Unfortunately, Schuss had to excuse himself from the Runner group for personal reasons that he chose to leave undisclosed at the moment. But he left a referral for Cruiser to follow up on. Cruiser got in contact with a potential new Street Samurai, Trigger.
Trigger was a heavy drinker with some personal issues, but extremely reliable in a gunfight. He also came from a background with extensive military training, having served on a number of different fronts and in different military outfits. Richard investigated the materials that he took off of the bodies of the two people that were holding Taff Chakaodza hostage in the previous session. After a conversation with his Talismonger, a harmless looking old shaman with Coke-bottle glasses who smokes far too many drugs, Richard came to find that he was in possession of Astral Powder, Orichalcum, and a clay pot used for Vodou rituals. He elected to spend some time in a drug addled state, joining with his Talismonger to pass the hours before the evening meetup at Punk Monkeys. Wyrine was working hard on the maglock key he had recovered from a body he had broken with a deadly fall from a crane in the Taff hostage incident. In the Matrix, he was faced with a large oak door that was difficult to penetrate, but eventually gave way after a number of successful Hack on the Fly actions. Manipulating the data until the ancient door creaked open, it gave way to an empty black void. When he stepped through, he was immediately confronted with a flashing strobe of a program that attacked. The strobe flitted in and out, sometimes splitting into two to dodge Wyrine's T-Rex persona. After a minute of intense combat, Wyrine came to the conclusion that his Decking abilities alone would not be enough - he had already taken a decent amount of damage and raised his Overwatch score high enough to be concerning, so he recouped his losses, jacking out to later call for reinforcements in the form of Kablisk and his sprites. After Wyrine jacked out of the Matrix, noticeably injured from the hot-sim experience which left him with bruises and contusions from the biofeedback, he made his way to Punk Monkeys - it was nearly time for the group's evening meetup. Punk Monkeys had a DJ playing tracks from a band that hailed from the early 2000s, Social Distortion, blaring through the speakers placed on either side of the hollowed out warehouse turned punk nightclub. Maxine, dressed in her usual punk professional aesthetic, greeted clientele with a smile and some friendly chit-chat as she cleaned glasses and mixed drinks for patrons. Wyrine and Cruiser were the only two familiar with the routine of meeting in the secluded board room set up above the stage and behind tinted glass. They collected Kablisk and Richard, while on his own Trigger made his way upstairs past the fraying and tattered velvet rope signaling the stairs to the second floor. Once everyone was situated and introduced, Trigger was asked to present himself and explain how he could best fit into the group. He talked about his military service and extensive combat training, his previous freelance work, and his interest in a more permanent position with a group. He was hoping to prove himself with some fieldwork first and foremost. While no work was currently on the table, now was the time to set those plans in motion. Wyrine, this time with the assistance of the Technomancer and his summoned sprites entered the electronic guts of the maglock key. Kablisk peered hard into the workings of the oak door and with his Editor Resonance, reworked the programming of the obstacle to remain open indefinitely. The two stepped into the void, one after the other, and engaged with the strobing defense program. This time, the fight was a more even match. The triple threat of Wyrine's Data Spikes thrusting violently into the program, Kablisk's relentless Pulse Storm, and the sprite's hammering Electron Storm proved to be too much for the strobe to stand against. After several feints and jukes, the strobe dissipated, having succumbed to the onslaught of crackling electricity from three different personas assaulting the program. Richard, wide-eyed in shock, noticed the physical damage that was manifesting on Wyrine's face. It looked like he had been in a street brawl, although he had been sitting in a chair in this boardroom the entire time. After Richard had expended some magical energy to heal Kablisk of his fatigue from a number of Resonance actions, he turned his attention to Wyrine's heavy bruises and nosebleed. Reaching the end of the hall, Wyrine and Kablisk were confronted with a one-way mirror, unsure of how to proceed. A successful Matrix Perception check helped them understand it to be another barrier, this one password protected. The Technomancer once again summoned his unexplained powers to rearrange the ones and zeroes for a password that became simply 'password.' Wyrine input the simple eight letter word and the window peeled back to reveal an email window with scrolling programming data. Wyrine tried several times to decipher the language, but was only met with limited success. He decided to copy the data and make an attempt later on to decode the electronic cipher. While Wyrine and Kablisk were working on cracking the security of the maglock key, Trigger placed a call to his Fixer and Cruiser placed a call to his Ex-Gang Member Street Doc, Esther Anaba Half-Moon. The Fixer needed some time to look into her options for providing a mission, but Cruiser's Street Doc immediately had a proposition. There was a need for some eco-terrorism sabotage in the Native American Nations Athabaskan Oil pipeline. Cruiser said he would talk it over with the group before accepting or declining. After some recollection, Richard, Cruiser, and Trigger thought about what the possibilities for 'eco-terrorism' meant. It could be either Toxic Shamans furthering their agenda of poisoning the world, freedom fighters attempting to overthrow the efforts of megacorporations to further alter the environmental landscape, or Native Americans trying to reclaim their land and prevent further destruction of their ancestral domain. While the conversations with their contacts were taking place, Richard handed over a Personal Data Assistant he had recovered from one of the bodies in the Taff hostage incident. The PDA was locked and would require the expertise of a Decker or Technomancer to breach the electronic defenses. Kablisk elected to take a crack at the PDA solo and would call on Wyrine if needed. Kablisk phased his mind out of the physical realm and tapped into the electronic energies of the Matrix. He was instantly faced with an immense steel wall, part of what looked like a stereotypical prison compound. After a few tries to discern his next action, he again used his Editor Resonance to twist and shape the ones and zeroes in order to create an opening in the seemingly impenetrable wall. Kablisk stepped into the compound and was met with a large grid of square shafts buried into the prison yard. After some attempts to comprehend the data flowing around him, he hit upon some shopping lists that matched items now in Richard's possession. A combination of a conversation with Richard's Talismonger and some adept Matrix searching at the hands of Wyrine revealed a list of ingredients necessary for uncovering the location of a mystical artifact known as the Celestial Atal. Another possibly useful piece of information unearthed in combing through the PDA was a name - Rutha Batiste. The only note about her in the contact list was the word 'vodou.' Trigger's Fixer called back with another option for a mission: harassment and intimidation of two freelancers who frequently were called upon by the Mafia to do work of varying legalities. It seemed that some branch of the Yakuza was pitting itself against this local Mafia family and wanted to dispose of the mercenary elements in order to tip the playing field in their favor. "It would be a much more drawn out mission when compared to the eco-terrorism sabotage, though the compensation would certainly make up for it," Trigger recognized. They had yet to make a decision on which mission to go with, if any, but elected to pursue the lead with the information gained from the PDA and the maglock key. Upon closer inspection of the data Wyrine had copied and retrieved from the electronic key, it revealed an address and general description of the building where the key was meant to be used. The repository revealed a communal space in Snohomish - a street lined with hipster-esque establishments, selling all means of artisanal DIY creations. The building was a two story warehouse, with individual storefronts embedded in long rows up and down the length of the space. The data on the key put it in an enclosed space far down the hall on the second floor. The outside of the room had the trappings of a magic user - a number of charms dangled from a ledge in front of the barred and frosted glass of the front window. Trigger, Wyrine, and Richard had decided to go together, so as not to arouse suspicion with five Shadowrunners strolling through a venue that was not generally part of their scene. They arrived at the door in question and with Trigger having one hand on the grip of his gun and the other hand on the cold metal door handle, Richard stopped him. "There's a magical barrier here," Richard observed, shifting into the Astral Plane to examine the shimmering multicolored facade confronting them. Richard called upon his Shamanic powers and with his arms outstretched, dispelled the energies anchored to the front of the room. Something inside immediately caught his attention in the Astral Plane: a hound, engulfed in flames. It absolutely did not look like the kind of friendly animal one would pet without hesitation. Trigger seemed nonplussed by Richard's new information. Trigger had found an opportunity to make his talents useful and as Wyrine turned the maglock key, he opened the door. The hound immediately focused on the intruder and lunged at the open egress. It was surprisingly rebuffed as moments before the handle had turned, Richard placed his own magical energies in the form of a Mana Barrier in place of the obstacle he had just discharged. Wyrine peered into the dimly lit space as the hound paced around in circles, biding its time. The room was full of what one would expect to see in a magic user's domain - scrolls, ingredients, runes, and a large ominous looking symbol emblazoned on the concrete floor.
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AuthorI'm Dobie, GM of this Shadowrun group. I've been playing Shadowrun since Second Edition, though I had a serious hiatus and have just recently picked up Fifth Edition to get back into the Shadowrun universe. Archives
September 2017
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