String Theory Recap: Operation Rollup

Now the sixth session of my Night's Black Agents game, String Theory, and the introduction of the last character. Alec created Nasir, a chameleon and former Pakistani intelligence. We also have our biggest explosion yet.

Operation Rollup

Heat is now 1 (net for the biker gang massacre in session 1) + 2 for the car explosion last session. So they make a Difficulty 4 check and fail again.

Nasir, an ex-Pakistani Intelligence Cuckoo, contacts the agents. He's heard rumors that they face a threat similar to one he has seen in the past. John and Guy have worked with him in previous operations but Robin remains skeptical.

We had a lot of baby troubles this session so my wife missed much of the first half of this session. So she didn't vet him like Robin usually does.

Scarlet arrives in Belgrad suffering from short term amnesia. She recalls researching in the Alps. But everything from there to Belgrade is a blur. There are bruises on her arms consistent with an attack, cuts on her head and knife wound in her side that bears her stitching. She holds it together however.

In other words she makes her Stability roll. Thanks to her Diagnosis, she can reconstruct some of what must have happened.

Robin puts her under hypnosis. Scarlet recalls cleaning up when something came through the window. Her wounds support the narrative of an attack on the cabin. She finds a single strangely blurry photo shows her attacker where everything but the intruder is in focus.

I let Robin use Shrink to do some Hypnosis since it helps the narrative (i.e. delivers clues). A Photography spend grants this mysterious hint of what they face.

The team decides to remove the local human trafficking operation and destroy this node of the Conspiracy before moving on. To conduct the operation, the team decides to split in two. One team will blow the warehouse while the other hijacks the next outbound shipment of slaves/refugees/werewolf food.

Robin fails her Preparedness roll to retroactively have the command words for the werewolves. Did I mention there are werewolves in the basement? Well the agents know luckily.

Guy sources some explosives materials which John then uses to construct the charges. Guy also picks out the prime location to sneak aboard the truck as it heads to the warehouse. He plans to hijack the truck once the container is hooked up.

Guy makes a Preparedness roll and then spends a point of Urban Survival to find the slowest stretch of highway.

John uses his cherry for Explosives to make them do extra damage.

Robin and Nasir infiltrate the warehouse to plant the charges while the others (except Scarlet) hook themselves to the bottom of the truck when it gets stuck in traffic.

Robin piggybacks (spending 1 point of Infiltration) on Nasir, who simply uses his MOS top succeed.

Guy does a similar thing with John (who does have to spend). The security on the truck however is lower than the warehouse (4 vs. 6).

Scarlet meanwhile hacks the security cameras and watches. She spots the arrival of an unexpected guest: Serge, still oozing from his head wound. The guards spot him a moment later but strangely sicken and collapse as he approaches. She alerts the others as he moves to the sole survivor, crushing his windpipe.

She makes a Digital Intrusion roll (which incidentally lowers Infiltration difficulties for the others inside). She then makes a Sense Trouble roll and alerts the others to Serge’s arrival with time to spare.

Inside Nasir begins setting charges while Robin climbs stealthy to the second story catwalk. The truck pull inside the warehouse and hooks up to the container

The plan is to plant four charges to bring the warehouse down on the gangsters and the werewolves in the basement. Nasir and Robin make the Infiltration check (Difficulty 4 inside) to avoid detection.

Serge knocks the side open and enters the warehouse. As the guards respond, Guy and John roll out from under the truck and jump in. Guy puts pedal to the metal and races out of the warehouse as the goons scramble to chase after them in a jeep.

Guy uses his Driving MOS to avoid anyone catching the truck on foot.

Two mobsters fire from the jeep while John fires back. They target the tires, blowing out one of them. While Guy controls the truck, John puts two rounds in the driver. The jeep crashes messily.

A straight driving chase. The shot out tire boosted Guy's Driving difficulties by 1 but he never failed badly so it didn't matter. John's first Shooting roll didn't "quite" kill the goon but his second definitely did.

Robin slips her charge down to Nasir as they head to the back of the warehouse. As Nasir sets the final charge and Serge battles through a hail of machine gun fire, the agents bug out, exiting just after the river-side guards move in to try to save Danilo Brigovic from Serge. They steal a boat and drive across the river.

An easy (Difficulty 2) Explosives roll to set the charges and a final Infiltration roll to escape without notice and the team make it to the river. Robin drops Build points into Piloting and they escape across the river.

As Scarlet watches Serge leap up to the second story to grab Brigovic, they trigger the bomb.

Which deals a crazy amount of damage. 18 explosive damage to everyone inside plus 9 more from falling rubble. The surviving goons and Brigovic die instantly. The werewolves are killed by the rubble. Serge takes half damage from his inhuman physique and...is not quite dead.

Scarlet checks that the surviving video evidence and internet postings implicate Islamic terrorism. Guy ditches the truck on the highway and then everyone evades the police. One last video feed shows Serge emerging from rubble.

A Electronic Surveillance spend and good thinking means this at least isn't blamed on them. I take it easy on them here as far as the police since it didn't work narratively to add another chase. We were nearing the end of the session anyway.

The team individually leaves Serbia. Guy under the guise of “El Gordo” a food blogger; Nasir as Fazah Ahmed, an American Embassy Staffer; Scarlet travels as a doctor without borders and John uses his old military historian cover. Robin travels as translator.

All make their cover checks, Nasir and Guy have lower difficulties since the Conspiracy doesn't know about them yet. The others have to deal with the current Heat of 4. Perhaps I should have boosted the difficulty due to the recent terrorism but with everyone going separately and few real connections to the PCs I'm not sure that would have worked out story-wise.
Once out of the country, John meets his mentor the Chessplayer. The old man feeds him intel connecting a Dr. Gomez to the group creating these surgically modified soldiers. The team move to Kaiserslautern, Germany to surveil her. Scarlet scouts and builds a dossier on her. She seems motivated out of mercy and likely doesn't realize the full horror of what happens to the dying soldiers she "saves". She also was an Olympic prospect before becoming a doctor.

This is my warning that Gomez will be a handful catching and the suggestion that an Interpersonal spend may be more helpful. They actually do quite well surveilling her, given her high alertness modifier. The dossier is created using the rules for For Your Eyes Only, an optional rule from Double Tap. It gives them a small pool of points to spend on actions regarding her.

Robin, concerned about the bottom line, scouts a possible bank heist for their next gig. The target is a Swiss bank in the process of being acquired by Black Sea Bank, a tool of the Lisky Bratva.

Enter the Zalozhniy Quartet!