Firewire bent before the stare, but did not bow. They were looking for a pickup, ok. She scowled alot, and nodded. But was looking forward to the opportunity. Then Lubash noted the commlinks and the fiasco this morning. Firewire scowled some more as she waited for an answer.
Lace tapped on her lower lip thoughtfully. "I'm interested in this job," she explained, "But I'd like to know the answer to that as well."
She glanced around at the others, then sent each of their coms a private text. This is an opertunity i've been looking for. I hope we can work together. If Annie doesn't tell us something that would make it disastserous, I'll take the mission.
Dark Walker held his peace and listened intensely. Using both astral perception and every magically heightened physical sense he had, he tried to judge Annie's intentions, particularly intent for some sign of betrayal.
I don't know if she's on the level. I want to be as sure as I can. If I can get a better read on her, I’ll let the others know.
If you want my dice pools, my Judge Intentions is 9 and my assensing is 10.
Annie smiled at the question, "Best be careful with that paranoia, or it will bite you in the ass one day" She said still smiling. Finishing off her coffee she let out a satisfied sigh before continuing. "The jobs are, unrelated... I did some snooping on my over, and the people involved are dealing with their own issues at the moment, you shouldn't need to worry." She looked at all of you before shrugging, "I think that's everything... you guys should have a few hours to make your decision before you need to meet Mr Johnson, best of luck" she says, nodding to you before making for the exit. "Call me if you get into trouble" She called back over her shoulder, a merry skip in her step.
~~~~~~~~Dark Walker~~~~~~~~
reaching out with your "other" senses you test Annie for signs of betrayal, or other dishonest intentions. Your senses find her cool, calm, collected. To her this is just another day at the office it would seem. Her intentions are harder to determine, as it quickly becomes apparent to you that she has been at this a while, and knows how to keep certain things hidden. After a few moments, you feel confident that she is being honest, with you and the others at least, but you can tell that this girl has secrets, and she's good at hiding them.
Options. There weren't many. The charges were nonsense and now they were gone, but could easily come back if Annie decided to revoke her charity. Which meant doing a pickup for some mysterious Johnson. It was clearly illegal and shady as all hell, but isn't that exactly what he was going to look into? Even if this wasn't much of a job, it was a way in.
The question remained with the others. He studied them for a moment before he stood, the snake drone coiling its way up his arm. A few mental commands went to his commlink before a ARO appeared on the table; a virtual notecard set to only be visible to those sitting at the table, an address about a mile from the Johnson meet written on it.
"I'll be there in about an hour," he explained through the drone, giving them the chance to study and memorize the address before deleting the ARO. "Right now I'm going home and getting my stuff."
The blond girl looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she used her com link to proejct her location to the automatic pilot of her scooter, waiting in the garage at home. "I'll join you there," she said as the electric scooter booted up and began the drive to pick her up.
"Hopefully the rest of you too," she said, giving each of them a smile.
While she waited for her ride, Lace finished her coffee, then went across to the stuffer shack for a soy-burter with syntehtic worstirshire flavor and real dehydrated onions. "Wow," she murmured--or said to any of her new group who had joined her. "I'm so hungry this actualy taste's good."
The electric scooter would pull up justa s she was trashing the wrapper. Flashing anyone who'd jonied her a smile, Lace got on and drove home, taking all the apropraite precautions with her identites.
In her hermitic lodge, Lace spent several minutes meditating before rising. Closing her eyes, she traced a circle and hexogram in saphire energy over the prepared summoning circle on the door.
"To the four winds I sing," she intoned, hand stretched oout and finger's spread to pour an offering of energy into the radiant circle. "Carry my call beyond Gaia's realm, to the home of Aeolus."
Formulating her message then, she named the most powerful elemental she'd yet dared to work with, "Arindalise Avorna, bride of Aeolus. Here my call and accept my offering. Come to me 'til the sun next crosses the sky and lend your aid to my cause."
Lace summons a Force VI air elemental. hoping she can get it to stay long enough to give us some extra punch when things go south--or at least call upon it's magic to locate a clue!
Magic 6 + Summoning 5 = 11 dice.
Arindalise resists with her Force of 6. My net hits tell me how many services Arinda ows, and her total hits determine how much drain I have to resit.
0 hits. Lace spends 1 edge to reroll all failed dice and gains 5 hits.
The air swirls before you as the spirit manifests, arriving with hardly a whisper. You are able to make out a rough humanoid form as the mass of shifting air bends the light around it oddly. The spirit takes a knee before you, and you hear a whispering that sounds like Greek, spoken from far away. Raising its head the spirit vanishes, thought you can now feel a presence nearby that was not there before.
The spirit of air got 1 hit to resist the summoning
She owes you 4 services until the sun next crosses the horizon
Lace gave a smile at her sucess. She was a little winded, though, brow ashine wiht a light coating of sweat.
She moved back into her tiny kitchen and fixed a small soy-burger and drank a can of fizzy fluid. Settling into her recliner, she played some music and took a breather 'til time to meet the Johnson.
Lace takes 1 stun.
If she can get an hour to relax before the meat, she'll try to give that stun time to heal.
1 hit on the recovery roll.
Grumbling a bit at the answer he was given, Lubash nevertheless nodded. "Alright...I suppose I should get myself ready then," he said, half to himself as he stood up. Placing his cup on the table the Ork left the area, making his way back to his hovel and grabbing the things he considered 'necessary supplies' for the job head. Once he felt that he was ready Lubash left once more, heading to the meeting place.
It didn't take Toon too long to hop the bus and make it back to his place. He could have remoted his van to the meeting place, but he wanted to make sure everything was ready in a secure location before departing. Especially when it was the first time he'd really done any...'field work.' After checking and double checking all of his gear and drones he loaded up the van and took off, headed straight for the meeting place.
The address he'd named was near a small convenience store, just the sort of place people would congregate for any number of reasons. The GMC Bulldog pulled up into a parking spot; the Bulldog was the singular most popular model of large van, which meant absolutely no one would think it unusual. Especially when it was branded with the logo of a large rental company; just some local who had a bunch of things that needed moving.
Toon climbed out of the driver's seat and securely locked it behind him, including the various anti-theft systems. Looking around to see if anyone else had arrived yet he headed into the store, planning to grab a quick Nukit burger and some coffee. It was still too damn early for any of this.
At the first sign of splitting up, she recorded the meeting place and time, plotted her route there and began crossing the streets. A block and a half away from the rendezvous, she slipped into the soy-burger barn beside the incense shop. This would work as well as any. Using her comm, she pulled up a ridiculous space opera, and settled in. She needed a reason for her distraction. She focused first down then up into the AR a she built herself a friend.
Her earpiece played an old sound bit 7 years old and her head bobbed as it her head worked on the project before her.
Once she was done building the framework a diminutive sexy female frame, she inserted the visual logging code by providing the feminine framework glasses, a business cut suit though leaving the cleavage low cut, . Now she wove a hidden weapon, a dagger/hairpin into the work, this was more to be lodged into the scanners and slave them to a splitter that would send the information first to herself, then another site of her choosing. Finally, the program was given the rend_or_end tag. It would fight and destroy from within using the dagger well, or dissipate with no recovery tag. At least this was the idea behind the program.
Gathering up your various pieces of gear and other supplies you make your way to the meet location. Pulling up your quick to spot the Orc that you briefly shared a cell with.
~~~~~~~~Lace~~~~~~~~
You take an hour for yourself, resting after the conjuring.
Give me a Body + Willpower check ^^ Each hit is 1 box of stun damage healed
~~~~~~~~Dark Walker~~~~~~~~
Returning home the first thing you notice is the smell. The scent of old wood and metal, and the filth of the street. Your little squatters den might not be pretty, but it is home.
~~~~~~~~Lubash~~~~~~~~
Your the first to arrive at the meet location, though before you have a chance to get comfortable a GMC Bulldog rolls up, and in a few moments a familiar young man and his mechanical snake hop out.
~~~~~~~~Firewire~~~~~~~~
Finishing the Sprite you take a moment to inspect you handy work. But somethings not right, and the newly born Snippet begins to unravel, the random pieces of code that made up her diminutive yet busty form breaking away and rejoining the steams of data that is the Matrix.
Compiling check failed
Sprite Scored 2 hits on its defense test
Resist 4 Stun damage from Fading (Resonance + Willpower)
Firewire rolled her eyes, an hour wasted, all this setup and now... All she had to show for it was a pounding headache and showing up late. Grrr, she growled at the staff as she packed back up, she drained her cup, not remembering what she had ordered and headed for the door. She would have to go in cold this time. That was never good.
As she hit the street, she realized she wasn't as late as she could have been, the block or two that she needed to cover still put her there in time to see Toon ducking inside.
Lubash had just managed to get comfortable in his seat when a van pulls up and one of the other former prisoners steps out. The Ork waved Toon over. "Looks like we're the first ones to arrive," he said, "Take a seat, hopefully the others will arrive soon."
The waving Ork quickly gained Toon's attention when he emerged from the store, and despite some leftover hesitation he ultimately walked over to join the former prisoner. Giving him a somewhat friendly nod he sat down and unwrapped the soy burger, munching slowly and thoughtfully as the snake wound its way down onto the table. He was silent for a moment before the snake finally vocalized. "So, what can you do?" he asked, hoping the Ork had the sense to stay at least somwhat discreet here in public.
Feeling invigorated from the breather she'd taken, Lace made her way out of the Old Redel House and whistled for her scooter. A little bit later, the little bike's electric motor could be heard humming up to the meeting. The blond girl swung off of it, then snagged her carpet bag and her cane from the sadlebags. "Go park and wait 'til I call you, Peasblossom."
The scooter purred off on autopilot.
Healed boots and her cane tapped softly on the sidewalk as the petite blond moved up to join the other two, giving them a relaxed smile. "Good to see you again, gentlemen." The blond settled down in a chair and glanced back and forth between the two. "How shall we pass the time?"
Dark Walker moved up as well, joining them and taking a seat. "Are we at another coffee house?" I ask. "I could use a french vanilla late." I cock my head thougtfully, pondering what little they knew of the mission.
His eyes flickering down to the snake on the table, Lubash thought for a moment before responding. "I'm good at a lot of things chummer," he commented, "You need an extra boy for something, maybe a nice game of darts, or a quiet ride to the store? I'm ya boy."
He's being a bit deliberately obtuse of course, but Lubash is sure that as long as this guy isn't a brain potato he should be able to figure it out
Firewire watched as the others entered before she crossed the street to join them. "Yeah, party ride to Terra Nova? The Barrens? Not sure how quiet the ride will be, but..."
Meeting up the the coffee shop you each make small talk to pass the time, subtly discussing your "talents" so as not the alarm the other patrons. Many of whom are already giving you odd looks every now and again, given the odd collection of individuals that you are. A barista stops by the table after a few minutes, noticing that none of you approached the counter for a drink. "Hey there chummers, if there anything I can get you? Coffee, Tea, Late, Doughnuts?" she asks, a simple smile of her face. The girl is human, not bad looking but nothing impressive. She is wearing a dark brown uniform with a green apron, a name-tag attached on the front that reads "Suzie".
"I can handle the ride," Toon's drone started to say, the words ending when the barista approached. He held up the bag he'd gotten from the convenience store and shook it a little, showing her that he didn't want anything. He waited until the others had ordered and she'd left before continuing. "Someone good at talking should go meet the Johnson. I'll stay outside in the van just in case something happens." He had no intention of putting himself in harms way if he could avoid it. "You can bring me along," the snake lifting itself up, "and I'll keep eyes and ears up."
"I'll take a doughnut," Lubash off-handedly commented to the waitress while ignoring the looks we're getting from other patrons and passerby. "Boston Creme if you've got it." He waited for her to leave before speaking up again, not wanting to risk her overhearing anything and giving the game away. It'd be pretty embarrassing if they all got picked up again before the job even really started.
"I'll have to beg off seeing the boss," he said, "I'm not what anyone would call a 'people person'." Or at least, not in the ways that would be good for discussing things with authorities.
Lace flashed Suzi a smile, admiring the pretty girl's relaxed air and cute uniform. "Good afternoon, Suzi. I love the uniform. It reminds me of a park I used to relax in back home. My friend here," she indicated Dark Walker, "was syaing earlier he wanted a vanilla late, and I'd love a soycafe mocha late."
When they had their orders, Lace sipped on her soycaffe. "This is good." Her eyes flutered shut as she seemed to enjoy it in silence. Instead, she continud the conversation in quite texts. "We should probably all go see the Johnson, though I suppose we should have an apointed speaker and negotator, right? I can probably do that without sticking my foot in my mouth, but I wouldn't begin to know how to negotaite us a better fee. Dark Walker, Fire Wire? how about either of you? I suppose it would be good to have Toon in the getaway car.
"As to what I bring to the group? I'm a good magician and a fair swordsmwoman. I'd probably shoot myself in the foot if you gave me a gun, though I know how to switch the safety on. For fights I have a stun spell and a lighning bolt. I can linke our whole group for telepathic comunicaion, or tell you where all the life forms in a building are--providing wards don't block the spell. I'm a good summoner too. I don' knokw how to hack a computer or pick a lock, but I can use hypnosis to get someone to open a door for us, or turn invisible.
"I'm also good at healing both magical and with a first aid kit."
"I can do the talking and the negotiation," Dark Walker offered. "I'm a swordsman, I can read auras, and I'm pretty good at telling what people are thinking and feeling--including if they're lying to us. I sometimes find there are two voices speaking at the same time when I pay attention to someone--what they're saying and what they really mean."
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