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Shadowrun: New Age

Yonatan said:
[ ] Nothing. You fought the first thing on your own. You'll fight this too. - Yeah, no. Prior experience with Zerban implies to me we need to make a serious commitment here, otherwise we're screwed.
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ZerbanDaGreat said:
"Adrian come in, the mission's scrubbed! Spirit activity's increased massively and we can't hold out forever! Tell us where you are and we'll come extract you!"

The newcomer pauses. Your commlink hums and buzzes as if about to tear itself apart. Your heart in your mouth, scarcely daring to breathe, you expose yourself by inches to peer around the corner. Hoping your camouflage holds.

"Adrian come in! Adrian we have to move before-"
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...It's the others who will probably bite the bullet and get injured or killed if we take too long. We need to finish this quickly.

EDIT: On second thought, we'll probably also get fucked up in an unknown fashion by whatever this guy's about to hit us with.
 
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[X] One favor. Whatever it wants. Whenever it wants. Once.

Because I think anything less will get us killed, and anything more will get us into worse spot in the future.

I do hope that the Dragon is not enough of a prick to use the one favor for stuff like "Move over, I need a permanent flesh-tuxedo"
 
[X] Time. You'll talk to it in the dream. You'll listen to what it has to say.

Talking should help maintain the respect, more than caving immediately, but we DO need help
 
Yonatan said:
Sounds too easy. Just listen to him, right? Given this is Zerban, and given how Zerban hates the boring "safe " options, I think this is a trap option.
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Zerban already spoke up about this. Everything is a trap option in one way or another, in that he isn't giving us safe options. Some are just slightly less risky than others.

[X] Time. You'll talk to it in the dream. You'll listen to what it has to say.
- [X] Emphasise that you can't do this if you're dead.
 
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Why do I feel like the "One Favor" would be something like, "Complete the contract"? Something that eventually does put us under Dragon's control more permanently.
 
[X] Control. Let the Dragon take over, let it fight this battle for you.

I really don't think time is going to pay off. "Oh yes, I might deign to talk to you" is kind of a dick move when our last interaction was the dragon answering our question.

Blame Havocfett for me voting Control.
 
AbZHz101 said:
Why do I feel like the "One Favor" would be something like, "Complete the contract"? Something that eventually does put us under Dragon's control more permanently.
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It might be, but telling it to piss off now or trying to go with "Time" (which would likely just insult it), we really might die or get a horrible technology spirit abomination shoved into our head. And as much of a dick as the dragon is, it seems to be SOMEWHAT respectful of us now. Not on level of considering us EQUAL by a long shot, but somewhat more considerate and wary, as we have shown we will defy it without hesitation if it tries to dick us about. Considering that it seems to have little patience for waiting as things are, we are in pretty good position to negotiate now.

Depending what EXACTLY happened in this canon Dragonfall-wise, these things might be connected to [SPOILER CHARACTER] APEX (S-K experimental AI) [END OF SPOILER], which'd mean the dragon in our head COULD well be Feuerschwinge.
 
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HeuristicKeeper said:
or get a horrible technology spirit abomination shoved into our head.
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Nah, Max will keep it from getting into our head.

Of course, then we'll owe him a favour. Which will both piss off and scare the Dragon. Which will make it easier to force it too deal with us as an equal.

Edit:

Actually, you know what? this is a good show of trust.


[X] Control. Let the Dragon take over, let it fight this battle for you.

If it doesn't try to screw us, it shows we're willing to deal which is good for getting to Equal status. If it screws us, we know have justification to never deal with it again (which is good for forcing it to deal with us on equal terms).
 
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[X] One favor. Whatever it wants. Whenever it wants. Once.

Favour for favour, equal exchange go! Maybe... hopefully....
 
[x] Time. You'll talk to it in the dream. You'll listen to what it has to say.

I was half tempted to do the "nothing" choice, but that seemed too similar to the "We don't want Tamiko to use Monstrous Strength and be corrupted" arguments from Fate/Hollow Fake. Yet the Control option seems absolute - as in "Side now with the Dragon and give him all the control and become indebted to him forever". Might as well give him time, we wanted to ask Max questions if he ever reappeared in our dreams anyway.
 
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Time, you think to yourself. I'll stop trying to force you out when I see you in my dreams. I'll talk to you and listen to what you have to say.

You may not be able to see the dragon, but you can feel its lip curling all the same. How generous of you. And why would I agree to these terms?

Because if I die you won't even get that.

The conversation takes place between the ticks of the clock. The world moves so slowly, appearing completely frozen. Only the gradual movements and fluctuations of the spirit puppeting Ivo's body reveal that isn't. The imminent discharge of the energy building in 'his' outflung hand.

Your body buzzes uncomfortably, half of it vibrating so hard it feels like your bones are going to shake from their joints. You look down. Light suffuses all five of your limbs, coiling and licking as it rises from your chitin like smokeless ice-blue flames. You curl your hands into fists, your claws digging into your palms.

What is this? What do I do with it? you ask.

Time resumes. A bolt of sickly yellow light screams through the air, aimed squarely at your head. You throw yourself aside, rolling as you hit the floor and springing back to your feet. The light passes, striking the wall beside Ivo's station. The solid concrete catches light. The fire spills like burning oil, spreads like napalm. You feel the wave of sickly fever-heat even from this distance. At this rate, heatstroke will serve you up to the demon-thing on a silver platter no matter what you do.

Electricity crackles, the ozone stench fills your nostrils and nearly makes you gag. The thing in Ivo's skin phases through the bank of servers, the flesh body reconstituting itself from sparking arcs of power and black smog. His hand is already raised for another bolt. Your muscles are already twitching, starting to drive you back. But your brain hesitates; you try to think. Try to shut out the sound, the smell, and think. You can't keep doing this. You need some way arou-

You run out of time.

It's less a bolt of lightning and more a spear of sickly neon, searing your eyes long before it has a time to sear your flesh. You panic, you lash out; spreading your fingers, hooking them as you extend your claws as far as they'll go. You swing your hand over like a wild, ugly haymaker. You bring it down square on the tip of the neon javelin, blue against yellow. Blue shattering the yellow. Yellow bursting across the blue.

You don't die, but in hindsight you almost wish you did. You stumble aside, writhing this way and that, crying out in agony. Desperately slapping at the yellow flame dripping from your arm and spilling across your stomach. Tongues of toxic yellow twist through the sapphire light, like so many wires, like so many worms. They're chewing holes in your hide. The wounds burn; the muscle throbbing with the sick heat of a fever, the air stained with coal-colored smoke. You're thrashing. You're falling, hitting the ground, the reek of oil filling your nose. You're scuttling across the floor like an insect, visions of burning buildings ripping through your head. Darkness chews across the edges of your vision. Swallowing you up as you feel Ivo looming over you. Do something, you have to do something you have to do something. You can feel yourself slipping away.

You can feel yourself shoved back into your own head, it's like a pulse that bounces from your brain to your claws and back. You're on the other side of the server-room basement, crouched against one of the many boxy towers. The electronics within whine piteously in protest at the mounting heat. Your chitin prickles painfully, your hands twitching. The burns are healing.

Pathetic. What were you even thinking you ignorant boy?

"I-I told you you couldn't take control!" you cough. The smoke is pooling, roiling across the ceiling like clouds. Thickening by the second. Soon you won't be able to breathe standing up.

You were unconscious. Even for the dragon, it sounds beyond irritable. Enough of this. You will suffocate before you defeat your enemy at this rate. Once your body has healed I will dispatch it for you. But I expect you to be much more- what are you doing?

You crawl, greedily sucking in the cleaner air close to the floor. You slink perpendicular to the banks of servers, glancing down the rows as you pass. The south end is consumed by sickly flame, so much that you can't even see Ivo's workstation any more. Maybe the spirit threw a few more bolts while you were hiding, just for the fun of it. You see it past the third row, the same aisle as the useless elevator.

Ivo beckons, and the troll you knocked out slowly rises; limbs dangling loose like a puppet with the strings cut. He's slammed into the wall, pinned there by an invisible weight. Ivo draws ever closer, jaw still hanging slack. The feelers extending from the port at his temple stretch like questing pseudopods towards the troll.

"What's he doing?" you ask in a hushed whisper.

The nest of toxic spirits in the human requires sustenance. Restoring the link with the troll will sate it temporarily. The perfect opportunity to heal you.

It doesn't take a genius to know what the dragon means. The troll's going to get possessed again. He's going to get turned into a hollowed-out puppet again. Ivo is distracted by the task ahead, by preparing the 'meal'. It's the perfect opportunity for something else, too.

You hear the dragon begin to protest. You ignore it. You come tearing out from behind the server row, carving up the floor beneath you as you race towards Ivo. The possessed man only has enough time to turn, feelers halfway to the troll's temple, a shout of surprise rising in his throat. You crash into him, tackle him clean off his feet and slam him down onto the floor. The two of you bounce, roll. He disentangles himself from you and springs to his feet, standing half-in the roaring eldritch inferno against the south wall. The troll collapses in a limp heap behind you.

You see them crawling over him, through him. Astral parasites of rusting metal and stained concrete, fat worms squirming for safety. You see a clear patch where you hit him. You see smoke burn away to white steam, curling into nothingness. You look down at your burning hands. You know what it's for now.

Ivo throws out his hand with the cry of a half-molten synthesizer, flesh charring as he summons another neon spear. You match the movement and clasp his hand in yours, lacing your fingers with his. Squeezing hard. It's like you blocked the mouth of a cannon. The power backfires, sweating through his skin, firing backwards through his elbow and burning off the edge of his sleeve. Choking smog oozes from every pore. You imagine you see things in the cloud, grasping hands and screaming mouths. They turn to steam, to vapour, and vanish.

Ivo punches wildly with his free hand, hoping to catch you off-guard. You duck it, rolling your head so closely beneath it you feel the wind of its passage. Raising your head to see the trio of feelers lashing out at you like snakes. Perhaps he thinks you can be his replacement meal. You slash them in half with a vicious clawed uppercut, the tendrils twitching like severed limbs as acrid black smoke billows from the cut ends, tainted yellow electricity sparking at the tips. Ivo howls, clapping his hand over the implant.

You release your grip on his right hand and yank him closer, curling your arm around his and trapping it in your armpit as tightly as you can. You punch him in the chest, a rapid jab that would do little more than bruise a human. Ivo reels back, a ring of blue flame spilling over from the point of impact before vanishing. It lasts long enough for you to see it devouring the hateful things clinging to him. You cock your fist back and punch again, harder, 'lips' curling into a fanged snarl of effort. Ivo convulses as if tased. You hear the spirits scream.

You draw your arm back, curl your your fingers back, and strike Ivo's sternum with your palm so hard that your arm turns into a black blur. This time Ivo himself doesn't move at all. He remains still as a statue, rooted in place. The flame passes straight through him, erupting from his back in a great plume like a cone of buckshot. The spirits scream as they're torn free, waiting and grasping for some kind of purchase as the toxic grey turns white.

The fire weakens. It loses its sickly yellow light, burning entirely mundane orange. You don't look at it. You focus on Ivo and on preventing him from falling on top of you. You try to take a more secure hold on the unconscious man, awkwardly 'dancing' him away from the fire and towards the wall. Lowering him until you can drag him by the armpits over to the equally unconscious troll.

The power comes back on. The lights flicker on again in sequence, shining stubbornly through the layer of smoke clinging to the ceiling. The fans start to cycle up, spinning to top speed; you can feel the air whipping past you as it's sucked through the vents, feel the temperature drop as the smoke rises. The steady, high-pitched beeping of a fire alarm cuts through the roar. You hurry up, taking such short and rapid strides as you drag Ivo into the elevator that it'd probably look comical to an outside observer. You feel a little guilty about dumping him like a sack of potatoes, but you've got places to be and people to ensure don't burn to death.

You nearly throw out your back doing it, and have to ignobly drag the troll using his horns like handlebars, but after a few aggravating and heart-stopping seconds trying to stuff his legs in, you get him to safety too. You slip in after them, carefully finding a place to stand before jamming on the 'Floor 0' button for all it's worth. To your relief, someone up there (possibly Karna) is looking out for you. The doors close, and you hear several loud hisses as the long delayed fire suppression system finally kicks in You imagine the gas being sprayed, imagine it flooding out of the vents, imagine what it might have done to you and your two charges had you not gotten out of there in time. You steady yourself against the wall, gasping for breath.

You don't need to turn around. You feel its presence in your reflection. You wonder how different it really is from the things you beat out of Ivo and the troll - Franz, you finally realize now that your mind isn't occupied by thoughts of not-dying.

"Not so bad for an ignorant child, huh?" you say.

You still required my help.

"And these people would be dead if I wasn't in control."

Oh please.

"Am I wrong?"

You vastly overestimate their worth. The whelp who hired you was not incorrect. You are burdened by a great purpose, to act as my vessel in this world so that I might preserve it. When you put yourself in danger you put it in danger. Do not for a second feel any pride in having let personal morality and sentiment cloud your view of the bigger picture. It only reminds me how crushingly facile your kind are.

"Cool. Go away. We agreed on talking in my dreams."

The dragon snorts. As you wish. We will discuss your incessant petulance another day.

The doors open on the lobby. Bluejay has her sidearm out, hefting the pistol one-handed, leaving the other free for a spell. Geier's twin drones hover at his shoulders - one of them appears to have a gun mounted on its belly, like a scaled-down replica of the one in his hands. Both are aimed at the elevator. Karna is unarmed for the moment, instead clutching a tablet computer in a white-knuckle grip.

"Adrian!" all three of them exclaim almost in unison.

"I, uh… reset the data taps," you say.

"Nevermind that, we have to move!" Karna grabs your arm and drags you stumbling from the elevator. "We don't want to be here when the fire department arrives. Not unless we have very good excuses for being at ground zero of an arson case with… you."

"And it wasn't even me this time!" Bluejay exclaims.

The three of them frogmarch-run you out the door and through the twisting alleyways of Berlin, the sound of sirens hot on your heels. You doing the best you can to keep pace, exhaustion slowly seeping through your limbs. The van swims out of the darkness, nestled down a side street. You feel more than hear the doors slamming as you half-dive, half-stumble into the back. You hurriedly lean out again to close the doors as the tires squeal beneath you. You get one last glimpse of the rain-slick street beyond as it lurches away and then you're off, returning swiftly to the relative safety of Schattenstadt.

Your first job is done. Things went from plush-shaped to pear-shaped to pentagram-shaped in the span of five minutes, but you survived. You're a real Shadowrunner now.

***​
"'Look it could have been a lot worse is just what I'm saying. Nobody even died! And bugboy go the tap working."

"With all the fire-damage, our connection's going to be spotty for a month."

"If it were me there'd be no building left."

"... point."

It's a few, long hours before you're able to get to bed. Geier takes his time poking and prodding you, the burns across your belly long since wiped away by the Dragon; you're not sure if he even notices the fading marks. Bluejay scans you as you talk to Karna, slapping your shoulder enough that you're seriously worried in your own, bleary kind of way, about the state of her hand. Bluejay interrupts with questions. You answer the best you can.

The time ticks on. Your head feels like it's thick with mud. Your eyes ache. Swallowing feels like it takes more focus than you physically have. The adrenaline crash isn't being kind to you and, more than anything, you just want to go to sleep. You're fairly sure you don't even make it back to the room before your body just gives out, curling up on the couch the moment they give you the all clear.

You don't have any dreams that night.

It's nice.

Light from the setting sun filters through the slatted windows, playing across your face. You blink, squint.

You're alone in the main room of the Executive. Hunched in tight, tail wrapped around your body like a cat. You slowly stretch out, pausing as your spurs snag on a blanket someone draped over you. A PDA sits on the footrest next to your head, shiny and (mostly) new. The screen pulses gently. You reach out to take it, claws sliding back inside their beds as your fingers stretch. Gingerly you swipe across the screen with your knuckle. The message unfolds across the screen.

Bluejay said:
Hey Omae!

Breakfast is in the fridge if you want something. Geier scrounged up some high calorie stuff, said you'd probably need it. Anything with an A is yours. According to Karna we've got a few days off. We'll probably all be out and about by the time you wake up but if you want to hang out with anyone just give us a call alright?

Or you can just crash on the couch and watch trid like a huge piece of drek.

Seeya~
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"Heh..." You scroll down a bit, scanning the notes Bluejay's attached to the message - little schedules and times. You open the Contacts tab after a few tries. Everyone's numbers have already been programmed in. For a second you think about it; just crashing in the living room, gorging your heart out and working your way through a fifty year backlog of TV. Or tri-d now, you guess.

You glance at the screen. Still and silent. Holoprojectors dark. You see yourself reflected in charcoal shades. A dim outline in a dim room. His voice echoes through your head, just a memory.

Spiderling.

You open up the notes again. You have a few days to kill and you're not going to do it here, alone.

[ ] Spend your time off mostly with Bluejay. She's shuffling around dealing with the mop up of the spirits, the stragglers. You'd have plenty to talk about there and she'd probably show you more of Schattenstadt too. Besides, you like spending time with her.

[ ] Spend your time off mostly with Geier. Bluejay was pretty sparse on what he's actually doing, just saying that he's "procuring" stuff for some "friends" (she used quotations too). But she said it's low stress and you haven't spent much time with him anyway so…

[ ] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.
 
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For those in the audience who are not familiar with Shadowrun, this is not normal. Totems typically communicate with those who follow them, but temporarily taking control of their bodies? Healing them? Casting spells or activating adept abilities we don't actually have or know? Yeah, we are way off the beaten path right now.

Also? Next time we talk to the dragon in our dreams, STICK TO THE DEAL. We made an agreement, breaking it is probably the last thing we will ever do.

[X] Spend your time off mostly with Bluejay. She's shuffling around dealing with the mop up of the spirits, the stragglers. You'd have plenty to talk about there and she'd probably show you more of Schattenstadt too. Besides, you like spending time with her.
 
[X] Spend your time off mostly with Karna. According to the schedule Bluejay forwarded, he's probably out at the bazaar right about now, scrounging up some parts. And you never did take him up on that Matrix walkabout. And, well, you can't avoid him forever.

Lets give Karna some screentime. Bluejay and Geier have had their turns.
 
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