Shadowrun 2070 B
Having neatly bypassed the vast bulk of the last adventure, Astronauta Peligroso and his gringo allies wait for the other boot to drop. If whatever is on the disk is worthy of multiple shadowrunning teams, death threats, and multilevel encryption, it seems certain that there will be ramifications. Especially since Oracle copied everything on the disk so he can decrypt it later. On the other hand, the pay for the job, and the bonus selling backdoor entry to Nabo's phone, is enough to tide us all over for another month (the other big difference between this campaign and the 2050 one is the GM isn't making the same mistake with huge paychecks - we really will be living hand-to-mouth). But we do check how that other team react when they learn how they were duped - they've left town in a hurry. This is somewhat worrying - evidently our actions have annoyed somebody dangerous. But hey, at least we have good music to listen to while we wait. The Carrion reference on the disc might refer to a major recording studio in Seattle. They were very big in the 40s. And the artist Jet Black and Loomis' dad were in one of the top ten bands ever to come out of the city (weldun suggested The Butterfly Effect - Begins Here as the kind of thing on the disc, and the GM agreed.
Supper at the Ork with the Gold Tooth Tavern, named after a particularly recalcitrant poster in the front window. They do a good egg-and-spam flavoured soy.
Ripper K: *sings* Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, SPAAAAM wonderful spam
Ocelot gets a call - we've got another job lined up! An urgent rescue of another team who are under siege a few blocks away.
GM: It's six minutes away
Oracle: Fuck it, I'm driving.
Ripper K: This is Seattle 2070 traffic, it's probably six minutes on foot too.
Oracle: You're assuming I'm staying on the roads.
GM: You roll up to the co-ordinates.
Ripper K: nooo, we roll up to the corner of the block and cautiously look around.
But the abandoned residential area is deserted. There WAS a battle here, judging by the totalled vehicles and storefront. Perhaps not surprising - any competent shadowrun team could trash a neighbourhood in 60 seconds. Or, as Boots observes, 6. But weirdly - the inside of the vehicle and the actual store are pristine. Not a drop of blood to be seen.
Ripper K: This is weird
Astronauta: I want out.
But before we leave the obviously unnatural scene, the luchadore gets a hissed message from a ghostly figure asking us to wait. The ghost soon realises that it's dead and freaks out.
Ghost: I'm sorry, this is my first time being dead.
Apparently the ghost wants us to finish the job his team just got killed doing. Find a missing woman. Although most of the information they've found so far is still inside their late decker's head.
Ripper K: I'm not feeling a very great motivation here.
The ghost has about 6 hours before he disperses.
Ocelot: Time enough for revenge.
Astronauta: 'Let's see how many spirits I can summon in 6 hours' ' I really hated that guy - time to fuck him up'
Astronauta: Of course we have to help him! He asked for help!
Ripper K: Ah, of course. The Luchadore Code.
At least we have a few clues, including the clean-up team that so rapidly cleansed the site of evidence and bodies - the shadow company Discrete Disposal. Hopefully we can find the body of the dead team's hacker, and get the pay data they had stolen out of her cranial circuits, before the bodies get sold to the organleggers or something. The front for the 'waste disposal' company is a nearly featureless concrete cube out in one of the industrial parks. That complicates things, as does the horrible psychic atmosphere of the place.
Ripper K: So, do they have anything set up for corpse disposal on the premises? A pig pen, or giant woodchipper?
Van's character Giant Dad has been replaced by a more rounded Boots, a son of Labrat, who used to be the face for the Ork Underground to keep the underground safe and the inhabitants from killing each other.
Oracle OoC: By 2070 the Ork Underground is part of the Seattle tourist scene.
Ocelot: So, good job!
Astronauta: And then you got bored and took up shadowrunning.
Boots, Ocelot and Ripper head in to have a polite chat with a building full of 'clean-up guys', while the other get ready to hotwire one of their disposal trucks and ram the door. Their director of operations - Mr Black -seems a bit suspicious that we're there for an inspection. Perhaps because of the late hour, but probably because he's already paid off everybody involved. Oracle's empathy software, monitoring the camera feeds from our gear, notes that the director isn't sweating. Or breathing. He doesn't have a pulse, either.
Oracle: Percentage chance Zombie, percentage chance Xombie, percentage chance Shadim …
Ocelot : Percentage chance Fuck If I Know
Back we do talk our into an inspection tour, while Astronauta and Oracle pour over the feeds looking for holes in their security. Which is rather formidable, at least on the physical plane. The door to the basement incinerators, for example, is massively over-engineered, and guarded. And the guard alarmingly is happy about letting us in to look around....
Ripper K: I brace myself for the sudden and inevitable betrayal.
Ripper K: Bit dark in here, isn't it?
Mr Black: I'm afraid my biomass-processing employees have issues with bright lighting
Ripper K: And that doesn't sound ominous at ALL.
What Mr Black doesn't know is that we can see the piles of body parts and feasting ghouls perfectly well. And our associates outside are poised to strike the moment the door gets slammed behind us.
Ripper K OoC: Have you finished hotwiring the truck?
Astronauta OoC: Why? I'm just going to walk in.
Boots OoC: That's probably equivalent to driving a truck through the wall.
And if Astronauta Peligroso IS the star of this luchadore flick, then waiting until his allies are in trouble and then bursting in through the door is entirely in character. Just wait until he starts bursting in through skylights!
Mr Black is immune to bullets, but happily is not immune to being punched in the throat by Ripper.
GM: He was standing there laughing off the gunfire, and then gets sucker-punched by the orca. If he was a mundane, you probably would have punched his head clean off.
Ripper is reluctant to punch the ghouls however - it's common knowledge ghoul bites spread HMHV virus.
Ripper K: I don't want to punch one in the face and then have to pick his teeth out of my knuckles.
Oracle sends in his drones, running the Thunderrun script - i.e. Shoot everything that isn't a friendly, then escort the friendlies out again. Boots and Oracle back up and shoot as many ghouls as they can, until Oracle's drones can get here to open the door.
Oracle: *facepalm* It's now painfully obvious where most of my data comes from - one of the bodies in your Heads Up Display lights up with a Miracle Shooter objective marker.
Oracle throws up inside his own helmet when he gets a RL look at the pile of half-eaten human remains. The rest of us are pretty green too. But at least we can find the bodies we're after. Or the heads at least. The amulet we're after is in here too, but searching for it is a exercise in horror. Sadly, Seattle is one of the few cities that DOESN'T have a standing bounty on ghouls. And Mr Black ghosted out while we were preoccupied. Boots walks up to the reception desk, stinking of blood and death, where the receptionist is cowering. She was just lucky the drones when in through the hole Astronauta made, and thus she didn't fall victim to the Thunderrun script.
Boots: I find this establishment unacceptable. You might want to start sending your resume around.
Oracle is rather alarmed to learn that the data in the cranial circuitry pertains to Project Icarus, a medical program with a 30% success rate - and 70% fatality rate. He debates whether or not to tell the others.
Oracle: If there were any secondary files I'd be burning them right now!
Oracle: How well do I know you guys? Do any of you play Miracle Shooter? Because I got banned for bringing Tac-net ware to matches.
Oracle is most concerned because he was a designer baby that came from the same line of research - hence all his gibbering as he went through the files. If somebody figures out he's involved in this job, they might come after HIM. The invoice for over a thousand body bags, and two genetic stabilisers, is also worthy of incoherent comment. Especially since the address attached is a high school closed in the 40s. It's also suggestive that the woman we're tracking down is pregnant, and both she and her husband, the original client, are magically active. Magical Mr. Johnsons?
Boots: They have magical johnsons.
The old school doesn't have any of the power supply a secret lab might need. Oracle's drones search for heat plumes - and there's a big one coming out from one of the roof vents.
Oracle: If you don't mind I'll stay in the van.
Boots: Just send in your drones Betty and Veronica
Oracle: What?
Boots: Your drones, Minnie and May
Oracle: I've told you before - Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Boots: Yeah, that's right - Dick and Tracey.
We kick in the door and a promptly overwhelmed by a sensation of Imminent Doom. The scent of unpleasant chemicals, IV fluids, and discarded mediware doesn't help.
Boots: Hey Oracle... just thought I should give you the heads up - I'm on the edge of losing my shit here.
Oracle: Yeah, I can tell from your biomonitors.
We turn to find a young elf girl with long black hair hanging over her face.
Boots: WeHaveALuchadoreYourArgumentIsInvalid!!!!!! Nacho boy, punch her through a wall!
Now most of us are overwhelmed by a desire to protect her. This is probably a Very Bad Sign. Ocelot sprays the room with shotgun taser pellets.
Ripper K: The fuck??
Boots: Ocelot, Jesus!
Oracle: Jesus Chr- wait... what was I thinking about?
Oracle, now the girl is well and truly unconscious, is now rather alarmed that the girl is some kind of force-aged clone of the foetus, or something, is relieved to see no resemblance to the parents.
Ocelot: That WOULD have been difficult to explain...
Boots wants to drop the young girl off at Greenlight's home - 'Aunty Sam's place'. The roomful of drugged expectant mothers is considerably more distressing, especially with the evidence of experimental surgery, and wouldn't fit in Aunty Sam's flat, either. Oracle refills his helmet.
Oracle: I didn't think I had any more to give! *dry-heaving noises over the TacNet.*
Ripper K: So, do we tell the police about this????
Even more fucked up, the set-up is designed to turn magically inclined children into Toxic Shamans, of the kind patronised by toxic spirits like Mr Black. Shamans like the invisible one in the ward, who hits us with a Panic spell, steps on a test tube, and gets a positive hail of bullets for his pains. A pity he's just a kid too, but since he's invisible, how could we tell? Dozens of women pregnant with toxic mages, and possessed children, is WAY beyond our pay grade. Boots calls a relative at the Draco Foundation.
Boots: Hi Uncle Inkubus, it's your favourite nephew.
Inkubus: Be more specific.
Oracle calls his own fixer, the one that called in the rescue.
Oracle: We found her. She's hooked up to a Valkyrie unit.
Ulysses: What the fuck did they do to her?
Oracle: I know, you don't want to know, and the Johnson needs to know.
Oracle warms up one of his custom drones - a Knight Errant high speed pursuit drone that he's turned into a one-man ambulance. That still has a tire-damage strip ejector. Knight Errant, who recently took over the Seattle Police contract from Lone Star, will be quite pleased to clear up all these missing persons cases, and hopefully forward any other rewards our way. The reward is substantial - and well-deserved. For one thing if we hadn't been very lucky in which party members were where, half of us could have been killed at four different places in the mission. For example, Oracle and Boots wouldn't have got out alive from the ghoul room, if Ripper hadn't been a Physical Adept. But what if Black comes back?
Boots: If he keeps starting shit I'll call Uncle Inkubus and we'll summon the ultimate Spirit of Man - Captain Planet.
Ocelot: But we'd need to summon five lesser spirits first.
Boots: Wind! Water! Chrome!
Supper at the Ork with the Gold Tooth Tavern, named after a particularly recalcitrant poster in the front window. They do a good egg-and-spam flavoured soy.
Ripper K: *sings* Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, SPAAAAM wonderful spam
Ocelot gets a call - we've got another job lined up! An urgent rescue of another team who are under siege a few blocks away.
GM: It's six minutes away
Oracle: Fuck it, I'm driving.
Ripper K: This is Seattle 2070 traffic, it's probably six minutes on foot too.
Oracle: You're assuming I'm staying on the roads.
GM: You roll up to the co-ordinates.
Ripper K: nooo, we roll up to the corner of the block and cautiously look around.
But the abandoned residential area is deserted. There WAS a battle here, judging by the totalled vehicles and storefront. Perhaps not surprising - any competent shadowrun team could trash a neighbourhood in 60 seconds. Or, as Boots observes, 6. But weirdly - the inside of the vehicle and the actual store are pristine. Not a drop of blood to be seen.
Ripper K: This is weird
Astronauta: I want out.
But before we leave the obviously unnatural scene, the luchadore gets a hissed message from a ghostly figure asking us to wait. The ghost soon realises that it's dead and freaks out.
Ghost: I'm sorry, this is my first time being dead.
Apparently the ghost wants us to finish the job his team just got killed doing. Find a missing woman. Although most of the information they've found so far is still inside their late decker's head.
Ripper K: I'm not feeling a very great motivation here.
The ghost has about 6 hours before he disperses.
Ocelot: Time enough for revenge.
Astronauta: 'Let's see how many spirits I can summon in 6 hours' ' I really hated that guy - time to fuck him up'
Astronauta: Of course we have to help him! He asked for help!
Ripper K: Ah, of course. The Luchadore Code.
At least we have a few clues, including the clean-up team that so rapidly cleansed the site of evidence and bodies - the shadow company Discrete Disposal. Hopefully we can find the body of the dead team's hacker, and get the pay data they had stolen out of her cranial circuits, before the bodies get sold to the organleggers or something. The front for the 'waste disposal' company is a nearly featureless concrete cube out in one of the industrial parks. That complicates things, as does the horrible psychic atmosphere of the place.
Ripper K: So, do they have anything set up for corpse disposal on the premises? A pig pen, or giant woodchipper?
Van's character Giant Dad has been replaced by a more rounded Boots, a son of Labrat, who used to be the face for the Ork Underground to keep the underground safe and the inhabitants from killing each other.
Oracle OoC: By 2070 the Ork Underground is part of the Seattle tourist scene.
Ocelot: So, good job!
Astronauta: And then you got bored and took up shadowrunning.
Boots, Ocelot and Ripper head in to have a polite chat with a building full of 'clean-up guys', while the other get ready to hotwire one of their disposal trucks and ram the door. Their director of operations - Mr Black -seems a bit suspicious that we're there for an inspection. Perhaps because of the late hour, but probably because he's already paid off everybody involved. Oracle's empathy software, monitoring the camera feeds from our gear, notes that the director isn't sweating. Or breathing. He doesn't have a pulse, either.
Oracle: Percentage chance Zombie, percentage chance Xombie, percentage chance Shadim …
Ocelot : Percentage chance Fuck If I Know
Back we do talk our into an inspection tour, while Astronauta and Oracle pour over the feeds looking for holes in their security. Which is rather formidable, at least on the physical plane. The door to the basement incinerators, for example, is massively over-engineered, and guarded. And the guard alarmingly is happy about letting us in to look around....
Ripper K: I brace myself for the sudden and inevitable betrayal.
Ripper K: Bit dark in here, isn't it?
Mr Black: I'm afraid my biomass-processing employees have issues with bright lighting
Ripper K: And that doesn't sound ominous at ALL.
What Mr Black doesn't know is that we can see the piles of body parts and feasting ghouls perfectly well. And our associates outside are poised to strike the moment the door gets slammed behind us.
Ripper K OoC: Have you finished hotwiring the truck?
Astronauta OoC: Why? I'm just going to walk in.
Boots OoC: That's probably equivalent to driving a truck through the wall.
And if Astronauta Peligroso IS the star of this luchadore flick, then waiting until his allies are in trouble and then bursting in through the door is entirely in character. Just wait until he starts bursting in through skylights!
Mr Black is immune to bullets, but happily is not immune to being punched in the throat by Ripper.
GM: He was standing there laughing off the gunfire, and then gets sucker-punched by the orca. If he was a mundane, you probably would have punched his head clean off.
Ripper is reluctant to punch the ghouls however - it's common knowledge ghoul bites spread HMHV virus.
Ripper K: I don't want to punch one in the face and then have to pick his teeth out of my knuckles.
Oracle sends in his drones, running the Thunderrun script - i.e. Shoot everything that isn't a friendly, then escort the friendlies out again. Boots and Oracle back up and shoot as many ghouls as they can, until Oracle's drones can get here to open the door.
Oracle: *facepalm* It's now painfully obvious where most of my data comes from - one of the bodies in your Heads Up Display lights up with a Miracle Shooter objective marker.
Oracle throws up inside his own helmet when he gets a RL look at the pile of half-eaten human remains. The rest of us are pretty green too. But at least we can find the bodies we're after. Or the heads at least. The amulet we're after is in here too, but searching for it is a exercise in horror. Sadly, Seattle is one of the few cities that DOESN'T have a standing bounty on ghouls. And Mr Black ghosted out while we were preoccupied. Boots walks up to the reception desk, stinking of blood and death, where the receptionist is cowering. She was just lucky the drones when in through the hole Astronauta made, and thus she didn't fall victim to the Thunderrun script.
Boots: I find this establishment unacceptable. You might want to start sending your resume around.
Oracle is rather alarmed to learn that the data in the cranial circuitry pertains to Project Icarus, a medical program with a 30% success rate - and 70% fatality rate. He debates whether or not to tell the others.
Oracle: If there were any secondary files I'd be burning them right now!
Oracle: How well do I know you guys? Do any of you play Miracle Shooter? Because I got banned for bringing Tac-net ware to matches.
Oracle is most concerned because he was a designer baby that came from the same line of research - hence all his gibbering as he went through the files. If somebody figures out he's involved in this job, they might come after HIM. The invoice for over a thousand body bags, and two genetic stabilisers, is also worthy of incoherent comment. Especially since the address attached is a high school closed in the 40s. It's also suggestive that the woman we're tracking down is pregnant, and both she and her husband, the original client, are magically active. Magical Mr. Johnsons?
Boots: They have magical johnsons.
The old school doesn't have any of the power supply a secret lab might need. Oracle's drones search for heat plumes - and there's a big one coming out from one of the roof vents.
Oracle: If you don't mind I'll stay in the van.
Boots: Just send in your drones Betty and Veronica
Oracle: What?
Boots: Your drones, Minnie and May
Oracle: I've told you before - Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Boots: Yeah, that's right - Dick and Tracey.
We kick in the door and a promptly overwhelmed by a sensation of Imminent Doom. The scent of unpleasant chemicals, IV fluids, and discarded mediware doesn't help.
Boots: Hey Oracle... just thought I should give you the heads up - I'm on the edge of losing my shit here.
Oracle: Yeah, I can tell from your biomonitors.
We turn to find a young elf girl with long black hair hanging over her face.
Boots: WeHaveALuchadoreYourArgumentIsInvalid!!!!!! Nacho boy, punch her through a wall!
Now most of us are overwhelmed by a desire to protect her. This is probably a Very Bad Sign. Ocelot sprays the room with shotgun taser pellets.
Ripper K: The fuck??
Boots: Ocelot, Jesus!
Oracle: Jesus Chr- wait... what was I thinking about?
Oracle, now the girl is well and truly unconscious, is now rather alarmed that the girl is some kind of force-aged clone of the foetus, or something, is relieved to see no resemblance to the parents.
Ocelot: That WOULD have been difficult to explain...
Boots wants to drop the young girl off at Greenlight's home - 'Aunty Sam's place'. The roomful of drugged expectant mothers is considerably more distressing, especially with the evidence of experimental surgery, and wouldn't fit in Aunty Sam's flat, either. Oracle refills his helmet.
Oracle: I didn't think I had any more to give! *dry-heaving noises over the TacNet.*
Ripper K: So, do we tell the police about this????
Even more fucked up, the set-up is designed to turn magically inclined children into Toxic Shamans, of the kind patronised by toxic spirits like Mr Black. Shamans like the invisible one in the ward, who hits us with a Panic spell, steps on a test tube, and gets a positive hail of bullets for his pains. A pity he's just a kid too, but since he's invisible, how could we tell? Dozens of women pregnant with toxic mages, and possessed children, is WAY beyond our pay grade. Boots calls a relative at the Draco Foundation.
Boots: Hi Uncle Inkubus, it's your favourite nephew.
Inkubus: Be more specific.
Oracle calls his own fixer, the one that called in the rescue.
Oracle: We found her. She's hooked up to a Valkyrie unit.
Ulysses: What the fuck did they do to her?
Oracle: I know, you don't want to know, and the Johnson needs to know.
Oracle warms up one of his custom drones - a Knight Errant high speed pursuit drone that he's turned into a one-man ambulance. That still has a tire-damage strip ejector. Knight Errant, who recently took over the Seattle Police contract from Lone Star, will be quite pleased to clear up all these missing persons cases, and hopefully forward any other rewards our way. The reward is substantial - and well-deserved. For one thing if we hadn't been very lucky in which party members were where, half of us could have been killed at four different places in the mission. For example, Oracle and Boots wouldn't have got out alive from the ghoul room, if Ripper hadn't been a Physical Adept. But what if Black comes back?
Boots: If he keeps starting shit I'll call Uncle Inkubus and we'll summon the ultimate Spirit of Man - Captain Planet.
Ocelot: But we'd need to summon five lesser spirits first.
Boots: Wind! Water! Chrome!