Over The Border and Through The Woods
| Over The Border and Through The Woods | |||||||||
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| Part of Portrait of Ruin | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Black Lodge | Illuminates of the New Dawn (one rogue member) | ||||||||
| Nearl | A mage and a sniper. | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Both of those two. | |||||||||
Summary
A dangerous, dual-natured piece of radioactive material was lost some short distance north of the Seattle-SSC border. Now, those people would like a clearer picture of what happened, and so they hire Everest Pike to relay their wishes to a certain runner. This will also act as the first of a few tests - two birds with one stone!
Background
A group of independent security contractors was hired by mysterious agents to transport precious cargo northward, out of Seattle - a dangerous dual-natured isotope. The convoy they were conveying the isotope with disappeared north of the border, and now those responsible with it are scrambling to recover it - or find out what happened. There are only hours to spare before SSC rangers figure out what's going on...
The Meet
Nearl is contacted, in a somewhat roundabout way, by one Everest Pike. He wines and dines her - literally - as though making a show of wealth for his employers, and then makes a job proposal. A dual-natured isotope has gone missing north of the Seattle-SSC border, and someone needs to either reclaim it or find out what happened before the SSC rangers get their hands on the scene. He offers 32,000 Nuyen for the job, and gladly agrees to see if his employers will substitute the acquisition of a new car instead.
Despite Nearl's pressing, Everest gives up nothing about whoever's hired him. Apparently, he doesn't even know, and he seems quite confident that mind magic will do nothing to avail Nearl because of this. The overall conversation is quite tense, but eventually the mage agrees to the job.
The Run
Nearl and Halflight jump directly to work. They leverage the contact they were provided along with potent illusion magic and spirit powers, rolling their Ford Americar through the woods in the north of Seattle and over the border. The prying eyes of mages were successfully diverted by paying off their corrupt border agent contact.
After making it far enough away from the patrols, Nearl and Halflight rejoin the main highway and proceed close to the location at which the convoy went missing. They note the presence of law enforcement northward down the road, and so decide to stop there and do some astral scouting. Halflight leaves their homonculus and Nearl projects to begin sweeping for signs of a crash. As the pair do so, they are spotted by two spirits - one of air, and one of fire. Conversing with them turns out to be largely unhelpful, as the pair are evasive about their motivations, other than to observe.
Then, Nearl locates the crash site and begins to investigate astrally, and the spirits attack. This coincides with an attack against Halflight, who has returned to their physical form, and is carrying Nearl outside of the car.
Halflight is wounded by an onslaught of spirits and magic, but manages to protect Nearl from the vantage of a sniper positioned to the east. After a moment, Nearl returns to assist, and despite an enemy mage levitating their car, attempting to get a vantage on Nearl, the pair eventually manage to defeat their foes. The mage is eviscerated by Nearl's corpse spirit, while the sniper is subjected to mind magic and then Stunbolted into unconsciousness.
By now, law enforcement is on its way, prompted by the sound of gunshots. Fortunately, Nearl has a convincing enough story for the cops to buy the self-defense argument - although they do halt their progress further northward, saying that there's an investigation going on. Fortunately, Nearl's corpse spirit has manifested into its body and is out roaming the forest, and it's thus able to walk through the woods to the crash site to investigate itself.
The crash site is a mess - there are signs of toxic magic that have been used, and the two cars presumably carrying the isotope have smashed, one after the other, into a rock. Nearl's corpse spirit is strong enough to pry the two cars apart, and finds the lone survivor, a female mage who has summoned a guardian spirit to protect her. After a moment's combat - flechette ammo turns out to be woefully ineffective against hardened armor - the woman surrenders.
Without much time left at all, Nearl drives his car southward again, and then leverages the Movement power to get Halflight close to the crash site. They remove the case supposedly containing the isotope from the car, only to find that the actual material has been stolen, leaving only radioactive residue behind. Containing it in a suitcase provided by the Johnson for safety, everyone returns to the car before the SSC rangers arrive to clean up. Nearl uses mind magic to probe the woman they recovered after healing her, and her memories reveal that the convoy was taken by a highly-coordinated strike. The vehicles were breached, allowing mind magic to affect the occupants and enable the isotope's theft. While someone managed to break away from the mind magic, resulting in a fight, soon afterwards the cars both crashed headlong into a rock, ending the lives of near all those within.
The same combination of magic and bribery gets them back over the border again... and then the pair are home free.
Aftermath
Nearl calls up Mr. Pike and informs him of what happened. A conversation is had about the fate of the woman Nearl found, and Everest replies that he'd absolutely prefer that she go with his employers. After a tense discussion at their second meeting, Nearl eventually relents, but has a horrible feeling in her gut as he does. Something wicked this way comes...
But hey, at least he got paid.
Rewards
For Nearl:
- 32,000 nY (16 RVP) or 64,000 nY in... fancy nearl cars! - 6+2 base CDP (3 RVP) - 1 karma... (1 RVP)
+1 Black Lodge rep
Optional Contacts:
- Everest Pike 5/1 (5 RVP)
Also, you maybe just condemned someone to horrible interrogation and/or death! Yippee.
- For @MarWceline(NSH): 8 GMP for playing Halflight!
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Nearl
I should have been able to save her. I should have been able to help. I'll find her, I know it. I promise I'll save her. I don't care if I have to give anything for it. What am I doing here in the people I work for are... She's too... too much... but Halflight is growing yet, and things are smooth at home for once. I've achieved so much yet I'm still just as powerless.