Quick Dirty Bastards: For All The Lovers Out There

SESSION 2 SUMMARY

PART 1: Heard it through the Mescaline

THE QUICK DIRTY BASTARDS ARE DESPERATE FOR FUNDS, and for some reason they mob the most destitute member of the team, Pete November, for a solution to their problems. Damien Tanner is already searching through Pete's piles of figurative and probably-literal crap, under the mistaken belief that this is where shadowrun missions and their associated paychecks come from. Shodan is grilling Pete's ass on her employer, Ben Bernanke's behalf, for him to contribute even more of his practically-nonexistent earnings to the crippling debt the ghost hangs over him.

Peter Marshall prevents a fight breaking out by recalling an event that actually happened, namely, his dealer mentioning a potential job in a phonecall earlier today. Damien flicks Harvestine, his flatmate, a text for her to join them at supplied coordinates, for a job to the tune of 5,000 Nuyen. Each.

The employer is Magus Margery, leader of the mage gang the Crones. Her gang agreed on an alliance with a gang of cyberneticists and dire borgs, the Chromes, and the two groups intend to celebrate with a boxing tournament on Crone turf. The rise of splinter factions which oppose the alliance have raised the possibility of sabotage, and she's hired the Quick Dirty Bastards as guards and investigators to nip any unrest in the bud.

The four Bastards pile into Pete's Rad Van, and head to the school grounds which are the Crones' base of operations. Situated atop a powerful leyline, the Crones' base is a veritable Garden of Eden (by 2075 standards, anyway). Sure, the science lab is a swamp and the ecosystem wouldn't last a second in Seattle's choking atmosphere without the ambient magic to power the spellwork, but it's a nice touch.

Upon arrival, Damien promptly forgets they're supposed to be on guard duty and signs up for the boxing tournament. Some Chrome thugs laugh and tell him to prove he's worth a challenge, to which Damien punches clean through a wall. Bookie the Bookkeeper was apparently sequestered behind there, and is now in no position to run the gambling operations expected at a bout like this. Who will step up to the plate?

Not Pete, because he totally missed that plot hook. He makes up for it by being the only guy actually doing guard duty, as Shodan and Peter decide to head off and investigate a certain Redeker, leader of a splinter Chrome faction.

Harvestine finally checks her messages after a long morning mugging strangers and taking any teeth with cybernetics worth selling on. The 5,000 Nuyen reward proves tempting, and she makes tracks on her moped to the school.


PART 2: The Demolition Man and the Guy with no clue

HARVESTINE ARRIVES TO A TRULY WONDROUS SIGHT: an entire city block, completely overrun by nature! It's beautiful! Her inner wolf howls at the majesty! She promptly forgets she had a job to do, and gets to finding out how she can learn to bring some greenery to other parts of the city. The guards direct her to the science lab, but the auditorium beckons.

Within, Damien is already in his first match against a Dire Borg known as Terminator B. Damien's gone with The Demolition Man, a title Harvestine does not approve of when she's the resident demolitions expert. Her teeth-grinding is interrupted by the sight of Pete getting in amongst what looks to be schoolyard-level bullying of some frail little shrimp. Harvestine can't be sure she doesn't recognise him, but Pete's attempts to intimidate the bullies into leaving are so laughable she's gotta get in on the action. She throws a dude into a wall and tells the rest to find something better to do with their time, then attempts to brain an approaching Damien with her grenade launcher. Damien avoids it, Pete tries to persuade them again with an appeal to empathy along the lines of "how would you like it if someone was treating you this way", which for some ludicrous reason actually gets through to them.

The hapless victim is none other than Guy Peterson (Pharmacy), the formerly cyber-armed former Evocorp intern who Harvestine ran over with a moped. The Quick Dirty Bastards' casual use of his SIN got him in a heap of trouble, got him fired, and left him with nowhere to turn but a life of crime. So far, he's got no idea what he's doing. Damien offers to take him to a Crone healer or somesuch to patch him up. Guy starts making garbled staticky noises in lieu of real words, which was definitely not Pharmacy's microphone dying on the call. The healer diagnoses it as a possession, and orders 1000 ccs of anaesthetic like it's a regular occurrence round these parts.

Harvestine is bored to tears by this display of compassion, so she tries to get a better idea of where useful features of the auditorium are. Like the fusebox! A critical faceplant in an attempted leap of logic misdirects her to the mens' shower room, which has no fusebox and multiple Chrome trolls with various cybernetic enhancements. Harvestine is not entirely disgusted with this development and even finds a guy with a cybernetic rear end. A cybutt. A prosthetic posterior. Harvestine is lost in　thought and/or her reflection in said cybernetic-

"Excuse me, ma'am, but the fusebox isn't in my ass."

but basic social skills get the better of her and she goes looking for alternative cures for her boredom.

Damien wins yet another boxing match against yet another Dire Borg going by the name of Terminator. This one was Terminator A. Dire Borgs apparently suck at creative names. Damien hits the showers, noting that he'll just shower in his chameleon suit seeing as he never takes it off. Unzipping even the collar is said to release a miasma so foul it scars the astral plane, and Harvestine apparently refuses to let him take it off in the apartment either, because of the weapons-grade smell that is unsealed from its cyber-alloy prison. This may or may not be exaggeration for humourous effect, but the smell is definitely bad enough to assault the resident trolls, one of whom fights Damien one-on-one in a "stank fight". This apparently consists of fuming furiously at one another, trying to make your cloud of odor push into and break the other's. Fucked if I know.

At any rate, Damien loses this fight and is KO'd by the Chrome troll's BO. Him and others (including Guy Peterson are sent flying back and will probably be marinated in the smell of troll sweat for weeks to come. Ew.

PART 3: Peter and the wolf

MEANWHILE, IN LESS MALODOROUS HAPPENINGS, Peter and Shodan have hit up Redeker's apartment. The door is locked. The door is dealt a swift but ineffective beating by Shodan, who is mostly deadly because of her weaponry and not her noodly borg-arms. Peter solves this with a fireball spell instead, and the two get to searching. Peter's pretty freaked by the ominous auras enveloping the apartment, most of which are centered around the room at the end of a hallway. Shodan is detectiving the shit out of the entryway, when Peter gets a chestful of shot as he triggers a switch. Zoinks! The appropriate Bastardly response is to immolate+demolish the perp, so Shodan pumps the room full of frag grenades, which miss their mark but fill the air with feathers, courtesy of the king-sized duvet in the bedroom. A rapidly-blacking out Peter tosses a few more fireballs for good measure, which basically ignite the down-choked air and clear it enough for Shodan to finish off the horribly-burnt mage within. All threats eliminated and Peter eventually stabilised, our defective detectives find a crumpled note.

Jinkies! The nefarious Redeker was paid out by an Ominous Corporation to instigate a war between the newly-allied Crones and Chromes. The note offers no further clues, but Peter gains the attention of an astral eye that's been perving about the apartment, but leaves when the mage notices. The two pursue in Pete's Rad Van (without Pete's Rad Permission).

Harvestine, meanwhile, has not found an alternative cure for her boredom. She's kind of done a rubbish job at finding anything full stop, including the Science Lab. Pete catches up with her and asks her to quit slacking on the job. Harvestine retorts that the job sucks and she's more interested in learning how to do plant magic (to further her poorly-thought out goal of reclaiming Seattle "for the trees"), so could Pete just help her find the science lab. She'll even give him her 5,000 Nuyen share of the original job if he does it without being a little shit about it.

Pete is used to supported "friends" ditching him like this, although this is the first one's actually paid him to (temporarily) get out of their life. He leads Harv to the science lab, which is actually more of a science swamp. The door is mostly fungal growth by this stage. It's pretty gross but Harvestine's clapping her hands in delight so whatever. Inside is Ben the Wolf, Harvestine's Mentor Spirit who is a wolf. He's pretty concerned with the goings-on and walks through a wall, wanting Harvestine to follow him. Harvestine utterly misunderstands, wastes five minutes checking to see if the wall is solid, asking Ben aloud if she's also supposed to walk through it, and then asking if she's meant to blow a hole in it and walk through it.

Ben is getting Pretty Sick Of This so he sticks his spectral head through the shroom door instead. Harvestine finally gets the picture and pursues back through the school, eventually crossing paths with Shodan and Peter in Pete's Rad Van. It appears their final destination is the same - the ominous profile of Ominous Showdown Corporation's head office. Harvestine and Ben the wolf pile in and ride the rest of the way to Ominous Showdown Corporation in style.

Fred, Shaggy, Scooby and Shodan (who didn't really fit either of Velma or Daphne in this metaphor) head upstairs, where a single fax machine awaits them. Ben the Wolf is extremely agitated, Peter is transfixed on the floor tiles, and Shodan is relaying their findings to Magus Margery and requesting backup. Harvestine reads the printout on the fax machine. Some douchelord mockingly claims that it's too late, war will break out anew, the leyline shall be theirs, yadda yadda yadda. This all goes way over Harv's magically-uneducated head, until Peter explains that without the leyline all the plants will die, which promptly gets Harvestine's attention. She screams at Ben the Wolf to do something, but he has no idea how because he's just a wolf. Her histrionics are interrupted by either a dude with an SMG or a dwarf carrying a corgi climbing the stairs, depending on how many tabs of red mescaline you popped this morning. The unfortunate miscreant is hit with a flashbang, hit with a fireball, then kicked in the nads twice by Harvestine and Shodan. Shodan takes his SMG, and we sort of forget about him because Peter finally manages to explain what Ben the Wolf knew from the start: There's a whole lot of magical energy coming from the basement.

The trio head to the basement, and some clever endoscope usage by Peter reveals two armed guards right by the door, and a whole bunch of weird culty dudes "ommmmmmmmmm"ing in a circle　on the far side of the room. Harvestine and Shodan prepare grenades, Harv shooting a frag into the circle of chanting dudes and Shodan flashbanging the guards.

Peter's about to prepare a fireball, until Harvestine interrupts and claims he's not a real member of the Quick Dirty Bastards until he learns a thing or two about throwing grenades. Shodan and Peter's protests fall on deaf ears, and Harvestine quickly teaches Peter how to throw the flashbang she's given him. Harvestine's instructions are less than comprehensive, as she forgets to teach Peter to pull the pin out first. Shodan misses this mistake, getting too pumped to mess some dudes up, demonstrating that unsupervised teaching is another thing Harvestine is not allowed to do.

They spring into action! Shodan successfully blinds the guards, who start firing wildly. Harvestine successfully fires in the direction of the cultists, but her grenade bounces off thin air and explodes harmlessly. The cultists are unfazed and keep singing along. Peter successfully drops the grenade at his feet; Harvestine's inadequate teaching pays off. Somehow. Our two somewhat competent combatants enter and take out the guards, while Peter checks out the magical barrier. Harvestine slamming on it and roaring furiously finally attracts the attention of the head cultist, who leaves the circle and goads a very angry ork. He gloats that the Runners are too late, the cultists' plan cannot be stopped now, and the alliance will crumble. Harvestine asks if he could at least spare the plants, a fine litmus of our heroine's moral standards. Peter begins the counterspelling of the magical barrier. Shodan does her nails because she's willing to acknowledge when she can't do jack.

PART 4: Guy's sprites are indicative of a rather disturbing pscyhe

BACK IN THE AUDITORIUM, the Chromes all fall to the ground as one, their cybernetic devices wigging out something terrible. This doesn't last long as they all rise, hijacked through their cybernetics, and start beating the crap out of the startled Crones. Magus Margery, up in the commentator's box, is scrambling to lower the magical barrier she placed so her Crones can fight back, but the Chromes in the box are causing havoc and mauling her guards. Damien leaps through the mess of fighters and goes for the biggest, meanest bastard - Moss, leader of the Chromes. Damien's punches prove mostly ineffective against the brute, unwilling as our dubiously pacifistic character is to kill people. He does succeed in shock-gloving Moss' cyber-arms into unresponsiveness, though.

Nobody bothers with reasoning with the Chromes or trying to figure out why they started fighting, save for one Guy Peterson. His experience in cyberware proves invaluable, as he immediately recognises the mass hacking attempt. The Chromes are being digitally assaulted by cat videos! Guy gets his fellow hacker, Pete, up to speed, and immediately leaps into the digital arena where he is far more competent. His summons his five sprites: Windows Vista, ILOVEYOU, Storm Worm, Clippy, and RCA Studio, to assist in the fight. These deadly (and visually unsettling) code monsters do an admirable job, mowing through the horde of catsprites compromising the Chromes' devices. Guy does all this in the dwarf stripper outfit he wore after exiting the showers, which was allegedly the only item of clothing available to him in the shower room.

Pete, hiding out in the shower where he's been busy washing stankfight funk off his person, also joins the fight. He has no sprites, so instead signs on with his digital avatar, a desk lamp, and fights the sprites with that instead. His cybercombat skills are negligible, but he does at least distract a whole pile of them into attacking him instead. This whole scene is very stupid and rather hard to appreciate for the non-digitally inclined, so here's a picture:


sprite image credit to Pharmacy, natch

Peter, meanwhile, is furiously counterspelling the barrier with Harvestine's clumsy assistance. The poor girl doesn't actually know a lick of magic, so half the time she's just waving her arms ineffectually in an attempt to imitate Peter. Shodan's requested backup arrives; much to the Basement Bastards' collective despair it turns out to be hijacked Chrombies (which are like zombies but not). Shodan sees no moral distinction between a shambling corpse and a guy whose circuitry's been jacked, and launches a grenade into the throng descending the stairs. It stems the flow, but enough of them break through to flank her and damage her grenade launcher. An externally ever-emotionless but inwardly furious Shodan starts breaking faces. The barrier is still no closer to being lowered, and the head cultist's smug grin is just pissing Harvestine off even more.

Ben the Wolf is still no help. He's just a wolf!

PART 5: Catamari Damacy

HOW COULD THIS SITUATION BE ANY WORSE? asks Guy Peterson to himself. Clearly, the fact that for every one cat sprite he and his sprites destroy, three more cropping up is not registering as "situation awful". He imagines things could be worse if the sprites spontaneously combined into a sprite-voltron, which is fair enough. Things would be worse if the sprites spontaneously combined into a sprite-voltron.

The sprites do just that. The hijacked Chromes in the auditorium also do just that, coalescing into a Chrome-voltron. Damien again tries to punch his newfound problems away, but is instead assimilated by the heinous agglomeration of compromised Chromes. Peter is under the mistaken impression that all this catastrophising is meant to be a contest, and figures his situation could be worse if a bunch of violent, hijacked Chrome trolls burst into the shower room while he's being buried under a pile of catsprites in cyberspace.

The trolls do just that. Peter and Harvestine sort of save the day and Pete's naked ass by finally cracking the barrier. They don't even bother waiting to tear it down properly; Harvestine just launches a grenade through the first reasonable-sized hole, and Peter launches the biggest fireball he can.

The half of the room behind the magical barrier explodes into flame. Flames shoot out of the gaps in the magical wall, which creaks outward with the force of the explosion. It's pretty great, although Peter collapses from spell drain and doesn't really get to appreciate it. The Chromes all over the school and in the stairwell shut down immediately, the Chrome-voltron dissembling and releasing Damien, and the cybersprites disperse without a chanting circle of cultists to control them.

Shodan, Harvestine, and Peter escape the now-burning basement, which is starting to become a regular occurrence for Harvestine. Harvestine carries Peter back to Pete's Rad Van, and they just sort of leave all the unconscious Chromes there as they drive back to the school to claim their reward.

The auditorium is full of recovering Chromes, and Crones tending to the wounded on both sides. Magus Margery thanks the Quick Dirty Bastards for stopping the rebels' plans, even if the cost of doing so was higher than ideal. Damien's the only one who gives a shit about who won the aborted boxing tournament; the rest of the team's more interested in their reward. Pete (still naked), Peter, Damien, Shodan and Harvestine get their 5,000 Nuyen paycheck on credsticks, and Pete even bothers to give Harvestine her share back. Harv cements their teamfriendliness with a 1,000 Nuyen cut to Pete (still naked), probably because she likes having him owe her one or something. Margery formally invites Damien the Adept to train with the Crones, and Harvestine wrangles herself an invite to learn magic for her and Peter. Guy tries to join the Crones as well, and when that falls on deaf ears he tries to join the Chromes. Dude's really keen to get in amongst the thug life. Pete (still naked) introduces Guy to the team, giving his assurance that he'll be a valuable addition.

Guy does not exactly cut an imposing figure, between the dwarf stripper outfit, pathetic nerd physique, missing arm, and air of desperation. "Who the fuck is this guy," Harvestine asks. She's sceptical at best as to his usefulness, but can't really stop Pete from giving him a ride home considering it's his van, and he did just give her 5,000 Nuyen out of actual genuine kindness. Even if it was hers in the first place.

The Quick Dirty Bastards drive past the now-fully-burning Ominous Showdowns Corporation building on the way home, ignoring Damien's protests to save whoever was left unconscious/incapacitated within.

Damien presumably washes his suit at some point. Pete ostensibly puts some clothes on. Guy is dropped off home and tells his mother all about his day. Harvestine takes Peter on a demolitions date with TNT wingmanning, to blow up the remnants of Ominous Showdown Corporation. Shodan goes back to her day job at the Lone Star Cafe.