Ash Replevin

Ash Replevin
Part of La Famille Du Peintre
Lucian Freud, Woman with Eyes Closed (2002)
Date 2084-12-27 GM Sleevey Location Snohomish, Seattle Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven The Green-Eyed Witch	The Von Blainsteed Household
Knack Gremlin Oberon Fidem Docteur Vega Insonia Bunny Hop	Ludwig Von Blainsteed and Guests

Summary

A goofy little art heist!

Background

In 2012, a number of paintings were stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. The paintings were part of the collection of a deceased Dutch Investor named Willem Cordia. They are as follows:

Meyer de Haan ‘Self-portrait’ 1890

Gauguin ‘Girl in Front of Open Window’ 1888

Monet ‘Waterloo Bridge, London’ ‘Charing Cross Bridge, London’ 1901

Matisse ‘Reading Girl in White and Yellow’ 1919

Picasso ‘Harlequin Head’ 1971

Lucian Freud ‘Woman with Eyes Closed’ 2002

Supposedly, they were burned or otherwise destroyed but this year, these works allegedly resurfaced in the hands of a private collector, one Ludvig Von Blainsteed, a wealthy venture capitalist with a notable number of shares in Wuxing. Especially notable for a foreigner. He plans to unveil the works as part of a small, christening party for his new mansion in Snohomish.

The Meet

The team was gathered by their various fixers to a restaurant in Tacoma called, 'The Water-Lily'. A run down old place, barely held aloft through a series of criminal dealings (uncovered by Vega and Oberon's searches). They found the place empty but arrayed deliberately in the illusion of busyness, silverware scattered, chairs pushed out. The one occupied was populated by Vega (she entered through a back entrance and an alluring green-eyed person. Oberon was able to piece their 'mundane but dual-natured' mask and detect her weird elvar nonsense.

Once the gang was gathered, they were informed as to their target. The J wanted two things, the first was to uncover where Ludvig Von Blainsteed had got the paintings from. The second was to return one of the paintings to them, so she could determine its validity. They were also given background information of the Von Blainsteed mansion in Snohomish and his upcoming party in two days where he plans on unveiling the paintings to some close friends and family.

The team negotiated for 20,000 nuyen with 6k up front, as well as a drip feed of karma from the green-eyed witch themself. With everything in order, the team departed for Fidem's ('cramped') apartment to probably do some legwork.

The Legwork

Oberon, Knack and Fidem kick back while Vega runs matrix searches. The good doctor calls Isadora Windthrope to secure party access for the gang and Fidem uses her clout to get an invite as well. Oberon does basic background searches on each of the paintings, in order to secure material dating and compositions for the purpose of creating fakes. Vega calls Dominus Faust to help out with matrix searches. The two of them find out about Von Blainsteed's family (Venture Capitalists) and his Wuxing connections, as well the fact he is dating a UW Professor named Casey Sidewell. His brother, too, Alexander Von Blainsteed, is an angsty 20 year old who posts on the matrix about how hard life is for people with so much money. Ludvig is apparently a control freak and has somewhat tumultuous relationship with his SO, Casey.

With their basic legwork done, Gremlin takes 'the 'prax' and begins madly forging a copy of the Freud, while Knack and Vega move in to bother Casey at one of the bars they frequent. Extracting information from the woman, they learn several valuable pieces of information. First, the man is an asshole with a stupid name (according to them). There's a perimeter fence and least on rigger (probably an asshole), a security mage (asshole), a Wuxing connection showing up to the party and a family lawyer named Anderson Silvers. The following morning, Vega convinces Casey to break up with their boyfriend very publically at the party tomorrow.

The team gets all fancy curtesy of Fidem's fashion knowledge and call up Angi Harris for a getaway ride. With the slickest suits, the team slow-walks their way to the rented limo and rolls on out.

The Plan

1. Get painting access by convincing of him fakery and expertise

2. Create distractions with Casey and Fidem

3. Knack and Oberon swaps false painting with fresh painting after checking for security measures.

4. Provided the forgery holds, walk out!

The Gate

The team roll up in Fidem's rented limo, driven by Angi. They arrive at the first security checkpoint but almost instantly, Knack's burner SIN is flagged and burned. Fidem uses her cheating dryad celebrity powers to weasel the team out of it (temporarily) and they're able to proceed to the main gate. Oberon sneaks past the security aware by hiding behind Gremlin and despite, the security guard finding Fidem's sword and Gremlin's pistol, Fidem 'pats him down' in return and takes the gun right back. With most of their weapons in hand, entirely thanks to Fidem's facing skills and fame, the team enters the party

The Party

The team enters the party proper, spotting several notable faces among the sea of party-goers: Fan Yang, Sarah Snow, Leonard MacLainn and Anderson Silvers, in addition to the Von Blainsteed's and Blainsteed's retinue. The team splits up, with Fidem and Gremlin taking up most of the social attention while Knack and Oberon scout out the security. The place is crawling with security personnel, who are mostly armed with tasers. The party is entirely restricted to the first floor, despite three stairways to the upper floor being discovered.

Ludvig is accompanied by his bodyguard, the adept Greaves and Fidem and Gremlin both a spot a key nestled in the man's chest hair. While they listen to Ludvig's awful prattling about the nature of his success, Oberon spots one bound spirit in the rafters. He delves a little further, finding the mage, a snarky, pointy little woman complaining about the idiocy of her employer, also accompanied with a bound spirit. From the overhead conversation, they learn at least on spirit is in the room with the paintings. Deciding to investigate upstairs, Oberon enters a bathroom and turns himself invisible, before doubling back and climbing up the main stairs to the second floor. Knack, on the other hand, converses with Sarah Snow for a while and spots another spirit patrolling the grounds outside. From assensing the mage, they know there were four spirits in total, so only one is in the actual room itself. However, they are all bound spirits, making direct contact tricky. Knack also spots an aware and fearing being spotted entering a bathroom and leaving with a spell up, enlists Gremlin and Fidem for a distraction. The two of them use their gymnastics and performance skills to absolutely tear it up on the dancefloor, dragging away enough eyes for Knack to cloak herself and take another staircase up to the second floor.

Unfortunately, both of them encounter an additional layer of security. Not only is the second floor patrolled by more heavily armored and armed guards, there are also drones that whine with ultrasonic scanners. Invisibility would not be foolproof. Deciding against attempting another distraction or a brute force stealth, the gang calls up two matrix specialists (Insonia and Bunny Hop), in order to disable the drones.

The Castle

After a promise of meager payment and a rough location, the underpaid hackers rez in, disguising their personas as eco-terrorists, and look at the host. It appears as a sprawling, fairy-tale castle, overgrown with ivy but beautifully lit with sunbeams from a non-existent sky. After several, embarrassing attempts, both of them are able to enter the rating 7 host and start looking for ways to help out. They spot a number of riggers, appearing as medieval falconers with their drones as their falcon, as well as palace staff as the IC and files. Guarding the palace are two security spiders, one an armored knight carrying a broadsword and the other as a cartoon, Johnny-Bravo knock-off looking personality. The spiders are openly bickering and the two of them are able to scout around for a few useful files until Insonia is spotted. The decker decides to stop running silent and engage the two spiders while b-hop scrambled the drones, looped footage and dug up files. After a short fight, Insonia smacks down a forked data spike and takes Johnny out of commission. This buys enough time for B-hop to fulfill their laundry list of objectives and the two of them scram before the second spider has time to finish powering up (he was very in character).

Now with a floorplan, a map of the security system and both drones shut down for a few seconds each, Oberon enters Ludvig's study to look for a manifest while Knack crawls up into the attack, towards the gallery.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.