(no subject)

[dragonoflife]

DM: Because of the lack of a Shadowrun sheet, I’m going to use an Exalted sheet.
Convoy: THAT’s not going to end in tears.

The DM finally finds a sheet, though no one is quite sure why he wanted one to begin with. Salvo, realizing he doesn’t have the proper skill for his arm spur, hastily replaces something else with it. The group agrees that going to a Super Mario Bros. Movie Con would be awesome just for the experience. The DM complains of having no dice, and starts rolling pencils and markers instead.

Salvo: Have a rare d8. The rarest die.
DM: Oh man, you guys are super-screwed. On an 8, that’s automatically a 50. It’s 50 dice worth of sixes.
Salvo: What’s it called? Cyberware…
Convoy: Cyber-implant Combat. Defaults to Strength.
Salvo: That’s good, I have a 10 Strength.
Convoy: How’d you get that much strength? From muscles?
Zero: From muscles! That’s how he got that strength! From muscles! Oh god!
DM: Yes, Convoy.
Salvo: One, being a dwarf, two with muscles augmentation in my bioware.
Zero: I think he’s just fishing for Karma.
Convoy: Goodbye Etiquette!
DM: We pick up just after you turned in the Tesseract. To Will. Also known as…

A long pause, as no one is either willing or able to supply the necessary pop-culture reference.

Convoy: Kurt Burton.
DM: He’s not making an appearance in this! And you’re driving back with your haul. Where do you sit in the car when you’re driving, in the front?
Convoy: In the front. That’s where the seat belts are.

Convoy rolls a passive Sensor test, while Salvo rolls an Intelligence test for perception. Though his Sensor range is something like 30 km, both of them only notice it at around 2km thanks to ECM. It’s a truck on an intercept course.

Zero: Is this going to turn into the chase from Terminator 2?
Convoy: Kick open the back door for a moment.
Salvo: Except I’ve got a rocket launcher.
Convoy: I’m going to launch my mini-blimp. I’m putting my car on autopilot for the moment so I can take active control of that, because this thing has much fucking better sensors!
Zero: (giggling) That’s your signature move. Maybe I should just jump on the blimp. “I’m outta here, guys!”
Salvo: I don’t think it can hold you.
DM: By the way, all his mini-blimps are shaped like the Turtles blimp.

Convoy immediately rolls a terrible Sensor test and gets nothing on it, except that it’s accelerating right for them.

Convoy: Not if I have anything to say about it! Initiative time?
DM: Yes.
Salvo: It’ll T-bone us?
DM: That’s what it’s attempting to do.
Salvo: Okay. Stop. We’ll wait for it to come, blow it out of the road, and move on!
Convoy: I’d rather just escape it.
Salvo: Okay… Well, I open the side door and get the rocket launcher ready. “Just give the word, brother!” I load it up with… I think I have armor-piercing… Yes! Anti-vehicle rockets!
DM: (checking the charts on the DM screen) Oh no, you guys have been struck… by a Birthright event!

The group plunges deep into the needlessly-complicated Shadowrun vehicle combat rules, as Convoy and the DM hash their maneuver ratings and open tests and all sorts of stuff.

Salvo: How many meters out is he?
DM: 1350.
Indigo: Yeah, he’s too far out for me, I don’t have anything that can hit him.
Salvo: He’s in the extreme distance of the rocket launcher, though!
DM: End it early. They’ll never hear the ice cream music.
Convoy: The stealth ice cream truck is out to get us, that’s wonderful.
DM: That’d be an awesome Shadowrun campaign…

Salvo and Convoy reminisce about an old, old game Convoy had run, in which a mage and a rigger competed with several other teams in a death rally.

Salvo: We won ‘cuz we skidded across the finish line on one wheel.
Convoy: And by ‘one wheel’, I mean they were lying on top of the wheel, which was flat on the ground as they skidded. It was also the wheel of a tricycle.
Salvo: Yeah, pretty good combat in that one. I mounted my tricycle…
Convoy: And fired your assault cannon to smash through a wall spell. They did! Don’t know how they lived…

Convoy, almost incapable of getting a target number below 2, metaphorically floors it and the van jumps to 110 mpt. As everyone else holds their action, the truck jumps up to 100. Zero’s turn comes up, but he is extremely distracted by ominous music from his phone.

DM: …He’s back there doing evil experiments?!
Zero: Yes, the brooms have learned to carry the water EXACTLY how I wanted.

The DM grumbles that the PCs had successfully noticed the truck before it jumped right up on them. Due to confusing standard Shadowrun mpt numbers as mps, leading them to believe they’re clocking in at somewhere around 300kph. They soon find the actual provided calculations in the book and find it to be much more sane.

Convoy: We can outrun it.
DM: They realize that. You watch as he begins to swerve off and go in a completely different direction.
Convoy: He’s going to head us off at the pass!
Salvo: Ah-CHOO! (miming the accidental launching of a rocket) “Whoops.”
Convoy: I’m gonna keep my blimp tracking it.
Salvo: (farting noise which is meant to be the blimp engine)
Convoy: Meanwhile, I’m gonna find a place to go to ground.
DM: … To drown?
Convoy: GO TO GROUND! Not to drown! You moron!
DM: That’s what I heard you say!
Zero: He’s going to hobble his van.

The truck retreats outside the city. Salvo sadly unloads his rocket launcher. Irritated at his failure, the DM attempts to attack them with Bebop and Rocksteady in a mole machine.

DM: I have to look up to see if they have underground vehicles—
Convoy: (pained and outraged) No!
DM: Oh, they don’t have it?
Convoy: No! That would be nonsense!
DM: Oh great, I can make one!
Convoy: (rises from his seat)\
DM: I’m just playing, I’m playing, I’m playing!

The group debates whether or not to return to base. Zero demands they separate the saucer section.

Convoy: Fine, I pop the box part of the van, the van drives off, leaving everyone behind…

The group elects to blow town for a few days! …but they have no idea where to go. The DM subtly hints that MAYBE THEY SHOULD TRY A CONTACT. Salvo’s crooked cop friend tips him off to an abandoned chemical factory.

Zero: Oh god. You ARE going to turn this into straight Robocop, aren’t you.
DM: No!
Convoy: Well, that sounds dangerous all over, I’m not so sure about that.
Salvo: “You got someplace that isn’t quite so open?”
Convoy: Not full of noxious chemical vats that are just sitting there open, that have been sitting around since the chemical factory closed? For years, despite environmental and legal regulations?
Salvo: One of us can become the Joker!
Convoy: Not it!
DM: “Actually, there’s another place out there, not many people go out there any more—“
Convoy: The abandoned femical chactory.
Salvo: I actually like that one. I don’t know why.
DM: “The old abandoned Twinkie factory.”

Out in the abandoned slums (the DM may or may not be thinking of the Barrens) there’s a little hideout they can get into. They head in that direction as Convoy puts in a call to his mechanic to get some shop time.

Convoy: “Hey, it’s me.”
DM: “Yeah, whaddya want.” He’s still a little annoyed about the last time you called in the middle of the fucking night.
Convoy: That was NOT my fault.
Zero: How long will it take your blimp to get back here?
Convoy: I recovered it after the truck pulled off.
Zero: You what? Blah.
Convoy: It can just hover forever, I’m pretty sure it has solar cells.
Salvo: The problem is we already closed the back doors, it’s just flying outside the back.
Zero: Does it have armor?
Convoy: The blimp? No, I don’t think so.
Zero: So it’s not a lead zeppelin.
DM: Are you guys staying awake or are you taking a nap? It is a couple hours’ drive.
Convoy: I’m staying awake, I enjoy driving.
DM: But you’re not driving!
Convoy: I started driving once I stopped the phone call! Not that I necessarily need to, the Autonav on this thing is as good as you can get outside the military.
DM: This area of the city is a large section of slumtown.
Salvo: Quick, make it look like it has rust spots on it.
Convoy: The van now reads “Don Corleone’s ‘We Break-a You Kneecaps’ Innocent Truck’.

The building is in pretty terrible shape, but weirdly has a holographically-camoflauged entrance behind a virtual wall. This weirds out some of the group.

Convoy: “That’s interesting. Who did you say lived here again?’
Salvo: “You remember John Mackinroy? A cop who’s not quite on the up-and-up?”
Convoy: They’re ALL not on the up-and-up!
DM: One of the contacts he hasn’t made you fully aware of is a guy in one of the high-tech industries, and one of the things this guy’s gotten ahold of is some very good… um… same thing that covers your car.
Zero: So this building can go very fast if we need to get away…
Convoy: I don’t HAVE skill in Drive Building!
DM: No one does.
Convoy: I’ll have to default to Reaction.
Salvo: Foundations? Where we’re going we don’t NEED foundations.
Convoy: So call me crazy but I think you guys might want to do a sweep of the secure area to make sure there’s no unpleasant surprises.
Salvo: All right, does it look like there are a lot of bums on the street, just kind of staring at us?
Convoy: We went through a solid wall, dude.
Salvo: Oh, we’re inside now.
Convoy: Yeah, we’re in Platform 9 ¾.
DM: For the most part you turned down another blind alley, you came up the main road, it was crowded bumtown over here, then it got really empty and deserted and you turned a blind alley outside of their view, then another one, then you made one last turn and hit the wall. Your sensors were like, “It’s all clear, go on through!” then you turned and just see a wall! You probably tried to hit the brakes and failed, ‘cuz you’re not going to reach it in time—
Convoy: Dude, what do you mean I FAILED TO HIT THE BRAKES?! All I do is –
DM: You hit the brakes but it didn’t do any good, even if you were going five meters per second, you still would’ve passed right through it.
Salvo: “I think the front of your bumper’s in the wall.”
Convoy: “The bumper disagrees, believe it or not. All right, yes, let’s do a little security sweep of that secured area.”
Salvo: “Right!” (miming strapping on his minigun, then making a noise to indicate the barrels spinning up)
Convoy: (robotic voice) “Steel Lynx online.” Of course, it doesn’t have speakers so I actually have to say that out the corner of my mouth…
DM: He does all the talking for all his vehicles out of the corner of his mouth.

For all their planning, the safehouse is actually safe. The group relaxes as Zero looks for a dataport, and Convoy forgets everyone’s names.

Salvo: “He’s trying to replace me with his drones!”
DM: What’re you talking about? He’s been slowly replacing you with cybernetic parts.
Convoy: “By the way, guess what I can do!” (miming plugging a cord into Salvo, then himself) Rig!
DM: “No brother, nooooo!”
Convoy: “You’re dancing to MY tune now!”
Salvo: Damn wired reflexes!
Convoy: You fool, you shouldn’t have put your skull on a hinge! I’ll just install this rigger adaptation gear!
Salvo: “Ow ow ow ow!”
Convoy: “Oh stop that. You can’t feel that, your brain has no nerve ending for pain!”
Salvo: “You’re squishing my skull out!”
Convoy: “You don’t need it! Get it cybernetically replaced, you’ve got a point left!”
Salvo: Over one and a half.
Convoy: (pauses, then mimes cramming even more stuff in Salvo’s head.)

The building is empty of danger and trouble. It has all the comforts: beds, a dataport, nonperishable goods… Zero jacks in, only to find that Haxis has sent him a furious message on his dummy email address about the fake con.

DM: He does mention the con was very fun, but losing his job over this fake con was not part of the plan.
Zero: Well, in this economy…
DM: This economy, shut up!
Zero: 99%! We’re all in the same boat, Bulk. I’ll put it in Mark As Read. Might be fun to peruse later.

Information about the run has gone viral, but the failed shadowrunning team is getting all the attention, to their delight. Also, the surprise programming conference gets a lot of good press and will become a recurring event!

Zero: Now I’m kind of pissed that I didn’t go.
Convoy: You didn’t get an invite. I got an invite!
DM: I was hoping you’d fail that, like, get convinced that it was real! ‘Cuz he didn’t tell you that’s what he was planning to do! That would’ve been hilarious

Zero continues to scan the news and discovers that the owner of the vehicle Salvo stole has also been arrested, since there was no proof of it being stolen.

Zero: It’s another, like… They’re going to become the Revengencers, they’re all gonna get together, all the people whose lives we’ve ruined. Rex Ruthor… and the Car Owner…
DM: Now I’m tempted to have all these regular citizens who happen to have names of villains from other TV series. “Lexington Luthor.”

The DM offers them the option of waiting, or taking a small job. They opt for waiting until the heat has completely died off, and break out Hungry Hungry Hippos (which Convoy promptly rigs), then Trouble (and Convoy promptly rigs the Pop-O-Matic Bubble).

DM: There’s only one game in this place: the old school [Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em R]obots!
Convoy: I’M RIGGING IT!
Indigo: That’s Convoy’s new battle cry.
Convoy: Now hold on while I rig this vending machine.
Salvo: It launches snacks at people. Thunk – “Ow! Damn you Zagnut!”

Two days pass uneventfully… but the DM demands to know which of them is ‘going first’ to resolve their actions. Convoy volunteers, and the DM describes him going to his mechanic’s shop.

DM: Knocking on the door to the garage, it opens up, but oddly enough you don’t see your buddy. The lights are on, seems dimly quiet.
Convoy: (snaps his fingers to indicate the use of his headware phone) Ring ring, ring ring… Ring ring, ring ring…
DM: You hear the ring twice, once in your head and once on the outside. Nothing. “This is the Chop Shop, the number one chop shop in the metropolitan area. I’m not at the phone right now. Obviously, because I didn’t pick it up. Dumbass. Anyways., leave a message, I might answer it back, I might give a shit, who knows. Bye.”
Convoy: I don’t like this at all.
Salvo: He’s probably just on the toilet.
Convoy: So it opened up… look inside.
DM: You do remember the fact that he doesn’t necessarily use automatic doors that open on knocking.

Convoy surveys the garage both with low-light and thermographic vision. He spots a rat. Someone concludes via smartphone audio that the problem is too many toasters.

Convoy: Hey Salvo, ring ring! Ring ring!
Salvo: “Ehhhhhhhhhhhello?”
Convoy: “I got some problems here down at the ol’ mechanical shop.”
Salvo: “What’s wrong?”
Convoy: “Aside from a missing mechanic? I’m gonna poke in, but if I don’t report back I’ve been captured or killed.”
Salvo: “I’m on my way.”
Convoy: “Oh. I’ll wait for you then.”
DM: As you turn off your cell phone…
Convoy: I like THIS plan better, now that I think about it.
DM: You begin to proceed out of your domicile. You live in an apartment complex, right?
Salvo: Yes.
DM: You head out your room and your apartment’s always been pretty crowded, even at this time of night in this area, there should still be a lot of commotion. But you notice it’s almost deadly silent. Even as late as it is, it’s not that late for your area. It usually doesn’t get this silent till around two or three in the morning. Usually you hear some rambunctious kids on the floor below you playing some kind of weird game. But not even they are making noise.
Convoy: One of them’s yelling right now, something about, “DOUCHEBAGS!”
Salvo: All right… I got the Ares gun there… shotgun in my coat…
Convoy: Vindicator…
DM: Let me check the floor’s durability, all this weight in one spot…
Salvo: I call Convoy back. Ring ring!
Convoy: “Yello?”
Salvo: “I’m getting the same weird vibe at the apartment, so let’s hope this goes well.”
Convoy: (a pause) Ring ring. Ring ring.
Zero: Ring ring?
Salvo: Bananaphone.
Zero: I was waiting for that. “Zero.”
Convoy: “Hey, you heard anything weird about anything going on tonight? ‘Cuz… weird stuff’s happening, man.”
Zero: Have I?
DM: For the most part your area, like outside you still hear some commotion, but your building is also surprisingly quiet.
Convoy: Ring ring, ring ring!
DM: A little quieter than normal, but nothing you’re not used to, so you’re not entirely too suspicious of it,
Indigo: “Indigo.”
Convoy: “Hey Indigo, is it ominously quiet by you?”
Indigo: I don’t know, IS IT?
Zero: Is it one of those screens, where we’re all in a section of the screen?
Convoy: And you’re all in my head.
DM: It is kind of, but for your area, it’s not very suspicious, but give me an Intelligence roll.
Zero: I still don’t know what this is about, so I’m wondering why I’m still on the line…
Indigo: I got two successes.
DM: As you’re talking on the phone you notice a small little dot has appeared on your chest.
Indigo: I get down.
DM: Give me a Quickness. While this is going on, he’s on the phone, wondering what’s happening…
Salvo: I’m still on the line.
DM: Zero, give me an Intelligence check.
Salvo: As soon as I hear the shot fire, I’m booking it to my car.
Convoy: I’m diving in my van.
Salvo: AS SOON as that shot is heard. I may be a dwarf, but damn, I am a quick-ass little dwarf.
Convoy: The lesson is, never use a laser sight when a smartlink or imaging scope would do.
DM: These are not the brightest of assassins.
Indigo: I got 6.
DM: Deftly diving and dodging out of the way, a loud shot is heard through all your headsets.
Zero: Three.
DM: Just over the shot, you also hear something just vaguely off in the background. “Tink. Tink. Tink. Tink,” like a very faint ticking.
Zero: Like… in my place.
DM: You can hear it. It’s below your feet.
Zero: (making a shoving motion as if pushing off from a desk) Heeeeeeeeeey!
Convoy: You push yourself backwards in your chair. Your back hits the ground painfully. What were you thinking?!
Salvo: He’s probably got wheels on that thing.
Zero: The bottom of the chair will protect me from the blast!
DM: What is your chair MADE of?!
Salvo: Lead.
DM: Deuterium or something?!
Convoy: You ride your chair down the stairs to safety!

Zero makes it out of his apartment just in time for it to detonate behind him. Convoy finishes for Karma for his timely call which saved Zero’s life! Convoy dives into the van, just as three people come out of the garage! Initiative is rolled!

Salvo: “All right… who blew up? Zero? Did you blow up? Indigo? WHY IS NO ONE SPEAKING?!”
Indigo: “Too! Busy! Running!”
Zero: Because my initiative turn hasn’t come up.

Indigo acts first, and attempts to spy her sniper by peeking out the window. With a good roll, she succeeds! The thoroughly American troupe fails to picture things in terms of meters, but she gets three successes on her shot. His dodge reduces the damage to merely Light.

DM: And he goes again… (rolling) WOW.
Convoy: Indigo’s dead?
DM: No, I would’ve been like… (gasping) No, he botched like crazy.

One of the three guys facing Convoy fires at his van! …flattening ammo off his hardened vehicle armor, as Convoy takes the hell off.

DM: Can you go zero to 120 in no seconds flat?!
Zero: No! He drives the Porkchop Express, there’s no way he’s getting up to that speed.
Convoy: Let’s. Find. Out. (rolling) The answer is yes, I could go zero to 110 in one acceleration actions.
DM: Mental foot slamming on pedal! Did you manage to pull it off?
Convoy: 110, dude, I seriously got 11 successes. I dumped 6 dice from my Control Pool in.

The second guy steps up with a larger, nastier weapon! The DM hurriedly looks up the rules…

Convoy: Come on missing! If this thing gets damaged, I can’t afford to repair it.
Salvo: I can help you out with that at least.
Zero: Yeah, but he doesn’t even remember your name.
Salvo: “Fine, I’ll lend you the money… if you remember my name, brother. My real name.”
Convoy: “Okay….. uh…. Alvso?”
Salvo: (weary sigh)

The next guy shows up packing an HMG, but with Convoy’s early escape he didn’t have the thing mounted properly and the ludicrous recoil of five bullets from a heavy weapon at long range sends his bullet wildly off.

DM: He managed to catch himself and stop from falling over entirely, but he just tore up the roof of the garage.
Convoy: I am taking NO responsibility for that.
DM: The guy next to him, however.
Convoy: (mimes a missile launch, then his van exploding, then the death music from Metal Gear)
Salvo: “Convoy? Convoy?! CONVOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!”

But the next guy only has a heavy pistol with flechette ammo, which is even MORE useless than normal ammo against vehicle armor. The DM is angered!

DM: See, I got all the great weapons for dealing with you when you’re NOT IN YOUR CAR!

Salvo charges out his stairs, only to hear someone else up on the stairs above him!

Salvo: I’m gonna turn around and go back upstairs. I’m not happy. As far as I know, all my teammates are dead! No one’s saying anything on the fucking phone!
Convoy: Over the radio you hear, “Seriously? A flechette pistol?”
DM: “I wasn’t expecting you to be in your car!”
Salvo: “How did I do that?”
Convoy: Apparently he has experimental prototype vocal augmentors.
DM: You turn around and make your way back up. Do you run at full speed up the stairs?
Salvo: I’m running up… I unleash my spurs. Snkt.
DM: I wish they’d call it ‘wrist blades’ or something. Whenever you keep saying ‘spurs’ I keep thinking Salvo’s dropping these blades out of the bottom of his feet. But now we’re going over to Zero’s building! He’s getting up! And he peers down the hallway, he hears a curse, and someone’s running your way!
Convoy: The landlady!
Salvo: “Where’s my rent?! Where’s my rent?!”
Zero: “Where’s my apartment? No apartment, no rent!”

The figure fires on Zero but his shots miss, and the decker tears off down the stairs. Indigo runs for the stairs in her own apartment. Convoy is halfway down the street by now!

Convoy: I find a side street and turn the hell down it to break their line of sight!
DM: Continuing to drive backwards with great skill—
Convoy: Oh yeah, then I’ll turn around. (pause) Not that I can’t drive backwards as easily as a person run backwards, but still.
DM: Do you need to make a roll for that turn?
Convoy: Only if you make me.
DM: No, you’ve already made your maneuver check, it’s nothing too difficult for you to do.
Convoy: I slam on the brakes so it flips into the air, ends up facing the other way, then keep driving again. (to Salvo) Oh bad news on your heavy machine gun in the back, there.
Salvo: Wait, wait, what?
DM: You hear on the phone, “Oh man, I hope my brother didn’t like that heavy machine gun.” “What?”
Salvo: “Ah! Gotta go, Salvo! I better disconnect this call—“ “OH NO YOU DON’T YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
Convoy: “I’m being fired on—“ “ME TOO, THAT AIN’T STOPPIN’ ME!”

That same truck from before picks up Convoy’s attackers, then roars after the rigger. Salvo hammers his foe with a Serious spur blow, but a quick check of the rules knocks it down to Moderate.

Zero: He realizes suddenly, “Hey, I’m going to make it!”
Salvo: “No you’re not, sir.”
Convoy: And remember the +1 from bless.

The foe tries to stab Salvo with a bayonet, but Salvo easily makes the counterattack roll and hammers him for another Moderate wound. The audio software abruptly crashes, but THIS version of Audacity recovers lost audio automatically, saving me a LOT of grief. Convoy cheerfully rolls to lose his pursuit and succeeds ludicrously. Salvo clobbers his foe to death, while Indigo loses her foe in the shadows. Salvo offers to pick Indigo up in his own car.

Salvo: It’s just a little runabout.
Zero: He could rig it for you.
Salvo: I don’t WANT it rigged. This is my escape from his rigging! AAAAAAH!

Convoy’s superior rolls make him virtually impossible to catch, requiring a roll of 6, 6, then 4 to succeed. Salvo tosses the body in a dumpster… then mimes killing a bum inside it.

Salvo: No witnesses. Oh wait! One of my contacts is a bum! Uh-oh.

Salvo’s car doesn’t blow up, despite the DM’s hinting.

DM: You hear an enormous explosion over the intercom, and then his line gets cut.
Convoy: “Wow, he must’ve gotten so excited he decided he needed to wank.”
Salvo: (grunting and struggling) BRB!
Convoy: “I knew he shouldn’t have had THAT cybernetically weaponized.”
Salvo: Cyber-Rick and his cyber-dick.
Convoy: And his balls were also grenades.
Zero: Awwwwww.
Salvo: He had the cyber-penis.
Convoy: It was a Cyber-squirt, remember?
Salvo: Yeah.
Convoy: (noticing Zero) It wasn’t us! We’re just repeating it! Don’t give us that look of disgust!
Zero: It wasn’t disgust, it was more like… (exasperated sigh)
Salvo: We were a lot younger in those days, and far more juveline.

Salvo reaches Indigo just in time to (deliberately) run over the sniper chasing her, though he only inflicts Light damage on the man. Angrily, the man fires his sniper rifle into Salvo’s car… for 7M damage staged up to Serious.

Convoy: The sniper bullet just basically went straight into your engine and fucked some shit up, is what it amounts to.
DM: It hit the engine block!
Convoy: Half your cylinders are out.
DM: His six-cylinder car has gone to like a two. How is it still moving?!
Convoy: With Serious damage it’s not moving to well.
Salvo: No. It’s not. And probably smoking. Anyway, this fucker’s going down, now.

The truck driver comes the closest he ever will to TN 16 with a 14, and Salvo decides it’s safe to drive away at this point. Zero one-shots his foe, then casually starts disassembling his sniper rifle.

Indigo: I forget what Missile Mastery does…
Convoy: You can throw any weapon, it gives you a Power of your Strength and a Damage code of Light.
Salvo: Manhole cover! Manhole cover!

Indigo manages to nail the guy for Moderate damage with a shuriken, making him unhappy, but he’s still up…

DM: Salvo. This guy’s still alive and he just fucked up your car.
Salvo: Kick the door open. Spurs are out.
Zero: At least you still have a place to live….

Salvo pimp-slaps him with spurs for ludicrous damage – 7D in fact.

DM: You uppercut him Mortal Kombat-style, taking his head clean off, as the blade pierces his chin, ripping his head clean off, taking part of his skeleton with it. You’re almost amazed at what just happened, because even who’s not medically trained understands that this probably shouldn’t happen.
Indigo: Ew. I’m gonna take my shuriken back though.
Convoy: Priorities!
Salvo: I’m gonna push this car over to the alley… “Convoy, I got a job for ya.”
Convoy: “What’s up?”
Salvo: “My car’s dead. Well, it’s not DEAD dead.”
Convoy: “I told you if you kept buying those cheap ones… I could give you a nice customized one, work up the chassis real nice, but no, you gotta buy some piece of crap that died on you the moment you tried to wheel it out of the driveway! Is it not starting?”
Salvo: “Oh no, it starts.”
Convoy: “Out of gas?”
Salvo: “No. It’s got a bullet through its block.”
Convoy: “Oh well, there’s your problem, building a car that allows bullets to get through.”
DM: No no no, you should be like, “I have twenty toasters hooked up to it…”
Salvo: I’ll pop one of the tires to make it less likely to be stolen…

Convoy decides to stop in an alley to deploy a drone.

Salvo: “Look! There he is!” “Damn it! Damn you blimp!”
Convoy: No, I’m not sending out my blimp, I’m sending out my hover vehicle.
DM: They have one guy whose sole purpose is to find blimps. He’s blind to everything but blimps.
Convoy: I send out my Strato-9.
Indigo: You’re sending them the Strat-O-Nine-Tails?

Shockingly, the Signature on the truck is sky-high, and Convoy’s drone is unable to pick it up. He heads to pick up the others.

Convoy: “It was that truck again.”
Salvo: “Well, unless you know some faces to it…”
DM: “I have a head right here!”
Convoy: “Next time you see it you have my permission to wipe it off the map.”

Convoy calls his mechanic back, and endures a rant from said mechanic about being tied up by the goons, and potentially being used as a hostage.

Convoy: “Oh get this, get this, they tried to use flechette ammunition on my truck!”
DM: “Oh yeah, that’s pretty fucking funny, bro, it’s just a life a life-or-death situation, THIS ISN’T FUCKING FUNNY ANY MORE!”
Convoy: “It WAS pretty funny, you have to admit. I wiped it off with the windshield wipers! Ah ha ha ha! Aaaah… how are you?”
DM: “I’m doing not very good right now!”
Convoy: “I don’t know what that’s about. Hey, if I tell you about the truck they’ve got, maybe you could give me some information on it.”
DM: “That black thing? Christ, you should have seen it! That’s about the only good thing out of this whole thing! I got to see that thing!”
Convoy: “What WAS it?! All I know it’s a custom model built for stealth—“
DM: “That’s five or six million dollars on wheels!”
Convoy: “…one sec.” (turning to Salvo) “WE ARE CAPTURING IT! NO DESTROYING!”
Salvo: “I promise nothing!”
Convoy: That’s it, I’m setting all your missiles to Stun.
DM: “Yeah, the skin on that truck had to be the most expensive part of it. Even the sensors inside the shop didn’t see that truck. As far as the security system is concerned, there WAS no truck!”
Salvo: (who has been openly salivating, Homer Simpson-style, the entire time) …oh god, the image link is on, isn’t it!
DM: You begin to dream, but sadly the link to the vehicle was messed up and is now a link to your subconscious! You dream of chasing after the car, your van swerves out of control.
Salvo: (mimes yanking his jack out)
DM: You enter the dream world… Your brother’s dark truth: He imagines you dead.
Convoy: (a quiet whisper) “We’ve got to get that truck…”
Salvo: “We’ll see.”
Convoy: “I must have it…”
Salvo: “We’ll see. I’d rather it be dead than us dead.”
DM: “You there? Convoy! CONVOY!”
Convoy: “What? What?”
DM: “You’ve been silent for like five minutes, I’ve been screaming your name!”
Convoy: “I’m sorry, that whole five or six million nuyen made the giant nuyen symbols light up in my eyes.”

The mechanic-buddy clues Convoy in to a new hiding spot, and they head out to make some repairs and tinkering. Salvo checks the ID in the wallet he looted off his stairwell assailant, but it proves to be a fake ID. Zero pops the ID card through a scanner to see if there’s any encrypted data.

DM: Scanning the new ways and byways, you find out that this particular mercenary was working for an organization known… to supply mercenaries…
Convoy: To people looking for mercenaries.
DM: And chefs, oddly enough, mercenaries and chefs.
Convoy: So this guy can COOK…
Zero: Cheltenbourne Enterprises.
DM: Yeah, this guy had levels in cooking. Actually, he was a better cook than he was a mercenary. That’s why these guys sucked so hard.
Convoy: Oh great, the DM is not pleased with his NPCs’ performance, we are in such big fucking trouble the next game we run of this. We can’t run this for a few months until he’s cooled down a bit.

Further information reveals this is a revenge hit for their run on Aztechnology. The group starts planning a quick-and-dirty decking run with protection for Zero should he be traced… along with a lot of other stuff.

DM: I’m not gonna give you what you’re expecting. No one’s gonna walk in and do a slow-clap… Not this time.
Convoy: I gave my drones’ standing orders to fire on anyone who slow-claps, just so you know.
DM: One day I’m gonna bring that up, you’re gonna mimic me and the drones turn on and fire on you!
Convoy: It’s how I’d want to go.
DM: That’d be hilarious, late in the game you have like ten drones out. “You can’t beat me…” (slow clapping) “Noooooooooooo!” And you’re just a smear on the ground.
Convoy: “He died like he lived: with drones involved.”
DM: “The drones are still there now, killing anyone who slow-claps.”
Convoy: (old pirate voice) “This be a story of the legend of the slow-clap hating drones.”
DM: They roam around looking for people who slow-clap.
Convoy: “They be trapped on an island now, but once they were the terror of Seattle!” “Who’s telling this story?!”
DM: “I’m a 2000-year-old pirate.” His different myriad of pirate diseases evolved into immorality.
Convoy: “Who knew if ye mix scury, syphilis, and gonorrhea in that particular combination…”
DM: “It makes immortality. I’ve been sailin’ the seven seas since before ye’r grandfather’s father’s grandfather’s…”
Convoy: “Aye, unfortunately me teeth and me gonads have all melted away from the effects of me myriad diseases.”
DM: “I have upgraded my teeth over the years to Dikoted cyber-teeth…”

Zero’s quick work fingers an elite programmer… who doesn’t like to be pranked. This programmer, Xerxes, tracked Zero down and leaked the information to the Azzies. They’re uncomfortable with the level of skill involved, though, and just add the guy to their list. The DM vows to put the truck out in the open, attached to an old-fashioned cage-on-a-string trap.

Convoy: Can I – can I keep my drones in Pokeballs?
DM: Go for it.
Salvo: Giant Pokeballs.
Convoy: Well they do break down, Salvo!
Salvo: True… that small.
DM: No, not that small. I’m not letting you walk into a building with every Pokemon you have.

Zero gets unfairly blamed for his apartment blowing up by his landlady.

Zero: “Why would I blow up my own apartment?”
DM: “I don’t know! Why would you be a dirty-ass hacker?!”
Zero: “Hacker?”
DM: “I don’t know, you do them… computer things in the Matrix!” She’s like… ninety?
Zero: “That’s for porn, that’s not for hacking. No amount of porn ever caused an apartment to blow up.”
DM: That was the real terror of the Matrix Crash of 2029, the porn crash shortly thereafter.
Convoy: I’m gonna tell my buddy about Xerxes, that he was responsible, just so he has a name to put an anger to… that isn’t me.

Salvo’s car is so damaged he just decides to buy a new one. They grab a quick run on an illegal datajack and set up a perimeter to defend Zero as he moves in to wipe their information off the Azzie database. The run gets off to a quick start with Zero waltzing into their servers, discovering they have addresses for everyone but Convoy (who got his mechanic targeted instead).

Zero: I’m going to replace our identities in their database with, uh…. Members of the Backstreet Boys, their information.
Convoy: This is less subtle than I had hoped for from you…

Abruptly – very abruptly – they end up in a meeting with their Johnson, who cheerfully notes what a busy week they’ve had.

DM: “Oh, you all would prefer me to call you… the Backstreet Boys?”
Salvo: “Who the fuck’s calling us that?”
DM: You look as Zero raises his hand…
Indigo: “Let’s just say that backstreet’s back.”
Zero: “All right?”

Their next mission is to break a prisoner out of a high-security, underground prison. They expect it to be Haxis, somehow, to the DM’s irritation.

DM: He didn’t managed to get himself in a high-max prison a WEEK after the event!
Zero: He broke down after losing his job and went on a shooting spree.
Convoy: He broke down, went on a shooting spree, and got convicted in a Phoenix Wright case where no matter what happens, unless someone else is absolutely proven to have done it, he’s guilty.
Salvo: Stupid judge. Why does he still have a job? “Oh, a bento case! Thank you! Not guilty!”

The prisoner is there on the behest of Aztechnology, and the players get a cynical laugh against opposing them again.

DM: “As much as we don’t like sending the same group after the same company, we don’t have much choice in our book. But if you play your cards right and work with us, we can take care of your image with them… permanently.”
Convoy: (cracks up at the phrasing and is useless for a few minutes)

The group quickly discusses it, and with 200,000 up front and an equal on success, they find themselves pretty readily swayed. Convoy points out that several of them will probably be dead.

Zero: More for survivors.
Convoy: He makes a good point. In fact! (mimes blowing up the others)
Salvo: AFTER he does his job.
Convoy: Oh. Oh. Oh god. I did it again, didn’t I.

As the adventure wraps up, the DM awards Karma and whatever loot they took off their assailants. They close the game trying to get a helicopter….