How to not follow a trace

How to not follow a trace
Date 2083-11-16 GM Syphilen Location Puyallup, Carbonado Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Infected
Waldgeist Gestrüpp	2 Bandersnatcher
Casualties and losses
almost Waldgeist and a family	none

Summary

Waldgeist looks for a missing family that got kidnapped. She ends up infected and the family is part missing, part dead.

Background

Two Bandersnatchers just outside of Puyallup were recently struggling to get safe food, so they decided t kidnap a family from a nearby poor community. The kidnapping itself goes well, but the pair leaves behind some traces.

How this happened

Waldgeist was around the area looking if it would make for a good place to live. When she went back to one of the communities to get something to eat she instead finds a crowd of people.

The Community

The crowd is in front of a small halve-improvised house that looks like it has been broken into. Two 'guards' make sure that the people don't get too close to the house. They tell Waldgeist to go away and talk to a man a couple of meters away when she asks what happened. The man is currently trying to comfort an old-looking pair of works that are crying. After a few messages, he tells Waldgeist that the family that lived in the house has been kidnapped during the night, and tells her to talk to the dwarf inside the house if she wants to help. The inside of the house looks like a huge troll has broken into the door by force and just took the 3 people with not much opposing force. Waldgeist talks to the dwarf who has pretty much given up on finding any leads by now. She manages to find two astral signatures left behind by spells as well as foot traces leading back to the forest where she came from. The footprints are looking pretty similar to her own, and when she showed them to the dwarf she gets told that it may be better if she would go away now.

The Search

Hearing that, she decides to just go looking on her own. Finding the tracks to and in the forest isn't too hard for her, even over a river, that is until she gets to the fence. The fence that marks the Seattle-SSC border down here is only semi-intact, so she just blows a hole into it with a lightning ball. The problem is that the ground on the other side is a bit harder and she doesn't manage to find the track again. in frustration she hits a tree, and gets yelled at by the already frustrated wild plant spirit Gestrüpp. After some wild attempts at communicating, he manages to tell her that he saw where the people went, and can show her if she helps him. He has been kicked out of his old home, a big oak tree, by a bigger spirit and wants it back. Waldgeist goes over and after a short violent dispute with vines and lightning, she manages to liberate (and damage) the tree. After a bit of a rest under it, she goes on the search again. The way is a lot easier to find, now that Gestrüpp told her where they went. After a while, she gets over the top of a hill and finds a cave. Deep in the shadow of it, she sees the presence of an astral figure not too different from her own, but very sick. She also sees the astrally glowing rocks on the ground in front of the cave. She tries to communicate with the person but gets baited into an attempted ambush by a second bandersnatcher, but she both manages to resist the fines spell originating from one of the rocks, and react in time to the attacker. What goes down is a fight between the two bandersnatchers, one an adept and the other a mage, and her. It ends with her lying on the ground, almost left to die and infected with strain 2. She gets woken up again by Gestrüpp a few hours later, who has once again been chased out of his tree. Inside of the cave she finds the two parents dead and eaten, with the kid and the two kidnappers missing.

Aftermath

Waldgeist decides that going back to the community and telling them what happened would be a very bad idea. Also living in Redmoon might not be the best idea now, so instead sets up camp here in the woods. Gestrüpp is overjoyed at this, as he now has someone to protect him. Now she needs to adjust to this new life.

The two bandersnatchers are still out there somewhere.

Rewards

Has to pick up Infected Bandersnatch at gen price (22 RVP, may go into karma debt)

Optional Contact: Gestrüpp at C1/L4 (4 RVP or 8 CDP, may be taken before Bandersnatch)

Counts as IG run

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Waldgeist]

Ah shit everything hurts me. My head is buzzing and I can feel myself changing. Fuck that were Bundersnatcher, that probably means I die or become one myself. It was so stupid of me to go there without backup but they had a kid. If the two of them meet me again, I have to be better prepared. After all, this little spirit Gestrüpp is very useful. Maybe I'll move here to defend his tree in the forest.