By N.Barnes
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Entry 28: 18.09.70>
I just made it back from the briefest run of my career – there’s something pleasantly pre-ordained about spotting the wet work target you’ve just been set, sitting about five feet behind the Johnson doing the hiring!
I picked up a call from a man called Donovan who had been pointed in our direction by Lone Star pragmatist Croner. We met at a waterfront café and Donovan announced he represented an international business cabal called the Eleven Nameless Men. They pride themselves on their anonymity and the power that gives them to manipulate the Stock Markets. Unfortunately, their identities had been compromised and an assassin had begun systematically taking them out. With two dead, the remaining Nameless Men wanted the assassin stopped and his employer identified before anymore bodies hit the floor.
Donovan claimed to be an unknown factor, working as a go-between for the Eleven but otherwise unconnected to them. However, Ki-Rinn spotted someone at a nearby table paying a bit too much attention to our meet. He was concerned enough to run a Matrix sweep on the man and turned up that he was French ex-military, Special Forces and dishonourably discharged for mental instability. His poor surveillance skills had made him our Prime Suspect and we resolved to keep him in our sights until his guilt or innocence could be confirmed.
I began remoting vehicles into position, while Glyph went off to meet Croner and check out the police reports on the two deaths. Ki-rinn kept tabs on our man while I pulled a quick vehicle switch to give us an unmarked tail we could use on him. Glyph was soon back in touch with details of a magical ‘bent’ to the assassinations and a unique orichalcum bullet that had been used. Orichalcum bullets had to be hand-made – if Frenchie had made them himself we were fried but Glyph had spotted an engraved ‘A’ on each bullet and that led Ki-rinn to a Weaponsmith called Apollo though we knew he wouldn’t be too forthcoming about his clients.
Our mark was being far too relaxed – going about his daily commute with all the innocence of the other tram passengers and that was getting K and I twitchy. Either we were in danger of losing our man, or we were wasting time on an innocent bystander. We decided to ask him directly and at the next stop I blocked the tram so Ki-rinn could board it and take our target out.
As he surged aboard, I saw the driver reach for an alarm and had plugged him before I’d really thought about what I was doing. That bought Lone Star down on us and it was only good preparation that meant I was equipped to deal with them. Using the Antioch, I slammed a FlashBang through the windscreen on the Patrol One to take out the cops inside. Out of control, the Patrol One careened toward innocent bystanders and I couldn’t face having that on my conscience. The next grenade had to be precisely planted but I got it under the front off-side and the blast knocked the car to one side where it crashed harmlessly.
Ki-rinn bundled Frenchie into the van and we hightailed it. I left the subsequent interrogation to Frosty and Glyph but the guy was stone cold and they weren’t getting a peep out of him. Ki-rinn hit the matrix again, checking back on Frenchie’s first arrival in San Fran. From there it was a fairly routine sweep to track him through to his accommodation and we headed there to see if we could turn up any evidence.
Continues: 1/2>
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I made damn sure our slippery customer would still be present and correct when we returned to the van and then we headed inside. We didn’t have an apartment number and my smart mouth soon got me in trouble with a redneck nationalist who didn’t like the idea that I might know someone from another country. Glyph and Ki-rinn’s speedy trigger fingers dealt with that problem and Frosty got lucky with the B&E.
Frenchie had photographs of eleven people we assumed were the Nameless, a custom sniper rifle, a box of orichalcum bullets and some sort of ritual magic thing going on, using blood on the bullet and on the photographs to defeat his targets magical defences. Ki-rinn was able to hack Frenchie’s Commlink and that allowed us to piece together who his employers were and what the Eleven had done to piss them off in the first place.
And that, was pretty much that. We dealt with Frenchie, passed on the info to Donovan and even got a little extra cash from the Eleven because we were able to warn them how their magical defences were being bypassed. Talk about sweet.
Mood: Job done.
Ends: 2/2>
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Urban Scavenger Hunt
Six, Glyph
The runners had spent a bit more down time finishing off projects, and getting more cyberware installed. Ki-Rin was having some problems with his bone lacing, sections of the dikote sheath had failed and his body was presently trying to reject his elbows and knees, Mal got him back into surgery to fix the problem.
Glyph had also spent some time at Mal’s getting some more headware squeezed into her skull. Ash, had not been heard of for a couple of weeks and the suspicion was that he was hanging out with his new magical friends.
Wednesday 27th September 2070
Six got a cryptic message on his Comlink from a man calling himself Milan. He had a job and the runners had to meet him at The Cat Club at 7pm sharp. Six put the call out but only Glyph was available, with a quarter of a million nuyen being touted for this job the small team would have to do.
Heading round to the Cat Club the runners realised that it wasn’t open for usual business. Rather than the street lined with taxi’s and clubbers cars, there were four pimped motorbikes, and a modified Citymaster parked outside. To the experienced eye of Six, he guessed that these were the vehicles of shadowrunners.
Heading inside they found two separate teams of shadowrunners. Both were also here to take the high paying job. They introduced themselves and it was cordial enough. The man who had called them all here arrived quarter of an hour late, and he let the runners know that only one team would be taking home the money. To get the payout they would have to compete against each other and the clock in a game of Urban Scavenger Hunt. He was going to com them a list of items, and the team back at 11pm with the most items checked off would win the money. Everyone was game.
He went round the teams, asking their team name and taking a comlink number to contact them on.
Gecko were first to pipe up, they were the team with the citymaster.
Gecko are an experienced team who have been running for about 3 years, made up of three individuals they have an elven mage (Kiss) , a human face / rigger (Bates), and a human Merc type (Tex)
Banshee were next to offer their comlink number and team name.
Banshee are a young team from Vegas. They are exclusively humans, and are all hooked up to their bikes. There is a hacker (Crimson) and two gun bunnies (Easter, Freshman) in the team and the mage (Lucid).
Six and Glyph were panicked, they didn’t have a name and when Milan pointed at the pair and asked if they were in Six just said that they didn’t have a name. Glyph quickly piped up that they were team Brutal Deluxe, and they handed over their comlink number to be contacted on.
Each team received the list and quickly skimmed through the host of bizarre items before heading out to their vehicles. Six and Glyph followed last contemplating taking out both of the other teams to ensure that they won, they wisely chose not to take on two experienced teams of runners.
[It was at about this moment that I checked my watch and Nick realised that this game was going to be timed in real time. 11pm my time, was 11pm San Francisco 2070 time]
The Urban Scavenger Hunt List
1. A set of 4 Lone Star wheels. 2 points.
2. Grid guide traffic camera. 1 point.
3. A gangers jacket. 1 point.
4. Live devil rat. 1 point.
5. Photograph of the team at the top of a support of Golden Gate. 2 points.
6. Footage of you rearranging and/or removing the letters on a corporation building to say something obscene. 5 points
7. The first base from the Giants stadium. 5 points.
8. Get a photograph of you having a drink in the Troll exclusive bar Hatchets. 1 point.
9. A tribal shamans Medicine Stick. Bonus points for how powerful it is. 1 point +
10. Steal one of the mayors monogrammed bathrobes. 2 points.
11. The entire door from a civic building. 1 point.
12. A spent Panther Assault cannon casing. 1 point Bonus point if you can prove the shell was fired at you.
13. Leave a dozen feral cats in a CEO’s office. 2 points Bonus points if it an A corporation.
14. Lone Star shoulder patch. 1 point. Additional points if it has a rank
15. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. 1 point.
16. A car that predates Gridguide. 2 point.
17. Video feed of being cuffed and escorted away by Lone Star. 2 points.
18. Lone Star footage of you speeding along Golden Gate Bridge. 1 point.
19. Severed Yakuza finger. 2 points.
20. Footage of you jumping from the golden gate bridge. 1 point.
They studied the list quickly and Six remote rigged his Dodge car to him, if they were going to do this they needed a bit more speed than the Step van offered. Once swapped over they sped to the San Fran Giants stadium. Six and Glyph were mentally working on which corporations lettering would make for something obscene.
En route to the Giants Stadium the runners spotted one of the thousands of grid guide cameras looking down to the road below from the bride they were on. Six Stamped on the brakes and skidded onto the footpath, Glyph leaped out with the miniwelder and chopped the thing off, chucked it into the rear of the car and one point was in the bag.
Screeching to a halt outside the Giants stadium they found that the team were having a training session. Six headed over to the window and attracted the attention of a cleaner in the merchandise booth. He spun her a line about how he was doing a charity treasure hunt and wanted to know if he could have the Giants first base for Unicef. The cleaner went off to ask someone if they could.
Six remote rigged Glyphs car to them and they split up, Glyph was off for some cats.
Then while Six waited he remote rigged his Jeep to the airfield and contacted his flying instructor and asked to buy 50 gallons of aviation fuel. And once paid he pursueded Jerry to load the two barrels into the back of the Jeep. Jerry was more than happy to help. 20:40 the Jeep rolls into the airfield remote controlled. Jerry loaded the fuel into the rear and the Jeep groaned under the weight.
Six then contacted his dad. As an old car nut he was sure to be able to source a pre-gridguide car. Papa was interested in his sons new project of restoring old cars, but didn’t know any off hand. He said he would call back. Dad actually liked the idea of this new vintage car project that Six was about to take up but his son is always so keen to just take on any project and finding a good vintage car took time and couldn’t be rushed. No point in looking till the morning, so he carried on watching the trid.
Six then got onto the phone to Nunzio, a mafia man he would be able to source a Yak finger. Nunzio told Six that a Yakuza man wouldn’t just let his finger be hacked off and it would be easier to whack him. The Mafia were more than happy with wet-work but Six would have to pay the rate for it. Six paid. At about 10:30 the severed finger gets dropped into a remote rigged Jeep which is heaving under the weight of 50 gallons of aviation fuel in the rear.
Six got onto the phone to Snow. He asked to borrow a Panther Assault Cannon for a couple of test shots. Snow agreed to hire it to him, and then as Six tried to tap him up for some more of the bizarre items on the list, Snow guessed what was going on. Snow knows Milan, a fixer with flair. Milan’s thing is to find good shadowrunners in cities around the world, he then sells the shadowrunners contact numbers to corporations who are looking for good runners. Milan finds these cash cows with high paying Urban Scavenger Hunts, the money fronted by his backing corporations.
Six’s conversation was interrupted as the 1st pitcher of the San Fran Giants, Rickie Diamond opened the side door and asked which charity Six was collecting for. Unicef is a wonderful charity and when Six used its name he was lead through and out onto the pitch. A lifelong Giants fan, Six’s jaw dropped slack. Not only was he stood on the pitch that he had worshiped from the stands, he was surrounded by the first team, the second team and the reserves who were all having a mid week training session.
The next twenty minutes was a roller coaster. Press photos of Vincent Caznotti being handed the first base was just the start. The team manager came out after hearing what Vincent was doing for charity declared that the San Francisco Giants would also make a pledge and handed Six a cheque for a hundred thousand nuyen. Six’s head was swimming and he quickly called Unicef San Fran to get one of their men down to take the cheque. As it was for charity the team manager then thought that the first base would be better signed, and that was whisked away from Six to be signed by every member of the team.
Six contacted Ash’s sister, Daisy. He had panicked, and now tomorrow morning his civilian SINned name along with his shadowrunning face will be splashed all over the media and that could only be bad, he needed Daisy to hit that delete button.
Six made his excuses and was waved away by the San Francisco Giants as the hero of the hour.
Glyph was talking to women in comfortable shoes about cats. She was at the San Francisco Cattery and spun them a yarn about how here cat had been put to sleep when she was a child and now Glyph wanted to make amends by taking in as many poor unfortunate cats who were destined to be euthanized. Glyphs story was so compelling and heart felt, that the cattery owner was prepared to hand over 20 evil, mangey furred, flea bitten, hissing, spitting cats to be cared for by Glyph. Upon hearing about this Six convinced his girlfriend to drive the beaten up transit van to meet up with Glyph to collect these cats. Six had to promise a holiday to Paris in return.
Six, in the Dodge with a grid guide camera and a signed Giants first base headed to Snows to meet up with Glyph who was driving in the transit full of caged cats intent on tearing her to shreds. The runners had a brief chat with Snow, thanking him for the Assault cannon and the climbing gear he had dug out for them. Six asked if Snow could pull some favours with Duncan Croner, the San Fran Police chief, and Snow pointed out that they knew his phone number as well.
Leaving the van of livid cats they headed off to the barrens, the plan was for Glyph to shoot at Six with the assault cannon, so that they could film it and collect the spent casing. They found a strip of run down suburbia and they staged a faux shooting of Six. He was going to run and leap clear and the shell fired by Glyph would just miss him. They were going to film it first person shooter style from Glyphs perspective.
It took three attempts to get the footage just right, Six jumped too early, Glyph fired too late, and it looked phoney but the third one was the charm. Collecting up the spent casing they sped away.
The phone call to Duncan Croner came up with some more good news. They had to pay, but he would be able to get them a set of Lone Star wheels and a shoulder patch, they would have to pay, and Six and Glyph now owed the Police chief again. They would have to collect the wheels a bit later.
Back to Snows to drop off the Panther AC and to pick up the van load of felines vehicles were remote rigged all over. The helicopter that they had liberated a few weeks ago was controlled into San Fran airspace, the Step van was brought back online, and Six drove the cat van to a water works. The helicopter was landed nearby and cats were loaded into the hold. The rappelling gear was lobbed into the footwell. Six and Glyph ran back to the water works and nicked the main door with the alarms going off they hot stepped it across to the step van, and threw the heavy door into the back. The step van was remote rigged across to their next target. Mitsuhama.
Six noticed on one of his car feeds that one of his cars had attracted police attentions. They were looking to tow the vehicle away. They guessed that the traffic camera that they nicked had a RFID tag. Six got Bum Fluff to do a high speed drive by the scene to draw away Lone Star so that he could move the car.
10pm and time was getting tight. The helicopter landed briefly on top of the Mitsuhama distribution centre. Not quite the main HQ, but good enough. In the down draft of the rotor blades Six and Glyph hopped out and unloaded 20 cats onto the roof. Once done Six remote rigged the helicopter away. The rope was secured off and Glyph hung over the side of the building she got out the miniwelder and started cutting off and repositioning sign letters.
Lone Star had a hi-ab crane ready to hoike his car away and Six had to move it, he reversed hard and rammed the Lone Star car and then jammed it forward and remote rigged his car away. Bum Fluff was speeding in the opposite direction to draw off Lone Star and narrowly missed Six’s car. Six sent this car to meet up with Snow, who he had arranged to burn the RFID tag out of the camera.
Glyph had attracted the attentions of Mitsuhama security and Six had to drill them with the flip turret gun mounted on the van. And this caused the alarm to go off. Glyph had to work quickly. Cutting off letters and re-welding in a different position.
Six was pleased. u shit Mama was too good to leave alone and Glyph had done well. Now for the cats. Glyph put in one of the windows and they were lucky to come across the CEO’s office. Six verified with the flyspy which he then positioned to film the cats getting pushed in through the window.
ushitMama security reinforcements turned up and began to start shooting at Glyph, while she passed screaming cat after screaming cat into the executive officers office. Six dealt with these also with the HMG on his van and a grenade.
Time was running really tight now, and they called back the chopper and fled the scene. They sped as fast as they could to Lone Star HQ where Duncan Croner had the wheels and the shoulder patch set aside. Six and Glyph headed inside and Six spotted a ganger being booked in. He headed over and asked for his jacket. The haggling was quick, and in the gangers favour, but Six got the leather gang colours Glyph got the wheels and the shoulder patch.
They sped back to the Cat Club and arrived with only a few minutes to spare. The other two teams were already there and were sat with their collections. Six and Glyph brought in their collection.
Banshee were surrounded by their collection Set of 4 lone star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera. A ganger jacket Photograph at top of golden gate The door from the national library. Lone star sgt. shoulder patch. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. Footage of jumping off golden gate (bungee)
Gecko Sat with their Lone Star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera Gangers jacket Live devil rat Rearranged corporate letters. AAA corporation Photograph in hatchets.
Seeing their oppositions collections Six and Glyph surveyed their own trophies. A set of 4 Lone Star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera. A gangers jacket. Footage of you rearranging and/or removing the letters on a corporation building to say something obscene. The first base from the Giants stadium, signed. The entire door from a civic building. A spent Panther Assault cannon casing. Leave a dozen feral cats in a CEO’s office. Lone Star shoulder patch. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. Severed Yakuza finger.
Milan joined them a few minutes shy of 11pm and was pleased to see that all three teams were gathered. He quickly totted up the points, and it was clear to see that Brutal Deluxe had won. The money hit the comlink.
A few days later Six and Kitty flew to gay Paris, and were able to confirm that there are a lot less street cameras than in the UCAS.
The runners had spent a bit more down time finishing off projects, and getting more cyberware installed. Ki-Rin was having some problems with his bone lacing, sections of the dikote sheath had failed and his body was presently trying to reject his elbows and knees, Mal got him back into surgery to fix the problem.
Glyph had also spent some time at Mal’s getting some more headware squeezed into her skull. Ash, had not been heard of for a couple of weeks and the suspicion was that he was hanging out with his new magical friends.
Wednesday 27th September 2070
Six got a cryptic message on his Comlink from a man calling himself Milan. He had a job and the runners had to meet him at The Cat Club at 7pm sharp. Six put the call out but only Glyph was available, with a quarter of a million nuyen being touted for this job the small team would have to do.
Heading round to the Cat Club the runners realised that it wasn’t open for usual business. Rather than the street lined with taxi’s and clubbers cars, there were four pimped motorbikes, and a modified Citymaster parked outside. To the experienced eye of Six, he guessed that these were the vehicles of shadowrunners.
Heading inside they found two separate teams of shadowrunners. Both were also here to take the high paying job. They introduced themselves and it was cordial enough. The man who had called them all here arrived quarter of an hour late, and he let the runners know that only one team would be taking home the money. To get the payout they would have to compete against each other and the clock in a game of Urban Scavenger Hunt. He was going to com them a list of items, and the team back at 11pm with the most items checked off would win the money. Everyone was game.
He went round the teams, asking their team name and taking a comlink number to contact them on.
Gecko were first to pipe up, they were the team with the citymaster.
Gecko are an experienced team who have been running for about 3 years, made up of three individuals they have an elven mage (Kiss) , a human face / rigger (Bates), and a human Merc type (Tex)
Banshee were next to offer their comlink number and team name.
Banshee are a young team from Vegas. They are exclusively humans, and are all hooked up to their bikes. There is a hacker (Crimson) and two gun bunnies (Easter, Freshman) in the team and the mage (Lucid).
Six and Glyph were panicked, they didn’t have a name and when Milan pointed at the pair and asked if they were in Six just said that they didn’t have a name. Glyph quickly piped up that they were team Brutal Deluxe, and they handed over their comlink number to be contacted on.
Each team received the list and quickly skimmed through the host of bizarre items before heading out to their vehicles. Six and Glyph followed last contemplating taking out both of the other teams to ensure that they won, they wisely chose not to take on two experienced teams of runners.
[It was at about this moment that I checked my watch and Nick realised that this game was going to be timed in real time. 11pm my time, was 11pm San Francisco 2070 time]
The Urban Scavenger Hunt List
1. A set of 4 Lone Star wheels. 2 points.
2. Grid guide traffic camera. 1 point.
3. A gangers jacket. 1 point.
4. Live devil rat. 1 point.
5. Photograph of the team at the top of a support of Golden Gate. 2 points.
6. Footage of you rearranging and/or removing the letters on a corporation building to say something obscene. 5 points
7. The first base from the Giants stadium. 5 points.
8. Get a photograph of you having a drink in the Troll exclusive bar Hatchets. 1 point.
9. A tribal shamans Medicine Stick. Bonus points for how powerful it is. 1 point +
10. Steal one of the mayors monogrammed bathrobes. 2 points.
11. The entire door from a civic building. 1 point.
12. A spent Panther Assault cannon casing. 1 point Bonus point if you can prove the shell was fired at you.
13. Leave a dozen feral cats in a CEO’s office. 2 points Bonus points if it an A corporation.
14. Lone Star shoulder patch. 1 point. Additional points if it has a rank
15. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. 1 point.
16. A car that predates Gridguide. 2 point.
17. Video feed of being cuffed and escorted away by Lone Star. 2 points.
18. Lone Star footage of you speeding along Golden Gate Bridge. 1 point.
19. Severed Yakuza finger. 2 points.
20. Footage of you jumping from the golden gate bridge. 1 point.
They studied the list quickly and Six remote rigged his Dodge car to him, if they were going to do this they needed a bit more speed than the Step van offered. Once swapped over they sped to the San Fran Giants stadium. Six and Glyph were mentally working on which corporations lettering would make for something obscene.
En route to the Giants Stadium the runners spotted one of the thousands of grid guide cameras looking down to the road below from the bride they were on. Six Stamped on the brakes and skidded onto the footpath, Glyph leaped out with the miniwelder and chopped the thing off, chucked it into the rear of the car and one point was in the bag.
Screeching to a halt outside the Giants stadium they found that the team were having a training session. Six headed over to the window and attracted the attention of a cleaner in the merchandise booth. He spun her a line about how he was doing a charity treasure hunt and wanted to know if he could have the Giants first base for Unicef. The cleaner went off to ask someone if they could.
Six remote rigged Glyphs car to them and they split up, Glyph was off for some cats.
Then while Six waited he remote rigged his Jeep to the airfield and contacted his flying instructor and asked to buy 50 gallons of aviation fuel. And once paid he pursueded Jerry to load the two barrels into the back of the Jeep. Jerry was more than happy to help. 20:40 the Jeep rolls into the airfield remote controlled. Jerry loaded the fuel into the rear and the Jeep groaned under the weight.
Six then contacted his dad. As an old car nut he was sure to be able to source a pre-gridguide car. Papa was interested in his sons new project of restoring old cars, but didn’t know any off hand. He said he would call back. Dad actually liked the idea of this new vintage car project that Six was about to take up but his son is always so keen to just take on any project and finding a good vintage car took time and couldn’t be rushed. No point in looking till the morning, so he carried on watching the trid.
Six then got onto the phone to Nunzio, a mafia man he would be able to source a Yak finger. Nunzio told Six that a Yakuza man wouldn’t just let his finger be hacked off and it would be easier to whack him. The Mafia were more than happy with wet-work but Six would have to pay the rate for it. Six paid. At about 10:30 the severed finger gets dropped into a remote rigged Jeep which is heaving under the weight of 50 gallons of aviation fuel in the rear.
Six got onto the phone to Snow. He asked to borrow a Panther Assault Cannon for a couple of test shots. Snow agreed to hire it to him, and then as Six tried to tap him up for some more of the bizarre items on the list, Snow guessed what was going on. Snow knows Milan, a fixer with flair. Milan’s thing is to find good shadowrunners in cities around the world, he then sells the shadowrunners contact numbers to corporations who are looking for good runners. Milan finds these cash cows with high paying Urban Scavenger Hunts, the money fronted by his backing corporations.
Six’s conversation was interrupted as the 1st pitcher of the San Fran Giants, Rickie Diamond opened the side door and asked which charity Six was collecting for. Unicef is a wonderful charity and when Six used its name he was lead through and out onto the pitch. A lifelong Giants fan, Six’s jaw dropped slack. Not only was he stood on the pitch that he had worshiped from the stands, he was surrounded by the first team, the second team and the reserves who were all having a mid week training session.
The next twenty minutes was a roller coaster. Press photos of Vincent Caznotti being handed the first base was just the start. The team manager came out after hearing what Vincent was doing for charity declared that the San Francisco Giants would also make a pledge and handed Six a cheque for a hundred thousand nuyen. Six’s head was swimming and he quickly called Unicef San Fran to get one of their men down to take the cheque. As it was for charity the team manager then thought that the first base would be better signed, and that was whisked away from Six to be signed by every member of the team.
Six contacted Ash’s sister, Daisy. He had panicked, and now tomorrow morning his civilian SINned name along with his shadowrunning face will be splashed all over the media and that could only be bad, he needed Daisy to hit that delete button.
Six made his excuses and was waved away by the San Francisco Giants as the hero of the hour.
Glyph was talking to women in comfortable shoes about cats. She was at the San Francisco Cattery and spun them a yarn about how here cat had been put to sleep when she was a child and now Glyph wanted to make amends by taking in as many poor unfortunate cats who were destined to be euthanized. Glyphs story was so compelling and heart felt, that the cattery owner was prepared to hand over 20 evil, mangey furred, flea bitten, hissing, spitting cats to be cared for by Glyph. Upon hearing about this Six convinced his girlfriend to drive the beaten up transit van to meet up with Glyph to collect these cats. Six had to promise a holiday to Paris in return.
Six, in the Dodge with a grid guide camera and a signed Giants first base headed to Snows to meet up with Glyph who was driving in the transit full of caged cats intent on tearing her to shreds. The runners had a brief chat with Snow, thanking him for the Assault cannon and the climbing gear he had dug out for them. Six asked if Snow could pull some favours with Duncan Croner, the San Fran Police chief, and Snow pointed out that they knew his phone number as well.
Leaving the van of livid cats they headed off to the barrens, the plan was for Glyph to shoot at Six with the assault cannon, so that they could film it and collect the spent casing. They found a strip of run down suburbia and they staged a faux shooting of Six. He was going to run and leap clear and the shell fired by Glyph would just miss him. They were going to film it first person shooter style from Glyphs perspective.
It took three attempts to get the footage just right, Six jumped too early, Glyph fired too late, and it looked phoney but the third one was the charm. Collecting up the spent casing they sped away.
The phone call to Duncan Croner came up with some more good news. They had to pay, but he would be able to get them a set of Lone Star wheels and a shoulder patch, they would have to pay, and Six and Glyph now owed the Police chief again. They would have to collect the wheels a bit later.
Back to Snows to drop off the Panther AC and to pick up the van load of felines vehicles were remote rigged all over. The helicopter that they had liberated a few weeks ago was controlled into San Fran airspace, the Step van was brought back online, and Six drove the cat van to a water works. The helicopter was landed nearby and cats were loaded into the hold. The rappelling gear was lobbed into the footwell. Six and Glyph ran back to the water works and nicked the main door with the alarms going off they hot stepped it across to the step van, and threw the heavy door into the back. The step van was remote rigged across to their next target. Mitsuhama.
Six noticed on one of his car feeds that one of his cars had attracted police attentions. They were looking to tow the vehicle away. They guessed that the traffic camera that they nicked had a RFID tag. Six got Bum Fluff to do a high speed drive by the scene to draw away Lone Star so that he could move the car.
10pm and time was getting tight. The helicopter landed briefly on top of the Mitsuhama distribution centre. Not quite the main HQ, but good enough. In the down draft of the rotor blades Six and Glyph hopped out and unloaded 20 cats onto the roof. Once done Six remote rigged the helicopter away. The rope was secured off and Glyph hung over the side of the building she got out the miniwelder and started cutting off and repositioning sign letters.
Lone Star had a hi-ab crane ready to hoike his car away and Six had to move it, he reversed hard and rammed the Lone Star car and then jammed it forward and remote rigged his car away. Bum Fluff was speeding in the opposite direction to draw off Lone Star and narrowly missed Six’s car. Six sent this car to meet up with Snow, who he had arranged to burn the RFID tag out of the camera.
Glyph had attracted the attentions of Mitsuhama security and Six had to drill them with the flip turret gun mounted on the van. And this caused the alarm to go off. Glyph had to work quickly. Cutting off letters and re-welding in a different position.
Six was pleased. u shit Mama was too good to leave alone and Glyph had done well. Now for the cats. Glyph put in one of the windows and they were lucky to come across the CEO’s office. Six verified with the flyspy which he then positioned to film the cats getting pushed in through the window.
ushitMama security reinforcements turned up and began to start shooting at Glyph, while she passed screaming cat after screaming cat into the executive officers office. Six dealt with these also with the HMG on his van and a grenade.
Time was running really tight now, and they called back the chopper and fled the scene. They sped as fast as they could to Lone Star HQ where Duncan Croner had the wheels and the shoulder patch set aside. Six and Glyph headed inside and Six spotted a ganger being booked in. He headed over and asked for his jacket. The haggling was quick, and in the gangers favour, but Six got the leather gang colours Glyph got the wheels and the shoulder patch.
They sped back to the Cat Club and arrived with only a few minutes to spare. The other two teams were already there and were sat with their collections. Six and Glyph brought in their collection.
Banshee were surrounded by their collection Set of 4 lone star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera. A ganger jacket Photograph at top of golden gate The door from the national library. Lone star sgt. shoulder patch. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. Footage of jumping off golden gate (bungee)
Gecko Sat with their Lone Star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera Gangers jacket Live devil rat Rearranged corporate letters. AAA corporation Photograph in hatchets.
Seeing their oppositions collections Six and Glyph surveyed their own trophies. A set of 4 Lone Star wheels. Grid guide traffic camera. A gangers jacket. Footage of you rearranging and/or removing the letters on a corporation building to say something obscene. The first base from the Giants stadium, signed. The entire door from a civic building. A spent Panther Assault cannon casing. Leave a dozen feral cats in a CEO’s office. Lone Star shoulder patch. 50 gallons of aviation fuel. Severed Yakuza finger.
Milan joined them a few minutes shy of 11pm and was pleased to see that all three teams were gathered. He quickly totted up the points, and it was clear to see that Brutal Deluxe had won. The money hit the comlink.
A few days later Six and Kitty flew to gay Paris, and were able to confirm that there are a lot less street cameras than in the UCAS.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
The Eleven Nameless Men
Six, Ki-Rin, Glyph.
The runners spent some quality down, getting a chance to catch up and spend some cash that they had earned over the last few months worth of shadowrunning.
Six started work on a van conversion to turn it into a drone dispensing command vehicle. Having had a very near death experience twice, Ki-Rin decided to invest in some bone lacing, and Glyph worked on the design and build of a pair of snap-on gyromounts after she had some cybereye upgrades.
Monday 18th September 2070
Six got a call from a man called Donovan. Six and the team had been recommended to him by Duncan Croner, the Lone Star chief and he had a job that needed immediate attention. The meet was at the Jetty Point Café, a little continental style café nestled amongst some shops on the westward facing coast.
Six conference called every member of his nefarious friends, and all but Ki-Rin and Glyph were unavailable. He told them where to meet and set off there himself.
Donovan was sat outside at one of the tables and invited the runners to sit. He laid the job on the table; he was representing a group of people called The Eleven Nameless Men, a semi secret society who advised corporations and governments on the ebb and flow of the stock markets. Their predictions could be seen as self fulfilling prophecies and at a word they could make one corporation happy and at the same time, make an enemy of another. They knew this, they were comfortable with this, and they took physical and magical security precautions to protect themselves.
It seemed that The Eleven Nameless had triggered some kind of vendetta from some organization and an assassin had already killed two of their number. The Eleven needed to find out who this killers employer was so that they could negotiate an amicable solution.
The conversation wafted across Ki-Rin, but he was distracted by someone sat a few tables away. The elf was paying a bit too much attention to their conversation. Maybe because they were talking about contract killers, maybe something else. He pointed it out to the other two and then while Donovan talked about the ins and outs of the run Ki-Rin tried to find this man on the Matrix.
A facial scan and a few clever search programs later, Ki-Rin found him. A guy called Louis Veron. A Republic of France national, who served in the BFST, the French special forces. Not only that but he was part of the magical strike division. He was discharged after failing a psychological exam. He failed to re-submit his SIN number after the crash
and then his records run dry. Ki-Rin shared this info, and although now suspicious all they had was a nosey Frenchman.
Donovan finished the meeting by telling the runners that Duncan Croner would allow them to look through the evidence that Lone Star had gathered so far, and then headed away. The team slowly split as well. Ki-Rin made arrangements for the Elf to be followed using the street surveillance cameras while Six wired one of his Vans to a spot not far away so that he could switch into an un-spotted vehicle, Glyph was detailed to go and view the evidence that Lone Star had.
Ki-Rin got into Six’s spare car while Six sat in the van, both ready to tail their mark who was presently ordering another coffee.
Glyph headed down to Lone Star and was shown into Croners office. As she was about to ask to view the files he gestured to the files on his desk, and went off to get them a coffee. Glyph didn’t need telling twice and took the hint.
The files related to the two murders. Both shot with a single bullet, and the evidence bags with the bullets was what caught Glyphs eye. They were an odd bore and they appeared to be an orachalchum full metal jacket. Moreover, they had been etched on the side with the victim’s name. This was bespoke ammunition and an small engraved ‘A’ hinted at the manufacturer. Glyph was done and she left thanking Duncan Croner.
Ki-Rin and Six tailed the Frenchman and watched as he got onto a tram. Six was remote driving his Dodge with Ki-Rin as passenger while he drove the Transit.
Glyph contacted them and let them know the info about the bullets. Ki-Rin quickly found the manufacturer on the matrix. A Dwarven weaponsmith based out in the Tir Tangire. He hand made bespoke arms and ammunition. Ki-Rin contacted him but didn’t know how to take that line of enquiry forwards, so dropped it.
Six was getting twitchy. His gut feeling said that this Elf that they were following was related to this investigation and let Ki-Rin know that they were going to make a move before the tram drove into the station. He waited for the tram to make its next stop and then parked the Dodge in front of the tram. Ki-Rin got out and got on board ignoring the tram drivers complaints about the car he drew his pistol and started firing stick-shock rounds at the elf. Six drew up along side the tram and shot the driver dead while in the back Ki-Rin first wrestled with their elf, and then with a have-a-go-hero. Six then had to deal with Lone Star who were closing on the alarm that the driver had triggered One flash bang through the windshield of the cop car, knocked the driver out, and the patrol car careened at speed toward the tram full of screaming civilians. Six dumped a frag grenade in front of the front axle of the car. His timing was perfect and the car was flipped away and past the tram. Six and Ki-Rin sped away from the scene with the now unconscious French Elf.
After an hour or so of running avoidance from the Lone Star patrols that hit the street, the runners met up at an abandoned end of the East coast docks. They brought the elf round and began to interrogate him. Ki-Rin played the good cop, Glyph played the sadistic cop and they got nothing. They cut him, they threatened him, they asked civilised non consequential questions and they were only told that his name was Tristan, that he was an author and that he was in San Fran researching a book. The only thing is that he was as cold as ice. Nothing more than a slight grimace when Glyph cut him nothing but casual flippant answers to any questions. His comlink was clean too, this man was either so good at the stealth assassin persona, or they had got the wrong man.
Ki-Rin went back to basics and let the matrix do the work His hacking was good. Hundreds of French nationals had come into San Francisco over the last few months, but one called Tristan Veron stood out as too much of a coincidence. He then followed the camera feeds from the airport and saw their man arriving from France three weeks ago. He got into a taxi and headed away. Ki-Rin then followed the taxi trial through town to a block of flats near the San Francisco barrens. He got footage of Tristan coming and going from that residence for a few weeks and was sure that they would find what they wanted their. Their best lead yet, the runners headed off that way.
Six had a feeling that Tristan would be one of those slippery types, and was not keen for a French stealth assassin escaping on them, so even though he was unconscious and bound, they gaffer taped his head up, tied his hands and feet to the inside of the van, smashed his left knee to beyond repair and then left him locked in the back. Six still wasn’t happy about leaving him here but agreed to go inside the flat to help track down his flat.
They knocked on doors and asked questions. On the 5th floor Six met a bear of a man who took an instant dislike to him. Six’s usual charisma when meeting people let him down and when asking if he had seen a French friend of his the guy kind of assumed that Six was one of those, you know, reverse parkers, and wasn’t having any garlic flavoured baguette chomping going in this apartment block. He went off to get his shotgun.
Ki-Rin and Glyph saw the guy come out and stick shocked him. Six then went into his apartment and liberated his beers for the trouble.
The gunfire did however cow the locals and no-one was keen to open a door for the runners after that. Ki-Rin lost his rag a little bit and booted down a door. No one had answered the door, and the reason for this was that the owner was bound in the back of their van.
The team had found his base of operations. They found a box full of these special bullets, minus two. They found a pen sized etcher and some photos of the Eleven Nameless Men. Their was evidence of some kind of ritual magic, and they found the rifle. The Mercedes Benz of custom made firearms. The team also found another comlink; this one was running French language software. Ki-Rin hacked it and found this hitmans contact list. His most recent employer, Index-Axa, a French finance company whose stock collapse a month or so ago has all but ensured their takeover by a rival firm. This was good enough for the runners who contacted Donovan to tell him the run was done.
The runners dealt with the hitman in the obvious way, broken neck and ditched somewhere in the barrens, before they headed off to meet up with Donovan. They managed to squeeze an extra 5k each out of the deal by offering up the sniper rifle and the bullets with an explanation as to how the hitman had bypassed their magical defences. The runners headed home 6 hours after starting out, 45k richer.
The runners spent some quality down, getting a chance to catch up and spend some cash that they had earned over the last few months worth of shadowrunning.
Six started work on a van conversion to turn it into a drone dispensing command vehicle. Having had a very near death experience twice, Ki-Rin decided to invest in some bone lacing, and Glyph worked on the design and build of a pair of snap-on gyromounts after she had some cybereye upgrades.
Monday 18th September 2070
Six got a call from a man called Donovan. Six and the team had been recommended to him by Duncan Croner, the Lone Star chief and he had a job that needed immediate attention. The meet was at the Jetty Point Café, a little continental style café nestled amongst some shops on the westward facing coast.
Six conference called every member of his nefarious friends, and all but Ki-Rin and Glyph were unavailable. He told them where to meet and set off there himself.
Donovan was sat outside at one of the tables and invited the runners to sit. He laid the job on the table; he was representing a group of people called The Eleven Nameless Men, a semi secret society who advised corporations and governments on the ebb and flow of the stock markets. Their predictions could be seen as self fulfilling prophecies and at a word they could make one corporation happy and at the same time, make an enemy of another. They knew this, they were comfortable with this, and they took physical and magical security precautions to protect themselves.
It seemed that The Eleven Nameless had triggered some kind of vendetta from some organization and an assassin had already killed two of their number. The Eleven needed to find out who this killers employer was so that they could negotiate an amicable solution.
The conversation wafted across Ki-Rin, but he was distracted by someone sat a few tables away. The elf was paying a bit too much attention to their conversation. Maybe because they were talking about contract killers, maybe something else. He pointed it out to the other two and then while Donovan talked about the ins and outs of the run Ki-Rin tried to find this man on the Matrix.
A facial scan and a few clever search programs later, Ki-Rin found him. A guy called Louis Veron. A Republic of France national, who served in the BFST, the French special forces. Not only that but he was part of the magical strike division. He was discharged after failing a psychological exam. He failed to re-submit his SIN number after the crash
and then his records run dry. Ki-Rin shared this info, and although now suspicious all they had was a nosey Frenchman.
Donovan finished the meeting by telling the runners that Duncan Croner would allow them to look through the evidence that Lone Star had gathered so far, and then headed away. The team slowly split as well. Ki-Rin made arrangements for the Elf to be followed using the street surveillance cameras while Six wired one of his Vans to a spot not far away so that he could switch into an un-spotted vehicle, Glyph was detailed to go and view the evidence that Lone Star had.
Ki-Rin got into Six’s spare car while Six sat in the van, both ready to tail their mark who was presently ordering another coffee.
Glyph headed down to Lone Star and was shown into Croners office. As she was about to ask to view the files he gestured to the files on his desk, and went off to get them a coffee. Glyph didn’t need telling twice and took the hint.
The files related to the two murders. Both shot with a single bullet, and the evidence bags with the bullets was what caught Glyphs eye. They were an odd bore and they appeared to be an orachalchum full metal jacket. Moreover, they had been etched on the side with the victim’s name. This was bespoke ammunition and an small engraved ‘A’ hinted at the manufacturer. Glyph was done and she left thanking Duncan Croner.
Ki-Rin and Six tailed the Frenchman and watched as he got onto a tram. Six was remote driving his Dodge with Ki-Rin as passenger while he drove the Transit.
Glyph contacted them and let them know the info about the bullets. Ki-Rin quickly found the manufacturer on the matrix. A Dwarven weaponsmith based out in the Tir Tangire. He hand made bespoke arms and ammunition. Ki-Rin contacted him but didn’t know how to take that line of enquiry forwards, so dropped it.
Six was getting twitchy. His gut feeling said that this Elf that they were following was related to this investigation and let Ki-Rin know that they were going to make a move before the tram drove into the station. He waited for the tram to make its next stop and then parked the Dodge in front of the tram. Ki-Rin got out and got on board ignoring the tram drivers complaints about the car he drew his pistol and started firing stick-shock rounds at the elf. Six drew up along side the tram and shot the driver dead while in the back Ki-Rin first wrestled with their elf, and then with a have-a-go-hero. Six then had to deal with Lone Star who were closing on the alarm that the driver had triggered One flash bang through the windshield of the cop car, knocked the driver out, and the patrol car careened at speed toward the tram full of screaming civilians. Six dumped a frag grenade in front of the front axle of the car. His timing was perfect and the car was flipped away and past the tram. Six and Ki-Rin sped away from the scene with the now unconscious French Elf.
After an hour or so of running avoidance from the Lone Star patrols that hit the street, the runners met up at an abandoned end of the East coast docks. They brought the elf round and began to interrogate him. Ki-Rin played the good cop, Glyph played the sadistic cop and they got nothing. They cut him, they threatened him, they asked civilised non consequential questions and they were only told that his name was Tristan, that he was an author and that he was in San Fran researching a book. The only thing is that he was as cold as ice. Nothing more than a slight grimace when Glyph cut him nothing but casual flippant answers to any questions. His comlink was clean too, this man was either so good at the stealth assassin persona, or they had got the wrong man.
Ki-Rin went back to basics and let the matrix do the work His hacking was good. Hundreds of French nationals had come into San Francisco over the last few months, but one called Tristan Veron stood out as too much of a coincidence. He then followed the camera feeds from the airport and saw their man arriving from France three weeks ago. He got into a taxi and headed away. Ki-Rin then followed the taxi trial through town to a block of flats near the San Francisco barrens. He got footage of Tristan coming and going from that residence for a few weeks and was sure that they would find what they wanted their. Their best lead yet, the runners headed off that way.
Six had a feeling that Tristan would be one of those slippery types, and was not keen for a French stealth assassin escaping on them, so even though he was unconscious and bound, they gaffer taped his head up, tied his hands and feet to the inside of the van, smashed his left knee to beyond repair and then left him locked in the back. Six still wasn’t happy about leaving him here but agreed to go inside the flat to help track down his flat.
They knocked on doors and asked questions. On the 5th floor Six met a bear of a man who took an instant dislike to him. Six’s usual charisma when meeting people let him down and when asking if he had seen a French friend of his the guy kind of assumed that Six was one of those, you know, reverse parkers, and wasn’t having any garlic flavoured baguette chomping going in this apartment block. He went off to get his shotgun.
Ki-Rin and Glyph saw the guy come out and stick shocked him. Six then went into his apartment and liberated his beers for the trouble.
The gunfire did however cow the locals and no-one was keen to open a door for the runners after that. Ki-Rin lost his rag a little bit and booted down a door. No one had answered the door, and the reason for this was that the owner was bound in the back of their van.
The team had found his base of operations. They found a box full of these special bullets, minus two. They found a pen sized etcher and some photos of the Eleven Nameless Men. Their was evidence of some kind of ritual magic, and they found the rifle. The Mercedes Benz of custom made firearms. The team also found another comlink; this one was running French language software. Ki-Rin hacked it and found this hitmans contact list. His most recent employer, Index-Axa, a French finance company whose stock collapse a month or so ago has all but ensured their takeover by a rival firm. This was good enough for the runners who contacted Donovan to tell him the run was done.
The runners dealt with the hitman in the obvious way, broken neck and ditched somewhere in the barrens, before they headed off to meet up with Donovan. They managed to squeeze an extra 5k each out of the deal by offering up the sniper rifle and the bullets with an explanation as to how the hitman had bypassed their magical defences. The runners headed home 6 hours after starting out, 45k richer.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Six's blog
Call Dir: Shadownet/ShadowlandsBBS/>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 28: 03.09.70>
Life has a habit of getting on top of you from time to time, which is why it has been a while since my last update. It has been a wild few days – hell at one point I even thought my friendship with Ash was gone. We’re still on patchy ground but I’ve been able to lay some doubts to rest.
Back around the 26th of August, Snow put us on to a job from a small marketing Corp called Ocean Blue. On the verge of closing a major deal, one of their star execs had gone missing and with his handshake and signature needed for the contract, Ocean Blue needed to find out what had happened to him – pronto.
Research mode revealed that our boy wonder, Brent Masters, had been taken away for some ‘recreation’ by two delightful looking young ladies but it was a clear set up, less legit than a 30 buck Rolex, and we quickly tracked Brent’s last known location to a Shadowrunner flophouse where we assumed he was being held hostage.
I watched the street while the rest of the team busted in. The place was empty but Ash quickly started jabbering that he could see Brent Masters there and that he was trapped in the Astral plane. Before we could even start to puzzle that little snippet out, I saw the runners who owned the flophouse coming home, laden down with jerry cans of petrol. Who burns down their own flop and why?! Well, we had the drop on them and after a brief and bloody scrap we were able to ask the survivors exactly that. They claimed to have kidnapped Brent as per their contract, only to have him disappear on them. They claimed the flophouse was now haunted and had planned on burning it down to exorcise the spooks and recoup some of the costs of their botched job from the insurance. It was our only physical link to Brent, if a somewhat tenuous one, so we had other ideas. We sent the surviving runners from the other team packing and holed up. Inevitably, they came back looking for revenge and we were forced to shoot up the flophouse for a second time but the scrap was more dramatic this time out and with Lone Star closing in, we fled the scene.
The other team’s Mage had speculated on Brent’s disappearance with us and Ash had sorted out some sort of magical tracking that linked the flophouse where Brent was supposed to be astrally trapped with a familiar location in Silicon Valley. The former home of CAT’s CORE project had been refurbished, rebadged as a Genesis facility and was once more on our radar. We went for the direct approach, busting in and working our way down to the basement where the CORE project had been based. This too had been refurbished and now boasted a corporate suite to rival any Penthouse in the city. In residence?
None other than the previously deceased Dominic Cross.
Now I’m no Doctor but people who get their fucking heads blown off are not, in my experience, in the habit of getting up and strolling around afterwards. I was stunned. So was Glyph. Ash however, strolled into the suite like a friend of the family and sat down for tea, biccies and a nice chat. To say we felt betrayed was an understatement. Who sits down and takes tea with a supposedly dead scumbag whose life achievements including brain washing your brother and kidnapping your sister. Ash’ actions were way outside my comfort zone but before we could twitch, the door to the suite was slammed in our faces and despite our best efforts proved utterly impassable.
Continues: 1/3>
Ash emerged, unharmed and unfazed by our astonishment with his blasé reactions, clutching an ornate wooden box. I was mightily pissed at this point. I just could not comprehend why we weren’t putting Cross back in his grave. Glyph agreed so with a small C-15 charge, we did just that and you better believe I made damn sure this time. Drone obs confirmed Cross was pate. All that remained was the CORE orb he’d had embedded in his head but I even rolled that into the heart of the flames and stopped to watch it melt.
Ash started in on us with some damn fool scheme to free Brent that Cross had given him and that just about pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t accept the fact that Ash was going to tamely accept anything Cross had told him and take it at face value. We’re talking about Cross, a man who should be dead, a man who brainwashed Ash’s brother, a man who kidnapped and threatened our loved ones, a man whose schemes have caused us no end of trouble and loss.
And Ash is going to trust him and follow his instructions to try and free Brent Masters? Not happening, no way. I told Ash there and then in the middle of the Genesis facility exactly what I thought of him, his unpredictable behaviour of late and his reaction to meeting Cross again. I walked, packed up my kit, drew the Lone Star away from the facility to at least help the team make their getaway and washed my hands of the Run.
I kept an eye on the news and the development of the run as best I could but it gave me no satisfaction to be proven right when Lone Star discovered the bodies of Brent Masters and our liaison at Ocean Blue and put the time of death several days before we had first met them. From start to finish the whole thing had been a screw job, and I could only assume it was done to manipulate Ash into doing Cross’ dirty work for him.
Hours ticked by and nobody responded to my warning. Even having fallen out with Ash, I couldn’t stand the thought of the team being in trouble so I headed back to the Flophouse, where I was picking their vehicles up on GPS.
It seemed the guys had been involved in a third firefight there but beyond a Lone Star mopping up operation there was no sign of them. Worried now, I quickly linked into the stealth tag I had put on Ash and tracked them to a Corp called the Alamais Foundation. All set to bust in and try and get them out, I was somewhat surprised to find them sitting in the lobby, a little shaken up, a little battered and bruised but otherwise OK.
They filled me in. It seemed Cross had given Ash a statue – a magical seal that it wouldn’t be a good idea to break. Cross was prevented from breaking the seal by the magic worked into it but someone with pure intentions, such as rescuing a trapped man from the Astral Plane, could have broken it. The whole plot had been a set up by Cross to persuade Ash to break the statue for him. Fortunately a Dragon called Alamais, CEO of this Alamais Foundation, had gotten wind of the plot and intervened, sending his goons to subdue Ash and the team and haul them in front of the Dragon. Alamais had taken the statue and clearly had no intention of giving it back, but he had filled in a few blanks. The Legion and CORE projects CAT had been working on were designed solely to create clones of Dominic Cross that Allisom could possess and work through. At least we know now why Cross appears to have more lives than a cat.
And so to the bombshell. Ash had cut a deal with the Dragon and taken on a job to kill the head of the Legion project and throw a spanner in the works of Cross’ clone factory. Hell I would have done that for free, so when the team asked me to come back onboard, I agreed, despite any misgivings I had about whether or not the Dragon was out to screw us over too. Ki-rinn picked up a data trail on Simon Crusher, the man Alamais identified as leading the Legion project and we soon found ourselves masquerading as horsey types to gain the confidence of a man called Philip Myers. Myers had part-owned a racehorse with Crusher and we thought he might still be in contact with our target. Sure enough, he sang like a canary and using a nanopaste facial disguise we decided I would pose as Myers to meet Crusher at the racetrack.
Continues: 2/3>
The meeting went like a dream, in spite of a couple of hairy moments and we all worked together to con Crusher into believing he was talking to his old friend while we slipped a stealth tag on to his jacket. I played Myers, Glyph played the drunken broad who made a pass at Crusher and Ki-rinn played my personal bodyguard, intervening physically to tag our man while hauling the horny drunk away. I wasn’t keen on staying any longer than necessary and increasing the risk our deception might be noticed so we made our excuses and left. When Crusher finally departed the racetrack he used a helicopter and while he had the edge on us for speed, we were as close behind him on the ground as four wheels and a beefy engine would allow.
The Legion Facility was on the shores of Pyramid Lake, near Nixon and we made our way there without too much fuss. Glyph and Ki-rinn teamed up well to gain us access to the compound and although ill-advised use of explosive ammunition soon gave our presence away, our slick teamwork meant we were able to mop up the opposition without too much trouble. During the firefight, Glyph and Ash had discovered an access point for an underground extension of the facility and we cautiously headed inside.
Security was tight. Automatic blast doors. Steel Lynx security drones. It took all of us, working together to access the lower levels and fight off the security detail – more of CAT’s damned console soldiers. Most of the lower level was dominated by a huge cloning room with hi-tech medical bays for 16 copies of Dominic Cross. Only 8 of the bays were occupied by fledgling clones but there were also experiments being conducted on the good townsfolk of Nixon, who were presumably supplying the raw genetic materials for the clones. It was a drawn out and bloody battle down there and I’m not ashamed to say that I kept my head down. A fly-spy drone made for a good targeting spotter, locating and marking targets for the heavy guns of Ki-rinn, Glyph and Ash but my rudimentary skills as a medic were also in demand. I pumped so many medical Nanites into Frosty it must have been like a miniature Charge of the Light Brigade in his bloodstream.
We’d still seen no sign of Crusher so headed deeper into the facility, out under the lake and up inside the pyramid shaped rock formation that had inspired its name. Here we found Crusher, protected by a pair of the CORE vampires we had previously encountered, engaged in some sort of huge ritual.
Glyph and I dispatched the Vamps, previous experience making us wise to their moves, while Ki-rinn and Ash concentrated on Crusher. Ash I think got the killing shot in and his fall seemed to disrupt the ritual, sending lightning arcing explosively around the room and earthing through us! I’ve cursed the wasted cash since buying insulated armour for the swipe of the Thunderbirds but it paid dividends that day!
We figured it wouldn’t take that long for Crusher to be replaced and then the clone factory would get back on track. Well we couldn’t have that could we? I know we’re making something of a habit out of blowing up CAT facilities but Glyph had plenty of C-15 and some damn fool had tunnelled out under the lake which made flooding the place laughable simple. It was too good an opportunity to resist, so we didn’t. We added insult to injury by making our escape in a stolen helicopter too…
Ki-rinn has his ex-army buddies stripping the chopper down as we speak and Ash even managed to get the Dragon to pay up. It has been a wild ride these last few days but things seem to have turned out alright in the end. We all deserve a break now. I’ve got the Step Van up on the ramps and a few devious plans for modding it so I’ll welcome a couple of week’s alone in the garage.
Mood: Well satisfied
Ends: 3/3>
Select Region: Region=SanFrancisco>
Call SubDir: SanFrancisco/WeBlogs>
Select Blog: Author=V.Six>
Initializing…>
Entry 28: 03.09.70>
Life has a habit of getting on top of you from time to time, which is why it has been a while since my last update. It has been a wild few days – hell at one point I even thought my friendship with Ash was gone. We’re still on patchy ground but I’ve been able to lay some doubts to rest.
Back around the 26th of August, Snow put us on to a job from a small marketing Corp called Ocean Blue. On the verge of closing a major deal, one of their star execs had gone missing and with his handshake and signature needed for the contract, Ocean Blue needed to find out what had happened to him – pronto.
Research mode revealed that our boy wonder, Brent Masters, had been taken away for some ‘recreation’ by two delightful looking young ladies but it was a clear set up, less legit than a 30 buck Rolex, and we quickly tracked Brent’s last known location to a Shadowrunner flophouse where we assumed he was being held hostage.
I watched the street while the rest of the team busted in. The place was empty but Ash quickly started jabbering that he could see Brent Masters there and that he was trapped in the Astral plane. Before we could even start to puzzle that little snippet out, I saw the runners who owned the flophouse coming home, laden down with jerry cans of petrol. Who burns down their own flop and why?! Well, we had the drop on them and after a brief and bloody scrap we were able to ask the survivors exactly that. They claimed to have kidnapped Brent as per their contract, only to have him disappear on them. They claimed the flophouse was now haunted and had planned on burning it down to exorcise the spooks and recoup some of the costs of their botched job from the insurance. It was our only physical link to Brent, if a somewhat tenuous one, so we had other ideas. We sent the surviving runners from the other team packing and holed up. Inevitably, they came back looking for revenge and we were forced to shoot up the flophouse for a second time but the scrap was more dramatic this time out and with Lone Star closing in, we fled the scene.
The other team’s Mage had speculated on Brent’s disappearance with us and Ash had sorted out some sort of magical tracking that linked the flophouse where Brent was supposed to be astrally trapped with a familiar location in Silicon Valley. The former home of CAT’s CORE project had been refurbished, rebadged as a Genesis facility and was once more on our radar. We went for the direct approach, busting in and working our way down to the basement where the CORE project had been based. This too had been refurbished and now boasted a corporate suite to rival any Penthouse in the city. In residence?
None other than the previously deceased Dominic Cross.
Now I’m no Doctor but people who get their fucking heads blown off are not, in my experience, in the habit of getting up and strolling around afterwards. I was stunned. So was Glyph. Ash however, strolled into the suite like a friend of the family and sat down for tea, biccies and a nice chat. To say we felt betrayed was an understatement. Who sits down and takes tea with a supposedly dead scumbag whose life achievements including brain washing your brother and kidnapping your sister. Ash’ actions were way outside my comfort zone but before we could twitch, the door to the suite was slammed in our faces and despite our best efforts proved utterly impassable.
Continues: 1/3>
Ash emerged, unharmed and unfazed by our astonishment with his blasé reactions, clutching an ornate wooden box. I was mightily pissed at this point. I just could not comprehend why we weren’t putting Cross back in his grave. Glyph agreed so with a small C-15 charge, we did just that and you better believe I made damn sure this time. Drone obs confirmed Cross was pate. All that remained was the CORE orb he’d had embedded in his head but I even rolled that into the heart of the flames and stopped to watch it melt.
Ash started in on us with some damn fool scheme to free Brent that Cross had given him and that just about pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t accept the fact that Ash was going to tamely accept anything Cross had told him and take it at face value. We’re talking about Cross, a man who should be dead, a man who brainwashed Ash’s brother, a man who kidnapped and threatened our loved ones, a man whose schemes have caused us no end of trouble and loss.
And Ash is going to trust him and follow his instructions to try and free Brent Masters? Not happening, no way. I told Ash there and then in the middle of the Genesis facility exactly what I thought of him, his unpredictable behaviour of late and his reaction to meeting Cross again. I walked, packed up my kit, drew the Lone Star away from the facility to at least help the team make their getaway and washed my hands of the Run.
I kept an eye on the news and the development of the run as best I could but it gave me no satisfaction to be proven right when Lone Star discovered the bodies of Brent Masters and our liaison at Ocean Blue and put the time of death several days before we had first met them. From start to finish the whole thing had been a screw job, and I could only assume it was done to manipulate Ash into doing Cross’ dirty work for him.
Hours ticked by and nobody responded to my warning. Even having fallen out with Ash, I couldn’t stand the thought of the team being in trouble so I headed back to the Flophouse, where I was picking their vehicles up on GPS.
It seemed the guys had been involved in a third firefight there but beyond a Lone Star mopping up operation there was no sign of them. Worried now, I quickly linked into the stealth tag I had put on Ash and tracked them to a Corp called the Alamais Foundation. All set to bust in and try and get them out, I was somewhat surprised to find them sitting in the lobby, a little shaken up, a little battered and bruised but otherwise OK.
They filled me in. It seemed Cross had given Ash a statue – a magical seal that it wouldn’t be a good idea to break. Cross was prevented from breaking the seal by the magic worked into it but someone with pure intentions, such as rescuing a trapped man from the Astral Plane, could have broken it. The whole plot had been a set up by Cross to persuade Ash to break the statue for him. Fortunately a Dragon called Alamais, CEO of this Alamais Foundation, had gotten wind of the plot and intervened, sending his goons to subdue Ash and the team and haul them in front of the Dragon. Alamais had taken the statue and clearly had no intention of giving it back, but he had filled in a few blanks. The Legion and CORE projects CAT had been working on were designed solely to create clones of Dominic Cross that Allisom could possess and work through. At least we know now why Cross appears to have more lives than a cat.
And so to the bombshell. Ash had cut a deal with the Dragon and taken on a job to kill the head of the Legion project and throw a spanner in the works of Cross’ clone factory. Hell I would have done that for free, so when the team asked me to come back onboard, I agreed, despite any misgivings I had about whether or not the Dragon was out to screw us over too. Ki-rinn picked up a data trail on Simon Crusher, the man Alamais identified as leading the Legion project and we soon found ourselves masquerading as horsey types to gain the confidence of a man called Philip Myers. Myers had part-owned a racehorse with Crusher and we thought he might still be in contact with our target. Sure enough, he sang like a canary and using a nanopaste facial disguise we decided I would pose as Myers to meet Crusher at the racetrack.
Continues: 2/3>
The meeting went like a dream, in spite of a couple of hairy moments and we all worked together to con Crusher into believing he was talking to his old friend while we slipped a stealth tag on to his jacket. I played Myers, Glyph played the drunken broad who made a pass at Crusher and Ki-rinn played my personal bodyguard, intervening physically to tag our man while hauling the horny drunk away. I wasn’t keen on staying any longer than necessary and increasing the risk our deception might be noticed so we made our excuses and left. When Crusher finally departed the racetrack he used a helicopter and while he had the edge on us for speed, we were as close behind him on the ground as four wheels and a beefy engine would allow.
The Legion Facility was on the shores of Pyramid Lake, near Nixon and we made our way there without too much fuss. Glyph and Ki-rinn teamed up well to gain us access to the compound and although ill-advised use of explosive ammunition soon gave our presence away, our slick teamwork meant we were able to mop up the opposition without too much trouble. During the firefight, Glyph and Ash had discovered an access point for an underground extension of the facility and we cautiously headed inside.
Security was tight. Automatic blast doors. Steel Lynx security drones. It took all of us, working together to access the lower levels and fight off the security detail – more of CAT’s damned console soldiers. Most of the lower level was dominated by a huge cloning room with hi-tech medical bays for 16 copies of Dominic Cross. Only 8 of the bays were occupied by fledgling clones but there were also experiments being conducted on the good townsfolk of Nixon, who were presumably supplying the raw genetic materials for the clones. It was a drawn out and bloody battle down there and I’m not ashamed to say that I kept my head down. A fly-spy drone made for a good targeting spotter, locating and marking targets for the heavy guns of Ki-rinn, Glyph and Ash but my rudimentary skills as a medic were also in demand. I pumped so many medical Nanites into Frosty it must have been like a miniature Charge of the Light Brigade in his bloodstream.
We’d still seen no sign of Crusher so headed deeper into the facility, out under the lake and up inside the pyramid shaped rock formation that had inspired its name. Here we found Crusher, protected by a pair of the CORE vampires we had previously encountered, engaged in some sort of huge ritual.
Glyph and I dispatched the Vamps, previous experience making us wise to their moves, while Ki-rinn and Ash concentrated on Crusher. Ash I think got the killing shot in and his fall seemed to disrupt the ritual, sending lightning arcing explosively around the room and earthing through us! I’ve cursed the wasted cash since buying insulated armour for the swipe of the Thunderbirds but it paid dividends that day!
We figured it wouldn’t take that long for Crusher to be replaced and then the clone factory would get back on track. Well we couldn’t have that could we? I know we’re making something of a habit out of blowing up CAT facilities but Glyph had plenty of C-15 and some damn fool had tunnelled out under the lake which made flooding the place laughable simple. It was too good an opportunity to resist, so we didn’t. We added insult to injury by making our escape in a stolen helicopter too…
Ki-rinn has his ex-army buddies stripping the chopper down as we speak and Ash even managed to get the Dragon to pay up. It has been a wild ride these last few days but things seem to have turned out alright in the end. We all deserve a break now. I’ve got the Step Van up on the ramps and a few devious plans for modding it so I’ll welcome a couple of week’s alone in the garage.
Mood: Well satisfied
Ends: 3/3>
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The end of Simon Crusher
Six, Glyph, Ki-Rin, Ash.
1st September 2070 17:00
The runners gathered outside the ramp which ran down underground. They hadn’t found Simon Crusher amongst the dead on the surface of this facility and guessed that he had fled down. They were also keen to find out if there was a cloning facility here too.
Looking down the ramp they saw that it was 3 vehicle widths, well lit, terminating in a roller shutter door. They decided to hotwire one of the vans and drive it down the ramp slowly. Approaching the roller shutter doors Six and Ash noticed that there was a pair of some kind of slam plate in the floor, one near the roller shutter, one ten metres away. Ki-Rin and Ash hopped out of the vehicle and jogged over to the pedestrian door set in the left hand wall, Glyph covered them while Six rolled the van’s engine block over the slam plate. Ki-Rin found that there was a decker on site who cut his connection to hacking the electronic lock on the door, and rather than take him on in cyberspace opted to bust the door lock by bypassing the circuitry.
Ki-Rin triggered some kind of security device, and two massive bulkhead doors slammed home onto the plates in the ground. The one nearest the roller shutter door nearly took out Ash’s arm; the other drop bulkhead crushed the van but was unable to slam completely home, leaving a gap of about a foot.
As soon as the kill zone had been set up, two Steel Lynx drones dropped down from hatches in the ceiling to join Ash and Ki-Rin. One drone squatted low and rolled under the gap in the rear bulkhead to take out Six and Glyph. Bullets flew. Ash stuck his AK into the mid section of the drone and fired a couple of bursts into it at close range. Ki-Rin scrambled across the floor and blind fired at the other drone, Six and Glyph finished it off before anyone was badly injured.
Ki-Rin finished cracking the door, while Glyph and Six slipped under the gap in the drop door. The door clicked open and the team announced their arrival with a flash bang grenade, the three stunned guards stood no chance when all four runners unleashed a volley of lead from the doorway.
A window ran the full length of the wall and the runners could see the expanse of the cloning chamber beyond, at the far side of the room was another door. The runners kept low and made their way to the next door. Glyph popped the door open and saw four civilians, strapped to chairs, tubes and cables running from their bodies. Ducked low just out of sight was another guard. Glyph didn’t have any flash bangs. A frag grenade was rolled into the small room instead. The explosion destroyed everything in the room. Ki-Rin began shooting out through the glass screen into the guards the he spotted moving around in the clone chamber. The guards returned fire, shooting through the walls at the runners.
Six sent out his flyspy drone to mark the targets for the rest of the team and they began to take out the guards.
Ki-Rin was filled with lead and he died. The rest of the team were taking hits as well. Six stood in cover and saw the decker go down. He dashed to his side and administered first aid, with the help of the nano-medkit Ki-Rin was brought back from the brink.
Glyph and Ash finished off the rest of the guards. Inside the massive cavern four pillars ran from floor to ceiling. Embedded into each of the pillars were four growth vats. Tow pillars worth, eight in total, housed the nearly fully formed clones of Dominic. Alive, but lifeless. The other eight pods had been opened. Ash Shot each clone dead.
A bulkhead door at the rear of the chamber was the only other way out and the runners donned gas masks before throwing a nerve gas canister in. On the other side of the bulkhead was a long corridor. This terminated in a ladder which went up. Checking the GPS the runners could tell that this would go up and inside the Pyramid shaped island in the middle of the lake. The runners were beginning to experience electrical interference with their equipment and disconnected unused electronics.
Looking up the step ladder the runners could see a large vaulted space above them, a mesh catwalk running overhead. Inside the pyramid had been hewn away leaving a vast space. A catwalk ran around the outside edge of this about two metres up, and a walkway from either side liked up to a dais in the centre. Electricity was arcing from sigils and symbols daubed on the walls and focusing down onto 5 forms that were out of view on the dais. Glyph stuck her head up for just a moment and then a shot rang out. Simon Crusher was stood on the cat walk and was laughing as he fired off a couple more blind shots toward the now out of sight shadowrunner.
The team surged up the ladder, each diving out in a different direction as quickly as possible. 2 essence hungry Dominic clones surged at the runners and attacked them with tooth and claw, lead flew. Two of the clones were dead before they could do any damage and then Ash fired the fatal shot that killed Simon Crusher. There was a moment before his body tumbled from the catwalk, then their was an explosion of energy. Electricity arced from the dais struck the catwalk and then earthed through the runners.
Six, Glyph and Ash all wore their electricity non-conductive armour that they had bought when they were paid to steal some Thunderbirds, Ki-Rin became the conduit for the full charge; the energy struck his chest and burned a deep wound.
For the second time that day, Ki-Rin died. For the second time he was resuscitated. The runners took stock and then made moves to flee. Ash gathered up dropped weapons. Glyph and Ki-Rin set explosive charges. Six made preparations to bring one of the helicopters online.
The runners hovered over the site in the stolen helicopter long enough to watch the explosion they had set cause the underground base to be flooded by the water of Pyramid Lake before turning back towards San Francisco.
The next day the runners did their own thing, Ki-Rin headed to the street doctors who told him that the wounds would Scar. The Six and Ki-Rin sent the helicopter to one of Ki-Rin’s contacts to have it stripped down to check for anything incriminating.
Ash Sold on the stolen weapons to Snow, before getting the runners back to meet up. Ash had decided that he should march into Alamais’ headquarters and demand their payments. Only Glyph accompanied Ash, and after getting told that the Dragon was out of the country Ash lost his temper. The runners dragged Ash down to the pub, and they all got drunk.
The next morning, Ash received a package. A credstic with enough money to split amongst the team, and a weapons focus in the form of a dagger. Ash assumed that it was from Alamais.
1st September 2070 17:00
The runners gathered outside the ramp which ran down underground. They hadn’t found Simon Crusher amongst the dead on the surface of this facility and guessed that he had fled down. They were also keen to find out if there was a cloning facility here too.
Looking down the ramp they saw that it was 3 vehicle widths, well lit, terminating in a roller shutter door. They decided to hotwire one of the vans and drive it down the ramp slowly. Approaching the roller shutter doors Six and Ash noticed that there was a pair of some kind of slam plate in the floor, one near the roller shutter, one ten metres away. Ki-Rin and Ash hopped out of the vehicle and jogged over to the pedestrian door set in the left hand wall, Glyph covered them while Six rolled the van’s engine block over the slam plate. Ki-Rin found that there was a decker on site who cut his connection to hacking the electronic lock on the door, and rather than take him on in cyberspace opted to bust the door lock by bypassing the circuitry.
Ki-Rin triggered some kind of security device, and two massive bulkhead doors slammed home onto the plates in the ground. The one nearest the roller shutter door nearly took out Ash’s arm; the other drop bulkhead crushed the van but was unable to slam completely home, leaving a gap of about a foot.
As soon as the kill zone had been set up, two Steel Lynx drones dropped down from hatches in the ceiling to join Ash and Ki-Rin. One drone squatted low and rolled under the gap in the rear bulkhead to take out Six and Glyph. Bullets flew. Ash stuck his AK into the mid section of the drone and fired a couple of bursts into it at close range. Ki-Rin scrambled across the floor and blind fired at the other drone, Six and Glyph finished it off before anyone was badly injured.
Ki-Rin finished cracking the door, while Glyph and Six slipped under the gap in the drop door. The door clicked open and the team announced their arrival with a flash bang grenade, the three stunned guards stood no chance when all four runners unleashed a volley of lead from the doorway.
A window ran the full length of the wall and the runners could see the expanse of the cloning chamber beyond, at the far side of the room was another door. The runners kept low and made their way to the next door. Glyph popped the door open and saw four civilians, strapped to chairs, tubes and cables running from their bodies. Ducked low just out of sight was another guard. Glyph didn’t have any flash bangs. A frag grenade was rolled into the small room instead. The explosion destroyed everything in the room. Ki-Rin began shooting out through the glass screen into the guards the he spotted moving around in the clone chamber. The guards returned fire, shooting through the walls at the runners.
Six sent out his flyspy drone to mark the targets for the rest of the team and they began to take out the guards.
Ki-Rin was filled with lead and he died. The rest of the team were taking hits as well. Six stood in cover and saw the decker go down. He dashed to his side and administered first aid, with the help of the nano-medkit Ki-Rin was brought back from the brink.
Glyph and Ash finished off the rest of the guards. Inside the massive cavern four pillars ran from floor to ceiling. Embedded into each of the pillars were four growth vats. Tow pillars worth, eight in total, housed the nearly fully formed clones of Dominic. Alive, but lifeless. The other eight pods had been opened. Ash Shot each clone dead.
A bulkhead door at the rear of the chamber was the only other way out and the runners donned gas masks before throwing a nerve gas canister in. On the other side of the bulkhead was a long corridor. This terminated in a ladder which went up. Checking the GPS the runners could tell that this would go up and inside the Pyramid shaped island in the middle of the lake. The runners were beginning to experience electrical interference with their equipment and disconnected unused electronics.
Looking up the step ladder the runners could see a large vaulted space above them, a mesh catwalk running overhead. Inside the pyramid had been hewn away leaving a vast space. A catwalk ran around the outside edge of this about two metres up, and a walkway from either side liked up to a dais in the centre. Electricity was arcing from sigils and symbols daubed on the walls and focusing down onto 5 forms that were out of view on the dais. Glyph stuck her head up for just a moment and then a shot rang out. Simon Crusher was stood on the cat walk and was laughing as he fired off a couple more blind shots toward the now out of sight shadowrunner.
The team surged up the ladder, each diving out in a different direction as quickly as possible. 2 essence hungry Dominic clones surged at the runners and attacked them with tooth and claw, lead flew. Two of the clones were dead before they could do any damage and then Ash fired the fatal shot that killed Simon Crusher. There was a moment before his body tumbled from the catwalk, then their was an explosion of energy. Electricity arced from the dais struck the catwalk and then earthed through the runners.
Six, Glyph and Ash all wore their electricity non-conductive armour that they had bought when they were paid to steal some Thunderbirds, Ki-Rin became the conduit for the full charge; the energy struck his chest and burned a deep wound.
For the second time that day, Ki-Rin died. For the second time he was resuscitated. The runners took stock and then made moves to flee. Ash gathered up dropped weapons. Glyph and Ki-Rin set explosive charges. Six made preparations to bring one of the helicopters online.
The runners hovered over the site in the stolen helicopter long enough to watch the explosion they had set cause the underground base to be flooded by the water of Pyramid Lake before turning back towards San Francisco.
The next day the runners did their own thing, Ki-Rin headed to the street doctors who told him that the wounds would Scar. The Six and Ki-Rin sent the helicopter to one of Ki-Rin’s contacts to have it stripped down to check for anything incriminating.
Ash Sold on the stolen weapons to Snow, before getting the runners back to meet up. Ash had decided that he should march into Alamais’ headquarters and demand their payments. Only Glyph accompanied Ash, and after getting told that the Dragon was out of the country Ash lost his temper. The runners dragged Ash down to the pub, and they all got drunk.
The next morning, Ash received a package. A credstic with enough money to split amongst the team, and a weapons focus in the form of a dagger. Ash assumed that it was from Alamais.
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