Lughaidh tells you to lay low for a few months due to heat from blood mages and ATS. You have time for R&R, put in a few orders for equipment, get your new equipment, and still have time to spare. You all have level 110 World of Warcraft 7 paladins by the time your links buzz. Surprisingly, it’s Rourke’s grizzled mug that lights up your screens and promises an end to the monotony.

“‘Team Overkill?’ Seriously? No wonder why everyone in Seattle wants you dead. Well, not quite everyone. How would you like a chance to keep your skills sharp, let someone else take the blame for whatever carnage you cause, AND make some new friends in the process? Oh, and money. There’s money involved, too.”

Carnage piques your interest at least as much as money, so you’re in. Rourke provides the details:

“Mr. Johnson is an Ancient hotshot named Belial. They’re putting on some sort of elf ritual game thing tonight at the Daisy Chain in Tarislar. Get there at 11pm and they’ll fill you in. Belial tells me that whatever you do, it won’t be pinned on you unless you get stupid about it. That’s why I thought of you guys.”

Lot bows out. His bags are packed and he’s ready to beat feet, but he tells you a connection of his will take his spot on the run. A soldier named Parish he did a few runs with awhile back.

You get to the Daisy Chain to find this Parish already there. You meet Belial and he lays out the game: You’re his proxies in a scavenger hunt. You have an hour to hit up to five places and let the Ancients have the credit. Targets are a Humanis Policlub clubhouse, a Spikes bar, Skraacha orcs at an Underground entrance, some pimp dwarf and his drugged out girls, and, finally, an autotruck heading through the neighborhood at about 12:45. The catch is you’ll be competing against a group of Laesa elfs representing the current Ancient’s leader, Sting. If you win, Belial gets the Ancients as a birthday present. You lose… Well, don’t lose.

Before heading out, Perses gives the Laesa crew a goodwill present of a nausea grenade through door of their rover. You peel out as the elfs scurry about opening doors in an attempt to air the vehicle out.

First stop is the dwarf pimp, Jimmy the Chin, over in the Crime Mall. Perses plays John long enough to confirm Jimmy’s most recent acquisition, a 14 year old elf kid, was present and accounted for. After that, the team closes up shop for Jimmy and his brother Billy. Permanently. Finding the Chin’s van nearby, the team loads up the girls and sends them home to Belial via pilot program.

Next destination is the Humanis racists. Their plan to chuck TNT through the door goes sour when Gyoza scuffs some gravel, alerting a roof racist that something going down. Parish and Perses take the back door, while Ceana whips the ride around in preparation for the inevitable fireworks. Gyoza gets inside just in time to count bodies, since Parish and Perses made better time. Parish grabs whatever hoods he can carry, Perses grabs their flag, and Gyoza sets the bomb. As the team speeds off toward their next destination, they are treated to rear view mirror full of explosions.

The team determines they have enough time to hit the Spikes bar before tracking down the autotruck. Their plan to crack that nut with a rocket and followup with grenades to make mincemeat of those troll Spikes is pretty near foolproof… if not for what goes around comes around. The Laesa crew left a present for the team in the form of a strand of monofiliment cable stretched across the street. Gyoza at the helm loses all four tires and skids out of control, coming to rest against a building across the street from the bar. Their rover essentially useless, the team nabs the Spikes motorcycles, but not before busting open the Twisted Tusk anyway. Seems they were beat getting there, as their targets had already met their demise and been stripped of their horns. Determined to get some trophies, Gyoza and Ceana remove the trolls of the last of their dignity before heading out to intercept the autotruck.

Team Overkill is late to the party as the Laesa crew already have a man on the truck ready to take over. Through a combination of grenades and compulsion, Parish and Ceana work together to divert the majority of the Laesa team, sending them speeding down some side road. Gyoza manages to gain access to the cab and control of the truck, but the remaining elf doesn’t give up without a fight. He places a boot in Gyoza’s face, causing the dwarf to slam on the brakes. Parish just manages to avoid slamming into the back of the truck, and he ditches the bike to aid Gyoza. The street sam, it seems, has everything under control, zapping the Laesa elf into sweet slumber. Tossing the elf to the side of the road, Parish takes control of the truck, and they speed to victory at the Daisy Chain.

The team started planning a bit from their overwatch, then Perses decided to get going. he sneaked across the valley and scaled the cliff, climbing the wall. Lord Zero tried to trick the bad guys into leaving the castle, but instead, they went out onto the battlements, looking for trouble. Lot joined the fray by mind controlling a squad of SS troops causing them to fire on their allies. During the friendly fire-firefight, Perses reached the top of the castle wall and began slicing and dicing. The remaining SS troops recognized the threat and drove him to cover with their fusillade.

That’s when the Panzer arrived, screaming over the castle ramparts and shredding SS troopers with cannon and machine gun fire. The survivors went for cover in one of the towers. Perses chases them down, crossing the yard and dashing into the front door of the keep. there were a lot of muzzle flashes and Perses walked out with smoking barrels, leaving behind a room full of corpses.

The team headed downstairs, encountering Herr Oberst and Herr Book. Lot’s Elemental proved the stronger, and the room was cleared. The team then discovered that the Germans had been tunneling into the wall of the basement and that beyond was a carved limestone tunnel leading deeper into the hill. They decided to explore, following a long winding ramp leading ever downward. when in finally leveled out, it opened into a large cavern lit by a bluinsh green light emanating from a large crystal formation in the center of the cavern. Coiled around it was a mound of bliush scales – over 50 meters of western dragon, looking right at the team. It is apparently content to continue to slumber here. It also refused to give its name.

otherwise the castle is secure, Kenna can plant the device and you can all go home-ish.

After leaving the dragon’s den, you head back upstairs, kenna places the second device. at midnight you are teleported back to 2052, about a week before the rest of yourselves actually arrive. the baron greets zero as a long lost cousin, but is apparently dissatisfied that he is not a troll. you wine and dine for a bit. Goldi informs the baron that a muckity-muck from Aztechnology has requested a visit. However he doesn’t show up for his appointment a few days later. There is word of a new set of small scale rebellions to the north. A few days after that, every one is laid low with a combination of dysentery and the bends. it lasts several days. the baron does not make it. Goldi calls the lawyers and gets the ball moving on the succession.

Kenna herds every one together and heads back to Seattle, with the book. The Johnson cuts loose 40k cred for everyone. The following midnight the team returns to the parking garage. they are whisked back to 2072, where they are met by a goblin. “come quickly . . this place is watched.” he ushers them out and takes them on a tour of Puyallup. about 20 minutes later, some pyrotechnics occur behind them. “I think we are clear now. the master says you are watched by the blood mages. He has arranged a place to stay here. you should lay low for a while, until things cool off.”

The team has returned to the castle of Baron von Munchmausen at approximately 0200 hours, June 8, 1944. They have brought the Panzer to rest on a small plateau over 3 km from the castle. There is no footpath to their current position. They have arrived at approximately 30% fuel remaining and depleted ammunition particularly for the auto cannon. The team has launched both of the panzer’s drones for reconnaissance.

They have discovered that the castle is occupied by what appears to be a light company of SS. There are two major routes into the valley, a rail route to the north and a road to the east. Each of these appear to be guarded by an MP platoon with light caliber towed antitank weaponry. The closest, the railway checkpoint is approximately 4 km from the castle. The road checkpoint is approximately 10 km from the castle.

The castle itself clearly has light antiaircraft batteries on at least two of the towers. The SS troopers also walk patrols and there appeared to be sandbags reinforcing the battlements, barbed wire limiting the approaches, and floodlights set up around the perimeter.

Lord zero has intercepted, and decoded, a transmission from the castle ostensibly directed to someone in Berlin directing the recipient to “tell the Fuhrer that we have nearly breached the inner sanctum. I believe we will have his prize shortly.”

Lot and Caenna both detect a lessening of the magic dead zone the closer they get to the castle.

Day of Days Intro

The Germans took the Panzer under heavy fire with machine guns, small arms, and mortars, but none of it was sufficient to pierce the hull’s armor. Z3R0 was scanning radio traffic and quickly decrypted the Allied fire control net. Caenna initiated contact with the remains of the infantry company to their left. Lot attempted to summon a spirit, but was worried that this magic dead world would have no spirits. Meanwhile Alabaster turn the tank’s main gun on the bunkers, chewing into the 2 m thick reinforced concrete and shrouding the bunker in clouds of dust and debris. Gyoza attempted to decoy some of the enemy gunners with his holo emitter, but its range was too short and the incoming fire to heavy to have any appreciable effect.

Caenna succeeded in making contact with SSG Smith, who then brought forward their senior NCO, SFC Stammel. Stammel was wounded but Caenna was able to heal him slightly, even in the oppressively magic dead environment. Likewise, Lot finally succeeded in calling a spirit. He sent his air elemental to manifest in the leftmost bunker as Alabaster shifted fire to the right one. Moments later the left bunker strobed with lightning and one German through himself out of the bunker rather than suffer electrocution. Throughout all of this, Alpha Company troops were shouting in elation and relief as the ‘top-secret tank’ stabbed beams of light at the enemy bunkers.

Once healed, SFC Stammel started calling for fire – and Lord Z3R0 worked his electronic magic to put his fire support calls to the top of the queue with the USS Nevada. The first shots went long but Z3R0 was using the tank’s sensors and his own TacNet program to calculate the fall of the shot and relevant variables. He sent SFC Stammel a new set of corrections and Stammel put in a second call for fire.

Lot sent his elemental to wreak havoc among the mortar tubes and Gyoza led half of the Alpha Company survivors up to the cliff base. He was able to plant some charges causing damage to the leftmost bunker but moments later, as he attempted to advance through the draw, his squad was taken under fire by another machine gun nest. he quickly dodged out of the way but a half-dozen of his men were cut down.

Meanwhile, back in the tank Alabaster had some of the soldiers working on the jammed louvers outside while he was tearing apart the access panels to the turbine in the back of the tank. Lot had taken over as primary gunner and the tank was almost fixed. A second round of fire came from the Nevada and Z3R0’s directions proved impeccable. Five 2000 (probably lighter – the Nevada had 14” guns) pound rounds slammed into the bluff detonating more than 8000 pounds of TNT and eradicating that whole side of the German defense.

Dog One was open.

Moments later Alabaster got the turbines up and running again, Gyoza hoofed it back to the tank and the wounded on board were debarked. Caenna apologized to the soldiers because that they were going deeper in enemy territory, not back to a hospital. The soldiers thanked them profusely for all their help – then the tank rose on pillars of air.

The tank screamed forward jumping over obstacles and was confronted with a pair of Pzkw IV’s. They were older models with short-barreled 50 mm guns, but a direct hit might cause damage and they began to traverse their turrets . . .
But the Komet simply screamed past them, quickly reorienting itself on its attitude thrusters pouring 20 mm depleted uranium shells into the weaker rear panels of the Panzers. One started smoking and the other’s turret blew clear off as the ammunition inside exploded. As a parting gift the Komet put 20 more rounds of cannon fire into the last function machine gun nest on Dog One. In the distance they could see the second wave of LCT’s coming in. The remnants of Alpha Company and the Ranger Company assaulted the draw as the Komet screamed through the early morning air above the hedgerows of Normandy.

So how the hell are you guys going to get to Bavaria?

AAR

After a numbing assault of torsion and light (far worse than your previous experiences) the Komet’s sensors report that you are on the deck of a strange ship. You hear – and feel – the heavy concussions of large caliber naval guns not too far away. In between the heavies, you hear the reports of lighter pieces – all bigger than anything you have encountered previously.

On deck the crew are shouting, bewildered by your sudden appearance. It looks like they might be thinking of lashing your vehicle to the deck and arresting its occupants. At least a few of you recognize them as US military, circa WWII. Alabaster starts spooling up the engines to make a getaway.

The panzer rises into the air on its thrusters, orienting itself and reaching out with its terrain mapping radar. A moment later, you hear pings as small arms rounds begin striking the hull. Alabaster puts the throttle forward to get the hell out of dodge, when suddenly there is a loud explosion, starboard. The craft shudders under impact and the turbines start to scream. “That’s not right” Alabaster starts working his magic, jetting forward at over 200 knots. More small arms fire hits the hull, sporadically. Air bursts buffet the panzer with their concussion. Alabaster is struggling with the controls, but the craft is definitely not reaching its top speed – and its starting to list to starboard.

“The intake is jammed. We’ve got no ground effect. I’ve got to put it down or we’re going to roll.”

The Komet continues to list and lose altitude. You are now hanging by your harnesses as the main hatch rotates underneath you. You hear the attitude thrusters fire – full bore – and the ship partially corrects as it slews to present its port broadside to the oncoming fire.

Turbines and thrusters screaming, the craft slams into the shingle of the beach – partially hull down. You are still taking small arms fire, but it appears that you may have defilade at the moment form the enemy’s heavier weapons. Outside, the sensors show a small group of men to the left clustered near the shingle. The nearest is perhaps 30m away. There are bodies floating in the water. To the right, you see a smaller group of men clustered under the sea wall perhaps 150 meters away. Ahead, you see a 200m expanse of shell-cratered beach leading to bluffs at least 30 meters high. A draw leads up from the beach, almost directly ahead. On either side, you see concrete casemates and pill boxes spewing tracer fire at the clusters of men, and now at your banshee.

Your sensors are detecting artillery fire from beyond the bluffs. A light mortar round lands a few meters from the Komet. It rocks slightly under the concussion as it is sprayed with shrapnel and debris. A moment later, a much larger round rocks the panzer, throwing up a geyser of sand almost 50 meters away.

“The starboard intake is jammed! Starboard thrusters don’t work! We’re not going to be able to get off this beach on ground effect! We have to fix the intake so that we can hop out of this firezone!” Alabaster looks a little wild-eyed. “And I think we’re going to have to silence those guns to do it!”

FNG (Cean?) joined the team to tell them that there was a problem . . .

Acatl was gunned down by Perses on full auto. he was not dead though, so Lot shot him in the head. Now he is. The homunculous collapsed after that.

Ishikawa was stun bolted by Cean(sp?) and ultimately surrendered to Perses and Gyoza, who were having flashbacks with him similar to those with Slicer Dicer.

the team activated the artifact and were transported . . .
to the deck of an LST returning after dropping its tanks in the drink on D-Day . . .

The Team’s newest acquisition

Munchmausen Raid Setup

Virst qvestion: vere are your pants?! But more important: vere ist the PANZER!?”

Munchmausen Town

The door buzzer rings. The team sees a little pale goblin in the video feed monitoring the back alley entrance to the safe house. He seems to have an envelope of all things in his hand.

Mission Setup

The team, chafing to be summoned again by Lughaidh, nevertheless loaded into Lord Z3R0’s van and drove to the elf’s tower. Once again the tower was shrouded in mist, the grounds populated by goblins and trolls. The moon seemed larger here, and on the whole the place might have seemed like some idyllic setting straight out of Tolkien except for the garish strobing lights coming from a window on the third floor. As they approached the building the curtains in that window were drawn back to reveal their long lost companion Clive evidently having his way with one of the local denizens.

The goblin Butler in his little waistcoat and fob watch escorted them to the elevator. It stopped at the third floor opening to reveal Clive, slightly sweaty and wearing nothing but a smoking jacket, standing pendulously before them. His eyes were glassy and he seemed somehow taller, but then he dove right into his usual inane banter as if not a moment had passed. The elevator continued its trek to the 14th floor letting the team out to the strange hallway which seemed to be open to the night sky above. Lughaidh met them in the same place as their last encounter where he explained that he had another set of missions for them to undertake, very similar to their last one.

Lughaidh cautioned them on any significant deviations from their mission, particularly gambling or investing in anything smaller than a AA Corporation. The problem as he explained it was that such deviations were thought to cause ‘ripples’ which can alter the timeline in unforeseen ways perhaps leading to their own extinction. ’Paradox must be threaded very carefully.’

The team showed itself to be quite reluctant so Lughaidh made them and deal. They would be able to keep any of the money offered by the Johnsons on the runs they were intercepting, and he would give them ¥65,000 up front. In addition Lughaidh agreed to give the entire team ¥1 million in gold to take back with them on their last mission to invest as they saw fit, so long as it was in a AA or larger corporation. He explained that investments of seven figures smaller or so minuscule compared to the actual cash flow and assets of such corporations that they had little if any chance of causing a ripple.

Most of the runners were licking their chops at such an incredible payday, but lot, sensibly, question the probability of their return from the last mission. Lughaidh assured that they would finish their final mission and he would bring them home. The team accepted that assurance.

They took three days to square away gear and do some research. Lord Z3R0 for instance researched matrix protocols and equipment, particularly how to interface his state-of-the-art gear with 20-year-old junk. Lughaidh had also informed them that he was attempting something new. Specifically he had established a pair of computer terminals in the parking garage links to powerful wireless transmitters that he hoped would allow zero to maintain access to the present day matrix.

The team headed back to the garage that lughaidh’s goblin minions put on the medallions. A few moments later the goblins were gone and the computer terminals clearly of a different model. Assuming this all wasn’t some elaborate BTL hoax, they were back to early 2051. A call came through on the link introducing them to a fixer named Charlie. They headed off to the meet, accepted the job, and hunkered down for an intense 10 minute planning session.

They decided to go with a delivery truck option. The APN headquarters was an old city building that was built around a large garage with three bays middle of the building. There were a few elves patrolling the outside with swords, bows and arrows, and the occasional shotgun all dressed leather. The whole thing was in the very significant shadow of the Renraku Arcology.

Zero backed up the truck and one of the guards came over straightaway to find out what they were doing. Perses rolled down the window he met with a hail of Renaissance Festival yammering. Without missing a beat, the Gillette rolled straight into “forsooth and such” earning a lifelong friend (not that long) who did his damnedest over the next two minutes to recruit Perses and his pals.

The elves open the middle bay and zero backed the truck in halfway. Perses asked the guards, five total now, to get a higher ranking member to “sign for the delivery.” One of the poser elves ran off to do just that. But, before anyone returned, Zero became far too disgusted with the ‘Thees’ and ‘Thous’ and splattered two of the posters with his Uzi. He was still in the truck.

Perses who had his arm around his new buddy placed his hand against his chest pretending to seen some sort of stain on his jerkin. The Gillette popped his spurs right through his newfound friend’s shirt, skin, lungs and back. The only remaining elf in the room was dumbfounded until Lot and Gyoza pumped three rounds of Magnum into the poser. he had a far more complete understanding of the situation then. As the gunfire echoed around the large open bay, the team decided to hunker down and wait.

Lot and Zero stayed the van while Gyoza stood by the door that the poser had gone through. Perses made a quick check of the two doors on the other side of the room and found them to be mostly storage. However he did note that one of the rooms had a ladder leading down to a basement level. Lot put his watcehr spirit on that as Perses returned to join Gyoza by the door.

Minutes passed. Eventually Perses heard movement on the far side of the door is a group of APN numbers got ready to assault the room. One of them kicked the door open but the team was ready and Lot dropped all six of the first wave with a stun ball. The razor boys moved into the hallway quickly katanas permanently ending their opposition. Five were done for and they were moving to the sixth was in the intersection of the hallway of the head when they heard “clank . . . clank . . . KRUMP!!!”

Perses and Gyoza both threw themselves backwards as the grenade detonated. they got far enough to get out of the immediate kill radius. Heavy armor and cyberware, as well as being generally tough bastards, let them off with some serious bruising and lacerations. Perses took a quick peek around the corner and saw another four guys set up in the hallway down past the stairwell. He sent his own grenade their way return the favor. they weren’t nearly so quick. Cries of alarm were smothered by the explosion, leaving one voice shrieking for his mother while another whimpered piteously.

Perses dashed across the hall taking cover around the corner and scanning ahead for enemies. Not seeing any, he moved several meters further down the hall, covering it with his machine gun. Gyoza rushed past Perses to the wounded. He stepped on the whimpering guy’s hand while readying his sword. BLAM! Someone on the staircase shot him in the back with a shotgun at close range. Again Gyoza’s armor and cyberware saved his life. Back at the first intersection, Lot could barely see the hand of the shotgun shooter while taking cover around the corner. It was enough. He unleashed a manabolt spell but discovered that there was another wizard opposing his own casting. The other wizard was weaker. Shotgun and shooter tumbled down the stairs.

The door at the far end of the hall opened and someone stuck an AK-97 out, spraying the hall would lead. Lot ducked back behind the corner while Gyoza and Perses droped to the ground. Gyoza attempted to roll a grenade to the doorway but it bounced badly, going around the corner and detonating. Perses opened up with his M-202 splintering the doorway and the adjoining wall. He was rewarded with a startled yell followed by the shrieking of a young child.

Lot’s watcher spirit told him that someone was coming up the ladder. Lot sent Zero a message in AR and Zero deployed the .50 cal to cover the door. A Rambo elf festooned with guns and grenades rushed through the doorway only to be blasted to pulp a moment later.

The rest of the team was still in the hallway choked with smoke and dust and bodies. Lot knew there were still a wizard upstairs and nobody was particularly keen on rushing up to engage him. Lord Zero settled it though, traversing his .50 cal to fire through the wall were Lot estimated the stairwell landing to be.

Bullets punched through the cinder block wall spraying chunks of debris down the stairway that were followed a moment later by a wizardly forearm, and then a wizard (sans forearm). The fight in the hallway had destroyed the lights leaving the hall in darkness. But now, as the .50 cal ceased its fire, beams of white light from the stairwell stabbed down through the swirling smoke and dust in the now quiet hall. Only the occasional thud of a falling piece of masonry disturbed the stillness.

After a few moments they could discern the sobbing of a young child through the bullet riddled door at the end of the hall.

AAR

January 10, 2072

Can’t I just strip Gyoza naked and wear his chameleon suit?
Gyoza’s a dwarf
Shit!

So the team spent about a week in the safe house at Johnny Wu’s.

Perses texted a laundry list of stuff to Rourke that he wanted the fixer to procure for him if possible. He got a message back telling them to go meet ‘scruffy’ for victuals at the Redmond center at 7 PM. When he got there he found Cotter acting foolishly drunk and making a big show of picking himself up off the ground by grabbing onto a bench – particularly underside of the bench.

However it also became apparent that law enforcement officers were watching the same events. Two men in black suits and ties, presumably Feds, moved to pick up the dead drop. Perses was oblivious but Lot saw them coming and quickly cast a physical barrier at their feet, tripping them up. Perses made it to the spot but found nothing there. The feds on the other hand noticed Perses and decided to hold back for a minute to observe him. At the same time Lot discovered a fly-spy drone had landed on his shoulder and seemed to be modified for a special wired I/O jack on its back. He swept it up into a coffee cup and turned it off.

The feds quickly realized that Perses was on to them so they signaled the rest of their goons to take him. Lot and perses began their escape and evasion routine. Lot was about 20 m closer to the exit and got out quickly. Perses ducked behind the moving crowds and evaded the feds for a moment until one of the officers on the balcony above spotted him. Lot had made it out to the parking garage where he saw a KE space MPUV pull up to cover the the entrance with assault rifles and a light machine gun. He communicated this to Perses who took a quick right down the hallway towards the movie-plex. Feds and KE troops were now in hot pursuit. Perses dashed over to a fire alarm and pulled it creating panic amongst the movie patrons. Back in the parking garage, Lot could see that the MPUV crew was getting ready to move over to cover the movie theater entrance about 40 m away.

The air suddenly began to shimmer and crackle around Lot, so intense it began to emit a subsonic hum. It suddenly disappeared as three smaller mirroring disturbances burst around the heads of the MPUV crew, dropping them to the ground. Lot dashed over to the bike and got it started while Perses rushed out of the movie-plex with the panicked crowd. They raced towards the garage entrance finding a small fleet of Drones waiting for them. Perses leaned over for a hard right and the drones moved to follow. Two of the drones quickly outpaced the others then turned and in the air, firing grenade-like canisters towards the rest the pack. They detonated, releasing the ball of energy and dropping the drones to the ground.

Lot and Perses decided to go track down Rourke give him a piece of their mind for setting up. they could hear sirens in the distance and on one occasion, down a side street, they saw two MPUVs blocked by a garbage truck that had apparently stalled out across the street. Minutes later they turned on the street heading down to the Bad Penny. Now they could see many more sirens from a series of law enforcement vehicles clustered around the bar. Lot and Perses decided to reevaluate their plan.

They went to ground for a short while and then decided they needed to contact someone else to find out what was going on. Lot put in a call to McAllister who declined to speak to the phone. Instead he set up a meeting at a bar in the ork underground. Lot and Perses travel in Lot’s car and successfully evaded any police patrols.

McAllister told them what he learned from his contact with the DA’s office. Essentially Lot and his friends were the only lead that the special task force had been able to turn up – in the month of its existence – about the hijacked suborbital. Because of the severe pressure to get things done they pulled out all the stops going after the people who were wiping out the Chiller Thrillers, their only lead. Whether it was rival gang warfare or the terrorists themselves decided to wipe out their ‘front’ the special task force didn’t know, but they certainly intended to ask.

McAllister also informed them that they had rather bad, grainy images of their faces from the night in a shootout with the Chiller Thrillers. In addition they had the names of Lot and Gyoza and the fact that they frequented a place called the Bad Penny. As a result when Perses contacted Rourke, Rourke presumably knew that KE was listening to all telecommunications going in and out of his building no matter that they had ‘clean’ phone. So he set up a meet knowing it would be tracked. Cotter was a diversion and the fly-spyis the actual message putting together a contact site for the team to reach him on ShadowSEA.

McAllister hooked Perses up with some APDS ammunition for his guns. (20 for the pistols 100 for the machine gun) He also put the guys in contact with a doctor in the underground who handled bio-sculpts and promised to look into somebody for dealing with repressed memories.

The bio-sculpt doc, a wizened little dwarf of Asian descent with a lackluster bedside manner, informed Perses that the scar on his neck was actually a colony of nanites. The doctor had no idea of the purpose of the nanites as it was outside his field of expertise but he promised to get in touch with someone who may be able to help.

Lot and Perses and then went to Lester’s saloon to have a chat with Cpt. Dalton (Retired) to see what they can see about the Knight Errant situation.

AAR

Lot to Perses: slide up and grab my unh . . .

As the team was figuring out how to handle the slicer dicer situation, they heard the whine of small turbines overhead. They quickly learned that Knight Errant had dispatched a pair of winged reconnaissance drones to keep tabs on them. In addition at least one rigger was piggy-backing the drones and Alabaster joined in electronic battle with the Knight Errant units.

One of Alabaster’s roto-drones was forced to sit down the other was apparently captured, possibly destroyed. The battle was ended when high-end military jamming started wiping out the com signals. Lord Z3R0 joined the fray, taking control of one of the Knight Errant recon platforms and using its air to air missile to take out its mate.

Gyoza and Perses shuffled and now unconscious slicer dicer and builder into the back of the van. Lot started hoofing it down from the roof waiting for pickup. As he got to the ground floor the team realized that there was movement across the river and further movement on the road to the South. The sams sprinted back to their bikes, while Alabaster dove into the van. They soon realized that the South and West roads were each blocked by an armored Steel Lynx drone, backed by 6 TAN DEM drones.

Lot went astral to evaluate the threat but found a fire elemental waiting for him. He was staggered by the elemental’s attack and retreated from astral space. The drones then launched a salvo of flash bangs at Gyoza, Perses and Lot. That was enough to knock Lot out of the fight but Gyoza and Perses bulled through.

The team found their weapons ineffective against the tanks, except for the van’s .50 Cal, which Alabaster used to chew through them like rotten wood. The bikes hightailed it past the row of buildings taking them out of the line of fire – leaving the drone’s remaining weapons ineffective against the van’s armor. Which is not to say that the van’s paint job isn’t blasted to hell or that the windows are entirely unscathed.

As a parting gift Lord Z3R0 hacked one of the TAN DEMs, picking up its sensor feed and then erasing any evidence of his presence.

The team then hauled ass South out of Kingsgate and Hollywood heading for Touristville where Alabaster said he knew a guy who could hook them up with a safe house.

The safe house turned out to be Madame Zhiang’s Massage Parlor, known to law enforcement as Jimmy Wu’s Rub and Tug. For the mere pittance of 9K a month, the team (and their captive) is now shoehorned into two small bedrooms joined by a crappy little kitchenette. The apartment has a staircase down to the massage parlor’s first-floor and an additional exit to a back alley area that it shares with Lester’s Saloon and a few other disreputable, low-rent establishments.

Word has already started to get around that the Knights are hunting for the team and apparently have holos of their faces that they’re showing around to some of their known associates. They don’t yet have a handle on how extensive this man hunt is.