The Four Horsemen

Hoi, omaes. I’m a new patron here to Bull’s, so let me give you a short download on who I am. Street Rage is what I go by, and am a street sam and field medic by trade. And as of three days ago, I’m also sadly in need of a new running team. I wound up being the only survivor from my team’s last run which, at the beginning, looked like it had the potential for a big score, but in the end, the job went sideways and I ended up losing my teammates in a matter of a few hours, some of whom I’ve worked with and known for close to a decade.

So perhaps you are wondering just what happened to my team? Well, as I lift my virtual glass in remembrance of my teammates, I will tell you all about it. About a week ago, a Ms. Johnson from the Draco Foundation approached us. She told us there were four toxic shamans that the Draco Foundation wanted hunted down and eliminated. She said we could either choose to go after just one of the shamans, or go after all four. The price they were offering for the shamans were 175k each, or a full million for taking them all down. Being the bad asses that we thought we were, we agreed on going after all four. We based our decision on the fact that the four shamans were working as the leaders of individual cells on four separate continents. The odds of encountering any more than one of them at a time were negligible at best. Between that and the confidence we felt in what we were capable of doing as an experienced, seven troll team, the price being offered for the shamans seemed mighty appealing. We figured, if we could geek the mage before he could waggle his fingers, we would be all good. Boy, were we way off with that assumption. And I guess, in hindsight, the name of their organization should have tipped us off that we were biting off more than we could chew; as they called themselves the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

We chose to go after the one in Amazonia first, with the shaman calling himself Pestilence (Like War, Famine or Death sounded any better). Finding where he was located wasn’t too difficult; the locals all told us that he was operating in an area where a wide swatch of the awakened rain forest seemed sickly and the native spirits were extremely restless. We were told that some of Pestilence’s forces in his camp included a few mercs who knew how to handle surface to air weapons, so as a team, we decided to stick to the safety of the ground. Unfortunately, given the particular, mountainous region the shaman and his camp were operating in, ground vehicles were also not an option. We had to hike in, and in some places, climb, with all our gear to the enemy camp, which was about eight kilometers deep inside the rain forest (and what a chore that was. I honestly don’t think we could have done it if we weren’t all trolls). The terrain was extremely treacherous and in some parts, impassable. And of course, that’s when our other problems started. About three kilometers into the dense forest, one of our teammates got separated from the rest of us. Going in, we were maintaining commlink and radio silence, to minimize the possibility of tipping off the enemy base camp of our approach. After forty-five minutes of back-tracking, we finally found him, or rather, what was left of him. We discovered that he had an unfortunate encounter with one of those awakened trees that were known to eat people (the Sangre Del Diablo tree is what I believe the locals call them). By the time we got to him, most of his remains had already been partially liquefied and were in the process of being digested by the tree, leaving only his gear in a bloody heap at its base. Even before our Op in Amazonia got started, we were a man down.

Perhaps we should have taken that as a bad omen and had turned around then, but we decided to forge on. We did not want to make the last run that Anubis went on and had died for to be a failure (especially when he died from being attacked by a damn tree). However, approaching the four kilometer marker, another member of our team met with misfortune. He was stung by some unknown type of indigenous (and awakened) insect. Being the medic of the group, I tried to identify and neutralize the poison. But, given our luck, the medkit’s internal computer returned with, “Foreign pathogen not identified. No recommended treatment. Subject should be transported to nearest medical facility for advanced medical care.” Given that option was not possible from where we were (even Doc Wagon doesn’t service that area), we watched helplessly as Swift Blade died a mere ten minutes later. For what its worth, omaes, I have the dead insect as a specimen, and the analysis performed on the venom from the medkit. So If anyone’s interested in travelling to Amazonia and would like to acquire this insect and/or the analysis to know what to be on the lookout for, give me a call on my commlink at 211930014. Any way, that was our second man down, leaving just the five of us.

Since we were so close to Pestilence, we saw no point in just hiking back out of the forest without getting what we came for. Besides, if that damn forest was going to claim the rest of us, we figured we would go down in a blaze of glory. We eventually arrived at their base camp, and we went in hot. We took a few of them by surprise, gunning down their initial guards before they could reach for their guns. Once the element of surprise was gone, the fire fight grew pretty intense, as we laid into those bastards with everything we had. During the fight, we left nothing to chance. Scorched Earth, baby! We peppered every tent with dozens of rounds and tossed in a couple high explosive grenades for good measure. We swept the entire compound with gun fire, from the vehicles to the latrines. We shredded every person and every piece of equipment we came across, and detonated every makeshift lab we found with lots of explosives. We were convinced that if the world would be better off with one less toxic shaman, than it would be better off without all his followers as well; followers that could easily escape the rain forest and start the operation up again somewhere else in complete obscurity. Each of us took a few rounds and several slash wounds in the fighting, but it was nothing that would stop a group of rampaging trolls on a mission. After clearing most of the camp of the two dozen or so guards and underlings, we finally reached the prize; Pestilence himself.

Pestilence had two spirits with him, one looked (and smelled) very much like raw sewage, and the other, like a polluted, brown cloud, a cloud that seemed to have come from the heavily polluted city of Tenochtitlan itself. We broke off into two teams, three of us to deal with the spirits, and the other two, to deal with the human shaman. I was in the group that took on the spirits. As our adept, Mist Walker, faced off with the cloud and Hunter and I faced off with the sludge monster, we also tried to keep a close eye on our two teammates as they fought with the shaman. We thought that their fight would be over fairly quickly, especially since Pestilence was a smoothie, but like all the other assumptions we made about this run, this one also turned out to be wrong.

So I opened fire on the sludge spirit with everything I still had available to me until my guns ran dry, and at which point, I switched over to my trusty combat axe. As I did so, I glanced over to my friends who were fighting the shaman. Let me tell you something, my omaes were even more wired than I am. And that fucking shaman was keeping up with each of them. Blow for blow. Don’t think for a second all magicians are squishy, because this toxic shaman seemed built for melee. He was wielding a machete more effectively than what I would have thought possible, and for a good, long while, things appeared to be in a stalemate between Airborne, Stinger and the toxic shaman, with each one parrying away each others’ blows. I turned away for a moment to continue laying into the sludge spirit (for all the good it was doing…damn spirits). It was my fourth swing at the spirit, when the spirit decided to call upon the toxic fluids embedded in the soils to wrap around Hunter, and it engulfed him inside a liquid prison. Damnit, I can still remember the gurgling sounds he made, as he flailed around desperately, trying to free himself from its grasp. I sometimes wish it had went after me instead. Any way, my attention became totally focused on the spirit, as I attempted to distract or destroy the spirit. Unfortunately, my attempts were in vain.

My concentration was also broken moments later when I heard Airborne groan in pain. I looked over, and saw Pestilence had cut through Airborne’s armor and had sliced him deeply across his abdomen. From what I could tell, the wound might have been survivable had there not been a toxic shaman there to make things worse. In the same instant as his abdomen was ripped open, hundreds of gashes, lesions and boils magically formed all over Airborne’s extremities. I watched my friend suddenly lose all the color from his face, break into a hard sweat and collapse to his knees, incapacitated by wounds with a severity I could only guess at. I had no choice but to continue working on the sludge spirit, but I hoped that since Airborne was down and no longer posed a threat to the fragger, that he would forget about him and focus all his attention on Stinger, who was still able-bodied and still able to defend himself. But out of pure malice, the bastard turned and faced Airborne, and with one of the most sadistic grins I have ever seen from any living being, laid his free hand on top of Airborne’s head. Airborne’s already ravaged skin literally melted away from beneath the shaman’s touch, and continued down the rest of his body, releasing flowing streams of dark fluids from his exposed muscle tissues. Airborne gave off just one more blood-curling scream before he slumped to the ground, with his mouth contorted and locked into an expression of lifeless agony. Insects and other bugs from the rain forest began to swarm over Airborne’s corpse, as if he was already in an advanced state of decomposition. God, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in all my years as a shadowrunner, and hope to never see again. With vengeance the only thing on my mind, I ferociously swung at the spirit, wanting to get rid of it so I could have my own shot at the shaman. Finally the sludge spirit vanished, and it released Hunter. But god… by that time, I was too late. Hunter’s biomonitor sounded an audible alarm; there was no pulse. And I was faced with the terrible decision to either take the time to try and revive him, or to deal with the on-going threat. The medic inside of me screamed ‘tend to Hunter,’ but my runner side screamed ‘kill this asshole now, or the rest of you are all dead.’ It was one of the hardest calls I had to make, and its something that I’m going to have to live with, but I chose to bull rush Pestilence.

Obviously, the smoothie saw me coming. And I could tell that he was no longer screwing around, He extended his hand at Stinger, and cast another spell, one which I’ve seen used a few times before in the shadows: acid stream. It was one of those, ‘I don’t have time to be creative in dealing with you, so I’ll just use something basic and effective to get you dead.’ Stinger attempted to jump out of the line of acid spray, but physically, he must have already been exhausted and a little battered from parrying the toxic shaman for so long, and he was drenched by the powerful acid spray. I did not see how badly he was burned, but his screaming was all that I needed to tell me it was bad as I charged shaman. Pestilence barely had time to turn his face in my direction before the collision occurred. I lowered by right shoulder and I plowed into the bastard with everything I had. The smoothie was hit square in his center mass, and my momentum drove him backwards for at least several meters before he rolled on the ground several times and was left dazed. Not giving him the chance to get his wind back and get to his feet, I continued running towards the shaman and brought my combat axe down hard upon him. And after burying my axe in the toxic shaman, I made sure that there was no magic in the world that could have saved that shaman from the damage that I had inflicted on him.

After it was done, I went back to check on Hunter and Stinger. I tried reviving Hunter, but as I had figured, it was too late for him. Stinger was still hanging in there but not by much. He had third-degree acid burns over seventy percent of his body. I treated what I could and tried to prevent any more tissue damage, but I knew he needed immediate medical attention; much more than what I could provide in the field, in the Amazon rain forest. And the insects that had swarmed over Airborne’s body, were now starting to invade the wounds of Stinger. I contacted one of our local contacts for extraction via t-bird, and headed out to find Mist Walker. During the heat of the battle, the toxic air spirit he was fighting drove him further into the forest, and away from any possible support. After several minutes of searching, I found Mist Walker, lying motionless on the ground. I attempted to revive him as well, but like Hunter, I was too late. Mist Walker had been asphyxiated by the spirit. I spent some time looking for the spirit, but it had already fled the area after its master had died. The T-Bird finally arrived for Stinger and myself about half an hour later.

And that pretty much sums up what happened to my team. I gathered enough of Pestilence to verify the kill and headed back to civilization with Stinger. As we were heading back, Stinger succumbed to his burns, leaving me as the last surviving member of my team. So that’s why I am here now. For the record, I hear the Draco Foundation is still looking for teams to hunt down the other three toxics. As you can probably understand, I will never again go on another hunt for another toxic shaman, but I wish you all the best if you wish to collect the reward on their heads. My advice: take lots of magical support. One adept won’t cut it. And also, don’t be so overconfident in your approach to these animals. Trust me, you’ll live to regret it. So there you have it, my team’s story. I’ll be hanging around here in this Virtual Private Network if anyone wants to talk about recruiting me for their team, or you can always reach me on my commlink. Thanks, omaes.