Bludtoll:
So, here we are, camping out in an abandoned nuke shelter after our usual hideout got anihilated by someone our employers pissed off, when our Fixer contacts us, telling us that a Johnson is offering a rather lucrative deal. Intrigued, our little group gathers around the comm...five minutes later, Karl jumps up and starts gathering his gear.
Apparently, the Johnson figured out a backdoor in an Aztechnologies pyramid, with completely open access to their Matrix. The pay wasn't bad, but it wasn't the reason we accepted, we, and pretty much every other runner we knew, had some sort of grudge against Aztech. Be it personal, or just for being screwed over in general. Karl, for example, lost his sister to them, so none of us blamed him for being enthused at an opportunity to poke around in their network. The rest of us were just glad for an opportunity to make Aztech's day miserable.
According to the Johnson, people have started disappearing in the area. We were to find out the reason for these occurences, extract as much paydata from their network and frag Aztech over as much as possible.
At this moment, Jim and Hannah were not present, so we decided to employ the help of a few of our friends. The final team was:
Karl
Chauvette
Nubz
Helga - A surprisingly stealthy Troll Sam
Tower - The Dwarf Drone Rigger
The Driver
Our Johnson has managed to infiltrate the Blood Mage facility and open up a backdoor for us to enter. He also managed to supply some limited maps, showing a more or less clear route to the mainframe, but muddled as far as the rest of the building was conscerned. Grabbing a few antimage charms, we began working on procuring a plan. Karl was advocating for the most direct approach of going along the Johnson's route. Nubz, ever the paranoic, insisted on spending at least a week trying to find out more about the facility before getting decked by our blonde Decker, shouting "People are fraggin' dissapearing! And you want to wait!?" but, after some negotiations, we agreed on a compromise. The next three days were spent in careful preparations, buying whatever gear we might need, looking for alternate exits and planting secondary and tertiary escape methods. Finally, The Driver carefully drove us up to the looming pyramid...
Undetected, five shapes quickly exit the vehicle, quietly sprinting towards the secret entrance past disabled security systems. Opening the door up, we crawl through the cramped corridors, sending Tower's drones or Nubz' familiar forward to scout the areas ahead of us. After a few hours of nerve-wracking sneaking, we come up to the large room with a huge machine dead in the centre. Without so much as a noise, we dispose of the guards and approach the mainframe. With practiced actions, Karl unslings his Deck and begins unwinding optical cable. With a *pop* he jacks into the machine and his eyes roll upwards and fingers begin dancing across the Cyberdeck...
...after a few minutes of complete silence, save for the tapping at the keys, Karl screams out and begins thrashing on the ground. Moving quickly, Nubz rips the cable out, dragging our Decker behind some cover. As the first shots begin raining down on our position, the rest of us have already sprung into action, Chev whips out two heavy ARES Predator pistols, her augmented eyes spotting multitudes of hostiles emerging from the opposing wall (Which has turned out to be a huge door) shotgun in hands, Helga disappears behind a chugging generator as Tower grips his Ingram, sending out his two combat drones into the fray.
In the first few moments of the battle, it seemed like we were in control. Chev dropped five targets as her adrenal pump slowed the battlefield to a crawl, Helga already managed to get behind enemy lines and quietly snatched away a few battle mages, Tower's armoured drones rip into the general fray, spewing high caliber death at the goons. Summoning a great wind spirit, Nubz ducks into cover and comms The Driver that the Johnson betrayed us and we will need to pull out ASAP.
Then one of the mages gurlgled before turning inside out, a blood spawn lubbering out of the mangled mess. With a grin stretching from ear to ear, the Grand Magos steps forward, eerily calm in the bloody melee. Seeking out Chauvette, he unsheathes a decorative sword from his staff and issues her a challenge. Firing off a few shots, Chev's wired reflexes save her from a grizly death, jumping away from the charging man's path. Now, Chauvette wasn't a close combat character, so when she pulled out a short blade, she started eyeing the room for an exit.
Chauvette circles around the madman, firing off a few shots at any goon that got too close. Then they both clash, after the first few seconds it becomes apparent that she is fighting a losing battle. As her friend is barely holding on, Helga creeps up behind the Magos and points the shotgun, nearly point blank, at his head, with a grin she pulls the trigger...and her head explodes as the projectiles bounce back into her. Eyes opening wide behind her shades, the other Sam loses her footing. Moments later, the Blood Mage cleaved both her legs clean off...
With both the heavy hitters down, the goons begin swarming their position. Tower takes a few hits and one of the drones begins spewing black smoke. The Rat Shaman fires off some magic, while trying to keep Karl alive.
Standing over the fallen runner, Grand Magos begins chanting and the pool of blood under Chauvette bubbles, an ugly thing slowly rising out of the pool. Trying to focus her eyes, Chev crawls back a little, watching the Blood Spirit devour her legs, before stepping over to her. Dodging the first two attacks, Chauvette watches a smoking drone crash into the summoned spirit's mouth. Propping herself up, she fires the luckiest shot ever, stunning the spirit with a heavy slug between the eyes.
Then the mage that was about to finish her off with the sword receives a facefull of flames from our one and only, Nubz. Acting quickly, the scraggly man chants another spell, forming spirit legs under Chauvette, before throwing her the Decker. With a small salute, he blasts a small path in the crowd of enemies, shouting for her to run.
Hauling Karl across her shoulders, Chev dashes across the battlefield, failing to find the way they came in, she jumps into a maintenance tunnel, thanking Nubz for his foresight. On exit, it turns out that their escape vehicle was a smouldering wreck. Cursing every blood mage that has ever existed, Chauvette digs out one of the bikes, hidden by Nubz, Rat Totem bless his little soul, strapping the Uberdecker behind her and zooming off into the distance, the little vehicle dodges incoming enemy squads.
In the end, we both make it to the closest Doc Wagon clinic, getting Karl resuscitated and Chev a pair of shiny chrome legs. The surviving pair track down the Johnson, pulling him apart while he was still alive. I swear to whichever deity, revenge is the sweetest part of Shadowrunners. Then, we get together with Jim and Hannah. From now on, our plans have changed from "Survive and make nuyen" to "Survive and make the pyramid heads pay while making nuyen"
Seriously though, this would have to be the biggest clusterfrag to run through, I was basically resorting to using a literal buckets of dice due to the sheer numbers of enemies on the boardboard. If there was a song we could blast during the mission, it would have to be this:
So, here we are, camping out in an abandoned nuke shelter after our usual hideout got anihilated by someone our employers pissed off, when our Fixer contacts us, telling us that a Johnson is offering a rather lucrative deal. Intrigued, our little group gathers around the comm...five minutes later, Karl jumps up and starts gathering his gear.
Apparently, the Johnson figured out a backdoor in an Aztechnologies pyramid, with completely open access to their Matrix. The pay wasn't bad, but it wasn't the reason we accepted, we, and pretty much every other runner we knew, had some sort of grudge against Aztech. Be it personal, or just for being screwed over in general. Karl, for example, lost his sister to them, so none of us blamed him for being enthused at an opportunity to poke around in their network. The rest of us were just glad for an opportunity to make Aztech's day miserable.
According to the Johnson, people have started disappearing in the area. We were to find out the reason for these occurences, extract as much paydata from their network and frag Aztech over as much as possible.
At this moment, Jim and Hannah were not present, so we decided to employ the help of a few of our friends. The final team was:
Karl
Chauvette
Nubz
Helga - A surprisingly stealthy Troll Sam
Tower - The Dwarf Drone Rigger
The Driver
Our Johnson has managed to infiltrate the Blood Mage facility and open up a backdoor for us to enter. He also managed to supply some limited maps, showing a more or less clear route to the mainframe, but muddled as far as the rest of the building was conscerned. Grabbing a few antimage charms, we began working on procuring a plan. Karl was advocating for the most direct approach of going along the Johnson's route. Nubz, ever the paranoic, insisted on spending at least a week trying to find out more about the facility before getting decked by our blonde Decker, shouting "People are fraggin' dissapearing! And you want to wait!?" but, after some negotiations, we agreed on a compromise. The next three days were spent in careful preparations, buying whatever gear we might need, looking for alternate exits and planting secondary and tertiary escape methods. Finally, The Driver carefully drove us up to the looming pyramid...
Undetected, five shapes quickly exit the vehicle, quietly sprinting towards the secret entrance past disabled security systems. Opening the door up, we crawl through the cramped corridors, sending Tower's drones or Nubz' familiar forward to scout the areas ahead of us. After a few hours of nerve-wracking sneaking, we come up to the large room with a huge machine dead in the centre. Without so much as a noise, we dispose of the guards and approach the mainframe. With practiced actions, Karl unslings his Deck and begins unwinding optical cable. With a *pop* he jacks into the machine and his eyes roll upwards and fingers begin dancing across the Cyberdeck...
...after a few minutes of complete silence, save for the tapping at the keys, Karl screams out and begins thrashing on the ground. Moving quickly, Nubz rips the cable out, dragging our Decker behind some cover. As the first shots begin raining down on our position, the rest of us have already sprung into action, Chev whips out two heavy ARES Predator pistols, her augmented eyes spotting multitudes of hostiles emerging from the opposing wall (Which has turned out to be a huge door) shotgun in hands, Helga disappears behind a chugging generator as Tower grips his Ingram, sending out his two combat drones into the fray.
In the first few moments of the battle, it seemed like we were in control. Chev dropped five targets as her adrenal pump slowed the battlefield to a crawl, Helga already managed to get behind enemy lines and quietly snatched away a few battle mages, Tower's armoured drones rip into the general fray, spewing high caliber death at the goons. Summoning a great wind spirit, Nubz ducks into cover and comms The Driver that the Johnson betrayed us and we will need to pull out ASAP.
Then one of the mages gurlgled before turning inside out, a blood spawn lubbering out of the mangled mess. With a grin stretching from ear to ear, the Grand Magos steps forward, eerily calm in the bloody melee. Seeking out Chauvette, he unsheathes a decorative sword from his staff and issues her a challenge. Firing off a few shots, Chev's wired reflexes save her from a grizly death, jumping away from the charging man's path. Now, Chauvette wasn't a close combat character, so when she pulled out a short blade, she started eyeing the room for an exit.
Chauvette circles around the madman, firing off a few shots at any goon that got too close. Then they both clash, after the first few seconds it becomes apparent that she is fighting a losing battle. As her friend is barely holding on, Helga creeps up behind the Magos and points the shotgun, nearly point blank, at his head, with a grin she pulls the trigger...and her head explodes as the projectiles bounce back into her. Eyes opening wide behind her shades, the other Sam loses her footing. Moments later, the Blood Mage cleaved both her legs clean off...
With both the heavy hitters down, the goons begin swarming their position. Tower takes a few hits and one of the drones begins spewing black smoke. The Rat Shaman fires off some magic, while trying to keep Karl alive.
Standing over the fallen runner, Grand Magos begins chanting and the pool of blood under Chauvette bubbles, an ugly thing slowly rising out of the pool. Trying to focus her eyes, Chev crawls back a little, watching the Blood Spirit devour her legs, before stepping over to her. Dodging the first two attacks, Chauvette watches a smoking drone crash into the summoned spirit's mouth. Propping herself up, she fires the luckiest shot ever, stunning the spirit with a heavy slug between the eyes.
Then the mage that was about to finish her off with the sword receives a facefull of flames from our one and only, Nubz. Acting quickly, the scraggly man chants another spell, forming spirit legs under Chauvette, before throwing her the Decker. With a small salute, he blasts a small path in the crowd of enemies, shouting for her to run.
Hauling Karl across her shoulders, Chev dashes across the battlefield, failing to find the way they came in, she jumps into a maintenance tunnel, thanking Nubz for his foresight. On exit, it turns out that their escape vehicle was a smouldering wreck. Cursing every blood mage that has ever existed, Chauvette digs out one of the bikes, hidden by Nubz, Rat Totem bless his little soul, strapping the Uberdecker behind her and zooming off into the distance, the little vehicle dodges incoming enemy squads.
In the end, we both make it to the closest Doc Wagon clinic, getting Karl resuscitated and Chev a pair of shiny chrome legs. The surviving pair track down the Johnson, pulling him apart while he was still alive. I swear to whichever deity, revenge is the sweetest part of Shadowrunners. Then, we get together with Jim and Hannah. From now on, our plans have changed from "Survive and make nuyen" to "Survive and make the pyramid heads pay while making nuyen"
Seriously though, this would have to be the biggest clusterfrag to run through, I was basically resorting to using a literal buckets of dice due to the sheer numbers of enemies on the boardboard. If there was a song we could blast during the mission, it would have to be this: