Sweet Style
| Sweet Style | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Skraacha | NeoHaven | ||||||||
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Honeypie Mojo Joe Runner3 Runner4 |
Character1 Character2 | Onyx | ||||||||
Summary
A runner named Ball Joint who runs a fashion blog wants details on a Rockblood fashion designers upcoming work but is too busy to do it herself, so hires runners to infiltrate her party and steal her sketchbook. Trouble ensues when they realize a NeoHaven runner is also after their target, and that the designer is being compelled by a Muse.
Background
Ball Joint is a runner who's into fashion and tragically is pressured to work in a Kenran-kai brothel. She gets word about a party being held at a Rockblood fashion designer's apartment and finds an easy "in" for an infiltration to steal some upcoming designs, but can't get anyone to cover her shift so pays other runners to handle it for her.
Meanwhile the designer, a troll named Sugar O'Hare, is secretly being controlled by a Muse.
The Meet
Honeypie and Mojo Joe get instructions from their fixers to meet someone by the name of Ball Joint at a Loveland "club" (read: brothel) for a job involving infiltrating a party. Honeypie does some legwork beforehand, asking around at Matchsticks to see if anyone's heard of her Johnson. A talkative janitor tells her that he's seen her at meets as a runner, a FLR muscle with real distinctive cyberware.
They head to the meet location, but Honeypie and Mojo Joe get into a small altercation with the Yakuza bouncer at the door when they take offense at him calling Honey a "stupid trog" in Japanese. Still, they manage to get in and meet Ball Joint in the private run where she does her work.
Ball Joint gives them the job details, offers to trade the work for High Fashion Armor instead of nuyen, and gives them a possible lead in that the Big Rhino is supposed to be catering Sugar's party but a lot of their crew is out sick and so they're probably desperate for workers.
She also lets them know that the bouncer is real pissed about them mouthing off at him and has gathered a few other yak thugs to jump them when they leave the club. She tells them where a back exit is so they can avoid that, and the runners sneak out to do their job. Except Mojo Joe hits the bouncer with an Accident from a bigly spirit and the poor guy shoots himself in the thigh with his machine pistol and shits himself. They clean up the signature and head back to downtown.
The Plan
Honeypie applies for a catering position on the Big Rhino's host and is almost immediately contacted by the panicked catering manager Jackson. After a quick video interview, her and Mojo Joe are invited to come to the restaurant for orientation and to help with prep work. They gather that the Skraacha are providing security for the party, and figure that Awakened security is probably going to be restricted to a spirit or two due to a lack of dedicated magical talent.
When the evening rolls in, the catering crew is loaded up in a work van and is shuttled to a downtown high rise apartment where the party is being held...
The Run
The catering team arrives early so they can set up before the party really kicks off, but Honeypie and Mojo see a few guests have already arrived and are mingling among themselves. They notice that one of the rooms seems to be getting extra security, with a dedicated guard for the door, and that Sugar doesn't appear to be attending the party yet despite being the hostess.
Honeypie starts making rounds around the apartment with a serving tray, and tries to gather gossip and intel. A pair of chatty oni drop that Sugar has turned into a complete workaholic recently, and wish that she would just wind down instead of rushing to immediately throw herself into her work every time inspiration struck. More guests, and a goblin rock band, start showing up, but Honey clocks someone who looks like they might be a rival runner: a Neo-Haven infiltrator named Onyx.
Onyx's plan is to hang out on the balcony, have a teammate crash a delivery drone full of flashbangs into the party, and then use the chaos as a distraction to climb to a vent and find their way into Sugar's room. That plan is disrupted when Sugar accuses him of groping her and slaps the hell out of him, getting him ejected from the party along with the band's drummer who seemed to have taken great offense to that. Onyx still tries to call for the drone attack to hopefully give him an escape, but Sugar sees it incoming and blasts it with her revolver.
The Skraacha question why she has a weapon on her, but are thankful that she seems to have stopped some kind of attack. One of them approaches her and tells her that the lady of the house would like to thank her, and she's lead to Sugar's room. Meanwhile, a member of the Skraacha security tell Mojo that they know what he is, and to behave himself, after a djinn Assensed him.
In Sugar's room, Honey sees that the designer looks utterly exhausted, malnourished, and generally unwell. There's a second person in her room, a young oni man who's egging her on to keep working and stop wasting time talking to Honey, and it seems like Sugar is just barely resisted the urge to continue sketching with serious strain. They put together that the oni is probably a Muse spirit, and Mojo heads towards Sugar's room with the excuse that she ordered a drink.
The Muse tries to Complusion Honey into creating art instead of trying to free Sugar, but she just barely resists and Cons it into thinking she's obeying to get in close. Mojo springs into the room, Honey kicks the Muse apart, and Sugar is shocked and dazed as she's released from the thing's grip. The runners try to explain what happened to her, she's grateful for the rescue, and Honeypie takes pictures of her sketchbook while Sugar is still out of it. The party is called off shortly afterwards so Sugar can rest, and the team sends the data over to Ball Joint.