Game summary for October 15, 2019, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.
With little to do while waiting on Fast Freddy, the team decided to investigate the other commlink. Clutch spent a few hours with it and discovered it contained a hidden operating system and files. He spent some time cracking the encryption and found several file fragments and the name of the owner, Seth Dietrich. They reached out to a few of their contacts, met up with a couple, and did some research. The discovered Seth is an FBI agent looking into the possible corruption of Governor Kenneth Brackhaven. They also learned Agent Dietrich’s latest associates ended up dead in the Puget Sound. They also learned of a possible connection between Brackhaven and the fires in the Ork Underground a few years back in something called Operation Daybreak.
Clutch did some Matrix snooping and found an active commlink number in the contacts list and called it with a burner device. The owner hung up. So, he called it again from a second burner device and got hung up on again. Then, Hollywood called the commlink from Dietrich’s link and was immediately yelled at by the owner. After a few moments, Hollywood was able to communicate he was not Dietrich, and the conversation changed. The person quickly became agitated and insistent the team get somewhere safe and lay low. He wanted some time to make some calls and called back in about 45 minutes.
The caller accidentally revealed his name to be Tauren, and he sounded desperate to buy Dietrich’s commlink. He claimed it had some information about Brackhaven that people would kill for. He offered to meet the team and buy the commlink, giving them some profit and taking this dangerous item off their hands.
They did not yet negotiate a price but agreed to speak with him again at 6:45 in the morning and discuss a meeting.
Clutch examines the spare commlink. After an hour or so, he finds a second OS installed on it. It’s encrypted, so he spends a couple more hours hacking into it.
Once he’s in the OS, he finds an encrypted file within and continues hacking for another half-hour. He’s then able to open it up and realizes some of it is corrupted, but is able to gather a fair amount of information from it, anyway.
Best as we can tell, for now, the file is a journal or communique from an undercover FBI agent posing as a Shadowrunner that was/is investigating the death of another FBI agent.
Continuing to browse through the commlink, Clutch finds a contact list, but no names are included. Eventually, he finds the commlink owner’s name: Seth Dietrich.
I ring up Ajay Che, a Metahuman Rights Activist, and arrange to meet in person with her to discuss our findings.
In the meantime, Hollywood contacts his street doctor and sets up a meeting on the way to my meeting with Ajay.
Clutch calls his chop shop mechanic to see if any government owned vehicles have been run through recently, as part of the coverup. None have, but Clutch is interested in acquiring a few more license plates, and says he’ll stop by after we meet up with Ajay.
We head out shortly thereafter and meet up with the street doctor, Hawkeye Pierce. He recalls a “G-Man” poking around a couple months ago, asking about the autopsy records for Agent Kowalski. He confirms our suspicions, but is not able to shed any further light.
We head out. I pick up a cigar and head toward the Soybucks to meet Ajay. She says Dietrich was around recently. She says the bodies of his contacts were found at the Puget Sound, but his was not.
I spend some time with Ajay while the rest of the crew picks up the spare plates. Once they get those, they pick me back up and head to Clutch’s.
When we’re there, Clutch starts searching the numbers listed in the commlink. All except for one are bad. He gets a burner phone and dials the one active number. They answer but hang up when they don’t recognize the caller. After a little bit of time, Clutch gets another burner and call again, claiming he missed a call from them, but he hung up.
Hollywood comes up with the idea to use Dietrich’s commlink to call the number. When the guy answers this time, he’s much more chatty. Once he realizes we are not Dietrich, he tells us to sit tight and wait for him to call us back in 30 minutes.
When he calls back, he identifies himself as Torin. We suspect he is an orc. He offers to buy the commlink from us within a couple of hours. He says it has a lot of information that could take down some high and mighties. Hollywood tells him that we will call him in three hours to arrange a place to meet up. He warns that anybody we talked to about the commlink’s content is at risk. So we contact Hawkeye and Ajay to make sure they stay on the downlow for the meantime.