I wouldn't think it out of character, except for the one scene a few episodes ago on how, everyone be damned, he'd save his daughter because she is family. Now, I suppose, that was the scene that was out of character, and it hurts even more knowing that.

I was very, very glad to see Staniss' wife finally develop a will of her own, even if it was too little, too late.

You're supposed to get past the ripoff stage?

(I did a lot of ripping off but from many varied sources so things still took on a bit of a life of their own.)

Ahhh sci-fi world building. I have one that I created a few years ago, wrote a couple of stories in and created an RPG system in, haven't touched it in a bit though. Very fun to do.

I saw it in 2D. Guitar and steering wheel shot didn't bother me until you guys said something, but it still felt like a nice cap to all that had come before. Everything past that is epilogue; that was exclamation point.

I forget if it was brought up last week (I always forget), but this upcoming Monday is Memorial Day in the States. I'm still good - was off work before, am still off work. Just want to make sure that doesn't impact SD's availability; BDA and Herc being in the Great White North I wouldn't think it would and didn't see some sort of corresponding Canadian holiday, but worth bringing up anyway.

(Also Wikipedia tells me it's also Geek Pride Day and Towel Day. Note to self: Get a damn 42 shirt already.)

Very cool, both of you. Teague, I almost want that as a font now. Comic Sans Comic Sans... or Sans Comic Sans... or something.

And BDA. Your poor computer. Give it my condolences.

All good questions. I did make a recap thread already, we can probably discuss what makes sense for other threads tomorrow evening. Though I like the idea of a single backstory/character sheet thread. For my sheet I'd probably just take screencaps of my sheet in the Roll20 site and stitch it together into a single image.

The Team (Session 1)

A few days later, Burnout found himself on the same stretch of road.

Because of what happened with Whisper Wind, he hadn't had the chance to actually complete his mission. Whisper, obviously, had run into his own problems. Seeing that their missions weren't mutually exclusive, they had decided to work together - and hired a third shadowrunner, a troll named Dave.

Dave. Like all runners, it was undoubtedly an alias, but come on man, where's your sense of style?

Burnout had a bad habit of being recognized at the most inopportune times, so they'd parked an extra couple of blocks back and Burnout was doing reconnaissance with a swarm of MCT Fly-Spy minidrones. Once again there were two gang members on one side of the street and one in the alley across the street; the alley one was loading crates of something into a box truck.

Burnout needed to plant his signal jacker into a support beneath one of the buildings after the previous plan fell through. Whisp meanwhile had to kill the leader of this gang, a guy by the name of Michael. That in mind, the elf sent more drones into the subway station beneath the target building and continued to scope it out while Whisper Wind climbed up a nearby building, making his way to the warehouse that the banger was loading the truck from.

Occupied as he was scouting out the subway (two more bangers and some security cameras), he almost didn't notice a banger come around an A/C duct on the roof and stab Whisper.

"What the hell, I thought you said this was clear!"

"My bad! That one's my fault." He held out a hand to Dave, keeping him from going in - let Whisp quietly take out the guy on the roof and continue as plan-

"ALERT!" came a cry from the rooftop. Burnout checked his drone up there - in a brawl, the banger had dropped his commlink, but realized belatedly that he wouldn't need it when backup was within earshot.

Burnout nodded to Dave, but the troll was already charging the bangers across the street. He drew his shotgun, lined it up, and BLAM the banger was missing a head. After another moment, the second one took a blast too, but managed to stay standing. Dave took cover behind a car.

The rest of the gang members reacted. The two in the subway made for the stairs; on that same level, a guy came out of the men's restroom, followed shortly by a disheveled-looking woman. And up top, the guy loading the truck dropped what he was doing and climbed into the driver's seat.

Burnout unjacked from his drone Personal Area Network and switched over to the car control and moved to block the alleyway entrance. He slid sideways into place (style) and opened up on the emerging truck with his two forward-facing Ares Alphas. First he tried to take out the truck itself, maybe score a lucky hit against the engine block, but at the end of the day, it was a big commercial truck and his weapons were just assault rifles. Setting a goal for himself to upgrade them at some point, he switched tactics and fired at the wheels, blowing out the front passenger side tire.

Across the street, Dave had taken out the second banger and had climbed on top of the awning over the subway stairs, ready to take out the gang members as they emerged. On the rooftop, Whisper wasn't doing quite so well and rolled off the roof, landing on the truck. He'd just managed to regain his balance when the truck turned sharply coming out of the alley. (Burnout had left it room just in case; he wasn't willing to let the truck total his car for this assignment.) Whisp fell off the side of the truck and landed on the pavement near Burnout's car. Aggravated that he was getting away, Burnout went to pursue the truck... and saw that in his haste to get out, the banger had left the rear doors open. The rigger grinned and switched weapon systems, and fired a high explosive grenade from one of the Alphas. It sailed clear into the truck, and after a moment's delay, BOOM. The truck didn't take much damage but its cargo had been decimated. Some fluid of some sort sailed on the back, getting on Whisp and the car. Burnout casually hit his windshield wipers to get it out of his sight and brought his car back into the alley to see what the fuss was about.

Dave somewhat calmly asked Burnout and Whisp to take care of the guy on the roof, who was still up there and taking potshots at him. Burnout stepped out of his car and fired his pistol at the banger, and Whisper finished him off with a ground-level shot.

Dave ducked down into the subway; Burnout heard some muffled screams. "I'm going to see what's in these crates," he said to the others. "I'll be right down."

"Awesome," said Whisp. He sounded a little out of it; maybe it was the fall he'd taken.

Burnout peeked inside one of the crates and amended his diagnosis - it was probably the crates of Bliss he'd vaporized. He caught a faint whiff of it himself before closing the crate. He patted the lid. "I'll be back for you later."

He jaunted across the street and skipped down the subway steps to rejoin the others. Three of the four had been killed; two were tangled in such a way that Burnout thought one had been used as a weapon against the other. I underestimated Dave. He does have style.

This level was where people could buy tickets, sit and rest, or throw junk into the fountain in the middle. A cursory glance confirmed that they had done just that. The last banger - the disheveled girl - was standing shakily atop a spreading pool of her own urine. She was undoubtedly new to this whole gang thing. Burnout lightly hopped over one of the bodies and said, "I don't suppose you'd take it the wrong way if I asked you to drop to your knees?" He looked around distractedly as she complied and found what he was looking for - a terminal in one of the walls. He started to make his way there. "Can I ask your name?" he asked, not quite looking at her.

"S-Sofie."

"Sofie! Pretty name." He switched to his PAN and sent some drones down a level. There were tracks, but no cars - or people, or equipment. He switched back over to the meat world, where Whisper was getting closer to Sofie, a gun pointed at her back. Vaguely aware that he wasn't quite within his own faculties, and that Whisp had been hit harder than he had, he said, "Whisp, you mind checking those bathrooms, make sure there's nobody else whizzing in here?"

Whisp reluctantly agreed. Dave, meanwhile, took Sofie with him to check the lower level.

A few minutes passed. Whisp proclaimed an "all clear" in the bathrooms, Dave saw signs of recent occupation below, Sofie was shocked that the leader had bugged out and taken the operation with him instead of lending backup, and Burnout managed to completely fry the signal jacker. It wasn't his area of expertise, but he'd been carefully instructed. Just, he couldn't quite remember if it was blue stripe to green wire, or green stripe to blue wire. Also that apparently soldering wasn't needed. He tried to fix it but eventually gave up; he was only making it worse. Why couldn't all electronics work on internal combustion or hydrogen.

click "Hey, Jackstand."

"Burnout! What're you up to?"

"I'm in a bind. I'm at the subway stop on 32nd and Main and need a Mark 75 signal jack."

"Ouch. When?"

"Yesterday."

"Alright... I think I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks man. I owe you."

"Yeah. And call more often, would you?"

*****

Burnout overpaid for the signal jacker (with complementary and quasi-trustworthy installation included) while Sofie was eventually let go with a couple doses of Bliss for her trouble (she was obviously an addict that Michael had been taking advantage of). Good will to and from others was like currency; it had to be hoarded and spent carefully. And considering he was down to his last couple hundred nuyen, Burnout needed all the alternative currency he could get. Speaking of which - he loaded up four fifty-dose crates into his car. Three were left. Looking out on the street, he saw a Buick missing a window - unmoved since he'd chucked a smoke grenade in just a few days prior. Hoping that meant it'd be here later, he loaded the last three crates into it.

He didn't want to be a drug dealer, but if he could find one he could offload it in bulk - quick money with none of the mess. Hopefully.

At the end of the day, he got paid for his efforts. He split the proceeds with Whisper and Dave.

Michael was still out there. Dave still had a mission to do. And darn it, they worked well together. Burnout considered his compatriots. Yeah.

This could work.

Bell curve, bell curve, bell curve, that spike at 0 Makes sense when thinking about it (you stop rolling if your first roll has 0 hits, but if it has 1 hit there's a decent chance of getting more on the second roll), but still strange to see on an otherwise well-distributed map.

Teague, I know we were talking about it, but would an FIYD subforum still be feasible? That way if there's different campaigns running, different aspects of them, etc. A few of us were talking about it last week, for isntance being able to have a separate thread for recaps of the sessions instead of it all jammed into one.

SPEAKING OF RECAPS

(I don't remember the mook names, I'll come up with some and if you remember what they were I can change them. And when it comes to conversation... I'll do my best )