Cogs and Wheels

Cogs and Wheels
Date 2082-04-24 GM Asmodeus Location Denver Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Shiawase	Ghostwalker	Lamashtu
Rabbit Potato Swerve Barracuda Delphi	The City of Denver	Ex-Firewatch Assault Units

Summary

Captain Madeline Palermo contracted a team of runners to investigate the disappearance of some of her former comrades and rescue them. The team is soon ensnared in the power plays of forces far greater.

Background

Captain Palermo learned that a squad of Firewatch soldiers were dispatched to scout out Ghostwalker and his domain, only to go missing, sending out a panicked distress message. Fearing for her former allies, she gathered together a team of runners to find out what happened to them and hopefully rescue them. Her intel being near non-existent, and Ghostwalker's control so absolute, she knew the odds were low, but she would not abandon them.

The Meet

The four initial runners, Rabbit, Swerve, Potato, and Barracuda, head to Renton without incident for the meet in the dead of night. Captain Palermo gives them a straightforward briefing of the situation, telling them of the disappearance of the soldiers. The only knowledge that they had of their location, was that they had sent out a distress signal from the Dayton Triangle, in Denver, several days ago. After a general acceptance of a budget of 30k nuyen for each runner, she moved forward into greater detail. She played the distress message, a harrowing audio falling of the Firewatch members screaming for extraction and aid. Rabbit listening closely, noticed something disturbing. There were less people in the recording than it seemed. The soldiers seemed to be changing their voices and tones, screaming as if they were different people.

Cpt. Palermo described a smuggling network that she was in contact with that could likely get them to Denver, for a price. While she wasn't sure of their charges exactly, she said the provided budget would likely cover it, and if it didn't she would provide a small reward on top of it. The team accepted her teams, and began planning.

The Plan

Talking among themselves, the Runners first focused on smuggling plan. While they were provided a contact for transit, their frugal instincts came to the front, and they thought hard to save money. Discussing various ideas such as using a submarine boat, just driving down there, and even organleggers briefly. While the discussion continued, Barracuda called one of his fixer's, Agamemnon, asking for info on smuggling routes. He was surprisingly helpful and pointed Barracuda towards elvish smugglers of the Salish Sidhe Council. All he asked in return was they he kept his eyes open for spirit formulas in Denver. As Barracuda hung up, he received a less pleasant call from Asahiro Kunitoshi. Asahiro instructed Barracuda that he was going to get him secret information on Ghostwalker's operations. Graciously, he mentioned that he would provide transport out of Denver if Barracuda succeeded. Barracuda wasn't given much of a choice in this.

Sharing all this information with the team, they decided to look into the possibility of using smugglers to enter Denver. Rabbit contacted one of his fixers to arrange a meeting to negotiate terms. Swerve and Rabbit visited them, and used their general elfiness and knowledge of Sperethiel to both get a decent deal and assuage their concerns about smuggling dirty non-elves. With a relatively cheap cost of 7k each for a round trip, the team had secured a way to get their gear to Denver.

The Run

The runners loaded into two vehicles, carrying the limited amounts of supplies the smugglers would allow, and began to head south to Denver. The drive was during the daytime, so the banshee's had a quite unpleasant trip ahead of them. Rabbit dodged this by hot-siming into the matrix and doing knowledge searches. Swerve had no such option though, so she settled for mildly roasting and making awkward small talk with Barracuda. Rabbit's searches revealed some important knowledge. Her first attempt revealed a picture taken of a figure that recently went on a killing spree. Heavily armored, with treads instead of legs and bristling with weapons, they appeared more man than machine. The augmentations were to such an extent, that the ware had to be of a high grade and even then their essence would be near depleted. Likely, this was a member of the Ares Firewatch team, perhaps some heavy assault soldier.

Eventually, the runners arrive in Denver and reunited. Needing to head to another part of the city, they bought burner sins and arranged to rent a car. Under the name Shad O'Runner, Rabbit called a car to their location. Looking over it, she found 2 cameras, 2 microphones and 3 tracking devices, as Denver is a dragon led police state. Rabbit hacked the car and removed a physical tracker, eventually clearing the vehicle of all the devices and allowing them the ability to head to the murder site.

Heading to a crossroads in the Dayton Triangle, the team began their investigations to find the missing soldiers. Potato and Barracuda exited the car and began to snoop around the area, also knocking on doors to question residents. After being warned off by shotgun, the pair stopped their attempts at communications, but they did managed to find a trail heading to the north away from the crime scene. They followed it for a ways, but neither were skilled trackers, and the trail was soon lost. Meanwhile, Rabbit and Swerve noticed a watcher spirit spying on them. They left it be, but notified the team.

With not much else to do, Swerve summoned a spirit to search for the missing person. Waiting around a bit, the spirit returned with news of failure. At a bit of a loss, they were saved by the arrival of Delphi. Delphi, straight off another run in Denver, beaten down by the fists of mystic adepts and the pain of existence, got forced into another run by Hanako Shinoda, who seemed to be working in tandem with Asahiro. Heading over to the team, she got briefed on the situation, not particularly enjoying her presence or the details of the job. Taking charge, she went to the edge of the trail and used psychometry to find the path. Experiencing the trauma of a person beset by identity disorders and incredible torment, it was a highly traumatic experience, but ultimately effective and she discovered where the soldier went. Hearing sirens back by the crossroads, the team decided to drive across town to the new location.

Considerably closer now to the target, Swerve attempted again to locate the target via spirit. As the spirit left, the team wait patiently until a visitor approached. To their alarm, a powerful spirit appeared, Force 10, watching only to disappear. Delphi, getting a good look at it, noticed that it had a strange quality to it. She discovered that it was summoned by a metasapient of some sort. Given the location, the team began panicking about dragons. Getting ready to leave, and hearing sirens in the distance, the air spirit actually returned with good news. It found where the soldier went. Following the spirit, they drove fast and hard, and the low quality car broke down outside the target location, stranding them there. Needing to head towards a garage, the team calls the smuggling team to relocate near them, so hopefully they'd be able to run before the police caught up with them.

Heading towards the descending ramp, the team encountered a mana barrier. While of large force, it did not seem that out of the ordinary at first. However, when Delphi inspected closely, she realized that it was created by a member of the draconic tradition.

Rewards

• 24000 Nuyen; May buy Ares Redline, Ares Lancer or Ares Armatus as well as Peak Discharge Clip or Battery Satchel Packs at gear rates

• 4 Karma

• For Everyone but Delphi: +1 Public Awareness

• For Delphi: +1 Loyalty, +1 Chip

• For Barracuda: +1 Loyalty, +1 Chip

• Optional Contact: Captain Madeline Palermo, 5/1 Black Market Armorer

• Optional Contact: Lamashtu, 6/1 Prison Guard Drake

• 2 CDP

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.