to find in one of those crates as well. Let's not forget ammo, too. Sure, we've got the regular ammo coming out of the faucets here, but now's our chance to load up the good stuff. Ex-ex and APDS for all, dig? Form-fitting armor may not make a lot of sense, given the variety of forms we have to deal with, but the SecureTech piecemeal stuff would be useful and make a lot of sense. Also, the size of the crates matters a bit. Specifically, I find myself wondering about drones. We've got a top-notch, if insane, rigger here... I'm thinking Steel Lynx would be an awesome addition to the team. This is just preliminary stuff, obviously. Hopefully it'll kick some heads into gear and we'll come up with a suitable awesome loadout.

Edit: So I know my first post back is short, but I think it gets the idea across. Hopefully I'll be a bit more present in the upcoming weeks.

Yeah, this ain't no zombie apocolypse. We ain't time for grabbin' peelz and shooting Bliss.

Got my vote for some APDS though. One 'large' crate oughta have between plenty of APDS bullets for any of our favored weapon classes. I also vote for some high explosives and grenades, especially some of those handy EMP and Petit Brume FAB grenades in Arsenal. I would love a suped-up Steel Lynx drone too... Maybe with a walker mode and it's own Laser installed on the integral weapon mount.

Oh, and I call upon our reality changing powers to make the assault rifle that goon pulled out on Smiley an Ares Bravo from War!. Starship will LOVE that thing. It's basically this thing.