It Belongs in a Museum 3.5: A Brief Interlude
| It Belongs in a Museum 3.5: A Brief Interlude | |||||||||
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| Part of The Cutter's Curator | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Professor Simeon Jones | The Foundation's paradigm | ||||||||
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Night Claws - John Holis Spark John from IT Vip3r | |||||||||
Summary
The runners head into the host of Chicago museum to take a copy of files stored in it's archives to replace the Professor's lost files. After a long poke around they find what they're after and convince the host to give them copies, which they then provide the Professor with.
Background
Unfortunately, during a recent ganger attack the good Professor lost a variety of artifacts and pieces of data relating to the 5th world. One such lost item was a datachip that contained no small amounts of data on pre-crash "Internet" based communication, comprised of a lot of may-mays.
The Meet
They meet with the Professor in a back office of his new museum out in the Redmond Barrens, near the Redmond Rejuvenation Project. He explains the rough run down of the situation, and admits that whilst he has tried to acquire these files through legal means, this has lead to nothing but dead ends, and he's now required to resort to hiring shadowrunners. He also reveals that because he has been pursuing these files through legal means, the team will need to acquire these files in such a way that it can't be traced back and tied to illegal crimes.
The Plan
The team planned to head into the host, locate the archive node using Night Claw's understanding of how foundations are laid out and operate, find the necessary files, and get to the portal node to leave.
The Run
The team head to somewhere a little more quiet and travel to the host. As a destination host, the team are free to enter, however are understandably a little on edge as the host protocols are designed to deter illegal activities. After a little searching, the team are able to locate the access to the host's foundation, disguised as a time capsule tile in the floor. John, Night Claws and NK (a sprite that accompanies NC most anywhere) are all able to get hits on the portal immediately, however Vip3r and Spark send a couple of bad lines of code and the host starts to drop IC on the pair. John immediately jumps into the portal, but NC stays to assist the others. Spark is able to drop a MARK pretty quickly after, and slides in after John before any of the heavy hitting IC starts to drop on their persona. There's a tense battle between Vip3r, NC, some Patrol IC, Probe IC and Jammer IC before Vip3r lands the necessary code and disappears, leaving NC and NK to follow a fraction of a second later.
The first thing the team sees as the foundation loads in around them is darkness, accompanies by a scratching feeling across their body. It's soon discovered that they're in the middle of a sandstorm, that blows away almost as quickly as the sensation started to reveal they were stood in the middle of a desert, surrounded by nothing but rolling dunes and cloudless skies. NK's icon is reconfigured into that of a camel, and the metahuman members of the team reskin their icons to fit in with what they assume in a very traditional dessert-travelling aesthetic. They spend a little time wondering aimlessly, until NK starts to paw at compressed sandal-prints in the sand, surrounded by round wheel marks. NC goes out on a limb and, working on a hunch, believes these are the foundation's way of modelling data trails. They decide to travel away from the direction the trail seems to lead, and end up at a large watering hole, surrounded by a vast variety of animals native to the African-continent. Prey and Predator alike all seem to be drinking peacefully from the watering hole, much to the confusion of the team. After some deliberating, and Spark being chased by a Common Hippo, the team realises that each animal represents a device that's slaved to the host, and that they're therefore at the host's slave node.
They follow the data trail back in the direction it's supposed to go, and unlike the multi-hour travel they had to take to get to the slave note, they find themselves reaching an encampment of what the team are able to tentatively identify as the Zulu tribe shortly pre-Caesar. Figuring the spears and shields and aggressive nature these people display towards the team, NC figures this to be the security node, with each weapon and person being indicative of the multitudes of IC that could be launched. With a rough orientation of where they are at this point, and not needing to utilise any of the tools the node provides, the team set about to looking for further data trails to take them to a different node. NC remembers that there's always a data trail that leads between the archive and slave nodes, and points out that if they can find that trail they can find the place where the memes will be held. It takes a little looking, but they do eventually find both trails that lead away from the security node. Relying on Night Claw's knowledge, he knows that the connection between slave and archive is single direction transfer only, and follow the trail that matches that description.
The archive node is represented by way of the city of Pompeii on a bustling market day. Hundreds of files are displayed on various stands and tables, including everything from the construction methods of medieval breastplate to traditional Japanese love haikus. It takes the team a while to locate the manilla file of memes that they're after. It takes a little back and forth with the stall holder to secure copies of the file, but they do eventually do so. John also spends a little time looking for any files that relate to Yoghurt, but his searching turns up no results. Files secured they head back out of the city and towards the security node. Once again they find that travelling against the direction of the data trail takes much longer than travelling in it's intended direction, with their return journey taking several days. They still have no usage for the security node so continue straight through and head up the other trail they discovered, this one leading both towards and away from their current node.
At the end of the trail they find themselves outside of the gates of the city of Rome at the height of it's splendour. A busy city bustling with life, and the seat of what they rightly assume is the foundation's paradigm, and therefore the master node of the foundation, they start to collate a map of the "empire", discovering the locations and representations of each individual node, as well as the trails that link them. Although they do not manage to build a full map, they are able to figure out where the portal node (represented by the river Tiber) is located, and how best to get there, going via the scaffolding node (represented by the Senate building of Rome, perched atop a large hill). They follow the connecting data trails, and after a moment of panic as NK struggles to force the River to sweep him away, all manage to leave the foundation. They find themselves being dumped into AR and having their devices/living personas rebooted on the way out.
Aftermath
Once the team is able to force their way through the portal node and out of the host, they head back to the museum, present the data files to the Professor, and get paid.
Rewards
- 10,000 NuYen
- 4 karma & 2 CDP
or
- 2 Karma and Professor Simeon Jones at loyalty 1