Terminal

World of Telduria [Reboot]

Interested.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

"We'll see about the spider. I would prefer not to have to confront them in their murderweb den." Tracy replied dryly. "I should have all the info I need right here...hopefully. So let's get to work." He moved around the iron bed and opened the medical station and began pulling out injectors and bottles.

"In case it was not already apparent, this...place of business gets used for just a little bit more than what it advertises. There's a particular pack of, well, nevermind what they are, who use this place for...interviews." He turned back to the bed and neatly arranged a number of fluid bottles. They were all colored an unsettling dim brown, with crusty and faded warning labels stuck to them, as though they had been pulled out of some musty stockroom somewhere.

"By which I mean they use this place to torture people for information." Tracy clarified helpfully as he turned Golemeth over and started examining the back of what remained of his chassis. "One of those juices is used to suppressed aggressive tendencies and reduce belligerence. Another is used to make concentration more...difficult. The third is used to enhance recall, mostly to offset the one that bricks concentration. All combined, it should make Golemeth more responsive to questioning and make it difficult for him to lie if I can get the dosages right. We'll have to get how much of his biomass is left for me to figure that out. I've seen them all used enough that I can administer them with...well, an acceptable degree of risk."

As he looked over Golemeth's back, one hand over his mouth in concentration, Tracy looked the calmest he had been since Theron had first seen him. His whole body was still, not listless but not taut. As he finished speaking he produced an electronic syringe he had taken from the medical station, and connected its tip to a thin running tube that he then reached out to hook into a small bioport under Golemeth's left armpit.

"Of course, we need him conscious for all of that, and we need his hardware running for me to get his mass. Help a guy out, will you?" Tracy waved at Theron to assist with his free arm - free, in the sense that its hand was not holding anything. Tracy was still, quite awkwardly, trying to continue supporting his duffel bag with that arm. He clearly did not want to have to set it down for some reason. "Get him running again."

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Did i hear someone say they needed more firepower/a hacker/a tech savy dude? You can have all that and more! .....for a price.

Questionable sense of humor is complementary

@Jollan

Tracy and Theron ARE presently in need of a techie, since neither of them are capable of resuscitating Golemeth it would seem. :P

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

Quick update: @SleepingSilence updated their post to contain a new segment at the end of the first half. We now have a secondary character entering the bar, if anybody else wants to mention his presence therein that is fine with me. He would just be getting drinks for the moment, it is presumed he will not be doing interesting there until later.

The Elder Scrolls: Year of the Wolf

@josephb Nope, it looks like we have it covered. No need for you to make a mage unless you legitimately want to make one.

@The Revenant How is our vampire's history working out?

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Response is up, I took some liberties with the sequence of events just to get us going a bit quicker rather than stringing everything out, while still giving you room/time for Theron to have an extended conversation with corporate if need be in your own post. If you wanted anything to go differently - like say Theron dropping Golemeth's carcass and then springing on Tracy instead of following through - let me know and I can take my post down and edit it accordingly, or rewrite it entirely.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

"You explain yourself, tinker around with our mutual acquaintance, and then we go our ways, just like you said. We both win and we can quit chatting in this alley. Done deal."

Theron

'And that,' Tracy thought as he eyed the lowering barrel of Theron's M31. 'Is yet another victory pulled out of thin air.'

"Alright. Two blocks down from here is a Puppet-Play Parlor. If your boy there had kept trucking he might even have had the opportunity to shoot the place up. You'll know the place when you see it, has turquoise glow and, uh, the slightly more lurid wall-inking. They have private rooms, and due to the...nature of the business they have a few spare wetware interfaces and medical instruments lying around we can make use of. I'll hang back, give you some room to make your call, and then you can follow me in. I'll take care of the arrangements."

Tracy proceeded to do exactly that. He took a few tentative steps backward, before pulling away and back down the street - but not too far. He malingered at the corner of the next alleyway, obviously keeping track of Theron as he hauled Golemeth between buildings while heading for the nearest kiosk. The man kept looking every-which-way with small jerking tilts of his head, like some overly-vigilant pigeon. He did not seem satisfied that Theron would keep his word, and was watching from a distance the whole time while Theron made the call, and refused to move on until the Intellitron Hunter had begun dragging Golemeth's carcass back in the opposite direction.

Tracy led Theron and his cargo back down the street past where the shootout had taken place. They had to pause twice as a solitary pedestrian moved by on the main street - people were finally starting to enter the area again. As promised, the Puppet-Play Parlor was readily identified by its sickly-turquoise color theme of neon glow. Although the whole district was usually bathed in glow in any case, the shot-up and partly collapsed buildings on the way there and the continuing string of destitute, condemned buildings on the opposite side made the joint stand out a little in the grimy murk. The front of the brick-and-mortar building had been effaced with a street mural (likely paid for) depicting two scantily-dressed women, their limbs all connected to strings while they prostrated themselves before a man holding onto marionette bars. This particular kind of joint was on the rarer side, even in Night City. It was common knowledge that with the right kind of wetware interface and a big enough server-stack, you could move around and store the real kind of personal data. Puppet-Play Parlors used bodies and minds, some rumored to be acquired through human trafficking or else requisitioned for payment of debt, for the entertainment of discerning patrons. Bodies with a selection of various personas could be rented or even bought, for the right price. So they would definitely have the right kind of equipment to resuscitate Golemeth - as well as make him pliable to questioning. The building was not a particularly large one - it probably had two private rooms at most and its server was probably stuck in a broom-closet, but it would do.

Tracy, for his part, pushed open the glass door and walked into the plaster-and-wood room with cheap neon-strips stapled to the edges of every surface and started talking with the receptionist as if he had done this a hundred times before - although Theron could see from Tracy's stance, the way he was moving, and the coloration of his face even masked by neon-glow as it was, that the man was even more nervous inside the building than he had been when he had been confronting Theron. A creeping edge of uncertainty laced his voice as he spoke.

"Hey, me and my two friends need a room, a bit of messy play gear, and I need all of it put on the Crash account."

The receptionist, a heavyset man wearing a wife-beater who looked perpetually displeased, had started filling out some kind of form on a wall-interface just behind the partition between his office and the entrance, but paused when Tracy mentioned the Crash account, whatever that was.

"And what would the boss say if they knew some nobody loser was trying to get a free ride with that sorry old line?" He asked, an unpleasant scowl appearing on his face.

"She would say that's part of the cost of doing business with lost causes, as long as it only ever happened once." Tracy replied, his entire body tensing up as though he were moments away from bolting right out the door, his expression visibly narrowing.

The man's scowl vanished. He silently and casually closed the form he had been filling out as though he was done with it. "You are in room two, the body-tube will be empty. Check the safe under the bed for your gear. You have as long as you need." He paused, then added, "You will pay for this." The tone of his voice was even and nonthreatening, but he definitely was not talking about money.

"Yeah, I know." Tracy said, not even bothering to hide the miserable undertone of his voice and he trudged down the hallway.

The electronic lock for room two was open when they got there. Unlike the rest of the building, which was as cheaply arranged as possible, a modicum of actual effort had gone into the presentation of the room's interior. The plastic-paneled door had a steel frame, the floor and ceiling had some kind of soft rubbery tiling with the appearance of slick, black glass, and the walls were coated in a silvery metallic paint with horizontal neon strips running along them with controls by the side of the bed to change their coloration and intensity. The bed was a four-poster arrangement wrought from dark metal, with rings and adjustable-length rods at regular intervals, and what looked like actual pillories stationed at the foot and headrests. At the back left-hand corner of the room was a tall glass-partitioned tube in the wall - empty, as the receptionist had indicated. A halfway opened, wall-mounted medical station - its electronic lock also clearly disengaged - clearly displayed an assortment of questionable concoctions and materials. A large black electronic safe-door set into the base of the bed had a glowing green indicator light near the top of its frame, indicating that it too was unlocked.

After Theron hauled Golemeth inside and onto the bed, Tracy closed the door for the room and switched the electronic lock on.

"As promised, here's a little preview of what I know." Tracy began, his voice wavering slightly. His voice sounded a little raw, as though he were parched. "Golemeth here had specific and multiple dealings with Davison. Multiple times and places, and I do not know or care about most of them. Recently though - as in, just before Davison went missing recently - Golemeth met with Davison at one of his actual secure holdings. Not some meet-up in the streets or somewhere else. One of Davison's actual sites. While there, Golemeth saw Davison meeting with somebody else, and witnessed a particular exchange. I am interested in what they said, and what they exchanged. I know the actual address where this meeting took place. There might be some items of interest left-over there, or intel on Davison, I don't know or care since all this drama over Davison going missing is presently peripheral to my actual concerns. If you let me talk with our friend here, I'll give you the address, and if you listen in you can have the name of the other party, and you'll learn why both Golemeth and the other party were there at the same time - as well as all of the same details I am looking to ask him about."

Tracy looked expectantly at Theron. "Is that enough? Are we in business?"

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@SleepingSilence

Yeah, I'll just whip something up quickly that you can stick on at the end. I will send it to you via PM and you can append it.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

I have time too. I think I should be able to get a post out just after yours, depending on when it goes up.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@SleepingSilence Noted. What I had in mind was not particularly complicated. It could be just as simple as me writing up a brief scene-cap that you can stick into one of your own posts, but I am open to suggestions.