[farothel]

"Let's put them here," Hyena said, letting them slowly on the carpet as it was the only spot and it was better then their previous 'hang-out'.  She quickly explained where and how they had found the two woman, showing the book and the pictures she had taken.

Then she took out her first aid kit.
"If you can heal faster, please do," she said to her companion, "I can only do so much with this thing."


As hits with a first aid kit are capped on first aid skill, I can only heal one box of damage.  So if Eugene can do more, please do.

[eighth circuit]

"I wonder if there is a professional nearby. Uncle, do you know anyone? I could use some healing myself, actually. Come to think of it...." Eugene trails off, remembering the powerful spell he cast. He sits down on the floor. "Be right back."

Eugene takes to astral space, and (assuming the hut where the girls were is still empty) erases the astral signature from his spell. He then returns. "Almost forgot to clean up after myself!"

Eugene has a force 6 medkit but would have to default to logic. First aid is a defaultable skill, but if healing is capped by the skill rating I don't know how much he can do. Thermo?

Also I assumed you can clean an astral signature while astrally projecting, since it's a strictly astral phenomenon. It should take about 30 seconds in this case.

[Thermo]

Team 2: Jerry and Doc

CT1, IP1: Jerry: 17(3 IP); Doc T: 15 (3 IP); Barghest Team 1: 14 (2 IP); Barghest Team 2: 10 (2 IP)
Edge: Jerry: 3/3; Doc T: 3/3; Barghest Team 1: 4/4; Barghest Team 2: 4/4
Wounds: None

Perception checks:

Barghest teams: Perception Check (3): Perception(3)+Int(3)+Sonar(0)+Distance(-3)+Actively Looking(3) (6d6.hits(5)=2, 6d6.hits(5)=2)

Sniper teams: Perception Check (3): Perception(3)+Int(4)+Low-Light Vision(0)+Distance(-3)+Actively Looking(3)+Enhanced Vision(3) (9d6.hits(5)=3, 9d6.hits(5)=3)

@Doc T:

You settle in behind the all-too-familiar rifle and scan the area for threats. You see the two trucks begin to move, heading towards the gate to leave the Shrapnel Dawgs' base. You see the drone with the grenade launcher and the drone with the machinegun set up to cover the vehicles as they leave. The snipers are obviously scanning the area and by the glints of light from their rifle scopes you can tell that they are looking right at you. You see a subtle movement from the snipers and you see the barghest teams simultaneously touch their earpieces. The barghest teams are headed on a direct path towards you!

@Jerry and Doc T:

The barghest teams are running at full tilt towards you. The snipers have obviously spotted Doc T's location. And the two trucks full of stolen hardware are going to leave any second.

The barghest teams are approximately 600m away and are running at a speed of 30m per turn (10 m/s). At this rate, it will take them approximately one minute to reach you.

[Thermo]

Team 1: Hyena and Eugene

Hyena applies first aid to the three wounded people, first to Eugene and then to the two girls. Eugene's uncle assists you with the first aid. While the conditions are far from perfect, they're a lot better than trying to do this in the street.

First Aid: First Aid Kit(6)+Logic(3)+Average Conditions(-1)+Awakened Patient(-2)+Skilled assistant(1) (7d6.hits(5)=4) 4 boxes damage removed

First Aid: First Aid Kit(6)+Logic(3)+Average Conditions(-1)+Awakened Patient(-2)+Skilled assistant(1) (7d6.hits(5)=2, 7d6.hits(5)=2)

Eugene, the medkit applies a shot of anti-inflammatories and you feel your blood pressure returning to normal. The wound from your casting has been healed.

The two girls both sputter and wake up after the medkit applies some smelling salts and some inhalation-based topical steroids. They both look around wildly, and after seeing Eugene's uncle and the two armed adventurers they both burst into tears.

"It's finally over. Thank god. Those bastards were monsters. What happened to the Teacher?"

After speaking with them a bit more, you learn that they grew up in this very market. Their never knew their father, but were instead raised by their mother. She had just acquired a rare book of spells, and when one of the local Igbo mages saw it he killed their mother and took both the book and the two sisters.

"He was forcing us to learn a spell from the book. It was a water purification spell, he told us, and it would make us very valuable as.. slaves (sob sob). Now we have no family and nowhere to go. Our family's stall has been destroyed and our mother killed. What are we going to do?"

@Hyena:

[OOC: It's getting pretty close to the time of the meeting with the Daughters. If there's anything you want to do before the meeting, now's the time. Let me know who you are going to try bringing with you to the meet.]

[farothel]

"I can take care of that," Hyena said to the two women, "I have to go to an appointment now and that's with an organisation that among things also takes care of women in your position.  They can take care of you."


OOC:
If they agree, I'll sent a quick text message to my contact that I'm bringing also two female victims of an abduction, otherwise I go alone and they can stay here and do whatever they want.  I'm not going to put pressure on them.

If they want to think about it, they can stay where they are now and decide when I come back from my appointment.

[eighth circuit]

"We've actually found the book, uncle." Eugene digs out the spellbook and begins leafing through it. He shows Chigozi. "I'd heard it mentioned before, but what else do you know of its history?

OOC: That purify water spell looks useful. If it's possible to learn from the book, Eugene will photograph the formula for the spell, plus any others he finds interesting, if you know what else is in it.

[Sentinemodo]

Jerry dismounted the gun from the drone in a practiced move. Ejected the magazine and put it into the pocket. Threw the gun on the ground.

Doc, time to get the fuck out of here. Jerry scanned the sky to the south looking for the sight of incoming VTOL, and was already running into the driving cab. Grab the jammer, jump into the cab.

Hit the button if the dogs come too close.

Drone parked itself into the drone rack, while Jerry jumped into the Cinderella's rig.

VROOOM !!! Cinderella's radio maxed out the volume screamed McGuyver series opening theme and the wheels started to spin the moment Doc jumped in.

Sharp turn toward the wreck of the tower and drive away, by the next turn north nearby the tower, Jerry jumped out for a second from VR to throw out the gun magazine and issue the FlySpy a command to fly high toward their general direction.

The escape is not full speed. I want it to be fast, but I don't want to disengage completely, until they reach out previous position and find the gun.
If all goes matching we should be fast enough to avoid being caught up by the Barghests and with any luck, the VTOL should appear any moment, as the gun should be in open close to a minute.

[Thermo]

Team 1: Hyena and Eugene

@Eugene:

You quickly scan through the book, taking photographs of the spell formulae inside. You recognize several of them:

Purify Water spell, able to turn brackish or salt water into potable water. Incredibly valuable in this part of the world.

Diagnose spell, able to determine the target's general health and indicate any illnesses or injuries.

Mindnet (extended area) spell, used by the shamans to communicate both words and emotions from distant parts of the desert

Stim spell, used by the shamans to alleviate the need for sleep or rest, allowing massive distances to be travelled in a short period of time

You will be able to learn these spells from the scans you took, though you will require either a skilled instructor or an appropriate bound spirit to assist you.

You turn the book over to your uncle, who tells you that the book is worth a lot of money due to the spells contained within.

[OOC: 2 Detection spells and 2 Health spells = 2000 nuyen, black market value (50%) = 1000 nuyen]

He hands you a Hawala chip worth 10,000 Naira. The two girls don't see him give you the token. You can keep it, or give it to the girls.


@Hyena:

You place the text message to the Daughters, and they quickly reply that they would like to see the girls before agreeing to meet them. You send them a picture of each one, as well as a picture of Eugene. A few minutes later, they send back a reply that it is acceptable to bring them with you, as long as you are willing to vouch that the male will act respectfully towards the other women. You hope it's not a mistake, being that Eugene is obviously crazy as a loon, but you accept their terms.

You escort the group to a meeting point outside the market gates. A battered VW bus with off-road tires creaks to a stop in front of you and the doors slide open. A woman dressed in desert camo fatigues points a brand new AK-97 at you and motions for you to hand over your weapons. You quickly do so, as a second female gets out of the passenger seat and pats everyone down. Everyone climbs into the van and buckles their seatbelts. Or, more accurately, ties themselves in with what's left of the seatbelts. The woman with the assault rifle casts a Darkness spell which fills the back of the bus, and soon you arrive at your destination.

As the spell clears, you see that you've been taken into a large garage of some kind. The door slides open, and  you are greeted by several women dressed in various fatigues. Many have scars, some even on their faces. Overall they are a beautiful group of women, tempered with a hardness that is slightly unnerving.

After introductions, you are taken to a corner of the garage that has a small office. You are debriefed concerning your encounter with the slaver Igbo and the two women who accompany you.

[OOC: Please feel free to narrate your debriefing to the Daughters]

After your debriefing, you are taken to an outdoor courtyard outside the garage. It's fenced in with a tall fence with concertina wire ringing the top. You don't know what this place it, but it's definitely impressive.

[OOC: You are beginning your Initiation! Again, I'll let you narrate the details. Bad news: The Initiation rites will be brutal and will take all night, and may leave lasting scars, both physical as well as mental. The Daughters are not to be taken lightly. Good news: bringing in the two women and killing the slavers counts as a Deed Ordeal (Street Magic pg 51). The cost of your Initiation is reduced by 20%. Turning in the foci as you'd previously indicated will get you into the good graces of the Daughters, allowing you to use a Group Initiation, for a further reduction of 20%. Your total cost to become a Grade 1 Initiate is 7 karma.]

@Eugene:

Once you get into the garage, you see Hyena get led away and watch her get interrogated through the window blinds of the small office. It doesn't look pleasant. Afterwards, she is led outside. You hear screams, the slamming of heavy objects, and some inhuman sounds which can only be explained by the presence of spirits. The whole time, you are kept sitting in a metal folding chair, and you are never without the presence of at least one armed female guard. The two girls are taken through a metal door at the opposite end of the hangar, and you don't see them again. Before you lose sight of them, one of them turns to you and you see her mouth the words:

"thank you"

[OOC: please feel free to narrate how you spend the night on the hard folding chair.]

Karma Rewards (both Hyena and Eugene):

Meeting Eugene's Uncle: 1 karma
Killing the slavers: 2 karma
Saving the girls (unharmed): 3 karma
Recovering (and scanning) the book: 1 karma
Bringing the girls to the Daughters: 1 karma

[Thermo]

Team 2: Jerry and Doc T

@Doc T:

You carefully shimmy down the slope, trying to stay out of sight. You watch as Jerry quickly dismantles the weapon, his hands moving with a practices precision as he loosens the quick-mount mechanism and leaves the weapon on the ground. He appears to nearly shed a tear as he puts the powerful weapon down, knowing that it will be quite some time before he's able to play with a toy such as this again. You jump into the back of the truck, unlimbering your assault rifle and making sure the safety is off.

@Jerry:

You dump the gauss rifle and watch as your drone is quickly loaded into the back of the truck. Doc T scans the area with his assault rifle from his position in the truck bed. As you jump into the cab, you see distant spotlights rising into the air that can only indicate one thing: S-K is coming for their stuff.

Tearing down the weapon had cost valuable seconds, not only in relation to the S-K gunship, but also with the  effect of getting the two barghest teams within visual range. As you speed off, music blaring, you see the barghests closing in on the position of the abandoned weapon. A minute later, you throw the weapon magazine out the window near the smoking remains of the tower.

As you throw out the magazine, you see the two pickup trucks speeding offroad towards the northwest, about halfway between the Dawgs' base and the airport fence. They're approximately 700 meters from you, and they appear to unwittingly be on an intercept course with the incoming S-K VTOL. A visual check from your flyspy shows that the cargo in the back of the trucks is covered with a tarp and therefore the white cases are not visible from the air. You've only got another minute before the VTOL gunship is within visual range.

What do you do?

[Thermo]

Updated map:

Red rectangle: Jerry's truck
Green dot: Jerry
Purple dot: Doc
Yellow squares: Barghest teams
Blue rectangles: Unknown pickup trucks
Green text: Incoming S-K VTOL

[Sentinemodo]

OOC: that was good call for that update of the map. Somehow I thought that VTOL will come from the east.

virtual persona of the talking car (cartoon pickup with a winch on the storage area) appear on the Doc's AR. You see those fucking morons? What are they up to? I didn't see to well, are those the dealers trucks? My guess is so, but why would they drive toward us, if we clearly were the unknown threat? fucking amazing....

Never mind... Jerry/Cinderella makes a 180 and drives east putting on AR the stream from camera view from the FlySpy drone. be sure to watch those Barghests Doc. They should be occupied with what they found and probably still unaware of the S-Ks or ignore the VTOL as there are probably lots of them flying over the airport. The music slowly fades away, the lights are turned off... Cinderella rolls away from harms way...

OOC: I'll drive fast enough to avoid being catched upon if they would loose the Barghests, but slow enough to see if they took the bait, and see how the situation with the intercepting trucks resolve.[/it]

[farothel]

OOC: content warning: there are descriptions of violence and sexual assault in this post.  Nothing too graphical, but please do not continue reading if you are offended by such.

Arriving at the secure location, Hyena was quickly taken apart.  She hoped Eugene wouldn't do anything stupid as she knew the Daughters of Yemaja had mages that could easily best him.  But she didn't have time to worry, as another woman entered the room she had been put in and took a seat in front of her.
"So, tell me what happened," the woman said, coming immediately to the point.  Hyena told her and she was rewarded with a set of terse questions, which she replied to the best of her ability.  When her interrogator seemed satisfied, about three hours after the interrogation started, she was brought to a courtyard with a large fence around.  2 other women were there as well, all three unarmed.  On a guard tower outside of the fence stood three more women, all looking at the people inside the fence.

"Tonight we're going to set you some challenges," one of the women on the tower said, "in order to initiate, you will have to overcome them.  We will start with a simple one."
Before Hyena could ask for at least her sword back, the women started to gesture and suddenly three spirits appeared.  Knowing there was no way she could even defeat a weak spirit in hand to hand combat, she shifted perception to the astral.  At least there she had an option of doing something as she was trained in astral combat.  But her Ares tutors had warned her to be very careful because attacking spirits without weapons was not easy, but at least it would be easier for her than using the other option, the attack of the will.  Going in she quickly found that the spirit was rather weak and she quickly forced it back to whatever plane it had come from.  Going back to the material plane, she saw that her two companions had likewise disrupted their spirits.  But they had barely time to recover when three other spirits arrived.  These apparently had learned as they didn't close in immediately.  They also used a different attack tactic.

Suddenly she found herself back in a small alley, a little ten-year old girl with five area boys standing in front of her and one on the ground a bit further.  The only difference this time was the shadowy presence behind the five men, a presence which stopped the bullets going towards the five guys when they had just wrestled her to the ground, like all those years ago.  But now the bullets didn't go through them and the shadow chased away her rescuers as the five guys continued what they couldn't do 10 years ago.  It felt like hours when another shadow was suddenly visible behind the guys and tossed a couple to the side.  Before they could react, Hyena broke another one's neck and she found herself standing in the courtyard again, with the spirit standing next to her and one of the two other women, a mage by the look of it, just jumping back from an attack from 'her' spirit.  Now she couldn't have that, so she went on the offensive and her spirit quickly buckled.  What had looked like hours were only a couple of minutes.

She didn't have much time to reflect on what she had seen or even to thank the woman who had helped her as she spotted her sword and some other stuff at the other side of the arena and she wanted to get to it before the next set of spirits or whatever they would bring in.  After activating her boos, she started running towards her gear.  Halfway through a new set of spirits appeared and she only just managed to dodge one ... or so she thought.  It was only when she felt the pain radiating from her left arm she realised she was hit.  Luckily these were earth spirits and therefore quite slow, so she gave it an all-out run, but the spirits seemed to ignore her, going for the two other women.  She arrived at her gear and quickly took her sword.  Looking over the other things she thought they were also foci but not weapons, which meant her two companions were mages.  She grabbed all of it and ran back, first towards the woman now holding off two spirits.  With a ferocious war cry she charged in the spirit's back, chopping it all but in two with a mighty cleave, before attacking the next one.  Together they quickly took it out and in the mean time the third was also gone.  Hyena quickly handed out the equipment she had rescued.

The next attack didn't come immediately, so Hyena introduced herself to the two other women.  It turned out she was right and they both were mages.  She just wanted to ask what spells they could do when they heard a skittering.  Looking around they quickly spotted about 20 devil rats, all following one even larger one.
"That one is possessed," one of the mages said, indicating the leader.
"Try to keep the others away," Hyena said, "I'll have him."
She advanced a bit and prepared to take the charge, but the lead rat didn't come closer.
"Well, if Moses won't go to the mountain...," she muttered, before she charged herself.  While she took swings at passing rats, it wasn't her main focus.  The rats however, tried to keep her from the leader, but the mages also kept them occupied, so except for a couple of passing bites, Hyena managed to get to the leader fairly unharmed.  Her first swing however, missed because another rat got in the way, but the second one hit on.  Clearly it was a spirit inside the rat that controlled the others, as they reverted to their normal behaviour once the leader was dead and were quickly dispatched.

The following challenge were spirits again, but this time much larger ones.  This one managed to take another slash out of Hyena, before she managed to put it down.  Looking around she saw that one of the mages was down, so she went to help there.  When all spirits had been taken out, Hyena quickly checked the woman who was down as two women came into the arena.  They quickly healed the fallen mage and had a look at the other's wounds as well.
"Not good enough," the same woman on the tower said, "you'll have to do it again.  But first surrender your foci again."

And sure enough, after they had given their foci back and the two healers had disappeared, three spirits like the first ones appeared again.  This time the fight went a bit quicker as they knew what was coming, but the spirits were a bit meaner as well.  Luckily Hyena didn't succumb to her fears this time.  While they were induced by the spirit, they were still her fears, coming from her memories.
"Better," the woman on the tower said after the second run, "now we have one more challenge, but that will be a separate one for each of you.  First up is Nadia."
The mage who had almost been killed by the spirit during their first run stepped forward while the two others were brought into the garage and told to wait.  After about 5 minutes they called the second mage and five minutes later, it was Hyena's turn.  She walked back into the arena to see two large dogs waiting.  It was only when they turned towards her that she saw they were hell-hounds.  She felt her chest tighten when they both looked at her with a 'nice snack' look, but she had encountered them before and she knew what to do.  Doing it was something else, as the 'what to do' concerning hell hounds started from 'after you emptied your clip into the critter' and went from there.  Now she had only a sword and while it was a focus, it still meant going into the range of the hound's fire breath.

She quickly glanced to the tower to see the three women still there and when she looked back, the dogs had already moved.  They knew how to hunt, that was for sure, as they had split up.  Attacking one meant turning her back to the other.  At least that was what they hoped.  She supercharged herself as she called it and put a quick sprint to one side of the enclosure, putting both dogs at the same side again.  But they also reacted and one charged.  She saw movement from the side of her vision and as it jumped to land on her back, she moved to the side and hacked with her sword.  The quickness of the attack meant she only graced the dog, but now the other one came on.  This she couldn't avoid completely and as she reflexively held up her arm the dog bit down on it.  Her jacket stopped some, but she could still feel the teeth getting through.  Not being able to reach with her sword to run it through, she opted to give it a good whack on the head with the pommel.  She had hoped it would let go, but that hope turned out to be idle.  The other dog was also coming back, so she did it again and now the dog let go.

Both groups withdrew a bit and started eying each other.  Suddenly both dogs charged again, but while one kept coming, the other suddenly let go a gout of flame.  Hyena jumped out of the way but still caught some of it.  Luckily her armour was fitted with special fibres to be able to handle fire, but the exposed parts of her body still got some burns.  Due to her manoeuvres the other dog had missed her
"Now I'm fed up with it," she grumbled as she looked at the dogs.  She wasn't sure how often they could flame, but she took the one that had already flamed first in the hope that he at least couldn't make her extra crispy.  This time she managed to score a grazing hit on its nose, but its agility let it evade greater harm.  While doing that, the other dog attacked again, but this time Hyena was prepared and had actually counted on it.  She turned around and as the dog jumped she threw everything behind her attack.  While she didn't kill it immediately, she managed to remove a paw and give it a deep cut in its flank.  It tried limping away but sagged through its paws.  Hyena quickly finished it off.  While she wasn't squeamish when confronted with some blood, she didn't go out of her way to be cruel, so letting the animal slowly bleed to death was not needed.

The second one had learned and treated her with the respect due another predator.  First thing it tried was another flame attack, but she easily dodged it.  She wasn't, however, ready for the attack that followed.  Afterwards she would curse herself for not remembering that they were immune to their own fire, but at that moment she had too many other things on her mind, like a raging dog that wanted to take a bite out of her.  This time it got her leg, but that left it open to a counter attack.  Willing the pain away, she chopped at its head, the monofilament sword going smoothly through the bone, taking it out.

Looking around she saw that it was almost day.
"Congratulations," the woman on the tower said while Hyena checked her wounds.  While it hurt, she had had worse and she knew they would disappear quickly.  She would give herself a shot of anti-biotics later just in case.
"You require assistance," she asked.
"Just to get back to our hotel," Hyena replied.
"No problem," the woman said, "just go inside to pick up your friend and transport will be arranged."
Hyena did as she was told and went back inside to check up on Eugene.

[eighth circuit]

Eugene looked at the token, then at the girls, then back at the book. He'd sort of rather have kept the book, but it seemed like a dangerous thing to be in possession of anyway, considering the fate of its last owner. He heads over to the girls. "This is the price I fetched for that book, which was rightfully yours. I hope it will help you two get back on your feet. I am sorry for your loss."

On the way to Daughters' HQ, Eugene thinks to himself, Pfft, I it would be easy to see where we're going if I wanted to. Their tricks cannot fool me. However, feeling that going astral might have negative consequences in this situation, he contents himself to take a short nap. Upon arriving at the base he bids Hyena good luck and finds himself in a cramped room with a stern-looking guard.

Eugene smiles and attempts to lighten the situation, though he feels that most runner jokes would not go over well with this woman. He asks her where she's from and mentions he lived in Lagos as a young child. If at some point he feels sufficiently comfortable, he gets down to business.

"If you'll excuse me miss, I've got important business to attend to, and I will need to call a spirit for assistance. I promise I am up to NO shenanigans." Presuming he isn't being shot at at this point, Eugene summons a spirit of man.

[OOC: buffing charisma first, casting Increase Charisma at force 3: Magic(5) + Spellcasting(5) = 10 (7 hits) (sorry, messed up the code on that one) Charisma is now 7
Summoning spirit of man:  Magic(5) + Summoning(5) + totem bonus(2) - sustaining penalty(2) = 10 (3 hits)
Spirit resists: force 5 summoning resistance (5d6.hits(5)=2) One service, 4S drain, optional power innate spell (Astral Window)
Resist drain: Charisma(7) + Willpower(5) + focused concentration(1) = 13 (13d6.hits(5)=3) Take 1S drain
I'm assuming I'm allowed to summon a spirit here--if not, disregard the following.]

The Spirit of Man appears, though as should have been expected it is rather a Spirit of WOman, the ghost of a deceased female warrior. Eugene gulps, hoping she will not present any problems. She looks at him with a steely gaze and sighs. Even in the afterlife, I am at the beck and call of MEN. What makes you think I should serve you. What have you done for a woman lately?

Eugene blushes. This is not going as planned. He stammers, "Why shouldn't you obey me? It is the nature of the spirit world. I call and command you, though I have no choice in whom I call. I do not boss women around for my own pleasure! Perhaps you are drawn to this place. If you look around, it is all women here like yourself. Perhaps you knew some of them. AND I'll have you know, I saved the lives of two women just today!" Thanks to his increased Charisma, this comes out far more eloquently than Eugene had planned.

Well, help another one.

"Very well. If I fail to help another woman, may the realm of feminine spirits come crashing down upon me. Certainly wouldn't be anything I haven't seen before. Now will you perform this one service for me? It is very simple but highly sensitive.

The spirit shrugs and sighs again. Very well.

"There is supposedly a man in this area, who has something I need. His name is Samriel Lockwood." Eugene sends the spirit an image of Lockwood over their mental link. "I need to find him, but it's very important that he doesn't know someone is looking for him. So search Lagos and the surrounding area, but be very careful not to be spotted. I've given you spell that may be of some assistance in this task."

[OOC: I'm not sure how likely it is that a spirit will be spotted while searching. If it's possible to add a negative modifier to the search test in order to be extra careful, I'll accept that, since I wouldn't want to flub up the mission before we're even started! And I'm not sure if astral window will help, but I figured it wouldn't hurt.]

When the spirit departs, Eugene spends the rest of the time trying not to get bored. Being an owl shaman, he tends to stay up at night. If the Daughters' HQ has matrix access, he calls Mulder to shoot the bull over the latest conspiracy theories and magical anomalies. He'll also try to engage the guard in a game of chess, or a discussion about the strange beasts that lurk around Lagos at night, or any local news that might be of interest. He also informs the guard that he is honor-bound to provide some assistance to a woman in the near future, so if there is anything he can help her out with, he would be more than happy to oblige.

[Thermo]

[All the previous activities are now considered to be "back story" for your character development. Jerry and Doc are still owed a bunch of karma, we'll resolve this soon, as well as an explanation of how the arms deal went down. Stay tuned!]

[Meanwhile, back in the present...]

You all arrive at the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. Hyena and Eugene just finished up their harrowing adventure with the slavers and the Daughters of Yemenja, and Jerry and Doc just successfully escaped a ghoul-surrounded junkyard and disrupted an arms deal.

The Porto Novo “Luxury Hotel” has precious little to do with luxury—unless you compare it to the slums you drove through to get here. The five-story building is a U-shape around a central courtyard. It is made of cinderblocks that were whitewashed two or maybe three decades ago, but now the walls are a uniform red from the pervasive dust that coats everything. Still, the only way into the building is through a sturdy-looking gate into the court- yard, which is guarded by a pack of FNHAR –toting thugs. There are no windows on the first two floors, and inside more armed guards patrol the hallways—well, at least they’re in the hallways. The guard on your floor—an ebony-skinned human man—is slouched back in a rickety chair, smoking a fragrant cigarette, his teeth stained yellow from years of smoking. He introduces himself to you as Peaceful, which seems strange until you realize the English word is actually his name. Otherwise, he speaks Yoruba. You also quickly figure out that for a sizable tip, he’ll make sure anything you leave in your rooms stays in there. He also offers to get you “Anything else you might need, boss.”
Inside your room, the hotel has a “wet bar,” which is a wooden cupboard with bottled water and a jug of what you’re told is home-brewed palm wine. The manager, a slick operator, already told you he can provide bottled beer or UCAS soft drinks for an extra charge. You’ve also discovered that his boast that his rooms are “insect free” means there is a dog-sized lizard sleeping on your bed.

“Every room,” he tells you, in broken English. “High class, yes? No iba here.” (Your linguasoft translates iba as illness, or perhaps malaria, or perhaps VITAS.) While you’re watching, a cockroach the size of your fist crawls out from under the bed. Without opening its eyes, the lizard snaps out an incredibly long tongue, snatches up the cockroach, and swallows it, almost too fast to see. The manager turns to you, beaming, and says, “See? No insects!”
There’s a shared bathroom with working chemical toilets on each floor, but no running water. Apparently, the manager spends all his money on security guards and not housekeepers, since everything seems to be covered in a layer of red grime.
Grimacing, Jane says to you, “Charming, eh? But I’ve been told it’s the safest place to stay outside the Island, and we don’t have the budget to go there. I’ve got some calls to make and I need to check in with my employer. After that ... well, I guess we should get started. Give me four hours and we can go. First things first: I can already tell I didn’t bring enough ammo for my Predator. Do you need to pick up any gear?”

[farothel]

"I've slept in worse," Hyena remarked.  While it wasn't much compared to the norm in the UCAS, it was quite good for Lagos.
"I don't need anything," she added, "except maybe a good night sleep.  But if you need a hand, let me know."