Runners
Aemon Burst
Ortega
Christopher Toff
Chessick Allens-Whitehill
Twitch

After the success of the last job, One hires the team again for a heist. They seemed to have gained some face, as One treats them with noticeably increased respect. Curious about their employers, Aemon researches them on Jackpoint, and finds out that they are fixers working directly for the great dragon Lung, the titular entity of the Red Dragon Triad. They have a fearsome rep on their own as well, so the team decides they best not disappoint. One, once again, provides a detailed dossier on the target: the main city of New York data archives, in a secure offline vault storage system under the city center library. It was built post-Crash 2.0 to withstand disasters, hackers, technomancers, and thieves, so this will be a challenge. It uses wi-fi negating wall treatments, but the magical security seems light- mostly focussed on detection and reporting of magical threats, rather than actual counter-measures.

Toff, using his MIT&T grad student SIN, accesses the vault as a “legit” user, to check the protocols, and seeing the difficulty of access they decide they will need 2 things: a large shaped charge, and a distraction. Luckily, Prometheus Engineering, which built the library and vault (as well as many of the other spaceage structures in Manhattan) also provides security. And they have an additional office building/warehouse next door. The 2 building’s security teams act as backup for each other until NYPD INC shows, and the security spiders for both bulldings share an office next door.

So the plan is: Aemon and Ortega will steamroll into the office building, and using non-lethal ammo and gas grenades, neutralize any guards they encounter (and hopefully the spiders), which should call the library guards over. The rest of the team will have entered the library ahead of time, with a large C4 charge concealed in Twitch’s cyberleg smuggling compartment. Toff will conceal them using spellcraft, while they sneak downstairs, and re-route the hardwired alarms. Then they will attempt to bypass the physical locks to get to the final vault door, which they will blow (the sound of which Toff will also conceal). They will use a pre-summoned spirit to grab the drive they need, and sneak back out, hopefully exiting the building amidst a crowd if any patrons haven’t been cleared out yet. They also get a side job from Sully to swap one drive with another provided by a client.

The team accesses the library legitimately, and disable the alarm on a fire escape door, leading to a back stairwell. Toff (invisible) goes ahead to spot cameras/sensors, while Twitch and Chessick trail behind, disabling them. They reach the sub-basement door, and disable that alarm as well. They find the electrical room without encountering any guards, and Twitch and Chessick prepare to re-route the alarms as soon as Ort and Aemon start the distraction. Toff stays on astral/clairvoyant overwatch.

Meanwhile, Aemon and Ort, having finished their street food, enter the office building, and using SNS rounds, ko the guard at the desk, and dash through the security sensors, setting off a series of alarms in the process. They race up the fire escape (more alarms) as panicked employees try to flee the other way. They don gas masks, and ko another guard on the way to the top floor. They loose some gas grenades, and ko the remaining 2 guards, who only manage to hurt them a little. However, the spiders have locked their room down, and Aemon is heavily injured by a drone turret firing SNS back at him. They destroy the turrets, but can’t find a way in. So they content themselves with chucking more gas grenades from the windows at the arriving security from next door.

Back at the library, with the signals re-routed, the team heads back up a floor, disabling a final fire alarm, before sneaking towards the vault as they hear the guards heading up in the elevator, and a PA alarm instructing all patrons to head to the 1st floor, where library staff can keep an eye on them until the security situation is dealt with. Through a combo of technical ability and magic, they manage to imitate the procedure that Toff observed and gain access to the main vault, without setting off any alarms or traps. They place the charge and blow the door. However, Twitch overdid it a little bit, and the blast, the rapid exit of all the air in the room, and the shrapnel cloud nearly kills Chessick. Luckily, Twitch snags him with a grapple gun before he gets sucked through the hole and falls to his death. Toff heals him up magically, and Twitch and the spirit enter to grab the drives.

Aemon and Ort decide to flee, but find that the spiders seems to have locked the building down, with security shutters over man doors. They manage to pry and squeeze their way through, but lose 1 gun and their crowbar in the effort. They jump out a back window on the 2nd floor, to head to their Underground entrance/escape route, where their Rat Pack contact awaits. They are spotted by some civilians, some of whom scream, flee, film them, or call for help. They dash off on foot, but are quickly overtaken by 2 cop cars. They race for the sewers, but Aemon is killed by a shotgun blast after firing at one of the cars. Ortega scoops him up, and dives in, as the Rat Pack drags a cover over. Fearing for his friend’s life (and immortal soul), Ortega massages some of his blood down Aemon’s throat, returning him sputtering to life (though only just).

The rest of the team, having retrieved the drives with no trouble, manages to join the milling patrons as they are escorted from the building (as the explosion appears to have set off a seismic sensor, and the spirit some sort of astral intrusion alarm). With Toff maintaining their invisibility spells, and some lucky sneaking, they escape the police cordon that is hastily being established, and rendevouz with their own Rat Pack escape route a short ways away. Twitch grabbed 1 extra drive, so they have 1 mystery drive for Sully’s client, 1 for themselves, and the sole master copy of the blueprints of NYC for One. Now they just have to escape through the treacherous tunnels of the Underground.