<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Background on the Boss</div><div class="spoiler_body">Mr. John Stone, at least as he refers to himself these days, is a Seattle businessman who came to prominence in the local community with his purchase of the Tacoma Commerce Center in 2068.  A series of rapid construction and renovation projects followed, and the center has been a local landmark since.  <br/><br/>Mr. Stone is a green-skinned ork who is always well dressed in a tailored suit.  His eyes are clearly implants that are usually a matte black in appearance but occasionally shift to a more normal look.  He is always flanked by a pair of massive, well dressed, troll bodyguards and at least one attractive woman usually in a tight dress.<br/><br/><em>--Knowledge Checks<br/><br/>Mr. Stone operated in the late 50s and early 60s under the pseudonym ‘Grunt.’  He is said to have been a violent runner with a penchant for leaving a wake of collateral damage and a habit of blowing all his earnings in brothels and bunraku parlours.  There is a debate among those familiar with him about whether he retired willingly, or whether no one was willing to work with him any longer.<br/><br/>--</em><br/><br/>The Tacoma Commerce Center is located near Charles Royer Station and is comprised of a trio of ten story buildings built to form the edges of a triangle around a small central park.  The Tacoma Hotel, Casino, and Conference Center occupies one building and caters to mostly middle-income customers.  The Tacoma Business Tower occupies a second building and supposedly caters to a mix of non-aligned small businesses.  Tacoma Heights occupies the third building and has been billed as a modern upscale apartment building but suffers from a chronic lack of tenants.<br/><br/><em>--Knowledge Checks<br/><br/>The Tacoma Commerce Center, although officially owned by Mr. John Stone, is a front for the Gianelli Family.  How deep his ties are with the family is unknown to any but a select few.<br/><br/>The Tacoma Business Tower hosts a number of fake businesses, Mafia businesses, and businesses owned by Mr. Stone.  This includes a street doc and chop shop.<br/><br/>Tacoma Heights is where Mr. Stone likes to encourage his new hires, especially struggling wannabe actresses, to live.  The entire place has more cameras than a prison and sleazy producers can buy access to the feed to shop around for their next mark.<br/><br/>--</em><br/><br/>Mr. Stone is known to be the CEO of Stars are Born, a reasonably successful entertainment agent firm.  The firm has ties to a number of non-Megacorp aligned entertainment companies, and has a number of prominent actors and actresses on its books.<br/><br/><em>--Knowledge Checks<br/><br/>The agency is tied to the sleaziest of the sleazy business men and women.  If a star does get anywhere after signing up with the agency it is because they caught the eye of the right person, and were willing to degrade themself enough to win said person’s favour.<br/><br/>If a star doesn’t make it big they will often find themselves starring in Hollywood Simsense Entertainments BTLs.  If they’re lucky it will just be for the porn and not the snuff.<br/><br/>--</em><br/><br/>‘The Cavern’ is Mr. Stone’s pride and joy.  It is a downtown night club with a heavy ork theme, and a rumoured entrance to the Ork Underground, that caters to the rich and famous who want to pretend to slum it.  The overall theme is rock hewn underground with the staff being almost exclusively attractive orks.  <br/><br/><em>--Knowledge Checks<br/><br/>Mr. Stone is rumoured to have extensive ties with the Skraacha, and is known to broker deals between the gang and anyone who wants to do business with them.<br/><br/>Mr. Stone operates a bunraku parlour in the back of the Cavern whose puppets are primarily attractive elven women.  It is rumoured that his prize puppet is a woman he formerly ran with.<br/><br/>--</em></div></div><br/><br/><br/>Mr. Stone had called the group of indentured runners into a back room of the Dungeon to discuss their first mission.  The pay was pathetic for what was demanded of them, but the added benefit of not having their head explode made up for the difference.  The entrance to the back room was guarded by one of Mr. Stone’s ever present Troll bodyguards.  Inside a semi-circle of padded sofas lined the wall around a central table.  The second Troll bodyguard stood by the interior door, while an Elf woman wearing a nearly sheer little dress was draped over Mr. Stone, her eyes closed as if she was asleep.<br/><br/>“Sit.”  Mr. Stone grunted before finishing the last of the alcohol in a glass he had been holding.  “You're all here for a running job.  For some of you this is standard, for some of you this is new, I'll let you make introductions later.  I'm a busy individual, so I’ll be quick.  A briefcase is coming into Sea-Tac tomorrow afternoon that I want.  I have it on good authority that they are going to stay in a hotel near Shadow Lake.  I also have it on good authority that a group of unpleasant fellows from Puyallup are going to violently break into the room and steal the case.”<br/><br/>“You’ll be in two teams.  You need to get the briefcase without raising a scene, which means delaying the attack.”  He paused to sweep his gaze over the group.  “I don’t want it stopped, I want it delayed.  But violence is fine as long as there are still enough of them to do the job.”<br/><br/><em>With the general task outlined, Mr. Stone then proceeded to provide more detailed information.  There were two men guarding the briefcase, both assumed to be well trained and well armed.  However they had a penchant for hiring escorts.  Mr. Stone was confident they'd hire escorts not long after arriving and, being out of towners, they probably didn't have existing preferences or connections.  The briefcase was made of metal and included both an electronic and high quality manual lock, but under no circumstance were they to open it.  He had the outer troll bring in a replica, which was three feet in length, two feet in width, and a little over a foot deep.  It had a handle as well as a manacle permanently attached to it by a chain.  Mr. Stone was confident that they would remove said manacle once the escorts showed up.  They were to drop off the briefcase at the Renton Center Mall, there'd be a Eurocar President waiting in the parking lot.<br/><br/>The ‘unpleasant fellows’ were a motorcycle gang that operated out of a junkyard in Puyallup.  They numbered a dozen or so and seemed well armed and well informed.  Their usual afternoon entertainment was to terrorize a bar and/or hijack some car driven by someone stupid enough to go for a relaxing drive through Puyallup.  They seemed to change their name on a daily basis but were always identified by a crossed lightning bolt and pistol patch on their clothes.  They were, in Mr. Stone's words, 'good with tech' and might have 'cut rate a mage or two' but no more than that.  They were led by a middle aged human who went by the alias 'Konrad.'<br/><br/>Mr. Stone was quite happy to suggest people play prostitute with the guards or let the gangers grab them, and made the point of commenting that they were to keep their simrigs ON at all times, but he did begrudgingly admit they were allowed to perform the task in other ways.  He didn’t seem to have many suggestions though.</em><br/><br/>He seemed bored as he waited for them to ask any questions or make any requests, one hand idly caressing his Elf woman's arm as he kept on fighting the urge to yawn.  When he finally went to leave after any final questions or requests, leaving the room to the group for last minute planning, it was with the words:<br/><br/>"If you screw up and I have to buy you back or send in a rescue, I'll be charging you double for the trouble."<br/><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">I will leave it up to individual players if there character is there from the start, or sent in after Mr. Stone leaves to fill specific roles in the mission.<br/><br/>I am only really looking for one, maybe two, rounds of posting for the meeting.  So while it may not flow as well, please introduce your character, have them ask any questions, and have them make any rolls all at once.  If there is anything that doesn't end up fitting or that gets screwed up, we'll sort it out in OOC.  <br/><br/>That said we don't have to jump right to the mission, if any interesting prep work needs to be done we can handle that IC first.  I just find meetings tend to kill games when they are the intro.</div></div>