A Shudder of Clowns

A Shudder of Clowns
Date 2081-05-14 GM Aurora Location Downtown
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven New Century Party Phantom Drifter Howler Twitch Aristotle	Humanis Scatterbrains

Summary

The runners are hired to be low-key backup security for a New Century Party town hall meeting. They disarm some neurostun bombs and defeat some scatterbrains.

Background

Humanis is made of dicks. These dicks want to mess with the nice people in the New Century Party. They make a plan to get the Scatterbrains involved in really fragging things up in the town hall.

The Meet

The runners meet in a Soybucks. Twitch orders a pretentious drink, and everyone else is a little bit nicer about it. The Johnson says he wants them to arrive and attend the town hall meeting, and, if anything happens, to then step in as "concerned citizens." The runners are to be paid 6,000 nuyen to attend, with an additional 10,000 if there is any action. The runners agree, not too worried about trying to negotiate the price. These are good people.

The Plan

The party scouts a few different ways.

Twitch and Howler work together to get Howler's drones into the building to scout things out. Howler notices a small device under several of the seats. On trying to dislodge it, it shocks the hand and seems to fall defunct. Howler beats a hasty retreat, not wanting to get her hand shocked worse. The device tries to make a call, which Twitch manages to intercept. It is saying that the device is compromised, and then displays the Humanis logo.

Aristotle heads in astrally, quickly noticing a fire spirit trying to hide (and not doing a great job at it). He decides to trace down the summoner. It takes a couple hours, but he manages to find the summoner. He destroys a watcher spirit, but the summoner manages to see what's going on in the astral. They battle, and eventually the summoner is defeated, but Aristotle has to make a hasty retreat. He has his fire spirit finish him off, and then leave, unfortunately, leaving astral signatures behind. He hides inside his lodge, trying to wait out any attempts to locate him, so he will not be able to help for the latter part of the run. But he did a good job with this part, eliminating a major threat.

PD tracks down a ladder, which Howler uses, in combination with a jumpsuit crafted by her brand new Fashion spell, marches in like she has a job. A security guard follows her, but she persists. She feigns cleaning and uses the chance to remove the 6 devices inside the room (and 3 empty wrappers). She sends one to her local street doc, who analyzes it and reveals that they contained Neuro Stun X. They piece together the plan was to knock everyone out, then have the fire spirit light the place on fire. Well, with the summoner dead and the neuro stun devices removed, this plan was foiled.

Twitch searches online and finds references to a possible Scatterbrain attack targeted at this town hall meeting, but there's not much way to stop it until it happens, as the Scatterbrains have not been seen all day.

The Run

They attend the townhall meeting. Open carry is allowed, but the weapons must be unloaded, which the team complies with. Twitch's drones are nearby. Some time into the meeting, PD hears insane clown giggling, while Twitch and Howler notice the masks on several of the members of the audience. They prepare themselves for combat, then Howler levitates a mask off one of the clowns. They decide to just attack. The group of runners pretty much just sweep through them, having managed to overcome their clever plan of activating the neurostun and having a fire spirit to back them up. The Scatterbrains have far less support than they wish they did.

Aftermath

No lives were lost. The Johnson was happy. A spirit of man tracked down Aristotle, but, luckily, it was from a friendly person. Twitch listened in on the call, just in case, but Overwatch was just trying to help. He offers to help with removing the astral tracking in return for a couple favors, which Aristotle agrees to.

Rewards

• 16,000 nuyen
• 8 karma
• 2 CDP

Aristotle Only

• 16,000 nuyen
• 4 karma
• 2 CDP
• Overwatch at loyalty 2, owing 2 chips

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Twitch

These are good people. I'm really glad we were able to help them. Really professional job from everyone, with no lives lost, except the summoner, but... I understand that. That got rid of the spirit that might have led to more loss of life.

Aristotle

It was not an ideal situation, but any mage would know that a familiar enemy is a deadly one, especially if they're better supported. Mages have killed each-other for less than their own safety sadly. Well, I paid the price in more than just the physical scars. Glad the misfortune wound up being effective for the team though.