Avengers, 1889 [IC]

[Elric]

Captain Britania, hearing Ronin's plan, directs Ronin to a friend of his who is pretty connected in London. What he knows may prove handy. Captain Britania leaves the information gathering to Ronin, with an injuction to be careful not t. I'm a good leader of men, but getting them to open up about what they know and piecing the information together- that's hard stuff. Good thing we have Ronin.

(OOC: I'm assuming Capt knows what Ronin's going to do. Using Teamwork 2 to Aid Another Ronin for +4 Gather Info. Do I have to roll a DC 10 skill check to do so? I can't remember. If so, unfortunately I missed it with a 9 total. http://invisiblecastle.com/rolldice...d20+5&n=Gather+Info+Aid+check&a=Roll+the+dice

While I'm at it, can I aid Shayuri's Connected feat even though I don't have the feat myself? If so, I can't miss a DC 10 Diplomacy check and it makes sense that Capt would be able to help her out in London, doing essentially the same thing as he did for Ronin.)

 

[Redclaw]

Justice will spend some time with the World News sections of local newspapers, searching for some connection to the Wrecking Crew and a large source of money in or around Paris.
[sblock=ooc] Knowledge (Current Events) 31 roll . (Sure, now I get the nat 20, not when I got turned to stone.) That's my straight roll. I don't know if spending time with newspapers would give me any bonus. [/sblock]

 

[Karl Green]

Wolverine finds himself down at the docks not to long from leaving their base in the Tower of London. There, he notes that it is a rather ‘seedy’ part of town, but mostly pretty slow right now. No ships are being unloaded at any of the nearby docks. There are a few dockworkers hanging around, pretty rough looking types, whom he can easily bypass without them ever being the wiser.

The warehouse where Inspector Kastle has secured for tonight’s raid looks abandoned for the most part…



Black Widow and Captain Britania head out together, asking around some of the more notorious locations within London, to see what they might turn up. After a short time, they do learn that two important facts… first that yes indeed, the Wrenching Crew is in town. They were seen at a pub that very morning on the Lower East Side, not far north of the docks. No one knows where they are now, but they do find the pubs locations. The other bit of info is that yes indeed something is spending some serious money around in the poorer parts of town, lining up various ‘talent’ for some big ‘job’. No one they speak to claims to have been offer any work, but it seems a lot of different criminal professions are being recruited and then laying low somewhere. Most everyone they speak with thinks that whomever is behind it is a foreigner(s), most likely Prussian or French.



Reading through numerous papers and periodicals, Justice gets a good overview of the Queen’s planned routes through London and sees that there are two or three locations that would be prime locations for an attack against her, where she is most exposed and where the most number of people might be able to see it happen. He also learns that various museums around town have been suffering a number of break-ins of late. Nothing seems to have been stolen except records? The reason this catches his eye at all is that Scotland Yard suspects that Men of Renowned may have been involved in most of these break-in…

He also learns that the Wrenching Crew was working in Paris of late, and at first they were mostly robbing banks and such. They then started working as muscle for some of the seedier underworld bosses there it was believed. It is strongly suggested by one reporter, that the Crew was last in the employment of a notorious Norwegian smuggler by the name of Leonardo Laufeyson, but there are no follow-up stories as Justice finds that the reported died in a strange accident where he somehow froze to death in his flat, shortly after he wrote the story…

 

[Karl Green]

Speaking with his informants, Ronin is told that the Wrecking Crew is indeed in town, and hired by some shadowy group or order. The contact does not know who hired the Wrecking Crew, but thinks that it is the powerful smuggler and pirate crews operating around the Indian and Southeast Asian coast, the so called Fujikawa Black Rings. Even though most of the pirates and smugglers of this group are Asian, the leaders are thought to be European, probably French or Prussian.

As for weapons and explosives, many of the various gangs in town have been supplied with firearms of late, not the Japanese or Asian gangs, just the local blokes. Ronin’s contact is pretty sure that one of the more powerful criminal organizations in town is behind this weapon distribution, whispered about down by the docks, someone calling themselves ‘the Kingpin’ or some such silly European name. It seems this bloke already controls most the various local gangs in London, but is now expanding into the non-European gangs. Most of the gangs are now very worried, and some have already started going to this Kingpin independently and offering up their loyalty.

There are a number of rumors surrounding the Queen’s Birthday, but these contacts don’t know or care much about the old ‘trollop’, but they have been warned to stay away from the Hyde Park area…

 

[Karl Green]

The Avengers re-assemble back at their Tower of London base at six and a half bells, within the dinning room area where their new butler, Jarvis, has prepared a delightful meal for them…

They still have a few hours of time to compare notes and plan their strategy…

 

[Karl Green]

(OCC –if anyone has something else they want to do before I can edit this, otherwise moving forward…)


After the group has shared all the information that they had individually gathered, at eight bells they head to the first floor to take a large, heavy (and specially designed) cartage to the warehouse Inspector Kastle has secured for tonight operation. Shortly thereafter, the Inspector and a group of about twenty ‘bobbies’ have gathered in the main dusty room, which affords them a smashing view of the suspected docks where the ship, the is due in three hours time.

The area is more or less devoid of people at this time, although a few boats and tugs go to and for along the Thames, but none approach your location. It will be three hours before the ship is scheduled to dock...


(OCC –Map notes - each square is 25 feet. I will do a more detailed when for next post when the ship arrives)

 

[Karl Green]

Just after 11 bells, seven large, six-horse drawn covered wagons pull into the area marked as ‘area where ship will dock’. Each wagon has a driver and someone riding shotgun. All the figures are wearing dark clothing and those riding shotgun seem to also be armed with rifles.

As the wagons pull to a stop, the backs open and groups of six to eight men exit the backs of each of the wagons. Two or three of the men that exit appear to be armed with bulky rifles of some unknown design and area wearing dark bulky clothing. The remained of the men appear to be longshoremen types, armed with a variety of knives and fighting pins.

Those with rifles spread out around the dock area and appear to be on the lookout for trouble. After a few minutes, one of the drives holds up a hooded lantern and opens it three quick times… like a signal of some kind. Another wagon pulls into the center of the wagon train, and four, very large men wearing thick overcoats and hats step of the back, along with four additional men carrying two sets of what appear to be multiple-barrel light canons or something and set them up… one on the north side of the dock (about 80 feet from the warehouse where the Avengers are hidden), the other on the opposite southern end.

After they have set up, many of the longshoremen and more then a few of the rifle men start lighting up smokes, talking quietly among themselves.

 

[Karl Green]

A thick fog starts to form out on the Thames, that rolls onshore fairly quickly as the Avengers watch the group of criminals and await the arrival of the ship.

With their enhanced sight, Captain Britania and Wolverine can make out more details of the rifles the smugglers are carrying, they are fairly heavy, with a strange box underneath the forward part of the barrel (just before the trigger area). Captain Britania has seen something similar in Wakanda, something they called an "assault rifles". Wolverine and Black Widow can hear bits and pieces of the conversations, mostly about how much money they are going to get paid tonight and how cold it is.

Wolverine can also smell cheap booze on may of the breaths of the longshoremen, and many are smoking heavily. He also notes, that the air around the group is strange also, almost like the ozone cracking, just before lightning strikes. Especially around the four larger men…

Thor feels a chill rolling down his back, as something he has not felt for a long time. He can’t put his finger on it, but the very elements are wrong here, something dark and old… very old, is at work here.

Just then, one of the large men, wearing a thick overcoat and a wide brimmed hat, pulls a large metal crowbar out from under his coat and starts to walk around the outside of the area where the thugs are located. He points his bar at different places and a slightly shimmering wall seems to rise up out of the group. These ‘walls’ stay where they are formed as the man walks around, forming more of them as if into a crude form of defensive blockages around the docks where the group is located. The Scarlet Witch gets a strange feeling as he does this…

Just after twelve bells, a large ship appears out of the fog. It’s the Gobernador Bories alright. Quickly it makes it way towards the docks, and moors up to the side while dropping its huge anchor. Three large ramps are lowered over the side and down to the docks…

Inspector Kastle looks to Captain Britania, saying in a low voice “We wish to catch them in the act, so we might want to let a few of the crates get off-loaded. My men and I are at your disposal…”



(OCC –Map key… the larger RED dots are the bigger men wearing overcoats and wide-brimmed hats. The smaller PURPLE dots are men carrying the rifles. The two larger ORANGE dots are where the multi-barreled guns have been set up. The BROWN squares are the six-horse wagons. The red lines are the semi-transparent walls that the guy with the crowbar made. NOTE again that each square is 25 feet. I am going to make a close up map here next BUT locations of the Avengers, if you are planning on moving out of the Warehouse should be stated now.)

 

[Shayuri]

"There are many of them, and they have too much firepower for us to allow them to focus it," Black Widow murmurs. "I think those of us who are able to move quietly should go south, behind the other warehouse there. Hulk, Thor, Wolverine...anyone who can take some punishment can start the attack. Then the rest of us will come in while their attention is distracted, but before they can bring their full weaponry to bear on the first team."

"Our first targets must be those cannon they've installed, I think. Or the men operating them."

After a moment, she adds darkly, "And beware. The men in overcoats could be the Wrecking Crew."

 

[Jemal]

Wolverine leans over to the Captain and whispers "Some of'em are drunk, and those 4 smell like Lightning... Somethin strange is up."