For the purposes of this campaign, travel in the alternate planes (Astral and the Matrix) takes roughly the same time as travel in the real world. In order for Seneth to observe the area in question through the Astral plane, he must be physically close to the area. Likewise for Kirk in the Matrix. Think of the alternate planes as “overlapping” the real world, with each point in Matrix or Astral space corresponding to a point in the real world.
When we get there, I’ll check the Astral plane around the area.
During Goethe’s absence, Nail takes a brief nap. He dreams of when he was young. He’s at church. His parents would always take him to church on Sunday. His mother seemed devout. His father said he didn’t want to push his luck.
This time the church has been turned into a gambling den, and all the players are anthromorphic squid. Two young missionary squid walk in. They loudly decry the vices and excess of modern-day anthropods. Having heard enough, an armed guard comes up to them and asks them to leave. In the blink of an eye, the missionaries pull out guns. Somebody yells out, “It’s a trap!”
Just then, Goethe comes back. Nail wakes up at the sound of his heavy footsteps. Nail yawns, stretches, and lights another cigarette. Turning slightly to the group, he coolly utters, “I got a plan.”
As the group prepares to go to the building marked “Zion,” a familiar shape floats toward them. It’s a backpack-sized drone equipped with state of the art repulsor engines, giving it excellent maneuverability. The group knows this drone as “Darwin,” and it is the preferred method through which Kirk interacts with the world. It’s not always possible to tell where the technomancer ends and the drone begins, as Kirk is more likely to use Darwin’s robotic limbs to manipulate an object than her own flesh body.
As Darwin draws near to the group, his small robotic arm taps the dome at the top of his body in a gesture resembling a salute.
Darwin is tough for a drone, and Kirk can use him to fight in emergencies. He won’t be likely to perform as well as a combat-specialized runner, but Darwin is no slouch. He has a very high functioning AI which can sometimes even resemble a legitimate personality, but he really shines when Kirk overrides his AI to take direct control of him.
At this time, the group should decide travel arrangements, and develop a plan for how to approach the situation with Fortnight. Kirk and Goethe have vehicles (motorcycles) than can seat up to two people each, and Donny has a much less conspicuous sedan capable of seating four.
Each character has been given a credstick worth 6,000 credits - the agreed upon upfront payment from Synthcorp.
Seneth, who has been eating in solitude, returns to the group. Apparently, he’s mid-conversation…or something.
“…millennia and millennia. And beyond, honestly, and all that leading to this.”
Seneth pauses and looks at the group.
“My youths, if we have some kind of ‘car’ device, I’ll sit in that. I don’t want to go on a motorcycle. In fact, I won’t go on a motorcycle. Oh, and I have to sit in the rear seat of the machine we travel in. Again, I’ll check the astral plane when we get there.”
Goethe to the group:
Well, there’s five of us that need transportation and 8 seats. Seneth, Donny, and Nail, you take the car. I will join Kirk on her bike. We leave my bike behind. I can get it later. Because while playing off a ‘just passing through’ vibe wasn’t too difficult the first time, they’re going to be mighty suspicious if they even get a whiff of my bike again. Plus, knowing Kirk, her bike no doubt has more features useful to a run than mine has anyway.
We need to approach the building from out of sight. At that point, Seneth can check out the astral signs. Kirk might want to see if she can somehow jam any communications these guys have to the outside world. We take away their eyes, we shouldn’t have much more to worry about other than the assault-rifle toting troll and human. Granted, it’s not an insignificant worry. Fortunately, we should be able to get the drop on them.
There is one more thing we might want to consider. If these guys really are as new as they appear, it’s possible that the neighboring gangs aren’t too fond of them moving in on their turf. We might want to consider enlisting the gangers assistance. We’ll naturally do all the heavy lifting, but they could provide enough of a distraction to make our job easier. And in exchange, the gangers could get their turf back.
Of course, it’s just as likely the gangers like them and the gangers attack us when we try to enlist their help. Which would be bad. Might happen anyway even if we don’t talk to the gangers, though.
Just a thought.
Kirk to the group:
Kirk giggles and mirrors Darwin’s salute as he draws close, falling in step beside the hovering machine.
“I’m happy to play electronics warfare hack, but we’ll want to be quick about it- they’ve got at least one rigger in there, and if things start to get ugly you’ll probably want me to focus on disrupting their uplinks or trying to counterhack their drones.”
Seneth to Goethe:
“When we’re done, may I try your glasses?”
Am I correct that it is the group’s plan to get Kirk close enough to the building to attempt to sabotage it electronically through the Matrix, and Seneth to sense it through the Astral plane before the rest of you approach?
Does the group have anything else to add to the plan? Will you be approaching at daytime or in the night? There is an old lot on 18th approximately half a mile away from the building, where you could park your vehicles and finish a stealthy approach on foot. Or would you rather just walk up to the front door and attempt to negotiate?
Goethe to Seneth:
Certainly. They’re skinlinked, so it might be a bit disconcerting at first if you’re not used to it. Good news with skinlink is that it can’t be hacked.
And a question, what do you think our chances are if we try to negotiate? You’re probably the best among us at that. I figure you can astral scout for a bit to find out if they have any mages among them, and then Nail, you, and I can walk up and possibly get through this without any bloodshed. After all, I don’t think these guys are particularly desiring a firefight. We simply tell them that a member of theirs has decided to piss off a lot of important people. And we only care about him. They give him to us, or at least point us in his direction and don’t warn him, and they are free to go about their business as usual. We have no grief with them as long as they help us. We also have an additional bargaining chip that these guys are unlikely to know how much backup we have.
Kirk can stay back with the car and bike, getting ready to knock out their communications if anything happens, we just need to give her the word over commlink. Donny will need to stay back to protect Kirk in case they come after her.
If we go this route, I say we do it in the day in the open.
If we go for full infiltration, we probably want to do it at night so that we have the additional cover.
Kirk is fine with this plan, but if she’s going to stand by to knock out communications she asks the group to give her some priorities: depending on how powerful the equipment in there is it could conceivably take a big chunk of her concentration to black out the entire building, and since Goethe’s scouting run showed a few drones in place it’s entirely possible that they’ll come into play once combat starts. If she ends up needing to prioritize maintaining the communications blackout (and letting the combatants handle the drones) or weakening/dropping the blackout in order to go after the enemy drone handler, which would the group prefer she focus on?
Very good. I look forward to trying these “skinlinked” glasses.
My child, we should not negotiate. We should go in, kill everyone that gets in our way, and rescue this man. And we should definitely kill this adept they have that we agreed to kill, even if he does not get in our way.
Seneth to Kirk:
“Kirsikka, my child, I did not understand much of what you said, but I do believe that making our definitely forthcoming combat easier should be the top priority. If these ‘drones’ pose a fight against us, take them out.”
OOC. I live in Japan. You all post like crazy while I’m asleep. I said I had a plan, yet nobody has commented on my remarks. Please give me a few minutes to respond before we continue any further.
Right when Nail opens his mouth, Kirk’s drone walks in and steals his thunder. Nail goes to open his mouth when Goethe commandeers the floor. Visibly agitated, Nail whips out his phone and plays video poker. His ears perk up when Seneth mentions the physical adept.
Nail actually gets up and walks over closer to everyone. “I hope you’ll save the last dance for me.”
Having (assumingly) gotten everyone’s attention, Nail continues: "Here is what I was thinking. There are always some local doomsday cults in town. Goethe and I masquerade as preaching cultists who just happen to be passing by. We can make a sign. It’ll be fun, like arts and crafts. So, we will engage the guards with our happy ideology. That should let us get close enough to take them out.
At the same time, Kirk can be ready to disrupt their comlinks. Seneth can do us the favor of watching the astral plane. Once we’re inside, it’s business as usual… Thoughts?"
“Oh, and I vote for doing it at day.”
So far the plan as I understand it is for Goethe and Nail to masquerade as missionaries in order to get close to the building, and take out the armed guards once they’re close. Meanwhile the others will stay out of sight and watch for trouble.
There is an alternate plan proposed by Goethe, to attempt to infiltrate the building at night, capture and interrogate Fortnight (presumably using Seneth’s magic).
Some things you should know about Autolycus’ plan
-The “con” skill and charisma attributes will be used to fool the sentries into dropping their guard. The more elaborate the ruse, the more negative modifiers there will be for the roll.
-If your con+charisma test is successful, you will each receive a “surprise” combat modifier for the first combat round. The human will be pretty easy to take out in that time, but it will be difficult, (but not impossible) to disable the burly troll before he can shout a warning.
-This option limits the effectiveness of the assault rifles carried by the guards
-Kirk must wait until the trap is sprung before she begins her electronic assault, because the guards are not likely to be fooled once they realize their network is under attack
Some things you should know about Goethe’s plan
-The test for obtaining an ambush “surprise” modifier will use your infiltration+AGI, with positive modifiers if you intend to attack from a distance. It will be difficult to infiltrate close enough for melee, though.
-Kirk can begin her electronic assault without penalizing the infiltrating group. This will probably result in the enemy drones being disabled before they can hurt anyone.
-If you don’t disable the guards in the “surprise” round, they will get to return fire with their assault rifles.
Seneth to Nail:
“I vote for your plan, actually. It’s kind of crazy, but I think it would work. Let’s do this one.”
Kirk to the group:
Kirk slumps for a moment as the others talk, and as she straightens up and clears her throat Darwin gesticulates with one of his arms, gesturing as the elf addresses the group, her own arms laying inert at her sides.
“I really don’t like the idea of putting flesh into the field when we know they have drones ready to intervene,” she offers, “So I for one prefer Nail’s infiltration. It’ll let me even the odds before any of you get close to being shot, and I might even have time to try and mess with any distress signals they try to get out afterwards.”
Goethe to Seneth:
I think you misunderstand that the man we are to rescue is not in this building. But the man who can give us info as to where the man we are supposed rescue might be, that is this Fortnight guy, is likely in this building.
And the danger of a full-out firefight is we don’t want Fortnight to die in the crossfire.
Now as far as the disguise infiltration goes, I’m okay with it, but you really don’t want me to be the one to talk on this. And it’s probably better if Nail or someone a little more skilled in conning people designs the disguises. Fortunately, enough religious cults have vows of silence that I pretty much don’t need to open my mouth. Nail can just explain that I’ve had to take a vow of silence. Heck, he might want to enjoy it while it lasts.
I’m also going to have to leave the assault rifle behind. And probably the SMG as well. They’re way too noticeable. Fortunately, I keep my Predator pistol in an arm slide, it should make it pretty much unnoticeable.
Do shock gloves look like normal gloves from casual scrutiny, or do they look like an actual weapon? And how much scrutiny is required to determine they are a weapon if they don’t casually look like one?
I’m going to give everyone until 9am, PST (approximately 10.5 hours from the time of this post) to finalize the plan before proceeding. The disguises won’t be difficult to make or acquire, as cultists usually outwardly look pretty much like everyone else.
Shock gloves will not look like normal gloves under scrutiny. If you choose to wear them, I’ll treat it as a negative modifier to the con roll, to simulate the chance the guards will notice and be suspicious.
Keep in mind that Kirk can snoop around in the Two Weeks Truce network as long as she wants (assuming she passes stealth tests) but as soon as she starts breaking stuff, the gig’s up and the guards will be suspicious, making the con attempt automatically fail.
ETA: For every character beyond the 3rd who attempts to approach the guards, the con roll will suffer negative modifiers due to the guards becoming nervous about the size of the group approaching them.
Nail puts his arm on Goethe’s shoulder, “Looks like we are doing this my way after all.”
After teasing Goethe, Nail turns to the rest of the group. "Kirk, I need you to do a little simple search for me. What is the flavor of the day for local doomsday cultists? Dress, arguments for the world ending, scriptures, etc. Also, I am going to begin designing the sign. Goethe, would you like to carry it? You won’t have to utter a peep.
My goal is to get the human and the troll to lower their guns and join me in reading, out of interest or skepticism, my holy book. Basically, once they are suitably distracted, we’ll take them out. Simply disabling them would suit my tastes best, but I understand the realities of the job we do.
But enough about that. Who has some magic markers?"