Part 2 - The Hug of Death
(again, this is me recounting my shadowrun-character Alberich's adventures. it is very self-indulgent, though of course I hope I'm making it entertaining.)
Part 1
One thing you should know about Alberich is that he is a people person. And, having left the Allied German States, he in turn has become... a bit lonely on the new continent. There is one friend he has, however and that is another Troll mage called Lohan, who owns a magic shop. And it is said friend that nets the group their next mission:
There is a compound that Lohan would like to purchase - but said compound is only sold by a mage who dislikes him. It is up to the group to buy it for him. But of course it doesn't turn out that easy. It's never that easy.
Dr. Kersh and his trusty spirit (when we meet them, they are debating whether Friends or Frasier was the better sitcom) don't simply sell the compound - they exchange it against services. There was this other shaman who had been interested in the compound, but a) she turned out to be a toxic shaman - with a thing for taking over people's identities to boot and b) she was too chickenshit to do the service. What is the service? Oh, just mosey on over into the crater in Chicago where the hoop used to be, past 100.000 insect spirits and place a a device there for like half an hour. But it's all good - they're throwing in some hazmat suits and Dr. Kersh will heal your radioactive poisoning at a discount!
So we move our way down the crater and past a herd of insect sprits like we`re the needles in the board game "operation" until we finally, finally make it and place the device.
I had been informed by the Game Master, that the area has, like, reaaally bad mojo and that as a magic user, Alberich is being plagued by headaches. It's because of this that he doesn't notice at first when the radioactive spirit children turn up. Now, by this point, we'd gotten a new team mate, Shere Khan, a physical adept. The most important thing to know about him in this context is that he does not like kids. And that while he's a very intimidating person otherwise, him trying to intimidate them into staying away only makes the little girl cry - which in turn agitates her brother.
The GM later told us that he was pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to take them - so it was a good thing Alberich finally snapped out of it to hurry on over there and console the crying spirits.
They turned out to be... weirdly normal for what they were. Mostly they just seemed bored, so Alberich tried his best to befriend them and play games - without having to touch them. So, word games, I spy with my little eye (many insect spirits in that one) and stuff like that. It worked out. Mostly.
"When you leave, the spirit children can't help but sneak in a hug, even though you told me you'd rather not", the GM said.
"Awww :)"
"You now have 7 kinds of cancer."
"... awww :("
Back at the prof's place, we arrive just in time to witness an assault by the Swamp Thangs - a notorious street gang. While that sure threw a wrench into our mission, at least it resulted into a fucking cool scene, where Shere Khan jumped out of the moving van to drop-kick a ganger in the head.
A Thing of Beauty.
Oh yeah, here might be a good a place as any to mention that the other notable thing about Shere Khan is that while he's usually frowning, while fighting he adopts a manic grin.
This might also be a good point to mention that I did not build Alberich to be a fighter. As a troll shaman in 5e you have a really hard time building a decent character since shamans are charisma and smarts-based and Trolls are... not that. On the other hand you get those sweet, sweet 5 body (constitution) and 5 strenght. Which don't really help you if you don't go into close combat as a mage... but I'd digress. During this fight I mostly made sure that Elf_Queen doesn't slip out of the van while she was hacking...
... and buffing the fighters. You see, I made him into a support/utility mage, which is why when I picked my spells, I picked supportive and useful ones.
I swear, I looked at "Acid Stream" and thought "oh, I could dissolve metal with that, that might come in handy!". So in absence of any combat spells, I kinda... started using that as a go-to spell once everyone was properly buffed? And the group wouldn't stop giving me shit about it. But I mean, how is this any different than slicing people up with a Katana or kicking their chin in, really? And also, at least I'm not the one smiling happily at the bloodbath while fighting...
Personally I think they were just jelly because they couldn't melt people.
I any case: The Swamp Thangs stole the fucking compound.
Time to get it tf back.
