House Sitting
| House Sitting | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Home owner | Shifters and random nuisances | ||||||||
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Pell Sp4rks Skimmer Entropy | |||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| A shifter's cover, and the fridge contents | |||||||||
Summary
In which the runners are employed by a rich home owner and builder of safehouses to keep an eye on her large luxurious house as she has to leave for three days and is worried some spirits would want to visit the place.
Background
Unbeknownst to the runners, the house is actually occupied by a cat shifter, who by all accounts is an assasin.
The Meet
The group meet at the house itself,Sp4rks and Skimmer taking time to catch up and wait for the rest of the team. After Entropy got up and on site and Pell cleared the heavy Seattle traffic they knock at the door. An oni woman meets them at the door and gives them the rundown. She needs her house guarded as she will be out of it for about three days. When the group asks for more details, she expands on the fact she knows some spirits are wandering around the house, and as such want competent people to defend it and keep them out. When everything is done and said, she also asks them to not poke around and then goes on her business, pushed by time.
The Plan
When getting inside, most simply gets settled in, without much pressure. Sp4rks was quick to set up sensor tags everywhere he deemed fit and an initial camera network, but the house cat was not okay with that and quickly made off with one of those. A wild goose chase went on in the house untill Entropy levitated the cat, permitting Sp4rks to get his sensor back. Entropy however got a sense that the cat was unusually resistant to it's levitation attempt, and as such the group started taking notice of it.
The Run
Pell and Sp4rks took some long haul to stay alert during their work and it was not long after that an old man and a kid showed up at the doors of the place, looking in. Not knowing how to react, the team judged best to just see how the situation would evolve and not go see them. Sp4rks wanted to be sure they had no weapons on them and made a matrix perception who would turn up no weapon, but a Spying drone in a bush near the place ! By tracing back the drone's master device, Sp4rks determined it was from nosy neighbours and opted to keep an eye out on them while not retaliating immediatly. While listening to the conversation the snooping family had in front of the entrance of the house, the team also determined they were just other snoops. Turns out the place is full of those.
Hours later, when skimmer got to sleep, Sp4rks saw while playing some Auto ping-pong in the yard a spirit of man looking like a postman straight up traversing the yard. worried about it, he contacts pell to see if this is usual but she says no, trusting her to help him out he asks what the spirit was doing here and it responds that 'nothing, just passing through'. Trough big brains, he and Pell determine he was just a spirit manifested to serve a service, passing a message most likely.
Once Entropy got up (due to his nocturnal cycle, Sp4rks got to take a dip in the pool. During this time Entropy and Pell searched for the cat, and found it in an hidden box marked as "cat's box", where they found notably a turned off commlink ! Thus Entropy tried to have a serious conversation with the cat, saying they knew he had something weird going on, while Sp4rks got out of the pool to examine the 'link. As soon as he got his hands on it he tried getting in it, but needed a password, and when Entropy tried getting it out of the cat it became aggressive and scampered off as soon as he was let go.
Hacking the 'link, Sp4rks got access to it's message history with a mysterious contact, exchanges of one phrase and never more were found, looking like assasination/spying orders and reports. Telling that to the team, Skimmer perked up and made the connection with a fellow runner, a shifter named Nogitsune who has similar behaviours. At the begining of the day, as Skimmer woke up and Entropy just got to sleep, Sp4rks noticed while baking very good baguettes that a fat cat tried getting over the fence of the place but flipped over and fell down unceremoniously, he made it known to the others, in case it was another weird cat like the one in the home, which it was as when Pell assensed him, he was in fact awakened. Skimmer went to wake Entropy which was NOT happy about it, but once he understood the situation bolted to take a closer look at the creature. He did not learn much about it tho was fascinated by it, so much so that it grew unnerved and ran away as clumsily as it got in.
Hours passed without events when some wannabe group of stealers came at the door of the property, Pell went to greet them as Skimmer started patrolling the area in search of someone taking advantage of the distraction. Pell managed to scare the group at the entrance by talking with them as they tried to enter sneakily, and Skimmer saw a head poking out of behind the garden's fence, which fled as soon as he saw it he was detected. Hacking into their 'links permitted the group to confirm that they were just wannabes and not part of a larger strategy. Finally during the hours left of the day, Sp4rks left the cat to move the sensor tags to understand it's objective, which proved usefull as the cat was seen using an electronic trapdoor and disappearing into the depths of the house.
Soon after the J called Sp4rks about a rise in BPM of her cat, she was worried but Sp4rks explained to her that they did not follow her cat as it was in secrets parts of the house and they were instructed not to poke around. He tried to push to be authorized to do so but as he did so, the cat appeared at his foot and mewed, so he was able to reassure the owner that he was fine. During the following day, a spirit went near the house and thus pell asked it what was his business, which he explained as coming out of a concern because an astral barrier stopped operating in the area, and was curious about it.
The last few days were not heavy in events, so much so that they were mostly able to lounge around and do their things. At some point a bike's motor made itself heard through the house as the garage opened, Sp4rks was worried it was someone stealing it but Skimmer, in his wiseness, told him is surely was the shifter cat going for a stroll as human to get away from us. Two hours later he was proved right as the shifter cat and it's owner came home.
Aftermath
When paying them for a work well done, the team exposed to the J the events that permeated their stay, and the J kindly asked that they don't spread around what they learnt about the nature of her cat, which the team agreed to.
Rewards
10k Nuyens (5RVP)
2 CDP
Game Quotes
-So what'cha doing here, chummer? -Nothing ! -I sure hope so. |
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Sp4rks
It was cool working with Skimmer on a less pressure-heavy job, and i have to say Entropy was looking dapper ! I was almost feeling underdressed at this point. I can appreciate their and Pell's professionalism. I quickly got to set up a camrea network but the cat, oh the cat was an interesting case. thank god for Entropy catching it else i was saying bye bye to my 600 NuYen tag as she outran me around the house !
Some weird events happened during our stay, untill Skimmer filled me in about shifters and how the cat might be one of those, due to it's resistance to Entropy's magic, and it all started to make sense. However we got the job done, and thanks to Long Hall i got to enjoy working half shifts while enjoying the luxury premisces the rest of the time. The pool, Auto Ping-Pong, music room and kitchen really was motivation enough for me to do the job, i might consider doing matrix security for a luxury home if it's like that... But i know i could'nt bear staying in such a mind numbing job.
Even better i got to cook with so many real bio ingredients, and it's not to stroke my ego but i'd say i did these pricy ingredients justice.
Skimmer
Home Security for three days? Sure, I can do that. Especially in such a nice neighborhood where the chances of anything happening are slim to none. It was a nice house to, luxury mansion level almost, with all the fixing's. The cat was a bit problematic, as it turned out to be a shifter with an ego problem. Best thing about the job? Sp4rks cooking. That guy knows his way around a kitchen, and with REAL ingredients things were absolutely top notch. Couple of strange little incidents, but nothing we couldn't handle. All in all, it was a milk run really. With real milk.
Pell
...I swear, if more shifter assassins show up in Seattle after this...
Anyway, this was nice and relaxing, nothing big or dangerous happened. Hope that the cat wasn't that annoyed with the me occupying it with the spirit.
Entropy
Three words. Sp4rks's Home Cooking. In all actuality this run was mostly me entertaining a cat. And in ways being tormented by a cat. Either way I made sure that cat no longer bothered me, despite being a shifter. Which didn't surprise me. What cat needs a link in their bed, and what cat can resist my gravity manipulation that strongly? Still overcame it though.