[Csjarrat]

___________________Teafo________________________
Stepping in from the chill October breeze, The Winchester arms is a welcome reprieve from the cold of the British autumn weather and the prospect of a job is a welcome reprieve for your bank account.
An open fire crackles in the corner under the big screen, showing a re-run of yesterdays Manx TT trials and there are a few patrons sat around varying tables, giving the room a low background murmur.
You spot Herb sat at one of the tables nearest the bar supping on a pint of his usual stout, he motions for you to join him. The Barmaid recognises your face, catches your attention and gestures at your usual ale in way of a question as you sit down at Herb's table. He greets you with a warm handshake "How've you been Collin? I got a job for someone with your kind of talents if you're interested?"
 
___________________Lumen_______________________
The warehouse has an odd stench to it, kind of like fish mixed with diesel oil and far too many years of dis-use to make out which is the stronger.
The cold night air has permeated the building and your breath hangs in front of your pace in regular puffs of cloud.
You've barely been in the room 30 seconds and the poor bastard strapped to the chair had already suffered one hell of a beating, the only light in the room hovering over his bound body and casting a sinister light on his wounds and his tormentor; Your boss.
"WHO THE FUCK IS HE?" Micky bellowed, repeatedly kicking into the blokes stomach. Nothing but groans escaped the captive and he began to bleed profusely from his mouth, his eyes fixating on you after the tenth blow and glassing over.
Fuck!!!!
Micky span around, clearly fuming, cursing the now dead captive for his refusal to talk. Micky storms straight past you, motioning with his head for you to follow him back out into the cold of the night. One of Micky's Lads walks over to the corpse and pushes him over onto his side, starting to undo the restraints.
The small inner door of the warehouse requires you to duck your head under, and the cold of the night time hits your lungs, eliciting a cough. Micky looks out over the Thames, his gaze hanging on tower bridge for a moment, before offering you a cigarette.
Pretty Facking City this is mate. Proud I am to be a Landaner. Thing is, there are too many Fackwits kicking about this end of the facking shithole that think they're better than us. that don't facking realise who's in facking charge. Know what I mean? We been running this part of the East End since before they started building that facking bridge mate, and they still think they can con us out of a quick quid or two.
Micky continues his monologue in his ridiculously thick cockney accent and you begin to lose interest, taking a large drag on the very expensive cigarette you were offered.
The main warehouse door groaned under the strain of the ancient motors, the metalwork clanging and crashing as the door rose up to meet the roof. The dim internal light cast a dirty square of yellow on the weed-ridden concrete of the industrial complex that the Warehouse occupies. The beaten body you saw just minutes ago re-appears, now with it's beaten head bagged and towing several bricks tied around its ankles. Two of Micky's Lads dragged it along the jetty and slung it into the Thames with a heavy splash.
The angry tone of Micky's voice brought you back to the previous conversation
You gone facking deaf or what? Hop to it, Johnny will give you the address... and don't forget, get the facker to pay up.

[Lumen]

Knives pulls his greatcoat in tight around him as he makes his way into the old warehouse in a futile effort to fend off the chill night air.  The bloody beating was nothing new to him, just another part of the job, and he looked on silently stoic until Micky leads him back outside.  Knives gladly accepts the smoke, “Cheers”.

 *The Boss always has the best smokes.  I gotta find out where we gets em*

As Micky goes on his rant Knives just nods and stares off into the dark water of the Thames at this hour, until his attention is abruptly snapped back to the conversation.  “Huh?  Yea Boss no problem.  Kick some quid outta some wanker, got it.  How much is it this time or should I just keep going till I'm knackered?”

[Csjarrat]

It's a big contract this one, warehouse. Routing hub for a lot of gear coming into the old smoke. We need these boys alive and paying regularly. Just rough em up a bit, scare em, but damage their ability to put those pretty little fingers into their deep facking pockets and you're out on your arse kid, you hear? Usual rate; 500 for the visit, further 500 if they make a deposit.
Go on, now fack off. Johnny's waiting round front in the van. He'll give you the address.

[Lumen]

"I hear ya Micky, I hear ya."

Knives walks around to the van parked in front and nods to Johnny,  "Evenin' mate.  What's the good word?"

[Csjarrat]

The bulky Ork grins a toothy grin at you, his large discoloured tusks accentuating his smile lines
"awright knives, not seen you in a while. how you keeping? Job eee's got for ya is a warehouse, behind on 3 payments. they're out about 5k a month and the boss is pretty twitchy that the competition have got em lined up. The outfit is run by a big fucker. troll. Goes by the name of Gavin. eee's an 'andy lad, knows how to swing a club. depending on shifts, there could be anywhere between 3-10 lads loading/unloading who can help 'im out if eee don't feel like tawking. Here's the address. You know the general area, its about a 20minute walk along the river, or a few quid on the 'tube to the cutty sark stop and a 5 minute walk from there

[Lumen]

OOC: I assume I have my bike nearby.

Knives smiles wide, "Been holding just fine Johnny boy.  Oi sounds like this could get interesting,  I doubt this bloke will be too keen on talking.  Thanks for the info chummer."

The young human waves to the ork as he walks towards his bike.  He pulls out his com and loads up his agent and let's it worry about piloting the bike.  Once he's within a few blocks Knives will park the bike back in an alleyway and proceed towards the warehouse.   He stays in the shadows trying to get a good view of how many folks are inside and keeping an eye out for any obvious cameras.


Infiltration (3) + Agility (6) = 9d6 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4095472/ 
1 hit -.-
Perception (4) + Intuition (3) + Vision Enhancement (3) = 10d6 http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4095474/
4 hits

[Csjarrat]

The drive over was fairly short and uneventful. Your park your bike and gridguide cheerfully informs you that <<Due to high ambient vehicle crime rates, parking in this sector will nullify your insurance. Parking here is not advisable. Have a nice day.>>

The short walk through the streets towards the warehousing takes you past a selection of fairly unsavourable characters, Whores and bruisers hogging the doorways, trying to keep warm or sell their wares.
A few familiar faces nod their respect to you and keep out of your way, and you easily make the short distance to the warehouse unnoticed.
At first glance, the place looks deserted. there are no lights on, and the one door visible to the front of the building doesn't look like it has seen use in recent years.
You stealthily cover the perimeter of the warehouse, and get a decent idea of its appearance from the outside

The windows are all covered in thick steel grating, a clear indication of the crime level in these parts, your inspection takes you to the rear of the building, where the smell of the Thames and seaweed combines with the smell of boat oil and diesel. You've traced along the left side of the building and are now looking across the rear aspect of the warehouse, facing the river.

A small concrete jetty heads out into the Thames, splitting left and right.
A small speedboat is tied up to the right hand side split, and the rear of the building is covered by a security camera, its flashing red status light letting you know it has power. Your audio enhancers are able to pick up the quiet whirring of its servos moving it in 30 second sweeps across the concrete landing and jetty areas.
The rear of the building has a large metal shutter dominating the wall, and what appears to be a basement access lift which looks old and rusty, and there are varying bits of decrepit industrial machinery scattered about the concrete landing area.

[Teafo]

[spoiler=OOC]
Sorry for the delay, for some reason or other this page wouldn't load the last day and a half... happens from time to time. But I think I've got caught up on everything I need to for now
[/spoiler]

Collin's entrance to the Winchester went largely unnoticed by the patrons, they usually couldn't see much past their own pints, and getting their attention at all almost always meant buying them another round. Herb was a welcome sight, as Collin's pockets had been feeling a little on the empty side as of late, and rent was coming up faster than he would care to admit. He returned the greeting to the barmaid, raising two fingers signalling to get another round for his friend as well. He removed his coat and hung it on a peg on the wall before making his way to the bar.

Oh you know me, Herb, Collin said returning the handshake with a warm smile I'm always open for a little work. What do you have for me?

[Csjarrat]

________Teafo____________
Its an out-of-town job, you still got your wheels? Rumours have been floating around for a while that the druid enclaves out in surrey have had things go missing over the past few months, especially stuff that has any kind of magical history or element. started with the enclaves and villages nearest to the old toxic zones, but stuff has been going missing for a while now, including people and neither the Met or the NDM seem to give a shit.
A mate of a mate of mine has a workshop out that way, just a bit north of cambridge, and the worrying thing is that no-one has heard from anyone in that village for quite a while. its like the whole place has gone dark. I cant even get a matrix ping from his home node. This was two days ago, and the coppers are saying nowt at all. anyways, the job is a reccy. get in there, see what you can find out. Rumours are pretty wild, apparently the locals have been hearing all sorts of bumps in the night for a while. Thats why I want you to go take a little looksie, you're always prepared for the weird stuff He looks at you with a wry smile and pushes a dossier your way.
Thats the village, its got the addresses and a mugshot of my bloke out there. Pay is 1200, and i'll cover your fuel. if you can get me any names or hard evidence, theres an extra half a grand in it. sound good?

[Teafo]

Yeah, my pickup is out back. Sounds like my kind of work, Collin leafs through the documents to see if anything seems noteworthy and to get a good look at this contact. You happen to know when this all started? Any new faces in the area I should know about off hand? Collin asked, knowing that he would probably not get any further information from the fixer. Otherwise, why would he hire him? But it never hurt to ask anyway. He stayed a bit longer to finish off his drink and make small talk with his friend before he headed out to his GAZ. Before starting the engine he went over a mental checklist of places to check. Check with BabyDoll see if she can get anything from the Matrix on the area. Michael might know some area information, but if nothing else he might be able to give me a reason the cops are steering clear. Best bet may be to just head there and see for yourself though. Collin keyed in the messages to BabyDoll and Officer Rorge and started the pickup. He set the directions to the address into his commlink and pulled out of the parking lot.

[Csjarrat]

___________Teafo______________
Not really mate, as I said, rumours have been pretty wild for a few months now. people talking of wild eyed raiders appearing in the night, right through to their family heirlooms being missing. few graves have been robbed and a small museum got bust into. This is all spread across a few months and a pretty wide area, most of it second hand pub-talk. I need some eyes-on, that's why you're here. None of my usual eyes and ears have been much help, like I said, it's like the whole place just went dark overnight.
Keep me posted as you go yeah? I wanna know of anything interesting as it happens. Be safe too mate, no heroics.

[Teafo]

Sure thing, I'll let ya know as soon as I find out anything His departing words were a promise, and he was not usually the super-daring type anyway. So while it did seem a mystery, he wasn't about to go charging in head first to find out what was happening. He learned a long time ago that subtlety can get you a lot further, and leave a lot fewer toes stepped on.

His truck rumbled down the roadway, and as he neared the village he would park on the outskirts and check if his contacts had any information before checking about on foot.

[Csjarrat]

_____Teafo_____
//Matrix Message Protocol 1.0.2b//<<BaByDoll101>> Hey Col, what's up, usually you send me an essay when you need a favour? I can do a Matrix-Ping sweep of the area, see if any of the major routing nodes are down. shouldn't take long, call it 50 quid for a friend yeah?//
//Matrix Message Protocol 1.0.2b//<<MikeyMike20>> Hi Collin, not heard from you in a while. Nope, no idea on that one. had an auntie who lived out that way when i was a kid, but not been back since. sorry can't help more!//

The afternoon rush hour had already started by the time you decide to leave for the countryside. A crash on the M25 and a breakdown on the north circular meant that progress was tortuously slow, and two hours later you've barely left greater london. The British autumn weather meant you were in for a cold, dark and damp night, and gridguide's best estimate of arrival put you at around 9.30pm this evening.

You finally get off the main roads and start making some progress, hitting 60mph on the windy country roads through small market towns and villages.
with less than 20miles to go, you start seeing old-school metal signs informing you of road closures ahead, and posting you onto a diversion route. The diversion wanted to take you a long way around your area of investigation, the village of Oakhampton.

[Csjarrat]

__________Lumen_________
Your careful observation of the landing area shows you that there are four main areas of debris piled up, the only one really big enough to hide behind is an old rusted chassis of a forklift truck. the other industrial wreckage is no bigger than thigh-high.
There is a suspiciously shiny part on the control section of the forklift however, it seems more modern and less dilapidated than the rest of the chassis.

As you concentrate on your surroundings, you hear a thud, or was it two? a door closing maybe?......

[Teafo]

The commlink's notification of new messages popped up on Collin's imagelink in his glasses. The traffic was crawling by and he was glad that he could get something back before he got to beginning his real work. Both messages were disheartening though, nothing really from either contact that could give him a solid foothold to get things rolling. It looked like it was going to be another foray into the unknown. Not that that bothered him horribly, it happened many a time, and so far has worked out for him. As he pulled into the town finally, he decided it would be best to write back before heading into the town proper.

//Matrix Message Protocol 1.0.2b//<<BabyDoll101>> Hey Doll! Sorry I know you like my longer essays better, just in a bit of a hurry this time. Seems things around are catching the attention of higher powers than I. Things that go bump in the night and all that. You know, the usual fair for those like myself. Thanks for checking into everything for me, I'll wire the cash over in just a second. Unless you'd rather meet in person? Still waiting to see your real face, babe, maybe buy you a real drink too?// In his mind he knew that she probably wouldn't go for it, she never did in the past, but he always offered. He was always a little uncomfortable with how much she knew about his life and work without even knowing who she was behind her avatar.
//Matrix Message Protocol 1.0.2b//<<MikeyMike20>> Thanks for getting back to me so quick, I owe you a drink when I get back, it'll be good to catch up. How's the force treating you these days? Good I hope. I'll keep you posted on what's going on out this way if it's anything that could suck you into it as well. Always nice to know what you're getting into right?//

After the messages confirmed being sent, Collin settled the seat of his truck back and relaxed his body, allowing his astral form to float outward. Couldn't hurt to do a quick scout around the area on the astral plane he mused to himself and floated his way around the perimeter of the town looking for any magical signatures, anything that seemed more out of the ordinary for a small town like this one.

[spoiler=Perception Test]
Just in case it's needed: Perception 2 + INT 3 = 5 Dice, 2 hits