Heart of Stone
| Heart of Stone | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Paracritters | ||||||||
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Trash Panda John Brown Pell | Basilisks | ||||||||
Summary
An alchemist's reagent turf is infested with basilisks! He needs runners to exterminate them so that he can continue making his living.
Background
Gimbles the talismonger is a suave businessman, and to pad some of his reagent stocks he collects his own instead of trading with others in the business. One of his most lucrative spots he's secured has recently been overran with basilisks that won't leave, suggesting a den nearby. In order for him to continue to gather safely, he needs to hire out some professionals to clear them out.
The Meet
The runners get the forwarded details from their fixers, Gimbles likes to have his illegitimate clientele to show up 'after hours', groups he works with are given the timeframes for these 'shadow hours'. The runners are instructed that in order to come inside to the supposedly closed building, they will need to high-five the minor spirit that sits on the door knob.
Upon reaching the place and entering as instructed, the party meets Gimbles in person, a nice dwarf fellow with a particular personality. He restates the mission to the team while providing them a location to their commlinks. Payment is settled quite simply at 10,000 nuyen per, except for John Brown, who wishes instead to discuss payment in goods, such as foci and reagents. This is an acceptable consideration for the Johnson and he then tells them they may look around the shop if they need to purchase anything before they go.
The Plan
John Brown goes ahead and summons an air spirit in the talismonger's shop and sends it to scout and report back on the area they're checking out while the runners head there via car. The spirit returns promptly, only a few lights away and gives a basic report and answers some questions about the scouted area. The party learns from this that there's a large amounts of astral signatures around the water, all seeming to come from a water spirit of roughly the same strength as the air spirit itself. After this exchange, the spirit leaves due to a remote service being fulfilled on an unbound spirit.
After arriving in an abandoned parking lot that neighboured the clearing, with the exact spot being half a kilometre out, without off-roading the team would have to walk through the grass to reach the location. They equipped their heavier and obvious armor and the Trash Panda did a preliminary scouting via projection, seeing the exact large astral signature collection the spirit had mentioned prior. Given the late time, it was surmised that the basilisks were in their den, likely to be the pipe that drained water out from the city, forming a stream.
The Run
Going into the pipeline, the runners explore cautiously as even with low-light and thermographic vision, visibility is limited. Around one of the bends they noticed eggs down the length, and as they approached it and was about to cross another conjoining pipeline, Trash panda cast a detect life, seeing the many basilisks that were among them in the water and around the corner, only able to speak up just as John Brown walks in-front of the conjoining pipe and is hissed at by Basilisks on their nests and the ones among them rise up to strike.
The fight was swift yet intense, the runners having to force their bodies to move as they slowly stiffen under the gaze of the basilisks, bullets flew, spells cast, and bodies mounted, the tides turned towards the runners favor as a lot of luck allowed them to cull the den without becoming statues. They managed to prevail, clearing out about ten basilisks, four of which were mind controlled and sent to a farmer contact who had experience with paracritters, and having free reign over the eggs from the nests. As it turns out, basilisks produce a lot of eggs, and these runners weren't wasteful people, so they load up the eggs into the car and contact the Johnson, who says to bring the eggs by and they can see what can be done.
Aftermath
After the runners loaded up the eggs in the car and had a contact take the controlled basilisks away to a trusted professional, Trash Panda decided to stay at the field and drove the car back to the Johnson via AR with the rest of the team inside. As instructed, the runners showed up via a back alley and gained access through the previous method. Gimbles upon seeing the eggs said he'd hold him while he made some calls to potentially interested connections. Agreed upon payments were easily transferred and the team went about their way.
Trash Panda, chilling at the scene watching trids, noticed a globe of water forming that was picking up a concentration of fish, frogs, and other animals that got caught in the wake as it gently scooped up through the stream like a net. This globe was being led by a water spirit, the one that had left the astral signatures all over the place. Trash Panda watched as the spirit took the globe into the pipe out of sight, choosing to wait for the spirit to return. The spirit then soon came out, and noticed the now dual natured Trash Panda and quickly fled. Trash Panda then made a little offering to the spirit of several reagents and packed her bags and headed home.
Rewards
- 10k Nuyen
- 8 Karma
- 2 CDP
Exception: John Brown- Took an F5 Health Sustain Foci instead of 10k Nuyen, everything else was the same.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Pell
So yeah, basilisks. Anyway, first time I'm not the sole spellcaster on the run. Bear's been bugging me about getting better at being a spellcaster, and I've finally found another runner to learn from, even if they're not a druid.