Tuesday 28 May 2013

Shadowrun: Party Shuffle - 03/04/2013


Now here ladies and gentlemen is where things get interesting.

Following on directly where we left off, while circling around the party Killbo suddenly gets messaged something very threatening. Briefly explaining that "they" want to meet him out back and have Amoral held hostage, it goes on for several lines listing various forms of torture which will be used if he does not come. Apparently involving everything from unusual use of potato mashers to removal of limbs.

Mistaking this for Balrog for several minutes, in part due to the GM using the Balrog voice to read it out, Killbo exited the hall preparing for a rumble. Contacting Leona to follow him, he briefly caught sight of her downing every drink she was carrying and then going for refills. At the rate she does go through drinks in these sessions, it will take divine intervention to prevent her becoming an addict. Bluffing his way past the guards at the party's entrance Killbo tried to sneak inside, gun drawn. Botching his roll terribly, the dwarf kicked in the door and found himself with a revolver pressed against his forehead. Holding it was the suspicious orc from before.

Thankfully the situation more or less diffused itself. Holstering his weapon the orc, Nifty, seemed more interested in talking than trying to bump off competition. Having been discussing  old times with Amoral, he was far more concerned about exactly what we were doing here. Eventually exchanging information, mostly due to heavy hints that none of us would leave alive otherwise, we learned that the other shadowrunners were there for assassinations. Specifically to kill Hedges, the drake in charge of the building. Avoiding the fact that this was the exact thing our group been told not to do we eventually just agreed to try and stay out of one another's way.

Right at the end of this, directly before we left again; Leona finally turned up, handed out drinks and then headed back to the party. The GM had absolutely no plan for her involvement in this scene so we just ended up with more alcohol.

Heading back to the party, handing a bottle of champagne to a very confused guard, Killbo proceeded to try and track down everyone again. Amoral being permitted to head back to his own undercover duties moments later. Spending a good five minutes looking for each person we eventually spotted most of our targets:
Barton and Lansdale were both in one guarded corner of the room surrounded by personal guards. Doctor Beaumont was speaking with Hedges, also surrounded by armed guards, this time from Aztechnology. No approaching them any time soon. Ergu was at the bar along with Hendrick, the latter drowning his sorrows out of sheer terror. Of Hoda and Llewellyn there was no sign.

What was more interesting was how certain people were behaving in the crowd. Specific groups were sticking together, not socialising and most mysteriously seemed to be avoiding becoming involved with anything. All the while looking very jumpy and extremely nervous.

Following one of said nervous individuals departing from the party, Killbo shadowed him out of the hall. After a long walk through the hallways, completely bereft of guards, he found the individual with another man. The two were the in middle of priming a something the size of a small desk with bleeping lights and words like "connected the red wire" being used. No prizes as to what this was.
Promptly bludgeoning the duo unconscious, Killbo called for security and after a few rolls managed to disarm the bomb. The more concerning matter now was why the hell such a heavily secured building seemed to have been left completely undefended on a few specific floors.

As this was going on Amoral was trying to find out more about the centre and discover a few locations which might be of use. With access to an internal map and making use of his hacking skills he began to try and piece together hints and ideas of what could be in a few of the unmarked rooms. Also what the upper two out-of-bounds floors might be being used for besides their official roles as offices and staff lounges. Before long he'd managed to discover that Room 72 was being occupied by someone who had recently arrived, but were not on the guest list. From what he could tell it was likely Llewellyn lurking there.

Heading back to the party Killbo was asked to head for reception and speak to Venne. While nothing out of the ordinary, she had found out he was going to be there from Camelot mercenaries and was calling in a favour. Mayweather had missed the last few reports and as their only major tech expert, and no magic experts with them, she wanted to make sure everything was fine. Agreeing to this the dwarf put down the phone. One infuriated explanation via the GM later, preventing more derailment, Killbo was calling her back to say "Wait, what do you mean they have no magic experts?"
Yeah, from the looks of things it seemed Mayweather was either hiding something or more likely had been replaced by someone. Atop of a bomb threat we now had a potentially hostile impostor commanding the centre's only exterior defenses.


With Venne managing to strong-arm Killbo into being permitted to exit the building and explore the grounds, the dwarf scouted out the merc camp. Between his keen deductive skills and every person in a Camelot uniform shambling around like zombies, it was safe to say they were being mind controlled. An earth spirit loaned by Leona shed more light on the situation with additional snark. It detected a strong magical presence coming from Mayweather's tent confirming he was in control, using a talisman around his neck to manipulate them. Worse still the spirit, being the more intelligent of the two, suggested that Hedges was likely in on this. After all, they'd been meeting daily and as another powerful magic user he would have sensed something was out of place.

Unable to assassinate Mayweather's impostor or attack him without taking on the whole camp, Killbo made the rare intelligent decision to fall back and report on his findings. The Venne's lot couldn't do much, but they could at least be warned of what was going on. Even racing at full speed however, they would only arrive at the very end of the final day.

Sticking to our assigned job, Amoral found somewhere private and entered World of Fantasy. A massive MMORPG which one specific scientist we needed to recruit was an avid player of. Arriving outside the dungeon the group was about to raid, he found the scientist's lot arguing among themselves. With our fire pizza having done its work they were left one man short. That's all Amoral was able to find out, before botching an infiltration roll so badly he didn't so much step on a twig as knock over a tree. Finding himself confronted by several highly leveled players armed to the teeth, Amoral passed himself off as a friend of the player we'd rendered unconscious. 

He then tried to join the group by showing off his 1337 skillz.

Failing to summon a huge sprite twice after the group argued between themselves, he eventually succeeded in summoning one so hard it turned his pistol into a howitzer. Despite obliterating the front entrance of the dungeon, not only did none of the group notice but they were considering getting rid of him due to eavesdropping. Things eventually got so bad we just had to skip recruitment and claim he convinced them "off-screen".


A giant figure called the King projected himself into the clouds above to them their quest. After some overblown exposition to recover a cure, kill the Lich King Lord and a reward table they were off. Their first task? Fight their way through three levels of the dungeon against a few billion minions. Initiating Operation Run Like Hell, the party sprinted through the mobs trying to just blitz through them and get to the portal at the end rather than get bogged down fighting. This proved to be fairly effective as, besides one person effectively having their arms ripped off by a golem, they broke past with no casualties.

Back in the real world, Killbo and Leona met up to try and deal with their current issue. With Amoral having passed on word of where their target was, the two of them headed to Room 72. They needed to kill Llewellyn before he gave away any of their client's info to Aztechnology, preferably taking back said info. The sooner he was dealt with the better.
Unfortunately for us, it seemed someone had gotten to him first.


<< #9       Return To Index      #11 >>

No comments:

Post a Comment