In Search of Alternative Fuels

In Search of Alternative Fuels
Date 2086-01-05 GM Eddren Location Northgate, Seattle Status Threat Level: Deadly
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Saeder Krupp	Knights of Valluche
Poe Pockets First Response	F8 Guardian Spirit Fancy Guard
Casualties and losses
	3-ish

Summary

The gang insults a couple of office workers, tells a story about a Troll Stripper, her husband, and their public fetishes, uninstalls a door, and steals a formula. Then gets paid for it.

Background

A relatively unknown magical lodge, the Knights of Valluche, has recently developed a magical formulae for accelerating cars via manipulation magic. Saeder Krupp, seeing potential in this magic, decides to steal it for themselves and continue R&D. After discussion of budgets, it's determined that, with the security-mindedness of the owner of the facility, the cost of a long-term infiltration for so little gain makes little sense, and it'd be better to bring in deniable assets. A runner team was hired.

The Meet

Poe, Pockets, and First Response head up after receiving calls from their respective Fixers; Pockets, heading there after calling up a contact for a quick ride. Upon arrival, they each immediately head to the J, who regales them with tales of his times in Tahiti. Once everyone's gathered up, he gets down to business, where he explains the meat of the run; he's looking for a particular formula from a magical lodge by the name of the Knights of Valluche. They're headed by an archaeologist who discovered certain fourth world texts detailing a small portion of their manufacturing methods from that era. It was apparently enough of an insight to lead the man in a completely new direction of spell design, and so a variety of mages came together to try and innovate the world of manipulation magic. The man was infamously paranoid, and so when they developed a spell that the J was actually interested in, they quickly determined it would be fiscally impractical to send in a long-term infiltration team; it would take months, at least, for one to get into position. Furthermore, he ideally wanted it tonight. In return, he was willing to provide 16k Nuyen, plus options for cyberware, vehicles, and an opt-in to a special weapon foci testing program they had going on.

The gang managed to push for an extra 2k Nuyen in operating costs, as well as 6K from their payout up-front.

The Plan

The plan changed a great deal depending on circumstance, but the final production looked something like such:

- Swipe the maglock card from an employee leaving the building.
- Hire a Decker. Have the Decker disable the scanners at the front door.
- Distract the guards at the front door.
- Sneak the two non-sneaky members of the run through the now-defunct scanner and into the hallway under invisibility and stealth.
- Looper Round all the cameras
- Knock out the guard in the stairwell
- Figure shit out once they got to the sub-basement. (Their legwork skills weren't extensive enough to get them that far safely)

The Run

Everything went relatively well to start: The runners hired a Cutter ganger; not the most talented guy in the world, mostly a lucky Decker a little better than your average script kiddy. Still, he had a glorified credit card with a personasoft and a dream. This was considered to be insufficient, and so the runners went back to their J to tell them they had the fourth member of the run they'd mentioned earlier. The J agreed to pay out for said fourth member, along with the upfront costs, and the gang pooled their money together for the down-payment to Cairn to borrow a Little Hornet, as well as buy some sweet, sweet drugs. This, plus an exceptionally strong Analyze Device done by Poe, resulted in a guy that actually looked like a legitimate Runner-level Decker.

Pockets then began with a bit of insult comedy out on the streets, which he was terrible at. This gave him the chance to get close to an ork/elf duo who were heading to a nearby bar, where he could then palm one of their maglock badges. With badge in hand, he headed in and got past the scanners, disabled courtesy of Mr. Cutter Decker, and then proceeded to regale the security guards with a raunchy tale of an Ork erotic dancer and her lover, who burst in to see her flirting with another man. It ended with the man the Troll was flirting with being the erotic dancer, somehow.

It also sufficiently distracted the guards enough to allow Poe and First Response, under invisibility and Stealth, cross into the adjacent hallway and shoot all four of the cameras with looper rounds. With all the barriers between them and the stairwell covered, the gang then is left with another challenge--simultaneously taking out the camera and the security guard inside. After a failed attempt to cover the man's head with an illusion in case he was running with cameras in a cybereye and a simultaneous, more successful, looping of the camera, they manage to stick n' shock the guard to unconsciousness and head down. The Decker takes care of the biomonitors.

Pockets disguises himself as the security guard and convinces the guard at the security desk that he's very shaken up about how he's going to tell this elf girl about his feelings. The guard buys this enough for the gang to slip around and choke him out as well under invisibility. Once again, the Decker is able to take care of the biomonitors. This is where things start getting...Complicated. The door doesn't have a security system on it--Not a standard one, anyway. It's got a normal, average lock...And a Force 8 prep on it, set to make a loud noise when triggered. The team is rather thoroughly stumped on how to pick the lock without triggering the alarm, and so eventually has to just take the door off the hinges to get inside...But carefully, because there are pressure plates behind the door.

After doing so, Poe does a check of the doors in the hallway. Sure enough, every one of them has the same setup. Worse, there's a Force 10 Ward guarding one end of the hallway. So, with the knowledge that he'll have to drop his analyze device spell, the gang has the Decker take out the biomonitor for the guard sitting at the security table in the hall across them, drops all their spells, and goes through the barrier. As they're removing the next door, however, they hear the sound of the guard coming to relieve the guard they'd knocked out from the rec room. Knowing they also need to take down the guard at the security desk, the gang splits into two groups. First Response takes care of the replacement, and Poe takes care of the guy at the desk. Pockets supports First Response.

There ends up being *another* Ward along that hallway, but once past it, they're finally able to get to the next-to-last chamber...Where there's a F8 spirit, kinda hanging out. It looks for all the world like they're going to get spotted, have to fight that spirit, and then fight their way out, when Poe hatches a plan; he throws an influence to get the Spirit to keep its attention on him, and then chats with the spirit while the others proceed to sneak past it and get that sweet formula. Turns out the Mage running the lodge is a pretty cool guy; summoning only, gives karma at the end of "shift", whatever that is, and then resummons after. Not a bad gig. Anyway, the crew gets the formula, which turns out to also be a Force 1 Foci that's currently active. Since it can't go through the barrier without things going south, Poe turns into a racoon and takes it with him into the ventilation system; the others continue on the way they came, and everyone leaves by jumping out the window in a perfect swan dive, to prevent the alarms from going off.

Aftermath

The formula is delivered to the J; everyone gets paid a bonus because, as it turns out, he'd expected them to actually take until the morning and then he'd end up having to deduct a little! But he's pleased enough with their work to throw in another 2k Nuyen. Huzzah!

Rewards

Run rewards for In Search of Alternative Fuels: 18 rvp +2 for long run

20k Nuyen(10 rvp) or gear rewards(18F Cyberware, Vehicles, Exotic Weapon Foci) 5 karma(5 rvp) +2 Karma(2 rvp) 8 CDP (3 rvp)

-1 Karma for Pockets Optionals Spirit Whisperer at Gen Cost(Poe)(For talking down a F8 Spirit and keeping it occupied while the gang did their thing) Cutters Decker(Name Pending)(C1, L2) - 2 RVP

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.