Flashbangs and Fireballs

Flashbangs and Fireballs
Date 2084-04-04 GM Archtmag Location Seattle Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Ares Macrotechnology	Ares Breakaways
Scarecrow Nu11st@ck Samsara Eidolon	Spiders HTR	John Raemiz, Assorted mental slaves
Casualties and losses
		Spirits, John Raemiz

Summary

Runners are contracted by a Tacoma talismonger to halt or redirect Knight Errant raids that have been targeting her competitors in the region. As the team investigates the issue, they uncover a deeper concern, a struggle between Ares counterintelligence services and a group of breakaway employees.

Background

In recent weeks, Knight Errant HTR teams had been conducting nighttime raids on Talismongers all throughout Tacoma, ransacking stores in search of something. Daina Grass, owner of a small shop in the area, wants this to stop. Beyond the mild dabbling she does in the drug trade, she really, really, doesn't want to be harmed. So, she reaches out to the Haven to bring together a team of runners.

The Meet

The runners were brought to Daina's basement shop, offered some free zen, and then briefed on the issue. Daina wasn't picky on what the runners decided to do, she just needed Knight Errant to stop bothering the area. Whether that meant getting them what they wanted, redirecting them somewhere else, or something stranger, she didn't mind so long as they weren't on a path to breaking her door down. The runners took the initial offer of 10k nuyen each, and decided to get to work. Some just for the money, others out of a genuine desire to protect the people from the cops.

Investigation

The runners started by investigating the trail of destruction left by Knight Errant. The cops didn't exactly respect the integrity of the places they hit, tearing apart and ransacking the stores. The owners were given little in explanations, the teams not sharing what they were searching for. Eventually, asking questions of a teary eyed dryad, they struck a slight lead. A regular in the magical supply scene had disappeared in the past few weeks. While the lady they interviewed didn't buy from him, she was familiar with him and he stopped by semi-often to chat. Embarrassed to say his moniker, Samsara eventually got the name. "Slick Dick". Not affiliated with any gangs, Dick was something of a freelance fence for magical gear, buying and selling as an in-between for criminal elements. While the woman they interviewed didn't know if he was involved, his disappearance was worrying and perhaps connected.

Visiting another victim of Knight Errant's raids, this one injured in the action, the team found something surprising. While the guy, healing in a street docs clinic, didn't know much of note, the team saw a tiny hidden camera, subtly placed to watch the healing Talismonger. In the process of observing it in greater detail, it suddenly popped and smoked, the device destroyed. The team thought this was a bit ominous, but whomever placed it there left little evidence to follow.

Eventually, following a trail of minor clues, the team found the location of a bolt hole owned by Dick. They made their way inside, disabled the traps left behind, and found an untouched haven. A phone left inside and quickly hacked showed something interesting. Dick had been buying goods from an unnamed source, and selling them to various talismongers in the area, and right before he disappeared, he had arranged a sale with an unknown client. Unfortunately he practiced enough opsec that no info could be pulled on the identities of these parties. Still, they now knew where Dick's last business meeting happened.

The team left to investigate the site, and which at first glance seemed pretty normal. After a careful examination though, they found another of those hidden cameras, this one not immediately spotting them. Nullst@ck, seeing the opportunity, hacked in to see who was behind the observation. He found more than he expected.

Instead of leading to a persona, the camera linked back to a host. A very spicy host. The interior Ares marked, Black IC loaded, and swarming with spiders, it wasn't a very welcoming place. Still, without getting his brain melted, Nullst@ck managed to find and recover files related to their investigation. Though it was close.

It turns out that the "Knight Errant" HTR wasn't actually KE. Ares Counterintelligence had been masquerading as cops to hide their investigation. Seven Ares employees, across several departments, had disappeared one night, stealing a treasure trove of rare magical goods. Not just reagents and foci, though they took those too, but also relatively irreplaceable artifacts of research. Too put it mildly, various parties in Ares were Not Happy with this.

Ares, still unsure if the disappearance was a hostile extraction by a rival, or conspiracy among the missing, still had a cluster of primary suspects, the Raemiz family. All three gone in the night, the parents were both high level magical researchers at the company. John Raemiz was a distinguished researcher into the planes and binding methods. His wife, Elucia Raemiz, was a magical botanist, studying methods of integrating magic into plant bioengineering. Both of considerable magical strength, the company had matched them together as best they could, to some degree the hope being they'd keep the talent with their children. And a child they had, Naomi, a smart child and a model Ares student. The only problem being, she was 17 and still unawakened. Surveillance showed this fact caused a considerable degree of tension in the family. John additionally had become erratic in the past two years, his job performance suffering and the man becoming increasingly isolated socially, hostile, even.

Initially at a loss for how to proceed, the investigation found a lead when one of the stolen items appeared on the black market. Finding that Dick was the middleman, Ares set up a fake meeting, posing as a buyer, only to capture him. However, as they were ferrying back to a secure site, he was assassinated by a powerful magical attack. The team carrying him was rendered unconscious and the astral evidence was erased. With their principal lead dead, Ares had little options left other than to search hard for other buyers, other leads back to the source. Thus, the raids.

The team decided to break into another nearby Talismonger, WonderInc, that hadn't been hit yet. Perhaps they had something that Ares hadn't found yet. Breaking inside in the middle of night, they did managed to find a box of rather high quality reagents hidden in an above shop apartment. They, also in that moment, realized that Ares had just broken into the shop beneath them. Grabbing the Talismonger, the reagents, and running out a back window, they managed to escape without conflict. Interviewing her, and in conjunction with a divination of the Ares goons, they were pointed to a location called the Blue Room.

The Blue Room was a combination of awakened social lounge and bar, oriented towards a certain clientele. Dark magics, infected, and spirits of all types were welcome. With an appeal to common self interest, members of the team managed to wheedle some info out of the owner. Apparently John Raemiz had become something of a regular over the past year or two, learning who knows what. He had a spot he owned, hidden from Ares, out in Hell's Kitchen. If the team wanted to potentially find him, he suggested they check there.

Complications

Heading into Hell's Kitchen, visibility was poor. An ash storm blew, dimming the sky. Riding across bumpy and torn roads, the team headed towards the spot, a decaying compound revealed ringed by a chain link fence. The team approached the gate, and slowly a figure came into view on the other side, reclining in a fold out chair.

It seemed they had found the missing daughter, Naomi. There was only one thing amiss. She was astrally active.

The team's paranoia shot through the roof, with ideas about bug spirits and shedim dominating. Assensing eventually showed that she was a high force blood spirit of some kind. This was not received well by the team, obviously, but for whatever reason, the spirit posing as Naomi seemed inclined to talk. so they began an awkward, tense conversation though a chain link gate.

Telling them in explicit terms to not cross past the gate, otherwise she'd have to 'do' stuff, she explained quite a bit about what the team was missing. Claiming to actually be Naomi, the spirit said that her father was a blood mage. That he'd mind controlled the missing people, used their skills and access to steal the magical items and make their escape. In regards to herself, Naomi was visibly emotional as she described how her father murdered her, and her mother, in a ritual to make her what she was now. She was still her, but she had power now, the magical ability that she'd always been pushed to gain. Too bad, in her words, that her father enslaved her, that he viewed all of this as a gift to her. The team could see that she was fettered, astral chains in her aura. Naomi told the team she just wanted to be free, that she'd help the team as best she could, given the orders she currently was under.

If what she said was true, either by chance or by some advanced ritual of John, Naomi's memories and personality were the dominant force in the blood shade she now was. Members of the team were varying degrees of skeptical on this. However, either way, they saw a way to divide John's power base, so they decided to listen more.

Naomi's formula, which her father had used to bind her, was locked and hidden away from her. She still knew the direction though, and offered to send the team towards it. If they could destroy it, and then kill her father, she'd escape the fettering. In return, she wouldn't betray them, and she'd help as best she could.

Agreeing, they headed to the location provided, and crossed a moat of lava to reach an abandoned cellar. Disabling the electronic security measures, they entered without setting off the shaped blast charge waiting to explode them. Inside they found Naomi's formula, inscribed into an old childhood memento of hers. Breaking it, the formula was destroyed. Now they only had to kill John before he called Naomi into combat with them.

Away from the compound at the time, they waited out nearby, until a truck carrying him and several of his mind controlled minions approached. A pitched battle ensued, with multiple spirits involved. Thankfully, they managed to kill John before Naomi hemorrhaged the team. This broke the spells enslaving the other Ares workers, ending the fight.

Now, the question remained, what to do next?

Aftermath

The raids themselves could be stopped with a simple tip to Ares. The gear was in the compound and the missing employees were ready to return. That was the easy bit though. The real question was what to do with Naomi. She was quite thankful to the team in the aftermath, happy to be free of her father's commands. Still, she was a blood spirit. Was the joy she took at her father's death simply because she resented what he did to her, or a symptom of a greater capacity for violence? Both?

The team had no way to actually constrain her at this point. The formula was destroyed, and no one on the team was a skilled banisher. Disrupting her wouldn't do anything, as a free spirit she could return relatively simply. Not to mention, some members of the team felt that her story might be more than just a lie, and consigning her to a shittier outcome than she currently suffered bothered some. But at the same time, just letting her go free would very likely lead to more death.

Eventually, one member of the team suggested the Draco Foundation. As preeminent magical experts and "good guys" maybe they could help her in some way? Naomi, however, was not thrilled with the idea to put it mildly. She couldn't see them reacting well to her, in any capacity. At best she'd be bound, at worst, they'd banish her permanently to the nightmarish Plane of Blood. Still, they convinced to at least hear out the possibility. To at least see what they'd offer.

Scarecrow contacted her fixer, Moria, to see what could be done. Moira, for her part, felt a bit out of depth in this situation, so she said she'd pass it up the chain, and try to get back to them. With a heroic networking roll, Moira's report caught the eye of someone with a bit of pull and a 'non-traditional' role in the organization. After reviewing the case, Sybaris answered the line. Requesting a private interview with Naomi, they spoke over the commlink, away from the team. Eventually, some kind of deal was struck, and Naomi promised to head to the foundation. (for details see Naomi's page)

Rewards

10k Nuyen - 5 RVP

25 Karma - 25 RVP

10 CDP - 4 RVP

Optional Rewards:

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8k Nuyen from the stash loot - 4 RVP

Gear Rewards from Talismonger - Foci, Formula, Fetishes, Lodge Materials Recreational Drugs. Only out of the 10k.

Gear Rewards from Ares Stash: Magical gear of select tradition. Speak to me to negotiate details if interested.

Eidolon getting an R2 Chaos Weapon Focus from Ares Stash

Optional Contacts: Taken from RVP

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For Samsara: Mike, Operator of the Blue Room as a 4/2 - (5 RVP)

For all: Naomi, Blood Shade as a 6/4 - (9 RVP)

Others potentially an option too, character wise.

Optional Qualities at chargen rate

For NullStack and Eidolon: Brilliant Heuristics

Rep Change:

For all: +3 Ares Rep

For Samsara and Scarecrow: +5 Draco Foundation Re

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Nu11st@ck "What an evil asshole..murder his wife and his kid just cause she didn't awaken. Enslave some fellow runners to boot, that asshole deserves what happened to him and I'm glad I got to play a part in that..."

Eidolon: I try to avoid thinking much on the morality of what happens unless my gut speaks to me... but if this job didn't result in us killing that man... I may have made it a point to do it myself later. There are certain boundaries one shouldn't cross... he crossed a few of them. Good riddance. I'm... somewhat concerned about Naomi and whether what we did was the best thing, but the others seemed to prefer this route and I feel like the poor kid is owed a chance at something even if I don't know the metaphysics.