Campaign 1, Closed

Summary of Events

We met the Johnson, got some info, sold him the footage of Malak, and negotiated the price for this run. (It's been so long ago, I forget what we negotiated, and I can't find my notes. We'll figure it out.)

We approached the facility in a helicopter from the East. Perine sent his Nimrod Drone into the jammed area and got some areal photos. He sent it in a second time, and it didn't return. The surface of the facility was trashed, with the power and water treatment plants both demolished.

We landed on the south landing pad without incident. Against our advice, the pilots flew to investigate the north pad and the hole we saw where the escape doors should have been.

A dragon rose out of the nest it had made out of the power plant debris and destroyed the helicopter.

We sent Havok's guardian spirit to make contact with the dragon, but it was destroyed.

We entered the facility via our access codes and descended into the tunnels of the observation level. We decided to seal the north, west, and east tunnels with explosives, with the idea that we could blow out the observation pod in the south tunnel if we needed an alternate escape. Fenris and Icehouse cleared the south tunnel while Havok and Perine held position at the entrance. Fenris and Icehouse were attacked by some sort of genetic crossing of a spider, chameleon, and monkey, but were able to destroy them. Meanwhile, Perine and Havok engaged a few fire-breathing reptiles. Fenris and Icehouse reached the end of the south tunnel and found Sally Chu in a silk cocoon, her body liquefying due to numerous venom injections. Before she died, she said,

“I failed. It got out. Death on the airwaves. Death in my head, pulling me down sizzling wires, down into madness and doom. Black tree overshadows all, grows to blot out the sun. Its roots must be severed. No frequency. No Amplitude. Must have silent air. No waves for the tree to surf. It’s a tree, hungry as a shark, a shark that hunts surfers. The shark mustn’t reach the tower. It will eat us all.”

We didn't think about her warning too hard, but successfully blew the tunnels, while fighting off more of the fire lizards. We salvaged some of the biometric tags from their bodies and descended via stairs to the security level, where our commlinks were fried and Perine was attacked by a very malignant matrix entity that looked like some sort of poisonous black treant. Perine survived, but our inter-team communications were gone. We were attacked by a cyberzombie that had once been Mitch Vandross, but he was out of his mind. We all chipped away at him, and Perine finished him off just before he turned Havok into assault cannon swiss cheese.

We searched the level, and while it was clear that many people had died horribly, we found no bodies except for one of the security deputy commanders, a heavily cybered fellow named Frank Skeen. He had an undamaged commlink and its login credentials carved into his arm. It contained a chat log that shed some clue onto what had happened.

We also found a server that was tasked with door access and backup sys logging. It had been severed from the network by a fire ax that someone had used to cut it's fiber lines to the main network. It held more information that we were able to use. The other servers were dead. The armory was trashed, but we salvaged some ammo, rope, tranquilizer rifle, and darts.

Both stairwells hd been collapsed with explosives, but Vandross had peeled back one of the blast doors enough for us to use the rope and repel down to the R&D level. Havok went first and was attacked by some sort of dual-natured dogs that had also been cybernetically enhanced. He, Icehouse, and Fenris fell victim to a magic fear attack the dogs possessed. Perine was unaffected and jumped down to help out Havok. Both took some damage, but Icehouse resisted the effect and provided magical fire support from above, and they killed them all. The other two came down, and Havok ran out into the open to draw fire from the operational laser turrets. Fenris took them out with the assault rifle.

We went to the history wing, where we found no opposition, but did find a note, a dismembered body, and another rogue commlink.

We went to the cyber combat R&D wing next, where we were attacked by heavily modified drones and barely survived their rocket attacks. We were attacked by a gas attack as well but we all had breathing apparatus (Or in Perine's case, didn't need to breathe.) The room was empty except for a few racks of very active servers labeled "sandbox," "Blacktree," "AI," and "firewalls." Not knowing what we were messing with, we left it alone and barricaded ourselves into the history wing where we healed and rested up for about four hours.

When we woke up, Icehouse and Havok's guardian spirit took a jaunt into astral space. They saw a HUGE Kodiak bear in the center area, eating the carcasses of the dogs we'd killed. They were attacked by a very evil jelly-fish-looking spirit, which they defeated. They went into the cybernetics wing, where they discovered all the laser turrets were active, and nothing was alive except for a woman who had locked herself in one of the test animal cages when the facility fell apart. Icehouse manifested and spoke with her. She said her name was Renee Downs, and that the animals and turrets had gone crazy. She said they had been developing genetically enhanced animals and also experimenting with "stirrup" implants to turn animals into bio drones. She said that an auditor had come from the home office, but it had really been a dragon. Somehow Talgren had captured it and had been experimenting on it. Ice house told her that we'd come back for her. She said she had a rogue commlink, and we could have it if we had some food and water.

On the return trip, Perine and the spirit encountered two more of the jelly-fish spirits. They killed one and pursued the other through the floor and down into the next level, where they saw numerous more floating in astral space, while others seemed to be animating dead bodies. They retreated back to the rest of us. Numerous spirits materialized and attacked us, but Havok, Icehouse, and the guardian spirit were able to defeat them. The spirit used it last services to seek information on the jellyfish spirits and found out that they were shedim. Havok summoned a new spirit.

We went into the main shaft and killed the Kodiak without much trouble. During his astral trip, Icehouse had seen activity in the cybercombat wing again, so we went back in, and found repair drones rebuilding the ones we'd destroyed. We smashed everything into bits, healed up a little and caught our breath.

We went to the Thurmaturgy wing next, and found that the entrance had been sloppily welded shut from the inside, and was also protected astrally by powerful wards and a mana barrier spell. Perine and Fenris beat it open, but not before more shedim manifested and carved us up a little bit. We defeated them and went into the Thuramturgey wing. Fenris and the spirit remained outside. The spirit couldn't pass the barriers, and Fenris didn't want anything to do with the magic.

Icehouse led the way, and as we rounded the corner, we were attacked by a mind control spell. Perine and Icehouse resisted, but Havok fell under Talgren's power. Perine had his hands full with two genetically enhanced saber cats, while Icehouse tried first to negotiate with, and then blast, Talgren. He didn't kow what hit him when havok punched him full force in the back.

Icehouse saw Havok attack, and he entered the fight by shooting Havok inthe head with electric shock rounds. While Perine continued to fight the cats, Icehouse defeated the mind control spell that enslaved Havok. Havok ran to help Perine with the cats. Fenris rounded the corner just in time to get hit with another mind control spell. Icehouse and Perine resisted. Havok burnt all of his edge to resist. Fenris fell under its power and unloaded an assault rifle burst at Icehouse. Perine finished off the cats while Perine defeated the mind control spell. Havok speared Fenris and took them both out of line-of-site. Before Talgren could cast another spell, Perine shot him in the shoulder, and he surrendered.

We interrogated him a little, learned a little more about Black Tree and the shedim, but he was mostly uncooperative. He had an encrypted commlink, a coupe powerful sustaining foci, a power foci, and some sort of focus that we couldn't ID. We bagged him with mage cuffs and hood, barricaded the doors as best as we could, and left Perine to watch Talgren while Icehouse, Havok, and Fenris entered the vault. We found three suits of very strange armor and a sword which seemed to be enchanted like foci but also seemed to be possessed by spirits. There was also an active server that had no apparent connections outside of the vault. Vladimir Techinksky is in the room too, but he's petrified by a spell of his own casting. It looks like he cast it through one of his own foci. Based on the burnt and bloody state of his clothing, and some wounds on his arms and chest that are obvious, even in his petrified state, he probably cast the spell to keep from dying.

And that's where we left off....

Chat Transcripts and Other Clues

Carved into the arm of Frank "Tank" Skeen's arm, we found this: Rogue1 PI128. Rogue1 and PI to the 128th place were the username and password for the rogue commlink we found on his body. It had this chat log:

Rogue2: Are we still on for poker night?
Rogue1: I'm still gathering the rogues, but I think we're all good.
Rogue2: Haven't heard from the other in awhile. I thought game night might be off.
Rogue1: I saw R3 F2F the other day, and she's up for poker. I figure R4 and R5 have been too busy bumpin uglies to be online in awhile, but they’ll be there.
Rogue2: Rogue 6?
Rogue1: he's been out of the loop the longest. Worries me.
Rogue2: think he got busted?
Rogue1:Nah. if he got pinched, I'd know. He's just been putting lots of overnighters under the foil. no signal in or out, and after his last message, I wonder what they’re doing.
Rogue2: then why worry?
Rogue1: I wonder what's got him so tied up for so long, and I worry cuz I know he doesn't purge his comm like the rest of us do.
Rogue2: WHAT?? I'll fix that shit. Get him to poker night and I'll use that backdoor you told me about to hack his shit and install a purge script.
Rogue1: willdo. speaking of poker night, I convinced Natalie to play.
Rogue2: The Maiden? WTF?
Rogue1: No, not her. Natalie from hydraulics. I hear she's good at lubing up hard metal shafts ; )
Rogue2: No comment, but while we're talking about the Maiden and metal shafts, you know that wicked blaster arm my team built for her?
Rogue1: Fuck yeah. that thing is awesome
Rogue2: the last time I talked to R3, she told me Talgren had them write a driver for it so it can be put on sec drones. We've already built another unit, and if it tests out OK, I guess Talgren is gonna contract out the specs to some shadow factory to have them made for all the drones.
Rogue1: I thought you said the unit wasn't entirely safe, had problems with it shorting out?
Rogue2: yeah, it damn near electrocuted the Maiden when she pushed it too hard the other day, but I'm more worried about Talgren farming info out to third parties. I think he's trying to get us all killed.
Rogue1: try not to worry about it. We'll talk about it over poker, see if R6 is willing to commit to plan to take Talgren out. I'm sick of this shit too. hey, gotta go. We got a sec alarm
Rogue2: The wyrm?
Rogue1. No. Something in TR&D. BBL.

In The Historical wing of the R&D level, we found a note encoded in binary:

"We're 20 strong with 5 wounded. leaving for cave NNE .5 mile on mountainside. Behead and dismember your dead, or they will come back. Kill Talgren if you can. It's his fault. Before he dies, make him suffer, and tell him it's for Linda. Harold."

We also found Linda Richard's dismembered body with another rogue comm link on it. Frank's backdoor account allowed us into it, where we found this:

Rogue4: Linda, are you there? Please check your comm, baby!
Rogue5: What's going on? we aren't supposed to use real names on these!
Rogue4: That doesn't matter now. There's no time to argue. Barricade your team in your wing. Seal the doors however you can. Do not open it for ANY REASON until I get there.
Rogue5: Harold, what's wrong? We're all feaking out!
Rogue4: Stay calm, stay hidden, and wait for me. Me and others are coming. When I get there, I'll use our secret knock like I do when I come over late. If I don't use that knock, don't let me in, even if you hear my voice and see my face saying it is me!
Rogue5: we heard/felt explosions and the blast doors closing. Are the containment protocols in effect?
Rogue4: yes, but not all the stairwell charges went off. I think I can make it up to you after I seal the data core. We're going to that cave I told you I found when we surveyed this area for suitability.
Rogue5: That's outside the fence
Rogue4: no worries. we have a god-gun
Rogue5: how?
Rogue4: doesn't matter. If you must leave, write me a message in binary so I'll know where to look for you. I don’t think these fucks can read, but Darren says binary will throw them off for sure. I'm coming up now. Pray for us, and no matter what happens, never forget that I love you!"
Rogue5: Harold?
Rogue5: Harold??

Security Logs

20730101 – 20730110: standard security logs, changes of guards, policy audits, systems tests, drills, etc. Standard bulletins about drill schedules, shift rotations, etc. plus numerous memos referring to someone using rogue comm links on nonstandard frequencies:

To: Director Talgren

From: Senior Sec Officer ####

Subject: rogue commlink network

Sir, we are continuing our investigation into your suspicions concerning the existence of a rogue commlink network inside the facility. If it does indeed exist, the perpertrators are proving a resourceful and elusive bunch, which is not surprising when one considers the sheer amount of brain power we've got holed up in here. I suspect they are using a very low, non standard frequency and using low bandwidth, old-tech techniques such as text "instant messaging" to communicate. This allows them to use the much lower bandwidth of the substandard frequencies, while improving their range underground and also requiring much short transmission times, making it almost impossible to detect or triangulate. They may even be piggy-backing on the established wireless protocols. We've detected some static that indicated this may be the case. We are, of course, pursuing every means of discovery, and I assure you that we will have the matter resolved shortly.

20730110.1437.15: ALERT! HiTTER team requested in TR&D; SCAD protocols in effect.
20730110.1438.00: Sec Mage A-1 conducting astral recon
20730110.1438.15: Spider A-1, A-2 deploying drones, jumping into laser turrets
20730110.1438.45: Sec Mage B-3 and A-2 on magesight fire support
20730110.1438.55: TR&D wing sealed shut. Door unresponsive. Cause: unknown. All transponders of all on-duty personnel accounted for, except TR&D-1.
20730110.1439.00: Sec Mage A-1 flatlined; probable cause – astral combat. Trauma unit requested and enroute.
20730110.1439.45: HiTTER Alpha + Black Knight + Tank + Iron Maiden engaging hostiles on Level 3 catwalks. MAT activity confirmed. Threat type: Unknown
20730110.1440.12: MAT resisting containment and splitting forces. MAT-2 descending into facility. MAT-1 moving into VCR&D. HiTTER A1-8 + Iron Maiden pursuing MAT-2. HiTTER A9-12 + Black Knight engaging MAT-1 in VCR&D.
20730110.1440.45: HiTTER Bravo suiting up. Tank returning to SecLevel to debrief and lead team.
20730110.1441.03: HiTTER A-1 flatlined
20730110.1441.07: HiTTER A-3 flatlined
20730110.1441.10: HiTTER A-10 flatlined
20730110.1441.37: heavy collateral damage reported in VCR&D. Purge protocol initiated in TR&D by TR&D-1.
20730110.1441.43: HiTTER A-8 flatlined
20730110.1441.53: Iron Maiden flatlined
20730110.1441.55: Black Knight offline. Vitals are solid; comm channel filled with angry gibberish (reference file 2458643241.123) Black knight unresponsive.
20730110.1442.02: Tank attempting to sabotage Sec Level fiber links. HiTTER Bravo is detaining him.
20730110.1442.03: HiTTER A-2 flatlined
20730110.1442.05: HiTTER A-4 flatlined
20730110.1442.06: HiTTER A-6 flatlined
20730110.1442.09: Drones and turrets have been commandeered by unknown entity. They are attacking indiscriminately. Shutdown protocols ineffective.
20730110.1442.11: Black Knight has turned combative against friendly combatants and civilians.
20730110.1442.14: HiTTER A-12 flatlined
20730110.1442.15: HiTTER A-8 flatlined
20730110.1442.16: HiTTER A-9 flatlined
20730110.1442.17: ALERT!! TOTAL BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT BREACH in CCR&D!!!
20730110.1442.20: Spider A-1 flatlined. Probable cause: biofeedback from Matrix combat
20730110.1442.22: Tank released. Preparing to cut Sec Level fiber lines. Initiating data backup.
20730110.1442.24: Spider A-2 flatlined. Probable cause: biofeedback from Matrix combat
20730110.1442.26: Transponder tracking indicated Black Knight is returning to SecLe…*
20730110.1442.27: Link to main facility computer network terminated. Logging from primary systems and data backup terminated. Access logging still enabled. All other systems unresponsive.
20730110.1444.44: ALERT! Sec Door 01 breached! Intruder unidentifiable due to lack of expected telemetry.
20730110.1455.09: ALERT! North escape hatch has been breached! 20730110.1455.10: ALERT! Biological quarantine and containment protocols initiated.
20730110.1455.11: All code access revoked.
20730110.1455.12: Blast doors deploying
20730110.1455.13: elevator raising to OD level.
20730110.1455.13: Stairwell explosives detonating
20730110.1305.15: Blast doors deployed
20730110.1305.20: elevator raised and locked on the OD level.
20730110.1455.13: Stairwell explosives detonated. ERROR! All explosives did not detonate. Reason for failure unknown due to lack of expected telemetry.
20730110.1355.56: HR&D Access Door: unauthorized manual override. Intruder unidentifiable due to lack of expected telemetry.
20730112.1342.13: Primary power offline. Switching to back up power and initiating power saver mode.
20730114.1000.13: ALERT!! Primary hatch accessed via command override code AAA1

Other files: most other files were damaged before or during backup procedures, but a successful Search check will reveal the following:

1 success: security roster of personnel code names, nomenclatures, and acronyms
2 successes: partial Vandross audio file of comm chatter "ARRGH! Can't See! Can't Feel! Some kind of damned black tree in my systems, eating up everything. Body isn't mine anymore. It's getting into my mind. What did Talgren do to me? get back, men! Fall back! Hurk… gurgle… YOU'RE ALL FUCKING DEAD!!!"
3 successes: Video clip showing HiTTER Alpha fighting Vandross. (Perception (3) to realize some of the squad members were already logged as dead in the sec log.)

Mr. Johnson Info

When the PCs arrive at the meet location, The Johnson will be a short, fit, middle-aged Asian man flanked by a set of tall human female twins. Johnson and his beautiful bodyguards will be dressed in immaculate Zoe business attire. After introductions are made, the Johnson will invite them into a private AR conference where he will tell them the following:

“My employer has reason to believe you recently survived an attack from this individual: (shows pic of lightly armored Malak.) I have been authorized to inform you that you are only the second targets to have ever survived an encounter with this assassin, my employer being the first. I represent an organization created by my employer that studies and tracks this assassin. I have been authorized to give you what limited information we have on the assassin and his associates, in the hopes that you will agree to join forces with us and perhaps destroy him once and for all, because make no mistake: you will see him again. We don’t know who hired him to kill you or why, but we do know that your survival is a blemish on his almost perfect record, and he will not tolerate it. He has never stopped pursuing my employer, and has nearly succeeded in his task a number of times. He will likewise hound all of you until he kills you.

The limited information we have about your encounter suggests that you won the battle, but do no let this give you a false sense of accomplishment. He attacked you after fighting nearly two dozen armed members of the Hand of God, and he underestimated your abilities. The next time you face him, he will be ready, and will have learned from his previous mistakes. Furthermore, he will not attack you directly again until he has set his associates against you to weaken you and learn more about your tactics. Your chances of surviving a battle with his associates are nearly zero. Your chances of surviving a second encounter with the assassin are substantially less than zero, unless you allow us to help you. I am authorized to give you some information now, for free. We have additional resources, information, and aid that we can give you beyond what I have for you today, but my employer requires a token of good faith before those resources can be released. I ask only that you listen to the information I have for you. After that we can discuss the rest of the arrangement, or we can part ways if you have no interest in joining forces.”

“First, we have this individual that you’ve already met. (Malak in light armor.) He has also been sighted in a configuration similar to this: (Malak in heavy armor.) He is known only as Malak, and we know very little about him. He is a world class assassin who is hired only by the AAA megacorps. As I mentioned earlier, he has a nearly perfect record. There are no known videos, photos, or digital records of him, anywhere. His armor has a subsystem that targets imaging devices and disables them. He also has an elite hacker who cleans up after his operations, scouring the Matrix, hacking into businesses and law enforcement databases to eradicate any traces of information. If you have any records of him, they are very valuable and very dangerous. My employer would be interested in purchasing them from you, but you shouldn’t expose anyone else to them unless you want them dead.

“We know Malak is a spell caster, but we don’t know if he is also an adept or a conjurer. We aren’t sure which of his abilities are magical in nature and which are technological. We do know that he is very well funded, supported, and equipped.

“We don’t know his real name or anything about his history, except we suspect he has been in operation since the Awakening, perhaps before. His street name gives some possible clues to his magic tradition, but it is all guesswork at this point.

“The name ‘Malak’ is shared by a fictional character from a popular sci-fi story from the 20^th century, a large volume of writing and 2-D entertainment known collectively as ‘Star Wars.’ According to this fiction, the ultimate evil is represented by a group called the Sith. Malak was an ancient lord among these Sith. Considering that our current Malak’s abilities and weaponry mimic many of the abilities of these Sith, we think he’s used the fiction as a framework for an alternate magical tradition.

“We aren’t sure if he’s self-taught or has a mentor because the Sith had two groups. One group believed there should only be two Sith Lords at a time: A master and an apprentice. Another group believed that many Sith lords could exist at once. We think that Malak was trained with the idea that there should only be two, but he may be swaying to the other line of thinking these days. We hope he’s the master, because we’re all in a lot of trouble if there’s something even nastier than him out there, but we just don’t know where he fits in the power structure.

“Malak is very formidable by himself, but he doesn’t work alone. He is constantly supported by an entity known as HK-47. (show picture of HK-47 and his matrix persona.) We believe HK-47 is the hacker who keeps data out of the Matrix, and he’s also a very capable rigger. The second individual you fought was most likely a combat drone rigged by HK-47. Considering that, in the Star Wars fiction, HK-47 was an assassination android directed by an autonomous AI, and that the drone has been rigged where there was no wireless signal, we believe the HK-47 is an AI, not metahuman.

“Besides HK-47, Malak has a team of runners under his command. We aren’t sure if he’s taken them all as apprentices, if he’s pitting them against each other to see who is most worthy of apprenticeship, or if he simply pays them well enough to keep them on retainer. Regardless, they are fanatically loyal to Malak and extremely dangerous. Assuming Malak maintains his standard patterns, you will face this team before you face Malak again.

“(Show pic of Pyro.) First up is Pyro. We think he’s the team’s leader and currently serves as Malak’s second in command. As his name suggests, he is obsessed with fire. He is a human spell caster and conjurer, and all of his magical effects manifest with a fire theme whether they actually do damage or not.

“Next we have Moon Dog. He’s a dwarf, he is Awakened, he’s exceptionally fast, and he’s a highly skilled martial artist. When he hits things, they tend to die. That’s all we know for sure. We suspect he’s a mystic adept with a mix of adept abilities and touch-based combat spells.

“(Show pic of Typhoid.) This is Typhoid. We think she’s elven. She is also awakened. She is also probably a mystic adept. She is a master of infiltration and espionage. She is almost impossible to detect with any means, either technological or magical.

“(Show pic of Apocalypse.) Last of all, we have a monster known as Apocalypse. He might be a full conversion cyborg, or a cyber zombie, but we think it’s more likely that he’s a homunculus – a physical form inhabited and animated by a free spirit. He lives up to his name, in any event. Where he goes, total and utter devastation follow. We think he single-handedly eradicated a cell of blood mages in Azltan last year. When the sun set, there was a village of about 300 people. When the sun rose, there was a burnt, bloody spot where the village used to be. Nothing survived, not even the livestock.

“So this is what you’re up against. You will never know true safety or peace again until this threat is dealt with, and, as my employer can attest, it is a miserable way to live – always wondering when and where they will strike again.

“That’s all the information I have, and you’re under no obligation to repay us in any fashion, but my employer hopes you will agree to join forces and help us take the fight to Malak. If you’re interested, I have a proposition for you.”

The PCs will have time to consent to it and ask other questions, but the Johnson knows very little more than what he’s already said. Once the PCs express interest in the offer, he’ll continue.

“MY employer has a secret research facility that is dedicated to researching Malak and his clan. This facility sent updates infrequently, but after an unusually extended silence, we broke protocol and tried to contact them, but received no response. We sent a team to investigate, and they disappeared. We fear that the facility has been discovered and destroyed by Malak. We want you to investigate it, confirm or uncomfirm our fears, and get the facility back online if possible. If Malak isn’t the culprit, we want you to discover what happened. If the facility can not be brought back online, we want you to recover as much data as possible and make the site as safe as possible for follow-up operations by other agents. If you agree to this, we will pay you well, and you will also gain additional information on our common enemy. “

Once the PCs agree to consider the job, the Johnson will provide this information:

“The facility is designated as ‘G-13.’ If you agree to do the job, I can provide you with maps, floorplans, access codes to the facility and to the computer network, and additional details that may prove useful. For now, you should know that we have four branches of research running simultaneously at the facility.

“The Thurmatugical branch is charged with investigating potential magical sources of Malak’s powers while also devising magical countermeasures.

“The Cyber-biological branch is charged with devising cutting edge weapons, armor, and cyber or bio-enhanced agents that could be used to track, defend against, or possibly kill Malak while also investigating possible technological sources of his powers and ways to counter them.

“The Virtual Combat branch is charged with devising ways to combat Malak’s pet hacker, HK-47.

“The first three fall under the jurisdiction of, and lend their resources to, the Historical branch, which is charged with using any means available to learn as much about Malak, his operation, associates, motives, superiors, and agenda.

“The facility perimeter is established with an electrified chain link fence. It is fitted with numerous directional jammers, all oriented towards the center of the facility. These jammers prevent any communication into or out of the facility except via the one sanctioned comm array linked to an antenna that is outside the perimeter, further up the mountain.

Every biological entity, including most facility personnel, are fitted with cranial bombs or explosive collars. These devices are keyed to a signal that is present throughout the interior of the facility and also embedded in the jammer signals on the surface. If any biological entity passes within 10-15 feet of the perimeter, the bomb or collar activates and shocks their host unconscious. If they wake before security personnel can recover them, and they somehow bypass the second fence, the cranial bomb or anklets explode when the host gets 75-100 feet beyond the fence. If they somehow destroy the emitters on the fence, their coordinates will be picked up by one of the satellites we have passing over that section of the world every eight hours or so, in which case the satellite can also emit the detonation code.

“We had hoped that the radio silence was due to technical problems with the communications array, but we think the problem must be more severe than that since the first team never reported back. If the facility has been compromised, there is no way to say with certainty what you will encounter there. Malak or his runners may be waiting to ambush you. He may have destroyed the facility and when you get there, you find that you’re on the menu of various escaped test animals. We can’t say for sure what you will find because the facility worked with a high degree of autonomy and anonymity. My employer wanted results but did not want to know how the results were achieved. We’ve been reviewing the accounts, comparing our numbers to the results we’ve received, and we now suspect that much of our money has been siphoned off for other purposes. In short, we think they were doing what we paid them to do, but we also think they were doing something else on the side, and we don’t know what.

I am authorized to negotiate payment for any information you may already have on Malak. If you agree to investigate our facility, I am authorized to negotiate the terms of that contract as well. Once you are at the site, your objectives will depend on the state of the facility.

If Malak or his runners are there, kill them if you must. Capture them if you can.

If they aren’t there, you will need to assess the situation and decide if the facility is recoverable. If it is, you are to do whatever you can to get it back online, and you are to escort the facility administrator and a full dump of the facility’s data core to me. If the facility cannot be recovered, you are to devise what went wrong, recover any data and equipment that you can, recover any personnel that you can, and use the comm array to signal us to pick you up. If the comm array is destroyed, you must get clear of the perimeter and use a sat link to contact us instead.

We will pay you a fee upfront. If the facility is recovered and you report back with the administrator and data dump, we will pay you a finder/courier fee upon your return. If the facility is wrecked, its contents are technically salvage at that point and will be your property once you take possession of it, but we will purchase it back from you and also pay you for any personnel you rescue. We will also debrief you on any additional information this mission provides on Malak.”

The Johnson will require a viewing of the video footage we have of Malak, after which he will offer us 100K for it. He will also offer us another 50K apiece to go on the mission, with another 50K apiece courier fees. He won’t commit to a price for salvage and rescue, saying that we’ll negotiate that if it comes to that.

Once the PCs agree to do the job and fees are negotiated, the Johnson will provide these details:

G-13 is located 250 kilometers southeast of Vancouver. (Show map of topside.) This is a map of the facility surface. It is roughly a mile in diameter. The dashed lines represent the chainlink fence I mentioned earlier. Notice the interior fence. It only shocks. It can’t kill. The dotted line is an estimated range of how far a host can get beyond the fence before its bomb or collar explodes. I recommend that you remain within the fences because we allow a number of the test subjects to roam topside, partially as part of our research and partly as a security measure. If you should kill any test animal, you should attempt to harvest its biomonitor. Every subject is fitted with one, usually stapled into an ear and it holds all pertinent data that has been collected on the subject.

There are two helipads, north and south. The flight crew will decide which is the safer landing point, whether they can remain at the site, or if they should wait for your signal from a safer location, but they will remain close at hand.

To the east you will find the water treatment plant. To the west is the hydro-electric plant that powers the facility. Assuming the facility is still minimally functional, these should not be priority areas for you, unless there is reason to believe biologicals may have escaped the confines of the fence, in which case you will need to clear these areas.

The primary facility is underground, a modified and expanded experimental ICBM missile silo. The primary silo shaft has been converted into a heavy duty platform-style elevator, and the launch doors a reburied under feet of natural earth to help prevent astral intrusions or escapes. Personnel are required to enter via reinforced blast doors that are further secured with a very powerful magical barrier spell and other wards. The wards will not impede you, but spirits under your command will not be able to enter. We will give you codes to the door, and we will give you magical tokens which will attune you to the barrier and allow you to pass through. Do not lose the tokens if you expect to leave.

The first floor of the facility is called the observation deck. It’s a grid of tunnels that provides access across the bottom half of the facility, granting access to observation pods within the fences. Each pod contains cameras and other sensor arrays for recording the behaviors of the test subjects. You will need to clear these tunnels of hostiles, and, in the event of a network or data store malfunction, you may be able to recover valuable data from the pods because they are configured to cache a full week’s worth of data in the event that they cannot contact the storage network.

You will note the one tunnel that leads north. It exits on the north side of the river, and was included as an emergency exit. It is heavily fortified and secured with an arsenal of automated defenses. We also do not have access codes to it; they were changed by the facility administrator after the site came online.

The second floor is the security level. This will be the first place you will have physical access to the network, and is also the only place that you can access the comm array. Hopefully some of our personnel will be there to assist you. We will provide credentials that give you full access and control of the facility, trumping even the director’s access. You will need to load these credentials into the system.

The third floor has four wings, one for each branch of research. Once your codes are loaded, you should have no problem accessing these areas. Talgren, the facility administrator, has his office in the cyber-biological wing. If he is alive, you are to bring him to us for debriefing, whether he wants to come or not. He is an accomplished enchanter and cybermancer, and he will not be easy to subdue without killing him, but he is of no use to us if he’s dead.

The fourth floor also has multiple wings, one for private quarters, one for barracks, and one for entertainment/cafeteria. The fifth floor contains the air ventilation, climate, and power controls, as well as a storage area and the vault that contains the backup UPS and data core.”

The network runs on a ??? nexus. Under normal conditions it is guarded by a number of security riggers, hackers, and agents loaded with IC. The codes we will provide you should give you full admin access, but just in case, we will provide all the technical specifications on the system, as it was when it was built We don’t know if it has been modified or not.

In addition to Talgren, there are a few other key personnel you should watch for. Mitch Vandross is the chief of security. Linda Richards is the head of the Historical Branch. Vladimir Techinksky is head of the Thurmatugical Branch. Sally Chu is head of the Virtual Combat branch, and Harold Simmons is chief of maintenance. If Talgren is dead, bring me these other personnel in his stead.

It is our hope that, regardless of what happened, the site has sustained minimal damage. There are many drones on site, programmed with various repair and maintenance routines that you should be able to use to effect most repairs. At one time, a storage area on the fifth floor contained replacement components for every crucial system in the facility.