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“Not like that Ye. Just let it flow. Don’t force it.”

It was no use. Crafty was trying to teach me passive defense. Offense I got – you just grab the power and shove it where you want it to go. But forming mana into passive shapes that just sat there? I just couldn’t grok. All her talk of “balancing elements” and “fundamental harmonics” didn’t sound any different from Is0bel’s Decker gibberish to me. I gave it a rest. Told her we’d try it again tomorrow.

Checking out the laptop back at base I saw a potential big score. Didn’t like being this focused on money, but we really needed better gear. Our last mission that went hot, we got lucky. But we wouldn’t be lucky forever.

So this “collector” – Mr. Drake – wanted us to hit a museum under construction. Some rich gaijin had been expanding his mansion, and stumbled on ancient tomb catacombs. And rather than turning the site over to Hong Kong, he’d pulled a fast one selling his property to a big corp and renting it back. Gov couldn’t touch it. He wanted to make it into a tourist museum. “The Emperor’s Tomb.”

Drake only really wanted two specific books, but he didn’t want that to be obvious. So we were supposed to grab anything expensive we could while we were there – making it look as amateurish as possible without setting off alarms too soon. We could definitely do “amateurish”.

One catch. The reason the museum wasn’t open yet was “magical disturbances” that kept offing workers in the catacombs. No further detail. Yeah. Sounded like the perfect spot for a tourist trap.

This one figuring to be more of a magic run, I though I’d fall back to me and Dunk, Iz for hacking security, and Gob. But Gob was tied up. She had something she needed to take care of. Said she’d explain later. So we took Rack and Koschei instead.

I had no idea at the time how important that last minute swap would turn out to be.

We were cautious entering the museum, alert for guards, alarms, or traps. Drake linked in to tell us he had gotten the alarms set to the lowest level, but couldn’t disable them entirely without triggering heat.

We found all sorts of artifacts laid out for display, in a lazy layout of collections that even I could tell didn’t make much sense. Drake fed us estimated values through commlink so that we could choose what to grab. Amateurish? Hah! Fortunately the glass-break detectors hadn’t been installed yet.

In the director’s office there was an obvious “secret door bookcase” setup – but no clear way to open it. I didn’t want to set off alarms too soon by busting through. Or damage whatever might be behind it. Iz said the nearby terminal controlled it, but it had a simple hardened password lock that would be hard to bypass.

This guy was clearly the kind to show off how cultured he thought he was. Everything on the bookshelf was just the kind of pretentious crap that everybody pretended to love but nobody actually read. I though the password would be some title from there, but Rack was staring at a painting on the wall. “The Lady of Shallott“. He said. “Tennyson. Try Tennyson.” I asked if that was the painter, and he just chuckled. “Just try it“. Sure enough, it worked.

We found even better stuff in the vaults behind the bookshelf. Magician’s staves, ancient manuscripts. Good stuff.

When we finished exploring the upper level, we headed down into the catacombs. We were even more alert there, given the cryptic reports about worker deaths.

We hadn’t gone far when things charged at us from all sides out of the darkness! Gargoyles swooping down from above.

Reanimated corpses shambling towards us!

For a moment Dunk even vanished! One of the things got close enough to grab him… and they both disappeared in a flash of light! But before I even had time to panic he reappeared. Seems some of them could pull you into a shadow plane to force a one-on-one. It just chose… poorly… who to try that on.

We found a research terminal further inside, and Iz jacked in to it.

There was a lot of ICE in the system, but it hadn’t yet been properly established. She was able to fight her way through and thoroughly explore the museum net. She found shipping data which could be worth something to the right buyer, and something far more useful to me. Research notes on spells translated from the books. Score! Crafty could almost certainly help me make use of those.

Eventually we found the tomes themselves. I could feel all kinds of bad mojo attached to them. I hoped Drake knew what he was doing. But I agreed they didn’t belong sitting out in a freakin tourist trap. If we could grab them this easy, so could just about anybody that mattered.

On the way up something appeared in front of us. Didn’t “step out”. Didn’t even port in. Just sort of “became present”.

This thing was *old*. Practically blinding in Astral. It called itself “The Emperor”, and wanted us to set it free. Accept a simple bone talisman and carry it out with us. That was all. And then we would be “rewarded for our service”.

I could see it shutting down our wills. Like flipping the switches on drones. And there was nothing I could do. Its voice felt soothing. Why not set it free? What was the point of keeping it trapped? It belonged to Hong Kong. It *was* Hong Kong. It would need to feed of course, didn’t everything? But if all it cost was the occasional street rat, did that really matter?

And that was its mistake. Saying that to me? to Dunk? That was just the kick I needed. I gave it my answer. Did that matter?

!!!!@#$@#$ YES!!!!

Unfortunately that just got me smacked back across the room. Sitting point blank in front of an ancient undying sorc was not the greatest place to be. Especially an angry one. But I’d made an opening. It was burning from the inside now. And it had conveniently just knocked me clear…

So Dunk and the others cut loose. Full auto. Jacking right in the opening I’d just made. The “Emperor” may have been ultra powerful back in the day. But it didn’t really know what mini-guns and grenades even *were*. It wasn’t prepared to properly defend against them.

Fortunately Rack knew enough from building and re-building himself to get me back on my feet – if not quite in the best of shape.

We picked ourselves up, gathered our artifacts, and made our way back to the exit. At which point the other shoe dropped…

Lights. Laser pointers. The works. And loud and clear from outside: “HKPD Firewatch. Drop your weapons and come out hands up. And if the Mage or the Shaman go hot we’ll blow the whole building.”

Crap. This wasn’t standard HKPD. Not even SWAT. Firewatch meant Ares commandos. Top end gear… and anti-magic specialists. We were already beat up and worn out. We were screwed.

And then it hit me. “The mage and the shaman.” Their intel was from that first firefight. They thought it was me, Dunk, Iz, … and Gobbet. Just like it almost had been…. And they thought we were amateurs…

I turned to Iz, “I need you to hack their sensors. Stat“.

“This is Ares Ye. Top end. Even if I get in it won’t fool them.”

“I know. I want you to do a half-assed job hacking their sensors to make Koschei look like a drone.”

“Did that corpse hit your head too hard Ye? That doesn’t make any damn sense at all!”

“It’s okay Iz. Just do it.”

And while she got busy, I started on my own end. Illusion was not really my thing. Didn’t quite have the magic subtlety for it. But just like Iz’s hack, this was intended to be noticed….

A few minutes later, just as Ares was ready to force us out, I walked out with my hands up. Alone.

But as expected, they had no interest in actually taking prisoners. Multiple shots at my head and center of mass. Would’ve totally obliterated me… if I’d really been there.

“Illusion. Masking a drone.” Called out a voice. “Classic. But the drone’s fake too. A diversion. They’re getting away! Move!“

And they charged in. Ignoring the poorly disguised illusion and the cheap sensor spoof. They were expecting tricks. And they thought they were ready for them. But give em tricks to see through, and they don’t see that *that’s* the trick.

And so the very real Koschei- safely crouched below my center-of-mass – cut loose with its minigun from behind.

And when they spun to deal with that, the rest of us hit em in the back. Had to take em out quick, before they recovered. Or called in backup. And as always, geek the mage first. Don’t want to find out what *he’s* got up his sleeves.

When we limped back to Heoi there was a message waiting for us from Auntie Cheng. Urgent she said. She had something to show us.

Her HKPD wiretap had pulled a juicy extract from a video-call. A call between Chief Inspector Krait of the Special Duties Unit… and the Plastic-Faced man we had seen in the security vids with Uncle Ray. Plastic man was telling the Inspector that his “client” wanted the “Westerners and their accomplices” out of circulation immediately, and she was growing tired of excuses and delays. He wanted us brought to him personally. Dead or Alive. And one more nugget. The inspector referred to his client as Josephine.

The name didn’t mean anything to me. But it meant everything to Auntie Cheng. Josephine Tsang. CEO of Tsang Mechanical Services. Member of the Hong Kong Executive Council. And former associate of Auntie herself. They had *not* parted ways on good terms. Tsang had double-crossed her on a deal that would have put Auntie in the Triad big leagues. And she was *not* the type to let go of a grudge.

While Auntie couldn’t touch Tsang directly, Plastic man had no such protection. She was going to make tracking him down her highest priority. She would find him. She would *hurt* him. Until she knew everything he knew. And then she would use that knowledge to implode whatever Tsang was up to.

I was once again thankful that Auntie and I were pointed in the same direction. I had no love for Plastic Man, but I suspected I would soon be very glad I wasn’t him.

Back at the Bolt Hole I really had to work getting Dunk to calm down. Now that he had a name to blame he was ranting about utterly idiotic plans. Like marching into Tsang Corporate offices, grabbing Josephine in broad daylight, and making her tell us everything she knew about Uncle Ray. Dunk in a sound state of mind was smarter than that. But Dunk worked up in a “you hurt me and mine” frenzy… That Dunk didn’t think very far ahead. By the time I got him straight I was beat. Took no time at all to crash out.

I went to visit Crafty the next day – to talk about what had happened. She listened for a while, and then gave me a look. She said she’d been researching *me*.

She asked me what I thought the difference was between a mage and a shaman. Easy. A shaman gets his power from a totem spirit. A mage makes their own.

She told me I was wrong. Magic is a “fundamental force”. Shamans manipulate it by aligning themselves with totem spirits – gaining power by becoming more like their totem. Mages – most of them – do it like a science. They study what other mages have done, and learn the rules. Wu Jen, Druid, western corpo mage – didn’t matter. Different sets of “rules” and “formula”, but all using that idea.

“But I don’t do either of those things!”, I protested.

“Yes, and that’s why you’re having so much trouble with my teaching. What you are is called a chaos mage. You don’t ask the world how it works. You TELL it. You are your own totem – your own school of magic. You gain power by being more YOU.“

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“To start, choose a totem. Not like a shaman. Not a teacher, guide, or master. Something that means YOU to YOU. The concentrated, over-the-top core expression of Ying Ye. When you’re backed into a corner. When you don’t know what to do. In those first moments before thoughts become words. Who are you, in your gut?“

I thought back to our recent missions. Then further back, to prison. Then all the way back to the Seattle barrens. And then I knew. Absolutely and without a doubt.

When Dunk and me were kids, we’d hang outside a cheap Chinese place looking for scraps. Sometimes we’d stare at the cheap zodiac taped in the window. Dunk didn’t know when he was born. But I did. I was a rabbit. He always teased me about it. But the rabbit in my head was nothing like the one on the menu. I knew my totem. So I showed her. She didn’t laugh. She just smiled. Perfect.

What’s up, doc?

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Author’s Notes:

I took a few liberties with the story here – mostly to allow Ye’s story to play out properly. All the stuff with Chaos Magic and Self-Totems is in Shadowrun tabletop… but the game doesn’t support it. Still deciding how her new insights into how her magic works will play out in-game. There’s a decent variety of spells and effects available, but the older engine doesn’t quite support some of the crazy stuff you can pull off with something like Solasta’s flight / wall-walking / teleportation / etc. But there is a fair bit of support for area denial, action denial, confusion, and such.

Side note: the Shadowrun returns engines supports some pretty ridiculous user-campaign mods. One of these days I’ll have a run through the best of them – the “free California” campaign. I’ll also hit Shadowrun Hong Kong’s more acclaimed predecessor Dragonfall – which is more of the “world shaking events” sort of RPG than Hong Kong’s close-up and personal focus. But not back-to-back. Switching genre’s regularly keeps things fresh.

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