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
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
"Face" Cooperman (NPC): a fixer; probably using the Genghis Khan dreamchip
 
Dreamchipper - Kick the Khan
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had determined who was in possession of the dreamchips ... but finding them and recovering them was a more difficult task.
 
Since Jonathan Bridges and Cooperman were both fixers, it wouldn't seem too suspicious if Jonathan tried to meet Cooperman for a business deal.
 
No-Step: "Were you able to arrange a meeting with Cooperman?"
Jonathan Bridges: "According to the people I spoke with, Cooperman stopped returning calls a few weeks ago."
No-Step: "So that's a dead end."
Jonathan Bridges: "I wouldn't say that. Apparently he's quite the medieval history buff."
No-Step: "He's using the chip, not selling it."
Jonathan Bridges: "And he's the primary fixer for the Blood Rumblers go-gang." (pause) "I may not be able to reach Cooperman, but I bet we can find Genghis Khan's new horde."
 
Byte Force: "Go-gangs are pretty mobile. How do we make a quiet run against a large, well-armed, moving target?"
Eye Spy: "They have to sleep sometime."
No-Step: "It's a large gang. They probably won't all sleep at the same time."
 
Byte Force: "Why don't we 'accidentally' lose a few kegs of beer out of the van when we're near the Blood Rumblers. They'll take advantage of their 'good fortune', and we'll take advantage of their inebriation." (pause) "We can spike it to boost the alcohol content first, and put tracking devices on the kegs."
No-Step: "Don't you think Cooperman will be too suspicious to fall for that?"
Happy Jack: "I don't think Cooperman is running the show. The Genghis Khan chip is."
 
The plan worked ... sort of ...
 
Eye Spy: "Some of the gangers stopped to grab the kegs, but the rest of them are chasing me."
Dent: "They're looking for more beer."
Eye Spy: "I don't have any more!"
 
Once again, the photoelectric paint job saved the day. Eye Spy broke line-of-sight, changed the paint scheme from a food service van to a Shiawase utility van, then put the van into a bootlegger turn so it was driving the opposite direction.
 
Audacity Jane: "As soon as you get past them, break line-of-sight again, then change into Lone Star colors."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Audacity Jane: "If they swing back around, I want to be able to shoot them without seeming out of character."
 
The ruse worked, and the team was able to follow the tracking devices back to where The Blood Rumblers were. Unfortunately, the Blood Rumblers were having a meeting with a larger go-gang, the Red Rovers, and there wasn't enough booze to get them all completely drunk.
 
Dent: (returning to his body after scouting Astrally) "They're forming an alliance. They're working out the details."
Happy Jack: "Negotiations are a delicate thing. If something goes wrong, they could all pull out guns and start shooting."
No-Step: "How do we get to Cooperman without turning this into a bloodbath?"
Byte Force: "Can we spook them into running, then run them into a trap?"
Happy Jack: "It would be easier to get them attacking us, then get them to chase us into a trap."
Dent: "They have too much firepower for any of us to soak up, including you Jack."
No-Step: "If they're shooting at my illusion, the amount of firepower doesn't matter."
Happy Jack: "So they chase your bait down a dark alley. We create chaos, grab Cooperman, then split."
Eye Spy: "Creating chaos ... that's playing to our strengths."
 
No-Step: (decribing the illusion he intended to use) "Two little old ladies, wearing flannel nightgowns, riding on an underpowered motor scooter. The will both be swearing at the go-gang, and the one in back will be shooting at them wildly with an Uzi III."
Eye Spy: "They won't chase that. They'll be falling over laughing."
Audacity Jane: "If you really want to enrage the go-gangers, have your little old ladies shoot at their bikes."
 
Byte Force: "We need to lubricate the pavement and get an 80 motorcycle pile-up."
Dent: "We don't have anywhere near that much lubricant."
Byte Force: "Water is a lubricant. Find a fire hydrant."
 
The team had additional ideas of how to cause a massive accident.
 
Byte Force: "Use flash-paks to blind them."
Audacity Jane: "Use smoke grenades to blind them."
Dent: "Use the city spirits' Accident power."
Happy Jack: "Use a concussion grenade to knock the ones in front off their bikes."
Dent: "Now that's just overkill."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can narcojet Cooperman, but how are we going to get him out of the alley?"
Happy Jack: "You rappel down into the alley, tie a rope around him, and I pull him up to us."
Audacity Jane: "You expect me to drop down into the middle of an alley filled with angry go-gangers?"
Happy Jack: "Drop a tear gas grenade first. That should clear you some elbow room."
Audacity Jane: "You expect me to drop down into the middle of a cloud of tear gas?"
Happy Jack: "Wear a gas mask ... or are you worried that it's going to mess up your hair?"
Audacity Jane gave Happy Jack an icy stare.
Eye Spy: "Jack, you are either the bravest man I have ever met, or you have a deathwish."
Happy Jack: "Jane's not going to kill me. She may need me to pull her up out of the alley."
Audacity Jane: "Do you expect me to forget what you said afterwards?"
Happy Jack: "I'll figure out some other way to be completely indispensable by then."
 
Audacity Jane: "Some of the go-gangers might be able to see through the smoke. Or they might start shooting randomly."
Dent: "We'll have to get them fleeing mindlessly in fear."
Audacity Jane: "Some people respond to fear by going full-auto."
No-Step: "I'll use some watcher spirits to make sure they're doing 'flight' instead of 'fight'."
Byte Force: "Nobody in their right mind is scared of watcher spirits."
No-Step: "In the middle of a cloud of smoke, nobody can see that they're watchers. They're just disembodied voices."
Audacity Jane: "What can they say that's going to terrify go-gangers?"
 
Several minutes later, in the accident filled, smoke filled alley....
 
Watcher spirits: "OH MY GOD !! I smell gas! They're going to burn us alive! RUN !!"
 
As the team was driving away...
 
Dent: "Should I take Cooperman's chip out?"
No-Step: "Wait until Eye Spy can monitor his vitals."
Dent: "Should I hold off on doing Mind Probe?"
No-Step: "Go ahead and do it. Tee Hee said these chips could do brain damage. I'd like a 'before' and 'after' picture."
 
Later, Eye Spy, No-Step and Dent monitored Cooperman as they removed the Genghis Khan chip.
 
Eye Spy: "He's flatlining!"
Dent: (still maintaining the Mind Probe) "He's dead."
No-Step: (casting Treat Deadly Wounds) "He's. Not. Dead. Yet."
Eye Spy: "That was cool."
Byte Force: "Except for the Monty Python quote."
Dent: "Well, he is a snake shaman."
Audacity Jane: (speed-dialing an organ legger) "We've got a fresh one for you ... oh ... wait ... false alarm. Sorry."

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
"Face" Cooperman (NPC): a fixer; probably using the Genghis Khan dreamchip
 
Dreamchipper - Kick the Khan
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had determined who was in possession of the dreamchips ... but finding them and recovering them was a more difficult task.
 
Since Jonathan Bridges and Cooperman were both fixers, it wouldn't seem too suspicious if Jonathan tried to meet Cooperman for a business deal.
 
No-Step: "Were you able to arrange a meeting with Cooperman?"
Jonathan Bridges: "According to the people I spoke with, Cooperman stopped returning calls a few weeks ago."
No-Step: "So that's a dead end."
Jonathan Bridges: "I wouldn't say that. Apparently he's quite the medieval history buff."
No-Step: "He's using the chip, not selling it."
Jonathan Bridges: "And he's the primary fixer for the Blood Rumblers go-gang." (pause) "I may not be able to reach Cooperman, but I bet we can find Genghis Khan's new horde."
 
Byte Force: "Go-gangs are pretty mobile. How do we make a quiet run against a large, well-armed, moving target?"
Eye Spy: "They have to sleep sometime."
No-Step: "It's a large gang. They probably won't all sleep at the same time."
 
Byte Force: "Why don't we 'accidentally' lose a few kegs of beer out of the van when we're near the Blood Rumblers. They'll take advantage of their 'good fortune', and we'll take advantage of their inebriation." (pause) "We can spike it to boost the alcohol content first, and put tracking devices on the kegs."
No-Step: "Don't you think Cooperman will be too suspicious to fall for that?"
Happy Jack: "I don't think Cooperman is running the show. The Genghis Khan chip is."
 
The plan worked ... sort of ...
 
Eye Spy: "Some of the gangers stopped to grab the kegs, but the rest of them are chasing me."
Dent: "They're looking for more beer."
Eye Spy: "I don't have any more!"
 
Once again, the photoelectric paint job saved the day. Eye Spy broke line-of-sight, changed the paint scheme from a food service van to a Shiawase utility van, then put the van into a bootlegger turn so it was driving the opposite direction.
 
Audacity Jane: "As soon as you get past them, break line-of-sight again, then change into Lone Star colors."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Audacity Jane: "If they swing back around, I want to be able to shoot them without seeming out of character."
 
The ruse worked, and the team was able to follow the tracking devices back to where The Blood Rumblers were. Unfortunately, the Blood Rumblers were having a meeting with a larger go-gang, the Red Rovers, and there wasn't enough booze to get them all completely drunk.
 
Dent: (returning to his body after scouting Astrally) "They're forming an alliance. They're working out the details."
Happy Jack: "Negotiations are a delicate thing. If something goes wrong, they could all pull out guns and start shooting."
No-Step: "How do we get to Cooperman without turning this into a bloodbath?"
Byte Force: "Can we spook them into running, then run them into a trap?"
Happy Jack: "It would be easier to get them attacking us, then get them to chase us into a trap."
Dent: "They have too much firepower for any of us to soak up, including you Jack."
No-Step: "If they're shooting at my illusion, the amount of firepower doesn't matter."
Happy Jack: "So they chase your bait down a dark alley. We create chaos, grab Cooperman, then split."
Eye Spy: "Creating chaos ... that's playing to our strengths."
 
No-Step: (decribing the illusion he intended to use) "Two little old ladies, wearing flannel nightgowns, riding on an underpowered motor scooter. The will both be swearing at the go-gang, and the one in back will be shooting at them wildly with an Uzi III."
Eye Spy: "They won't chase that. They'll be falling over laughing."
Audacity Jane: "If you really want to enrage the go-gangers, have your little old ladies shoot at their bikes."
 
Byte Force: "We need to lubricate the pavement and get an 80 motorcycle pile-up."
Dent: "We don't have anywhere near that much lubricant."
Byte Force: "Water is a lubricant. Find a fire hydrant."
 
The team had additional ideas of how to cause a massive accident.
 
Byte Force: "Use flash-paks to blind them."
Audacity Jane: "Use smoke grenades to blind them."
Dent: "Use the city spirits' Accident power."
Happy Jack: "Use a concussion grenade to knock the ones in front off their bikes."
Dent: "Now that's just overkill."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can narcojet Cooperman, but how are we going to get him out of the alley?"
Happy Jack: "You rappel down into the alley, tie a rope around him, and I pull him up to us."
Audacity Jane: "You expect me to drop down into the middle of an alley filled with angry go-gangers?"
Happy Jack: "Drop a tear gas grenade first. That should clear you some elbow room."
Audacity Jane: "You expect me to drop down into the middle of a cloud of tear gas?"
Happy Jack: "Wear a gas mask ... or are you worried that it's going to mess up your hair?"
Audacity Jane gave Happy Jack an icy stare.
Eye Spy: "Jack, you are either the bravest man I have ever met, or you have a deathwish."
Happy Jack: "Jane's not going to kill me. She may need me to pull her up out of the alley."
Audacity Jane: "Do you expect me to forget what you said afterwards?"
Happy Jack: "I'll figure out some other way to be completely indispensable by then."
 
Audacity Jane: "Some of the go-gangers might be able to see through the smoke. Or they might start shooting randomly."
Dent: "We'll have to get them fleeing mindlessly in fear."
Audacity Jane: "Some people respond to fear by going full-auto."
No-Step: "I'll use some watcher spirits to make sure they're doing 'flight' instead of 'fight'."
Byte Force: "Nobody in their right mind is scared of watcher spirits."
No-Step: "In the middle of a cloud of smoke, nobody can see that they're watchers. They're just disembodied voices."
Audacity Jane: "What can they say that's going to terrify go-gangers?"
 
Several minutes later, in the accident filled, smoke filled alley....
 
Watcher spirits: "OH MY GOD !! I smell gas! They're going to burn us alive! RUN !!"
 
As the team was driving away...
 
Dent: "Should I take Cooperman's chip out?"
No-Step: "Wait until Eye Spy can monitor his vitals."
Dent: "Should I hold off on doing Mind Probe?"
No-Step: "Go ahead and do it. Tee Hee said these chips could do brain damage. I'd like a 'before' and 'after' picture."
 
Later, Eye Spy, No-Step and Dent monitored Cooperman as they removed the Genghis Khan chip.
 
Eye Spy: "He's flatlining!"
Dent: (still maintaining the Mind Probe) "He's dead."
No-Step: (casting Treat Deadly Wounds) "He's. Not. Dead. Yet."
Eye Spy: "That was cool."
Byte Force: "Except for the Monty Python quote."
Dent: "Well, he is a snake shaman."
Audacity Jane: (speed-dialing an organ legger) "We've got a fresh one for you ... oh ... wait ... false alarm. Sorry."

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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
 
Dreamchipper - Upper Management
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Ms. Johnson: "I am looking for some professionals to assist my employer in retrieving some stolen property. The job must be carried out by a low-profile group that can recover the goods with a minimum of attention. Are you whom I am looking for?"
Jonathan Bridges: "The people I work with specialize in 'low-profile' and 'minimum of attention.' As long as the price is right, I'll make it happen."
Ms. Johnson: "Excellent. This is not exactly the place for a business meeting. We will meet at The Banshee at exactly 1:00 a.m. Ask for Urlan."
Jonathan Bridges: (muttering to himself as she walked away) "The Banshee isn't exactly a great place for a business meeting either."
 
No-Step: "Ms. Johnson has a tail. He didn't look like a second bodyguard."
Jonathan Bridges: "Let's tail the tail. I'd like to get acquainted with the opposition."
Concealed by No-Step's city spirit, the pair easily tailed Ms. Johnson, her bodyguard, and their tail ... until Ms. Johnson boarded a private helicopter....
Jonathan Bridges: "She can afford a private helicopter, but she can't afford to meet anyplace nicer than a dive bar in the Barrens?"
No-Step pulled out his binoculars, to get a better look at the helicopter. The tail pulled out a phone, presumably to report in. Happy Jack pulled out his collapsible naginata, to terminate the call before it happened.
[shhkkkht]
tail: (seeing a well-dressed troll holding a naginata) "Oh God! No!!"
Jonathan Bridges: (slamming the blunt end of the haft into the tail) "At least you got my name right."
 
Ms. Johnson's tail was just a street snitch who had been hired over the phone, for 100 nuyen, to see who she met with.
 
Thanks to No-Step's binoculars (and the orkish ability to see in the dark), the team was able to determine that the helicopter belonged to Global Technologies, a small local skillsoft and simsense corporation.
 
Eye Spy: "It's a small company named 'Global'. I think somebody's compensating for something."
 
Important global employees (NPCs):
Urlan Manes: president and CEO of Global Technologies; Native American; presumably the "Urlan" Jonathan was going to meet with
Roxanne Wunter: VP of Global's skillsoft division; also the Ms. Johnson at the previous meeting
Thomas Martelli / Junior: VP of Global's entertaniment division; an ork
 
Byte Force: "Whatever they need us for, it's big. It involves the CEO and a senior VP."
Happy Jack: "According to my contacts, their annual shareholders' meeting is Friday. It's shaping up to be a showdown between Urlan Manes and Thomas Martelli."
No-Step: "So the snitch could have been hired for some intracorporate spying unrelated to the theft."
Audacity Jane: "That doesn't help much if Martelli starts interfering with our investigation."
Happy Jack: "A boardroom battle may explain the secrecy. They may be trying to hide the theft from the shareholders ... or from Martelli."
No-Step: "Don't knock out the next snitch, Jack. Let's see if we can feed him misinformation instead."
 
Roxanne clearly expected the team to arrive just before 1 a.m., giving them plenty of time to arrive first. The team decided to arrive first and do a proper reconnaissance.
 
No-Step: "There's a front bar that's full of customers. There's a back bar that's currently empty. Then there's a private back room off of that back bar."
Dent: "Kind of obvious where the meeting is."
 
Audacity Jane and Dent stationed themselves in the front bar, posing as normal customers. Urlan and Roxanne arrived 20 minutes early, accompanied by two bodyguards. Since the bar lacked magickal protections, No-Step and a hearth spirit stood watch in the Astral. Jonathan arrived 3 minutes before 1 a.m. And was directed to the back bar, where Roxanne and the bodyguards waited.
 
Jonathan Bridges: "Good to see you again, Ms. Wunter. Shall we step into the back room and speak with Mr. Manes?"
Roxanne Wunter: "How do you know who we are?"
Jonathan Bridges: "You're hiring a team of investigators. I asked them to demonstrate their competence."
Roxanne Wunter: "..."
Jonathan Bridges: "As you were leaving our previous meeting someone tailed you."
Roxanne Wunter: "Who?"
Jonathan Bridges: (showing her a picture of the unconscious tail) "Anyone you know?"
 
Roxanne escorted Jonathan into the back room, which was appointed with a vinyl couch a card table, a few chairs, and a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling.
 
Jonathan Bridges: "Mr. Manes. I see you chose this spot for the ambiance."
Urlan Manes: (turning on the white noise generator) "No ... for the amenities."
 
Urlan Manes: "Last night, a member of my staff assisted several thieves in stealing three data chips from my company. Although security put up a spirited defense, all of the thieves managed to get away. I must have these chips back. The thieves are of little consequence. The stolen merchandise is vital."
Jonathan Bridges: "I like clear priorities."
Urlan Manes: "Time is of the essence. However, you must complete this job silently. Even a hint of your activities could be disastrous."
Jonathan Bridges: "My team prefers quiet jobs. I'm sure the current possessor of your property will eventually notice that it's missing, however."
 
Of course, the meeting was interrupted by someone who already knew about the "quiet" job.
 
Audacity Jane: (over the radio link to Jonathan) "Heads up. There's a well-dressed ork headed your way, plus four bodyguards armed with sliverguns."
Jonathan jumped up from his chair and braced himself against the door.
Urlan Manes: "What are you doing?"
Jonathan Bridges: "Are you expecting company? A well-dressed ork with an armed entourage?"
Urlan and Roxanne: (looking at each other and rolling their eyes) "Junior."
Jonathan Bridges: "Junior?"
Urlan Manes: "Thomas Martelli, Jr. His late father founded Global's entertainment division. Junior is the VP of that division."
[thud]
Someone tried to slam open the door ... with a spectacular lack of success ... thanks to the troll braced against it.
 
Jonathan Bridges: (opening the door) "Mr. Martelli. I'm Jonathan Bridges. It's a pleasure to meet you." (pause) "Would you mind having your bodyguards stay out here? Nobody else brought theirs into the meeting."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: "And what if they decide not to stay out here?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If your bodyguards try to force their way into this room, my bodyguards might interpret that as a hostile act, which would be ... unfortunate."
Thomas looked past Jonathan, but only saw Urlan and Roxanne. He then looked around the back bar, but only saw his four bodyguards, Urlan's bodyguard and Roxanne's bodyguard.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (sneering) "What bodyguards. I don't see any bodyguards."
Jonathan Bridges: "Good."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: "..."
Jonathan stepped aside to let Thomas in.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (entering the room) "Urlan, and the lovely Roxanne. It seems I was not notified of this impromptu company meeting."
Urlan Manes: (smiling smugly) "I left a message. Perhaps if you check your voice mail?"
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (sarcastically) "Of course you did." (looking over at Jonathan) "Is this your investigator? How delightful."
Jonathan Bridges: "I'm a fixer. I employ investigators. And other ... talented individuals."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (giving a wheezing laugh) "You will, no doubt, prove as efficient and loyal as Urlan's pet, Tee Hee."
Urlan turned red at that statement.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (leaving the room) "If you need my assistance, well, you know where to find me."
 
Urlan assured Jonathan that "Junior" was merely an annoyance, and unrelated to the investigation.
 
Tee Hee, on the other hand, was Urlan's (former) star programmer. He had assisted the thieves in the heist, and had thoroughly wiped the R&D files for the experimental chips. He was also the naive and forgetful sort. Roxanne had gone to his apartment, only to discover that he'd been kicked out weeks before for forgetting to pay his rent.
 
No-Step (ooc): I think this team is full of experts on figuring out where people end up when they can't afford their rent.
 
Urlan Manes offered the right price, so the meeting concluded. Forewarned by the events at the previous location, they quickly noticed that someone was tailing Jonathan.
 
Jonathan Bridges: (over the radio link) "Here's a perfect opportunity to spread some disinformation, but we only have a couple minutes to come up with a plan and implement it."
No-Step: "No problem. It's never taken less than thirty minutes to come up with a plan before."
 
Eye Spy: "We could disguise ourselves as Lone Star and arrest you."
Dent: "What does that accomplish?"
Eye Spy: "Um..."
Byte Force: "They will think Jack's in jail, rather than investigating anything."
Eye Spy: "Yeah. What he said."
 
It took less than an hour to determine that Tee Hee was crashing at the apartment of a former Seattle University professor.
 
Dent: "Sleep with your professors. Get good grades -and- free rent."
No-Step: "It worked for you."
 
Tee Hee was easily and quietly abducted from the apartment.
 
Eye Spy: "That seemed too easy. Does anyone else think that was too easy?"
Audacity Jane: "You're accustomed to performing extractions from corporate high security sites. Extractions from low security apartments are supposed to be easy by comparison."
 
Byte Force: "That professor is going to be surprised to wake up and find Tee Hee gone."
Dent: "If Tee Hee's as much of an airhead as Roxanne said, then he won't be surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised."
 
Next ... What do you do with a captured decker early in the morning?

Best part of the whole adventure.

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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
The Elementals (NPCs)
Whispering Wind: female human singer 
Wildfire: male elf guitarist
Coyote: male human bassist
Bambi: male troll drummer
 
Total Eclipse - The Video
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
A music corp. executive (and spider shaman) had hired the team to abduct a hot, new band ... The Elementals.
 
Jonathan, Jane and No-Step delivered The Elementals to Mr. Johnson's penthouse. After paying them the remainder of what they were due, Mr. Johnson urged them to wait in the living room (accompanied by his bodyguard and another well-dressed individual) while he spoke with The Elementals privately in the study.
 
Afterwards, Mr. Johnson and and The Elementals were all smiles ... and Mr. Johnson had another job for the team.
 
Mr. Johnson, The Elementals and Lupus (the well-dressed individual) wanted to shoot a music trideo at a particular location ... about a one-day hike across the border into NAN territory. They didn't have permits to travel and film in NAN, so they wanted to hire the team to sneak them across the border, and escort them two and from the location.
 
And they wanted to leave immediately, in order to do the filming the following night.
 
Jonathan Bridges drove a hard bargain, and Mr. Johnson seemed quite willing to pay it, right up until they hit a sticking point...
 
Mr. Johnson: "I simply can't pay you half up front. I don't have the certified credsticks with me."
Jonathan Bridges: "Then you can pick up the certified credsticks en route to the NAN border. Alternatively, you can wire the money to a numbered account."
Mr. Johnson: "I can't see why you're demanding half up front. I've already demonstrated that I'm willing and able to pay for your services."
Jonathan Bridges: "Trust in the shadowrunning business is a very delicate thing. And in my past experience, Mr. Johnsons are most likely to refuse to pay half up front if they're planning to backstab us."
Mr. Johnson: "Did I backstab you last time?"
Jonathan Bridges: "No. And you also paid half up front last time."
Mr. Johnson: "With the amount I'm paying for this job, I would think you would extend me a bit of trust."
Jonathan Bridges: "Quite the opposite. If a client offers us 10 million nuyen, but refuses to pay any up front, I would assume that his generosity was due to the fact that he intended to kill us, rather than paying us."
 
Mr. Johnson decided he would get the team's credsticks on the drive to the border.
 
Audacity Jane: (when the team was back in the van) "Johnson's still going to try to kill us."
Happy Jack: "Of course he is. He only caved on paying us half in order to make us less suspicious."
Audacity Jane: "And because he thinks he can get his credsticks back after killing us."
Eye Spy: "Why did we agree to this job?"
Happy Jack: "So we can collect half the pay ... and keep our word."
Eye Spy: "Great. We know he's going to kill us, and we're still working for him ... for half pay."
 
No-Step: "The Elementals are all wearing spell locks. Some kind of manipulation spell."
Dent: "Control Thoughts."
Happy Jack: "It seems likely."
Dent: "Is Mr. Johnson controlling Lupus?"
No-Step: "Not that directly. But Lupus is a wolf shapeshifter."
Audacity Jane: "And apparently he likes to advertise that fact."
Dent: "Breaking spell locks isn't that hard, but shapeshifters have regeneration. They're almost impossible to kill."
Audacity Jane: "Thanks for the warning. Leave him to me."
Dent: "You don't understand. He can ignore wounds. Even lethal ones. He will heal in seconds."
Audacity Jane: "I have a clip of silver bullets."
Dent: (long pause) "That ... that would do it."
 
Mr. Johnson found other things to object to. Like Eye Spy and Byte Force remaining with the van in Seattle territory.
 
Mr. Johnson: "I'm paying you to escort us to the film location. I'm not going to pay for two of you to sit in the van and wait for us to return."
Happy Jack: "The rigger will watching for patrols with her drones. She does better when she's not blindly stumbling face-first into trees. The decker will be snooping around the NAN Border Security networks. He needs a cell signal to connect to the matrix. What do you expect them to accomplish by hiking through a forest?"
 
After the rest of the team had hiked into the forest...
 
Byte Force: (to Eye Spy) "Let's move the van to a new hiding spot."
Eye Spy: "Why?"
Byte Force: "Mr. Johnson knows where we're parked. If he's really serious about killing us off, he'll arrange for someone to kill us at the same time as he tries to kill the rest of the team."
Eye Spy: "I'm glad I have you around. I just thought he was going to kill the rest of the team, then come back and finish us off himself."
 
The hikers encountered a NAN border patrol, but a forest spirit's Concealment power was enough to keep them from being discovered.
 
The real excitement happened when they arrived at the location for the trideo ... a clearing containing a number of large stone slabs in an apparently random pattern.
 
Mr. Johnson: "Why are we stopping?"
Audacity Jane: "There's a banshee and a pack of ghouls in the clearing."
Mr. Johnson: (smiling nastily) "Well, that's the kind of problem you were hired to take care of. Hurry up and clear the area. Time is money."
No-Step: (quietly) "He's a real sweetheart."
 
Dent: (to Jane) "Silver bullets work on banshees."
Audacity Jane: "I'm going to need to save some for later."
Dent: "You're a crack shot. How many times do you expect to have to shoot it?"
 
Audacity Jane killed the banshee. Happy Jack killed most of the ghouls. The ones that fled were hunted down by Dent's and No-Step's spirits.
 
Happy Jack: (looking at the carnage in the clearing) "I hope The Elementals aren't squeamish."
 
The clearing was cleared of corpses. Lights and cameras were set up to catch the performance from every angle.
 
No-Step: (over the radio link) "He's setting up the music video in a Place of Power for 'artistic integrity'? This has the potential for major Ritual Magick."
Audacity Jane: "You know what happens when you disrupt this kind of ritual."
Dent: "No, we don't."
Audacity Jane: "Well ... you'll find out soon."
 
After the preparations were made, Dent, Jane and No-Step faded back into the forest, while Jack remained in the clearing. Right before No-Step headed into the forest, he augmented Happy Jack's willpower (using the Snake totem's affinity for health spells).
 
No-Step: "Try not to let Mr. Johnson control what little mind you have."
 
Mr. Johnson: "Why did your friends go into the forest?"
Happy Jack: "They're keeping a perimeter, just in case another NAN patrol shows up, or stray ghouls return."
Mr. Johnson: "Why aren't you with them?"
Happy Jack: "Just in case something makes it past the perimeter."
Mr. Johnson: "What was that health spell your friend cast on you?"
Happy Jack: "Health spell? That makes sense."
Mr. Johnson: "What makes sense?"
Happy Jack: "A health spell. I'm always the first one shot."
Mr. Johnson: "Why are you the first one shot?"
Happy Jack: "It must be anti-troll bigotry."
 
(Mr. Johnson apparently didn't notice that Happy Jack was carrying a mini-grenade launcher ... which was the real reason he was consistently the first one shot.)
 
The Elementals' performance looked visually spectacular ... particularly to the shamans assencing the astral plane.
 
No-Step: (over the radio link) "The Elementals' song ... it's a magickal ritual!"
Audacity Jane: "Cut the suspense. What is it doing?"
No-Step: "It's a spiritual healing ritual. I think it's capable of healing an injured or dying spirit."
Audacity Jane: "What kind of spirit is he healing?"
No-Step: "I can't tell that yet."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not that interested in finding out. I'm dropping Johnson in 3, 2, 1."
 
Mr. Johnson sprouted a couple narcojet darts. Happy Jack fired a neuro-stun grenade into the middle of The Elementals. The elf street samurai and Lupus lept to their defense ... rather ineffectively.
 
And then the sprit manifested. A hideous, deformed, three meter tall spider-like THING.
 
Dent: "Ahhh, bite me."
No-Step: "I'm sure he will."
 
hideous spider-like thing: "I. Will. FEEEED."
Happy Jack: "It looks like you've already had a double-helping of ugly."
 
And serendipity smiled on the team. Powerful spirits are essentially immune to ranged weapons. Melee weapons can harm them, but the damage isn't based on the wielder's physical strength, but rather their strength of will. No-Step, feeling paranoid about Mr. Johnson using Control Thoughts on Happy Jack, had enhanced Jack's mediocre willpower.
 
Followed by more serendipity.
 
Audacity Jane: I might as well shoot it. I've got nothing else.
GM: Which ammo are you using?
Audacity Jane: It's still silver bullets. I didn't have a chance to swap it out after Lupus.
GM: (headdesk)
Dent: It's vulnerable to silver too?
 
Once the spell locks were removed, The Elementals returned to their normal selves.
 
Whispering Wind: (furious) "I can't believe that you kidnapped us, mind controlled us and nearly got us killed by that THING!!"
Happy Jack: "We only abducted you. That fellow" (pointing at Mr. Johnson) "mind controlled you and tried to feed you to a spider monster. As you may remember, he lied to us about those parts of his plan."
Whispering Wind: "Why would you do that kind of thing?!?"
Happy Jack: "Abduct you? We were paid to. Rather well."
Coyote: "What happens next?"
No-Step: "Well, we were hired to sneak all of you into NAN territory, and then sneak you out again. Unless you want to stay here, we're perfectly willing to escort you back home."
Whispering Wind: "Provided you get paid, right?"
Happy Jack: (pointing at Mr. Johnson) "He's the one who promised to pay us. It seems likely that he intends to stiff us..."
Dent: "Particularly since he already tried to kill us."
Happy Jack: "But that just means he gets to talk to our collections department later." (pause) "So your trip home is being covered by him."
 
During the drive back into Seattle...
 
Byte Force: (handing a set of chips to Bambi) "I finished cleaning these up. They're yours."
Bambi: "What are they?"
Byte Force: "90% of a music video for your song, 'Healing the Spirit'."
Bambi: "90%?"
Byte Force: "I edited out some of the parts at the end, like you collapsing and the giant spider materializing. They didn't seem to fit the general theme of the song."
 
Wildfire: "What happens to Mr. Johnson now?"
Happy Jack: "He tried to stiff us, and he tried to kill us. So we're going to collect as much money as we can from him, and then he's going to disappear."
Wildfire: "What if he decides to return?"
Audacity Jane: "We're not going to tell him to disappear. We're going to make him disappear."
 
After returning the band to their studio.
 
Eye Spy: "I'm worried about selling Johnson to the organ-leggers. He could escape, or bribe them into letting him go."
Audacity Jane: "Good point. Give him a frontal lobotomy before we deliver him."
Eye Spy: "Me?!? I've never done one of those before. I don't even know how."
Audacity Jane: "Relax. If you completely screw up, you'll end up with a cooling corpse ... which is a reasonable second-best alternative."
No-Step: "That's a really horrible thing to do to someone."
Audacity Jane: "Yes it is ... but do you care?"
No-Step: (stopping to think about it) "You know, in this case I don't. Carry on."

Shadowrun 2070 – the main difference being that 2050 is cyberpunk as imagined in the 80s, and 2070 as it's imagined now. Wifi, Augmented Reality, RFID chips and 3D Printing everywhere.

Streetrat: Son of Labrat, Ork Rigger
Ripper K: Orca-form Changeling, Face and Brawler
Oracle: White-hat hacker
Giant Dad: Apparently human, also supposedly called The Legend, who rumour holds has been around forever.
Astronauta Peligroso: Troll Luchadore
Ocelot: Elf gunslinger

Giant Dad: I'm going to call you Astroboy. So what brings you to Seattle, Astroboy?
Astronauta: The food.

Oracle: We COULD strap you down and have a machine-gun installed in your arse. If you really want.

Ripper OoC: I wonder if the Tokyo Parasite Museum has got any interesting specimens since the start of the Sixth Age.
Giant Dad: Probably – behold! The Insect Shaman! And its natural enemy, the Dwarf with the Incendiary Grenade Launcher.
Ocelot: We call him Warhammer.
Giant Dad: Check out the front of the museum, where you can get the action figure! Comes with its own lighter. Start 'em young.
Ocelot: Known bugs – may set your entire house on fire.
Giant Dad: Has been known to start laughing in the presence of naked flame.

Insect Spirits are bad news. Just ask Chicago. THAT was the kind of situation that would have required experts, like our old characters.

Inkubus: You really want to give me the chance to set off a nuclear device in the middle of an Insect Hive? Wow – I thought I'd never get to top that Ambergel factory.

GM: On goes the mask.
Astronauta: It never comes off. I Live Every Day In The Luchadore Way.

The other PCs haven’t met the charming but rather fearsome-looking Ripper before, and are further unaware of his ‘adult entertainment’ work. This leads to some amusing conversations.

Giant Dad: What the fuck is that!
Ripper K: The name's Ripper – nice to meet you.
Ocelot: I'm Elise – I mean Ocelot!
Ripper K: That's OK, most of the people I work with use assumed names.

Astronauta: You look like you could go a few rounds – we should give it a go some time.
Ripper K: Thanks. I'd enjoy that.
GM: *hysterical laughter*

Off to the Infinity Club, where the music is as loud as can be expected, despite our ear-plugs.

Streetrat: I can still hear it – it's coming in through my Eustachian tubes.

Ocelot OoC: I'm wondering if we've been hired by Inkubus. 'Ah, I can't be bothered recovering it myself – I'll just hire somebody'
Streetrat OoC: 'I've got six girls to entertain'

This is, as you may have guessed, the same module he's already run for Ripper and another group of players. I guess I won't be doubling up my XP points then, and I'll have to try extra hard to suppress player knowledge. Not that I mind, overly - it's easy enough to let the other players come up with ideas, then run with them. Anyway - Nabo, the Ork music star and likely after the stolen disc.

Giant Dad: He sounds like an Ork version of Justin Beiber. I hate him already.

Ripper K: I wonder if my agent knows his agent.
Oracle: Are you talking about Agent Programs?
Ripper K: No, theatrical agent. Well, specialist theatre.

The module now takes a different path to the version our GM ran online for the other players. Oracle hits the social media to locate which hotel Nabo is staying at, and dispatches a mini-blimp drone through which he can hack into Nabo's internet node. We probably won't even have to go to the concert.

Oracle's player: This will take a while.
GM: No it won't.
Oracle's player: Wait, what?
GM: He left an open node.
Oracle: OK gang, this is going to take a few hou- ….. scratch that, this guy is a complete moron.

Oracle gleefully forwards everything Nabo is doing to the rest of the team, and plants one of his software agents inside the node.

Oracle: ORAC, you're up.
Ripper K: Do you have one named Zen, as well?

Undeleting Nabo's data enables us to backtrack to a elven decker named Zipper, and the Cathode Glow Club, and any amount of unreleased song lyrics and Ork Porn. Also a photo of the stolen disc, and a disc sleeve saying "Carrion Sessions '48 - For Enlightenment, seek out absent friends." The plan – have Ripper seduce Zipper. Complication – Ripper doesn't know a damn thing about retro tech.

Giant Dad: We need to geek him up.
Oracle: What? Oh, you mean Clank.
Giant Dad: How do you feel about spikes?
Oracle: Nah – cogs and brass.

Giant Dad: You'll need to wear a top hat.
Ripper K: I've worn worse.
Astronauta: And a monocle.

The augmented reality sprites at the club all have googly eyes, like Clippy. And they're all watching us.

Streetrat: If any of them actually are Clippy they have to die.
Ocelot: We're being watched by the spirit of Microsoft Office

Giant Dad: And then a barfight broke out over Mario Party.

Ripper manages to seduce not only Zipper, but her dwarf friend as well, and after reducing them both to happy unconsciousness unlocks the door for everybody else. The disc isn't in her apartment, but there is a handwritten letter from one Loomis directing her to set up the auction. There's a Kerwin Loomis who runs a nightclub called Coda out in the Barrens.

Streetrat: Coder as in programmer or Coda as in epilogue?
Ripper K: It's a musical term too. So that's two links. And a pun, too, since the disc has musical data.

Ripper K: At this rate the client is going to regret agreeing to that early completion bonus.

The Coda is the worst kind of dive. Happily, Loomis has an apartment above the club, and Streetrat's drones spot the suspicious activity next door before we blunder into it ourselves. He switches his POV to one of the drones and investigates closer – there's a team of armed and armoured individuals watching the club. And one of them is probably a mage. Happily, suddenly appearing at all the doors and windows with two armed drones and three scary-looking individuals demoralises them so completely they readily agree to Ripper's terms. They go wait at the local Stuffer Shack, while we – still posing as some kind of Barrens organised crime syndicate – go have a private word with Mr Loomis. Then they can do whatever they like with him. Evidently nobody told this team of runners that another team had been hired for the job. We head in to have a polite chat with Loomis, who panics and threatens to break the disc. He also insists the disc was willed to him by his father – the big-name rocker K-spot. There never was a theft.

Oracle: So how much were we being paid not to care?

Loomis caves, especially after he finds out just how many people already know about the disc.

Giant Dad: How much are you willing to pay to get out of here alive?

We drop Loomis off at the Ork Underground and head back to the Cathode Glow to use their vintage tech to find out what's actually ON this disc. It seems to be music data, as claimed, but there are multiple levels of encryption on it.

Giant Dad: Don't mind us, Astronauta and I will just be having Fight Club outside.
Ripper K: If anybody asks just tell them you're re-enacting John Carpenter films.

The music is melancholy and introspective.

Giant Dad: We're listening to Linkin Park?

But since we're good shadowrunners, it's time to take the disc to the client. We'll just neglect to mention the one-to-one copy we made so Oracle can run full decryption on it. We will include all the data we have on that other team, including the number of their fixer. But either way, our Mr Johnson seems very pleased – especially since we got it all done in less than 24 hours. The other group of players is still slogging through the same module four sessions later - and that other shadowrunner team are probably still waiting at the Stuffer Shack.




D&D - mostly a continuation of a dungeon crawl, and the capture of the enemy wizard, whereupon things become Political. It's always so helpful when the bad guys keep copies of their correspondence around the lair.

Kavorog: Murder and psychopathy are all part of being an adventurer.

We find a satchel full of potions and adventuring gear in the bottom of a cistern.

Kavorog: Looks like a bug-out bag. Or a bugbear-out bag.

GM: What do you want to do with these guys?
Lamech: Skin them and use their scrotums as a coin purse.
GM: You're a bloodthirsty little... aren't you?

To a prisoner -

Lamech: So, Mr. Human Shield – you don't mind me calling you Human Shield, do you? - What else should we know about this dungeon?

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 Jr. (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
Tee Hee (NPC): a decker, a thief, and a former Global employee
BTL chips: "better-than-life" chips; stick one in your datajack and get an illegal high; addictive; repeated use causes brain damage; the 2050 equivalent of hardcore drugs
 
Dreamchipper - What do you do with a captured decker?
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to recover several chips stolen from Global Technologies. Tee Hee (one of the thieves) had been captured by the team ... but he didn't have the data chips.
 
Dent took the usual shortcut of using Mind Probe on Tee Hee, who turned out to be a treasure trove of information.
 
Dent: "A fixer named Cooperman made the arrangements for the theft. But Thomas Martelli was the person who bribed Tee Hee and told him to follow Cooperman's instructions."
Happy Jack: "How much was the bribe?"
Dent: "A Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck."
Byte Force: "Most deckers would betray anyone for a Fairlight Excalibur."
No-Step: "Does that mean we need to start worrying about your loyalty?"
Byte Force: "I can't be bought that easily."
Dent: "Because we already stole one for you."
 
Dent: "Tee Hee calls these things Dreamchips. They're a skillchip that uses experimental BTL technology."
Byte Force: "Why on earth would they do that?"
Dent: "They're using it to bypass the normal limitations on a skillchip. The Dreamchip contains a false personality which overrides the user's normal personality. Somehow that allows the chip to transfer more skills to the user."
No-Step: "And the false personality controls the user's actions?"
Dent: "Yes. They're planning to sell these to the military. They could create instant soldiers, officers, spies and assassins."
No-Step: "That's unethical. There ought to be a law against that."
Dent: "There is. The use of BTL technology makes it illegal. They're counting on the military not caring."
Happy Jack: "That's probably why they want to keep this job particularly quiet."
Audacity Jane: "Do we get a bonus if we 'silence' the thieves?"
 
When Tee Hee trashed the R&D files, he left an uncorrupted copy on Thomas Martelli's datastore. It was time for the decker to earn his dues.
 
Byte Force: (to Dent) "Fish around in Tee Hee's brain for a map to Global's computer network."
Dent: "They probably changed the security codes since he left."
Byte Force: "That's true, but they probably didn't change the system architecture."
 
Byte Force found everything he was looking for, and a lot more.
 
Thomas Martelli had instigated the plot. He had contacted Booker Pengrave, an executive at Hollywood Simsense Entertainment, a rival simsense company. By stealing the Dreachip prototypes and R&D, Global's value would crash. HSE and Pengrave would be able to acquire Global cheaply. Then HSE could manufacture and sell the Dreamchips. For his role, Thomas Martelli would become an executive at HSE.
 
Eye Spy: "I think Urlan made the understatement of the year when he called Junior 'an annoyance'."
Dent: "When are you going to pass this information on to Roxanne?"
Happy Jack: "For now, I'm not."
Eye Spy: "Why not?"
Happy Jack: "Urlan is paying us to recover the stolen merchandise, not for information related to the thieves. He was quite specific about that. I'm willing to sell him the information we've discovered, but he hasn't paid us for it yet."
 
Byte Force: "I found some notes about the team that did the run on Global. They say that 'Val' the rigger is running 'Cleo'. They also say that 'Griffin' the street samurai is 'messed up with Jack the Ripper'." (pause) "What personalities are on those Dreamchips?"
Dent used Mind Probe on Tee Hee again.
Dent: "Jack the Ripper, Cleopatra and Genghis Khan."
Eye Spy: "What kind of lunatic would think those personalities were a great idea?"
Audacity Jane: "People who watch the history channel for fun."
 
Dent: "Apparently the Jack-the-Ripper chip started out as a spy, but it turned out to be too homicidal ... so they turned it into an assassin."
Byte Force: "I know that strategy of product design. It's not a bug. It's a feature."
 
Dent: "The Genghis Khan chip is supposed to have all of the skills to be a great military leader."
No-Step: "So it turns the user into a megalomaniac, then gives him the skills to carry those ambitions to fruition."
Dent: "Without an army, that's not too dangerous."
Audacity Jane: "And if he goes up to Fort Lewis and recruits an army...?"
Eye Spy: "Oh @#$%! We're going to have to fight an entire army to get just one chip?"
Audacity Jane: "No. At worst, that just means we'll need to get the chip out of a Fort Lewis morgue."
Eye Spy: "The morgue?"
Audacity Jane: "There's a long-standing tradition of snipers shooting military leaders."
 
Dent: "The Cleopatra chip is designed for extended espionage assignments."
Eye Spy: "And it's based entirely on powerful men's habit of doing all of their thinking below the waist."
No-Step: "We should brainstorm who she might seduce. That might narrow down where we should investigate."
Happy Jack: (ticking off on his fingers) "Governor Schultz, any general or admiral based in Seattle, any top executive at a Tier 1 or Tier 2 megacorp, any mafioso capo or yakuza oyabun..." (pause) "Have we narrowed our investigation down sufficiently?"
No-Step: "..."
 
Byte Force: "I discovered why Martelli and Urlan hate each other." (pause) "Martelli's father, Thomas Martelli, Sr., changed his will shortly after his son goblinized. Urlan became the new beneficiary."
Eye Spy: "His father was such a racist that he disinherited his son? That sucks."
No-Step: "Is Urlan a racist?"
Happy Jack: "He and Roxanne clearly dislike Martelli, but I don't know whether that's racial bias or personal animosity."
Dent: "Did either of them seem biased against you?"
Happy Jack: "No, but some people have a bias against orks, but not trolls." (pause) "Urlan is clearly interested in keeping Martelli's inheritance for himself, regardless of racial bias."
No-Step: "I'm not entirely certain we're working for the right side in all of this."
Happy Jack: "I would say we're working for the wrong side. We don't help people oppress orks and trolls." (pause) "So how do we fulfill our agreement with Urlan, get paid, and still ensure that Martelli wins?"
GM: (headdesk)
 
There remained a small problem of what to do with Tee Hee. Jack and Jane solved the problem using a backboard, handcuffs, straps and a magemask.
 
No-Step: "You two seem extremely competent at this. Is there something that you're not telling us?"
Audacity Jane: "Why don't I tie you up the same way, then you can find out for yourself."
 
Happy Jack also plugged Tee Hee into a simsense player.
 
Happy Jack: "It's hard to plan an escape when you're immersed in an action VR."
Dent: "Harder still if you plug him into porn."
Happy Jack: "Given the number of sex scenes in the 'action' simsenses, there's not much difference."
 
In order to give Tee Hee meals and bathroom breaks, Jack and Jane would turn off all the lights, then untie him (using their thermographic vision to watch him).
 
Tee Hee: (sitting on the toilet in the dark) "It's no use. I can't go when somebody's watching me."
Audacity Jane: "I'm tired of this drek. I'm just going to slit your throat and be done with it."
Tee Hee had the predictable involuntary reaction to overwhelming fear.
Audacity Jane: "It looks like you can go when somebody's watching you."
 
Next ... Kick the Khan.

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 Jr. (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
Tee Hee (NPC): a decker, a thief, and a former Global employee
BTL chips: "better-than-life" chips; stick one in your datajack and get an illegal high; addictive; repeated use causes brain damage; the 2050 equivalent of hardcore drugs
 
Dreamchipper - What do you do with a captured decker?
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to recover several chips stolen from Global Technologies. Tee Hee (one of the thieves) had been captured by the team ... but he didn't have the data chips.
 
Dent took the usual shortcut of using Mind Probe on Tee Hee, who turned out to be a treasure trove of information.
 
Dent: "A fixer named Cooperman made the arrangements for the theft. But Thomas Martelli was the person who bribed Tee Hee and told him to follow Cooperman's instructions."
Happy Jack: "How much was the bribe?"
Dent: "A Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck."
Byte Force: "Most deckers would betray anyone for a Fairlight Excalibur."
No-Step: "Does that mean we need to start worrying about your loyalty?"
Byte Force: "I can't be bought that easily."
Dent: "Because we already stole one for you."
 
Dent: "Tee Hee calls these things Dreamchips. They're a skillchip that uses experimental BTL technology."
Byte Force: "Why on earth would they do that?"
Dent: "They're using it to bypass the normal limitations on a skillchip. The Dreamchip contains a false personality which overrides the user's normal personality. Somehow that allows the chip to transfer more skills to the user."
No-Step: "And the false personality controls the user's actions?"
Dent: "Yes. They're planning to sell these to the military. They could create instant soldiers, officers, spies and assassins."
No-Step: "That's unethical. There ought to be a law against that."
Dent: "There is. The use of BTL technology makes it illegal. They're counting on the military not caring."
Happy Jack: "That's probably why they want to keep this job particularly quiet."
Audacity Jane: "Do we get a bonus if we 'silence' the thieves?"
 
When Tee Hee trashed the R&D files, he left an uncorrupted copy on Thomas Martelli's datastore. It was time for the decker to earn his dues.
 
Byte Force: (to Dent) "Fish around in Tee Hee's brain for a map to Global's computer network."
Dent: "They probably changed the security codes since he left."
Byte Force: "That's true, but they probably didn't change the system architecture."
 
Byte Force found everything he was looking for, and a lot more.
 
Thomas Martelli had instigated the plot. He had contacted Booker Pengrave, an executive at Hollywood Simsense Entertainment, a rival simsense company. By stealing the Dreachip prototypes and R&D, Global's value would crash. HSE and Pengrave would be able to acquire Global cheaply. Then HSE could manufacture and sell the Dreamchips. For his role, Thomas Martelli would become an executive at HSE.
 
Eye Spy: "I think Urlan made the understatement of the year when he called Junior 'an annoyance'."
Dent: "When are you going to pass this information on to Roxanne?"
Happy Jack: "For now, I'm not."
Eye Spy: "Why not?"
Happy Jack: "Urlan is paying us to recover the stolen merchandise, not for information related to the thieves. He was quite specific about that. I'm willing to sell him the information we've discovered, but he hasn't paid us for it yet."
 
Byte Force: "I found some notes about the team that did the run on Global. They say that 'Val' the rigger is running 'Cleo'. They also say that 'Griffin' the street samurai is 'messed up with Jack the Ripper'." (pause) "What personalities are on those Dreamchips?"
Dent used Mind Probe on Tee Hee again.
Dent: "Jack the Ripper, Cleopatra and Genghis Khan."
Eye Spy: "What kind of lunatic would think those personalities were a great idea?"
Audacity Jane: "People who watch the history channel for fun."
 
Dent: "Apparently the Jack-the-Ripper chip started out as a spy, but it turned out to be too homicidal ... so they turned it into an assassin."
Byte Force: "I know that strategy of product design. It's not a bug. It's a feature."
 
Dent: "The Genghis Khan chip is supposed to have all of the skills to be a great military leader."
No-Step: "So it turns the user into a megalomaniac, then gives him the skills to carry those ambitions to fruition."
Dent: "Without an army, that's not too dangerous."
Audacity Jane: "And if he goes up to Fort Lewis and recruits an army...?"
Eye Spy: "Oh @#$%! We're going to have to fight an entire army to get just one chip?"
Audacity Jane: "No. At worst, that just means we'll need to get the chip out of a Fort Lewis morgue."
Eye Spy: "The morgue?"
Audacity Jane: "There's a long-standing tradition of snipers shooting military leaders."
 
Dent: "The Cleopatra chip is designed for extended espionage assignments."
Eye Spy: "And it's based entirely on powerful men's habit of doing all of their thinking below the waist."
No-Step: "We should brainstorm who she might seduce. That might narrow down where we should investigate."
Happy Jack: (ticking off on his fingers) "Governor Schultz, any general or admiral based in Seattle, any top executive at a Tier 1 or Tier 2 megacorp, any mafioso capo or yakuza oyabun..." (pause) "Have we narrowed our investigation down sufficiently?"
No-Step: "..."
 
Byte Force: "I discovered why Martelli and Urlan hate each other." (pause) "Martelli's father, Thomas Martelli, Sr., changed his will shortly after his son goblinized. Urlan became the new beneficiary."
Eye Spy: "His father was such a racist that he disinherited his son? That sucks."
No-Step: "Is Urlan a racist?"
Happy Jack: "He and Roxanne clearly dislike Martelli, but I don't know whether that's racial bias or personal animosity."
Dent: "Did either of them seem biased against you?"
Happy Jack: "No, but some people have a bias against orks, but not trolls." (pause) "Urlan is clearly interested in keeping Martelli's inheritance for himself, regardless of racial bias."
No-Step: "I'm not entirely certain we're working for the right side in all of this."
Happy Jack: "I would say we're working for the wrong side. We don't help people oppress orks and trolls." (pause) "So how do we fulfill our agreement with Urlan, get paid, and still ensure that Martelli wins?"
GM: (headdesk)
 
There remained a small problem of what to do with Tee Hee. Jack and Jane solved the problem using a backboard, handcuffs, straps and a magemask.
 
No-Step: "You two seem extremely competent at this. Is there something that you're not telling us?"
Audacity Jane: "Why don't I tie you up the same way, then you can find out for yourself."
 
Happy Jack also plugged Tee Hee into a simsense player.
 
Happy Jack: "It's hard to plan an escape when you're immersed in an action VR."
Dent: "Harder still if you plug him into porn."
Happy Jack: "Given the number of sex scenes in the 'action' simsenses, there's not much difference."
 
In order to give Tee Hee meals and bathroom breaks, Jack and Jane would turn off all the lights, then untie him (using their thermographic vision to watch him).
 
Tee Hee: (sitting on the toilet in the dark) "It's no use. I can't go when somebody's watching me."
Audacity Jane: "I'm tired of this drek. I'm just going to slit your throat and be done with it."
Tee Hee had the predictable involuntary reaction to overwhelming fear.
Audacity Jane: "It looks like you can go when somebody's watching you."
 
Next ... Kick the Khan.

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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
 
Dreamchipper - Upper Management
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Ms. Johnson: "I am looking for some professionals to assist my employer in retrieving some stolen property. The job must be carried out by a low-profile group that can recover the goods with a minimum of attention. Are you whom I am looking for?"
Jonathan Bridges: "The people I work with specialize in 'low-profile' and 'minimum of attention.' As long as the price is right, I'll make it happen."
Ms. Johnson: "Excellent. This is not exactly the place for a business meeting. We will meet at The Banshee at exactly 1:00 a.m. Ask for Urlan."
Jonathan Bridges: (muttering to himself as she walked away) "The Banshee isn't exactly a great place for a business meeting either."
 
No-Step: "Ms. Johnson has a tail. He didn't look like a second bodyguard."
Jonathan Bridges: "Let's tail the tail. I'd like to get acquainted with the opposition."
Concealed by No-Step's city spirit, the pair easily tailed Ms. Johnson, her bodyguard, and their tail ... until Ms. Johnson boarded a private helicopter....
Jonathan Bridges: "She can afford a private helicopter, but she can't afford to meet anyplace nicer than a dive bar in the Barrens?"
No-Step pulled out his binoculars, to get a better look at the helicopter. The tail pulled out a phone, presumably to report in. Happy Jack pulled out his collapsible naginata, to terminate the call before it happened.
[shhkkkht]
tail: (seeing a well-dressed troll holding a naginata) "Oh God! No!!"
Jonathan Bridges: (slamming the blunt end of the haft into the tail) "At least you got my name right."
 
Ms. Johnson's tail was just a street snitch who had been hired over the phone, for 100 nuyen, to see who she met with.
 
Thanks to No-Step's binoculars (and the orkish ability to see in the dark), the team was able to determine that the helicopter belonged to Global Technologies, a small local skillsoft and simsense corporation.
 
Eye Spy: "It's a small company named 'Global'. I think somebody's compensating for something."
 
Important global employees (NPCs):
Urlan Manes: president and CEO of Global Technologies; Native American; presumably the "Urlan" Jonathan was going to meet with
Roxanne Wunter: VP of Global's skillsoft division; also the Ms. Johnson at the previous meeting
Thomas Martelli / Junior: VP of Global's entertaniment division; an ork
 
Byte Force: "Whatever they need us for, it's big. It involves the CEO and a senior VP."
Happy Jack: "According to my contacts, their annual shareholders' meeting is Friday. It's shaping up to be a showdown between Urlan Manes and Thomas Martelli."
No-Step: "So the snitch could have been hired for some intracorporate spying unrelated to the theft."
Audacity Jane: "That doesn't help much if Martelli starts interfering with our investigation."
Happy Jack: "A boardroom battle may explain the secrecy. They may be trying to hide the theft from the shareholders ... or from Martelli."
No-Step: "Don't knock out the next snitch, Jack. Let's see if we can feed him misinformation instead."
 
Roxanne clearly expected the team to arrive just before 1 a.m., giving them plenty of time to arrive first. The team decided to arrive first and do a proper reconnaissance.
 
No-Step: "There's a front bar that's full of customers. There's a back bar that's currently empty. Then there's a private back room off of that back bar."
Dent: "Kind of obvious where the meeting is."
 
Audacity Jane and Dent stationed themselves in the front bar, posing as normal customers. Urlan and Roxanne arrived 20 minutes early, accompanied by two bodyguards. Since the bar lacked magickal protections, No-Step and a hearth spirit stood watch in the Astral. Jonathan arrived 3 minutes before 1 a.m. And was directed to the back bar, where Roxanne and the bodyguards waited.
 
Jonathan Bridges: "Good to see you again, Ms. Wunter. Shall we step into the back room and speak with Mr. Manes?"
Roxanne Wunter: "How do you know who we are?"
Jonathan Bridges: "You're hiring a team of investigators. I asked them to demonstrate their competence."
Roxanne Wunter: "..."
Jonathan Bridges: "As you were leaving our previous meeting someone tailed you."
Roxanne Wunter: "Who?"
Jonathan Bridges: (showing her a picture of the unconscious tail) "Anyone you know?"
 
Roxanne escorted Jonathan into the back room, which was appointed with a vinyl couch a card table, a few chairs, and a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling.
 
Jonathan Bridges: "Mr. Manes. I see you chose this spot for the ambiance."
Urlan Manes: (turning on the white noise generator) "No ... for the amenities."
 
Urlan Manes: "Last night, a member of my staff assisted several thieves in stealing three data chips from my company. Although security put up a spirited defense, all of the thieves managed to get away. I must have these chips back. The thieves are of little consequence. The stolen merchandise is vital."
Jonathan Bridges: "I like clear priorities."
Urlan Manes: "Time is of the essence. However, you must complete this job silently. Even a hint of your activities could be disastrous."
Jonathan Bridges: "My team prefers quiet jobs. I'm sure the current possessor of your property will eventually notice that it's missing, however."
 
Of course, the meeting was interrupted by someone who already knew about the "quiet" job.
 
Audacity Jane: (over the radio link to Jonathan) "Heads up. There's a well-dressed ork headed your way, plus four bodyguards armed with sliverguns."
Jonathan jumped up from his chair and braced himself against the door.
Urlan Manes: "What are you doing?"
Jonathan Bridges: "Are you expecting company? A well-dressed ork with an armed entourage?"
Urlan and Roxanne: (looking at each other and rolling their eyes) "Junior."
Jonathan Bridges: "Junior?"
Urlan Manes: "Thomas Martelli, Jr. His late father founded Global's entertainment division. Junior is the VP of that division."
[thud]
Someone tried to slam open the door ... with a spectacular lack of success ... thanks to the troll braced against it.
 
Jonathan Bridges: (opening the door) "Mr. Martelli. I'm Jonathan Bridges. It's a pleasure to meet you." (pause) "Would you mind having your bodyguards stay out here? Nobody else brought theirs into the meeting."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: "And what if they decide not to stay out here?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If your bodyguards try to force their way into this room, my bodyguards might interpret that as a hostile act, which would be ... unfortunate."
Thomas looked past Jonathan, but only saw Urlan and Roxanne. He then looked around the back bar, but only saw his four bodyguards, Urlan's bodyguard and Roxanne's bodyguard.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (sneering) "What bodyguards. I don't see any bodyguards."
Jonathan Bridges: "Good."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: "..."
Jonathan stepped aside to let Thomas in.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (entering the room) "Urlan, and the lovely Roxanne. It seems I was not notified of this impromptu company meeting."
Urlan Manes: (smiling smugly) "I left a message. Perhaps if you check your voice mail?"
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (sarcastically) "Of course you did." (looking over at Jonathan) "Is this your investigator? How delightful."
Jonathan Bridges: "I'm a fixer. I employ investigators. And other ... talented individuals."
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (giving a wheezing laugh) "You will, no doubt, prove as efficient and loyal as Urlan's pet, Tee Hee."
Urlan turned red at that statement.
Thomas Martelli, Jr.: (leaving the room) "If you need my assistance, well, you know where to find me."
 
Urlan assured Jonathan that "Junior" was merely an annoyance, and unrelated to the investigation.
 
Tee Hee, on the other hand, was Urlan's (former) star programmer. He had assisted the thieves in the heist, and had thoroughly wiped the R&D files for the experimental chips. He was also the naive and forgetful sort. Roxanne had gone to his apartment, only to discover that he'd been kicked out weeks before for forgetting to pay his rent.
 
No-Step (ooc): I think this team is full of experts on figuring out where people end up when they can't afford their rent.
 
Urlan Manes offered the right price, so the meeting concluded. Forewarned by the events at the previous location, they quickly noticed that someone was tailing Jonathan.
 
Jonathan Bridges: (over the radio link) "Here's a perfect opportunity to spread some disinformation, but we only have a couple minutes to come up with a plan and implement it."
No-Step: "No problem. It's never taken less than thirty minutes to come up with a plan before."
 
Eye Spy: "We could disguise ourselves as Lone Star and arrest you."
Dent: "What does that accomplish?"
Eye Spy: "Um..."
Byte Force: "They will think Jack's in jail, rather than investigating anything."
Eye Spy: "Yeah. What he said."
 
It took less than an hour to determine that Tee Hee was crashing at the apartment of a former Seattle University professor.
 
Dent: "Sleep with your professors. Get good grades -and- free rent."
No-Step: "It worked for you."
 
Tee Hee was easily and quietly abducted from the apartment.
 
Eye Spy: "That seemed too easy. Does anyone else think that was too easy?"
Audacity Jane: "You're accustomed to performing extractions from corporate high security sites. Extractions from low security apartments are supposed to be easy by comparison."
 
Byte Force: "That professor is going to be surprised to wake up and find Tee Hee gone."
Dent: "If Tee Hee's as much of an airhead as Roxanne said, then he won't be surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised."
 
Next ... What do you do with a captured decker early in the morning?

I finished the solo CoC adventure "Alone Against the Flames" and learned some very important things about CoC:
 
1) put points in Spot Hidden. It doesn't matter how you justify it in the backstory, do so! When taking my character's personal skills (not professional), I choose stealth, violin, fighting (brawl), and archeology. Why violin? I wanted Harold to be a little more well-rounded as a person. Forget that! Next run, those 20 points are going into Spot Hidden. Spot was the most common check. I made several spot hidden checks (I passed two and missed two). One of the misses would have been a success if I had taken it before. NOTE: consider playing as a police detective and thus justify Spot Hidden as a professional skill.
 
2) if a crazy, homeless man teaches you a chant "to be used only if all else fails," speaking it is never a good idea, even if all else has failed. I stopped the cultists, but there's a 16-mile diameter barren place in the Connecticut landscape now and "my spirit floats amongst the stars."
 
3) Being a hero takes second place to living (I already knew this one, but it was reinfornced). I rolled back the last bit to try a different escape plan. That worked and I got away from the bonfire, singed and hurt. Without the sacrifice (me), something or things descended on the town. I found a bicycle in an alley and sped away. The book then said this. "You hear screams behind you and what sounds like the rush of wings high above. If you look back at the bonfire, turn to __. If you keep going, turn to __." I said, "I've got 1 HP left. This is no time for heroics. I peddle like crazy!"
 
Even though I plan on running the adventure again, I'm keeping Harold's sheet. I found a book of poetry that gave me 4 points to the Mythos skill. Professor Matthers might have other adventures, and a professor of chemical engineer has great potential. He was on his way to take a seat at Miskatonic U when he got stranded in the village of Emberhead.

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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
The Elementals (NPCs)
Whispering Wind: female human singer 
Wildfire: male elf guitarist
Coyote: male human bassist
Bambi: male troll drummer
 
Total Eclipse - The Video
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
A music corp. executive (and spider shaman) had hired the team to abduct a hot, new band ... The Elementals.
 
Jonathan, Jane and No-Step delivered The Elementals to Mr. Johnson's penthouse. After paying them the remainder of what they were due, Mr. Johnson urged them to wait in the living room (accompanied by his bodyguard and another well-dressed individual) while he spoke with The Elementals privately in the study.
 
Afterwards, Mr. Johnson and and The Elementals were all smiles ... and Mr. Johnson had another job for the team.
 
Mr. Johnson, The Elementals and Lupus (the well-dressed individual) wanted to shoot a music trideo at a particular location ... about a one-day hike across the border into NAN territory. They didn't have permits to travel and film in NAN, so they wanted to hire the team to sneak them across the border, and escort them two and from the location.
 
And they wanted to leave immediately, in order to do the filming the following night.
 
Jonathan Bridges drove a hard bargain, and Mr. Johnson seemed quite willing to pay it, right up until they hit a sticking point...
 
Mr. Johnson: "I simply can't pay you half up front. I don't have the certified credsticks with me."
Jonathan Bridges: "Then you can pick up the certified credsticks en route to the NAN border. Alternatively, you can wire the money to a numbered account."
Mr. Johnson: "I can't see why you're demanding half up front. I've already demonstrated that I'm willing and able to pay for your services."
Jonathan Bridges: "Trust in the shadowrunning business is a very delicate thing. And in my past experience, Mr. Johnsons are most likely to refuse to pay half up front if they're planning to backstab us."
Mr. Johnson: "Did I backstab you last time?"
Jonathan Bridges: "No. And you also paid half up front last time."
Mr. Johnson: "With the amount I'm paying for this job, I would think you would extend me a bit of trust."
Jonathan Bridges: "Quite the opposite. If a client offers us 10 million nuyen, but refuses to pay any up front, I would assume that his generosity was due to the fact that he intended to kill us, rather than paying us."
 
Mr. Johnson decided he would get the team's credsticks on the drive to the border.
 
Audacity Jane: (when the team was back in the van) "Johnson's still going to try to kill us."
Happy Jack: "Of course he is. He only caved on paying us half in order to make us less suspicious."
Audacity Jane: "And because he thinks he can get his credsticks back after killing us."
Eye Spy: "Why did we agree to this job?"
Happy Jack: "So we can collect half the pay ... and keep our word."
Eye Spy: "Great. We know he's going to kill us, and we're still working for him ... for half pay."
 
No-Step: "The Elementals are all wearing spell locks. Some kind of manipulation spell."
Dent: "Control Thoughts."
Happy Jack: "It seems likely."
Dent: "Is Mr. Johnson controlling Lupus?"
No-Step: "Not that directly. But Lupus is a wolf shapeshifter."
Audacity Jane: "And apparently he likes to advertise that fact."
Dent: "Breaking spell locks isn't that hard, but shapeshifters have regeneration. They're almost impossible to kill."
Audacity Jane: "Thanks for the warning. Leave him to me."
Dent: "You don't understand. He can ignore wounds. Even lethal ones. He will heal in seconds."
Audacity Jane: "I have a clip of silver bullets."
Dent: (long pause) "That ... that would do it."
 
Mr. Johnson found other things to object to. Like Eye Spy and Byte Force remaining with the van in Seattle territory.
 
Mr. Johnson: "I'm paying you to escort us to the film location. I'm not going to pay for two of you to sit in the van and wait for us to return."
Happy Jack: "The rigger will watching for patrols with her drones. She does better when she's not blindly stumbling face-first into trees. The decker will be snooping around the NAN Border Security networks. He needs a cell signal to connect to the matrix. What do you expect them to accomplish by hiking through a forest?"
 
After the rest of the team had hiked into the forest...
 
Byte Force: (to Eye Spy) "Let's move the van to a new hiding spot."
Eye Spy: "Why?"
Byte Force: "Mr. Johnson knows where we're parked. If he's really serious about killing us off, he'll arrange for someone to kill us at the same time as he tries to kill the rest of the team."
Eye Spy: "I'm glad I have you around. I just thought he was going to kill the rest of the team, then come back and finish us off himself."
 
The hikers encountered a NAN border patrol, but a forest spirit's Concealment power was enough to keep them from being discovered.
 
The real excitement happened when they arrived at the location for the trideo ... a clearing containing a number of large stone slabs in an apparently random pattern.
 
Mr. Johnson: "Why are we stopping?"
Audacity Jane: "There's a banshee and a pack of ghouls in the clearing."
Mr. Johnson: (smiling nastily) "Well, that's the kind of problem you were hired to take care of. Hurry up and clear the area. Time is money."
No-Step: (quietly) "He's a real sweetheart."
 
Dent: (to Jane) "Silver bullets work on banshees."
Audacity Jane: "I'm going to need to save some for later."
Dent: "You're a crack shot. How many times do you expect to have to shoot it?"
 
Audacity Jane killed the banshee. Happy Jack killed most of the ghouls. The ones that fled were hunted down by Dent's and No-Step's spirits.
 
Happy Jack: (looking at the carnage in the clearing) "I hope The Elementals aren't squeamish."
 
The clearing was cleared of corpses. Lights and cameras were set up to catch the performance from every angle.
 
No-Step: (over the radio link) "He's setting up the music video in a Place of Power for 'artistic integrity'? This has the potential for major Ritual Magick."
Audacity Jane: "You know what happens when you disrupt this kind of ritual."
Dent: "No, we don't."
Audacity Jane: "Well ... you'll find out soon."
 
After the preparations were made, Dent, Jane and No-Step faded back into the forest, while Jack remained in the clearing. Right before No-Step headed into the forest, he augmented Happy Jack's willpower (using the Snake totem's affinity for health spells).
 
No-Step: "Try not to let Mr. Johnson control what little mind you have."
 
Mr. Johnson: "Why did your friends go into the forest?"
Happy Jack: "They're keeping a perimeter, just in case another NAN patrol shows up, or stray ghouls return."
Mr. Johnson: "Why aren't you with them?"
Happy Jack: "Just in case something makes it past the perimeter."
Mr. Johnson: "What was that health spell your friend cast on you?"
Happy Jack: "Health spell? That makes sense."
Mr. Johnson: "What makes sense?"
Happy Jack: "A health spell. I'm always the first one shot."
Mr. Johnson: "Why are you the first one shot?"
Happy Jack: "It must be anti-troll bigotry."
 
(Mr. Johnson apparently didn't notice that Happy Jack was carrying a mini-grenade launcher ... which was the real reason he was consistently the first one shot.)
 
The Elementals' performance looked visually spectacular ... particularly to the shamans assencing the astral plane.
 
No-Step: (over the radio link) "The Elementals' song ... it's a magickal ritual!"
Audacity Jane: "Cut the suspense. What is it doing?"
No-Step: "It's a spiritual healing ritual. I think it's capable of healing an injured or dying spirit."
Audacity Jane: "What kind of spirit is he healing?"
No-Step: "I can't tell that yet."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not that interested in finding out. I'm dropping Johnson in 3, 2, 1."
 
Mr. Johnson sprouted a couple narcojet darts. Happy Jack fired a neuro-stun grenade into the middle of The Elementals. The elf street samurai and Lupus lept to their defense ... rather ineffectively.
 
And then the sprit manifested. A hideous, deformed, three meter tall spider-like THING.
 
Dent: "Ahhh, bite me."
No-Step: "I'm sure he will."
 
hideous spider-like thing: "I. Will. FEEEED."
Happy Jack: "It looks like you've already had a double-helping of ugly."
 
And serendipity smiled on the team. Powerful spirits are essentially immune to ranged weapons. Melee weapons can harm them, but the damage isn't based on the wielder's physical strength, but rather their strength of will. No-Step, feeling paranoid about Mr. Johnson using Control Thoughts on Happy Jack, had enhanced Jack's mediocre willpower.
 
Followed by more serendipity.
 
Audacity Jane: I might as well shoot it. I've got nothing else.
GM: Which ammo are you using?
Audacity Jane: It's still silver bullets. I didn't have a chance to swap it out after Lupus.
GM: (headdesk)
Dent: It's vulnerable to silver too?
 
Once the spell locks were removed, The Elementals returned to their normal selves.
 
Whispering Wind: (furious) "I can't believe that you kidnapped us, mind controlled us and nearly got us killed by that THING!!"
Happy Jack: "We only abducted you. That fellow" (pointing at Mr. Johnson) "mind controlled you and tried to feed you to a spider monster. As you may remember, he lied to us about those parts of his plan."
Whispering Wind: "Why would you do that kind of thing?!?"
Happy Jack: "Abduct you? We were paid to. Rather well."
Coyote: "What happens next?"
No-Step: "Well, we were hired to sneak all of you into NAN territory, and then sneak you out again. Unless you want to stay here, we're perfectly willing to escort you back home."
Whispering Wind: "Provided you get paid, right?"
Happy Jack: (pointing at Mr. Johnson) "He's the one who promised to pay us. It seems likely that he intends to stiff us..."
Dent: "Particularly since he already tried to kill us."
Happy Jack: "But that just means he gets to talk to our collections department later." (pause) "So your trip home is being covered by him."
 
During the drive back into Seattle...
 
Byte Force: (handing a set of chips to Bambi) "I finished cleaning these up. They're yours."
Bambi: "What are they?"
Byte Force: "90% of a music video for your song, 'Healing the Spirit'."
Bambi: "90%?"
Byte Force: "I edited out some of the parts at the end, like you collapsing and the giant spider materializing. They didn't seem to fit the general theme of the song."
 
Wildfire: "What happens to Mr. Johnson now?"
Happy Jack: "He tried to stiff us, and he tried to kill us. So we're going to collect as much money as we can from him, and then he's going to disappear."
Wildfire: "What if he decides to return?"
Audacity Jane: "We're not going to tell him to disappear. We're going to make him disappear."
 
After returning the band to their studio.
 
Eye Spy: "I'm worried about selling Johnson to the organ-leggers. He could escape, or bribe them into letting him go."
Audacity Jane: "Good point. Give him a frontal lobotomy before we deliver him."
Eye Spy: "Me?!? I've never done one of those before. I don't even know how."
Audacity Jane: "Relax. If you completely screw up, you'll end up with a cooling corpse ... which is a reasonable second-best alternative."
No-Step: "That's a really horrible thing to do to someone."
Audacity Jane: "Yes it is ... but do you care?"
No-Step: (stopping to think about it) "You know, in this case I don't. Carry on."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
 
Total Eclipse - Contract (Re)Negotiation
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to meet Jonathan at a strip club called the Pink Pitbull.
 
No-Step: "Judging by the name, its clearly a high class establishment."
Dent: "It probably has back rooms for very, very private 'dances'."
Eye Spy: "Just imagine all the things you could catch from the joygirls."
Dent: "Or the joyboys. Which clientele does it service?"
Jonathan Bridges: "I don't particularly care. It's just as easy to throw a couple bills at boys or girls. And I don't need any of the services they provide."
No-Step: (scoffing) "You're getting serviced somewhere else?"
Jonathan Bridges: "Virtual Vicky. She doesn't spread STDs."
Audacity Jane: "You can still pick up other kinds of viruses from that stuff."
Byte Force: "I check them out first to make sure they're clean."
Eye Spy: "I'll bet you check them out. Verrrry thoroughly."
Byte Force: "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"
 
The afternoon "crowd" at the Pink Pitbull consisted of a Japanese businessman, an elf street samurai (presumably a bodyguard) and Mr. Johnson ... a native American businessman ... who was magickally awakened.
 
Dent: "He's probably a shaman."
No-Step: "Don't let yourself be blinded by stereotypes. Not all awakened Native Americans are shamans. Some are hermetics."
Happy Jack: "And corps prefer to hire hermetics over shamans. Something about that rules-driven mindset."
No-Step: "Speaking of being blinded by stereotypes...."
 
Magickal pedigree aside, Mr. Johnson worked for an entertainment corp who needed a group of wayward musicians returned to the company fold.
 
Mr. Johnson: "They are a band called The Elementals. They are cutting their first audiochip with my company, but artistic tempers flared at some of the company's suggestions. They stormed out of the recording studio, taking the only copy of their album with them."
 
Due to the imminent release of the album, the band and the album needed to be retrieved quietly ... and very, very quickly.
 
Mr. Johnson: "I would like you to gently persuade the band members to meet with me at my condo no later than midnight tonight. I believe we can work something out, bury the hatchet, if I just have the chance to talk privately."
Jonathan Bridges: "How 'gently' do they need to be 'persuaded'? You have a very narrow time frame, so there's a limit to the subtle pressure we can apply."
Mr. Johnson: "I believe I can provide something to help you in this task."
Mr. Johnson handed Jonathan a package containing six narcojet pistols.
Jonathan Bridges: "I understand your meaning perfectly. However, I insist that our payment is contingent upon the band and album being delivered in good condition, not on the outcome of the negotiations. It has been my experience that being drugged and abducted typically generates more bad feelings than mere 'artistic differences' do."
 
Mr. Johnson also provided pictures of the band members, and the location of their space they were using for a studio ... which happened to be in a very public and well-patrolled area. He also stressed that it was important that the team not be seen with The Elementals near their studio.
 
Eye Spy: "Are we going to tail The Elementals home from their studio and grab them?"
Byte Force: "That will only work if they all travel and live together. What if they go four different ways?"
Dent: "Maybe we can grab all of them and the album at the studio."
Eye Spy: "The studio is in a heavily patrolled neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "That means they'll feel safe and secure."
 
The recording studio was in a small commercial buildings. One of the other tenants was a small bank.
 
Audacity Jane: "If the bank employees are properly paranoid, any commotion could lead to a silent alarm."
Dent: "So what. I'll use a Silence spell. We could set off grenades without anyone hearing a thing."
 
Byte Force: "Their equipment is fairly valuable. They probably keep the door locked."
Happy Jack: "I'll talk them into letting me in. I'll pretend that I work for a club that wants to book them."
No-Step: "You don't look like a nightclub manager."
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll. I look like every nightclub bouncer."
No-Step: "Why would a bouncer be inviting them to play at a club?"
Happy Jack: "Let me worry about that. Byte Force, can you find a hot club that they haven't been booked at yet?"
Byte Force: (after searching for a couple minutes) "They haven't been booked at the Psychedelic Miracle yet."
Happy Jack: (giving Byte Force a withering stare) "Did you choose that just to annoy me?"
 
Happy Jack started looking through the clothes he had stashed in the van for loud, garish clubware.
 
Audacity Jane: "Just wear something colorful."
Happy Jack: "I'm trying for something between colorful and 'makes your eyes bleed'."
 
No-Step performed astral reconnaisance.
 
No-Step: "All four of them are there, but it looks like they're getting ready to leave."
Happy Jack: "Time for me to go stall them. Jane and Dent, let me know when you're ready to be let in."
Dent: "Try not to look intimidating. They might refuse to let you in."
Happy Jack: "Nah. Their drummer is a troll. I'm no more intimidating than him."
 
The Elementals (NPCs)
Whispering Wind: female human singer 
Wildfire: male elf guitarist
Coyote: male human bassist
Bambi: male troll drummer
 
Bambi: (answering the studio door) "What do you want?"
Happy Jack: "Duuuuude! Man! I am so glad to see you. My manager has been trying to reach you for weeks."
Bambi: "Who are you?"
Happy Jack: "I'm Sunflower, the bouncer at The Psychadelic Miracle."
Bambi: "Your name is Sunflower?"
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Uh huh."
Bambi: "And I thought my name was bad."
 
After stepping inside the recording studio.
 
Wildfire: "I don't think we're the kind of band you guys normally book."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "But you're HOT! You're hotter than hot. You're like thermonuclear heat wave hot."
Whispering Wind: "We're kind of busy right now with getting our album out."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Will you at least stop by and talk to my manager? Please, please, please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEASE." (pause to inhale) "Or at least call him. Calling him would be good too."
Whispering Wind: (laughing) "Okay, okay. We'll find the time to call him."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you."
Dent and Jane were in the hall, listening to the conversation over the radio link.
Audacity Jane: (whispering to Dent) "It's a good thing their studio is sound-proofed, or they would hear you giggling through the door."
 
Jack opened the door as if to leave, and Dent (concealed by a hearth spirit) cast Silence into the room. Jane followed it up with a spray of narcojet darts. As soon as everyone was down, Dent dropped the Silence spell.
 
No-Step: "Did anyone figure out how we get them out of here?"
Audacity Jane: "We stuff them into boxes. You cast Mask spells on Jack and me, so we look like we're band members. We take the boxes out to the van."
Happy Jack: "Yeah. Disguise me like Bambi, obviously, and disguise Jane ... like Coyote."
Audacity Jane: "You want him to disguise me as a man?"
Happy Jack: "Does Whispering Wind look like the type who does her own heavy lifting?"
 
A pair of local Lone Star patrolmen stopped Jack and Jane to see why they were hauling boxes to a van.
 
Lone Star patrolman: "I need you to identify yourselves and explain what you're taking from this building."
Happy Jack (disguised as Bambi): "We own this recording studio. One of our vendors sent us the wrong stuff. We're shipping it back and they're replacing it."
Lone Star patrolman: "Is there anyone who can verify your story?"
Happy Jack / Bambi: "We share this building with a bank. The bank guards should recognize us. They see us every day."
Eye Spy (ooc): I think the bank guards were intended to be a complication, not an alibi.
 
Dent read The Elementals' minds to find out where the master recording was.
 
Dent: "I found the recording, but I also found something really weird."
No-Step: "Weird how?"
Dent: "They never worked for an entertainment corporation. No entertainment corporation has made a serious effort to recruit them. They've never seen Mr. Johnson before."
Audacity Jane: (shrugging) "So Mr. Johnson lied. That happens all the time."
No-Step: "Wait. Dent has a point. Why didn't Mr. Johnson try to recruit them before hiring us?"
Happy Jack: "It's a good thing that we captured them so quickly. It gives us all evening to investigate our employer."
 
People don't like it when shadowrunners ask questions ... and nosy shadowrunners sometimes get shot.
 
But with the right disguise, people expect questions ... and the bullets end up aimed at the wrong target.
 
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: (to the bartender) "You've been working here since you opened, right?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Yeah."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: (showing a picture of Jonathan Bridges) "This troll came in earlier and met with someone. Did you see them?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "I'm not sure. It's kind of dark in here, and lots of people come and go."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "Listen, drekhead, either you can answer my questions, or I'll call a couple uniformed officers to join me in here and we'll ask questions of every single sleazy customer of yours who comes through the door. And if we don't get answers today, we'll come back tomorrow, and the next day." (pause) "It may affect your business some, but that's hardly my concern."
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Okay! I'll answer your questions. Yes, I saw the meet go down. I never saw the troll before today, but he met with one of our regulars. An Amerind. A shaman, I think. He was dressed better than normal for the meeting. He was wearing a suit."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "How does he normally dress?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Beaded leather buckskins. An old-fashioned hat with feathers stuck in it, and a spider on it."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "There's a spider design on the hat?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "No! There's a real, live, fragging tarantula on his hat. All. The. Time." (pause) "But not today."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "Does he have a name?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "I'm sure he's got a name, but nobody around here knows it. Nobody wants to talk to him. He's a big tipper, but he freaks all the girls out."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "They're scared of the spider."
Pink Pitbull bartender: "And they're more scared of him."
 
Back in the van.
 
No-Step: "If he's a spider shaman, those are seriously nasty business. That kind of totem makes a shaman go crazy."
Byte Force: "He's supposedly having us deliver the band to his apartment. I can't tell if it's really his home, but it's a distinct possibility."
Audacity Jane: "He doesn't trust us enough to tell the truth about the job ... but he trusts us enough to let us know where he hangs out ... and maybe even where he lives?"
No-Step: "Maybe he thinks we'd refuse the job if we knew what it really entailed."
Audacity Jane: "And maybe he plans to kill us when the job is over."
No-Step: "Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Audacity Jane: "I know."
Happy Jack: (shrugging) "I distinctly remember agreeing to keep this job quiet and secret. We can carry out the agreement to the letter, then screw up whatever he plans next. We just can't tell anyone about it."

Best part of the whole adventure.

Best part of the whole adventure.

Curious, Shadowboxer asks Timmons to see the entire will. 
 
The Last Will and Testament of Patrick J. McGinty
 
I, Patrick Joseph McGinty, being of sound mind and body (no matter what those fooking friends of mine may say, and who the Hell are they to be throwing stones anyway?) do hereby distribute my estate as follows:
 
To my long-suffering and dedicated wife Susan, I leave the bulk of my estate beyond that specified elsewhere in this Will, with the provision that all of it reverts to charity if she remarries an Englishman after I’m gone.  Dead or no, I’ll not be having no fooking Brit living high on the hog off money I fought damned hard to take and keep.
 
To my business partner Paul Rondale, in the unlikely event he survives me, I leave my entire interest in Rondale & McGinty's Automotive & Electrical Repair Shop of Arkham, Mass.  And damn me, since he’s the more responsible of the lot still breathing, I leave him the objects in my office and workspace to dispose of properly.  (You know the things I’m talking about, Paul.)  Or if he wishes, he can keep them and bid adieu to his sanity, not that he has much left at this point.  Paul should be made aware that I’ve already taken care of storing my private library for the posterior of future generations.
 
To my friend and driver Aldous Quinn (if Rondale and company ever get off their lazy arses and get Aldous up and moving again), for his loyalty and invaluable assistance dealing with the damnable New England Shit Vortex over the years, I leave my Dusenberg J towncar, a bottle of neat whiskey, and a packet of cigars, that he may drive out to the coast, have a smoke, and tip a glass in my memory.
 
I instruct my lawyers to use funds from my estate to purchase a carnival fun-house mirror (the type that makes you look skinny) to bequeath to Prof. Deborah Einstein of Harvard University.  I’d have gone for the type that makes you look fat, but they don’t make them that blasted large.
 
I leave my phonograph player and collection of jazz records to Dr. Alicia McPool of Radcliffe College, in the hopes that it might help her cope with the incessant screaming.
 
To my associate Amy Wells of Arkham, Massachusetts, I leave my little black bag of “medical tools” and the glass jar that formerly housed our associate Col. Lancaster. 
 
To agent Landing of the ONI, I leave my journals and notebooks, so he’ll finally know everything we have been up to these past years and can have a proper stroke.
 
As to my campaign manager Norman J. Plaski, who insisted he be mentioned in my will:  Hello, Norm. 
 
To my lawyer of record (at this writing, Edward Wade Poole of Crane, Poole & Schmidt) I leave my lucky pocket watch, with the instruction that it is to be passed on to succeeding lawyers of record upon each preceding lawyer’s retirement or death.  This watch is to be kept within the possessor’s earshot at all times until the completion of the Corbitt proviso and final disposition of the properties listed therein.
 
I instruct my lawyers, money-grubbing lot that they are, to hold and maintain the property at 15 W. Haven Street, Boston, Mass., along with that detailed in the Corbitt proviso.  Trust funds have been established for the properties’ annual taxes, care, and maintenance (and if I find you shysters skimming off the top, don’t think I won’t come back and haunt your greedy arses).  The lawyers may, if they wish, rent out either or both properties in the interim to save money on taxes and maintenance until final disposition detailed below and in the attached Proviso.  But if either place gets destroyed, they should know that it’s coming out of their damned hides.
 
On or shortly after December 30, 2014, the property at 15 W. Haven Street, Boston, Mass., and all its current contents are to be turned over to Shadowboxer, along with the balance of the trust fund established for that property’s taxes and maintenance.  At 12:17 am  on the above-noted date, Shadowboxer may be found on the 4th floor of the Ronald McNair Building on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 
Upon signing over the deed to the Haven Street property, the lawyer of record shall also give Shadowboxer the accompanying sealed envelope, with instructions not to open the envelope nor read the contents until well within the grounds of the Haven Street property.  And don’t think I’m not laughing my arse off at my own cleverness.
 
Upon transfer of the property above, I also bequeath four bottles of neat whiskey and two boxes of cigars to Shadowboxer’s associate Sugar Beaver to distribute to his teammates as he sees fit.  He’d damn well better care about it, too, as I’m leaving him good Irish whiskey, not watered-down American piss-whiskey like he’s used to drinking.  And the lasses had best not start spouting any of that “smoking and alcohol are no good for you” crap.  The boys can light up and drink as they please.
 
As they prepare to take on the tasks at hand, I tip a glass in their honor and wish them the best of luck.  Better them than me, says I.
 
- - - -
 
Timmons insists that, as far as he knows, that is the entirety of the will.
 
So, where is McGinty's library?  And how long is it going to take the heroes to find it?

(Continuing the Boston Champions game...)
 
The heroes get a full description of Marathon, and learn that the other-world version also had a spear and a shield, but no such items were stolen.  The spear allowed Marathon to teleport himself, or his teammates.
 
Maker:  Maybe he kept some for his private collection.
Shadowboxer:  Or sold them for someone else's private collection.  Remember, that's why the university stopped letting him go on digs.
 
The heroes get all deductive and stuff.
 
Pops:  Maybe the Professor got his hands on the spear from this world, and is using it to teleport his lab around every time PRIMUS gets too close.
 
Honey Badger is keeping an eye on the building while the rest of the team assembles costumes to disguise their identities.  (He's the only one who has done any real crimefighting, and does so publicly.)  While doing so, he notices someone else keeping an eye on the building:  a very neatly-dressed man - almost obsessively so - sitting in a car.
 
GM: He's mostly reading papers, making some notes on them with a red pen, and glancing every now and then at a pocket watch.
Honey Badger:  Pocket watch - you don't see those every day.  What is this guy, a professor, grading papers?  Hey, maybe he's The Professor.
GM:  Watching his own lab from across the street?  Besides, he strikes you more as an accountant.  Or a lawyer.
Pops:  That's even worse.
 
Shadowboxer uses his shadow-sight to see what the papers are the guy is reading.  They're pages from a will, some guy setting up a living trust for his wife and kids.
 
Shadowboxer:  Anyone we know?
 
The heroes turn their sights on getting into what they're pretty sure is the Professor's lab. Since Shadowboxer's shadow-sight can't see inside, Nexus sends her spirit Contact to scout it out.  When he doesn't return after a half hour, and she can't locate him by spell, they get worried and decide to break in.
 
Honey Badger:  We'll enter from the roof, drop in through the skylight...
Maker:  What if there's no skylight?
Honey Badger:  There's always a skylight.
GM:  Even if there is a skylight, there's also the point that this is a 5 story building and the lab you're heading into is on the 4th floor.  Dropping in through a skylight only puts you into the room above the lab.
Honey Badger:  So we give the 4th floor lab a skylight into the room above it.
 
As the heroes are planning and arguing, the Boston Commons make their move, entering the building under one of Sense's Veils right under the heroes' noses.  Since the heroes captured the villains' shapeshifter/mimic earlier that day (he was supposed to mimic Attache to get them into the Professor's lab), Whitey mind controls Attache to open the doors for them.  Pops teleports the heroes into the hallway outside the lab, but the villains are already inside, having closed the door behind them.
 
Pops:  So, do we break in and jump into the middle of a fight, or wait for the noise to die down and mop up whichever side won?
 
They hear what sounds like a howitzer go off inside, and see the wall next to them crack.  The plaster on the hallway side falls, revealing badly damaged armor plating.
 
Honey Badger:  We should probably go in.
 
He rips a hole in the wall and climbs through, followed by several other heroes.  They see the Boston Commons facing off against a bunch of robots.  Two rolling robots similar to Johnny Five from Short Circuit.  Two more flying robots like the ones they fought earlier.  And over a half-dozen lab robots similar to the ones that worked for/with Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies.  Plus two human lab technicians, who have grabbed up prototype weapons for an impromptu field test.  In the middle are five racks full of various equipment, all wired into an ancient-looking spear.
 
Honey Badger:  Are any of them shooting at Honey Badger?  'Cause that's Honey Badger's job.  And Honey Badger don't care.
 
Marathon runs across the room to get the spear.  Maker flies in with a stealth field on, zips over to the racks, and does a Move-By Grab on the spear, flying back with it toward the hole in the wall. Gerrymander nearly crit-fails a Tactics roll, and puts a Barrier wall around Marathon and the racks, not realizing Maker is already outside that area.
 
Shadowboxer:  That's not so bad.  He didn't know she was already outside that area.
GM:  Smarter would have been to put a Barrier over the hole in the wall so she can't get out.
Shadowboxer:  True, there is that.
 
As Marathon gets upset over being walled up, albeit temporarily, things get temporarily political.
Common Man:  Just like a true conservative - throw up walls and block things, just to prove you're in control.
 
Malarky casts a spell to catch most of the Commons in a field of brambles and briars (AoE Entangle), including four alt-selves of Common Man that were there at the time.  Gerrymander turns desolid and walks out.  As he passes by a trapped Common Man:
 
Gerrymander:  Just like a true liberal - completely ineffective.
 
Pops teleports across the room, ending up beside one VIPER technician holding a tiny pistol.  Circe uses her TK to disarm the tech (Chad).
 
Pops:  (grinning at the disarmed technician)  Hiya.
Chad:  (picks up various components on the nearby lab table and holds up one finger)  Just a minute.  I'll be right with you.
Pops:  No problem, take your time.  (OOC:)  How many Phases is it going to take him to get whatever that is together?
GM:  Like he said, a minute.  Maybe two.
 
Honey Badger picks up a roller bot and squeezes, causing considerable damage to it.
 
Honey Badger:  Look at that.  Cheap Chinese construction.
(Every lab robot and roller bot in the lab stops what they're doing to give Honey Badger the bird.)
 
Maker flies out the hole, and Circe decides to follow her just in case she needs backup.  When Gerrymander tries to stop her, Circe mind-blasts him, so he grabs her and squeezes.  Malarky responds by hitting Gerrymander with his drunkenness spell.
 
Gerrymander:  (finally getting a good look at Circe)  Hey, you're pretty hot.  What say we blow this joint, go hit a club.
Circe:  Um... yeah?  Sure?
 
Honey Badger goes out to back Circe up in case she needs any help.  Sizing up the situation, instead of attacking, he walks up to the other side of Gerrymander and puts his arm companionably around the villain's shoulders. 
 
Gerrymander:  Hey, dude, back off.  She's totally into me.
Honey Badger.  Oh, no problem, pal.  But if you're taking my friend out, I just wanted to give you a few tips.  (looks significantly at Circe).  One, you make sure you act like a gentleman.  (Gerrymander nods, while Circe continues to look mildly baffled)  Two, you have to make sure she gets home safe afterward.  (As Circe's player continues to look confused)  And in case you (looking at Circe) haven't figured it out yet, I'm TOTALLY trying to coordinate with you here, so Three (rolls dice)...
Circe:  Oh.  OH!!!  (grabs dice, then looks at the character sheet)  Do I even have Teamwork skill???
Honey Badger:  (facepalming and shaking his head)  Apparently not.

(continuing the Champions game)
 
As Ms. Browning is meeting with Pops, Malarky is walking across the MIT campus heading to class and notices two men, looking exactly like the guy in the Red Sox uniform from one museum theft, and the man who pulled the stolen Greek artifacts out of the bus locker after the other museum theft.  Also, two guys who don't look like students are standing around, waiting.  So Malarky call all his new-found friends.  Unfortunately, most of them are still enroute when Ms. Browning leaves the building, and the Red Sox guy pulls out a baseball and takes down one of the latter two guys, who are Ms. Browning's bodyguards.
 
Malarky:  Looks like I'm going to be late for class.
 
The man from the bus depot was very well-dressed, but this guy on campus is wearing jeans and a parka.
 
Circe:  Wait, the guy we saw on the bus security camera was in an expensive suit.
Maker:  How do you know it was expensive?
Circe:  (points to KS: Fashion on the character sheet)  I know an expensive suit when I see one.
 
Pops teleports over to the opposite buidling's rooftop and begins teleporting students from the soon-to-be-battlefield onto the rooftop beside him.
 
Pops:  Now the big question is, are they going to just stand there and watch, or are they going to run downstairs and get the heck out of here?
Maker:  There's going to be explosions and stuff.  They'll run away soon enough.
Pops:  These are students at MIT.  In a supers universe.  They see explosions, they'll think, "Oh, it must be Tuesday."
 
A police helicopter appears overhead.  Literally appears, out of an apparently empty sky.
 
Honey Badger:  Now that's a quick response.
 
The helicopter fires a missile at the guy in the parka, doing no apparent damage.
 
Circe:  Wait, when did police helicopters get outfitted with missiles?!
 
An apparent twin of the guy in the parka, this one dressed in a nice suit and overcoat, steps out of a building - as in, through the wall - and heads for Ms. Browning.
 
Circe:  Well, we found the guy's brother.
 
Honey Badger arrives and faces off against the Splendid Splinter.
 
Splendid Splinter:  How about... (pulls out Louisville Slugger) ... a little Bat-Fu?  (takes a batter's stance)  It's a bit high and outside, but it looks like Williams is going for it.  He's swinging for the bleachers...  (CRACK!) 
 
The bat cracks when it hits Honey Badger, but then he notices it instantly heals itself.
 
Honey Badger:  Honey Badger's gotta get one of those!
After taking down Splinter, Honey Badger turns toward the guy in the parka, who punches Honey Badger... and transforms to look like Honey Badger!
 
Honey Badger:  Guys, I don't think they're brothers...
 
Maker figures out the police helicopter is a hologram being projected by a much smaller flying robot.  She blasts it, damaging the hologram projector.
 
GM:  The helicopter turns into a Piper Cub, hovering in midair.  Then a flock of birds.  And then a dolphin.
 
Maker then flies closer and hits it with her EMP.
 
Maker:  And I catch it before it hits the ground, 'cause this one's mine.
 
(More to follow...)

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
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
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name given to anonymous employers of shadowrunners
 
Total Eclipse - Contract (Re)Negotiation
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to meet Jonathan at a strip club called the Pink Pitbull.
 
No-Step: "Judging by the name, its clearly a high class establishment."
Dent: "It probably has back rooms for very, very private 'dances'."
Eye Spy: "Just imagine all the things you could catch from the joygirls."
Dent: "Or the joyboys. Which clientele does it service?"
Jonathan Bridges: "I don't particularly care. It's just as easy to throw a couple bills at boys or girls. And I don't need any of the services they provide."
No-Step: (scoffing) "You're getting serviced somewhere else?"
Jonathan Bridges: "Virtual Vicky. She doesn't spread STDs."
Audacity Jane: "You can still pick up other kinds of viruses from that stuff."
Byte Force: "I check them out first to make sure they're clean."
Eye Spy: "I'll bet you check them out. Verrrry thoroughly."
Byte Force: "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"
 
The afternoon "crowd" at the Pink Pitbull consisted of a Japanese businessman, an elf street samurai (presumably a bodyguard) and Mr. Johnson ... a native American businessman ... who was magickally awakened.
 
Dent: "He's probably a shaman."
No-Step: "Don't let yourself be blinded by stereotypes. Not all awakened Native Americans are shamans. Some are hermetics."
Happy Jack: "And corps prefer to hire hermetics over shamans. Something about that rules-driven mindset."
No-Step: "Speaking of being blinded by stereotypes...."
 
Magickal pedigree aside, Mr. Johnson worked for an entertainment corp who needed a group of wayward musicians returned to the company fold.
 
Mr. Johnson: "They are a band called The Elementals. They are cutting their first audiochip with my company, but artistic tempers flared at some of the company's suggestions. They stormed out of the recording studio, taking the only copy of their album with them."
 
Due to the imminent release of the album, the band and the album needed to be retrieved quietly ... and very, very quickly.
 
Mr. Johnson: "I would like you to gently persuade the band members to meet with me at my condo no later than midnight tonight. I believe we can work something out, bury the hatchet, if I just have the chance to talk privately."
Jonathan Bridges: "How 'gently' do they need to be 'persuaded'? You have a very narrow time frame, so there's a limit to the subtle pressure we can apply."
Mr. Johnson: "I believe I can provide something to help you in this task."
Mr. Johnson handed Jonathan a package containing six narcojet pistols.
Jonathan Bridges: "I understand your meaning perfectly. However, I insist that our payment is contingent upon the band and album being delivered in good condition, not on the outcome of the negotiations. It has been my experience that being drugged and abducted typically generates more bad feelings than mere 'artistic differences' do."
 
Mr. Johnson also provided pictures of the band members, and the location of their space they were using for a studio ... which happened to be in a very public and well-patrolled area. He also stressed that it was important that the team not be seen with The Elementals near their studio.
 
Eye Spy: "Are we going to tail The Elementals home from their studio and grab them?"
Byte Force: "That will only work if they all travel and live together. What if they go four different ways?"
Dent: "Maybe we can grab all of them and the album at the studio."
Eye Spy: "The studio is in a heavily patrolled neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "That means they'll feel safe and secure."
 
The recording studio was in a small commercial buildings. One of the other tenants was a small bank.
 
Audacity Jane: "If the bank employees are properly paranoid, any commotion could lead to a silent alarm."
Dent: "So what. I'll use a Silence spell. We could set off grenades without anyone hearing a thing."
 
Byte Force: "Their equipment is fairly valuable. They probably keep the door locked."
Happy Jack: "I'll talk them into letting me in. I'll pretend that I work for a club that wants to book them."
No-Step: "You don't look like a nightclub manager."
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll. I look like every nightclub bouncer."
No-Step: "Why would a bouncer be inviting them to play at a club?"
Happy Jack: "Let me worry about that. Byte Force, can you find a hot club that they haven't been booked at yet?"
Byte Force: (after searching for a couple minutes) "They haven't been booked at the Psychedelic Miracle yet."
Happy Jack: (giving Byte Force a withering stare) "Did you choose that just to annoy me?"
 
Happy Jack started looking through the clothes he had stashed in the van for loud, garish clubware.
 
Audacity Jane: "Just wear something colorful."
Happy Jack: "I'm trying for something between colorful and 'makes your eyes bleed'."
 
No-Step performed astral reconnaisance.
 
No-Step: "All four of them are there, but it looks like they're getting ready to leave."
Happy Jack: "Time for me to go stall them. Jane and Dent, let me know when you're ready to be let in."
Dent: "Try not to look intimidating. They might refuse to let you in."
Happy Jack: "Nah. Their drummer is a troll. I'm no more intimidating than him."
 
The Elementals (NPCs)
Whispering Wind: female human singer 
Wildfire: male elf guitarist
Coyote: male human bassist
Bambi: male troll drummer
 
Bambi: (answering the studio door) "What do you want?"
Happy Jack: "Duuuuude! Man! I am so glad to see you. My manager has been trying to reach you for weeks."
Bambi: "Who are you?"
Happy Jack: "I'm Sunflower, the bouncer at The Psychadelic Miracle."
Bambi: "Your name is Sunflower?"
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Uh huh."
Bambi: "And I thought my name was bad."
 
After stepping inside the recording studio.
 
Wildfire: "I don't think we're the kind of band you guys normally book."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "But you're HOT! You're hotter than hot. You're like thermonuclear heat wave hot."
Whispering Wind: "We're kind of busy right now with getting our album out."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Will you at least stop by and talk to my manager? Please, please, please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEASE." (pause to inhale) "Or at least call him. Calling him would be good too."
Whispering Wind: (laughing) "Okay, okay. We'll find the time to call him."
Sunflower / Happy Jack: "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you."
Dent and Jane were in the hall, listening to the conversation over the radio link.
Audacity Jane: (whispering to Dent) "It's a good thing their studio is sound-proofed, or they would hear you giggling through the door."
 
Jack opened the door as if to leave, and Dent (concealed by a hearth spirit) cast Silence into the room. Jane followed it up with a spray of narcojet darts. As soon as everyone was down, Dent dropped the Silence spell.
 
No-Step: "Did anyone figure out how we get them out of here?"
Audacity Jane: "We stuff them into boxes. You cast Mask spells on Jack and me, so we look like we're band members. We take the boxes out to the van."
Happy Jack: "Yeah. Disguise me like Bambi, obviously, and disguise Jane ... like Coyote."
Audacity Jane: "You want him to disguise me as a man?"
Happy Jack: "Does Whispering Wind look like the type who does her own heavy lifting?"
 
A pair of local Lone Star patrolmen stopped Jack and Jane to see why they were hauling boxes to a van.
 
Lone Star patrolman: "I need you to identify yourselves and explain what you're taking from this building."
Happy Jack (disguised as Bambi): "We own this recording studio. One of our vendors sent us the wrong stuff. We're shipping it back and they're replacing it."
Lone Star patrolman: "Is there anyone who can verify your story?"
Happy Jack / Bambi: "We share this building with a bank. The bank guards should recognize us. They see us every day."
Eye Spy (ooc): I think the bank guards were intended to be a complication, not an alibi.
 
Dent read The Elementals' minds to find out where the master recording was.
 
Dent: "I found the recording, but I also found something really weird."
No-Step: "Weird how?"
Dent: "They never worked for an entertainment corporation. No entertainment corporation has made a serious effort to recruit them. They've never seen Mr. Johnson before."
Audacity Jane: (shrugging) "So Mr. Johnson lied. That happens all the time."
No-Step: "Wait. Dent has a point. Why didn't Mr. Johnson try to recruit them before hiring us?"
Happy Jack: "It's a good thing that we captured them so quickly. It gives us all evening to investigate our employer."
 
People don't like it when shadowrunners ask questions ... and nosy shadowrunners sometimes get shot.
 
But with the right disguise, people expect questions ... and the bullets end up aimed at the wrong target.
 
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: (to the bartender) "You've been working here since you opened, right?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Yeah."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: (showing a picture of Jonathan Bridges) "This troll came in earlier and met with someone. Did you see them?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "I'm not sure. It's kind of dark in here, and lots of people come and go."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "Listen, drekhead, either you can answer my questions, or I'll call a couple uniformed officers to join me in here and we'll ask questions of every single sleazy customer of yours who comes through the door. And if we don't get answers today, we'll come back tomorrow, and the next day." (pause) "It may affect your business some, but that's hardly my concern."
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Okay! I'll answer your questions. Yes, I saw the meet go down. I never saw the troll before today, but he met with one of our regulars. An Amerind. A shaman, I think. He was dressed better than normal for the meeting. He was wearing a suit."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "How does he normally dress?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "Beaded leather buckskins. An old-fashioned hat with feathers stuck in it, and a spider on it."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "There's a spider design on the hat?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "No! There's a real, live, fragging tarantula on his hat. All. The. Time." (pause) "But not today."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "Does he have a name?"
Pink Pitbull bartender: "I'm sure he's got a name, but nobody around here knows it. Nobody wants to talk to him. He's a big tipper, but he freaks all the girls out."
Detective Williams / Happy Jack: "They're scared of the spider."
Pink Pitbull bartender: "And they're more scared of him."
 
Back in the van.
 
No-Step: "If he's a spider shaman, those are seriously nasty business. That kind of totem makes a shaman go crazy."
Byte Force: "He's supposedly having us deliver the band to his apartment. I can't tell if it's really his home, but it's a distinct possibility."
Audacity Jane: "He doesn't trust us enough to tell the truth about the job ... but he trusts us enough to let us know where he hangs out ... and maybe even where he lives?"
No-Step: "Maybe he thinks we'd refuse the job if we knew what it really entailed."
Audacity Jane: "And maybe he plans to kill us when the job is over."
No-Step: "Those aren't mutually exclusive."
Audacity Jane: "I know."
Happy Jack: (shrugging) "I distinctly remember agreeing to keep this job quiet and secret. We can carry out the agreement to the letter, then screw up whatever he plans next. We just can't tell anyone about it."

Finally started a new Champions campaign after a 4-5 year hiatus.  This one is set in Boston, one month after an event (called the Cross-Rip) that cause many superheroes to disappear from the game world, along with a fair number of supervillains, many of whom were in one of the superprisons at the time.  For those in prison (and in some isolated cases outside), most of the supervillains that disappeared were replaced with other supervillains, many of which were not known in the game world.  A few civilians also disappeared, or in a few cases switched places with their cross-world counterparts.
 
All a plot by the Empress of a Billion Dimensions, that didn't go 100% as she had planned.  But the details of all that might not be of interest to anybody here, and aren't really quotes anyway.
 
The heroes (team still unnamed) are:
 
Circe - beautiful, rich female mentalist, owns a nightclub (among other things)
Honey Badger - super strong, incredibly tough, and... Honey Badger don't care
Malarky - Irish-American MIT student who is learning magic and has some... interesting spells
Maker - Female NASA astronaut gadgeteer who got energy powers in an accident at UNTIL's Gateway station; daughter of a Chinese woman and... Leroy Jenkins!
Nexus - also beautiful female wizardress, able to see and talk to the dead (her Contact is a spirit) and plays in a band at Circe's nightclub
Pops - MIT professor who created extra-dimensional tech allowing him to teleport himself and others
Shadowboxer - Shadow-controlling PI able to see through and move through shadows, split off his own shadow, etc.
 
Pops (Dr. Stevens) is looking at readings from an experiment when he sees three energy spikes (unrelated to his experiment) whose signature is remarkably similar to that of his own teleportation.  But much higher - someone is teleporting tons of mass, somewhere fairly nearby.  Unfortunately, his equipment wasn't designed to get a heading and relative range.  To get the parts he needs fast, he seeks out Li Jenkins, who has a rep for creating things fast with her 3-D printer.  As they discuss his designs, a pair of mafia thugs (Tom and Jerry) walk in, intent on hitting her up for protection money.
 
Tom (looming over Stevens):  You're done here.  We need to talk to the Jap chick.
Maker:  Jap?!  I'm Chinese, you jerk!
Pops:  Jap?  Funny, you didn't strike me as Jewish.  (pause at Maker's confused expression)  Jewish American Princess?  (pause at her continued blank expression)  Y'know what, never mind.
 
Honey Badger:  (OOC) Use your ninja powers on him.
Maker:  (OOC) I don't have ninja powers!   I'm Chinese, not Japanese!
 
Maker:  (OOC)  I'm in secret ID.  Can I use one of the things on my work desk and make it look like the energy is coming out of it?
GM:  Sure, what the heck.  There's a toaster handy.
Maker picks up the toaster, points it at Tom, and sends a nice NND blast into him, stunning the thug.
Pops:  Wow, that must be a four-slice model.
 
Meanwhile, at Circe's club, her nightclub manager asks her to talk to a musical group's agent (Damon Folmier) about his client wanting to play at the nightclub. Circe finally agrees to allow the group to try out in a few days, without once asking what the group's name is.
 
Damon Folmier:  Okay, so Road Kill will be there Wednesday at two.
Nexus:  Road Kill?!  You're booking Road Kill to play at your club?!
Circe:  Why?  Who the heck is Road Kill?
(After getting an explanation)  Hey, they're trying out.  Nothing says I have to say yes. 
 
Circe and Nexus are leaving the club when they notice a limo pull up next to a female college student.  The man inside rolls down his window to talk to the girl, who looks panic-stricken and tries to run away.  She stops, however, when a mental attack (which Circe sees) hits her from inside the limo, and she starts heading back to get in.  Circe breaks the obvious mind control.
 
Pops:  (OOC) Maybe it was the other way around.  Maybe she was mentally attacking the person in the limo...
GM:  (thoughtful expression)  Hmmmmmm...
Circe:  (to Pops) Now you stop that!  No giving the GM ideas!
 
Circe and Nexus learn the girl was actually pulled over in the Cross-Rip, and whoever was in the limo was apparently from the other world too.  But she's too afraid to talk, and the heroes don't push it, so they don't get more useful info from her.
 
The heroes begin investigating a series of thefts of Greek artifacts from several area museums - a breastplate, helmet, horn bow, short sword, and greaves.  One theft is done by a shapeshifter, mimicking one hero's DNPC friend who works at the museum, who took the stolen items (in a black suitcase) to a bus depot, put that into a locker and took a grey suitcase (with forged replicas) to plant in the poor schmuck's car trunk.  The heroes check out the locker, finding it empty with no secret panel or hidden compartment, then pull the security camera tape and watch the switch, but nobody opens the locker before they got there.  They check the tape for the camera that had a view of the lockers on the other side, and see a man reach in, apparently through the back of the locker, and pull the black suitcase out.
 
Malarky:  We'll tip off the police about both camera views.  They'll see the guy pulling the suitcase out and should let Tom go.  And the tape is unaltered...
GM:  (smiles malevolently)
Malarky:  ... well, we'll alter the part where we checked the locker...
 
From security cameras, they see that the other theft was done by a man dressed in a Red Sox uniform, along with a woman dressed as a 1600's Puritan woman.
 
GM (describing the Puritan woman, looks at Honey Badger's player):  ... you kinda get that "naughty librarian" vibe.
Honey Badger:  (whimper) You're killing me.
 
Pops (in secret ID) is interviewed by PRIMUS Lt. Williams, who is trying to pin down the location of the lab for The Professor, second-in-command of the Boston VIPER Nest.  (It's a poorly-kept secret that the lab is somewhere on the MIT campus.)
 
One of the players (I don't recall which one):  The Professor?  They should just look for stuff made out of coconuts.
 
Lt. Williams' questions make it evident that he thinks Dr. Stevens (Pops) is up to something, but he doesn't come right out and say it, until...
 
Lt. Williams:  So, do you like being the professor?
Dr. Stevens:  It's pretty cool.  You get to... wait, did you say the professor?  You think I'm The Professor from VIPER?  (rolls his eyes)  Where do they get you people?
 
Later that afternoon, Dr. Stevens meets with a woman (Allison Browning) trying to lure him to work for a private research firm (Boston Science and Innovations), founded by a former MIT professor kicked out about 7 years back after a prototype AI robot went berserk, killing a grad student.
 
Pops: (to another player) Hush.  I'm trying to become a mole in VIPER.
 
(more to follow)

Shadowrun 2050! The team, backed up by Renraku security who are trying quite hard to distance themselves from their agent The Soft-eyed Man. That individual appears to have gone slightly nuts, bombed our homes, kidnapped our friends, and taken over part of the Renraku arcology. We also make sure to inform Lone Star and our military contacts, who will probably like to know about a maniac with access to nuclear weapons, in downtown Seattle.

Felix: And by telling everybody makes it's less likely they'll just kill us afterwards.
Greenlight: They haven't managed to kill us so far.
Titus: Orbital weapon platform.
Greenlight: Just to kill us???
Felix: Sure – just mock up some security footage beforehand to make it look like conventional explosives.
Greenlight: …. true.

The worst thing was the destruction of our armoured liquor cabinet.

Lone Star investigators: 8000 nuyen a bottle? Really?
Felix: Help us take this prick down and we'll share a bottle.
Inkubus: I won't even share a bottle with you! I'm sorry, but my dick needs to sucked by somebody with at LEAST as much skill in the erotic arts as I do, before I'll even THINK of sharing a bottle with them.

Felix calls his uncle at Aztechnology.

Greenlight: This is going to be a feeding frenzy. If Aztech security go into the arcology and just HAPPEN to get lost...

This is going to be a Mass Run – we put the word out to every shadowrunner team we can, every decker that can hack the building's systems, and every favour, tie of friendship and acquaintance, that we can. After all, covering Seattle in a shower of radioactive metal would be a bad thing. And the lower levels of the arcology include some of the largest fusion reactors in North America. While we COULD just use ritual magic to snipe the Soft-Eyed Man without even going near the building, we DO have to rescue the hostages, and it's likely he has a Dead-man Protocol in play. He's not stupid, after all – merely out of his mind from faulty Flesh Drone technology. Inkubus prepares a voodoo doll anyway. And we still have a sample of that wall-softening catalyst from our early run, and Renraku's head of arcology security confirms the same architectural polymer was used between some of the reactor levels. Renraku helpfully provide us with weapons, and are clearly relieved that we're taken ECM grenades, fire-extinguishers loaded with Neurostun gas, and Dimethyl Sulphoxide grenades dosed with powerful laxatives. Before anything else, they really, really want us to cut the Soft-eyed Man's access to the arcology's comp-net. They don't say why this is so important to them.

Inkubus: I literally want to give my enemies the shits.

And of course Titus and Warhammer can combine forces into the Troll-mounted Minigun again. Titus calls in his friend Cyberpope for Matrix support.

Titus: Help me on this and we're even. You might have to start wearing pants though.
Felix: What???
Titus: He works in the nude.

And Greenlight's mentor Wormwood will be able to take control of the arcology's minigun drones, if we can get him inside.

We make a big entrance, past the evacuation perimeter and tank cordon. Inkubus come in standing on his custom Harley Scorpion, one foot on the seat, one foot on the skull, glowing green and pointing dramatically. Felix, however, needs to get a lift.

Greenlight: Come on Bubbles – you can ride bitch.

The arcology looms, a vast black pyramid – the Hotel Luxor writ large. There's no resistance at first – after all, the Soft-eyed Man is expecting us. Might not be expecting us to be playing 'Back in Black' at full volume though. Nonetheless, getting into the reactor levels is so easy the GM doesn't even bother rolling the combats. Then, ninjas. Who, happily, aren't wearing breathing gear.

Felix: Welp... Neurostun grenades then.

Greenlight narrowly avoids being shot in the face by ninja-clones of her brother.

Inkubus: I fully support Greenlight's decision to not take a shot in the mouth from her brother.

Inkubus uses the DMSO grenade launcher. The ninjas all collapse with horrifying abdominal cramps .

Inkubus: It's the diarrhoea fairy!
Warhammer: Right, number one is down. Are we doing number two?
Felix: They are.
Titus: Imagine being hit with a laxative, THEN Greenlight's stun baton.
Inkubus: Argh!
Titus: 'That made a hole on the way out'
Inkubus: I see Greenlight's role in life is to make a complete mockery of any combat she's in.
Titus: I make a full troll charge at them – then stop on a dime and snarl. I want to scare the crap out of them.

Inkubus: Don't you just love DMSO laxatives?
Greenlight: It's a new weapon in my arsenal. It certainly went to THEIR arsenal.

Unfortunately, then the drone turrets arrive on the ceiling-mounted rails. Fortunately, it's not the minigun turrets. It does, however, fire darts. Happily, they just ricochet off Warhammer's skull. The much larger-sounding drones a bit later are more worrying. Happily, with the wall-softening catalyst means we can bypass the anticipated route entirely. And Greenlight can borrow Felix's magesight goggles, with their extendible fibre-optic cable, to see what's around the corner. Useful thing, those goggles.

Titus: You can threaten people with free colonoscopies. Or fireballs.
Greenlight: For that direct relief.

And with magical concealment, Inkubus' permanent flight and magic fingers spells, and Titus' packs of hi-ex, the heavily armed mining droids really aren't that must of a threat either. Nor are the squad of spider drones. And Felix can really distract the guards at the comp centre with an earth elemental and a Force 14 Stunball while the rest of the party just goes through a side wall.

Greenlight: Did you know that cardiac massage can be timed with 'Staying Alive' or 'Another One Bites the Dust'?
Inkubus: 'Staying Alive' is appropriate.
Felix: 'Another One Bites The Dust' not so much.

The computer centre is six floors deep – the Soft-eyed Man is in the security booth, which doesn't help much when we can see him through the glass and most magics use line-of-sight. He's jacked into the arcology's comp-net via an amazing profusion of data-cables.

The Soft-eyed Man: You're too late! I have already succeeded! MWHAHAH-
Inkubus: uses Magic Fingers to yank out the cables
The Soft-eyed Man: *slumps dead*

And then we're attacked by robot velociraptor-kangaroos. Greenlight fries one with his stun baton.

Greenlight: Thunderstruck! Because we're on an ACDC kick tonight.

Inkubus, however, critically fails his own attacks and collapses. Fortunately, Titus decapitates the robot with his sledgehammer before it can disembowel our elf hedonist. Felix is feeling extremely fortunate that none of the velocireapers are attacking him, because while his air elementals are the most useful tool the party has, he has nothing that can hurt a robot. But we take them down before they finish us off. And then through every speaker in the arcology, we hear a digital scream of frustration. It would appear the Soft-eyed Man has gone the Lawnmower Man route and has uploaded his mind into the arcology's comp-net. Time to shut down all those data-stacks.

Felix: 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do....'

Soft-Eyed Avatar: NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY *triggers the reactor overload*

We rush around to try and shut down the reactor, admittedly blacking out Seattle, while the comp-net's in-built security systems eat the Avatar – this isn't the first time the Renraku arcology has spawned an AI, and the corporation installed precautions against it happening again. Plus, of course, all those deckers cutting off every route out into the Matrix.

Inkubus: He was doomed from the start.

And then we can rescue the hostages, which includes Greenlight's long missing parents, collect our million in pay, and go celebrate.

Inkubus: Party at your place?
Titus: My place is a crater.
Inkubus: Oh. So's ours. Anybody still have a place?
Titus: What the hell, let's just buy a hotel.

Greenlight: Sorry, Mum, Dad, our old place is a family home for five now – is there any part of Seattle you think's nice?

Greenlight: I'm retiring. From now on guys? I'm Sam. Just Sam.
Inkubus: If you ever abuse this, I'll Quicken and Orgasm on you. But... my first name's not so bad – it's Mitchell.
Greenlight: No worries, Mike.

Inkubus: I'm becoming a music producer for heavy metal bands.
Titus: I'm rebuilding my house and going back to gardening. Shadowrunning was fun but it got my home blown up, which was annoying.

In 2057 we get a phonecall from the office of Presidential Candidate the Great Dragon Dunkelzahn, offering us a job. Apparently somebody is deeply unhappy with what happened to that Hawaiian dragon's body, but at least nobody has dispatched assassins yet. In return for that forbearance, we need to do a few jobs for him. After all, we're vaguely competent, are highly critical of other people's security precautions, have proved ourselves willing to work for dragons, and perhaps more importantly have proven capable of killing them. Although that last one will come back to bite us, as far as conspiracy investigations go.

Inkubus: I'll do it for one of those Tickle-Me-Dunkelzahn dolls that got C-and-D'd.

One job is retrieving incriminating footage of Dunkelzahn and the CEO of Ares Macrotech, Damien Knight.

Inkubus: I didn't even know they were connected! Well, obviously they're connected there...
Greenlight: It's true, Dunkelzahn really is the Big D.

And then it's all sort of shenanigans leading up to to Super Tuesday, recovering a stolen egg, a presidential assassination that we astrally witnessed years ago, and highly Interesting Times.

Titus: Standard bodyguarding won't work – standard practise is strap him to the troll and run away. That won't work with a dragon.

All: *part of the Presidential motorcade past the Watergate Hotel, and suddenly feeling this is horribly familiar*
Inkubus: Wait, wait, this is -
Felix: Oh fuck, he's about to -
Presidential Limousine: BOOM
All: *facepalm*

GM: Congratulations – you're now part of the biggest conspiracy theory of the century.
Felix: Well, that's going to do my reputation on the conspiracy boards a lot of good.
Inkubus: No it won't – they won't believe a word you say ever again.

And there's some very interesting provisions in , covering the very stuff Inkubus is researching on Essence Repair, and regarding any information regarding a certain room in one of Aztech's facilities... the very room that got Felix put on permanent suspension back in 2050.

And then the Renraku Arcology spawn another AI – comprised of fragments of other machine intelligences and parts of the Soft-eyed Man's mind – and the resulting Crash 2.0 destroys the global economy and Internet for the better part of a decade.

Titus: What would that do your social media addictions?
Greenlight: gibbers, groans 'hey, Inkubus, what are you doing with that corkboard?' 'Hey, Sam, you want to post something?'
Inkubus: This is what the net was like before electricity.

Felix: And no-one will ever believe us when we say we had nothing to do with it. 'it was just co-incidence!'
Titus: I was behind everything. Including that. And now you know too much.

An online Shadowrun 2070 game that our GM is running. Characters include

Ripper K: Orca-form Changeling, negotiator, muscle, and porn star
Ryleigh the Fox: Changeling, and Rigger
The Hogfather: Street Samurai and Orc
Vell Rubicante: Elven Mage, with too many pseudonyms for anybody healthy. Also known as The Red Angel, Doc, Dealer, Darkleaf, and 'That fucking geriatric bastard'

Also a new PC - a burnt-out Mage going by the non-de-plume of 'Shirley Temple'

For some reason dropping the plot hook from last session, the GM throws a new job at us. The Johnson wants to meet at a nightclub.

GM: Shadowrun: Guns! Magic! Intrigue! Public Transit!
Dr. Rubicante: What, I've driven before! Granted, it was nearly forty years ago.

An amusing glitch in the security scanner - when Shirley walks through the detector, the entire machine seems to seize up for a moment, before reporting as all clear. For everyone. For the rest of the night.

The client wants us to recover a disc of music-related data before it gets sold on or duplicated. An optical disc. The doctor is rather amused that anybody still uses the antique media he grew up with. We do have one clue though - the thief intends to sell the disc to one Nabo.

GM: Everybody’s heard of Nabo, unless they live under a rock. The whole Orxploitation movement has settled down somewhat in the last five or six years from its former white-hot glory, but that doesn’t mean it’s going away anytime soon. Every few months the music-sim companies find somebody new to promote, propel up to the pop charts, and exploit until they can find a new cash cow. These days, Nabo’s their golden boy. Anybody who pays attention to popular music knows his story: he’s an ork ganger kid from the Seattle Barrens who loves music more than he loves firefights and selling BTLs. He makes a name for himself performing in small local clubs, gets noticed by somebody big time, and the next thing he knows he’s rocketing up the charts and livin’ la Vida loca. Must be nice. (Think Tupac Shakur, but as an ork.)

Dr. Rubicante: Is the orc a black guy?
The Hogfather: You can't just ask someone if they're black, jeez!
Dr. Rubicante: I mean, I know he's an orc, but is he a "black" orc.
Ripper K: *winces, and remembers just how old the Red Angel is.* It's like your grandmother asking you to get some liquorice candies and yelling across the street "Don't forget to get me some of them NIGGER BABIES"

Dr. Rubicante is not the Face of the group for these reasons.

The Hogfather: OH MY GOD, VELL.
Shirley Temple: if you have to ask.....
Ryleigh: Ripper's black. Partially.
The Hogfather: Downstairs, we know.
Ryleigh: Actually I was thinking of Ripper's face, not his dick XP.

The best way to recover the disc seems to be via Nabo - but getting past his security is obviously going to be the hard part.

Dr. Rubicante: Can you honeypot him into some alone time, Shirley?
Ripper K: winces Jeez, Vell, tact, please!
Shirley Temple: I don't swing that way sweety.
Dr. Rubicante: You can pretend. It can't be hard, girlfriend.
Shirley Temple: The orca has a better chance than I do.

The Red Angel has an idea.

Dr. Rubicante: I can mask the Hogfather into looking like him so we can "kidnap" Nabo in front of the bodyguards. If they give chase, we'll come in and kidnap him for real!
The Hogfather: Except the minders know him pretty well, I don't know if i could pass for him
GM: Well, there's always the low-tech option - bribing your way backstage.
Dr. Rubicante: You don't have to pass for him... just look like he was bound and gagged and being tossed into a van.
Ripper K: And if the minders catch up with you? or call in Lone Star? or his legions of heavily armed fans see you kidnapping their idol?
Dr. Rubicante: The mask comes off, and we pretend we don't know what they're talking about. Cameras don't see the mask after all. Security tapes will see us dragging our drunk ork friend into a van. And everyone will feel guilty for thinking orks all look alike.

Dr. Rubicante: So, Operation: Racist Riot will have the Hog, Ryleigh and I luring the minders away from Ripper and Nabo, then Shirley can join in, tie him up/or knock him out- I mean, he'll most likely be naked and unarmored- and can drive off in the Hogfather's car
The Hogfather: Operation House Call has me and Ripper look into breaking into his place to find any leads, while you guys try and steal his data. And Operation Modern Cocktail means we buy a bug or tracer and find someone to get it onto him.
Ripper K: Why Modern Cocktail?
The Hogfather: 'Shirley Temple's a drink, right? It was her idea.

Eventually we decide to go with all three plans, starting with attempting to plant tracers on Nabo's person, clothes, car etc; getting close enough to hack his phone; and leaving the kidnapping and housebreaking as back-up plans in case that doesn't work. And we'd better do it tonight - he's got one last concert in Seattle before he leaves on a tour of what's left of the U.S.

GM: The concert's not only sold out, it's overbooked. The local fire marshal would have fit about this, but his anger was tempered by the 5-digit amount mysteriously appearing in his bank account.

The Hogfather: Ok, so the plan is, we get a tracer. Go to the concert, beat up some punks to get their tickets, try and steal the data, failing that plant a tracer and follow him to the meet up and trade?
Dr. Rubicante: Can it be shitty teenagers? PLEASE say we can beat up shitty teenagers.
Ripper K: I can knock them out, sure... I'd feel bad about ruining some kid's night though. Can we leave them a few nuyen to reduce the disappointment?

We should probably use some sort of disguise - the spell Mask is ideal.

GM: Maybe not Jessica Rabbit, BUT, if you cast well, and could manage keeping your concentration and the -4 to your dice pools for the duration, you could likely cast Physical Mask and make everyone look like cute genki ork groupies.

The Hogfather shudders, but admits it's actually a good idea. Unfortunately it just gives the Red Angel more opportunity to prove what a complete Stone Age misogynist he is.

The Hogfather: Fucking orxplotation....
Dr. Rubicante: XD Oh that'd be better, cuz if it were just me, I'd be a 61 year old guy pretending to be a woman to lure away teenage boys. At least as girls, we can slut our way through the backdoor. Women have it so easy.
Ryleigh: Heterosexual men are pigs.
Ripper K: *facepalm* Hey, Vell? Were you born in 2011? Or 1911?
Dr. Rubicante: I was there during the feminazi/SJW uprising.
The Hogfather: Oh it was terrible little Timmy, there were trigger warnings and non-standard gender descriptions everywhere

While Ripper, Fox and Shirley get into the concert warehouse via the back door - which ironically is also exactly how Ripper distracts the troll security at said door - the Hogfather and the Red Angel aren't having quite so much luck out the front.

GM: Hog forgets he's supposed to be a girl and uses his normal male voice.
Dr. Rubicante: Oh Orkarina, you're so silly! * high-pitched giggles* Forgive her~ she's had a stuffy throat for a while! You know - *pantomimes a blowjob*.
The Hogfather: *forces himself to blush and look coy*
Shirley Temple: oh god, just thought.....hot orkish female make-out scene.....they are both secretly guys.

The way the disguised elf giggles and blushes and touchs himself girlishly made it disturbingly clear that he was not unfamiliar with pretending to be female.

Jager, Head of security: Oh, you some damn fine ladies...

He saunters to the Doctor's slender female form and stares at her perky breasts for a moment, before looking back up.

Jager: Y'know, Nabo and I go way back.. maybe after you and him have your backstage... autographs, you might think about comin' to see me? I'll definitely make you fly high in more ways than one, girl...

He *sniffs* Doc.

Ryleigh: if Security is this bad, maybe kidnapping wasn't out of the question after all...
Dr. Rubicante: *attempts a deep blush followed by a moan as he's sniffed by the obvious junkie, as if the little missy was turned on by such brutish advances* Oh Head of Security-chan... I've never even had a boyfriend before! *biting on his knuckle* Maybe later you can show me how much better a MAN-friend is, yeah, desu? (Somewhere deep within, Vell Rubicante was the Lich King.)
Shirley Temple: bitch king
Dr. Rubicante: Oh, the bitchiest.

OoC, I'm crying with laughter by this point, because despite promising the GM that the game would remain clean despite our choices of PC backgrounds, Ripper is currently keeping a fifth of the concert security busy in one of the backstage shower blocks, and two other, magically gender-swapped, characters are attempting horrendous flirtation past the rest. As it happens most of these shenanigans were unnecessary - Nabo's security precautions are so pathetic Ryleigh and Shirley manage to clone and hack his smartphone in seconds.

Ryleigh: I could probably sell backdoor access to his commlink to the highest bidder too. After we finish the job.
Shirley Temple: hurr hurr, backdoor access to an orcish superstar heart-throb?

And thus off to spy on the auction and interrupt the handoff. The auction will be taking place at the Cathode Glow Club - a severely retro hangout for hackers that like playing with 20th and early 21st century geek toys - including vintage arcade games that they're all playing remotely.

Ryleigh: Ooh, it feels like we're on archaeology survey...

The Doc hands the Hogfather a pair of Wiimotes.

Dr. Rubicante: Play me.
Hogfather: You mean you have to play it with your hands? That's a baby's toy
Dr. Rubicante: The best games are played with your hands, sonny.
Hogfather: The games I play with my hands don't generally involve computers.

Ryleigh picks one up and rubs the phallic controllers curiously.

Ryleigh: hmm. Oooh. it vibrates! Does it double as a sex toy?

Hogfather slowly puts the controller down

Hogfather: I'm just going to go and get something to drink then...

The Fox attempts to poke around in the local WiFi.

GM: You get a nice, informative UI mesage. "Dear Mr. Ryleigh. Your Commlink's data security is lacking, and at least two exploits were porformed to gain access. do not worry, no data was compromised. enclosed are a series of links to descriptions of the exploits used, and to the appropriate firmware upgrades and patches. We take security seriously at the Amber Glow."

GM: You got h4x00r3d, d00d
Ryleigh: I know... I thought this would happen.
GM: Be glad the Cathode Glow's a White Hat bar

Ryleigh attempts to improve his security and screws up so badly Lone Star and his mystery nemesis take an interest.

Hogfather: STOP CALLING LONE STAR AND ORDERING HACKING PROGRAMS!
Ripper K: Well, Fox, if Lone Star come looking for you I'll them you're visiting your sick grandmother. Near Nottingham.
GM: in a house far, far, away, a camera pans up from a man on a commlink. it shows the bottom half of a face. a face half burned. "Got him."
Shirley Temple: .... We would be best not to be near this node shortly....
Ryleigh: Oh shit...
Dr. Rubicante: Dun dun DUUUUN
Ryleigh: .... it's not lone star
Ripper K: That sounds ominous

There's no really role for Ripper and the Hogfather in the subsequent surveillance on the auction.

Hogfather: oh, well, in that case I'll go and hang out with with Ripper. We can play strip paper-scissor-rock

The auction eventually goes to an elven woman.

GM: Nabo growls, and tosses the 4DS at a wall in anger, shattering it! He's promptly set upon by the bouncers and a whole lot of very very pissed off geeks.

The hand-off is happening at a junkyard - as Houston GM has observed elsewhere, a terrible, terrible place for any sort of covert meeting. Too many routes in and out, too much cover for hostiles. At least that works in our favour - at first.

GM: Those are orderly rows of stacked crushed ars, about 7m high
Shirley Temple: crushes arse?!
GM: CRUSHED CARS.
Hogfather: pity, i wanted to climb the crushed arse...
Dr. Rubicante: Let's get you anyone Ripper has ever been with ever.
Shirley Temple: Piles of arse as far as the eye could see....

Those piles of arse become rather less orderly by the and of the evening, when after snatching the elf woman, Masking Ripper as her, and almost getting the disc, another team of heavily armed individuals cut their way into the junkyard's far side and start shooting people in the head. Things would have gone very badly for the party if the enemy mage hadn't shot himself in the foot with his own Stunball, and our own mage hadn't blown up the entire enemy squad, the thief's bodyguards, and half the junkyard with a wildly overpowered spell. This is generally considered a good time to run the fuck away, and we do.

Ripper K: Whatever music is on this disc... it had better fucking be worth it!

There was one problem with that. We knew Lone Star had video footage of the Junkyard incident. (They had released some of it to the media.) They suspected we had video footage. (Happy Jack strongly implied to Captain Grissim that it existed ... and the drones had recorded video footage.)
 
It was pretty obvious from the video footage that Geyswain wasn't there. Captain Grissim probably wouldn't have bought a line of BS about Geyswain's involvement. We didn't really care if Lone Star wanted to claim Geyswain was involved, but they may have been reluctant to make such a claim, just in case we decided to embarrass them by proving that to be a lie.
 
And there really wasn't a trusting relationship between the team and Lone Star.
 
 
Except the team had been paid a few hundred thousand nuyen (by Bloodwing's employer) for the artifact ... with the explicit understanding that Bloodwing was going to be the delivery boy.
 
Of course, if Lone Star had captured him and dumped the body in a toxic waste pit, we would have just shrugged our shoulders.
   
Or to a private collector, where there's less paperwork.
 
That was the gist of Happy Jack's sales pitch to the Tir Tairngire prince. I can sell this thing to a private collector for a lot more than 50,000 nuyen.
 
Happy Jack didn't mention any magickal properties or magickal value of the artifact. The Tir prince probably thought he was getting a bargain ... until he realized the thing had been disenchanted ... and he'd actually paid closer to market price for the thing.
 
 
Yep. It did. We kept our involvement quiet, but enough people in the right places knew enough pieces of the puzzle.

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
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
Bloodwing (NPC): an elvish assassin who was trying to retrieve the Bottled Demon
Captain Grissim (NPC): Lone Star officer in charge of the task force to capture Bloodwing
 
Bottled Demon (my least favorite module of all time)
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
After defeating the dragon and capturing Bloodwing, the team celebrated their success.
 
Byte Force: "This turned out to be a very good night. We captured Bloodwing..."
Eye Spy: (interrupting) "We didn't die."
Audacity Jane: "We killed a dragon."
Eye Spy: "We didn't die."
No-Step: "We stopped untold evil from being unleashed in Seattle."
Happy Jack: "We got stiffed by Arleesh."
Everyone turned to look at Happy Jack.
Happy Jack: "Don't tell me that I'm the only one who noticed."
 
The team captured Bloodwing, but he had credentials indicating that he was an associate ambassador of Tir Tairngire ... and therefore had diplomatic immunity.
 
On the bright side, he seemed very interested in acquiring the artifact.
 
Bloodwing: "The idol is stolen property of Tir Tairngire. I demand that you return it."
Happy Jack: "Was that why you went into Geyswain's building? To retrieve it?"
Bloodwing: "Yes. It is our property, and he had no right to it." (pause) "Are you really willing to anger the government of Tir Tairngire for it?"
Happy Jack: "Let's be realistic here. I make a living selling stolen property to people ... and generally not the original owners."
Bloodwing: (angrily) "I'll give you 50,000 nuyen for it. Non-negotiable."
Happy Jack: "Non-negotiable?
Bloodwing: (nodding) "Non-negotiable."
Happy Jack: "In that case, no deal."
Bloodwing: "What? How do you expect to sell a unique item like that on the black market?"
Happy Jack: "Any number of private collectors would be willing to pay for it. It's a unique item that dates back to the Fourth Age. Tir Tairngire clearly considers it to be extremely valuable. It was valuable enough that you tried to steal it from a dragon. And Tir Tairngire's enemies would pay extra just to deprive them of it."
Bloodwing called his employer, who apparently was willing to negotiate a much higher payment.
 
Perhaps Arleesh didn't stiff the team after all.
 
Dent: "That's hilarious. The Tir prince doesn't realize that it's powerless now."
No-Step: "Well, he's not able to assence it over a vidphone, and Bloodwing can't assence it for him."
Happy Jack: "And I certainly didn't feel the need to tell either of them."
 
[rant]Here's another issue that I have with the module. Everyone believes that the idol is an extremely powerful focus, with some rather unique properties. Bloodwing (and his employer) don't realize that the thing no longer works. Despite this, they are supposedly only willing to pay 50,000 nuyen (non-negotiable) for a focus that could easily be sold for over a million nuyen ... even if it had no unique properties. In fact, the weakest focus of this type would be worth 100,000 nuyen. (The entire theme of the module revolves around how tempting this much power is.) Suddenly, at the end of the module, Bloodwing's employer decides that while he's willing to send an assassin to kill people in order to get this idol, he's not willing to pay any more than 50,000 nuyen for it.[/rant]
 
Of course, Captain Grissim still wanted to capture Bloodwing ... and the team.
 
Happy Jack: (calling Grissim while using a voice mask) "Captain Grissim, I'm calling to save your career."
Captain Grissim: "My career doesn't need saving. But  I would be willing to clear your names of the mess in the Junkyard in exchange for solid information about Bloodwing."
Happy Jack: "We don't need our names cleared. But I'm willing to give you some solid information in exchange for your acknowledgement that we have done you a favor."
Captain Grissim: "And you'll want to be paid with a favor of your choosing in the future? I don't think so."
Happy Jack: "You aren't under any obligation to provide any favor ... unless you feel that it's sufficiently innocuous ... or somehow to your benefit."
Captain Grissim: "Okay. What information do you have on Bloodwing?"
Happy Jack: "I just sent you a link to two high-resolution pictures. One shows Bloodwing next to his credentials. the other is a picture of just the credentials. He's an associate Tir Tairngere ambassador. He has diplomatic immunity. Feel free to send them a picture of the credentials to verify their authenticity."
Captain Grissim: (grimly) "My boss wants to pin the fiasco in the Junkyard on somebody. If Bloodwing is immune, he would be happy to pin it on you."
Happy Jack: "Good luck with that. My client was meeting with an Tir Tairngere associate ambassador when Lone Star crashed in, guns blazing. Your men were most likely struck by ricochets from the Lone Star heavy machine gun on the APC. Your boss doesn't want the publicity. Especially when he can't pin anything on us beyond trespassing."
 
Captain Grissim: "You've given me nothing with this information."
Happy Jack: "Really? What kind of diplomatic incident would occur if Lone Star shot one of Tir Tairngere's associate ambassadors to Seattle? What level officer do you think Lone Star would sacrifice in order to keep their Seattle contract? Do you think they could pin this on anyone lower than the task force leader?"
Captain Grissim: "..."
Happy Jack: "I may be the bearer of bad news, but I saved your career ... Captain."
 
Captain Grissim: "My boss isn't going to just drop the investigation. Not without a favorable resolution of some kind."
Happy Jack: "I can provide a partial resolution. Bloodwing's two associates died inside Geyswain's building. You should be able to find their bodies there."
Captain Grissim: "That's hardly a success."
Happy Jack: "If you want a feather in your task force's hat, take full credit for taking down Geyswain after he murdered hundreds of people. Nobody else is going to take credit for putting him down."

That was brilliant.
 
The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.   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 Trixy (NPC): an elderly dog shaman; she was also one of the first magick users in Seattle   Bottled Demon (my least favorite module of all time) - Dealing with a Dragon This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).   The team had disposed of a dangerous idol by leaving it with Geyswain, a dragon, so he could destroy it.   The following day, Trixy left word that someone wanted the team for a job. The team arranged for Ms. Johnson to pick Jonathan Bridges up in a limousine.   Jonathan Bridges: (climbing into the limo and closing the door) "Ms. Johnson I presume?" Ms. Johnson: "I think it's time someone taught you and your team the difference between dragons." Jonathan raised an eyebrow. Ms. Johnson: "My name is Arleesh. I am great feathered serpent of ancient and honorable lineage. Until yesterday, you had in your possession an artifact of great power, a vessel of corruption. The dog shaman with whom you spoke was correct in saying that only a dragon has the wisdom to destroy the vessel, but unfortunately, her knowledge of dragons is as limited as yours." Jonathan Bridges: "That's understandable. The true experts on dragons are more interested in keeping their own secrets, rather than sharing them with the world at large." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "Geyswain is a lesser dragon. Instead of destroying the relic, he is attempting to learn the secrets of the idol and to harness its power. That must not happen." Jonathan Bridges: "The last two people who tried to use the artifact died within days. I ought to take out a life insurance policy on him." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "As this is partly your fault, you must assist me in stopping Geyswain. If he should tap the secrets of that object, it could cause an irrevocable shift in the natural order. I intend to attack him in his lair, and your team must accompany me." Jonathan Bridges: "What are you offering in return?" Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "You are partly to blame for this situation. Are you refusing to take responsibility for your actions?" Jonathan Bridges: (ticking off on his fingers) "My team didn't unearth the artifact. We didn't bring the artifact to Seattle. We didn't use the artifact. We didn't fall under its influence. We advised Geyswain that it was corrupt and ought to be destroyed. We didn't force or encourage Geyswain to misuse the artifact. And unlike Trixy, we didn't pretend to know more about the artifact, or dragons, than we actually do." (staring hard at Arleesh) "You're not blaming us because we're responsible. You're blaming us because you want to coerce us into helping you." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "..." Jonathan Bridges: "If you'd like our help, try paying us instead."   Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "What do you think the other great dragons will do when they learn of your refusal to assist me." Jonathan Bridges: "You already know the answer to that question. If you thought the other great dragons cared about what was going on, you would have called them for assistance, instead of trying to lean on a troll fixer." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "They aren't close enough to help." Jonathan Bridges: "At least six of them have sufficient resources to hire fleets of shadowrunners to help you. If they can't bother to wire some money into a numbered account to help you, they're certainly not going to waste their precious time tracking us down." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "..."   [rant]This is another problem with the module. Instead of using a carrot & stick approach to get the shadowrunners to attack Geyswain, the module tries to just use the stick. As Drhoz's GM (Muskratboi) correctly determined, offering to pay the PCs is a lot more effective than trying to coerce them with guilt or vague threats of dire consequences. Arleesh had money. Great dragons are supposed to be geniuses. Offering money was the smart move.[/rant]   Jonathan Bridges: "Tell me what part of the mission you need my team's help with, and then come up with an appropriate amount to entice them do it. Alternatively, figure out what you can afford to pay them, then downsize the task to where that amount will cover it." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "I need your team to accompany me into Geyswain's lair, help me stop Geyswain, and recover the artifact from him." Jonathan Bridges: "You're a great feathered serpent. I'm reasonably certain you're capable of doing all of that without our assistance. Which piece of that do you want my team to handle? The matrix? Electronic security? The guards? Killing Geyswain?" Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "All of it. I need to conserve my strength to destroy the artifact."   Jonathan Bridges: "How much do you know about Geyswain?" Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "He's a young lesser western dragon." Jonathan Bridges: "What about his personality? Is he arrogant? Overconfident? Reckless?" Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "All of that. He's incapable of admitting when he's made a mistake. He'll never even admit it to himself." Jonathan Bridges: "Perfect. Does he need to be in physical contact with the artifact to use it?" Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "Yes. He won't voluntarily relinquish it for any reason." Jonathan Bridges: "Then My team will get him to leave the building, then take him down." Arleesh/Ms. Johnson: "Why is he going to want to leave the building?" Jonathan Bridges: "My team is going to be outside of the building, and Geyswain will come out to kill them."   Audacity Jane had a plan, but it required multiple snipers.   Audacity Jane: "We need a second sniper. With long range weapons, we could engage him where he's too far away to reach us, but too close to fly out of range." Happy Jack: "I can be the second sniper." Dent: "How are you going to snipe? You just use melee weapons and heavy weapons." Happy Jack: "I mounted a scope on my assault cannon."   The team spent most of the afternoon and evening putting noisemakers into place. During this time, the team noticed disturbing developments: The computer network for Geyswain's building was no longer accessible, due to physical damage to the CPU. Growing numbers of spirits were swarming around the building (in astral space). Instead of patrolling or performing some other task, the were attacking each other savagely. None of the employees left the building at the end of the day. Thermal imaging did not spot any warm bodies moving around in the building.   At 1 a.m., Arleesh arrived to meet the team. Instead, she found Byte Force and Eye Spy.   Arleesh: "Where is the rest of the team?" Byte Force: (pulling up a map on a vidscreen) "They're concealed in this area, just over a klick from the building." Arleesh: "So what happens next?" Byte Force: "We torch the top of his building. He comes out for revenge. We convince him that he's invincible." (draws another circle on the map) "Once he's in this kill box, we show him that he's not invincible." Arleesh: "You convince him that he's invincible?" Byte Force: "Most of the shots fired are going to be blanks, so he'll think most people can't hit him. And the first few rounds that hit him will be wax bullets. So he'll think he's bulletproof." Arleesh: "And if he flees?" Byte Force: "The shooters will wing him." Arleesh: "How is winging him supposed to help?" Byte Force: "I got the distinct impression that they mean to 'wing him' by blowing one of his wings off." Arleesh: "What if he decides to fly away from the killbox, instead of into it?" Eye Spy: "Then it's my job to wing him."   Geyswain's building was in Bellevue, but it was less than a kilometer from the Redmond Barrens. What happens in the Barrens tends not to attract much Lone Star scrutiny.   Eye Spy's drone set fire to the top of Geyswain's building, then the team tensely waited for the dragon to emerge.   No-Step: "You're a lot more likely to attract Geyswain's attention than Jane is." Happy Jack: "Yep." No-Step: "Why did you choose me to be the one to conceal you? Dent is a lot more likely to be able to compensate for your lack of stealth." Happy Jack: "You're a self-sacrificing martyr. Dent tends to object to being flame-bait."   Geyswain emerged from the flaming tower (invisibly) and began flying towards the noisemakers (and Jack/Jane), bellowing his rage.   No-Step: (over the radio) "I think he's sustaining some other spells on himself, too." Dent: "@#$%! I think you're right. With the wrong spells, he could make it to us unscathed." Happy Jack: "I hope he is. If he's wasting concentration on sustaining spells, then he's going to suck at close combat." No-Step: "You're remarkably blasé about fighting an invisible opponent." Happy Jack: "He shows up nicely to thermographic sight." GM: (headdesk)   Geyswain developed a terminal case of high-velocity lead poisoning. Arleesh resumed her true (feathered serpent) form, flew over to Geyswain's corpse and retrieved the artifact. After disenchanting the artifact, she flew away, dropping the disempowered artifact onto the roof of Eye Spy's van as she flew over it.   Byte Force retrieved the idol (without touching it) so No-Step and Trixy could confirm that it was no longer dangerous.   As Arleesh flew away, a small swarm of Lone Star helicopters flew into the area.   Happy Jack: "Let's keep popping off noisemakers. Give them something to look at while we hike out of here." No-Step: "We've already pulled this trick on them. They're going to figure out that it's a diversion." Happy Jack: "Yes, but this time the diversion is scattered across a square kilometer. And if we're lucky, they'll assume we're distracting them from Geyswain's corpse, or his building."   At the van, which was still parked several blocks from Geyswain's building, Eye Spy spotted Bloodwing, battered and bleeding, staggering away from Geyswain's building.   Eye Spy: "It looks like he lost a fight with a dragon." Byte Force: "We should capture him." Eye Spy: "How? Our combat monsters aren't here. Our mages aren't here. My combat drones aren't here. I have an assault cannon, but that's not particularly good for capturing people." (pause) "And he's a lot tougher than us, just in case you forgot." Byte Force: "We just need to be smarter than him." (thinking) "Do you think Bloodwing would like to carjack an ambulance?" Eye Spy: "Which ambulance?" Byte Force: "Change our paint scheme to DocWagon colors. And put on a DocWagon jacket and hat." Eye Spy: "You want him to carjack us?" Byte Force: "I want him to get very close to the vehicle. What's the anti-theft device loaded with currently?" Eye Spy: "Neuro-Stun ..." (bursts out laughing) "Okay. Let's go get carjacked."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
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
Topal (NPC): a raven shaman, and the team's deceased employer
Caw Caw (NPC): a raven shaman, and Topal's friend
Trixy (NPC): an elderly dog shaman; she was also one of the first magick users in Seattle
 
Bottled Demon (my least favorite module of all time)
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team's client, Topal had survived an ambush, but had then died due to the cursed idol he was carrying.
 
As Caw Caw and his friends were mourning Topal's passing, an interesting news story came on the trideo.
 
News announcer: (with a grainy image of Topal, Happy Jack and No-Step behind him) "Bloodwing, the notorious assassin, was last seen in the company of these individuals. Be advised, these individuals are armed and extremely dangerous. They have already clashed with Lone Star forces, leaving several officers injured. Consider these individuals to be Class A felons. If you spot any or all of them, do not attempt to aprehend them, but contact your local Lone Star precinct immediately."
Dent: "Look. You made the morning news."
Happy Jack: "Hmm. That's a minor inconvenience."
Eye Spy: "You just got your face shown across the city as a Class A felon. If that's your idea of a minor inconvenience, I would hate to see your idea of a major catastrophe."
Happy Jack: "They got one low-quality picture of our two masters of disguise. I'll look completely different than that a few minutes from now."
 
Caw Caw: "What's in the briefcase?"
Happy Jack: "According to Topal, that's the magick thing that was killing him. Apparently it also killed the previous owner too. Topal was trying to get rid of it when he collapsed."
Happy Jack pushed the briefcase over towards Caw Caw.
Happy Jack: "... but it's all yours now."
For some reason, Caw Caw and his friends didn't want to keep it.
 
After conferring among themselves, the friends came to a decision ...
 
Caw Caw: "There's a dog shaman named Trixy who has been asking about an object like this. Perhaps she knows what to do with it."
Happy Jack: "That's a great idea. You should take it to her."
Caw Caw: (turning pale) "Ah ... well ... what if we paid you to take it to her?"
 
The team easily found Trixy. After briefly examining the idol, she decided that she needed a couple hours to meditate about it.
 
Audacity Jane: "So, what are we going to do ... besides avoiding anyone who can finger us to Lone star?"
Happy Jack: "How do you feel about borrowing a couple phones from Humanis Policlub members?"
Audacity Jane: "It's called stealing, not borrowing. There's a difference."
Happy Jack: "It's called borrowing. I want you to return the phones when I'm done."
Eye Spy: "Why do you care if they get their phones back?"
Happy Jack: "I intend to make a couple calls to Lone Star. I expect them to track the phones down. Then Lone Star can spend a few hours grilling those racists about where to find me."
No-Step: "If we're lucky, they'll resist arrest."
Eye Spy: "Or get caught with contraband."
Audacity Jane: "That last one can be arranged."
 
The officer in charge of the investigation was Captain Grissim. With a little computer wizardry, Byte Force was able to get his direct number.
 
Captain Grissim: "Hello."
Happy Jack: (using a voice mask) "Hello. I know the location of two of the Class A felons from the morning news. Can you spare a couple moments of your time?"
Captain Grissim: "You have my undivided attention. May I ask your name, son?"
Happy Jack: "Yes you may." (pausing, then deliberately continuing without giving his name) "Is there a reward or bounty for the capture of Bloodwing?"
Captain Grissim: "Son, that elf is bad news. You need to leave him to trained professionals. We sent several dozen highly trained officers after him this morning and all we got was several injured officers."
Happy Jack: "Well, Bloodwing sent several bullets after me this morning, and all I got was a small bruise on my back. Perhaps I'm the sort of trained professional who can deliver him to you."
Captain Grissim: (grimly) "Who did you say you were?"
Happy Jack: "I was one of the fat man's bodyguards."
Captain Grissim: "You were one of his bodyguards...?"
Happy Jack: "It was a temporary assignment. I earned my pay as a meatshield. The job is over now."
Captain Grissim: "If you hurt my men...."
Happy Jack: "The only things we shot were firecrackers, smoke grenades, flash grenades and a couple narcojet darts. Bloodwing was definitely shooting real bullets at my client. He may have done the same to your men."
Captain Grissim: "And what was your client's relationship with Bloodwing?"
Happy Jack: "Apparently, he was Bloodwing's target. My client was meeting someone. Bloodwing showed up instead."
Captain Grissim: "Is there any way to verify your story?"
Happy Jack: "If you're willing to pay for Bloodwing's company, I'd be happy to deliver him. You can interrogate him about it."
Captain Grissim: "What makes you think you can catch him?"
Happy Jack: "My former client is no longer paying for our protection ... So, now we have bait."
Captain Grissim: "..."
 
Discussing what to do with the idol:
 
No-Step: "What do we do if Trixy doesn't take the idol off of our hands?"
Audacity Jane: "We could use it for high-end wetwork."
Eye Spy: "I thought that thing was too dangerous to use."
Audacity Jane: "Yes. So we take a contract against a powerful mage or shaman. We charge extra to make it look like it wasn't murder. Then Happy Jack sells the idol to the mage. A few days later, it kills the mage and we collect our pay."
 
Trixy probably wouldn't have approved of that plan.
 
Trixy: "The object you carry is dangerous. I am not sure of exactly what it is, but I see signs of malevolent intelligence and all-consuming darkness. It is a tool of corruption. All who come in contact with it are threatened."
Dent: "You handled it ..."
Trixy: "I didn't try to access its power. That would have destroyed me. Even with my casual contact, it tried to influence me. Even gazing upon it can be enough for it to exert subtle influence."
Eye Spy: "So don't let Dent look at it."
Trixy: "As far as I can tell, there are several ways to destroy the idol, but the only true, certain way is to take it to a dragon. There are others who know the ways of its destruction, but might be tempted by its power, and may, in fact, already be. Only a dragon is wise enough and understands enough to simply destroy it."
Dent: "Never deal with a dragon, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Trixy: "This is not a deal, but a request of a service from the dragon. Do not think you can trade the idol, because this is not the case. I am truly sorry you have come to possess such a terrible artifact, but it is your fate. Deliver it to a dragon and you may yet come out whole and safe."
 
According to Trixy, Haesslich was out of town on business. Therefore, she recommended taking the idol to Geyswain.
 
Eye Spy: (as the team drove away from Trixy's) "I don't get it. We have to pay to get rid of this thing that we don't want?"
Happy Jack: "We're not paying a damn thing. I'll try to talk Geyswain and Haesslich into destroying it out of enlightened self-interest. But if no dragon wants to destroy it for free, I'm happy to sell it to our enemies."
 
Any trip to visit a dragon comes with a vast number of paranoid precautions. Fortunately, most of them weren't necessary.
 
Geyswain: (to Happy Jack) "What is it that you want to discuss with me?"
Happy Jack: "Trixy, the dog shaman, believes the relic in this briefcase is a malevolent tool of corruption. She believes that you are knowledgeable enough and wise enough to recognize the danger that it poses. Furthermore, she believes that you are sufficiently skilled and powerful to destroy it."
Geyswain used a telekinetic spell to pick up the idol, so he could examine it more closely.
Geyswain: "Destroying this would require an arduous ritual on my part. What are you prepared to offer in exchange?"
Happy Jack: "Trixy did not offer to give you anything. Perhaps eliminating a relic as dangerous as this is in your self-interest?"
Geyswain: "If you wish for me to destroy this, then you will owe me a favor in return."
Happy Jack: "I have no desire to owe you a favor. I could ask Trixy whether she is interested in owing you a favor. She might instruct me to approach Haesslich instead."
Geyswain: "And you have no interest in whether this relic is destroyed?"
Happy Jack: "If I advertised that I was in possession of a magickal item that was so powerful and dangerous that Trixy recommended that it be destroyed, I would have no shortage of buyers offering me a fortune for it."
Geyswain: (narrowing his eyes and hissing) "You are short-sighted and foolish, Troll. I will destroy this, but I will not forget you."
Happy Jack: (bowing) "Then I shall avoid crossing paths with you in the future."
 
[rant]This is another big problem with this module. What kind of amoral shadowrunner is going voluntarily owe a favor to a dragon, just to get rid of something this dangerous? Most shadowrunners will commit murder to solve small problems. They're not going to be opposed to dumping a dangerous item just to get rid of a large problem.[/rant]