Caught in the Middle
Caught in the Middle is the first chapter of the Shadowrun campaign Infancy of the Wireless World.
Primary Characters
Prelude
A Mr. Johnson hired out Melvin Richter's skilled shadowrunning team to intercept a shipment from an incoming cargo ship. The contents were not disclosed. The markings on the container read Helsinki Kuljettava. The ship was identified as the Iron Lady, an inbound vessel from the Norwegian port of Oslo. The container's dimensions were approximately 6 ft. x 4 ft. x 4 ft.
Melvin's shadowrunning team consisted of:
- Melvin Richter - Face
- Rayn - Technomancer
- Ahab - Street Samuari
- Traven - Rigger
- Adam Orion - Gunslinger Adept
Rayn hacked the seaport schedules and brought the ship to dock in an abandoned and unsecured docking port. Melvin found the crane and used it to load the target crate onto Traven's van. The Mafia caught wind of the operation and crahsed the party. Traven, Adam, and Ahab took off in the van and were led on a chase through the Seaport streets. The team, outmatched by the Mafia, dropped the cargo in an effort to escape. The Mafia continued to pursue. The chase ended when Traven failed to make a jump from one dock to another. The van, and its occupants, plunged into the inner Boston Harbor. Melvin and Rayn escaped.
Melvin was determined to complete this mission, and needed to hire a new team to finish the job.
Session 1
- August 25, 2007
Melvin hired two new shadowrunners, brothers by the name of Eric and Vincent Black. Melvin came up with an elaborate plan to attempt to confuse the Mafia. He arranged a meeting with a Mafia entourage and was able to bribe one of the Mafia bodyguards into giving up the location of the next Mafia hit going down. He reported the hit to his Lone Star contact, Randal Arland. He then crafted a video of the incident, framing a mob boss named Rafael for divulging the hit's location. He dropped the tape off at a Mafia house. Randal reported that no hit had taken place at the indicated time and place -- which meant the information he received was false, or the hit was called off after the Mafia reviewed the tape.
The team met with Chisel, the leader of the Spikes Gang in the Seaport district. They used a territory feud between the Spikes and the Mafia to their advantage by paying the Spikes to cover them as they drove a truck into their territory. The team then broke into a Mafia warehouse and stole the target crate along with a shipping truck.
Karma Awarded: 5
Session 2
- August 31, 2007
A pursuit ensued, with two Mafia vehicles chasing the truck into the Spikes Gang territory as planned. The chase ended when the truck took a sharp turn onto a side street. The remaining Mafia vehicle collided with the truck, but as it did so, Vincent leaped from the bed of the truck through the windshield of the vehicle, killing the driver. The group then drove the truck and the Mafia sedan to Max's garage, one of Melvin's contacts in South Boston.
Vincent's thermographic vision indicated that the contents of the container they had stolen was emitting a strong heat signature. The group speculates that the contents may, in fact, be living.
Karma Awarded: 5
Session 3
- September 7, 2007
The group, consisting of Melvin, Vincent and Eric, was hanging out at Max's garage while the flat-bed truck was undergoing repairs.
Curiosity got the better of the group, so they decided to open the box. Vincent Black busted the maglock faceplate off and Melvin proceeded to rewire the lock with amazing success. The contents revealed four trays, each containing a naked Russian (two male, two female). The bodies were strapped into the tray and connected to a life support system. They were bald, All of the labels were in Russian. The life support systems, strangely, were not wireless.
The group pulled out the fourth tray, its contents a female Russian named Aleksandra Morózov. After the tray came out, the life support monitor alarm lights began flashing and the oxygen and heart rate stats indicated that she was waking. Eric Black, slightly bored, started watching TV. There was a knock on the door.
Three men in suits were at the door. It was pouring with rain, but the men seemed unphased. Vincent answered the door, shotgun in hand. The men offered ¥30,000 for the crate and the group refused. During the conversation, Aleksandra began screaming intensely and the matrix signal went offline. The scream startled the suits and they drew their pistols. Eric's TV reception went out. The suits then left, warning not to harm the cargo or it would be worthless.
Eric left Max's to talk to the neighbor regarding the matrix outage. Vincent left to steal a car to contact Vassili about the screaming Russian. Before stealing a car, he noticed a suspicious truck 5 blocks down the road. He began sprinting towards it, pursuing through the streets as it fled. Eric and Melvin followed and spotted another similar truck. Vincent caught up to his truck, came up along side it, smashed his hand into the driver's side window and dropped a grenade. The car slammed on its breaks and swerved left in an attempt to take out Vincent, but smashed into some parked cars and in moments the truck was ablaze and all occupants killed. Melvin and Eric opened fire at their truck, disabling it before it could move. Two suited men fled from the truck and escaped.
They regrouped at Max's, only to find the woman wrapped in the blanket on a sofa. Max couldn't stand her screaming, so he took her out and was in the other room making her a sandwich. She was clearly deranged, shivering and staring up at the ceiling. Max brought out the sandwich and set it on the table in front of her, but she didn't acknowledge him or the food. Vincent sat down next to Aleksandra and took a bite from her sandwich. When talking to her, she only responded to her name by repeating it, and when asked to get back into the crate, she responded with a loud "No."
Eric cast Stun Bolt on Aleksandra. On the first blast, the matrix signal flickered; on the second blast, Aleksandra was knocked unconscious and the matrix signal came back online. Vincent contacted his Russian street doc contact, Vassili, who came over and investigated the Russian cargo. He speculated that they were technomancers, given that the signal was blocked when one awoke.
The group moved from Max's to a safe house in the Orc slums, thanks to Eric Black's gang contact. Vassili accompanied them, as he wanted to do more investigation on this very intriguing cargo. About twelve hours after the group relocated, Max's garage was raided and Max was presumed dead.
+1 Loyalty for Vassili
Karma Awarded: 5
Session 4
- September 20, 2007
Melvin, Eric, and Vincent backed their truck into the service area in the basement of an apartment building in the orc slums, a safe house given to them by Eric and Vincent's cousin, Dre. The place was run down, and due to the torrential rains outside the floor was flooded with a half-inch of water. Vincent immediately went to work rigging up the apartment building by planting explosives at certain doors, welding certain doors (and the elevator doors) shut, and rigging a flashbang at the back stairwell door. Strangely, Melvin received another message from his Mr. Johnson, wording the drop instructions slightly differently than the previous message he sent earlier.
Eric left the building to meet with his magic mentor, Professor Er, at the Rally's a few blocks down the street. He presented Eric with a dangerous mission to investigate the mysterious astral tint to the storms plaguing Massachusetts. He suspects the magical source is coming from Syracuse, an abandoned city. Syracuse was abandoned after a magical experiment gone wrong at the Skanealteles Nuclear Power Plant in the finger lakes region south of Syracuse. Er offered ¥20,000 up-front for the investigation and another ¥20,000 upon their return. Eric accepted.
Shortly after Eric returned, the group set up a sleeping rotation with Vincent starting first shift. An hour into Melvin's sleep, he was awoken by an urgent message from Harrison Cobbel. It read
Leave Boston... NOW!
Vassili stopped working on the technomancers and secured the crate to the truck. They hopped into the truck and started to open the garage door. Bullets pelted the water at the foot of the door as it opened. They left it slightly opened; Vincent handed Eric a flashbang and proceeded up the nearby stairwell to the ground level. Looking out the window, he spotted an armored sedan with one armored soldier leaning on the hood, aiming down at the garage.
Just as he was about to open the door, it swung open. Another soldier in full body armor with helmet pivoted into the doorway, and much to his surprise the 8 foot 4 inch troll stood in his way. Before he could fire, Vincent blasted him with his shotgun square in the chest, instantly killing him. The second soldier backed away and chucked a flashbang into the doorway. Vincent then tossed a grenade at the car 10 meters away. The grenade landed directly under the car. The soldier on the hood began firing at Eric as he left the garage, but in one brilliant explosion the car burst into flames, sending that soldier flying tens of feet into the air in a giant fireball.
Eric proceeded up the garage ramp and hit the remaining soldier with a mana bolt. Vincent peeked out the door and finished the soldier off.
They loaded up onto the truck and began to pull out of the garage and out of the parking lot. As they pulled out of the parking lot, they were intercepted by another armored sedan. A gunfight ensued as both cars turned the corner, and the sedan began chasing the truck.
Dexter Tag, a South Boston local, was concerned that his matrix connection would go out again, so he went to a coffee shop outside the radius. He began researching on the matrix information about the mysterious outage and came across some Shadowland fables about a technomancer's ability to disrupt the wireless matrix. He discovered that several Renraku contingents were sent to Boston's South End, near the orc slums. He decided to check it out, and proceeded to go there on his motorcycle. After about an hour of roaming the area, he came across speeding armored sedans and followed them to the apartment building that was under assault. Another explosion occurred at the front of the building; Dexter watched as the assault team attempted to enter the stairwell and get obliterated. He drove his bike to the back of the building, where the first explosion occurred.
Dexter pulled up alongside the truck, spotting the shadowrunners. They made contact, and he informed them he was not a hostile. Dexter launched off his bike in dramatic fashion, pulling his Katana in the process, and landed behind the truck facing the armored sedan. The sedan swerved in an attempt to take out Dexter. Dexter spun around, elegantly bring the Katana around and scraping it alongside the sedan, shredding the tires and tearing the rear door off entirely. The car swerved and began to barrel roll. From the passenger side of the truck, Eric fired the final shot that sent the car to oblivion.
Dexter caught up with the fleeing truck and Vincent pulled Dexter (and his motorcycle) up onto the truck despite the high speeds. They were on their way to Syracuse.
+3 Public Awareness for Vincent, Eric, and Melvin
+1 Notoriety for Vincent, Eric, and Melvin
+1 Street Cred for Vincent, Eric, Melvin, and Dexter
Karma Awarded: 7