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The Volunteers (AKA The Dirty Half-Dozen, The Six Wanderers)

Bob Perce (Herodian)
Colt Riffle (Gigermann)
Dr. J. Turk (CommJunkee)
Lance Bennett (Ronnke)
Lenny Leonardo (Melissa)
Romeo Sylvester (Rigil Kent)


The One Where They Met The Raiders

After the Volunteers finished with their question-asking of Aradesh, they inquired about where they might find a “bar” of some sort, and were directed to the nearby trading-post. It wasn’t much to look at, but it did have (a) booze to be drunk, and (b) games to be gambled upon. Lenny immediately seated himself at the roulette wheel there and started gambling, just before realizing he hadn’t anything to gamble with—Lance obliged him with a handful of bottlecaps from their stash, and afterward gave out a share to the others as well. Sly bought a bottle of the local fare—“rotgut,” they called it (it was unclear if the moniker referred to its origin or the result of drinking it)—and immediately began carousing with the few other patrons present, gathering what information about the world in-general they were willing to part with; Bob, Turk and Lance joined him, listening and interjecting from time to time. Colt had had enough of confined spaces packed with people after his life in the Vault, and took a bottle of rotgut outside to drink it under the stars, enjoying the night air. Some hours later, they all left to bed down for the night, richer in knowledge (and in Lenny’s case, a bit richer in coin-of-the-realm).

Beatty-NV
24 Dec 2161, Christmas Eve
In the morning, the Volunteers took the ransom and gathered up their gear for the thirty-mile trek to the raiders’ camp, prepared to camp overnight near their destination, opting to suffer the slow pace of their pack-brahmin over the slower pace of their own overburdened backs. They added to the brahmin’s load as much extra water as they dared, from the town’s well. They made good time for the first half of the journey, which took them through a wide valley of hard-packed scrub desert, following a trail that Colt suggested was an old state highway. Lance decided to entertain the group with song, but nearly blew out his vocal cords in the process, leaving him hoarse for hours. Their progress slowed for the latter half of the trip as they reached the other side of the valley, hiking upward into the mountains again. As Colt led the group from a distance ahead, he signaled them to stop after hearing a loud “thud” around a bend ahead, and scouting forward a bit, found what appeared to be the unidentifiably-splattered remains of a huge creature beside the scattered shards of a potted daisy; Lenny being the most widely-read naturalist of the group suggested the remains resembled a whale, but the group dismissed that conclusion as highly implausible.

GreatKhansTotemLate in the afternoon, Colt spotted a cross-like construction of sticks, skulls and other bits in an arrangement that resembled a “body”—clearly a territorial warning marker, presumably belonging to the raiders. They pitched their camp well off the trail and forsook a campfire, to prevent detection. Though all were exhausted from the day’s hike, Lenny and Lance took it particularly badly, with blistered feet and whatnot; Turk helped ease their medical suffering as he could. The Volunteers made their usual two-man watch arrangement, passing around Colt’s and Sly’s night-vision goggles, and took their rest for the night, which passed without incident.

25 Dec 2161, Christmas Day
Just before sunup, the Volunteers woke and struck camp, while Colt went to scout the raiders’ camp, taking Bob—the second sneakiest among them, and having binoculars—along with him for backup. The two scouts found a well-trodden path leading into a canyon that ended in a cave entrance, which was guarded by a few lightly-armed, moderately-attentive men. Colt found a good hide-spot with a view of the cave entrance from a few hundred yards away and continued to observe, while Bob returned to inform the others. They discussed their plan, and decided to approach the raiders openly and honestly, and see how they react; Colt would hold onto the ransom-money for safety, and bring it forward when called for. They would leave the brahmin and any gear they didn’t immediately need behind in an out-of-the-way location, but ready to run if things went ill.

ip45The Volunteers descended the path into the canyon and approached the cave. The guards halted them some yards away and demanded to know their business; Sly flashed them a winning smile and told the truth, that they were here to ransom Tandi. At the mention of that name, one of the guards went into the cave and fetched their boss, Carl. Again, Sly asked about Tandi and offered the ransom to take her away. Carl, to their surprise, without any detectable guile, informed the Volunteers that his people hadn’t asked for a monetary ransom for Tandi’s life, but had been trying to negotiate with Aradesh for access to Vault 15, and would not allow Tandi to leave until he acquiesced, as they had many sick among them that needed the vault’s medical facilities. Turk asked permission to see the sick, as he was a doctor, while Sly politely demanded to see Tandi, as proof of life; Carl relented, and led them into the cave, leaving them their weapons after Sly’s assurances that they weren’t here to pick a fight. They were shown to a cave-chamber where a dozen infirmed lay helpless, and Turk diagnosed them with long-term radiation exposure, confirmed by a slightly-higher radiation level detected in the cave. They were then taken to another chamber where Tandi was staying, and found her in good health and unmolested; she confirmed Carl’s assertion that she had actually come to them of her free will, having run away from her father (for reasons typical of teenagers; nothing unusual).

Just after entering the cave, Bob had asked to visit the head, and was pointed back outside, as there was a natural crevasse there they used for latrine purposes; he had left to see to it while the others were getting the “tour.” Colt, from his overwatch position, saw Bob exit the cave and go off to one side, appearing to answer the call of nature and taking his sweet time about it; some time later, Colt observed one of the guards do the same. Then, to Colt’s surprise, he saw Bob start to leave the latrine area, creep back behind the guard, and boot him headlong into the crevasse, before strutting back to the cave as if nothing had happened—Colt had no clue as to why, but supposed the guard must’ve insulted him?

Meanwhile, after having spoken to Carl and Tandi and gotten what they believed to be the “real story,” the Volunteers felt the need to help the raiders’ get into Vault 15, but at the same time, complete their mission for Aradesh, though he had deceived them; it was supposed that he just desired to maintain control of the vault out of stubborn pride, or perhaps there was something still in there he didn’t want to be discovered. The best the team could come up with was to take Tandi back to Shady Sands and her father—willingly, with Carl’s permission—where she would get the Overseer’s keycard from her father, with the help of the vault-dwellers; as aid to the sick, and compensation for Aradesh’s negotiations in bad faith, they would gift the 5000 bottlecaps to the raiders. Sly put the idea to Tandi and easily won her over, and she in turn helped to convince Carl to play along.


Notes

  • Anyone who has played the first Fallout is undoubtedly scratching their heads at this point; the story has taken an abrupt departure from the original, as was the GM’s intent all along
  • Lance’s player decided to sing, and rolled the skill at default; result=18 😛
  • The whale/daisy encounter should be immediately obvious to anyone familiar with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and is the first “weirdness” encounter resulting from Turk’s Weirdness Magnet Trait
  • In actuality, the group had agreed to attempt to deceive the raiders and try to buy Tandi from them, but as Sly started talking, the player kinda forgot, so we just ran with it
  • The raider boss, Carl, is actually Garl Death-Hand, leader of the Khans in Fallout 1; when it came time to identify him in the game, the GM couldn’t bring himself to refer to him as such or bother about the Mongol-themed gang—too silly, especially given his “revamped” role. The base was also changed from the original out-in-the-open camp to this canyon/cave. Coincidentally, the camp/cave is situated between two known real-world nuclear waste sites (somewhat distant, but still…)
  • The players know the reason for Bob’s unusual behavior, but as the writer here, I’ve decided to let the story reveal itself as the characters find out about it

The Volunteers (AKA The Dirty Half-Dozen, The Six Wanderers)

Bob Perce (Herodian)
Colt Riffle (Gigermann)
Dr. J. Turk (CommJunkee)
Lance Bennett (Ronnke)
Lenny Leonardo (Melissa)
Romeo Sylvester (Rigil Kent)


The One Where They All Left the Vault

21 December 2161

The Overseer called for some “volunteers” for an important mission and called those chosen into his office to explain the situation:

The Volunteers, none of whom had ever stepped outside the Vault before, were allowed to requisition whatever they might need from the Vault’s stores, and they packed up for a long journey into the Wasteland; there were no vehicles to be had, so they would be walking, taking only what they could carry. Sly packed a bit of extra gear for the group. In the morning, the Overseer escorted the lot of them to the Vault entrance, and after wishing them well, keyed in the code to open the massive door to the outside. The Volunteers stepped through, into a world they had never seen before, only heard of—a large cavern, in this case—and the Vault door was closed behind them with a thud.

Now outside the Vault for the first time, the Volunteers found themselves aghast, as further into the darkness they spied a handful of giant rats—around 4′ long, each—digging through some rubble at a bend in the cave-tunnel. Though the rats seemed to take no notice of them, they weren’t taking any chances; Bob, Colt, Lenny and Sly pulled their pistols and took careful aim at the rats, while Turk and Lance backed them up. The rats were dispatched with as little ammunition expended as possible; they all discovered how freaking loud Lenny’s .44 Magnum revolver was in the cave’s close confines. Beside the rat carcasses were a couple of dessicated human remains; Turk looked them over and confirmed that they had likely been dead for years, though the group didn’t want to stay long enough to determine a cause of death or identify them, beyond the obvious “not vault-dwellers” conclusion.

fo-vaultstart

The cave’s exit was not far around the bend, and the Volunteers soon found themselves for the first time under a natural, clear sky they had only seen in pictures before—the lack of a proper ceiling and the non-sterile atmosphere took some getting used to, and a few had some initial troubles adjusting to their new surroundings. After gathering themselves up, they checked their Pip-Boy 2000 map displays, and set out across the mountainous terrain toward their destination, Vault 15, a couple of days to the South-East.

Some hours past midday, the Volunteers crested a hill to find themselves a stone’s-throw away from a pair of strangers arguing over the corpse of another man in the shadow of a ruined gas-station; with them, a ghastly-looking creature resembling a cow with two heads, bearing a burden of “junk” on its back. Sly led the Volunteers, and approached the men with hands outstretched and a beaming, friendly smile, while the others lagged behind and tried their best not to spoil his intentions; the strangers quickly raised their weapons at the approaching vault-dwellers and demanded they go away, that this “claim” was theirs alone. After a bit of back-and-forth, the strangers admitted to having killed the dead man over a “trade dispute,” and continued their sabre-rattling. Cradling his scoped rifle, Colt sarcastically asked if people in the Wasteland are taught to count, as the vault-dwellers outnumbered the strangers three-to-one; they responded with a boast of having killed many vault-dwellers and having found them little challenge. However, seeing the six Volunteers spread out and ready for a fight (excepting Lance, who was cowering behind a broken wall), they started backing off anyway, still insistent on their martial superiority to the vault-dwellers, and as they turned to flee, they vowed to return for their prize. Colt climbed up on the dilapidated building and covered the strangers’ retreat with the rifle, while the others took inventory of what had been left behind, and buried the dead man in a shallow grave. The bovine-monster’s pack included a lot of miscellaneous scrap, a few guns, and a bag full of bottlecaps—the Volunteers could only speculate at the purpose of the bottlecaps; perhaps a collector’s item of some kind? The benefit of a pack animal, however hideous, was not difficult to understand after the day’s hike, and they decided to keep it, loading it up with some gear of their own. As the day was winding down at that point, they followed Colt’s suggestion to camp atop a nearby outcropping and keep a remote watch on this place through the night, expecting the strangers’ return.

They set up camp for the first time, and agreed to two-man watches through the night. But the strangers never returned, and so the desert night passed without incident, except that the lights and wisps of smoke from some distant settlement were spotted. After discussing the find in the morning, since the settlement lay in the general direction of Vault 15, they decided to pay it a visit. They approached with caution, after the incident with the strangers the day before, half expecting to find them there, spying ahead with binoculars and gun-scopes, but saw nothing to indicate any sort of threat.

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There were two guards posted at the front gate to the walled settlement, and the Volunteers decided to approach openly; Sly would do the talking. The guards were friendly enough, and answered the many inevitable questions, as they could; the settlement was called Shady Sands, an upstart farming community, and well-behaved strangers were welcome to take shelter here, though weapons had to be put away out of sight. Upon inquiry about Vault 15, the guard informed them that this place had been founded by residents of Vault 15, which was long abandoned some thirty years ago or so; he suggested they speak to Aradesh, the town’s founder, and pointed the vault-dwellers to where he could be found. Before entering, the group stowed their weapons on the “Brahmin,” as it was known locally; Lenny instead covered his holster with a towel over his belt, which seemed to be enough for the guards.

fo-aradesh

They found Aradesh at the “town hall” as directed, and he greeted them, though with some suspicion, answering their many questions and offering them food and drink. He told that he had indeed come from Vault 15, though it had been stripped bare since they left. As they ate the strange food before them—something to do with “geckos”—he informed the Volunteers that although they were unlikely to find a controller-chip at Vault 15, he did know of a man in Junktown who might have one; seeing an opportunity in the capable crew before him, he offered to elaborate in exchange for a service, to rescue his daughter, Tandi, from a camp of Raiders to the South. She had been snatched from the settlement—a not uncommon occurrence—and he expected them to sell her into slavery if he did not produce 5000 bottlecaps as ransom. He asked only that the Volunteers deliver the ransom and return his daughter. Bottlecaps, as it turned out, were used as currency (Lance admitted to having playfully flung a handful of theirs, in ignorance). Aradesh’s demeanor changed as the Volunteers discussed taking on the mission amongst themselves, after which they officially agreed to bring Tandi back; they would leave in the morning.


Notes

  • This is not Winston’s first time GMing an RPG, but it is his first running GURPS, and running for this group
  • We had a bit of a late start this session, due to some initial technical issues connecting with the game; we might have gotten a bit farther otherwise
  • Anyone who has played the first Fallout computer game will undoubtedly recognize persons and events that occur in this game; this is purely intentional. Most of the players here, in fact, are familiar with Fallout, though none of us expect it will detract at all from the enjoyment of the campaign—events will transpire quite differently given the six-man crew rather than the original’s “Lone Wanderer”
  • This would be the first campaign with this group for CommJunkee, who gamed face-to-face with Gigermann (myself) and Rigil Kent for many years around a decade ago, before moving away

Colt Riffle

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ImageSniper, Tracker, Deadpan Snarker

He is the great-grandson of Tom “Gunny” Riffle, a US Marine sniper before the end of the Great War and war-hero by all accounts (that were available, anyway), who passed on the traditions of the Corps to his descendents. He is the grandson of Winchester Riffle, and son of Marlon “Pop” Riffle. His male forbears have carried on a long tradition of service to the Vault as security personnel, and he was expected to follow in their mighty footsteps.

His childhood was marked by two events. The first was when he was very young, maybe 4-5 years, when he witnessed a man brought into the Vault in the late stages of radiation sickness, probably victim of an accident; though he barely remembers the man, the horrifying image left a deep emotional scar that causes him an irrational fear a similar fate. The second was his continual victimization by bullying during his pre-adolescence; along with a general hatred of bullying, he learned to antagonize them, verbally, until they were so enraged as to attack, at which point they would get in trouble—he got beat up a lot, in those days, though his Marine-by-blood father and grandfather would eventually teach him to fight back physically as well. His wise-cracking habit never faded, though, and others in the Vault community grew weary of it.

Grandpa Winchester was a bit of a conspiracy-nut, and liked to tell Colt the “Great Secrets” that he knew, of aliens and Templars and the like. Though everyone else in the Vault thought him mad, Colt believed him in spite of it. On his deathbed, Grandpa swore it was true, and described to him a place where he had witnessed a silver, saucer-shaped craft crash into the mountain; as he died, he said that the Truth crashed there with it. Colt swore to himself that he would find the site one day, and the Truth, at whatever cost.

From an early age, learning the ways of the Corps, he was found to have a natural eye for ballistics that made him a gifted sharpshooter, and he absorbed every scrap of knowledge he could. But, the war was long over, and there was no enemy to speak of in the Vault, save for boredom and apathy. He longed to get out, and he suspected the administrator longed to get him out. If he hadn’t been volunteered to go look for a new chip, he probably would have on his own.

180 points

ST 11 [10]; DX 12 [40]; IQ 12 [40]; HT 12* [20].
Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lb; HP 11 [0]; Will 14 [10]; Per 14 [10]; FP 12 [0].
Basic Speed 6.00 [0]; Basic Move 6 [0]; Dodge 9.
6′ 0"; 175 lbs.

Social Background

TL: 8 [0].
Languages: English (Native) [0].

Templates and Meta-Traits

Military Hand-To-Hand – MCMAP – U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (Martial Arts; p. MA183) [0]; Sharpshooter (p. TacS51) [0].

Advantages

Fit [5]; Hard to Kill 1 [2]; Stalker 2 [10]; Trading Character Points for Money 1 [1].
Perks: Deadeye 1; Eye for Distance; Improvised Weapons (Brawling); Style Familiarity (Military Hand-to-Hand – MCMAP (U.S. Marine Corps Martial Arts Program)); Weapon Bond (Guns (Rifle)). [5]

Disadvantages

Addiction (Tobacco; Cheap; Highly addictive; Legal) [-5]; Code of Honor (Private Investigator) [-10]; Intolerance (Bullies; One group) [-5]; Obsession (The Truth is Out There; Long-Term Goal; 12 or less) [-10]; Odious Personal Habit -2 (Snarkiness) [-10]; Phobia (Radiophobia; 9 or less) [-15]; Sense of Duty (Vault 13; Large Group) [-10]; Sense of Duty (Victims of bullies) [-5].
Quirks: Believes it’s bad luck to let someone else touch his rifle; Competitive; Defensive of his "personal space"; Gallows humor; Never admits to weakness or feelings. [-5]

Skills

Area Knowledge (Southern California) (E) IQ [1]-12; Armoury/TL8 (Small Arms) (A) IQ+2 [8]-14; Brawling (E) DX+2 [6]-14; Breath Control (H) HT-2 [1]-10; Camouflage (E) IQ+3 [1]-15†; Carousing (E) HT [1]-12; Climbing (A) DX [2]-12; Computer Operation/TL3 (E) IQ [1]-12; Criminology/TL3 (A) IQ [2]-12; Detect Lies (H) Per-2 [1]-12; Diplomacy (H) IQ-2 [1]-10; Electronics Operation/TL3 (Communications) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; Electronics Operation/TL3 (Sensors) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; Expert Skill (Military Science) (H) IQ-2 [1]-10; Fast-Draw (Long Arm) (E) DX [1]-12; Fast-Draw/TL8 (Ammo) (E) DX+2 [4]-14; Fast-Talk (A) IQ+2 [8]-14; First Aid/TL3 (Human) (E) IQ [1]-12; Forced Entry (E) DX [1]-12; Gesture (E) IQ [1]-12; Guns/TL3 (Pistol) (E) DX+2 [3]-14; Guns/TL8 (Rifle) (E) DX+4 [17]-16‡; Hiking (A) HT+2 [2]-14†; Intelligence Analysis/TL8 (H) IQ [4]-12; Interrogation (A) IQ [2]-12; Intimidation (A) Will [2]-14; Judo (H) DX [4]-12; Knife (E) DX [1]-12; Navigation/TL8 (Land) (A) IQ+2 [2]-14†; Observation (A) Per [2]-14; Running (A) HT [2]-12; Scrounging (E) Per [1]-14; Search (A) Per [2]-14; Shortsword (A) DX-1 [1]-11; Soldier/TL8 (A) IQ [2]-12; Spear (A) DX-3 [0]-9; Staff (A) DX-1 [1]-11; Stealth (A) DX+2 [2]-14†; Streetwise (A) IQ [2]-12; Survival (Radioactive Wasteland) (A) Per [2]-14; Thrown Weapon (Knife) (E) DX [1]-12; Tracking (A) Per+2 [2]-16†; Traps/TL8 (A) IQ [2]-12.
Techniques: Disarming (Judo) (H) [0]-12; Elbow Strike (Brawling) (A) [0]-12; Ground Fighting (Brawling) (H) [0]-10; Ground Fighting (Judo) (H) [0]-8; Immediate Action (Guns (Rifle)) (A) [0]-12; Knee Strike (Brawling) (A) [0]-13; Masked Shooting (Guns (Rifle)) (A) [0]-12; Precision Aiming/TL8 (Guns (Rifle)) (A) [2]-12; Retain Weapon (Guns (Rifle)) (H) [0]-12; Stamp Kick (Brawling) (H) [2]-12; Targeted Attack (Stamp Kick (Brawling) Kick/Face) (H) [0]-7; Targeted Attack (Stamp Kick (Brawling) Kick/Skull) (H) [0]-5; Targeted Attack/TL8 (Guns (Rifle)/Face) (H) [2]-12.

Footnotes

* Conditional +1 from ‘Fit’.
† Includes +2 from ‘Stalker’.
‡ Conditional +1 from ‘Weapon Bond (Guns (Rifle))’.

Controller Chip Mission “Volunteers”


Bob Perce
Cook
(Herodian)

Colt Riffle
Sniper, Tracker
(Gigermann)

Dr. J Turk
Medic
(CommJunkee)

Lance Bennett
Mechanic, Engineer
(Ronnke)

Lenny Leonardo
Laborer?
(Melissa)

Romeo Sylvester
Supervisor
(Rigil Kent)

sr-seattleport

Scot Free

…Continued. From the shadows of the darkened hallway, still crouched, Ditch exposed only his shotgun, using its HUD-linked scope to line up a corner-shot on thug number-five, but took a lucky burst from his target’s assault carbine through the sheet-rock wall—as before, the shots failed to penetrate his armor, but the continued abuse had taken a toll. He managed to keep his aim on-target, but missed; the shotgun was now empty, so he fell back to a dark corner to wait for number-six, coming to flank him.

sr-m704-0

At the same time, number-five had moved to a new position further back into the warehouse; Paladin, still gravely injured, dropped down from the crane assembly onto the top of the thugs’ van, and stumbled down to the floor; Mr. M sprinted around the edges of the warehouse floor in a wide flanking move, using support pillars for cover; Bookworm advanced to the nearest corner and prepared a thrown Stun spell, popping briefly around to throw it but falling short; and Ivory scrambled evasively to the center pile of crates to number-five’s flank, which caught his attention as she tried to circle around. Finding himself now cornered, number-five frantically fell back to the offices behind him and slammed the door shut.

Meanwhile, number-six had crossed the conference room and approached the door to Ditch’s hallway, carefully easing it open, cutting tactically around the corner, rifle-first, to avoid exposing himself to a surprise attack. Ditch was hiding in the corner, reeling from his earlier battering, knives bared and waiting in ambush. As number-six came into view in the doorway, Ditch sprang forward with a one-two swing of his blades that the thug knocked away with his rifle—which was cut deep, but not destroyed, flinging bits of plastic hand-guard everywhere—followed by another one-two, a high fake that caused the thug to duck his head into the follow-up swing, resulting in Ditch’s monowire blade bisecting his head from crown to palate.

sr-m704-1

Back on the other side of the warehouse, Bookworm had moved to the side of the door that number-five had fled through, while Ivory and Mr. M had advanced through the nearby hallway and were in position at another door to the same office, while Paladin quietly crossed through some adjacent office-rooms in a flanking move. Nearly-simultaneously, they all forced their way in to find number-five ducked behind a desk (his back to Paladin), and another thug, number-seven, in the far corner screaming for backup into a land-line phone receiver. In a matter of seconds and a cacophonous hail of small-arms fire from all directions, the two remaining thugs were bleeding out on the floor. In the process, Bookworm had reflexively used Return Missile to reflect part of a burst of rifle-fire meant for him back into his attacker, number-five, but one bullet struck him through anyway, penetrating his light armor; he was seriously wounded, though clinging to consciousness.

With all immediate foes out of action and expecting reinforcements at any moment, the DXM team quickly surveyed the aftermath: it appeared that this last office was, in fact, the BTL production facility, so Mr. M set about working on one of the less bullet-riddled computers to recover the “Cecilia” source code. Ditch tossed Bookworm a diagnostic smart bandage; Paladin applied it for him, to stop the bleeding and get him stabilized—ironic, as Bookworm usually does the “healing”—and then carried him to the back of the van, their impromptu method of egress. While M continued to work on the computers, the others looted the van’s keys, assault carbines, ammunition, and certified credsticks from the fallen. Once Mr. M had located the code, he made a copy for return to Freedom Entertainment, the client, and erased all the hard-drives they could find, including the on-site security camera recordings; all the production equipment was piled up, and Ditch put a couple of high-explosive rounds from his shotgun into the pile (after deciding EMP might not be quite “permanent” enough). With no time to spare, M took the driver’s seat of the van as the rest of the team piled in where they could, and they hasted toward the facility’s gate, smashed through it, and continued up the street at a more-casual pace, out of the area. They were passed by an incoming Lone Star vehicle whose occupants appeared to take no notice of them; a clean getaway, it seemed.

sr-transportersclaudia

The team took the van to a lonely parking area in a less-patrolled part of Redmond Barrens and put it to the torch, hoping to eliminate any further evidence of their involvement. Ivory made the call to Claudia to announce the mission’s completion, and arrange a meeting to hand off the remaining chips—at Transporters—while the others flagged down a taxi. Some time later, they arrived at the bar. Vapor was about to lock up for the night…er, morning, but he let his old comrades in, marveling at their battered and/or bloodied appearance—all but Ivory had been shot—and remembering why he was retiring from shadowrunning. Punctual as always, Claudia showed up and greeted Vapor, who escorted her to the staff-room where the team awaited; again, Vapor hung around to listen in, but was distracted by Ivory’s flirting. Though Claudia had already offered to handle the negotiations with the client, she offered the team the opportunity to handle it themselves, but they were too hurt and exhausted to bother, ready to get it over with. Mr. M handed over the chips, including the new ones in the metal case that “Cho” had gifted to Ghoul (though Ivory had to be “prompted” to let go her prize), and they gave their assurances that there was no more to be had but what had already been sold on the street. Claudia asked if there was anything they wanted to add to the negotiations; they didn’t capture Cho/Tanaka, their secondary objective, but they said to let the company know his real name, and that he was Yakuza, and the client could do with that information what they would. Their business concluded, Claudia thanked the team for a job well done (and less messy than usual) and said she’d be in touch regarding payment, and she left the bar; she was followed shortly by the rest of the team as they went their separate ways, to rest and heal.

Ditch went to a street-doc near home to get patched up, and after a day’s rest, went to recover his bike left two blocks down from the scene; Paladin did pretty much the same. Bookworm went home to recover, and took around four days to magically heal himself to full health before attempting to recover his car, left a bit closer, about a block away from the scene. As his taxi passed close enough by his car, he cast a quick Detect Observation spell on it, felt that it was being watched, and decided to come back another time. A week later, he tried again, but his car was no longer there, presumably impounded, so he decided to count it a loss.

DXM would hear later of some violence at the hotel where Ghoul was supposed to have met “Ann Benoit” for their date, and of a hefty price put by the Yakuza on her fictitious head, as well as her compatriots—there were some exceptionally-vague descriptions that the team guessed to be Ditch and Paladin, from being sighted at Ghoul’s place. They made enemies, not friends, this time around. Their payday, less Claudia’s cut and split five ways, would come to ¥16,000 apiece—a good haul for a night’s work.


Notes

  • This session ended up a week late due to absences the previous week
  • We discovered a bit late in the process that we really hadn’t discussed any sort of escape plan prior to committing to the break-in operation; we had to improvise once the area was pacified
  • Again, the characters would probably have left Vapor and his retirement alone if not for the meta-game purpose of setting up a proper headquarters for the Team
  • After it was over, the GM gave us, as a group, a “temporary” Enemy (Yakuza) that would last for a d6 (result=4) months. He would have given us an extra CP for a “clean getaway” except we had to be reminded about the security camera footage
  • This is the last session of this run; until next time. It would have run a bit longer, probably, if not for the extra-long sessions

“Ho there, Stranger!” Rainald bellowed from his campsite toward the road, and the solitary old man walking it, who nearly started at the sudden noise. Recovering, having recognized Rainald’s accent, the grizzled traveler waved and responded in the Northlanders’ tongue, “Greetings, fellow North-man!” Rainald happily welcomed his elder countryman to share his fire, and his food, and the man gladly accepted his hospitality. The stranger showed no fear of the well-muscled, mail-covered, Northlander warrior with flaming-red hair, as he settled onto the ground near the modest fire. Rainald handed him some bread and asked where he hailed from, and where he was headed; the old man responded that he was from many places, and was going wherever the road would take him. The warrior laughed, for he well knew the life of the wanderer.

“You look no stranger to life’s hardships,” Rainald smiled, regarding his countryman’s weathered appearance.

The wanderer answered, “Aye, but a good life is often seasoned with hardship. Fortune has blessed me, that I have lost only my youth, and my eye. If I had to live this life again, I would change nothing. And you? I’d wager you have a tale of many hardships faced and defeated?”

Rainald needed no pause to ponder his thirty-five hard years for what experiences might qualify, but immediately began to share his story, in his way, as if the stranger before him were an old friend. “Aye, I have seen hardship as well. I have fought countless men, and orcs, and lizard-men, in many battles. I barely survived the fall of Blythe. I have slain dragons, and wizards, and things that have no name in our tongue. I have battled the locust-giants of Vasarheim, numbered like pebbles on a beach. I have faced death from all sides, at the hands of many enemies, and prevailed against them all. But none were so difficult as what I faced not so long ago. It started with a woman…”

“Ah, but doesn’t it always, eh?” the old man quipped, with a broad grin.

“Aye, it does,” the big man continued, unabated, with a chuckle of agreement.

“So there I was, after three years of war in the Otherworld was over and won, rewarded with land and title in Wallace, now riding the old roads back home to Grimswick to visit my uncle there, and the gods willing, finally see my love, Gertruð, after eight long years. After thirty-six days on the road, I was nearly home, just outside a neighboring village called Grenmarr, where by the roadside, I encountered a woman struggling against three men, who were bent on rape and murder by the look of it. As a Knight of Caithness, I am oath-bound to aid the helpless, so I stepped up and threw back her attackers; I did not know these men, or what they were about there, so I dared not slay them, but rather let them go. They swore they would have their justice upon the woman before they fled before me. As it was, the woman, called Hildra, was a slave taken from the mountain tribes, and she had killed her master, their brother, for he was a cruel and violent man. She was sorely afraid her master’s kin would return for their revenge, and pleaded that I should take her with me to Grimswick, where she was not known, and to tell all that she was my wife. I knew not what else to do with her—if I left her there, she would surely be murdered—so I agreed, though I knew this would not be the end of the matter. So I returned to my home village with Hildra, calling her my wife, as I’d promised; she was pleasant enough company, with a sharp wit and a sharp tongue along with it—too sharp, perhaps—and pleasing to look upon, though not like my Gertruð.

“Gertruð. I did find her at Grimswick, in the household of Jarl Olrik, as beautiful as I remembered, if a little thicker than she was in our youth, when I had asked to marry her. In those days, the Jarl’s son, Björn, had asked Gertruð to marry him just before I had, and she swore that if word of my deeds reached her ears before I returned from Caithness in five years time, that she would marry me instead. But now I was three years too late, and she had married Björn, but he had died some years before, and she was left childless and without a husband. I was greatly sorrowed then, for I was bound by my promise to tell Gertruð that Hildra was my wife.”

“That is a hard thing, I would agree, to give up one’s prize for honor’s sake,” the old man interrupted, nodding.

“Aye, but there’s more,” Rainald continued. “I found my uncle Hrothgar living, and well as I remembered him—his knee-wound by an enemy’s arrow still left him lame. He offered that I should stay with him in our old family home by the sea, so I did. And Hildra stayed with us, as I had promised her, and I told none of the truth our arrangement, save for my uncle. Though she served us as a slave might, I reminded her that she was free, and would remain so, if I had anything to say about it. One day, the kin of Hildra’s former-master found us at home, come to take her by force to do what they would with her. There were five of them, armed with axes and clubs, but we would not give Hildra to them, but we three gave them a beating instead; I did not bring forth Gramjarn, but fought them bare-handed, and threw them into the sea, scolding them that if they attacked again they would forfeit their lives. Again, they fled before me, this time promising that they would bring the matter before the Jarl, now that they had found Hildra. That was well with me, and I told them so as they fled. Some months later, it came time for the Þing, and freemen from all the Jarl’s holdings were gathered. Hildra’s enemies were there as promised, and they accused her of murder before the Jarl, and demanded her blood be spilled for it; Hildra brazenly confessed that she had killed the man, and scolded her accusers as cowards and women, before the Jarl silenced her. Now Jarl Olrik was a fair ruler, but there were no witnesses to the killing but for the word of the dead man’s brothers, and there was little choice but to rule in their favor. My friend Magnifico would have all the freemen there laughing to scorn the accusers and chanting to Hildra’s innocence, but alas, it would fall to me for her defense. So, I declared, publicly before the Jarl and the law-speaker, that I, Rainald Ragnarsson, also called North-Hammer, Knight of Caithness and Lord of Rainaldsheim, was her husband, and that the woman was innocent of murder; and if my oath-price was not good enough, then my steel would be. One of the dead man’s brothers, Thorgrim, a wiry but strong man of some renown, accepted my challenge to combat, and so we stepped outside to see it done, according to the law and before the Jarl and other witnesses. It was brief, for despite all his dancing about, with one blow of mighty Gramjarn, the man was felled where he stood. Jarl Olrik declared the matter settled, but anyone could see on the faces of the kinsmen that they would be satisfied with naught but Hildra’s death, and now, mine as well. And to make matters worse, I had just declared Hildra as my wife before the Þing, which dashed my hopes of a legitimate life with Gertruð like a trapped ship smashed to kindling by storm-waves against the rocks.”

The stranger clicked his tongue and shook his head, in sympathy.

The warrior continued, “I knew not what I should do, so I went to the seer, as one does. The seer told me that I was fated not for Gertruð, but Hildra, and that to put her away would mean my doom. I was angered, of course, and went home to drink to my sorrows, only my uncle met me at the gate to tell me that Hildra had run away. At that instant I became aware of my own horror at being without that woman, and I tracked her down, and found her not far away, trying to steal Bann One-Eye’s boat to sail away—the woman was crafty, but not so strong. She confessed that my uncle had been drunk, and accidentally told her of my longing for Gertruð, and her promise to marry me—I had not told Hildra of it all this time—and Hildra was distraught that she might stand between me and my desire. I seized her, and told her that I did not wish her to go…”

The warrior sighed, pausing briefly to reflect, and the traveler motioned for him to continue his story. “What happened there after that is none of your business,” Rainald added with a knowing wink. “It is enough to say that things were ‘better’ between Hilda and I from then on.”

The old man chuckled, and said, “That doesn’t sound like the end of the tale.”

“Not the end at all,” the flame-haired North-man responded, shaking his head in amazement at his own remembrance of what happened next. “That winter, I came home from fishing to find my wife gone, and my uncle beaten; he said our enemies had taken her, no doubt, to lay a trap for me when I come after her. I went immediately to bring the matter before the Jarl, but he refused me to take my revenge upon her kidnappers, as he had now been told of the truth of my false-wife, that I had given false witness before the Þing. He would not suffer any more bloodshed amongst his subjects on that matter, and said he would forgive me my former ‘weakness’ were I to leave it well alone, to wed Gertruð instead, and become his huscarl. Perhaps it was as he said, or perhaps his judgement had been bought—I know not, to this day—but I told him that though she was not my wife before, she was so now, and I would have a husband’s justice upon those that had taken her. He declared me an outlaw on the spot, and ordered his men to seize me, but they could not hold me, and I escaped. Oh, to have had my friend Gabriel at my side then, for there was bloody work to be done! Hildra, crafty as she is, had taunted the men as they carried her away, such that they would strike her and she would fall into this or that; I was easily able to follow the trail, quickly, to where her kidnappers had taken her to prepare a snare for me. As I found them in surprise, I fell upon them like a god-cursed shield-biter, berserkir, and I slew them all, every one that bore arms against me and those who pleaded for mercy alike. After none remained, as I cut her bonds, I told Hildra that I had been declared outlaw now, and we fled together to a hidden place in the mountains, to live there, out of the Jarl’s reach.”

Rainald had been waving his arms wildly in illustration, but now he settled down somewhat, as he spoke on. “We lived there in a cave, in peace, for many years. We had little, but needed little but each other. I hunted game. We traded with the mountain clans, sometimes. In time, she bore me Ragnar, my first son (named for my father), and then another, Arn (named for her father). We would still be there now, I think. But early in the spring of this year, my uncle came to us there—only he knew where we lived—and warned that Grimswick was about to be raided by a tribe from the North, and had not enough warriors, and the Jarl would not help. He pleaded with me to come help them fight. I told him that the Jarl would surely have me put to death if I showed my face in his domain, but my uncle insisted, saying they would surely fall if I didn’t risk it. A hard choice, like none other; I never refuse a challenge to fight, but Arn was so young, not even weaned off the breast yet, and what if I were to fall? I looked to Hildra, and without speaking, she made it known that I should go do this thing, for honor, and for home. So I promised to return, and left with my uncle, and we went to convince Jarl Olrik to help.”

The warrior sprang up from the ground and began pacing back and forth as he continued his story with excitement. “As we expected, the Jarl had no sooner spotted us coming than he commanded his carls to bind me. He was puzzled at why an an outlaw would brazenly stride into his village, knowing he would be slain for it without recourse, and I told him of the oncoming invasion, and my desire to aid in his lands’ defense. He said that he did not believe that this raiding party would attack, but would pass by on their way to Kethalos, and I said that we would have nothing to lose for making a show of our defense, and if they pass by, they may remember it. He said that if they did attack, we could not prevail against them, and I told him what I have seen of battle, that a small, defiant force can often worry a larger force, far from home, until they have not the stomach to continue. He asked how it could be done, and I told him of my plan, a plan I have seen used many times, forged in the fires of the Otherworld by Dane Sardock the General, himself. So inspired by the cleverness of the plan was he, that the Jarl wanted to see it for himself. So I was released to go and make the preparations. And it came to be that the Notherners did come to land at Grimswick, as it was said, to raid. But the people were ready, and the enemy smashed against the village defenses like water upon rock, and were thrown back to their ships, to flee. It was a magnificent battle, worthy of song, I can tell you! Many heroes were born, and died that day. The Jarl himself was gravely injured, and might have been killed had I not come to his rescue, as I had for my uncle ages ago in Caithness, when I swung Gramjarn for the first time. Would that my friend, Brother Mendel the Healer, had been there, for many more might have lived. My uncle was wounded as well, run through by a spear; though he clung to life, we feared he would not last the night, but he is a stubborn man, as was my father, as am I.”

Rainald slumped back down to his seat by the fire, seeming exhausted, as if he had just fought that battle all over again. “There was a great feast to celebrate the victory, and remember the fallen, of course. There, Jarl Olrik declared that I and Hildra were no longer outlaw, but pardoned of all crimes. I introduced Hildra as my true wife, and my sons, and we lived in my family’s house by the sea once again. But though my uncle still lived, after a month, his wounds would not heal, and he feared he would not tarry in this world for long. He made me promise to take him to Caithness, and to help him settle his accounts there, before he died. Jarl Olrik tried to convince me to stay, and I wanted to, but I had promised my uncle; I told the Jarl where he could find me in Caithness should the need arise one day, and promised that I would help if I could. And so, within the fortnight, myself and Hildra, my sons, and my uncle, we took up all that we owned, and left the Northlands behind, to travel to Caithness, to live on my lands here.

“So there you have it. Hardship. Maybe not like the Christ-god hanging on the World-Tree for nine days to save mens’ souls, but difficult nonetheless.”

The son of Ragnar finally fell silent for a moment. After some time had passed, the old stranger asked, “Would you change any of it if you had to live it again?”

“No, elder, I think not,” Rainald replied with a smile, after another introspective pause.

“Where is your family now? They are not here?” The wanderer looked around, as if he might have missed them hiding nearby.

“Back down the road about a day. I ride ahead to clear the road ahead of them from time to time. It’s been near two months now, but our journey is nearly done. My lands are not far from this spot.”

“Well, then…” The elder Northman smiled broadly, pausing, before he continued. “I thank you for your hospitality, and your story, Rainald Ragnarsson. Though I must confess to you that I did not find you here by happenstance, but I came to find you to deliver a message. There is a tavern another mile down the road here. A friend is waiting for you there. Though it may take you from your intended path, you should follow him. There may be hardship, of course, but should you endure it, you will find happiness on the other side, as before, I promise you.”

Now the big man looked puzzled. “Are you a seer, old man?” he asked politely.

“Of a sort, I suppose,” the one-eyed stranger replied with a smirk, before getting up off the ground and dusting off his breeches. “Off you go, now. Your friend is waiting,” he said with a wave toward his host’s nearby horse.

As the big fellow got to his feet and looked to his horse, he turned back to say goodbye, but the old man was nowhere to be seen, only the caw of a raven in the distance.

He packed up his things and rode on, as the old man directed, and indeed, there was a tavern about a mile down. Seeing it there, Rainald remembered the place—the ale was a bit watered-down. After he dismounted his horse and handed it off to the stable-boy, he smiled knowingly to himself, and whispered a prayer to Odin for safe travels for his family—for once in his life, now if ever, he felt those prayers would be heard. Then he pushed past some high-born dandy in a rush to get out of the inn’s door, scowling at the man’s rudeness as he entered.

Forced Entry

Ditch quickly hopped onto his motorcycle and kicked it to life, taking up the pursuit of Ghoul’s vehicle as it left the club. Paladin was the next out of the club doors, and followed suit. The two were in two-way communication via their commlinks, and coordinated their efforts to keep up with the car while not looking like they were trying to keep up—as far as they could tell, they had been successful. They followed Ghoul up to the point where they were certain he was pulling into the alley-warehouse where they had encountered him previously, and discontinued the pursuit.

During the “chase,” Mr. M and Ivory joined Bookworm in his car as he headed out to support the effort. In the back seat, M examined the chips for any chance of determining their point of origin, not really expecting to find anything and finding what he expected; he jacked in to make sure they had the right stuff, and forcing himself to stop after a few minutes, decided it would be a bad idea to ever do it again—good stuff. As Ditch and Paladin called in their findings, they all agreed to meet at Vapor’s new bar, Transporters.

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Vapor welcomed his DXM former-teammates into his automotive-themed bar, and inquired about the “new guys” (Paladin and Ivory). They were sure he knew why they had come, and were reluctant to remind him of the life he was trying to give up, out of respect for that decision. They admitted they were just here looking for a safe place to talk shop; Vapor offered his staff-room for some privacy, and as they settled in, he remained in the room to listen in.

Ivory started making some phone calls to her contacts, to see who might have some information regarding Tanaka Saiko’s comings and goings. Her Hawk Wheels biker gang guy-who-knows-a-guy, Axel, wasn’t available, but she did manage to catch an old fixer she used to run with, Bob. He told her of Tanaka’s father, Tamuka, and his company, Tamuka Imports & Exports, with warehouses at Pier 47; he also said they had a couple of Lone Star cops on “retainer.” After Ivory shared the info with the others, Mr. M pulled out his brand new deck and jacked into the matrix, to see what he could find out about the company, and its local holdings. He found the place quickly enough, but their security was no joke; alarms were sounded, and he had to bail before being back-traced. They definitely had CCTV at the warehouse, but he was unable to get any video from them. Meanwhile, Ditch and the others reviewed available satellite photos of the warehouse area to look for potential ways to sneak in and out. The team had no direct evidence that Tanaka was producing the “Cecilia” BTL chips at his father’s warehouse, but they were convinced enough that it was so that they decided to execute an “exploratory” surgical strike to see what they could find. All the tangling-with-Yakuza talk was causing Vapor some understandable concern for his safety, and he politely encouraged the Team to leave before someone he’d regret came looking for them here. They had what they needed for now, anyway.

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The Team went to the docks south of downtown, parking their vehicles a block or two away from the address they had, and stealthily approached the warehouse to reconnoiter. As they observed, they saw a van arrive at the front gate. A security guard got out of the van to let it through the gate, and into the warehouse itself. Inside, a handful of rifle-armed security types dismounted before the roll-up door was closed behind the van, two of which went back outside and started combing the nearby container-yard for possible intruders, eventually posting up at the door. The Team assumed the arrival of the van was a result of M’s triggering of the facility’s matrix security protocols. The Team also observed the CCTV network cameras on the building’s exterior—good coverage, that would make a stealthy approach difficult, but they weren’t going to see what they needed to see from outside. To start, they needed to get eyes on the inside. It was decided that Bookworm would cast a Fly spell on Ditch, allowing him to avoid the cameras and land on the warehouse roof, where he could find a way to gain entry (the spell would last a minute or so before wearing off—a one-shot). At Ditch’s word, Bookworm would cast Fly on the rest, in turn, so they could follow up.

As discussed, the spell was cast, and Ditch flew over the warehouse and landed on the roof, near an elevated section to the fore. The only point of entry he could find there was some heavy ventilation louvers; he produced one of his monowire blades and, as quietly as he could, sheared off the bolts that held the frame in place, and crawled through, climbing on top of the crane assembly there. He spotted two of the guards on the floor inside, and the light switches near the front roll-up door on the other side of their van. Ditch texted the others with his plan: on their ready-signal, he would give a ten-count and drop, killing the lights and taking out as many of the guards as he could, while the others took care of the two outside, before making entry. Bookworm started his casting with Paladin. Then the signal was given, as Paladin launched himself over the warehouse toward the outside guards.

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Ditch gave a silent count, then maneuvered into position, hanging over the area with the switches, and dropped to the warehouse floor, rolling to a stand and slapping the light-switches off. Ditch’s cybernetic eyes allowed him to see perfectly in the darkness, while the guards fumbled around trying to locate the intruder. Ditch heard the footsteps of a third guard coming out of an adjacent room and, quickly and stealthily, climbed up on some nearby containers; he lined up his shotgun, loaded with an APHC slug, and shot guard number-three through the heart before he could turn the lights back on. The others sprayed fire blindly at the location of the shotgun’s muzzle-flash but hit nothing but air, as Ditch was elsewhere, quickly maneuvering into position to kill them. As Ditch crept slowly around a pile of crates to come up behind the two, a fourth guard had emerged from a back office and had managed to fumble his way straight to the light switches, and turned them back on. As the lights warmed up, Ditch slashed guard number-one’s skull with a monowire blade, decapitating him instantly. With the lights now on, and in plain sight, Ditch tried to put down guard number-two quickly before number-four, at the switches, could line up a rifle shot on him; his quarry got off a rifle burst at point-blank range, but none of his rounds struck cleanly enough to penetrate Ditch’s reflex armor. Ditch sprang forward to slash him deep through the sternum, before rolling back behind the crates in a crouch, just in time for a long burst from number-four to explode through—struck again, but the bullets were slowed by the cover and again, failed to penetrate his armor. Number-two didn’t get far before passing out from blood loss. Ditch sprinted for the darkest corner he could find, and waited for an opportunity to take out number-four; some minutes passed in a stand-off, as neither were willing to expose themselves to attack, the guard crying out for aid from his fellows.

Meanwhile, outside the warehouse door, Paladin landed behind one of the guards and ran him through with a monowire katana, then turned his attention to the other, who was bringing his weapon to bear. In an instant, Paladin fast-drew his machine-pistol and pulled the trigger—mechanical failure—as his intended target fired his assault rifle; a lucky burst that nearly killed Paladin outright. Mr. M and Ivory were some distance behind, still flying to the scene; seeing their teammate in apparent trouble, they began firing as they flew in. Taking quick and desperate advantage of the distraction, Paladin flew up to the roof of the warehouse to recover, and passed out. As M and Ivory exchanged fire with the remaining guard, still closing the distance. Bookworm followed up, but diverted to land next to Paladin, and used his healing magic to bring the fallen teammate back to a more-functional state (though still seriously wounded). The remaining guard was struck many times before finally succumbing to M’s and Ivory’s fire. As Bookworm joined them on the ground, Ivory produced a tool kit and went straight to bypass the locks on the roller-door.

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A couple of minutes later; Ditch had stolen away into a nearby office, and was using the dark hallways to circle around to the other end of the warehouse; Paladin had limped through Ditch’s entry-point on the roof, and was situated atop the crane assembly, unseen; and Ivory succeeded in releasing the lock on the roller-door. As it lifted slowly open, Mr. M was incautiously standing in plain view in front of the door, and was reminded of his folly by automatic fire from around the van, from where guard number-four had relocated himself in an attempt to get a better angle on Ditch’s last-known position. The three at the door used the van as cover to return fire on number-four, while Paladin rained down fire upon him from his vantage atop the crane—number-four tried in vain to escape, crawling a few yards before slipping into unconsciousness and death. As Ditch continued to creep toward the back of the warehouse, he was fired upon through a window by a fifth guard, using another pile of crates as cover in the middle of the bay; Ditch crawled under the window, through the broken glass on the floor, to emerge in the shadows on the other side of the window, hoping to catch number-five by surprise. He was not aware of the sixth guard, who had emerged from another office, and was rushing to enter the corner-office behind Ditch, reacting to his fellow’s direction; Paladin spotted the maneuver from above, and commed Ditch to warn him.
To be continued…


Notes

  • Again, the GM’s schedule allowed us to go long on the session; although it was probably the longest session we’ve ever played with this group, we still ended up cutting out in the middle of the fight, to be continued
  • The players had been talking about needing an HQ of some kind, the obvious choice being a bar/club with a private floor, basement, or whatever, for the Team; taking advantage of Vapor’s retirement, the seeds of such a place are now sown
  • M’s matrix run was the first time we used the hacking rules from Pyramid 3/21, “Console Cowboys and Cyberspace Kung Fu”—only a taste, at this point; we’ll see how it works out in the future
  • As with last session, Paladin’s player was having a particularly bad night at the dice; this time, the GM’s dice got involved as well, and dealt him a Critical Hit that nearly cost him his life

Losing Hand

After being briefly confronted by a curious neighbor, Mr. M and Paladin fled Cho’s apartment and left the complex via the apartments’ enclosed fire escape, triggering the door-alarm as they exited before security forces could arrive. They didn’t get far before being contacted by the other DXM members, and directed to meet up on the street the BTL-dealer they found in the club had identified as Ghoul’s turf; the others were already en route.

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The light drizzle turned to rain as the Team reunited, to compare notes. They set about scouring the indicated street for possible criminal headquarters, and found a likely spot: a dark, narrow alley spanned by a fence-gate, guarded by a gruff-looking ork smoking a cigarette. There appeared to be a courtyard beyond. Ditch volunteered to scout the site from the rooftops, and Paladin offered to go along.

The two found a good spot to ascend a short way down the block, a rain-slicked fire escape to an adjoining building. They scaled up, and made their way to the alley. Ditch, being the more-skilled at this sort of thing, was in the lead. As they approached their intended, initial vantage point, Paladin slipped up and put his knee through a weak spot in the roofing; as far as Ditch could tell, the misstep had attracted no attention, so they continued the operation. In position, they observed the ork, and a pair of female “entertainment” in front of a warehouse back-entrance, chatting; the guard was armed with a submachine gun, laying atop an oil-drum—clearly not expecting trouble. As Ditch and Paladin quietly relayed the intel, the other Team members spotted two thug-types forcibly leading a third up to the gate, flipping up a hidden wall-panel to press a buzzer; Ditch and Paladin observed the ork react to the buzzer and approach the gate. The new thugs were greeted in a friendly manner, and allowed to enter with their charge, who was seated on a crate in the courtyard before being led inside a beat later.

As Ditch and Paladin continued to observe, Ivory, Bookworm and Mr. M approached the gate and pressed the buzzer. The ork-guard approached the gate again and challenged the strangers; Ivory stated that she and her “bodyguards” were here to see Ghoul, but would not divulge the nature of her business with him to “the help.” The guard grudgingly let them through, and took them into the warehouse.

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Inside the warehouse, they found the two thugs from before, flanking the third guy, standing before what appeared to be their boss —presumably, Ghoul— a somewhat-pale, Oriental fellow with a traditional “Fu-Manchu” beard. They watched as the third man pleaded for mercy, but it was not granted; at Ghoul’s nod, the two thugs restrained him, holding his right hand forward as Ghoul unceremoniously sawed off his pinky with a knife. After the initial screaming had passed, Ghoul held up the severed digit before “Mr. Fail,” saying, “Let this serve as a reminder to you that I do not accept failure.” He then put the bloody end to his lips, and sucked it like it was candy, before casting it aside. Ivory managed to choke back her disgust at the display. With a wave of dismissal, Mr. Fail was half-carried back out the way they came, where Ditch and Paladin observed his release.

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Ghoul then turned his attention to Ivory and her bodyguards, inquiring about their business with him, and confirming that they had indeed found their man. Ivory assumed her “Southern Belle” persona, Anne Benoit, and claimed to be looking to distribute high-grade BTL in the Confederation, and was exclusively interested in this new “Cecilia” thing she’s heard about. Deceptively, perhaps, though there was no outward indication, Ghoul seemed to be genuinely interested in the opportunity, and how this out-of-towner came to know of Cecilia. He insisted on knowing who Ivory was working for; she responded in kind, offering to trade revelations. Amused, Ghoul invited her into his nearby office.

Meanwhile, at the rooftops, Ditch and Paladin began to creep their way over to a skylight atop the warehouse building. Once again, the rain-slicked masonry betrayed Paladin while scaling down, and he fell with an audible thud. Concerned about the possibility of detection, Ditch decided to see if the courtyard occupants had reacted to the sound; as he peeked over the roof’s edge, he locked eyes with one of the guards who just so happened to be looking in that direction at that moment—probably only saw the pale glow of his eyes in the shadow. Ditch simply slipped back out of sight, but the thug yelled after whoever-it-was on the roof to show himself. There was no reply. Ditch quietly announced over the commlink that, “We’ve been made”—which Ivory could hear on her comm implant—before he and Paladin continued creeping forward, intent on not being where the thugs had spotted him.

Bookworm and Mr. M followed Ivory and Ghoul into the office, where he offered them some warm sake before continuing the conversation with Ivory. On the spot, Ivory offered as her employer the “Ditched Paladins,” a well-known street gang in the South. In kind, Ghoul strongly hinted that he belonged to the Yakuza—confirming what they already suspected after the “pinky” incident earlier. The back-and-forth continued, and Ghoul eventually revealed that he had a local production facility for the manufacture of copies of the Cecilia chips. Ivory responded with “feminine wiles,” throwing him off-balance (and probably “her bodyguards” as well), and extracting an offer to give her a tour of the facility; she agreed to let him pick her up tomorrow evening at her hotel (which he didn’t know she hadn’t checked into yet—M would have to fix that).

The lascivious display was interrupted, as one of the thugs from outside came in to inform Ghoul of the roof-sighting. After demanding they get up there and get rid of the pests, he asked Ivory if she knew anything about the roof-lurkers, or if it were a mere coincidence—she innocently claimed coincidence. Ghoul then excused himself, the business at-hand having been for-the-most-part concluded, and politely escorted the three of them back to the courtyard.

Through the skylight, Ditch and Paladin could see the Ground Team leaving, and were about to clear off the roof to the street when they heard the thugs climbing up in that direction; they decided instead to sneak back the way they came up. However, once the thugs reached the roof, they moved fairly quickly; Paladin fell behind Ditch’s expert pace, and had to duck out of the way, keeping to the shadows as the thugs passed him by. Ditch spotted Paladin’s predicament, and made a bit of noise to get the thugs moving his direction, drawing them in before bolting out of the shadows to scramble up the wall to the adjoining higher-level rooftop. The thugs opened fire with pistols; one bullet struck Ditch in the back, not penetrating his armored trenchcoat, and slowing him not at all. The thugs continued to pursue, one boosting the other up the ten-foot rise; as the thug on top pulled his head and arm over the lip of the roof, his face was met with the rainy, cold barrel of a shortened combat shotgun, and behind that, a glowing pair of eyes in the shadow. A voice colder than the gun-barrel chastised him, saying, “You don’t know what you’re fuckin’ with”—at which point, the thug lost all interest in continued pursuit, much to the confusion of his partner below, still boosting him up.

Below, Ivory, Bookworm and Mr. M were being let out of the gate, when everyone there heard gunfire from above—the Ground Team figured the Roof Team could handle themselves, or they would’ve commed for help, so they joked with their new comrades about the “rats around here” before heading to their waiting transportation. They were met a few minutes later by Ditch and Paladin, who had made good their respective escapes, and they all left to look into their other lead, the nightclub, Synapse, where they hoped to find John Cho.

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Synapse lacked the usual line of potential entrants that one would normally expect at this time of night, presumably due to the need to stand in the rain. The doorman was a heavily-muscled man who was clearly disinterested in his job; he didn’t bother with more than a look-over for weapons before letting the Team through the door.

It didn’t take long for them to spot John Cho lounging in the glass-fronted VIP enclosure, and they seated themselves at a nearby lounge area within line-of-sight of the VIP room. Cho looked as he did in the tagged image that Mr. M found on his social media profile, not in the company dossier, and he was accompanied by some “female entertainment”—looking like quite the high-roller.

Some time later, the Team observed a new arrival at the club entrance—Ghoul, accompanied by a single bodyguard. He did not spot Ivory, but went straight to the VIP room, where he was greeted by Cho as an old friend and ushered in. A beat later, an attractive woman looking less than alert—drugged, or drunk, perhaps?—was brought to the VIP room by a couple of burly fellows; Cho’s body language and Ghoul’s reaction (in lieu of being able to hear what was said) seemed to suggest the girl was a “gift” to Ghoul. The Yakuza middleman sniffed the girl up and down for bit, before appearing to sink his teeth into her neck, confirming the Team’s suspicions from earlier—undoubtedly, Ghoul was a vampire (raising Paladin’s ire, as he possessed a long-standing, unquenchable hatred of them). The “gift” was allowed to slump to the table, and Ghoul and Cho continued their business. Cho presented Ghoul with a BTL chip—the team assumed this to be a new build of the Cecilia program, indicating that he was still working on it—along with a sensie player; Ghoul jacked in for a bit, and seemed approving after unplugging. Cho put the chip in a carry case that contained several more, which Ghoul slipped into his jacket pocket.

As the scene in the VIP played out, the Team discussed how to proceed. They needed to find out what name Cho might be using to find more information about his recent activities, so Mr. M took the initiative by going over to the bar and bumping into a waitress (that had been serving the VIP room) on the way. After a duel-of-apologies, M asked who it was in the VIP, so that he could buy him a drink to replace the one he had spilled; the waitress revealed his name as Tanaka Saiko, the club’s owner. Bookworm recognized the surname as one commonly associated with the Seattle Yakuza. Now the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together: “John Cho” was a Yakuza agent inserted into the company specifically to steal their work; after it was stolen, the “Cho” identity was no longer needed. Of course, this meant that in order to accomplish the mission—recover the data and return Cho to the company—would require crossing the Yakuza. On the Team’s behalf, Bookworm called Claudia to inform her of their revelation; she acknowledged the tricky situation, and responded with a challenge: to choose a side. From that point, the Team’s discussion took on a new focus, that is, how to accomplish the letter of their mission without pissing off the Yakuza—not an easy task. Any way, their only play was to ambush one or both of Ghoul and Cho…Tanaka as they left the club.

Some time later, Ghoul and his bodyguard left the VIP and headed toward the club’s entrance. With no time to consider, Ivory caught up to Ghoul at the door and bumped into him, playing at being drunk, while picking his pocket; she managed to come up with the chip-case without being noticed. Ghoul pretended he wasn’t suspicious of this second “coincidence,” and promised to see her again at the agreed-upon time.

The rest of DXM was a short distance behind, Ditch being the first out the door. He watched Ghoul and his bodyguard cross the street and enter their vehicle. He relayed the make-and-model to the others, and hasted to his bike to follow.


Notes

  • Paladin’s player had a particularly bad night with the dice, especially when it came to the sneaking about; Paladin isn’t as skilled as Ditch in that regard, but not that much
  • The GM didn’t have any nationally-known gangs headquartered in the South in mind, so he left it to Ivory’s player to come up with a name: she offered the Ditched Paladins, the inspiration for which should be pretty obvious
  • I was having a hard time not having Ditch kill the thugs at the warehouse, but I didn’t want to spoil Ivory’s cover. After the fact, I realized that his having his face seen by them, though obscured by the darkness, might be an issue later—so he probably should have killed them
  • Ivory got damned lucky picking Ghoul’s pocket; she only has an 11, and the case was in an inside pocket
  • Due to the circumstances at home at the time, the GM had nothing pressing going on, so we ended up playing extra late, hence the length, here. In spite of the extra time, though, the “investigatory” goings-on still tended to drag on, as usual; we’re working on a solution to that

Security Leak

20:00, 3.14 weeks since the showdown with the Wrecking Crew.

Kyra

Ditch returned home from getting breakfast. In the hall outside his Redmond Barrens low-rent apartment, he found Kyra, his little sister in all but blood, is waiting for him. Inside, while raiding his fridge, the thirteen-year-old claimed this was nothing more than a social call, but Ditch suspected she has something troubling on her mind—trouble with foster-parents, maybe? The fridge yielding less than optimal results, she convinced Ditch to take her to get something to eat; at a nearby Stuffer Shack, he finally coaxed the truth out of her—she needed to borrow ¥2000 to bail her boyfriend out of some trouble. Mid-intervention, the phone rings: Claudia calling about a job. Ditch agreed to meet at the specified bar downtown—always a different place—and to get in contact with Mr. M and Bookworm on her behalf. Time to go to work; the intervention would have to wait. Ditch took Kyra back to the apartment and gave her the money—he had plenty, so it was no bother to him—but knowing the Street as he did, he knew better than to think the money would wipe away the problems by itself; he tried to explain that it was the boyfriend’s responsibility to pay back the loan, and not hers, but parenting/mentoring not being a skill anywhere near his résumé, she took it the wrong way. He offered to drop her off somewhere, but she refused, opting instead to walk home in the rain. Disappointed but resigned, he got back to work calling up the other DXM members. He managed to get hold of Bookworm and M, before gearing up and heading downtown to the meeting.

As usual, Bookworm was about to head out clubbing with his bad-influence buddy, Wallace, when he got Ditch’s call, but dropped his plans for work’s sake; Wallace was annoyed at the interruption. As usual, Mr. M was surfing the matrix at the time Ditch texted him, and had simply missed Claudia’s earlier call; he agreed to the meeting as well. Vapor had spoken to Claudia already, and was unavailable on other business—still mentally recovering from his near-death at the business-end of a minigun, he had expressed the possibility of his early retirement from shadowrunning.

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claudia

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Claudia awaited the Team in the upper level of the open-air bar, along with two others she had brought aboard for the operation: Ivory, and Paladin. Acquaintances were made; Bookworm immediately sidled up to Ivory, despite her obvious lack of interest. At Claudia’s request, Ditch shooed away nearby, uninvolved patrons. Then she briefed the team on the particulars of the mission: a subsidiary of Renraku tasked with development of an experimental sensie AI, called “Cecilia,” had suffered a leak of their alpha material, which was already hitting the underground BTL market; they needed all copies of the alpha recovered before it could spread. Their only lead was an AWOL employee from the development team, one John Cho, whose rather-light dossier Claudia downloaded to the team’s commlinks—bringing in Cho was a secondary objective. The deadline was ASAP, and as usual, discretion would be a necessity. Claudia produced a BTL chip, a copy of “Cecilia,” which she offered to Ivory for examination; Ivory jacked in, finding herself on a deserted beach with a beautiful woman—Ivory’s expression alone upon being disconnected revealed the developers’ success. Claudia informed the team that she would be attempting to get “as much as possible” in payment, with her usual 10% cut. The DXM team members had a long-standing trust-relationship with Claudia, and agreed to the terms without condition, as did the two additional runners.

As Claudia left the team to their work, they split into two groups: Mr. M stayed at the bar to do some internet research on Cho, with Paladin remaining to provide security; Bookworm and Ivory went to the only known source of distribution of the “Cecilia” BTLs, an alley behind a downtown club, with Ditch providing security.

Bookworm, Ivory and Ditch arrived at the alley, but found no one of interest there. They entered the adjoining club to start canvassing the patrons there for a source of the BTL; Bookworm and Ditch found a guy who said he had some for sale. When Bookworm inquired about his source (to prove they weren’t faked), he balked and started to distance himself; Ditch made a grab for the man, but he slipped away, just before Ivory slipped in behind him and tripped him up. Again, the dealer refused to give up his source, and again he tried to run; this time, Ditch chased him down and put him in an arm lock, forcing him back to the group. As they spotted the approach of the club’s bouncers, Ivory quickly hinted that they were cops, and that the dealer might end up in jail if he didn’t cooperate, but he demanded to see identification they didn’t actually have. Bookworm, in his natural environment at the club and knowing how these things work, convinced the bouncers that their “friend” had exceeded his limits, and they were taking him home; the bouncers allowed them to leave, escorting them all out the front door.

Outside the club, the still arm-locked dealer was led past the queue of potential club-entrants, around the corner into the alley, where they resumed their interrogation. They had the dealer pretty well confused and scared-for-his-life when Bookworm offered to buy the chips he had in exchange for the info about his source, to which the dealer (either reluctantly or unintentionally) agreed. Bookworm had ¥1250 on his person, which the dealer agreed to accept for three of the chips (he had six), and said his source went by the moniker, “Ghoul,” though he had overheard him being referred to by the name “Travis.”

Meanwhile, back at the bar…

Mr. M spent a while digging through the internet, but only managed to find a sparsely-populated, rarely-visited social media profile for John Cho, which M failed to hack into. He did manage to find an address, though.

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The two took Mr. M’s ride to Cho’s well-to-do corporate apartment. Rather than bother with the gate-guard, they found a side-door, and M bypassed the electronic security to allow them to enter. Inside the apartment complex, they decided to nevermind the CCTV cameras and just walk up to the apartment like they belonged. Of course, the apartment was locked; M lacked the tools to bypass the non-electronic lock, so Paladin applied his boot instead. Inside, the two found the usual salaryman’s accoutrements, but no immediate sign of its occupant. Mr. M immediately spotted Cho’s computer and set about mining it for info. Again, he found himself looking at Cho’s social media profile, but this time it was auto-logged-in, so he had full access; it was still pretty sparse, but one noteworthy detail was a photo of Cho tagged by a friend/acquaintance—interesting, as Cho’s appearance in that photo was quite different from the one in his company dossier. It appeared to have been taken in some sort of nightclub; M sent the image to Bookworm, who was able to identify the club as “Synapse.”


Hangar

Unconquerable, Part VII

As the crew gazed out the port into the hangar bay at their competitors’ ship, the Aegis, Ella thought better of trying to take her. Buck, disappointed, offered to do some mischief to her instead, and the captain agreed, hoping to impede any effort to give chase. There was some discussion about what to do with Trois, their prisoner, as they had no further use for him; he insisted he should be let go, as there was no harm he could do to them before they could leave, but they decided to have Abe sedate him, and, unconscious in his vacc-suit, stand him out of the way for his compatriots to find later, as they leave (should they get past the 300 or so waking Zhodani crew and myriad securitybots). The Crew took their turns cycling through the airlock into the hangar bay, bringing the stretcher-bound Jones in his patched-up vacc-suit, and Smith’s lifeless body. Haank and Buck split off and sidled up to the enemy ship, Buck with his toolbox, intent on welding shut the ship’s outer hatches, while the others floated over to the Spinward Star, to get it started up for takeoff.

In no rush and attempting to minimize any telltale vibration on the hull, Buck saw to the welding, starting with the only personnel airlock they could find on the unfamiliar model, while Haank provided security. They then sneaked around to seal off the dorsal shuttle-bay, followed by the cargo hatch to the rear. Most of the way through sealing the cargo hatch, Sam called over from the Spinward Star to inform them that the persons they were observing on the bridge of the enemy ship had left; the announcement preceded the arrival of an unfamiliar, angry face, apparently shouting at the two through a window from inside the ship’s cargo bay. As he finished, Buck facetiously demanded of the stranger in the window that he “sign off on the work order.” A heartbeat later, Buck and Haank felt a jolt from inside the ship, as the cargo-hatch motors strained at the weld in an unsuccessful attempt to break open. Laughing, the two started toward the Spinward Star, when Sam alerted them to the fact that the ship’s dorsal turret was sweeping for them. Buck and Haank, out of the weapons’ fire arc for the moment, briefly discussed how they might disable them; Buck decided that taking a hammer to the lasers’ optics would be too slow, before Haank offered to risk personal vaporization to shoot it dead with his under-barrel–mounted gauss shotgun pistol (loaded with HEMP rounds—certainly capable of penetrating the ship’s armor). Buck agreed to draw their attention while Haank got into position behind the turret. Once in position, Haank nearly emptied the shotgun’s magazine into the turret, desperately leaping out of the line of fire as it quickly turned around to fire at him…and fizzled, no longer functional. Haank’s jump clear left him drifting, but he expertly caught himself at the next opportunity and made his way back to the Spinward Star, to join the rest of the Crew.

With all aboard, Sam set the ship moving toward the exit; Haank took up position at the gunners’ station, just in case. The Aegis also took off a heartbeat later, in mad pursuit, being essentially unarmed; she jerked upward from below, attempting to slam the Spinward Star into the ceiling of the hangar bay. Sam tried to maneuver the ship out of the way, but ended up scraping deeply into the structure (the damage would turn out to be mostly cosmetic). He recovered from the impact to find the Aegis backing off for another go; Sam pressed hard for the exit, trying to position the ship such that Haank could fire from the ventral turret. As the enemy ship jerked upward again, this time, Sam rolled the Spinward Star just out of the way, at the same time that Haank got off a lucky shot at the ship’s bridge, both resulting in the Aegis crashing itself into the structure hard enough to wedge it in, stopped dead and stuck fast. Not only was the pursuit ended, but the crew of the Aegis were now unlikely to be able to escape the Zhodani vessel at all.

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The Spinward Star left the Unconquerable behind, having lost a crewmember and gained nothing in return—except a few containers of 10-year-old military weapons and vehicles. There was plenty of time to contemplate their next move in the day or two it took to get to the nearest gas giant in the system to refuel. Once fueled, they jumped-out for Kinorb, without incident.


Notes

  • We were missing Abe’s player this week, again, but it was just as well, as he really wouldn’t have had much to do
  • Buck really wanted to break the laser optics with a hammer or something, but the rules aren’t quite geared for that sort of thing. It probably should have been possible, but by RAW, he would have to break through 10dDR with a blunt instrument, or 5dDR if considered a “targeted attack”—still a lot of non-ablative DR. On the other hand, it should be able to withstand a micrometeorite hit, so maybe it’s right?
  • First time using Haank’s shotgun pistol w/ HEMP; turns out he could literally shoot down a starship with it, at 6d×3 (5)—had been avoiding using it in close quarters due to fragmentation, but it would have vaporized those androids
  • The GM had us make a Reaction check for the Aegis crew as we left, to see how they would handle the “mischief”; rolled a 7—“not well,” apparently
  • This session was the end of this run, so it was a bit short; good stopping point. Time to rotate to another campaign. This one has gone reasonably well, and will likely return in the near-future