Stop The Ritual

Stop The Ritual
Date 2081-05-08 GM Aurora Location Snohomish
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Ex-Firewatch Gh0st Twitch Shiro Chammy	Aztechnology ArcanetWorks

Summary

News Van Dan hires a team of runners to look into something shady happening in Snohomish perpetrated by a company called ArcanetWorks. The runners eventually discover a ritual is going to go off within hours, and they rush over to stop it.

Background

Aztechnology owns plots of land in Snohomish that are heavily forested. However, there is a stipulation that Aztechnology or any future owners cannot cut down, poison, or otherwise directly kill any living trees. The land in question has resources underneath it, and so Aztechnology hatched a plot to remove the trees via magic.

The Meet

News Van Dan asks the runners to meet him in a parking lot in Downtown. He shows up at high speed, tells them he believes that ArcanetWorks are up to something shady, and asks the team to look into it and, if possible, stop it. Him and team settle on a price of 8k nuyen per runner. He then drops the team off obnoxiously far from their vehicles before speeding away again.

The Plan

The plan was to drive there and stop the ritual by forcing one of the participating people out of the circle cancelling the magic and forcing them to suffer the drain.

The Run

Twitch, Gh0st, and Shiro Hime perform some extermely in-depth matrix searches looking for information, and find ArcanetWorks' host, the fact that ArcanetWorks is owned by Aztechnology, and a copy of the original deed to the land with the stipulation about the trees. The three of them steal all the data they can about this, and discover that Aztechnology transfered a potent ritualist to ArcanetWorks and that they plan to use the Forest Transformation ritual to change the trees in the area to tropical trees (which cannot survive in Seattle), thus allowing them access to the resources underneath.

The team also discovers the time and place of the ritual, and Twitch speedily gets the team there. Once there, they devise a plot to get at least one member of the ritualists to leave the circle. As a backup plan, Gh0st hides in the bushes with a sniper rifle ready to fire on one of them. Chammy walks up to the two guards and five ritualists and, before they can react, gives them the overwhelming command to 'Stop The Ritual'. The two guards turn on the ritualists, and there is a battle of wills among the ritualists to not leave the circle. It almost looks like the ritual leader will prevent anyone from leaving the circle when Gh0st takes the shot, obliterating the ritual leader. Everyone in the circle and the two guards immediately suffer arcane backlash and pass out from immense drain.

The team ties up the ArcanetWorks/Aztechnology employees and leaves a copy of the ritual on all of their commlinks. They collect enough evidence for News Van Dan to be happy, then they speed away.

Aftermath

News Van Dan puts up the story later that day, though it is quickly taken down (within 20 seconds). Other people react and put the story back up on their own personal sites, but those too are quickly taken down. Eventually, no copy of the story is left on the matrix, though many people have seen it. News Van Dan transfers the agreed upon amount to each of the runners.

Rewards

• 8,000 karma
• 11 karma
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Twitch

This was a pretty easy run, in the end. Chammy convinced them to step out and it was over. The hardest part was just getting the info that we needed, and that was easy with some wiz deckers like Shiro and Gh0st... I wish we hadn't killed that guy. Job could've been done with SnS rounds. Wish I'd brought it up...

Chammy

That ritual would have ended awful for the area. But quite a smart plan to turn the forest into tropical trees, to be honest. And I was a little surprised that I could just order them to stop the ritual, normally that move get quite some back slash.

Gh0st

I don't really understand magic it was something about trees and clearing land, but the host they had would have certainly been nasty on my own, and in hindsight I might have gone overboard with trying to stop the ritual when I choosing APDS but hindsight is 2020.

Shiro Hime

This job was done quick and efficent and that's how all runs should be.