Session started at 6:55 pm on 1/16/2007
Attending players: Michael, Ben, Sarah, and Eva
Presiding GM: Aaron
("I'm sorry, as a security guard, a Portuguese van seeking cover in a pyramid would make me pause for a moment."
~ Sarah)We've been doing a good bit of discussion about how to attack the problem of this extraction. We aren't getting anywhere fast.
("And that's one of the no-nos of ShadowRun, don't make the nightly news."
~ Michael"I want a good rep. not, 'they blew a hole in the ACHE'."
~Michael)Eventually Ajax turns up a condo address that was the target's home at one point. There isn't any record of a sale, so it seems like her estate might still own it. We decide to head over there and see if there are any clues to be had. Ajax is making jokes about some "Scooby gang". Sometimes I think the man spends far to much of his time with his head buried in the net.
After an interesting conversation with Dezzy, we park in a public lot near the condo and start walking. The complex is Belleview, home of the rich. I'm a bit annoyed that we came here with no clear plan in mind. It will probably come back to bite us in the ass soon enough.
The doctor takes a look at the place in astral space before we move in. She finds a few watchers in nearby homes, but not the one we came to look at. She reports that the condo doesn't seem like it's been occupied for a long time. There's also some sort of creepy frozen combat spell hanging out in the middle of the place. She couldn't figure out what it was exactly.
The doctor confirms that it is pretty hard to set up such a spell to just hang around for a long time. This suggests that there is something here worth protecting. Or that whoever set it up was creating a trap with a particular victim in mind. Either way it's bad. On the up side the spell is in the middle of the first floor so it's unlikely to hit us until we step into the house.
So it sounds like the plan is, Ajax hacks the door, the kid goes in to see if it sets the spell off, the doctor and I stay in sight range so he gets her counter spelling protections. I scope out some bushes near the back door where we'll be out of the line of sight of the neighbors' windows. Hopefully no one will call the cops until we're ready to leave.
The doctor summons an air elemental to get us more information on the spell. After a short wait, it reports that there are two spells: a detection spell and combat spell quickened in place, whatever that means. Well I guess we just have to poke it and see what happens. That couldn't possibly go wrong...
We sneak into the backyard. The doctor and I hang out in the bushes while the kid and Ajax deal with the MagLock. The kid does a good job of standing in the right place to shield what Ajax is doing from the rest of the neighborhood. My opinion of him is rising.
Ajax has the door open in less than a minute. No explosions yet... the kid steps inside, holding up the riot shield he brought along. No explosions... although I'm not sure why he thinks a riot shield will stop magic. Ajax follows him in and immediately collapsed in a boneless heap. I can't be sure from here but I think he's unconscious. Unfortunately the kid wasn't paying close enough attention to catch him.
("I've made characters with low bodies... and then I never did again."
~ Michael)I swiftly get over to the door. Yorick passes Ajax's limp body over the threshold and I drag him off into the bushes to the doctor. I expect the cops will be called in the next ten minutes, but at least Ajax has a pulse.
The doctor gets him awake again pretty quickly. He's still not looking so hot, but after some first aid and a healing spell, he's a lot less pale and not oozing blood out of all his orifices anymore.
Since Ajax is not in a condition to tell us what to do, I send Yorick to look around the house. We sit quietly in the bushes while the doctor catches her breath from the spell and Ajax catches his breath from the near death experience. The kid is reporting back to us as he investigates, so we'll know if the spell trips and smacks him. It seems unlikely since it hasn't gone off so far.
The inside of the condo is apparently a mess. There is food which rotted long ago all over the kitchen. The date labels he can find on packaged goods are from '62. We hit the jackpot when he finds a pile of scattered mail in the corner of the bedroom. One of letter is open. He grabs the whole pile and moves on.
All of her clothes are there. All her toiletries are there, and there's a dog skeleton in the corner of the bathroom. Yuck. Well that definitely means she didn't leave voluntarily for a happy skippy walk in the park...
The doctor is paying attention to the kid's video feed now that all our pulses have had a chance to slow down a bit. She points out that there are holes on the walls where there probably were pictures hanging. Weird thing chose to take.
After a little more exploration the kid rejoins us and we head back to the parking garage and Dezzy. We drive downtown. After listening to an amusing conversation between Ajax and Dezzy about please not singing his brand new "driving song" while driving, we take a look at the mail.
The letter that was opened is a handwritten note which says:
I'm going to kill you bitch
There's nowhere you can hideThe envelope has no return address. The rest of the mail is just junk.
Ajax pulls up some signed Kayla Kay photos and confirms that the handwriting is almost certainly from the same person's. So, the target was possibly fleeing her partner.
After an amusing conversation with Dezzy about not dancing while driving and how human organs work, we head to the Orc with the Gold Tooth bar. Ajax is significantly less shaky after we get a beer into him.
The kid suggests that we try probing the ACHE switch board with anonymized / hacked commlinks. When Ajax calls he gets an AI (or possibly human) switchboard which asks who he wishes to contact. Ajax leaves a message for Diedra, since the operator says that she is unable to take calls currently. We'll see if she calls back. I wonder if she even got the message... well I guess we'll be able to ask her when we're extracting her in a week and a half.
("See the best thing about Krill Beer is: 'If it's good enough for Whales, it's good enough for you.'"
~ Michael)End of Session