In the deluge of anti-40k ranting, Shadowrun Storytime appears as a bastion of fun and sanity. Thank you, Two-Dee, thank you for existing.

>>18421908

You're welcome, dude!

>>18421888

Last thread here:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18400401/

When last we left off, the team was on the trail of Mirage, a former teammate of super-pro hacker Two-Times. The team has been tasked with killing Two-Times and stealing his dog. Yes, that is actually their mission. They've been doing okay at it, since they got the codes to one of his three positioning satellites from his buddy Joy, back in Vegas.

The team is currently 2D the Hacker (as rendered in pic related by my awesome girlfriend), Dervish the rocketorc, Geppetto the black magician, and Bend the operative.

I also didn't have any time to write up any more stuff in advance, but I'm coasting off the emotional high of finishing my finals so why the fuck not. Get ready for the team to go Akira on this shit.

>>18421946

The four Gaijin looked remarkably out of place stepping out of the cab into downtown Neo-Tokyo. Geppetto, in his silk suit, fedora, and bonafide Ferragamo tie, was way too formal. His compatriots, the orc in motorcycle leathers, the elf in fatigues, and the hacker in an "ASStechnology" novelty t-shirt, weren't formal enough. They got a few weird looks from the crowds, but not enough to spur a confrontation.

"2D," growled Geppetto, "how are you coming on those linguasofts?"

2D shot Geppetto his best expression of painful jetlag.

"Ease up, dude. I'm codifying the entire phonetic Japanese language in my BRAIN. No big."

With a "boop," a little icon of a bomb in a dictionary appeared in everyone's commlinks, entitled "SPEAK GLORIOUS NIPPON OKAY!"

Dervish looked at his commlink, nonplussed.

"So have we figured out somewhere to sleep yet? I'm pretty sure I'm about to die if I don't find a bed."

Bend clapped a hand to his forehead.

"I KNEW there was something you idiots forgot to do."

>>18422129

"2D the badass saves the day," grumbled 2D, as a map appeared in everyone's AR. "I got a coffin hotel in Mushashino that's got a suite open. Whatever a suite is. Probably better than a coffin."

Dervish groaned.

"I started running so I wouldn't have to wake up feeling sore."

"I was under the impression you started running so you could afford to stick more foreign objects into yourself."

"Eat a dick, 2D."

Tempers were flaring, so Geppetto called the shots.

"Gentlemen. We're going to go to that coffin hotel. And then we're all going to go to goddamn sleep. Acceptable?"

2D: "Solid."

Dervish: "Ayep."

Bend: "Acceptable."

Dervish: "Bend, leave your door locked because Geppetto turns into Satan at night."

Geppetto: "Technically, 'Adversary.'"

Bend: "...this was not part of my briefing."

>>18422223

A short explanation later, and Bend had learned the value of being open with your teammates about potential problems. Also, the value of locking his door.

The coffin hotel was an unremarkable place. It was a building that looked like it was made out of lego blocks, done up in awful acidic colors. Renraku advertising mascots danced their way around the base of the building in AR, giggling and reminding passers-by to buy GO-JIRA! flash noodles, available from the vending machine 3 meters to the south.

The receptionist was a tiny little sprite of a woman, obnoxiously peppy. Whether it was by contract or natural, the team didn't know, and didn't want to ask.

"Oh! Foreigners! How wonderful to have you here! Takitaki capsule hotel is proud to--"

Geppetto interrupted her, rubbing his eyes.

"The suite."

"What was that, sir?"

"How much for the suite?"

"It's 100 nuyen a night, sir! Of course, that includes all of the amenities!"

Geppetto blinked.

"Amenities?"

"It has its own bathroom, sir!"

"...I feel like I should have asked this at the start, but what exactly constitutes a suite?"

"Four coffins connected to a bathroom that you all share, sir!"

Dervish choked.

"God dammit."

2D smacked him in the back of the head as Geppetto put down the money.

"Fine. That's fine."

GODDAMNIT

I just wanted to go to sleep...

>>18422377
I mean....thanks OP!

Can't... sleep... must... read... awesome... stuff...

...

They let Orks into Japan now? And black people? I thought the IJA would fucking kill you for being BWW/OWW.

>>18422356

The team sat in their meeting room to plan. By which I mean that Geppetto sat sideways in the bathtub, Dervish sat on the toilet, 2D stood awkwardly in the remaining square foot of floor space, and Bend attached himself to the ceiling for lack of any other room.

"So," Geppetto began, "anyone have any leads?"

"I actually got a really good one," 2D put forth. "One of my contacts, HawtSawce, the infobroker, operates out of this city. I think she's a Renraku corper kid in daily life or something. I helped her out with a thing with some corp troops a while back."

Geppetto smiled.

"Okay, so we have an infobroker. And we need to find where someone's hiding. That isn't bad. Anyone else got anything?"

Dervish and Bend shook their heads.

Dervish: "I could try Sensei again, hoping for a random coincidence.."

Geppetto: "I don't think that trick will work twice."

Hey OP I am the guy who said this is as good as STALKER Quest the other day.

I still love you.

>>18422421

GLORIOUS NIPPON mellowed out quite a bit after the big Quake in 64-65, IIRC

>>18422480

you make my peeny feel weird OP

Fuck yes, my 2nd favorite reoccurring thread on 4chan.
>"Ease up, dude. I'm codifying the entire phonetic Japanese language in my BRAIN. No big."
How did 2D not flatline from that shit? Just trying to learn it the normal way turns my brain into a pudding-like substance.

>>18422421

That changed in fourth. The teenage emperor had some kind of divine vision or something and changed the laws.

They're still HORRENDOUSLY racist, though. Orcs and trolls aren't allowed past entry-level positions.

>>18422480

The team split to sleep, and the next morning reconvened in the bathroom/meeting room/very shitty lounge. Everyone took a moment to stare at Geppetto, who was wearing visual kei makeup stained with blood.

Bend: "Adversary's been busy."

Geppetto: "Ayup. Business?"

Bend: "Business. 2D?"

2D: "Right. Calling up my contact."

There was a brief moment, and then Hawtsawce's icon, an empty dress gown, appeared in AR.

"What's up, 2D?"

"I need some help finding someone, Tsuko."

"Hey! Don't use my real name!"

"You know that Anon thing doesn't mean shit in private, right? Besides, we're all tripfags anyway. We're already hypocrites. And assholes, but that's kind of an informed state with tripfags."

There was a pause, and Hawtsawce changed subjects.

"What do you need, 2D?"

"Shiawase employee. Bioroid, probably in security if she works at all, considering she married in. When she ran she went by the name of Mirage. Probably using her real name now. Need to find which compound she's at, arrange a meet if possible."

"Hmm. The meet's up to you but I can look for her. I'll see what I can do, but I'm gonna need you to do something for me in exchange."

>>18422517
>>18422564

<3

>>18422565

Threading is pretty easy by rules. But yeah, I probably would have died trying to actually translate anything out-of-game.

>>18422656

2D waited for the nod from Geppetto, and then spoke.

"Name it."

"I need you to rescue an innocent woman from the Japanese Imperial Guard. Sound copacetic?"

2D waggled his hand. In AR space, his icon shrugged.

"I dunno, we tend to be better at the kidnapping of innocents than the rescuing."

"You gonna do it or not?"

"Sure, why not. Give up the details."

"Awesome. Okay, she's being kept at the police koban in the Imperial Gardens. It's a big tourist trap park, can't miss it. They're gonna transfer her to an actual jail in a few hours, so you're gonna need to do this quick."

"Anything we need to know about the girl?"

"She's a friend. Also, weird hair color. She won't look Japanese."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

>>18422720

"Okay, so the girl's being held at the Imperial Gardens police station, and will be transferred today. That's all you can tell us?"

"Afraid so, Malcolm."

"HEY! REAL NAMES!"

"Hypocrite."

Hawtsawce logged out, and 2D cracked his knuckles as he stepped away from the wall. Unfortunately, Dervish stood up at the same time, knocking 2D into Geppetto, who accidentally hit the "shower" button, delivering a jet of cold water directly into Bend's upside-down face and generally making a squirming mess of the entire room.

"I really hate coffin hotels," bemoaned Dervish.

"AWARGHLBLARGLWARGH," agreed Bend.

>>18422842

The team put on their best tourist uniforms (in other words, the exact same thing they had been wearing yesterday), and made for the Imperial Gardens. The cab ride was a solid hour through densely-packed traffic. Getting through the lines was another hour. The team was not exactly making good time. Luckily, they hadn't spotted any patrols coming out...yet...and the omnipresent security cameras sticking out of every tree, bush, and wall did not inspire confidence.

Bend turned to Geppetto.

"Permission to take photos of the cherry blossoms, sir. They are beautiful this time of year."

"Permission denied, soldier," replied Geppetto, sarcastically. "We're on the job."

"As the infiltration specialist, I believe it to be good cover, sir."

Geppetto looked sideways at Bend.

"Fine, whatever. I'm going to scope out the police station."

The police station was situated in the middle of the park, a three-room building at the end of a cobblestone path. The roof was arched in an old-fashioned style, but the walls were pure steel and concrete.

>>18423013
where did you find the Bend player? at the start i thought he was a NPC just for the heavy roleplay that he does

>manhood sentia

Yes, Captcha, sentai are the epitome of manhood in Japan.

>>18423013

"2D," Geppetto asked through his subvocal microphone, "you seeing any ins here?"

"Uh, yeah," responded 2D. "The cameras on the side of the building look like they have maintenance ports, I could probably pop into the network from there. I'm not tall enough, though. Dervish would need to give me a boost."

Geppetto sighed.

"You'd also need to be poking the camera with your finger like a dumbshit in full view of all of these patrolling cops."

"On Dervish's shoulders."

"Yes, while on Dervish's shoulders."

There was a pause.

"Okay, so pay attention to the guards' rotation, we'll enact this retarded plan while they're not looking."

As the guard turned the corner away from the camera, Dervish ran for the camera, holding 2D at arm's length like a baby about to throw up. 2D jacked into the camera and zonked in Dervish's hands.

Dervish: "Hurry up hurry up hurry up."

Five seconds later, an alarm sounded inside the police station, and 2D jacked out again.

"Oops."

>>18423056

Nah, he was a player from the start. That Vegas run was basically his trial period.

>>18423116

"Oh SON OF A-"

Dervish dropped 2D to the cobblestones and began scrambling up the side of the building. As a guard rounded the corner, submachine gun gone, Geppetto hit both the hacker and the sammy with a low-force invisibility spell, just enough to make them invisible to the human eye.

"2D, good try for today, but I'm thinking now is the part where you cheese it."

"Dude! Sorry! This never happens to me!"

"Erectile dysfunction later. Flee now."

2D jogged into the nearest crowd, working his way as inconspicuously as possible toward the nearest exit.

"Great, this run is blown. Any ideas on how to salvage this?"

Bend spoke up.

"While 2D was trying to hack I hit the building with wide-band ultrasound and juxtaposed it with thermal. Got two cops in there and four prisoners. My tacsuit's in my bag, if we had cover fire--like say, Dervish from the roof--I could spot the target and we could extract her at range with one of Geppetto's air spirits."

"Why did we not have that idea first?"

"I was busy photographing cherry blossoms."

And so, the team prepared for the Shadowrun tradition of "Plan B."

>>18423276
Bend is getting more awesome by the post! Speaking of posts...it's kinda unfair you probably take way longer to type it up than it takea for me to read them. I wish I could read slower...

>>18423276

The guards began gesturing for the crowds to leave. A loudspeaker blared in Japanese (which, luckily, the team could artificially understand),

"Attention, everyone. Hackers have been detected on the premises. The Imperial Gardens will be closed for a security sweep. Everyone please file out lawfully and calmly at your earliest possible convenience."

Geppetto began milling towards the exit as Dervish lay flat against the roof and Bend put on his tacsuit in a bathroom stall.

"You two got this?"

"Keep the spell up on Dervish and give an air spirit's services to me, and I can run this."

"Excellent. I'll rendezvous with 2D at an alleyway about five blocks from here. The air spirit should be able to transport the girl and Dervish to there."

As soon as Geppetto was out of the gardens and had disappeared into the back alleys, a mischievous-looking fey woman, half-transparent and with cruel, red eyes, settled down next to Bend. Bend responded, nonplussed,

"Huh, I wondered what his air spirits looked like. Alright, team. I'll start by IDing the girl. When I say "Alpha," Dervish, begin firing until the guards run for cover. When I say "Bravo," Dervish jumps for the girl, gets in close proximity. When I say "Charlie," the spirit swoops in and flies you both to the drop point. Good?"

The spirit nodded. Over the mic, Dervish agreed,

"Good."

>>18423359

Sorry! Normally I write these things beforehand, but this week was finals week. Luckily I can go all night if I need to.

>>18423463

"Well, fuck."

Bend growled over the mic as the cops escorted the four prisoners out onto the cobblestone path...all wearing black bags over their heads, obscuring their features.

"Hold on, I'm going to need a moment. We can rule out the two men. Which leaves the women, the short one or the tall one."

After hitting the vision mags on his goggles, Bend caught sight of a tuft of bright, fiery orange hair sticking out of the shorter girl's head-bag, as well as something stirring in the back of her shirt.

"I think we got our girl. Target is the third prisoner, repeat, target is the third prisoner. Three. Two. One. Alpha."

The air filled with noise as Dervish withdrew his sniper rifle from his duffel bag and fired it wildly at the guards, sending them sprawling for cover in the sparsely-wooded garden.

"Good! Bravo!"

With a massive boost of his skimmers, Dervish launched off of the rooftop, sending shards of crunched shingle flying in every direction. He sailed through the air toward the girl, duffel bag in one had, rifle in the other.

"Aaaaand Charlie!"

With a WHOOSH, both Dervish and the girl were gone, flying into the distance like a mildly-more-dangerous Team Rocket.

>>18423582

"Move like clockwork," Bend ordered, over the mic. "2D, Geppetto, they're going to land soon. 2D, you can hack, take the bag off her and unlock the slaved cuffs. Geppetto, take 2D's tag eraser and go over her for trackers. Dervish, keep alert, they could be following."

As Dervish landed with the girl in his arms, 2D immediately grabbed the cuffs with one hand, connecting with his skinlink as he used his other hand to remove the bag.

2D: "What...what the fuck?"

Girl: "I'm a kitsune! Arf arf!"

2D: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

>>18423582
I understand, man, no need to apologize for awesomeness. Just thinking out loud while waiting for the next post.

>>18423652

2D: "AAAAAAAAAAA-OWFUCK"

Dervish reciprocated the previous day's head-whapping with a slap of his own.

Dervish: "2D, now isn't the time to freak out and what the fuck she has a tail."

Girl: "That's because I'm a fox!"

2D: "IT'S HAPPENED GUYS. IT'S HAPPENED. WE'RE IN AN ANIME GUYS."

Geppetto: "Pull yourself together, 2D. Miss, can you explain why you were in the custody of the imperial forces?"

The kitsune furrowed her brow and blew up her cheeks in an incredibly cliche moe thinking expression.

Girl: "Well, gosh! That'd probably be because I'm an Awakened fox, and Awakened animals aren't granted citizenship or human rights! Yip!"

She playfully lifted the cuffs to her face and began gnawing on them, inadvertently slobbering all over 2D's hands.

2D: "JAPAN IS EVERYTHING I DREAMED IT WOULD BE, GUYS."

Geppetto: "Oh my god, we need to end this job quick before 2D creams himself in public again."

>>18423816

Geppetto cast a quick physical mask on the girl to make her look like a normal Japanese person, rather than a catgirl from an anime of the most disgustingly insipid persuasion, and the team walked for a few blocks before calling a taxi.

Girl: "Humans sure are weird, tee hee!"

Geppetto: "This is not happening."

2D: "So I'm thinking we take her back to the apartment and call up HawtSawce for pickup?"

Bend: "Brilliant. Another person to fit in our tiny bathroom."

The girl attempted to nibble on Bend's long elf ears, earning them a weird look from the cab driver.

Girl: "I can fit anywhere! I'm a fox, ~uguu~!"

2D: "Oh my God, please say 'desu.' Just once."

The fox-girl made a peace sign with her off hand.

Girl: "Kawaiiii, desu ne!"

2D shuddered a little.

2D: "Oh my God. Oh my God, guys."

Dervish: "Anyone else vote that 2D walks the rest of the way?"

Bend: "Miss, please stop attempting to bite my ear."

>>18423816
>>18423957
>2D's face when
Brilliant comedy. This is even funnier than Trout being retarded.

>>18423957

The team arrived at the coffin hotel with the squealing schoolgirl in tow, causing the receptionist to stare for a moment, but repeat her chipper message of "Welcome back, sirs!" nevertheless. All things considered, she'd probably seen sketchier things going on in the building.

Geppetto: "Okay, I move around when I sleep so I'm just gonna conk out in the bathroom. Thanks to the stupid traffic, it's getting kinda late, so kitsune-chan there can use my coffin."

Girl: "Geppetto-kun is such a gentleman, yip yip!"

Geppetto: "Shut. Up."

2D called up HawtSawce.

2D: "So when do we unload the anime character onto you?"

HS: "I'm actually out of town for tonight. Maybe tomorrow afternoon?"

2D: "Sounds good. Did you know she was a kitsune?"

HS: "I don't know. Do I have eyes, ears, or common fucking sense?"

2D: "She's really shitty at hiding her shapeshifting."

HS: "Tell me about it."

Dervish: "I'm going to bed. I'm going to wake up with a cuteness hangover at this rate. Fox-girl better not shed, so help me God."

>>18423996

I shudder to think how creepy things would have gotten if Trout, being an actual anime fan as opposed to me ironically playing one, was still with the party. Or if he was there for the Neo-Tokyo arc in general.

>>18424096

Aside from a minor incident with 2D, Bend, and Fox-Girl waking up all crammed into the same coffin with the ambient AR theme set to "guro tentacle porn" (an Adversary prank, since the contract only stipulated doing no direct harm to the team), the following day was as uneventful as living in a 4-square-foot environment with a clingy anime stereotype could be. She was unceremoniously deposited at the gate to the Renraku compound in Chuo, and 2D met with Tsuko, a pudgy Japanese dwarf.

2D: "Tsuko."

HS: "Malcolm."

2D: "I thought you'd be taller. And skinnier."

HS: "I thought you wouldn't look like a skinny Kurt Cobain with all the cool vacuumed out."

2D: "Ouch."

HS: "Your girl Mirage is at the Shiawase Robotics compound in Akihabara, nerd village. You're unlucky. That's one of the more fortified ones. I can't offer you any schematics or anything, I'd suggest seeing a fixer."

2D: "We got one. Name of Taka, I think."

Tsuko coughed out a humorless laugh.

HS: "Oh man, you're going to regret that."

2D: "We get that a lot."

Hold on a few minutes. Technical difficulties, I'm remembering part of the story but not all of it. Calling up Bend's player.

>>18424303

This series is the highlight of my /tg/ surfing, take your damn time to get it right.

I think 2D should have attempted to fap in the coffin when he was stuffed in there with the girl and Bend.

>>18424332
Considering the circumstances, I don't think it'd be necessary, even if he had the room to do it. A little squirming around, and he'd be dryhumping her enough to get his rocks off. I don't think it'd take very much, with the anime girl and the guro tentacle porn around him. He IS a channer, after all.

it's not like I had work to finish tonight or anything...
keep writing, you magnificent sexy beast

>>18424220

Right, remembered the first job. We just cakewalked it so I didn't remember it by virtue of nothing going wrong. Continuing the story.

So, the team met up in their second-best suits at Taka's club. It was a grungy place, not quite a dive but definitely far from legal. The kind of place with pulsing music to drown out the drug deals. The kind of place where it's hard to identify the chick with the tattoos as a yakuza, a hooker, or both.

Taka himself wasn't hard to find, what with being an oni. The bastard was sitting at the bar in an Erika business suit, his gigantic cartoonish circular bug eyes scanning the club. Goblinization had hit the guy HARD. Aside from the eyes, he had ridiculous curved teeth that stuck out of his mouth, horns, and to top it all off he was a marvelous shade of cherry red.

"Mr. Taka, I presume?"

Taka grinned ear-to-ear, like a perverse cheshire cat, and his chameleon-esque eyes swiveled, one after the other, to face Geppetto.

The rest of the team absently noticed that there were no other runners in the bar.

"Oh my. It's not so often I'm graced with Shadowrunners. To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

His voice dripped with sarcasm and the smell of cheap sake.

>>18424493

"My name is Geppetto. I'm a shadowrunner from America, and this is my team, 2D, Dervish, and Bend."

Taka placed his elbows on the counter, leaning in to get face-to-face with Geppetto.

"And why does Gaijin-san come all the way here from America? It's not the booze. I serve watered-down shit."

Geppetto, a consummate face, didn't skip a beat.

"The Shiawase compound in Akiba. We need to meet someone. We were told that you would be able to get us in."

Taka placed one arm behind his back and arced the other one around to scratch his chin, slowly and dramatically like a kabuki actor. If you could imagine him being voiced by Norio Wakamoto at his hammiest, that would be great.

"Oh, yes, that your brother Taka can do. But...that's such a difficult thing. I will require services rendered. Maybe two."

Geppetto hardened.

"Name it. My team is too professional to piss around."

Taka looked at leather-clad Dervish and t-shirt-wearing (today's shirt read "official breast inspector") 2D and snorted aloud, his wide nostrils flaring.

"Oh, are they, American? I seem to be the one holding all the go pieces, as it were. I know that doesn't quite translate, but I do love appropriating those little bits of American culture. To make you feel at home, of course."

He chuckled at his own joke, wherever it was. Geppetto continued to stare the oni down.

"Name the job."

Taka slammed his hands down on the table, arching his shoulders to leer at Geppetto.

"An armored car."

>>18424679

In an instant, Geppetto responded,

"Done. Which one?"

"It's traveling through Chiyoda right now. Registered to a Daisuke Investments Company. Single-A."

Now was absolutely the right time for 2D to ace his spoof and data search.

"North or South Chiyoda, sir?"

Taka gawked, taken aback.

"What?"

"North or South? Daisuke Investments Company has two vehicles registered to the gridlink in that area."

Taka paused.

"South."

2D grinned. "Alright. Dervish, borrow a motorbike and get Bend down to the area I'm marking on your map. Bend, bring your satlink, so I can hit mutual signal range of the truck, get a machine sprite in it."

Taka's gargantuan eyes flitted from American to American as Dervish and Bend filed out and 2D sat at the bar, zonking out into VR.

Geppetto wore the shit-eatingest grin of his entire life. He could devour a whole sewer and have time for seconds.

"As I said, my team is too professional to piss around."

http://youtu.be/dwBXPsetOHM watching this while waiting for updates.
It has david bowie in it, promise!

>>18424751

I'll skip past most of the job because it was quick and we completely cakewalked it, but Taka stared blankly as, 30 minutes later, 2D led him out to the garage behind his bar to see the armored truck, with the two drivers still inside, screaming that their communications had been cut. Bend sat on the roof of the truck, smart jammer activated.

Taka's expression quickly turned from one of astonishment to parodical, blatantly fake anger.

"No, no, no. You did it wrong. The guards witnessed everything. Now I have to kill them. You do another job."

2D looked at him incredulously.

"Dude, seriously? You have a problem with killing people? You?"

"You do another job or I don't give you the codes to the Shiawase compound."

Geppetto growled.

"I swear, if you're jerking us around for free labor..."

Taka put a hand up and spat on the ground.

"That's insulting. Don't insult me. Or you won't get my business. I'll have another job for you tomorrow."

The team went home that day thoroughly pissed-off.

>SR shadowtime

FUCK YES

GO ON.

while we're on the subject, what edition of shadowrun would you recommend someone who wants to get into the game?

>>18424885

The team reconvened in the closet-sized bathroom of planning and logistics to discuss.

Geppetto: "This is bullshit, he obviously doesn't have the codes."

2D: "I dunno, he came recommended. Doesn't stop him from being a pissant though I guess."

Dervish: "I still think we shoulda called sensei."

Bend: "Look, let's just do the job tomorrow and see where it goes. We've got enough money to last, and this hotel is costing us pennies. I'm gonna go down and get some ramen, anyone want some?"

The team paid attention to Bend's wisdom and, after a night of mostly dicking about and watching trid (although 2D dispatched his fly-spy to get a view of the exterior of the compound, which confirmed that it was as heavily-fortified as they'd feared), they went down to the bar in the morning. This time, they didn't bother wearing suits.

Geppetto: "Hey! Asshole!"

Taka: "Speaking."

Geppetto: "You said you had a job for us."

Taka: "Yes. I was going to stick you on a jailbreak but something else came up."

Bend: "Pity. We're good at jailbreaks."

Taka: "What? Shut up, gaijin. Look. Look at this."

In AR, Taka put up a picture of a man in a suit, flanked by 12 WildCat mercs.

Geppetto: "So it's a Johnson and a bunch of security. You give a flying fuck why?"

Taka: "They set up shop in an office right down the street. I wanna know what mercs are doing right down the street from me."

Dervish: "You dense bastard, they're obviously protecting this guy, who is doing something entirely unrelated to you. You are not actually that important."

2D paused.

"Woah, hold on a sec."

>>18425010 hold on a sec
NO DON'T HOLD ON, FFFFF.

>>18424898

Oh my god, that image has appeared in like every Shadowrun thread and now it's grinning and will haunt my nightmares.

>>18424951

4th. It's a little less fluffy than the other editions, especially 3rd, but it has the easiest system to learn and use BY FAR.

>>18425010

2D pointed out the subtle outline of softweave armor beneath one of the merc's armor suits.

"Here. He's wearing mil-tech armor underneath the merc armor."

Doing a little more scanning, 2D continued to notice discrepancies.

"That one, too. His sidearm is a Thunderbolt. That's a top-tier pistol, gotta get em special commission from Ares. Tac-team material. Not to mention if you look in all their ears--" 2D rotated the trideo, "--flesh-colored earbuds. Spy toys."

Taka gulped audibly, having evidently not noticed any of these details in the picture before. He quickly recovered, though, long enough to start spewing bullshit.

"See? SEE!? They're up to no good! I know it. Make contact with them. Ask the man in the suit what he's doing here."

Geppetto sighed.

"Okay, I suppose this is a legitimate threat. Everyone get ready to run if we blow these bastards' cover."

>>18425195

2D started with a little legwork, hacking the building's surprisingly unencrypted normal office node and going through employee records. The commando teams were all using psuedonyms, but the man in the suit was interesting: he was, go figure, Mr. Johnson, but he was billed as the representative of a company called Ginsen, in San Francisco. A bit more digging found that Ginsen was a shell company, and the only acquisitions on file for it were, go figure, a dozen mercs. A bit MORE digging pegged Ginsen as the subsidiary of a London single-A, also called Ginsen.

"Guys," said 2D, warily, "I think we might be stumbling onto some serious conspiracy theory shit."

Geppetto sighed.

"I guess we'll go talk to Mr. Johnson for you, Taka, but I swear to God, you give us the schematics and access codes after this."

Taka placed a long-nailed hand over his chest.

"On my honor, Geppetto-san."

>>18425216

The team donned their suits and crossed the street, heading towards the Ginsen offices on the 10th floor of an office building. They didn't really know what to expect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v9-Nw4nAZg

What they certainly DIDN'T expect was a cheery receptionist sitting at the front desk in a sexy skirt-suit, and an office full of hardened merc badasses dressed in business suits making powerpoint presentations, getting coffee, and asking each other whether they'd seen the game last night. The entire cubicle farm was done up in tasteful pastel colors with photos of inspiring places.

2D: "I swear to God, one of them just said 'how's the wife.' Like, unironically."

Geppetto: "Let's just play it cool. Ahem. Excuse me? Ma'am?"

The receptionist looked up from her game of solitaire and popped her bubble gum.

"Need something, handsome?"

Geppetto took a moment to collect his thoughts.

"We're looking for Mr. Johnson."

The receptionist winced.

"Oh noooo! Mr. Johnson's in a meeting. Can I take a message?"

"Well, miss, we really need to talk to him. Say it's from Mr. Takamoto."

"Ooooh," the receptionist responded, not really registering much of anything. "Go ahead and sit over there."

After 15 minutes of the team awkwardly being shot smiles by passing black-ops badasses wearing office monkey shirts, the receptionist said, "Mr. Johnson will see you now!"

Twodee where the hell have you been
>>18423652
Forgiven desu ne.

>>18425386

Dude! Good to see you in-thread!

>>18425379

The team was seated across from the suited figure that they recognized as Mr. Johnson. Mr. Gary Johnson, to be precise. Dervish was actively thumbing his gun, thoroughly creeped-out by the whole proceedings, while Bend had long since put on his goggles, scanning for discrepancies, hallucinogens in the air, ANYTHING.

"Mr. Takamoto! We've been expecting you!"

Johnson reached across the table and gave Geppetto's limp hand a firm, hearty handshake.

"Well, actually, sir, Mr. Takamoto is--"

"Yes, yes, you're just his representative. But worry not, sir, we understand Taka's unique position. We're not here for him. We're here to expand Ginsen's holdings into Japan, to take hold of the dynamic markets of Neo-Tokyo."

"What exactly is it that Ginsen does, Mr. Johnson?"

2D: "This is weirding me the fuck out, man."

Bend: "Shhhh!"

Johnson: "Heh. Sorry, new in town. I guess we got set up rather quick, that must be what's got your boys surprised, eh? The proper question would be, sir, what DOESN'T Ginsen do?"

Geppetto took an expression of abject confusion.

"You didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

>>18425513
why do I get the feeling mr Johnson is making this face?

>>18425513

"...the question that I just asked you."

Mr. Johnson swirled some creamer into his coffee, and looked up as though he was just noticing that Geppetto was there.

"What question was that?"

"What does Ginsen do?"

Mr. Johnson let loose a practiced laugh, personable and utterly cheesy,

"Ha ha ha! Good sir, what DOESN'T Ginsen do?"

"I was asking you that. You said that already."

Johnson frowned.

"I did? No I didn't."

One of the office workers, a Salish man with a deep scar up one side of his face and prison tattoos, popped into the office.

"Mr. Johnson, Stacey just called in, she won't be able to make it till later today, something about her sister's birthday."

Johnson slapped his forehead.

"That was TODAY!? But I'd had the presentation up to show the board and everything! You know that she needed to show the profit graphs!"

The merc shrugged.

"Sorry, sir," he said, with a sudden, cheery smile, "but I could do those graphs for you in a jiffy, if you need 'em."

"Boy howdy do I," laughed Mr. Johnson, "You're a lifesaver, Carl!"

2D gawked.

"Where the hell are we?"

Johnson looked at 2D.

"You're at Ginsen corp, of course!"

Geppetto resisted the urge to scream.

>>18425634
this is starting to freak me out too...WHAT IS GOING OOOON!?
(you guys must have had SO much fun playing this)

>>18425634

Bend aimed his directional hearing earpieces back into the office, trying to pick up something from the employees.

"Did you hear about Dave? He's been out sick something fierce. Think it may be the new flu going around."

"Aww, that's just precious! Do you think that they taught the cat how to do that or it did it on its own?"

"Man, I really wish Stacey's sister the best. Poor girl, I know there've been complications."

"Look at Carl again. Wonder how he keeps his nose so brown."

"You catch last night's urban brawl crossover match? Wuxing was on FIRE! Literally."

"Hey Jenna, can I get some coffee over here? I'm probably gonna need to pull a long night and there's no sense not getting the caffiene in early."

"Frisco is compromised, repeat, Frisco is compromised. Initiate order 5, 10, 2, 7. Good luck, gentlemen."

Bend: "What?"

With a "PAF," Mr. Johnson's head exploded, coating the room in gore.

2D: "aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

>>18425722
Johnson isn't the only head exploding right now. What the unholy fuck is going on here?

>>18425722

Aside from 2D, who was in catatonic shot and had bits of Mr. Johnson's face up his nose, the rest of the team dove for the ground, taking cover behind the desk.

Dervish: "WHAT THE HELL."

Bend: "CODE RED! CODE RED! MISSION COMPROMISED!"

After a moment, Geppetto peeked up from the desk and looked into the office. The drawers of every single desk were open, and there were discarded sets of business clothes all over the office.

Geppetto: "No fucking way."

"PIGS," 2D yelped.

Geppetto: "What?"

"PIIIIIIIGS."

With that, 2D sprinted across the office, opened the elevator with a mental command (backdooring on the office node), and dove in, literally sliding the last few feet on bits of face and brain.

Dervish: "What do you think he meant by that?"

With that, a Tokyo Metro SWAT team burst into the office from the stairwell, arranged in breaching formation.

"PORISU! MINA WA BUKI O SUTERO!"

Dervish: "FUCK."

>>18425803

Geppetto cast a high-force invisibility spell on himself, but not before screaming "SPLIT!"

Bend drew his sidearm and shot out the nearest window before jumping at it backwards, crashing through it with his shoulders and then quickly flipping to catch the side of the building with his gecko pads. Activating his tacsuit, he crawled a few floors lower and then settled on a lower balcony, nearly invisible.

Geppetto himself jumped out the same window, issued a command to his air spirit, and was soon Peter-Panning it into the distance.

Dervish found himself staring down a SWAT team alone. He looked at the window. He looked back at the SWAT team. Window. SWAT team.

Activating his thrusters, he screamed "SHIIIIIIIT" as he zoomed back to the opposite wall, and then accelerated to top speed and rocketed out the window while under heavy assault rifle fire.

>>18425858
BUBBLES HAS NOTICED YOUR NOTICE OF BUBBLES.

CONTINUE TO TYPE, SHADOWMEATS.

>>18425916
>brink

>>18425916

"Dervish," 2D screamed, through Dervish's comms, "DERVISH!!!"

Dervish vaulted the next building, easily clearing 30 feet of distance to land on top of another office. The helicopter's gunners opened fire in the middle of the jump, bursting another line of windows as pedestrians below ran screaming from the scene.

"WHAAAAAAT!?"

"Dervish! I'm safe. I'm inside a metro station down here. I'm gonna try to hack the helicopter."

"WELL DO IT FUCKING QUICK."

Dervish threw himself to the roof instinctively, as a marksman's rifle round burst a large water pipe where his head used to be, sending a fire-hose-tier spray of water up into the air and eventually down into the streets, like a perverse waterfall.

"Okay okay okay okay," 2D said, stressed, "I've only got spectator access now. No driving. I'm gonna try to spoof a signal."

"WHAT SIGNAL!?"

On the helicopter pilot's dash, an alert read "MULTIPLE MISSILES INBOUND, ENGAGE IN EVASIVE MANEUVERS IMMEDIATELY."

The helicopter began to wax and wane violently, tilting at an obscene angle.

"Oh this is bad," said 2D over the comms.

"HOW BAD 2D!?"

"THIS IS BAAAAAAAD."

F5F5F5F5

>>18425961

I find the concept art to be very cyberpunky. Especially on the Security side.

Game was kinda crappy though.

>>18425980

As the helicopter plowed into the building, smashing clean through the facade into one of the offices, Dervish jumped the next rooftop with a cry of "FUUUUUUUUUUU-"

As Dervish landed on the rooftop, 2D quickly yelled to him:

"STAY THERE! Stay right the fuck there."

"So I can get my ass shot off by snipers!?"

"They're too busy watching that 250k chopper go down the drain. Stay right where you are. Geppetto's spirit is making another pass."

There were a tense few moments as Dervish stood in place, hearing the screams of panicked masses, the rattle of the SWAT team continuing cover fire on the rooftop that they thought he was on, and the emergency sirens in the distance. Then, with a yelp, he was airborne.

The team reconvened in an alleyway a few blocks away, watching ambulances rush by.

Geppetto: "So..."

Bend: "Um."

2D: "...fuck Taka."

Dervish: "FUCK TAKA WITH A RAKE."

And with that I'll call it for next time. Late night frozen yogurt ho! I'll probably be back and monitoring the thread in like half an hour or so. Any questions asked right now I might be able to answer, too.

I downloaded 4th Ed of Shadowrun after getting hooked on your stories but have yet to read it.

How easy would it be to pull it out at my game tomorrow and go "Lets play this guys" with out being confused.

>>18426104
So are we gonna get any info on Tank's adorable loli dependent, or is she still SPOILERS?

Also GOD DAMN YOU I WANT MORE SHADOWRUN

I was worried SR4 would be dull without the 80s flavor, but I like it nonetheless.

>>18426104
So are they getting revenge on Taka, or just NOPEing about working with him again?

Also I love your threads.

>>18426135
http://pavao.org/shadowrun/cheatsheets/
you'll want this link, sonny.
oh, and just googel shadowrun character excel sheet. that thing is a lifesaver.

you might want to look into yarring the book "runners companion"
not the most useful supplement there is but it has got a bunch of contact and a LOOONG list of new advantages and flaws, some of which have been used in these stories here

>>18426135
I'd give them a bit of warning and some time to read and digest the system. But it could work if your group isn't adverse to trying new things.

>>18426174
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q43h1zHpjqc
and have them watch this to hook them

Could someone else archive this one under an assortment of the usual tags? I'd normally do it myself but I gotta bounce for like 45.

>>18426135

Not very. It's a complex system. Ideally you'd have a guy who already played running the first game, or at least present.

>>18426140

In-universe, this is only like 6 days after Tank died. The team up till this point had been holding off on calling, because none of them wanted to break it to her. That'll come up next time.

>>18426144

The team actually goes back to Taka, albeit obscenely angry. You'll see where that goes next time.

>>18421888
bleep

Yarr! Back. Albeit a bit late to continue the story. Can still chat though.

>>18426226
Just FYI: Your threads are now required reading material for the shadowrun group my roommate and I are trying to set up for our d20 peasant friends. Its been hard to sell them on such a lethal game because they're used to our current DM being terrible, and also Pathfinder.

Do you have any general advice for a bunch of noobs?

Also: you should seriously think about editing all of your adventures into a real format, this is amazing stuff. Like, I'd love to see it as a short, or have you/your group publish a module or something. I'd buy it.

>>18426678
KEEP WRITING IT WILL BE ARCHIEVED AND IMSTILL HERE

Welcome back my hacker friend. I've been away setting up my new gaming rig. Also working my ass off.

>>18426707

Sorry, dude. I like to reach good starting and ending points, and the Shiawase run is HOURS worth of writing, time which I do not have before I need to go to bed. Plus I can write it all out at once and then open up the next thread with a BARRAGE, like I'm supposed to do, instead of keeping you guys hanging for like 10 minutes each post.

>>18426734

Sup, boots. What's cracking?

>>18426704

Thanks, dude, that's...really high praise. Although I'm not sure how I feel about the phrase "d20 peasants." Although Shadowrun is my favorite system, Pathfinder is definitely up there, and it's no shame that a lot of people start off with some variant of d20 as their first game.

Did you mean generic advice for noobs, or Shadowrun in particular?

Having just read through all of your previous Shadowrun Storytimes just last night, I must say, I've grown rather fond of the setting and the Storytime.

All I have to ask right now is, did 2D bone the Fox-thing?

>>18426819
He's happily married, man. Sure, he probably pulled a muscle resisting the temptation, but he obviously didn't do it.

>>18426793
Been absorbed by New Vegas because I can actually play it. And the aforementioned holding down a job. If the thread is up tomorrow, I'll do as much of my story as I can after I wake up. Also had a session with my group. We got hired by a movie director to geek like thirty gangers for his film. Tom got more gun.

>>18426819
>>18426841

Not married at this point in the story, but he's got his committed monogamous relationship with Jozie the homicidal juggalo to uphold!

Come to think of it, there were a lot of points where 2D could have gotten balls-deep in weird in this campaign, from Zipper to Fox-Girl, but it never happened.

>>18426879

Also, furious fapping helps.

Yes! Glad I finally get to be here live.

>>18426793
General new-to-shadowrun stuff. I'm not the most helpful of people sometimes, and its never bad to have notes or tips for the new guys to skim right off.

Pardon the d20 comment, I'm just bitter.

Oh.

I get why they post that.

It's because Bubbles+Japan=that chick who got DZ's comic book collection.

>>18426932
Get the Packs book. Best resource ever for new characters. Also, customize your guns. It ends up quite helpful 90% of the time. Like having Crusaders (machine pistol) with 64 rounds each.

>>18426932

Okay, here's a few off the top of my head.

1) Make sure you have these four roles shored up: utility magic, hacking, physical combat, and breaking and entering. If you want to be REALLY well rounded, also shore up the roles of facing/social skills and rigging/driving. It doesn't matter who takes what, so long as you have a good distribution of all of them, but generally it manifests as the sammy, the hacker, the infiltrator, and the mage.

2) karmagen (from Runner's Companion) is a WAY better system than point-buy. Just trust me on this. It discourages min-maxing by providing diminishing returns for investing your experience in singular skills and abilities.

3) Geek the mage first.

4) When making a sammy, don't be afraid to go overboard with starting cash. There's a lot of cool enhancements which can easily be bought with starting funds, but which will be downright IMPOSSIBLE to buy in-game. Synaptic boosters are a classic example, at 80,000 nuyen per RANK OF QUALITY.

5) Geek the mage first.

6) Refer to my hacker tips from last thread. Invest in a good stealth program with mute; you'll thank me later. It's also easier to start with a mundane hacker than a technomancer.

7) GEEK THE MAGE FIRST.

8) For a mage, make sure you have ritual casting, summoning, binding, and arcana. The astral combat abilities, you can go with or without. Also, two or three combat spells are typically enough to do you for a lifetime. The classic three being stunbolt, manabolt, powerbolt, or the ball variants.

9) GEEK. THE MAGE. FIRST.

10) GEEK

11) THE MAGE

12) FIRST.

>>18427003

>stunbolt, manabolt, powerbolt

Scratch that, manabolt is crap. Its only use is on spirits and stunbolt does it better. Replace with fireball.

>>18427003
>>18427023

Ah, Geppetto's player just reminded me of these three.

13) Always invest in more initiative passes. Bioware like synaptic reflexes or initiative-based adept powers are worth their weight in gold, since you get to go TWICE. Or in the most extreme cases, FIVE TIMES.

14) If you're the mage, the enemy will try to geek you first. Don't get geeked.

15) GEEK THE FUCKING MAGE FIRST.

>>18426967
>>18427003
Saved.
Sounds like there's a story behind GTMF, care to share sometime? Maybe next thread?
Karma Gen and Packs, rock on. I'll pass these on to the GM tomorrow.

Thanks for the tips and the great read!

>>18427042

Oh, it's really easy.

Mages are disproportionately powerful compared to everyone else, in the fluff and the crunch. People in-universe recognize this, hence the mantra. A firefight will go to shit real quickly if you don't kill the guy who can, say, mind-control your troll to grab you by the head and eat your face, or shoot lightning at your car.

>>18427023
Advanced mages almost always eat the cost and get some cyber eyes. Kinda cheesy, but the vision enhancement on them lets you stunbolt a dumbfuck form a couple miles away.

Also, never make a deal with a dragon.

And if you are approached by an elf in a clown mask, run.

>>18426936
DZ?

>ragesGeo have

No clue, captcha. But I suspect anyone who drives a damn Geo has every reason to have rage.

See ya'll in ~7 hours. I'm passing out and will post story in the morning. Keep it alive.

>>18427093

It's not a clown mask. It's stupid clown makeup. I play an orc in a clown mask and he's awesome. Harlequin is a fucking ponce, and if your GM is running him, then you should find a new fucking game.

Explanation for the newbies: Harlequin is a godmode DMPC who has appeared in not one, but three published modules, and who was basically nothing but a masturbatory self-insert for the FASA writers. There's straight-up a section of the module that says "if your players disagree with Harlequin they should die." At the end of the first module, he forces you to sit and watch as he handles the big bad for you, and if you try to intervene or interrupt the goddamn cutscene you die with no save, no chance, and no mercy.

Normally I like the high-lethality gameplay of Shadowrun, but "sit and listen to the GM monologue about how cool Harlequin is for approximately three pages or your character dies irrevocably" is a bullshit way to write a module.

He is the immortal Mary Sue conductor of the storyline railroad. Choo motherfucking choo.

>>18427140

Christ, didn't mean to set off yoru rant button there, man, sorry. Was just giving advice (because I agree with you completely on each point there).

Though I suppose the longer explanation is necessary.

>>18427055

Yeah, but a mage isn't going to be able to match the raw firepower of most of the other classes.

Incidently, which spell makes you betray your friends with direct attacks? Influence is there, but that was pretty low-key, IIRC.

>>18427042

Mages are flexible and self contained. Plus stuff like Invisibility can seriously screw you if you're not well equipped with alternatives.

>>18427140
They've rewritten him in one of the runner personality books. Holy balls he's GMPC.

Active Skills: Astral Combat 6, Arcana (Ally Spirit Formula) 6 (+2), Archery 5, Artisan (Steel Guitar) 6 (+2), Assensing (Astral Signatures) 6 (+2), Blades (Swords) 7 (+2), Climbing 3, Conjuring skill group 6, Counterspelling (Combat Spells) 6 (+2), Dodge (Ranged) 6 (+2), Electronics skill group 3, Enchanting 6, Escape Artist 5, First Aid 5, Forgery 5, Gymnastics (Tumbling) 6 (+2), Influence skill group 6, Instruction (Magical) 5 (+2), Intimidation (Mental) 6 (+2), Longarms 3, Medicine 5, Outdoors skill group 4, Perception (Scent) 6 (+2), Pilot Aircraft 4, Pilot Groundcraft 4, Pilot Watercraft 4, Pistols 3, Ritual Spellcasting 6, Running 6, Stealth skill group 6, Spellcasting (Illusion Spells) 6 (+2), Swimming 3, Throwing Weapons 5, Unarmed Combat 6.

Initiate Grade: 24+ Magic 30.
Spells: Harlequin has any spell available to him when needed.
The initiate grade and Magic attribute given here do not necessarily represent the upper limits of Harlequin’s magical capacity, merely the upper limits of what the Sixth World is likely to require of him.

>>18427140

>He is the immortal Mary Sue conductor of the storyline railroad. Choo motherfucking choo.

You should win an award for that line.

>>18427150

Aaaaugh, sorry for going off. Harlequin is a sore spot because he's trumped up as the focus of the Shadowrun world and his modules as must-plays for the metaplot, which means that many otherwise salvageable new GMs follow the advice of the publishers and inadvertently subject their players to sessions upon sessions of railroady Mary-Sue setpiece-to-setpiece bullshit, ruining their players' chances of liking Shadowrun forever.

I guess what I'm saying is I think Harlequin is one of the reasons that you never see people talking about SR modules on /tg/.

>>18427171

Imma be honest

I ignore modules anyway, except as inspiration. Does Harlequin exist in my Shadowrun games? Yes. Is he as powerful? No. Is he still obscenely powerful? Yes. Is he important? Probably. Is he real?

Well, the rumors say so, anyway, but you know how rumors go. Ten to one it's Tir pickawhichaever propaganda.

>>18427168

>Incidently, which spell makes you betray your friends with direct attacks? Influence is there, but that was pretty low-key, IIRC.

Control Actions plays out like Trigun's Legato Bluesummers, in which you directly puppet their body, whereas Control Thoughts is just straight-up Dominate Person. Both of them are easier to resist than Influence, though, I think.

>>18427169

Thank you. My first gaming experiences were in a GMPC-heavy environment. It has taught me to hate things like Harlequin with a PASSION UNMATCHED BY MAN.

I got into a shoot-out with one of the stated out Harlequin variations.

I was playing what amounted to a Duke Nukem stand in.

With 23 edge. Took me three combat passes to kill his ass. Then he auto-magically came back to life. Geeked him twice more, before the GM raged and said that if I wasn't going to take the game seriously.I should just fucking leave.

I then helpfully pointed out my characters massive Hatred and phobia flaws, all based on clowns.

It was only after the entire group walked on him did i find out the awful truth behind Harlequin.

I feel like killing Harlequin three times in one combat against an asshole rail-roading GM is a blow struck for Runners everywhere.

TwoDee, these threads have made my year. It's always encouraging to read shadowrun storytiems, but on this level of awesomeabilitance™, it's just a stellar read. I'm caught up, and I'm going to try to stay that way, so thanks for bringing this to /tg/ for people like me.

I have never even heard of Harlequin before, though I haven't played much before 4th Edition, and my experience during that time period is mostly limited to the novel series.

One of my favorite things about Shadowrun is that you can pretty much do what you want and contribute. Even Trout, God bless his little JRPG soul, not only provided a distraction from the real players of your team, but he has also given us the gift of humor.

>>18426932

For new guy tips, I can say just make a concept and roll with it, and don't be afraid to take advice from your GM or fellow players, especially your GM. If you want to start simply, and you know the D20 system relatively well, then your options are pretty clear. You can make some versatile stuff, and you can also stick to the tried and true staples; it may not say Fighter at the top of the sheet, but a former soldier who can use guns well by any other name shoots as accurately.

That said, I'll give you one general tip that can never hurt: Always stock up. There's a ton of inexpensive gear in between the pages of the SR4 core books, things like climbing gear, rebreathers and filters, RFID tag erasers, unusual sensor packages, all kinds of things. For a single Build Point in character creation, you can buy a hundred of some of these little bastards and have enough left over for a decent weapon, so look into it, and try to limit the number of situations you aren't prepared for.

>>18427168

Christ in a Corvette! 24 Initiation Grade?! What the hell is this shit?

Not a story so much as good sense. The mage can seriously mess you up, doing things like summoning spirits, making people invisible, or turning people shooting at you into meat puppets firing at their buddies. Not to say that other characters can't do other things to mess with the oposition (such as the hacker turning off the lights, or using a building's cameras to keep track of those guys in the werehouse trying to sneak up on you), but mages are the ones that are known for really upsetting the balance of things.

Good news for mages though; unlike in, say, D&D, there's no reason they *can't* wear armor up the wazoo, and more than a little incentive to do exactly that. Also, carry a gun, as not having a gun is usually advertising "I'm a mage! Geek me first!" (Depending on the situation, of course. On a run or in the Barrens, absolutely. Infiltrating a cubicle farm or trying to slip through airport security, not so much.)

>>18427264

Thank you! I am forever awed at the sort of positive feedback I get here.

Also aaaaaah tag erasers are a necessity, how did I forget that. EVERYONE should have tag erasers.

Other things for new players; learn the power level of your table. If you find you're constantly being overshadowed by everyone else, maybe ask for pointers. If you're constantly overshadowing everyone else, it usually causes a little bit of resentment. High power isn't automatically good, best game I ever played was on a 350 BP budget, street level campign.

Hacking is strong, if your GM lets it be. Everything is connected to the Matrix, near enough at least, so as long as you're a little creative about it you can do alot. Gather information on a target; learn where he lives by checking where he commutes from, what hours he works at the office by when he has his kitchen make food for him, what sort of sports he likes by what channels he watches. In a firefight? Hack the enemy's gun, eject the magazine and put it in safe mode, hack the enemy's cybereyes and make him see what you want him to see. (All of these are totally legit, but it's another thing that is dependant on the table.)

Don't shoehorn yourself into only being good at *one thing*. Only good at combat? Not so great when you need to find something out or shadow someone. What about being a wheelman? Great, until it comes time to get out of the car. My personal reccomendation is to be good at one thing, but have one or two fallbacks where you're not bad at. Again, it's something that varies table to table.

Know at least a little about the local area, and don't try to act like big man on campus. Sure, you could probably take down any ten, thirty Area Boys in Lagos, but as it turns out, not only are they everywhere, but there's more of them than you've got ammo for. Just pay the damn bribe. Or, as the esteemed Master TwoDee mentioned, NeoTokyo isn't so great for goblinized metas or forigners. Expect to be watched.

Know your table. Seriously, with any game it's important, but (at least in my experience) it's more pronounced with Shadowrun. Do your fellows perfer to play up the covert/sneaky sort of jobs, a sort of Ocean's Eleven where not a single shot is fired and everyone's either a social expert or some sort of technician ("Mirrorshades" playstyle), or do they think no run is complete without half a precinct assisting them with a chase scene as you speed to an airport so you can hijack a news chopper as part of your getaway plan like something out of an action flick? ("Pink mohawk") More than once I've heard that newbies are all excited about getting to play this one character they've had their heart set on, only to find that their B&E specialist never so much as picks a lock because everyone else at the table packs gatling guns as basic weaponry, and grenade launchers are considered "sidearms" (Wait, isn't that 40k?)

Shoot straight, conserve your ammo, don't make a deal with a dragon, and never trust an elf.

>>18427300

>tag erasers

Sweet christ yes. One time i got killed because my Ninja didn't think to check his fucking CANDYBAR for a tag.

Candy. Granola and honey fucking crunchbar, got me fucking geeked.

>>18427263

>23 edge.

How the hell did you manage that?

>>18427335

I can think of a way to get up to 9 right off the bat with a Mr. Lucky build.

>>18427323

>Granola and honey fucking crunchbar, got me fucking geeked.

I am so stealing this as a lesson to give to my own players.

>>18427335
>>18427346

It was one of those thought exercise characters, see how badly I could break one aspect of the game or another.

I MEANT to bring a different character sheet, but instead ended up with 'how many points of edge could i put on once character' instead of 'healing focused mage'.

Others in my gallery include a bastard combination of a blood-mage and an insect shaman. I humbly estimate it would take him less than three hours to cause the apocalypse assuming nobody kills him first.

>>18427396

>Others in my gallery include a bastard combination of a blood-mage and an insect shaman.
>I humbly estimate it would take him less than three hours to cause the apocalypse assuming nobody kills him first.
>bastard combination of a blood-mage and an insect shaman
>less than three hours to cause the apocalypse

So you took the two most hated evil things in the entire sixth world, AND FUCKING COMBINED THEM!?

So guys, I am having problems. I need to teach my players to use their knowledge skills, and I feel like I need to better understand the Astral component of magic. Should I just read the magic section and Street Magic more extensively? And also any tips on how to encourage the players to use their knowledge skills? They have just been relying on bad contacts for all of that.

>>18427352
I am happy my SR GM doesn't lurk 4chan like me.
Building my mage here and there, how bad is it to have a SIN?
Is it imminent buttfucking with no lube bad, or just inconvenient? /tg/ has been my godsend for SR advice.

Dunklezahn.

The UCAS' first Dragon president, and one of the best Johnsons a Runner could ever have hoped to have.

Dude lasted two hours and sixteen minutes in office before being murdered. Then they cracked open his will, and boy were people surprised!

>>18427438

Well SIN's are double edged swords. Well real SINs are. You get what you need, you go where you need for the most part, and so forth. But that all leaves a paper trail people can follow back to you. Fake SINs you can discard when you have cops snooping around ya. Its harder though to abandon a real SIN from what I learned.

>>18427435

I typically cut the starting karma from karmagen down to 700 (or 325), and then offer free ranks in knowledge skills=LOG+INT*3. It basically enforces knowledge skills, which I like 'cause they're good for characterization.

>>18427480

325 build points rather.

Also, seconding SIN guy. They're more of a double-edged sword than a true flaw.

Except criminal SINs. THOSE are true flaws.

>>18427466
Could I carry my fake SIN with me and leave my real one buried somewhere, especially if my runner career started with a fake one?
My character idea was a corporate mage that was enlisted for countermagic/astral protection and consultation, and after crossing a corp, went underground. Taking Orc Poser because it amuses me that the human decided hiding as an orc was the best way to discourage recognition on the street.

>>18423276

"submachine gun gone" should read "submachine gun drawn." Wow, this is a late correction.

>>18427480

Oh I make them get the knowledge skills, and they will take them, so that such a thing happens. So far only one of them has used knowledge skills and that is the pride and joy of the group Technomancer. The rest of them still seem to just take it and use it as an aesthetic thing to define their character's backstory, which is great but then they don't use the skills even when I create the situation for them to use it

>>18427487

The point of the SIN is that it kind of sticks to you. If you just go off and hide your real SIN somewhere, then you might as well buy off the flaw. Real SINs still have all the registration problems of fake ones, too, because the system sucks.

>>18427524
>have skills
>don't use them
Hey, contacts don't know everything. However, it also depends on how strong those knowledges are and how oft they can be applied.
I don't expect my mage's knowledge of Arabian mythology to come into play in Seattle ever.

>>18427528
So the upside is that with a SIN, I can use official, standard channels and processes, the downside is if/when I get busted, I am fucked without respite?

>>18427547

Yep!

>>18427547

Ayup.

Having a SIN also means that you're on file in the SIN registry, so even if you don't have the actual ID, if they scan your biometrics, they've got you.

>>18427571
>>18427562
I have the sinking feeling I will thoroughly regret this, but in for a penny.
Any other blurbs of advice for the starting mage that hasn't already been covered?
>Geek the mage/don't get geeked/the world hates YOU, YES, YOU is quite understood

Having a SIN also gets you basic human rights and a trahahahahahahahahahahah a ahahhaha

You're fucked.

>>18427589

Magic is HIGHLY valued on a team. Seriously.

People trying to kill you first is balanced by the fact that most people who know their shit will be sucking your magic dick all night long.

>>18427608
Your vote of confidence is noted. I realize I am likely putting a ticking clock on my first mage, but it's what it is.
>>18427609
Trying to avoid the really flashy stuff, and I'd rather not become the OOOOHH LOOK MAGIC guy if it could be avoided.

>>18427631

>ticking clock.

Not the worst thing you can do.

The WORST thing is a Blood Mage, an insect Shaman, or some combination thereof. You life-span will be measure in initiative passes.

Aight, I'ma go ahead and peace out, see all you guys tomorrow maybe.

Alright. I'm up and ready for a story.

> [x] The Dwarf and the Mecha

To tell this story properly, I need to expand on my other one. The previous session, Hiro had used the slut-bag mage for all she was worth to protect him from a restaurant full of thought-pickers. Those guys were scary. From what I head of the session, they were some sort of bullshit mystic adepts that read minds and exploded heads. The mage shields his mind, and Hiro hacks into their node. He finds a bunch of ancient recipes, and they GTFO before the pickers can read his mind. One auction in the shadows later, and the whole group is 10mil nuyen richer. DM is pissed, but it is all his fault. So he begins to scheme.

In a previous session, Hiro had gone on a run with a rigger-dwarf and it had ended with him leaving the dwarf for dead in a corporate building after the dumbass used his running name out loud and shot at some guards.

So that session started with Hiro awakening to the sound of a van blowing through the bottom level of his apartment building that he had hacked up credentials for that month, causing it to list over dangerously. Some quick calls later and Tom and Door-san are pursuing the van with their vehicles while Hiro was hiding in his own sedan, trying to hack into the van on the fly. As it goes on, Hiro finds exactly three nodes with nothing on them. Nothing at all. And it would not be possible to have the nodes more hidden than the dice he threw at it.So he feels really useless, and starts tracking space stations for one with a good trajectory.

Meanwhile, Tom and Door are facing down a van with added armor, walker mod, arms, and fucking gatling guns that has suddenly stopped, stood up, and tried to mow them down. Tom is not having this shit, so he has Hiro rig into his truck, and climbs out onto the hood as it is going at speed down the highway at the mecha.

Now, Tom really likes having Hiro around. Tom is almost completely inept at Matrix actions because he has a little thing called Simsense Vertigo, and he is Scorched due to a bad action movie BTL. Hiro pretty much handles all of his Matrix data, and Tom in return acts as the best damn watchdog ever by sticking with him everywhere, even when Hiro is zonked out in the Matrix. But Tom has a skill he really has not practiced since he got to NeoTokyo. He is a demolitionist with a specialization in improvised detonations.

So while on the hood of the truck, he pulls out a tomahawk, two beer bottles full of rating 15 foam explosive, a length of detcord, and a radio detonator. Moments later he has a heafty item jury-rigged together, and Hiro slams the breaks, sending him flying at the mecha.

Long story short, the explosion vaporizes the mecha, the dwarf we discovered to be piloting it, and most of the highway. Hiro is told that he feels someone watching him in the Matrix.

Will be continued in
> [ ] The Rivals

MOAR SHADOWRUN

Wait, 2d. You lost a post here.
>>18425916

>>18431408

What? Where?

>>18431408
>>18431473

What the everloving shit, how the hell did that happen?

It should read:

>>18425858

With a loud "OOF," Dervish impacted what he was aiming for: the rooftop of the adjacent building, which was only marginally shorter than the one he'd jumped from. He was now only NINE stories above the streets of Tokyo.

The SWAT team ran to the window and opened up a line of suppressive fire, attempting to pin Dervish down. The point-man's automatic shotgun was still loaded with shock-lock breaching rounds. This had the unintentional side effect of bursting out the upper windows of the building with stray shots, showering the pedestrians below with broken glass. Dervish popped and weaved through bullets and flying scrap metal and glass and eventually found cover behind the top of the external stairway, catching his breath.

There was a low thrum from somewhere below him. Then a FWOCKA-FWOCKA-FWOCKA. Then he saw the searchlights.

As the Police helicopter rose into view, Dervish screamed,

"OH, COME /ON./"

Also, alright, you bastards, I suppose I can spare a little more Shadowrun Storytime. Let me get my shit together.

YAY!

i want moar

>>18431550

"TAKAAAA!"

Geppetto burst through the door, his arms ablaze with eldritch fire. Behind him, bend cocked his shotgun, training it on bar patrons who moved to stand.

Taka the oni was sitting at the bar, looking very surprised that Geppetto had survived.

"Oh, shit."

He began to scramble away, only to find two drones, whirring with mechanical blades, blocking his path.

Geppetto grinned viciously.

"Let's talk about Mirage."

"Right. I've got most of the schematics. But I need you to do just one more-"

Dervish cocked his shotgun loudly.

"NO. MORE. JOBS."

>>18431635

The first one should read "Dervish cocked his shotgun," rather than "Bend cocked his shotgun." Still waking up.

>>18431635

Taka shook his head, putting his hands up in an "I don't mean to harm you" manner.

"Look, this job is good for both of us. I swear on my honor. Call it recompense for past wrongs."

Geppetto glared.

"Speak quickly."

"I went over the schematics to the Shiawase compound. There's a vault in there, a high-tech bank vault. I pulled a LOT of favors--at great personal expense, mind you--to get all the access codes to the doors around the compound, and if you can get into that vault, I have it on good authority that there are two pieces of experimental tech in there RIGHT NOW."

Geppetto scowled.

"Why do we believe you on this? And moreover, what's in it for you?"

Taka said, soberly,

"I just need you to slip a little package in. A bug. Then you can take the experimental tech, as quick as you like. Call it your payment. You'll be in the compound anyway, and with all the access codes I gave you, it should be a walk in the park. Look, I even have full floor plans and schematics."

He tossed an AR window over to 2D, who began to work through the map of the compound.

2D: "Seems legit."

>>18431678

2D continued perusing the data, and his eyebrows cocked as he hit a snag.

"Wait a minute, you edited the data for the residential blocks out. Why'd you do that? This doesn't tell us where Mirage lives anymore.

"About that," said Taka, his mouth widening into a toothy grin, his eyes darting from 2D to Geppetto, "I'm not giving you that data until you plant the bug."

"THIS WASN'T PART OF THE DEAL," roared Geppetto, grabbing Taka by the collar.

Taka shoved him off bodily, laughing cruelly.

"Deal with it. You've come this far, and I'm the only one with the info. I can delete it just as quickly."

There was a brief moment of tension as we all wondered whether Geppetto was just going to kill Taka outright. He was certainly capable of doing so. Dervish glanced from side to side, shotgun readied.

"Alright," said Geppetto, deadly calm, as he stood back up. "Alright, Taka. But you're going to regret this. You are going to regret ever fucking with my team."

"I regret NOTHING." Taka gestured towards the door. "Get out of my sight. I'll send you the domestic floorplans when I get a read from the bug."

Yessss...

Now I know why fate stuck me on the computer with less than two hours of sleep.

>>18431678
>walk in the park

Who remembers the last park our team was in?

TwoDee, please have my babies!

>>18431724
SHIT JUST GOT REAL

*ahem*
Please continue. I'll just be over here beating my F5 like it owes me money.

>>18431724

The team scoped out the compound, and began to work out a plan.

The Shiawase compound consisted of three buildings surrounded by a high concrete wall with guard towers. One building was manufacturing, which we wouldn't be touching. Manufacturing did have the security facility that connected to the other two buildings, though, so it would probably be our first stop if we wanted to neuter security.

The second building was R&D. It was all labs except for a ground floor lobby. The vault was in the basement, and was opened at regular intervals by registered security personnel. The labs, we weren't interested in, aside from the procurement of a researcher's key card, which factored into the third building.

The third building was residential, and it was locked off to anyone who didn't have a valid keycard. Security were locked out if it was off-schedule for them (unless ANOTHER, purely residential building, spider opened it), so we figured our best bet was a researcher's key card.

The only ways into the compound were heavily guarded kiosks that cleared each shipment in and out of the compound.

From this we began to work out our plan.

>DERVISH replaces one of the delivery truckers.
>BEND uses his contortionist abilities to shove himself into one of the shipment boxes, buried beneath product.
>DERVISH delivers BEND to the manufacturing bay
>BEND activates tac cloak, sneaks through manufacturing, by the vents if possible, enters security room.
>BEND connects a cloaked satlink to the security nexus.
>TWODEE hacks the shit out of it.
>TWODEE creates temp security clearance for GEPPETTO, as an "escort" for one of the researchers, so the guards won't ask questions.

>cont.

>>18431810

>TWODEE opens doors, and GEPPETTO enters R&D, swipes himself a researcher's keycard.
>BEND makes his way into R&D at the same time, slips in while Geppetto does so no one wonders why the door is opening for nobody.
>BEND heads to the basement, waits.
>TWODEE uses nexus to order a piece of tech from manufacturing put in the vault.
>When the guard opens the vault, BEND slips in, takes the tech, puts down the bug, leaves, hitches the next truck out of the compound.
>GEPPETTO enters the residential building to find Mirage, at which point no one can help him, but he should have the info from Taka.

And that was the plan.

The team wasn't under any illusions that nothing would go wrong, considering the first part of the plan would involve Dervish becoming a trucker.

So, 2D looked up a nearby trucker bar for Dervish, to see if he couldn't find someone good to jack a truck from.

>>18431858
How did our heroes deal with the fact they were (obviously) not Japanese?

>>18431858

"2D," gawked Dervish, as he approached the trucker bar, "What exactly am I looking at, here?"

"It's called dekotora. Japanese truckers are fucking nuts. They paint their trucks up like lite-brites as a sign of personal expression. They think it makes them unique but mostly they just look retarded. Like tripfags!"

"Ooookay. So what's the plan?"

"Listen around. Find one who does Shiawase shipments. Figure out his schedule, then jack him later. I can bullshit up the clearance once you steal the truck."

"I am not driving one of these things."

"You will if you want us to get out of Japan."

"Now that's incentive."

Dervish stepped inside to find that the bar was cowboy-themed, with miscellaneous American pop culture relics decorating the walls. Setting his hearing to "directional," he took in the ambiance.

As it turned out, that was irrelevant, since he immediately spotted two big yankii wearing "Shiawase Cargo Shipping" leather jackets, alternating shots of rice vodka.

>>18431909

Dervish: Trucker. Underclass. Makes sense for a foreigner.

2D: Not on site at all. Hacking remotely.

Bend: Physical infiltrator. With any luck, wouldn't be seen by ANYONE.

The only problem was Geppetto. We were hoping the "he's an exotic high-class prostitute" bit would stop people from inquiring.

>>18431974
Ah, *that* kind of escort. Bit of a language barrier here. Also: of course they thought about it!

>>18431956

"Heeey," announced Dervish cheerily, advancing on them at the bar.

"Dervish," asked 2D, in Dervish's ear, "what are you doing?"

Dervish pointed at the two truckers and asked, grinning stupidly,

"Lifers? I thought the truckers were all indie in Japan!"

There was a brief, tense pause, as both of the truckers stared at Dervish but apparently the linguasoft held up enough to not make him sound like an ass.

"Nah, we're contracted. SCS gets most of the shipping contracts, though. We even do work for Renraku and Mitsuhama."

"No shit?" Dervish sat down at the barstool next to one of them. "What kinda routes do you keep?"

One of the yankii, the younger one, pointed at the older one.

"Jubei here mostly works in-city for the Shiawase compounds. I mostly do runs up to the tech firms in Osaka."

Dervish grinned at the first sentence, and then settled back into a normal smile for the second.

"Really? Bet that route's beautiful this time of year."

"Well, I keep odd hours so I get to see a few beautiful sunrises...Hey, who are you and why are you so interested in trucking?"

Dervish laughed.

"Oh man, that was rude of me, huh? I forgot my Japanese manners. I'm Garret Jordan. I truck the route from Salish to Seattle, mostly do Ares work. I'm here in Neo-Tokyo on vacation."

The younger man struggled with the name.

"Gar-ruh-retto, huh? I'm Bancho. Well, you certainly chose a weird city for a vacation. How well you get paid in America?"

"Well, I freelance, so I mostly make shit. I like having the freedom to take what jobs I want, though."

"I hear ya, I hear ya. Hey, you ever drink rice vodka?"

Dervish motioned for the bartender.

"Not before now I haven't."

>>18432077

Within minutes, Dervish, Bancho, and Jubei were watching Urban Brawl, cheering and trading shots.

Dervish: "Dude, what ish the DEAL with your razorboysh and katanash? Is it a cultural--hic--relic or shumthin? Katanash are shitty shwordsh."

Jubei: "Well it looksh good for the crowd, and beshidesh, when yer goin all fasht s'better'n a gun."

Bancho: "WOO! Go Mitshuhama! Kick thoshe meta Ebo bashtardsh to the curb! Uh, no 'fense."

Dervish's cyberyes caught the glint of something on Jubei's wrist. Something incredibly convenient, when he magnified the vision to catch what it was: a bracelet warning about how to respond if Jubei succumbed to a grain allergy.

Dervish: "WHOSE UP FOR A DRINKIN' GAAAAME?"

Jubei and Bancho: "WOOOOO!"

They traded shot after shot of rice vodka until they were well and truly plastered, but then Dervish ordered wheat vodka, to "switch things up," well after either Japanese man was past the point of caring. A few shots later, and Jubei doubled over, vomiting profusely.

Jubei: "Oh noooo...*hurrglblrlgl*...my allergiesh..."

Dervish: "Fuck man, you okay!?"

Bancho: "Shit! And you had to bring that new shipment of circuit boards in tomorrow and everything!"

Jubei: "Oh fuck...call an ambulance..."

Emergency services were called and Jubei was carted off, silencing the bar. Bancho bemoaned aloud,

"Oh man, oh shit, Jubei had the big shipment tomorrow and everything."

Teetering slightly, Dervish stood.

"I'll do it."

>>18432194

Bancho blinked, stunned.

"You what?"

Dervish struck his best sentai pose, and yelled at the top of his lungs,

"I WILL COMPLETE JUBEI'S LEGACY."

The bar was silent as Dervish stumbled drunkenly towards the wall, pulling down a novelty American flag.

"I WILL BECOME THE MASHKED TRUCKER. AMERICA-MAN. I WILL DO HISH JOB, AND I WILL SHEND HIM THE MONEY, BECAUSHE I AM A HERO."

Bancho started clapping, utterly off his rocker.

"Ooohhh shiiiit."

Dervish began to wrap the American flag around his face, forming a shemagh.

"LET NO ROUTE GO UNTRAVELED. FOR I AM THE HERO. IT ISH ME. FOR AMERICA."

At this point, the bar started chanting, "Amerika-san! Amerika-san!"

"ALL YOU MUSHT DO, FELLOW TRUCKER BANCHO, ISH SHIGN ME ONTO HISH CONTRACT ASH A TEMPORARY SHUBSHTITUTE, AND I /WILL/ SHAVE HIM FROM THE DISSHONOR OF FAILURE."

Bancho, his mouth open and gawking, started scrawling away on some e-paper.

"FOR I. AM. AMERIKA-SHAN."

As Dervish spilled out the door of the bar, there was an uproar. Dervish stumbled towards Jubei's truck, but not before vomiting in a gutter.

"Fuck youuuu, 2D," he drawled into his mic, "I do things MAH way."

That is fucking wonderful.

>>18432257

Dervish woke up in the truck, wrapped in his American flag, with the smell of booze and puke on his breath.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead," announced Bend.

Dervish groaned.

"My heaaaaaad..."

"We got a mission, numbnuts," 2D reminded Dervish, over his earpiece. You've been out for seven hours. The shipment's coming up, and you need to get moving."

Dervish smacked his lips, sat up in the cab, and started the truck, reversing it slowly into a dumpster with a small crunch.

"Okay. I'm good. Hold on."

He switched back into forward drive and started on his route.

The pick-up of the shipment of prefab circuit boards was fairly uninteresting. Dervish's clearance (under the name GARURETO JORDAN, AMERIKA-SAN) checked out, and he got the goods loaded. Bend took a few out of the box, and began to cram himself in. By the time Dervish arrived at the Shiawase compound, he just had a cargo hold full of boxes, as far as the naked eye could see.

>>18432257
Fuckhueg smile. On my face. Now.

I hope my group turns out like this. Also, do you mind my little questions, tidbits inbetween?

>>18431956

> mostly they just look retarded. Like tripfags!
XD

>>18432375

No big! I'ma just keep on trucking, pardon the pun.

>>18432362

The first part of the run went as planned. Bend's crate was offloaded into the shipping bay, and Dervish left the compound to keep up his cover by doing more trucking. Bend used his thermo to wait until there were no witnesses about, then popped the top of the crate, tacsuit activated. He carefully wormed his way up to the ceiling with his gecko grips, and then worked his way into a ceiling vent, with 2D running overwatch to direct him to right over the security room.

Bend dropped silently into the security room, behind a jacked-in spider. Carefully, ever so carefully, he connected the satlink to the nexus.

Now, we get to a problem with 2D. Hacking a nexus on the fly would be retarded. Meaning, he had to be undisturbed. Completely undisturbed, somewhere with good matrix connection, hopefully close for the purposes of backup.

Prepare to play this or another song of equivocal mood for the next post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgnXDRkxtvo

2D made a few purchases while he was in Akiba.

The proprietors and waitresses of the Meido Cafe gawked as the stringy, unwashed American, garbed in an authentic Mitsu-Fashionline Kimono Moderne (tm), holding a body pillow of Yoko from Gurren Lagann under one arm and a plastic bag full of truly filthy hentai BTL chips, slammed the door open. He shouted in broken, weeaboo Japanese (despite, unbeknownst to them, having a perfectly good linguasoft),

"I REQUIRE A PRIVATE ROOM GADGET HELLO."

"S-sir? Do you want--"

"I AM SPEND THE TIME WITH MY AUTHENTIC WAIFU CUTENESS EXPLOSION."

The maids led him to a private room, keeping a five-foot distance at all times.

"I AM PAY YOU IN THE NUYEN FOR THIS ROOM, PUCHUU. DISTURB ME NOT FOR NO REASONS, EVEN IF THE NOISES YOU HEAR."

>>18432592

Settling down on the pillow-chairs of the private room (which he stacked up to form a big comfy mound to rest on, spooning the body pillow for, um, cover reasons), 2D announced,

"Alright, guys, I'm in."

Geppetto: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Dervish: "All that goodwill that I just made, wasted."

2D: "Ha ha, I am the karmic imbalance to Amerika-san, legendary trucker. Bend, you connected the uplink?"

Bend: "Yep. Go ahead, 2D."

2D: "Sweet. This is gonna take a few hours, though, so Bend, settle down in a good hidey-hole in the basement of R&D."

One of the maids knocked on the door.

"Sir, do you require--"

2D: "OINK OINK OINK, MMMM YOKO, HOW DOES MY BEASTMAN DICK FEEL!?"

The maid stopped knocking.

Bend: "Why...why would you leave comms on?"

Geppetto: "WHHYYYYYY"

Dervish: "MY BRAAAAIIIN"

2D: "Please. As if it's the worst thing I've ever done."

Geppetto: "It's up there."

>>18432716
I still think ejaculating in public is the worst. Who's with me?

>>18432738
I dunno man I'm more partial to cyber-dick teacup time as the worst thing hes done.

2d.jpg

[what's a nexus]

>>18432716

The team continued to bide their time. Geppetto parked himself at a cafe (the normal kind, not the kind that 2D was currently violating) across the street. Dervish continued to truck. Bend found himself a nice hiding spot at the bottom of an elevator maintenance shaft. 2D set a data sprite to play the choicest bits of weird porn at loud volumes from his commlink every time someone came to bother him, and wire hourly cred to the meido cafe. This lasted for three hours.

"Okay, I'm in. Admin access, too. They think I'm the chief spider. Geppetto, you've got your clearance. Bend managed to get through the door without you, but you're still going to need to pop by R&D to yoink yourself a keycard. As for you, Bend, I've got a security guy headed your way to drop off one of the crappier prototype gun mods in the vault. It's like an Alpha but shittier. Follow him in, grab the prototypes, drop the bug, get out. Easy peasy."

Geppetto: "Roger that, 2D. I'm headed in--"

2D: "WHY YOKO, IS THAT YOUR TWIN SISTER OTHER YOKO BODY PILLOW? I AM LUCKY BEASTMAN OF TWO MANHOODS TO PLEASURE BOTH LADY ANDROIDS OF THE BEAUTY POWER!"

Geppetto: "I'm headed in now. Over and out."

Bend: "Moving to position."

>>18432816

Oh gods that 2D...

the anon is strong with him

ugh.

2D is the best at being the worst.

>>18432791

A supercomputer, basically. It typically runs all of a functions of departments like security or research.

Also oh my god the troll bombs from Binding of Isaac are perfect.

>>18432816

Geppetto stopped at the front gate. A guard held him up.

Guard: "Clearance."

Geppetto: "Right here. I'm here to assist Mrs. Yokohama."

Guard: "And what will you be assisting Mrs. Yokohama with?"

Geppetto gave him a look.

Guard: "Sir?"

Geppetto: "Personal matters."

The guard blinked for a moment, then started with a little jolt.

Guard: "Oh. OH. Go right in, sir."

Geppetto caught the guards gossiping to each other as he walked into the compound.

On the vault level, Bend shadowed the marked security guard to the vault itself. The guard placed a key into a special locking mechanism, then punched out a code in AR, then submitted to a retinal scan.

With that, the vault door slid open, revealing a clean white room filled with pedestals. Most of the pedestals were empty, but a few bore fancy-looking cresticks, and two had small boxes.

2D: "The boxes, Bend. Wait till the guard turns, then liberate them."

>>18432940

Bend made his way towards the first box and, when the guard turned away to put his own box on one of the pedestals, swiped the first box, then the second. He replaced the first box with the bug.

The lights immediately turned to a shade of red as an alarm sounded.

2D: "What was that?"

Bend: "Alarm. Pressure sensors."

2D: "This doesn't make any sense. They didn't have pressure sensors installed."

2D took a second look at the blueprints, and called up the manufacturing details, which read, "Akiba Shiawase compound, 2069."

The current year was 2072.

Downstairs, the maids winced as their "guest" roared,

"FUUUUUUUUCKING TAAAAKAAAAAAAAAAA"

>>18432791

If you're legitimately asking, (I may just be tired and dense right now) a nexus is a large, powerful computer array. They are basically supercomms, to the point that they ignore many, many of the disadvantages of using a commlink. As a result, they can host manifold more processes and programs running at once. typically, they are too large or difficult to incorporate into a mobile schema, though.

> Captcha: toppling 1834

>>18432948
Oooh boy, in so many ways. Oooooooh boy.

>>18432948
That red oni is going to become red paste after this shit. I seriously hope you guys don't let him live.

>>18432948

2D: "Get out of there, Bend. Get out right now. I don't know what other sensor arrays they could have in there. The specs Taka gave us are out-of-date."

Bend: "Okay. Moving. Gotta--Oh shit!"

There was a short shootout as the guard accessed the sonar arrays that the team didn't know about, then plugged Bend with his sidearm twice, right in the chest, sending the elf sprawling to the floor.

Bend: "Fuck...man down..."

Guard: "Keikoku! Shin'nyū-sha keihō!"

Operating on instinct, 2D activated all of the compound's defense drones.

2D: "Geppetto, you're gonna want to book it for residential, because this is about to get really shitty really fast."

2D did a little bit of tooling around with the compound's targeting systems.

>if asset=Shiawase then target=friendly
>ERASE LINE if asset=Shiawase then target=friendly
>if asset=Shiawase then target=intruder
>Red alert activated

With that, 2D dove a steel lynx and began driving it down the corridors toward the vault, intent on rescuing Bend.

>>18433052

All other sounds in the compound were drowned out as a veritable small army of drones opened fire on the closest Shiawase assets they could find, which in this case meant everything within sight range. Pedestrians as far away as 2D's maid cafe could hear the gunfire, explosions, and screams.

Geppetto: "2D. Taka gave us the residential layout, but the woman isn't on it."

2D: "THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S THREE YEARS OUT OF DATE AND I'M GOING TO MURDER TAKA WITH A SPOON. DO THE SEARCH THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY."

Geppetto used the cover of gunfire to transform into mist and fly through the fancy newfound bulletholes in the residential doorway. He'd managed to procure a researcher's ID, but no sense not doing things an easier way.

Bend lay still as the guard advanced on him, clutching the sucking wound in his chest and gasping for air. He could barely register the guard saying something about "execution" as the light began to dim...

b-but
Bend did nothing wrong
Taka
Taka will pay for this.

>>18433116

Luckily for Geppetto, there was an employee map, and he was able to find that one of the executive garden suites was registered to a woman matching the biometrics of a high-power bioroid. Casting an invisibility on himself and weaving through the halls, he made his way to the gardens.

"Bend."

Bend awoke. Something was buzzing in his ear.

"BEND."

He gasped. He was dying. He was going to die. There were alarms going off. There was a guard lying next to him, riddled with smoldering wet holes. There was a steel lynx combat drone on his other side, its minigun barrels still spinning.

"I need you to attach your gecko grips to the drone, Bend. Can you do that for me?"

"Uuuuuh."

Bend wrapped his arms around the underside of the drone, then lifted his leg with much effort.

"I think he got...I think he got a lung."

"Keep it together, man. We'll get you out of this."

>>18433167

As Geppetto entered the garden, his invisibility became more and more distinct, until he was obviously visible, if transparent. Assensing the gardens, he found his culprit: the plants dampened magic. He was a sitting duck, no longer a magical banshee but a dude with a pretty face.

He sprawled across the flowerbeds as a feminine hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and hurled him bodily over a half-dozen yards across the garden. A wiry woman in a kimono glared at him angrily and planted a preternaturally heavy foot on his throat as he tried to get up.

"Who are you working for!?"

Bend barely registered the rattle of machine gun fire and the scream of motors as he was carried up, out of the R&D building, and into the compound. It was a warzone between man and machine.

"Two...Twodee?"

"Sorry! 2D isn't here right now! Can I take a message?"

"Machine...sprite. Where's...2D...?"

"He said he had something to do! But I can get you out of here, no prob!"

>>18433245

As 2D stepped out into the maid cafe proper, he shouted,

"I REQUIRE STIMULANTS. THEN I WILL DEPART FOR INDIGNITIES ELSEWHERE AND ANOTHER TIME."

In his head, he made one last command:
>Designate_location "Taka's Bar."
>Designate_asset "Taka's Bar."
>If asset=Taka's Bar then target=Renraku Strike team, terminate with extreme prejudice
>All units converge at location "Taka's Bar."
>All systems free
>All weapons free
>Collateral damage overrides activated
>Log out

Absently groping his growing erection, 2D grabbed the cup of coffee that was handed to him with a cry of "YES. YEEEEEESSSSSSS. MORE COFFEE I SAY. MORE COFFEE FOR UNLIMITED CUTENESS ARCHANGEL HACKER TWODEE."

>>18433245

Ah! GM just clarified: it wasn't the plant, it was sprayers that were showering the zone in FABII bacteria. Also, he made it to the woman in her room before she romped him. But, minor differences, potato potahto.

>>18433266

>>18433266

Geppetto wisely decided to nearly asphyxiate and black out.

He came to in a bed, with his arms and legs bound. The bacteria was still eating away at his magic, keeping him from casting spells.

"Now," said Mirage, "where were we? Something about who you're working for?"

"Someone who wants Two-Times," said Geppetto, blankly. "You know him?"

Mirage chuckled.

"Oh, wow. You could have just asked right-off."

Geppetto struggled with a shrug. He shruggled.

"I was going to but then you threw me across a garden and kicked my chest in."

"Sorry about that. Precaution."

The bioroid undid his binds.

"You gonna kill him?"

"Naturally."

"Excellent. In that case I want you to return a gift he gave me."

Geppetto stroked his sore wrists, sitting up in the bed.

"Name it."

Mirage handed him a jar full of used, ballooned and flattened bullets. Most of them still had little scorched chunks of meat on them.

"It was his retirement present to me. I think he'd like to have them back, don't you?"

>He shruggled.
I lol'd, which was a little awkward.

>hallwar themselves
Yes, captcha, Shiawase did hallwar themselves.

>>18432716
>2D: "OINK OINK OINK, MMMM YOKO, HOW DOES MY BEASTMAN DICK FEEL!?"

Righ here, this is where I lost it.
Thank you TwoDee for this glorious storytime.

>>18433266
>all those security drones marching on Taka
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, no one gets out alive. He will pay for Bend's blood with all of his. ALL of it. Red. Paste.

>>18433365

Bend registered the drone jumping in his pained haze. He didn't think drones could jump. Evidently the machine sprite disagreed, as it leapt the barricade into the streets. He saw...lights? And a really gay-looking truck?

He awoke to see himself stripped and his torso covered in bandages as Dervish, a medkit at his hip, poured some water down his throat. Bend gulped greedily.

Bend: "Why...still wearing the stupid flag?"

Dervish: "Because I am Amerika-San, life-saving hero."

Bend: "How long...?"

Dervish: "About an hour. Geppetto and 2D should be en-route."

Geppetto opened the door, wearing a singed and slightly ripped fancy suit. He had gigantic flaming demons on either side of him, Force 7 fire spirits.

Geppetto: "Mirage played ball. Here."

He tossed Dervish a second teddy bear. Dervish unzipped its back, fished around in the stuffing, and produced the second orbital uplink.

Geppetto: "Just waiting on 2D?"

Dervish: "Looks like it."

Geppetto: "So, did we get revenge on Taka yet?"

Dervish: "Not to my knowledge."

Geppetto nodded to the fire spirits.

Geppetto: "Taka's bar. Burn it to the ground."

>>18433451
>Force 7 Fire Spirits
>All those drones

Justice is served.

>>18433451

Geppetto: "By the way, Mirage talked with Stimpack a few weeks ago. He's with the Peace Corps now, by the way. German guy. Named Hermann Julienne."

Dervish: "Excellent. We've got a lead."

2D stomped into the back of the truck, his kimono fluttering. He was not wearing pants.

2D: "We also have REVENGE. I have set all of the drones on our dick-ass fixer. Moo hoo ha ha."

Geppetto blinked.

Geppetto: "Well, this just got more interesting."

Dervish handed the uplink to 2D.

Dervish: "Here, get the second code."

Bend: "Wait...don't."

2D's brain took in the information of all world communications rushing through that satellite. He heard a phone call in Germany. He saw a TV show in Brazil. He watched porn in South Africa. He was an automatic firmware update for a toaster in Seattle, in body and soul.

2D promptly ruined the kimono and crumpled to the floor of the truck.

Geppetto: "STOP DOING THAT WHEN HE'S RIGHT NEXT TO US, HE ALMOST GOT MY SHOES."

>>18432738
And doing it TWICE is worse...

>>18433451
Dervish was extra awesome this time.

>>18433648

2D regained consciousness a few minutes later.

2D: "I got the code!"

Dervish: "We noticed."

A Mozart concerto filled the air. Geppetto was getting a call. He picked up his commlink neutrally, looked at the comm code, and then grinned before putting it on speaker phone.

Taka: "aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH I WILL KILL YOU I WILL MURDER ALL OF YOU AAAAAAAAH MY FUCKING HEART."

Geppetto: "I don't understand what you're talking about, Taka! Please, speak clearer."

Taka: "I CAN'T SPEAK CLEARER BECAUSE A DRONE SHOT ME IN THE GODDAMN CHEST BEFORE LAUNCHING A GRENADE THROUGH MY WINDOW. YOU WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT WOULD YOU!? OR THE FACT THAT MY BAR IS CURRENTLY A SMOLDERING CRATER SURROUNDED BY DRONES?"

Geppetto: "Wow. That sounds mighty awful, Taka. I'm amazed that you could escape alive from those drones and spirits."

Taka: "I NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THE SPIRITS TORCHING THE WRECKAGE, YOU CRAZY FUCK."

Geppetto: "I am gifted with preternatural wisdom."

Taka: "YOU LISTEN TO ME AND YOU LISTEN TO ME GOOD, MAGE. I WILL RUIN YOU. IF YOU EVER COME BACK TO NEO-TOKYO, YOU WILL NEVER GET A JOB AGAIN."

Geppetto chuckled darkly.

Geppetto: "Actually, Taka, about that. I checked the fixer blacklist and noticed that you were on it, which gives you approximately zero sway in deciding what work we do or do not get. Moreover, as an independent fixer, you were almost entirely reliant on your bar to provide an environment for your illicit activities. A bar that you no longer have. I also imagine that the police will probably have a word or two with you in the hospital, if those sirens are any indication.

Taka: "THIS ISN'T OVER."

Geppetto: "It is for us."

>Team's face when

>>18433726
ALL MY THUMBS UP

>>18433726

There was a brief pause.

2D: "So...what now?"

Bend leaned over, reaching into his tacsuit, which was folded up beside him, and producing two small boxes.

Bend: "I'm thinking we check the loot on a plane back to Seattle."

SHADOWRUN STORYTIME//END TILL NEXT TIME

As usual, gonna stick around for questions and discussion.

Is what the loot is part of the next segment?
If not, what is it?

>>18433769

Also, the Arianna thing will come up soon! I promise! It'll open up next story!

>>18433776

That will come up next time.

I am commander Dowjin and this is my favorite story on /tg/.

As always, stellar work 2D. If I could just get into a game like this...

Also, for kicks, I wanted to mention that the JetBlack module, "On the Run" I believe? It's one of two I happen to have done before. Of course, for whatever GM related reasons, our campaign progress on that specific mission turned out vastly different.

>>18433805

Let's just say that in the canon version, JetBlack is...NOT a free spirit.

>>18433726
>Problemtaka.png

Allofmyfacewhen

This was delicous and lovely

>>18433794
Hey Dowjin, keep meaning to say when I see yu, but for your Fighter build thread you may have wanted to invest in a pair of Anti-Magic Shackles for 136k (BoED, 116). 5' AMF around you at all times? Yeah, fuck Wizards.

Polite sage for off-topic

>>18433648

>2D's face when

Mr. TwoDee,

I must express my appreciation for your grasp of the English language. I think it is great that you spend the time to tell your story in properly written English.

>>18433841

Wait, what? There's something good in the BoED?

I'll check it out at once, thank you.

>>18433850

I lold

>>18433785

When is next tiem?

Hey TwoDee, is the picture in OP a real photo?

>>18433860

Even if I am a fountain of weird spoonerism typos.

But yeah, I like telling the story from the perspective of the characters. I'm a very roleplay-heavy gamer so it comes more naturally to me than player-centric stories.

Also, Bend's player is reminding me of something I forgot about the rescue: after the drone vaulted the barricade, Geppetto's air spirit picked him up mid-vault and delivered him to Dervish. So there was an extra layer of awesome there.

If you're still lurking right now, Hi, Bend!

>>18433868
Dunno yet. Gonna spend tomorrow with girlfriend and then go home to the family, so probably not this weekend I guess? Maybe Monday?

>>18433873
Dunno. I think it is, but I just found it in some thread.

>>18433896
Thanks dude. Have fun with your gf and family.

I think the only question I have is why 2D didn't check for the updated plans once he was inside the system. Or course there was no way to know they were THAT outdated, but still.
>2072
>trusting Taka

Hey! TwoDee! I just wanted you to know that you make my lunch hours the most awesome lunch hours ever. I think I'm going to copypasta your entire story when you're done, and start reading it from start to finish again.

>>18434191
Be sure to share it with the rest of us!

>>18433994

That one's just human stupidity. I was dumb. I knew he was screwing us but not how.

>>18434191

Man, these threads would make an extra-long pasta. Even with 5 and the first two being shorter than the later ones, that would be CRAZY huge. Also, remember to rearrange the post that got deleted for some reason about the police helicopter above.

>>18434234
Just make it a book man...The TwoDee book of Shadowrunning...I'd buy it.

I crapped myself with joy.

It's a good thing I'm reading this on the toilet.

>>18434234
Hey, is there a, say, 1600x900 wallpaper of this?

>>use weentr
No, captcha, winter is over.

>>18436195

If there is, I don't have it, unfortunately.

MOAR SHADOWRUN

>>18436195
no, winter is coming


I used to be an adventurer but then I took three arrows to the chest

DAMMIT, TWODEE, YOU REALIZE THIS MAKES ME WANT TO PLAY SHADOWRUN RIGHT FUCKING NOW, RIGHT

CURSE YOU FOR MAKING THIS GAME SO AWESOME