Glow Up City
| Glow Up City | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
|
ShadowHaven Nameless | |||||||||
|
Winter Swerve Wild Bull Pell |
Toxic Mage Radiation Spirit | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Toxic Mage, Radiation Spirit | |||||||||
Summary
A toxic mutation mage has been encroaching towards Nameless and his people at the edge of Glow City. The runners kill them.
Background
Over the last few days, the ambient magic around Nameless's area had begun to steadily worsen, the taint of the Glow City spreading in. Several ghouls went to investigate and never returned. Needing a solution, Nameless reached out to assemble a team of runners to deal with the threat.
Pre-Meet Shenanigans
The runners before the meet had a range of activities, with varying consequences for them. At a nice early time of six in the morning, Pell simply had pancakes and chatted with her fixer. Rocketman was subservient to Commander Kerrigan, while at the same time dealing with the residual emotions from his first run, while at the same time dealing with his irrational hope that every run could potentially get him into space.
Somehow. Winter in contrast, had a bit of a involved interaction. Getting a call from her brother Samuel, she got news about a great business opportunity. A startup needing just a bit of cash, could lead to a quadrupled investment. All he needed was another 2000 nuyen. It was at this point that Winter realized that her brother had been losing the money she'd been sending him to scammers. Furiously arguing, they went back and forth, each trying to convince the other that they were making a huge mistake. Not reaching a solution, Winter bottled her frustration for a bit to do work.
Swerve had earlier tried to bind a powerful spirit and she failed spectacularly, the backlash sending her to unconsciousness, the spirit uncontained. As she eventually awakened, she found herself with her cat, Mittens, on top of her and a dampness beneath her. The spirit apparently liked cats and offered many treats to Mittens, eventually to the point that she threw up, sending cat vomit all over Swerve's bed. Wanting to clean it, yet without a washing machine, she summoned a weak spirit of water. Trying to use it's aid to serve as a source of water, she tried to rub the vomit off. Making a bigger mess than anything else, that attempt failed.
At this point, Nameless called her directly, asking for her aid with his problem. Swerve, a fan of nameless and of infected communities in general, was more than happy to help, promising to whatever was needed. Needing to have a way to deal with cat vomit before it dried, yet also needing to go to the job, she took all the sheets and threw them in a bin with holes. Taking it outside, she commanded her baby water spirit to spray water within for an hour, stirring it a bit from time to time. The spirit, while agreeable to the task, asked her what it was supposed to do after. Wanting to be nice to the helpful lil guy, Swerve said it could do whatever it wanted. When it expressed it's want to spray water in things, she amended that to make sure it didn't spray water in her apartment, and if anyone told it to not spray water at something, to follow that. After checking to make sure it understood, Swerve was satisfied, and went off to the meet.
The Meet
The team met in the outskirts of the Glow City at an underground entrance to Nameless's commune. Stopping the group before meeting him, Swerve addressed the group. Telling them that she was a banshee, and that their J would be a ghoul, she tried to minimize any shock that the team might be about to have. In general, people were generally alright with it, though wary. Winter got in Swerve's face to sniff her, an action that made her a bit uncomfortable. After a bit of conversation and awkward questions, the team went in to meet Nameless.
Nameless told the group of runners about his problem, about the advancing pressure from the wastes and his need for aid. He said that he was unable to pay them well, only being able to offer 8k nuyen, but they any assistance would be greatly valued. Around this time, Winter tried to get in his face to aggressively sniff him too, but Nameless pushed her away. Continuing with the briefing, Nameless said that several ghouls had disappeared and he needed to find out why. He didn't expect though ghouls to still be alive, but something needed to stop whatever was encroaching.
The runners, some more invested in helping than others, eventually all agreed to the job, heading out into Glow City in the early morning.
The Plan
The plan was to wear as much radiation resistant gear as possible, be prepared for combat, and walk into radiation hell. Priorities were, 1st, don't die, 2nd, find out what was happening, 3rd, destroy the problem.
The Run
The team headed into the wastes in a careful tactical formation. Things were quiet, until the team was ambushed by giant flat-worms. Then things got loud. Furiously trying to not be touched by the alien creatures, the team fought back, in general successful, except for Pell. Pell having taken a nasty attack from one, was having a bad reaction to the bite. Rocketman, trying to help, applied first aid, only to accidently do a malpractice. Eventually though, good medical practices prevailed, and Pell was saved from whatever the worm's effect would have done in the long term.
Around this time, Swerve received a call on her commlink. From her landlord. Apparently her apartment had flooded and the landlord discovered about the existence of her cat. Not allowed in the lease, he wasn't happy about that. Swerve, heading back to the bigger detail, asked about the flooding, momentarily biting back her anger. It turns out that the apartment above hers flooded, sending a deluge of water into her apartment. Thankfully, Mittens turned out to be an water-friendly cat, swimming around and having fun. Also, Swerve was getting evicted.
Unbeknownst to Swerve, her water spirit had started trying to spray water, but kept getting told by occupants to stop. Eventually, it got to the apartment above hers, one that was currently empty. Free to spray, the spirit happily filled the room with water, inadvertently dooming Swerve's below.
Panicking about her cat, Swerve considered calling Amelie Dupont, her vampiric boss, but decided that was a poor idea, what with the fallout of her mistake still causing hatred. Eventually, she called Zigzag, getting her to catsit in exchange for a "steak".
Crisis averted, a glow rat appeared, attacking Swerve. The banshee in question, terrified of rats, tried to levitate away and barely managed to dodge the rat's acid spit. Her teammates managed to kill it before she got hit.
Still somewhat shaken from the experience, Swerve saw a light in the distance thanks to her elevated position. Floating slightly closer, she came in sight, only to be painfully blinded by the radiance before her. Flying back to the ground, she communicated this with the team while rubbing her eyes.
Thinking this was the target, Winter wanted to be levitated upwards as well. Swerve, agreeing, shot Winter upwards, the changeling's gear allowing her to see past the worst of the light. Seeing several figures, two spirits and one a mage, the targets were likely in sight. Unfortunately, this also alerted them, causing the team to panic and prepare for combat.
Some hid, others stood their ground, as the enemy slowly and steadily approached. The weaker spirit dropped quickly, but the radiation spirit worked to protect the mage, an enemy that the team was having difficulty getting past. Swerve launched a massive ball of lightning toward the mage, using it to bypass the spirit entirely and instantly killing the target. Unfortunately though, the spirit didn't vanish, instead choosing to remain on the plane, to continue combat. The spirit shot radiation at Wild Bull, putting them near death.
Aftermath
Rewards
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Winter
"I know that old game talked about the 'Shadow of Chernobyl', but this was just ridiculous. Poor Wild Bull nearly became a brass bull."
Pell
Well, this minotaur isn't as chad as the last one, sadly. The excursion went okay, at least.