Strange Attraction

General Summary

The runners awoke Tir Tairngire border-with no memory of how they got there and a mysterious orichalcum key in their possession. They traveled across Seattle for answers to the run that went wrong while Hunted by Tir Ghosts and an Aztechnology assassin. The Bear Doctor showed them that the key opened a gateway to the Shadowplane after unleashing them, and the runners had to rescue their contacts who had gotten involved in a fight with all of their hunters at the yakuza club Underworld 93. Captured by the Tir Ghosts, they made a deal to meet Nicholas Grace, the man they were supposed to bring the key to in the first place. But he had been dead a long time, his body possessed by the chaos mage Mortimer Strauss after the key that was taken from him. After the assassin, Belladonna, crashed the meet, Graceless unleashed the inhabitants of the shadowplane upon them with dozens of rifts at once. The runners won out against the sea of shadows, and destroyed both of Strauss's bodies. They gave the key back to Tir Tairngire's agents, after they made the better offer.

Prologue: The Time We Lost

The runners were hired by Magwyn for a fairly straightforward smuggling job to steal a magic key. She provided fake SINs as members of the MacNamara family from Tir Na Nog (along with orichalcum lapels of the family sigil), which they used to attend an art gallery in Cara Sir (Portland). Before they left, they were contacted by Josif Radik, who said he had a benefactor who would pay 50% more if they handed it off to him. They never committed to the deal, but Josif (perhaps misunderstanding) promised his contact that they were on board.
The runners attended a fancy dinner party with other guests from the Tir nations. Many of the items in the gallery were recently acquired talismans, purchased from the collection of Mortimer Strauss. The host presented an item to the guests to audible gasps: an old mechanical key at least two centuries old. The host called it the World Key, and that it would bring an end to the Diaspora. The runners had no idea what that meant. Cat Sith had attempted to get the number of an attractive elf woman, who instead wrote on his arm “Don’t talk to strangers.” They then met with their contact, Aevon Faero, the host of the event. He said that he didn’t want the key in the hands of the Council of Princes, instead they were to smuggle it to a representative of the Illuminates of the New Dawn, Nicholas Grace. He covertly handed the World Key off to them after the event had ended, replacing it with a forgery. This part went off smoothly, but during their meeting, Cat Sith was spotted by his Uncle Vincent. Vincent made an anonymous tip to the Tir Tairngire border patrol, hoping he would be apprehended. But the border patrol got sloppy. They captured the runners, confiscated their contraband and followed Tir procedure to dose them with Laes and dump them across the border. They paid no special heed to the key and left it with them.
Soon after, Lord Speren Seleanecet of the Tir Tairngire Peace Force went to acquire the key for the Council and quickly discovered it was a forgery. He began to hunt for the runners. Meanwhile, while they were passed out for almost an entire day, the runners missed the drop for both their original employer of the IoND as well as Radik’s contact, who would turn out to be Aztechnology. They sent their assassin Belladonna to neutralize both Radik and the runners and take the key.

Part 1: Rude Awakening

The story began with the runners knowing none of this, awakening on the Tir border with no memory, their equipment gone and a pack of hungry barghests running towards them. After dealing with the beasts, they tried to figure out what happened. Cat Sith noticed the “Don’t talk to strangers” note on his arm, unsure of its meaning when they got an audio call from Radik, disguising his voice with a poor American accent. He told them they missed the meet but he could still smooth things out if they meet him at Underworld 93 as soon as they can.
They hopped aboard a drone transport truck and rode it across the Salish lands to the Seattle border, narrowly avoiding Salish border agents along with their drones and sentry spirits. Pieces of their lost memory came back to them, but they reached out to Yantho in hope that he could shed light on what was going on. He was still recovering at Dr. Nowatchahanu’s medicine lodge. He had needed extensive cyberware implanted after Nightmare had carved him up, and his lost essence left him with little magical ability and a darkened demeanor.
Vola split from the party to pick up their equipment and meet up with them later. Belladonna, toying with her from her high vantage point, dropped a spent Aztechnology bullet casing in front of Vola. Vola pocketed it and carried on, with the assassin tracking her. She waited on the border of Council Island, waiting to follow the runners to her prey.
Yantho filled them in on the MacNamara sigil and what he knew about Tir politics and procedure and was able to provide them with Aevon Faero’s identity. Meanwhile, Dr. Nowatchahanu played with the key until fitting it into the window lock opened an astral rift to the Shadowplane. Shadow spirits poured out, compelling emotions of despair (upon Jenobli), fear (upon Squid) and rage (upon Vola) while they fed on the empathic energy. Dr. No blew faery dust on the spirits, making them visible to Squid and Vola with a pink glittery sparkle. The bear shaman studied the melee before the shadows were dissipated and he closed the gate before more could escape.

Chapter 2: Deadly Nightshade

Jenobli had sent her padawans to scope out Underworld 93, they located their contact and identified him as Radik, before two of them were captured by the Yakuza owners for snooping around. The runners went to Underworld 93, using their contact, Katsu Takashima, to grant them an audience with the manager, Maru Hodo. They negotiated the release of the padawans and promised not to cause any trouble.
They met with Radik, who was sweating with stress. He explained the deal he had thought they made, and while they considered it, three Tir Ghosts had found them. The runners attempted to escape out the back way, Vola and Cat-Sith remaining behind to give them time. The elves were nimble fighters, flipping Vola to the ground and onto Radik. Jenobli levitated in the air, dancing to distract the yakuza from the fight, while using her force powers pick up tables and spilled glasses. She force flung one of them to the high catwalk to be captured by a Yakuza guard. Cat-Sith’s switched to his hybrid form and managed to claw the face and chest of one of them but the elf was unfazed, acrobatically jumping over the giant cat and kicking him in the back. Squid had talked his way past the Yakuza guard watching the loading dock and found safe passage out the back. Vola scooped up Radik the four of them followed Squid, the elves hot on their heels. The one on the catwalk had disarmed the yak and now he had a gun (ho ho ho) before the other disarmed the dock guard of his katana.
The runners made it outside, a zeppelin passed overhead advertising the new Neil the Ork Barbarian reboot. Its spotlight caught the chrome of Belladonna’s arm, giving Vola enough time to react to the bullet, which only grazed her. She dropped Radik as they braced for the Ghosts to come at them while Jenobli tried to handle the assassin. She threw an air conditioner at her, but her armor absorbed most of the damage and she rolled away and shot Radik in the stomach.
The fight did not go well for the runners. Cat-Sith was poisoned with a blade coated in wolfsbane, forcing him into his metahuman form and paralyzing him. Vola was hit with multiple shock gloves, knocking her unconscious. Jenobli attempted to flank the assassin with Rosie, but the flame breath didn’t seem to do much to the cyborg. Jenobli was hit with a stun spell mid-air by Speren, and Belladonna kicked Rosie away. She gave a mocking salute and grappled away. Speren offered squid the choice to come peacefully. They were blindfolded and taken to a secure location.

Chapter 3: Good Night Gracie

The runners awoke in a dark, featureless room tied to poles. Speren interrogated them using threats and truth serum. He gave Cat-Sith a prototype Laes cure he called Forget-Me-Not which brought back all of his lost memories. Cat-Sith, under the truth serum told them everything, including striking out with the elf broad. Speren made the runners a deal: He would match the offer of the IoND if they turned the key over to them as planned. At that point he would apprehend Nicholas Grace for crimes of espionage. They called Aevon Faero, Speren listening, and arranged the meet. The runners first decided to contact Professor Gabriel Alatorre, who informed them on what little metahumanity knows about shadow spirits.
Grace was waiting for them at Sumner Cemetery, or at least his animated corpse was. Stauss had learned that his collection has been auctioned by Lone Star. He killed Grace and possessed his body to get his key back. Belladonna crashed the meet with Graceless via a hologram, giving one last chance to turn the key over to her employers. When the runners refused, she sniped grace in the heart. As they got to cover and tried to locate her, Graceless got back up and used the key to open a rift through every mausoleum in Sumner Cemetery. Shadow spirits flowed out by the dozens. The runners had to contend with several swarms of them while others escaped into the night sky.
A magical dome had appeared above the cemetery, holding back some of the spirits. It was not enough against the sea of shadows, as some managed to squeeze through. The conflict with the shadows was chaotic. A succubus took the form of Magwyn and seduced Cat-Sith (in his tiger form, no less), getting down right there on the grass while two others shaped like malformed creepy wet hair Magwyns with black eyes joined the fun. A muse disguised itself as a goth kid the runners encountered earlier in the night, pleading to be protected. It assisted Squid in his attacks while also feeding on him. Squid saw this as a worthwhile sacrifice. Jenobli astrally projected to get a better look at the battlefield and saw the assassin and the ghosts were both fighting off swarms of shadows. A Shade took possession of her body, but was quickly expelled by her force of will. New spirits, resembling a ghostly white light of tendrils, came out of the rifts. They possessed Grendel’s Mindshield Helm, Jenobli’s lightning wand, and Squid’s handgun while zombie arms grasped at Vola from the ground. Graceless was protected by a dual natured barrier, and once that was down they were impeded by a wraith which had been feeding on the ensuing violence to grow powerful. The wraith coerced Vola to attack Grendel, who slammed her back and knocked some sense into her. The wraith took several blows, regenerating from the very violence levied against it, until Grendel gave it enough to choke on.
Reading his aura, the runners saw that Grace had none but for a pale light that inhabited his body. They knew that Nicholas had been dead for a long time, replaced with that pale light inside. Through the sea of devouring shadows, the runners were able to kill Grace and when the pale spirit within fled, Jenobli astrally chased it miles away to an apartment hideout in the barrens. There the spirit returned to the body of Mortimer Strauss. Jenobli summoned a fire spirit to aid her in incinerating Strauss, sending him and the spirit within out the window in a fireball that disappeared into ash.
Gabriel Allatore, along with other mages from the Hermetic Order of the Auric Aura, had been the ones to deploy the mana barrier that contained many of the shadow spirits from escaping while banishing many others. Speren limped to the runners alongside Gabriel. Belladonna was nowhere to be found. After negotiating, the runners chose to give the key back to Speren and Tir Tairngire’s Council of Princes in exchange for 12,000 nuyen and Speren’s silver blade, Airgeadach. Magwyn wouldn’t be happy about this one.

Rewards Granted

12,000¥
Airgeadach (silver elvish blade)

Character(s) interacted with

Fixer

Magwyn Lhenesael
Josif Radek and Sergei Malenkin

The Opposition

Speren Seleanecet
Prof. Mortimer Strauss
Nicholas Grace 

Bystanders

Dr. Jason Nowatchahanu
Yantho
Nicholas Grace
Maru Hodo

7.16.2057

Shadowrunners

Cat-Sith 
Grendel 
Jenobli 
Squid 
Vola 

Report Date

29 Jan 2021

Related Historical Events

• 2057
  Strange Attraction

Shadowrunners

Locations Visited
Tír Tairngire
Salish-Shidhe Council