Setting up home base

Chougou finds that the front seat of his van is pretty cramped thanks to his new body. He happily adjusts the seat to fit his new frame. The van is backed up and the ghouls are quietly let in. With Chougou driving, there is room for one more person in the van unless you want to be laying across the laps of ghouls like tempting flesh sacks for the drive from the new HQ to Carl's. Luckily the van has no windows that can reveal your diseased cargo as their mere existence is illegal and would be an issue if they happen to get spotted.

On the other hand, the luxury limo has room for 6. 7 if someone wants to sit up front with the driver.

Torpor finishes locking the doors and chains, all three floors and the roof, also making sure the Bay doors are closed as well. "I will ride with Chougou, follow us then?"

Chougou drives calmly but with purpose to their destination looking back every once in awhile just to see that the ghouls are being good ghouls.

"Before we leave are we 100% sure that the lady in bottom of elevator shaft is not there?"

"Once we get the ghouls packed up we can check on her. I don't want her seeing them, it could be bad for us.  Once they are out of the way it should only take a minute to get her out."

Sato gives Carl a call.  He attempts to respect Carl's desire to not reference his true nature directly.

"Howdy Carl, how's my favorite cowboy?..."

"Hey, I just made some new friends who look like they're from Texas too...not at all ornery the way some folk are..."

"...trouble is, they're really hungry for some of that good ol' Texas BBQ.  I was wondering if you knew of a way to help them out just for today...."


((If we are traveling by car, I keep a close eye on Roku in case she attempts to make a break for it))

"Try not to fall asleep again, I checked the shaft it's empty. Pretty sure she was the spider woman as the ladder goes right up to the roof."

(Ooc: Not sure what's going on with Roku, is she a flight risk? WuJen hasn't been filled in yet other than the need to fake a death, and I have been a bit preoccupied with trying not to freeze to death IRL. If she starts to look like she is going to bolt you can show her to me and make a point of letting her know that between spirits to search her out and ritual magic she cannot really escape at this point unless we let her go. Best she can do is hide a little while, but in the end not much living escapes a determined mage who has seen you.)

((lol. After about an hour, Roku is still paralyzed. Sato hit her really good when she wasn't able to defend herself. Unless someone heals her, she's not going anywhere for a while. She is presumably still blindfolded too.

Also LOL at Chougou's new character image))

Carl says to Sato, "MORE of them? You think I'm running a restaurant here? Are ya'll just scouring the streets looking for hungry folk to send my way?"

(ooc sadly yes)

((We actually don't really know if Roku is a flight risk. She seems to be taking being paralyzed and blindfolded like a champ. And she seems like she's agreed with our plan. But she hasn't had a chance to try to escape yet, so we don't know. I feel like, with a crowded limo of people surrounding her, she's unlikely to try anything. Sam is leaning towards trusting her and trusting that she's bought in with their plan. But not completely convinced yet.))

Sam explains, over comms, what's up with Roku. That she is a vagina artist and hacker who the Cowboys hired us to bring in, or disappear. And some of the difficulties in locating her. And her story about the police harassing her and killing her husband. Currently, we're planning to fake her death to the Cowboys to complete our contract. Then, after a few weeks have passed and Roku has been laying low and the police are presumably comfortable that she has been taken care of, the plan is to help her try to get the information from the police that she's been looking for to prove that they were harassing her and bring the people who killed her husband to justice.

Chougou checks in with the drones to see if they have found any evidence of the spider woman yet. Hearing all the chatter over the comms he wonders who else is there.

"Did we not leave anyone behind to guard the base? What are we all going to do at Carl's?"

A check of the elevator finds that the woman is gone and chougou's drones find no immediate signs of any spider woman or of the woman who was in the elevator. It seems that she has fled the area for now. Whether that will be an issue down the line or not remains to be seen.

"Well, other than the spiders there isn't much in the base to worry about.  I'm really looking forward to a chance to study them, but if they wander off out of our control, I'm not going to shed much in the way of tears.  They are definitely dangerous though, so I hope they stay put."

(ooc: WuJen went along because he made the promise to the ghouls to try and find them food.  He absolutely will not willing break his given word, and will do all in his power to enforce it.)

"I like spiders, I used to make friends with them...in my previous occupation...I didn't know that they could get that big though."

I think everyone has crowded (comfortably) into the back of the limo and we're headed to Carl's now?
Once we're a reasonable distance from the new clubhouse, Sam takes the tie off of Roku's eyes. He doesn't entirely trust her, but he mostly trusts her. No reason to keep her completely in the dark.

With nothing much left to investigate and other pressing matters to attend, you lock up the building and head out to Crazy Carl's. As always, the cowboy-themed used coffin dealership is lit up with a bright assortment of neon signs and AR advertisements ushering you into the building.

When you all enter, Carl is dressed in his usual ridculous cowboy duds with 10 gallon hat, a scarf around his face, heavy leather gloves, shades and spurs. He has you bring the ghouls in through the back so as not to attract attention from the streets. Taking a look at them he says, "I can feed ya'll on a very temporary basis, but I jest don't get enough product to be feeding ya'll in the long term. I'ma need some kind of an arrangement ta do that. Seeing as how most folk tend to prefer their product overcooked rather than rare, I jest don't get that much here."

Drumming his fingers together, he sighs and says, "The way I see things, ya'll have two options if this is gonna work. If'n ya'll can gets me product, say about one unit per week or so, that should be enough fer us all to get by if'n we ration it real careful like. Not everyone likes ta play butcher ta the cattle so I have one other option. Now there's a Jehovian church in town and them Jehovians are about 50/50 as far as whether they like their product rare or extra crispy. I don't have the means ta be checking their records, but if'n ya'll could promise to do that from time ta time, I could send these fellas ta pick up any unneeded shipments they may have gotten their hands on. " He gestures to the new ghouls.

"If we gots muscle to gather the meals and brains ta figure out when ta gets them, we SHOULD be set fer now, so long as ya'll don't start sending me every daggon meat lover in the country."

Though he is speaking in code, most of you understand that he wants either for you to deliver a body a week to his establishment to supplement the bodies he currently gets or regularly hack into the database of a local church to see when bodies have been buried so he can send the ghouls to go over and dig them up during the night. The majority of Desians get cremated instead of buried with the Jehovians being an exception to the rule. This is why he doesn't get as large a supply of dead bodiies as his business model would otherwise suggest.

Over the comms:

"This will be a good deal to have in case we need to dispose of...residuals...from our missions. I can try to help you hack in Sam, but I think you would probably be able to do it without me as well?"

"I won't be doing the hacking, so I can't speak for that... But it seems like a workable solution. At the least it doesn't involve hurting anyone except for their feelings. If they prov to be peaceful we can see about making more long term arrangements. It seems they worked in a research lab so may have useful skills. Please feel free to put them to work in any capacity you can to help pay their way, as well as myself. I know this is a grave (haha) imposition."

"Hopefully we will soon have other good news in the way of a long term solution. One of my team asked a demon for the ability to make a cure in exchange for a portion of his Ki. While I am mildly skeptical, she came through on all her other bargains. Once we have a chance to set him up with whatever he needs to make that happen I plan to test it out on those four. They don't strike me as the sort to stay peaceful in the face of adversity, and they contracted the condition doing experiments with the virus."

Fishing the gang sign out of his pocket and twirling it between his fingers, Sun wonders, more to himself than to anyone in particular. "Maybe the troll and his girlfriend can provide some groceries. They seem to have regular excess to deal with."

Ichigo looks at wujen in disbelief and looks at the floor quickly to try to hide his reaction!

Carl scratches his head while looking at Wujen and says, "Alright, I'm not right sure what yer goin on about but that sounds like mighty valuable work. So can we agree on one of them two deals then? I'm guessing the second. It's probably the easier fer ya'll folk. Definitely keeps yer hands clean at any rate."

He then turns to the ghouls and says, "Ya'll alright with digging up some fresh food?"

The "leader" says, "It's likely not fresh... but it will do."

"Alright," says Carl, "Ya'll can bunk in the back. I'll bring up some vittles in a bit."

The ghouls head through a door that Carl indicates and he says, "If ya'll plan on them staying here and gettin fed, we'll be needin them files or a shipment soon. Sooner the better, alright? Hunger does crazy things ta a man and you don't want them folk going crazy, got me?"

While sitting in the van, I go through the id badges from the different floors. Are they all the same company, same department? Also what rating is the commlink from the locker room and how many missed calls are there and when they started and possible stop date.

Taking a look at the badges, they all have the same Ankev logo on them, though they do have different security clearances with the highest ones belonging to the scientists on the highest floor. There is no particular department indicated on the badges though.

The commlinks are all currently out of battery and require charging (and probably a password) to see anything on them. They are of various brands and models, but none of them is exceptionally nice. ((standard core book model commlinks with device ratings from 1 to 3))