Shadowrun Campaign Update
When we left our party, they had found a nearly abandoned fishing sailboat, the Triton. Astral scans of the boat showed it to be the site of several murders, as did the blood stains on the boat. No bodies were found, though. In one of the cargo holds, they found one survivor: Nathan. He was locked in, although the hold also had a slide bolt lock on the inside as well. Nathan sports a Sioux Wildcats tat on his left arm, and tells them the following...
"We were pulling in our nets. We'd caught a Torpedo Shark in one of the nets, and we were trying to free it, when Jenkins, the new guy, starting arguing with the Captain, and then he shoved him. Crew members moved to intervene, and Jenkins killed two of them with his bare hands before he was subdued. They locked him up, but he got loose somehow in the night, and mass carnage commenced. My buddy Josh and I were the last ones left, and we managed to kill Jenkins, when suddenly Josh started screaming, 'Get away from me!' and shoved me into the hold. That was a day or two ago..."
The Captain claimed the ship and sent some crew members to begin patching the hull, which had been damaged. John Smith, Magical Genius (the human mage) urged the Captain not to bring Nathan on board, but to keep him under watch on the other boat. The Captain agreed. John Smith returned to his night watch duties, on the new boat, while Shatterdancer (the elven npc decker/techguy), Boom Boom (female troll street sam), and Worgen (elven adept) went back to sleep.
Hours later, the other boat is almost patched, when one of the Orks on watch on the main ship notices the other Ork watchman is dead. He's been cut up. No one heard a thing. The Captain disperses the crew to other duties while the party inspects the body. Astral and physical inspections show that Balthasar (the Ork) died terrified and quick. He was slashed up badly, and his Essence, or lifeforce, is almost gone. Not fading slowly, as is typically the case, but almost gone, as if he'd been loaded up with cyberware. But none of the Orks except the Captain and the pilot have any cyberware at all. While the party is inspecting the body, one of the Orks comes up from below decks and informs the Captain that the water supplies have been sabotaged. The Captain and the party race below. The barrels have all been punctured near the bottom. The puncture marks look like they were made by cyber spurs, as there are three of them on each barrel, spaced inches apart, and the punctures are vertical lines. Worse still, to get to the water supplies, an invader would have to board the ship, go down two decks, and go through the crew quarters. Again, no one saw or heard anything. The crew salvages as much water as possible. The party goes to check on Nathan, who is still under guard, locked in the captain's cabin of the Triton. One of the Orks has been on watch the whole time. The party interrogates Nathan further, and checks him for cyber spurs. He doesn't have any. The party leaves Nathan under guard.
An impromptu funeral is held for Balthasar, and the Captain announces that there are two or three large islands nearby. He plans to make for the closest one to look for water as soon as repairs on the other ship are finished. Until further notice, he wants everyone to buddy up. After the meeting, Boom Boom is on watch with Philo (one of the Orks) when she hears splashing over the back of the boat. She quickly looks and sees a splash as something drops below the water. Philo swears he hear it too, and dives over the side. Boom Boom follows. She sees nothing, but Philo taps her shoulder and gestures under the boat. He begins to swim under the bottom, and so does Boom Boom. They come up on the other side. Philo says he thought he saw someone swimming under the boat. They search some more, but find nothing.
Several hours later a large island comes into view, complete with small mountain in the middle (with waterfall) and some trees. The weather is getting nasty as well. As the boat approaches the island it runs into something under water, and begins to take on water. Orks are dispatched over the side to check it out. There are three large stone columns sticking up out of the ground, piercing the ship's hull. Deo, the pilot, curses and shouts that the rocks didn't show up on his scanners. John Smith dives over the side to check out the columns astrally, and determines that they are magical in nature and probably the work of an elemental. The Captain dispatches some of the crew to attempt to unstick and patch the boat, while he and a landing party (including the pcs) go to the island. The weather continues to worsen.
The party lands on the island with no problem, and proceeds to head toward the mountain, looking for water. It's quite a nice island. As a matter of fact, it's really nice. Nice enough that it shouldn't be abandoned. Of course, there's also the fact that there's no animal noise or life to speak of. Astral inspection shows the energies of the plant life to be muted.
Upon reaching the mountain, the party finds a small grotto where the waterfall empties, and fills their water containers. They quickly head back to the beach, board the lifeboats, and return to the ship. The crew has not been able to get the ship off of the columns.
Boom Boom recruits three of the Orks and goes overboard. The ocean floor is only a meter or two from the bottom of the ship, so she braces herself between the ship and the ocean floor, motions for the Orks to do likewise, and pushes with all her might.
(As a sidenote, while it might seem extreme that anyone could push a small ship off of some rock columns impaling said ship, Boom Boom IS a troll. They're far stronger than humans, and Boom Boom is far stronger than most trolls. The Orks are stronger than humans as well. So rather than rule it out, I gave her a fairly high target number (14 on 11 exploding d6) and told her she needed 4 successes. Using her Karma Pool, she managed to get the required number of successes.)
With a screech of twisted metal, the ship rises. As Boom Boom is straightening, she glimpses something swimming quickly toward her in her peripheral vision. She is slashed across the back, giving her a moderate wound. She manages to lock her stance and hold the ship, and gets a look at her attacker. He looks a lot like Nathan, except his tat is on his chest instead of his left arm. One of the Orks, Ariadne, reacts quickly and begins trying to break the columns (narrower near the top) with her crowbar. She does so, and Boom Boom explodes, shoving the ship up and to the right about a foot, getting it away from the columns and dropping it. She turns, drawing her pistol, and fires at her attacker, hitting him for a serious wound.
(Another aside. I looked online, and according to Mythbusters and some other sites, a gun can be fired underwater. If it's a semi-automatic, it can only be fired once before the casing has to be manually ejected. Also, bullets lose power quickly underwater. But I adjusted the power of the gun down, and gave Boom Boom another outrageously high target number due to underwater perception, distortion, etc. She again managed to hit it.)
The attacker swims past Boom Boom, putting Ariadne between them, and attacks Ariadne. She manages to protect herself, but is hurt when she tries to counterattack. Everyone is running low on air, so Boom Boom herds the Orks back up to the surface, just as John Smith and Worgen are diving in, having noticed the blood in the water. The attacker is gone. Boom Boom heads for Nathan's cabin with murder in her eyes. Worgen and John Smith join her. Again, Nathan has not left his cabin. He's dry as a bone. John Smith and Worgen convince Boom Boom not to kill him. Usiris, the Captain's son and a mage apprentice, heals Boom Boom and Ariadne.
The boat is taking on water quickly, and the weather has continued to worsen. The Captain decides to bring everyone on board the Kraken and beach it, as it probably won't survive the storm in its current state. The Triton is left at anchor. They beach the Kraken and head back toward the grotto, looking for shelter.
Rain is coming down hard as they reach the grotto. They find three possible shelter areas: a small twisty tunnel behind the waterfall, an area of very closely clustered trees to the right of the grotto, or a larger tunnel to the left of the grotto, further up the mountain. Astral inspection shows the trees to be bad mojo, while the small twisty cave could be. They head for the larger tunnel, and follow it for 15 m to a large unoccupied cave. They find a pile of clothes, jewelry, watches, wallets, purses, and bones in the corner. They start a fire, resigned to waiting out the storm in the scary cave. The storm worsens, with wind from the tunnel threatening to put out the fire. The party goes to the mouth of the tunnel to view the storm.
There is a large, powerful looking Storm Spirit above the island, causing much of the storm. There is a large Water Elemental on the island, fighting with the Spirit. The Water Elemental is powerful, but less so than the Spirit. It's obvious the Elemental is losing. There is also a winged serpent (a lesser dragon) flying in the storm, throwing himself into the wind, performing aerobatics, and generally having a blast. The party enjoys the show. Finally, the Spirit defeats the Water Elemental, and the storm begins to lessen. As the Storm Spirit is leaving, it slams the dragon with a massive lighting bolt. The dragon drops from the sky, crashing into the island on the other side of the mountain.
The three pcs head around and over the mountain, looking for the fallen dragon, maintaining radio contact with the cave party. About 5 minutes after leaving, they hear sounds of large numbers of people moving in the woods from the area near the grotto, heading away from them. They reach the other side of the mountain and can clearly see where the dragon crashed through the trees, although the dragon is not visible from here. John Smith goes astral. He leaves his body behind and goes to the the crash site. The dragon is lying there, thrashing in pain and anger. It is hurt badly. A very large and potent magic focus lies on the ground nearby. The dragon seems to see Smith, although it doesn't communicate. Smith tells that help is coming, and returns to his body. He and the other two pcs set out for the dragon.
They're nearly there when they spot signs of someone or something having used this same path very recently: large sections of underbrush pushed aside or torn up, grass pressed down that's just starting to rise back up, etc. They hurry forward and reach the clearing. The dragon gasps out (in their heads, cuz that's how dragons talk) "I knew you'd be back" and passes out. The focus is gone. Worgen and Boom Boom search the clearing and assume watch position as Smith begins to attempt to heal the dragon.
Worgen and Boom Boom hear noise while Smith is healing (healing's not instant in Shadowrun, not with a nearly mortally wounded dragon). Boom Boom stays to guard the dragon and the mage. Worgen decides to flip out like a proper ninja and races into the woods, sword drawn. He flies through the trees and leaps into a clearing, getting the drop on three metahumans: a big Troll, a big Ork, and a big Human. They have a grayish cast to their skin and blind white eyes. The Human is carrying a bloody arm. They're Ghouls.
Worgen is fast. Unless I jack up an opponent with huge amounts of superspeed, he'll probably always go first, and get two to three attacks per combat turn. He totally surprised the Ghouls, meaning they cannot react to him in any way, other than resisting damage. He rolls initiative and gets three attacks. The Ghouls never know what hits them. He carves up the Troll, then the Ork, then the Human, all in one turn, before they even get the chance to roll initiative. Flushed with victory, he returns to the party. Smith has just finished healing the dragon, although it is not conscious yet, because it's still suffering from enough stun damage to keep it unconscious. He tells the party about the ghouls. They call the cave party to send some help, as they may have to move the dragon before he's able to move under his own power.