Chain Mail

Chain Mail
Part of La Famille Du Peintre
Date 2085-02-10 GM Sleevey Location The Seattle Sprawl Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven The Green-Eyed Witch Vee-Jay Kenneth "Flamesaw" Murphy June Sano	Assorted "Debtors"
Saint Lady Argentum Insonia Kadō	Florence Ishada Karol "Drundeah" Abdolhossein Sumidero Sky Damien Frank
Casualties and losses
None

Summary

A team of runners are brought on board to deliver a series of curious letters for an equally curious employer. Their perceptions, morals and patience are all tested.

Background

An entity now known as The Green-Eyed Witch was trapped in the metaplane of man for an exceedingly long time after her banishment from the fey courts. During this time, once they became sufficiently reconstituted, they were able to master walking the dream paths and began covertly making bargains, influencing lives here and there with deals. Offers of fame. Fortune. Success.

Now, he is looking to cash in.

The Dreams

The run began with a series of dreams.

Kadō dreamt of being younger, being back home. Below the blankets on a sunny afternoon day, treated to breakfast in bed by her maid, Rie. A memory. A warm, comforting memory. It should have been a good dream ... until the cracks began to show. Her ordinarily perfect memory seemed flawed. Details were changed. The script was different. Rie had green eyes.

Saint dreams of fire. She stands in the burned out ruin where her parents met their fiery end, burning alive with limbs of flesh. She hears a monstrous horde of Red Ribboned entities, hears the sounds of a roto-drones engine whir. She grabs a gun off the ground and fires ... but it jams. She turns and sees Oberon, also burning alive, who tells her that he's had this dream before and that she should follow the deer. Saint, still panicking, sprints into increasingly wooded alleyways, pursued by the ribbon monsters, until she finds a verdant pond, where a deer drinks. Still burning, she collapses into the depths and is claimed by darkness.

Lady Argentum dreams of combat. She holds her old claymore sword, stands in a fencing studio surrounded by masked figures. One stands with a broadsword and faces her in combat. The two clash, her opponent and herself seeming equally matched but her opponent seeming slightly stronger. Slightly faster. Nevertheless, the holds strong in form and her training and slashes her adversary across the chest. As she goes to help them up, moving their mask to the side, she sees a familiar white-haired visage and the bearing of fangs that are quickly buried in her neck. As she staggers backward, actively exsanguinated, she pulls a dagger from her belt and stabs the apparent vampire several times in the chest. The thing dies and she looks at her own monstrous face. When she blinks, the fangs are gone and she holds the corpse of a green-eyed girl in her arms. As she ponders what just happens, she has a short conversation with one of the spectators, apparently a dream-walker known as 'Stranger' seeking out some kind of quarry across the dream paths. With more questions than answers, she finds herself drifting back to wakefulness.

Insonia, fortunately or unfortunately, cannot sleep that night due to her insomnia. She has a pleasant evening of working on her new, stolen car. In the back, she finds a strange little thing, a Styrofoam mannequin head that someone painted over the eyes with green paint. Odd. Thinking nothing of it, she continues on with her work.

Meeting the Devil

The team filed into the Water Lily restaurant, finding it in a state of strangeness, with chairs and utensils all arrayed in an imitation of activity, as if the place was stopped in the middle of a typical business day and, in the blink of an eye, all food and people vanished. At least, save for one. An androgynous, green-eyed person with a military style coat sat in a booth and invited the runners over. Unfortunately for the vampires, they also sat behind a ward, making the job of the vampires more complicated. Nevertheless, everyone sat down and the premise was explained. The J needed 4 letters delivered to 4 specific people. Upon delivery, they would need to confirm the recipient fully read and understood the letters contents and then said a phrase out loud, that phrase being: "Goodbye blue skies. Hello, green eyes."

The names on the letters are as follows: Florence Ishada, Karol "Drundeah" Abdolhossein, Sumidero Sky, Damien Frank

After some negotiations, the team settle on 16,000 nuyen for the job. With that done, they head out to do some legwork.

The Legwork

Insonia fires up her deck and searches up the names and addresses finding out some crucial details about the names given.

Florence Ishada is a middle-aged paper pusher for Cross Applied Technologies who lives in Auburn, solidly Kenran-Kai turf. Record listed an extended period of unemployment before getting picked up by Cross and getting a nice, cushy wageslave gig.

Karol Abdolhossein is a former troll pit fighter who went by 'Drundeah'. She saw a line of startling upsets in the ring, unseating one champion after another before eventually retiring entirely from the ring and getting work as a Skraacha leg-breaker. Unlike other former-pitfighters or members of the skraacha, she hasn't dipped her toes back into the fight-pit culture since leaving, even for a victory lap. She frequents the OU beneath Renton.

Sumidero Sky is an accomplished artist who apparently crawled his way out of the barrens by virtue of his inspiring, classical landscapes. It's a proper, UCAS success story, with his paintings being lauded by critics and sold for great sums. Recently, he has been quiet. There are rumors of some big project but nothing directly from the man himself. He has a penthouse in Tacoma.

Damien Frank was a former Lone-Star sniper that was cut off from official records after killing another cop and fleeing, however no official charges were ever raised against him by Lone Star. He's since retreated to the Snohomish wilderness, apparently safeguarding it for some network of druidic spirit network.

The team calls up various contacts, establishing meetings with Sumidero Sky and Drundeah. Kadō is able to secure a spirit with some information on Damien Frank's current whereabouts and the team sets off to hit the targets in order.

The Run

Florence Ishada is simple enough. Kadō and Lady Argentum walk into the Yak-filled apartment building. With Lady Argentum dissuading any threat of violence and Kadō's smooth talking, it is not particularly difficult to convince the poor paper pusher into reading the contract and saying the words, despite some initial resistance. When viewed on the astral, it seems to be a realization of some sort of astral effect, with something being siphoned off from poor Florence.

Entering the Ork Underground is a little more difficult but the team is able to network their way through contacts to one Kenneth "Flamesaw" Murphy, who gives them access. Saint and Kadō go in and, after quite the hike, meet up with the former pit fighter at a Trogg Rock Club in the second layer of the OU. Drundeah immediately decides to head out, turning off her ears and moving to walk out. Saint attempts to intercede and is beat up and thrown into a table. Eventually, however, Drundeah's ears are reactivated to taunt the fallen Saint and the two of them are able to actually have a conversation. They learn that Drundeah made some sort of agreement for success in her dreams but refuses to acknowledge it as legitimate, instead believing herself as the sole cause. Saint attempts to tell her to get mad and fight back but, seeing the sad angry metal woman as a negative example, Drundeah eventually agrees to sign the contract.

Sumidero Sky is met at a high class club. After some pushing for details from the group, he informs them of a similar situation. Currently, he is despondent and hedonistic, owing to his current lack of artistic spark. Nevertheless, he too, agrees to the contract after Kadō agrees to model for him. The resulting painting is beautiful ... but her green eyes are just ever so slightly wrong. How strange.

Last but not least is Damien Frank. The team contacts their spirit pal and receives cryptic vagaries informing them that he's probably in a cabin along the river, or at least based around there. The team decides to head out and march along the river until they find a cabin or a Damien Frank. Ultimately, they walk into an ambush, with Damien Frank and two spirit protectors of the area assuming them to be runners, sent by some corporate force to root them out. In the resulting fight, Lady Argentum slays a spirit of Canada, Saint gets shot, Insonia out snipes a Lonestar sniper and Kadō oversees a spirit kaiju battle. When the dust settles, Damien is knocked out. The team drags him back to his cabin and ties him up for interrogation. They learn his wife was killed and he made a deal to uncover her killer after all leads dried up. The Green-Eyed Witch gave him that answer, the killer was a member of his own precinct and the rest had worked to cover it up. It was an accident, all things considered. Unsatisfied, he shot his wife's killer in the head and fled. After a raucous debate, with Insonia hassling him for being a cop (fair), Insonia hassling him for 'letting his fire die', Argentum keeping the peace and Kadō pushing the idea of the contract before eventually threatening to turn the man, their combined efforts eventually bear fruit. Sad, defeated and wifeless, he agrees to the contract.

Aftermath

The team returns to the Water Lily restaurant and, after a tense stare down with The Green-Eyed Witch, they are given a briefcase filled with magical gems (which are evaluated to be legitimate, although do not share a link to the witch themself). Feeling conflicted but nevertheless paid, the runners depart.

Rewards

20,000 nuyen once the jewels and precious metals are fenced (10 RVP) 9 Karma (9 RVP) 14 CDP (6 RVP)

Optional Qualities (May Be Taken at Chargen Price, Subtracted from Run Rewards) For Kadō: Too Pretty to Hit (3 RVP) or GLAKI (10 RVP) For Saint: Toughness (9 RVP) or Tough as Nails (5 RVP) Lady Argentum: Up to 3 Ranks in Battle Hardened (6 RVP)

Optional Contact: The Green-Eyed Witch at 6/1 (12 CDP or 6 RVP) Kenneth Flamesaw Murphy at 1/3 (6 CDP or 3 RVP)

Consequences: Kadō gains 1 public Awareness and CAN take 1 Street Cred (subtracted from run rewards). The painting of 'her' (Emerald Sunset) goes on to sell for half a million nuyen at auction.

Lady Argentum is still seeking out 'The Stranger', whoever that is

Saint is not beating the jobber allegations

Game Quotes

"... I'd need pelvic reconstruction surgery afterwards, but it might be worth it," Kadō @ Kenneth "Flamesaw" Murphy