Arrogant Amatuers

Arrogant Amatuers
Date 2081-07-18 GM Chrisst111 Location Redmond Barrens Status Threat Level: Low
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Overwatch	Amateur Gangers
Aristotle
Private requested run, fulfilling a favor for overwatch.

Summary

Amateur gangers hire an equally amateur mage and get too Arrogant, going from noise complaints and harassing people to robbing a DocWagon transport! Aristotle was called upon by the wagemage that was assigned to the task to handle it for him, and due to owing this wagemage Aristotle agrees. One professional against a couple of amateurs, what could go wrong?

Background

Aristotle found himself indebted to Overwatch after an incident involving humanis and clowns had the DocWagon mage try and track him down for the death of his client. The DocWagon mage had decided to let Aristotle go and report it as a lost trail since the client was a disgusting person to Overwatch, of course not for free though. Now Overwatch is in a pickle, as he's been tasked with finding and recovering stolen DocWagon gear from Gangers, and he's decided to call in one of his favors.

The Meet

Aristotle was headed down to The Daze to clear his head from his magical studies when his commlink started to receive a call from Overwatch. Answering the call, Overwatch explained the situation, a DocWagon supply vehicle got raided by gangers and they needed the cargo back. Knowing the point of why he was being told this and the situation between these two mages, Aristotle agreed to handle the situation as a returned favor, and subsequently setup an arrangement for the two to contact again on burner commlinks. Contact was quickly made again to hand off data needed to get Aristotle on the trail, namely the location of the robbery.

The Plan

Armed with some data and his car, Aristotle knew he'd have to be slow and methodical to handle this issue himself. All he could do is go to the last point the GPS tag on the crate broadcasted and hope that he wouldn't walk straight into the fire. If this is the work of any prominent gang, things could get complicated fast, doubly so if any Awakened were involved. Best case scenario would be a few mundane thugs with no backing, worst case would be something like the Yakuza and an equivalent strength Adept. Without much else to go on, and no other talents to call in, all Aristotle could do was take things slow and adapt to new information. Pulling up to the location pointer, Aristotle found himself in front of a damaged and abandoned warehouse in the barrens, at this point anything can happen at any moment.

The Run

Approaching carefully, astrally perceiving to check for auras through the damaged windows and holes in the walls, the abandoned warehouse seemed empty to Aristotle. Entering inside he found two ganger corpses, a commlink, and the lingering signature in the astral. A quick assensement of the signature revealed it was two low force combat spells, which seemed to be the method in which the corpses were killed. Checking the commlink that was left open, Aristotle found the time, location, and ransom the gangers were demanding from DocWagon in return for the goods. Finally, he ran a quick matrix search on the tattoos on the gangers, which pulled up a few hits on local barren publications and chats talking about how they're a small band of idiots who just cause problems. This group has gotten a bit more arrogant recently because they snagged a mage to join them.

With the info he's collected, Aristotle formulated a theory he could work on: Mages are a rare talent that is highly desired, if a lowly group managed to recruit one instead of a corp or the runner community the mage must be minor, perhaps an aspected magician of a low magical talent. The bodies here were killed by a spell, a low-strength one, but given how malnutrition is common here it wouldn't need to be much to take out the average barren resident. If these assumptions are right, the group's arrogance might have rubbed off on the mage, causing them to lash out when things weren't going their way, killing their own allies. An arrogant mage makes mistakes, which would explain the astral evidence left to a point, most likely also inexperienced and focused on just a few key spells. Since Aristotle is a proper magician and has practiced in each domain, if his assumptions are correct he can completely out-maneuver this rogue awakened. He pulled up the location data the abandoned commlink left for the rendezvous point in AR, it was nearby just a few hundred meters. So Aristotle looked for the old office in this warehouse, with all the walls in tact and no windows in site, he barricaded the door, cleared the center, and setup a manabarrier to hide and protect his body while he projects out in the direction of the rendezvous point to scout it out.

In the Astral Aristotle immediately noticed a barrier inside this location, sensing the low force of the barrier he pressed through and easily slipped in unnoticed. Inside the small barrier he could see three auras and a shadowy shape in the center. He could sense only one of them was Awakened and had a very miniscule magic, barely awakened. The others were mundanes who were nervous and angry with some cyber between them. The awakened though was calm and excited, as well as having the same signature found on the bodies. This confirmed Aristotle's theory, and he was able to guess that the shadowy shape was the supplies they stole. They're waiting for the meet time they proposed, and the mage never considered his manabarrier could be beaten, as he's not dual natured. Having entered the space undetected and aware of the relative strengths of the opposition, Aristotle knew if he could easily dispatch the Awakened, he could intimidate the others into giving up, thus eliminating bloodshed. Calling upon a new Fire Elemental, along with pulling out his bound Fire Elemental so he could have two combatants, Aristotle decided he'd launch his assault from here. He knew he wouldn't be able to do anything else without any opposition being dual natured, but without their mage they'd never find his body in time to stop him. He set his orders for his Elementals to focus fire the targets in the priority order he assigned each target, the weak mage being the first, and that they'd start combat upon his manifestation.

Aristotle manifested before the gangers along with his Elementals, who engulfed and reduced the awakened mage to a charred corpse in an instant, good thing he used two. Pausing his elementals, he asks the gangers if they'd cooperate with him so that they don't wind up like their friend over there. Intimidated by their claim to fame being dead in an instant, they immediately agreed, causing the unbound elemental to be dismissed. Aristotle quickly explained that he has no hard feelings on them, if they do what he says and doesn't impede the job he's out to do, then he's fine letting them go. After asking about their friend whom he just roasted, they confirmed his theories of being a mage who got too arrogant and flaunted his power around like a god. Conscious cleared and knowing that they harbored resentment against the mage for killing their own groupies, Aristotle reaffirmed them that the guy wasn't given a chance due to giving Awakened a bad rap. After taking into account what they had with them, Aristotle's manifestation told them to follow him in walking away, as they went to pick up the crate he told them to leave that, in which they let out an 'oh.' in realization of the job he was sent out to accomplish and they left it and followed him. As he led them away, he also demanifested with his elemental in order to observe their auras, to see if they would remain honest when they thought he left. They chatted for a bit, and then decided to continue to follow their orders. Having resolved the situation, Aristotle sent his elemental away and returned to his body in order to grab his car and load up the crate. Once he was on the road away from the scene, he contacted Overwatch in order to setup the dropoff.

Aftermath

Overwatch, surprised at the speed in which the job was handled, setup a pickup for within the hour. Aristotle met up in an alley with an unmarked van and a black suit, which immediately knew about the package, signaling to him that this was indeed the contact. He loaded up the package in the van, the contact gave him a credstick with his payment, and the two separated.

Aristotle contacted Overwatch on the burner one final time to confirm dropoff, in which Overwatch was elated and stated that this almost covers the debt, and the two agree on one more time. After the call concluded, Aristotle destroyed the burner, slightly aggravated knowing that he knows he'll be called upon once more in the future.

Rewards

• 4000 Nuyen
• 5 karma
• +1 Chip from Overwatch

Game Quotes

"You guys want to surrender and cooperate with me so you don't end up like your buddy over there?" -Aristotle's manifestation to some gangers as their mage is being roasted alive by fire Elementals

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Aristotle

"Honestly, if the Awakened wasn't an arrogant prick who killed his own buddies like some rabid animal, I would have given him a chance too. His talent was so miniscule I could have made the background count too high for his magic to work and I'd still have enough to work with to retaliate. But he was quite disgusting, thinking himself a god among mundanes, and that gives us a bad rap. That's what made him not worth the risk or sympathy. Might not have been my call to make, but why stick my own neck out for that psycho? If he was more capable than I estimated him to be, the little gnat might try something underhanded in retaliation. I don't like awakened fighting each other senselessly, we have enough people after us mindlessly as it is, but we also need to keep each other in line so we don't become worthy of the ire of the mundanes."