New Year, nuYou

New Year, nuYou
Date 2081-12-31 GM Sarcarian Location Downtown, Seattle Metroplex Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Isadora Windthrope	nuYou Biosculpting
King Beef Pell Relay Rooster Rougarou Sp4rks Stygian	Fly Nymph Fly Soldier Hired Mooks
Casualties and losses
	Fly Nymph, Fly Soldier x2, Hired Mooks x4
This run featured Johnson betrayal and subcontracting of other runners (who were listening in at the time) in order to facilitate said betrayal while still getting paid and without accruing notoriety.

Summary

In which the runners are hired to steal some legal documents and end up killing a true form fly spirit.

Background

About a month ago, Isadora Windthrope was brought a series of legal papers (along with a family heirloom/magical artifact) by a team of runners she hired for an unrelated job (see: Minor Arcana). The papers are part of a prenuptial agreement/insurance arrangement by her parents, and give the bearer control of their respective shares in the family business – nuYou Biosculpting, an A-rated chain of clinics specializing in cosmetic bioware and transgenetic alterations. After the revelation that her mother is actually a mad insect shaman, and with her father still missing and presumably infested, she has been working with legal council to facilitate the sale of a controlling stake in the company in order to secure an independent future for herself and her brother Duncan. However her mother Patricia has not been idol during this time, and has managed to learn that her daughter hired runners to take the papers; having tracked her down, she uses her sister-in-law – a lawyer from Chicago and a true form fly spirit – to arrange for a team to recover the papers (as well as the heirloom - a high force power focus).

The Meet

Ms. Johnson has the team (Relay, Sp4rks and Stygian) meet her at The Grey Line in Downtown Seattle, bribing them with a nice meal to put them off their guard a bit. Everyone lives Downtown and are able to arrive without issue (though Stygian runs into some traffic and is nearly late for their reservation), and all manage to dress well enough to not raise a fuss. After ordering some seafood and drinks, Ms. J (who is not assensed during this meet) explains the nature of the job – she needs some important papers, along with an item of significant value, recovered within 26 hours (so that Patricia has time to block the sale of her and her husband’s shares in their company).

The team ask a few questions about the job, and are told that the items are kept in a private residence in a AAA zone, and that she has a rough schedule for the occupants to give them as well as a layout should they accept the job - for their services she will pay them 20k nuyen, along with the cost of their meal in exchange for their time. Stygian tries to squeeze a bit more cash out of her, however she is firm on the price point; she does however offer the services of her client’s company should any of them wish to go under the knife and have some bioscultping or genetic treatments done.

Everyone is initially amicable to this arrangement – especially Relay after Ms. J specifies that she wants this done without any bloodshed – however their attitude quickly turns sour once they accept and are given a datachip full of information. Sp4rks slots the chip and shares its contents, and his heart skips a beat when he sees the item that they need to recover – he happens to have stolen that very item from its previous owner, along with the papers. Managing to remain composed, he tells the team that they need to talk and Stygian is able to tell that something is up; he is able to politely end the meeting, and Ms. J parts leaves after giving them a number to contact her at once they have what she needs.

The Plan

Finishing their meals, the team return to Relay’s batcave to discuss the situation. Sp4rks shares the details of the job where he stole the papers along with his after-action report, filling the team in on the fact that these papers used to belong to a person who attempted to infest their child with an insect spirit and that they’re stealing them back from her daughter as part of some sort of power struggle over control of the family business. Relay, who has worked with Sp4rks against nuYou before and fought bugs with him (see: Introductory Entomology) is immediately convinced and is able to convey the truth of the matter to Stygian. The mage is taken aback, and the three of them discuss what to do next.

After a bit of debate, everyone agrees on betraying the J – the just need a way to do it while still getting paid and avoiding damage to their reputations in the process (though if it comes down to it each is okay with accepting the notoriety and lack of cash if it means a chance to stop bugs from gaining access to millions of nuyen in resources). They are at a bit of a loss on what to do however, and eventually settle on reaching out to Isadora to tell her what’s going on and attempt to get her to cooperate with a plan to fool their J into accepting falsified paperwork and a fake heirloom.

Sp4rks didn’t hold onto Isadora’s number after his last job for her, so Relay sends a drone to snoop on her apartment and soon sees her go out onto the balcony for a cigarette. Spying out her commlink, Sp4rks is able to mark it and send her a message – she is obviously suspicious (not to mention incensed at the invasion of privacy by a criminal she met on the matrix), however some smooth words from Stygian and the photo of their J (who she is able to identify as her aunt), along with the admission that they were hired to steal from her and have no intention of following through with the job, are enough to convince her to agree to an in-person meeting to discuss the situation further.

While Relay and Stygian arrange a place to meet (both have memberships at The Butterfly Effect, so they settle on the exclusive club hoping to impress the rich girl), Sp4rks calls up Rougarou, who was on their last job for Isadora and who actually held onto her number, in order to help ingratiate themselves to her and to not come off as a bunch of strange men contacting a young woman to go to a gentleman’s club with them on a flimsy pretense. Luckily Rougarou is able to get away from her shift at Stuffer Shack and buy a nice enough dress to not get laughed out of the club, meeting them outside and greeting Isadora as she arrives in order to put her at ease. While Sp4rks waits outside (joining the two members and their plus ones via AR), everyone else heads to a private room for a chat.

After explaining things to Isadora (and receiving some explanation in return – namely that she is trying to sell off her parents shares in the company and that the deal will go through at midnight on New Year’s, as well as the fact that the family heirloom they’re after is a power focus which she has attuned herself to), the team tries to come up with a plan of action. Isadora is flat-out against killing her aunt – they may not get along well, but the team has no proof that she is an insect shaman like her mother, and as far as they know she is mealy a convenient pawn who is being used just as they are. The team attempt to persuade her to take the sensible (and easier) route of just letting them murder their way out of the dilemma, however for some reason she’d rather avoid signing the death warrant of a member of her own family (it’s almost like she’s a not a professional criminal or something!)

A bit of back and forth ensues, with Relay, Sp4rks and Stygian proposing various alternative strategies, Rougarou proposes a cutting-the-knot style solution – simply hand over the papers and the focus, then steal them back once they get paid. She even volunteers to “ambush” the team at the handoff and steal them herself so that it doesn’t look like they’re involved. Everyone is amenable to this idea, however they realize that they would have to fight back if it is done at the handoff – instead, they come up with the idea of setting an ambush for Ms. J after she leaves the meet, using the time they have until then to hire another team of combat-capable runners in order to do the fighting for them and ensure success. Everyone is willing to take a pay cut in order to make this happen, so after managing to convince Isadora they get to work putting things together by contacting King Beef, Pell and Rooster for backup.

Once they've hired on some professional fighters, they try once more to convince Isadora to let them do what needs to be done if it turns out her aunt has switched to Team Bug – she provides them with a quicksilver camera to take a picture of her aura, in order to confirm if she’s under some sort of magical influence or if she’s become an insect shaman. Once that’s concluded, she goes home and intentionally disables her security system and magical protections, instructing her bound spirits not to attack Sp4rks as he “infiltrates” the penthouse apartment and “breaks into” the safe in order to acquire their target. Stygian calls up the Johnson in a “frantic panic”, conning her into believing that the heat is on them and that they are heading out into the barrens with the items – with the power of edge and bulldrek, he is able to convince her to come to a last-minute handoff at a random Redmond bar.

The Run

The original team (Team A) meets with Ms. J, while the sub-contractors (Team B) get into ambush position along with Relay’s roadmaster. Pell and Rougarou wait with their rifles in the former’s car, while Rooster is on his bike with his SMG and grenades and King Beef is on a nearby rooftop with his jetpack. When Ms. J arrives at the meet in a Rover 2080 armored van, Relay’s drone spots out another van circling the block waiting for her while she is inside; pointing this out to the others, the identify which van has their “do-not-kill-until-confirmed-bug” target in it and which one is full of “disposable-rent-a-cops”. Inside the bar, Stygian is able to talk his way through the handoff with a bit of assistance from Relay and Sp4rks, handing over the papers and the focus which Ms. J looks over before putting away in an armoured briefcase and handing them their promised payment.

Leaving the bar, the two vans fall into formation and drive towards civilization. Team A hops into their own vehicle and is seen heading off in the opposite direction – Relay rigs into the Roadmaster to provide firing support for Team B, while Sp4rks and Stygian congratulate themselves on some masterful social manoeuvring and thank their lucky stars they don’t have to fight any bugs. With the vans heading towards the ambush position, everyone does their drugs and the would-be snipers line up their shots – Rougarou’s shot goes wide, giving the drivers a bit of a heads up, however Pell is able to pull off a called shot to the lead van’s engine block and bring it to a slow halt as things go loud.

Pell, juiced up on initiative-boosting magic, goes first and lands a second called shot to the engine block of the other van using the power of edge. With both now immobilized, the team starts lighting the rear van up, tipping those inside off to their position – they proceed to toss grenades at the roadmaster, while King Beef jetpacks towards them to crash into the van’s roof. As he does so, Rooster rolls by and tosses a flashbang into the open window – it gets tossed right back at him, so he right back at ya’s it back at them in return and detonates it wirelessly, momentarily stunning everyone inside before proceeding to crash his bike because he no longer has the initiative to take a control vehicle action.

One of Ms. J’s fly spirit bodyguards sticks his head out the window to use its fear power on King Beef (getting shot with stick-and-shock and nearly having its head blown off for its trouble), causing him to crash into the van (he handily soaks the fall damage, but the van suffers greatly when he smashing blows his way through the roof). When he lands he is immediately filled with SMG fire, triggering his bound spirit’s command to endow him with regeneration, before punching the fuel tank of the vehicle and causing it to explode killing everyone inside and splattering all him over a nearby wall as he starts to put himself back together.

As the bug spirit bodyguards use their magic to try and stop the slaughter, Relay shoots through the van’s passenger side and deletes one of them. Ms. J finally casts improved invisibility on herself and flees, ordering the remaining bodyguard to use concealment to further hide her as she slips out the door and right into supressing fire. Soaking it handily, she begins to make her escape as Pell and Rooster manage to spot her using assensing; Relay atomizes the second bodyguard, but Ms. J is nearly able to slip away to the nearby abandoned buildings in all the confusion before a lucky shot from Rooster puts her on the ground and a follow-up from Pell knocks her out cold.

Aftermath

While Relay’s roadmaster peals out with the briefcase (sending the location of his hideout to the others so that they can meet up later), Team B converges around their unconscious target. Rougarou begins taking an astral photograph for the J while Pell and Rooster get a good look at her aura, confirming that she’s in fact a true form nymph spirit. Realizing that the person who this once was is dead, they proceed to absolutely annihilate the bug from physical existence before disrupting it from the astral as well. Armed with the proof, they proceed to meet back up with Team A to give them the quicksilver photo, who deliver the grim news to a stunned Isadora; she is obviously shocked at all of these developments, however she Is at least satisfied at they are telling the truth and did what had to be done.

In exchange for keeping all of this to themselves and not going around the ‘trix blabbing about bugs like a bunch of lunatics (and thereby potentially tipping their hand against her mother, who she has an inkling she will need to hire people to deal with in the near future before the situation gets even more out of hand), Isadora supplements the runners split payment from her own funds and makes herself available to them as a contact in the future; she also offers to help her existing contact Rougarou by assisting her with the creation of a formula and enchanting her favourite sword as a weapon focus.

Rewards

• 10,000 nuyen
• 6 karma
• 2 CDP
• Free Contact: Isadora Windthrope – C3/L3 Reader of the Cards
• For Rougarou and Sp4rks: +1 chip on Isadora (for having worked with her before in Minor Arcana)
• For Rougarou: +3k nuyen and a F1 weapon focus (because she already had taken Isadora as a contact)

Game Quotes

Isadora: [in response to Relay's proposal to murder their way out of the problem] "You're professional criminals, can't you protect yourselves without murdering everything you run into?!"

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Rougarou: You know I wasn't expecting what happened last night. I was just at my shift usual thing working for stuffer shack ,nothing extraordinary asides you know latest shipment of bulk customer goods. Isadora Windthrope I help her with a job, to help save her brother from Insect spirits an recover imported documents , I kept the number because I thought I'd be able to request aid from her, as she did help me during one job when dealing with the nightmare spirit name Pump King Jack. Returning back to the main point it was quite a minor inconvenience would be called away from work and having to head to some fancy "club"

I decided to grab a nice dress along the way you know, so i don't become a laughingstock and not in some dress I grab off the clothing rack at where I work …there I sat there listening to others give out their plans and how about it was easier to kill her ant…but I though for a time and put myself into her shoes, I know how it feels to lose family. The pain that it wracks upon the heart… “Those who trouble their family will inherit the wind. The fool will be servant to the wise.” My plan was simple at first was supposed to be ambushing at the meet but then it evolves is just a normal ambush on side of the road. this idea was meant to shield team A from backlash ….but I felt the evil that Remembrance of it… Every one of those guards were infected and completely without their souls, destroyed and devoured by those wicked creatures and her aunt was already fully gone…a monster in human form with no soul to speak of. … I wished that it was not the case but we had to put that monster down as a show of mercy.

In the end we prevented it far more casualties from occurring in the future by those monsters. And with the focus that Isadora help with making, should be able to help me in the future with blading against spirits and who knows, I may need it for a future battle against a Queen bug spirit.

P.S did King Beef really need to space marine crash into the van and smashed it, like I'm shocked magic can even put him back together from that.

Relay

I'll be honest...I was so excited to get a run where we didn't have to kill anyone.

Until we did.

Thanks to loopholes(TM) we managed to both fulfill our J's contract and prevent damage to the community. To that end, I'm happy to go halfsies on the coin so I can sleep at night. Unfortunately, our sneaking suspicions were confirmed as we discover that nuYou has additional ties to bug spirits. We exterminated our fair share last night. It's important to be pragmatic...if you don't kill a bug spirit, you're letting others die and aren't saving the host anyhow.

As a last note, I am so very appreciative of the Haven members who came to our aid to do some good in the world. We asked them to step up in a big way without any warning, and they came through.

Pell

Godsdamned bugs.

Feels like Seattle's attracting them like it's Mecca for some reason. I really hope that it's just happenstance and we won't have another Chicago here. That King Beef guy is hilariously reckless; I was sure that he'd be dead, or at least crippled after that thing he pulled, but no, I think he's figured out that trick.

Note to self, find time to practice shooting, also. Need to get better at it after that disappointing performance.