The Great Wave

The Great Wave
Part of The Arrival
Date 2085-03-22 GM Asmodeus Location Glow City, Redmond Status Threat Level: Semi-Prime, escalated to Prime
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Officer Raven Hextech Bolt West Coast Monolith	Monolith Cult	Kalanyr
Eidolon Red Ribbon Blackhawk Artemisia Delphi	Wish Granter Strider Herald Preachers Warriors Toxic Critters	Kalanyr
Casualties and losses
Red Ribbon's Hellhound was completely wrecked.	The cult's activities in America have ceased completely.	Hand of God to survive the WW Warhead
Capstone run for the Arrival Metaplot

Summary

The team engages the cult's forces at the threshold of their plans and pushes them out of Seattle. Kalanyr gets flashbanged by a hundred kilograms of TNT as well.

Background

Monolith, the toxic cult faction lured to Seattle by their former member's brief communion with the spirit before her death, have planned moving to Glow City from Mt. Rainier's temporary base for months. Scouting, attacking and weakening the WCM's abilities to counteract their movements and letting their shamans get as many of their god's herald spirits together as possible, they've gained a foothold in the melted down ruins of a power plant. Shiawase Atomics built an impregnable defense against them, but focused most of their efforts in protecting the power source and were unable to mount an offensive to defend themselves. Kalanyr's cultists prevented any calls for aid from going out due to the dragon wanting to have the spirit for himself.

The Meet & Plan

Bolt can't make it out of the siege so he has a datachip with a quick brief established on a datachip and has the coordinates sent to the runners instead. Delphi engages Urubia by astrally projecting to the Funhouse and requests that she drops the siege now so the gang can fight to prevent an impending doom. Urubia agrees but with draconian requirements for WCM to pay back if she agrees to this. Delphi executes a Smack Down edge-burning Negotiation to convince Urubia to enter the negotiating table with Bolt after all is said and done. With the siege dismantling, the WCM convoy leaves and rendezvouses with the runners near Cottage Lake. Bolt exposes his planned route and that he aims to hit the reactor once they've relocated most of their materiel to a scouted, secured base of operations within the Glow. Delphi requests that the runners split off and deal with the radiation storms across Redmond on the way, which Bolt allows them to do. He refuses to slow down or wait for them, however.

The Convoy

The convoy's path is mostly uninterfered. With a mixture of draconic mind control, expert marksman sniping and forced astral disruptions, the Nuclear Spirits causing storms in various population centers in Redmond are disposed of. On one of them, the team discovers a detachment of cultists protecting the spirit and have little option but to engage in a firefight once they themselves are pre-emptively ambushed by a Preacher detecting them with a Detect Enemies spell. Razorcats slice and bite at Blackhawk, K-10-crazed cultists fire at Red Ribbon's anthrodrone and the Preacher taints the astral sphere with crippling mana surges fo corruption completely incapacitating the two Infected. The Preacher controls the flow of the battle until he's knocked down by concentrated attacks and his own spell drain, finally making the corrupted taint dissipate. Artemisia and Blackhawk extract with Red Ribbon's expert pick-up maneuver using Hextech's helicopter, picking up the wrecks of a helicopter as well. Delphi manages to disrupt the nuclear spirit by astrally projecting to it, although the battle is close. The cultists are left in the dust, shooting after the helicopter.

Near Sophocles, the team finds evidence of Energy Drain powers being used on cultists with the help of Psychometry. They have little to go on, but Blackhawk and Eidolon contact Asahiro and meet him in a Shinto temple built into Sophocles. There, the vice-president states that he hasn't intercepted any cultists yet, but will agree to help the team purge foul spirits since that's highly appealing to the self-appointed daimyo's sensibilities. He astrally projects with Shade to Fall City while Delphi moves to intercept the last Nuclear Spirit outside Glow City. The convoy starts moving again now that the roadblock they thought was near Sophocles is discovered to not be an issue.

The Glow

Kalanyr meets with Urubia. By him are some of the dragon's allies: Chaplain Carmilla and Officer Raven. Even Jeanne Hristvilg is present, having consulted the dragon on some research regarding toxic corruption. Delphi implores Kalanyr to aid them and he agrees, informing them that the gang must not enter the melted down reactor building. He'll arrive and entrap the Wish Granter and disable its powers so he may begin healing the spirit and possibly remove the toxic taint from it entirely if he's able. Those cultists permanently engaged to it may suffer death, but the dragon finds this a small price to pay for stabilizing a highly dangerous cult. He sends Delphi away with an Influence power.

The gang arrives to their headquarters, a bunker heading several levels underground and begin unpacking, giving people time to reload and restock. The charge into the largest radstorm is looming in the horizon and Red Ribbon's driving skills are required to make it work, but Bolt reveals his ace in the hole: by earning a favor from Arma Remington, one shadowrunner managed to convince Weapons World to provide critical supplies to the WCM. Bolt requested a housing for explosive payload delivery and received a hardened bomb casing which he and Hextech have been preparing a high yield charge into. Eidolon's demolitions calculations estimate it to be capable of vaporizing an entire bunker complex, making it unlikely for any spirits caught in the blast to survive without being disrupted. Bolt plans to storm the reactor, set the bomb near the toxic idol and extract, knowing the bomb can't be defused once it's set. Delphi plays as much to stall Bolt's plans in an attempt to find a way to save the cultists from their brainwashing, but the gang leader is stubborn. This leads the team to consider working with Kalanyr instead to try and maximize lives saved.

The Approach

Exploring urban territory near the reactor and underground tunnels, the team finds that feral ghouls have become afflicted by the radiatioactive contamination even in the OU tunnels under Glow City. The team manages to avoid combat with them and emerges in abandoned building alleyways. Having to take cover from the storm in alleyways, they slowly advance to scout cultist emplacements and find a sleeping quarters as well as some plans about entrenching positions, gaining insight into what the cultists have in store for them. They also find information regarding some 'Herald' and manage to find that the cult is in possession of Vichnozeleny's diary, taken during their raid of the WCM base in Devil Lake. Artemisia gains more insight into the cult's past by psychometrizing the book and reading the entries. Having been in a cult herself, she finds herself relating to the deceased ganger.

Unable to find the Gauss Rifle that the cult also stole, and risking exposure, they retreat and rendezvous with the gang's convoy. Red Ribbon takes the wheel and drives like a bat out of hell, avoiding emplacement fire from the cultists while Eidolon and Blackhawk return fire alongside the turrets on the Dodge Rhino. The leading vehicle takes serious damage and is almost hacked by an opposing Technomancer, but the convoy manages to make it across the no-mans-land. The cultists retreat in response, preparing an attack elsewhere.

The Wish Granter

Once here, the team begins securing a perimeter. The team reads horrifyingly lethal radiation counts inside the building. Picking up a bizarre transmission and turning off most DNI to avoid being hit by the Herald's dissonant entrapments that almost killed Red Ribbon on the approach, Delphi and Artemisia start exploring the western building wrecks to try and find what the transmission is doing, having recalled something like this in the psychometry visions. Eidolon scouts inside the reactor complex, having hardened genetics against radioactive emissions. Red Ribbon tries her best to recover in her Hellhound.

Delphi and Arti find another one of these garbage pile towers that seem to be retransmitters to the toxic idol's influence and control over the cultists. They consider blowing it up but are concerned over having to fight six cultists by just the two of them.

Eidolon heads inside and manages to speak with a cultist that doesn't immediately attack him. Coming back with a recording, unable to recognized the garbled Ukrainian, Artemisia and Delphi translate it to be an offer for Eidolon to make a wish to the glowing pillar of power as 'one of their wayward brothers.' They seem to offer this after sighting Kalanyr beginning to fly into the storm, arriving in five minutes to the reactor. Eidolon is tentative, but decides to risk it and heads back into the reactor. A Great Form Nuclear spirit that Delphi compelled to head back earlier is present, guarding a bizarre swirl of light. Eidolon makes a wish for the Wish Granter to leave and release the cultists from its possession. He suffers an unintelligible vision, emerging from it with the understanding of what needs to be done for the wish to come true.

Eidolon immediately turns around to run away, but realizes the cultist and spirit are gone. He touches the light and begins falling through incomperehensible lights. When he hits the floor, he's in another room with a tank and technical documents written in Russian. He manages to turn on wireless access and uses his AR heads-up display to communicate with a vague humanoid shape in a containment tank in the middle. Introducing itself as the Herald, it advises Eidolon not to attack by warning him that it is already inside of him, displaying a tremor in his body despite the tremor reducer bioware. He grabs pictures of the documents and leaves, having had a bizarre encounter. When he gets up sets of stairs and exits to the reactor room floor, he looks back to no longer see the doorway he walked through.

Having to plant a bomb east, presumably to catch Kalanyr in the blast and stopping Bolt from entering the reactor room are the two things Eidolon saw in the vision. He asks the team to work alongside him and spends favors with Hextech to loan her helicopter again. Unable to go wireless due to the Dissonant technomancer, she has to tell them to use the pilot software or pilot it themselves. With herculean effort, the two Ares Mules the party has, Blackhawk's orkish strength and Eidolon's assistance they manage to load the bomb on the Hellhound when Platoon Alpha and the comms specialist Painkiller are distracted, having been convinced by Red Ribbon that this is worth the try and what their founder would've done. Ribbon's off-facing skills are surprisingly useful this time around!

Before Bolt realizes the warhead is gone, the team's already driven off and plant it on site, setting atmospheric conditions and launching the timer. Twenty seconds away from the location, the team discovers that Delphi went and warned Kalanyr, whom took the elf's advice and flew above the explosive radius. Now scrambling to improvise, Red Ribbon flies over in Hextech's helicopter and loads the bomb on board, starting a rapid ascent and just barely evading detection by the dragon over the radiation storm's reach. As Eidolon and Blackhawk begin firing their anti-materiel rifles at Kalanyr to distract him and Artemisia fires an AV rocket at him, some of the attacks thoroughly infuriate the proud western dragon who retaliates with a Force 21 Radiation Burst. The autopilot of the Hellhound can't react in time and is completely destroyed, crashing into a wall with the runners just barely having time to jump out of the truck. Red Ribbon pulls serious G-forces remotely operating the attack helicopter to dive down, do an L-shaped curve and let the bomb slide out before speeding out of range. Kalanyr realizes the situation and darts away at maximum speed, but is still caught in the blast when the bomb finally detonates and rips the top of the melted down reactor's roof to shreds.

Aftermath

The team stops hearing whispers of toxic influence in their heads. The radstorm dissipates. Gangers go out scouting, secure Red Ribbon's Hellhound wreck, stabilize the rigger after she went into Physical Overflow and Artemisia and Blackhawk and Eidolon go looking for the cultist that spoke to the ganger. They find him, bisected from the waist and regenerating. After some thinking, the team finally realizes he's infected with replicator nanites, their personalities likely kept in check by the technomancer all this time. The WCM troopers establish a cordon around him for safety while the gang goes out to look for the Gauss Rifle. They find it, alongside cultists lost and despairing over no longer hearing their god. Eidolon attempts to comfort them with a few words, but the deprogramming of thoroughly indoctrinated zealots will take more than a few words. The gang grabs the rifle and leaves.

Bolt chews Eidolon out for disobeying his orders, but doesn't outright punish him due to him carrying out the gang's laws and rules of engagement in spirit over direct orders. The Gauss Rifle is set on the memorial shrine in the new base and some of the runners offer words of parting to the dead runner's memory before the gang tells them to leave and never tell anyone of the base's location without express permission.

Delphi has to engage with Bolt in private negotiations since she knows that if he doesn't go talk to Urubia, the dragon will pile all blame and responsibility on her shoulders. The seer pleads and begs for the man to see some reason, but only when Bolt realizes he does have a gang member that is immune to mind magic does her relent, getting a devious grin of rebellious glee. He agrees to meet in a vidcall with Urubia, technically fulfilling Delphi's debt to the dragon for her previous favor in unworking the cordon around Devil Lake.

Kalanyr took critical damage and escaped to his lair, propelled by the explosion's shockwave. He's recovering and will take time to emerge in his previous glory. The Isotopes have taken a hit in their effectiveness and the Rusted Stilettos run more rampant due to not having an authority control their madness.

The West Coast Monolith gang has a headquarters in the radioactive fallout of Glow City, unknown in its location to its enemies. Their assassination attacks on the exploitative practices of the criminal world continue with renewed vigor, infuriating the syndicates that they now target with more intensity to temporarily show lip service to Urubia's demands. Gangs are grateful to Urubia, but the gang will resume their attacks on the protection rackets and trafficking operations of street gangs eventually. Having absorbed the ex-cultists to their ranks and helping them recover in their base, the gang's recent losses are for the most part recouped with genuine veterans. While they're unable to perform full missions just yet, the gang's future seems brighter than before.

As for the Wish Granter, its disappearance is as of yet unexplained. Radioactive emissions imply that the traces of the melted down core is gone, as is the Elephant's Foot itself. Whether the spirit was vaporized in the explosion and disrupted or if it managed to reach Miggon, the toxic hyperplane of atomic warfare with its power sources remain undetermined. The Herald, dissonant technomancer suspected to be Vic's lost brother, may still be alive in some trapped basement, but this isn't confirmed either. Eidolon's wish came true in the end -- and whether the Monolith will return to Chernobyl with two nuclear cores remains to be seen.

Eidolon is infected with the Black Shakes. Time will tell whether he manages to find a proper cure.

The leader of the cultist detachment and replicator nanite victim, Strider, is given to Officer Raven. In exchange, she coordinates a UCAS Army logistics push into Redmond, working with the district's mayor to provide relief to the communities at large. The WCM takes notice and employs troopers to watch over these supply stations to prevent SINless from getting robbed by opportunistic gangers and other scum. Urubia makes a public announcement that she'll punish those interfering severely with an unseen hand, indirectly implying she has control of the WCM now. Bolt will choose to ignore this for the sake of the populace.

Rewards

• Mundane Ascension / Initiation Ordeal where applicable
• 100 Karma (100 RVP)
• 20 CDP (9 CDP)
• 1 Street Cred (1 RVP)
• 10 WCM Reputation
• -10 Kalanyr Reputation (to everyone except Delphi)
• 308,000 Nuyen into highly tuned up vehicles, drones, autosofts, vehicle modifications (77 RVP) - Bolt taps into the Cutter caches involving stolen/smuggled vehicles and has Hextech's mechanic team spend overtime to tune them up big time. These can contain Restricted or Legal vehicles, not Forbidden or military-grade material. Base Availability 19.
• Alternatively, may loot Assault Rifle DU bullet handloads from the cultists. Total bullet count: 680.
• Any money not spent on gear is kept at 50% rate.
• Optional Contact for Delphi: Kalanyr, 11/1 Totally Not Toxic Dragon Bro Trust Me (11 RVP)
• Optional Contact for Delphi: Orianna Cazador, 6/1 Secretary for Urubia (6 RVP)
• Optional Contact: Hextech, 4/3 WCM Platoon Leader (6 RVP)
• Optional Contact: Bolt, 3/3 WCM Gang Leader (5 RVP)
• Eidolon & Blackhawk may increase Hextech's and Bolt's Loyalty by 1 (up to 6).
• Blackhawk may buy Indomitable (Physical) at Chargen Rates

Game Quotes

"So this is what it's like to get cobbed." - Tidan/Blackhawk, eating a grenade

"Blackhawk stop EDGING you need to CUM."

"Thematics approved it, we're blowing up the Fun House."

"The monolith is not a merciful god" *In response to a tie being broken by an edge getting 7 hits*

"We're trying to drop a bomb on a dragon, GM is this a daring action?"

"I had a vision" *Pulls out 1911* "IF I HEAR THAT ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR TO GOD!"

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Blackhawk: "It's... it's over... we did it. So many people... lost their lives that day. Innocent people that did not deserve this fate but alas we did all we could. I just wish we could have saved more... though that thought is way too common to me. What we did in the end though... I can only hope Eidolon was right. That what we did was truly what she would have wanted... and even if it was that it was the right choice to make. I just feel this isn't fully over. That somehow it may come back... either by its own will or some other lunatic obsessed with what transpired here. For now though... I'm just gonna grab a drink and relax now that people I care about are safe. And if it does come back... I aint gonna show it mercy a second time."

Eidolon: The radiation storms were quelled, the Monolith moved on... the cult release from its grasp. It seems as if its over, but time will tell. The whole experience seems surreal... and what is with these tremors? I have 'ware to mitigate such things... at least I did what I hope is what our founder wanted, though I never knew her. Bolt was upset I did not follow orders, but he knew I followed our rules of conduct despite that. Hopefully the manasphere can stay out of Seattle's affairs for a time, in a major sense.

Artemisia: I ... where shall I start? The gang war orchestrated by prideful little men and more prideful lizards? The radiation storms? The terrible memories I stole of Vic, a mere passing acquaintance of mine? The second dragon I have shot with a rocket launcher? Good Goddess, I am your humble servant upon this earth. I hope that these soldiers may find their deliverance upon an earth now absent of their god. I hope the West Coast Monolith is not devoured by Urubia and I hope Vichnozeleny is at peace. Enjoy your porridge, weary warrior. You will remember their faces with time.