On saturday we got our monthly game in so I'll just give my thoughts on it and what we did. But first lets start with a recap of the party.
Jess - Aki (female elf physical adept/ ronin samurai / elemental fire spirit slayer)
Brian - Grey (human shaman/party band aid (healer) / master of the stun-ball spell)
Evil Brian - Sanzo (male elf ranged adept/gun slinger/ has warrants out for him in Japan)
Jack - Jumpstart (orc rigger/wheel man / has alot of drones)
Thya - Dot (ogre brawler/fashion diva / super bodyguard)
Me - 8-Bit (human technomancer/squatter with no I.D. in the system / apparently the man with the plans)
Matt - GM (guy behind the screen making our lives difficult/alpha Shadowrun weenie/ hater of the stun-ball)
So our favorite Johnson contacted us for a 'apology' mission. He apparently recognized our talent and that we are valuable assets to have around and to keep 'happy'. After the screw jobs we've been doing he offered up a trip to Japan as his bodyguards. Our job descriptions were to enjoy ourselves, drink, have fun, and stay at a 5 star hotel while he is at a conference. Upon arrival and check in we split up to do what ever. Aki went shopping, Sanzo went to the movies to watch anime (though some other players were claiming it was hentai....it wasn't but that didn't stop the tentacle jokes for the evening), Jumpstart went drinking, Grey went to a meta human bathhouse for a traditional bath (happy ending jokes abound), Dot did something (Thya couldn't make it so she was off doing stuff), and I disappeared into the orgasmic bliss of Akihabara district to play video games. This was like letting Charlie Sheen into a Colombian cocaine field. And I stayed there for a few days. I blew off offers to hang out with the Johnson at nice restaurants so I could hang with the otakus, eat real ramen, play games and party in the digital bliss.
Naturally as a player (and to some degree as 8-Bit) I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Where is the danger part of this mission. That came on day 5 when Mr. Johnson got a call from a friend who needed help for another friend and we got recommended. Dot stayed behind to guard Mr. J while we set the meeting with the new client.
A holo-feed displayed a woman asking us to track down a person broadcasting into the web as a long departed friend of hers. Jokingly I blurted out "Who are we looking for? Captain Chaos?" and the new Ms. Johnson replied 'Yes'. Captain Chaos is a legend in the Shadowrun universe. A unbelievable hacker (possibly better than FastJack). He died during Crash 2.0 and is buried yet someone has been going onto Jackpoint and other boards as him. He's also a personal hero to people of the hacking persuasion including 8-Bit.
Then another realization happened. We were getting a job from NetCat. Another hacker of renown (and fellow technomancer). So with these two parts of the equation now out in the open I definitely wanted to take this detective work. Hell I told NetCat (via private message) to keep the fee. If Captain Chaos was alive I get to meet a personal hero. If someone is pretending to be him though.....then I'm going to dumpshock that frakking jackhole into being permanently brain dead. NetCat sent us the last known location of the most recent transmission and a dead drop for us to keep her posted through.
We rented some vehicles (a van and 2 motorcycles....damn elves and their need to look fashionable) and off we went on the trek. The town we needed to hit was a suburb of Neo-Tokyo so it was easy to get there and after some net scans we determined a strange RV was parked outside of a warehouse for a while before going on its way. Good as any place to start.
When we got there the place was now inhabited by some gangers that belonged to a very notorious gang. Psycho thrill kill addicts is a good way to describe them. So we came up with a plan to take them on, incapacitate them, question one, trash their rides so they can't follow and go about our way. That was the plan until Aki decided to use some kind of magical sensing on one of the bikes and saw a vision of all kinds of atrocities the gangers have done....especially to elves.
Now on the count of 3, Grey lobbed a stun-ball and knocked out 4 of the 6 gangers and then put down the other 2 on his next turn. They were searched, bound up, and then while Aki & Sanzo still had their full bike helmets on they woke one up and the 'questioning' began. I was outside with Jumpstart watching his Doberman drone tear the bikes apart.
Aki finds out that they chased off the RV with a bunch of kids in it two days back and they were heading to the next town. Dammit! It was poseurs after all! Dumpshock ahoy in their futures. As Aki was leaving the building she tells Sanzo what she saw in her vision and lets him know to do what he has to. Sanzo puts down all the gangers in a fit of cold rage (he's a Japanese elf) then leaves. Off to the next town where we find out that they already drove through but were heading 'that-a-way'. Following a few more clues we tracked the RV to a fleabag motel. We rented some rooms to make it look like we were passing through then set up surveillance. I hacked into the security cameras and focused on seeing who was coming & going out of the van. Saving the pics I sent them to NetCat via the dead drop. And then while in the motel's network I noticed another hacker within. And he didn't notice me.
So I snuck up on him and asked "What are you doing?" and scared the crap out of him. I also checked him out and noticed he also was a child of the Resonance like myself. And the conversation with this kid began. I plainly laid out what was going on. I'm looking for Captain Chaos. Good friends of his hired myself and my associates to track them down and see if its the real deal or they are pretending. And if its pretend those same people are coming to stomp them out. It seemed to rattle the kid a bit but I was giving him time to explain before I reacted. Then he asked "So...you want to meet him?". Wait....HIM? Captain Chaos? Who is dead?!?!?? I think I said Yes faster than Matt was expecting and so off I followed this kid back to the node he came from to find a total of 7 others just like me and a graphical overlay waiting to be accessed. That changed the scene into a idyllic meditation garden and at its center, surrounded by the 7, was him.
Captain Chaos is alive.....only on the Matrix though. When talking to him he kinda explained that he got left behind from his body somehow and his students are children he helped liberate from MCT corps 'experiments' with Technomancers. Some real deranged things. And he tells me to let his friends know its about time he makes himself known and he'll be contacting them shortly.
I give him my contact info & tell the Captain to get in contact with me if he needs my help. Anytime. Then he sighs and says that MCT is sending a clean-up crew to apprehend them now. They are about 20 minutes away and they need to escape. I say we'll do it and to get going. The Captain asks if I want to go with them but I decline for now as my comrades may need me for this. And before I go I ask if I should call him Captain or (because we're in Japan) Sensei? Chaos bursts out laughing and tells me he likes me and will be in touch. I say goodbye to my 7 resonence brothers and jack out of the matrix.
Now I prep the team for an assault. I give them the skinny via private messaging and start to formulate an ambush to stop this squad from going further. I say that these corp assassins just need to be put down. No captives. No one lives. We're stopping them and leaving. And with that I jack back into the matrix and loop the security camera feeds so this fight wont be recoreded and then go onto overwatch looking for matrix signals to access and disable/hack.
Aki & Sanzo take up hiding spots outside, Jumpstart stays in his room (as do I) and has some drones to airial surveillence. Grey gets ready to stun people. And then a hitch in the play happens. Two summoned fire spirits show up first. Aki sees them on the magical plane with her special sensing sight and enters the fray with her sword. She battles both spirits while two vehicles pull into range. Grey releases a stun ball at them and knocks out both drivers causing the cars to crash. The lead car all the passangers got knocked out & Sanzo advanced and triple tapped each in the skull. When going to the second car the passangers in the back opend up with assault rifles. Sanzo fought back guns blazing, Jumpstart coded his drones to group fire and started spraying the car with lead. After a few more seconds the second car was a smoking wreck, Sanzo was hurt pretty damn bad, and Aki was finishing off the last of the spirits with Grey's help.
I was in my room. Unable to do anything as I didn't get time to before the death and carnage ended. We then disabled their comlinks, took anything we could that we could sell, yelled at the motel owner that he saw nothing (when he stepped outside after the firefight and freaked out). I think he browned his shorts after Sanzo bellowed at him while waving his gun in his direction.
And we raced back to Tokyo. Told Mr. J what went down and that we need to leave now....for safety's sake. He agreed and we were winging it back to Seattle the next morning. I also send NetCat a message saying it IS HIM! And we need to meet cause I got a message for them. (I also found out earlier in the game that the 'smiley icon' who harrasses me online was NetCat's husband/father of her uber child Slamm-O!...and he's a total a-hole that just harasses people for shits and grins)
And thats where we ended. I can't wait to see how this wraps up as Matt needs to prep this meeting and conversation with 8-Bit and some well know JackPoint all-stars. I also want to see where this will go in the future. And now I want to see what he has in store for the other PC's as it was apparent that while Sanzo's story is deeply connected with Japan.....this was for 8-Bit. Arcades, Otakus, Captain Chaos the deus ex machina.
I also want to say this was needed too. I had a major family emergency involving my grandfather on friday. He's in the ICU at a very good hospital near where he lives and there wasn't a whole lot I could do for him while he was inabated and recooperating. I did ask my folks if they wanted me there on saturday and they said no (cause we would be sitting around doing nothing). So I was on stand-by if they needed me for anything. And this was a good stress reliever for me. On a brighter note, as of this writing he is awake and talking but he's got a long way to go before he's out of the woods. Its a day by day thing. If I vanish for awhile you'll at least know why.
