Purity At Any Cost

Purity At Any Cost
Part of Hail to the Pumpking
Date 2085-10-05 GM Asmodeus Location Seattle (Redmond [Sophocles]) Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Imperial Kami Services	Knight Errant
Datastream GOODLUCK HeadKrash Obsidian Rogozhin	Asahiro Kunitoshi Akai Tsuki Exorcist Onmyouji Various	Jane Dior Various
Casualties and losses
N/A	N/A	Their very expensive, very top secret intel stream from the IKS office in Sophocles has been compromised before it ever even began.

Summary

Some say that boggart haunts Datastream to this very day.

Background

To put it bluntly, Sophocles is cursed. Every October, and every Halloween especially, something goes terribly wrong. And all of them invariably involve one specific gourd.

Shiawase has noticed this trend - specifically, a well-intentioned subsidiary, Imperial Kami Services, who have historically offered their hand at preventing disaster each and every. This year, they are taking a proactive approach - though this part of Seattle is not zoned for extraterritoriality, Shiawase has procured a quite robust footprint in the area, including well warded office spaces and a wide variety of employees.

Although things seem on the level at a glance, Knight Errant's Jane Dior smells something rotten. Without proof, however, she can't accuse them of anything, and without meaningful suspicion beyond a nose for conspiracy, she can't even begin to find it.

Enter the shadowrunners, ne? Even good cops go a little bad every now and then.

The Meet

A little West of Sophocles, five shadowrunners surreptitiously converge on their fixer-designated meeting place in a non-descript alley. They trade some light banter, and after a few minutes of silence, apprehensively reach to make certain their weapons are still there.

In a moment, however, headlights blaze before them. Knight Errant, well in position, reveal themselves. Riflemen have taken strategic positions in the upper floors of neighboring apartment complexes, while an official looking woman steps grimly from the back of a van. She informs these criminals that if they try *anything*, they will be shot, and much worse after that. A dazzling start to a wonderful relationship.

With mixed degrees of outrage and outright fear, it is Obsidian who steps forward to represent their group. She confirms that this woman is Ms. Johnson for the evening, and then, after the tension leaves her shoulders, what shadowrunners can do for Knight Errant that they cannot do for themselves.

The answer, of course, is corporate espionage. At least, not without probable cause. Officer Dior explains the situation as outlined above, that Shiawase has a suspiciously positive reputation and foothold in the previously Horizon-centered Sophocles, and that, while she suspects foul play, she can't confirm as much without evidence, and cannot find evidence without probable cause.

So here they are. Probable causes.

The runners are to place six surveillance cameras surreptitiously on the main Sophocles campus of Shiawase's subsidiary, Imperial Kami Services. A wide spread of locations, from board rooms to executive suites to water coolers, are requested for maximum coverage. To compensate the runners for their time and risk, she offers 8,000 nuyen each.

This probable cause has the problem of cost, however. She includes the brief caveat that the runners will have to supply the surveillance gear themselves, as nothing can even remotely have the chance of being traced back to Knight Errant. She fronts the runners a little cash to get them going, and then shoes them on their way.

They have one week. Make the most of it. Don't screw it up, ne?

The Plan

Research comes first. Datastream doesn't even wait for them to pull away before researching the history of Sophocles hoping for some hint as to how Shiawase became such a key local player - and instead finds that Sophocles is cursed. Its people love Halloween, and every year it brings chaos. A key player in each event, he finds after some very extensive digging, appears to be a spirit by the name of Pump King Jack, and this, the team agrees, sounds like a solid lead. If this strangeness has something to do with Shiawase, then he may be able to offer some insight.

With this lead in mind, GOODLUCK calls on a former colleague with ties to the CIA for clues as to who in the area might know a little something more about the Pump King. She's told rumors of an accident prone little creature residing in the woods surrounding Redmond, a creature that Datastream recognizes from its description alone as a boggart. Or a bogle. Or any of its other accepted names. Traveling in a trio for safety's sake, the crew visit Enigma in its preferred home, and after unraveling its World War II-era cipher, determine that it doesn't actually know so much about the ghoulish gourd himself.

While they do so, Rogozhin convenes with Father Midnight at his Auburn necroplex. The spirit possesses the rotting bones of a first floor tenant, lurches from the heavy lid of a coffin, and lumbers toward Rogozhin. He tells him that he disturbs the dead, and Rogozhin, with a little smile, tells him that that is the idea. After purchasing several necromantic reagents, the bones of the indebted deceased that have clung to the animate energy of mana through death, and with such obligation made, Roro asks if Midnight happens to know of the gourd they seek, or at least where more information might be found. Father Midnight, bones creaking in thought, tells him that he does not, but that he may know someone who does. A spirit of the desert, lingering in the Ork Underground. A little too much effort for a job of this caliber, he thinks - and his team eventually agrees. The Pump King, whoever he is, is not so crucial to their operation that they should waste any more time finding him.

Instead, the team reconvene in Sophocles, a safe few blocks from Imperial Kami Services' Sophocles HQ. HeadKrash takes his bike, his pompadour, and a bad dude attitude in a circle around the block just to get eyes on the target - and finds it utterly normal. It is an average corporate campus, a low level HQ for a major corporation's subsidiary. No obvious defenses sit outside its walls: well, save for one.

The road itself lurches, rumbles and bends and rises. The asphalt melts back to tar and deforms into a multi-lane mouth and two disdainful eyes. Like a wave, the street lumbers forward, and HeadKrash, through an ocean of sweat and a sea of swears, outmaneuvers the beast, cycles around it, and guns it for the relative safety back with the group. Spiritual defenses, the team surmise.

To confirm, Rogozhin projects onto the astral plane, has his spiritual guard dog watch over his body, and assenses through astral cataracts the nature of the location's astral defenses. Immediately, he can tell that they're strongly warded, and alchemically booby trapped all along any non-standard entrances - the old 'rat in the air vents' trick will not work here. Additionally, he's able to place the obvious tradition the location is seeped in, seeped in all the tell-tale signs of a traditional Shinto practice.

As he circles around, the aura of a Shinto mage emerges from one of the wards, wielding a katana. As the aura of the road spirit lurches forward to devour him, he draws his sword, the beast is split in twain, and it dissipates and is unmade, disrupted and banished to whence it came. Security mages look pretty rough as well.

The final round reveals spirits joined hand in hand - an obvious water from the Shinto tradition, and two Ancient Greek heavy infantry flanking (phalanking) the apparition from behind. They are bound, astrally, to two ensignias - each of them the unholy marks of the demon Sallos (AND ONE OTHER I WILL HAVE TO CONFIRM). Rogozhin returns to his body to relay the information.

After a quick brainstorming session, the team agree that a frontal assault seems ill-advised - but, to glean a little extra information, Obsidian opts for one more hail Mary. When in doubt, ask the Greeks.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

GOODLUCK

Sophocles. I wonder if I made the right choice, to identify myself. I hope this does not come back to haunt me.

Rogozhin

I'm grateful to fate for having worked things out, but I expected to find less idiotic principle in the shadows. Asahiro Kunitoshi, I'll remember that name.

Datastream - "Hated them both, but we got paid, so that's all that matters even if I had to do stupid drek like deal with a boggart."