(AGToO) Risk of R(*)in

[Vincent]

Alastor: There is nothing Supernatural about the Idol. Thin threads connect it to the box, and to two more in the back of the room. But it's a fickle connection, likely from being carried in the same container. The item must have some historical significance, but the Arrow can't gather much else. [int + Academics to find out it's the representation of some form of mesoamerican divinity, likely from El Salvador, or Nicaragua or bordering nations]
The space around the Boxes is straight despite brimming with thick threads, alas there hasn't been any tampering with it, other than the two crowbars scattered around that have been employed to prop the crate open.
Excluded the supernatural, it remains that it must be a good old fake bottom, one of the oldest tricks in the smuggler's arsenal.

[Campanella]

There was intake of breath from the Matter Master as he wrenched away his Mind Sight to ease the burden on his fragile Pattern while he wove news spells. The severing of his connection to the psychic resonances of the area was profoundly hurtful and it showed. Even as he replaced his lost vision with the deeper intuition of Matter.

Campanella coughed as he processed the new information.

He did not blink as he wove yet another spell. Felt another Glyph, heavy with Matter, lock into place within his Pattern.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-04-06 23:59:01		Campy to cast Find the Hidden Hoard rolls 7 to Gnosis 4 + Matter 5 - Spell Tolerance (10 Again)		2, 4, 7, 2, 1, 5, 10, 1		1 success
2019-04-06 23:56:57		Campy to cast Matter Sight Rote rolls 10 to Intelligence + Occult + Order Spec + Matter - 1 Spell Tolerance (10 Again)		4, 5, 7, 10, 3, 5, 4, 3, 8, 7, 7		2 successes

[Vincent]

Campanella : The ponderous resonance of the substantial world weights heavy over the Moros, filling the blank void left by the whimsical winds of Pandemonium and replacing it with the familiar solidity of Stygia.
The steel banding surrounding the plywood crates has withstood humidity the best it could, but beneath the layer of coating protecting the cases, seeping deeply within the porous wood, the Moros can sense it, the salty breath of the yellow-toothed maws of entropy.
It smells like the Ocean.

The boxes would appear to be of standard issuance, but one would have to wonder why such sturdy pallets and outsized crates were used for artifact as small as the one statue his companion is currently engaged with. Even the abundance of styrofoam is unsettling, when shipping goods, a good businessman would try to minimize the possibility of accidental damage. Weight too was a factor in a cost driven industry such as shipping.
And then the rigid glyph currently embedded in his pattern, right above his eyes, brims with vibrations like the sonar of a marine mammal meeting empty space. The boxes, all of them, have a double bottom.

The idol is old, the Moros can tell with a mere glance of the frayed edges of the mineral earth it is made of. Clay mined from the womb of the earth itself, once - aeons ago - living, now inert matter. He'd have to inspect it with calm to appraise its origins.
There is something odd about it, invisible to mundane senses but glistening under his mage sight, a sheen. White, microscopic dust pinching his nose.

Right by him, close enough to the ghastly chainsaw, he sees the two crowbars of solid steel, even if a bit rusty.

[Campanella]

"You are right. False bottoms. All of them."

Campanella spoke with a nod and bent to take up the crowbar.

"I might guess that the idol and whatever else was in the crates was there to confound thieves. I might even hazard that they did their job. I wouldn't touch that idol though. Not without gloves. I can tell its covered in some white dust, which doesn't bode well if I can see it under the Sight."

He held one of the crowbars out to Alastor .

"Did you want to take a look? Maybe we can get something over our adversaries? And then perhaps we should call it quits before our luck runs out."

Yes. Adversaries. Sleeper deaths were starting to mount and Campanella still did not know quite what had transpired with Shodan and Kaze.

Don't know if you want a roll to crack open the crates Vincent . Also, bears noting that we are holding up plot so perhaps we should start to draw the scene to a close? Cross Vincent

[Vincent]

The two Awakened scuttle around the box with their crowbars, plying layer of wood after another.
A mound of styrofoam pools beneath their feet. Soon the crate is dismantled, and after painstakingly maneuvering, even the reinforced bottom gives up under their combined assault.
The Arrow knows how this kind of business is conducted, and his hypothesis is eventually proven right.
CK, yayo, snow, now all those gangly threads of sympathy made sense. Like a McDonald indeed. Dozens and dozens of small yellow bundles, layered one upon another. One packet has been ruptured, emptying its lumpy content of fine white crystalline powder inside the box. There are at least fifty packages inside the crate they're inspecting, assuming its purity and that every crate is equally packed, they could have stumbled upon an operation easily worth a couple hundreds of millions. [wits + streetwise, 1 suxx. Alastor passes this automatically due to his background]
A lot of money, what do you do with it? That's the question.

Yeah, we can start wrapping up

[Campanella]

The Moros is singularly unimpressed. He grunts sourly.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-04-13 17:53:14		Campanella to know street value rolls 5 to Wits + Streetwise + Speciality (10 Again)		7, 1, 3, 3, 1		failure

"I am more interested in art. I wouldn't be able to shift any of that stuff if I wanted to. Do wish to do anything further here?"

Campanella asked quietly. He left the implicit question hanging, half suspecting that the Warlock might lay claim to some of the packages as compensation for his time.

"Are we going by the way we came or shall we portal?"

[Campanella]

"Yes. Wise decision. And thank you for dealing without sympathy."

Campanella nodded and stared hard at the door. It would be so easy to summon his Arcane knowledge and simply render the partially closed gate pliable. But that might leave more traces behind. It would not be wise.

Sighing, the Hierarch got on his knees and crawled under the door once more.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-04-16 04:15:41		Campy to crawl under doors rolls 4 to Dexterity + Athletics -1 untrained (10 Again, WillPower)		10, 8, 9, 4, 1		3 successes

In interests of full disclosure, see below: -

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2019-04-16 04:14:39		Campy to crawl under doors rolls 7 to Dexterity + Athletics -1 untrainedcs -1 untrained (10 Again, WillPower)		2, 2, 7, 1, 3, 6, 9		1 success

Not sure what happened but the DR is out. I rerolled using the correct dice pool. Sorry about that.

Shall we draw things to a close?