Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

With TT and Kit on board to take Tate out, they start debating tactics. They decide to take a few more days to get some cyber upgrades and do some shopping, with Kit and Aradia taking a day trip to Cairo to shop the massive markets there. Aradia, unable to avoid temptation, goes looking for something illicit and special, and eventually gets put in touch with Am-Mut, a regional fence, black marketeer and info broker. She insists on getting their street names and checking their rep before doing business, but gets them what they need a day later after they check out. Kit buys schematics for Tate’s cruise ship, as well as some info on onboard security. Aradia gets some reagents, an ancient death mask that could be made into a focus, and also decides to drop a large sum on a mysterious weapon focus.

After spending some time examining the focus, they consult with Fargus Sol and do some internet research. It seems it is a legendary blade known as Ketel’s Dagger which can transform living matter to gems and crystalline forms depending on use and target. Sol says that since it uses blood magic to enact the transformation it would likely be quite addictive and might be an item that other’s seek to acquire, by force if needed. Aradia decides to trade it for a less dangerous magical sword, a Blade of Hark, which allows some level of spirit binding and control, and when bound as a weapon focus will make her a significantly larger astral threat.

Aradia and Kit decide to board the cruise ship as passengers to get some early intel, while the rest of the team approaches with all the gear on a zodiac provided by Ibn Hassan. Kit and Aradia spot some magical security, and confirm that the crew are either all bugs or maggots, and decide not to explore further until the rest arrive, though Kit inserts their new crawler drone into some maintenance raceways to skulk around and see if it sees anything. They also determine that there is definitely strong bug magic in and below the VIP spa area. Carol stays behind to get one more spa day, and also pilot in the escape boat if needed.

Tabasco learns how to pilot the zodiac, and after some trial and error and some withering looks from TT and Creature manages a successful stealth approach to the cruise ship. TT and Tabasco board via a tactical grapple, while Creature uses xyr web to stick to the side. Not seeing anyone inside the nearest chamber, Tabasco cuts through the porthole glass, and Creature manages to contort xyr way in. Using Tabasco’s radar and the plans Kit bought, everyone manages to link up, with Creature opening a door to the below decks area from inside, while Aradia bypasses the ward to allow everyone to pass through undetected.

They avoid some eerily efficient crew patrols (always in pairs and seemingly linked to some sort of hive mind or shared perceptive network), and head for what on the plans is supposed to be a bilge tank that seems to be the strongest magical location. They find it cut open, with some crude stairs welded together descending into it. Hearing more footsteps, as well as some voices, approaching, they dash down in. A horrifying sight awaits. At the far end is a massive bulbous, slimy entity, looking something like a huge putrid toad. In the center of the room is a Bug statue, similar to some they’ve seen before, this one obviously of the Scarab tradition.

Lining both walls of the room are various contorted metahuman forms in various stages of transformation, although they don’t look to be getting transformed into bugs. Instead, they seem to have some kind of small grub inserted into their heads, which seem to be causing the heads to massively swell and distort, consuming the rest of the body as they grow, and eventually projecting a mass of limb/antennae from the chin. The 11 bodies are in various stages of transformation, with the ones nearest the gum toad (as the team ID’s it) the most transformed. Two of these snap their massive, torso sized heads off of their shrunken husk bodies and charge the team on their spindly chin legs, targeting Aradia and Creature, as the gum toad flicks it’s tongue out at TT.

The team manages to dodge the initial assault, but are unable to connect with the enemies, who seem quite quick, until Tabasco targets the gum toad, who seems fairly sluggish. He manages to light it on fire, providing some better illumination in the dark chamber. Unfortunately, this refocuses the toad’s attention, and it quickly snags Tabasco with it’s tongue and begins to swallow him. TT gets off a solid javelin attack, destroying it’s mystical armor. Tabasco gets another arrow off, lighting himself on fire as well but badly injuring the toad. Meanwhile, Creature finds that their dwarf minigun is quite effective against the fast (but weak) head monsters, managing to slay one. The other continues to hyper-extend it’s jaw as the top of it’s head lolls back and it tries to chomp down on Creature.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

Assessing the situation, the team finds that their arrival seems to have attracted the attention of one of the Emerald Cities bizarre reflections of a go-gang. Quickly naming them “wheelers” the team decides to try to evade before committing to another fight since the van/wagon is almost trashed, and 2 team members are unconscious from stun. Kit once again does some amazing driving, even in this unknown environment, and manages to ditch the bio-mechanical go-gang. However, Carol spots a low-slung scrap built racer following them from a block over, and then loses track of it. They are all surprised when it appears directly in front of them, compliments Kit on his driving, and challenges them to a race. The windows are all tinted, and the car seems like an odd classic muscle car in form, but built out of period-appropriate equipment to the metaphor that this hyperplane exists in.

Kit accepts, and they do a quick loop around a chunk of terrifying roller-coaster highway. Kit manages to squeeze out a victory, and the car introduces itself as Butter, and says that those who race together are “family”, since they all live a quarter mile at a time. Kit, recognizing the name, tries to connect with Butter about having had some distant connections, but Butter seems to have only vague understanding of the past life or alternate existence or whatever it is that Kit is referring to. He does seem interested in carboxing though, and says he will add capacity to his form before the next time Kit comes through so they can give it a go. He also offers an introduction to the Parliament of Cars, though he says they’re a little stuffy for his taste.

Butter escorts them safely to the edge of Oz as a favor for winning the race and wishes them luck out beyond, where the roads don’t run. Luckily Kit has the offroad upgrade kit installed, so the van/wagon doesn’t have any trouble. The team’s gear all seems to be some sort of odd WWi/WWii mid-era mish-mash, but they do what they can with the analog equivalents of drones and TacNet. They make a point to try to avoid engaging with any of the different events/historical periods/etc that they see represented throughout the densely packed metaplane, trying to safely cross the borderlands, and keeping the Tower in sight in the far distance. They are disturbed to see a portal crack open in front of them, and 3 individuals in what look to be armored diving suits step through. Using what look to be auto-loading harpoon guns, they manage to nearly wreck the van and almost pin Carol before the team manages to injure two of them badly enough that they retreat.

Upsettingly, they retreat by opening another portal, with the survivor pulling his downed team-mates through. Shaken by this encounter, the team redoubles their efforts to avoid any others. As they reach the edge of the borderlands, they gaze out over a massive expanse of different hyperplanes within the Kindred plane: ideologies, cities, ideas, etc all have their particular metaplanar reflections and representations here. Worried about evanescence, especially if they accidentally transit to a deeper metaplane, they plan to make haste for the Tower and ignore the rest. Before they can start moving again, a hooded figure approaches, and throwing back his cowl introduces himself as Carter Hayes, Tabasco’s dad.

Kit says “too bad” and drives off, but Hayes seems easily able to keep pace without any particular difficulty. Tabasco questions him and notices that he seems to have his dad’s memories and gestures, but something just seems slightly off. Carol spots that they don’t seem to be getting any closer to the Tower, even though they are moving at top speed, and starts really focusing on it. This seems to annoy Hayes, so Aradia and others threaten him and he backs off, though not without some parting words saying that he tried his best. Tabasco is left sad and confused. But the team feels that the van is now actually making forward progress again so something was up for sure….

A short time later, a summoning circle flares on the ground and a massive hydra erupts from the soil. Kit barely avoids slamming the van into it, but the hydra makes quick work of the remaining structure, and the van is wrecked and partially melted. The team fans out, using the van as cover, and Carol is badly wounded and some others injured in fight before they manage to figure out how to fight it effectively, by countering it’s elemental heads with different elements. Aradia summons a fire spirit, and actually sees it launch, comet-like, from the distant metaplane of Fire hovering in the sky, to come to his aid.Creature decides to chance it, and throws on the Babr-y-Bayn, gaining it’s famed elemental resistance, as well as shifting into drake form to gain xyr own elemental attack.

They eventually manage to defeat the creature, which dissolves into black sludge as the summoning circle fades. Aradia assenses it, and based on her and Carol’s knowledge, assume that this was the work of the Black Lodge. They definitely would have been monitoring VDH’s hoard, and have wanted any/all of the things therein, and have the magical capacity to pull off this kind of attack. Kit frantically pieces the van back together, with some assistance, jury-rigging it well enough for one last push. The while team focuses on arriving at the Tower, and with some miraculous driving, Kit manages to scrape into their yard just as the wheels fall off and engine block drops out. Interestingly, they seem to be fully back to their own era appropriate appearances.

Gazing at the Tower, they see that the lower levels look to be new/modern construction, but as it rises higher, it’s a total grab bag of eras, styles, and qualities. A confused seeming librarian exits the Tower and standing on the front steps inquires as to their business. ThinkTank takes the lead, introducing himself as a LoreKeeper from the Vault of Lore in Seattle, which interests the librarian, who introduces himself as Mr. Bookbinder. Kit starts to explain what they need, but Bookbinder fussily silences them, and tells the team to collect their “things” (gesturing dismissively at the pile of car parts) and meet them inside, before heading inside with TT.

Kit takes a moment to patch the team up, and then salvage what they can from the van, in terms of expensive mods and the like. The armor and camo coating is obviously wrecked, but they manage to recover a lot of the expensive add-on’s, though Carol refuses to help and dashes into the library to research ARES, futures, prophecies, etc. What he finds mostly seems to line up with what Vogel has been telling him, so that’s nice. TT and Bookbinder meanwhile discuss a reciprocal arrangement between their two libraries, as Bookbinder wants more material plane book depositories for recovering loans, and TT wants to expand the VoL.

The team heads in, and agree to retrieve an overdue book from a denizen of Anderson Island when they return to Seattle. When pressed, Bookbinder acknowledges that it is one of the 3 Books of 9 Gates, and advises them not to look inside if they value their sanity. Bookbinder seems to want to chat more, but Kit insists on portaling back to the material plane ASAP to get these magic items safely stored. Tabasco finally convinces Creature to take off the armor, which is just so incredibly perfectly tailored and fit that xyr regular clothes feel like scratchy trash in comparison. Unfortunately, Tabasco also starts running his mouth (lol) about his ancient symbiont tongue, the Dis Trader on the Moon, etc after getting nervous about the portal.

Bookbinder seems fascinated, and shares a little about Dis in exchange- there are multiple factions, with the Traders being one. But some of the other factions may disguise themselves as Traders also. He says not much is known, but that the opening of Kadath has caused many new rumors, creatures, and distant places to seem a lot more real all of a sudden. He offers reward for more info, on both Dis and the metaplanes in general, as well as other retrieval missions for the Library, but the team says “maybe later” and he huffily opens a gate and passes them through. They find themselves in a matching room, but seemingly back on Earth.

An out of breath Australian dwarf dashes into the room with a taser, seemingly not expecting visitors, but TT flashes him a coin that Fargus Sol provided for ID purposes, and says they need to stash some items in the Vault. The dwarf introduces himself as Barnaby Rudd, and takes them downstairs, there’s a lot of visible and audible construction going on around and above them, but more “in use” spaces the lower they get. Rudd passes them off to a scarred and hairless ork, who Carol recognizes as his old team-mate Test. They chat a bit, and seems like Test has been doing well since joining the collection of technomancers protected by the Coptic Church here in Egypt, many of whom work on the Library.

They explain again about items/vault/etc, and he says he’ll need to find one other being to help, but takes them down into a sub-basement, where a Filipino man in a business suit seems to be directing some crew heads on next steps in the project. Quickly trying to get a grasp on the situation, the team determines this is likely the great dragon Masaru in his human form, partially by ID-ing his voice standing nearby in a hardhat. Masaru heads downstairs with them, and he and Test both deactivate parallel security systems- the vault seems to require both a mage and a TM to open, though Kit thinks the TM part could possibly be done with nanites. Test explains to the team about his cutting-edge research into the similarities of technomancy and magic while Masaru nods a long with a slightly long-suffering look.

TT has to use the coin to access the vault, and only one is allowed in at a time to avoid temptation, so he heads in to catalogue the ring and the armor and store them safely. Masaru offers to portal them back to astral Library if they wish, but they say they plan to vacation for a while before heading home, so he gets them visitor visas for Egypt instead, and they cross the land bridge to Alexandria, curious about why dragons won’t set foot in Egypt. Doing some matrix digging, they settle on using fake SINs and a lot of nuyen to get rooms at a local seaside SpinRad luxury resort, not wanting to reveal their ID’s and get a discount at the nearby ARES spot.

They get a variety of different quality of rooms, and Kit bounces between rooms the first night, tending to everyone’s wounds. They also notice that 3 days have passed in material time. Aradia, Tabasco, and Carol, exhausted, all collapse into a deep sleep. They wake the next day, and Aradia and Kit hang in the enclosed cove pool and swim-up bar, while Carol lounges in the infinity pool that his fancier room bought him access to. Tabasco, still feeling iffy on vacations, practices on the archery batts and the climbing wall, before doing some swimming and drinking as well. Creature heads out on a day trip for an experiment. Xe swims out to sea from an unobserved place, and transforms into a drake underwater, swimming down to touch the bottom near shore. Nothing bad happens, so xe feels content, but notices a feeling of passing through an oily membrane when they walk back onshore in xyr human form.

Worried, xe calls the team, and Carol is stressed out that it might be FAB 1 or 2, one of the detection strains.Creature decides to hide in the wild for about a day, and does have to dodge some beach patrols, before heading back to the resort and rejoining the team. Carol returns to his room on the 2nd day to find a note on his pillow requesting a meeting about a mutual enemy the next day, at a teahouse in the old city. Kit and TT stay behind, but the rest of the team attend. They meet a large, jovial, bearded man in traditional Islamic dress, who introduces himself as Ibn Hassan. He says that after his organization, the Alliance Under Allah, was infiltrated by bugs in Mars City, he took it upon himself to fight them wherever he encounters them. He has heard similar things about the team, and believes he has some info that will interest them.

He says that there is a man, new in town, who offers exclusive rejuvenative treatments on a cruise ship, the one cruise ship not operated by one of the Big 10. He says that many execs, politicians, etc use this particular ship for off-book dalliances, and that this gives access to a wide-range of individuals with a lot of access. He says that this man is working with a local Scarab Cult to infect these powerful people and infiltrate their organizations. And he says that this man’s name (though he uses a different one here) is Dr. Martin Tate. The team quickly agrees to investigate further, wanting revenge, but say they need to run it by their 2 absent team-mates first. Hassan says that he is a good person to know in the Middle East and Africa, with a lot of connections. He can provide logistical support for the job, but not much reward other than the connection- he hopes that doing the right thing and achieving closure/revenge for Chicago will be enough.

The team heads back to the resort to discuss….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team makes a slightly uneasy peace with Fargus about their groundshaking discovery re: the Tarot/The Cornerstone, and Fargus speculates that they may be the only 7 people who know how that works. However, he thinks that Queen Brane Deigh may know or at least suspect, as she has been obsessed with collecting a full set of the 6WT, and owning the Cornerstone would supposedly give her full control over the castle and it’s ways. And as they say, “as goes the Castle, so goes the Court”…. Aradia tries to pyschometry the stone chunk that they summoned, to see if they can determine if it was stolen, if it was one of the 4 rumored chunks in people’s possession, etc. However, she experiences strange psychic feedback and doesn’t get much info- it seems to have some sort of strange object intelligence that she’s never encountered before, and it feels almost more like trying to read a mind that normal psychometry. It also seems to have powerful passive defenses against detection and manipulation magics, though it doesn’t seem that it was “intending” Aradia any particular harm. She decides to leave it be, feeling pretty wrecked, and on a few stim patches now.

The team goes down the list of saleable items, and votes on who to sell each to after some debates. They decide to start with their most loyal contacts first, and proceed downward from there, ending with getting the lil Black Book to Tosh Athack. They decide to keep the Orn’s Ear, figuring that it’s value versus it’s utility is worth the trade. They sell the Watch to Stuck for a discount, in exchange for letting them sell everything else inside the casino and getting some additional security around in case anyone tries anything. He seems delighted by the trade and instantly siphons off some of Tabasco’s luck. They call up Juan Xiuhuitl, who is quick to send Izidor and Achilles over to pick up the Brooch of Shifting, seeing the massive potential for such an object.

The handoff goes off well, with Tabasco managing to reset his aura using it before passing it over. Unfortunately, his astral taste is not very well developed yet, so he decides to do this in the casino, and is now aspected towards the Wealth and Greed plane. Better than toxic! Tabasco ventures outside after Stuck’s guards warn that they can’t protect him out there, and spots 2 separate teams keeping an eye on things. He quickly ducks back inside, and the team figures that some interested parties must have accessed VDH’s feeds in order to see when his Vault was opened, and got tipped when they team didn’t turn off that sensor on the door. They seem to be waiting to see who gets what perhaps, and either are only seeking intel or are planning to hit people as they leave.

The Howard and Philips, INC team reports that this is exactly what happened to them- they had to send out proof that all the stuff they took out was already damaged and/or destroyed to get their pursuers to break off. The team decide to call in some backup, and calls in their favors with Takashi and Yoko Aruki to get some folks on their side keeping an eye on stuff outside. The good news is the casino guards seem to be doing a good job checking for implants and weapons on arrivals, and keeping an eye out for hostile magic. The team next calls up Vogel after a long debate, and offers him the 2 Cornerstone chunks. He is thrilled, and as usual, gives Carol some real praise, which Carol laps up. He also offers Carol a position on his advance team in Detroit, if Carol wants to get off the streets anytime.

Aradia spots t2o separate individuals with solid magical power monitoring the situation from inside the casino, but they aren’t taking any actions so Stuck refuses to move against them or let the team do so. Rooster, Jamaal Quigley, and a non-binary eco type with a junkyard jaw named Smeed all show up to get the Cornerstone pieces, and pass over a massive payday. Covalent also seems to be benefiting from this based on his alliance with Vogel, and offers the team help transporting other artifacts/themselves if needed. The team then calls up Squeamish to sell him the vat-grown organs and the fool’s gold solution, and he agrees. He shows up with some massive toxic spirits on an armored moto, and gets the gear before heading out under spirit cover.

The team calls up Dyna Mite, and sells her the Crystal Traveller, in exchange for promises to share her research and help the team with astral travel when and where she can. She gives them a few hot tips for now. She sends a runner team pick it up, and the team meets Kukulkan’s team, who have been hunting Tzitzimine’s since a fovae spilled a bunch out in Tenochtitlan. Having rescued both Dyna and Kukulkan from the astral shadow prison of Fauth-Doshgoi, this team seems relatively well-disposed towards them, and interested in sharing info in the future when the team mentions some of their experiences and what they saw in Chicago and Kadath.

Aradia calls up the Sisterhood of Ariadne with the contact info she got, and gets a hold of a friendly older woman named Aunt Clara who is excited to buy the Compendium Malifecarum, and also to meet a young witch on the go, and invites Aradia to come visit their clubhouse in Snohomish. Aradia, as a longterm witch poser, it too excited to resist, and agrees, until the team team makes her call back and gets the witches to come to the casino, as per the plan, and aim for a hang sess later. They successfully make the handoff, and Aradia gets to meet 4 members of the coven, who are excited to meet her, seemingly, and share vague prophecies which could be pretty widely interpreted. Aradia warns them a bit that the house might be extra lucky tonight, but they seem to have a set budget for fun and aren’t worried.

The team then calls up Athack, and arranges for the KE Black Knight to come into Stuck’s without causing an incident. He shows up out of uniform in an unmarked APC, and takes the 2 evidence bags and the lil Black Book from them, giving them a silent nod before heading out to the well-armed and armored vehicle, likely full of backup. The team then begins debating how to get the Ring of Gyges and Babr-y-Bayn out of the casino, and out of town, safely. Fargus offers that Grey Cell has a contact in Brokerage X who has access to the global network of Freeports, which they can use to move themselves and the items without inspection, though not necessarily without interference. Carol is initially excited until Tabasco fills him in a bit more about the dark side of BX, based on his research into Toast and his downfall.

They decide to get Covalent’s assistance, and consulting him and Fargus, determine that their best bet is probably to get to Downtown and try to cross into OZ, the pocket plane in the plane of Kindred/Man that reflects Seattle. From there, they’ll just need to transit Kindred to the astral Great Library at Alexandria and arrange crossing into the physical plane to deliver the items. Kit plans to try to bring the van through, and the team starts prepping for the trip. They realize they may need to burn SINs to do this, as they’ll likely get recorded thoroughly travelling through Downtown (and a portal!) so Tabasco plans to ride in the smuggling compartment as he is the only one without a spare SIN, and he can an eye on the 2 artifacts down there.

Kit orders a rental truck full of sod to the casino, to get a second vehicle and try to gain some astral camo. Fargus arranges to leave with his knowledge, and says he hired a local crew run by a troll named Ms. Myth to escort him, so the team doesn’t need to worry. The team splits the sod between both vehicles and loads various containers into both. Aradia summons a Kindred spirit to ride in the sod truck and cast some illusions to make it look more occupied, and the team sends it off on Grid Guide, where it is quickly pursued and attacked. Meanwhile, they tell Takashi and Yoko to start taking out the opps drone and sniper overwatch, which Takashi especially does with relish. Interestingly, Tabasco gets another " unknown number text saying “I’ve got your 6” after an unseen sniper takes out one of the enemy drones that was following the team van.

Kit plans an incredibly tight and challenging route to Downtown, trusting their skill and knowledge, and manages to almost instantly ditch one of their tail cars. 2 moto’s remain, and Carol opens fire on them as they move into Renton. The bikers return fire, seemingly trying to disable the van, and do some serious damage, before Kit and Carol manage to drop both bikes, seemingly without killing either rider, which Kit is thrilled about. They white-knuckle it through the tight Downtown crowds during the last day of the weeklong festival, and call the contact Covalent gave them, a rift specialist named Tinman. Tinman seems a bit weird but caves to Carol’s threatening name drop of Covalent, and tells them there is an unstable portal to OZ just outside the Alabaster Maiden, so they race there, and manage to just slip through, clipping the mirrors off the damaged van, as the rift snaps shut.

They find themselves on Kindred, in a weird Frank Baum style reflection of Downtown Seattle, with strange representations of other districts in the distance. Rolling to a stop on the yellow road, they examine the camouflaged hay cart they are all now riding in, as Tabasco excavates himself from under the bales. They all seem intact, with only minor metaphorical changes to their equipment, with the tech all looking distinctly 20th century. Carol, with his incredible eyes, spots a teetering layer cake tower far in the distance, and assumes this must be the Library of Alexandria, based on descriptions, so they plan to make for that, hoping to avoid any trouble on the way….

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team starts making arrangements to get the VDH hoard job done, worried that others in town will beat them to it if they don’t make a move. They get a meeting with Stuck through Ranya Zhong (via Tommy Vermont), and cut a deal, though it’s a dangerous one. They agree to finally get involved with Free Seattle referendum, but instead of just finding out all the info, they agree to throw it towards independence on behalf of Stuck. He makes VERY clear that failure is not an option, and that their deaths will be long, messy and unpleasant if they do fail. However, with this out of the way, he agrees to give them private access to VDH’s vault under his casino, and allow them to keep whatever they find inside in exchange for clearing out the security, whatever it may be. He offers to help them sell anything they need if they wish.

The team stocks up on some B&E gear, including a counterspelling focus for Aradia to try to protect against magical traps. They head to Stuck’s, and get shown in the back by Zhong, who tells them they closed off the small area of hallway outside the vault door but that the team will be responsible should anything “get out” while they are clearing the vault. The team prepares to be cautious. Noticing that VDH upgraded his security since Joygirl IX’s visit, Kit manages to bypass the anti-tamper circuit and sequence the numeric code to get access to the bio-scanner. Kit decides not to mess with the one bit of matrix security visible- a simple “open/closed” switch attached to the door.

Creature warms up the bio-sample of VDH’s remains they got from Tosh Athack, and it scans successfully. Carol then inserts the magical frat ring and twists it, and the vault door hisses and cracks open. A foul stench emerges, which Carol begins analyzing, and then stops after almost puking. The team hauls open the vault door, and finds themselves staring into total dark, with a weird muffled effect on sound. Aradia goes astral and comes under attack from some kind of disturbing web, which manifests and continues attacking her after she drops out of astral. The team manage to kill it without taking much in the way of damage, though Aradia gets some unpleasant psychic feedback.

Almost immediately, Aradia gets tackled by a massive rotten panda, which charges out and mauls her. The team manage to wrestle if off and slay it, before seeing what seems to be an animating spirit leave the body and slip back into the vault. The panda corpse begins liquefying almost immediately, which helps explain the awful odor, further explained when they enter and find that a Sangre del Diablo tree has partially digested a man who seems to have been caught in it’s clutches. Aradia summons a fire spirit and sends it after the spirit they saw, and the team comes under attack from the tree (spitting out it’s previous meal), a floating eye, and a shadow beast. A twisted pile of limbs and organs cruelly kept alive by medical and alchemical technology also reorients itself towards them.

The eye slow most of them down with some sort of magic, and the shadow beast slices at them with claws that leave behind dripping shadowy ichor. Luckily, none of them take major damage as they manage to defeat these threats, though Tabasco is almost swallowed by the tree. The fire spirit reports that is has chased the enemy spirit from a skin suit it inhabited, into a key, and the fight continues, though Aradia has to keep using services to order it to keep fighting as it seems repulsed by the enemy, some sort of toxic spirit that fights back with an astral toxin that harms and disgusts the elemental. However, the fire spirit emerges victorious in the end and a loud crack rings through the vault.

The team carefully checks for further threats, and sensing none, begins to explore. Creature decides to kill the pile of limbs and organs, just in case, first with boiling elemental water in drake form, and then getting in close with the monofil garrotte. It takes a while and is disgusting work, with severed components turning to black sludge almost immediately. TT hauls the rotting panda corpse back into the vault and they seal up the door, not wanting to give any extra time for magical snoops to get a look inside. TT almost immediately starts feeling ill, and Kit is worried he caught something from contacting the panda corpse, however minimally, as he forces himself to vomit foul smelling substances.

Kit patches up Aradia’s armor a bit as the team catalogues the vault and debates what to do. It looks like what happened is that one of Tabasco’s list of missing freelancers, an alchemist, seems to have been trapped in here, seemingly by VDH, and forced to work on various craftings and potions. Unable to escape and without resupply after VDH’s death, he appears to have essentially activated all the security systems as an attempt at revenge from beyond the grave. It looks like much of the valuable alchemical gear, as well as a blood magic “shaman tuxedo”, were destroyed in the fight, but many artifacts, preparations, books and scrolls remain. Kit also just barely manages to gain access to a small floor safe without setting off it’s self destruct, finding a hard-wired burner comm (the vault door, when closed, blocks wireless), the little black book (which they owe to Athack), and 2 Tarot cards, inverted.

The Tarot cards in their presentation seem to back up what the team determines happened here, and also are obviously valuable in their own right, though the team plans to keep them. They check the book to ID some of the other items, and at least get names for many of them, as well as some info about what they fought and where VDH acquired it from, which all implies he had a lot of continental connections. It looks like some of the items in the vault had already been sold, also, though the team agrees not to honor those deals. Realizing they are in way over their head, they debate a few options (selling it all as one batch to AZT or someone else, trying to freelance auction it, etc) before deciding they need help to even know what things are worth, and what is too dangerous to sell.

They call up Fargus Sol and propose a deal: if he will catalogue and price the items present, they will let him set aside anything which seems too dangerous for selling, to either destroy locally and transfer to safekeeping with Arleesh. The team will be compensated for these items, as usual, though probably not as highly as they might have been if they auctioned them, but it gives them a lot more info, maintains a relationship, and is at least reasonably moral. Sol tells them he will bring a local crew called Howard and Phillips INC that specializes in the destruction of dangerous things and data, and will head over ASAP.

A few of the team head out back to receive the newcomers and bring them down to the vault, and check in with Zhong. They spot someone maybe surveilling them but lose sight quickly, and don’t want to chance pursuing, but warn Zhong who says she will have security keep an eye out back. Sol and the H&P team head down, and he begins sorting the items. He convinces the team to transfer the Babr-y-Bayn armor (made of dragonskin) and the Ring of Gyges (madness-inducing invisibility at will) to safekeeping with Arleesh, as he isn’t sure they can be destroyed but believes them to be too dangerous to let loose in the world.

They set aside various toxic, bug, blood etc reagents, a hand of glory and a few blood magic scrolls, as well as some organs harvested from various metavariants and sapient critters for destruction, after some discussion, and also the SDD tree, which looks to be one of the rare HMHVV-infected variety- Tabasco is especially glad it didn’t get through his armor now! Sol also gets TT to drink a delicious elixir to cure the disease he caught from the panda corpse, even though it was very valuable, as it will save his life. The H&P team do some careful initial destruction on-site, in case they are stopped or attacked, to make sure the things they are leaving with are no longer valuable for harvesting or reuse, before heading out.

Sol stays and gets the team some price suggestions for the items he considers safe to sell, and says he/Arleesh would likely be interested in some of them, though probably couldn’t compete at open market prices. He seems especially interested in/concerned about a chunk of the Cornerstone, a mystical object from the Seelie Court that can supposedly control the castle and allow easier movement around it. The team realizes it resembles one of the monolith symbols on the Tarot cards, and Creature sets the card in question on a table next to the Cornerstone with some intention. The card burns up and vanishes, and the Cornerstone vibrates, disappears, and reappears where the card was.

Watching in astral, Sol and Aradia suggest that the card summoned the stone. The team frantically searches through the cards they have to see if they have any others that have unique symbols on them. They destroy a few in experimentation before getting one right, and manage to summon a second chunk of Cornerstone. Both Sol and the team realize the implications of this and get a bit stressed out at what they’ve uncovered: this is essentially priceless info and items, which could make their sale a bit problematic, but this is a major discovery…

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

Aradia reaches out to the ASPS to offer to work together on entropy circle business, getting a contact from Maggie Magnusson, and talking a bit about weird local magic. Jaliyah Angél, the local ASPS liaison, agrees to share data and work together, since DeeCee, Boston, and especially Chicago have pulled a lot of the available resources for the org. She also asks the team to look into local Spirit of the City rumors and sightings if they get a chance, since they seem to have some affinity for that. Aradia and team agrees. Aradia also plans to get in touch with the Sisterhood of Ariadne but doesn’t feel up to venturing up to Snohomish yet, so plans to follow up on linking up with the diviners later.

The team decides they should follow up on the ARES lab that’s been out of comms for a few weeks now, and decide to do the job for Juan, since they didn’t get him anything on the space lab. They plan to give Vogel the info without the paydata, and try to appease Candice by revealing that AZT has a mole in their corp. Juan puts them in touch with a local info broker contact, Izidor Kurtlanik, and they meet him at a Downtown sports bar, which is noisy enough to provide a reasonably secure convo, especially once he turns on a white noise generator as well. He gives them contact info for their inside man, who will help them avoid sensor/security trouble on the way in, and will provide the secure password needed to gain access to the private elevator to the lab. They negotiate pay, and agree to do the job soon.

They stock up on some supplies, armaments, ammo, fake ID’s and permits, and some potions from Squeamish. They pose as musicians plus entourage/bodyguards to have a reason to be hauling a bunch of cased gear in a van through downtown, using the multi-location weeklong music fest as a cover. They make it into the lobby with no trouble, and blag their way past the security guard with the help of “Webmaster”, the inside man. Using the provided codes of the day, they gain access to the secure elevator, and head down to the lab, gearing up for combat on the way. They emerge into a disturbing scene- arcane sigils line the walls and floor, but appear powered down, and there’s some odd stains and overturned furniture in various states of disrepair just outside the elevator.

Weirdly, as they head further in, the cafeteria, kitchen, med lab and dorms all appear undisturbed, as if they were abruptly abandoned with no time to shutdown or clean up. They find records in the med lab suggesting that the facility has 12 people on staff. They head further in and find the first body – which strangely appears to have been turned into a husk by some sort of magical effect or strange weapon, it looks to Kit like years of decay occurred effectively simultaneously. They find 2 more bodies in a lounge area, who appear to have been killed while napping and gaming respectively, so it seems the killers were either very sneaky, very fast, or both.

They find a secure data lab, which has been breached, and locate the body of lab lead Robert Hammond, who had been summoned down to this lab from Daedelus station after some sort of major discovery here. Carol knows he is a specialist in weaponized manatech, and assumes that something has gone horribly wrong. They also spot that Hammond almost managed to call in Firewatch through a secure line to Carol’s dad, who is working directly under Damien Knight. Kit begins working on gaining access to the servers, while Carol heads back to the lounge to get some water to rehydrate Hammond’s finger to get it to work on the bio-scanner.

As he returns, Carol spots something upsetting- a floating tentacled crab monster made of some void-black like material with odd glowing eyes traveling up and down it’s tentacles. Carol warns the team and they enter combat. They are having trouble damaging it with conventional weaponry, until Tabasco makes some progress with his bow and TT manages to finish it off with a javelin thrust and punch combo. However, it manages to do incredible damage to both TT and his armor, using some spikes on it’s undercarriage- whatever this spirit is seems to be what killed the others here, as TT’s armor rusts and cracks where he is hit, and the area under ages a few years just from the small contact. He’s glad he dodged most of the spikes.

They get into the computer system while Tabasco takes watch in the hallway to keep more threats from sneaking up. Kit manages to wipe the headware systems of a few other scientists on-site, unlock a safe in a different area, and get copies of both project data and Hammond’s notes before wiping the system with nanites. Apparently they found a Latin copy on an ancient book, which contains a formula for summoning strange spirits from an unknown home plane. They managed to summon and bind some of these spirits in special containers, and Hammond was excited about their destructive capabilities, though both the summoning and binding was unexpectedly difficult, even for the talented corp ritualists they brought in for the project.

Then, they accidentally summoned a spirit too powerful to contain, which broke itself and the others free before they could banish it. Almost half the staff was killed in the initial outbreak, and the rest have hunkered down in various different warded areas to monitor the situation and try to regain control. However, nothing they try worked and the spirits seem to have a corrosive effect on magical spells, wards, etc. They eventually gain access to all the employees and kill them, Hammond last of all, just before he can call in the emergency signal. Up til then, he seemed content to merely collect data and hope for the best, not wanting to admit failure.

The team continues, and finds a prep area and 2 doors. They decide to leave the larger door for last, and Tabasco heads into the smaller room, finding the safe which contains the ancient book. He comes under attack from another spirit, and Creature has luckily stripped down and flipped into drake form, where xe finds that xyr elemental water power seems effective against the spirit, as do punches from TT and Kit. They manage to defeat this spirit without significant damage, and open the safe. It was still warder, though the outside is pitted with rust and decay. They find a book with blood-red leather covers, that seems very old, as advertised, but also in remarkably good shape.

They all decide they’ll need to have a convo after they get out of there about whether or not it’s safe to pass this on to AZT, but for now they feel they need to disrupt any other spirits onsite, perhaps as many as 4 more, since otherwise they will likely escape, given time, an cause unknown amounts of trouble. Aradia has noticed that they seem to corrupt the background count at an advanced rate, which is also quite worrying. The team tracks down 2 more spirits in the containment room and manages to disrupt them without much damage to themselves. However, based on the number of destroyed cages there are still 2 spirits missing. The team heads back towards the exit, clearing and closing off room as they go. They get in a brutal brawl with the final 2 spirits, which are both a bit larger. TT almost dies, and Tabasco and Kit are both badly injured.

However, they do defeat the spirits, and then make a pile of all bodies, terminals, notes, etc in the server room, and use some chems from the kitchen and med lab, plus some incendiary arrows, plus a fire spirit to incinerate everything after Kit disables the fire suppression systems in that room. They head back up the elevator, with Aradia maintaining some illusions to prepare for a potential trap. However, they easily leave past the lone lobby guard, who seems professionally uninterested. They all burn their SINs that they got for the job, and get out of Downtown before debating what to do. Tabasco believes strongly that they cannot possibly pass the book along to AZT, feeling that no corp or entity should have access to this awful power. He wants to either destroy it or pass it to Arleesh. However, the rest of the team has money signs in their eyes, and also doesn’t want to take a rep hit or burn their ties to Juan Xiuhuitl. Heavily outvoted, Tabasco gives in, but reiterates that this is deeply wrong.

They contact Webmaster, who passes along the details for the meet. They link up with Izidor Kurtlanik, with a beefier security detail this time, in an empty lot in Redmond, and pass over the book and data. He seems pleased, and gives them the pay. The team mostly heads to various clinics to get some ’ware upgrades and new gear, while Creature heads out to Blake Island to get some drake lessons from G-Dub, having been impressed by how well xyr abilities worked versus the spirits. Tabasco, depressed, gets roped into helping TT make a delivery the next day: the Sea Dragon found an appropriate gift for the Vault of Lore. They pick it up from Eletheria, and head Underground. As usual, Tabasco hangs back at the appropriate point, and TT heads into the Vault. The Lorekeepers are mightily impressed with the gift, a collection of lost texts about 4th World troll culture, language, and magic bound with a folded dragon scale, seemingly from the legendary library at Barsaive, one of the wonders of the 4th World.

The Lorekeepers agree to the Sea Dragon’s proposition to work together on her research needs in exchange for her patronage, and also tell TT about an ork and troll magic order called the Turgan Magnu, who they think will gain valuable knowledge and influence from this. TT is now a member in good standing of the VoL and can come and go as he pleases. He and Tabasco go drinking in celebration, with TT not wanting to just be a tourist, and making sure to spend money when he comes underground. He gets Tabasco to try Hurlg, which goes about as expected. Tabasco staggers back to his safehouse, and finds out that Creature paid him a visit and left him a present: the strange desiccated grub that xe got from the Dis Trader on the moon. Wanting to feel something new after the revelations about his parents and getting outvoted on a moral issue, Tabasco shoves the grub in his mouth and passes out.

He wakes up and finds that grub has replaced his tongue. He can no longer taste normally but seems to be able to “taste” astral space, and calls Aradia up to ask for some lessons. He also thanks Creature for the gift. Initially he mostly notices that his condo tastes a little sad and lonely, though with some recent excitement overlaid. He gets another session with Hard Case, and gets some lessons about how this recent moral defeat could help him define his code and make sure he knows what questions to ask before a job, and what also what jobs not to take, or how and where to define hard lines with the team.

Carol calls up Vogel after he gets out of surgery, and passes along the info about what happened on the mission. He gets an angry call from his dad about the lab, with his dad seeming to suspect his involvement. However, Carol has learned that Excalibur wasn’t quite the failure it was presented as, and knows that his dad knew and still threw him under the bus. Carol tips his dad that AZT has a spy inside ARES, blowing Webmaster’s cover, and then he surprises his dad by not caving to his anger, which seems to throw his dad off, so he ends the call but seems disappointed and still pissed.

Aradia goes clubbing, stopping in at Club Penumbra and chatting a bit with Nyssa Hallas. She gives some warnings that even having shut down the Blue Dragons and Project Iapetus, as well as getting that one Death Ship raided, the disappearances continue. She also says that she had her matrix guy take a look at the Iron Jungle and they have matrix security that is way too good, and also pretty weird and upsetting- not something he had seen before and he didn’t want to get closer to. Hallas also gives Tabasco and Aradia some missions to scope out new joints around town- a hot new private venue in Snohomish amongst them. Aradia gives in to Seducer and takes too many drugs, so TT calls her an armored cab home via Bernie Carter. Aradia also looks into rumors that Spinrad’s newish wife Gabrielle Al’Thani is throwing around a lot of money looking into any potential dalliances he may be engaging in.

Carol talks to Vogel somewhere, and tries really hard not to call him “dad” with all the positive reinforcement he gets. Vogel thanks Carol for the info, discusses where the book came from and what it means (seemingly, when V’Golkatl opened those doors in Kadath before the team captured it, it opened up some previously unknown metaplanar pathways and connections). He tells Carol that there will be a place at ARES waiting for him once Vogel makes his move, as he’ll need useful people that he can trust near to him.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team follows up on a few things, as Carol continues prepping for the ARES lab raid- he’s got it all figured out, they’ll need to go in quiet since there’s only one secure elevator in and out, and they can use the huge multi-location music festival downtown this week as cover for moving themselves and gear around in a big van without unusual suspicion. He’s gonna feel out the various options for Johnson, and then it’s time to make some money and go to work.

Kit links up with Hans Yolo to talk more about the carboxing league, having to decided to call it “Glovebox” (get it?). Yolo suggests a few organized crime connections who might be good to loop in, and since Tabasco is skeptical of Enzo Gianelli based on his Urban Brawl tampering, they go with Bing-Lei Shen, a fashionable Triad boss with a few tough looking women guarding him, fresh in from Hong Kong- presumably this new imported muscle is a sign of the ongoing syndicate wars as well. Shen agrees to watch a test bout, and Yolo unveils the craft he’s been working on obsessively, a trike with 2 unfolding arms- lighter and faster than Kit’s one-armed van, but with less power. They have an initial match, and Kit dominates, but offers to help Yolo fix up and tweak his craft.

Shen then challenges Kit to take the van up against him, and smoothly leaps into the air and kicks the hand off Kit’s van arm without doing significant damage, with a perfect Bruce Lee yell. Everyone is very impressed, except his bodyguards, who roll their eyes. However, Shen agrees that this has promise, and says they came to the right guy. They plan to shut down some streets in Puyallup and have some escape routes out into the Ashlands if the cops come in hot. They’re scheming on a combo of arena bouts, as well as combat racing, but all with the “unarmed combat via a vehicle” angle. Exciting. The team heads over to Squick’s Vaults to check out their “secure storage” bolthole, and find it very much to their satisfaction: the owner, Squick, seems grumpy, watchful, and paranoid, and the onsite security measures look beefy, and their unit seems exactly as promised.

Creature wants to deliver the package given to xyr by Eletheria, so the team rents a speedboat and heads out to Blake Island, where they meet a steely-eyed STV lawyer named Eva Mari, who seems amused to see Tabasco, as she appears to have been the fund manager on his unofficial bereavement settlement from ARES. Creature passes over the package, and Mari scans it with a sensor -covered cyberhand, and the team can see reflected data flow across her cyber-eyes. She says all looks in order, and congratulates River Guard Investments in being the new owners of the private island, a former state park. It seems the Sea Dragon now owns an island in the Sound….

Mari gripes a bit as she boards a VTOL drone about STV not being willing to spring for a chopper for her. Shortly thereafter, a dwarf woman with a shark-y aspect wearing only a loincloth, swims up to the island, and introduces herself as G-Dub. Tabasco recognizes her gang tat’s as signifying her as a longterm member of the Red Hot Nukes who recently left the gang on good terms. She tells Creature that she has been put in charge of security for the island, as well as assessing it’s condition, but that the team’s welcome to hang there for a while if they wish. G-Dub admires TT’s bod as he strips down to sunbath, Kit stays with/in the boat, and the rest of the team takes advantage of the low tide to explore some narrow exposed tunnels riddling the shoreline.

Assensing, Aradia detects some sort of incredibly pure water magic source deep in the tunnels, and assumes that there’s either a metaplanar connection or a leyline somewhere, but they fail to find their way there. Summoning some water spirits to help them escape before the tides come in, Aradia finds they come out much more powerful than expected, due to the local aspect. Creature plans to return and explore further in Drake form and explore more, noticing that the tunnels seems almost perfectly sized for that. The island life is starting to convince Kit that being friends with the Sea Dragon might not be the worst…

They had back to land, and follow up on another thread: the Shadow Chapters. Tabasco uses Flipside to get a meet with Mrs. Snow, at a neutral downtown spot called Cuppa Joe’s. They meet Snow, and albino elf who play it up, in a secure room in the back, and have a not fully conclusive meeting where they try to push her on disappearances and potentially creepy local SC behavior, and she explains they aren’t in Chicago anymore, and that without a common enemy it will be a lot harder to unite everyone behind the idea, so they’ll have to work a little more harshly to get it done here. The team agrees to work with her but remains untrusting. She also essentially admits that they are doing some personality alterations to some local figures who are useful in the economy/scale but were not reliable, previously, like Flipside. Kit already has a couple recruits to the cause though, and Snow seems mostly friendly and like she’s trying to explain different realities to them, rather than manipulate them. She gives them a few initial tasks to look into when they have time.

Aradia decides she wants to look into some strange “entropy circles” that have cropped up around Auburn once each of the last 3 full moons, and the team does some matrix research and goes and looks at them and takes Quicksilver photos. Aradia determines that whatever is being done has some sort of Luna/Comet connection, and creates a perfect spherical radius of entropy that not only drains anything caught inside it of life, but also completely destroys the manasphere inside it as well, and that it seems to only be healing VERY slowly. Worrying! They look up the next full moon, and plan to do some more research in the next few weeks before returning to perhaps catch someone in the act. They think it might be toxies of some sort, given the proximity to the very polluted Lake Tapps.

TT checks in with Eletheria, and arranges to reach out on the Sea Dragon’s behalf to the Lorekeepers, in further seeking out the “Deep City”. He pays another visit to the Vault of Lore, solo to make sure he gets in. He speaks to Ned again, and Ned agrees to at least share research in exchange for an appropriate contribution. TT contributes some original research of his to a guestbook, which magically sorts it into an appropriate section, and Ned explains that the gift was a book from a librarian at the Seelie Court who came to visit once, seeking some esoteric info. He also tells TT a bit more about the history of the Vault and the Lorekeepers, and their connections to the indigenous shamans at Uluru in Australia, who taught them some of the ritual magic they use to keep the Vault secure but still accessible. TT reports in and Eletheria says she will acquire an appropriate initial gift from the Sea Dragon’s hoard while the Lorekeepers discuss a further alliance.

Creature wants to start checking out the local paracritter scene, so they head up to Blackstone’s in Snohomish, and find that it unfortunately seems to be owned/operated by metaracists, given it’s seemingly intentionally un-troll-friendly design. TT shrugs it off and they learn a decent bit looking at both the zoo and museum portions. Tabasco stays outside, spotting a small runner crew, all human, with some customized dart rifles, seemingly transferring some caged beasts to and from the facility. The team heard rumors that this place helped with import papers and supplied some of the fighting beasts to the Coliseum, and assume this must be part of that. Tabasco mentally designs a tracking arrow with a detaching shaft, to be able to quietly track vehicles like this in the future. The human members have a revealing convo with the nightshift front desk employee, further confirming the metaracist vibes of the spot. Creature is disappointed overall, but got to see a lot of new critters xe had only read about, so still some exciting inspo at least.

Feeling like the night’s still young (it’s not) the team wakes up Tommy Vermont in his apartment/office in Stuck’s, and hires him on to makes some introductions for them, to try and get the stuff they need to get into Van Der Hum’s vault under Stuck’s casino. Vermont suggests they cut Stuck in via Ranya Zhong and just try to gain legit access, as Stuck would take it poorly if they acted against his security. He also puts them in touch with the Black Knight leader/KE detective Tosh Athack, who agrees to meet them the next morning at the Big Rhino downtown. The team finally crashes out after a long day, scattered around between safehouses.

The next day Tabasco and Aradia rally to head to the meeting and find Athack, a very buff troll, wolfing down some food at the restaurant. In exchange for VDH’s “little black book” of clients, sales, etc that he always kept offline in the vault, Athack agrees to get biosamples and his signet ring out of evidence at the KE morgue where the body has thus far gone unclaimed, as the team needs these particulars to gain access, based on the info they got from reading Joygirl IX’s mind. Athack tells them he will need whatever he provides back at the end of the deal, but otherwise seems to be fully onboard- this could be some major evidence and /or leverage against some powerful individuals.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

While day drinking after their semi-successful recon mission at The Joke, ThinkTank convinces most of the team that they should really take a vacation. As Tabasco and Carol don’t initially seem interested, they decide to plan a longer group trip for the future, and just each take a few days staycation around town to work on their own stuff for now. They hire 9Tails, Creep, Yoko Aruki and Kobold to do the actual run on the Iapetus lab, giving them all the info, and taking a small finder’s fee from the rate they negotiated with Annie. Their hired crew manages the job well, getting the data and finding out that the kidnapped awakened people are either turned into Yakuza killing machines or sacrificed in an attempt to trigger/copy awakening in others. Yoko kills all the scientists on site and burns the lab with white phos grenades, hating metahuman smuggling, and offers the team more work for Las Muñecas if they’re interested. Kit doesn’t approve of the high lethality but has a hard time arguing against the team, given the morality of that lab. Carol splits off for a bit to begin doing recon on the ARES lab raid job, and figuring out which employer to do it for.

With Annie’s help the team gets ahold of Giovanni Pentti, an MCT shadow fixer, and negotiate to not release the Iapetus data / publicize the experiments in exchange for MCT getting the Yak to stop kidnapping the awakened, leave Takashi alone, and not come after the team. Pentti agrees, and offers the team future work, appreciating their professionalism. After that they head into some time off, heading back to their various safehouses, though TT accidentally reveals to Tabasco that his mom killed his dad, so Tabasco needs some time to process. He decides he wants to have the team over, and consults with Emdachot Fahd, his building super/caretaker about updating his unit for guests, and she helps him take down his childhood posters and racecar bed, basically his only furniture, and replace them with a new generic flatpack condo set. Unfortunately, Tabasco leaves his eyes connected to the TacNet so the team sees what he’s up to and Kit especially gets pretty depressed about how he’s been living.

The crew heads out to meet up with Covalent, following up on Vogel’s reco for a safehouse for the sub when it arrives. They find a strange, animalistic man living in an abandoned, moldering mansion on Fox Island, and make a deal to trade him certain Tarot cards for his assistance. He seems to have very powerful magic and some kind of animal form but the team can’t quite figure him out. He seems to want to fuck with the Seelie Court, fairly explicitly, and the team’s latent connections to the Unseelie seem to reassure him. Kit arranges to return to help guide the sub in in a few days. They then head to Eletheria and finally meet up with her, check in about Sea Dragon jobs, and get a few further tasks. She’s using a formerly sunken luxury yacht as a safehouse, which it seems like the Sea Dragon brought up off the ocean floor and only patched up the outside, the inside still shows many signs of longterm water damage and rust. But the meeting goes well. Creature arranges to do some drake lessons with Eletheria, and begins perfecting xyr abilities.

The team collabs on some research and Tarot analysis to seek out Van Der Hum’s hoard, and gets some good intel: the figure depicted on the card is a runner named “Joygirl IX” who is an amnesiac with expert impersonation skills and an unknown metatype. They reach out and offer to swap info, and she just happens to be in town, having just completed a job and not yet left on the next one. She reveals that she knows that she is on the card, having retrieved it on a run, which was what started her on Tarot investigations and on regaining what she can from her memory. She agrees to let Aradia mind probe her, with some contractual caveats about what Aradia/the team can do with the info, after checking the team’s street rep and finding it quite good.

They meet up in a tech and gear alley in Auburn near the Clone Zone mall, right down the block from Technicolor Wings’ local office, it seems like JGIX at least has the use of a small roll-up storage locker here, and it is maybe an in-town safehouse of sort- conveniently near the international smugglers. She has some drone security, concealed, that Tabasco and Creature spot while they are also doing overwatch, and Kit stays with the van, perusing the various wares for sale in the neighborhood and dropping some digital flyers for their “Glovebox” carboxing league that they’re trying to get going. TT and Aradia head in, and find JGIX waiting with an old Italian man sitting a ways back in the corner keeping an eye on things. Aradia probes her mind, and manages to break through a hidden magical partition where it looks like someone really tried to secret away some memories they couldn’t erase.

It seems she was hired on a job to access Van Der Hum’s hoard herself, some time ago, and managed to find out that it required both some bio-data and a fraternity signet ring (explaining the greek letters on the Tarot card) to access. It seems she gained access but whatever she found inside has been cleared. It seems like some unknown scientists (who were very careful to conceal faces and voices while detectable by her) used one of the early CFD experimental “cures” to effectively but crudely mind wipe and rebuild her with her current skills via skillwares and wires. This explains her occasionally somewhat rote way of negotiating, etc. It is unclear if Van Der Hum was the one who originally did this to her, or is she got mind-wiped twice, but she thanks them for the info and says she has a lot to think about. Kit manages to ID the old Italian as Fianchetto, a legendary spy and Jackpoint-er, who seems to have taken a shine to JGIX after working some jobs together, and has had her guestpost a few times to share Tarot info on the board.

Tabasco has everyone over to celebrate, and they all get VERY interested in what exactly is up with his life. It turns out his building super/caretaker Emdachot is an ex-Ork Underground freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending who you ask) with the Sons of Sauron. She owns up to it when they ask, but has intentionally damaged her face and fingerprints to make it harder to ID her. Tabasco realizes she basically always stays in the building too… he calls Don Michaels, who explains that she did him a favor a long time back, and he helped her get out of the life when she needed to. Satisfied, the team decides to let that lie, but chides Tabasco on his inability to cook for himself, do his own laundry etc. They find the building laundry room, and notice that there’s a hidden tunnel behind the dryer. Aradia uses pyschometry to figure out that it’s a secret Underground entrance, seemingly used by Emdachot’s family to move trog families around away from prying eyes.

Tabasco, his mind a bit blown from all these revelations about his life, drinks for the first time. The next day, Kit heads to Covalent’s rotting mansion to help guide the sub in, and is interested to see that Covalent seems to open up a portal to some sort of water plane to hide it in- a very secure safehouse indeed. He says if the team keeps paying him in other Tarot cards and the like, he will work other “miracles” for them too. The team chats with Takashi once they get ahold of him to tell him he’s safe from Yakuza threats, and he tells them he’s been hiding out in and around Glow City, and investigating both the Rusted Stilettos and some local toxic druids (not the Isotopes, interestingly) who seem to be kidnapping people and disappearing them through astral rifts, telling them to “embrace the glow.” They compare notes a bit and agree to collab on diving deeper into this eventually. It seems like Takashi is setting himself up as a bit of a do-gooder, and maintains his sunny attitiude, despite leaving a trail of extreme violence from his good deeds.

Kit logs off the call, disturbed again by the violence, but everyone else is stoked to hear he’s doing well, although a little worried about what he may be uncovering. Aradia, Kit and Tabasco head to Squeamish’s alchemy lab in Auburn, and pick up a Vault of Ages so that Aradia can start collecting ritual samples from targets that the team needs to magically effect and stashing them at the safehouse. They also make a disturbing introduction to the powerful alchemist, who seems like a real creepy weirdo but has a lot of useful intel and knowledge, and hints at available work and exciting projects, and seems like one of the least prejudiced against Monads people that Kit has met who have known that they are a Monad.

Think Tank, Tabasco and Aradia then head into the Underground, checking out Touristville and the various stalls, restaurants, trade bazaar’s, etc, eventually working their way to the Ork Underground, away from the more “official” policed portion. They find a monument to a runner who died protecting multiple families from a violent eviction, and note that is the man depicted on the Karma card. They are a bit inspired by his legend. They eventually find the Underground branch of Sticks and Stones, and TT gets chatted up by a nattily-dressed pimp, dealer, and fight promoter named Fancy Derek. As TT initially claims he’s not great at unarmed combat despite his size, Derek tries to get him to agree to take a fall, and Tabasco commiserates, having done so himself with complicated feelings about it still.

TT says that that is against his code, says that actually he’s decent at fighting, so Derek agrees to make some introductions for him in the Underground if he wins. He challenges the biggest and roughest looking of the Rooter gangers who are training there, a buff ork named Mariusz. TT throws him off by being friendly and asking questions instead of buying into the pre-fight shit-talking, and they agree to go for drinks after. TT wins the fight via a technicality, as Mariusz is quite skilled, but gets some solid hits in, and Derek says he’ll put the word out about a solid new troll in town on TT’s behalf. TT and the Rooters head out for drinks, but Mariusz tells Aradia and Tabasco to head back at this point, as the place they’re going isn’t friendly to unknown “smoothies.”

They hit up a bar even deeper in the Underground called the Watering Hole, and the Rooters warn TT about the Feral Underground areas, including a ghoul neighborhood, and the Depths- unexplored, unknown locales filled with danger and mystery. They hang in a back room at the bar, and TT admires the skilled dwarven carvings that someone has crudely modded to have more orkish faces. The Rooters get him to try the “Dunkelzahn hot” rat-on-a-stick, and impressed by his fortitude and lack of machoness around it, both, seem to accept him as a decent sort. They tell him to stick around a while, and take off. After TT has a chance to sober up just a bit from the Hurlg, he spots an eye watching him from a recess in the carvings.

A door swings open along a previously concealed seam, and a troll with a staff and cloak does a brief interview to make sure TT is acceptable, before taking him to the Vault of Lore, a legendary Undergound library maintained by an order of troll Lorekeepers. The troll, Ned, explains that they “sing the stone” to keep the passages to the VoL secret, especially with all the new interest in the Underground. He gives TT the tour, and TT notices that though the space appears built with dwarven craft, it is all sized for trolls as well, implying a past collab before the current schism in their cultures (or at least in the popular representation of such). He finds a comfortable reading nook commemorating a fallen runner named Christopher Toff that has a cozy chair, a small shelf, and some carvings of dragons, and settles in to peruse the library, finding some fascinating 4th World hints of something called “the Deep City” and something called “Kothan Kaer”.

He plans to dig deeper, but satisfied that he’s made a good first impression, calls it a day with plans to return, once he sees what it is that the Sea Dragon wants with this place. Ned tells him that as an assassin, he might be best used to preventatively protect the VoL’s secrets, and TT says he would be happy to do so.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
Tabasco

The team links back up with Aradia, who has completed setting up her magical lodge at the safehouse, and compliments TT on his new slightly slicker looks. They rest up and Aradia also gets a task from the Sea Dragon: seek out a lost vault of a dead man who “wanted to be a dragon” based on the size of his hoard. The team decides to meet Tabasco in Puyallup again and go through with their kidnap and mind probe plan to get info from Han Liu of the Blue Dragons. They stop in Downtown to get Carol’s modded rifle back from Iva, who flirts heavily with Aradia until TT gets impatient and interrupts with a huge fart. They get back on the road, and meet Tabasco near the Sleeping Dragon, the BD’s clubhouse/vice den. Carol, Creature and Tabasco all surveil from some nearby roofs for a while, while TT keeps an eye on the area and also on Aradia, who goes astral to scout it out as well. Kit cruises around in the van to get a feel for the streets/escape routes/etc.

Not seeing much magic nearby, and seeing only 1 prospect tasked with guarding the bikes, Aradia makes Kit invisible and Kit sneaks up to the parked bikes and uses their nanite cloud to infiltrate the biggest and nicest one, surely Han Liu’s. Aradia disguises herself a bit and magically enhances her fashion before heading into the bar to seduce Han Liu. She manages it almost comically quickly, and gets him to take her for a ride on his bike. Tabasco calls in a favor from Stella K, the TM he rescued from Alice’s lab, who loops the bikes signal, making it look like it’s coming from a nearby Bump and Sleep love hotel. 2 more BD’s follow on bike’s discretely to keep an eye on the boss, but hang back a few blocks and don’t seem to notice anything wrong, but Tabasco stays back to keep an eye on them.

Aradia drugs Han, and Kit takes over the bike, steering it carefully to keep Han onboard since Aradia isn’t very strong. They head out to a barren spot in the Ashlands, and park the van and set up a little perimeter while Aradia mind probes the unconscious Han. They find out a lot of useful info: the Blue Dragons are picking up awakened victims kidnapped and sold by Alice and other gangs, and delivering them to a secret lab under a Yakuza bar downtown called The Joke. This all has to do with Project Iapetus, and Han knows that Takashi is wanted by the Yakuza in connection with this as well, but doesn’t know more than that. He seems insecure about his potential for advancement in the syndicate as he is an elf, and Aradia finds out that he has a cousin in the Ancients who he keeps in touch with, but can’t find any really juicy blackmail other than the normal crime stuff that the BD’s do.

They sneakily return Han and his bike to the love hotel, using one of the many entrances where the BD goons can’t see them. Hoping that Han will be too embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t remember anything, they call it job done and head out. Tabasco calls Annie, and updates her, she pays them and offers more cash for getting into the lab and finding out what the Yak is actually doing with the awakened there, and also any project data they can get. Worst case, it will maybe be some good leverage against MCT at some point, due to their past involvement. The team agrees, but calls it a day for now, inviting Tabasco back to the safehouse, though he has to sleep on a couch. He’s very impressed by the digs after initially being put off by the rural setting.

Aradia calls Simonetta Chandra, and suggests she get transferred to Seattle, which she reluctantly agrees to, as Aradia has her blackmailed successfully still. Tabasco hears from Butch, who fills him in the weird “mind/body separation” experiment that Alice seemed to be running, and it seems like Stella K got saved just in time, though from what is unclear, and also she has definitely been altered by the experience. Aradia also checks in with Lothan, who still isn’t doing super well but gives some reco’s for Seattle magical orders to learn spells from. The team calls up Patty C and Wingman to try to get Lothan some help and they say they’ll see what they can do, but years of being a dick seem to have effected a bit who wants to go out of their way for him. The team also hires Creep and 9Tails to track down Takashi and warn him to lay low, and to give a location non-specific update on how he’s doing.

The next day, they drop Aradia off at the Mana schoolhouse in West Redmond, with Tabasco providing some warnings about what gangs to watch out for. Aradia manages to learn her spell quickly and get out of there, but does end up chatting a bit with a ‘Weener razorgirl named Borderline. She then gets an armored cab ride from Bernie Carter over to meet up with the team. Meanwhile, the team has been hanging out at The Joke and scoping it out. They know from Han where the secret garage entrance is off the back alley, but it looks pretty high security, so they want to scout out the inside a bit more. They do some karaoke and drink as a cover, and figure out that one of the 3 elevators in the elevator bank goes below ground, as well as servicing the MCT extra-territorial housing units above. The floor is reinforced enough that Tabasco can’t see through it with radar, and Carol see that the elevator is activated with a palm-print and key reader, unclear if it’s either or both since the staff keeps chasing them away from the elevator area.

They eventually get kicked out for being a little too snoopy, and Aradia walks right by them to go in when she arrives, to finish the recon. She spots a mana barrier on the down elevator, but nothing else of note. They all link back up at the Alabaster Maiden to grab another drink, in case anyone is seeing where they go next, as they want to just look like day drunks and not runners on a recon mission. Creature spots a Talis cat near the kitchen, and joins it sitting in a weak sunbeam, which the cat seems fine with. They discuss taking some time off soon to go on a little vacation somewhere, though it’s unclear if all of them want to, or want to go to the same places if so.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia
and introducing: Tabasco (for his backstory see: Meanwhile in Seattle)

The team sets up at Finn Safehouse #4, and Carol buys a jet ski to zip around on the small lake they’re adjacent to. They’re up in some wooded mountains, near the border, on a pretty isolated road, but they have a lot of space and the custom gear they requested. Aradia announces her plan to hang there for a while, get acclimated, and set up her magical lodge onsite for ritual use and cursing. The rest of the team decides to cruise around a bit the next day and get a feel for the town before committing to anything too hard.

They rest well, and some have dreams: TT gets a task from the Sea Dragon to find and contact the Vault of Lore, in exchange for unspecified reward, Creature gets a few tasks to reach out to local changelings and weirdo’s on the SD’s behalf, and Kit gets a task to look into some group called the First Union. They are all also told to contact a woman named Eletheria at the Downtown docks as the local agent for the SD, but to keep Eletheria’s affiliation to themselves. Carol has a dreamless sleep. Takashi reports in, without a location as requested, and says he is appreciating the local terroir and learning about himself. Ken Ichiro also calls and warns Kit subtly that his team’s involvement in bringing Takashi is known, and might be forgiven by the local Yak if they turn Takashi over. They debate what to do but don’t decide yet, wanting more info.

They call around a bit the next day to feel out what jobs are around in addition to the ones they have already been offered, and decide to meet up with a local guy that Imaginary Annie wants them to work with, an archer named Tabasco. They link up at the Reverse Mullet in Redmond, and feel each other out. Tabasco realizes that this is the team that he saw take out a Yak cybersoldier on that vid from the SSC, and is suitably impressed. He’s accidentally a little snobby about Carol’s mixed grade cyberware, but then is very disturbed/impressed when Carol turns out to know secret ARES info about his missing parents.

Tabasco gives the team the local rundown, and says he can introduce them to useful contacts etc as needed. To start, they head Downtown to drop off Carol’s rifle with Iva to give it a powered breakdown function for easier smuggling, and Iva seems turned on by danger as per usual, and is fully gothed out. They next head South to Puyallup, and go to Riot and Butch’s clinic to get TT some cosmetic surgery to make him less recognizable, hoping to limit future CIA attempts on his life. While TT is under, Kit makes friends with Hans Yolo who seems interested in helping start a car-boxing league, and Carol buys a new more portable SMG from Don Michaels, quickly delivered by a Cutters moto-courier.

Kit hangs back to chat with Yolo and keep an eye on the clinic, while Tabasco, Creature, and Carol go roof-jumping. They spots some Reality Hackers throwing up anti-Yak tags, but seemingly trying to make it look like the Vory did it, and also spot some tensions inside the Ancients, both between 3 internal factions (which seems competitive but mostly friendly) and between them and the Laesa, which seems less friendly- something may be up there. They also make some calls and start looking into the missing magical people angle, and Tabasco finally gets ahold of Mongoose.

She gives them some good Yak/Blue Dragons intel, and they make a plan to grab Han Liu, the BD leader, and get Aradia to pull the info they need out of his head. Feeling good about the whole situation, they get Tabasco to read and sign the group norms, and Carol breaks the bad news about Tabasco’s parents to him: his dad is for sure dead, and his mom is “missing” (Carol has put together that Tabasco’s mom was the embedded bodyguard who killed his dad to prevent his capture by another corp, but doesn’t tell Tabasco that part). They all head home to rest up, agreeing to start their investigation tomorrow. Tabasco sticks with his condo for now, not joining them at the safe house. The runners are delighted to find a spirit of water present in their lake, who the Sea Dragon has tasked with providing security assistance, but who also seems happy to make waves for Carol’s jet ski. TT looks slightly more traditionally handsome post-surgery and a bit younger, but nothing too drastic.

Runners
Carol Turpentine
Kitten Caboodle aka Kit
Creature
ThinkTank
Aradia

The team chills for a few days at Artemis base on Luna while figuring out their next steps. Since it seems like there’s plenty of work in Seattle and noone has any other pressing concerns, aside from ThinkTank’s desire for a vacation, they agree to head there after a stopoff in Chicago to grab their extra gear from Ahabitat. They sell off most of their space equipment, and ride the space elevator back to the Atlantic base platform, finding that the sub seems to have been left alone in their absence. They all pile in and motor for Chicago. Kit, while noticing that the waters seem to be actively assisting their travels, reluctantly agrees to the Sea Dragon’s request to participate with the Renegade Works rigger design collective that she is funding, and share some of his odd designs.

They get some various Seattle contacts from friends and connections in Chicago, and get some lines on a first few jobs for their arrival. They also pick up a coyote job from Mrs. Clean, which conveniently includes smuggling and border intel to allow them to drive to Seattle across the various NAN with all their illicit gear. They restock on some drugs and ammo, and get Goober to add a few more upgrades and hidden compartments to the van, and and roll out. TT is glad to be back on Earth. Creature hides in the smuggling compartment during the border crossings, worried that xe is way too identifiable/memorable, but everyone else just uses their best clean SIN, and they pass through the AMC and enter the SSC without any issue.

They reach the small, rundown town in the SSC where the pickup is, and find some camera info from a DNR wildlife cam showing that their target is waiting for them in the single bar in town. They head in, Carol makes contact with the appropriate code phrase, and they head out to the van, just as it comes under attack from a strike team. The van is nearly wrecked, and the team, caught off guard, is under-armed and armored and nearly knocked out of the fight in the first round before they rally and manage to drive off the attackers, killing one before the other two flee into the nearby woods with spirits and grenade traps covering their escape.

They get back on the road, not wanting to wait around and see what shows up in terms of local law enforcement, though the van and much of their armor is pretty shredded. They head further into the mountains along the smuggling route, and are making good time until they stopped by a tall figure made of flaming straw standing across the road and telling them in Salish that they can’t pass until the Sacred Hunt is done. Kit figures out a backroad/offroad way around, but Carol decides he wants to help with the Hunt and convinces everyone else to go along with it. Kit cleverly uses the van’s Ruthenium coating (with Aradia and Creature’s tips) to make a mirrored side with various false faces floating in it, tricking the approaching horde of basilisks into paralyzing themselves as they are herded up the road.

Along with 2 pursuing adepts, the team makes quick work of the the horde after that, and gets thanks from a hunter/guide named Bug Tussle and a Bear shaman named Caria Alten who were there to support the 2 young adepts in case anything went awry. Caria patches them up a bit and send them on their way. Their “package” Takashi takes this opportunity to tell them that he is detectably radioactive due to his interior low-yield reactor power source, as he wanted to check they had a plan to get him safely into Seattle- any kind of checkpoint won’t work, for sure. They all get a little worried, and convince him to climb into one of the spacesuits they kept to benefit from the radiation shielding.

They keep following the route, and Kit finds an entrance into some huge runoff tunnels on some massive mechanized farms along the border, and carefully follows the detailed directions from there until they connect with the outer edge of Greater Seattle’s sewer grid. They run into a ghoul ambush, and sadly spot the smuggler who was originally supposed to have done this run, who seems to have turned into a feral ghoul. Carol, using very lethal Ex-Ex, and Kit, using non-lethal stick and shock, manage to hold back the mass of ferals long enough for Kit to smash through the junk barricade they’d set up, and avoid whatever sentient ghouls/beings were behind this whole trap.

Reaching the bar in Touristville, they link up with Jamaal Quigley, the local Sierra Corp contact who’s taking Takashi off their hands. Overall they’ve had a real nice time with Takashi, who seems like a fun blank slate with a nice disposition, and Aradia manages to glean some info about a secret Yakuza/MCT project from a deep mind read that he consents to. Kit tells him not to tell the team exactly where he ends up but to keep in touch, as Kit has some MCT loyalties and doesn’t want to have to compromise either. Quigley gives them the second part of the pay: a recommendation to the exclusive secure storage facility in Puyallup called Squick’s Vaults, and also recommending various safehouses and giving them a little bit of a lay of the land.

During this convo, an assassin enter the bar and almost kills ThinkTank with a toxin dart, but luckily Carol manages to dive in the way and block it with his armor. Carol, on skates, and Kit, in the van, give chase as the assassin flees with an accomplice on motorcycle. Carol tries to jump on the back and falls on his face in front of a bunch of kids playing soccer outside, who mock him thoroughly. Kit manages to catch up but almost gets the van wrecked when they chuck a magnet grenade at them, which they barely manage to deflect with the van arm, which is badly damaged. Fearing further injury, Kit breaks off pursuit.

TT surmises that the CIA must have put a bounty out on him, and confirms that an area alert went out for him on Neutral Ground just before the assassin arrived. They quickly settle on a choice of safehouse in east Redmond, and put in their order for special equipment as they head out, realizing TT will need some disguises or surgery to keep a lower profile going forward. Luckily he’s good at blending in in a crowd, and there’s lots more trolls in Seattle than in space…