The Demon Unbound

## Background

Russia invaded Poland in a doomed attempt reminiscent of their failed invasion of Ukraine. Poland fought them off leading to the temporary (or perhaps permanent) creation of the Autonomous Free State of Tricity. With Tricity controlled by the Polish military under the UN's supervision, an acrimonious and divisive public vote is planned to determine the future of Tricity. The eyes of the world are on Poland and Tricity so the fighting takes place in the shadows. Viciousness and dirty tricks, blackmail and espionage, coup-plots and assassinations are the order of the day.

The end result of all this action is that a war-criminal named Morgan Vickerson is captured and imprisoned in Tricity. With his unit (Unit #94) Vickerson has a history of excessive violence, torture, murder and terrorism. He is a threat to every man, woman and child both in Poland and in Tricity. And now somebody wants him liberated...

## The Meet

Our team received urgent messages from their respective fixers, calling them to a meeting with Ms. Johnson at a Seattle nightclub called Noces with only an hour's notice. On arrival, Ms. J informed the team that a man named Morgan Vickerson was being held in a Tricity prison and her client wanted him extracted and delivered. They had just received information indicating that a reporter in Tricity may know the current location of Vickerson. Unfortunately, both Bullet and Ophis had heard of Morgan Vickerson and both knew of his status as a war-criminal.

The team was reluctant to spring such a monster from prison. They knew that if they didn't do it, somebody else would, so they accepted the job on the condition that Vickerson would not be free to return to his previous 'activities'. Ms. J said that she couldn't reveal her client's motivations, but gave the term her personal guarantee that Vickerson would not be freed. With the guarantee in place, and a large sum of nuyen on the table, the team were given directions to an abandoned airstrip where the rigger Gotow and her VTOL were waiting to transport them to Tricity.

## Legwork

Arriving at the Private section of the Tricity airport, our team quickly made their way to the motel Ms. J had provided for them. After checking for tails and conducting a thorough security sweep the team concluded that the motel was, for now at least, a relatively secure location.

With that done, the team made anonymous contact with Melchior Wydra, a reporter for an anti-establishment Matrix tabloid, who agreed to meet them for lunch in Westerplatte park. Bullet arrived early at the park to provide overwatch security, 'concealing' his actual purpose with a chronically poor impression of an American tourist just trying his first sausage. Ophis and Seen arrived shortly afterwards and, after browsing the various food stands to put together an excellent picnic, they met with Wydra. After a brief meeting, Wydra agreed to provide the team with Vickerson's location in exchange for two things. First, information on who told the team about him and second, that they "severely injured and/or terminated" a man named Grzegorz Niewodniczanski ("Target A" going forward because fuck that noise) who is the prison warden in charge of Vickerson. Ophis and Seen agreed, gave Wydra as little info on Ms. J as they could, and Wydra informed them that Vickerson was being held on one of three dry-docked ships in the Gydnia harbour. With that the two closed out the meeting and left. After exactly two minutes, Bullet finished his sausage and followed.

Information in hand, the team began planning the operation. First, Seen summoned up an Air Spirit and sent it to scout the harbour while Bullet and Ophis ran a Matrix search on Target A. It quickly became clear that, while Target A wasn't nearly as bad as Vickerson, it wasn't for lack of trying. This made agreeing to Wydra's condition far more palatable for the team. Meanwhile, Seen's spirit got a good overview of the harbour but was detected by a Watcher spirit when it approached the target boat, but not before identifying the location of Vickerson and his guards. Seen directed the spirit to wander around a while, hoping to convince the Watcher that it was a free spirit, then dismissed it once the Watcher left.

The team now has as much information as they thought they were going to get, so they began final planning for the run. They were going to approach the ship in their car, concealed by a heavy-duty Air spirit. The would then enter the ship (concealed by invisibility and silence spells) and proceed directly to the cargo hold and then conduct a tactical breach hoping to neutralise the opposition without even having to fight them. They would then extract Vickerson, withdraw to the car, and head for the delivery point as quickly and quietly as possible.

Like plans *ever* go the way you plan them...

## Run

At first, things proceeded smoothly. The team got safely to the harbour under concealment and entered the ship, arriving at the cargo hold door with minimal hassle thanks an awesome volumetric mapping spell cast by Ophis. Seen cast an illusion on the door to hide it being open, Ophis cracked the lock and then moved the silence spell into the cargo hold to hide the impending racket. On the 'go' Bullet tossed the first flash-bang through the door. Ophis and Seen slammed the door shut, waited for the bang, cracked the door again and Bullet threw the second 'bang in.

With that, the team entered the cargo hold to discover that while the 'bangs had disabled all the ordinary guards, Target A was still standing. Metaphorically. He'd taken cover behind a bunch of miscellaneous debris and was currently focused on quietly bleeding out of his ears. Seen immediately entered and raced to Vickerson to confirm his status. He was alive, so Seen threw some healing at him to keep it that way. Bullet followed Seen in and opened fire on Target A dealing a critical amount of damage, and Ophis followed behind, engaging the Watcher spirit and destroying it in a single attack.

Unfortunately, Target A was still standing and, from Bullet's muzzle flash, knew exactly where to find him. He ripped out a full-auto blast and only a desperate dive to the side (and a fair helping of luck) saved Bullet from a critical injury. With Seen standing guard over Vickerson, Bullet and Target A exchanging gunfire and Ophis now sneaking up on him, the target knew he was in a bad spot. Determined to deny his attackers their prize, Target A began trying to kill Vickerson. The fight continued, with Seen desperately trying to shield Vickerson from harm while Bullet and Ophis tried in vain to down Target A, and at this point the remaining opposition (originally outside the cargo hold) were now rapidly converging on it.

A daring strike by Ophis suddenly sealed Target A's fate. He'd done little damage, but Ophis had injected a lethal dose of poison. Seen summoned his Air spirit and gave it a final task... get Vickerson safely to the car! At this point the last two opposition members arrived, both armed with SMGs and immediately opened fire. Switching to Stick'n'Shok rounds, Bullet and Seen quickly took down the two police officers and with that there was suddenly silence, only the echoes of gunfire remaining.

## Aftermath

The team withdrew to the vehicle and Seen used the illusion of a chromed-up Troll racing away on a Harley Scorpion to draw the attention of the approaching law enforcement. With the Air spirit boosting the car's speed, the team proceeded directly to the hand-off with no further trouble. While en route, Ophis slipped a stealth tag into the unconscious Vickerson and contacted the ZZZ (an activist group with a serious hate-on for Vickerson) to find out who Ms. J is and what she's likely to want with Vickerson.

The team arrived at the hand-off to a very tense situation and, with extreme caution, exchanged Vickerson for their payment and return flight details. They met up with Gotow again and were flown back to Seattle. On the way the ZZZ got in touch with Ophis and told him that Ms. J was a German fixer named Hilda Schneider who worked for a German businessman named Heinrich Schacht. There was no obvious *good* reason for such a man to be spending the sums he did to extract Vickerson, so assuming the worst, the team provided the ZZZ with the frequency of the stealth tag they'd planted on Vickerson so that the ZZZ could, well... not really any of our business now, is it.

The team landed safely in Seattle and went their separate ways.

## Rewards

* 27,000 Nuyen
* 4 karma
* 2,000 nuyen in paydata for info on The Demon
* For Seen and Bullet: 3 cdp
* For Ophis: Mailman as a loyalty 1 contact
* For everyone: 1 rank polish and 2CDP

## Player After-Action Reports

*In Character* accounts of events, general impressions, or memorable moments