Kill'o'Gram

Kill'o'Gram
Date 2086-11-18 GM Breeze Location Seattle, Auburn Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Influenced Cutters
Chance Prince Colcannon Wraith	A lot of lower level mooks of varying metatypes
Casualties and losses
Colcannon was knocked unconscious and Prince took a nasty barrage of machine gun fire, but otherwise no permanent injuries were suffered	6 of the ten were killed, with 4 trapped for some time during extraction of the target.

Summary

Obsession in the name of passion is too often glamorized, romanticized, until one finds their loved ones rotted, heaving, gasping for that spark of the past to take them over once again just to feel something as they brush. The troughs of depression, the disappointment that comes from failure upon failure, the need to live up to the expectations put forth by those who put their faith in you and your own feelings on your talent, are all little pylons of rebar to hold together the wall that separates us from the warmth and safety we need from those in our lives. And all that...because we believe in something. We believe we want something, and we pursue it. With love and passion and care that belonged to the people in our lives. And in that pursuit, we run to our deaths.

Background

Gram is a lower level fixer in charge of his own little smuggling ring over in Puyallup city, focused on supplying gangs and random street toughs with the stims and weapons and vehicles needed while keeping what he needs for neighborhood watches. Part of that small little circle requires a matrix operative to handle logistics, help fool sensors, and overall wreak havoc on the people who want to interfere with operations. This girl's handle was Hoodwinked, and she seems like your typical decker type. Loved to paint and to stick it to corporates and corporate types, pretty normal as far as shadow operatives worked.

It was that painting that nearly killed her.

Work sucks. Art was an escape from that. But things don't always work out. Projects fall flat. Things get in the way of passions. And everything boils up, and you want to huddle into the corner of your room and cry and scream and when you get to the painting and your art and your love you just get frustrated because nothing works and you hate everything about it and you JUST WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING WORTHWHILE FOR ONCE.

This...passion, this dissatisfaction, attracted what would be her salvation and demise: A pair of shadow spirits, a muse and a shade, who fed her creative love and her anxieties and frustrations. Every feeling she had been going through had been magnified tenfold, and that was leading to massive problems. For her. Not for the two, who were delighting in the painful karma she was generating for them. It was splendid, because she so willingly burned her candle at both ends. However, that meddlesome Gram started getting worried, along with other clients who were working with her prior that she still focused on. And that wouldn't do.

Influence is potent. Cutters are large, and pervasive. No one would question their presence. Get a group of them, keep them docile, feed on them when they stop being useful or start fighting too much, and they make a good security detail. Take a safehouse of theirs, bring your new little karmic chew toy to that place so she's isolated from work and support, and keep eating away until they're gone. All of them. Maybe after this girl is rotted away and as worthless outside as she feels inside, you can bring someone else here. A nest. A lovely, despicable nest.

Gram needed to get Hoodwinked back. It had been days at this point. It didn't matter how. He was going to make whoever was responsible pay.

The Meet

He called four runners to the abandoned lab he was sat upon for the sake of keeping curious types out since he didn't really have time to move. Chance, Colcannon, Prince, and Wraith. He kept it brief: footage showed Cutters taking her from her home and drivi8ng east, he suspected they were in Auburn. They had to get Hoodwinked back unharmed, and kill the fuckers responsible. That was it. 10k was the original asking price, but the runners of coursed haggled for a lot of extra gear he could smuggle in to make their lives easier. As well as trying to hook them up with means to help track her, access to her things. Despite their abrasiveness, Gram wasn't exactly willing to let his friend and asset go missing for good. He agreed, and sent them off.

The Plan

The plan for something like this is simple. You keep the explosives down until the target is out of whatever hell hole they're being kept in, and you kill the rest afterwards. In terms of actually finding her, they decided to head first to her apartment and to check in with their contacts about details they pick up, standard legworking affairs. After that and getting a location, they'd get a good casing of the place first and bust in with the odds in their favor.

The Run

Investigating Hoodwinked's apartment revealed some oddities. No signs of a struggle, and a decker's cyberdeck abandoned on the bed like it was worthless. Jobs were left on the table. Voice calls unanswered. Paints strewn about and messy. The first theory of the job being a bad disagreement over business with the cutters fell flat when it turned out through contacts and researching her last known jobs that she wasn't involved with them professionally at all. They had a location, some basic narrowing down of spots they could look into for the job, but overall they didn't really leave with much of note, just some narrower search spots and a lot more questions.

The reconnaissance of likely target buildings was similarly strange. When Chance made his way into the host of this abandoned factory the cutters were using as a safehouse and got on cams, he saw a Hoodwinked who's only maladies seemed like they were self inflicted from neglect (and a girl who was staring at a painting of a grey woman with tear stained cheeks) and a punch of guys standing around bored but not trying to occupy themselves, almost like they were just not all there.

Mind magics?

Chance and Prince thought for a second. Spells can pull that off, sometimes critter powers. The thought of compulsions crossed their minds. They were getting closer.

But that would have to wait. They had cutters to kill. Chance trapped a number of them in rooms, screwed with their doors and extinguishers and machines, anything he could get his hands on before sending in his juggernaut to do some carnage. Wraith was taking off the heads of even the bulkiest troll with ease, with Prince and Colcannon tactically moving up and through with the juggernaut to clear the first floor without much incident. The second floor was less favorable. A lucky troll with a heavy machine gun and good cover against the sniper proved to be a harder fight, especially with Chance momentarily distracted by that same gray lady appearing and trying to ruin the party's plans. They drove her off (but did not disrupt her) and killed the troll after a hard fight that saw Col downed and Prince bleeding all over.

They had to slab Hoodwinked to get her to not scream and throw an anemic fit as they dragged her out of the warehouse and away from her passion.

Taking a few hours for the slab to wear off and rest after being so damaged, they turned back to the girl in worry as she arose. She was clearly obsessed with the painting, with the woman who was appearing before her and objectively ruining her life. It was all she talked about, all she cared for. Hell, they convinced her to not misbehave and cooperate by insisting she could get back to painting her Muse since explaining what happened didn't seem to work. A simple, but uncomfortable job complete.

Aftermath

Gram was understandably horrified at Hoodwinked's state, but he didn't hold malnutrition and neglect on the runners. He still seemed taken aback by it all but, they got paid. That's what really matters, right?

The Cutters lost a safehouse, and six members.

And the two spirits responsible are still at large. Maybe they can get back to their favorite snack soon. It depends~

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.