Swerving and Steering
| Swerving and Steering | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
|
ShadowHaven The 162s Fiendest | Unknown | ||||||||
| Swerve | |||||||||
Summary
Mysterious attacks are made on two 162s hideouts. Swerve investigates, finding a mysterious new weapon deployed and follows the trail. An ultimate answer isn't found.
Background
Attacks were made on two 162s safehouses, the cause of death unknown. Seemingly, they just died. Worried about this obviously, the gang started looking into it. Fiendest decided to call Swerve and ask her for help with the problem.
The Meet
Swerve picked up the phone, getting the initial pitch from Fiendest. Mid call though, the ghoul had to mute herself for a moment. Coming back, she gave an update. The cause of death had been figured out. FAB III.
A bacterial swarm, floating through the air, impossible to see except on the astral, it attaches to magical entities and leeches the magic and life from them. A silent killer of infected, among other things. Swerve, both concerned and wanting to help a friend, quickly agreed to help. This would likely affect all of them.
Fiendest gave the locations of the two safehouses that got hit. One was in Redmond, and the other at the very northern tip of Everett, near the Salish-Shidhe border. Not knowing much more, she wanted Swerve to investigate and find out what she could about what happened.
Grabbing her armor, weapons, and other supplies, she decided to head out to the Redmond site to see what she could find.
The Hideout
Swerve approached the building, the night quiet and the building utterly silent. Peering through the windows, she only saw an empty bar. Looking around, she found two doors, one in an alley, but both were locked. She saw no FAB around the exterior, her nervous attempts to discover certain death hopefully effective. Still, that left the problem of what was inside. Unable to assense through windows, she had know way of knowing how safe the inside would be. Summoning a spirit to give her support, she stepped into the street, a good distance away from the windows and fired her shotgun at them, shattering one and sending a boom through the area.
As gas of some sort immediately started to flow outwards, invisible to the eye but occluding astral sight. Curiously, it seemed, dead? Lifeless perhaps? It liked the glow of a living thing, of how FAB should appear. That still didn't make Swerve exactly feel safe though. Waiting for it to dissipate at least a little bit, she hesitantly approached, ready to bolt away at first sign of pain.
As she inched her way inward, nothing happened. She was wearing chemsealed armor, but that would do nothing against true FAB. Either this gas required physical contact, or it was safe for her. Either way, she seemed free to enter. Slowly she walked in the building, half blind, a slightly disorienting experience, but ultimately harmless. Inside she found a relatively empty bar, nothing but a few cups of "meat" slurry sitting around that the prior occupants seemed to have been enjoying when they died. Still there were other parts of the building, this only one part of the whole, and they needed to be investigated.
Calling out to her spirit, which she had left farther away in a safe position, she told them that they were free to enter if they wished, but warned them about the strange gas. Swerve didn't want to force them to follow her, as well, she was standing in what seemed to be the residue of a strange weapon. The spirit though considered things and decided to follow her anyway, confident enough that it'd be alright.
The spirit stepped into the gas and promptly burned and melted, like she was submerged in acid, a horrific experience both to see and experience. The spirit dissipated, either disrupted or destroyed. Swerve, watching in shock, had her fear rocket back to maximum levels, mixed also with guilt this time. Swerve immediately ran outside, looking herself over to see if any of the gas stuck to her.
As moments passed and she didn't melt, she calmed slightly, though her fear still persisted. Shakily, she summoned another spirit, having them wait on the street to keep watch. Swerve steeled her will and entered the death-gas again, needing to learn something, to get some value out of this.
Walking back into the deserted hideout, she started heading through rooms, looking for things of value. Eventually, she saw a small container full of what almost seemed like propane containers. Marked as coming from Berlin, one had a puncture in it, the vessel empty. Suspicious.
As she started to look into this more, she received an alert from her spirit. The noise she had made with the shotgun had drawn some troll gang members over and they were about to enter the building. Swerve quickly headed out a side door and looped around, seeing three trolls standing outside of the entrance. Debating what to do, she decided on just walking into the open and saying Hi.
The Run
Swerve tries to talk things out and the trolls just shoo her away. Later on, she gets her way by maneuvering around the troll gangers and gets Fiendest the intel as well as hitting up Amelie DuPont to inform her of this. The materials get secured bit by bit, mostly by Swerve getting a single canister to one of her contacts for analysis.
The issue, really, is that the deaths trend north. She gets a trail of another 162s outpost way up in Everett and spots that one of the victims of this weapon is missing. She conjures a spirit to search him and this leads him way up across borders. Swerve goes looking and ends up in loup-garou territory. The Direnetics gang. She asks to meet Sanguine Lupe and asks about this weapon. He doesn't have much information, but he does mention that the person wasn't around last he checked. He'll offer some information though, on the condition that he gets something out of it: a shipment of deltaware. Swerve has some ideas on who to ask and contacts Lamashtu to see if the drake can handle something with Saeder-Krupp. The negotiations are a little tough, but Swerve manages to find a middle ground.
With this, Sanguine Lupe takes a look at the findings and eventually recovers at least the head of the missing ghoul, handing it over to Swerve who brings it back as the end of the trail. No further outbreaks of the bioweapon are found, which is at least a small relief.
Aftermath
Swerve didn't find the source of the weapon, but it appears to be a form of FAB that really likes dual-natured creatures almost explicitly. Amelie is disturbed by this. For now, it's contained and destroyed by the Infected, but who knows if there's more of it somewhere?
Rewards
- 1 Lamashtu Loyalty
- 3 Karma
- 2 CDP
- 1 Saeder-Krupp Reputation
- 1 162s Reputation
- Initiation Discount