Downtime 2

GameMaster wrote:Sato

Sato visits the university and his contact Ichiro Doumeki. He says, "The only way to know what deed your inugami would want you to perform is to commune with your inugami. I have a... special concoction that I can whip up for you. Once you have finished it, your inugami will let you know what it is it wants of you. Strictly speaking, I may not technically be legally allowed to give you this concoction and the main ingredient is quite expensive. But I suppose if one were to provide a 1,250 nuyen donation to the university to help pay for the ingredients, perhaps they might overlook things, right?"

WuJen wrote:"I have no doubt the Oni can provide for all of our hostile spider lady needs... but just finding the one that's no doubt around here somewhere is a better option. Besides, she'd want a piece of someone's soul, and she takes at least a week to summon."


"The idea that she's a shifter raises some significant issues as to how dangerous she may be.  Spiders are incredibly efficient predators, and clever enough when they are relatively mindless.  As a Shifter she is basically one of these spiders, only sapient and intelligent, and probably with a whole pile of abilities we would rather an intelligent predator not have.  The only good news is that spiders tend to be ambush predators, which means that she's likely to set herself up a spot and more or less stay there.  With luck she will be smart enough to constrain her feedings to stray animals, or even just lots of the same things these guys eat.  She didn't seem overly hostile when I saw her in the elevator shaft.  If we can find her it's very possible we can reason with her and even get her help in wrangling these things.  After all, I don't want to hurt them, I'm just curious about them and think that webbing probably has a ton of uses other than catching useless astral bats."

GameMaster wrote:Sato
((remember that you don't pay your karma for initiation until you finish your initiation and initiation (especially an ordeal) takes a while, so your next run should easily cover the difference before you need to pay up the karma))

The professor says, "If you don't have the cash on you, you can give it to me later. I do expect to get paid though. This stuff is not cheap. A man of your means will certainly appreciate it's interesting side effects though."
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In the dreamworld wrote:
Sato finds himself in a field of rice on a moonlit night. The muddy water around him comes up to his ankles, filling his designer shoes with water and bogging him down as he walks forward. He suddenly realizes that he is holding a leash and that leash is connected to the throat of a man. But it is not quite a man. There is a cloud of smoke around the man's face that makes his features indistinct and seem to shift in the moonlight. Sometimes the silhouette seems almost like that of a dog while others it is pretty clearly that of a man. The leashed being is clearly powerful, but Sato instinctively knows that as long as he holds onto the leash, the being is under his control. This being is Inugami.

An aura of hatred burns from around Inugami. It hates being bound but can do nothing about it. At least, not for now. It pulls on the leash with a force so powerful that Sato feels as though his arm is going to be torn from his socket, but he maintains hold of the leash. With an indignant howl Inugami gestures forward, as if getting permission to go in that direction. With no better ideas, Sato nods and follows Inugami as the pair slosh through the mud, ruining the rice crop as they go. At the edge of the field, a small house is lit for the night. Following along, but not daring to lose hold of the leash, Sato enters the house behind Inugami and suddenly finds himself in a rather fancy looking hotel, his muddy shoes leaving tracks on the marble floor.

Carved into the marble is the name of the hotel: Aman. Sato was familiar with this hotel. It was a luxury hotel occupying the top six floors of the recently-built Otemachi Tower. Towering high above the clouds, it is a place for wealthy elites. The staff and patrons of the hotel do not seem to notice Sato nor Inugami as they slosh through the lobby, to the elevator and eventually to the penthouse suite. The elevator doors open and security is extremely tight with cameras, armed guards, drones and enough illegal firepower to ruin the day of any uninvited guests. None of those things seem to notice the pair as they stroll right up to the door and move through it. Inugami turns to Sato and places something into his free hand. Sato recognizes it as the ritual dagger that was passed down through his family. The same ritual dagger that had originally created Inugami and bound it to the service of Sato's family.

For the briefest of moments, Sato could see glimpses of the ritual that had created Inugami. He saw a loyal family dog starved to the point of madness next to seven other equally loyal dogs. Every day a small fish was thrown into the enclosure. It was enough to just barely feed one of the dogs. Whoever was fastest would get it as the bellies of the others grumbled for another day. After a few days, the dogs knew that only one would eat and when the fish was thrown into the enclosure they fought each other over it. One dog got the fish. One dog died. The remaining dogs fed on the dead dog. The next day it was the same, but this time there was only half a fish. The dogs fought. One got the fish and was torn apart by the remaining dogs and fed upon. By the day after that, the dogs no longer bothered with the fish, instead leaping at the throat of whatever dog seemed to be weakest so they may all eat for another day. After many days of this, only the dog that would become Inugami remained. For days or weeks, no more fish came and there were no more dogs to fight and eat. The dog grew weak with hunger and could barely move. It just lay on the ground, awaiting death and wondering what it had done to deserve such a fate at the hands of its beloved master.

It is at this time that the master appeared, the same ritual knife in his hand. Using the small knife, he sawed through the weakened dog's neck and removed the head, a process that took several painful minutes as the knife was not adequate for decapitation. The head, somehow still alive, is buried beneath a crossroad. Rage and indignation build within the creature's soul as it feels the weight of countless people unknowingly stepping on its head through the dirt above. The steps crush his soul until all he is is a concentration of hatred to be directed by his master as he sees fit.

Blinking his eyes, Sato finds himself in the penthouse suite again, ritual dagger still in his hands. The trid in the room is on and there appears to be a news broadcast on. It is the 30th of Rokugatsu. The time is midnight.

As the news broadcaster talks, a man enters the room and unlike all the others in the hotel, he can actually see Sato. In fact, he is Sato. Before his doppelganger can call for security, Sato plunges the dagger into his throat and removes the copy's head in much the same way Inugami's first master had done to create the spirit. The body dies, but the head remains alive. It rolls along the ground and soon countless other heads, each of which appearing to belong to Sato roll into the room and surround him. Suddenly, they begin to laugh. Just a chuckle at first, but then a louder giggle. Soon the whole room is a chorus of deafening guffaws emanating from the various heads of Sato.

Inugami, still held by the leash, is standing within the circle of Sato heads. It nods in approval and appears to have grown stronger by the effort.

GameMaster wrote:Sato

((remember that you don't pay your karma for initiation until you finish your initiation and initiation (especially an ordeal) takes a while, so your next run should easily cover the difference before you need to pay up the karma))

The professor says, "If you don't have the cash on you, you can give it to me later. I do expect to get paid though. This stuff is not cheap. A man of your means will certainly appreciate it's interesting side effects though."

At HQ

A look on the astral plane shows no signs of the girl. She didn't use any magic that you know of and it has been a couple days. Blood stains still remain, but exposure to the elements has ruined it for the purposes of a material link. Perhaps a very skilled tracker might be able to pick up some signs of what happened, but short of that it seems the trail ends there for now. ((If anyone has any skill at tracking/outdoors, they can try a tracking check. Defaulting won't work.))

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