Smash & Grab 2026-01-25 #5

The Merchant's Path led through rough courtyards and staging areas as it wound it's way from the Eastern toll gate toward Shim's Bazaar.  Pilgrims and peddlers would use this route if the more direct Road of Plenty was too heavily preyed upon, but the secondary trail was empty this cycle.  In the corridors which fed into the Path, there was also very little traffic.  The Radiation Ghosts had staked out a portion of the dark catacombs here and waited for the buyer to arrive for their merchandise.  They'd pulled the heavy chests deeper into the vaults so that they could better defend against unwelcome parties, and there was a light sentry set for that purpose.
Jinn's Rust Vipers had heard about this caravan drop off from a destitute drunk who sometimes slept in that place.  The drunk had tried to buy his way into a nagin of Second Best with the few thin whispers he knew, and this story had held some promise.  He said that some Van Saar had kicked him out of his hole and started using it to keep boxes for short stints until someone would come to buy them.  For the bottle, he'd led Jinn to the tunnels and even drew a crude map of the dank passages.
Jinn kept his sister Jilla and the wrench-hand Otto with him, while Skinny Jacques took Haquiem and Fanto toward the left entrance.  Trig used the crude map to choose a path for himself and Kayut to go up and over a section of wall, in the hope that they could drop down behind the scant defenders.  But an unseen alarm had spoiled their surprise and the Radiation Ghosts swelled up from the belly of the chambers with their weapons shedding a eerie and ominous glow.
The first to engage was Trig, as he clambered up a rusty ladder and surprised a lab rat on the landing.  A burst of bolter rounds painted across the Van Saar soldier's chest and he went down hard.  Kayut launched herself, with her jetpack, over the landing and sprinted into shadowy cover in case the dead geek had a friend.

Jilla and Otto rushed up through the center of the chambers, hoping to find a defensible position, but the Ghost Apollo was waiting and the beam of his lasgun punched into Otto and threw him against the wall.  Jill tried to wrench the Van Saar juve out of his blind but he was just dug in too deeply.  The shells of her autogun spit sparks and chips of rockcrete but drew no blood.

With all of the noise and violence as a distraction, Fanto sprinted down a side corridor and vaulted over a pile of debris to enter the chamber where the Ghosts were storing their goods.  After a scan of the area to confirm he wouldn't be surprised by one of the rivals, he opened the first chest and triggered a massive booby trap explosion.  With the wind knocked out of him, he recovered to find that the whole chest and it's contents had been destroyed.