Welcome to the Big Time

Chapter One — 2061: Welcome to the Big Time

In January 2061, a group of aspiring shadowrunners is brought together by Juan “Dirty” Sanchez, a Seattle nightclub owner and small-time fixer looking to assemble a reliable crew. His promise is simple: stick with him, do good work, and he’ll take them to the big time.

The team’s early assignments are relatively straightforward, beginning with reconnaissance for the Urban Brawl finals. Before long, however, they’re traveling to Boston to steal the legendary Elemental Scrolls of Ak’le’ar, an artifact mentioned in Dunkelzahn’s will. The successful theft attracts considerable attention, leaving the runners dodging corporate strike teams, organized crime, and law enforcement before escaping with the help of a mysterious benefactor known as Momma.

Their growing reputation takes them to Hollywood, where they’re hired to investigate the identity of simsense star Hans Cliber, better known as Karl Kombatmage. What begins as a routine investigation uncovers a conspiracy involving a murdered actor, an impostor, and a martial artist named Wu. The runners ultimately help Wu fake his death and escape to Seattle, earning themselves both a new companion and some powerful enemies.

A subsequent assignment involving an underwater research facility goes sideways, sending the team to Japan to lie low. Unfortunately, their visit coincides with the arrival of Halley’s Comet and the emergence of SURGE, a phenomenon triggering sudden and sometimes grotesque genetic transformations. Several runners are affected, and their return to Seattle brings devastating news: Dirty Sanchez has been murdered by a mob during the resulting racial violence.

With their original fixer dead and several companions departing, the surviving runners begin rebuilding under the guidance of St. John, a sophisticated and well-connected fixer. Their first major assignment involves stealing data from a Mitsuhama facility and destroying its computer systems with a program known as Red Chrome Devil.

The year ends in tragedy when a rescue operation involving the kidnapped niece of Dirty’s former associate goes catastrophically wrong. Verde, one of the team’s original members, shoots both a hostage-taker and his captive, triggering an explosion. Although the runners survive, Billy Boy executes Verde for his actions, bringing a brutal end to one of the team’s founding members.

Chapter Two — 2062: No Job Too Big

By early 2062, the runners have developed a reputation for tackling assignments that other teams might consider impossible. Working with St. John and an expanding network of contacts, they find themselves undertaking increasingly ambitious operations.

A seemingly routine biotechnology theft turns into a confrontation with a rival extraction team, followed by a disastrous helicopter escape that leaves Fade badly injured. In Denver, an assignment to steal experimental bioware becomes a running battle across the city after the prototype unexpectedly activates and injects itself into Cleanslate. With multiple corporate teams hunting them, the runners scramble to find a surgeon capable of removing the device before their enemies catch up.

Their next major assignment takes them considerably farther from home. Hired to infiltrate the Ares Apollo space station, the runners must secretly modify its communications array. Despite elaborate preparations, their cover nearly collapses, leaving Billy Boy to complete a dangerous spacewalk alone. Against considerable odds, the mission succeeds.

The orbital operation proves to be only the beginning of a much larger assignment. The team subsequently travels to Silicon Valley to extract a scientist from a secure facility, then races to deliver him to New Orleans before a strict deadline. There, they discover that their rescued scientist is actually the person who hired them. When a prospective buyer offers a fortune to betray their employer, the runners refuse, completing the job and returning to Seattle with their reputations intact.

Old business also comes calling. Hans Cliber, the celebrity whose secrets they uncovered in Hollywood, reappears with a request to disappear permanently. The team travels to Australia, extracts him from a heavily guarded hotel, and arranges his escape through Singapore.

By this point, the runners have come a long way from scouting Urban Brawl arenas in the Puyallup Barrens. They’ve faced corporate security, dangerous experimental technology, and orbital installations—and survived to collect their paychecks.

Unfortunately, their success is beginning to attract a different kind of attention.

Chapter Three — 2062–2063: Survival of the Fittest

In the summer of 2062, the runners accept a seemingly straightforward data theft from an unfamiliar fixer. Their target is Shasta Lodge in Northern California, the private residence of Hestaby, one of the Great Dragons. Despite the extraordinary risks, the team successfully infiltrates the compound, steals the requested information, and escapes.

Unbeknownst to the runners, this assignment draws them into a much larger game being played by some of the most powerful beings in the Sixth World.

Their activities continue to attract attention. In Seattle, the team intercepts an emergency call from the Redmond Barrens offering an extraordinary reward for rescuing a man trapped by Renraku security forces. After fighting through corporate response teams, they discover that their client is Miles Lanier, Novatech’s head of internal security. The successful rescue earns them a substantial payday and a valuable favor.

Meanwhile, a series of increasingly mysterious assignments begins taking the runners around the world. In Denver, they’re hired to recover information and an unwilling captive for the Children of the Dragon. Another job sends them from New Orleans into the depths of Amazonia, transporting a mysterious package. A separate assignment takes them into the deserts near Beirut to intercept a shipment traveling by covert caravan.

By early 2063, the runners find themselves working for and against the interests of Great Dragons. In Wales, they undertake an assignment on behalf of Celedyr against Rhonabwy. They subsequently travel to the ruins of Tehran to recover an artifact hidden in a bombed-out mosque.

Back in Seattle, a mysterious phone call draws them into a search for someone long believed dead. Soon afterward, another assignment takes them to Portland, where the team begins to suspect that their recent adventures are connected. Someone has been arranging these jobs for a purpose, guiding the runners toward an objective they don’t yet understand.

What began as a series of lucrative contracts has become something considerably more dangerous. The runners are no longer simply working the shadows; they’ve become pieces in a game played by dragons.

Chapter Four — 2063–2064: The End of the Road

By the spring of 2063, the runners are operating at a level far beyond anything Dirty Sanchez could have imagined when he first recruited them. Their last fully documented adventure takes them to Frankfurt, where a Seattle gunsmith hires the team to infiltrate a mysterious underground facility rumored to exist beneath Germany.

The surviving campaign log ends there, although the campaign itself continued into the following year.

Later GM notes reveal that, beginning in late 2063, the runners began receiving increasingly dangerous assignments from a mysterious fixer known only as Yours. He never met the team personally, communicating through messages and intermediaries, and signing every correspondence with the same distinctive closing: “Sincerely, Yours.”

Unknown to the runners, Yours was acting indirectly on behalf of Saeder-Krupp and its master, the Great Dragon Lofwyr. Their involvement in the affairs of the Great Dragons had not gone unnoticed, and the assignments were ultimately part of a larger reckoning for their actions during the events of Survival of the Fittest.

Ultimately, one of Yours’ lucrative assignments would prove to be the team’s last. Operating through intermediaries on behalf of Saeder-Krupp and the Great Dragon Lofwyr, the mysterious fixer had drawn the runners into a reckoning for their involvement in the affairs of the Great Dragons. The assignment ended in disaster, with the team captured or killed, their remarkable careers finally brought to an end by forces far beyond their control.

After years spent rising from small-time Seattle shadowrunners to internationally notorious operatives, the team had finally reached the big time. Unfortunately, in the Sixth World, the big time has a way of catching up with you.