Monolithium Powers

Monolithium Powers
Part of The Arrival
Date 2084-04-26 GM Asmodeus Location Devil Lake, Redmond Status Threat Level: Extreme
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven West Coast Monolith Hextech Bolt	The Monolith
Delphi Shy C-Unit 537 - Hunter Blake Decker	Mortar Team Preachers Lurkers
Casualties and losses
Several WCM members were killed. A radioactive relic is missing.	1 Mortar Team Member, 1 Lurker
The run was originally called The Lombard League

Summary

The team ditches a lucrative run to answer a call for help in Redmond, enters a warzone and saves some lives.

Background

See The Arrival.

The Meet

Mr. Herenight waits in a café in Tacoma and offers the team a job to assassinate a bishop in Brecia, Lombardia - a province in Italy. The man is a SURGEd diminutive once-human with rather extreme stances on many things and also hopes to ascend from a bishop into a cardinal one day in Vatican. Officially he's a member of the New Knights Templar. Herenight's plan is for his death to be a red herring that draws Sylvestrians and NKT to Lombardia. The team's suspicious, but eventually agrees.

The Plan

Thanks to convenient transportation offered by a very influential employer, the team begins setting up a very strong foundation when it comes to ambushing the tiny man in his city with uncomfortable levels of Infected, but just as they're heading to the airport Delphi's radio signal scanner picks up an SOS. Bolt screams into the radio for backup from literally anyone, judging by the sounds in the middle of a war and offers to help in whatever way possible in exchange.

The team contemplates for a moment, but ultimately decides 'fuck the job, let's go help these guys out.'

The Run

Arriving at the WCM base is easy enough, but they're being attacked by a Dissonant technomancer, snipers with gauss rifles and an actual mortar team as well as two large Nuclear Spirits. The situation looks grim. In addition, the entire lake is engulfed in a stormfront that moved north from Glow City, causing heavy radiation levels during the entire firefight. Delphi projects to the area despite the risk it carries and helps assassinate the spirits as well as do some astral scouting while Shy tries to look for an advantageous angle to engage the practically invisible snipers from. Visibility being utter garbage and the mortar forcing the defenders to not get too entrenched, Blake begins trying to offer Matrix support to help the overburdened technomancer captain who is barely able to provide minor boons to the team here and there. Hunter attempts banishing one of the Nuclear Spirits but quickly comes to the realization that it's a very unfun thing to do and moves to cover the western flank from any incoming attackers. He ends up catching several rad hounds from an elevated position, saving the team a lot of grief. Several corporals die from not being fast enough to get away from mortar fire, one escapes a shell around a corner only to enter a sniper's sightline and gets picked off with a gauss round to the head.

As the nuclear spirits advance in a raging charge through a minefield, Shy manages to grievously injure one and Delphi finishes it off with a stealthy stab with Astral Combat. The remaining one is infuriated and fires a fission beam of radiation at Delphi's astral form. It's a physical power and has no effect, however, melting one of Hextech's Juggernaut drones into slag. Bolt begins engaging two more enemies that emerged from the toxic lake with underwater gear inside the airship hangar and while Shy uses a jetpack to get around the battlefield, her mentor spirit Bishamonten manages to goad her into further bloodshed, flying up into the air to crash down with a meteoric slam. The second spirit gets eradicated and Shy remains standing, more or less. Blake's repeatedly harried by the Dissonance that infects his equipment, but his drone manages to flank the Monolith forces in the treeline over a kilometer away and suppresses them to great effect. Grabbing the founding member's gauss rifle from the airship hangar, the underwater soldiers begin retreating as well, fighting with fearless zeal to the last man to let the item get stolen effectively. In the end, the wrecked campsite is secured and the remaining enemies retreat.

Aftermath

Corporals Chester and Crab are in critical condition. Crab lost his left arm up to the elbow from a mortar shell. Corporals Owl and Deadlift and Sergeant Chunk are also dead from either mortars or gauss rifle shots. The WCM's effectiveness is heavily reduced and nine out of ten of their members suffer from acute radiation sickness. The faction is on its last legs for the moment, but alive. The loot they got from the two dead Monolith soldiers are offered to the team as rewards. Svarog succumbed to radiation poisoning the following day. The gang's status goes directly from Invigorated to Maimed. Another setback will destroy the gang entirely beyond hope of rebuilding.

Rewards

• May acquire any of these at gear rates (up to 100,000 Nuyen aka 25 RVP):
  1. Onotari Arms Ballista w/ mods up to 19 Availability
  2. Ceska Black Scorpion w/ mods up to 19 Availability
  3. Ares Arctic Forces Suit w/ Radiation Shielding R6 and other mods up to 19 Availability
  4. Ghillie Suits w/ mods up to 19 Availability
  5. Ruthenium Polymer Cloaks
  6. R25 Plastic Explosives w/ Push Detonators (Land Mines)
  7. Combat Axe
  8. R4 Blurred Faceless Systems
  9. Guts (dubious Monolith sources, bottle says 'Yadulin')
  10. K-10 (dubious Monolith sources, syringe says 'Akvadrin')
  11. Oxygenated Fluorocarbons (dubious Monolith sources, case says 'Bilakrov')
  12. Retro, extracted from the lake (dubious Monolith poison, nanomarkers say 'Nevirnasmert')
• 1 Street Cred (1 RVP)
• 6 CDP (2 RVP)
• Remainder RVP that isn't spent is gained as Karma; decimal nuyen becomes loose Nuyen in standard credsticks.

• Everyone gets to take Rad-Tolerant or Radiation Sponge at chargen rates.
• Shy can initiate with a discount and qualifies for Revenant Adept.
• Blake can acquire an Aeroquip M.E.D Dustoff drone with Chameleon Coating; Hextech thanks him for his help and offers a special gift to a fellow drone operator.
• Blake also gets a mundane ascension.
• Delphi can acquire Little Smoke as a reward from one of the Awakened Monolithians.
• May acquire Bolt or Hextech as contacts.
• +10 WCM Reputation

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.