Motel Monsters

Motel Monsters
Date	2084-06-18
GM	Asmodeus
Location	Helena, Sioux nation
Status	Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
Casualties and losses

Summary

Team goes to find a mercenary, finds he's been pressganged into hunting free drakes and leaves him to determine his own fate.

The Meet

A one-armed red-haired woman is met in Yarrow Point, Bellevue. She offers a brief description of the job: she suspects Neo Haven might be responsible for her brother's disappearance and wants the team to see if that really is the case. He was last seen at Genny Chou's Chicken restaurant in Helena, a town in Sioux Nation. The team accepts, although Anansi manages to negotiate handsome bonuses as well as the J as a potential contact to Bravo Company.

The Plan

The team calls up some contacts for Matrix Searches and discovers that Lancelot Harrington, the missing merc, drives a BMW Blitzkrieg. They confirm his presence in the restaurant prior and start taking a trip over using the Johnson's provided R3 burner fake SINs.

The Run

Genny Chou is Commanding Voice'd to relinquish what she knows: Lancelot acted suspicious and anxious when he stopped by grabbed take-out and left. Elaine, Reapsaw and Blackhawk take Genny's Spicy Wings challenge. Reapsaw almost succeeds but fails due to his hubris of starting with the hottest wings. Elaine clears it thanks to her shifter physiology making her rather durable and Blackhawk's immunity to toxins of all kinds makes him able to endure most of the heat almost completely, although he ends up hurling the wings later.

Lancelot's motel of choice is discovered with more efforts. Anansi finds a private gentlemen's club where Mr. Herenight hangs out for the time being. She asks for his aid, but he rather condescendingly offers vague hints about someone troublesome also tracking Lancelot in a northern room. Anansi, being a banshee, doesn't get more out of him. Blackhawk, Elaine and Reapsaw spot a small nuclear spirit posing as a dog astrally.

The team checks in with the 'troublesome woman' and finds out it's Lamashtu. She doesn't trust the runners, assuming them to be drake trackers too, and insists that they show their willingness to help by destroying one of the three troublesome presences at the hotel. Not choosing Herenight or someone staying in the coffin houses, the team chooses the nuclear spirit.

They try to go around it and look into various motel rooms at first, but the dog eventually gets aggressive to the banshee and attacks. Reapsaw rips the thing in half with a single, decisive blow that disrupts the materialized spirit without effort, although he suffers immense damage. The infuriated summoner emerges, but Elaine transforms and bites him in half, ingesting highly polluted blood and going into anaphylactic shock. After stabilizing Elaine, the team discovers a drone workshop, a broken rotodrone and stocks tracking feeds as well as black market crates from Schwarzkrupp, a small arms smuggling black market network initially formed under Lofwyr's orders. Blackhawk manages to identify it, noting their connection to the Spartan 22nd Company instead of Bravo Company. He indicates Reapsaw to haul the crate over to the SUV while Ananis psychometrizes the drone and discovers that Lancelot was chased by two individuals in a storm, ending in a violent explosion.

Lamashtu offers her information as well as some of her armaments if it helps the runners, then attempts to psychometrize a smudging ritual treated handgun. Anansi attempts it too and they succeed in finding that two thugs chased Lancelot out of the apartment, mentioning some kind of contract. Contacting Handraniel, Reapsaw asks for a sprite's help and wants to find out if Lancelot's sightings have been updated. Thankfully, they have, since he was admitted into a hospital in critical condition.

Blackhawk and Anansi sneak onto a parallel rooftop while Elaine and Reapsaw, being non-Infected, head inside to talk to the guy. Lancelot had attempted to earn extra money by doing side jobs for Schwarzkrupp like reacquiring 'stolen goods' like weapons and armor, but then the contacts began demanding tracking down people and kidnapping them for S-K as well. Refusing the job, their forces cornered him and beat him to an inch of his life, elaborating that his lack of cooperation would come back to his family. Torn between choosing his code of honor as a mercenary of Bravo Company and the life of his sick sister, Lancelot's torn on what to do. The team gives him a commlink, jacks it to his data tap and lets him talk directly with his sister, leaving him be.

Aftermath

Lancelot's sister is distraught beyond comparison and tosses the reward at the runners to get them out of her face as fast as possible. Blackhawk attempts to offer aid, but the woman is too crushed to respond to it with the respect it ought to get. Whether she ends up taking Lancelot's life to stop the threat to the family, Lancelot tracks down the drakes or if he takes his own life is unclear for the time being. All options appear grim. Lamashtu offers to be in touch with the runners, finding them to be generally handy allies to keep in arm's reach.

Rewards

20,000 Nuyen (5 RVP + Negotiation Rewards)
3 Karma (3 RVP)
12 CDP (5 RVP)
Optional Contact: Lamashtu, 6/1 True Western Drake (6 RVP or 12 CDP)
Optional Gear: Renraku/Ingram Supermach 200, PPSK-4 Collapsible Machine Pistol, PSG Enforcer, Ruhrmetall SF-20, Ares Redline, ammo and a Highland Forge Claymore with any desired accessories (buy at gear rates out of base Nuyen rewards)

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Anansi: "Big pay day, a dead toxic mage, and a new "friend". Solid days work for all, can't say I'm a big fan of being out of Seattle for so long but worth it."

Blackhawk: "Every time I do jobs like this I wonder why I keep fightin for this shithole of a world. For all of the myriad of interesting ways gangs and corps and certain spirits keep fuckin people over. But... then I remind myself that if the world don't do the hard work to make things right, we need to do it ourselves. I hope to whoever is listenin that I get a chance to help fight for that man and his sis to hopefully find some degree of hope or a better ending... then again, that is just hope, I gotta put in the work to make it happen. Oh, also those wings were amazing. No regrets there."

Reapsaw One of those fragging job where it's make one bad choice or damn yourself. i feel the warrior code I followed annoyed and mad. but we had to do it and hopefully some peace can be made even if it so hard for one to think of doing that act....may spirits be wise