The Forgotten Ones
| The Forgotten Ones | |||||||||
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| Part of Festering Infestation | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Skraacha | Infected | ||||||||
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Samsara Skimmer Seven Kera Ghaz | Feral Horde | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| One Skraacha Recon Grunt | Six feral ghouls. | ||||||||
Summary
Runners track down and extract near-dead Skraacha gangsters from knee deep in gore while running from an ocean of ghouls.
Background
In early November Ghaz had organized a small reconnaissance team to delve deeper than usual into the Ork Underground's labyrinthine tunnels and find out what the source behind the increased feral ghoul attacks was. After they had gone dark, Ghaz ran dangerously short on manpower and organized an emergency hiring of Shadowrunners to buy the Skraacha forces time to scramble replacements. While this was successful, Ghaz remained troubled by not finding out what happened to his men.
The Meet
The run happens at an unorthodox time of 04:00 AM due to some Ork Underground settlement slipping in their day-night cycles due to not seeing much sunlight. While three of the four runners get on site without much issues, especially Samsara and Skimmer due to their last visit, Kera is still at work and can't just skip to the meet. Making a snap decision, she claims to take a bathroom break and projects her way to the meet, quickly manifesting to get the head notes of the meet while notifying Ghaz about her two hour delay before arriving in person. This doesn't stop the party from proceeding normally otherwise and with some of them having a free cup of soykaf, they listen to Ghaz's briefing. A reconnaissance team of five orks had gone to investigate the source of the ghoul concentration, but five days ago they'd stopped responding to communications. As he feels too much guilt to admit his mistakes to Warboss, he hopes to get his team back before it comes to that. At least he could deliver the bodies and give them a burial if nothing else. The runners are relatively sympathetic and do not negotiate for higher pay given the amicable relations they have with Ghaz and his well-meaning disposition. He offers as much information as he can, including a rough sketch of the local tunnels and a red circle over the approximate area of where he last had any contact with his scouts.
The Plan
The team is about to begin sketching a route to the location when a young elven boy that Samsara and Skimmer recognize from their last visit arrives and hands Samsara a datachip. Before any questions can be asked, he scurries away to be a favela gremlin. Checking its contents, it has a local map identical to the one that Relay had manufactured on the last run, pinging the previous ghoul nest in a local ventilation maintenance station. Samsara deciphers this to be Nameless contacting them.
The Run
When Samsara and Skimmer arrive to the maintenance station, it turns out that Ghaz had heeded their advice and rebuilt the barrier across the tunnel. This time Samsara's a little too relaxed and loses her footing when coming closer to inspect the barricade, falling face first into a river of waste products. While she does climb out unharmed due to a chemically sealed armor suit, this doesn't bode well. Nameless is there, as expected, and demands to know what runners are doing back there after last time. The runners are co-operating and spill the beans, considering how forgiving Nameless has been to them so far. He claims to know the location they're going to head to and offers to scout ahead for them since the feral ghouls don't bother him much.
Seven had attempted to manifest a spirit and screwed up his spell, almost collapsing and staying back in the slums to rest his skull-splitting headache. When Samsara and Skimmer return, they share the information they'd received. For the next two hours, they take things safe while Kera astrally projects again to go check the location herself. With a spell to detect life, she flies above ground and stops in shock when her spell detects a radiant concentration of life underground. Soon enough, Nameless contacts Samsara with the burner commlink he'd been left last time and opens a video call. Taped on some rafters, the commlink shows a colossal horde of hundreds of ghouls in what Nameless calls 'The Pit' -- some sort of dump site covered in bones and other remains. Not only does Nameless give them rough approximations of where he found active commlink signals and thus the remaining Skraacha scouts, he also offers them a distraction. It comes down to timing; reaching the location almost two kilometers away will take the group two minutes in meatspace, so they give Nameless the signal once they begin their approach. By now, two hours have passed and Kera's arrived in person, choosing still to project her soul to the location for safety's sake; same happens with Seven.
Through the commlink and when they begin approaching, Samsara and Skimmer hear a loud siren explode and fade out, followed by a flute playing a melody that Samsara had some time prior given to Nameless (what a weird question, however.) As a result, the ghoul horde began following the sound thanks to their enhanced hearing and almost entirely vacate The Pit. Only a few emaciated ghouls block their way and Samsara's brawn quickly disposes of them. Once they get on site, Kera begins manifesting repellants on the eastern side where the feral ghouls had shuffled off to. Skimmer and Samsara take a staircase to the second floor where they find some signs of habitation. Preparing for a strike on four remaining ferals that are too busy munching on the remains of the fifth scout, Samsara drops down and completely destroys one of them. Skimmer quickly follows up with a gunshot and the other two are disposed of in a similar manner, unable to stand up to a coordinated and calculated assault. Seven now has a spirit at his service, having fixed the error in his summoning and asks the spirit to administer aid to all four remaining scout members that had been hiding under rotting corpses to avoid the horde's detection. Most are thirsty, starving and exhausted, but a Movement spell and some healing gets them shuffling off to a nearby manhole.
Unfortunately, the ghoul horde had heard Skimmer's gunshots and not even Nameless' Pied Pipering is enough to distract them. Kera keeps repositioning her spells to cover their retreat and eventually they reach a ladder ahead of time. Ghaz had ordered a pick-up to extract them, but it'll take a minute and thirty seconds to arrive. Thanks to Seven's spirit's Movement power, the team reaches the ladder in forty seconds and Samsara almost has her head taken off by a truck driving over the manhole as she emerges in the middle of the road. While they wait for the Skraacha van to arrive, the ghoul horde approaches and while some get pushed back by Kera's spells, others push on through. Nameless is there to buy them the last precious seconds, cutting down one foe after another to let the team climb up after the Skraacha scouts and get in the van. Rather than following them, Nameless cuts the ladder clean in half to prevent the horde from following and catches the burner commlink Samsara drops down for him. As a final favor, Seven uses his spirit's last favor to use Movement on Nameless who speeds off to escape the now hostile horde's wrath.
Aftermath
Rewards
- 12,000 Nuyen
- 5 Karma
- 2 CDP
- 2 Skraacha Faction Rep
- Contact: Ghaz -- Cost: 4 RVP
- Contact: Warboss; +1 Loyalty (exclusively for Samsara) -- Cost: 2 RVP