Cyberpunk Session 32

In the morning Kage and Ricky do a patrol around the fire tower travelling out about 50 metres from the tower while Nameraka heads out to add traps on the paths to the north, east and west (having placed a trap yesterday on the path to the south that leads to the ranger/research station).

Spooky then takes remote control of the drone that was based at the ranger station. She flies the drone over the trees to the fire tower. She finds that the drone is about 80cm in diameter and is dish-shaped has a camera that is capable of night vision but has only a 90° field of view to its front. She doesn't see anything unexpected as she practises with the drone. Her control diminishes with distance.

A dark forest seen from inside the forest. Sunlight glimmers down through the trees though through mist. The trees are tall conifers relatively closely packed.

The Reference Forest

Tremen makes scans of the forest from the balcony of the fire tower using the binoculars. It is possible to see the mast of the ranger station from the balcony and that the terrain is slightly rising to the east.

Kage and Ricky don't see or hear anything unusual on their patrol (that said the trees limit their vision to a maximum of 100 metres once you look off of the path).

At about 11am Tremen and Kage decide to take a walk around the perimeter of the forest. This shows that there is an electric chain-link fence surrounding the forest with the only gate being on the southern path that leads to the research station. While there are no streams crossing the boundary of the forest it is clear that some form of irrigation is being used with occasional boggy areas showing that, in places, that irrigation isn't delivering its water consistently.

A view of the layout of the ranger station/research station. It has four rooms and a corridor. On the left is a power generator room. To its right is a laboratory/workshop room. Next is the corridor with a small bathroom at its end. Finally to the right of the corridor is a recreation room used if an overnight stay is required.

The ranger station as described by Tremen - he may have been making up some of the fixtures and fittings but the layout of the rooms should be fairly accurate.

After returning to the fire tower and having a bite to eat, Tremen heads out to the ranger station and ends up having a long conversation with the single technician working there. While he doesn't get much additional information (although he does determine that while the station does power the electric fence it doesn't have any sophisticated monitoring system for it), he does get a look at the interior of the station.

The rest of the team meanwhile continues to patrol the forest without detecting any unexpected activity.

On Tremen's return we set up a round of watches for the night:

11pm-2am: Nameraka on watch at the top of the fire tower
2am-5am: Tremen on watch at the top of the fire tower
5am-8am: Kage & Tharbin on watch at the base of the tower

Spooky is excused watch duty but bivouacs at the base of the tower while both Wakiya and Ricky decide to do watches out in the forest (both attempting to be on alert as possible all through the night.

Early in Kage's watch, she hears a man-made sound to the East Northeast. She calls out to the team over the comms and heads off in the direction of the sound. Wakiya jolts at the call over the comms, drops her rifle and works to recover it. Tremen hadn't yet dropped off to sleep and so heads out onto the balcony and scans in the direction indicated by Kage. He can see diffuse man-made lights in the direction that Kage is heading and informs the team of that.

When we resume the following applies:

Kage get a full turn before anyone on the team can act
Kage, Nameraka, Spooky and Tharbin get a full turn before Spooky, Tremen and Ricky can act
Tremen is at the top of the fire tower
Ricky is furthest from the action and has to wait an additional turn beyond those described above