[Lextius]

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.

[Zilfer]

*Wait's patiently for the next update, that last one has a bit of suspense going for me *

[Lextius]

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.

[AngryCow]

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.

[Lextius]

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.

[Lextius]

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.

[Lextius]

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

[Ympulse]

+1 for this. Really good stuff.

[eighth circuit]

Yeah, I really enjoy reading about your games. Keep it up!

[GiraffeShaman]

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.

[Lextius]

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.

[Lextius]

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.

[Ympulse]

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

[Lextius]

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. 

[Kayzie]

nice read as always .. waiting for the next session.