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Maynard FP: 5 Maynard's already been awake for eight hours by the time he walks through the front doors - first he was called in to identify prospective suspects in a disappearance, then to help interrogate an amateur magician who killed his partner in an abusive fit, and then to do some text analysis on a bomb threat sent to a police station near the Deng Xiaoping arc. Now he's here, at Shenlong Books, to look at pictures of dead people in the secret basement. More likely, though, the team's just been assigned to one of the more serious, occult problems in this godforsaken city, and instead of finishing up his day looking at pictures of dead people in an office he's going to start his night looking at actual dead people at a crime scene. He nods wearily at the group when he sees them. "Evening. You got some more of that tea?" UnCO3 posted:Agent Maynard Song of the Office of Occult Intelligence Criminal Psychology Unit UnCO3 fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Apr 23, 2013 |
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Apr 23, 2013 03:25
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Maynard FP: 5 "I owe you one. Again." One of the good things about this team is that you can rely on people for a drink. Spirits, tea, wine, coffee; there's always some around, good quality too. He pours a cup of green tea and slumps into a chair. "Kimber must be held up somewhere. Normally she gets to places before I do."
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Apr 23, 2013 03:42
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Maynard FP: 5 Maynard sips his tea and takes a closer look at the images. The weariness is gone, replaced by focus. "If he worked with Unity, he may have gotten too close to a criminal operation of theirs and they took him out to keep their secrets - or they could've had a contractor take him out. Do we have his recent correspondance yet? What about recent purchases or financial info? How did he seem the last time the OOI checked up on him? Basically, did he act like he thought he was in danger?" Then the music cuts in. "God damnit Aidan, turn it off." He takes another sip to hide the slight grin that's forming on his lips. Well, in a job like this, you take the humour you can get... but now isn't the time. They can save the jokes for after the case.
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Apr 24, 2013 15:55
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Maynard FP: 5 While the others talk, Maynard sets down the cup and puts his hands the holo-screen, then starts shifting the images and drawing up new windows. Pretty soon he's got a timeline set up. code:Using Lore and checking out the ritual circle: 4dF+5 3. Based on the images they have, he's trying to answer questions like these: What's it drawn in? Does Maynard recognise the language? What general change was the performer trying to effect, and on what target? Edit: this is assuming we have a picture of the ritual circle from the police craft up on the screen somewhere. If we don't then I guess we better get to that rooftop.
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Apr 24, 2013 20:23
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Maynard FP: 5 Maynard scans the timeline onto his uPod, checks his gun and he's ready to go. "So, we check the point of death and the rooftop, then his residence when we get the address, then look into Wukong and maybe Unity Inc. too if we haven't made sense of this by that point."
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Apr 26, 2013 02:55
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Maynard FP: 5 The police and then OOI containment lines let him through when he flashes his ARID, and he mentions to some of the cops to keep video tabs on the crowd - if this is a murder case, the killer could've come back to the scene. While he's searched more than a few bodies in his career, he leaves San to this one, as his own talents are better applied on the roof. He makes his way into the building and away from the gawkers and troopers. One short lift ride later, then through the emergency door and he's out by the ritual site and a little more in his element. "So what do we have here," he mutters, then takes a sip of tea while surveying the scene. This would've been where Lin came out. So, if he was the one who drew the circle he was probably the one who set up the projector, which means the laptop would be his, or stolen. Then he'd have drawn the circle over here, and fell from there... Maynard would check the laptop right away, but he knows how paranoid sorcerers are about their porn or whatever else they don't want people to see. Who knows what kind of hosed up traps there could be on there - one time when he was working on a serial murder case, a rookie CSA took a look at the wizard suspect's PC and ended up vomiting cockroaches for half an hour. Of course, there's one easy way to find out whether Lin drew the circle. He posts on the team's AR noticeboard - San should've done the preliminary check on the corpse now, and Santiago's been up in the air long enough to have at least some data on the rooftop. [MSong: Does Lin have chalk on his fingers/hands/cuffs? Any in his pockets? Any personal electronics that might have the decryption for his calls?] [MSong: Santiago, what do you see?] Going up and checking out the rooftop: 4dF+5 6 (using Occult Profiling/Investigation to look for general clues - signs of a possible fight, any signs of anomalous gravity being exerted on anything on the roof, anything else that might be important). I'm also checking the circle - now that he's up close, does he have any better idea as to what they were trying to draw in? Are any of the non-standard runes for this ritual associated with any creatures he's aware of? Also, telling the cops to keep a discreet eye on the crowd and get us some video footage if they can.
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Apr 27, 2013 01:10
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Maynard FP: 5 A ritual that takes time to complete, seclusion from civilians and other observation, a hasty fight. The roof is relatively open, the crates are pushed toward the side Lin fell from, and he didn't end up too close to the building. So he was conducting the ritual up here, got attacked, a fireball flew wide... considering the trajectory Lin couldn't have been the one who shot it. That sort of fireball doesn't leave bleeding wounds, so these bloodstains might be the assailant's. Whatever shifted the crates was very different in effect to the fireball, could be multiple attackers were up here. Then Lin was pushed over the edge by whatever compelling force shifted the rest of this junk. He could've been stunned at some point, explaining the first few seconds of the video. As for the assailants' course of actions - if there are wards at his home, or they didn't know where he lived, they would've tried attacking him elsewhere. He had this ritual planned though, and if they had him under close surveillance they might've known and laid in wait - there's enough cover here to ambush someone. Maybe they were pursuing or hunting him, and maybe he knew about that, and maybe that was what he was going to ask about with the ritual, but that's a lot of maybes. In any case, Lin fought back, it wouldn't have been that easy to kill him alone. So there were probably multiple assailants - one distracted or disabled him, the other killed him. Professional, or cunning at least. San's messages pop up and things shift into focus a little more. They went for the neck - they knew what they were doing. Almost certainly professionals. Considering the bank balance that hasn't been accounted for, maybe he was working with the triads after all, or getting paid by them at least, and when he did something to piss them off they sent some hitmen who tracked him here. pre:MSong: Aidan there is only one likely suspect you don't need my help with this one
MSong: in any case, suspect 1 is a sorcerer, could be injured/bleeding.
Suspect 2 has wind/gravity/kinetic control or similar, could also be injured/bleeding.
Suspect 2 could be a servitor of Ithaqua or a poltergeist or similar.
Could be the same person as suspect 1 but unlikely.
MSong: can we get security footage of the entrance? Suspect/s arrived on the roof mid-ritual. Probably came here shortly before.
Bank transaction details on the unexpected money would also be good - could be triad fronts sending money through him.Asking for recent security footage of entrances to the building. Also asking San and/or Zhong to check out the transactions in more detail, seeing if they can trace any odd transactions to specific sources.
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Apr 27, 2013 16:26
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Maynard FP: 5 Maynard looks up from the the little digital dancing Aidan: "Only the latest in Ashcroft Foundation precision anti-magic. Were you able to get an ID from any of the bloodstains?"
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Apr 27, 2013 22:47
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Maynard FP: 5 "Actually without a mask you could contract that Martian brain-necrotising parasite. Chances of that are a billion to one though, but most of the terrestrial patients were in the SEAA. As for the reason these people killed Lin, that might depend on the entity he was trying to get in touch with. Speaking of that, let me check... I might have something on the specific formation here. This rune here, not the one that looks like a dick, the other one, it's unusual, but I think I've seen it before. Something like it, at least. Could lead to identifying the ritual's subject." He opens an AR window into his library - partly OOI and partly academic - and scrolls down the list, past texts with titles like Neuromechanism: Recruitment Methods of the Post-Soviet Machine Cults and Towards a Novel Azathothian Eschatology, until he gets to the list of papers from his uni days. A few of them were definitely on ritual runes... Examining the ritual circle: 4dF+5 6 (using Lore), spending an FP to invoke Faculty Wars for a +2. Compelling No Stranger to Death at the same time (freaking out Feiyun) for a FP.
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Apr 28, 2013 10:26
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Maynard FP: 5 "God damnit Aidan, you're gonna traumatise her," he mutters. Then the realisation hits: "Wait, gently caress." pre:MSong: Kim, Aidan and I are terrible and we'll need your help soon. MSong: but Aidan's more terrible let's just get that clear.
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Apr 28, 2013 11:10
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Maynard FP: 5 "Unless he was a re-animated corpse. Does West Solutions have any compounds in the SEAA? Actually, given how portable WS materials are, the second suspect could've come from anywhere..." Something clicks in his mind as 'Martian necrotic parasite' and 'suspect possibly outside NEG' collide. "Mars. Our second suspect could be from Mars. The Federation's semi-independent, the NEG wouldn't necessarily have records on its citizens." Academic papers keep on cascading down his peripheral vision as the library loads up another batch.
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Apr 28, 2013 12:57
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Maynard FP: 5 "...Careful with that cough, you'll probably give Li a scare if she hears you. Anyway, I think we can leave this place to her and everyone else - we can check up on their progress later. The apartment should give us a better look into Lin's state of mind before he came here." He makes a mental note to ask for the police footage of the crowd. "Oh, did you find the decryption for his recent calls anywhere?" The library comes up front-and-centre in his vision again and he marks a note about the other two books of Hsan, then loads up another search, this time for information extra-spatiotemporal entities like Shuizn. Is there anything about Shuizn or similar entities in the database? Their capabilities, their links with other entities, what specific sorts of pacts they accept and so on. Lore and Scholarship probably apply here. Also asking about the phone decryption so we can listen to his recent calls.
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Apr 28, 2013 14:24
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Maynard FP: 5 It's not too unusual for wizards to build up some kind of framework to make sense of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, but role-playing games is a new one for Maynard. He takes a sip of tea and starts leafing through the documents, trying to get a grip on Lin's mental framework. Investigating these documents: 4dF+5 5 (using Occult Profiling, looking at everything available). How far does Lin take the rpg metaphor? What terms did he use to refer to the people who were tracking him? What about regular people? Any other clues?
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May 10, 2013 12:54
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