Punk Tactics
| Punk Tactics | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Skraacha | Skull & Crossbones Talismonger Shop Staff | ||||||||
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Red Rover Akuma Ren Colcannon |
Ledgermain Street Punks Recruited former Cutters | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | None | ||||||||
Summary
A simple shakedown! Common as hell in the Barrens! This one was just a little spicier than most, because it had some explosive cast members this time around.
Background
Ledgermain is a Black Magic practitioner in the most traditional sense: a con artist, a femme fatale, a total bitch who will run your pockets five ways from Sunday to get what she wants. Unfortunately, she's also genuinely helpful to have around. She's used her business as a talismonger and her staggering charisma to play into a lot of criminal elements to get her way. She's the kind of con artist who gets away with a lot more than she should because of it.
A recent case of this was her attempted dodging of paying a massive loan she took out from the Skraacha. With the news of a gang war swinging around all over the Barrens, she decided to take former (dropout) Cutters members who wanted a new place to work and were maybe a little distracted by her to pose as being Cutter tied - both to scare off small time debt collectors the Skraacha and to make the bigger fish worry she cut some sort of deal. She was hoping it'd buy her enough time to get some more funds, duck out of town with it, set up shop elsewhere, but unfortunately Shadowrunners are *very* convenient.
The Meet
The Skraacha sent one of their real breadwinning good lookers - a guy who goes by Lockjaw - out to meet the runner team at the Daze in Touristville. It was a simple enough place to meet up. Akuma, Colcannon, and Red Rover drove in there while Ren arrived but was asleep and had to be awoken by the scary troll adept to participate in the meeting. The suave talking Skraacha member kept things simple - make sure the girl pays her dues, send a message, don't kill her or give the cops too many reasons to come down there and start asking questions. All for 4k nuyen each. Akuma tried to ask for more but Lockjaw hit her with a reassuring look, honeyed words, and just moving on fast and that was that. He gave them a picture of the woman's face, an address for the store and a bar she likes to frequent, and left them.
Colcannon ended up having to pay the guy's tab.
The Plan
Akuma realized that the bar Lockjaw pointed out was none other than Wayside Hideout - a middle-of-nowhere watering hole place where people go to lay low, and the police for troublemakers is "If you shoot first, the others will shoot last." IE, everyone in the bar turns to gun you down and eliminate the problem assuming the worst, and no one is meant to start crap. So they decided to hit the shop proper for their shakedown instead, after doing some scouting first.
The Run
The team went down to Sophocles to find this shop and do some surveillance, managing to mostly avoid notice of the spirits coming around to watch, and at the very least not drawing the ire of them by letting them catch wind of some juicy aura info, so they were passed over as they left. They noticed the entrance was tucked into an alley with 2 street punks so green they fit a forest better and those Cutter rejects perched up above around a rooftop hatch - the only other entrance to the place - waiting and enjoying themselves. Akuma and Col were going to go in for a more social attempt at investigating, finding more of that mix of green with ganger inside, and also Ms Ledgermain herself in an outfit that left both of the girls feeling rather flustered. They talked magical tools for a bit, until Ledgermain went to the back and called the security outside in to watch her back just in case, since these two seemed to be far more equipped than the norm. This alerted and worried Ren, who tried to sneak in through the hatch and got a good look inside. The back was the lodge where Ledgermain worked out of, and obviously wasn't shamanic like the exterior facade suggested, but no one amongst the runners could identify what she truly practiced. Looking inside also meant that the guards who were waiting for Ledgermain's cue could see him. And they did. And they alerted her, and the whole cover was blown.
The team at that point reconvened at the front, where Ledgermain assenssed the other two and managed to beat Red Rover's masking, along with every single aura there. So when the team started trying to shake her down, she threatened to out her drake status with threats of the value of drake scales. This caused Ren to be infuriated at the poacher like demeanor, and things nearly boiled over into a full blown fight. But Akuma pulled out her rank in her clan, and that threat of even bigger conflict got Ledgermain to back down. She agreed to not sell out Red Rover and start paying if this was the kind of heat she was collecting. Even if she had...a lot to pay back.
Aftermath
The team got their pay from Lockjaw, which was fine and dandy.
Ledgermain however, does not forget. And she has their auras for later. Just in case.