Super Monkey Ball
| Super Monkey Ball | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Norville Craddock | Ares Search Team | Leftover MCT Troglodytes | ||||||||
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Huntress Stryker Cleaner Cleaner Tsarina |
Ares Mage Ares Ground Forces Ares Transport Rigger Drones |
Kada A ton of hyperintelligent Troglodytes | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| If Stryker gets close to the artifact again, he WILL become a monkey until he leaves the vicinity once more. | The Rigger was stranded and presumably killed in the crash, the mage was assassinated immediately, and the ground forces were almost totally wiped out and routed | None | ||||||||
Summary
A retrieval mission for a lost artifact from the 4th World to restore the collection of the notorious Norville Craddock ends up being an incredibly testing tribulation for a group of four runners as they try to settle some rather annoying monkey business.
Background
Norville Craddock, even as he tries to remain off the radar of the Vatican, still has a fascination for the relics of the 4th World. Utterly powerful and difficult to replicate, the possession and understanding of these scattered treasures would be the fancy of any researcher. And a greedy, well connected man such as Craddock? He's the type to go after as many as he can along his smuggling business.
So it was that he sought out a very strange relic indeed - a massive sphere, with engravings of apes all across it and radiating a magical energy akin to that of the red magic tradition in its primal, instinctive energies - and had it transported by air from the East Coast to the West in one of his discreet transport planes. Now, his network is good. Even the Atlantean Foundation he snagged this relic from would struggle to find one of his own without having some damn good assistance. But unfortunately, what Craddock didn't realize was that the power of this relic could transform anyone. Or, perhaps revert is the more correct terminology, as it seemed to revert metahumans into apes and monkeys of all types after sufficient exposure to it. This included the pilot of the vessel, whom unfortunately had succumb to the curse himself and could no longer operate the plane in his state of confusion and with his difficulty in operating it without the right kind of thumbs. Thus, the poor man crash landed in the SSC, just east of the Redmond Barrens.
This was a massive problem.
Not only was this an incredibly obvious, attention gathering crash which could have tipped off members of the Atlantean foundation who were already on the trail of the plane or perhaps trying to anticipate its arrival and coordinate with Seattle allies, but it would alert just about anyone with an interest in checking out a massive fucking crash in the middle of the forest. The SSC's own Wildcats, locals, whatever corporations and syndicates may have been looking around at the time or just been nearby. And according to some rumours, apparently there was even an old MCT facility where they did all sorts of wild experiments on paracritters. So maybe they would steal it too!
This was utterly unacceptable. The longer it took to get a status report on the situation and retrieve the artifact, the harder it would be. He needed manpower and experts, fast.
Dammit, he needed shadowrunners, in all their finnicky, freaky effectiveness.
The Meet
The meet was utterly rushed, with Craddock having a spirit pose as him for the sake of appearances as he called a group of runners to the Daze for a rushed meet. Tsarina was their face and a well studied arcanist, Cleaner Cleaner and Huntress were both skilled trackers and hunters, and Stryker was an all around solid street samurai who had a rep for taking on just about any job. Craddock kept it quick, despite trying to keep up the formal handshake and the usual aloofness one would expect from a smooth operator. He gave them the mission briefly: A plane of his carrying A Relic was knocked out of the sky for some reason, and it needed to be retrieved quickly. The team had to go there fast, crossing the border, and retrieve it no matter what. He gave a brief description of its look, the crash site's general direction, and the look of the plane for their own sake in finding it, and offered them 16k each for a good delivery. Tsarina, sensing the urgency and being an utter sharky bitch, got a small bonus for them if they got his pilot's body back. The family would want it.
There was no real time to waste though. Craddock would get them a smuggling route to use but they'd have to be discreet in using it so he doesn't have to burn it. And with that, the race was on.
The Plan
Working with limited information on a time crunch was rather rough for a runner team in any circumstances, but they could at the very least try to formulate a procedure. They'd go in CC's vehicle, large as it was and very well kitted out, to the smuggling route in the northeast corner of the Barrens. Sneaky driving would see them past the border, and then from there they'd reach the crash site. They'd observe at a distance first, just try to get a lay of the land and scope out threats before rushing headlong into it. A number of the team were skilled in long ranged combat (Tsarina being the only exception) and so taking advantage of that would be ideal. Eliminate any threats to secure the objective as quickly and efficiently as possible, then secure either a lead or the artifact itself. Once done, they could head back home. They would have to do the rest on the fly.