Act I: The Ship in a Bottle Job

"Zahid"

Everything seems to be evolving at the same time... Kamal puffs out his cheeks and lets out a long sigh as he gathers his thoughts. <Reasonance, please keep an eye on our Matrix visitor, and let me know if he begins any actual intrusion, instead of just sniffing the edges. Vegas, you're on Silver Phoenix. Keep him from making a move, but don't give yourself away too much, you're our best shot at picking whatever he obtains, and we need him not to suspect you. Kvasir, I am going to try to frustrate and stymie your target until we can determine his and her status. They could be a couple into roleplay for all we know. I want you on hand to intervene if things turn.>

Trusting his team to keep an eye on things, Kamal turns his attention to the Guest Files, running hallway cam grabs against the guest-list, looking for the 'apeman' and the woman with him. He hadn't checked yet, but hopefully the staterooms' locks were integrated into the security system...he intends to lock any door the man tries until he gives up...

Reasonance

Reasonance watched as the bull and the flower stumbled through the hallway towards a state room. He stopped the microdrone at the threshold of the room where it hovered for a moment before spinning and returning to the hallway where he claimed the bathroom as his bunker. Then Zahid's voice whispered through and Reasonance nodded once to the responsibility.

Without much more of a hesitation, Reasonance activated the passive scan of the hallway to ensure that he knew if someone else tried to enter the bathroom. After that was ready, he dropped the seat of the toilet and sat, getting as comfortable as possible.

There were only subtle clues that the technomancer had to go on, which told him he was now in Resonance instead of the meat world. He could smell the leaves of Yggdrasil and the scenery changed somewhat, depending on if his Reality Filter was on and to what degree it was translating. There was usually a tactile sense that a breeze was blowing, but he could never interpret if it smelled of the sea or of freshly soldered electronics.

Immediately, Reasonance checked to ensure that he was in the form of the satyr. Hooves? Check. Horns? Check. Hairier legs than normal? Check. He then let the pulses, chatterings, and flow of data trickle like rain over his head, through his fur, and to the ground. He pulled information from the flow like trees pull nourishment from the sun. He looked, analyzed, noted, and cross-referenced several issues at once, and let his programs do what they could on their own.

His intent was to establish a better track on the hacker lurking about the ship, to dive into a few technohavens and see if there were any tips or warnings about this style briefcase, and to make sure that no other unwanted presences had arrived.

Perception:
Dice Roll: 12d6s5
d6 Results: 4, 2, 3, 5, 2, 1, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 2 (Total Successes = 4)

Data Haven Search:
Dice Roll: 12d6s5
d6 Results: 6, 6, 6, 2, 3, 5, 3, 1, 2, 4, 5, 2 (Total Successes = 5)

Scan for Hidden Commlinks:
Dice Roll: 12d6s5
d6 Results: 4, 2, 5, 6, 1, 5, 1, 3, 4, 5, 3, 6 (Total Successes = 5)

Kvasir

Kvasir fingered a pill in his top pocket and took a deep breath as he watched the summoning circle pulsate in the astral plane. No, he reminded himself. The Z would relax him and make the magic easier, but also slow him down. He needed to keep his reflexes intact. They had no idea what was coming their way, but he expected it would require some quick thinking.

He shook off the craving and pondered what manner of spirit to summon. While the thought of a Valkyrie brandishing a blade in the brute's face made Kvasir grin, he knew that the shield maidens lacked the subtlety needed for dealing with the situation above deck. Two possibilities presented themselves. One would be to summon a ljossalfr, who were creatures of air and light, masters of illusion, quick thinking and subtle as spirits came. The other would be to summon a svartalfr, but this would require knowing a bit more to call the spirit with the right knack to crack the suitcase. As far as dealing with the brute in the next room, the dwarves also had penchant for creating the most unlikely and frustrating of mishaps...Kvasir shot off another message along the secure commlink connection.

Gotcha, Zahid. What do we have on that suitcase? We seem to be lacking the skill to crack it, but I think the spirit world could come to our aid if we knew what skills we need. Are we dealing with physical or electronic locks or both?

In the digital realms both Technomancers went to work. Zahid quickly started a game of cat and mouse with the thug and his would be "date," a game that Zahid was easily winning. It took but a fraction of his concentration and skill to ensure that each door was locked before the goon could reach a private area. He could see the growing frustration and anger in the goons face until he finally let out a wordless snarl of anger and dropped the woman on the floor in front of the seventh locked door he'd encountered. The goon exited the area below decks without a backward glance and was soon up on the deck once more, drowning his frustrations in gallons of expensive booze.

Meanwhile, Reasonance was on a little quest of his own. His first first task was locating the source of the subtle attempts at digital intrusion. This quickly led him to dozens of private comms on the ship, but that was to be expected. It was after all an elite party and most corporate executives were private individuals. Still, it was easy for him to separate the wheat from the chaff and before long he had two possible targets for the digital attempt.

Both comms were up on the deck and one neither one was attached to the man with the briefcase. One belonged to a slightly mousy woman who was scanning for signals and hidden comms while she chatted away with an average looking corporate executive. She was dressed modestly with thick black rimmed glasses and short curly hair. She looked the image of a slightly proper school marm, or maybe a high dollar college professor.

The other suspicious comm belonged to a sharply dressed businessman who was currently sitting alone at the bar. He had the far-away look of a man reading an AR display. His sharply cut van dyke beard and clever eyes marked him as fashion conscious and made him look inconspicuous.

His other task also bore fruit. It took him quite a while, but he managed to locate a small post in a data haven that spoke of a hidden security flaw in the briefcase. Evidently it was a closely kept secret that the manufacturers had a single override code that would unlock the suitcase. To date no one had actually managed to recover the code itself, but there was a definite back door into the case. All the team had to do was find it.

Reasonance

There were two people on this ship that were up to digital no good. Perhaps they were cybergrifters or digithieves or perhaps they were here for bigger endeavors - it didn't matter to Reasonance though, he was hired to be a technoguard and no one was getting away with cybercrimes on his watch. Within a few moments pictures of both of the possible problems were snapped from security cameras and transmitted out to the team using Reasonance's own encryption package, just in case they were intercepting traffic.

< < Listen up folks, looks like these two are scanning and digitizing on the sly. I've got them, but perhaps a bit of face to face would throw them off a bit. Zone of proximity and all. Get the beard boy some finger food. Insist that he try the ceviche toast because it is to die for. I am working a tip on the briefcase. > >

Immediately after the message was sent, Reasonance pings another message directly to Zahid.

Reasonance takes a moment to check his feelings, his sensors, and his alarms to ensure that he isn't too deep to feel these important indicators. He then begins to debate what he should do with the naughty school teacher - cat glasses happen to be one of his weaknesses after all.

Kvasir

Kvasir saw the images Reasonance flashed across his AR display and decided that his assistance may be needed above decks and he was likely to need some technical backup. He put the chalk to the floor and inscribed runes of wealth, possession and chance in the circle to draw in the greedy dvergar. He closed his eyes and chanted the galdr and three runes of binding.

"Fehu-othala-peorth-hagalaz-hagalaz-hagalaz"

Kvasir opened his eyes to find the misty figure of a dvergr wearing a topknot and golden hoops in his ears puffing on a long pipe in the middle of the summoning circle.

"Aye, what can I do ya for, matey?"

It only took the team a few minutest to turn their confusion into cold, hard data. Vegas was keeping a careful eye on the pickpocket and his vigilance was soon rewarded. The sly old elf wove his way through the crowd before promptly bumping into a rather drunk businessman. Vegas was keen-eyed enough to spot the lift and the businessman was none the wiser about the sudden robbery.

Then the elf did the most surprising thing: he turned and winked at Vegas before casually ambling over to the buffet table where Vegas was keeping watch. He proceeded to pile a plate with nibbles before turning to speak to Vegas. "Here, sir, I think you dropped this" he said quietly before handing over a small datachip that he had no doubt just stolen. He then mimed tipping a hat and sauntered away, all the while tapping the black commlink at his waist.

Meanwhile, below decks, Kvasir was easily able to summon one of the dvergar. After a short amount of negotiation he had a willing helper. Even better, the dvergar would likely be able to aid Kvasir in opening the briefcase. All he had to do was separate it from its current owner.

Zahid also managed to finally hit a bit of paydata. First of all, he now had files on the guardian of the strange briefcase. He had a rap sheet miles long, including a list of several bombings that had been linked to Humanis Policlub activity. By all accounts he was a ruthless and bigoted zealot who wanted nothing more than to wipe the world of anyone not strictly baseline and mundane human. And he was sitting on top of a very secret briefcase.

A briefcase that Reasonance had finally managed to crack, after dealing with the other digital intruders (that had taken all of two minutes of dedicated thought). It had been a near thing, but the virtual warrior had slipped inside the case and had managed to get a partial read of the datachip inside. And what he'd found hadn't been good.

The chip had detailed plans on how to create nearly invisible and highly bombs. The tech looked to be state of the art and incredibly dangerous. It would be hard to tell without hours of intense analysis, but it also appeared that the bombs could select for metatype.

"Zahid" All-Seeing Mastermind

LOCATION Small Bedroom PLOT POINTS ??

With a sigh, Kamal shifts on the narrow bed in the dark room belowdecks. Next time he will have to do a much more thorough check on the guest list...if there was a next time, this job had the potential to turn into a real mess.

<Update on Mr. Briefcase. He is now our primary focus, with the party as our second. He is a human supremacist with a nasty habit of blowing up anyone who doesn't fit his picture of pure-strain human. If you see an opportunity to separate him from the case, take it. I am going to review our guests for targets and accomplices.>

Gonna do a notice action to find anyone else who might be related to the situation, either as help to the Bomber or as a Target.

Intelligence + Mastermind + Files On Everyone:
Dice Roll: 1d10+1d10+1d8
d10 Results: 5 (Total = 7)

Huh. That didn't work. Maybe I need to glom the d10s?

Intelligence + Mastermind + Files On Everyone:
Dice Roll: 2d10+1d8
d10 Results: 10, 10 (Total = 21)

It didn't take long for Zahid to scan the crowd and compare them to his extensive files. After a few minutes of work he'd actually picked out two more potential problems. The first was a well-dressed human woman sitting on the upper decks at a small table. To all outward appearances she was fussing with her makeup, but Zahid could easily tell that her real attention was on an AR window. This was very likely one of the hackers that had been attempting to hijack the system earlier.

The second accomplice was a man shaped like a rather heavy duty refrigerator. He had no neck, massive muscles, and a heavy set brow that suggested more strength than intellect. Definitely hired muscle if his criminal files were any indication. He was currently standing a small distance from the main target, carefully scanning the crowd for any sign of trouble.

The rest of the guests were entirely legitimate of no threat to the team. Well, no threat beyond the need to keep them happy.

Spotting Targets

These guys are harder to spot, but still only get 2d8 for the roll. Given that the highest I can roll is a 16, Zahid is going to automatically win this contest.

Reasonance Technomaster

LOCATION At a satellite bar near the briefcase PLOT POINTS 2? 3?

The chip had detailed plans on how to create nearly invisible and highly bombs. The tech looked to be state of the art and incredibly dangerous. It would be hard to tell without hours of intense analysis, but it also appeared that the bombs could select for metatype.

The briefcase had almost no range what-so-ever in terms of the strength of its signal, so the lanky man needed to be close to it and the current custodian. There was the issue of not trying to be conspicuous as well as the thickly necked man who stood close to the mark as well. Reasonance decided to head outside the cabin where the bar and festivities had been happening, and stood on the other side of the wall from where the briefcase sit. It was close, but manageable, and the signal gave Reasonance just enough of a trail to follow.

The obscure post in a remote datahaven had proved true, and Reasonance was the first that he knew of to find the backdoor into the highly coveted briefcase. After finding the backdoor, the technomancer knew that he needed to establish a secure and quick way to re-access the briefcase on a physical level. He slid into the the security node of the breifcase and quickly accessed the passcode registry for this particular case. There were three numbers coded into the registry already - if he had the time or another briefcase like this one, he would be able to determine the actual manufacturer's universal code. For the time being though, Reasonance settled to add one more code to the registry and pinged Zahid the number as well. That would at least get them access into the briefcase once it was in physical custody. As an afterthought, the technomancer also made a slight alteration to the three other codes in the registry as well - he added the number 8 as a final digit to the end of each one.

After easing out of the case, Reasonance returned to his meat body and slid back into the cabin of the boat and finding his way back to the small bathroom that he had sought as refuge earlier. He then pinged an encrypted message to each of the crew.

Incoming Message

<<< FYI, we have access to the case when needed. If it comes up and you need to get in quick, use the address of our last planning place as the passcode. Furthermore, I have added another digit to the end of the other passcodes in the case, so if you are in a situation where the mark is trying to access it and you need him to, offer that info as "common knowledge" to him.>>>

Collin Aiden Chattham	Reasonance	Hacker
Abilities Agility: d8 Alertness: d10 Intelligence: d10 Strength: d6 Vitality d6 Willpower: d8	Roles Grifter: d4 Hacker: d10 Hitter: d8 Mastermind: d4 Thief: d6	Distinctions Some days are highs and some days are lows, but Resonance know which are which and how to deal with them via medication, meditation, or focusing on reality. Bi-Polar Due to most of his childhood being spent talking with therapists, Reasonance has an excellent understanding of how to break down people's meanings and intents and use psychology against them. Child of Therapy Technology speaks to Reasonance - he understands how things work, interact with each other, and create the mesh grid of information communication. He can be a beacon for sprites and other Resonance-based entities. TechProdigy TBD Ratotaskr Stream
Talents You're a 104-key-slinging cowboy, and it's high noon. Draw. Role: Hacker Activation: You're making a role including your Hacker die, and your opposition is another human computer expert rather than an automated security system or computer network. Effect: Your expertise with real-time dueling with another Hacker gives you an additional d8 in your roll. Are You Gonna Log In or Whistle Dixie? You can compile new complex forms on the fly, letting you adapt to changing situations. Role: Hacker Activation: You may activate this Talent at any time when you are in full VR, once per scene. Effect: You may replace one of your existing Hacker Specialties with a different one. The change last for the duration of the scene, at which point the Specialty reverts back to its previous form Threading Role: Any Activation: Your primary Role is one of the dice in your roll, and the Fixer gives your an Opportunity. Effect: When your Fixer give you an Opportunity, you gain an additional d6 on your roll. Recalculate your result if appropriate. Opportunist	Specialties Dronomancer (Hacker) d6 Cooking (Hitter) d6 Cybercombat (Hitter) d6	Signature Assets This is his Daihatsu Horseman.The self-modified, one-man mobile X factor touts an armored body, chameleon abilities, a drone rack, and a rather nasty hidden Ares MP-LMG. Anthroform (d6) Reasonance has cobbled together several reliable drones ranging from micro recorder drones, to drone-hunters, to a flying drone equipped with a Pain Inducer. Slew of Drones (d6)