To set the scene from last time: We had one bleeding dwarf with several bullet wounds, an invisible nerd partially deafened by explosions, one changeling casually downing wine, and a mildly concussed scientist tied to a bed. Yep, it's Shadowrun time again.
Hiding his bleeding body with his jacket, Killbo went out and checked with one guard for tonight's events. As the final day there was one major party taking place, with all the fanfare to be expected, there was a major party taking place. The guard revealed this was going to be starting in twenty minutes, and Beaumont (the scientist) was someone likely to be missed. That gave us a very limited time-frame to work with and Amoral needed to head off to deal with his target. It also left us with Killbo as the person to research on weaknesses to play to when recruiting the him.
Heading back into the room, Killbo and Leona took Beaumont off of the bed and tied him to the chair. A few botched data-searches later, bringing up various illicit websites and one pizza delivery service, the dwarf had brought up a few news reports and pages mentioning him. Apparently Beaumont had originally been a part of a small company which had been absorbed by Aztechnology, a move he was less than happy about. Furthermore he had a criminal record for various petty crimes and more than a few questionable experiments.
With an angle to work on and place to work from, Killbo slapped him awake.
Raging over the slap and being tied to the aforementioned chair, Beaumont spent several minutes yelling at us before finally calming down after a failed etiquette role. By some small miracle this didn't attract the guard just outside. As Leona untied him to get his trust, and Killbo's visible pistol helping coerce him into not making a break for the door, we began to appeal to his sensibilities.
Emphaising upon giving him a chance to get away from Aztech and returning home got his attention, as did mention of "all the beautiful women of South America." The hint of more freedom to experiment with a new company and leeway in his decisions was enough to make him seriously consider the offer after a few roll-offs. Permitting him to leave after it was clear he was being sincere, Beaumont exited the room.
Killbo, somewhat unsteady from the several bullets embedded in him, finally asked their magic specialist to heal him. Effective as they'd been in unnerving Beaumont and giving them an edge at the negotiation table, blood-loss would be a hard thing to disguise in the party. The two promptly parted ways, Leona going to perform her staff role and Killbo to find Nifty and their last target.
Despite being the final night, the party itself was surprisingly tame. Even with the majority of major demonstrations done a vast number of minor corps and groups still had their presentations to be done. As such even with the music pulsing through the ground and drinks a-plenty few seemed to be truly trying to get drunk. This made Leona's job of scanning the crowd and Killbo's job of finding Nifty considerably easier as they looked at/made their way through the crowd.
Finding Nifty at the bar, Killbo opened up an exchange with the orc. Along with warning him that something was even worse with the place than they thought, he handed over the data he'd been carrying. Nifty himself asking him to pass it onto Speak-Easy as soon as possible.
Not that they would get that chance.
Nifty dropped the fact that "Mayweather" had been last seen by him sprinting for the parking, desperate to leave the facility. As Killbo left to make a call, Nifty decided to get involved himself offering help if it was needed. His reason? More fun than what he was currently doing. With no guards at the entrance instead combing the building for the nutters who had raided the upper floors, the shadowrunners were the only things between him and freedom.
Roping Leona into their merry band, Killbo managed to call Venne. Learning they were still twelve hours out and they needed to stop the fake Mayweather at all costs. Having moved their equipment elsewhere between sessions, to one of the unused rooms specifically, they stopped just long enough for Killbo to grab one of his meatier guns before moving out.
They quite literally ran into Mayweather at the entrance, specifically while he was behind the wheel of a jeep moving at 70. We had a split second to react. To shoot out the tiers, to possess him, to do anything to stop him. Unfortunately Killbo opted to abandon all sanity. Passing a gymnastics test, the dwarf hurled himself at the car as it passed by, latching onto it with his cyber-arm. Staying just within earshot to yell "Back in a minute!" at the other two as they zoomed towards the gate to the outer walls.
Whipping out a pistol at the loud thud above him, Mayweather began blasting multiple holes in the roof, the bullets missing Killbo by scant inches. Swinging himself over to the side of the car, Killbo then drove his fist through the vehicle's left window and deployed his grenade launcher bellowing "PULL OVER!" While lacking an internal firing mechanism, staring down a high explosive weapon was enough to cause a string of expletives to escape the infiltrator's lips and panic.
Wildly swerving left, Mayweather pulled directly into the small forest littering one area of the grounds; doing so with enough force to flip the jeep through the air. Hurling himself from its side, Killbo hit the ground and rolled; a successful gymnastics test and his armoured tux allowing him to walk away with no damage.
It's just unfortunate he didn't have a tie to adjust following that little sequence.
Watching from a distance, placing bets and sipping wine, Leona and Nifty stood watching with amusement as the chase came to a close.
Hurrying over to the crashed jeep, almost crumpled to half its size against the tree it had struck, Killbo punched in the door and aimed his gun inside. Mayweather was already gone, the other door having been smashed out and blood coating the steering wheel. As he was about to leave, the dwarf spotted something shiny half visible from under the seat: An amulet. A half visible trail of blood splattered across the grass could be seen leading toward the shed in the middle of the forest. Shooting out the amulet with a burst of shots, removing the mage's focus, Killbo sprinted after Mayweather. Reaching the shed and kicking in the door, the dwarf realised he'd arrived too late, an entrance to the sewers below having been flung open and Mayweather gone.
By this point the commotion had been enough for the guards to catch up, immediately holding Killbo at gunpoint. Ignoring any of his statements, the dwarf only managed to survive thanks to the intervention of the mercenaries. With the amulet having maintained the mind control on their platoons, they were suddenly free again, very confused and wondering what the hell was going on. Upon learning they'd missed the last several days, Killbo quickly filled one of the sergeants in once they were away from the guards. Their guns, equipment and artillery piece had all been sabotaged and with Mayweather having broken from the building it was now even more likely something was about to go down.
Heading back towards the building, specifically Nifty and Leona, he relayed the information we'd learned. Things were bad but at least we had someone capable of fighting back against whatever was coming now. The question would be if it would be enough.
This wouldn't be the end of our troubles though.
The final few minutes unfortunately devolved into a good twenty minutes of trying to find various ways to give the mercs better guns, with the GM stonewalling every single last decision. We effectively wheeled out every single damn suggestion imaginable from just buying them off the street to black market contacts. The most ambitious one involved shipping in the crates of guns we'd liberated and using a high ranking military contact to drop them inside the camp. Set upon his end-game plan, the GM didn't let any of these go through.
So what was Amoral doing throughout all this? Completing an MMO raid of course!
Returning to his group Amoral learned that the next task would require the party to split up into two man groups. Managing to pair himself up with our target he learned that their job would be to race through a trap filled labyrinth of death, with all the Indianna Jones jokes you can imagine, and against two other teams. A relief in the wall explained the following:
"You need to gather three keys to the door to the next level. Only six are available only two parties will be allowed to leave.
Time is your enemy."
Just below this was a very large ticking clock.
After a while they encounter the two other parties running the gauntlet, hiding each time to avoid a conflict which might slow them down. The first pair emerge as orcs with fairly common DPS builds, something they could likely take in a fight but would leave them licking their wounds. The other are a combination of tank and supporting mage, something which was going to be a problem as the mage in question was likely another technomancer. Something which would cause a lot of problems if they were seen.
Sneaking past them, the two continued on their way and Amoral opted to now make his sales pitch to the scientist. Being in the middle of something he took fairly seriously and concerned with other matters, Amoral had opted to approach him at exactly the right time. Simply accepting that he'd consider the offer and listen to Amoral to get through things faster, the actual recruitment effort took only about a minute at the most. Now we had only the Renraku representative to approach.
Continuing to make their way through the maze, another helpful message informed them that there were in-fact two exits to the place. They would also be immediately teleported out of the maze upon failure meaning there was no opportunity to loot the keys from others or cheat their way into the finals. After trying a few more ideas, Amoral tried to fully map out the entire maze before turning a corner and having the floor fall away beneath him. Managing to cling onto the edge rather than be impaled upon the spikes below, he only took this as a sign they were on the right path. The large skull on the wall was a good indication of this.
It turned out they were right as the very next room was a large pillar with a key atop of it. Unfortunately one of them just had to say "This is too easy" resulting in the GM turning the floor into a giant trapdoor. Suddenly appearing back outside, Amoral clutching the key in one hand, they were immediately told they had to reach the Golden Gateway before the key evaporated. Sprinting to the finish line the duo managed to arrive just in time and unlock the gate.
Beyond into the final area was the necromantic boss and ten thousand skeletons. What followed was a 300 style battle so epic the GM could barely describe the events, skipping just to Amoral declaring "This game is terrible!" as he defeated the boss by jump-kicking it in the face.
As Amoral left the game dawn was fast approaching. The endgame for us had well and truly begun.
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