Fixing Annabelle
| Fixing Annabelle | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven The World's Gardeners Milly Allock | The Mind Realms Dissonance | ||||||||
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Throwback Funk | Dissonant Resonance Realm Creature "Old God of the Forest" | ||||||||
Summary
Milly Allock want to help out a poor little girl whose life was stolen unfairly by CFD.
Background
When the CFD outbreak hit its peak, little Annabelle Bennett got caught in the crossfire and was left comatose for 8 years. Milly wants to change that and is looking to recover her personality from backups stored in the Mind Realms.
The Meet
Funk and Throwback were tracked down and contacted by a mysterious persona while going about their lives. Milly Allock, a fellow protector of 01 and member of The World's Gardeners wanted to test the budding technomancers and help a little girl in the process. She convinced the two to meet her in an isolated host and discuss the problem. The two agreed and met up to speak with Milly "in person". It turns out a young girl, Annabelle Bennett, became infected with an emergent AI during the CFD breakouts. While attempting to dislodge the AI the girl's consciousness was lost and she was left vegetative and under life support. Milly explained that the resonance maintains backups of all users of the matrix to varying degrees and keeps stronger backups of technomancers. Annabelle had recently emerged just prior to her possession and this made her a prime candidate to be rescued. If the team entered the Mind Realms they could locate the 4 components of her "soul" and recombine them into a form of persona fix. While a risky venture, this experience could return this girls life to her and teach the two some valuable lessons. The team agreed and set forth to dive deep into the resonance realms.
The Plan
Funk began to research Annabelle's life prior to possession in hopes it would help them locate components of her psyche. Meanwhile Throwback began to research the deep resonance itself, seeking ways to help them access and traverse to the correct realms safely. Funk also reached out to Expedien, a helpful free sprit, to assist them in reaching their destination more directly in exchange for a favor. With the plans in place the team set their meat to a safe location and begun the dive.
The Run
On the (somewhat unhelpful) direction of Expedien, in combination with the runner's own intuitive sense of direction in the Realms, the two technomancers took a leap of faith and dove through the "air" down beside the trunk of the World Tree, falling deeper and deeper into the Realms, twisting and turning in directions that sometimes defied logical interpretation. Eventually landing on a large, deep root, the runners followed Expedien's directions to the Mind Realms, where Expedien left them to journey the rest of the way on their own. Upon arriving in the Mind Realms, the runners found most of the flora to be made of fleshy structures akin to human nervous system tissues of various sorts. In a quasi-medieval setting the area consisted of a forest, an orchard, and a large raised manor of white stone.
The runners first made their way to the forest, where after some tracking Funk's lackluster stealth skills caused him to be ambushed by a cat-like predator creature whose trail the runners had been tracking. Fortunately for Funk, he was able to net the creature with a netgun, and after some 'pacification' from Throwback's shotgun, Funk was able to calm the creature. This gave the technomancers enough breathing room to remember that one of Annabelle's primary fascinations pre-CFD was with cats, and that this creature represented the Fylgia (Direction) portion of her "soul." After making a copy, the runners released the beast and moved on, following the tracks of a cloven-hoofed animal through the forest.
At the end of the tracks lay a cave, the entrance covered by thick root-like branches. The area around the cave was devoid of "plant" life, 0's and 1's wafting up from the ground like smoke from a smoldering fire. An entity with magenta eyes awakened as the runners approached, and spoke to them bidding them venture closer still. Somewhat irritated when the runners took but one step closer, the entity asked them to release it, claiming to be the old God of the Forest. Furthermore, it stated that the new Lord of the Manor had overthrown it, stealing its worshippers and sealing it away in the cave. The entity also claimed to had a champion in the past, speaking a Latin phrase that Throwback determined referred to the Morphinae branch of Dissonance. Deterred by the likely Dissonant bent of this entity, and the violence of its attempted attack on the barrier that held it within the cave, the runners quickly retreated, and headed next to the manor they saw earlier.
Emerging from the forest the team went to the Manor. Once there they worked to persuade guards to grant them entrance, with Throwback mentioned having knowledge of a potential threat to the kingdom and the guards sent a message to the lord. While waiting for a response the team asked the guards if they knew an Annabelle. They responded by stating it was a vintage that the lord was fond of. A confusing response but one that seemed to indicate that at least one part of Annabelle might be present in the wine. The lord responded positively and accepted the teams request for an audience, but first they would be required to help prepare the feast. They were directed to the kings kitchen and helped out cooking some odd looking fruit before being instructed to retrieve some "Cheng" from the basement. While there the team took the opportunity to look for Annabelle. The cellar was large, full of various cases of "people" wine, perhaps some form of cerebral fluid. Throwback focused on looking for Annabelle while Funk located Cheng and began bringing it slowly up stairs. While this occurred Throwback attempted to copy Annabelle's Hugr (Mind). While doing so he added some of his own education and a blending of experiences from both his and Funks teen years, helping to create less lost time for the poor girl. With the deed done, the team brought the remaining cases up and were brought before the lord.
The team was shown to the load, who promptly demanded that Funk Served him some wine. The Lord himself budding new workers off of his back, they persuaded Lord to allow the runners to access orchard after telling him the runner's purpose here and the location of a threat to the realm (magenta eye monster in cave). After a question from Throwback, Lord mentioned that the workers throw their wages into a well for luck despite it having no effect, and that a sourcerer (the technomancer kind) had been the one to seal the Old Lord of the Forest away (different than Morphinae techno mentioned as Old Lord's former champion). The Lord of the Manor gave the runners his mark, which allowed them free access to the orchard. Workers in the orchard led the runners to the Annabelle tree, where the runners were able to copy fruit of that tree to gain the Hamr (Form) of Annabelle.
Runners then went to the well where Funk, as smaller of two, was lowered down the well via the bucket and pulley system. White stonework of the well only went partway down, which was noted by Funk. The well lead down to a large chamber filled with coins with caves branching off. Upon entering Funk heard sounds of the "Old Lord of the Forest" running through the caves towards the chamber; he quickly found the coin with Annabelle's face and after attempting to net Old Lord of the Forest and tanking an attack, Throwback pulled Funk up the well partway. Old Lord tries to throw rock at Funk but he dodged. Throwback pulls Funk up into the stone-lined part of the well, which forms a ward of sorts against Old Lord creature. Funk was then extracted rest of the way from well, and Funk makes a copy of the Hamingja (Luck) of Annabelle.
Funk then tossed Annabelle's coin back in, but was unable to damage Old Lord despite infusing coin with resonance spite. The runners worked together on Extended Editor test to turn the 4 soul components into a personafix. After a few hours, they completed their project and worked together to make their climb back out of the realms.
Aftermath
Escaping from the slowly corrupting realm with the personafix in hand, the team breathed a sign of relief. The exited somewhere on the Japanese public grid and returned to their bodies. They contacted Milly and delivered the persona chip, along with instructions that Annabelle could reach out through the Gardeners if she desired to contact the runners in the future.
Rewards
Run Rewards for "Fixing Annabelle" (Deadly: 18 RVP * 7 hours/6 hours = 21 RVP)
18 Karma (18 RVP)
6 CDP (3 RVP)
2 CDP Base
+3 World Gardener's Faction Rep
Counts as a submersion ordeal.
Optional Rewards:
Milly Allock (Connection 4/Loyalty 1-3) for 4-6 RVP
Otaku to Technomancer (10 RVP)
Analytical Mind (5 RVP)
Plot Point: Funk knows Throwback's background, and vice versa.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Throwback: That was a hell of an experience. I've never quite experienced something quite like that entity. Clawing at my brain, my very soul? Its terrifying. We got to save a precious little, well not so little anymore, girl and gave a fellow Technomancer a real chance at having a life. What a day.
Funk: Drek, that was terrible, but in like the old-school, trembling and fear-inspiring way, not the "worse than bad" kind of way. The Event Horizon showed me that I had the potential to be bolder, stronger, better, and then I was. The intense pain I went through in the process of crossing the Event Horizon was startling. It was great to be able to help out a "lost seedling" of the gardeners, even if it took facing down a terrifying dissonance monster to do it. Maybe someday she'll reach out and let me know she's doing alright.