Through Hel And Back

Through Hell And Back

Runners: Fingers, Barger, Running Wolf, Iceface, Mouse, Sister Bodycount, Uruk-hai

Special Guest Appearance: Hexen

While Sister Bodycount languished in hospital recovering from her wounds, the rest of the team went about their normal lives – one day however they noticed an incoming message – the message was four parts – a location, a date & time (tomorrow), an amount 10,000 nuyen; and a graphic of a laughing man with a painted face. Somewhat puzzled by this the runners began calling each other to see if the others knew anything about it.

Iceface and Running Wolf surmised the message was from Harlequin, and everyone assembled at Fingers’ house where the two brought the others up to speed on their past experiences with the unsettling elf. While Fingers ordered-in pizza, Uruk-hai had brought tequila and his latest Urban Brawl highlights compilation while Barger had brought some choice selections from his Troll Heavy metal collection and the evening descended into a raucous party – which got interesting when one of the tusk-boys attempted to spike Running Wolf’s water with tequila!

Next evening they turned up for the meeting with Harlequin, which was a surreal as usual – on top of an abandoned building inRenton. Harlequin told them he was concerned with the operations of Winternight – their plans to bring about Ragnarok which had nearly come to fruition with the attempt to derail Halley’s Comet and send it crashing into the earth – would cause death and destruction on such a scale as to draw the attention of The Enemy. He told them that Winternight had another operation in trail and that a local contact involved was called Danny Ho. He wanted them to extract Ho and find out what he knew.

Next morning the Runners hit the street trying to tack down Ho. Mouse eventually finding him through a Humanis Policlub membership – word on the streets was that Ho was an armourer with an unsavoury rep – he’d supply anything to anyone as long as they could pay. Iceface’s contact and Lone Star - Grissom – told him that Ho had been suspected of supplying weapons to Alamos 20000 and the Human Nation, but they’d never been able to pin anything on him. and he was extremely well connected. Ho ran a very exclusive restaurant – La Maison Indochine – as a front. Iceface recalled that that was where they had med Orion who’d commissioned the run in Cal Free last year, but attempts to contact Orion failed. While the others did that Fingers called up Hexen, knowing that in the past he's had some dealings with Winternight and pumped him for information about the group and its activities.

The Runners set up a surveillance operation on the restaurant – Running Wolf and Iceface renting a flat in the very exclusive apartment block across the street posing a spoiled nouveau-riche couple. After a few days they established Ho’s pattern, every day about 10.00 he went down in an armoured limo to his warehouse at the docks, returning in the afternoon to the restaurant, where he lived in a flat above. Uruk-hai and Barger spent a few days at the docks looking for weaknesses but the warehouse appeared to be well-defended to their trained eyes. Iceface and Running Wolf by flashing a considerable wad of cash around managed to wangle reservations in the restaurant and scope-out the place from the inside.

Having gathered a comprehensive amount of intelligence about the target over the week, the Runners assembled in the rented apartment and began to plan the best place to take Ho. Fingers and Iceface were in favour of snatching him from his flat in a night raid. Uruk-hai and Barger advocated trying to take Ho at the warehouse. Mouse (perhaps in memory of her friend Red Hammer) favoured blowing up the armoured limo and snatching him from the wreckage. Running Wolf suggested trying to find a way to take him on the pavement between the restaurant and the limo when he'd be most vulnerable, but after several hours the meeting broke up with no clear consensus as to how to best proceed.

Next morning after a night's sleep the Runners got together again. After some further discussion, Running Wolf's plan was agreed on - they would snatch Ho off the street as we went to the limo! While the others planned the details of the snatch, Fingers went out to buy a getaway vehicle. When she returned the plans were in place - she and Barger would take out Ho and his bodyguards with magic while Uruk-hai would snatch the unconscious armourer from the street. Iceface and Running Wolf would provide high-level cover from their apartment opposite should things go awry and Mouse would drive the getaway vehicle. Sister Bodycount, fresh out of hospital was called up to provide additional backup as required. Once the snatch was made the Runners would rendezvous at the William's old lock-up in the Barrens. The plan proceeded like clockwork and in short order Mouser was speeding along I-520 to the Barrens with an unconscious Ho safely secured in the back.

While Iceface and Running Wolf remained behind a little longer to check out the aftermath of the snatch, the others made their way to the lock-up. Ho was secured in the old dentist's chair William had rescued from the ruined building opposite years ago and once he came round from the effect of Fingers' stunball, Barger and Uruk-hai commended interrogating the armourer to find out what he knew.

After some time they were just starting to get somewhere when Sister Bodycount suddenly noticed the air in the lock-up was noticeably colder. Before she could comment however, a huge ice elemental manifested next to Ho's chair and snapped Ho's neck with ease. Uruk-hai, surprised and numbed by the freezing cold aura surrounding the elemental leaped back, as did Barger. Sister Bodycount, thinking swiftly raise her gun and fired off a three round burst - to no apparent effect!

having dispatched Ho, the elemental moved towards the Runners, smashing into Sister Bodycount with its huge arms, Mouse, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, stepped out of the door - only to find a high velocity round smash into the door-jamb next to her! Uruk-hai, summoning up his adept powers and ignoring the numbing cold, launched a series of blows on the huge elemental actually managing to damage it.

Sister Bodycount, wounded, followed Mouse out, dodging bullets from the ruined building opposite as she dashed down the narrow alleyway beside the lock-up. Mouse frantically called for backup on the comm.-link. As the fight in the lock-up continued - Uruk-hai was smashed to the ground broken and bleeding. Fingers cast a lightning bolt at the elemental, which combined with the damage Uruk-hai was doing with his killing fists finally managed to destroy it. Barger rushed over to the stricken ork and cast a healing spell.

Immediately Uruk-hai charged across the street to the ruined building - only to take a round in the chest as he crashed through the doorway. He retaliated with a three- round burst which killed his opponent only to see two more, frothing on berserker chips emerge from the rubble nearby and open up with Uzi III's.

As Barger began donning his armoured jacket with his peculiar ritualistic "step to the left then a step to the right" methodology, Fingers charged across the street - just as Mouse's Westwind, driven by Iceface came crashing to a stop in the street next to them and a howling Running Wolf bounded out of the open window.

As she reached the doorway, a manabolt took out one of the berserkers before another high-velocity round slammed her back to the ground, bleeding heavily. Running Wolf loping past her headed for the stairs only to collapse in a hail of bullets apparently dead. Uruk-hai, though badly wounded managed to get off another three-round burst which finished off the second berserker who was charging towards him brandishing a huge combat knife.Realising their was only one opponent left Uruk-hai charged upstairs attacking the sniper who knelt there - suddenly Running Wolf, having regenerated from the damage rose, and bounded upstairs helping to finish off the last sniper.

A quick search of the bodies revealed no ID. Though each of the men word a hammer-shaped pendant around their necks. Ho was beyond help, however Mouse managed to hack his Poc-Sec and discover that the shipment (whatever it was) was being brought in the next day by the Technicolor Wings at the docks.

Having established the information they could from Ho’s PocSec, the Runners pondered their next move back at Finger’s house. The “shipment” the Technicolor Wings was brining in was referred to with two code name s - Ymir and Surtr, so apparently was in two parts. Next morning, after reading reports of Ho’s demise in the paper, they set off on separate paths.

Iceface and Barger began trying to track down what the “shipment” might consist of; while Uruk Hai and Running Wolf began trying to track down where the Technicolor Wings might be found. Iceface, from his contact in the military, discovered that the UCAS had “mislaid” fifteen enhanced 1-kiloton nukes designed to generate EMP pulses. Barger, contacting Yoshi Takamura, discovered that ion the last year various governments in unstable regions had “lost inventory” of at least five multi-megaton warheads. Fearing that the two consignments might well consist of these the group redoubled their efforts to track down the Technicolor Wings. Unfortunately they didn’t manage to get very far other than they operated somewhere out of the north of Seattle. Uruk Hai contacted Ronin to see if he could decrypt any further data from the PocSec and later that evening, Ronin contacted them to say he’d managed to decrypt part of the data that said Ho had a meeting with the Technicolor Wings in the “Rat Trap” !

The group swiftly worked out that the “Rat Trap” was the colloquial name for the North Seattle Refuse Disposal Facility north of the Barrens on the Snohomish River. Running-Wolf figured that the Technicolor Wings would bring shipment up-river at high-tide (especially if it was a large consignment) and checking the tide-tables discovered high-tide that evening was at 6-30. The group swiftly resolved on a plan. Running Wolf would pretend to be a representative of Ho’s and try and obtain the shipment. Barger and Uruk-Hai would act as bodyguards while Iceface proved cover with the high-powered sniper rifle they’d obtained from Winternight from the opposite bank. Fingers decided to disguise herself as a “trash rat” and spent the afternoon picking through the rubbish heaps! They also arranged with Junkyard for supply of a truck should they need to cart away a large consignment.

The meeting went without a hitch – at first! The Technicolor Wings accepted Running Wolf as their contact (having read the morning papers they knew it wouldn’t be Ho himself!!!) and handed over the consignment - a small wooden crate without question. Obviously the consignment wasn’t 20 nuclear warheads, but suspecting it could be a single one of the smaller ones, Barger carefully carried the crate towards the waiting limo. At that point thing went wrong as a large ice elemental appeared and grabbed the crate from the startled troll. Before anyone could react, two frost spirits appeared and began to attack Uruk-hai and three Winternight goons, backed by a sorcerer emerged from nearby rubbish heaps and attacked.

The Technicolor Wings fled for cover as gunfire erupted all around, from across the bank Iceface peered though his night-scope and drew a bead, firing off a round at one of the spirits! Form a nearby rubbish heap Finger’s lobbed a manabolt at the ice elemental as Running Wolf shapeshifted and began loping towards a Winternight goon teeth bared. The combat was nasty and brutal, at the end of which all the Winternight thugs lay dead, and Uruk–Hai lay bleeding on the floor. While Fingers saw to her wounded colleague, Barger carefully retrieved the crate and took it to the limo, and the Runners made their escape.

Contacting Harlequin, he told them to meet him again at Skyline Plaza . Once in the presence of the elf, he opened the crate. Inside was a gun-metal valise with a combination lock. With a casual spell, the immortal elf opened the combination to reveal within the case a cylinder and a smaller vial, both marked with Norse runes. Whatever Surtr and Ymir were, they weren’t nuclear bombs !

Friends: Harlequin

Foes: Winternight, Technicolour Wings

World events:

Corp maneuvering starts in earnest over the Novatech IPO. The East Cost Exghange starts major upgrades to its systems to cope with vast processing power it will need to deal with the flotation