Growing Static
| Growing Static | |||||||||
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| Part of Hail to the Pumpking | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Pump King Jack | Horizon | ||||||||
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Jane Excalibur Pale Berg Ez-Azael Eidolon |
Jennifer Ashton Possession Spirit? | ||||||||
Summary
Folks go investigate disruptive spirits, may have uncovered a conspiracy psy-op.
Background
The Meet
Bone Daddy elaborates that 4th Street who is a very grumpy asphalt spirit, a broken glass spirit and some airwave spirits have been acting rather violently lately. He wants the team to figure it out and offers 2,000 Nuyen to each of them. At first this is seen as insulting, but since the guy is just a community figure, the team accepts. He offers free lodgings in Sophocles to sweeten the pot.
The Run
- Jane visits Ezekyle Burton to ask the ghoul therapist about recent happenings. Burton keeps to himself mostly, but admits that he has only limited knowledge.
- Ez-Azael visits Pump King Jack and The Speaker to ask both for their input. The Speaker's ruled out toxic magic and other mages messing with the spirits. Jack tries looking into it, but hears only of rumors that Grand Duke Zaleos' astral gateway terminal has left a few of its mortal visitors in a comatose state after the people refused to return after their astral jaunt was scheduled to end. Some metahumans are still out in the metaplanes and the Duke is irritated.
- All of them eventually aim to visit Jennifer Ashton after BD mentions folks in Sophocles have begun to purchase a great deal of Horizon products.
Breaking into Ashton's makeshift penthouse is a trial and a half, but they succeed at it nevertheless. Foreign astral signatures are detected all over, as well as a possession homunculus watching over a comatose Jennifer live on stream. She has an Alter Memory spell sustained on her by an unknown source and as soon as the spell is disrupted by a Guidance Spirit, the homunculus attempts to murder Ashton. The spirit's demolished by a Bulls-Eye Burst, but now that there's a bear, a sniper, a cyborg and a goat in her bedroom, Jennifer's confused, angry and afraid. She can offer only limited information after getting her bearings.
Aftermath
Judging by the looks of things, the team figures that some kind of noospheric psy-op by Horizon is taking place and it, combined with the Dissonance spam mail the Airwave Spirits are unwittingly broadcasting via radio, is driving several spirits insane. This is Not Good as the people say.
Rewards
- 2,000 Nuyen (1 RVP)
- 15 Karma (15 RVP)
- 6 CDP (2 RVP)
- +1 Starscreamers Reputation
- Optional Contact: Jennifer Ashton, 5/1 Ex-Horizon E-Girl (5 RVP or 10 CDP)
- Optional Contact: Pump King Jack, 5/1 Halloween Spirit (5 RVP or 10 CDP)
- Optional Reward: May exchange 1 Karma for 4,000 Nuyen worth of Low Lifestyles w/ Haunted quality in Sophocles up to 15 times
- For Ez-Azael: -2 CDP, +1 Karma because of pumpkin pie.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Eidolon: These shadowruns can get real fraggin' weird. I'm not sure exactly what the hell happened here besides this Jennifer Ashton lady apparently being mindmagic'd and nearly killed by a spirit which might be connected to a deep corporate psychological 'attack' on the area which could lead to more widespread brainwash drek. Corpos, amirite?
Ez-Azael: "I think we got dramatically side-tracked. On the other hand, we did kind of reveal something way bigger than ever expected and probably did the right thing despite entirely forgetting the original task... I think it was just to find out about agitated spirits, but instead we found some corp skullduggery! Luckily, we're a team of professionals that're better than bad, so we kicked ass and saved some lady from being the subject of a snuff-trid. Totally had it handled."