[Thermo]

"Anything else we should be aware of? Anyone know about this shipment that might try to intercept us for some reason?"

[OOC: Rolling to see if Thunderhead knows anything about the smuggling routes in this area: Smuggling Routes (2) + Int (5) (7d6.hits(5)=4)]

[inca1980]

@Thermo:

From your knowledge of smuggling routes you agree with the dwarf that the route he's proposing is definitely the most secure.  The main dangers are encountering tribal foot patrols and then the para-wild life.  The tribal patrols are very well trained fighters and outdoorsman.  They should not be underestimated. 

[Teyl_Iliar]

When the meeting is over Brick will confer with Zach about anything the ork might need him to bring along for the trip. Then return the the Rover and head home. and follow his usual plan of things.

(OOC: Tell the daughter he's got work that I'll take him out of town/overnight contact Anita if she needs anything, set out basic drills for her to practice while he's gone and for after she's done her school work. Brick will pack his Panther AC with 5 clips of AC rounds (95 rounds), Ingram smartgunX  with 80 stick and shock/80 Exex/80 APDS ammo, his Combat Axe, Karmabit and shock glove.) Other gear to be brought:
Backpack, Trama patch,  stim patch rating 6, Medkit rating 6, Flashbangs (bought 2 60¥) x4, (bought 2 for 60¥)  Smoke Grenade x4, Rations x8 bought for 40¥ (It doesn't specify how much you get per "rations" p.53 Arsenal, so I'm just counting it as a single meal per.), survival kit, smart canteens and his Armorers toolkit. Brick will also pack his HK XM 30 for zach to use while we're on our nature walk per his request, (@zach you'll have to get your own ammo for the rifle and grenades for the underbarrel launcher, also you break it/ lose it, you buy it.)

(OOC: That should round out all the gear Brick will be bringing.)

[Sichr]

Using the number Brick gave him, and his recomendation, Zach is going to have a call with Bricks armorer.
"Good afternoon, miss. Im a friend of your friend Brick and we were discussing our ongoing trip to wilderness recently, talking about some automatic long range defense, maybe AK or something better? Id like to ask you what`s on the list now, I cannot be too choosy because I need my gear in 24 hours. 2K is as much as I have ready for this."

[inca1980]

@Zach:

Anita offers you an AK-97 that is a little worse for the ware.  It might jam occasionally but it's dirt cheap.  It's yours for 200 nuyen. 

@Everyone:

It's now the next day and you have 2 hours until you meet the dwarf at the garage.

[Socinus]

Firewall packs his things up and heads out. The bomb is not armed and he makes a mental note to arm it once they arrive at the pickup point.

I'd better let the others know they should stay out of my pack.

He shows up half an hour early, doing a few walk by runs and checking the garage out again to see if anything looks amiss.

[Thermo]

Thunderhead packs up his new outdoor survival gear, tucks Nova into his pack, and heads out towards the garage with Max and Shoryuken. He brings 5 magazines regular ammo, 3 magazines EX-EX ammo, and 2 magazines silver ammo. The rest of the ammo gets tucked back into the ammo box that he keeps under the loose floorboards in the closet.

Let's rock.

[inca1980]

By 17:00 everyone has arrived at the garage and is not saying much to each other but just packing gear up, tightening up straps, checking weapons, double checking their lists.  The Amerind dwarf is putting the finishing touches on a dull-tannish NeoNet Paddy drone with it's wheel system completely swapped out with spider-walker legs.  When he's done he takes off his work apron and goggles and you find him to be in an unusually good mood. 

"By the way, they call me Beartooth.  So it looks like we're all ready to go, so let's pack up the truck gentelmen."

He gets the drone to lurch up off it's chasis a little clumsily, but as the new autosofts kick in it seems to get used to its new legs.  It climbs into the back of Beartooth's GMC stepvan and the rest of you pile in just as the sun is beginning to go down.

After an 90 minutes through block after block of the concrete jungle that is the Seattle metro-plex, you reach the edge of UCAS territory.  At the checkpoint Beartooth flashes a few AR documents and along with a little cred slotted to the Salish-Shidhe guards, you finally are smoothly cruising on Hwy 530.  The thick dense awakened forest often times blocks out the moonless night sky completely as it canopies overhead and after only 30 minutes Beartooth pulls over to the side of the road and looks both ways down the highway checking if the coast is clear. 

"Hear's the drop-off gentlemen.  Let's do this quick."

He opens his driver-side door and steps out after turning off the head-lights and plunging you into darkness which only your metatype vision can penetrate.  The four backpacks full of contraband are all bundled together and strapped to the drone.  He shoots Firewall a passkey for admin access.  As soon as everyone is out with their gear he waves to you all and as soon as his headlights are flooding the road again he takes off back the way you came leaving you alone at the border of what could loosely be described as Cascade tribal territory. 

There is still decent wifi coming off the Grid Guide RFID's mixed in with the highway pavement.  Your comm's GPS systems show you which direction to start off in and you plunge into the forest which stands like a dark green wall at the side of the road.  While weaving through trees and bushes after about 100m away from the highway wifi begins to drop off and Zach engages his GPS system which reads signals directly from geo-stationary coordinate satellites.  You push on.

[OOC: You are in the thick of forest.  Let me know if there's anything special you wanna do, otherwise i'll continue in my next post.  Low-light vision eliminates visibility modifiers, Thermographic brings it down to -2 for visibility.  Long range visibility will be modified by foliage effects which I will determine on a case-by-case basis.]

@Firewall:

As soon as you feel the wifi start to ebb you look back longingly at the highway and you feel your head start to split with a migraine as the warm buzz of the matrix's eternal shower of data-packets begins to fade and your brain feels cold and exposed to the chilly mountain air. 

[OOC: roll a composure test (2) and if you don't make it take a -1 to all your actions]

[Teyl_Iliar]

Brick turns his commlink to Private as his Panther sends him system checks. Smartlink: online, commlink status: Private, Change fire selection: Semi Automatic, All systems functioning. He opens an open channel for the team only. (@team) Everyone fan out. We don't won't know where we'll take contact from so until we take it so we should move in a diamond formation about 5-6 meters apart if not more. It'll let us shift 75% of our fire power to any side that we get hit from and allow us clean lines of fire to return fire without worrying if our friends are in the way. (OOC: Unless anyone has a better idea.) Brick hands Zach the HK-XM30. Zach go be our cat, take point and call out any "rats" you see. Thunderhead pick a flank, take your companions and back Zach up please, also if we need a flanking element, your companions would be the best suited for it. Firewall, since you have the drone would you like to take the rear? I can go anywhere. Brick pauses to allow the team to move into formation. So we're all on the same page, we should do whatever possible to avoid contact with any possible patrols, which means we don't engage unless necessary. If we must engage it is with overwhelming force. We all know the priority targets, geek the mage, the heavy weapons, and medics first-second-third. Remember out here they have re-enforcements and if we don't kill them all and/or then get away asap, we'll be in a world of pain. If you encounter a scout moving alone, and you can't avoid him seeing you, kill him quickly and quietly. If there is critter issue, thunderhead will handle it, or we'll put it down as quiet as possible. If you suspect anything hostile, report it. If we encounter a patrol and they don't see us, we all halt and get low, wait for them to pass and then another 5-10 minutes before moving on. we will stop to rest every hour and a half for 10 minutes so we can have a snack/chow and water. If we need to hunker down to sleep, we'll need a secure location to do so. Now if there aren't any questions, lets move out. Visual perception / hearing perception (8d6.hits(5),10d6.hits(5)=[1, 1, 4, 1, 6, 1, 5, 3], [2, 4, 4, 2, 2, 3, 5, 1, 1, 1]) (2/1) hits respectively. /Infiltration roll (7d6.hits(5)=2)

(OOC: Before we step off into the night Everyone should keep in mind we're trying to be sneaky should roll an infiltration test, and if we're being watchful for threats, Perception tests (visual/hearing/etc.)

[inca1980]

Current Time -- 20:00.  Distance covered: 0 km

[OOC: Tracking 3 + Intuition 3 = (6d6.hits(5)=2), i'll use the lowest infiltration roll as the infiltration roll for the team.  Everyone roll though when i ask for a roll.]

As you start moving away from the highway you notice the terrain is manageable but definitely isn't something that can be navigated with any speed.  You seem to be averaging about 1km/hr with all the climbing and shuffling down inclines with the drone and all.  After only about half a kilometer you notice Firewall doesn't look well at all.  He's sweating bullets and is having a hard time containing his occasional groans.  Without a word he falls to his knees and clutches his head. 

"I can't take this....the silence is gonna make me go mad!"

Just as quickly he rises to his feet and takes off into the night booking at full speed in the general direction of the highway.....but Sichr is the one with the GPS so there's no way he could know for sure.  It happens so quickly none of you have a chance to respond and within only a minute or two his bio-PAN has dropped off the list of your team's nodes. 

Without much left to do other than look at each other and shrug, you decide to press forward.  Brick looks at his PAN and notices that luckily the elf was wise enough to give all the team members user access to the drone.  This includes basic controls and access to it's rather antiquated sensor array.

After a kilometer of pressing further into the dense forest, over foothills, through gulleys, around rock formations, the whole time trying to leave as little a trail as possible and spreading out in a manner described by Brick with Zach scouting up ahead; you hear a bone chilling howl ring out through the night.  The howl is answered by other howls.  The team freezes in place for about a minute holding it's position and just listening but you don't hear any movement so eventually you keep on moving, extra quiet this time. 

Current Time -- 21:00.  Distance covered: 1km

[OOC: Someone give me a Para-Critter knowledge skill roll or default on one if you don't have it.  You can also give me an audio perception test to try and narrow down the location from which the howls came.  Also give me another round of infiltration rolls everyone.]

[Teyl_Iliar]

After the howls subside Brick Tries to get a better fix on where they came from, hearing perception (10d6.hits(5)=1) and what might have made the the howls to begin with, logic defaulting for para critter knowledge. (3d6.hits(5)=1) then asks over subvocal comms, (@team) Anyone know what made that noise or have a good fix on where it came from? He then makes sure his Axe and his Ingram X are within easy reach. (@team) Lets keep it tight and keep moving, hopefully it's just a warning. But lets be ready for anything.

Infiltration roll:Infiltration (7d6.hits(5)=4)

[Thermo]

[OOC: Paracritter identification: Academic Knowledge: Paracritters (3) +Logic (2) (5d6.hits(5)=1), no glitch - any chance I get a bonus since I have a wolf mentor spirit?]

[OOC: Hearing perception: Hearing: Perception(1)+Int(5) (6d6.hits(5)=4)]

[OOC: Did my Merlin Hawk make it up in the air ok? I posted on the OOC thread about this]

[OOC: infiltration test: Infiltration(1)+Agility(5) (6d6.hits(5)=1), no glitch]

Thunderhead takes his .45 Automatic out of its holster, screws the silencer into the barrel, and slides in a magazine of regular ammo. He chambers the first round.

[Sichr]

Zach takes the riffle from Brick, loads it, locks and looks towards te forrest.
Its been a while, I got used to the city. OK. Ill do whatever I can. Follow me and stay low.
He allows Sylvia, small dragonfly drone, left by wagner, to fly freely, commanding her to stay 3 meters in front of him, sneaky and perceptive.
Then he lowers his commlinks signal almost down to zero:
I would prefer radio silence. We need to stay close enought to see each other, radio down, they are sure as hell looking for something like that. If you have soudn filter, we may tune it for our voices...it wont  overhelm you, but allow you to hear each other clearly even when whispering. When separated, dug in and stay on the place, don`t run away, it wont help. We go in nice a easy, in and out, as always, do we, Brick...
With sarcastic grin still on his face, Zach turns to Thunderhead:
If any of your pets assess dual, good, if not, you better check it out from time to time, those Amerinds are almost as cunning as we Siberrians..that means paracrits and watchers in the air.

Zach turns back to forrest, takes in deeply, enjoying the nature all around.
At least we dont die on concrete.

Then he moves forward, fulfilling his role as the point.

Perception audio/visual: INT(4)+PERC(4)+A/V Enhancement(3) (11d6.hits(5)=1, 11d6.hits(5)=5)

Infiltration: Agi(4)+Infil(3)+Imp.Abi(2)+Cat(2) (11d6.hits(5)=4)

Smuggling routes knowledge: INT(4)+Smuggling routes(3) (7d6.hits(5)=3)

Navigation: LO(3)+Navigation(2)+Mapsoft(5) (10d6.hits(5)=4)

First hour passed annd Zach was almost content with both, progress and behaviour of the companions. This was about to change. All of sudden, distracted technomancer gives it up and began to run away, screaming in madness. Zach almost can imagine his feelings, he was in places with mana background so hight that he feel like mundane a few times before. For a second he things about shotting the man down...well, noisy bait is a good bait.

Zach is also actively looking for tracks of humans and animals:
INT(4)+Tracking(2) (11d6.hits(5)=3)

Another kilometer...and the nature finally challenges the team...

Perception(Audio) INT(4)+PERC(4)+Enhancer(3)+Spatial recognizer(2) (13d6.hits(5)=2)
This sounds like:
Parazoology: LO(3)+Parazoology(2) (5d6.hits(5)=2)

Agi(4)+Infil(3)+Imp.Abi(2)+Cat(2) (11d6.hits(5)=5)

[inca1980]

Current Time -- 21:00.  Distance covered: 1 km

@Thunderbeard:

You can tell that the howl definitely comes from something paranormal, but you're pretty unfamiliar with the specifics of the north-american wilderness.  You can tell the howl's are coming from about half a mile north of you.

Your Merlin is soaring over-head and even though your mental image through it's eyes is a bit blurry you can make out the details of the canopy of the forest below it.  As you try to scan the field of view of the Merlin you suddenly feel your foot catch something hard and whatever it was that you hit gives way.  You take your focus away form the mental image in your mind coming from the bird and look down to see a rock tumbling down the side of a small ravine and you flinch as the echo reverberates through the night.  The sound cuts the howling short and once everything settles you hear only silence.

[OOC: You're sustaining a spell, so this gives you a -2 to all your other tests and that means your infiltration roll was a critical glitch!]

@Zach:

Before hearing the ridiculously loud crash of the rocks that Thunder caused, you could already tell that those howls are most likely coming from Barghests.  Packs of them are quite frequent in these parts.  You don't know enough about their behavior though to give you any more details other than what probably made that howl.

[Thermo]

Thunderhead's already prodigious eyebrows furrow until they threaten to touch in the middle. "BLAST", he grumbles under his breath.

He freezes, waiting for the sounds to subside before focusing on the Merlin Hawk's senses once again. He switches from normal vision to astral, trying to see any dual natured beings that might be racing towards their position.

[OOC: did Thunder see any areas of the forest that appeared to give a break in the trees where we might be able to fight more effectively? Specifically looking for an area where the sight lines open up so we don't have the critters right on top of us.]