Missing in the Mist

Missing in the Mist
Part of Dance Around The Fire That We Once Believed - The Ex-Firewatch Story
Date 2080-11-16 GM Darklordiablo Location Pullayup, Seattle, UCAS
Belligerents
Shadowhaven Wolfheart Trash Panda Cryo Golden Suit Scrabble	Agristruct Systems Security Team
Casualties and losses
Scrabble's Deck	7 Security staff

Background

"We have need of a covert investigation into a number of disappearances from a corporate enclave. We prefer that the investigation remain secret, as we do not want word of this to spread until it is resolved."

The Meet

With a variety of transportation methods, including a roomba for the local Leopard, Cryo, the team met in a quiet bar in southern Bellevue. There they encountered a terse Johnson who explained that they were needed to investigate the disappearance of eight awakened employees at a thaumaturgical construction company, Agristruct Systems.

The mages were being spirited away in the evenings, under cover of a dense fog cover.

The Legwork

First up, Golden Suit made a call to an infobroker of his, requesting information about weird weather patterns, and fog magic that snatched people. While waiting for the call back, Scrabble searched the Matrix, discovering that Agristruct Systems was a minor subsidiary of the Aztechnology Corporate Group. Then the team travelled to the Enclave, discovering a massive offensive mana barrier over the site. There, they investigated further, investigating the HR files, camera footage and incident reports.

Once they knew who they were looking for, Trash Panda and Wolfheart summoned spirits to Search for Luke Nevin, one of the missing mages. Despite the mana barrier concealing them, they were successful, finding all eight mages inside a safehouse ten kilometers from the Enclave. The mages had escaped, afraid that they were going to be infested by bugs, as Agristruct Systems was being purchased by Ares.

The Plan

The team played with several different plans, but eventually settled with conning their way into the facility's ritual room, with a line about how the use of the leylines that lay under the facility were attracting the ire of a free spirit.

Once inside, they would disrupt the barrier ritual, so that the mages could break out their remaining escapees.

The Run

Conning into the Ritual chamber was the easy part. To be fair, the rest were easy parts too.

The Mages made their way to the Ritual chamber, Scrabble took a trip to the security office, and Gold Suit incapacitated the Ritual leader, causing a quick firefight, with the Agristruct team incapacitated in a matter of seconds.

The last endeavor was for Scrabble to try to prove if it was true about the bug infestation in, but in the rush, he unfortunately triggered a databomb, bricking his deck instantly, and throwing out of the matrix with nasty dumpshock.

The team patched themselves up, cleaned their auras, then left with the escaping Agristruct mages.

After a call to their Johnson, they collected their paydays, and wished the mages good fortune linking up with Ex-Firewatch.

Aftermath

• 20 mages join up with the Ex-Firewatch faction.
• Agristruct Systems fails to keep track of 20 employees, guaranteeing it's purchase by the Ares Macrotechnology Corporate Group.

Rewards

• 8,000¥ (4,000¥ core pay, 4,000¥ secondary pay)
• 5 karma
• +1 faction rep Ex-Firewatch

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Trash Panda

Eva was very pleased with herself when she made it home. Nobody was there, and she had the whole place to herself. This was perfect. She dumped her gear off in the usual place, inside the dish washer that didn't have a door anymore, and went into the bedroom to lay on the bed and drop into cold sim. Some of her favorite shows were on tonight, and she didn't want to miss them. She knew her Johnson would not be happy, but there was just enough plausible sounding evidence to keep them clean. The Johnson would surely never hire her again, but she got a bunch of people out of a place they didn't want to be. That seemed more important to her. Karl Kombatmage Reloaded was starting, rumor has it that this episode is going to be the best in the season. But all those fan discussion hosts tend to say that about a lot of episodes when there are leaks. Eva was looking forward to finding out.

Cryo

Oh! Neat, when did we start putting places for this in here? Eh, probably not important... Anyway! I don't think the Johnson liked my method of arriving at the meet, but what's really different between driving and riding a roomba? I don't really know myself, but the cops thought it was weird too. They didn't stop me though... Anyway, we were hired to track down some people and find out why they'd been disappearing. Turns out, they were trying to get out of the company we were hired by before they were acquired by Ares for all of them to get turned into BUGS! So we helped them get the rest of the people they wanted out free, and got attacked by the local security, but we won, and then we helped get a bunch of mages out and it was great! Except for the dogs they had there... They were mean, and didn't want to play...

Wolfheart

I often hear people say that spirits of fire and air are the most fearsome, but the spirits of water can sense the ebbs and flows of the seasons, and they follow the course of the rivers. When I heard there was a strange mist on a focal point along a ley line, I called one for help. It tracked down the missing mages, and we organized an extraction for the employees who wanted off a termite-infested, sinking ship. With the spirit's help, I called upon a fearsome storm of wind, hail, and fog. It battered the stronghold around the focal point, and it helped the mana children make their escape. I am grateful to the spirits of this land for their aid.