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Black

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« on: <07-03-12/2109:48> »
Background:
My campaign is set in 2050s.  These are my session summaries, so they are mix of fiction and recap.  The quality.. is mixed :)

The team:
Shadowhawk - an elven native american chaos mage and hacker.  His versitile, manipulative and a tad arrogant :).  Tends to be the Face when Walker is not part of the team.
Sparks - College party girl and naturally powerful hermantic mage. A bit reckless and prone to casting spells beyond her normal limits.
Tex - Orc mistress of gung-fu (physcial adept with a gun focus).  Works occasionally with Lone Star.
Black Beard - new member to the team, old friend of Walker's.  Large, cybered troll with a pirate theme (including shotguns customised to look like large muskets in his hands :) ).  Skilled armourer, who also has refined taste in literature.  Also likes to blow stuff up...
Chang - Chinese mystic dectective.  Strong links to the Celestrial Court on one hand, the Red Dragon Triad on the other.
Zero - infiltration expert.  Man of Mystery...
Air-On-Fire - Mage with a drug habit, mage with a nasty chemistry set :)

And thats the team... now the game :)
Perception molds reality
Change perception and reality will follow
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4+hb+++B?UB+IE+W+sa+m-gmM--P

Black

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« Reply #1 on: <07-03-12/2113:41> »
With a week and bit of down time, the team did some preparation for upcoming runs.  Tex purchased 50 rounds of stick ‘n shock, the team got some R6 respirators from the local Weapon World, and form fitting body suits with non-conductivity for each member.  Sparks began working on her first foci and Walker picked up a GMC Hermies van to be tricked out at a later date.  The team got to meet his new employee, Edward Teach, aka Black Beard, a large, troll with a two sawn-off shotguns.  Sparks began to socially see Mel Cosi, acting head of ARES Seattle and acting Chair of the United Corporate Council and Walker's old... working colleague...
 Frakker, looking out for his favourite team of runner, organised a job with some corporate bigwig.  Shadowhawk, Sparks, Tex and Edward took the job.  Because the meet with Mr Johnson was meant to be somewhere classy, only Shadowhawk and Sparks went.  Sparks wore a designer dress worth thousands of nuyen.
 The Shadowhawk and Sparks were picked up by a strange looking wage slave (they couldn't tell if it was a male or female...) and were driven to the Space Needle.  After some serious security checks, they were allowed into the restaurant and taken to a private room where they meet the white suit, fuzzy hair Mr Johnson.  The Mr Johnson seemed reasonably professional and offered them a job to raid a bio-research lab at the Tacoma Aztechnology Research Park.  While security was apparent extreme, Mr Johnson knew of a way to get in via the local sewer system.  They needed to raid the lab and get a sample of a new virus, a computer file on the virus and destroy any and all other data.  Mr Johnson offered 120,000 Nuyen, with 60,000 upfront.  He also provided a van with:
•   4 AK-97 assault rifles
•   8 armoured jacked (2 troll size)
•   8 chemsuits (2 trol sized)
•   8 headset scrambled micro-transceivers
•   2 R2 maglock passkeys
•   digging tools (picks, shovels, etc)
•   8 kg of C4
•   2 timer detonators
•   2 wielding torches
Once the team had secured what they needed, they were advised to travel to the nearby Tacoma docks and meet an employee of the Mr Johnson on the S.S. Misha, an old container vessel.
 They were even given a code 'is the sky blue?', 'it has not been since I was a child'.
 Shadowhawk and Sparks attempted a negotiation, but with Walkers smooth ways, they only managed to come out even.
 Hawk and Sparks left and were taken to the van.  Mr Johnson's assistant insisted that one of the team wear a 'ronnie bean', a simple passive homing signal device which must be coded to a particular person which is powered by a person's biochemistry. This was inserted into Spark's wrist.
 Left alone, the team quickly countered the ronnie bean - they purchased a rabbit (named Decoy) and removed the bean from Sparks and placed it in the tranqed rabbit which they then carried with them for the rest of the run... anyway...
 The team drove to Tacoma, ignoring the infamous Tacoma Aroma (a chemical rotten egg smell) and the heavy rain.  The team put on the chem suits and made their way into the old sewers.  With the chemical waste pumped into the sewers by local factories and the heavy rain, it was hard going.

Eventually the team came across a blocked tunnel.  Rather than turn around, Shadowhawk summoned a golden dragon earth elemental.  The golden dragon 'ate' the team and transported them through the blocked tunnel.

Now close to the goals, the team noted that the blocked tunnel was causing the toxic water to rise. 

Finding the location, Sparks unleashed a metal storm at the slime covered wall!  Suffering some minor physical injuries, Sparks mystical attack ripped a large gash in the wall.  Edward the Troll dug into the wall and quickly tunnelled to steel wall of the research facility.
 Taking turns, the team used the wielding torches the cut through the metal wall into an air duct.  Removing the metal plate the team had cut, Tex noticed that the rising water may eventually reach the exposed air duct and flood the tight tunnel.

Inside the air duct, Shadowhawk tinkered with a power box.  Shadowhawk noticed that while the hidden lab should have power for its security cameras and elevators, they seemed down at the moment. Shadowhawk jury rigged the box to blow if they became active again.

The team squeezed one by one into the tight tunnel, crawling through the fibre optics and wires and tubes which crowded the air duct, turning it into a claustrophobic nightmare.  Edward found it the hardest, with his large bulk and gear making it very, very difficult for him to move.  Sparks and Shadowhawk, with their slim forms, found it fairly easy going...

The astral background was tainted with recent violence and death.  Sparks used her powers to temporally cleanse the local astral space.

An air vent ahead revealed a nightmarish scene.  Only the flashing red security lights lit the carnage below.  The room was trashed, blood splattered the walls and there was movement outside the room.  Something had happened.

The team secured the room and Shadowhawk jury rigged a large pressure door to open while the team secured the other exit.  This lead to a long corridor with numerous holding cells.  A thick knee high mist covered the corridor floor.  Controlling a simple skimmer drone with a fuzzy camera, Shadowhawk sent it down the corridor and around a corner to a second secured door.

Shadowhawk also summoned a Watcher Spirit, but then saw it burn in the Astral as a large Phoenix like Fire Elemental burned it to spectral ash.  Sparks and Shadowhawk could see two powerful Fire Elementals patrolling the facility.

As the skimmer returned, something followed rapidly in the mist!  Three large, dog sized critters skittered down the corridor towards the Runners.  Edward Teach aka Black Beard, pulled out his sawn-off shotgun, modelled to look like a large musket, and fired twice at the first critter.  The first shot missed, but the second shot blew large chunks out of its thick shell hide.  Green goo splattered the walls as the instectile monster spat yellow venom at the large troll.  Throwing himself to the side, the venom landed on the wall and floor behind him and sizzled ominously. 

Tex fired several times at a second mutant horror, her explosive rounds piecing its shell.  It still leapt at her and landed and skittered around her feet.

Shadowhawk shot at both creatures, hitting them and missing his friend's feet by mere inches.  Tex stepped on her opponent and blew its snapping head off!

Sparks summoned her mystic energies and grabbed the last creature with a TK-like spell. With the other creatures dead, the team very carefully examined the last live creature.  It appeared to be a large mutated coach roach-like critter.  It had uneven number of legs and strange growths all over its body.  In the Astral it appeared duel-natured, though its signature was strangely muted.  A quick assessment of the creature's health showed that it was rapidly dying from numerous health issues, as if its body was burning out.  They killed the creature 'gently' and bagged its corpse for resell later.

The team reached the next secure door.  So far they hadn't seen any people(or bodies) and the cameras where dead.  The only signs of life where monstrous insects and powerful fire elementals... Shadowhawk managed to open the next door...

Inside was a large laboratory/examination room, with metal benches, computer terminals, and shelves covered with jars of specimens.  The dark room was only lit by the flashing red light, but the team quickly made out the heat signatures of two humanoid figures.  The two... men, twisted orcs in tattered security uniforms ran at the Runners.  Sparks, summoned her power, and captured the crazed guards in a bright glowing mystical barrier.  The mutated guards clawed at the powerful barrier, their cyber spurs, unnatural claws and inhuman strength damaging, but not breaking the barrier. The team threw a couple of hand grenades into the mystic cage.  The grenades captured and contained the explosion, turning the two guards into bloody liquid soup!  The team re-entered the room to see the roof covered in gore.  Black Beard almost threw up inside his chemical suit.

Shadowhawk noticed that all the computer terminals were damaged, but found a data storage device that he was able to hack.  Inside the device he found a number of files, include the retrovirus data the team was sent to retrieve.  Shadowhawk took copies and destroyed the data storage.  The room had a number of holding cells.  The first three were empty, though the team noticed the damage air ducts, suggesting that creatures were using them to move around the facility.
The last holding cell was holding a strange thin man, holding himself and rocking back and forth.  The team carefully encased him in a mystical barrier and quizzed him.  He claimed to be a world renowned genetic engineer and that he was on a verge of a breakthrough with the metegene and genetic astral shadows and other jargon which the team didn't understand.  Poising as rescuers, they asked the mad scientist to explain what happened.  He claimed the 'Taylor', someone known as Carrol, had sabotaged their work and that an aerosol-vectored self-mutating form of the retrovirus had been released into the lab.  'The Cockroaches were our first sign, but by then it was too late, too late!'. Carol had apparently been upset with his testing of orcs captured in the nearby sewers... Shadowhawk asked him where the original retrovirus was stored and the Doctor explained it was in the vault in the morgue. 

Worried that the doctor was contaminated and Tex being unhappy that he apparently experimented on Orcs, they left him in the holding cell.

The next room was a morgue... with a live patient.  An orc was strapped down to metal table, his insides laid bare... expect that he was alive.  Strange growths grew inside his wounds.  Sending the orc prisoner to a good place, the team ended his life.

The vault was discovered and Shadowhawk used the codes that the scientist provided earlier.  The retrovirus and other samples were recovered, and the main objective of the mission achieved...

Sparks decided to check the astral and found that the team was being observed by a hovering mage.  Acting quickly, she left her body and confronted the mage, attempting to bind him.  The spell partly worked, but the two large feathered fire elementals appeared and attacked.  Sparks was quickly overcome by their raw power in the spirit world, her body beginning to smoke and burn in the real.  The team quickly stabilised her, but she was at death's door!

Grabbing the unconscious girl and the samples, the team fled the facility and back into the sewers. They were unsure if anything had escaped via their entry, but blew the tunnel up to prevent any diseased creatures escaping.  The team made their way to the exit and escaped the sewers...

Now they just needed to reach the nearby Tacoma docks...
Perception molds reality
Change perception and reality will follow
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4+hb+++B?UB+IE+W+sa+m-gmM--P

Black

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« Reply #2 on: <07-03-12/2129:02> »
Previously on Shadowrun…
 Blackbeard, Tex, and Shadowhawk quickly made their way through the dark toxic sewers, with Blackbeard carrying the critically injured Sparks. Shadowhawk attempted to summon his air elemental, but she refused to come to an underground sewer filled with toxic water.  Shadowhawk tried again, and the spirit arrived, but it was not happy.  Shadowhawk requested that the spirit conceal them and the air elemental did so… by surrounding them is a mist partly made up from the filthy environment around them.
 Leaving the sewers, the team took off their bright yellow chemsuits and cleaned them of sewer’s taint.  Shadowhawk attempted some more first aid on the ailing Sparks, but she remained unconscious and in a stable, but critical condition.
 The drop of site with the Mr Johnson was nearby at the Tacoma docks.  They could help Sparks afterward.  Tex and the team piled into the GMC Bulldog van that they had only recently purchased, and drove to the docks. 
 The rain had stopped, but the roads where still wet and the air above heavy with thick clouds.  Blackbeard, with his enhanced hearing, could vaguely make out the sound of helicopters in the air above. 
 The van arrived at the gates of the massive Tacoma Docks, the largest docks in Seattle.  The gates were open and the guards were not in sight.
 The team drove in and navigated its way to the location they had been given.  The pier they were looking for was in an area of the docks that seemed abandoned.  Shadowhawk’s spirit appeared and seemed agitated.  “Please don’t go there!”  It explained that the area ahead was a ‘bad’ place, filled with terror and death.  Shadowhawk let his spirit depart for now, its concealment lifting.
 The area they drove into was abandoned, but both Shadowhawk and Tex could feel their mystic energies weaken in the face of a thick astral taint.  Bad things happened here.
Tex remembered that the on the Night of Rage, just 10 years ago, thousands of metahumans, mostly orcs, had been rounded up by the Metroplex Guard and taken to warehouses by the Tacoma docks for their ‘safety’.  A terrorist group, known as the Hands of Five, a branch of the infamous Alamos 20,000, had somehow avoided the Metroplex guards and set the locked warehouses on fire.  Just metres away from where Tex stood now, thousands of orc women and children had burnt alive while the Guard stood and watched.  It was only when Seattle’s United Corporate Council, lead by a young Karen King of Ares, had threatened economic sanctions against Seattle, that the Guard had ‘rescued’ the few survivors.  This event had lead to the establishment of the Orc underground, and countless acts of retaliation by human and metahuman alike.
 The piers where mostly empty, except for an old container ship, a 120 foot rusted vessel named S.S.Misha.  Tex tried to place the name, but he couldn’t.  Opposite the piers were a row of old warehouses. They seemed to be burnt, as if there had been a massive fire from inside the buildings.
 Tex reversed the van backwards down the pier to the old container ship.  A young elf is a business suit stood at the top of the ramp onto the boat.
 Tex stayed inside the van, while Blackbeard got out and leaned against the side of the vehicle.  Shadowhawk got out and approached the ramp.
“Permission to come aboard?”
The elf asked for the passphrase.
Shadowhawk replied with the correct counter phrase.  Tex and most the team noticed that a large number of armed men were poorly trying to conceal themselves on the boat.
Shadowhawk indicated to the elf that he could see his friends.  The men revealed themselves.  Just over a dozen men armed with submachine guns and rifles, all dressed in second hand military gear and wearing hoods and masks.  But what caught everyone’s eyes were the armbands they wore.  Black with red lettering… “20K”!
Blackbeard tenses up.  These were the same group of mutherf$#@ckers who killed his family…. 
 So tense that he almost didn’t notice that the sound of helicopters was getting closer...
 Three leaders stood by the elf, who they forced to his knees.
 “If you were expecting Biogene, I sorry to disappoint.  But you, my poor afflicted souls, you have a greater role in life then to pad your pockets with corporate script.  The Metagene Virus now belongs to us!”
 Shadowhawk revealed that he had a deadman’s switch on the package, “I think not..”
 “Oh, don’t misunderstand us, elf.  We are here to save the future generation from suffering as you all have.  With this retrovirus, we can ensure that the mutant genetics which results in abnormalities,  like your trog friend, will inflict no more innocents!  Do you not want to save the world?”
 “I think you will use this like a weapon.  Your no better than Aztechnology and most likely are hundred times worse.”
 *sigh* “Elf, your kind are born treacherous.  If you will not hand over the virus, we will kill this elf and then you and your friends.  For the greater good, sacrifices must be made.  Liberty is found in the blood of the innocent.”
 “Some heroes you are” sneered Hawk. “if you kill him, we will kill you. This I promise!”
 Undeterred, the lead Hand raised his automatic. *BANG*  the elf silently fell to the deck of the rusted cargo ship.
 Hawk turned and retreated towards the van, while Black Beard stepped up and covered him.  The large troll threw a gas grenade onto the deck of the ship while his sawn-off shotgun boomed.  Tex also provided cover from the van, her explosive rounds devastating the lightly armoured terrorists.  While bullets sunk into Blackbeard’s armour to no effect, the runner’s firepower and gas grenades had devastating effect on the terrorists.  Shadowhawk ended it with his magic, taking control of the remaining grunts, which allowed the runners to finish them off.  Very few survived and even then, they were critically wounded.
 
As the last terrorist fell, the helicopters swooped in.  Yellowjackets, light one-man vehicles with linked light machine guns, swarmed out of the clouds, followed by large troop transports.  Air and Flame elementals began manifesting in the sky above in shocking displays of mystic power.  In the distance, the roar of patrol vehicles could be heard.
 Shadowhawk ordered Black Beard to execute Decoy.  The loyal wabbit was thrown into the dark Tacoma waters.
 The team piled into the van as the Yellowjackets began opening fire.  Tex put the pedal to the metal and the van leapt down the wet pier towards the docks.  Taking a hard right, he almost lost control when a bullet clipped one of his mirrors.  The thick armour of the van protected the team from the rain of bullets.  Both ahead and behind the van, the team could make out a number of fast moving patrol vehicles followed by larger mobile tactical vehicles.  It was not looking good.
 Taking a chance, Tex swung the van towards one of the old warehouses, smashing the vehicle through a partially open door.
 *KRASH*
 The van skidded through debre and wreckage, and Tex braked hard and bought it to a halt… a mere meter away for a razor sharp steel bar.
 A quick look around showed that the warehouse was not flat nor empty, but rather filled with debre, with the foundation cracked and broken. There was no way to move the entire van through the warehouse.  The team left the vehicle quickly, with Black Beard used the last of his plastic explosive and setup detonator.  Blackbeard also picked up the critical injured Sparks and the team began quickly making their way through the dark warehouse.
 Both Hawk and Tex felt a terrible unease fall upon them.  The astral environment was heavily tainted with fear and death, so much so that Tex could feel things that she never could normally.
 *aaahhhhhhh!*
Tex could hear a women’s scream.  It reminder her, briefly , of her mother..  shadows moved around them.  She could almost feel desperate hands clinging to her jeans, begging for relief from the constant burning agony...
 Shadowhawk rested his hand on Tex's shoulder and nodded his understanding of what she was experiencing.  Blackbeard, already further ahead looked back at them with a question in his eye.  This was his first run with this crew...
 Up ahead they heard movement.  Acting quickly they chased down the moving figures up ahead.
 "Ahhhhhh!" screamed a child.  A young orc boy had fallen in the debre and obviously broken his leg.  Tex picked the child up, reasuuring him that she meant no harm.  The other child appeared.  More machine gun fire pierced the roof of the warehouse.  The second child motioned for them to follow and showed the runners a concealed entrance to the sewers at the rear of the warehouse.
 
The team dropped below into the darkness.
  And found a woman aiming a large hand gun at them.
 "Who are you and what have you done to the children?" she demanded!
 The children quickly explained that they were watching the runners for 'Granpa Bronston' when there was lots of shooting and stuff.
 *BOOOM*
 The tunnel shook as a large explosion rocked the building above.  The attackers had found and triggered the explosives in the van.
 Blackbeard suggested that they move and move quickly.
 The lady walked them through the tunnels.  In the background, Hawk tried to match the women and found no hits.
 The women eventually took them to a fake wall and into an underground complex.  The team soon realised that they were inside a large shopping complex, at least three levels high, but now completely underground.  The shop fronts were now converted into living quarters to families... families of orcs.  A fountain provided a ready water supply and the team could smell cooking coming from a restaurant. Gas lanterns supply a dim light, the natural orc abilities compensating for the shadows.  Orc mean lounged around, playing cards, talking, drinking and watching their kids.  A ready supply of weapons could be seen and the team was reminded of a third world village.
 The team is eventually lead to a book store, the shelves still crowded with actual physical books.  An elderly orc sat by a dim light, his eyes peering through his wire framed glasses at thick text book.  His hair was white and thin, and he covered himself with warm blankets.  Smiling at the runners, he motioned them to sit.  He asked Tex to bring the hurt boy to him.  Muttering to himself, the placed his hand on the boy's broken leg.  Watching, the runners could see the leg mend under his touch.  The boy got up and was sent happily back to his family
   Black Beard lowered Sparks to the floor in front of elderly orc.  Sparks glowed as the orc sank his energies into her.  He visibly tired and shook, his body wracked with drain as he healed Sparks.  Eventually Sparks woke up.  She was still hurt (5 boxes?), but she could stand, breath, live.  It had been a close call, and Sparks knew it.  Sparks was greatful and offered to help the Ork community anyway possible. 

The old orc tiredly introduced himself as Bronston and the community as Wilhiem Park.  He explained that the Volcanoes exploded during the Indian War had resulted in this shopping complex being sunk into the ground and covered in lava and ash.  When developers had returned, they had found it easier to pave over the shopping centre and now a row of cheap corporate condos sat above them.  The orcs had discovered the hidden complex during the horror of the Night of Rage, and had lived here, safe from the world, for the last 9 years.
Perception molds reality
Change perception and reality will follow
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4+hb+++B?UB+IE+W+sa+m-gmM--P

Black

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« Reply #3 on: <07-03-12/2129:33> »
Bronston told the runners that he and his people had been keeping an eye of them since they entered the tunnels.  His people had been watching the Aztechnology facility for some time, as more than a few members of his community had gone missing in the last few months.  The runners noticed he seem guarded about why the Azzies and not other corporations would be responsible...

Tex explained to Bronston the horrible things they had found in the contaminated Azzie research facility.... particularly the tortured orc prisoner.  Bronston and his people, a number of young, armed orcs, bristled at this news.

Bronston asked them if they were concerned with their employer.  He explained that his people had seen the 'Johnson' and his men get ambushed by the Hands of Five terrorists.  Their Mr Johnson was still alive and Bronston knew where he was being held.  He would be happy for someone to show the runners the way....

but first they could do the community a favour.  Bronston explained that he had studies Biology, trying to understand Goblinzation.  After completing his studies, he joined a small independent genetic research lab and met a woman known as Carol Owens.  She was obsessed with discovering the secret of the metagene, something which had eluded scientist since the Awakening.  Owen's believed that the gene had an astral shadow, and that unlocking it would require both magic and science working together.  Bronston's abilities lended themselves to her research and they became close friends.

However, after only a few years, the company went bankrupt and Aztechnology offered to buy the research... and the researchers.  Bronston had heard rumours of the secret research practices used by Aztechnology, but Owens refused to give up her quest.  The two parted ways, but Bronston had watched the Aztechnology facility since.

When his people went missing, he hoped that Owens' ethics had not be corrupted by her passion for her research, but the horrors described by the runners has shattered his beliefs.  Bronston explained that the retrovirus was used to alter a strand of dna in an embreyo and he could not understand why Owen would turn it into an air-born weapon.

He had to find the truth and protect his people.  Bronston asked the runners to break into another part of the Aztechnology facility, rescue any captured prisoners and find Dr Carol Owens and bring her to him.

The runners readily agreed.  Before they left, the team made a flammable explosive and hooked the sample of the virus to it.  They asked Bronston to destroy the virus if anything happened to them.
 Bronston provided a guide, a young Mexican orc, Rahul, who insisted on only talking to Tex and calling her ‘chika’.  Tex appeared unimpressed.
 Tex called her contact at the Star and asked about the shoot out at the Tacoma docks.  While it was not in the Detective in the area, he had heard that Aztechnology was in the process of conducting a military grade operation in the area.  Lone Star had advised all officers to stand down in the area while negotiations continued between senior management.  Off the record, Lone Star was pissed, but they couldn’t do anything about it.
The orc guided the runners through sewers, the team noticed a difference from their first experience. These sewer tunnels were dry and warm, older and musky, not foul and damp.  Small critters still scurried around, but it felt… safer.  The guide explained that this was part of the ‘old’ sewers which were replaced when Tacoma was rebuilt.  The local chemical factories pumped their toxic waste in to newer sewer, while this one was no longer connected to drains.  The Orc Underground had done some work to maintain them and ensure that any remaining connections to the surface were blocker or concealed.
 The team arrived at their destination… a brick wall. Sparks once again blew a chunk of the wall away with her metal fury powers, and then the team dug a short tunnel to the plastisteel wall.  They used the last of the blow torches’ fuel to cut through the wall. It was slower going this time, but the team had been going hard since the meeting at the Sky Needle four hours ago.  Sparks in particular was still very hurt, though she insisted on going on.
 After cutting through to an air shaft, Shadowhawk hacked a power terminal and took control of the security cameras in the hallways of the complex.  He also gained access to the maglocks in the facility.  There weren’t many, most rooms had physical locks, only the most secured rooms had magnetic locks.  He also accessed several security files which indicated that a Sanchez, an efficiency expert and his security team had been flown into the complex to deal with an issue between Dr Carol Owens and Dr Perkins.  Shadowhawk recognised Dr Perkins as the mad scientist they had left in the infected research lab.  Apparently Sanchez was an elite from Tenochtitlan and was in command of the security at the facility during his stay.  The security reports noted that a biohazard breach had been detected in Alpha section and the entire underground facility had gone into immediate lock down.  Dr Perkins, early in the drama, had accused Dr Owens of triggering the breach due to her dislike for his authorized and condoned research practices.  Sanchez had ordered that Dr Owens be detained while he investigated the possibility.
 A side note indicated that security was magically monitoring the Alpha sector for research purposes, to study the effects of the outbreak and whether it produced viable mutations.
 While Shadowhawk stayed inside the shaft, Black Beard slowly crawled down the shaft to a nearby room.  Black Beard and Tex positioned themselves above the air shaft.  Inside were the sleeping quarters of four guards.  The team quickly took the guards out (most were asleep anyway.
 When a guard approached the room outside, they let him and then Black Beard smashed his skull with one punch. Ouch!
 Black Beard, Tex and Sparks made their way through the facility.  They heard dogs in one closed office, but they kept moving.  When more guards approached from around the corner (Shadowhawk maintained watch over the corridor while control the feed to the actual security centre), they ducked into another office.
 However, this office, beautifully appointed, contained Sanchez himself, an elite Aztech Security bodyguard, and a lovely red haired woman.  Blackbeard charged the bodyguard, smashing him into the wall.  The guard drew his handgun despite the onslaught, but he was too badly stunned to aim and shot *BANG* *BANG*  twice into the floor.  One more punch and the guard was down forever. 
 As the red head stood, Tex shot her twice with her taser.  The red head was down (was she a mage or just a secretary...)
 Sanchez stood and shot Black Beard twice in the back from 2 meters away.  The large troll barely noticed.  Sparks entered the room and incapacitated Sanchez with her Bliss spell.
 
As the team secured the room, two guards knocked on the door to check if Sanchez was ok, given that they had heard the gunshots.  The team ambushed the guards and quickly took them down.
 The team knew that time was now short.  The guards had micro radio transceivers which linked to a guard station.  It was likely that the guards were moments away from realizing that someone had breach yet another secured facility.  With the massive Aztechnology Research Park directly above them, hundreds of guards, mages, and spirits, the team needed to act quickly.
 Shadowhawk asked Black Beard to kill the red head woman, a hermetic mage, which he did.  They decided not to kill Sanchez, suspecting that Aztechnology’s vengeance would be more determined if they killed a senior executive.
 The team quickly continued on, with Black Beard using a splash grenade to partially block an bank of elevators.
 The team arrived at the maglocked security station.  Shadowhawk opened the door and the team attacked.  Two security guards and a mage dressed in black waited inside.  The battle was over in moments, but not before Black Beard was hit with a power blast of mental energies.
 Opening the cells, the team found a family of orcs, scared out of their minds.  In a different cell, they found Carol Owens...
 Shadowhawk had called for backup earlier, and he got a signal that allies where close.  With Spiders starting to appear in the network, Shadowhawk shut down the matrix for the facility...
 Our heroes are deep inside a large Aztechnology research facility.  With them was an orc woman and 3 young children, and also Dr Owens.  They will now need to escape before the megacorp’s security forces, including its magical resources.  Will they escape, will help arrive in time?

Perception molds reality
Change perception and reality will follow
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4+hb+++B?UB+IE+W+sa+m-gmM--P

Black

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« Reply #4 on: <07-03-12/2132:44> »
Wow! Big game last Friday night.  Very much a case of full on combat the entire game.  And a very lethal game.  Air-On-Fire came close to dying, and then Chang was almost killed (not for the first time either, poor guy)... But before I summarise the last game, let us spend a moment to remember a fallen runner.
 
Sparks
 
They say that shadowrunners have a short life expectancy.  The job involves taking high risk jobs, running against the megacorporations, terrorists, the government and worse... things.  It’s a life with high reward, high excitement and high risk.
 
Our runners have completed 12 runs in the course of three to four months.  Some runs have been quick and easy, some like the Mercurial job and the Denver run, have been near epic.  And on their last run, they finally had a casualty, Sparks.
 
Sparks had only just taken up the biz.  An exceptional college student with abilities far beyond that of most seasoned mages, Spark’s had taken to the running life style in order to escape her wild past.  The daughter of a high ranking Lone Star official, running was a way for her to rebel against authority, to seek her freedom and independence from the stifling corporate world of her family.
 
Sparks was sometimes seen as irresponsible, irreverent to the job and its risks... perhaps a tad more ruthless then most.  It was only when faced with death did she show a softer side.  Mere hours before her last breath, Sparks had decided to dedicate herself to helping the struggling sinless of the Tacoma Orc Underground.  And she did, her last selfless act led to the rescue of a family of orcs from corporate captivity and certain horrible deaths of metahuman lab rats.
 
Alas, this was her final run... rest in peace Sparks.
 
So, what happened, how did the team lose a runner?
 
Find out below:
 
The team had decided to help out the Tacoma Orc Underground by raiding an Aztecnology and freeing any orc prisoners and capturing one of the lead researchers, Dr Carol ‘The Taylor’ Owens.
Black Beard, Tex and Sparks had broken into the complex and made their way through its corridors to the security sub-centre. Along the way, the runners had taken down a number of security forces, generally silently, but towards the end, Aztechnology was certainly aware that trouble was afoot.
Previously, Shadowhawk had played the scenarios in his head and realised that this mission was dangerously beyond his current team’s ability.  He had put the call out for backup and received replies from Chang, the mystic Chinese detective, Zero, the infiltration specialist, and Air-On-Fire, the hermetic mage.  They had been given a way to trace the team without risking detection by the Aztechnology security forces and had arrived.  Zero and Air-On-Fire arrived first and made their way into the complex via the air ducts.
Sparks, not wanting to circle through the corridors again with security alert and innocents to protect, went into one of the holding cells.  Summoning her power, she unleashed a metal shard storm of mystic energy at the platisteel wall.
*SKREECHBANG*
A two metre hole was ripped into the wall and the compact dirt behind it, exposing a second plastisteel wall.  Dust and debris flooded out of the cell and into the security room.
“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Dr Owens.  Tex and Black Beard kept the orcs calm.
“The shortest point between two locations is a straight line” replied Sparks.
“Hold back”, she called through to Zero and Air-On-Fire. “This is about to get messy”
*SKREECHBANG*
Zero and Air-On-Fire duck back as a plastisteel wall exploded and shards of metal flooded a corridor in the complex.  Yep, the Azzies would know they were here now.
Zero and Air-On-Fire circled around a side corridor, checking to see if any security forces where incoming.  Sure enough, a small team, two security dogs, an azzie guard and one of the elite bodyguards were carefully making their way down a long corridor, using doorways for cover.  The two runners quickly dealt with the dogs and began exchanging gunfire with the guards.
Sparks looked at the tunnel she had created with her powers.  Two platisteel walls and the packed earth had been blasted away to form a short tunnel. Now they only had to get through the tunnel, run up a short corridor, jump into the air vents and crawl to freedom.  She was about to walk through when a fountain of flame. The flame shaped itself and took the form a large feathered humanoid figure with a hawks head.  It screeched at Sparks. 
Sparks was shocked.  Here, in the real world, was the thing that had near killed her in the Astral only a few hours earlier.  She backed away from the living flame as it approached her.  Black Beard, sensing that she was in trouble, ran between her and the powerful fire elemental.  The large combat troll threw one of his infamous knock-out punches at the living flame… and the creature caught the punch in a clawed hand.  Black Beard could feel the heat through his gloves and tried to back away, but the creature engulfed him.    Struggling, the large troll began to burn.  Sparks attempted to aid him, but the spirit proved too powerful.  Tex moved the civilians back, remembering that the troll has a number of high explosive grenades on his belt...
Hearing over the commlink that Sparks and the rescue team was in trouble, Air-On-Fire pulled out a warp grenade. He bounced it down the corridor towards the guards and then grabbed Zero and pulled away from the combat.  The tight corridor soon filled with the mind-altering chemicals.  Confident that Zero could manage the hallucinating guards, Air-On-Fire circled back towards the tunnel Sparks had created, meeting up with Shadowhawk on the way.
The two mages stepped into the shrapnel filled corridor and saw the troll being consumed by the living flames of the elemental.  Air-On-Fire began to unbind the creature from the material plan and force it back to its on reality.    The creature roared as it felt its grip on the real world loosen.  Turning back towards the two mages, it dropped the still burning troll to the ground. 
Screeching, the firebird launched an ankh shaped fireball at Air-On-Fire.  The burning white symbol flew by Shadowhawk and solidly impacted the hermetic mage.  Air-On-Fire went up in flames, as if he had been torched by napalm.  His screams echoed through the complex as he fell to the ground.
Shadowhawk and Sparks finally drove the elemental back to its home plane.  Sparks, thinking quickly, grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and sprinted to the burning Air-On-Fire.  The mage focused his will, is imminent death helping to clear his mind of the incredible anguish of burning alive.  The flames burnt white and blue, so intense was their heat.  While Sparks dosed him in chemical foam, Air-On-Fire began to attempt to heal himself of the burns while still on fire.  He succeeded, fending off his death through sheer willpower.  With the flames finally extinguished, the badly burned mage lay breathing hard on the warm metal floor.
Black Beard eventually put himself out, his burns much less impressive.  His beard would take some regrowing...
Meanwhile, Zero had been exchanging gunfire with the drugged guards.  He had taken one of them down, but had been given a flesh wound in return.  Sparks arrived and knocked out the last guard with a stun blast.
Gathering the escaping prisoners, the team left the facility as they heard more guards blasting out of the blocked elevator.
Meeting Chang in the sewers, the team headed back Wilhem Park, the Tacoma Orc Underground.  When they arrived to the buried shopping complex, Dr Owens began to realise that the team was not working for a rival corporation.
Bronston, the orc ‘father’ of Wilhem Park, was less than happy to see his old friend Dr Carol Owens when she was taken to see him in his bookshop home. Broston worked himself into a fury over her betrayal of their shared dreams and ideals.  Dr Owens had lost herself to academic pursuit without care of the consequences and his people had paid a terrible price.  Dr Owens defended herself, referring to a ‘greater good’, but the horrors of the Alpha Sector darkened her vague notions of a brighter future.  Shadowhawk stepped up and pointed out some data which suggested that Dr Owens had been opposed to the experimentation of orc subjects.  When Dr Owens begged to be allowed to continue her research, Bronston was less than impressed.  At Shadowhawk’s suggestion, Dr Owen was sentenced to community service at Wilhem Park.  No longer would her research be separated from the realities of the world, instead she would learn to help and care for people of the community as a real doctor.  The lives lost to Aztechnology would be redeemed through lives saved as a medical doctor.
Bronston, true to his word, thanked the runners and gave them a guide to take them to the location that the Alamos 20K terrorist had taken their employer.  Medical attention was given to Air-On-Fire, who was mostly recovered from the horrible injuries he had sustained.  Prompt first aid and his own magical healing had taken some off the edge of his wounds. 
The team had a tough night, with Sparks, Air-On-Fire, Zero and Black Beard all injured.  In order to ensure that no pursuit endangered the community, Black Bear and Tex decided to stay behind.
Leaving slightly before dawn, the rest of the team travelled to the edge of the Puyallup Barrens.  The surrounding area was ruined buildings and abandoned lots.  Before them were a series of adjoining one level flats, obviously originally for low income earners, now, people who aspire to clerk at a Stuffer Shack.
 
 
The building had no windows, just a front door and a rear patio area.  It looked unoccupied, but the runners suspected otherwise.  Lying down in the street, both Chang and Air-On-Fire flickered into the astral plan.  Flying through the walls of the building, the ghost-like runners examined the auras of the people inside the building.  Three figures in the main area included an unconscious man, an excited figure and one filled with calm and confidence.  In the two side rooms of the small unit, the astral mages found six more figures, all eager and ready for action.
Returning to their bodies, the team discussed the mages’ discoveries.  They guessed that the unconscious figure was their Mr Johnson, that the calm figure was the leader of the terrorist cell and that the men in the other rooms were the grunts.
Chang summoned his ancestral spirit, a humble spirit of man.  The ancient Chinese warrior bought with him a bag of healing herbs (Healing Spell) and an iron staff (Stun Bolt).  Shadowhawk summoned a powerful fierier dragon spirit, while Air-On-Fire attempt to bring forth a Water Elemental.  However, the spirit refused to come, perhaps put off by the smell of fire around Air-On-Fire.  Instead, focusing on his heat of his burns, Air-On-Fire bought forth a heat wave elemental.  The Team was ready.
Zero, in his chameleon suit, climbed over the building and made his way to the rear door.  He quickly unlocked the door and prepared to enter if he needed to.
Sparks walked upto the door and knocked.  A voice inside invited her in.  Entering, she found herself facing a business man, the driver from the meet with Mr Johnson, and she saw the white suited Mr Johnson himself tied to a chair.  Sparks was invited to sit at the table, with the nervous driver standing in a corner to give her a chair to sit on.
The man introduced himself as Martin Honniker, a local business man who wished to make a bargain with the runners.  He apologised for any misunderstandings at the docks and tried to bargain a deal.  Shadowhawk, sensing an opportunity, masked himself as a ‘generic human’ (because to the elf, all humans seemed the same...) and entered the house.  Shadowhawk pushed the Mr Johnson of his chair and onto the ground, taking the seat.  Shadowhawk tried to appear even more racist that he felt the terrorist were, but found Martin Honniker to be nonplussed by his strategy.  Meanwhile, Sparks offered a toast for a potential alliance, finding some old plastic cups and taking some rusty brown water from the old sink in the kitchen area.   She secretly used her magic to spike the drink.
Sparks offered a drink to Martin, but he refused, too busy mentioning the charities that he supported.  Instead she gave it to the treacherous driver. Drinking it, the intense alcohol of the drink knocked him out immediately. Martin began to react; the Shadowhawk and Sparks took him out quickly. Working fast, they cuffed the driver and Martin. Chang and Air-On-Fire made it to the front door, with the hermetic mage summoning a mystical wall between the main living area and the corridor leading to the terrorist grunts. He also gifted control of his fire elemental to Zero.
The grunts exploded from the side rooms, only to come face to face with Air-On-Fire’s mystical barrier.  One of the grunts unleashed a stream of bullets from his machine pistol at the barrier.  Despite its strength, the bullets shattered the barrier and Air-On-Fire and Chang needed to dodge back out the front door to avoid being hit.  Zero sent the shimmering heat wave elemental into the corridor, forcing the grunts to dodge backwards from its intense heat.  Shadowhawk sent his dragon made of living fire to the opposite side of the corridor.  Trapped between the two fire elementals, the terrorist began to die painful burning deaths.
Outside, on the streets of the slum, two black sedans swung around the corner, mounted the curb and braked hard in front of the tenement.  At the same time, a huge powerful fire elemental appeared in front of Chang and Air-On-Fire.
A large, heavily armoured figure leant out a door of the first sedan, he was holding a large auto cannon. Firing, the shell punched a football-sized hole in the wall an inch away from Air-On-Fire’s head.  A second attacker, dressed in full combat armour fired his large Predator handgun at Chang.  The large round knocked the Chinese mage backwards into the wall of the building.  A dreadlocked thug got out of the car got out of the first car and pointed his fingers at Chang, as if he was shooting him.
“BANG!”, dreadlock shouted.  Chang gasped in pain as the mana bolt pieced his counter spells and filled his lungs with blood.  Crying for aid, Chang’s ancestor spirit rushed to his side and began to administer healing.
The team realised they were in some serious trouble.
Dodging the raging enemy fire elemental, Air-On-Fire took out the dreadlock mage. However, enemy elemental was banished, suggesting that the second car contained the mage controlling the spirit.
Zero raced across the roof of the building and fired a long burst into auto cannon wielding enemy.
Sparks, sensing an opportunity, grabbed the second car in a telekinetic grip and rose in into the air before slamming it down into first car. This devastator assault scattered the attackers.  The second car lay upside down on the crushed first car.  Three armoured troopers rolled out of the second car, but the fourth passenger remained trapped inside the wreckage.
The display of mystic power had not gone unnoticed, and the incredibly powerful enemy fire elemental ripped through the front door and confronted Sparks.  Gripping her head in is large hand, its heat flowed into the young girl and reduced her body to a burnt shell in flash of light.  Arc, standing nearby when the girl died, roared in anger and grabbed the second car.  There was only one way to defeat this primal force, and that was to kill its summoner.
Throwing his hand in the air in a dramatic sweep, the car spun more than sixty meters straight up.  The car disappeared into the cloudy night sky.
The mage inside managed to centre himself despite the spinning of the car.  Throwing a powerbolt, he blew one of the doors of the car.  Leaping out, his foot caught on something in the car and he was unable to escape.  He called his fire elemental to aid him in his escape, and the raging inferno flew into the sky.
Meanwhile, Shadowhawk took mental control of the grunts outside the house.  The two senior officers resisted his mental compulsion, but the other grunts, included the wounded warrior with the auto cannon succumbed to his dark influence.  The auto cannon wielding soldier suddenly swung his weapon at his Captain and fired almost point blank into his chest.  The Captain flew back several meters as the shell crushed his chest.  The other soldiers fired their submachine guns at the lieutenant who also fell to the sudden intense fire at close range
Air-On-Fire, his control on the car still complete, let the vehicle drop towards the ground.  Having watched Sparks die, Shadowhawk commanded his fire dragon to unleash the same fate on enemy mage.  Even as the car plummeted to the ground, the enemy’s spirit desperately trying to free its master, Shadowhawks own fire dragon entered the vehicle and exploded into a ball of fire.  The mage screamed in agony even as the falling car impacted with other already crushed vehicle.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM*
The explosion caused by the falling car hitting the other vehicle was immense. The remaining mind controlled attackers were killed in the explosion which shook the nearby house.  Inside, the last terrorist died, burnt by the elemental under Zero’s control.  The house stank of charred flesh, the corridor was lit up with still-burning bodies.
The Mr Johnson, now awake thanks the Chang’s ancestor spirits’ healing, thanked the runners for his rescue and requested that they hand over the virus sample and the data.  Shadowhawk starred at him for a few seconds and then began to walk away.  He had no intention of giving this weapon to another corporation, not after what he and the team had to go through tonight.  Angry, the Johnson told them to leave, but to at least give him the traitor driver.  As the runners left the house, tired and drained from their losses, they heard the short rattle of gunfire.  The traitor, at least, would not escape punishment.
The runners did take Martin, the terrorist leader, with them.  Perhaps, Shadowhawk thought, they could salvage something from the night.
 
Rewards:
-          Bronston as a contact.  Connection 3, Loyalty 4.
-          60,000 nuyen (but you did lose a van, and all the ammo expended...)
-          Bracelet (Force 3 Power Focus)
-          Ruby Ring (Force 2 Combat Spellcasting Focus)
-          1 notoriety (let down the Johnson)
Perception molds reality
Change perception and reality will follow
SR1+SR2+SR3++SR4+hb+++B?UB+IE+W+sa+m-gmM--P