OPERATION: Hidden Dragon

[Requine]

http://thelowerworld.com/index.php?threads/venetian-report-3.394/ Please read the investigation updates in Venetian Report #3 before posting!

It has been a week since OPERATION: Hidden Dragon has begun, and you are finally making progress in discovering the truth behind the Dawnbreak.

Jericho Blake and ian Rothcraft-Glenisle, the DM would like to sit down and do scenes with you for your current path. Please contact the DM at your earliest convenience to figure out the deets.

Knight-Captain Cassandra is still available for visits and can talk to any player.

There are four Dawnbreak cells available to raid

London, England
Seoul, South Korea,
New York City, USA
Los Angeles, USA

Players can tackle these as they please; when you pick a city, please say so, and then contact the DM. Multiple players can work together on one cell.

There's still lots of room for investigation - if you want to follow up on any of the clues in the Venetian Report, please state so.

Remember, these prompts are just ideas. Feel free to state any action that would make sense for your character.

If you need help figuring something out, or you want to get into the game but you're not sure where to jump in, contact the DM and I will be happy to help you brainstorm something to help you out.

Good luck and have fun, players!​

 

[Russell K. Kobayashi]

While still pursuing the Orochi leads provided by Ashleigh, Russell starts navigating the treacherous waters of Temple Hall's internal politics. The doctrinal split between the "New Templars" and the "Old Guard" may have played a part in Cass's capture, however inadvertently, and he suspects that those internal divisions may make Cass as much a target from her own side as by the Dawnbreak.

As a cover for his covert answer to "who watches the watchers?" he would assume command of the strike against the London Dawnbreak cell. Response to "threats to the public at large" is part of the credo of the Ordinem Palatini, after all....

***

Conference Room #4
Temple Hall
1430 GMT, 14 March 2015

Russell watched people file into the conference room, and willed himself -- again -- not to shift uncomfortably. More than one Knight or Agent to enter the room had double-taken as they'd seen him, surprised to see him in something other than a suit. It was hard to blame them. The last time he'd worn the uniform of the Ordinem Palatini had been at the Winter Formal (all thirty minutes that he'd been able to attend). Every decoration he'd earned was worn on the coat's left breast, topped with the badge of a Paladin-Lieutenant (silver Maltese cross superimposed over crossed golden broadsword and flintlock, flanked by curved silver laurels).

He felt like a refugee from The Pirates of Peznance, but the statement was necessary. It was a sign to Temple Hall's conservatives that he still bled Red. The fact that White had started to seep in wasn't something they needed to be aware off. Especially since he was about to start poking his nose into the dirty laundry of those same conservatives.

Venice is looking better all the time, he thought sourly. Not yet, though. I still have good I can do -- have to do -- here.

His eyes flick back at the clock. 1430, and there's about thirty people in the room. All that're coming, all that can be spared or who will deign to participate in mundane "housekeeping." Fuck it. He clears his throat, drawing all eyes his direction.

"Good afternoon." Russell's baritone is affable and steady. "For those who aren't aware, I'm Russell Kobayashi, and I'll be leading today's op. Welcome to Operation SUNDOWN, the reduction of Dawnbreak cells present in the London metropolitan area."

 

[Cleretic]

MK-ULTRA.

Ash paced her apartment, contemplating the fact. It was her first thought, and the one she put the least faith in. Yet... there it was. Not in the way she expected, they weren't appearing to use it to attack Cass... although that remained a possibility as well. She sent that fact as far through the Illuminati chain as possible: "The Dawnbreak have something we used for MK-ULTRA, that they may have used on Arbuthnot; cross-reference our actual results with effects she might be exhibiting." In the event--however unlikely--that she was compromised, Ash tried to recommend palming her off to Temple Hall ASAP. She didn't want it to be true, and she certainly didn't want anybody hurt by it if it was, but if she was turned into a sleeper agent it was better for her to hurt the Templars with it than the Illuminati.

But what they definitely were using the machine for was very different indeed. They want to use it to house a mind? Certainly not what the machine itself is probably capable of, it can barely handle a simple AI, but Orochi-amped and magically-boosted, maybe it would work. And certainly, a machine intended for mind experiments would probably have the required programming to be able to house one, with a bit of work... it does raise a lot of questions, though. Most importantly, who? Dawnbreak certainly don't seem the type to care enough about a single person to put this much effort into uploading their mind... but perhaps that's the point. To not look like that, so whoever started Dawnbreak can foist themselves into immortality.

Ash started reviewing her notes again, as well as previous attempts to investigate the computer, trying to find anything about its location, or anything resembling a name, or connections, that might indicate what they were doing and why. There are only four known locations it could be, with Mereland striking the Beijing cell and apparently finding nothing. More realistically, it was probably going to be one of two; a fifty to sixty-year-old Illuminati supercomputer would be too big to leave the States. At the same time, she tried to trace the lost computer itself. If it was headquartered in New York or LA, then she could reasonably expect it to be there.

 

[The Mereland]

Grace officially - through Templar channels, that is - requested an extermination of the Dawnbreak, and to participate in it herself. A second communication was sent through official Venetian channels.

"The Dawnbreak are doomed and damned. If you want someone out of it, get them out now. The purge is imminent."

Purpose stated, she began to arrange all the necessities, rubberstamping nearly every order she had the authority to do so to make every single Dawnbreaker's life a living - if short - hell. For herself? She would target, with any interested parties, the Los Angeles cell. London, she felt, was close enough that even the newest recruits could handle it, if through decidedly Soviet tactics. New York too close to the Illuminati headquarters.

Los Angeles, then, was the only real target available to her.

 

[Velvet Silk]

Uuuurgh. Fuck off, phone. I'm trying to sleep. Shut up. Shut the fuck uuuup...

Late night. Half-delirious arguments with Illumanti personnel, after an entire day of exhausting shooting and being shot. Mainly being shot. Lots of being shot. She crawled herself over the goliath of a bed to her bedside table, picking it up.

"Took you fuckin' long enough. Grab your coat and fishknife, we're at war."

"...blugh?"

"...Are you..? Did you get eaten by a fucking otherworldly gelatinous slime again, Wright?"

"...Buh? Wha..? No.. What do you mean 'again'!?"

"Whatever. We're at war, quit messing around."

"YOU SWORE YOU'D NEVER SPEAK OF THAT AGA-!" Call cut off. Damn.

...On the one hand, war sounds fun. On the other hand, bed is comfy. Bed wins out, but when she wakes, she'll likely arrive to a squad preparing to assault, an exterminate, the London cell.


-----------------------------------------------

MEANWHILE, OFF THE COAST OF SAN FRANCISCO.

Shitty little cabin in a shitty little trawler. But it was headed to America - this whole Dawnbreak thing was heating up. Only a matter of ti-

"The Dawnbreak are doomed and damned. If you want someone out of it, get them out now. The purge is imminent."

....Only a matter of time until some money shows up with all this bul-

RING RING, RING RING
A man with a fierce sounding voice speaks on the other end, in French. Her replies are in similar.
"Les abeilles? Vous avez entendu ce droit de la merde? Certaines personnes ne semblent pas aimer ça. Quel est votre position sur les sectes?"
(Bees? You heard that shit right? Some people don't seem to like it. Whats your stance on cults?)

"En règle générale, je ne suis certainement pas pro-culte."
(As a rule, I am certainly not pro-cult.)

"Bon, un peu moins de ce sentiment génocidaire pourrait être nécessaire ici. Subtilité serait un plus, mais vous êtes le plus proche que je ai, de sorte que vous aurez à faire."
(Good, a bit less of that genocidal feeling might be required here. Subtlety would be a plus, but you're the closest I've got, so you'll have to do.)

"Couper à la chasse putain, de l'argent ou non, si l'argent, comment gagner de l'argent."
(Cut to the fucking chase, money or no, if money, how acquire money.)

"Beaucoup d'argent. Venise gars - son fils est tombé avec cette merde, et maintenant il est d'obtenir tous les larmes sur ses décisions stupides putain."
(Big money. Venice guy - his son fell in with this shit, and now he's getting all teary about her fucking stupid decisions.)

"Semble raisonnable. Où, qui, où puis-je la laisser tomber?"
(Seems reasonable. Where, who, where do I drop her?)

"Dorian Amora, gamin stupide. La peau d'olive, les cheveux bruns. La dernière fois qu'il a été vu, de toute façon. Vivant est préférable, se il ya un cadavre, il va nous donner 5k pour elle."
(Dorian Amora, dumb kid. Olive skin, brown hair. Last time he was seen, anyway. Alive is preferred, if there's a corpse, he'll give us 5k for it.)

"Et, combien parlons-nous en vie?"
(And, how much are we talking alive?)

"Oh, sûrement ce ne était pas une implication vous avez l'intention de tuer le pauvre garçon? Ce ne est rien comme vous!"
(Oh, surely that was not an implication you intend to kill the poor lad? That's nothing like you!)

"Je pourrais avoir si je ne sais pas il sera en vaut la peine autrement. Vous déjà essayé de kidnapper un sectaire avant? Non. Putain. Facile."
(I might have to if I don't know he'll be worth it otherwise. You ever tried to kidnap a cultist before? Not. Fucking. Easy.)

"Trente-cinq. Après les honoraires de mon viseur, évidemment. Le livrer à ... essentiellement ailleurs. Vous vous souvenez de la façon dont nous travaillons, débutant? Quai de pêche ou quai de chargement. Donnez-leur l'enfant et dire les mots. Facile trente mille."
(Thirty-five. After my finder's fee, obviously. Deliver him to... basically wherever. You remember how we work, newbie? Fishing dock, or loading dock. Give them the kid and say the words. Easy thirty thousand.)

""Bien, alors. Terrain tomber bientôt, je vais me dirigeai vers le sud dès que je ai un véhicule."
(Right, then. Landfall soon, I'll get headed south as soon as I have a vehicle.)

The phone cuts off, but the silence does not last long.

"We will be docking soon, Madamé Bees."

"Good. My thanks for your cooperation - though in the future, Doctor will suffice."

A backpack, a briefcase, and a an oversized handgun later, she's off the ship, and ready to steal a motorcycle.

 

[Requine]

Sarah Willis begins talking to the Morninglight, working her way up the structure. She ends up speaking with Thomas Wilkes, New York City's Morninglight coordinator. He says that the Dawnbreak has been around for ten years, but it is only recently that they've had a surge in popularity. Before that, they were stuck with small operations - nothing to this scale. Wilkes' old friend, Bill Towser, apparently defected to the Dawnbreak after the events of the invasion of Twin Falls. Towser has brought many of his followers along. Towser, and many of the Dawnbreak's new recruits, are tired of the Morninglight's 'long game'. Wilkes promises to speak out against the Dawnbreak and use the Morninglight's voice as an ally, as long as no further violence come to his people. The details of their conversation can be found here.

 

[kat]

In a Toolbox toolbox closet somewhere sits... a tool.

David Doyle, bound by the hands, blindfolded, his ankles ties together, whimpers, "Guys? Hello? Anyone there?"

He sighs and leans against something that has poked him a few times for the past few days, though the pain has kind of dulled by now, and anywhere else he's tried to rest again is measurably worse.

 

[kat]

Later that evening, the toolbox opens slowly, rays of light revealing a still-bloodied, torn-up Doyle. A pair of shadows, one bigger than the other, partially obscure the light coming into the unlit closet.

"Hello? Who's there? Look, I'm sorry, alright? I told you what I knew and I'm ready to do whatever I need to make it better."

"Oh, don't worry. Everything will be fine. I'm just here to tie up some loose ends. No need for you to be stuck here forever." The woman's voice is somewhat playful but with a strange coldness in tone.

"Wait. What? Is that...? Why are you here? You sound different..."

"I'm not really gonna repeat myself. We need to do this quick. It's for the best, Davey."

The larger shadow comes closer. The man's frame isn't very big, and there's a strange... creak at first, before a hand reaches down to the tied-up man.

"I'd say you'd be thankful, but you won't get much of a chance for that, I guess. Sorry..." The man pulls off Doyle's blindfold, and as he squints, his eyes go straight to the familiar, wide grin on the woman before him. After his eyes have had a moment to adjust, he turns to look at the other figure, and any color he had on his face immediately disappears, "W-what? What the hell? How did you? What are you gonna--" And with the smack of a fist, Doyle is out again.

"Alright. Do the thing. Let's get this over with." She steps closer and gets to work.

(( Next time anyone looks in the closet, Doyle will be either very dead, or very much about to be. He will stay dead. ))

 

[Leastwise]

Alric Barringer continues to be on the run. He meets up with his long-time girlfriend, Miriam, in Venice, and she persuades him to come back with her onto the Phoenix Group's mobile helicarrier.

The next day, Miriam's superiors become suspicious, and she confesses to smuggling Alric on board. After hearing Alric's side of the story, they decided to make him leave the helicarrier, but offer to set up a safe-house for him within 48 hours. Alric and Miriam leave and go on the run together.

 

[Requine]

((Hey guys, we're currently hitting the PAUSE BUTTON with the Toolbox/Doyle storyline while some OOC concerns are sorted out. Thanks for your patience. Other leads are open for investigation still))​

 

[Requine]

((Toolbox and Doyle are back on track. I'm in the middle of organizing some stuff. Cheers!))​