Blood Hounds
| Blood Hounds | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Menard TerraFirst! | WIllesborough Fox Hunt | ||||||||
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Black Samurai Canis Gerisa Potato |
Dunstan Quiggly Eddard Nesbitt Simon Percy Samantha Lotton Dogs Beaters | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| All named opposition. | |||||||||
Summary
The Runners travel to Kent in the United Kingdom to take vengeance upon the four murderer's of Menard's daughter, members of a legal Fox Hunting Society who undertake illegal hunts in which actual, rather than simulated, foxes are torn apart by dogs.
Background
Exactly one year ago, Menard's daughter, a fellow Hunt Saboteur, was murdered and torn apart by four wealthy, upper class British citizens during the yearly Willesborough Fox Hunt. The Johnson, Menard, has waited a year for his vengeance. He hires the runners, as a group of outsiders with no ties to the local shadows and thus, no risk of possessing existing ties with any of the targets, to enact his vengeance on the exact same spot, with maximum violence and brutality, in order to send a very explicit warning to those who partake in illegal fox hunts.
The Meet
The runners are summoned to matrix meeting room 6 by their fixers. Unusually, the J is the last to arrive, announcing his presence by morphing the black cube of the meeting room into a virtual, turn of the 20th century Victorian hunting lodge with a difference. Every trophy, every wall-display, and every taxadermied prize is in fact that of a dead human rather than an animal. The persona of the J himself appears by a roaring, log fire: a metallic-green-feathered anthropomorphic duck dressed in Victorian hunting tweeds, with a break action shotgun cradled in the elbow of one hand and holding a dead, tiny, duck-sized naked human by the ankle in the other hand.
The J explains the job, and explains that they will provide transport to the United Kingdom and back, in a secure manner that will allow them to carry all the gear they need through customs.
The next day, they find themselves at an airport in Snowhomish, each climbing into a coffin equipped with viewscreen, oxygen cannister and wireless connection - but no toilet facilities. They all manage to survive the 14 hour flight without shaming themselves. Canis makes good use of his time to perform matrix searches to learn more about each of their targets. The group and greet the Saturday evening sun in a warehouse at Lyme airfield in South Eastern England. There, the team meet Menard in the flesh, and are provided with satellite photographs and images of Willesborough Manor House and the site where the murder is to take place. They are also presented with their transport for this run: a beat up, turn of the century, bio-diesel powered Land Rover with no Grid-Guide and no Wireless presence whatsoever. Black Samurai also ascertains through assensing that their J is a fox shape-shifter.
The Plan
The team elect to lure the Hunting Party to the murder site through a line of trees where Potato will set a string of explosives, with a second line further north. Their plan is to use the explosion to separate the four mounted hunters from their beaters and fox-hounds, then drag them into the field where Menard's daughter was murdered in order to perform a grizzly execution. Menard looks over and approves the plan, and asks how they intend to lure the hunters to the same field in which his daughter was murdered. They consider obtaining some of the fox-scent oil that the Hunt uses for it's simulated fox-hunters. Menard explains he can arrange the lure provided the team members are each content to sacrifice 1k of their pay. The team agree, and Black Samurai takes Menard aside, hints at knowing his secret, and asks Menard to lay an actual trail to lure the Hunters. Menard agrees.
The Run
With Gerisa driving and Black Samurai navigating, the group find the right spot with several hours to spare. Potato sets to stringing her explosives, but only manages to do so much before the first hunting horn calls are heard coming from the East shortly after midnight. A quarter-hour into the new day, lights appears in the dark landscape, chasing a black silhouette of a fox that seems to know exactly where to run. The chase draws the mounted hunters and their dog ahead of the Beaters, and once the riders spur past the first line of explosives, Potato triggers them, sending flames and pieces of dog high into the air. Black Samurai and a drug-maddened Gerisa leap from the trees and overbear their foes out of the saddle to the ground. Black Samurai's opponent puts up something of a struggle, but a hallucinating Gerisa tears off part of Samantha Lotton's skull. Meanwhile, Canis shoots down first Dunstan, then Eddard, with a burst of Stick and Shock that induces heart attacks in both men. While Canis first suppresses, then drives off the shotgun armed beaters, the other's drag their prey to the execution site, where a Fox watches from a fallen tree. Potato blows the four murderers to pieces with high-explosives, and the group flee into the night in their landrover.
Aftermath
- All four of the murderers are slain, causing much excitement in the UK press and negative coverage concerning 'runners and their lack of respect for tradition. TerraFirst! is rightly blamed for the incident.
- Menard has his revenge at last.
- Fox-Hunting is once again a topic of debate in the corridors of power.
Rewards
10k Nuyen 6 Karma Option to purchase Menard as a contact at loyalty 2.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Gerisa: None of my teammates died. Of course they didn't! I'm the best! Not to mention I got to bash some uppity elven fuck's face in before she even had the opportunity to act better than everyone else. I'm sure the dwarf appreciated it. The explosives were a fantastic time... but remind me to stay away from Accelerator from now on. Forever.