[Trespassers IC] Shadowrun: Seattle By Sundown: Breaking Point

[StormLord]

Friedhold frowned, it was always the child, though he guessed he'd never really get away from it at this point.

Now having taken more notice of Heidrun the Little Sister attempts to hide, keeping Friedhold's leg between herself and Heidrun.

"What did I do?  I stopped a gang of thugs from tearing her open to eat the slug in her stomach and then removed much of her psychological imprinting."

He sighed, he knew it wasn't what she meant even if it was what she asked.

"She has been...modified host to a symbiotic slug, the extent of the changes I have yet to determine.  Her name is Nessa."

He reached back and, with a little resistance, gently shoved her around forward to meet the new person.  Getting a closer look Heidrun would figure that the girl was probably about nine, maybe a little older, she looked thin and bony, though not starved, and her dress looked like it was about on its last legs from both wear and size.

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun slowly lowered herself (which actually took a bit of time, given she was making an effort to not startle the girl and was also six feet tall) to get to roughly eye height with the Little Sister. "Oh, you poor thing. . . I'm Heidrun, okay, Nessa? If you meet any more bad guys, you can come to me okay?" She glanced up at Friedhold before quickly returning her gaze to Nessa. He says he saved her, right? Still, she couldn't help but mistrust the man. Heidrun reached out to stroke Nessa's hair once (if the girl allowed her to,) then returned to her full height, instinctively backing up slightly again. "I've. . . You remind me very strongly of someone responsible for a large number of terrible experiences in my life, who hurt a great many other people." 

[DragonRage]

Alexandria steps into the room, moving with comically exaggerated care.  The building still creaks and groans under her feet, the floor noticeably bowing beneath her.  "Shoddy, cheap, flimsy...  What kind of useless, void-sucking contractor makes buildings this bad?  There's no way the savings in materials outweigh the maintenance costs.  Tear the whole place down, put something that'll last in here.  They'd thank me for it."

[StormLord]

Nessa recoiled at first, but inevitably accepted the caress.

Freidhold nodded, while he had certainly done more than his share of terrible things in life, he was still fairly sure he hadn't had anything to do with whatever had happened to this woman.

"I cannot claim that I have done all good things in my life.  However I make an effort now to put things right, and perhaps others will learn from my mistakes."

He paused in thought for a moment, trying to come up with something to change the subject.

"What is your world like then?  This place, it is some kind of advanced society, tainted with the dredge and rot and suffering.  Where I am from it is not dissimilar to this place, technology is more simple, I came from a whole city under the ocean.  Beautiful place. Terrible place.  Never go there."

[Chevaleresse]

"This place is a lot like Midgar, although simply tainted would have been a bad way to describe it. Bathed in, maybe, from what I saw and heard of the slums." She'd never seen much of them, despite the amount of time she'd spent there. One could almost consider that fortunate, if one was ignorant. "Now, though, it's just a radioactive ruin. The planet was nearly destroyed not long ago, and then a plague swept through the survivors." The events hadn't been nearly as bad for Heidrun as they had for many others, but she still looked slightly haunted at the mention. "Our technology isn't nearly as advanced, especially now that we don't use Mako any more, but I do feel hopeful about how things turn out going forward." She seemed to abruptly remember who she was talking to, side-eyeing Friedhold. "Why do you ask?"

[StormLord]

"Perspective.  You can learn much of someone just by where they are from, what hardships they have faced."

Friedhold's body-language suddenly changed as he turned to directly face Heidrun, looked her in the eye, and narrowed his own.

"Now tell me, you seemed so very adamant that no one touch you for fear of some kind of illness.  Yet you willingly touched this child.  Why?"

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun visibly jumped backward before freezing with her hands up defensively, looking not dissimilar to a spooked animal. The sudden turns in body language, the piercing looks, they reminded her of her past. "T-That was an exaggeration to get those t-thugs away from me. G-Geostigma isn't contagious and I-I've never had symptoms of it. N-Not nor- I mean, none. I just wanted to escape that gang and I thought d-disease might scare them away." She was starting to babble a bit; realizing this, she took a deep breath and forced her hands down to her sides. "I, we all have secrets and sensitivities, Mr. Grimmelshausen. It would simply be best if you, a-and everyone else, were to refrain from touching me when I am feeling afraid."

[StormLord]

Friedhold was honestly surprised by just how defensive Heidrun had gotten, but he didn't let it show long, if at all, and quickly shifted to a more relaxed posture.

"Alright.  You have made you point very clear, and I have no intention of doing anything of the sort."

He hadn't been trying to antagonize her...much, but the reaction certainly showed she had something going on he needed to be worried about.  He glanced down at Nessa again and was reminded of something.

"In case you were concerned she is to my knowledge incapable of contracting any form of infection or illness.  Due to her uh...unique biology."

He gestured to her while speaking which draw a brief glance from her overall disinterest with the conversation, despite the commotion.

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun tried to even out her breathing. This man was incredibly unsettling to her, and his line of questioning skirted far too close to things she was trying to keep secret. Though, this was going to be quite dangerous, if they were to be believed, and it was probably better that they find out sooner rather than later. "Well, that's good to hear," she said, somewhat quietly. Heidrun glanced down at the girl in question. Poor thing. At least she still mostly had control of her own thoughts. Who knew what went on inside her head? "Does Nessa, um, like anything in particular? I'd like to keep an eye out for something." Genuine interest aside, perhaps a change of topic would get the man to stop interrogating her.

[Yours Truly]

On 1/14/2019 at 8:05 PM, IntSys said:

"Wait, do we know you- Oh," Halley paused, giving a quick, judging glance at the elf's face. It was almost as if fancy holograms had subconsciously heightened her standards for how people around these parts should look. "Okaaay. I suppose we won't be using honorifics for the time being. Anyway, do you have enough space for our little crew here? We've been making a lot of compromises on our way here."

Solomon's expression darkened as he saw and heard the person greeting them, and he shifted slightly before he said, "What's that supposed to mean?," at the unexpectedly brash doorperson. "Well, it's just that the last time you were here, the old man dragged you and your weird group of friends into saving the world! With him, and we both know how well that worked out...," there was a slightly awkward pause before the elf turned slightly and noticed Halley's presence, "And I see that you even brought the senator shooter back with you, how...nice." the book wizard raised up his voice to say something in response, but he only managed to get out a, "Technically h-," before the elf slammed the door closed on him.

Solomon paced in place and angrily muttered something about how the contact was a councilor to the faint sounds of a bolt being slid back and a metal chain being fiddled with, before the door slowly but surely creaked open completely, revealing an elven woman dressed in the top half of a stereotypical knight's outfit, with the other half being composed of completely regular black colored casual clothing. "Technically he didn't die yeah, sure, whatever, you still fucked up, so I have no idea why the two of you are here again," She lets out a slight and defeated sigh before she turned around and walked deeper inside of the house. "But I'm here to talk about your group's future, not about their past...although, what happened to the rest of them? Do you just change your rosters regularly or.."

"No I just couldn't find them this time, and I'll have you know that the others managed to get the job done without any losses on our part, and that's more than you could say about most runners who go toe to toe with any corp on their home turf, nevermind Aztech," the book wizard offered as a defense, causing the woman to stop and turn around slightly to say, "Most runners don't blow up an entire fragging arcology in the process, or let a German scientist run away with his research notes, or piss off a cyborg, and I could go on but this is taking too long, and I don't want to be in this ridiculous outfit any longer than I have to, so I'm just going to t r y and pretend to be cordial for long enough to answer 'all of the questions our intrepid young multiversal travelers have in mind', and then you will leave, and never come back to this house again."

[Chevaleresse]

"W-wait, you did what last time? An entire arcology?" She side-eyed Friedhold again. Whoever this scientist was, it probably wasn't him given the elf(?)'s lack of recognition. "I thought you said you were protecting people from threats," she said, her gaze swapping over to focus accusingly on Solomon. "I don't know if I should be helping a group that's going around. . . well, not another terrorist group, anyway." AVALANCHE had been a terrorist group, if one looked at their mode of operation, but it was pretty easy to forgive terrorism committed against a company draining the life force of the planet to do unethical experiments on people.

[Strider]

"I'm pretty sure we don't do terrorism. We didn't the last place we were at. . . I have no idea what happened here before anyway." Liliya continued to eye up the new arrival, curiosity about the touching thing ever present. It might be worth trying to get a prediction thing going, but that would require her to fully commit to touching the woman, and then pulling back when she saw things would go poorly. There was always the faint possibility of certain effects that she'd only see the dangers of after they'd already been planted, like poisons.

 

 

"But yeah, Solomon, maybe we should know about what's been going on last time you were here?"

[IntSys]

"Well we may have inflicted a lot of collateral damage, but it was Aztechnology's arcology! Let's see..." Halley faked clearing her throat, before playing back what Solomon told her, word by word, that "Aztechnology is one of the worst companies in existence morality wise, unless you are one of their employees and think that human sacrifice is a perfectly harmless and moral way to power up your magic of course."

 

"I say we saved a lot more people by blowing up their second-most secure facility, oh and the evil book that they recently acquired," Halley added, "though it is a shame that by the time we got to the doctor's place, he had already gotten into his little escape pod." She frowned. "I reckon that things will be smoother this time around, though!"

 

 

[DragonRage]

"I should hope so," Alexandria groans, "In fact, let's just agree to not shoot first this time.  Well, not unless we are absolutely certain we're firing on enemies.  Please?  The last thing we need is to be arrested for assassination with a side of first degree murder.  Never mind that Halley evidently tried it once already.  If you get arrested for this, I will find it very hard to justify rescuing you from the consequences of your actions.

 

"On a debatably more cheerful note, I've been told you have an AI with delusions of grandeur we need to scrape out of a building's mainframe, and his creepy cult to dismantle.  Any information you could provide about the site, its inhabitants, and the cultists would be greatly appreciated.  Information about the hardware he's inhabiting would also be helpful.  I have extensive experience with AI technology, but I am unfamiliar with the 'Ultraviolet' system he is using.  My own OS is supported by a quantum storage matrix, which could not develop spontaneously in a building network as I am informed Deus' Ultraviolet core has.  More information on this system would be very helpful in shutting him down.  As would any information about the higher-level hacking techniques used in this world.  My OS should be incompatible with local hacking attempts and I do not have broadband wireless connectivity, but it never hurts to be prepared.  Hackers often have little sense of their own limitations."

[Powder Miner]

Navin's expression morphed as the elven woman listed off the apparent previous failures and incidents of the group when it had previously been to this place -- from a fairly alert, anticipatory expression to one that looked increasingly nonplussed and resigned. Well, it sounded like this place had already been a barrel of fun, complete with horrific collateral damage and, apparently, shooting political figures. "Oh." He took in a breath, and then his gaze (the resigned gaze of a man who has realized that this was going to be on par with some of his more absurd adventures) and spoke. "Solomon, could you repeat for us exactly what you have gotten us into? I am going to do it either way, but it sounds like there is quite a bit that has gone on here that you did not evidently feel the need to elaborate on."

 

"It might be better that you ask some questions, too, since you are going to have a much better idea of how exactly this place operates than we will."

[IntSys]

"Sure, sure," Halley shrugged, "it was a unique situation anyway. It's not like I'll be sent on an errand to deal with scummy informants again. And besides, Lexiel having a breakdown definitely caused more chaos than I did! She dropped a comet storm on the arcology, with our team still in it!" She reasoned, trying to overshadow the significance of her blatant disrespect of the law with Lexiel's display of insanity. "Now if we compare storming the Aztech arcology with infiltrating IPO's facility, it's clear that we got nothing to worry about. After all, I don't think anyone in this room can even come close to that, am I right? And there will be no 'innocent' bystanders this time around, according to that redhead, so really, everything that went wrong last time definitely cannot happen again!"

[DragonRage]

"We have been instructed to avoid collateral damage and fatalities," Alexandria reminds Halley, "Many of Deus' servants are not hardened criminals or devoted terrorists, but teenagers doing something stupid because an anon on the internet talked them into it.  If we killed every adolescent who did something stupid, organic life would go extinct in short order.    And blaming someone under the effects of a cognitive malfunction for your own mistakes?  While taunting Murphy in the next sentence?  Really, Halley?  I'd expected better of you."

[IntSys]

"I was hoping that this could be the exception, considering that they're working for the jerk who's actually trying to wage a deadly war against the entire world, but fiiiine, I'll pull my punches," Halley sighed, "and what? Now, now, Lexiel might have snapped at me for shooting the asshole councillor before that, but she at least understood why I did it after I explained everything to her, and we kinda made up after that! That has nothing to do with her suddenly going crazy. I think she said it had something to do with this Phyrexian oil inside her?"

 

"And that last bit. I'm not kidding about that. Though if you want to put all doubts to rest, maybe we should conduct a survey on what kind of horrific destruction everyone's capable of causing right here and now, so we can keep an eye on each other?" She raised her voice a bit, "or probably later. We are due for a Q&A after all."

[StormLord]

Friedhold started to answer Heidrun's question, but didn't manage more than about half a word before he got cut off.

He seemed at least somewhat disgusted at the finer details of the mass destruction caused by the previous group, going so far as to scoff at Halley's last remarks.

 

"How long will it take you to discover that who can kill who more and faster isn't everything?  I would not be here, and my world would not be in the state it is if not for foolish obsessions with destruction."

 

He sighed, shaking his head and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose while mumbling something under his breath.

 

"We could have saved everyone.  Instead we tore eachothers throats out, it speaks to the human mindset."

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun blanched, and blanched again at Halley's words. She didn't think she was capable of bringing down an arcology. . . but she also hadn't tested her own limits. If they could even be considered hers. Heidrun didn't quite trust herself to speak at the moment, thoroughly unnerved as she was, and so "contented" herself with glancing nervously between Halley, Alexandria, and Friedhold, alongside another step backward. She noted in the back of her mind that she was going to collide with the far wall if much more of this happened.

[Powder Miner]

Navin had resorted to pinching the bridge of his nose, watching the conversation around him begin to take another nosedive. "While I hate to be impolite, I suspect that it might be time for everyone to just... stop talking... for a little bit. We are just standing out here in this hallway, probably not doing anything to further... whatever we are even trying to do at this point, and not getting anything out of Solomon, Solomon." Navin took his fingers off of his nose and looked at the others. "Instead of having an argument, why do we not focus on whatever we can do here, and then talk about this in a more controlled way later? This is not doing us any favors."

[Yours Truly]

Solomon had quietly tried to slink inside of the apartment block almost immediately after he heard Halley speak the first time, only to find himself practically trapped between the watchful gaze of Navin, and the bemused expression of the elven woman, the woman who would raise an eyebrow just before she asks, "And you didn't tell them about what happened last time because....". A few seconds pass, and the woman lets out a slight sigh at Solomon's lack of a response; before she takes a seat on one of the room's large brown sofas and motioned for everyone to just walk on in.

"Well I didn't think that it would come up this early? And I didn't want to talk about our last run on the open streets where everyone can hear us?," Solomon offered with a slightly nervous expression on his face, only to find the woman's response to be a simple raising of her eyebrow once more. "Alright fffine, I didn't tell anyone else because I never thought that any of us would have to come back to this drekhole again, and what was I supposed to say? That I let a clown draft a group of perfectly sane and reasonable people into doing his dirty work for him and it all went to shit?," he let a brief moment of silence hang in the air after he asked that rhetorical question, or at least he wanted there to be one, as the elven woman quickly replied with, "Yes."

 

Solomon seemed like he was going to say something snarky in response, before he let out a cough and looked down at his feet a little and said,"Alright fine I probably should have, but I'll talk about that later, right now what all of you need to know is that Harlequin's a dick, but he hasn't lied to us yet, and he's at least trying to keep this world from going to shit. And yes Deus is exactly what we said he is, and that rumor has it, this isn't even the first time he pulled something like this, and blowing up the Aztechnology arcology wasn't the worst thing he ever did to one."

"And now after all these years that bithead's vulnerable again, or at least as vulnerable as a gestating pretender God can be inside of a digital fortress hidden deep inside of a castle," the elven woman interjected from across the room. "Except this time we don't have an entire megacorp's worth of runners and black ops strike teams trying to stop him...unless the corps are getting better at covering their messes anyway. So that's why the old clown called book fucker over here again." She leaned forward a little before she continued with, "But anyway can all of you come in now? I can't answer the shiny one's question if all of you are too busy bickering just outside the door, not from across the room anyway."

[DragonRage]

Alexandria carefully steps into the room, doing her best to put her weight on the most solid-looking parts of the floor near walls.  "I do not like top floors," She mutters uncomfortably, "I do not like them at all."

[Chevaleresse]

Heidrun skittered into the room, brushing past Alexandria on her way in. She was relieved for a distraction from the current conversation, not that it actually settled the internal debate she was having. She should tell them, she really should, but who knew what would happen if she did? They were dangerous terrorists of some kind, justification or no, and that Friedhold unnerved her regardless of how charitable he was trying to seem towards that Nessa. For all she knew, he knew exactly what the extent of her modifications were because he did them himself; who knew what he would try to do if he found out about Heidrun? The worry was written clearly on her face as she slunk backwards towards the nearest wall. 

[Hal Henderics]

Mar, who himself is merely hanging around the fringes of the group, simply follows along.

 

"If we are lucky, then drastic measures will not be necessary."

 

"I'm sure everyone here can draw on their experience to prevent it being so."

 

He makes a point of saying, as he slowly plods along, cane thumping on the cheap and dirty floors.