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]

Session Report – Butcher’s Bill – Session 1

[This session happened February 20th, 2017.  The Other GM was running.]

[So I was recovering from being ill the entire weekend and sat out in another room of the house for this game so I wouldn’t infect the other players.  As a result, I only heard what happened in this session a week later.  To say my notes are sparse is to grossly understate things.  Some of the action is more paraphrased than normal for this session, particularly the conflict at the end.  The next session I was in attendance and have notes to go by, so the quality of content will go up in the next posting.]


PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
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
Baelthor – male human mage with a loud mouth, preaching the anti-corporate word


NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm


Monday, June 15, 2076
Afternoon
The Fin was contacted by Svetlana, her contact in the Vory, to discuss a business opportunity for the Pleiades Group.  The meeting was scheduled to be at the Russian Teahouse on the northern edge of Bellevue, where Svetlana regularly did business.  The Fin had a good relationship with Svetlana, but always brought a bodyguard of some sort with her when meeting the Vory to show a little strength and that she was part of an organization herself.  The Fin checked to see who was available and found Baelthor was to act as bodyguard and Sin was willing to remotely drive them to the meet.

The Fin and Baelthor arrived at the Russian Teahouse for the meeting.  Several Vory soldats were sitting at patio tables, drinking tea as usual, and The Fin nodded at them as she went inside.  Inside, Svetlana was sitting at her usual table in the back corner.  Svetlana’s bodyguards gave Baelthor a look, but made no move to impede The Fin as she walked up to Svetlana’s table.

Svetlana smiled and invited The Fin to sit.  They made some small talk about recent events while the waitress took The Fin’s order and then brought over tea.  Once the waitress was gone, Svetlana stated she had some work she would like the Pleiades Group to do.  Before she could go into any details, three ork gangers busted in through the front door, weapons drawn.  Their leader yelled out in Or’zet that he’s looking for the person who put a hit out on their gang.

[Apparently, several players threw down a BS flag on this play, but the Other GM got them to let the scene play out.]

After a quick, whispered conference with Svetlana, The Fin responded in Or’zet and offered to negotiate the deal.  The ork leader wasn’t having any of it and shot one of the people in the teahouse dead.  This made The Fin angry and she got into an argument with the ork [whose name turned out to be Dawg].  At some point the orks got the information they were looking for [it was a convincing lie told by The Fin], Baelthor took a bullet, the orks dropped a NeuroStun grenade [that Baelthor knocked out the door], and then the orks left the teahouse.  The Fin contacted Sin and told him to follow the orks who had just left the teahouse to see where they went.  She then called in Void and Prometheus for immediate backup.

Once the Orks were gone and her bodyguards reported the soldats outside were all dead, Svetlana said she had a different job for the Pleiades Group than the one she originally called them for…

End of Session

[Not much to say as I wasn’t there for this session.  The talking parts were more intricate than my summation and I apologize to the players for skimming here.]

[There was a lot of discussion between this session and the next about what happened here.  My wife and I were convinced that the Other GM didn’t know what he was doing and mis-played the Vory.  I later apologized to him about not giving him enough credit, once the rest of the scenario played out.  Spoilers!]



Session 2
Session 3 [Not written yet]
Session 4 [Not written yet]

Next Post Delayed - Busy Life

Work and life are mighty busy this week and I was not able to get the first session of Butcher's Bill typed up.  This weekend is also amazingly busy, so next Thursday (February 15th) is my target date for Session 1.

One of the things making this weekend busy is the next CCG Day at my place.  The players are looking forward to another round of OTE.  Switching to smaller groups worked well last time and we got 5-6 rounds of play in, so we'll be doing that again.

Also, worked past a writing block in my novel.  Very happy about that.

See you next week!

Session Report – Under the Mountain – Session 7

[This session happened February 13th, 2017.  I forget why we skipped a week  The Other GM was running.]

[This is the second half of the actual run – getting to our safe house and the pay off.  This part (thankfully) went somewhat according to plan.]


PCs
Void – female night elf physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Moondance – male street samurai with an Ares fetish and a sniper specialization
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Wasabi – young male human mage with more than a touch of ADHD
Ezekiel Tee – male human mage of the Zoroastrian tradition


NPC’d
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
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


Monday, June 2, 2076
Approximately 3:30 AM
Sin was jumped in to the getaway, driving the infiltration team, when both Void and Moondance called out a warning: Sniper!  [They both have the Combat Sense and Danger Sense Adept powers.]  Sin immediately threw the vehicle into evasive maneuvers [much to the annoyance of the handful of other drivers and GridGuide’s traffic algorithms on the I-5].  Sin was able to dodge the sniper’s shots until Moondance unlimbered a gun and shot the sniper with a double snapshot.  The sniper withdrew, bleeding heavily.

Exiting the freeway, they found a roadblock across the off-ramp in the form of a two armored vehicles.  Flanking the vehicles, with guns out, were four Aztechnology goons.  One of the goons was pulling up a loudspeaker to order the team to stop when Sin floored it!  Just before he reached the roadblock, instead of ramming it, he swerved to the side and up the concrete barrier to the side of the exit.  This forced the car up and over, into a barrel roll over the blockading vehicles, landing just past them and on top of two of the goons, pasting them on the concrete.  [Sin’s player declared he was trying a driving stunt and poured his eight Edge into it.  Many of the dice exploded and the GM let him describe the results.  Drop a comment if you think this is impossible – I have stories to tell about car wrecks in Houston.]

Elsewhere, Prometheus and Ezekiel Tee were leaving the area in their own vehicle and got pulled over by a random Knight errant cruiser.  The Knight Errant officer was either angling for a bribe or attempting to avoid responding to the call in Puyallup.  Prometheus decided he was not getting paid to kill a patrol officer nor get hassled and arrested by one.  He convinced the officer to let him call his lawyer and then called The Fin.  Prometheus explained he wanted his lawyer to explain to the Knight Errant officer why the traffic stop was just going to cause the officer nothing but trouble.  He then handed the commlink over to the officer and The Fin spent the next five minutes burning the officer’s ears off with exactly the right legalese.  [Prometheus cannot talk his way out of a wet paper bag, but he knows to call The Fin.]  By the time she was done, the officer was apologizing for interrupting her evening and sent Prometheus and Ezekiel Tee on their way.  He then hurried to answer the Aztechnology call as it now seemed safer than dealing with lawyers.

4:23 AM
Both teams arrived at the safe house and got inside.  Sin drove the cars away and ditched them in gang territory with the doors unlocked.  The warded mage bag holding the target was carefully edged into the ritual ward and the rest of the team stepped inside and rested.

Wasabi, Baelthor, and Ezekiel Tee took turns standing watch Astrally.  With two rating seven wards hiding the target, it would take a mighty big spirit to find her.  Even if Aztechnology had a material link to track her with, it would take them hours to summon a large enough spirit.  If Aztechnology had another way to magically locate her, the mages would notice and either raise the alarm or stop the effort.  Possibly both.

6:00 PM
After a tense day had passed, it was time to head to the drop off point.  The target was still alive and asleep in the mage bag and no spirits large enough to breech the wards had shown.  Sin brought in his GMC Bulldog and the team decamped from the safe house, taking care to ease the warded mage bag back out of the ritual ward.

6:45 PM
The team was at the drop-off point.  Prometheus set himself up on the roof of a nearby building to provide over watch.  Killroy and Moondance were in the GMC Bulldog with the target and most of their armory.  Sin had Susan and Sheila [his two Steel Lynx combat drones, and yes, that is a Red vs. Blue reference] active and ready in their travel bays inside the Bulldog.

7:00 PM
Another sniper climbed up onto the building to set up and paused when he saw Prometheus already in position.  Prometheus recognized the sniper as Magnus Fox, another shadowrunner he had worked with in the past.  Magnus recognized Prometheus and asked if he was here for a hit or a protection job.  “Protection,” Prometheus responded and Magnus relaxed.  “Me too,” he said and then started assembling his Ranger Arms SM–5 sniper rifle and setting up his gear to cover the exchange point.  [Professional courtesy is a valuable asset.]

8:00 PM
A Saeder-Krupp-Bentley Concordat rolled up to the exchange point and several bodyguards got out.  Moondance and Killroy exited the Bulldog with the mage bag.  Once the bodyguards felt certain the area was safe, Mr. Johnson got out of the Concordat.  He and the bodyguards started approaching Moondance and Killroy, who started walking forward as well.  After a brief exchange of words between Mr. Johnson and Moondance, Killroy handed off the mage bag to one of the bodyguards.  Mr. Johnson then handed across a gold and a platinum credstick and left with the mage bag.

End of Session

[There was a little more after that as the pay was split into shares and divided up among the team.  Prometheus suggested the mages get double shares as without the wards the job would have been a nightmare.  The rest of the team agreed.  It was also suggested that Prometheus covering the team’s escape and taking out the HRT vehicle and the spike strip was also vital and should get him a second share.  The rest of the team agreed and I wasn’t going to argue.  We also put one share to the Pleiades Group Fund, which covers the living expenses for the office and other incidentals so no one takes a pay hit.  It is also designed to pay for a rescue operation if the team ever gets in too deep and needs rescue.]

[The ending turned out to be almost anti-climactic, but I can live with that if my character walks away with a payday and not the enmity of a major megacorporation.]


Session 1
Sessions 2 and 3
Session 4
Session 5
Session 6