CSB

Game Master RinValak

I think I should be updated, I'm not too worried about the fire arm proficiency... I figure if something goes down it'll be mostly useful as a distraction. That location sounds great, that's where she'll post up and chill till somebody comes looking for her

Limps across the driveway, shirtless, carrying the stretcher he's zip-tied to. Keeps looking over his shoulder nervously.

Seems to be making a break for it, though not quickly in his injured state.

Sang-mi climbs out of the loft, heads down and intercepts the 'fleeing' Staley.
"Frank! what are you doing out here? do you want to get shot again?" She says looking around as she jogs up toward him.

He didn't get very far in the time it took you to climb down and intercept him, only about halfway down the dirt driveway. He nearly jumps out of his skin when you speak up, holding the stretcher up defensively.

"W-what!? Who are you people? Let me go!" and tries to limp along faster.

"Frank, stop. If we we're trying to kill you why would our guy patch you up? Come now, somebody shot you.."
She points to his injury.
"Do you know who would do this? Please, come inside, we'll get you juice and talk this over." she steps between him and the road, watching that direction in case anyone is coming.

Gimme a Persuasion roll

persuasion: 1d20 ⇒ 2

I wanna opt to use Trissae's persuasion XD

"Yeah, YOU shot me you crazy b#*!%!" he stumbles a bit as he turns and keeps 'escaping'. You can see his bandages are soaked with fresh blood.

You could probably catch him before he got to the main road at an even pace, or you could try to push yourself to overtake him quicker with an Athletics check. Let me know what you're doing, and what you do when you catch up to him if you're chasing him down.

Athletics: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (19) + 3 = 22

Sang-mi attempts to blaze past Frank, once again putting herself between him and the road.
"Frank! Stop! Seriously, someone out dere is trying to kill you. My guy also took a bullet from deh shooter. Come back inside! Trust me, you want me to take you back before Mark comes out here, he will be less nice!" She pleads with him.

Persuasion mark2: 1d20 ⇒ 18

"Oh come on..." Frank complains when you easily overtake him and block his path. There's a moment he seems to consider hitting you with the stretcher and making another break for it, but gives up.

He doesn't say anything more, just dejectedly goes back inside with you. When you go inside, Mark is jogging down from upstairs, and looks at Frank annoyed. "I take my eye off him for two seconds--what happened?"

Frank weakly plops down onto a sofa-chair. He's got the stretcher across his lap, still zip tied to his wrist. "So who the hell are you people if you didn't try to kill me? You don't look like you're from the Outfit. And who shot me?"

"What did you expect Frank? You're injured, tied to dat, and American." She chuckles as they walk back.

Once inside she attempts to help Frank but realizes he's not interested. "Oh, nothing, He just needed some fresh air."

As Frank asks his questions she looks to Mark."He's bleeding again, do we have a doctor on the way yet? I'm going to get him some water, do you mind handling this?" She says before heading toward the kitchen to fetch Frank a glass of water.

Mark takes an impressive looking combat knife from a sheath on his belt and approaches Frank, who freezes. "Relax," Mark says, annoyed, as he cuts the zip tie attaching Frank to the stretcher.

He sheathes the knife and starts changing out the soaked bandages, and re-stitching any broken stitches, "All you need to know right now is that we saved your life. You'd be laying dead outside the FBI if it weren't for us. And you're not a prisoner, not really. But people want you dead out there, and we're going to do our jobs."

Elliot is standing there too when you return with the water.

"No doctor coming. No one knows we're out here--"

He stops, listening.

"Unless we were followed and didn't see them..."

It takes a moment, but you hear it too, engines, and tires bumping down a dirt road. Doesn't sound like motorcycles.

Sang-mi walks to the windows near the front and peers just around the corner of it to keep herself hidden.

Just in case perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18

OOC Note, I didn't get the impression Sang-mi took the machinegun to chase after Frank, so I'm ruling it's still up in the barn, set up on its bipod.

Outside you see a line of pickup trucks parking all around the farmhouse, big expensive ones with tinted windows. Elliot rushes over to the other side of the window and peeks out too, cursing. He says quietly, "I f+%*ed up, I didn't see them follow us."

Mark claps him on his injured shoulder, making him wince. "I should thank you, I was starting to get bored." A little sarcastic, but not entirely. He goes to a phone and picks it up..."It's dead, they cut the line already, probably from the road."

Frank looks completely freaked out, "What? What!? Who? Who the f~#$ is out there? G-give me a gun, please."

"Looks like...cartel. See the prison tattoos?" Elliot says before putting his back to the wall and taking his pistol from his belt. He ignores Frank.

Mark looks longingly out the window at the van, "All our f$&~in' guns..."

MAP

It feels like the calm before a storm. There's a few quiet voices outside, speaking Spanish, but otherwise it's silent. They aren't making a move to rush the place, just taking cover behind their trucks and aiming guns at the farmhouse.

"Elliot, get Frank somewhere safe! Mark, I'll pop smoke between deh house and barn. Make a break for it, I'll cover you. Machine gun is in loft with great view!" She grabs her smoke grenade and readies it waiting for his response.

You devious monster! Had to distract me with Frank didn't you!?

Elliot grabs Frank's arm, "Afraid we don't have enough guns for the whole class," and takes him upstairs.

Mark nods and holsters his pistol, readying up beside the front door.

Someone outside speaks up with a spanish accent, "I am going out on a limb to say, that you are professionals. Yeah? Mercenaries? So let's make a deal. Give up Frank, and I'll give you half of what the Outfit promised you, plus you get to walk away with your lives. Otherwise, well, it's just business, you understand."

Mark shakes his head to you and gets ready to open the door for you to throw the smoke out.

Once the stage is set Sang-mi quickly tosses the smoke out the door while drawing her pistol. Once Mark has dumped out, she starts firing into the area where the voice came from to cover him.

The smoke provides Total Concealment (attacker blind; total darkness; smoke grenade; dense fog at 10 ft.), a 50% miss chance

The voices outside rise in a moment of panic when a grenade-like object is tossed out, and you hear weapons cock, ready to shoot. Once smoke fills the area the men start firing into the smoke, at the door and porch, where someone might come out. Mark ducks down a little as shots slam into the doorframe near him--then he makes a run for the barn.

Make your attack(s) with disadvantage

You hear multiple grunts of pain and lead thudding into a body, and a heavy thud and tumble on the porch, but can't see anything and the constant gunfire forces you to take cover.

Eventually the gunfire slows and stops, and it's silent. You still can't see a thing through the smoke for another minute or so. Elliot still hasn't come back down from upstairs. It's just you, against what sounds like an army by the volume of gunfire they just rained onto the house.

A voice speaks up again, and you can't tell if it's the same one or not. "Okay, okay then. Not a bad try. One quarter of what the Outfit offered and the rest of you get to live. Consider it."

okay, I'm going to need to pause and unpack some info here.
1. How many 'rounds'/ how quickly do I hear the thud
2. If I fire once a round how many shots is that (remember I'm shooting for suppression)
3. She wouldn't wait for the fog to clear before acting again, especially some 10 rounds. She'd stop firing after hearing the thud.
4. After reading blind, and under these circumstances RaW because both attacker and defender are affected, the attacker is provided advantage (defender is blind) and disadvantage (attacker is also blind) as advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out, strictly speaking smoke grenades are functionally useless (if the defender is moving through the smoke)... This can't be intended.
5. If that's Mark on the ground then s#!*. Lol

No worries!

1) Technically: 1 round of combat (~6 seconds), Narratively: About 3 long seconds before the thud.
2) 1 round, 1 shot (or 2 with surge) if you're firing within the time frame Mark is making a run for it. You can keep firing afterward if you choose.
3) That's fair, I didn't mean to imply the smoke was gone, just giving an estimate on about how long it has left.
4) I'm using a 50% miss chance for the smoke. It does seem like the Fog Cloud spell is nearly useless for combat in regular 5e...
4b) The reason I gave you disadvantage is you're trying to guess which square to fire on based on where you heard the voice outside--unless I misunderstood and you're not aiming for that particular voice, in which case roll without Disadvantage.

Just got home and re-read your original post and I think I misunderstood (your clarification helps though). I saw attack(s) and the time on the smoke and inferred that a lot of time had passed, but realize you were just informing me what was going on. The shots were meant to try and pin down some folks, but I realize that's not a thing in 5e (I was thinking of dark heresy where that's a tactic).
There is an errata to 'heavily obscured' that says you're 'not blinded while in it, but effectively blinded when trying to see something through it. So that helps a little, but still has weird interactions because of things like unseen attackers getting advantage, but having disadvantage etc.

Shooting from previous round
attack roll: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 3 = 16
damage: 2d6 ⇒ (5, 5) = 10

Initiative, just in case: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4
Sparing no time Sang-mi will follow up by readying up and throwing the molotov at the red and black truck just outside the door, attempting to land it between the two gunmen. If they're still there. I'm also assuming the Molotov is military grade, providing its own source of ignition or match on the bottle like This

Molotov toss: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

Afterward She ducks across the way toward the table to take cover behind. If I over did it let me know

I added coords to the map, hope that helps.

You hear a yell of pain after you shoot at one of the thugs through the smoke. A hit.

The molotov lands between the two thugs and bursts into flame, and they're too slow to get out of the way. They are both engulfed in fire.

Roll 2d6 damage, and the area there will burn for 3 more rounds, catching anyone on fire who enters.

Note on Cover: Most of the thugs out there are getting +2AC from cover, and as long as you're in the house using it for cover you have +5AC.

The men hit by the molotov scream and run from the flames, rolling on the ground to try and douse the fire. One does, but the other will take more damage next turn. The rest of the thugs start shooting where the molotov came from.

You hunker down as the walls and furniture get torn up all around by gunfire, then you feel a sudden sharp pain that knocks the wind out of you-- and everything goes dark.

You got hit once, for exactly 13 damage. Roll a Death Saving Throw.

Molotov damage: 2d6 ⇒ (4, 5) = 9
Death saving throw: 1d20 ⇒ 5
does that put me down at R3 then? Or did I go down before that?

Yeah start of R3 before your turn.

Will post later today :)

You gradually return to consciousness to the sounds of gunfire. Elliot is looking down at you and tosses aside a packet of smelling salts. "Can you hear me? You've got two broken ribs. I set them. Be careful," He helps you put your kevlar vest back on, over the bandages and wraps. "Makes breathing harder but all that should help keep things in place."

Your vision clears a bit as you regain focus, blinking. It does hurt to breathe. The houses' windows are shattered, and the floor is littered with glass and debris. There's the bottom-half of a shattered wooden plaque on the floor near you that reads: 'than not get there at all.' The dining table has been shoved onto its side and pressed against the window, and has many bullet holes in it. And there's Mark ducking behind it. "Taking a nap at a time like this?" he comments gruffly. You notice bloody bandages on his thigh, forearm, and shoulder--and his kevlar vest has a half dozen deep indents. He doesn't look like he has much fight left in him, but he's alive.

Elliot is still wounded from his earlier injuries. "We're all in bad shape--how many more out there?" he asks Mark.

Mark takes out his combat knife and uses its reflection to peek. A few shots ricochet nearby but he barely flinches. "Two or three, but there's more on different sides of the house. I got a bunch of em with that machinegun," he grins to you.

Elliot nods, expression grim. "Probably the only reason they haven't tried to rush us yet, you put a bit of respect into them. But if they do rush us, we're f&@%ed. We might be able to take one more down each before we die, if we're lucky," he looks to you and Mark for answers.

MAP

He soaked just enough damage to survive til the last shot that hit him, then dropped to 1 hp instead because of Soldier class' "Resilience" ability (ala the Half-Orc racial ability) and made it to the barn under the cover of the smoke. He then used Second Wind (Tough class ability) to bump him to 14 HP. Got a surprise round with the machinegun, then a regular turn where he got hit for 6 damage (surviving it only because of that Second Wind heal). It was close.

You took the Broken Ribs injury but Elliot stabilized you then made a successful Medicine check to set the ribs, so no penalty for you. But you're at 1hp.

Sorry for the delay, I just literally can't decide what to do.

"I believe I will just rest here a moment..." She grunts as she reaches about for her dropped pistol.

In Cantonese "Son of a whore!" She hisses through her teeth as she crawls up beside Mark, taking aim toward the door to cover. In english "What now?

Frank hurries down the stairs, crouched. He's got his shirt back on and isn't zip-tied to a stretcher anymore.

Elliot whispers harshly, "What the f$$$ are you doing?"

Frank nearly trips on the last step in his scramble to crouch behind the wall next to you all and whispers back. "Give me a gun, come on. You've got that f*#&in' machinegun give me your pistol and let me help."

Mark frowns.

After considering, Mark finally unholsters his pistol and hands it to Frank. "Not gonna' make much difference at this point, may as well die with a gun in your hand."

You can hear people moving around outside and low voices. Sounds like they're planning something. (The voices are in Spanish, of course.)

Roll Perception

Also, roughly a half hour has passed since you got knocked out, and nothing more strenuous than keeping watch, so go ahead and benefit from a Short Rest. Spend those HD and whatnot.

Mark sets the back of his head against the table and closes his eyes, thinking.

"If we stay in here, they rush us, we die. If we charge out there, we die."

He takes a slow breath. "We could try to make a run for it on foot, but they've got trucks and they'd run us down."

He's silent for a long moment after that.

Frank Staley looks from one face to the next, growing fear in his expression as he realizes how bad it is. He grips the pistol tightly, taking some comfort in it.

"The van," Elliot says softly, then looks at Mark. "All of our best chances are in that van. We've a better chance at fighting with all the guns and explosives inside, we've a better chance at escaping in the van than on foot, and the van has a radio we could call for help on--cut phone lines be damned. It's crazy, suicidal even, but I think our other options are worse."

Short rest: 2d8 ⇒ (3, 4) = 7
Sang-mi Huff's a few times and smacks her own face, a look of determination growing.

"Okay, I have maybe one more in me. I'll go first, draw fire. If I go down and you can get out, then go." her tone is tense but serious.
She edges towards the door, waiting for the others to be ready.

Whoops, forgot perception: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13

"Crazy b%*!%..." Frank mutters, gripping his pistol tightly and getting ready to follow.

Mark and Elliot just nod, silently.

You think you can smell smoke in the house--but then you're out, sprinting for the van. It's not far, but it feels like miles. You're vaguely aware that the house is on fire behind you. They must have done it to flush you out, but weren't expecting this charge so soon.

Go ahead and roll an attack.

Behind you, Elliot, Mark, and Frank open fire. The machinegun is too inaccurate running-and-gunning, but still sprays out bullets. Elliot takes down a thug with his shot, center mass, and surprisingly Frank's shot catches a thug in the head. He shouts excitedly as he runs to the van.

Then something catches your foot as you're running and weaving, you look down to free yourself and see your ankle is caught in a fallen thug's rosary chain. You look up in time to see the distant flash of one of the furthest Cartel's shotguns before everything goes black once more.

Your attack roll can't save you, but it might effect the post-scene.

You're at 0 hp and unconscious, roll death saves until you stabilize or die. Just to see where it goes.

click click boom: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15
damage: 2d6 ⇒ (3, 1) = 4
Death save: 1d20 ⇒ 18
Death save: 1d20 ⇒ 1 Ouch!
Death save: 1d20 ⇒ 5 Expired!

Everything is pitch black. You can feel yourself blinking, but it's not helping. You reach out in front of you as you slowly walk forward until your hand touches cold metal. You feel around, searching for the shape of it, and find it's a solid wall. You follow the wall, searching for a door, a way out, but it just keeps going, curving around until you feel you're back where you started. You'd guess you're in a circular metal room about 10' radius and can't see a thing.

A voice speaks up, just above a whisper. "Dios mío. Estoy aquí otra vez. Hola? Is someone else here? Who are you?"

You open your mouth to speak but can't. You feel blood drip down your mouth, and you wipe your face. The blood is coming from your own empty eye-sockets. You recoil in horror, blinking and blinking.

"You lost, chica?"

~~~

You jolt awake, the fear still hammering in your chest. Your vision is blurry and painful, and you instinctively reach for your eyes. There's a bandage wrapped around your head that's mostly blocking one, but they seem fine.

As relief washes over you, you take stock of your surroundings. You're vaguely aware of someone speaking to you in a low calming tone, but everything's kind of fuzzy. It's a doctor, the doctor from before. His voice clarifies. "Can you hear me? How are you feeling? You're on a lot of morphine."

So that's what that feeling is. It's making it hard to focus. You open your mouth to speak but it's very very dry. As if reading your mind, the old doctor hands you an open thermo of water. "Drink slowly. Your ribs are still broken and morphine or not it'll hurt like hell if you choke and have to cough."

You're in the small CSB HQ medical room. The doc preempts a question he assumes you're about to ask. "Your team is fine, and the mission was a success." A nurse comes in, hands him a clipboard and walks out again. You're in a hospital gown and not much else. You do notice you're wearing a string of mala, buddhist prayer beads. They're carved wood with a few beads of jade and silver. Not sure who put that on you.

"Your depth perception will suffer, but surprisingly not much else was damaged." He sees something in your expression and clears his throat. "Your left eye is gone."

Missing Eye: You have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight, and on ranged attack rolls.

Advance to level 3.

Sang-mi sips lightly on the water, then drops her head back against the pillow of the chair. She wants to be mad, but the pain and misery mixed with the morphine leaves her unable to really care.

"Sss.anks... Doc..", dribbles out of her mouth as she rolls her head to look toward the door.

Staring with a glazed look she rolls her fingers over the beads, a strange sense of relief coming from it.

"You lost Chicka?" She asks the air.

As you trace along the prayer beads, moving them, there's a slight tingle in your fingertips, almost like electricity. In your heart it feels like meditating at the edge of a deep well. As you focus a little further, you can almost hear breathing that's not your own, faintly, like pressing your ear to a door and hearing someone on the other side.

Elliot comes in, smiling weakly. "That's new, who's that from?" He gestures to your right, on a sidetable there's a small glass vase of roses with a note on it.

Elliot sits in the chair along the wall. "Hell of a first mission, huh? That was a brave thing you did. I hear talk of a medal."

The doctor checks your vitals, nods, and walks out.

Her head rolls toward the vase gestured to by Elliot. She squints at the note, reading silently the words.

Turning her head then to Elliot, her gaze looks both at him and slightly past him as she has difficulty completely focusing.

"No medals...." She sighs, Elliot could probably see her frustration. She Groans and rubs her face.

"Aaayyyyahhhnn.... Wha.." She swallowed hard, reaching for the thermos and sipping again. After she continued, "Report...?" She manages to suss out her intention into a single word and looks relieved.

Wanting to not look too distraught to Elliot she tries to manage an awkward smile.

Elliot shrugs regarding medals. "Not the sort of thing you get an opinion on."

He helps you get the water if you have any trouble.

"Well, we thought you were dead. You took a shotgun hit to the head, blood everywhere. Mark got a grenade from the van and threw it, took out a few of them instantly, and bought us enough time to drag your body to the van and drive off. There was a brief chase. Called for help on the radio and got a police escort, that kept the Cartel from pursuing. We were all surprised as hell that you still had a pulse. Got you back to the HQ ASAP and dropped Frank off in Outfit hands. You were in surgery for hours. Doc said it was a miracle none of the buckshot pierced your skull and brain."

He scratches a day of stubble on his jaw. He looks tired. "Anything else?"

"How are you?... How is Mark?" her voice cracks. She smiles a bit more genuinely and lays her head back, closing her eye and just listening.

"Mark's fine. Doc pulled some bullets out of him and stitched him up, he's sleeping it off. Just flesh wounds. Might need some physical therapy to get back up to 100% though," he clenches and unclenches his fist of the arm that got shot. "Same for all of us, it seems."

"Sounds like we'll be easing back into regular training as we recover, and our next mission won't be for awhile. Get some rest."

End of Chapter 1.

Training Interlude...

So begins a significant chunk of downtime, nearly a full year. Some time is dedicated to Sang-mi's physical therapy and recovery, some re-training to help with the lost depth perception, and regular doctor checkups. Things aren't as high-pressure as they were before, and you actually have your first chance to check on your normal life, if you so wished. You could return to your old apartment, try to pick up some acting work, whatever you wanted--although the threat of the North Korean spies still lurks out there. But you realize you don't have to. The Central Security Branch pays you a generous salary, way more than random Chicago acting gigs. Sure, it's nothing like Hollywood, but you're not sure you can ever go back there.

Depending on how much time you spend away from the CSB, you can choose up to six training courses. Each course is about a month long and not nearly as intensive as the crash-courses you had to go through before your first mission.

Leadership. You will run agents Gruse and Lareson through martial arts and acrobatics training, as that's neither of their strong suits. Lareson is more about weaponry and brute force and could use some flexibility. Instructing your teammates grants Persuasion proficiency (two courses grants double proficiency bonus to Persuasion). Also grants the Leadership feat: Once per long rest, grant one teammate temporary HP equal to your Charisma modifier + the number of times you took this course.

Combat. More focused training with Lareson, working on your snap-reflex aim, improving your best time on the "killhouse", and some military tactics like covering fire, pinning, and flanking.
-One course: Add +1 to either Strength or Constitution.
-Two courses: Gain proficiency in Heavy Firearms (heavy machinegun, rocket launcher, and Grenade Launcher). Or double proficiency bonus if you were already proficient.
-Three courses: grants Snap-shot feat: Permanent +1 to attack rolls with firearms.
-Four courses: grants Sharpshooter feat: Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your firearm rolls, your ranged attacks ignore half and three-quarters cover, and before you make an attack with a proficient firearm you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll for a +10 damage bonus.

Driving. While most people know how to drive a car, gaining proficiency is beyond just the basics. Learn from agent Gruse how to take turns as fast as possible, practice weaving between obstacles at high speed, J turns and other risky maneuvers. With more time even learn how to do similarly dangerous stunts in trucks and motorcycles. You wonder why Gruse knows how to jump a motorcycle onto a moving flatbed...
-One course: Gain proficiency in Vehicles (Trucks) and Vehicles (Motorcycles).
-Two courses: Driving Expertise: Add double your proficiency bonus to all Vehicle proficiencies.
-Three courses: grants the Stunt Driver feat: You have advantage on all Stunt attempts while driving a proficient vehicle, and any pursuers have disadvantage on their check to replicate it.

Security. Train with agent Gruse in breaking and entering. It's slow, tedious, and frustrating, but that sweet click of a door finally opening can be worth it. Gruse makes it look stupidly easy. It's not.
-One course: Proficiency in Hackpad Tool (disabling alarms, hacking keypads, looping security cameras).
-Two courses: Proficiency in Investigation, and Lockpick Tool Expertise: Add double your proficiency bonus to all Lockpick Tool checks.
-Three courses: grants the Steady Hands feat: Whenever you make a Lockpick check, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Espionage. The world of spycraft is slippery. You've gone through the motions in the movies, but real life is different. It's boring and requires patience above all else. Agent Gruse is an eerily natural talent at it, with an ability to blend into a crowd seamlessly or vanish into an alley.
-One course: Proficiency in Wiretap Kit (placing them and finding them), and the Sleight of Hand skill.
-Two courses: Proficiency in Investigation, and grants Stealth Expertise feat: Add double your proficiency bonus to all Stealth checks.
-Three courses: grants Wiretap and Investigation Expertise: Add double your proficiency bonus to all Wiretap Kit and Investigation rolls.

Mechanics. Train with Lareson on how basic machinery works. Learn broad strokes of everything from how to safely modify a firearm, to how to repair a car's engine. With more time, he shows you how to carry on these principles to bombs, IEDs, and other explosives. He'll even show you how to use them in the Training Grounds. You wonder briefly what the walls must be made of to be able to set off explosives inside without anyone noticing.
-One course: Gain proficiency in Mechanical Tools and Add +1 to either Strength or Constitution.
-Two courses: Gain proficiency in Demolitions Kit and Investigation.
-Three courses: Gain proficiency in Heavy Firearms (heavy machinegun, rocket launcher, grenade launcher) or double proficiency bonus if you were already proficient, and Mechanical Tools Expertise: Add double your proficiency bonus to all Mechanical Tools checks.
Four courses: grants feat Demolitionist: At the time of setting up an explosive or firing one from a launcher, you can choose to exclude one 5' square from damage. Deal double damage to structures with explosives. Additionally, if you roll a 1 on any explosive-related check or save, you can reroll it once per long rest.

Piloting. Although not a high priority for operatives, you do have the option of learning to pilot aircraft. You never know what could happen on a mission. Due to the nature of learning to pilot, these courses are three times as long as normal.
-Three courses: Gain proficiency in either Helicopters or Airplanes. (Repeatable to gain both).
-Six courses: grants Ace Pilot feat: Add double your proficiency bonus to any aircraft you are proficient in. Additionally, whenever you make a check with an aircraft you are proficient in, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Meditation. You've been through a lot, and have a lot to process. Although the CSB would prefer you're actively training, they are also understanding that meditation is a big part of your martial arts and self improvement. The benefits, of course, are less tangible...
-One course: ?
-Two courses: ??
-Three courses: ???
-Four courses: ????

Off-duty time that detracts from your total courses, such as acting classes, will have other unlisted benefits such as generic XP gains, proficiencies, languages, etc.

We'll be RP-ing out a bunch of this, so let me know what you want to do and I'll set up the first scene.

And don't feel pressured to make one gigantic post like I did, we can handle it in smaller bites.

One more detail: On the back of the tag that came with the roses was Frank's phone number. You have an indebted contact in the mafia.

Somewhere else...

It's night over a dense dark forest. City lights are visible far away on the horizon. Under the canopy, the moonlight is sparse. A man is running through the branches and ferns, panting raggedly, in agony. He keeps looking over his shoulder as he runs. There's flashlights back there, and men shouting. Somewhere above a helicopter whirs closer and beams a spotlight down, searching for him among the thick underbrush. He slams his back against a tree to hide, groaning in pain and clutching his stomach. Once the searchlight passes, he runs again, but he can't go much further. The pain is unbearable. He slumps down in the middle of a clearing and the helicopter quickly finds him. The shouting men catch up and surround him, aiming flashlights and guns, but they don't dare get close. The man clutches himself tightly, kneeling in that clearing, helicopter whirring above in the moonlit sky, and screams, and screams, and screams, as dark lines spread and crack across his forearms, up his neck, wrapping around his face, the skin splitting--and then his face begins to rip open, revealing not a skull underneath, but something very dark.

Chu Sang-mi

You expected your eye to hurt (where it used to be, anyway), but it's all the other pain that's surprising. Your ears and sinuses all ache and throb, your neck and shoulders too--even your teeth hurt. The area around the bandage-patch over your eye-socket is black and bruised. The side of your head is shaved from the surgery. Overall, it feels like you got hit in the head by a bus. Physical therapy and painkillers have helped, but you're not comfortable. Through the haze of pain and painkillers you notice the HQ is a lot busier than before, with people in office-attire coming and going, as well as more armed security. You remember when you first joined the building felt pretty empty, like everyone was on vacation.

If you mention wanting to leave, they'll offer a company car--or you can take a cab or bus. When you arrive at your apartment, you reflect that it feels like it's been a decade. You go up the stairs, and the first thing you notice is that there's no eviction notice on the door. You try your key, and it unlocks.

Everything is as you left it. That doesn't seem possible, unless the CSB has been paying your rent?

Describe what you're doing here.