The light drizzle turned to rain as the Team reunited, to compare notes. They set about scouring the indicated street for possible criminal headquarters, and found a likely spot: a dark, narrow alley spanned by a fence-gate, guarded by a gruff-looking ork smoking a cigarette. There appeared to be a courtyard beyond. Ditch volunteered to scout the site from the rooftops, and Paladin offered to go along.<\/p>\n The two found a good spot to ascend a short way down the block, a rain-slicked fire escape to an adjoining building. They scaled up, and made their way to the alley. Ditch, being the more-skilled at this sort of thing, was in the lead. As they approached their intended, initial vantage point, Paladin slipped up and put his knee through a weak spot in the roofing; as far as Ditch could tell, the misstep had attracted no attention, so they continued the operation. In position, they observed the ork, and a pair of female \u201centertainment\u201d in front of a warehouse back-entrance, chatting; the guard was armed with a submachine gun, laying atop an oil-drum\u2014clearly not expecting trouble. As Ditch and Paladin quietly relayed the intel, the other Team members spotted two thug-types forcibly leading a third up to the gate, flipping up a hidden wall-panel to press a buzzer; Ditch and Paladin observed the ork react to the buzzer and approach the gate. The new thugs were greeted in a friendly manner, and allowed to enter with their charge, who was seated on a crate in the courtyard before being led inside a beat later.<\/p>\n As Ditch and Paladin continued to observe, Ivory, Bookworm and Mr. M approached the gate and pressed the buzzer. The ork-guard approached the gate again and challenged the strangers; Ivory stated that she and her \u201cbodyguards\u201d were here to see Ghoul, but would not divulge the nature of her business with him to \u201cthe help.\u201d The guard grudgingly let them through, and took them into the warehouse.<\/p>\n Inside the warehouse, they found the two thugs from before, flanking the third guy, standing before what appeared to be their boss \u2014presumably, Ghoul\u2014 a somewhat-pale, Oriental fellow with a traditional \u201cFu-Manchu\u201d beard. They watched as the third man pleaded for mercy, but it was not granted; at Ghoul\u2019s nod, the two thugs restrained him, holding his right hand forward as Ghoul unceremoniously sawed off his pinky with a knife. After the initial screaming had passed, Ghoul held up the severed digit before \u201cMr. Fail,\u201d saying, \u201cLet this serve as a reminder to you that I do not accept failure.\u201d He then put the bloody end to his lips, and sucked it like it was candy, before casting it aside. Ivory managed to choke back her disgust at the display. With a wave of dismissal, Mr. Fail was half-carried back out the way they came, where Ditch and Paladin observed his release.<\/p>\n Ghoul then turned his attention to Ivory and her bodyguards, inquiring about their business with him, and confirming that they had indeed found their man. Ivory assumed her \u201cSouthern Belle\u201d persona, Anne Benoit, and claimed to be looking to distribute high-grade BTL in the Confederation, and was exclusively interested in this new \u201cCecilia\u201d thing she\u2019s heard about. Deceptively, perhaps, though there was no outward indication, Ghoul seemed to be genuinely interested in the opportunity, and how this out-of-towner came to know of Cecilia. He insisted on knowing who Ivory was working for; she responded in kind, offering to trade revelations. Amused, Ghoul invited her into his nearby office.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, at the rooftops, Ditch and Paladin began to creep their way over to a skylight atop the warehouse building. Once again, the rain-slicked masonry betrayed Paladin while scaling down, and he fell with an audible thud. Concerned about the possibility of detection, Ditch decided to see if the courtyard occupants had reacted to the sound; as he peeked over the roof\u2019s edge, he locked eyes with one of the guards who just so happened to be looking in that direction at that moment\u2014probably only saw the pale glow of his eyes in the shadow. Ditch simply slipped back out of sight, but the thug yelled after whoever-it-was on the roof to show himself. There was no reply. Ditch quietly announced over the commlink that, \u201cWe\u2019ve been made\u201d\u2014which Ivory could hear on her comm implant\u2014before he and Paladin continued creeping forward, intent on not being where the thugs had spotted him.<\/p>\n Bookworm and Mr. M followed Ivory and Ghoul into the office, where he offered them some warm sake<\/em> before continuing the conversation with Ivory. On the spot, Ivory offered as her employer the \u201cDitched Paladins,\u201d a well-known street gang in the South. In kind, Ghoul strongly hinted that he belonged to the Yakuza\u2014confirming what they already suspected after the \u201cpinky\u201d incident earlier. The back-and-forth continued, and Ghoul eventually revealed that he had a local production facility for the manufacture of copies of the Cecilia chips. Ivory responded with \u201cfeminine wiles,\u201d throwing him off-balance (and probably \u201cher bodyguards\u201d as well), and extracting an offer to give her a tour of the facility; she agreed to let him pick her up tomorrow evening at her hotel (which he didn\u2019t know she hadn\u2019t checked into yet\u2014M would have to fix that).<\/p>\n The lascivious display was interrupted, as one of the thugs from outside came in to inform Ghoul of the roof-sighting. After demanding they get up there and get rid of the pests, he asked Ivory if she knew anything about the roof-lurkers, or if it were a mere coincidence\u2014she innocently claimed coincidence. Ghoul then excused himself, the business at-hand having been for-the-most-part concluded, and politely escorted the three of them back to the courtyard.<\/p>\n Through the skylight, Ditch and Paladin could see the Ground Team leaving, and were about to clear off the roof to the street when they heard the thugs climbing up in that direction; they decided instead to sneak back the way they came up. However, once the thugs reached the roof, they moved fairly quickly; Paladin fell behind Ditch\u2019s expert pace, and had to duck out of the way, keeping to the shadows as the thugs passed him by. Ditch spotted Paladin\u2019s predicament, and made a bit of noise to get the thugs moving his direction, drawing them in before bolting out of the shadows to scramble up the wall to the adjoining higher-level rooftop. The thugs opened fire with pistols; one bullet struck Ditch in the back, not penetrating his armored trenchcoat, and slowing him not at all. The thugs continued to pursue, one boosting the other up the ten-foot rise; as the thug on top pulled his head and arm over the lip of the roof, his face was met with the rainy, cold barrel of a shortened combat shotgun, and behind that, a glowing pair of eyes in the shadow. A voice colder than the gun-barrel chastised him, saying, \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re fuckin\u2019 with<\/a>\u201d\u2014at which point, the thug lost all interest in continued pursuit, much to the confusion of his partner below, still boosting him up.<\/p>\n Below, Ivory, Bookworm and Mr. M were being let out of the gate, when everyone there heard gunfire from above\u2014the Ground Team figured the Roof Team could handle themselves, or they would\u2019ve commed for help, so they joked with their new comrades about the \u201crats around here\u201d before heading to their waiting transportation. They were met a few minutes later by Ditch and Paladin, who had made good their respective escapes, and they all left to look into their other lead, the nightclub, Synapse, where they hoped to find John Cho.<\/p>\n Synapse lacked the usual line of potential entrants that one would normally expect at this time of night, presumably due to the need to stand in the rain. The doorman was a heavily-muscled man who was clearly disinterested in his job; he didn\u2019t bother with more than a look-over for weapons before letting the Team through the door.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for them to spot John Cho lounging in the glass-fronted VIP enclosure, and they seated themselves at a nearby lounge area within line-of-sight of the VIP room. Cho looked as he did in the tagged image that Mr. M found on his social media profile, not in the company dossier, and he was accompanied by some \u201cfemale entertainment\u201d\u2014looking like quite the high-roller.<\/p>\n Some time later, the Team observed a new arrival at the club entrance\u2014Ghoul, accompanied by a single bodyguard. He did not spot Ivory, but went straight to the VIP room, where he was greeted by Cho as an old friend and ushered in. A beat later, an attractive woman looking less than alert\u2014drugged, or drunk, perhaps?\u2014was brought to the VIP room by a couple of burly fellows; Cho\u2019s body language and Ghoul\u2019s reaction (in lieu of being able to hear what was said) seemed to suggest the girl was a \u201cgift\u201d to Ghoul. The Yakuza middleman sniffed the girl up and down for bit, before appearing to sink his teeth into her neck, confirming the Team\u2019s suspicions from earlier\u2014undoubtedly, Ghoul was a vampire (raising Paladin\u2019s ire, as he possessed a long-standing, unquenchable hatred of them). The \u201cgift\u201d was allowed to slump to the table, and Ghoul and Cho continued their business. Cho presented Ghoul with a BTL chip\u2014the team assumed this to be a new build of the Cecilia program, indicating that he was still working on it\u2014along with a sensie player; Ghoul jacked in for a bit, and seemed approving after unplugging. Cho put the chip in a carry case that contained several more, which Ghoul slipped into his jacket pocket.<\/p>\n As the scene in the VIP played out, the Team discussed how to proceed. They needed to find out what name Cho might be using to find more information about his recent activities, so Mr. M took the initiative by going over to the bar and bumping into a waitress (that had been serving the VIP room) on the way. After a duel-of-apologies, M asked who it was in the VIP, so that he could buy him a drink to replace the one he had spilled; the waitress revealed his name as Tanaka Saiko, the club\u2019s owner. Bookworm recognized the surname as one commonly associated with the Seattle Yakuza. Now the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together: \u201cJohn Cho\u201d was a Yakuza agent inserted into the company specifically to steal their work; after it was stolen, the \u201cCho\u201d identity was no longer needed. Of course, this meant that in order to accomplish the mission\u2014recover the data and return Cho to the company\u2014would require crossing the Yakuza. On the Team\u2019s behalf, Bookworm called Claudia to inform her of their revelation; she acknowledged the tricky situation, and responded with a challenge: to choose a side. From that point, the Team\u2019s discussion took on a new focus, that is, how to accomplish the letter of their mission without pissing off the Yakuza\u2014not an easy task. Any way, their only play was to ambush one or both of Ghoul and Cho\u2026Tanaka as they left the club.<\/p>\n Some time later, Ghoul and his bodyguard left the VIP and headed toward the club\u2019s entrance. With no time to consider, Ivory caught up to Ghoul at the door and bumped into him, playing at being drunk, while picking his pocket; she managed to come up with the chip-case without being noticed. Ghoul pretended he wasn\u2019t suspicious of this second \u201ccoincidence,\u201d and promised to see her again at the agreed-upon time.<\/p>\n The rest of DXM<\/acronym> was a short distance behind, Ditch being the first out the door. He watched Ghoul and his bodyguard cross the street and enter their vehicle. He relayed the make-and-model to the others, and hasted to his bike to follow.<\/p>\n Losing Hand After being briefly confronted by a curious neighbor, Mr. M and Paladin fled Cho\u2019s apartment and left the complex via the apartments\u2019 enclosed fire escape, triggering the door-alarm as they exited before security forces could arrive. They didn\u2019t get far before being contacted by the other DXM members, and directed to meet up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pp_logs","category-power-plays"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"sr-ghoul-alley2\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.olympusrpg.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/sr-ghoul-alley2.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n
\nNotes<\/h3>\n
\n