The Found Arcana [IC]
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The Found Arcana [IC]
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In the interest of being honest, the first roll, the 28, had 3 hits, if you’d rather go off of that.
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“Snake it is then. I hope you like the Black Mamba” Bobby replied, before changing into said reptile and slittering up and around Mato’s arm, like a really fucked up close combat weapon.
Spoiler: -
Mato holds his arm out and lets Bobby sliver up the sleeve of his suit jacket. Being mostly metal, Mato isn’t too concerned about Bobby’s fangs, but frag if he couldn’t have chosen a smaller snake. The black mamba is 2 meters long and coils around Mato’s arm several times, with its tail tickling his armpit while its nose and nose and eyes peeking out near his suit cuff.
After their recon, they reconvene to compare notes.
“Alright, so there are the two public entrances. We can set up shop on those, but let’s also think about the service entrance. A place like this needs a place for its deliveries. Normally I wouldn’t expect a buyer to use it but a criminal-underworld-type might, especially if he has connections in the kitchen. Do we have any drones that can keep watch? Of course we don’t. Maybe a spirit?
“Anybody have any bright ideas about how we can intercept this guy and mug him before he gets downtown? If he does what we did then his car is going to drop him off – maybe some bodyguards too – right in front of the Taco Temple before driving around the block to wait for him. That means we’re scrapping in public, which could bring the heat, although maybe our new friend Ginsburg here could help keep the volume of screaming down to a minimum.
“Speaking of Ginsburg, there’s also a chance that the target might have similar tricks up his sleeves. The Triads leverage magic a lot, neh? That’s why they’re after the card after all, you’d think. That means that chummer here could be coming in disguise. We need to account for that too.”
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Bobby had uncoiled and had managed to pull his trousers back on: “Easiest way would be to spoof the seller, call Chung and tell him time and location has changed. Gives us time to secure the item first and mug the guy second.
But seeing that AM has things to do, how about one of you spirit wranglers uses a spirit search to locate Chung right now, so we can go there and whack him.” -
Ginsburg looks to the floor of the cab and chuckles. “Well this is a hell of a showing on my first day, isn’t it? The spirits I can summon are more about sabotage and deceit. One of them might be persuaded to help us scout if we’ve got a concrete plan in place for a con where it’s part of the legwork, but they won’t go in for a general stakeout. I usually use watchers for that sort of thing, but I need to get a new lodge up before I can start making them again.”
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“Well, what kind of spirits do you have? We know how the guy looks like and that he isn’t more than a few km away. That should be enough for any spirit with the right skills to pinpoint his location.”
Bobby replied patiently. -
“Well, I’ve got spirits of man and spirits of water, but unless they’re bound – something I don’t practice – they won’t do just anything. The spirits of man I beckon will help with deceit, falsehoods, and misdirection, and the water spirits like to do just about anything that involves them actively manipulating the world, but both of them are doers – scouting and surveilance is outside their wheelhouse. If we can zero in a little, though, I have a clairvoyance spell I can use.”
((OOC: This is where the house rules I had laid down on spirits would come into play. Ginsburg knows his tradition’s illusion and manipulation spirits, but he’d need his detection spirit for something like this.))
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“And there I thought, you’d make a good addition as a detective. Alright, then use that spell instead. Our target will likely make its appearance within the hour”.
((OOC: That doesn make much sense though. There will be a lot of traditions that can’t use dedicaded options like that because their detection spirit doesn’t have search as an option, or their Manipulation spirit does not have Influence.
Also, if I understand this correctly you could use Animal Control of a Beast spirit only if it happens to be your Manipulation spirit. that would make this particular spirit type practically useless.)) -
“Let’s review goals and options here. First of all, we have two objectives, we are paid to deliver the tarot card, and we make most of our money by relieving the other buying of what he brings. He’s going to be showing up at Taco Temple about the time that the seller shows up, most likely, so to avoid a confrontation or bidding war, we can’t just go and buy the card and then hit the other buyer.”
“That leaves our options as either hit the other buyer before hand, which means trying to guess his approach and intercept, or else to let him make the buy, then hit him afterward — in this case we don’t take his money, but we hold on to ours, so it all comes out the same. Well, there is technically a third where we hit the seller and steal the card, but I think that reflects badly on our patron. The advantage of the second is that we know where he is, disadvantage is that if he can make any use of the card we just made our life harder.”
“Either way, we don’t want to start a fight in Taco Temple, because security would interfere. So we need to either stop him on the street, or somehow convince him to go somewhere else. That church looks pretty quiet, but it would hurt most of us who have magic. Well, in a fight my magic isn’t worth a lot, but then again neither are my fighting skills I’m afraid. I know which end of a gun to spray bullets from, but that is about it. But I imagine the holy background would hurt Bobby and our new colleague, and while it would also impede our target it likely wouldn’t slow down his bodyguard. But it might be the most isolated place we could find to try and relieve him of either credstick or card.”
“I think I summarized all the main factors and options — anything I missed?”
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“Put like this,” Bobby answered, “It seems pretty clear what we want to do: Take him out after he buys the card. It’s pretty easy to identify the buyer and we really don’t want this to fall back on our heads. If we just take the card off him there is no direct connection to follow. And we have an easier time to actually locate and follow him. Especially if you go astral again – hell I can turn into a roach and literally bug him. After that it’s just a matter of taking out his bodyguards and Chun himself. That should be doable with a team like us.”
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Ginsburg says “Alright, I agree. Let’s get him after the trade.”
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“OK, I think we have the start of a plan then. Now on to where/when/how we hit them. Do any of you have the technical skills to mess with their vehicles quickly and unobtrusively? It would be nice to get them away from the mall, but we don’t exactly have high speed pursuit vehicles, and if we let them get all the way home they could potentially be bunkered up pretty well. ”
Jawsey takes a moment to stretch and try to make his back more comfortable while he collects his thoughts, then he summarizes “I think our options are basically three: to hit them as they leave Taco Temple, to stop or intercept them en route somehow, or to go after them at wherever they stop next after leaving. That first one has two options, I think: Hit them before they get vehicles moving, or hit them just as they get moving. The second has a lot of advantages in terms of choosing the battlefield, but has the problem that we don’t know the route they’ll take and we’d need some way to make sure they stop. The third gets us away from corp security and let’s us choose the timing a bit, but risks them having more resources.”
Finally he muses “It would be helpful if they would leave one guard outside on vehicle watch. Between Ginsburg’s tricks and Bobby and Mato’s combat prowess, we could probably take the guard down quickly and maybe use illusions to make one of us look like the guard? That might enable the stoppage en-route.“
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“Hit them at the parking lot sounds like the best option. We already know that the cars park themselves. If it doesn’t have an environment seal, I should be able to climb in as a roach through the air con and open the doors from inside. We turn off the wireless and make them come to the parking lot. There we wack them.”
Bobby replied. -
“Most likely they bring the SUV, but they could bring more than one vehicle. We’ll need to keep an eye out for that.”
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Ginsburg asks “This shape change thing does it only work on you? What if we make a distraction, and change the mark into a rat in a hindsight. His clothes will still be there, and a large cat will chase their master in his new shape… What are they going to do? Run after him without thinking much right? Jawsi then just picks up the card, enters the car and drives away while the guards are rescuing their master. We’ll meet a few blocks and regroup.
If it does not work then we can just tackle them in the parking lot. Private enough to not attract too much attention. I can use the silence spell so nobody hears the mayhem. “
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“I can change whoever I want – provided they aren’t too large for my magic. But I wouldn’t want to have so many witnesses around. Baleful shapeshifting isn’t that common and it could draw a connection to us. Better to hit them quickly both with conventionell means and magic. Wouldn’t want to steal Mato’s thunder, after all.”
Bobby grinned and nodded at the Ork
“You lot all have at least one weapon, right?” -
Mato smirks. “My mind is my weapon.”
This, of course, is an outrageous lie. Mato hadn’t even considered the possibility of hitting the buyer after the sale. Jawsey was right that the end result was the same but it hadn’t even occurred to Mato that they could keep Gao’s nuyen instead of the buyer’s. Mato turns to something he knows a bit more about: surveillance.
“Let’s talk about positioning. If their car drops them off out front and goes to park then we plant a bug – electronic or Bobby – on the car to follow it. Once they leave the meet, we can wait until they reach a low-security area we hit it. Or sooner, if the opportunity presents itself. I’m a passable pickpocket, for example.
“We need eyes inside to observe the meet, let’s say that’s Jawsey. Then we need security at each entrance providing backup and extra eyes. I can be on the street while Ginsburg is on the mall entrance. That leaves Bobby as the wild card. He can either insert himself into the car or onto the buyer’s person. Maybe he stays with me, presuming that the buyer’s entrance and exit will be from a vehicle on the street. That gives him the most options to pick his position. Ginsburg’s spirit can be another flex player, either on watch or responding to situations as needed.
“Does that hold water?”
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Jawsey added “I can also bring up a spirit. Nothing too strong, and for spirits that also means nothing too bright. But it should be able to handle basic surveillance OK. For that matter sometimes just a spirit appearing can make a distraction, without it having to prove how weak it is.“
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