The team picked up where they had left off in the previous session - poised to act on the canine creature pacing agitatedly inside of the mage's workshop.
After minutes of conversing and bickering between the three Shadowrunners Wyrine, Trigger, and Richard, Wyrine's attention focused on the small crowd gathering in the open area of the warehouse space one floor below. Standing in front of the door suspiciously for as long as they had, the three had gained the attention of some of the inhabitants of the building. Losing patience, Trigger prepared to step through the threshold of Richard's Mana Barrier, but with a quick word and an implanted thought, Richard successfully cast an Influence spell to temporarily befriend the Barghest with Trigger. Trigger shrugged and stepped through the doorway, now confronted with a panting and tail wagging timber-wolf sized dog. Richard explained that his spell would be effective for approximately four minutes, so Trigger should make his foray into the mage's workshop with haste. Trigger felt extremely out of his element and was unsure what he was encountering. He saw an ominous looking sign scrawled on the floor, a variety of scrolls posted haphazardly on the walls, and unidentified materials peppering the space in an unknown orientation. With the limited knowledge he had of the magical realm, he determined the hanging scrolls to be the most likely useful items and began carefully gathering them and putting them into old shopping bags he came across after glancing around the room. After several minutes of wandering the room and collecting the scrolls, he handed them off to Wyrine, passing his arms through the Mana Barrier. They were in the midst of arguing about what to do with the Barghest when it dawned on Trigger that the Influence spell had worn off and he was now faced with a snarling creature as it furiously lunged at him. The dog sunk its teeth into Trigger, but thankfully his particularly thick armored jacket shrugged off the strength of the fangs and he pulled away from the attack. Wyrine confirmed with Trigger that he could handle this fight alone while he made he way towards the exit of the building, bagged scrolls in hand. Trigger and the Barghest continued their dance, pivoting, lunging, knife swiping, and circling the confined workshop. Wyrine had the inspiration to gain the attention of the gathering crowd below by enlisting the help of Richard in a distraction posing as a fight. Wyrine whispered into his commlink to duck as he took a swing at Richard's face. Richard began shouting out, "Did you see what he did to me? He's trying to kill me!' The two exchanged expletives and continued heading towards the exit, now drawing the eyes of everyone who was previously fixated on the activities upstairs. Another lunge and another sidestep, Trigger took advantage of a moment of the Barghest being off-guard in order to sink his combat knife deep into its side. The dog immediately collapsed to the cold concrete floor and a pool of blood quickly surrounded the animal. Trigger wiped his blade and re-sheathed his weapon. Trigger confirmed the kill with the rest of the team and Richard returned to the mage's workshop in order to gather some of the materials that were seen spread around the room. He found bluish powder, green spice, yellowish sand, baby teeth, pink gems, and small animal bones. Having scrounged up enough shopping bags for four of the ingredients, he elected to take the sand, teeth, gems, and bones for his Talismonger to examine later. Once Richard completed his collection task, Trigger followed him quickly out of the room, closing the door behind them - Cruiser notified them his van's sensors had detected a police car en route and it was time to make tracks and get out of there. Everyone jumped into the van and Cruiser pulled out of his parking space, making it less than a block down the road before the police passed in the other direction, stopping in front of the warehouse. Clearly someone had notified law enforcement about the Shadowrunners' behavior. By this point it was about three in the morning and Snohomish streets were devoid of cars and people. The five agreed to meet at Punk Monkeys at 9pm this evening to discuss the next steps for the group. After some much needed rest and an insomnia-free sleep for Wyrine and Cruiser, everyone made use of the day to take care of errands and further investigate leads involving the mage's workshop and the mystical artifacts. Wyrine opted to dig deeper in the PDA that was recovered from one of the mage hostage-takers that had been dispatched when Taff was at their mercy. A thorough search of the device looking for any connections to the name they had previously recovered, Rutha Batiste, turned up several lines of something in a language Wyrine did not recognize. A little Matrix searching brought up a translation of what was originally in Creole: Doubt thou the stars are fire Doubt that the sun doth move Doubt truth to be a liar The English translation made little sense as it stood, so Wyrine decided to work with Kablisk to conduct a lengthier Matrix search to home in on any online resources that contained either the passage or more details on Rutha Batiste's life. A half an hour of combing through data brought a few pieces of information. A death certificate dated five years ago, an address for a retirement home, and confirmation of retirement from her last place of employment. Furthermore, there were three major universities in North America that were involved in magical research: UCLA, the University of Denver, and MIT - the University of Denver did possess some materials that contained the three translated lines. The materials in question were buried in the UoD host, so Wyrine and Kablisk elected to make a run and try to gain access. This host was set up a bit different than their previous illegal intrusions. The two needed to make themselves authenticated users, mimicking UoD professors or students, before gaining any admittance. Kablisk made his first attempt with a Hack on the Fly action, but found the host to be resistant and aggressive. The UoD immediately recognized an illegal intruder venturing to gain permission and launched countermeasures in the form of a Jammer IC modeled after the host's motif of a chessboard. The knight piece charged at Kablisk and he maneuvered out of the way of the attack. Making a counterattack, the chess piece shrugged off the minimal damage and pressed its assault. Calling upon his Fault Sprite to distract the IC, Kablisk once again tried to manipulate the host into giving him permission to enter. A second time UoD proved too secure and another Jammer IC made a beeline for his location. By this time Wyrine had appeared to find Kablisk wrangling with two IC. A Fault Sprite modeled after a spray can of hair care products was also entangled with one of the programs, using an Electron Storm that scrambled its ability to home in on the hackers. A few fierce Data Spikes and the continued intense storm from the sprite managed to eradicate both IC in a shower of pixels. Wyrine agreed to make one pass at the host to see if he could gain access. Again, entry was denied, but this time the margin of error was significantly lower and therefore no countermeasures were launched. Regardless, the disembodied Afro head and T-Rex personas nodded at each other and acknowledged that the University of Denver host was proving to be too formidable with their current equipment and skill level. They would have to make a go of it another time, perhaps changing tactics. While Wyrine and Kablisk were trying their luck with the translated lines from the PDA and searching the Matrix, Richard was riding public transit to Bob the Talismonger, clutching the used shopping bags full of spell components he had acquired from the mage's workshop in Snohomish. A long ride full of some of the stranger elements of Seattle and Richard arrived at Bob's nondescript domicile where one could always expect to see narcotic smoke of one kind or another billowing out of the barred window. A knock on the door, some shuffling and stumbling sounds, and a ceramic crack sound resounded near the entrance. Bob invited Richard to enter and to ignore the plate he had clearly just knocked over. Bob led him to some bean bag chairs where he sagged into one and began showing the Talismonger his loot. Bob lifted his coke bottle glasses, squinted, and returned them to the bridge of his nose. "This is some great stuff, man," the Talismonger declared in his stoner patois. Bob identified the materials as components used for vodou and some high level summoning. He was unable to provide many details, but promised Richard that he would talk to some people he knew to see if one of them could shed more light on both the components and a woman in question connected to vodou named Rutha Batiste. By this time, it was getting near the agreed-upon hour to meet at Punk Monkeys, so everyone got into their conveyance of choice: scooter, motorcycle, van, or public bus. Everyone made their way up to the secluded meeting room above the stage, The Casualties blasting on the speakers, Maxine greeting each of them in turn as they passed the bar. The five Shadowrunners shared there findings on the magical mystery, continuing to postulate on connections to the Atlantean Foundation and the deceased dragon Dunkelzahn. They needed to make a decision on the two missions that were on the table: should they choose the lengthier mafia mercenary intimidation run with the bigger payout or go with the quicker and dirtier Athabaskan Oil Pipeline sabotage? Weighing the pros and cons, the consensus agreed on sabotage. Cruiser confirmed with Esther, his ex-Mafia Street Doc contact. A bloodcurdling scream met Cruiser on the other end of the line and then the sound was quickly muffled with a heavy closed door. "Yes or no?" was all Esther asked. Straight to the point. She said she would provide more details in an hour and promptly hung up. During the short conversation between Cruiser and Esther, Richard and Wyrine were working out some details about the passages from the PDA and some new fragments that had been captured from other searches involving the University of Denver probes. These fragments matched some of the dozens of photos that had been taken of their own scrolls, obtained from the location with the now dead Barghest. masters of their fates rounded with a dream we are underlings neither a borrower nor a lender be Still cryptic and largely devoid of meaning for the Shadowrunners. Bob the Talismonger came through with a name with whom to get in touch on matters vodou in nature - Blossom Free. Blossom answered with a cheerful voice and did her best to answer Richard's plethora of questions. She explained that she knew of someone who went by the name Rutha Batiste and she was a vodou witch for hire. Rutha was known for hexes, Loa, and other typical vodou magic. She was hard to find, supposedly living in a hidden underground lair. Blossom said she would look further into the matter, but recommended some compensation be sent in Bob's direction to grease the gears, so to speak. The last order of business was to determine how to get to the Athabaskan territory. After some Matrix searches, it dawned on them that this mission would involve some border crossing and thus complications arose in how to get their equipment to its destination without arousing suspicion. Esther presented them with two options: fake IDs for border crossing or a contact by the name of Israel Harlow, a Coyote specializing in human border trafficking. After some discussion, the Shadowrunners settled on Israel's expertise. It would ultimately be a better deal and guarantee all of their equipment moved with them in the most secure fashion possible. Everyone gathered what they thought they would need for the nearly week long mission and made their way to a smaller port in Everett. They met the cigar chomping troll at the requested time and location, rolling their van up the ramp of the freighter and into the insulated shipping container that would become their home for the next 48 hours of the journey overseas. Sea travel was mostly uneventful, except for one particularly turbulent hour where the freighter was caught in a storm with extremely high swells battering the hull and the containers. Although the van was secured in the containers, it did little to save the runners from being tossed around inside the vehicle. Everyone sustained some minor physical damage from bumps, bruises, and sore muscles, but slept it off during the remainder of the voyage. The freighter pulled into the port nearest to Bear Lake, their destination, and the shipping container creaked open.
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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. |
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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