Shadowrun: Street Legends Supplemental - Title

Do not assume that because you know something about how magic works,
you know everything about how magic works. You do not—none of us do.
there is legitimate research published on far stranger phenomena than the
seemingly “immortal” elves. You must ask yourself: what would such a being
be like, really? terrifying to us, I think. Unfathomable. And what would we be
like to it? primates? Insects? less?
> Arete
> the question to ask is not: “Is this true?” the question to ask is what will
befall all of us for discussing our “betters” so frankly, when they have valued
their secrecy at so high a price for so long? I worry that Bull might have just
opened pandora’s Box.
> man-of-many-names
> they don’t truly value secrecy. they value coyly flaunting their hidden
knowledge. It’s pretty disgusting. You should read some archived Shadowland
posts some time—the few that survived—and look at the conversations
between orange Queen, laughing man, Wordsmyth, and company.
> Frosty
> they may still have more secrets than the ones you know.
> man-of-many-names
> Whatever. I still don’t believe any of this shit. Isn’t there enough weirdness
in this world without making up more?
> Sticks
//attach chat file
/user Bull has logged on
/user Saint James has logged on
[Bull] Thought you’d gone squirrely on me. You had a few
minutes left, omae, before I broke into your commlink and
burned it to the ground.
[Saint James] My team decided not to take the job.
[Bull] Good for them. What was the job?
[Saint James] They had to swear up and down not to tell anyone
just to get out of doing it. That might be the only reason
they’re alive. I can’t betray their confidences like that.
[Bull] You’d better tell me something, chummer! I called in
favors to get you that intel.
[Saint James] Fine, I can tell you what little I was able to
dig up. Harlequin has been a fragging ghost since the
Second Crash. I can find almost no record of what he’s
been up to in any of the shadow, government, or corporate
databases I have access to. He’s been sighted in isolated
locations around the globe—Seattle, New York, Hong
Kong, Denver, Prague, Edmonton out in the Athabaskan
Council Lands—he’s kind of hard to miss. But no one in
my extended network has a guess about what he’s doing.
The most recent sighting was in DeeCee, where there was
some kind of a major shakeup on the astral plane. It seems
to have fucked him up. Seriously.
[Bull] Is that what made him want—or need—his sword back?
[Saint James] As far as I can tell. Your guess is as good as mine.
[Bull] Do better than that. I’m compiling these little chats we’re
having for an upload to JackPoint, but without information
on his recent activities, it’s just ancient history. I know he’s
not majorly involved in the artifact rush, at least not the
traffic I’ve seen go through Seattle.
[Saint James] I can’t guess as to his recent activities, but I can
tell you about the recent activities of something that looks
like him.
[Bull] Something that looks like him?
[Saint James] Right. It’s not really him, though. Different
makeup, different clothes, different astral signature—a
spirit, of almost grotesquely high force who’s not making any
efforts at hiding it. But eerily similar, at least according to the
third-party descriptions I’ve got.
[Bull] What’s this eerily similar, Harlequin-like spirit up to?
[Saint James] Well, if you can believe it, it’s backing some
Seattle-area gangs. I have eyewitness accounts of the
spirit—which looks like Harlequin, only with black hair and
makeup, and wearing “a long black flowing coat and cassock
and a floppy, wide brimmed hat”—talking to leaders of the
Spikes in Tacoma and the Rusted Stilettos in Glow City.
[Bull] No fragging way. The Spikes might not be as fanatical as
they were a couple years back, but they’re still not progressive
enough to let anything that even looks like an elf wander
into their territory without curb-stomping it into oblivion.
[Saint James] That’s what I’d have thought, but it’s true. What’s
even weirder is that all this newcomer has encouraged them
to do, so far, is kill more elves. The Spikes have begun taking
it to the Ancients again, this time backed by better firepower
and magical support, and they’re making some progress. The
Stilettos were literally dying out, but they seem to be on the
rebound and out for elven blood too.
[Bull] This all seems way below Harlequin’s level of interest, if
not against his interests.
[Saint James] Well like I said, it’s not him. But it could be his
twin.
[Bull] I have no idea what to make of any of this. I’m going to
post it up on JackPoint and see what they think. Maybe they
can help me connect the dots.
[Saint James] I don’t suppose I could ask you to leave my name
out of it?
[Bull] Don’t worry, your rep will come out fine. You just come
off as a concerned fixer looking out for his team. Hell, your
business should go up.
/user Saint James has logged off
/user Bull has logged off
//chat session archived::user Bull
::11/08/73//
> Well I for one can’t help Bull make heads-or-tails of any of this, but it certainly
was an interesting read.
> FastJack
> Frosty, anything you’d like to share with the class?
> netcat
> I guess Bull really hasn’t given me much chance of getting out of this without
airing my dirty laundry for everyone to see. I’ll try to be short, punchy, and at
least a little cryptic, as I know he’d want me to be. Harlequin is a very powerful
mage who’s at least three hundred years old. maybe a lot older—he didn’t
tell me everything. He barely told me anything. He has an infuriating habit of
withholding key information at the most crucial moment. Harlequin taught
me a lot but told me as little as he could. For all his power and mystery, he’s
really a lot like the rest of us: prone to fits of deep, nihilistic depression and
“Ha! fraGGin’ Ha!”
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