So our regular SR group had been playing a team of characters for a while. They were hard hitting, down and dirty, run right at em and heal spell later kind of runners. They got their first big paying job, having worked theri way through the small fry work, and sent down to the shipping capitol that is Savannah, GA. They arrived a week early and met with a fixer there who was their POC. In that meeting they asked if he could scrounge up some extra work while they were there. Now as there is hardly anything written on Savannah I pulled a lot from real life now, and wrote my own twists and turns, and gave them access to everything I had written. So the "extra" job was to hit a smuggling ring that had a work space way out in a space of government controlled wetlands, and steal their next outgoing shipment. The team knew that the smugglers were led by a voodoo shaman (they didn't know he was also a vampire), had dealings with a ghoul pack, and had some ex-runners on the payroll as full time members. I won't cover all the details but effectively they ran straight to the hideout, where no one was at that particular time (it was a work space, not a home) and searched the place over. Upon arrival they noticed a spirit hovering above the building but then immediately stopped watching it. Later they looked again, after they had walked in, and it was gone. Finding no loot they did find a ritual room obviously belonging to the voodoo practitioner. What they didn't look for was the spirit posted sentry specifically tasked with ending anyone who attempted to harm the room. So with most of the team outside their combat decker went in and tried to set the room on fire. A force 14 bound guardian spirit appeared and combat began.
Now I have a house rule for spirits concerning optional powers. We've decided that spirits who could have an optional power can have luck which gives them access to their edge. If bound they will can use it to accomplish the task assigned. They can also be asked to use it as an additional service. If unbound only the last option is available. My players and I both like this rule. Usually.
So by the end of the fight with the fire spirit they had as a team burned through 5 edge, and lost a new member who they were trying out for the fixer POC. All preemptively as they were scared shitless of this thing, but they definitely would have lost a member or three in finishing this fight otherwise. After the fight they find the secret stash of talislegger "stuff" hidden in an underground sealed shipping container. I had decided it had three booby traps as the vampire and crew had a flair for the dramatic, They found and disarmed the first, an electrified rung on the ladder. They found and got shot by the second, a pressure plate at the bottom of the ladder releasing one heavy shotgun blast. They opened the sealed door to the modified shipping container and went in, failed to notice the trip wire and triggered a release of poison gas (I can't remember which one). It took out one of the players, but his overflow allowed him t be save when they went down and got him. After that they emptied the stash, loaded up and left. Now they were expecting more to happen, as they realized how powerful the shaman must be to have summoned the spirit, so they had their combat mage regularly checking the astral for a tail. At one point, still in the wetlands, maybe a mile down the road, they stopped to discuss the next leg of the plan and he took a walk back down the road, glitching on his astral perception test. So when he turned back to the group there was a spirit who had specifically been told to take the mage out of the picture. The spirit used its control power over him and ordered him to remove his eyes. Screaming the combat mage reached up and scraped his own eye out before the rest of the team could incapacitate him. When he was back under control he summoned a big ass force 12 spirit and got zero net hits. However, I had it appear anyway as a larger than normal and fiery as hell spirit and he sent it off to kill the shaman and all the other spirits he possessed. (now the spirit didn't achieve that task although he did "kill" a few other bound spirits on the way, but they left the wetlands feeling victorious-not realizing the enemy they just earned for life). They get paid.
Then they go on to their main job, still slightly broken, and now supporting a hastily bought eye patch, where, though they had weeks to prepare for the job, they didn't at all and used the exact same plan. This one had their main competition as a seriously cybered and armored sam guarding the object and the spirit summoning priest who was the objects caretaker. The priest I knew wouldn't outright attack unless she herself was attacked or the object was threatened. She didn't care who "owned it as long as she was allowed to continue being it's caretaker (it was a magic tree). However they were in a secure transport and the team was struggling to get it open as they made bad choice after bad choice. So finally the combat mage remembers that he has the ram door spell, and hey, there's a door! He only gets it pried partly open after the first two attempts (he's low balling and it really was a secure door) but that left just enough space for the decker to stick his face in the opening and get shot through the skull with an apds loaded assault rifle. One more edge now belongs to me, and he will survive the day, although at a higher cost than he intended (he ended up losing two points of essence in the surgery needed to keep him alive and make him "whole" again. At this point the priest guardian summoned a big old earth spirit to disable all the vehicles that way the runners wouldn't be able to finish the job as they, AND the tree, AND the opposition would all be stuck, and the police would have time to arrive. That was one to many spirits for the PTSD suffering merc, and he literally grabbed his dog (that he had adopted while in Savannah) and ran. They never saw him again. They beat the spirit, killed the sam inside and finished the rest of the run. All told in Savannah, over two games, was 6 edge, 1 death, 1 run away, and after they got back to Seattle (their home) two others retired, having seen one to many spirits in their time.
By the way, they loved it, every minute of it, and it immediately inspired a new campaign based around the one player who wanted to keep his character going. The new team is the one he hand selected one year later when it was time to get back to work.
