So I've been thinking. I'm not sure how many people on here are aware of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, but it is my personal all time favorite fantasy series. I've recently discovered that there is a roleplaying game set in that world. 

I think it could be a lot of fun to play a game of that sort and am thinking of perhaps starting one if there is any interest! 

Soooooo, is anyone interested?

So, once we get inside is the plan to just check the first door we see? There appears to be a door on the right about sixty feet in.

Welcome to the inn! It's a great place place with a wonderful collection of people. I hope you really enjoy your time here!

"...To be clear, I'm pretty sure we will trip the motion detector. We need to stop that alarm from getting beyond this floor? What do you need me to do? I'll help as I can."

Bloodbank released the pent up breath he hadn't been realizing he was holding. If he properly understood what Fixer was saying, then they were truly in for a struggle. If he was 100% honest with himself, he had very little idea of what could be done to remedy the situation they were in; and even less of an idea of the difficulty in any remedies suggested. Frack, but the MedTech hated feeling useless, and more often then not when it came to technology, he really was. 

Wiping his sour frown off his concealed face, Bloodbank kept quiet and idly twisted his left middle finger while listening to Blossom's reply. 

“The sensor doesn’t have any wires running from it which means that it’s running on WiFi,” Blossom removed the sucker from her mouth and pointed its purple ball at the techie. “Can you get that sensor box open without setting off the alarm? If you can, I can probably hitch a ride on its signal and see what blocks I can put in place. Once I’m surfing that wave, I should be able to locate the central alarm system and given enough time, bypass the system’s firewall… maybe even turn the whole thing off.”

“So,” Vegas inserted with a tense whisper. “The success of this whole plan is contingent on a bunch of maybes?”

"Maybe's are better then nothing," Bloodbank murmured to no one in particular, shrugging slightly. "Besides, they've got this in the bag, I'm sure!" Bloodbank half smiled, glancing between Fixer and Blossom. He was sure, was the thing. Well, he was mostly sure. He really didn't have any idea how difficult the task they were proposing was. Sometimes he wished everything was as simple doctoring a sucking chest wound in the heat of battle. 

Turning her heart-shaped sunglasses towards the crooner, Blossom smiles seductively, “Adds a little spice to the evening, don’t it, gato?”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Vegas glances at Casino, receiving his unspoken response, and then shrugs and steps aside, motioning back up the stairs. “The band’s playing your song, sweetheart.”

“You good with this?” Blossom asks Fixer directly.

(OOC: Fixer’s answer… going to assume it is affirmative.)

“It is what it is,” she replies with that same smile. Placing the sucker back in her mouth, she sweeps her hand towards the stairs in a similar manner to Vegas’. “And we are what we are. Let’s go work some magic.”

With no further adieu, the group moved its way back up the fire escape, returning to the almost ominous silence accented by the sounds of the city around them. Bloodbank took a position in the back of the group and turned his attention away from the work being done to look out into the alley they were in. He gripped the railing, leaning slightly on it as he peered towards the entrance to the alley, watching for anyone who might interrupt. The MedTech was very careful to not look straight down over the railing, however; it really seemed too thin of a barrier when he did that. The metal bar almost felt like it would break away sending him sprawling down 8 floors to the cold, hard alley floor.

Shaking that thought from his head, Bloodbank settled to watching the alley and directed his mind to the task at hand. What to do when they got into the building. They would need to find HR to find a personnel record or something of the sort. 

"How long would that take?" He wondered silently. Hopefully not too long, he didn't want to be in the building any longer then possible. That was just asking for trouble, he felt. Maybe they didn't actually need to find HR. Surely the personnel files would be electronic -- Who used paper these days!? -- so if Blossom could just get onto a server or something? That seemed like it could be easy if she could just waltz right into a security system. To get into the server, wouldn't she just need a computer or something? It had to be easier to just find a computer then try and find a specific location within the office building that none of them had been to before? He'd have to ask Blossom. Maybe it would save some time. 

“It’s done,” Blossom piped, breaking into Bloodbanks musings. “We’re solid. I’m ghosting the system at the source so we don’t need to worry about sound or motion. Now, let’s get to the human resource computer.”

“Great work, sugarplum,” Vegas smiled with approval but didn't raise his voice to the decibel that the netrunner just used. Still speaking quietly, he gave a nod to Echo and said, “Let’s still try to keep quiet. Don’t know what onsite security they have here.”

 "Blossom," Bloodbank broke in, his voice just barely above a whisper. "Do you need the HR computer specifically?" -- He cleared his throat, self conscious of just how little he knew in this particular area. -- " Wouldn't any computer get you... uhmm, in?"  

Jesus, need someone to dig a bullet out of you and stitch you up right as rain and Bloodbank was your man, but if you needed more then just a basic file search on your computer... Well, you may as well ask a chimp for all the good he was. 

(OOC: Blossom's response, I'm assuming she needs the HR computer otherwise she would have said different)

Bloodbank nodded, and followed the more combat inclined of the group into the building, trying his best to be quiet. 

Yeah, Bloodbank noticed that too. Which is good, because he apparently fluffed his stealth check.

I've updated my post with the new information.

I've also got some questions of my own.

FOR THE GM: How many boxes are there. I can't tell from your message if there are two (positioned across from each other) or just one.

FOR THE GROUP: Would a more tech oriented person be able to tell what type of sensor is on the wall? Is it possible to hack into the alarm systems network and deactivate it that way if we can get close enough to a sensor?

There should be a code box somewhere to allow us to input a code to shut off the alarm. But we can't see one in the hallway, which means it won't do us much good.  Anyone with advanced vision or other senses should probably be looking carefully.

Bloodbank will look for that in particular, but I expect that would probably be somewhere near the main entrance. At least, that's where common sense would put it for me.

It seems to me that some alarms have delays before they trigger to allow people who screw up to hit the reset button using the code.  Any ideas how long or if such a thing is real?

I'm pretty sure that is only the case when you initially set the alarm for the night. At least, most alarms I'm familiar with have a timer after you set the alarm to allow you to get out without activating it off. Or a timer that would start after entering a building through proper means, i.e. not through a window we just broke through. I would bet on not having a grace period, personally.

Any ideas on how to defeat a motion sensor?  Anyone got gear?  I'm gonna look at mine.  Also, do me a favor and google "defeating a motion sensor" or some such thing.  I don't know this stuff and could use some help figuring this out.  

So, Google tells me that there are generally two types of motion sensors, one that essentially works off of heat, and one that works off of lasers. The heat one works by detecting a sudden change in the heat (i.e. a warm body walking through), the laser one works pretty much like a laser trip wire if I understand it correctly. Now, also according to Google, the laser one would require an emitter and a sensor, so maybe by looking we'd be able to tell which type it is. By the description I was given, I kinda get the impression that it's a heat sensor. 

With that assumption, we might be able to work forward. Something that immediately comes to mind is trying to find something pretty room temperature and trying to cover the sensor until we can find a way to shut off the alarm system. There are sure to be more, after all. However, that would prove difficult, as it would be nigh unto impossible to get close enough to do that, and if it was a laser sensor then that would activate as surely as us walking into the building. 

Google has other suggestions, such as moving very slowly along the wall to try and sneak through a blind spot. I don't think that's very viable, as the description given made it sound like there were no real blindspots.

Now, another thing I've noticed -- reading into how the heat sensors work some more -- is that they usually only alarm if the it detects an increase in heat. Outside in the alley, it was raining pretty hard, and I imagine it was colder out there. So, if we can large amounts of old wet carboard, or something of the sort that could be used as a covering then it might be cold enough to essentially make us invisible and allow us to find a way to deactivate it. Bloodbank does happen to have a rain tarp, which I would assume is large enough to conceal at least one person. Letting that sit in the rain for a bit may help it cool down significantly, if its not already cold or wet. Once again, that would only really work if the sensor is a heat sensor, and if it works at all like the ones we have now days.

That's all I've got, really. If there are no other ideas Bloodbank is going to suggest hiding behind a wet, hopefully cold, rain tarp and trying to get a tech oriented person in to either deactivate the alarm system or set up some sort of jury rig to block the alarm. 

Would the security system react differently to an alarm within the building then they would to a break-in from the outside.  (the window?)

If I had to make a guess then I would bet it would still have security forces swooping down into and around the building. Just a guess though, I'm no security expert. 

Is it possible to intercept the alarm signal before it gets to the security company?

From a little more Googling I would imagine that the signal would be kind of like a cellular signal sent to the security company. At least, that's how modern security systems work, so whatever the futuristic version of that would be. It is possible to block those using things like a Faraday's Cage (which is a net of a conductive metal, unless the internet is lying to me). However, I don't think that the signal would be sent from the sensor itself. According to Google, it sends the signal to a Control Panel, which then sends another cellular signal to the Monitoring Station which would alert the authorities. This being Cyberpunk, I'd be more inclined to believe that the Monitoring Station would send armed guards ready to kill us on sight, however. 

So, if we were able to get close enough, and someone had a spool of conductive wire or something, then we might be able to fashion a makeshift Faradays Cage around the sensor(s) which would prevent it from sending the signal to the Control Panel. That may work, assuming the Control Panel doesn't periodically check that it can still recieve signals from the sensors and that Cyberpunk technology hasn't progressed past the point of being vaguely similar in function to todays.

That's all I've got at the moment, thoughts?

Hey guys, so a lot has seemed to happen since the beginning of the game when I first played, so I was wondering if someone might be able to provide a quick summary of what we hope to achieve in this office building. I'm pretty sure we are searching for the name of the janitors who were on duty the day that the young man (Jace was his name, right?) was taken, but I'm not entirely sure.

Also, what was the gameplan upon entry? Was that discussed beforehand in game? Are we splitting into groups to look? Did we have a floorplan of the office? Do we know where exactly we need to go in the office?

Sorry, I know its a lot. I really appreciate it, as it will save me some digging around in the old posts as well as a bit of time.  

I'm looking forward to your guys' posts! Thanks a ton.

It was incredibly frustrating trying to move quickly without looking like one was moving quickly, something Bloodbank was painfully aware of. His boots splashed through puddles as he moved his way through the crowd of undesirables, accenting every brisk step he took, every squish or splosh marking one pace closer to his destination. The MedTech hoped that his brisk pace was one that an idle passerby would mistake for one of a man that just wanted to get out of the rain, but ultimately his impatientance wore at him, slowy driving the caution from his mind.

It was with a sigh of relief that he entered the alley way behind the Upstairs Downstairs building; a bleak, dimly lit corridor deserted by all but a large figure standing on a fire escape, far enough away that -- if not for the sake of his optical splices -- he would not have noticed him. Bloodbank broke into a run, trying to avoid both the piles of rotting garabage and the larger puddles of soiled water. 

"Do you know how close they are to getting in?" Bloodbank asked quietly as he reached the slim cord dangling beneath the large Solo.

“Hopefully close as we need to hurry this up. Grab the rope I got you," Casino replied, looking down at Bloodbank.

Bloodbank nodded as he began to climb the cord, giving it a quick tug beforehand to ensure that it was secure. To his embarrassment, however, he only made it about three feet up before his grip slipped and he fell. Thankfully the fall wasn't high and he landed on his feet. With a wry grin hidden behind his battlemask, he made another attempt, barely making it halfway before he slipped again and fell. 

"Rope's slippery," he half muttered, gesturing in a noncommital manner.

“Grab the rope I’ll help by pulling you up with it," was the reply Bloodbank received.

Bloodbank wasted no more time then that though, and tried once more. This time, to his immense relief, he made it up high enough to clasp Casino's hand and get pulled the rest of the way up.

With a murmered thanks Bloodbank moved away from the edge of the fire escape, waiting for the solo to collect his rope  before leading the way up the steep metal staircases. Bloodbank wasn't the greatest fan of heights -- especially if the terrain he was walking on was slick with rain -- but the dull, serrated metal ridges on the steps made for good footing, and as he climbed up Bloodbanks largest concern was that the smallest noises seemed to resonate throughout the hollow metal railings and piping. In fact, a small clink of metal on metal seemed to turn into a violent clang that to reverberated throughout the vacant alley. At least, that was how Bloodbank felt as he tried to quickly creep his way up the staircase.

His worries seemed to be baseless, however, as he and Casino made it up to the proper floor without any significant incident. The rest of the group seemed to have already handled the actual breaking part of breaking and entering; indeed, they were already in the process of doing the entering. Without a word, Bloodbank nodded to those still outside, and quietly waited his turn to enter. From what he could see past his companions, the dimly lit hallway was blessedly dry and -- more importantly -- it looked deserted. Silently, Bloodbank thanked his lucky stars as his turn to enter came, who would've known what would have happened if there had been someone in there. He tried his best to be as stealthy as the others, but with a clearer view available into the hallway he noticed something he hadn't seen before: some small white boxes with opaque glass noses that cover a full 180 degrees semicircle from the base of the box located at the joint of the ceiling and wall about halfway down the first stretch of the hall.

Bloodbank had no idea what those were, but he knew that he didn't like the ideas that came to mind. Holding his fist up to warn Casino behind him, he gently tapped the person in front of him and pointed to the boxes, his unseen eyebrows raised behind his rain sleeked battlemask. 

Sorry for the delay. 

In respect to getting into the window, the only thing that Bloodbank has that might help is a minisaw.  Maybe cut the glass, or something else around the glass to get in? It'd more than likely set off an alarm, when I think about it, in which case we'd probably be better off just breaking the glass and being quick. Perhaps there might be weaker points to saw into that would allow us to just pop out the window. Other then that, I don't really have anything useful. 

Also, Bromern in your previous post you mentioned that Bloodbank had to take the radio from Glahn and he took that with him. On Bloodbank's character sheet he has a homemade walkie talkie listed in equipment already, is that a typo or can Glahn have his radio back?

EDIT: Haha, I just read your post a little more carefully Nomad and noticed the bit about the alarms being noise based. The saw would not work in that case then. 

“You might want to wait here and see how things unfold.”

Glahn's words floated past Bloodbank as he pushed his way through the surging crowd of pedestrians. Perhaps it was wise advice, but Bloodbank was quite fed up with waiting. He couldn't do anything to quell the mob behind him -- and people were all to likely to be hurt because of that -- but he could lend his hand back at the Upstairs Downstairs building. Do something to contribute to the discovery of this lost boy. Besides, what help would he be back with Glahn? If some of those entering the Upstairs Downstairs office ran astray of some sort of security and was hurt then he might as well have been on a different continent for all the good he would be. 

The crowded streets impeded his passage almost to the point of frustration. Pedestrians pushing their way past each other with their heads down, getting soaked in the rain, heedless of those around them, jostled Bloodbank as he reached the streetside. Indeed, the MedTech was almost ran over by two men in suits and long rain jackets conferring over a rain speckled agent; he would have been if he hadn't practically leaped away from the streets edge as they walked by. An unnoticed, irritated glance behind his skull painted battle mask at their receding forms was all that Bloodbank gave them, though, and he quickly turned his attention back to the street. It thrummed with traffic loud enough that Bloodbank almost missed the radio as it went off in his pocket.

"You don’t have much time, Bloodbank. Don’t take the straight approach. Go around back. Copy? I repeat. Go around the back way. Casino will be here waiting for you." It was hard to tell, what with the static and the city noise around him, but he was pretty sure that was Vegas speaking. 

"Alright, around back it is then," he mused to himself as a hole in traffic opened long enough for him to splash across. Pulling the radio close to his mask, he radioed back in a clear, but not too loud voice, "Copy. Don't wait for me if needs be. Getting in and out fast should definitely be the priority here."

Fast was definitely how he wanted to do this, who knew how long until that mob boiled over? How long after that until the streets were flooded with security, police, and innocents trying to escape the violence. Bloodbank felt a grimace adorn his face behind the mask. There just wasn't enough time. With that thought in mind, he pushed his way though the wet, wind-blown crowds, moving as quick as he could without drawing too much attention to himself. Hopefully he'd be able to reach Casino and the building quick.

Bloodbank was uneasy. It was a feeling he was all too used to, one that he was very skilled at suppressing, but it was still there. The feeling didn't surprise him either, what with the activities that he and the others were up to this evening. He'd still rather have been with the group breaking into the building, however. It was much more likely that they'd need him more than Glahn would, but he had held his tongue when Glahn had told him to come along. That had suprised him, the Medtech did not imagine he would be of much assistance to Glahn keeping an eye out, but at the very least he would be a second set of eyes. Hopefully they'd be able to provide enough of a warning if things went sideways out here that those entering inside would be able to escape unharmed.

"After all, it's always easier to try and keep people from injuries than treating them after," he mused to himself as he followed Glahn through the rain. He wasn't exactly sure where the rifle clad man was taking him, but he trusted him enough to know his job and find somewhere adequate. 

“There ain’t no way we’re gonna let them bring that filth into our communities!”

The angry shouting jerked Bloodbank from his thoughts. Lifting his eyes from the rainsoaked ground and the boots of Glahn in front of him, he focused on the source of the yelling. Directly in front of the two Edgerunners was a large, practically rabid crowd all surrounding a man who was animately shaking his fists in violent gestures. He head was shaved bald, with many rather offensive tattoos covering it.  

“No way!”  The crowd screamed back, almost foaming at the mouth with their anger and hate.

Bloodbank grimaced. The people disgusted him, and his first instinct was to step through the crowd and bring this... this ringleader some hurt. Indeed, he had taken several steps, moving past Glahn before he was able to rein in his impulse and truly think about what that would entail. Likely getting torn to shreds by the mob of people. "In fact," he realized silently as the gathering began to get more heated, "soon enough this lot is likely going to get pretty violent anyway." 

With clenched fist held high over his shiny head, optic splices lit up, the bald man swept his hand over the crowd and bellowed, “We have a right to sleep well, secure in our freedom to defend America!”

“Ya!”

“They can’t take that from us!”

“Down with those towel-headed b*****s!”

“Get ‘em out!”

“Are you gonna let them sit up there to plot their next attack?”

“Hell no!”

“Burn ‘em!”

“We’ll stop ‘em!”

 With a dark frown adorned on his face Bloodbank turned back to Glahn, just as he said, "Doesn't look like we are gona find an overwatch spot with all this going on.  Better warn the others." 

Another quick glance over his shoulder to the frothing mob dispelled any last shreds of doubt from Bloodbanks mind. "That's probably best." he agreed. It was only going to take a small push over the edge for this group to get really dangerous, and that would bring police and security swooping down on them faster then a... Well, faster then something really fast.

Bloodbank followed Glahn out of the roiling crowd, regretting his inability to do anything to quell them. For now, he had to focus on doing what he could; warning the group inside that there might be unwelcome company joining them shortly. Glahn beat him to it, though, for they had just barely cleared the angry throng of people when he pulled out his radio and stated, "Situation has changed.  Huge angry crowd here likely to attract security in teh next 15 minutes at most.  Either be quick or abort.  We cannot cover you."

Bloodbank nodded to himself. He'd rather abort now and wait to see if the crowd would disperse or at least wait until after the security came and went. But who knew how long that would take, and there was a boy missing. Every hour wasted was another hour that the poor boy could be moved further away, or hurt if it was really that bad. Bloodbank ground his teeth, they needed to go faster. 

Putting the radio up to his mouth and pressing the button Bloodbank said flatly, "Bloodbank here, I'm coming to you guys. If you're in before I arrive I'll wait a little ways outside. I've got a bad feeling that you all may need me more than Glahn will." Stuffing the radio into his pocket, he asked Glahn, "Are you coming with, or do you intend to wait them out over here?"

(OOC: Glahn's response, if any)

With that, Bloodbank turned and started a brisk walk towards the Upstairs Downstairs building. 

I'll take Bloodbank off your hands again. You know, for a small fee.