Shadowrun II: Rebuilding Credibility
Game: Shadowrun (Stanford)
GM: David (onetruedavid)
Setting: Seattle, 2064
Players/Characters:
Two successful completions:
Deuce hung up, and we stayed on the line with each other, discussing how we were going to fix the mess we had made of the bank run. We watched the news while we did so; it seemed that our actions had prompted the bank to overhaul its antiquated security system. Also, Lone Star had lost the contract on the bank; it was now covered by Knight Errant. We debated whether or not this would helpatall. Gemini came up with the winning idea: we would send in one of the team, who would pose as middle management at the bank. He would find one of the construction workers and pass them a sob story about how he was supposed to run this program every night to update the mainframe, and hadn't tonight, and he was going to get fired if his boss found out, so could the construction worker please run the program for him? There'd be money in it... It was agreed that this plan should work; we chose Slick to be our frontman. Crystal offered to alter his appearance magically, to avoid the possibility of getting connected to the virus on the datastick. Slick agreed that this would be good, so Crystal gathered some things and set out for Slick's Tacoma place.
Meanwhile, Brogg decided that he wanted to recover his car from downtown. He enlisted Morgan to help him; they decided that they needed to get another car to get downtown, to avoid looking suspicious. Except that it needed to be a van, so that Morgan could fit his massive trollish body inside. Undaunted, they decided to roam the Barrens (where they both lived) and steal one of the vans they came across. They trekked for quite some distance, through a small gang war. One of the gangers took a pot shot at Brogg, which bounced off his armor. He was quite pissed, but Morgan told him he could come back and avenge himself later. For now, van. They continued, and encountered a trio of motorcycles, sitting unattended on a street corner. One of them was troll modified, but neon orange. Disgusted, Morgan insisted that they move on and find something else. They then found two vans parked outside a building, but they were guarded by men with assault rifles, who were not amused when Morgan tried to negotiate with them.
They continued to wander, to an area of the Barrens that neither of them knew well. Suddenly, Morgan realized that they were surrounded. Three elves - one with a shotgun, the other two mages - walked out of one of the buildings, and looked at them as if they had just crawled out of the gutter. Both the orc and the troll realized that they had run into the Ancients, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in the Barrens. The elf who seemed to be the leader looked at the two of them appraisingly, and suggested that, if they handed over everything they had with them, they might be allowed to live. Morgan was ready to acquiesce, perhaps negotiating to be allowed to keep a few items. Brogg, however, had other ideas, and attacked. The mage shrugged, and cast Hot Potato on the two, causing all of the metal items they were carrying to suddenly be too hot to touch. Both metahumans dropped their guns. The mage then cast another spell, causing almost unbearable agony to wash over them in racking waves of pain. The orc, however, full of bloodlust, suppressed the pain and charged the mage. The troll was right behind him, and attacked the other mage. As bullets from the surrounding buildings bounced off their armor, the two killed the three who had been in the road. As soon as the mage died, the agony subsided, and Morgan and Brogg, with a roar, ran towards one of the buildings. The bullets subsided, and suddenly all was quiet. Morgan realized that they must be going for reinforcements, and beat a swift retreat; Brogg lobbed some grenades into the buildings with no appreciable effect, then followed, taking the head of the lead elf with him as a souvenir. Somewhat shaken by the encounter, they returned to their houses.
While all this was going on, Crystal arrived in Tacoma, and set about altering Slick's appearance. She let him choose the form he would take; he ended up looking like an extremely Germanic human. He then started out, but Crystal recalled him, as he was wearing a stylish business suit made of urban camo. Over his horrified protests, she altered that to be a suit of average quality and nondescript color. He started out again, but Crystal recalled him, and passed him the datastick and his wallet, which he'd left on the table. And then he really did leave, and headed downtown. Crystal summoned a watcher spirit, and had it follow him at a considerable distance, just in case he ran into magely trouble.
Slick headed to the bank, and parked some distance away, then walked to the back alleyway. There was a truck parked there, and a supervisor wandering around with a clipboard. Careful to avoid cameras (as Crystal had warned him that they would be able to see through his disguise), he approached the man, and spun his sad, sad story of his forgotten update. If he didn't update, he'd be fired! But if he did update and the cameras caught him doing it late, he'd be fired! He offered money... the supervisor looked sympathetic, but didn't really seem inclined to go inside. His job, he said, was to check things off as they entered the building. He liked his job. He didn't want to risk it. Slick asked if one of the workers might be willing to do it. Such a small thing. THe supervisor nodded, and called one up, an ork. Slick offered the ork five months' pay to slot the stick. The ork's eyes got huge, and his greed overcame him. He took the money and the stick, and disappeared into the building. Slick left the alley and started walking towards his car with an easy, unhurried stride. As he was halfway there, he observed three Knight Errant cars headed for the bank. With the tiniest of smiles, he got in his car and drove back to Tacoma.
Our employer called us a few hours later. The virus had successfully deployed, but they were a little upset about the whole revamping-the-bank-security thing, and were docking our pay. Morgan and Slick tried to talk them out of it, and eventually a compromise was reached, which involved a pay cut, but not quite as severe as it originally had been. Satisfied, we returned to our normally scheduled lives, using our new-found casg to fund our various expensive hobbies. Most of us acquired more guns and armor. Crystal acquired a kickass magical library. And we waited for the next call.
About a week later, we heard from Deuce. He had a small job for us. He also wanted to add a member to our team: another mage, named Toby. Said mage would join us at the meet, which was scheduled for that night, at a trendy nightclub called the Howler. Brogg and Slick knew it; it was less a trendy nightclub than a place where people who wanted to seem trendy would go. Nonetheless, we agreed to head over at the appointed time. Wardrobe was a bit of an issue for some. Crystal had clubbing clothes, and Gemini owned things that could work. Slick, in order to mock all the teenage posers, dug out last year's fashions and wore them. But Brogg and Morgan had a problem. Brogg decided to screw it and went dressed as he always did; Morgan actually went out and bought nice clothes, and got seriously ripped off by some retailer in Renton.
We gathered at the appointed hour, and met Toby, who was able to pick us out easily because we were all considerably older than most of the people hanging out in front of the club. Once we were all there, we headed in. The club itself was mostly full of teenagers, rocking out way more than they really needed to, and sad old men, rocking out way more than they needed to. The music was mostly last year's hot dance music, interspersed with bad pop. As Slick, a regular at the truly hip and trendy clubs of Seattle, fought back his mental anguish, Brogg waded through the crowd to the DJ, told him that the music sucked, and tried to badger him into playing orkish thrash metal. The DJ told him that his music was crap and that this was the latest and greatest thing. Brogg grumbled something, spat in the DJ's drink while he wasn't looking, and then waded back into the crowd to mosh for awhile. Slick and Crystal got asked to dance by several people; Crystal turned them down politely, Slick rather less so. After he made some hapless orc girl cry, Morgan slapped him. And then we went to speak with the Johnson.
The Johnson was the assistant of some powerful mage, who wanted us to recover her cat. The cat had been lost in the Barrens a few days ago; the mage either wanted it back, or proof of its death. The pay wasn't much, especially split six ways, but it didn't sound like a very taxing run, so we happily agreed. We got a picture from the cat, learned of its last known whereabouts, and arranged for a way to contact the Johnson. Then, we left the club, gathered our gear, and carpooled to the Barrens.
Gemini got there first; he found a bum and asked him if he'd seen a cat. Fear flickered across the bum's face, and then he denied any knowledge of cats. Gemini threatened him, and he nervously said that the Afterburners (a small local gang) had the cat in an abandoned storefront down the street. Gemini thanked him and flipped him a small amount of nuyen. The man grabbed it and buried it in the dirt near where he was sitting. Gemini watched him, shook his head, and headed out to where the others were just arriving.
Upon hearing what Gemini had learned, Crystal summoned a watcher spirit and sent it to look for magical activity in the store. The spirit reported none. So Crystal mind-controlled the Afterburner standing guard outside the front door, and brought him down the street. The others interrogated him, and it seemed that the Afterburners had the cat... or maybe the cat had the Afterburners. From what the terrified man said before Morgan knocked him unconscious, the cat was now in charge of the gang, and they were protecting it. This reminded Crystal of something, and she started pondering. Meanwhile, Toby summoned a watcher spirit of his own, and sent it to the storefront to look for the cat. It was slightly difficult, as the watcher spirit was unclear on the concept of "cat", but it returned, quite sure that nothing with four legs was in the store. Everyone was puzzled by this. Crystal, having remembered, said that it seemed that this was a Black Berry Cat, an intelligent, dual-natured creature who was insanely good at compulsion and illusion. Morgan asked how intelligent the cat was; Crystal told him that the cat was probably more intelligent than Brogg. Slick sarcastically suggested that they throw catnip at it; Crystal told him that this was actually a very good idea, as catnip was rumored to be the Cat's only weakness. Slick rolled his eyes in disgust, but Gemini persuaded him to drive off and get some anyhow, by offering to pay for it. Slick took the credstick, hopped in his sports car, and headed away.
He was just getting back when a freak wind blew a newspaper into Slick's windshield. He managed to not crash anyway, and got out of the car, but suddenly discovered that he didn't want to give the catnip to the others. The others looked at him suspiciously - after all, he had thought that catnip was a stupid idea. Crystal assensed him, and discovered that he was being mind-controlled. She announced this, and Morgan grabbed the catnip, and then the troll felt the inexplicable urge to throw the catnip on the roof of a nearby building. Somehow we managed to stop him, and Toby levitated the bag out of his hand. But Morgan, using his physad abilities, ran up the wall of the building, grabbing the bag as he ran up. He deposited the bag on the roof, and then decided that he should leave. Meanwhile the rest of us, realizing what had to be happening, decided to attack the building. But first, credsticks rained down from the roof, with a million nuyen on each of them. They were illusionary, but Brogg didn't realize, and picked them all up, secreting them in his clothes. Slick ran up towards the roof; Gemini threw a stun grenade over the edge of the roof. Toby, using his ability to detect life, found the cat's life signature, and stunbolted it, although he took heavy drain. Slick arrived at the roof to find a stunned cat and a grenade; he threw the grenade over the edge (away from us), picked up the cat, and came down holding it. He passed it to Crystal, and we all piled in cars and drove back to the Howler.
We arrived at the club, still dressed in our running gear. When we walked through the door, all the teenagers stared at us. Slick was wearing his urban-camo-suit. The posers looked at him, and murmured, "So uncool..." He nearly died of horror. Meanwhile, we headed to the Johnson's table, and gave him the unconscious cat. He took it, picked up a carrier, extracted a syringe from it, and poked the long needle into the cat. Then, he passed us our pay, and headed off back to his magical labs. We apportioned our pay amongst us, and split for the night, making sure everyone got home safely. Slick went clubbing, trying to erase the blot of the poser club from his urbanite soul. The rest of us slept.
GM: David (onetruedavid)
Setting: Seattle, 2064
Players/Characters:
- Kris/Brogg: The orkish street samurai, who is of lesser intelligence.
- Sarah (kalliplokime)/Crystal: The elven hermetic mage, who has amnesia.
- Mike (shadowyvern)/Gemini: The human covert ops specialist, who works with electronics.
- Lou/Morgan: The troll physical adept, who takes care of the killing.
- Matt (ra1330)/Slick: The elven covert ops specialist, who has a lot of nuyen to burn.
- David (liberateanimum)/Toby: The human sun shaman, who used to work alone.
Two successful completions:
Deuce hung up, and we stayed on the line with each other, discussing how we were going to fix the mess we had made of the bank run. We watched the news while we did so; it seemed that our actions had prompted the bank to overhaul its antiquated security system. Also, Lone Star had lost the contract on the bank; it was now covered by Knight Errant. We debated whether or not this would helpatall. Gemini came up with the winning idea: we would send in one of the team, who would pose as middle management at the bank. He would find one of the construction workers and pass them a sob story about how he was supposed to run this program every night to update the mainframe, and hadn't tonight, and he was going to get fired if his boss found out, so could the construction worker please run the program for him? There'd be money in it... It was agreed that this plan should work; we chose Slick to be our frontman. Crystal offered to alter his appearance magically, to avoid the possibility of getting connected to the virus on the datastick. Slick agreed that this would be good, so Crystal gathered some things and set out for Slick's Tacoma place.
Meanwhile, Brogg decided that he wanted to recover his car from downtown. He enlisted Morgan to help him; they decided that they needed to get another car to get downtown, to avoid looking suspicious. Except that it needed to be a van, so that Morgan could fit his massive trollish body inside. Undaunted, they decided to roam the Barrens (where they both lived) and steal one of the vans they came across. They trekked for quite some distance, through a small gang war. One of the gangers took a pot shot at Brogg, which bounced off his armor. He was quite pissed, but Morgan told him he could come back and avenge himself later. For now, van. They continued, and encountered a trio of motorcycles, sitting unattended on a street corner. One of them was troll modified, but neon orange. Disgusted, Morgan insisted that they move on and find something else. They then found two vans parked outside a building, but they were guarded by men with assault rifles, who were not amused when Morgan tried to negotiate with them.
They continued to wander, to an area of the Barrens that neither of them knew well. Suddenly, Morgan realized that they were surrounded. Three elves - one with a shotgun, the other two mages - walked out of one of the buildings, and looked at them as if they had just crawled out of the gutter. Both the orc and the troll realized that they had run into the Ancients, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in the Barrens. The elf who seemed to be the leader looked at the two of them appraisingly, and suggested that, if they handed over everything they had with them, they might be allowed to live. Morgan was ready to acquiesce, perhaps negotiating to be allowed to keep a few items. Brogg, however, had other ideas, and attacked. The mage shrugged, and cast Hot Potato on the two, causing all of the metal items they were carrying to suddenly be too hot to touch. Both metahumans dropped their guns. The mage then cast another spell, causing almost unbearable agony to wash over them in racking waves of pain. The orc, however, full of bloodlust, suppressed the pain and charged the mage. The troll was right behind him, and attacked the other mage. As bullets from the surrounding buildings bounced off their armor, the two killed the three who had been in the road. As soon as the mage died, the agony subsided, and Morgan and Brogg, with a roar, ran towards one of the buildings. The bullets subsided, and suddenly all was quiet. Morgan realized that they must be going for reinforcements, and beat a swift retreat; Brogg lobbed some grenades into the buildings with no appreciable effect, then followed, taking the head of the lead elf with him as a souvenir. Somewhat shaken by the encounter, they returned to their houses.
While all this was going on, Crystal arrived in Tacoma, and set about altering Slick's appearance. She let him choose the form he would take; he ended up looking like an extremely Germanic human. He then started out, but Crystal recalled him, as he was wearing a stylish business suit made of urban camo. Over his horrified protests, she altered that to be a suit of average quality and nondescript color. He started out again, but Crystal recalled him, and passed him the datastick and his wallet, which he'd left on the table. And then he really did leave, and headed downtown. Crystal summoned a watcher spirit, and had it follow him at a considerable distance, just in case he ran into magely trouble.
Slick headed to the bank, and parked some distance away, then walked to the back alleyway. There was a truck parked there, and a supervisor wandering around with a clipboard. Careful to avoid cameras (as Crystal had warned him that they would be able to see through his disguise), he approached the man, and spun his sad, sad story of his forgotten update. If he didn't update, he'd be fired! But if he did update and the cameras caught him doing it late, he'd be fired! He offered money... the supervisor looked sympathetic, but didn't really seem inclined to go inside. His job, he said, was to check things off as they entered the building. He liked his job. He didn't want to risk it. Slick asked if one of the workers might be willing to do it. Such a small thing. THe supervisor nodded, and called one up, an ork. Slick offered the ork five months' pay to slot the stick. The ork's eyes got huge, and his greed overcame him. He took the money and the stick, and disappeared into the building. Slick left the alley and started walking towards his car with an easy, unhurried stride. As he was halfway there, he observed three Knight Errant cars headed for the bank. With the tiniest of smiles, he got in his car and drove back to Tacoma.
Our employer called us a few hours later. The virus had successfully deployed, but they were a little upset about the whole revamping-the-bank-security thing, and were docking our pay. Morgan and Slick tried to talk them out of it, and eventually a compromise was reached, which involved a pay cut, but not quite as severe as it originally had been. Satisfied, we returned to our normally scheduled lives, using our new-found casg to fund our various expensive hobbies. Most of us acquired more guns and armor. Crystal acquired a kickass magical library. And we waited for the next call.
About a week later, we heard from Deuce. He had a small job for us. He also wanted to add a member to our team: another mage, named Toby. Said mage would join us at the meet, which was scheduled for that night, at a trendy nightclub called the Howler. Brogg and Slick knew it; it was less a trendy nightclub than a place where people who wanted to seem trendy would go. Nonetheless, we agreed to head over at the appointed time. Wardrobe was a bit of an issue for some. Crystal had clubbing clothes, and Gemini owned things that could work. Slick, in order to mock all the teenage posers, dug out last year's fashions and wore them. But Brogg and Morgan had a problem. Brogg decided to screw it and went dressed as he always did; Morgan actually went out and bought nice clothes, and got seriously ripped off by some retailer in Renton.
We gathered at the appointed hour, and met Toby, who was able to pick us out easily because we were all considerably older than most of the people hanging out in front of the club. Once we were all there, we headed in. The club itself was mostly full of teenagers, rocking out way more than they really needed to, and sad old men, rocking out way more than they needed to. The music was mostly last year's hot dance music, interspersed with bad pop. As Slick, a regular at the truly hip and trendy clubs of Seattle, fought back his mental anguish, Brogg waded through the crowd to the DJ, told him that the music sucked, and tried to badger him into playing orkish thrash metal. The DJ told him that his music was crap and that this was the latest and greatest thing. Brogg grumbled something, spat in the DJ's drink while he wasn't looking, and then waded back into the crowd to mosh for awhile. Slick and Crystal got asked to dance by several people; Crystal turned them down politely, Slick rather less so. After he made some hapless orc girl cry, Morgan slapped him. And then we went to speak with the Johnson.
The Johnson was the assistant of some powerful mage, who wanted us to recover her cat. The cat had been lost in the Barrens a few days ago; the mage either wanted it back, or proof of its death. The pay wasn't much, especially split six ways, but it didn't sound like a very taxing run, so we happily agreed. We got a picture from the cat, learned of its last known whereabouts, and arranged for a way to contact the Johnson. Then, we left the club, gathered our gear, and carpooled to the Barrens.
Gemini got there first; he found a bum and asked him if he'd seen a cat. Fear flickered across the bum's face, and then he denied any knowledge of cats. Gemini threatened him, and he nervously said that the Afterburners (a small local gang) had the cat in an abandoned storefront down the street. Gemini thanked him and flipped him a small amount of nuyen. The man grabbed it and buried it in the dirt near where he was sitting. Gemini watched him, shook his head, and headed out to where the others were just arriving.
Upon hearing what Gemini had learned, Crystal summoned a watcher spirit and sent it to look for magical activity in the store. The spirit reported none. So Crystal mind-controlled the Afterburner standing guard outside the front door, and brought him down the street. The others interrogated him, and it seemed that the Afterburners had the cat... or maybe the cat had the Afterburners. From what the terrified man said before Morgan knocked him unconscious, the cat was now in charge of the gang, and they were protecting it. This reminded Crystal of something, and she started pondering. Meanwhile, Toby summoned a watcher spirit of his own, and sent it to the storefront to look for the cat. It was slightly difficult, as the watcher spirit was unclear on the concept of "cat", but it returned, quite sure that nothing with four legs was in the store. Everyone was puzzled by this. Crystal, having remembered, said that it seemed that this was a Black Berry Cat, an intelligent, dual-natured creature who was insanely good at compulsion and illusion. Morgan asked how intelligent the cat was; Crystal told him that the cat was probably more intelligent than Brogg. Slick sarcastically suggested that they throw catnip at it; Crystal told him that this was actually a very good idea, as catnip was rumored to be the Cat's only weakness. Slick rolled his eyes in disgust, but Gemini persuaded him to drive off and get some anyhow, by offering to pay for it. Slick took the credstick, hopped in his sports car, and headed away.
He was just getting back when a freak wind blew a newspaper into Slick's windshield. He managed to not crash anyway, and got out of the car, but suddenly discovered that he didn't want to give the catnip to the others. The others looked at him suspiciously - after all, he had thought that catnip was a stupid idea. Crystal assensed him, and discovered that he was being mind-controlled. She announced this, and Morgan grabbed the catnip, and then the troll felt the inexplicable urge to throw the catnip on the roof of a nearby building. Somehow we managed to stop him, and Toby levitated the bag out of his hand. But Morgan, using his physad abilities, ran up the wall of the building, grabbing the bag as he ran up. He deposited the bag on the roof, and then decided that he should leave. Meanwhile the rest of us, realizing what had to be happening, decided to attack the building. But first, credsticks rained down from the roof, with a million nuyen on each of them. They were illusionary, but Brogg didn't realize, and picked them all up, secreting them in his clothes. Slick ran up towards the roof; Gemini threw a stun grenade over the edge of the roof. Toby, using his ability to detect life, found the cat's life signature, and stunbolted it, although he took heavy drain. Slick arrived at the roof to find a stunned cat and a grenade; he threw the grenade over the edge (away from us), picked up the cat, and came down holding it. He passed it to Crystal, and we all piled in cars and drove back to the Howler.
We arrived at the club, still dressed in our running gear. When we walked through the door, all the teenagers stared at us. Slick was wearing his urban-camo-suit. The posers looked at him, and murmured, "So uncool..." He nearly died of horror. Meanwhile, we headed to the Johnson's table, and gave him the unconscious cat. He took it, picked up a carrier, extracted a syringe from it, and poked the long needle into the cat. Then, he passed us our pay, and headed off back to his magical labs. We apportioned our pay amongst us, and split for the night, making sure everyone got home safely. Slick went clubbing, trying to erase the blot of the poser club from his urbanite soul. The rest of us slept.