Player Characters
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia (low level physical adept), posh and elegantVoid – 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
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Monday, November 4, 2075
Aswari Rai, known as The Fin in shadowrunning circles, received a call from Oreg Zabin, a local fixer she has worked with before. Oreg asked if she was busy. When she said she was not, he asked her to meet him at the Frelika Tearoom in the Bothell neighborhood in Bellvue at 4:00 pm. After looking up the location on GridGuide, The Fin dressed appropriately, then hired a private car to take her there.
The Frelika Teahouse is a stand-alone building in a boutique area in Bothell, near the Bellvue border with Snohomish. Aswari used astral perception to see what there was to see and found little in the way of magic in use. Going in, she noticed a watcher spirit inside the front door, apparently keeping an eye on the register area, but no other magic. She also spotted Oreg across the main room, sitting in a booth in the far corner, where she joined him.
After Aswari placed her order for a chai tea, Oreg started explained the job in broad strokes to see if it was a job The Fin was interested in. The job was a “switch” – replacing one thing for another – in this case one set of credsticks with another, doctored set. The job would pay 12,000 nuyen, with a possible bonus and had to be done this Thursday, between 6:00pm and 10:00pm. After the waitress delivered her tea, Aswari said she was interested, so Oreg started providing the particulars.
The chips to be taken were in a massage parlor in Everett named “Golden Arms Massage”, run by a street gang. There would be 30-34 standard credsticks full of money on the premises. Aswari and whatever team she assembled were to replace the full credsticks with a doctored set with no one the wiser. If push came to shove, taking the full credsticks was the priority, but there would be no bonus. The full credsticks were to be delivered to the Helping Hands Thrift Store in the Kennard Corner neighborhood of the Snohomish District, “just up 527 from here.” The credsticks must be in a sealed, opaque container and given to an orc with chromed tusks along with the pass phrase “These are Mahjong pieces for Carlos.” Payment would be deposited in Aswari’s account no more than two hours after confirmation of delivery.
After trying unsuccessfully to talk Oreg up on the price, Aswari agreed to the terms of the job. Oreg slid a decorative chocolates box across the table to Aswari, containing 36 doctored credsticks. The two then finished their tea, making non-business related small talk.
Relatively new to Seattle, Aswari put in calls as The Fin to the team she previously worked with on a job for Oreg. She was able to contact Void, Murdoc, and Sin and arranged a meeting, but Prometheus and Killroy were both unavailable, leaving the team without combat specialists. Maybe the job wouldn’t need them. The group of runners met at the restaurant Harajuku in Renton. It had private tables with screen doors, so they could speak with some privacy, even if Aswari knew she’d have to tip well due the personalities being invited.
Once the four runners were assembled, The Fin explained the job and the details. The only thing she changed was the pay-out: she quoted the job as only being 10,000 nuyen and the other three took her at her word [no one made the check to spot the lie]. Having two and a half days before the job could be performed, they agreed to each investigate the target and meet again at a place in Everett tomorrow [Tuesday].
Looking up the address, the group was able to get both a satellite view and a street view of the building the massage parlor was in [which I provided as handouts, using screen shots from Google Maps]. The massage parlor is built inside a refurbished small two-story house on the corner of 19th and Hoyt. Knowing what to look for, Void, Sin, and Murdoc went there to individually scout out the site. The area is five blocks off of the naval yard and full of establishments catering to off-duty sailors: massage parlors, bars, cheap food places, and rooms available by the hour.
Murdoc fit in well with the local low-life and took up a position cattycorner from Golden Arms Massage. He could see that there was steady traffic for the business through the front door, with parking out front. Gang-sign on the building indicated a gang known as “The 19’s” or something ran the place, but he couldn't remember their affiliation. He also noticed that there seemed to be more discrete business happening at the back gate. The building also had no visible wards, but a watcher spirit sitting atop the shed inside the fenced in backyard.
Void circled the building at a distance, using her enhanced goggles and contact lenses to get a look at the building’s physical security. The lower floor did not seem to have much in the way of security other than heat shielding in the walls so her thermographic vision could not see to the interior. There were also two goons at the front door acting as bouncers. The upstairs was also shielded on the front and sides and she was able to spot security on the upstairs windows. While moving to investigate the back yard area she was spotted. The goon at the back gate, an orc, called her over and demanded to know what she was doing there and was she a cop?
Void stalled and used the time to get a slightly better view of the back of the building and the back yard. She noticed the heat shielding was not present on the back of the house and she identified the back room upstairs as a locker room and the two back rooms downstairs as a massage room (on the left) and a bathroom (on the right). She then answered the goon with, “Do I look like a cop?” The goon said “I dunno. Turn around.” She did so and sensed the danger she was in as the goon pulled a club to hit her over the head with. She immediately bolted and ran. The guard was not expecting that and could do nothing as she was out of sight before he even took his first step.
In the meantime, Sin had found a relatively private spot to park his vehicle and sent one of his MCT Fly-Spy drones to go scout out the target. He observed Void’s run-in with the goon at the back gate, but saw her get away and continued with his scouting. He recognized the gang-sign on the building as belonging to “The 19 Hatchets”, a Vietnamese gang. Flying around the building, he had the drone approach from the south, so he could look at the side of the building not exposed to a street. He started checking the two windows near the back and found each opened onto a different, small massage room, each barely larger than the massage table and both in use. He then flew up to the upstairs set of windows. These were treated to be reflective, but he lucked out and found a corner where the glass was still mostly transparent. The room he could see into contained four burly men sitting at a table playing mahjong and a fifth person jacked in to a small security station. The monitors at the security station showed camera views from inside the house, but Sin could not see enough detail to work out exactly where in the house they were. He parked his drone there to keep an eye on things.
Sin then launched a second drone to scout further. He decided to try the upper window on the north side of the house (facing 19th St.). He clearly spotted the security system, but while looking for a gap in the window treatment, he apparently had drawn the attention of people inside. The window suddenly opened and a ganger with a shoe was poised to smash his drone. Sin glanced at the room and then was barely able to get out of the drone in time to avoid dumpshock when the drone was smashed. He had been recording the entire time, so he still had video of the room interior, showing a counting table, two gangers, and an equipment locker with a fancy lock on it.
At about this time, Murdoc decided to summon an air spirit and send it in to scout out the interior of the building. He looked around to find a secluded spot to perform his summoning, but the best he could find was an out of the way spot occupied by some hobos willing to share an overturned milk crate with him. Murdoc took what he could get. His first to summonings failed [I rolled the limit resisting him on the first try and he rolled poorly on the second try, barely matching my single success]. This seemed to confirm to the hobos that Murdoc was a harmless crazy and they stopped paying him any attention. On Murdoc’s third try, he got an air spirit to respond and sent it in to scout and report what it saw while it was inside the massage parlor.
The spirit reported the two goons at the door. Just inside the door, it reported a lobby area with two couches, a register, a person at the register, and a watcher spirit watching the register. This spooked Murdoc a bit, not knowing what the watcher spirit was orders were, he had the air spirit just move in a straight line through the building and out the back, as if going through the building was incidental. The spirit agreed. The next room back was a massage room where the customer was getting more than a massage. The next room was a massage room, also occupied. Next was a set of stairs going up, then a very small massage room, followed by another very small massage room, and then it was out the back and done with its service, so it took off.
End of Session
needs a link to the next session
ReplyDeleteFixed!
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