Slacker:

Your musings are interrupted when you suddenly realize that you're staring into the face of a grizzly black man with an eyepatch covering his left eye. Stepping back in surprise, you look him over and manage to immediately identify him as a homeless man. His tattered and foul-smelling clothing and unwashed skin probably lended some help towards leading you to that conclusion. The man smiles widely, displaying two uneven rows of yellowish-black teeth, half of which are missing.

"Howdy son, wanna spare an old man some change so that he can satiate his alcohol addiction?"

Hey, at least he's honest.

Caitlin:

There's a five second silence before you hear your father sigh over the phone.

"I would try to discourage you from venturing into the Underground if I didn't already know that it would do no good. Listen, if you need any help while you're down there, call Charlie. You remember Charlie, right? He's going to lead the team for this job, and if you run into any trouble at all, don't hesitate to give him a ring. Take care of yourself, Caitlin. Don't get hurt."

Slacker looks at the bum. With a wan smile, he apologetically says "Sorry chummer. I got burned out of house and home the other day and now I stuck to the streets like you. Don't got a nuyen to my name anymore. It all went up in smoke."

"You wouldn't happen to know of a good place around here I can lay down at night, would you?" he asks.

"There's a nice cardbawd box near my squat that you kin sleep under. If you're lucky, it might even last you the whole night."

The hobo wheezes with laughter at his own joke before hobbling away to try his luck elsewhere.

Winchy goes back to his place in Downtown Seattle to rest for the night. He prepares himself physically by working out that night. In the morning he wakes up early, goes for a run and eats a nourrishing breakfast. He's amused at the thought of using his ax in combat again. His days in street gangs seem so far away.

He then makes himself ready for the task ahead: physically protecting the group. He packs into his backpack his Assault Rifle with the security on and enough ammo for a while in spare clips, a folded long coat in case he might need extra protection, the two respirators that Slacker got for him, some food for the road and afterwards, and the two pieces of his huge battle ax. He makes sure to have his 5 throwing knives ready on him, as well as a grenade, under his secure jacket. He considers taking the riot shield but decides not to bring it since it can't fit into the troll-sized back pack.

My mission is to protect my friends and I am now well equipped for dat. Winchy has rarely carried so much weaponry and that means alot for someone like him.

With his backpack filled he arrives at the rendez-vous point walking, at about 8.

Caitlin arrives at about ten 'til eight, immaculate as always but still dressed in casual street clothes (a jacket that's probably armored, black jeans, and hiking shoes). She has a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, and is sipping a latte from a styrofoam cup - one last taste of civilization before heading underground.

Although she is surprised to see Slacker already there, it doesn't show on her face. She contemplates complimenting him on being on time, but decides that could be taken as being condescending. Instead, she politely greets him and waits for the others. She seems alert but slightly distracted, as if she is making plans in her head. At least she isn't one of those abominable people who are perky in the morning.

Jokingly, Slacker says, "What took you so long? I've been waiting forever and a day." Despite the early hour he just can't help but give Caitlin a hard time for arriving after him.

When Winchy and then Warden arrive, he greets them and asks the group at large, "Shall we head on in?"

The four of you are standing in front of an old, crumbling building, its spirit worn down by the dirt of age, the blood of the dead, and the loneliness of desolation. The cracked walls are illustrated by poorly drawn graffiti art, and obscene messages spray-painted across the bricks voice a synchronized greeting to your arrival. The entrance is defended by a thin orange door with half the paint peeled off. Trying it, you find it unlocked. The door screams, its rusty hinges burnt raw as you swing it open.

Inside is a corridor lit by a single flickering lightbulb. The dust on the floor is tattooed by a pattern of footprints - more than one person has been here recently. A large rat hisses at you as you step in before scurrying away into the shadows. Your eyes wary, you walk down the hallway, the old floorboards creaking with every step. You eventually come to a thick wooden door at the end. Opening it, you find an old staircase leading down to the basement level.

The basement houses a bunch of old tools scattered across two tables, several large crates, and a massive green dumpster. At the far end is another room; the door is opened. Before you can decide upon a course of action, a sharp, gruff voice comes out of the room.

"We know you're there. Show yourself."

When you enter the room, you find four large orks sitting around a table topped by a small stack of credsticks and a mess of playing cards. A couple of assault rifles are propped up against the opposite wall. Sitting on a crate to your left is a young ork peering at your group with curious interest. He looks to be about fourteen years old, and is dressed in the tattered rags of a street urchin.

As you come in, the child announces, "I hafta go take a leak."

He jumps off the crate and hastily runs out of the room, bumping into Caitlin and stepping on Winchy's foot as he blows past. He mutters an "Excuse me" and speeds up the stairs, disappearing through the door.

One of the orks sitting at the table sizes you up. As he speaks, you realize that he's the same one who called you all in.

"What is your business here?"

Slacker isn't all that surprised to discover there are people watching the entrance to the Underground. Seeing that they haven't even picked up their weapons he isn't too worried either.

Still, he tries to remain alert for any surprises and/or hostile actions while leaving the talking to the others.

As the kid is running past Winchy and stepping on his foot, the troll pushes the young ork a bit; not enough to make him fall, but enough to shake him a little.

"Watch where you put your dirty little feet, kiddo", he mutters.

It's not the first time that you see Winchy get unhappy for small things like that. Frankly, most wouldn't blame him in this case since it could have seemed like a provocation.

After the kid excuses himself, Winchy adds: "Yeah you better be sorry."

Caitlin tells the ork "We have business with a few people (she gives him the name of their guide, and Winchy's two contacts)."

She displays the passes, then waits to see if they will be let through with a few more questions, or whether the orks will expect a bribe. The latter would not surprise her, not because she has a low opinion of orks, but because it's fairly common everywhere.

"I've never heard of the other two, but did you just say that Happy is your guide?" the ork asks Caitlin with amusement. A round of hearty laughter erupts from his friends sitting around the table.

"In that case, you might want to ask him what he just stole from you when he gets back."

'So that is what the kid was doing bumping into a big guy like Winchy,' Slacker thinks to himself with a little amusement. 'I guess he wasn't just trying to cop a feel on Caitlin after all.'

Slacker quickly checks his own pockets to ensure nothing had gone missing. He suspects he could have noticed it if the kid had tried it on him, but you never can be too careful. Just in case, he redoubles his efforts to stay alert.

Just like in those MMORPGs he's played, you got to watch out for the NPCs and even the occasionally nefarious PC, especially when you are entering an unknown and probably hostile dungeon.

Caitlin's veneer of cool reserve slips as she scowls slightly, but then she forces herself to look nonchalant. "I'll do that..." She isn't going to pat herself down in front of these orks, who have already been amused enough, although she has to muster an effort of will to not do just that.

She puts a calming hand on Winchy's arm, as she sees the big troll looking a bit agitated. "It'll be all right. Whatever's missing, he'll give it back. If he'd been seriously trying to rip us off, he wouldn't have been so obvious about it." She hopes, at any rate. Getting into a confrontation with their guide wouldn't be an auspicious start to the run, but they can't simply let it slide, either - they would lose too much face, too soon. Probably only his idea of a little joke, nothing serious. Probably...

The ork chuckles. "Don't worry too much about it, girly...the kid's a fast one. Hell, I know that he's a little good for nothing thief, and my things still end up in his hands from time to time. I would administer the beating that he sorely needs if I wasn't too soft for my own good."

He gestures to his friends, and they stand up. Two of them grab the chairs and haul them to the far wall while another pushes the table to the side. The ork lifts the dirty rug that was lying underneath the table to reveal a small black manhole cover fitting snugly into a recession in the floor. He removes it and beckons to your group to come over. As you peer down the hole, you see a thin ladder leading down from the room to a dimly lit tunnel below.

At the same moment, the young ork walks back into the room. He sees the scowls appear on your faces when you see him and reciprocates with a look of angelic innocence.

"Hi guys, did I miss something?"

Slacker divides his attention between warily watching the kid for any more thievery and glancing at Winchy to check his reaction.

He is a bit conflicted in this though. On the one hand, he kind of wants to see Winchy lose control and do something to the kid. Sure it would put the mission in a little jeopardy, but it would wipe the smile off the kids face.

On the other hand, the sheer audacity of of the kid stealing from a big guy like Winchy appeals to his sense of humor oh so much. In fact, he almost laughed out loud when he saw the kid's face as he came back in.

"No, Happy... I don't think you miss much. We seem to be missing a few things, though. Mind handing them back? It may seem a bit unnatural, but we have some honest work for you. A gent named Arkady pointed us your way, says you know the tunnels inside and out."

Caitlin coolly raises one eyebrow, but inwardly she's hoping the kid doesn't try the "What are you talking about?" thing - that might send Winchy over the edge, and the other orks, who seem fond of the kid, would probably jump in if any violence erupted.. That would be a hell of a spectacular failure for her first major run. "Come on, kid. Don't take a joke too far." she thinks to herself.

Caitlin:

The kid looks for a moment like he's about to try that very line, but then shrugs in resignation and grins sheepishly. Like magic, a credstick appears in his hand and he hands it over to you. A cursory examination reveals it to be one of yours.

"Sorry ma'am, I can't help myself," Happy apologizes.

He chews over what you just said, and continues, "Yeah, I know the Underground like nobody's business. I'm your man, that's me. It's gonna cost ya though."

"200 bucks?" he offers with a hopeful look in his eyes.

Caitlin smiles, away from the edge of the abyss and back in her element, again.

"Sounds reasonable. If you help us get our business taken care of quickly, there'll even be a bonus in it for you."

Winchy is still fuming about the whole thing. But as it often happens, feelings blocked his thinking for a bit and since no fighting was happening he had to think to decide what to do. But thinking was suddenly hard for him. Once again, his friends saved him from losing his temper. The conversations were quick and he didn't really catch what was going on but the first thing he saw was one of their credsticks handed back to them.

Winchy turned to the young ork named Happy and then to his own pockets and he could find what he remembered of his belongings. Still partly confused, he could easily make out that he had to be suspicious of the little *censured*.

"You a clever one, kid. But I dun like you anymore so dun try to steal stuff from us again if you wanna ever be 'appy like you're right now", he said in a way that was unmistakable. As the other three have come to know, Winchy is always true to his word, but especially threats. Who knows exactly what is on its mind though; it's likely related to a vague understanding of what he thinks he must do to protect the team.

Happy rolls his eyes at Winchy and nimbly scrambles down the rusty ladder without a word. When you finish your own descent through the manhole, you find yourself standing in a crudely dug out tunnel that slopes noticeable deeper into the ground. A string of lightbulbs built along the top of the tunnel break apart the natural darkness and illuminate its shadowy expanses. An eerie greenish moss grows sporadically on the walls, giving them a fuzzy, moldy appearance. You can't help but feel a strange uneasiness down here, perhaps fueled by the typical surface dweller's irrational fear that all the vast amounts of dirt in an underground place will stop holding together and collapse down upon him.

The light in the passageway dims even more when the orks up top replace the lid of the manhole. You begin to head downwards with a careful, steady gait.

Bouncing alongside you, Happy asks, "Where do you guys want to go? Arkady told me to take you all to Miss Lucy's bed n' breakfast if you don't have a place to crash."

Slacker is a little disappoint that nothing actually happened between Winchy and Happy, but it's probably for the best anyway.

After climbing down the ladder and looking around, Slacker says "Hey I think I remember this place from a Dungeon Crawler Extreme. Isn't there supposed to be a gelatinous cube lurking around the corner up ahead?"

When Happy asks where the group wants to go and even suggests heading to a place to crash, Slacker looks around at the rest of the group to see their reaction.

He is quite surprised to see any of them even think about heading to the bed n' breakfast. "Hey, I got my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn so we could get an early start today. So let's get started. We can find a place to rest when rest is needed."

The group is surprised by his uncharacteristic desire to get right to work, but they can understand it a little considering he had complained about the early hour and they had just gotten down here.

Caitlin jerks up from her contemplation, startled into laughter. She composes herself again, then replies to Slacker:

"Oh no, we have a nice, long day ahead of us, before the beckoning welcome of slumber at Miss Lucy's. I was trying to think of where we could begin our search... maybe Happy could take us to one of the nearby communities, where someone might know something."

She frowns slightly. "Now, what was that about a gelatinous cube? I've never heard of those. What is this 'Dungeon Crawl Extreme', anyways? Sounds like one of those stupid extreme sport challenge things." She turns to Happy. "Are gelatinous cubes common around here? Are they dangerous?"

Happy shrugs. "I thought you woulda wanted to drop your bags off or something. If all you want me to do is lead you to town, that's a piece of cake."

His face contorts in puzzlement when he hears Caitlin's question. "What does 'gelatinous' mean?"

Quite obviously and rather predictably, Slacker's joke was aimed at the wrong crowd. He shakes his head and, a little exacerbated, he says "Never mind. Wrong reality. Guess it's been too long since I was last online."

"Anyways, heading to town sounds like a good idea."

Winchy is not in the mood to laugh and he's still worried about their safety in this new, unknown place.

"Apart from pickpockets like yourself, how dangerous do you think this place is for humans?" he asks Happy quite seriously.

Happy ponders Winchy's question for a bit before answering.

"I don't think it's that dangerous, as long as you keep away from the wrong places. But that's what you have me for, hey?"

"Good enuf. Now I know who to blame if things go wrong", Winchy replied coldly.

Happy scowls in annoyance and mutters something under his breath about snobby rich people.

Caitlin keeps an eye on Happy and Winchy, as inobtrusively as she can. She thinks it would be better not to interfere unless things escalate to a dangerous point - better for them to work it out themselves, which she is sure they will, eventually.

She has a hard time keeping a straight face at the "snobby rich people" comment, though. That's probably the first time that Winchy has heard that particular insult.

Winchy chooses to ignore the comment. He really hates that little thief, though he needs him for now.

After ten minutes of trudging through the tunnel, the path has twisted, turned, and forked so many times that you wouldn't have a hope to finding your way back to the surface alone. Eventually, Happy leads you around one more muddy, fetid and poorly lit passage to come to a sight so imposing and sudden that it nearly brings your knees to mutiny. The tunnel opens up without warning into a colossal underground enclave that expands in all directions further than your eye can see.

This unusual town bears a rough resemblance to the city that you had left behind you - there are clusters of shacks, houses, and half-buildings that are separated by wide dirt roads. The dwellings are interspersed with old fashion market stalls, shops, and establishments that you suspect all come together to make up the backbone of the economy of this strange new world. There are large numbers of pedestrians moving about on the streets; every face that you can lay your eyes upon is either that of an ork or a troll. Several vehicles are rolling through the roads, but most of them look more like souped up golf carts than actual cars. The dirt ceiling begins about thirty feet above your head and is dominated by a vast network of glow tubes that collectively serve as the sun in this underground community. Some of the residents momentarily delay their business to shoot you curious looks as you emerge from the tunnel, but none approach you.

Happy's face breaks into a cheerful smile as he announces, "Here we are! Welcome to the Ork Underground."

Slacker is a bit impressed with how industrious these people have been down here. 'I guess it's only natural that they would have done something like this, being down here so long. But it certainly isn't what I had expected,' he thinks to himself.

"So, if this is the Ork Underground, what do you call all of those tunnels you just led us through?" he asks aloud, not particularly caring what the answer is. "A tourist trap designed to keep tourists out?"

He then turns to the rest of the group, "So what should we start with?"

Caitlin gazes around her. "Impressive."

Replying to Slacker, she says, "We have a few names. Why don't we see what they know about our missing person - if they haven't seen him, they should still probably be able to give us another lead or so."

Winchy is amazed to see so many of his own kin. He's known that the Ork Underground was this way, but he never realized what it meant before seeing it for real. He reflects on the race issue.

"I wonder if dere's as much racism against non-orks and non-trolls 'ere as dere is against us up dere."

About what to do next he adds: "It's also good to 'ave some kind of safe'ouse to go back to and our contacts will be useful for dat."

Slacker says, "Yeah, sounds like a plan to me."

Then he asks,"So, Happy, you recognize either of the names?"

Before Happy even has the chance to answer him, Slacker turns to Caitlin, "Uh...what were those names anyways? I guess I already forgot them."

He gives a little chuckle at that, and thinks to himself 'Why am I even bothering to ask? It's not like I remember it this time either. Just ain't important enough to me to keep track of.'

Replying to Winchy, Caitlin says, "It's probably not quite that bad. I have heard that they work with shadowrunners a lot, so our profession might offset some of their usual suspicion." She nods at the mention of a safehouse. "Yes. It will be useful to have a forward base to mount our search from. Hopefully it won't take too long to wrap up the job - the clock is ticking on it."

She frowns in concentration at Slacker's querry, before reciting the names that were brought up at the meeting - both Arkady's and Winchy's contacts.

Although her main focus is on the job at hand, wheels are still turning in Caitlin's head. There is so much potential here, for everything from buying contraband to evading pursuit. If Happy does a good job for them, she might give him a sizeable bonus, and see if she can slowly work him into becoming one of her regular contacts.

The young ork furrows his brow when Caitlin rattles off the list of names.

"Sorry, I dunno any of them. Do you have addresses or something?"

Your employer had only given you phone numbers, so it looks like you'll have to seek his associates out yourself. Once you give Happy the physical locations of Winchy's two contacts, he brightens up and says, "Yeah, I know where to go! They're pretty far away though."

He points at one of the strange, unconventional vehicles that seem to be ubiquitous in this place as the car zooms past you. "You guys want to rent one of those? I know a place that loans them out."

Slacker instantly likes the idea of not having to walk all over the place. "Yeah, That's a good idea." Realizing his lazy attitude may be showing a bit too much, he tries to come up with some reason other than walking makes his feet hurt.

"Uh...that would make our search go...faster...yeah, that's it, faster. Trudging around down here will take too long." Looking around at his fellow shadowrunners, he asks "Don't you think?"

"Yeah," agrees Caitlin. "Plus, my feet are killing me."

"I wouldn't mind to keep on walking... but if you guys insist", Winchy says neutrally.

With the vote going his way, Slacker happily asks Happy to lead the way.