Blood of the Earth - Session 6 Synopsis

(Written by Dennis)

Rain, Shadow and Steel were in a conference room at the Chrysanthemum Corp Atlanta office discussing Mustang’s apparent departure from the general group. He has decided that the situation was too hot for him, and for the most part he felt like a fifth wheel on many runs. He had built a new runner rep called Thunder and while he might do some runs under that, he had a lot of money and he was not as interested in being on the outside, of something he was on the inside of. Rain and he would have connection, and if the group needed a rigger or his help, they only need call. Deciding what to do next was a conversation Rain did not participate in; the Dagger was showing her that someone linked to the dagger was nearby, and then two different people, people that had not been known of before.

Then a call came into the conference room, someone at the reception desk had used sufficient keywords to alert them to her presence upon meeting her, this elven woman, who called herself initially as Penumbra, she said that the Corporation was under Technomancer attack. Steel asked regarding trust, but Rain let the others know that this was someone tied to the dagger. As the others went off to do the computer thing, Penumbra called Rain Misty, and Rain called the woman, Amara, and two sisters who had thought each other dead were reunited.

Steel, Shadow and the Corporation resources thwarted the attack, and traced a location to find the attackers. After a brief struggle the all but one of the technomancers was dead. That last, which seemed to not be taking part in the actual attack but seemed to be local area security, was spared. Rain indicated that this person, this technomancer, was also tied to the dagger. After much give and take, and discussion about what they were doing, eventually the two new members of the team were told of the stakes and the purposes. Penumbra indicated that she had been on a lot of tough runs recently, and taking a secondary role was fine with her. She was happy to find Misty (Elizabeth). The group learned that Rain had been taken by Human-First radicals along with other young meta-children after killing their parents during the evacuation of Chicago. The Human-first people tried to raise meta-humans to be servants of humans in the hope that they would retain that ‘respect’ in adulthood. However something went wrong, and five years later they were using the children to train their children to hunt and kill metahumans. Rain’s totem rescued her and taught her how to live in the woods at age 9. It explains a lot of her craziness and why she is so sickly. Penumbra, Rain’s older sister (amara as Rain called her) was successfully evacuated to London, but when her cousin escort manifested insect possession, she was indirectly blamed for all the destruction and went into hiding in Ireland.

There was at least a week before the Dagger mission was required, so because there were new team members, and there was time, the group took on a mission in Pakistan to take some jade orichicum from a mining gathering place. The group took their new jet and cruised in good comfort. Silver and Penumbra stayed with the plane, while the others met their contact. The gig paid very well, but it was an assault on an Ares protected site. The contact had another contact that could provide more information, but he was located in the Ares area of Islamabad. Rain took it on herself to go and get the information. She used an Ares Europe fake ID to enter the Ares area as someone who was considering a transfer. She met up with the Drone technician, seduced him, and paid him 6000 ny for the information. And then she got out successfully. The group had more detailed plans of the facility and information about people and drones.

The plan needed Silver, so Penumbra stayed with the jet. A rigger brought a stealth jet within 2 miles of the facility and provided a wreck of a truck and trailer. Rain left her enough funds to hire a pilot if things went south in a hurry. Shadow, WC, and Steel would, with Rain’s Camouflage and Stealth spells, sneak into the facility, plant explosives and wreak internal havoc. When the explosives went off, Silver was to bring the truck off, and Rain could cancel the stealth spells. And later she and Silver could take part in the fight. The plan went off without much of a hitch; it turned out no one really knew anything about demolitions in the group (Mustang was that guy). Arriving to the site, Rain summoned previously bound spirits or summoned spirits to deal with people in the compound on arrival. The group loaded the mineral ore to the truck with the help of a summoned Force 7 earth spirit, and got away in 6 minutes (well ahead of the 20min window of minimum response time) Indeed the plane left the area within that window. It was determined that only 3000 lbs of the jade orichicum had to be turned over to the Johnson, so the Corp would look at that. They also got a lot of cyberware, sustaining foci, and the like as loot.

Set for cash, it was decided to go to the Ziggurat of Iraq; oddly enough the Shedim arrival point for last month; their point was where we were last month. Arrival in the area a couple days ahead of the dagger. A car rental was not hard and a scouting of the Ziggurat showed great danger. There were flying things like skeletal dragons a couple miles out from the place. The group decided to look closer. Rain called upon a Force 7 spirit of Man to conceal the car and occupants, and the group approached the structure these groups of skeletal flyers did not approach. The group came to the Ziggurat. Through observation it was determined that the top was an entrance guarded by 4 troll warriors; black light shot through that hole. There was a mid level entrance up the side, and a block entrance at the bottom. Through much effort the bottom was opened. And silly people that the group was entered the ziggurat from the bottom. The dragon things were much more interested in the vehicle, so Rain absolved the Spirit of Man’s services to summon and air spirit to also conceal the vehicle. Inside the ziggurat was a -5 background count and no spirit of Rain’s would come. Upon entering the group went left, quickly triggering a trap that blocked them in. Use of swords and Rain’s shatter spell, broke a way past but the passage way was dead-end. Upon returning back the way they came, there was a massive of zombie orcs with glaives waiting at the way out. Shadow and Steel charged them, WC shot them, and Rain tried a Slaughter Spirit on them on the off chance they were spirit-based instead of the more likely Shedim Based. As it turned out there were spirit based, so without too much serious injury they were dispatched. Shadow was a cutting machine through them, as was Steel. Crossing back to go right in the ziggurat, Steel decided to sneak a look outside. There, a skeletal dragon was crushing the last life out of the vehicle. It spotted Steel, and chased him back inside. Shadow and Rain had already detected more things coming from ahead, so WC and Steel fought the wyvern, while the next horde of orcs was solely in fought by Shadow and Rain. Shadow charged the orcs so they could not easily move around to attack Rain directly. Each separate battle ceased at about the same time. First Aid was done on all, and it was decided to press on to the right.

[Notes continued by the GM]

The group carefully sent Shadow forward by Stealth to examine the center, and found a forty by forty foot hole that sloped downward and outward on to 25 silver spikes upon which were impaled 25 humans/metahumans who by rights should have died. They tried to figure out what to do next. They also noticed a hidden door at the base of the pyramid.