[farothel]

Sammy kept an eye out on the astral.  The rest would warn her when there were meat thingies coming up, but she was the only one who could look at the astral.  And since a first response was often to send a spirit in, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an eye out for that.  Also one of the guys in the club could be a mage as well, which she should see should he come out.  Besides, if they came out of the building, she would be able to see them as well in the astral.

[Crossbow]

On the roof of the Derma, Clementine has finished her work of dismantling the peepshow operation, but in the Matrix, Snow continues to struggle against the node's, now alerted, firewall.  The dancer is still refusing her gifts, but Snow now has her full attention.

(OOC: Snow hasn't yet penetrated the firewall, though she feels she  is close, but the node is now on alert which makes it tougher.  She hasn't seen any other response as of yet.)

[Mercy Merchant]

The Snow Queen sends a cloud of soft flakes to cover the torso of the dancer in a shimmering robe that clearly emphasizes her figure, hinting at the treasures beneath.

Second init pass of the turn to Hack on the Fly.  Hack on the Fly: 8d6t5 3  Not too bad.  total is now 12 hits.

Snow thinks to herself that she should have overcome the firewall this time.

[Crossbow]

The dancer clearly appreciates this gift, but she is still a bit suspicious.  (Firewall 6 + Security Access 3 + Alert bonus to Firewall 4 = You ain't there yet  )

[Mercy Merchant]

The snow queen throws in some slippers and a crown in hopes that this time her gifts will be well received.

Hack on the fly: 8d6t5 3  Use edge to roll misses Edge to roll misses: 5d6t5 2  Using the edge gives me 14 hits, which ought to be enough.

Snow smiles as the dancer accepts the gifts and opens her access port.  <OK, I am in.  I may have limited time so what should my priority be?>

[Mercy Merchant]

The Snow Queen sends some ice elf minions into the system to seek out and retrieve the information she needs.  They are penalized a bit by their young Queen's inexperience and lack of certain skills but they are remorseless in their search.

Seek out information:  Data Search (3 due to defaulting) + Browse (4) = 7d6 for an extended test.  Roll three passes.  Data Search: 7d6t5+6d6t5+5d6t5 7  Result is 7 hits is not too bad.  Follow with File Transfer.  Sheet indicates no roll needed (?)

[Crossbow]

When the final gift the crystal crown, is received, the dancer finally relents to entry and pull on the pole as if it were a curtain, inviting the Snow Queen through.

The first thing she notices is that if she wasn't certain before, she is now, the node is on alert.  The next thing she notices is a certain sense of disappointment.  In contrast to such a well made gateway, the node itself uses standard Matrix iconography, these folks not have wanted to spend the money on node sculpting beyond the entrance.

As her elves return from their scouting, she is even more disappointed, they have found no trace of the files she is looking for, even widening and generalizing the search parameters returns nothing but some PR footage of featured dancers to the club.

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow is disappointed.  <The system is on alert.  The information we need is not on the system.  Anywhere.  Nothing of any sort of blackmail data.  Nothing but ads for dancers.  The system is surprisingly unsophisticated.  Not even worth crashing.  What do you want me to do?>

[HydroRaven]

<Make sure they send someone on the roof, and then take them offline> wrote Clem as she stood ready with her flash-bang grenade in hand.

[Crossbow]

In spite of the agitated tone of the folks on the roof, nothing really seemed to be amiss for the others watching the lot from O'Connor's rental.  Sammy had moved over here to conduct her astral searches when the others had left, and Torley and O'Connor had seen nothing more than a dancer leaving by the side door, a bouncer watching her as she went to her trike and left before closing the door again.

[Mercy Merchant]

Snow sends her persona on a tour of the system, looking for the means to send meat security to the roof. 

Spend Spoof command to send security to the roof.  Spoof: 8d6t5 2  I cannot tell from the sheet if this is an opposed roll this might be good enough to get things moving.  Next up is crashing the system.  System Crash: 8d6t5 4  Second pass  Crash System second pass: 7d6t5 2  edge to reroll misses from second pass  Edge to roll misses from second pass: 5d6t5 2  third pass Third pass: 6d6t5 2  That is 10 hits in three passes with another edge gone.  Is that enough to do the job?

That being done, Snow reviews the data her ice minions had gathered and concludes that there may be a hidden node in the building.  <Message sent for security and the system should be collapsing on itself.  But this drek is just too fragging old to be what we are looking for.  I am going to risk looking for a hidden node and see what comes up.>  The snow Queen sends out her minions again to see if there is someone else in the building that she can bribe with her gifts.

Search for node  Search fir hidden node: 7d6t5 1  Well, that did not go well.  A glitch on the first roll is not good, and probably means extra time needed or extra security to bypass.  I will keep going Edge to reroll first pass: 6d6t5 2  Second pass  Second pass at node: 6d6t5 3  third pass  Third pass at node: 5d6t5 0  Edge to reroll misses: 5d6t5 2  Fourth pass at node: 4d6t5 3  Fifth pass at node: 3d6t5 0  A critical glitch on that pass means there is no way I can accomplish this task right now.

The minions return with the bad news that they have completely failed and need to be punished for being inept.  Their queen dismisses them in resignation that she has also failed.  <Team. I have failed to locate the node and am out of options.  I could try again, but I have no edge remaining.  Instructions?>

[Necrogigas]

<Sounds like its time for plan b then. Can you bust open the hatch? Clem and I can make a two prong attack. Then we tear this place apart, top to bottom.>

[Crossbow]

Jimmy Jammer had always enjoyed this job, where else would a nerd from streets get to be around half naked women all day and get paid for it?  Plus, these chicas knew that he had a little sway in who got featured on Matrix peepshows, that meant extra scratch , so sometimes they even broke him off a piece.  All things considered not a bad gig for a guy that barely squeaked thru his classes at the community college.

It was the end of the night, and the girls were winding down and in the process of leaving, the clean-up would be here in a bit, and he was going over everything for the boss when he came in at 0800.  When the firewall monitor ping’d him he figured it was some teen trying to slip in on the cheap, but he sent the sniffers to work anyway.  Then whoever it was went for security access, he figured he might get to really earn his keep and went hot trying to get a handle on the intrusion.  He was kinda hoping that they go for the honeypot, he had been wanting to see what that scary looking Renraku shadow code could do, but the logs said they were just doing simple data searches.

That was when things got really weird, the intruder tried to manufacture an alarm code for the hatch on the roof, but Jimmy told the little ice fairy to piss up a rope, but then the sniffer report came back and said the hacker was really up there meatside.  What the frag is going on?  Time to get personal , the spider spoke up to the gorillas on guard duty “We got a problem, lock it down and do a sweep, I think there is somebody on the roof.”, he loaded up on combat progs and went hunting.  The gorillas did the same.

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We are in rounds, for everybody.  No surprise at work.  For those not actually in any fight, which right now is everyone but Snow, I just need a general idea of what you are doing and when you would have actions. Snow is in combat in the Matrix and we are in that weird slow down time, I will give you a better idea of what is going on once we get all the rolls.

[Crossbow]

Just as Snow finishes her back and for with her team, in the Matrix  a stock copy Square-Jawed Hero persona arrives in her vicinity, cape fluttering, "Not really sure what you are doing here, but I think it's time for you to go.", he says, firing attack code at Snow.

Spider attack: 9d6h5 4

(roll shows 6 but I mistyped the code, its 4)

[Mercy Merchant]

The Snow Queen taunts the caped persona.  "As Queen of this realm, I decide when it is time to go.  No anti-hero in last year's tights is going to order me away."  The Queen throws up a barrier of ice spears to thwart the attack.

  Response (4) + Firewall (4) + Hacking (4) = 12d6. Full matrix defense against the IC: 12d6t5 3  Sadly, I only got three hits so will use an edge to reroll.  Use edge to reroll defense: 9d6t5 4   Much better.  I may just try to do it without the full defense next time.  Total is 7 hits on defense.