Time flew by with the city being fairly quiet. Two years later, Sophie was lounging around in her apartment, waiting for Sasha to return with dinner. While she waited, the girl looked over all of the progress she had made in the last few years.
Name: Sophie Mortimer
Age: 14
Class: Bladerunner - Lvl.85
Profession: Mechanical Engineer - Lvl.20
Traits
Ghost, Thief’s Instinct, Ambidextrous, Recoil Reduction, Structural Intuition, Precision Shooting, Iron Will, Escape Artist, Enhanced Reflexes, Enhanced Mind, Parry, Durable Creations, Quickdraw
Class Skills
Thief’s Hand: Lvl.10, Parkour (Advanced): Lvl.10, Stealth (Advanced): Lvl.10, Thievery (Advanced): Lvl.10, Magic Magazines: Lvl.10, Shooting (Advanced): Lvl.10, Gun Combat (Advanced): Lvl.10, Gun Knowledge (Advanced) Lvl.10, Breach Protocol: Lvl.10, Programming (Basic) Lvl.10, Cyberwarfare (Basic) Lvl.10, Quickhacks (Basic): Lvl.10, Flow: Lvl.10, Striking (Basic): Lvl.10, Grappling (Basic): Lvl.10, Environmental Combat (Basic): Lvl.10, Evasion: Lvl.8, Sword Techniques (Advanced): Lvl.8, Sword Combat (Advanced): Lvl.8, Footwork (Advanced): Lvl.8
Profession Skills
Problem Solver: Lvl.50, Mechanics (Intermediate): Lvl.10, Driving (Basic): Lvl.50, Vehicle Combat (Basic): Lvl.50, Designer: Lvl.10, Engineering (Intermediate): Lvl.10
Cyberware
Chronos Sandevistan: Available (1 short use (7 seconds) per 2 weeks. Further body modifications will increase limit) (God)
Kiroshi Mk.3 Optics (Rare)
Raven’s Claw Cyberarms (Legendary)
Subdermal Armour (Epic)
Militech SpecOps Lungs (Epic)
MoorE Simple Liver (Common)
Titanium Back (Epic)
Reinforced Tendons (Uncommon)
Reinforced Ligaments (Uncommon)
Fortified Ankles (Uncommon)
Soulbound Weapons
Talons (Mythic)
Store: Available
Inventory: 10m x 10m x 10m
M-Coins: 2,000,000
Samurai had been finished fairly easily, after which she took up the Gunslinger class, the advanced upgrade to Markswoman. It was easily the longest class she had ever trained in, mostly because she didn’t have any kind of boost like a teacher. Once she finished it, she picked up Bladerunner, the advanced version of Samurai. It was a requirement for the first combined class she would take after all.
Class: Assassin
Requirements: 1 Advanced Stealth Class (Completed), 2 Advanced Combat Classes (1/2)
Obviously finishing those classes provided the corresponding traits.
Trait: Parry - You are incredibly skilled at parrying incoming attacks.
Trait: Quickdraw - Massively increases the speed at which you can draw any weapon.
Trait: Durable Creations - You are skilled at ensuring all creations are more durable.
The final trait came from the Engineer profession, which she had also completed, taking up the Mechanical Engineer profession afterwards.
Sophie’s eyes turned to the large number of M-Coins she possessed. Constant jobs from Rogue had provided her a steady stream of the system currency, however she still had no idea what to use them on. There was a niggling sensation in the back of her mind, telling her to hoard them in case of an emergency.
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Her thoughts were interrupted by Sasha’s arrival. The older girl walked in holding a box of takeaway.
“I’m back! I got all our favourites!” As she spoke, the girl dropped her package on the table.
“Nice!” Sophie opened the box, revealing a few boxes of noodles and some skewers. They were nothing special but they were far better than most of the street food in Night City.
As they ate, the girls chatted about the progress they had made in their respective fields. Sasha had been hard at work over the years, building up her netrunning skills. In fact, the system was very close to recognising her as a Master in netrunning.
“I’ve managed to create a program that will trigger involuntary movements so far. It’s my first step to creating a proper Suicide hack.”
“That’s honestly pretty scary. Just remember not to share it around. We don’t need random runners forcing people to blow their own brains out.”
“Bah! I wouldn’t show it to anyone. You’re the only one that knows what I’m doing anyway.”
“True. Oh?” The conversation was interrupted when Sophie received a call. “Rogue? What’s up?”
“Sophie,” the fixer greeted. “I need your skills. Come see me as soon as possible.” The call cut out, leaving behind a bewildered merc.
“Right…I guess we have to go see the boss.”
“Huh? Why?”
“No idea. She didn’t give me any details, just told us to go see her asap.” Sasha shoveled a final mouthful of noodles into her mouth before standing up.
“Let’s go then!”
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The two mercenaries headed straight for Rogue’s booth once they reached the Afterlife. Nobody batted an eye, even at Sophie, when they walked past. Two years had allowed the pair to develop a significant reputation, largely due to the trail of corpses they left behind. The sight of the younger girl’s signature menpo now actually meant something to many of the city’s mercs.
“Good, you’re here,” said Rogue, throwing them a data shard each. “Check the detes.” Both slotted the shard, beginning to read through the info.
Dozens of missing mercs? All across the city too. No bodies were found either. No connections between them. This doesn’t actually tell me much. “Can you tell me anything else?”
“The first crew, a group of six, went missing over a month ago while on a job related to Militech. I received no communication from them and assumed they were dead. A few days later, I gave a similar job to a different group. They went missing too.” Rogue rubbed her temples as she explained.
“That doesn’t explain the numbers.” The woman sighed.
“I sent out multiple crews afterwards. One of them took a Militech related job while the other two investigated what happened to the missing crews. All of them disappeared as well. After that, well…every crew I’ve sent out has gone missing. I’ve had to stop sending out groups of more than three people.”
“Okay, so what exactly are you wanting Sasha and I to do?”
“I trust you both are able to defend yourselves. Investigate the disappearances, see if you can find a culprit. If you can find the missing mercs, let me know.”
“What do you want done with the culprit,” Sasha cut in, having finally finished reading the data.
“Inform me. I’ll make a decision based on who it is.”
The two mercs looked at each other. “We’ll get going then. Talk later, Rogue.”
New Mission
Identify and locate the person/people behind the disappearances of the mercenaries. Bonus rewards for discovering what happened to them.
Difficulty: Hard
Rewards: 10,000 M-Coins, 100,000 Eurodollars, Crow Optics (Epic)
Bonus Rewards: Custom Talon Holsters
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Their first stop was the apartments that belonged to the original missing mercs. Considering there were six to check, the girls split up. It was only at the final apartment Sophie checked that she found a clue. The whole place was a mess.
“Sasha, I’ve got something here. Come over when you can.”
“Got it. I’ll be there soon.”
The call cut off, leaving the mercenary to examine the apartment. Most notable was the significant damage done to the walls. Bullet holes and blast marks covered every side of the room, a clear sign that whatever happened was not peaceful.
These shell casings look familiar. Militech branded…Ajax’s? All of the shells she was looking at were at the entrance of the apartment, suggesting it was the Ajax wielders that attacked. On the other side of the room however, a random mess of bullet casings and blood splatters were present. It suggested that the merc who lived in the apartment wasn’t alone, possibly with the rest of their crew.
Right. A group burst in, launching their attack. The mercs fought back but must have been overwhelmed by the ambush. There’s no bodies though. Either the mercs were taken or they escaped…I doubt it’s the latter.
Sophie continued to look around the room but wasn’t able to find much, only surprised at the massive amount of firepower used to deal with the mercenaries.
“Sophie! I’m here!” Sasha’s voice carried over to the younger girl, who stood and wandered over to her. “What have you found?”
“Not much, sadly. Looks like these guys were kidnapped. Only clue I can find is these Militech casings. Think you could check the cams, see if they left any traces there?”
“Sounds good,” she paused. “If they’re this professional though, don’t expect much. They probably had a runner with them.”
“I know, but we still have to check.”
Unfortunately, a thorough sweep of the building and street cameras revealed that all the footage had been wiped, leaving the two girls with nothing.
“What do you think? Move on?”
“Yeah. Let’s go check out the places that these crews were for the gigs, then we can check the apartments.”
“You think they were grabbed while on the job?”
“That’s where I would do it, personally. Much harder to find clues in a place that’s been so heavily damaged by combat. It would also explain the lack of contact with Rogue. They just never got the chance.”
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One of their stops was in Santo Domingo, where a crew Rogue had sent out was hired to eliminate a group of 6th Street members. That was a few weeks prior. Thus, when the girls got to the location of the battle, it wasn’t surprising that the scene had been pretty heavily disturbed.
“Alright, I’ll have a look around. Get into the cams around here, see if you can find something. If you find anything suspicious, send it through.”
“Got it. Can I get you a drink with that?”
“Oh fuck off, Kitten. You know what I meant.”