Big Apple Bayou
| Big Apple Bayou | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Klaus Wolfgang von Hatzfield | Vampire Hunters | Feral Ghouls of Long Island | ||||||||
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Gigabite Spectre La Rapide |
Mage Rigger Rifler Monowhip Specialist | Ghouls | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| None, thankfully. | All were devoured, dead or alive. Ouch. | Eight were killed :( | ||||||||
| Mundane Ascension for Gigabite | ||||||||||
Summary
Klaus gets a job from Evo to track down one of their warforms. It ends up being a shitshow, quite literally since it's in the sewers. Raps gets tracked down by vampire hunters (again) and Gigabite becomes Queen of the Ghouls for the second time. Spectre continues existing as a sentient block of tungsten and not caring about anything.
Background
Somewhere along the line, a crocodile-like critter called an Afanc escaped Evo's custody.
The Meet
Klaus meets the team remotely on a Luftshiffbau Zeppelin in Redmond, offering them the basic rundown: there's a big ol' croc in New York and it's gotta get extracted. The team agrees, how simple! Gigabite does negotiate extra pay, even offering to talk with Evo's representatives to squeeze them for more!
The Plan
Once the team arrives, Gigabite is just about the only one that managed to utilize her connections for a VIP pass, albeit a temporary forgery. As a result she can go practically anywhere she wants in Long Island without being harassed while La Rapide and Spectre have to be more careful about their movements. unfortunately she only finds one rental vehicle that truly fits her: the Krime Wageslave. Using its poor pilot to Sunday coast around, she asks Fangwidth to take a look at local shaman lodges and if any are connected to the ocean or fishermen in general. Fangwidth finds two, one in Northport and one in Eastport. Gigs begins her investigation during the daytime while the nocturnal banshee takes a beauty nap and speaks to several talismongers with utmost grace despitee her drunken countenance. She manages to impress both of them with her honeyed words and gets contact info to a man named Garry who lives in the Pine Barrens. This closes down potential avenues and La Rapide as the critter expert surmises that the Pine Barrens' swampy forest area is idyllic for an Afanc. Gigs wait until night and spends time with the runners, talking smack and drinking the evening away until it's go-time.
The Run
Spectre and Raps join up for a tracking retinue in the swamp while Gigabite goes to talk to Garry and thanks to her kindness with the other talismongers Garry already was told ahead of time she might appear, so entering his residence is easy. By taking on the angle that she can help out making sure that the feral ghoul population calms down and this critter doesn't harm anyone, Garry sees no harm in helping her out in her quest and points out entry points into the sewers. Gigs assures Garry that she has nothing to fear from the ferals.
Spectre improvises a brand new spell to track the Afanc specifically and it's tremendously effective, ranging well over a kilometer in its detection radius. As a result, she manages to surmise that the critter is most likely in the sewers with the ferals. Gigabite offers to rendezvous with them and shares the location of the entry points. Unfortunately, most of them do not let her squeeze through due to her size except for one. Raps and Spectre infiltrate the sewers, Spectre tracking the Afanc while Gigabite turns her guitar amp on and starts playing melodies in the sewers to announce her presence to the ferals. Due to her connection as a Krieger strain herself and having brought her own flesh rations with her, she both feeds a few and establishes that she's of no threat to them. While timid, the ferals respond at least acceptingly to her. La Rapide has to assert her more feral side's dominance to the ghouls to keep them at bay and Spectre...
Well, Spectre is 80% machine.
Getting closer to the Afanc's lair, the team sees a giant mound of corpses, metahuman or not, and Spectre steps in first only to get immediately engulfed and dragged down a six meter deep septic tank. La Rapide has to use a Gecko Crawl spell to start advancing down the side of the tank and try to get the critter off Spectre, who while able to withstand the concussive force of water torrents, is still immobilized. Gigabite, unable to really dive as effectively, lowers her guitar and stares at the shifting pool of fecal matter. Ew.
Underwater is a struggle until La Rapide identifies the right spots to strike in the Afanc's anatomy and nerve strikes it until the critter is paralyzed. Spectre breaks out of the engulfing water maelstrom and climbs out, casting Levitate on both herself and the Afanc to ride it out of the sewers. On their way out, vampire hunters attack La Rapide and incapacitate her several times, leading to much frustration on the banshee's part. After initially returning fire, Spectre decides to prioritize the job and continues extracting the Afanc. Gigabite turns the volume to maximum on her speakers and screams for the local ghouls to join in for free food. Rallied by a clearly intimidating and powerful presence, the ferals swarm the hunters and while their suppressive fire and monowhips manage to take out eight of them, the remainder are overwhelmed by Spectre's powerful spirit, La Rapide's disruption in the midst of their ranks once she recovers and Gigabite's advancing terror, even terrifying the monowhip wielder into surrendering if she doesn't want to be eaten alive. The hunter drops her weapons and holds her arms up, only for the ferals to grab hold of her and Gigabite to coldly state that she was lying, feeling more remorse for the ferals that she had rallied into the fight than the hunters.
Aftermath
Klaus manages to do a hot pick-up in the relatively high security area, taking everyone in despite most of them being grimy from head to toe. Only Gigabite remains looking slightly presentable, but ultimately the Afanc is extracted. La Rapide feels utterly filthy and hates it, Spectre doesn't feel too plussed about it either way and is encouraged by Gigs who asserts that ferals shouldn't be bothered too much, seeing how useful they can be if treated right. Klaus is reluctantly admitting that taking the thing alive is bonus pay and he was hoping not to have to share extra with the runners, but is honest enough to do so now that it came to pass.
Rewards
- 24,000Nooj (12 RVP) + 6000Y negotiation bonus
- 13 Karma
- 2 CDP
- +5 Rep from The Streets of Long Island
- Optional Rewards:
- Klaus Wolfgang von Hatzfield 6/2 (7 RVP)
- Initiation or Ascension if available
Game Quotes
Elf: "WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!" GIGABITE: "I lied." "Gigs has a Raps in a jar." "She got 8 hits because she's only a little racist towards non-Infected." |
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
GIGABITE: "Y'know... Setting the croc aside, I wish that those guys hadn't just opened fire. I didn't have time to think and I just acted, but I wish I coulda talked to 'em, tried to find a middle ground. Hell, I'd have eaten my pay if it had meant those folks coulda lived. But I had a bigger responsibility to my team, I know, I know... Chances are, I could've avoided dragging the ferals into it. They didn't do anything wrong, but because I convinced 'em that this was gonna work they went for it and eight just got blown away. At least... at least the rest have more food now. Damn it, I can do better than this in the future. I have no idea what capturing the croc was like, all I saw was bubbling sewage on the surface, but I can't imagine it was easy. Props to the robot and the banshee for doing it. Maybe eventually I can solve even situations like these without force. Maybe. I dunno. This shit's hard."