Lights Out
| Lights Out | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Phototaxis Seattle Volunteer Fire Department | Nestarians under Roger Harmon | ||||||||
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Dango Zan Zan Red Rover Wychking Asura |
Roger Harmon Various Cultists Way too many Fire Spirits | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| A great deal of injury, but no deaths | All OPFOR were killed/disrupted, save for Harmon who was captured and convicted for his crimes | ||||||||
Summary
In order to save countless innocents in the midst of a brutal Calling ritual, the district of Bellevue and possibly the entire city of Seattle, and the metaplanes that rest upon the space as a whole, a group of runners ascend up a flaming hellscape that is the wake of a cult's apocalyptical machinations to put a stop to it all. A tale of perilous obstacles, intense battles, unexpected allies, and the matching desperations of two parties reaching into the night of Candlemas.
Background
About a week and a half prior, Eddie Moreno and the SVFD had been investigating a series of strange fires that had been happening all around Seattle, which they had believed to be some manner of foul play by Franklin Associates (a privatized fire department whom they believed were barely acknowledging these incidents which seemed to have a great deal of foul play attached). So Eddie hired a team of 4 runners to investigate: Red Rover, Phototaxis, Dango, and Asura. And what the group had found was...disturbing. These were more than just malicious incidents, they were the work of cultists. Cultists who were connected to one Roger Harmon, a captain at Franklin Associates, and whom were using these brutal fires with innocent lives used as sacrifices in order to prepare for a massive, destructive summoning that was going to be happening at the 52 Gold Bank Tower in Bellevue on the 1st of February, Candlemas. Without enough believable evidence to convict the captain and stop these mattes legally, they had one option remaining to them: Stop the cult. So...they took the remaining time they had to prepare for the day the sky would be set ablaze and the unclean would burn.
The Meet
Slowly, the runners arrived at the fire department in Purity, Redmond. Asura, Dango, and Red Rover were there from the job prior. Phototaxis was not exactly hired by Eddie after that last job due to group tensions and her academic focus being more suited for investigations, so in her stead was an experienced spirit hunter, Zan Zan. The runners gave brief introductions but knew there was no time to waste, and so they met with Eddie inside. The entirety of the Seattle Volunteer Fire Department was preparing for the storm that was to come, The team was given some minor provisions to help them deal with the fire that was to come in the form of fire resistant armors and the like to supplement their own preparations, but in the horizons of both the mundane and the astral, the world was already churning with the tumultuous energy of the cataclysm that was to come. There was no time for subtlety, or negotiations. They got ready, headed for one of the fire trucks, and were driven off to the tower.
Unbeknownst to her, Wychking was at the epicenter of this entire ordeal, handling business in the other levels of the bank some time prior to the whole murderous debacle, settling some financial errands and unprepared for what was to come. Simply walking down the stairs to find herself in...quite the situation.
The Plan
Thea team was connected to Dango's PITAC for support, with Asura taking the lead on maneuvering everyone through the trials to come. ZZ would be the most effective at dealing with the mystical defenses of spirits, and she and Asura would be the ones to blast through their forces with Red Rover's magic and Dango's drones and matrix skills to back them up. There was no main plan however. All that mattered was that they saved as many people as possible and stop Harmon. They had to keep climbing up to do that.
The Run
There was no time for subtlety, but by the time Asura had broken down the glass of the locked building doors in the front to get in they had already begun to notice the handiwork of the cultists - fire spirits possessing the victims of their wrath, hacked to bits by axes and left on death's door to be a suitable host for their assailants to use like tools. As they arose, Wychking descended from the stairs, woefully unaware of what was going on. A fight ensued, the team getting their first taste of how durable and dangerous these spirits - 7 dumas as the opening gift - were going to be like. After a rather chaotic fight and recognition that this was the famous bug slaughtering Wychking and a part of the Haven, the team informed her of the situation and she decided to assist, getting an emergency supply of reagents dropped out of her blimp so that she could at least prepare herself a bit better.
Wychking's levitation and a quick breach through the elevators stuck on the ground floors allowed the team to pass through the elevator shaft much faster than the normally would have been able to, but the heat was felt in the astral and physical equally, the fire suppression systems having been sabotaged to ensure no one could help these people. It was arduous, even with gas masks and fire resistant armor to push through, and the elevators in particular were dangerous, the team having to barely escape them as backdraft of flame surged through it shortly after them. This left them up on the 15th floor, where another group of spirits, some possessing willing cultists, others freely roaming about, and all at about 8 dumas of force crashed down upon the group. It was a much harder battle than before, leaving Red Rover unconscious for a moment and draining quite a lot from the group due to the suppression of a flamethrower down the corridor. But they pushed past, they defeated their assailants, and after a brief moment to heal their wounds and recuperate they continued their steady march upwards.
The hellish flames grew greater and greater with each floor they scaled, until the way was barred; the intensity of the fires had managed to warp and desiccate the stairwell, leaving it crumbling and inaccessible with the team lacking the means to scale through normally. So, they had to split from there: Wychking was too heavy for the two grappling lines the team had available, so she had to hide herself from the curious Horizon news-copters outside as she lifted herself up to someplace she could rejoin the others at. Asura, Dango, and Red Rover scaled the walls of the stairwell carefully using their grappling lines, with Asura carrying Dango and Rover scaling up the lines in her draconic state and help from the line. Zanzan, the odd one out but the most durable of the 5, braved the fires of the corridors herself, encountering a battle between Harmon's forces and spirits and those of Lord Emberrage, whom assisted her after a brief bout of confusion as she was unsure which one was friend or foe. With that, the entire group managed to reconvene, close now to the top. The Climax.
Dango took the time to do a quick check for devices, finding the commlinks of survivors and Harmon's forces, finding that they were only able to remain safe for the time being due to the pool at the balcony for the night club at the top which was keeping the fires at bay, though they would not last against the scorching sun Harmon was audibly chanting for through the commlink. She found a place for a direct connection to the host, quickly working to undo the sabotage of the cult and get the fire suppression systems online, only to find that they had also ensured there was a manual blockage to keep the water from flowing as well that the team would have to find. To ensure that the one responsible did not undo her work once more, she remained behind, subsequently knocking out the RCC of the enemy's matrix operative as the team climbed rapidly up the stairs.
They reached the top, entering into the final building top before they would be met by the blistering Seattle Night, when out of nowhere but the astral descended four rather monstrous spirits and a tall, porcelain woman who was strikingly familiar to many in the party: Phototaxis, who had been preparing the entire week and was waiting for her chance to drop in and assist. With her help they broke into the utility closet where the manual controls for the fire suppression were located, but Asura could hear one more assailant waiting to stop her inside just as a fire spirit appeared near the exit to the outdoors to bar their path. In the last desperate struggle, the team worked to kill the remaining foes barring their way and got the fire suppression system online to combat the infernos below, breaking out into the outside where even more of Harmon's forces and the bastard himself were still in the midst of the ritual, halfway to completion. Wychking's help, through a spirit's terrifying presence and a massive Slash spell which knocked her out, disrupted the path and cleared the way to the leader. Phototaxis moved to protect the now defenseless bug hunter, Dango kept the team alive and safe with her well-timed assists and defenses, Zan Zan and Rover worked through culling the numbers of the cultists that remained, and Asura placed one more shot into Harmon to knock him unconscious and keep him from continuing the ritual. The battles leading to this point were intense. Draining. Scarring.
But they had won.