21 Moons- Hunt For The Stolen Child (Fifth Night)

--- Jon ---

It’d been nearly a week since Ms. Valentine’s hospitalization and Kenneth’s kidnapping, and as embarrassing as it was it’d taken him this long to realize, (I have absolutely no idea what Ramirez actually looks like.)

In fact it was fully possible that he’d already run into Ramirez at the warehouse he’d raid. (I really hope I didn’t.)

So, accepting his admittedly big… screw up, he began going through Ms. Valentine’s social media feed, or at least the posts from a year ago. Back before he and his ma had moved to the city, let alone his ma helping Ms. Valentine get away from Ramirez the first time.

Thanks to how far back this was, it took him a fair bit of time to find any postings with Ramirez tagged in them -the part that took him the longest to figure out how to use- but eventually he did manage to find a few pictures of Ramirez.

And as luck would have it, the man had a face distinctive enough via a series of tattoos on his neck and a scar through his eyebrow, that Jon was fairly comfortable saying he did not recognize Ramirez as one of the men he’d fought at the Dealer’s warehouse.

Unluckily, however he also didn’t recognize Ramirez from any of the social media accounts he’d gone through while going over the warehouse ledger. Even after taking some extra time to do a quick tag search through all of them in search of Ramirez.

And even though he did find Ramirez’s own social media account after even more digging, the man hadn’t updated said social media in over a month verifying once and for all that his social media lead was more or less a dead end.

(Well, at the very least I know what he looks like now…)

Scene Consequences

-Gained (2D6= 7) Intel.

--Current Intel: 97

-Gained 1XP to Computers.

--Currently: Lv. 1 (1/4)

---

Seeing as his attempts at searching the internet for information had been a series of busts one after another, he instead decided to try his hand at a more physical investigation.

Namely scouting out the supply warehouse he’d gotten the address of during his last raid.

And as he looked through his binoculars at the scene below, he couldn’t help but be glad he did. “There you are Ramirez…”

The man he’d spent all week looking for was currently in a yelling match with another Dealer, out in the open where several other Dealers were watching as if this was an everyday occurrence. (Which if I’m lucky it is.)

He watched the two yell at each other for a few more minutes, until Ramirez screamed one last thing at his fellow Dealer before storming back into the warehouse and out of Jon’s sight.

(...)

A large part of him was tempted to climb down from the building he was sitting on and raiding the place so that he could find Ramirez and force the dealer to tell him where Kenneth was.

Unfortunately, as he continued to look the warehouse over he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle this as an impromptu raid. Largely because of the much larger number of people present within the warehouse, a number he felt safe in believing was matched by even more Dealers inside of said warehouse.

(Yeah, that’s… way more than I can handle in a straight fight, even with Pix piecing me back together.) It wasn’t something he wanted to admit, not when he was so close to his goal, but he also wasn’t foolish enough to get himself killed right at the finish line.

(If I want to do this I need to do it right.) He told himself, before he caught sight of the Dealer Ramirez had just been yelling at breaking away from the majority of his compatriots. (But that doesn’t mean I can’t get a little more out of this trip.)

Scene Consequences

-Gained (2D6 = 7) Intel

--Current Intel: 104

-Antonio Ramirez’s primary location found.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

---

Anyone who knew anything about interrogations (and isn’t a sadist) could tell you that torture -be it physical or psychological- was not in fact a good way of getting intel out of a target.

At least not safely reliable intel.

If a person were to be tortured they would give you whatever information it took to make said torture stop, even if it meant lieing and giving the answer their interogators wanted rather than the truth. Of course if a person was feeling particularly spiteful, or was part of an organization smart enough to make contingencies for such an event, then the intel would be false, giving a location that was empty or worse a place that would be fully prepared to defend itself and possibly kill said interrogator.

That said, if that was exactly what you were looking for -such as with his previous talk with a Dealer- then the threat of violence was a perfectly acceptable approach. Something De Sade had taken lengths to assure him, after explaining exactly why Rosalind was going to be perfectly safe after her own kidnapping.

(“After all violence is something men like us are particularly savvy to.”)

He shook his head, pushing away the memory before he could be dragged down the rabbit hole that was his time with the Devil of Blackwell, and instead turned his attention back to his current target.

Given how he wanted actual intel on the Dealer’s warehouse rather than whatever garbage first came to mind -and the fact that he was no longer quite as desperate to find Kenneth and Ramirez, since he now had a solid lead on them- He was (allowed/) encouraged to take a more indirect approach.

Which is why he was currently walking up to the Dealer who’d been arguing with Ramirez a few minutes prior, while wearing the outfit he’d used a few days prior while investigating the ledger.

“Hey man, need a light?” He asked, watching the Dealer struggle to light a cigarette.

The Dealer in question gave him a look, before eventually sighing as he put his own lighter away. “Yeah, thanks man.”

“No problem.” He nodded, using his camping lighter for the man’s cigarette. “Hey, uh, if you don’t mind me asking… is that guy always like that?”

The Dealer gave him another look, before shaking his head as he huffed on his cigarette. “Of course everyone saw that pinche pendejo making an ass out of all of us again.”

“I’m guessing that happens a lot.” He said, offering a sympathetic grimace.

“Yeah…” The Dealer gave him a third look, this one with particularly narrowed eyes. “Which you’d know if you’d been here long… Where you from, ese?”

“You hear about that warehouse that got hit by that mask a few days ago?” He asked, before shaking his head. “The guy I worked under, he uh, transferred me here I guess. Said I couldn’t screw up again with so many eyes on me. Actually my first day here.”

The Dealer nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I heard about that mess. Which mask hit you guys?”

“Someone new.” He offered, needing to keep the conversation going. “Think it was one of those magic guys, because there was this giant glowing wolf and this little fairy thing flying around.”

“One of those bruja fuckers.” The Dealer grimaced. “That’s going to be a pain to deal with, even with Andre hanging around.”

(Andre?) He wondered, before mentally berating himself. (No, I need to focus on Ramirez and Kenneth for now.)

“Yeah, take it from me if the guy hadn’t rubbed it in by healing us afterwards I’d still be hurting.” He agreed with a shake of his head.

“Dumb shit.” The Dealer laughed.

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded, before looking over his shoulder. “But anyway, uh, that guy from before is he uh, going to be a problem while I’m here or…”

“Who Ramirez?” The Dealer checked, before shaking his head. “Nah, he’s a pain in the ass. Especially since he and his nino have been staying here, but since he’s sleeping on the couch he’s more an annoyance than anything.”

“Nino?” He repeated, feeling a sense of triumph. “He’s got his kid here?”

“Yeah, apparently his old lady threw him out of the house or some shit, so he’s sleeping in the warehouse office.” The Dealer explained, before scowling. “Honestly, don’t like the idea of a kid staying so close to our business but,” The other man shrugged. “Like the idea of a homeless kid even worse.”

“Yeah, that’d leave a bad taste in my mouth too.” He agreed, before once more looking over his shoulder. “Ah, think I need to head back. This break is lasting longer than I can get away with, and I’m already in warm water as it is.”

The Dealer nodded in understanding, putting out his cigarette. “Yeah, about time I get back to mindlessly pacing around for the next four hours… Thought this was why we hired those pinche mad dogs.”

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded back, as he started to walk away. “See you around.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Making his way away from the man, and even further from the warehouse he began going over what he’d learned.

(So, he’s telling people that this is all Ms. Valentine’s fault.) He thought bitterly, before shaking his head. (Well, at the very least I know both he and Kenneth are here.)

He took another glance at the warehouse behind him, and again was tempted to just go ahead and raid it now, at least until he saw just how many Dealers were wandering around the lot.

(Tomorrow night.) He promised himself. (I’ll spend the day preparing and then tomorrow night, I will get Kenneth back.)

Scene Consequences

-Gained ((D6 = 6) + (Crit D6 = 6) + (Crit D6 = 2) = 18) Intel.

--Current Intel: 122

-Gained ((D6 = 6) + (Crit D6 = 6) + (Crit D6 = 4) =) 16 Heat with Dealers

--Dealer Heat upgrade to C-Rank

-Gained 1XP to Psych Warfare, and Stealth.

--Currently: Psych Warfare Lv. 3 (2/8) and Stealth Lv. 6 (8/14)

A/N: Two sets of double crits… I guess since you only wanted 2 of them it’s sort of balanced? Still kind of weird though.