Strange Bedfellows, Badlands

GM: Vulcan
Players: Darius, Cole, Baron
Synopsis: The runners go to a meet, but one of them doesn't like the job.

«Plot» Cole says, " I understand and consent."
«Plot» Baron says, "I understand and consent"
«Plot» Darius says, "I understand and consent."
«Plot» Vulcan says, " Cool. THanks. Now, +1 karma to whomever logs this to the wiki for me."

You sort of get to choose which contact contacts you. HE's contacting you for a contact of his, as the runner network is utilized. A friend of a friend of a friend who says they have reputable, work with someone they trust. Meet up at the Hotel Boulderero in Downtown Boulder, Ute sector. Look for the man in the funny hat.

THe Hotel Boulderero is a classic wild-west style four story pre-victorian wood and brick structure, built when the railroads came to Boulder as a hotel for executives. It's never lost its sheen of luxury, despite changing standards as to what luxury has meant. It is the centerpeice of quaint 'historic' boulder, which doesnt' seem to focus on 'how bad the white man is' and more on separating you from your dollars.

Baron grunts on the phone and thanks his fixer for the job info. He looks around his RV, and reaches for his RCD, plugging it in, he sends a command to his RV to start up and begin heading for a back route into the Ute, cause he has had enough of border crossings and he isnt going to deal with another. En route to the crossing area, he deploys his Blimp drone to follow above the RV, elevation 900 meters, well outside of most ground based weaponry, short of a missile. He is a paranoid runner that tries to get into Ute territory so he can make it to this meet at the hotel.

Darius was working at the shop when the message comes in, the girls at home with their tutor. So he closes up for the afternoon and then exits the shop through the rear entrance. He makes sure to button down his jacket and his pockets, and then murmurs to himself in some ancient tongue. After a few moments, a breeze seems to whip at his robes, and eventually lifts him into the air. he ascends quickly, and then flies at a casual pace above the busy streets below, but well below the criss-cross of air-traffic high above, towards the hotel.

The bordercheck takes a little longer than normal, to which the guard mutters darkly about crap equipment, but then gives a digital stamp and sends Darius on his way.

After that, Darius makes the rest of his way via taxi.

"I'm not going to the Ute."

"Yeah, I need the money."

"Look, I don't care if there aren't any other jobs out there, Ute is boarder hopping, and I don't do that."

"That good? Well…"

"Alright, fine, I'll do it."

"No, I won't bring a katana. What kinda idiot do you think I am?"

"Hey, that wasn't my fault."

"Yeah, fine, tell him I'm on my way."
Hanging up the phone, Cole stashes his Katanas away in his appartment, and heads on out the front door. Hailing a taxi, he gets a ride over to this hotel Alec told him about.
It's early evening when everyone is finally able to make it to the Boulderero. The night time crowd is filing in for fine dining and theater, taking in a gallery on the mezzanine level, or a spa on the roof. Darius could fit right in, while Baron sticks out like a fat pedophile at the preschool.

Baron makes his way along back roads that most smugglers use and the authoritys tend to stay away from. Of course, this mean the road is total crap, and he bounces along in his RV as every pothole and crack in the asphalt tends to send him flying out of his chair. The suspension manages to hold until he gets onto the better roads of the Ute sector, if they can be called better. He pauses long enough to recover his drone, and head towards the Hotel. He finds a spot to park nearby, and heads towards the hotel, looking around the lobby for any signs of a funny hat. At least he looks somewhat native, though when your fat, people tend to not guess your heritage very well.

Used to racism and being hassled at checkpoints from his life of worldly tracels, Cole takes the twenty minute hassle and search at the Ute checkpoint exceptionally well. He doesn't even threaten to murder anyone! Continuing on through the Ute after the checkpoint, he remarks to himself, "They just don't search people like they used to." flicking a hidden knife out from up his sleave. "They never search the cliche places anymore." he adds.
The driver, seeing this, exclaims, "Fragging anglo son of a bitch, you coulda gotten us BOTH in trouble with that drek."
"I didn't. So cut yer yapping and keep driving if you want payed." Cole replies, hiding the knife once more.
Darius does indeed fit right in when they get to the rather upmarket location, Darius spends a while making a show of looking around taking the place in. A practiced expression of mild boredom painted on his face as he waits.

The funny hat.

Sitting in the steakhouse in the bottom floor, is a man. He has very angular, proper, aristocratic features. He's carefully cutting and chewing a steak of prodigious size, an air of absolute dignity surrounding his every move. He is the epitome of 'gentleman', if one ignores the hat on his head.

It's a tripple-stack stovepipe tophat, with what appears to be a rollercoaster running around the outside of it, then dissapearing in to the bottom to come back along the topside of it. A small car of quietly screaming people run down the track every few minutes.

Baron waddles his way through the crowds, and stops at the enterance to the steakhouse, he grunts at whomever is doing the seating and points at the hatted guy "I'm with him" he waits to see if the server knows that the man is expecting company, and hopefully heads to the table in question to take his seat.

Darius finally makes his own way into the steakhouse, ambling in behind the others and towards the man they ar eunmistakably here to meet.

It is somewhat obvious, is it not? Almost… too obvious. Perhaps he has a SWAT team in the hat?
Showing up at the hotel on time, Cole gets out and walks to the front door. He's not dressed as he would normally be, wearing instead some plain, respectable if simple black on black shirt/slacks/jacket. Entering the hotel, he takes a bit of a look around, then heads to the steak house. Cole takes a moment to ask the receptionist, "I'm supposed to meet a man here on business. Perhaps you've seen him? Wears an exceptionally funny hat?" he asks. The receptionist simply points to the table with the man in question, as if it was clear as day. "Ah yes." Cole notes, walking his way to the table and having a seat.
The steak eating aristocrat chews his meat carefully, holding his knife and fork just 'so', offering a nod to the others as they come to sit down. He sets the utencils down, looking to the others. "WEll." He says then, his accent a curious multi-tonal affair, as though he were speaking in four voices at once. "So glad you could join me."
Baron eyes the steak for a long moment before his gaze turns up to the face of the man with the odd hat. He simply nods at the man "My pleasure." he says rather quietly. He looks around briefly, then back to the Johnson "Good steak?" he inquires.

Darius offers the man a nod of his head in greeting. "A pleasure." He comments.

The curious voice intones again, to Baron.. "Quite. Buffalo. Very rare, but a certain smoky flavor absent from Beef. I'd offer you some, but well, I'm not here to feed you." A pause as he looks to the group in front of him.. "Which one of you speaks for the group?"

Cole sits, keeping to himself, and when the question is asked he simply looks to the others and shrugs. He's not going to talk for the group, it's not something he's good at. He just looks about the room rather impatiently.

Darius glances to his companions, and then speaks up, "I can." He comments then, volounteering himself for the job.

Baron leans forward slightly, enough to look at the other two runners, when Darius speaks up, he looks him over a minute, and then shrugs, accepting the situation for now.

The man nods, which causes the little roller-coaster car to come careening down the track. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" say the little people in the cars.

"The job is a simple enough one. You will deliver a message for me to an inhospitable location. NO need to kill anyone, no need to break laws of any temporal sort…"

Darius nods his head a little, as he considers this, "Of course, you wouldn't be offering the job to people… with our skills, unless you suspected we may need to employ them." he says to the… somewhat ecentric man. "May I ask where about said inhosbitable location might be."

Baron reaches into a pocket, slowly of course, and removes a candybar. He unwraps the end of it and takes a bite, still listening to the hat man talk, but apparently not able to go long without eating something.

Paying attention, relatively speaking anyway, Cole nods his head as he continues to look around the room, perhaps looking for a trap, perhaps just being a bit twitchy without a knife in hand to play with. 'Just gotta hold it together…' he thinks to himself.
Another bite of steak is dipped in the Bearnaise Sauce, then put deftly in to his mouth. He chews with deliberation as the rollercoaster goes back in to the hat. After a lnog moment of enjoying the flavors of the meat, sauce and juices, he swallows. "Where, is somewhere in the Mojave Desert, an exact location to be told once and only once you swear to the mission."

Baron seems to find nothing wrong with delivering a message in the desert, of course he knows nothing about the Mojave, just that its hot, probably need to stock up on water and food first. He then looks to Darius and nods his assent to the job, then takes another bite of his candybar.

Cole continues looking about the room, perhaps searching for a reason to pull his knives on someone. Not finding any for the moment, his mind goes back to the task at hand: Getting a job. "Hmm? Oh, yes. I swear." he says to the group as a whole, then continues looking around the room, nodding to himself a bit.

Darius scowls a little at that, "The Mojave desert?" he asks again, "Well, I'm not certain why exactly my contact thought I would be suitible for this task then." He comments. "That whole area is a dead zone."

Stopping his search for a moment and becoming deadly serious, Cole questions the current line of conversation. "A what?" he asks, quite concerned.

Baron arches a brow himself at the comment of dead zone, rather curious as to what that means, though his mouth is saved the trouble of opening by the comment from the other runner.

"Dead?" Asks the man with the funny hat, turning his fork in such a fashion as to pause eating and turn it in to a gesturing device. "How curious. I had no idea. Do tell?"

"My magic- the majority of my abilities- will be useless there." Darius informs the other two. "Should I be able toc ast at all, I doubt anything good would come of it."

The man smiles then, a ghosting thing that is quickly gone. "So sad, that. But I'm perfectly certain you won't be useless, and indeed, your skills and knowledge may keep these two out of more danger than they would otherwise find, yes? Surely, you do not denegrate your potential to be limited simply to your ability to bend mana and enslave sentients?"

Baron smiles faintly as the fancy pants mage man is insulted slightly by the Johnson. He takes another bite of his candy bar and waits to see how this is going to play out.

Darius can't help but smirk a little, "Ah, I have heard that line before." he comments to the Mr. Johnson. "Well, I suppose someone thought I might be useful. Perhaps they were mislead, but I suppose I'll make do."

"Only slightly worried about my own abilities. Magic isn't a topic I know a whole lot about yet, but I assume an adept won't have much in the ways of permanent losses from traveling in one of these dead zones?" Cole asks, unsure of what to make of the situation but still rather concerned.

The man looks to Cole. "What an interesting question." He says, one hand reaching up to remove his hat with a sweeping gesture. Underneath the hat, is a house of cards, tarot (Looks to be the classic Grey's deck, actually), standing some 6 stacks high. "I am quite certain that mana, despite it not being of a flavor your friend fines -palatable-, being that it is flavored with freedom and not slavery, that even if you suffer momentary disorientations, you will not endure any lasting injury."

A pause.

"Well, from the ambient mana flow, anyway."

Baron takes another bite of his candybar, almost finished now. He looks at the other runners, waiting to see how they will react to the information, although his gaze is distracted slightly by whatever is left of the nice steak.

A nice, juicy selection of fat (Still slightly clear, and so good looking) and a tender cut of Ribeye.

Darius shakes his head a little at that last jab, "Ah, you know, I don't think I like the sound of this job after all." he stands up, "Thank you for the offer, but I shouldn't plan for such a distant trip while I have other respnsibilities in the city." he says to the man. "Sorry to wste your time." he adds, and then makes to leave.

Immediately going back to his previous state of not caring while looking for trouble, Cole simply replies "I see. Not a problem I think." After a moment's consideration, he takes a steak knife off table in front of him, and begins twirling it about in different ways to keep his mind occupied. 'Best to not pick fights in luxury hotels if you ever want invited back', he thinks to himself.
Looking back to Darius, the man with the cards on his head raises an eyebrow, his quad-toned voice seeming slightly dissapointed. "Such a thin skin, Greyman. I was told to expect… better."

Baron grunts slightly as Darius looks like he is going to be leaving, he frowns a bit though as he thinks over things, always good to have a mage nearby, even if its just for that magic vision thing they do.

Darius shakes his head, "Ah, And here Iw as trying to be polite- The truth is, I do not like the terms of this job." He explains to the Mr. Johnson. "Thank you for your time. Goodbye."

The man rolls his eyes, looking back to the other two. "Well. I apologize, gentlemen, but without a magi to interface with the Ayx Hauii… I am afraid I do not think you can deliver the message I require delivered. It has been a pleasure meeting you though. I don't suppose…" A pause. "One of you knows a manaworker of some nature?"

Baron grunts "Not in town anymore, I know the best, but havent seen her in a while."

"Well, there is this guy that fixed me up. Let me see if I got contact info." Cole says, pulling a cellular phone from his pocket and taking a moment to stare at it's screen.

Baron grunts "Well, I guess thats that." he looks to the man with the hat "Give me a call if you find a mage, otherwise….I'm going to have me a steak." He gets up from his chair and heads over to the enterance, doing what he can to get a table and one of those buffalo steaks.

"Yeah, I don't think I got his number. If you can toss me yours, I'll give you a call if I can contact him. Maybe then we can get this show on the raod." Cole says, standing up with cellphone in one hand while twirling about a steak knife in the other, a grin across on his face.


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