Night Shopping
| Night Shopping | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Mush | |||||||||
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Shy Swerve Voltage | |||||||||
Summary
The team is tasked with stealthily retrieving a journal of black magic before a virtual auction.
Background
Mush's benefactor had a journal stolen from her in the past that had detailed black magic notes and research. Of considerable value and rarity, the journal had been posted for a virtual auction, about to be sold to the highest bidder. Quite obviously not wanting to pay for her own stolen property, a team of shadowrunners were hired to retrieve the item before the sale. In addition to returning the stolen journal, they were tasked to hide evidence of the theft, to cause an embarrassment to the seller when they failed to produce the goods.
The Meet
The runners, each stressed with the importance of acting with discretion on the job, are tasked to meet the J in a public park. Told little more than that their contact was a fairly unorky looking ork, each of the three began to make their ways there. Swerve and Shy managed to move across town without incident, being able to show a modicum of social stealth. Voltage however, had issues. First doubling back to her apartment to grab Stick-N-Shock ammo, still dazed by the idea of a kill-free run, her clear Ancients affiliation and lack of concern for road rules soon drew the attention of Knight Errant. Voltage was soon caught in a high speed chase, pushing her bike to the limit to avoid the law. Unfortunately, passing through Renton has hazards, and she encountered a horde of middle school children leaving school. Voltage, the kindhearted person that she is, slowed down to avoid running over the mass of children. In typical Renton fashion, they returned the favor with shouted slurs. Voltage was not pleased. Eventually though, she managed to shake her tail and continue towards the meet.
In the mean time, Swerve and Shy threw food at pigeons and ducks, as a increasingly angry Mush glowered. Shy made awkward small talk, while Swerve silently roasted and enjoyed the weak sunshine. After about thirty minutes of this, Voltage finally arrived, unsubtly approaching the meeting point. With the team assembled, Mush slowly and deliberately explained the terms of the job. The book was to be returned, no signs of the theft should be left, and there absolutely should be no murders. After questioning, he reveals that the book is stored in a upper-middle class home and that it must be retrieved by the next day, but for more information, the job would need to be accepted. After getting verbal affirmation from each of the runners that they would abide by the rules of the job, with particular focus on Voltage, Mush elaborated and said that the Book was in the possession of District Attorney Mark Donaghy and gave the address of his home. Leaving the rest of the job to the runners, he told them how to contact him after the job and left the park.
The Plan
Realizing that illict plans should perhaps not be discussed in a public park, the group traveled to a nearby bar, the Greasy Sprocket. While technically a biker bar, it catered mainly to posers, so the group faced no trouble once they took a quick look at Voltage, her clear affiliation and general demeanor scaring off the clientele. Knowing little about the DA or his residence, Voltage called up a recently acquired contact of hers, Freya. While she was busy with her own work, she spared the time to conduct a matrix search on the DA. Soon, the team acquired a dossier of information on Donaghy, detailing his personal history, habits and family. Voltage, not actually having money, promised afterwards that she would pay Freya back. The team then decided to scout out the house, first astrally and then in person. They headed outside of the bar to its dingy alley. Swerve then took a seat in the filth and astrally projected, leaving her body behind in the care of her teammates. Swerve managed to find the vague location of the target's house, but lacked enough knowledge to narrow it down exactly. All she found is that some of the homes had magical defenses, and that watcher spirits patroled the neighborhood. Resigned, she headed back to her body. Meanwhile though, the rest of the team is had to deal with the consequences of leaving a comatose body in an alley. Not long after Swerve left her body, Shy and Voltage began to hear chittering sounds from the nearby dumpster. Soon a swarm of rats, lead by a rather nasty devil rat, emerged from the trash and began to approach Swerve's unconscious body. Thankfully, an expert shot by Shy managed to shoot the whisker off of the devil rat, causing it to flee in terror. Swerve, soon awakening, left the alley in a hurry, shuddering in thought of what she narrowly avoided.
Since astral scouting failed, the team decided to take a closer examination of the target's house. Swerve casted a life detection spell and drove by the DA's home. She saw three life signs inside, likely the man and his wife, as well as an unknown third party. Shy then called her fixer, attempting to see if they could cause a distraction to lead the target out of their house, only to discover that the DA was already about to leave for a dinner party. Not long after, a car exited the home, and Shy managed to observe that a man and a woman were inside. Swerve confirmed soon after that only one human sized life form remained in the house. As night began to fall, the team decided that this was the window to act, and began to infiltrate the home.
The Run
The team met in a nearby park, empty due to the encroaching night and a light rain, and began to prepare. Swerve cast spells to silence the group, as well as to detect people near them. As they began to head near the house, a Knight Errant patrol shone a light on Shy's motorcycle. For a tense moment, it seemed like they might investigate, but the patrol soon passed on. Realizing that this was a close call, the team decided to hide their bikes better. They began to head toward the DA's house, only for Voltage to have a "great idea". To make herself more sneaky, she took a hit of Kamikaze. While the team's reaction to this was mixed to say the least, she went ahead with it. Forging ahead, the team made it to the outer wall of the target's home without incident. Scaling the wall, they crossed over and checked out the grounds of the area for security devices. To the teams dismay, there were not only cameras, but motion sensors distributed along the exterior of the home. Unsure of how to proceed, the team scouted along the edge of the exterior wall, hoping to see a better path of entry. Eventually, Voltage, full of Kamikaze confidence decided the back door was the best path available to them. With only one motion sensor, the security seemed perhaps conquerable. Leading the team around to the back wall, Voltage took careful aim with her gun and shot the sensor, shattering it. Free to move forward, the team approached the door, only to find a lock they couldn't pick.
Faced with an obstacle with no immediate solution, two members of the team came to two very different solutions. Swerve realized that she could simply summon a Spirit of Air to seep inside and open the door. In contrast, Voltage very quickly decided that the only way forward was to leap onto the balcony above them. Knowing it was obviously the best choice, she just went ahead and did it without discussing it. She jumped high and almost succeeded, but ultimately fell back to the earth. In addition, her Kamikaze fueled leap tripped a motion sensor on the above balcony, which caused the lights to flicker on. Swerve, who ignored all of this, summoned an Air Spirit and opened the door. The team entered.
As the occupant of the house went to investigate the motion sensor, the team hurried through the door, finding themselves in a garage. Housing a Lone Star branded bike, Shy wanted to steal it. She got shouted down though by Swerve. Moving forward, the team investigated for the book. Knowing nothing about it beyond that it was a leather bound journal, this could have been a hard task. Luckily though, it was in the 3rd room checked, in an easy to spot display case. Shy made quick work of the security and opened the case. Swerve, knowing at least a little bit about magic, took a look at the journal to verify if it was the target. Swerve soon made a troubling discovery. While the book was old and certainly about magic, there were clear errors in how it described certain magical phenomena. It was obvious enough that even a relatively new student, like Swerve, could see the problems. Realizing this, the team begans to worry and deliberate about the possibility of a plant or forgery being left to fool thieves. As the discussion continued, and time ticked on, Shy realized that they forgot a critical source of information. Making a trivial matrix search, she looked up the auction listing for the book. She quickly confirmed that the look of the journal matched, and a quick read showed that the journal was an exploratory work of magic made at the beginning of the 6th world, which explained the errors in the work. Satisfied that the target had been acquired, the team cleaned up behind them and exited the house. There were no issues on the return, and the team entrusted Swerve to hold onto the book until they reconvened at the dead drop location. In between those points, Swerve made an image copy of all of the book's pages.
Aftermath
The team left the journal in a dead drop, which was quickly retrieved by spirit. Mush sent his approval, and said to wait to see if the theft was discovered. After a few days, the news broke that the DA had been placed under investigation for fraud, with no evidence of the theft having been uncovered. Satisfied, Mush sent a bonus for the good work.
Rewards
- 6,000 Nuyen
- 4 Karma
- May purchase Mush as a contact: 4/1 Black Magic Mentor
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Swerve
The job went fairly well overall. We didn't get caught, and it didn't even take too long to set up. The worst part about it was waiting for Voltage to show up. That was an uncomfortable half hour. I did nearly have a heart attack though when Voltage just jumped for the balcony above us when we were sneaking in. All she had to do was wait like three seconds for me to open the door. Don't do drugs kids. Still, it was nice to meet Voltage.
I can't wait to look over that journal more in detail later. It's a bit out of my experience, but it seems interesting to read and anything I learn will be worth it.
Shy's Report
Nearly perfect. We did have some late on the meet chummer but i guess that's the kind of thing that could happen. The run was clean, we did enter and did find the book we were payed to retrieve. Voltage did gave me some cold sweet but well nothing bad happened.
Voltage
Okay, I don't see what everybody's problem is here. So I huffed some Kami before sneaking into the house, and everybody acts like it was such a bad idea, but Kami ACTUALLY makes me better at sneaking. It makes me better at a TON of things, and also makes me feel like a fraggin' war goddess while I'm doin' 'em. And we got in and out without getting noticed, and we got the book and I didn't kill anyone so really this job was a complete and total success. And, as a result, nobody can bitch at me about doing Kami.
Also; yeah, I know I shouldn't have been so late to the meet, but it wouldn't have happened if the fraggin' Knights hadn't decided to try to pull me over in the middle of Renton. What was I supposed to do, just stop for 'em like a ghostdamn bootlicker? I'm not a fraggin' coward, and I had places to be, so of course I sped up and led 'em on a chase that was somethin' outta some blockbuster action trid. Damn. I must've looked so cool.