Hello there, chummers.
And welcome back to the Hard Knocks Rority Podcast.
A Shadowrun 4th Edition Actual Play Podcast featuring
Val as Ali, aka Boxer, the ex-mercenary looking for redemption on Seattle's mean and dirty streets.
Veronica as Cecile, the snooty college girl out of her depth and slumming it.
Kat as Cian, aka Diendre, a dryad ex-cop from Terra Seer looking for a estranged brother.
And finally, Beth as Grace, aka Nightingale, an otherworldly and extraplanar being to metahumanity, but in reality an emissary from Equestria.
It's a mix of classic Shadowrun tropes, getting coffee and donuts, a melding of genres and worlds, and a whole lot of other things.
I'm Paul, the Game Master, and I'm really happy that you are joining us on this journey and hope you enjoy it.
If you do, please tell your friends and leave us a positive review.
We are available on most podcast services, YouTube, iTunes, etc.
You can also find a link to our Discord server in the podcast description and on the YouTube channel.
We would love to hear from you, and we share a lot of in-game pay data there as well, such as maps, intros, fluff, and character stories.
Thank you again, chummers.
Don't forget, watch your back, conserve your ammo, spoof your Grid Guide ID, and never, ever make a deal with the dragon.
It's nighttime, as it is so often when running the shadows.
What after all is the night, if not the deepest shadow?
Our camera is watching a parking lot, somewhere in an undefined sprawl.
It's raining, of course.
We need the pavement to be wet to cast the fractured reflections of the sprawl's neon face.
The Rolls Royce Phaeton sits at the center of the deserted parking lot, with its running lights on.
Another vehicle, a nondescript Ares Roadmaster, pulls into the parking lot and slowly circles the Phaeton.
The Roadmaster appears tired and worn in comparison to the Phaeton's glossy reflective finish,
but a trained eye would notice that the suspension of the vehicle is carrying substantial weight and has been upgraded to support it.
There are other tells that this Roadmaster is stock.
The tires, the various oddly shaped protrusions on the roof that probably house sensors and antennas,
and the discreet seams and panels that may hide offensive weaponry.
The large van stops broadside, a dozen meters from the Phaeton.
The side door slides aside to reveal a large orc holding a PKM machine gun on a gyro mount pointed in the general direction of the van,
in one hand and a ballistic shield in the other.
Two more passengers emerge from the van's front.
The one in the lead is a human female, and the other is an elven male.
They are both wearing long jackets that are obviously armored, but their weapons are holstered.
They walk into the space between the two vehicles stopped with the woman.
The rear door of the Phaeton slides silently aside, and a male orc steps out and closes the door behind him.
He is wearing what might as well be a corp bodyguard operative armored business suit and mirror shades.
You have the principle? he asks.
You have the cred? the woman replies.
Mirror shades nods and says, biometric verification is required.
The woman nods again.
Fine, your tech can do the scan in the vehicle as she motions with her thumb over her shoulder.
Mirror shades nods as well, and the door of the Phaeton slides open again.
A male dwarf in a lab coat and carrying a device in his hand climbs out and looks nervously around.
The human woman motions him over to her, and after a quick nod from mirror shades, the dwarf steps up to her.
She pats him down with practiced motions and examines his device before letting him pass towards the van.
The dwarf shuffles hurriedly towards the van, his eyes fixed to the muzzle of the PKM that never wavers from mirror shades, and clambers somewhat awkwardly through the door.
Several minutes pass, with the two groups staring impassively at each other, before the dwarf re-emerges from the van.
The squat metahuman pauses briefly to nod at mirror shades prior to disappearing into the Phaeton and shutting the door in haste.
Both mirror shades and the woman frown. She says, your tech seems to be scared of something. Is this a frag job? Mirror shades answers roughly.
Not everyone is cut out for the game, Chica. Now, do you want the cred or not? She nods and holds out her hand.
Mirror shades passes her a cred stick which she quickly slots, and after a moment and another nod she motions to the van.
Two figures climb out of the back of the van and head towards the Phaeton. One is a large human male, and casual.
He is somewhat stooped and balding. Beside him is another human female, who is gripping his right elbow in one hand and an oozy in her other.
She is wearing an armored jacket, and compared to her companion, moves with strength and grace.
As they come abreast with the others, mirror shades raises his hand as if to motion the older man towards him to be searched.
Then his hand explodes and muzzle flashes as a cyber gun in his arm unleashes a burst of fire.
The older man is hit in the throat and face. His head snaps backward in a spray of blood. Things start moving very quickly.
A bullet from a sniper catches the female who had been leading the exchange as she is drawing her pistol full in the chest, catapulting her backward to the ground.
The woman escorting the civilian throws herself to the side and her oozy loop releases a staccato rip of bullets that stitch up the side of mirror shades torso into the side of his jaw.
The mirror shades are flung clear as the hitman topples towards the Phaeton.
The elf who had been accompanying the female human makes an arcane motion and a swirling sphere of energy encompasses him and the downed woman just in time to deflect additional sniper fire.
And the PKM erupts in a roar. The fusillade pins mirror shades to the Phaeton in a macabre display of violence.
Then another sniper bullet takes the head off the woman, the human woman with the oozy in a blast of pink mist, and what remains of her body rolls over into a puddle of rainy water that quickly turns crimson.
The elf mage is dragging the leader towards the van under the cover of the PKM which is chewing at the armor of the no longer gleaming woman.
Gunfire seems to be erupting from the darkness all around the tableau and bullets are chunking into the van's armor and being repelled by the mage's scream.
As he lifts the leader into the back of the van he glances back at his fallen comrade. Then he enters the van.
The doors of the van slide shut and its powerful engine revs as it launches it before screaming tires into the moon.
Our drone's eye shifts and we realize that we are coming in for a strafing run on the location of one of the snipers on the roof of the darkened shopping.
Then our rockets are away and we are pulling up into the night sky, away from the parking lot with its flickering flames and clawing to wrap ourselves in shadow once again.
Oh, well there's something happening in Seattle.
Something's happening somewhere.
To somebody.
Why don't we get the film it involves us?
It's all related to, uh, I have no clue how it is.
Unless it isn't and it's just the biggest red herring.
Alright, Paul, are you ready to enact what we practice?
Roll dice.
Sure.
Okay, is that right? That's right.
I got a one. So, so we're going with combat turns, yeah?
Are you trying to, you're trying to hack his phone, right?
Yes, it's common. Which I can see in like a little window that pops up with a sing and whatnot.
Yep.
So I just, I mean really I can keep doing this for as long as I want.
Who's driving?
I think Box.
I think she's the best driver. It could be on dog brand.
It would make sense to put her behind the wheel so Nightingale can do the funny, uh, actual, you know, observation thing.
Yeah.
Alright, six.
What's the, uh, what's the time base between, between rolls? How much time passes?
Probably a full combat turn, um, just because Ceil's doing it AR and not going VR.
That was three seconds.
Six seconds now.
And you needed, you just need to hit the rating, right, of the device.
Uh, I'm going for admin, so it'd be plus six. So I need to hit a threshold of ten.
And I have six so far.
I'm going to do that and go. All right. Seven, 11. Okay.
Okay. Let's call that what? 15 seconds?
Yep. So you guys haven't really even cleared the car lot by the time you've got his comm link cracked.
Nice. You, um, you all can just see Ceil, you know, gesturing vaguely typing whatnot in the way that you've probably seen hackers do in a vid sometime.
All right. I would now like to see what all this bloke has on his comm link.
Just kind of idly looking at, not really looking for anything in particular.
Um, you, I mean, you've got, he's got, it's basically a, the comm link of a person who doesn't seem to have anything to hide.
There's nothing that stands out as being like either secret or, or nefarious.
It's basically, you know, if you picked up, you know, random dude walking down the street cell phone and cracked it.
You've got obviously a long list of contacts, quite a few of them from the night air and Academy.
You do. There are some, a couple of contacts and numbers in there that are labeled that are labeled that are way labeled warehouse Alliance.
Um, there's a couple of them that have a couple of the warehouse Alliance numbers in contacts that have a, a star next to them.
So they might be important to him. Does he have any files on? He does not. Does he have any kind of like anything related to what's been going on at all?
Not obviously. Okay. Okay. I'm just going to go ahead and turn off. No, no.
And I see any kind of panic button like a emergency panic function. He didn't activate anything. Okay.
He didn't really have time. And, you know, the impression that you got when he pulled up and everything that went down was that you caught him basically by surprise.
He was not in his arrogance in his position and the arrogance of his assumption about you guys as shadow runners.
You know, he saw absolutely no risk or danger in meeting you guys. Is there, does there appear to be anything valuable on his phone at all?
Or is it basically like the equivalent of a work computer? It's the equivalent of a work computer.
There's certainly pay data. So if you took some time to, to analyze it and sift through, there's probably a good bit of information, maybe even some of just some of the contacts names and what their ranks are that are labeled in there, which might be interesting to somebody.
Just go ahead and make a copy of all of the phone's contents and whatnot. Sure. I do. So, and I'll sort through it later. In the meantime, I'm just going to, can I like brick the com link? Absolutely.
All right. I would like to inflict as much matrix damage on that com link as possible. You've got admin privileges. So basically you could basically, I imagine, system 32. Yep.
Do the equivalent of pulling the SIM chip and dumping the memory. Good. Okay. Ooh, before I do that, are there any links devices to the com link?
Let me check. There are several arms weapons. You already got the, you picked up the Colt manhunter that he had on him. That was linked to it. There are, there's a, there are a couple of other weapons that are linked to it that you didn't find when you searched. So probably his personal weapons that he didn't carry with him.
There also appears to be his motorcycle appears to be linked to it. And that's probably it. Okay. Cool. Then his com link is bricked and that'll be a pain for somebody to fix.
All right. So you guys are heading out of Auburn, South East, you know, southeasterly direction towards Puyallup. If I remember correctly, it was middle of the day, maybe early afternoon.
Okay. So there were two things that we were, that you were trying to achieve, right? So you wanted to get from him. You wanted to get the audio recording of Kimmy telling Mr. Johnson that she wanted nothing to do with it. So that was the one part for completing the job with Mr. Johnson.
Then you had the job from ProCop, which was basically to kidnap George VanHousen and get him to a safe house. So now you're on your way to the safe house in the van. Deandre, are you following the van or are you leading?
I think Deandre would be following the van. At least in this moment, she might like circle around it every now and again.
Okay. Puyallup is, as you know, maybe just barely a step up from the Redmond Barrens. The volcanic eruption of Mount Rainier in 2017 devastated this area. It's covered in lava flows and heavy ashfall. And it's basically just a very grim and grimy area, very working class.
And so you pass through Redmond. The drive takes about an hour. You're getting in, you pass through Auburn, I mean, heading south.
Actually, before we get there, can I do something? Sure. All right. So ice is in the van with all of us, right? Yes. And we're, what's the location where we're going to meet the fixers or cleaners? Puyallup. Right, but where in Puyallup? Like what, can Cecile see the location?
Yeah, you got it forwarded to you. Everybody got it forwarded. What's it look like? It's a warehouse in a very run down sort of warehouse, industrial kind of area. Everything black and covered in ash and grim and grimy.
Are we taking the cop? Well, there's, so to backtrack a minute, there's the, the job wasn't to take him to any kind of cleaners or anybody else. The job was to capture him because there's some back history between him and Procop and ice.
And they want to find out what happened. Basically, they were set up on a job. George Van Housen was acting as the Mr. Johnson, but it was a setup and a frame job. And they're taking him to a safe spot where they can interior.
So are we taking him there and San Puyallup? Yep. He is with you in the van. You, Deandere cuffed him. His arms are cuffed behind his, his hands are cuffed behind his back and his legs are cuffed, his feet are cuffed.
And he is currently still unconscious, lying on the bottom of the van. You searched him. Everybody's, I mean, he was searched by, I believe Deandere and ice and Nightingale also did an astral perception of him and had seen that he was relatively heavily cybered.
In fact, he has a cyber arm and quite a bit of headwear and some other stuff going on. Remind me. So the message I sent to Procop was that we needed his because at the time I wasn't going to hack up that we needed someone to like help take care of the phoning home thing.
That's still going to be at the warehouse and whatnot. You had messaged Procop that you needed help with with this comment, basically disabling it. Oh, we didn't remember that.
Well, in that case, yes. All right. Cool. And everything's fine. Continue.
Liz, did you have any other questions? All right, so it's about a half an hour drive when you get to you. The location is a sort of a nondescript warehouse, not very large, with a big bay door in the front, which opens up as the van pulls up to it.
And Boxer, I guess you drive in.
The van drives in and see a couple of people standing in a lit area. See if transfer you guys to the map. Oh, we get maps. Oh god, we get maps. Come on. Paul always has maps. He hasn't had them out for like several sessions.
We're going to get shot at. Don't beat him up. He's trying. We're going to get shot.
This is a nice map though. I like it. I like this map. It would be a shame if we weren't shot. It could be a red herring. It's not a red herring.
What if it is. So this is the set van. Her van is black. Yeah, I didn't know what color the van was so I just went with black. It would be very conspicuous if it was white, as you know, because white sticks out really fucking hard.
Not really. There are actually a lot of white vans. What about gray?
All right, you guys pull in. There are a couple of people standing around.
None of whom you recognize. Three people. Let's just say three people. Let me draw them.
One, two.
The map is unfortunately quite big so you got to zoom in to even see what's going on.
Okay, so you guys get out of the van. Who's getting out?
Cecile will get out.
She would disassemble the full would have her sub machine gun swung, not held to her sidearm.
Actually, you do know one of the people waiting for you.
Yeah, so the people that are here are Kirsten.
Next to her is a rather slight and nondescript looking elf with a some kind of a device in his hand and then back.
Back here there's an older gentleman sitting in a chair, drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette.
Cecile goes ahead and starts walking towards the duo.
Kirsten sees you and a big smile breaks out on her face and she says, Hi Cecile.
Hey Kirsten.
Fancy seeing you here.
Indeed. I didn't realize you hung out in warehouses, although I'm not that surprised.
She makes a face at you.
Who's your friend?
She looks over. This is Mouse. Mouse is a decker. He's here to make sure that we're not being electronically surveilled.
Good. So Mouse, I already bricked his comlink and took all the files off it. Let me know if you want anything from it, although it was pretty sparse.
I checked him over. I didn't see a lot.
Do you want to keep the comlink or should I take it off you?
Oh, out of character. The comlink was implanted, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Sorry bud. The comlink.
Oh, all right. All right. So I'm there.
You can look over the body though.
The body?
Well, he's not dead. He's unconscious, but you know.
Okay. So he walks over and gets into the van. I lost my character under the van.
He's gone.
I think I can see the edge of his token. No, that's the van.
Oh, the van is an actual object.
Well, yeah. If you guys decide you want to drive it out of here, we got to.
We can ram Kirsten.
Ramming speed.
Wait, is the forklift a token too? Or is it just weirdly out?
It looks like a token. Oh, oh no.
Just in case.
You never know.
It's over, Joker. I have my class driver's license and my people.
All right. The mouse is looking over the unconscious body of the cop.
Yep. He's scanning him with some kind of device in the back of the van.
Sorry, should I check out everything?
Yeah. He's got a couple of trackers on him.
I'm going to say got back in.
The dog pretending to be a stupid dog will explore some.
So what doors are too long?
So let's say the front door is open.
Front doors are open and this door right here is open.
Yeah, I see.
I drew a line.
So the one up front before the van, which one? The one behind us?
The sliding side door.
Oh, exactly. All right.
I want you to, while you're looking around, that it's not open.
We don't want to.
Yeah.
Understand the dog borks and wagging cameras or something.
Or hands off.
If it's not, I know you're busy with.
I mean, I'm pretty sure you're in control of this warehouse.
Hey, hey mouse. Is the guy at the desk looking at the cameras?
Yeah, he's watching the cameras.
Yeah. It seems like they have it handled. Boxer.
All right. So ice drags George Vanhausen out of the van and drops him on the floor.
There's a light shining there.
And at that point, Kirsten looks over at mouse and says, you're all done mouse.
Mouse says, yep, he's clean.
I cleaned the tags. Kirsten looks over at Cecile and says, well, I'm getting out of here.
We're getting out of here. Our job's done.
Good. Nice seeing you, Kirsten.
Yeah, you too Cecile. Stay safe.
Don't forget to study harder.
She chuckles. Yeah, you too Cecile.
You think I can study harder? I'm insulted.
Well, I don't think you've been studying much lately.
You'd be surprised.
You're right. She and mouse, she and mouse leave.
At this point, it's just you guys, the old man in the corner watching the,
watching the security cams and basically just ignoring you.
He's got a bag of chips in a pack of cigarettes that he's working on.
And now it's just you guys.
All right. So Cecile looks to ice.
So are we going to interrogate the cop or are we inviting him to tea?
We're going to interrogate.
I think we can do both.
Nightingale says still on the phone.
Sadly, I don't have my purse to bring tea with me.
Are we planning on any advanced interrogation?
Needs advanced interrogation when I'm here.
She makes an excellent point.
Subjecting Vanhousen to Cecile is probably close to advanced interrogation.
Cecile gives you a very annoyed look.
If all else fails, I can just shoot him again.
I'm sure he'll love that.
Or we could cut out his vocal cords.
I don't think that would help us.
You know we need to see things.
What did you say earlier? His comlink was implanted?
Yes. It's also down completely bricked.
Ice starts slapping him, trying to wake him up.
He's lying on his back on the floor.
Ice, why don't you just slap Patch?
He looks at you quite annoyed.
And goes back to resume slapping the man.
I feel just sighs.
She starts casting a spell.
I'm going to cast Analyze Truth at force.
I don't know.
Deandre pulls out smelling salts out of her medkit.
And moves Ice aside.
Just to wake him up with the smelling salts.
I think the
I think that's unnecessary.
I think it's very necessary.
He calls the two of my bullets.
Two.
Unacceptable.
How much do they cost?
Nothing.
Are you drawing a stick body for Vanhousen?
Yep.
Oh, oh.
I would like to use some edge.
I would like to reroll all of the non hits.
So that's eight dice.
Close enough.
All right.
That's three hits on the spell.
And then I just drain.
I think that three.
Yeah, I don't take any.
Okay.
Yeah, we're good.
All right.
So at that point, Deandre drops the smelling salts in front of Vanhousen's nose.
And he starts to come to and starts to try to shake himself when tries to stand up and realizes he's being restrained.
And then I think Deandre would have him like by his collar and have the smelling salts up in front of his face like that.
So he's like pulled up off the ground slightly.
As his eyes opens, he looks at you and says, what the frag?
The frag is going on here.
You had a terrible fall.
So I should mention, Paul, don't forget to roll his willpower against a threshold of three.
And Cecile now has a glowing, like spectral snake tongue coming out her mouth.
That's kind of okay.
The spell works, although I don't think I was supposed to know that.
All right.
So George Vanhousen comes to and he's looking a little bit dazed and confused, but he's snapping out of it really quickly.
His eyes are glancing back and forth at all of you.
And if you tell anything, I'm the one you trusted before.
I'm more than willing to do it again.
I think Deandre would just pull out her sword.
Like she has she has Vanhousen by like his collar of his shirt or his uniform.
And she just whips out her sword and kind of puts it close.
And Quedasillo, insulting the honor of a knight of my rank, let me cut your throat from your neck.
Cecile's looking at you like you're crazy.
Gail tries to, you know, gently guide the point of the blade away from the dude's neck.
I mean, it's like a saber.
So it's like she has the flat of the blade.
Yeah, but still, it's kind of she thinks it's unnecessary that this probably won't help to get him to talk, you know.
It's smart to stop it from doing anything else.
He he start he's looking back and forth amongst you guys.
Grace, you being dual natured, you're seeing his aura.
And he seems more perplexed and angry than anything else at this.
And he starts saying, what are you?
What are you? What the frag is going on here?
What happened?
We talked to the diner.
I know who you are. But what? Why are we doing this?
Hey, Ice, what questions do we have for this guy?
Ice says, he's still just looking at Van Housen.
And he says, you don't recognize me.
And Van Housen looks at him and says, what do you mean recognize you?
I saw you the other night in the diner.
You guys, you have no idea who you're fragging with.
And Ice is just looking at him sort of impassively.
You can't conceal or I'm sorry, Grace, you're looking at you see Ice's aura is very has a very odd calmness to it.
And Ice says, think back a couple of years when you were still called George Van Housen,
because as you remember, if you guys remember all you all recall, he he did not introduce himself as he's been operating under a different.
And as soon as Ice says George Van Housen, the man's eyes get a little bit bigger.
And he says, what? That was decades ago.
How could that be of any importance? Ice just smiles and he says, do you know who Mary Lucy?
How about Akamai? And you see George Van Housen's eyes get big.
And then all of a sudden you see that he's recognizing it.
And he said and he starts laughing. He's laughing. Come on. This can't be serious.
That was 25 years ago. Is he lying? No, he's not lying. OK.
The same the same sort of arrogance that drew him into the trap in the first place is is still at play here.
You know, he can he basically considers himself untouchable.
Even now in this situation, he doesn't he's not feeling as threatened as you think he should be, maybe.
Why aren't you afraid? What? I mean, come on, guys, I'm I'm a night airing officer.
I don't know. I don't know if you understand what you guys are getting yourself into.
Kidnapping a night airing officer and all that stuff about George Van Housen that doesn't matter to anybody.
That's all over. Yes. Ice leans down over him and says, oh, it matters to me.
I lost a lot of good friends that night. And George looks and he says, you're shadow runners.
What do you expect was going to happen? And Ice just looks at him and gets it really goes a little bit paler than he normally is
and grabs him by the bias collar and says, did what happened to the rest of my friends that night?
And George looks and says, well, as far as I can remember, most of them died.
I think we captured one of your guys, the the rigor guy.
And Ice's face goes from pale to to red.
He says rigor mortis was alive. And George Van Housen chuckles and he says, this is about this is about the rigor.
Are you shitting me? After all these years, you finally decided to come back and check whether your friend was still alive.
Man, some honor amongst thieves. At that point, Ice just lets go of him and walks away.
And then back behind the van, you hear somebody hitting something.
Ice, if you hit my bike, you're paying for it.
The seal walks up to Van Housen. Oh, mind answering my questions now?
He looks at you and says, sure, whatever, lady.
Oh, hang on a second. You're that you're the girl from the university, the one that got kidnapped.
I am still kidnapped. Huh.
This is turning out to be a here date. You're not a kid.
The seal looks at the dog and like shakes her head.
So Van Housen, why don't you tell me exactly what happened and why these fine people are mad at you?
He chuckles and he says, well, it's a very long story, very boring story.
They're criminals. We set them up to take the fall for something and they fell just the way they were supposed to.
I don't really understand what the big deal is.
But holding a grudge this long isn't going to help.
And look, guys, you guys, I don't know about that other guy.
I forgot what his name is. It was 20, 25 years ago that.
But you guys, you're not too far into this where you can't still get out.
You just let me go and walk away. Maybe you didn't hear me, Mr.
Van Housen. I said I wanted to know what happened.
I don't care about your. All right. Play it that way if you want.
Well, I got hired by a big time fixer to to do some work to find some fall guys for some for a job.
Do you really want to know the details? This is not this is not.
If I tell you what I'm what you want to know, you're going to have some very dangerous knowledge in your head.
The kind of show you things cannot get worse for me than he grins somewhat
worthlessly at you and says, I don't think you quite understand how bad things can get.
He looks at it. He looks down on himself. And as for example, look at me.
You could be lying on the floor of a warehouse in handcuffs.
I think I was going to suffer a much worse fate considering the people to be after me.
Now, please answer my question or I will let the green lady do whatever she wants.
And I don't know what that is.
He looks at the rest of you guys. You guys sure you want to hear this?
They can leave if they want. It's not to him.
He's just sure. All right. I warned you.
D&D is going to pull out a pack of cigarettes and she puts on anyone else.
He says, yeah, I'll take one. Sure.
I have a very specific cigarette out and kind of offer it towards him.
Like within range where he can get up, like use his mouth to get it.
All right. He leans forward and grabs it. I like mine first and then his.
He smiles, says, thank you. All right. So here we go.
This was a long time ago. There was there was some serious bull dreck going down in a Japanese court.
Yamatetsu. I don't know if you ever heard of them. Nowadays, they're called EVO.
I'm aware. Well, there was what I know.
There was a cabal in Yamatetsu that very, very pro-Japanese and very anti-medic.
It's hardly surprising. In any case, as part of this power struggle,
this pro-Japanese cabal within Yamatetsu didn't like some of the policies that were going on
and decided to to murder the CEO.
They did it by framing somebody called Akuma or Akumi. In any case, their murder plot succeeded.
Akumi fled to Seattle and took refuge with a woman named Housse.
He looks at you expectantly. Any of you want to make a memory check or a knowledge of any kind of
corporative knowledge check at this point? I don't think I actually put corporate.
Area, Shadow. Area, Knowledge, Seattle. Sure.
May I roll memory? Yeah.
Mesa Evo has influence in security. She does not know.
Yeah. So you probably don't know.
I roll a memory roll of five. Okay. How many dice did you roll?
I rolled my memory die, which is eight. Good roll. Yeah. Good roll.
Yeah. So you guys remember and Nightingale knows that Mary Luce is actually the head of Evo North America.
The seal of the town on that. So George goes on.
In any case, so ICE has rejoined and he's standing there just listening to George Van Housen.
So in any case, the faction, the Yamatetsu faction that had put the hit out, the high mucky muck or whatever,
Yamatetsu hired me and he looks at ICE, me and my, me and the Shadow Riders to find some fall people.
And I hired ICE and his team to basically kidnap Akumi.
And we were going to kill Mary Luce and frame them.
He looks at ICE again and says, unfortunately, the runners weren't as proficient as we thought and got into a whole lot more trouble
before we were able to conclude our part of the business and kill Mary Luce.
But they did manage to kidnap back before Lone Star shut it down and wasted. ICE got away.
I think we caught one of their guys, the Rigger. That's what happened.
That's surprisingly simple. And just to clarify, he hasn't lied at any point during this exchange.
He hasn't lied, no. But you also know that even though he hasn't lied, he hasn't, he doesn't necessarily.
Well, thank you, Mr. Van Housen. I shall be leaving now unless I don't know one of these other people has something to do to you.
ICE looks at Van Housen and says, so what happened to Rigger Mortis?
And George Van Housen looks at him and says, I think he's still in jail where he belongs.
He's a criminal like you guys. And I says, OK, so where?
George looks at him and says, come on, you're not going to try and rescue him now, are you?
After 25 years. And ICE just says, yeah, actually I am.
And at that point, everybody make a perception check.
Oh, dear. I have. I'm sorry if I'm a bit loopy. Nothing.
Would having superior hearing help me? No. Superior vision?
This would be a visual perception check. OK.
I also have something that gives me plus one surprise, surprise test.
And if they had to move to get over here, but only within a couple of meters.
That's not going to be going on.
How does pre-edge? You add the rating of your edge to the roll.
And then on a six, you roll that die signal. Did you pre-edge Nightingale?
I don't know exactly how I would. So I add my my edge.
Well, there's also an edge button and there's an edge button and you can click on modifiers, I think, at the top of your sheet.
If you click modifiers, it'll add a modifier to.
All right. So Cecile doesn't know she's distracted maintaining her spell. Yeah, exactly.
Boxer, you notice a strange change on George Van Housen's face as he's talking.
For a split second, you think he's having a stroke. One of his pupils dilates and the other one gets really thin and his mouth sort of opens funny.
And it's perception. It's a skill like shooting.
Just to reconfirm, he didn't have any active magic, right? There hadn't been a spell cast on him before he met us.
Nope. And being dual natured, you see a sudden shift in his aura from that sort of arrogant, frustrated and angry kind of color to a sudden.
I mean, you see a sudden massive spike of terror through.
Wimsy. Deandere and Grace, you see his sort of his face contort a little bit and all of you see that he suddenly gets a scared look on his face and he says, he looks up and he says,
Warehouse Alliance, Warehouse Alliance! And his head explodes like a grenade.
Cecile just starts screaming. She's running to the right.
Yeah, you guys are going to be all resisting damage.
How much we talking?
So I roll my body, right?
So let's see.
We roll soak our armor.
It's 10p.
N?
10p, negative 2 ap.
What is negative soak value?
It penetrates 2.
No, it's negative 2.
Yeah, negative penetrates.
So let's see, that would be Deandere, Boxer and Nightingale.
So it's negative 2.
I'm going to say you guys are a meter away from it.
So it's negative 2.
So it's only 8p for you and for Cecile, it's 6p and for Ice it's 6p.
What's the roll for this?
Right. That's the right roll.
Well, I'm going to roll body. I'm going to add my edge to this.
Probably a good idea.
So if I wanted to spin an edge to reroll all the ones that weren't hits.
Whoa, I got a 4.
I just mark off an edge and then roll 4 dice, I guess.
That'll work.
But first I have to roll a d6 to see if bad luck triggers.
It does.
Get shit on.
Get shit on and do you.
This character is cursed with her own luck, often turning against her.
Whenever she uses edge, roll a 1d6.
On a result of 1, edge is spent, but the exact opposite effect isn't.
Wait, but that's awesome.
That's so...
Hell no.
It counteracts the...
So I guess I rolled body.
Roll that with that.
You said cp for me, Paul?
Yes.
I take 2 physical damage.
Just body.
Just body then. If your armor doesn't take any effect, have any effect.
How do you determine if the soak is...
Just soaking the damage, reducing the damage that you're taking.
So when I preemptively use edge...
You add your edge to the roll, and then on a 6 you reroll that dice and add a hit.
So what does my edge do after them?
You got a 6, so roll one extra die.
Wait.
Yeah, so you get to roll another dice.
You got 5 hits.
So I just roll body, right?
Unless you're wearing armor.
I did, and I rolled a 0 on soak, and then I edged and got a 1.
So I'm assuming I take 8 unless I roll my body and take the damage minus body.
Unless...
Unless getting bad lucked makes me just take all the damage.
I don't know what the bad luck...
It just says that on a result of 1, the edge is spent, but the exact opposite effect is.
So I intended to reroll my soak, but it didn't work.
So just roll body, 1, and that's physical damage, I guess.
That is physical damage.
So I take 7.
How does soak work?
So if I rolled 2 and I'm doing 8 damage, what does that mean?
You're rolling your body plus armor against the damage, like a drain test.
So I would roll 8 die of impact armor, minus, so that's just 6.
Plus your body.
You have 8 armor?
Yes, an armor vest and helmet from impact damage.
Ice is armored like that too.
She's armored like a horse, because she can carry it.
So it's armor and body, and that's it.
So, 7 damage. How injured would D&Dare be at that?
You can tell.
There's a little condition one.
Yeah, I'm on there. I think I have 3 boxes left, I think.
So you beat up?
Yeah.
Yeah, you took a little bit of damage and hauled it, screaming to the van.
So you guys are all more or less covered in some kind of gore.
The more damage you took, the more gore you've got on you.
Either van housings are yours, depending.
I think, D&Dare, how much damage did you take?
7.
And what's your body attribute?
4.
Okay, so if a character takes a number of boxes of damage from a single attack that equal or exceed their body, then the attack automatically knocks them down.
Okay. Does knock down mean unconscious?
No, just...
On the ground.
Okay.
D&Dare and Boxer are knocked over by the blast, and everybody's covered in gore, and obviously George van Housen is dead.
And the guy behind the security counter, who's been watching the monitors at this point, curses and runs out through this door.
Basically, he's like, frag this, I'm out of here.
I think Yala's shocked. Very shocked. So shocked, in fact, that she just dropped her physical mask.
And it's very obvious that striking glowing red blood, her own blood, just kind of stands there, not reacting.
Ice walks over and starts to help D&Dare up.
D&Dare is... she's clutching her head and trying to get up on her own, but is obviously swimming, basically.
The seal's in the van cowering.
I think D&Dare is swearing quite a lot in Spirepial.
Yeah, Ice is bleeding slightly from a head wound, and he looks over at Boxer. You alright?
Who's Boxer? Val?
Why don't you try and edge roll? Just roll your edge.
All of us?
Nope, just Boxer. Actually, no, not edge. Let's do a willpower roll.
Yeah, so Boxer, you're feeling a flashback coming on from the worst day of your life,
but you're able to suppress it by basically just focusing on checking yourself, making sure that you're still...
that you're okay, that the people around you are okay.
You see Ice helping D&Dare up. D&Dare seems to have caught the blast more powerfully than you have.
She's obviously injured, and the pony is injured, Ice is injured, and Cecile seems to have run to the van,
so she's obviously not that injured, unless maybe Shock has just carried her last.
No, not here.
Under the van.
Ice, do you have medical training?
No. Damn it.
The second you come over, a biomonitor on the cuff, on the quadricep of D&Dare's coat just lights up and starts listing things off in Spirethiel.
You cannot Spirethiel. Fortunately, she has a rating 5 med kit and medical training.
She is exerting very hard on D&Dare. Is D&Dare making noise?
Probably swearing a lot.
Alright, I need you to keep swearing. Make as much noise as you want to need, as long as you're still making noise. Understand?
I think D&Dare starts talking to Boxer, but not in English, in Spirethiel.
It doesn't matter, she just needs her to talk. She's going to deploy her med kit and begin...
Do you have a first aid skill?
Yep. Plus, should I have...
No, you shrug that off. You're basically focusing on helping others to shrug that off. So it's first aid plus logic.
Five out of five.
Oh no.
While everyone else is moving worried out of their mind and Pain is very noticeably coloring Nightingale's world, by the time Ice comes to her side, she twitches in the face.
She looks at him and promptly pukes on him with vomit that's acidic enough to burn his clothes and only slightly his skin.
And she swoons for a moment and then she shakes her head and her freeze response resolves into a fixed response.
He is stepping away from Ice and turning her attention to D&Dare once she confirms that this guy right here is irretrievably dead.
He is irretrievably dead.
Unlike other animals who can regrow their head, humans cannot.
That's so sad.
And Ice is just looking down at his clothes and the smoking boots and the frag?
It's almost like she spit acid in him. It's kind of confusing at first, I imagine.
Yeah, he's looking very confused. It's definitely distracted him from what's going on here.
Alright, so the maximum damage healable with the First Aid skill is equal to the skills rating.
So you roll the First Aid plus Logic and you add the Medkits rating to it.
Yep.
It's 5 plus the Medkits rating, that's how much you'd be healing.
Seems like a lot, doesn't it?
Well, she's skilled, has exceptionally high quality equipment, like almost the fucking buy.
Nightingale would provide a pair of Stuck-in-Anne to help with that Pain be not sterile, luckily.
Ice goes to the bathroom and starts rinsing him.
He's pretty much fallen. She seems extremely tunnel visioned at the moment.
Hyperfix it and the DT in there, it's like she's in this many times.
Well, didn't you say that the max that could be healed with First Aid was at first?
Plus the Medkit, plus the Medkit, which actually conveniently turns out to be 7.
So that means she healed a 5, and that leaves how much?
2 left, I think.
Yeah, once Boxer pulls back, and it's obvious in her aura that she's not sure what else Nightingale likes,
and she gives a quick motion over Deandre's body, and this gentle glow, it's white, and then turns red.
Guess what, Deandre?
Guess what? Magic doesn't work on me.
Ah, fuck, really?
Yeah. Magic resistance plus 4.
I forgot.
You can still try.
I'm going to try.
Yeah, I would say you still tried since you said you did before you knew.
Yeah, she wasn't thinking about that. She was wanting the help.
But you said it's minus, so it would be minus 4 to my focusing test question?
No, it requires a voluntary subject, right?
And you can't be a voluntary subject when you have that resistance.
So it could never work.
Nope.
So in Correction, what would have been a healing, gentle energy encompassing her body as it lowers in intensity, brightness, and color?
It just kind of poofs.
What is the role for that?
I think Deandre responds to the attempted healing magic in a way that was not expected.
She kind of writhes and sits up straight and wretched, just throws up the entire contents of her stomach in front of her.
And she walks through it going in again when she sees this.
And you hit Ice again who just walked up and is like, aww, frag, really?
And now Deandre is clutching her head with both hands and swearing and speaking even louder and spiritual.
So heal does not require a voluntary subject.
It doesn't?
Nope.
So it may be uncomfortable.
I'm pretty sure Magikriss didn't specifically mention that skill.
Yeah, you'd still have to resist.
If it gets through, then it still works.
So it's willpower plus four, I think, right?
Or do I use a different skill for a different attribute?
Being that I cannot recall the posement, that sounds about right.
Nope, you just have to talk to her, so she's resisting for the heal.
Do I resist it with willpower then?
Willpower plus your magic resistance.
Well, the magic resistance already counters it entirely.
Yeah, it fails.
Yeah, so it's ineffectual.
What it feels like for her, I imagine, is that at first there's these inklings of warmth somewhere between a lazy spring morning and a fentanyl high.
But then very quickly it becomes this alien uncomfortable, ah, get out of me, feeling.
And her body responds, or her soul responds, I suppose.
And she feels kind of ill.
Whatever swimming dizziness D'Andre was feeling just gets multiplied by like ten.
And that's why she just bolts straight up and pukes.
Yeah.
And then the horse there is going into shock response, which is not her going into shock, she's acting like she is.
Which means she's now being forced on her side to avoid choking on her own vomit.
I think D'Andre is sitting up at this point.
So she's like pushing boxer away and saying something in spirit to her.
People are gross.
Yeah, I think the horse is gross.
The second the horse says people are gross, D'Andre like whips towards her like angry and starts just like screaming at her in spirit.
Boxer will restrain her.
She is going to restrain her.
I think after about like 30 seconds, D'Andre like stops very suddenly and then immediately starts speaking in English again.
Fuck.
Shh.
Get off of me.
No.
You're my patient now, you've been in the explosion and God don't look down because you will not like it.
Just stay there.
Lie down.
Let me treat you.
I don't trust a normie digging around in my organs.
Excuse you, I am combat certified.
So how about you lie down.
I don't care.
That was me casting hell on myself.
Oh, on yourself.
Okay.
Lie down.
And actually it's magic time.
Actually, fuck it.
Leadership is all power.
I applied water to all of you.
Yeah.
Okay.
Alright, so everybody's gotten themselves pulled back together and Boxer has applied first aid to D'Andre and D'Andre is recovering and Ice is pacing back and forth and then he looks at the rest of you guys and says I think we, hang on, where's Cecile?
She's in the van.
Alright, he comes over to the van and looks in.
You alright, Cecile?
She's still cowering.
She hasn't noticed.
She's like, she has hunkered down.
Hey, why don't you come out and let us patch you up.
Looks like Boxer knows our way around the med kit.
So we're not being attacked.
We've been attacked, but we are not currently being attacked.
Great, great.
I'm just going to stay here.
Turns out he had a cranial bomb in him or something.
Ostensibly.
Obviously somebody didn't want him to talk.
Well, I don't think they succeeded.
Yeah, it's weird.
Alright, what do you guys think we should do?
I think that, um, body here be properly interred in the earth and I need clean of his blood.
I need a shower.
You need rest.
You can take a shower, but afterwards.
I'm not getting into a bed covered in gore.
Fine, but you are getting into a bed immediately after.
Understand?
There's a bathroom over there.
Ice points.
You guys can go clean up.
And Gael turns and clips off.
I think Dianne turns away from the bath and starts looking around for her sword, which didn't stay in her hand when the bomb went off.
It would be funny if it was impelled in some way.
It's stuck in the floor like Excalibur.
Yeah, it's stuck in the ceiling like a reverse Excalibur.
You have to be this tall to use this sword.
You have to be this tall to be.
Isp pulls out his rating 1 commlink and makes a call.
The seal is still in the van.
She's just like, fetal position.
Isp is describing what happened.
Sounds like he's talking to Procop.
Fuck, he must have thought we were going to actually kill him.
I saw him at all appearances.
This wasn't him.
He didn't activate some or someone active.
It's very obviously a mental block.
It was installed in him.
Maybe he knew about it.
Maybe he didn't.
But he thought about something and it killed him.
I think Gael calls from the restroom.
These night-errant people are fucking crazy.
The bomb was for us.
Yeah, the bomb was definitely for us, Isp says.
Look, we need to get out of here.
The bomb's probably not going to attract attention,
but for somebody to trigger the bomb,
they must have known that this guy was taken.
And if they know he was taken,
then they might be triangulating us right now.
I'm driving.
All right.
I'm not leaving my bike here.
You?
Look, I know how to drive a bike.
I have one of my own.
It's my absolute baby.
I will take care of yours, but you need to stay in the vest on the stand.
I'll have your tongue if I'm still here.
I know how it feels to mess up my bike.
Rest.
Dandard tosses boxers.
Physical actual key.
All right.
Something else happens if I can find the room.
Oh, no.
More pain?
You were all infected with a deadly bioweapon.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
CFD.
And I'm now a carrier of it.
I hope you all prepared second characters.
I won't need a second one.
It's Dandard's twin sister.
Long lost cousin.
She's a dog.
It turns out they made a clone of Cecile.
All right.
Everybody make an initiative test.
Initiative?
Oh, fuck that was.
To the turn tracker or just make initiative?
Just roll initiative.
Okay.
So since, is this combat?
Nope.
It's a surprise test.
I feel like, holy, it's rolling 14.
Oh shit, a spirit.
Is that what Nightingale says?
She probably wanted to say, oh shit, but she, I don't think she has indication to that effect, but that's out of character.
That's the only thing I can think of that would have that high of an initiative.
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