Vaults Are Safes

Vaults Are Safes
Part of Meatgrinder
Date 2085-07-12 GM Asmodeus Location Amazonia Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Infected
Neijing Saint Heracles Ashford	Anthrodrone

Summary

The team clears the databanks of an abandoned blacksite.

Background

See the runs of the Meatgrinder. The run takes place in the same ruins and facility previous teams discovered.

The Meet

The meet is curt and to the point as usual. The job description is to enter the underground lab and clear every primary databank they can find of data. Get the data, then erase it. The J arranges a parachute drop into Amazonia and an exit if they have succeeded at their job. The team tentatively agrees after finding some background information about the hazards: the Amazonian government was stuck in bureaucratic deliberation but has finally agreed to send a convoy to investigate disturbances in northern Amazonia.

The Run

Dropping is relatively uneventful. Ashford isn't going to keep up with the team so he wrests an exceptionally powerful Levitate spell to go through the rainforest. The others have to slog normally. Eventually they reach the ruins and arrange a stealthy observation post on one of the upper floors of one of the structures. Neijing sends a Fly-Spy to scout and finds the entrance utterly surrounded. The team plans to lure many of these into a building and collapse it. With proper engineering and demolition skills, they find two main walls to attach charges to. After that, they start luring the horde inside, waiting until majority of them are inside before detonating the explosives. The collapsing building crushes a large amount of the infested squatters. From there, Heracles, Saint and Neijing charge the entrance with Saint slicing up the few stragglers in the way. Ashford opts to astrally project.

Once inside, they find some of the infested squatters are already in the blacksite due to the entrance being breached. A small fight ensues, Saint having to fight an experimental obese creature to the death. She succeeds and the turrets on rails get interrupted, but Heracles discovers that there's an anthrodrone walking around the facility that keeps directing the rail turrets. He attempts to locate it, but suspects it's an AI that he can't quite yet catch. Ashford and Neijing identify one of the bioweapons the bio-creature released to be a derivative of Ymir, a bioweapon made by Winternight.

As the team proceeds further, they find the diagnostics sector of the lab, vacuuming the databanks written in Enochian. Neijing's medical expertise lets her identify the trid display to show the process of chimerification, but likely on metahuman bodies. A true attempt at creating half-elves or half-orks. Some of the language in the files sounds almost Christianic and Ashford identifies a figure of speech that may be identifiable to a small subset of radical Christians employing blood magic to perform more heretical forms of communion.

Next is the logistics sector. The team gets trapped in the databank room by the anthrodrone, who releases smart corrosives through the ventilation system. Saint begins slashing at the thick security door with her sword, surprisingly managing to get a gouge in through sheer relentless effort. Ashford and Heracles discover an antique 1960s computer terminal with signs of manatech modifications and an astral keyboard. As Ashford begins experimenting with it, the machine prints out paper sheets with mysterious prophecies written on them. The prophecies vary based on input. Heracles vacuums the data, showing connections to Regulus and Aztechnology -- Aztlan supplied the blacksite with prisoners as test subjects.

Eventually a fire spirit, Neijing's welding torch and Saint's sword cleave through heated metal and make a jagged, glowing hot hole that she attempts to squeeze through. She succeeds, albeit with major burns. Neijing does much the same and Heracles suffers severe burns as well. While finally recovering from the trap, Saint gets her shoulder fractured by a sudden shot through the walls. Enraged, she chases after the attacker but finds no-one, cursing the cowardly sneak attack. Neijing and Heracles follow up a little later and Saint cleaves open an entrance to the final administrative sector, labeled in red. She immediately gets hit by another rail turret armed with a Screech Rifle, incapacitating her initial charge. Heracles attempts to find the turret by skinlinking onto the turret rail, finding the AI in the offline host. She warns them to turn around and leave, because she can't stop them from breaching administration but she can stop them from leaving. Despite the AI's warnings, the team decides to risk it.

With Ashford's Clairvoyance scouting and Neijing using her cybernetic body immune to carbon monoxide, they enter the administrative server room which gets locked - again - and Neijing uses an explosive charge to blow the security door the hell open. Now, Heracles heads inside, directly connects with the server and has his Sleeper formatted, triggers a data bomb and still manages to recover the files from the administrative sector despite the AI's best efforts. He leaves and urges the team to exfil. Thankfully, they do so successfully.

While the team's leaving the lab, Ashford has a private meeting with an old man waiting by his physical body. He appreciates the interest he took in the arcane computer and asks if he wants to learn more of it. After Ashford agrees, the man hands him a data chip, asking him to offer it to the Johnson under the guise of further information he 'gained' while interpreting the divinations. It's a complete red herring and lie, but it serves the man's purposes. In exchange, he'll aid Ashford in potentially constructing a similar device later. Ashford agrees, keeping this brief meeting to himself.

Aftermath

Once it's time to surrender the data, Ashford and Heracles both smack down Con rolls to not get caught on their lies. All parties receive payment and Ashford heads home to find an old man in his home, engaging him in a long and fruitful conversation about arcane crafts that lasts until the dark of night.

Rewards

• 30,000 Nuyen (15 RVP)
• 20 CDP (9 RVP)
• 12 Karma (12 RVP)
• 1 Street Cred (1 RVP)
• All members can get one Chain Link orichalcum engraving for completing a Meatgrinder run

For Neijing:

• Universal Omnitech Cyberclinic Discount Voucher (Gear Rates for CCU Upgrades)

For Ashford:

• May exchange run rewards for 36 Karma and 1 Street Cred
• Ashford also acquires a byzantine blueprint for arcane computer circuitry based on Enochian programming and Hermetic divination
• Initiation Ordeal discount after a very passionate discussion with an old man

For Heracles:

• Gear Rates for Pi-Tac upgrade

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.