Tecumseh
Forum Replies Created
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There’s Lysander’s info that’s still outstanding. That said, I think Mato would rather just pay for the intel up-front rather than be obligated to provide intel in return. That’s Jawsey’s relationship to manage though.
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Let’s do it.
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Well nuts to me then. I thought you were in T.O. My mistake.
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@beta Do you do any in-person gaming? There’s a guy on Dumpshock who lives in Toronto who is always lobbying for in-person games. I did a 4-year PbP campaign with him. Older dude (67) with a colorful life. “After a few beers I’ll tell you about the time in 1993 I was arrested in Peru on suspicion of being a terrorist,” etc.
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“Mm, that’s one interpretation. Another interpretation is that he only got probation instead of jail time for computer fraud, so maybe mommy and daddy’s money and influence came through just fine.
“And don’t underestimate the desire of the rich to get richer. Name a single dragon or corp that didn’t try to grow its horde. This gonk could be sitting on a pile of gold and all he’d be doing is plotting how to make it bigger, especially if he’s sitting in the shadow of his parents. Same goes for Pike.”
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Mato nods to AM. “You’re right that shadowrunners rarely become nobility, but they do become celebrities and that’s catnip for the bored and wealthy.
“Thorbjörn is the son of a legendary shadowrunner, but he just got convicted for computer fraud. In other words, he’s obviously not as good as his mom or dad, whoever was the shadowrunner. Thorbjörn is living in their shadow and is clearly trying to live up to the family profession, but failing. That probably resonates with Sir Thomas Pike, who we know has a tendency to overcompensate due to his difficult relationship with his parents.
“And it’s also possible that the fox just got invited into the hen house. Cunningham was very clear that some of these people are more like acquaintances than friends, which is part of the reason we got this gig. If Pike went on the Grand Tour to get away from his parents and make friends and contacts of his own then maybe this party is just a continuation of that. For the elite, parties like this aren’t personal affairs; they’re social capital to be spent on valuable connections. So maybe Pike and Thorbjörn are bonding over mommy- and daddy-issues, or maybe Thorbjörn is an amusing toy for the idle rich., a trophy full of reflected glory to impress the other guests.”
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Mato winces a bit at the price. “That’s steep,” he grimaces.
“Look, it’s your contact and you know the relationship better than I do. But the information needs to serve an end, either to help us stay safe or to help us complete the job and get paid. We need to figure out the difference between ‘need to have’ and ‘nice to have’. Obviously we won’t know whether the data is worth it until we’ve paid for it and have it, so it’s a gamble.
“I’ll pay my share because I’d rather know than not know, but we should try to get some more out of it. Like why Katya Komarova is at odds with Cunningham, especially since we’re reporting to Cunningham. If Katya is ex-Speznaz then she might have some counter-intelligence experience, meaning that we’ll be in her crosshairs. Hell, she could have her own team of mercs in play, embedded in the staff, especially if she’s a merc herself. If she’s as smart as Cunningham says, and has cybernetic enhancements, then she’s a clear and present danger. We should try to uncover more about her background, her capabilities, and why she and Cunningham don’t get along.”
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“Let’s do Cunningham as well. He has deltaware and is obviously capable of handling himself. I’d like to know his story too.”
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“Eh, maybe not as public as you think. The rich and powerful like to keep their colleges and universities as private as possible. Part of it is the ideal of cloistered learning, cut off from the affairs of the real world. The other part of it is insulating teenagers and 20-somethings during the time of their lives that they’re most likely to do something immature and stupid, to avoid public shaming and the family’s embarrassment. I find it perfectly plausible that she could have stayed out of the public eye and focused on her studies.”
Mato stops and gets contemplative for a minute. The thought of colleges and universities brings up some old insecurities. Not only had he been feeble in his youth, but he hadn’t been particularly bright either. He didn’t go to college, which must have been a grave disappointment to his parents, both of whom were college-educated orks who went to university in the 2040s when racial prejudices were still fresh and being an “ork scholar” was an oxymoron. Mato had shown little inclination toward book learning early in life and now he feels the lack of it keenly.
“Yes, I’ll focus on the physical security. I have some tricks up my sleeves, although it’s possible that the tailor’s scanner identified all of those. Which brings us back to the clothes: did you find any tags? And, if so, what should we do about them? It might be suspicious if we remove them. We might have to be content with knowing that they are there. Or, perhaps we can localize the tags into a single garment that could be plausibly set aside for a moment – gloves, perhaps – should we need to go untracked for a short while.”
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Mato blinks. He doesn’t naturally trust people, but nor does he immediately default to “everyone is a long con”.
“That’s one explanation, I suppose,” he begins slowly. “Or maybe she suffered a traumatic event and withdrew from the world. A traumatic event at a wedding no less. In all likelihood an engagement – and the prospect of a wedding – will have a negative impact on her psyche. That could cascade down through her servants and land on us.
“And why are you studying Arabic? Don’t they speak Farsi in the region that used to be Persia?”
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Mato staggers up the stairs, somewhat surprised that it hadn’t been delivered in a steamer trunk. He watches the Royce leave, making sure it doesn’t run into any interference from the locals.
Staggering up the stairs, he deposits the parcel in the middle of the living room. Digging into it, he separates the clothes into separate piles for each recipient. Then he produces his bug scanner and hands it to AM. “Will you do the honors, please?”
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Mato studies what they’ve learned over a take-out dinner of Chinese food. His mechanical fingers are shockingly nimble with chopsticks.
“Master of the Hunt,” he chides himself, reviewing the data. “Not Lord of the Hunt. Were there any Masters of the Hunt in those trids?” he asks Trouble. “No? Alright then.
“Ernest Harrington. Doctorate in mycology, of all things, so must be a smart fragger. And he sounds like a fragger. Intense. Desert Wars veteran, willing to bend the rules.”
He taps his chin before turning to Jawsey and AM.
“Can we run him past the info brokers? I’ll pay 300 nuyen toward anything insightful. We also need a download on Cunningham himself.
“We need to be cautious. While it may not seem physically dangerous, it clearly is. These people treat employees like property, not like people. Take Emily Nassau for example. She’s ambitious and vicious enough to kill to protect her career. If AM will be working under her, then we’ll need to watch AM’s back. If AM finds herself in a compromising situation, Emily will try to take advantage of it.”
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Having just been through it myself in Chapter 5 – admittedly self-inflicted – let’s be mindful of content creation demands on the GM’s time. I won’t mind if Jack wants to be fairly explicit OOCly about, “Here’s what you can find information on” so that we don’t crush him under the weight of open-ended information requests.
I thought Mato had a specialization in Matrix Search but he doesn’t so he has a pitiful 4 dice for this, which can buy a hit on Jenny Marshal and Harabia but doesn’t really accomplish much in terms of saving AM time to focus on higher-value targets.
I presume we went to the tailor in the morning and were done by noon. If we’re due at Snohomish tomorrow morning then we have ~20 hours. Let’s say we sleep for 8, spend 1 on getting dressed and ready, and spend 1 on commuting from Redmond to Snohomish. That leaves 10 hours for our various pursuits. Jawsey and AM need a couple hours to make their early debt payments, so let’s say 8 hours available for Matrix Searching and other inquiries.
The “Hidden” ones with a high Interval are going to be tough, even with the Browse program. I would say let’s put AM on the “Limited Interest” list and throw the “Hidden” list at Janet Dime and Lysander.
AM is throwing 11 dice + any from Increase Logic. Even if we’re not buying hits, she should be able to knock off most of the Threshold 3 “Limited Interest” list with a single interval. That’s 15 minutes * 8 targets = 2 hours if the rolls go well. I guess that means she could go after one of the Hidden targets and hope for 6 hits on the roll to get it done within the 12 / 2 Browse = 6 hours that she has left.
Mato and Jawsey can watch trids and do the Public ones.
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Yeah, I sympathize. I almost buried myself with the number of parties involved in Chapter 5. The canon/lore was a double-edged sword, because on one hand it gave me a starting point, but on the other hand there was so much of it that I had to keep in my head at all times in an effort not to contradict anything canon (or anything I had already written).
I made a new Wiki page so that we can all add to it as we learn more:
https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.com/wikis/pike-hall
We’ll let AM go to town with Matrix Searching, then hit up Lysander and Janet Dime.
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Jawsey finds that Mato hasn’t moved much. He’s staring intently at the trid, Trouble on his lap. He scratches Trouble’s ears and explains what he’s watching, leaning forward with interest.
“So you see the valet is more of a personal attendant. Cunningham’s position is closer to that of a butler or even a majordomo, the head of the household staff. The role of a valet is less administrative, more like selecting clothes, helping His Lordship get dressed, maybe even running a bath and shaving him. Oo, see how Jeeves selects which clothes are for mending and which should be given away, although Wooster overrides some of his selections…
“Still no Lord of the Hunt though. I suspect you might be able to tell me something of hunting…” Mato prattles on, forgetting for a moment that Trouble isn’t really a cat.
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Now that he’s dressed in his street clothes, Mato lets AM drive back to Redmond so that he doesn’t look like an ork that abducted two elves. ‘Driving While Ork’ is a very real concern in this part of the ‘plex.
Once back at the HQ, he settles down in front of the trid. “The Brits have lots of upstairs/downstairs miniseries,” he says. “They seem to have a fascination with class and class-consciousness. Here, this one is called Remains of the Day. It’s about a butler. Let’s see what we can learn…”
Mato watches so intently it’s clear this isn’t just for research.
“Oh, Stevens,” he says of the central protagonist a few hours later, shaking his head. “How can you outsource your morality and world views to another man? Subservient to a fault. And, here, no Lords of the Hunt whatsoever! I barely learned a thing. We’ll have to watch another. Okay, what about this one, Jeeves and Wooster… looks like a remake from the 2060s. Ah, but Jeeves is a valet but not a butler. Let’s figure out what that means…”
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Cunningham said, “You should find a file with all necessary information on your account in short order.”
Mato’s intention will be to study that. I don’t know what sort of information it would include. Depending on the results of that and AM’s Matrix Searching, we may wish to reach out to Janet Dime and Lysander for supporting information.
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<<Our margins are better>> Mato points out.
<<We’ll be making 1,250 a day. That’s nothing to scoff at; you need to be well into middle-management ranks to earn as much at a corporation. Our challenge is the feast-and-famine nature of our business, our long periods of idleness punctuated by short bursts of profitable danger.>>
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Mato smirks. If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it.
“Low overhead, my good man. We pass the savings on to you.”
Ahh, who doesn’t love a good joke with double meanings about height when dwarves are around? Nobody.
“Diamonds in the rough are still diamonds,” he adds gently. “We can benefit from a jeweler such as yourself, but we’re still hard and we’re still beautiful on our own.” He seems to be referring to himself and Jawsey, respectively.
“Very well then,” he concludes, changing into his street clothes so that he can leave his Zoé behind for the week. “A pleasure,” he tells the dwarf. “And I eagerly await the results of your work. Happy holidays to you.”
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I have often fantasized about winning the lottery and purchasing the publishing rights to Shadowrun. I think one of my first actions would be to hire an economist (or, you know, find an intern) to help bring some logic to the game’s economies.