Cogs and Wheels
| Cogs and Wheels | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Shiawase | Ghostwalker | Lamashtu | ||||||||
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Rabbit Potato Swerve Barracuda Delphi | The City of Denver | Ex-Firewatch Assault Units | ||||||||
Summary
Captain Madeline Palermo contracted a team of runners to investigate the disappearance of some of her former comrades and rescue them. The team is soon ensnared in the power plays of forces far greater.
Background
Captain Palermo learned that a squad of Firewatch soldiers were dispatched to scout out Ghostwalker and his domain, only to go missing, sending out a panicked distress message. Fearing for her former allies, she gathered together a team of runners to find out what happened to them and hopefully rescue them. Her intel being near non-existent, and Ghostwalker's control so absolute, she knew the odds were low, but she would not abandon them.
The Meet
The four initial runners, Rabbit, Swerve, Potato, and Barracuda, head to Renton without incident for the meet in the dead of night. Captain Palermo gives them a straightforward briefing of the situation, telling them of the disappearance of the soldiers. The only knowledge that they had of their location, was that they had sent out a distress signal from the Dayton Triangle, in Denver, several days ago. After a general acceptance of a budget of 30k nuyen for each runner, she moved forward into greater detail. She played the distress message, a harrowing audio falling of the Firewatch members screaming for extraction and aid. Rabbit listening closely, noticed something disturbing. There were less people in the recording than it seemed. The soldiers seemed to be changing their voices and tones, screaming as if they were different people.
Cpt. Palermo described a smuggling network that she was in contact with that could likely get them to Denver, for a price. While she wasn't sure of their charges exactly, she said the provided budget would likely cover it, and if it didn't she would provide a small reward on top of it. The team accepted her teams, and began planning.
The Plan
Talking among themselves, the Runners first focused on smuggling plan. While they were provided a contact for transit, their frugal instincts came to the front, and they thought hard to save money. Discussing various ideas such as using a submarine boat, just driving down there, and even organleggers briefly. While the discussion continued, Barracuda called one of his fixer's, Agamemnon, asking for info on smuggling routes. He was surprisingly helpful and pointed Barracuda towards elvish smugglers of the Salish Sidhe Council. All he asked in return was they he kept his eyes open for spirit formulas in Denver. As Barracuda hung up, he received a less pleasant call from Asahiro Kunitoshi. Asahiro instructed Barracuda that he was going to get him secret information on Ghostwalker's operations. Graciously, he mentioned that he would provide transport out of Denver if Barracuda succeeded. Barracuda wasn't given much of a choice in this.
Sharing all this information with the team, they decided to look into the possibility of using smugglers to enter Denver. Rabbit contacted one of his fixers to arrange a meeting to negotiate terms. Swerve and Rabbit visited them, and used their general elfiness and knowledge of Sperethiel to both get a decent deal and assuage their concerns about smuggling dirty non-elves. With a relatively cheap cost of 7k each for a round trip, the team had secured a way to get their gear to Denver.