Session started at 6:47 pm on 9/26/06
Attending players: Michael, Ben, Sarah, and Eva
Presiding GM: Aaron
We are heading across town in Ajax's car on our way to a safe house. Ajax has the disk and it appears to be okay. The doctor has patched us up quite a bit, fortunately.
I finally get a good look at the disk. It's labeled around the outside edge with:
"Carrion Sessions '48"
"For enlightenment seek out absent friends"Ajax says that Carrion is a recording studio down on Edgewater Ave. They were a big name in the 40's, run by a woman called Delphia. After she left, the quality of the stuff they put out tanked and down-slid big time in the 60's. Rumor is that Delphia still lives in Seattle.
B makes some calls to try to get info on Delphia and Carrion. He hears back in a few minutes that Delphia is part of the reason that Carrion went under. Apparently she has a nasty BTL habit and dragged the studio down with her. Creepy. He says she deals now and lives over in Redmond.
We have a short discussion about how we might be able to read the disk. I think the guys are skating on thin ice. I don't know why we would want to hear it. It will only make us a liability to the Johnson.
I try to talk them out of this investigation, but they seem to be very set on trying to figure out what's on it. The doctor isn't saying much, so I don't know if she's just being cautious or agrees with them.
Ajax thinks we should contact Delphia. He points out that "absent friends" might be her. We talk about it a bit, and ultimately B suggests that we contact the Johnson, tell him we have it and find out where he wants us to go from there. It should be interesting.
(Aaron tells Michael that Ajax was able to track the attacker's from last night back to ShangriLa, a company of some sort. When he looks up ShangriLa he finds out they are a subsidiary of Horizon and they sign a lot of high risk artists. Ari Tarkasin works for them as well.)
Ajax talks to the Johnson. He wants us to meet him at the same place and time as before. B finds us a place on Mason street to lie low until the meeting.
In the meantime, Ajax gets a call from another prospective buyer. B says he'll talk to the guy while Ajax does a trace. The guy says that he would like to meet face to face to talk to us. He gives B an address, which turns out to be exactly where the trace goes to. Gee... sounds like a trap to me. The address is in Snohomish. B tells him we'll be there in a few hours. I'm not sure what the hell the guys are thinking at this point. They obviously can't decide what they want to do with the disk. I should have been more pushy with my opinions here I guess. I didn't think Ajax suffered from curiosity that badly, or that B would go along with him!
The guys are dead set on meeting the other buyer, so we're trying to figure out what to do with the disk. We really don't want to take it in with us if we head into the trap, but it seems the safest thing to do in my opinion. If they manage to take it from us we'll all be dead anyway.
We drive around the block to scope out the meeting place. It's in an upper-middle-class neighborhood across the street from a public park. It's a cemetery, complete with black iron fence and real stone markers. The damn buyer has a dumb sense of humor. As we pull up to the front gate I can make out the folks we're meeting.
("What are these guys up to anyway?"
~ Aaron, reading boxed text
"CRIME! They're up to CRIME! That's why we're meeting them at two in the morning in the middle of a CEMETARY!!!"
~ Michael)There's a huge black obelisk style grave marker in the middle of the cemetery with a group of five human sized dark shadows waiting around it. It looks like their leader is a gothed-out chick. We approach so Ajax can talk to her. As we get closer, I can see that the black marker is marked as Jet Black's grave. Not a good sign.
The woman and her goons are all armed, but aren't immediately hostile. She introduces herself as Risa. She asks if we have the recording and Ajax says maybe. She says that she represents Jet Black's interests and she wants to insure that the recording goes back where it belongs. She says that Jet Black gave the recording to a friend and it was never meant to see the light of day. If the friend was the guy that died then we even came by this shit all legal like. Man I hate people who bend the truth for their own dumb ass reasons. I mean that shit faced bar owner was going to sell the damn thing anyway. She could have just frikkin paid him in the first place!
Ajax and the woman negotiate. She's willing to give us 25K for the disk, but it would mean betraying our Johnson...
("Five hits."
~ Sarah, rolling to notice something
"Good Grief."
~ Aaron
"Can I read their thoughts."
~ Sarah)The woman smiles in a rather predatory way and I get a text message from Ajax that consists of "OhPoopieOhPoopieOhPoopieOhPoopieOhPoopie" and then a second later one that says "Vampire". I hadn't noticed. If she really is one that's not good, as I don't know how hard they are to take down. I gather they can suck essence as well. Very not good. If I can't drop her we are in deep shit.
We discuss their offer over the comlinks, but we aren't willing to trash the little bit of rep we've acquired to garner a little bit of extra cash. Now we're screwed. I'm sure she's not going to just let us walk away. Ajax tries to politely turn her down, but she's giving off threatening signals. When she steps forward towards him, Ajax drops to the ground out of the way and yells, "Take her!" Dramatic dumb ass, that's why we have comlinks isn't it?
B's gun screams but the woman dodges nimbly out of the way. She's much faster than I would have guessed. I launch a strike at her, but she slips away. Shit. Well at this point I expect I won't survive this fight. Maybe I can hold them for long enough to let the rest of the team get away.
Her elf goon draws a gun and shoots B. B collapses. I don't dare take my eyes off of Risa to see how bad he's bleeding.
Risa starts chanting and gestures at me. I narrowly manage to drop and roll out of the way of the stream of acid that materializes from her fingers and splashes towards me. I feel one of the others try to grasp my mind with a spell, but I cast him out with the help of the doctor's protective aura (read: counter-spelling).
Two of the other goons fire on B, who's still on the ground. But he rolls behind a nearby headstone.
Four other guys pop up from the other side of the graveyard and start shooting at us. They're wearing the same dark-ops uniforms as the team that attacked us in the junkyard. I'm hopeful that they are not on the Risa's side, 'cause then we're all dead.
One of the bullets from the new comers barage hits Ajax. He's bleeding, but it looks like a graze from here. The doctor ducks behind a grave stone just in time to avoid perforation.
Ajax is yelling retreat via wireless and he's calling his car. We need to get out of here now before they overwhelm us. Ajax is getting to his knees and drawing his gun.
B shoots Risa from the ground. She yelps and goes down. I suddenly feel much better about my chances of survival. I try to kick her in the head, but she isn't as badly hurt as I thought. She snarls and deftly twists out of the way of my blow.
The elf goon shoots B again, but I think his armor took the brunt of it. He looks okay for now.
Risa fires more acid at me, but she has a terrible angle from the ground. I avoid it easily. I get in what I would normally think of as an almost free shot, but I still can't hit her. GOD DAMN IT! How nimble is the fucking woman?!
The other team has taken out at least three of Risa's goons in a hail of fire, so at least things aren't all going wrong. It would be too much to ask that they be actually friendly though.
I spoke too soon, Risa's wounds are closing up in front of my eyes. We definitely need to get out of here before she can recover. I don't expect I can keep standing up to her for indefinitely.
B manages to get to his feet. He shoots the elf goon, who "skillfully" dodges out of the way and falls in an open grave. That has to suck for him.
One of the guys from the second team is stalking around towards the entrance to cut us off. He's carrying an old fashioned bow and arrows. The rest of Risa's goons explode in a shower of blood. She is untouched, but she sure looks annoyed. I don't recognize that spell exactly, but ouch.
I sling the doctor over my shoulder and beat a hasty retreat towards the entrance of the cemetery to meet the car, which is just barreling through the gate.
Ajax fires on the guy with the bow. I thought that was a good hit, but he doesn't even flinch.
Out of the corner of my eye I see the other one of Risa's mages hit Ajax with a lightening bolt. He's standing but that looked painful. He's twitching more than I'm entirely comfortable with.
(Ajax has been hit with a mind control spell that will force him to drop the disk. He can't even try to shake it off for six more rounds.)
I put down the doctor, draw my pistol, and turn back so I can cover Ajax's escape. I thought he would be able to retreat on his own strength, but I guess not. I lay down a little suppression fire to distract the mage.
B opens up on the guy with the bow, but misses. The guy shoots back and B takes an arrow to the shoulder. He nocks another arrow as B is cursing and ducking behind a headstone. B and the guy with the bow trade a few more shots ineffectually.
I manage to shoot the mage in the stomach, but he doesn't fall. Hopefully it hurt.
One of the guys from the second team shoots B from across the cemetery. B is starting to look rather pale and wobble on his feet.
One of the guys on the second team goes down in a stream of acid from Rise's magic.
I take two shots in the arm and side, seemingly out of nowhere. It stings like hell, but I keep my feet. I think they might have come from the second team members who are still hiding back by the other edge of the graveyard.
The bow guy fires an arrow at me but I duck out of the way. The mage directs a lightening bolt at me which I narrowly dodge as well. The lightening shatters a nearby grave stone as it grounds.
Ajax pulls the disk out of his jacket and drops it. WHAT THE HELL?
Ajax continues as if nothing happened and shoots Risa's mage, who is injured but not yet out for the count.
The Risa lunges forward towards the fallen disk.
B and the doctor are taking fire from several directions. I'm not sure how much longer they can hold out.
Ajax's car is pulling up past B and he dives in front of it and takes a few shots at the bow guy. The bow guy goes down. The car tries to stop but doesn't manage in time. It hits B with a dull thud and he slumps in a heap, unmoving.
(Ben burns a permanent edge to keep B from dying outright.)
I sprint up and snatch the disk from under Risa's fingers. She tries to grab and bite me, but I duck and roll out of her grasp.
I dash for the car. Risa is on my heels. I dive into the back just as Ajax is leaping into the passenger's seat and the doctor finishes pulling B into the other side of the back.
The car speeds up and heads straight towards Risa. She stands her ground and hisses, baring her fangs at us. Just before the impact, she dissolves into mist and the car passes through her.... well... I guess she was a vampire then... crap...
The car speeds out of the cemetery. B is unconscious and barely breathing. Before the doctor can attend to him we hear the siren of a DocWagon van as it pulls up beside us. They demand B and we hand him over. I hope he'll be alright.
The doctor patches Ajax and I up. We keep our meeting time with the Johnson. He's a fucker. He gives us 15,000 ¥ despite the added danger and pain. Ajax and I nearly lose it and beat the snot out of the fucker, but Ajax's good sense kicks in in time. We take the money and leave.
End of Session