Session 2: Where there's smoke Report
General Summary
Casper moves to clean off the blood and dirt from the frightened cat girl and calm and soothe her. While this happens, Honey decides to check the bodies for any spare weapons they may of had. However, she is too preoccupied in her own thoughts over what just happened that she fails to find a single weapon and when she is done searching she notices that she's somehow misplaced some of her own ammunition. Katie is inspired by Honey's searching to do some checking of her own, except instead of weapons she searches for any oddities or unusual items of interest and finds a rubber ducky by the computer terminal. She takes it with her. After finishing up at the warehouse, the group realizes they need transportation back to Caesar's Palace as that's where they are supposed to bring the cat girl once they rescue her, however they dismissed their transportation before the battle began. So Honey ends up calling DICKS sporting goods that now provides transportation services as well for a pickup. They arrive in a sports-themed SUV and the driver greets them and begins to talk non-stop about sports the entire time. The drive is uneventful except for the driver never once shutting up, even after they arrive and he lets them out, they can hear his muffled speech as he drives away. They reunite Kitten with her mother, who is ecstatic to find her daughter unharmed and thanks each and every one of the group. She then immediately pays the 1,000 credits to each member before taking her daughter away. Tired from the fight, Casper and River find another mark to hit up for good times and a free room for the night. Honey and Katie find distant and different, but similarly cheap hotel rooms for the night. The next morning approaches and everyone has had a decent night's sleep. Casper and River manage to get a free breakfast out of their mark while Honey and Katie eat breakfast from a local convenience store on the way back to Caesar's Palace. Casper then contacts the fixer again for a list of new missions. The fixer first congratulates them on a job well done with the last mission before proceeding to offer them a list of 3 new missions. He says he has a simple delivery mission to deliver a package across town for 300 credits, a hacking stealth mission to recover some lost data for 500 credits, or a high-end mission to provide security for an event coming in at 2,000 credits. At first everyone thinks that Katie and her streaming antics will blow their cover on the security mission, so they op for the recovery of the last data. However, after hearing the details, they realize their chances of success on that mission with Katie are even worse with it's high stealth requirements. So they op for the delivery mission. Upon hearing those details, they really don't think their skills are well suited for that mission either, so they ask if they can hear the details for the security mission after all. Once they hear it's for an anime and gaming convention, they suddenly realize Katie will naturally fit right in and they accept the job. They are introduced to their point of contact for the mission, a woman named Cindy Luu, who is the head of security for the convention and the one who is hiring the group. She thanks them for accepting the mission and informs them that a car will be there shortly to pick them up and take them to the convention. They are then taken to the Flamingo hotel-casino to attend the 30th AniAni convention and provide extra security thanks to rumours of a possible attack on the convention. Cindy explains the roles of the freelancers is to patrol the hallways and mainly just be available and on guard for anything to happen. She says they are her backup in case an attack really does happen. She then introduces her personal bodyguard, an advanced flying drone with a machine gun mouthed to its underbelly. It will be flying around also performing patrols and feeding that data back to Cindy. She then hands out security badges to everyone except Katie, who is going to go undercover as a regular attendee. She gives Katie a VIP attendee badge instead. She then tells everyone to let her know if anything suspicious happens and that she'll check in regularly as well before she heads off. Katie finds herself soon swarmed with fans who recognize her from her streams, especially yesterday's violent stream of the team rescuing the cat girl, and is unable to really do much for the next couple of hours. Casper changes outfits to something more sexual to better blend in with the crowd despite having the security badge and River tags along with her. Honey, realizing there will be no sniper positions she can get into because it's a convention hall, relegates herself to patrolling the outskirts of the hall. After the crowd thins out a bit, a cute girl approaches Katie and explains how she is a big fan of not just Katie, but the entire team as a whole. She goes on to detail how she was very inspired by their heroics and wishes to someday be like them. She explains how she is a big anime fan, particularly of shounen and action anime, and wants to play the role of the hero too. She asks if Katie would be willing to consider asking her for assistance in a future mission as a sidekick of sorts. Katie agrees and the girl hands over her contact info. At that point, she then explains her name is Allen and she is actually a guy dressed up very convincingly as a girl. He then explains that he just has a strong preference for dressing up as a girl, and hopes it won't be an issue. Katie confirms it's no problem at all and Allen is visibly relieved. He then leaves Katie and wanders off. Meanwhile, Casper agrees to take photos with random guys who approach her and then hands out her business cards afterwards to promote her services. She takes any opportunity she can get to make the most out of a situation to benefit her. River continues to tag along with her. Honey's patrolling would normally be eventless, except for the vibe she gives off is so hostile and unwelcoming that she genuinely frightened some of the attendees to the point that another security officer was called to come investigate. She had to explain that she was a freelancer hired by Cindy to assist with security. She was warned that she shouldn't antagonize the guests and to try to take things down a notch. Soon after this, a tall young lanky man approaches Honey and introduces himself as Brian. He says he understands that patrolling can be boring and monotonous work, so he admires those who stick to it anyways. He explains that his dream is to one day become a Gundam pilot. That piloting a giant mech like he sees in anime is what he yearns for more than anything. However, the giant mechs are prohibitively expensive and are normally only available to those with military contacts. So the most direct way to become a mech pilot is to join the military. That's what he is planning to do soon. Honey is taken aback by this statement as she has an extremely hostile view of the military. She goes on a rant about how evil and terrible a place the military is and tells the young man to just give up on his dreams and find something else to do. Extremely disappointed to hear this, the young man takes his leave and is not heard from again. The crowd around Katie has finally dispersed and she finds herself with some breathing room. It's at this point that she is approached by another stranger wearing a hoodie with a video game symbol on it and blue jeans. He casually introduces himself as David, David Smith. He explains that he is a major Blood Throne VRPG player but also a big fan of Katie's streams, especially yesterday's one. He pulls out of his bag a highly detailed dark elf statue from the Blood Throne game and shows it off with pride. He explains that acquiring this statue was one of the reasons he came to this convention and that he can't wait to add it to his collection at home. He asks if Katie has ever given Blood Throne a try to which she replies that she hasn't. He encourages her to try it enthusiastically, as he thinks she'll really enjoy it if she does. If says he'll help her out if she does and gives her his contact info. He then walks off and thanks her for her time. Cindy appears and offers lunch to each of the group members. They all head to the cafeteria in the convention hall. Everyone gets a delicious meal except for Cindy, who appears to get nothing but a variety of Japanese snack food. Cindy then proceeds to ask everyone a random question to spark conversation. After lunch is over, Cindy explains to the group that even if nothing happens today, or tomorrow, or the day after, since it's a 3 day convention, the group will still get paid the same, so stay vigilant regardless. They all head out together and see David tapping away on a tablet walking in their direction. He looks up and recognizes the group and smiles before putting away his tablet. He then introduces himself to the rest of the group, explaining that he recognizes everyone except Cindy from Katie's stream. He then proceeds to start talking about Blood Throne the game and if anyone has heard or played it before. Casper then uses her insight to try to see what David is really after. However, all she is able to deduce is that David is a rather hardcore Blood Throne player. So she offers David the chance to talk about Blood Throne all he wants and she'll listen intently to everything he has to say for the low low price of 100 credits. David squirms a bit as he mulls this decision over in his head, but he really hasn't found many other people to talk to Blood Throne about today so he ends up accepting and goes into a mega rant about the game's latest update and balance for an hour while the rest of the group disperses. After this David thanks Casper for listening and heads out too, feeling more refreshed.
Missions/Quests Completed
Provide security for an event - In progress
Character(s) interacted with
Cindy Luu - Point of contact and head of security for the event
Allen Ford - Crossdressing contact who is willing to join the party
Brian Hardy - Wannabe Gundam pilot who was turned down
David Smith - Gamer guy obsessed with Blood Throne
