Going off the rails on a Crazy Train!
| Going off the rails on a Crazy Train! | |||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Atlantean Foundation Red Dragon Triad Ghost Train Woooo! | MCT | Neohaven | Metaplanar Threats | ||||||||
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Angra Mainyu Oberon Stryker Asura |
Various HTR Guard Teams A large detachment of mobile deploy MCT base units |
Mundane Street Sam Adept Mage Rigger/Decker |
A giant swarm of Wraiths Enraged Passenger Spirits Crystal Entities lying in wait | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||||
| By the end of the run several members had taken heavy injuries and Stryker was barely able to survive the Engulf of an enraged Force 8 spirit | At least 5 killed, 4 knocked unconscious, and a giant armored VTOL's worth of a unit stranded in an active manastorm | The mage was near death due to the attack of various shadow spirits, but was ultimately resuscitated. | A vast quantity of Wraiths and Passengers banished away, with about 3 wraiths and around a dozen passengers disrupted during the chaotic travels | ||||||||
Summary
Normally, reconnaissance missions are rather simple. You find the location of a target and observe it for a given time you believe is appropriate to study it, learn what makes it tick, and report back. Sometimes there is a greater risk involved than the job itself would entail, or the job itself is innately risky because the target itself is dangerous, but the detached nature of the mission objective means that involvement may be minimized for safety's sake and for time.
But not in this case. Not when the reconnaissance can only be done from directly within the cabins of a great vehicle spirit. Not when that vehicle spirit is said to take you to exactly where one needs to be, and it seems like every player in the business and on either side of the fence of legality wants to see what makes it tick.
So when a spirit train shows up and a guy gets evidence that a miracle train has arrived in the Mojave Desert and your boss wants reconnaissance done on it, you should be ready for the Hell that's awaiting you.
And hey, think of it this way:
You might just find what you've been looking for all this time.
Background
Jason Thornton was struggling. Looking to make it and get a higher education but struggling to get accepted to the university he wanted, he found himself lost. What does he do with his life? How does he support his family without a high paying job that a good piece of paper from college can get? What is he supposed to do now?
One thing led to another. He went for a drive. His fraggin' car breaks down and he's afraid that he'll attract some very unwanted attention and get his ass killed in the middle of the cold desert night. So he wanders, and wanders, and wanders. And damn, is he lost as hell. Nova, right? The poor bastard should probably have been dead by now. But he wasn't. Because he had a golden ticket out of this mess.
Really. A golden ticket that appeared in his pocket the night prior. Back then it was just a piece of paper he was carrying around. But when he heard a sudden train whistle off in the distance and soon found himself standing at the threshold of its doors, that value really shined in how it changed from worthless writ to something life saving. Once the conductor got his ticket and sat the man down, he saw all sorts of places. All sorts of metaplanes, frightening and beautiful and as varied as only vibrant life could be. all sorts of places, even the esoteric ones like the damn home of the Crystal Entities.
But when he finally got off, he didn't remember a damn thing. He wandered into the outskirts of Vegas, found an ad for another college he could rep to, and...maybe for a lot of people that'd be it.
But Jason had a flashback system. And he got to go back to a lot of things that didn't get to see after the fact. And that information was worth a lot. Especially to a group that could make a lot of use out of metaplanar travel like that. Like MCT.
Yeah, the chummer sold what he knew to MCT. They tried to keep it under wraps, but somehow that got leaked. And for MCT, that was a big problem. That was only going to attract more and more issues for them. It had begun a long, long chase for a special kind of service that people would want to control and use for all sorts of reasons.
Jason was kept under close watch by MCT forces, and outside parties like the Atlantean Foundation wanted to get their chance to find out more.