The Curious Ascension of Epsilon Grey
| The Curious Ascension of Epsilon Grey | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Factions Involved | |||||||||
|
ShadowHaven The Grey | Wuxing but not really | ||||||||
|
Geodesic Hierophant Invictus Ubuntu Colcannon | Template:Mr. Zhang | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None | |||||||||
| The initial run date for this run is off because we lost the thread on he great thread lossening of 7/30/2025 so I just put in finishing date and told the team to use the AAR as the run link. | |||||||||
Summary
Vic brings our team a "straightforward" extraction that takes them on an international bullet train to weirdsville as they end up a summit of increasingly bizarre parties, and ultimately lead to betray their client with an offer they can't refuse.
Background
Marcy Zhang, aka Episilom Grey was an early admission prodigy to MIT&T, who took a Senior trip with her father and met Pierre Duboise and Madalyn Zaropfsky of the Realism church. She saw a chance to ascend out of a boring life strapped to the Wuxing hierarchy and out of the tradition and jumped on it. Her father had other ideas, contracting Vic to hire a running team to retrieve her,but ultimately not trusting the team and forcing their hand to a resolution that did not end well for him.
The Meet
Vic meets the team at Lakewood Shezan in Tacoma and lays out the basics, ultimately convincing them to take the job at rate and stonewalling most advanced measures.
He does give the team their initial 20K operator fund and informs them that's all he's got from the client so far.
The team stays and a couple of them eat lightly before they decide to search out the target using spirits and a a magical approach and realize she is likely not in the Seattle Metroplex that night.
The Plan
The team decides to brace her Boyfriend and go from there.
The Run
The team tracked down her boyfriend and stuck out his stuffer shack job until he left. Grabbing him and bracing him to find out that she was no longer his GF, and now was seeing Gamma Grey, local chapter leader of spirit cult/gang "The Grey" and that she had gone to San Fransisco to seek "ascension" under Dr. Grey's scalpel.
The team opted to hop on the bullet train to San Fransisco at this point and attempt to stop the surgery from happening, lest he client not want his kid back turned into an alien freak. On the way out of the town Geodesic made a fly spy tail and traced it back to the Wuxing warehouse the father worked at. Running matrix searches as they head to San Fransisco.
It did not take long for them to find themselves heading into the heart of they Grey's 8 blocks of the Mission District in San Fransisco, with half the team taking up position across from a party and Ubuntu and Invictus walking straight to the door and schmoozing their way into the party.
The party itself was not at all what was expected. The Grey's "alien ship" interior made for an ineteresting backdrop and Epsilom's ascension was performed in front of a large crowd of assembled Grey, Psions and members of the Realism church. All of them tied together by the efforts of Epsilon.
Invictus identifies gamma and gets an opportunity to chat, after the ascension at hand. EPisolon gets her surgery and Doc Grey retreats from the public eye, allowing the threee factions to mingle where he can keep eyes on.
The team gets made on the opposite roof and invited to the party. Where they do manage to keep from their unique traits and attitudes from blowing the job for 45 minutes, and watch the ascension of Epsiolon, as well as the ascension of The Grey to an official sect of the Realism faith, and increasingly popular among the Psionics. In 10 more years, Gamma notes, Epsilon might be in charge of this entire growing conglomerate.
After she makes her rounds, the group meets Epsilon herself, who agrees to come with them but not until the next day when they can talk properly, and lets Gamma go home with his crew ahead of her. In the morning after a wave of glad-handing they received a counter offer from Epsilon, who bet them her dad was going to screw it up anyway. Coming clean with Vic the team did let him know they were considering the double cross, and he tacitly said let him gather some data. It was at this point that Colcannon noticed a tail car down the block and informed the team, leaving Geodesic to destroy it with a data spike as the team bolted for the nearby local BART station loaded up with fresh Spirits and Sprites.
At the plaza to board the bullet train the team picked up a triad extraction team who Colcannon dipped back to intimidate away, getting made on camera with energy aura in the bus station creation a row and getting the attention of some San Francisco authorities but ultimately was able to give them the slip and get on the tran.
The train conductors and ticket takers knew there was a problem on board but the team intimdated them into checking tickets and being on their way.
On the far end of the stop, Invitcus feels immediately pulling into the train station that background count is off, way off. Wuxing- 4 off and the team busts into action. Hierophant gauging the local manasphere and figuring out the blanket effect was likely coming from corners. Geodesic intunes from the RCC that the cleanup drones are seeing dozens of bad results from cones that should not be in the station and the spirit, with aid from Invictu's water spirt, begin knocking over the displays disrupting the Wuxing Fung Shue attack as the ground tries to make it out nonchalantly from the train.
The team realizes quickly the station is a setup, and the "employees" in the station that is now shut down for emergency maintanance is a funnel into the arms of a few operatives. The team plays it cool and with some mind magic on Invictus part, a little rough action and a little telekenetic help from their new J, the team makes it out into the seattle afternoon.
An unfortunate series of reunions happens outside, as Vic meets the team after having been roughed up by Zhang, and Mae Zhang arrives on sight, infuriated by her husbands meddling and ham handed contacts. In the end, Epsilon is disowned, and given a month before her corporate SIN is revoked, and she leaves defiantly, making good on her promises to pay the team out.
Aftermath
The Grey continue to grow in number and capacity, sliding into a semi-legitimate religions and claiming new allies among the Psionic College courtesy of Epsilon, a new rising star in the gang's leadership.
Epsilon herself is locked into the strange future of tightrope walking multiple Psionic tradition as a Chaos mage herself.
The players get a bruised repution, but Vic steps up in a big way to help cover and smooth it out, despite what a low level Wuxing exec may have to say behind closed doors.
Rewards
8.5 hours 1.4 Multiplier on 17 RVP= 24 RVP.
24000 Nuyen (12 RVP) (Can be taken as gear rewards for Lifestyle, Foci up to 18F, Reagents, Drugs.) 5 Karma (5 RVP) Vic (3/2 Freelance J) 4 RVP (Owes 2 Chips if Selected.) Or Gamma Gey (2/2 Gang Boss) 3 RVP and an additional 2000k/Gear Reward(1 RVP). 6 CDP (2 RVP) 1 Street Cred (1 RVP) Invictus may purchase Closer at Chargen Rate. (I think that's 3?)
+2 Reputation The Grey +1 Reputation Psionic College -10 Reputation Colcannon- San Francisco Transit Authority/SFPD (Will be stopped and detailed for questioning on a possible magic use in public violation. )
Notoriety 1 Everyone: Client Betrayal- Mr. Zhang talks drek. (Would have been worse, Vic stepped on him pretty hard so it's limited to public circles and his friends not big wuxing negative rep, fyi. ) Notoriety 1: Invictus (Mind Magic)
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
"Well that was... a thing. Not sure which was stranger, the cult of aliens, the Realies, the Wuxing folks, or the fact that this ultimately turned into a really fraggin' epic case of Mommy/Daddy issues. Therapy, therapy for all you bitches." - Invictus
Geodesic - "Mmm. I still feel uncomfortable. Watching her forsake her family. For these... gangers. Cultists. Fragging alien LARPers. But, uh... We did solve it. Without too much aggression? I guess I was wrong. Maybe I just... never got the opportunity. To choose. Whether I wanted to be bound. I still don't.
...Am I getting more violent? I can't tell."