Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Lextius on <01-26-12/1521:34>
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Hi guys. I've been running Shadowrun for a little while now but I'm new to the boards. I thought it would be an interesting idea to post my party's activities and runs. Maybe they'll interest you and hopefully I can get some constructive criticism.
Let me begin by saying that I run a game with a host of house rules (mostly minor edits here and there), though the two meaningful house rule I use is 1) essence drain (from addiction, essence draining baddies, etc) is typically temporary and the essence comes back at a slow rate, and 2) a mage/mystic adept/adept/technomancer who lowers their permanent essence has a maximum Resonance/Magic attribute equal to twice their essence (round up). As a theme question I wanted to make a statement about a natural path of evolution vs. man-made evolution.
The Setting:
Seattle (still policed by Lone Star because when the game started I didn't realize canon had shifted over to Knight Errant), 2072
The cast:
Philip Marlow- A Lone Star detective, drug addict, twice divorced father of 2. After a drug-bust gone horribly wrong most of the man's body has been replaced, leaving his soul clinging to the metallic and bio-engineered shell that was once the man's body. He lives in a run down hotel, as his detective paychecks go to his ex-wife. He looks to use his connections in the criminal underground to make enough money to pay alimony.
Vince White- A University of Washington history student who expressed his Orcishness midway through his senior year. Good news- he also Awakened as an adept. Bad news- there aren't a lot of job opportunities for an orc scholar in the world of professional academia. When life gives you lemons, attune yourself to your pistols and hire yourself as muscle, or so Mr. White believes.
Christopher Bellinger- A born confidence man, Christopher has traveled the world making sure that fools and their money are soon parted. It helps that he has software built into his brain that help him measure involuntary body ticks for hidden emotions, glands which secrete pheromones programmed to his mark, and a computer-modulated voice box.
Boas Mungo- Motivated by the small community of squatters, drug addicts, joygirls, and other human refuse that huddle in the abandoned factory he calls home, Boas Mungo, an orc shaman, is willing to do what it takes to make sure there is enough power to stave off exposure, and enough money to buy the food needed to stave off starvation for his people. If he has to break a few expensive toys of the rich and powerful to do it then that's a sacrifice he's going to have to make.
Important NPCs:
Astra St. Claire: A well-connected Fixer.
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The Tanker Run:
Background/Story:
As part of their image-modeling campaigns various Mega-Corps distribute certain medical and survival equipment and chemicals to the squalor that is Redmond and Puyallup. Horizon is planning a big media event about how they are 'giving back', and are shipping in water purification systems, solar power generators, tents, and basic medicine from Los Angeles via a fast tanker, "Balto". The Mafia has been doing a brisk trade in these supplies and uses them to maintain control over various groups and is irritated by this development. However the Los Angeles Mafia is working with certain Horizon subsidiaries on BTL distribution and wants to make sure that the Seattle folks don't sour relationships. Consequently the Mafia needs some outsiders.
New PCs:
Mr. Light: A mild-mannered construction Rigger by day, a shadowrunning combat rigger by night. Mr. Light enjoys doing his job from the safety of his van, and would prefer to interact with the world through VR, or through one of his many flying, rolling, or hovering drones.
New NPCs:
Capo Antony "Piz" Pizzoli: A novacoke addicted member of the mafia (old Sicilian roots). He's a favorite cousin of someone up above, otherwise his violent, sociopathic manners and general entitlement would have had him whacked long ago. He's also the person someone up the food chain put in charge of making sure the Balto doesn't do what it is supposed to do.
Story:
Astra reaches out to Marlowe with a job offer. Mr. Johnson would like to meet the collection of shadowrunners in a nice downtown office of "Highline Sea Transport and Cargo, Inc", a front company for the Mafia in Seattle. The meeting, which occurs shortly after 10 P.M., introduces Marlowe and Victor to a wide eyed, highly irritable Mr. Johnson. Marlowe, a veteran narcotics officer, realizes in no time that his employer is an addict, but judging from the fine european suits and muscle hanging around the office after hours, his employer is also a made man. After some brief negotiations an agreement is reached: the purification equipment and medical supplies will not make it to shore, and in return the runners will make several thousand nuyen.
For a small fee Astra is willing to connect the runners with a boat to get them out to sea and close enough to the Balto to make an entrance. Realizing that the boat will be well out of signal range for his drones, Mr. Light reluctantly packs up his lighter equipment and tags along.
The ride out into the shipping lanes is uneventful, and the shadowrunners sit in their speedboat in the dead of night awaiting the Balto's passing. As it does the boat roars into the wake of the container ship, the party grappling their way onto the stern and climbing up.
Once on board each sets to their purpose- Boas scouts the ship astrally while Mr. Light's small drones are released into the bowels of the ship to identify cameras and crew locations. Bellinger, White, and Marlowe prepare for the inevitable physical conflict with the security on board. With superior information the crew and guards in the hold are dispatched quickly and efficiently, leaving only an unaware dozen crew up in the control room overseeing the delicate maneuvering through the waters of Seattle.
Chaos up above alerts the runners that something is terribly wrong. With all of their party in the hold there is moment of confusion as gunshots can be heard over the waves and engine sounds. An alarm goes up. An explosion.
Resolving to the task at hand Marlowe and White guard the entrances while Boas sets to stealing as much medical supplies as possible then torching the rest with an incendiary device. Mr. Light, curious of the chose above, sends his drones to investigate, while Bellinger sets to finding the most valuable goods he can find in the cargo hold to shove into his backpack.
In the hold White comes across a blade wielding orc, another runner, who is here to acquire whatever is the in the mysteriously well-secured forward hold. A tense standoff occurs as the orc and White stair each other down, one gripping his pistols, the other the hilt of his katana, until eventually a dwarf emerges from the forward hold with a box under his arm. "We've got it!" the dwarf announces after taking stock of the situation. Both of the adepts allow the other to go their way.
Up above two trolls have initiated a wild gun battle with the remaining security and crew of the boat. The party, being shot at by both sides, attempts to cross the ship through hails of gunfire to get to their speedboat (or at least over the side), but it is too late. Horizon released a VTOL security team the moment the shooting started, and their arrival is announced with a missile into the waiting speedboats. Mr. White, having already made the leap into the boat, is horribly burned. Boas manages to drag him to safety and patch him up magically while the party takes cover from the hovering VTOL and the chaingun it brought with it.
The trolls have no such hesitation, and from the forward control towers they open fire, starting a battle with the aircraft that only the small mind of a troll could imagine would be winnable. While suppressing the tower cables launch from the side of the aircraft and with them come a Horizon security team in pristine corporate armor emblazoned with the Horizon logo. The vtol launches a few drones to provide support.
Pressed back into the command room by security the trolls put up a valiant fight, but their death or capture is inevitable. Making a horrible mistake the VTOL settles down on the pitching deck, ready to collect the security team after their imminent victory is completed. The shadowrunners strike from their hiding place, forcing open the rigger's cocoon and allowing Mr. Light to take his place. As they are preparing to take off the mysterious orc from down below emerges carrying a box and secures transit by suggesting that if he is not allowed a ride he would delay the runners the crucial seconds needed to escape.
The runners take off but are pursued by the drones launched by the very aircraft they stole. Firing from the side of the craft the runners manage to cause enough damage to prevent pursuit, but their VTOL is damaged in the process. Additionally, Mr. Light is unable to disable the tracking of the aircraft and is worried that Horizon will be ready for them when they try to land.
The party disembarks on the docks, and Mr. Light sets the VTOL to fly erratically through Seattle airspace until it is inevitably hacked or shot down. And with that, the party disperses into the Seattle crowds, eventually collecting payment for the chaos on board the Balto. The orc, never giving a name, parts ways.
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Cool stuff, and welcome to the boards Lex! I'm moving this over to the main SR board, because this section is specifically for the Shadowrun Missions Living Campaign (http://www.shadowrun4.com/missions/). Just to avoid confusion. Please, carry on though! :)
Bull
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Haha! that sounds like a fun time. :D
Welcome to the board as well!
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The Coyote Run (or "The LA Run" as my players call it)
Changes in the Roster:
Boas (Retired)
Christopher Bellinger (Moved to France to pursue a "sure thing")
Evan T. Garde- An elf with a magic smile. No, literally, his smile is magical, as is about everything else about him. He's a wizard who uses his magic to make sure that he lives a life of luxury (on someone elses' dime, of course). Sometimes, though, even his charms wear thin and he needs to work for his dinner.
Background:
...in other news today, Lone Star officers in cooperation with EVO security forces arrested Ituha Fireheart in a daring morning raid of his commune in Death Valley. The eco-terrorist, front man for the organization "Children for Tomorrow", made headlines recently when his organization claimed responsibility for the terror-bombing of the Chrysler-Nissan factory in Pomona. The terror bombing resulted in the death of nearly a dozen workers upgrading some of the factory's systems. Lone Star spokesman Clive Williams stated that the man was presently in EVO custody but would be standing trial soon.
Story:
After setting fire to medical supplies that were intended (for whatever reason) to help the poor of Seattle Boas decides that his shadowrunning days are over. He settles back into his community but is almost immediately contacted by a woman named 'Starshine Meadows", the speaker for an organization called "The Sisterhood of Mother Earth", who found him through a mutual contact in the magical community. Boas passes the information along to his former runner partners.
Driving in a caravan out to the edge of Salishe-Sidhe Territory, Marlowe, Mr. Light, Evan and White all gather together at Ms. Meadow's office building, a converted light industrial office building overlooking rolling fields of corporate agricultural land. The building, ill maintained and smelling of ritual incense and stale body odor, echoes with the sounds of a drum circle coming from somewhere inside. A banner hangs over the entrance-way, announcing the occupants as the Sisterhood of Mother Earth.
Ms. Meadows, awkwardly referring to herself as "Ms. Johnson", shows them into her office. Though the orc woman seems to be among the most coherent members of her cult, the run-down nature of the establishment makes the runners wary of the professionalism of the contract. The pay isn't very good, but all of the runners are up against the wall in terms of paying their bills and this will get them through the week, if not the month. After some negotiation Evan and Marlowe manage to get both the details of the run and a not insignificant portion of the payment up front.
In the shadows of the EVO Arcology in Los Angeles is a small detention block (literally a block on stilts) that serves as the EVO temporary detention center where Ituha Fireheart is being held. Ms. Meadows would like the runners to go and get him. Ms. Meadows can even provide a contact among the smugglers in the Cascades who can run the shadowrunners down to Los Angeles at no additional cost. At no point do the runners inquire as to why the individual in custody is being held.
Gathering what supplies they can and piling into the back of Mr. Light's van the runners meet up with the smuggler who, despite being paid already, balks at the size of the equipment that runners intend to carry with them. After tensions are smoothed over the runners wing their way into the deserts to the east of Los Angeles.
Once on the ground the runners set about navigate to a lookout point over the EVO arcology and take stock of the situation. The Arcology overhangs the small detention block. They choose to infiltrate along the water and up the pylon's supporting the facility, though they need to choose a moment when one of the prisoner transport helicopters is on the small landing pad so that they have an escape option.
At first navigating the waterways of Los Angeles is easy enough- detritus and the shanties along the water make for easy cover during their approach, but eventually the party must cross the open water underneath the arcology in a dash to the prison block. With a little bit of hacking help from Mr. Light (who assures his compatriots that he is not a hacker!) they manage to get past the automated security perimeter and its cameras. With some careful climbing the quarter make it to one of the service entrances, underneath a disabled camera.
Once outside the door a decision is made- sneaking isn't an option. The party charges in, guns in hand, and begin launching gas grenades into every room they find. The choking, gasping sounds of security guards too slow to reach their gas masks serves as filler to the klaxon sounding the break in. The few guards who manage to get to clean air or find their emergency gear are gunned down or stunned into unconsciousness by White and Evan.
Marlowe, familiar with detention centers, quickly finds Fireheart's cell and finds the man in a cell, mage-shackled. Marlowe makes quick work of the security doors and drags the confused man out and through the facility. Alerts have gone up throughout arcology security and already a response team is on its way. Shooting their way out they find that Mr. Light has already secured the helicopter and, with rotors already spinning, the runners clamber into the back of the prisoner transport helicopter with a terrorist prisoner.
As the helicopter takes off they are greeted with a hail of gunfire- EVO security forces aboard their own choppers begin spraying bullets into the air, whizzing by the expertly flown aircraft. Mr. Light pitches hard away from the pursuers, ducking and dodging through the LA skyline as machine gun fire tears holes not only in his helicopter, but the skyrises and offices he is using as cover. White and Evan fire back with guns and magic respectively, eventually downing one of the pursuing helicopters and Mr. Light's piloting makes pursuit impossible for the other.
Sensing a fortune is now in their hands, Evan contacts a fence friend of his to determine if there is a way to sell the helicopter on short notice. After some calls are made, the runners settle the bullet riddled aircraft on a private airfield where a small team of technicians appear to be waiting. Nearly before the runners have disembarked the technicians have begun stripping identifying hardware and reprogramming software. A million nuyen helicopter is traded for a few thousand nuyen, secrecy, and expediency
And with that the runners part ways, some smuggling themselves up to Seattle, others taking a vacation through the California Free State.
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The Lost Asset Run (part I)
Cast:
Philip Marlowe
Evan T. Garde
Vince White
New NPCs:
Alice- Philip's eldest daughter from his first marriage. She is attending the University of Washington as a Computer and Matrix Science major.
Jason Rogers- A graduate student at the University of Washington studying Matrix security.
Seraph- A hacker operating in the Seattle area who has recently appeared on the scene. Astra recommends him to the runners, who are in need of matrix support.
Background:
Seattle Nanoworks is a subsidiary of EVO dedicated to nanotechnological research. A competitor, Forgeworld Programming (a subsidiary of Renraku), employs a gifted programmer who has done research in areas closely related to programming nano-hives. Nanoworks has hired numerous runners to acquire his research, but now they want the man. To that end they kidnapped the programmer's daughter, Genevieve, a precocious 10 year old, in order to secure Andrew Maximillian's compliance in an extraction.
The initial hired muscle secured the girl in a safe house south of Seattle, but things went south when a biker gang got wind of corporate intrigue inside their territory. They took it upon themselves to "liberate" young Genevieve into their custody and start a bidding war for her.
Story:
Alice, Philip's daughter by his first wife, arrives in Seattle from Corpus Cristi and with the help of her father she moves into her form. As a scholarship student she is expected to work at the Gates Computer and Matrix technology lab under the supervision of Professor Carlson. Philip is introduced to Professor Carlson, as well as several graduate and undergraduate students who work there, including a Jason Rogers, a graduate student in Matrix security.
Astra St. Claire contacts Marlowe and invites the running team to a meet with a potential employer. White and Marlowe make their way to a high-class AR bar downtown. There they find Mr. Johnson accompanied by a bureaucratic-looking elf who says nothing yet seems to be in a position of authority over Mr. Johnson.
Johnson explains a bit of the situation- a valuable asset has gone missing from a corporate facility and the runners are hired to return it in good condition. When pressed about the particulars Mr. Johnson becomes irritated, but eventually concedes that the asset is a valuable corporate citizen. Rough details of the last known location of the asset are handed over in return for an agreement to find and return the asset to Mr. Johnson.
Troubled by the lack of information, Marlowe asks for the name of a good hacker from Astra and receives the name of a relatively new runner on the scene, Seraph. After a brief digital meeting with Seraph Marlowe sets the hacker to finding more information on the asset even as he prepares to investigate the safehouse where the asset was kept. Marlowe leans on his Lone Star connections as well to find out if a missing person was reported any time recently.
As the runners make their way into the Puyallup barrens they receive pieces of information about their target (and their employer). A few days before, they learn, a Renraku corporate housing project was broken into and a young girl was kidnapped. The girl's mother was killed in the extraction. They also learn that the safe house in the barrens has been used in the past by people working for EVO or EVO affiliated corporations and entities.
A brief investigation of the ruins of the safe house convinces the runners that they are not dealing with professional kidnappers- the unnecessary and clumsy force used to break down the walls, the scattered bullet-holes in the walls, and the gutted remains of the guards all point toward the local ork biker gangs. The gang tags around the building and the persistent distant buzzing of motorcycle engines is also a strong indicator.
Without connections in the barrens, White offers to ingratiate himself with the local color by playing up his orkness and visiting a local biker bar. He is greeted coolly by the locals who immediately sense that the adept is out of place in the barrens. Sensing things going south Evan casts an illusion on himself in an attempt to bail White out, only to attract the attention of a Troll shaman drinking at the bar. Things escalate into violence and the runners rush out of the bar with only a small tidbit of useful information- the name associated with all of the gang markings in the neighborhood.
The runners manage to cajole the local hangout of the Forgotten Children from some of the community (though bribery), and they sneak through the ruins of Puyallup to an old Water Sanitation facility. The building, long since stripped of any industrial equipment, has been converted into the home of biker gang who use its central location (and access to mostly-intact roads) as a method of controlling their territory.
Convinced he can negotiate a deal Evan offers to approach and work out the particulars with the gang. White and Marlowe are skeptical of this idea, but at Evan's insistence the elf is allowed to approach under the watchful eye of his compatriots. Evan's belief in his negotiating ability is misplaced and accidentally lets slip that a variety of interests will use force if the bikers do not capitulate. The gang does not take this well, and Evan is killed in a hail of gunfire.
Marlowe worries that the runners have shown their hand and placed the girl in danger. He and White make an effort to infiltrate the facility through its more run down and abandoned sections. As they make their way through the corridors they overhear the gang leader making a call out, informing whatever party he is negotiating with his price just doubled.
Eventually Marlowe and White find themselves on opposite sides of a catwalk overlooking what was once a main pumping room that has since been re-purposed to a bar and recreational room for the gang. The room has several vertical "L" shaped pipes that once presumably ran to great vats, but now sit open and disconnected. Over one of the tubes is a grating, and the runners see Genevieve held prisoner inside.
Marlowe works his way along the catwalk to the top of the tube as the gang discusses the danger of being discovered below. An explosion outside distracts everyone, however, and all plans are put on hold as precise short bursts of automatic weapon fire fills the entranceway to the building.
Marlowe uses the opportunity to move into a corridor upstairs in an effort to get down to the girl. White takes up position above on the catwalks ready to provide cover, only to have the ceiling tears open above him. Cutting charges open up holes in the already dilapidated roof to admit security forces on ziplines. White finds himself, along with the gang members, caught in a crossfire. He attempts to retreat and is shot several times, eventually surrendering when his wounds take too great a toll.
Marlowe emerges from the corridors only to find himself at gunpoint. Seeing the condition of White and deciding that corporate security is probably better custodians of the child than whoever he and White were going to deliver her to, he states that he is Lone Star searching for a missing girl.
White and Marlowe are dumped in the center of the room while the security team cleans out the rest of the gangers. After a brief conversation via satellite through the hovering VTOL, the soldier in charge lets slip that he works for MCT. A set of orders are handed down from above and the commander nods to one of his soldiers.
The soldier undoes his helmet, revealing tangled dreadlocks underneath. The soldier, a voodoo priest, smears blood on White's face and makes a ritual mark. Mr. White, wounded and unable to resist, finds himself compelled by magic to stand up and disrobe. He quickly dresses in biker garb and, under the recording cameras of the soldiers present, pulls the little girl out of the pipe. Despite her desperate pleas, Mr. White cannot help himself as he shoots the girl in the head, killing her.
Marlowe, stunned at the sudden and bizarre set of events, almost misses the commander's offer- If Marlowe is willing to play ball, he can shoot White dead and when Renraku security (already on its way) arrives he can explain all of this any way he wants that doesn't involve MCT. He can be the almost-hero cop. Or he can be shot dead here and left with the gangers and Renraku can think whatever they want. The Commander makes it clear that playing ball means that MCT will own him in the future, because they have a recording of what actually happened (and they can edit it however they need to to make their own presence minimized). Having identified Marlowe, they also point out that he has two kids to think about.
Marlowe shoots White in the chest, a fatal wound if left untreated, and the MCT soldiers extract via their VTOL.
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The Lost Asset Run Pt II / The Coming out of Retirement Run
Cast:
Philip Marlowe - Human Lone Star Detective
Vince White - Ork Gun-Adept
Kassen Pope - Born to an Ork family in the slums, Kassen was a shoe-in to join his brother Dawayne's street gang, assuring him a vicious, brutal, and short life as a drug peddling thug. Had it not been for an unfortunately slick piece of concrete that Pope encountered on a climb through the jungle of the slums that surely would have been his life. Instead the fall he took shattered his spine in three places, punctured several major organs, and left him bleeding to death. The boy's family scrapped what little they had to put him on life support and readied themselves to pull the plug when a mysterious benefactor offered some repairs at a heavily discounted price. The price was steep but doable, and just like that Kassen Pope got a new body. Ever since then the heavily modified ork has worked hard to pay back his family's sacrifice, even if that means he has to do some illegal work to pay the bills.
New NPCs:
Zeno- A talking bust of a Greek philosopher that only Philip Marlowe can see.
Background:
Vince White is bleeding to death after being dressed as an ork gang member and forced to execute a kidnapped 10 year old girl on camera. Philipe Marlowe is waiting for Renraku security or Lone Star to arrive to pick up the girl's remains and take his statement. Evan T. Garde is dead, shot by gangers and thrown in a nearby dumpster.
Story:
Kassen Pope has just completed a courier run in the Puyallup barrens when he sees a VTOL launching itself into the sky nearby. Curiosity getting the better of him, the Ork goes to investigate and sees a building littered with the remains of a biker gang. Smoke still rises from where heavy weapons detonated, and many of the ork gang members are still in the slow process of dying. Deciding that they probably have things that they won't need any more, he investigates inside.
What he discovers is a Philip Marlowe desperately trying to get Vince White's heart to keep from failing. By a coincidence (either lucky or unlucky) Pope knows Marlowe in his official capacity- Pope has been picked up by Marlowe several times due to Pope's brother's drug affiliations. After a quick assessment of the situation Pope decides to lend his help, offering his advanced first aid kit to Marlowe and offering to go get the car.
By the time Renraku security arrives on the scene Marlowe is left amid the bodies of the dead gangers covered in blood, White and Pope driving their way to Boas, an old friend of White's who knows some Shamanistic healing magic. Marlowe does a song and dance, explaining his pursuit of the kidnapped girl as part of an investigation, and he describes a gang fight that was occurring when he got here. He bitterly states that he didn't arrive in enough time to save the girl.
Eventually all of the runners make it to a safe house. With the help of Seraph, the group's hired hacker, White manages to make all of his property disappear as he creates a new SIN for himself. Pope lingers at White's new house, initially to make sure he isn't in trouble, then later because White's new place is much nicer than Pope's.
Philip Marlowe visits the father of the little girl at the Seattle Nanoworks corporate housing unit. The man, who by all accounts was once a brilliant computer programmer and nanotechnologist, is a broken shell after losing first his wife, then his daughter. Marlowe, officially the police officer who investigated the kidnapping and almost saved her from the hands of gang butchers, must endure in silence the man's half-hearted thanks for his efforts.
Astra contacts the runners and suggests to them that the running community isn't terribly excited about runners who botch the job so completely. The rumor mill is suggesting that one of the runners actually killed the girl. Astra's reputation being on the line, she's going to have to cut bait until the runners give her something she can use to clear their names in the community. She suggests, after hearing their side of things, that they get the unedited copy of what went down that the MCT security team must have.
The runners task Seraph to run down all leads regarding the MCT security team and the likely location of the data they are looking for. Seraph comes back with several hits, though after correlating flight communications in the area at the time with video feeds from a host of drones and cameras, the most likely are the MCT Madrona Park Towers, a trio of high-rises overlooking Lake Washington owned by MCT.
With White's miraculous magical healing abilities the team is ready to go to work (Pope, under the belief that there will be money to be made somehow in this assault on an MCT facility, goes along despite not needing his reputation restored). They tap their respective contacts, seeking to find out information about the building as well as the people who are inside it. They discover that the security team is simply too skilled to risk a frontal assault, and none of their contacts can provide information on floor plans or security.
While debating their frustration and inability to plan an approach, Marlowe takes a bathroom break only to appreciate that White apparently enjoys classical greek sculptures in his well appointed bathroom. Marlowe is taken aback when the statue addresses him, stating that it is Zeno and informing Marlowe that his team will receive a commlink shortly. In the commlink will be the information regarding the layout and security routines of the building they are seeking to enter, but in return they must connect the commlink to the stand-alone server inside the building (it will be marked on the map). Marlowe accepts the bust's offer and relates it to White. White points out that there is no marble bust of a Greek Philosopher, or indeed a marble bust of anyone, in his bathroom. Investigation by the assembled shadowrunners confirms this.
The commlink arrives as promised, and on it is the layout of the top several floors of Tower 3. The layout shows the offices, hangar, and living quarters of the security team the shadowrunners recently encountered, as well as a large stand-alone data haven. A discussion with Seraph concludes that the data haven is the likely place for the records to be, but the room itself is shielded. The runners will have to run a wire from the servers, through the heavy doors, and to a waiting transmitter or commlink in order for Seraph to remote in. A plan of attack begins to form.
Despite none of the shadowrunners knowing the first thing about flying, they unanimously conclude that it is possible to hang glide onto the roof provided they land in one of two areas where there are neither cameras nor other sensors to trigger. They purchase a tutorsoft and begin virtual flight training. Pope develops an infiltration plan to get by security (much of his plan using heavy explosives as a plan B). Marlowe calls in a favor from Astra- he needs a heads-up when the next big run against an MCT favored target is going to be so that he can be ready if MCT decides to send in its heavy hitting security team. Astra reluctantly agrees.
Astra alerts the runners a week later- the word in the community is that a team with more balls than brains is hitting a prime MCT target that night, and that has all of the ingredients for a major fiasco worthy of an MCT assault team. Marlowe, White, and Pope rent hang-gliders using a fake sin from a small businessman just trying to get by, and make their way up a nearby low security residential high rise.
After several hours of waiting the trio of shadowrunners, supported by their hireling hacker Seraph, watch a familiar VTOL launch out of the side of Tower 3. They give it a few minutes to head off into the Seattle skyline and then they launch themselves into the air, trying to duplicate what they've learned in VR. The flight is shaky, but in the end the super-human modifications/magical enhancements manage to carry them onto the roof of Tower 3.
Pope fails utterly to breach security on the roof. He claims this has never happened to him before, though his shadowrunning teammates afford no time to be disappointed by the poor performance. Instead they climb down the side of the building two floors to where the VTOL landing pad juts from the building and they prepare to breach the hangar door with cutting tools. Pope again points out that this never happens to him.
The shadowrunners breach the hangar only to encounter a flight mechanic. He is stunned unconscious. Marlowe and White begin checking the various rooms, eventually discovering an armory that contains White's old equipment as well as a couple of heavy weapons and what appear to be two MCT proto-type laser rifles. They secure these goodies as fast as they can. White finds a large case with a rocket launcher inside it.
Pope meanwhile rushes to the security door of the stand-alone server, disabling cameras as he goes. Knowing that it is only a matter of seconds before security detects the tampering he sets to work cracking the electronics on the lock. He is halfway through when a klaxon goes off.
The alarm convinces White that the rocket launcher isn't doing anyone any good in its case. He uses it to destroy the elevators leading up to the top floors, firing round after round into the various elevator cabling systems. As White does this, Marlowe rigs the emergency stairwell with explosives. White and Marlowe then set to covering the stairs with assault weapons.
As security streams up the stairs a flurry of weapons fire is exchanged. Marlowe detonates the explosives, killing dozens and destabilizing the building with the force of the blast. Sprinklers go off, smoke billows through the floors, and grenades and bullets are exchanged. Marlowe and White manage to suppress the assault temporarily, but each are wounded by the exchange and they are forced to pull back.
Pope cracks the security door and rushes inside, leaving two commlinks on the floor outside the door. He finds the console Seraph told him to go to, plugs a cable in and runs back outside only to be greeted by one of the decorative suits of Samurai armor that has removed itself from its glass case and drawn its sword. Realizing that is probably safe from the rigger controlling the suit if he stays in the shielded room, Pope hangs back. He and the robotic warrior realize simultaneously, however, that the two commlinks outside of the door are both vital and vulnerable. Pope begins firing at the samurai, but hits bullets have little effect.
Marlowe and White arrive just as the armor is about to crush the commlinks under foot. A hale of gunfire manages to unbalance the robot and drive it back, but it quickly recovers and lays in to Marlowe, slashing through his armor. Marlowe's biology, however, is more than capable of powering through the sword wounds and despite being pierced severely he, White, and Pope manage to cripple the robot through shear volume of hot lead.
Pope plugs the wires into the commlink and Seraph gets to work hacking. A second decorative suit of armor stirs in its glass case and Seraph announces he is done. Pope connects the second commlink and blows out one of the windows overlooking the hangar landing pad below- he, White and Marlowe prepare to jump down to their waiting hang gliders as security pursues them. The second commlink reports it is complete and Pope gathers it up.
The trio leap down to the landing pad below only to discover security forces have found their hanggliders. Rail turrets on the building and aerial drones are orbiting the chaos. The team needs a distraction.
Pope, having assumed that things were going to become chaotic and prepared accordingly, fires a grappling hook across to Tower 2 and hooks up three carbiners. As his teammates look on in confusion, Pope pulls out three inflatable sex toys painted black, uses their auto-inflate function, and attaches them to the cable line. Marveling at the brilliance of this distraction White almost misses Pope's recommendation that he fire his last remaining rocket into Tower 2 to make it look like they are heading over to the lower security Tower. White complies, blasting a hole in the side of the building and likely killing a large number of gawking wage slaves in the process.
The distraction pulls the eyes of enough security that the team manages to kill the guards on their hanggliders and prepare to make their exit. Drones tear into the inflatable sex dolls, popping them quickly, as the trio launch themselves into the sky. Seraph, however, informs them that the ruse is up and that the drones are bee-lining for the slow-moving shadowrunners, especially Pope who is struggling with his hang glider. Seraph attempts to hack the building rail turrets and manages to get one firing at the other long enough for Pope to get out of range.
Seraph can do little about the jet powered interceptor drones, however. The shadowrunners fire their guns in a futile attempt to ward off the aerial drones that being making raking machine gun passes at them, but each is wounded and their hang-gliders ravaged. Their plan was to make it to a Horizon entertainment metro-plex that enjoys extraterritoriality, but with each pass this goal seems more unlikely.
A lucky shot by White manages to stall one of the interceptors, and an unlucky pass by the second interceptor provides the breathing room the runners need to land in the multi-level parking garage on the Horizon facility (though Pope does not "land" so much as he "crashes into an SUV in a pile of torn cloth and bent aluminum tubing- and blood"). The trio manage to evade Horizon security long enough to pile into their waiting car, change clothes, and use their pre-purchased tickets to "The Azure Connection", a spy thriller playing a 1 AM. When it lets out they hop in their car and drive away.
The next morning the proprietor of "Hangglide Lake Washington" finds three tangled, shot up, and warped hang-gliders on his doorstep.
Seraph sorts through the data he grabbed and finds the raw video file. With it Astra can convince enough of the fixer community to back off bad-mouthing her runners to the Mr. Johnsons such that she can rehire them. Seraph also discovers a chemical formula that, if the research is to be believed, is a drug that acts as artificial essence, allowing people to have far more body modifications before they die. Finally, Seraph comes across a powerfully encrypted piece of data with a data bomb attached to it. He is reluctant to attempt a disarm as he thinks someone very skilled put the data bomb in place. Seraph meets the runners at a crab shack to hand over the commlink, revealing himself to be a gangly blonde-haired man in his early twenties. He is nervous the entire meeting and is unwilling to discuss events of the run in public, and quickly takes his leave of the runners.
Marlowe uploads the data on Zeno's commlink per instructions.
Astra is happy to act as fence for the chemical data, as well as the two proto-type laser rifles. A huge pay-day sits on the horizon...
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I must say I enjoy reading about your games. Some of it makes me laugh, the one before this made me think that the group got wiped however except for Marlowe. Guess not, happy day!
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Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm not sure if my players appreciate my posting their successes and failures for all to see but whatever- It's a GM's forum. I figure they get their entertainment at the table but I get my entertainment telling the story. I might as well tell the story to as many people as I can.
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The Loss Prevention Run (Pt I)
Cast:
Philip Marlowe - A human Lone Star Narcotics Detective
Vince Black- An Ork Gun Adept
Cassem Pope- An ork slum-dwelling infiltrator
NPCs (Japanese names are Westernized with given name followed by surname):
Alice Marlowe- Philip's daughter and recently enrolled student at the University of Washington computer and matrix science program.
Jean-Claude Rochette- a french, elven 5th year Art/Pharmacology student at the University of Washington and Alice's boyfriend.
Jason Rogers- a graduate student in computer/matrix science at the University of Washington
Jacob- a dwarf programmer working in the lab with Alice and Jason
Puja- a second year undergraduate student working in the lab with Alice and Jason
Mr. Z- A Shingiin in the Seattle Yakuza
Brother Lee- The manager of "The Guilty Pleasure", a bunraku-doll parlor on the water front catering to well-to-do clients. It is a Yakuza affiliated building, and Brother Lee is a well-connected man in that organization despite his Korean ancestry.
Hondo Miyazaki- A Yakuza tough in charge of collecting payments from affiliated gangs in South Downtown Seattle, recently from Japan.
Hitomi Ono- One of the bunraku joygirls.
Background:
Many years ago in Japan a young gentleman loved a young woman. The world of 2020 was chaotic these two young lovers were doomed to separate, their union produced a baby boy. The mother felt abandoned by the father, who left her and began his life in the employ of a dangerous organizations of thieves and cut-throats, but in truth the father looked after the mother and his son as best he could. Many years later this boy, grown to be a man with a daughter of his own, found himself in need of upgrades in order to work. He turned to an organization known for its ruthlessness and found them willing to help. The price tag was high, however, and the organization knew that the man would never be able to pay it off. However, his daughter, a pretty if unremarkable young woman, could work it off. So, with a contract penned, Koji Ono sold his 17 year old daughter to the Yakuza to be used in one of their bunraku parlors. The demure woman was assured that once the personasoft was installed she would not remember anything of what she was asked to do and in a few short years her debt would be repaid. That was eight years ago.
Following close on the heels of the Coming out of Retirement Run, Astra has set up a meeting with shadowrunners to discuss how best to proceed with the sale of their wealth of data. Knowing that Vince White is an alumnus of the University of Washington and that Marlowe visits his daughter on campus, she arranges for a meeting in the bleachers of the stadium.
Story:
White and Marlowe drive up to UW and get hassled by the Knight Errant security, each for different reasons- White because he's a muscular ork armed with a stun gun ("Did you forget your rape whistle at home?"), and Marlowe because he's Lone Star. In the end both eventually make their way to the stadium where, among student athletes running the stairs in the drizzling rain, Astra St. Claire sits in a stylish trench coat underneath an umbrella.
Astra, White, and Marlowe discuss events that have transpired in the 36 hours since they escaped the Madrona Park Towers. Apparently the formula they acquired intrigued more than a few buyers, and numbers in the millions of nuyen range were discussed. That was until an anonymous entity published the formula on the matrix. Now everyone with a half-decent chemistry kit can whip up a batch of the stuff, and the market value is non-existent. Immediately Marlowe and White suspect the mysterious Zeno.
Astra is still willing to sell the proto-type lasers, however, and she estimates her contacts will pay around 100K, provided that they are in fact MCT first generation. Assured by the runners this is the case, Astra passes White and Marlowe a lead- a Mr. Johnson wanted to set up a meeting with them, but she adds a warning- MCT is none too pleased above the Madrona Park thing, and they have friends in low places. The Mr. Johnson who asked for them by name is affiliated with an organization known to be close to MCT.
Not wanting "a lowlife criminal like White" to meet his daughter, Marlowe tells White he's going to grab lunch with his daughter and excuses himself. The Lone Star Detective meets his daughter near her lab, meeting Jacob and Puja as part of a brief tour. Marlowe also sees Jason Rogers, Seraph, who catches sight of Alice and Marlowe and with a panicked look between the two the graduate student retreats into the lab's clean room to avoid them.
During lunch Marlowe also meets Jean-Claude, a French born elf who has been at the University for several years now in pursuit of his pharmacology/art degree. Instantly shocked by Jean-Claude's physical familiarity with his daughter, Alice tries to explain that Jean-Claude met her after orientation and that they've been going out for a few weeks now. As Jean-Claude arrogantly regales Philip with stories of his family's royal history, Philip Marlowe begins going over places to dump bodies in Seattle.
When White and Marlowe reconnect to leave, White is curious why Marlowe is in such a bad mood. Marlowe does not explain.
Collecting Pope and sending word to Seraph that there may be work to be done, Marlowe, White and Pope make way to a large apartment building in the gentrified Elven district. As they approach they notice a fair share of Yakuza marks, not only on buildings but as AR tags. Worried they are walking to a trap but unwilling to run away, the runners are on edge as they approach the Yakuza men in the lobby.
The men initially make Marlowe as Lone Star, but after a few words are exchanged the Yak thugs point the trio to a private elevator. They enter, and emerge into an apartment suite remade in the styles of traditional Japanese homes, down to the wooden floors and rice-paper walls. A Japanese gentleman in a suit is standing by one of the tinted windows, discussing something with a secretary when he catches sight of the runners and dismissed the man. He motions them to sit and offers tea.
He introduces himself as Mr. Z, and after a lengthy and circuitous introduction indicates that he wants to hire the runners for a job- he wants something found, and found unharmed. He explains that a girl was taken from a nearby Brothel- possibly kidnapped, possibly run away. The owner of the establishment- "The Guilty Pleasure"- has more information. The runners agree to look into it, though they are unwilling to commit for the price quoted because, as they have learned, sometimes things get more complicated as they work.
The Guilty Pleasure is a neon and steel monstrosity sitting on the waterfront of the Elven district. The AR space around it is no less garish, with subtle and not-so-subtle promises of what delights await inside. The cars parked outside, as well as the boats in the private dock, speak volumes about its clientele, however. It takes some negotiation for the runners to make it past the front doors as apparently the proprietor of the facility is not interested in "outside help", despite Mr. Z informing him that the runners were coming.
Once inside the runners are hurried up to the VIP room (mostly to avoid interrupting the other customers), though they cannot help but appreciate the merchandise on display- women, many artificially modified to peak physical attractiveness, strut about in revealing outfits, smiling seductively, winking coyly, or licking their lips suggestively, all through a thick haze of pheromones. Only the most astute observer with a mind clear of lust would notice the dull vacancy in all of their eyes- none of the shadowrunners notice.
In the Champagne room Brother Lee is gathered with a gaggle of his trusted soldiers while a woman engages in an impressively professional pole dance. The man immediately lays into the shadowrunners, informing them that their help isn't needed or wanted. Marlowe manages to defuse the situation enough to learn that a girl has gone missing, taking with her what Lee claims is hundreds of thousands of nuyen worth of cyber and bio-ware that she was working off. After some cajoling, Marlowe and Pope manage to get Lee's actual business manager to show them the video of the girl, Hitomi Ono, leaving the building. She, dressed in a Little-Bo-Peep outfit that is not fit for a children's story, is escorted out under the arm of a man, the vacant smile on her face suggesting that in her highly suggestible state the man took advantage of her to kidnap her. The man is one of the Yakuza's own- A street level soldier named Hondo who was enjoying an evening in The Guilty Pleasures as a payment for a job well done in his sector. A small speedboat was discovered stolen from the docks later that evening.
Brother Lee's enforcers, the Seventy Samurai (who actually number closer to forty and aside from carrying Katanas bear little resemblance to Samurai) arrive, lead by a pink-haired pig-tailed Japanese street samurai named Aishi. Aishi gives the runners a once over with a vicious smile, and she and Brother Lee dismiss the runners to go crawl back under whatever rock they came from. The trio leave, unsure about whether they should be pursuing this job when they are receiving so little help (and even outright hostility) from the client.
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The Loss Prevention Run (Part 2)
Cast:
Sam Spade (previously named "Philip Marlowe") - A human Lone Star Narcotics Detective
Vince Black (Previously named "Vince White")- An Ork Gun Adept
Cassem Pope - An Ork Slum-Dwelling Infiltrator
NPCs:
Seraph - An internet-dwelling hacker
Brother Lee - The manager of "Guilty Pleasures", a Yakuza establishment. He does not appreciate the meddling of the shadowrunners as he tries to re-acquire his lost property.
Mr. Z. - An elderly Japanese gentleman and member of the Yakuza
Hondo Miyazaki - A Yakuza tough who absconded with a young women from the "Guilty Pleasures" house of recreation and leisure.
Hitomi Ono - the young woman Hondo absconded with
Aishi - a young Japanese woman with pink hair done up in pig-tails, and a quarter-million nuyen in cybernetics and bioware. She is the nominal leader of the seventy samurai, a Yakuza-affiliated enforcement gang.
Story:
Though dismissed from the job, something is not sitting right with Spade. His inquiry with Seraph turns up little- the girl was sold to the bunraku parlor some eight years ago, but the original debt was quickly settled. Her home address is not far from the Guilty Pleasures, and her datatrail and purchasing habits are strikingly spartan. Seraph also intercepts a communication headed into the Guilty Pleasures, suggesting that if the girl isn't found within 24 hours of her abduction then the sender of the message would settle the matter- Seraph can't find the source of the transmission, but it is addressed to Brother Lee. Spade sends Pope and White to investigate the apartment while he follows up on a hunch and sets up another appointment with Mr. Z.
Mr. Z once again entertains Spade, this time with a slight air of irritation. It seems that Brother Lee's intractability was something that Mr. Z had hoped the runners would work past rather than give up on. The elderly gentleman stresses how important family is, not only to his organization but to him personally, and how Spade, being a family man, would appreciate the complexity of the situation (and danger of Ms. Ono). Finally, Mr. Z gives up some private information on Hondo's responsibilities in south downtown, including a couple of drug dealers he collected a tithe from.
Spade leaves the conversation convinced that Ms. Ono is in some danger from the Yakuza, and that Mr. Z is quietly expecting to have Spade and his team break the contract in order to save the girl.
Meanwhile, Black and Pope have no trouble breaking into the apartment of Ms. Ono only to find little in it other than a few days of food, basic toiletries and a sleeping mat. Seraph can't get into the Guilty Pleasures finances yet, but from what little she has been able to glean from the other girls it seems likely that Ms. Ono was making a rather large some of money (or at least someone was).
Spade, Black, and Pope all reconvene to discuss what they've discovered. They formulate a plan to approach Hondo's contacts in order to get information out of them, though they all recommend different approaches ranging from polite inquiry to torture. They decide to table the "how to get the information" question until they actually find the contacts.
Spade taps into some police contacts to get a starting place- Ricky Zan, leader of the I-Boyz, paid Hondo a weekly tithe that made its way into the Yakuza's coffers and Lone Star has a lengthy sheet on him. The trio set up surveillance on a street-cafe/noodle-bar were Zan and his boys deal out of. Zan is surrounded by his goons and the runners are loathe to simply walk into a potential firefight. Pope and White discover that Hondo's apartment isn't far off and decide to check that out while Spade monitors Zan.
White and Pope break into the apartment building, but as they are approaching Hondo's room they hear the sounds of people inside. They open the door only to find Aishi and a half-dozen of her samurai ransacking the place. There is a tense standoff as the runners and Aishi stare each other down, but Pope eventually relents, closing the door behind him. As Black looks at him in confusion, Pope pulls out a can of foam quick-drying cement and sprays it into the door. The runners leave, hoping that they've bought themselves some time having wrongly assumed that the cyber-samurai inside the room is stopped by locked doors.
When the two orks return a consensus is reached- Aishi and her lot are too close to risk waiting for Zan to wander off alone. They approach the bar and are greeted with wary looks and hands resting on guns. The restaurant clears out quickly, save for Zan and his gang members.
Zan and Spade talk, initially passing threats back and forth but eventually Spade convinces Zan that the Yakuza sent him and that he'd best give Hondo up if he doesn't want the Yaks coming down on him like a ton of bricks. Zan is initially skeptical of the Yaks would send Gaijin and Orks to do their work, but Spadeconvinces him that he can't risk it. Zan informs the runners that Hondo shot through last night after calling in some debts in order to get some cash. Zan is pretty sure he heard that Hondo is hiding with the lurkers over in the Ann-Carrow Learning Annex.
The Ann Carrow Learning Annex was once an adult learning center until the I-5 bisected it, and then Seattle grew over it. Instead of moss, however, the entire facility was paved over in concrete. Now the buildings are all underground, pierced by support columns for the skyscrapers above them and filled with the noise of the cars passing in the underground section of the I-5. The homeless squatters who have taken shelter there survive on handouts from the city, delivered irregularly to the soup-kitchen nearby. The tunnels that riddle the complex lead off into sewers and steam-pipes. There is no matrix access there, making it the perfect place to hide off the grid.
As the runners are leaving the bar they see Aishi and her followers approaching, no doubt following up on the lead to Zan. They decide that Zan has made his bed and decide not to warn him. Zan's fate is unknown.
The runners drive down the I-5, pull off to the side of the road as they enter the tunnel, and cut through the chain-link fence that marks the boundaries of the Learning Annex. Once inside they are greeted with the huddled masses of starving and poor who use the place as their home. Using sensors that cost more than any person there would see in their lifetimes the runners get images of crowded rooms, and groups circled around burning oil cans. Through broken windows children peek, catching a glimpse of the new arrivals but aware that outsiders, especially outsiders armed the way the runners are, mean trouble.
Deciding that there is simply no way to sort through the mass of humanity for the Hondo and Hitomi, Spade turns to just shouting out into the open for Hondo to come out- he says that the Yakuza is on its way and Spade and his friends are trying to get them to safety. After calling out for several minutes a figure appears in a doorway, pointing a gun at Spade. It is Hondo, who looks desperate and confused. Spade talks him down.
Black, Pope, and Spadee all go with Hondo to where a wrapped up Hitomi is laying. They pick her up and prepare to make their way out of the Annex when they hear gunfire and screaming- through the windows they can see (with their enhanced senses) that Aishi and her boys have arrived and have taken a more brutal approach to sifting through the herd.
Spade, Hondo, and Black all carry Hitomi between them back toward the I-5 and the waiting car, using the crowd as cover. Pope runs off in a different direction and sets explosives, blowing through walls and effectively digging toward a sewer escape route. At the sound of the explosions Aishi redirects her search, chasing Pope rather than following the crowd to Hondo and the other runners. Eventually Pope slips off, evading an encounter with the Yakuza hitters, while his companions load Hondo and Hitomi into Spade's car.
A few years back Spade saved a stripper who goes by the name Candy from an abusive relationship, and he taps that friendship in order to find a place to hide Hondo and Hitomi. As the runners make their way to Candy's strip-club Hondo gives some information- he and Hitomi had grown up together in Japan- he was poor and ended up in a life of crime early, but he and Hitomi had been in love as teenagers. Back then Hitomi was an attractive and bright student with a good future ahead of her. When he discovered her in the bunraku parlor he had tried to reconnect and discover what had happened to her, but she was too addled to tell him. From what he has been able to piece together Hitomi has had a great deal of surgery done to her, not only enhancing her physical characteristics to make her a better courtesan, but also the Yakuza installed something in her head- something that not only works as a persona-soft while she's working, but something that is changing her personality while it is off.
Hitomi can offer only small corrections and inputs while Hondo is talking as she seems to be engaged in a mental struggle of her own. The car's air conditioning is running at full and still the occupants feel the effects of the pheromones the girl is putting out, and even her physical features seem to adjust themselves in order to be pleasing to Spade. She says it's hard to think straight anymore, and unless she fights it the programming takes over.
The runners drop Hitomi and Hondo off backstage at the strip club and the dancers there all rush to help. Black and Pope set up guarding the building (and enjoying the entertainment), while Spade seeks out Mr. Z. The Yakuza shingiin acknowledges that Spade has the girl and seems less interested in returning her to the Guilty Pleasures as he is finding out how she came to be in the position she is in. He suggests (without saying it openly) that he is happy that Spade is helping Hondo and Hitomi with their nascent escape plan (possibly to California or Salish-Sidge).
Pope and Black, meanwhile, find themselves in a sticky situation- apparently Hitomi is having an unfortunate effect on the dancers backstage (and some of the patrons), her hyper-sexual pheromones turning lap-dances into something the building is not zoned for, and Candy is catching some heat. By the time Spade has returned Pope and Black have pulled Hondo and Hitomi out of the building but it is clear they need a new hiding place. Spade and Pope bounce ideas back and forth, eventually deciding that the long term parking lot underneath the Lone Star office was probably safe enough.
Black, Spade, Hondo and Hitomi pile into the car and drive to long term parking. White stays with the two refugees while Marlowe heads up into the office- he wants to talk with the medical examiners on staff to see if they can figure out what is going on with Hitomi's various implants (especially her cerebral work). He finishes talking with them and heads back down to gather up Hitomi at about the same time that the 24 hour clock that began running the moment Hondo and Hitomi escaped Guilty Pleasures ticks down to 0.
Hitomi screams, clutching her head. Blood pours out her eyes, ears and nose before White can spin around. He screams for Marlowe as he leaps from his seat to open the back door. Spade comes running up as the spasming Hitomi slumps out of the back seat onto the concrete, her face a mask of blood. Marlowe and Black attempt to resuscitate while Marlowe calls for a medical team. White takes Hondo out of the facility before backup arrives.
By the time medical help comes Hitomi is dead, a cortex bomb having liquefied her skull and all of the delicate hardware inside it.
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Umm.... holy shit. o.O' to that last one. I think something went over my head as i was skimming but that last part got my attention.
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First off I admit I'm not proof-reading here so much as filling in the details as I remember them and then hitting "post", so I might be missing some things. Secondly, though, it does seem like once you put a story in the hands of the players it starts to take on a life of its own. As you might have guessed from reading the recap I -really- wanted there to be a fight between Aishi and the runners, but they were dead set on avoiding it. There was some info that they didn't get, some story elements they didn't pursue, but the story ended more or less where I needed it to.
All of the runs up to this point have been part of an overall plot. The next two were not as directly plot related so much as fun little asides.
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The Tyra's Life Run
Cast:
Cassem Pope
Sam Spade
Vince Black
Background:
Tyra's Life is a Sim-sense show following the "life adventures" of a 20 something elf named Tyra, her long suffering "straight man" human friend and manager Marissa, her on-again/off-again love interest fashion photographer Sylas, and her gay roommate Charles. Each season finds Tyra in a new location, trying to acclimatize to some major life change that comes from being a Horizon spokesmodel. Sim-sense participants enjoy Tyra's adventures in living the classy up-scale life of a model while those subscribers to Tyra's Night-Life (a premium content subscription) get a first hand experience of Tyar's love life.
The show nets Horizon a handsome profit, as well as a launching pad for a variety of their products. The "stars" are all given scripts containing the day's situations, as well as the products they will be intended to shill, and largely left to their own devices in playing out the scenes. Tyra, however, largely is left to her own devices in order to prevent corrupting her emotional responses to the act.
Last season Tyra was seduced by a rival fashion designer (played by Jessica Morrisey) in an extremely popular plot twist, and rumors abound that this season will be/has been shot in Seattle.
Story:
Staring at the bloody visage of Hitomi, Spade vows to mobilize all of his Lone Star assets to bringing down the Bunraku parlor operator- Vice and Homicide detectives swarm over the Guilty Pleasures, only to find out that several other girls (all bunraku dolls) died that same night. Spade and the other detectives determine that someone was cutting their losses, but with the trail going cold with the corpses there is nothing left to do but let Brother Lee out on bail.
Money is tight for the runners, their list of enemies growing and their list of friends shrinking, and so they reach out to Astra St. Claire, their fixer, for some work that might bring them back into the good graces of at least someone. Astra is well connected with the Seattle Mafia and passes them a job which she concedes is "a little below your average level of danger". This sounds appealing to the weary runners.
This is how the runners find themselves at "Mama's Dinner Table", a "family owned and operated" Italian restaurant just north of downtown. Here they meet a portly and jovial Italian gentleman who demands that the runners join him for a late lunch during which he bemoans the trials and tribulations of being a married man.
Little Rocco is a devoted family man and in two days his wife, Antonia is turning 40. He would do anything to make her happy, and what is making her happy these days is the Sim-Sense show "Tyra's Life". The problem lies in that Tyra's Life Season 4 is premiering in a few weeks and Little Rocco doesn't want to give his wife an IOU. So if the runners could procure a copy of this season's Tyra's life he would reward them with ten thousand nuyen. The only lead he has is that the show is being distributed out of Horizon Media Center building and that the distribution manager's name is "Margo Coppertail".
Sensing that Little Rocco could be a useful friend and that ten thousand nuyen is always useful, the runners accept.
The Horizon distribution center is located in the same Corporate controlled zone that the runners recently flew into from the Madrona Park Towers, so they have their research to fall back on. Pope is confident that he can sneak inside as the security on the office building is relatively low, and Black and Spade give him the go ahead to begin a sneak and peak into Ms. Coppertail's office.
Pope crawls around in ductwork for several hours, his cybernetics allowing him to contort into impossibly small (if immensely uncomfortable) positions. Eventually he finds himself over "Director of Publication Margo Coppertail"s office and after a few hours of watching the diminutive dwarf work he catches the runner's first lead- Apparently a data courier named "Johnny" has arrived and deposited this week's edited recordings. The final production office is putting it together for marketing and distribution.
Spade and Black get word that the courier has arrived and focus their surveillance on the exterior of the building, eventually catching sight of a man leaving matching the description that Pope passes along. They begin their pursuit of Johnny as Pope begins to wiggle his way out of the building.
Spade and Black eventually catch up with Johnny in a coffee shop and wait for him to head toward his car. They place Johnny in their car's trunk over Johnny's protests and proceed to drive him to secure location. Once there it takes very little effort to get the details of the data courier's path from him. Johnny picks up data from the Horizon Aquacology Pisces out on the Sound every Monday and delivers it to Horizon. Johnny is left with a bump on his head in an abandoned parking garage.
Pope, Black, and Spade all converge on the docks and formulate a plan to infiltrate the aquacology. After reaching out to Seraph, their on-call hacker, the runners learn that Pisces is an artist's collective Horizon uses to generate new talent. Part Bohemian Paris, part Hollywood, the runners would look out of place in Pisces art-houses, theaters, cabarets and stages. They decide to dress Pope up as an up and coming Ork Tribal Rapper "Orkz" (pronounced Ork-Z), with Black posing as entourage and Spade as manager (When later asked about why this was seen as the best option, all would claim that "it seemed like a good idea at the time"). Seraph is tapped to create a fake reputation for Orkz, as well as get him on the meeting calendar of a few music scouts on Pisces.
Using their new identities, Orkz arrives at Pisces and immediately makes the appropriate amount of a scene to indicate his authenticity. From harassing security (by claiming that the human is always steppin' on the Ork's neck trying to keep him down) to demanding that his food be prepared and brought out in the appropriate way, Pope managed to convince the public safety officers that he was "the real deal". Spade was admonished by security to keep his "guest" under tighter reigns.
Using Orkz's desire to find some women to ogle, the runners make their way into a cabaret which advertises a young elven dancer who looks quite a bit like Tyra. Sure enough they locate their target and follow her up to her apartment above the cabaret after her set. They find Marissa and Charles nearby going over the scripts for the coming week, as well as the editing suite the various actors/directors use to prepare the sim-sense show for publication.
With Black and Pope sneaking into Marissa's apartment to steal all of this season's data it falls to Spade to distract Marissa and Charles away from their room. He does so by posing as an executive for Aeon Entertainment, an Evo subsidiary, that is looking to poach actors from "Tyra's life". Initially Marissa balks at leaving Horizon, but Spade convinces her that if she comes over she expect a spin off (working title "That's so Marissa!"). Pope and Black manage to get the data just before Charles and Marissa return to the room, and the runners make their way off of the aquacology, choosing to have Orkz make a scene in an outdoor cafe such that security politely escorts them from the premises.
The runners then make their way over to Mama's Dinner Table where Little Rocco happily feeds (and pays) them for their work, regaling them with humorous stories of himself and his coworkers, and suggests that this present is going to make his wife extremely happy. The runners leave feeling like they've made a new friend.
Pope and Seraph bootleg the copies of Tyra's life for a decent profit.
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The Low Quality Run
Cast:
Sam Spade: a Lone Star Detective with a couple of ex-wives and accompanying alimony payments, part time shadowrunner
Vince Black: A human history major whose career prospects dimmed following goblinazation. He now works as a Gun Adept, living as large as his paychecks let him.
Cassem Pope: 12th child of a poor ork family, cybernetically modified following a traumatic childhood accident, full time thief, part time "informant" for Lone Star.
NPCs:
Astra St. Claire: a blonde femme fatale, radiating European sophistication and class, and one of Seattle's most established Fixers (earned as much by longevity as her connections).
Seraph: A hacker who works on commission for the runners. He met the runners briefly in the "Coming out of Retirement Run", but has maintained a Matrix-only relationship both before and after the run. The runners later recognized him as Jason Rogers, a graduate student studying at the University of Washington.
Alice Dalton: Sam Spade's daughter by his first marriage, recently moved to Seattle to attend University of Washington's (majoring in Computer Science and Matrix Technology). Previously Alice lived with her mother and Sam's ex-partner, John Winterknight, in Corpus Cristi.
Jean-Claude Rochette- a french, elven 5th year Art/Pharmacology student at the University of Washington and Alice's boyfriend.
Jacob- a dwarf programmer working in the lab with Alice and Jason
Puja- a second year undergraduate student working in the lab with Alice and Jason.
Brimstone: a street-level organ-legger and second-hand cyberware "entrepreneur"
Sellout: A hacker who earned his moniker many years ago by selling out his team to Mr. Johnson. He has a poor reputation about the hacking circles despite having considerable skillz.
Zeno- an enigmatic AI that appears as the bust of a greek philosopher. It tasked the runners to steal data from the MCT towers, only to release the stolen data to the public.
Story:
A Date With Alice:
With his Lone Star paycheck being completely diverted to his second ex-wife Shiella and their 4 year old daughter Emma the payment from the "Tyra's Life Run" gives Sam Spade enough breathing room to finally sit down and spend some time with his recently arrived daughter. They eat on campus and Alice talks about her classes, new friends, and the various exciting things that are occurring in her life. She was admitted to one of the most prestigious computer science programs on the continent, after all, and her classes are fascinating. Her roommate, Puja, is in all the same classes and they work in the same lab on campus. Her professor already promised that if she keeps working there it is likely she'll have her name on a published paper her first year.
While Sam is excited to hear about this he is less excited to hear about Jean-Claude, whom Alice has been dating since orientation. Jean-Claude arrives late in the date and quickly demonstrates an uncomfortable level of physical familiarity with Sam's daughter. Jean-Claude suggests that Alice join him over Halloween as he and some of his friends are heading down to New Orleans on a private jet. Jean-Claude relates that his family is very wealthy and he attends college mostly for the scene- he indirectly belittles Sam's career as a lone star officer by patronizingly referring to it as a "common job". Sam endures the conversation.
After lunch Sam and Alice tour Alice's lab, with Jean-Claude dismissing himself as he's bored by Alice's computer babble. Once again Sam meets Jacob and Puja in the office. Jason Rogers catches sight of Alice and Sam and goes white, retreating to the clean room. Confused, Alice follows Jason to see what is wrong while Sam makes small talk with the other students. Alice returns with a puzzled expression but Sam explains Roger's strange behavior away.
Meanwhile, across town Black and Pope are arguing over the liberties Pope has taken with Black's apartment. Pope, having been a frequent guest in Black's upscale community, has worked out a way to break into Black's home while he's not there. Black, living a life of relative luxury as he spends his money on his lifestyle, is annoyed at finding Pope on his couch, drinking his imported micro-brews, when Black gets home. A variety of threats are expressed despite both parties knowing nothing is going to change.
The Offer
Astra St. Claire contacts the runners, meeting them in rooftop park in downtown. As the out-of-place runners walk with her she relates to them the latest rumors of the top-tier shadowrunning community. There is apparently some concern among Mr. Johnson that he might be hiring a Lone Star detective were he to hire Spade's crew. Astra points out that the trio has had remarkably unpredictable results in previous jobs and that they should be concerned about their street rep.
The runners agree to work a few smaller jobs to build up their reputation and Astra puts them in contact with a Troll named Brimstone who wants to meet in the Matrix to discuss employment. This job being a bit beneath Astra's typical level of operation she points out that she doesn't know much about him or his business.
The runners reach out to Seraph to watch their backs as they VR into Club Fantastique, a throw-back VR chat room designed to look like a retro 2020 jazz house (which in turn looks a bit like a 1920's club- everything old is new again). They wait in their booth for Brimstone to arrive, which the troll does with an off-the-shelf icon. He is accompanied by his temporary employee, Sellout.
Brimstone is new to the role of Mr. Johnson and awkwardly gets through the introductions. With Sellout at Seraph providing privacy, Brimstone relates his tale of woe.
The chemical that the runners stole from the Madrona Park Towers (and which was subsequently leaked across the Matrix by the AI Zeno) is a non-awakened chemical that, when taken in regular doses, acts as an artificial "Essence", allowing people to have potentially unlimited amounts of cyberware installed provided they take regular doses of the drug. The impact on this drug on society has been immense- without the requirement to build precise equipment that has minimal affect on the body, cheap "fly-by-night" 'ware houses and clinics allow the poor to finally install skill and task wires. The poor are finally able to apply for the wage-slave jobs they were priced out of before. Though this is in the process of driving down wages, Brimstone's relationship to this new economy is slightly different.
Brimstone is in the business of removing cyberware from individuals (typically unwillingly), and selling it to the needy (typically on installment plans). Though well aware that his business model needs to adapt, he wants to buy himself some time, and so he need some runners to disrupt one of the new cheap ware factories that is cropping up and selling to his client base. Though the runners imagine that Brimstone's plan probably isn't going to impact the larger social and economic fallout they are happy to take his money. Sellout is going to provide the runners with a piece of sabotaged code to upload to the factory.
After the deal is struck the runners log out of VR and set about preparing for their run. During a bathroom break Spade notices that Black has apparently redecorated in Greek style, only to have the bust begin speaking to him- Zeno has once again infiltrated Spade's cyber-eyes and cyber-ears.
Zeno informs Spade that he will transfer an additional fee if the runners upload a separate code into the factory mainframe. Spade, suspicious of the AI's motives but deciding that Zeno's money spends as well as any other, accepts. A few hours later a commlink arrives with a preloaded program.
The Brontes Inc Factory
Investigation of the factory by the runners show that it has only a handful of corporate security guard patrolling, with most of the factory running day and night with automated systems. Pope figures he can avoid the cameras and climb into the mainframe from above provided the guards are distracted. Sam and Vince tell Pope to get in position to infiltrate while they make preparations for the distraction.
Vince dresses up in biker leathers and spray-paints ORKZ across his jacket. Sam calls his stripper friend Candy and offers her a few hundred Nuyen to show up in "work clothes". Within a half hour there is an impromptu music video being filmed in front of the Brontes Inc Factory, with Orkz riding a motorcycle around a dancing, scantily clad stripper.
Security responds with confusion and interest, and as security starts to gravitate toward the front of the building to catch sight of the spectacle Pope slips in through the scaffolding of the roof and cuts his way into the mainframe room. As Spade argues with the security manager (we're not on your property!), Pope plugs in the two commlinks, first letting Sellout upload his code, then plugging in the second commlink provided by Zeno. He tucks both of them into the mainframe computer so that they are unlikely to be found any time soon. Once done he slips out, covering his tracks as best he can.
With security completely intrigued by the spectacle Pope has little trouble avoiding the few cameras and once the runners join up they drive off, collecting their payment from Sellout via money transfer.
The Decision
As the runners relax at the end of the run they stop to discuss the implication of what Zeno has released into the world and what the motives are of the various forces they see leveled against them. Deciding that information is power they reach out to Seraph and ask him to decrypt the data they recovered from the MCT towers.
Seraph mentions his concern that the data has a complex data bomb attached to it and some pretty spectacular encryption. He's willing to give it a try, but there is a risk that the data might implode. The runners say that that is an acceptable risk.. Seraph says he'll give it a shot...
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The Kent Castle Run (Part I)
Cast:
(Sam Dalton) Sam Spade: A Lone Star Detective, part time Shadowrunner, twice-divorced father of an 18 year old daughter attending Udub and a 4 year old attending kindergarten.
(Martin Frisk) Vince Black: an Ork Gun Adept living in the nicest suburb that accepts orks.
Cassem Pope: The runt of the litter in his family, a sneak thief.
(Elliot Spectre) Mr. Dark- A recently laid-off construction rigger looking for work.
NPCs:
Astra St. Claire:- A well-connected fixer.
Seraph: A for-hire hacker who has worked with the runners on a number of occasions.
Alice Dalton: Sam''s daughter, recently enrolled in Udub.
Jacob- a dwarf programmer working in the lab with Alice and Jason
Puja- a second year undergraduate student working in the lab with Alice and Jason.
Shogo Runningbear- Sheriff of the small town of Shuksan in the Cascades.
Mr. Z: A Yakuza member and keeper of traditions for the organization. He is well over a hundred years old.
Decryption Errors
After making the decision to decrypt the stolen data Sam and Vince head up to Udub with the commlink on which the data is stored. Sam buys some cookies for his daughter and goes to meet her at the lab where Jason/Seraph works. When the pair arrive Alice greets them outside the lab and, after some small talk, Sam gets a message from Seraph to just leave the commlink in the cookie box and he'll pick it up when Alice comes inside. Sam and Vince leave the commlink with the baked treats and Alice heads back inside to work.
The two head back to Vince's pad to meet up with Pope. While the three watch the Mariners take a beating in the background they discuss their plans. At the bottom of the 5th, Vince's doorbell rings. A well-dressed gentleman waits at the door and introduces himself- he's a messenger, though from whom he doesn't know. His job is to offer a simple trade to the runners- the stolen data for peace and quiet. They will be left alone if they give up the commlink. The runners decide to turn down the offer.
Within a minute after showing the gentleman the door the runners get a call from Seraph that lasts only a second before the communication gets cut off. Spade, worried about the physical proximity of his daughter to Seraph calls Alice but there is no answer. The runners decide to head up to the University of Washington- Sam and Vince are going to roll through the gates, but they all agree that Pope should sneak over the walls carrying some runner gear (just in case they need it).
It's a Saturday early evening, so most of the school buildings are quiet when Sam and Vince arrive. They make their way into the Gates Computer and Matrix Research lab, hooking up with Pope at the door. Though there are no guards there is some security in the form of cameras and maglocks on the door. Though these measures are enough to dissuade students from using the facilities, the shadowrunners easily break into the lab.
Once inside the trio make their way through the clean room with haste and locate Jason's office- the door is open and seated in front of his desk, his head thrown back and his neck opened from ear to ear. The runners fan out across the lab and find no one else. Near the mainframe Sam locates a half-empty box of cookies. The commlink is gone.
Sensing that Sam's daughter might be in trouble the runners split up- Vince and Sam rush to the dorms. Sam tries to get to his daughter's room through the entrance only to be stopped by an RA requiring him to sign in. With great irritation he does and runs up the stairs. Vince meanwhile decides to check on the other undergraduate lab intern, Puja. He chooses to break into the dorm through a window and while a few students notice him most are too baffled to do anything about it. Pope heads to the dorm of Jean-Claude, figuring that Alice might be with her boyfriend.
Vince makes it to Puja's room and finds it torn apart, with her closet and desk emptied onto the floor. As gawking co-eds stare at the Ork runner, Vince calls down to Sam that something has clearly happened to Puja. With increasing panic Sam rushes past the protesting RA and forces his way down the dorm halls to Alice's room. He hears noises inside and bursts in.
Two men dressed in casual street clothes are ransacking his daughter's room. Neither is a cybernetically-modified shadowrunner and so while Sam waits long enough for both to reach for their concealed pistols, neither one manages to get their weapon clear of the holster before they are hit by stick-n-shock rounds fired from a Ruger Superwarhawk. Screams go up on the floor but Sam pulls out his badge and manages to calm things down. A few brave students move up (readying their anti-police abuse rhetoric) only to notice the two armed men in the room and think twice of it.
Knight Errant is on its way and Sam urges Vince to bug out ASAP, fearing law enforcement's penchant for "blaming the ork". Vince agrees and makes for the nearest exit from campus.
Meanwhile Pope finds himself in the much more upscale on-campus suites where Jean-Claude lives. Waiving his usual stealthiness Pope kicks down the front door to Jean-Claude's room to find the French elf stoned on his bed listening to music. Having heard Sam's rant about the boy Pope locks eyes with Jean-Claude, says "This is all a dream" and shoots the elf between the eyes with a gel round. Pope reports back to Sam the bad news- Alice is nowhere to be found. Sam urges Pope to flee as well.
Knight Errant arrives and begins questioning Sam. Thankfully the Knight Errant officers are reasonably professional and while they quickly determine that Sam isn't a suspect they still detain him until their supervisor arrives. With every second that passes Alice is becoming harder to find and Sam tries desperately to hurry things along. When the supervising detective does arrive he locks down the campus and begins an investigation. Sam is caught in the uncomfortable place of watching an investigation unfold but having no authority to help. The detective is, however, sympathetic and agrees to share whatever he finds with Lone Star. The detective shares that a suspicious Ork was seen fleeing the campus and that a student was attacked in the dorms elsewhere, making the most likely suspect an Ork, aged 16-25. Sam bites his tongue and hopes that Vince and Pope made it out.
The two orks did, and together they decide to follow up the last remaining lead- Jacob MacIntyre, the dwarf grad student, lived just off campus in an apartment. Together Vince and Pope break into the dwarf's apartment. They find it neat and well-organized, save for the desk. Clearly someone had hurriedly sorted through the desk and left as the drawers remained open and their contents pushed to the side. Jacob's car keys are missing. With Lone Star sirens approaching the two slip out of the apartment as Lone Star breaks in the front door.
Back on campus Spade can't fault the detective his methods or thoroughness, but nonetheless he is on the outside looking in. Eventually the detective sits down with Sam and goes over camera footage of a black van in the parking garage. Three men get into the van, one of them carrying an overly large duffel bag. The van exists the campus a minute later. Due to the timestamp and the approximate time of death of Jason the detective concludes that the bag likely contained either Puja or Alice.
Sam thanks the detective, states that Lone Star jurisdiction applies once she's out of the gates and declares he's going to go find his daughter.
No Stone Unturned
Cops don't like when one of their own is targeted, and they like it even less when the cross hairs fall on family members. Alice's godfather, Sam's boss, wastes no time mobilizing the Lone Star police force in a man-hunt. Gridsec is tasked to find the van using every traffic camera at their disposal and officers begin scouring the streets for their target. But Seattle is a big city, and its roads create warrens of over-passes and underpasses and the cameras in some of the slummier districts have long since been sabotaged or salvaged. The van left the campus and headed toward downtown, but then it ducks into a traffic camera free zone and is lost.
Vince and Pope wait for Sam to finish coordinating with Lonestar and then the three runners turn to their less reputable contacts. The first call goes to Astra St. Claire. She is aware that Lonestar suddenly erupted like someone kicked over the anthill but wasn't aware that Sam's daughter was kidnapped. Sam makes a plea for help and Astra agrees to make some inquiries- she is, as she points out, someone's daughter.
The next call is to Mr. Z. The elderly gentleman agrees to meet with the trio to discuss their problems. A quick drive to the Elven district later the runners sit in Mr. Z's home. He listens quietly to the situation and, after some reflection, agrees to help the runners on the condition that they continue to look into the matter of Hitomi Ono. With no need for discussion the three agree. Mr. Z brings in a shinto mage who takes Sam's picture of his daughter and prepares an elaborate ritual. With the runners watching from the sidelines the mage summons a wild mass of mana then slumps over. A minute later the mage stirs and the mana dissipates- Alice is protected by powerful magics hiding her from his vision and disrupting the sympathy of his magic. Mr. Z agrees to pass word of the van to his people and if any information comes back to him he will pass it along.
Exhausted, Vince and Pope head home to crash and wait for some new lead. Sam pops a longhaul and takes to patrolling the streets in a desperate attempt to find his daughter. His ex-wife, Angie Winterknight, has hopped on the first flight from Corpus Cristi the moment Sam called her and she will be arriving in hours.
Two hours into the investigation Lone Star corporate shuts down the city wide manhunt. Sam is called into the Lieutenant's office and told that someone up in the brass is cutting their resources. Sam is stunned, as is the Lieutenant, but the investigation is cut to two detectives. The Lieutenant thinks something fishy is going on but can't overrule the top brass. Sam picks Detective Morgana Dwaylin, an elf mage he's worked with in the past, and a Matrix security detective who brings with him some gridsec resources.
Angie arrives at midnight. She's a lonestar detective with a history in the Seattle downtown department and with all the fury of a panicked mother sets about begging enough resources from the various departments to continue the pressure on the investigation. More than a few officers offer to volunteer their time as part of the search thanks to her.
Eight hours later there are no new leads and Sam begins to become desperate. None of his leads have returned any indication of where the van might be, Astra has turned up nothing on whoever organized the kidnapping and Mr. Z's resources find nothing.
The first big break comes in when a convenience store camera catches a sight of a matching van. The store is east of downtown, and Sam heads out there to investigate. Vince and Pope saddle up on their motorcycles and head out as well, ready to provide backup if needed.
The uniform on the scene provides Sam with the unfortunate details. The van pulled by the shop a half-hour after Alice's kidnapping. It pulled around back to the dumpster, then sped off. Gridsec didn't catch it until late because the store's camera wasn't given as high priority as the traffic cams, and if the detective Sam had picked hadn't thought to look through Lone Star security contracted cameras it probably would have been missed.
With his heart pounding in his artificial ears, Sam circles around the convenience store to the dumpster. Opening it up he finds his daughter's torn clothing and personal effects, along with her commlink, mixed in with the refuse. Relief mixes with horror as he struggles back to his car on wobbly legs.
An innocuous call from the traffic division comes in- a dwarf was shot dead on the 90, underneath the Park on the Lid on Council Island. It isn't far from where the runners already are and Sam decides to check it out.
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*Wait's patiently for the next update, that last one has a bit of suspense going for me :D*
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I'm certainly enjoying running these games. More than anything they have taught me how important it is to have 1) well developed "real world" characters which the players can empathize with, and 2) to have a consistent, well developed NPC base that continually reappears. It gives the world a lived in quality.
I'm approaching the point where my run summary backlog is running dry and these posts are catching up to the game, however, so updates are coming slower.
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These are a great read. You have done an excellent job giving the runners a mix of ups and downs that give the narrative a good flow. You have also developed a good cast of characters for the party to interact with, as well as weaving poor Sam's backstory into the campaign. The runners themselves do a commendable job contributing too (that impromptu music video was gold).
Keep it up, I look forward to reading more.
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The Kent Castle Run (Part II)
Cast:
Sam Spade: A panicking father of a missing 18 year old daughter
Vince Black: A ork gun adept helping his shadowrunning partner locate his missing daughter and avenge the death of 'Seraph", the runner's part-time hacker.
Cassem Pope: An ork thief, shadowrunner, and Informant, helping his shadowrunning partner and handler find his missing daughter.
NPCs:
Astra St. Claire: A well connected fixer in Seattle
Jason Rodgers: A deceased computer science masters student at the University of Washington
Jacob McIntyre- a dwarf computer science masters student at the University of Washington
Puja Singh- an undergraduate computer and matrix science student at the University of Washington
Alice Dalton- an undergraduate computer and matrix science student at the University of Washington. Daughter of Sam Spade.
Angie Winterknight (formerly Angie Dalton) - Sam's ex-wife who married Sam's ex-partner. A detective in Lone Star: Corpus Cristi
Shogo Runningbear: The Sheriff of Shuksan, a small cozy town at the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. An Ork.
Boaz Mungo- an ex-runner and partner of Black, now an ork shaman who lives in an abandoned factory in the slums of downtown Seattle. He is the de facto leader of a community there, as well as a low-level fixer.
Morgana Dwaylin- an elven mage and Lone Star Detective assigned to investigate the kidnapping of Alice Dalton. A friend of Sam's.
Holed Up
Sam, Vince, and Cassem make their way (separately) to the scene of the murder, each making their way through the backed up traffic in different ways. Lone Star has cordoned off the area with the body while an ambulance makes its way in but Vince and Cassem can see clearly the body of Jacob MacIntyre from their motorcycles. Sam asks the patrol officer for details and gets the results of a brief investigation.
Apparently Jacob emerged from one of the utility doors that line the tunnel and ran out into traffic. Several cars swerved and called in the obstruction to Lone Star. A second figure emerged from the service tunnel as well, witnesses claiming it was a human in a trenchcoat and hat, who pursued Jacob alone the narrow walkway alone the side of the road. Several shots were fired, two of which embedded themselves in the wall of the tunnel, one of which struck a vehicle, and two struck the victim in the back. The victim fell on the roadway, causing a car to come to an emergency stop. The video from the car camera shows a human figure searching the body of the dwarf very quickly then hurrying away. Witnesses claim that the shooter returned to the service tunnels.
Sam passes all of this along to Black and Pope who make their way up to the park above the tunnel. Parking their motorcycles they start to canvass the park in the hopes of seeing some sign of the man. Pope investigates a service entrance, gaining access to the tunnels both Jacob and the man emerged from but finds no one.
Meanwhile Sam checks Jacob's body as he remembers seeing that one of Jacob's fingers has a compartment he used as a datajack. While the uniformed officer isn't looking Sam checks the datajack and finds a small data storage container. He palms it and excuses himself as the officer is trying to direct traffic. Returning to his car Sam plugs the data stick into his commlink to check its contents.
On it he finds a hastily recorded message between obviously terrified Puja and Jacob. The two of them appear to have had hidden themselves nearby. Though Puja tries to talk her fear gets the better of her and Jacob takes over, explaining that Alice said if they were ever in trouble they should reach out to Detective Sam Dalton on the Lone Star Seattle police force. Jacob and Puja explain how Alice convinced them to help her engage in some questionably legal hacking in the past, and how they had agreed to help her decrypt some data. They had misjudged the complexity of the coding, however, and though they managed to get the data they were worried that they hadn't properly quarantined the file. Then Jacob had been coming into the lab and found Jason murdered and people moving about, so he ran with Puja. Jacob says that he's going to try to get to Sam and that Puja is going to stay put- hopefully whatever is on the disk can be used to save them both.
Sam checks the decrypted files, but finds they contain three communications- the decryption process stripped all of the header data off, leaving only raw text with no indication of the sender, recipient, or timestamp.
I am growing increasingly frustrated by Vladivostok and his ilk. 355 years worth of tradition has taught us, if anything, to be patient. This new drug must be carefully introduced into the market, lest someone begin to connect the dots. This is a decade worth of planning coming together. See that your organization is persuaded to behave as we have discussed.
Vladivostok's competition with this executive in your organization has proven fruitful in the past, but this matter with the nanotechnologist has demonstrated the costs. Reign in your people. We have what we wanted from his organization and we will no longer be pursuing his line of research. Eventually there will be no need for it.
Kent Castle is completed. The Cascade Orcs have ceded the land to us after a generous donation. We will be meeting soon to discuss our role in upcoming events. The Warden of North America expects to see you and all of the stewards there.
While listening to Jacob and reading the logs Sam notices a few tennis balls in the background and passes this on to Black and Pope. The two begin checking through the tennis courts (getting looks from some of the people playing there). They find a shack containing the tennis ball collection drones. They break in to find a terrified Puja who screams as the two orks smash down the door. Black and Pope diffuse the situation, explaining that they are there to help. When Sam joins them he says that she is going to be okay and that Lone Star is going to come pick her up. All of the runners advise her to tell Lone Star nothing about the hacking or the data.
A Trip to the Mountains
Armed with new information the runners reach out to various contacts about Kent Castle and the Cascade Mountains. Unfortunately Lone Star information there is sparse. Black reached out to an old partner of his, Boaz Mungo, who has a few ties to the Cascade Orks. After a few calls back and forth Boaz manages to gather up a little information about a semi-recent purchase out in the Cascades that caused some of the tribes a little bit of political ire- an outsider group bought up a bunch of land in a rural area of the mountains then moved a bunch of construction equipment through. It's nothing definitive, but it matches what the runners know about Kent Castle.
Sam worries that they don't even know if this Kent Castle is where they took Alice, but both Pope and Black point out that even if it is isn't there will be someone there who knows how to find her. Additionally, Black points out that if Puja and Jacob are to be believe, Alice may have been helping "Seraph" out. Sam doesn't want to consider his daughter being in league with criminals or criminal activity and sets that aside for the moment.
After his lieutenant warns him that his Lone Star badge isn't going to protect him in tribal territory Sam gears up, loading up his car with his running gear. Black and Pope both agree to go with Sam to find Alice, come hell or high water. They agree that they aren't going to make it past the border checkpoint carrying the arsenal of equipment they are bringing and decide to make an attempt at crossing the border up in the backroads and foothills of the cascades.
Sam's sedan and Black and Pope's motorcycles prove to be unreliable off-road vehicles, and despite their best efforts at evading the drones patrolling the border it doesn't take long before a LAV roars out of the sky and shines a spotlight on Sam's car. Pope makes a break for it into the woods as Black and Sam pull over and ready their licenses and registrations. After a few warning shots are fired Pope decides that his crotch-rocket, fast as it is, is not suited to evading aerial pursuit.
As the three runners all line up by the side of the road the LAV lands and the Sheriff comes out to investigate. After a brief look in Sam's trunk the Sheriff finds ample reason to take them all into custody.
The Sheriff, who isn't all that impressed about three heavily armed individuals from Seattle wandering into his little neck of the woods, debates whether to hand them over to the Salish-Sidhe border patrol or whether he should let the local DA hit them with about a million years worth of weapon's possession charges. Out of respect for Sam, however, he calls Sam's lieutenant to let him know that Sam isn't going to make it to his next shift. From the lieutenant the Sheriff gets some of the story and decides to have a sit down with his prisoners.
Once in the interrogation room the Sheriff wastes no time trying to figure out what really brought the runners to the small town of Shuksan. They each tell their version of the story, with the Sheriff probing them with questions to see if they are all telling the truth. In the end he is left in a cell with Sam who makes an impassioned plea to let him bring his daughter back. The Sheriff heads back to his office, takes a look at the picture of his own son and daughter and calls the runners in.
He lets them go on a single condition- the first is that they do what they came here to do, and then get out. Whatever trouble they are starting he wants it to happen elsewhere, and whatever trouble they bring down on them is going to land on them when they are elsewhere. The runners accept these terms. As they are leaving the Sheriff directs the runner's attention to a map which shows a blacked out area in the mountains- apparently the Sheriff was recently told he didn't have jurisdiction overly a stretch of land nearby. He suggests that's where the runners might want to look.
With the Sheriff's deputies looking the other way the runners gather up their impounded equipment and drive off to investigate the area. It doesn't take long for Pope, the expert in security systems, to realize that the entire area has top notch security. Between the cameras hidden in trees, drone patrols,and ultrasonics, the ground approach is next to impossible. Similarly, the aerial approach is risky- the airspace over the castle is heavily monitored. Pope further suspects there is significant magical protections given what he had seen at Mr. Z's residence.
Sam, Black, and Pope stare at a map for a long time before finally Sam points out that the castle is located at the edge of a lake that itself sits at the mouth a valley. If the runners could fly in through the valley they would be able to avoid much of the radar. Black points out that any vehicle flying in that valley would make a lot of noise that would alert the castle, and they don't have an aircraft or pilot. This causes Sam to suggest that the runners parachute in. Pope points out that parachutes are both slow, easily visible, and will still need an aircraft to fly over the castle. Sam suggests that people in wingsuits could be released from an aircraft some distance away, fly through the valley (as the valley slopes downward), and then open their parachutes directly over the castle. Pope finds a variety of faults with this plan (mostly arguing that this plan seems incredibly dangerous), but is forced to concede that it is possible in theory. That is enough for Sam.
Black buys a variety of VR tutorsofts on parachuting and wingsuiting while Sam hastily charters a sight-seeing helicopter. The pilot, Al, is happy to show the runners all of the scenic vista's of the cascades, but doesn't really understand why they want to go up at midnight. Once enough money is waved in front of him, however, Al decides to stop asking questions. Sam puts in a quick call to Morgana Dwaylin, the officer in charge of the investigation into his daughter's kidnapping and asks a favor. He needs her to distract whatever magical guards might be watching the approach to the castle using her Astral self. She agrees, partly because she wants to save Alice and partly because she and Sam go way back. They schedule things to the minute- 12:35 A.M., and Sam says goodbye. For the next twelve hours the runners practice VR simulations of wing-suiting.
There is no discussion of how to get out of the castle once inside.
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The Kent Castle Run (Part III)
Cast:
Sam Spade: A detective with Lone Star's narcotics division whose daughter was kidnapped due to her affiliation with a hacker named Seraph.
Vince Black: An ork gun adept, hunting down Spade's daughter.
Cassem Pope: An ork thief, criminal informant, and shadowrunner.
NPCs:
Alice Dalton- the kidnapped daughter of Sam Spade, undergraduate computer science student at University of Washington.
Morgana Dwaylin- an elven mage and Lone Star Detective assigned to investigate the kidnapping of Alice Dalton. A friend of Sam's.
The Best of Intentions and Ill Conceived Plans
Al, the helicopter pilot and sole owner/operator of "Cascade Views", has seen a lot of things in his twenty years in giving sightseeing tours so the presence of a grizzled middle-aged man and two relatively young, fit orks doesn't shock him. Romance, after all, can blossom between anyone and so long as they are paying it hardly matters. The three in the back of his helicopter paid quite a bit as well, so there was extra incentive not to judge.
At around 12:30, however, things start to go south for Al. The three in the back of the helicopter set about putting on wing suits. Had Al the opportunity he would have pointed out that wing suiting the Cascades was dangerous in the best of circumstances and that he wasn't really set up for sky-diving. Sam preempts that opportunity, drawing his automatic shotgun from his carry on bag and informing Al that hovering at a set of predetermined coordinates would be a positive for Al, and that doing anything else would be a negative. Al decides to keep his mouth shut.
At 12:34 the runners are suited up and stand at the doorway of the helicopter, waiting for the seconds to tick down. Detective Dwaylin was presumably in Astral space somewhere below them, warding off the spectral guardians that might watch the skies. All they see are the black outlines of trees casting swirling shadows on each other in the moonlight and breeze. The clock ticks down the seconds, and Sam jumps, following by Black.
Pope hesitates at the door, suddenly realizing that he has zoned out during a two hour period of the tutorsoft because a townie in daisy dukes was washing her truck. Mustering as much courage as he can he steps off the helicopter, his brain still trying to remember something about up-currents and crosswinds that was going to be really important.
The shadowrunners are not skilled in skydiving, nor in wingsuiting. What they are, however, is superhuman. Black's muscles react with preternatural grace and precision to subtle balance changes: a consequence of perfect union between spirit and flesh. Sam Spade and Pope rely on science and the perfect union of man and machine to compensate.
The three shapes speed at near two hundred miles per hour out of the sky, looking no larger than a flock of birds on radar. Spade leads the loose formation, aiming for the peak of Mt. Shuksan. They swing low, shaking trees as they pass mere feet away from the highest branches, and hug the valley wall all the way down to Price Lake and the Castle built there. On the way in each catches sight of anti-aircraft defenses in small clearings, but none of the ominous looking launchers or cannons appear to swivel in the direction of the runners.
The castle comes into view and at the very last moment the runners open their black parachutes bringing their trip to a sudden shock of an end. All three land on the roof, Pope smelling of unintentionally released urine. Quickly parachutes are wrapped up and stowed, wingsuits are discarded, and pants are cleaned (Pope arguing that the delay is necessary less the smell give them away).
The roof has minimal security- a few cameras that are easily removed. The trio slips into a stairwell, but not before looking down at the grounds in front of the castle. Three helicopters, each with markings from a different AAA corp, sit in a field in the distance, while dozens of guards patrol the immaculate gardens and hedges below. It is at this point that Pope mentions they don't have an exit strategy. Sam mumbles something about worrying about that later.
A Night in Kent Castle
Once inside the runners find themselves in a labyrinth of richly appointed hallways. After ducking several patrols of guards, Sam reasons that they should be moving toward the more heavily guarded areas, as that's where a prisoner would be kept. Black and Pope agree.
As they move through the hallways the trio find a dining room being set up for a late meal. A single servant, dressed sharply in traditional English servant's clothing, is arranging place settings. Sam sheds some of his more martial appearance and wraps himself in his trenchcoat. He walks into the dining room and questions the servant, all while acting as though he belongs. Through careful doubletalk Sam manages to not give away that he has no idea what's going on while getting the servant to acknowledge that there has been some increase of security in the east wing.
Returning to his companions Sam relates what he has discovered (the runners are not using their commlinks heavily, for they have no hacker to protect them) and the shadowrunners set off toward the east wing. Once again they duck a few wandering patrols, though as they cross through the main atrium Sam notices a symbol on the tapestries - a large upside down "V" with a smaller, right-side up "V" laid on top of it. Sam makes mental note of this and continues on.
Eventually Pope pokes his head (wrapped in a ruthenium-polymer coated mask) around a corner and finds several guards guarding what appears to be the door to the wine cellar. Pope does some scouting to make a map of their location in the building and concludes they are not far from the east wall. The ork thief is already planning the escape route as he checks his demolitions.
Sam and Black, meanwhile, approach the three guards casually, trying to get as close as possible without raising the alarm. They hear one of the guards reporting that he sees people approaching and both of the two runners realize that they are moments away from an alarm but they are too committed to deviate from their course. Managing to momentarily confuse the guards with an inquiry of where the dining room is located, Sam capitalizes on the initiative to put a large caliber revolver round into the eye-piece of one of the guards. Black unloads on both of the remaining guards, killing one and leaving the other to gurgle in his own blood on the carpet. In the quiet castle the shots echo through the hallways.
Sam, Pope, and Black rush through the door into the wine cellar only to find it full of wine (and rather expensive wine at that). Pope tells Sam to use his terahertz radar and sure enough there's a doorway build into one of the walls. Throwing meticulous searching to the wind all three of the runners begin pulling bottles of wine off of the shelf until Pope pulls on one of the bottles and a latch opens.
On the other side of the door is a white room bathed in fluorescent light. Around the edges of the room are monitoring and medical equipment. In the center a square room walled by one-way glass showed two men, one in a suit and one in a lab coat standing around the naked form of Alice Dalton strapped to a metal chair. The probes and medical equipment attached to her show only blue error screens.
Sam does not hesitate. The man in the lab coat does not have time to turn around before a hundred flechettes reduce him to a crimson mist . Pope unloads several gel rounds into the man in the suit who manages at least to look shocked. Alarms sound throughout the building.
Sam wraps his little girl up in his trench coat though she gives no signs of consciousness. Black grabs the man in the suit- he hopes to question the man later. They begin to retreat.
Explosives make Doors out of Walls. And Floors.
Gas grenades roll down the wine cellar door and the runners don their gas masks. Machine gun fire comes down the stairwell- unaimed but enough to prevent escape. Pope, having prepared for this eventuality, removes two bricks of explosives and quickly sets one under the support of the stairs. The second he places father inside the wine cellar. The runners exchange gunfire with the guards at the top of the stairs to dissuade a probe, then retreat moments before the explosion.
The east wing of Kent Castle rumbles and shakes as the foundation of an entire hallway gives way, burying guards in rubble. The door out of wine cellar has become burning wood and cracked stone. When Pope closes a door, however, he opens a window- or at least in this case the floor underneath the kitchen. The runners clamber up through the hole and take up positions guarding the kitchen doors.
Pope isn't done yet, as he packed three bricks of demolitions and he intends to use them all. Opening the door to the walk-in meat locker Pope plants the last of his explosives to not only punch through the locker, but also through the exterior wall. Sam and Black fend off a wave of guards who realize that something is happening in the kitchen, but as they do they shout for Pope to hurry as more guards start to converge.
The Ork thief does quick and efficient work, and within a few moments he runs out of the meat locker and shouts "Get down". The runners take cover against the ensuing blast of metal, hanging beef and pig, and stone as the wall cracks open and a sharp night breeze blows the smoke away. They run out, Sam shouting for the runners to head to the helicopters.
They make it to the hedge rows before the guards realize that the runners have made it outside and a running gunfight ensues. All three of shadowrunners are wounded, Sam making sure to shield his daughter from the fire, Black using the suit as a human shield with unpleasant results (for the man in the suit). As they clamber on board the helicopter marked "Horizon CalCom" Pope tosses a few grenades at the two other grounded craft in the hope of delaying pursuit.
Black and Pope use most of their ammo desperately spraying bullets into the gardens and masses of guards in the hopes of buying enough time for Spade to get the craft off of the ground. He does, but not before the luxury craft takes a number of small-arms fire hits. It climbs unsteadily into the sky, inexpertly piloted by Spade.
Get to da Choppa!
Pope remains in the back to check on the two wards, finding Alice unhurt and the Suit wounded but not mortally. Black climbs up into the cockpit and settles into the copilot seat just in time to identify two fast moving small shapes on an intercept course.
The helicopter is not without any means of countermeasures. Black prepares to fire ECM and Spade pushes the control stick hard forward, shedding altitude for speed. It takes only moments for the drones to lock on and fire missiles.
The helicopter, not designed for combat flying, is stressed to the extreme end of its metal tolerances as Sam banks the craft low and through trees and rocky outcroppings while Black launches all of the counter measures. It proves to be barely enough as missiles light up the hillside as they impact meters away from the fleeing aircraft.
The drones, however, have merely exhausted one set of tools. They are faster and more maneuverable, and armed with armor-piercing anti-vehicle machine cannons. Spade does his best to avoid the strafing passes of these aircraft, but his helicopter is an elephant fending off hawks.
Pope and Black hang out of the sides of the aircraft, assault rifles in hand, and spray at the drones in a desperate attempt to drive them off. Pope manages to hit one hard enough that it flies off- damaged enough to slink away from the fight, but both he and Black are wounded in return as bullets poke holes through the helicopter. Spade battles to keep the chopper in the air as warning lights flash on his HUD and AR displays.
The remaining drone takes up a pattern that strafes the helicopter from stem to stern and back again, making it nearly impossible for Pope or Black to get a shot on it. Sam, seated in the cockpit, catches a cannon round through chest as the drone roars out in front of the chopper. Coughing through blood and relying on the genetically modified cells inside his body to compartmentalize the damage, he is helpless to watch as the drone circles in the distance and lines up nose to nose with the helicopter. Fire alerts are showing inside the engine. Fuel pressure is dropping, indicating a leak. Another pass will send the chopper plunging out of the sky into the treeline.
Sam calls out for everyone to brace, and Pope covers Alice's body with his own to prevent her from being hit (and to keep her safe in a crash). Black pushes himself up against the firewall and grabs onto a handhold.
The flashes of the canon reach the cockpit first, followed by the images of tracer fire. It starts low, then creeps up inexorably toward the helicopter. Sam jerks the stick over, but the aircraft is built for luxury, not air combat maneuvers, and it is too little. The first impacts strike below the cockpit, shredding the avionics and landing gear.
Alice's eyes shoot open and she screams into Pope's shoulder. The drone abruptly banks away in a sudden turn that sends it into the ground. Alice goes silent and still again.
Sam has no time to appreciate his luck, as his helicopter is crippled, on fire. He shuts off the engines and auto-rotates in the hopes of landing. He catches sight of a farm house and fields, points the nose in that direction and crashes the helicopter with as much grace and dignity as possible.
The three shadowrunners clamber out of the wreckage with their rescued compatriot and their prisoner. They are all wounded and bleeding, but alive and well away from Kent Castle and its security. Sam calls his car as an ork farmer and his wife come out to inspect the wreckage burning up his field. The party clambers inside and makes for the Seattle border. Alice lies in the backseat wrapped in a trenchcoat. The Suit is tied up in the trunk.
-
The Trials and Tribulations of Mr. Dark
(Mr. Dark left the cast several adventures ago and was brought back up to speed with current world developments through the following series of communications.)
To: Mr. Elliot Specter
From: Obelisk Construction, Inc.
Subject: Employment
Mr. Elliot Specter,
We thank you for your services, but they will no longer be required. Recent changes in the job market and economy have made it unprofitable for Obelisk Construction Incorporated to continue with our existing contract. We wish you success in your future endeavors.
Thomas Rickson
Human Resources Director
Obelisk Construction, Inc- Seattle
---
To: Mr. Elliot Specter
From: Industrial Steel Movers
Subject: Application
Mr. Specter,
We appreciate your interest in the position MAINTENANCE AND CONSTRUCTION DRONE OPERATOR 2, but the position has been filled. We will hold onto your application for 30 days and if a position opens up in that time we will contact you. Again, thank you for your interest
---
To: Mr. Elliot Specter
From: Jack Hardstone
Subject: Job
Hey Elliot,
I spoke with management on your behalf, but I have to tell you that it's not looking great. We've got more riggers applying than we can handle, and unless you're willing to work for peanuts there really isn't anything available. I can see if there are any management positions that are opening, but you've got a lot of competitions from corporate family members. I tried selling your experience but all the penny-pinchers upstairs are interested in is whether the new hire has the right ware and the right programs loaded. This neuropozyne crap has people buying discount 'ware, but I guess they are willing to shoot up on that stuff every day in order to work.
I'll keep looking, but my best advice would be to take a look at management. With your experience you've got a good chance in some smaller firm.
-Jack
---
To: Mr. Elliot Specter
From: Trans-Pacific Bank
Subject: Missed payment
Mr. ELLIOT SPECTER,
This e-mail is to inform you that your payment of 865 nuyen to GARDEN HOME APARTMENTS failed due to insufficient funds. Your current balance is 463.65 nuyen.
Please contact a Trans-Pacific Bank branch at your earliest convenience. If the outstanding charge is not addressed in 10 days a negative mark will appear on your credit.
---
To: Mr. Dark
cc: Chomp, Hotshot
From: Miss Wired
Subject: Job
Hey all (and Mr. Dark, greetings and welcome to the team)! My boy just got back to me. We've got a job!!!1!
Here's the deal- A "Mr. Johnson" wants us to upload a virus to the Dynamic Energy Solutions Inc mainframe. I've got all the info, locations, security, etc. It's gonna be an easy 5K each. I'll send over all the particulars, but he wants it done tonight!
Let's make some money!!!
---
To: Mr. Dark
cc. Chomp, Miss Wired
From: Tex Mex
Subject: Last Night's Cockup
When I asked Miss Wired whether you lot were professional, I should have guessed by her answer that everything was "totally cool" that there was going to be a problem. Mr. Johnson wanted the virus in place without anyone noticing. Do you imagine anyone at DES is going to be suspicious that the only thing not riddled with bullets at their office is the mainframe?
Unsurprisingly Mr. Johnson isn't interested in working with you anymore. I'm afraid neither am I- reputation means everything in this business and I guess only your extra-crispy cybersamurai doesn't have to worry about that anymore.
---
To: Mr. Specter
From: SeaTac Collections, Inc.
Subject: Debt Consolidation
This e-mail is to inform you that your debt from the following sources have been consolidated and sold to SeaTac Collections, Inc. All future payments on these debts, as well as any payment on interest or fees from these loans, shall be paid directly to SeaTac Collection.
Garden Home Aparments: Outstanding rent: 865 nuyen. Interest and Fees: 250 nuyen:
Pan-Vision Entertainment: Recurring subscription: 285 nuyen
Trans-Pacific Visa Card: Outstanding debt: 5,000 nuyen.
First Bank of Aztlan Card: Outstanding debt: 3,500 nuyen.
Please contact SeaTac Collections, Inc at your earliest convenience to set up a repayment plan. We offer a variety of flexible solutions to those in need of assistance. Failure to pay may result in your account being passed to our collections department.
----
To: Mr. Dark
From: XXXXX (No routing data ... query... query ... query ... query timed out)
Subject: Employment
You will arrive at the corner of 1st and Washington in 2 hours. A courier will deliver the following items to your vehicle: a commlink, an automated fiber-optic cable splice, a signal boosting antenna. You will connect the commlink to the antenna. You will wire commlink to the automated fiber-optic cable splice output jack channel 3.
In 2 hours, 34 minutes a city utility van will arrive at junction manhole cover 14B at 1st and Washington. City employees will remove the manhole cover and cordon off a work area.
In 2 hours, 38 minutes the city utility workers will retire to their van. At this time you will use appropriate drones to deliver the commlink and cable splicing equipment to city telecommunication wire 17XX143-B. Direction to this wire are shown on the schematics below. You will complete this task in 12 minutes or less.
At 2 hours and 50 minutes you will leave 1st and Washington.
You will be compensated.
---
To: Mr. Specter
From: SeaTac Collections, Inc
Subject: Payment
Your last payment of 5,000 nuyen was received and applied against your account. Outstanding balance plus fees is: 4,885 nuyen
---
To: Mr. Dark
From: XXXXX (No routing data ... query... query ... query ... query timed out)
Subject: Employment
At 12:15 AM this morning you will locate to 47.7349, -122.3680. You will gain entry to the building located there. You will reestablish power to the satellite uplink. You will access the mainframe with the following code: Admin / 64BHi!%176. Uplink/Downlink with Satcom relay/Satcomm XMTR X4432i.
At 12:19 AM you will load program: "EW- 9/11/2072 Kent". You will run this program to initiate drone overrides.
At 12:20 AM you will locate wireless signals at 48.859, -121.610, isolate milcom channel 125.45. You will do the following in order- You will initiate a drone override attempt using provided software against: SW-163 SAM Defense Drone. You will set radar tolerances to 3 meter spread. You will initiative a drone override attempt against: SW-167 SAM Defense Drone. You will slave SW-167 radar detection to drone SW-163 SAM Defense Drone. You will initiate a drone override attempt against: SW-244 AA Defense Drone. You will slave SW-244 radar detection to drone SW-163 SAM Defense Drone. You will initiate a drone override attempt against SW-244 AA Defense Drone. You will slave SW-244 radar detection to drone SW-163 SAM Defense Drone.
At 12:41 AM you will connect to SW-163 SAM Defense Drone. You will set radar tolerances to 40 meter spread. You will recalibrate radar. You will set "LAST GRID SPREAD" to 1 meter. You will run recalibration.
At 12:45 AM you will leave the facility. You will lock the door behind you.
You will be compensated.
---
To: Mr. Elliot Specter
From: SeaTac Collections, Inc.
Subject: Account ending in -1153
Mr. Elliot Specter,
We have closed out the account ending in -1153. All outstanding debt has been paid.
We thank you for your cooperation and timely payments. Appropriate reports have been made to collections agencies.
SeaTac Collections Inc, Closed Accounts Department
---
To: Mr. Dark
From: Astra St. Claire
Subject: Strange Bedfellows
Mr. Dark,
I don't believe we have ever met face to face, but you may recall that I helped you and a previous collection of acquaintances find gainful employment in the past. I understand you have fallen on hard times and I would like to help you if possible. Specifically I would like to pay you for some information that may be in your possession.
On the morning of September 11 you were seen breaking and entering into an abandoned building in the elven district by a friend of mine. That building, as I'm sure you know, has a variety of interesting equipment left there by the previous occupants. I would very much like to know what possessed you to make use of that equipment.
I look forward to meeting you in person,
Astra St. Claire
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+1 for this. Really good stuff.
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Yeah, I really enjoy reading about your games. Keep it up!
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Agreed! Please keep posting these. I really love hangliding on runs. If he ever needs another handle, please suggest to Marlowe Ace Harding, the detective of Deja Vu fame.
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The Cibola Run (Part I- Housekeeping)
(Sorry in advance that these things are getting so broken up. As the story gets more complex a single "run" actually involves a dozen moving parts that take multiple gaming sessions to tie up. Part I is about how I got the party to be in the same place at the same time)
Cast:
Sam Spade: A heavily cybernetically modified, drug addicted Lone Star cop
Vince Black: An ork gun adept, standing vigil over a recovering young woman who increasingly appears to have been living a double life as a hacker
Cassem Pope: An ork thief who is beginning to think he is a little in over his head.
Mr. Dark: An out of work construction rigger who is transitioning into a permanent life of crime
NPCs:
Alice Dalton- the recently rescued daughter of Sam Spade, undergraduate computer science student at University of Washington.
Morgana Dwaylin- an elven mage and Lone Star Detective assigned to investigate the kidnapping of Alice Dalton. A friend of Sam's.
Angie Winterknight- Sam's ex-wife who remarried Sam's ex-partner. Recently arrived from Corpus Cristi to help look for her kidnapped daughter.
Alice St. Claire- A fixture of Seattle fixers, a femme fatale staying one step ahead of the competition, a woman increasingly investing in her favorite running crew.
Mark Castro- The Sheriff in charge of the Zuni Pueblo area and employee of Knight Errant.
Boas Mungo- An ork street Shaman turned community organizer turned fixer living in an abandoned warehouse in the undercity of downtown Seattle.
HIPPA
Alice Dalton is taken to Ballard Medical Center in downtown and placed under observation. For hours Angie and Sam stand vigil over their daughter while a steady stream of well-wishers stop by and offer their prayers and well-wishes. Black lingers nearby, careful to not draw too much attention to himself. Pope heads off- publicity, especially among the law enforcement community, is not good for his reputation.
Doctors assure the parents that their daughter is recovering and that she should wake up any time but that they should let her recover. Additionally, given that she was found naked in a basement, her doctor recommends several psychiatrists that deal with trauma victims. Both Angie and Sam look down at their bruised daughter and the reality sets in: though she was rescued, she has a long road to heal.
After a days worth of staying by her bedside both Angie and Sam have to sleep- both were using Long Haul to stay away and the crash is looming over them. Angie checks into a nearby hotel and Sam asks Black to watch over his daughter after he collapses. Sam staggers down to his car in the hospital parking lot and passes out.
Just past four in the afternoon Alice opens her eyes. Vince, watching a kung fu trid bootlegged out of China, doesn't notice immediately. After several seconds of taking in her surroundings Alice sits up awkwardly, finally getting Black's attention. "We need to get out of here. Where are my clothes?" Alice says.
Vince, quickly concluding that Alice is about to devolve into histrionics, attempts to calm her down. She begins to pull monitoring equipment off of herself and Vince moves to stop her. After some feeble slapping Alice realizes she isn't going to overpower Black and tries to explain to him that people are coming for her. Vince points out that he's here and he knows how to take care of people who want to hurt her. Additionally he points out that she has no way of knowing what's going on as she has been asleep for the past two days and her commlink is over in a drawer, along with her clothing.
Alice, doing her best to stay clam, responds that the patient records were accessed by a hacker twenty minutes ago, and that the camera and security registration to the parking lot was just bypassed. She believes there are people coming up to get her and that Black needs to get her out of the hospital.
Black carefully weighs how upset Sam and Angie are going to be with him if he indulges Alice and it turns out to be nothing versus how upset Sam and Angie are going to be if he doesn't indulge her and it turns out to be something. Making his choice he tosses the girl her clothing and commlink and checks the hall while she gets dressed (successfully resisting the urge to catch a glimpse of the curvy co-ed). As the two prepare to make their escape Alice tells Black to wait a few seconds for the cameras to be in the right place. Black assumes she is now engaging some hacking nonsense now that she has her commlink.
The two slip out, avoiding doctors and nurses, and make it around a corner just as four men in suits flash a badge to the nurse at the desk and make their way to Alice's old room. Black can tell when people are poorly concealing heavy firepower and realizes that he and Alice are outgunned. They sneak out of the hospital, desperately pinging Pope and Sam.
Operation Raccoon
Meanwhile, in the nice part of town, Pope is midway through a private operation he has labeled "Operation Raccoon".
Vince, unlike his fellow runners, devotes a large part of his income to making sure that he lives a comfortable life. His home is always in a nice neighborhood, his clothing always hand-tailored, and his food at least 75% natural. It is little wonder, then, that his fellow runners (neither of whom lives much above the poverty line due to supporting their respective families) use his home as their base of operations.
Pope, however, has decided that he would like to make a permanent home in Black's attic on account of it being much nicer than his coffin-apartment. This involves bypassing several security counter-measures and making a few minor structural modifications to the condo. Pope has managed to sound-proof his upstairs apartment and is in the process of modifying the access door when he hears the tinkle of glass downstairs. He goes to investigate.
As he crawls down into the hallway he gives Black a call, informing him that someone has broken into his house. Black, about to launch into an explanation of the events at the hospital, pauses and asks why Pope is in his house. Pope attempts to explain that they should be focusing on the security breach, to which Black points out that is what he is doing. Pope clarifies- the other security breach.
Pope's investigation takes him into the bedroom where his image enhancement notices a tiny crack in the window and a capsule on the ground. He notices a strange itching in the back of his throat about the same time that he concludes the capsule appears to be a toxin-release device.
Panicking as his lungs begin to bleed he manages to stagger out into the hallway and shutoff the air conditioning unit in order to slow the spread of the toxin. Coughing up blood and watching his skin flake he drags himself into his attic crawlspace and seals the door behind him. He manages to send a description of where he is to Black before he passes out.
Black pulls up outside his house and gets his gas mask on. He runs inside, grabs Pope's body, and runs out. The brief contact with whatever is in the house causes red irritated skin on every exposed surface.
An Afternoon Tea Break
Somewhere on the twentieth flood of a downtown skyscraper a beautiful blond woman in pencil skirt, designer blouse and cloche sits on a balcony at an iron-wrought table. Her shoes match the ebony cigarette holder she smokes through as she waits for her appointment. When Mr. Dark arrives he realizes that Ms. Astra St. Claire is higher up the food chain than he is.
The two exchange pleasantries and feel each other out- Astra is curious about who has been pulling Mr. Dark's strings for the past month, and Mr. Dark is both reticent to give up his mysterious employer and curious how Astra knows about his comings and goings. There is a delicate verbal dance for several minutes, neither wanting to give too much away too early.
Eventually Astra feels secure enough in relating what she knows of the story of the events up in the Cascade mountains and manages to elicit enough information from Mr. Dark to conclude that whatever force was employing him was also assisting (albeit distantly) with the runners' activity. She explains to Mr. Dark that there is a crashed helicopter out in Salish-Sidhe territory whose black box she is acquiring which probably has, if not answers, then directions on where to go. Moreover she suggests that he speak with some old friends of his. She passes over the new contact information for Sam and Black.
Sorry to Impose, but we've got this problem...
Thirty stories below Astra and Mr. Dark an SUV speeds into the undercity of Seattle created by constant upward construction. Carrying a half-dead Pope and a completely alive Alice, Black calls in a favor from an old friend. Boas first hears word that a dying runner is on his way when the SUV tires squeal to a half outside of his the once abandoned warehouse that now is home to four dozen orks families. The shaman barely has time to agree to help before the makeshift doors are being pushed open by Black carrying Pope, followed by an attractive but stunningly out of place human teenager.
Boas doesn't have time to ask question and sets about pumping the low-essence Pope full of magical healing. The process is slow and exhausting as mana swirls in all manner of shapes around Pope's limp body. Eventually, however, a tree of life takes root in his chest and pours enough magical healing into the prone form to purge the toxins and knits the internal lacerations.
Boas staggers off, exhausted, to his "office" with Black in tow. He asks for an explanation of what is going on and Black gives it to him, sparing no detail. By the end Boas sums up: The runners have interfered with some giant cross-corporate conspiracy in such a way as to bring the wrath of individuals with near infinite wealth and no morals down upon them, and Black chose to use Boas' home as a hiding spot. Black confirms this as essentially correct.
"No, seriously, where the hell is my daughter!"
In a strange bit of role reversal from the start of the day, Alice is left to watch over Pope's recovery for several hours. It is during those hours that Sam wakes up, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and staggers into the hospital to go see his little girl. One terrified nurse later he discovers that she apparently left, though the last thing anyone saw was a large gentleman (maybe an ork?) in the room with her. She wasn't there, he is told, when several gentlemen in suits came for her.
Sam rushes out of the hospital as he cycles through two dozen messages until he finds the last message from Black explaining that he was fleeing the hospital and that he was worried communications had been compromised. Infuriated by the lack of information about the location of his daughter the detective starts calling Pope and Black over and over again. He is connected to his daughter.
The conversation is brief- Sam wants to know where Alice is, Alice relates that she is safe and somewhere underneath downtown at a friend of Black's. Sam wants to know what happened and Alice says that she is going to let Black explain.
When Black gets on the phone an angry father tries, with moderate success, to get the story out of Black. Black tries to start from the beginning, Sam wants to know where he is supposed to drive to make sure his daughter is safe, and after some argument about the best way to explain events the story of Alice and Black's escape, Pope's incapacity (and the likely assassination attempt on all of the runners via toxin), and finally the retreat to Boas' warehouse, is related. Sam makes his way into the slums.
Minutes later Mr. Dark reaches out to Black to arrange for a meeting to discuss Dark's employer. Black, feeling like he's already imposed so much on Boas' community that a little more isn't going to hurt anyone, invites Mr. Dark down to pow-wow.
-
The Cibola Run (Part II- Southwest Sojourn)
(A note: Two of the players name's have been changed- Vince Black has become "Slade Black". This is because "Vince" was the name of one of the player's previous characters, and never in the game has his runner's first name been used- It is always "Black" or "Mr. Black". Similarly, Kassen Pope's name has been changed- I've referred to it as "Cassem Pope" and "Kassem Pope" in the past. This is in part due to me mishearing the "n" at the end of his name, and in part because no one has ever referred to the character as anything other than "Pope" in my memory. Apologies to the two players who found this forum and complained.)
Cast-
Sam Spade: A Lone Star Narcotics Detective increasingly devoting his time to illegal activities.
Slade Black: An Ork Gun Adept who thought Shadowrunning would be more "profit" and less global-conspiracy.
Kassen Pope: An Ork sneak thief who thought being a Lone Star CI would keep him out of trouble.
Mr. Dark: A recently unemployed construction rigger turned full-time Shadowrunning rigger.
NPCs:
Alice Dalton: Daughter of Sam Spade, University of Washington freshman, and two time varsity cheerleader, Corpus Cristi Wildcats. Black finds her ability to interact with computer networks without a commlink to be fishy.
Morgana Dwaylin: An elven mage and friend of Sam Spade. She provided astral support for the run on Kent Castle, only to not make it back to her body. Pronounced dead by Lone Star.
Angie Winterknight: Sam's ex-wife, married to Sam's ex-partner, and working for Lone Star Internal Investigations.
Mark Castro: Ares-contracted Sheriff of the Zuni Pueblo.
Boas Mungo: An ork shaman who runs a small slum community and works as a fixer.
Astra St. Claire: A femme fatale fixer, a blonde bombshell of a dame, and the closest thing the party has to a friend in the shadowrunning community.
Pow-Wow
A loud, confused conversation follows Spade's arrival at the hollowed out factory Boas uses as a community center. Spade is furious at Black for taking his daughter out of the hospital without telling him (ignoring the fact that he was on a LongHaul induced coma at the time), furious at his daughter for not staying at the hospital and getting better, but really he's furious that he wasn’t able to be there to protect his little girl. It takes some effort for the situation to calm down, as Black doesn’t feel like he has done anything wrong, and Spade is not really rational when it comes to Alice’s safety given the last few days, but finally Boas points out that the two are making a nuisance in his home and they both back down.
During the conversation Black relates that Alice managed to connect to the security system of the hospital during the escape without having her commlink. As he says this Alice is visibly upset and uncomfortable, but her father does not appear to make an issue out of it. This is because (as it turns out later) her father misunderstood the implication that Black was making.
Mr. Dark arrives and greets Black and Boas, two friends from earlier shadowrunning exploits, but is cool around Spade- a cop. After Black gives assurances that he’s trustworthy Mr. Dark opens up about his conversation with Astra, as well as his drone re-programming out in the Cascade Mountains. With Pope joining the conversation late the party considers how to proceed. The consensus is that once Astra recovers the black box from the downed helicopter they will pursue whatever lead it yields until they find someone high enough within whatever cabal is chasing them to make a deal.
Another conversation occurs between Black, Spade, and Alice about Alice’s illegal activities in the matrix. The runners, now with a moment to reflect, confront the teenager about the online identity of Seraph. They once thought that “Seraph” was Jason Rogers, the Masters Student who worked in Alice’s lab, but that doesn’t appear to be the story any longer. Alice relates that she had the persona for years but hadn’t really made it as a hacker. She suggests but does not state outright that Rogers may have had a crush on her and she asked him to “play Seraph” in the one face to face meet between Seraph and the runners.
Alice says she wants to catch the people who did this to her and her friends, which in turn means she has to keep acting as the team’s hacker. Sam says that she is going back to school. Pope, Dark, and Black all decide to remain silent for the majority of the father/daughter fight, save to interject that they 1) don’t know any other hackers who are likely to sign up for what’s to come, and 2) will probably need a hacker in the future. The issue is not settled, and the runners agree to find temporary housing until Astra St. Claire calls.
Two Different Meetings with Imposing Women
Angie Winterknight demands to meet with Sam and Alice, as she wakes up shortly after Sam from her own longhaul related slumber. The family members congregate at a bistro in down town, and Angie fusses over her daughter nearly as much as she chides Sam for not protecting her. Sam refrains from relating his shadowrunning –related rescue, as he is all too aware of the questions that it will raise. Angie, likewise aware that prying too closely into how she got her daughter back would compel an investigation into her ex-husband, dances around the subject.
Alice’s future is a topic of debate- both parents agree she needs to see a psychiatrist. Angie believes this is necessary because of the trauma of kidnapping. Sam does not relate to Alice’s mother that he found her naked strapped to a chair in a basement and that another kind of trauma may have occurred. Alice sits quietly, stirring her soup while her parents discuss when it would be appropriate for her to go back to school. The lunch ends with both parents agreeing that Sam will keep watch over Alice and get her to the doctors for the next few weeks, then she will go back to school.
Mr. Dark, Black, and Pope have a meeting as well, but theirs is with Astra St. Claire in an upscale park. Astra passes over telemetry and flight data recovered from the helicopter, as well as a contact who flies contraband to and from the PCC. Mr. Dark, a skilled pilot, immediately identifies the helicopter’s flight path and determines that it recently was in the small town of Zuni in what was New Mexico. Astra says she is trading the information now for whatever information the runner’s acquire in their trip to Zuni. Black points out that they haven’t decided to go to Zuni. Astra smiles, obviously aware that the runners need answers as badly as she wants them, and the runners agree to her terms.
The Land of Enchantment
When the runners convene it doesn’t take long before they agree to head to New Mexico, though there is some discussion over whether to bring Alice. Alice plays the victim card, saying she wouldn’t feel safe. Reluctantly Sam agrees she can tag along. Black takes Alice shopping for basic running gear, noticing during the process that Alice looks rather good in skin-tight body armor.
The quintet pile into Mr. Dark’s stepvan and cruise out to the abandoned airfield east of Seattle, only to find a semi-trailer truck already there. An old prop cargo plane sets down and a middle-aged man comes out to greet the runners as people emerge from the trailer and begin loading palettes of unknown goods into the aircraft. After passing some weight information to the pilot the runners are directed to drive into the cargo hold- apparently they are to stay in the van for the duration of the flight. They agree to the terms and settle in for the flight.
The plane sets down in a dusty landing strip in the middle of nowhere, and the van drives off the plane as another semi-trailer pulls up. Out of wireless contact and relying on the sat uplink, the runners navigate out of the backwoods after the plane is unloaded and head out onto the rough roads surrounding the Zuni Pueblo. Surrounded by isolated homesteads and ranches, the town of Zuni is little more than a dozen roads forming a small grid, and the giant empty desert stretching in all directions is disorienting for the city-dwelling Seattlites. Realizing they look out of place Sam, Pope, and Black resort to their default position of thievery – they break into a local clothing store and steal some local fashions. Spade replaces his fedora with a Stetson.
As the sun rises the runners locate the landing place of the helicopter- the newest, cleanest building in town is the Sheriff’s Office, which sports a polished Knight Errant logo. Next to it sits a small helipad which matches the coordinates in the flight data.
The runners decide that Sam is going to walk in the front door and chat up the Sheriff while Pope sneaks in and plugs in a commlink to the data server in the building. Once the commlink is in place Seraph will pull the security records. Pope sneaks well, and with the help of Seraph hacking cameras makes it to the security room and plugs in. Seraph begins to download the records from the day in question.
Meanwhile, Spade chats up Castro, the Sheriff. Pretending to be affiliated with the Cascade Mountain sheriff’s office he was recently released from Spade manages to earn a degree of trust from Casto (one local law enforcement officer to another), and relates that he’s outside of his jurisdiction but trying to track down a lead on a kidnapping. Castro is reluctant to go into details, but he acknowledges that a big wig from Ares showed up a week ago and told him to keep his patrol officers away from a certain area. Castro points out that there was no kidnapped girl with the executive.
Spade returns to the van with Pope and the runners go over the data they acquired- the helicopter landed around noon and an Ares executive and four dangerous, well armed men got off. Castro shortly thereafter sent a notice to patrol officers to avoid a region northwest of Zuni and to leave a certain vehicle alone. The executive boarded the helicopter shortly thereafter, but the four men did not. A quick search of the matrix identifies the executive as Calvin Richards, Senior VP in Ares Seattle and head of the Lake Washington Aquacology.
The runners conclude that they are going to get their answers out of Mr. Richards in the future, but since they are already down in New Mexico they ought to track down those men and determine what they are here for. The hope is that they can acquire some leverage. They prepare the van for off-road work (legitimately) and head out into the desert in the direction Castro told his people to avoid. With help from Mr. Dark’s aerial drone surveillance it isn’t long before they find what appears to be an abandoned mining complex working into the side of a butte.
Approaching stealthily the runners find the gate to the Aztechnology complex apparently unguarded. They find the two bodies of guards after a little searching. Continuing their infiltration they get to the complex itself- two hermetically sealed buildings, one housing for workers, the other a garage/office complex. Both are investigated by Mr. Dark's crawler drones only to find dozens of dead bodies in each, some killed by bullets others by strangulation or knife wounds. Once the coast is clear Mr. Dark approaches with his van.
The mine itself is a rough hewn cave, wide enough to drive a small plane inside, though it quickly narrows to what appears to be a square doorframe several feet wide. Strange writing adorns the rock though it has been worn away both from Aztechnology’s digging and time itself. Spade asks Mr. Dark to use his Sat uplink to identify the language and after some searching the Matrix informs the party that the language on the doorframe is a dialect of Mayan. Spade downloads a Mayan-English dictionary. Black, relatively well educated in history, reflects that he didn’t think the Mayan’s made it this far north. Academic discussions of Mayan cultural migration are boring to the runners and they continue into the cave.
Immediately upon entering the runners are greeted to a grisly site- workers who had previously been painstakingly excavating this site have been killed, their blood dry on the stones. They had managed to excavate a series of rooms resembling reverse step-pyramids at the bottom of which the worker’s bodies have been thrown. Black activates his astral vision and is greeted to a new horror- trapped in the walls of these rooms dark, malevolent spirits swirl. Where cracks have been made in the stone work raw, angry mana seeps forth, dripping down to pool amid the bodies. Black relates this to the party who can do nothing about it but worry.
Mr. Dark, meanwhile, gets a disturbing report from his drone- a large sandstorm is approaching. He recalls the drone and pulls into the cave for shelter.
The final room in the complex is much like the last though here a different form of brutality is present. At the far end of the room is a giant circular portal, mayan writing adorning its stone surface. Broken jackhammers and digging tools are piled in the corner, apparently having failed to breach the door. Bullet holes in the stone suggest a more chaotic fight occurred here.
At the bottom of this room is a stone altar, several bodies lying atop it; around it, drawn in intricate stonework, an arcane sigil. Four of the bodies are dressed in blood red robes with cowls over their heads- Aztechnology blood mages possibly. They died mercifully of gunshot wounds. The body, ritually laid out on the altar, has his ribs split open and his heart removed. Alice nearly vomits.
Black once again looks around the room with his magically enhanced sense and sees dark spirits welling in the walls. Yet he also sees the remnants of the Blood Mages’ work, as the sigils on and around the altar pulse in a sickly heartbeat of mana. It flows up to the door, alighting the writing to his astral vision. He can see no way to open the door, however.
Alice speaks up, pointing out that she can see something in the stone work- she can’t explain it to her fellow runners- the resonance here has a pattern to it, she says, and with her gaze fixed on the stone door mumbles something about it being like a lock.
Black and Spade are both dubious about opening the door, and Spade has no idea what his daughter is going on about with regards to the resonance- he looks to Black, assuming it’s magical. Black, however, has no idea what she’s going on about. Pope is acutely aware of the close proximity of magic and dead bodies, and has seen too many zombie trids to think the situation is going to end well.
Almost in a trance Alice touches the door with an outstretched hand and turns it this way and that, her eyes focused through the wall on some unseen mechanism. Her fellow runners hesitate. Black notices that the magical energy suddenly surges into the door, and when he calls this out Spade goes to pull his daughter away from the door.
Something inside the door grinds, stone on stone as Alice is pulled away, and the door starts to roll open just as the sandstorm hits.
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I'm with Pope. Nothing good EVER comes of dead bodies and magic. That's almost as bad as reading the Latin from the unidentified book!
In other news: fuck yeah, you're still updating this. Good stuff, man. Makes for some great reading :)
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Thanks Ympulse, I'm glad you enjoy these things! I'm still updating and we're still playing. I'm several adventures back, actually- it takes a while to write a full recap of an adventure. as I only sketch out the primary hook and let the players create a variety of their own subplots. Coming up: The Cibola Run (Part III), The Kidnapping of Mr. Calvin Richards, The Prison Train Run, The NeoNET Global Market Solutions Run, and then I'd be up to our current adventure: The Chateau Rochette Run.
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nice read as always .. waiting for the next session.
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This honestly should probably be either a set of graphic novels or it' own series somewhere. Talk about edge of my seat! 8)
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Hey, I'd be happy to storyboard with any interested artists. :D Until then I'm just the guy telling the stories.
The truth is that I've got great players, though, who spend a lot of time developing their characters and trying to live in the world I've created for them. It makes for a lot of great RP that I can't easily capture here.
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I would volunteer, but my stick-figure drawings are a bit ugly. =(