Session Report – Code Name: Parrot T-Rex – Session 1

[This session happened April 24th, 2017, and features a new GM, The Fin’s player.  She had an idea for a run and neither I nor the Other GM had a strong desire to run next, so voila! New GM.]

[It took us a session or two to name this run, so if the name does not make sense to you, wait a couple of sessions and hopefully you’ll see why we named it this.  Incidentally, the names listed for the runs are not always the name the GM running it titled it (except mine, because tyranny of the keyboard and such), but the name the players came up with to refer to the run.  So the name of this run is NOT what New GM called it but what I called it while taking notes during the game.  Blame me if you don’t like the name – I’m not going to change it, but at least you will be complaining to the correct person.]

PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm

NPC’d
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant


Wednesday, June 17, 2076
Void was contacted by Mr. Wo, her sponsor to The Ascended Lodge.  Word had come to him of a job The Ascended Lodge would like to see accomplished.  The Masters had discussed the issue and decided that Void and her…associates would represent the Lodge in this matter.  Void accepted this assignment and was told to meet Ms. Johnson on the 20th.  [The time and location data is shamefully missing from my notes, but particulars were actually given.]

Void contacted The Fin and told The Fin that there was a job offer for the Pleiades Group, with a meeting scheduled on the 20th.  Void also explained that she personally would like this job to happen, would The Fin handle negotiations?  The Fin agreed and received the meeting particulars.  She also sent out an alert to the Pleiades membership that a job was on tap and for members to report their availability starting the 20th.

Saturday, June 20, 2076
The Fin, with Void and Killroy physically and the rest of the Pleiades Group watching via Fly-Spy, met Ms. Johnson.  Ms. Johnson is a short human woman with tall pretty-boy bodyguards, whom she mostly ignores.  There is minimal small talk and Ms. Johnson outlines the job basics:

• The first job is an extraction job in Tir Tairngire, requiring the extraction of a doctor and her 8 “family members” [pets] from a research facility, plus the acquisition of all the project data files and taking biosamples from the research animals.  The team is to destroy the lab on the way out.  Bonus objectives include extracting the lab assistant and grabbing a specific unique creature.  Support for the job included transportation into Tir Tairngire, along with false passports and visas.  Delivery was to the local airport and pay was 300,000¥ plus 50,000¥ for each bonus objective.  The team could take up to two weeks to perform the job from a certain date.
• The second job was optional, but was to escort and deliver the target to a facility on a different continent.  Air travel and additional equipment would supplied at the receiving airport for a land transport phase measured in hours.  Pay for this job was 250,000¥ and could take up to an additional week as long as it was successful.

If the Pleiades Group accepted the job or jobs, additional details would be provided as necessary.

The Fin started negotiating for better pay based on the first job actually being multiple jobs rolled up in one and if Ms. Johnson wanted all of them done, she was going to have to pay for all of them.  She was able [through a fairly amazing set of rolls done at the table in front of the players] to talk Ms. Johnson up to 500,000¥ for the base job and 70,000¥ for each bonus objective.  However, Ms. Johnson used the same tactic on the second job [that is was clearly a single job] and would not budge on the pay at all.  Sensing she had pushed Ms. Johnson as far as she could, The Fin accepted both jobs and asked for the details.

Job 1 would take place in Cara’Sir [Portland], starting June 29th, and involve extracting Dr. Sorcha O’Seahnasaigh from the research labs on New Dawn Technologies campus, a company that specializes in creating new breeds of para-animals.  Dr. O’Seahnasaigh is a human working for an elf-owned and run corporation.  Her research assistant, Dr. Loracan Valdi, is also Ms. Johnson’s inside man and point of contact, who indicated Dr. O’Seahnasaigh was willing to leave and what her conditions were.  Dr. O’Seahnasaigh’s “family members” were 8 dachshund hell hounds crossbreeds.  [Void was very unenthusiastic about this –she had a bad experience with hell hounds in Everybody Needs Somebody.]  On top of that, the biosamples were to be taken from 15 different experimental para-animals in two different labs in adjacent but connected buildings.  The team would need to grab all files related to the code name PURPLE CARROT and eliminate any system back-ups and destroy the lab equipment.

Bonus objective one was extracting Dr. Valdi along with Dr. O’Seahnasaigh.  He was ready to leave and acting as Dr. O’Seahnasaigh point of contact as she is under tighter scrutiny.  Plus, her family owned the corporation and they would notice if she was acting weird.  Bonus objective two is a paragoose named Siren.  It had to be rendered unconscious for transport or its voice weapon would damage/destroy the extraction plane during transport.

Delivery of all components would be to the Cara’Sir corporate airport about 3 miles north of the NDT campus.  A hyperjet would be waiting to receive everything.

Job 2 started with getting on the hyperjet and flying to the Czech Republic with the cargo.  The hyperjet would land at Prague International Airport and the team would have to escort everything to an address in Brno.

In Cara’Sir, there would be two other teams, backed by competing corporations attempting to extract Dr. O’Seahnasaigh as well.  Current intel suggested the competing extraction teams were aiming for an extraction on or after the 13th of July.  The competing corporations were Marsh Genetic Innovation and Telestrian.  Additionally, in the Czech Republic, additional opposition would be expected by Freeman Health Manufacturing (FHM) and Zenith Astrotech (ZAT) [those with strong memories might recall those two corporations have appeared already in this campaign].  Their operatives were likely to attempt an intercept between Prague and Brno.

The good news that Ms. Johnson would supply passports valid for the time of the job for whatever cover identities the team used to enter Tir Tairngire, passcards for the lab building on the NDT campus, basic maps of the campus, training on the proper method of taking the biosamples (including the sampling gear), and a vehicle with equipment resupply in Prague.

At the end of the meeting, The Fin and Ms. Johnson worked out communication details, shook hands, and left separately.  The rest of the team, back at the Pleiades Group office, immediately started brainstorming ideas for a plan to achieve the large amount of work they had just taken on.  This included working out a cover story for operating in Tir Tairngire that put the team’s two elves in charge (Bookie and Void, neither of whom knew Sperethiel, the national language of where we were going) and start a Needed Equipment list.

End of Session

[Every time the New GM gave us a new detail or part of the job, we frantically wrote it down, asking, “there’s more!?”  Once she stopped and we’d agreed to the jobs we were like, “Holy crap! How are we going to do all that?”  The answer turned out to be “take the next two sessions to plan the job.”  I might combine sessions 2 and 3 into a single write-up to speed that along.]


Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Sessions 5 and 6
Session 7
Session 8 (not yet written)
Session 9 (not yet written)
Session 10 (not yet written)
Session 11 (not yet written)
Session 12 (not yet written)
Session 13 (not yet written)
Session 14 (not yet written)

Status Update - Know anyone hiring an experienced tech writer?

So last Monday (the 19th) the company I worked for did a re-organization and a Reduction in Force and I was part of the force that was reduced.  They laid off about 5% of the company workforce from top to bottom.  I'm glad I'd written parts 3 and 4 of Butcher's Bill already and had them set to auto-post or they'd never gone live last week.

So I'm looking for a new job again.  If you know of anyone in the Houston, Texas area hiring tech writers, please let me know as I'd like to be employed again, soonest.  I've worked in the Oil and Gas industry and the Software industry for a SaaS (security as a service) company, so I'm familiar with the lingo in both areas and have a great deal of experience as a tech writer, both working solo and as part of a team.  Any help would be appreciated.

In the meantime, I'll continue posting my session notes and have Session 1 of Code Name: Parrot T-Rex done and set to auto-post on Thursday.

Later!

Session Report – Butcher’s Bill – Session 4

[This session happened April 17th, 2017, almost a month after the last session due to a variety of reasons.  The Other GM was running.  This is a short session.]


PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
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
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth, preaching the anti-corporate word

NPC’d
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser


Monday, June 15, 2076
[Same day, right after Session 3 left off.]
Void called in to Prometheus to report that she now knew of a secret backway onto Council Island.  Prometheus shared what the rest of the group had learned from questioning Twareg and the other two.  They discussed whether or not Void should pursue further and decided that it should still be safe enough to find out where Dawg went on Council Island.  Void used her Facial Sculpt power to shape her face into one of those on the passports she had [taken from the security checkpoint last session].

Bookie was contacted and asked to hack the Council Island Public Security camera system to track someone for 5,000¥.  Bookie accepted the job and hacked into the system.  In the video archive he found the recording of Dawg surfacing from the tunnel and then “followed” him in the recordings to the Lava Java Café.  Bookie switched to the live feed to verify that Dawg was still there.  He was, but he was now talking to a woman in a NAN military uniform.  Bookie called back to the Pleiades Group and reported what he had discovered.

Prometheus, Void, The Fin, Sin, and Baelthor held a quick conference call to discuss the situation.  If the NAN military was involved, this was much more than sending a message to the Disassemblers.  It was decided that Void would move to a point where she could physically watch the Lava Java Café while The Fin contacted Svetlana and asked for additional instructions.

Svetlana was very interested to learn that the entire attack was a false flag operation by the NAN.  She asked for all the data the Pleiades Group had put together and the three gangers, in exchange for which she would consider the job done.  The Vory would deal with Dawg themselves, now that they knew who his true masters were.

Pay was split 6 ways after paying Bookie’s fee: one share for Prometheus, Void, The Fin, Sin, and Baelthor and one share to the Pleiades Group General Fund.

End of Session


[So that ended quickly.  I had forgotten how short that session was until I started writing it up.  The next run, Operation: Parrot T-Rex, was run by The Fin’s player and was a bit more epic in scope and takes the Pleiades Group outside Seattle for the first time.]

[I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but the group splits the pay by shares and always adds a share to the Pleiades Group General Fund.  The Fund pays for the office (a Middle lifestyle) and any incidentals or special equipment needed for a Pleiades Group run.  We found it was easier to handle it as a share rather than making characters give money back from their pay.  All the characters recognize the value of having a central fund so personal profits are not eaten up by job expenses.  We also keep a pool of reagents available for any of the spellcasters to access.  No reason to have a run fail because the mage passes out from Drain or because the spirit wants a bribe to talk.]


Session 1
Session 2
Session 3

Session Report – Butcher’s Bill – Session 3

[This session happened March 13th, 2017.  The Other GM was running.]

[Apologies for this write-up being late.  A major project at work is nearing its release and our department is short-handed for reasons, so we’re slammed with work.  Plus, it’s allergy season here and my sinuses are trying to either explode or melt off my face, so bleh.  I’m writing this session and the next, concluding session on the same day for a dual release this week to make up for the miss last week.  Look for Session 4 on Thursday.]


PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
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

NPC’d
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth, preaching the anti-corporate word


Monday, June 15, 2076
[Same day, right after last session left off.]
Void rode the motorcycle through the tunnel, which curved down and then to a more southerly direction.  After riding for 10-15 minutes [my notes don't indicate how long exactly, it might have been as long as 30 minutes], she came up to an underground checkpoint.  Judicious use of her martial arts and stealth took out the three metahumans on guard duty.  They had no ID on them nor any identifying logos or emblems on their clothing, but they were better equipped than a gang like the Disassemblers could normally manage.  Suspicious.  Searching the checkpoint, she found a selection of passports in a secured drawer [secured for normal people] and took them.

There was another motorcycle parked at the checkpoint and it showed signs of very recent use.  The main tunnel continued south, but on the other side of the checkpoint was a short pedestrian tunnel.  Void checked the camera displays to verify her bike was hidden and that the way ahead was clear.  She left the guards tied up in the back room of the check point and followed the short tunnel.  At the end was a built-in ladder, up to a hatch.  [Side Note: If I was the GM running this, I would have put an AR display of the outside here as a secure way to verify it was safe to open the hatch.  There might have been one, but Void has no AR display and so would not have seen one if one existed.]

Void climbed up the ladder and cracked open the hatch to see where she was.  She appeared to be behind a small building in a concealed alcove outside.  Not seeing anyone at all, she climbed out to get a better idea of where she was.  Quickly getting her bearings, she realized she was in the secure area on Council Island!  This strongly suggested Dawg was a NAN agent of some sort, not just a member of the Disassemblers.  [Dun-dun-DUUUUN!]

~*~

While Void had her underground adventure, Prometheus was driven [remotely] by Sin over to the Double-Tap Saloon, where Ganger #2 [later identified as Twareg, so I’m going to call him Twareg from this point for ease of reference] had gone to ground.  Inside the bar, Prometheus found Twareg and a friend sitting at a back table, drinking and somewhat celebrating.  Prometheus verified Twareg’s identity by showing the ganger a still of Twareg from the Teahouse attack and asking, “Is this you?”

Twareg busted a big grin and confirmed it was, asking Prometheus if he was a fan.  Prometheus replied he was not, but he knew a lady who was and would like to meet Twareg, would he come with?  Twareg and his friend got excited and both agreed to come with Prometheus.  Prometheus attempted to clarify the invitation was for Twareg only, but the friend insisted he was the one who “took out the guys outside.”  Prometheus paused, then apologized for attempting to exclude the friend and invited him along as well.  [Prometheus was fairly certain that Svetlana would want the person who actually killed her people to be included in “the message”, so he yielded the point.  If the fool wanted to get killed with his friend, who was Prometheus to deny him his desire?]  Both gangers wanted to finish their drinks before leaving as it was “the good stuff.”  Prometheus shrugged and sat at their table while they finished their drinks before all three left the bar and got into the car.

Once they arrived at the warehouse [the safe house used in Under the Mountain], Prometheus pulled his Ares Alpha out of the trunk and walked Twareg and his friend inside.  Twareg thought he had finally made the bigtime and was excited - Prometheus did not correct him.  Waiting inside the warehouse was The Fin and Baelthor.  Twareg recognized them from the attack and finally realized he was in danger.  Twareg drew his Ares Crusader pistol, only to have Prometheus shoot it out of his hand.  The friend raised his hands to surrender and Twareg joined him.

The Fin sat them in chairs and started questioning them about the attack on the Teahouse.  [This is when Twareg’s name was learned.]  As it turned out, they were not part of the Disassemblers gang, but wannabes.  Dawg had hired them with the promise of money and membership in the gang.

At this point, Sin showed up in person with one of his drones carrying the other “Disassembler”, unconscious.  After applying some smelling salts to wake him, the third man admitted he was a mercenary hired by Dawg for the job.  All three still had the credsticks Dawg paid them with and offered them as proof.  The Fin took the credsticks and checked the balances.  [My notes don’t indicate how much they had been paid, but it wasn’t a lot, maybe 3,000¥.]  She then commented on how little they had been paid for staging an attack on the Vory.  All three were clearly shocked to learn who their targets had been.

End of Session

[Sin captured the mercenary during this session, but I don’t have notes on the details.  The apartments he went to were where the mercenary lived.  I seem to recall Sin sent in Susan with a load of Stick-n-Shock and a load of APDS.  The Stick-n-Shock turned out to be all that was necessary.]

[There was also a discussion on where to take the gangers once we had them.  We decided that the safe house from the previous run would probably still be empty, so that’s what we used.  It is possible Twareg and the other two were ziptied to the chairs they were sitting in, but I don’t quite remember and my notes don’t say.  I need to start recording those details or do the write up sooner than a year after the game session.]


Session 1
Session 2

Session 4 [Not written yet]

Session Report – Butcher’s Bill – Session 2

[This session happened February 27th, 2017.  The Other GM was running.]

PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
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

NPC’d
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth, preaching the anti-corporate word


Monday, June 15, 2076
10 minutes later
Sin, using one of his Fly-Spies, tracked Dawg, the ork leader of the Disassembler attack on the Russian Teahouse.  [Dawg either specifically mentioned the Disassemblers or was identified by his colors – as stated previously, I wasn’t there so I’m not certain which happened.]  Dawg and his two cohorts split up quickly after they left the Teahouse, so Sin tasked two of his other drones to automatically follow the cohorts while he concentrated on following Dawg.

Dawg walked four blocks north, crossing into Snohomish, and entered a butcher’s shop [name: Bill the Butcher].  Sin had the Fly-Spy follow Dawg into the butcher’s shop, but it was noticed by Dawg, who commented on it to the proprietor.  Dawg stepped behind the counter and walked into the back room.  Sin decided not to push his luck [or endanger the Fly-Spy] and flew the Fly-Spy up a ceiling vent and around the back of the building.  Dawg never exited the building.  Sin drove his GMC Bulldog to a point nearby where he could watch the alley while keeping the Fly-Spy in place in case Dawg appeared before the delivery truck arrived.

Meanwhile, back at the Teahouse, Void and Prometheus arrived, answering The Fin’s summons.  Prometheus took up his favorite sniper position to observe the Teahouse and then called in.  Void went directly inside to speak with The Fin.  The Fin updated the two of them on the situation.  Svetlana offered to hire the Pleiades Group to express the Vory’s anger at the Disassemblers for this attack.  Svetlana will pay 160,000¥ for an attack on Dawg and his pack with a 40,000¥ bonus “if it has style.”  After a VERY quick poll of the members, The Fin accepted the job on behalf of the Pleiades group.

Sin reported in and told the group where Dawg had gone to ground.  Prometheus and Void headed there.  Prometheus took up a sniper position, watching the front and left side of the building, where there were stairs to the second floor while Sin’s GMC Bulldog watched the back alley.  Void picked the lock on the back door and went in to look for Dawg.

The back of the butcher’s shop was empty of people and had no other exits.  After looking around and finding nothing out of the ordinary, Void exited the butcher’s shop and went up the stairs to the second floor.  There she found The Big Heart Clinic, a street clinic.  She snooped around a bit, avoiding the staff and the clinic’s security by climbing through crawlspace above the clinic’s dropped ceiling.  [Physical Adept with four ranks of Light Body.]  None of the people in the clinic were Dawg.

A bit frustrated at this point, she re-entered the butcher’s shop and searched again, this time looking inside the walk-in freezer as well.  Inside the freezer she found a very well concealed trapdoor in the floor.  It took her a bit to work out how to open it without tripping any security.  Underneath was a ladder down to an underground room.  The room was large, had parking spots for four motorcycles, and a tunnel large enough to ride a motorcycle in heading east.  There are three motorcycles parked here and signs a fourth recently left.

Void explained to Sin and Prometheus what she had found and then hopped onto one of the motorcycles.  It was electric [no exhaust] and there was a convenient helmet nearby, which she put on.  She then drove the motorcycle into the tunnel to see where it went.

Sin received signals from the two drones he tasked to follow Dawg's cohorts, indicating the targets had stopped moving.  Jumping over to those drones, he found one of the gangers was in the Double-Tap Saloon, drinking, while the other was in a small apartment complex, hanging out.

End of Session

[There was some discussion between The Fin and Svetlana about the situation and what the Vory wanted, but my notes are tragically silent on the details.  My notes also indicate that The Fin wanted to contact one of our mages to set an earth elemental after Dawg to locate him, but that appears to have been lost in the shuffle, so I dropped it from my summation.]


Session 1

Session 3 [Not written yet]
Session 4 [Not written yet]