[Trespassers IC] Shadowrun: Seattle By Sundown

[IntSys]

After a second of silence, Halley played an audio replay.

 

Quote

"Hey, the market price for a SIN is ten thousand nuyen. There better be a reason why you're charging us 50% more." 

"Because in the span of a few minutes this man has done nothing but show case how little he knows of social situations, while also personally insulting my intelligence, that and it's pretty obvious what the three of you are planning to do with it, and I am quite sure of my status of being the only man in town daft enough to deal with a bunch of greenhorns."

"At first glance, you recognized us as greenhorns. You could've turned us down right away, but I know what you're going for. You know we're desperate, and we wouldn't have a single clue on where else to buy another SIN. So, you decided to take the opportunity and rip us off. You're not daft; you're nasty."
 

*sound of a credstick hitting a table*

"Take it. Such is the law of this world, huh?"
 

*laughter*

"You got you wanted, but you lost what you had"

 

She turned her head to the windows, staying silent.

[LucidRain]

Visrii looked silently at Halley, then Izumi, then 'Lexiel', then back at Halley.

So she's the one who fucked up the whole operation.

Visrii started to feel extremely tired. In Stravaga, this whole mess wouldn't have happened at all. He only chose people who would NOT turn on each other, and even then, he sifted out the best of the best. This team seemed to be full of incompetent surprises, and Visrii wasn't even in charge of the team. If he was the organiser, then he'd kick out the angel and Halley in a heartbeat, and blamed himself for mistaking them for being effective fighters. But the inconvenient truth was that he was neither in control or in Stravaga, and Visrii knew that more or less, he'd have to pull the load alone.

 

But it was neither beneficial or safe to leave loose knots untied. He wasn't the type to forgive a mistake. The stakes were too high. However, the situation forced him to do so.

"Halley, explain yourself." Visrii said in a calm, neutral tone. "We're a team, and we'll have to pull through this together. This is no way to tie up loose ends."

He retracted back to his seat, looking slowly around each and every member of the team, as if daring them to start an argument again. 

Edited April 6, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[Yours Truly]

Solomon visibly facepalmed at this, he then turned to The man in the van listening to a song associated with can cans and said "You owe me 15 thousand nuyen, why in the fuck did you take that bet anyway? Ya sucker." The man sighed and handed Solomon a credstick, which Solomon gingerly pocketed, after a while the man turned to face the ones in the back. His face was painted like a renaissance fair clown, and two painted on red diamond symbols stretching down from the middle of his forehead to just underneath the man's nose. He had a rather devious grin as he said "Now, which one of you dishonorable blackguards are ready to brutally murder some Azzies and set fire to parts of their house?".

[LucidRain]

Visrii calmly head up a finger to his lips, silencing the driver with an arcane spell. A black glowing ribbon, phantom to touch, appeared and closed around the vicinity of the driver's mouth, slowly decreasing the driver's volume until it was mute. Vow of Silence was one of the most powerful spells that the Crownbreakers utilised, allowing the user to silence up to an entire room full of people at once. They often used this to silence victims as they got down to their dirty work. But now, it seemed, Visrii had to use the very same spell to give someone a chance to speak loud and clear. If Solomon also opened his fat mouth, then he'd have to silence him too. But so many arcane spells at once tired him, so he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. Visrii gave Halley a reassuring look and a nod to let her know that her time to speak was secured.

[IntSys]

"The replay explained everything." Halley answered. "This is what I fight for. Call me- " A stream of replays interrupted her mid-sentence, consisting of a barrage of adjectives, from "naive" and "idiotic" to "cold-blooded" and "extremist", all from various sources. Visrii would be able to discern a familiar voice among all of these replays.

 

"The world I'm from has law enforcement, too. They catch Mavericks, they put them to jail, they break out, repeat. I fight to stop the cycle. To do that, I won't tolerate any single one of them. I fight to stop what the law ignored."

 

"I'll put aside my values as long as I'm with this team, if it means to end this feud." She shut her eyes and leaned against the side of the van.

[Yours Truly]

The man proceeds to laugh quite loudly, before saying "Cute, mind affecting magic, I used to do that when I couldn't just talk to girls to make them love me, but anyway since the two of you fucked your only chances of doing this quietly in the ass, and since the only thing that has been keeping the two of you alive is a favor taken from what is honestly the worst creature to have ever existed in the matrix, and since you shot a rather valuable contact repeatedly, the only way I can see this plan not fail horribly is by giving the rest of you bigger guns and drop kicking you into the metaphorical kitchen and hoping that enough of you survive to set the book on fire.".

Edited April 6, 2017 by Cronos5010

[LucidRain]

Visrii nodded in understanding. In a way, his own relentless pursuit of his duty resonated with her. 

"We are what we fight for, Halley. Though you may have gone about your philosophy in the wrong way, that is not to say you need to put aside your ideals for the mission. Again, this is a team, and a team doesn't work when some of us throw away ideals just to make way for others. A team only works when everyone's ideals are one. Rest easy, we'll have to get Lexiel to talk with us as well."

It was quite a long time since he had to emphasise the ideals of a team, and for some reason, he briefly sounded like Wyvis. All this talk about teamwork. Though, Wyvis' leadership was certainly commendable, and what was a virtue is to be respected, not rejected.

Edited April 7, 2017 by PigeonOfAstora

[DragonRage]

Lexiel heads outside with the rest of the group, and repeats the plan she detailed earlier, and her suggestion that somebody catch up to Bullet before he gets arrested or shivved for his pocket change.  Then she turns to Halley, and twitches a bit, before the red and black bands on her hair and wings grow a little wider.  She also picks up a dusting of what looks like black blush on her cheeks.  "It seems I owe you something of an apology Halley.  I might not believe your actions were just or well-conceived, but I can respect the spirit behind them.  And, might as well get this out of the way, yes, I am blind.  Yes, I'm usually very good about getting around it.  But I had no idea the Councillor and the guy we fought on the roof weren't the same person, or that there was a cop right next to us when I confronted Halley.  So if people could try to head me off when I make a mistake like that, it would be very helpful.  Oh, and also stop waving written things at me.  I'm not going to have any idea what they say unless I can use my braille translation spell and then touch them.  So, who wants to ride a rocket-powered dragon through the wall of an arcology and kill some apocalypse cultists?"

Edited April 6, 2017 by DragonRage

[Strider]

"They survived somehow. That's good, I guess." Edmond sighed as he watched his friends depart once more. This bit was partly his fault, he supposed, as he hadn't been observant enough about Lexiel's actions. He addressed the shotgun: "Quite the skilled group we are. Do you have a name, by the way?" Edmond waved to the barkeeper as he passed. "If you'd like, I can help clean up some of this mess in a moment." First however, he made his way to the back room in search of a place to stach his stuff, and tried to open the door.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Strider

[Yours Truly]

The laughing man simply says "Can somebody close the door before the bad men with the guns proceed to shoot us to death? And put on your fucking seatbelts people, I do hope that none of you are afraid of moving at the speed of sound".

Edmond would find the bartender downing a rather large bottle of beer, he does not seem to be responding at he present, although the shotgun did manage to say "Yes they seem to be quite good at stabbing each other in the back and causing large messes for you to clean" but before Edmond could even walk towards the backroom he would hear the sound of multiple guns being cocked right behind him, the moment he turns around he would be greeted by twenty different assault rifles and a Colt Manhunter, the last gun was being held by the woman in plate armor, who then says "Good morning, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting four different wanted women on the exact same day in front of a Knight Errant police officer, to put it simply, you're nicked chum.".

[Empiricist]

Between swigs of scotch Izumi responds, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly "A dragon? Got a description we can use?"

[spümpkin]

The Bullet would simply sit with his head in his hands in the van. Which was basically just his head tilted slightly to rest against his palms. Clipping in his seatbelt, he sighed loudly.

 

"How long have you people even been working together? This seems like a mix-up of core ideals, and if you have been working together for any length of time you should know by now what your comrades believe in. I think we all know that the stakes of our quest are higher than any of our individual moral compasses. So why, oh why, would you mix those two up? Ugh, don't bother answering... I must focus myself for what lies ahead."

 

And with that, The Bullet shuts his eyes, and waits for the van to reach their destination.

[IntSys]

Halley nodded lightly. "I've never rode a dragon, but hey, I'm familiar with grand entrances. Count me in." She answered. "By the way, aren't we missing someone?" 

 

She shut the doors as she wondered and put on a seatbelt.

[Strider]

"Alright." He smiled, set down the violin and case, and raised his hands above his head in clear surrender. Then he frowned. "Wait a moment. How was I aiding and abetting them? I blew their cover for you, and simply stood back so that I wouldn't be shot full of holes when you opened fire in the middle of a public nightclub. You can't blame me for hanging back from clearly insane criminals who tried to kill the councilor." This was a gamble, but he was fairly certain from what he had read in the Neo-Anarchist's handbook, that Knights Errant was affiliated with Ares. "A final question. They obviously had a coordinated escape which, had I been involved, could have easily included me. I know it seems somewhat cliche, but why would I still be here if I was guilty of what you say I am?" How much info to actually give though? "I picked up a bit more info before you showed up and tried to arrest them. It's not for public ears though. You can check for yourselves that that room is empty, and we can discuss it in there." He pointed to the back room which he had been planning to drop his stuff in. "I suppose I could just whisper it though..."

 

It was here that Edmond started, though he tried to keep his movements minimal to prevent being shot. "Four people? Wait...there was the seemingly blind woman, the one who shot you, the insane one, and...? Who was the fourth person?"

[Yours Truly]

It was at that moment that the laughing man pressed another button on his dashboard, causing the seats in the back of the van to move, thus making everyone face forwards. No one is sure why he chose to do that, up until the point where the van shot off at a back breaking pace, before taking flight into the open air.

Anyone who bothered to look behind them would notice an angelic figure with too many eyes and noses materializing behind them as the driver closed his eyes and muttered something repeatedly in what is most likely gibberish as Solomon desperately tried to move the car out of the way of buildings, passing helicopters and eventually planes.

With a loud cry of "This will probably work guys" the angelic figure punched the van, causing it to charge towards a distant building at several thousand miles per hour, before causing everything to disappear and be replaced by the sight of a small cottage in the middle of a park, and the van went to a sudden stop as the figure disappeared.

 

Edmund would find the woman pointing directly at the shotgun with a confident smile "Well technically five, good old Lucy here has eaten one too many souls it seems, how has the lodge been treating you? You dumb [Censored]." Some men with rifles took the shotgun and the violin away from Edmond, before another man pulled out a yellow and black pistol and shooting him in the back with what turned out to be a tazer. He is then handcuffed and picked up by the woman in full plate with one hand and carried outside of the nightclub she the whispers the words "The councilor would love to have a chat with you".

[Strider]

"Who's Lucy? And, may I at least keep the violin?" Edmond steeled himself, as the man approached with the tazer. As the excruciating pain jumped through him, Edmond fell to the ground twitching. Gaaahh. This is--not--what--I ho--ped-- for! They know about the shotgun... He felt a little desperate as he was handcuffed and carried out of the club. Guess I can't help with the clean-up then... But then, at the few words from the detective, he felt a new spring of hope. A conversation with the councilor If he played his hand correctly, this might actually turn out for the best.

"Glad to hear it," he murmured.

[LucidRain]

Visrii smiled faintly as he silently heard the conversation between the team members. Electricity shocked his arm as he took off the Vow of Silence, and Visrii resisted the temptation to reactively clutch it. Mana deprivation. Seems like he strained himself yet again with the Vow. But as far as he could see, it was worth it. The team was coming back together, even if a little by little.

Good. We'll need this for the mission. Can't have half the team ripping each other's throats in the middle of an infiltration...wait.

Edmond.

Fuck.

Visrii knew it was too late to retrieve a man left behind. They were in the middle of some sort of carriage that was speeding off at a speed matching dragons. They couldn't just jump off.

Visrii banged on the van wall to get the driver's attention over the sound of the carriage.

"We've left a member behind! With a Knight Errant! Name's Edmond with brown hair and green eyes, and has a 'shotgun'! You mind picking him up after?"

 

[Yours Truly]

The man rolls his eyes before saying "Yes, we have left the man who made no attempt to move to the van, the man who wasn't being shot at, the man who isn't wanted for multiple crimes, the man who doesn't have a 20,000 nuyen bounty on him or an active SIN broadcasting all of that to literally everyone, that and it was part of the deal, he should be fine, probably got himself tazed though", he then pushed a different series of buttons on his dashboard, causing the seatbelts to release themselves, the seats to move to the side making everyone face each other again, the van doors to open, and several empty and folded paper bags to fall on everyone's lap.

He then opened the van's door himself and walked out of the van and towards the cottage.

[IntSys]

"Thanks for the free bag, mister~" Halley took paper bag with her, thinking it was a gift. She hopped down the van.

 

"Where are we anyway?" She followed the man to the cottage.

[Yours Truly]

The laughing man ignored Halley until he reached the cottage itself, he then opened the door by an incredibly complicated series of passwords that could only be obtained by either already knowing what the passwords were, or by having a ridiculous amount of trivia knowledge.

After spending a minute singing the first verse of an odd song about Saturday nights the door finally opens, revealing a rather large armory filled with various different kinds of weaponry, and a drone who then proceeds to take out three different cases of various sizes and places them inside of the van, the door is then immediately closed afterwards as the man walks back towards the van.

After reaching the van the man gestures towards the three different briefcases and says "Weaponry, you all get one."

 

Weapon stats, only one copy of each weapon exists.

 

Name: SC-MON

Description: a pistol shaped weapon connected by a wire to an armored vest carrying a battery on it's back, on the side of the weapon there is a small inscription saying "For Julie".

Type: Weapon

Minimum Stats: 3 STR

Weight: 4

Damage: 2d4+INT S

pecial Qualities: Laser Blast: this weapon's damage is treated as dealing fire damage

Batteries not included: This weapon deals no damage if it's battery pack, the "SC-CAP" is not equipped by the wielder

(7 SYN) Star Crossed: This weapon now deals 2d4+ INT +SYN damage

(13 SYN) Star Crossed EX: This weapon now deals 2d8+INT+SYN damage

Name: SC-CAP

Description: an armored vest carrying a battery on it's back, the entire piece is connected to the SC-ROM unit by several thin red wires that appear to be there for redundancy, there is a small, now almost completely illegible inscription saying "With a ..s I die"

Type: Armor

Minimum Stats: 4 STR

Weight: 4

RES Bonus: 4

Special Qualities: Weapon Systems Online: This armor needs to be equipped with the SC-MON weapon to reach it's full potential (4 SYN)

Burning Desire: this armor provides +1 SYN (8 SYN) Star Crossed: This armor now provides an additional 2 RES

(8 INT) Ring of fire: If the SC-MON weapon is equipped with the SC-CAP armor, the weapon can deal 1.5 damage once per battle, and deal 1d4 poison damage every round for two rounds, both effects can only be used once per battle

 

Name: Centurion Laser Axe
Description: A large single "bladed" war axe, a single high intensity laser is present where the edge of the blade would normally be, it glows red whenever activated
Minimum Stats: 3 STR
Weight: 4
Type: Weapon
Damage: 2d6 + STR
SYN Threshold:
Special Qualities:
Blessings of the technoviking: This weapon is treated as doing fire type damage and the intense pain generated by the laser's heat causes the target's Strength Stat to be lowered by 2 for this round, or the next round if the wielder moves after the target

 

Name: Remington Roomsweeper

Description: It is essentially a black and dark grey sawned off shotgun with a pistol grip, everyone keeps referring to it as a pistol for some odd reason

Type: Weapon

Minimum Stats: 2 STR

Weight: 3

Damage: 2d3+STR

SYN Threshold:

Special Qualities: Flechette Storm: If the weapon manages to deal damage after RES reduction, the target is afflicted with 2d4 poison damage every round for two rounds as the target starts to bleed out this effect does not stack, Enemy RES is treated as multiplied by 1.5 when reducing damage taken from this weapon, only two can be active at the same time

 

Edited April 8, 2017 by Cronos5010

[spümpkin]

The Bullet watched as the gear was brought in, but remained seated. He did not need any of this, with Blasphemy at his side.

[DragonRage]

Lexiel gets a rather curious look on her face as she examines the presented weapons.  "OOooh, energy weapons.  Integrated power pack, deflective plates, old school ballistics... Axe Lightsaber?!  Not bad...  But we can do better," She assures the group, patting her narcojet rifle, which sends a wave of ozone smell wafting over the group.  She then pulls out a darksteel stylus, a few glowing, blue and bronze vials, and an amber rod that crackles with electricity.  "Give me half an hour with these beauties, and then we'll really see some fireworks!"

 

Assuming nobody has any objections, Lexiel sets to work in the inimitable Izzet fashion.  Although the gleeful cackling as her projects near completion could be a bit unsettling.  The laser pistol is pretty cool already, but that's no reason to not make improvements!  Lexiel attempts to incorporate a widget she picked up on Zendikar into the design.  Maybe if it's fit with a Prophetic Prism, this thing will be able to shoot the future!  Then she adds some blue mana, heavy with the scents of sea spray and well-loved books, because blue mana always makes artifacts better.

 

The vest seems rather plain and a bit thin for armor on its own, but some runes of order and protection, charged with white and red mana, ought to change that!  Just standing near the raw mana as she infuses the garment with it evokes the sounds of swords clashing, bones breaking, and orders shouted over the din of battle.  Anyone with a modicum of pride can't help sitting a little straighter after feeling it.

 

The axe, on the other hand...  Too vanilla, and way too predictable.  Lexiel adds a small speaker loaded with the classic lightsaber sound effects, and a heaping dose of red mana.  Axes are very red weapons already, so why not give it some lava and chaos to spice things up?

 

And the shotgun.  Boooring.  Lexiel gives this one the most complex rune-work, and infuses it with weird mana.  An Izzet specialty, weird mana is quite literally contradiction in its purest form.  Fire and water, heat and cold, plasma and liquid, in a chaotic loop that probably should explode but somehow manages to stay in dynamic equilibrium... most of the time.

Edited April 8, 2017 by DragonRage

[spümpkin]

The Bullet visibly retches at Lexiel's blatant disrespect towards the gunsmith's craft, but doesn't speak up about it.

[LucidRain]

Visrii said nothing against the driver's snarky response. After all, the driver unfucked the operation, and pissing the guy off will only mean bad luck.

But he gathered stray embers and burned the paper bag he was given. Considering that he had ridden a dragon before, the van ride was nothing out of the ordinary. Though he did have to admit inside, his guts felt like it had its own Masquerade and half his organs got slaughtered.

Visrii climbed out of the van and stayed outside the cottage whilst 'angel' got to work with the weapons. He didn't need the weapons, his Climax was good enough. However, he did keep a close eye on Lexiel and Halley, as well as the new recruit.

[IntSys]

"Oh, it's just an armory." Halley watched as the drones took the fancy weapons back to the van. She followed them back to the van, but before she even got the chance to inspect the weapons up close, Lexiel had already started working on upgrading them. Compared to Mar, Lexiel was certainly more energetic and optimistic about her crafts.

 

Halley simply stood next to Lexiel and observed quietly.

Edited April 8, 2017 by IntSys