Breathe Into Your Lung, Breathe Out Slowly

Breathe Into Your Lung, Breathe Out Slowly
Part of Enemy within
Date 2083-03-15 GM Aurora Location Tacoma, Seattle And Pacific Ocean Status Threat Level: Prime
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Red Dragon Triad	Shotozumi-Rengo Yakuza
Skimmer Sexy Bonsai Pell Bollwerk Luna	3 Water Spirits 8 Red Dragon Snipers Mage Rigger Decker	2 Water Spirits Mage 8 Yakuza Enforcers
Casualties and losses
	3 Water Spirits, 6 Red Dragon Snipers, Rigger, Decker	2 Water Spirits, Mage, 8 Yakuza Enforcers
Bollwerk IG Run

Summary

Katrin Morgentau hires a group of runners through Mr. Cromwell to attack a Wuxing shipment that her intel indicates is carrying orichalcum. Along the way the runners discover that the Shotozumi-Rengo have been contracted to hit GDI while the hired runners are away hitting the Wuxing vessel. Thus, before hitting the ship the runners trick the Shotozumi-Rengo, then head out to sea... where they find out that the Wuxing ship was a trap all along, and is filled with Red Dragon Triads. As the runners begin their attack, Mr. Cromwell calls the runners to tell them that they're under attack and to return immediately. Back at the GDI warehouses they find a group of Red Dragons and a massive spirit from Lung stealing from GDI.

Background

Someone has been stealing merchandise from GDI in the Enemy within metaplot, and so when an allegedly moderately-defended shipment of orichalcum is being shipped from Hong Kong to Seattle, Katrin Morgentau is unable to resist. She hires the runners to steal the shipment.

The Meet

Mr. Cromwell arranges for the runners to meet at his hotel, then has his assistant lock the door. Then Katrin Morgentau, the real J for the job, appears on a trideo call and lays out the objective: steal the orichalcum for GDI, though the shipment may be more heavily defended than their intelligence indicates. During this time, a Shotozumi-Rengo decker staying at the hotel hacks Sexy Bonsai's cyberdeck and uses it to listen in on the entire conversation. Katrin offers the runners 90k nuyen for the job, in addition to 'ware access and expensive equipment. The team agrees, and she leaves the call. Mr. Cromwell says there will be a bonus for the runners if they protect GDI assets and solve any problems related to this. The runners agree.

The Plan

The runners stay in the hotel and begin planning and doing matrix searches, unfortunately being spied on the whole time by a Yakuza decker. For twenty hours. The decker is finally discovered when Luna sends a drone to scout out the ship the team has been hired to hit, the World, and he fails a sleaze action. Sexy Bonsai tracks him down in the matrix while Skimmer and Bollwerk run to his location, with backup from a spirit from Pell. As the Yakuza decker is running away, he is shot by Skimmer which knocks him down, and the team captures him. Sexy Bonsai immediately recognizes his tattoos as Yakuza.

The team interrogates the decker, who only speaks Japanese (though he does read English). They discover that he's been spying on them for the past twenty hours and has sent their information to Sasagama Takenao, a Shotozumi-Rengo Shingiin who operates out of The Crispy Prawn in Tacoma. The team debate sending them a message while Sexy Bonsai contemplates his life choices and whether or not he'll lose a finger. Eventually he calls his fixer Zero Chill who reluctantly tells him to drop the job; he's stumbled onto something too big.

Meanwhile Luna and the rest of the team drop the decker off in an abandoned dumpster in Tacoma and let the Yakuza know he's there... to which the Yakuza respond by shooting the captured decker for his failure. Sexy Bonsai decides to give the Yakuza the proverbial middle finger and dives into the The Crispy Prawn's host, and finds the employees only area inside - a rating 6 data host with a spider running silent. He manages to hack into a file for Sasagama's eyes only, but not before being noticed by the new Yakuza spider, who starts dataspiking Sexy Bonsai. Sexy Bonsai manages to get the file and escape before being totally bricked, though.

In the file, the team discover that the Yakuza soldiers here have been paid to attack GDI assets once the runners leave to attack The World. The team decide to use Luna's ship to pretend to leave for the ship, while in reality they have acquired many many grenades from Mr. Cromwell and had Skimmer plant them underneath the cars in front of the restaurant. Afterward Skimmer plants grenades in front of 15 of the 20 cars out front, he decides he's pushed his luck enough (there are two astral water spirits out front of the restaurant) and goes into hiding with the rest of the team across the street.

The Run

An hour after going into hiding, a group of people leave The Crispy Prawn, though they don't appear to be soldiers. Fortunately they get into a car that doesn't have grenades underneath of it. After they've left, a group of 8 soldiers wearing Sleeping Tigers and Synergist Longcoats exits the restaurant, 3 of them getting into a car immediately. Luna blows the grenades.

The three soldiers in the car are now dead, and the other five are injured. The water spirits begin attacking the astral forms of Skimmer's and Pell's foci as there aren't other astral forms to attack, and the mage who was still inside the building is caught off-guard (and quickly casts some buffs). That is for naught as Sexy Bonsai Tags him on the matrix allowing Luna to geek him quickly. Meanwhile, Bollwerk and Skimmer and Pell are finishing off the remaining five soldiers, who without their Betameth/Kamikaze speedball are much weaker than they would have otherwise been. The team leaves the area, leaving the facade of The Crispy Prawn on fire and full of bullet holes.

After that is dealt with, Luna scouts out The World with a drone while Pell does so with a water spirit. Pell's water spirit encounters three other water spirits who say that this area is under their protection, and they aren't to let Pell's spirit closer. They answer a couple of questions before telling the other spirit to leave. Luna's drone has more luck, in that she is able to find a cargo container that wasn't closed properly, and sneak the flyspy into it. Inside, she finds Black Guardian Vines (Arsenal 65) (though she doesn't know it at the time) surrounding the inside of the container. Instead of containing cargo in addition, it contains Red Dragon triad members with large rifles (Terracottas). She continues to scout and eventually finds a container with more Black Guardian Vines and several plastic boxes containing metal dissolved into a liquid (the Orichalcum!).

Afterwards, they call back Luna's ship and board, and head out to The World. They decide to use Pell's flyspies (having attached grenades to them) to make a dive-bomb attack at the bridge of the shipping vessel. As the team approaches, they manage to avoid being detected by the Detect Enemies (Extended) spell the mage was sustaining through some luck, and launch the flyspies to the surprise of those on board The World. The decker on the ship manages to destroy two of the flyspies before they arrive with matrix combat, but the other three hit doing massive damage to the bridge.

That's when Luna's ship surfaces and the team spills out onto the deck of the fishing vessel. They face eight Red Dragon triads on Kamikaze (though no Betameth since they didn't have time to take that drug), three Force 7 Water Spirits, a Mage using mage sight goggles from below decks, and a rigger who is The World. Bollwerk launches grenades into the remains of the bridge, killing the decker and the rigger before the decker can dataspike Sexy Bonsai's brain into oblivion. While the Red Dragons are expert marksmen, the runners are even better at dodging apparently and they manage to avoid getting hit or going down - and the Red Dragons aren't so lucky. During this fight Mr. Cromwell is calling the runners telling them that GDI assets are under attack and to come back asap.

When there are only two Red Dragons left, Luna convinces them to surrender. Bollwerk realizes that the remaining members of the crew of The World are stalling in regards to transferring the container with the Orichalcum, and so the runners threaten the Red Dragons a little more. After a few minutes, the runners speed back to Seattle in Luna's ship, leaving The World adrift with no controls in the Pacific near Seattle.

As they approach, Pell sends a spirit to scout ahead who is immediately terrified of what it sees: a Force 15 Great Form Guardian Spirit protecting the Red Dragons who are hitting the GDI assets. The team decides not to engage with the spirit (since that would likely be a death sentence), though Luna does sacrifice a drone to shoot out the batteries of the three Red Dragon vehicles. KE shows up, notices the spirit, and just... also wisely decides not to engage. The Red Dragons manage to get one of their vehicles working again and drive off, with KE watching. Mr. Cromwell thanks the team for preventing the theft of two-thirds of their assets here, though now they're going to have to convince KE that the goods in these warehouses are legitmate. He gives the runners an alternate place to drop off the Orichalcum.

Aftermath

GDI is bruised, but not nearly as badly as it could have been. Shotozumi-Rengo are bruised a bit. Red Dragons are annoyed at you (and someone powerful in their organization has assensed Pell's aura (it's Lung)).

Rewards

• 88k nuyen or double that in weapons/electronics/ware/vehicles/foci*/whatever from Katrin Morgentau - 44 RVP (includes the -1 RVP spent on grenades)
• 50 karma - 50 RVP
• 14k nuyen from Mr. Cromwell - 7 RVP
• 2 CDP

Foci: up to availability 20 only

Optional:

• Katrin Morgentau Connection 10 at Loyalty 2 for -11 RVP
• Deltaware access for awakened/emerged for -15 RVP

• Bollwerk IG 2

(7/6 multiplier on time)

Game Quotes

Aurora: "You get one edge back just for surviving the first combat turn"

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Sexy Bonsai

Being the Matrix Legend that I am was as much a choice for me as it was a calling from the Matrix itself. My entire life had been laid out for me, what I have been expected to do, how I've been expected to do it, and when and under who's orders I would have been expected to die. That was until I found out how much of an absolute genius I am when it comes to decking. When I deck it isn't just a bit of extra cash, it's freedom for me, freedom to choose my own path and create my own story. The 'gumi let me run the Shadows because it was more profitable for them, because it worked for them, and the minute it became inconvenient for them they decided to try and geek me.

Too bad this isn't my first dohyō now and Sexy Bonsai refuses to end up in some bullet ridden dumpster, a pawn to be disposed of whenever some crusty old oyabun who can't even operate his own commlink decides that I'm no longer useful. They want a fight with me they've got it. I got new friends now omae and drek is about to get real awkward for the Shotozumi, hold onto your mawashi motherfragger cos I'm coming at you full speed.

Oh you were asking about the run and not Sexy Bonsai? Oh, well, yeah it went alright let it not be said that Sexy isn't without humility and this one was a little above my pay grade okay omae? Still it was a blast, I live for this rush and with all the cha-ching I earned from this one I could open my own Sushi place! Which of course I didn't, I got a wiz new 'deck instead, but I could have!

Bollwerk

Damn it, she knows, she has always known. She set this whole shit up and now she's mad at me? I mean, I had a choice, yeah. I could have stayed. But that wouldn't have ended well. No, it was right to clear my head. Let's hope at least the secret service doesn't have a clue. Would be even nicer if my superiors showed up here. You just can't trust anyone in this world. Not even Mr. Cromwell, who I thought was an honest guy. I need to work on my people skills. What will Katrin do now? I mean she probably won't get rid of me she could have done that already. She could have just shipped me off to a dumpster instead of Seattle. Probably no one would have noticed or cared. So what's the point of all this? I think I need to clear my head even more than before. It's time for the next run.

Oh yeah, the run actually went pretty well for what was thrown at us. That was a really competent team. The giant spirit at the docks worries me though - it seems like there are really powerful parties involved here and that usually means dragons. I think we've spit in the soup of a dragon. That's good if I can't do anything about the one with the golden scales.