mikeward2534

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

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Griffin  (NPC): a street samurai; using the Jack the Ripper dreamchip
 
Dreamchipper - Hooker, Line & Sinker
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
In order to find Griffin (and the Jack the Ripper dreamchip), the team searched through the information provided by the Lone Star records clerk....
 
Six joygirls and joyboys had been murdered in one small Redmond neighborhood. One the first night; two the second; three the third.
Byte Force: "So he's either going to kill four or five tonight."
Eye Spy: "Five?"
Byte Force: "It might be a Fibonacci sequence."
Eye Spy: "I have no idea what you just said."
 
The murders had all taken place in the same small neighborhood in the Redmond Barrens. The victims had been primarily human, but also one ork and one dwarf.
 
Dent: "No elves or trolls?"
Happy Jack: "Other than the dwarf, it matches the racial and economic demographics of Redmond." (pause) "It seems that Griffin is just hitting targets of opportunity."
Eye Spy: "So we finally found someone in Redmond who isn't racially biased ... a serial killer."
 
The murder weapon was always cybernetic hand razors. First the throat was cut, then the bodies were swiftly dissected.
 
Audacity Jane: "Messy."
No-Step: "You don't approve."
Audacity Jane: (shrugging) "I don't particularly care. I'm not the one cleaning up after him."
 
Eye Spy: "We don't even know what Griffin looks like."
Dent: "Yes we do. I used Mind Probe on Tee Hee, Cooperman and Val."
No-Step: "That's wonderful. So what does he look like?"
Dent: "Human, average sized or maybe a little smaller, brown hair, black cybereyes, normal looking otherwise."
Audacity Jane: "That's reeeally helpful."
Dent: "I'll recognize him when I see him."
No-Step: "That doesn't help much if one of us sees him."
 
This challenge was solved with concealed microcams which would feed pictures to Dent, allowing him to confirm Griffin's identity. There were, however, other problems to be solved.
 
Audacity Jane: "There are a lot of other joygirls and joyboys in the area. We could put out bait for a week before we catch him."
No-Step: "What if we warn them to stay off the street? Tell them it's too dangerous?"
Happy Jack: "Many of them will need to eat or feed an addiction. They will be out anyway, hoping for the best."
No-Step: "We could offer to protect them for free. Get them all in one place. That would make it safer."
Happy Jack: "That's a good idea ... except they would be too suspicious of 'free' protection. I'll charge them 10 nuyen a trick for protection."
Dent: "Jack's going to be a pimp."
Happy Jack: "Yep. I'll blend right in."
 
As one of the best hand-to-hand combatants, Jane was the obvious bait. No-Step would use his Physical Mask spell to conceal the amount of armor she was wearing.
 
No-Step: "I can make her the best-looking joygirl in the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "Make her one of the ugliest. Griffin doesn't seem to care about looks, but potential customers will."
No-Step: "Right." (suggestively to Jane) "What are you going to do with actual customers?"
Dent: "Service with a smile!"
Audacity Jane: "No. I'm going to give them the Sprawl Special."
Dent: "As I said, service with a smile."
Audacity Jane: (ignoring Dent) "That's where I knock them out, tie them up, rob them, then dump them in the alley behind me." (grinning evily Dent) "And after doing that, I will be smiling."
Eye Spy: "Hey Dent, do you want to be her first customer?"
 
Dent would wander the neighborhood invisibly, using the city sprit's Search power to look for Griffin.
 
Eye Spy: "What if Griffin sees him?"
Dent: "Nobody is going to see me."
Byte Force: "Griffin is going after joygirls and joyboys. Dent looks homeless."
Dent: "I do not look homeless."
Happy Jack: "Well, you smell homeless ... and it will just take a quick wardrobe change to make you look that way too."
 
Eye Spy and Byte Force would cruise the neighborhood, letting the real joyboys and joygirls know where Jack was providing protection.
 
Eye Spy: "What should we do if we spot Griffin?"
Audacity Jane: "Vehicular homicide."
 
It was a dark and foggy night.
 
Dent: "Why can't we get this kind of weather when we're pulling a B&E job?"
 
Life as a working girl....
 
well dressed pedestrian: "Hate to bother you, but are you going my way?"
Audacity Jane: "Honey, I may be a streetwalker, but I don't actually go for walks with people." (pause) "Are there any other services you're interested in?"
 
Life as a pimp....
 
potential customer: (as Jack peered at him so the microcam could take a picture) "Why are you looking at me that way?"
Happy Jack: "I memorize your face. If you damage joyboy, I know who to collect damages from."
potential customer: "Collect damages? Like in court?"
Happy Jack: "Like ripperdoc bill, lost wages."
potential customer: (giggling nervously) "I don't carry that kind of money with me."
Happy Jack: "That okay. You have headware. I just sell used headware."
potential customer: (scoffing) "It would take a skilled surgeon and a clinic to remove my headware."
Happy Jack: "Nah. I take your head to techie. He remove headware and clean it off. No damage to headware."
potential customer: (aghast) "That would kill me!"
Happy Jack: "Well ... don't damage joyboy ... unless you can afford damages."
 
The team members patrolling the neighborhood had sent a number of joygirls/joyboys over to Happy Jack's block. They had also run across the cooling corpses of two girls who hadn't accepted the offer of protection.
 
man with glowing cybereyes: "Nasty night. I hate this weather. Don't know why I put up with it."
Audacity Jane: "Because you live here." (pause) "But I'm sure you didn't come out here just to talk about the weather."
man with glowing cybereyes / Griffin: (popping out hand razors and slashing at Jane) "Die. Die, Tramp. Die!"
Audacity Jane: (punching Griffin with her shock glove) "Not a tramp.... Not going to die."
 
After Dent had arrived at the scene...
 
Audacity Jane: (pointing at Griffin's glowing cybereyes) "You said his cybereyes were black. Do those look black to you?"
Dent: (looking at the shiners appearing under Griffin's cybereyes) "Yes. Yes they do."
 
After Griffin had been subdued and the dreamchip removed....
 
Eye Spy: "I'm not entirely certain, but I think Griffin's going to be permanently catatonic."
Happy Jack: "This leaves us with an ethical dilemma."
Audacity Jane: "What ethical dilemma? We sell him to the organ leggers."
Happy Jack: "Alternatively, we could recruit more informants by delivering him to the joygirls and joyboys. I'm sure they want to celebrate his capture ... and every good party needs a piñata."

Having neatly bypassed the vast bulk of the last adventure, Astronauta Peligroso and his gringo allies wait for the other boot to drop. If whatever is on the disk is worthy of multiple shadowrunning teams, death threats, and multilevel encryption, it seems certain that there will be ramifications. Especially since Oracle copied everything on the disk so he can decrypt it later. On the other hand, the pay for the job, and the bonus selling backdoor entry to Nabo's phone, is enough to tide us all over for another month (the other big difference between this campaign and the 2050 one is the GM isn't making the same mistake with huge paychecks – we really will be living hand-to-mouth). But we do check how that other team react when they learn how they were duped – they've left town in a hurry. This is somewhat worrying – evidently our actions have annoyed somebody dangerous. But hey, at least we have good music to listen to while we wait. The Carrion reference on the disc might refer to a major recording studio in Seattle. They were very big in the 40s. And the artist Jet Black and Loomis' dad were in one of the top ten bands ever to come out of the city (Weldun suggested The Butterfly Effect – Begins Here as the kind of thing on the disc, and the GM agreed).

Supper at the Ork with the Gold Tooth Tavern, named after a particularly recalcitrant poster in the front window. They do a good egg-and-spam flavoured soy.

Ripper K: *sings* Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, SPAAAAM wonderful spam

Ocelot gets a call – we've got another job lined up! An urgent rescue of another team who are under siege a few blocks away.

GM: It's six minutes away
Oracle: F**ck it, I'm driving.
Ripper K: This is Seattle 2070 traffic, it's probably six minutes on foot too.
Oracle: You're assuming I'm staying on the roads.

GM: You roll up to the co-ordinates.
Ripper K: nooo, we roll up to the corner of the block and cautiously look around.

But the abandoned residential area is deserted. There WAS a battle here, judging by the totalled vehicles and storefront. Perhaps not surprising – any competent shadowrun team could trash a neighbourhood in 60 seconds. Or, as Boots observes, 6. But weirdly – the inside of the vehicle and the actual store are pristine. Not a drop of blood to be seen.

Ripper K: This is weird
Astronauta: I want out.

But before we leave the obviously unnatural scene, the luchadore gets a hissed message from a ghostly figure asking us to wait. The ghost soon realises that it's dead and freaks out.

Ghost: I'm sorry, this is my first time being dead.

Apparently the ghost wants us to finish the job his team just got killed doing. Find a missing woman. Although most of the information they've found so far is still inside their late decker's head.

Ripper K: I'm not feeling a very great motivation here.

The ghost has about 6 hours before he disperses.

Ocelot: Time enough for revenge.
Astronauta: 'Let's see how many spirits I can summon in 6 hours' ' I really hated that guy – time to f**k him up'

Astronauta: Of course we have to help him! He asked for help!
Ripper K: Ah, of course. The Luchadore Code.

At least we have a few clues, including the clean-up team that so rapidly cleansed the site of evidence and bodies – the shadow company Discrete Disposal. Hopefully we can find the body of the dead team's hacker, and get the pay data they had stolen out of her cranial circuits, before the bodies get sold to the organleggers or something. The front for the 'waste disposal' company is a nearly featureless concrete cube out in one of the industrial parks. That complicates things, as does the horrible psychic atmosphere of the place.

Ripper K: So, do they have anything set up for corpse disposal on the premises? A pig pen, or giant woodchipper?

Van's character Giant Dad has been replaced by a more rounded Boots, a son of Labrat, who used to be the face for the Ork Underground to keep the underground safe and the inhabitants from killing each other.

Oracle OoC: By 2070 the Ork Underground is part of the Seattle tourist scene.
Ocelot: So, good job!
Astronauta: And then you got bored and took up shadowrunning.

Boots, Ocelot and Ripper head in to have a polite chat with a building full of 'clean-up guys', while the other get ready to hotwire one of their disposal trucks and ram the door. Their director of operations - Mr Black -seems a bit suspicious that we're there for an inspection. Perhaps because of the late hour, but probably because he's already paid off everybody involved. Oracle's empathy software, monitoring the camera feeds from our gear, notes that the director isn't sweating. Or breathing. He doesn't have a pulse, either.

Oracle: Percentage chance Zombie, percentage chance Xombie, percentage chance Shadim …
Ocelot : Percentage chance F**k If I Know

Back we do talk our into an inspection tour, while Astronauta and Oracle pour over the feeds looking for holes in their security. Which is rather formidable, at least on the physical plane. The door to the basement incinerators, for example, is massively over-engineered, and guarded. And the guard alarmingly is happy about letting us in to look around....

Ripper K: I brace myself for the sudden and inevitable betrayal.

Ripper K: Bit dark in here, isn't it?
Mr Black: I'm afraid my biomass-processing employees have issues with bright lighting
Ripper K: And that doesn't sound ominous at ALL.

What Mr Black doesn't know is that we can see the piles of body parts and feasting ghouls perfectly well. And our associates outside are poised to strike the moment the door gets slammed behind us.

Ripper K OoC: Have you finished hotwiring the truck?
Astronauta OoC: Why? I'm just going to walk in.
Boots OoC: That's probably equivalent to driving a truck through the wall.

And if Astronauta Peligroso IS the star of this luchadore flick, then waiting until his allies are in trouble and then bursting in through the door is entirely in character. Just wait until he starts bursting in through skylights!

Mr Black is immune to bullets, but happily is not immune to being punched in the throat by Ripper.

GM: He was standing there laughing off the gunfire, and then gets sucker-punched by the orca. If he was a mundane, you probably would have punched his head clean off.

Ripper is reluctant to punch the ghouls however – it's common knowledge ghoul bites spread HMHV virus.

Ripper K: I don't want to punch one in the face and then have to pick his teeth out of my knuckles.

Oracle sends in his drones, running the Thunderrun script – i.e. Shoot everything that isn't a friendly, then escort the friendlies out again. Boots and Oracle back up and shoot as many ghouls as they can, until Oracle's drones can get here to open the door.

Oracle: *facepalm* It's now painfully obvious where most of my data comes from – one of the bodies in your Heads Up Display lights up with a Miracle Shooter objective marker.

Oracle throws up inside his own helmet when he gets a RL look at the pile of half-eaten human remains. The rest of us are pretty green too. But at least we can find the bodies we're after. Or the heads at least. The amulet we're after is in here too, but searching for it is a exercise in horror. Sadly, Seattle is one of the few cities that DOESN'T have a standing bounty on ghouls. And Mr Black ghosted out while we were preoccupied. Boots walks up to the reception desk, stinking of blood and death, where the receptionist is cowering. She was just lucky the drones when in through the hole Astronauta made, and thus she didn't fall victim to the Thunderrun script.

Boots: I find this establishment unacceptable. You might want to start sending your resume around.

Oracle is rather alarmed to learn that the data in the cranial circuitry pertains to Project Icarus, a medical program with a 30% success rate – and 70% fatality rate. He debates whether or not to tell the others.

Oracle: If there were any secondary files I'd be burning them right now!

Oracle: How well do I know you guys? Do any of you play Miracle Shooter? Because I got banned for bringing Tac-net ware to matches.

Oracle is most concerned because he was a designer baby that came from the same line of research – hence all his gibbering as he went through the files. If somebody figures out he's involved in this job, they might come after HIM. The invoice for over a thousand body bags, and two genetic stabilisers, is also worthy of incoherent comment. Especially since the address attached is a high school closed in the 40s. It's also suggestive that the woman we're tracking down is pregnant, and both she and her husband, the original client, are magically active. Magical Mr. Johnsons?

Boots: They have magical johnsons.

The old school doesn't have any of the power supply a secret lab might need. Oracle's drones search for heat plumes – and there's a big one coming out from one of the roof vents.

Oracle: If you don't mind I'll stay in the van.
Boots: Just send in your drones Betty and Veronica
Oracle: What?
Boots: Your drones, Minnie and May
Oracle: I've told you before – Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Boots: Yeah, that's right – Dick and Tracey.

We kick in the door and a promptly overwhelmed by a sensation of Imminent Doom. The scent of unpleasant chemicals, IV fluids, and discarded mediware doesn't help.

Boots: Hey Oracle... just thought I should give you the heads up – I'm on the edge of losing my shit here.
Oracle: Yeah, I can tell from your biomonitors.

We turn to find a young elf girl with long black hair hanging over her face.

Boots: WeHaveALuchadoreYourArgumentIsInvalid!!!!!! Nacho boy, punch her through a wall!

Now most of us are overwhelmed by a desire to protect her. This is probably a Very Bad Sign. Ocelot sprays the room with shotgun taser pellets.

Ripper K: The f**k??
Boots: Ocelot, Jesus!
Oracle: Jesus Chr- wait... what was I thinking about?

Oracle, now the girl is well and truly unconscious, is now rather alarmed that the girl is some kind of force-aged clone of the foetus, or something, is relieved to see no resemblance to the parents.

Ocelot: That WOULD have been difficult to explain...

Boots wants to drop the young girl off at Greenlight's home - 'Aunty Sam's place'. The roomful of drugged expectant mothers is considerably more distressing, especially with the evidence of experimental surgery, and wouldn't fit in Aunty Sam's flat, either. Oracle refills his helmet.

Oracle: I didn't think I had any more to give! *dry-heaving noises over the TacNet.*
Ripper K: So, do we tell the police about this????

Even more fucked up, the set-up is designed to turn magically inclined children into Toxic Shamans, of the kind patronised by toxic spirits like Mr Black. Shamans like the invisible one in the ward, who hits us with a Panic spell, steps on a test tube, and gets a positive hail of bullets for his pains. A pity he's just a kid too, but since he's invisible, how could we tell? Dozens of women pregnant with toxic mages, and possessed children, is WAY beyond our pay grade. Boots calls a relative at the Draco Foundation.

Boots: Hi Uncle Inkubus, it's your favourite nephew.
Inkubus: Be more specific.

Oracle calls his own fixer, the one that called in the rescue.

Oracle: We found her. She's hooked up to a Valkyrie unit.
Ulysses: What the fuck did they do to her?
Oracle: I know, you don't want to know, and the Johnson needs to know.

Oracle warms up one of his custom drones – a Knight Errant high speed pursuit drone that he's turned into a one-man ambulance. That still has a tire-damage strip ejector. Knight Errant, who recently took over the Seattle Police contract from Lone Star, will be quite pleased to clear up all these missing persons cases, and hopefully forward any other rewards our way. The reward is substantial – and well-deserved. For one thing if we hadn't been very lucky in which party members were where, half of us could have been killed at four different places in the mission. For example, Oracle and Boots wouldn't have got out alive from the ghoul room, if Ripper hadn't been a Physical Adept. But what if Black comes back?

Boots: If he keeps starting shit I'll call Uncle Inkubus and we'll summon the ultimate Spirit of Man – Captain Planet.
Ocelot: But we'd need to summon five lesser spirits first.
Boots: Wind! Water! Chrome!

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
 
Dreamchipper - Interlude (information gathering)
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Happy Jack: "I'm going to go talk to the Lone Star records clerk that Byte Force and I recruited."
Byte Force: "Well ... he doesn't know that he's been recruited."
No-Step: "How do you recruit someone without him noticing?"
Happy Jack: "We bribed him."
Byte Force: "... but he doesn't know that he's been bribed yet."
No-Step: "Why is he going to do something for a bribe that he doesn't know about?"
Happy Jack: "Because I'm going to use that bribe to blackmail him."
 
Chester, the records clerk: (answering his apartment door) "How may I help you, patrolman."
Happy Jack: (disguised as a Lone Star patrolman) "Are you the owner of a gold 2046 Ford Americar in the parking garage?"
Chester: (alarmed) "Why? What happened to it?"
Happy Jack: "There was a minor collision. Would you mind coming and looking at the damage?"
They took the elevator to the parking garage.
Chester: (looking at his car) "Where's the damage?"
Happy Jack: (handing Chester a piece of paper) "Actually, I wanted you to look at this bank statement of yours."
Chester: (barely glancing at it) "This isn't my bank."
Happy Jack: "True ... but it's your daughter's account. It has your daughter's money in it. That money has been used to pay your daughter's medical bills. And since your daughter is too young to work, that looks rather suspicious."
Chester: "Wait! What?" (slowly dawning realization) "Are you saying that I'm a dirty cop?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm saying that you're being framed."
Chester: "Oh..."
Happy Jack: "Because I'm the one who is framing you."
Chester: "WHAT?!?"
Happy Jack: "So you can either give me the information that I want, and continue to pay your daughter's bills, or you can explain to your superiors why you accepted my bribes for three months before mentioning anything to them."
Chester pulled his gun and shot Jack. The armor jacket stopped the bullet.
Happy Jack: (smacking the gun out of Chester's hand) "Attempted murder. That's very illegal. More illegal than bribery. Good thing we caught that on tape."
Eye Spy: (over the radio link) "We didn't catch that on tape."
Audacity Jane: (to Eye Spy) "Chester doesn't know that."
 
Chester: "What do you want from me?"
Happy Jack: (handing Chester a burner phone) "I want to know about every joygirl, joyboy, escort or other sex trade worker murdered since Saturday."
Chester: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "I've been hired to catch the person committing the murders."
Chester: "You're blackmailing me into helping you stop a murderer? But that's something I don't mind doing."
Happy Jack: "See. It's your lucky day. You're getting paid to do a good deed."
 
The gunshot had attracted the attention of the building security.
 
security guard: (running up with a drawn gun) "What's going on here?"
Chester: "Uh ..."
Happy Jack: "Chester dropped his gun and had an accidental discharge."
Chester: "..."
security guard: "..."
Happy Jack: "I wrote him a citation for that." (pause) "Better be careful with your gun, or I'll be writing a second citation."
security guard: "..."
 
Later...
 
Happy Jack: "That went perfectly."
Dent: "Perfectly? You paid Chester for that information, and you probably could have gotten it for free."
Happy Jack: "I didn't want to get it for free. I wanted him to take the nuyen."
Dent: "WHAT?!?"
Happy Jack: "This morning, it only looked like Chester was taking bribes. Now, he is knowingly taking bribes. That means we're making progress in our relationship."

Finishing off Songs of Summoning (for real this time)
 
Maker is outside, worried about taking on the creature.
 
Shadowboxer:  (points to a series of arced lines on the map)  Just hide under one of these balconies.
Malarky:  Those aren't balconies.  They're curved walls.  (turns his PC around to show a satellite overhead view of the back side of the club and smiles at the GM.)  Don't you just love Google Maps?  (proceeds to get the street view from that alleyway)  Here, Maker, this is what you see back there...
 
Circe goes outside and tries mind-blasting the creature, exposing her to its Insane Thoughts (a mental damage shield that drains her EGO and PRE).
 
Circe:  Ewwww!  You would not believe what is going on in that thing's mind!  I am not doing that again!
 
The creature grabs Maker and Circe with its tentacles, but before it can try to eat either one, Pops teleports them back into the club.  Maker begins flying back outside to confront the creature.
 
Pops:  Remember, just one save per person!  Go back out there at your own risk.
 
Back inside, Screech had put up a force barrier around the stage, with himself, Ted, and Heavy Metal inside, protected from the heroes' attacks.
 
Nexus:  We need to get past that barrier.
Honey Badger:  Easy.  (Makes rude gestures and disparaging comments at Ted, who proceeds to smash a hole through the barrier to take on the hero brick.)  See?  Problem solved.
 
Once most of Road Kill was down, the heroes were trying to figure out what do to against the creature.  Most of their attacks were bouncing off.
 
GM:  (to Nexus)  Aren't you going to try attacking it?
Nexus:  If Honey Badger throwing a dumpster at it didn't hurt it, my puny elemental magic blast isn't going to do much.
GM:  (looks down at creature's character sheet, where the Damage Reduction has the limitation "Doesn't work vs. Magic" and shrugs)  Your choice.
 
Nexus finally blasts it, causing it to scream in agony.
 
Nexus:  Hey, guys!  It's vulnerable to cold!  Should I try fire next?
Several other heroes:  NO!!  Freeze the #$&@!&@#!
 
The heroes figure out that someone gave the "lyrics" (summoning incantations) to Heavy Metal, and they try to figure out how to keep Road Kill from unintentionally summoning more other-worldly creatures in the future.
 
Malarky:  Could Circe mind-control them not to play those songs ever again?
GM:  Maybe.  She does have a Mind Control with Cumulative on it.  But they're contrary enough that dropping those songs might not be something they're inclined to do, so the control may break at some point.
Malarky:  Any way I can alter the magic so the summoning just wouldn't work?
GM:  I suppose Circe could mind control Heavy Metal to "fix" some of the lyrics...
Malarky:  (smiles)  Yeah.  "Those new songs are good and all, Heavy Metal -- but couldn't you come up with better lyrics on your own?"

Finishing up Songs of Summoning:
 
In my games, I ask each player to provide at least 5 NPCs to flesh out their own world a bit.  These aren't DNPCs; the only dangerous situations they get into are typically off-screen.  I allow the PCs to use them as pseudo-Contacts, just like you would any friend or family member.  And I use them to advance the plot at times.
 
Nexus and Circe each provided way more than 5 NPCs, and Nexus (who plays and sings in a band) decided that her four bandmates were all low-level supers. (The band is named Paranormal.)  If she was trying to get her own mini-super team to help fight crime, she's going to be disappointed...
 
Nexus arrives at the Paradise Rock Club, approaching the back door, and sees her bandmates running away down the alley/street, screaming in terror.  She stops the last one.
 
Nexus:  Stop!  Calm down!  What's wrong?  What's going on?
Bandmate:  We showed up to set up... and they were there already!  He... he's huge!  I thought he was going to rip my arms off!!!  (screams in terror and runs off)
Nexus:  (shakes her head sadly)  My band is a bunch of pansy-boys.
 
Circe walks in the front door to see the patrons of the club all standing around staring at Road Kill up on stage as they launch into their hit song (topped the charts at #546), "I Say Screw You."
 
GM:  What they lack in quality, they make up for in 'loud.'
Circe:  (turns one of her regular club patrons to face her)  What is going on here?
Misc. Person:  (drooling slightly)  Band.  They good.
GM:  (OOC) Game-wise, you're looking at the effects of an area-effect Drain of INT, EGO, and PRE. 
Circe:  So that's how they get fans.
GM:  Which might also explain Nexus' bandmates running away when Ted glared at them.
Honey Badger:  Running away like pansy-boys.  (When Nexus glares at him)  Hey, you're the one who said it.  I'm just repeating what you called them.
 
Pops teleports to the Paradise Rock Club, sees that only half the team there, and disappears to collect the rest.  He starts with Malarky, who is riding his bicycle there as fast as he can pedal.
 
Pops:  I appear next to Malarky, grab him off the bike, and teleport both of us back to the club.
Malarky:  Hey!  What about my bike!
Pops:  Oh, boo hoo.  If it gets stolen or wrecked, I'll buy you a new one.
 
Honey Badger arrives at the back of the club.
 
Honey Badger:  I pick up the guitar one of Nexus' pansy-boys left behind.
Nexus:  Hey, that doesn't belong to you!
Honey Badger:  It does now.
 
As Road Kill finished up their song, to scattered applause from the brain-numbed audience, Honey Badger walks up to the stage with the guitar in hand.
 
Screech:  Hey, we already told you twerps, we're rockin' the Paradise tonight!
Honey Badger:  Oh, Honey Badger doesn't play.  Honey Badger was wondering if you guys would sign this guitar.  Road Kill is one of Honey Badger's favorite bands.  (under his breath)  To beat up.
 
The band members are all more than happy to sign the guitar for a fan.  (Well, Ted just puts a big "X" on it.)  It works as a nice distraction so the rest of the team can start herding out the audience and reduce the number of innocent bystanders.  But before too long...
 
Heavy Metal:  Aright, folks, we're going to do one of our new numbers, we're sure you're going to like it.  It's called The Bazaar.
(The band launches into a haunting, vaguely creepy song.)
Shadowboxer:  Watch out, everybody.  It was during their new songs that creatures started popping up.
(The heroes redouble their efforts to get the audience outside.)
 
GM:  Is anybody attacking Road Kill?
Honey Badger:  Not yet.  We want to get the people out of here first.
GM:  Which way are you sending them -- out the front, or out the back?
Malarky:  Out the front.  We don't want to take them past Road Kill.  (getting suspicious)  Why?  Do I see anything out the front windows?
GM:  No.  But anybody toward the back of the club will hear screaming from outside.  (pulls out 5" tall cardboard character standup with a picture of a Flying Polyp printed on it, setting it on the map outside the club's back door.
 
The heroes begin attacking the members of Road Kill, even though the summoning is complete.
 
GM:  Anybody going outside to deal with that?  (points at the Flying Polyp)
Pops:  Hell no.  I already fought one of those.
Circe:  No, you fought one of these.  (picks up normal-size character standup of the Star Vampire)  That (points to the Flying Polyp) is Big Momma, wondering what happened to Junior.
 
Pops teleports Axeman outside, where the guitarist is promptly picked up by the creature.  Screaming in terror, Axeman hurls his guitar/axe at it, somehow managing to miss it entirely.  The creature responds by trying to stuff Axeman down one of its sharp-toothed maws.
Malarky:  He prooooobably should have kept that.  Might have been useful.
Pops:  Well, now the beastie has a chew toy.
 
(Drat.  Work interrupts.  Will try to finish tonight or tomorrow)

Yesterday at work I was telling a friend (L) about the CoC solo, stand-alone adventure. He's part of a Pathfinder table. Another guy from the table was also in the pod. We will call the second man "J".
 
Me: I had exactly 1 hit point left and was peddling like crazy away from the cultists. No way am I looking back over my shoulder.
 
J: Wait. What? Cultists and bicycles? That makes no sense.
 
L: Did you ever play Paperboy on the old NES.
 
J (confused): Original NES? Yes, I did.
 
L: That was a hard game. If you missed the box, people would unsubscribe from your route.
 
J (still confused): What has this to do with cultists?
 
L: In Paperboy 2, the unsubscribers and those for whom you break a window join together in a cult. Frank's been doing some retro gaming lately.
 
And I'm thinking, "The Cult of Shattered Glass actually sounds like a CoC cult."

Boston Champions - Songs of Summoning (cont.)
 
The heroes learn that most of the summoned creatures didn't do much more than scare a few people before popping back to wherever they came from.  Curious about the one that Pops fought (which had specifically targeted the grocery store manager while ignoring pretty much everybody else around it), some go to the hospital to see how the mauled man is doing.  Unfortunately, he's still in a coma. After establishing that they're working with the Boston PD...
 
Malarky (to the ICU nurse):  Can I maybe try a wee something that might help perk him up?
Nurse Ratchet:  I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to touch my patient.  (walks away to treat another patient, but keeps an eye on Malarky)
Nurse Nice:  (walks up)  You're one of those new supeheroes, aren't you?  I saw something about you in the news.
Malarky:  Aye, that's us.  I'm Malarky, a bit of a junior mage.
Nurse Nice:  Magic, huh?  So, you can heal him, with one touch?
Malarky (realizing his Healing spell is Area of Effect):  That I can.  Don't really need to touch him, though.  (pauses)  Say, do you mind if I stand over there in the corner for a bit?  Won't be a bother.  (smiles impishly)  And if you should happen to move any really sick patients within, oh, a dozen or so meters of me in, say, five minutes time, who's to say what might happen?
Needless to say, there was some miraculous healing that day in the ICU at Mass General.
Malarky:  Wonder if I can get a date with that nurse...
 
Other heroes go to check the mauled man's apartment.
 
Honey Badger:  Maybe he was dabbling in the black arts...
Enters the apartment to find it a mess -- furniture trashed, possessions destroyed, walls sliced as if by claws, and overly large maggots squirming all over the place.
Honey Badger:  ... and it got away from him.
 
Circe tries reading the man's mind, but he's just as clueless as they are.
 
Mr. Goodman (walking around a mental construct of his trashed apartment):  Would you look at this mess?  Why me?  What did I ever do?  I'm a law-abiding guy, try and keep the peace.  Serve on the neighborhood watch.  Try and keep things nice in my neighborhood, call the police when people aren't being civil.  And this is what happens?
 
Unfortunately, they didn't catch the clue and so they didn't ask if he had made any complaints against neighbors lately.  Instead, they start checking out the bars near where some of the creatures appeared.
 
Malarky:  You guys realize I'm not allowed in a bar, don't you?  I'm only 18.
Pops:  Wait, don't you use booze for one of your spells? 
Malarky:  That's different.  It's not alcohol, it's a spell component.
 
Shadowboxer listens in on a few conversations between patrons.
 
Guy #1:  Hopefully they'll have a better band tonight.
Guy #2:  Yeah, those guys last night were horrid.  I mean, their early stuff was alright, I can dig some good metal, but then they started on their 'new' stuff.  Talk about dark and depressing...
Shadowboxer:  Excuse me.  Couldn't help but overhear.  Do you remember what the band who played here last night was called?
Guy #1:  Something like Road House, wasn't it?
Guy #2:  No, it was Road Kill.
(players groan in agony.  Ah, the lamentations of players are like nectar to the GM!)
 
Circe:  That was the band that tried out at my club last week, wasn't it? (smugly)  Good thing I refused to book them.  They won't be trashing my club.
GM:  Funny you should mention that... (pulls out the game map and begins laying it out)

Our group now alternates between my Champions game and a D&D-4 game.  However, the D&D DM texted me a few days before our normal game day asking if I could run instead.  I didn't really have anything prepared, so I threw something together.  But I did take the time to put together a weekly news page.
 
One article mentions the "newly-formed team of superheroes, as yet unnamed".
 
Nexus:  Does that mean we have to come up with a team name?  You know we suck at that.
(That's true -- past team names have included THEM (The Heroes of Eastern Michigan) and S-Squad (because all the team members names began with "S")
GM:  If you don't come up with a team name, the editor of the Heronet Herald will give you one.  This is the same guy that came up with "Earth-818" for the alternate world.  So, not very creative.   You'll probably end up with something like Boston Area Super-Heroes.
Maker:  BASH!  I like it!  You know, that's actually the kind of name we'd come up with.
 
Maker's player looks through the prior week's news, which included a Name That Dimension contest,with appropriate hokey prizes, to come up with a better name than Earth-818.  She then passes the GM a note:
 
"Maker wants the Foxbat inflatable punching bag and submits Ogygia for Earth-818."
 
Another article in the current news talks about Pops taking down a misshapen creature attacking a supermarket, so I started the night off with that encounter.  Pops is on his way home to get ready for a hot date.
 
Pops:  Why are you picking on me?  You know that if I saw something happening, I'd probably just teleport the other direction.
Nexus:  Hey, at least you know up front you're going to win!
 
The creature is a star vampire, which is normally invisible but becomes temporarily visible after feasting.
 
GM:  As Pops teleports into the store, he sees a badly maimed person lying on the ground, with several other people apparently fighting something invisible, which tosses them aside like gnats while it sucks blood from the maimed guy.  As Pops watches, the creature becomes visible as the blood it's drinking circulates through it's body.  (Shows Pops a picture of the creature.
Pops:  Okay, that's just wrong.  I don't do tentacles.  I don't even like anime.  That's more Honey Badger's or Circe's thing.
 
After a few phases of combat...
 
GM: You notice that, as the blood it drank is being absorbed, the creature is starting to fade away.  You figure it'll be invisible again by the end of the Turn.
 
The creature grabs Pops and latches a tentacle onto his throat to begin sucking his blood.
 
Pops:  Well, at least it'll be visible a bit longer.
 
Pops eventually defeats the creature and turns it over to PRIMUS.  He then pays a visit to his teammate Malarky.
 
Pops:  You know that healing thing you did while fighting the Boston Commons?  Could you do that to me?  (points to his neck)  I have a date tonight, and I don't want her to see this hickey.
 
The heroes investigate, and discover that odd-looking creatures have been popping in and out of existence all over town.  Some pop up in the afternoon, but most show up from about 9 pm to 2 am.  None are reported between 2 am and noonish.
 
Shadowboxer:  I map out all the appearances and look for patterns.
GM:  You actually see two groups -- the afternoon appearances are in one part of town, near some apartment buildings and warehouses converted into condos, that sort of thing.  The late evening/early night appearances are in a different part of Boston.  Most of them have been pretty close to a number of lower-grade bars and other dives.
Shadowboxer:  That would explain the appearances ending by 2 am.  That's when the bars close up.
Malarky:  So basically, we're looking for a drunk summoner.
 
(More to follow)

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Val (NPC): a rigger; using the Cleopatra dreamchip
 
Dreamchipper - Party Crashing
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. One dreamchip had been recovered, but two more remained.
 
Happy Jack: "Val has started dating Booker Pengrave, a junior executive at Hollywood Simsense Entertainment."
No-Step: "And she'll continue dating him until she meets a senior executive."
Happy Jack: "Are any of their senior executives trolls?"
Byte Force: (checking the Matrix) "No."
Happy Jack: "So ... that rules out Plan A."
 
Happy Jack: "Pengrave is holding a big party at his penthouse tonight. Jane and I can go in there, scope out the place, then figure out the best way to break in later."
Audacity Jane: "How are we getting in there?"
Happy Jack: "We'll deliver a few cases of expensive wine. That should get us all the way to the bar. If we need to do more scouting, we can come back again a few hours later as part of the cleaning crew."
Dent: "How much is all that expensive wine going to cost us?"
Happy Jack: "Maybe 100 or 200 nuyen."
Dent: "Per bottle?"
Happy Jack: "No. For a few cases."
Eye Spy: "Uh ... Jack ... that's not expensive wine."
Happy Jack: "I know. We're going to dumpster dive for expensive wine bottles, fill them with cheaper wine, then reseal them."
Byte Force: "The attendees might be too drunk to notice the difference."
 
Astral recon at Pengrave's party was not an option.
 
No-Step: "There are at least four security mages patrolling in astral space."
Dent: "Either that, or they're peeping Toms watching the orgy upstairs."
 
No-Step: (to Jack and Jane) "We can't even put any spells on you without risking making the mages suspicious."
Happy Jack: "That's okay. We're disguising ourselves as menial labor. That doesn't require much effort."
 
The wine delivery went without a hitch and provided useful information for a later break-in. At the end of the party, Jack and Jane would reenter the apartment disguised as part of the cleaning crew. Once the extra magickal security departed, Jane would climb up onto the roof with her gear. After everyone left (and Pengrave and Val went to bed) she would sneak back down, abduct Val, then rappel both of them down to the street.
 
Of course, the plan hit a snag shortly after the duo inserted themselves in with the cleaning crew.
 
Eye Spy: (over the radio link) "Val and Pengrave are leaving the building. They're getting in a limo."
Audacity Jane: "That's perfect. Because we're kind of stuck here."
 
Eye Spy managed to use her drone to tail the limo to the marina, while the rest of the team (except Jack and Jane) followed the limo at a discrete distance.
 
Eye Spy: "If they leave in a boat, we'll have no way to follow them."
Dent: "We'll just have to make sure they don't get on a boat."
Pengrave and Val were well down the pier, heading to a boat, so Dent summoned a sea spirit, then sent it to use it's Fear power on Val, making her afraid of the water. As Val turned and ran back towards the team, Pengrave chased after her ... until Dent commanded the sea spirit to use its Confusion power on Pengrave. Pengrave immediately ran off the side of the pier and fell into the water.
Eye Spy: "If only I had caught that on video."
 
No-Step: (disguised as a marina security guard) "Are you okay ma'am?"
Byte Force, concealed by No-Step's city spirit, snuck up behind Val and shot a narcojet dart at her ... but he missed her and hit No-Step. No-Step collapsed. As Val stared at No-Step in alarm, Byte Force shot another dart at her ... with much greater success.
Byte Force: "At least I'm batting .500."
Dent: "Remind me to always stand behind you when you're shooting."

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.

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?

(finishing the Boston Champions adventure;  again, McGinty appears with prior permission from Drhoz and McGinty's player)
 
The battle done, PRIMUS is called to cart off the captured supervillains.  As the heroes wait for PRIMUS to arrive...
 
Byron Timmons:  (enters the room and almost walks into the bramble/briar patch) Oh, my! 
Maker:  Who is it?  George Takei?
Byron Timmons:  (heads toward Shadowboxer, completely nonplussed at the trashed robots and unconscious supervillains scattered about)  Mister Shadowboxer and... (inclines his head to Honey Badger) Mister Honey Badger?  I am the lawyer of record of an estate for which you are both named beneficiaries.  (Hands each of them his business card)  If you would be so kind, please call my secretary and arrange an appointment so that we may distribute your portions of the estate.  Thank you, and good day.  (He climbs back out the hole in the wall and continues on his way as if this is a completely normal situation.)
 
The two heroes go to the offices of Crane, Poole, and Schmidt (seeing one lawyer who bears a striking resemblance to William Shatner) for the reading of the will.
 
Shadowboxer:  Whose estate are we beneficiaries for?
Byron Timmons:  This is the estate of Patrick J. McGinty, former governor and late of Boston.  He disappeared from the public eye in 1929 and was declared legally dead in 1936.  The will was signed shortly before his disappearance.  (pause)  I should warn you, Mr. McGinty apparently considered himself quite the smart wit.  (disapproving sniff)
 
Timmons reads the relevant portion of the will.
 
Timmons: 
"I instruct my lawyers, money-grubbing lot that they are (another disapproving sniff), 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 …" well, what follows are some… rather colorful instructions as to the properties’ care and maintenance.
 
"On or shortly after February 13, 2015, 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 11:17 pm 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."  (another disapproving sniff)
 
"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…" -- I assume this is more of Mr. McGinty’s famed ‘wit’ and that he means you, Mr. Honey Badger, unless you (looking at Shadowboxer) have a Sugar Beaver associate of which I am unaware.   "… 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."
 
Honey Badger:  Aw, man!  I was looking forward to meeting Sugar Beaver!  I was sure that was a girl!  Think about it... Sugar Beaver...  Sounds like a hottie, doesn't it?
 
Shadowboxer has one of the magic-using heroes check out the envelope, who verified it has a minor enchantment to preserve the paper and keep anybody from peeking at the letter inside, but nothing dangerous.  They check out the house and grounds; in addition to the old Victorian home, there's a garage (formerly a stable), an old stone well, a rose-trellis arch leading to a hedge maze, and a gazebo.
 
Honey Badger:  Is there an arrow in the gazebo?
GM:  No, but there are three bullet holes in it.
 
Inside the house, Shadowboxer opens and reads the letter.
 
        Well, lad, we’ve had a few interesting conversations over the past few years, but it seems time’s running out for this old man.  I guess you can’t spend years beating back a shit vortex without getting a wee bit of muck splashed on you.  And in our line of work, you’re doing well if the muck doesn’t do quite a bit more than just stink.  But I dug my fooking hole, so I guess I’ll have to lie in it eventually.
        I’m counting on you lot to keep fighting the good fight.  You’ve got a rough road ahead, lad, but you’ve got friends to protect your arse – and they’ve got you to protect theirs.  True, they’re an odd lot, especially that Syrup Otter lad.  I can only hope they’ll get the job done.  Heaven knows stranger things have happened in this old world. 
        I wish I could offer you more than some well-read books and a pat on the back, but my days of being much help are well behind me.  It’s up to you lot to find a way to win the day.  Beat the blackguards back and kick some monster arse for me.  And when you find yourself swimming underwater in a whirlpool of shit, well, lad, just keep looking for a crack in the crust. 
        A final word of advice:  you’ll find a splash of whiskey and a walk in the sunshine might help you keep your sanity.  Well, what little sanity you might have, given that you’re crazy enough to get into our line of work.
                                                                Your friend,
                                                                Paddy McGinty
P.S. Please pass on my apologies to that Malarkey lad for our first meeting, and I hope everything grows back well enough.
 
(Note that none of them have yet met McGinty.)
 
The heroes take a tour of the house.  Timmons assures them that all of the furnishings and everything in the house had been put into storage in the 1930s, and brought out (and restored, where necessary) about a month or two ago.  One thing the heroes notice:  There are no books to be found anywhere in the house.

(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.

The Wikipedia page isn't my best work -- I was trying for subtle but mostly it came out a bit dull.  But if you want to see it:
 
Wikipedia entry:
 
Patrick “Paddy” McGinty (October 30, 1870 – unknown) was a United States politician from Massachusetts.  As a member of the Republican Party, he was elected the 50th Governor of Massachusetts and was one of the state’s first Irish-American governors, serving from 1925-1927.
 
Biography
 
McGinty was born and raised in Dunmurry, Ireland.  He served in the 14th Engineers battalion of the Royal Army during World War I, achieving the rank of Sergeant Major. 
 
He moved to the United States in 1920 and took up residence in Arkham, Massachusetts where he worked briefly in a local quarry before opening an automotive repair shop. Allegations were made during this time of ties between McGinty and Irish mobster Dan O’Bannion but they have never been proven.[citation needed]
 
McGinty gained fame in April of 1924 when he and several associates assisted the Boston police in capturing Patrick Malone and members of his infamous Crimson Gang following the King-of-Ireland Massacre.[1, 2]  He was also credited with the rescue of a wealthy Boston socialite from kidnappers, after which he announced his candidacy for governor of the State of Massachusetts.
 
His campaign for governor was rife with accusations of malfeasance ranging from exposes linking McGinty with bootleggers, to claims that he was personally involved in manslaughter as well as numerous acts of property damage and destruction.[3]  Despite this, McGinty secured his party’s nomination and was elected governor by a narrow margin in 1924 (ironically, running on a platform of law and order).
 
1925-1927
 
Governor Patrick McGinty’s administration took place at the height of prohibition, and was marked by frequent scandals ranging from nearly constant allegations of collusion with bootleggers, to several accusations of conspiracy to commit murder.  [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]
 
At a press conference in January 1926 responding to allegations of ordering state police to halt a murder investigation, Gov. McGinty said, ‘To Hades with the lot of you” and announced he would no longer speak directly with any reporters.[12]  All future inquiries during McGinty’s administration were handled through a series of short-lived press secretaries.
 
Likely due to the many allegations of illegal and illicit activity, McGinty was denied re-nomination when the Republican Party instead chose Alvan T. Fuller to run for governor in 1926.  McGinty left office in 1927 and retired from the public eye.
 
McGinty disappeared sometime in 1929 and was legally declared dead in 1936.
 
- - - - - - - -
 
I was having fun with the citations (note the number of cites about scandals), most of which are scans of newspaper clippings that are less than complimentary of McGinty. As the heroes dig into it, they'll learn that all of the scans were posted by the same person, identified online as SarEinBU.  A little digging will reveal her to be Dr. Sarah Einstein, an Egyptology professor at Boston University who inherited her great-grand-aunt's scrapbook of clippings and journals.
 
I'm actually much prouder of my Last Will and Testament of Patrick J. McGinty, which I'll post soon.  And his letter to Shadowboxer, revealing where he hid all his mystic books.  Which I'm almost positive the players have completely missed.  But more on that later.

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."

I'd completely forgotten that Then managed to miss this paragraph
 
 
So when you got to this bit I thought "hang about, that sounds horribly familiar"
 
 
Those poor, poor fools...  Also, I want to see this entry

(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."

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!

Someone at the Friendly Local Game Store (Saltire Games on Pendleton Pike, tell 'em Lucius Alexander sent you) decided to run Mutants and Masterminds, DC universe setting.
 
JoJo (The Game Operations Director): It's like Hero for Dummies.
 
I made a character (I've played essentially the same character before in Champions) named Destrier, the Steed of Heroes - a magical horse.
 
Destrier can speak any language and communicate with spirits and animals, but I have begun to think I might have been better off pretending to be a dumb (as in, unspeaking) animal.
 
 
To a crowd of children clamoring for rides: Now children, listen. You really should not try to ride a strange horse unless your parents say it's okay.
 
 
An openly derisive federal agent, addressing the whole group: I see the costumed freaks are here.
Destrier, after looking at him, looking back at his own body, and then at him again: Costumed?
 
Same guy, a little later: You're going to have to sign some paperwork.
Destrier after putting his head down towards the ground, lifting a hoof to examine it and then setting it down again and raising his head: Sign? I could put a hoofprint on something.
 
 
The local Police Chief is more cooperative and seems intent on establishing that we all trust him and are willing to work with him.
Destrier: Sir, do you have any pets?
Chief: Pets? I have two cats.
Destrier: I would like to have their opinions before forming my own.
(He got a good reference from his cats when we met.)
 
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary wonders how Destrier will judge people who don't have pets.

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."