[rednblack]

On my phone so I'll get to some of the oter questions shortly.

@Herr, under your proposed addition to house rules what would be the benefit of choosing a higher Force for the Divination Ritual?

[Herr Brackhaus]

For Augery and Sortilege: getting more hits, essentially. If asking a Threshold 5 question I'd only ever be able to get 1 net hit unless I used Edge; a higher Force ritual (8 for example) would give up to 3 net hits on a Threshold 3 test.

Same as summoning, really; summoning a Force 1 spirit is massively constrained in terms of possible hits. Allowing use of the Astral limit, or even allowing Lodges to add to Ritual Magic limits, makes Ritual Spellcasting much more viable, just like summoning.

[Tecumseh]

Not a bad plan for messaging Eli. Maybe Achak will message him during the drive from Puyallup to Queen Anne.

I had forgotten that Mercer's Roadmaster had a smuggling compartment too. That said, it sounds pretty full if it's human sized and already full of a full suit of body armor plus large guns. Achak will still leave his gear with SpitFire. If things hit the fan, he can borrow Stake from Mercer and have a sweet shootout in his suit.


This is actually very close to how I imagine Achak's suit, although I pictured his tie having more color.

[Malevolence]

You say "too" as if Spitfire's van has one. As he's pointed out, he does not. Also, Mercer does not keep any armor in the compartment. Lots of guns and ordinance, yes, plus a few small devices, but there should be a fair amount of room for additional equipment. That said, your armor would take up quite a bit of space, so there isn't likely enough room for everything.

[Tecumseh]

I said "too" to mean "in addition to all the other things Mercer's Roadmaster has" rather than to compare its features to SpitFire's GMC Universe.

IC is up.

Achak's visual perception test to scope out the surroundings outside of Duncan's office: Intuition 6 + Perception 6 + Glasses 3 + Specifically Looking 3: 18d6t5 5 hts

[rednblack]

@Tec, re: Memory Test, Eli's van is a glaring omission, but the other stuff certainly seems to fit. 

@Herr, let's see how Ritual magic plays out with the same house rule. 

@Zwei, are you trying to tell if Nico is planning an ambush based on that text message?  Hard to get a bead on a chummer without looking him in the face, but SpitFire would probably assume that if the zekes already know he's on board considering he's been with the team for less than a day, he may as well pack it in and move to Antarctica with Achak.

On Nico, I dunno, is he?  I know Iron Lung Mike is a high Loyalty contact of yours.  Does he do any smuggling himself?  Or maybe he's just sold some hardware to Nico a few times, or another member of whatever crew Nico is running with at the time.

Did I miss anything?  IC forthcoming.

[rednblack]

@Mal and @Tec, if either of you are planning on sneaking a weapon into the meet with Duncan Abbey I need a Palming roll.  This will most likely not be an easy feat.

[Zweiblumen]

ILM is Spitfire's connection for reduced prices on Drones.  Mike may have done some smuggling back in the day, it's hard to make it in the 6th world without doing something shady along the way.  But now he's got a pretty cush gig fixing shit other people break, which seems to happen pretty often 'round these parts.  When he comes across good prices on Drones he lets SF in on it.

ZB was just wondering if SF knew Nico through Mike or not.  That said, I didn't notice the price you quoted.  SF will let the team know he's got a line on some amazingly good prices from an old acquaintance.  He'll lay out the list.

@Tec and Mal, lemme know how Achak and Mercer would react to the list and SF will respond to Nico.

Also, have Mercer and Achak been to Abbey's office before?  Would they be able to let Patsy know where they will be so she can help keep an eye on them from afar?

[rednblack]

The only items Nico explicitly quoted were the Flying Eyes, outfitted with sawdust nades, for ¥700 a pop. 

Achak has been to Abbey's office before certainly, and Mercer has most likely.  The library, where the team is presently, is the most common room where Abbey receives visitors.

[Tecumseh]

Achak will not try to sneak a gun in to Duncan's office. He doesn't want to offend Duncan, as they need friends more than enemies right now. And if Duncan isn't a friend, or at least a business associate that won't try to kill them or immediately sell them out, then our problems are even larger than we thought. Besides, machine pistols are too big to hide from anything than just a casual eye-test.

Mercer was at the meet with Duncan that we RP'd 10 months ago (10/30/15).

Achak will be torn on the painting's price. On one hand, he knows they need the funds to take the fight to Sunrise, which could pay off handsomely (spend money to make money), but he still has the lingering suspicion that the painting should be worth seven figures instead of six. Of course, he needs to be alive to spend the money, and given the presumed fates of Stake and Eli he knows that he might very well be next, and soon. To that end, he's leaning toward accepting in order to bankroll the current fight.

Is Duncan's commission accounted for on the buyer's side or will there be a percentage removed from the seller's side?

I'll roll for Negotiation. Achak isn't as good at this as Mercer or Duncan, but sometimes the dice are kind. Charisma 4 + Negotiation 5: 9d6t5 2 hits, not today it seems

@rednblack, can you remind of your philosophy about licenses so that I know if there are any Achak is missing and should request while he's speaking with Duncan? Also, thinking longer term, if we do any cyber/bio upgrades, do you account for the medical costs as part of the gear's list price or are the medical expenses separate?

Achak would be intensely suspicious of the list of drones for sale and will tell SpitFire as much. He sees a certain kind of poetic justice in buying the drones and repurposing them kill the people who killed Eli, but there's a limit to how many ambushes Achak is willing to endure. In the end, he'll recommend declining, at least for now, if only to help keep SpitFire off Sunrise's radar for that much longer.

[rednblack]

The last meeting with Abbey was at a hospital.  I think that's the only one Mercer has attended ICly, but they've known one another for a long time, I believe.

As for the painting's price, the quarter mil is cash in hand tax free nuyen directly to Achak, since he's the last member of the original team.  Abbey gets his share from the buyer. 

Re: licenses, it doesn't look as though Achak has Qi Focus licenses for either of his SINs.  I'm fairly lenient with licenses.  1 for weapons, 1 for cyber/bio, 1 for adept/magician, 1 for drones, etc. 

Re: cyberware upgrades, medical costs are included in the upgrade.


As for the drone equipment, if the vampires were wanting to lay a trap for SpitFire they would need to know that he was part of the team.  If you've been compromised to that extent, they'd probably have a bead on your safe house as well, if not your present location.

I've neglected to put in the last two hours or so of drone feed.  I'll add that to my next IC.

[Tecumseh]

¥250,000 is certainly a healthy payday from a single run. If Achak had been hired to retrieve this painting for ¥250k, he'd be delighted, But since it is now "his" he wants to get as much for it as possible. There's probably some sort of economics lesson or principle in there somewhere.

Red, are you saying that Achak should get a license for his foci or are you saying that his "Registered Awakened" license already covers them?

Anything anyone else wants to request while we have Duncan's attention?

[Zweiblumen]

SF is reasonably sure he's pretty clean and thinks this is someone just trying to move crap fast.  They *might* be able to leverage this into more info.  What are Mercer and Jaeger's thoughts on it?

[Malevolence]

Mercer will not be sneaking any weapons in to the meet. The load out is strictly in case drek goes sideways between the van and the lobby, or if anything seems concerning while in the lobby. Once in the safety of Duncan's offices, Mercer is fine with disarming himself. He is concerned that an assault on the meet might be made, but he knows Duncan and Duncan knows him. Mercer's confident that he'd be armed before any force could make it through the lobby security, or he'd be invited to flee in whatever Plan B Duncan has if it looked like the fight was lost.


Eli's stuff - Unless Nico's selling the stuff on consignment, the zekes already have their money, so if they got deals, we should buy. Like Tec mentioned, there would be a certain justice in using Eli's toys to get revenge on his killers, but the risk is that these are trojans just like the painting. If it fills a tactical hole, then it's worth the risk. If it's just a nice to have, then we can pass.


As for the missing van, they probably kept that so that they could use it in our meet. Or it was hopelessly destroyed in killing Eli. My money is on the former.


Mercer will have no knowledge of Eli's stuff as they have never met or even talked. So any response to the list of gear Nico is offering is completely up to Achak. Mercer would recognize that it came from a Hunter by the sawdust weaponry, and thus recommend treating it with suspicion, but that's about it. If he thought about it, he could probably connect the dots and realize that gear from a Hunter showing up on the market right after Eli getting geeked were likely related.


The price for the painting is plenty fair in Mercer's mind - it is a cash sale, the sellers are remaining anonymous, the painting has a most likely illicit past, so its value takes a dive as it is unknown who may come looking for it, etc. And really, when dealing with "facilitators", it is common to only get 10-50% of the item's worth, usually closer to 10%. If it were worth 10m¥, then Mercer would be displeased with the offer, but I suspect that it's worth less than 5m¥. Not that Mercer would be opposed to negotiating up, but he wouldn't expect to move the price more than about 10-20%. However, Achak does bring up a good point that Duncan might be able to fetch a better price with the redaction of Sister Rebecca's restrictions, possibly getting up to double the price. We'll see what Duncan thinks, and Mercer will defer to his judgement.


Mercer will also look around as they approach Duncan's offices, and he will run his ultrasound all the way up until after they enter the library. Also, he will analyze the smell of the fried chicken to try to identify the recipe so that he can compliment him on some aspect of it. Chances are, he'll just comment on the real honey (I assume it is real), but he feels that if he can detect some otherwise uncommon herb or spice that was used in the preparation, the comment will carry more weight.


Perception (outside Duncan's) [Int 5 + Perception 6 + Visual Spec 2 + Vision Enhance 3]: 16d6t5 3
Perception (Olfactory) [INT 5 + Perception 6 + Olfactory Sensors 6]: 17d6t5 6


The visual perception roll is pretty craptastic, and the +3 from the Visual Enhancement only applies until he gets out of the van, removing the ballistic mask prior. He doesn't lose any hits from taking it off, so it's also beside the point.


Which brings to mind a question. With the acid rain and known bad air quality, is it really out of the ordinary for people to wear masks when outdoors, and even when indoors? I have been meticulous about taking the mask off when in public, but it might be moot if it is typical to wear such items all of the time. Otherwise, Mercer would probably be interested in getting some glasses with VE3 and (flare comp or vision mag) [2,150¥ and Avail 7 or 8].


Additional shopping list items are:
Receiver Dongle - 400¥ and avail 3
Sensor tags (2 camera, 2 ultrasound, 2 motion sensor, 4 blank) - 1,240¥ (40¥ for tags, 200¥ x 6 for R2 sensors), avail 5


I'm tempted to get some Full Body Armor, just so I don't look like the soft target among the crew, but considering the availability and the cost after getting it modded, I'll just wait for some to become available another way (loot from an opponent or maybe Flickr's set if he meets an untimely end). Everybody seems to have some, so it's only a matter of time...


I think that's everything.

[rednblack]

Re: masks in public, it really depends on the area. Probably a no go in downtown or Bellevue, unless it's a really bad air quality day. Even then a respirator is probably fine, but a ballistic mask looks like something that someone wears to a fight or in the commission of a crime. In the barrens you can get away with one pretty much anywhere but Touristville, and can probably get by with a respirator in many of the working class neighborhoods year round.

Hope that makes sense. I'm on my phone.

ETA: Olfactory hits! Everything is indeed real food, though the honey is a honey "sauce" which is thinner and less cloying. Mercer can smell that the chicken was smoked before being fried, and that the batter had additions of nutmeg, cayenne, and InstaCake Pancake! mix. This is food truck style CAS done right.