Written by Peter Weilnböck
Published on: 2025-09-07
The runners meet and have their first run. Everything going according to plan, of course.
Towards the late afternoon on Saturday, September 3rd 2072 Discord got a message from Harvey, informing him about a short notice job oppurtunity. Apparently an unknown Johnson was hiring and had set up an open meet table in “The Broken Neck” around 8pm the same day. When Discord inquired about the Johnson, Harvey could not help out further. Other than the meet, he knew nothing of this particular contact.
Discord tells Jace, whom he already knew about this, and they hopped into a bus to be there on time. “The Broken Neck” turned out to be a seedy, run down place of a bar somewhere between the Redmond Barrens and Puyallup. There was an old Fender Telecaster with a broken neck nailed above the entrance, probably giving the place its name. It might have been a reasonably nice diner at some point in time, however if this ever were the case those days have long passed.
Romeo on the other hand heard about the same meet and went there in his small Honda Spirit. When he arrived there he just saw an Ork and an Elf enter the place together. Both were wearing functional armored jackets, the sleek elf carrying a medieval sword on his back, the burley Ork casually tapping the walls and the ground with something that could only described as the cobbled together unholy offspring of a mace and a tuning fork with a shotgun strapped to it for good measure.
Romeo got the slight feeling that he might not be dressed apropriately for this occasion, since his own cloths clearly were of much better quality than anything found around here. But, alas it was simply one of his normal outfits. He did not even have an idea where to find things. Definitly not in the stores he frequented.
Inside the bar, the environment was not much better. A few scruffy looking creatures were nursing their drinks quitly in various corners, occupied either with quiet conversation or with just being inconspicuous and not attracting the attention of anyone dangerous. With one noteable exception: In one booth a middle aged lean human was sitting upright, watching the entrence. He clearly seemed to be waiting for someone. This, and the two muscly bodyguards in armored jackets flanking the booth were indications that this might be the Johnson for todays job.
The 3 runners took a seat on chairs opposite of the Johnson. After the first short introductions, all of them heard heavy steps and even heavier breathing as another person entered the room. Some chairs creaked as they were pushed to the side by the bulky form who, even though he turned himself sideways, did not quite manage to fit through the space. This rather obeese individual reached the booth and plopped down on one side of the U shaped bench, asking “You the Johnson?”, ignoring the others for now. Only then they noticed the pointed ears under the oily brown hair and the high cheekbones hidden under wobbly acne stained cheeks marking him as the probably fattest elf any of them have ever seen in the flesh.
The actual meet was quite short: The Johnson offered them a total of 20000 Nuyen (5k each) for getting a crate from a warehouse close to the docks. He had the adress, the floor plan and new that the package should be there from 23:45 to 00:15 that day. Although it might be picked up sooner, so he recommended to act rather quickly. He also provided a detailed description of how the crate was marked, so that the team could identify it. The contents were not their concern.
They decided to take Hunt0rKill0r69s GMC Bulldog Stepvan, since, other that the 2 seated Honda Spirit from Romeo, it was the only vehicle they owned. And, if they wanted to keep to the speed limit and drive unsuspiciously, they also had to leave almost immediately to get there in time.
On the way they tried to find out about the warehouse what they could. Discord asked Harvey, but he said that it will take him a day to find out who the warehouse belonged to. Jace sent a message to Miri, his connection in the Mafia, but did not get a reply before they arrived.
The warehouse turned out to be a reasonably busy place. Two lories were being loaded in the exit bay even this late at night, but the entry bay was empty. Discord snuck around to the other side of the building, ready to create a diversion. The best plan they were able to come up with in such a short time was that they would wait until the lory with the crate arrives. While it was being unloaded Jace and Romeo watch carefully for the crate. Once they spot it, Discord should create the diversion, luring the workers away while Jace and Romeo grab the crate.
It went reasonbaly smooth. The lorry arrived, and they started unloading. Here was the first little snag: the goods were prepacked onto paletts. So getting the crate out would be a bit more difficult than planned. So they quickly adjusted their plans to steal the whole lorry, drive of to a quiet site and get out the crate with a bit more peace and quite. Still being fast enough to leave before the cops could decend on the grid signal of the stolen vehicle.
Just when they were getting ready to up the distraction by spoofing the conveour belt inside, they heard Hunt0rKill0r69 vie the comm: “Guys? Who of you triggered the alarm?“. And this is when things went sideways.
Four armed guards came rushing out of the break/office area of the warehouse. Discord immediately banged his “Silencer” to pull them to his location and initiate the diversion. Romeo rushed around the lorry to get in next to the driver while Jace stood bz ready. Three of the four guards decided to follow the noise, while one ran towards the unloading bay. Spotting Romeo who just got into the lorry, he immidiately fired, but missed. Jace responded, and thanks to his sznaptic booster he took down the guard before he was able to act again.
In the meantime discord threw a glowstick as a further diversion, and managed to distract two of the remaining three guards. The third he rushed in melee combat. Which also did not take too long.
Romeo started to convince the driver that it might be a smart idea to leave the truck and value his own safty more than following protocol. Because of the burst fire all around (some of which made some holes into the lorry door threw which Romeo came in), the driver did not take too much convincing and left the sprinting over the parking lot.
Jace had in the meantime climbed into the back of the lorry. The two guards by now had noticed Discord, but taken into the crossfire by Jace, they did not stand too much of a chance.
The breather after elimintating this immediate threat was only short lived though, since Discord already heared additional guard running for support. And then an explosion going off 2 or 3 blocks away. Therefore they quickly skidaddled, Hunt0rKill0r69 picking up Discord and meeting the others at a empty parking lot not too far away. The crate was then found rather quickly and so they managed to drop it off back at “The broken Neck” at around 03:00, the time the Johnson asked them to.
Quite happy with the success of their first run, they split up and went to their respective homes for some well earned rest, only to awake to a summons to an italian restaurnt in a slightly nicer area of town.
When they arrived around lunch time, they were shown in. They noticed quite a few burly looking men in suits around. However they were ushered to an ancient looking man of questionable health eating a steak. He gestured them to take a seat and order something for themself.
“Good day gentlemen. I hear that yesterday you were quite successful in stealing something from us.”
In that moment jace finally got an answer via text from Miri: “One of ours”.
It is nice to play Shadowrun again. We decided to go with 4th edtion, with some houserules that need to be properly hammered out.
Of the players one is new, and one played DnD in the past, while my wife has already played quite a bit of Shadowrun with me in the past.
It is also I think my first try to completely design the campaign by myself. While I had run self designed adventures or freely strung various bought adventures together to a kind of campaign, this is the first time, that I plan to actually design the complete campaign with all (or at least most) of the runs in it. This will be an interesting challange, especially since I am also more busy than I had been when I run Shadowrun in the past. However, I am looking forward to it. Everyone seems to be quite motivated, and so I can’t wait to continue.