Dire Intervention

Dire Intervention
Part of Festering Infestation
Date 2082-01-26 GM Asmodeus Location Fort Lewis Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven
Delphi Tahki Entropy
Casualties and losses
None

Summary

The team goes driving with a vampire and kidnaps an abusive mother.

Background

Delphi bumped into a member of the Black Lodge, or his actions, on two separate occasions by now. They seem to have been trying to rein in a rapid degredation of the Seattle Sprawl's stability. Now, an analog client's asked a few fixers to send out feelers for a job. Delphi, Tahki and Entropy are called to meet at an inconspicuous location.

The Meet

At a limousine parked in the middle of bumfrag nowhere, a lone figure smokes a cigarette in wait. Delphi's the first to arrive and gets past his astral masking, noticing his high initiate grade, vampirism and even mentor -- the Dark King, manifesting as a skeletal face peeling away his otherwise humane facade. As the other two teammates arrive, the man introduces himself as Mr. Herenight, a foreigner tracking down Tamanous activities in Seattle due to the various consequences their procedures have caused. He notes a few: biosculpting clinics turning clients into flesh forms, insect shamans going rampant, radiation spirits exploding in downtown, ghoul hordes under Renton and shadow spirits rampaging in the Barrens. He wants to do something about it and has a few leads to work with. The team finds this fine and agrees, although Delphi has a bad feeling due to just recently meeting a powerful infected troll and escaping the situation with her life.

The Plan

The plan is to go after Maribelle Shepherd, a lieutenant in the UCAS army stationed in Ft. Lewis. Presumably, she's a corrupt officer allowing Tamanous to move a bunch of merchandise. While Herenight offers the group some quality red wine and whiskey, Delphi leans back in the limo and does a few Matrix searches on some names: Herenight himself, someone he mentions to be 'White Widow' and the lieutenant herself. She finds him to be a notorious serial killer in Liverpool and London, having picked up the archaic title of Jack the Ripper. After some more thorough search, he seems to have retained an abnormally minimal presence on the Matrix, though several companies have employed his services as an astral security expert. Several PIs have gone missing trying to look into him. The White Widow is a notorious black hat that went dark some years back and according to Herenight works as Tamanous' primary Matrix specialist in Seattle. Finally, Shepherd is known to frequent a Bunraku parlor in Loveland once every two weeks to get some relief.

The Run

The Johnson needs to get some more information about Shepherd's activities and as such sends the talkative duo to go in the parlor to find details. All three feel disgusted by the parlor's existence, but go in regardless. Surprisingly the receptionist, an ancient-looking Asian-American elf turns off the security cameras and offers to tell them what they want for an outrageous price of 2,000 nuyen. After some arguing, haggling and asking the Johnson's opinion, Tahki finally manages to seal the deal and finds out a far more disturbing secret: Shepherd's illegitimate daughter is a worker in the parlor that she visits every other day, apparently not to violate but to beat up and assault to vent stress. Appalled by the scumbag officer's actions, the team asks for any signs of a schedule in Shepherd's visits and the receptionist mentions her visits to be bi-weekly.

With this in mind, Herenight calls the team back and seems to be uncharacteristically livid for a cruel and murderous man. He tells the team to get ready for the Saturday night ambush while he does his own prepwork. Looking at the most logical roads the target will drive through, he sets up two spike mats and a proximity EMP grenade to ambush the retrofitted Humvee. Tahki summons a spirit while Delphi sticks with Herenight in the limo to provide Matrix support. Sure enough, late Saturday night Shepherd seems to be driving alone to attack her daughter again. The team ambushes her and makes her drive and crash into a ditch on the side of the road. Crawling out, covered in augmentations, she tries spraying with implanted pistols and even a single use grenade launcher, she misses from agony, euphoria and immense gravity all exhausting her. Tahki and Entropy combine their magical onslaught and wear her down before Entropy does a final strike and overflows the woman's durability with stunning bolts of magical power.

Aftermath

Delphi manages to hack into the commlink and gets the information Herenight needs, but perhaps a little too eager to learn more due to her mentor spirit, Oracle, employs Psychometry to read the impressions on the commlink. Shepherd's memories reveal that she's been cornered into smuggling Tamanous' organ trade. The organization caught wind of her illegitimate fling and promised to ruin her career as well as her daughter if she didn't oblige. Without anyone to confide in and trapped by blackmail, she broke in and vented her frustrations on her daughter. This didn't clear her of guilt in anyone's eyes -- not in Herenight's nor the runners. The team only heard her screams as Herenight dragged her into his private 'interrogation.' Satisfied with the resulting information, however, Herenight promised to come through and provide one magical focus to each of the runners, as well as giving Entropy some proper clothes to run with. He'll look into the White Widow and the insect hives with other groups.

Delphi was egged on by her mentor spirit for the second time in a short time frame to ask her Johnson some questions. While he admitted his affiliation with the Black Lodge to Delphi who'd already met Foreman, he mentioned that he despised the scientist for being lazy and too centered on his hobbies to clean up his messes. According to Herenight, he'd only arrived to Seattle because the mutant shadow spirit in Redmond combined with the threat of a second Chicago due to Warwick's insect shenanigans weren't being taken care of by Foreman, the local Black Lodge member. Delphi offered her services, though that only earned a condescending laugh. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Herenight finds her so insignificant that she's not even worth killing -- after all, who's going to believe her?

Rewards

• One Rating 5 Focus up to 52,000 Nuyen or 19 Availability, whichever comes first. This has a limit of 13 RVP
• Remaining RVP is given as Karma
• Exclusive to Entropy: Zoé Second Skin + Berwick Suit. This will cost 4 RVP.
• Exclusive to Delphi: +1 Black Lodge Reputation
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Tahki

Met up with A P.I. known as Delphi, and this weird little furry by the handle of Entropy. Interesting combination of street cool and street gruel, if you know what I'm talking about. Which you don't. Anyways, hired by this super creepy elf dude to investigate and corral a female target apparently going through some kind of identity crisis, based on her interest in the Bunraku scene. Delphi does a solid job finding us the leads we need to talk up the parlor, and I use a little mind magic to get the answers we need to set the plan in action. Our Johnson sets a nice vehicle trap that shuts her vehicle down, and then me and Entropy proceed to shut her down. Easy Peasy. The J is satisfied and pays us off with custom Foci; I got one that makes my Illusions just snap. All's well that ends well, and this one definitely ended well. Hell, Entropy even got some nice duds out of it. And he need them...