PS 67:18
| PS 67:18 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
| ShadowHaven | He who created All Things | Ancients | ||||||||
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White Thistle Huntress Arete Asura | An Unknown Entity, calling itself an angel | 4 gang members | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| None... | None. | 2 dead, 2 scarred for life | ||||||||
Summary
Man will one day have to face the evils of the world. He was granted God's gift of Will to choose purity, sanctity, and goodness for Himself. But that very same gift is one which may be corrupted. The Lord's Blessing may be twisted. So remember, good children of the Lord, to keep him close to your heart. For he is your salvation, your shepherd, your friend, and his love for you is Eternal.
To turn from him is to betray the first of his wishes. To turn from him is to invite evil into your heart, greater than any other. To turn from him is to make yourself The Enemy to God.
And you will be punished.
Background
Sergeant Jane Dior of the Knight Errant had been investigating a string of particular murders that had been going on for the past 4 days within Redmond. 8 deaths in that much time, all with their eyes burned out of their skulls. What was horrifying to her was the possibility that this was related to something else that had happened about a year ago - a string of deaths where without any signs of forced entry or a struggle, infected victims would be killed in the middle of their homes or in the car without warning. But this time was...different. There were signs of a struggle. 2 victims weren't infected. Something was...weird with this case. And unfortunately, the detectives were too busy handling terrorist threats Downtown to really care to help, so it fell upon the Sergeant to acquire...outside help.
The Meet
The meet happened in a back alley, down past Touristville and a liiiiittle bit less secure being so far from it. Asura arrived early to get a scope of the place, followed by Huntress, White Thistle, and finally Arete. There were others around them while they were discussing matters, but they didn't pay them any mind-not good to interfere with KE biz and get your ass in the slammer for it. The Sergeant filled them in on the details, gave them dossiers on the victims (or at least, the two non-infected with actual SINs to speak of), the various crime scenes and times when they took place, and whatever else KE could provide. The first agreed upon price was 10k nuyen for the info, along with weapons and gear "re-allocated" from the evidence locker if desired, and the team didn't really seem too keen to argue (to Thistle's chagrin). With that, they began to plan.
The Servant worked nearby. He was awaiting the next who needed him. The next sign that He was needed. He paid no heed to the rest of the flock nearby. He had other matters to attend to.
The Plan
Asura heard that the latest death was only one hour and a half ago, her immediate thought was that a signature or psychometric reading would be best. And there was another scene nearby with possible information for the team to look into. So, to keep safe but efficient, the group split off into pairs of two - Asura and White Thistle to investigate the latest death, Huntress and Arete off to investigate the one that happened the day prior, nearby. These were both in Hollywood, Redmond, with one being close to a hospital (which had a tendency to give out "waste" to ghouls until certain groups deemed it that THEY should control what the ghouls eat) and a correctional facility, respectively. They would look for any leads there, hopefully proving to find something effective with psychometry or perhaps a trail that the forensics teams missed, and go from there. If not, Huntress suggested that they go and check the first sight, check the details of that death against the latest kills. With that plan settled, the pairs went off.
They were not yet aware of the Lord's plan yet, but that was fine. They would, in time. When they were ready.
The Run
Their preliminary searches went well. To start, Asura's psychometry actually managed to get an incredibly clear view of the suspect in the middle of his act (at the cost of feeling her eyes burned up), and with some help the team was able to ID him at the meet and get a clear look at his face for Arete's spirits to get to searching, and they realized quite swiftly this was likely the work of a Christian Theurge. Meanwhile, Huntress and Arete had been working on the correctional facility sight, and on top of realizing just how strong the culprit was, they found evidence leading them to believe the victim was...well, horrendous. Sold drugs to children in the correctional facility, possibly for their essence, and the day he died he actually attacked an unrelated child, possibly to protect his little grift or something akin to that. The team was able to gather two oddities from their collective research: the first is that this man was able to very quickly move from place to place, almost seemingly teleporting, which should not work even for a spirit which he might not even BE considering that he was seen presumably using the matrix, so how the hell he did that was beyond their guesses; The second is that he might have been a Vatican Vampire Hunter, so that was deeply concerning. Most notably from their searches, Arete actually managed to find someone who looked like the culprit further south in Redmond. So the team reconvened into Thistle's armored van and made haste to his location.
Upon arrival to the place, a construction site it seemed, they immediately heard gunfire. Then they saw an elf drop dead from the higher floors, eyes singed off. Thistle recognized them as an Ancient. Asura rushed up the stairs to try and apprehend the culprit, Arete kept an eye out with clairvoyance and spotted for Huntress, and Huntress took aim and tried to slow down the culprit with a shot to the thigh. It did nothing to him. He killed another Ancient, tossed them down to the floor below, and after making direct eye contact with the spot of clairvoyance from Arete, did...something to the two remaining Ancients and walked into the other room. Asura, and soon Huntress, made it to the floor where he was and began sweeping the area. The two Ancients were alive at least, but there was no sign of the culprit - just the faint sound of a bird flying away. But they could see nothing escaping the scene of the crime. Just the signature of...a spirit power, similar to previous findings by Arete when he went to check the latest killings (prior) for himself.
...But...spirits don't leave signatures when they manifest or return to their plane or...anything like that.
Confused, they went to the Ancients, trying to wake them. They were under some permanent sleeping spell, which none of the four had ever heard of before, but they awoke sometime later, explaining reluctantly that they were running from their lives on their bikes to this place after this teleporting, nigh immortal asshole came after them. They proved to be unwilling to speak of anything else on the subject, and so once again Asura resorted to her Psychometry, this time on the extremely fresh corpses below as the Ancients left and made way to their superiors to get this man investigated. The vision was itself...concerning. The Elf in question seemed exceedingly guilty, thinking to herself about how...how everyone did "it", wondering why she was being singled out. As they were escaping on bikes, she heard some...some whispering in a language Asura didn't understand, and felt watched. Then when they were at the site of the death...she was apologizing. All until she was eventually killed (god that did not feel better the second time). None of the others heard of this kind of language before but...Huntress decided to check with one of her contacts to see what exactly the language was.
Enochian. The supposed language of Angels. The servants of God.
Said contact did not wish to be involved further in this job.
The team reported what they knew to Sgt. Dior, who was...concerned, annoyed at Vatican interference (as the team believed), and offered them a bonus - 4k extra to each of them should they get a clear mugshot, another 2k for convincing them to stop. Simple, right? Asura decided they could probably use her psychometry to try and get a picture if she could produce some image or file, so she contacted her surgeon to get a Flashback System installed as Thistle's fixer Greg helped her out by putting the team in contact with someone who was investigating the prior killings, hoping to understand more of the killer's motivations and to ensure this wasn't some separate incident. So the team split up as Asura went to get the installation and the team went off to meet this investigator in Tacoma. They found a...very strange, definitely magical man who masked to pretend to be a weak aware and was eccentric as all hell. Thistle assumed Vampire and was already pissed by his coyness, but he did explain some things. Namely, what was happening with the prior murders: they were done by a catholic priest, who had kidnapped and imprisoned a Nosferatu to use its blood as some sort of...symbolic link. He then used the connection of the virus to ritually target and kill infected, though he was unable to figure out how to choose whom to target. He was stopped by said hatted, smug "aware", and the Nosferatu was of course pissed when freed. But that was supposed to be the end of that, this is a new incident entirely. They couldn't get much else from that, but the stranger seemed rather surprised and intrigued when the team mentioned the spirit spoke Enochian, making some mention of being surprised it would "lower itself to that level" and that this was not at all typical of Christian spirits. Still, not much to be had on that, so the team left with well wishes and happy hunting from the stranger, who disappeared into a cloud of mist. An Aware, of course.
The next lead they had, one they wanted to investigate swiftly, was a Bunraku parlor that the 4 Ancients were at when they were visited by the Servant of the Lord. Huntress snuck in as Arete "disguised" himself as a client in a very literal manner, and she started searching through files, doing a fairly decent job of it. She found out that publicly this place wasn't quite as...carnal, as other parlors, but they had a private menu which...had members of other gangs as options. And...the 4 ancients were using a particular troll to surrogate for a member of the Spikes, and then beat her. Consistently. Day after day.
She was a Christian. Devout to the Lord. She prayed during her lunch breaks.
Doing some more searching through the dossiers after their exodus, the team realized that the two nationals were formerly married. Divorced now, however. And Christian. American Roman Catholics. The team realized two things: the spirit was passing Judgement on those who disobeyed the lord and harmed those of his flock, and that prayer...prayer might be effective. So they devised a plan.
When Asura returned 4 hours later, they met up at a church in Redmond, small and unoccupied. Huntress prayed, Arete attempted a summoning for the spirit, and Asura a Wild variant. Thistle abhorred this idea and waited outside, where she noticed the background count rising, the winds kicking up, and suddenly appearing in the threshold was him. The culprit. He approached the three, and they questioned him. He explained that he was a servant of the lord, working to excise a great evil from within the hearts of these victims, for they had broken His First Commandment. Asura tried to convince him to stop, that Man should stand in the way of evil, and the spirit smiled and said that he knew Man would...in time. But he would not stop. Still, he tried to reassure her, moving closer and placing his hands on his shoulders, assuring her that all they needed to do was have faith.
But the poor souls in His flock were unsure, unconvinced, in their anxieties. They wished to know more, to see what they were not meant to. Arete, he did not witness it, but Asura and Huntress had pierced the veil of his masking, and s-
[ T H I S S P A C E I N T E N T I O N A L L Y L E F T B L A N K ]
And he was gone, pitying they who were still afraid. And there was nothing left to be done. The two could not remember what was there, they were not meant to witness it. So all they could do now is report to the Sergeant.
At least Arete got a mugshot.
Aftermath
The team, half shaken, reported to the Sergeant. They weren't able to stop him, but they got their bonus from the mugshot. They were...unable to piece together everything, but perhaps...perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps some things are best left buried.
Rewards
Run Rewards for Ps 67:18 (Medium, 11 RVP)
14,000 Nuyen (7 RVP)
3 Karma (3 RVP)
4 CDP (1 RVP)
Optional Contact: Jane Dior, 5/1 KE Strike Team Leader in Redmond, 5 RVP or 10 CDP
Optional Gear: Combat Axe, Ares Monosword, Colt M23, Cold M23A2, AK-97, Halloweener Barbeque Lighter, RPK HMG, Ares Predator V, Colt Government 2066, Barrens Special, Krime Wave, Beretta 201T, Steyr TMP, Krime Boom, Lone Star Remington 995, SVD, M1 Garand, Criado Juan, Ford Americar, R2 Stealth Dongle, Receiver, Radio Shack Remote Controller, R3 Binoculars w/ Vision Enhancement 3, R3 Blurred Faceless
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Asura
The poor lamb is scared. It is reasonable. But one day she will have to face these fears again. This day will not leave her. She is sure of that.
Arete: The shadows in Seattle are much darker than I realized...and they hide things I'd never imagined. I have a lot of research and study to do.
Huntress: Private Huntress, current time 0800 standard hours. I have received no negative comments to my performance pardon one member of the team that was deployed. We managed to identify the culprit behind the murders but were unable to apprehend them or convince them to stop what they were doing. Staring at them... I saw... something I could not rationalize, but I knew then and now I lack the capabilities to deal with such a threat. I will begin to train more intensively to compensate for this shortcoming. That is all to report, over and out.
White Thistle: "Hgrhm. Fucking spirits. Warping around and murdering random sinners. I should kill those Vatican cunts. Thinking they get to decide right and wrong. Pricks. Wonder what the girls inside saw that shook them up so bad..."