[This session happened on August 3rd and is the end of the run. Read on for the odd happenings.]
Player Characters
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
NPC’d Characters
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Friday, January 10, 2076
Mid-Afternoon
The group started sorting through the data files Bookie and Coldpulse had lifted from the Knight Errant Forensics Lab.
Going through Detective Mannix’s notes, the first thing we found was a not saying: “Meet me at this chat room at 2:00 AM” and a Matrix address. The timestamp implied it was added DURING the time Bookie and Coldpulse were stealing the file. Paranoia levels were starting to run high at this point.
The group quickly worked out that Knight Errant's leading theory is that the incident at the Tacoma Ferry Terminal was somehow gang related. The dwarf was shot by the person on the Boathouse roof, who also shot the person meeting with the dwarf. They think the person meeting with the dwarf was able to shoot the sniper despite being seriously wounded and then escaped in a vehicle. None of the security cameras at the ferry terminal covered any of the action nor which vehicle the third person left in as several vehicles left at that time and none of those have a wounded person driving. They clearly have no idea Prometheus was involved.
Concerned that the sniper might have cybernetics that would allow a recording to be stored on him, the group shifted focus to the case file from the coroner’s office. It was immediately clear (if you know what to look for) that the report has been altered, redacting the cybernetics listing and identity of the sniper. Bookie checked the file and worked out that Detective Mannix himself had altered the file. This suggested some level of corporate involvement, probably by Federated-Boeing, to avoid being publicly involved.
The file on the dwarf had also been tampered with. The name listed was Donald Micsapper, and most of the rest of the data from his SIN has been deleted. This was both disturbing and comforting – neither corporation involved wants to be linked to this and would rather it disappear as gang activity. They have the pull to get evidence squashed and altered by the investigating detective. This means they will probably not push Knight Errant to actually find Sin. We hope.
The group started discussing options on how to eliminate the blood evidence. It was quickly decided that the most certain method was to infiltrate the Forensics Office and do it ourselves and by “ourselves” we meant “Void would do it”.
Bookie hacked back into the system and retrieved a floorplan of the Forensics Office and secured access to the security camera system. The offices close at 5:00 PM, so we decided to wait until 7:00 PM before breaking in. Things would be quiet and the security guards would be settling to some serious slacking by then.
7:00 PM
Void, now invisible by way of a spell from Murdoc and with one of Sin’s Fly-Spies riding passenger, ran up a side wall of the Forensics Office and lightly jumped down into to fenced off back area of the building. She picked the lock to enter the back door, with Bookie looping the video feed so the door opening by itself was never recorded. Void then made her way into the evidence storage area (bypassing a guard walking the hallway). The only trouble she faced was opening the mag-locks in order to bypass them – it had been so long since they had seen maintenance that they tended to make popping noises when the case was removed [which was the only reasonable explanation for the very low Sneaking checks Void made].
Once in the lab, Void found all of the blood evidence for Sin’s case and dumped it into a sink, along with any other vials that happened to be on the same sample rack. She then poured ammonia down the drain with the blood and spritzed the inside of the vials themselves with ammonia. Satisfied she had spoiled the DNA evidence, she then went about obscuring exactly which case she was interested in by swapping labels on a couple dozen vials. She refilled the vials she had emptied with tap water and put them back. [Life would suck for the lab technicians in the morning.]
After relocking the cabinets, Void exited the lab and attempted to leave out the back. Unfortunately, three of the five guards on duty were loitering in the hallway here, chatting about sports. Void would have to walk right among them to get by and she was not confident the invisibility spell would hold against that kind of direct observance. Looking at the AR map of the building (provided by Bookie), she backed around a corner and debated attempting the front doors. There was a guard at a desk there and he’d notice the door opening as she left, assuming the door was unlocked. If the front doors were locked there was no way she could pick one without that being noticed and all five guards going alert.
Speaking of the fifth guard, at this point he walked in through the front door. This indicated the door was unlocked, so Void started psyching herself up to boldly walk out through the front door.
Then the fifth guard shot the desk guard with a heavy pistol!
The rest of the Pleiades Group was watching the video feeds as Bookie was streaming them to the team. This made everyone sit up. Prometheus recognized non-lethal Stick-n-Shock ammunition being used and he relayed this to Void through Bookie. The Fin then told Bookie to focus in on the fifth guard’s face. She and Prometheus recognized him as a Mafia hitter (in fact, Prometheus had worked with him before and had his phone number). Prometheus told Void to stay out of the guy’s way as he was not police. Bookie asked if he should delete the close up video of the guy’s face and Prometheus said yes and please loop the data so he doesn’t appear while in the building.
The mob hitter (Rocko) made his way to where the guards were loitering in the back hallway. He chatted at them as he approached and then shot them all with the Stick-n-Shock ammo. Void then walked towards the front to exit the building. Prometheus texted Rocko to let him know a friendly was leaving the building and that the video was being looped so Rocko would not appear on camera. Rocko texted back “Thanks”. Void walked out of the building, recovered her motorcycle, and drove away.
Saturday, January 11, 2076
2:00 AM
Bookie went to the chatroom the note in Detective Mannix's casefile had indicated. Coldpulse was backing him up. With paranoia running high, Bookie stealthed into the chatroom while running silent. The only thing in the chatroom was an ARO sign saying, “That was a mistake.” Its timestamp was right after Void exited the Forensics Lab. Bookie immediately jacked out.
End of Session
[So, that wasn’t suspicious at all.]
[The players think that the ARO in the chatroom suggests that the other decker is corporate, not Knight Errant, but we don’t know who the decker might work for. As this was the end of this run (by the other GM) and I’m running the next run, the PCs won’t find out for some time, if ever at all.]
[As I’ll be running the next run, I asked how much time the players want to scroll forward. They were all interested in letting at least a month go by so they could heal/finish initiating/get restricted gear that was on order. Therefore, the next run will occur on or after February 11th, 2076. This works for me as well as the meta-plot with the 4th Corporate war will enter a new phase at the end of January when RiddleNetics starts counter-bidding against FHM’s acquisition of Aquamatics, a water filtration company with large contracts in the Middle East but suffering from inadequate funding to update and expand its facilities. FHM, newly flush with cash, doesn’t like this at all - time to hire shadowrunners!]
[Also, there will be no game next week as we are taking a cultural break to watch Movies Gamers Should Know. Most of the group hasn’t seen the movie RED, starting Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich, and really, it’s a movie about retired government shadowrunners so it should be required viewing for anyone playing a cyberpunk-style game. After that we’ll watch Big Hero Six as one of the group hasn’t seen it and the rest of us are very willing to see it again - it's good fun!. As a result, I’ll have to write up something else for the post on the 17th. I think I still have a cheat sheet I haven't typed up yet, so that may be what gets posted.]
Session 1
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