The Jungle Moved

The Jungle Moved
Date 2082-01-24 GM Asmodeus Location Amazon Rainforest, Amazonia Status Threat Level: Semi-Prime
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven
Frag Face Dr.Trauma Samsara Skimmer
3 points of Edge were burned.

Summary

A vacation trip down south ends in meeting one ugly motherfucker.

Background

Aztechnology personally contacted a couple of high connection fixers and asked for people suitable for a retrieval task, but warned them of the dangers present.

The Meet

The team of runners consisting of Samsara the Buddhist ork poser elf, Frag Face wanted for god knows how many crimes, Skimmer the well mentored street samurai under Nameless' tutelage and Dr. Trauma the well-meaning medical professional arrive at an Aztechnology Seattle branch center in Everett. A woman with a raven familiar, an inactive future athame and stupendously great drip first shows all four runners a straightforward contract; they will not be dragged to court over anything that happens, naturally, but with the recordings the security cameras have and their willing signing of it, they can certainly screw over the runners' reputation in the shadows if they back out on the deal after accepting. Getting information about the business-like Aztech corpo is difficult before everyone finally signs the contract.

Once she gets to the point, things go more and more grim the more they hear. Aztechnology's been experimenting with utilizing various HMHVV variants as chiphead assassins, precision tools that can be deployed to eliminate preset targets without collateral damage. While they've had some progress, a prototype managed to escape after a case of corporate sabotage happened at one of their South American research facilities. An Evo spy had managed to get among the research staff and let the specimen loose -- now it's been tracked to a swathe of northern Amazon where it's been dwelling and rampaging, set on kill duty without an active target to hunt down. As Samsara asks for more details about what it can do, the shades-wearing Ms. Johnson shows a saliva-inducing list of deltaware augmentations and purpose-tailored ware ranging from damage compensators and suprathyroid glands to genetic optimizations, next level orthoskin and muscle replacements. In addition to its datajack, cortex bomb and shoulder mounted missile launcher, it's a force to be reckoned with. With the contract already signed, Aztechnology gives them the rest of the day to prepare, but warns them that the longer they take, the more time this thing will have to murder bystanders.

The Plan

Samsara and Trauma head off to either do alchemical preparations or buy a crudton of paint grenades from the local Krime mall. Given the Bandersnatch bioweapon's propensity to be near-invisible, they'll need to find a way to make it shootable. Nameless had asked for Skimmer to get back to him after hearing about the job and reveals that he in fact is aware of these experiments. He was subject to a similar branch of study on Evo blacksites and was a purpose trained assassin meant to combat these assassin prototypes and serve as their counterpart. He knows a thing or two about how Aztechnology's personafixes for these assassins are built and offers some advice, although it may be outdated intel by now.

The Run

Aztechnology handles travel expenses, but once they land in a nearby airplane strip, they're on their own. The team begins their advance into the swampy woods. Movement is difficult and Frag Face outright steps on a landmine. Samsara and Trauma find several other traps that this monster has laid out, having witnessed their arrival and prepared in kind. With this new revelation, they adopt a linear advance, moving in a line with Frag Face in front to tank any further explosions. This seems to have been an intentional manipulation, as the specimen chops a tree onto all four from behind. Most manage to get out of the way, but Dr. Trauma's ankle gets bruised by the falling tree trunk. As he lunges to the right, he gets caught in a net trap that was set right on his landing spot. Having fallen into the hunter assassin's trap, Frag Face decides to help Trauma by cutting him out of the net. As the doctor falls into the ork monster's hands, a rocket gets launched right at them now that there's two people right on top of one another. Frag Face makes a run for it and evades the bullet.

From here, the mission devolves into paranoia and blind firing. Skimmer and Trauma keep themselves wired up for the slightest movement, spraying bullets every time they're attacked. Frag Face loses a chunk of his ballistic shield as the specimen swipes at him from behind, barely missing his vital organs with its wrist blades. The team begin setting up proximity alarm paint grenades to try and catch their quarry with something they'll be able to see. Finally, as they find a long abandoned campsite and begin making preparations to settle down for the night, the predator strikes again and impales Samsara from behind. Its blade pierces right through her kneecap, sending agonizing pain through her entire body. As the second strike hits her shoulder and causes one of her arms to fall limp, she manages to catch the falling grenade with her yet functioning hand and blast both of them with bright pink paint. The rest of the team rushes for the mauled orkoid elf's rescue and engage in a desperate battle against a precision made monstrosity. As the sun falls beyond the horizon, Skimmer bursts tracker chips and bullets into the specimen's hide while Frag Face fights head-on with a worthy challenger at last.

Unfortunately, the specimen is too much for even him to handle alone as its wrist blades shatter his sternum and knock him down on his ass. Dr. Trauma distracts the creature with astral bombing, taking advantage of its dual-natured, infected state. Samsara and Frag Face look to one another, realizing that brute force will not prevail against this kind of monstrosity. Putting their meager brain cells and empty heads together, they begin attacking precisely at the creature's nervous system, jabbing nerve bundles through its hardened skin and slowly dulling its movements. While it still puts up a fierce fight and even impales Skimmer on its blades, charging past the elf and the ork to lift him up off his feet to spill his guts on the campsite, it gets bogged down in a two-on-one fight between Samsara, Frag Face and itself. Able to fight both of them simultaneously, it continues brawling while Skimmer barely patches himself up and picks his rifle up with gritted teeth. Dr. Trauma ditches his crossbow after lightning bolts spark off its sturdy, thickened skin and instead shoots right at its back with a precision volley of armor-piercing rounds. Even these don't manage to purchase damage and only after a grim last moments, Samsara barely dodges certain death and counters with a final jab to the monstrosity's throat. It falls down paralyzed from nervous shutdown and the entire team takes a long, well deserved rest after checking their surroundings, restraining the monster as much as possible and calling in for extraction.

Aftermath

Aztechnology seals the beast in a custom made sarcophagus that puts it in a permanent coma until the case is opened. The team's flown back into Seattle and, given how impressed Ms. Johnson is about the live capture, allows the team to make use of their bio- and cyberware clinics at reduced cost. Samsara even gets to keep a piece of her field footage, although most of their devices are scrubbed clean to protect corporate security. As a final thanks for exceeding her expectations, none of their medical records will be kept in Aztechnology -- all of their augmentations will be strictly off record.

Rewards

• 80,000 Nuyen or...
• 160,000 Nuyen as gear:

1. Bioware
2. Cyberware
3. Foci (Either one up to 24 Availability or any number under 20 Availability)

• For Samsara: "Mask of the Predator" Custom Ballistic Mask; 6 RVP
• For Skimmer: "Aztechnology Predator Suit" Custom Heavy Security Armor; 20 RVP
• 2 CDP
• +25 Aztechnology Reputation

Game Quotes

Something funny here.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Skimmer

"I thought I was good. Hell, I even thought I was special. This thing threw all that right out the window. Coming in cocky, with the thought that we would toss some tracker rounds into it, light it up with depleted uranium, and call it a day; boy was I ever wrong. It was like nothing I did made a damn bit of difference. And the harder I tried the more I could feel it laughing at me; especially while it held me two meters off the ground impaled by its cyber spurs protruding through my abdomen. There are things out there that so completely outclass us as shadow runners. Thank God Samsara and Frag Face were able to nerve strike it down. Really, it was our only hope. It was just to strong. I could tell the Lord was not with me that day; the place was to far from his domain. We met the Devil that day, and barely survived. If I'm ever going to be worth a damn, I got to get stronger, get faster, get BETTER. I somehow manage to live to tell the tale, and now I know what I have to do. I just hope I'm ready the next time something like this drops in my lap."

Samsara

Woo! Frag that was a rush, my heart's still beating a mile a minute. Can't believe I finally meet Frag Face and it's to get dropped into the jungle with him, Skimmer and Trauma to hunt down some monster Aztechnology grew in a vat. Gotta say, I always wanted to visit the rainforest, but I never thought it'd be under those circumstances - it was still beautiful though, despite all the traps and the invisible murder-machine stalking us the whole time. That thing could fight too, it straight up shattered my kneecap and broke three bones in my arm - thankfully my off-arm. I really thought we were dead when it knocked Frag Face down right before lifting Skimmer off the ground and slicing his stomach open, but that voice in my head just kept screaming to fight harder and everything went red for a bit. I don't really remember what happened - just coming to afterwards covered in blood and paint - but that Johnson lady let me keep the slightly-edited footage from my choker cam, and it seems like I managed to paralyze it.

Absolutely the most intense fight I've ever had, I'm defenitly showing this to Warboss so he can shut down anyone else who ever questions how tough I am again. Those cigars from Ghaz after were the perfect wrap-up to the adventure, and the Big A was kind enough to give me new skin and bones for the trouble, along with a neat little thing in my brain that can shut off my pain receptors at-will and a pair of sick-looking magical axes, plus I even have that thing's mask as a trophy. Gotta say I'd heard some bad things about them, but they're not so bad; better than Renraku at least. Meditating in the jungle was defenitly something I'll never forget - hopefully the others had as much fun with this as I did, considering the brush with death. Nothing like it to make you feel alive!