Dark Tide

## Background

Both Epitaph and Squint are contacted by their respective fixers to meet at a duck-themed café, Epitaph so tantalisingly promised of mage murder, and Squint just along for the glory and chance for a good story. Supposedly, this was a hit for revenge against a hedonist for harming the Johnson's daughter.

## The Meet

The café was as promised, duck themed with little ones waddling around. Epitaph arrived early, sat down at a booth and soon occupied themself by being terrified of all the ducks, and stealing silverware out of their sight. Squint soon arrived after, and the two were plunged into awkward silence as the two of them waited for their Johnson. Armed with only a picture, and rather nervously positing her request, the woman sort of slid over an image and a name, explained that he was a powerful mage (She could've stopped here, Epitaph was already hooked) and one of a hedonist abuser. She offered measly pay, but stressed the fact that it was for her daughter. Not really against doing such work, the two runners agreed.

## Legwork

First things first - armed with only a name and picture, some research was due about this mage. Squint nor Epitaph being particularly Matrix skilled, and with the satyr preforming a somewhat measly search that came up with nothing, Squint had resolved to call up a good contact of his - Argos, a dog AI that promised of spoils in searching in a day or so. With a brief break (the two of them weren't really on any desperate time crunch), Argos soon came back with answers to their questions. With an extensive criminal record, frequenting bars and clubs alongside general unsavoury activities that Epitaph most definitely averted their gaze over. With enough information to extrapolate where he had lived, a low-income apartment block in Everett, there was nothing else to do other than to commence work.

## Run

The apartment block was rather populated, with people hanging around and generally having a good enough time. Squint was instructed to stay guard, as the mark was found flirting with a woman, whilst Epitaph pushed forward into the block to recon good places to ambush him. Finding a warded apartment next to an empty one, breaking into it and deciding it as a good stake-out spot, before things had gone... awry.
With the mark and his currently decided hook-up, he started to lead her into the building, and then decidedly not into his apartment. No matter, this just meant one other casualty and breaking into a secondary low-income apartment. Lockpicking the door open, sneaking in and locking the door after them, Squint had quickly solved the problem of an alive mage with a knife straight to the vitals, whilst Epitaph dealt with the unclothed woman via shock glove, knocking her unconscious. Squint was encouraged by Epitaph to continue exfiltration, as they had a mage corpse to mutilate and he had already taken a picture of the corpse to prove to the Johnson of his death. A pair of hands in the satyr's inventory, they started to slink out quietly, to follow.
One problem being... on the way out, Epitaph had gleaned an exactly identical mark, down to the Awakened quality, and possibly more threatening to the satyr than initially thought. Thankfully, both of the runners had rationalised that this wasn't worth their time, with the mark already killed and evidence send, Epitaph was unnoticed as they slinked away from the identical mage and left him to discover the death of his twin on his own.

## Aftermath

Exfiltration being easy, and the Johnson satisfied with the result, both Epitaph and Squint had completed the job with minimal friction, if not for a couple of snarky comments from the satyr about the cyclops' poor fashion taste, and assumption of similar brutish hedonism. Justice was served, in the form of a dead abuser and Epitaph having a sense of comfort in their heart for completing God's work, culling witches.

## Rewards

* ¥4, 000 NuYen
* 3 Karma
* 2 CDP

## Player After-Action Reports

**...epitaph**: oh, i exulted in this job! quick, easy, and without any problems. well, there was that second mage, but i'm not getting paid for that - so not my problem, i suppose... squint is still a rather... uncomfortable presence, with his foul mouth and horrible fashion choices, but i'll acquiesce to work with anyone if it means getting things done :pray: