Dear Daisy, From Vance

Well it’s been a weird few days since you stopped by with that package for me! It was a hoodie. Bright red, the ridin’ roughnecks logo. Some sort of sportsball team. Weren’t nothing I ordered, though I admit I sometimes put your address on stuff when I’m between jobs or houses.. anyways I got a call the next day saying put it on and go to this local sports bar. I was curious so I did. Turns out there was a game. The roughnecks were playing and they were the away team. The bar was full of local fans of the other team. Well, at least the hoodie would be easy to spot. I ain’t the most educated feller but even I can tell you wearing that hoodie had nothing to do with sportsball.

So I sidled up at da bar and ordered a beer. Some stinking troll tried his intimidation routine to take my chair. I told him no deal, back off. He did! Polite about it too. I was surprised some of those freaks can have manners.

About that time some girl walked in wearing a jersey like mine and a paper bag over her head. Curiouser and curiouser. At least one more red jersey in the crowd, too. Something was up; the hairs onna back of my neck were standing an talkin'.

After a few minutes a group of men came out of a room in the back of the bar and left. They looked armed and unhappy. And a voice on my comm said hurry up and get in that room! So I did! And the other folks in red hoodies did too! Plus one fur faced freak with pointed ears who I found out later left his jersey on the bar stool. Idiot. I thought elf’s were supposed to be good at it this shit?

Obviously we were supposed to be doing some kinda problem solving that the other guys turned down, so I fed the guy a line of red team blue team BS based on the jerseys. He was desperate so it worked. We – four of us it turns out on team red – are supposed to arrange for a building to be empty by next week. $15k if we do. Money’s not bad for a job with no violence.

I suppose I should mention the other folks on team red. Aside from furface, we had some kinda wizard who thinks ghosts are real. The chick wearing the bag on her head runs a drone with a computer in her head or somethin. And me. I’m Vance. I drive fast and sometimes punch people.

We went out to the building we were supposed to evict and checked it out. Lotsa po’ folk squatting. I figured I had better talk to em and see if mebbe their daddy’s cousins uncle’s boyfriend had the real deed ta the place and maybe I could do a solid for truth and justice by fightin’ da Man and Boss Hogg.

Anyways the local color knew nuttin. We made an appointment with the local Boss Hogg type collectin rent unofficially and met with him the next day. Names Willard, not Hogg. He seemed reasonable enough, said he’d move on if we found his people a better place. We mixed carrot and stick, promising to find a better place before the developer sent his goons. (I guess we are goons, but we’re the nice goons, the next goons will not be so nice).

One of his goons pulled us goons aside on the way out and asked if we were shadowrunners. I told him we were people who solved problems for people who had problems, which is close enough to a yes to count without being incriminating. He told us about his pappy gettin’ kilt and how he would be chief of die indians ifn he hadn’t been framed fer the Killin. Real sob story. Anyways he wanted us to go collect a box his pappy … Or was it his brudder? Left for him if anything ever happened. Buried it next his dead dog under a red Fern like the book. We figured a favor for a favor might get people moved so agreed. And if it didn’t maybe we would have sum dirt on this goon. Uncle used ta call that leeverage.

Running Dan got us out of the city to a campground near the spot. He spent the night camping in his van while we went hiking. I led the troupe of non boy scouts through the woods, none of them had much experience. We passed a spot where two wendigos were mating! Ghost documentary boy wanted to film it, but we kept him on mission and thus alive. Retrieving the box from the dog’s burial wasn’t hard… Except we all forgot shovels.

We were attacked by devil rats on the way back. I had fun playing with them while drone-girl blasted them with her shotgun.

We made it back to camp and tried briefly to open the box. No dice. Guess I will give you a call when we get back into town tomorrow.