meg
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Meg
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:30:26 GMT -5
meg had reconed on around two or three thou going into semi-portable security - the stuff you can bolt on and run from inside. But Freddy argued from the security side - depends on what youre protecting, and how much you would be willing to pay to cover its loss.
Creating a half a milion's worth of liquid magic - would that be a prize? yeah.. course it would - so two grand spent on a few top-notch locks was a waste when the raiders blew a hole in the wall. So it had to be reasonable, and practical, and semi-portable, or at least take a few days to uncouple.
Drones were always a challenge - but you'd have to hire a rigger for three month. Freddy hated drones, so drones were an option...
Magical gear would suggest a magical dealer, so would need magical support. Spirits or elementals were tough - but as they got bigger they got awkward to control. A shaman or a wiz- astral snoopers to pinpoint the occupants.
Hire a copter and rappell onto the roof - loud and expensive.
Just so many ways to penetrate light security.
A hardpoint pumping out gel rounds was an option - note for self to check out the cost of an auto-turrett. Freddy had the idea of starting up a security installation firm, years ago but everything needed yen
what could they expect.. ten professionals at ten grand a go for the job, in out grab the stash. A wiz to verify what they grab, couple of sammies as strongarm, security infiltrators, driver/rigger and a few others to fly, cut, blow, impersonate. A hundred thou to get you half a mill. Guys kitted out to the eyeballs, sounds about right.
A strike team. Anything more and it cuts deep into profit, much less and you got yourself a go-gang. Corp pros were out - too small, so it would have to be runners, hired by someone with magical connections at a guess
So how to stop them?
easiest way is to present them with information and make it too difficult or too expensive to try to crack, which meant lots of yen.. and told every street hood that something expensive was being protected, bringing more trouble.
So it has to be subtle, and automated or in-place passive. Electrified netting over the roof.. easy to spot because of the dead gulls. Easier to fill the yard with rippywire and attract attention..but you could use a crete-laying snorkel truck to get directly onto the building. Anyway you had to allow access to all sorts of city officials, so ringing the place with mines and monowire was out.
Then what to do with the miscreants? give them a good kicking and send them on their way? killem and drop the pieces in the Sound? get them to betray their Johnson - who they wouldnt even know... Meg preferred the idea of vidding the whole bungled break-in and showing it on pirate stations to shame them. Freddy liked that idea.
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:30:46 GMT -5
The industrial unit is located near the Sound, a few blocks in from the waterfront. One of fifteen in an industrial estate. One of the nearby units has recently been renovated after a helicrash destroyed the site.
Each unit has its own perimeter fence. 7 ft metal railings welded at bottom and top, spiked. These are ramraid proofed set into a 10 inch crete curb. The railings provide no purchase for climbing, and as a further deterant, a roll of rippywire tops the fence.
One gate entrance provides access for large commercial wagons – straight into a set of high & wide rollerdoors. There is a fire escape door at the rear wall , next to the roof inspection ladder.
The building is two-storey the lower storey being light creteblock wall with an upper plas sheet shell and roof. Every fourth panel is opaque. Inside along the south facing side are the internal offices and storerooms. Six storerooms along the side have 4 inch horizontal slit windows to allow light, but unopenable. There are brick airvent blocks set above floor level.
These six store rooms are: Mains water, power transformer and sewerage inspection hatch outlets run underground from the ‘boilerroom’ This serves as the maintenance area, where heating lighting fuses and boards are installed, next to a toilet block. Three store rooms with rollerdoors come next, and finally in the far corner a windowed office. The office lies next to the wagon rollerdoors, it contains a front entrance door. Next to the rollerdoors is a second firedoor.
At the far end a fire escape runs up to the office gantry then up to the roof rafters. Catwalks allow maintenance access.
The six offices are all full windowed with floor to ceiling blinds with internal partitions separating each office. Crete flooring forms the roofing of the lower maintenance rooms, with flat-plas roofing and fake ceilings. The windows run up to the roof, so there is a two metre gap above the flat-plas office ceiling which lets the light into the main floor. These offices are not as deep as the rooms below, allowing a railed walkway to connect them all on the inside of the factory space.
There is an overhead heavy bar-crane that runs on rails built into the sides of the building, straddling the open space below. The crane can be manouvered anywhere within the open floor space, it is locked off from being able to move above the office work areas
All areas have power conduits running up from the boilerroom into the rafters then dropping down to terminals around the factory floor and offices. The flooring is crete, with a heavy grit layer to absorb the molten glass or industrial detrius. All conduits and piping will run up and over, to comply with H&S standards.
On the shop floor are three industrial kilns and two glass ovens provide the bulk of the equipment in the rear half of the unit. Tubs of chemicals for colouring, metals and additives are stored on racks along the inside walls. The finishing area lies at the front containing polishing & grinding benches and electrical tools. Racking for finished articles along with packaging lies close to the office.
The equipment is dwarfed by the shed covering it, But when you are working on the shop floor, you are dominated by the bulky limestone kilns – and the heat that is pumped out maintains a constant high temperature close to them.
The two fire doors are open from the inside only by a bar push. The rollerdoors are activated by an internal panel set by the doors, again unopenable from outside. The front door is a heavy plas with a standard industrial maglock set into the frame. The windows are toughened – making the ground floor walls and windows a slightly higher than average 6 weedy barrier rating - you could probably kick your way in
The higher cladding and roof are plas sheeting – light materials, sturdy enough to withstand the extremes of Seattle weather but easily broken into. - barrier of 4s
A bog standard stop-the-yobs industrial unit..
So how to stop - or slow down a strike team
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:32:13 GMT -5
Two weeks later she was up and fit again - a thorough Tai Chi workout showed no signs of muscle damage.. Thats the good thing about magical healing, it can drop that downtime from months to just a week or so - along with a competent doc.
Working with him for the last few evenings, Meg had applied a heafty healing to over a dozen fight wounds where each guy had expected to have to sell a leg in order to pay the long term treatment bills - two near enough raised from the dead to be able to walk out - painfully..
The Doc's practice began to pick up very nicely.. problem was Meg couldnt work at being a trauma nurse when she had long term plans of her own...
She had calculated.. around 4 million in Seatle, about 1% or 40,000 awakened they reconed in the population, probably half as wage-mages employed by the corps, never to leave. So 20,000 magically active persons in the sprawl, thats quite a lot... all hungry for magic, fetishes, powders gee-gaws and power focii - and of course weaponry. Of the magical fraternity, about 1 or 2% were alchemists of any useful standing, as most made their way as spellslingers.
200 alchemists - and if you are lucky 10% would be professional standing.. 20 in the city who could freelance, another 20 tied down into corp research. These were the guys who could make a Force 4 blade that could nearly double your attack capability for a measly couple of mill yen and a year to make the thing....
Meg knew most of them, and had connections in the other states through her lecture tours and university links. What about taking on apprentices... it was the only way to make the cheap herbals -
Meg could work with incredibly expensive gold, create the magical oil for blades and make the blades themselves with surety, the apprentice culd do the legwork, and learn ... and in the meantime create something useful.
That was the way Aztechnology did it - but they made slaves of their apprentices worked them to the bone for years. She needed to approach a few old freinds to determine if some brighter bookworm students wanted a working gap year...
Meg could teach talismongering and alchemy.. a class of six for a year, field trips, classes, summoning, creating a journeyman piece.. it would work well. She neededher PHd in alchemy to have the qualificatio first though and that meant creating the stuff herself..
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:32:41 GMT -5
She needed the journeyman piece - proof that she could create a viable item - from scratch. Buying in alchemicals was fine but some of the work had to be yours alone. Demonstrating that you could refine and radicalise an element, then turn it into a piece.
Meg had already got a good idea of what she wanted, create a Power focus at a moderate force that she could bond with what little Karma she had.
Buy in some of the radical materials and refine one part herself, the refining would take a week or so. Then a solid month on the real business of creating the radical .. the alchemical calculation was to take a few units of refined material and pit your skill against it, using the amount of units as the target, and also the amount of successes you made multiplied the original units.
her skill against three units seemed to give the best results on a standard batch.
That would show that she could create the radical.. the second test was to be able to create the Power focus - a lot trickier
Meg reconed on the difficulty being not too high if she was to use virgin materials, and include three radicals - one she had created herself. Snake was a creature of the land - so it seemed to fit that stone would be appropiate earth air fire and water played a great part in alchemy.. stone for the earth, washed by the water - a stone from the beach, with a hole in for the air... but fire..? A hunt and off beachcombing with a spirit would help.. again a few days to discover enough appropiate material using her talismongering.
She could take the boat and the kids off for a beach adventure - Freddy was conducting some biz recently and was in up to his neck, and had asked the family to have a quiet vacation...
A Power focus on the street wouuld cost up to 400,000 and take 10 karma to bond...
As soon as she was fit - leaving the doc with her number in case he had another corpser on his hands... she and her in-laws and the two kids upped anchor and floated off for a trip around the sound.
Lots of little islands to visit - some inhabited - but it was easy to avoid them, and concentrate on the empty ones, leaving pop Fredericks to sail while she chilled out with the kids collecting stones.... and driftwood for an evening fire, a real luxury ! The fish in the sound were all mercury filled - some sort of natural selection process that prevented them from being eaten !
Ten days to collect a unit of stone- that is a few bucketfulls of choice stones with holes in, or if they were lucky, more... the problem of fire though.. heat em up in a bonfire?
they set off on a gloriously overcast day - avoided the slurry bargesand headed across the sound then North to the bleaker coastal areas.. small coves of rocky beaches covered in millions of pebbles..
Anchoring the boat, scrying the local area in astral for habitation took three minuites - getting the dinghy sorted out and moving took fifteen! On the beach Meg played with the kids for a while then asked them to help in the search - while they were still interested. Calling up a spirit 5 was routine - and only needed one order - but could be used for protection if needed.
Snake shaman on land 2d F5 spirit to help 5d talismongering 6d and support from alchemy vs 4s to reduce the time taken
Alchemy dice - each two counts as one success... [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
snake, spirit and skill [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] [rand=5295991977462018413350867181042472594194288006955440759409137503]
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:33:27 GMT -5
alchemy 2 successes = 1 plus 8 successes for the rest .. Meg knows this is a very good area and is able to collect 10 kilos of neato stones in the day.. it only takes a couple of more days at the beach to gather three units - thirty k of stones - the ones that take her fancy are the pumice - light rocks full of airholes ejected from the ghost Dance volcanoes... fire and air water and stone.. and from the awakening.. Looks like things are going well !
To refine this lot she cleans and dusts and deworms the whole lot in 10days/6successes - around two days.
In a week she has had a holiday with the kids and collected three units of stone, and refined it , now there are 15 kilos of clean and pest free stones in the buckets they brought along. the ligt pumice pebbles have now doubled their street value .. inthis case from sweet FA to bugger all ! The big advantage with these is they are hand collected, virgin materials. ideal for a Power focus...
She thinks that an ordinary talismonger with a reasonable skill of 4 would take about four weeks to perform this.. something to think about for the apprentice field trip.
The pebbles can now be used to make fetishes and can be used in ritual sorcery. She could turn the stones into ritual materials and sell em off for 1500 yen... not worth the effort !
This brings a problem in view, how are these materials made? she could collect double the amount and refine them all in one batch and make 3000 a week, around 10,000 a month for hard graft. Herbs, roots, ore, all the same sort of value,and she was verry good. so how could ordinary talismongers make a living... they could only make around 2000 a month. they dont have to be awakened - thats why, a bit like tea pickers in Ceylon - highly skilled in one job..
The next stage was to make radicals of the raw materials. The reason for this was because making a Power focus was a high task skill (TN8) plus its force (2) and the material (3) - in this case natural, unshaped by man, virgin stones some with holes in. They could be chipped and chisled by hand into all sorts of shapes, as long as the maker chipped them. Something high tech would add a huge amount (TN10)
If she added x3 radicals this would drop by 4 , and because they were virgin stones, another -2 total task value to meet with her skill is 8+2+3 -4-2 = 7 she should be able to gain one success in order to create the item over the course of a month .. getting lucky could drop the time to two weeks.. or adding orichalcum at 100,000 a vial could drop the difficulty by one per vial - ensuring success for two doses dropping the TN by 2 down to easy to reach 5s.
the magical oil was so useful - it lowered the difficulty by one per dose, and also the amount of karma needed to attune it to yourself. Not good economics for low force things but for bigger force or higher tech constructs it was a must.
Expensive, but necessasary. Anything over force 2 would cost in the region of a million anyway, because of the time effort and materials used up. An alchemist could attempt to enchant an object any number of times until its fabric just gave way (all 1s) something like a monofil blade force 4 would be around TN 18 minus 4 for the radicals - it couldnt be handmade, so the base target would be 14s , needing at least 3 oils to drop it to the realms of improbable 11s and one attempt every month.. a years worth of bubbling over a hot cruicible and you just might do it. or bung in about 10 oils and complete it in a month, for a mere million extra.
Corps made blades that way, no expense spared, buy every last drop of magical oil they could get their mits on, to make superb spirit cutting blades for their top ops.. Aries were roumoured to have provided a few for the attack on the bugs in Chicago.. specialist ops carrying BFO blades..
However, sitting back in the weak sunshine, Meg let it all flow trough her mind...
next she needed a shop to distill the essences into pure form radicals.. they had a deal on a few month lease.. a month to radical, a month to create the focus - though the focus could be created outside of the shop..
she liked silver, and the earth metal copper - both should be easy enough to buy in radical form, four times as expensive as the raw material, as an alchemist had been sitting over it for a month. Still cheap, as to hire a freelance would cost 100,000 a month.
They would have to go through Gottal - and he worked for Aztech, -they would want a slice of any magical pie. They could work out the basics for themselves just like she had been thinking about it all in the sunshine -
if Meg was going into the magic making business, she would have to be sweet to a number of organisations - and 25% tax to the city.. But if Freddy was working for Krass then maybe some slack could be cut.
If needs be they could move out of state, going underground would be too difficult, so sweeteners it would have to be, and that meant taking on apprentices.
The mental things to do list scrolled out buy the necessarry radicals on the quiet construct her journeyman piece, a power focus buy lots of radicals - attract attention hire on gap year students and train them up go into business making magick - attract more unwanted attention everyone wanted a piece of the action and it was difficult to duck when you tended half-a-dozen red hot kilns.
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:34:06 GMT -5
She could use the kilns to create three radicals and keep everyone off her back for the time being - but that would take three solid months, creating silver and copper and mercury but the resale value would be 4000 12000 and 24000 if she could create 10 units of each.. It really was not worth it, if she could hire her services out for about 50,000 a month. She had to be creating magical items to make it worth while.
Gold radical cost 40,000 a pop but was so expensive to buy in to start with.
The answer had to be to buy in the radicals, and later on with the help of study-gap students, begin producing bigger quantities.
Meg knew a lot of people - she had connections all over, but not many close who she could rely on.. Her old college in the London metroplex, Gottal the supplier here in Seattle - but he was an Atzteck cronie, and , erm - yeah, lots of people. What about other freelancers in Seattle? She knew a few by name, professional nods to each other at conferences.
I supppose they are out to make a buck and keep themselves safe and clean... could I possibly trust them to work for me.. short term maybe on single projects - but not close or for more than a couple of months. Too much political brownie points to be made.
It had to be taking on apprentices, have them work on the cheap stuff to start, and once they proved their worth, then progress onto more expensive projects.
Call Gottal and have a chat - he would report to his masters that she was dabbling with alchemy and Aztech would want a slice. Gottal had already found the glass blowing shop that they could lease, so things were already in the wind...
Hello - is that Gottall ? yes it's Meg - from the Snake Oil shop - no were fine for fetish and powders... I wanted to ask you in a professional capacity. I am looking to persue my doctorate and need to create my journeyman piece. I am looking to buy specially refined herbals and silver.... whats the matter, oh youre laughing.. yes I realised that it is a difficult process and I thought the best way is to make your own.. isnt there some form of barter system - we need to meet.....
Yes it is around 30 thou to hire one in of a competent skill, and he should make about six units a month.. so a base price of around 5000 per unit of anything should cover costs.. how about gold then...
Gottall, Gottall - oh you are picking yourself up... right, 40 thou a shout. Yes that stands to reason - and no I cant afford gold. So there must be a sort of barter pool where virtually everything is worth 5000, and a 10% fee....
Hmmm, Gottall - you wouldnt be able to introduce me would you? come to think of it as an independent with links into Aztech, you would be well placed to be able to buy and sell any surplus..
Lets get down to biz then - I am strapped for cash, and I have a bundle of ideal pristine stone that I could work on, now that I know the barter price is 5000 a go - how about trading for other magics as well or instead?
And what about virgin materials.. 20% markup - that is an extra thou per unit with a markdown of 10% ... I am sure we can come to an arrangement as long as we can discuss it - first however I need to create the stuff..
Can I pay cash for radicals.. no, diddnt think so - in reality the alchemists are pooling their resources.. I suppose you could make to order as well..
And of course, the big boys at Aztech have a floating resource - they would not want to harm their golden geese.
What if I wanted to flood the market with herbals.. yes all six units at 200 yen per, means I would have been working for a month to rake in the princely profit of 1,200 - not enough to pay the rent. but bartering would work well
Does this mean that Aztec has an agressive marketing strategy in monitoring cartels around the world - so youve got access to a huge resource - as long as everyone is happy to play the game...?
Works for me!
My next move is to begin the work on the radicals - and you can barter them for other magical goods... what if I can create radical gold - will that still be at 40,000 a unit, and we could discuss how much for virgin material and the 10% fee...
I will get hold of Freddy to finalise renting the shop for a few months -
I never realised that Aztechnology were running such a tight ship... you must find it hard keep ing the cartel intact, keeping the members in the fold as it were. But because any alchemist will tell you that it is not worth their while working on radicals - unless they get compensated for their time, so they can hire out - making the buyer pay through the nose..
It rewards the competent and dissuades the poorer performers.
I am well impressed..
Gottall diddnt say much - Meg had walked through the conclusions - Aztechnology diddnt have hoards of penned -in alchemists slaving away making artifacts - his eyes betrayed this, and Meg organised the setup of the shop, and allowed an opening for future sales win-win all round.
Gottal left appraising her insight - all the right pieces in place - now Aztech had acces to another practitioner who would work dilligently for them.. no doubt she would be looking to create the mystic oils as well.
Gottall made an entry that would alert the drivers to ensure some essential ingredient production in order to trade to Meg. Aztechnology had need for the oil, more than her isolated position could possibly imagine.
He rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had bitten all those years ago, before he had bargained away his soul to escape the fetid pits.
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:34:34 GMT -5
They stripped out the lodge together, loading the gear up into a rental truck. A few home belongings and a farewell to Glacier - Meg would keep in touch.. Freddy was still nervous about their safety - arriving in the back yard amidst acloud of hiding vapour...
they were able to strip out the logde electronics quite quickly - it was their meaning when assembled that made the difference - Meg wanted to spread the articles and screens around the warehouse - like a gallery display, it was her workshop after all.
load up the waggon then take off into town. There were a few different routes to take in order to shake any tails they might have picked up - through the park to lose any city spirits and to identify any tails, a thorough inspection of the truck - with a mild shock to the nav system to knock out the route memory easy stuff if you knew what could trace you down - a swift burn at speed to lose a physical tail on the 90 then back down to the industrial zone to unload.
The warehouse was coming along a treat - tarps were up keeping the acid rains off the seedlings - and doubling to keep out unwanted visitors by preventing entry without them cutting a hole...
A neat barrier of lines of plants all in high racks - plas shells used for waggon containers were cheap and ideal as fencing. 30 ft long ten wide an high, high impact plas lattice.. great for climbing over and being easily spotted. These container innards surrounded the warehouse, with four racks of seedling beds arranged two on either side of the 'walls' .
the front entrance overlapped meaning visitors had to come in through the nursery - no quick way in. Also meant a whole section would have to be hoist to get any heavy equipment in - but Meg diddnt need anything that couldnt be handballed in anyway.
Then down to getting the lodge started - it would take her a week - arranging, moving, hoisting, a heap of concentration and a lot of mystical connection to get the lodge set up, with the occasional help from him - a week of hard work and effort from her.. (always the same!)
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
shp(o~3000;; b~0;; i~0;; u~0;; s~0;; a~0;; )
I have made 255 posts
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:36:19 GMT -5
With the festivities over she gets down to the first stage of the project.. as a reminder, she wants to produce a finished journeyman peice as proof of her ability and commitment to the alchemical arts - consolidating her claim to be able to provide a practical education to future alchemy students - outside of corp control.
a number of stages - turn the raw materials into refined ones. She trids the processes for educational support..
Refine requireds a check TN of 4 vs 10 days (Meg checks the Magic in the Shadows book, and decides that there would never be any alchemy unless there was a capability to use successes to reduce alchemy time.. this includes production of any powders and fetishes which are soooo cheap compared to any realistic earnings.. send me a PM if you want a heated debate! or read the earlier discussions)
Alchemy 6 [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
plus Talismongering/2 [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
well, 5x successes gives 2-3 days to refine a batch of INT (7) loads she is able to refine the lot in a month easy. but needs to sort out the necessary ones quickly in a week.
leaving her with 3 gold 8 silver 8 copper 8 mercury 8 iron 8 tin 8 crystal 8 semi 8 precious That is a lot of bog-standard work to crack out all of the impurities using kiln and mortar/pestle these go with the stones she gathered herself earlier - now refined and radicalised into a batch of select shapes an sizes..
(OOC her manuals say that each batch shouls weigh a certain amount -however the batch used may consist of a much smaller amount and some 'spoil' which the alchemist rejects)
She is waiting for the herbs and shootlings to begin to mature outside.
Next stage is to produce radicals..
Now Meg knows that there are eyes upon her - - Aztechnology for one, and the universities around the world that she has contacted as well. Her plan is to buck the system and produce her journeyman peice fast - so she catches them all on the hop and can force her own demands down their throats .. rather than them all dictating standard terms. She knows she is good and is willing to prove it.
condensing down refined materials into radicals is something different, it does take time - generally a month to distill the essences. As she really wants to steal that march over the institutions, she is willing to sacrifice results for time..
The standard minerals can wait Meg wants gold, silver mercury and copper radicals - to create oilicalcuram the magical oil which is an absolute must for creating a weapon.
She could take an easier route and just manufacture a Power focus quickly, but she wants to make an impression to demonstrate her capability...
the important one first:
3 units of gold radicalised by forge and furnace.. alchemy 6 [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
supported by talismongering 6/2 [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
( x6 successes = 6x3units=18 radicals of purest gold-looking gold essence youve ever seen. absolute base street value, 750,000)
use 4 units of the other elements but halve the time by applying x3 successes to the time - TN 4 x successes (-3 0f them) = units created per week ! This is costly - as Meg is missing out on turning refined copper into x16 or x20 units of radical copper - sacrificing quantity for time. She is looking to get the lot completed in 8 weeks instead of 20 weeks.. in order to show she 'can do' under pressure.
silver x4 = 4 units copper x6 = 12 units mercury x4 = 4 units
of radicals.
problem now is to shift the radical gold on the 'market' good job Meg has got the contacts - if she diddnt have the contacts, no way could she think of selling the stuff - you HAVE to be in the biz to even appreciate the value of this stuff.
Course the street value of the finished article is reasonably well known - a fraggin 'standard' blade for those in the know, is reach+1 x 100,000 F absolute basic plus the linking force required from the weilder - and the street markup of around 200% makes a blade cost around 500, 000 yen , but Meg wishes that the end users would appreciate how much flippin real hard slog goes into just getting the basics together.
Why does it cost so much, well a big reason is that she can make a power focus F2 (standard) for 200, 000 (+) why? well because...
YOU DONT HAVE TO USE BLOODY ORICHALCUM THATS BLOODY WHY
and that stuff costs 100,000 a shout. (at least)
You may now understand why 'magical items' are bleedin hard to come by - you either HELP to make it - or have LOADS of cash floating around - if the seller wants cash of course -
a lot of mystic stuff is traded and bartered for other hard to garner materials.. cash is merely an indicator of the kind of trouble the buyer has to go to to actually close the deal.
Meg knows that barter is the main route for exchange of materials - either magical or obscure items. Cash is not a confirmation that you could 'buy' your way into magic.
There are further stages to complete before the weapon focus that Meg wishes to complete , is ready. For now she has the prepared materials.
ANother reason to move quickly is to have everything in place before the potential buyers or dealers are ready - preempting their plans. Meg knows that word will be around that there is a specialist practitioner up and coming, Aztechnology needs sidestepping and the academic institutions need bringing on board fast in order to provide some security.
the whole process would generally take 30 weeks plus.. she is looking to have it completed in 10
For the orichalcum it takes 10 - Magic (6) = tn4
talismongering support [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] alchemy [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
five successes to distill orichalcum.. Thats half a mill ! - or it goes straight into her creating a F4 weapon focus, needing four of the five distillations...
Meg has planned this for a long time - the stones she gathered months earlier is natural and she entwines the pair into two wide copper bracelets with silver filligree that she can make easily - something she can wear continuously - otherwise she would be making polearms.. (There has to be an advantage in karate at some point)
Enchant TN6 + F4 + OR3 = TN 13 eek! minus handmade -1 virgin -2 three materials -4 oil x1 units -1
=TN 2 30 days base talis [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] alchemy [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] Enchanting the items 30/4 = 8 days - lovely and smooth so far
then the first bonding.. this is where I veer from the rules - I will use standard bonding cost 3+reachxF with an advantage for an Enchanting bonus rather than 8xF (you may as well make poleaxes- still cheap!) otherwise noone would ever conscider making the things. see my earlier arguments.
3+reach0 xF4 = 12 karma reduction due to oil 1/unit -1 x3 materials -4 first bonding Alchemy successes max of +3 = base value of Force to be paid =4
Meg has completed the process in 8 weeks, has 750,000 worth of radical gold, four units of Mystic oil worth 400,000 and a F4 weapon focus attuned to her worth 500,000. maybe she does need some better security once she is up and running. She will call a F3 spirit to be on call. Yow.. how about Oil = Force of weapon, will reduce surplus oil and make items more expensive!
Next stop is to claim her Doctorate in Magick from her college. Book the flight and contact the John Dee collegiate. She has the process on trid and some of the evidence with her. After that it is getting in touch with Gottal the Aztechnology rep.[rand=492400484887471738679357945066495466038765318064339287426474505105]
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meg
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Meg
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:37:11 GMT -5
She had been pondering the problem of another leader for the year ahead, Meg knew a lot of people academically, much depended on the college needs and wants. There would have to be another specialist alchemist who could watch over the budding course, a college or even a corp flunky who would be reporting back on everything, so security was shot straight off.
She wanted to take in twelve students, six or seven from the colleges and the others from elsewhere. Her idea was to skew any funding to a sliding scale - but the college wouldnt committ its best - each year would roll out up to a dozen qualified students, soaked into the corporates to create blades for their black-ops teams, they had the yen to splash around.
Sh ewas going to maintain a high startup cost with amounts per student.. Her contacts around the world had replied favourably but all eyes were on Cambridge, her own college. If they ran with it, then interest would be generated.
The first year would be the key, deliver the goods correctly then everyone would fall in line - to set up their own academies... oooh, she would become a victim of her own success. Everyone would set up academies of their own and sod her! unless the money said that it was not as good a venture as first thought, but better than the college route. How to spend money and keep academic supremos satisfied?
Pitch it differently - an outward bound course - practical skills not just the academic side, something that the college tutors wouldnt do..
Meg needed to make some enquiries - find a few places where she and a dozen could go - hire on some local guides, specialists
God's teeth, it was getting bigger and bigger, she'd need a staff of half a dozen...and access to matrix accounts, and god knows what else... no wonder the college fees were so high!
Where to start.. she needed her own academic team. In fact she needed more than that, a trustworthy manager to run the whole thing.. like that existed!
But there were some excellent committee organisers who practically did the work for most of the senior management...
Suddenly spending money diddnt seem too difficult after all.
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meg
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Meg
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:39:53 GMT -5
she receives the 850000 cred immediatly paid to the company she sets out buying the rest of the things she needs.. Sorting out the purchace of the shop with Gottall was much easier than she thought, laywers on tap.
In effect Meg, Aztechnology is interested in you and what you can make, we can turn out powders and potions and most standard focii, least half in use are made by us, but it is blades that are the difficult part, not even the blades, there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who can turn out obsidian or steels, it is the catalyst , the essential Atlantis Metal that is wanted.
Before you say you will need every unit you make, there is always room for barter - We believe that it should cost around 100,000 each unit in time and materials, and would like to enter into negociation - barter for future units. Why not think of buying the lease for the first unit?
We want to keep the trade in the Metal to zero, make focii or weapons we dont mind, thats your job.. we would like to encourage you to trade any surplus through us, in return for access to Aztechnologie's enormous database and stocks of hard-to-come by exotic materials. We want to keep a barter cartel in place .. magic for magic.
We wont buy it from you but we will trade it, but we will need a commitment of three units a year in exchange for best price goods, services, equipment training.
Youre a specialist, we want you on board. Where magic is concerned, we have access to nearly everything you can think of, and more.
Take lots of time to think about it, we'll always be close by !
Three units was the surplus a good practitioner could make in three months, what was the downside of not being inside the cartel,,? well general supplies for one, distinct trouble for two , and trading the finished products for a third..
'Would this be a permanant fixture? what if I decided on a three year holiday?
Meg knew she had ultimate control over where and how she supplied the shop, the college had not put any restrictions on her either
We have found that after a while, most makers come to accept the trade-off as a neccessary evil, a mutual back scratching tradeoff - it is not the one offs that we want to keep down, it is when someone goes into production, twenty units a year for a few years really mounts up and if that hits the ground in one lump then it makes big corporate waves, and blood on the streets.
But if youre not making, or maybe just - as they used to say, 'for personal consumption' then thats not industrial activity, so no problem.
As for permanance, well we generally look at a five year rolling agreement, the people outside of this tend to be either corp sponsored makers - totally independant of Aztechnology - or paranoid reclusives. After a while, many Makers become big enough to require industrial supplies, through one or other major corp, it becomes too much of a headache to self source.
Keep everyone in line - well in your line anyway, and have the clout to come down on you like a ton of bricks in an independant place like Seattle.... If she moved to Britain, the Lord Protector would take a big interest instead.
Gottall you got yourself a deal, where do I sign?
Gottal could have smiled, he'd brought her on side, not that she had much option if she was to begin making more than one or two items a year.. Meg should have potential, the meeting she had in the London college tweaked at his mind, was she looking to become a professor, if so would she leave for Britain? what purpose could she have remaining in Seattle apart from research?
A lot of practitioners tried to default on the contract, and go fully independant, thats why there were a lot of Aztechnology magic items around, and iron bracelets back in the jungle pits. Once they had been reeducated, they worked reasonably.
And he did want the orichalcum...
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Post by Braddoc on Jul 20, 2008 18:40:17 GMT -5
((Damn long one here...those are posts you wrote in the IGR?))
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meg
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Meg
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:40:22 GMT -5
Whats the weakest part in any security system Meg? The infiltrators having a ground plan. No, the employees. You gain information about the organisation through the individuals. Who has access to most parts of an industrial complex.. Erm the technicians.. No, they need clearance, it is the new stuff that comes in through the door, janitors pizza part-time and full-time staff who have been bribed coerced or magicked.
Depends on what you want to keep under wraps.. industrial secrets? - other alchemists can do the same so you dont need that produce? yes - but it is all geared up to a certain time, so you can highten security for then and stash the produce, quite tight production schedules. Interruption? yes so you need to isolate your production from everything else. staff? yes you need to keep them safe
All in all the security has to be physical. Provide a safe working environment from smash and grabbers. Tight on who can get in and out - doesnt matter too much on who knows what there is to avoid as long as it is difficult for them to get through !
There will always be leaks from staff or students - even a snatch and a mindscan -
Youve got the passive security set up - now for some active security. Auto turrets with an AK97 firing gel, motion detectors targetting would stop me unless I really had to get in. minicomp, AK97 chip security chip armoured bin heavy mount, semi mobile so you can move them during the day...
OOOh I've always wanted to have some on my side.. theyre the pointdefence systems you have to creep up to to disarm, and in this ouside make they will be brilliant.
If the opposition want to up the stakes and assault the place you need an internal safe system - a holdout room so you can hide until help arrives. Easy to install not so easy to access.
Knight Errant is... How much! thats half a mill a year! wow!
AK97 700 smartgun 600 mount 600 gas 2 450 Ultrasnd sight 1300 Gunchip 5 7500 security chip 5 7500 computer 5000 about 25,000 each plus the armoured bin. you need at least four, plus setting up, a cool 100,000 to have these beauts recognise staff or authorised personnel and shoot anyone else.. keep the rats down too. theyre independent so cant be hacked - plenty of storage in the comp - its not a deck so it is cheap It is the clever chips that make th cost.
A security company installing these should throw in a holdout room.
Youll need living arrangements for these guys - youve got six offices to convert easily, buy in a few decks for library use - some weekends off in town at a hotel
And some staff.
Arrange the tour stops and the visiting specialists too - though I dont know about contacting people in the Salish area - theyre not so phobic about non NAN or non Meta like most of the other nations - and theyre realists too, supplying power to Seattle so they shouldnt be too set against a bio collection trip - do the eco bit and try a plant and collect ? - surely you know a few delegates who may want to help out..
Meg did have a lot of contacts - it wouldnt take long to follow up either.
After a few days she had a discussion over the fone link - any party of awakened would be welcomed (rolled a 10) the lodge would reqire Salish forestry officials who would double up as security in order to correctly educate the party, and the suggestion of a plant and gather is very well received.
Meg had the field trips sorted.
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meg
Shadowrunner
Meg
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Post by meg on Jul 20, 2008 18:45:13 GMT -5
Snippetts from the thread...
Universal Gameroom Page 2 (took me ages to find it!) 'In Other News'
also introduces some of the potential politics and vested interests that need to be dealt with.
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Post by wolflet59 on Mar 27, 2009 8:50:37 GMT -5
point about Meg getting the sole rights to release the apprentices, is that anything they produce is her property, even though they are educated by the London Collegiate, they are now working for Commute Site Seattle.
Meg recons that the first three mont will give them an education into talismongering and creation of standard refined materials - increasing their talismongering skill to 4
the next three will concentrate on Alcemy - creation of Radicals - creating low quantities of crap Radicals as practice - this and the earlier work should get the budding alchemist up to an 'acceptable' level
Next is the big step - orichalcorum the Atlantis metal three months on this... time to improve Alchemy or Enchanting to a 'Practical 'stance
Finally create your own power focus and make one more to cover the cost of the materials used.
ten students will be able to Radicalise enough materials (including failures) to cover any use in the Site then the oil.. the stats say 10- magig (6) = 4 [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]talismongering [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]talismongering [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6] [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]talismongering [dice=6][dice=6][dice=6][dice=6]
eight successes on average each. x12 = 96 units then they all make a power focus 2 for themselves, and another to cover costs.. - half the oricalchorum = 48 units. 200,000 x12 is the going rate for a F2 focus
2.5 mill street price, plus 48 units at 5 mill High average as they are all A class students .. 4 Mill Meg is now constructing around 7 mill a year. Plus getting paid for it Let alone any private contracts for 0.5 mill standard magical blades.
She needs to protect her intrests. Move site , or defend it?[rand=65921147935928064813011750886242436218340982446343953330912318488]
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