The Observer Effect
| The Observer Effect | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Spetznas Deserter & Co | ||||||||
|
Armadillo Memento Mori Hierophant |
Marcus Hill A Bound Earth Spirit Cynthia Raymond Leopold "Roach" Tolles | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | All OPFOR were neutralized upon contact | ||||||||
Summary
A former member of the Spetznaz and friend to the SSC had found his morals compromised when outside influence began to encroach upon his duties. He choose morality, and nearly died for it. Knowing his time was short, he took someone he cared about and had a tentative situationship with into the SSC wilderness to work on a means of escape.
Unfortunately, the 6th world is not a place in which morals are valued above profits. Some cannot afford to be picky. Others cannot be bothered to choose the high ground. The shadows the world operates within are quick to swallow up all of that context, and leave us with only the hunters and the hunted in the end.
It is a shame that his morals could not save him in the end.
Background
Leopold "Roach" Tolles was a former member of the Spetznaz, but recently he had been working with Orc Tribes in the Salish-Shidhe Council. This worked, for a time, but the problem came when interference from Aztechnology started pushing things to a darker path. Leopold, highly trained and wared to the gills, thought he could make an exit of defiance. It nearly became a blaze of glory, and Roach was on the run. With the help of a contact of his, Marcus Hill, he arranged for a temporary place to stay and prepare for a long trek through the woods - after, of course, he healed up at cyberdocs in Seattle, which gave his pursuers a place to start following him. But Roach, injured and a little rusty, had decided to bring a friend and confidant Cynthia Raymond along to keep him company. A hermetic mystic adept whom he had a..."it's complicated" relationship with, but whom he did ultimately cared for in the end.
Aztechnology, meanwhile, wanted this little problem dealt with.
Due to "project deadlines" and his escape into the woods making things far more problematic for them to track him down, the more cost effective route for handling this was simply to off-load this to deniable assets. Having shadowrunners who could track him down and kill him was a far easier and cheaper solution than sending an entire team to hunt down the former Spetznaz. And so, Mr. Jacobson was sent out to gather a team to tie up loose ends
The Meet
The three runners selected covered a decent enough breadth of skills to handle the task at hand: Memento Mori, a former veteran of a PMC and an especially skilled tracker, was the bedrock of the operation, with Hierophant being a similarly experienced operative and magician and Armadillo serving as the muscle the group lacked. They met up in a C-zone apartment complex over in Renton, and the details of the job were handed over to them: 15k a head to kill Leopold "Roach" Tolles, sending a photo of his body and the dog tags-or his severed head, if dog tags were missing. One week deadline. The team scrounged for any additional details they could manage, learning more about his former Spetznaz affiliation and skills, his visits to the cyberdoctors, and getting the initial tip that he was using his contact Marcus Hill's cabin for at least...some amount of time. They'd also get access to...'tools of the trade' should pay not be in their purview, and the runners agreed to handle the mission. Mr. Jacobson arranged for a Coyote to get them across the SSC border the following day, giving them roughly 24 hours to prepare for what would be a long trek through the woods of Glacier Peak.
The Plan
Planning was unfortunately going to have to be very sparse. They didn't have much to go off of beyond a starting location and an objective. Hierophant got a heads up on the ware Roach was packing due to the investigative assistance of her contact Daniel Glenwood, finding the typical "super soldier" package of muscle enhancements, wired reflexes, a pain editor, armor, the works. But they lacked much else concrete beyond Mori assisting them with preparations for the journey for the week. With that in mind, they gathered the tools they needed and met up with the Coyote the next day.