RE: Shadowrun (was: Now that Helen and Atilla have moved back to our area...)
07-31-2019, 03:37 PM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2019, 03:41 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
07-31-2019, 03:37 PM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2019, 03:41 PM by Bob Schroeck.)
Sorry it took me so long -- it's been a busy week and a half. But here's the summary of the latest game session for whoever still cares. (Is anyone actually still reading this what with all the revived COH activity in this forum?)
Between Helen's usual anachronic appointment-keeping, a fire alarm in her building, and her dog, we started the game session some three hours late. In the midst of that, Tiffany -- who had arrived with Helen and Attila, then stayed behind when they went to deal with the side effects of the alarm -- left before the session started, complaining of a growing headache as well as increasing body pain. (Thanks to an accident she suffered before we met her, she has a number of steel rods embedded in her back and is prone to random fits of unbearable pain.) So Tiffany left with her girlfriend before the session proper began.
When Helen and Attila returned only a few minutes later, it was decided that Yoruichi had taken off on her own and was out of touch.
So. The game picked up with a bit of a flashback to the night of the 25th and Lukas, who had just been dropped off at his apartment building by Bikavèr's mentor Joachim just before the end of the last session. Lukas walks into his family's apartment around ten at night -- and discovers that for the second time in a row, his father's there and waiting for him. Lukas panics, having no idea how to explain why he's only getting home now, and starts to stammer out something, anything, to cover his ass.
Which his father completely ignores. He doesn't seem to even notice, nor am I entirely sure he's aware that it's ten at night. Instead, all his attention is on a packet of papers. "Oh, hello, Lukas," he says. "You're home, good, good. I was contacted at work about you... it seems you've received a scholarship to a special program for magically-gifted youth at Saeder-Krupp's corporate academy." He tilts his head and looks at his son. "I wasn't aware you were magically talented."
"Um." Yeah, Lukas had never gotten around to telling Dad he was a shaman. "I know a little magic. Doesn't everyone?" He desperately hopes his dad will buy that.
Dad looks at him oddly. "No," he says slowly. "I don't. You need a special gift for it." He shakes his head. "Never mind. In any case, this is quite an honor and will give you a substantial advantage in later life. I strongly suggest you accept the scholarship."
Lukas is running through all the possible reasons for this sudden stroke of good luck in his head and cannot come up with anything that isn't suspicious. "Can I think about it?"
"Certainly, son." He puts down the packet and turns back to his computer. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." And with that his attention is completely on something else. Lukas stares at his father for a minute longer. Not a word about getting in at ten at night, covered with dirt and mantis goo. He looks at Wolfgang. Wolfgang looks back and makes a doggy shrug. Having absolutely no clue what to do next, he washes up and goes to bed, seriously wondering if his father is absent-minded or mildly autistic.
Meanwhile, when Ylva gets home, her uncle has a very similar packet and even more questions, starting with, "who do you know in Saeder-Krupp who would submit your name for a scholarship?" and going on from there. He can't deny it's a good offer, if it's on the up-and-up.
After Joachim has dropped off Ylva, he calls Bikavèr. Joachim, who is very highly placed in Saeder-Krupp (he works almost directly for the dragon Lofwyr, who runs the corporation), says basically, "I forgot to mention this before, but I've arranged for some cover for your friends." He goes on to explain that we've not only gotten the attention of the S-K higher-ups (including Lofwyr himself), we've also earned some enemies in the Himmelsrecken, who have already made a couple attempts to get at us that S-K security has thwarted. Both to protect us and because they might have a need for a team of highly-trained children like us, they're going to put us into the corp Academy on paper but tutor us. We'll even get equipment and supplies (within reason) when we need it. When this is all done we'll have very real academic histories, and jobs with S-K. In fact, that's how we'll pay them back for all this, by working for the corporation after we graduate.
Joachim then tells Bikavèr that the offer, while sincere, is part of a bigger plan. There is a terrorist group -- the name of which is coyly not shared -- that Saeder-Krupp security is targeting. They're behind the human trafficking ring we stumbled over at the beginning of the campaign, and the scumbag who "owns" Valentine (and did I ever mention that? She's essentially a cybered slave for some crime boss) is a low-level member of their operation. S-K security has a plan, and it needs a group of children for some unspecified infiltration task -- us. The exact details aren't available yet, but if we take the offer, our first job for S-K will be this operation.
Bikavèr, being Bikavèr, thinks this is a great idea, and tells Joachim he'll let the rest of us know the offer is for real and that we'll be needed for an op if we accept. They hang up, but before he can call any of us, Bikavèr is visited by Lila the mantis spirit. She was hoping to find all of us together, but settles for thanking us through him for freeing her, and tells him any of us can call on her if we need her help. (Helen then tells us that our characters all have a new Contact.)
The next morning, Friday the 26th, Bikavèr calls Lukas to fill him in on what he got from Joachim and Lila. Meanwhile, Ylva's grandfather -- who also seems to some kind of vague connection to Saeder-Krupp -- calls her to tell her that the offer's for real, but doesn't have the information on the terrorist op. More importantly for her, he lets her know that his people have found and recovered her father's remains from a mass grave near the remains of the Messern Biochemie complex. Apparently our little incursion so upset the Himmelsrecken that they abandoned the complex and burned it to the ground -- which unfortunately left little behind in the way of evidence to acttually link them to the death of her father and so many others. But, he assures her, they are working on it, and it will be very bad for Westphalia when it all comes out -- and it will.
Later on the 26th, we all get together at our base in Neustadt and Joachim shows up to brief us in detail on the whole arrangement with Saeder-Krupp. So, above and beyond what we heard from Bikavèr: first, once this starts, we will live at the base, which will be the real "boarding school". Tutors and trainers selected by Saeder-Krupp will come to the base five days a week to instruct us in academics, magic and anything else we need. When it's necessary to reinforce the illusion that we're actually attending the Saeder-Krupp Academy -- Parents' Day, various ceremonies, stuff like that -- we'll be transported to the Academy and provided with uniforms and other props. Saeder-Krupp picks up all costs. Outside of this, we are free to go on runs as needed or desired. And Joachim has contacted the Ancients and made it clear what kind of tasks we are not to be given as part of our arrangement with the gang. Finally, he makes it clear that we will not be entered into some kind of long-term indentured servitude for all this, but well-paying jobs with the corporation for just a few years after we reach our majority.
We have a brief discussion after hearing all this, and the consensus is yes, this is a good deal and we will accept it.
After Joachim leaves, Bikavèr decides he wants to bring the pair of ork children he hunted down the traffickers over (Uwe and Karla) to the base to live there. He calls an Uber to take him, Ylva and Lukas to Karnapp, the somewhat less than sterling area where they've been staying; the Uber driver is not thrilled, especially when Bikavèr tells him to wait.
It takes a fair amount of convincing, but finally Uwe and Karla agree to come back to the base with us, and gather up their stuff. Fortunately, the Uber driver didn't bail on us, and is very happy to leave Karnapp.
When we get back to the base, Gunther reports that the Ancients came by and mentioned yet another wild shooter incident in Heitten -- so recent the cops are still on the scene. Lukas and Ylva decide to investigate when they hear no one's been allowed to survey the site magically yet. While they prep for the little excursion, Bikavèr is doing more convincing of Uwe and Karla, this time to make use of the tutors coming in. After that, he spends some time talking with Gunther to make sure he's still happy working for us. He is.
Right before Ylva and Lukas leave for their little sightseeing mission, Uwe overhears what they're looking into and pipes up that a third mass killing took place a month earlier in Karnapp -- this time a guy with a knife -- but it never made the news. Curious, Bikavèr looks into that one. It turns out that another of his contacts -- a fellow named "Stein" -- was one of the guys who stopped the Karnapp killer, and in talking to him learned that the cousin of one of the Karnapp victims himself got shot at the bakery here in Neustadt where the first mass killing we'd heard about happened.
After the entire group convinces Ylva not to take her rifle, she and Lukas finally head out to visit "Sweet Treats by Becher", the bakery. It's a little corner shop about ten blocks from the base, and they get there quickly enough. When they do, they find it boarded up and wrapped in yellow police line tape. No big, they can assense from the sidewalk, which they do. Other than a mild background count -- the remains of the victims' fear and terror -- they find nothing.
Once they finish there, Ylva and Lukas realize that they don't actually know where the incident in Heitten is, so Ylva calls Valentine and asks her to find out. It turns out to have happened in a warehouse/shipping company called "Lustiger Zweig". On top of that, she relays the discovery that one of their drivers had made a delivery at the baker just before the shooting there; he narrowly dodged being involved there, only to get shot at the warehouse. Valentine also suggests that maybe we should wait until morning, as it's like 9PM, it's the still the same day as the shooting, and the cops are still swarming the site. Lukas and Ylva sheepishly agree and trot back to the base.
Finally, some time later, possibly during Ylva and Lukas' outing, Bikavèr sits down with Valentine at a coffee shop to brief her about the Saeder-Krupp plan. She's resistant but open, refusing to make a decision that very moment. She tells him she will talk with him about it later.
And that's where things ended.
Between Helen's usual anachronic appointment-keeping, a fire alarm in her building, and her dog, we started the game session some three hours late. In the midst of that, Tiffany -- who had arrived with Helen and Attila, then stayed behind when they went to deal with the side effects of the alarm -- left before the session started, complaining of a growing headache as well as increasing body pain. (Thanks to an accident she suffered before we met her, she has a number of steel rods embedded in her back and is prone to random fits of unbearable pain.) So Tiffany left with her girlfriend before the session proper began.
When Helen and Attila returned only a few minutes later, it was decided that Yoruichi had taken off on her own and was out of touch.
So. The game picked up with a bit of a flashback to the night of the 25th and Lukas, who had just been dropped off at his apartment building by Bikavèr's mentor Joachim just before the end of the last session. Lukas walks into his family's apartment around ten at night -- and discovers that for the second time in a row, his father's there and waiting for him. Lukas panics, having no idea how to explain why he's only getting home now, and starts to stammer out something, anything, to cover his ass.
Which his father completely ignores. He doesn't seem to even notice, nor am I entirely sure he's aware that it's ten at night. Instead, all his attention is on a packet of papers. "Oh, hello, Lukas," he says. "You're home, good, good. I was contacted at work about you... it seems you've received a scholarship to a special program for magically-gifted youth at Saeder-Krupp's corporate academy." He tilts his head and looks at his son. "I wasn't aware you were magically talented."
"Um." Yeah, Lukas had never gotten around to telling Dad he was a shaman. "I know a little magic. Doesn't everyone?" He desperately hopes his dad will buy that.
Dad looks at him oddly. "No," he says slowly. "I don't. You need a special gift for it." He shakes his head. "Never mind. In any case, this is quite an honor and will give you a substantial advantage in later life. I strongly suggest you accept the scholarship."
Lukas is running through all the possible reasons for this sudden stroke of good luck in his head and cannot come up with anything that isn't suspicious. "Can I think about it?"
"Certainly, son." He puts down the packet and turns back to his computer. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." And with that his attention is completely on something else. Lukas stares at his father for a minute longer. Not a word about getting in at ten at night, covered with dirt and mantis goo. He looks at Wolfgang. Wolfgang looks back and makes a doggy shrug. Having absolutely no clue what to do next, he washes up and goes to bed, seriously wondering if his father is absent-minded or mildly autistic.
Meanwhile, when Ylva gets home, her uncle has a very similar packet and even more questions, starting with, "who do you know in Saeder-Krupp who would submit your name for a scholarship?" and going on from there. He can't deny it's a good offer, if it's on the up-and-up.
After Joachim has dropped off Ylva, he calls Bikavèr. Joachim, who is very highly placed in Saeder-Krupp (he works almost directly for the dragon Lofwyr, who runs the corporation), says basically, "I forgot to mention this before, but I've arranged for some cover for your friends." He goes on to explain that we've not only gotten the attention of the S-K higher-ups (including Lofwyr himself), we've also earned some enemies in the Himmelsrecken, who have already made a couple attempts to get at us that S-K security has thwarted. Both to protect us and because they might have a need for a team of highly-trained children like us, they're going to put us into the corp Academy on paper but tutor us. We'll even get equipment and supplies (within reason) when we need it. When this is all done we'll have very real academic histories, and jobs with S-K. In fact, that's how we'll pay them back for all this, by working for the corporation after we graduate.
Joachim then tells Bikavèr that the offer, while sincere, is part of a bigger plan. There is a terrorist group -- the name of which is coyly not shared -- that Saeder-Krupp security is targeting. They're behind the human trafficking ring we stumbled over at the beginning of the campaign, and the scumbag who "owns" Valentine (and did I ever mention that? She's essentially a cybered slave for some crime boss) is a low-level member of their operation. S-K security has a plan, and it needs a group of children for some unspecified infiltration task -- us. The exact details aren't available yet, but if we take the offer, our first job for S-K will be this operation.
Bikavèr, being Bikavèr, thinks this is a great idea, and tells Joachim he'll let the rest of us know the offer is for real and that we'll be needed for an op if we accept. They hang up, but before he can call any of us, Bikavèr is visited by Lila the mantis spirit. She was hoping to find all of us together, but settles for thanking us through him for freeing her, and tells him any of us can call on her if we need her help. (Helen then tells us that our characters all have a new Contact.)
The next morning, Friday the 26th, Bikavèr calls Lukas to fill him in on what he got from Joachim and Lila. Meanwhile, Ylva's grandfather -- who also seems to some kind of vague connection to Saeder-Krupp -- calls her to tell her that the offer's for real, but doesn't have the information on the terrorist op. More importantly for her, he lets her know that his people have found and recovered her father's remains from a mass grave near the remains of the Messern Biochemie complex. Apparently our little incursion so upset the Himmelsrecken that they abandoned the complex and burned it to the ground -- which unfortunately left little behind in the way of evidence to acttually link them to the death of her father and so many others. But, he assures her, they are working on it, and it will be very bad for Westphalia when it all comes out -- and it will.
Later on the 26th, we all get together at our base in Neustadt and Joachim shows up to brief us in detail on the whole arrangement with Saeder-Krupp. So, above and beyond what we heard from Bikavèr: first, once this starts, we will live at the base, which will be the real "boarding school". Tutors and trainers selected by Saeder-Krupp will come to the base five days a week to instruct us in academics, magic and anything else we need. When it's necessary to reinforce the illusion that we're actually attending the Saeder-Krupp Academy -- Parents' Day, various ceremonies, stuff like that -- we'll be transported to the Academy and provided with uniforms and other props. Saeder-Krupp picks up all costs. Outside of this, we are free to go on runs as needed or desired. And Joachim has contacted the Ancients and made it clear what kind of tasks we are not to be given as part of our arrangement with the gang. Finally, he makes it clear that we will not be entered into some kind of long-term indentured servitude for all this, but well-paying jobs with the corporation for just a few years after we reach our majority.
We have a brief discussion after hearing all this, and the consensus is yes, this is a good deal and we will accept it.
After Joachim leaves, Bikavèr decides he wants to bring the pair of ork children he hunted down the traffickers over (Uwe and Karla) to the base to live there. He calls an Uber to take him, Ylva and Lukas to Karnapp, the somewhat less than sterling area where they've been staying; the Uber driver is not thrilled, especially when Bikavèr tells him to wait.
It takes a fair amount of convincing, but finally Uwe and Karla agree to come back to the base with us, and gather up their stuff. Fortunately, the Uber driver didn't bail on us, and is very happy to leave Karnapp.
When we get back to the base, Gunther reports that the Ancients came by and mentioned yet another wild shooter incident in Heitten -- so recent the cops are still on the scene. Lukas and Ylva decide to investigate when they hear no one's been allowed to survey the site magically yet. While they prep for the little excursion, Bikavèr is doing more convincing of Uwe and Karla, this time to make use of the tutors coming in. After that, he spends some time talking with Gunther to make sure he's still happy working for us. He is.
Right before Ylva and Lukas leave for their little sightseeing mission, Uwe overhears what they're looking into and pipes up that a third mass killing took place a month earlier in Karnapp -- this time a guy with a knife -- but it never made the news. Curious, Bikavèr looks into that one. It turns out that another of his contacts -- a fellow named "Stein" -- was one of the guys who stopped the Karnapp killer, and in talking to him learned that the cousin of one of the Karnapp victims himself got shot at the bakery here in Neustadt where the first mass killing we'd heard about happened.
After the entire group convinces Ylva not to take her rifle, she and Lukas finally head out to visit "Sweet Treats by Becher", the bakery. It's a little corner shop about ten blocks from the base, and they get there quickly enough. When they do, they find it boarded up and wrapped in yellow police line tape. No big, they can assense from the sidewalk, which they do. Other than a mild background count -- the remains of the victims' fear and terror -- they find nothing.
Once they finish there, Ylva and Lukas realize that they don't actually know where the incident in Heitten is, so Ylva calls Valentine and asks her to find out. It turns out to have happened in a warehouse/shipping company called "Lustiger Zweig". On top of that, she relays the discovery that one of their drivers had made a delivery at the baker just before the shooting there; he narrowly dodged being involved there, only to get shot at the warehouse. Valentine also suggests that maybe we should wait until morning, as it's like 9PM, it's the still the same day as the shooting, and the cops are still swarming the site. Lukas and Ylva sheepishly agree and trot back to the base.
Finally, some time later, possibly during Ylva and Lukas' outing, Bikavèr sits down with Valentine at a coffee shop to brief her about the Saeder-Krupp plan. She's resistant but open, refusing to make a decision that very moment. She tells him she will talk with him about it later.
And that's where things ended.
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....