Mission 2b - Special Delivery

"There's no money in it for you or me.  My end is a favor repaid, and I can do that by snatching any child off the street within the next month or so.  I don't need a lot of hassle, and this is starting to look like a lot of hassle for what was a friendly offer."

"You don't know me, and that's true enough.  Trust is a funny thing, you have to give it to get it, and in this case I'm asking you to hand over something valued slightly more than a used burger wrapper in exchange for the elimination of an enemy with trid proof of the deed.  That's potentially a lot of heat on my end.  I don't know what you would accept as collateral.  Is she worth a shirt?  A gun?  What do you want?"

(OOC:  <------ clearly not a face.  I had thought being an elf would be an issue, and considered putting on a Mask before going out.  But that would have me sustaining 2 spells, and it's not like I'm not suffering a boat load of wound penalties and don't have a lot of social dice to begin with.  I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of my wheelhouse here.

On the bright side I've not kicked anyone in the nuts or burst into hysterical tears yet.  )

((lol. yeah, well, you are rping fine, and everyone else has a dice pool of 0 or 1, so you are the only person even approaching the wheelhouse. At least you seem to be rolling lucky while I roll for you I have a feeling if you had been rolling, they would all be critical glitches))

The ganger says, "In the very least if I hand her over to you and you don't follow through on what you promised, I look like an idiot in front of my guys here and I just can't have that, now can I? How about this: you give us your list of contacts in your commlink. We get a video in 24 hours and we delete the data like we never had it. We don't get a response and we start paying a visit to the people in there, one per day, and kindly explain how upset we are that you are not a man of your word until either we run out of contacts, or you fulfill your end of the deal."

"You talk about trust, how trustworthy would I be if I was willing to do that.  It also sounds like a threat, and I'll be honest, I don't like threats.  I'm trying to be friendly here, and so far all I'm getting back is a lot of hassle.  How will it look to your guys if you talk yourself out of a good deal just for the sake of looking tough?"

"Now, like I said before, I'm just passing through on my way to other biz.  I want no part of your turf wars, and only stopped to offer you a better deal than just running the slot over would get you.  If you are interested, great.  We take her off your hands and you get get a show in return that is sure to leave a lasting impression on your enemies.  If you are not interested, then I'm sorry we could not do biz and we move on to other things."

"Now, if you have a reasonable request for some collateral, I'm happy to hear it.  If all you have are threats... look, it's been a long night already.  Let's not do this in a way that sees violence.  You want to protect your turf, keep your people whole?  Don't go looking for enemies where there aren't any."

((another negotiation check))

The gangster says, "Look it the big man trying to act all scary. But lets face it, you dress like you only have the clothes on your back, and the fact that you haven't offered anything of value as collateral means you probably don't have anything. Now if you are as much a man of your word as you say you are, you have nothing to worry about. Quite frankly going around following through on this for no reason is a lot of hassle I rather not deal with. Not so much of a hassle that I won't do it if I have to, mind you. But it is much easier to shoot you here and take that pretty car of yours. Or blow it up for fun. Either works.

"The fact is, you or anyone else coming through our turf usually means you pay a toll. Here we are being generous offering a low low price of running over this piece of garbage, and you are quibbling over us having a laugh looking through your little black book. So unless you have something of value to be offering us, I would just cough up the commlink now and we'll get this all over with like a pair of civilized humans."

He glances back at the others and asks, "You guys figure out what you want done with the razor ear?"

One says, "I think we want to go with putting it through a wood chipper."

The leader nods appreciatively and says, "Wood chipper. Nice choice."

The elf screams a stream of profanities and is given a swift kick in the nose for her trouble. The source of the kick tells her to shut up.

"I think this turning sideways ahould we sneak out and flank these asshats or do we just bust out and open fire while we still have surprise?"

Valacan wrote:"I think this turning sideways ahould we sneak out and flank these asshats or do we just bust out and open fire while we still have surprise?"

"The latter is a sure way for getting whacked. See the rocket launcher? That's gonna whoop us within 3 seconds! Flanking out... we're outnumbered and already badly beaten. Flanking out just makes us weaker at this point. Only way we could fight, is if we'd push them into a sort of corridor, making it only one or two maximum could attack us at a time, while we attack those one or two together. The street is a tad bit too open for that, so let WuJen handle this for now."

Little Dragon nods to Sun and says, "If you go out there shooting, they will cut Wujen down before he gets the chance to run to cover. We just have to trust him for now. They haven't shot him yet. So long as that continues, he is doing fantastic."

(OOC: Is there just the one heavy weapon out here?  Everyone but Rocket Man is carrying assault rifles or less, right?)


(OOC: OK, I agree that this is about to go sideways.  I'm not giving this rando my contacts, and I can't fake a data transfer, I don't think.  I am, however, significantly faster than most of these guys, since wired reflexes is something of a rarity given it's cost.  So here is what I'm considering---  First, a Trid Phantasm of the area starting shortly in front of me and extending back along the van of everything exactly as it is now, the only moving part is a duplicate of me, and I will try to step back out of it, hidden under the illusion.  Then some play acting where the Phantom me gestures and some horrifying magical blades start rotating in mid air off to the side.  My Next action, assuming I don't pass out from drain, will be picking up the girl with levitate and moving her toward the blades, covering her in the illusion when she passes into the area, and redirecting her into the van.  The Phantom her will continue into the woodchipper like magical blades with much screaming and splorching out the other side.  I'm gonna need a GM call as to the feasibility of that plan.  Seems good to me, but there's some iffyness with complex illusions there that WuJen would know but I don't.)

"I'm not trying to be scary.  I'm trying to avoid a needless conflict.  It's your turf and we are guests, but understand we don't want to take part in your turf war.  I don't have anything of value to you beyond what I've already offered.  If you'd rather we just killed her right here, I'm willing to entertain with that just to end this."

(ooc: I was planning on covering the casting of the trid phantasm by giving them the show of the obviously magical glowing blades of magical force.  Basically, not really hiding that I'm casting the spell, just misdirecting what the spell actually is.)

Taking a look around, Wujen only sees one person with a rocket launcher, though the others all have assault rifles. The rocket launcher is obviously the biggest threat to the van, but any of the men could be deadly to him if they decided to open fire.

The gangster says, "Who said anything about you joining our turf war, kid? This is a toll and you need to pay up. I've already said what I want. Start paying up."

((At this point Chougou would offer anything that they have on them as collateral, but it seems like the deal has moved past that point now...))

"Fine.  I'm done with this."

With a dramatic flourish WuJen pulls several small crystals from his pocket (reagents) and begins to dramatically cast a spell.  A complex weave of glowing blades appears near the side of the road, and more subtly the illusion covers a small corridor of space down the side of the van as well, and a duplicate of him forms around his own body. Quickly he steps into the blind of the illusion, hoping that none of the onlookers noticed.

(OOC: I'm going to be rerolling failed dice with edge in the next post, the illusion is the obvious weak spot of this plan, and my impending unconsciousness.)

Sorcery, Trid Phantasm Force 1, Little Dragon's Aid Sorcery, -3 wounds, 10 reagents.
WuJen carried out 11 launched of one d6 :

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Drain:
WuJen carried out 8 launched of one d6 :

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(Dangit….  Chougou snuck in a post just as I hit send...  I had 7 hits on the casting.  Oh well.  Spending Little Dragon's edge to reroll failed dice on the casting.)

WuJen carried out 8 launched of one d6 :

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(ooc:  FFS...  well, I guess we will see if 5 is good enough)

The Phantom WuJen dramatically casts another spell, while the real WuJen struggles to remain on his feet while casting again himself.

Sorcery: Levitate Force 1 (no way that chick weighs more than 200kg) Little Dragon Aid Sorcery, -5 dice
WuJen carried out 9 launched of one d6 :

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Drain
WuJen carried out 6 launched of one d6 :

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(ooc: merciful heavens, that was close)


Wujen levitates the bound girl, and sends her flying toward the Phantom blades.  Once she is in the blind of the illusion her trajectory changes, sending her toward the side door of the van.  The Phantom girl screams long and loud as she is fed slowly through the blades feet first, sending phantom gore flying.  As the real girl comes close to WuJen he whispers to her in Elven "If you love life, be quiet and we might make it out of this, but I'm about to fall over from this and I can't cover any more noise"


Covering the noise of the van door with a final scream and disgusting splatter, WuJen climbs into the van and eases the door shut.  Outside the Phantom WuJen looks at the ganger and asks "We done now?"

((ichigo has his fingers crossed. Whispering )) "man I really hope this works!"

(5 successes is on the lower end of probably OK.  These guys aren't trained observers, though you might get a sharpeyed few.  I don't think many of them would even have 5 perception dice unless boosted by cyberware, and unlike wired reflexes cybereyes are fairly cheap and common even among the poor.)

In what must be a miracle for the young wizard, Wujen masterfully pulls off his plan. The illusion goes off flawlessly and he manages to lift the young elf, all without passing out in the process. The gangsters are both impressed and horrified by the display at the same time. The leader says, "Ooooh, you're a fraggin finger waggler, are ya? You're lucky I'm in a good mood. And since I am in a good mood, I'ma give you to the count of ten to get the hell out of here before we have us an old fashioned witch burning."

((they don't use perception to see through the illusion, they use logic+intuition. 2 out of the 8 managed to get 4 hits, but none got 5, you're in the clear. Given that you managed to pull that through I'ma give you that the gang lets you go as a freebie, despite the fact that they see magic users as an abomination, but now they know you are a magic user, in case you happen to meet each other again))

The gangsters clear out of the way, allowing you to drive forth as you wish.

Phantom WuJen gets in the van, and once out of sight ceases to exist.  Wujen maintains the illusion of the gore for the time being.


"Chougou… feel free to get us the hells out of here.  I am ready for a nap now."

Little Dragon gives Wujen a slap across the face and says, "That's for making me worry about you." She then gives him a tight hug and a kiss before saying, "And that's for being a brave hero."

The elf remains tied up within the van, pretty busted up and bleeding, though her wounds do not seem life threatening, just painful. She says to Wujen in Elvish, "You are lucky they did not shoot you for what you did. They do not take kindly to magic users nor metahumans. If the light had been better and they had realized you were an elf, we would not be having this conversation."