Double Elimination Racket

Double Elimination Racket
Date 2084-11-11 GM jit Location Matrix, Ares Global Grid Status Threat Level: Low
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Shadowrun Online Corporate Servers	Ares Bloodsands Gamers
Fennec Knock Mokumokuren Knight Error	SRO Mod Spider	blaz_BLUESCREEN Others
Casualties and losses
None	Paydata	Infosec and Pride

Summary

Anhe has a softball drekjob for the runners as a favor to an old friend. The world's shortest corruption arc ensues. Cheaters never prosper, except when they do.

Background

The players: No, literally, the players. Knight Error is a lifelong Matrix Game addict who, like many, dreamed of making it big on the digital landscape. His game of choice these days isn't really a game at all, but a special quirk of the Ares Global Grid meant to attract people to their platform. Various forts, coliseums, and so on are scattered around the Ares Grid, enabling medieval-style PVP combat for personas located there. These locations are colloquially called The Ares Bloodsands by those enthusiasts who frequent them. Despite not being taken very seriously by real hackers, rumors abound (and occasionally are confirmed) that Ares takes a personal interest in competitors there, scouting for those with natural talent and mental agility in order to recruit them into their cybersecurity program. Knight Error is counting on this, and has invested his life's savings into a comm he believes will finally push him over the edge into being a top competitor. And he's almost right, if not for-

blaz_BLUESCREEN, an upstart kid with no talent and no results who has suddenly burned through the bracket at a breakneck pace. With mysterious new hardware and a firewall that simply can't be matched, Knight Error loses a round to him and immediately dives into panic. Limping into Top 8, and with an hour before the finals begin, he reaches out to an old friend, Anhe, who he now knows lives in the shadows.

The goal: Help him win, by any means, at any cost. Though her usual matrix squeeze for drek work like this, Bunny Hop, is unavailable, some dutiful runners from Shadowhaven respond to her post on the guest node. She gathers everyone in her private host, and lets the newly minted Johnson speak for himself.

The Meet

In the black, senseless void of Anhe's home host, with personas floating in the midst of nothing, Knight Error asks the runners, like he had asked Anhe before, to make him win at any cost. They clarify that he would like them to cheat for him, and again, he reiterates that he is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Rumors abound that an honest-to-GOD demiGOD is watching the tournament today, and if he does not make a good impression here, he is convinced that he never will.

Knock immediately digs into him, berating him, calling him pathetic and unworthy of being a corporate lifer - something she is an expert on, she claims, as an Ares woman herself. Mokumokuren, confused, asks why he simply doesn't buy a better deck, apparently ignorant of the fact that most people don't operate illegally or with the kind of money required. Fennec bluntly mocks his chosen username. Nonetheless, with the clock ticking and the promise of the last of his life savings as a reward, the runners take pity on the puppy-like wannabe spider and agree to help.

Anhe clarifies that this is way below the tier of assignment she would usually even bother sending out - Matrix drekjobs usually go to her favorite rabbit, after all, she explains - and this catches Fennec's oversized ears. She asks Anhe for clarification, who expresses surprise that Fennec seems to know that rabbit so well. The two trade commcodes to discuss things later, and the rising Fixer gladly agrees to a new contact.

The Plan

It's a swift ten minutes for Mokumokuren to find everything on their "opfor." On top of obvious personal information and game accounts, buried deep in a hacker node, a thread titled "times you pwned a script kid" hosts a story told by a hacker who encountered somebody matching blaz_BLUESCREEN's name and description exactly. He accused the poster of hacking in the game, which the poster vehemently denies, although clarifies himself that "if he was going to accuse me anyway, I may as well, right?" He laughs about the icon disappearing mid-sentence, formatted and rebooted. The information is, after digging through the hacker's own account on the node, enough to confirm the exact Shadowrun Online host their target frequents.

The plan becomes easy - hack the host, dig up enough personally identifying information (cred info, banlists, icon traces, and so on) to threaten the guy into taking a dive, and securing their J the dubiously earned victory. Fennec cunningly takes the time to develop a profile on him as well based on that information, believing it will come in handy later.

The Run

The first step is tracking their target down. Mokumokuren opts to watch the arena itself on the Ares grid, just in case their target appears prematurely before the finals begin, just so that he can have a word. Fennec and Knock on the other hand move to the specific SRO host he seems to frequent, and have no luck locating him there either, in the glamorized grunge-filled back-alleys of runner media. The two do however spot out a nested host within the Destination Host located within a locked dumpster, which serves as a place for the more secure files such as banlists, matchmaking data, and so on to be stored. The two resolve that that would be a good place to look as well, for the paydata they're after if not the persona itself.

Operating as a duo in the utterly crowded host, Fennec distracts the crowd by hovering and presenting her world-famous avatar, being loud, telling jokes, and inviting marks to her persona, now utterly plastered in wannabe hackers' trying to cause trouble. She waits for someone to hack her again, though this time deflects it with her Firewall, planting her own mark in the form of a fluffy tail onto him. After pointing him out to the crowd for ridicule, and what feels like several minutes of cacophony, Fennec receives a DNI from the spider on hand asking her to please stop causing a disturbance, as the server was becoming overwhelmed.

The entire time, however, Knock was set to work on the nested host. After a failed attempt at gaining a mark (resulting in a large Shadowrun Online logo stamped across her forehead), as well as a quick revolving door out-and-in to remove it, she eventually plants her own mark on the nested host, cracks open the lock, and slides down the trash chute inside to land in the middle of an office space. She runs silent, and thankfully, the patrol IC of an office manager walks right past her - a relief, in a host as highly rated as this one is. It's a quick search for what she's looking for, but she finds it - blaz_BLUESCREEN's records, banlists, and most importantly, his icon traces from when the nascent hacker himself, apparently fed up with being bullied just a week or two prior, tried to cause his own trouble in this very place. She collects her dirt and logs out, signalling Fennec to follow suit and informing Mokumokuren that the op had succeeded.

Aftermath

Back at the Bloodsands as the clock finally ticks down to top 8, the crew assemble with Knight Error and ask him what he wants to do, suggesting he use the information to blackmail blaz_BLUESCREEN into backing down. Knock, privately, goes a step further. She encourages a tactic of scorched Earth - they know his current location, and even know that he shares it with some other competitors, so why not get rid of all of them? With brutal words manipulating him in his resolve, he nearly pulls the trigger with a call to Knight Errant, but words of encouragement from Mokumokuren and even Fennec of all people tell him to play it cool. Fennec says she'll cheer him on, and Mokumokuren offers subtle, hidden support if ever he needs it.

Privately, Fennec also tracks down blaz_BLUESCREEN fresh off of a victory to "have a word," showing him the gathered intel. From smug to terrified at such a thorough doxxing by world-famous vtuber Fennec of all people, somehow, he agrees to throw against Knight Error when the time comes, sulking off onto a bench. Mokumokuren, afterwards, offers his condolences and support, so that he can learn how to be a real hacker instead of whatever he's doing now.

With Fennec's encouragement, Knight Error is able to fight his way through his bracket, and with a somewhat disappointing climax with blaz_BLUESCREEN after he swaps to a less powerful comm device instead of the deck he'd stolen, emerges victorious. Knock expresses confusion at why he would want to be a corporate lifer, but respects his resolve. She reveals that she's with Ares, and agrees to talk with Knight Error afterward and put in a good word for him in the organization. Cheaters never prosper, except when they do.

Rewards

Low (8 RVP)

• 6000Y (3 RVP)
• 3 Karma (3 RVP)
• 4 CDP (2 RVP)
• 2 CDP Base

Optional

• Anhe as a contact at 3/1 (3 RVP)
• Knight Error as a contact at 1/2 (2 RVP)
• 4 CDP (Shadowrun Online Paydata Dirt on Users) (2 RVP)

For Fennec

• Anhe as a contact at 3/3 (5 RVP) (Incompatible with Anhe as listed above)

For Knock

• Knight Error as a contact at 1/3 (3 RVP) (Incompatible with Knight Error as listed above)
• Common Sense at chargen rates (3 RVP)

For Mokumokuren

• blaz_BLUESCREEN as a contact a 1/1 (1 RVP)

Game Quotes

anhe_: "I would strongly recommend not killing someone to cheat at a matrix game - but I'm not a runner, I guess~"

Sniff: "You want to be a corper, boy? Then SWAT this kid."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Knock

I hate corpos so much. I despise them. WHo would want, in their right mind, to live like this? To work like I do? To have to day in and day out push yourself to the limit for a paycheck? Fools. The damn fool thinks he can make it as a corpo. Heh. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. He is kind of funny, in his own way. Eheh, hmmph~ Fool... just thinking about it I... perhaps I'll give him my number, he can work for me instead. Aaahh...~

Fennec

Today was a good day! I got to hang out with a bunch of nerds and make them all adore me! The more people that recognize their glorious Fennec-sama as a goddess, the stronger I grow! I can feel it! Wahahahaha!