Shadowrun story mode, copied from /tg/

Last weekend, I gm'd shadowrun for the first time with my friends. I have played a lot of shadowrun before, but I never had as fun as I did this time. Same with my friends/players they really seemed to enjoy it.

Basically its a lower karma/bp campaign (550 karma).

Where the focus is to so not combat oriented as possible. Problem we had earlier wasn't bad dms per say, but the effort to make something then blow x thing up etc. But this time I made an effort to make it not be that much about combat, but it will still exist. Combat is an consequence instead of something obvious.

Anyhow, the story so far. They got hired by a Ms. Johnsson called Eve, she gave a list of jobs where the could chose from. They decided to go for the job to find a missing fixer.

Now, LA is huge. So how do they go about finding this missing Fixer, Paublo. When this resourceful Ms. Johnsson can't. That was kinda the thing I wanted them to figure out. I gave them hints, gave them ways to gather information etc. It was really fun seeing, the whole group discuss how they should go about this. But eventually through finding Paublo's unimportant cousin Santiego, they managed to squeeze out where Paublo where, but not in what kind of state.

After a lot more of information gathering, and paranoia. They managed to figure out that he is inside an large special container for military hardware that are going to get scrapped. Located at an closed down trash disposal factory.

They almost walked right into my trap, until one of the more paranoid players decided to ask their new information contract, an escaped military AI, if there is anything weird with those cargo containers/area. So they found out about the 5 flying sniper drones that are flying in formation to cover every angle of the container.

Man this is getting long, should I continue this or is it too boring?

Sorry, I had to take a long duration dump. Which included drawing a rough race track for a possible mission for them.

Anyway, as they figured that out. They were really unsure how to go about getting in to the container. One of the players had a hacker/fixer as a contact, and he used him. But I decided that he didn't have the skills needed to hack 5 special-military defense drones.

So I subtly hinted at, maybe your new friend military AI can help you to them. They picked up on it and asked if he could hack them and turn them off. He said that it would be risky, but worth a shot (this AI is super curious about things), but in the end he was only in reach with his homenode to two of the drones. But the AI managed to get in both, but got ICC/black'd, so he couldn't turned them off. But he got enough information to tell the players that this system isn't perfect, this formation/system was used for an AI to control, but it's obvious that an AI isn't controlling it with it's obvious flaws.

It's flying in an so-called "AEGIS" formation.
Which is that the 5 drones, have one master drone, which is placed as a look out/ several hundredths meter up in the air. It can't cover what's exactly under it, but it will scan the area in a larger scale. Then we have the 4 other drones, which set intervals change their position, to either hiding or for a more scouting one. So the AI got the info at each 15 minutes the other 4 drones starts moving and change another shape with, them acting as corners.

But the players where stuck, they were still afraid of the middle drone, the one that won't move. They didn't know if Paublo would shoot them or not.

They had some really interesting moral discussions, as if they should tie ignition rope around Santiego's neck, and send him forward to see if Paublo would shoot his cousin.

As they were discussing morality, a bit of an interlude came, as the mysterious and curious military droid asked if they are working for an Ms. Johnson who is called Eve. And then showed them some interesting things, it linked one of the players/characters to a hidden node where images from a video file was tagged as frames.

Each framed showed as Eve, a tall woman, with hip-length black hair and green cybernetic eyes, go into some kind of small dark office, where an older man which is smoking a cigar, in his 70s. The first pictures seems like the old man is gladly inviting Eve in, and suddenly in a blur, two very sharp looking objects come out of eves arms, and stabs the old man in his chest and stomach, and then cuts his head off. After a short while, the access to the hidden node disappears, and when they were gonna view the last few frames. They get an 404.

The AI asks again by mail, is this the woman you are working for?

The players suddenly got confused, as they had no idea who that person was. But fortunately a character/player had mafia families in LA as an knowledge skill. So he rolled, and learned that was the old head of the Gustavo family. Which they also learned quick that Eve is the new head of the Gustavo, because of the old man's testament.

As they dug deeper into this, they also figured out that the Gustavo owned that garbage disposal factory/dump, and when the old man Gustavo died, it got shut down. It's also where they found his headless body. That was 2 years ago.

As they still had Santiego tied up, they took his commlink, and accessed it's call and mail/sms history where they found for 3 months ago, a text message from a person called Roberto Gustavo, the old man. Then they looked more, it would seem that the useless ganger cousin Santiego (to Paublo) has gotten cryptic messages giving him missions, things to do, things that seem to have no meaning, but each time he succeeded he got money for it, and a lot of this payed for his insane drug habits.

Now the players were getting that something is weird about this case. And just as they were going to try to send a message to this Gustavo contact, they get an sms, that says ":./:..Santiego..& we need to Meet".

They answered by text, and didn't answer as the contact thought they would, and said "W/ho are You(?"

After a lot of flavor chat, they basically managed to squeeze out that this cryptic fellow is Roberto Gustavo's attempt to upload his mind to the matrix, before he totally was braindead. They kept asking about Paublo, and Gustavo kept saying that he is sleeping right now, and that Gustavo is controlling the drones when Paublo is "sleeping". Gustavo made it clear that he wants Santiego for something, but not quite telling the players what it is, but he says that he will give them Paublo if he gets Santiego.

As they are a bit stumped to do, they decided to see if they could make a trade. They all went in the care, Santiego bound up and placed in the backtrunk. They kept messaging Gustavo while on the way, and got promised that the drones will not be able to fire, but they will still work as cameras. Anyway, beforehand, even before they got contacted by Gustavo. They looked at Satellite images of the garbage dump/factory, and they saw one of those weird military cargo containers, but when they arrived there was two of them.

As they got closer they saw some thick cables going between the two containers. But they had a hard time to focus on any of that, since they managed to find each drone's current position and notice that they are following their every move.

As they got close to the containers, they see that each container is locked from the outside with a code lock and large chain. They ask which one does Paublo and Gustavo is in, and what's it key password is. He gives it to them.

They open the large cargo container's doors after putting in a 5 number password. The first smell that hits them is blood and gunpowder.

The view they get certainly is gruesome by the entrance looks like a broken assassination drone, with both knives in it as bullet wounds. An extremely bloody and disfigured medic drone of an expensive brand. As they enter, there is a blue dim light coming from screens at the end of the cargo container, but the more they went into the container, it was obvious something gorey happened here.

The only thing they knew about Paublo, was that he had an unique Matrix avatar, and that he is latino-american. But before those blue-dimmed screnes, was a large complex chair, with cables all over the place.

As they get closer they see something resembling a human sitting there. It is what they think a man, with bandages all over his head, neck, but as they go lower down they see that he doesn't have any arms or legs, and the only thing that is there now instead is bloody bandages. They couldn't tell who this person was, or if this was even a person.

They get contacted again by Gustavo, and he said go open the other container. It's code is this, another 5 number combination. They open it, and everything looks super new and fresh, there is the same kind of share but it almost looks shiny in comparison to the bloody and dirty one in the other container. Gustavo says, put Santiego in the chair and tie him up, and also hook him up to the chair. (he then explains how).

But the players were angry and said "Where is Paublo!?" And Gustavo said, it's more that I am where Gustavo is. "I am right now sharing Paublo's head/body. Which been working for 1½ year now, but after that his mental state went to the worse, 3 months ago he went into hiding. Mainly due to the effects my memory had on him. He got a delusion that an AI was going to kill him, and that AI was Eve. He was wrong about the killing part, but the AI part is true. I bet she is still looking for me." Gustavo says all this in Pablos voice.

They suddenly got a bit tense, as they heard that Eve is an AI.

Just as they were going to ask something, Gustavo, the broken man suddenly starts to laugh, and then suddenly stop. Did you know why Eve killed me? It was apparently because "The current head of the Gustavo family is acting illogical, and is not efficient. This needs to be dealt with."

You might think, that charming but cold woman can't be an AI? Well that's the scary part, with her charm and intellect, she has made the Gustavo family into something stronger then I ever could. But I still want my revenge. I took her in, when she was vulnerable, pitying her. She repays me with this?

The players was getting impatient and were asking what will happen to Santiego, and Gustavo plainly says that I will rewrite his entire conscious and I will take his place. He will die/cease to exist. But why do you care about an violent, non-important druggie?

Paublo can't handle having two consciousness inside him anymore, I had to hide in Paublo before Eve found me. If I have a body/brain of my own that won't be a problem anymore.

Gustavo promised that he would pay them 50k nuyen if they would let him go after he gotten in Santiego's body. But this would come a week later, this would also mean betraying Eve somewhat. Eve promised 50k for finding Paublo and what happened to him. Another 75k if they knew in detail what happened and cleaned up any "mess" in the process. They would only get half of the total reward if Paublo is dead.

So they decided to betray the old man. They say that they would help him, and just as when the old man finished his mind transfer to Santiego and wake up, one of the party members has a silenced heavy pistol to his forhead and shoots 3 times. Killing him instantly.

All while that happend, the team/party's medic/doctor checked up on Paublo and put proper bandages and whatnot. They unhooked Paublo from all the various cables and carried him into the car's back seat. But they decided to shoot every drone down. And so they did. Then in the other large container was a lot of large shiny looking containers of various form, mostly rectangular shape of various sizes. They opened one of the biggest one, where they found what seemed like a military grade sniper, but modified. There was 3 of these cases, and each was such a sniper. They also found 5 smaller cases which was 5 special ops designed AUGs, with switchable rifle/AR mode, foregrip, sling, silencer just about everything tacticool. Last two things they found was a crate of Willy Pete grenades and 3 small silvery boxes, each including 2 different knife in each.

First an mono-filament vibro-knife in each box, but also an "Injection-blade", which is a blade/weapon that almost looks like an old ink pen,. but a lot sharper and has a special champer for very small vials/shots. There was also 5 filled vials per case, which is Naga Venom.

So they took all that swag and put it on the car, and drove the hell out of there. When they got at their base, they called Eve and she responded "On my way."

Eve arrived, and were shown Paublo's condition. After it looks like she is thinking, she quickly turns around and says good job. I expect an full report from you all, including all the details. But the face of the group wanted to explain right now what happened, but for some reason the party didn't want to tell Eve that it was Gustavo that they killed, but instead an crazy AI trying to control/meld with a human body.

So he had to con, and it was so freaking close of failing due to Eve is a very sharp person/AI when it comes to most intellectual things, but most of all social things.

But they got their 50k, and as they reported what happened and Paublo waked up to back them up, he had some minor amnesia, except for the mental scaring of losing all his limbs. So they got the extra reward!

But they were still a bit worried about Eve, and wondered if this really was the right choice, but then the comical face of the group said "Of course it is, we got more money!" Then the first thing this character did, was to go to a nightclub, a weird ass night club, that mixes old pubs with modern nightclubs. Oh, and he is a drug addict to red mescalin. So while high on that, he saw a very beautiful woman and the "old pub" side of the club. Which he approached and tried to seduce. But oddly enough this woman felt familiar to him, and she thought he was familiar as well. He rolls memory, and remember seeing her on the news.

She is the mayor's daughter, or ex mayor since he was caught in a large drug ring/aka take extreme amounts of drugs.

The leader of this drug ring is still missing, and no one except for the mayor and his daughter knows what he looks like, and he looks exactly like this Asian American man who is currently seducing her.

He has the Evil twin bad quality. It wasn't him who did it, but his evil twin! Mwhahaha. But after a hella of luck and edge use he managed to smooth things over with this emotionally-devastated female.

Anyway after a lot of drinks, and awkwardness with him trying to seduce her. He finally succeeds, and he brings her home and they had a nice night... *cough*.

So, what will the consequences be of this? Non yet, as when he wakes up she is gone. While on withdrawal/negative effects of his drug, Eve needs to meet them for new jobs.

She comes over and gives them the new job list, but also an cyberware implant, for anyone who needs it in the party. Cerebral Booster Rank 2.

Now the job list is, an assassination on a mafia family head. Which only pays 15k.

The annihilation of an entire gang of Slavic gentlemen of questionable character. Which payed 100k, because there is 200 gangers occipuying a whole block, another mafia family's turf is that block partly, and they want these gangers gone. They don't have the men and firepower themselves, to do this. They are more invested in black marketing etc.

The third job, that Eve has provided them is finding an escaped military AI. It is currently working as an information broker and hacker, but this AI is no normal military AI as it might have told people. This is a Prime-AI, basically an AI who controls a large amount of other AI and similar things. It was this country's main intelligence AI, which connects all the other AI's and collects separate instances of information and pieces things together. Makes judgement calls, recommends actions and most of all is an EXTREMELY complex and expensive piece of software/hardware/whatever. The market price for such an AI is at least 4 mil nuyen.

The job would pay the party 1.5 mil nuyen, since Eve says there is no way that you could sell such an AI.

But they decided to only accept the gangers and the assassination so far.