Shadow Over Kuopio
| Shadow Over Kuopio | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Erika | Elder God Cult | Hunter Wasps | ||||||||
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Wychking Heracles Katherine Tyler |
Burned Man Crawlers Ghasts Vrygoth Gremlins |
F12 Mother F8 Scout | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
| 30 Corps Cadavres, 2 Necro Spirits, 5 points of Edge | All. | Scout was bisected, Mother was permanently destroyed by Wychking. | ||||||||
| Wychking retired from play. Kate gains another stack of A Terrible Fascination | ||||||||||
Summary
Wychking ends a demonic cult. No, really. Bugs survive for once.
Background
An elder god cultist mad for destroyed books and began hounding Wychking. Her High lifestyle was ruined because of him and he was forced to retreat due to a F12 Fire Storm.
The Meet
The meet happens in Seattle via one Taina Kauhava whom very nervously asks Wychking for aid. She's put under a lot of pressure to get the Invae slayer recruited, but she seems somewhat nostalgic to get to speak her native language for once and is set in a good mood, talking more relaxed about business over coffee. While they're talking about work, she elaborates that she'll need private transport and Taina attempts to organise as much of it. The task implies potential bugs in Finland, especially an infesting type with several investments. Taru is concerned and agrees.
The Plan
Bringing the more portable forms of her bound spirits to bear, Wychking transports some dead dirt, ash and driftwood with her while the spirits trail astrally. Once she requisitions a truck from Erika she starts driving towards a set of disappearances near Kuopio and starts heading off into the woods to investigate, starting from the obvious trails.
The Run
The initial trail is an ambush by a dozen Crawler Demons and the Burned Man who attends astrally. A fierce resistance by the undead spirits drives the horde of Crawlers back and the Burned Man's torturously shoved away, forcing him to retreat with ominous portents. Wychking is forced to retreat and recover, tending to received injuries. A bird approaches, representing a mysterious patron and offering aid. Taru tentatively agrees to meet and sends a requisition to ShadowHaven for additional aid. Kate and Heracles manage to answer the call and Taru arranges flights for them to fly from Seattle to Helsinki.
Once there, they arrive together with Taru's undead horde. Thirty Corps Cadavres and a total of six spirits arrive in a cargo container, keeping the forest campsite safe while Heracles searches the national Matrix grid for any signs of weirdness such as how the Burned Man has managed to build a network. Wychking visits her parents to warn them of the potential danger, but they're less than happy. Her adoptive father gets into an angered argument about the girl's irresponsible glory chasing while her adoptive mother breaks down in tears, trying to make it a happy reunion. The tense and emotional reunion is interrupted by a knock on the door by a trilby-wearing old-fashioned man offering Taru a letter. Suspicious of strangers, she casts a Bug Zapper ward and asks the man to walk through it before accepting anything. As the man refuses, she gets increasingly suspicious and launches an attack. While the scout has begun to learn the secrets of apotropaic magic, Wychking's wrath is impossible to evade and she forces an astral intersection with a larger Bug Zapper ward, slicing the body in half and disrupting the creature. This also incapacitates the mage.
While in hospital, Kate is approached by the hunter wasp bugs' mother for a more diplomatic meeting. In the hospital Wychking escapes from her bedridden ward and visits the morgue to examine the corpse, using a Whisper of Bones ritual to demand answers from it. Once she realizes they're led by a Force 12 Mother Spirit, she understands the gravity of the situation. Kate is explained by the Mother that they were driven out of an old bunker complex by the Burned Man and they wish to join forces with Wychking to defeat this common enemy. Both Taru and Kate realise they must truly be desperate to approach their greatest foe of all.
Wychking offers a meeting, stating that the price will be great. Pointing out that the group probably still has nymphs, they could recover either way. Her price is that the Mother spirit must come with her once the job is done and unconditionally submit to her tests for permanent Invae destruction. The mother is naturally extremely reluctant, but ultimately agrees when Wychking agrees to not chase her five surviving children in the future. The mother thus will aid in boosting the corps cadaver army in the final assault.
Heracles confirms their intel and finds that they have a limited amount of Matrix presence in the area as well, most of it a jury rigged Wide Area Network. Kivutar, the Mother and Wychking all cast preparatory spells and breach the bunker where Wychking's girlfriend was devoured 22 years ago. Facing demons, toxic gas, ambushes by a Hunting Horror and turret emplacements, they're harried at every turn but continue pushing forward regardless. Once they reach the control room, the Burned Man gloats to the necromancer who retorts to the Elder God cultist that his gods can muster no evil greater than the cruelty within the hearts of mankind. Even the Burned Man is unsettled by the sheer malice radiating from her and cuts communication while the magesight system, Hunting Horror and Charged Wards try to buy him time for his final desperate summoning. Kate's hit by attacks from several directions and the Palefire Spirit, a stalwart murderer by Wychking's side, continues to prove its endless value by forcing the hordes back. The Detritus' Spirit's deathly aura makes even the Hunting Horror recoil in fear and retreat, buying time for Wychking to finally blast the Charged Ward open as the Burned Man's summoning completes.
An avatar of the Elder Gods faces the Chosen Follower of Louhi. Wychking grips the raging axe artefact in her hand, charges the man and with her hand guided by her destiny as decreed by her 'gods' beheads the cultist then and there, looking at the thing in his eyes fading away. Before it completely winks out, she speaks unto it an unmistakable message:
"Get off my planet."
Erika's cleanup team is called. Wychking uses the remains of the Elder God lodge, his body's remains and much of her own to arrange a site of power, even if it's temporary. But using Reaper and Zombie Dust, she falls unconscious to a deathly state and surrounds herself with Deathly Auras, immersing her astral form deeper and deeper into a state of death. Her astral projection travels deep past the normal metaplanes towards the Plane of Death and, as a veteran traverser of death itself, manages to push through the membrane separating the dead and the living. In the black, featureless void she finally meets a figure familiar to her, the long dead girl Satu. A heartfelt, but brief reunion takes place and she finally gets what she's been needing for so long: absolution, her guilt melting away from the one woman she cared for telling her that the event back then wasn't her fault. That she should live. That she should learn to enjoy life again. Invigorated by the love she once felt, Taru turns back and pushes her way out of this brief plunge into the Plane of Death and returns to her physical body, altered slightly by the experience.
Aftermath
Erika thoroughly debriefs the entire team and although Kate's noticeably marked down by the corporation and they keep a basic dossier of Heracles, Taru urges them to maintain good relations with even foreign runners. Focusing the conversation on herself, she elaborates that she'll experiment with permanently destroying Invae which will be information Erika can use to secure their country against future infestations. In addition, Erika discovers that her DNA contains some familiar-looking ware markers. Wychking confirms their suspicions and that Interpol knew as much, but didn't tell Erika. She asks for a corporate SIN and to get proper training in the Finnish military to aid them in the future against threats to the country in exchange for still having the liberty to go and hunt globally as threats like these pop up. In a meeting with Anders Hellman, the CEO of Erika himself, this arrangement is agreed upon.
Wychking retires as an independent shadowrunner and becomes an in-house black ops necromancer for the Finnish Defence Forces as well as Erika's black ops division, fulfilling her original purpose as their prototype transhuman. The reputation of the master necromancer and Lady of Death in Finland begins spreading in a more official capacity, with some aspiring necro mages trying to get a hold of her notes to learn more about their craft. Invae start having rumours of the Anathema possibly showing mercy to their kind in rare cases, although their hatred towards her still remain deep-seated and for good reason. The Elder God cult's greatest leaders lose one of their most invested projects.
And as for Wychking herself? She contemplates Erika's loyalty to Finland itself, still finding this less bound by strings than Interpol. Her lack of trust towards Ares makes her reluctant to ever rejoin Interpol, but she ensures Erika remains as secure as possible from Invae infestations. Under her watchful eye, Finland will remain one of the safest countries from all manner of bodysnatchers.
Rewards
- 100,000 nuyen
- 25 karma
- 50 CDP
- 1 Street Cred
- +5 Erika reputation
- Optional Gear Reward: Electronics Equipment
- Optional Contact: Pain Girl (C6/L3 Spirit Ally) for 8 RVP or 16 RVP
- For Wychking:
- Can take an Erika SIN (Full Corporate) and membership with the corporate faction; may take Corporate Loyalist along with it. Also a private meeting with Mr. Malmsten.
- Can take SURGE III after direct exposure to the Well of Souls.
- For Kate:
- Rank 3 of A Terrible Fascination (Enemy Elder Gods Cultist and -10 Draco Foundation rep) plus various tomes of Elder Gods lore - Al Azif (Fragmentary, Arabic), De Vermiis Mysteriis (Latin), Unaussprechlichen Kulten (German), Pnakotic Manuscripts (Greek), Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan (Mandarin Chinese), Thaumaturgical Prodigies in the New-England Canaan (English)
- For Heracles:
- History Is Less Certain Than We Are Taught (with a rank in The Enemy), plus the cognetohazardous computer virus code and associated breadcrumb data trails.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Wychking: "When I arrived in Seattle, I was a broken mess, barely held together and hands shaking. I ran the shadows to heal. To recover from a rot gnawing at me from the inside. I've accomplished that goal. I purged the rot and all that it stands for. When I sit here, looking at the sunset and recording this final message, I think about the things I've had to do. Sometimes I think I haven't done enough. Often I think about how little I've achieved, in the grand scheme of things. What does disrupting those Invae really do? But now I have a true weapon. Something they all fear. It's volatile, it's dangerous. So are they. So am I. And now I have something that I love, something that I deeply cherish to fight for again. I'd forgotten the feeling. It is a hundred times more powerful than anger, and though my hands don't strike with abandon anymore I feel more alive. Someone broken walked into that bunker. Someone whole walked back out. The same damage that his so-called gods had caused me was now given unto them tenfold. I don't need it anymore. I'm not afraid to die, but I also don't feel like dying yet. No matter which way it goes, there'll be something peaceful waiting for me. In this world, a cottage, forest and a healthy fatherland. In the next, she's waiting for me, patiently. No matter which way the wind blows, I will win over the Scourge.
And no matter what they try, they can't take that away from me. That alone is a larger triumph than a thousand battles."