So, this week saw our fourth session and my attempt at running Ghost Cartels. I chose this over Dawn of the Artifacts because a poster on the previous thread advised it. I was a bit unsure about being able to run a more open-ended campaign of this type, rather than the fairly precisely scripted type of adventure such as On The Run, which is why I wasn't at first considering Ghost Cartels to be an option. But I figured that I might as well give it a try knowing that I had the more scripted adventures to fall back on if things went wrong - rather than running through all of them, being left with nothing but the Campaign books, and having to cop out completely if I couldn't keep up with running them.
So, as we kicked off, the runners were still dealing with Kermin Loomis staying in Zod's apartment. When I reminded them of this, they dropped Loomis back off at the burned-out Coda, but after some protests, Dawg gave the 10,000ny he got from selling the disc to Loomis to help him get started again. The runners then started to discuss what to do next; they had some interest in tracking down the vampires who had bought the disc, and also were still interested in going after Tamanous at some point. However, they then got the call from Kane's fixer asking them to meet Dae at the strip club. Down they drove in the infamous armored car, parking a little while away, but not finding it necessary to actually bring weapons into the meeting with Ms. Johnson this time - although they were still wearing some obvious armor. Fortunately, Dae shuttled them past the bouncers and they met up with her in the club's back conference room, receiving the pictures and names and details. Zod suggested that they should just try to shut down the entire gang because "they're scummy drug dealers", and Dae quietly reminded him that he was a shadowrunner himself..
After some discussion the runners decided to have Dawg cast invisibility on Kane, and he'd go and infiltrate one of the safehouses, while the others stayed behind in the back of the strip bar since they couldn't infiltrate if their lives depended on it. Kane pointed out that a motorbike riding itself down the highway might be a bit suspicious (although not impossible in a world with remote controlled vehicles), so Zod agreed to lend him his car which he could drive around with shields behind the windows to prevent anyone noticing him. Kane was halfway to the Verge when Zod pointed out that, since they could all hide inside the car, there was no point in them staying behind in the club when they could all be in the car - so Zod remote-controlled the car to come back and pick them all up after all, to Kane's surprise and complaint..
So, they pull into the Verge, where Dawg's Detect Enemies starts to fleck up a few points from the various scum wandering the Verge recognizing that the car isn't one they know - but although Zod is in favor of hopping out the car and killing anyone who pops up on the Detect Enemies, most of the low-lives just run away. They pull the car up and Kane, still invisible, heads over to the safehouse (which I decide is a broken-down warehouse - hey, you can never have too many broken-down warehouses, right?). He decides to hide next to the entrance of the warehouse and wait to see if anyone comes. So I conveniently arrange the coincidence that Adam pulls into the safehouse at that point in his car, with two Orks along as muscle, to pick up two cases of Tempo - one to trade to Caine and one to deal himself in the clubs that night.
At this point I also decide to give the runners a little scare and a bit of a tip as to what's going on. Alex's profile mentions that he has a mild addiction to Tempo, but I figured he probably wouldn't be actually high on it while working - one of his Ork goons, however, didn't feel that way. Meaning that he immediately started calling and pointing out to Alex about how he could see "rainbows" next to the warehouse entrance. Since I didn't want Kane actually getting caught at this point I also decided that since Tempo was so new, nobody was really sure exactly what it did yet, so Alex just ignored him and chalked it up to him being high as a kite. The two orks guarded the door while Alex slipped in to get the drugs - and Kane slipped him after him (with the great idea of standing behind the other - non-high - Ork and waving his arms around to make the other Ork's aura look chaotic)
While Kane was doing this, a couple of random low-lives wandered up the car parked in the verge and started prodding at it, trying to open the doors or possibly jack the thing. Zod poked his assault rifle through one of the gun ports and shot one of them dead on the street, causing them all to flee.
So, Alex picked up the drugs, locked up, and they headed back to their car. Kane then realized he had no way to track or pursue the car, so he grabbed a picture of the car with his cyber-eyes and commed it over to Faceman in the team's car. Dawg summoned up a Spirit of Man to follow the car. Now, I figured this would make the high Ork really freak out, but he still wasn't be trusted on listened to. Soon enough, the Spirit of Man reported back that the car had arrived at the "club in Tacoma" where the meeting with Kaine was due, which I randomly named The Silver Edge (when I tried to come up with a nightclub name on the fly all I could think of was The Bronze out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - so I fudged it to "The Silver" and then added something cyberpunky sounding on the end. Technical process, right?)
The runners started driving off - and at this point I decided to throw in another mix-up in the works. The runners had mentioned wanting to go after Tamanous, and the campaign mentions that Tamanous are active in the Verge. The runners just left the dead body of a low-life lying in the middle of the road. So, they saw another car pull up behind them and stop. When the runners drove away, the other car moved forward a bit, but stopped rather than following them, and two men got out. Zod jumped out of the car and full-auto bursted the two men, killing them both instantly, running over to them and then shooting up their car. When the shooting caused a Freon leak, Zod inspected the car and found that the back of the car had a refrigeration system installed. Zod was rather confused as to what this was about, and took the commlinks from the two men, but none of the runners had enough hacking ability to even get past their PIN screens. Now, I have no idea if Tamanous would actually be that unsubtle about picking up a body, or even if they would want that body, but figured I could always retrofit it that these were not actually Tamanous themselves but a bunch of random gangers thinking they could throw in with them or at least make a little money on the side.
So, the runners pulled up at "the silver edge" and Kane again snuck in invisible (although he was noticed by the tempo-heads inside the club). Because of his low Perception, he took a while to spot Alex and Caine and didn't spot the Yaks at all. He stayed out of sight - invisible in a crowd with stupidly high Infiltration - until Caine got up and started heading out, waving some other Ragers to leave the club with him. Alex, meanwhile, remained in the club, hoping to sell some tempo directly there himself. Kane commed Faceman again, telling him that Caine and the Ragers were leaving the club and had some connection with the deal.
At which point Zod spun the car around and the team proceeded to open fire on the Ragers as they left the club, killing Caine, his lieutenant, and all the muscle within a single Initiative Pass before any of them could react.
Zod then decided that they wanted to take the case for themselves. Panicking, he commanded the car to Chameleon to look like a Lone Star patrol vehicle (doing this in front of people - saying that he wanted them to believe that the car had been a Lone Star cruiser all along, but had been undercover before), and Faceman got onto the car's speakers to try and convince them they were actually the police. Thanks to a stupidly high Con roll, he made this, and the car pulled up. The bouncers immediately blocked the entrance to the club to prevent anyone "disturbing the crime scene", and Dawg cast Trid Phantasm on Faceman to make him look like he was wearing a Lone Star uniform. Under the illusion, Faceman got out, dragged the case and Caine's body into the car, took the weapons from the other bodies, told the bouncers that the "corpse wagon" would be along for the remains, and jumped in before the car headed off at top whack.
Meanwhile, Kane was still in the club, and expressed a wish to continue tailing Alex to see what he was about to do. The runners drove "around a corner", dropped the police camouflage on their car, and opened up the case, revealing a stash of tempo derm patches.
At that point, we stopped for the night, as it was a convenient spot and I also needed to work out what the heck was going to happen now. I can see at least three open points now:
* First of all, obviously the Ragers are going to want to know what happened to Caine. They won't have heard of the runners, but they _will_ know that Caine was going to meet with Alex. That could be interesting if Kane continues to tail Alex, as sooner or later the Ragers will want to have a few words with Alex in private. More importantly, it's not clear how this is going to affect the Ragers' role in the Tempo market. Essentially the market will now be dominated completely by First Nations until the Yaks decide to get involved. It's also not clear if the runners were planning to tell Dae what they did.
* Secondly, there is the matter of the case of Tempo the runners picked up. They have not yet said what they are planning to do with it. Obviously selling it could be lucrative but would essentially make them the new competitors with the Nations and the Yaks for the Tempo market. Alternatively they might end up giving it to someone - possibly to Dae, which would mean it ends up with Kaz, which could be interesting. Meanwhile, the Nations might well want it back, and any number of random addicts might rather like it, too.
* Finally, as fooled as those bouncers might have been by Faceman's Con skill, they're going to notice when the "wagon" doesn't actually turn up. So that's murder and impersonating an officer at the very least..