The greatest artist beckons the best raw material
| The greatest artist beckons the best raw material | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Les rêves pastels | |||||||||
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Frank Davis Magnum Prince Gigabite Barracuda | |||||||||
Summary
In which shadowy group from the NEEC employs runners to kidnap a seemingly average Joe from a DNA Sample
Background
Following a successful first contact with shadow haven's services, Mme Valérie Dehall comes back to the collective when she finds herself needing a person with a specific DNA sequence. Cursory legwork got her information about how a good candidate was living around the Seattle area, specifically Redmond, and she then settled of gathering a team of shadow-runners to find the person and deliver him to her team.
The Meet
On a Sunday evening/night, our protagonists of the day are getting tips from their respective network of Fixers during their nightly activities. Frank was passing time watching cheesy trids, Magnum repaired his damaged roof and was enrolled into helping the whole community, Gigabyte tried yet again to get into jackpoint (without success but points for effort), Barracuda was trying to set up his lodge (read : magical armory) and finally Prince enjoyed some clubbing. they were interrupted by various vectors but all passing the same message : A job was availible for our runners and if they were interested, a matrix meet was to happen the next morning.
Our protagonists will wake and be in the host at the given hour. They rezz in a pastel-colored world made of primitive shapes arranged as a dome around and over their avatars, and an avatar made of smaller, more intricate shapes and more saturated colors presents itself. She will shake the hands on the Personnas that accept it and seem to appreciate characters that goes to the length of being somewhat polite and personnable.
She gives them the run down of the run : the team has to find a man in Redmond from a single lead : a DNA sample. The team pushes for more information about the person in question and the avatar cannot answer, clearly not knowing anything more about the subject. They then pivot to asking why this is a nescessity to them, what that person has that they need and what they will do with him, to which the avatar responds at first with hesitation, and them when pushed over the ledge, goes into a passionate rant about how this man's DNA make him special, how he might revolutionize a whole domain and how they would give him such a better life than what he has in the Redmond barrens.
After a good amount of deliberation, the team decides to accept and then maybe reevaluate is the circumstances lead to that. They will have a short negotiation resulting on a pay of 16K each, after which they receive coordinates at which they will be given the DNA sample, in addition a commcode to call up the J in case of problems and a location to operate the drop off once the job is complete. on that, the J and character go their separate ways and the runners derezz from the pastel-colored host
The Plan
As soon as the characters derezz, they set up a DNI room and decide to meet at the delivery point for the DNA sample. Once they are on site, a man will get out of a nearby conspicuously classy limousine clothed in a sleeping tiger suit and bearing a pin on it, that the team took a picture of. The man approach the group of runners with a suitcase, give it to them and succinctly turn heels to go back in the limousine. They examine the contents of the suitcase and find a small vial of a transparent liquid in addition to a data-chip containing the textual code of the DNA sample. On that, they make their way to Magnum's trailer yard to further do some legwork.
Magnum's neighbors are curious about the singular group, but leave them to their activities as Gigabyte drops in VR and makes a R6 search with the DNA sample, that will take one hour to yield tangible results. In the meantime, the rest of the team searches for info about the pin they took a photo of on the man in black that gave them the DNA sample, and find really little information about it outside that it apparently was the logo of a small art club in the French university de Fontainebleau long ago (in ~2060) called "les rêves pastels"
Gigabyte's search returns then that the DNA was matched in files that leaked from a local hospital, in a dossier of a man named "Rachid Snell". The dossier mentions a number of sicknesses and disorders, one of which is an admission due to emotional burnout syndrome resulting from excessive BTL use. It is written however that he was let go due to a lack of finances for his recovery program.
The Run
They team decides to follow the hospital's lead, as Frank and Prince made their way in the decrepit hospital in disrepair and tried to ignore the suffering around them when they did a b line to the counter, with the attitude of Redmond's law enforcement plastered over their faces. the clerk asked them what they came for, to which Frank used his experience with law enforcement to con the clerk into releasing the complete reports of the stay of their target. happy to see KE take interest in helping people at the hospital for the first time, the clerk happily does so and makes some small talk during it.
The complete file mentionned that he was in fact initially dumped unceremoniously in front of the hospital by workers from a BTL parlour a few blocks over, apparently he took too much BTLs to be safe and just lost conscience there and then. This was promising as the team decided to make their way there, knowing full well that the site is protected by the Cutters. Frank got to the counter and had a spirited argument with the cashier that convinced her to release this guy's info but she was fearing for the cutter's retaliation to her and her family if they were to figure it out.
Through a DNI chat however, they managed to convince her to share a number of files that gave this man's usual rhythm and routine. they learnt like that that their target was at that very moment enjoying his time with a BTL slotted in in this very place. Very satisfied with the data he gathered, Frank moved away and the team decided to retreat to the parking lot and wait for Rachid to come back to his car and then capture him. Over an hour later, the team saw Rachid being thrown out of the building by the back door and trying to get to his car, an arduous task that will get interrupted by the team as they will embark him in their own vehicle profiting from the state he was in, and further strangling him to keep him unconscious and not a problem.
Aftermath
The team waited for Rachid to perk up again, it took a good time and as soon as Rachid was conscious enough to understand the situation he was in, he screamed for dear life, before the team wedged a sock in his mouth to shut him up. Frank then act intimidating with him, pushing him to spill the beans exceptionally quick... the beans being very underwhelming as the man actually did not know anything about anything, only that he had a terrible problem with BTL addiction that got significantly worse with the sudden death of his son half a year ago.
The team, clearly feeling bad about the guy, gave him the run down of the opportunity he had and left him to choose : stay in Redmond in your current routine, likely dying soon depressed and miserable, or try your chance with a bunch of strangers promising you a grandiose future but likely lying about it. Rachid started neutral, but was swayed by the arguments favoring taking a chance, and as such he went for the option to go with the run.
The group acquiesce and invites the guy to eat something before handing him over, which they do and enjoy a Taco Temple last meal before dropping off Rachid to the same man in black as earlier in the day. The guard will examine Rachid and scowl when seeing minor augmentations, but he nevertheless hands over the promised payment of 16K each in creditube form before going on his way.
Rewards
- 16 K nuyen or 32 K in european avant guard art [see lower] (8 RVP)
- 4 Karma (4 RVP)
- 2 CDP
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Frank Davis
Magnum seems like he's got the right instincts...he and I heard the same thing as we got started: kidnap some shmuck for a corp or org that want him for something shady. 'Cause of that, we did a lot of extra digging. What is this French artsy group? Why do they want people? Does this seem like a legitimate offer?
I don't know that we helped this poor guy out, but I do know that he had nothin' left. His kid passed on a while back, and he's been using every beetle and what not since then. He's pretty wrecked. I don't want to give a person false hope, but sometimes there's only false hope left. I gave Rachid my number to let me know he's safe. I haven't heard anything yet, and it's been almost a week. I keep checkin' my messages and missed calls. If I don't hear soon, I'm gonna start diggin'. He deserves that much.
Prince
It was as I practiced. Lie, impersonate, snipe. We were tasked to kidnap a man, and with surgical precision we struck, hacking info, lying to the hospital as two 'cops' before finally getting our mark outside of a BTL Den. Did we do the right thing? Ought one potentially sacrifice someone for the secrets of their blood to benefit the masses? I've seen stories of a man who gave his blood countless times to save babies, but he did that of his own free will. Is it then right to capture said man if he disagreed and would prefer the babies to die? Did we improve his life by getting him off the BTLs and giving a singular purpose of donating his genes to the betterment of metahumanity? Or is he in some vat his DNA harvested for more nightmares that will stop me from sleeping?
European avant guard art examples
Painting-like pieces flat or low relief decorations are still one of the most used mediums, they however have expanded to sometimes include other supports such as astrally active materials, or matricially augmented presentations An example as to what you might have seen for about 10 000 nuyens would be a piece made by a now famous italian post modern artist. It features two colors strikingly at odds with each other in contact at the center of it. a crimson red takes up the top of the painting, seemingly "dripping" on the remarkably dull grey taking up the rest. Over time, the colors change in importance to represent the tendency towards chaos or order of the local background count, the red taking as much space as the astral represents. When looking at the painting with astral perception, it lights up with trails appearing in patterns, over the red part are featured chaotic trails when over the rest of the painting, very symmetrical and procedural patterns are found. At the meeting of the colours the trails often meet and provokes astral sparks. this painting needs to be maintained every month with a lotion availible in most talismonger shops to vivify it's effect
Traditionnal sculptures/Drones Most of the appeal of those is in custom made sculptures, everyone can buy a piece made by a machine but having a known artist actually be commissioned help give your piece an artistic flair that simply wouldn't be there otherwise. Those pieces are sometimes made with drone parts or are drones altogether. An example would be a Doberman drone mostly sculpted out of a porous stone with golden highlights and in which complex mechanical processes were used to integrate the servos nescessary for it's operation. Part of it's appeal is that the Steampunk-styled mechanisms are actually functionnal, necessitating a level of cooperation between the engineer and the artisan very seldom archieved.
Implants/Chimera(?) genetreatments The "Transhumanist" scene of Paris might be vapid and surface level in some parts, but the movement definitely have a solid core. Those augmentations have to be custom made, but artistic presets exist. an example is the Meta-Meta-Human controversial treatment, a heavy procedure perfected by a politically engaged artist, providing after about a year of adjustments Metahuman traits from the five most represented "races". the average human subject will grow tusks as well as fur/callous skin at some places. Horns also appear as their eyes take on an almond shape and their body gains in sturdiness what it loses in size. it is also not uncommon for awakened subjects to manifest very subtle traits of their mentor spirit if any.
CW : body horror
Events A specific subcategory of art that encompass many practices are the performance arts and everything associated. Such representations are often once-in-a-lifetime events that actually happen only if the funding goal is ever reached, and can be very borderline, or straight up illegal. CW body horror? An example is, a Polish artist that was remarked by the young age at which he won it's awards is planning to do a private representation where it's patrons will get to see him, in person, being skinned alive in an operation room in full view and with minimum anaesthesia, as he replaces his skin with a custom nanite-based transparent alt skin. The surgeon will be himself with the help of autosofts, and his control rig