Cultivation Crisis

Cultivation Crisis
Date 2082-04-30 GM OrionsRequiem Location Downtown, Seattle Metroplex Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Huan-Shi Bai	Mitsuhama Computer Technologies
Vip3r Black Samurai Mara Samsara

Summary

In which the runners are hired to help protect a farm from the pressure exerted by MCT

Background

In the Southeastern W-zone beneath the sprawl there lives a small community of refugees and outcasts who have come together to create a farming community. One member of this community, Yuan Bai, has had the rights to the land for generations, however over the last few weeks, MCT has been attempting to gather leverage to use again the community so that they can overturn the farm and pull out a buried silo that has Matrix 1.0 technology within it. Huan-Shi Bai, the wife of Yuan Bai, is scared for the safety of her husband and community and knows the the documents that MCT are using cannot be real.

The Meet

Huan-Shi Bai arranges the meet at her restaurant KungBao'76. The restaurant is empty but for it's usuals, and Huan-Shi is doing her best to make sure that the customers are taken care of. Ushering the runners to the back booth in the restaurant and brings them soup and bao buns to for them to eat during the meet. She explains that MCT has been trying to force her family and community off their farmlands, and they've been using forged documents in order to try and pressure Yuan Bai to either sell the land or be forced off of it.

Vip3r gets a copy of the documents from Huan-Shi and discovers that the lawyer's signature is the exact same as that of one Kakei Steve who had previously found out her birth name and family in Family, Duty, Honor. Knowing that Steven has dealt in underhanded tactics like this for the Yakuza before, Vip3r and Black Samurai share that they have had a run-in with the criminal lawyer in the past. Huan-Shi gives them the location of the lawyer's office where the documents have been signed. She thanks the runners for the time and promises them 6k each for their assistance, as well as discounts on food both at the restaurant and from her farm.

The Plan

Vip3r begins to search through the Matrix for information about the farmlands and what MCT might want in it, while Black Samurai and Samsara go to investigate the downtown offices. Discovering a simple ward on the main door of the lobby, and getting a copy of the building directory as well as coffee for the rest of the team. Mara projects astrally from the car and checks out the office, finding that there was a watcher spirit outside the 30th floor office. Moving around the building and moving into another office, the mage finds that the main entrance to the office is also protected by a ward.

Moving back to Black Samurai's apartment, the two adepts share awkward small talk while Mara goes astral once again and goes to the farmland outside the Metroplex. She finds the farmland occupied by many members of the community, but the things that stick out are two Force 7 Great Form Free Spirits, one Plant and one Beast, that seem to watch over the farm. Mara speaks with the Plant spirit, a sentient mass of vines in a vaguely humanoid form, that explains that they've been watching over the farmland for some time, helping the farm and animals flourish while they are given karma in return.

As the rest of the team return to Black Sam's apartment, Vip3r awakens to the answer to her search. She finds out that Steven has been working with MCT on these contracts for the last couple of months, and apparently one of the people involved with the land acquisition is one Laura Tanaka, a middle manager with MCT's Human Resources and Asset Management division. Tanaka appears to have some sort of connection to Vip3r that draws suspicion from the other runners, but it is left on the table while the team decide how best to infiltrate. Deciding to just go through the front door and trust their hacker to cover them from cameras, the team don disguises and head for the building, though Black Samurai is sad to have to leave behind his Weapon Foci behind so as not to trip the wards.

The Run

The runners enter into the building as though they are looking for something together, and choose to go up to the 28th floor and take the stairs up the last two levels. Vip3r connects to the camera in the elevator via SkinLink and gets into the host, looping the footage so that the team is able to make it up to the 30th floor undetected. Samsara and Black Samurai sneak like ninjas, and even Mara puts forth a valiant effort to sneak, though Vip3r, not used to sneaking and hacking at the same time, has a bit of trouble.

Once on the 30th floor, the runners discover that there is a receptionist at Shimada's office. Vip3r disengages the maglock on the door and puppeteers the commlink to play a recent video they watched. Samsara sneaks forward and paralyzes the receptionist. Blindfolding them and leaving them paralyzed, the runners ransack the office and find a filing cabinet that is locked by mechanical locks. While Samsara wants to smash it, Vip3r realizes that it might damage whatever is inside, so Mara channels a spirit to pick the lock, however when that fails to happen, Black Samurai breaks the lock with his knife and the team retrieve the two hard drives as well as a letter addressed to Piper Tanaka.

The team exfiltrate the office by triggering the fire alarm and despite acting like criminals the entire way out, manage to make it out of the office without drawing too much attention to themselves.

Aftermath

The team meet back up at KungBao'76 and give the evidence of Steven's forgery to the ork restauranteur. She pays the group and promises them discounts on all the food they could want.

Vip3r reads the letter that was left to her years ago by her parents, and doubles down on her resolve to end Shimada for the part he's played in keeping the Tanaka family apart.

Here's the contents of the letter:

Piper: We don't know if this letter is ever going to reach you, but your father and I wanted you to have some sort of closure.

The years that we spent with you were some of the happiest of our lives, we couldn't stand to know what was happening to you under Mitsuhama's watch and so we made a very hard choice, but one that every parent would be more than happy to make. We traded our own freedom for yours. We sold ourselves into lifetime contracts, and the cranial bombs that came with it, in order to give you a chance at a better life. We know that it can be hard to be a virtual kinetic. The world doesn't understand you and all the potential you have to make the world a better place, but we know that you'll live up to your potential and so far beyond.

When we first brought you in, we immediately fell in love with the young woman who needed help. We knew that you were strong-willed and stubborn, but you were our entire world for the time we were together, and we wish you the best, even if we don't get to see you again.

Thank you for being you, Piper Tanaka.

Love, Mom & Dad.

Rewards

• 2 CDP
• 1000 Nuyen reduction in Lifestyle Cost for next 4 lifestyle cycles (1 RVP)
• 6k Nuyen (3 RVP)
• 9 Karma (9 RVP)
• Optional Contact: Huan-Shi Bai (1/3 Restaurateur & Farmer) (3 RVP taken from Nuyen or Karma)

For Samsara:

• Catlike (7 RVP) and 2 Karma (2 RVP) replaces the 9 karma from general rewards

Game Quotes

Black Samurai: "I am VERY adult!" GM: "In that any movie you starred in would have an R-rating, yes."

Vip3r: "Well I wasn't afraid of that BEFORE..."

Mara: I assense the letter. GM: Okay! The letter is not Awakened.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Mara

Had the opportunity to sample some wonderful Vietnamese food as well as converse with some Great Form Free Spirits. An interesting job. As always there's a great deal that seems just below the surface. I probed some of those depths, possibly upsetting a fellow runner. I've been asked or told to 'fuck off' before, but never with quite so much pleading.

• Samsara - As perplexing as ever. Still playing the part of the friendly ork. And this time with plenty of pantomimed sneaking and the like. She really wanted to be turned invisible, so I indulged her. Despite all of this, she is rather pleasant and always abundantly sweet and full of compassion.

• Vip3r - This particular job seemed to hit fairly close to home for the 'matrix specialist'. It seems that Black Samurai may *actually* be her cousin and the lawyer, Steven Shimada, has something to do with her past. I'm unsure what the circumstances are, but a letter than she removed from his office held a significantly strong imprint of love and she eventually stated that it was addressed to her. Despite or because of her ties, she was motivated to get into the lawyer's office and was very effective at getting us there.

• Black Samurai - Indeed he does seem to be a samurai, at least in choice of weapon. He also seems rather comfortable taking direction. I'm not sure how much of that is a trait of historical samurai as opposed to a preference of this individual.

Vip3r

I woke up this morning, and received a call where I was asked to complete a job, just like any other. But the moment we started talking to Ms. Johnson was the moment it stopped being normal. She wanted us to get MCT off her land, and prove forgery in their legal contracts, which were drafted by Steven fragging Shimada of all people. Not just that, but MCT planned to use the land for a new virtuakinetic research facility, and wouldn't you know it--my PARENTS are the ones heading the project.

It was jarring to say the least.

Infiltrating Steve's downtown office went well enough, until we had to grab his information and leave. Justifying taking the hard drives was one thing, but when that slitch Mara got insistent about asking me why I wanted the letter that was filed in the same locked drawer, she didn't give me any choice but to reveal that the name on the envelope was mine. I don't mind Akira knowing, since he knows about me anyway, but I don't feel comfortable with the rest of the team knowing my old identity, even if it has been burned.

And I can't keep my feelings about this straight. I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm overwhelmed, I'm hurt; I can't stop thinking about how much less lonely I would've felt if this fucking BASTARD had just given me the fragging letter. Mom and Dad cared about me enough to give up their freedom, and I spent almost seven years thinking they'd just abandoned me once I got arrested, and stopped being their perfect daughter.

And Steve had access to my fucking records, and has been holding this over me this whole time.

Samsara

It was nice to see Huan-Shi Bai again, I've missed her food a bunch. Apparently some jerks from MCT were trying to take over her family farm, so like, obviously that had to be stopped! Mara and Vip3r were there, it was nice to see them after that job to bust Kenny out of jail, and it was cool seeing Black Samurai again even if we're still kinda frosty about that whole thing with his uncle's sword.

Turns out we had to sneak into this lawyer's office to get some stuff he had that was letting the company frag with their land - it was pretty cool, I got to get turned invisible and do ninja stuff. Had to stun some poor receptionist, but I gave them candy so it's probably ok-OH DREK they must have been so freaked out when the fire alarm was pulled! Well... fingers crossed they're okay - probably better than they'd be if Black Sam had sworded them at least... anyway, Vip3r seemed pretty upset at the end about that letter, hope she's doing alright now. I'm gonna go back to KungBao'76 and get some more pho!