Postmodern, Posthuman

Postmodern, Posthuman
Date 2081-11-12 GM TheBiggestBoi Location Bellevue Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Triads
Nogitsune Zephyr Delphi Seven	Triad Spider Triad Aware Triad Exploers
Casualties and losses
None	None

Summary

Runner team consisting of Nogitsune, Zephyr, Seven, and Delphi are tasked by Mr. Mack owner of DaVinci's Delights art gallery to vandalize and for a bonus steal 3 pieces of art from The Modern Artist art gallery owned by Jeremiah Ferdinand. The team successfully scouts the place on its opening night immediately after their meet and returns home to rest/plan for the next nights heist. Nogitsune posts up in a building opposite the exhibit while Delphi, Zephyr, and Seven along with a couple of spirits infiltrate it knocking out the spider before knocking out the other security guards ensuring their are no casualties. Once the building is secured they vandalize the rest of the exhibits and steal the 3 optional ones for a solid bonus to their pay. They then travel to the drop-off location and trade the paintings for payment and head back out into the night.

Background

Mr. Mack loves art and hates upstarts, he is involved in a blackmarket/smuggling operation for art and to ensure he has a constant flow of both legal and illegal funds hires gangers or runners to handle newly opened art exhibits depending on if he just wants the place vandalized or if he actually wants some of the pieces collected for himself. Jeremiah Ferdinand had freshly arrived in Seattle and come into quite the large fortune through his families inheritance, he was able to work with the Mafia, Vory, and Triads to varying degrees to purchase the property, construct/fill the facility, and finally secure it with guards.

The Meet

Mr. Mack invited the runners to meet at his gallery DaVinci's Delight. Upon arrival the team notices that many of the enthusiasts are Aware or Free Spirits observing the art as much of it has some magical component to it. The art gallery accommodates individuals who want to be more intimate with the art and supplies protective wear for anyone wanting to use arts such as Psychometry to delve deeper into the arts history. Delphi decides to do so to a painting of many screaming faces that appears to be made of long dried blood. She has an extremely clear and detailed vision of someone waking up in a pitch-black location only to be murdered by a masked individual who uses their blood to paint the picture as their life fades from them. She decides afterwards she isn't going to do that to any other art in the gallery and observes the art that emnates "good vibes." Once the meet time comes around they're escorted by an employee at the main info kiosk to a hidden elevator that takes them to an underground living room wherein they're supplied with whiskey, grapes, crackers, and cheese by Mr. Mack as he lays out the job and details, they vandalize the gallery and for a bonus steal 3 specific paintings for him. The team accepts after negotiating up the price and head out for the opening event.

The Plan

Nogitsune feints being a tamed fox on the shoulders of Delphi as they put on the image of being ritzy art enthusiasts to examine the interior of The Modern Artist while Seven and Zephyr astrally project to examine the magical security. Due to the nature of the art they discover it is extremely lacking in magical and physical security but is well protected technologically. After their fill of scouting they return and plan their heist. They had discovered the room housing the security spider and decide that taking them out and finding the physical security override switch needs to be their #1 priority, after that all they need to do is systematically take out the remaining guards and 2 security homonculus sitting in the front of the building. From their one person needs to keep an eye out as they secure their stolen paintings and vandalize the rest. Following this Delphi attempts to use Divination to inquire as to whether they will succeed or fail the run and gets a very unclear vision of her bare hands holding one of the paintings.

The Run

The team arrives and at the last second discovers the pressure plates in the grass surrounding the facility. After which they switch to walking on the pavement as Zephyr takes a powerful fire spirit into the Spiders room to incapacitate them. From there they coordinate a strike to incapacitate the rest of the security team which goes off surprisingly smoothly. Quickly finishing up their vandalism the first potential hitch crops up when Delphi removes their enchanters gloves to touch one of the paintings titled "Before the Void." Upon touching the frame an inky black arm reaches out taking the shape of her own cyberarm before pulling itself free from the frame revealing itself to be a reflected copy of herself. As the rest of the team turns to observe the entity takes the form of the exact antithesis to each of them before being promptly killed by Seven. The next painting "An Evening's Mourning," is grabbed by Seven who cannot see and is simply filled with a brief sadness. The final painting "Sunless Skies," is taken by Nogitsune who has their consciousness catapulted into space around the Earth to see a Sun subsumed by a void black mass, but as a fox they're basically un-phased by the event and return to their body. From their the team successfully exfiltrates and takes the goods to Mr. Mack receiving their pay+bonus.

Aftermath

Mr. Mack has acquired 3 magically active paintings that he intends to sell-off to the highest bidder.

Jeremiah Ferdinand is left basically bankrupt as he had poured all of his inheritance into the facility and is likely to be taken by one of the 3 syndicates he had worked with as he can no longer pay them what he owes.

Rewards

18k Nuyen

3 Karma

2 CDP

Game Quotes

"First time using psychometry, roll 10 hits, get traumatized by a murder painting, good times, good times.".

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Delphi

Well, this was certainly a nice change of pace from my usual line of work; I can't say that I've missed the art world, but at least I blended in with the crowd for once.

As soon as the J told us this would be art theft I knew there would be a whole lot of Rich People Bulldrek involved, and oh boy was I not disappointed in that regard. That Mr. Mack guy paid our team 72 grand for this in total, plus the cut to our fixers, which means he must have sold those paintings for something like a hundred thousand to break even and make it worth all the trouble - unless he could afford to just eat the loss, which I also have no problem believing judging from how expensive that custom Spinrad-L'oreal commlink he had was, and from how he just casually paid us all a cash advance with ebony credsticks. 72 grand... frag, I could live off of that for years and that guy tossed it away on petty drek like messing with some rival art dealer by vandalizing his place and stealing some stuff. Absolutely insane.

It was an interesting gig though, I can certainly say that much. I got to wear a fox shifter around my shoulders and pretend to be some rich art snob while scoping the place out with this wiz radar sensor in my new arm, so now I can say I've used a sapient being as a fashion accessory. Some of those magic paintings were pretty cool, even the creepy blood one that my dumb ass thought it would be smart to use psychometry on... frag that was messed up, as much as I don't want to I should probably dig further into that at some point. Still not as weird as the inky black arm trying to pull me into the void through that painting though - thankfully that blind psion with the gnarly scar had his sword ready to slice the thing off, but I'm probably going to be washing this oily gunk out of these finger servos for days...

At least we managed to pull it all off without killing anyone in the process. The whole team was super professional honestly, and that summoner guy Zephyr that I've worked with before (side note: ho-lee crap is his aura ever blindingly bright, I dunno how he ever goes around on the astral without being noticed) even managed to reign in his crazy powerful fire spirit to just knock out the spider with smoke inhalation, rather than burning the poor fragger to ash like it probably would have preferred.

Oh, I even swiped a souvenir - a little marble statuette of a "reverse-mermaid" with a fish head and a humanoid lower half which is sitting on the desk in my new office. I guess it was probably a pretty stupid thing to do in hindsight, but I was running this "gentleman art thief" p-fix that I got from the beetle den next door to help out with the infiltration and I think it's got a kleptomania protocol or something coded into it; I managed to jailbreak the chip though, might come in handy in the future for B&E jobs. I suppose I should probably learn how to pick a lock or hack a sensor at some point first though.

That's all for now I guess - time go see if those chipheads have any synesthesia tripchips and try playing around with this quicksilver camera.

Nogitsune

That's was a rather easy job, sneaking around and getting the low down of the place. not sure what you mean by fox shifter, I just requested aid from a friend and drop off a little friend to help blend in. Overall the job was rather simple acquire some paintings and quickly bring it back to the Mr. Tanaka, He was a rather strange individual and had a very pungent odor around him but as brought up by one of my other allies he had a lot of money. Covering over that a lot of weird stuff happened during the run, like i grab a painting and i see...a bright blue orb and a dark void... not sure why everything around me was dark, so afterwards got paid and staying away from that person, his scent was bothering my nose.

Seven

Start Recording. Today I learned that I can still enjoy art despite being blind. Suppose I just took for granted that the visual arts were forever lost to me. I hadn't considered the sort of emotional energy that goes into their creation, that might be impressed upon the piece itself. A pleasant surprise, to say the least...

New Line. Perhaps more surprising was the unusual psychic entities that manifested themselves in these paintings. A twisted reflection made of ink and subconscious turmoil. I'll have to do some research on it after finishing this record, I find myself wondering at its existence more and more. What sort of mind creates such a thing and invests it in a painting?

New Line. Second job with Nogitsune, and first one with Delphi and Zephyr. Pleasing results all around. Zephyr is clearly very skilled at manifestation, I wish I'd thought to get a clear look at his aura, but in the chaos of the run, I didn't consider it. Nogitsune is an excellent shot as before, and being able to rely on his van is certainly helpful. Meeting Delphi was about as interesting as I expected based on our prior interaction in the chatroom. Witnessing psychometry being performed firsthand was educational to say the least, I may even pick up the art myself at some point. At any rate, the team worked very well together, extremely coordinated...

New Line. Delphi requested that we not kill anyone during the run, which struck me as unusual. Suppose it doesn't do to leave a pile of corpses in rich people territory, and besides, I don't mind additional challenge. My Wrath is unsatisfied, but I can live with that...

New Line. I get the distinct sensation that "An Evening's Mourning" was imbued with a great deal of sadness by it's painter. Even through the enchanting gloves I could feel the utter grief emanating from the piece, so powerfully that I even felt that I could hear weeping. I wonder what it looks like to the naked eye, or for that matter, what Delphi might've seen had she used her psychometry on it...

New Line. Our Johnson was certainly a character. Even blind I could feel him emanating ritz. Makes me wonder how he came up that he's so comfortable losing nuyen. He even surpassed Delphi's asking price during the negotiation, almost as if on a whim. I wonder if the Modern Artist even really posed a threat to him in the first place, or if this is just his way of getting his kicks...

New Line. Closing thoughts, I think I'll be visiting more art galleries during my projections about town. It seems I've got a lot to enjoy in that sector. How lucky I am to have chosen this career path. End Recording.