The diary of Walker, Elven Face, Spoilers for fast food fight. Options

[FuelDrop]

13/11/2070.
Sarah was taking her sweet time doing the number crunching for her charity run, working out which Lone Star server we'd have to hit to ID the Decker. So when Shadow called and told us that he'd been contacted by a Johnson for a quick run on the side, I figured 'sure, why not?'
The meet was at a high-class bar downtown. Amazingly, Nitro looked quite snappy in a suit and tie, while unsurprisingly Shadow looked completely out of place in his lined duster. I have no idea why his fixer decided to call him first when the Johnson contacted him... maybe everyone else was booked or something. Anyway, he wants us to switch out a book owned by some magical cabal with a fake, and bring the real one to him. Apparently these guys are pretty well connected as they're renting a floor in a high-security skyscraper complex known as the Galaxy Tower. How high security? Well the building is owned and run by Lone Star, who then rent out space to interested parties. Most of the high-end clients have left in the months since they lost the security contract for Seattle as the place now lies in Knight Errant jurisdiction and they quite reasonably feel that the old promise of top priority police response no longer carries weight. Since then the Star has reduced the security at the 45 story skyscraper to a skeleton crew and the former high-rollers have been replaced by more mundane businesses seeking showrooms that would otherwise be above their means, and the place has basically been transformed into a vertical shopping mall with an illusion of great security.

So, we head out to do some basic recon, minus our rigger/hacker. The first thing we notice is that while they're running a skeleton crew for security these days, all the infrastructure from the Galaxy's glory days is still in place. That basically translates into tons of motion sensors and cameras strategically placed to prevent people from covertly scaling the building, a complex lockdown system designed to strategically trap or channel intruders and gas them with nausea gas, and plenty of other fun surprises that make a frontal assault completely suicidal.

Hopefully I can convince the others to do this run smart.

Our target is on the 30th floor, between a weapon shop on the 29th and a security floor on the 31st. After a bit of back and fourth we decide we need to get a bit more intel on the security there, so we call up Sarah. After a while she manages to get the floor plans for the 30th, which have both RFID and key-codes on the doors. The easiest way to get both of those would be to kidnap a member of the cabal and interrogate them, though to be fair kidnapping a mage is never exactly going to be safe. Problem: we can't exactly tell who's a member of this cabal at a glance, which makes kidnapping the right person a bit difficult. Nitro of all people suggests the solution: we each head to a different floor, browse a shop or two, and keep an eye on the elevator. once one stops at the 30th then hopefully we've got our man.
Yeah, the plan's not perfect by any stretch. The elevator could stop at the 30th to deliver a member of the cabal, rather than to pick him up. There could be too many witnesses in the elevator when we get on, preventing us from kidnapping or planting a tracker on the guy. Someone could have made a mistake and ordered the elevator to the wrong floor. However, it's getting late so we're giving it a shot, and if it doesn't work we can try for a plan B in the morning. In the mean time Nitro gets to be geeky about his silly swords (it's a length of sharp metal you use to stab things with. Pistols are more elegant weapons from this civilized age. Luddite.), Shadow will spend his time at a pet store on the 23rd floor (I had a cat once. The company's nice, but I'm not certain the mess and maintenance are really worth it.) while I do the sensible thing and go shoe shopping down on the 15th floor. What? I need the right shoes for the scene in order to do my job. Don't judge me!

10 pm (1 hour later). Note: I need to start keeping better time stamps on these things.
It worked like a charm. Seriously, I'm beginning to think that Nitro is some kind of luck mage and hasn't told us about it. Not ten minutes after we started he not only had a new katana (some kind of titanium steel that he was very excited about. Hand made too, which is good if the rumours about nanites are true.) but also managed to bag a member of the Cabal, alone in the elevator. I got in on the 15th floor (Shadow got distracted by a puppy or something) and struck up a conversation while Nitro applied the Narcojet patch. We breezed past security with some line about him not being able to hold his drink, found his car and told it to take him home. A bit of fast-talking got us in (after all, who really expects two people in suits helping a resident of the apartment building get home [he was coincidentally also wearing a similar suit. The luck of Nitro strikes again] to be up to no good?) and we got into his apartment without much trouble. Shadow and
Sarah soon joined us (Shadow was wearing a military gas mask in public again. What is your damage, man? just go get a respirator like everyone else!), and for some reason Nitro decided to start slipping laxatives into random pieces of the guy (Ian)'s food. After a brief but revealing conversation I wasn't sure which I should be worried about more: Nitro following the a trickster mentor spirit he called the Raven, or the fact that he keeps a bottle of fast-dissolving laxatives with him AT ALL TIMES!
Memo: Never eat or drink anything with Nitro around. Ever.
I switch out the guy's RFID chip for the Cabal and put it in my wrist. It was going to be Nitro's, but he chickened out at the last minute. I had the whole operation over and done with in about a minute and a half, and I can only hope putting it back afterwards goes half as smoothly.
Anyway, our wait for the sedative to wear off was interrupted by a pair of shady types abseiling down onto the balcony, sliding open the door, and throwing in a flash bang grenade. Just another night in Seattle, I guess. Sarah panics and flees, Nitro takes cover, Shadow Hulks out and I'm just clinging to consciousness after that, not helped at all by the small size of the room, but I do manage to keep enough of my wits about me to pull out a tazer and cover the door. Sure enough it opens and some badass chick steps in, ducks my shot, catches Shadow's punch and almost lays him down with one of her own. Nitro leaps out of the kitchen, sword in hand, and takes the other guy's suppressed full auto burst to the chest. Luckily the gun was loaded with Gel rounds and through sheer dumb luck Nitro manages to shake off the hit like it was nothing, then hacks the girl in the spine with his new sword. Unsurprisingly she goes down, and Shadow heads off to take on the gunman and is soon joined by Nitro. The guy never stood a chance, but over the sound of the fight I hear heavy footsteps coming from the way Sarah ran. I decided that the boys had the gunman handled and spun around to cover the door just in time to see a troll chick with a fricking riot shield drawing a bead on Nitro. I yell a warning and shoot her.

I like my Tazer. It brings people down good, and as an added bonus it's perfectly legal and normal to carry it around. It's reliable, I take good care of it, and it has never let me down. Until today.
This is the first time I've ever seen someone no-sell a body shot like that. She barely seemed to notice the hit. I got off a second shot in the span of about half a second, right in the same place, and... nothing. Luckily Nitro heard my warning and took cover as she tried to pull the same trick on him. Then, in a display of speed that would impress the Olympic sprint team Nitro crossed the room in the space of about a second, clearing several obstacles including ME, and smote the troll mightily.
As far as I can tell, she barely noticed. I'm so disappointed that I couldn't see Nitro's expression when she just took a hit that would fell most people without any display of concern, just switched her tazer to contacts and began trying to zap him.
Now Nitro is one of those people who subscribe to the belief that when all you have is a sword, everything is just begging to be stabbed. So he starts trying to carve up this troll lady, who keeps catching him on her shield in an almost insultingly casual manner. Given how ineffective my tazer was last time I decided not to bother and started putting all my effort into encouraging Nitro. This worked in the sense that he fought more vigorously than ever... however, at best he was dealing scratch damage to this monster.
It's at this point that Shadow finds the gunman's grenade belt and hurls a flash bang into the fray. Unsurprisingly given the confined space, this ends the fight by bringing down Nitro and, after a few heart-stoppingly uncertain moments, also the troll. I grab the apartment's first aid kit and go to revive Nitro only to hear Shadow crash to the floor as whatever he was on wore off. I manage to get Nitro back to his feet... and building security show up. I spin a tale about how we'd all gathered in our good friend Ian's apartment for a few quiet drinks when these thugs had attacked out of no-where, and how I was so frightened, blah blah blah. I manage to spin the whole thing enough to convince them that we were the victims, and by the time the cops showed up we'd been bundled up and given something to calm our nerves. Not bad work for someone still deaf in one ear.

10:50 pm
Nitro and I get carted off to the cop shop to fill out paperwork and answer questions. They give our SINs a cursory once-over, listen to our sob-story, then send us on our way. We head out to the hospital, and on a sudden inspiration head out to see Ian first. He's understandably shell-shocked, waking up in a hospital and all, and we use that to our advantage by spinning a tale of how we met up in that elevator and he'd invited us out for a drink, seemingly a spur-of-the-moment thing. We use as much truth as possible in our story so that he can verify it later, but at the end of our elegant fabrication he's convinced that not only are we good friends of his but he literally owes us his life. We pick up the others, convince Ian that it's getting late but we'll meet up with him again soon, then headed out.

14/11/2070.
Guess where the data server we're after is? Yep. Galaxy Tower. 21st floor to be exact. I go to meet up with Ian while the others start bouncing around ideas (I love having a neural commlink), and a joking suggestion by Shadow gives me an idea. Shadow suggested that Nitro gets a job at the Starbucks in the tower to get intel on the guards, and it occurs to me that it might be a workable plan with some modification.
Specifically, Shadow Sarah and Nitro put some uniforms together, paint up the roadmaster (they are not coming anywhere near my van!), then approach the tower as part of a cafe chain trying out some new flavors of soycaf. That way they can sedate a whole bunch of the security guards in one fell swoop, all without attracting any suspicion. I make a few calls and source a Soycaf wholesaler, we work out how much the gig is going to cost us and how much we'd need to charge per cup to come out even, then while they set to work on that I started charming the pass-codes I needed from Ian.

15/11/2070.
Now my section of the run turned out to be a bit of a walk-through. I got the impersonation of Ian down perfectly, had all the security details I needed to do the job without arousing suspicion, and got through it without anyone any the wiser. Most of what follows is second-hand. Complements to Sarah for spinning the tale.

'Well, we got off to a decent start. Everyone was tired of the overpriced Starbucks soycaf and even the least adventurous individuals were willing to try something new. I mean, it's soycaf. You're not exactly taking your life in your hands trying a new soycaf, right? Well it turns out that Shadow makes epic-level bad soycaf. I still don't know how he managed it, he had the same tools as the rest of us. Nitro, on the other hand? Complete natural. Whatever that guy does just seems to come up roses. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, but I make a pretty mean soycaf myself... but I digress. We laced the security guards drinks with slow-acting sedatives which we estimated would kick in over the next hour or so. Outside of our target floor we just added enough to make them a bit sluggish and apathetic, but on the 21st we really went the whole hog and gave them enough to knock them out. I can't prove this, but I think I saw Nitro slip some of those laxatives into a couple of the cups as well. I don't envy the poor souls who ended up with those cups.
Anyway, we kept going until we hit the 45th, then on our way back down slipped into the 21st. I worked my usual magic with the cameras, then we got to work. The backup server required a direct physical connection to access, but outside of that and a basic login system the security was nonexistent. I guess that they figured deckers wouldn't be much of an issue if they couldn't reach the damned thing to connect to it, which is true... until someone sedates all your guards and waltzes in. Shadow managed to convincingly play the part of the guy on desk duty for the routine check in, and we were out before anyone knew we were there. Piece of cake.'

You know the funniest part of all this? Ian, the guy we kidnapped, performed unwilling surgery on (twice, I had to put the chip back), impersonated, lied to and generally abused? He still thinks we're his best friends in the world. Seriously, I'm almost at the point of feeling bad about all the stuff we put the guy through, and I don't usually feel guilty about any of this stuff! Well, he's volunteered his services should we ever need a talasmonger, so maybe I'll get a chance to make it up to him or something. Nothing overt, obviously, or he might work out that something's wrong.

Anyway, we got the intel on the decker. He's been seen hanging out with a human supremacist gang in Snohomish, so that's our next stop on the search for answers.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Hahahahaaaaaah.

Fast-dissolving laxative tablets... What an arsehole. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


That one had me laughing the whole way through.

[FuelDrop]

Hahahahaaaaaah.

Fast-dissolving laxative tablets... What an arsehole. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


That one had me laughing the whole way through.

*Takes a bow* I aim to entertain.

[FuelDrop]

16/11/2070. (sunday)
Well, today started out interesting and didn't let up from then on. Sarah decided to look into the cop who last updated the target Decker's file... by parking a few hundred meters up from Lone Star HQ in her unregistered roadmaster and hacking in. I think this idea seemed good BEFORE she had her soycaf for the morning. Anyway, that went about as well as could be predicted and she was arrested. I think she overestimated her roadmaster's ability to get her out of trouble, as she didn't surrender easily. The cops parked an armoured up patrol car at either end of the 25m long alley she'd hidden in and she couldn't get up enough speed to bulldoze her way through.
Also, protip: Roadmaster vs AV missile, Roadmaster loses.

So Shadow drives in from his new place about an hour out of Seattle to meet up with me and plot a way to get her out. We go through a list of options to get her out, all of which have low probability of success and virtual certainty of disaster. Then, after another hour or so we got a call from Sarah. She managed to get herself out and even managed to get some new cyberware out of the whole thing: a nice, shiny... cranial bomb. Yeah, this cannot end well. Also, special thanks to Nitro for having his commlink off. Not being able to contact you in an emergency is so convenient.

So now we're doing a freebie for Lone Star. Specifically, we're kidnapping a high-ranking Knight Errant Lieutenant on zero budget and one week, with the price of failure being troll brains everywhere. Today just keeps getting better and better.

There is one piece of good news. Sarah's new best friend is fine with her leaving Seattle after the job is done, though none of us believe that this will be the last we hear from him. I hear Neo-Tokyo is nice this time of year.

17/11/2070. (Monday)
Tickets have been taken care of, packing is done, passport is ready. Whether we succeed or fail, I am out of here come Monday afternoon. We did some computer research on the target, and managed to find out that he's spending the weekend at his bosses mansion out in the country. Odds on this is the best chance we're going to have to grab him. Shadow wants to go in guns blazing, leave no living witnesses, that whole murderous rampage thing. Sarah and I don't like the idea, and we try to work out a plan that doesn't involve mass murder. He then started to suggest kidnapping the guy's wife and using her as leverage. One of the great thinkers of our time, ladies and gentlemen! Sarah suggests that we biosculpt some shmuck to look like the guy, add a personafix to make him think he's the guy, and try a simple switch. I pointed out that the plan was better, but would be difficult and expensive to implement. Also, considering the heat we we're going to be bringing down with kidnapping one of the highest ranking cops in the city we couldn't really afford to leave anyone to put two and two together with that nice big reward for information just lying out there.

In the end we decided that a body of about the right height and weight, plus a latex mask and the target's clothes, might be enough to confuse when the target was actually kidnapped. At the very least it would confuse investigators for a little while, hopefully long enough for us to leave the country. So that's part... 3? 4? I don't know, one of the later stages taken care of. Sarah put in a couple of hours of VR research and turned up the fact that our target's boss likes hunting. A lot. Odds on that our target would be dragged out on a hunting trip during his weekend.
Perfect. He'll be away from the security of the mansion. We'll hit him then. That is to say, Sarah will hit him. I like Sarah, I really do, but there is no way I'm going out into the woods to kidnap a top KE detective for her without at least getting paid. Shadow's much the same: We'll help in the setup, we'll do research and buy gear, but Sarah is going to need to deal with her own mess on this one.

Speaking of setup, Sarah wants to do the whole thing by remote. I don't blame her.

18/11/2070. (Tuesday)
Drone shopping. Sarah wants to get a smokecloud drone to act as a distraction while her manservant switches the unconscious cop with the corpse double. We've sent Shadow off to round up either a body or a suitable hobo, Sarah's stealing a car, and I'm using my black market contacts to find her drones.

Did I mention she's still broke, so these are coming out of my money? She owes me so big for this.

19/11/2070. (Wednesday)
Shadow sucks at finding people. He managed to piss the crap out of the Crimson Crush and had to make a retreat from the barrens under gunfire. I've taken over for him.

Found our guy. Right size, right shape, even still breathing. Got him on a drip and high on slab so the time of death can be as close as possible. Normally I don't like civilians getting caught in the crossfire but this chiphead's brain is so badly fried that it's a mercy killing.

20/11/2070 (Thursday)
Sarah is doing preliminary recon on the forests near out target's mansion. She says she thinks she knows where he'll be hunting. Also, every drone going on the mission is getting rigged with explosives to reduce evidence.

22/11/2070 (Saturday)
The op went as well as can be expected. Every drone that went along is a writeoff, totaling over ten grand in assets. We managed to pull the switch, just, but given the circumstances I can't be sure they bought it. The dropoff went well enough, the location Sarah did her broadcast from got hit by so many SWAT officers you'd think it was a doughnut shop (she was long gone by then), and the reward for information regarding the run is growing by the hour. I'm fairly sure that nothing leads back to me, and Sarah says she thinks she's in the clear. Shadow might be in a bit of trouble with the Crimson Crush, but as far as I know nothing links him back to the kidnapping.

So, Neo-Tokyo. Everyone else is coming along too, though sooner or later we're going to need to find a way to beat Sarah's cranial bomb or it's just going to keep coming back to haunt us.

Oh, and everyone is broke by this point. Next week will be interesting.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Wow. That sounds like a complete and total Foxtrot. Charlie's leading the orchestra, and your girl Sarah's wearing the dress.


On the topic of folks being compelled by circumstances or force (circumstances, in my case) to work with folks they'd just as soon see dead than work with... In my Sunday Star Wars game, my players are working with The Empire.

They're all Jedi. And it's 23 ABY, so it's not quite as bad as it could have been. Plus, they're colluding with an Imperial high-level law enforcement officer to gather evidence needed to prevent a war, so it's not all bad.

Yours sounds like it was probably cooler, though.

[FuelDrop]

Wow. That sounds like a complete and total Foxtrot. Charlie's leading the orchestra, and your girl Sarah's wearing the dress.


On the topic of folks being compelled by circumstances or force (circumstances, in my case) to work with folks they'd just as soon see dead than work with... In my Sunday Star Wars game, my players are working with The Empire.

They're all Jedi. And it's 23 ABY, so it's not quite as bad as it could have been. Plus, they're colluding with an Imperial high-level law enforcement officer to gather evidence needed to prevent a war, so it's not all bad.

Yours sounds like it was probably cooler, though.

The best bit? Sarah's big character arc is around her hatred of Humanis Policlub. IE, the guys who're in bed with Lone Star. Let's face it, I couldn't have set this up better if I tried.

Now I will be running the group through Anarchy: Subsidized as their ticket out of the Seattle heat (yes I know it's winter. The heat comes from Knight Errant). Therefore, unmarked spoilers will be ahead.

Suggestions for other runs to do in Neo-Tokyo over the next year or so will be considered, but no promises (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Grak]

Those last two stories have been very slick, thanks FuelDrop.

[FuelDrop]

Those last two stories have been very slick, thanks FuelDrop.

Thank you for your kind words, but I would be nothing without my players. Their crazy antics are the core of this thread's entertainment.

[FuelDrop]

22/11/2070.
Evening.
Got a message from Miss Johnson, asking for a meet at Teiko Ikemoto's concert. I personally find most pop music a bit shallow for my tastes, and Teiko's offerings are no exception. I will admit that she has a captivating voice, credit where it's due, but it's no more natural than my own vocal implants.
Maybe it's my performing arts degree speaking. Or jealousy: I'd love to be able to play a crowd like that. It'd make my job so much easier.
Anyway, the ticket is worth a couple of grand so I kind of feel compelled to go and tell Miss Johnson that I'll be out of town in person. It's more polite than just messaging her.

Later.
I'm not certain if this is coincidence or conspiracy. Miss Johnson is recruiting us for a long-term job in Neo-Tokyo, with transport and accommodation payed for by Horizon. We've just got to prove ourselves by putting some graffiti on a bar called Lost Wages without being spotted, preferably making the news at the same time. We finished recon about half an hour ago and now we've met up to talk about what we're going to do next. The synthetic hot chocolate in the dive we've picked isn't completely undrinkable, though it's pretty close. Shadow seems to be handling his soycaf just fine, so maybe living the high life is making me soft. Then again, it is Shadow. I don't doubt he'd be able to stomach paint thinner if nessessary.
Oh, I almost forgot. Miss Johnson foisted a new kid onto us for the mission. Elf, 19, Blue hair, sword. Cute, but a bit too young for me. Goes by the name of Seth.
Because if there's one thing this group needed it's more muscle. Speaking of which, Nitro left his commlink off again. I can understand going dark, but generally a reason is required before going to ground.

Later still.
We've thrown some ideas around about how to pull the job off without getting caught. Shadow suggested use gas grenades full of Warp or CS, but I'm pretty sure he was joking. There's no way he's dumb enough to suggest a stunt like that seriously. The new kid suggested disposable drones, but our budget isn't really big enough to cover that kind of cost after the last fortnight's expenses. Another suggestion that came up was a sniper rifle full of paint rounds, but everyone agreed that was plan G: It's quick and dirty, but it'll get the job done if everything else fails.
Sarah then pointed out that we didn't need to use physical paint: AR would do just as well. We just needed to pick up some tags, reprogram them, paint them to match the building's exterior, then stick and run. Expanding on that, I suggested that we put tags on every exterior wall and the roof as well. After all, we wanted to be noticed!
We're refining the specifics as I write this, but it's looking like we'll be able to go overboard on this one and get payed too.

23/11/2070.
4 am.
Most of the tags are in place. Sarah set them up with a 16 hour delay so that they wouldn't trace back to us and should light up at about 8 pm, when plenty of people are there to see. She says she's set it up for a rather overwhelming AR sensory bombardment that should be all but impossible to ignore.
Slipping the tags onto the walls without anyone noticing isn't exactly hard, and Sarah has a fly drone putting one on the roof. Shadow's in the van keeping an eye on things. This might just be flawless... Uh oh, Shadow's spotted something.

Ok, crisis averted. Someone spotted Seth and recognized him, how I'm not sure. Anyway, the orc intercepted him, but with a bit of prompting Seth was able to logic bomb the thug and slip away while he tried to work out what was going on. Everything is proceeding as planned.

8:30 pm.
We leave tomorrow. Miss Johnson was most impressed with how we handled the situation. Turns out she had some hired thugs keeping a lookout for us so she could see how we react to unexpected complications. The one who spotted Seth apparently managed to see through his disguise, but he was fine with letting us go as he thought we were still putting in recon rather than doing the job. We got 5 grand apiece for lighting up the bar without getting caught, but more importantly we passed the entrance exam for Horizon's little mission. One 20-page contract later and we're good to go.
Now I just need to sell off my boat ticket. I think I know where to look for a buyer...

24/11/2070.
Ok, this plane is pimped out. Sauna, cinema, bar, private chef... Horizon hasn't skimped out on this one. Good thing we're freelancers, I doubt most of their citizens will ever even dream of flying on something this nice.

25/11/2070.
4 penthouse apartments, company transport while we wait for our vehicles to arrive... this might be a rather nice year. The food they stocked the place with is almost as good as what I usually buy, though Japan's gun laws are already irking me. I like my pistols, and I don't appreciate having to hide them.
Anyway, we've received our first job. Get a gene sample from the pop star Teiko Ikemoto, clone baby.

Easy.

Our new handler, Mr Johnson (come on, can't you be even a little creative?) has put us on to a stalker who might be able to tell us when our target will be vulnerable. Sarah has e-mailed him, we should be hearing back tomorrow.

26/11/2070.
It should surprise no-one that stalker boy is a bit creepy. He's given us the intel we need, but wants a lock of her hair in return. Since she'll be at the world mall Monday at 8 I can spend the week brushing up on my Japanese and trying to get a handle on the culture.

2/12/2070.
Part 1 accomplished. We found her at a clothing store, looking at sweaters. 10 security guys were with her, 4 obvious bodyguards and 6 more hanging out in reserve. So, we go in for a distraction. First is Seth and I, playing the part of a pair of bickering tourists. As anticipate, the moment we wander close to Teiko her bodyguards come to shut us down. I'm impressed with their self-control at not punching Seth, he was playing the role well enough that I wanted to punch him. As we got into an argument with them Sarah came wandering up the isle, distracting the other obvious bodyguards. While everyone was busy dealing with dumb tourists Shadow slipped out of the clothing rack he'd hidden in and cut a hair sample off Miss Ikemoto so cleanly she didn't even notice. After a few seconds one of the bodyguards glanced over and spotted something was wrong, leaving us as they escorted their pop queen to safety. The 'hidden' guards continued to keep tabs on us for the next hour or so, necessitating a shopping spree on Horizon's Nuyen to stay in character. What a shame.
Anyway, now we just need to find a cloning lab to make us a baby.

3/12/2070.
Sarah is good. Seriously, on an unfamiliar grid she managed to find a black market cloning bank in about an hour. We've now finished getting everything organized, given Creepy Mcstalkerface his lock of hair, and get to enjoy the fruits of our labor for a few weeks until next job gets out of prison. I'm going to spend some time making connections, as a couple of assets who know the score around here are bound to be useful in the near future.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Wow. Somehow, you manage to make "everything went smooth and more or less according to plan" into a captivating story.


Between working for Horizon, being in Japan and being on the run from the law, though, you guys are pretty screwed if you have to light anything up. Then again, I suspect you have set this situation up to make the muscle branch out into new skill sets that don't involve some variation of hurting things or breaking people.

[FuelDrop]

Wow. Somehow, you manage to make "everything went smooth and more or less according to plan" into a captivating story.


Between working for Horizon, being in Japan and being on the run from the law, though, you guys are pretty screwed if you have to light anything up. Then again, I suspect you have set this situation up to make the muscle branch out into new skill sets that don't involve some variation of hurting things or breaking people.

It went smoothly for the players. As the GM, they managed to bypass huge chunks of the runs without even trying through lateral thinking (Most noticeably the Bomb Gang encounter).

I just hope we can keep it up without bringing down too much heat on ourselves. That would probably put us in breach of contract (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Also, to whoever wrote Anarchy: Subsidized. Great module, having a bunch of fun so far, but next time you send the runners off to another country in a luxury jet remember to include previsions for their vehicles. I know my riggers, and they HATE being separated from their toys.

Thanks to all my readers, hope you continue to enjoy! (And yes, I am still working on that other fanfic I promised. Including the Rule 34 ascendant AI. Blame Sendaz. Probably won't be out for a while, as I have a bunch of stuff that has higher priority. Sorry.)

[FuelDrop]

Reposted with permission: Seth's background.

Shadow name: Seth Onslow Real name: Jace cleaver
Much of my past is a mystery to me - the kind that comes hauntingly back in cold sweats at 1 am in the morning - good time for a jog I say. So, where to start....
I was a below average kid in school and liked it that way - never attracted undue attention and stayed off everyone's radar. This all changed when I turned 15 - I started to lose control of my....strength and speed...during jujitsu class. The kind of stuff that shouldn't happen like over powering guys 2 years above me or moving so quick that even the teacher couldn't hit me. Don't know how I did it, it just sorta happened.
Anyway, my teachers apparently started talking and soon my parents were called in, I didn't know what all the fuss was about but apparently some corporation was interested in sponsoring me and after several meetings, my parents decided it would be safer to go with Ares because they claim to just want to research these phenomena and offered my family a MUCH better life style for it.....what could it hurt right.....
Well, things seemed to be going along fine, I was learning to develop my abilities and the Ares guys seemed kind enough -things never last though...When I was about 17, In a horror night that I still can't fully remember my family were all killed by some group of professionals.
At best vague images come back to me when I'm sleeping, but I can't make them out...anyway, when I came to I was in some clinic or research lab - they refused to tell me anything and instead of training me, they started experimenting with 'other' forms of magic...My time with these people was hard to establish a timeline, as it felt like a dream and I know they kept me drugged.
Anyway, some date in the future the clinic was infiltrated by a covert team of runners - turns out they were trying to sabotage the research being conducted - also turns out they missed a guard that was watching me....I was only too glad to extend the guard my personal thanks for the nice treatment he extended me. Needless to say, they didn't know what to do with me, but a mage on the group called Seth decided to bring me with them.
Seth was kind enough to give me a place to live, help me in my recovery and teach me what had happened in the world/to me. I learned Aztechnology was holding me and were doing experiments with insect, toxic and blood magic's - apparently my blood was useful to their experiments. I also learned that I had been there for about 24 months...give or take.
So, I was about 19 - my family were killed by an Aztech raiding team (don't know if any survived, but been unable to discover this for myself). I have discovered a burning hatred for insect & toxic spirits and despise blood mages. Aztech is at the top of my hated organisations and Seth has warned me NOT to go back to Ares under possible threat of more experiments...
With the amazing options left to me, and the generosity of Seth, I accepted his offer and lived with him. I discovered a mentor spirit - Wolf - which suiting my beliefs well and as such have adopted its code. As Seth was a very accomplished mage, I concentrated on my adept powers and spells that enhanced this power - we were a powerful team, having completed many silent missions together. This was a happy time of my life, one where I found peace and learn who I was, what I wanted and where I fitted in.
Again, things changed....when I was 21 we were doing a raid on a Vory hide down in the Puyallup barons. They were known for producing drugs and being a heavy handed section for getting information. Our job was to extract a young lady they had taken into their possession for questioning - apparently she was in the wrong place at the wrong time....nothing more. Anyway, the house had some heavy hitters...a lot of them actually...and we were in trouble the moment the surprise was lost. The team sent to retrieve the girl never came back from the basement under heavy gun fire exchanges. We were the extraction team - having the top floor secure, we hit the basement team as they came after us - Seth was hit by a dart gun and went down - finishes the two guards off, I grabbed Seth and ran for our evacuation sight.
I figured we were done - the Vory had multiple teams exiting the building, they had a car and suppression fire was coming in our direction....our rigger and drones were down and we had to run several kilometres cross country to the getaway vehicle - not good.
Suddenly the world changed...the car in chase of us exploded. The Vory teams started getting sniped and shot to pieces by heavy machine gun fire and this hum vee came roaring up to us like a military unit sent to save the Queen...what the hell right. Anyway, the hummer pulls up and two combat ready guys jump out and start cover firing while a third - this cute red head - yells at me to get in.
So....i'm sitting in the car trying to heal Seth with no success thanks to the damn toxins when I realise that the lady and Seth are talking....they know each other....what did he call her....Sylvee....They both know each other and watching them they both have high respect for each other. She tells him to hold on, they are almost at help...he shakes his head, tells her to do one things for him in honour of their friendship. Anyway, we arrive at some medical clinic and she tells me to help bring him in - we both know he has already passed - but we try - I respect her for that.
So, u can already guess, Seth passed, and I crashed at the doctors for a couple of days - Celenia said it was okay, Sylvee organised it apparently. Anyway, that evening on the second day Sylvee arrives to check in on me. Have to admit, feeling pretty down with no home, no friends and idea what I was going to do - Seth was always the one that worked out these ideas and now he and his (my) friends were all dead. Well, Sylvee took me out to dinner and drinks at some club called the black watch - to make me an offer I literally couldn't refuse.
Sylvee decided to explained a few things and let Jace decide what he wanted to do, Obviously they used to work together she explained, about 6 years ago, when she first entered the streets. He kept an eye on her when he could and so they watched each other's backs. They ran a lot of successful and got quite the reputation, but with reputation comes a price and about 2 years ago an Ares raid (targeted on her) almost got everyone killed. She felt guilty because of the heat and left the group thinking it best for everyone else. She has not seen the old members since until today.
If you want it I have a place setup you can live in, I can supply you with whatever equipment you need and I'm willing to advance you the money to accomplish this. I'm willing to do this for two reasons - the first and most important is that Seth vouched for you. The second is that I need you to do something for me, and it's a very delicate job that I need someone I can trust and that has the honour to complete the mission...I need you to find out if an Elf call Bethany works at any Ares installations in the Tokyo area - if you locate her (picture given) and extraction is possible, that is the mission....she is my sister and I want to get her away before they completely brain wash. She is a mage, but little more do I know of her abilities. I have lost much to this world, and this corp, but my sister is someone I wish to free and get back.
If you accept you will be going to Tokyo with a group of people that have already been doing missions for her - the side mission will be for you only, use the group if you think it will help, I will leave that to you. I will have a secure way to contact me should anything go wrong or you need help over there - emergency only though.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Also, to whoever wrote Anarchy: Subsidized. Great module, having a bunch of fun so far, but next time you send the runners off to another country in a luxury jet remember to include previsions for their vehicles. I know my riggers, and they HATE being separated from their toys.

As a GM, I'd make an allowance for that, personally. It would raise far too many red flags to transport a riggermobile from Seattle to Tokyo (Neo or otherwise,) so I'd have had Horizon put the Riggermobile in safe, long-term storage, and provided a new, less-tricked-out but completely clean riggermobile upon arrival, something new for the rigger to sink his/her teeth into, with the promise that the group can keep it as a bonus if it survives everything they get up to by the time they're ready to go back home.

[FuelDrop]

First draft on Walker's background. I could use suggestions on what to add, anything you guys want me to expand on, that sort of thing.

So, my history. Let’s start at the beginning. My full name is Jill Kara Bonds, daughter of Tara Parker and James Bonds. I was born on the 25th of February, 2044, in the UCAS city of New York. My mother was a human who worked as an accountant for Cerebrotech (an Ares subsidiary that deals in cybernetics and optics). Nothing interesting yet, right? Let’s spice things up a bit. My father is an old-school shadowrunner. He married my mother as part of his cover identity… yeah, you can already tell this isn’t going to work out, can’t you? Well they managed to stay together for a good eight years, 2043-2051, before his work drove them apart. Ironically, as far as I can tell mum never found out about dad’s real job, it’s just that he kept having to leave town for extended periods with little to no warning. She may have suspected an affair towards the end… which was absolutely correct. I have the younger half-brother to prove it.

My childhood was pretty much corp standard while my parents were together, but once they split up it began getting a bit less production line standard. See, while I was with mum I was getting the hunky-dory corporate education from Ares, the All American Corp™. When I was with my dad on the other hand, I was learning crime. Now dad was a confidence man, and he ran with a pretty standard team. Decker, Rigger, Muscle, Face. No magic, but there were less mages back then so that wasn’t exactly uncommon. Initially I was basically the mascot, sitting in the van and watching the others work. After a while I started getting more important jobs, such as keeping an eye on the monitors in case something unexpected happens. I got a fairly well-rounded education here, everything from hitting people to basic computer skills and demolitions. My real talent was fairly obvious, I was following in my dad’s footsteps.

Then, at 11, the crash 2.0 happened. I was with my dad at the time, and we were out of town on a job. In our hotel room, planning the next step, we hear a car crash outside. Then another one. And another. All the auto-pilot systems had simultaneously failed, leading to total anarchy. Our Decker tried to log in and find out what was going on, but… yeah, let’s just say we ditched the mission at that point. Given the chaos following the crash it took almost a week for us to get home. I hadn’t been able to contact mum in that time but, well, the crash. I don’t know what I was expecting when I arrived at mum’s place, but… she’d been in VR when it happened. Logged in, then never logged out. I kind of… freaked out. What? I was 11, and my world had just been turned upside down! Like you would have handled it better.
Anyway. My corporate SIN was gone, but dad suggested that I sign up for a national SIN. Being an actual person has its perks. After that, dad got a LOT more protective of me. Sent me off to boarding school for a while, and a good one at that. He spent a lot of money getting me a top-notch education, and I can even remember some of it. I’ll be honest I wasn’t really that good a student, not that you can tell by looking at my straight A grades. See, with the crash rich people were less than thrilled with their kids spending most of their time in VR. That meant actual teachers, who are as vulnerable to being manipulated as everyone else. One area where my scores were legit was performing arts. I love acting, and I’m a fairly solid singer as well. Oh, and if you can name the instrument then odds on I at least know how to hold it… except Harmonicas. Those things and I have a history.

I was good enough to get a scholarship into collage, where once again I focused on acting. Also did some debating, which was fun. Half the time my opposition was totally out of their league because they were limited to using actual evidence to support their arguments. I can think of at least two occasions where I managed to convince them that their research was wrong and whatever BS I was spinning was actually the truth. Now it’s not exactly uncommon for students in collage to have a side job to help make ends meet. I know one girl who was working at a strip joint, and another who sidelined as a building consultant. It takes all sorts, I guess. My sideline was killing people and stealing stuff. I may have put it a bit bluntly, but it’s the truth. I’d use my skills as an actress to get in, then take what I need or kill my target. Just small jobs, I wasn’t ready for the big leagues at that point, but it was enough to get by on comfortably.

After collage I started a double life. Officially I’m a small-time actress, and I’m legitimately part of the industry. You can find my name hidden in the credits of several B-grade Trids, I’m even the leading lady in a couple. Directors like it when their actors do their own stunts, it saves them needing a stunt double and makes editing that little bit easier. Most of my ‘ware is registered as ‘work related’ because of that. I tend to favor Science Fiction works that allow me to play the green-skinned alien chick. Makeup is hell, but it means I don’t have to worry about someone recognizing me on my other job: corporate espionage agent. Running the shadows makes more money in a night than most acting jobs make in a month, letting me live the high life. I like the high life.

[FuelDrop]

05/12/2070.
Meet Mr Brax. He's a Fixer. Why a Londonite is one of the best-connected Fixers in Neo-Tokyo is anyone's guess, but that's the word on the street.
Mr Brax is well out of the league we used to work with in Seattle, so we might be stepping up in the world. Of course, the higher we climb the further we have to fall. He knows this better than we do, so naturally we get a test run to see if we're up to snuff. I seem to be saying that a lot lately.

The mission in brief: We have to make sure a meeting between the heads of some A-level corporations follows a script. Another team is handling one side of the conversation, so we need to make sure that Mayumi Akio follows his lines. Now fortunately, over the last few years he's started spending more time with his family and less at the office, allowing us to have a good shot at slipping in an impersonator.

Naturally, it's not just a matter of walking in and saying "I'm the boss, let's sell the company!". We need a couple of things before we can pull the con off convincingly. First and foremost we need his security access pass. Easy enough to copy, but we need to get our hands on the original first. Next, we need either his commlink, or some quality time with it to copy his comm codes and schedule. Finally, we're going to need a thumb print and retinal scan in case they have biometric sensors. Quite the laundry list of stuff, but we have a plan.

Firstly, we're going to need to get him somewhere we can pick his pocket to swipe his commlink, then slip it back to him after we're finished. That means somewhere that his Commlink going bye-bye won't take down his PAN.
GameNation is having a big miracle shooter event in two days. They hand out PAN enablers and require that people switch off their Commlinks while inside to prevent hackers from cheating. Mr Mayumi is big on his electronic entertainment (his corp makes parts for knock-off commlinks, so he's already in the industry), so if we can get him tickets from a legit source then there's good odds that he'll make it a family day out. This also gets us his thumbprint.

Meanwhile, the rest of our team will hit his apartment. He's converted 4 floors into a super-penthouse (The building is pretty compact, so I can't exactly blame him. I'd do exactly the same thing if I owned an apartment complex.), take the scans to copy the card, then get out nice and quiet. If they trip an alarm once they're inside, the cops will call Mr Mayumi's Commlink and we'll tell them it's alright, just a glitch in the system.

While I get the gear we need to copy the card, Sarah is organizing the tickets. Now last time Sarah tried to pull something like this she screwed up so badly she ended up with a cranial bomb. She learned from that experience, and from what she told me Ares marketing division never stood a chance. So now that Mayumi is on their promotional free ticket list, all we have to do is wait for our chance.

07/12/2070.
06:00 PM.
I'd forgotten how much fun picking pockets could be. One quick jostle, one commlink. Sarah is on fire once again and blasts through that thing's firewall like it wasn't even there, in spite of the fact that it's a top-of-the-line piece of hardware. While she's on that, I dust for fingerprints. After about a minute we have everything we could ever need from it, and in another minute it's back in its owners pocket without him being any the wiser. We retire to the car and begin screening his calls in case the others screw up.

EDIT: Little did we know...

06:30 PM.
They made the news. Cops, security company thugs, the whole lot. Pure luck is the only reason those two aren't rotting in prison right now. Okay, here's what happened as far as I can piece things together.

First, they get in. Shadow tells me that he just pretended to be on the comm while one of the residents was entering and got them to hold the door for him, after which he let Seth in. All in front of a security guard, but lets face it: running security is boring enough without being stuck on the front desk of some nothing apartment building. So then they head to the elevator and Seth presses all the buttons. I swear it's just to annoy Shadow... so, good cause. The elevator doesn't open on any of the penthouse floors, but does open on the roof. Now they go back down to the sub-levels, checking them out. I will never know what security thought they were doing, but whatever. Then Seth goes over to one of the security people and tries to talk to them, but immediately runs into a problem: He doesn't know Japanese. We're going to be working in the country for a year, and he hasn't bothered to start learning the language yet.

Well he leaves the bemused security guy behind and walks up the stairs to the roof, clambers up on top of the elevator housing and starts playing air guitar. A few seconds later security rock up. I can only assume that by now they're watching these guys on the cameras. They start telling him to get down in broken English. Meanwhile, Shadow is busy taking down the guy at the desk and a final guard who's talking to him, then grabs one and drags him into the elevator to use his authorization to open the penthouse door. Doesn't work. Meanwhile Seth has pissed his guys off enough that they draw tazers and threaten him. He still doesn't co-operate, so they taze the shit out of him. That gets him to do what they say for a moment. He gets down. Then Shadow's elevator dings open, with one of their security guys slumped unconscious inside. He tried to bluff his way out of the situation and fails epicly. So one of them calls the cops while the other tries to shoot him full of darts.

It pretty much went down hill from there. Only interesting fact that came to light during their escape was that Seth is a mage. Yeah, he didn't bother to mention that. Anyway, they get out in one piece though the entire thing is on Mytube with close to a thousand hits before they've even left the building.

Now Seth is 19. Just a kid. He did something stupid, sure, but he's a teenager. It's built in. Shadow is 40, AKA OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER! He should have reined in Seth before things got too far.

Anyway, now I have to find a way to salvage this situation.

[FuelDrop]

08/12/2070.

Okay, we have a plan. Cops are all over the place and security are under the spotlight. Fortunately nothing was stolen, no-one was killed, and the only real property damage was some damage to a chain-link fence in the carpark, so the cops aren't really putting that much effort into this case. We can use this.

The security contractor is Parashield. Sarah is hacking their systems right now. Plan is to use the incident as an excuse to send a couple of inspectors in to assess the building's security setup. With luck, we will be those inspectors.

09/12/2070.

It took an hour, but we've got the card. We are good to go.

10/12/2070.

We're done. In spite of some rocky patches we completed the mission, we've been payed, and Mr Brax seems to be happy with our work. All in all, a good day.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Don't you just love it when your teamies decide to go pink mohawk while you're counting on them to be blackhat and mirrorshades?


Good work on salvaging a Charlie Foxtrot, though. I think these guys really would prefer full pink mohawkery, though.

[FuelDrop]

Don't you just love it when your teamies decide to go pink mohawk while you're counting on them to be blackhat and mirrorshades?


Good work on salvaging a Charlie Foxtrot, though. I think these guys really would prefer full pink mohawkery, though.

I actually think it was more testing me on how much I'd let them get away with. Seth's player (our old GM) hasn't actually been just a player in forever, so he's still getting back into it and pushing boundaries to see how hard I push back.

[FuelDrop]

11/12/2070.
Big pay day yesterday. First priority: new shoes. I've decided to try going native with fashion, starting with the feet and working my way up. After seeing some of the more... extreme designs originating around here I've decided to start conservatively. I mean, just look at some of these!
Naturally I bought some anyway in case they're needed for some social occasion or other, but I'm mainly looking for practical designs for day-to-day wear. As for the rest... well, let's just say Japanese fashion is too vast a subject for me to get more than the smallest sampling of it in my time here so far. Of course it doesn't help that I limit myself to ballistic resistant cloth and hesitate to wear anything that doesn't cover my vital organs, but that still leaves me with a vast selection to choose from.

I suppose I should also look into getting some new cyberware too. Once I finish my clothes shopping.

12/12/2070.
One thing I dislike about Japan is the inability to accessorize properly. I feel naked without a pistol by my side, and a tazer just isn't the same. I'm considering picking up a sword since they seem to be all the rage around here, but it's impossible to find one that goes with all my outfits. That means either I need to get several swords, one for each outfit, or simply go with a concealable weapon chosen purely for practicality.

I'm going with option two for now. My trusty combat knife will suffice for now, and it's not like I plan on getting into close combat if I can avoid it.

Also, I've managed to find a good street doc and get some new 'ware. I've replaced my reaction enhancers with a name brand version, and added some decent cyberears to boot. I made sure to get a dampener, considering Shadow's inordinate fondness for flash-bang grenades.

13/12/2070.
Found a great sushi restaurant a few blocks up from our apartment. Never been a fan of sushi before, but the stuff they serve here is really nice.

15/12/2070.
I met an arms dealer today. He had a beautiful Ruger Warhawk in stock, and it was calling to me. I mean, I know it can't be silenced. I know it can only fire six shots before I need to reload it. I know it's horrifically illegal to own here in Japan... but none of that matters. I absolutely had to have it.

18/12/2070.
Got a job today. Some pirates pissed off the wrong person, and we've been hired to take them down. It's one of the simplest runs I've been involved in: Go in, kill everyone, sail their boat in for the fixer to resell.
As part of this we've made a new friend. Dr Wu the alchemist was kind enough to supply us with the preparations we need for the operation, though to be honest I'm not really that comfortable relying on magic like this. I'm not that comfortable being honest like this, either.
Insertion is by air. We're currently flying to our target, and once we reach them we'll bail out and activate these spells. I really hope they work as advertised. Also, Shadow bought his mutt along. Five Nuyen says it won't jump out of the plane.

Voyage home.
Well, as they say in the industry: never work with children or animals. We landed safely and stealthily, complements of some preparations that made us invisible. Seth used a spell to give the two guys who might spot us sea sickness, then Shadow landed on one axe-first and Seth tipped the other one over the side. So far, so good. Unfortunately, once Shadow's hound caught the scent of blood it abandoned stealth for an altogether less subtle attack: It set the nearest pirate on fire. It's a hell hound, so that kind of thing is expected.

Anyway, one long battle full of more magic than I care to remember (seriously, I think about 5 spirits got involved at various times. Having two Shamans face off is not something you want to get in the middle of!) we managed to get out of it all in more or less one piece. The puppy got its ass handed to it by a spirit, but fortunately it doesn't look fatal. Seth's last spirit seemed to like him and he said something or other about a binding. All I know is that when we pulled into dock and I went down to the shamanic sanctum to check on him he was out cold. I suppose that spirits tend to get a bit irked when you try to enslave them, not that I can blame them in the slightest. I'm not sure Seth views it that way, of course.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Wow. Sounds like you had a blast. Seriously, though, how did Seth get a hellhound to agree to a paradrop?



My game didn't go off. More than half were no-shows, and I have a huge battle lined up for my players, since the last four or five games running have been nothing but straight roleplay.

[FuelDrop]

Wow. Sounds like you had a blast. Seriously, though, how did Seth get a hellhound to agree to a paradrop?



My game didn't go off. More than half were no-shows, and I have a huge battle lined up for my players, since the last four or five games running have been nothing but straight roleplay.

Funny thing: both of the new guys who I was expecting to be there and designed the run as an introduction for were no-shows, as was nitro's player (again)!

Shadow got his hell hound to jump with an animal handling check. He only got two hits, but I was kind and let him do it so that he could finally try out his new toy. He seemed to think that the hell hound would basically act as an extra character under his control. One glitched animal handling check to make it be stealthy later and that idea went out the window.

I still let him do the rolls for it, but I basically had veto on its actions. "No, it can't automatically distinguish between the enemy beast spirit and Seth's beast spirit." "You just started killing people. It doesn't realize you want it to do so quietly." that sort of thing.

On a side note, the street shaman archtype's build in SR5 core is cripplingly bad. Our MysAd (Seth) outclassed him at summoning, spellcasting, and combat by a massive margin.

Also, Seth's player gets a thumbs up for roleplay this week. Seth is supposed to be a protege as far as raw power is concerned, but he doesn't really understand magic very well on an academic side. As demonstrated when he directed the group to start firing blind at a target IN ASTRAL SPACE! That is what I call player-character separation.

[FuelDrop]

Looks like Sarah's player will be GMing the next session. should be interesting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[FuelDrop]

23/12/2070.
Two days till Christmas. All my gift shopping is done, but my attempts to find some top-end augmentation for myself continue to be thwarted. Probably because of the sheer number of shoppers making a proper search all but impossible.
Anyway, I've gotten Shadow a new collar for Fido, some new shoes for Sarah, and a nice jacket for Seth. Synthleather. Anyway, I have no idea where he's gotten to at this point, as I've just gotten a call from Sarah. She wanted everyone to meet up for a job. I suggested the sushi place down the block.

8:00 am.
So, our Horizon Johnson got a family member kidnapped, payed the ransom, and got them back. Now he's sending us after the ransom money and a bit of revenge on the side. The credstick was bugged so we have a general location, though they jammed it before we could get a lead to their base. That gives us a ten mile radius area of sub-tokyo to search. The gang calls themselves the Sewer Rats and according to Sarah they're infamous for chemical weapons and booby traps.

Hours upon hours of searching through booby-trapped sewers? Yeah, no thanks. Shadow said he'd check out the subway while I talked to some people, maybe find out a bit more about our targets. Sarah can deal with the christmas customers stocking up on supplies for the expedition.

8:30 am.
Shadow went to the abandoned subway and spotted a bum buying drugs. The bum spotted him, so he pummeled him with full auto gel from his assault rifle. I feel sorry for that bum. Then he tracked down the drug dealer. I get called in to interrogate and, to no-one's surprise, he doesn't know anything we need. Amazing, some random picked up from a shady deal doesn't know anything about a gang that happens to operate somewhere in a nearby district. I am shocked.

10:00 am.
after a morning of making friends and being my normal awesome self I've run across Michael Garrot. He's a kid dwarf who fancies himself a shadowrunner, but more importantly he's been hired by a rival gang to take down the sewer rats. I tell him to meet us for dinner, we'll discuss working together.

7:30 pm.
Michael scrubs up nice. Still no idea why he's picked a western name since as far as I can tell he's a local, but whatever. Maybe it's to cause confusion for people trying to track him down. Anyway, we work out a plan and basically set it up so that we'll cut him in on our payday if he'll cut us in on his. Why is he worth that much as an ally? Well, he's managed to wrangle his way into the gang we're trying to take down and can give us an exact rundown of their forces, their current location, and its defenses pretty much earn him that paycheck in my book. Admit it, I did better than Shadow managed skulking around in the sewers all day. The man has had two showers so far and he still reeks. In other words, nothing new.

Ok, I retract that. The showers are a new development.

[FuelDrop]

24/12/2070.
Bit more recon. The gang has apparently holed up under a dive bar, and there are some hints that the sewer rats leader is hanging out there. According to Michael he's not really the type to spend his time chilling with his chummers in the gang. Or maybe he can't stand the smell. Can't blame him on that one. Anyway, despite my best efforts I can't talk my way past the bouncer (A dive bar with a bouncer? That's new.), but Sarah was able to walk in without difficulty. Then again, who's going to stop a troll? She gets line of sight to the target and we begin phase 2, a classic half-pincer movement.

AKA, a frontal assault. Who the heck trained Shadow?

Fortunately we'd set up a distraction attack on one of their strongest defenses: a smoke grenade, a disposable jammer, and a cap gun. All set up to go off remotely, of course. Plan was to activate that then hit them from one of their weak points. We'd go in, slit the guards throats, then hit their defenses from a flank. All that? out the window. Why? Well one of the guards spots us and tries to gas us. Both Shadow and I are wearing sealed suits (because A: we know these guys love their gas and B: We're in the sewers, you damn well bet I'm wearing a sealed suit.), so the initial effects are negligible. I chase down the second guard and taze him while Shadow deals with the first guy.
Note: Tazer + wet environment + me in a sealed, rubberized suit = bad news for the target.
Anyway, I've barely turned the corner when I hear a massive explosion behind me. Turns out Seth had pulled out a lighter and the gas from the grenade was flammable. I am so glad I got that dampener ear-ware.

At that point our initial tactic was pretty much blown. Michael contacted us and informed us that the gang was heading for their fallback position, so we put plan B into operation.

Long story short, this gang was full of nutcases far too grenade happy for their own good. Past tense. They managed to blow themselves up during the fight and would have taken us with them if it hadn't turned out that Michael was a mage.
A fact he had neglected to mention to us up till now.

What, do I have some weird 'teenage protege mage runner who hides his true power' magnet hidden somewhere? I've found 2 over the past two months.

Anyway, with all that out of the way it's Christmas eve. I've disinfected and bandaged all of my wounds, taken two showers and a bath, and now I am going to go outside and celebrate.

Merry Christmas to all. Hopefully I'm flush enough on karma that Santa won't give me coal this year.

[ShadowDragon8685]

That was awesome, FD.