[Malevolence]

Well, I'd like to get an idea of what Nori is planning on printing. If it's just "Sunrise=vampires", then Mercer's cool with it. If it's more "Vamps uniting to take over world" or "Hunters following leads on Vampire conspiracy" then it might be more concerning. The problem is that I'm not sure how much she knows. Without access to the briefcase, I would guess it's basically "Sunrise employs vampires" or "Sunrise employed by vampires", might be founded by them (but no proof), and they are hunting Hunters. Nothing Mercer hasn't already posted to Grotto1,  other than mentioning Sunrise by name. In fact, at that point in the adventure, I think we were still largely under the impression that a vampire or small group of vampires might have hired Sunrise to off Hunters rather than Sunrise being a wholly owned subsidiary of Vampire, Inc.


Burning Sunrise might be beneficial in the short term as it might turn the Yaks against them, making the assault on the warehouse that much easier. Long term, some of Sunrise's clients might go into hiding, but even at that point, Sunrise is pretty certain that they have destroyed all of their records, so their clients have little reason to believe their names and addresses are compromised, so only the most paranoid should bolt. Sunrise as a larger corporation might simply spin it as this branch office being compromised by infected and then go about business as usual, making the long term impact of anything Nori prints pretty minor outside of Seattle.


Her data on Pachis, on the other hand, is intriguing, so Mercer will certainly follow up on that. However, he'll want to put off any meet/exchange until after the run against the warehouse. The Pachis data isn't likely to be useful until then anyway and there might be more to share (and more that can be shared) once the research project is dealt with.


So, before I do my IC, what is the group's thoughts on how to proceed? Also, rnb, what is Mercer's take on what I've outlined above likely to be? Let me know if there is anything I can roll to give me some better direction as to how damaging what Nori publishes might be to our plans. If he schedules a meet with her for Saturday evening after the warehouse assault, could he be reasonably certain that she won't print?


Also, weighing in on hitting the warehouse, early morning seems good, just before sunrise while the wendis are asleep and the mook guards are there. However, before we do that, I want to find out where the woman and the non-infected ork live by having a drone follow them home, or plant a tracker on their rides (or both). To that end, what would be involved in getting a kanmushi to be able to place a stealth tag on a vehicle? Can it just do it, or would we have to somehow mod it (drone arm)?


The morning assault avoids the crowds and hopefully reduces the amount of manpower that the Yaks can field on short notice. If we can time it to get into place under cover of darkness but do the assault just after sunlight starts to creep across the horizon but before traffic picks up, that would be perfect, but I suspect that the worker drones probably start showing up in significant numbers before sun up, meaning we have to hit the warehouse before then. If we attack after sunrise, then we don't have the cover of darkness to make our escape.


Speaking of escape, if we don't have someone covering the sewers, we should at least booby trap it before alerting them to our presence. Just to make sure they don't use them to avoid sunlight.


And lastly, do we hit Kreutz before or after the warehouse, or are we saving that decision for after we've had a chance to scope out his digs?

[Tecumseh]

From the surveillance, it sounds like Kreutz works nights. Achak is going to presume that Kreutz is working tonight (rather than having Friday night be the beginning of Kreutz's weekend) because the project is in a sensitive place. The commentary from the other woman indicates that Kreutz's neck is on the line.

If we want to hit the warehouse first thing in the morning (say 06:30) then we have two options:

1) sneak and peek Kreutz's house while he's not there, so doing it on the way to the warehouse, say 05:00ish
2) go in and say hi while Kreutz is home, so on our way back from the warehouse, say 07:30ish

Achak wants to prioritize the warehouse and make sure that nothing tips the team's hand. He doesn't want to invade Kreutz's house first and accidentally trip some alarm or sensor that alerts Kreutz that something is not right, thus increasing security at the warehouse. As such, Achak would vote for approach #2. Flickr might like that as well since he probably wants to confront Kreutz in person. We will, of course, have to keep Flickr on a short leash since we'll be in a reasonably secure neighborhood on a Saturday morning when neighbor kids are home watching cartoons. We can't have Flickr taking a blowtorch and a pair of pliers to Kreutz while the neighbors are sipping their soykafs, nor can we exactly frogmarch him across the lawn with a black bag over his head. I wrote a post a month ago that assumed that Kreutz was the one getting reamed by Pachis, and her language made it sound like Kreutz was Infected (getting lashed to an olive tree at sunrise while having his spells popped). I need to go back and see if that theory still holds water or if there's another theory that better fits the facts. The point is that we have to assume that Kreutz might not be a complete pushover himself, and prepare accordingly.

I think I said sunrise is around 07:45. It's a 40 minute drive between Dash Point and Newcastle, so in theory we could hit the warehouse at 06:30 and spend up to 20-30 minutes there before bugging out to Newcastle. That would get us to Kreutz's house before sunrise - and maybe give him enough time to fall asleep if he's the type to sleep after getting home from the late shift - before doing the B&E thing. Plus the bad weather (I presume the December weather is still bad) might keep the morning light levels low until we leave Kreutz's.

I'm not sure Achak has an intelligent opinion on what Nori does or doesn't do. Achak highly doubts that this is a local issue, and the fact the Kreutz was running CRISPR in Tír na nÓg highly suggests that this is an international operation. If the problem does go to the top of Sunrise, then if Nori burns them sufficiently then they probably just close up shop and reopen freshly incorporated under a new name. Achak knows that shedding some daylight on the issue is the only way to resolve it, but he also knows that it will be more effective if that can be done all at once rather than incrementally, which would give Sunrise the opportunity to retreat and regroup. To that end, he's not terribly keen on Nori publishing a huge exposé right now. At least, not until they have more details for her, which will drag Sunrise that much further into the light. Achak would suggest having Mercer lean on Nori to hold off on the story until tomorrow, at which point we can string her along with more details from the warehouse.

Achak is concerned about Nori's well-being. If she's sitting on the story, he would recommend that she set up a Dead Man's Switch to release the story if she doesn't check in every 24 hours. Achak would actually like to do the same with the nuyen. I don't know how difficult something like that would be to set up. @red, could SpitFire handle something like that?

[Malevolence]

I've decided that I will spend 8 karma to buy off Mercer's addiction. It fits the story since he only developed the addiction because he was using it heavily when on his own because he didn't have a team to back him up and had no safe place to hang his hat. Now that he's got a team he can actually sleep nights, even though the fact that he's actively hunted now does still make that difficult. That brings my karma to 0. I still have 4 knowledge karma that I will spend once I have an answer on the Magical Threats (Infected) spec question.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Sorry guys, I had a spot of internet disconnectedness this past week. Catching up now.

[rednblack]

I'm a little spotty today, but let's see how much I can catch up on.

@Herr, welcome back.  Lots of planning going on, but Achak and Mercer are about ready to leave Mr. Abbey's office.  I was curious if you wanted to take the break as an excuse to do some Divination.

Re: Abbey and acquiring illicit goods.  Rose Delayne (Raven) is much more the hardware and Infected related information fixer.  Duncan Abbey can procure IDs, Licenses, high-end legal goods, and can surely give the team a line on traveling under the radar.

Re: Infected related Knowledge Skills, Jaeger's specialization for Magical Threats will fill the void for Infected capabilities, as they relate to magic.  Infected Physiology and Infected Theory have their own place in the Knowledge Skill pantheon.

Re: Hiring Shadowrunners, always a possibility.  Despite the fact that Grotto1 has been blown open, there are also hunters who Achak and Mercer would trust, and those could be another avenue of seeking outside intervention.  As a bonus, they'll already be equipped to handle what the Infected have to throw at them.

@Tec, well played on buying Business 2.  Ms. Killarney will bring Achak back to the side office, and will offer to hook Achak up with lawyers, accountants, etc.  I can do this ICly, but it may take me over a day to catch up, so if you want to either RP it, or skip it in broad strokes that's fine.  What do you think is a fair premium for that sort of thing.

@Mal, give me an Negotiation test on Nori at a -2 dice penalty.  As far as what Nori might publish, that probably has to do with what she's been able to dig up in the meantime.  She's so far shown herself to be pretty good at connecting dots, but as you mention she doesn't have any information from the briefcase.  She basically has the name Lauri Pachis, and the history on Sunrise that Achak was able to dig up, and she was likely able to supplement.  It's probably a safe assumption that she knows Sunrise is a front, as well as Steinem and Tsukino.  From Mercer's past dealings with Nori, he would assume that the best way to keep her to hold off would be to give her a taste of what information the team has been able to dig up, as opposed to a promise of information which she may or may not have already -- and can only make assumptions about herself.

[Malevolence]

Negotiation [Cha 6 + Negotiation 5 - ? 2]: 9d6t5 2

[Tecumseh]

Let's skip the lawyers and the accountants ICly.

When you say "fair premium", what are you referring to? Are you talking about the referral itself or what Achak would pay for services rendered? I wouldn't expect to pay anything for the referrals - presumably Duncan's good mood combined with the brownie points he will score from the professionals for sending good business their way will obviate the need for a fee from Achak - but for the services themselves I imagine that Achak will spend ¥25k-50k over the course of the coming year (2075). For simplicity we could say that he sets up retainers worth ¥25k to begin. What that gets him and, equally important, how quickly is GM's discretion. The paperwork may take hours, but the team is on a tight timeline and Achak isn't willing to sit in offices all afternoon. However, it's possible that a good deal of this is streamlined in the business-friendly future, so maybe it all happens within a few minutes on the Matrix.

[Tecumseh]

The site was down most of the day but appears to be back up now. Let's see if I can post this before it goes down again.

Achak will ask Duncan for help procuring a fake license for his fake SIN to represent his qi foci. R4 would be 12F and ¥800. Maybe Achak will get a better fake ID in the future but that doesn't seem to be an immediate need. (Besides, if he survives this he can afford to go legit and might not need a better fake.)

Edit: Should I have a separate license for my weapon focus too or does one license apply to all magical foci? I'll get a second license if necessary.

[rednblack]

@Tec, one Foci License is fine, and Mr. Abbey will be able to procure one for you.  It will be added to your SIN by Saturday morning.  You can go ahead and update your char sheet and subtract the ¥800.

What are the next steps?

[Malevolence]

"Associates?" Plural? Duncan should only be aware of the spirit that accompanied us. If this isn't an oversight on rnb's part, then either Duncan is aware of Spitfire and/or Flickr. Or has been made aware of others that might be waiting in ambush. Mercer will certainly ask him what he means. by associates.

[rednblack]

"Associates?" Plural? Duncan should only be aware of the spirit that accompanied us. If this isn't an oversight on rnb's part, then either Duncan is aware of Spitfire and/or Flickr. Or has been made aware of others that might be waiting in ambush. Mercer will certainly ask him what he means. by associates.

There are two vans parked outside of his office, one of which has SpitFire, Jaeger, and Flickr inside.  Mr. Abbey is aware of them.  When Mercer asks, Abbey will say as much, though he doesn't know who is inside of course.  He's not offended that they didn't come in, but he seems to think highly enough of his own security to say that they will be welcomed inside on the next trip should the team choose to make use of his hospitality.

[rednblack]

Also, I have decided to start my Deep in the Shadows of Texas game back up.  I've got a spot or two open, and everyone here is a hell of a player, so if you're interested in another PbP on your plate, shoot me a PM.  You'll all have first dibs.  It's a fairly low-powered black trench coat game set in the DFW sprawl.  Standard chargen, but it's got a bit of a street feel to it.

[Malevolence]

Ah. The plan for the other van was to stay out of sight - a block or two away so that it was not obvious that we were together, but close enough that if all hell broke loose, they could be on scene quickly. They might even be further out and we'd rely on the drones and spirits for the fast response time. But they certainly should not be parked right next to us. We are making an effort to keep our numbers and team composition a secret from the enemy, and since we were fearful of an ambush at Duncan's we were taking appropriate precaution.


Likewise for the trip to Kreutz's place (which I think is the next stop, though a laundromat would not be remiss), they would trail us (or vice versa) by about 10-20 car lengths, possibly even taking a slightly different route. Once there, I'm not sure if we would meet up or just coordinate our sneak and peek so that we are merely available to assist if needed.


Of course, Kreutz may not be our next stop as Tec brings up a good point that tripping an alarm at his place would jeopardize our assault on the warehouse. But I propose we still do some external surveillance, we just don't do anything overtly illegal that might trip an alarm (no B&E, but maybe a drive by the place with a bunch of matrix and astral perceptions. Mercer, Achak, and Flikr should stay well away as we might have recognizable astral/matrix signatures. Since Jæger and Spitfire are presumably unknown to our enemies, they would make the best option for a driveby, and they also have the best perceptions in the matrix and astral, so it works out well.

[Tecumseh]

I largely agree with the points in Mal's post.

If Duncan knows about the other car then it's probably a good warning that we need to modify our tactics.

I was also thinking about having SpitFire and Jaeger do a drive-by of Kreutz's house, more to recon the place and the neighborhood than for any immediate illegal actions. If we know that Kreutz isn't home (for example, if we see him on the warehouse surveillance footage) then there's the option for some B&E, but Achak would prefer to wait until the next morning after the warehouse raid. I'm guessing that Flickr will prefer a scenario that involves confrontation with Kreutz and would vote for a time when Kreutz will be home, but that's up to GM-Flickr.

Here's a possible timeline:
15:00 leave Duncan's
15:30 drive-by recon of Kreutz's place in Newcastle
16:15 back to Puyallup warehouse (or we can go shopping, as needed)
...
06:00 leave Puyallup for Dash Point
06:30 hit Dash Point
07:30 hit Kreutz's house
07:45 sunrise, time to lay low

That leaves us with some time this evening. We could try contacting "Eli" and establishing a meet that we turn into an ambush (or counterambush). That's more risk, plus there's a chance that we could tip off the zekes that we're onto them. (Alternatively, it could give credence to our bluff that we have a mole in their system.)

Achak is interested in revenge for Stake and Eli but also knows that the ambushers at the meet with "Eli" are likely to be shadowrunners, not zekes. Geeking shadowrunners who accept an anonymous job might send a message to the zekes but wouldn't exactly be providing vengence or justice for the fallen. We could try to do it non-lethally and squeeze them for information, but shadowrunners aren't likely to know much actionable intelligence.

The above is what Achak would vote for, but due to his Loss of Confidence quality he'll be looking for outside validation from everyone else. He's very open to input if others have thoughts on the matter.

Other possibilities include contacting Rose/Raven about possible purchases . (Do we know her physical location? Does she live/work in Seattle?) SpitFire could set up a meet to purchase the used drones. Achak is willing to pick up the tab.

@rednblack, any thoughts on using armorer to fill mini-grenades with iron filings for use against wendigos? If so, this will likely fall to Mercer due to his good Logic. Mercer has a good contact for this but unfortunately said armorer is in Denver, not Seattle.

[Zweiblumen]

I was under the impression that SF was staying 3-5 blocks away.  Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my post.  Patsy is on arial patrol and would be 500m away from the building using optical magnification to watch the floor they are on.  In reading back I didn't make that as clear as I should have.  But that was why I asked if they knew the layout of the place before hand so that Patsy could be watching the right place.