Of Dames and Cults

Of Dames and Cults
Date 2083-11-13 GM DSD Edward Location Puyallup Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven
Ryan Danes Fluster Elaine Gigabite	Character1 Character2
Casualties and losses
	Legolas Cosplayer's Dick

The Meet

The meet was hosted in Puyallup, on a sunny, ashy day, much to the dismay of Gigabite. As the group approached the location, they were greeted to the sight of a rather sizable castle of scrap and salvaged material, with a fanciful door in the front. Before the group knocked, M3chan1c and Gigabite pointed out a dramatically cloaked man standing atop the tower's turret, seeming oblivious to the annoyedly muttering Gigabite trying to get their attention as the sun cast a shadow over the party.

As Gigabite tried again at a more appropriate volume, the man called out over the crowd, in archaic English, he called out beckoning the noble visitors to come inside for further information. After a short time trying to figure out what he was saying, the group stepped inside, Gigabite leading the way as they got to work pounding a series of 'work chemicals' to cool off from the annoyance already building in the runner. As the lord approached, he began to explain his plight, a 'fair lady' he knew quite well appeared to be beginning to walk along a dark path, one they'd be able to possibly be convinced against with some 'well-spoken adventurers.' After accepting the job for a sum of 10k nuyen, the runners were clued into the target's name, Maëlle Monette. After being asked by the party for his name, Johnson introduced himself as Sir Boris Aldrich Karl Von Altdorf of the Order of the Silver Torch, a man seeming to have been pulled out of the medieval times, armor, swords, castle and all!

Accepting a commcode from the peasent-garbed anthro drone serving the hall, the party left the keep, with most of the party but Elaine performing serviceable bows before heading outside. As the group passed the door, Gigabite attempted an ambush on the others, a giant bear hug! Though, despite her fierce determination, M3chan1c and Fluster managed to dodge out of the way, only for Elaine to be suddenly embraced within a massive ghoulish bearhug.

The Plan

As the runners got to their vehicles, M3chan1c got to work on a T6 Search, managing to get the information in a mere hour and a half on their target for the run. According to the search, they were an awakened human living in Auburn, they also got a list of common hangouts and bars, additionally it was also shown that their target was preparing for a costume party due to occur soon. According to social media and other records, it appeared that she was a part of a rather dodgy looking group, the Puyallup Reclaimation, one which Elaine claimed seemed somewhat familiar, in the matter of magical fuckery, especially considering the fact all of their members were awakened. After the entire group agreed that the organization seemed rather suspicious, M3chan1c enacted the sacred rite of 'not it' and got Fluster to call Sir Boris about the suspicious organization. In response, he was told that the group was an organization of noxious individuals, monsters who seek to corrupt and pollute mages under the guise of a noble quest to cleanse the land of taint.

Filing through the list of common locations for their target, M3chan1c dug through cyber-reddit until he found a forum for Auburn mages, directing Fluster towards the board, she got to work trying to find a likely location mages in the area would be going towards at about the hour the runners would be looking. Through an expert level of catfishing, they were able to pull up a rather plausible location they could use to meet up with their target. Pulling up to a mage dive bar, Elaine pointed out that the 'glowing runes' along the walls were not actually runes, but falsetto runes carved using google translate. A cursory search unfortunately didn't yield any fruit in the form of their target, though, as M3chan1c had grabbed her commcode, he decided to trace her location, which eventually lead the party to her home, as she was likely just getting up about the time. Deciding this was a dead end, the party decided to just get some invitations for the event, sending M3chan1c into the host, he stepped in, disarmed a databomb, had a difficult battle with an annoying guest registry file, then disappeared from the matrix after the system got suspicious at his failed attempt to set a databomb in the place of the previous, giving the party a set of legitimate invites to the party. Driving over to a costume store, the group got to work on their outfits, Elaine dressed up as robin hood, letting her bring her bow into the party, Gigabite dressed up as an old-school rocker, and fluster entered dressed in a traditional black kimono with a pink flower pattern, and a bound ponytail with chopsticks in between, M3chan1c dressed in some of his old work clothes and deigned to stay in the van all run.

The Run

The group went inside, with M3chan1c stuffing drones into each member's pockets and sending his fly-spy in. Scanning the room, the group managed to spot their target in the back of the room, dressed as nature fae of some sort, but, as the drone got spotted by a party goer dressed as Legolas, a costume-arrow was sent at the micro drone, causing some biofeedback damage to the party rigger and a large string of curses and death threats over the DNI. After some disturbing suggestions from how to get the target to speak on the subject from Gigabyte, Fluster suggested she'd approach and speak to the target, one which M3chan1c immediately agreed with, sending all of the social-media information he'd gathered on her to the social runner, giving a few openings for the runner to exploit in their social engineering. Passing over a glass of Hurlg suggested by Gigabite, Fluster opened up with some small talk, complimenting her costume. Following along with some socializing, chit chat, and general friendliness, Fluster started to dance around the subject of the Reclamation group, starting to draw some slight ire from the target, which was waved away as Gigabite stood up on stage, starting to play some old world rock to distract the conversation, giving her another chance at her social attack, which turned out well as she salvaged the friendly conversation, steering it back around slowly, eventually coming in from another angle, teaming up with Gigabite's performance to weave a tale of the corruption and sin of the suspicious organization, paired with the information M3chan1c fed her over AR from his searches on the organization, the combination of these things managed to finally sway them away from the path they were on. After some small-talk, and Fluster earning a date from the target before a requested call from M3chan1c about her car's extended warranty gave her an excuse to leave gracefully.

As Gigabite and M3chan1c discussed an optional objective in the form of the guy who threw the spear at his drone, Gigabyte attempted to seduce the secondary target from the stage, as that failed, she and Elaine managed to convince the crowd to boo them out of the building for turning down the well-applauded performer's request. As the pariah left the building, M3chan1c's rotodrone followed them down the road, displaying an AR screen with the phrase "You are a Winner!" on the front of it, before the taser attached to its weapon mount popped out, utterly demolishing the man with a direct taser shot to the genitals as a generic bit of game show fanfare music played over the speakers while the drone flew away, a recording of the event saved to the rigger's commlink and shared with Fluster who requested a copy of the footage.

Aftermath

Heading back to the Castle, M3chan1c managed to get healed up in his Valkrie module, as well as with some assistance from Fluster, followed shortly by a stunning feat of repair work to restore his poor fly-spy to full working order in the back of his trailer before they arrived. After being rewarded for a job well done, the runners happily congratulated each other, merrily making their separate ways as the night came to a close.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.