Houston GM

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller; had been possessed by an insect spirit and slain by ant spirits
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization
 
Missing Blood, part 5 - Tying it Together
 
The Universal Brotherhood had tried to kill Detective Bambra.
Detective Bambra had been hired to find evidence of Danial Simpson's affair.
Danial Simpson had an affair with Victoria Delling, until she disappeared with an expensive necklace.
Victoria Delling had regularly visited Madame Ulishia, who had encouraged Victoria to do whatever caused her to disappear.
Madame Ulishia was actually possessed by an insect spirit (but not an ant spirit) and had been killed by people possessed by ant spirits.
 
No-Step: "We need to figure out how this all fits together."
Eye Spy: "At the moment, I'd like to know how any of this fits together."
 
Byte Force: "I'm going to take a run against the Universal Brotherhood's network. Is there anything specific you think I should look for?"
Happy Jack: "Any references to Bambra, any references to Victoria Delling, any references to Danial Simpson, any references to Madame Ulishia, or any references that would indicate insect spirits."
Byte Force: "You think all of those are tied to the Universal Brotherhood?"
Happy Jack: "No. But this is more like the 'shotgun' method of evidence gathering. Put enough stuff in the air, and you might get a hit."
Audacity Jane: "That technique works as poorly for evidence as it does for marksmanship."
Happy Jack: "If you think it works poorly for hitting a target, then you're not using a big enough shotgun."
 
Some time later, Byte Force completed his run on the UB's system. The most important information was an eight page exposé on the Universal Brotherhood, plus eighty pages of background notes.
 
The summarized exposé and notes:
The Universal Brotherhood was controlled by insect spirits, or more accurately, the queens.
These insect spirits included ant spirits, fly spirits, termite spirits, wasp spirits, and possibly others.
The UB had over 35,000 members (counting both normal people and insect-possessed people), over one hundred million nuyen in annual cash flow, and was growing rapidly.
The majority of UB members were normal people who were ignorant of the organization's true nature.
Unwitting members were duped into becoming voluntary hosts for insect spirits.
Through its members, the UB had influence in almost every major corporation and other powerful group, including Lone Star.
The reporters who wrote the exposé had been killed. The UB had successfully prevented the story from being released, covered up the crime and the exposé, and even found and blown up a local Shadowland hub to keep this secret.
 
The other information discovered:
Victoria Delling was a member of the UB, and was undergoing the process of "initiation" (possession).
The missing necklace was being stored in a vault in the UB's Redmond chapterhouse.
Madame Ulishia had been an initiated member and a recruiter for the UB.
Hours after hiring the team to find the necklace, Danial Simpson had attended his first UB meeting.
 
Eye Spy: "We are so screwed."
Audacity Jane: (grimly) "As soon as the Universal Brotherhood realizes we have this information, they're going to come after us with everything they have."
Happy Jack: "So far they don't know we have the information. They don't even suspect we have it. From this point forward, we're now under black-ops rules. No trails lead back to us."
Byte Force: "But there will be a trail leading back to us."
Happy Jack: "How? Were you spotted in their system?"
Byte Force: "No. The necklace. Blood. After we give it back to Danial, someone at the UB will eventually realize that his wife's necklace is the same as the one that used to be in their possession. They can trace the necklace to Danial. They can trace Danial to Noggin. They can trace Noggin to you...."
Happy Jack: "That trail only exists if Simpson gets his necklace back. At this point, I'm in favor of returning the 2,000 nuyen advance. It's certainly not worth 6,000 nuyen to connect ourselves back to this mess."
 
Dent: "If we're not getting the necklace back, what are we doing?"
No-Step: "We have to go public with this information."
Byte Force: "That didn't turn out that well for the two reporters."
Happy Jack: "This whole report sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory. The only reason it sounds plausible to us is because of that whole Euphoria affair ... and because of the possessed guys who attacked Ulishia."
Eye Spy: "So you're saying that people won't believe us if we tell the truth. What's your solution? Lie to them?"
Happy Jack: "Let's convince people the UB is lying to them."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not seeing the difference."
Happy Jack: "Just wait."
No-Step: "I hate it when you give that answer."
GM: Not as much as I do.
 
No-Step: "We need to warn Danial Simpson somehow."
Audacity Jane: "Why should we risk ourselves to warn him?"
No-Step: "If we don't, the UB will get control over a Renraku executive."
Happy Jack: "There's an easier way to solve that problem. Can you fake being Detective Bambra well enough to fool Mrs. Simpson?"
No-Step: "I only have a few pictures to work off of, and that's generally not enough." (pause) "But if I look like I've been beaten up, with some bruises on my face and some swelling, I should be able to pass."
Happy Jack: "Perfect. Pretend to be Bambra, give Mrs. Simpson the disk of Victoria's vidphone message, she divorces Danial, and her father fires Danial. The UB may still have a hold of him, but he'll no longer be a junior exec."
 
Byte Force: "I think we need to start by hitting the Redmond chapterhouse."
Dent: "Why there?"
Byte Force: "The necklace is being stored there."
Happy Jack: "We're not returning it to Danial."
Byte Force: "I know, but if No-Step, posing as the detective, returns it to Mrs. Simpson, they will follow the trail back to him, not us."
Audacity Jane: "Since they're already trying to kill him, they could end up shooting him before they get the chance to interrogate him."
Happy Jack: "Even if they do interrogate him, they won't get much out of him besides screams and pleas for mercy."
 
No-Step: "I realize the strategic value of pinning our actions on somebody else, but I can't just let someone be horribly tortured by insect spirits in order to save ourselves."
Happy Jack: "I'll make you a deal. If we get a lead on Bambra, we'll make sure that doesn't happen to him." (looking around at the rest of the group) "If we can find Bambra without leaving any evidence that leads back to us, does everyone agree that's a reasonable compromise."
Audacity Jane: "Sure. Lone Star will find his corpse in a back alley. The UB's search for us will hit a literal dead end."
Happy Jack: "I was going to suggest slipping him enough money so he could lead them on a wild goose chase across the continent ... but your suggestion works just as well."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller; had been possessed by an insect spirit and slain by ant spirits
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization
 
Missing Blood, part 5 - Tying it Together
 
The Universal Brotherhood had tried to kill Detective Bambra.
Detective Bambra had been hired to find evidence of Danial Simpson's affair.
Danial Simpson had an affair with Victoria Delling, until she disappeared with an expensive necklace.
Victoria Delling had regularly visited Madame Ulishia, who had encouraged Victoria to do whatever caused her to disappear.
Madame Ulishia was actually possessed by an insect spirit (but not an ant spirit) and had been killed by people possessed by ant spirits.
 
No-Step: "We need to figure out how this all fits together."
Eye Spy: "At the moment, I'd like to know how any of this fits together."
 
Byte Force: "I'm going to take a run against the Universal Brotherhood's network. Is there anything specific you think I should look for?"
Happy Jack: "Any references to Bambra, any references to Victoria Delling, any references to Danial Simpson, any references to Madame Ulishia, or any references that would indicate insect spirits."
Byte Force: "You think all of those are tied to the Universal Brotherhood?"
Happy Jack: "No. But this is more like the 'shotgun' method of evidence gathering. Put enough stuff in the air, and you might get a hit."
Audacity Jane: "That technique works as poorly for evidence as it does for marksmanship."
Happy Jack: "If you think it works poorly for hitting a target, then you're not using a big enough shotgun."
 
Some time later, Byte Force completed his run on the UB's system. The most important information was an eight page exposé on the Universal Brotherhood, plus eighty pages of background notes.
 
The summarized exposé and notes:
The Universal Brotherhood was controlled by insect spirits, or more accurately, the queens.
These insect spirits included ant spirits, fly spirits, termite spirits, wasp spirits, and possibly others.
The UB had over 35,000 members (counting both normal people and insect-possessed people), over one hundred million nuyen in annual cash flow, and was growing rapidly.
The majority of UB members were normal people who were ignorant of the organization's true nature.
Unwitting members were duped into becoming voluntary hosts for insect spirits.
Through its members, the UB had influence in almost every major corporation and other powerful group, including Lone Star.
The reporters who wrote the exposé had been killed. The UB had successfully prevented the story from being released, covered up the crime and the exposé, and even found and blown up a local Shadowland hub to keep this secret.
 
The other information discovered:
Victoria Delling was a member of the UB, and was undergoing the process of "initiation" (possession).
The missing necklace was being stored in a vault in the UB's Redmond chapterhouse.
Madame Ulishia had been an initiated member and a recruiter for the UB.
Hours after hiring the team to find the necklace, Danial Simpson had attended his first UB meeting.
 
Eye Spy: "We are so screwed."
Audacity Jane: (grimly) "As soon as the Universal Brotherhood realizes we have this information, they're going to come after us with everything they have."
Happy Jack: "So far they don't know we have the information. They don't even suspect we have it. From this point forward, we're now under black-ops rules. No trails lead back to us."
Byte Force: "But there will be a trail leading back to us."
Happy Jack: "How? Were you spotted in their system?"
Byte Force: "No. The necklace. Blood. After we give it back to Danial, someone at the UB will eventually realize that his wife's necklace is the same as the one that used to be in their possession. They can trace the necklace to Danial. They can trace Danial to Noggin. They can trace Noggin to you...."
Happy Jack: "That trail only exists if Simpson gets his necklace back. At this point, I'm in favor of returning the 2,000 nuyen advance. It's certainly not worth 6,000 nuyen to connect ourselves back to this mess."
 
Dent: "If we're not getting the necklace back, what are we doing?"
No-Step: "We have to go public with this information."
Byte Force: "That didn't turn out that well for the two reporters."
Happy Jack: "This whole report sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theory. The only reason it sounds plausible to us is because of that whole Euphoria affair ... and because of the possessed guys who attacked Ulishia."
Eye Spy: "So you're saying that people won't believe us if we tell the truth. What's your solution? Lie to them?"
Happy Jack: "Let's convince people the UB is lying to them."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not seeing the difference."
Happy Jack: "Just wait."
No-Step: "I hate it when you give that answer."
GM: Not as much as I do.
 
No-Step: "We need to warn Danial Simpson somehow."
Audacity Jane: "Why should we risk ourselves to warn him?"
No-Step: "If we don't, the UB will get control over a Renraku executive."
Happy Jack: "There's an easier way to solve that problem. Can you fake being Detective Bambra well enough to fool Mrs. Simpson?"
No-Step: "I only have a few pictures to work off of, and that's generally not enough." (pause) "But if I look like I've been beaten up, with some bruises on my face and some swelling, I should be able to pass."
Happy Jack: "Perfect. Pretend to be Bambra, give Mrs. Simpson the disk of Victoria's vidphone message, she divorces Danial, and her father fires Danial. The UB may still have a hold of him, but he'll no longer be a junior exec."
 
Byte Force: "I think we need to start by hitting the Redmond chapterhouse."
Dent: "Why there?"
Byte Force: "The necklace is being stored there."
Happy Jack: "We're not returning it to Danial."
Byte Force: "I know, but if No-Step, posing as the detective, returns it to Mrs. Simpson, they will follow the trail back to him, not us."
Audacity Jane: "Since they're already trying to kill him, they could end up shooting him before they get the chance to interrogate him."
Happy Jack: "Even if they do interrogate him, they won't get much out of him besides screams and pleas for mercy."
 
No-Step: "I realize the strategic value of pinning our actions on somebody else, but I can't just let someone be horribly tortured by insect spirits in order to save ourselves."
Happy Jack: "I'll make you a deal. If we get a lead on Bambra, we'll make sure that doesn't happen to him." (looking around at the rest of the group) "If we can find Bambra without leaving any evidence that leads back to us, does everyone agree that's a reasonable compromise."
Audacity Jane: "Sure. Lone Star will find his corpse in a back alley. The UB's search for us will hit a literal dead end."
Happy Jack: "I was going to suggest slipping him enough money so he could lead them on a wild goose chase across the continent ... but your suggestion works just as well."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller that Victoria had regularly visited
 
Missing Blood, part 4 - Miss Fortune Teller
 
Danial Simpson had hired the team to find a missing necklace (called "Blood"). The necklace was in the possession of his missing mistress (Victoria Delling). Madame Ulishia had sent the team chasing a red herring, even though she clearly knew more about Victoria's disappearance. Since it was the middle of the night, the team decided to confront her immediately.
 
No-Step: "I think we're rushing into this. We don't have any idea what kind of defensive preparations she could have."
Happy Jack: "Assume she's a shaman. What kind of defenses would she have?"
No-Step: "She'll have a hearth spirit. Maybe a weak watcher."
Dent: "Maybe an ally spirit."
Happy Jack: "And if she's a hermetic mage?"
Dent: "She'll have one or more elemental spirits instead of a hearth spirit. The rest will be the same."
Happy Jack: "Gee. It took you a whole 10 seconds to figure out her magickal defenses."
 
The team planned to do a careful recon before entering ... but as they approached the door they heard a cry of pain and breaking glass from inside.
 
Audacity Jane: (quietly over the radio link) "The front door is ajar. The latch is broken." (pause) "Frag. Do we go in blind?"
Happy Jack: "No."
Happy Jack casually strolled in front of the big picture window in the front of Madame Ulishia's shop/home and looked in.
Dent: "The blinds are closed, Genius."
Happy Jack: "And I have thermographic vision."
 
Happy Jack: "Two people down on the floor. A third is crouched over one of them."
Audacity Jane: "The two on the floor ... alive?"
Happy Jack: "They're warm ... so either alive or recently alive."
 
No-Step's watcher spirit started making a racket in the back room.
Happy Jack: "Number three just charged into the back. The other two didn't twitch."
Jane eased open the front door, stepped inside, and came face-to-face with a fourth person ... who was coming out of the other back room.
Audacity Jane: "Oops?"
 
The people in Madame Ulishia's had large, weird teeth ... and they preferred unarmed combat over using weapons.
 
Audacity Jane: (retreating back into the street) "What are they? Some type of vampire? Physical adepts?"
Dent: "Oh **** me! They're possessed by ant spirits!"
Happy Jack: (smacking one with the haft of his naginata) "Didn't anyone tell you ... don't bring an ant to a troll fight."
 
Dent and No-Step's city spirits killed the ant spirits. Unlike the ant-possessed humans they had encountered previously (here and here), these could pass for humans with weird cyberware/bioware.
 
Dent summoned a hearth spirit inside Madame Ulishia's, which immediately caused some consternation.
Eye Spy: "What the **** is that?"
No-Step: "Your spirit looks like The Fly decided to dress up like Carnac the Great."
Dent: "I think my conjuration is bugged."
 
The hearth spirit was somewhat recalcitrant, but eventually helped Dent by locating a clue (a handwritten journal).
Dent: "Whoever wrote this journal talks about her queen and her host's body. I think it was written by an insect spirit possessing someone's body."
Byte Force: "What was Madame Ulishia doing with an ant spirit's journal?"
Dent: (astrally inspecting Madame Ulishia's corpse) "I think she was possessed by spirit. Not an ant spirit, but something similar."
No-Step: "That's impossible. I saw her astral form earlier. She was a normal human."
Audacity Jane: (examining the corpse) "And I don't see any insect-like mutations."
Dent: "Some spirits can mask their auras and look human. Maybe Ulishia was one of those?"
 
This revelation started driving the normally paranoid shadowrunners to new heights of paranoia.
 
Dent: "We don't have any way to detect someone like Ulishia."
No-Step: "They could replace someone we know, and we might not be able to tell."
Eye Spy: "Maybe they already have!"
Dent: "Maybe we can invent a spell to detect them?"
Happy Jack: "Use brute force."
Audacity Jane: "You mean, 'Kill them all and let the gods sort them out'?"
Happy Jack: "Not exactly." (pause) "Normal people can't be attacked from the astral, and mages and shamans can only be attacked from the astral when they're astrally assencing or projecting, right?"
Dent: "That's the only way they can be directly attacked. There are still ways to indirectly attack them."
Happy Jack: "Okay. And spirits are always present on the astral, even when they're physically manifesting, right? They can't avoid being in the astral?"
No-Step: "That's correct."
Happy Jack: "So you can attack a normal person astrally. If they're really a normal person, there's no effect. If they fall over dead, you know that they're actually possessed by something."
Dent and No-Step thought this over.
Happy Jack: "And if you warn a mage or shaman about what you're about to do, and then they fall over dead, then you know they were either possessed by something, or they're too dumb to live."
 
The team had also taken custody of three catatonic ex-hosts of ant spirits.
 
Audacity Jane: "I don't think these guys are worth much. Organ-leggers don't have a market for mutated parts."
Happy Jack: "Let's keep them alive for a little while anyway."
Dent: "That's dangerous. The other ant spirits may be able to track these bodies down."
Happy Jack: "Really? That could be helpful."
Dent: "How is that helpful?"
Happy Jack: "We can stow them in a safehouse and use them as bait."
Eye Spy: "We could put tracking devices on them."
Audacity Jane: "I could rig booby traps."
No-Step: "I think 'safehouse' may be a bit of a misnomer under these circumstances."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller that Victoria had regularly visited
 
Missing Blood, part 4 - Miss Fortune Teller
 
Danial Simpson had hired the team to find a missing necklace (called "Blood"). The necklace was in the possession of his missing mistress (Victoria Delling). Madame Ulishia had sent the team chasing a red herring, even though she clearly knew more about Victoria's disappearance. Since it was the middle of the night, the team decided to confront her immediately.
 
No-Step: "I think we're rushing into this. We don't have any idea what kind of defensive preparations she could have."
Happy Jack: "Assume she's a shaman. What kind of defenses would she have?"
No-Step: "She'll have a hearth spirit. Maybe a weak watcher."
Dent: "Maybe an ally spirit."
Happy Jack: "And if she's a hermetic mage?"
Dent: "She'll have one or more elemental spirits instead of a hearth spirit. The rest will be the same."
Happy Jack: "Gee. It took you a whole 10 seconds to figure out her magickal defenses."
 
The team planned to do a careful recon before entering ... but as they approached the door they heard a cry of pain and breaking glass from inside.
 
Audacity Jane: (quietly over the radio link) "The front door is ajar. The latch is broken." (pause) "Frag. Do we go in blind?"
Happy Jack: "No."
Happy Jack casually strolled in front of the big picture window in the front of Madame Ulishia's shop/home and looked in.
Dent: "The blinds are closed, Genius."
Happy Jack: "And I have thermographic vision."
 
Happy Jack: "Two people down on the floor. A third is crouched over one of them."
Audacity Jane: "The two on the floor ... alive?"
Happy Jack: "They're warm ... so either alive or recently alive."
 
No-Step's watcher spirit started making a racket in the back room.
Happy Jack: "Number three just charged into the back. The other two didn't twitch."
Jane eased open the front door, stepped inside, and came face-to-face with a fourth person ... who was coming out of the other back room.
Audacity Jane: "Oops?"
 
The people in Madame Ulishia's had large, weird teeth ... and they preferred unarmed combat over using weapons.
 
Audacity Jane: (retreating back into the street) "What are they? Some type of vampire? Physical adepts?"
Dent: "Oh **** me! They're possessed by ant spirits!"
Happy Jack: (smacking one with the haft of his naginata) "Didn't anyone tell you ... don't bring an ant to a troll fight."
 
Dent and No-Step's city spirits killed the ant spirits. Unlike the ant-possessed humans they had encountered previously (here and here), these could pass for humans with weird cyberware/bioware.
 
Dent summoned a hearth spirit inside Madame Ulishia's, which immediately caused some consternation.
Eye Spy: "What the **** is that?"
No-Step: "Your spirit looks like The Fly decided to dress up like Carnac the Great."
Dent: "I think my conjuration is bugged."
 
The hearth spirit was somewhat recalcitrant, but eventually helped Dent by locating a clue (a handwritten journal).
Dent: "Whoever wrote this journal talks about her queen and her host's body. I think it was written by an insect spirit possessing someone's body."
Byte Force: "What was Madame Ulishia doing with an ant spirit's journal?"
Dent: (astrally inspecting Madame Ulishia's corpse) "I think she was possessed by spirit. Not an ant spirit, but something similar."
No-Step: "That's impossible. I saw her astral form earlier. She was a normal human."
Audacity Jane: (examining the corpse) "And I don't see any insect-like mutations."
Dent: "Some spirits can mask their auras and look human. Maybe Ulishia was one of those?"
 
This revelation started driving the normally paranoid shadowrunners to new heights of paranoia.
 
Dent: "We don't have any way to detect someone like Ulishia."
No-Step: "They could replace someone we know, and we might not be able to tell."
Eye Spy: "Maybe they already have!"
Dent: "Maybe we can invent a spell to detect them?"
Happy Jack: "Use brute force."
Audacity Jane: "You mean, 'Kill them all and let the gods sort them out'?"
Happy Jack: "Not exactly." (pause) "Normal people can't be attacked from the astral, and mages and shamans can only be attacked from the astral when they're astrally assencing or projecting, right?"
Dent: "That's the only way they can be directly attacked. There are still ways to indirectly attack them."
Happy Jack: "Okay. And spirits are always present on the astral, even when they're physically manifesting, right? They can't avoid being in the astral?"
No-Step: "That's correct."
Happy Jack: "So you can attack a normal person astrally. If they're really a normal person, there's no effect. If they fall over dead, you know that they're actually possessed by something."
Dent and No-Step thought this over.
Happy Jack: "And if you warn a mage or shaman about what you're about to do, and then they fall over dead, then you know they were either possessed by something, or they're too dumb to live."
 
The team had also taken custody of three catatonic ex-hosts of ant spirits.
 
Audacity Jane: "I don't think these guys are worth much. Organ-leggers don't have a market for mutated parts."
Happy Jack: "Let's keep them alive for a little while anyway."
Dent: "That's dangerous. The other ant spirits may be able to track these bodies down."
Happy Jack: "Really? That could be helpful."
Dent: "How is that helpful?"
Happy Jack: "We can stow them in a safehouse and use them as bait."
Eye Spy: "We could put tracking devices on them."
Audacity Jane: "I could rig booby traps."
No-Step: "I think 'safehouse' may be a bit of a misnomer under these circumstances."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller that Victoria had regularly visited
 
Missing Blood, part 4 - Miss Fortune Teller
 
Danial Simpson had hired the team to find a missing necklace (called "Blood"). The necklace was in the possession of his missing mistress (Victoria Delling). Madame Ulishia had sent the team chasing a red herring, even though she clearly knew more about Victoria's disappearance. Since it was the middle of the night, the team decided to confront her immediately.
 
No-Step: "I think we're rushing into this. We don't have any idea what kind of defensive preparations she could have."
Happy Jack: "Assume she's a shaman. What kind of defenses would she have?"
No-Step: "She'll have a hearth spirit. Maybe a weak watcher."
Dent: "Maybe an ally spirit."
Happy Jack: "And if she's a hermetic mage?"
Dent: "She'll have one or more elemental spirits instead of a hearth spirit. The rest will be the same."
Happy Jack: "Gee. It took you a whole 10 seconds to figure out her magickal defenses."
 
The team planned to do a careful recon before entering ... but as they approached the door they heard a cry of pain and breaking glass from inside.
 
Audacity Jane: (quietly over the radio link) "The front door is ajar. The latch is broken." (pause) "Frag. Do we go in blind?"
Happy Jack: "No."
Happy Jack casually strolled in front of the big picture window in the front of Madame Ulishia's shop/home and looked in.
Dent: "The blinds are closed, Genius."
Happy Jack: "And I have thermographic vision."
 
Happy Jack: "Two people down on the floor. A third is crouched over one of them."
Audacity Jane: "The two on the floor ... alive?"
Happy Jack: "They're warm ... so either alive or recently alive."
 
No-Step's watcher spirit started making a racket in the back room.
Happy Jack: "Number three just charged into the back. The other two didn't twitch."
Jane eased open the front door, stepped inside, and came face-to-face with a fourth person ... who was coming out of the other back room.
Audacity Jane: "Oops?"
 
The people in Madame Ulishia's had large, weird teeth ... and they preferred unarmed combat over using weapons.
 
Audacity Jane: (retreating back into the street) "What are they? Some type of vampire? Physical adepts?"
Dent: "Oh **** me! They're possessed by ant spirits!"
Happy Jack: (smacking one with the haft of his naginata) "Didn't anyone tell you ... don't bring an ant to a troll fight."
 
Dent and No-Step's city spirits killed the ant spirits. Unlike the ant-possessed humans they had encountered previously (here and here), these could pass for humans with weird cyberware/bioware.
 
Dent summoned a hearth spirit inside Madame Ulishia's, which immediately caused some consternation.
Eye Spy: "What the **** is that?"
No-Step: "Your spirit looks like The Fly decided to dress up like Carnac the Great."
Dent: "I think my conjuration is bugged."
 
The hearth spirit was somewhat recalcitrant, but eventually helped Dent by locating a clue (a handwritten journal).
Dent: "Whoever wrote this journal talks about her queen and her host's body. I think it was written by an insect spirit possessing someone's body."
Byte Force: "What was Madame Ulishia doing with an ant spirit's journal?"
Dent: (astrally inspecting Madame Ulishia's corpse) "I think she was possessed by spirit. Not an ant spirit, but something similar."
No-Step: "That's impossible. I saw her astral form earlier. She was a normal human."
Audacity Jane: (examining the corpse) "And I don't see any insect-like mutations."
Dent: "Some spirits can mask their auras and look human. Maybe Ulishia was one of those?"
 
This revelation started driving the normally paranoid shadowrunners to new heights of paranoia.
 
Dent: "We don't have any way to detect someone like Ulishia."
No-Step: "They could replace someone we know, and we might not be able to tell."
Eye Spy: "Maybe they already have!"
Dent: "Maybe we can invent a spell to detect them?"
Happy Jack: "Use brute force."
Audacity Jane: "You mean, 'Kill them all and let the gods sort them out'?"
Happy Jack: "Not exactly." (pause) "Normal people can't be attacked from the astral, and mages and shamans can only be attacked from the astral when they're astrally assencing or projecting, right?"
Dent: "That's the only way they can be directly attacked. There are still ways to indirectly attack them."
Happy Jack: "Okay. And spirits are always present on the astral, even when they're physically manifesting, right? They can't avoid being in the astral?"
No-Step: "That's correct."
Happy Jack: "So you can attack a normal person astrally. If they're really a normal person, there's no effect. If they fall over dead, you know that they're actually possessed by something."
Dent and No-Step thought this over.
Happy Jack: "And if you warn a mage or shaman about what you're about to do, and then they fall over dead, then you know they were either possessed by something, or they're too dumb to live."
 
The team had also taken custody of three catatonic ex-hosts of ant spirits.
 
Audacity Jane: "I don't think these guys are worth much. Organ-leggers don't have a market for mutated parts."
Happy Jack: "Let's keep them alive for a little while anyway."
Dent: "That's dangerous. The other ant spirits may be able to track these bodies down."
Happy Jack: "Really? That could be helpful."
Dent: "How is that helpful?"
Happy Jack: "We can stow them in a safehouse and use them as bait."
Eye Spy: "We could put tracking devices on them."
Audacity Jane: "I could rig booby traps."
No-Step: "I think 'safehouse' may be a bit of a misnomer under these circumstances."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku; employing the team for this job
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller who fingered Detective Bambra as Victoria's stalker
 
Missing Blood, part 3 - Getting a Clue
 
The team had collected a load of evidence from Detective Bambra's office: audio chips, video chips, five unconscious gang members ... even their gear was providing clues.
 
Audacity Jane: "These gang kids are using APDS ammo. How are they getting their hands on that? I can barely get my hands on it."
Happy Jack: "We don't have that hard of a time getting it."
Audacity Jane: "Well, no ... but that's because you had Ares pay us in crates of it. I'm fairly certain that these kids aren't getting it the same way."
 
Dent: (after doing a Mind Probe) "These gang members all belong to the Universal Brotherhood. One of the leaders in the local chapterhouse sent them to kill the private investigator."
Happy Jack: "What? The Universal Brotherhood is that group that runs the soup kitchens. Why would they send out a hit squad? Did he poison their soup?"
Dent: "They were told that he was causing trouble for the Universal Brotherhood."
Audacity Jane: "That still doesn't make much sense. Charitable organizations don't resort to violence, even when they should."
Byte Force: "It's hard to get donations if you have a reputation for violence."
Audacity Jane: "Really? I've always found that a reputation for violence makes fundraising easier."
No-Step: "Charities don't function like protection rackets."
Audacity Jane: "That's why protection rackets raise more money than charities."
 
The discussion digressed onto various shadowrunners methods of "raising money for charities."
 
Dent: "I've noticed something weird about these gang members. On a subconscious level, they're the happiest and most self-confident people I've ever Mind Probed. They're surprisingly well adjusted, given their background."
No-Step: "Do you even know anyone who is happy, confident and well adjusted?"
Eye Spy: "Jack is happy."
Happy Jack: "I'm probably not well-adjusted, though."
Audacity Jane: "I'm well-adjusted."
Everyone turned and stared at Jane.
Eye Spy: "Yeah ... riiiiiight."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not all wishy-washy or angst-ridden. I'm perfectly happy with who I am and what I do."
No-Step: "That's because you're amoral and remorseless. That's not the same as being 'well-adjusted'."
 
Byte Force: "The old troll with the cats and the fortune teller both made a comment about Victoria. They said she was becoming more self-confident. Maybe there's some connection between her growing self-confidence and the gang members' self-confidence."
Dent: (after doing another Mind Probe) "They're more self-confident because of what they're learning from the Universal Brotherhood ... but it sounds like a bunch of hippy, flaky gibberish to me."
Byte Force: "You might be able to produce that kind of effect with subtle doses of pharmaceuticals."
Happy Jack: "Brainwashing techniques could do it."
Eye Spy: "What about magick?"
No-Step: "It could do it, but we would be able to see the magickal signature in their auras."
Happy Jack: (laughing) "That's life in 2051. We found six people who are happy and confident, so we're absolutely convinced that it's a sinister plot."
 
Private Detective Bambra's audio chips (which he dictated his notes on) provided some very different information.
 
Byte Force: "Bambra was hired by Danial Simpson's wife. She suspected that he was having an affair."
No-Step: "Even if we recover the necklace, she's probably going to keep digging."
Byte Force: "She may not need to keep digging. Bambra had her plant a bug on Danial's phone."
 
Bambra had used the tap on Danial's phone to download a vidphone message that Victoria had left for Danial. It seemed likely that Danial had never seen this message.
 
Victoria's recorded message: "I'll be gone for a day or two. I just wanted you to know that I'm all right. I also ... wanted to thank you again so much for the necklace."
Dent: "He is so busted."
 
Victoria's recorded message: "... Madame Ulishia has told me that this is something I shouldn't pass up. She said to me, 'Victoria Delling, this is your moment. Seize it!' So I'm going to."
No-Step: "I believe the fortune teller had a little more information than she let on."
Audacity Jane: (to Happy Jack) "It looks like your detective disguise didn't get the cooperation that you expected it to."
Happy Jack: "I warned that woman about withholding information from me."
No-Step: "You told her you'd arrest her. But you're not really with Lone Star. You can't carry out that threat."
Happy Jack: "Of course I can. It's just called an abduction instead of an arrest when I carry it out."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku; employing the team for this job
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
 
Missing Blood, part 2 - Gang Banging
 
Danial Simpson had hired the team to find a missing necklace (called "Blood"). The necklace was in the possession of his missing mistress (Victoria Delling). The missing woman had been stalked by a private investigator (Detective Bambra) ... who possibly could be found ... and whose office they had definitely found.
 
Astral recon showed that his office was unoccupied, so Dent and Jane went to break in.
 
Happy Jack: "Let's keep an eye on those gang members. They seem very suspicious to me."
GM: (rolling dice) They seem unusually cheerful and self-confident for gang members, but they're not otherwise suspicious.
Byte Force: "Gang members are common in the Barrens. It would be more suspicious if this area was gang free."
Happy Jack: "Gangs are common in the Barrens, but those three are sitting in a Eurocar Westwind. That's a very pricey ride for poor Barrens kids."
Eye Spy: "It could be stolen."
Happy Jack: "Then why aren't they joyriding it or stripping it? That's normal behavior for gang members."
 
Detective Bambra's office was full of useful clues.
 
Audacity Jane: (over the radio link) "The PI wasn't stalking Victoria. He was stalking Simpson. He has a bunch of audio chips for each case, and one set is labeled 'The Simpson Affair'."
Byte Force: "Can you make a copy of them?"
Dent: "We don't have the time or equipment to make copies. Do you want us to just take them?"
Byte Force: "If we take them, he'll know we're onto him."
Happy Jack: "Clean out all of the chips for every case and his electronic equipment. That way he can't be sure which case is involved, or if it was just simple theft."
Dent: "And it gives us more stuff to fence."
 
Happy Jack: "Heads up. The gang members just got out of their car and are heading into the same building you're in."
Dent: "See if you can figure out where they're going."
Aided by a hearth spirit's Concealment, Denta and Jane hid in the office. After a couple minutes, the gang members burst in with drawn machine pistols.
gang member #1: (crashing in through the door) "The Iceman cometh, dudes!"
The gang members looked around in confusion at the apparently empty office.
gang member #2: "Where did Bambra's muscle go?"
There was a loud racket from down the hall as Happy Jack charged up the stairwell.
gang member #3: "Oh drek! They're behind us!"
As the gang members turned to charge back into the hall, Jane and Dent opened fire into their backs with narcojet pistols.
 
Audacity Jane: (as Jack charged into the office) "What are you doing up here?"
Happy Jack: (gesturing at the unconscious gang members) "I came to help you with these guys."
Dent: (snickering) "Help do what with them?"
Happy Jack: "Help carry them down to the van, apparently."
 
Eye Spy: (watching everything get packed into the van) "With all the junk you're..."
No-Step: (interrupting) "Evidence, not junk."
Eye Spy: "...evidence you're loading, there won't be enough room for all of you."
No-Step: "Don't worry. There's one more piece of evidence. It definitely won't fit in the van. And it will solve our little space issue."
Eye Spy: "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Dent: "That made no sense."
No-Step: (gesturing at the Eurocar Westwind) "That's the piece of evidence I'm referring to."
Audacity Jane: "And like the gang members, we can sell it for parts when we're done with it."

Norv: Do we have schematics?
 
Khymeric: Hold on! I'll get the etch a sketch!
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku; employing the team for this job
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller who fingered Detective Bambra as Victoria's stalker
 
Missing Blood, part 3 - Getting a Clue
 
The team had collected a load of evidence from Detective Bambra's office: audio chips, video chips, five unconscious gang members ... even their gear was providing clues.
 
Audacity Jane: "These gang kids are using APDS ammo. How are they getting their hands on that? I can barely get my hands on it."
Happy Jack: "We don't have that hard of a time getting it."
Audacity Jane: "Well, no ... but that's because you had Ares pay us in crates of it. I'm fairly certain that these kids aren't getting it the same way."
 
Dent: (after doing a Mind Probe) "These gang members all belong to the Universal Brotherhood. One of the leaders in the local chapterhouse sent them to kill the private investigator."
Happy Jack: "What? The Universal Brotherhood is that group that runs the soup kitchens. Why would they send out a hit squad? Did he poison their soup?"
Dent: "They were told that he was causing trouble for the Universal Brotherhood."
Audacity Jane: "That still doesn't make much sense. Charitable organizations don't resort to violence, even when they should."
Byte Force: "It's hard to get donations if you have a reputation for violence."
Audacity Jane: "Really? I've always found that a reputation for violence makes fundraising easier."
No-Step: "Charities don't function like protection rackets."
Audacity Jane: "That's why protection rackets raise more money than charities."
 
The discussion digressed onto various shadowrunners methods of "raising money for charities."
 
Dent: "I've noticed something weird about these gang members. On a subconscious level, they're the happiest and most self-confident people I've ever Mind Probed. They're surprisingly well adjusted, given their background."
No-Step: "Do you even know anyone who is happy, confident and well adjusted?"
Eye Spy: "Jack is happy."
Happy Jack: "I'm probably not well-adjusted, though."
Audacity Jane: "I'm well-adjusted."
Everyone turned and stared at Jane.
Eye Spy: "Yeah ... riiiiiight."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not all wishy-washy or angst-ridden. I'm perfectly happy with who I am and what I do."
No-Step: "That's because you're amoral and remorseless. That's not the same as being 'well-adjusted'."
 
Byte Force: "The old troll with the cats and the fortune teller both made a comment about Victoria. They said she was becoming more self-confident. Maybe there's some connection between her growing self-confidence and the gang members' self-confidence."
Dent: (after doing another Mind Probe) "They're more self-confident because of what they're learning from the Universal Brotherhood ... but it sounds like a bunch of hippy, flaky gibberish to me."
Byte Force: "You might be able to produce that kind of effect with subtle doses of pharmaceuticals."
Happy Jack: "Brainwashing techniques could do it."
Eye Spy: "What about magick?"
No-Step: "It could do it, but we would be able to see the magickal signature in their auras."
Happy Jack: (laughing) "That's life in 2051. We found six people who are happy and confident, so we're absolutely convinced that it's a sinister plot."
 
Private Detective Bambra's audio chips (which he dictated his notes on) provided some very different information.
 
Byte Force: "Bambra was hired by Danial Simpson's wife. She suspected that he was having an affair."
No-Step: "Even if we recover the necklace, she's probably going to keep digging."
Byte Force: "She may not need to keep digging. Bambra had her plant a bug on Danial's phone."
 
Bambra had used the tap on Danial's phone to download a vidphone message that Victoria had left for Danial. It seemed likely that Danial had never seen this message.
 
Victoria's recorded message: "I'll be gone for a day or two. I just wanted you to know that I'm all right. I also ... wanted to thank you again so much for the necklace."
Dent: "He is so busted."
 
Victoria's recorded message: "... Madame Ulishia has told me that this is something I shouldn't pass up. She said to me, 'Victoria Delling, this is your moment. Seize it!' So I'm going to."
No-Step: "I believe the fortune teller had a little more information than she let on."
Audacity Jane: (to Happy Jack) "It looks like your detective disguise didn't get the cooperation that you expected it to."
Happy Jack: "I warned that woman about withholding information from me."
No-Step: "You told her you'd arrest her. But you're not really with Lone Star. You can't carry out that threat."
Happy Jack: "Of course I can. It's just called an abduction instead of an arrest when I carry it out."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku; employing the team for this job
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator
 
Missing Blood, part 2 - Gang Banging
 
Danial Simpson had hired the team to find a missing necklace (called "Blood"). The necklace was in the possession of his missing mistress (Victoria Delling). The missing woman had been stalked by a private investigator (Detective Bambra) ... who possibly could be found ... and whose office they had definitely found.
 
Astral recon showed that his office was unoccupied, so Dent and Jane went to break in.
 
Happy Jack: "Let's keep an eye on those gang members. They seem very suspicious to me."
GM: (rolling dice) They seem unusually cheerful and self-confident for gang members, but they're not otherwise suspicious.
Byte Force: "Gang members are common in the Barrens. It would be more suspicious if this area was gang free."
Happy Jack: "Gangs are common in the Barrens, but those three are sitting in a Eurocar Westwind. That's a very pricey ride for poor Barrens kids."
Eye Spy: "It could be stolen."
Happy Jack: "Then why aren't they joyriding it or stripping it? That's normal behavior for gang members."
 
Detective Bambra's office was full of useful clues.
 
Audacity Jane: (over the radio link) "The PI wasn't stalking Victoria. He was stalking Simpson. He has a bunch of audio chips for each case, and one set is labeled 'The Simpson Affair'."
Byte Force: "Can you make a copy of them?"
Dent: "We don't have the time or equipment to make copies. Do you want us to just take them?"
Byte Force: "If we take them, he'll know we're onto him."
Happy Jack: "Clean out all of the chips for every case and his electronic equipment. That way he can't be sure which case is involved, or if it was just simple theft."
Dent: "And it gives us more stuff to fence."
 
Happy Jack: "Heads up. The gang members just got out of their car and are heading into the same building you're in."
Dent: "See if you can figure out where they're going."
Aided by a hearth spirit's Concealment, Denta and Jane hid in the office. After a couple minutes, the gang members burst in with drawn machine pistols.
gang member #1: (crashing in through the door) "The Iceman cometh, dudes!"
The gang members looked around in confusion at the apparently empty office.
gang member #2: "Where did Bambra's muscle go?"
There was a loud racket from down the hall as Happy Jack charged up the stairwell.
gang member #3: "Oh drek! They're behind us!"
As the gang members turned to charge back into the hall, Jane and Dent opened fire into their backs with narcojet pistols.
 
Audacity Jane: (as Jack charged into the office) "What are you doing up here?"
Happy Jack: (gesturing at the unconscious gang members) "I came to help you with these guys."
Dent: (snickering) "Help do what with them?"
Happy Jack: "Help carry them down to the van, apparently."
 
Eye Spy: (watching everything get packed into the van) "With all the junk you're..."
No-Step: (interrupting) "Evidence, not junk."
Eye Spy: "...evidence you're loading, there won't be enough room for all of you."
No-Step: "Don't worry. There's one more piece of evidence. It definitely won't fit in the van. And it will solve our little space issue."
Eye Spy: "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Dent: "That made no sense."
No-Step: (gesturing at the Eurocar Westwind) "That's the piece of evidence I'm referring to."
Audacity Jane: "And like the gang members, we can sell it for parts when we're done with it."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step / Investigator Davis: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack / Detective Williams: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Noggin (NPC): a fixer with contacts at Renraku
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
 
Missing Blood - Part 1
 
Noggin: "There's a junior exec at Renraku who needs a personal job done. I checked him out for you. He's clean as an elven baby's bottom. He's never dealt with runners before, and I'm sure he never thought he'd need their resources."
Jonathan Bridges: "If he's that clean, how did he become a corporate exec?"
Noggin: "Nepotism."
 
Noggin: "He wants this quiet. Real quiet. He wouldn't give me the specifics. Just that he gave a present to a girl, and now the girl is missing and he needs the present back."
Jonathan Bridges: "Is this the kind of 'quiet' where the job is done with a minimum of fuss? ... Or the kind where we 'silence' the girl and everyone she may have told about the exec's indiscretion?"
 
Jonathan Bridges met with Danial Simpson in the Renraku Arcology parking garage.
 
Danial Simpson had given Victoria Delling, his mistress, a unique necklace. His wife found the receipt and demanded an explanation. Danial panicked and said it was an anniversary present. Danial needed the team to find the necklace and return it in three days, so he could give it to his wife.
 
And the nepotism played a part in Simpson's predicament. His father-in-law had given him his job.
 
Danial Simpson: "I'm offering you 6,000 nuyen for the return of the necklace. I'm prepared to pay 2,000 nuyen now, and the remainder when we meet Friday evening."
Jonathan Bridges: "6,000 nuyen total? My suit costs more than that."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... ah ... I realize you may be accustomed to receiving more than that, but this should be a simple job."
Jonathan Bridges: "If Ms. Delling is still in the Seattle area and still in possession of the necklace, it will be a reasonably simple job." (pause) "If she's fled to another country, we could spend more than that on travel fees." (pause) "And based on what you've told me, it sounds even more likely that she has dumped the necklace. If she has a copy of the receipt, then she might sell it to a legitimate dealer ... and they would store something of that value in a vault."
Danial Simpson: "Well, you could keep anything else you stole from the vault...."
Jonathan Bridges: "If I want to break into vaults and keep the contents as pay, I can do that easily enough without bothering to find the vault your necklace is in."
 
Jonathan Bridges: "If Victoria doesn't have a receipt, then people most willing to touch a unique item like this would be organized crime ... the mafia, yakuza, maybe a Seoulpa gang."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... well ... I can't offer you more than that. My wife is now suspicious of me, and she's paying attention to my finances. She's going to notice if I pay much more money than that."
 
The matter of pay was resolved when Danial agreed to become a contact and feed Jonathan any useful information he heard.
 
Victoria had stopped taking Danial's calls. A quick astral recon of her apartment in the Barrens showed that she had cleared out of there as well.
 
Happy Jack: "I'm going to disguise myself as a Detective Williams from Lone Star when I interview her friends and neighbors."
Audacity Jane: "And pretend you're officially investigating a theft? I doubt they'll rat her out."
Happy Jack: (grinning) "I'm more subtle than that. I believe she was a witness to a crime. I'm trying to find her and interview her." (pause) "And hopefully I can find her before the murderer does...."
 
According to the landlord, a friend of Victoria's had called to say she needed to move out suddenly, due to a death in the family. A moving van showed up the next day and collected all of her belongings.
 
The landlord was able to direct "Detective Williams" to Mr. Denton, a neighbor Victoria was friends with. Mr. Denton was a troll with 18 cats.
 
Mr. Denton: "Feel free to push them out of the way and take a seat. They don't mind."
Detective Williams: (looking at the cat hair covering every surface in the apartment) "No thanks. I'd rather not turn my jacket into a fur coat."
 
According to Mr. Denton, Victoria left her cat with him, saying she'd be gone for two days. It had now been four days, she hadn't returned, and the movers hadn't collected her cat. Therefore, he was convinced that something terrible had happened to her.
 
But he was able to provide some leads to other people.
 
Mr. Denton: "She was into tarot cards. She went to a Madame Ulishia regularly. I think the whole thing is silly, of course, but then I live with dozens of cats to keep me sane."
Eye Spy (ooc): Living with dozens of cats is a sign of sanity?
 
Mr. Denton: "There was something else she mentioned when I first met her. A policlub she had just joined."
Detective Williams: "I'll go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't Humanis Policlub."
 
Mr. Denton didn't like policlubs in general, so they never discussed it again. And he couldn't remember which policlub. But he did know that she was employed by the policlub.
 
No-Step: (coming back from astral recon) "He likes to talk to his cats."
Eye Spy: "Being nuts will do that."
No-Step: "It may be nuts, but it's useful. People don't bother lying to their cats." (pause) "He's genuinely concerned about her. More importantly, he didn't pick up the phone and try to warn Victoria about us."
 
Astral recon at the fortune teller's did not go as smoothly.
 
No-Step: "Crap! She's a practioner. And she assenced me while I was in there."
Dent: "She's not going to believe you're Lone Star, Jack."
Happy Jack / Detective Williams: "Yes she will. No-Step, disguise yourself like you're from Lone Star's paranormal investigatons division. You're going to be Investigator Davis, assisting me in my investigation."
Dent: "We won't be able to spy on her afterwards."
Eye Spy: "You can't. I can. I'll have a drone use a laser mike. You magick types tend to forget about tech solutions ... and I bet she will as well."
 
Madame Ulishia was a harder nut to crack than the landlord or Mr. Denton.
 
Madame Ulishia: "I never give out confidential about the people who come to me ... unless its very important." (long pause) "How important is it to you."
Happy Jack realized she was looking for a bribe.
Detective Williams: "It's important enough to get you thrown in jail for obstruction of justice if I even think you're withholding information." (pause) "And if you're unfamiliar with the special precautions taken when we incarcerate someone who is magickally active, I'm sure Investigator Davis would be happy to fill you in."
 
Madame Ulishia: "I read in the cards that someone was following Victoria. She confirmed it. Then last week, Detective Bambra, a private investigator, came in and starting asking questions about her. I suspected that he was the one following her, so I told him nothing."
Detective Williams: "Did you bother to call us about this suspicious individual who was stalking your client?"
Madame Ulishia: "You?"
Detective Williams: "Us. Lone Star."
Madame Ulishia: "Um ... no."
 
Madame Ulishia didn't know anything about the policlub that Victoria belonged to, or anything about her employer.
 
No-Step: (after they left Madame Ulishia's) "What were you going to do if she had called Lone Star about that Detective Bambra."
Happy Jack: "Is she eavesdropping astrally?"
No-Step: (astrally assencing the area) "No."
Happy Jack: "I was going to come back later, tell her that there was no record of her ever making that call, and accuse her of interfering with our investigation. Use that accusation to rattle more information out of her."
No-Step: "But what if she actually had called? Wouldn't she know you were lying?"
Happy Jack: "Do you think Lone Star's call center always properly logs each call?"
Eye Spy: "I don't think there's a call center on the planet that does that."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters:
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
Are They Framed YET
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to do a run against the Young Elven Technologists to frame them for a crime nearly identical to the ones they had been getting away with. In order to perfect the frame, the decking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Planning the mission....
 
Happy Jack: "This mission has the best chance of succeeding if we can get in and out without them even knowing we were there."
Audacity Jane: "So we wait until tomorrow night."
Byte Force: "No. We should do it this morning, between 5am and 7am. I don't know any deckers that get up that early." (pause) "Though I do know a few who stay up that late."
 
Dent: (to Byte Force) "I keep telling you, you need to become a combat decker. Learn some infiltration skills."
Byte Force: "Why would I waste my time learning those?"
Dent: "For jobs like these. We have to sneak you inside YET's building so you can do the run from there."
Byte Force: "I found it more useful to invent this little device." (holds up his 'device') "You can sneak into their building, plug it into a dataport, and it will look like that's where my cyberdeck is located."
Audacity Jane: "What is it?"
Byte Force: "It's a complex invention known as 'an antenna'."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can get us in through the back door."
Happy Jack: "Don't go in there. Use the front door instead."
Audacity Jane: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "The back door is in the kitchen. You'll run into anyone who has the munchies."
Dent: "Not everyone eats like you do, Jack."
Happy Jack: "Okay. I'll revise that. You'll run into one of the troll street samurai who has the munchies."
Audacity Jane: "I'll get us in through the front door."
 
Dent and No-Step did thorough astral reconnaisance of YET's building.
 
No-Step: "... and we weren't able to learn the layout of Ehran's suite, because the walls are magickally warded, so we can't get in."
Eye Spy: "If you can't get in, how can you be sure that it's Ehran's suite?"
Dent: "It's the only room in the living areas that they bothered to put a ward around."
 
Eye Spy's drones were able to contribute to the scouting, since a massive skylight allowed her to see into the indoor gardens that filled one third of the building.
 
Dent: "I thought YET was trying to refute elven stereotypes."
 
Dent and Jane had no difficulty getting into YET's building, sneaking through the indoor garden, slipping upstairs, and getting into Ehran's quarters.
 
Dent: (whispered over the radio link) "This is like taking candy from a baby."
Byte Force: "Obviously you've never tried to take candy from a baby. They may not put up a fight, but they make a big fuss."
 
Byte Force's run through YET's system went smoothly, which was suprising, given that it was created and populated by a group of deckers. After finding the backdoor passcode to Dassurn, Byte Force began his run into Dassurn's system ... while still plugged in to the dataport in Ehran's suite.
 
Even on a smooth run, things can get complicated in a hurry.
 
Eye Spy: "A group of people just pulled up on motorcycles outside the building. There's ten of them."
Audacity Jane: "Are they coming into the building?"
Eye Spy: "They're parking and getting off their motorcycles. They're moderately armed ... submachine guns." (long pause) "Make that heavily armed. One has a rocket launcher!"
 
Audacity Jane: "Is Byte Force still doing his run?"
Eye Spy: "Yes."
Audacity Jane: "Drek. He probably doesn't even know he needs to hurry." (pause) "Jack, as soon as Byte Force is done with the run, we may need a diversion to get out of here."
Happy Jack: "Okay."
[bOOOOM]
The building shook. Plaster cracked and dust fell from the walls and ceiling.
Audacity Jane: "That's too soon!"
Dent: "We're not ready to go yet!"
Happy Jack: "That wasn't me."
Eye Spy: "The guy with the rocket launcher blew a hole in the front of the building." (pause) "And they just ran in through the hole."
 
Happy Jack had been sitting in an alley across the street, disguised as a homeless troll. Listening to the shooting and shouting coming from YET's building, he picked up an important detail.
 
Happy Jack: "They're the Association Para-Noblis. Those elf posers who kill real elves for not being elven enough."
No-Step: "I was hoping we had ruined them."
Happy Jack: "Well ... there are only ten of them left."
 
Deep inside Dassurn's network, Byte Force triggered Mr. Johnson's program, which immediately began draining all of Dassurn's liquid assets. After watching a moment in awe, Byte Force raced over to a nearby Trace and Report security program.
Byte Force: (slapping the Trace and Report program with his avatar's tail) "Wakey, wakey!"
 
Byte Force: (jacking out of the matrix) "Mission accomplished. Grab my antenna and sneak back out. Don't forget to lock Ehran's door behind you."
Audacity Jane: "We'd love to do just that, but the exit is blocked. Most of the elves and trolls are covering the garden from the balcony. The rest are covering the stairs. We would have to pass through a raging gun battle."
No-Step: "Can you use smoke or invisibility to get past them?"
Dent: "YET has two elven mages. They'll be able to assence us."
 
And one of the elven mages was making his presence known....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (yelling at the troll street samurai) "Why are you staying up here? Go down and shoot them."
troll street samurai: "That's a stupid tactic."
Lancelot Windtree: "You're too stupid for tactics. That's why we hired you."
Audacity Jane: (quietly to Dent) "I forsee a 'friendly fire' episode in that elf's future."
 
The exit may have been blocked, but there were other options....
 
Audacity Jane: "I have detcord. I'll just make a new exit."
Happy Jack: "Don't. If you make an exit, they will know you were inside. I'll make the exit from out here."
No-Step: "They will still know we were here if you blow a hole in the building."
Happy Jack: "The APN posers already blew one hole in the building. Who is going to assume that somebody else made the second hole?"
 
Jack blew a hole into the room across the hall from Ehran's. After Dent and Jane climbed down out of the hole and ran for cover, Dent couldn't stop giggling.
 
Audacity Jane: "I think he's suffering from hysteria."
No-Step: "I'll slap him out of it."
Audacity Jane: "We can take turns."
Eye Spy: "What about the APN? Are we just going to leave them?"
Dent: (still giggling) "I already took care of them."
Everyone stared at Dent.
Dent: "Before I left the building, I gave one final order to the hearth spirit. I told him to wait one minute, then use his Accident power on them."
Eye Spy: "I hope its a really serious accident."
[bOOOM]
No-Step: "I'm guessing it was ... because I've never seen a 'minor' accident involving a rocket launcher."

I've been a little torn about whether to go into the rest of that series of adventures, because I don't want to give any spoilers if you end up un-retiring the characters.

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step / Investigator Davis: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack / Detective Williams: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Noggin (NPC): a fixer with contacts at Renraku
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
 
Missing Blood - Part 1
 
Noggin: "There's a junior exec at Renraku who needs a personal job done. I checked him out for you. He's clean as an elven baby's bottom. He's never dealt with runners before, and I'm sure he never thought he'd need their resources."
Jonathan Bridges: "If he's that clean, how did he become a corporate exec?"
Noggin: "Nepotism."
 
Noggin: "He wants this quiet. Real quiet. He wouldn't give me the specifics. Just that he gave a present to a girl, and now the girl is missing and he needs the present back."
Jonathan Bridges: "Is this the kind of 'quiet' where the job is done with a minimum of fuss? ... Or the kind where we 'silence' the girl and everyone she may have told about the exec's indiscretion?"
 
Jonathan Bridges met with Danial Simpson in the Renraku Arcology parking garage.
 
Danial Simpson had given Victoria Delling, his mistress, a unique necklace. His wife found the receipt and demanded an explanation. Danial panicked and said it was an anniversary present. Danial needed the team to find the necklace and return it in three days, so he could give it to his wife.
 
And the nepotism played a part in Simpson's predicament. His father-in-law had given him his job.
 
Danial Simpson: "I'm offering you 6,000 nuyen for the return of the necklace. I'm prepared to pay 2,000 nuyen now, and the remainder when we meet Friday evening."
Jonathan Bridges: "6,000 nuyen total? My suit costs more than that."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... ah ... I realize you may be accustomed to receiving more than that, but this should be a simple job."
Jonathan Bridges: "If Ms. Delling is still in the Seattle area and still in possession of the necklace, it will be a reasonably simple job." (pause) "If she's fled to another country, we could spend more than that on travel fees." (pause) "And based on what you've told me, it sounds even more likely that she has dumped the necklace. If she has a copy of the receipt, then she might sell it to a legitimate dealer ... and they would store something of that value in a vault."
Danial Simpson: "Well, you could keep anything else you stole from the vault...."
Jonathan Bridges: "If I want to break into vaults and keep the contents as pay, I can do that easily enough without bothering to find the vault your necklace is in."
 
Jonathan Bridges: "If Victoria doesn't have a receipt, then people most willing to touch a unique item like this would be organized crime ... the mafia, yakuza, maybe a Seoulpa gang."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... well ... I can't offer you more than that. My wife is now suspicious of me, and she's paying attention to my finances. She's going to notice if I pay much more money than that."
 
The matter of pay was resolved when Danial agreed to become a contact and feed Jonathan any useful information he heard.
 
Victoria had stopped taking Danial's calls. A quick astral recon of her apartment in the Barrens showed that she had cleared out of there as well.
 
Happy Jack: "I'm going to disguise myself as a Detective Williams from Lone Star when I interview her friends and neighbors."
Audacity Jane: "And pretend you're officially investigating a theft? I doubt they'll rat her out."
Happy Jack: (grinning) "I'm more subtle than that. I believe she was a witness to a crime. I'm trying to find her and interview her." (pause) "And hopefully I can find her before the murderer does...."
 
According to the landlord, a friend of Victoria's had called to say she needed to move out suddenly, due to a death in the family. A moving van showed up the next day and collected all of her belongings.
 
The landlord was able to direct "Detective Williams" to Mr. Denton, a neighbor Victoria was friends with. Mr. Denton was a troll with 18 cats.
 
Mr. Denton: "Feel free to push them out of the way and take a seat. They don't mind."
Detective Williams: (looking at the cat hair covering every surface in the apartment) "No thanks. I'd rather not turn my jacket into a fur coat."
 
According to Mr. Denton, Victoria left her cat with him, saying she'd be gone for two days. It had now been four days, she hadn't returned, and the movers hadn't collected her cat. Therefore, he was convinced that something terrible had happened to her.
 
But he was able to provide some leads to other people.
 
Mr. Denton: "She was into tarot cards. She went to a Madame Ulishia regularly. I think the whole thing is silly, of course, but then I live with dozens of cats to keep me sane."
Eye Spy (ooc): Living with dozens of cats is a sign of sanity?
 
Mr. Denton: "There was something else she mentioned when I first met her. A policlub she had just joined."
Detective Williams: "I'll go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't Humanis Policlub."
 
Mr. Denton didn't like policlubs in general, so they never discussed it again. And he couldn't remember which policlub. But he did know that she was employed by the policlub.
 
No-Step: (coming back from astral recon) "He likes to talk to his cats."
Eye Spy: "Being nuts will do that."
No-Step: "It may be nuts, but it's useful. People don't bother lying to their cats." (pause) "He's genuinely concerned about her. More importantly, he didn't pick up the phone and try to warn Victoria about us."
 
Astral recon at the fortune teller's did not go as smoothly.
 
No-Step: "Crap! She's a practioner. And she assenced me while I was in there."
Dent: "She's not going to believe you're Lone Star, Jack."
Happy Jack / Detective Williams: "Yes she will. No-Step, disguise yourself like you're from Lone Star's paranormal investigatons division. You're going to be Investigator Davis, assisting me in my investigation."
Dent: "We won't be able to spy on her afterwards."
Eye Spy: "You can't. I can. I'll have a drone use a laser mike. You magick types tend to forget about tech solutions ... and I bet she will as well."
 
Madame Ulishia was a harder nut to crack than the landlord or Mr. Denton.
 
Madame Ulishia: "I never give out confidential about the people who come to me ... unless its very important." (long pause) "How important is it to you."
Happy Jack realized she was looking for a bribe.
Detective Williams: "It's important enough to get you thrown in jail for obstruction of justice if I even think you're withholding information." (pause) "And if you're unfamiliar with the special precautions taken when we incarcerate someone who is magickally active, I'm sure Investigator Davis would be happy to fill you in."
 
Madame Ulishia: "I read in the cards that someone was following Victoria. She confirmed it. Then last week, Detective Bambra, a private investigator, came in and starting asking questions about her. I suspected that he was the one following her, so I told him nothing."
Detective Williams: "Did you bother to call us about this suspicious individual who was stalking your client?"
Madame Ulishia: "You?"
Detective Williams: "Us. Lone Star."
Madame Ulishia: "Um ... no."
 
Madame Ulishia didn't know anything about the policlub that Victoria belonged to, or anything about her employer.
 
No-Step: (after they left Madame Ulishia's) "What were you going to do if she had called Lone Star about that Detective Bambra."
Happy Jack: "Is she eavesdropping astrally?"
No-Step: (astrally assencing the area) "No."
Happy Jack: "I was going to come back later, tell her that there was no record of her ever making that call, and accuse her of interfering with our investigation. Use that accusation to rattle more information out of her."
No-Step: "But what if she actually had called? Wouldn't she know you were lying?"
Happy Jack: "Do you think Lone Star's call center always properly logs each call?"
Eye Spy: "I don't think there's a call center on the planet that does that."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters:
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
Are They Framed YET
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to do a run against the Young Elven Technologists to frame them for a crime nearly identical to the ones they had been getting away with. In order to perfect the frame, the decking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Planning the mission....
 
Happy Jack: "This mission has the best chance of succeeding if we can get in and out without them even knowing we were there."
Audacity Jane: "So we wait until tomorrow night."
Byte Force: "No. We should do it this morning, between 5am and 7am. I don't know any deckers that get up that early." (pause) "Though I do know a few who stay up that late."
 
Dent: (to Byte Force) "I keep telling you, you need to become a combat decker. Learn some infiltration skills."
Byte Force: "Why would I waste my time learning those?"
Dent: "For jobs like these. We have to sneak you inside YET's building so you can do the run from there."
Byte Force: "I found it more useful to invent this little device." (holds up his 'device') "You can sneak into their building, plug it into a dataport, and it will look like that's where my cyberdeck is located."
Audacity Jane: "What is it?"
Byte Force: "It's a complex invention known as 'an antenna'."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can get us in through the back door."
Happy Jack: "Don't go in there. Use the front door instead."
Audacity Jane: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "The back door is in the kitchen. You'll run into anyone who has the munchies."
Dent: "Not everyone eats like you do, Jack."
Happy Jack: "Okay. I'll revise that. You'll run into one of the troll street samurai who has the munchies."
Audacity Jane: "I'll get us in through the front door."
 
Dent and No-Step did thorough astral reconnaisance of YET's building.
 
No-Step: "... and we weren't able to learn the layout of Ehran's suite, because the walls are magickally warded, so we can't get in."
Eye Spy: "If you can't get in, how can you be sure that it's Ehran's suite?"
Dent: "It's the only room in the living areas that they bothered to put a ward around."
 
Eye Spy's drones were able to contribute to the scouting, since a massive skylight allowed her to see into the indoor gardens that filled one third of the building.
 
Dent: "I thought YET was trying to refute elven stereotypes."
 
Dent and Jane had no difficulty getting into YET's building, sneaking through the indoor garden, slipping upstairs, and getting into Ehran's quarters.
 
Dent: (whispered over the radio link) "This is like taking candy from a baby."
Byte Force: "Obviously you've never tried to take candy from a baby. They may not put up a fight, but they make a big fuss."
 
Byte Force's run through YET's system went smoothly, which was suprising, given that it was created and populated by a group of deckers. After finding the backdoor passcode to Dassurn, Byte Force began his run into Dassurn's system ... while still plugged in to the dataport in Ehran's suite.
 
Even on a smooth run, things can get complicated in a hurry.
 
Eye Spy: "A group of people just pulled up on motorcycles outside the building. There's ten of them."
Audacity Jane: "Are they coming into the building?"
Eye Spy: "They're parking and getting off their motorcycles. They're moderately armed ... submachine guns." (long pause) "Make that heavily armed. One has a rocket launcher!"
 
Audacity Jane: "Is Byte Force still doing his run?"
Eye Spy: "Yes."
Audacity Jane: "Drek. He probably doesn't even know he needs to hurry." (pause) "Jack, as soon as Byte Force is done with the run, we may need a diversion to get out of here."
Happy Jack: "Okay."
[bOOOOM]
The building shook. Plaster cracked and dust fell from the walls and ceiling.
Audacity Jane: "That's too soon!"
Dent: "We're not ready to go yet!"
Happy Jack: "That wasn't me."
Eye Spy: "The guy with the rocket launcher blew a hole in the front of the building." (pause) "And they just ran in through the hole."
 
Happy Jack had been sitting in an alley across the street, disguised as a homeless troll. Listening to the shooting and shouting coming from YET's building, he picked up an important detail.
 
Happy Jack: "They're the Association Para-Noblis. Those elf posers who kill real elves for not being elven enough."
No-Step: "I was hoping we had ruined them."
Happy Jack: "Well ... there are only ten of them left."
 
Deep inside Dassurn's network, Byte Force triggered Mr. Johnson's program, which immediately began draining all of Dassurn's liquid assets. After watching a moment in awe, Byte Force raced over to a nearby Trace and Report security program.
Byte Force: (slapping the Trace and Report program with his avatar's tail) "Wakey, wakey!"
 
Byte Force: (jacking out of the matrix) "Mission accomplished. Grab my antenna and sneak back out. Don't forget to lock Ehran's door behind you."
Audacity Jane: "We'd love to do just that, but the exit is blocked. Most of the elves and trolls are covering the garden from the balcony. The rest are covering the stairs. We would have to pass through a raging gun battle."
No-Step: "Can you use smoke or invisibility to get past them?"
Dent: "YET has two elven mages. They'll be able to assence us."
 
And one of the elven mages was making his presence known....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (yelling at the troll street samurai) "Why are you staying up here? Go down and shoot them."
troll street samurai: "That's a stupid tactic."
Lancelot Windtree: "You're too stupid for tactics. That's why we hired you."
Audacity Jane: (quietly to Dent) "I forsee a 'friendly fire' episode in that elf's future."
 
The exit may have been blocked, but there were other options....
 
Audacity Jane: "I have detcord. I'll just make a new exit."
Happy Jack: "Don't. If you make an exit, they will know you were inside. I'll make the exit from out here."
No-Step: "They will still know we were here if you blow a hole in the building."
Happy Jack: "The APN posers already blew one hole in the building. Who is going to assume that somebody else made the second hole?"
 
Jack blew a hole into the room across the hall from Ehran's. After Dent and Jane climbed down out of the hole and ran for cover, Dent couldn't stop giggling.
 
Audacity Jane: "I think he's suffering from hysteria."
No-Step: "I'll slap him out of it."
Audacity Jane: "We can take turns."
Eye Spy: "What about the APN? Are we just going to leave them?"
Dent: (still giggling) "I already took care of them."
Everyone stared at Dent.
Dent: "Before I left the building, I gave one final order to the hearth spirit. I told him to wait one minute, then use his Accident power on them."
Eye Spy: "I hope its a really serious accident."
[bOOOM]
No-Step: "I'm guessing it was ... because I've never seen a 'minor' accident involving a rocket launcher."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Sandii (NPC): a fixer who put the team in touch with Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the ubiquitous alias used by/for people hiring shadowrunners
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
YET Another Party
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
According to Sandii, Mr. Johnson wanted to meet at a Young Elven Technologists party. One drawback of being an ork/troll team ... it's hard to pass for elves.
 
A little research led to the discovery that YET's party was intended to allow them to meet and recruit elven deckers. Due to recent threats, however, they had hired additional, heavily-armed security.
 
Byte Force: (laughing) "You won't believe who YET hired for security." (pause) "Troll street samurai."
 
Astral reconnaissance showed one elven mage at the party. He didn't appear to be magickal security, since he was doing nothing to actually make the building more secure. On the other hand, he didn't appear to be a guest, because he looked like he would rather be anywhere else....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (to street samurai Jack) "Get out of my way, you oaf!"
street samurai Jack: (looking confused) "No .... I troll. You elf."
Lancelot Windtree: "I said oaf, not elf."
street samurai Jack: (looking more confused) "What is elf-not-elf?"
 
Surprisingly, Mr. Johnson was able to recognize Happy Jack, despite his disguise.
 
Mr. Johnson: (quietly to street samurai Jack) "Hello. I'm Mr. Johnson."
street samuria Jack: (quietly) "Let's go somewhere more private."
Jack grabbed Mr. Johnson by the shoulder and walked him out the back door.
street samuria Jack: (loudly) "I think you had too much to drink. You need to go outside and sober up."
 
Outside....
 
Mr. Johnson: "The Young Elven Technologists have committed a number of atrocities that have gone unpunished. It is up to you to correct this."
street samurai Jack: "Are you asking us to punish them proportional to their crimes, or are you asking us to commit atrocities on them that are greater than the ones they've committed on others?"
Mr. Johnson: (sounding genuinely curious) "Does the latter bother you?"
street samurai Jack: "Balanced justice is a very tricky and subjective thing. Excess is far easier to manage." (long pause) "And since we intend to go unpunished for whatever activities we commit on your behalf, we'd prefer to avoid having you hire a team to 'correct' that later."
 
YET did computer programming for other companies, and had used that privileged position to install backdoors into a number of computer systems. It then used those backdoors to siphon funds from its ex-clients.
 
Audacity Jane (ooc): That's his idea of an atrocity?
 
Mr. Johnson had a very specific idea of how to get justice.
Hack into YET's network and steal the backdoors.
Leave a copy of the backdoor passcodes, and another document, in the suite of Ehran the Scribe ... located inside YET's building.
Use another copy of the backdoor passcodes to enter the system of Dassurn Securities, one of YET's clients.
Unleash a piece of software inside Dassurn's network.
 
The kicker ... the run had to be completed by the following night, because that would leave YET no time to fix things before Dassurn audited its books the following morning.
 
The bigger kicker ... all of the hacking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Mr. Johnson: "All paths must lead directly to the Young Elven Technologists' doorstep ... especially if things go sour."
street samurai Jack: "If you want paths leading to their door, we'll make a point to blaze a few."
 
Since the party was being held in the same building where the run would occur, Jack decided to return and do some scouting. That plan was revised when the team noticed a disturbance by the front door.
 
elf who looked exactly like Mr. Johnson: "But I tell you, I am Lee Corbin!"
Happy Jack: (over the radio link as he walked away) "It looks like Mr. Johnson pulled one of our tricks. He came looking like someone else."
No-Step: "I assensed him. His aura was mundane, and there were no spells on him. Did he do that with makeup?"
Happy Jack: "It would be extremely difficult. Maybe impossible. He was a very distinctive looking elf."
Dent: "I think we just got hired by an initiate. They can mask their auras. But why would an initiate that powerful need us for a run?"
Byte Force: "He needs a decker." (pause) "Some problems can't be solved by magic."
Dent: "They can if you use enough of it."
 
The envelope that the team was going to leave in Ehran's suite was of particular interest.
 
Byte Force: "The last time we left an envelope behind, it was a page of Ehran's book in the lap of a dead elf-poser. This can't be a coincidence."
No-Step: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
 
The envelope was sealed with wax.
 
No-Step: "This is an old-school way to know if someone was reading your mail. If the wax seal is broken, you know that someone read the mail."
Eye Spy: "So we can't look at it without someone noticing?"
No-Step: "There's an old school ways to bypass it. Use an extremely thin, heated wire to separate the wax from the paper. When you're done, reheat the back of the wax seal until it starts to melt and stick it back on the paper. Monomolecular wire should be perfect."
Byte Force: "I didn't realize monomolecular wire was 'old school'."
 
No-Step: "Wear gloves when you handle the letter."
Audacity Jane: "Fingerprints."
No-Step: "That too. But mostly because contact poison is another 'old school' technique."
 
Byte Force: "There's no poison on the page in the envelope, but I've seen it before." (pause) "It's from that book we stole from the troll Baron in Germany."
Audacity Jane: "We left a metal attache case there."
Dent: "Three times. That's enemy action."
Happy Jack: "@#$%! We didn't try to conceal our appearance for that German mission. And we were under heavy surveillance.  Someone could tie all these jobs to us."
Eye Spy: "Great. Mr. Johnson is going to get us killed." (pause) "I suppose there's a bright side. We have a repeat customer."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Urlan Manes (NPC): President/CEO of Global Technologies; hired the team to recover stolen goods
Roxanne Wunter (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's liaison to the team
Thomas Martelli (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
 
Dreamchipper - Fixing the Meeting
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had recovered all three chips about 30 hours before the deadline. A decision was made to wait another 12 hours before giving Urlan Manes and Roxanne Wunter the good news.
 
Dent: "Why are we waiting? Is this going to give us some negotiating leverage?"
No-Step: "No. We're going to have to run some kind of op to ensure that Martelli wins. I'd prefer to get a full eight hours of sleep before that happens."
 
Once rested, the team met to brainstorm a way to turn the tables on Urlan and Roxanne.
 
No-Step: "We'll need to come up with something exceptionally subtle. Otherwise Urlan and Roxanne will suspect that we were behind it."
Audacity Jane: "Why would we have to be subtle? After Roxanne leaves her meeting with Jack, we grab her and hold her until after the meeting. Urlan will be missing his chips again, and he'll be missing one of his VPs."
No-Step: "And who besides us will know about the meeting?"
Happy Jack: "Martelli found out about the other meeting. He's the person who will benefit most. He'll be the main suspect. He'll have plausible deniability, but they will suspect that he is behind it. And to a certain extent, they will be right."
Eye Spy: "But everyone knows that Jonathan Bridges works with a bunch of orks."
Byte Force: "Urlan and Roxanne might not. They've never met any of us."
Happy Jack: "Jonathan Bridges' team is made of orks and trolls. Guess who works with a team of just orks? Martelli."
 
Byte Force: "Martelli could be the weak link. He's met you before. If you negotiate with him, he could put two and two together."
Happy Jack: "I won't be negotiating with him. While I'm meeting with Roxanne, one of you will contact Martelli." (pause) "No-Step has the skills to pull it off. And if Martelli refuses to take his call, No-Step can just project astrally."
Audacity Jane: "No-Step doesn't lie nearly as well as you do."
Happy Jack: "But he likes to sell win-win solutions. And that's exactly what we're doing with Martelli."
No-Step: "What should I do if Martelli flat-out refuses to reach a deal?"
Happy Jack: "Then he loses to Urlan. Stupidity is its own reward."
 
Surprisingly, Urlan and Roxanne wanted to wait until early Friday morning, hours before the shareholders' meeting, to collect the dreamchips. As before, they both attended and they both arrived early. They also brought an extra attendee.
 
Dent: "Their guest looks like a techie, but he has two bodyguards that look like retired military."
Eye Spy: "And there's a military vehicle parked a block away, with 8 more people in it. I think it's a trap."
Happy Jack: "I think it's their buyer. The army is supposed to be buying these things. Those bodyguards are probably active soldiers at Fort Lewis. The techie is probably an officer or a specialist."
Audacity Jane: "So, do we have to take on a squad of soldiers to get the chips back?"
No-Step: "Why would we? If we abduct Urlan and Roxanne, they can't announce to the shareholders that they saved their pet project."
 
Just before Jonathan Bridges went into the meeting...
 
Jonathan Bridges: "No-Step, I have one piece of advice for your negotiation."
No-Step: "And what might that be?"
Jonathan Bridges: "You like to beat around the bush when you negotiate. Martelli is blunt."
No-Step: "So what course of action would you advise?"
Jonathan Bridges: "At the beginning, be blunt enough to get his attention. Then you can beat around the bush all you want."
 
No-Step: "And I have one piece of advice for your meeting."
Jonathan Bridges: "What's that?"
No-Step: "You're going in without back-up this time. Try not to get killed."
 
As Jonathan Bridges entered the back bar...
 
Roxanne's bodyguard: "I see that you're still traveling with invisible bodyguards."
Jonathan Bridges: "There are two generally accepted strategies for bodyguards. One is to have obvious bodyguards. The better strategy is to have obvious bodyguards for show, and inconspicuous bodyguards to provide the real protection."
Roxanne's bodyguard: "And you think it's even better to do without the obvious bodyguards entirely?"
Jonathan Bridges: "No. I am my obvious bodyguard."
 
And No-Step made his call to Martelli's private phone number....
 
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you and what do you want?"
No-Step: "You are about to lose control of your daddy's company ... again."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "WHAT !!"
Audacity Jane: (under her breath to Dent) "Yep. That was blunt enough."
No-Step: "Do I have your undivided attention? Splendid. Mr. Urlan Manes has recovered his stolen property. I'm sure he is looking forward to announcing that to the shareholders in a few hours."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm in a position to make Mr. Manes and Ms. Wunter late to the meeting. Very late. Days late. And I can also ensure Tee Hee gets delivered to you, rather than them. Does that interest you?"
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "And what's in it for you?"
No-Step: "Coincidentally, that was going to be my question to you. What is in it for me?"
 
The team planned to capture Urlan and Roxanne when they reached their helicopter. The first step, while they were still in the meeting, was to capture the helicopter pilot.
 
No-Step: "This is going to be complicated. That helicopter is heavily armored. In this neighborhood, the pilot is sure to keep the doors locked. And if he sees trouble, all he has to do is get on the radio before we're able to stop him."
Dent: "I bet you 5,000 nuyen that I can get the pilot out the helicopter without him warning the others. I don't even need any help from any of you."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not going to let you blow this mission just so you can flex your ego."
Dent: (whispering his plan to Jane) "I'll cast silence so he can't say anything over the radio. Then I'll have my city spirit materialize inside the helicopter and use its Fear power."
Audacity Jane: (to No-Step) "I'll bet you 10,000 nuyen that Dent can do it."
Unsurprisingly, No-Step declined to take the bet.
 
No-Step disguised Eye Spy as the pilot, so Urlan and Roxanne's bodyguards wouldn't realize anything was wrong when they returned to the helicopter.
 
Dent: "Where is the best place for us to hide for the ambush?"
Audacity Jane: "I'm going to hide inside the helicopter. It's the one place in this neighborhood that the bodyguards will consider 'safe', so they won't be prepared to defend against an attack from that direction."
 
No-Step used his city spirit's Concealment power to hide Jane inside the helicopter. Nobody realized she was there until Roxanne and Urlan had boarded the helicopter ... and Jane had shot them with narcojet darts.
 
Audacity Jane: (to the bodyguards) "Hi there. I'm using your boss as a human shield."
 
Eye Spy forced the bodyguards' hand by taking the helicopter up into a hover 5 meters over the tarmac. The bodyguards had to jump and climb to try to get into the 'escaping' helicopter.
 
Audacity Jane: (seeing a bodyguard struggling to hold his gun, climb into the helicopter, and shoot simultaneously) "Let me guess ... your training didn't cover this?"
 
Dent wanted to steal the helicopter, which led to a disagreement.
 
Dent: "We could sell it for at least another 100,000 nuyen."
Eye Spy: "It's too easy to track, especially in a city."
Audacity Jane: "And we don't steal from our current employer."
Dent: "Urlan is our ex-employer. He's fair game."
Audacity Jane: "The helicopter belongs to Global, not Urlan. Martelli is our current employer, and in a few hours, he should control Global."
 
Eye Spy programmed the autopilot to fly the helicopter (and the unconscious pilot and bodyguards) back to Global.
 
No-Step: "They're going to have an interesting afternoon of debriefings."
Eye Spy: "It could be worse. They could be dead."
Happy Jack: "Spoken like someone who has never experienced a corporate 'debriefing'."
 
No-Step met with Martelli at the docks to hand over Tee Hee and get paid.
 
No-Step: (manifesting out of the Astral to where he could be seen and heard) "Good evening, Mr. Martelli. Congratulations on your coup at the shareholders meeting."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Cut the drek. Where is my decker?"
Audacity Jane stepped out of the shadows and opened the doors of one of the containers, revealing Tee Hee.
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Nice ... but I'm thinking we should renegotiate our deal."
No-Step: "We completed our portion in full."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "You're going to turn Urlan and Roxanne over directly to me. For that, you get half of the remaining fee. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping me from killing your razor and taking what I want."
No-Step: "Actually, there are several things preventing you from doing that."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Like what?"
No-Step: "First, Tee Hee's belt is made of detcord. If you try to avoid paying, you will no longer be playing with a full decker."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
No-Step: "Second, there are three heavy weapons aimed at you and your compatriots."
Audacity Jane: "I'm sure you're bullet-proof, but we don't particularly care."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
Audacity Jane: "And third, I'm wearing a heart monitor that's linked to a dead-man switch. If I die, you boys get to find out where I hid the fuel-air explosive."
No-Step: "The rest of our precautions will remain a surprise."
Audacity Jane: "A girl's got to have her secrets."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: (bursting out laughing) "I like you. We have to do business again sometime."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step / Investigator Davis: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack / Detective Williams: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Noggin (NPC): a fixer with contacts at Renraku
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku
Victoria Delling (NPC): the missing girl with the missing gift
 
Missing Blood - Part 1
 
Noggin: "There's a junior exec at Renraku who needs a personal job done. I checked him out for you. He's clean as an elven baby's bottom. He's never dealt with runners before, and I'm sure he never thought he'd need their resources."
Jonathan Bridges: "If he's that clean, how did he become a corporate exec?"
Noggin: "Nepotism."
 
Noggin: "He wants this quiet. Real quiet. He wouldn't give me the specifics. Just that he gave a present to a girl, and now the girl is missing and he needs the present back."
Jonathan Bridges: "Is this the kind of 'quiet' where the job is done with a minimum of fuss? ... Or the kind where we 'silence' the girl and everyone she may have told about the exec's indiscretion?"
 
Jonathan Bridges met with Danial Simpson in the Renraku Arcology parking garage.
 
Danial Simpson had given Victoria Delling, his mistress, a unique necklace. His wife found the receipt and demanded an explanation. Danial panicked and said it was an anniversary present. Danial needed the team to find the necklace and return it in three days, so he could give it to his wife.
 
And the nepotism played a part in Simpson's predicament. His father-in-law had given him his job.
 
Danial Simpson: "I'm offering you 6,000 nuyen for the return of the necklace. I'm prepared to pay 2,000 nuyen now, and the remainder when we meet Friday evening."
Jonathan Bridges: "6,000 nuyen total? My suit costs more than that."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... ah ... I realize you may be accustomed to receiving more than that, but this should be a simple job."
Jonathan Bridges: "If Ms. Delling is still in the Seattle area and still in possession of the necklace, it will be a reasonably simple job." (pause) "If she's fled to another country, we could spend more than that on travel fees." (pause) "And based on what you've told me, it sounds even more likely that she has dumped the necklace. If she has a copy of the receipt, then she might sell it to a legitimate dealer ... and they would store something of that value in a vault."
Danial Simpson: "Well, you could keep anything else you stole from the vault...."
Jonathan Bridges: "If I want to break into vaults and keep the contents as pay, I can do that easily enough without bothering to find the vault your necklace is in."
 
Jonathan Bridges: "If Victoria doesn't have a receipt, then people most willing to touch a unique item like this would be organized crime ... the mafia, yakuza, maybe a Seoulpa gang."
Danial Simpson: "Um ... well ... I can't offer you more than that. My wife is now suspicious of me, and she's paying attention to my finances. She's going to notice if I pay much more money than that."
 
The matter of pay was resolved when Danial agreed to become a contact and feed Jonathan any useful information he heard.
 
Victoria had stopped taking Danial's calls. A quick astral recon of her apartment in the Barrens showed that she had cleared out of there as well.
 
Happy Jack: "I'm going to disguise myself as a Detective Williams from Lone Star when I interview her friends and neighbors."
Audacity Jane: "And pretend you're officially investigating a theft? I doubt they'll rat her out."
Happy Jack: (grinning) "I'm more subtle than that. I believe she was a witness to a crime. I'm trying to find her and interview her." (pause) "And hopefully I can find her before the murderer does...."
 
According to the landlord, a friend of Victoria's had called to say she needed to move out suddenly, due to a death in the family. A moving van showed up the next day and collected all of her belongings.
 
The landlord was able to direct "Detective Williams" to Mr. Denton, a neighbor Victoria was friends with. Mr. Denton was a troll with 18 cats.
 
Mr. Denton: "Feel free to push them out of the way and take a seat. They don't mind."
Detective Williams: (looking at the cat hair covering every surface in the apartment) "No thanks. I'd rather not turn my jacket into a fur coat."
 
According to Mr. Denton, Victoria left her cat with him, saying she'd be gone for two days. It had now been four days, she hadn't returned, and the movers hadn't collected her cat. Therefore, he was convinced that something terrible had happened to her.
 
But he was able to provide some leads to other people.
 
Mr. Denton: "She was into tarot cards. She went to a Madame Ulishia regularly. I think the whole thing is silly, of course, but then I live with dozens of cats to keep me sane."
Eye Spy (ooc): Living with dozens of cats is a sign of sanity?
 
Mr. Denton: "There was something else she mentioned when I first met her. A policlub she had just joined."
Detective Williams: "I'll go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't Humanis Policlub."
 
Mr. Denton didn't like policlubs in general, so they never discussed it again. And he couldn't remember which policlub. But he did know that she was employed by the policlub.
 
No-Step: (coming back from astral recon) "He likes to talk to his cats."
Eye Spy: "Being nuts will do that."
No-Step: "It may be nuts, but it's useful. People don't bother lying to their cats." (pause) "He's genuinely concerned about her. More importantly, he didn't pick up the phone and try to warn Victoria about us."
 
Astral recon at the fortune teller's did not go as smoothly.
 
No-Step: "Crap! She's a practioner. And she assenced me while I was in there."
Dent: "She's not going to believe you're Lone Star, Jack."
Happy Jack / Detective Williams: "Yes she will. No-Step, disguise yourself like you're from Lone Star's paranormal investigatons division. You're going to be Investigator Davis, assisting me in my investigation."
Dent: "We won't be able to spy on her afterwards."
Eye Spy: "You can't. I can. I'll have a drone use a laser mike. You magick types tend to forget about tech solutions ... and I bet she will as well."
 
Madame Ulishia was a harder nut to crack than the landlord or Mr. Denton.
 
Madame Ulishia: "I never give out confidential about the people who come to me ... unless its very important." (long pause) "How important is it to you."
Happy Jack realized she was looking for a bribe.
Detective Williams: "It's important enough to get you thrown in jail for obstruction of justice if I even think you're withholding information." (pause) "And if you're unfamiliar with the special precautions taken when we incarcerate someone who is magickally active, I'm sure Investigator Davis would be happy to fill you in."
 
Madame Ulishia: "I read in the cards that someone was following Victoria. She confirmed it. Then last week, Detective Bambra, a private investigator, came in and starting asking questions about her. I suspected that he was the one following her, so I told him nothing."
Detective Williams: "Did you bother to call us about this suspicious individual who was stalking your client?"
Madame Ulishia: "You?"
Detective Williams: "Us. Lone Star."
Madame Ulishia: "Um ... no."
 
Madame Ulishia didn't know anything about the policlub that Victoria belonged to, or anything about her employer.
 
No-Step: (after they left Madame Ulishia's) "What were you going to do if she had called Lone Star about that Detective Bambra."
Happy Jack: "Is she eavesdropping astrally?"
No-Step: (astrally assencing the area) "No."
Happy Jack: "I was going to come back later, tell her that there was no record of her ever making that call, and accuse her of interfering with our investigation. Use that accusation to rattle more information out of her."
No-Step: "But what if she actually had called? Wouldn't she know you were lying?"
Happy Jack: "Do you think Lone Star's call center always properly logs each call?"
Eye Spy: "I don't think there's a call center on the planet that does that."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters:
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
Are They Framed YET
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to do a run against the Young Elven Technologists to frame them for a crime nearly identical to the ones they had been getting away with. In order to perfect the frame, the decking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Planning the mission....
 
Happy Jack: "This mission has the best chance of succeeding if we can get in and out without them even knowing we were there."
Audacity Jane: "So we wait until tomorrow night."
Byte Force: "No. We should do it this morning, between 5am and 7am. I don't know any deckers that get up that early." (pause) "Though I do know a few who stay up that late."
 
Dent: (to Byte Force) "I keep telling you, you need to become a combat decker. Learn some infiltration skills."
Byte Force: "Why would I waste my time learning those?"
Dent: "For jobs like these. We have to sneak you inside YET's building so you can do the run from there."
Byte Force: "I found it more useful to invent this little device." (holds up his 'device') "You can sneak into their building, plug it into a dataport, and it will look like that's where my cyberdeck is located."
Audacity Jane: "What is it?"
Byte Force: "It's a complex invention known as 'an antenna'."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can get us in through the back door."
Happy Jack: "Don't go in there. Use the front door instead."
Audacity Jane: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "The back door is in the kitchen. You'll run into anyone who has the munchies."
Dent: "Not everyone eats like you do, Jack."
Happy Jack: "Okay. I'll revise that. You'll run into one of the troll street samurai who has the munchies."
Audacity Jane: "I'll get us in through the front door."
 
Dent and No-Step did thorough astral reconnaisance of YET's building.
 
No-Step: "... and we weren't able to learn the layout of Ehran's suite, because the walls are magickally warded, so we can't get in."
Eye Spy: "If you can't get in, how can you be sure that it's Ehran's suite?"
Dent: "It's the only room in the living areas that they bothered to put a ward around."
 
Eye Spy's drones were able to contribute to the scouting, since a massive skylight allowed her to see into the indoor gardens that filled one third of the building.
 
Dent: "I thought YET was trying to refute elven stereotypes."
 
Dent and Jane had no difficulty getting into YET's building, sneaking through the indoor garden, slipping upstairs, and getting into Ehran's quarters.
 
Dent: (whispered over the radio link) "This is like taking candy from a baby."
Byte Force: "Obviously you've never tried to take candy from a baby. They may not put up a fight, but they make a big fuss."
 
Byte Force's run through YET's system went smoothly, which was suprising, given that it was created and populated by a group of deckers. After finding the backdoor passcode to Dassurn, Byte Force began his run into Dassurn's system ... while still plugged in to the dataport in Ehran's suite.
 
Even on a smooth run, things can get complicated in a hurry.
 
Eye Spy: "A group of people just pulled up on motorcycles outside the building. There's ten of them."
Audacity Jane: "Are they coming into the building?"
Eye Spy: "They're parking and getting off their motorcycles. They're moderately armed ... submachine guns." (long pause) "Make that heavily armed. One has a rocket launcher!"
 
Audacity Jane: "Is Byte Force still doing his run?"
Eye Spy: "Yes."
Audacity Jane: "Drek. He probably doesn't even know he needs to hurry." (pause) "Jack, as soon as Byte Force is done with the run, we may need a diversion to get out of here."
Happy Jack: "Okay."
[bOOOOM]
The building shook. Plaster cracked and dust fell from the walls and ceiling.
Audacity Jane: "That's too soon!"
Dent: "We're not ready to go yet!"
Happy Jack: "That wasn't me."
Eye Spy: "The guy with the rocket launcher blew a hole in the front of the building." (pause) "And they just ran in through the hole."
 
Happy Jack had been sitting in an alley across the street, disguised as a homeless troll. Listening to the shooting and shouting coming from YET's building, he picked up an important detail.
 
Happy Jack: "They're the Association Para-Noblis. Those elf posers who kill real elves for not being elven enough."
No-Step: "I was hoping we had ruined them."
Happy Jack: "Well ... there are only ten of them left."
 
Deep inside Dassurn's network, Byte Force triggered Mr. Johnson's program, which immediately began draining all of Dassurn's liquid assets. After watching a moment in awe, Byte Force raced over to a nearby Trace and Report security program.
Byte Force: (slapping the Trace and Report program with his avatar's tail) "Wakey, wakey!"
 
Byte Force: (jacking out of the matrix) "Mission accomplished. Grab my antenna and sneak back out. Don't forget to lock Ehran's door behind you."
Audacity Jane: "We'd love to do just that, but the exit is blocked. Most of the elves and trolls are covering the garden from the balcony. The rest are covering the stairs. We would have to pass through a raging gun battle."
No-Step: "Can you use smoke or invisibility to get past them?"
Dent: "YET has two elven mages. They'll be able to assence us."
 
And one of the elven mages was making his presence known....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (yelling at the troll street samurai) "Why are you staying up here? Go down and shoot them."
troll street samurai: "That's a stupid tactic."
Lancelot Windtree: "You're too stupid for tactics. That's why we hired you."
Audacity Jane: (quietly to Dent) "I forsee a 'friendly fire' episode in that elf's future."
 
The exit may have been blocked, but there were other options....
 
Audacity Jane: "I have detcord. I'll just make a new exit."
Happy Jack: "Don't. If you make an exit, they will know you were inside. I'll make the exit from out here."
No-Step: "They will still know we were here if you blow a hole in the building."
Happy Jack: "The APN posers already blew one hole in the building. Who is going to assume that somebody else made the second hole?"
 
Jack blew a hole into the room across the hall from Ehran's. After Dent and Jane climbed down out of the hole and ran for cover, Dent couldn't stop giggling.
 
Audacity Jane: "I think he's suffering from hysteria."
No-Step: "I'll slap him out of it."
Audacity Jane: "We can take turns."
Eye Spy: "What about the APN? Are we just going to leave them?"
Dent: (still giggling) "I already took care of them."
Everyone stared at Dent.
Dent: "Before I left the building, I gave one final order to the hearth spirit. I told him to wait one minute, then use his Accident power on them."
Eye Spy: "I hope its a really serious accident."
[bOOOM]
No-Step: "I'm guessing it was ... because I've never seen a 'minor' accident involving a rocket launcher."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters:
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
Are They Framed YET
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to do a run against the Young Elven Technologists to frame them for a crime nearly identical to the ones they had been getting away with. In order to perfect the frame, the decking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Planning the mission....
 
Happy Jack: "This mission has the best chance of succeeding if we can get in and out without them even knowing we were there."
Audacity Jane: "So we wait until tomorrow night."
Byte Force: "No. We should do it this morning, between 5am and 7am. I don't know any deckers that get up that early." (pause) "Though I do know a few who stay up that late."
 
Dent: (to Byte Force) "I keep telling you, you need to become a combat decker. Learn some infiltration skills."
Byte Force: "Why would I waste my time learning those?"
Dent: "For jobs like these. We have to sneak you inside YET's building so you can do the run from there."
Byte Force: "I found it more useful to invent this little device." (holds up his 'device') "You can sneak into their building, plug it into a dataport, and it will look like that's where my cyberdeck is located."
Audacity Jane: "What is it?"
Byte Force: "It's a complex invention known as 'an antenna'."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can get us in through the back door."
Happy Jack: "Don't go in there. Use the front door instead."
Audacity Jane: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "The back door is in the kitchen. You'll run into anyone who has the munchies."
Dent: "Not everyone eats like you do, Jack."
Happy Jack: "Okay. I'll revise that. You'll run into one of the troll street samurai who has the munchies."
Audacity Jane: "I'll get us in through the front door."
 
Dent and No-Step did thorough astral reconnaisance of YET's building.
 
No-Step: "... and we weren't able to learn the layout of Ehran's suite, because the walls are magickally warded, so we can't get in."
Eye Spy: "If you can't get in, how can you be sure that it's Ehran's suite?"
Dent: "It's the only room in the living areas that they bothered to put a ward around."
 
Eye Spy's drones were able to contribute to the scouting, since a massive skylight allowed her to see into the indoor gardens that filled one third of the building.
 
Dent: "I thought YET was trying to refute elven stereotypes."
 
Dent and Jane had no difficulty getting into YET's building, sneaking through the indoor garden, slipping upstairs, and getting into Ehran's quarters.
 
Dent: (whispered over the radio link) "This is like taking candy from a baby."
Byte Force: "Obviously you've never tried to take candy from a baby. They may not put up a fight, but they make a big fuss."
 
Byte Force's run through YET's system went smoothly, which was suprising, given that it was created and populated by a group of deckers. After finding the backdoor passcode to Dassurn, Byte Force began his run into Dassurn's system ... while still plugged in to the dataport in Ehran's suite.
 
Even on a smooth run, things can get complicated in a hurry.
 
Eye Spy: "A group of people just pulled up on motorcycles outside the building. There's ten of them."
Audacity Jane: "Are they coming into the building?"
Eye Spy: "They're parking and getting off their motorcycles. They're moderately armed ... submachine guns." (long pause) "Make that heavily armed. One has a rocket launcher!"
 
Audacity Jane: "Is Byte Force still doing his run?"
Eye Spy: "Yes."
Audacity Jane: "Drek. He probably doesn't even know he needs to hurry." (pause) "Jack, as soon as Byte Force is done with the run, we may need a diversion to get out of here."
Happy Jack: "Okay."
[bOOOOM]
The building shook. Plaster cracked and dust fell from the walls and ceiling.
Audacity Jane: "That's too soon!"
Dent: "We're not ready to go yet!"
Happy Jack: "That wasn't me."
Eye Spy: "The guy with the rocket launcher blew a hole in the front of the building." (pause) "And they just ran in through the hole."
 
Happy Jack had been sitting in an alley across the street, disguised as a homeless troll. Listening to the shooting and shouting coming from YET's building, he picked up an important detail.
 
Happy Jack: "They're the Association Para-Noblis. Those elf posers who kill real elves for not being elven enough."
No-Step: "I was hoping we had ruined them."
Happy Jack: "Well ... there are only ten of them left."
 
Deep inside Dassurn's network, Byte Force triggered Mr. Johnson's program, which immediately began draining all of Dassurn's liquid assets. After watching a moment in awe, Byte Force raced over to a nearby Trace and Report security program.
Byte Force: (slapping the Trace and Report program with his avatar's tail) "Wakey, wakey!"
 
Byte Force: (jacking out of the matrix) "Mission accomplished. Grab my antenna and sneak back out. Don't forget to lock Ehran's door behind you."
Audacity Jane: "We'd love to do just that, but the exit is blocked. Most of the elves and trolls are covering the garden from the balcony. The rest are covering the stairs. We would have to pass through a raging gun battle."
No-Step: "Can you use smoke or invisibility to get past them?"
Dent: "YET has two elven mages. They'll be able to assence us."
 
And one of the elven mages was making his presence known....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (yelling at the troll street samurai) "Why are you staying up here? Go down and shoot them."
troll street samurai: "That's a stupid tactic."
Lancelot Windtree: "You're too stupid for tactics. That's why we hired you."
Audacity Jane: (quietly to Dent) "I forsee a 'friendly fire' episode in that elf's future."
 
The exit may have been blocked, but there were other options....
 
Audacity Jane: "I have detcord. I'll just make a new exit."
Happy Jack: "Don't. If you make an exit, they will know you were inside. I'll make the exit from out here."
No-Step: "They will still know we were here if you blow a hole in the building."
Happy Jack: "The APN posers already blew one hole in the building. Who is going to assume that somebody else made the second hole?"
 
Jack blew a hole into the room across the hall from Ehran's. After Dent and Jane climbed down out of the hole and ran for cover, Dent couldn't stop giggling.
 
Audacity Jane: "I think he's suffering from hysteria."
No-Step: "I'll slap him out of it."
Audacity Jane: "We can take turns."
Eye Spy: "What about the APN? Are we just going to leave them?"
Dent: (still giggling) "I already took care of them."
Everyone stared at Dent.
Dent: "Before I left the building, I gave one final order to the hearth spirit. I told him to wait one minute, then use his Accident power on them."
Eye Spy: "I hope its a really serious accident."
[bOOOM]
No-Step: "I'm guessing it was ... because I've never seen a 'minor' accident involving a rocket launcher."

And the other Shadowrun 2070 game, where an alternate version of Ripper and an entirely different team of runners are still slogging through the mysterious music disc adventure, and trying to find out just how trouble they're in, and is there any other way we can make a profit on this job?

Ryleigh: 'For Enlightenment, Seek out Absent Friends...' Absent Friends... like dead people... something buried in a cemetary instead of a body?
Dr. Rubicante: Maybe we have to trap a ghost.
Shirley Temple: Ghosts are just free anscestor spirits
Ryleigh: I'm no ghosthunter.
Dr. Rubicante: Not my expertise anyway.
Ripper K: McCartney is actually dead - it's obvious

Dr. Rubicante: The only musical knowledge I have are of smash hits from the early 2000s and Harry Potter movie OSTs.

At least searching the web helps, even if Ares Macrotech bought out Google years ago.

Dr. Rubicante: I'm going to walk around while Aresearching "Jet Black and the Shadows". I'm somewhat thrilled that in 50 years, 'googling' is still as effective as ever.

It occurs to Ripper that this whole mystery may be a scheme whereby the vanished JetBlack can be tracked down by his former bandmates. The misogynistic elf in the party suggests we question the woman who won the auction, and that Ripper impersonated at the disastrous hand-off.

Dr. Rubicante: If all else fails, rut what we need out of her. Women love being overpowered by men with big dicks. Excepting lesbians, of course.
Ryleigh: That's what I call a stereotype.
Dr. Rubicante: Have you ever been with a woman?
Ryleigh: No.
Dr. Rubicante: That is exactly how my wife was.
Ripper K: That's why she divorced you then?
Dr. Rubicante: She's dead.
Ripper K: huh. You must have been cuckolded by somebody REALLY hung then.

Who was that woman, anyway? One of JetBlack's former coworkers?

GM: Corp decker. Ties to music collectors and industry. Looks like she was just the highest bidder. You'll be nice enough to return the hundreds of thousands of nuyen she paid for the disc since you had access to Loomis' commlink, and thus the other end of that transaction, won't you?
Ripper K: hundreds of THOUSANDS????
Ryleigh: Jacking Nuyen only seems advisable if it can't be traced back to our wallets.
Ripper K: We could freaking retire
Dr. Rubicante: Not me... a drop in the bucket.
Ripper K: Ok, does anybody alive actually know we were there?
Dr. Rubicante: Dooooes anyone have a proxy wallet we can use?
GM: Be nice, I'd like to not have the runners find a way to retire before the end of the first adventure
Ripper K: Um... she did get a glimpse of my face...
Ryleigh: You know.. I'd think she'd be suspicous if she wakes up to find a misfit group working together and guesses at our occupation.
Ripper K: and with that much at stake she could probably hire her own team to hunt me down...
Dr. Rubicante: I could use some good karma.
Ripper K: maybe there's a finder's fee for keeping her alive?
Ryleigh: if Ripper wasn't our Face... I'd suggest him playing dead while someone interrogates her.
Shirley Temple: Ransoming corp citizens in most corporate zones is an immediate death sentence
Dr. Rubicante: There had better be. Not only did you 'save' her, we're returning her cash... We can always donate it all to charity.
Ripper K: snerk
Ryleigh: All we do need is money laundry. Using a 'charity' isn't a bad idea...
Dr. Rubicante: Donating the money gives us karma, right? 8D
Shirley Temple: "...we see you used the corporate black ops fund to donate to a.........aging and retired big dicked porno stars fund......care to explain?"
Dr. Rubicante: "We're trying to cure gingers."
Ryleigh: Let's buy a carwash....
GM: Returning it would get you more, since, y'know, not ruining a woman's life
Dr. Rubicante: Well, let's not ruin the poor woman's life, I guess.
Shirley Temple: hmm, default on our current johnson for a finders fee from the elf lady. hard choices
Ryleigh: Since she's seen Ripper's face and we don't want her after him... maybe we should convince her he's dead and someone pretends he found her unconscious
Shirley Temple: the doorman saw the orca.
Dr. Rubicante: The doorman's still alive, right? I forget. People exploded.
GM: yes, the doorman saw EVERYONE.
Dr. Rubicante: Did he like my outfit?
GM: *sigh*

Ripper K: I suppose I could go wait for her to wake up, and catch her as she tries to flee town ahead of the corp assassins

Perhaps we should go question JetBlack's surviving bandmates, including one Marli? But the graveyard first - it's the appropriate time of night, and an opportunity to needle Rubicante.

Ripper K: Seems like a good idea - Marli must be nearly your age by now, Vell - eldsters need their sleep. And when we go by the graveyard we can visit all your friends.

Ripper K: This is a very badly laid out cemetery
Dr. Rubicante: Pretty though.
Ripper K: Unless the earthquakes shuffled all the headstones around?
Dr. Rubicante: Pretty spooky.
Ripper K: Good thing we don't live in San Francisco, or we'd have to drive out to Colma
Ryleigh: JB supposedly was someone famous... so the memorial stone should be fancy and easily visible.
Dr. Rubicante: Those aren't headstones. Those are each a single, flesh-eating animal.

Ripper K examines the nearest headstone.

Ripper K: 'Not Dead, Merely Sleeping' You're not fooling anybody, lady
Ryleigh: "Here lies Johnny Yeast. Pardon me for not rising."
Hogfather: "Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a 44, no Les, no more."


Ripper: Wow, it needed a six-foot plot? I suddenly feel inadequate

Dr. Rubicante: "Here lies Verne Anchors, who died as he was born; crying and covered in his mother's blood."

GM: It's just a cemetary, dude.
Ripper K: *starts ticking off his fingers * vampires, ghosts, ghouls -
Dr. Rubicante: WHAR
Ripper K: behind you!
Shirley Temple: Shush cetacean beefcake, you'll bring us bad luck
GM: BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS naw, i'm kidding.
Shirley Temple: No brains here, just a bunch of frat members partying in a graveyard on a drunken dare
Hogfather: So, they really keep dead bodies here? Isn't that... just an invitation for grave robbers?

The JetBlack Memorial reads, “The stars shine brightest onthe blackest of nights.” It is also covered with flowers, mementos, and notes from admirers, even twenty-two years later. Considerable time is wasted searching the memorial for clues.

Shirley Temple: You, Spirit, check underneath and report back the content
Hogfather: Much better than digging it up
GM: Watcher Spirit comes back seconds later. "Lots of Dirt, Miss!" *poof*
Ripper K: hmm
Dr. Rubicante: "Klaatu... verata... nikto."
Ripper K: Anybody know what the Dwarvish for Friend is?

Eventually the GM admits the entire graveyard scene was a waste of time, and distraction.

Hogfather: OF COURSE! The graveyard was a giant aquarium, it all makes sense now.

D&D continues, with a trip back to town to find out more about the political angles of the situation, before we head off to meet a druid for info on the land surrounding King Gurnt's stronghold. These sessions tend to be shorter than the others, mostly because they come at the end of particularly exhausting six-day weeks, including overtime. I must be insane.

Urlon: We really need a Wand of Cure Light Wounds
Kavorog: 'Cleric in a Can'

We do stop by that dragon's lair for a chat - befriending it now might pay off later.

GM: You're an elf – you can live long enough to ride the dragon into battle one day. And you're a gnome, you might live long enough... to grow up.

Directions to certain dubious businesses in town.

Lamech: Just across the road from the Teamster's Union. And that new bridge.

Urlon: We think they've been kidnapped by the goblin king.
Dwarf: What, David Bowie?

Lamech: I hear the other dragonborn got exiled for something he did to a kobold.
Ryck: Why would he get kicked out of town for that?
Lamech: It's more what he DID with the kobold.
Urlon: We should have made Kavorog tell us why he got kicked out of town.
Lamech: Eh - If we sit around telling everybody everything we've done we'll be here all week.

GM: You have a name for your adventuring company yet?
Lamech: 'The Bastards of Carnage'

A warning sign at the deserted village where the druid hangs out – beware of plant monsters, and zombies.

All: …....
Lamech: Well, at least somebody hung around long enough to actually put up the sign.

We are indeed attacked by plant monsters - how to respond?

GM: You could put it in a pot and teach it to dance

GM: That would be the unluckiest monster in the game. 'We're being attacked by a giant marijuana golem' 'Cool man'

Lamech uses Shatter on the twig creature hordes.

Lamech: Matchsticks

GM: Say it with flowers – give her a triffid.

But since the explosion will have roused anything in the village, we flee to the nearest building to take advantage of the narrow access. And discover the zombies are in the buildings.

Lamech: I thought the undead were supposed to be outside the building trying to get in!

After the ensuing carnage and bastardry, the druid turns up in the doorway - unwise given we're still buzzing with adrenaline.

Lamech: He's lucky he didn't get shot in the face, frankly.

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Urlan Manes (NPC): President/CEO of Global Technologies; hired the team to recover stolen goods
Roxanne Wunter (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's liaison to the team
Thomas Martelli (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
 
Dreamchipper - Fixing the Meeting
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had recovered all three chips about 30 hours before the deadline. A decision was made to wait another 12 hours before giving Urlan Manes and Roxanne Wunter the good news.
 
Dent: "Why are we waiting? Is this going to give us some negotiating leverage?"
No-Step: "No. We're going to have to run some kind of op to ensure that Martelli wins. I'd prefer to get a full eight hours of sleep before that happens."
 
Once rested, the team met to brainstorm a way to turn the tables on Urlan and Roxanne.
 
No-Step: "We'll need to come up with something exceptionally subtle. Otherwise Urlan and Roxanne will suspect that we were behind it."
Audacity Jane: "Why would we have to be subtle? After Roxanne leaves her meeting with Jack, we grab her and hold her until after the meeting. Urlan will be missing his chips again, and he'll be missing one of his VPs."
No-Step: "And who besides us will know about the meeting?"
Happy Jack: "Martelli found out about the other meeting. He's the person who will benefit most. He'll be the main suspect. He'll have plausible deniability, but they will suspect that he is behind it. And to a certain extent, they will be right."
Eye Spy: "But everyone knows that Jonathan Bridges works with a bunch of orks."
Byte Force: "Urlan and Roxanne might not. They've never met any of us."
Happy Jack: "Jonathan Bridges' team is made of orks and trolls. Guess who works with a team of just orks? Martelli."
 
Byte Force: "Martelli could be the weak link. He's met you before. If you negotiate with him, he could put two and two together."
Happy Jack: "I won't be negotiating with him. While I'm meeting with Roxanne, one of you will contact Martelli." (pause) "No-Step has the skills to pull it off. And if Martelli refuses to take his call, No-Step can just project astrally."
Audacity Jane: "No-Step doesn't lie nearly as well as you do."
Happy Jack: "But he likes to sell win-win solutions. And that's exactly what we're doing with Martelli."
No-Step: "What should I do if Martelli flat-out refuses to reach a deal?"
Happy Jack: "Then he loses to Urlan. Stupidity is its own reward."
 
Surprisingly, Urlan and Roxanne wanted to wait until early Friday morning, hours before the shareholders' meeting, to collect the dreamchips. As before, they both attended and they both arrived early. They also brought an extra attendee.
 
Dent: "Their guest looks like a techie, but he has two bodyguards that look like retired military."
Eye Spy: "And there's a military vehicle parked a block away, with 8 more people in it. I think it's a trap."
Happy Jack: "I think it's their buyer. The army is supposed to be buying these things. Those bodyguards are probably active soldiers at Fort Lewis. The techie is probably an officer or a specialist."
Audacity Jane: "So, do we have to take on a squad of soldiers to get the chips back?"
No-Step: "Why would we? If we abduct Urlan and Roxanne, they can't announce to the shareholders that they saved their pet project."
 
Just before Jonathan Bridges went into the meeting...
 
Jonathan Bridges: "No-Step, I have one piece of advice for your negotiation."
No-Step: "And what might that be?"
Jonathan Bridges: "You like to beat around the bush when you negotiate. Martelli is blunt."
No-Step: "So what course of action would you advise?"
Jonathan Bridges: "At the beginning, be blunt enough to get his attention. Then you can beat around the bush all you want."
 
No-Step: "And I have one piece of advice for your meeting."
Jonathan Bridges: "What's that?"
No-Step: "You're going in without back-up this time. Try not to get killed."
 
As Jonathan Bridges entered the back bar...
 
Roxanne's bodyguard: "I see that you're still traveling with invisible bodyguards."
Jonathan Bridges: "There are two generally accepted strategies for bodyguards. One is to have obvious bodyguards. The better strategy is to have obvious bodyguards for show, and inconspicuous bodyguards to provide the real protection."
Roxanne's bodyguard: "And you think it's even better to do without the obvious bodyguards entirely?"
Jonathan Bridges: "No. I am my obvious bodyguard."
 
And No-Step made his call to Martelli's private phone number....
 
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you and what do you want?"
No-Step: "You are about to lose control of your daddy's company ... again."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "WHAT !!"
Audacity Jane: (under her breath to Dent) "Yep. That was blunt enough."
No-Step: "Do I have your undivided attention? Splendid. Mr. Urlan Manes has recovered his stolen property. I'm sure he is looking forward to announcing that to the shareholders in a few hours."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm in a position to make Mr. Manes and Ms. Wunter late to the meeting. Very late. Days late. And I can also ensure Tee Hee gets delivered to you, rather than them. Does that interest you?"
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "And what's in it for you?"
No-Step: "Coincidentally, that was going to be my question to you. What is in it for me?"
 
The team planned to capture Urlan and Roxanne when they reached their helicopter. The first step, while they were still in the meeting, was to capture the helicopter pilot.
 
No-Step: "This is going to be complicated. That helicopter is heavily armored. In this neighborhood, the pilot is sure to keep the doors locked. And if he sees trouble, all he has to do is get on the radio before we're able to stop him."
Dent: "I bet you 5,000 nuyen that I can get the pilot out the helicopter without him warning the others. I don't even need any help from any of you."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not going to let you blow this mission just so you can flex your ego."
Dent: (whispering his plan to Jane) "I'll cast silence so he can't say anything over the radio. Then I'll have my city spirit materialize inside the helicopter and use its Fear power."
Audacity Jane: (to No-Step) "I'll bet you 10,000 nuyen that Dent can do it."
Unsurprisingly, No-Step declined to take the bet.
 
No-Step disguised Eye Spy as the pilot, so Urlan and Roxanne's bodyguards wouldn't realize anything was wrong when they returned to the helicopter.
 
Dent: "Where is the best place for us to hide for the ambush?"
Audacity Jane: "I'm going to hide inside the helicopter. It's the one place in this neighborhood that the bodyguards will consider 'safe', so they won't be prepared to defend against an attack from that direction."
 
No-Step used his city spirit's Concealment power to hide Jane inside the helicopter. Nobody realized she was there until Roxanne and Urlan had boarded the helicopter ... and Jane had shot them with narcojet darts.
 
Audacity Jane: (to the bodyguards) "Hi there. I'm using your boss as a human shield."
 
Eye Spy forced the bodyguards' hand by taking the helicopter up into a hover 5 meters over the tarmac. The bodyguards had to jump and climb to try to get into the 'escaping' helicopter.
 
Audacity Jane: (seeing a bodyguard struggling to hold his gun, climb into the helicopter, and shoot simultaneously) "Let me guess ... your training didn't cover this?"
 
Dent wanted to steal the helicopter, which led to a disagreement.
 
Dent: "We could sell it for at least another 100,000 nuyen."
Eye Spy: "It's too easy to track, especially in a city."
Audacity Jane: "And we don't steal from our current employer."
Dent: "Urlan is our ex-employer. He's fair game."
Audacity Jane: "The helicopter belongs to Global, not Urlan. Martelli is our current employer, and in a few hours, he should control Global."
 
Eye Spy programmed the autopilot to fly the helicopter (and the unconscious pilot and bodyguards) back to Global.
 
No-Step: "They're going to have an interesting afternoon of debriefings."
Eye Spy: "It could be worse. They could be dead."
Happy Jack: "Spoken like someone who has never experienced a corporate 'debriefing'."
 
No-Step met with Martelli at the docks to hand over Tee Hee and get paid.
 
No-Step: (manifesting out of the Astral to where he could be seen and heard) "Good evening, Mr. Martelli. Congratulations on your coup at the shareholders meeting."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Cut the drek. Where is my decker?"
Audacity Jane stepped out of the shadows and opened the doors of one of the containers, revealing Tee Hee.
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Nice ... but I'm thinking we should renegotiate our deal."
No-Step: "We completed our portion in full."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "You're going to turn Urlan and Roxanne over directly to me. For that, you get half of the remaining fee. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping me from killing your razor and taking what I want."
No-Step: "Actually, there are several things preventing you from doing that."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Like what?"
No-Step: "First, Tee Hee's belt is made of detcord. If you try to avoid paying, you will no longer be playing with a full decker."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
No-Step: "Second, there are three heavy weapons aimed at you and your compatriots."
Audacity Jane: "I'm sure you're bullet-proof, but we don't particularly care."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
Audacity Jane: "And third, I'm wearing a heart monitor that's linked to a dead-man switch. If I die, you boys get to find out where I hid the fuel-air explosive."
No-Step: "The rest of our precautions will remain a surprise."
Audacity Jane: "A girl's got to have her secrets."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: (bursting out laughing) "I like you. We have to do business again sometime."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Sandii (NPC): a fixer who put the team in touch with Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the ubiquitous alias used by/for people hiring shadowrunners
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
YET Another Party
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
According to Sandii, Mr. Johnson wanted to meet at a Young Elven Technologists party. One drawback of being an ork/troll team ... it's hard to pass for elves.
 
A little research led to the discovery that YET's party was intended to allow them to meet and recruit elven deckers. Due to recent threats, however, they had hired additional, heavily-armed security.
 
Byte Force: (laughing) "You won't believe who YET hired for security." (pause) "Troll street samurai."
 
Astral reconnaissance showed one elven mage at the party. He didn't appear to be magickal security, since he was doing nothing to actually make the building more secure. On the other hand, he didn't appear to be a guest, because he looked like he would rather be anywhere else....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (to street samurai Jack) "Get out of my way, you oaf!"
street samurai Jack: (looking confused) "No .... I troll. You elf."
Lancelot Windtree: "I said oaf, not elf."
street samurai Jack: (looking more confused) "What is elf-not-elf?"
 
Surprisingly, Mr. Johnson was able to recognize Happy Jack, despite his disguise.
 
Mr. Johnson: (quietly to street samurai Jack) "Hello. I'm Mr. Johnson."
street samuria Jack: (quietly) "Let's go somewhere more private."
Jack grabbed Mr. Johnson by the shoulder and walked him out the back door.
street samuria Jack: (loudly) "I think you had too much to drink. You need to go outside and sober up."
 
Outside....
 
Mr. Johnson: "The Young Elven Technologists have committed a number of atrocities that have gone unpunished. It is up to you to correct this."
street samurai Jack: "Are you asking us to punish them proportional to their crimes, or are you asking us to commit atrocities on them that are greater than the ones they've committed on others?"
Mr. Johnson: (sounding genuinely curious) "Does the latter bother you?"
street samurai Jack: "Balanced justice is a very tricky and subjective thing. Excess is far easier to manage." (long pause) "And since we intend to go unpunished for whatever activities we commit on your behalf, we'd prefer to avoid having you hire a team to 'correct' that later."
 
YET did computer programming for other companies, and had used that privileged position to install backdoors into a number of computer systems. It then used those backdoors to siphon funds from its ex-clients.
 
Audacity Jane (ooc): That's his idea of an atrocity?
 
Mr. Johnson had a very specific idea of how to get justice.
Hack into YET's network and steal the backdoors.
Leave a copy of the backdoor passcodes, and another document, in the suite of Ehran the Scribe ... located inside YET's building.
Use another copy of the backdoor passcodes to enter the system of Dassurn Securities, one of YET's clients.
Unleash a piece of software inside Dassurn's network.
 
The kicker ... the run had to be completed by the following night, because that would leave YET no time to fix things before Dassurn audited its books the following morning.
 
The bigger kicker ... all of the hacking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Mr. Johnson: "All paths must lead directly to the Young Elven Technologists' doorstep ... especially if things go sour."
street samurai Jack: "If you want paths leading to their door, we'll make a point to blaze a few."
 
Since the party was being held in the same building where the run would occur, Jack decided to return and do some scouting. That plan was revised when the team noticed a disturbance by the front door.
 
elf who looked exactly like Mr. Johnson: "But I tell you, I am Lee Corbin!"
Happy Jack: (over the radio link as he walked away) "It looks like Mr. Johnson pulled one of our tricks. He came looking like someone else."
No-Step: "I assensed him. His aura was mundane, and there were no spells on him. Did he do that with makeup?"
Happy Jack: "It would be extremely difficult. Maybe impossible. He was a very distinctive looking elf."
Dent: "I think we just got hired by an initiate. They can mask their auras. But why would an initiate that powerful need us for a run?"
Byte Force: "He needs a decker." (pause) "Some problems can't be solved by magic."
Dent: "They can if you use enough of it."
 
The envelope that the team was going to leave in Ehran's suite was of particular interest.
 
Byte Force: "The last time we left an envelope behind, it was a page of Ehran's book in the lap of a dead elf-poser. This can't be a coincidence."
No-Step: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
 
The envelope was sealed with wax.
 
No-Step: "This is an old-school way to know if someone was reading your mail. If the wax seal is broken, you know that someone read the mail."
Eye Spy: "So we can't look at it without someone noticing?"
No-Step: "There's an old school ways to bypass it. Use an extremely thin, heated wire to separate the wax from the paper. When you're done, reheat the back of the wax seal until it starts to melt and stick it back on the paper. Monomolecular wire should be perfect."
Byte Force: "I didn't realize monomolecular wire was 'old school'."
 
No-Step: "Wear gloves when you handle the letter."
Audacity Jane: "Fingerprints."
No-Step: "That too. But mostly because contact poison is another 'old school' technique."
 
Byte Force: "There's no poison on the page in the envelope, but I've seen it before." (pause) "It's from that book we stole from the troll Baron in Germany."
Audacity Jane: "We left a metal attache case there."
Dent: "Three times. That's enemy action."
Happy Jack: "@#$%! We didn't try to conceal our appearance for that German mission. And we were under heavy surveillance.  Someone could tie all these jobs to us."
Eye Spy: "Great. Mr. Johnson is going to get us killed." (pause) "I suppose there's a bright side. We have a repeat customer."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Sandii (NPC): a fixer who put the team in touch with Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the ubiquitous alias used by/for people hiring shadowrunners
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
YET Another Party
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
According to Sandii, Mr. Johnson wanted to meet at a Young Elven Technologists party. One drawback of being an ork/troll team ... it's hard to pass for elves.
 
A little research led to the discovery that YET's party was intended to allow them to meet and recruit elven deckers. Due to recent threats, however, they had hired additional, heavily-armed security.
 
Byte Force: (laughing) "You won't believe who YET hired for security." (pause) "Troll street samurai."
 
Astral reconnaissance showed one elven mage at the party. He didn't appear to be magickal security, since he was doing nothing to actually make the building more secure. On the other hand, he didn't appear to be a guest, because he looked like he would rather be anywhere else....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (to street samurai Jack) "Get out of my way, you oaf!"
street samurai Jack: (looking confused) "No .... I troll. You elf."
Lancelot Windtree: "I said oaf, not elf."
street samurai Jack: (looking more confused) "What is elf-not-elf?"
 
Surprisingly, Mr. Johnson was able to recognize Happy Jack, despite his disguise.
 
Mr. Johnson: (quietly to street samurai Jack) "Hello. I'm Mr. Johnson."
street samuria Jack: (quietly) "Let's go somewhere more private."
Jack grabbed Mr. Johnson by the shoulder and walked him out the back door.
street samuria Jack: (loudly) "I think you had too much to drink. You need to go outside and sober up."
 
Outside....
 
Mr. Johnson: "The Young Elven Technologists have committed a number of atrocities that have gone unpunished. It is up to you to correct this."
street samurai Jack: "Are you asking us to punish them proportional to their crimes, or are you asking us to commit atrocities on them that are greater than the ones they've committed on others?"
Mr. Johnson: (sounding genuinely curious) "Does the latter bother you?"
street samurai Jack: "Balanced justice is a very tricky and subjective thing. Excess is far easier to manage." (long pause) "And since we intend to go unpunished for whatever activities we commit on your behalf, we'd prefer to avoid having you hire a team to 'correct' that later."
 
YET did computer programming for other companies, and had used that privileged position to install backdoors into a number of computer systems. It then used those backdoors to siphon funds from its ex-clients.
 
Audacity Jane (ooc): That's his idea of an atrocity?
 
Mr. Johnson had a very specific idea of how to get justice.
Hack into YET's network and steal the backdoors.
Leave a copy of the backdoor passcodes, and another document, in the suite of Ehran the Scribe ... located inside YET's building.
Use another copy of the backdoor passcodes to enter the system of Dassurn Securities, one of YET's clients.
Unleash a piece of software inside Dassurn's network.
 
The kicker ... the run had to be completed by the following night, because that would leave YET no time to fix things before Dassurn audited its books the following morning.
 
The bigger kicker ... all of the hacking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Mr. Johnson: "All paths must lead directly to the Young Elven Technologists' doorstep ... especially if things go sour."
street samurai Jack: "If you want paths leading to their door, we'll make a point to blaze a few."
 
Since the party was being held in the same building where the run would occur, Jack decided to return and do some scouting. That plan was revised when the team noticed a disturbance by the front door.
 
elf who looked exactly like Mr. Johnson: "But I tell you, I am Lee Corbin!"
Happy Jack: (over the radio link as he walked away) "It looks like Mr. Johnson pulled one of our tricks. He came looking like someone else."
No-Step: "I assensed him. His aura was mundane, and there were no spells on him. Did he do that with makeup?"
Happy Jack: "It would be extremely difficult. Maybe impossible. He was a very distinctive looking elf."
Dent: "I think we just got hired by an initiate. They can mask their auras. But why would an initiate that powerful need us for a run?"
Byte Force: "He needs a decker." (pause) "Some problems can't be solved by magic."
Dent: "They can if you use enough of it."
 
The envelope that the team was going to leave in Ehran's suite was of particular interest.
 
Byte Force: "The last time we left an envelope behind, it was a page of Ehran's book in the lap of a dead elf-poser. This can't be a coincidence."
No-Step: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
 
The envelope was sealed with wax.
 
No-Step: "This is an old-school way to know if someone was reading your mail. If the wax seal is broken, you know that someone read the mail."
Eye Spy: "So we can't look at it without someone noticing?"
No-Step: "There's an old school ways to bypass it. Use an extremely thin, heated wire to separate the wax from the paper. When you're done, reheat the back of the wax seal until it starts to melt and stick it back on the paper. Monomolecular wire should be perfect."
Byte Force: "I didn't realize monomolecular wire was 'old school'."
 
No-Step: "Wear gloves when you handle the letter."
Audacity Jane: "Fingerprints."
No-Step: "That too. But mostly because contact poison is another 'old school' technique."
 
Byte Force: "There's no poison on the page in the envelope, but I've seen it before." (pause) "It's from that book we stole from the troll Baron in Germany."
Audacity Jane: "We left a metal attache case there."
Dent: "Three times. That's enemy action."
Happy Jack: "@#$%! We didn't try to conceal our appearance for that German mission. And we were under heavy surveillance.  Someone could tie all these jobs to us."
Eye Spy: "Great. Mr. Johnson is going to get us killed." (pause) "I suppose there's a bright side. We have a repeat customer."