Excursion

Excursion
Part of The Arrival
Date 2085-12-30 GM Asmodeus Location Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine Status Threat Level: Semi-Prime
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Asahiro Kunitoshi Shiawase N-51 Woedica Kryptman	Monolith Cult	Great Dragons	Zurich-Orbital	Shiawase
Shy Intercession Blackhawk Thunder Eidolon	Preachers Cultists Vyraj Irij	Kaltenstein	Omega Dawn Hitsquad	Caspian Sea Mercenaries & Shiawase Samurai
Casualties and losses
Several points of edge were burned; Shy regained Mild K-10 Addiction, Eidolon lost some of his memory.	21 soldiers dead, 3 preachers killed, Vyraj dead, Irij captured.	Kaltenstein suffered moderate radiation burns.	1 member deceased.	CSPMC suffered 95% casualties.
Initiation Ordeal & Mundane Ascension for all runners.

Summary

Asahiro Kunitoshi acquires another fragment of the legendary Sohayamaru, but at the cost of a mountain of bodies. The runners manage to negate the recent indoctrination wave of fresh cultists in the toxic cult of the Wish Granter, but are unable to permanently contain its influence.

Background

See The Arrival metaplot.

The Meet

Asahiro hires the runners from Seattle via proxy and Matrix connections, arranging for their flight to a forward operating base near the perimeter of the Exclusion Zone. He's hired an unrated European mercenary company, the Caspian Sea PMC to provide boots on the ground. Asahiro diverted his personal diviners' attention to the next fragment and discovered it to have belonged to a collector of relics in Chornobyl by the time of the reactor meltdown. To his knowledge, the fragment remains in the Jupiter factory complex.

The Plan

Unfortunately, the complex is immediately outside of Prypiat which satellite imagery has confirmed to be one of the largest concentrations of the cult's forces. The plan is for the Caspian Sea PMC and a detachment of the N-51 to start a convoy and head into Prypiat, fielding a distracting assault to screen for the runner team's infiltration of Jupiter and subsequent retrieval of the artifact fragment. The N-51 has limited ordnance on site and there have been some sightings of 5th world artillery pieces in the city. The mercenaries will keep the cult's attention on them to give the runners a fighting chance; as soon as the fragment's secured, they're free to retreat and minimize casualties.

Unbeknowns to most, Thunder and Shy both received secret briefs from interested parties. Charon informed Shy that there's a force maintaining a shroud of Matrix interference over Prypiat. She wants to find the source and eliminate it, though for what purpose is unclear. Thunder, on the other hand, receives a call from Officer Raven who asks him to retrieve one of the power sources that the cult's shrines have at their core. Both runners agree, though they don't tell the other runners of these goals yet. Intercession's given a loan frame from Shiawase; it's unclear why Shiawase possesses such technology, implying they may have cyborgs in their employ already.

Asahiro gives Shy a blade as a gift, expecting her to not fail him in this task. The others gain skillsofts and toolkits to make this a reality, as well as promise of a handsome payday.

The Run

The convoy begins and the runners repair an old train to take a parallel route to Yaniv. Unfortunately, a great radiation storm kicks in and their guide, Kiril Kravchenko is lost in the storm that knocks everyone unconscious. The team awakens in the swamps to the south of Yaniv Station and regroup with limited supplies and with half of their team somewhat injured. Almost immediately, they're beset upon by mutated creatures. In the ensuing firefight, a gauss rifle shoots Shy square in the neck from an unseen angle and the creatures try to drag her off to eat her. Fortunately, the team manages to fight them off and force the creatures to retreat after several of their number perish.

Tracking the shooter across the Swamps and trying to gain a connection to the other mercenaries is difficult and mostly unsuccessful. Shy gets to high ground while Intercession tries to triangulate the interference's source. He succeeds, but is shot by the hidden sniper again, disabled completely by his borg frame taking too much damage. After dragging the broken frame to cover, the three stealth snipers in the team begin scanning the other hilltops for sign of the sniper, but find nothing. Presuming the attacker's relocated already, they get to repairing the frame and manage to get it somewhat functional. With this, they manage to escape the swamps without casualties, though much of their gear is destroyed in the wrecked train carriage.

Once they reach the premises of Yaniv, the team splits; Shy says she'll go after the other N-51 troops in Prypiat and see if she can't disable the artillery to help the team. Afterwards, Thunder elaborates that getting the shrine power sources could be useful - while the others aren't as convinced, Blackhawk tags along southeast in search of Kiril, their guide, whose body hasn't been found yet, only his backpack. The team wanders further away from Prypiat, discovering an underground complex where the cult's set up. Perhaps it was some kind of military installation at one point, a radar station, but instead they are captured by the cult and taken before the shrine one by one to be indoctrinated.

Meanwhile, Shy's counter-sniped in Prypiat again and dragged to safety by the remaining N-51 elements who take shelter inside buildings, using a very makeshift field medic hospital to keep people from dying. With no-one else to call on, Shy risks by calling on Woedica's name. The former blood mage arrives on horseback, furious that she'd be called away despite her tight schedule in the Wild Hunt. Shy asks for help, getting decontaminated and healed mostly to full health again. Woedica can't remain for long, but will keep an ear out for further summons. She manages to sneak out properly this time and finally gets revenge on the sniper trying to catch her a second time. One of her N-51 comrades bounds across a long sightline quickly, but gets caught by the gauss rifle sniper regardless. Shy, able to spot the muzzle flash, takes the sniper down in return. With another casualty, they move to the eastern half of Prypiat to engage the first howitzer.

Shy discovers the howitzers to be toxic spirits, able to materialize and astrally project to rapidly relocate. She convinces the toxic spirit to engage in murder, no matter who the target is. Filled with bloodlust, the spirit agrees and lets a shell be loaded. With N-51 troops going on rooftops of apartment blocks to act as spotters, Shy engages in indirect battery fire on another concentration of cultists near the riverside. At the same time, the cult's hit by an unknown trio of operatives with rifles and backpacks. The artillery rends most of them severely and another howitzer is destroyed. After this, Shy kills the spirit, disrupting it back to its home plane.

After that, she engages in another firefight with the cult, taking severe casualties but getting cover from the rooftop overwatch and the three operatives who keep pushing into the riverside buildings. Wounded but not out, the two parties disengage from one another. Shy asks for help but the three spec ops refuse, stating their goal to be looking for dangerous terrorist accomplices. Shy continues moving forward and gets to the interference's source as located by Intercession in the swamps. She finds some kind of sustaining module with life support functions and a number of signal amplifiers. Unable to ascertain its exact purpose, she notices a universal connector port and jacks in, asking her team to run overwatch and form a security perimeter. In the device's VR space, she encounters a young boy calling himself Vishnyk the Herald. He wanders in an abandoned Prypiat with Shy, asking questions about the outside world and apologizing for something. Shy asks if he can disable the interference, to which he agrees after some persuading. Unfortunately, it'll take time. Shy agrees to stay with the boy until it's done and starts to see Prypiat shrinking, the VR space growing more and more cramped as an impassable fog creeps in, signaling the dying of the Matrix interference. After it's about to close in fully, he boots Shy out and apologizes one last time. Finally able to contact her team properly again, Shy asks for Woedica to take the boy and take him somewhere else. Reluctantly, the Wild Hunt's rider agrees and spirits the Dissonant Technomancer of the cult far off.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party's about to be indoctrinated. Eidolon's taken before the shrine and hears familiar brainwashing whispers in his head when a firefight erupts. The spec ops trio has found the bunker and attacks the cult, causing all kinds of chaos. The party barely manages to get out of the crossfire and realizes they're chasing Thunder. Unsure why, they arrange a distraction and sneak Thunder out through another path in the underground complex. Dissatisfied with having their target slip, the spec ops