Shadowcavern

Shadowcavern
Date 2081-12-23 GM Asmodeus Location Redmond Barrens, Ork Underground Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Skraacha	Feral Infected
Samsara Kera Silverpaw Dr.Trauma Warboss	Ghouls Bandersnatches

Summary

Warboss calls runners to do some Christmas cleanup.

Background

The Skraacha has several ork-heavy neighborhoods in the second level of the Ork Underground. These are often attacked by horrors from the deeper levels.

The Meet

Warboss was busy beating chromed up devil rat gladiators in a ring as the team arrives, high on drugs and more. When the team shows up, he punches Trauma down in the ground for trying to give him proper advice about drugs, then later does the same to Samsara for asking stupid questions. He points out an abandoned corporate complex that the Skraacha have reinforced to prevent feral hordes from converging into a larger stream. They lost it some time ago and need it clared.

The Plan

Clock up, strap in and kill everything. They do minor recon with astral projection, Spatial Sense, Detect Life and a whole lot of drugs. Samsara even sneaks through an alternate entrance.

The Run

While Kera, Silverpaw and Dr. Trauma take the southeast entrance and come across Gork and Mork, a pair of ork brothers serving as Skraacha scouts, Samsara sneaks to the southwest entryway and looks to find a third, lost scout to hopefully save him before it's too late. While Kera scouts with astral projection to uncover some uncertain life detection, she almost gets her face swiped off by a bandersnatch. They howl in rage and alert the entire horde, turning the situation into one of survival very quickly. While Gork and Mork have barricaded two doors leading to the lobby and Silverpaw begins putting her armaments to good use by pinging ghoul after ghoul through it, Trauma has other ideas and throws his alchemical preparations through it, melting the metal doors and the ghouls behind it with immense ball lightnings.

Kera begins supporting with frosty magecraft and crowd controlling radiances of foreboding while Silverpaw, Gork and Mork slowly advance with the power of buckshot. Trauma manages the larger groups with his crossbow and alchemical nukes of astral potency, but Samsara attempts to play the hero and hides a commlink in a bathroom vent, trying to lure some ghouls away. She happens to bump into all three bandersnatches at the same time and just barley avoids being detected under her ruthenium polymer cloak, striking the trio in the back with a flurry of flashbanges and HE grenades. By the time they manage to recover from being blinded, Samsara's already gained enough of an advantage that she can use her martial arts to kick them down to the curb.

Aftermath

Few remaining stragglers are quickly mopped up by the Skraacha Buddhist and Trauma and Kera teamwork to provide immediate medical aid to an armless Skraacha survivor found amidst the bloodied complex. They manage to stabilize him, although he is infected with HMHVV III. The group hauls him off to Warboss while Gork and Mork stay behind to demolish the dug up tunnels and reinforce the proper entryways. On their way back, the group comes across a squadron of heavily armed Skraacha, wielding machine guns and full body armor that breeze past them towards the complex. Warboss awards them in gear, drugs, nuyen, whatever it takes. He might be a trog lord high on life and six drugs, but he is a man of his word.

Rewards

• 8,000 Nuyen (4 RVP)
• 2 Karma (2 RVP)
• 2 CDP
• +1 Skraacha Faction Rep
• For all but Samsara: 6,000 Nuyen
• For all but Samsara: Common Sense or 3 Karma
• For Samsara: Daredevil or 6 Karma

Game Quotes

Warboss: [punches Samsara in the face for asking a stupid question] Samsara: [spitting out blood with a big grin on her face] "Thank you Sir, may I have another?"

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Samsara

WAAGGGHHH! Frag I'm still keyed up from this gig, it was a real rush; working directly for Warboss for the first time was a true joy (I even got punched in the face by him, it was awesome - I'm totally keeping the chipped tusk!) I still can't believe we all made it out alive honestly - I was totally expecting either Gork or Mork to go down fighting while we all made a desperate retreat from the ghoul horde, but everyone really held their own (or so I learned after from the fight footage, since I was a dumbass and decided to go off on my own). Turns out that wizzer Kera that I worked with before is a vampire (I didn't even see it when I looked at her aura, though I suppose I don't really know what to look for), but she knew a whole bunch about fighting the Infected so I guess she can't be that bad. Dr. Trauma did a bunch of cool Karl Kombatmage stuff with his alchemy, plus he gave me this super cool magic armour potion, so he's okay in my book. The new girl, Silverpaw, was a good shot and wasn't afraid to show off her cat ears around the Skraacha, so she's got my respect!

I still can't believe I went off alone to rescue Kane though, frag that was stupid. All I could think about was rescuing those people from the pit a few weeks back and how terrified they must have been - I couldn't leave him there to get torn apart once we went loud and started taking out the ghouls. Turns out there were "type IIs" or whatever Kera called them in there - I didn't get a very good look at them (they were all shimmery and barely visible, like they had RPC on), but there were three of them and they wailed loud enough to hear over the sound filter in my earbuds. They nearly ambushed me, but I managed to avoid them and stun-lock them with grenades and AOE attacks (thanks Red Samurai Run for teaching me trideo game tactics!) Gotta say I'm pretty proud of myself for blowing one up before kicking another to death and burying my tomahawk in the head of the third - I'm totally gonna show the recording to Warboss! We managed to get Kane out alive, but he had to cut his arm off (must have gotten scratched or bitten, poor fragger) and it turns out that he caught the infection anyway (though Kera and Trauma said they might be able to help the Skraacha medics halt its progress so he doesn't turn into a ghoul). I told Warbooss to put my pay towards getting him a nice cyberarm to replace it, and he seemed to like that idea; hopefully he'll be okay. Still, job well done I think - hopefully it at least slows down this horde until we can think of a more permanent solution.