Sammad stares at the closed door for a long moment before turning back to his comrades. "I...thought that would go better."
As Flint asks his question, he turns and responds, "I think it's all we can do now. Let's hope this goes better..."
"Time to go be big dumb heroes."
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Flint's passionate argument almost lights a fire in the lashunta man's heart, at least until he mentions 'radical Sunrise Collective thugs'. The fellow's expression immediately turns sour. "Oh, you're one of those sorts. I shouldn't be surprised, no Outsiders would ever understand our plight. For the sake of this all finishing peacefully, I recommend you stay out of the Collective's way." He scowls and slams the door closed.
You're left in the empty street, one that suddenly feels oppressive and enclosed. Likely this isn't the only Collective supporter in the area.
"If the Collective gets their way it'll NEVER be finished, peacefully or otherwise!" Belmarniss barks after the lashunta as he closes the door.
She's clearly fuming as they start to leave.
"Of COURSE outsiders won't understand your plight if you decide to shut out the damn galaxy and never ask anyone for help! And I thought MY people were arrogant!"
As they approach the station, she pauses.
"How do we want to stage this operation? Obviously none of us want to go in hot and give the Collective an excuse to start executing captives, but are we going in covert or are we going to try and talk our way in?"
"Don't worry, Bel, your people are still really arrogant." Ordyt gives her a pat on the shoulder perhaps intended to be comforting.
With one last lingering glance at the packages and food on Kam's doorstep, the warrior turns and follows the others. "Well, at least if we run into the General amongst the Collective's ranks, we can let him know that no one has stolen his mail."
"I'm better at talking than I am at sneaking, but I could be convinced either way," says Flint as they walk along, "But I am hoping our ambassador has some ideas along those lines," he adds, casting a look at Sammad.
You leave the General's house, and the neighborhood where it lies, alone for now. Instead, you follow Dr. Nokorokt's instructions on how to reach Checkpoint Laubu - what was once Station Laubu. You approach the building from the south and are able to take in the exterior from a distance without attracting much attention.
The Station is a squat, beige, single story structure that sits at an unintentional choke point within Asanatown. A major thoroughfare runs right next to it, and a brand new wire fence and tall gate now bisect that thoroughfare to block off free traffic toward and from the northern sections of Asanatown. The 10ft high steel wire fencing stretches all the way from the steel wall of the massive structure that makes up the central core of Asanatown, to one of the wide canals that passes through the city. It's nothing that couldn't be circumvented by someone determined, but it does pose an inconvenience to daily life. Two ramshackle guardhouses bracket the gate on either side, each with their own entrance door.
A small crowd of upset locals stand in front of the southern end of the gate, where two Collective members, one ifrit and one lashunta, check IDs with slow ease. The lashunta laughs as he pokes fun at another younger lashunta waiting in line.
Through the fence, you can see a parking lot with police scooters. You deduce there's probably another entrance to the building on that side.
The windows to the station are frosted to let in light but not allow easy visibility into or out of the station.
”Anyone see a way in? It looks like at least 2 of the guards are distracted,” asks Flint.
"Eternal Flame, grant me sight..."
Sammad's prayer is answered, as he manages to ascertain the weaknesses of the security cameras. As a plan begins to form in his mind, he turns to his comrades with an impish grin.
"We should approach from the east, we'll bypass those guards completely. The cameras there don't overlap, so we could sneak past them one at a time. Once clear the fence around the speeder lot, there's sure to be a back entrance that we can use to get inside."
He then looks at Marisol. "I nominate Marisol to go first. She's surely the stealthiest, and I'm sure she can disable the cameras on her way to allow the rest of us free passage in her wake. Do you object to that plan, Marisol?"
”Good catch, Sammad. We’ll follow Marisol’s lead,” says Flint, pleased that there is a plan forming. ”Let’s secure any loose items and turn the volume down on our comms so as not to give ourselves away. Any other suggestions?” asks Flint to the others.
Marisol takes a moment to get her own read on the situation before nodding and turning to the others. "I agree with your assessment, Sammad. Looks like the best way in. As for sneakiness, well, I never learned the art of being quiet, but I am small and quick. Those cameras are toast once I get my hands on them."
Once everyone is ready, she does her best to sneak out and under the noses of the cameras, disabling them as she goes.
Moving as quickly and quietly as she can, Mari crouch-runs her way to the eastern side of the building, where there seems to be the fewest people and cameras. She waits for what she thinks is the ideal moment and makes a run for the fence, silently cursing the noise created by the moving wire.
Being more the “look at me” type than the “ignore me” type of person, Flint leaves stealth to the others. He does, however, watch from a distance, ready to try and make a distraction if necessary to aid the others’ stealth.
Ordyt attempts to remain inconspicuous, while anxiously keeping an eye on Marisol. "What if they catch her?" he whispers to the others. He strains to catch a glimpse of any other guards or threats that could wreck the plan.
Marisol easily clambers over the fence, and sneaks her way through the open area around the checkpoint until she arrives at the first of the cameras on the Eastern end of the building. Those of you still on the south side of the fence see the cameras swiveling, and you're pretty sure they spotted her, though there's no immediate or obvious response.
At the first of the cameras, Marisol reaches up and opens the access panel. She finds the inner workings of the camera more complicated than she expected, and her first couple of attempts to disable it prove futile.
Flint keeps a wary eye towards the guards and stays away from the building until Mari motions them forward (or signals over the comm).
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With an annoyed sigh, Mari tries to refocus herself, slow down, and do it right this time.
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----
After her earlier fumbling, Marisol suddenly catches on to the security camera's redundant wiring and is able to disable the device without any further difficulty. Thanks to her knowledge of computer surveillance systems and by monitoring the signals from the camera, she also immediately realizes that if this camera feed was being actively fed to any displays, the image most likely just froze. If the feed is being constantly monitored, it'll be fairly obvious that some tampering happened.
Marisol continues toward the back entrance on her mission to open a clear path for the rest of the team. She looks around the corner into the police parking lot with its two police scooters. The back fence looks to be easy to climb over , but there are two security cameras watching over the lot and the back door into the Station.
Flint takes one last look at the crowd and the guards to his west, trying to determine if they have been alerted to any intrusion.
Assuming not, he moves north at Mari's indication to the region where the camera is disabled (carefully climbing over the gate -- taking a 10 for a 16 athletics or I can roll if needed).
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Satisfied that, at the very least, the camera won't show a heavily armed infiltration team, Mari signals to the others to follow her and then continues over the fence to the next set of cameras.
Or, at least, she tries to.
Trying again, she only succeeding in getting a foot stuck in the fence. As she struggles, she gets more and more frustrated at her predicament. Get your head in the game, Marisol. You fought something from another plane and hacked the computer of a starship from an unknown culture, but you're getting your ass kicked by a chain link fence.
Finally pulling her boot free, Mari pulls herself up and over to the other side. With one last sour look at her nemesis, she gets to work on the remaining two cameras.
Ordyt keeps his focus on the station, urgently scanning every window and corner in case any Collective regulars tried to intercept Mari.
-
Just as she's about to advance to the second of two cameras, the rear doors to the Station burst open and a pair of Collective lashunta armed with rifles come rushing out. They level their rifles at Marisol, a mad, almost paranoid, glint in their eyes. One shouts "The hells you airhead think you're doing here!?" And the other responds eagerly with "A subversive no doubt! Hands up where we can see them! Wouldn't want to have to hurt you."
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Flint moves up to the fence and gives it a bit of a shake, saying, "There you are, sis! What are you doing back here? If you want to go for a joyride on a fast scooter, you should just borrow dad's!"
Turning to the guards, he shrugs and says, "Little sis is a bit headstrong--she's adopted, you know. How many credits do I need to slide your way to let this little...indiscretion pass?"
Edit: Quietly over the comm, he whispers, "Two shooters, let's take 'em out quietly. Can anyone jam their comms?"
Mari, hands in the air, bristles with indignation that's only partly an act. "Don't 'little sis' me! I'm 20 years older than you! And don't you start giving mom's speech about 'different developmental speeds' because I've been hearing those since before you were born!"
With the guards so close and already watching her, she can't respond verbally, but gives Flint the slightest shake of her head in answer to his question. Need physical access, and I doubt these goons are gonna let me plug into anything right now. Speaking of which...
These guys look like pushovers!
Belmarniss realizes that its very unlikely that you'd be able to jam the Collective's comms without physical access to each individual device (to hack the device), or without a signal jammer to block wireless signals in the area. Comms devices work on a point-to-point mesh, meaning there's no single point through which data is routed that could be hacked and disabled.
While Bel is considering this situation, Flint moves into sight and offers his impromptu bluff. While Marisol's addition doesn't seem to make the story more believable, both Collective members initially take his explanation at face value. The offer of payment gives them even more reason to stay their fire. The more talkative of the two slightly lowers the tip of his rifle and says "The boss doesn't take troublemakers or tresspassers lightly. By rights we should take the two of you in to talk to him. But... if you're offering..."
The two exchange a glance, before the other Collective members says "Five hundred credits. Five hundred and we'll let you back on out and forget all about this. Even the security camera you damaged out that way."
Flint sighs with relief, saying to Mari, "You owe me 5 weeks of laundry for this one, sis!" and makes a show of digging for his credstick (actually getting both it and his weapon crystal), standing at the gate opening and waiting expectantly for it to be opened (and under his breath on the comm, he starts a countdown, trying to time it with the gate opening).
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Gritting his teeth when he hears the guards confronting Mari, Ordyt scrabbles over the fence and drops to the other side, holding still and listening to their warning.
"Hands up where we can see them! Wouldn't want to have to hurt you."
His eye's narrow at the Collective thug's tone. I think you'd like nothing more. As Flint and Mari run their bluff, Ordyt takes a deep breath to steady his nerves and creeps forward, agonizingly slowly, drawing his frosthammer as he approaches.
Crouched down just out of sight of the guards, the oread offers a silent prayer to Sarenrae and waits to spring this little improvised ambush.
Sammad gasps softly at this unexpected turn of events, and turns to Bel with a concerned expression. He whispers to her, "We need to help them...what should we do?"
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"Not going to be able to jam their comms without some sort of signal jammer or getting close enough that we'd basically be wrassling with them," Belmarniss replies over the comm. She begins approaching the altercation.
"Only thing we can do, play along, and hope we don't get stung too bad from the comet wasp nest we've just kicked," she replies to Sammad
She takes the lead in approaching the altercation.
"MR. CONNERS!" she calls, hoping to get their attention. "You've found your sister, I take it? We've only been searching half of Asanatown!"
"Ah, yes ma'am. I believe we have come to an understanding," replies Flint, motioning with the credstick to the guards, indicating they should hurry and open the gate.
-
He extends a hand expectantly, clearly not planning to open the gate until credits are in hand. He scowls as Flint takes a while to dig through his pack "I haven't got all day, outsider." and then extends a hand once more when the credstick is out.
When Belmarniss shouts, both Collective members are momentarily distracted, looking east behind Flint. However, their surprise turns to irritation when they realize this is someone else in the Marisol support team. The one to the west narrows his eyes at Marisol and comments "Good thing you've got a lot of friends, isn't it airhead?" He pauses, looking a little closer at the sylph. "Hmm. Aren't you a little heavily armed for an outsider? Didn't you hear the edict from Trinipol? All non-lashunta should have surrendered their long arms." He smirks, looking at Marisol's hunting rifle "Even old junk like that. Hand it over."
”Come on, now, I wasn’t born yesterday,” says Flint, trying to sound both irritated and loud enough to mask any noise the others make coming over the fence, ”I give you the creds now through the fence and you can just walk away with my funds and take my sis too....”
Sammad approaches warily, trying his best to avoid attention. His lack of athleticism shows, though, and he struggles with the fence.
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Belmarniss gets over the fence easily and makes her way over to the group.
"I'm just a concerned visitor looking to help maintain order in a troubled time. I'm a Knight of Golarion," she explains to the guards. "I happened upon Mr. Conners looking for his sister, and obviously I had to help find her."
Marisol tries to hide her relief at seeing the others arrive by rolling her eyes at the guard and saying "It's not a real gun, it's a prop I carry around to stop creeps from bothering me. Asanatown's gotten a lot more dangerous the last few days, after all."
-
Blue releases the safety on his rifle, and addresses Marisol "Surrender that rifle now, or we'll have to take it off you." Red steps away from the fence, rifle swinging between Flint and Bel once she shows up. He speaks up to say "Stay back, both of you."
Sighing, Flint says softly into the comm, "3...2...1...Go"
Though his voice is soft, when Flint says "Go" he explodes into action, attempting to vault the fence and 'Stellar Rush' the blue Collective agent (Solarian ability to charge as a standard action without the penalties).
Flint's eyes glint as he leaves a trail of flame moving impossibly fast, charging the blue agent and drawing his dueling sword in the blink of an eye, attempting to stab the enemy with the nonlethal attack!
nonlethal
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|||| INIT - Surprise Round ||||
Ordyt
Sammad
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|||| INIT ||||
Blue Collective Member
Red Collective Member
Ordyt
Marisol
Belmarniss
Sammad
Flint
Bold are up.
At Flint's signal, Ordyt steps forward to stay in cover at the corner, leaning around just enough to spot the closest of the two Collective guards.
"Hello, I'm with, ah, the Solar Safety Council and I'm here for an inspection of your, uh...oh forget it." The oread's eyes glow with golden light as he points at the nearest of the guards.
Sammad follows in Ordyt's wake, drawing his weapon easily as he stands, then aiming it at the further guard. "You should have just taken the money and let us go. Stand down, or fall."
--
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Blue holds his ground, firing two rounds off at Bel and Flint. But the sudden realization that you're behind the Psychic Surge lights a panic in him that sends both shots fairly wide. The second lightly grazes Bel.
|||| INIT ||||
Ordyt
Marisol
Belmarniss (1 dmg)
Sammad
Flint (6 dmg) (Feel free to keep your actions and rolls if you'd like)
Blue Collective Member
Red Collective Member (6 dmg)
Bold are up.