Mister Vampire

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 1:44 am

Adel winces. It wasn't supposed to go like that. Time to kiss ass.

"I apologize, Exarch. I was worried, needlessly it seems, that you would insist that I find an expert without your assistance. My former employers delighted in head games like that. It was foolish of me to think it of you when you have been nothing but generous."

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:36 pm

"So long as I have your loyalty, you needn't fear being honest with me," the Exarch says, "there's nothing to be gained in refusing to coordinate the talents of my own people. I'll make some calls, but I make no promises. Keep investigating, and keep me updated."

Is Harley doing anything for the next few hours? If not, we can go ahead and resolve the various investigations.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:17 am

In the absence of anything particular to do with the actual plot, she'd just go back to her normal routine with a "call me if you need me." So she's probably at home feeding her baby Mothra and cooking up some new inventory.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:15 pm

Andrus gets 1 success. His friend of a friend knows only the broadest strokes of what's going on in the Goblin Market and hasn't got a clue whether or not any specific merchandise was sold off.

A spectacularly unlucky J-Rock gets 0 successes on his efforts to persuade his friends at the police department to run the forensic analysis, but thinking about it I've decided that since you paid for the Contacts you can just have a favor. For matching names and descriptions to LA's criminal element, he gets 3 successes.

One of the boot prints comes back as belonging to Santiago Ortega, who's got a rap sheet of breaking and entering, petty thievery, drug dealing, and other crimes on the shallow end of being felonies. He's a member of MS-13, one of the street gangs opposed to the Ulmians (without knowing it, of course; they just don't get along with the Ulmians' mortal pawns). Possibly backed by the White Lotus, who have an interest in being the only supernatural criminals in the city, or another supernatural faction who want a few mortal pawns lined up and ready to go in case the Ulmians come down for an enemy faction. The other robbers also come out as members of MS-13.

Romero's one success with his own LA Crime search for relevant information only gives him some vague rumors from las Calaveras about a ratman who's been making waves with some of the rival gangs. Given what J-Rock dug up, it's a safe bet that this ratman is directly involved with MS-13 (and possibly others), but unfortunately the rumors he's dug up are too vague to do much other than cement the idea that they're definitely on the right track.

EDIT: And it has just now occurred to me that I never said what time it was when the investigation started, and therefore have no idea what time it is now, except in that it is three or four hours after that. Unless someone is going to protest, I'm going to put the first meetup at sunset because that's thematically appropriate, so now it's about midnight.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 11:13 pm

Actually it hadn't occurred to me at the time, but Harley could actually contribute to the investigation with her background in the Black Market, possibly even Cybercrime (through The Silk Road). So can we say that she made a few inquiries with her contacts and assets about any old books being sold or asked about? She also has Faerie Circles as a background, so may as well check if any in the area have been used recently (I would imagine it'd be something like "hey, forest hobo, has anyone suspicious been lurking around the stone ring about a half mile from here?")

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 12:07 am

Sure. Three successes investigating local supernatural black markets hasn't revealed anything, which tells a story on its own. If these thieves are fencing through the usual channels, they've done a very good job covering their tracks. With five hits on Cybercrime she is able to determine that there is likewise no mention of any of the missing items at places like Sheep and Black Market Reloaded. And also that Silk Road has been taken down by the FBI. Two successes on investigating the Faerie Circles similarly reveals that no, there hasn't been any unusual traffic. The White Lotus goes in and out of the place all the time, and there's occasional passage by a few members of the False Face who've hung around, but that's not unusual.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 1:25 am

Ok, well at least I feel like I've contributed now.

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Tue Nov 12, 2013 6:16 pm

J-Rock phones up the others and calls a meet. It's time to put our cards together and see what kind of a hand we have.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:34 am

(sorry for not posting much, was busy with a lot of unforeseen crap last week)

Romero will make sure to restock his car with his favorite everyday household monster hunting tools--bags of patio sand, salt pellets, grass seed, gardening gloves and a spray bottle filled with rubbing alcohol before heading to the meet.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Nov 18, 2013 3:25 pm

Some wasted hours later, Andrus will purchase and destruction-test a teddy bear before stocking his car with the standard sand, seeds, and salt for a bear hunt. Er, monster hunt.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 5:23 pm

Once we have compared notes Romero will suggest staking out Ortega's last known place of residence. I'd suggest we dowse first before using any sorcery.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Dec 03, 2013 3:56 pm

Harley will hand the name off to her hacker contacts and see what concrete info they can get her, leaving them with promises of hallucinagins or other product of choice.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Wed Dec 04, 2013 7:57 am

After concluding things with the Exarch, Adel goes to the meetup.

"A stake-out sounds good to me. I'll bring my dousing supplies."

((I'm assuming a person can only douse for one kind of sorcery at once. While at the stake-out, Adel uses his mayflies to look for Orphic magic, since that's what he's best at [Dicepool 10 for Orphic, Dicepool 7 otherwise]. If someone else wants to operate the magnet or the bottle of water, that would be lovely.))

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Thu Dec 05, 2013 2:17 am

J-Rock nods. "Fine. We stake out Ortega's for a while. If nothing major jumps out at us, we go in and have ourselves a little...chat."

(If we get any results from the stakeout, J-Rock has 5 dice for Shadowing. If using Intuition, his total dicepool is 10 - if using Agility, it is 9. If it looks like Ortega is going to bolt or start any trouble, J-Rock will roll in there and get smashy.)

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Dec 07, 2013 8:15 pm

Ortega is living out of a small house over in Eastside. According to official records it belongs to his uncle, but there's no (immediately obvious) sign of anyone there when you arrive at around 1 AM. Ortega might still be out. If anyone wants to do anything before he shows (specifically I'm thinking of other people want to try and dowse as per Grek's suggestion), now is the time.

Adel gets a pair of hits on his Orphic dowsing; no results. There doesn't seem to be anything specifically magical about this guy's house.

EDIT: Oh, also, all Harley's hacker friends can tell her about some random lowlife is what they can get from hacking the LAPD, which, seeing as how you already have a guy on the inside, is kind of redundant.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Dec 08, 2013 4:04 am

If Romero can be treated as having hitched a ride with J-Rock, that'd be cool--I figure that way he can more easily coordinate with his goon squad by cell if necessary rather than be distracted by driving. Also, he doesn't want any Ulmi directly on scene making a suspicious convoy or anything, he he just wants a couple hit men in their own vehicles in the general neighborhood in case something weird happens and he needs a lift.

Once they near the place he'll pull out his water bottle, string and magnet and start checking for infernal & astral magic (pool of 11).

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Sun Dec 08, 2013 7:46 pm

If the place looks deserted, J-Rock will snoop around the place a little bit. He has 15 dice for Investigation.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:09 pm

Andrus will keep an eye out for J-Rock, casting his image and sounds 2 meters down into the ground with Holistic Ventriloquism. By my count he has 12, maybe 13 dice for Stealth (Shadowing) assuming it uses Agility.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:56 am

Once he's done with his initial dowsing attempts Romero will pick a good hiding place (maybe not even leaving the car?) and watch for activity with his supernatural senses/wait for a signal from the others. He's got 11 dice for acting as a spotter and a pool that ranges anywhere from 10 to 16 dice for sitting around unnoticed--10 if you think the test depends on picking the right spot (Intuition) and shadow casting won't help all the way up to 16 if it's agility based and he can do his light bending shenanigans.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 2:03 am

Alright. Romero gets 4 successes for the astral magic detection and 5 on infernal (damn he is good with the dowsing gear tonight). Astral comes up blank, though the water does go dark when Andrus goes invisible. You'll definitely know it if anything supernatural goes down anywhere nearby, though, although if it's Orphic you won't have any clear idea of where.

Andrus and J-Rock fortunately don't require any Stealth rolls; the place is indeed deserted. J-Rock gets 4 hits to investigate the place. The most obvious clue would be the meth lab in the basement (it's a good thing J-Rock doesn't need to breathe; Andrus might want to stay out). It's what you'd expect from a druggie hangout, dangerous ingredients left unlabeled in little piles, completely unsanitized equipment lying around, and paraphernalia that suggest this guy smokes his meth rather than injecting.

There's a small shrine in the bedroom closet. The center of the shrine is a cheap statue of a rat, and there's spray tags on the back wall not belonging to MS-13 or any other gang J-Rock's familiar with, which bears a loose resemblance to a rat's head in appearance.

The pocket of a discarded pair of jeans in a bathroom contains a small statue of Santa Muerte. Judging by the position of the similarly discarded shirt nearby, they were removed at the same time, and judging by the wrinkles on that, they haven't been touched in three or four weeks.

Romero, waiting out in the car parked inconspicuously a fair distance away, gets 2 successes to spot the returning Ortega in a car which is the exact inverse of his house: Big, expensive, and thumping with bass rather than small, cheap, and deathly quiet. Really, it wasn't really spotting the car that was hard so much as it was identifying the license plate from far enough away that he could warn Andrus and J-Rock while Ortega was still a block away.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:06 pm

Andrus has Patience of the Mountains, so breathing is not a restraining bolt. Despite being invisible he still cowers somewhere, and sends a text to Romero asking what's the next move. (Stealth 10 if I'm not Shadowing, I believe.)

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:16 pm

Romero will text back "Stay hidden and booze him when he's in the house or if you hear me talking."

If Romero can target Ortega with Curse of Failure (Covert sorcery, 11 dice, targets Will+Edge) as the car approaches the house he'll take a moment to do that. If Ortega's got a driveway or parking is tight Romero will start up J's car and box him into his own parking space once Ortega inside the house before entering himself. If doing any of that causes Ortega to just walk right back out of the house again before a ruckus starts Romero will fire up Attract (8 dice) to get him to listen and then use babble (again, 8 dice) to basically fast talk his way into the house and keep him distracted long enough for Andrus & J to nab him him and/or booze him (Both Attract and catching people unawares can remove defense pools, after all). I'm thinking the subject matter would be something about the situation being complicated because Reyes already managed to run his mouth and rat Ortega out.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 1:02 am

While Romero is doing that, Adel is going to hunker his meat body down in the car, out of sight. A dozen of his scorpions will advance toward the house, with Small Witness on one of them, to keep an eye on things and to sting Ortega if shit suddenly goes south.

echoVanguard · Post by **echoVanguard** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 1:47 am

Warned by Romero's text, J-Rock will pick a nice hiding spot near the entrance to get the drop on Ortega (7 dice for Stealth). If he can successfully sneak up on Ortega after he's entered the house, J-Rock will loom up on him out of the darkness and settle his hash but good (15 dice for fisticuffs).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Dec 11, 2013 4:23 am

((sorry, been a busy-ish week. Can we assume Harley's in the car with Romero?))