A Night in Hong Kong

Our adventure began on a flight to Hong Kong. The information that Overwatch collected from the scrapyard turned out to be incredibly useful: the codes to kill DEUS were implanted in the mind of one Mr. A. DEUS had attempted to extract the codes from Mr. A’s mind and had seriously messed up the guy in the process, so Mr. A had spent the last lil bit with some nice monks who had been working to reconstruct his brain. DEUS-led Renraku goons had set up a rendezvous with the monks in Hong Kong to pick up Mr. A, hoping to use the information he contained to free DEUS.

The team arrived in Hong Kong, and Clem was given a new SMG to replace the one that, oddly enough, didn’t make it through security. Overwatch called the team and let them know that Mr. A was at a BTL joint in the city and that they had 20 minutes to get there before Renraku goons showed up. Lacking the necessary licenses to drive in Hong Kong (not that any of us believe that would have stopped them), the team hailed a taxi and were on their way.

The taxi dropped the team off outside a seedy-looking BTL joint wedged between an apparently non-descript building and a sketchy cyberware clinic. The team walked in, trying to look like they definitely weren’t out of place, and Clem told the woman at the front desk (who introduced herself as Madame Kim) that they were there to meet Mr. A. After being led to a back room by Madame Kim, the runners entered to find a square garden filled with vibrant flowers and boasting a view of a clear blue sky above. Sensing the magic bleeding out of everything around them, the team approached the center of the garden, where two black-robed men were flanking a man sitting on a boulder and smiling absently at the sky.

Clem, expertly maintaining the facade that the team wasn’t at all out of place, explained to the black-robed men (who, it turned out, were the aforementioned monks) that they were there to collect Mr. A. The monks replied that Mr. A was able to follow simple commands but was very childlike. With Mr. A and the monks in tow, the runners left the garden and headed back towards the front door of the building. The team reached the entryway and were surprised to see the vice president of Renraku, Mr. H, and a few Red Samurai chilling outside the door. Clem shooed his teammates back down the hallway the way they came until Mr. H and the samurai had passed, then started the search for any kind of back door to the building. The samurai reached the Magic Garden Room to discover no Mr. A and no monks. Wheeling around, they were just in time to spot our heroes sneaking stealthily by.

“Hey!”

Mr. H, who was pretty quick to give someone the benefit of the doubt for a bad guy, smiled at the runners and explained that he was there to collect Mr. A. Clem told Mr. H that the team would be taking Mr. A, and the monks, realizing that something was going down, both grabbed Clem. As Clem was attempting to explain the extreme gravity of the situation to the monks, a red samurai darted into the room and stared intently at Clem. “Guys, I’m not doing this!” Clem called as he laid down his gun and dropped to his knees with his hands in the air.

With Giant Scary Orc in a more manageable position, Mr. H apparently felt unthreatened enough by Pary and Rhineholt to attempt some negotiations. Clem and Mr. H engaged in some witty repartee, during which Clem brought up some of Mr. H’s dead friends who had been killed by the runners, and which culminated in Clem asking Mr. H out for a coffee date.

Completely disgusted by this display, Monk One pulled his best karate stance, and Monk Two grabbed Mr. A and pulled him out of the way of the impending fight. Pary, who wasn’t responding to the pressure with her usual grace and charm, pulled her shotgun and blew nice-sized holes in Mr. H and the samurai mage who had been controlling Clem, then turned and ran back down the hallway.

Before they could follow the quick lil dwarf (who clearly has impulse control problems), Clem and Rhineholt were shot down by the samurai. Pary bobbed and weaved through the BTL booths, somehow managing to keep out of the way of the red samurai (thank goodness for a patient and understanding GM), who were combing the halls looking for Mr. A.

Suddenly, an agonized scream reached Pary’s ears, and the lights flickered and went out. Overwatch buzzed in to let Pary know that the samurai were leaving the building.

The only (living) critter Pary encountered as she headed back to the entryway was a gray and white cat who purred rather loudly…

Pary used her medkit to revive her friends, and the team found their way back to the Magic Garden Room. Clem explained to the monks that they needed Mr. A to defeat DEUS and promised that they would keep him safe. The monks agreed to let Mr. A go with the team but were disinclined to help the team escape or fight DEUS.

At this point, Overwatch radioed in to tell the team that there was gunfire at the front of the building and that an unknown third party was fighting the red samurai outside the building. Clem wrenched open a magically-cloaked back door to find a grimy, trash-filled hallway that connected the BTL parlor to the cyberware clinic next door. The team followed the hallway into the clinic and ran through the hallways in search of another back door, startling some nurses and interrupting a surgery in the process. Finding a window in an icky break room with icky furniture but no back door, Clem shoved a table underneath the window and grabbed one of the nurses. In a mad twist that none of us saw coming, Clem threw the nurse through the window and into the alleyway beyond. Pary hopped up onto the table and cleared out the rest of the broken glass with the barrel of her shotgun, then walked through the window and out into the alley.

Clem and Rhineholt had just managed to get themselves and Mr. A through the window when Overwatch radioed in again to let the team know that some of DEUS’s banded were headed their way. The team darted through the alley and into the waiting taxi. Clem tried to bribe the driver to ignore local speed laws with apparently not enough money for the driver, so Pary batted her eyelashes and offered the driver even more money. The driver agreed to go ‘fast fast’, and a dramatic chase scene ensued with some awesome theme music by our own Pary Moppins.

The team reached the plane safely and headed back home. Join us next week when our team faces DEUS once and for all…