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Leevizer

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« on: <04-30-15/0955:09> »
AKA The amazing adventures of Captain Chemoterapy!

I know that reading about the exploits of roleplaying groups can be fun at times, so I decided to give it a shot in a slightly fourth-wall-breaking tone, commenting on the fun stuff that happened and what we discussed IC and OOC whilst trying to tell you about the actual story of what happened on the run. I'm writing this both for the sake of the players who were involved and anyone of you who will be interested in reading this. I apologize in advance if some jokes are unfunny, they were a riot when they occurred. I'll start  off by telling you off our latest adventure, which happened last wednesday. (Or Thursday, 6.5.2077, depending on how you want to look at it). In this particular case, I'm playing Shade, the street Samurai.

So, without further ado...

Chapter 1: The Death Dealers Demise

”Mruh” said Istaqa to nobody in particular, the native American ork waking up in his cruddy, small apartment in Redmond. The time was 9 am and it was his third week living off the curb, so that was a definite improvement to the quality of his lifestyle. Four days earlier, Istaqa had faced off with a toxic shaman and had gotten a nearly deadly dose of radiation which he had healed with four days of rest. His commlink had a light blinking, indicating that he had received a message. Scratching his scalp, he checked the message out. It was from Dan ”Steely”, his fixer. The message was brief, as was common of him.

>>Job

>>Istaqa, you have a meet at the ”Nearly deadly hangover” bar in Tacoma. I've included the address. Be there at 17:00. Talk to the bartender, using these exact words. ”I was asked here to meet D.E.”

>>Don't get killed

>>Dan

Unbeknownst to Istaqa, five other Runners had received the same message. He sat up and went to do his routines, checking the bus schedule, deciding to be there at approximately 16:30 and scout the place a little.

At 16:30 in the bar, a Shadowrunner, a nobody to the scene, walked into the bar. He looked around, spotting the few sleeping dwarves (as it would be physically impossible of a dwarf to pass out from drinking too much alcohol, as fiction has proved) and a few dockyard workers who were clearly trying to get a nearly deadly hangover. The bar was a dump, a typical dock hangout. The muscular Ork behind the bar wasn't paying attention to him as he timidly walked and sat at the bar, the pneumatic jacks in his cyberlegs hissing slightly as he did so.

At nearly the same point, Taxi strode in. The plucky dwarf rigger looked around, spotting the same things as the other Shadowrunner had and sat at an empty table to wait. He still had half an hour to go, after all. Outside of the bar Shade, a street samurai, stopped his shining red Suzuki just like they  did in that 80's trid, Akira, took off her cat-eared helmet and strode in confidently, spotted the waving Taxi and sat at his table, giving him a small nod of acknowledgment as she sat at attention, not engaging in small talk with her... Friend, she believed the term to be. Taxi did provide her with the information that the bartender had a shotgun behind the bar, which would come in useful if there'd be a fight. Unlikely, but still.

German, a Troll Decker, was excited! Oh boy, another job! He thought to himself as he walked in to the bar, his suit making him stand out even more as he straightened out his tie. His cyberhand went unnoticed by the patrons of the bar, but his horns shone slightly as he had polished them earlier today to get that professional look for himself. He spotted the runner he had worked with on his last job and walked to his table, giving a polite greeting to the cold woman also sitting at the table, which she didn't acknowledge. He settled in as comfortably as he could and looked at the AR projection rising from his hand, settling to surf the Matrix until the time would come to go meet Mr. Johnson.

At this moment, a gaudy human, called Bones, strode in to the bar. He was also wearing an armored suit as he walked over to his companions, the druid sitting down and shouting for the barkeep to bring a round of his cheapest poison for him and his friends! The others gladly accepted this offering, whilst Shade refused, citing that ”she didn't have filters strong enough to withstand this”. Her glass was downed by someone else promptly. As it was becoming apparent that this was going to feature the usual crew, alongside this new Troll, Shade turned to Bones and opened her mouth for the second time, stating in a dull monotone: ”If you do that, I am going to end you.”. What she meant with ”that”, she didn't state.

The unnamed Shadowrunner was finally paid attention to by the bartender as he came back from getting the table of misfits their round and asked ”So what'll it be, Bub?” to which the runner replied. ”Oh, I'm not sure. What do people usually drink around here?”. He was promptly served a glass of synthbeer, the cost of which fell under his lifestyle costs. He kept sitting at the bar, his cyberears tuned in to listen to the conversation of the group.

Istaqa got out of the bus and walked a few blocks to his destination. Thankfully he had set out to be early, otherwise he'd be late by now. As he stepped into the bar it was obvious that the crowded table full of misfits was meant for him. He sat down and was greeted by Bones. ”Greetings my brother from my another mother!” he said in broken Or'zet, followed by a fit of laughter from him. It didn't last long though as Shade punched him, which Bones reacted to by declaring full defense and nearly knocking the table over as he dodged. Istaqa responded with ”Mruh”. It was the second syllable he had said today. A beer was brought to him as well, and they sat the rest of the hour away, nursing their drinks and talking about what they had been up to the past few days. During the discussion, German told Shade that he was an ”I.T specialist”, as she had not met him before.

Time came, and the group rose up in unison, the posse walking over to the bartender. Shade took point and talked in a melodic monotone. ”We were asked here to meet D.E.” to which the bartender replied with an ”uh-huh.” and pointed at a reinforced door, which somehow nobody had seen there on the opposite wall earlier. At this point the new Shadowrunner stood up too, made his way to the group and said ”uh, I'm here to meet D.E, too”. The group looked at the newcomer and approved of him joining them. German looked at the doorand gave a tip of his invisible fedora, ”ladies first.”

Shade, emotionless as ever, stated ”I will end you.” before she walked through the door, revealing a staircase to the second floor, where another reinforced door was waiting, alongside a security camera. As she began her ascension, she told the Troll decker to keep a lookout via the security cameras, if he indeed was an ”I.T Specialist”. German set to his task confidently via AR whilst walking up the stairs. He cursed as he failed to penetrate the host of the bar, quickly logging out and hoping nobody would bring this up later.

On the second floor, the place was looking much classier, with suited visitors dining and a grand total of 15 guards wearing long coats, doing a poor job at hiding their weapons under them. They bore the insignia of the ”Death Dealers” weapon smuggler group, which most of the group had encountered earlier. Shade smelled a trap. A lone man, clad in an expensive-looking suit, beckoned the group over to sit. He was giving off a very Mr. Johnsonesque vibe so the group walked over and took their respective seats.

”Greetings. My name is D. Emise. You have caused us a lot of trouble.” he spoke as the group sat down. This was met by a mixed reaction.

German and the new runner were confused, but Bones told them that ”He's talking about the time we blew up their warehouse”. Taxi replied by stating that ”Your guards caused us a lot of trouble, too!” and Istaqa told the man that he had no idea what he was talking about.

Feeling that things were going off-track, Shade replied, her voice still a practiced monotone. ”What my companions mean to say is that we weren't there, and are only referring to what they have heard from the news or others. Now, are we going to discuss what happened then, or are we going to do business?”

D.Emise replied. ”We're going to talk business, but your previous antics have been a-” he was interrupted again as Shade, without changing her posture or expression, continued. ”If you wish to fight about this, I'm willing to do that. If not, we can talk business, Mr. Johnson.”

D.Emise gave a huff and stated that he preferred to be called D.Emise. Shade told Mr. Johnson that calling him by name would be unprofessional, and she was a professional. German made a joke about calling him just ”D”, but the sexual innuendo went unnoticed by both.

Mr. Johnson finally got down to business. ”Due to what happened earlier at our warehouse, two of our trusted lieutenants, a pair of adepts named DeathStrike and DeathShot, have gone berserk and slaughtered people on both high-end residential districts and the barrens. The cops sent after them have also met their demise. They have on their commlinks information that we wish retrieved. If that proves impossible to do, proof of the destruction of their commlinks will do. We are willing to pay 24 thousand nuyen for a working commlink or 12 thousand for the destruction of one.” Shade sent a commlink message to the group, stating that the job wasn't about getting the info, it was about getting it before the gangs, military, or corporations would get it as these two were clearly being hunted down.

Mr. Johnson also underestimated the group and stated that he didn't believe their decker (who was straightening his tie as Bones mentioned him, slapping him on the lower back) would be able to retrieve the data from the commlinks, and thus the commlinks would be required. Mr. Johnson also provided them with a map in the area of the barrens where their current hideout was believed to be. Much to the groups surprise, he also sent them a catalog of their wares, claiming to be able to ”get them anything under rating 20F” in 12 hours or less. Taxi commented on his weirdly lenient attitude to forget and forgive them, to which he replied that ”what can I say, I'm a businessman.”. Most of the group set to searching the catalog for ammunition or high-end body armors.

After making sure to call D.Emise ”Mr. Johnson” a few more times and asking the questions they felt necessary, the group left, deciding to do some checking on the area via magical and technological means before hitting them the next day. The spirit of air sent by Bones gathered information of atleast 4 adepts and 5 magicians being in the area, whilst the FlySpy sent by Taxi saw five groups of armed dudes in the area. Three groups of Rusty Stilettos, one group of Ancients about to ambush another one and a fifth group which they couldn't recognize. Shade, sharing a relationship of ”Your gangers won't bother me, and I won't spray their brains on the sidewalk” with the Rusty Stilettos boss, Zog, gave him a call to give his boys a heads-up on the ambush and to let him know she'd be in the area tomorrow, so the gangers should hold their fire. The gang boss gave her his thanks, and asked how his boys would recognize her? Shade told him that if they don't know her by now, it'll be their fault. She lived in the middle of their territory, after all.

Come next morning, Bones summoned a powerful spirit of Earth to aid him if there would be a fight whilst Taxi picked up most of the crew as Istaqa was still lacking a car and the rest thought it'd be better to sit in his armored van. They put on their full combat gear this time, truly a force to be reckoned with. The unnamed Runner came with them, riding on his own Yamaha Growler as the rest of the group still wondered what his name was.

They arrived at the scene, Taxi's FlySpys doing recon duty as they saw a troll running from an alley and falling flat on his face, dying from the multiple bullet wounds on his back. Sending a Spy to the alley, they learned that there was a group of dead Trolls, a mysterious, black-clad warrior asking something from a dying Ork whilst four members of the Shadow Organization stood watch. After quickly explaining to German and the newcomer that the Shadows were a bunch of extremely advanced drones under the control of someone they had encountered before, Shade ran out of the van, ordering Istaqa and the newcomer to follow her. Istaqa followed him at a comfortable jogging pace and drew three throwing knives, the newcomer drawing his Claymore and rushing after her whilst she readied her Ares Alpha. Taxi set a roto-drone free from it's harness, flying to help the rest of the fighters group.

Upon arriving to the corner and being spotted, one of the Shadows fired suppressive fire at the mouth of the alley. Shade dove to the ground to dodge and fire a couple of shots off, missing the drone due to it's advanced evasion algorhithms whilst the newcomer stood there and got shot. Shrugging off the bullets, he decided to rush him, striking him with the claymore without a care of the bullets speeding past him, striking a deep wound into it's metallic frame. Two of the drones fled the scene as a third fired a smoke grenade at it's friend, covering them in smoke. Thankfully German was on the ball, marking the drones for the group on their AR displays to mitigate the cover provided by the smoke for the members of the group who lacked thermal vision. Istaqa threw his knives, making short work of one of the drone Claymore had hit, the other falling soon, the group unharmed. The newcomer runner had also thus been christened by the group, and would be referred to as Claymore by them from now on. They also considered Highlander, but didn't like the reference as much.

After the smoke dissipated, Shade was staring down at the wounded Ork who was breathing painfully, whilst Bones took a medkit from the van to patch him up some for questioning. The group walked up to him before Shade, once again, took care of the talking.

”Excuse me good sir, but who-” she paused for a moment as if to think, before changing her etiquette completely, even changing her posture slightly before spitting the next words out. ”A'ight, Who the fuck are you, Drekhead?”

”The names Sam.”

”A'ight, Sam. The Drek are you getting shot over here for?”

”Well we was just looking around for these two adepts, when these guys start shooting at us and then demand to know where they wuz!”

Shade took a moment to collect herself, discussing via AR messages with the crew WHY these guys would shoot each other up as they are all looking for the same target, but then continued.

”And where're these adepts, Sam?” she asked, showing the map they had received to which he replied by pointing out an area.

”Somewhere 'round here, we think.”. He said.

”And why in blazes are you hunting for them, Drekhead? They're murderers!”

(To understand the next part, one must know that our GM used the english word ”Wanted” in the midst of a finnish sentence. He pronounced it as ”Vanteet”, which means ”rims”, as in, the things on a car. The misunderstanding was quickly set straight, but we carried on as if we were talking about rims, not a bounty.)

”Cuz there's a bounty on 'em. 32 thou' from the girl and 40 thou' from the guy!” to which the universal response was a lot of widening eyes. Shade even blinked once for the first time today as Sam continued. ”Yeah, these guys have rims!” to which the group responded by beginning to laugh, wondering why the rims would be so expensive, and why anyone would be willing to pay so much for them. It made sense for Zog to want the rims, though. They'd propably look wicked sick on his Harley-Davidson. Why the police or others would care, they had no idea. However what did matter was that if these rims were worth a lot of Nuyen, and thus they wanted to get them.

Their journey continued towards the area specified by the ganger, whom they told to get out before he'd get shot. Upon nearing the area, a person clad in a brown overcoat and missing an arm stumbled out, pleading for help. Taxi responded by driving his van over him, killing him instantly as they stopped at the mouth of the alley where he had come from, stopping to look at the meat soup in the alley, atleast five people chopped up and shot to pieces. The group came to the realization that this is propably the place and got out, readying themselves to assault the building. Shade, again being the main combatant decided to take point, sneaking into the building after Taxi had sent a Kanmushi microdrone inside and found the abandoned building to be empty save for a suspiciously high-tech bioscanner attached to one of the walls. As she snuck in a wall opened up, their two targets coming out, having been alerted by an unseen sensor, which the GM told the group had existed. Shade told the group to ”wait for her signal” as she raised her assault rifle, waiting for them to come around the corner to ambush them. It was at this point that a Wraith decided to manifest in front of her, which prompted her into action faster than she expected.

She rushed past the half-manifested spirit towards the corner behind which he found the sword-wielding male. She rushed at him, shooting full-auto and hitting him easily at such a distance. The swordsman tried to hit him but missed, followed by his sister, shouting ”Big Bro!”, trying to bring Shade down, but she dodged the bullet(s) quite literally.

The rest of the group were waiting outside, wondering if Shade would actually give them a signal, before Istaqa had an idea! Maybe the shooting WAS the signal? This prompted the group into action as Claymore rushed in, swinging his sword at the spirit heroically and missing, Istaqa doing the same with a tomahawk, followed by Bones' assault rifle, Taxi's sniper and his drones assault rifles, all missing the shadowy spirit. The earth elemental, who had also been made manifest was given the order to ”kill all human adepts in the building” to which it responded by engulfing the sword-wielding adept, nearly crushing him as it rose into the air. The woman tried to bring it down with a burst from her assault rifle, harming the spirit but not enough to bring it down, leaving the adept to die inside of it. Bones claimed the spirit rose ”above the air” which would mean it'd be in space, to which the others quickly responded in AR.

>Wat
>It's right there, idiot.
>I think he meant ”in the air”
>haha lol spirits in space j/k

The shadow spirit responded to the onslaught on itself by making Claymore gaze into the face of Fear itself, the augmented Street Knight nearly pissing his pants, standing his ground for about 0.7 seconds before bounding out of the building, his augmented legs meaning he'd propably be in Tacoma by the time the fight would be over. The rest of the crew focused their fire, determined to bring the magical menace down, but so far it had dodged all of their attacks.

(Sadly, we ran out of time and couldn't continue further than that, so I cannot tell you the conclusion to this epic adventure. If you guys want to, though, I can tell you all about it when we do play! I can also tell you WHY Istaqa is called Captain Chemotherapy in more detail, and write about our future exploits. Was this worth a reading? Did it interest you? Give me comments and feedback, please! I'd be more than willing to continue writing if I knew I'd have an interested audience!)
« Last Edit: <04-30-15/1015:04> by Leevizer »

Jayde Moon

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« Reply #1 on: <05-01-15/1416:31> »
I encourage you to continue writing, don't take a lack of commentary from the peanut gallery as a discouragement.

If you are looking for critiques, you can ask for those outright, but prepare to thicken your skin, the best critiques should rip you apart, even if your writing is amazing.

If you are just writing for fun and to keep a record, then keep writing!  I guarantee you'll have a few regular readers :)
That's just like... your opinion, man.

Vibral

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« Reply #2 on: <05-01-15/1602:02> »
I'm looking forward to reading the next sessions adventures. Quite entertaining.

Leevizer

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« Reply #3 on: <05-22-15/1534:53> »
(I should have done this when I still had it fresh in my mind... Also, it seems that I cannot into English anymore, sorry for the typos.)

Chapter 1.5: Death Dealers's Demise: Part 2.

The shadow spirit, realizing that it's ”friends”, for a lack of better word were in trouble, decided to help them out. The Spirit moved, flowing softly through the air as it approached the massive, golem-like form of the Earth Elemental. A moment passed as they stared at each other, the Earth Elemental learning the new concept of Fear. It dropped the halfway-crushed body of the adept, rushing outside for safety from the magical menace, bringing the nearest wall down as it didn't bother looking for a door.

The group voiced their concerns as one at the structural integrity of the building but decided to keep fighting instead of escape. It didn't take long for the their concetrated efforts to bring down the assault rifle wielding woman, dying as bullet after bullet was fired at her until she could dodge no more, the air full of gunpowder and lead. Enraged, her brother tried to avenge him but it was for naught, the Shadowrunners proving to be too much of a challenge.

The Shadow Spirit, now alone, realized it'd need a new ally. Looking at the targets in the room, it reached out a magical tendril to Istaqa, poisoning his mind, sending the Ork to a berserk Rage with only one thought in his mind... Kill The Rigger. As the hulking metahuman drew his tomahawks, the groups AR chat was full of conflicting ideas and text. Shade was asked to dispatch of the Ork, but she knew that subduing him without gravely wounding her or him in the process would be impossible for her, given the current situation. Taxi considered escape but knew Istaqa would be too fast for him and run him down. Claymore was still running towards Tacoma and German, even though he was a troll, didn't even want to try and subdue the Adept. Finally the task fell down to Bones, the rest of the group hoping that his banishing the spirit would aid Istaqa as well.

However Istaqa was faster, throwing his weapons. He had honed and practiced his skills earlier, giving him the ability of throwing multiple throwing weapons with perfect accuracy. This resulted in the throwing axes burying themselves into Taxi's shoulders. The Dwarf cursed as they buried into him through his armour but gritted his teeth, firing a shot past his friend at the spirit, the Spirit seemingly dodging around the bullet.

But Bones had prepared himself now, reaching into the Astral planes to command the Shadow Spirit to return back to whence it came. The Spirit tried resisting but couldn't, the druid's magical powers too great for the spirit as it vanished. Istaqa, already reaching for another axe to brain the Dwarf with realized what he was doing and stopped, to which Taxi replied with a ”here you go”, dislodging the axes from his shoulders and handing them back, staining his jacket with blood as it spilled from the opened wounds. The group sighed in relief, Shade approaching the two corpses that had been their targets, intent on securing the commlinks and the bodies before there'd be anyone coming to investigate the noises of the combat.

BUT SUDDENLY A GROUP OF EIGHT ARMOUR-CLAD FIGURES EMERGED OUT OF THIN AIR. Two of them were crouching by the corpses, one standing right behind Taxi, two more at the windows outside. They all had their Ares Alphas trained on the Shadowrunners, armed with APDS-bullets. The final trio of them had German and Istaqa in their sights.

Istaqa looked to the left and right, watching as the AR-feed on his mask lit up again, messages from his comrades coming in. He looked to the left and right, noticing the targets. They were identical to advanced drone prototypes the group had encountered before as he reached for his Tomahawk slowly, in case the situation would devolve into a firefight...

German nearly jumped out of his pants at the sudden sight! Were shadowruns with this group always like this? Who were these masked troops and why were they here? Why did the rest of the group seem to know them. Atleast Taxi seemed to be familiar with them as he repeatedly posted ”OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, GODDAMNIT” and several other messages amongst the same lines. German could see the dwarf tightening his grip on the sniper rifle he was holding.

The situation was opened when Shade reached down calmly to search the bodies, finding one of the two commlinks they were sent to retrieve or destroy. ”STOP!” came a voice from one of the drones, to which she replied by turning to it's direction, her cybereyes spinning slightly in their sockets as they focused on the target. ”We're here to destroy these commlinks!” the drone continued. Shade almost smiled at this, lifting a commlink from the pocket of the dead adept. ”Oh.” She said, standing up and looking at the Commlink, one of the drones presenting that it had already taken the other device. ”...We are here to do the same.” she stated plainly, watching as the drone closed a fist, crushing the device to scrap metal. Shade did the same with her cyberarm. The leader of the drones nodded, being surprisingly able for a drone before all of them disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving the group rather puzzled.

German quickly reached for his cyberhand, starting a scan on the area for anything running in the Matrix, but couldn't find a single device running within a hundred meters. ”Aw, fiddlesticks!” he claimed, kicking a nearby wall, sending plaster flying as Claymore walked back in, his sword drawn. His only words were ”Hey.” as he stepped in, seeing that the group had dealt with the hostiles.

The group approached the bioscanner they had found earlier. Finding it needed a fingerprint for the scanner, Istaqa quickly severed a finger off the female adept, which they then used. A hatch popped open in the wall, revealing a keypad. German stepped up once again, hacking the code and changing it to something he'd remember as a secret door slid open in the wall. Inside was a rather small bolthole, consisting of two closet-sized rooms with beds and basic rations. Shade found an Ares Desert Strike sniper rifle which she quickly claimed, even though having little knowledge of weapons like that. Taxi didn't approve of this, but let her have her childish way. It was nice to see her show emotion, atleast. German disabled the bioware scanner but left the keypad available to use in case he'd ever need to hide somewhere.

The group, satisfied with their efforts and having given Taxi some much-needed first aid took the bodies of the adepts to Zug, leader of the Rusty Stilettos near where Shade lived for the promised bounty, which the gang boss was happy to part with. Having split the nuyen (which was more they had been promised for this job) they went again for the Nearly Deadly Hangover bar, this time striding confidently to the bartender, demanding to see Mr. D.Emise.

The bartender lifted his eyes from the glass he was cleaning and gave a shrug. ”...yeah, he told me you'd be coming and I could handle you. Do you have the 'links or proof of their destruction?” he asked, trying to appear rather casual about the whole business as Shade sent her videos of the commlinks being destroyed, having taped the event with her cybereyes. The barkeep took a look at the trideo before nodding, handing a credstick over. ”...Enjoy your payday.” he called to the group as they turned to leave in unison, having split up the money evenly with the leftover two thousand nuyen being spent on a damn huge party, which everyone in the group then attended.

...And thus ends Chapter one. I hope you enjoyed the continuation as well! Some of the details are a bit hazy, and I guess it shows. I need to take more stuff up or do these directly after the session is over... In any case, I'll be writing Chapter two soon-ish, maybe even today or later this weekend. Do comment if you want to, and yes, criticism is appreciated too.

Stay tuned for Chapter two: Turns and Taxis.
« Last Edit: <05-22-15/1844:14> by Leevizer »