Wyrine had succeeded in putting a mark on the icon that looked like a Pacific Northwest Native American design of a killer whale. He wanted to do the digital equivalent of pulling out all of the wires and reconnecting them into the wrong sockets.
After some finagling with the code and the trial and error of Hack on the Fly, Wyrine secured two more marks with his signature T-Rex tooth and proceeded to do a combination of Edit File, Control Device, and finally Crash Program. This would effectively accomplish the goal of rearranging all of the master panel's controls and reboot the system with all of the monkey wrenches locked in place. While this was occurring, Trigger kept an eye on the two individuals who appeared to be taking turns using the restroom. They completed their business and stepped into the hallway. One faced towards the entryway to the control room where Trigger and Wyrine were positioned, while the second individual faced the two employees in the office across from the restroom. As Trigger was waiting to see what the next move was for these two people, Kablisk and Richard made their way across the roof and towards the pipeline where they could climb down and wait for Cruiser's van to pick them up. Kablisk climbed over the railing onto the pipe where he waited for Richard to summon the mana energy necessary to initiate a Levitate spell. Richard had little trouble focusing his power on Kablisk and lowered him the four meters from the pipe to the ground without breaking a sweat. Next, he repeated the spell for himself and again adroitly completed the invocation. They stood at the ready to climb into the van when the time came to act. Positioned behind one of the terminals in the control room, Trigger saw one of the two individuals approaching the door in front of him. Quickly, Trigger placed the Nissan Rotodrone directly in the path of the advancing person, so that the drone would confront it as soon as the entrance slid open. The person approached the door, oblivious to what they were faced with as soon as the entrance soundlessly opened. The Rotodrone opened fire and they took a stun round straight to the chest. The drone's sensors relayed everything it saw and now the runners knew they faced two people in full riot protection gear. They must have come from the protest to recuperate. Trigger seized the opportunity of the distraction to charge the person, but they managed to juke out of the way and Trigger sprawled into a corner of the hallway. The Nissan drone only managed to get a couple of shots off before the Raiden assault rifle tore the machine into shrapnel. While the riot gear-clad individual still had their attention on the drone, Trigger squeezed and attempted to put several bullets in their back. Surprisingly unsuccessful, the guard must have used a sixth sense to twist out of the way at the last moment. This was extremely close-quarters combat and the person returned fire at Trigger, but his armor was strong enough to shrug off the bullets. In a final aggressive shot, Trigger screamed and let loose another burst. This one found its mark and put the heavily armored person down. Their armor wasn't enough to stop bullets at this range. The second guard had rounded the corner in the dozen seconds that had passed and Trigger was ready to put several bullets into this individual as well. With less of a violent dance of death this time, the second riot security guard was quickly dispatched, sprawling onto the tiled floor. Wyrine had finished all of his sabotage to the control system for the substation. He noticed that several figures were speeding towards him, their avatars made to look like fox designs in the Pacific Northwest Native American art style. One whipped its tail at Wyrine's T-Rex persona and it took the full force of the attack. Wyrine's physical muscles tensed up, as if he were straining all of his muscles to fight a seizure. Kablisk saw that Wyrine was in serious trouble and sent his Fault Sprite to locate the T-Rex avatar and attack the Killer IC. Several seconds elapsed and the sprite found Wyrine's digital location, immediately launching its Electron Storm. The fox was arrested with forks of lightning, forcing it to divert its attention from Wyrine. The second fox avatar made a swipe at Wyrine, connecting, but less deadly than the previous attack. He was still feeling the serious effects of the first assault and was running out of time to endure this kind of digital abuse while in Hot Sim. Finally, he was able to successfully jack out of the Matrix and fell to the floor, robbed of all energy from the Killer IC combat. The fatigue from exerting himself in cyberspace was overwhelming and now all of his muscles were on fire. He dragged himself out of the control room to follow Trigger, examining the two deceased bodies on the floor. Trigger had done his job as the Street Samurai. The two could see lights and hear machines slowly powering down, leaving nothing but the emergency lights active; the Crash Program forced reboot was taking effect in the main control room. They crept along the hallway and Trigger used his thermographic vision to look into the office where previously there were two employees working at their cubicles. He saw them both cowering under their desks with their hands shielding their heads. They were no threat to the two Shadowrunners. Wyrine found the corridor where the two riot gear-clad individuals had entered the building. They stood outside near the doors to wait for Cruiser, who was peeling around the southeast corner of the building with Kablisk and Richard in tow. The sensors on Cruiser's Bulldog picked up a large armored van approaching the substation. They were presumably coming from the protest and Cruiser wasn't interested in slowing down too much to give the vehicle an attack of opportunity. He slowed the GMC down to about 15kph as Trigger and Wyrine timed their jumps to land inside at precisely the right time. They threw themselves in and Cruiser swerved right to spin the van back in the other direction. The Bulldog peeled out, returning to the back of the building in the hopes that the armored van hadn't spotted them. Just in case, they wanted to be ready to unleash a full-on attack and get off of Athabaskan property as quickly as possible. Kablisk sent his Machine Sprite on a hunt to locate the Matrix icon for the van. Richard closed his eyes and concentrated on a levitation spell to target the vehicle. Trigger readied his Cavalier sniper rifle in the Bulldog's turret. Wyrine was still recovering from the extreme exhaustion of the Matrix altercation. The team had reached the northwest corner of the facility and through thermographic saw that the armored van had stopped where the parking lot met the road back to Bear Lake. It was waiting for the Shadowrunners to make a move. Cruiser mentally jammed on the gas pedal and swung out around the parking lot, using the few cars dotting the lot as cover. Trigger kept his gaze fixated on the turret he spotted on the roof of the van. As soon as a figure appeared, he would launch a high velocity round. Richard threw his spell, but to no avail. He was trying to lift a one-ton armored van and channeling this kind of energy was a new challenge for him. A security guard much like the two Trigger had encountered earlier appeared in the turret. Trigger took a shot, but the turret provided enough cover that the person could duck out of the way easily. Kablisk's Machine Sprite had located the Matrix icon for the van and began bombarding it with its Gremlins ability. The Machine Sprite only managed small successes with the attacks, causing random sensor malfunctions, but it was enough to throw them off guard. The riot personnel in the van's turret returned fire, but Trigger also benefited from his own secure location and managed to avoid the bullet easily. But this time, he quickly responded and the projectile penetrated the armor with ease. The body slumped into the turret, out of view of Trigger's grin of satisfaction. Richard's second attempt at a Levitation spell was successful. He held out his hands and concentrated deeply, weaving the mana energies around him and lifted the armored van eight meters into the air. With a rotating motion of his hand, he gently flipped the vehicle upside down and watched the body in the turret plummet to the ground. Richard lowered the van back to the asphalt, where the roof crushed the corpse and immobilized it. Having disposed of the last of their opposition, the runners sped through Bear Lake, eager to get back to the neon lights and grime of the Seattle Metroplex where their credstick rewards were waiting. The Shadowrunners' endorphins were finally wearing off after the heavy action they had been a part of at the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline when a trio of Barghest came barreling out of the forest on a collision course to T-bone the Bulldog. Cruiser's sensors and quick reflexes gave him the opportunity to swerve just enough to avoid their charge. As an added touch, Richard calmly cast Mass Confusion and left the three metacreatures stalled in their tracks in the middle of the highway, looking around with perplexity. The team made it all the way back to Seattle with no further incidents, doing their best to spend the 48-hour shipping freighter ride recovering from the burnout of their involved mission. Cruiser checked in with Esther Anaba Half-Moon and arranged to have her meet him and the rest of the crew at what had become their local haunt, Punk Monkeys. Esther was in the middle of more of her questionable work - there were always background sounds that made the listener wonder whether she was dealing with patients or victims. She promised to meet the runners around 2am. At Punk Monkeys, Cruiser spent his time chatting up Maxine in his awkward style. He admitted that he was no good with the ladies, but Maxine was engaging him in conversation with a smile on her face. The rest of the group was upstairs in the board room making use of the mini bar. 2am rolled around and Esther walked in wearing an all-black business casual outfit. Cruiser led her up to the meeting room to meet everyone else. Esther cut straight to the chase, she was never interested in small talk. Eyeing each runner individually, she said, "The people I spoke with had many good things to say about your sabotage. It has cost Athabaskan upwards of tens of millions of nuyen by this point and they are still working on recovering from the damage. I will certainly consider your team for future runs as your success here has proven your skill." Esther took each of their credsticks and slotted it into the device she pulled out of her suit jacket. Each person was compensated over the agreed upon price, given the effectiveness of their sabotage. The team returned to their personal abodes to get some well deserved rest. Decisions on what direction to take next would begin in the morning. Wyrine and Cruiser, the insomniacs, struggled to sleep, but Kablisk, Richard, and Trigger had a full night's rest and woke up ready to take on the day. Everyone conversed on their commlinks about what to do next. Some were eager to find out what other missions were available, but eventually agreed that any runs inquired about right now would most likely have to get started immediately. The majority of the crew was interested in getting back to their investigation on the magical artifacts and Rutha Batiste. The Shadowrunners examined the evidence they had gathered so far: Rutha's death certificate and leads on research into Creole incantations being done at MIT, UCLA, and UoD. The universities were long distance and not easy to hack, so the team agreed to look deeper into Rutha Batiste. A few minutes of decking from Wyrine and Kablisk produced some leads: names of nurses and orderlies from daily reports on Rutha's life in a retirement home in Puyallup, an address where her belongings were meant to be sent after her passing, and a hospital location for the doctor who issued the death certificate for Rutha's body. The runners decided to split up. Kablisk and Richard would speak with Hue Jefferies, the doctor whose signature adorned the death certificate. Cruiser, Trigger, and Wyrine would head to the address where her personal effects were expected to reside. The trio arrived at the house, situated in a charming neighborhood that reeked of retirement age residents. The house was quaint, a carbon copy of all the other residences on the street. Parking near the house, Wyrine entered the Matrix to examine the house for any electronics he could exploit. He quickly zeroed in on a home computer that dated itself with the minimal digital architecture. Sifting through the data stored in the files, most of the information was unimpressive and not noteworthy. Until he came across some correspondence between Rutha and her daughter. The daughter might prove to be a lead they could explore later. The other curious finding was a lot of basic information files on vodou - if Rutha was supposed to be some kind of Priestess, what need would she have for introductory texts? Kablisk and Richard pulled up to the hospital in his scooter. Kablisk waited in the parking lot while Richard planned to use his social skills in the company of the doctor Hue Jefferies. Richard gave a rather implausible story about a former student interested in paying respects to Rutha's body and needing to speak with Dr. Jefferies in the hopes that he could provide the address to a cemetery or crematorium. The sheer bizarreness of the story may have been enough to convince the receptionist and nurse at the front desk because with a smile and some button presses, a call was placed to ask Dr. Jefferies to make an appearance at the lobby to speak with Richard. Minutes passed and a suave elf with slicked-back blonde hair and an expensive manicure appeared. He was put off by the shaman in front of him and Richard's explanation only confused him further. Hue Jefferies didn't have much to say; he was either unconvinced by Richard's explanation or legitimately had no answer to give. Jefferies flashed his sparkling smile and suggested that Richard speak with the people at Rutha's retirement home because he takes no part in burial services and simply confirms the death of a patient by notarizing the appropriate documents.
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The team was back on the road and now had their captive to interrogate. Different members wrestled wit h ideas on how to deal with the ork who had attempted to murder them. Both of his compatriots had been left behind with the burning car pushed deep in the woods to be forgotten.
The group agreed that they needed to confirm no reinforcements would be coming to settle a score for him and if he were to be released, he would make no effort to pursue them. Richard cast a healing spell as delicately as he could manage, so as not to rehabilitate their prisoner too much. He followed up that spell with his Influence, to ensure that his answers would be as truthful as possible. The ork came to and Richard began plying him with questions, aided by his social skill prowess. "What were you being paid for? What will you do if we let you go?" The answers were satisfactory for the runners - the ork was tasked with defense of the substation and tracking down any Shadowrunners entering the territory. He had no interest in the Shadowrun business anymore, considering he had just seen his comrades gunned down with lethal precision. The team came to a consensus on keeping the ork tied up at the wrists and releasing him unconscious and camouflaged in the forest. Kablisk swung at the mercenary with his shock gloves, connected, and rendered him unconscious again. He used his ability to adeptly disguise the ork's presence in the foliage. Kablisk returned to the GMC Bulldog and Cruiser gunned the accelerator. The runners made it the rest of the way to Bear Lake without any further incident. They approached the town and pulled into a small camping area enshrouded by towering maples. Cruiser released his MCT Fly-Spy drone and launched it into the sky overhead to examine the path from Bear Lake to the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline substation. It was a relatively straight shot through the town and towards the compound. The corridor of trees formed by the valley funneled one's gaze directly between the mountains on either side. The team realized that they hadn't eaten in nearly a day, so they chose one of their most innocuous members to pick up some groceries in town - Wyrine. He got out of the step van and walked to a simple market in Bear Lake. Wyrine picked up an assortment of simple meals and snacks and laid them on the counter. The cashier made small talk, asking about his plans while in town. Wyrine was a bit put off by this sudden friendliness; it was a significant departure from the 'I don't know you and you don't know me' attitude of the Seattle Metroplex, but he did his best to engage with the staff. A point of interest for Wyrine in the conversation was the cashier bringing up a protest or possible riot in the vicinity of the oil pipeline, starting sometime early tomorrow. The clerk didn't go into details, but it sounded like a good distraction for when the Shadowrunners planned to hit the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline substation and cripple the machinery inside. Hoping his small talk was enough to satisfy the curiosity of the cashier, he paid for the food and walked back to the van, where he was greeted with a dormant RV on the opposite side of the parking lot. The encounter with the Shadowrunners back on the highway from Kitimat had Wyrine on edge and he was immediately suspicious of the camper. After dropping off the groceries and checking in with the group, Wyrine volunteered to chat with the occupants of the RV. Trigger's thermographic vision counted three individuals in the vehicle. Wyrine knocked on the metal door that would give him access to the cabin portion of the camper. After some shuffling and a period of time passed that seemed inordinately long for such a small space, the door cracked open. Wyrine was met with an outdoors-type individual: weathered skin that had clearly spent the majority of its life in the sun and a heavy, dark beard adorned his face. The man's expression was neutral when Wyrine attempted to make small talk and introduce himself. He didn't really have anything of note to talk about, so the conversation ran dry rather quickly. Wyrine excused himself and upon returning to the vehicle, asked what Trigger had seen through his thermographic vision during the conversation. Trigger declared that he had seen no movement from the other two individuals while Wyrine engaged with the man. It was extremely suspicious and before the runners could come to a decision on how to proceed, Trigger took it upon himself to throw formality to the wind and went to the RV under the pretense of needing to borrow some salt. Again, the door only cracked open wide enough for a sliver of the man's face to poke out, but Trigger, continuing to see no movement from the other two people, kicked the door in. The man flew back, prone on the floor of the cabin. Trigger stepped in to see a woman and boy bound to chairs in the kitchenette area of the RV. By this time, Richard and Wyrine had caught up with Trigger and were met with the hostage scene. Trigger wanted to make absolutely certain that there was no mistaking what he suspected was happening here, so he asked Richard for an Influence spell again. Trigger confirmed that the man with the dark, cracked skin was a serial killer. He had murdered a number of innocents already and he was simply continuing his spree with this woman and her child. He currently had no other living victims. Wyrine led the woman and child out of the cabin and shut the door behind him, so Trigger could get to business. Trigger repeated stabbed the magically dazed man with his [knife], leaving the man in a quickly widening pool of blood. Wyrine did his best to comfort the woman while they walked back to Bear Lake. He made a convincing point to keep the police out of this matter because he and his cohorts would take of everything. It was enough to assuage the woman from fears of retaliation. In the back of her mind, she already had an idea of what end the murderer would meet. Wyrine made one last effort to probe for any connections to the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline, in case that could be exploited, but time was short and the runners were overstaying their welcome in the town. Richard and Trigger examined the inside of the camper for any useful items, but it was all standard camping equipment. They had more than enough trappings from the soldiers of fortune they had disposed of previously. Trigger noted that this serial killer must have been keeping his tools in another location, removed from the jejune environment of the RV. Wyrine returned from parting with the woman and her child. He entered the driver's side of the camper and disengaged the brake, rolling it as deep into the woods as it could go before being stopped by the vegetation. The team realized at this point that no good would come out of remaining this close to a crime scene. Cruiser pulled the GMC Bulldog out of the campground and found a place closer to Bear Lake where they could hunker down to pass the night undisturbed. A number of members awoke to the distant sound of a police siren. The group wasted no time packing up and readying themselves to head to their mission location. Out the rear view window, they glimpsed the police car pulling into the campground where they had parked yesterday and exacted street justice on the kidnapper. They could only assume that someone had discovered the camper and contacted the authorities. After passing through Bear Lake as inconspicuously as possible, the runners examined the path before them. It was a relatively open and elevated line to the substation. The majority of forest in this area had been felled to make way for the pipeline, construction, and a clear line of sight. Only a handful of solitary pine trees dotted the landscape here. The group found that their chances for remaining unseen would be much greater if they followed the tree line that skirted the base of the mountain range that created the valley in Bear Lake. Cruiser cautiously guided his step van along the edge of the forest, keeping his sensors alert for any interlopers. He stopped the vehicle and parked at the cusp of the trees meeting open field, the most direct path to cover where the crew could sidestep the shadow of the pipeline and remain hidden. Everyone besides Cruiser exited the Bulldog and proceeded to sneak to the shadows of the hulking metal structure in front of them. Everyone was successful in sneaking to the pipeline undetected, though some were far more capable and accomplished it with greater finesse. At this point, Wyrine reached out with his Renraku Tsurugi cyberdeck to perceive what electronics were accessible in the vicinity for tampering. He located a camera pointed in their direction and proceeded to use his Hack on the Fly skills to rework the codes necessary for operating it, granting him access to the controls. He edited the files contained in the camera, setting up a 24 hour loop of the previous day and ensured that there were no anomalies in the footage that would raise any red flags. The team approached the substation and recognized that the easiest entry point would probably be on the roof, but the realization had dawned on them that no one had thought to bring some of the more important climbing equipment. Thankfully, Cruiser made use of his Nissan Rotodrone and had it ferry the rappelling gloves to the Shadowrunners. Now that they were properly equipped to climb, they went up one by one, with Trigger first. He assisted the other climbers who lacked the same prowess he had in scaling the pipeline. With everyone having ascended the metal structure successfully, the group cautiously proceeded to the roof to examine any obstacles that were in their way before reaching the door. There were some large vents and smokestacks belching out steam and chemicals, but they found nothing of note until they reached the door that would take them into the building. Wyrine caught the electronic lock and immediately jumped in to hack it from his position. He easily defeated the security measures and gave the lock instructions to only open from the outside, safeguarding against hazards from within the building. Opening the door a crack, Cruiser sent his Shiawase Kanmushi drone in to check the situation inside. The drone concealed itself under the metal grating of the walkway that ran the length of the second floor, winding its way around the various machinery. The drone spotted one of the technicians below, monitoring the output levels of a particular pump. The Kanmushi continued to creep along the underside of the walkway until it reached the other side of the building and located the office area, where Wyrine's hacking had revealed the master control panel to be. It entered the ventilation system to continue monitoring the whole of the office area through thermographic means. Now that the area had been confirmed to be largely devoid of personnel, Trigger and Wyrine advanced into the facility. Richard and Kablisk elected to stay behind, so the Technomancer could begin his hacking sabotage on the machinery. Trigger and Wyrine snuck past the worker below them with ease, being sure to walk with purpose and not make sudden movements. The roar of the equipment in the facility also help to remove the sound factor from the equation. Kablisk was in the Athabaskan host, examining the plethora of icons fashioned after Pacific Northwest Native American imagery representing eagles, fish, and killer whales. He sifted through the data to unearth some useful information about a weak point he could exploit for maximum interference to the instruments. After minutes in Matrix time, really a matter of seconds in the physical world, Kablisk zeroed in on a number of maintenance logs that specified a particular pump that had had frequent issues with voltage overload. After a successful edit to the program managing the threshold for electrically overwhelming the apparatus, he called upon his Machine Sprite and instructed it to use its Gremlins ability to wreak havoc on the pump. It was primed to go off at a moment's notice. Trigger and Wyrine continued to the hallway that led to a series of offices for the pipeline substation. They treaded carefully, weapons at the ready. They made a left to creep down the nondescript corridor and Trigger noticed two employees sitting at desks across from each other. Since they were facing one another, there was little chance of the Shadowrunners being noticed, but the door to their office was open and they didn't want to take any chances. One at a time, being as discreet as possible, they edged to the doorway and then quickly crossed the threshold to get to the end of the hallway, where they were met with the entrance to the control room. During Wyrine's time on the roof waiting for the ok from Cruiser's drone, he spent time tracking down this physical location and also disabled the door's maglock. Wyrine passed through the incapacitated security and plugged into the control console; he was immediately transported to the master controls for the entire facility. While Wyrine was occupied with accessing the terminal, Trigger spotted two larger individuals walking down the hall in their direction. Their arms were positioned in a way that they were clearly carrying something long and large that would undoubtedly be firearms. At the last second they turned right into a small room. |
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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