Snubnose Synchronicity

Snubnose Synchronicity
Date 2085-10-20 GM Fangblade_ Location Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Hitmen
Wildflower Samael Trades Celicy Vist
3.5 hours so far

Summary

A 'whodunit' happens when a corpse cadavre shows up at Silver Ash Private Investigations looking for Celicy Vist's sister. Yet, when they're busy and cannot handle it, she pushes the gig onto someone else, especially to get the decaying corpse out of her office. So, the runners of Trades, Samael, and Wildflower band together to find out the history and understand why this man has 'come back to life', or so it seems.

Background

Raymond Keelie, beloved beat-cop turned detective and community outreach member of KE, suddenly turns up murdered by a halloweener. When his death is publicized and spread on the news, many people were worried about what it could mean. Was this a covera up? Were they murdered on the streets? But, all were saddened by his loss, given the situation and circumstances. His survivng wife and kids had no comment, instead leaving the city to stay with Raymond's brother.

The Meet

The runner trio find Celicy in her office with all the windows open. Her assistant and nepo-hire cousin, Minerva Kotomine, whines in the foyer about the smell. When heading inside, they notice that inside seems to be a courpse cadavre sitting in a seat. A quick investigation shows it to be a one Raymond Keelie, who had been murdered but a scant few days ago.

A quick few matrix searches show that this man was a night errant cop, and show a few places to investigate; His home apartment, his spouse's picture, his commlink, and the location where he died. The team, wanting to get the stinker of a man out of the office of Celicy, decide to go and do legwork outside.

The Investigation

Starting off, the team decide to do some matrix searches about Keelie. They find his spouse, Eyjafjalla her two kids had gone to stay with her brother in the SSC. They found his brother's commlink, and even his buddy-cops commlink, Aaron Kilpatrick. Looking into Kilpatric's commlink, they find it rigged with databombs and with plenty of data files containing dummy info; designed to be a 'red haring' or in this case, more of a 'red beartrap'. Trades is able to disarm them, but get away unharmed.

Next stop, the team went to the last place Keelie was found, a local corner store called "Schmidt's Munitions and Munchies". Wildflower notices a water spirit, but the team decide to leave the outside for now, and head in. Upon entering the business, Sam and Wildflower spend no short order to start absolutely pressuring the shopkeep, as it was clear he was bought off nearly immediately. The Shopkeep mentions cops came in and questioned him, but ultimately didn't steal any footage or anything. They demand the footage, and leave, letting Wildflower's Trid Phantasm to obscure their presence.

Outside, the team starts to notice the water spirit asking for Wildflower, sensing their wild rep. The water spirit asks for help in cleansing his current home, as the creak nearby had been disturbed for days, ever since the 'bad smelling mage came along'. A conversation shows that the spirit has things to offer, if the team decides to dismantle the background. Wildflower and Trades realize that fire spirits are coming to nip at the memorial to Keelie, given the background count its creating. So, dismantling the memorial and disposing of it later, the background count would return to normal over a few hours.

Meanwhile, Trades calls Roxxy Sparks to get an idea of who this halloweener girl is. Roxy is hesitant to give any info, but goes over the general situation; Nerves was kidnapped on the 15th, a day before Keelie died, and then showed up with no memory of what happened three days alter on the 18th. While the gang thinks it could be a likely story, they decide to gather more info before throwing fingers just yet. They decide to check the footage next.

The footage they recovered is odd, showing a halloweener walk into the store, 'purchase' a gun, and then wait for the cop to enter. The cop - Keelie - is then shot twice, the firearm being left at the scene, and the halloweener caught on camera leaving the store. Clearly something is up and immediately the team realize that the creation date of the footage was a day after the day that Keelie died. Trades and Sam storm back in to pressure the worker, and when he reaches for a silent alarm, he's shot with stick and shock by Sam, who after threatening the man, decides to hand over the real footage, that the cops had destroyed but he had kept a copy of in order to preasure the cops. The real footage of that day clearly shows Aaron Kilpatrick just barely on camera using some magic to get Nerves to head in and wait to assassinate Keelie.

From there, the few places they have yet to check back in with is Keelie's apartment. The team scoots over, and upon finding a potential stakeout, Wildflower summons a spirit of man to give them concealment, and they are able to head inside. And, while they spot the spirits guarding the door, the team fails to spot the nearby stakeout team, but so neither does the stakeout team notice the runners (thanks concealment).

Once inside, the team starts to tear the house up a second time, finding it sufficiently ransacked already. So, searching for clues, they find a commlink agent trying to poke around and ask for help, but its speakers were damaged, and was sending messages to Sam and Trades to find assistance. A quick chat reveals that she had been programmed to turn on after a week and ask for help in delivering a message. That message was "My name is Eyjafjalla Olafsdottir-Keelie, my husband was potentially framed or assassinated, please do not let Knight Errant get away with this, he was a good man and was on to something!"

Further searching of the house finds Samael two safes; one which was very obviously hidden and ransacked; a decoy safe, and another that was hidden well behind some physical obfuscation. Pulling out the lockpicking tools, they manage to free the safe and find it booby-trapped. A device is disarmed, which was set to ignite the paper documents stored within. And, inside, the motherload of details;

Keelie had found out that multiple police officers had 'murders' be swept under the rug and either entirely called off of covered up by higher ups who wanted to keep the team in check and not facing consequences of their actions, which would look bad on the KE agents. As well, when Keelie was demoted to community outreach, he found out that many of the higher ups were embezling money from the community outreach funds, and when Keelie was going to send that data out, he ended up getting caught and whacked by Knight Errant. The team, deciding to send this data to Carleton Moreau.

The Sting

Leaving the apartment, the team notices things are off; A man walks by Trade's invisible truck, the spirits are gone, and a window across the street is open with a glare; Sam notices it before its too late, but they're caught in a hit by off-duty KE agents. The hit is quick and dirty, the runners nearly being caught off guard, but not taken by storm. Sam is able to protect wildflower from a sniper shot, and shoot the hit-squad's FLR who was approaching with a handgun. Upon seeing the man down, Trades took advantage to run them over. Wildflower was able to ask the spirit to cover them with their spirit powers, and Sam, banking on one godspeed shot, was able to send a pistol round from range down the scope of the sniper, disabling and killing them. The KE 'hit squad' was disabled, defanged, and sent running. Though, not before the spotter for the sniper is able to capture some footage of what happened.

Shortly after exfiltrating, Carleton Moreau calls trades, having heard a a hubbub about some knight errant whack and a new APB being sent out, and asks if they need a hand. Given the situation, they decide to bring up the data now, and with Keelie's permission, he says "while killing Kilpatrick would feel good, having him go to jail for potentially the rest of his life feels a lot better." He was a good cop to the end, or at least he tried to be, wanting to use the judicial system for good.

Aftermath

Having the paydata sent to Carlton, he used the data to start spreading and trying to have those indicted in the document brought to justice. Keelie is able to rest, knowing his work was put to good and those who broke the law in such heinous ways would be brought to justice.

Rewards

10 RVP, per players choice, split between any of the following:

• 4ooo Nuyen in Magical foci, Reagents, Spell Formulae, Fetishes, or other magical gear up to Rating 19F (1 RVP per)
• 2ooo Nuyen as direct payment from Celicy(1 RVP per)
• 1 Karma (1 RVP per)
• 2 CDP (1 RVP per)

4,ooo Nuyen for selling paydata to Carleton Moreau - (2 RVP)

8 CDP - (4 RVP)

+1 wild index for dealing with the disturbance near the free spirit's home, and negotiating for info from them

Optional rewards

Carleton Moreau C4 L1 for 4 RVP or 8 CDP or +1 Loyalty for 1 RVP

Celicy Vist C4 L1 for 4 RVP or 8 CDP

• too pretty 2 hit for 3 RVP for Wildflower
• Tough as Nails: Stun - 5 RVP for Samael
• Analytical Mind - 5 RVP for Trades
• Catlike - 7 RVP for Trades

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Samael Despite the bobble at the weapons store, the team went rather swimmingly. There was little argument about not going direction to a KE station, and between Ms. Wildflower's summoning skills and Ms. Trode's matrix skills, we were able to get to the bottom of all this. Still rather kicking myself that we didn't spot the sniper across the street, but even the best of plans go pear shaped now and again. I think a visit to Ms. Morrison's is in order for some upgrades to my coat. Blighter stung me right good.

Trades

I should've checked all my boxes and made sure to keep a handle on my matrix presence. As they say, "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." The feeling of crunching that hitman under the truck's wheels was exhilarating, but it's important that I hold to my code. He might have deserved to die for being a corrupt coming to kill me while they thought I was in a VR coma, but I wasn't thinking about that in the moment. I felt the thrill of wielding the deadly weapon that is my truck, and I forgot to practice restraint.

Wildflower

Gods, that spirit summoning took it out of me. Gotta remember to pace myself with that stuff, guess my mother was right about me being as ambitious as her... Anyway, run went alright. I gotta wonder if I'm cut out for this stuff, though... felt like the others were miles ahead of me experience-wise. I guess that makes sense, but... nah, nevermind. I'll get there. Not like I have a choice.