April 14th 2075.
(GM Note: This is a first run. A lot of combat here so that we can get the system down. The session ran a bit longer than I would have liked for one combat, but there was a bit of page-flipping while we figured stuff out. Overall, though, great fun was had by all…except for the poor Ork (which you’ll see below))
The group is contacted by their respective fixers to meet a Mr. Johnson at Ezell's Restaurant in Bellevue. Since this is their first run together, the group is eager to gain street cred and a little Nuyen…times are tough and the rent’s not paying itself.
The group consists of the following:
Azrael – A human sniper who has had to have extensive reconstructive surgery after taking a grenade. He has full cyber arms and legs
Castle – A human, ex-military specialist. She is also heavily modified with bioware, a result of an experiment when she was younger.
Deckard – A dwarf private investigator and bounty hunter. He’s the unofficial face of the party, since he uses his skills and contacts to be a jack-of-all-trades
D-Minor – a dwarf Technomancer. He acts as a DJ at several of the clubs in the area, and uses this, as well as an old, beat up cyberdeck, to mask his abilities.
Smith – An ork Mystic Adept. He uses his healing skills to help the down-trodden in the Redmond barrens, and has a very close tie to the spirits of the city.
After brief introductions all around, and a little bit of sizing each other up, the group sits down with Mr. Johnson, a slick, weasly looking man in his late 30’s/early 40’s, dressed in a nice business suit (think Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad). He offers the group lunch (“Best Soy Kaf in the city…almost tastes like real coffee!”) before getting down to business.
“You guys come highly recommended. Now, I know what you’re going to say, “But we don’t got no street cred!” That’s true! But, what you do have is skills and a desire to GET street cred. That’s where I come in.
The company I work for is very much into urban renewal. We tear down old homes, businesses, and neighborhoods to make way for renovations that would allow more business opportunities. So right now, we’re looking at this one neighborhood over near Cozy Cove to set up a nice little business park. Problem is, there’s this group of gangers who have moved in and are making all sorts of nasty trouble for the locals. Call themselves the Lake Acids. They’ve been hustling the neighbors, extortion, B&E, all sorts of nasty drek. Then they ran out all of the locals and set up their headquarters there.
That’s where you come in. I’d like to hire you to go into this neighborhood and clean up this scum. And if you do a little demolition and destruction in the process, well, that’s all just icing on the cake.”
When asked about the opposition, Mr. Johnson just shrugs and says, “They’re gangers! It’ll be a milk run for a bunch of professionals like you.”
Mr. Johnson is offering 45000 Nuyen (9000 each) to the group for clearing out the gangers, and a little extra at the end if they also can perform a little demolition. The group agrees, and immediately move to a safe area to discuss logistics and do a little legwork.
(GM Note: Deckard tried to do a negotiation test here and failed miserably)
D-Minor and Deckard perform a little Matrix reconnaissance, discovering that the Lake Acids have very little Matrix presence. The also discover the Knight Errant has been called out there quite a bit over the past couple of years, but take at least an hour to show due to the rough area. Digging further, they find out that the land they are looking to clear out recently had a bid on it from Lakeland Realtors, which is a subsidiary of Horizon Corp. So now, they know who they work for.
Azrael, Castle, and Smith go out to the neighborhood and do physical reconnaissance. Castle uses several camera RFID tags to do visual reconnaissance, sneaking around between the houses in the neighborhood. It’s a good thing she does, because she is able to get quite a bit of information. First off, the neighborhood is little more than a slum. The gangers themselves look well equipped and funded; each of them has a decent bike and is well armed. Lastly, she sees a half-track with a 50 cal rifle mounted on the back. Her and Azrael decide that this is a high-priority target; if the gangers get that rifle going, they will make very short work of the team.
Meanwhile, Smith summons a spirit of man to help him survey the area. They are able to detect a magical presence, as well as another spirit that is patrolling the area. Smith quickly dismisses the spirit and the group decides to withdraw before they are seen.
That night, the team makes their move. Azrael, Castle, Deckard and Smith move toward one of the larger homes, a two story duplex that towers over the smaller homes around it. D-Minor hides in a bush out of sight, then goes full VR, stepping out of his meat to wreak havoc through the matrix.
Smith starts peering around, trying to spot any Astral activity, but doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Deckard and Castle move to peer into the duplex, trying to get an idea of numbers. At this point, a fire elemental materializes and immediately attacks Smith (since it knew that he was a magically active person, so could therefore do the most damage to him).
(GM note: The Ork had a really bad run of dice. He critically glitched his roll to see if he could find the spirit.)
He hurls a bolt of fire at Smith, who deftly dodges out of the way. Smith turns, concentrating, feeling for the astral bond that connects the Elemental to its master. Finding it, he tries to sever the bond with his own magical energies. He feels the bond loosen, but knows that he still has to contend with the spirit for now. As he continues to concentrate on banishing the spirit, his nose starts trickling blood.
(GM Note: He tried a banishing test, and got one net success. The Spirit had two tasks left, so it was knocked down to one task. Misunderstanding the rules, he only rolled his Willpower to resist the drain, though, and took 5 points of drain from the spirit. I ruled that since he glitched his perception test earlier, he was unprepared to face the amount of mana that he was channeling through his body to disrupt the spirit)
The explosion from the Fire Elemental startles the gangers in the nearby houses. The group in the larger duplex that the team has gathered around decide to look out the window to see what’s going on.
And look right into the faces of Deckard and Castle.
Castle opens fire, nailing one of the gangers, who stumbles backward, bleeding. The second one gives a shout, only to be shot by Deckard.
Azrael swiftly climbs the side of the building, scrambling up onto the roof. Here, he quickly takes a dose of Jazz, marveling at the rush of speed and clarity it brings. He sets up a sniper’s perch and waits to see if any other gang members come out into the open.
(GM Note: The sniper failed his body test to resist addiction to the drug. He now has a minor Negative Quality: Addicted to Jazz)
D-Minor quickly compiles a sprite and commands it to take over the mounted 50 cal. It is able to get one mark on the device.
Smith continues to struggle to banish the fire elemental. As he focuses for his next assault, the spirit unleashes a wave of confusion against him. Fortunately for him, his focus and concentration shakes off the debilitating effects of the spirit’s confusion power, and he forces more Mana through his body, disrupting the connection between the spirit and its master. He smiles in triumph as he feels the connection snap, but his victory is short-lived. The strain of channeling that much mana overwhelms him, and he falls to the ground unconscious, bleeding from his nose and ears.
(GM Note: Smith got two net successes on his banishing roll, but critically glitched his drain test, taking 6 points of drain. He falls unconscious, and the damaged over-flowed into his physical track)
From one of the nearby houses, a large bruiser-looking ganger runs out, wielding a very large, very scary looking assault rifle. He sets his sights on Deckard. Fortunately for the dwarf, D-Minor (still in full VR) sees that the smartgun on the bruiser’s assault rifle is enabled, so he quickly hurls a Resonance Spike at the smartgun, bricking the interface. The bruiser looks down, confused as his gun suddenly starts smoking and shooting sparks. He’s doing this as Azrael’s bullet takes his head off.
(GM Note: Azrael amazingly rolled 7 hits on his attack, which was his limit. The poor ganger had no chance)
Castle, seeing that there are three gangers in the house she is looking in, decides to open up with covering fire through the window, forcing two of the gangers to drop prone. The third ganger, heavily wounded, hides in a corner.
Deckard runs over and checks on Smith. As he’s bending down to check on the Ork mystic adept, one of the gangers in the house breaks cover, dodging Castles bullets and moves behind a rusted car. He opens fire, hitting and wounding Deckard. The other ganger also tries to get up and out of the house, but he gets an unfortunate case of lead poisoning.
(GM Note: Cover fire is, plain and simple, one of the nastiest rules I’ve seen in SR. I will definitely be using this against the team soon)
From the houses nearby, the rest of the gang rushes out. One of them takes cover behind some sandbags, and the another jumps up onto the half-track, ready to jack in and take over as soon as possible. D-Minor commands the sprite to use its Gremlin power on the gun, hoping to force it to malfunction when the ganger jacks in.
Meanwhile, what looks to be the gang leader runs out of his home, rushing forward to take cover. D-Minor, anticipating this, again sends a Resonance spike at the leader’s smart-linked rifle, bricking it as well. Hardly even sweating, he returns to his meat body, stepping into AR mode.
(GM Note: The Technomancer was having way too much fun…he was just bricking as much equipment as he could, and rolling so well on his drain resists that he wasn’t even breaking a sweat)
Also emerging from his home, the gang’s mage looks up and sees Azrael on the roof. Pointing his finger, he hurls a bolt of magical energy at the sniper, who fortunately was able to resist the debilitating spell. The mage, a little worried, scrambles back into the house for cover.
(GM Note: Azrael, amazingly, scored as many hits on his resist test as the mage scored on his spellcasting test. Tie always goes to the defender)
Azrael, unable to target the mage, decides to trade accuracy for speed, splitting his shots between the gang leader and the ganger who is jacking into the 50 cal. The leader ducks behind cover, but the ganger is nowhere near as fortunate; the sniper’s bullet cleanly pierces the ganger’s throat, dropping him in a spray of blood.
Deckard, worried that the opposition is getting a little too organized, grabs the unconscious Smith and drags him behind one of the houses, hoping that the cover provided will protect him and the ork.
(GM Note: I didn’t realize that Deckard could have just done a First Aid action to allow the Ork to wake up. But, since Smith critically glitched on his drain resist, I ruled that he was out for the count)
Castle moves around the building, getting into better position. Seeing the ganger who dodged her cover fire, she again opens fire with a semi-automatic burst, clipping the ganger and making him stumble behind cover.
The gang leader, realizing that his gun is now nearly useless, rushes over near the ganger who had just been shot by Castle. Looking up, he lobs a grenade at the sniper on top of the house. The resulting explosion nearly blows Azrael off the roof. Azrael weakly scrambles back, hoping to use the remainder of the roof as cover.
D-Minor, seeing this, rushes from cover, lobbing a flash-bang at the gang leader. Unfortunately, he doesn’t hit right on the mark, but it doesn’t matter...it’s a grenade! One ganger drops to the ground, his ears bleeding from his burst eardrums. The gang leader stumbles, slightly stunned by the flash from the grenade.
Castle peeks around her cover, seeing the gang leader stumbling around. She cleanly picks him off.
The rest of the gangers, realizing they are out classed and out gunned, decide to call it quits. All except for the mage, who is trapped inside one house. Hoping to take out the sniper so that he can run, he steps out of the house so that he can target Azrael. Unfortunately for the mage, the sniper was waiting, his scope focused on the door of the house. The mage was soon disposed of.
The group searches the houses, finding several BTL chips and some drugs. Then, they set the homes ablaze and head back to meet Mr. Johnson to tell him of their success. Total body count; 5 gangers, one mage, and 3 more gangers who decided to play it smart and get out of dodge.
The next day, they see the following news report:
“Last night’s attack in Cozy Cove was one of the worst gang attacks in recent history, with at least 20 dead and several wounded. With the death toll still rising, the extensive property damage, and the revelation that it took almost an hour for Knight Errant forces to arrive, many are left to wonder if KE is not equipped to handle crime in Seattle.”
(GM note: Overall, the session was a success. We had fun, and I had to fudge a few rules for expediency. Other than the guy playing the Ork, everyone had a blast…the Ork was a little frustrated at the dice, though)
