Alright, I'm playing a Shaman of an unusual sort in my SR4 campaign. She's a hardliner communist, and follows a tradition based around propagandizing spirits to her cause. She has in her possession an artifact of historical significance and significance to her tradition (if not necessarily magically active). This is an issue because the Russian government wants it back, and slaughtered the main compound with the bulk of people following the tradition to try to get it.
The Russian government contacted my character in the current session after holding her bound focus for ransom. Basically saying "We can't find where you kept the bloody thing you clever SOB. So steal us something of similar power and we'll forget about it and give you your focus back." Then the team gets a call from a Russian accented Johnson who offers to have us steal a Leonardo Da Vinci mechanism of unknown purpose.
Now, I know OOCly that Leonardo the elf is Leonardo Da Vinci but I can't use that knowledge ICly. Next session begins with me contacting my mentor spirit for an official word on the tradition's stance of this job, but I want to know what you guys think.
Is it better in the long run to do the job and possibly anger my tradition and lose connection to my magical powers until I find another tradition and start over? Or the alternative is it better to piss off the team by not doing the job or destroying/hording the Da Vinci artifact before giving it to the enemies of her tradition.