Off the Rails
| Off the Rails | ||||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||||
| ShadowHaven | Lone Star Penal Division | Tír na nÓg (via Tir Republican Corps) | The Jesuits (via Sociedad de Paz) | Unknown Runner Team | ||||||||
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Bleach Daisy Mittens | Armored Prison Train, Rigger Operator, Security Officers | GMC Gryphon, Pilot Rigger, Dedicated Gunner | Father Raphael de Cordoba | Four Unknown Runners | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||||
| The Structural Integrity of Daisy's Car | One Dead Security Captain, Heavily Injured Rigger, Injured Security Staff, Damaged Train | Gryphon and Crew Lost | None (Escaped) | None (Conflict Avoided) | ||||||||
Summary
Acting on a tip received from her fixer, Clint Wilder, Daisy Mittens organized a prison train heist to free an imprisoned mage and an associate from her past. To accomplish this task, she subcontracted Bleach.
Background
Lone Star Penal Division operated a correctional facility in Michigan. Following formal requests (and compensatory negotiations), two prisoners were to be extradited to Tír na nÓg. One was an awakened mage whose name in the records is Julian Reyes. The other was Teagan Bradley-Hughes, an ork national of what was formerly known as the Republic of Ireland.
Teagan was better known in some circles as "Green Tea" and, among other things, was a fixer for a fledgeling anarchist cell which included a younger Daisy Mittens.
The mage was wanted for unspecified but extremely serious crimes in the Tir. Julian, however, had some contingency plans prepared in case of his arrest. One was a set of documents that were automatically sent to interested parties, hinting at secrets that only he knew. This led to a race to covertly buy him out from Lone Star or spring him from jail.
Realizing the danger, Lone Star Penal Division expedited their transport. They were to be loaded onto a high-speed armored train that would travel west through Seattle and into Tir Tairngire, which was one of the few destinations regularly serviced by Aer Lingus with flights into the heavily-restricted airspace of Ireland.
The Meet
Clint Wilder caught a whiff of what was going on through a friend in Lone Star and learned that one of the prisoners on the train would be of interest to Daisy Mittens. He got into contact with one of the parties interested in springing Julian Reyes and set up a job offer, sending it to the runner for consideration.
Daisy Mittens and Bleach would later meet in an old ratty pub by the name of Molly Maguire in order to arrange the subcontract.
Their contact was a professional J who would meet them in the matrix via the virtual address of a Tacoma teahouse.
The Plan
With several days to work with, the runners began investigating the information available. Meeting with the J, they surmised that their employer was associated with the Japanacorps due to their promised reward. Daisy was offered drones and weaponry from specific manufacturers and Clint had tipped her off that their J was corpo. Bleach negotiated an intrudction to a Contact as part of her payment.
Questioning the J, they learned more about the guards securing the armored train as well as the magical tradition of Julian Reyes, finding out that he was a practitioner of Black Magic.
Understandably wary, Daisy conducted an in-depth matrix search on him. She found out that his official identity was almost certainly a false composite. She found out little else about the man himself, but she did discover that the tattoos around his wrists were the hallmark of a certain gang of criminals that were infamously one of the earliest known cabals of Black Magic in the Sixth World. Oddly, this cabal had apparently been stamped out many decades prior, with the last of them having been arrested in 'Mexico City' before its rebranding as Tenochtitlan.
Bleach followed up on this information by calling on Charon, receiving the vague tidbit of "There's always a surviving disciple." (Paraphrasing, as Charon had wrapped the statement in outdated and superfluous lingo.)
Daisy Mittens also called News Van Dan. After a rough segueway involving contemporary media, he let her in on the rumor that this case might involve cranial bombs.
Additional matrix searches by Daisy unearthed the specifications of the train, 118-UCAS-SEA-BOS or 'Silverhound', a civilian passenger model bought out of a scrapyard to be retrofitted and up-armored. She learned of the likely number of train cars, their likely contents, and noted a potential weakness in the couplings between cars and the way the brake mechanism works.
Knowing more about the target and the expected security around him, the two runners started their preparation. Bleach scouted the rail line route itself, identifying where the train would slow down as it navigated bends in the forested foothills of eastern Snohomish before crossing a river canyon.
The runners planned to assail the train right as it crossed the river by severing couplings, isolating the prisoner cabins, and having Bleach land on them directly. Daisy contacted Clint Wilder to make use of one of garages and modified a race car with additional water propulsion. The plan was to carry the prisoners off up-river.
The Run
The runners set up on the bank of the river canyon on the day of the heist. Daisy set up a sniper lynx on the cliff walls of the river canyon and Bleach was loaded into the cargo of a flying medical drone in preparation for her drop onto the train.
Daisy successfully evaded the notice of the train's rigger/spider, managing to get into the wirelessly operated braking mechanism and changing the output to better fit the runners' plan. When the train came into range, the sniper drone shot through couplings, isolating the prisoner cabins from both the cars in front and the security car in the utmost rear. The separated segments activated emergency brakes but the hacked brakes of the forward cars did not operate correctly and continued to barrel away at full speed.
Bleach dropped onto the isolated segment. The strong canyon winds blew her off-course during her drop but she managed to catch a hold of a car behind her target and hang on.
Entering the train with one of Daisy's drones, Bleach got into a firefight with the security personnel. She managed to disable several of them while the sniper drone shot and killed the security captain through a window. A second security team approaching on foot from the separated rear car was suppressed by fire from the drones while Bleach freed the passengers and rappeled them down to the converted car below. Teagan was apparently drunk and drugged while Julian wore a mana-suppressing hood laced with grey mana.
With both runners in Daisy's converted car but separated from some of her drones, they began to make their escape upriver. Along the way, they spot a Jesuit priest and some accompanying paracritters in the misty forests surrounding the river canyon. The priest made use of a water spirit to create a treacherous whirlpool and make the turbulent currents far more deadly just as the converted car was nearing the naval chain crossing the river between segments of the Redmond wall. Daisy managed to overcome the obstacles with a dangerous stunt, but her car was starting to take damage from both the environment and the rigger pushing it to its limits.
Now in the Barrens, the two runners end up in the sights of a camoflaged vtol. The GMC Griffon was operated by agents of the Tir Republican Corps, under orders to covertly tail the train and capture any runners that attempted to free Teagan Bradley-Hughes. The runners engage them in a disadvantaged fight, having to try to fend off a heavily-armored craft with a sniper rifle while evading gunfire in an alternative propulsion converted car. While Bleach scored an initial hit that broke the craft's chameleon field, the Griffon managed to evade follow-up shots. Meanwhile, Daisy had managed to stunt the car onto a nearby side road, but was eventually caught by raking machine gun fire. The car suffered heavy damage and Daisy was nearly knocked out by biofeedback.
The runners made the decision to remove Julian Reyes' hood early in the running battle, risking a freed mind mage because they felt his help might be needed. When the roof of the car tore off from a fusillade of armor-piercing rounds, he borrowed Bleach's sensor-linked eyewear, stood up in his chair, and looked up at the Griffon to cast a spell. He eliminated the pilot using a Slaughter (Elf) spell, causing the vtol to tumble into an old tenement building in a catastrophic explosion of munitions.
Following that firefight, the runners managed to evade further pursuit and get Julian Reyes to a safehouse. Though the corporate personnel who were waiting to receive him were initially alarmed by his lack of a hood, Julian smoothed over the situation - likely with taboo mind magic.
Aftermath
Daisy Mittens managed to free the fixer linked to her old anarchist cell in former Ireland, learning some details about why her cell might've been targeted. Teagan is currently laying low in Seattle, planning where to go from there.
Bleach was rewarded for her part of the run, in part with an introduction to a corporate affairs information broker by the name of Tran Hien.
A powerful Black Magic practitioner using the moniker of 'Julian Reyes' is loose in Seattle, and is not nearly as controlled as his new handlers believe.
A member of the Danaan Council of Families receives a report that the honeypot operation to lure in surviving members of a 'petty band of thieves' has failed spectacularly. The lure escaped, the targets were not captured, and the object was not recovered. Resources are directed to clean up the scene, and minimize the scrutiny of the UCAS regarding an incident on its soil. Additional resources are devoted to 'pursuing leads.'
Shiawase Biotech files the paperwork for a new branch in Downtown Seattle.
Rewards
Deadly Run Runtime: 7.5 hours, 25 total RVP (20 * 1.25)
- 20,000 ¥ [10 RVP]
- 5 Karma [5 RVP]
- 20 + 2 CDP [10 RVP]
- Optional Quality at Gen Price: Perfect Time, for landing on a high-speed train without tumbling off.
- Optional Contact Tran Hien: Connection 5 Information-Broker tied to Corporate Affairs
Daisy Mittens (Mundane Ascension):
- Optional Quality at Gen Price: Perfect Time for a firefight done to the tune of Celtic war music, or Steely Eyed Wheelman, for driving a converted car through the Snohomish River.
- Drone and Ballistic / Energy Weapons up to 18F available for Mundane Ascension Gear, so long as the manufacturer is a Japanacorp.
- Mundane Ascension Gear rewards can be applied to Drone and Vehicle upgrades, regardless of manufacturer.
Both Runners: + 5 Rep with Shiawase. - 2 Rep with Lone Star. - 20 Rep with Tir na nÓg.
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Daisy Mittens: Soooo, Teagan's back, ye? That's good. Cannae say that ain't good. Bleach did good work, had hands, opened doors, fired shotgun. All that good fleshy stuff that those folks are known for. Not so chuffed about the mage runnin' around but thats far outta my hands. Good showing on the plane, though, whatever he did. Creepy bastard. And I got ta rob a train! Bit of fun in a tumultuous time. Now I gotta contend with a fraggin' bit gig coming back. What's so damn important about those paintings?