Shadowrun Play > Play-by-Post

[5e IC] Sunt Venatores Venationem

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Tecumseh:
Achak spends the rest of his Jazz high feverishly searching for threats outside of the Roadmaster. He is grateful for the armored car, but also painfully aware that a zeke could mist inside JUST LIKE THAT or a blood spirit could pop up in the passenger SEAT JUST LIKE THAT! He shares his concerns with Mercer via comm, much to the latter's dismay.

Achak says a prayer of thanks that Sister Rebecca responds so well to treatment. The automated medkit quickly sets her jaw by circulating collagen and chondroblasts, which precede a rapid barrage of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. The good Sister further accelerates the healing process with her magic. She murmurs prayers in between her swollen lips. "Thank you, Raziel, for your faithful service. Please commend me to our Lord, as I will commend thee."

Achak comes down off his Jazz high. Since the Sister is not gravely injured, Achak's miseries center around his inability to drop the ork. He recounts the fight is excruciating detail, oblivious to Mercer's detachment. "Three times I hit him! Squarely! Maybe even four! He came back for more and put me on the floor!" The catchy rhyme does not catch on. He gnashes his teeth and pulls his hair and swears at himself in Or'zet until the drugs finally run their complete course, at which point he fall asleep. He wakes up with a stiff neck and his head propped against the Roadmaster's window.

He grunts and directs Mercer to his Capitol Hill apartment. He pulls his six duffel bags up the stairs to the spartan unit, dumping them unceremoniously in the corner.

"Allow me to take the first shift tonight," Sister Rebecca offers. "I will ask Saint Peter of Alcantara to watch with me."

Achak silently searches the Matrix for a clue of who Saint Peter of Alcantara is, or was, or whatever the proper tense is for Saints that were once human but who now may be summoned as readily as angels. <<@Mercer Patron saint of night watchmen.>> Not that Mercer asked.

Saint Peter of Alcantara appears dressed in a Franciscan habit. He silently sits next to Sister Rebecca, who is sitting up against a wall herself. She whispers to the spirit is Latin, who listens patiently and passively.

After taking a shower and eating a bowl of rehydrated noodles, Achak somewhat ludicrously pulls the couch in front of the hallway door to prevent it from opening. He dons his full body armor then falls asleep on the couch with his Ares Alpha and gunstock war club within easy reach. Mercer shakes his head and takes the bed.


Sister Rebecca shakes Achak awake in the early hours of the morning. They switch places, with Sister Rebecca sleeping while Achak paces around the small unit, constantly checking his magical senses for any hint of magic or nearby motion. Saint Peter of Alcantara watches him wordlessly while the Amerind swishes his club in the air, recreating the fight with the ork.


Achak can hear Mercer's breathing change, and knows the other man is awake.

"Soykaf is on," Achak says, pointing to the small, stained soykaf machine in the small nook that passes for a kitchen.

Mercer asks where Sister Rebecca is.

"She got a call from her handler," Achak explains. "She has to file another report in person. She wanted to go alone but I reminded her what happened to Stake. A car picked her up about fifteen minutes ago. I escorted her down."

Achak shivers. Perhaps it is the cold December rain drumming on the windows, or the chilly draft from under the door, or the fact that he feels naked without magical protection when vampires and blood spirits are out for him.

"We need someone to help with the case," he agrees, casting a guilty look at the battered case. He had been the one to give the order for Sister Rebecca to fire, and that had been because he couldn't drop Ponytail on his own with his Ares Crusader, even with the element of surprise. He mentally lashes himself and his incompetence.

"Someone good in a scrap too," he adds, lamenting the need for backup. His own ineffectiveness means that others will be put in harm's way. "If Grotto1 has been compromised, I have some old smuggling chummers who may be up to it."

Tecumseh:
"There's a chum I know," Achak continues. "An ork who goes by Spitfire. We did some runs together back in our smuggling days." Achak pauses to reflect on how long ago that was. He got his start in smuggling as a wet-behind-the-ears teenager in Cascade Ork. His heightened perception made him a valuable lookout and spotter, and things went from there.

"I haven't talked to him in a couple years so I don't know what he's up to now. He's the nomadic type. Lives in his van, not the best body odor, you know?" Achak wrinkles his nose at the memory, his stomach turning in advance of what he assumes his improved sense of scent will have to deal with. "The 'only-my-drones-understand-me' type."

Achak reminds himself that it has been a couple years; he knows that he has changed significantly in that time and should make allowances that Spitfire may have changed too. To give a man the benefit of the doubt was a good Christian principle.

"Or at least he was at the time; things may have changed. But he's a steely-eyed wheelman and pretty sharp." ("...for an ork," goes unsaid.) "I bet he can process this case for us and then, when it's done, provide some cover wherever we need to go next."

Achak sorts through the listings on his commlink, settling on what he's kinda sorta maybe sure is the most recent commcode he has for Spitfire. He makes the call.

<<@Spitfire Hoi, it's Achak. You in the Seattle area? I've got some easy work for you that could point toward a big payday.>>

He wonders how transparent to be. Most people - even hardened runners - would blanch if they knew that the Infected were involved, especially if the team were being specifically targeted.

<<Need some decryption done. I'm sure you can handle it. That should direct us to some lucrative targets. We could use the fire support. It'd be just like the old days, right?>> Achak gags a bit and hopes that Spitfire has started sleeping indoors sometime in the last few years, but somehow he doubts it.

FastJack:
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