Triadless Trials
| Triadless Trials | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Von Neumann | ||||||||
| Neijing | Von Neumann's Anthrodrones | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| A leg completely blown off (later repaired) | One anthrodrone gunned down | ||||||||
Summary
Neijing gets hired to find the lost son of a KE bigshot, and ends up in a place where she really, really shouldn't have gone.
Background
Howard Graves is the son of a Knight Errand high profile member, and decided that an a succesful academic carreer was simply not enough in his life, and so has opted to buy a gun and go around in the Orkish Underground acting like a sheriff of sorts, confident that his pistol and his father's reputation would suffice in keeping him safe from the gangs he went about harrassing. He recently disappeared, but rituals confirmed that he was still alive
The Meet
There was no meet, the father simply gave the job parameters to Mr Fix-It who relayed them to Neijing.
The Plan
The lack of information made proper planning impossible.
The Run
Neijing went on site, exploring the last known location looking for clues. A matrix search showed Howard had a bone to pick with the 162s in particular, but the place seemed to be Skraacha turf. The tracks weren't conclusive, but they seemed to lead underground. So, Neijing went in the first layer of the OU through a storm drain. She was promptly spotted by a security guard, that called the cops on her location, so she was forced to pacify him (nonlethally).
She then tried to talk with people at a bar, trying to see if any could identify the target, but no one did, possibly out of fear of repercussion. So, she went to the second layer of the OU to continue investigations through an elevator shaft.
In the lower level, she finds a maze of tunnels, that link up a multitude of squatter hidign places. The first of those seemed to be a relatively well kept house, with metahuman flesh cut up and prepared as food, implying a non-feral ghoul resident. Besides that, there were blood stains big enough to imply someone died there. Forensic analysis highlighted that the two victims weren't able to react, weren't killed with conventional firearms and the bodies have been removed with care to not leave trails behind. Some additional material was found on the ceiling, directly above the bloodstains, and it was determined to be leftovers of vaporized blood, implying the use of heat in the homicides. Moreover, in the house, Neijing found an anthrodrone blackbox, a terminal of what she would guess was the previous owner. He was attempting to crack the code of the pilot, but both him and Neijing agreed that the code was basically impossible to understand, being written with no care for future user and showing very high level of proficency.
The second complex she explored had a few more hiding places, smaller and worse kept then the one she found previously, and next to them various stashes of illegal goods, including scavenged antrhodrone parts (most likely the same models of the blackbox), soviet era antique guns (AKs, Mosins and SKSs mostly) and a cyberdeck. As the apartment before, this place seemed to be empty, but there were no signs of violence. A further exploration highlighted a security door, that opened up a small space that contained stairs to the third level and a ventilation shaft. Most confusingly, the ventilation system linked two enclosed spaces, and the air was so full of CO2 as to be impossible to breathe for unaugmented humans.
She then went down, where she found a complex that seemed clean, well kept and furnished with pretty high end security systems. In her attempt to crack open a door, she got ambushed by an anthrodrone, armed with laser weaponry, and a very tight fight ensued, one where her leg was utterly destroyed, but she managed to come out on top. However, the scuffle resulted in the doors locking and preventing her from leaving. However, a stroke of luck made her find Howard, the target.
He had surgical scars that implied a kink bomb installation, and had since resigned himself into not being able to leave. He explained, being very careful as to not trigger the explosive, that the place was owned by a paranoid individual, that used bombs as an assurance that people won't go around telling of this secret place's existance.
In an attempt to leave, Neijing reasoned that the best way out was to bargain with the man, and was granted to meet what turned out to be a Xenosapient AI. It called another prisoner into the room, a ghoul sporting West Coast Monolith colors (explaining the soviet weapons seen prior) who acted as a sort of in-between for the runner and the owner of the complex. Through his negotiation, Neijing managed to barter for her freedom by having the very same bomb his target had installed inside, and to convince Von Neumann that she could be an asset, thus obtaining him as a contact. However, the AI didn't grant Howard freedom, but agreed to produce fake evidence that he was dead.
Thus, she underwent the procedure, and woke up above ground, and told the Johnson she didn't save his son as he was already dead, resulting in him paying less and being overall pretty disappointed.
Aftermath
-Neijing has a custom explosive device attached to her CCU that pops if she ever tattles about VN to anyone. The former Monolithian known as Falcon shakes hands with her as unwilling prisoners of this Xenosapient.
-A Knight Errant officer's son is tragically lost to gang violence in the OU (totally). Oh no. Anyway.
-Neijing got a leg blown off. Don't worry, she got better.