House Of Pain

House Of Pain
Part of Temple in the Shadows
Date 2082-06-08 GM Asmodeus Location Pacific Ocean Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven D. Frost	Humanis Policlub
Cricket Shy Artemisia	Rating 4 Terminal
Casualties and losses
Cricket's Pride	The Gigachad Terminal

Summary

The vampires of Seattle get a bioware expert to work for their purposes and Humanis loses one. Win/win, right?

Background

Due to the Catholic Church starting to breathe down the local Infected population's neck, some of the players in those circles start to take steps. In addition, during the events of Festering Infestation, Carolina Petrovski, a known member of Humanis and a Horizon politician began cracking down on Renton. While she was beaten back, she sent out feelers to get hold of some skilled Alamos 20,000 operatives from incarceration facilities across the world, this time to work for her goals.

The Meet

Metting in the titular House of Pain in Loveland, the three runners (and Trample) end up realizing that the underground rave club they bumped into is filled with hundreds of infected. Upon realizing this, some of them get a little nervous, but continue to the bartender and ask for Frost, the one the guard outside told them to find. The bartender serves a few blood drinks, a house special filled with a mysterious white powder and a pint of blood, then points them to the elevated VIP loungings.

Frost himself is a young-looking male vampire with an entourage to boot and invites the team to the privacy of his booth which closes to leave the booming music outside. He explains calmly that he's invited the runners there to be deniable assets that can strike at human supremacists and help the local infected communities all in one fell swoop. A geneticist currently serving life and being transferred from Berlin to Seattle is on his way on a ship and he wants the guy to produce top quality ware for infected instead. He specifically called runners for this to make it harder to trace down the perpetrator as well as it being a job that runners usually wouldn't have issues taking, considering who it's aimed at. Trample's not quite so sold on the idea and walks out, not wanting to fuel the fires of vampires. The rest do agree to work with this, however, and Frost asks one of his entourage to have some forward payment -- a Krime Troll minigun for Arte, who seems more than happy about it.

The Plan

The technomancer, Cricket, does some searching on the Matrix and finds the vessel's information, A cargo freighter turned into a prison and VIP transport named Kono is three hours away from reaching the Tacoma Docks and the man in question is one human Jacobson Krebs. Shy calls to her N-51 associates for aid and wrangles a sniper fireteam to aid, while Yennefer Kerrigan checks in on what information the UCAS Navy has on the vessel. She refuses to get too involved, but will offer the team the plotted course of the ship. The plan is to get the inflatable boat Shy has onto Pacific waters, get close, board the ship, snag the prisoner and hightail it away ASAP.

The Run

For the most part, this happens well. Good camouflaging, sneaking and squelching of alarms makes things go relatively smoothly (and the team finds that the ship is not a technomancer). However, when they reach the prison containment cell's mantrap, issues arrive. The big boss of the ship, the toughest of them all, a treacherously simple-looking terminal takes all of Cricket's technomancer prowess and more to crack as she over and over again compiles crack sprites and remains online to keep the alarms shut. The sprites do their best, but something about Kono's hardware is next level and Shy ends up having to cut a tiny crawling-sized hole into the thick mantrap doors. They dumpshock the jacked-in prisoner, yank him out and forcibly extract him before he has the time to ask too many questions. Some of the guards spot the trio as they're running to the boat where Cricket is waiting, but to little avail; the alarms do not ring. Artemisia suppresses practically everyone by letting a minigun rip before turning tail and climbing down to the boat. As the team speeds away, the mercenaries Shy sub-contracted keep the guards pinned with accurate sniper fire from an autogyro in the sky, giving them enough time to peel off and escape.

Aftermath

Frost advised the team to drop the man off in Rat's Nest, Redmond, and sure enough some relatively professional-looking security folks pick him up and advise them to visit a night club in Touristville, Redmond to debrief with Frost. As they do, Shy tries to insist that she requires the geneticist's services, but Frost vehemently denies any requests for ware, sternly stating that the local infected communities need tailored bioware services more right now and that the man is going to be very, very busy.

Rewards

• 24,000 Nuyen
• May purchase the following gear at half price, maximum Availability of 18:
  • Vehicle Modifications
  • Ares Vigorous Assault Cannon
  • Krime Troll Triple Minigun
  • Any Awakened Drugs
  • Faceless
  • Awakened Critters as Pets
• 1 Karma
• 2 CDP
• 1 La Cosa Nostra Reputation
• 1 Vory Reputation
• 1 Eighty-Eights Reputation

Run-Related Humor

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Cricket

"I swear to god, next time I see that ship I'm gonna 'level it'. What in the actual hell was that terminal made out of? I don't know what kind of god I pissed off to get this run of luck but I'm just about sick of it. At the rate I'm going, the next couple of jobs might finally turn my brain to mush. Frag, I need a cigarette."

Artemisia

Simple enough run. Get a target, get out. I think we did very well in that regard. Though some of the doors didn't open when we needed them to. Bizarre. I'm sure it is nothing.