All 03.0 - Criminal Activities

On the morning of the 18th of Elul, Caitlyn was visited by the local police, looking for Victor. She told them that he didn't actually stay there, and directed them towards the CSIS office, informing them that he would definitely show up there that day to collect his payment.
A little later on, Robert dropped off the cheques and personal payment from the High Council of Arcana to Lucca and Caitlyn for their work the previous day. When Victor went to the office to collect his, he was met by the police and asked to come to the headquarters immediately for questioning; he acquiesced without struggle, but with reasonable disdain.
Victor was taken to a conference/interrogation room that had obviously been permanently set up with a variety of spells including Zone of Truth. He was questioned as to his identity, to which he consistently stressed that he had severe amnesia and had no real idea of who he was; he offered that the late Lady Erzebet claimed that he was Victor Erzebet, though he personally had no evidence to support or deny this. The officer pushed further, but Victor gave no particular inclination either for or against the claim that he was the believed-deceased noble, though his disposition was aggravated and unpleasant. Victor was told that the police and a legal team would look into the matter of his identity, to which Victor gave his blessing on the grounds that he would not be bothered with the details or any sort of extended trivialities involving the legal system. To that end, the officer informed him that he was to not leave the country until this was sorted out, and to attend a meeting in two weeks in regards to the issuing of a new identity. Victor agreed to this, but refused any further assistance or intervention from the police force. The officer then changed the topic towards the murder cases, and had Victor work to identify the victims of the late Lady. When this emotionally-trying task was completed, he was allowed to leave.
The next week went by quickly; there were no jobs from CSIS, so the three busied themselves with their own personal lives.
On the 28th of Elul, Robert came around and told the three that they were needed in the office immediately, as they were to attend a meeting later this morning, and wouldn't want to be late. They each hurried over and met in the office, whereupon Lucca was cruelly reminded that Victor still, in fact, existed. Ms. Willowick informed them that she had been asked by the owner to nominate the best investigative team on her staff to go to a meeting in Kalleandar later that morning, and that they were that team and so had best hurry to the LT if they were going to make it on time. With a congratulations to themselves, Lucca and Caitlyn hurried off, followed by Victor. They made the transit in time, and managed to make it to the Kalleandar branch with a few minutes to spare.
In the meeting room, they joined a group of eclectic people: teams from Kalleandar, Losanti, Purcell, and Palermo. At precisely 11:35 am, the owner, Mr. Percival Webber, entered. In his well-known blunt manner, he addressed them quickly, and asked if they all knew of the Riptide Gang. Though neither Caitlyn nor Lucca recognized the name, Caitlyn whispered under her breath that he'd definitely tell them anyways. Victor sighed and showed them a copy of a police notice that had been posted a few days ago in the office in regards to the gang and a recent theft. One member in the room raised their hand, admitting their ignorance, and was immediately fired by Mr. Webber for it. Mr. Webber, in his swift and concise manner, explained that the Riptide Gang were a group of organized criminals whose activity had spiked recently, leading the police to contract them to assist in investigating the group. Since there were no particular leads and the gang is a well-known national entity, he was placing the best teams from each city on the case; this wouldn't interrupt their usual jobs, but they were instructed to look into the Riptides and bring any and all information regarding them to him immediately, for which they would be paid at a premium. With that, he dismissed them all to there work, excepting the man he had just fired, and Victor, whom he gestured at and told to follow. Confused, Victor complied; he was taken to a room across the hall, and Caitlyn and Lucca were told to wait in the hall. A few minutes later, Victor emerged along with Mr. Webber, who quickly walked off to another meeting. Victor, with some amount of resignation, blamed Caitlyn for not telling him that Mr. Webber was an investigative reporter, whom he had to agree to meet in a few days to discuss his life story, in order to prevent being stalked. Caitlyn tried to pass off that she hadn't known, but it was obvious that Victor didn't buy her story. Waving it off, Victor suggested that since they were in Kalleandar anyways, and had no leads into the Riptides, they may as well go check the address of the Creator of Constructs that they had been given by Mark-1. The two younger investigators agreed, and they set off.
The address proved to be a small backstreet clockmaker's store; the sign on the front marked it as closed, but the door was clearly ajar. With barely any hesitation, the three entered, finding themselves in a packed store and workshop, dark and empty. As they glanced about, seeing no sign of anyone manning the counter, they heard a crash from upstairs, followed by a string of curses. Lucca and Caitlyn ventured up the stairs behind the counter, while Victor offered to maintain a lookout. 
On the second floor, they found a tiny two-room apartment, ostensibly for the owner of the store. Quietly, they two entered the main room, trying not to startle the occupant, who was still cussing. Peering around the corner into the bedroom, the figure they saw was not who they expected. A young elf man was moving about the room; he was in his late teens, had short, bright red hair put up in short spikes, and was wearing thuggish clothing. The room was in shambles, and an armoire was lying on the floor; it appeared as though it had fallen over, causing the loud noise they had heard earlier, and had landed on the elf's foot. After watching the young man return to trashing the room for a few minutes, obviously looking for something, the two decided to make their presence known. The elf started and jumped up before pulling a knife on them, demanding to know who they were and who sent them. Neither could take him seriously though; when he asked if they were with the police, they replied, "Maybe, if you'd like us to be." He got more agitated, until Caitlyn cast Charm Person on him. Immediately his mood shifted: he greeted them both casually, executing a complicated handshake with both of them which neither reciprocated properly, which didn't faze him at all in his charmed state. When they asked who he was and what he was doing, he replied that he was Griffon, a member of the Syndicate, and that he was looking for evidence. The pair tried to press clear information out of him, but he didn't exactly give informative answers; between his apparent assumption that the two were also Syndicate members and his somewhat simple demeanor, he didn't feel the need to explain anything in depth. They did manage to discern that he was there looking for some sort of proof that the man who lived here was affiliated with the Riptides, the rival gang. Victor interrupted in the middle of this, wondering what was going on, and was met with the rather baffling response of three young adults talking in slang; he went back downstairs with little comment. 
With the bedroom well-combed over by Griffon, the other two spread out to look in the rest of the building for anything of note. Lucca, with his particular knack, managed to discover a secret passage hidden in the staircase: a mechanical setup that folded a portion of the stairs back down into themselves, leading into a sealed 1st-story portion of the adjacent building. Lucca and Caitlyn bickered a bit regarding who would look for traps, but they were cut short when Griffon went running down the stairs. Shrugging, the other two entered, followed by Victor. 
The hidden room was a machine shop, highly advanced, but obviously empty. Large portions of the shelves and workspaces had been conspicuously cleared, and many of the tools and items seemed to be missing. A large pile of junk appeared to lie on the far floor, and Griffon had immediately set himself to rifling through the contents of the nearest bench. They stopped him and made him move back towards the door, and Lucca and Caitlyn both walked down the room, one on either side of the centralized benches. Caitlyn spied a wastebasket that appeared to have interesting comments; Lucca saw the pile of junk move. As he shouted out, the junk reared up and resolved itself into a metal construct with a rounded torso held up by four spider-like legs, a fused head with no features other than a singular large red light, and two arms, one that ended in a sabre, the other with a crossbow. The construct whirred and buzzed for a few seconds, before announcing, "GuardMech 1.1 is online. Intruders detected. Intruders will be eliminated." The group engaged it immediately: Lucca, taking cover behind a bench, began to launch small firebolts at it, while Griffon threw a couple knives at it from the doorway. Victor rushed forward and began to lunge at it with his rapier, while Caitlyn kept her eyes and efforts focused on the waste bin. As Lucca continued to pelt the construct, Victor quickly dealt the final blow, lodging his sword deep in the glowing eye, causing it to crumple and deactivate. Caitlyn, who had pulled the basket towards the door, had to fight off the prying hands and attentions of the excited Griffon. When the other two joined them and managed to get Griffon out of the way, she managed to ascertain what they had found. The first few papers in the basket were scorched, but the deeper ones were unscathed; it was as though someone had tried to dispose of the papers by setting them on fire, but hadn't stopped to ensure that the fire had properly taken. Digging past the ashes and pulling out the rest of the papers, Caitlyn managed to find a few sheets of note: four incomplete blueprints for various mechanical items, and three encoded messages. The group replaced the basket, took the interesting papers, and quickly left the shop, closing the secret entrance and front door, but leaving the apartment, and GuardMech 1.1, in shambles behind the.
Griffon insisted to them that the papers be taken to the Syndicate boss immediately, but Caitlyn wanted time to decode and analyse them first. Lucca and her managed to convince the elf that, since the mission was a success, it was imperative that the group of them go get a celebratory drink first. It was not particularly hard to persuade him, and so the next few hours saw the group of them in a bar, with Caitlyn diligently deciphering the notes, Lucca and Griffon getting excessively drunk, and Victor watching them with the bemused helplessness of someone aware yet unconcerned over their lack of control over their own life. While Lucca was holding Griffon up as he vomited, Caitlyn shared the contents of the notes to Victor, who copied it down. All three of the messages were from the Riptides, as evidenced by their symbol on the paper; two were threatening notices, informing the recipient to speed up production to maintain some unknown plan, while the third instructed them to have a certain item ready to be delivered to "Cherise" at an unspecified yet predetermined time and place, who would then use it to "collect Cohen". When Victor asked what they were planning on doing with the notes, either giving them to the Syndicate or giving them to CSIS, with some concern over how well trying to keep the information from the criminal group would go, Caitlyn responded patronizingly that they would go tell the Syndicate, but not give them anything. Collecting the two very drunk boys, the group followed Griffon's directions to a back alley door.
Griffon's particular series of knocks, the memory of the sequence hard-won by his addled mind, summoned a man to the door. He saw the elf, whom he called Cress, his state and his unknown companions, and declared his immediate lack of commitment to this exchange. Closing the door, he retreated into the building. Not too long afterwards, a woman opened it in his place. She was an elf, who appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with long silver hair tied back in a braid. With a blunt reprimand, she sent the younger elf, whose name was apparently not Griffon but rather Cress, inside, before addressing the trio in front of her, introducing herself as Ginger, the head of the Syndicate, and asking what exactly the meaning was in three outsiders bringing her son to this location drunk, talking about the Riptides. Caitlyn did the majority of the talking while Lucca occasionally chipped in and Victor stayed almost silent; the bard played herself off as a mercenary, though it was pressed out of her that she worked for CSIS. Ginger did not particularly appreciate Caitlyn's tone, nor Lucca's drunken additions, but quickly worked out a deal with them: she wanted the Riptides brought down just as much as the police, so to that end, she would be willing to pay them for any information they happened to find, provided that they supplied it to her first before CSIS. They wouldn't get any support or recognition from the group, but if they kept their heads down, mouths shut and did a good job, they would get a nice pay-off and wouldn't have to be silenced for knowing too much. Caitlyn agreed to this and, with some stern looks, passed over most of the papers, minus two she had hidden on her person earlier, to Ginger on the assurance that they would be returned. With no further pleasantries or instruction, Ginger closed the door, and the three decided that they might as well go get dinner, as Lucca was starving.
During their meal, which to Caitlyn was excessively long between Lucca's five courses and Victor's agonizing pace, the waiter delivered them a package, which contained the papers they had given to Ginger, along with a key and a note, telling them that their compensation would be found in a particular locker at the LT station and giving them an address to mail any further information. Heading to the locker, they found three odd magical knick-knacks, each which would fetch a reasonable price on the market. Pleased with the exchange, Caitlyn immediately mailed the remaining two papers to the address, with an explanation that they hadn't wanted to put everything out until they were sure she was playing straight with them. With their business concluded and no profit to be made staying in the capital, the three traveled back to Arlington.
The following day, Caitlyn received a package from Robert, who said it had been sent to the office for her; it contained the two papers, along with another knick-knack and a note of appreciation for the good behaviour. Caitlyn then bundled up the lot of mysterious evidence, and mailed it with a report to Mr. Webber. 
Category:Advent of the All