The Head Hitbox Cheat
| The Head Hitbox Cheat | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Horizon | ||||||||
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Reign Of Bullets Harebuck Rabbit Swerve Nogitsune |
6 Plain-Clothes Guards 2 Task Spirits 1 Guardian Spirit 2 Deckers | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Swerve and Reign Of Bullets were knocked out | 1 Plain-Clothes Guard, all 3 Spirits | ||||||||
| Harebuck's player had to leave due to a medical emergency, but rewards are still extended to him | |||||||||
Summary
A SpinGlobal Johnson hires a team of runners to make sure their e-sports team wins at the upcoming Shadow Runner Elite tournament.
Background
Shadow Runner Elite is a popular FPS matrix AR game owned by Horizon.
The Meet
The team arrives at a bar in Everett to find their Johnson. She explains that she wants this particular team to win, the SpinGlobal Radical Isotopes, and has a plan to accomplish that: she wants the team to upload a virus to the offline game servers that will change the hitboxes for the heads of the members of that team dynamically, so that it will be almost impossible to get headshots on them (but be very hard to detect). She does not want Horizon to know that this was their goal, as well. She offers the team 16k nuyen, though the team is able to convince her to give them some gear as well; fake SINs from SpinGlobal, monofilament weapons, and fast vehicles. She also offers to burn the SIN of anyone who requires that. The team agrees. She also offers the team burner Rating 6 SINs, though the team doesn't agree to this.
The Plan
Swerve astrally projects over to the building an meets an Anarch spirit doing some astral graffiti. She convinces it to give some help by aiding it in the graffiti and by convincing it she's not a cop. It tells her that there are some plain-clothes guards, in addition to at least three spirits, inside that building on the relevant floor (floor 7). She thanks it for its help.
Nogitsune is able to get some rating 6 burner SINs from his fixer, though it takes 2 days for these to come through.
Meanwhile, Rabbit does a matrix search on the tournament and figures out that their actual servers are on the floor below due to the amount of heat being generated on those levels. She also sees that their site boasts discrete security for players and guests. Additionally, the team learns that guests are allowed with pre-purchased tickets that are currently sold out.
To rectify this, the team finds a scalper, and Harebuck distracts him while Rabbit steals his AR tickets. Harebuck accuses the scalper of being racist after the scalper refuses to talk to him, and gets a crowd to start a chant: "SURGE is great, stuff your hate, why can't you appreciate, Change-lings, Change-lings!" The scalper ends up getting beat up a little as Rabbit steals the tickets, and the team walks away unscathed.
The team decides to have their gear shipped in, so Reign Of Bullets calls Alessa P and gets some people bribed to move the correct packages around the scanners inside the building. In exchange, the team needs to paint a giant middle finger on the convention floor. Swerve calls Lamashtu to see if there is a tail-chaser job they can do at the same location to draw security and make them think that was their real objective. She tells the team that there is a person on the Ares team named Brandon Knight (no relation to Damien) who did something untoward towards the daughter of an executive from a rival corporation. Lamashtu offers the team 4k nuyen each to extract this person. (The tournament wouldn't be cancelled as each team has extra team members in case of eventualities like this.) During the extraction Rabbit would sneak away and accomplish the real objective.
Finally, Swerve calls Woedica Kryptman for an extraction, but the price is to be used (non-)lethally in a blood ritual. Reign Of Bullets agrees to this.
The Run
The team walks in using their recently-acquired AR tickets after their gear was shipped in, though Reign Of Bullets is stopped briefly due to her extensive obvious cyberware. She is let through however after she explains that she is a veteran (verified by her burner SIN).
Upstairs on the convention floor, Swerve, Reign Of Bullets, and Nogitsune try to slip into the supply closet while Rabbit sneaks her way downstairs to floor 6 using Little Smoke for Concealment. A guard demands to accompany the three runners upstairs into the supply closet due to policy, and once inside the closet Swerve attempts to cast Control Thoughts on the guard. This fails, so he punches her in the head with his spurs. She quickly manages to cast a new Control Thoughts on him, and has him tie himself up with plastic restraints. She then summons a Force 7 Spirit, which alerts the guards and spooks guests at the convention.
Reign Of Bullets runs over and opens the door onto the convention floor, and is shot at by the plain-clothes guards. Nogitsune runs over to help, and also gets shot at. Swerve's spirit is quickly taken out by the 3 spirits on the convention floor, so she summons a new one. Meanwhile, Rabbit is jacking into the offline server after having picked the lock on the server door. By hacking in AR, she's able to remain hidden and not slumped over.
After the three runners upstairs dispatch the spirits, Reign Of Bullets manages to get to Brandon Knight and capture him as Swerve and Nogitsune knock out or kill the plain-clothes guards. Rabbit has uploaded the files given by the Johnson to the relevant portions of the server, and is heading back upstairs.
However, Swerve gets focus-fired before the guards can be fully dispatched, and goes down. Reign Of Bullets runs over and grabs her after using plastic restraints to attach Brandon Knight to herself. Then she shoots out the window and parachutes out to the ground. Meanwhile Nogitsune is painting the floor, and then parachutes out himself. Rabbit simply walks out of the window. Reign Of Bullets passes out from the landing due to having 3 people on her parachute, though Rabbit is able to make sure Brandon Knight doesn't die. Woedica Kryptman's people are already outside and pick up the runners and their principle.
Aftermath
The runners are in a safehouse provided by Woedica Kryptman, and she uses Reign Of Bullets to avoid taking drain on a blood ritual, who almost dies but doesn't quite. Dwarven constitution.
Rewards
- 4k nuyen from Lamashtu - 2 RVP
- 16k nuyen (or double in SpinGlobal SINs, Monofilament Weapons, and vehicles with 5+ Speed up to 18 availability) from SpinGlobal - 8 RVP
- 6 Karma - 6 RVP
- 2 CDP
- +5 SpinGlobal Rep
- -10 Horizon Rep
- -5 Ares Rep
- Can buy off SINner quality at chargen price