Cash'n Carry

Adventure Seed for a Group of professionals

Janne Kemppi

Professionals is a group name for any legal or illegal group of investigators, often with background in security or military, who have gone to work together in civilian life. What really makes them professionals is that they use their specialized skills in often questionable and at times illegal ways. Work detail includes investigations, handling difficult negotiations, personal protection and occasionally smuggling too.

Whenever something must be carried from one place to another, a delivery is used. When ever something must be carried illegally from one place to another, a smuggler is used. Whenever something must be carried secretly, safely and surely from one place to another, a Professional is used. That is really the bottom line of business idea for any group of professionals living in Khaya An-Din. However, one does what one needs to make the ends meet and this carefully cultivated image is definitely a sham. Perhaps just handfull of best paid professionals can actually afford to look down run on the mill smuggling and vast majority of the so called professionals are just smugglers and crooks by other name.

The clientele varies a lot but usually professionals do occasionally smuggling asking any of their (rare) friends or (common) contacts to carry a packet through. At the easiest end there could be a businessmen wanting something embarrassing (like naughty material carried to prudent North). Some times professionals might be hired to plumber the smuggling pipeline back to work out. At the most dangerous and difficult end there are really valuable cargoes such as stolen art that must be delivered in person. These kind of jobs pay well but the risks are enormous too...

The Box

Professionals have been hired to carry a tough looking heavy box through Terra Nova from Khaya Ad-Din to Perth in Humanist Alliance. The box has tough steel frame and is about 1x1x1 meter sized is is obviously very heavy and looks pretty much like inspocuous and ordinary cargo box that is used to carry machine tools or spare parts to vehicle systems like gears. As usual, no questions on cargo, delivery or client...

1. Box has a very sophisticated (and hard to observe) tracking devide attached because client did not fully trust (for obvious reasons) to Professionals. Thus someone is following in distance (perhaps observed by luck) the group during their truck. The possibilities of mistrust, paranoia and accusing each other or people along the smuggling link are limitless. It would be even more fun, if the trace was actually captured by client's enemy and group would be tailed by two sides at the both time...
2. Group's box carrying vehicle gets itself into an accident during rising sandstorm in Badlands close to a remote oasis tower. As soon as group enters the place to search for tools, spares and shelter, they notice that there is a treatening mood amongst the locals. Oasis tower has had a string of accidents, possibly sabotage, and everyone is accusing each other. Everyone is gathering weapons and fights and arguments get more heated and heated. A group of obviously very capable adventurers could easily tip the balance if things boil over. Professionals are in it, whether they want it or not...
3. There are times when even most ardent Professional has to leave the delivery box alone. One of these times is a border check by a (brutal, incompetent and corrupt to hilt) Southern MILICIA. Everything goes relatively smoothly but as Professionals return to their vehicles, they notice that amongst minor thievery, the box is missing. Certainly the military unit whose equipment looked worse for wear has taken it as a spare parts container. The tracks leads to firebase that looks more of a bandit camp than military compound. Security is lax but these guys are soldiers and thus armed to teeth if something goes wrong. Not to mention a minor detail that boxes like the one lost seem to be laying everywhere in the compound...
4. Professionals have a background in military or security and people with backgrounds are often routinely checked out by local authorities or (even worse) security services. Ofcourse, it might also be a mistaken identity. Smuggling something is difficult, smuggling something with snoops on your back is art. Losing tail is suspicious and could lead to search and eventual finding of the box. Thus there is a need to act as if nothing is wrong, yet somehow get the box through checkpoints and set up a meeting in delivery point and get the box there (and return with cash) while somehow looking as innocent as possible. That is something to ponder but the clock is ticking and authorities might just pull the group in anyways...
5. Box breaks up during transport as vehicle carrying it gets into an accident or it is being moved from one vehicle to another. That is embarrassing to say the least but what is real problem is that professionals see what they are carrying. Box seems to carry some kind of a complicated machinery that has organic, odd-looking biological construct inside. Illegal (not to mention unethical) bioengineering/bioweapon perhaps? A kind of research that anyone involved is ready to kill to keep secret. Surely both the client and the people on delivery point are broad minded enough not to ponder such thoughts when they see a broken up container? Yeah, right...
6. Professionals get a message that the deal is off. That is quite rare but by no means impossible. Parties on both end of the delivery disappear immediately afterwards and Professionals are left out to dry with their cargo. Since all they have is this box they could as well sell its contents to highest bidder. Lets see what kind of jack in a box (Hint: see point 5 above) is there...

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