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[IC] New Beginnings-Horizon

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Thvor

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« Reply #225 on: <11-19-14/1205:49> »
Sam cocked an eyebrow at O'Connor and Clem's remarks. Ok, so Red was wigging out, and Sammy lost control of her spirit, but damn it, what do these guys think we're supposed to do? Put on cheerleader uniforms and pom-poms? They're the fraggin' fighters, not us, he thought to himself.

Outwardly, though, he said, "Sure. I owe these guys a round," he said, motioning to the stuntmen who were still packing up, "and maybe Red can get his friend for an introduction?"
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Crossbow

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« Reply #226 on: <11-25-14/1615:50> »
With the star off the set, the shooting day quickly comes to a close.  You are able to get the armor back to the storage site without incident.  You also do it without Fionn, who leaves you straight from the Needle, though he sets a sprite to monitor the team and let him know about anything he is needed for.

You meet the stuntmen at one of the tourist bars in the DMZ, though you get a funny look from the bouncer.  50 nuyen relieves his concerns of you rearranging the bar, but he still has his eye on O'Conner.  You catch a table in a quiet corner to chat in, the dance floor and the bar keeping the interest of the out-of-towners.

Necrogigas

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« Reply #227 on: <11-25-14/1736:25> »
O'Connor returned the bouncer's icy glare as he entered the bar. He started the night off with a double shot of whiskey, and a pitcher of beer for the table. As he started working on his first glass, he struck up a conversation with the stuntman he'd talked to briefly at the Needle. The stuntman, named Zhang, and O'Connor had a back-and-forth about how to properly land from a two-story fall. As he had this casual verbal conversation, O'Connor was starting up an all business group chat with his team, <Group Channel | Text: "We should go over how things went done, what we did, and what we should've done." He quickly drew up a crude map of the Needle, using his finger since he lost his comm's stylus a while ago, and marked his and Clem's position during the fight with circles. He also placed two xs for the Swede and Mohawk along with movement lines to indicate where they'd come from. He sent the map to the others to mark where they were.
« Last Edit: <12-18-14/0432:33> by Necrogigas »
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HydroRaven

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« Reply #228 on: <11-25-14/2057:29> »
Going along to the bar with the rest of the team was a little strange to Clem, as it felt a celebration for something she wasn't sure of. They had repelled the attack back in the Needle, but things had just begun, so she thought this was a little premature. However, she didn't communicate this to anyone, and kept that thought to herself.

Gladly taking a glass of beer, Clem quickly looked at O'Connor's map and let him run with this idea. The group didn't have any clear leader, so she let the adept bring his issues to the whole gang. While everyone was playing with the map, Clem got to thinking, "We started with a big group, and here we are now, only four of us left. I hope Red's contact will be more dependable than he was..." Clem decided to voice one of her concerns though, and simply said "If we're going to LA, I want to bring my own gear, including my usual armour and clothes. No more of this uniform drek for me." The ork took another sip of beer and got back to the conversation. She wasn't much of a talker, but kept her ears open.
« Last Edit: <11-25-14/2059:30> by HydroRaven »
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Thvor

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« Reply #229 on: <11-25-14/2153:42> »
Sam actually had two or three rounds with the stuntmen before he was able to maneuver his way to the back corner to join the rest of the group. When O'Connor sent his message, Sam tried to reply, but for some reason, his position kept showing as being about five feet outside one of the windows. After a few attempts, he swore softly and said, "You know where I was. I don't need to draw you a picture. But, regardless, you know I'm not worth much when it comes to slinging bullets around. That's your department."
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farothel

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« Reply #230 on: <11-26-14/0318:53> »
"Don't worry about those 'uniforms' as you call them," Sammy said, "in LA you can see people with all sorts of clothing.  Although I would propose to keep things at least decent.  In LA you will notice that there are cameras everywhere and what you wear also reflects upon what kind of jobs you will get.  So decent, professional looking stuff is recommended, but the whole group doesn't have to wear the exact same thing.  But those things we had one today did get us into the Needle with a lot less hastle."

She looked at the drawing O'Conner made.
"I was behind the bar," she said, "as I'm just like Sam here in that I prefer to be behind something if bullets are flying.  In this case however there was something strange going on.  From what I've been able to see, those people were compelled by magic of some sort to attack Pandora.  How exactly this works I don't know, but I do know that this calls for magic much stronger than what I'm capable of, maybe even a ritual of some sort.  Which is also why that mage was able to get my spirit and protect a number of people against my spells.  All in all, they came with a lot more magic than we had."
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute"

HydroRaven

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« Reply #231 on: <11-26-14/0709:14> »
Clem got to thinking. These runners weren't afraid of getting into the spotlight just to get to that armour. Going after Pandora meant that every KE officer was not looking for them, which meant the rewards were worth a lot more to them. Whomever wanted that armour had a good reason to want it.

"Do you think you could find that mage?" asked the ork, having had more than one instance in her previous career where a mage had used magic to track another magic-user. She wasn't knowledgeable about the details, but she knew it could be done, so it was worth a shot.
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farothel

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« Reply #232 on: <11-26-14/0806:56> »
"I've had a good look at his aura," Sammy said, "So I should be able to recognise it.  If you want me to go looking for that mage in the whole of Seattle, I doubt I'll find him unless he does something magical, and only then if I'm close by, as I don't know much about ritual magic.  I mean, I know the theory, but I've never done it myself and it's not something I begin without training.  And you also need a material link, like blood, or hair, of the person you target.  I could sent some watcher spirits out, but those are really stupid and if he's behind a ward of some sort, they can't find him.  Watchers are also traceable and I'm not sure I want him on my tail..  I'm sure KE had a mage there to look at the aura traces.  If you really want to find this person, the best way to find him is to ask around in the mage community.  Someone of that power level, if he's local, is known.  There are not that many mages who can do what he did.  But that won't be done before we leave for LA."

She took a sip from her cocktail.  She had surprised the bartender when she asked for a Slow Comfortable Screw Against The Wall With Satin Pillows The Hard Way.  It had taken him a while before he figured out what she wanted.

"I also need to talk to you guys about a couple of things you might encounter in LA," she added.
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute"

Necrogigas

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« Reply #233 on: <11-26-14/1030:25> »
As O'Connor finished off his first beer, he wrapped up his conversation with Zhang and headed over to the group's table for a refill. Once there, O'Connor gave Torley a cool stare as he refilled his beer. He placed his hand on Torley's shoulder and leaned in, ostensibly to be heard over the ding of the bar, "I know you're not a fighter and I know that the gunslinging is my department and not yours. I also know this about Sammy, but that did stop her from getting all shot up in Puyallup last time, did it? This isn't about making you a fighter, this is about making us a team. Based on this, you're damn lucky those three didn't just pick you off in that hallway." The tone of his voice and the gradual increase in pressure from O'Connor's grip promised Torley that if he didn't roll back his snotty attitude, he was going to end up with a broken collar bone.

After getting his point across, O'Connor released his hold on Torley and returned his attention to the map. He added a few details that he'd failed to put in initially, namely adding some dots to represent the stuntmen and a triangle to represent the spirit. To inject a bit of levity back into the conversation, he labeled the spirit as Sammy's Spirit of Betrayal. After he finished with the map, "It seems our biggest problem has been that we're mainly just doing whatever we want and letting everyone else do the same. Now I'm not big on teamwork, even less so on taking orders. But if we're gonna work together, and not get each other killed, we can't keep doing what we've been doing."
« Last Edit: <11-26-14/1108:53> by Necrogigas »
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Thvor

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« Reply #234 on: <11-26-14/1101:07> »
Sam resisted the temptation to point out that he'd gotten through the fight untouched, while it was O'Connor who'd been knocked out. He knew that logical reasoning wasn't going to work with the fighter. Instead, he decided to go with flattery. "Easy, man. I know you're good at what you do; that's why I trust you when things get heavy. When that goon was coming for me, I could've wet myself; just about all I could think about was getting away from him and to where you were. I knew you'd be able to take him, no problem," ...if you hadn't been flat on the ground by that point, at least, he added silently. On the up side, most of what he was saying was true--he had panicked, and he'd hoped that Clem and O'Connor would be able to handle the guy. Sam was just tweaking the flavor a little to stroke Con's massive ego.

"You're right, I was lucky. But I'm not a tactician or a soldier. You start talking about being out of position and stuff, and, well, that's way out of my league. I trust you to handle the fighting; I don't know that I'll ever be much help. I'll do my best, of course, but you'll have to tell me how I can."

[spoiler]
Necro, if you want, I can give you a con roll to see if Sam's persuasive enough, but with a dice pool of 13, I think he can soothe any ruffled feathers. And I don't really like rolling dice for player-player interactions; feels kind of stilted.

Incidentally, for anyone who's wondering, Sam's issue with marking his position on the map was caused by the gremlins quality. Sam and tech don't get along that well. :)
[/spoiler]
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Necrogigas

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« Reply #235 on: <11-26-14/1323:22> »
O'Connor grinded his teeth, and actually took a moment to piece together his next words before hand. Torley was saying all the right words and in the right way, but O'Connor doubted that he meant an iota of it. None the less, O'Connor decided to move forward and turned to address the group as a whole, "Right, well, the way we were positioned was all off." He indicated to where he and Clem had been, "Having the two of us side by side all the time is a mistake. We should've learned that this morning on the way to the Needle. Only one of us should've been guarding the armors, while another covered the entry points to the level. Hell, we should've had both of us on different entry points, while one of the non-fighters sat on the goods." He then indicated to where Sammy and Torley had been during the fight, "The two of you are lucky that the thieves tried to get clever rather than efficient on this run. They could've easily swapped out using that mob for cover to hitting fast and hard. In that scenario, you, cut off from the rest of the team, both get gunned down by automatic weapons. In the future we need to arrange ourselves so that we're all actually in a position to work as a unit. Mostly we just need to be in overlap lines-of-sight and have secure comm lines."
« Last Edit: <11-26-14/1456:05> by Necrogigas »
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HydroRaven

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« Reply #236 on: <11-26-14/2003:17> »
Clem listened to the interaction between O'Connor and Torley and was a little annoyed. "The guy can't fight with his fists, only with his mouth, leave him alone" thought the ork, recognizing that the gift of a silver tongue was often more valuable than a gun. Still, she let it play out.

What was the most disturbing to the ork was that O'Connor was making valid points. Her ego had let the medium of the message taint her receptiveness at first, but even she had to recognize that the wild gunman was spot on with his assessment. "I only had a direct line of communication with Red in that fight, which went a long way to squashing our efforts. But yeah, next time we should fan out and not keep our assets grouped. Someone with tactical knowledge needs to call the shots if we're going to make it out of the next fight intact" concluded the woman.
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farothel

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« Reply #237 on: <11-27-14/0458:04> »
"The only tactical knowledge I have comes from what I picked up when we had an army vet consulting for a trid where I played a captain," Sammy said, "he was there to make it sorta believable, insofar you have that in a trid, which is to say not much.  Concerning the comms, that's something we'll have to see with Fionn's replacement, as I know just enough to know I always have to run an analyser program.  The problem is that every situation will be different.  For instance in the Barrens I could do a lot with a strategic fireball, but in the Needle that was impossible.  So we can only make very general agreements.  I think it's best in a combat situation if Clem and O'Connor deal with immediate physical threats, I deal with immediate magical threads and Sam helps where he can.  If the situation allows it, I can also help in the physical combat, like throwing a fireball or stunbolt around and if I can identify a mage, Clem or O'Connor can take him or her out so I'm free of interference."

She took a long pull from her cocktail.
"Now, to something more important," she continued, "differences between LA and Seattle.  I've lived in both, so I think it's best if I give you a quick rundown.  The basics is the same, like not carrying assault rifles in certain areas and always go visibly armed in certain other areas.  But in LA there are a lot more cameras and some strange things you have to know when working the cameras.  One of them is Pito.  You probably remember I requested Pito accounts for all of us.  Do any of you ever seen or used that system?"
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute"

HydroRaven

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« Reply #238 on: <11-27-14/0601:42> »
Clem was as puzzled as before. "I still don't understand what this Pito business is. Explain to me in very simple terms why SINless runners need to get official IDs" said the ork, finishing her glass of beer and holding off a refill, giving her full attention to Sammy.
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farothel

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« Reply #239 on: <11-27-14/0751:00> »
"It's not an official ID," Sammy said, "Besides, the one I had before was on my artist name, not my real name.  Pito, actually P two, but everybody says pito, is live-networking, blogging, reputation, and sim, all in one.  You post things on it and you can also have a live-feed active and other people follow this.  It's a very big thing in LA and if you don't have one, you will only get second rate jobs.  Of course, as runner you have to take a couple of precautions, like having a two-minute delay on your live-feed, or the police will just log in and track you down.  And the use of nanopaste disguise or latex face masks of course.  Shadowrunning in LA is often done in the spotlights.  Ironic, isn't it.  You remember when we entered that little diner just after we had come down from that mountain?  It's a bit like that, but even more."
"Magic can turn a frog into a prince. Science can turn a frog into a Ph.D. and you still have the frog you started with." Terry Pratchett
"I will not yield to evil, unless she's cute"