Aeon Campaign S3E3 – Mission Impossible, Mission Trivial

1. Reforging the sword is to be part of today’s game; Christopher said that last week. I’m assuming this is more than just spot-welding, so there’s some game to be had there. Might need a new piece of orichalcum, frex.
2. We should probably pull a data dump of the Blue Sky HQ, which means another infiltration. While that data tap is very very tasty, I think we should consider assuming at some point that it’s outlived its usefulness or will be discovered and turned against us.
3. We should “triangulate” on the Blue Sky Scarface by using our most recent data pull (see above) with external computer hacking in order to identify a few nexuses (nexi? Nexuses.) of possible activity, and then take the fight to them. 
4. My preferred tactic would not be hitting Scarface directly, but acting to simultaneously make his life difficult in three to five places. Disrupting two of his current operations, making inroads on two more of his bases or depots where he’s NOT going to be present, plus an informational and/or psychological warfare trick or two.

With that in mind, I’ll suggest the following:

• Find an important ally of his and defeat him. (Arc Light to do computer fu to find, Commander and Rat Queen to scout, Team to fight)
• Find an important location of his and destroy or incapacitate it. (Commander and Rat Queen to Find, Team to Destroy)
• Contact our grey-market acquaintances and allies and pay them to disrupt his activities. (Eamon, Zephyr, Onyx, and Katana will all be helpful here)
• Try and ferret out some internal dissent within Blue Sky and turn them against Scarface, so he has internal issues as well as external. We could even plant evidence in our data dump packet of internal dissent that isn’t there. (Eamon and Arc Light to create, Commander, Rat Queen, and Zephyr to plant)
• I don’t think we’ve been exploiting the sorcery angle enough. Zephyr should brainstorm on how we can use the surging magical power for good rather than evil.

Anyway, we need orichalcum for the sword, and Zephyr (the evil one, who is our one) fails the roll . . . but his good twin argues that that isn’t how you do a magic circle, this is how we do a magic circle. And he makes his roll.

A GM-NPC has never been so much fun. 

“Yeah, you keep talking, but here you are straining, and here I am makin’ magic in your circle.”

Merlin has had quite enough of this, and he has extra karma to burn. So . . . 

There’s quite a bit of orichalcum in the Van Dorian industries building downtown – they came up with super-suits in the setting, so they have it. And they know the only orichalcum mine in the world, which they keep as a closely-guarded facility.

Oh, and there’s a bunch of it in the Blue Sky building outside of town.

Yes. That sounds like both what we need, and who it need it from. 

Zephyr and Other Zephyr start arguing about who’s Dr Evil and who’s Mr Bigglesworth.

We have plans for the building from our last data tap. If we successfully eliminate the Blue Skies source, they’ll have to get more if they want to keep outfitting their supers. So Blue Skies would have to go to Van Dorian’s facility or the secret mine to get more, which makes them predictable and would allow us to start taking the initiative.

We make the call to Eamon’s contact so we can try and get a meeting with van Dorian himself. We don’t lie, but we definitely are cagey with our information. Eamon has to burn two karma to make van Dorian in NYC in a convenient way; The Commander spends two karma to make Tokugawa and he old friends, or at least acquaintances. Actually, I don’t, because the GM is evil and they already knew each other.

Tokugawa can’t make it – he’s in the process of bringing every useful swordsmith in Japan to me, since (for plot reasons) I can’t be in Japan. 

We head over to the Van Dorian building to a very secret room using a very secret approach method, and we’re informed by a helpful AI that our appointment is in 10 minutes . . . and the computer is very, very confused by the two Zephyrs.

We’re greeted by a receptionist on the top floor, and we’re invited to sit. In a bit, van Dorian comes out, an older gentleman who looks like he just worked out.

We introduce ourselves: Luca Damini (Arc Light), Ian Owari, The Rat Queen, Zephyr, Evil Zephyr – a redundant backup, perhaps.

We show him the broken sword, Eamon’s unbroken sword, and lay out the concept. Deplete Blue Skies’ orichalcum reserves, then Blue Skies will have to go get more, which means Van Dorian. So . . . bringing him in on the deal.

He asks if we’re basically telling him we’re going to commit a crime. No, we have reason to believe this stuff is being used to commit crimes, so between Civil Asset Forfeiture and strategic military action, we can take it.

Van Dorian shows us a file that shows that there are three stockpiles that Blue Skies has, plus one location that has re-engineered refining equipment based off of Van Dorian’s designs. Some crazy Russian (a meta called The Engineer) did it for them. It blows up frequently. I spend two karma to make him a wanted man already by the government.

I critically succeed on an Intel Analysis roll, and we put together the plan from our own data as well. There are facilities in Florida, Norfolk, and NYC. 

Van Dorian agrees to send a team to Florida. We send Onyx (karma spent to force the appearance roll), Katana, and the NPC Zephyr to Norfolk so that my SEAL allies will have competent leadership and metahuman backup. 

We first raid the Blue Skies facility again.

• Zephyr goes in and managed to snag a few high-access keycards, and a success helps infiltration
• Arc Light, Eamon, and the Rat Queen all make equally good rolls
• I roll vs a base skill of 29, roll a 6, and with help the net is I make it by 27, overwhelming the -10 BAD and managing to hide the data tap even deeper than last time.
• We also use some of that extra mojo to try and determine the algorithm by which they program the security in the keycards. He spends karma, making it an auto-crit. We have a universal superuser access card, and it’s off the books.

The Commander gets Arc Light in by making a Stealth roll by 15; Arc Light gets inside the security room and disables the cameras. Our magical mystery keycards take care of the rest.