Adolescent Surged Shinobi Amphibians
| Adolescent Surged Shinobi Amphibians | |||||||
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ShadowHaven Chipper Vichnozeleny Athena John Brown Troika |
Evo | ||||||
Summary
What starts as an innocent investigation about unpaid pizza deliveries spirals into near-HTR assault on a corporation asset and prison break.
Background
Everyplace Pizza, a Seattle pizza company contacted Shadowhaven in desperation considering all other options had failed. Several times, strange deliveries had been called in without any payment being given to the delivery boys. The manager's attempts at talking to the pizza boys about their deliveries all failed, so he reluctantly called the more expensive yet capable services of shadowrunners to get him out of a tight spot before he'd get fired for incompetence.
The Meet
Vichnozeleny picked up a fellow runner on her way to the meet, but most had their own vehicles. After closing hours, Everyplace Pizza was a quiet establishment so the group had little need for discration during a nice, smoggy Bellevue evening. The manager explained the situation and offered what information he could without breaching any confidentiality for his businesss. All the unpaid deliveries, their locations, time stamps and even who'd delivered them! One of the delivery boys was still in the kitchen, doing dishes on his late shift, so two of the team went to ask him a couple of questions. With John Brown's social skills, the meet went smooth as butter. Athena followed up by delving into the Matrix and doing some background research on the missed deliveries at this point. Not too much turned up, but Brown's and Athena's combined efforts gave them the latest delivery and possible suspicions about those responsible.
The dishwashing elf in the kitchen was tight lipped at first, but eventually admitted that it was his cowardice that led him to not pick up the credstick after something just opened a manhole cover and began reaching for the pizza box. This had happened several times, but he hadn't managed to improve on his behavior. Realizing that not much else could be gained from talking to him, the two runners left him be. John Brown summoned a task spirit to do his dishes, however, allowing the poor delivery worker to leave home early. How nice of him!
Key parts of the puzzle were established: the deliveries were often left by manholes, suggesting a connection with the sewers. The delivery boys and girls were terrified for some reason and didn't pick up payment even if it was tossed out.
The Plan
The plan was simple: go to the waterfront where the latest delivery had occurred four hours prior and do some looking around. Find the ones responsible, have a friendly chat and ensure that deliveries will be made on time.
The Run
As one can expect, things weren't that simple.
Getting to the waterfront was easy enough but there was no sign of anything suspicious in the slightest. Getting right to work, the team went into a dark alley where the delivery location was according to the manager's records. There was a heart-warming sign: a commlink for public use, presumably for less fortunate people. Acting on nothing but good faith, there was a deposit for payment next to it with little preventing anyone from stealing it. Still, the call was easy to track to this primitive pay phone system, so the lead wasn't completely dead. Finding little else to go on and another manhole cover nearby, the team surmised that whoever's doing these prank calls must be underground in the sewers. Vic recalled at this stage that this section of Seattle's underground complex is popular with unwanted dregs and particularly SURGEs. After questioning a nearby hobo with little results (and rewarding him for his willingness to help, what a nice gesture!), all four descended into the reeking, stinking bowels of Seattle's plumbing. Exploring and keeping a sharp eye out on things, they eventually bumped into a hobgoblin that seemed particularly surprised.
This hobgoblin gave the group their first new lead: The Sallies. Presumably, they were a group of SURGE salamanders that frequent this part of the sewers and are the most prominent group of any kind. If anyone would know about pizza crime, it'd be them. The hobgoblin not only got paid for helping but everyone asking him questions were uncharacteristically helpful for a bunch of surface dwellers. For these two reasons, he gave what advice he could and scurried along while the runners chased after this new trail to seek out the Sallies. After trudging through filth for a decent while, the group encountered a chinchilla SURGE going by the name of Chipper in a tiny shack that could be barely called a house. The team's adept, John assensed him and noted him to be highly magically capable. After a brief exchange, he assured everyone that the Sallies would be around soon and any questions the team had would be answered then. True to his word, four salamander SURGEs turned up soon, riding speeders in the sewers and talking to each other like a bunch of kids. It was almost like they were teenage mutants of some sort.
The Sallies - Bach, Handel, Haydn and Chopin - explained the situation once the team's more socially inclined members started asking questions. In the end, the story was rather simple! While the Sallies had the intention of paying for each delivery, the pizza boys always turned tail and ran as soon as they saw even a trace of the Sallies with their own eyes. As a result, their credsticks were never picked up and delivered back to Every Place Pizza. Realizing that the Sallies were innocent in the grand scheme of things, the team advised them to set up an alternative payment system that could work. Everyone was in agreement, although anything open like walking into the shop and ordering pizza in person wasn't the most welcomed idea. Chipper had an arch-nemesis in Seattle, going by the name of Slasher. He and his goons at Evo Corporation have long pursued SURGEd individuals for villainous reasons and it was this that only further strengthened their desire to remain in the sewers, out of sight.
Being the upstanding criminals that they are, every single one of the runners agreed to help out with this by breaking the everloving hell out of Evo's nearest SURGE prison. The Sallies and Chipper were incredibly pleased by this, although they had little to offer in terms of payment. Given that this was a crime against metahumanity that Evo was committing, the Haven's bleeding hearts were willing to do this pro bono. So, the location was acquired, Matrix searches were done and plans were hatched. Fortunately there was a demolition expert in the group who had a big, loud plan for corporate plots such as this.
The Run 2: Electric Boogaloo
The plan was such: Troika plants explosives, John ensures this doesn't get interrupted and Athena keeps a close eye on any surrounding traffic as well as validating the team's presence so corpsec doesn't swarm them. There were several imprisoned innocent SURGE individuals within the building, but these would have to be freed by the Shinobi Salamanders. Or Sallies, as they like to call themselves. There was a manhole almost right outside one of the entrances so this was hardly far away for them, either. If anything went wrong, Vic's duty as the combat specialist was to draw any and all attention to herself and away from the infiltrators or the Sallies so the rescue would go off without a hitch.
Within a few days of recuperating, gathering their resources, telling the good news of the customers' innocence to the Every Place Pizza manager and getting in position, it was time to turn one's attention to Evo Corporation. While it wasn't a huge building, it was still well staffed by security and as a result John Brown and Troika, the social adept and demolitions expert scrounged up a likely cover story for infiltration. As a pair of building inspectors, they passed in through security thanks to Athena's help in making their appearance seem legitimate in the Matrix as well. Having found three crucial hard points in the building's blueprint, John talked a path for Troika who then began setting tamped charges that would blow the entire place to kingdom come. Vic, for her part, was climbing a fire escape across the street and perching herself on the rooftop, getting feeds from her teammates on the inside and preparing to draw some fire if anything went wrong. After one officer named Tim started getting nosy, John used his special Adept magic tricks to tell him to just go away and that nothing was wrong. The officer did exactly this, to no-one's surprise. John is, after all, quite a badass.
Then something went wrong.
After planting one charge and starting on the second, the mage within the building smelled something to be off and threatened to call the situation in to his superiors. Vic, in a split second decision while the mage was still outside of his office and in her sights, took the shot. The loud, cracking rip of a gauss rifle tore through the window and the poor mage's head. This, as can be expected, didn't sit well with the local security. The infiltration team pretended to be surprised and shocked as all security officers charged outside and engaged Vic on her rooftop perch, then hastily planted the second and third charge. The Sallies turned up seemingly out of nowhere and offered a hand in getting the prisoners safe through the sewers. The charges were set after some deliberation -- Vic recalled the local HTR response times and Troika set the charges accordingly, hoping to give HTR just a few seconds after arriving so they'd get buried in the rubble.
Vic, on the other hand, was in the fight of a lifetime. Half a dozen of security opened fire on her position, throwing frag grenadess and pummelling her position with bullets. Surprisingly, she weathered practically all of it with the help of her team's help, mostly John telling her to just duck and not get shot in the face. This wasn't enough crap down her neck as another mage appeared and decided to hurl a fireball on the rooftop just to be safe. This would've been painful, but Vic was well protected by her armor and tamped out any little scorched patches of fabric quickly. It was then that she decided to start paying back and took one shot after another, taking a life with every pull of the trigger except for the first one where the enemy corpsec did the same thing and ducked a split second before her shot.
While this horrid gunfight was going on and HTR was no doubt on their way to suppress any activity, the infiltration team and Athena were getting out of the blast zone while the charges were counting down to destruction. The prisoners were well on their way underground down the sewer canals and their catwalks; by the time Vic took the final shot and had a moment to breathe, she got down from the rooftop, bolted for the manhole, jumped in and legged it. The building didn't blow up like the Death Star, but it collapsed after a few anticlimactic minutes of silence and a very slight tilt in its upright posture. The charges didn't quite do enough damage to collapse the whole thing immediately, but they were enough to make sure it fell apart sooner or later.
Aftermath
Slasher lost an important base of operations for his evil plans and Evo Corporation was terrorized by criminals. On the other hand, a pizza place has loyal customers who can reliably pay them now, a bunch of kidnapped SURGE victims have been liberated and the Sallies are friends to the four runners involved. Chipper also offered to mentor anyone who cared to learn the shinobi arts. Makes sense, given the little dog was a master.
Rewards
10k Nuyen, 15 Karma, Sensei (Close Quarters Group) or 5 Karma, Sensei Chipper at 4/2 or 5 Karma, and 2 CDP
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
John Brown
This one gave me some warm and fuzzies, for sure. I've never brought down a building before, and this one definitely needed bringing down. I think we only killed the one drone, too, and Tim seemed like he had it coming after how he talked about the fucking black site he worked at. "Helping the community" my ass. Anyway, he died as he lived: doing as he was told, blindly, with no real regard for the consequences of his actions on himself or others. Also, the Sallies seem like good people to know. That invisibility they pulled off was pretty slick, and they seem to be all over the Underground.
Vichnozeleny
Evergreen reporting in, log number eighty-five. Target was debt collecting at first, but turned into something elsse altogether. To clarify, we did find who was late on payments. It was not their fault. We did not blame them. However, they did inform us of another opportunity. They could not pay us in anything but gratitude, but it was a crime worth stopping for its own sake. Kidnapping, experimentation, corporate exploiting the less fortunate. Others took matters discreetly, but I am rarely capable of anything more discreet than staying in the shadows. I decided to support the infiltrators if anything went wrong. Those kinds of disguises are masks, false faces; easy to crack like porcelain. I took position on the rooftop, just like in Pripyat.
I always see them before I hear or smell them. Little shapes in the distance, too far away for me to see their faces even with the scope. They do not even look like people, just blobs. So I aim... and I aim... and I aim... until the Monolith tells me to do it. It happened again, once I took another life. The mage would have given away my comrades and I could not allow that. I knew making myself the target would mean pain for me, but I still could not contain old habits when the stress got to me. I felt the Monolith's presence. Pure. Non-judgmental. Accepting. Absolute. It is not a feeling you defy or disagree with. All I could think of was every heretic in front of me and the crimes they committed by existing without undeniable love for the Monolith. So I grit my teeth, I fired at one head after another and I turned the street into a massacre.
The kidnapped victims of the corporation were saved and the heinous facility destroyed, but I wonder how long I can do this before I am perceived as evil by those that fight next to me.
Тройка
И так, Я не знаю, с чем начать. Слишком много животных. Сказу это сначала. Во-вторых, я благодарю наше Лицо за свои деньги, для купить кумулятивние заряди (Думаю, он забыл). Задяди нам очень помогли.
После всего, что случилось, я веру Тим заслуживает награду. Он помоr миссию, убил три корпоративных трутня, спас нашему снайперу, и был хорошое отвлечение.
И очень видел наши лита, поэтому ему нужно умереть. Хотя, здание упало, задание выполнено.
5/5
(Хотя, я не рад, что Тим взял мой дорогой детонатор, когда взорвалься.)
So, I don't know where to begin. Too many animals. I'll say that to begin with. Second, I'm thankful for our Face and his money, for buying those linear charges (I think he forgot). Those helped us immensely.
After all that was done, I believe Tim deserved a medal. He helped the mission, killed three corporate drones, saved our sniper, and was a great distraction.
And he got a good look at our faces, so he had to die. Even still, the building fell, task complete.
5/5
(Though I'm not happy that Tim took my expensive detonator when he exploded.)