Cornerstones or Red Strings?
| Cornerstones or Red Strings? | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Hail to the Pumpking | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Shiawase Forces | ||||||||
|
Oberon Stryker Misfire Tsarina | Exorcist Guardsmen | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | None | ||||||||
Summary
Vandalism and sabotage in the name of good - that was the original intent of the job. But sometimes there's a lot hidden behind the veneer of the Johnson's wishes, and some don't exactly feel like going too far without knowing more. And that new perspective changes things greatly. It makes one reconsider.
Background
3 years ago, Zaleos started a terminal service allowing the mundane and spiritual to swap bodies and visit each others worlds. This is undoubtedly interesting but...well, it's rather risky. 4 have died so far from their travels, bodies now freely allowed to be taken up by spirits to use. This can only get worse. Someone else, someone more innocent and less worldly, is bound to get killed in this carelessness.
Ezekyle Burton is worried that the children will, in only a matter of time, be hurt by this. That can't stand. So he shills out for runners.
The Meet
4 answer his call, 2 magical and 2 mundane. Oberon and Tsarina on the magical side, Misfire and Stryker on the mundane. The job was relatively simple: Ezekyle had spotted 4 strange sigils that he believed were keeping Zaleos the demon tethered and connected to our world, connected to his terminal. He wanted it dealt with. His offer was two thousand (which earned some looks) as well as the chance to get auto parts and a place to stay if one wished (which lessened the scorned attitudes). The team agreed, unsure that this man would even have more to offer, and then took a look at the sigil itself. Ezekyle gave them 4 locations, and then the team was off.
The Plan
The sigil they got seemed to be some kind of...liberating force, which would keep the spirit it affected free from being bound, or so it seemed. This made the magical among the group skiddish at the thought of this being a potential misunderstanding of the situation, so they set out to investigate. Misfire and Stryker would gather physical evidence and scope out the location, Tsarina and Oberon would carefully investigate the center source and contact their magical contacts to learn more about the situation as a whole, gather more on the sigil. If that turned out well, they'd start working on sabotaging the sigils. If not? the gathered evidence would let them convince Ezekyle to turn away.
The Run
It was not simply a liberating ward or a tether to his terminal. Yes, Zaleos was tied to the strange...echo in the center of these four sigils, but that was incidental. A method of keeping himself around. He was not the main concern here. According to their own magical understandings and that of their contacts, this was a binding of some kind for something far greater. And according to the Pumpking's aspect they later summoned to verify what happened 5 years prior, that larger thing was the Tower his original self summoned. This was an alchera, or a rift, that was being currently held back by these sigils. And while their sabotage would weaken the demon's grip on our reality, it would also ease the process by which the Tower could rise again. Furthermore, whoever put up this long lasting ritual had to have been a highly initiated individual, and it was a cross-traditional effort as well. This was the work of a group one did not trifle with recklessly
Actually convincing Ezekyle of this was far, far harder. He seemed even more determined at first to go through with the plan, even as the team explained the risk, the evidence being more of a reason to go after Zaleos this way than not. It took a very heated exchange and digging through hidden information and her memories of her time back in Redmond for Tsarina to finally convince the ghoulish therapist that this effort was both far too great in scope and far too catastrophic in consequence. Relenting, Ezekyle agreed to pay them for their due diligence.
Aftermath
Ezekyle did pay the runners, but the job was technically not done yet. There wasn't an immediate solution that the team could offer in return but, those interested opened communications to looking into more solutions for banishing the demon once and for all.
Rewards
2,000 Nuyen (1 RVP)
6 Karma (6 RVP)
8 CDP (3 RVP)
Optional Gear: Cars & Bikes without Restricted/Forbidden Availability at Gear Rates, can use any RVP
Optional Gear: Squatter/Low Lifestyles with Haunted lifestyle quality in Sophocles at Gear Rates, can use any RVP
Optional Contact: Isekai Burrito, 2/1 Sophocles Therapist for 2 RVP / 4 CDP
Optional Contact: Pumpking Jack, 5/1 Spirit, 5 RVP / 10 CDP
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Tsarina "...one of my more heated negotiations. Not sure if that was more spite or..."