GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 14: The Konpeki Plaza Heist

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Getting In

While the others were out shopping, Paxos got a cybereye installed to make use of Chyron.  With their disguises in place (except for Jar, who as usual wore his signature white leather vest and matching pants), the crew boarded a motorboat on loan from Peacock's Nomad family and took it out into the bay.  Peacock shut off the engine and used the waves to maneuver it into a concealed location along the Arasaka Waterfront.  Everybody put on their borrowed scuba gear, put their gear into the drybags, and dove into the murky, polluted water.

Specter found the maintenance pipe entrance and cut off the bars of the grate, then the crew swum inside and up into the belly of Konpeki Plaza.  When they emerged inside the raw concrete maze of B3, Paxos and Jar were exhausted, but with no time to rest, the crew stripped off their wetsuits and re-equipped.  Peacock was keeping watch and saw an Arasaka heavy walking towards the maintenance corridor they'd arrived in.  At their insistence, Paxos, half-dressed in her stolen Danger Gal outfit, waddled over and started hacking into the commnet.  She only just finished breaking in before the guard arrived, and was able to send him away with a spoofed message from another guard asking to be relieved.

The crew finished getting dressed and headed out to the elevators with Paxos in the lead, Pinging and Controlling cameras to hide them as they walked past.  The rest of the floor seemed to be empty of personnel, so they arrived without further issue.  Specter pried the doors open then climbed up an emergency ladder two stories to B1, followed by Jar and Peacock, while Paxos kept watch; the cooler they'd brought along for the bioware was just tied off of Specter and clanged against the B2 doors, probably drawing attention.  Jar also struggled and slipped, kicking the door on his way past.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 13: An Appropriate Amount of Preparation

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Legwork

Paxos started off the research into the Konpeki Plaza job by looking into 'Saka public records to see if there were any third-party cleaning or maintenance crews they could infiltrate, but no, they did everything in-house in typical zaibatsu style.  However, they did have contracts with two security companies: the obvious internal one, but also a contract with Danger Gal, Michiko Arasaka's business.  Meanwhile, Specter and Peacock took a harbor tour to inspect the hotel from the water.

Specter successfully convinced the captain to get closer to "the building that got hit by a cruise missile" because that was "badass", which made it easier for Peacock to spot the submerged sewage pipes, which seemed to be relatively unsecured; they'd just have to cut through some bars.  The ground level was a no-go, with a veritable swarm of turrets, cameras, and guards.  Equally foreboding, they saw nobody leave or enter via the main entrance the whole time they were on the boat, which suggested they were highly insular, and sneaking in pretending to be a janitor was probably a tall order.

Jar, doing the bare minimum to pose as an electrician, went to get records from the city and sweet-talked a clerk into giving him the sewage and electrical layouts for the docks around Konpeki.  They were outdated, but with Specter and Peacock's expertise, Paxos was able to determine (roughly) how everything should line up on the inside of the hotel.  There'd be a pipe they should be able to squeeze through going through part of subbasement level 3, though they'd have to cut their way out.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 12: Hot Pursuit

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

High Octane

The crew briefly discussed whether they wanted to hand Scarlet over to the mob, but it quickly became apparent that nobody objected too strongly, so they got back into the car and started to drive back into Night City.  On a stretch of highway in Rancho Coronado, an SUV changed lanes to be in front of them, then opened its rear hatch, revealing a trio of gunmen.  Two were heavily-armored with rifles, while the third was a woman with a third arm (giving her two on the right shoulder), wearing only light athletic wear, ponytail flapping in the wind: Peacock's sister, Emma.  All wore the navy uniform with yellow highlights of Militech.

She fired a slug at the Peacockmobile, but Peacock swerved to the side, avoiding it, and the chase was on.  A second Militech SUV ran up from behind and more armoured goons opened fire while hanging out the side windows.  Peacock floored it and hopped over the lane divider into oncoming traffic.  While the SUVs followed suit, they were steadily losing ground.  While the rest of the goons opened fire but mostly just scraped the paint, Emma opened fire with the smart SMG in her third hand, the gyrojets arcing over the car to collide with the hood, hoping to disable the engine.

As they wove through other drivers, the Militech goons still managed a few lucky shots, and Emma sent a slug at their tires, but it bounced off the rim.  Peacock turned hard to the right, taking them onto the on-ramp to the elevated highway, and into Charter Hills.  Traffic got increasingly bad as they got further and further into the city, and while a slug from Emma slammed into Paxos' torso, her runner suit stopped it, and Specter responded by returning fire with his RPG, though the driver dodged and the rocket spiraled off harmlessly into the sky before exploding.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 11: Tracing Scarlet

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

A Chat With Gold

Casey Gold's gold-plated fingers and noseplate made the origins of his name obvious, and Jar went into his shop to talk with him.  Posing as a friend who was worried about Scarlet, he asked if he'd seen her.  Casey eyed Jar up and said that he had, and that it had been crazy.  She'd been off the grid for a year, then showed up out of nowhere three nights ago to rob the place.  He'd come in with a shotgun and caught her with vials of immunosuppressants in one hand and a half-eaten scopburger in the other.  By the time he'd realized who she was, she'd drawn a handgun and started blasting, yelling incoherently; the only word he'd made out over the gunfire was "Arasaka".

He dove for cover, and Scarlet took off in the confusion, leaving only a pile of MacDonnell's wrappers and partially eaten burgers.  Jar asked (technically Paxos did, but only Jar was in the shop) if the suppressants would have any RFID trackers, but Casey winked and said he picked up a lot of things second-hand, if you know what I mean.  As for how long the suppressants would last, he had no idea.  Last time she'd been in, she'd just had a 'deck and some minor stuff like eyes, which meant the vials she'd grabbed would last her months.  But if she had new chrome?  Who could say.

Having gained all the info they could, the crew piled back into the Peacockmobile and drove to Northside to check out Scarlet's old apartment, which Specter had remembered after some time to think on it.  On the way, Jar examined the security footage they'd taken from outside the brothel and determined that Scarlet had gotten a whole lot more 'ware in the last year: a neural port, hidden holster, three shard slots, and what looked like some sort of modified doll suite.  Paxos asked if that could turn her into a remote-controlled assassin, to which Jar answered "Maybe".

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 10: The High Seas

Characters:

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     NPC

Setting Sail

Before nightfall, the crew finished up some last-minute preparations.  To avoid the freighter's sensors, Jar covered Peacock's speedboat in radar absorbent paint.  Specter picked up some smart glasses with night vision lenses.  Paxos went over the shipping manifests to see if there was anything else worth grabbing, but it was slim pickings.  There was merch for the Night City Corsairs (the city's football team), a lot of bulk seafood, various athletic wear, mostly shoes, and several dozen containers of rice.  

Under heavy cloud cover, they boarded the speedboat and set out for the Chim Bồ Câu, and several hours later Peacock brought them alongside.  It was an older vessel, and thick layers of paint suggested it had been renamed multiple times.  Specter fired a grapple gun at a railing above and then climbed up.  At one point he lost his footing on the slippery surface, but he managed to make it to the top without falling into the drink.

Once up top, he moved to the shadows, careful to avoid the tiny gecko drones that were watching for intruders, and started looking through the stacks of crates for the ones they were interested in.  40 minutes later, Peacock comm'd to ask what was taking so long, and finally discovered that Specter had gotten distracted and had just been marveling at being on a boat for the first time.  They snapped him out of it, and he got back to searching for their containers, but couldn't find them.  After a bit of debate, Paxos climbed up another rope to the deck.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 9: Child Protective Services

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     Absent
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Preparations

Paxos dug around some more in the Militech Genetronics systems, injecting fake security IDs and editing the work schedule as she did.  According to their intel from Jennifer Thracker, the guards rotated out every 4 hours, with those in the control room switching to patrol and those on patrol going home, which meant two members of the crew would be in the control room entirely unsupervised.  With some further digging, she found and downloaded a bunch of encrypted files related to the black site, which she'd crack later.

Meanwhile, Peacock learned through continued observation that the cleaners were from Squeek-E-Kleen, which was an external contractor.  They also saw that the researchers were dropped off and picked up by "taxis" that were definitely just undercover Militech shuttles, meaning they were only on the street for maybe a total of two minutes a day, which would make establishing some line of communication difficult.  Paxos probed around the systems for Thracker's corpo apartment, but unsurprisingly it also had heavy security: the weak point was definitely the black site.

Paxos got around to cracking the files she'd grabbed, and there was some useful data.  In addition to invoices that revealed what exact model of security equipment was used, they also contained a pile of safety and operational procedures.  The children were referred to as "biological equipment", and if they died they were to simply be removed by the cleaners.  Specter and Paxos got biomonitors installed, as all the guards were supposed to have them, though theirs wouldn't be connected to the Militech systems.  Peacock went and grabbed some rope, handcuffs, and duct tape ($1 a roll?  What a deal!) from "Kidnaps R Us".

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 8: Headhunting

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc     Absent
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

No Rest For The Wicked

While the others divvied up the take from the last job, Peacock took their new van back to the warehouse where they were storing their vehicles and gave it a tune up.  Or, that's what they wanted to do, but they quickly found out that it would need a full engine replacement; it was a miracle it had made it all the way from Pacifica.  After that, they bought a trailer and towed it and the van out into the Badlands in a concealed box canyon for their family to hide out after the inevitable jailbreak.

The others were annoyed when they were informed that Fred Runt, a street kid techie that Jar was acquainted with, had just flooded the market for cheap cyberware.  They elected to wait it out and split the 'ware between Jar's place and Paxos' place, though they still fenced the guns for a few hundred each.  Paxos and Specter then did a weeklong therapy regimen each, which Paxos really ended up needing, because her apartment flooded.  Most of the cyberware was good, though a couple eyes were ruined, but a bunch of furniture and clothes had to be repaired while she lived out of a hotel for a few days.  The guys the landlord called in to do the work were confused because apparently the damaged pipe had been cut clean through with an angle grinder (Paxos: "Militeeeeeech!").

While she was still dealing with the fallout of the flood, Paxos also broke worked on breaking the encryption on some NUSA government databases to prep her new identity.  Peacock slotted a news shard and picked out a date for their family's jailbreak: during a big parade when the NCPD in Santo would be busy elsewhere.  Specter meanwhile went to Thumbs, an old buddy of his who ran a sex dungeon, and scored some used couches and a sweet sound system for his gang hideout, which helped get some new recruits.  In exchange, he had to act as muscle for a drug deal going down in Kabuki with the Tyger Claws, which ended up being uneventful.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 7: Ow My Legs

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Breaking and Entering

After a slight detour to pick up a replacement agent for Paxos from a vending machine, the crew returned to the Luxura Hotel, and by the time they got back it was around 3AM.  While the others discussed how to go about searching a 30-story tower, Specter vanished (except for his floating clothes) using his Chameleon Skin, then went in and scouted out the lobby, which was empty.  There were a couple security cameras but they were all obviously destroyed, either aiming down or just lying on the ground amid the piles of garbage bags.  The lobby was open to the sea air, the all-glass exterior having long-ago been destroyed, and everything was corroded and moldy, the walls covered in bright pink grafitti.

It looked like the main elevator was still in working order, and there was a staircase they could take if it wasn't.  Specter returned and they decided to try to find a squatter on a lower floor to tell them what areas of the hotel the gang controlled.  Taking the stairs, they prowled through the second floor, eventually finding a locked hotel room, and Jar picked the lock using his tech hand.  When they opened the door, it jangled a primitive alarm made of tin cans full of cutlery and the inhabitant, a haggard looking bearded man, grabbed a shotgun and yelled at them incoherently.

Jar closed the door and they decided to just scope out the building one floor at a time, going from the top down.  The elevator was even more nasty than the lobby, the shiny metal walls dulled from layers of brown grime.  Floor 30 was a ruin, partially collapsed, with basketball-sized holes in the walls, probably from that helicopter strafing run a year ago.  They crept down the stairs to the 29th floor, which was similar, except that there were patchwork security cameras watching the stairs, and the bank of rooms across from them looked to have been repaired.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 6: Body Snatchers

Characters:
Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc
Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo
Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad
Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Taking Care of Business

Paxos was newly homeless and Specter figured he needed to relocate as well in case Stacy had recognized him, so for the last three days of June, they couch-surfed with Peacock and Jar, respectively.  They were all larger than life personalities so it wouldn't be a viable long-term solution, though, so Paxos started a lease on an actual apartment in The Glen, while Specter just found a cheap room above the roundabout in Kabuki.  Peacock spent a week hanging out at a bar that the guards of the prison their family was locked up in frequented.  After spending close to a thousand eddies on drinks for people, they singled out one who seemed susceptible to pressure, for future reference.

Jar waited a week to get a meeting with a Voodoo Boys higher-up, then bribed him to let him take over another unit in the hotel to have a more "proper" ripper lab.  Having seen a chameleon skin in action, Specter finally bit the bullet and had Jar do the full skin replacement job, then spent the next week in bed recovering.  He also got his cyber knuckles tuned up so they wouldn't fail on him, but the parts for his bootleg Sandevistan were pricey and had to be ordered from the Soviet Union, meaning that piece of chrome would remain glitchy for now.  

Paxos spent a while reading the news, trying to read between the lines to find places that had little corporate authority, eventually ending up with a very short list, largely featuring warzones, or exotic locales like the O'Neill space stations (which were closed to the outside world anyway).  A couple weeks later, Paxos got an abrupt call from a Downtown fixer who was in the big leagues: Reality Black.  She was extremely dismissive, telling Paxos that this call wouldn't usually be worth her time, but that the client had asked for Paxos' crew by name.  Client's name was Sabela Elara, an old friend of Paxos', and after confirming that she already had the contact info, Reality hung up.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 5: Brothel Break-in

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo

Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad

Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

The Plan

Jar and Specter went around Arroyo and picked up some rumours.  Someone at city hall was keeping the cops off the Mox's backs; Peacock assumed it was their nemesis, Chudwell, based on no evidence.  The Moxes were trucking the precursor chemicals in with a van, and then distributing the finished Blue Glass to street dealers using the same van, which meant that the department store contained a meth lab as well as the stash.  Specter ran into a bit of trouble, when a ganger with a mohawk of spiked hair, Action Jack, pulled a gun on him and said that word on the street was he was a cop.

Specter, insulted, said he was the real deal, triggered his Sandy, and replied by quick-drawing his own pistol.  They stared each other down for a while, before Action holstered his iron and apologized for calling him a pig.  Action didn't know who was spreading the rumours (Peacock: "It's Chudwell"), but Specter guessed it was probably Rose, another one of his vindictive exes.  Meanwhile, Paxos tried to look into the city hall angle, but whoever was doing this had covered their tracks, and she didn't find anything.

Comfortable they had enough intel to go in, the crew started putting together a plan.  Paxos realized the recording they had to take was going to the NCPD and so she'd disguise everyone thoroughly before they went in.  In particular, a bunch of Moxes knew Specter because he'd dated one for a while.  Jar, however, refused to compromise on his style, but the camera was in his head, so everyone else let him risk pissing off the Mox.  Trying to avoid collateral damage, they decided to go in the middle of the night.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 4: Manhunt

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo

Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad

Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

The Meet

The crew (minus Specter) walked through the main floor of Lizzie's , shrouded in purple lights and slow music, to the office of Susie Q.  She was typing away at a terminal as they entered, and didn't look up.  A black woman, she had a mismatched upper faceplate in a different skin tone, and a dozen or so magenta spikes projecting out of her forearms that Jar identified as a dart weapon.  Jar opened the conversation by complimenting her on the "spike gauntlets", but she skipped the small talk and went straight to business.

Susie tapped some commands into the terminal then swung the monitor around so everyone could see the grainy security camera footage as she narrated.  A joygirl, Napalm Jane, was found strangled to death in the Jade Oak Motel a few days ago.  On the monitor, a dark-skinned man in a trenchcoat with close-cropped hair walked into view with the girl on his arm.  The tape fast-forwarded, and the man left, alone.  Jar muttered "Johnny White...", recognizing the man as a solo and frequent client of his.

Folding her arms, Susie asked if it was going to be a problem if Jar knew this guy, but Jar waved her off, assuring her that he was a pro.  Figuring they had enough to go on, Susie turned back to the terminal and got back to work on spreadsheets, reminding them to bring him in alive, and call for the dropoff when they had him.  Jar insisted on having a default dropoff in case things were hot, so she relented and, not looking up, said they could bring him 'round the back of Lizzie's if it came to that.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 3: Search and Rescue

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo

Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad

Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

Hanging Out

Jar and Specter finished tying themselves off to the grapple gun ropes, and Jar climbed out over the balcony.  He lost his grip and slipped, falling past the window of the 32nd, before the rope caught him and he found himself dangling just beside the broken laser-link.  It was hanging by a cable, but the mount was still affixed to the building's exterior.  After reattaching it, he called Nightingale to align it, and, after patching her through to a live-feed from his cybereye and busting out the laser level in his toolhand, they successfully re-established the connection.  The rest of the crew reeled him back up to the 33rd floor, and they left Megabuilding H6 substantially wealthier than when they entered, with 6th Street none the wiser.

Over the next few days, Specter recruited some local punks to join his "gang" by showing off the rocket launcher, only for them to vanish a couple days later.  Eventually he tracked down one of the kids, who bluntly asked him if it was true that he'd gotten his old gang killed.  After a pause, Specter explained that he'd been sent to kill a guy who turned out to have friends in high places, "so kinda but not really", and that was good enough to get the other initiates to show up again.

Jar, meanwhile, moved into as proper an apartment as one could find in Pacifica, landing a suite at the Mirage hotel, which had security provided by the Voodoo Boys.  They also hashed out a deal where he kicked up a share of the profits from his ripperdoc work.  While walking back from his old place after getting everything picked up by movers, he spotted a gang of seven or eight punks in the distance wearing blazing neon pink and walking towards him.  After a moment, he recognized the leader as his arch-nemesis, Anthony Gunderson, who raised an arm and pointed at him.  And then the gangers all drew guns.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 2: The Big Payday

Characters:

Braxton "Jar" Jiggs - Cybertech/Ripperdoc

Alexander "Specter" Marshal - Solo

Pat "Peacock" Watson - "Former" Nomad

Ruby "Paxos" Lang - Netrunner

The Haul

Peacock and Jar took positions behind the car and took aim at the corpo guards, while Specter and Paxos kept loading what they could into the trunk from inside the semi.  The guards tried to open fire, but both of their guns jammed simultaneously, and return fire from Peacock and Jar sent them back into cover - though they were protected by their armour.  Thinking he was safe, the driver started to gun the semi, at least as much as he could.  Once they finished unjamming their weapons, they ran up closer, but fainted from the wounds they'd taken when their SUV crashed.

Paxos and Specter grabbed the last of the loot and jumped out the back of the semi trailer before it could pick up too much speed and loaded their haul into the trunk.  After Paxos had stopped the bleeding on all the wounded with a twenty-year expired medkit she found in the glovebox, they headed back into Night City, passing under a Trauma Team AV on the way.  Specter took stock of what all they'd grabbed: 4 of the chameleon skins in black briefcase-sized storage units, 2 crates of the Firmitas anti-psychotic drug, and a climate-controlled "mystery box".

Inside the mystery box was some kind of skull implant that Jar figured would be used to inject drugs directly into the brain; perhaps the Firmitas or the anti-clotting agents that had also been in the trailer.  They decided to hold off on doing anything with them for now, and sent Haga Gonne proof that they had the goods.  Shortly they received the address for the meet: Lizzie's Bar, the Mox HQ in Kabuki.  Peacock took the ring road and they arrived just as night fell.

GURPS Cyberpunk 2078 Session 1: Stealth and Rocket Launchers

Biz

Braxton Jiggs, aka Jar, had just finished installing a set of technails for a client in the surgery suite that took up the vast majority of his one-room apartment when he received a call on his implanted 'link.  He recognized the name Regina Jones as a fixer out of Kabuki, though he'd never met her before, and answered.  A businesslike conversation ensued as she offered him and his crew a job to swipe some data for a media.  Payment details were hashed out, and Jar was instructed to meet one Trevor Nakada in a bar called The Storm on the waterfront in Japantown for more deets.

Jar put out the call to the rest of the crew, and Peacock, the only one with a ride (due to being a nomad), started the long loop from Arroyo to pick everyone up.  In their usual plain baggy black suit and heavily contrasting red mohawk, they pulled up to Specter's place in Rancho.  The solo stood out in his white and red gang leathers and white and black tech-mohawk, gave Peacock the nod, and dumped his rifle in the trunk before getting in the passenger seat.  They arrived in Coast View right as Jar had finished disposing of today's client's meat fingertips in a dumpster, having already changed into his trademark white leather jacket and pants (no shirt, so the ladies can see the goods).  His mohawk made three as he got into the back seat.

Paxos was the last one to be picked up, in The Glen, and had stayed jacked into the net right up until they'd pulled up outside her megabuilding.  Rather incongruously, this heavy-duty netrunner in a pretty sun dress and floppy hat tumbled out of an air vent in the alley, then dusted herself off and joined the others in the car as they finally set out for The Storm.  Soon enough, they were at the colourful Japantown waterfront.  It was one of the cleaner districts, which meant the piles of garbage in the alleys were only large instead of enormous.

GURPS Spooky Halloween "One-Shot" 2022 (Part 2)

Characters:

Dingus Nerdingham - Serendipity, Curious, Grocery Delivery, Could Be A Chemist, Has A Dog

Joe Schmoe - Enhanced Dodge, Violence Phobia, Bicycle Courier, Former Nurse, Caving

Leigh Prieto - Attractive, Gig Maid, Fired From Crime Lab, Aspiring Rapper

Zoe Lastgirl - Enhanced Dodge, Very Unfit, Food Delivery, Could Be A Carpenter, Accordion

Beef Hardbody - Very Fit, Darkness Phobia, Rideshare Driver, Could Be A Linguist, Basketball

A Tricky Jump

The ghost of Count Orlock continued to play the organ, and Beef's group (Gil (from the Simpsons) and Abby) couldn't find any clues in the room, so he suggested they go check out the stone tower with the gargoyles.  Gil seemed hesitant, and was proven correct when he failed to jump across the broken floor and fell down to the library, landing face-first on the wooden frame of a couch, breaking his nose.  Beef shouted down that they'd take the stairs down to meet up with Gil, but then he and Abby both slipped and fell in, with Beef landing badly enough he broke his leg.

Abby was fine, having landed on the cushioned part of a couch, and they took in their surroundings.  A fire blazed in a brick fireplace on one wall, and the other three were lined with shelves stocked full of books.  They had landed on the only furniture in the room, the two couches, one of which had a newspaper open on it.  There was also an open book on the floor in front of the fireplace.  

Beef, able to limp around on his good leg, took a look at the newspaper and saw the headline "The Dreadful Murder of Count Orlock".  Figuring it might have some clues, he sat down to read the article.  It stated that the Count had been killed on the top floor of the mansion, and that the murderer was still at large.  Beef also grabbed the open book (an encyclopedia, it turned out), and stashed it for possible future use, then headed out to take the stairs back up to the second floor.