Don of a New Era

Don of a New Era
Date 2081-11-24 GM Mudge6 Location Puyallup, Seattle Metroplex Status Threat Level: Low
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Kenran-kai	Gianelli Family
Delphi Flyboy Skimmer Sp4rks	Casino Guards

Summary

In which the runners are hired by the Yakuza to perform a false flag attack on a Mafia-run casino.

The Meet

The runners are told to meet at a Renraku Metahuman Relations office in a rented building in Puyallup City; everyone manages to arrive without issue, with some of the team showing up early to scout the place out a bit. Heading inside, they are met by a pair of Japanese businessmen as well as an obviously tatted-up member of the Yakuza (a syndicates roll pegs him as Kenran-kai). One of the Renraku wageslaves speaks for the Yak, and Delphi takes the lead with negotiations, bowing and opening with a greeting in Japanese (which provokes a scowl from one of the suits) before providing her business card and getting one in exchange (which earns an impressed nod from the same suit).

The team are told that the Kenran-kai wish to attack a Gianelli-controlled casino (a low-budget setup on the edge of Loveland with poor security and even poorer clientele). The Yakuza do not wish to provoke open warfare with the Mafia, so they want to keep things clean with no casualties; as well, they’ve hired mostly elves because they want this to look like it was an attack by another faction – specifically the Ancients. In exchange for their services, the team are offered 14k nuyen each.

Delphi pushes for more money on the grounds that it’s a tenuous situation with potential for harm to themselves, and that they’ll be impersonating people who don’t take kindly to being impersonated; after pre-edging her negotiations roll against the Johnson, the team is floated a revised offer of 18k per head, with half up-front, plus the potential to take some or all of the reward in stolen Ancients gear which Renraku has managed to get their hands on. Everyone agrees to this and accepts the job.

The Plan

Leaving the Renraku building, the team use part of their advance to kit up with borrowed Ancients gear (bike helmets and synthleather jackets with AR emblems), tossing their things in Flyboy’s roadmaster before heading off to the casino to case the joint. Finding that it has a rating 3 destination host, Delphi, Flyboy and Sp4rks request marks and enter as patrons to check out he matrix security first. While the latter two lose a bit of money playing virtual cards and throw Sp4rks assist dice, the decker gets to work tagging out icons of interest that are slaved to the host, all under the watchful eye of his personal IC (a hulking casino pit boss that looms over everyone in the host individually); he spots out the SMGs carried by the guards, as well as the commlinks of the staff.

The two elves enter the casino in meatspace (with Delphi spying out the astral and spotting a low-force watcher spirit resembling a homeless vagrant), while Sp4rks exits the host and looks around for data trails that aren’t slaved to it. He spots three assault rifles with autosofts and starts hacking marks onto each of them, his overwatch steadily ticking up. Outside, Flyboy’s drones spot out some bird drones that aren’t on the matrix, and a Conspiracy Theories roll confirms that they are of the sort suspected to be used by GOD to hunt down hackers. After GiGoing commands to the assault rifles to discharge their clips instead of firing, Sp4rks quickly reboots his deck out of paranoia before marking doing the same thing to the guards SMGs, then goes offline. The team briefly consider shooting down some of the drones to take for themselves but are dissuaded by rumors that they are bombed to avoid just that sort of thing.

Inside the casino, Delphi and Flyboy drink a bit while scoping the place out, taking note of physical security and locating targets of interest like the pit boss’s office and the cash cage. Delphi uses her radar sensor to see through the thin walls and pinpoint the location of the safe – a small portable model – and the team decide on that as their primary target, intending to either use their combined strength to load it onto a hand cart or if all else fails simply attach Flyboy’s winch to it and drag it out of the building (hopefully without causing too much structural damage in the process).

The Run

Gearing up in their biker leathers and full-face helmets and flying Ancients emblems, the team make themselves look like gangers to perpetuate the false flag. Delphi calls up her fixer Argent, who used to ride with the Ancients, just to confirm that they do indeed have beef with the mob and that this isn’t going to piss anyone off; Argent says the casino is small-time and only of interest to local bosses, so Delphi tells him that if the Ancients want to for-real take the casino after this they’ll have the opportunity. Argent has a lightbulb moment, thanking her for the heads up and promising a favor (i.e. a chip) before going to put his own plans into motion.

Skimmer and Sp4rks load up with stick-and-shock and Flyboy does the same with his drones, intending to take down security quickly and non-lethally, and Delphi disguises Sp4rks with some makeup and pointed ear caps to make him look like an elf, or at least a poser. She slots up a Sting p-fix to complete the illusion of being an Ancients lieutenant and gives the team an impromptu Sprerethiel lesson (mostly how to follow directions and curse like an elf), setting up a breach-and-clear maneuver with Small Unit Tactics as she, Skimmer and Sp4rks approach the casino, with Flyboy remaining in his rigger cocoon. Sp4rks also takes Jazz to psych himself up before combat for the first time after getting Narco treatments, and immediately becomes addicted as he glitches his test - he runs his area jammer and uses his deck to generate further noise in order to stop attempts to call for mafia backup, and the team kick the door open before rolling for initiative.

Surprising the frag out of the guards, the runners burst inside to quickly and efficiently take out their targets, Skimmer opens things up with a stick and shock to the face of some poor mook (putting him on the ground and out cold) before booking it to the pit boss’s office, only to find it empty of threats as the boss has gone home for the evening. Spr4ks and Flyboy’s drones start tagging the other guards with stick-and-shock as their own guns fail to fire back, ejecting the clips instead thanks to the earlier hacking. Delphi meanwhile spots out the same watcher spirit as before on the astral and puts her cyberam’s ghost punching potential to the test, handily defeating the baby spirit with astral combat. Everything is done quick and clean just as requested, with the mooks barely having a chance to put up a fight.

Aftermath

After scaring off the customers and overturning some tables to convincingly wreck up the place (Sp4rks even heads back into the spider-less host to cover it in matrix graffiti), all while giving the finger to the cameras and shouting in elf-talk, the team grab the safe and haul it out to the roadmaster. Speeding off, they manage to crack it open to reveal a bunch of corporate scrip – debating just taking it to the Ancients as a peace offering to ensure there’s no bad blood because of the impersonation, they instead call up Mr. J and confirm that they would like the safe brought in. Wanting to avoid damage to their reputations, they bring in the safe as well as its contents, dramatically dumping the piles of money out onto their employer’s desk when they arrive back at the Renraku office. The suits and the yak are reasonably impressed with the performance of the gaijin scum they’ve hired to do their dirty work, and give them the other half of their agreed-upon payment.

Rewards

• 18,000 nuyen and/or 36k nuyen worth of gear rewards (appropriated Ancients-branded equipment, availability of 12R or less, no electronics or cyberware)
• 2 CDP
• 1 Kenran-kai rep

Game Quotes

Delphi: "I see the homeless ghost, and I punch it in the face with my go-go gadget extendable arm."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Delphi

Well, that was certainly an interesting one - second job in a row where I’ve been hired to help rob and trash a place, and second time in a row now that it’s been pinned on the Ancients. I felt a little bad about it, not to mention worried they might come after me in retaliation, but at least made the effort to reach out and ask first this time, and hopefully Argent can turn the opportunity to his own advantage.

It was pretty straightforward though, the whole team were pros and everyone did their job properly: Flyboy lived up to his rep (and actually managed to be presentable outside of his rigger cocoon), Skimmer watched our backs/shot straight/conserved ammo and all that good stuff, and that French script kiddie Sp4rks seemed to know his way around a cyberdeck and handled himself well on the matrix. Plus they all let me do the talking and listened to what I had to say, which is always nice.

Working for the yaks and the Japanacorps remains as enjoyable as ever - I showed up high out of my head and barely bothered to make myself presentable, but show them a business card and suddenly they’re all polite and respectful. On the surface at least, I still caught a few scowls at my pointy ears; fragging metaracists, turns out they wanted mostly elves specifically because of the nature of the job. Of course when we’re useful to them they’re happy to work with us and play nice, then it’s right back to the slums where we belong. Whatever, I shouldn’t complain – it’s a pretty good deal being an elf all things considered, and it’s not like everyone else besides humans don’t have it worse off.

Oh, I also got to punch a ghost, so that was pretty cool – I even put my new arm to the test and did the telescoping fist thing. It was just like Karl Kombatmage, only significantly less flashy and impressive-looking; wish I’d been recording it, but that wouldn’t really have been very professional. Next time.