All posts by jon

The Ethereal Hand

Session 3 – The Unquiet Dead

Foggy noticed that when attacking, the two ghosts could not go through the broken wall — they bounce off of it like it’s still there. He tries to attune to the two spirits attacking him again but they will not leave him alone. Reynard pulls his pistols and points them at the man at the door, saying that he should walk out of there and leave them alone. The man freezes but wonders what they are doing “in the master’s house” and tells them to leave.

Raven jumps under a desk, not wanting to be seen by the man.

Reynard goes after the man, closing the distance quickly but the man steps out of the room and trips him as he comes through the door. Reynard sprawls onto the floor and drops his pistols. Kit follows her master and tries to jump at the man, but also misses.

Foggy tries a different tactic and just tries to talk with the ghosts instead of attuning to them. They surprisingly respond and ask if they are not the master of the house, who are they. Foggy says that they are trying to help the ghosts determine what is going on. The ghosts seem to agree and hang back, watching to see what happens next. Their names are Nigel and Alex, and they can’t say why they want to go through the barrier downstairs, but they feel compelled to. They don’t remember what happened when they were still alive but it was something horrible.

The crew heads downstairs and notice a foul smell. They turn on the lights to find a huge laboratory with lots of equipment and potions, as well as torture devices that seem well used (i.e. still full of blood and gore). Toward the back of the room there is a large locked pen with at least 20 people in it.

Eklipsis looks at the potions and sees that some of these are highly dangerous and illegal — they may be used to separate someone’s soul from their body. Looking at the people in the pen, Foggy realizes that this is what’s happened to them, they are “hulls” which are people who have been separated from their spirit but have been left alive.

Eklipsis unlocks the cell with her lockpicks and they look at the people inside. Two of the hulls look similar to the two ghosts who were upstairs. They lead the hulls upstairs “Weekend at Bernie’s style” and the ghosts inhabit the bodies, and after a moment they wake up. They are very weak, filthy and starving, but they are alive.

With the help of Nigel and Alex, they bring the others upstairs and Foggy calls out to the spirits in the area to see if the rest of them are hanging around. Soon all of the spirits come back to their bodies, now that they have been brought through the barrier. In speaking with the people, the crew finds out that some of them were employees of the house, and some were visitors and guests who had come to Mr. Charles’ parties and were kidnapped and tortured by him.

Reynard spends some time looking for valuables inside the Charles residence before they leave. He finds a small safe in the office where the accountant was working. Eklipsis opens it with ease and finds 4 coin inside.

Reynard sends out a signal to Lady Drake’s security forces who were standing by to come in if needed. They pour through the front entrance, much to the surprise of the Bluecoats patrolling the area, and take the people to safety. They let the security men know about the accountant and they take him as well. The crew escapes through their entrance point on the second floor.

A couple of days later, they visit Lady Drake at her office. She offers them drinks and congratulates them on a successful job. They outline everything that happened and she seems disgusted by the descriptions of the people in the pen who had been tortured. She says that in full disclosure, she had her suspicions about Charles but didn’t know the extent of his depravity. Thanks to the evidence that the Ethereal Hand provided, Charles was arrested and is pending charges.

The crew retires for some well deserved downtime before their next score.

(Eklipsis has her 2 downtime actions remaining)

The Ethereal Hand

Session 1 – Spirit Focus

The Ethereal Hand is an up-and coming gang in the Charhollow neighborhood of Duskvol. The current membership consists of Reynard, a hound; Eklipsis, a leech; Raven, a lurk; and Foggy, a whisper.

They reside in a tower in the Old Village section of Charhollow, which is an abandoned abbey. This area is teeming with working class people and they are high above.

So far they have been able to add quarters to their lair, so everyone can sleep there. However, the materials they used were stolen from the Cabbies, so that group is antagonistic to the Hand at the moment.

The Hand are looking to operate in the Charterhall area which is home to the government offices and university of Duskvol. They pay off the City Council (1 coin) so they can operate here.

The Council also provided to them some documents about local figures (double XP for training Insight skills) and the Hand pay 1 coin to increase their relationship with the Council.

Trying to decide what they could do for their first job as a gang, the Hand consults Fitz, a collector with a large antique store in the market district of Charhollow who also happens to be a member of the sect “The Path of Echoes” which believe that the traditional wisdom of the Church of Ecstasy is wrong. They often commune with the dead.

Fitz’ store is about to close for the evening, but the members of the Hand are waved in and led to the back room where Fitz is enjoying some kind of a drug out of a hookah. He blows a cloud of purple smoke and asks the gang what they are interested in. They explain that they are looking for work, and he says that he has just recently gotten in some artifacts from Tycheros, which is where Raven hails from. Raven seems interested.

Fitz explains that three of the boxes from his Tycheros shipment are being held by the bluecoats across the river in Charterhall at a warehouse. They often hold things that they consider contraband without any warning and keep them there as long  as they wish. Some of the items are war artifacts like old swords and shields, and some are vases that are quite old and fragile. One of the items is a strange relic called a Spirit Focus. Fitz says that if his items may be procured, he would pay the group for their trouble.

Fitz also has several other Tycheros artifacts like clockwork toys that depict monstrous people, and also some vases. Reynard asks for items from Severos, the nomadic tribes, and Fitz shows him a statuette of a horse rearing up.

Foggy asks for more information about the Spirit Focus artifact, and Fitz dusts off an old tome that is from the Path of Echoes’ own knowledge of arcana. It depicts the Spirit Focus as a square object with a hole sort of like a frame, that is made out of glass or some bright material. It is a beacon for spirits, and when activated they will approach the device.

Foggy reads more and discovers that with a skilled practitioner, the Spirit Focus can be made to not only call spirits, but direct them and cause them to harry or attack someone. He does not reveal this to Fitz.

The Hand accepts the job and goes off to find more info. First, Raven goes to his friend Darmot, a bluecoat, probably the only honest one in town. The man seems upset and he explains that his boss has been all over his ass about one of the local diplomat’s vacation homes (normally empty) who keeps getting broken into. It’s happened five times over the past several weeks and the bluecoats are stumped. Nothing is stolen, but windows and furniture are regularly broken. Raven asks Darmot about the warehouse and he specifies the location and says that it is heavily guarded.

The Hand case the warehouse and find that there are three entrances, one to the south, one to the east, and a large garage door to the west. There are normally three guards at the garage door and two at each other door during the night, and one less at each during the day. Reynard’s dog is able to see that the storage area is to the west and there are offices on the east side and pallet jacks in the middle area.

Searching through the canals, Reynard scopes things first and then draws a map for Raven. He notes that there is a spirit well and a group of spirit wardens nearby that Raven shouldn’t go near. Raven follows the map and sees a ladder that leads up to a barred doorway with a thick metal lock made out of a dark gray steel.

Eklipsis wonders how she can open the lock and visits Stazia, an apothecary friend of hers. Stazia is a short balding man with dark skin and a thick accent. He mixes Eklipsis a strong acid that will help her break through the lock. He says to only use a few drops and gives her a glass eyedropper.

Before Eklipsis leaves, Stazia asks her to check on their mutual friend Veldren, who was in a few weeks ago to buy a bunch of materials but hasn’t been seen since. Stazia is worried that he has overdosed.

The Hand go back to Fitz and ask for a gondola to take them back to the access door in the canals. Fitz agrees but he says that the money will have to come off of their pay. Reynard has an idea to cause a distraction with a beer cart outside the warehouse. He plans to have the beer spill everywhere and cause a scene so the others can get to the score undetected. Again, Fitz agrees but says it will come off of their cut of the score.

At the appointed time, during the day, Reynard indeed drives by the east entrance and makes a big scene with spilled beer, drawing the attention of many bluecoats and also getting some of them to take the beer. He is totally convincing.

In the tunnels, the Gondolier named Billy brings the rest of the crew to the underground entrance though he is nervous to be here, knowing that the Spirit Wardens are nearby. Eklipsis tells him to stay put.

Eklipsis, Raven and Foggy go to the ladder and Eklipsis ascends, starting to work on the lock with his picking tools rather than using the acid first. She is able to loosen one of the bars that is holding the door shut but it falls and clangs loudly to the floor. The guards are more aware but not alerted yet.

Border Princes

Session 27 – The Changer of the Ways

After about a day’s travel, we skirt around to Castenea which is Giovanni’s territory. We don’t run into anything except normal traffic. Jean and the elves head up to take Hauptner to Giovanni. The dwarves hit up the first bar and start drinking.

Jean and the elves meet Giovanni who is in a smoking jacket and a fez drinking brandy and reading. The meeting between the two border princes is tense. Hauptner looks a bit guilty, and the catatonic state seems to be diminished.

Giovanni tries to sum up everything that’s happened and Jean asks why chaos warriors may be on his lands. Giovanni won’t answer with Hauptner here. We hear the story about how Hauptner was responsible for the death of Giovanni’s men and they still have bad blood. The old man lunges at Giovanni and Jean holds him back. Finally things calm down and they are talking.

Hauptner says that he thinks Sasha was behind the ork attack.  He says that he doesn’t recall things that happened with Sasha in the last couple of years. Before that she was getting the bandits under control and then she said that Gio was trying to assassinate him. She had the double brought in, and after that Hauptner doesn’t remember much.

Gio says that ships have come into port just two days ago from Duke Edelhard. The men were ordered to go under Jean’s command.

The dwarves see a bunch of men in flowery uniforms that appear to be Britonians in the bar. They have daggers at their belts.

We suddenly see larger and larger waves coming in from the Black Gulf and ships start capsizing in the harbor. A huge tsunami starts coming toward us and the dwarves make for higher ground. The elves, up in the keep, see a water spout and someone is at the top of it.

Brokk slips and falls but Tobruk manages to hold onto him and a stone column with the other hand. We see some strange creatures materialize from the water and start attacking people, turning into liquid and enveloping people. The woman on top of the water spout is wearing strange blue and purple clothes. After a few more waves she moves off and the waters become lower, and the water creatures stop attacking as well.

Giovanni mourns his city. The group starts to help pull people out of the water. Vedasi tells Giovanni to fortify the front gate because we’ve been hit at the back gate pretty strongly.

As we are working we see on the ground near the docks a strange symbol like a wave with a circle over it. Jean and Vedasi see it and believe it is the symbol of Tzeentch. He is the “changer of the ways” and many chaos worshipers follow him.

We continue pulling people out of the water and we see that only a handful of the Britonian soldiers survived. A few lucky sailors pull themselves out of the water, but most of them are gone. The richer area up on the high ridge hasn’t been touched by the water.

Giovanni eventually comes down to the docks by us and asks to talk. We head back to the keep with him and he takes us to a large council room. Two people are waiting for us there. We see a man in white robes and full armor and a huge warhammer. His armor has the sign of a twin-tailed comet (Sigmar) and he has a silver circlet that looks like it is riveted into his head. The woman has golden armor and the symbol of a shield and a spear on it (Myrmidia). They are two of the temple leaders in town. Hauptner is also here, but under guard. Giovanni mentions that they need to bring Celarin, a high elf. He is one of the newest loremasters of Hoeth. The high elves and the wood elves don’t generally get along. We may need to send word to him so he will help.

We start telling the group about what we’ve come up against and we mention the skaven. Gio says that this is how Slanesh will attack. The skaven are probably moving here right now. He needs Brokk as the stoneworker to help check the cellars on every home in the town. Tobruk as the armorer, he asks him to get weapons ready so people in town to wield them. He asks Hauptner for info about Sasha, asks Jean to update all of their maps, and the elves to teach his archers on the wall to shoot straight.

The elves head to the high part of town and visit Phandyth who is helping her neighbors. They ask her to get in touch with the wood elves near our keep and others that she knows. We need to gather all the forces to help defend the town.

Border Princes

Session 26 – Kettle Khorne

The horses thunder toward us and the men who aren’t mounted start going toward the house. We see the civilians on a second story balcony of the house and Vedasi yells at them to get into the house.

They run past us and Jean is struck but is still standing. The others try hitting but none of the riders fall. As they are departing, Maruviel shoots one in the head twice but it doesn’t fall. Tobruk hits one and knocks him off of his horse, dead.

They turn back and come toward us again. Eogard charges one in red armor and it hits him four times. He is dead after the second strike but he continues hitting two more times, bashing his brains out.

After seeing that, Brokk decides that we should do a tactical retreat, and tries to reason with Tobruk, telling him that this isn’t a fight we can win. Tobruk refuses to leave but Brokk restrains him and pulls him behind cover. The riders lose interest and go back to destroying the farmhouse and killing everyone there.

We ride away two hours from here, even though Jean is wounded. We camp but we notice that there are not many animal sounds in the area. Putting our heads together, we think that these chaos warriors are followers of Khorne, who just focus on killing as much as they can.

The next morning, we wake up and there is one bird making noise. It is kind of strange. Brokk heals Jean by 50%. Vedasi heads back to the farmhouse, trying to stay concealed. He sees that the farmhouse has been burnt to the ground and the slayer’s body along with most of the others are gone. The only thing there is the fallen chaos warrior’s body. Vedasi drags it back to us and Brokk checks it out.

Brokk sees that the armor is not fused to its body as has been rumored and it has thick skin like leather, which has been branded with symbols of Khorne. It has one eye gouged out and sharpened teeth. Tobruk chops the body up with his axe.

Vedasi and Brokk look around the farmhouse and don’t see much. There is some blood and the remains of the house. Brokk convinces Tobruk to look as well, but nothing is there.

Border Princes

Session 25 – Be Franc With Us / Cranium Gladiators

It has been two weeks since the battle. We have many refugees at the keep, so many in fact that we are concerned about food.

We get a delivery from Edelhart saying that he will send troops down to Castenea on the river rather than sending them through the mountains. This will just be some assistance and not an occupying force.

We are consistently seeing many haggard people coming from that area. We hear from the wood-elves that the city was breached in three places, but after a while the orks have gotten bored and have moved north through the pass. There was only one more engagement with about a dozen of them, but most of them just moved into the mountains.

Hauptner abandoned the city and started to go south about a week ago. We decide since the city is abandoned, we will go check things out and see what is there. After this we may head south to let Giovanni know that Hauptner and Gilemet are together so this may be a good time to take them both out.

At Groghaven, we hear the sounds of dogs. Some buildings are still intact, but much of it is destroyed. The grain silos have been fired and are destroyed.

Suddenly we see a shape running through the streets. Brokk calls out but he keeps running. Vedasi catches up with him and knocks him down. He has a sack of moldy bread and cheese and a small dagger of orcish manufacture. We check him out and he has smooth hands and tattered, but fair, clothes. We ask him his name and he hesitates a moment before saying “Franc.” He says that he’s from this town and that he’s a scribe. We don’t quite believe him. Jean asks him to show us where he used to work and he takes us to the keep.

The keep itself is in ruin, as most of the furniture and tapestries have been destroyed. We get to the main audience chamber and Jean and Vedasi see a painting that resembles our friend almost exactly. Underneath the painting it reads “Baron Hauptner.” Talking with him more, it’s clear that he’s lost his marbles. We ask him to take us to the Baron’s workplace and he heads downstairs.

We go through the dungeon to what looks like it used to be a safe room. There are some dead people here and we smell a strange smell. We find skaven tracks and Hauptner freaks out and almost goes catatonic.

We bring him out and admits that he is indeed Hauptner. He says that after the attack, he sent his double to sit on the throne and retreated down here. The town was sacked and then his men were attacked by skaven who came through the tunnels.

Brokk binds him and Hauptner takes us upstairs to his desk. Everything here has been ransacked, however Tobruk finds a sack of 25 gold in a false-bottom drawer. Jean finds a scroll case at the back of a drawer. There are some maps and drawings, strategies of how he would attack Giovanni or Sasha, scouting reports, and other materials.

We decide to stay here for the night and then make for the Crossed Lances in the morning. We barricade the skaven hole as best we can and stay in one of the guard barrack houses. Brokk keeps a close eye on Hauptner.

The next day we head back, but Hauptner is getting more and more paranoid. We put a sack over his head and have him in a room to keep an eye on him.

In the morning we talk to the innkeeper and we give him 500 gold to help keep things going in the area. He is astonished but promises to help us.

We head through the mountains toward the dwarven keep of Din Borim and a bad storm rolls through. We stay the night on the road and then get to Din Borim the next evening. The place looks much cleaner and they have gotten the forge going. We stay one night and then continue heading south.

We get into the hilly lands to the south and we can hear the thunder of hooves. We head to a small hill and hide. About a dozen riders come near. They are fully decked out in plate mail that is black, red and bronze. They appear to be riding toward a small village. Tobruk and Vedasi look up to see them coming and they notice Tobruk’s hair. They turn toward us, yelling “blood for the blood god!”

Border Princes

Session 24 – An Arrow to the Knee

Our goal is to patrol our area and harass any orks coming in. Jean is hoping that his sponsor will send help by road or by sea. We continue ranging out and we see signs of a large party up ahead quite a ways. We see one scout and the elves turn it into a pincushion with an arrow through its head, eye, and one through each knee. It bleeds out and we advance past. There is a camp up ahead a couple of miles and we sneak toward it.

We see in the camp a bunch of knight goblins  including a spider rider, shaman, several orks, a  swarm of snotlings, a stone troll, and a squig (a fungus-based animal that knight goblins use for mounts and also food). There are probably thirty creatures here. Some of them are arguing and kicking around the smaller creatures.

The elves approach around a hill to the west and the dwarves go to the east. The elves take out a couple of goblins without anyone noticing, but one of them starts screaming and the orks begin running toward them. The spider rider is also taken out, with Jean burying an arrow up to the feathers in its large abdomen and the elves finishing it off.

Tobruk and Eogard see the stone troll and run straight toward it around a hill. Brokk follows them initially but breaks off when he sees the swarm coming toward the elves. Screaming, the slayers slam into the stone troll and kill a nearby knight goblin. Seeing this, the troll picks it up and tries to eat it. Tobruk promptly cuts his arm off and Eogard finishes him off.

Brokk runs through the middle of the battlefield toward the camp and takes out a knight goblin and an ork. The squig charges up and bites him in the arm.

From out of one of the tents comes a war boss and a shaman. The shaman chants something and a dark aura comes out.

Brokk kills the ork that was on him and bisects the squig.

The shaman fires a magic missile into Brokk’s chest but his armor takes some of it. Jean fires an arrow and it goes through the shaman’s leg.

The war boss is fighting both slayers and strikes Eogard savagely. He is overwhelmed and starts to flee. Tobruk catches up with him and continues attacking, and Brokk joins in. The elves finish him with arrows.

Looking around the area we see a small idol to their god, a bunch of mushrooms, a war chest of 500 crowns (in various types of coin).

 

Border Princes

Session 23 – Scorched Earth

We decide to head back to the keep near the crossed lances and see how things are faring there. The rest of our escort stays at the dwarven keep. Going overland, we don’t pass many travelers. We are close enough to the river to see boats. Later on, we see smoke to the northeast where the Khyprian road crosses the river. Jean references the map and imagines that it’s near Volchbach. We are probably 10 miles away. We can hear the sounds of screaming.

Since this is on the way to our keep anyway (Volchbach is 20 miles away from our keep) we head toward the town. We see fire and flaming things shooting through the air. People are fleeing a massive horde of greenskins. There are probably thousands in total. Everything from orks to snotlings running around, there are boar riders, wolf riders, etc.

We think about what we know about orks. They must have come here for a specific purpose, to sack this city. They are all about fighting so they will probably not be sending scouts toward our keep. We head to the keep quickly and see how things are going. The dock area is more finished than when we were last here.

We have a total of five boatmen (one missing a hand), the two halflings (Sleeves and Thomas) and the lumberjacks and their families here.

We are going to have the lumberjacks create a palisade to protect us from any siege. The elves will talk to the wood-elves nearby to make sure they are on alert, then they will head out to find any refugees and bring them back so we can shelter them and they can help defend the keep. The dwarves look at fortifying the keep and getting supplies from town.

The wood-elves promise to send some supplies. The dwarves get to the Crossed Lances and everything seems to be in order. It is more packed than usual, and we see some people who are definitely refugees. Tobruk looks around and sees another slayer in the corner with a large mohawk. This guy is wider than Tobruk but not taller. The dwarf says that the axe Tobruk is carrying belongs to him, because he got it from his dead brother. His name is Eogard Mungrinsson. He is from Karak Kadrin which is out in the mountains of Sylvania. The name does ring a bell to Tobruk. He knows that the axe does come from a smith that is there. Tobruk refuses to give it back so Eogard decides that he will come along with us. We direct the people at the Crossed Lances to send supplies and also anyone who is able to the keep.

The elves bring bows, arrows, nets and other supplies to us. Civilians start showing up and we start training them. We setup daily patrols and start ranging to the road to see what is going on. We go out four miles all around the keep. We will engage with any parties of 30 or less. During this time we see groups of about 10 and take them out, but haven’t seen any larger parties or groups riding mounts as of yet.

Chicago Runners

Session 3 – Isaac pumps up Franz

Things have calmed down after the action from last time.  Mari got a settlement from Saeder-Krupp to keep it hushed up.  She is going to use it to help her mom, and she is incredibly happy and thankful around us.  She knows we saved her from a bad situation.  We are finally back on regular duty.  The runs have been mostly boring, but there does seem to be an increase in gang violence.

Things have gotten a little rougher around the neighborhood, and the regulars at the Triple Tap are carrying more weapons.  We still hang out there several times a week.  One night we are hanging out there when Isaac gets a high priority message from Dr. Hyun.  Her 20-year-old nephew Ayun has been missing for 3 days.  He was part of a young person’s organization that went on a humanitarian project in the slums.  He has not been seen since.  They have not found anything around his last known location.

We recognize the symbol as the Universal Brotherhood.  They have a cover as being an organization about the sharing of universal truth and companionship.  However, we know they have a violent side as well and they have gathered weapons.  The founders of the group created it to promote peace, however they both got sick and committed suicide.  At a guess there are 18,000-20,000 members in the Chicago area.  We decide to keep our eyes and ears open but keep doing our regular runs.  We cannot afford to get in trouble again.

The next day we go back out on patrol like normal.  We get a call around midnight on Thursday.  We notice that the name is Franz Donner, Thumper’s cousin.  The signal is coming from down by the docks, which is nowhere near the restaurant.  It is coming from a warehouse.  As we pull up, we see several Eagle security units with bullet holes in their cars.  The ping from his bracelet is coming from inside this building on the south side.  We get the cops to move and then pull the ambulance to the south east corner of the building.  There are no doors on this side.

We sneak around to the West side and find a side door, along with Edge and Scales, the shadow runners we ran into before.  They try to wave us off, but we come up anyway.  They say there is a blood bath in there and we might not want to go in.  Thumper tries to break the door but fails.  He shoots out the hinges and then runs into the room, yelling for Franz.  We see the same orcs that were bothering the Triple Tap, part of the Sewer Rats.  As we move into the room, we see a group of trolls on the other side.  Many of them are people that Thumper knows, but some of them are dead and others are wounded.  They are in bad shape.

We manage to stabilize Franz and get him on a stretcher.  As we are loading him up one of the trolls says they were selling the weapons so that the gangs would destroy each other.  As we start moving towards the door, the big garage door explodes inward and a combination of Eagle Security and Corp Sec busts in.  They immediately start exchanging fire with the orcs.

The EMTs look in the bins and find some riot shields.  They grab them and use them to cover the stretcher as the group starts moving towards the door.  The trolls start following us, and the orc gang members start shooting at them and us.  Espadas drops one gang member who gets close to us, and Bright swings at another and wounds him.  The orc gangers and the corp sec keep exchanging fire.  A couple of the troll gangers take wounds.

Icebox gets the stretcher and Franz out the door, while Espadas drops another ganger.  Thumper also kills one.  The group piles out into the alley and runs for the ambulance, with Ryoshi and Thumper covering the rear.  We all head for the ambulance, and two of the troll gangers also escape.  Isaac keeps working on Franz, who seems to be getting worse.  We keep driving to headquarters and rush him into emergency surgery.

Isaac helps with the triage and surgery.  Thumper waits at the emergency room.  Franz is in surgery for three hours, but he does pull through.  Espadas and Ryoshi go back to the restaurant.  A few of the trolls that are usually there are not anymore.

Franz wakes up around mid-morning.  He is covered in bandages and very weak, but lucid.  He says that 3 months ago he was approached by corporate guys who said they could make money while the gangs tear each other apart.  Franz wants to get rid of all the other races, metahumans and otherwise, then trolls could take over.  Corp security shows up soon after to question Thumper and Franz.  Icebox rolls up behind them and starts telling them they cannot question him now.  They leave.

Thumper gets the details from Franz about the weapons shipments.  There were 8 shipments with assault rifles, pistols, armor, shields, and cannons.  The shipments come from Germany and are smuggled through customs then they sell them to the gangs at cost just to move more of them.  The meetings were anonymous (his face was masked), but we have the location and time.

The cops come back and separate Thumper and Franz.  They grill Thumper in their paddy wagon.  He cooperates and tells them what he knows.  Eventually they let him go and he comes back to the restaurant.  Ringo had no idea that any of this was going on with Franz.

Our next move is to try and meet with Edge and Scales to see what they know.  Thumper’s fixer does not know how to contact them, but suggests we get a message out on Noose-net.  Isaac wows us with his hacking skills and can find a way to contact them.  We also find out there are possibly thousands of sewer rats and other gangers underground that come out at night, commit crimes, then go back underground.  A user named SuperWiz has tons of information about them including maps of activity.  We also find that Edge and Scales work with SuperWiz, and they are helping law enforcement.  We decide to try and meet them at a restaurant near us and send SuperWiz a message.

We agree to meet at a nearby noodle bar in the afternoon.  SuperWiz shows up and asks is we have some information on the Sewer Rats.  Thumper and Icebox talk to him and agree to share to their knowledge about the weapons deals.  Icebox will give him the video from the warehouse fight (minus Espadas face of course).  They arrange for a drop point.  The decker reveals that his actual handle is Charlie Zero, and SuperWiz is an alternate username. After the drop we get a message says he has it and will be in touch.  We go back to work for Doc Wagon.

Chicago Runners

Session 1 – A baseball bat and two grapefruit

It’s September 2054 in Chicago, more than a year after the Spiritbane incident. We are a team of medics and security personnel for a DocWagon High Threat Response (HTR) unit that patrols the streets and rescues clients.

John – Ryoshi, elf physical adept and sniper
Bill – Thumper, troll street samurai
Matt – Icebox, human medic
Paul – Espadas, troll physical adept and sword fighter
Jon (NPC) – Bright, human street samurai and former medic
(NPC) – Mari “Gearz”, dwarf rigger
(NPC) – Dr. Hyun, human doctor and team leader

We spend the end of our shift at DocWagon sitting around the station and talking.  Thumper shares that his family has a restaurant nearby and invites us all for dinner and drinks, including Mari.

We go to the restaurant and meet his wife and daughter.  Some sewer rat gangers come in and start pushing around his daughter and other customers.  Thumper goes and and speaks gently to them, at which time they decide to leave.

The next day we spend most of a boring shift just riding around in the ambulance.  However towards the end of the shift we get a call about a car accident with gunfire.  We pull up and a green car with gangers has crashed into a silver coupe that has our patient and four others.  We pile out of the car and the gangers seem like they are threatening the car.  Ryoshi quickly shoots off the side mirror of their car and the gangers all hit the dirt.  There are also two shadowrunners there, Scales and Edge, who say the green car rammed into the silver one and they are there to help.

The runners stay out of our way as we move in to stabilize the patient.  Just then the window of the building next to the scene explodes as a desk come flying out of it…followed by two grenades.  Everyone dives for cover.  Thumper and Espadas dive on top of the victim and his friend.  Dr, Hyun and Icebox are stunned and knocked flat.

Espadas runs and vaults off the desk up into the open window.  He hits and kills one of the 3 guys there with his vibrosword, effectively cutting him in half.  The rest of the team starts to move the patient to the ambulance.  Ryoshi drops another ganger in the window, and Espadas slices the last one.

Just then another truck crashed into the intersection.  The team is able to get the victim in the ambulance, along with Dr. Hyun who is still stunned from the grenade.  One of the gangers shoots at Bright as he is moving back, but Ryoshi shoots the ganger.  Thumper drops a ganger and Scales drops another ganger.  Dr. Hyun finally gets up and is able to get in the ambulance.  Scales waves at us to indicate danger and shoots at the truck.  We start getting the other people into the ambulance, but the panel of the truck pops open and a ganger pops out.  He shoots a missile launcher that catches our med tech, two of the victims, and Icebox.  The medtech is down.

Bright pulls out his SMG and drops the guy with the missile launcher.  Another jumps out but Thumper drops him.  Two more gangers pop out from the van and shoot at Thumper, but miss.  Ryoshi kills one of them.

Eagle Security shows up and the last ganger cowers against his car.  We get the rest of the people in the ambulance.  The last ganger shoots at Thumper but Ryoshi drops him.

The gangers all had Sewer Rat paraphernalia. However they usually do not attack in large groups in public, and they usually do not have this kind of hardware. The med tech expires.

The original victim who called us in is Locus Pendleton.  Icebox recognizes him as the son of a Corp from Shiawase.  Locus is a well known celeb partier, and we recognize his girlfriend as well.

Eagle Security contacts DocWagon and lets them know that the danger has passed, and they are investigating what happened.

The next day, Dr. Hyun is reassigned to a post at the hospital across the street as the director of the ER department. As a result, Isaac “Icebox” is now the team lead on the ambulance and will have two med-techs under him.

Cataclysm

Session 30 – Future History

GM: Paul
Players: Ian-Brad, Alex-John, Dusty-Matt, Jon-Simon, Bill-Chet
Game Date: Oct 28-Nov 6, 2003 / Jan 19, 2019

We get off the street into an alleyway. Luckily, Ian says that he knows someone who lives a few blocks away from here that he was in the service with in basic training. We walk toward there and Ian knocks on the door. A man answers but he doesn’t recognize Ian until he gives him more info. After the two catch up, the man agrees to give him some food and $60 cash.

We go to CVS to Ian gets a hair kit and some razors, as well as a new shirt and pants from a thrift store. He cleans himself up and then is able to go to the bank. When the rest of us see him, he actually does look a few years younger. We head to the bank and he withdraws $5000 in cash.

We head across town to a motel and get two rooms for the night. We clean up and get a good night’s sleep. The next morning we wake up and head to the store to get some clothes. We pay $2400 for a used minivan — Ian talks the guy down from $3000. We load up and head north to Milwaukee.

We stay another night in a different hotel, then head into Milwaukee the next afternoon. Ian drives us to Donges Bay Rd. to his uncle’s summer home and picks up his stuff, as well as his SUV.

Simon remembers that AJ is living on the East Side, on 1509 E. Kane Place and Oakland, right near Pizza Shuttle. Simon and Alex go to AJ’s apartment and knock on his door. He agrees to speak with us outside at a picnic table. Simon tries to explain that he knows things about AJ and that he needs his help. AJ doesn’t believe in the supernatural but agrees to the “mind link.” Simon tries and the mind link and it goes horribly, creating backlash on Simon. He crumples in pain.

Alex does a mind link with AJ and shows him some Talolan things, and he seems curious. Simon recovers and he shows him things from his life and also from the future. He starts to believe us.

We head up to his apartment and he sends his girlfriend out for pizza. While she’s gone we start telling him about the future, but Alex is not sure that we should share specifics. Ian and Simon disagree, saying that more information would be the most helpful, because we don’t know how it will affect the future. Alex agrees but says we should also tell him of his death. Ian tells him and he takes it pretty well.

After a while, his girlfriend Karin comes back and he tells us to zip it. We head down to  Caesar Park and talk for a couple of hours more, and Chet goes to get a case of beer. At 11 PM, we all have a strange sensation like our souls are being pulled from our bodies, but it goes away. We can’t figure out what caused that.

AJ says that he needs to get to bed, and we thank him for his time. He tells Ian to ditch his phone since that could be tracked. He will get a burner phone or call from a payphone. He gives us his cell number. Before we leave, Chet asks him if the government is aware that this disaster may happen, and AJ says absolutely not — there are not even scenarios being run for this.

The next day we meet again and he says that he was able to find something. He says that the sun is going through a very active period, and the time we arrived coincided with a huge solar flare. It was so large that it actually took out the “SOHO” monitoring satellite. We don’t know if there was another solar flare at 11pm the previous night.

We head back to St. Charles, thinking that we should be there when it’s time for us to go back so we can help those who need us. Also, our stuff will be there. We spend some time buying things at CVS so we have drugs and other supplies, knowing that these will be useful if we get snapped back to the future. We even sleep in our clothes in case it happens at night. However it’s several days and we haven’t gone back. We start thinking that it may not happen. But on the 6th of November, we are suddenly snapped back into our time.

It is very cold here, even with our clothes on. We hear rumbling in the distance and there are two Sno Cats coming toward us. Ian uses his scope to see who is driving and he sees AJ. We are all pretty shocked but happy. He comes to meet us and asks us if it worked out. Dusty shows the T-shirt that he was wearing over 15 years ago. We have changed the future, but who knows how much.