Seeking Enlightenment

Ahhh my Gentle Readers, it is again time to expose the underlying streams of Cluelessness that pervade the Shadows. Opening this CaseFile has been extremely painful, but it must be done to exorcise the demons that even now infiltrate the Shadowrun universe.

So this bunch take a job – the extraction of a willing executive from a corporate compound. In preparation, an hour of game time is spent going over maps, doing legwork, and planning how to get this fellow out with the minimum of problem. The entire plan hinged on two of the group sneaking through an old sewer, gaining access to the main building’s basement, shutting down the auxiliary generator, and then cutting main power at exactly 2 a.m. The GM asks for and receives a written listing of all equipment, clips, etc. being taken on this run by all players.

Eventually all the groundwork is laid, PCs synchronize their watches, and the run was underway. The Mage was ensconced in a tree outside the compound, with binoculars, to provide magical cover and support. The PhysAd infiltrates the actual compound in preparation, and gets into position. The two Street Sams stealth down the street near the compound, remove the previously loosened manhole, and climb down the ladder to land in the squishy muck. The following is, more or less, an accurate transcription of the events from the sewer:

PC 1: “What do I see?”
GM: “Well, not much – the light from above is throwing everything outside the light circle into deep shadow.”
PC 2: “I climb back up and close the manhole cover.”
GM: “OK – it’s now very dark.”
PC 1: “I use my flashlight.”
GM: “What flashlight?”
PC 1: “The flashlight that I… forgot to bring?”
GM: “That’s the one.”
PC 2: “Then I’ll use mine… It’s… not written down there is it?”
GM: “Bingo!”

The two human PCs, laden down with spare clips up the wing-wang, and every other conceivable gadget except something to use to see by, use their wristphones to tell the rest of the group to abort the mission. The PhysAd has to make an Athletics roll just to answer his phone, since he is hanging from the windowsill of the Extractee by his fingertips, and then all Hell breaks loose when he tries to get back out of the compound. Of course, it was really tough for the GM to concentrate on the action while laughing maniacally at the complete cluelessness of the two key PCs, as while they had been involved in locating their absent light sources, a large garbage collection vehicle had parked directly over the manhole they came down in, leaving the two trapped for quite some time in the netherworld with only monowire and the squeaking of hungry devil rats to keep them company.

I would like to say that this incident brought to an end the cycle of Cluelessness that these players forced their hapless GM (again yours truly) to endure, but… that is another story.