"Just something simple for me, thanks."
|
Landry cheerily debits the credstick for 80 credits, and you each are given a data chit for your personal comm-device. Inserting the chit into your comm-device, your personal screens flash green, indicating that you now have access to your own separate efficiency, all located on level 42 of the Moons of Sleep.
"The lift is through that door on the left," the half-elf explains, "and your comm-pad is your access point. You'll find that there's the entrance to the bar through that same door. Minnie will take good care of you there, yeah?" He points at Jaxom's device. "Your comm-pad has additional access to Duravor's former room for the next 12 hours. Past that, it'll be locked out as we'll be cleaning it for a new tenant. You need anything at all, give us a holler on the internal line. You got one in each room. Speaking of which, I gotta take this. Rest well, y'all!" And with that, a barely visible screen of energy springs into place across the window of the booth that Landry sits in, muting the conversation he is having that starts with, "Front Desk, Landry speaking!"
Without the half-elf's prattle, the serenity of the front lobby is remarkable.
|
August will first go find his own efficiency (hoping it matches his requirements). Then he'll check the room quickly for any cameras, bugs, bombs, etc. - making sure to keep gloves on the whole time.
After that he'll head to Kreel's room to begin a thorough investigation of everything there.
August will privately look for anything regarding Clara-247, Paragon, himself or Colony XI-41193 Theta.
|
|
August's room - 42-112 - is to his specifications. He takes his time to search the room.
August realises, as he leaves his room and heads to the lift, that he does not have the device that allows him access to Kreel's room. Additionally, when he gets to the lift and hits '34', the button does not activate.
|
|
August briefly considers simply breaking into Kreel's room but decides against it. He will go find Jaxom's room and knock authoritatively.
"Beam me the access code to Kreel's room if you would."
Thinking for a second he adds.
"Also those thug-donated funds used to pay for the room wouldn't happen to be from the thugs we killed in the docking bay would they?"
|
|
August sighs audibly at this incredibly inconvenient hotel.
"In the good old days I could have just run the management in for Second Degree Inefficiency. Maybe the front desk clerk too for wasting my time just for fun. Well, whenever you're ready I suppose."
He'll do a quick Sphere Culture check on Clara-247, as well as trying to remember anything from his own past on the Colony.
|
|
Jaxom and August approach the lift. The button marked '34' lights up when pressed, and seconds later, the two step out of the door into a quiet hallway identical to the one they just left that spreads out to the north and south.
|
|
August glances up and down the hallway and sees nothing, apparently distracted by his previous search of his room with turned up nothing as well - he was sure something would turn up at Kreel's residence. He starts talking to Jaxom as he walks down the hallway towards Kreel's room.
"Can you believe it? Thirty minutes to departure and he hasn't checked in. It's always this way, we get there early and he's probably drunk. What's his room, 34-124? 34-122? Good thing the clerk downstairs is a bit flirty and loose with the ol' door codes."
He hopes Jaxom plays along in case someone after Kreel planted listening devices in the corridor.
After checking out his own room, Telion found that August and Jaxom had already headed down to the starfinder's room, and that he could not operate the lift without the access device. Instead, he sent the android a quick message via his comm-pad.
Find anything interesting down there? Seems we can't even access the floor from up here without the access codes, so don't get yourself shot since we won't be able to rescue you.
|
Jaxom observes the two observers on the hall, "wait, did you say thirty four? I told you to hit thirty two. We're on the wrong floor." He grabs August's sleeve and whispers "act casual" as he guides him back towards the lift.
Once aboard the lift, he says "that didn't feel right. Let's get the others."
|
|
August groans loudly.
"Thirty two? Man someone should fire that desk clerk."
He'll get back on the lift and send a quick message to Telion.
Nothing I saw but Jaxom seems to have a good grasp of possible threats, he wanted to head back up to get you all.
"What didn't feel right - I couldn't see any camera's but there might have been listening devices outside monitoring Kreel. I figured he'd have a secure room because of his daily security sweeps."
Because everyone does daily security sweeps.
"Sorry about the improv by the way I used to work solo."
K, grabbing the others Telion replied.
|
"I'd like to take a few minutes to freshen up," Diamaante tells the others. "Come and get me when you're ready to look at Kreel's room."
She finds her own room and goes inside, looking around the efficiency. It isn't glamorous, but it will suffice. The lashunta places her pack of belongings on the bed for now. She sheds her heavy coat, then removes the black microcord armor she's wearing beneath it. The rest of her clothes follow suit.
Stepping into the shower stall, she turns the water on and lets it rinse away the grime of the long shuttle trip and the stress of the battle in the docking bay. She sighs contentedly, eyes closed, her antennae drooping slightly in relaxation. Soon, she is feeling refreshed and ready to take on further challenges.
|
|
"Why would you be offended at a question regarding competency? Approaching them from two directions would give us an advantage."
He cocks his head to one side.
"And you're not exactly brimming with Iomedaean rectitude about social mores if you pocketed funds from dead gangers as you implied at the front desk - they probably got the money beating up shopkeepers or selling narcotics to addicts. Not to mention you ducked my earlier question to you about it."
|
|
"Yes, well, it wasn't something to discuss in front of the world. I am happy to discuss in private. As to the hacking thing, I am not even remotely offended, trust me. So where are we meeting with the others, and then you want me to hack the steps, so we can come to that level in 2 parties? Is hacking necessary, as guests, are we not able to come and go via that route?"
|
|
Like Diamaante, Idar takes a moment to 'freshen up' when he arrives at his room. In his case, that means cleaning his recently-fired weapon and restocking the empty magazine from his supply of ammunition.
When the party is collected, he brings his gear. He slings the rifle over one shoulder rather than leaving it in his pack, in case Jaxom and August's suspicions are justified. A flap of his ponch goes over the rifle, with the intention of being less overtly threatening than fully open carry.
|
|
Jaxom and August return to level 42 where they gather all of the others. A brief search of the architecture of their own floor reveals that there are no other access points to other floors than the lift.
Returning to the 34th floor, the gathered group exits the elevator, cued into the potential for problems by Jaxom and August's reconaissance information.
There are no other people to be found in the quiet hall of the 34th floor. The group determines that room 122 would be found down at the south end of the corridor.
Jaxom extends his personal device at the door of room 122.
Idar heard Telion's voice in his mind, "It is good that I am not the only one that knows his way around a fight. I'll get in close and leave them open for you, should work out well."
|
|
Jaxom turns the metal handle of the door to room 122 and slides it into the wall just like the doors to their rooms downstairs. The lights to the room go on automatically, unveiling a room in complete disarray.
The bed has been torn apart, the foam mattress rent in two, and most of the furniture completely smashed. Clothing and personal effects in various states of destruction lay in piles on the floor. The only salvageable item is a framed poster hanging askew on the south wall, its frame stained with smears.
Diamaante stares at a framed video still from one of the more salacious scenes in her career. There are no people in the room.
|
|
Diamaante's lip curls a bit at the video still. That was a dark time in her career. She had done her best to bury her involvement in Lusty Lashunta Lesbians, but it still seemed to crop up to haunt her. Especially where perverted dwarves were involved.
The actress remains in the hall and concentrates. Her antennae stand up as she sweeps the hall and nearby rooms, detecting thoughts.
"Well, he's already dead, so I"m pretty sure we were too late a while ago," Telion said and stepped carefully into the room, trying to avoid disturbing the clutter.
|
|
Diamaante focuses her mind out in front of her, sweeping through the hall, Kreel's room, and the nearby rooms.
Jaxom and Telion step carefully into the disheveled room.
|
|
"I only sense one other mind nearby. I think it's asleep. Let's try not to wake it up," Diamaante telepathically tells the others. She draws her pistol just to be safe as she continues her concentration.
She also tries hard to ignore what one of her companions is thinking about every time he glances at the salacious image of her.
|
|
August looks around for papers, star charts, match books. If everything's been cleared out by Jaxom's two interlopers, he'll casually rip the framed still off the wall and search behind it and then tear open the backing to see if anything is within the frame. If not he'll toss it aside carelessly.
"So the room seems empty, the datapad he carried was largely empty, and someone has searched the room."
He begins to pace back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back.
"Given the situation we have to go back to basics. The people involved in the shootout are the Downside Kings and the Level 21 crew. Additionally the only connections we know about with Kreel aside from the Society are the Hardscrabble Collective which he invested in and the Astral Extractions corporation."
"Kreel identified himself with the Hardscrabble Collective and against Astral Extractions. A search of his datapad discovered he regarded AE as culpable in the death of his cousin. We can find no notice of any address within the Collective - ship, asteroid in the Diaspora, apartment, so without heavy scanning equipment and based on the decor we are forced to conclude this is his main address and that aside from Chiskisk and his dead cousin he had few friends and family."
He begins to tick points off his fingers.
"First, a cursory search of the Infosphere determines that Astral Extractions has had business dealings with mercenaries and violent front groups."
"Second, both the Starfinders and Station security have mentioned that it is rare for gang violence to occur on the docks and Chiskisk believe it is no coincidence that it occured."
"Third, given Chiskisk's lack of knowledge regarding Duravor we can conclude the man had no set pattern to his life."
"This leads us to conclude that if this was an assassination either the Level 21 Crew or Downside Kings are in the employ of Astral Extractions since the Collective would have been able to lure him to a more secluded spot; a man like Kreel would have been easy to disappear for them, or to disguise as an accident."
"Fourth, the arrival of the of opposing gang is likewise no coincidence. Therefore we can conclude that the other opposing gang is in the employ of either the Starfinder Society or the Hardscrabble Collective."
"I think we can discard the idea of the Society based on our own involvement and the fact that the gangs arrived separately from Kreel himself. Astral Extractions is a large corporation and the Collective is likewise scattered. Therefore our next courses of action are to find recent, unique occurances that could result in direct action between AE and the Collection and to find information on or about the gangs in more detail than surface Infosphere searches yield particularly where we can detain and interrogate members in person for more information to confirm our suppositions."
Telion's head spun with August's explanations of a vast web of subterfuge. "I'm not sure I quite follow. This is reminding me more and more of when I hunted the queen of a spider-wasp colony. She had thrown a few different groups of drones at us and baited us in to her hive, and if it wasn't for the expert xenobiologist on our team, we would have walked right into the trap. Looks like that's you, August."