[biotech66]

The Astral
[spoiler]The place has an aura of unhappiness.  It's not enough to hurt your, but enough to feel the urban decay of a soul.  As you jaunt around, you see physical forms of all sizes with some cyber mixed in.  It's a gathering place for the downtrodden.  Ahead, you see another astral being-short but proud with a Native American head dress.  It looks at you and says Hello.  Do you bring trouble?  Gliding up behind the dwarf is a crackling being of energy.[/spoiler]

The Net
[spoiler]This place is pretty dead.  there is low power tech all over with comms on everybody, but nothing you would care to take unless you want to.  There are a few bright spots, but those have pretty indicators to show how dangerous that could be....  Things also hide from time to time in the digital shadows.[/spoiler]

The physical.
[spoiler]You park the car and step out.  The denizens of the place stop and look.  They don't look friendly, but they don't look hostile.  You're new and that means trouble.  As you step forward with a purpose, so does a giant troll.  It has a shotgun across its back, but it looks like it won't need it as her fists are large enough to crush your head if she wants too.  She steps directly up to you, close enough you can feel her breath and says Hello.  Welcome to the Terminal.  You here to play nice?[/spoiler]

[Bewilderbeast]

Pepperface briefly considers getting back in his car and speeding off when he sees the female troll stomping up to him, but he controls himself. No, that would only make me look more suspicious. <<Drek. I've been made, going to ask the local color if they've seen out mystery chemical, and if they'd be cool with us taking it off their hands.>> He patched an image feed from his cybereyes in with his message; that way, his team could at least watch him get pummeled into the concrete, if not prevent it.

"I certainly am," Pepperface said neutrally, adjusting the lapel of his suit. "Trust me, I'm not looking for any trouble. I'm actually just scouting for industrial salvage on behalf of my employers. Have you seen any industrial machinery, chemical tanks, large amounts of scrap metal, or anything of that nature? I might be able to offer you some nuyen to take it off your hands." As he spoke, Pepperface could feel the odd vertigo sensation of the world around him slowing down as he turned on his wired reflexes and reaction enhancers (with wireless on as well), just in case.

[spoiler]I'm doing a Negotiation roll, which Pepperface has to default in, so I'm also spending Edge so as to not be terrible.
2 Charisma - 1 Defaulting + 5 Edge: 6d6t5 4
4 hits. If you decide that should be a Con roll instead, he should actually have a couple more dice. He's also turning on his 'ware, as described IC, with wireless on. Also, let me know it the troll has any obvious, wireless (hackable) devices on him.[/spoiler]

[Herr Brackhaus]

Marcus' shoulders slumped when he started reading Pepperface's message, and when he finished he simply  sighed loudly. "Bloody amateur" he thought to himself as he replied.

"What's done is done; get eyes on our objective, and we'll send the cavalry. If the locals turn hostile, run."

Without hesitation he ran to his vehicle and jumped in, then quickly fired up the engine and let it idle at a low rumble. "Sounds like our medic decided to do some force recon by himself; let's get ready to pull him out of the fire in case the natives get restless. Kereina, let us know the second you've got eyes on our target, and stand by for a hot extraction."

With the preliminary Intel from the drones Marcus had a pretty good idea of how to get to Pepperface as quickly as possible, but the objective was of primary concern. "Fragger wants to get himself geeked by the neighborhood street toughs, that's on him." He gruowled under his breath as the decker talked to the Troll. "Don't you dare offer them payment" he sent over the Matrix, "we can handle a few wannabe gangers without cutting into our bottom line."

[Irn0rchid]

Upon recieving the message from Pepperface Skate sighs and shakes her head. "And here I thought Vexboy would be the first one to screw the pooch," she sighs to herself. Settling back into the car seat she watches as Marcus runs back over and hops behind the wheel. "This is off to a good start, isn't it?" Reaching down between her legs with one hand she grabs the silencer from her bag as she pulls the Predator from under her coat. Quickly screwing the metal tube onto the barrel of the gun, she then hides the hand holding the gun between the seats. "We just going to wait for him to get shot?"

[CraterShip]

Realizing things could go south very quickly, Kereina settles into the driver seat of the van and begins retasking her drones. One fly-spy will switch to overwatch mode, loitering over the large troll and keeping watch of the surroundings. The other begins a concentrated hunt to find the chemical tank. She also sends one roto-drone closer to Pepperface, but gives it the command to stay out of sight for now.

[Raiderjoseph]

Vexboy gets in with Kereina. "Well this is fantastic isn't it?" He unzips his coat and takes out his Colt Americans. "I was REALLY hoping we could do this part without bloodshed. Mind if I hitch a ride with you? Im gonna be useless on my own ride in a firefight."

[biotech66]

You all begin to prep for combat. The big lady looks over the person in front of her for a long moment.   It's tense.  All of you are a few seconds from raining down hell upon the homeless of this burned out UPS terminal.  Then, the tension breaks, the women's eyes lighten and she says,  How about some tit for tat?  I got people who sleep covered in cardboard and another nut job who is trying to find a way to stew it.  You give me enough blankets and food, and you can look around for whatever you want that ain't claimed.  Heck, I'LL even carry it out for you.  We got a deal?

GM speaking to the player[spoiler]Basically, you throw 500Y at these people in the form of food and blankets from a Stuffershack a few miles away, you get your hearts desires from this place.[/spoiler]

[Herr Brackhaus]

Marcus snorted loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. "Blankets. Food? Let them freeze, or starve; they're nothing but useless bags of flesh anyway. I say we go in and we take what we came here for, by force if need be. Unless you all are scared of a bunch of squatters living out of cardboard boxes..." He revved the engine of his powerful off-roader, the sound of it matching his mood.

[Irn0rchid]

"As much as I don't want to run around schlepping blankets for these guys, 100Y a piece is likely less than we'd spend in ammo and hassle clearing them out, especially with no real intel on what's in there..."

[Bewilderbeast]

Pepperface smiled at the troll, palpable relief washing over him as he powered down his cyberware. As the world around him returned to normal speed, he answered, “Yeah, that sounds good. I think we can work something out, miss.” He’d been secretly hoping it would work out this way. After all, Sid seemed pretty convinced that retrieving the chemical tank would be the easy part of the job. And for their part, Pepperface couldn’t imagine that these squatters enjoyed sleeping next to a vat of hazardous chemicals. This was a win-win situation if there ever was one. Hearing Marcus' dissent, however, Pepperface sighed and sent out a quick Matrix message.

<<Are you serious? Are you a gibbering psychopath? If we can grease some palms instead of shooting a bunch of helpless squatters, I’d prefer we do that. Looks like they’re willing to work with us in exchange for very little, and shooting brings attention. Shooting risks getting shot back. No and thank you. Somebody bring the van around, and stop at a Stuffer Shack to pick up some blankets and tarps and drek. You can take it out of my cut.>>

“Children,” he muttered under his breath to no one in particular. Then, to the troll: “My people are coming with your goods, along with a van to transport the salvage. Mind showing me around? Anything in particular you’re looking to get rid of?” Pepperface happily follows the troll around her camp, feigning polite interest. As soon as he sees the chemical vat, he expresses interest in it and little else. Provided she’s willing to trade the chemicals, Pepperface is more than happy to give up 500 nuyen worth of basic supplies in exchange for it.

[Raiderjoseph]

"Oh thank God." Vexboy says with clear relief putting his guns back. He messages the group. "So who gets the stuff?"

[Herr Brackhaus]

"I never said shoot first, ask questions later. We go in, take what we need, and if anyone gives us any lip we deal with them in the only fashion these vermin know enough to respect; with force. If you're too scared of a few hobos to stand up for yourself, I'll do it for you." With that he cut his comms and hit the accelerator, spinning the Morgan around the corner and hurtling towards the Terminal at top speed.

[Irn0rchid]

Skate gets pressed back into the seat and thrusts a hand out to hold on to the door. "Or we could do it this way," she laughs and keeps an eye out for anyone objecting to their presence. <<Looks like we're going in guys!>>

[Raiderjoseph]

"... Did he just pull Leroy Jenkins?... Yes. Damnit..." Vexboy took out his guns again and rolled down the window...

[Beta]

Alf is impressed by their vigilance ‘Geeze, picked me up when I was casing the place from a distance, but I guess you can’t be too careful around here and distance isn’t that big a deal in the astral – I should be more stealthy the next time I’m scoping a place out.’ 

As to the question that he has been asked, Alf does his best to communicate the concept of “I don’t want trouble, but may have some business for you.” 

Peaceful overture or not, now that he’s been spotted anyway, he takes the time to scope out his questioner and its (presumed) spirit companion carefully.

[spoiler] edited May 11: max stat increase is four points, so intuition only buffed by that much.  Changes the successes with spell in place to 3, from 4.

Bio, this is an assensing roll, but how many dice depends on whether there is a back-ground count.  Alf had a force five Increase Intuition spell on himself, and he has five intuition.  In any degree of background count the spell will drop down to below the minimum force, and break.  So I’m rolling the asensing in two parts: base dice, then the extra five [/s four ]dice (so that you can add that on if the spell is still up).

Base: Asensing base roll: 8d6t5 2
+4 dice if spell is up: extra asensing dice from spell: 4d6t5 1
So either 2 or 4 3successes (or less if the background count also lowers asensing rolls – I don’t remember)

[/spoiler]

Alf had not gone far from the vehicles, as originally he was just trying to get a feel for the area without drawing attention.   And so he notices the Morgan bound forward toward the terminal buildings, and he doesn’t care if his questioner picks up on his astral scream of “My body!  What is that maniac doing!”  With that he dives his astral form back into the vehicle – despite the almost unlimited speed of astral travel, it still takes him a few seconds to match the rough ride of the vehicle well enough to snap himself back into his (already slightly bruised) body.

Once he does he yells at Marcus “What the frag is going on here?  I was just starting peaceful contact with their magician!  Are you TRYING to get fireballed?”