All-Nighter!

All-Nighter!
Date 2081-07-09 GM KoreanBBQ Location Downtown Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Red Vory	Yellow Lotus Triad
Flyboy Southpaw Sea Breeze Moth

Summary

The runners were hired by the Triad to infiltrate a Vory club and get information about a valuable shipment of goods. They also had a second objective to extract a Triad agent.

Between Flyboy's flyspy drones, and playing the roles of a gambler Sea Breeze, a bodyguard Southpaw, and a dancer Moth, they gathered information and smuggled out the Triad agent and a commlink with the shipping information.

Background

The Triad had an agent, Mashka, who had infiltrated the Vory club, Little Ivan's. The Triad had lost contact with her, and wanted her found and extracted.

The Vory were expecting a large shipment of valuable goods that the Triad wanted to steal. The Triad just need to know when and where it was arriving.

The Meet

The Johnson met the runners at a high-end punk club downtown. Moth recognized that he was Triad. He explained the primary job - obtaining the information about the shipment - and the secondary job - if possible, extracting the agent. She was playing the role of the Vory boss Nickolai's bodyguard. Sea Breeze and Moth helped negotiate from 14,000 nuyen each to 16,000. The job had to be done in the next five days.

The Plan

The runners began by researching the club. Moth was familiar with it. She knew that there was live entertainment in the public spaces on the first floor, and a more private backroom for gambling that required a password. The club had a 1920s gangster vibe. The patrons tended to dress up. Sea Breeze worked with a contact to obtain floor plans. With an invisibility spell from Sea Breeze and her own parkour skills, Southpaw was able to scout the roof access.

Flyboy did more physical scouting of the interior with his three flyspy drones. He confirmed that Mashka was there, staying mostly on the 2nd floor, where the boss Nikolai had his office. He confirmed that the boss had the shipping manifest and details on his commlink. He learned the password to the gambling area.

Meanwhile, Sea Breeze and Southpaw, disguised by Moth and using the password obtained by Flyboy, investigated the gambling, establishing Sea Breeze as a gambler who might visit frequently over the next few days, with Southpaw's first disguise as her bodyguard. Sea Breeze found herself at a gambling table with the boss Nikolai. She proved to be quite the gambler. Between a straight flush and a full house, over several rounds, she made a positive impression on Nikolai, and had made 2,000 nuyen over her initial stake. She treated Southpaw to 500 nuyen worth of food at the club.

Moth worked with her father, XX, to get a mid-level Vory contact at the club, Alexi the stage manager. He was looking for new talent for the stage, and also admitted to her that if she had any tough friends, they were looking for staff of that kind also.

Flyboy use a newly purchased stealth dongle - acquired with some of the gambling winnings, to access Mashka's commlink to get an initial message to her that "Mr. A had sent the team, and she would appreciate the club's new entertainment."

The runners considered several ways to get Nikolai's commlink. It could potentially be palmed away from him, if someone could get close enough. He could be made, by a suggestion spell, to leave it unattended so it could be stolen.

The runners considered several ways to get Mashka away from Nikolai. Hopefully, she could step away to use the restroom, or to come to another rendezvous point.

A key point was that if either thing happened in a way that raised suspicion - the bodyguard or the commlink disappearing - it would make the second task harder because Nikolai would be on high alert.

They would try to do the job quietly and without violence, if possible. Moth would be present because of her audition to perform with Alexi. Southpaw would be with her, auditioning for the security role. Sea Breeze would be on site gambling again. Flyboy would have flyspy drones present, while watching remotely from his Roadmaster, and sending more messages to Mashka as needed. They would all be disguised to look unrecognizable and ethnically Russian. Sea Breeze in the same gambler persona. Southpaw in a second bodyguard disguise.

The Run

Flyboy set up Moth to make a grand entrance, arriving in a beautiful vehicle with quite the stunt driving. The crowd was suitably impressed, and the bouncer let Moth and Southpaw in without checking Southpaw for weapons. They made contact with Alexi the stage manager, who took them up to Nikolai's office for a private interview. On the way, Alexi made it clear that he was looking for bodyguard talent to replace Mashka who was going to be killed. The runners needed to make sure they extracted her quickly.

Moth did a dance routine in Nikolai's office that was so impressive (10 successes!) that he offered her the job, and insisted she perform tonight, at the show starting in about thirty minutes. She agreed, while confirming that Nikolai would attend the show. That would give the other team members a chance to steal the commlink from him when he was down in the public performance area on the first floor and - hopefully - quite distracted by her show.

He made it clear to Southpaw that he was looking for a new bodyguard and part of her interview was to kill Mashka and bring him back a picture of her dead body so he knew the job was done. Mashka knew from Flyboy's messages that they were actually there to help her, and went along with Southpaw's request to take a walk with her outside. Southpaw had Flyboy join them. She had Mashka lay down on the ground, like she was shot, with the plan to have Flyboy doctor the photo with his computer skills. Unfortunately, his efforts to doctor the photo weren't convincing. Flyboy called Sea Breeze to come out and help them fake the death with a physical masking spell instead. Which worked quite well. Southpaw showed Flyboy the two pictures, and teased him about his skills. Flyboy insisted that Mashka lay down again for a third attempt which he would fake using the 2nd physical masking picture as a model. Alas, this attempt was even worse. After more teasing, Flyboy retreated to the Roadmaster with Mashka safely under his protection, successfully extracted, while Southpaw and Sea Breeze returned for Moth's show.

Moth pushed herself to perform the most distracting dance possible (11 successes!). It was so distracting that Nikolai did indeed set his commlink down on the table, attention focus solely on the stage. It was so distracting that Southpaw forgot entirely why she was there, and simply watched the dance. Luckily, Sea Breeze remembered their purpose and had just the right skills to finish the heist. She made herself invisible, and used a stealth spell to make herself silent. With the whole crowd focused on the stage, she had no trouble stealing the commlink right off the table, and walking out with it.

Moth's performance was done, so she too could leave, though she hesitated, making sure Southpaw also had an exit plan. Sea Breeze summoned a fire spirit and offered to send everyone running out of the club by triggering the fire alarm. Southpaw continued talking with Nikolai to avoid raising suspicion, including providing the faked photo of Mashka shot in the back. Nikolai had not yet noticed the missing commlink. Southpaw excused herself to go to the bathroom, as they had planned for Mashka to do, and made a gymnastics dive out the window, running for the van. Unfortunately, due to her troll size, she got stuck in the window.

Game Quotes

Southpaw, after Flyboy rolls poorly on an edit file test to fake Mashka's death: "Hold up, Mashka, go lay back down there a minute on the sidewalk and make yourself comfortable. Okay Flyboy, what the hell is this? I ain't gonna try and fake a picture myself but damn, this doesn't look good at all! Sea Breeze, get out here and do your spell. Alright, you see these two pictures side by side? Which one is better? This one looks like she's dead, the other one looks like I just got into a food coma after going to an all you can eat buffet. She looks like she had an accident with a bottle of ketchup."