"The Running Man"... ie: I rolled a character that I cannot play with.

The Running Man was a good, law abiding corporate accountant. Careful with the books in a way that only an obsessive dwarf could be. He made a good living out of Houston, TX and had a modest savings put away with an eye out towards retirement... one of these days... after all the work was done. He had a nice house and occasionally brought home real food even.

Then one late evening at the office, the door burst open, there was a bright flash of light and he woke up in the corp. Doc's office. Once he learned to talk again he found out that there had been a raid on his office... some thugs had nailed him with a bullet to the head and then proceeded to dump almost 1million nuyen into untraceable accounts. By the time security arrived the intruders were gone, and all activity wiped out, including the accounts that he had been working on that night.

Due to the nature of his injuries however it was clear he would never again be up to even the simplest accounting work... just talking was a difficult task. The corp 'regretfully' let him know that they would be unable to keep someone on who had no useful skills. They paid out his savings and life insurance, enough to live comfortably at a middle class lifestyle for the rest of his quiet dull life.

His wife moved them out to a nice quiet home with horses in the Sioux Nation and he began the recovery process. Once he could stand he started walking. Once he could walk he started running. His fried brain focused on this task. Just running... just running. Each step was work, a small but constant tribute to his dwarven nature, a constant outpouring of effort and focus.

Then about one year after the accident his bank account mysteriously received an influx of 300,000 nuyen, with the note: "I do theft not wet work, sorry I didn't know you were the target." This was wrong somehow... he knew, but couldn't work out why. Frustrated he withdrew the money quickly and deleted the note. For two months he puzzled and puzzled.

Then one day he decided to go looking for someone who could help him. His doctor friend suggested that he had another friend who could look into the matter. The doc's "friend" agreed to research/trace the transfer for 1000 nuyen. The friend came back shortly with a long sad face. "Sorry boss... it ends at a very dangerous door... I'm not going any further for this kind of money." The Running Man offered more and 49000 nuyen more later he was quietly informed that they had reached yet another door, and this time there was no amount of money that would push him past that door. This door, though. This door led straight back into his old corp.

Desperate for answers The Running Man asked his doc friend what options were available to a knowledge thirsty dwarf. The response... "the shadows I guess". Together they laid out a list of what he would need to start searching and of what resources he had. 250,000 nuyen and a heck of a lot of surgery later he was technically healthy again. He began taking daily walks to unfriendly places and meeting with curiously anonymous sources while his wife was at work and his children at school. After one rather bad encounter he decided just being healthy wasn't enough. He found a school for fighting, and started learning.

When his questions stopped finding answers locally he sat down and had a rather long discussion with his wife. She let him go searching provided he came back often to see the children and herself. And provided he came back. And with a kiss and a promise... he left to find out why it had been necessary to break his mind, and to whom it had been so important.