The inquiries at the hospital had produced few results, but Dr. Jefferies had given Richard the suggestion to check with the retirement home as to where Rutha Batiste's remains were currently.
Richard hopped on Kablisk's scooter and they proceeded to zoom back to Rutha's last known residence before she passed away. Cruiser and Trigger were patiently waiting in the van while Wyrine worked his skill in the Matrix to examine the electronics in Rutha's former house. After examining the ancient desktop computer earlier and finding nothing substantial, Wyrine followed Trigger's suggestion and hacked the refrigerator - it showed a regular cycle of using up and replacing staples like eggs, milk, meat, and vegetables. This caught everyone's attention. Wasn't Rutha supposed to be deceased? Who was living in her house and using her appliances? Wyrine, Trigger, and Cruiser wanted to see just who would return to the house if they waited long enough, so they began their stakeout. As the three waited near Rutha's residence, Karl and Richard pursued their lead back at the retirement home. The scooter pulled up in front of the building and they were met with a few residents getting some fresh air outside from the comfort of their wheelchairs as attendants looked on. Richard gave himself a mental pep talk to rehearse his conversation with whoever he would first encounter inside in order to gain access to information on Rutha. He decided he would pose as a grandchild of the family, just looking to retrace some of his roots, as he didn't have a strong relationship with them. He walked through the double glass sliding doors and examined his surroundings - it was both a convalescent home and a retirement home. The decor reflected that with creme and white permeating all of the surfaces. Everything looked very sterile and the female ork receptionist was dressed in scrubs. As Richard scanned the generic looking lobby, he was confronted with an elderly man seated in his wheelchair, glaring intensely. The attention made Richard nervous and he wanted to divert the man's gaze as quickly as possible without attracting any notice. He muttered a quick Influence spell and briefly gestured in the direction of the elderly man. The man immediately became very involved in the wall next to him, no longer attempting to stare down Richard. With a sigh of relief, Richard returned his thoughts to engaging the receptionist. Again he shot off a quick Influence spell, this time giving her the conviction that Richard was indeed who he pretended to be. Richard began his story, explaining just as he had recited earlier. As Richard was talking, the receptionist interrupted. "It's interesting, I've never seen your side of the family around. All of Rutha's relatives that came to visit were black." Richard chuckled nervously. He was even more grateful for the Influence spell, as his Asian and Caucasian features would be significantly less convincing without the magic taking effect. He didn't want to linger too long as made two requests - to see Rutha's old room and to locate her burial site. The receptionist offered to get an address while he had a look at her former abode. Richard strolled down the hall until he came to Room 107. He entered and saw that it was a two person dormitory style room, with only one bed occupied by an elderly elf who was non-responsive. He used his Assensing powers to peer into the Astral realm for any signs of magic. It had been many years since Rutha's presence could be felt here, so as expected no trace remained. Returning to the reception desk, he was presented with an address for a mausoleum in Puyallup. Richard decided to press his luck further and inquire about the visitors who saw Rutha in her final days and probed for more addresses. It seemed the power of Influence had its limits, as the receptionist was beginning to question the validity of Richard's claims. The ork was becoming more and more suspicious until she finally asked for some identification before agreeing to proceed with anymore conversation on the subject of Rutha. At this Richard realized that he had overstayed his welcome and was not interested in going any farther with this subterfuge. He made an excuse and quickly excused himself from the premises. They now had an address for Rutha's final resting place and pulled into highway traffic to head towards Puyallup. While Karl and Richard were en route to the mausoleum, Trigger, Wyrine, and Cruiser continued their stakeout. Wyrine sat on a bench in the back of the Bulldog, slipping in and out of consciousness as he stared at the ceiling of the van. Cruiser was jacked into the vehicle, but he too was distracted and had difficulty maintaining focus on their task. It was Trigger who spotted the troll child playing on the sidewalk. Trigger's eyes continued to follow as they played with a rubber ball. The stout troll was playing some kind of shadow game and gradually approaching the house that the runners knew to be Rutha Batiste's. The child was in the yard at this point, dribbling the ball with feet that looked almost comically large. Now all three runners had their attention on the troll and waited. After another thirty seconds of playing with the ball, the child kicked it so that it went around the side of the house and into a narrower space where prying eyes most likely wouldn't interrupt. Running after the ball and disappearing from view, the team leaped into action. Cruiser immediately sent a drone towards the back of the house and caught a fleeting glimpse of the child before it ducked into a door on the back side of the house. Wyrine took the front door and Trigger ran to the back. Before barging into, Wyrine pressed his ear to the door and called out in a neutral voice, asking for Rutha. The sudden conversation appeared to startle the troll and a crash could be heard as something fell to the floor. A timid voice replied to Wyrine, asking how he knew Rutha. Wyrine mustered as much conviction as he could to mention Blossom Free as well as the lengthy efforts he and his team had gone through to track down Rutha. He was of the mind that this child was somehow possessed by Batiste, considering her notoriety as a Vodou Priestess. The adolescent troll was convinced by Wyrine's neutral tone of voice. It agreed to let him in after he also offered to help clean up the mess that was created after being startled by Wyrine's interruption. Wyrine was greeted at the door with a somewhat unkempt youth who had made some effort to wipe its face of dirt and grime, but only partially succeeded. Together, they spent ten minutes wiping the floor, throwing egg shells away, and otherwise arranging the kitchen to be more presentable. At this point Wyrine had the impression that he wasn't speaking with Rutha occuping another body, but rather a child that for some reason came to this house weekly to maintain the image that someone was living here. The troll agreed to take Wyrine to meet Rutha and together they walked to the nearest bus stop. The route was bound for Puyallup, a district that was filled with far more middle class and poverty stricken families, far removed from the idyllic neighborhood of Batiste's old haunt. Trigger returned to the van and Cruiser began following in the wake of the bus as it picked up the troll child and Wyrine, trailing the circuitous path all the way to Puyallup. As the public transit bus and the Bulldog meandered through Seattle, Richard and Kablisk reached the mausoleum where Rutha Batiste's cremated remains were expected to be housed. They entered the old brick building and were met with rows and rows of plaques buried in the concrete walls - the classism was very apparent as the more affluent could afford ornate reliefs made of precious metals where those without the means had the most basic inscriptions carved into the walls themselves. It took a good ten minutes of combing through the plaques, some requiring a deal of effort to decipher their calligraphy script, to finally locate Rutha's final resting place. They were near the end of a hall with a family praying at a relative's internment where the hall met a junction. Kablisk and Richard examined the plaque. It wasn't the shabbiest, but it certainly wasn't a high-class metal tablet, either. The dates matched those found in the death certificate. Below, there was a curious inscription. "I burn, I pine, I perish." The two were unclear as to the meaning, but Richard moved ahead with what he had originally planned to do when coming to the mausoleum. He slumped to the floor with his back against the wall and entered a trance. Astrally projecting his body and leaving his physical form, he examined his environment. There were no signs of any recent magic in this dead place, unsurprisingly. As a final effort, Richard merged with the wall and poked his head into the space where he expected to find an urn or some other reliquary of ashes. After this length investigation, he was unperturbed to discover that the space was entirely empty. Richard returned to his body, realizing that he was locked in an awkward embrace with Kablisk because the family down the hall had started to take notice of Richard's compromising position on the floor. The ruse complete and convincing, they separated and Richard relayed his discoveries, passing them along to the rest of the group. As the bus crossed the threshold from Auburn to Puyallup, the scenery changed dramatically. Gone was the blue collar industry and factories; it was replaced with garbage and derelict buildings. The bus had reached its terminus and the troll disembarked, oblivious to its dismal surroundings. It may have been a burnt out husk of a district, but it was still home to the youth. The troll led Wyrine down the street to an alleyway filled with garbage and set between two boarded up tenements. They made it halfway down the passage before the adolescent halted and pointed at the distinctly out-of-place red mailbox surrounded by a half circle barrier of cleanliness. All of the garbage had been pushed to either and Wyrine had an ominous feeling about what lay before him. The strange mailbox required an explanation and the child did its best to explain, telling Wyrine that it had to be at the post at exactly 8PM every two weeks on Tuesday, no mistakes. In this way, it ensured a steady income for the food runs it made to Rutha's old residence for keeping up the facade. Wyrine wanted to make sure he thanked the troll properly for the gracious help that required no strong-arming or intimidation. He found the nearest Stuffer Shack and told the child to get whatever it wanted. Wyrine immediately regretted saying that as the troll started tallying up as many combo meals as its burly arms could carry. In the end, it wasn't a huge charge and it left the troll dashing off in glee as it would be able to feed its entire family for several meals. This entire episode was closely followed by Cruiser, Trigger, Richard, and Kablisk. Cruiser had perched his Nissan Rotodrone on the corner of a rooftop overlooking the mailbox so it could be continually monitored from now on. Trigger had made his way through the abandoned building on the left side of the alleyway, to discover that it wasn't entirely unoccupied. A small group of squatters on the second floor had made it their dwelling. As long as they didn't interrupt Trigger's work, they would go unharmed. Some time passed as Kablisk and Richard made their way down the freeway to the location in Puyallup to meet up with the team. Trigger was continuing his stakeout from the dilapidated apartment and Cruiser was jacked into his drone to maintain eyes in the sky. Richard entered the Bulldog step-van and slumped into a bench in the back. His astral persona glided towards the mailbox and saw it in the astral plane with a distinctive pulsing sphere surrounding it. His Assensing gathered that it was encompassed by some powerful magic, but exactly what effect it would have on someone who stepped through the boundary was unclear to him. Kablisk was on his way to join the others, but as he advanced down the sidewalk towards the alleyway, his long black trench coat had garnered the attention of a couple of street toughs. The two orks, clad in mechanic's jumpsuits, began posturing and approaching him. Kablisk made an attempt to throw out some Sprawl knowledge in the hopes that it would intimidate them enough and make them believe he was a ganger not to be trifled with. He was only partially successful in the endeavor. It was enough to stop the two orks in their tracks, but not enough to get them to back down. Having caught wind of the altercation, Trigger had made his way to the other end of the abandoned building and knocked out the boards of a window where he would poke his head out to yell out in Or'zet. It was enough to throw the two toughs off of their guard and their bravado quickly deflated. They no longer outnumbered Kablisk and were nervous about starting anything with another ork, so they buried their hands in their pockets and glared at Trigger as they skirted the sidewalk and passed him. One final act of defiance was a quick middle finger thrown in his direction and then they took off down the street. Prodding and poking the barrier with his magical senses, Richard was unsuccessful until he was stopped short by glancing a figure approaching from the rooftops. Cruiser confirmed with his drone and came upon a very curious sight: a small humanoid gliding from building to building. It was as if the person were an astronaut walking on the Moon. Pushing off with one foot, it slowly ascended and descended to push off again. At a point two buildings away from where the Shadowrunners were positioned in front of the mailbox, it stopped in its tracks. Richard's astral body was floating at a point halfway between the van and the mailbox. He could see something none of the other runners were able to discern. The true form of the figure was a dark skinned female dwarf. She was examining Richard's form with curiosity; his Assensing told him that she was not aggressive or bore any ill-will. Wyrine had run to within several meters of the mailbox, calling out to the dwarf and asking her purpose. The dwarf commanded Wyrine to stay put and to let her finish her business, then they would talk. He agreed and the woman advanced. When she reached the lip of the rooftop overlooking the pristine mailbox, she stepped over the ledge and did a ninety degree pivot. Now she was walking down the building, as if gravity were no concern to her. She reached the mailbox and stepped so that now she was on top of it. She reached in and then withdrew her had. The dwarf asked what business Wyrine had. Wyrine explained the lengthy search for Rutha Batiste, the scrolls written in Creole, the passages they had uncovered, and the Celestial Atal. She considered all of his information and promised to communicate it to Rutha. She asked that all five members of the team be present exactly where Wyrine was currently standing in the alley. She would have an answer at this exact time tomorrow evening. With that, she darted off in the direction from which she had just come. The group headed back to their respective residences, there was no point in hanging around the Barrens for another twenty four hours. On their way home, Richard used his commlink to contact Blossom Free and gather more information on this mysterious individual. Blossom told him that he had just met Gigi. She was an Adept, that explained her supernatural physical powers. She was an assistant to Rutha, someone who left Batiste's territory to do errands for her. Blossom was surprised to hear that no altercations had taken place when they first met. Gigi was not well-known for having an even temper. The Shadowrunners recuperated at home and returned to Puyallup refreshed. The team stood three abreast in front and one in the back row, with Cruiser's fly drone representing him. The promised hour came and Gigi was nowhere to be seen. Richard checked the astral realm and found her, motioning for him to follow. She sped off and he spent some time carefully tracking her astral signature until he came to the end of a trail where it met a cave fashioned out of garbage. Richard diligently retraced his astral steps and returned to the crew. With some memorization of certainly alleyway landmarks, he was able to bring the other three runners to the same cave he had seen through his astral persona. The cave reeked of rotten refuse and dripped from the top of the entrance. No one was interested in getting drenched in garbage juices, so the runners scrounged for usable pieces of cardboard that would protect them as they passed through the mouth. Together they reached a metal walkway that overlooked an underground black market. The space appeared to be a former bomb shelter and had been commandeered to suit these less-than-legal ventures. Stalls were selling all manner of goods: BTL chips, drugs, weapons. The team passed through, the patrons indifferent to their presence. The smell of oily grilled meats assaulted their noses and they followed the corridor to the end of the hall, where they were greeted by a stern-looking Gigi. Gigi pushed open the thick blast door and the team adjusted to a darkness dotted by clusters of candles spread around the room. A glum looking curly haired brown woman dressed in patched robes spoke in a thick Irish accent. "I wondered when you'd finally come." Wyrine explained what the group had discovered ever since their investigation stemmed from the scrolls they had acquired way back when Taff Chakaodza was held captive by a pair of mages. He told Rutha that she was the best person to solve this mystery. Rutha pondered for a moment and turned to her table to consult her bones. She rolled them carefully on the stained and splintered wood, peering at the results. "I'll need you to return with the physical scrolls, I don't do digital. I'll be waiting." Richard had one final question before they departed. What was with the inscription on her mausoleum plaque? "You'll find out soon enough," she said, leaving them thoroughly perplexed.
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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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