[This session happened on June 29th. Things get complicated and dangerous…and sexy.]
Player Characters
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d Characters
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Monday, January 6, 2076
9:30 AM
Murdoc called for a cab to get over to Ariston Mirabeau’s place for the shakedown. He then took some Psych to help sustain the spells he was about to cast. He cast physical mask [Force 2] upon himself and changed his appearance from his natural hobo elf mage appearance to an elderly Chinese woman. He then cast Increased Reflexes [Force 5 with 5 successes] and sustained it with his Focused Concentration. Finally, he cast Armor [Force 5, but only 2 successes] on himself for protection, sustaining it through Quickening.
By the time he was finished casting the taxi had arrived. The Psyche finally kicked in during the 15-minute taxi ride, easing the mental burden of sustaining the physical mask.
9:44 AM
Driving through northern Downtown and about to enter Snohomish on her way to assist Void, The Fin received a call from Aung San. Aung San had an emergency insertion job needing The Fin’s talents and looks. Another team ran into problems during a run and now needed someone to walk into a corporate office in Downtown to connect a remote access matrix device into an isolated system. The job would pay 12,000¥ - was The Fin interested?
After a quick consult with Killroy (sitting in the passenger seat of her car), The Fin agreed to take the job. While The Fin turned her car around to head back into Downtown, Aung San supplied the details of the rest of the job. The other team had a fake ID that looked superficially like The Fin that was good only until Noon. It would provide access to the building and the necessary server room (Room 1023), but The Fin would have to social engineer her way past any suspicious people. Federated-Boeing (the target corporation) was having an All-Hands staff meeting at 10:30 that The Fin might use to her advantage. Aung San and The Fin arranged a place for a courier to meet The Fin to deliver the ID and the remote access device.
After hanging up with Aung San, The Fin called Void and explained she was no longer coming. Void, sounding much better after the Healing spell from Doc Wagon, accepted this and said she should be able to handle getting out of Everett on her own now.
9:50 AM
Murdoc arrived at Ariston Mirabeau’s apartment building and checked the astral to see what he could see. Murdoc could see the edges of some sort of disturbance on the 7th floor, but nothing definite. Murdoc took the elevator up to the 7th floor, but rather than approach Mirabeau’s apartment directly, he walked around the halls the long way so he could get a look astrally from a distance. From the corner things looked normal, but there was a just-perceptible darkening of astral space around the apartment. [He rolled very poorly.]
Shuffling over like the Chinese grandmother he appeared to be, Murdoc approached the apartment door. There wasn’t much noise from inside, so Murdoc attempted to quietly check the doorknob to see if it was locked. It was, but someone inside heard him try the door and was now walking over to the door. Murdoc prepared to cast a Stunbolt on whoever opened the door, just in case.
The whoever was a stunningly attractive woman just barely wearing a slip dress. In a voice of honey she asked, “How can I help you, grandmother?” Murdoc responded with the Stunbolt, to little effect.
“Oh, grannie, I think we can do something more fun than that,” the woman said while opening the door further so Murdoc could see how luscious and barely dressed she was. Murdoc felt his own lust try to take over his thought processes, but was able to keep control – sexy party time was NOT why he was here. [This was the woman using Compulsion:Lust on Murdoc.] Murdoc dropped the physical mask and cast stunbolt again. The spell fizzled when it reached the woman.
Raising a single eyebrow at the now revealed hobo elf, the woman called over her shoulder, “Girls! We have a long ears needing some emergency loving!” She then looked directly into Murdoc’s eyes and told him, “Sugar, you want to come party with us.” And suddenly, that’s exactly what Murdoc believed he was there for [per Influence]. He eagerly stepped into the apartment and accepted a deep kiss from the woman. She closed the door behind Murdoc and led him into the living room where three blue-skinned women waited…
10:00 AM
Riding with The Fin, Killroy received a call from (according to his caller ID) “Williamson, Fred G.”. Killroy tried to remember who this might be and remembered seeing the name around The Gun Club as a fellow club member, so he answered the call. Fred wanted to meet with “Derrick” [the name Killroy used at The Gun Club] to discuss some personal business. Killroy asked if they could meet this afternoon, but Fred asked to meet at 10:30 at the diner inside The Gun Club.
Killroy muted the line and looked over to The Fin. She recognized a business call when she saw one and told Killroy she could do her job without him if he wanted to take the job on the phone. Killroy thanked her, unmuted the call, and told Fred he’d be there at 10:30. Killroy then bailed out of The Fin’s car the next time she stopped at a light and called a taxi to pick him up.
10:10 AM
The Fin arrived at one of Federated-Boeing’s many buildings in the Seattle Metroplex. She parked in the “Employees Only” parking lot and then clipped on the ID badge which identified her as Drishti Korapatti, Database Researcher for Federated-Boeing.
The Fin entered the building and passed through the security turnstile without anyone giving her a second glance. She took the elevator to the 10th floor and activated the image link in her contact lenses so she could see the VR signs inside the building.
At the 10th floor, the elevator opened on a huge cubical farm that filled half the floor. In the center of the cube farm was a room with transparent walls and racks of computing equipment. Following the VR signs to Room 1023, The Fin ended at the door to the fishbowl room at the center of the (heavily populated) cube farm. A sign beside the door stated that use of commlinks or any other transmitting devices within Room 1023 was strictly prohibited under penalty of being fired and fined for espionage.
With a simple, “Hmph,” The Fin used her ID badge to enter the room with the remote access device. As she entered the room, she noticed the security sensors blink off then back on. This was the arranged signal that the sensors were now deactivated by the other team’s decker. The Fin quickly found the rack-mounted machine she was looking for. Glancing about to verify no one was paying any attention to her [and a group Perception roll indicated they were not], The Fin plugged in the remote access device, which powered up and started transmitting data. The alarms noticeably stayed silent.
10:15 AM
Elsewhere, at exactly that moment, Bookie received a call from one of his contacts, Zola, a bartender at Club Telepathy [a decker bar]. Some corporate goons grabbed a fellow decker off the street and that decker’s friends gave chase but lost the van in Snohomish. They needed someone to hack the traffic camera system to find the van. The gig paid 9000¥ for 5-10 minutes of work – was Bookie in?
Bookie agreed to do the run to help out a fellow decker (plus 9000¥). After getting a description of the target vehicle (black Rover Model 2075 with black lettering on the side and an orange paint splotch from a paintball on the right rear quarter-panel), he spun up his Sony CIY-720 cyberdeck and headed over to the Mitsuhama-run Seattle Traffic Control Host. He put a quick mark on the system and then sidled on into the host. Inside he did his best to avoid the Patrol IC and located the Traffic Camera subsystem. He wrote a quick algorithm to search the video feeds for a black Rover Model 2075 with a bit of orange splash on the rear right quarter-panel. After he activated the algorithm, the Patrol IC came over for another look and recognized him as an intruder, setting off alarms. A Probe IC immediately materialized and Bookie was in a fight. During the fight, the host rezzed up a Jammer IC and a Scramble IC. Bookie tried repeatedly to place additional marks on the system so he could take control, but the best he could do was place a second mark before the Scramble forced Bookie’s deck to reboot (and Bookie to suffer brain-jarring dumpshock).
10:16 AM
The Fin noticed an office manager starting to herd employees to the 10:30 AM All-Hands meeting. The office manager was being thorough and slowly working her way through the cube farm, towards Room 1023. Then, with a quiet beep, the remote access device told The Fin that it was done. The Fin unplugged it, slid it into a pocket, and left Room 1023. She then blended in with the crowd heading towards the meeting, diverging at the elevators. She was gone before the office manager could get to her and direct her to the meeting room.
10:21 AM
Murdoc was realizing there was something wrong with the sexy party he was at. There were not enough people, no drugs or lubricants had been served, there was no music, and the really attractive woman was just watching him and the three blue women enjoy each other on the couch. “Blue women?” Murdoc thought. “Why are they blue? Why does it feel like I’m drowning when they kiss me?” He suddenly realized that is was because they were actually water spirits and they were drowning him when they kissed him!
With a major effort Murdoc shook off the magical influence he was under and quickly banished one of the three water spirits. “Back off or you’re next,” he said to the other two water spirits who quickly complied. Murdoc and what he now recognized as a succubus started “fighting” – Murdoc threw stunbolts and she tried to regain control of his mind. When it became clear that Murdoc would win, the succubus fled the apartment. Murdoc glared at the two water spirits who took the hint and fled as well.
Rearranging his kilt and jacket, Murdoc looked around the room for any kind of paraphernalia. The only things he saw suggested drug use and not magic. He then went over to the only other door and kicked it open. Beyond was the bedroom, with Ariston Mirabeau spread eagle on it, withered and unconscious. Murdoc looked around in the astral and saw an astral gate anchored to Mirabeau from the other side. He dispelled one of the astral anchor runes and the gate started evaporating.
Murdoc then decided to wait for Mirabeau to wake up so he could deliver Gino’s message and leave. While waiting he found two one-gallon bags of deepweed, which he confiscated as partial payment for the job.
10:22 AM
At nearly the same time, Bookie was ready for another try. Just as he was being dumped from the Seattle Traffic Control Host the first time, he saw his algorithm complete its search, so he knew the data was ready – all he had to do was get back in and get it. He rebooted his cyberdeck and dove back in.
This time he configured his deck for maximum Sleaze and ran silently. As he approached the Traffic Camera subsystem, he spotted a spider going over the camera logs, apparently looking for whatever mischief Bookie had done. Bookie could see the data output from his algorithm hovering there at the end of the camera chain and started gearing up for a fight. Then he had a different thought and instead quietly slipped up behind the spider, reached around the spider to grab the output file, and said “Better luck next time!” as he jacked out of the matrix.
Luckily, the resultant dumpshock did not knock Bookie out. As the job had been much harder than expected, Bookie demanded more pay for the job from Zola before turning over the location of the truck. Zola agreed and upped the pay to 12,000¥. Bookie sent the location of the BR&T van to Zola so the other team could free their friend. Once the payment was received, Bookie decided to take some aspirin and a short nap.
10:30 AM
Killroy arrived at The Gun Club and found Fred in the diner inside the club. Once he saw Fred’s face he recognized Fred as a longtime member of the club. Fred was friendly in manner, but Killroy stiffened a bit when Fred explained how surprised he had been when he saw Vera (Killroy’s personalized assault rifle, sitting in a gun bag on the floor next to him) on TV back in December. “But what the government don’t know won’t hurt us, hey?” This last bit let Killroy relax slightly.
Fred explained he needed some street justice. When he and his husband were going through their divorce, his husband’s lawyer squashed every attempt he and Damon made to try and patch things up, the lawyer would either twist words or lie about messages, just to squeeze fees from the divorce and the settlement. Fred and Damon didn’t figure this out until much later. Now Fred wants things put right – he’s being transferred to another city and doesn’t want any loose ends left behind.
Killroy asked if Fred was looking for the lawyer to regret what she’d done or a more permanent solution. Fred’s reply was, “I brought up Vera for a reason.” Killroy understood. They haggled a bit over price, eventually settling at 26,400¥ for the job. Fred then offered to buy lunch and Killroy accepted. They talked guns while they ate.
End of Session
[I tightened up the timeline for this session and got the overlapping runs I was looking for. This lets everyone shine doing their thing. I kept the others involved by having them roll dice for the opposition, which helped greatly during Bookie’s cyber fight with up to 5 pieces of IC. The only mistake I made was I forgot The Fin was supposed to get a call for her next run while she was in the “No Wireless Communications” room, which would have drawn attention to what she was doing. My fault entirely.]
[Next week starts with the other two runners with things happening at 10:30 AM – Sin arrives for his delivery and The Fin gets one last job for the day.]
Session 1
Session 3
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