Dragon Hunt
-----This particular run was very shadowy. The information posted by the runners is only what they know. I'm pretty sure that there was a lot of cloak and dagger stuff going on in the shadows with this one (there'd have to be when you work for a fragging dragon), but alas, this is all we have.-----
DESysOp {05-13-57/17:09:45}
//PARTIAL UPLOAD ONLY!!!//
CONTINUE? (Y/N)
Y://Downloading//
The Runners: Klyde Scope, Myles Knight, Cyria Tokage
The Job: The runners are offered a job by a dragon to track down his past. The dragon has recently suffered severe external wounds and now has amnesia. He can not recall who would try to harm him or how he came to be in a hospital. The offer is for 2,000 nuyen a day + expenses (each).
Dragon Hunt is a supplement adventure written by FASA Corp.
In no way is this an original story written by myself, but rather the course
of actions that Philly's Phinest took while playing the adventure. Nuff' said.
The Real Deal: True enough the dragon has amnesia, but this is a special kind of dragon. The dragon is the head of a small corporation through stock manipulation. The dragon's treachery in the corporate arena and its greed for technological might has put it in a precarious situation where the runners are really nothing but pawns. Like the old phrase goes, never make a deal with a dragon.
The Breakdown
The runners have hit a bit of a dry spell. work has been slow, but soon Klyde's usual employer calls up giving them an offer from a third party that seems to be legit enough for the runners. Mr. J. tells the runners to stick around the flop and wait for a call from their would be employer. Sure enough, an hour later, the runners speak with a man over the trid about meeting him the following day in the Seattle General Hospital at 1:00 P.M. to discuss a matter of detective work. He has heard that the runners are competent and he only wanted the best for this job.
The runners arrive the next day, on time and ready. However, they stick out amongst the sanitized white walls and corpers who can afford actual hospital treatment. Security is ready to throw them out when an orderly in a white uniform steps out and tells the guards there's nothing to worry about. However, since Security is paid quite well to worry, they immediately check the runners for weapons, and boy do they find weapons. After leaving all of their neat toys with the guards, the orderly takes them to the 14th floor, where there is an amazing amount of activity. My client is in there, says the orderly, pointing to room 1405.
The runners enter and almost run out when they see a dragon (yes, a real dragon). But this is not the ordinary kind of dragon you can see flying ofer the S-S wilderness. This dragon is fragged up. He is covered with gashes and has bandages over a good bit of his body. The dragon passively watches a trid set in front of him. "Greetings," says the dragon, momentarily looking away from the trid, "You must be the men I sent for." After an initial uneasiness, the players accept the dragon's offer as seen above. The dragon does however, have a few leads for them. He has a few scraps of memory: An ork with a huge gold earring that looks like a coin, a name, Justine Grier, and Cobalt Marie, something he cannot remember if it is a place a person, or a matrix location. However, the runners are perplexed as to how they will be paid since the dragon has amnesia and cannot recall what assets he has and where. The dragon replies that while he can't pay them cash now, he can start them off with something he has with him: an ornate diamond earring.
The players ooh and ahh at the earring, and with good cause. The dragon says that it is easily worth ten thousand nuyen and should cover the first two days. He also tells the runners that the sooner they find his identity, the sooner he will be able to pay them. He gives them instructions not to return to him until they have the whole picture. They agree and that gets the runners going. Soon, they are on the trail. Klyde examines the earring first, before hocking it. there's something unsettling about it. Cyria assenses it, but recieves no astral imprint on it. Klyde puts a call through to his fixer to get the skinny on the earring.
The fixer looks at the earring through the vid at the runners flop and whistles. "Now that's a piece of work!" she says, "There's only a few people I know that can make stuff like that." Klyde asks the fixer if she knows where it may have been made locally. After a moment of thought, the fixer gives them an adress of a jewelry store called King Solomon's Mine in the Tacoma Metroplex Mall. The runners thank the fixer and go to the met.
They arrive at the shop and find it to be very orderly and neat. The old man behind the counter looks up and asks if he can help them. The runners politely inquire about the earring, and the old man says that he has no idea what they're talking about. Klyde gets ready for alternate means of interrogation when Myles notices four rather scuzzy orks approaching in cheap suits with the bulge of weapons under their jackets. Soon, guns are drawn as the orks try to rob the store.
Since the orks are pretty stupid, the runners dispatch them easily, Cyria scoring on crispy critter with a manabolt, myles offing another with his Uzi III. Klyde disarms and pins down one, while Cyria and Myles try to chase down the last robber who turned tail and ran. Klyde, suspecting that it was no coincidence that the store was robbed, demands that the robber tell him just what they were up to. The robber spills his guts to Klyde, saying that some elf gave them the job to bump off the old man and steal his recent record relating to special orders. Satisfied, klyde shoots the ork and turns to the old man. After a little intimidation, Klyde gets what the orks were looking for: the special order form for the earring, filed by Justine Grier from Emerging Futures Technologies, a third tier corp.
Seeing two connections now to Justine Grier, they approach the EF offices in Downtown which seem to be in bad shape. The top two floors appear to have been gutted on the rear corner and are being reconstructed. The well armed ork at the door asks them what their business is and when he hears they're there to see Grier, he buzzes them in and they are once again forced to leave all weapons at the door, and are taken to the fourth floor of the building where they speak with Grier. Grier denies having ordered the earring and denies that she knows anything about any dragons. The runners are shoved back out onto the streets within minutes and they become members of Griers dreklist.
The runners decide to come back to their flop and have Cyria's decker contact hack into EF. After about five minutes, Jack the Ripper calls back saying that there's nothing to look at. The system has been disconnected from the Matrix. The runners decide that it's time they did some illegal snooping at the EF building in person.
They arrive late in the evening and approach the back entrance in an alleyway. Cyria just barely manages to break into the maglock and deactivate it and soon they are inside. To make a long story short, the first through third floor contain nothing useful, and the building is crawling with security patrols. Astral space is being guarded by two elementals,one fire, the other air. Eventually, they find some paydata on the fourth floor. Apparently, EF was researching Matrix technology on animals and para-animals. The runners chew itover and start thinking. Didn't the dragon have a patch near his neck that might have concealed a neural jack? They decide that they'll have to hit the top floor where Grier's office is to get the real paydata.
Things get messy on the fifth floor. They trip security and they go into combat. Klyde finds out how hard drones are to kill after he tries to knock one down with a broomstick. The stick makes a wonderful snapping noise as it breaks in two, and the drone bobs to the left for a second before unloading on Klyde. Klyde's armor stops most of it, but he still takes light wounds. Cyria lights up the room with mojo, toasting two sec guards. However, it took more effort that she would have liked and collapses momentarily from the drain. Myles figures since stealth is no longer a component, hoses down the remaining guards after a short scuffle and they then proceed to break into Grie'rs office.
And they find a lot of stuff. Records on hardcopy and OP chips in relation to something called Project Cerberus. Many files have been flagged and marked. A memo on the desk reveals that EF is gunning for the runners as well. The runners grab as much stuff as they can hold and escape through the ruins of the rear corner of the building, almost killing themselves in the proccess. They make their escape back into the shadows and return to their flop...to find that the door is open.
The flop was trashed. Whoever looted it was thorough. They find a message on their VidPhone and they play it. a tall dark Amerind introduces himself as John Whitefeather. He politely cautions the runners that they should drop their search if they know what's good for them. But the last part is what gets them. "I'd drop this if I were you," he says, "Or some one could break into your apartment... like we did... trash your stuff... like we did... or leave a bomb... like we might have..." Cyria and Myles both get the hell out while Klyde looks for a bomb. He finds nothing, and the players take a sigh of relief.
That night, the runers call Klyde's Johnson to investigate another lead: Cobalt Marie. The Johnson, after a liberal sprinkling of nuyen, tells the runners that Cobalt Marie is a club of sorts where corpers go to have discreet meetings. They get the address and then they call up Cyria's bartender contact to look up the identity of an ork mentioned by the dragon and also refered to in several of the Cerberus Project notes. "Yeah, I know the guy," says the bartender, "Name's Coinspinner. Was a good mage once, but he's burning out. Haven't seen him for 'bout a month now." Cyria thanks him and they go out to the Cobalt Marie.
They arrive at the Marie in the wee hours of the morning where they are greeted by an attractive young woman wearing a tight blue dress with peircing cobalt blue eyes. She asks them their business and they take a shot in the dark, syaing their here about Coinspinner. They guessed right, and Marie welcomes them and they are lead inside. they pass through a bar area where they are thoroughly disarmed by about four troll bouncers. After assuring them that they'll get it all back, Marie leads them to a small meeting room. She closes the door behind her after they all shuffle in and Marie's calm composure drops.
"What the frag do you think you're doing here?" she says, "I told you, I can't give Mr. Coinspinner anymore information! I think they know that I've been leaking this info to you. I can't risk this anymore. They'll kill me!" Just as she finishes, the door opens and there are two corpers, dressed well even amongst the corporate elite. They have two street sams with them and the troll bouncers seem to be absent. "I trust you know why we're here," says Corp One, "So let's get to the point then shall we?" He tells the runners to sit while Marie is taken away by one of the Samurai. He hands each one a folder containing everything about them, even the most personal information about them and their families. "We know that you have been working for Coinspinner," says Corp Two, "And we know that he is becoming a liability. We suggest for you to bring him a message that Emerging Futures Technologies is not his problem anymore, and that he should remove himself from associating with them further. EF belongs to Ares now. Make sure he understands that clearly, or bad things could happen to you and your friends." With that, the corps put on their plastic smiles again and leave. Marie returns to the room after they leave and offers them drinks. they refuse and quickly exit the club after a warning that the runners are no longer welcome. With that, they hit the streets again with a little more knowledge, but still very confused. All they know is that they're missing the one link they need: Coinspinner.
Cyria isn't satisfied with the info from the Ares corpboys at the Marie, so she decides to go in alone under her invisibility spell. She finds out little about the Marie or coinspinner and leaves empty handed with oe exception. All the conference rooms are highly surveilled. There could be all sorts of juicy info if she could just get to it. When they return to their flop, the contact Jack again and have him run the Matrix for security files from the Marie. Two hours later he comes back with pictures of Coinspinner in a conference room. Although there is no audio, they enhance an image of Coinspinner lighting a cigarette and catch an address on his flap of matches. The Redmond Arms
The Redmond Arms is a crumbling, delapidated heap of brick and drek. It is even more filthy on the inside than on the out and the halways smell of urine and blood. They bypass the old man at the reception desk and go through a long halway. They hear all sorts of noises in the rooms on the first and only habitatable floor, but eventually narrow it down to one room where they think he's at. they knock and a gruff voice responds, "Who's there?"
It takes a lot of convincing before Coinspiner opens the door. All they had to do was mention the Dragon and he was more than cooperative with the runners. Coinspinner tells the runners the whole story: That the Dragon, who's name is Eliohann, was somehow captured by EF for Project Cerberus. While in their facilities Eliohann learned about all sorts of things, one being the stock market. He soon had a researcher under his infuence at the lab, and began to buy up EF stock. With the researcher as his simulacrum, he bought a commanding share of EF stock, and became the board member with the biggest share. Knowing that the researcher had done all he could, he hired Coinspinner to be his proxy, so as EF would not know that the "inmate" was running the proverbial "asylum". Eliohann was mesmerized by the concept of being a decker and through Coinspinner, he ordered that the research be intensified immediately. Now working through a network of lab employees, Eliohann learned that Ares Macrotechnologies was sniffing around EF's research and was planning a buyout. The dragon then made the order to have a datajack implanted A.S.A.P. However a group of runners was sent by Ares to stop Eliohann from getting the implants, so as they could have the honors of doing it first. However they were too late. By force, the dragon had the surgery done and he was ravenous to punch deck. He jacked in and the perfect reality of the Matrix over took him. The simsense units were kid's play compared to the reality of the Matrix. Eliohann fipped in a fit of psychotic rage and escaped through the back corner of the EF building with serious wound inflicted on him by the Ares runners, the very same runners that had been following the team. From there, Coinspinner stole several copies of data relating to the project as insurance that he would not be killed. After all, Ares and EF both wouldn't want Coinspiner flaunting their dirty laundry around for all to see.
Coinspinner asks how the Dragon is doing and where he is being kept. When the runners tell him the dragon is at the hospital, Coinspinner panics and demands that they all rush to the hospital. When asked why, Coinspinner tells the team that Ares has most likely already bought out EF and will be wanting to clean up any evidence of Project Cerberus so they can make it their own. That means that they'll try to hit the dragon while he's down. It all seems to make sense to the runners and they agree, just as they hear sirens approaching from outside. They look out the window to see Knight Ares security cars pulling up to the front. Lots of them. Knowing that KE is owned by Ares, the runners run as fast as they can, dodginf the KE S.W.A.T. team.
They arrive at the hospital and manage to get past security by entering from the side by means of a fire escape. The runners make go through the second floor ward to get to an elevator when security spots them. They ask if the runners have permits for the weapons their carrying (yeah right). Seeing security all around them, the runners remain silent. "Alright drekheads, up against the wall," says the guard, and then an explosion rocks the south end otf the hospital. It creates enough of a distraction for the runners to escape from the guards and run to a nearby stairwell. As they look back to the ward they see John Whitefeather and his group of runners in pursuit.
The runners begin to run up the stairwell to the 14th floor, only to find that some of the other runners have already made it ahead of them. They almost trigger a trip wire connected to an offensive grenade and then the next thing they know they're being shot at. Klyde returns fire, forcing the gunman back into hiding. Myles pulls the grenade off of the would be trap, pulls the pin and throws it into the doorway the gunfire came from. There is a satisfying boom and a scream of terror, followed by alarmed patients and staff. they continue up the stairs only to hear Whitefeather and the others in pursuit behind them. Myles pulls another grenade from his stash and drops it down the stairwell. The runners run like hell was at their heels and their hoops were catching fire and barely avoid the after math of the explosion as a part of the stairwell collapses. they hear another scream, female in nature this time, and they continue.
Out of breath, the runners emerge on the 14th floor and rush into room 1405 to find Eliohann having a drink with the two corps that warned off the runners at the Marie and about twenty KE guards. "Oh, what a surprise!" says the dragon, "Now, now, don't be alarmed." The dragon turns to the KE troops and says, "Don't harm them, they're only doing their job." Coinspinner steps forward demanding that Eliohann explain himself. He spurts out his belief that the corps at Ares will try to kill him. "Now why would my new partners want to kill me?" the dragon asks, "As a matter of fact, they've offered to debug my problems with the datajack and get me running Matrix within the month!" Coinspinner and the runners are stunned. "Oh, I'm sorry," says the dragon to the runners, "Seeing as how the gentlemen from Ares have already informed me of my identity, I'm afraid that our deal has become null and void."
Oh, the runners don't like that none too much and when the go to protest (read: raise their guns) the KE troops seize them, and drag them out into the hallway. Corp One comes into the hall and looks over the runners. "I'm sorry to cut into your profits but we found him first. however, wee do assume that this can be handled with discretion." He raises his eyebrows and hands Klyde a fragging Platinum certified credstick. Instant attitude adjustment. the runners smile and say, yeah, that'll be just fine. The KE troops take them downstairs and boot them onto the street into the rain of Seattle. They leave, happy to have the money, but saddened at the fact that they accomplished nothing, and almost died while trying. well, you know what they say. Never deal with a dragon.
Back to Chronicles
Email: t.dredd@mailexcite.com
