Category Archives: Shadowrun

Shadows of Sol

Session 2 – Derelict

Raptor and Cam rush back to the ship as they heard about the other ship’s approach. Eve tells them that the ship will be on top of them in about 2 minutes.

The ship makes a comminique with the Redemption, and they identify themselves as Rhea Saturn Border Control Authority. They ask what we are doing. Eve says that we are on a salvage mission and are registered to do so. The man, a military looking fellow in a combat helmet, says that he wishes to dock with us and check our papers. Eve agrees.

Eve yells at the others to hurry back to the ship, and presently Raptor and Cam float over onto the ship. Cam rushes to the bridge and Raptor takes up position on the scaffolding of the cargo bay. Eve is trying desperately to hide the safe in one of the hidden compartments. She turns off the gravity to assist her in lifting it.

The Border Patrol ship attempts to communicate with us to board, but Eve is not ready. She makes up an excuse and Cam shoves the bridge comm microphone into the speaker, causing a feedback loop.

Eve gets the cargo hidden and turns the gravity back on. She lets the Border Patrol men in, and Raptor readies his elephant rifle. They come in and ask for Eve’s papers. She said that she doesn’t have any, since we came across the ship and figured that we could get the license later. The Border Patrolman says that it doesn’t work that way, and they’d like to take a look around. Eve puts her arm in his and leads him around the ship. He seems satisfied with everything and lets us go.

We decide to go to Rhea and get a real salvage license, since they are not that expensive. The trip takes 2 hours.

We arrive at a docking station and take the Eden shuttle down to the moon. It only takes us a few minutes to get down, and Eve begins the process to get a salvage license. The person at the desk says that they need a registered SIN, the ship’s license numbers, and the background check takes about two weeks. Eve asks if this timeline can be reduced, but the shortest time is about a week.

Eve decides that it isn’t worth it and we return to the ship. Cam sets course for Hygaea and they start the return trip. Again it takes 2 days, and we return to the spaceport we had originally met the buyer at. Eve makes a communication with the buyer and he agrees to meet us.

As we approach the station the docking crew tells us that they are doing maintenance, and we need to divert to docking bay 17. We agree, and begin to dock. Suddenly we get a comm from the buyer, and he sounds awfully scared. He tells us that we must have been set up, because there are at least 8 heavily armed men in the docking bay waiting for us to exit. We tell him that we are leaving and will meet him somewhere else. He says that there is another base across town that we could go to.

We start traveling to the other station, and see that there is a ground vehicle tracking us. We decide to split up, Cam piloting the Redemption, Graves piloting Eden, and Eve and Raptor on Hades with the loot. Cam peels off and the ground vehicle seems to be tracking him. Eve leaves slowly as to not draw attention and goes to the other base.

Eve and Raptor meet the buyer and make the trade. He says that we have to go back to his office to get the medical supplies, but he gives Eve the certified credstick with the cash.

Cam is continuing to Graves sees that they have turned around and are returning to the original spaceport, and then double back north towards the second station. Graves goes back to the Redemption and docks.

Raptor goes with Red his car and Eve takes Hades back towards Redemption. She sees that the vehicle, a gray van, is now coming towards Red’s car. Raptor tells them that they need to be prepared for battle, and the men with Red pull their weapons (which are unfortunately small arms). Raptor tells the driver to ram the van. He tries, but the driver of the van swerves out of the way. They turn around to pursue the truck.

Raptor opens the back door of the truck and opens fire on the van. Raptor takes several shots at the driver of the van and takes him out, and then turns his attention to the van’s tires. One of the front tires blows out and the van hits a nearby building. Raptor climbs back into the truck and they take off from the scene.

The truck arrives at Red’s building and they drop off the safe. Eve arrives there as well, and Red gives her a case of more medical supplies and another package. There are two vials in the second case, and explains that it is a rapid immune response serum that is not on the market yet but is not dangerous, it is just not cost-effective yet. It is somewhat of a “gunshot wound vaccine.” A 10cc dose will stay in your system for about 3 hours and activates when your skin is cut and you get a platelet response and will heal the wound right away. He has saved 210 cc’s of it and it needs to be injected directly into the blood.

We thank Red and load up into the ship. Before leaving, we purchase two more space suits for the ship and some parts that equal out to 2,000 nuyen. As we are lifting off, Raptor sees that he has a message. Eve splits up the money between us and takes some for maintenance of the ship.

Later Raptor asks Eve if she has the next job lined up. She says no, so he says he may have something that would be worth our time on Ganymede. Everyone agrees to go along.

As we are traveling, Eve receives a communique that a legitimate job is available. A shipment of construction materials from a Smartglass company from Miyahon on Hygiea needs to be shipped to Phrygia on Ganymede. We decide to take the job because it is right on our way. We are paid 5,000 nuyen up front for the job.

It takes almost two days to reach Ganymede, and the glass delivery goes smoothly. We make a quick stop to purchase an Auto-pilot Autosoft for the ship and continue on to Bryce Ridge to meet up with Raptor’s contact.

The town is very small; all of us walk into the main bar. We order drinks and food; Eve is dressed as a Russian woman. Eve asks around about the woman Raptor is looking for, and the bartender says that she works here as a waitress. He says that she will be off work in a short while if we want to speak with her.

Later we meet her as she is getting off of work. Eve says that her mutual friend told us that they needed extra help. Raptor seems very uncomfortable with the pretenses and relaxes when she begins to speak more frankly.

The waitress tells us that her resistance cell against the Bloc government is somewhat outgunned and she needs us to help raid a local depot for weapons to help out their cause. It is lower security but may be difficult to get into because of the hilly terrain. The Bloc has a commander at this base and a staff including guards. Raptor suggests that we take out their leader to weaken the command structure. We discuss other options and ask if the guards visit any local bars if we could steal any of their security cards. Raptor also asks for the schematics of the building.

We ask about payment, and she says that she doesn’t have much, but she could afford 2,200 nuyen a person and free room and board for us. We also could take a cut of what we get from the facility in the form of weapons and equipment.

Shadows of Sol

Session 1 – Derelict

We are each approached separately by a corporate liaison who wants to hire us for a job on a ship. They agree that our payment will be at least a few thousand nuyen per month and it will be work worth our while. We all agree to meet near the spaceport docks of Vespa at a Firefly-class ship and a representative named Eve.

One by one we show up. A twitchy, large man with combat boots and scaly-printed dermal plating introduces himself as Raptor; a tall man in a nice outfit holding a cigarette says that people call him Graves; and a skinny, dirty fellow with spiked hair and welding goggles says that his name is Cameron. They meet Eve, an attractive Asian woman who seems a bit disappointed with them. She leads them into the ship and shows them around. She asks Cameron if that is his real name, and he says yes. She says it’s a terrible idea to use your real name and that she will call him “Tool” from now on. He ignores her and goes to get his tools.

Raptor and Cameron both work to get their equipment on board. Raptor sets up racks for his firearms and ammunition and Cameron sets up his workshop near the engine room.

Eve is notified by a corp contact that the first job is a salvage operation on Hygiea concerning a man named Red Selwart who is in the bio-med industry. Red is offering 15,000 plus expenses for the retrieval of the items that he is looking for.

The group gathers in the mess (except for Cam, who is tinkering around in the engine room) and Eve announces what the job will be. Everyone agrees that the Hygiea mission will be sufficient. Eve calls down to the engine room that we must leave, and Cam says that he is currently taking the engine apart for maintenance. Frustrated, Eve tells him to put it back together so we can leave.

Cam puts the engine back together in about an hour, and goes up to the cockpit to set up the flight plan. The ship takes off and Cam announces that it will be about a day until we reach Hygiea. He returns to his workshop to get things set up and everyone else takes the next day to get settled in.

Eve searches for any info on Red and his corp. Red reports to the Vice President of the R&D branch for New Age Bio-medical. It is a smaller company compared to most bio groups, and they have a lot of contracts with privately-run medical facilities. They apparently have no dealings with any of the big corps on Earth.

The next day we land on Hygiea in the city of Miyahon. As we are preparing to disembark, Raptor sees Eve and she looks completely different than before. She has blonde hair, a larger bust and different clothing. He pulls a gun on her and demands to know who she is. She says “You know me as Eve.” He looks confused and puts his gun down.

Eve contacts Red and says that she is ready to meet. They agree on a place, and Red asks how many people will be coming with her. Eve asks us if there’s anything specific we’d like to negotiate for; Raptor says that the ship is sorely lacking on supplies and Cam agrees, saying that we need parts for the engine and the medical bay is pretty bare. Eve says that she will see what she can do.

Red explains that he had a shipment going from Rhea to Hygiea and the ship (a Bumblebee class) was hit by a stray asteroid and lost hull integrity. There is a safe in the lower deck with highly classified medical prototypes. He needs to hire us to retrieve the prototypes off the books so the company’s competitors are not aware of the problem. He says that he will pay us 15,000 nuyen and we are free to take anything off the ship that we need as well. Eve negotiates for 20,000 nuyen as well as some medical equipment that they may have to stock our medbay and two more space suits. Red says that he could give us 16,000 as well as some medkits, a med-dock and the space suits, and Eve agrees.

Red gives Eve the key codes to deactivate the ship’s auto defenses and the codes to access the safe. He also gives us a schematic of the ship and points out where the hull breach may have occurred. He says that the ship is in the gravity well of Saturn and may have been spotted by scavengers already. The ship is not important to him, just the contents of the safe.

One of Red’s security guards meets us at the ship with a crate that has the medkit, 6 sets of supplies, 2 bio-monitors, 20 trauma patches and two space suits.

We leave for Saturn and reach orbit in 2 days, seeing the derelict ship where it should be. We arrive and halt the ship just outside of weapons range of the derelict and try to send the disarm code. Cam quickly realizes that the defense systems are offline and have been so for two days. Someone else must have been here and raided the ship already.

Eve does a scan of the immediate area and does not detect any other ships. Also a scan of the Bumblebee doesn’t reveal any life signs or movement.

Cam elects to stay on the bridge; the others suit up and jump out of the airlock to the other ship. They search around and find the access hatch to the lower deck. The safe is sunken into the floor. They scan the area for any traps or explosives, but don’t find anything out of the ordinairy. However there are scuff marks by the safe as if someone was attempting to pry it out.

Eve enters the open code and the clamps begin to open, but one sticks and does not retract completely. Raptor decides to use plastic explosives to blow open the shroud, and sets charges on either side. After the explosion, it is not completely blown off. He tries another two charges and the panel is destroyed. The chest is dragged off of the ship through the hull breach and to the cargo hold.

The three return to the ship and start looking for salvage. Most of the ship has already been rifled through and anything of value stolen, but Cam recognizes through Eve’s eye feed that the parts on the Bumblebee’s engine could be usable towards 4,500 nuyen or so of maintenance.

As Raptor is checking the cockpit, Cam goes to the engine room and starts disassembling the spare parts for our ship’s engine. Just as he’s starting, Eve announces that another ship is approaching us on sensors. Raptor, Cam and Graves make for the ship before the interlopers arrive.

New World

Session 4 – History Lesson

The party decides to infiltrate Readi-Med’s warehouse to find evidence before we make our demands to the president of the company. Reg tries to hack into their servers for several hours, but is caught in the act by security. He jacks out before they can identify him, but takes massive strain by doing so. Skaale is able to ease some of his pain with healing spells.

The party is unsure of the correct approach at this point, so they go to consult with Smoke Jaguar. Smoke tells the group that he can hook them up with some stealth suits to assist them in getting into Readi-Med’s facility. However he cannot get silencers, the party would need to do that themselves.

After retrieving the equipment, the group sneaks their way into the complex by snipping through the barb wire fence. Though they are not extremely stealthy, they manage to get to the building undetected.

The building is broken into, and the group finds a cold storage area. Reg hacks the inventory records of a nearby computer and looks for items listed as “body parts.” He finds a room that is designated for organs, and the party stealths its way towards the location. Guards are detected nearby and they are passed without raising the alarm. The party goes into the organs room and sees various frozen bits in containers.

Skaale and Jack fill a cooler with random organs and the party sneaks out of the room. Several dwarf guards are seen at the exit of the building, blocking their way. Reg hacks one of the guards’ cybereyes to make him see the illusion of someone running down the corridor. The guard does not move and Reg gets kicked out of his system. The building’s doors suddenly locks; it appears that security has been alerted.

Jack ducks his head out into the hallway and sees a very strange sight — monkeys on roller skates, with Uzi’s?! The monkeys begin firing on our position and whizzing past. Jack takes a couple of slugs and falls back; Skaale heals him. Nacre jumps out of the door and fires a grenade arrow towards the monkeys. The others follow him, firing their weapons. The monkeys shoot back and a they suddenly explode from detonated cranial bombs. The party is wounded badly; Nacre is unconsious and possibly dead.

The group makes their way out of the building and ahead of them they see what appear to be a pack of hellhounds. The party is confused and thinks that they have possibly died and gone to Hell. Suddenly from the top of the hill, massive gunfire erupts. It kills the hellhounds and covers the group’s escape from the building, but as they reach the summit of the hill, no one is there. A wall of fire comes up behind them to cover their escape. They don’t ask questions, but leavel quickly in the van.

The party returns to home base and Smoke Jaguar meets them there. He says that the group’s plan of threatening Readi-Med will not work; using their connection with DocWagon would be a much more effective method. Most likely they would wish to avoid a PR scandal and would bring Readi-Med in line.

A professional-sounding letter is prepared and sent to a corporate member of DocWagon. He responds to the party within a day and a meeting is arranged at a high-end restaurant. The group members dress nicely for the meeting.

The party shows him photo evidence of the crime and an agreement is reached. In exchange for the group’s silence, the man will give 250,000 nuyen to the boy’s family as well as lifetime DocWagon contracts. The party is offered 1 million nuyen and lifetime super-platinum DocWagon contracts, as long as they agree never to do a run against DocWagon. The party accepts the offer.

New World

Session 3 – History Lesson

The group surveils the building for three days and do not see the van again. Apparently the lead has gone cold.

The group decides to find out some more info on Harris Corp to see if there is any evidence of the crime. Reg hacks in and finds that there are 3 warehouses on the site. The firewall is very tough but he sees a flaw in it — several hours later he is able to get in. He finds records on their vans and some of them seem suspicious. He looks into the buildings futher and finds a very secured area in one of the buildings. He tries to gain entry to the secured area and succeeds. He finds the name “Kelemen Torcidek” encrypted in the file, and a similar file to the one found before with strange symbols on it.

Reg comes out and tells the rest of the group what he found out. Kelemen is apparently a regional director of DocWagon. The group begins thinking of ways to get into the building…for a very long time.

The party devises a plan to get into the Readi-Med building; Skaale and Eclipse go in first and Skaale tells the receptionist that he has a headache. He goes into the lobby and pretends to fill out a form. One of the guards comes over and recognizes the runners — he introduces himself as the son of one of the men we got out of Chicago 15 years ago. His name is Bertoldt Freiherz. Skaale thinks that he can be trusted and tells him the whole story. He says that he can get the runners into the secured area but we must avoid the cameras. Reg is able to log in and loops the cameras for one hour so we can move about undetected.

Bertoldt lets us in and the Skaale and Eclipse look around. They see bodies but not the body of the Ork kid, unfortunately. There are boxes in each body drawer with random body parts and organs. They have symbols on them that correspond to the fields in the database. They have an idea and put RFID tags on all of the organs, and then quickly get out of the room when they are finished. Jack pretends that he was getting sick and comes out of the clinic as well. They thank Bertoldt for his help and tell him to call if he ever needs anything, and also tell him to say “hi” to his dad.

A week later, the party is alerted that the organs have moved and they have gone to Harris Corp. A day later most of the RFID chips are deactivated, save one. That one goes to St. Luke’s Hospital downtown.

It is decided that Mark, the Ork boy, is surely long gone by now and the party probably won’t find any trace of him or his organs. There is discussion of what to do, since those responsible must be caught in the act. A camera is left on the building. After two weeks, there are six people captured by the camera who are matched up as being missing.

The information is packaged up nicely by Reg and a video is made showing the missing person’s report along with the video evidence collected. The words “WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING” are placed in block letters at the bottom of the video. Before sending this out, the apartment is cleaned out entirely and the party abandons the area. Also, Bertoldt the security guard is notified that he should terminate his position with the company so he could not become liable.

The party prepares to send an email to the president of the company of Readi-Med, but they are as of yet unsure how to word it.

New World

Session 2 – History Lesson

We decide to case the West Allis clinic to see if Reg can hack in and get some information, security tapes, etc. from their network. He fails in his attempt to get in and gets out of the network by the skin of his teeth, with no info.

We park the car a few blocks away and prepare to do some physical investigation. Skaale goes astral and studies the building, seeing that there is a strong astral barrier surrounding it. He recognizes the signature as being of corporate origin. He returns to his body and reports what he saw. The others except for Skaale and Reg leave the car and do a walk-by.

Reg continues trying to hack into the network for several hours. Jack, Nacre and Eclipse go around the building and then go to George Webb’s for some food. Reg is eventually able to gain access but is caught again by security. This time he manages to talk his way out of the situation by telling the security program that he is an operator doing routine maintenance. He digs through some security recordings but does not find anything of value. He tries for info on which doctors were working that night and finds the names of three along with their addresses. They all live up on the prestigious north side, however, which we cannot go visit or risk being caught by the authorities.

As Reg is continuing to sift through the data to find anything else of value, Skaale notices a suspicious black van pull into the ambulance entrance of the clinic. He backs up the car a few feet so he can see what is going on. The men are bringing several large cooler-type containers into the van. Skaale and coms the rest of the group to tell them what has happened. The group exits the George Webb’s and comes back towards the car. Skaale pulls around the south side of the clinic and the other members of the group meet him there. He jumps in the back seat and Jack takes the driver’s position. Reg is still deep in the Matrix.

The van pulls out of the clinic driveway and we follow. Jack tries to stay a fair distance away but it seems that they have caught on to us. They swerve wildly and turn right down another street, and then left at the next one. Skaale says not to follow them, but Jack ignores him and squeals the tires as we make the turns to pursue. The van turns into an alleyway and we follow once again. They slam on the brakes and the van doors open. Two men with submachine guns begin to open fire on Jack’s car. He rams them and one of the men falls off onto the hood of the car, but he is still firing his weapon.

One of the other men tosses a grenade underneath the car as they continue to fire on us. The windshield is busted and Jack’s car is now immobile, so the three group members bail and run away from the car. When they are not twenty feet away the car explodes in a huge ball of fire, lifting up some ten feet off of the ground. Reg gets a piece of shrapnel in his neck from the explosion, and Skaale rushes to heal him. As we are recovering we see the van hurriedly pull away and disappear.

Skaale, Jack and Reg walk the mile or so back to the other party members. Jack is cursing the whole way about his car and vows revenge on the guys that did it. Skaale and Reg take their motorcycles back to the warehouse, and the others take the bus. Even the weirdos on the bus won’t sit next to Jack because he is scorched and covered in blood.

Back at the warehouse everyone recuperates for a day or two. Reg is healing from the damage he took and Skaale is attempting to bond his sustaining foci with various spells. Reg plays a joke on Jack by anonymously purchasing a month pass to the bus for him. Jack guesses that it is Reg who did it and is none too happy. Jack later enlists Wiz Kid’s help to salvage what is left of his car, but there isn’t much left except the frame.

Reg, remembering the license plate of the van, searches out the owner and finds it registered to Harris Corp at 1310 E. Grange. Jack searches online for information related to Harris Corp. He finds that it is a subsidiary of Abbott’s Labs, which is owned by DocWagon. We surmise that either someone on the inside of ReadyMed is working with DocWagon to do the organ harvesting or DocWagon is trying to frame ReadyMed for the crimes.

Since the group no longer has a vehicle they decide to go car shopping. Jack buys a Bulldog Stepvan that will ostensibly hold everyone and all of their gear. Eclipse and Skaale pitch in 12,000 nuyen each.

Reg sets up Jack with a new fake SIN and the group leases out a space in the building across the street from the clinic in his name in order to surveil the building. It is on the first floor just west of the ambulance entrance. The party watches the goings-on at the clinic for a few days before making their next move.

New World

Session 1 – History Lesson

We are introduced to Register Zero, or “Reg” who is a 19 year old Technomancer. He carries around a small musical keyboard and will sometimes zone out and play. His companion is a Dwarf shaman. We learn that Nutz was not put in cryo-freeze with us and escaped away somewhere instead.

Wiz Kid says that they overlooked the abilities we gained from the staff, otherwise they might really have dissected us. Even so it took months for his staff to detox us before they brought us out of freeze. Hopefully they didn’t miss anything.

Wiz Kid takes us to the old warehouse, which he has kept everything preserved the way we had it when we left. The sub, Jack’s car and Skaale’s motorcycle are in storage here. We start getting comfortable with the warehouse again, and Jack goes next door to his old office. He finds a 15 year old whiskey in the drawer.

Moments later an elderly couple comes into Jack’s office and ask for his help. Their son Mark worked at a bar somewhere in Milwaukee and after work a few nights ago he disappeared and no one has seen him since. They offer to pay 9000 nuyen for us to find him. He says he will do it for 7000, but asks how they found out about his services. They say that they found him listed in the book.

Jack coms the rest of the group and they agree to take the job. Skaale mentions that he wouldn’t mind doing an easy job since they all have to get their bearings. Reg hacks into the others’ conversation and offers to help. Jack tells him the name of the bar and Reg starts to look into their records. He finds some security videos that were supposedly deleted from the previous night. There is also one from the night of the incident but he isn’t able to recreate that one.

Mark’s parents return with a pair of his pants. Jack gets the scent and tells the rest of us that we should visit the bar to see if we can find anything there. Jack meets us all at the warehouse and helps Reg disguise himself so he looks older, with a ridiculous moustache. We leave for the bar and purposefully arrive separately a few minutes apart so we don’t gain attention.

Reg goes to the bar and drinks 2 beers, and watches the trid. The others filter in. Jack asks the head bouncer if he saw anything happen to Mark. The bouncer is surly at first but once he hears that Jack was hired by Mark’s parents he is more helpful. He says that there was a Ready-Med van in the alley behind the building 30 minutes after Mark left. He noticed that it was van #269. He never saw Mark after that.

Jack asks around to the other patrons, but no one is particularly helpful. He goes outside to the alleyway an dpicks up Mark’s scent. There are also tire tracks here, ostensibly from the Ready-Med van. He calls the rest of the group out to help look for other clues, but we find nothing further. Jack hypothesizes that the Ready-Med van kidnapped him.

Reg hacks into the Ready-Med servers and finds a record showing that a van was sent to the bar, but there is no record of who the technicians were or why they came. Reg makes a user account for himself so he can log in easily at a later date. There is also a strange file in this directory. He downloads the file and sees that it contains the names and addresses of two Ready-Med employees. Afraid that someone might catch him, he quickly jacks out with the pilfered info.

Reg examines the file and it is very strange. It has columns of data with dates, icon symbols, and seemingly random numbers. We figure that these cannot be records of stops, because the dates go several days into the future. Perhaps they are schedules of some sort or a list of people to be kidnapped.

Reg checks the papers looking for reports of missing people and finds nothing. He then checks the public message boards and sees mentions of people who went missing the same night as Mark. Five of these people had accounts with Ready-Med. He finds their personal information and downloads it all.

Using the name and address info we found, we go to the house of the driver, a man named Fred Savage. We interrogate him and he is very scared and cooperative. He says that they picked up Mark because he had a heart attack. They were able to revive him in the van and he was taken to one of their clinics — he knows nothing more. Skaale manifests in the room, scaring he and his wife half to death, and they ascertain that Savage is telling the truth. The party departs, and on the way out Reg blocks all of Savage’s calls so he cannot phone the police. We question the other driver, a female, and she corroborates the info that Savage gave us.

After more study we realize that the “12” column may correspond to organs they need, since there are 12 general areas of the body. We decide to go to the clinic Mark was taken to and look around.

The Codex

Epilogue 2 – Hit the Deck (Again)

We continue through the basement of the Ares building, but the card fails to open any more doors. Nutz hotwires the next door and Jack and Nacre bust their way through. WE go into the next room and find it to be a large, sterile office area.

We hear movement from some of the other rooms, it seems that there are more robot sentries here. Nacre takes a look down an adjascent hallway but does not see anything. We move forward and we hear the robot noises again. Jack discovers a turret blocking our path and we decide to take an alternate route through the nearby bathroom wall.

Nutz sets a charge and blows through the wall. We climb through and he uses his eye laser to get through a metal grate. We climb down to the sub-basement.

There is a laser turret in the main room. We decide to run past it instead of just standing still. Jack goes first, but he sees that there is a robotic sentry near the exit. He shoots it on his way past, and soon sees another one which he destroys as well.

WE finally come in to the main lab. They have several large vaults set into the floor here. Scale Fang goes astral and ascertains that more than 20 of the vaults have items in them. A robot approaches from down the hall and Nacre, Eclipse and Jack open fire. Nacre is hit and is healed by Scale Fang. Scale Fang runs out and levitates the robot upside down and Jack destroys it. Scale Fang then heals Nacre’s wounds.

Nutz uses a security disc that Wiz Kid gave him, and it successfully opens all of the vaults. There are chips, decks, laser units and prototype engine parts. Nutz, Jack and Eclipse all grab laser packs. The rest of the party grabs other things that aren’t too bulky. We get about half of the stuff that was in the vaults.

Jack goes to get a garbage cart to take the robot and the laser packs in. There is a maintenance robot and Jack kills it and throws it in, as well. Scale Fang levitates the cart up the stairs. We exit the building safely after a few more brief firefights.

We leave and go back to Gigi’s, and for her services to this point we leave one of the prototype decks for her decker. We decide to take 12 people with us back on the sub, and leave the next day.

While in the sub, we come to the underwater fence and it appears to have been fixed where we cut through. Nutz sends his drone out and it cuts through after a few minutes. As we come through the fence, something appears on sonar. Nutz quickly fires the dummy torpedo and we wait at the bottom of the lake for several hours. After we decide that it is safe, we continue our journey and arrive safely in Milwaukee.

Wiz Kid is ecstatic with all of the equipment we brought back. The rest of us relax and take it easy for a few nights.

After almost a week, we are ambushed in the warehouse by an Ares Special Ops unit. the break in to the warehouse and take us all prisoner. We are knocked unconscious and have strage dreams of voices and flashing images. They are examining us for some unknown reason.

We awake to see a red-haired man who looks like Wiz Kid. Scale Fang doesn’t recognize him immediately, because he appears much older. The man says that it’s good to see us again, and that 15 years have passed since the Ares Special Ops group kidnapped us. They apparently caught wind of our raid, and put us in cryso-sleep and did experiments on us. A few years later the facility we were in, some sort of research lab, was sold to another company. It took Wiz Kid 15 years to find us, and he bought the company so he could set us free.

Wiz Kid has been paying the rent on the warehouse since we left and our equipment and truck are in storage. He says that the world has changed, and that everything is wireless now; people can access the ‘Net without any equipment. A lot has changed, and perhaps so have we due to the experiments.

The Codex

Epilogue 1 – Hit the Deck (Again)

We reconvene at Gigi’s to heal and to rethink out our method of approach on the Ares building. Scale Fang and Jack rejoin the group and are brought up to speed. Jack has a few crazy ideas that involve crashing his Jackrabbit through the loading bay door.

We decide to do recon on the building. It is a 4-story neo-Gothic building with lots of columns and glass. After a while we see armed robotic sentries walking through. The rear atrium is most likely glassteel and therefore almost impenetrable. There are turrets that drop down from the ceiling along most of the perimeter as well.

Nutz rigs a bag of explosives and Eclipse sneaks to the front entrance. She sets the bag down and sneaks away. We sneak up to the rear door and Scale Fang swipes the card they were given to gain entrance. The loading bay door opens and we are able to get inside.

Jack listens around and cannot hear anything. We go to the rear door and see several cameras along the way. Scale Fang swipes the card again and opens the next door. Eclipse sneaks through and checks the stairwell. Jack jams a gun clip in the door so it can’t close. Eclipse motions to us and we move down the stairs. We open the door and go into the basement door. There is a sentry there, and we all freeze. We prepare for an attack but Scale Fang notices that it doesn’t appear to have any weapons.

We try the keycard on the next door and it does not work. We try it again and this time it opens. Jack peeks into the room and a large sentry gun comes from the ceiling. He ducks back in and the door closes. Nutz tries the keycard two more times and it doesn’t work.

Eclipse goes to open one of the ceiling vents in the room to try and gain access to the ventilation system when Jack and Scale Fang hear sentries coming from the double doors. They come through shooting and we retaliate, Jack blowing one of their heads clean off with his revolver and then quickly blasting the second one as well.

A third robot appears in the room and fires on Eclipse, wounding her badly. Scale Fang runs to get Eclipse out of the line of fire and quickly heals her.

Suddenly we hear a hissing sound and it seems that some sort of gas is being pumped into the room. Scale Fang casts the spell “oxygenate” on himself and the others put on breath masks. The remaining sentries are destroyed, but soon Scale Fang passes out from the gas. Nutz busts the door to a nearby closet open and goes in. Jack and Eclipse drag Scale Fang into the closet and the door is closed. Nutz slaps a stimpatch on Scale Fang and he awakens presently.

The Codex

Session 14 – Get the Girl and Get Home

We are hanging out at GG’s place when there is a commotion — someone is arriving. We se our old friend and Owl Shaman, Tebriel. It seems that he was sent here by Smoke Jaguar to help us out. After a brief re-introduction we tell him of our current mission.

Our plan is to take the sub south to the area that Fenola is being held in, and find a way to get her out.

We load up all of our gear and take off in the sub, since we will not be returning. On the way out, Nutz manages to scrape the sub on the side of the wall, causing a small leak.

Nutz pilots the sub south and finds a small boathouse that looks safe to store the sub in. All exit and move into the city. It is mid-afternoon and there is a light rain falling.

We make our way through the city to her building. Nutz sends the flying drone around the perimiter of the building. The north entrance looks sealed off but the others seem to be open. There are lots of security cameras around. Some people are coming in and out of the building but they do not seem to be armed.

We move towards the door and they barricade themselves inside. Skelfeng casts Magic Fingers in case they need to be “coaxed”. Jack approaches and asks them if we can rent a room. They let him in and tell him that it is very expensive. He says that he can provide several things, including passage out of the city.

We decide that we could sell one of Nutz’ drones in order to buy the girl back. Jack goes back in and one of the guys, named T’krit, asks him about getting out of the city; he wants passage for himself and a few of his men.

Jack explains that we want the girl in exchange. The guy agrees and lets us into the building.

We go up to the penthouse and get settled in. They bring up the girl and we explain the situation to her. She begins crying, and seems very happy to be getting out of the city and to see her brother again.

T’krit announces to his men that some of them will be leaving the city, and some will be asked to stay and help out. We will leave some supplies here for them as well.

We start packing up to leave. Fenola explains that she needs to get some of her family heirlooms out of her apartment before she can go. Some of T’krit’s men will go with us to the apartment building, which is nearby.

All of us head into the building, but we leave some of T’krit’s men on the ground floor. We head up to the 26th floor, but smell a sweet odor and decide to head back down to the 19th floor since there are most certainly bugs upstairs.

We ask Fenola about the location of her items, and her apartment number. She gives us the information and we head upstairs, leaving her with the others.

We get back up to the 26th floor and there seems to be activity. Skelfeng sees several bug spirits around. We launch our grenades into the hallway and take them out. We find two more in the apartment and kill them as well. We take her belongings from the safe in her room and clear the area.

Returning to T’krit’s building, we pack up our belongings and take the passengers with us.

We leave in the sub and are able to escape the same way that we came in, through the hole in the fence that we previously made. Our trip back to Milwaukee is without incident.

We deliver the girl back to Dorchatus and she is very happy to be back. He makes good on his promise and says that he will tell his superiors that he has killed Nacre.

Some of the passengers stay with us in the warehouse base. After a day or so, most of them leave, thanking us profusely and promising to return and repay us for helping them.

A few days later we deliver the cage to Smoke Jaguar. He adds 1.25 million nuyen to our account, which amounts to 250,000 nuyen apiece. He tell us that we are going on a trip, and takes us in his plane to Seattle.

After landing we go through a DMZ area where an Urban Brawl had just occurred. We go inside a church nearby and into a room with an Aztec-style altar with petroglyphs. Each person present has a piece of the codex.

A ritual occurs — they assemble the pieces of the codex and a flash whites out the room. The codex is glowing intensely. We all feel very good. Skelfeng approaches the codex to look at it. Several other magicians do the same.

He casts Analyze Magic on it, to find out the codex’s purpose. Apparently it is a focus, gathering nearby mana into the crystal at the center. It could be called a “mana battery” of sorts (force 9).

In game terms, it increases everyone’s Essence by 1.

The Codex

Session 13 – Bug City

The “queen” cockroach approaches us.

Nutz, already wounded, beats a hasty retreat and calls for the others to follow. Nacre runs forward and fires an arrow at the bugs. The queen dies from the hit. We quickly dispatch the other bugs, but Nutz’ walking drone has been hit and cannot move.

The roto-drone scopes further in to the room and sees only dead bugs and bodies. Skelfeng heals Nutz some, and we begin to make our way to the electrical panel.

Skelfeng checks astrally and does not see any threat. Nutz attempts to fix the power and accidentally electrocutes himself. Skelfeng uses his war club to knock him away from the live wires.

Skelfeng is able to heal Nutz and he continues working. 4 hours later Nutz is able to fix the power.

Nutz then fixes his drone enough so it can walk. We return to the Sanctum.

The guards let us in and we go to meet Two Spirits. He gives us the birdcage and Skelfeng confirms that it is real (or at least magical).

Skelfeng heals some of the others group members.

Two Spirits is asked about the girl and say that she is outside of his realm, he does not know her.

We go back to GG’s and she helps fix up Nutz and Jack. After five days, Jack is down to a light wound.

Nutz goes back into the tunnel and fixes his walking drone.

Skelfeng speaks with the other mages at the Sanctum, and they trade spells. He learns 2 new ones.

The mages offer to help find Dorchatus’ sister. They participate in a ritual using the photo that Dorchatus gave us of the two of them during their childhood. She is in a tall apartment building that is silver with purple glass. There are several trolls and orks around, they look like some sort of gang. She is in servitude to them, bringing them food. She seems threatened and unhappy.

The mages fashion an amulet that will lead us to her approximate location. We search for old photos of the area that Dorchatus told us she lived in, and we see the silver and purple building nearby.